Do not own. :(

The computer was finally up, the village children whom Parker taught were beginning to arrive, and Auggie was waiting in the back room for his two students. Alone to his thoughts again, he shifted uneasily trying in vain to shake off the cold sweat that had lingered since he'd woken sometime before dawn. He should be happy. He was living with Parker (who had been more than overjoyed to see him), and he was making himself useful by teaching some of the adults how to operate a computer. He got to talk to Annie occasionally via satellite phone. It was the highlight of his week.

And therein lay the problem. The highlight of his week should have been when Parker dropped into bed and snuggled next to him, exhausted after a long day of teaching English. Or when he played with the kids at lunchtime. Or when Adonay ecstatically high-fived him after finally learning how to set up a spreadsheet. It should not be a hurried conversation with someone thousands of miles away. Someone he'd basically abandoned in his rush to get over here.

There was the guilt again. He'd thought it would fade with time: there was nothing to be guilty about. Annie had told him this herself over a faulty connection the day after he arrived. The guilt actually seemed to get worse, though, as the days became weeks. He'd never missed her after a mission before, but now he'd missed three.

Huffing, he wished Adonay and Daniel would hurry up so he could drown his thoughts in teaching the basics of email and Excel. As if on cue, Adonay poked his head through the doorway alerting Auggie to his presence with the strong stench of the root tea he liked to call coffee.

"Good morning Oggie," he greeted in his rolling accent, "I have brought some coffee for you."

"Hey, thanks man," said Auggie reaching for the cup. He stopped right before taking it, though, pulling a face. "And when you say coffee you mean actual coffee, right? Not that stuff you gave me yesterday."

Adonay laughed, "I gave you coffee yesterday!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," Auggie said, but took the cup as it touched his hand and smiled his thanks, motioning for Adonay to have a seat on another crate.

"Daniel has to help clean out the wells today," said Adonay as he pulled the crate over.

"No problem. He'll catch up tomorrow," replied Auggie, quashing the unease that had been clinging to him since dawn and throwing himself into the world of emails and spreadsheets.

At lunch time Auggie went to find Parker out in the yard. She hugged him, giggling as he pulled her down to sit next to him on the ground beside the makeshift school-hut. They sat in comfortable quiet listening to the kids playing. The sun baked their faces; the dust made their senses fuzzy.

He was happy, he thought, and it wasn't a lie. He still hadn't quite figured out if he really came after Parker or after the memory of a lost past, but the morning's lesson had gone well and he was sitting in the sun with a beautiful girl in his arms. He really was content.

"Auggie," Parker giggled, breaking into his self-reassurances, "is May wearing your shoes?"

"I'll assume you already know the answer to that as it would be a bit difficult for me to tell you," Auggie chuckled.

"I was going more for the why of it all."

"You know how she is. When she pulls that puppydog face, no sane person could resist. And don't tell me I should be immune to that kind of trickery. Somehow, it even works on me."

"You're going soft, Captain Anderson," she giggled.

Auggie tried not to flinch. He'd told Parker he couldn't stand the title anymore, but she sometimes forgot.

"Guilty as charged," he covered, "she's just so adorable. She reminds me of Kat – of one of my neighbor's kids," he trailed off.

He had been about to mention Annie's niece, Katia, but that would be an admission that he was missing her much more than he tried to tell himself.

"Well, I should go round up the kids," said Parker, stretching herself out.

"Have fun," replied Auggie, distractedly kissing her cheek. As her footsteps receded, he frowned to himself. His unease from the morning had come back, but he wasn't sure why. Of course, he was guilty, but this was something else. A cold sweat on the back of his neck that he hadn't felt since Iraq, a feeling that fighting was getting dangerously close. He was being stupid, he knew – the village was fairly near the Ethiopian border, but still any disputes that broke out would peter out over twenty miles away. He tried to remember what had woken him up, but couldn't. Sighing in annoyance, he got up to go back to the computer. He had nothing to worry about besides the fact that he really missed good coffee.

The wreck of a computer finally shut off, and Auggie said goodbye to Adonay before heading for the hut he shared with Parker. He found his way to the bed across from the door and flopped down on it with an over-dramatic sigh.

"Tough day at the office?" Parker teased.

"Even turning on that wreck of a computer is tough," said Auggie.

Laughing, Parker sat down next to him and patted his cheek. "Well, you'll be having a quiet evening tonight. That UN doctor who arrived just after you is running a clinic on AIDS prevention, and said he'd talk to me afterward. I may be teaching English right now, but it's medicine I'm really interested in."

There wasn't really a question in her voice: she was merely telling him she was leaving him alone. Again. Auggie sighed internally. Although Parker had been ecstatic when he showed up, she'd basically taken it in stride. If she found their situation as extraordinary as he did, she sure as hell didn't let on. Maybe it was because she had left nothing behind to come here. But he'd left a lot. And as he waved her out the door, it was all Auggie could think about.

AN: I know not much happened, but there's more to come (at least on Auggie's end... for some reason I can't think of much to write for Annie.) I'm trying to get this done as fast as possible before school starts in earnest again, so I'm sorry if it turns out really crappy. Just FYI: they're in a village slightly west of Kulul, a city in Eritrea near the border with Ethiopia. There is a history of violence between Eritreans and Ethiopians over the still-disputed border, and many places are still heavily fortified. (See, I did my research!) So anyway... I hope you think the story is going Ok. (Reviews?)

* Thank you so much to jade-angel5 for pointing out some stupid blunders. I think they're all fixed now. :) And if it seems like I'm stalking this site, it's probably because I am. I'm afraid that if I don't try to finish the story, I never will.