The rapid staccato of Robin's pounding feet was lost under the deafening thrum of her heartbeat as she ran to the infirmary. She could see Pierce at the end of the hall opening doors, looking in, and then closing them back up. When he heard her coming, he rushed to meet her. She tried to brush past him into the room but he caught her arms. He was talking, but she couldn't hear anything over the roar in her ears.

"Where is he? Is he okay? Where is he?" she gasped.

"They took him to x-ray."

Robin fought against him, knowing she would have bruises because of how tightly he was grasping her.

Softly he murmured until her wild eyes settled on his. "Stop. Settle. He's not here. Look at me. Okay?"

She calmed down against the force of his grip and collapsed into his chest.

"He's going to be okay," he said.

She nodded into his shirt. As Pierce's arms came around her, the familiar smells of desert dust and sandalwood enveloped her and the memory of two tangled bodies flushed by the heat of the sun and sand rushed to the surface. The hand at the back of her neck was the one reminder that this was not Terry. Her husband's hands had always found the curve of her lower back. This hand caressed the back of her head at the neckline. Robin stepped back.

He let her go and nodded to the empty room across the corridor. Robin quietly opened the door hoping there had been some mistake. She walked to a chair under the window and sat down staring blankly at the floor. Pierce crouched before her. He took her hands and placed Andrew's wallet into them.

Idly, she flipped it open. A worn photograph had been tucked behind the plastic where most people stored a license. The plastic had become foggy over time but behind the scratches, she saw Andrew in the shape of the eyes and the curve of the jawline. When did her little boy begin to look so much like his father?

A single fat tear fell and splashed on her wrist as she slipped the picture from the wallet. "I remember the day the state trooper pulled into our driveway. Andrew was six. He was so excited to see the police car. He had no idea why...that his father had..."

Pierce moved away, and Robin tucked the picture back into its pocket. The silence became too big.

"What was he doing out there?"

Pierce was quiet, and Robin looked up to see why he hadn't answered. He stood at the window with a faraway look in his eyes. The light from the dome outside transformed his deeply tanned skin to gold. If there were angels, then surely this was how they looked. Except for the jaw. Pierce's mouth was set in a straight line and the angles around his cheeks and temple that had been softened with age were stretched taut. The muscles in his cheek pulsed over clenched teeth.

"Pierce?" He didn't move. Not even his eyes. Robin reached out and lightly touched his arm. "Pierce?"

"I shot him."

"What?" Robin pulled back. Her eyes grew wide with horror as Pierce's words sank in.

"I shot Andrew. I didn't know it was him." Pierce's eyes searched her face and begged for understanding. "Robin, I swear."

"I don't understand. You shot Andrew?" She stood up and moved to brush past Pierce. "Where is he? I need to find him."

Pierce caught her arm. "He's with Doc. He's going to be fine."

"How could you do this? How could you shoot my son?" Anger tinged Robin's words.

"I don't know. He was with the other..." Pierce drew a ragged sigh and pushed down his anguish. "He's a man. He was in the–"

"He's a child!"

"He's a man. He's old enough to go to war. So many boys–" Pierce cut himself off and turned to the window.

Robin sank back into her chair. Silence filled the room. It bloomed like a heavy storm cloud ready to burst, stretching and reaching out until it engulfed them both.

"I thought I lost another one."

"Another one?"

"Alam was six. He followed us one day when we were going out because there had been a rumor of a skirmish by the village we were staying in. He followed me. Everywhere. His father told him to stay home, but he followed. I didn't know." Pierce turned his eyes on Robin pleading for understanding. "I swear I didn't know."

Robin's hand fell from his arm, her eyes clouding over even as she looked down and found the teardrop on her wrist. She looked back at Pierce. "What happened?"

He turned back to the window, but she caught his arm. "Tell me."

Pierce's eyes wandered from her face to search the ceiling before his lids came down and closed out the light. A long silence filled the room, but Robin waited. He would tell this tale in his own time. Or not. She stared at the wallet resting in her hands and was startled when he spoke again in the slow and mesmerizing cadence of someone in a trance.

"We rode out in a small convoy to these hills o'dark thirty. He hid somewhere. In some car or on the back of some truck under a tarp or...I don't know. Somewhere. We meet up at the rendezvous point. The soldiers get out of gun trucks and the villagers get out of their dusty, broke-down pickups covered in ancient rusted-out bullet holes.

"Insurgents are supposed to be a couple mikes other side of the mountain so we start climbing this goat trail. Climb right into an ambush. Bullets start spraying everywhere. The villagers panic. They start running back down the hill. Complete and utter Charlie Foxtrot."

Pierce crumpled to his knees in front of Robin, his hands clasped over his head. She reached out and laid her hand across his clamped fingers.

"I come down the mountain. Provide as much cover as I can. A bullet kicks up a rock fragment and lodges in my leg just above my ankle. But I can't worry about that. Because here's this pile of rags. I think maybe IED. Pile of bloody rags doesn't compute. Until I get closer and kick it over. It's Alam. Little, six-year-old Alam."

Pierce gasped for breath and shuddered. "I kicked him. I thought he was rags, and I kicked him."

Robin stared at the wallet. She begged inside her head for him to continue.

"And then I'm scooping him up and getting in a truck. His eyes are staring at me. Begging me to do something. And there's nothing. Nothing I can do but pray. Cause I know. I know by how much blood there is. I know by the way he's breathing...and all I can hear is the bubbling...blood...in his lungs."

He sat lost in the memory. "We get to his house, and I pull his body to me. His tiny body. I get out of the truck and his tiny hand falls open. Slow motion. Red and blue splash to the ground. But it's a clatter, so I look down. And it's Reckless. It's my little red mustang bright as Alam's blood sitting next to a piece of blue and green feroza...and stooping to scoop them up is his grandmother. Slowly. So slowly. She's bending down. And then they're sitting in the palm of her hand. A bright red scorpion poised to strike sitting next to a tiny planet Earth. Then faster than anything, she throws the Mustang at me and begins wailing. Wailing and hitting. I have caused so much pain."

"No."

Pierce flinched. Lost in reliving the memory, Robin's strident negation startled him. She slid her legs around and leaned over so she could wrap her arms around him. He closed his eyes but held himself apart, denying himself the warmth of her body. "No, Will. Her pain is not yours to carry. There was nothing you could have done to change what happened. You would have. I know you would have."

A subtle shift of light in the room brought Robin up out of her chair. Jordan stood just inside the door, a tear slowly rolling down her cheek. Robin moved to meet her as she crossed the room. "Jordan. Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry." Jordan brushed past her, eyes only for Pierce where he sat on the floor. "I'm so sorry."

Pierce stared at her. Exhaustion showed around his eyes in fine wrinkles and furrowed confusion in his brow. "Jordan?"

"I'm sorry, Pierce." She reached into her pocket and when she brought her hand forward, Reckless sat on her palm.

"Where did you find this?" Pierce climbed to his feet staring at the die-cast car sitting on her hand.

"I..." Jordan's eyes dropped to her feet. "I took it."

Pierce lifted her chin and waited for her to meet his eyes. When she finally looked at him, he took the car from her palm. "Thank you for returning it, Jordan."

The door opened and Jordan jumped back from Pierce. Dr. Galen and the nurse rolled Andrew into the room. Jordan slipped out as Robin rushed to meet them at the side of the bed. She placed her hand lightly on Andrew's cheek.

"Andrew?"

"It will be best if you let him rest," Dr. Galen said softly at her side. "He was shot through and through. Surprisingly, there doesn't appear to be any damage to organs. It went in and out through the fatty part of his waist. These high-velocity rounds just zip right through sometimes."

He looked to see if she were paying attention, and when she looked him in the eyes, he continued. "Missed the hipbone, and no sepsis though he does have an infection. Probably accelerated by dehydration and exhaustion. He may have a little muscle damage but I think it will heal."

"Thank you, Dr. Galen," Robin whispered. She couldn't take her eyes off Andrew. He was too pale under his summer tan, his color muddy instead of golden.

"You had to go find him, didn't you?" Pierce asked.

Confused by the question, Robin dragged her eyes from Andrew. Evan stood just inside the doorway.

"I thought they were going to experiment on him."

"Evan?" Confusion shone brightly in Robin's eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"There was a blind spot. On the maps. A no-fly zone over the...well, here, over this place. We had to–"

"Stop. Don't say another word," Robin commanded. Evan's mouth snapped shut as she strode over to him. He flinched when she wrenched up his shirt to look at his stomach. "There's blood–are you hurt?"

"No," he muttered. "It's Andrew's."

She hugged him. The embrace was so strong the air was forced from his lungs and he gasped, but she didn't stop. His arms found their way around her to return the squeeze.

"I'm so glad you're safe. I'm going to kill you guys when this is over." She brushed tears from the corners of her eyes. "We need to call your mom."

Evan stepped back, wary of another hug. "About that. I told her I was with you and Andrew. And here I am, you know, with you and Andrew. Can't we just leave it at that?"

"You're going to lose your car again, aren't you?" asked Robin. Evan nodded. "I'll talk to her. No promises about your car, but maybe I can keep you from being locked in your bedroom until graduation."

Evan shrugged. "Seems fair."

Pierce read the label on the IV. "Rocephin?"

"Antibiotics. For the infection," Dr. Galen said. He caught the nurse's elbow and led her from the room. He paused at the door. "The ankle is a sprain. He should stay off it until the swelling goes down. Take it easy for a couple of weeks. We'll get some ice on it. Let me know if you need anything else."

Robin pulled the blankets back and found Andrew's waist covered with a bandage. A large bruise extended beyond the boundaries of the tape. It spread up his ribs and wrapped around his waist to his backside. When she peeled away the bandage at one corner, she found two tiny sets of stitches where the skin was bright red and warm to the touch. She carefully put the tape back and rearranged the blankets.

"You missed all the organs. Thought you were a better shot than that."

"Please don't make jokes about this, Robin."

Robin laid a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry." Pain choked his voice. He was quiet for another moment, then said, "I need to go talk to Michael and get on a call with Central. I'll let them know you're here."