Will's POV

I was not sure just when my respect and admiration for Lauren had developed into love. I had grown fond of her, liked her, loved being with her. We had become comfortable enough with each other to touch each other when we spoke, to hold hands, to embrace. But when I found myself missing her after only a day away and needing to call her when I was gone more than a few days, I knew something was developing.

She actually started kissing me before I kissed her. Twice when I returned to Chicago after several days away, Lauren greeted me with a hug and a peck on the cheek. I had liked it, but had also been embarrassed. But the third time I returned from such a trip, she merely embraced me and did not attempt to kiss me.

My timing had been perfect. I had decided that if she tried to kiss me on the cheek this time, I would turn and take it on the lips. I had brought her a gift from Paris, an expensive necklace. When she did not try to kiss me, I just held her embrace longer and said, "Come here a minute."

As passengers and crew passed us in the corridor, I had Lauren sit next to me in the waiting area. It was awkward with an armrest between us. We were bundled up, Lauren in a fur coat and I with my uniform coat over my arm. I pulled the jewelry box from the sack in my flight bag. "This is for you."

Lauren, knowing where I had been, made a big deal over the bag, the name of the store, and the box. Finally, she opened it and appeared to stop breathing. It was a magnificent piece, gold with diamonds. "Will!" she said. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything," I said. And I took her in my arms, the package in her hands nearly crushed between us, and kissed her.

"I still don't know what to say," she said with a twinkle in her eye, and I kissed her again.

Now, two weeks before my move to New Babylon, Lionel had been on the phone with me more often than Nikki had. While she was warming up the car, he sneaked in one last call.

"Everything set?" I asked Lionel.

"Everything. I'll be there."

"Good."

In the car I asked Nikki, "What's the status on your apartment?"

"They promised it'll be ready," she said. "But I'm getting a little skittish because they keep stalling me on the paperwork."

"You're going to be all right here with me in New Babylon and Lionel in New York?"

"It's not my first choice, but I have no interest living anywhere near Gandolfini, and certainly not in Iraq."

"What's Lio saying?"

"I haven't been able to reach him today. He must be on assignment somewhere. I know he wanted to see Fitzhugh in D.C. soon."

"Yeah, maybe that's where he is."

Nikki stopped at Lauren's clothing store in Des Plaines and waited in the car as I hurried in to say good-bye.

"Is he here?" I asked her secretary.

"He is, and she is," the secretary said. "She's in her office, and he's in that one." She pointed to a smaller office next to Lauren's.

"As soon as I'm in there, would you run out to the car and tell my sister she has a call she can take in there?"

"Sure."

I knocked and entered Lauren's office. "I hope you're not expecting me to be cheery, Will," she said. "I've been trying to work up a smile all day, and it's not working."

"Let me see what I can do to make you smile," I said, pulling her from her chair

and kissing her.

"You know Lionel's here," she said.

"Yeah. It'll be a nice surprise for Nikki."

"Are you going to come and surprise me like that sometime?"

"Maybe I'll surprise you right now," I said. "How do you like your new job?"

"I hate it. I'd leave in a New York minute if the right guy came along."

"The right guy just came along," I said, slipping a small box from my side

pocket and pressing it into Lauren's back.

She pulled away. "What is that?"

"What? This? I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

Lionel's POV

I had heard Will outside the door and knew Nikki wouldn't be far behind. I turned the light off and felt my way back to the chair behind the desk. In a few minutes I heard Nikki. "In here?" she said.

"Yes, ma'am," the secretary said. "Line one."

The door opened slowly, and Nikki turned on the light. She jumped when she saw me behind the desk, then squealed and ran to me. As soon as I stood, she leaped into my arms and I held her, twirling her around.

"Shh," I said. "This is a business!"

"Did my brother know about this? Of course he did! He had to."

"He knew," I said. "Surprised?"

"Of course! What are you doing in town? How long can you stay? What are we doing?"

"I'm in town only to see you. I leave on a red-eye tonight for Washington. And we're going to dinner after we drop your brother off at the airport."

"Yeah, you came only to see me."

"I told you a long time ago to never doubt my love for you."

"I know."

I turned and lowered her into the chair I had been sitting in, then knelt before her and pulled a ring box from my pocket.

Will's POV

"Oh, Will!" Lauren said, gazing at the ring on her finger. "I love you. And for the few years we have left, I will love being yours."

"There's one more thing," I said.

"What?"

"Lionel and I have been talking. He's proposing in the next room right now, and we were wondering if you two might be open to a double ceremony with Bruce officiating."

I wondered how she would react. She and Nikki were friends, but not close.

"That would be wonderful! But Nikki might not go for it, so let's leave it up to her, no hard feelings either way. If she wants her own day, fine. But I love the idea. When?"

"The day before we close on the house. You give two weeks' notice here and move with me to New Babylon."

"Will Lewinsky!" she said. "It takes a while to get your temperature up, but not long to make you boil. I'll write my resignation before your plane leaves the ground."

Lionel's POV

"Have you wondered why you never got the paperwork on the apartment?" I asked.

Nikki nodded

"Because that deal's not going to happen. If you'll have me, I want you to move in with me in New York."

Will's POV

"Will," Lauren said. "I didn't think I would ever be truly happy again. But I am."

Lionel's POV

"A double ceremony?" Nikki swiped at her tears. "I'd love it. But do you think Lauren would stand for it?"

Something big was brewing. In a clandestine meeting, I went to see American President Gerald Fitzhugh. The president had become a tragic figure, reduced to a mere token. After serving his country for most of two terms in office, he now was relegated to a suite in the Executive Office Building and had lost most of the trappings from his previous role. Now his Secret Service protection consisted of three men rotating every twenty-four hours, and they were financed by the Global Community.

I met with Fitzhugh shortly after I proposed to Nikki, two weeks before the scheduled wedding. The president groused that his bodyguards were really there to make sure Gandolfini knew his every move. But the most shattering thing, in Fitzhugh's mind, was that the U.S. public had so easily accepted the president's demotion. Everyone was enamored of Jacques Gandolfini, and no one else mattered.

Fitzhugh pulled me into a secure room and left his Secret Service agent out of earshot. The worm was about to turn, Fitzhugh told me. At least two other heads of state believed it was time to throw off the shackles of the Global Community. "I'm risking my life telling this to an employee of Gandolfini," Fitzhugh said.

"Hey, we're all employees of Gandolfini," I said. Fitzhugh confided in me that Egypt, England, and patriotic militia forces in the U.S. were determined to take action "before it was too late."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means soon," Fitzhugh said. "It means stay out of the major East Coast cities."

"New York?" I said, and Fitzhugh nodded. "Washington?"

"Especially Washington."

"That's not going to be easy," I said. "My wife and I are going to be living in New York when we're married."

"Not for long you're not."

"Can you give me an idea of timing?"

"That I cannot do," Fitzhugh said. "Let's just say I should be back in the Oval Office within a couple of months."

I desperately wanted to tell Fitzhugh that he was merely playing into Gandolfini's hands. This was all part of the foretold future. The uprising against Antizeus would be crushed and would initiate World War III, from which would come worldwide famine, plagues, and the death of a quarter of the earth's population.

The double ceremony in Chiron's office two weeks later was the most private wedding anyone could imagine. Only the five of us were in the room. Chiron concluded by thanking the gods for all the smiles, the embraces, the kisses, and the prayer.

I asked if I could see the underground shelter Chiron had constructed. "It was barely under way when I moved to New York," I said.

"It's the best-kept secret in the camp," Chiron said as we made our way down past the furnace room and through a secret doorway.

"You don't want camp members to use it?" I asked.

"You'll see how small it is," Chiron said. "I'm encouraging people to build their own."

I was astounded at how small the shelter was, but it seemed to have everything we would need to survive for a few weeks. The Tribulation Force was not made up of people who would hide out for long.

The five of us huddled to compare schedules and discuss when we might see each other again. Gandolfini had devised a minute-by-minute schedule for the next six weeks that would have Will flying him all over the world, finally to Washington. Then Will would have a few days off before flying back to New Babylon. "Lauren and I could get here from Washington during that break," he said.

I said me and Nikki would come to Chicago then, too. Chiron would be back from a swing through Australia and Indonesia. They set the date, four in the afternoon, six weeks later. They would have a two-hour intensive study in Chiron's office and then enjoy a nice dinner somewhere.

Before we parted, we held hands in a circle and prayed yet again. "Zeus," Chiron whispered, "for this brief flash of joy in a world on the brink of disaster, we thank you and pray your blessing and protection on us all until we meet back here again. Bind our hearts as brothers and sisters in Zeus while we are apart."