Marty watched Henry set off for the rows of bodies and the strange commodore. He didn’t envy him. Shrugging, he headed for the stead gate, smiling amiably at the royal marines milling about around their cars. They were looking around, trying to get a grip on what had gone on while they’d been aboard ship. They weren’t exactly used to arriving someplace to find that their services had not been needed after all.

Binnie O’Brian was at the gate with Jack Oberndorf, glowering at the armored cars and their cargos. Marty’s smile grew. Binnie had been IRA on the old world, and that hatred hadn’t died off much since his flight to New Victoria. He could see the old Irishman fondling the safety of his Smelly speculatively.

He shook his head minutely, pursing his lips. “Not the time, Binnie,” he said softly. “Stay calm and they’ll be gone in a day.”

Binnie nodded just the tiniest bit, expression not changing. He opened one of the gate doors enough for Marty to slip through, never taking his eyes from the hated British troops.

Cleanup was well under way. Mister Commodore wouldn’t like that much.

The big double doors at the front of the house had been rudely patched and closed. He raised his hand to knock, but the door opened before he could finish. He froze.

Lizb— Lissenne stepped back and aside so that he could enter, a look in her eyes that he didn’t quite understand.

“Sweetheart,” he said.

“Martin,” she replied, her voice softer than he could remember hearing it in years

Wait. What?

* * *

Lizbet Palin had seen him enter the gate from her position at the bedroom window. She’d seen him walking toward the house and had come down to meet him. Now she simply watched him as he stood before her, a confused look on his face.

He was back. The old Marty, for all that he was once again in Martal’s clothing. And her heart was racing like it hadn’t in over a decade. She watched him there — the way he held himself, the tilt of his head, the set of his jaw, the go to hell sparkle in his eyes. He radiated life and danger the way Martal did stability and control.

She sighed. “I can’t ever have both, can I?” she asked him quietly.

He didn’t understand. “Both of what?”

“Martal Palanna has been a good husband,” she said softly. “He’s been a competent father and a good provider.”

“I try—”

“No!” she said somewhat sternly. “He tries. He tries so very hard. He struggles every minute of every day to keep himself under control. To be steady, and measured, and a reliable partner. To not cause trouble. To be a farmer.

“To be something he was never meant to be,” she fought back a sniffle. “It’s been difficult, and I understand that. I do! And I treat him so dreadfully!”

He started at the vehemence with which the last statement had been delivered.

“Don’t you see?” she reached a hand out to cup his cheek with a tenderness he barely remembered, her voice growing softer. “He knows, Martin. He knows, and it’s been killing him slowly for all the years we’ve been married.”

He was leaning into her hand, heart pounding. He brought his own hand up to cup hers, not really caring about the surreal nature of the conversation.

“He knows what?” he asked as softly.

Tears were budding at the corners of her eyes. “That it was you,” she breathed. “That It’s always been you. That I could never feel about him the way I feel about you.

“I fell in love with Marty Palin,” she admitted finally. “And that has never changed.”

She was very close now, and he was leaning in, tears in his own eyes. “And Marty Palin has always, always loved you, Lizbet,” he said as his lips touched hers, his free arm going around her waist to pull her in tight.

* * *

Dar was awake again. Mailyn was there again, or maybe still there. She looked exhausted and worried. There were dark stains beneath her red-rimmed eyes.

Perched there beside the bed, despite her coveralls and work-toughened hands, she yet looked entirely feminine. Maybe it was the way she held herself. Maybe it was the concern in her eyes. Maybe it was a multitude of hints and clues that had been collecting over the past year or so finally settling into place. Whatever, it was coming on him that it was getting harder and harder to keep thinking of her as his tomboy shadow. And it was about time to admit to himself that he was alright with that.

There was a scuffling at the door and he looked up to see Mom and Pop enter, holding hands. The moment they’d cleared the doorway, they sort of folded together, their arms going around each other as they approached the bed.

Okay, maybe he was still feverish. That could explain a whole bunch of things. Oh, it wasn’t like he didn’t think they loved each other. They’d been together forever. You don’t have three kids unless you love your partner, right? Or so he thought.

It was just that... Mom had always been so reserved. So proper and respectful — almost distant. She was always so concerned that things be just so, and that they were being who they were supposed to be. Like the world would collapse if somebody used the wrong fork or something.

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When she spoke to Pop at all, it was in a measured tone and always to the point, like they were business partners rather than man and wife.

And Pop. What to say about Pop? He was like a preacher in a barroom all the time — like he was surrounded by unacceptable behavior that he could only tolerate if he kept himself all tensed up, fighting the urge to start clobbering. Or had been until yesterday.

And now here was Mom, flushed and happy for almost the first time in his memory, and leaning into Pop like they were a couple of teenagers out to see a movie from the back row.

Of all the strange and monumental revelations he’d experienced across the past forty hours or so, this, he thought, had to be the strangest. It was like they were completely different people.

“How are you feeling, Son?” Pop asked him, smiling casually. Yes, really smiling.

“F-fine, I guess,” he ventured. “Hurts a treat, but Mom says I’ll live.”

“He’ll have some lovely scars to brag about in those portside saloons you lot love so,” Mom told Pop in a relaxed voice that Dar had never heard her use before.

Pop harrumphed. “I suppose your mother has already read you down for that bit of mischief?” he asked.

Dar unsuccessfully suppressed both a snort and the gasp of pain the snort had caused.

“I suspected as much,” Pop told him. “So I’ll refrain from piling on until you tell me what happened in there.”

“And then?” Dar ventured.

“And then we’ll decide if you need another volume of book reading or not,”

And then, wonder of wonders, Mom pulled Pop’s head down for a completely unsolicited kiss before excusing herself. Unsolicited, but not unanswered. Dar flushed with embarrassment before it was done.

Then Mom was bustling out, dragging a protesting Mailyn along with her. Pop scraped a chair over to the edge of the bed and settled comfortably into it. He even leaned back! What the hell?

“So,” Pop asked. “Care to explain to me how you happened to turn into Errol Flynn all of a sudden?”

Dar’s face flushed. “Remember that time when I was ten, Pop?” he asked. “When Mailyn and I decided we were gonna run off and be pirates? We built ourselves a mistwood sloop up at the edge of Bailey’s knob, loaded it down with sandwiches and soda pop, climbed aboard and cut ‘er loose?”

Marty’s hand was at his mustache again, his eyes twinkling at the memory. “Yes, Son,” he said carefully. “I do sort of recall that. Henry — uh, Hendrel still mentions Mailyn’s broken arm from time to time. And I think I may have finished paying off Doc Singh for your injuries ‘round about last month.”

“Yeah. Uh, well, it was sort of like that.”

“So your mother was right?”

“Mom’s always right, isn’t she?” Dar grinned.

“So she says.”

“Honest, though, Pop,” Dar hastened. “I didn’t really mean to... I mean, sure, I picked up the saber. You and Av were all on about being quiet and all. But I never meant to — that crazy pirate got the drop on me and forced me into it.”

“Really?”

The flush returned, flashing across Dar’s face, waving a flag of guilt. “Mostly,” he admitted.

“Mostly.”

A lopsided shrug, marred by pain. “I think there might have been a time I could have maybe got out from under, but I’m not completely sure it would have worked.”

“Completely,” his father prompted quietly.

Dar shifted uncomfortably in the bed. “He had me take the Colts out by the trigger guards,” he admitted. “Grips first.”

Marty nodded. He’d seen Av or his own father do that flip often enough to know what Dar was speaking of. Hell, he’d saved his own hide on more than one occasion with that trick. And he knew how good Dar’s reflexes were, although he hadn’t yet learned the true depths of his son’s skill. “So you decided to pass up a near sure thing for an absolutely sure thing?”

“I had two guns trained on me!” Dar protested. “What the hell, Pop?”

“It’s called a debrief, Son” his father told him. “You wanted to be a matinee adventure hero, didn’t you? Well they come with the job. Get used to them.

“So you figured—?”

“I didn’t figure that far, Pop,” Dar frowned. “I was too busy trying to figure out what he was aiming for.”

“But you weren’t too worried.” it was a statement.

The answer was slow in coming. Finally, eyes downcast, “no, I guess I wasn’t too worried,” he said guiltily. “Not at first, anyway.”

“And that didn’t strike you as odd?”

Dar looked up. “Odd?”

Marty shook his head slowly. “You ever fight anybody for real before, Dar?”

Dar shook his head wordlessly.

“And yet,” his father said carefully, “it didn’t strike you as odd that you shouldn’t feel some worry in facing a man who’d obviously done so on numerous occasions?”

Dar tilted his head to the side. “Should it have?”

His father laughed softly, shaking his head ruefully. “So they tell me, son,” he said. “So they tell me.”

Dar didn’t understand, but he was, by now, getting used to that feeling.

“You said not at first,” his father pressed. So it did eventually dawn on you to be worried?”

Dar nodded.

“When?”

Dar looked down at the bandages swathing his midsection.

“Ah.” the elder Palin nodded. “So, foolhardy, but not yet a fool. I suppose I can live with that. You do realize how close he came to killing you with that, don’t you?” he asked levelly, his face somewhat grim.

Dar lowered his head, looking sheepish. “I guess you saw the magazine pouches, huh?”

“I saw the magazine pouches,” Marty confirmed. “Half an inch higher or you’d decided on a carbine instead of the Thompson, and he’d have spilled your guts all over that kitchen.”

“I’m sorr—”

“Where’d you go wrong,” Marty interrupted.

“Sir?”

“The first time,” Marty prompted. “What was your first mistake?”

Dar sat back, tilting his head. “I guess—”

“Don’t guess,” Marty pressed. “Guessing gets you killed. What was the first thing you did wrong?”

Dar narrowed his eyes, starting to get a little steamed himself. What was the old man on about? He’d got the pirate, hadn’t he? He’d ended the fight with that duel. He’d.... but he knew, didn’t he. He’d known as he was doing it.

“I should have done the border shift and plugged them guys,” he admitted.

“Really?”

Huh? “Sir?” he repeated, somewhat lost.

“Why,” Marty leaned forward.

Why? “Uhm, why? But—”

Marty leaned back again. “Av said you were good, Boy,” he said, face serious. “So tell me, why would you need to flip that Colt around to get out from under two guys who should never have got the drop on you to begin with?”

Dar flushed. Oh. “You mean, what should I have done different before that.”

Now Marty smiled.

Dar gave it some thought. “I guess... I guess soon’s the Nagant ran dry I shoulda just shucked it and dove back into the mud room instead of standing there like a dummy while I reached for the Colt, huh?”

“One way to do it,” Marty agreed. “Then what?”

Dar was getting the hang of how this went now. “I had the Thompson and these walls are plaster and lathe. They’d barely slow those heavy forty-five slugs down. I coulda just blasted those guys right through the walls, couldn’t I?”

And that way, coaxing and prodding, Marty led his son to recount the battle in the farmhouse kitchen, pointing out the mistakes he’d made so he could avoid them in future. Along the way, he backtracked and got the particulars of the events that had transpired from the moment Dar had first breached the door.

At some point in the proceedings, Av stuck his head in through the doorway. “Figured you two would like a heads up,” he said. “There’s a veddy veddy type in a white uniform on his way over here with a gaggle o’ marines in tow.”

Marty nodded. “How much time have we got?”

“Coupla minutes, I’d guess,” Av said. “I’d offer to run interference, but I think it might be better if I make myself scarce for the time bein’.”

Marty turned to look fully at him, eyebrows going up.

“Long story,” the old man said casually and slipped back out the door.

Marty turned back to Dar. “Okay, Son,” he said quickly. “I’d hoped to have more time to debrief you before this, but I don’t suppose that’s an option now.

“The man who’s on his way seems to be some kind of fairly important officer, and pretty used to getting his own way. Today, he’s going to have to be disappointed.”