"The Musgroves, like their house, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement."

i.

Charlie came back in mid-afternoon. Charlie was not known for her patience, but she was forgiving. She'd forgiven Adam for being too screwed up to fall in love with her seven years ago, and she forgave Max for being remarkably aggravating every day of the week.

She and Max has both been only twenty when they married. Adam had been twenty-one, and had not envied them.

That, of course, was not so much a judgment on them as on himself.

The last time Adam had seen her, she'd had a tightly wound crown of elaborate braids. This summer, she was wearing her hair natural, framing her face in a short halo. "Shit, it's so good to see you!" she exclaimed, squeezing Adam in a rib-cracking hug.

"We're not supposed to swear in front of the kids," Max fretted, plaintively, from the sofa.

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Sorry, I'm super sweaty. I swear my parents have enough money to hire like, ten more workers. I mean, Regina's coming in this week, but that's one! One! You would think they'd been alive during the Great Depression."

Adam said, as carefully as he'd ever said anything, "Regina?"

"Yeah, Regina Wentworth." Charlie stooped to unlace her work boots. "Pretty sure that was the name. She's related to the Crofts, who…aren't they the ones living at your house now?"

"Yes," Max answered, looking at Adam. "Same ones."

…

2009

Hospital lights. The blur overhead sharpened into the square, merciless lines of overhead fluorescents.

His head spun with a frantic ache; his heartrate was too high. There was something he was supposed to remember.

"Adam?"

Russ, beside him, was gray-faced and tired.

"I'm—" His mouth was dust-dry. "What happened?"

What was he forgetting.

"You collapsed," he heard Russ answer, with almost impossible gentleness. "Dehydration and exhaustion."

The memory of gasps of breath were coming back. So was something else. Adam sat up, even though his headache practically shrieked in protest.

"I've got a flight," he said desperately. "I've got to meet Regina."

Russ looked at him for a long time. Adam hated when people couldn't find the words to say. It was one of his faults too.

"Adam..." Russ reached out and rested a light hand on his knee. "Regina's gone. "

…

Adam took Tessa and Claire grocery-shopping. That way Charlie and Max could sort out their latest squabble over the dueling demands of health and farming, and Adam could think without being too obvious about it.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Tessa asked, kicking the back of his seat gently.

Well. Maybe he was still being too obvious.

"Just thinking about want to make for dinner," he said, with an encouraging glance in the rearview. He didn't feel particularly encouraging; he felt like an insect pinned to a board. The questions, the glances, and...her.

Her, coming here. Working here.

There was so much he didn't know. So much he could never ask anyone.

When they returned, groceries in hand, she was still the favored topic of conversation. Max wanted to meet her, but first wanted to know everything Charlie had heard about her. No doubt, Charlie wrote it off as boredom-induced obsession, but Adam knew better.

"She looked so lovely at the wedding," Charlie was saying.

Adam cleared his throat. "The wedding?"

"Only time I've seen her," Charlie said, nodding. "You know, Mom still thinks the dress was too unconventional, but hey. Marina is not exactly known for her love of convention."

Adam's pulse resumed its thunderous pace in his ears. "I'm sorry. Whose wedding?" He could feel Max's eyes on him, but he didn't care. He needed to know.

"Simon and Marina's," Charlie explained. "It was not long after they had their sibling reunion, or whatever. I think, anyway. I'd have to ask Mom."

"Anyway," Max added, lifting himself off the sofa and swathing himself dramatically in a fringed blanket, "We're meeting her at dinner tonight. You're invited, of course."

Adam tried very hard for a smile, and couldn't be sure whether he succeeded.

Then Tessa came in and said her tummy hurt.

Several puking episodes later, she was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a dilapidated stuffed Eeyore.

The rest of the house, however, was in shambles.

"Stay at home?" Max demanded, aggrieved, "like I haven't been trapped here all day? Like I haven't—"

"Haven't been getting out of breaking your back picking beans? Don't give me that shit."

Adam stepped in before it escalated, or before Max claimed better acquaintance with Regina as a trump card.

"Guys, it's fine. I'll stay here."

Charlie and Max both wheeled on him. "Really?"

Affection won over pain, and Adam really did smile this time. "Sure thing. I'll stay with the girls and make sure Tess is alright. You two go to dinner."

Then he climbed the stairs slowly, shut the door to his room, and buried his face in his hands.

ii.

The Musgrove family farm sprawled out over the land like a quilt. Regina had survived much worse weather than sticky August heat, and was inclined to be optimistic about the prospect of working under wide-open skies.

"They'll welcome you with open arms," Simon assured her. "Sorry about that." This, with a grin. He knew Regina didn't like hugs.

She submitted to Mrs. Musgrove's warm embrace and Mr. Musgrove's firm handshake. They were in their late fifties, heavy-set and spry. Their two sons, Henry and Lou, were taller, broad-shouldered and handsome.

"I think out parents are finally graduating to the future," Lou told her, lifting a conspiratorial hand to his mouth. "They're actually hiring outside the family tree."

It reminded Regina a little of the Elliots, though she did not say so.

Simon bowed out with excuses of a first dinner at a new home, and Regina was left at the mercy of her new employers.

Their mercy included endless explanations of every feature of house and farm, and a dinner spread that seemed practically Thanksgiving-ready.

"If only Charlotte and Max would ever come early," Mrs. Musgrove fretted.

"Charlotte and—"

"Daughter and son-in-law," Mr. Musgrove boomed, joining the conversation. "And parents of the two best kiddos in the world, not that I'm biased."

Henry grimaced. "And—they're always late."

"Oh," Regina answered vaguely. She was a little restless, expecting the past to leap out from behind every corner. Probably she just needed to eat.

The front door opened again at last. Charlotte was much shorter than her brothers, and curvy instead of tall and lean. She had her mother's smile and offered a hand to Regina.

"I'm Charlie," she said, and Regina couldn't help liking her at once.

Not that she had much time to, because trailing in after Charlie was Max Elliot.

She shouldn't be shocked. She shouldn't feel her stomach roiling under the white-hot wave of memory and…was that fear? No. No, it was grief. She put on her combat face and glared Max down.

"Nice to see you again," he said languidly.

"You too." She said it through a smile that was all teeth.

"Wait." Charlie's brows pinched together. "You know each other?"

Regina wondered if you could crack your own molars, biting down that hard.

Max lifted a shoulder. "A little. Are we going to go in and eat? This hallway is drafty as hell." He hadn't really changed. Regina was only glad that the stasis included the same surprising streak of secrecy that had flickered through him incongruously in his younger days. At least for the moment, he didn't seem overly eager to expose her.

Dinner started and Regina tried breathing through it. Lou and Henry were pretty endlessly charming. And hey, if you saw her walking down a street and didn't know that her shoulder was pocked and twisted with shrapnel scars, and didn't know that she was batshit with PTSD, you might find her attractive.

They might find her attractive.

She had a forkful of sweet potato casserole thrust halfway into her mouth when Mrs. Musgrove asked, "You were able to get a sitter?"

"No, actually," Charlie said, rolling her shoulders back in a sigh. "Tessa started throwing up, so Adam offered to stay with them."

"Adam came today!" Mrs. Musgrove exclaimed. "Charlotte! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I absolutely told you last week, Mom. You just must have forgotten he was coming the same day as Regina."

"And you made him stay home with the kids?" Lou complained. "You two are the worst. We want to see Adam!"

"More than you want to see me?" Max was immediately offended. Mrs. Musgrove shot a warning glance at Lou.

"Of course not," Henry filled in. "Just…we want to see him too."

It was easier to watch all this unfold boisterously than it was for Regina to give a second of space to her own heartbeat. An internal stream of profanity would do the trick too, anything to counteract how utterly she'd been blindsided.

Adam. Adam was here.

"We are blessed," Mr. Musgrove was saying, "To have two extra helpers this season. The demands were getting a little much for us and the temporary workers. Adam and Regina are going to save us all."

Ok, yeah. It was only fair that that nearly made her choke on her water.

In combat, the thinking and feeling parts of you shut down. There wasn't time, in between bullets and dust and smoke and screaming and whatever the hell else was going on, to worry about all that shit. All the maybes of fate and future. All the stripped-down, soul-torn anguish that had dogged her heels for ten years.

She was just sitting here, outwardly calm as hell, eating a chicken dinner.

Goddamn.

The conversation shifted away. Regina stayed where she was. But she found her mouth opening to speak, found actual words coming out of it, answering questions about all her odd jobs since the military and sure, a few innocuous details about her service got sprinkled in too.

The only other person in the room who could have asked something truly dangerous was Max, and he was being unusually quiet.

They took mugs of early cider out on the porch afterwards. Regina's room was in a converted sunroom on the east side of the house. They'd lent her two box fans, in case it was too hot at night. She liked the screened paneling, thought it would make for real air to breathe. It was kind of them, to help Simon out like this, give his screwed-up sister somewhere to stay and something to do.

It was kind of them, and it was kind of them to take on half the living Elliots, and that combination of kindness was going to send Regina right off the deep-end.

You're going to have to see him.

Back to combat mode again. Back to watching her hands move, lifting the cup to her lips and down again. Back to laughing at Lou and Henry's jokes.

Max kept looking at her.

"Don't you worry about the babies?" Mrs. Musgrove asked, when it got towards nine and the sun had long since set. "Tessa not feeling well…"

Charlie looked put-upon, but said they'd better go. Max looked put-upon, and didn't see why they should. Regina wanted to reach over him and slap him, just like she'd always wanted to. She didn't. It would give away too much. Break the bond of vague familiarity and arms-length that Max was allowing her, that was keeping everything momentarily safe.

"You got a long way to go?" Regina asked, when the leaving finally became imminent.

"We live just down the hill," Charlie—said. She pointed into the dusky bowl of the valley, where the edges of the fields rolled down, and yes, Regina could see it. There was a house down there. Squares of golden window light, blurring before her eyes, and beyond that...

Adam.

She wondered what he would look like now. Grown out of bony wrists and elbows, but still strikingly pale, even delicate, against the contrast of dark hair and blue eyes. Did he ever learn to raise his voice, or live outside of Elliot systemic oppression?

Asking such questions hurt.

You ran from this. You ran all the way around the world and back again, and now you two are going to have to pick beans next to each other, like nothing ever happened.

Regina breathed shakily, alone at last in the sunroom.

Like nothing ever happened.

To everyone else, she was sure it would seem like nothing ever did.