Episode 15:

“A New Day”

Part 1

Hands folded in her lap, Kim sat on the front pew of a small chapel. Outside in the cemetery, a fierce January wind whipped snow across the tombstones; the temperature in Deer Harbor, Maine, was hovering at two degrees above zero. That was why Kim was inside while her husband, friends and the other mourners prepared for Will’s graveside service: She had been ordered to wait where it was warm until they were ready.

Two days. Will had been gone two days. It still felt unreal, like a bad dream, or a story she had been told.

The chapel was quiet and picturesque. Kim supposed few people came here on a regular basis, yet someone kept the stone floor swept, the wooden pews dusted, the crucifix above the altar polished. A stained-glass window depicting Christ’s ascension colored the gray winter light a soft rose, bathing the chapel in a soothing glow. Sitting there in the stillness, Kim, who was not particularly religious, closed her eyes and imagined a loving god looking down on her.

Maybe here I can find forgiveness – and we can all find peace…

Watching Will fade away – not just on that last, horrible day, but for weeks and months – had hurt her more than she had shared with anyone, even Jay. Kim had not wanted to be the one to say, Let him go, though she had thought it over and over again, sitting by his bed and wondering if he could hear her, if he was in pain. Even as part of her had clung to the belief that if anyone could get better, it would be Will, another part of her had asked, And what would he wake up to? He’s still trapped in this nightmare – he signed a pardon agreement that means he’ll never really be free…

Although she had not spoken to Kate of her feelings, it seemed that the other woman had picked up on them, because just over a week ago she had sought Kim out with a desperate plea. “You have to help me,” Kate, hunched over a steaming mug of coffee in Jay and Kim’s kitchen while Jay was at work, had begged after laying out her plan. She looked haggard; her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her skin chalky from fatigue. “Thad can get us what we need so far as the medicine goes, but Jay and Tyler have to agree not to resuscitate Will. It’s the only way, don’t you see that?”

Kim’s mind had been whirling from all Kate had just told her. “You’re asking me to lie to my husband, everyday, for the rest of my life,” Kim had protested, her stomach in knots. “Of course I’d do anything for Will, but this…”

She had trailed off, feeling torn in half, before demanding, “Did Will ever talk to you about what to do in this situation? How can you even be sure it’s what he would want?”

“Because I know him,” Kate had tabled simply. “I studied him for two years, Kim. I’ve spent the last five months at his side, and before that I was with him, day in and day out, for an entire month, just the two of us. And do you know what I’ve seen every time I’ve looked at him for two and a half years, Kim?”

Wordlessly, Kim had shaken her head.

“I’ve seen a man who wants out. I’ve seen a good man who was deceived into a world of cruelty and murder and loss. I’ve seen a man who deserves to be free, Kim, once and for all.”

Kim had felt her defenses crumble at that. How many times had she asked herself what would happen if Will did wake up? How many times had she dreaded watching him soldier on, doing what was right because that was what Will did, even though his heart and soul, unlike Kate’s or Nell’s, were no longer devoted to his work?

And so she had agreed. She had thrown herself in with Thad and Kate’s desperate plot: She had promised to sway Jay and Tyler against saving Will’s life at the crucial moment if need be; most importantly, she had vowed that she would never, ever tell them the truth…

Behind her, the chapel door opened and a blast of wintry air cut through her repose. Kim turned to see Liz Schultz, bundled up in a thick faux-fur coat provided by Senator Ingrid Dawson, hurrying down the aisle toward her. Despite the coat, the waifish girl looked half-frozen.

“Are we ready?” Kim asked, standing.

“Almost. Jay said wait just another minute or two.” Liz shook a dusting of snowflakes from her long, dark curls and indulged in a full-body shiver. “It is so unbelievably cold out there! How are you holding up?”

Kim smiled wanly. Honestly, she didn’t know what she would have done without Liz these past two days: It had been Liz who made the phone calls to people like Kensington and Dawson to inform them of Will’s death, who arranged with the funeral home in Deer Harbor for Will’s body to be transported there from New York, who (with Tyler’s money, of course) scheduled a private jet for them to fly into a nearby regional airfield, who reserved hotel rooms in town for the night before. She had come to the Manhattan apartment as soon as Kim had called her, less than an hour after Will’s passing, and she had hardly left Kim’s side since.

“I’ve missed you,” Kim said suddenly, realizing that, with all they had been dealing with, she hadn’t actually told Liz that. “I’ve really, really missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” Liz pulled Kim into a quick hug; they were both wearing such heavy coats they could barely fit their arms around one another, which made them laugh a little. Stepping back, Liz admitted, “I wanted to come by, see your new place, but…”

“You didn’t want to run into Tyler,” Kim finished for her. She hadn’t missed the wounded look on Liz’s face when she had seen Tyler crying in Nell’s arms. “I understand. But you know, Jay and I have our own apartment – you can come right up the elevator to our floor, and you’ll never have to see Tyler.”

Blushing, Liz nodded. “I promise, I’ll stop being a romantic coward and come visit you. I’m going to have to soon, when the babies get here!”

Kim patted her stomach, feeling one of the babies – she had a sixth sense that it was her son, though she couldn’t know for sure – kick against her hand. “I am ready,” she confessed with a groan, placing her hands on the small of her back. “I feel like a beached whale, I have to pee all the time, and my back…Ugh, sometimes I think I’m going to break in half.”

Talking about the babies gave them something happy to focus on. For a few minutes, Kim was able to pretend that they were just two girlfriends having a normal motherhood-related conversation. All too soon, however, Thad stuck his head around the chapel door and announced, “We’re all set, I think.”

The air outside the chapel hit Kim like an icy wall. She ducked down as far into her down-lined, white leather coat as she could, yet in seconds, she was shivering. Thad took her arm and helped her maneuver along the slippery stone path leading from the chapel to the gravesite; on his other side, Liz was tucked up against his back, trying to stay upright while walking into the fierce wind.

A small, eclectic group stood around Will’s casket. Andrew Kensington, Anita Walczak, and Harold Stone had flown up from Washington, D.C.; Ronald Darby, Senator Dawson, and Governor Howard had cleared their schedules to attend; and, of course, Tyler, Jay, Nell and Kate were all gathered there as well, to say their final goodbyes.

Kim met Kate’s eyes as she approached. Their gazes locked only briefly before they each looked away.

Kim couldn’t help noting that the weeks of vigilance at Will’s beside had told on Kate. She was still beautiful, somber and regal in a tailored black dress underneath a heavy wool coat, but she looked older now, as if some of her fire had gone out. Kim understood how that could happen, for she now knew only too well that Kate carried the burden of many secrets which would have to be kept, forever…

Don’t think about that now. Think about Will. Think about him being free, finally, from all of this.

“You okay?” Jay asked as Kim reached his side. He draped his arm around her, holding her close for comfort and warmth.

Kim nodded, her eyes on the gorgeous, silver-trimmed black casket in front of them. Liz had ordered a breathtaking blanket of red roses for the grave flowers; the deep scarlet stood out beautifully against the casket’s midnight surface and the graveyard’s snow-covered stones.

Before melting away into the background, the undertaker stepped forward and plucked four of the roses from the casket, handing one each to Kate, Kim, Liz and Nell. Kim held hers between frozen fingers, knowing some of the chill she felt had nothing to do with the bitter temperatures.

Shivering, Kim couldn’t help but think that Illinois, where it turned out Will was originally from, would have been warmer than northern Maine for a funeral in the middle of winter. Kate, however, had insisted that Will should be buried in Deer Harbor and, furthermore, that they should erect a double-stone for him and for Maya, though her body was gone.

“I think Deer Harbor was the only place besides New Haven where he was really happy,” Kate had reflected, dabbing at her eyes shortly after two men from the coroner’s office, accompanied by Thad, had removed Will’s body from the apartment. “I think he’d rather his final resting place be there than in Red Bud – I don’t know that he ever wanted to go home again. And Deer Harbor was home for Maya, and she deserves to be remembered, too.”

Looking around at the remote forest that surrounded them, Kim was satisfied that they had made the right choice for Will. The cemetery offered a kind of seclusion, a cloistering away from the world; it was lonely without the sadness, if such a thing were possible. In any event, Kim thought Will would have approved.

They had also all agreed that Will’s service should not be elaborate. None of them would have begrudged Will a king’s rites, but Kate, Tyler, Jay and Kim had each voiced the opinion that Will would have wanted things simple. In the end, with Liz patiently asking questions so she could relay their desires to the Deer Harbor funeral home, they had decided on a graveside service only, with Jay providing the eulogy.

Which he now prepared to do. After kissing the top of Kim’s head, Jay stepped away from her and walked to the head of the casket. Tyler immediately came to Kim’s side and placed his arm where Jay’s had rested around her shoulders. She slipped her arm around his waist, grateful for someone to lean on.

Thad stood beside Tyler, his arm linked through Liz’s, who was crying freely. Nell had joined Kensington, Walczak, Stone, Darby, Dawson and Howard on the other side of the casket, probably, Kim mused, because she would have felt awkward standing next to Tyler’s ex-girlfriend. Strange how such things could matter, even at a funeral.

Kate stood to Kim’s right, closest to the casket, occupying what Kim couldn’t help privately calling the “widow’s seat.” Spine rigid and jaw clenched, Kate appeared to be holding herself together only through a supreme force of will. Kim wished she could reach out to the other woman, but if she did, she was afraid they would both collapse under the weight of their combined burdens.

Jay cleared his throat. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the wind. “I know it would mean a lot to Will for all of us to be here today,” he began. Kim smiled encouragingly at him even as tears stung her eyes, proud that her husband had the strength to perform such a difficult task. “He lived a pretty lonely life, and friends meant a great deal to him.

“It seems strange to be burying one of my best friends when, last year at this time, I thought our lives were just getting ready to start,” Jay went on. Tyler began to cry quietly, and Kim pulled him closer. “I look back at that time now and I don’t even recognize who I was then. We’ve all,” his gaze took in Kate, Kim, Tyler, Thad, Liz and Nell, “changed so much in these past few months. Some of us have had to grow up. Each of us has lost people who were very dear to us. All of us have had to really, truly put our lives in each other’s hands. We’ve seen things and done things I don’t think most of us ever expected to see or do in our whole lives.

“And I guess I could say that a year ago today, I didn’t know who Will Traveler was.” Jay paused to clear his throat again. Kim knew he was fighting tears; her heart went out to him as she silently willed him to be strong, to get them through the last few steps of this terrible journey.

Composing himself, Jay continued, “But that wouldn’t really be true. A year ago, I didn’t know that Will was a spy. I didn’t know that his name was really Liam Michael O’Connor. I didn’t know that he was in love with a woman named Maya Kimball. But I did know that he was a kind, compassionate man, always ready with a laugh, always looking to make somebody smile, to make somebody feel welcome or accepted. I did know that he was a loyal friend, the guy you could always count on to come through for you no matter what, the person you wanted by your side when you were going through hell. I did know that he loved me, and that he loved Tyler, and that we each loved him.”

Tyler turned his face into Kim’s shoulder to muffle his sobs. She rubbed his back gently, her heart breaking for the pain he and Jay were both suffering.

You can do this. You have to. Just hold on, just hang in there a little longer…

Smiling slightly to herself, Kim recalled Will giving her that same encouragement on the night he had rescued her and Liz from Chambers’ goons: “Hang in just a little longer, Kim. This’ll all be over soon, I promise.” Here they were, eight months later, and finally, Will was keeping his promise – like he always did.

“I thought for a long time about what to say up here today, how to find some way of helping us all find closure so we can move on, face a new day,” Jay admitted.

He glanced at Kim, who nodded, pleased with the way he had chosen to say goodbye to Will: It was, in her opinion, absolutely fitting. She watched her husband take a deep breath and steel himself to continue.

In the short silence, Kim, now almost completely numb from the cold, let her mind wander back to that day when Kate had come to her to ask a favor, to recruit her into a plan that had sounded too crazy to be believed…

Even as she had agreed to assist Kate and Thad, knowing in her heart that theirs was the only way Will would ever be free, Kim had been plagued by doubts – the most pressing of which she had posed to Kate while sitting there in her warm, cozy kitchen.

“How can you be sure this medicine will work like it’s supposed to?” Kim had demanded. “I know Thad is an excellent doctor, but…I don’t know, this just sounds like something out of a spy novel to me, and it’s Will’s life we’re dealing with here.”

“I’ve done this once before, during an operation in Chicago,” Kate had replied. “Freed was going to kill the teenage daughter of an associate who’d turned on him, started working for the CIA – I’d been tasked to study that associate, just like I was tasked to study Will, and I was actually the one who recruited him into the CIA. I’m not sure how Freed found out about the man’s betrayal, but anyway, I couldn’t very well do nothing while he murdered a child. So I volunteered to take care of it. I told him I felt ‘responsible.’”

They had shared a smile at the irony in that. “And did it work?” Kim had pressed, hoping against hope, for Will’s sake and her own, that the answer would be yes. “Did Freed believe she was dead, and you were able to bring her back?”

Kate had nodded. “Yes, in that case, it did work, I’m thankful to say. But it was a risk then and it’s a risk now, Kim,” she had gone on gravely. “I won’t lie to you: If we do this, we could kill Will for real. The dosage has to be exact, it has to interact with Will’s body chemistry in a certain way, we have to be able to administer the antidote within one hour or it’s all over. A lot could go wrong, not to mention that his body could just give up, with all it’s been through.”

Heart pounding again, Kim had dropped her head into her hands and stared at the tabletop as if she might find some answers in the polished wood. She had given her word already; she wouldn’t go back on it. And yet, to live the rest of her life with the weight of such a secret on her soul, to stand by Jay in his grief and never tell him what she knew – she hadn’t known if she could live that way…

Kim came back to the present, to the frigid graveyard, as Jay pulled a battered paperback copy of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road from his coat pocket and held it up for all of them to see. Aside from Tyler and Kim, everyone else looked bewildered.

Jay explained, “Will handed me this just before we drove away from the Castle – that was what we called where we lived at Yale, for those of you who don’t know – for the last time back in June. It seemed really appropriate then, because Tyler and I thought we were headed out on a roadtrip, just us three guys exploring the country for a few weeks before we all had to settle into being adults.

“Well, that roadtrip didn’t end up quite like we’d expected.” A few watery smiles appeared around the group. “But I found this book in Will’s bag at the hotel after the Drexler bombing, and I held onto it. I didn’t really know why; I just did, because it seemed like part of him, I guess. Then last night, when I was trying to think of what to say here today, I took it out and started flipping through it, and I found two passages Will had marked. I’d like to read them to you now.”

Kim closed her eyes and called up a picture of Will’s face, smiling down at her as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before walking her down the aisle to marry Jay. As she listened to her husband, in her mind she heard Will’s voice, low and soft and steady, reading along with him:

“ ‘The end of our journey impended. Great fields stretched on both sides of us; a noble wind blew across the occasional immense tree groves and over old missions turning salmon pink in the late sun. The clouds were close and huge and rose.’

“ ‘What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too-huge world vacating us, and it’s goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.’”

Jay closed the book. Taking his cue, the undertaker discreetly pressed a lever by his foot; at once Will’s casket began to descend into the frozen ground.

Ever so slightly, Kate turned her head and met Kim’s eyes. Her expression was unreadable – a mask of sorrow, guilt, and loss. Kim couldn’t help wondering if those emotions were because Kate’s plan had failed and the coffin disappearing below ground really contained Will’s body, or because her plan had worked and she knew the grief all around her was needless.

I don’t want to know the answer to that. Not ever.

Before Kate had left the apartment that day, Kim had added one stipulation to her agreement. “You said there’ll be no way to know if Will’s going to pull through until after Thad gives him the antidote, right?” she had asked Kate, moving to the doorway.

Kate had nodded. “For all intents and purposes, Will is going to be dead when he leaves the apartment. Then Thad will try to bring him back.”

“I understand that we can’t bring Jay or Tyler in on this. I understand how dangerous it is for me and Thad to know about it, the danger it would put us in if anybody were ever to suspect that Will was alive,” Kim had said slowly, a plan taking shape in her mind – a plan that would let her live with herself for what she was about to do to her husband and Tyler. “But I’m going to ask you for a favor, Kate.”

Solemnly, Kate had replied, “Anything. Name it.”

“I don’t ever want you to tell me what happens. I don’t want to know if Will makes it or if he’s really gone.”

Kim had struggled against tears as she spoke, imagining a time in the very near future when she would no longer have the hope of ever seeing or talking to Will again. “Once we do this, for me, I need to believe that he’s gone. I need it to be over, so I can get on with my life with Jay and our son and daughter. I need to be able to say goodbye…”

It is over now. We’ve said goodbye. And tomorrow will be a new day, for all of us.

Above the howling wind, the only sound in the cemetery was that of quiet crying. Glancing to her left, Kim saw through her tears that Thad had wrapped his arms around Liz and was comforting her. Nell came forward then, stepping purposefully around the casket and opening her arms to Tyler, who went to her readily, releasing Kim into Jay’s embrace.

As they looked on, Kate stepped up to the edge of the grave, her eyes bright with unshed tears, to watch the casket descend. When it disappeared into the shadows, she brought the rose from Will’s coffin to her lips and kissed the petals tenderly. Without saying a word, she let it fall into the darkness.

Part 2

Two months later – ten months since Drexler bombing

Shielded by the doorman’s umbrella, Jay stepped out of the limousine and hurried into his building, out of the driving March rain. Spring in New York City was proving to be wet and cold; Jay was ready for summer.

But he had much more on his mind than the weather as he rushed through the luxurious lobby, waving hello to a few fellow tenants without stopping to chat. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he was dying to get upstairs to tell Kim the good news.

He had passed the New York Bar Exam. He was now, officially, a lawyer.

Jay knew Kim would be surprised when he breezed in during the middle of the day. His work with Fog Industries’ legal department usually kept him at the office until at least six o’clock; since the birth of the twins, however, Jay had refused to work any later than that. Other junior associates would have been drummed right out the door for such audacity. Fortunately, Jay’s connection to the big bosses (namely, Tyler and Thad) made it possible for him to draw such lines without endangering his job.

“Kim?” he called, stepping off the elevator into the beautifully-appointed foyer. “Kim, you home?”

“Shh!” a voice hissed from upstairs. “I just got them down for a nap!”

Chastised, Jay tip-toed up the staircase and down the hall to the nursery, where he found Nell leaning over his daughter’s crib, tucking a blanket around her. “Where’s Kim?” Jay whispered from the doorway, startled to find super-spy/uber-journalist Nell baby-sitting.

Motioning him into the hallway, Nell waited until they were back to the staircase to answer at normal volume, “Kim got a call from the gallery. They wanted to know about the background on some of her prints. She said it’d only take a couple of hours, and we’re having a slow news day, so I volunteered to look after the munchkins.”

Disappointed that his wife wasn’t home to share in his good news, Jay nevertheless felt a surge of pride at the reminder of how Kim’s own career was taking off. In the months that Will had spent in Georgetown University Hospital’s ICU, Kim had taken to wandering around Washington, D.C. (under full Secret Service guard, of course) with her camera. Jay knew she had desperately missed taking photographs during their eight weeks on the run; he hadn’t begrudged her the creative and emotional outlet, especially when he saw the brilliance of the results.

Their experiences with the Fourth Branch had undoubtedly changed them all, yet Kim’s photographs captured a side of her Jay was certain hadn’t existed prior to the Drexler bombing. It was as if she saw the nation and its people through different eyes – eyes that had seen ultimate evil and supreme selflessness, eyes that appreciated the beauty in the everyday but also found the horror beneath the placid surface. Like any tourist, she had spent most of her time at the capitol’s landmarks and memorials, but she had viewed those with such sensitivity and subtlety that her pictures seemed to breathe new life into the familiar images. For instance, one of her first photographs had shown a filthy, mangy stray dog lying at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, like a bedraggled, cast-off companion waiting patiently for his stone master to awake. The image was beautiful and shocking at the same time, arousing awareness of the crippling poverty that plagued so much of their country.

Once they returned to New York, Kim had continued to take photographs. She had visited the Drexler renovations, which were now well underway; she had gotten as close to Ground Zero, near the World Trade Center, as she could; she had gone to the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. All of her photographs displayed gorgeous yet thought-provoking images of these pieces of American iconography.

Of all her pictures, Jay’s favorite was of the Arlington Memorial Bridge – the bridge from which Will had leapt in his attempt to save them all. Kim had stood on the bank near the spot where, Kate had shown her, Will had been pulled from the river. With a long-range lens, she had photographed the bridge from beneath: The resulting picture showed the granite-hued bridge standing out in stark contrast against a brilliantly-blue autumn sky, while ominous dark clouds rolled in to blot out the sun. The angle of the camera had also allowed her to capture a sliver of the Potomac underneath the bridge; although the water was mostly dark thanks to the approaching storm, a single shaft of sunlight had illuminated one small patch, giving the impression of a heavenly light being directed into the depths.

Whenever Jay looked at that picture now, he liked to think that the light represented Will’s spirit, shining down on them from a place of peace.

At his insistence, shortly before the twins were born Kim had taken her work to a few of the galleries in New York City. Within days, gallery owners had been clamoring to do a show, asserting that her photographs were some of the most amazing they had ever seen. Jay hadn’t been surprised, though Kim had been – he had always known how talented she was.

Carlton was right: There’s no success like New York success.

“Are you home for the rest of the day?” Nell, settling herself on the couch in Jay and Kim’s living room, sounded almost reluctant to have her baby-sitting time cut short.

“I just came home to tell Kim some good news,” Jay admitted. “I have to get back soon.”

He lingered in the doorway of the room, wondering if he should go in and sit down. He and Nell had not been alone together since the night of Abrams’ murder. They had never spoken of the incident, but Jay was afraid that if he gave her the opportunity, Nell would bring it up. Since he had no idea what to say about his actions – sometimes he thought he had done the right thing, other times he was consumed with guilt – Jay sincerely did not want to have that conversation.

“So what’s the good news?” Nell inquired over her shoulder.

Jay just didn’t have it in him to be rude enough to stand in the doorway talking to Nell’s back. Resignedly crossing to a fan-backed chair beside the couch, he replied, “I passed the bar.”

Nell’s smile lit up her eyes. “That’s great, Jay! Congratulations.” She offered him a flirtatious wink that Jay took for what it was – Nell being Nell, as she had always been. “So you’re big stuff now, I guess. A big-time lawyer.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jay answered modestly. “But it is nice to have my license. Now I can start doing something more than researching for the senior partners – I may even get my own cases pretty soon.”

“Will would be really proud of you, you know.”

A heavy silence fell over the room. Jay found himself overcome by grief at the oddest times; he could be walking down the street, thinking of a million other things, when suddenly, the loss of Will would hit him like a freight-train. Now, as he imagined Will’s face breaking into a smile at his news, much as Nell’s had moments before, Jay couldn’t help but blink away tears.

Nell cleared her throat, looking misty-eyed herself. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to bring up anything sad. You should be celebrating.”

“No, don’t apologize. I think we’ll always be a little sad when good things happen,” Jay mused. “I still wish my dad was here to share in things like this, or my wedding or my children being born, and it still makes me sad that he can’t be. It’ll always be the same with Will, I think.”

Nodding, Nell steered them toward more pleasant waters. “We have our own Little Will now, though. You have the cutest damn kids I’ve ever seen, Jay, you really do.”

Jay swelled with pride. His babies were adorable, if he did say so himself. Little Will, as he and Kim had taken to calling William Tyler almost from the moment of his birth, had dark hair and dark eyes like his father; Kaitlyn Elizabeth, nicknamed Katie Beth by her doting Uncle Tyler, had a thick head of blondish-brown hair like her mother but the same dark eyes as her older (by two minutes) brother. Despite the long, late nights and the endless cycle of bottle-feedings and diaper changes, which left both Jay and Kim exhausted, Jay loved being a dad, and he knew Kim loved being a mom. They were even talking about getting pregnant again once the twins turned a year old, so they could get the diaper and potty-training phases out of the way all at once.

“I’m a lucky guy,” Jay agreed, looking around at his lovely home, picturing his beautiful children asleep upstairs, thinking of his gorgeous wife out planning her artistic debut. “I’ve got everything I ever wanted. How many people can say that before they’re thirty?”

“Not many. But you’ve earned it, Jay. You’re a good man.”

Nell’s eyes locked with Jay’s, and he felt his heart stumble in his chest as he waited for her to go on, for her to say, out loud, Even though you killed someone. When she didn’t, however, it dawned on Jay that what Nell was trying to tell him was that she agreed with his decision.

Fathers protect their children; husbands protect their wives. I did what had to be done. Just like my father, and Marlow, and Will.

Suddenly, the hesitance Jay had felt about Nell’s trustworthiness since learning of her involvement with Hometown and the CIA seemed foolish and unfair. He found himself rather ashamed that, even after Kim had given over being angry with Nell, he had continued to doubt her. She had proven herself; he owed her the same second chance he had been eager to give Will.

“Have you heard from Kate lately?” Jay asked, leaning back in his chair as the tension he usually felt around Nell evaporated. “She sent us a card and some baby clothes a couple of weeks ago, but we haven’t spoken to her in a while.”

Seeming to sense the change in his demeanor, Nell relaxed more herself. “Yeah, she called a few days ago. She said she likes being back in D.C. I think Kensington better walk the chalk, though,” Nell added, rather conspiratorially. “It’s not that she says anything outright, but I get the feeling Kate’s got eyes on him and the other Branch members that they don’t know anything about.”

Jay was certain of that. When Kate had taken her leave of them mere hours after Will’s funeral, she had told both Jay and Tyler privately that they shouldn’t worry about the Branch – she had it covered. Something in her steely gaze had convinced Jay that as long as Kate was alive, he and his family and his best friend would have nothing to fear from their old enemies: If the Branch tried to make a comeback or any of its members got up to their old tricks, Kate would be on them in a second.

“Do you miss it?” Jay found himself asking Nell. “Being a spy, I mean, like Kate.”

Nell smiled cattily at him. “What makes you think I’m not a spy anymore, Jay?”

“How in the world would you have time to spy on anybody while you’re running one of the fastest-growing media outlets in the world?” Jay shot back. He was surprisingly unbothered by Nell’s evasive, perhaps even telling answer. If she was still working for Kensington, he supposed she would have good reason to do so.

“I don’t,” Nell confessed. “I thought for a while I probably wouldn’t get out entirely – I mean, it’s hard to imagine being anybody other than a spy after you’ve done it for seven years. But once I was out, damn, it felt good to be free. I like my life now. No,” she corrected, grinning, “I should say, I have a life now. One of my own.”

Jay had to admit that journalism suited Nell: She had the wit, intelligence, charm and tenacity for it. He also had to admit that she suited Tyler better than he had wanted to believe she would. They hadn’t made anything official yet, but Jay and Kim remarked after every double-date (of which there were many, though not as often since the twins were born a month ago) that it was only a matter of time before Nell landed her man for good. Tyler was obviously crazy about her, just like he had been at Yale.

The mantle clock behind Jay struck two, reminding him of the time and his responsibilities at work. “I’d better get back,” he said. He stood and stretched. “You mind staying until Kim gets home, or should I call the nanny service?”

“I’m good,” Nell replied. Grinning, she added, “Don’t tell anybody – it’d ruin my hardcore image – but I really like kids.”

Will loved kids, too, I remember him saying. I wonder if all spies are so soft underneath those hard exteriors…

Jay headed for the door. Nell called after him, “Should I tell Kim to call you when she gets back?”

“No,” Jay decided. “I want to tell her in person.”

“You got it. My lips are sealed.”

Her words caused Jay to hesitate, remembering the last secret he had asked Nell to keep from Kim – and realizing, with a rush of gratitude, that she had. He paused to watch Nell disappearing up the stairs, headed to check on the babies. Thinking of her loyalty and Kate’s protectiveness, Jay was reminded that the last orders Will had given were for the two of them to look after his old roommates. Both women had held to that mission, Jay thought, especially once Will couldn’t.

Believing that somewhere, somehow, his friend could hear him, Jay whispered, “You left us in good hands, Will. I hope wherever you are, you’re as happy as the rest of us.”

Part 3

Seven weeks later – one year anniversary of Drexler bombing

The cemetery at Deer Harbor was deserted when Tyler and Jay arrived. Tyler was surprised by how different the graveyard looked in the golden summer sun; he had remembered it as a cold, desolate place, frozen beneath a blanket of snow, when really it was a lovely spot on top of a green, grassy hill surrounded by dense, leafy trees.

A wrought-iron fence enclosed the cemetery. From the arched gate, six flagstone paths branched off amidst the tombstones, many of which were so old the writing on them had long since been worn away to smooth stone. A stone chapel with a statue of Mary above a red wooden door stood in the very center of the small graveyard, accessible by a paved path that ran inward directly from the main entrance.

“It looks different than before,” Jay observed, pushing open the gate. The hinges creaked in protest. “I mean, obviously, since it was the middle of winter…”

“Yeah, but I know what you mean,” Tyler said. “I guess I remembered this place as kind of, I don’t know, disturbing or something.” He looked around, taking in the yellow butterflies flitting between stones and the wild roses crawling up the fence. “It’s really nice, though.”

Together, the two friends walked down the second path to their right. Tyler found that he was strangely nervous; being here, seeing Will’s grave for the first time since the funeral, made the loss of his friend more real somehow. Not that he hadn’t yet accepted Will’s death – he had. But standing where his friend was buried…It just felt odd.

“Wow,” Jay murmured, stopping a few steps ahead of Tyler and gazing down at the ground. “Liz did an amazing job designing the stone, didn’t she?”

Stepping up beside his friend, Tyler had to admit that his former lover (he still experienced a pang of regret whenever he thought of Liz, so he tried not to) had certainly employed all of her artistic talent to adorning Will’s final resting place. The square headstone was made of solid black granite flecked with gray; amidst the rows of white stones, the black stood out sharply.

On either side of the headstone were mounted two black vases, each containing a lovely spray of wildflowers. Tyler couldn’t help wondering who had been there to put flowers on the grave; his most immediate assumption was Kate, though Deer Harbor was quite a ways from D.C.

The right side of the stone bore Will’s real name, Liam Michael O’Connor, and his dates of birth and death; the other side bore Maya’s full name, Maya Renee Kimball, and the dates of her birth and death. Liz had instructed the engravers to carve a beautiful, blooming rose in the center of the stone, with vines curling out from its stem to circle the names, giving the impression that the flower was joining the young couple.

And on the back of the stone, Jay and Tyler saw when they moved around behind it, was engraved a small sailboat.

They finally got to sail away together…

Remembering the funeral pyre Will had built for Maya, Tyler blinked away tears. He was grateful to Liz for putting so much care and thought into Will’s tombstone, yet that didn’t change the fact that he wished, with all of his heart, that Will and Maya could be there with them, together in life instead of in death.

For just a moment, Tyler let himself imagine that Will and his beloved had survived. He closed his eyes and pictured Maya, her belly round with their first child, bouncing Little Will on her knee; he saw Will standing behind her, smoothing her hair and smiling proudly, a gold wedding band glinting on his finger. It could have been so perfect, the three roommates living next door to one another, their wives (Tyler had to admit, an image of Nell flashed in his mind when he thought of being married) best friends, their children growing up like siblings.

Finding the fantasy too painful in light of reality, Tyler opened his eyes and followed Jay around to the front of the stone. “I guess we should do this,” Jay suggested uncertainly.

Tyler took over, sensing that Jay was unsure how to go about talking to the dead – something Tyler had gotten used to, carrying on conversations with his father and, more recently, with Will in his mind. He supposed some people might find that crazy; he found it comforting.

“Hi, Will,” Tyler said, kneeling in front of the stone. Jay stood beside him, eyes on the grass covering Will’s grave. “We felt like we should be here today, because it’s the one-year anniversary of when this all started – for us, anyway.

“We wanted to tell you that we miss you, but we’re doing all right,” Tyler went on. In his mind’s eye, he pictured Will standing just behind the headstone, nodding solemnly at his words. “You should see Jay’s kids. They’re gorgeous. We’ve got a namesake, you and I: William Tyler. We call him Little Will. He’s a wild man – when he starts crawling, look out. And then there’s Katie Beth. Kaitlyn Elizabeth. She’s so pretty, just like her mom. Thad’s her godfather – I’m Little Will’s, guess they think I’ll keep him in line or something – and he’s already worried about beating the boys off of her.

“Kim’s doing really well. She had her first gallery show two months ago, and it was a huge hit. She’s got publishers calling her wanting to put together a book of her photographs. She’s gonna be more famous than all of us before this is over, I think.

“Oh, and Jay’s a real lawyer now.” Tyler grinned up at his friend, who blushed a little. “He keeps me from getting sued about a dozen times a day. Dad’s business is doing really well. I think he’d like the direction I’m taking the company. Man, I wish you could see us, Will,” Tyler concluded thoughtfully, picturing how he and Jay, in their expensive suits and silk ties, would look to their old friend. “We’re all grown up. I think you’d be proud of both of us.”

Jay cleared his throat. Tyler glanced up, expectant. Looking slightly awkward, Jay said to the headstone, “We, uh, we wanted you to know, too, Will, that we’ve kept up the work you started. Against the Fourth Branch, I mean. Tyler’s doing a lot with the press, making sure the truth really gets reported and that people are looking in the dark corners where guys like Jack Freed try to hide. And I’ve, uh, I’ve been working with Harold Stone quite a bit, giving him advice about prosecuting the Branch members they’ve got in custody. They’ve got people at Justice who are all over this, of course, but Harold trusts my opinion, I guess, since I’ve got a personal stake in it…”

“Nell and Kate are still looking after us,” Tyler added. “Just like you asked them to. But I think we’re pretty safe anymore, so you don’t have to worry. I suppose that’s what we really came here to tell you – that we miss you, and we love you, and we’re all okay.”

A sense of peace came over Tyler as he spoke. Glancing up, he half-expected to see Will standing across from him, giving him that trademark “didn’t I tell you this would work” grin he’d always had whenever they successfully pulled off some prank. Although of course the graveyard was empty, Tyler couldn’t shake the feeling that his words had been heard, and that somehow, Will was letting them know he was all right, too.

Tyler got to his feet and moved to stand beside Jay. “He was a good guy, wasn’t he?” Tyler mused.

“He was. Our Will.” Jay’s voice reflected his sudden smile. “Remember how he used to do that like chicken-dance thing whenever the Cubs won?”

Laughter bubbled up from deep inside Tyler as he recalled Will strutting around the Castle’s living room, shaking his backside and jerking his elbows backward and forward. “How could I forget? That image is seared into my brain,” Tyler groaned. “Like that time he got so drunk at our Halloween party that he fell down the stairs. Do you remember that?”

Jay was laughing, too. “Jesus, I thought he’d broken his neck,” he recalled. “And there he was at the bottom, blood running out of his nose, laughing his skinny butt off, calling for another beer like it didn’t hurt at all.” Jay’s eyes had a far-off look, as if the scene were replaying behind them. “I also seem to remember that stupid friend of Kim’s – what was her name, Chloe? – offered to give him some TLC. Poor Will.”

Their laughter slowly died away, but in its wake was a warm glow that buoyed Tyler’s spirits. He had dreaded this visit, he could admit that; standing there with his best friend, remembering the good times they had shared with Will, he realized that it had been necessary, however. They needed closure. They would never forget Will – he would be part of their lives forever. But they had to move on to the next stage, to the part of their lives that wouldn’t be dominated by the Fourth Branch, to the memories they would make that would not, from this point on, include Will.

“It doesn’t work like that for me,” Will had told his friends the night Freed died. Tyler understood now that, even if Will had survived, even if he had woken from his coma in perfect condition, life still wouldn’t have “worked” for him like it had for Jay and Tyler. Their plans to simply adopt Will into their big, happy family had been, Tyler saw, hopelessly naïve, like his fantasy of Will and Maya living the American dream in Manhattan. Will’s past would have haunted him forever. He would never have been able to lead a normal life.

I still miss him. I’d rather have him here – but I’m glad he’s at peace.

“Well,” Jay said, the pitch of his voice telling Tyler that he was speaking to Will once more, “I guess we’d better go. We’re headed to New York for the dedication ceremony at the newly-restored Drexler Museum. You’ll be happy to know that Tyler here is the keynote speaker. I think we may get another standing ovation from the president, even.”

Tyler walked forward and placed his hand on top of Will and Maya’s tombstone, feeling the warmth of the sun’s rays soaking into his palm. “We’ll come visit again soon, Will,” he promised.

With that, there was nothing left to say. The two best friends draped their arms around one another’s shoulders and, knowing they would return to this place time and again as the years passed by, they walked away.

Part 4

The young man stood on a deserted stretch of sunlit beach, staring out across the white-capped waves breaking against the shore. A warm, salty breeze ruffled his sandy-colored hair; damp sand stuck to his bare, brown toes and ankles. The far-off look on his handsome face suggested that his thoughts were a million miles away from paradise, on something even more pleasant, if that was possible.

Beside him, a beautiful chocolate Labrador sat patiently, looking out at the water intently, as if trying to see whatever it was his master saw. The dog wagged his tail happily when the young man absently scratched his ears. Beyond that, however, the dog did not move; he did not leave his master’s side.

It had been five months since the young man had come to reside on this isolated beach on the sparsely-populated western coast of Australia. During that time, he had come to feel at home inside his small, spartan cottage near the shore; he rather liked the seclusion and the quiet, the way the house carried within it the smell of the ocean, how it told its stories in groans and creaks late at night when the wind blew stiffly off the water. He had fallen easily into a routine here: up each morning at dawn, a six-mile run down the beach and back, a light breakfast, a day spent working and reading and researching inside the cottage (occasionally on the porch’s hammock, if the day was particularly beautiful), a late-afternoon swim, a half-hour of quiet reflection while the sun slipped beneath the horizon, a light supper, a little more work and then a solid, peaceful night’s sleep.

He had always loved simplicity. Now, he found that he thrived on it.

The months of rest and recuperation had dramatically changed his appearance since his arrival. He had gained around ten pounds; he was still thin, but he now had the leanly-muscled look of a dedicated runner instead of the gauntness of someone recovering from a long illness. His skin was tanned a deep nut-brown and his hair, still short though a little shaggier than he typically wore it (not to mention permanently mussed from his habit of running his hands distractedly through it while he worked), was streaked golden-blonde from days spent beneath the tropical sun. Wearing a threadbare white tee-shirt and ripped, loose-fitting jeans, he had the scruffy, sun-kissed look of someone who had lived on the beach his whole life.

Some things would never fully heal, of course. A long, thick surgical scar ran the length of his right shin-bone, starting below the knee and ending at the top of his foot. Despite the intense running regimen, he still sometimes found it difficult to put weight on that leg, now and then having to walk with the aid of a wooden cane. He had other scars as well, some small, others vivid, like those on the inside of his right forearm: Starkly-white against his tanned skin, six slender scars were still plain to see – O-L-I-V-I-A.

He was a marked man. But he didn’t need scars to remind him of the past; he held his memories close, drawing strength from them. Each day, as the sun made its final pass across the sky, he summoned that strength to send his energy out across the waves to those he had left behind.

Jay, Tyler, Kim, Liz, Nell: Be safe…Be happy…

Maya: I miss you, oh how I miss you…I love you…

At his side, the dog suddenly began to quiver. The young man opened his eyes, his hand instinctively moving to his hip where a combat knife, hidden by the hem of his tee-shirt, was strapped. Yet something in the Labrador’s demeanor told him even before he turned that they weren’t facing an enemy.

“Good boy, McCullough,” he murmured, patting the dog’s head. “You see somebody we know, huh?” The dog barked sharply in response, barely able to contain his excitement. “You wanna go get her? Huh? Well, then…Go get her!”

Instantly, the dog bounded off across the sand toward the slender woman who had just walked around the side of the cottage. Clad in light, carmel-colored linen pants and an ice-blue tank-top, with her blonde curls caught up in a high ponytail and her pretty face scrubbed free of makeup, she too could have passed for a life-long beachcomber, he thought.

McCullough danced around her, barking. The woman laughed and patted his head, shouting over the roar of the surf, “Call off your dog, would ya?”

The young man called back, “He’s missed you, what can I say?”

I have, too. I didn’t really expect that…

Agent Kaitlyn Westbrook stuck her hands into her pockets and smiled almost shyly at the young man who had decided, partly for her sake and partly because it simply felt right, to formally adopt the name Will Traveler. Not that it mattered much, since Kate (as he would always think of her) was one of only two people on earth who knew he was alive, and the only person who knew he was on this stretch of beach.

Someday, Will might rejoin the world. For now, he was happy being, essentially, dead.

“I didn’t expect you until later,” Will went on, leading Kate up the porch steps and into the cottage. “Did you catch an earlier flight or something?”

“No, I just made good time on the drive.” Kate paused to look around the room. Rather sardonically, she commented, “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

The cottage was divided into four rooms. The largest, the living room, opened directly into a galley-style kitchen that contained a refrigerator, stove, and a few cabinets, as well as a bar that served as the table. To the right of the living room was a small bedroom, empty except for a queen-sized bed, a steamer trunk full of weapons, and a dresser full of clothes; a closet-sized bathroom with a sink, shower and commode was tucked into the bedroom’s far left corner.

The living room was where Will spent most of his time. Against the outer wall, a long wooden table (purchased from a butcher’s shop in Sydney) held boxes upon boxes of file folders; it was flanked by two tall filing cabinets, each filled to capacity. In the center of the room was a long sofa, a coffee table, and a recliner. The coffee table held Will’s laptop. A PC, scanner, fax machine, telephone and printer were housed at a computer workstation on the wall adjoining the bedroom.

“Interior decorating was never my thing,” Will admitted, moving around her to the kitchen. He was surprised by how nice it was to have company after six weeks by himself. Living halfway around the world, Kate didn’t often get a chance to visit in person; she had only been to the cottage twice (this trip making her third time) in the five months since she had delivered him, still weak and frail from months spent in a coma, to this isolated stretch of coast. They spoke on the phone everyday and emailed frequently, their work requiring that they remain in regular contact, but it wasn’t the same as seeing her in person.

Maybe he was a little lonelier than he’d thought. Or maybe, it was just her he missed.

He realized, with a small jolt somewhere in the region of his heart, that it was the first time such a thought had crossed his mind without being followed by a crippling stab of guilt over betraying Maya’s memory.

“You hungry?” Will asked Kate, who was seated on the sofa rubbing McCullough’s belly. The dog looked as if he might faint from happiness. “I’ve got fish, fish, and more fish, or some pasta – let’s see, there’s a frozen pizza up here, but it’s probably a month old now – uh, looks like maybe some wine, and beer…”

“What exactly do you subsist on?” Kate inquired teasingly. She walked into the kitchen and settled onto one of the tall bar stools, watching with bemusement as Will searched through cabinets. “Just fish and beer? No wonder you’re still so skinny.”

“Hey,” Will protested good-naturedly, “I am not ‘skinny.’ I’m lithe. And for your information,” he added, feigning defensiveness, “I usually keep around some fruit and vegetables and milk and all that good stuff, but I got busy with that surveillance footage you sent me yesterday and missed the market truck.”

Once a week, Will walked the three miles from his cottage to the highway, where an elderly man and his wife sat up a roadside stand to sell milk, eggs, apples, grapes, lettuce, broccoli, and so forth to the residents of this remote beach. There weren’t many of them. Kate had scouted the location thoroughly before bringing Will to it, knowing that their plan’s success depended on hiding him away completely; aside from perhaps a dozen other souls, most of them old and poor, no one lived near Will for almost two hundred miles. But apparently that was enough people to make the man and his wife bother stopping for a few hours to hock their goods before they continued on down the highway in their beat-up truck.

“Let me do this. You got sit.” Kate waved Will away from the cabinets and took over the supper preparations, asking as she did so, “Were you able to find out anything about the man Kensington was meeting with?”

Will found that he quite enjoyed watching Kate cook: She knew her way around a kitchen, even one with meager fare like his. In short order, she assembled three good-sized pieces of white fish (always a good fisherman, Will had become an expert in the past months, so his freezer was well-stocked), a bowl of long-grain rice, and a few heads of broccoli on the counter. While he talked, she went about combining her ingredients, as well as some spices pulled from the back of a cabinet, in a large stew-pot on the stove.

“The guy’s name is Hadley Kruger,” he began.

“That’s tragic,” Kate commented, causing Will to snort with laughter. “Sorry, go on.”

“Our tragically-named Mr. Krueger is a former employee of Carlton Fog’s, from Dante Defense Systems,” Will explained. He crossed to the fridge and retrieved a Heineken, offering one to Kate, who gratefully accepted. Sitting back down, he continued, “Far as I can tell, Kensington was up-front with you about the meet: Krueger worked in R&D at Dante Defense, and he may have been involved in developing a suitcase nuke for the Pentagon. And by Pentagon,” Will clarified, “I mean the Fourth Branch.”

Wonderful aromas were coming from the stove, causing Will’s stomach to growl. McCullough lay at his feet, drooling.

Kate leaned against the far counter sipping her beer, considering what Will had learned. “So Kensington was probably telling the truth – he wanted to meet with this man to see if the Fourth Branch had ever managed to obtain a nuclear weapon.”

“That’s what it looks like from here,” Will replied. “I hacked Krueger’s email – that’s how Kensington contacted him the first time, I gather – so we’ll know if they meet again. I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“I’ll see if I can get a tap on Krueger’s cell,” offered Kate, stirring the soup. “I’d like to know if he’s still in touch with any of the other Branch members.”

While Kate took down bowls and rummaged around in drawers for two clean spoons, Will reflected that they did, as Kate had once observed, make a good team. He had been a little skeptical at first about how much good they could do operating oceans and continents apart. Thanks to their combined technological prowess, however, they had engineered an efficient system via which Kate set up wiretaps and video and audio surveillance which were transmitted to Will’s computer over a secure network; while she kept up appearances with Kensington and the other Branch members, seeming to dutifully follow orders and calmly accept their versions of events, Will worked feverishly on his end to make sure that Kensington and his compatriots were not slipping back into their old habits.

Thus far, things had gone smoothly. Kate carried out her missions once Will confirmed that all was in order, and Kensington had no reason to suspect that she was actually spying on him and his partners as well.

Nor did any of the Branch members know that Will was alive. In fact, the only other person who knew for certain (Will supposed Kim had her suspicions) was Thad Fog, without whom, Kate had confessed to Will, their plan could never have worked…

Five months ago, Will had awoken to find himself lying on a cot inside an abandoned warehouse on the New York docks which had been transformed into a pseudo-clinic. Thad Fog had stood over him, checking his pulse; white-faced and trembling, Kate had leaned over Will, whispering that everything was okay.

“What-what happened?” Will managed to croak, his throat almost too dry to speak. His head felt fuzzy; his limbs were too weak to move; his eyes stung from the sunlight streaming in through the grime-coated windows. “Where am I?”

Kate pressed a straw to his lips, and Will gratefully sipped some ice water. “You’ve been in a coma,” Kate explained, proceeding to fill him in on the events of the past half-year. When she finished, she prompted, “Do you remember anything that’s happened to you, Will?”

He closed his eyes and cleared his mind. “I remember…I remember Abrams. He was threatening Kim. And the National Mall…”

An image of the Potomac River rushing up to meet him filled Will’s mind. Involuntarily, he shuddered at the memory of the intense, blinding pain that had ended his fall.

“I think I jumped.”

“You did,” Thad confirmed. “After swallowing a phial full of Morbus. You came as close to dying as somebody can and live to tell the tale, my friend.”

Maya. Will suddenly saw her face, smiling down at him as he reclined on a sunny beach. “I-I thought I was dead,” he confessed, looking from Thad to Kate. “But if I’m alive, why am I here? Why am I not in the hospital or something?”

“Two weeks ago, your muscle and eye activity, as well as your brain functions and cardiac rhythms, began to indicate that you might be trying to wake up,” Thad explained, sounding every bit the medical professional. “Kate’s been by your side every minute of the past six months practically, so she noticed the changes right away. She came to me to ask if I would help her make it so no one else would know if you did wake up.”

Bewildered, Will looked at Kate. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I knew if you woke up, Kensington would force you to stick to your plea agreement,” Kate answered simply. She placed a protective hand over his. “I don’t want to see these people hurt you anymore, Will. You’ve had enough. I want to get you out.”

“Kate told me about an operation she’d been involved in before, where she needed the people she was working with to believe that a young girl was dead. She said she gave the girl a very powerful barbiturate, sort of a synthetically-produced Pentothal, which is what we use to put patients to sleep for surgery. That caused the girl to slip into a deep, deep coma, essentially repressing respiratory and cardiac function to the point that she appeared, even to doctors, to be clinically dead,” Thad went on. Will tried hard to focus on the young man’s words, but it was difficult with his head buzzing like he had a terrible hang-over.

“Of course, just as when you put patients under for surgery, with this kind of a drug the risk is that the dose will be too high and the patient won’t wake up. So Kate asked me to administer the medicine, then to declare you legally dead and get you out of the apartment so I could wake you back up. Which,” Thad finished proudly, “I have.”

Will stared up at both of them, wondering if they had lost their minds. “You mean, everybody thinks I’m dead? What about Jay? And Tyler? And Kim?”

Kate bit her lip. Abruptly, Will took in how exhausted she looked; he wondered if Thad had been serious when he’d said she hadn’t left his side in months. “I’m sorry, Will,” she began, her voice thin and wounded. “I thought…I was trying to do what was right for you. I’m sorry. I’ve made a mess of things.”

She turned to Thad, sounding resigned. “We’ll have to go back. Pack him up and go back. Tell the others what I did. I promise, Thad, I won’t let them know you were in on it – ”

“Wait.”

The wheels inside Will’s mind were turning. With the awful shock of waking up only to learn that everyone he loved, everyone he had left his heaven with Maya to come back to, believed he was dead starting to wear off, he couldn’t deny the wisdom in Kate’s viewpoint: The instant the remaining Fourth Branch members learned he was not only alive but also awake, he would be locked into the agreement he had made with them. He would have no choice but to spend the rest of his life in their service.

“I don’t want to go back,” he said quietly, his eyes meeting Kate’s. “It’s better this way, for them to think I’m gone. I never meant to stay, after it was all over.”

Weakness washed over him. In spite of himself, Will moaned. “What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel so weak?”

“It’s okay,” Thad assured him, checking his pulse again. “It’s normal. Some of it’s the after-effects of the medicine, and some of it’s being in a coma for six months after jumping off a bridge and infecting yourself with anthrax. You’ve still got a long road ahead of you, Will, before you’re back on your feet…”

And that was when Kate had told him the rest of her plan, that she and Thad would take turns looking after him until his “funeral” was over, and then she would come for him and take him to a safe place. A place where he could rest. A place where he could decide if he wanted to still fight the Branch, or if he wanted to go his own way, perhaps even somewhere that she wouldn’t know where he was, to spend his days in absolute freedom.

Two days in Australia had convinced Will that he would go crazy without his work. Besides that, he was by then quite furious with the Fourth Branch for everything he had suffered and continually concerned for the safety of his friends, whom he could no longer be with to protect. Less than twenty-four hours after she had flown back to D.C. that first time, Will had called Kate to tell her that he was in – mail him a computer, he had said, and they would get started.

Now, sipping a delicious stew with her on the cottage’s porch swing while the night air grew cool around them, Will reflected that he had made the right decision. He was happy in this life he had made. It beat serving masters he hated or changing addresses and identities every few months, which would have been his options had Kate not helped him really, truly escape.

The only bad part of his new life was how much he missed his old roommates. “How is everybody?” Will asked, tossing a sliver of fish to McCullough, who was looking on hungrily from the porch steps.

“They’re good. Did you get the audio file from the graveyard that I sent you?”

Will smiled, remembering Jay and Tyler’s words, touched once more by how deeply they still cared for him. Kate had installed a small recording device in one of the headstone’s vases, the idea being that if anyone got suspicious of their story and decided to exhume Will, they would have some warning. An unforeseen benefit for Will was that whenever Kim, Liz, Jay or Tyler visited – which they did, especially Liz (to his surprise), quite often – he was able to hear the messages they wanted to give him.

“Oh, and I brought pictures of the babies,” Kate went on. “They’re in the car. I’ll get them later. You won’t believe how cute they are.”

“Must look like Kim,” Will joked, earning himself a playful punch on the shoulder.

They sat together for a long time after dinner, talking about Jay and Tyler and Kim and Nell, discussing the latest developments in the Branch members’ trials, worrying over the future of their country. Eventually, Will retrieved a blanket from the couch; the evenings were unexpectedly chilly in this part of the world. They wrapped up in it together, their knees and shoulders touching, while they sipped cheap red wine and watched the waves roll in off the ocean. McCullough, content to have both of his people nearby, napped on the steps.

At long last, Kate stretched. “I’m beat,” she admitted. “That flight is a killer. I’m going to take over your couch for tonight, if that’s okay.”

“You can have the bed. Don’t argue, it’s my house,” Will tabled. He stood up and helped Kate to her feet; she swayed a little, tipsy from the wine, and ended up pressed against Will’s chest.

Kaitlyn Westbrook and me and wine. Never a good combination.

Strangely, Will found that he wasn’t particularly concerned about the situation, like he used to be whenever the possibility of time alone with an uninhibited Kate had presented itself. He steadied her by slipping his arm around her waist. Looking down into her face, he noticed how her freckles clustered around her nose before fanning out across her cheeks. He found that quite fetching, really.

“You look good with a tan,” Kate blurted out.

Will couldn’t suppress a laugh. “You’re a terrible flirt when you’re drunk, Kaitlyn, you know that?”

“You don’t remember me. We met at a dinner party once. You were charming and I…I was tipsy.”

How long ago that day seemed, the day when he had believed Kate to be his enemy, the day when he had learned that Maya was gone forever. Will could think about that day now without wanting to tear his heart from his chest. He didn’t know if it was simply the passage of time, or the fact that he distinctly remembered Maya telling him that she wanted him to live if he chose to come back, but he realized that his grief over losing her had dulled from excruciating, mind-numbing pain to a consistent ache.

And he could think about Kate, about how soft her lips looked, about how warm and solid her body felt against his, without hating himself for those thoughts.

Stepping back a little from him, Kate nervously brushed a few stray strands of hair from her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…I know how things are between us. I didn’t mean to start all of that again.”

Will sat down on the porch railing, folding his arms across his chest. “Do you wish things were different? Between us, I mean.”

Kate’s cheeks pinked prettily. Turning her gaze to the moonlit water, she said quietly, “You know what I want, Will. The question,” she glanced sideways at him, “is what you want.”

That’s always been the real question, hasn’t it? Who am I, and what do I want?

Slowly but surely, Will found that he was discovering those answers. He didn’t have everything figured out yet; he was only twenty-six, though, so he supposed he could cut himself some slack on that count. He had a lot of life ahead of him to find out who he was and what he wanted.

He did know, however, that he had missed Kate, and that he would miss her again when she left. He wasn’t absolutely certain what that meant. What was more important to him was that he felt like he was ready to start finding out.

“I know I’d like it if you could stay a little while. A couple of days, maybe,” Will offered, holding out his hand to her. Kate slipped her fingers into his and allowed herself to be pulled forward until her bare toes were on top of his. Will rested his hands on her hips; she placed her hands on his shoulders, gazing down at him intently.

“I could probably do that,” she agreed, eyes on his lips. “If you want.”

“I do.” Will found himself growing warm from the heat in her gaze. “I do want that.”

Things seemed to happen in slow motion then. Clasping her waist tightly, Will pulled Kate down toward him, watching her eyes turn smoky in anticipation of their kiss. Their mouths came together softly, neither one of them wanting to rush into anything, both content for the moment with a simple, sweet good-night kiss.

When Will released her, feeling a little breathless, Kate laughed huskily. “You know,” she admonished, “I’m not the only one who’s a terrible flirt when drunk, Mr. Traveler.”

Will stood up, careful not to put too much weight on his injured leg all at once, and kept his arm around Kate’s waist as they walked into the cottage. She leaned her head against his shoulder. He could feel her smiling, and it made him smile, too.

“C’mon, boy,” he called from the doorway, whistling for McCullough to follow. Leaping up, the dog bounded past them into the house.

Will paused on the doorstep and looked back at silver moonlight dancing on the foam-capped waves. He hoped that somewhere, somehow, Maya could see him, and that she knew he would always love her, and that she was happy for him – and waiting for him to someday come back to her. He hoped that his friends were as content and secure as they seemed to be, and that they knew he would give anything to be with them – and that he had given everything to protect their futures.

Much as he missed Maya, Jay, Kim and Tyler, however, as he followed Kate into the cottage, for the first time in his life Will Traveler knew that he was right where he belonged.

THE END

Author’s Note: Okay, so…cue music for the credits and…I’m a sucker for happy endings! I hope you enjoyed the journey. If anybody is interested, please feel free to archive this fic on Traveler/Aaron Stanford/etc. websites or boards. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone for reviewing!