It definitely takes a significant amount of sweet talking on his part, but Archer has managed to calm Maddy down to the point where she is at least semi-coherent. They spend nearly an hour and a half simply smiling at one another and making small talk, not really saying much in the way of questions or answers. It is late, he is exhausted from the flight and she is spent from crying, and the emotional highs and lows. The coffee has perked them both up a little, but it is mutually decided that more than three cups is likely not the best of ideas.

Maddy had asks him sheepishly if he has a place to stay, and when he replies that he has an apartment lined up but it won't be ready for at least another week or so, she offers without hesitation to let him stay with her. He considers telling her about the hotel room waiting for him on the other side of town, but thinks better of it. Keeping Maddy company seems much more appealing at this point.

Bedtime rolls around at around 1:30 in the morning, and Maddy has graciously offered to let him sleep in her bed and she'd take the couch, but he declines out of some kind of pseudo-politeness he's worked up, saying that the couch will be a welcome change from the cramped airline seat he's been in for the last seventeen hours or so.

Sleep doesn't come easily to either of them. Maddy finds herself awake for most of the night, wanting desperately to leap out of bed and run into the living room to make sure Archer is really there. It is like a dream, to her. She has a hard time believing that this man is actually in her apartment, not halfway around the world and six feet under. Instead of getting up as she wants to, she tosses and turns in bed, trying to force her eyes closed. They will not close without a fight though, and she figures at some point that insomnia is a good excuse as any to get up and rifle through the medicine cabinet for some Nyquil… and maybe check on Archer along the way.

She creeps down the hallway from her bedroom and as she reaches the living room, she peeks impishly around the corner. She figures Archer will have already passed out from the flight, but to her surprise she finds him wide awake, standing at a window he's cracked open. In one hand is another cup of coffee and in the other, a cigarette.

He looks up, a bit startled.

"You aren't sleeping yet?"

She crosses her arms and leans against the wall, looking him over. Again, she struggles to find words to adequately express what she is feeling. It's somewhere between elation and complete nonsense, and there is no word in the English language – or any other language for that matter – to describe what's in her heart.

"Um." She starts, bringing a hand up to her mouth again. She feels once more like she's about to cry. "No, I'm um… I can't sleep. I was gonna take some Nyquil to put me out."

"Ah."

He turns back to the window and takes a long drag off of the cigarette, tapping the ash off of the end. Archer doesn't know what else to say. He knows that in the morning, he'll have more than his share of explaining to do, and he wants so badly to get a leg up on it, but he can see the exhaustion in her face. He can hear it in her voice. The last thing he needs to do now is keep her up and worry her even more than she is already.

"I'm probably gonna try to get some shuteye soon, huh. It's just that jet lag, you know?"

"Yeah." She's made her way over to the kitchen sink, and she's opened the cabinet door above it. She stands on tiptoe, not quite able to see what it is she's grabbing. First, there's a package of cough drops. Then a bottle of iodine.

He can't help but watch her, and think of how utterly ridiculously helpless she looks in her own environment. This is a far cry from the Maddy he met in Sierra Leone, but she is so completely endearing that he lets his stony exterior drop for a moment. Swiftly, he crushes the butt of the cigarette against the windowsill and flicks it away. He walks over to her and reaches up from behind her, easily grabbing the box she's been looking for. He turns and hands it to her, and she gawks at him for a moment, at a loss for words.

"Uh. Thanks." She offers a sheepish smile, and turns away to get some water from the fridge.

"Ja, ja." The response is so familiar to her that she can't help but grin, even though he doesn't see it.

"So," She begins, filling her cup with water. "You can tell me why you're here, now. Right?"

He pauses. Yes, he can, but he'd rather not drag things out tonight. "Ja. Um, we can talk about it tomorrow though, huh? You had better go to sleep."

Maddy turns to him and looks at him fearlessly, locking gazes. Even though this domestic setting has toned down her ferocity, it still lingers and he can feel it, like tendrils of vine gripping at him. She wants answers, and he knows quite honestly she deserves them.

Gingerly, he places his hands on her arms and gives them a soft squeeze. "Tomorrow, huh? I promise, I'm not going to go anywhere."

It's as if he has read her mind.

She exhales in a deep sigh, smiles, and looks down at the cup. She will have to surrender for now.

"Alright."

For a moment, he forgets where exactly he is. Sleep is still tinting his mind quite heavily, and the first thing that registers on his consciousness is some kind of wonderful smell. It is food; that much he can discern. It smells like heaven dipped in chocolate and deep fried in bliss, and it's definitely more than enough motivation to get him up. Slowly, he pushes himself up and off of the couch and throws his hands up above his head, stretching out like some kind of great big cat. He lets out an impressive yawn and throws his head left and right, cracking the bones in his neck quite audibly.

"Good morning."

He raises an eyebrow at the greeting and rubs at his eyes, squinting at the mid-day sunlight hitting him square in the face.

"It's morning?"

"Well, it's morning somewhere. Here, it's about one-thirty."

"Christ, I slept that long, huh?" He yawns again and shakes his head, trying to get rid of the feeling of lethargy. Aside from being jet lagged, he feels pretty good.

"Yep."

"You cooking something?"

"You could say that. Just bacon and eggs. You want any?"

Archer nods his confirmation, stretches out once more and slowly gains his footing, then walks over to where she's standing. Surprisingly, she looks a bit better than she did last night. It seems that her nerves are still somewhat frazzled, but she doesn't look as frantic. She doesn't seem afraid.

"So, you're gonna tell me what's going on." It isn't a request or a question, it's an order.

"Boy, you don't waste any time, do you?" He grins at her. She gives him a knowing look and reciprocates the grin slowly.

"No, I don't. Now if you want any of this food, tell me what the hell you're doing here." She waggles a strip of bacon in front of him and then pops it into her mouth, tauntingly.

"Oh now that's cruel, huh? You don't torture a man with food."

"If it'll make you talk…"

He sighs, defeated. It's not something he is looking forward to discussing immediately after he wakes up, but it's got to be done. She deserves answers, and for the past few weeks he has been promising them without following through.

"Ja, okay. A'right." He clears his throat, nervously. "Can I smoke in here?" He looks up to her from his seat at the island, tapping his fingers anxiously on the countertop.

"If you open a window." With a spatula, she gestures to the window he'd cracked last night. He walks over to it hurriedly and pops it open, and produces his pack of cigarettes from his trouser pockets. He'd forgotten to take them out before he went to bed last night, and he grumbles indignantly as he realizes he's squished quite a few of them.

"A'right." He rolls the flint on his zippo and brings the small flame to the cigarette, inhaling deeply. "What do you want to know?"

"Start from the beginning," She says, solemnly. "What happened… after you told me to go to Conakry?"

"Ja. Well, to be honest, the details are a little fuzzy, you see." He rubs his neck anxiously. "I was dying, I mean, I know I was. I had a fucking bullet in my lung."

Maddy stays silent, scraping at an empty frying pan.

"But I assumed at the time that the Colonel's company found me, and couldn't let me die on my own terms, huh? I mean, I woke up in a hospital – I don't know how long after I sent Solomon and Dia away – I found out I was somewhere in Pomfret."

"Pomfret?" There is disbelief in her voice.

"Ja, ja. Anyway, I'd been taken to a military hospital, and stayed there for six weeks or so to recuperate."

He inhales sharply on the cigarette, and lets the smoke lilt out the window as he exhales.

"They wanted to Court Marshall me, you know? Because of what happened to Coetzee; never mind the fact that the stupid son of a bitch had it coming, and never mind that I got out of the military years ago. They all knew about what our deal was. And suddenly when Coetzee isn't a piece of the puzzle anymore, I thought, oh, they want to pin the blame all on me.

"…And they can do that?"

"Ja, well. TIA, huh? We don't exactly have the most stable of government military infrastructures, you know."

"Ah."

"So, that was that. They were gonna Court Marshall me, and I was fairly fucking certain that I'd end up getting shot or something like that, but as it turns out, come trial time, they just wanna talk. They wanna make a deal with me."

Maddy stays silent.

"The deal was, I tell them about Coetzee, about the shit he had me running and all the little things he had been cutting me in on, and they would cut me loose, huh? Just like that," He snaps his fingers. "They wanted information from me, you know?" He sniffs, and rubs at his nose. "But they wanted it kept between me, and them. That was it. If word one got out to anyone else, I'd be as good as dead and they made that crystal clear to me."

Maddy swallows thickly. Things are starting to make sense.

"Ja. Imagine their faces when your article hit the newsstands."

She brings a hand to her mouth and leans against the kitchen sink to support her knees.

"Now, I'm not blaming it on you, huh? So don't worry about that. It isn't your fault. I told you to write that article, and oh Maddy, you wrote it, didn't you?" He flashes her a cynical grin and she just stares at him, doe-eyed.

"Needless to say, the Army is not very pleased with me. They thought I'd gotten a hold of you and had gone back on my word to them. I was going to contact you and tell you what was going on before you could put anything to print, but that article came out before I could get to a phone, you see? So it looks like I snitched."

"Jesus, Archer, I'm sorry-"

"Ah ah, no, I said it isn't your fault, huh? Like I said, I told you to write, and that's what you did. It's all just shitty timing, ja? It isn't anything you did."

He takes another drag off of the cigarette, studying the dying bud as he exhales once more.

"So, you know. They obviously want me dead, and I've got nowhere to go, honestly. I mean, where can I go? Not Libera, not Sierra Leone, not Guinea… I can't stay in Saffa, and I certainly haven't got the means to travel north."

"So…"

He scoffs at himself, flicking the last of the ash from the cigarette stub, shrugs, and grinds it into his palm. "So, I called Solomon."

He looks up at her, not saying a thing. There's a little hint of a smile on his face, but just barely. Maddy can hardly comprehend what he's told her. She is responsible for this. Somehow, it's hard to comprehend that. She didn't know. How could she have? Her heart sinks and her fingers tremble against her lips.

"So, are you gonna starve me until I tell you everything? I might not last; this is a pretty long story, huh?"

"Oh. Yeah, alright."

Her response is shaky, and he can hear the astounded tone in her voice. Archer runs his fingers through his hair and looks away, briefly considering an apology. He chooses not to. She asked for facts, and that's all he has for her. Partly, he feels guilty for adding more weight to her shoulders when none of it is really her fault, but if she wants to know the truth, this is it. No matter how much it stings, the truth is as it is, and he can't change it. He knows very well how to lie, but sugarcoating is another matter entirely.

Maddy has turned to the stove again, and stares blankly at the frying pan which now contains an egg and a few pieces of bacon. She is trying to swallow her heart, but it hurts. There's that familiar tingle behind her eyes, and she can't help it when the tears start coming. She can't remember a time in her life where she has cried more than this. She suspects soon, she will have no more tears.

"So, um." She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, and then on her pyjamas. "What… happened with Solomon? How did you get a hold of him?"

"It wasn't particularly hard to get a hold of him. I mean, he was all over the news, the papers, everywhere. It wasn't exactly small potatoes, what happened with him and the pink, huh?"

She nods. Archer has his ways of getting in touch, she doesn't need to know more than that.

"But Solo was a good man. It took a long while, but he really saved my arse, you know? I had to stay in hiding and contact between us was pretty brief, but I still knew a few people. I couldn't contact them without using Solomon as my middle man, and he pulled me out of a tight situation there, huh? He came through brilliantly."

"So… what did he do?"

"Ah well, you know. Since he's gotten into politics and all, he's made some connections of his own. I suppose I might have twisted his arm a little, you know, reminding him that without me, his son would probably still be in Freetown with an AK on his back. But as I said, huh? He came through. I can't go into too much detail but the long and short of it is that he pulled a lot of strings and I have been granted Asylum to the UK."

Maddy perks up almost instantly. "So you're not going back to Africa? You… you live in England?"

He smirks and considers his second cigarette of the morning, but out of courtesy to his host, decides to abstain until later. Her question isn't really one of concern, it's more about excitement than anything. He doesn't want to have to tell her the rest of the story.

"Ja, well, unfortunately it's not quite that simple, huh?"

Maddy tenses her jaw again, and finishes cooking the egg. She slides it onto a plate without a word along with the bacon, and passes it to him.

"Nothing ever is, with you." She sighs and puts the pan back on the stove, setting it down with a bit more force than is necessary. There always has to be some kind of a catch with him. Nothing is ever easy.