Doc Rutherford leaned back in the chair, annotating his chart that he had on a clipboard. I sat silently, dressed only in boxers and sitting on the couch. I shook up the inhaler and took a hit off of it, coughing slightly afterwards. He looked at me and raised one busy white eyebrow.

"Cold?" He asked.

I took another hit off the inhaler then shook my head, holding my breath to the count of ten. Miss Lily-Rylee held my hand while they both waited for me to answer.

"First hit off the inhaler always makes me cough," I said, coughing slightly. "Don't know why."

Doc Rutherford just nodded. "It can take a while to get used to them. Any breathing problems?"

"He still smokes," Miss Lily-Rylee said, dropping the dime on me.

"You should stop," Doc Rutherford said, narrowing his eyes. "You've got severely damaged lungs. While you are healing at a good pace, I'd rather you stopped smoking."

I nodded, flushing slightly. "I picked it up again after my wife died," I admitted. "Hadn't touched cigarettes in years."

"No alcohol either. Stay easy on the salt and saturated fats. Eat plenty of vegetables and lean meats, make sure you eat fruit," he told me, standing up. "You're a little on the heavy side still, Sam. I'd like it if you dropped about fifteen pounds, but you're getting on up there and it gets hard for a man to keep trim at your age."

I just nodded along, thinking about the Nautilus weight lifting machine in one of the rooms, sitting next to the martial arts practice dummies.

"We'll worry about the weight later. Right now, the focus is on your intestines, lungs, and your knee," Doc Rutherford told me. "I'll bill TRICARE and have my secretary send you a bill for the co-pay."

"Thanks, Doc," I smiled. The tightness in my chest eased up.

"I'll see you out," Miss Lily-Rylee said, letting go of my hand and standing up.

I leaned back on the sofa as Miss Lily-Rylee walked Doc Rutherford all of twenty feet across the front room to the front door. To my surprise she went with him outside and it was several minutes before Doc Rutherford moved down the steps and Miss Lily-Rylee came back inside with a smile as she shut the door behind her.

"Glad to see your doing better, Sammy," She said. She moved to the kitchen, still talking. "I'll boil some skinless chicken breast then fry it up. You can have noodles, spinach, and fruit cocktail with it."

"Yay," I said, masking the fact that my stomach clenched. She routinely made a mess of the instant noodle packets, cooking them till they were mushy, and dumping the vegetables straight out of the can after draining them.

She gave me a bright smile that made the prospect of eating her cooking something pleasant and opened the fridge. I watched with interest as it made the back of her denim shorts rise up and give me a nice view of her plump butt.

That was still surprising to me. Pru had been wealthy Texas matron thin, my other lovers had all been military women in excellent physical shape, no extra body fat on them. Miss Mary-Beth and Miss Lily-Rylee were about as far on the other side of the spectrum as you could get.

The memory of Pru's slenderness rose up and for a minute I could almost see her standing in the front room, staring at me, biting her lip in worry as I laid on the couch recovering from injuries I'd suffered following Tony into another frantic and desperate fight.

I could almost hear her voice chiding me for following him again, for risking my life instead of accepting a desk or safe job, for charging into battle with my rifle, my Kevlar, and a big grin.

The hurt choked me for a moment.

you're the one who died. You left me all alone in a world I don't understand.

The thought was red and hot, tasted of copper and iron, and made heat rise up in my chest and my pulse pound in my head for a moment.

You said we'd be together the rest of our lives. You promised you wouldn't leave me.

For a moment I hated her. Hated her for never understanding what drove me to volunteer for risky operations, drove me to stick with Tony, drove me pit myself against my fellow man in the ultimate contest with the ultimate prizes.

Three-one-seven in life and death, brother, I'll always have your back. No matter what, Bomber, I'm with you, you just say the word.

Tony's voice.

You come home all busted up, worse than a rodeo, you wake up screaming at night, you keep following the Irish thug into Hell over and over. Why, Johnny? Why can't you just run your own site? Why do you keep following him?

Pru's voice.

We've had each other's back since Reception, Ant, I ain't leavin' ya now, brother. Three-one-seven in life and death.

My voice.

I grabbed the pills, undoing the cap and spilling one of them in my hand. I could plainly see 'For Intrusive Thoughts' on the bottle in bold type. I tossed one in my mouth, grabbed the glass of juice, and washed it down.

"Are you all right, Sammy?" Miss Lily-Rylee asked me.

"Head hurts," I lied, capping the bottle.

"Need some more juice?" She asked me, dumping the package of noodles into the cold water in the pot on the stove.

"Sure," I said, wincing as she turned the dial up to four to make the noodles boil.

She smiled as she came over, got my glass, refilled my orange juice, and brought it back.

"Your color's a lot better than it has been," she smiled, heading back into the kitchen. She put the juice away and grabbed out two chicken breasts.

"Feel better today," I told her. I watched as she ripped the skin off the two chicken breasts, throwing it into the garbage disposal. She sprayed a thick layer of artificial butter flavored no-stick spray into the Teflon frying pan, turned the burner up halfway, and slapped the two pieces of chicken into the pan. She turned and smiled at me. "It's nice to cook for you, Sammy."

I just nodded. She turned and dug in the cupboards, pulling out a can of fruit cocktail and a can of spinach.

I sighed as she opened them both up and drained them into the sink before turning on the water, hitting the garbage disposal for a minute, then turning the water and the disposal off. She walked back to the couch and I couldn't help but admire the way she swayed when she walked.

Foolish old man, watching a pretty young girl like her with such thoughts, Nagle teased me. Her voice was fainter than the other ones had been, meaning my pills were kicking in.

"You've got an appointment with physical therapy again on Monday. You aren't going to give me any trouble, are you?" She smiled.

I shook my head. "No, ma'am," I smiled. "Needs to be done if I'm going to be able to walk without limping or wearing a leg brace the rest of my life."

"I want you to use that cane, Sam," She said, pointing at the cane I'd left by the door. "It's there to help you in case your knee buckles."

"I know," I told her. I sighed. "I'm barely over 40 and everyone wants me to walk with a cane."

She leaned against me, rubbing my thigh with one small warm hand. "You said: it ain't the miles its how rough the road is' or something like that. You drove a rough road, Sam."

I just nodded.

She was warm against me, and soft. She even smelled good, of sunshine and woods and faintly of laundry detergent and good soap and healthy woman. I sighed, leaning into her, and closed my eyes.

look at you, rubbing against her! she's ten years younger than her! she's not your kind, she's a civilian and innocent! you're disgusting! look at you defiling Pru's memory...

The voice slowly dwindled away and I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"What's up, Sammy?" She asked. She sat up, still rubbing my thigh.

"Huh?" I asked, looking at her.

"What's with the big sigh?" She asked. She stood up, brushing her hands on her t-shirt and heading toward the kitchen.

"Just, thinking about days gone by," I said softly.

"You talk about them?" She asked me.

"To the shrink," I lied.

What was I supposed to say? That I violated international nuclear non-proliferation treaties like other people wrote bad checks? That I never went a single year without getting embroiled in a nasty international incident? That until I was put out in 1991 I never went a single year without ending up in the hospital?

Or maybe I should tell her I knew what it was like to strangle a man to death with my bare hands in the dark and cold? Or what it was like to see a teenage boy dressed in a uniform too big for him get stabbed in the heart with a hand over his mouth just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong uniform? That I'd ridden in the back of a truck through burning cities where the dead had managed to crawl out into the street, where they'd swelled up and were covered in flies and the stench of burnt and rotting meat, scorched metal, rotting blood, and burning concrete filled my nostrils?

I shook my head, banishing the thoughts back to wherever it was my subconscious kept them before any images could fully come up.

The painkillers were lowering my old defenses and the psychiatric medication was opening old wounds and long closed doors.

"Sammy?" She asked.

"Yeah?" I looked up at her.

"You all right?" She asked me. She was stirring the pot of noodles, trying to get the big dome of foam to go down before it spilled over onto the glass top of the stove.

"Yeah," I smiled.

It hurt my face.

"Tired?" She asked me.

"Yeah," I said, still smiling.

"You want me to stay with you till you go to bed?" She asked.

"You don't have to," I told her. "I'm sure you've got better things to do than help an old man into bed."

That made her laugh as she took the pan off the burner. "Yeah, because the men are just lining up to take me to the Bahamas or Vegas."

"I don't see why not, you're pretty and fun to be around," I told her honestly.

She stopped dead in the middle of scooping mushy noodles onto a plate. I could see the back of her neck turn red, her hair pulled up in a bun and giving no concealment.

"Stop teasing," She said suddenly, going back to dishing up.

"Sorry," I half-apologized.

When she finished dishing up she brought me the plate, with a knife and fork. The noodles were mushy, overdone, the spices from the packet not quite mixed right. The spinach was cold and wet. The chicken was seared on the outside and almost pink inside.

I ate every bit of it, sitting next to her on the couch.

After dinner we played video games for a little bit, then she went with me into the weight room and she sat and watched me go through exercises on the Nautilus. She didn't bother protesting some of the weights I was lifting, just frowned but stayed silent. Then she sat in the bathroom while I showered 'in case you fall', then helped me get into bed.

My knee buckled once in the hallway on the way to the master bath and again between the bath and the bed.

She didn't point it out, didn't say anything about it, just caught my weight and helped me.

I knew it was from working my legs so hard on the Nautilus, but the shame still burned.

Showering, breathing in the wet steam, left me gasping, sitting on the bed. She shook the inhaler and handed it to me, waiting for me to hand it back.

"I don't like how you're breathing," She told me. She stood up, pulling the blanket over me. "I'm going to tell my uncle I'm going to stay up here a couple of days then I'll be back with some night gowns."

"You don't have to," I told her. The tightness in my chest was easing up.

"No, I don't, but I want to and you aren't in any shape to fight me about it," She told me, smiling. She bent down, kissed my forehead, and left.

I laid there, in the dark, for a long time, eventually dozing off.

When she came back I woke up at the sound of her car pulling in, the tires crunching the gravel. My hand sought out and found the pistol in the dark and I was almost out of bed before I recognized the little putt putt engine in her beater car. I glanced at the clock and raised my eyebrows at the time.

It was nearly one in the morning.

I put the pistol back on the night stand, sitting up and waiting.

I heard her go into the bathroom, heard the toilet flush then the water run. After a bit she came into the bedroom.

"Oh, you're awake," she said.

"Heard you pull up," I told her.

She had on a nightgown, her hair out of the bun or skrunchie, flowing over her shoulders and down her back. She swayed around the bed, climbing in the far side, moving easily in the moonlit darkness.

"Come to bed, Sammy," she said, patting the bed next to her.

I laid down, letting her cover us both. Her hands moved to find mind and she held my hands for a long moment.

She started sobbing suddenly, and I gathered her up, holding her.

I didn't ask why she was crying.

I could see the fat lip and swollen eye.