Fall from Grace Part One: Ascension

by Amelia L. Rodgers ©2001 all rights reserved
A UFO story (sequel to Invictus, and makes references to situations and characters from my stories Frozen and Many Unhappy Returns)
Not meant to infringe on the copyright of UFO
Not to be used without author's permission.
E mail author
adult scenes, language, and situations. Graphic scenes.

Dedicated to the newlywed Bishops, and to the men and women of Vietnam who never saw home again. And to one man who did : Larry Guarino, Colonel, USAF

Special thanks to Carly Ward, who suggested a way Mags could torment her husband.

Australian terms in this story can be defined by various sites, such as : http://members.tripod.com/~thisthat/slang.html. The pig Latin scene you'll have to figure out yourself : - D

I got a great deal of information on the treatment of prisoners in Vietnam in a book called A POW's Story: 2802 Days in Hanoi by Colonel Guarino, but some of the situation I created for my own purposes. But most of what happens to Straker in the camp actually happened on a regular basis to POW's.

This is another story that Commander Ed Straker wasn't keen on telling me. But even angels sometimes fall from grace. Without losing a feather.

He walked through the corridors whistling the melody to I want to hold your hand with a fifth of whisky held securely underneath his arm, along with two tumblers. Hospital smelled the same, no matter where you went. This one was no exception. Someday I'll have to thank those Liverpool boys for this song, he mused. If it wasn't for them, and half a bottle of 100 proof liquid sin, I wouldn't have had my first American woman. I wasn't going to ever be one of those fellows who were cinema handsome, no Cary Grant, not me, not with the way that bout of smallpox jigsawed my face, but with the right music and the right moment, I could get any Sheila to show me what waited for me under their skirt. Being a veteran helped, too. Just tell them stories about the dogfights you had over Korea, quick, decisive, deadly, goodbye M.I.G. and they were yours. Lucky fellow, that's me. Close calls, and a bunch of medals on my RAAF uniform to prove it, plenty in the bank, American lover, what could go wrong? he stopped at the nurses? station, gave his name and his destination, then set off again. Now what damn ward did that nurse I introduced myself to say Jeffrey was in? There it is. A 21.

Four beds, one unoccupied, one hidden by a curtain that didn't look all that clean, two black flies chasing one another, two men that looked like they'd wrestled a roo and lost, one fast asleep and snoring. The three weren't Jeffrey, so he started to move the curtain but another nurse hurried up out of the woodwork with a chart, so he let the edge of the curtain fall, and shot her his brightest smile.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Freeman, there was a mistake."

American accent. Blonde, petite, body for bed. Scented soap smell. Roses.

"What are you talking about?"

"The man you came to see, transferred here from the base, Wing Commander Jeffrey C. Osborne, he died, I'm afraid. It should have gone down in the chart, but as you see, we're understaffed here, and men come and go. We've already got someone in his bed. Fubar. Don't expect him to last long either. That's the way war goes. I'm sorry."

"Damn. I promised to bring him a fifth when I sent him the telegram. May his soul rest in peace. Fubar, eh?" He remembered it meant fucked up beyond all recognition. "Then this won't hurt him any."

The nurse looked at the bottle.

"It isn't exactly allowed, but I think in this case it doesn't matter." He watched her behind roll as she walked away purposely, and then he pulled up the edge of the curtain, and rolled it back.

His stomach fell to his feet.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen what war could do to a man. He was no stranger to it, having had doctors pull lead out of his chest more than once after a M.I.G. had graciously decorated his canopy window with neat holes. It was that this one looked all but dead. You could count his bones accurately with a single glance. His left side was held down with some sort of horrible steel apparatus, he was so pale you could easily call him transparent. His forehead was bandaged, thin tubes dripped something from a plastic IV bags into what veins he had left in his free arm. He was looking in the direction of the only window in the ward, and sunshine filtered though the mesh drapes, sweeping dust motes in the air, and he watched them in silence. From his appearance it seemed like death was only days away. He didn't seem at all aware of the Australian standing there, and finally he found his voice again.

"Good morning."

It was an infinity before the young man in the bed slowly turned his head and looked at him. He had the clearest, bluest eyes, and they sought and locked onto his own brown ones like heat seeking missiles.

"You a doctor?" Crisp American accent. Carefully modulated voice, as if he'd done radio. Perfectly shaped mouth, except for a slight scar. Authoritative tone.

"Me? Hell no! I'm Alec Freeman, wing commander Alec E. Freeman. Call me Alec. I came looking for a mate of mine. Wanted to share a bottle of whisky with him, but as it turns out, he bought the farm. Shame to let it go to waste. Have a drink with me in his memory?"

"No, thank you. Are you from New Zealand?"

"Me? Me a Kiwi?" Alec said in disgust. " I was born and bred in New Queensland, Australia."

A fleck of interest came into the vast crystalline blue eyes.

"Do you know Angel? He was Australian. We called him Angel. He saved my life. I can't remember his real name."

"No, sorry, mate, I don't. Mind if I have a drink?"

"No objection." The blue eyes flickered with pain.

"You having a bad time? Want me to get the nurse?"

"I've had my fill of morphine. If you wanted to be helpful, I could use a drink of water. I'm terribly thirsty."

"No problem at all. We'll drink to my friend. Can you manage with a straw? By the way, what are you called?" Alec poured the iced water from a nearby pitcher into one of the glass tumblers.

"Yes." The man accepted the water, sat up a little and sipped it, holding onto it with his free hand. That seemed to exhaust him, and he lie back down against his pillow. He closed his eyes for a moment.

Alec opened the whisky bottle, poured a good measure of it into the remaining tumbler, and made it disappear. Then he poured some more, and that followed the first. The American in the bed had opened his extraordinary eyes again, and was watching in amusement.

"You continue to drink like that, and you'll be a candidate for this place."

"That? I'm just warming up. What's your name?" Alec pulled up a chair.

"Lieutenant Colonel Edward Straker, so the Air Force decided. They recently promoted what is left of me because of my time in captivity," came the quiet response.

"You were taken prisoner by our yellow bastard friends?" grinned Alec.

"Something like that. I understand they now attach Sidewinders to Phantom F4-C's now. I could have used them two years ago."

"Nice to meet you, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Straker. Can I call you Ed? Saves time and trouble." Alec took another gulp of the whiskey, held the tumbler up to the light. "To Jeff Osbourne, best rear gunner an Aussie ever had. Cheers."

Ed Straker held up his tumbler, and it cost him an great effort.

"To your late friend Osbourne, and my late friend Andy Bell, and men like him. Cheers."

"What are you going to do now that your tour of duty is over?" Alec said.

"There isn't much I can do, if they don't come up with some way to fix my shoulder. I had hoped to go back to NASA, but with my injuries, that doesn't seem likely now. Plus, there's the problem of the malaria and the beri beri, and God knows what else left in my bloodstream. They tell me I can't fly. But what do doctors know, anyway?" Straker tried to laugh, failed.

"NASA? You're one of those astronaut types?" Alec replied, amazed.

"That was the plan, yes. Insanity struck, I quit and volunteered for Vietnam. One of these days, we're going to plant the American flag on Mare Tranquillitatis, and I was determined to be involved. I don't know that it's possible now. " Straker said sadly.

"Mare what?" Alec echoed, puzzled.

"Mare Tranquillitatis. Latin for sea of tranquility. On the moon." Straker said patiently. Alec laughed.

"You can't be serious. You're talking rubbish."

"I was serious enough to spend two years studying lunar research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after I got my doctorate in astrophysics," Straker replied. "But it isn't going to get me out of this hospital bed, I'm afraid. Listen, Alec, it's been nice being able to talk to you. Makes a refreshing change from the staff around here, who only tell me how sick I am. Good luck."

"You getting rid of me so soon?" Alec smiled.

"I thought--" Straker hesitated.

"And I thought you were going to drink with me, Ed. I can call an Lieutenant Colonel on his way to the moon Ed, can't I?" Alec poured more whiskey and sat drinking it in a chair next to the American's bed. Straker regarded him with a slight smile.

"I have the feeling you'd do anything you put your mind to anyway, actually. Maybe it's the excessive amount of alcohol you drink." Straker watched the liquor vanish.

"Tell me more about yourself, Ed. Where were you born? Any brothers or sisters? Any woman waiting for you back in the States?"

" Boston. Only child. Haven't had time for a sweetheart since my high school prom, and she married some other fellow. I didn't see it coming, I had my head buried in books, not sports. You?"

"American woman. Great body. American women are fabulous in bed. Must be what they eat or something. Anyway, she's my latest conquest. She'll do for a while."

"Conquest, huh? That's quite a way to look at it. You something of a self-styled rogue?" Straker sipped cold water through the straw gratefully.

"I'm a legend in Australia with the sheilas." Alec acknowledged boastfully. Straker didn't seem to approve, he noticed.

"String of broken hearts? Love them and leave them?"

"Don't tell me you're one of those dull, puritanical conservative types with a conscience. Life's short, Ed. You have to snatch fruit from the tree before it's ripe, or the next fellow will get it. Women are the same. There for the taking."

"What do your women have to say about that?" Straker asked. "I don't think they'd share your philosophy."

"You know something? You think far too much." Alec told him. A nurse came into the room.

"Lieutenant Colonel Straker? I have a telegram for you."

"Thank you, Nurse." Straker acknowledged curtly, setting his tumbler aside on the night table.

" No problem at all." The nurse gave the telegram to Straker, and left.

"This makes the fourth damn telegram this week." Straker said, unimpressed. Alec looked at him and chuckled.

"You must be a popular fellow, Ed."

"Apparently so. The Service keeps giving me medals with clusters and promoting me, and all I do for it is lie here flat on my back. I hate this ward. I hate hospitals in general. I'm going to get out of here somehow, even if I have to crawl out." Alec listened to him, and believed he would. Straker unfolded the telegram deftly with one hand, noted the address of origin and frowned.

"Bad news?" Alec found he was getting fond of this young man who acted like he already had four stars on his emaciated shoulders. Straker didn't reply. He took in the contents of the telegram in a single glance, then a look of extreme shock and suffering came over his gaunt features. He closed his eyes, crumpled it and let the telegram drop onto the ground as if it had bitten him. "Ed?" Straker didn't reply. Alec bent and picked it up.

REGRET TO INFORM YOU STOP YOUR MOTHER DIED OF HEART FAILURE STOP SHE WAS BURIED AT STRAKER FAMILY PLOT STOP REGRET YOU CAN'T ATTEND STOP HER HEALTH WORSENED GRADUALLY AFTER USAF REPORTED YOUR PLANE WENT DOWN AND YOU WERE BELIEVED TO BE IMPRISONED STOP WAS TOO LATE TO TELL HER I FOUND OUT YOU?' BEEN RESCUED STOP REALLY SORRY EDWARD STOP YOU HAVE MY SYMPATHY.
LAURENCE MALONE, LAWYER
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS

"I'm really sorry, Ed." Alec said, knowing it wasn't very much. Straker was silent, his eyes tightly closed. He didn't speak for several minutes. If he was weeping, Alec couldn't tell. Even in grief, he had enormous dignity. Then he said something peculiar.

"-- In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud--"

"What?" was all Alec could manage to say.

Straker finally opened his eyes, and looked at Alec with a haggard smile he obviously didn't feel.

"Not a admirer of poetry, are you, Alec?"

"Can't say that I am."

"My mother was fond of poetry. That line is from a poem called Invictus, by William Ernest Henley. Robert Louis Stevenson once said of him that his presence could be felt in a room you entered blindfolded."

"That could be easily said of you, Ed," Alec said from the heart.

"Now who's talking rubbish?" Straker replied without mirth, and sighed. "It's a favorite poem of mine. It served me well in the camp, while my hosts were doing their best to make me feel welcome. They never forgot to turn down my comforter or leave a chocolate mint on my feather pillow."

"Good on them. Look, Ed, can I do anything for you? Make phone calls home for you or something?"

"Isn't a Sheila awaiting you, Alec? I wouldn't want to stand between you and your fame as a Casanova." Straker tried to be lighthearted but looked sorrowful. Alec had the unnerving wish to put his arm around the American and comfort him as if he were a younger brother. What the hell's gotten into me, Alec thought. What's this sudden urge to make everything all right for this skinny bastard? As if I don't have enough problems of my own? My own Dad has disowned me. I'm the only Freeman that's fallen from grace, no matter how many enemies I've sent to hell and no matter how many medals they pin on my uniform.

"She can wait. Heaven knows she's kept me waiting long enough on plenty of occasions. Ed, I'm very sorry about your mother."

"Alec, I think I would like to be alone. It was nice meeting you. Buy that Sheila of yours a nice bouquet of roses and give her my regards. Look after yourself, Alec. Pull the curtain for me, would you? " There was something in Straker's tone that didn't invite argument. Alec stood up, pulled the curtain around Straker's bed, and slipped out of the ward.

Alec Freeman turned and looked back at the passenger compartment of the jet enroute to Hong Kong, where Commander Ed Straker was reclining under a velour blanket, fast asleep. Ed was softly muttering something in his sleep, obviously he was dreaming. Alec turned back to Mags.

"Does that answer your question?" Alec smiled. Margaret Fielding Straker had been listening with awe as the Australian had narrated the account of first meeting Ed at her request. Next to her, in another seat, Devon was curled up with headphones on, colouring in a picture book happily. Every once in a while he looked up at Ed worriedly, and then at Nate, to see if the Jamaican was doing his job properly. Nate grinned back at him and mouthed the words Ed's okay. Devon smiled and went back to colouring an oak tree a bright pink. Nate decided all trees should be pink, and went back to sipping his black coffee.

"I don't know how you could have walked out like that. Couldn't you tell he needed somebody? Horsepiss, Alec, his mom had just died without even knowing he was alive. That's got to be the saddest thing."

"Look, at that point I didn't even know what had gotten into me. Besides, he told me to go. You know how Ed is when he's set on something. And I hadn't yet developed immunity to that commanding attitude, and told him to sod himself. That came later. Besides, I never did go on that date. And she really was good in bed, too." Alec chuckled. "I went back that night to see how he was. And he wasn't there. I found they'd flown him at his insistence to some fancy hospital in Washington to try and pin his shoulder together. Of course, he was so weak that they didn't even expect him to live long enough to get there."

"Ed vanishing from a hospital, yeah, that sounds like him." Mags grinned.

"If I had any sense, I would have left it there. Instead, I tried to track him down. He'd disappeared. I even went to Boston looking for him. I found him seven or eight years later." Alec remembered. "True to form, he was a patient in another hospital. This time in England, not Thailand. And so was I."

"So tell me!" Mags said impatiently. Alec grinned and looked back at the sleeping Ed, and twirled the ice around in his glass.

He twirled the ice around in his glass, and listened to it tinkle. It was a curious place, England. A place that had decent hospitals, thank God. Nurses were called sisters. The one standing in front of him was as wide as the Thames and was taking his pulse. She'd rolled in a push cart, he remembered they called them trolleys, and was now taking his pulse.

"Colonel, if you don't mind, I can't count your heartbeats when you do that."

"My heart beats for you alone, beautiful. What time do you get off? What was your name again?"

She looked at him and grinned.

"Americans. I know how to handle Americans with sassy attitudes, even ones in the Air Force."

"I can hardly wait." he said, eyes twinkling at her. God, but he was dashing. She might be married fifteen years to her George, and happily at that, but no one said a married woman couldn't look. This American had mysteriously been shot, and was reported to be in Intelligence. Something big. Yet he hardly looked old enough to grow a beard.

"I have something for you, Colonel Straker. Take off your gown and lie on your stomach." She took a thermometer out of a glass and shook it deftly. He turned white.

"Oh God, you wouldn't be thinking about putting that thing in my-"

"I would indeed. And the faster you do what I say, the quicker the deed will be over."

"This is a big hospital. There has to be an oral thermometer somewhere, for God's sake."

"Oh believe me, we have plenty of them. But this will do."

"And English women were supposed to be shy and sweet. This won't hurt, will it?"

"I'll be sure to put a lot of petroleum jelly on it, Colonel."

He moaned loudly and she tittered.

When it happened, he shuddered but didn't complain. She stood there, looking up every now and then from her wristwatch, to admire the sight of his buttock, bisected by the instrument of dread. She had the wicked thought of sprinkling some talc on that bottom, as smooth as a infant's, but she didn't. Instead, she withdrew the object, studied the mercury and frowned.

"Can I get up now, and cover myself before I catch pneumonia of the gluteus maximus?"

"Lie back, Colonel, you've got a fever. I need to see doctor."

"A fever? Again? I thought that stuff you gave me that nearly killed me worked." He sat back, drawing the sheet and blanket over him, and frowning at her.

"Drink some more water. I'll be right back."

Ed Straker sighed and swirled the ice around in his glass. As promised, she came back, accompanied by two doctors, who tut-tutted over him, and ordered tests. And they came in, and collected his blood in vials, and told him to rest while they figured out what was wrong, and told him not to worry, and to try and get some sleep.

Ed obediently stayed in bed for all of fifteen minutes. Then he grabbed his robe, stuck his feet into slippers and set off to explore.

"And I'm saying you cheat, you lousy, shit smelling whelp of a scurvied dingo."

"You didn't think so a half hour ago when you were winning, Jack, you pommy bastard. Now pay up."

"And to think I saved your rotten arse when you were out there in the sea, hanging on to that ejection seat of yours and screaming like a damn girl," Jack complained, but handed over 20 pounds anyway. RAAF Air Captain Alec Freeman, several surgical stitches on ruddy forehead, with a dressing on his left arm due to burns, and with a leg in a cast, inspected the pound notes carefully, holding them to the light. The other two men engaged in the poker game flashed smiles at the exchange between the two military men.

"You didn't print these, did you, Jack? They look funny."

"That's because all damn Australians see everything backwards. Their genitals are in their arse and that goes for their eyes too. All Aussie bastards are backwards. The men give birth to youngsters instead of the women. That explains how ugly your face came out, Freeman." Jack took the deck of cards again and shuffled them expertly.

"You don't lose graciously, do you, Jack?" Alec grinned, tucking the winnings into his robe pocket, and taking his walking stick, stood up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"For a walk. Sooner or later they'll throw me out of this pommy hospital, and your face isn't the last thing I want to see."

"Screw you, Air Captain Freeman, Sir." Jack, a British Naval seaman assigned to Search and Rescue, saluted Alec grandly. "I wish I had never dragged your seedy arse out of the drink. Her Majesty will never forgive me for rescuing another sheep fucking Aussie and letting him live."

"I wouldn't be worried about that. Married to that sterile Mountbatten bloke, she has nothing else to do nights besides forgive lowly Naval bootlickers who know more about the water in their water closets than they do the sea." Alec said calmly, knowing Jack was a fervent monarchist, and left. He could still hear the laughter behind him, even when he reached the halfway point in the corridor, and he grinned. I'm going to miss this place, but a fellow my age can't count on dogfights forever. I have what little money Mum sends me, and I can manage on my pension, but what lies ahead? He shrugged. Then he lit up.

"Ernestine, you gorgeous devil you. Where are you going in such a hurry?" Alec blocked her way deftly.

The ward nurse shook her head violently at him, causing her ample flesh to jiggle.

"I've no time for the likes of you, Alec. An important patient has gone missing. An American. He's lost. And we've just confirmed he's having a relapse of malaria."

"Americans even in peacetime can't find their own genitals with a flashlight and a navigator with a map, Ernestine. They're bound to get lost. Could you do with some help? What does he look like?"

"Slim, blonde hair, small boned, around 11 stone or so. Blue eyes. Well spoken. Colonel in the United States Air Force. Brought in here with a gunshot wound and an high fever. Straker was his name. I think the chart said he was--what's the matter, Alec?"

Alec practically dropped the walking stick in his zealous reach for her, but instead it slid down his arm and he shook her a bit. She stared at him as if he'd grown an extra head.

"Straker? Was his name Edward Straker? Was it?"

"What's gotten into you? I told you all that drinking was going to catch up with you someday."

"Damn it, Ernestine, was it?" Alec reluctantly let her go.

"Yes, it was, do you know him?"

"I'll find him," Alec stated, and set off at a gait a man with a leg in a cast shouldn't have been able to manage.

The target of his search was seated contentedly alone on a green cast-iron bench in the hospital garden, feeding pigeons from a packet of crackers he'd cleverly swiped from the cafeteria. Hospital staff occasionally pushed patients in wheelchairs down the pavement, but they paid him no mind. After a long examination, Ed Straker had come to the conclusion that English pigeons were quite different from American ones. They did all the obligatory bobbing with their heads, and cooing, but there the resemblance ended. British pigeons queued up in a civilised manner. At any length, it made an interesting fallacy to explore for the afternoon while he enjoyed the sunshine.

"A lot nicer out here, isn't it? You know, I didn't realise Britain had such fair weather. I was brought up to believe that it was all grey, and cold and rainy. Is it always this nice?"

A pigeon cooed in affirmation at him. But then again, it may have just wanted more of the saltine cracker, but he decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and fed it the last morsel of the tasty treat. He slapped off the crumbs from his lap, and watched the birds frantically tussle for them. Then he wrapped the robe closer around him, chilled. He sighed. Fever. Well, he guessed he'd better get back to his room, and let them have at him. The quicker he did that, he reasoned, the quicker he could get back to his job as adjutant to General James Henderson. Ed rose up, the picturesque UK landscape took a dramatic swerve and roll, the pigeons escaped frantically in all directions, his knees became marmalade and he landed face down with a mouthful of grass, which he spit out. An ladybug ambled off quite indignantly at having her expedition through the grass interrupted. If she were capable of giving Ed the finger, she would have, it occurred to him. Fever, he reasoned. And then things became worse when he threw up all over Her Majesty's carefully mowed lawn. If I get out of this, I swear I will never disobey doctor's orders again, he vowed, and managed to push himself up on hands and knees. This wasn't exactly the way he wanted to leave his mark on England. Success lasted roughly two seconds.

Then he managed to pass out with an barely audible thump, and became a inert part of the spring scenery. Within a few minutes an pigeon alighted on him, and cooed.

The first thing he saw was a blur that smelled like bay rum. Then it became an smiling face with pitted skin, and a pair of warm, vibrant brown eyes that looked as though they'd seen everything and demanded more. Eyes he knew.

"Well, well, well. Welcome back to the land of the living. You left quite a mess in the garden for maintenance to clean up. You should be ashamed of yourself. Plus they found an empty saltine wrapper in your robe pocket. Take a tip from me. If you're going to steal something, don't leave evidence."

"Royal Australian Air Force Air Captain Alec Freeman." Ed said, surprised, but pleased. "So you finally caught up with me?"

"You bastard! You knew I was looking for you?"

"It was brought to my attention after I finished astronaut training and entered military intelligence that a recently promoted and decorated Australian Air Captain in the RAAF was trying to find me. I tried to make myself scarce, but I had forgotten how determined you seemed in that damn ward in Thailand, Alec. I see you ran into bad luck," Ed smiled, looking at Alec's injuries.

"Some idiot saw fit to fire a ground to air missile on my plane, and kill my navigator and I ejected and wound up in the ocean, burnt, with a twisted leg, getting sea sick. Fortunately, a worthless British SAR officer rescued me."

"Jonathan Trevor. Nicknamed 'Jack' for Union Jack. A good man." Ed nodded, enjoying the astonished expression on Alec's face.

"Crikey! What the hell else do you know about me?"

"Quite a bit, in fact. Your security clearance is high. I asked a few associates of mine to keep an eye on you, and I was very relieved you were all right. What I didn't know is that you were here in this hospital. You have quite an impressive record, Alec. If I ever make it up to that moon, I'll offer you a job."

"Hell, I get sick at sea, I'd never withstand a rocket launch. Ernestine said you'd made Colonel."

"Ernestine? Sit down, Alec. Rest that leg. By the way, did you happen to find out what's wrong with me? I need to get out of here as soon as I can. I have a boss with several stars and he doesn't like it when I walk into a door."

"Walk into a door? Looks more like someone who didn't like those chiseled good looks of yours put a bullet in you."

"Angry girlfriend." Ed replied with a shrug.

"Sure, Ed. I'll buy that one when it comes on sale at Marks and Spencer." Alec grinned at him. "Now tell me what really happened."

"Field assignment to get my feet wet. I didn't know the liquid was going to be my own blood. I've killed before as part of my duties in the Service, and this time I had to take someone out, someone that was doing our side a lot of damage. Gunshot wound at close range. Something you might want to remember for future use, Alec, a dead man isn't always completely dead. I put a bullet cleanly into him, but his body jerked and his gun went off as he was falling. I was overconfident and under equipped, should have gone for the neck. Instead I went for the chest. Had only a couple of seconds to decide though, next time I'll aim better and duck faster."

"You're too young and untrained to be playing with guns, Ed. Leave it to the more older, better looking masculine heroes like me. "

"Anytime you want to compare marksmanship skills, let me know, Alec. I could turn a male grasshopper into a eunuch from two hundred yards away."

"Not impressive, Ed. Grasshoppers don't fire back at you."

"They wouldn't have time to, if they had me aiming at them through the crosshairs of a rifle, Alec."

"So U.S. Intelligence is wasting tax dollars to teach its young men how to unsex grasshoppers? Change jobs, Ed. You need to settle down and do some nice real job instead of playing military spy. You need someone to look after you. Some nice English girl."

"Haven't found anyone that'll take me. You haven't told me who Ernestine is or what's wrong with me."

"They confirmed you have malaria. Plasmodium vivax. Relapse. Ernestine is the ward nurse assigned to you. One of my girlfriends. She isn't happy with you at all, being a VIP that decided to just walk off on her."

"Damn bug. Can't it choose someone else's liver to reside in? I take it they're treating me?" Ed looked with disgust at the by now only too familiar IV bags dripping something into his hand.

"Stuff will do the job. Say, Ed, how about you and me taking a tour of jolly old England when you get well? You owe me."

"How do you figure that, Air Captain Freeman?" I like this man, Ed thought. Been a long time since I felt this kind of affection for anyone. Peculiar. Like I'm known him for ages. Maybe there's something to reincarnation after all.

"You were in Jeffrey?s bed, and I'm out a mate, and you qualify for being prone to getting into trouble often, and I'm good at getting you out. What do you say, Colonel Straker?"

"Sure, I'll have some leave now that I managed to totally screw up the Special Ops deal. Not a great way to impress the brass I work for. One thing, though. No pub crawling. No loose women with looser morals."

"Ed, my boy," Alec began.

"Don't call me boy, boy." Ed responded, sitting up in bed somewhat.

"What you need is for me to help you tarnish that halo of yours a little, help you fall from grace. In the meantime, how about a little game of poker?" Why does being with this Straker fellow feel so damn good? Not my type at all. Arrogant bastard. Attitude and a half. Holier-than-thou. Then why in the bloody hell does he already feel like my best mate?

"I don't have any money with me. If I did, I'd make some off of you." Ed smiled self-confidently. "Easier than earning it."

"Nobody in the United Kingdom beats Alec Freeman at poker."

"That's because up to now, Ed Straker hasn't been in the United Kingdom. Now that he is, you're sunk."

"Really now, you lousy Yank? Let me get a deck of cards and put that to the test."

"Can't wait to win my spending money from you, Aussie."

"In the end I took fifty pounds off him," Alec told Mags.

"You have a memory that seems to be malfunctioning. Must be the alcohol. I took seventy-three off you." A familiar voice stated behind him sleepily, full of fond amusement.

"Old age has ruined yours, Ed. I won."

"In your dreams, former Air Captain Alec E. Freeman." Ed said in reply, stretching. He looked dazzling, Mags thought. Horsepiss, I'd take him right in the middle of the aisle, but we have to go and have witnesses, she thought wickedly. "Good--" Ed consulted his wristwatch, "afternoon. We should be touching down at Hong Kong International Airport fairly soon now." Ed stretched and yawned. He looked over at Devon, rose up and quietly approached, lifted up one of Devon's earphones and tickled him in the ear. Devon exploded into a hullabaloo of giggles and excitement that Ed was up. Ed hugged him, and tousled his hair affectionately.

"You sleep good, Ed?"

"Pretty good. Since when is the River Thames canary yellow?" Ed leafed through and studied Devon's coloring book.

"Is prettier than blue, Ed!"

"Trees are pink, Mistah Straker." Nate grinned, his teeth a stark white in contrast with his dark skin. Ed noticed Nate was experimenting with not shaving, and then remembered they were all on holiday. Ed felt the fair stubble on his own face.

"I need to go shave."

"You can't kiss your wife hello, you jerk?" Mags folded her arms.

Ed studied her, a smile touching the corners of his mouth.

"You're my wife? I thought you were the air attendant."

Mags unceremoniously slapped him on the shoulder, winning her a disapproving look from Devon. Then they kissed, much too briefly for Mags.

"No hurt Ed, Maggie!"

Ed looked down at Devon.

"She doesn't mean to hurt me. It's the same way we played with the pillow fight in hospital. Just a way to gently tease me."

"Tease not good."

"He's protecting you better than I can." grinned Nate. Alec laughed.

"I bet he shaves, too. You keeping that thing you call a beard, Nathaniel?" Ed inquired.

"I thought it made me look sexy." Nate complained.

"Just makes you look like you didn't shave. Come on, Devon, let's go get you washed up. You can help me get ready too."

"Yay!" came the predicable reaction, and Devie tottered after Ed like an obedient and loyal pet. Mags watched them vanish into the washroom.

"I have to share him with his damn studio, and his organization, and practically every damn hussy in the United Kingdom, and now I have to fight for his attention with a nine year old." Mags moaned loudly.

Alec grinned widely at her.

"Being jealous of little Dev isn't very becoming of you, Mags. Get over it."

"Horsepiss, Alec! He came all the way out here for you, didn't he? He worries more about you than he does me."

"Alec's prettier." Nate offered helpfully. Alec flashed him a look.

"Shut up, Shorty. "

Alec turned around, grabbed Nate's arm and the two started wrestling affectionately, although it looked like Nate would win. Mags just stood there, ignored. She was grateful when the fasten seat belts no smoking sign buzzed on. Fuck! Men! But she chuckled

Nate and Maggie and Devon had gone off to explore an open market, leaving Ed and Alec to wander the streets of Hong Kong alone. The Jamaican had made it plain he didn't relish giving up one Commander for one little boy, but Ed had wanted time alone with Alec. He picked without appetite at a plate full of ramen and egg with his chopsticks and Alec watched him idly. A Canon in a black leather case was slung around Ed's neck, making him look very much the tourist. Ed was wearing blue denim jeans, a white short sleeved shirt and a sleeveless T shirt underneath that. It was getting dark, and he was freezing in the outfit, which somehow he'd allowed Maggie to choose. Alec popped shrimp into his mouth, studying Ed's camera.

"You know how to use that camera, Ed, or is it just another toy?" Alec wondered between hungry bites. Ed reached over, stole one of Alec's shrimp and started in on it, wincing at the bite of the hot sauce Alec had bathed it in.

"I know how to use every camera that exists, Alec." Ed zipped up his lightweight white sweater. The wind was making a splendid mess of his white hair. His mobile phone buzzed.

"Straker. Who? Oh. Oh, hi, Ryoko. No. I'm doing very well. No, your worthless granddaughter isn't with me. WHAT? You what? Yes. No, no. No I didn't mean that. When? On Monday or Tuesday. Yes I will. Yes, she will. Congratulations, Ryoko. Give my regards to your new husband. Goodbye."

Alec just about coughed up his shrimp, and stared at Ed.

Ed grinned at him.

"Yeah, that was my reaction. They were calling from Canada. She's marrying that doctor she disappeared off with. Matter of days. She has to get everything straightened out with his church. That Theberge. I could hear him laughing on the line. Maggie's going to have a cow. But everyone ties the knot sooner or later, Alec. When are you and Yetunde going to hitch up and crank out tiny Alecs and Yetundes to terrorise an hapless world?"

"Ed, I've done a lot of stupid things in my life."

"You went looking for me, yes, so I'd agree, Alec." Ed studied the madras shirt Alec had on, and the battered black slacks and the worn Blundies. It hadn't taken the Australian long to get sunburnt. Ed himself was slathered with lotion to prevent his fair complexion from taking the beating he knew was coming in Australia. "What are you getting at? Going to eat the rest of that shrimp? My ramen tastes like the plastic they use to make all those damn figures of Hello Kitty we keep seeing around here."

"That's not Hello Kitty. That's Sailor Moon, Ed. I ought to know. Yetunde's little kid sister, who just turned 6, has a million of them. Ed Straker, the one man that stands between deadly, body organ stealing aliens and the world, but he can't tell his anime apart."

"His what?" Ed looked puzzled, but not alarmed at Alec talking about his job. The camera he was carrying did more than just take pictures of floating junks on the harbour, it alerted the owner if he was being listened to electronically.

Alec grinned and pushed the box of shrimp at Ed, and Ed harpooned one with a chopstick then dipped it in the plum sauce he preferred, and gobbled it. Then Alec sighed. Ed watched him with deep affection.

"I'd pay a million dollars in any currency to be able to walk, no, run, away from this trip back home. Every bone in my body says I'm doing the wrong thing." There was real fear in the Australian's customary growl, and Ed replied softly to him.

"You haven't come all this way to turn back. Whatever may be said of you, Alec, you're no coward. You meet your responsibilities. Besides, you're not alone. That's why I wanted some time with you. I don't get a lot, now that I'm married."

"That old lady of yours doesn't take well to anyone moving in on her territory, either. She was bitching about Devon yesterday, just before we landed."

"She's jealous of Devon too? Poor little Devie? Christ, Alec. I thought I'd heard the last of that with Lily, and her thinking I spent every waking moment in bed with starlets and models from the studio. I've had my fill of women thinking that I go cruising looking for an affair."

"I never should have steered you to Mary." Alec shrugged.

"You thought you were doing the right thing, Alec. Nobody could have predicted what would happen. Besides, we're here to talk about you. I'll get you through this."

"Even the immortal Ed Straker may have trouble standing up to my Dad."

"I cope with Henderson and his little pal Foster scheming to fill my shoes, I can cope with any problem you throw at me. I beat being a orange cream ice sickle in the morgue, I can beat anything." Ed looked vaguely worried about something, which Alec overlooked for the moment, focused instead on Ed's skinny frame.

"Ed, you are so damn thin, you couldn't beat chocolate cake frosting right now."

"Quit listening to Frances. I'm sorry she talked Angel out of travelling with us. We all know who wears the cassock in that marriage. Speaking of marriage, you going to pick up a nice chunk of jade for Yetunde? Some perfume maybe? I promised to buy presents for Maggie and everyone at home, and I think I'll get that pearl bracelet we saw in the hotel gift shop for Frances. Angel will like that set of fishing lures we saw on the way up here. You could do with a new shirt, Alec, that madras has obviously been around even before India was a jewel in the crown. Things change."

"You're talking to me about change? You still wear Nehrus even though Ghandi's been dead for years and you listen to records, and you haven't changed your hairstyle in ages."

"What do you mean? I grew my hair out, Maggie forced this damn denim outfit on me. You have only to look to appreciate my suffering. If I sneeze, a seam will go, it's so damn tight. I hate denim this tight."

"I bet you didn't recognize yourself in the looking glass, you look like a rock star." Alec grinned at Ed. "And Mags informed me there's ten per cent spandex in that denim." Ed shuddered, much to the Australian's amusement.

"I'm a studio executive, there's a difference. The things we do for love. I'm using it to wax my car the minute I get home. Change is for the beggar on the street, not for me. Come on, Alec, let's walk a bit, see some sights, get in some more shopping. This sweater is as thin as, well, to steal a phrase from Angel, as thin as the devil's alibi. Let's see if I can find something more substantial in one of these open markets around here. We might catch up eventually with the others, and what's left of my credit cards after Maggie is done with them." Ed peeled off the sweater.

Alec threw some money down on the table, and walked off with Ed, watching with amusement as Ed handed his nearly full box of food and his sweater to an nearby astonished, then bowing, toothless beggar, followed by some coins.

"That was a Tommy Hilfiger designer cardigan, Ed. Didn't Mags that to you as a get well present?"

"So? Maggie knows I prefer Ralph Lauren and Armani and my own tailor in London. Besides, now he'll be the most fashionable beggar in Kowloon."  

"You look pretty, Maggie!" Devon proclaimed, watching Mags turn slowly in front of the three-way mirror. Nate leaned lazily against the wall in the shop, fighting the urge to call the Commandah on the mobile to check his health. Devon sat happily on Nate's shoulders, where he'd pretty much stayed since Ed had discovered the little boy's alarming habit of going up to strangers in the hotel. Nate didn't fancy being a babysitter instead of a bodyguard, but the Commandah was the Commandah. Mags fastened the final frog on the form-fitting yellow silk cheongsam with a smattering of gold flowers she wore, and inspected herself in the mirror. She inspected the price tag, winced, but this was the one, all right. And in her favourite colour too! What good was having the savior of the free world as your husband, when the last time he had made hot love to you was before he had died? All right, it had been repeatedly, she had to admit. But damn it, this trip wasn't only going to be for Alec. Horsepiss, that man she'd married owed her a honeymoon, and a honeymoon she would get. She looked down at her wedding ring, and smiled. Now if she could talk him into an early night in their suite, that Ed Straker that she adored so much.

"What do you think, Nathaniel?" Mags asked.

"They've been gone for five hours, it's six PM and I'm beginning to get worried." Nate admitted. "They may be Ed Straker and Alec Freeman, but the truth is, they're two helpless old men alone in a country they aren't familiar with. They could get into serious trouble."

"They'd kick your black ass, Nate! If they heard you suggest they were old and helpless, you'd be so dead! Ed and Alec are not old! Besides I meant the dress, you dweeb!"

"Kick your black ass, Nate!" Devon repeated happily, from his human conning tower. Nate reached behind him and upward with one long arm and slapped Devon lightly, making Devon chortle. The shopkeeper was looking on in bewilderment, but complimenting Mags in her broken English. They might be tourists, but she understood the phrase Plat Am-Ex.

"You shut up, Devon, or Strakah will kill me for letting you pick up swear words. The dress is super, Missus Strakah. That one and the white one you bought at the other store. Now can we go so I can call them from a cab and pick them up?"

"Sheesh. Men. At least Devon likes it. You rule, Devon!" Mags high fived him. She had to do it standing on the stool in front of the mirror.

"You rule, Devon!" the boy repeated, in ecstasy. Mags chuckled and slipped the shopkeeper Ed's platinum Am-Ex that bore her name too. Amazing how plastic was understood in any language, and every dialect. Amazing how her husband was disgustingly rich, and handsome, and virile. Okay, she'd find out for sure about the virile tonight. If he didn't have a nightmare like he'd had the night they'd gotten to Hong Kong, she thought sourly. Something's pushing up its ugly head through the soil of his subconscious again, Mags reasoned, her profession coming to the fore, and it isn't going to be a walk in the park for him. Caroline warned me about this. Please Amaterasu, don't let him suffer long over this morgue thing. I'll do my best to keep him busy tonight, but you have to do your part. Then Mags blinked. Horsepiss! I'm praying to a Shinto goddess. Okay, all right, so I'm praying. Whatever works. Just help Ed. And don't tell my worthless grandmother anything.  

"How long have they been following us?" Ed asked casually.

"You knew you were being followed?" Alec asked, shifting the plastic shopping bag with the bright Chinese characters on it that he was carrying. Ed was carrying a parcel wrapped in newspaper under one arm, and carried a similar shopping bag in the other. He also wore a flashy red anorak with a graphic of Godzilla on it. Not exactly Ralph Lauren's spring 2001 line, Ed thought, but it kept him warmer than the cardigan Maggie had gifted him with. And if he got the chance, he'd ditch the denim too. He'd make the chance.

"I died, Alec. I didn't park my brains at the curb."

"So what do we do? Yell for help to Nathaniel?" Alec suggested.

The two men looked equally grim, then they turned to look at each other, and evil smirks swept over their faces.

"Hell no." they said simultaneously.

"You carrying?" Alec said.

"Always, but let's not upset the Hong Kong police with a couple of gunshots. We can handle this some other way." Ed reasoned.

"So what do we do?" Alec asked, eagerly.

"Find us an deserted alley, put down our shopping, and finally have some real fun in Hong Kong."

"Now you're talking, Colonel Straker."

"My pleasure, Colonel Freeman."

"They're young, Ed, we're not, we're going to get our arses kicked."

"Anything to get rid of this denim. You scared, Alec?"

"I was winning all my pub brawls back when you were a sperm in your mother's ovum, Commander. What about you? Can you carry your weight, Ed?"

"I tossed Yetunde around a few times, I'm a little rusty, but I'm all for it. They still following us?"

"Right on cue."

"Ready?" Ed asked.

"Ready as hell," Alec said eagerly.

"At the first sign of trouble we run." Ed lied.

"Sure, Ed, sure." Alec lied back.

With that, the dynamic duo turned around, their backs against the graffiti and cinema poster splashed alley wall. Ed noticed a small battered, handmade poster announcing that "Escape to Mars" was opening at the local movie house. It was a Harlington-Straker movie with Chinese subtitles. Four years old, too. Ed didn't remember selling the screening rights over to Hong Kong. The studio was being cheated. He'd have to ask Miss Ealand about it. Only Miss Ealand seemed a hundred, no a trillion miles away. What the hell was he doing, asking for a street fight like he was in his twenties? He hadn't even beaten bad guys in his twenties. He looked at Alec. The Australian was setting down his packages and humming. Actually humming. It occurred to Ed that if he got Alec killed, Yetunde would not like it. Never mind Yetunde. I might wind up with a knife in my own back. If that happens, Maggie won't let me into the suite, I'll have to sleep out in the hotel lobby. However, Ed picked up the tune Alec was humming, it happened to be Waltzing Matilda, and he set his own things down. They eyed the pimply, unwashed looking youths that stood there, snarling at them.

"Give us camera, bags and wallet!" one ordered. Damn good English too, Ed mused. The quality of punks was changing in Hong Kong.

"They want our camera, bags and wallet, Alec." Ed pointed out cheerfully. The youths looked at each other. The American and the foreigner weren't exactly doing what they were supposed to be doing, which was cooperating. They didn't expect to fight, did they? After all, one was burly, in his late sixties, ugly and slow and cumbersome. The other younger one in the decadent blue jeans, with the male model good looks appeared to be in his late forties, despite the wild white hair and the bad taste in sweatshirts. He was skinny and would break like a fan. This was going to be easy. They could boast to their girlfriends about what pigs tourists were. This was going to be like shooting koi in a pond.

Ed looked at Alec, and Alec looked back at him.

"Ichwhay oneway oday ouyay antway, Edway?"

"I'llway aketay Mray. Ersonalitypay onway ethay eftlay, Alec."

"E'shay obablypray ethay oremay angerousday oneway, otgay away ifeknay iddenhay omewheresay. Uresay ouyay on'tday antway emay otay etgay idray ofway imhay?"

"Iway eednay otay indfay outway ometimesay ifway Iway illstay ancay andlehay yselfmay. Andway ifway Iway an'tcay, ellway, itway on'tway attermay. Eadyray?"

"Eadyray." Alec replied.

The two of them made their move as the sun started to set over relatively crime free Hong Kong.

"Damn it, they aren't answering their mobiles. I'm dropping you both at the hotel and I'm gonna find them. I knew I shouldn't have let the Commandah talk me into letting them go off by themselves. Shit, he just came back from the dead."

"Horsepiss, Nathaniel, you're scaring me now." Mags replied. Devon seemed tired, and held her hand, a bag with a stuffed Greenteeth figure inside in his other hand. He yawned. "Devon? Is Ed okay?"

"How is he supposed to know, Missus Strakah? He's just a kid."

"Shut up Nate, that ex-girlfriend of Ed's says he's psychic. Devon, is Ed all right?"

"Devon sleepy, Maggie." Devon shrugged. Suddenly Nate's mobile buzzed at him and he answered it.

"Nate!"

"Hi Nate, we're okay, we just got delayed." Alec Freeman's voice said calmly.

"Shit, Alec, you just about made me a patient of Yetunde's. Where are you two? We'll come pick you up."

"No, you go on back to the hotel and wait for us in the suite. Order something good for dinner. Ed and I had a snack, but it wouldn't put any meat on anyone's bones. We'll be there, in about a half-hour." Then there was a click.

"Where is my stupid husband and his friend with kangaroo breath?" Mags demanded.

"No idea, he didn't tell me anything. They want us to go back to the hotel. Something's fishy. Let's go."

Mags pulled Devon along up to a row of taxis and followed Nate into one.

In the meantime, Alec Freeman sat tensely in an cubicle of Queen Mary Hospital, while a doctor stitched up an injured Ed Straker, and wondered if his brawling days were over.

Ed groaned.

"Alec?"

"Yeah?"

"Yetunde fond of fine art?"

"I suppose, why?"

"Because your face looks like a painting by Picasso, or maybe even Dali, and I bet it feels worst than it looks. "

Alec chuckled, then added his own groan to Ed's. There was a darkening bruise across the Shado commander's forehead. Ed's stylish denim outfit lay on a chair, blood spattered, looking reduced to cat litter after the cat had used the box. At the moment Ed had on a flimsy paper gown, and Alec watched Ed struggle with looking dignified in it, earning him a dirty look from the doctor for moving while the stitches were being put in. It helped him keep his own mind off his pain.

"You'd think when you were suffering that they'd give you something decent to wear, Ed. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, Maggie always said you have nice legs and I agree."

"Shut up, Alec. Think about this, the important thing was that the two thugs we beat looked like they'd repeatedly been hit by two trains, and hadn't survived the experience, either."

"Even better, Ed, the police told me they were well known in Kowloon circles as kids who preyed on tourists, and they were eager to throw their arses into gaol once and for all."

"I must have missed that speech, since I was sprawled on the Kowloon pavement having a hard time getting my hand to stop bleeding. " Ed remarked sourly, looking nervously at the doctor. Alec hoped they could get out of the casualty department before some enterprising tabloid reporter investigated the two heroic tourists that had made Hong Kong just a little safer. To be sure, the police hadn't quite believed they had dispatched the two scum in such a short time, especially when the scum Ed had picked had produced a knife, and had done some unskilled embroidering of Ed's arm.

"You know, Ed, if you feared you were no longer able to handle yourself, you blew that idea right out of the water. You were the Straker we know and fear." Alec winked.

Ed managed to smile wanly at that. Alec had gotten rid of his thug, and had watched as Ed had gotten rid of his own a few seconds later, without the Australian's help.

"I did all right." Ed shrugged. "It was only when my blood spurted out at an alarming rate that I demonstrated the possibility you might be carrying me home by collapsing to the none-too sanitary pavement." Ed closed his eyes again and clenched his teeth as another stitch went in.

"Yeah, saw you go down from blood loss, had a bad moment there." Alec had wisely decided to call for an ambulance on the mobile phone instead.

He heard Ed groan again when it was finally finished, open his eyes, and accept the pain pills the doctor gave him, and gulp them down, followed by water. Alec gave him a thumbs up, and Ed's mouth twisted around in what might have been a pleased and satisfied smirk, but might be pain, too. It took not one, but two of Alec's credit cards to pay for the medical care, and get them a taxi after Ed tossed the gown and got into the Godzilla anorak, which had survived the fight better than he had. The two men sat wearily in the back of a taxi, quiet for several minutes, nursing their numerous wounds.

"You're going to look really good in the hotel lobby wearing that thing, Ed," Alec finally said, looking at Ed's apparel.

"Shut up, Alec. Fucking hand is killing me. I'm more than ready to go back to the suite and sleep for, oh I don't know, maybe a year. My God, Alec. You look impressive. You sure you beat your punk?"

"Faster than you beat yours by a full ten seconds. And your forehead still looks like someone airbrushed it in shades of black and blue. Matches your disposition and your eyes. How are we going to explain what happened to Nate and Maggie?"

"We don't. We were poor weak tourists ambushed by two thugs, and we barely got away with all our shopping goodies intact." Ed looked at the bags and parcels and camera.

"Innocent as the day we were born?"

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Wake me up when we get to the hotel, Alec."

"We're at the hotel, Ed, wake up."

"Damn. Come on, let's go give the finest performance of our lives, Alec. "

"Ed?"

"Yeah?"

"That bruise of yours looks like it was shot in Technicolor."

"Yeah, and my headache is pounding in Dolby quad to match it."

"Ed?"

Ed was grabbing the bags and parcels while Alec signed the credit slip.

"What now?" Ed said, as the two of them were deposited in the hotel parking lot, and the taxi sped away.

"That was a hell of a lot of fun."

"Alec, your punk hit you a lot harder than you think, if that seemed like fun to you. What happened to our agreement to run when things got out of hand?"

"Did things get out of hand?" Alec ignored the looks they were getting from the receptionist and he waved away the bellhops that tried to relieve them of their burdens in the hope of tips.

Ed punched the number for their floor once they got inside the lift.

"I'd say when that knife sliced through my thin Bostonian skin and left me several quarts low, that things got out of hand, yes, I would. That's about when I wanted to just pull out my automatic, and use my punk for target practice. Ohhhh my head. Ohhhh my arm. Ohhhh my hand."

"Come on Ed, you've got to admit this was a lot of fun."

"You're insane. Which is probably why I hired you for Shado." Ed grinned at him. They walked from the lift up to their suite door. Ed fumbled with the electronic pass-lock.

"Well it's about--Commandah!" Nate gulped, seeing the bruise and then the bandages. He winced even more as Alec went by him, and dumped his things on a table.

"Hi Nate. Hi Devon." Ed said breezily.

"Wow, Godzilla!" was all Devon said for the moment. Ed gave him a look, dropped his own bags, pulled off the anorak and gave it willingly to the boy, who accepted it like it was the key to the city.

"What happened?" Nate folded his arms.

"Uh where's Mrs. Straker?"

"Getting dressed. She took a short nap. I guess I'm not allowed to ask what happened? Or where the bodies are buried?"

"We walked into a door, Nate." Alec grinned.

Devon finally was studying Ed. Alec noticed that the child didn't seem all that interested in his own injuries. Only Ed's.

"Bad men?" Devon asked. "Hurt Ed?"

"I'm afraid so. Could have used you, little fellow." Ed patted Devon's head fondly.

"Maggie say you kick Nate's black ass."

"She what?" Ed exclaimed. "Devon, you will not listen to Maggie. She's a bad influence on you."

"But Maggie gonna be my mommie, Ed."

"We hope so. As I explained to you, or tried to, we don't know yet. Now what's all this kicking supposed to be about?" Ed looked accusingly at Nate. Maggie saved Nate's black ass by choosing to come out in a white cheongsam with pink flowers instead of the yellow one, and in a cloud of Tresor perfume. She shrieked when she saw Ed. Ed gave her a smile that was so full of energy it might have been powered by nukes but she wasn't buying it. She then added injury to insult by seizing him, inadvertently causing him pain. He yelled loud enough to wake the inhabitants of graveyards in several continents, and shocked, she let go.

"Horsepiss, Ed! What happened to you? Why is it everytime I turn my back you manage to injure yourself?"

"What happened to me didn't feel as bad as you squeezing me just now like some Asian python, Maggie. Besides, I'm tired. Can you pour me some coffee?"

"Alec, you were supposed to take care of him! You promised, damn you! Instead you got him into trouble, didn't you? Is this how you treat someone who comes all the way out here just to help you out? Damn it, Ed! Why can't we ever have an ordinary life, like ordinary people? Is that too much to ask? Is it, Ed Straker?"

"Why can't you just get me a damn cup of coffee? Never mind. I'm going to go wash up, and then I'm going to grab some sleep before we head to Australia in the morning. You do whatever the bloody hell you want." Ed disappeared into one of the bedrooms and shut the door behind him. Alec and Nate looked at one another uncomfortably. Not because the Strakers were having another row, but because it was their bedroom. Devon seemed not at all concerned, as he hugged Ed's Godzilla anorak. Maggie shrieked, pulled the door open and went into the bedroom after him, and slammed the door behind her. Seconds later, both Ed and Maggie came out, Ed grabbed his packages, and they went into the right bedroom, theirs, and slammed the door behind them.

Nate and Alec went on looking at one another, this time with sheepish grins.

Devon had wriggled into the anorak happily, and summed the whole mess up extremely well.

"Bad thing."

"No. Absolutely not. I don't want to talk about it. Leave me alone!" Ed Straker said, slamming the bedroom door, dropping the packages, scraping off what was left of the denim number, and tossing it into the rubbish. Alec Freeman would have recognized his tone as Commander modality. Maggie just saw it as handsome husband being a stupid jackass.

"Damn you, Straker!" Maggie threw a pillow at him, and fumed. It took a few moments for her to notice he was partially nude. That wasn't fighting fair, she grumbled to herself. Ed went into the bathroom, and she trotted after him in her strappy black patent heels. The cheongsam made chasing after an vexatious husband a slow process, and she stopped, pulled it off, tossed it on the bed and entered in only her red lace panties and black hose and garters. Ed by this time had lowered himself gingerly in the tub, waiting for it to fill, being careful not to get the injured arm and hand wet. He didn't seem to notice that her breasts were bare. She kicked off her heels and peeled off her hose then her panties. Black seamed down the back hose, borrowed from Frances, and he hadn't even noticed, the twerp. Maybe Alec was right, maybe he had flushed his libido down the toilet.

"I'd like to take a bath by myself, Maggie." Damn it, both of them stark naked and he was looking right through her, not at her.

"Oh you would, would you?"

"That's right, since you never approve of anything I--damn it, Maggie!"

Maggie had casually gotten into the spacious tub with him, which caused the water to overflow all over the gold and white tiled floor.

"This is ridiculous!" Ed snapped, trying to get up.

"Yes, I'd say it is! Here, let me lather you up, you're going to get that hand wet-"

"Margaret Straker, I haven't allowed any woman to give me a bath since I was younger than Devon, and I'm not about to start now. And no! I don't want bubbles."

Ed watched sourly as she grabbed for and dumped half the jar of bubble bath into the water, and the room began to smell of oranges as the bubbles crept up to their waists. Ed sat there, too weary to argue.

"I bought a new dress just to look good for you, Straker, you ingrate, and what do you do? You allow that Neanderthal pal of yours to get you into a fight, when you're hardly out of the hospital-"

The look he gave her could have boiled the bath water with her in it.

"Don't ever call my oldest and dearest friend that, Maggie. That's not a good way to start a discussion believe me. Not that it matters to you at this point, but yes, I saw that you had on a new dress, and had put on scent for me. Did it ever occur to you I was as responsible for getting injured as you think Alec was? Do you know how little time I have to just be with Alec, look after him, make sure he's all right? Do you know what it's like to watch him grow older after I went through that damned bacterial invasion situation? I may be younger, if you want to believe what the doctors say. That means I have longer to watch Alec be by himself, facing age the same way I was. That isn't easy, damn you! I had fun today, Maggie. Fun. Yes, I could have had my brains knocked out of my skull, yes I got cut up and nearly passed out from blood loss, yes, yes, I admit it. But that whole incident, finding myself in that damn morgue, and now knowing Alec is more afraid than he's ever been in his whole life--do you know what that's like for him, Maggie? Can you ever for a second think about someone else besides us and what's good for us? Because I do, Maggie. I have my whole life. That's what being a Commander is all about. That's what running Shado is all about. If I could take time off and have a ball with Alec, take his mind off his father then by God, I was going to do it. There are other people who need me, Maggie. You just will have to accept that. And if you can't then it's time you go. I don't want to see it happen. It would mean a lot of pain for Devon, poor little thing, and it would kill me, please believe it would. But I can't go on like this the rest of my life. I look to you for support. I do my best to support and love you. But I can't and won't let you be so selfish when it comes to my job and most importantly my friends." Ed took a deep breath. "I can't torture myself anymore, desperately trying to be what you want so that you'll love me and not desert me. Maggie, if I could only make you see how much I need you, and cherish you. But I just seem to manage to screw all my relationships up."

Maggie just looked at him, stunned. The yelling she could take. But this speaking from the heart, this spilling of his guts, this made her feel rotten and selfish.

"Say something," Ed begged.

"Ed, we hardly have had much time to even talk to each other, really talk to each other like this. Everything's happened so fast. Marrying. You being hurt, Dad's suicide. Getting used to all the people in your life who hover around you like bees. I just don't want to lose you. I can't go through that again. I convinced everyone and even myself that night you died I'd get along without you, that I could bury you and not look back. That I could be as strong as you. But I couldn't. I can't. I can't help worrying about you, Ed! Oh darling, horsepiss, you don't have to be anything more than what you are, the sweetest man in the world. I just wanted us to have something special together. I just felt that you had time for your job, your friends, your employees but not me," wept Maggie.

Ed sighed and reached for her, sweeping aside one of her damp locks of blue-black hair.

"Yeah, I know. I know, we didn't have a honeymoon to speak of. Nate was so marvelous, throwing together that little piece of San Francisco for us, and then the bacteria got the best of me. Yeah, we have to promise one another than we will always be honest the way we are now. Darling, I love you, darling, darling. Why don't you help me out of this tub and I'll show you how much I love you. Damn, I think I've gotten the bandage wet."

"Let me see. No, it hasn't soaked all the way through, maybe not Ed, must be gauze in the cabinet, and if there isn't we can have the hotel doctor look at it."

"No more doctors," Ed complained, examining it.

"What happened to you and Alec anyway?" muttered Maggie, reaching for a towel. His hand went up and stopped her and she looked at him, puzzled. "What?"

"You." His fingers strayed to her breast, and he pushed the foam off them. Maggie gave a long grunt, and he chuckled low in his throat, and moved forward, letting the edge of his tongue tease one nipple gently. His mouth closed over it and he kissed it. "You taste like soap." he reflected simply, gently gliding his hands over her breasts, encircling them, holding them in his damp palms, feeling their weight. Maggie clenched her teeth.

"Damn it, Ed, your hand is wet, and that's not all that's getting wet, damn it, Ed, we have to take care of your hand, your hannnnnnnnnd--damn it, Straker!"

Ed stopped abruptly, without expression and sat there. She gawked at him. How did he turn on and off like that?

"Yes dear."

"Straker!" she yelled at him, and he laughed and accepted her help to get up. She pulled out the stopper in the tub, watching the water swirl away and down the drain noisily, thinking that was pretty much where the hope of having sex with her husband was headed, too. Ed looked at her thoughtfully, not saying anything, but let her towel him off.

A closer inspection after they were dried and in robes showed that only one layer of bandage was slightly damp, and she very carefully cut that away and rebandaged back the next layer using bandaids from the cabinet.

"Couldn't have done better if you were a girl scout trying out for a first aid badge." Ed smiled, dimpling his cheeks with a smile.

"You sure this is going to be okay?" she asked, examining the hand carefully, and trying her damndest not to grab him right there and put him into traction from overzealous lovemaking. Damn that man. God, that smile was driving her nuts. How did you get mad at a man like this? How? How?

"Maggie, get dressed." Ed let the complimentary white terry-cloth robe fall and hunted through the closet.

"Huh?" God, where the hell did that come from? Was she ever going to understand this man? Did it really matter when he had such a cute tush? Nah. "Ed what are you doing?"

"Looking for my tuxedo. Ah here it is. Get dressed. I noticed there's a dance club in this hotel as I staggered by the lobby to get to the lift. Let's go dancing, show off that new frock of yours."

"Ed?"

"What?" Ed retorted in exasperation, sitting on the bed and pulling on socks and underwear from his suitcase.

"Have you gone nuts? You're hurt. We have an early wake up call to get back on the jet. You want to go dancing?" Maggie watched him vanish into the bathroom, trotted along in a state of shock while he reapplied deodorant, and brushed his teeth. He strapped on the ever-present holster and put his Glock into it. At any other time, it was a bit scary to remember he could, and had killed with it. Now, it only looked erotic to her. James Bond could eat his heart out.

"I injured my arm and hand, not my legs," he chastised her, patting some complimentary cologne on his neck and face. "Hey, what is this? Smells pretty strong. Not bad though. Armani. Figures. Hurry up, will you?"

Maggie got ready as quickly as she could, and stuck a toothbrush in her mouth,, brushing furiously. Ed disappeared into the bedroom again for something, and she looked after him, reluctant to even let him out of her sight for a moment. She was that man's wife. I'm Maggie Straker. I don't believe it. I'm Maggie Straker. And he's alive, and warm, and -okay, yeah, he's stubborn, and impossible, and goes looking for trouble on a regular basis, and I share him with the world, but he's mine.

Ed was back and dangled something shiny out in front of her, grinning at her image in the mirror with the toothbrush in her mouth.

"Can't tell you how fabulous you look like that, Sweetheart. Silk dress and a toothbrush, and a mouthful of Pepsodent. Damn, you'll knock them dead on the runways in Paris."

Maggie spat out the toothpaste and rinsed once and grinned up at Ed. Then she saw it. Her jaw fell and her mouth opened, and he watched drool drip down the side of it.

"You're the only woman I've ever known that still looks good with a advanced case of rabies," Ed remarked casually, dabbing her mouth with tissue with one hand and gently swinging a delicate gold chain in the other. At the end of the thin gold chain dangled a pendant in the shape of an dainty cherry blossom, made from faceted rubies, with seed pearls at the centre and tiny emerald stem and leaves as accents. Maggie didn't say anything for so long that Ed actually looked injured. "I can exchange it if you don't like it. But you don't have much jewellery, and I saw it in the hotel jewelry shop yesterday, it suited you so perfectly and well, you don't like it?" It was the tone of a small boy who had just proudly given his first gift to his mother, and she'd ignored both.

"Horsepiss, Ed." Maggie said softly. "It's gorgeous. You kept talking about getting gifts for everyone, and well-"

Ed sighed.

"You thought I'd forget my own wife? You were uppermost in my mind. I bought that even before I looked at the pearl bracelet for Frances, and I think I'll get that silver brooch for Yetunde. I still have some shopping to do before we leave tomorrow and-well-anyway-you do like it?"

"Oh Edward Straker. It's so beautiful. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you." Maggie cried. Ed smiled at her warmly, relieved.

"Horsepiss." Ed said quietly. "Don't be foolish. Now let me help you put it on, and we'll go dancing."

The three piece band was playing Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" and they weren't really dancing to it, just swaying against one another, but it didn't matter, Ed decided, he was just breathing in the smell of warm, flesh and blood human being, and that was something the great perfume houses of Paris couldn't bottle, not in a million years.

"Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me..." Ed sang. Maggie lifted her head up and chuckled at him. The mirrored ball overhead cast little stars shifting across her body. Ed pretended to be wounded. "Is my singing that bad?"

"Ed Straker, you're a hopeless romantic, a soft sentimental dweeb, you know that?" She reached up and held on to her pendant possessively.

"I'll deny it to my dying day, which I hope will be delayed for some time to come. Why aren't you manipulating me the way you're touching that necklace, Maggie?" Ed drew his hand down her back and across her buttock slowly, grasping her flesh firmly underneath the silk, and she grunted, blinked, looked at him. God bless alien bacteria, she thought. He grinned at her, obviously enjoying himself. Then he spun her around and back, making her chortle in delight. He pulled her close to him unexpectedly and pressed his body against hers in a provocative way, those eyes of his flashing like twin neon signs. So much for me thinking something was wrong with his libido, Mags thought dreamily. I wonder how fast that elevator will get us upstairs? I wonder if I can actually keep myself from unzipping his fly right in the middle of this room? Would any of these women not understand, the ones that keep looking at him over their boyfriend's and husband's and lover's shoulders as they dance? They haven't stopped wondering who he was from the minute he entered the room. Straker's would-be babes. Forget it, ladies, he's mine. Patience, Mags girl.

"Your place or mine, handsome stranger?" she whispered against his ear, and blew against it lightly. Ed shivered slightly, then regained his demeanor.

"Unimportant, doesn't matter, as long as you're gentle with me, you will be gentle with me, won't you? It's my first time," Ed claimed, fingers coming back and closing over one nipple, which was erect through the embroidered silk. She gave a little shocked cry when he pinched it lightly, and he pulled her to him, chuckling, kissing her hair. Then he looked over her shoulder, and moaned aloud in defeat, burying his head against her.

"What?" Maggie said in alarm, thinking he'd hurt his hand.

"Look," Ed replied. He spun her around. Nathaniel Zouri, standing over by the wall, quickly averted his head, but too late. Maggie groaned and Ed laughed, and led her over to Nate. "Fancy meeting you here, Zouri. Alec upstairs with Devon? I thought we sneaked downstairs without being seen, but it appears we loused our escape up badly." Nate put down a glass of juice and grinned back at Ed.

"Alec and I were getting sick of playing chess anyway, so he read Devon to sleep and I pulled guard duty. You shouldn't really have gone off like that, Mistah Strakah."

"Yeah I know. Okay, we're going upstairs and we promise to stay upstairs. Might as well go. Come on."

They were hardly settled in the suite when Alec came out of the bedroom he'd been sharing with Devon and Nate, grim faced, mobile phone in hand. Ed knew that look, all right.

"Trouble?" Ed said.

"My dad's failing faster than they expected. Mum called, they just tried to air lift him to hospital, but he refused. The beggar is determined to die at home on the station, doesn't want anything to do with the doctors. Mum's hysterical, begged me to hurry. Ed, I think I'll have to cut short our stay in Hong Kong. I took the liberty of asking the pilot to fuel up and stand by. I think we better leave now. Ed, I'm sorry, I honestly am." Alec shoved the mobile in a pocket and rubbed his fingers together uneasily. He was already dressed in a suit. Ed shook his head at him, patted him briefly on the shoulder in a reassuring manner.

"Alec, don't even mention it. Come on, let's get packed up and out to the airfield. I can catch some sleep on the plane. Devon asleep?"

"Yeah, I figured we can wake him up at the last minute. He insisted on wearing that sweatshirt of yours." Alec smiled.

"I'll have to give him all my castoffs from now on. Let's get ready to go."

Maggie sighed. So much for a night of romance. Come hell or high water, everyone else's concerns were always going to come before theirs. If I had all this to do again, would I have fallen for that sick guy they brought in, wandering the roads of England in his pajamas?

She looked over at him, he was taking things out of the drawers and sticking them in his suitcase, still looking elegant in his tuxedo. He caught her glance and looked penitent, shrugged a little, smiled wanly. He looked tired, when only moments before he'd been energized, clearly worried for Alec's sake.

Something shifted in her, and she smiled. Yes. I'd do it. I'd do it all over again. Because someone has to comfort the comforter. Maggie leaned over and kissed him, and he smiled encouragingly at her, gave her a quick kiss back. He still smelled of Armani's Gio, and she made an attempt not to miss the feel of his lithe body against hers, the way the mirrored ball had twinkled just as much as his eyes had just minutes ago. Like stars. He was a star on two legs, she decided. Maggie reached out and tousled his hair and winked at his irritated expression, and Nate chuckled sharply at the sight of his boss's silver hair. Normally beautifully groomed, it now stuck out like hedgehog bristles. Ed gave him a stern look, Nate's jaw clamped closed quickly, and Maggie giggled. She took an tortoiseshell comb from her clutch bag and started emergency husband's coiffure repair, but he grabbed it and combed it himself, then shoved it back at her impatiently. On top of everything else he excelled at, the man never had bad hair days, Maggie thought ruefully.

Alec brought Devie out, encircled in his arms, the little boy still asleep, curled up in the anorak, legs askew. Alec's going to make a damn good father, Ed mused to himself warmly. He enjoyed the scene for a moment, watching Alec carefully cradling the boy against him. Finally he broke the silence, as the rest of them packed.

"I remember when I used to sleep that soundly," Ed said in envy.

"You've been having a hard time resting on the plane with those nightmares of the morgue, Ed," Maggie reminded him. "You woke up screaming that first day we left Heathrow."

"I know, I know, I'll handle them when I get back to work. Provided I still have a job to go back to. Hell, I hardly remember what my office looks like in the studio."

"Commandah, nobody would blame you if you took an entire year off from the job." Nate announced. He put it in a tone that suggested that if anyone dared do the opposite, he'd separate them from their heads. Ed caught that note, and grinned.

"Henderson just is getting more grass to mow with all this medical leave I've been taking. I'm worried that the Commission is going to take him seriously, and put me out of a job. For now, though, we'll handle this problem with Alec's father." Ed rubbed his hand slightly, grimacing. Maggie glanced worriedly at it. "Damn thing is throbbing. No, Maggie, no time to worry about it. Everyone ready? Let's go."

They were dragging him back to his cell, and the open ulcers on his legs bounced agonizingly against the hard, wet earth. It was unbearably cold, and they'd deprived him of sleep, it was one of their favourite things to do to make his, and every other man in the camp's life miserable. Angel's clear, beautiful voice singing "Nearer, my God to thee" and they dropped him into his cell, and handed him a bowl, and he gulped the contents down, close to starving. What did God have to do with a hopeless place like this? What did God care about a bunch of prisoners tortured on an almost daily basis? They had shot Tank, and he'd watched his brains explode right in front of him. Brain matter and blood still stained his thin shirt, along with everything else. One guard laughed at him, saying something to him. He threw the bowl at the guard with all his might, a pathetic gesture as the guard slammed the door closed and it bounced harmlessly back at him. He screamed, and sobbed, and threw up what he'd just eaten.

"Uh no, God no!" Ed Straker screamed, eyes shut tightly and before Maggie could reach him, Alec did, speaking urgently to him, quietly to him. Ed opened his eyes, shaking like a jackhammer.

"Ed, it's okay, wake up, you're on the jet. It's Alec."

"Alec, Alec." Ed repeated. Alec frowned. He'd never seen Ed this shaken, this broken, dare he think it? This beaten. Ed retched some, forced it down, unbuckled his harness and ran to the bathroom, slammed the door. Alec looked at Maggie.

"He's going through hell, and I dragged him all the way out here," he admitted glumly.

Maggie wasn't in a mood to reassure Alec after seeing how starkly white Ed was. Nate was tense, and Devon looked uneasily up from where he'd been playing, making up his own adventures for his plush Greenteeth figurine. Maggie smiled at him, then found something lame to tell Alec.

"He'll be okay, Alec. I'll go see if he's all right."

Maggie got up, but Ed had headed back, his face visibly still slightly moist after throwing cold water on himself. He put up a hand, shook his head. Ed had earlier changed from his tuxedo into a pair of crisply tailored khaki colour slacks, and a long sleeved blue and white pinstriped shirt, but hadn't yet bothered with one of his bow ties.

"What's our ETA to Brisbane?" Ed asked wearily, yawning and stretching.

"Another three hours. Not too long now, as my stomach can tell you. It's doing gymnastics worthy of Olympic gold." Alec complained.

"I'll be there right with you, Alec, you know that. Who's picking us up?"

"My youngest sister Myra and my mum Wendi. Mum's driving. She'll probably put some cane toads and maybe a stray roo to their final rest on the way up and back." Alec informed Ed. Ed grinned.

"Isn't she a bit long in the tooth to be driving, Alec?" Maggie stated, surprised.

"She's built and bred in Queensland, like Dad. Age doesn't stop her, even at eighty-three. She runs the station, not my Dad or my inbred relatives. You and Ed will be the first Yanks she's ever seen up close. She's going to think Nate's Aborigine," grinned Alec.

"I was born within throwing distance of Kingston, so we'll have to cure her of that idea." Nate announced proudly, folding his arms. Ed chuckled at him.

"I hear Australia has a number of beers better than Red Stripe, Nate."

"If that aunt blasphemy, I don't know what is, Mistah Strakah." Nate chuckled back. "Shouldn't you be trying to get back to sleep?"

"No, I think I'll break out the cards and win enough off you bunch to pay my credit card bills." Ed decided.

"Devon play cards too, Ed!"

"You want to play poker?" Ed chuckled at him. "But you have no money to bet, Devon. Unless we play for crayons," he added thoughtfully.

"I'll play for Devon, and we'll beat them real good, right?" Maggie said, winking as Ed unfolded a table and produced a deck that had the studio logo on them, shuffling them expertly.

"We win, Maggie!" Devon said happily.

"Now that's pure arrogance. Kid hasn't played yet." Alec snarled.

"Least he doesn't cheat like you do, Alec." Ed said, starting to deal. They chose and discarded cards.

"Close your flap and bet, Straker."

"Twenty, put up or shut up, Freeman."

"I'll see your twenty in my sleep and make it twenty-five."

"Twenty-five it is." Ed said, looking expectantly at Maggie, with Devon in her lap.

"Devon and I put up twenty-five and two crayons." Maggie told them.

"Two crayons?" Nate said.

"Two crayons. Stakes too high for you? Want out, Zouri?"

"No way, Mistah Strakah. Twenty-five, and uh, can I borrow two crayons from you, Devon?"

"Think Nate is good for it, Devon?" Ed asked the boy, who clearly had no idea what was going on, but was blissful.

"Nate nice." Devon said.

"All right then. Can Alec and I borrow crayons too?"

"Tell them you want collateral, Devon."

"Thanks ever so much, Maggie. Okay, how about my wristwatch, and one of Alec's cufflinks?" Ed offered.

"Done." Maggie said. "Let's see what you have, Nate."

"Three tens." Nate said hopefully.

"Look at this and weep, Zouri. Flush." Ed fanned his cards, face up.

"Pitiful!" Alec showed his full house.

"Ha!" Maggie said triumphantly. "Straight flush!"

Ed sighed dramatically, passed Maggie the pot and unbuckled his wristwatch.

Nate and Alec groaned, and Alec pushed his cufflink over to Maggie sorrowfully.

"Yay! We win, Devon!"

"Yay, Maggie!" Devon bounced in her lap.

"I wouldn't celebrate yet. Going to get the pot and my wristwatch back before the plane lands," Ed announced in a ruthless manner.

"In your dreams, Straker." Maggie sneered.

Maggie was a tad premature. In the end, two and a half hours later, her husband had not only all her spare money and her necklace, but Nate and Alec's, and along with his wristwatch he owned both of Alec's silver and opal cufflinks plus his belt. He even won his Godzilla sweatshirt and the entire crayon box, but decided to be altruistic, and gave everyone's personal property back. Devon was particularly relieved.

"You aren't refunding our cash?" Alec professed shock, as Maggie put her necklace back on, grinning at him.

"The scourge of war, Alec. Had to draw the line somewhere."

"How am I supposed to buy pressies for Mum?" Alec asked weakly.

"Should have thought of that before, Alec," Nate said, inspecting his empty wallet in misery.

"Oh stuff it, Zouri," Alec complained, and Ed laughed.

"No need to make things worst for him, Nathaniel. I'll lend him my credit cards. I think something's left on them after Hong Kong." Ed's mobile rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. "Straker. Hello, Doctor. I'm not bad, hasn't been too bad. Yes, all right. What? But that's ridiculous! Why? But-but-yes, I understand. Yes. But my reputation is immaculate! You have to be joking! Rutland's shooting? She did? I can't believe it! How dare she say-Yes. Yes. Yes, I know. No, I haven't any idea. Yes, I'll do it. I said I'll do it! Goodbye, Doctor. Thanks for calling. What? Oh yes, sure I will. Goodbye." Ed threw the mobile phone onto the couch like it had been a stinging insect and vanished into his cabin.

Devon cut into the disturbed group's alarmed silence by wailing.

"Bad thing, Maggie! Bad thing!"

"What is, Devie? What's wrong?" Maggie hugged him, but he went on screaming. She rocked him and looked helplessly at Nate. Alec, on the other hand ignored both of them and opened Ed's cabin door. He took a deep breath when he saw his friend. Ed's head was bent, his face hidden by his palms.

"Ed, what happened?" Alec said softly, sitting down next to Ed on his bed. Ed looked up, sorrowful.

"How am I supposed to tell him, Alec? I don't know how to tell him. I can't bear to break his heart!"

"Bad news?"

Ed drew his arm across his face to wipe it of tears.

"They've refused Maggie's and my application to adopt Devon. They're placing him with another family as soon as we get back to England. They said we aren't able to offer him a stable enough home life, and that I've gotten myself involved in questionable practices, like that whole mess with Rutland and Daniel Aster last year. They talked to people who know me. They talked to Mary. She told them about that whole damn mess. I can't believe it, Alec. I can't believe, even after how she lied to me last time, that she'd do this. I can't tell Devon, not yet. I just can't."

"I never should have inflicted that bitch on you, Ed. And it's too late to worry about Devon finding out. He's in there, crying. He knows, somehow he knows. Lily, for all her nonsense, was right about him. He's psychic."

"Dear God. All right. All right. I'll talk to him." Ed got up. He went into the main area of the jet, with Alec following him. The fasten seat belt and extinguish cigarettes sign had buzzed on. Ed ignored it and bent over Devon, who clung to Nate from where he'd been strapped in, quieter, but still tense.

"Devon. " All of Ed's agony was in that one word.

"Not want to talk to Ed."

"Devon, tell me what's wrong."

"Bad thing. No live with Maggie and Ed. Bad thing. Go away."

" Yes. I'm afraid so. I am so sorry, Devon. If there had been anything I could have done, but our first two appeals were already turned-"

"BAD THING! Not like Greenteeth! Not like Neilly! Devon not like Ed anymore! Go away!" the boy screamed, turning his face away. Ed looked devastated.

"Devon," Nate said sharply. Ed shook his head at Nate, and Nate frowned. Ed's shoulders fell, and he assumed the emotionless mask of the stoic Shado commander, dropped into a seat beside Maggie, who was already strapped in to prepare to land.

"Ed." Maggie said softly. Ed didn't respond, staring, not appearing to see or hear any of them. He didn't bother with his seatbelt, and Maggie reached over and buckled it for him, then looked at Alec. Alec bit his lip.

Nate had reluctantly agreed to go to the hotel with Devon, while Maggie, Ed and Alec went up to the entrance of the airport to wait. They'd been there at least ten minutes already. Ed was subdued and quiet. Maggie was desperately trying to think of something she could do for him. The bastards! It wasn't only a personal affront to Ed, but they'd rejected her as well. They'd totally ignored what Devon wanted, too. And Alec had quietly informed her that Ed's ex had played a part in it, and he'd tell her the whole sordid story later. For once, I'd like to be Lily, so I could hex that woman for what she's done to Ed, Maggie thought. All I can do for now is try to make Ed understand that Devon doesn't really hate him.

"Ed, listen."

"Margaret, not now. We'll get this matter sorted out later, I promise. Alec, what kind of car will your mother be driving? Because that woman is waving at us." Ed pointed out. Already he was sweating heavily in the early afternoon sun, and he removed his black jacket.

"Car? Mother will be driving her truck with the caravan that's her pride and joy attached to it. Big aluminum job. Judging by that honking, that's Mum all right. Come on."

"Alec! Alec dear! Just look at you! Doesn't he look beaut? Myra, you go unlock the caravan and oh my-but I can hardly believe it! My baby!" A woman had hopped out of the truck like a Joey might, and Ed was amused in spite of himself.

"Mum!" Alec grumbled, but he swept the tiny woman with the leathery skin into his arms, where she practically disappeared. Ed watched them, mood improving a little. This little petite thing had given birth to Alec Freeman? She was hardly over five feet, her wrinkles were bigger than she was. However she had a grin about as big as the outback, and a trim figure, and brown, tightly curled hair in need of another dye job, it was already coming in white at the roots. The one she'd called Myra was a taller, younger and pregnant version of herself. She wore a long denim skirt and denim jeans, and lace up boots. The only makeup she had on was a rather dark red lipstick, and it stood out on her face. Myra had on a flowered shift, which looked as if it was the only thing her bulk could fit into, Ed noted.

"So did you kill anything on the way over here, Mum? Hi Myra!"

"Hi yourself, Alec. Good to see you." Myra said in what sounded like the opposite. Ed guessed from the size of her swollen body that she was close to term. That made him think of Beryl, and he suddenly wished Devon was with him, but that was moot.

"Alec Freeman, you hush, now. Introduce me to your friends. Especially this good looking one who looks like he could use a coldie." Wendi examined Ed like he was a piece of meat she was about to slice up for sandwiches, Mags noted.

"That one is the movie executive I was telling you about. My mate Ed. Ed this is my mum, Wendi Freeman. This is Myra, my sister. Myra, this is Ed and Margaret Straker."

"G'day, Ed! It's a pleasure to meet you. Sun getting to you? " She took Ed's good hand in her own. She had a strong , firm handshake. Ed was grateful she didn't ask about his bandages. Myra didn't shake hands, just smiled shyly.

"Hotter here than England, I admit. Hello, Mrs. Freeman." Ed replied, wondering what a coldie was, and resolving to ask Alec later.

"Oh none of that, I'm Wendi, we're all easy here. Any mate of my son's is a mate of mine. What a charming accent you have, you sound like a Pommie, but Alec tells me you're a Yank! First one I've met in the flesh, too. "

"I was born in Boston, in the States." Ed smiled. She was hard not to like.

"And who is this lady again? She your missus, Ed?"

"Hi, I'm Mags, and yeah, I'm his wife. Nice to meet you. Sorry that your husband is so ill."

"Jack's crazier than a dingo stuck on barbed wire. I married him, though, better than a poke in the eye with a stick. Alec, love, he didn't really want you to come, you know. Little white lie."

"Giving me the raw prawn, eh, Mum? Is this like when you didn't tell me for days that you ran over my kelpie Max with the truck, and I kept trying to find him?" Alec grinned at her. Her confession didn't surprise him, Ed noted. Nor did she seem overly upset by her husband's impending demise, and yet Alec had said she was hysterical on the phone. Odd.

"Mongrel never had any sense, anyway. Couldn't catch a sheep if he tried. Myra, you and Mags get into the caravan, and Alec, you and Ed sit up front with me."

She said it in a tone that didn't invite argument. Which, Ed mused, didn't go over well with Maggie. Well, he wasn't going to let Maggie spend the drive like that.

"If you don't mind, I'll go in back with Myra, and you three sit up front." Ed said succinctly, and walked with Myra to the back of the caravan. Myra looked a little amused as she opened the door, and Wendi looked surprised, but shrugged. In a couple of moments Ed disappeared into the back, and Mags was wedged uncomfortably next to Wendi in the truck. Wendi fiddled with the radio, found a station she liked, and they drove without conversation for several minutes, and every now and then Mags imagined she saw something in the bush, looking weakly at Alec, who patted her hand.

"Your mate looked a bit crook, Alec. He not enjoying the trip out here to Oz?" Wendi asked, picking up more speed, and not looking all that compassionate of Ed after he defied her wanting a handsome Yank up front. Mags guessed Wendi wasn't used to the word no, and she grinned. In her seventies, and still Ed had made her head turn. That's my Ed, Mags thought. Female magnet.

"He just got a bit of bad news, and he's sorting it out. He'll be all right." Alec didn't sound convinced, and even Mags gave him a look.

"He's not as flash as a Rat with a gold tooth as I imagined he'd be. You sure he's an dinkum Yank?"

"What?" Mags said. Alec grinned at her.

"Mum's saying Ed isn't as outgoing and loud as she expected Americans to be, especially studio executives. Mum watches too many Yank telly programmes from the satellite."

"Ed's not your average movie mogul, no. Besides, what Alec was referring to was that Ed and I were trying to adopt an child, a little learning disabled nine year old, we just found out they won't let him have him. We were hoping to bring him with us, but he was so upset we thought it best we leave him at the hotel we'd booked a room at." Mags explained, wiping her forehead, and wondering how Ed was handling the heat. Not to mention the company of a woman who was pregnant, unavoidably dredging up sad memories in him.

"Sorry, but the air conditioner is already turned up full, bit of a pain I know, it's never worked right. It'll only take two hours to get to the station, and you'll feel better there, Mags."

"Mum, bloody hell, you've got Myra and Ed back there in that monster, they must be sweltering in that thing, with Myra preggers and ready to pop any minute." Alec complained, cranking down the window and then cranking it quickly up again when a blast of wind spat a wave of heat and dust at him.

"No need for the aggro, Alec, fans back there work fine, and there's food and water in the fridge, you didn't think I'd bring Myra eight and a half months gone if it was as bad as you say it is? Besides, that caravan is my pride and joy, you know that, only peace I get when everything around me has gone sour. Honestly, Alec, you think I'd bring Myra out here in this heat if she hadn't wanted to go?"

"Mum, you've never forgiven her for marrying Donald because he wasn't from Queensland. So I didn't think you'd be too fond of what happened to his whelps."

"He beats her," Wendi said, and Mags? mouth fell open.

"If he really did, it's probably good for her, she never liked me anyway." Alec grinned. Mags sunk down in her seat in relief.

Wendi flashed a grin at Alec.

"You've got an attitude big as the outback on you, Alec Freeman. You mind where you are. You're home, boy. Which is where you should have stayed, and not gone off, turning your back on the family business, breaking your Dad's heart."

"Oh don't be a boofhead, Mum. If you had the chance to go, you would have, same as me. So would Jack. His Dad left him with that damn station, and he didn't have the guts to go seek his own fortune, same way I did. It has never been Romeo and Juliet between you and Jack, so don't pretend it was. So what was all the carrying-on about over the phone really about?"

"You know what it's about. This is the last chance you have to patch up things between you and Jack. We both know that you and I are the only ones who really cared about what happens to him. He's got pride, boy, he'd never ask for you now that he's dying and full of morphine. Why, he wouldn't cry out if they took an ax to both his legs, you're both wool from the same jumbuck, you know it, Alec, love."

"He's always hated me for running off like that. He's never given me a kind word."

"Sounds to me like he's punishing you, Alec," Mags put in thoughtfully. "For doing what he couldn't."

"What did you say, dear?" Wendi asked Mags.

"Maggie's a psychiatrist by trade," Alec said, grinning at his Mum's barely contained ill mood at being interrupted by a Yank.

"You don't say. And here Alec and I are chatting away like a pair of galahs, giving you the earbash. Maybe you can talk sense into Jack, devil knows I've tried."

"Oh that would be the day. My Dad listening to a Yank, and a Sheila at that. The heat's making you troppo, Mum." Alec chuckled.

"I'm willing to try. If I could get Ed to listen to me, I can get anyone to listen to me." Mags said defiantly.

"I'm willing to bet your Ed isn't the no hoper my Jack is." Wendi told Mags.

" You don't know my husband. Getting my Ed to do anything positive for himself is like, is like--"

"Trying to move Ayers rock?" offered Wendi, warming to Mags. Mags grinned.

"That's my husband. He's taking Devie's, the little boy we wanted to adopt, reaction to heart. Devon's blaming him for what's happened. When in the end, it isn't anyone's fault at all. That might be the way things are between Alec and his Dad."

Wendi opened her mouth to say something, but sounds of insistent banging against the caravan wall stopped her, and both Alec and Mags exchanged worried looks. Wendi made a sudden stop that would have thrown them both out of their seats if it hadn't been that both had wisely strapped themselves in. Mags felt that all her bones had been knocked off her spine.

"Mum, how did you ever get your driving license?" Alec complained, and had his seat belt off in a jiffy, working his way out and to the back of the truck where the caravan was hitched.

"You whinge like a Pommy." Wendi said after his disappearing form, but opened her door and slid out calmly. Maggie hurried to the back to join Alec. Alec was fiddling with the lock nervously.

"Not like that, you fossil. Let me," Wendi insisted.

Alec started to protest, but then a loud, long scream came from the interior of the caravan. Mags turned white, it took her several seconds to realise the scream had not been from a male. The door opened and Ed stood there framed in the doorway, grim, tired looking, sleeves rolled up. In back of him, Myra lie with her legs bent and splayed apart, on a small cot, breathing heavily.

"Myra's gone into labor. I tried calling for an ambulance on my mobile. Took me a while to remember to dial the three zeros as opposed to England's triple nine. Didn't work, so Myra showed me where the two way was. I've been assured help is on the way. Seems Myra's water just broke, she's been having contractions all day. It would help if you went and stayed with her, Mrs. Freeman. Help her breathe through the contractions until the flying doctors come."

"Fool girl! She never once told me she was hurting. And she isn't to term yet either. Sheep has more brains than she does." Wendi said, getting into the caravan.

"Your attitude isn't going to help her. And I'm no expert, but she looks close to being completely dilated, and effaced. Maggie, what do you remember of - Maggie, you wouldn't faint on me, would you? For crying out loud, you studied medicine before you got your degree in psychiatry. Never mind, you look green." Ed allowed himself a quick smile as Mags sat down in a chair, none too steadily, eyes as big as saucers.

"She don't know nothing about birthing no babies, Miss Scarlet," Alec cracked. Ed gave him a look that said Over-kill-you-when-this-is-over. Mags couldn't help it, she chuckled.

"Fine, I can handle this alone if I have to," Ed said. Alec enjoyed the look on his Mum's face at what she thought was Yank male arrogance.

"And what would you know about childbirth, Ed? What would any man know of the trials and tribulations women go through?" Wendi scoffed. Myra started to moan, and grasp the sides of the cot. Wendi looked down at her. "Hurts, doesn't it. That's what you get for going off with Donald," she said to Myra, who was past caring at that point. "What would a man know about a woman giving birth?"

Alec shook his head and rolled his eyes. It was all Ed could stand, and he actually pushed Wendi aside. That caused Alec to laugh sharply at the shock on Wendi's face.

"A lot more than you know, Mrs. Freeman, judging by your attitude. Myra, I'm going to check you, all right, I'll be as gentle as I can. Another one coming? Look at me, Myra. Breathe through it, the way I showed you. I need to see how dilated you are." With that, Ed rolled up her shift to her belly, as though he looked at women's genitals for a living and his eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"Myra, the worst of it is over, you're ready. Try and relax as much as you can between contractions. Alec, come over here, and don't give me that look, either. I need you to hold her up and support her from behind as she pushes. Maggie, get me some more ice chips from the bucket over there."

"He bloody sounds like he knows what he's doing," Wendi said in surprise.

"He's trained in first aid. He knows all right," Maggie said proudly, scurrying to do what Ed said. She came over, had an involuntary glance at Myra she would have preferred not to have, and bit her lip.

"Put some ice chips in her mouth. Alec, that's right, good." Ed caught Mags' expression. "Never seen a woman ready to deliver, huh? You'll live. "

"Have you?" Mags demanded, trying to get some semblance of dignity back.

Ed looked up at Maggie from where he was crouching, holding Myra's legs apart.

"As a matter of fact, only in textbooks." Ed smiled boyishly. Myra began to groan as she sucked on the ice chip. "Contraction, Myra?"

"Starting," she said breathlessly. "A big one. A killer."

"Hold her up, Alec, yes, like that. Myra, take a deep breath like I showed you. Good."

"Strewth, it hurts!" Myra shrieked wildly at Ed.

"Hold her up higher, good. Myra, push! Push! Push like your life depended upon it!"

Myra's face contorted, she clenched her teeth, and her agonising scream echoed off the walls. She collapsed back against Alec, gasping. Ed smiled.

"That was terrific, you're beginning to crown, take another breath, and push!"

Myra squeezed her eyes shut, and screamed again, but sank back against Alec for a moment. She opened her eyes and looked in terror at Ed.

"I can't do this. I've never had it so terrible before, the pain. I can't do this-oh my GOD! JESUS!" Myra screamed, clawing the cot, hysterical. "It's ccccommmmmingggggg-"

" Alec, hold her up again! PUSH, Myra! PUSH! That's it! That's great! PUSH!" Ed commanded her, holding her legs further apart. Mags looked on with astonishment as something dark and fuzzy wedged its way out, and with excitement, she realized it was the baby's head. It thrust through the vaginal opening, with Myra screaming like she was being stabbed. Myra fell back against Alec, sobbing brokenly. Ed was gently wiping off the tiny protruding head, and cleaning its nose and mouth with his handkerchief. Ed was the coolest one in the group, Mags noticed. Nothing of what he had to be feeling was showing on his face.

"No more, please, for the love of God, no more!" she begged Ed. "It's burning me something fierce!"

"Maggie, redampen that cloth and wipe her face with the cold water. Myra, you're doing fine. Couple more strong ones and you'll have a new son or daughter." Ed felt Myra's belly harden, and she screamed again as a new contraction hit. "No time to breathe! PUSH! PUSH hard! Harder! Alec, hold her up more, yes, that's it. Myra, PUSH!"

Myra screeched, a spray of blood and fluid shot out on Ed's shirt, and the shoulders began to emerge. Finally, Ed gently guided the entire baby out. It began to yell mightily at him, as if knowing Ed was responsible for its ordeal. Myra sank back onto Alec, and he kissed her on the cheek, and grinned at her.

"You owe me for this, Myra." Alec said. "You owe me big time."

Wendi shook her head in awe at Ed.

"Not half bad for a Yank. Wait, I think I hear the plane coming," Wendi said, and went out to check.

"Myra, you have a beautiful baby girl, who doesn't like me too much at the moment. Just let me get her cleaned off, and the cord taken care of, and you can nurse her. That might quiet her down. Didn't have much time to sterilize anything other than with hot water, so its important those medics get here." Ed tied off and then cut the cord. Mags completely forgot her squeamishness and looked down at the tiny yapping thing. Ed wrapped her in his jacket, and smiled tenderly at her.

"She's yelling like a bunyip, she is. Let me have her." Myra cooed wearily.

Ed reluctantly handed her over, watching Myra nurse her as a couple of medics unfolded a stretcher, and another one came in. Alec and Ed and Maggie and Wendi went out. Ed walked off in no particular direction, and finally settled wearily on a large rock. Mags trotted over to see how he was. He looked absolutely exhausted. But then he was the only man on the planet that looked gorgeous in that state.

"The dry-cleaner at the hotel will never get those stains out of that Turnbull and Asser." She grinned at him.

"I was thinking of putting it under Lucite and framing it anyway. Not every day a man gets to deliver a baby."

"I didn't think you were going to give it to her."

Ed looked at her, smiled with a tinge of sadness.

"I did have a selfish moment there, yes I admit it, but I didn't want that little bunyip thinking I was its new Daddy. You okay?"

"I'm fine. How do you feel?"

"Tired. My hand hurts." he admitted, inspecting it.

"You were incredible, Ed." Mags uttered softly. Ed shrugged.

"I was all right. Could have been a lot worst. Could have been breech, she could have bled more. Fortunately she had a short labor, and it was an uneventful birth. Myra was a trouper. Shouldn't surprise me so much. After all, she's a Freeman." he smiled.

"Come on, hero. Let's go back to the truck."

"I don't feel like a hero, Maggie. Not after what I did to Devon," Ed intoned gravely.

"Oh horsepiss, Ed! You tried. Give the boy a little time, he'll understand that. Why must you always beat up on yourself?"

Ed sighed, got to his feet. Mags took his hand and led him back to the truck.

Ed had his head on Mags' shoulder, dozing, when Wendi reached the station, kicking up a dust cloud when she pulled to a stop with her usual lack of finesse. Ed jerked awake. Alec grinned at him.

"My mum's the best driver in all of Queensland, Ed."

"You hush, Alec, boy." A tall swarthy man came out of the front door and toward the truck as Ed and the others unbuckled their seat belts and got out of the truck.

"What delayed you, Mum?" he said. Then he saw Alec. "You look the same, Alec. The years have been good to you. Can't say the same for Dad. Can't say I like the idea of Mum bringing you home in time to see the old man die, but Mum is Mum."

"Good to see you too, George," Alec retorted, an edge to his voice. Ed looked at George, whom he remembered to be Alec's oldest brother, and despised him on the spot.

"Hush Georgy, Myra went into labour and delivered another girl. We had to wait for the flying doctor. You should have been there, this mate of Alec's delivered the baby. Was like something on Casualty. Ed was bonza. This is Ed Straker and his wife Maggie. "

"G'day, Ed. I'm George Freeman." The man stuck out a hand to Ed, and Ed did an about face, looking at Wendi.

"I'd like to wash up, if I may," Ed said patiently. George gawked at Ed, but Alec smiled, appreciating the show of solidarity. Mags grinned, taking Ed's arm, and ignoring George.

"I'll show you where, just follow me. George, how's the old man?" Wendi said, stealing a look at Ed, but Ed remained impassive.

"Sleeping. Doctor came by, gave us the refill for his medications, and said he's pretty close to the edge. Glad you're back, Mum."

"Thanks love. I'll show Ed and Maggie where the toilet is and then I'll look in on the devil."

That evening, Ed, Mags, Alec, Wendi, George and a woman that he introduced as his fiancée Rose, and another of Alec's sisters, Hazel, all sat on the veranda, drinking beers or lemonades out of bottles, and eating beef stew with homemade bread for supper. One of Alec's brothers, Harry, had gone into town to get supplies and hadn't rejoined them yet. Alec's father was still asleep, under the care of a nurse, and every so often Wendi would go in and check on him. Once in a while one of the numerous insects zooming around would fly into the bug zapper, and meet its end in a loud sizzle. Ed noted the body count so far was seven. Ed sat comfortably with bowl in lap, legs crisscrossed on a stool, comfortable and clean after having borrowed a long sleeved shirt from Wendi that belonged to Alec's Dad Jack. It was a deep, dusky blue, and Mags seriously considered stealing it just so Ed could wear it everyday, since it set off his eyes. She also noticed that Rose kept looking at Ed when she thought he wasn't noticing. Mags wondered if she could hang police evidence tape around Ed's head. Warning : Do not cross. But she smiled at the slim woman politely, while privately wishing Rose would fly into the bug zapper. The woman was talking about her upcoming marriage to George. Apparently she was a devout Catholic, (yeah right, Mags thought, the way she's undressing my husband with her eyes?) and was planning a wedding that would make Lady Di's look shabby.

"When are you getting married, Alec boy?" Wendi asked her son. Alec looked at Wendi in mid-swig of his fourex, which Ed had been relieved to hear was a brand of beer, and not a porn film rating. Ed was still having problems translating Aussie slang into English.

"I'm considering it," Alec said quietly.

"Bugger me dead. You've actually met a Sheila you're thinking of marrying?" Wendi asked, dubious. Alec grinned at her.

"Her name is Yetunde Folsade, Mum. She's a cardiologist. She's Ed's doctor, actually. Did surgery on him a couple of months ago as a matter of fact."

"Bad ticker, Ed?"

"Slight problem. All taken care of," Ed assured Wendi.

"What kind of name is Yetunde?" George wanted to know.

"A female name," Ed said. Mags looked down into her beef stew quickly, hoping no one saw her grin at Ed's hostility toward Alec's brother.

"I was just asking, mate, no need to go berko over it." George stared at Ed. Ed dipped a piece of his bread into his stew without comment. It was delicious and he found he was starving.

"Have you got a photo of this Sheila, Alec? She must be something!" Hazel said.

"Photo?" Alec said it as if he'd been a caveman in the ice age and she'd suggested he buy an electric heater to thaw out.

"Photo, Alec. You know. Taken with a camera. Picture cranks out," Maggie teased.

"I do." Ed put his bowl down and reached for his wallet. Mags gawked at him. He grinned a little at her. "I foresaw this coming, so I tore Yetunde's picture out of the Mayland staff brochure." Ed took a folded piece of paper out, and handed it to Wendi. George, Hazel, and Rose came over to look at it. Mags, on the other hand, made a mental note to see what other photos her unpredictable husband kept in his wallet, vowing to kick him hard if she wasn't in there.

"You going to have a bunch of little dark babies, Alec?" Hazel asked teasingly. She had dark salt and pepper hair swept up with bright barrettes and was somewhere in her forties, and had seemed genuinely glad to see Alec.

"I don't even know if Yetunde wants children. She does have a little sister, six years old, into Japanese cartoons, anime. She works for Ed too. He's on the board of the hospital she works for."

"I thought you said he ran a movie studio," Wendi said to Alec.

"Ed runs Harlington-Straker studios too," Mags said. She jumped as Hazel shrieked in excitement.

"You're that Straker?"

Ed had been taking out his mobile to call Nate, now he hesitated.

"What Straker?"

"The famous one, dearie! The one nobody hardly sees that the rags whisper about! The one that wears the sunglasses everywhere, and a pity it is, too, with eyes that blue! I saw you in Hello magazine once!"

"Sounds like Ed." Alec grinned.

Ed nodded unwillingly, suddenly desperately wanting the aviator sunglasses she was talking about.

"Guess I am."

"You are that Straker! Oooo, now, you have to sign your autograph for me!" Hazel squeaked like an overgrown mouse with a credit card in a cheese factory.

"Hazel, I just run the studio. I'm not in front of the cameras. I don't sign autographs." Ed looked a bit desperately at Alec, who was enjoying Ed's discomfort immensely but Hazel was already rummaging in her jacket for a pad and pen. Mags grinned at them. The nurse came out of the house and went up to Ed, who was scrawling his name on a piece of paper for Hazel. He wound up scrawling it again four times for her husband and kids, and suddenly had a new appreciation for stars that had to do it on a daily basis.

"Sir? There's a call for you on the telephone."

"Thank you," Ed said, figuring it was Nate, and glad to escape the starry eyed celebrity chasing Hazel, if only for the moment. He went inside, following the nurse, and sat down to answer the phone.

"Straker. Hmm? Yes, yes, this is Ed Straker. Who? Oh. How do you do, Donald. How is Myra. Heh heh, yes, I hear her all right. Oh, look, it was my pleasure, I was glad I could help. Tell Myra she was wonderful, and that she's welcome. So mother and baby are okay? Good, good. What? You what? Myra insisted on it? Heh heh, in that case, how could I refuse. All right. Yes I will. God bless you too. Have a good night, Donald."

Mags came into the room and smiled at Ed.

"I caught the tail end of that. How's Myra?"

"Probably more enamored of me than she should be. It seems that was their third daughter, and they're going to call her Edwina in my honour. I could hear Edwina yelling loudly over the phone, in spite of Dad's efforts to let her mum rest."

"A little pissed off moody Edwina Straker, huh?" Mags tittered. "That sounds like someone I know."

"Looks like it." Ed yawned, pulled out his mobile and tapped in a number. "Damn, this thing just isn't working right. I think when I threw it I worked a wire loose or something. Let me borrow that eyesore of yours, will you? I want to call Nate and tell him we'll be staying here overnight. Wendi's allowed us the use of the caravan."

"Ooooh, just me and the famous Ed Straker in that honeymoon cottage on wheels?" Mags said, giving him her yellow Nokia, and doing a decent imitation of Hazel. Ed made a face at her.

"Think again, Mags. That caravan sleeps four. I'm going to be in it with you and Ed." Alec said, walking in and settling down on the beaten looking couch next to Ed, beer bottle in hand. He set it down and grinned at Mags' expression.

"So much for my adventure in the romantic Outback," Mags complained.

"Considering how much of that beer you've put away, Alec, you'll be using the toilet all night. Maggie and I won't get any sleep," Ed said, dialing the hotel number. Ed spoke briefly to Nate, who assured him that Devon was fine. Ed explained that they were too tired to go back, and would spend the night there. He made his good-byes, and handed Mags back her phone. Wendi chose that moment to go by them into another room. Alec watched her go by.

"I have a bone to pick with you, Ed," Alec said.

"Take a number," Ed said wearily.

"You actually pushed my Mum out of the way back there." Alec growled. Mags grinned at him.

"Did I? So I did. She was making that poor woman feel miserable, when all day she'd been in a lot of pain, thinking it was just Braxton-Hicks, when it was the real McCoy. And I just talked to her Donald. He may not be Queensland bred and born, but he was polite and grateful that his poor wife was all right. Myra's a sweet girl. It couldn't have been easy for her to trust me enough to listen to me, when she'd only met me a few minutes ago. She didn't even want me to make Wendi stop so I could get help. She was terrified, but the baby was coming so fast she didn't have time to protest a stranger's assault on her modesty. So yes, Alec, I did push your mother. I'd do it again." Ed folded his arms.

"I thought I was going to wet myself over the way Mum looked at you," cackled Alec. Ed grinned at him, nodded.

"Did she really run over your pet dog?" Ed wanted to know.

"I was about twelve years old, and I'd made one of the sheepdogs, we call them kelpies here, my own because nobody liked him. Max, he wasn't the brightest or the best of the bunch, matter of fact he was scared of the sheep." Alec grinned broadly.

Ed laughed and Mags giggled.

"Go on." Ed urged.

"Not much to go on about. One day he was there, and the next he wasn't. I looked all over the outback for him. It took Mum a month to admit she ran the poor bastard over, learning to drive, if you call what she does behind the steering wheel driving, and had buried Max in the yard. I cried for an hour, and then I gave Max the biggest funeral a kelpie ever had. Mum even had the local reverend over to do it up right, she felt so guilty." Alec chuckled.

Mags winced. Ed shook his head. Then Mags grinned suddenly as a thought hit her.

"I think this trauma explains why you have so many affairs. Just when you want to commit, your subconscious figures any Sheila you marry will eventually run you over with a truck too." Mags giggled. Ed grinned at her.

"And we won't find out what happened until a month goes by," Ed added, with a chuckle.

"Talking about truck driving sheilas, you know something? I miss Yetunde." Alec sighed.

"That doesn't bode well for your eternal vow of lack of chastity, Alec. You're so close to the altar I can hear the wedding bells and smell the rice." Ed smiled.

"No church for us. We've talked of doing it proper at the registry office, and then getting married in a traditional Nigerian wedding ceremony in Africa."

"That sounds terrific. So why haven't you done it?"

"Cold feet. I'm not the only one, either. She-" Alec stopped, and Ed turned to see what he was looking at.

In a corner, assisted by Wendi and the nurse, was Jack Freeman, Alec's father. He was a small, withered man in a plaid robe, flesh and bones, and what little had remained of his hair was now totally gone. Whatever resemblance he may have had to his eldest son was gone as well. Jack appeared to be still living on will power alone. He leaned heavily on a stick. Abruptly he picked it up and brandished it at Alec.

"Get out of my house, you worthless dag! Get out! If you think I'm leaving you a pound in my will, you're dead wrong!"

"That's a lot of codswallop, Dad, and you know it. I never wanted your money or this station. Mum pulled a fast one on me and told me you wanted me to come and see you before you died. But I won't spend a moment longer in this house." Alec got up, hands balled into fists, shaking, and would have stormed outside but Ed caught his arm and held it like a claw. Alec fumed, but loyalty to his commander won out over personal need, and he stayed. Ed let his arm go, with a slight nod. Mags was silent, knowing this confrontation was inevitable, feeling the anger building in Ed. When Ed felt there was some injustice being done, his wrath could be as lethal as any deadly snake one might find in the Outback, Mags thought, and she was glad of it. She waited, and he didn't disappoint her.

"Are you a Godfearing man, Sir?" Ed's distinctive voice was like the crack of a rifle shot at close range. Jack turned his wrath on Ed.

"Who the fucking hell are you?"

"I'm Ed Straker, and your son Alec has been my friend for a long, long time. And I won't stand here, guest in your house or not, and have him be demeaned by you or anyone else. So if you want to throw him out, then you'll have to throw me out first. And then when you go to face your God, you'll have to answer to why you have made your own son's life a living misery when it's plain as the nose on your face that he loves and respects you."

"What the hell right do you have to judge me, you filthy son of a bitch Yank?"

"Please Jack. No need to go aggro. I asked Alec here, you damn fool. He's telling it right."

"Shut up Wendi." Jack snarled at her.

"Jack, you old goat, be sensible," Wendi told him. He drew back a hand misshapen with age and slapped her across the face. Ed rose to his feet affronted, Mags gasped in shock, and Alec came running over to Wendi. She stood there, holding her burning cheek.

"Mum," Alec said softly. George and the others peered into the room, looking on in various stages of discomfort and interest like bystanders at a traffic accident.

"Oh, Alec, boy, let him have his due before the cancer claims him. It isn't the first time he's hit me, you know. Besides, the old fool has nothing else to do to prove he's a man, have you, Jack? Oh don't stand there like a bunch of jumbucks waiting to be sheared." Wendi laughed at them, seeing them gather round. "Come in, the fun's only begun. Shall I tell them the real reason you hate your firstborn, shall I, Jack?" Wendi asked shrilly.

"You miserable drongo. You'll follow me into hell, I promise you that," Jack said, but he seemed dwarfed by her threat, and suddenly he shuffled off toward his bedroom by himself, and closed the door behind him, with the nurse looking helplessly on. Wendi sank to the couch, sobbing, and the others quietly went off in different directions, leaving Ed, Mags and Alec alone with her.

"Mum. What the devil was that all about?" Alec asked, mystified.

"Oh Alec boy. You always were my favourite. When you left to seek your fortune, a part of me longed to go with you. I'm to blame for all this, I am. I just couldn't tell you, I just couldn't share my shame with you. I never could tell you the truth about anything, could I now?"

"Wendi. Who is Alec's father?" Ed asked quietly. Alec craned his head and gawked at him, and even Mags looked at Ed in astonishment. Wendi sort of nodded at Ed.

"You're a bright one. Alec told me you're a bright one. I've tried to lay doggo all these years, not saying anything. But you've guessed, haven't you, Ed? Good on yer, I'm glad Alec has someone as fair dinkum and true blue as you, Ed."

"I had the feeling this scene has been looping for a long time, yes." Ed nodded, folding his hands, and allowing things to unravel. Mags looked at her husband, starting to believe he was as psychic as Devon. Maybe Lily was right about both of them.

"Mum, what the flying crap is all this about? You're talking like you've gone troppo, Mum." Alec sat beside Wendi.

"Alec, boy. Try to understand. I don't want you to hate me. I couldn't take it if you hated me. Bugger all, I need a beer." Wendi picked up Alec's bottle and gave it several hard swigs until the beer was gone, and Ed figured Alec wasn't the only one with a steel lined stomach in the family. "Listen, I married Jack only because of this sheep station," she began again. "You've got to remember, Jack and his family before him started this station and they made a lot of money at it, too. I was just a poor girl from Queensland, that's all I was. My Dad had died and Mum and I were barely making a living doing odd jobs, and Jack and his kin had a fortune. It wasn't like it is now, with the threat of foot and mouth, and having to slaughter more sheep than we sell at market. We haven't been making any real profit for years now, just barely paying bills."

"Bugger all, Mum! Why didn't you tell me that? You never said word one in all the years we exchanged letters."

"It gets worst, boy. I decided I was going to catch Jack, build a future for myself. It all went perfectly. Until I met Reggie. I didn't mean for it to happen, Alec. I swear. But I fell in love, and while I was making preparations to marry Jack by day, by night I was in Reggie's bed. I got myself preggers by him. Jack found out, and you can imagine how he took it. He paid Reggie a lot of money to disappear, and Reg broke my heart by doing just that. It was close to our wedding day, and Jack didn't want to let people find out how I'd played him for a fool, so he went ahead with the wedding, and he took you as his. You're the son of Reg Cole, Alec. He died a long time ago at sea, I'm sorry."

"How could you do this, Mum? All this time I thought Dad hated me because I left, because I didn't want any part of the station and the sheep business. Now you're telling me he hates me because I'm someone else's bastard. Who else knows, Mum? Does George know? Hazel? Myra? Were you really going to expose your secret just to get back at Dad for getting rid of your lover? Did you care about what it would do to me?"

"I went a bit blotto on the suds tonight, Alec. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? You're sorry? All those years ago I thought I'd lost Dad, and now I have a Mum who's lied to me all my life." Alec jumped up and ran out. Ed stared at Wendi.

"You destroyed two lives, doing what you did." Ed intoned icily.

"I love my boy, Ed, I always have and I always will."

"Why? Because he's Alec Freeman, individual? Or because he's all you have of the man you lost? Because in this contest of circumstances there's really only one loser, and that's my friend Alec. Maggie, call Nate. Tell him to pick us up now. We're leaving. But not before I do something." Ed got up and went into Jack's bedroom as Mags pulled out her Nokia and did as Ed told her to do.

"Maggie, girl, I feel wretched. I need another cold one." Wendi went into the kitchen and came back with two beers, offered one to Maggie, who refused it.

"Do you think getting wasted is going to help? You ought to feel bad. You hurt two men. Your husband and your son."

"I love Alec. The way I loved Reg, and look what Reg did to me."

Mags shook her head.

"He left you for money."

"The scheming bugger bolted at the sign of Jack's cash, it was a massive cock-up."

"Horsepiss! You married Jack Freeman for the same reason! How can you sit there and condemn what Alec's real father did when you did the same thing? Boy you're a piece of work." Maggie sighed. Wendi began to sob heavily.

"I know, love. I know. What can I do to put things right?"

"Maybe tell your son and your husband you're sorry. Maybe own up to your responsibilities in this mess, and begin to heal. I know Alec. He'll forgive you. The question after that is, will you be able to forgive yourself?" Mags sighed, but she rubbed Wendi's shoulder as she sobbed.

The nurse looked in puzzlement as Ed came up. Jack was seated on the edge of his bed, wrapped in blankets, holding a beer. Ed thought he looked like a dead tree branch in winter, he was so thin. Ed saw for the first time that he had a portable pump of morphine implanted in his chest, allowing him to use it at will. He motioned the nurse away, and surprisingly she responded to the Shado commander's air of authority, and went out. Jack soon sensed that someone was there, and he looked at Ed defiantly.

"You're