MEI LI DE LI WU [BEAUTIFUL GIFT]

Welcome back to the Ghosts of Serenity storyline. Fair warning, if you read this story first, it probably won't make a lot of sense. The original story is a bit further down the list, "Ghosts of Serenity" by Archer, and follows on through up until "And Still We go On." (Note on that... due to what I think is a glitch from my Mozilla browser's habit of storing passwords and cookies, some of my earlier stories have been re-named to the names of more recent stories. I've got to see about fixing that.)

On a more personal note, this is the part where I gush shamelessly about my partner in crime on this piece. This story would not have been written without Defender. I would have written a story of some variety, but nothing that would have come out as well as I feel this has. Most of the ideas that drive this piece came from her, the result of two weeks of brainstorming, discussion, write and re-write. It's been educational and a lot of fun working with her. If you don't already follow her stories, I'd recommend you scroll on down and check out Big Damn Heros, Everyday Hero, and Lost Kin for starters, and work your way up. She's been my Big Damn Hero all the way through this thing.

Finally, a big thanks to Wulfhawk for his excellent beta of the story, fast and informative. I hereby declare a 24 hour moratorium on all Okie jokes from my part of Texas, in his honor. (Man, that's gonna be hard.)

Legalese. Joss owns Firefly, via Mutant Enemy. The story is ours, no posting, publishing, or selling without our express permission.

Chinese Glossary

mei li de li wu [beautiful gift] bun tien-shung de ee-duai-ro [Stupid inbred sack of meat]

PART ONE

Jian-ku snarled in frustration, working the hoe back under her left shoulder as she attempted to root out the nasty collection of tangleweed that had made its way into kitchen garden behind the house. Three times already this morning, she'd unthinkingly raised the stump of her right arm in an effort to seize the hoe in the phantom hand and make it work in the proper fashion.

Lining it up on the stubborn weed, she awkwardly angled the hoe's blade against the base of the growth then savagely kicked the back of the blade. The dislodged tangleweed spun away in a puff of dust. 'Another one down,' she told herself grimly.

As she looked at the condition of the garden and the fields beyond, the sheer volume of the work nearly overwhelmed her. They'd fallen behind while she convalesced. It had already been right at the limit of what two people could handle, two whole people. With one able bodied man and a cripple he had to look out for as much as the spread, it would rapidly become insurmountable.

Steven was barely sleeping, working late into the night to harvest their corn. Among other problems, the bun tien-shung de ee-duai-ro they called a cow refused to be milked one-handed, so Steven had to take over that chore. When she had tried, the dumb beast had edged away, put her hoof in the milk pail and lashed Jian-ku so viciously with her tail she thought she'd be blind as well as short a hand."

The poor man was even trying to maintain some semblance of order around the House-- as if she gave a good gorram what the house looked like. He wasn't looking good, losing weight and staggering around the place drunk with fatigue. She would be afraid to let him harvest if he had to do it with a combine, he'd kill himself sure as eggs. 'Course, if they could afford a combine maybe she could help with the harvest.

She attacked the next weed savagely, venting some small part of her frustrations on the invidious growth. Tangleweed came by its name honestly. Left unattended for even a few days it strangled out the cultivars and left garden and field choked and worthless. No, it wasn't working, and it wasn't going to work. The 'stead needed two whole people to work it, a fact she couldn't avoid anymore. Steven had tried to put the best face on it he could. He kept telling her that the prosthetic hand was coming soon, that even falling behind like they were, they probably would turn a better profit on this year=s harvest than last year's disaster.

The homestead had been their de-mob bonus; 'Free land for a fresh start' they'd been told. Oh yes, the land had been free, but the seed wasn't, not by a long shot; nor was the house, barn, or livestock. They'd also bought farm equipment, but inexperience and lack of capital had led them to risk buying re-manufactured war surplus crap that hadn't lasted a full season. Built from the cheapest available parts scavenged from stockpiles acquired by war profiteers from the occupation of a dozen worlds, the equipment couldn't handle the harsh conditions on farming colonies. It seemed to break with the first harsh word, and the mechanic in town had just looked at it and laughed. He'd told them there was nothing to be done; bad parts, shoddy workmanship, and incompatible systems. The bulk of their crop had rotted in the fields. They hadn't even cleared enough to make their note. If it weren't for their retirement pay they would have lost the farm and starved.

This year they had gotten the seed in the ground before the attack. Plowing with a horse and a ploughshare bought at the local smithy was brutal, ack breaking labor. They hadn't gotten around to figuring out how they were going to harvest, and when the Reaver's hit it seemed like there would never be a harvest. As it was, every spread had lost someone; fathers, brothers, mothers, and daughters were all missing and missed. Every family was grieving, every spread short-handed. They had to see to their own crops first. Since the attack the locals had been generous with advice and the loan or gift of simple machinery designed for the terrain, but Steven and Jian-ku had been on their own for labor. 'Better than last year but still not enough to turn any kind of a profit,' she thought with something very like despair

As if that wasn't bad enough, Steven kept talking about after the harvest, when they had some time to relax. Worse than that, he was talking about children. It was like a knife through her heart. She wanted nothing more than to give him a child-- had always taken it for granted that she would give him children. Children who would grow up to be brave, caring, and optimistic like their father. A son who might learn Cafferty's innate compassion, and Steven's boundless energy and loyalty. Of course they might have daughters. With a sudden pang she thought that Steven would undoubtedly have spoiled any daughters. He was that kind of a man, soft with his womenfolk. She grimaced at the thought of pretty dresses and dolls cluttering the floor in the house, all the soft clutter of girls about the place that would never be. Not now.

She scowled, not sure if it was in anger or pain as she lined up on the next weed. It was useless speculation anyway. There would be no children, no son with Steven's laugh and her eyes, no daughter to be prettier than her mother. Because she was working up the grit to scrape together enough of their savings to catch a ride off planet. She would head home to Kearsarge and live on her pension. She'd lost her hand in the line of duty; they'd activated her when the Reavers were detected entering atmo. She'd collect additional disability pay, enough to live on if not live well.

Because be damned if she was going to hide in the bank the next time Reavers or bandits hit the town. If she couldn't shoot and she couldn't farm, then she didn't have a place here. She'd be a drag and a risk to him and she loved him too much to be either. Be damned if she'd watch him kill himself, work himself to death, taking care of a cripple. Be damned. The next weed flew almost to the fence.

Steven would be hurt, and taking part of their meager savings wouldn't help, but Caff could keep him afloat long enough to find himself a proper wife. There were plenty of women, widows and maids both, who would be glad to comfort him after she left. He was a good man, any woman would be lucky to catch his eye. A whole woman who could take care of the household, cook better meals than she could, and would knew what the hell she was doing around a farm. 'A woman would be damn lucky,' she thought, then despairingly, 'I've been damn lucky.'

It was ironic, men were supposed to be the ones who had difficulty expressing their emotions. But Steven was so honest and real, he always wore his heart on his sleeve for good or for ill. She was the one could never say what was in her heart. She had a lot of regrets on that score, times when she should have said something more, done something more.

She'd done a lot of thinking stuck in that hospital bed. Soul searching, one might say. She was angry with herself, that she hadn't been a better wife to him and mad at him for settling for her just because she was there and they had been grappling together when they mustered out. A man like Steven didn't have to settle for a hard strumpet with no face and no figure who couldn't even tell him--what? What would she tell him if she could? If she were whole, and pretty and soft, like a woman ought to be? She would tell him that he was the breath of her life, the very pulse of her heart. But she wasn't pretty or soft and she never could speak to him that way. Now she wasn't even whole anymore.

'To hell with him anyway.' She laughed a little wildly as she tried to workup a good anger at him. Instead, she just wanted to cry. She hadn't cried since she was sixteen, damn it!

********************************************* It had been a smooth piece of work, one for which Cafferty was feeling rather smugly proud of himself. He tapped the recently delivered Grade-II prosthetic sitting on his desk. A little sleight of hand had gotten the model upgraded from the standard Grade-III that Jian-ku would have normally been issued.

Development in the area of prosthetics had flourished in the previous hundred years. Even before the war, the high risk occupations of terraforming, mining and deep space exploration, had created a high demand for replacement limbs of all kinds. Research had not lagged behind demand. With the advent of hostilities the Army had taken that expertise and applied a pragmatic system of classification and standardization to the issuance of prosthetic limbs to the wounded. The system which the Army used was based on cold calculation, like everything else it did.

Grade I models were state-of-the-art-technology, reserved for high-value Special Forces personnel on active duty. Anthroform bio-robotic arms utilized McKibben artificial muscles, bundles of pneumatic actuators that exhibited many properties found in human muscles. Implanted prosthetic nano-circuits in the spinal cord, cerebellum and cortex, controlled movement and processors implanted in the brain permitted a full range of tactile sensation. The new hand was good for anything, including patting your girlfriend's bottom.

Grade III's were the most basic of models, issued to invalided troops for whom the Army had no further use. Relying on the same basic technology available for the past five centuries, they utilized body power with a harness to operate the hook . A cable anchored to the harness slipped over the opposite shoulder and attached to the prosthesis and then to the hook. It was not substantially different than those available locally on Rosie.

Grade II's were a compromise, issued to active duty personnel to preserve light duty status. Control circuits imbedded in the device itself allowed amputees to exert control of hand and wrist movements based on use of different algorithms to respond to myo-electric signals from a patient's stump. No brain implants were required but a frustratingly substantial period of re-training was required to teach the amputee to use the device effectively.

Cafferty tapped the box again then picked up the other recent arrival, the latest issue of Frontier Medicine. He was sitting, oblivious to the long-cold cup of coffee next to his elbow, when he heard the sound of his best friend's distinctive heavy tread on the planks of the boardwalk outside his office. Although, Kelleman could be stealthy if the occasion called for it, he otherwise tended to announce his arrival with heavy thuds of his well-worn service boots. The bell jangled on the door, then he heard Yinna offer a greeting and the mumbled reply. Cafferty tossed the flimsy on the table and took his feet off the desk as Kellerman knocked on the doorframe.

"MPs." Kellerman announced, trying to sound cheerful but merely succeeding in sounding worn-out. "Come to inspect the stores. Better not be holdin'anything out on us, Doc."

Cafferty grinned. "Get on in here and grab a chair." He stood up and went to the coffee pot to pour a fresh mug. He sniffed it briefly, grimaced and poured it directly into the adjacent sink.

"Six a.m. Must have been a vintage hour for coffee. You never remember to take it off the hob, Caff." Kellerman chuckled from behind him, flopping down on the sofa. Although it creaked ferociously under the added mass, it held up under the strain where a piece of furniture built in the Core would long ago have succumbed to Kellerman's casual habit of tossing his weight around. Here on the Border they built to last, they had to.

Cafferty went through the steps of brewing a new pot of coffee mechanically, more interested in covertly examining the grizzled soldier-turned-farmer. He didn't like what he saw. Kellerman's lined face was gaunt, his cheeks slightly hollowed. At a guess, he'd lost twenty pounds, and there hadn't been a lot of fat on Kellerman's muscular frame to begin with, aside from a slight gut, one of the joys of encroaching middle age.

"So," Cafferty casually asked, "how's the harvest going?"

Kellerman blew out his cheeks in a sigh. "It's going, it's going. Only stopped in to see about the, um--y'know--um, the thing." He couldn't bring himself to say the word. He couldn't bear that he had been unable to do anything to prevent the loss of her arm. He would have gladly made a bargain with any devil in hell to have traded his arm for hers. It didn't help that Jian-ku had been tearing them both up with violent mood storms, swinging from melancholy to rage and back again. That and survivor's guilt was really taking more of a toll on Kellerman than the mind numbing labor to get the corn in before the ears hit the ground and started to rot..

"Yeah, I've got the prosthethsis, was going to get out to your place in the next day or two." Cafferty said, setting the pot to brew, then moving to rinse out the cups in the sink. "It's a Grade II model."

Kellerman sat up, confusion evident. "Grade II? Figured the best we could hope for was Grade III."

"Siera Cordway got her third stripe and moved over to admin." Cafferty explained. "Back in the Valley, that dual had her and second squad pinned down until our sniper got into position and cleaned that Indie revetment out. You know, same one that they took back later that day and used to bring down that skiff. Anyway-Jia being the sniper in question--Siera felt a favor was owed. So-o-o, she changed an order code by a couple of digits, and voila, grade three becomes grade two."

Actually, it had been a bit more involved than that. He'd contacted Siera with a priority wave and explained the situation to her, and she'd had to call in a couple of favors on her end to get it done. In his professional opinion, there wasn't any need to go into the specifics.

"I didn't even know about it until she sent me a heads-up over the cortex, said she just happened to notice the name on a daily dispatch that came across her desk." He lied casually.

"Oh hell, Caff, that's great. Mind if I send her a thank-you across your console?" Kellerman said, bucking up a bit. "I mean, damn! 'Light and Lethal', brother." He enthused, reciting the old Jaeger slogan.

Cafferty collected the pot and poured the coffee into a couple of mugs. Kellerman accepted his and unconsciously took his usual precautionary sniff whenever offered coffee by the Doc. He took a sip and waited for Cafferty to settle in at his desk before saying what had really brought him in to the office in the middle of a work day during harvest.

"Caff, I gotta talk to you about this. I'm hoping this'll be what helps, 'cause she's been, you know--I mean--I understand how hard it is for her. But she won't let me help her with it," he said, his momentary cheer evaporating.

Cafferty collected his thoughts. Kellerman had seen his wife maimed in front of him while he was her spotter. Cafferty knew without being told that his friend would have accepted any suffering to avoid that horror. It wasn't nearly the same for himself, Jian-ku's injury had hit him too, but he had the advantage of a lot of practice at clinical detachment to help him deal with it. Kellerman was still in shock, and his natural instinct when he ran into a wall was to push harder until he brought it down. But that wasn't going to work here. He kept trying and she just kept pushing back harder.

She'd been ominously terse the past few times Cafferty had spoken to her. It was a portentous reminder of what she had been like during the war. When she was psyching herself up to do the job, she tended to withdraw from everyone, including her squad mates and her spotter. Her natural instinct when confronted with problems was to withdraw and deal with them on her own, from a distance, through a targeting reticule.

"I think getting the limb will help," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. "It doesn't replace what she lost, but it'll help her to feel less dependant. She always was a self-sufficient wench. This must be harder on her than most."

"That's not it," Yinna announced from the doorway. Both men started, not having noticed her there. "I'm sorry, Kevin, Mr. Kellerman, I didn't mean to snoop or nothin', but . . ." she said, fumbling for words. "Well, maybe a bit," she admitted finally. Cafferty stood up and went to the coffee pot, getting a fresh cup for her.

"Don't worry about it," he said, carrying the cup to her. Kellerman regarded her with a curious expression. Cafferty had been amused by the few other times he'd seen them together. Kellerman was about the only man in town who wasn't even aware of Yinna as a woman. He'd been a regular Romeo when Caff first met him. Something about his combination of rugged looks and earnest and innocent demeanor had made him the envy of the other men in the platoon when it came to attracting members of the fairer sex. But something about First Squad's attached sniper had caught his eye toward the end of the war, and all the other women in the 'verse had pretty much faded to background noise after that.

He often wondered if Jian-ku had any idea how remarkable a change she'd effected on his best friend. Cafferty really liked the new Steven Kellerman. A vastly more responsible and caring person had emerged from their courtship and marriage. He felt blessed that his friend's marriage had made them better friends rather than pulling them apart-- it often happened the other way around.

Yinna smiled gratefully as she accepted the cup, sniffing at it before taking a sip. Kellerman grinned--evidently she had some experience with Caff's coffee too, then. Cafferty settled on the couch next to Kellerman while Yinna perched on the edge of his desk. Her expression became serious, as she struggled to articulate her thoughts.

“She's . . . I don't know Mrs. Kellerman--not well," she qualified. Cafferty grinned and even Kellerman smiled faintly at the thought of anyone calling Jian-ku 'Mrs. Kellerman.'

"But, even with the better prosthetic you got her, it ain't fixin' what she lost. She can't do what she did before. The shootin', the workin', she can't hold her end up, I figure. And maybe she's thinkin' that you're not--that you don't--Well, that you're just stayin' with her 'cause you're married. Mr. Kellerman--married to half a woman, see what I mean?"

"That's bullshit!" Kellerman exploded, furious at the thought. The girl didn't quail at the outburst, meeting his gaze with the steady certainty of the truth of what she'd said.

"She knows. . . . I've told her, don't know how many times, and I'll keep telling her. I love her. Gorramit, she's my wife because I love her. If I could've taken that round . . . " His voice trailed off, angry and hurt at thethought that his beloved Jia thought so little of him. She should give him more credit. What had he ever done to her to make her think he wouldn't stand the gaff? He was no piker and she ought to know that.

"We know, we know," said Cafferty, reaching over to grip Kellerman's shoulder. His friend angrily shrugged it off.

"You don't know shit, Caff. You ain't married." Kellerman snarled, then shook his head. "Oh hell, that wasn't good. I didn't mean it like that." Looking dazed, he dropped his weathered face into his hands.

"Forget it," Cafferty said firmly. He looked up at Yinna. "I can see where you're coming from with this," he said, before looking down at his cup. He could see it better than Kellerman, who was too close and too overwrought to understand. "I see where you're coming from, but I don't know what we can do about it. She's got to sort some things for herself, I reckon."

"She doesn't have to do anything alone." Kellerman said softly from behind his hands. "That's why I'm here, gorramit." He wiped his palm down his face and looked up and regarded them bleakly. Cafferty could see the lift coming back to his shoulders. His friend had hit another wall, and was determined to bull his way through it just like he had every other obstacle in his life.

“Listen," Cafferty spoke softly. "I'll get the arm out and you can take it home to show her." He looked at Yinna as he spoke, silently cautioning her not to go further into the subject at the moment. They couldn't solve this issue around the table in his office.

"I don't know--maybe some tangible sign of progress will help her. But," he went on to caution the bigger man, Aeven though they took measurements while she was laid up, I'm gonna have to come out there to fit it and she's gonna have to spend quite a bit of time learning to control it before she can really use it effectively.--You'll have to tell her that."

Maybe the arm would be seen as progress and maybe it wouldn't. There wasn't much else they could do at this point.

***********************************************

"Hate to see ya'll folks havin' so much hell with the harvest," Caleb Marshall said sincerely, as he loaded the sacks of feed onto his wagon. Jian-ku wrestled another sack into the wagon bed herself. He was uncomfortable with her assistance, but he hadn't protested vocally. He had accelerated his pace, trying to do as much of the loading himself as he could, and had been chagrined when she'd managed to keep up with him. Her legs still worked fine, by god, however much shorter than his they happened to be.

"Been tough on everyone 'round here, so many folk lost someone when the gorram Reavers came down," he said, punctuating the statement by spitting on the ground.

"We'll make it through," she said, keeping up with him as they went back for more sacks of dried corn. She was trying to be polite, he was a customer after all, but his blatant condescension in trying to load the wagon himself irked badly. She didn't need anybody's gorram pity.

"Figure you will," he said in a dubious tone. He paused after hoisting another bag onto his shoulder, nodding toward their cow, Klesser. Captain Klesser had been one of the more unpleasant pieces of officer material they'd had to cope with during the war, and it was the first name to spring to mind when Kellerman and Jian-ku had realized just what a big, stupid beast they'd bought. Jian-ku liked to think a lot of dumb animals across the 'verse had been named in Klesser's honor. It'd serve the obnoxious bitch right.

"Got a word in your ear," Marshall said, leaning himself and the slung sack against the shed wall. "Most folk go in for cows for their dairy, 'cause that's the way it's always been done, y'see. Folks out here is plain damn mule stubborn 'bout tradition, some times."

'Some times.' That was the funniest joke she'd heard in weeks. She nodded politely as she strained to one-hand another sack from the middle shelf onto her shoulder. Marshall winced as he watched her, then quickly resumed his monologue.

"But for what you're doin', you're better off goin' goats," he said. "A good cow, uncommon specimen, puts out three gallons of milk a day. More typical, 'bout a gallon."

She nodded as she started toward the wagon. He could probably stand around all day with a sixty-pound sack of feed on his shoulder, but her shoulder was really starting to ache with all the extra work she'd been putting in and the awkwardness of compensating for every physical action. "I'm hearing you," she said as he levered off the wall and followed along behind her.

"Now goats, well--your average goat puts out a gallon a day. Goats eat less'n half the feed, breeds twice as often, generally drops a pair, sometimes four kids in one push. Pretty soon, problem you got is havin' enough time to keep up with 'em. You can free-range goats, go back to feed 'fore you slaughter 'em," he dropped the next sack in and they proceeded back to the shed. "Goat's are just plumb better to work with than cattle."

They gathered up the final two bags and headed back to the wagon. As he dumped his, they paused for a breath. "Now I figure folks like you, ain't comin' in here with no set in notions. Well, stands to reason, you ain't born to the life and doin' it the way your daddy and his daddy and his daddy's daddy all done it. Might be smart 'nuff to see fit to do things a bit different than your average run of folk around here."

It was just this sort of superior attitude to his fellow residents that had made Marshall less than popular in the area, but there was undeniable sense to what the goat-rancher was saying.

"Thanks," she said. "Really, I'll talk to Steven about it."

They settled up and she briefly savored the feel of hard currency in her hand. It wasn't long for their pocketbook, almost immediately going towards paying their back debt, but it was still nice. Already they'd made more on this harvest than they had all of last year. They were within hailing distance of breaking even. If she could have done her fair share they might have been able to see a profit. The thought soured her enjoyment of the money, and she stuffed it in o her pocket as she watched Marshall >heeyaa! his mule-team down the road leading from the farm. 'Can't hitch your damn goats to a wagon,' she thought vindictively. Then almost immediately, 'That wasn't fair,' she thought, 'you can't really hitch a cow to a wagon either.' He'd been trying to help.

Steven was in the house when she made her way back in. He was in the process of preparing a quick lunch when she walked through the door. He looked up and said "Hey, mei li de li wu, how about some chow before we get back to work? Here, try this." He stood in front of the stove holding out a wooden spoon of the simmering broth.

She bit down the automatic sarcastic remark that leaped to mind. In all honesty, regular practice was starting to improve his culinary capabilities, and to be truthful she wasn't herself the world's greatest chef. But really, it was because she'd taken too many cheap shots at him lately, gorramit. She knew how much he wanted to help her through this. She knew that deep down, he would rather have died than see her hurt, as if his life was less important than her ruttin' arm somehow.

'I have got to stop dwelling on this.' She thought suddenly. 'Action over pontification,' as her old DI was fond of saying. Maybe it was just time to tell him she was going.

"Uh, the soup is getting cold," he said, grinning nervously. She looked at him, and her resolve melted. Damn those baby blues of his. The first time they'd gotten drunk together and talked, really talked, it was those eyes that had drawn her in, opening her up more than anybody ever had. They could melt her to this day. She would never get tired of looking at them.

"Okay," she said simply, walking over and letting him guide the spoon to her mouth. He relaxed subtly as she swirled the chicken soup around her mouth. He'd added some seasonings from the gardening, not precisely the right seasonings. As often happened, he also failed in comprehending that less is sometimes more. The result was a bit more powerful than flavorful.

"It's. . ." she said, striving for a compliment he wouldn't immediately identify as a lie.

He chuckled."It's not the greatest," he admitted.

She smiled wryly. His face brightened and she felt an icy stab of guilt for lifting him like this before the inevitable crash. But it felt so good. He turned and ladled her out a bowl, searching around for good meaty chunks of chicken. She was partial to more chicken and less soup, and he knew it. They didn't usually have chicken for lunch but the hen had stopped laying. They had eaten the chicken last night and were finishing off with chicken vegetable soup, all produced from their own land.

They settled down at the table enjoying a rare quiet interlude. They really didn't have the time for a leisurely lunch, but she wasn't going to begrudge any extra moments she could steal before leaving. 'Only a few more times like this, only a few more. Oh Steven, how will I ever do without your sweet ways?'

"Caff got the pros--it--the arm in today," Steven said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's a Grade II, active-duty special." he said, giving her a tentative smile.

"That's not what I'm supposed to get," she said, strangely disturbed by the unexpected gift. It was a bonus, why did it bother her?

"Siera Cordway is now Sergeant Cordway-- she's pushing papers back at the nuthouse. She figured she owed you one and changed the order code," he said, hunting down a couple of stray peas in the bottom of his bowl and trying vainly to coax them into his spoon.

"Cordway got promoted?" she said, surprised. "To sergeant?" Cordway had been a royal hell-raiser and had already climbed up to and back down from the rank of corporal twice by the time Jian-ku had joined the Jaegers. "And how did she find out?" she said suspiciously.

"Pure dumb luck. Happened to see your name on a dispatch, figured to do you a good turn," Steven said, finally resorting to pushing the peas onto his spoon with his finger.

'Bullshit!' Jian-ku could see Cafferty's fine Irish hand all over this one. He'd pulled some strings to get her a better grade of prosthetic, then lied to Steven about it because Cafferty was embarrassed by gratitude and didn't want them to feel any more indebted to him than they already did. Who knew what it had cost him, and he'd done it without even stopping to think about that, because that was the way he worked. The same way he'd come across a battlefield to save her, because Steven had called. She'd nearly gotten both of them killed, and next time she wouldn't be able to carry her end of the business. It was another reminder of why she had to go.

But not yet. She would wait for the damn thing to get fitted, because Caff had put himself out on the deal. But not one second after that, she decided. She'd make a clean break. It would be easier that way, at least as easy as something so achingly painful could be made, but she knew in her heart that she would go sadly all the rest of her days.

To be continued