The Clara Barton September 4, 2064, 1725 hours

"Here you go Colonel McQueen," Stark brought him his dinner.

"I'm supposed to eat this stuff?" McQueen whispered. It frustrated him, that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get enough air to move over his vocal cords to produce a normal voice. "It's just liquids...and...jello?" He looked with disgust at the first food he'd seen since lunch with Jen on the Saratoga, forever ago.

"I know it's hospital food and only clear liquids, but Lt. Charles has given her okay to start reintroducing foods. She's being very careful regarding your throat. I've seen the schedule the General and Dr. Turek have planned for you. My advice is to eat."

"I don't suppose you could be persuaded to bring me some real food?" McQueen pinned the Corpsman with a steely look.

"No, Sir, but good try," John laughed. "The General wants you up, on your feet and out of here as soon as possible. What he says goes! I'll tell you what. You eat all of that, with no problems, and keep it down. Then I'll see you get some coffee. But don't push it. If you start choking or can't swallow, they're going to put down a feeding tube, so take it slow and easy."

"I'd like to see them try," McQueen challenged, it was hard sounding tough when he could only whisper.

"You are feeling better tonight, Sir," Stark grinned. He would lay odds on the Colonel anytime, even if he lacked the voice to back himself up.

"Coffee, huh," McQueen whispered, knowing he needed to keep focused. Savage said he was needed on the Saratoga and he wanted to get back there for reasons of his own. "I guess that'll have to do. Where you with the General long?"

"Yes, Sir," the Corpsman sat with his patient watching him ate. "I was with the 918th Air Wing for almost a year before Kordis."

"Tell me about it," McQueen looked up, needing to know what Jen had been through.

"I was working in sickbay the day Dr. Kirkwood arrived," Stark knew what McQueen really wanted to hear and he figured it was about time. "I couldn't believe they'd sent her to that God forsaken planet. She looked too tiny to do the things that needed to be done and whenever you got real close to her you smelled...."

"Roses," McQueen whispered. Stark didn't think the older man realized he'd spoken.

"Roses." John cleared his throat and went on, "you could tell from the beginning that Savage wasn't going to give her a chance. Politics," he shrugged apologetically. "Things sure did changed for the General, in the last months." It was hard for John to believe that Savage's anti-in-vitro stance had taken a complete about-face, but it was obvious that it had.

"Kordis.." McQueen mouthed as a reminder.

"Kordis," Stark repeated, thinking back to the early days of the war. "We were deep cover Recon. It was your usual muddy, windy, combat hell. Not enough of anything except dirt, death, and fear and everyone living on coffee to keep going. We didn't have the thunder storms at the air strip that we had in the area where we crashed, but it would rain something fierce, and it could get bone chilling cold. The Lady-Doc went on about her business as if she was at a base hospital on Earth. Nothing seemed to touch her. She was all doctor. She would treat the men she could. The ones she couldn't......well.....she'd make sure they didn't die alone."

"When she first got there, some of the guys tried to make a pass at her. She was the only woman there who wouldn't try to wrap your balls around your neck if you smiled at her," Stark shrugged thinking about how tough some of the female pilots and ground crew could be. "It didn't take them long to realize that she wasn't interested." He searched for the right words. "But it was more then not being interested, it was like that part of her wasn't there, anymore. I caught a glimpse of the woman she kept hidden away, about a week after she arrived. We were all supposed to be undercover. There was a huge firefight going on in the night sky. It was thousands of mile away, but we could see it. I found her huddled in the door to sickbay. Her eyes glued to what was going on above us. She was..well..she was holding on tightly to her dog tags." Both men knew that Stark was talking about her bracelet not her tags. "The expression on her face was one I'll never forget. When she realized I was there, she pulled herself back, changing from woman to doctor before my eyes. That's the night she became The Lady, to me.

"It wasn't until we were trapped in the cave that I realized the significance of what I'd seen that night. Lady-Doc wasn't seeing the fight that had been going on above her. She was seeing another fight, back at the beginning of the war. The one that killed The Major."

"The Major?" McQueen was caught off guard, wanting to hear what Stark had to say, but dreading it as well.

"Yeah, The Major," Stark shook his head. "The Lady began telling us stories to keep us occupied during the long days and nights in that cave. Most of them were about one of those specialized flying groups. You know the ones, that can out-fly anything. Unfortunately, they couldn't out-fly the Chigs, because they all died."

"What makes you think Jen was thinking about them?" McQueen couldn't have spoken above a whisper, if his life had depended on it.

"I think she was thinking about him, not them," Stark looked the older man in the eyes. He figured this man needed to know the truth. He didn't know what there was between McQueen and Kirkwood, but there was something. The Colonel was wearing the proof attached to his dog tags. "When things were real bad for us, she'd grip that bracelet and look upward, sometimes I'd see her lips moving. It was like she was talking to him. I know she heard him talking to her, especially in her dreams."

"Her dreams?" The hairs on the back of McQueen's neck stood up, as all of his dreams came rushing back.

"I don't know who that Major of her's was, but he saved my life, as surely as you did." As Stark talked, an idea began to form. Hadn't McQueen been with the Angry Angels? Hadn't they been killed in one of the first engagements of the war? What if? No, it couldn't be? The Corpsman shook his head and went on with his story. Though, he planned to do a bit of research when he went off duty that night.

"Without him, The Lady would have crumpled before rescue arrived, and we would have died. I still don't know how she made it. She hardly slept, or ate, just took care of us. The few times I could get her to sleep, she'd dream. I could always tell if it had been a nightmare or a dream by the look in her eyes when she woke up. Toward the end, there were nothing but nightmares, and she gave up sleeping except when her body gave out." A clear memory came back to Stark. He had awakened Dr. Kirkwood from a nightmare and she had called him a name...someone elses name, he wished he could remember. At the time he had known she was dreaming and didn't pay much attention. "I'd try to get her to sleep more, but she'd tell me 'there'll be plenty of time to rest when I'm dead.' Then go on doing what ever she was doing. Do you know what the real kicker is? I don't think she knew."

"Knew what?"

"I don't think she knew that she stopped living the night the Major died," Stark shook his head. "So there was no reason she couldn't have gotten all the rest she needed."

"Why did you tell me this?" McQueen whispered, feeling as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

"Because you asked."

"I only asked to hear about Kordis," McQueen argued.

"Did you?" Stark reached for the Colonel's empty tray. "I'll check you in an hour, and if you still want that coffee, I'll get it for you."

McQueen had heard enough about the stories that Jen had told to know he was The Major. Stark was reading his own ideas into what she had said and done. McQueen was sure the Corpsman was wrong. Jen was mourning the loss of the Angry Angels all right, but it had nothing to do with him. Sure, he and Jen had been friends back then, but there was no way he was as important to her as Stark had said, even when she had thought he had died.

The Colonel was nothing if not a realist. He'd known Jen for a long time and he knew how she felt about him. Their friendship had gown over the years, but as far as Jen was concerned, that was all it was. He'd been having problems recently because he discovered the transient desire he had felt for her over the years had become anything but transient! What she felt for him, had nothing to do with fire and need. She had proved that the night in his quarters when she discovered the problems with the in-vitro DNA, and then again a few weeks ago.

What he had seen in her eyes both those night, and mistaken for passion, was nothing but loneliness and fear. The kiss? He smiled at the memory, yes Jen I kissed you, but you kissed me back. Part of him wondered what would have happened if they'd been anywhere else but in the Wildcards' quarters. That same part of him was thankful that it had ended where it had started. Jen meant too much to him to lose her over a...a....what? Whenever he tried to think past that point, his mind shied away. What was there about it that he couldn't look at? What was it about that kiss, that kept him from asking himself, then answering, 'why not?'

His mind was moving too fast, filled with thoughts of Jen. Jen as Stark had described her, a woman looking to something with no substance for support. Jen as they had laughed together over the years. Jen being kissed and kissing him, weeks ago. *"Yes, that was his favorite memory,"* he smiled to himself as his eyes grew heavy and he reached for her bracelet to guide him in his sleep. His last waking thought being that she never had explained why she wore the gold rope he had given her.

'If You Seek For Eldorado!':

McQueen looked back over his right shoulder, enjoying the view of Catalina and saw that the Windswept's slip was empty. He had come to see Jen, but she must be out. He kept on climbing, pleased how well the new leg worked. He couldn't tell any difference from his own, except when he saw the small scars from the skin graft that covered the anastomosis site. He knew that there were rods into his own tibia and fibula that attached the prosthesis to his leg, but he couldn't feel them. Dr. Harrison had explained more then once how his own muscles were attached to the rods and how his nerves were what moved the muscles, making the prosthesis a natural extension of him.

It seemed like a miracle. He lost his foot and half of his lower leg, but it had all been replaced. Even the stem cell injections he had required while his nerves were regenerating were no longer necessary. Jen had taken care of that. Now, he needed to see Jen.

As he came to the top of the cliff, he saw the house were Jen had grown up. It looked strangely quiet and empty.

"Jen," he called out. "Jen, where are you?"

The only sound that came back to him was the whistling of the wind. Walking up to the house he peered through grime covered windows. All the furniture was covered with dust covers and the doors were locked up tight. Patsy's carefully tended rose garden was overgrown with weeds.

"Where is everyone?" McQueen called out.

"There's no one here, Ty," Patsy's voice called from a long way off.

"Where did they go?" McQueen looked around trying to find where the voice was coming from.

"I'm with Frank, but that's not what you really want to know. It's Jenny you're looking for. She told you what she was going to do when the war was over. Don't you remember?" the voice chided. "She set sail weeks ago."

"But the war isn't over," he argued.

"That all depends on which reality you're in," the voice whispered with the wind.

"Where are you? Why can you see me and I can't see you?"

"Do you want to see me?" Patsy's voice was close to his ear.

"Yes, I've got to find Jen," McQueen called out.

"Why?" Patsy appeared before him, on the porch of the old house. "Why do you need to find Jenny?"

"I don't know," he answered, as the older woman moved to the porch swing and sat down.

"That's something you're going to have to figure out," she grinned at him. "You've got some hard choices in front of you, Ty. If you don't want to end up talking to me alone on this porch after the war is over, you're going to need to do something about it, and soon."

"This is another dream, isn't it?" McQueen looked around him. The sun light was very bright off the Pacific, making it sparkle. Every color he saw was bright and fresh. "Why am I having all these dreams?" He shook his head as if to clear it.

"I can only guess," the woman looked him in the eyes. "But I think it's because you're a man who deals best with that which is real. What he can feel, touch and smell. Ideas don't fall into any of those categories. When our ideas begin to change, especially those of who we are, we need an alternate reality to be able to look and study them freely. If we don't have that, our mind rejects, or buries them."

"Colonel?" McQueen looked up at the sound of Cooper Hawkes' voice.

"Coop, I'm so glad you could make it," Patsy smiled, as Hawkes climbed the steps of the porch.

"Patsy!" The young in-vitro gave her a hug then moved over to shake McQueen's hand, "boy, am I glad to see you, Sir."

"What are you doing here?" The Colonel was relieved to see him. "How are the others?"

"Don't worry about them," Hawkes grinned. "We're taking care of it right now. I'm here because Patsy said that you needed me. She said it was in-vitro business."

"Coop, I need you to remind the Colonel of the conversation you two were having, 'about the war being over'," Patsy cued him up. "What did you say Coop?"

"I said that if it was over, 'my sentence would be up, I can go home.'"

McQueen grunted, not liking the direction the conversation was taking. "Then I asked him, 'to what?' I still ask that."

"Coop, what have you learned about home in the last year?" Patsy asked as she watched McQueen squirm.

"I've learned that I didn't have one until I became part of the 58th," Hawkes smiled. "That it doesn't matter where I am, as long as I'm with the people I care about. That's what makes a place a home, not a building or land or possessions of any kind."

"'Home is where the heart is,'" McQueen muttered. "Jen said that, one of the last times we talked."

"She did?" Patsy smiled. "I didn't think she understood. I thought she had 'closed her door too well'."

"Her door too well?" McQueen looked at Patsy. "Is that what you meant in that letter?"

"You're getting the idea," Patsy smiled in approval. "But I suggest you look up the passage in Te-Tao Ching and while you're at it, look up the importance of 'that which has no substance'."

"Why wouldn't Jenny understand?" Hawkes asked. "She loves you a lot," he looked at Patsy. "You're where her home is."

"No," McQueen interrupted. "She told me she couldn't come back here. Catalina wasn't her home anymore. What did she mean?"

"I can't give you the answer to that, only you can figure that out," Patsy looked straight at him. "Ty, she was a natural-born who was raised by an in-vitro. I'm afraid that she grew up with all the emotional handicaps that we have. I'm sorry, I didn't have the skills to teach her otherwise. Sure, she and I learned about love. The kind of love that a mother has for a child or that two sisters have for each other, but I could never teach her about the love of a man for a woman. The only pattern she had for that was her father. What he taught her was that if a man and a woman loved, the end results would be pain. Then he added to that, by making her feel that no man could ever love her. To be fair to Professor Kirkwood, I think he did that in an attempt to keep her from feeling what he felt when Emma died. I wish I'd met Frank when I was younger. It would have made all the difference in the world, and saved Jen so much hurt."

"What does that have to do with her not going back to Catalina?" McQueen looked around, sometime in the last minute Coop had disappeared. "And why are you telling me all this?"

"I think you know the answers to those questions," Patsy smiled and began to grow indistinct. "Just remember what I've told you. It's the key to her feelings. She can be a hard woman to convince sometimes."

"Patsy, wait," McQueen called out.

"Remember, Ty, choices, hard choices!" Patsy's voice spun back at him. "Ask yourself, then answer, 'where is your home McQueen, where is your home'?'"

The Colonel turned over in his sleep as the last of his dreams ended. Somewhere in the back of his mind they were filed away. Now he had to rest and get his strength back, there was work to be done. This time he wasn't going to attempt to bury his thoughts. Jen had been right when she said it was a waste of energy to have to always bury things instead of learning to live with them. One advantage of the trach tube and being unable to speak was that it gave him plenty of time to think.

---

Planet 2063 Yankee September 4, 1800 hours

They had all moved into the small, well concealed cave where Shane and 'Phousse had been hiding. From the outside it looked like a small crevice in the cliff, but it was really an opening two feet by five, that widened to a cave. The breeze from the lake helped keep it from getting too hot during the day. Jenny was beginning to think she was destine to spend the majority of the war in a cave of some sort or other.

"How's she doing, Jenny," Shane looked up worriedly from the fire she was tending. She couldn't get her mind off what had happed to Paul and the Colonel. Thank goodness, Nathan had gotten Kylen and the rest of the POW's back to the Saratoga. That was a small piece of good news to try to balance out the loss of the two men.

"Vanessa took a bad hit to the head," Jenny sat beside Shane. "I think she may have a small subdural hematoma. I can't be sure without a scanner."

"I checked her forehead, the bump doesn't look that bad," Shane argue with the doctor.

"If there's a bleed, it can be on the opposite side of her head then the main injury," Jen moved into lecture mode. "When she hit her head going forward, the brain hit against the front of the skull, then bounced back, and hit the back of the skull. If it happens with enough force, then two injuries can result. Often, the second is the worst of the two."

"But 'Phousse was awake," Vansen was filled with guilt. "Even with the damage to her wrist, she's the one who got the emergency beacon going. She could hardly see, she was so dizzy, but she talked me through stripping pieces from the radio and getting the beacon working. She has to be all right!"

"Shane take it easy," Nathan called out from his position at guard duty. "This isn't your fault. I know what it was like piloting a troop carrier through the atmosphere of this planet, I can only imagine how hard it was for you to land that cockpit. It's amazing you aren't both dead."

"Like Paul, you mean?" Shane leaned her face in her hands too tired to even think. "When she wakes up, don't tell her about Paul, she thinks...she thinks....," Vansen looked up at Jenny. "She told me just before she blacked out that Paul was talking to her, telling her to hold on...to live. Was that just because of the hit to the head?"

"Shane," Jen put her arm around her friend and spoke quietly, just between the two of them. "Sometimes in moments of great stress, we hear, or think we hear, people who are important to us. Those voices, weather our imagination, or what ever they are, help us to do what needs doing. 'Phousse isn't going crazy."

"You've heard voices like that?" Shane whispered.

"Yes," the older woman mouthed as she hugged her friend. "I don't think I would have survived Kordis if I hadn't. But there's good news about Vanessa, too. I've set her broken wrist. It should heal without any problems," Jenny kept her arm around Shane as she spoke. "The marks left by her safety harness lead me to believe she may have some bruised, possibly broken ribs. I've strapped them, to make her breathing easier. We need to give her time to heal. Sometimes waiting is the best medicine, though at the time it seems like the hardest thing to do.

Connelly and Hawkes had returned from scouting the area with a helmet full of berries and two rabbit-like animals. The meat was cooking, and everyone was looking forward to eating.

"That sure smells good," Mitch smiled as Coop divided up the food.

"It beats k-rations," Shane grinned, then gasped as she remembered a dinner when k-rations had tasted like a feast.

"It's okay Shane," Nathan patted her arm. "Paul would hate it if you couldn't look back at the good times and be happy about them."

"It just takes some getting used to, I was so sure everyone made it back but us," Shane pointed toward 'Phousse. Then searched her mind for anything to change the subject, "how long will it take us to get back to the ISSCV?"

"Any chance we can bring the it to us?" Jenny asked as she pushed her food around her plate in an attempt to look as if she was eating. "I don't want to take Vanessa over that mountain, if we don't have too?"

"Bringing it here isn't the problem," Hawkes looked over to West. "What do you think Nathan, can we find a place to park that thing?"

"It'll fit on the beach," West commented. "But we can't keep it there for long, there's no cover. I doubt Ross will have Saratoga back here for at least six more days, maybe longer. When he does get back we need to be ready to take off."

"Tomorrow at first light we should scout around and find a place where we can hide the carrier," Mitch commented.

"Coop and I can go back for it, as soon as we know we can hide it on this side of the mountain." Nathan looked around the group. "Mitch, you stay with Shane, 'Phousse and the Lady-Doc."

"Nathan, I'd like to get a better look at that area where we found the dead AI," Mitch suggested. "What if you and I went back, did a little scouting on the mountain, then headed here with the ISSCV?"

"What dead AI?" Shane shivered at the thought of the artificial beings that killed her parents. "I haven't seen any signs of Chigs or AI's since we crashed."

"We found a Felicity unit with a drained power cell," Coop filled Shane in on what had happened. Mitch didn't miss the look that passed between the three Wildcards as they talked about the last time they had found one of those units with a similar problem.

"I think Mitch and Nathan should be the ones to go," Shane spoke like Captain Vansen for the first time since she had been found. "Coop, Jenny and I'll stay here with Vanessa. First things first though, we need to secure a hiding place for the craft before we bring it here. If we can't do that we'll need to move our base of operations." As she talked, Shane turned toward the Doctor, "Jen, when do you think Vanessa could travel?" Vansen didn't miss the way the older woman winced at her name.

"A..well," Jenny found her voice. "We could rig a stretcher and carry her anytime we had to. It's not ideal, but if that's the only way, then we'll have do it, because 'Phousse isn't walking over that mountain anytime soon. Please excuse me, I need some fresh air," the older woman pasted a smile on her face as she put down her partially eaten dinner and left.

"What was that all about?" Shane watched Jenny's back as she moved out of the cave. "What'd I say?"

"I think it's because you called her 'Jen'," Hawkes whispered.

"But," Shane shrugged, confused. "She used to like it when we did that."

"Did she?" Nathan moved close to her. "Jenny's been quiet and grim the last few days. The change in her......well, I'm not sure I want to know how deep it goes."

"Yeah," Coop nodded. "You didn't see her that night, after everything went to hell, we did. The Colonel..." Hawkes took a deep breath so he could go on. "I heard in sickbay that when they brought the Colonel in, with part of his leg blown off, he wanted her to be the one to operate on him. He said he trusted her."

"Oh God," Shane whispered. "She and McQueen are friends. How could he ask her to do that? How could she turn him down, if he asked?"

"She didn't turn him down, but she hasn't been the same since that night," Nathan continued. "She came to our quarters after it was all over," he could only shake his head at the memory. "Between doing as McQueen asked, hearing about Paul and the two of you, she was so fragile I was afraid she'd break."

"But she didn't," Coop shook his head. "The next morning she took on Ross to get this rescue mission going. She may have looked fragile on the outside, but there was something made of steel on the inside of her. It drove her and everything else onward." As he said the words, his memory was jogged, something Jenny had said months ago, something about......it takes a hot fire to temper strong steel, and McQueen is made of the strongest I've ever seen. The young in-vitro looked out into the dark. In that moment he knew!

"Is she safe out there?" Shane looked toward the entrance of the cave.

"I got my eye on her," Mitch Connelly smiled back from his position at guard duty. "Don't worry about her Captain, she told me once she likes to hear the sound of the sea. I guess the waves on that big lake over there are making her feel right at home."

"Maybe I should go out there....." Shane started to get up when Nathan lay a hand on her shoulder.

"Give her some time alone, Mitch'll keep an eye on her."

Jenny sat concealed in the bushes by the cliff, staring out over the water 20 feet away. I've got to get a grip on myself, she thought as the two moons rose, casting an eerie light on the water. Either he's coming back or he's not, either way I need to deal with it. she bit her lip as she worked through her options.

I'll be back, Jen, Ty's voice rumbled in her ear. You don't think this is over do you? Now go to bed, it's much later then think, his soft voice rang in her head as she moved quickly back to the cave.

At least when she'd been on Kordis, and she'd heard him talking to her, he hadn't talked in riddles! she thought as she passed Mitch Connelly at the entrance, and joined the others who were sleeping toward the back. Her last waking thoughts were, maybe this time I am cracking up!

In those early morning hours, when it's always darkest, the sound of the waves pounding on the sand filled Jenny's dreams. They took her away to a place where all things are possible. She was on her boat, the sails were stretched taught from a strong wind, that drove the craft over a blue ocean. She could feel a man standing behind her, his hands gripping hers lightly on the wheel. When she turned her head to rub her cheek against the arm that was wrapped around her, she could smell hammerhead fuel and sandalwood aftershave.

"Ty?" She murmured in her sleep.

"Easy there, Jen," a deep voice quieted her.

"Love you," she smiled.

An awkward hand patted her shoulder, until she fell into a quiet sleep.

Cooper Hawkes, watched the doctor carefully until he was sure she was sleeping soundly, then moved back to his place at guard duty. When the young Marine had heard her start to murmur again, he was glad he had chosen the early morning watch. He had decided yesterday it was fitting that he be the one to keep her secret. So keep it he would, until the man came back, who the secret really belonged to.

To Be COntinued

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