YOU HAVE TOD DIE -- PART 2

There was some romantic, little girl part of her mind that said when a woman visited her grandfather she went to a farm, or a little house by the forest. Her grandfather, her father's father, lived in Building 44, apartment 321 of a huge 100 building complex outside of Kiev. She hadn't been there in five years and wondered how the old man was doing. She had never thought of her grandfather as anything but very, very old.

Climbing the two flights of stairs to his apartment was nothing for a woman who have been climbing small mountains and hills an Afghanistan for the last six months, but she wondered how her elderly grandfather managed. The five years she had been away had not improved the condition of the apartments. Mortar crumbled from between the yellow bricks, and curtains blew out windows never seemed to close even against winter winds. Children still ran and played in mud yards, and halls were still lined with discarded items that overnight would disappear into the homes of people who still deemed them useful. She was certainly fortunate that she had always been able to live in better housing in Moscow.

Walking into her grandfather's apartment was like walking into another world, maybe another planet. If you looked down you saw floral oriental rugs, layered over each other, and interspersed with fur rugs, rattan mats, and other rugs she couldn't identify. The furniture, the same furniture he had had as long as she remembered, consisted of two huge leather chairs, which ordinarily would have filled the room, except for the fact that the room was already filled with bookcases, hutches, trunks, tables, and more bookcases. The windows were draped first with heavy ecru lace, and then with dark burgundy velvet curtains. There didn't seem to be an inch of wall space, shelf space, or floor space that wasn't covered with something special.

Her grandfather, a small man who barely came to her chest level, with sparkling blue eyes and a mass of unkempt white hair did not seem to have changed at all in the five years she had been away.

"It's you. My mishonok <little mouse>," he crooned as he saw her. No one but Ivan Fedorov would call a soon to be Podpolkovnik in the Russian army a "little mouse." She shuddered to as she thought about the rats that lived in the caves in Afghanistan.

She grabbed the small man and pulled him into her. His hug back was almost as strong. She kissed the top of his head.

"It's so good to see you, devochka<little girl>. I hear you are a hero. I hope you can do now what we didn't do ten years ago."

"It's not the same. We're not fighting for ourselves now. We're fighting for the greater good."

"That's my vnuchka<granddaughter>. Always looking for the greater good."

She smiled. "That is what I do!"

"I only have one question, why is a beautiful young woman like you spending her time with her old, old grandfather and not with her friends. You will be returning to that war way too soon."

"I haven't been here in five years." Most grandparents would complain about her not visiting often enough. Five years was way, way too long. She always wondered if this visit might be the last time that she would see the old man.

"Sit down, devochka. Your favorite chair awaits. I'll make you some tea."

"I can make the tea, grandfather. You don't have to wait on me."

"I have special tea for you, and cherry jam to put into it. Have to dig through my pantry to find it though. You just relax, and pet the sheep."

As long as she remembered her favorite chair had had a fleece draped over its back. She remembered when she first realized what it was; she must have been only four or five. Her grandfather had explained it to her when she expressed horror at the skin of a farm animal being in his house. He told her that this was a special sheep -- one that so loved the little girl who owned it -- that when she moved to the city he chose to be transformed into a fleece so that he could travel with her. The fleece needed to be petted and talked to so it didn't get lonely for its fellow sheep or the little girl who had since moved on. She suspected, from the age of the fleece, that the little girl might have been her grandmother.

Olga sat on the chair and draped the fleece over her legs. It still seemed supple and warm to the touch. She ran her hand over the large arm of the chair, the leather never seemed to get stiff or wear out either. Her grandfather presented a tray sporting two glasses of tea in ornate silver holders, a small crystal bowl of cherry jelly, and an earthenware plate with small cookies. She wondered if he had baked the cookies, but decided they were a gift from some friendly widow in the building. Her grandfather still had a way with the ladies.

He sat in the other chair and looked into her eyes. "You look sad that girlfriend of yours has gone away."

"Who told you?"

"Your eyes told me. Nothing, other than the loss of someone you love, can cause eyes like that. Not poverty. Not illness. Not even war."

"Grandfather. It's so much more than that. Kat was just another girl. Beautiful, smart, fun, but she wasn't my soulmate."

"I so wanted to tell you that. Give her another two years and she will be married to some Czech with a baby in her belly."

"If that's what she wants, fine." She wondered how he knew Kat had moved to Prague.

"But the question is, what do you want?"

"I don't know. Besides going back and kicking Afghani butt, I really don't know. There's talk about a promotion, but that would mean my field fighting days are over. I'm not sure I want to give it up."

"I don't need to know about war, Olga, I want to hear about love."

She had to be the only woman in the world whose grandfather wanted to know details of her love life. It would be difficult enough to tell him about men, but she always felt uncomfortable talking about her relationships with women. He had never really seemed to care. Love to her grandfather was important and should be taken wherever it could be found.

"There is someone new. She's an American. A navy nurse. I call her a vampire because her specialty is blood work. I met her about six months ago on a ship, but she is in Moscow now."

"You're in love with a upir<vampire>; so why are you are in Kiev?"

"She's wonderful, but she scares me. She's in the navy, but she's not a fighter. She is a healer. I try to kill; she tries to save. Our worlds are too far apart. Shit, ten years ago we would have tried to kill each other."

"Times change. Things change. But love remains constant."

"But. . . there's more. . ." She bit her lip and drank on her tea. The rest of the story seemed impossible to relate to anyone. She couldn't even tell Grace about it. "There's a man."

"A man, devochka, now that is a change. Tell me about him."

"I'm not sure I can." The look on her grandfather's face was puzzled.

"Am I a security risk, or something?" he laughed.

"Oh, that too, forgot about that. I did first meet him in the field. He was some sort of al-Qaeda trainer, military strategist. . god grandfather, I hope this place isn't bugged. . . I could be killed for telling you his story. Let's say that he changed sides with a bang, or in his case, a slice. When I met him he was sitting in a cave crying."

The old man wanted to go to the kitchen to get more tea, or go to the bathroom, or take a walk outside, anything but hear the rest of the story his granddaughter was telling. He reached across the table and took her hand, patting it gently.

"Grandfather, he follows me. He comes to me out of nowhere. I turn my head and he is gone. He keeps telling me he loves me. We had the most wonderful sex you can possibly imagine, but I think he is dangerous."

"He is!"

"He is! How do you know?"

It would be easier to lie to his granddaughter, make up some story about stalkers and sex with strangers, not tell her what he knew, but he was now an old, old man. He felt he had kept the truth from her way too long.

"Sit back, Xenulya <pet name Xena>, and let me tell you about this man. He's tall, large, and very dark. His hair is wavy, thick, and black as midnight. He has deep-set brooding eyes, but when he smiles his smile can melt the Siberian snow."

"How do you know, grandfather. Can you see the future?"

"Possible futures, and many pasts."

Her eyes tried to focus on something else in the room. She looked at the pictures on the walls, a photograph of her in her uniform, a heavy old oil painting of a landscape, a delicate floral watercolor, and a Russian Icon.

"Look at me, Xenulya, there's more isn't there." She nodded his head.

"He speaks to you in Greek." Her grandfather had said those words in the self-same Ancient Greek dialect, Ari, Arum, whoever, had used with her. What had he called her?

This was frightening. More frightening than war. Her grandfather knew intimate details of her life that had happened only yesterday. She had told no one. Things that had frightened her to her very core. "I don't understand, how do you know about him?"

"Xenulya, do you know of Ares?"

"Ares. No, he calls himself Ari or Arum. Ari Sadam. Arum Tchaikovsky." She was shocked at how naïve those aliases seemed now when she said them aloud. "Ares, the Greek god of war?"

"The very same."

"There's no such thing. Grandfather, are you trying to tell me that I am being stalked by an ancient God that no one has worshipped for 2000 years? I think not."

"You'd better think so, because it is true. I always sort of thought he would find you. My guess would have been earlier, when you first started at the academy. I knew he would be looking for you."

"Me!"

"From that first day your mother brought you to our home, I remember she pulled back the baby blanket and I gasped. I knew it was YOU."

"Of course it was me." The old man must really be losing it. Perhaps it was the early stages of Alzheimer's; she was worried.

"No, you don't understand. HER, YOU. I can't explain. I can explain, but it going to take a long time, and you're not going to believe me."

"How much vodka have you been drinking before I came here, grandfather?"

"Not a drop, but that might help. Maybe we should switch from tea. I have vodka in which I have soaked dried apricots. Most pleasant. Maybe it would help."

'Afghani brown opium wouldn't help,' she though as she nodded her head "yes."

* * * *

Grace Paxon had made the twenty-block trek from the hospital to the Olga's apartment only to find her not home. She had stopped at the gym and learned that she had gone to Kiev. Swearing under her breath she was about to return in the rain when she was confronted by a tall man.

"Hello. You know who I am don't you?" he said to her in English with a menacing demeanor.

She nodded her head "yes". She knew, even if she was afraid to tell him.

"I didn't bring her back for you."

Nod.

"You had your turn. You messed up."

Another nod.

"Now I get my chance. I certainly waited long enough. I under estimated you. What do I call you now?"

"Grace. Grace Paxon."

"Kewl name. All elegance and peace. I'm Arum Tchaikovsky."

"Sounds made up."

"And Grace Paxon doesn't. Excuse me."

"There is no excuse for you."

"I did what you said. I waited. I waited for almost two millennium for your damn conditions to be met. I think I deserve a chance."

"I honestly don't know how it happened. Those conditions were supposed to hold you for eternity."

"I believe the fact that they didn't is good argument to give me a chance. What do you think, Gabrielle?"

He was gone. Somewhere in the darkness. Grace Paxon shivered. She was soaked to the skin from standing in the rain outside a Moscow gym. Her head hurt. She could have sworn she had just had a conversation with a man she didn't know, about things she knew nothing about, in a language she could not speak.

* * *

Olgaís grandfather had been talking for almost an hour, nonstop. She tried to listen to most of what he said; despite that almost every word out of his mouth was totally unbelievable. The old man seemed to have confused history and myth. Most of what he told her was stuff she had read in ancient Greek tall tales and seemed to have no relationship to her life. It bothered he that he had insisted that he speak to her in Greek. She kept wanting to interrupt, ask questions in Russian or even English.

"And when you died, in far off Jappa, your lover carried your ashes back to Greece and buried them next to your family. She kept a small amount of the ashes and took them to Santorini where she married m. . . an old friend. She had five children, four boys and a girl. The rest of your ashes were buried there. Except . . . .

"Except what?" This story made absolutely no sense.

"Ares, the god of war, as I said, had always been in love with you. She told . . it was told . . . that she gave him a small amount of our ashes but protected them with conditions that could never be met, so that he wouldn't try to bring you back to life."

"What happened to this Ares guy. Where did he go? " She asked.

"I don't know. It was said he was behind every war that was ever fought even though usually it was claimed that he was fighting for both sides. Even in holy wars. Even when during the Crusades. Christian against Muslim and still Ares was on both sides. Christians against the Incas and the Aztecs, still on both sides. Catholic against Protestant, Arab against Jew. Gods, Xena, event the godless communists were sure he was on their side."

She was thinking about her grandfather, who had worked all of his life in a communist foundry smelting iron ore to produce stainless steel, who had risen in the ranks of the communist party, now calling his comrades godless. She never cared for any god. Then she realized he had called her by THAT NAME.

"What did you call me?"

"He calls you that doesn't he. It is your name, or at least it is now. I knew it was your name as soon as you were born. I told your mother. She laughed at me. Called me a senile old man."

She thought, if my mother thought he was old when I was born, how old is he now?

"My best guess is . . and I will call you Olga if you prefer . . is that I saw what was going to happen. I never really knew her conditions, but my guess is that in whatever fluke created this strange, strange war, the conditions were met. At that point, when he cried into your ashes, you . . the woman standing before me . . ceased to be Olga Fedorov and really, honestly, truly became Xena. Believe what you will, but that is what I think. That is what an old, old man thinks."

"But why? Why me? And why the strong sexual attraction? Why would the God of War want to have me for a sex partner and not a soldier?"

"Do you look at yourself in the mirror? Soldiers are fungible. That is what makes war possible. One dead soldier, except to those who loved him or her, is the same as any other dead soldier. You however, Xena, are different. He loves your body, but he also loves your spirit."

"I don't accept it. I don't believe it."

"I'm not asking you to. I am just telling you what I know. What I believe to be true."

"What should I do?"

"I can't tell you. But I will tell you a fable. A sweet young girl told me this story a long, long time ago. At one time all people had four legs and two heads. Then an angry god split them in two. But they only had one heart, so all of their lives, people run around looking for that one person who has the other half of their heart."

"Cute story, but I suppose both Grace and Ar . . Ares .. think I have the other piece of their heart."

"Maybe you do. I never did figure out how you figure gods into the equation." She did not hear him mumble under his breath. ."or even half-gods."

"So I suggest," he continued, "that you get that fine ass of yours back to Moscow and spend the next two weeks doing whatever you need to do to make that determination. Understand."

"But you said Ares was dangerous."

"And you're not!"

They spent the rest of the evening finishing the vodka and talking about everything in the world besides Xena, Grace and Arum. They ate borsch, sour cream and black bread. He showed her pictures and told her about the in the Icons. He told her about rugs, and leather, and making steel. She told him about Afghani desert rats, and American ships. They laughed a lot, and cried a little. She was never sure when the old man was telling the truth and when he had lapsed into another of his myths.

The next morning in the train station she held him tightly to her. He seemed too frail.

"Promise me you will be here when I get back."

"Promise me you will come back."

"Please don't die."

"Please don't die. But I may die, Olga . Sometimes I have to die so I can be reborn."

"That sounds like some odd Christian rhetoric."

"Believe me, Xena, it is not."

* * *

There was a large stack of messages waiting for her when she returned to her apartment. The landlord insisted the top two were the most urgent. One was from the Army informing her that she was to leave to go back to Afghanistan that evening. The other was from Grace telling her that she had to go back to Afghanistan that evening. The other eight messages were from Ares.

A file of papers was waiting for her at the airport. On the top was the order announcing her promotion to Podpolkovnik. She had been assigned to command a United Nation's Hospital Camp. You will be working with refugees, the Northern Alliance, doctors and nurses from several different countries. Her days of cleaning out caves were over. She was no longer a fighter, but an administrator. 'Wars do strange things to people,' she thought.

She was surprised to see Grace Paxon standing in the crowd. She approached her with reserve.

"I got your message. I am going back, too," Olga told her.

"I'm not going back to the ship. I have been assigned to a refugee hospital base. Can you believe that?"

"Well if that's the case, Lieutenant, you'd better brush up on your salute. Because you are talking to your new commanding officer."

"Say what?"

"Hello, to Podpolkovnik Olga Fedorov."

"I'll have you know, Podpolkovnik Fedorov, that I am resisting the urge to kiss a superior officer."

Olga brought her finger to her mouth again "Don't ask, don't tell."

They both laughed.

* * *

TWO MONTHS LATER

Olga Fedorov slipped seamlessly into her new role as an administrator. She actually seemed to enjoy reviewing shipments and orders. She liked having men salute her and could return the best stare of the Northern Alliance officers, who still though women should be veiled. It had to have been some sort of ugly joke concocted by her once defeated Russian army fellows to put a woman in charge of the base -- even the Americans seemed a little uneasy with that. The base seemed to have more than its share of women officers and enlisted women, as close to the action as American females could get.

Ares had yet materialize anywhere on the base, and she figured he was probably still waiting for her in the gym in Moscow getting more angry and muscular. She hoped that morning in the hotel had gotten her out of his system, but subconsciously worried that her performance was not to his liking and that he had deserted her. Then why the eight messages. She wondered how many had piled up at her apartment by now.

Grace Paxon was delighted to find that her friend Jeff Hansen had also been assigned to the base. They spent most of their free time together reading books and playing Ping-Pong. She never had the nerve to tell him about the hot night she had spent in the Moscow hotel with the woman who was now their commanding officer.

She still drew blood and patched up wounds. However most of the blood seemed to be drawn from refugee women who were about to pop another baby out of their emaciated, veiled bodies; and most of the wounds were skinned knees of children playing soccer. Olga Fedorov rarely came to the hospital tents, and it seemed only when she was not on duty.

Jeff was excited when he opened his package from home that bright June day. Grace was amazed how someone could be so happy to receive a large bottle of mouthwash. A part of her mind, which still thought most people were gay like her, wondered if he was going to use the mouth wash to remove certain scents which even in today's Navy should not be found on enlisted men -- or officers.

"It's vodka. Cinnamon vodka," he whispered to her.

"No way." Alcohol was strictly prohibited under the terms of engagement.

"Way. My uncle works for P & G. Makes special bottles just for his relatives. He had a son who was in the state pen in Ohio the last fifteen years. Sentenced for dealing coke back in the late eighties. Came up with this idea just for him. Short of opening it, there is absolutely no way that you can tell this isn't 100% virgin mouthwash."

"I didn't know you had it in you, Jeff Hansen."

"Well it's not in me yet, but it will be in a few hours. In you, too! You see you and I are going to hike up to one of those caves, we are going to rinse our mouths out a lot, and then you are going to tell me the story about you and that long legged Russian who bosses us around."

"After I am done, I am going to have to have a bit more -- talk about a mouth that will need to be washed out. Hopefully he didn't send you any soap."

"He did, but it's actually chocolate. Do you think that will liven up the story time even more?"

Grace hugged her friend tightly. "Of course. I'll do anything for chocolate." She winked at him.

* * *

Olga Fedorov was worried. Reports from her perimeter had noted an increase in night movement. Nothing big, just a few people moving randomly through the area between the base and the hills. Those who had seen the reports were not worried, but things she didn't completely understand always concerned her. She was just short of issuing an order confining everyone to the base perimeter, but knew that some of the troops had received packages from home -- packages that they would be safer consuming off base.

She was also concerned about the letter she had received from the hospital in Kiev. Her grandfather had been admitted last week for tests after he had fallen on the stairs in his apartment. She wondered why she hadn't insisted that he put his name on the list for a ground floor apartment. She wondered why she hadn't insisted he move to Moscow. She told herself not to be concerned, but it didn't help.

She turned instead to the paperwork in front of her. New staff members would be arriving on the next flight, a Kiwi dentist and a British mortician. She welcomed the first and worried that it was just a matter of time until she had to deal with the second.

She heard a blast, then screams. She dropped her papers on her desk and ran outside. She expected to see refugees or alliance troops, instead she saw Jeff Hansen carrying Grace Paxon. She had never realized how large the Hansen was. He held Grace in his arms as if she were a small child. Blood was streaming from her face, and her legs were twisted at odd angles.

"She stepped on a land mine. I have to get her to the hospital. Out of my way, everyone. I have to get her to the hospital."

Olga waited in her office for what seemed like the longest hour of her life. She hastily typed up the confinement to perimeter order and printed it off her computer. Finally she mustered the courage to go to the hospital.

Grace was lying in a bed hooked up to monitors that up to now had basically been unused. In Afghanistan you were usually alive or dead, not much middle ground. Now the hospital staff was desperately trying to save one of its own. Jeff Hansen sat next to her holding her limp hand.

"I don't think she is going to make it," he told Olga. "She lost a lot of blood. Even if she does make it she will lose her leg, she's too weak to try to operate now, but it is going to have to come off."

"No."

"I'm afraid so, I'm sorry."

"What was she doing out there anyway? What were you doing?"

"We're just friends. Very good friends. I am from her hometown in Wisconsin. We used to tell each other stories. Crazy stories. She had quite a vivid imagination. I always told her she should have been a writer, not a nurse."

"She's not going to die. I won't let her."

"I don't think, even you, Podpolkovnik, can do anything about that. I'm sorry. I think she knows you are here. Do you want to talk to her? I'll leave if you do."

"No, you can stay. I think she enjoys holding your hand."

"There's not another one for you to hold." Olga looked in shock. Grace's right arm was missing from just below the shoulder.

"Noooo!!" She screamed. "I though you said she was too weak to have been operated on."

"We didn't have to operate on that arm. It was blown off. Please speak softly, I think she can hear you, even though her chart says otherwise. I'll let you have this hand."

Olga held the cold hand in hers. She caressed the fingers that had been so adept at drawing blood, and finding holes in underwear. "I love you, Grace. I was going to choose you. Please don't die." She thought she heard a voice somewhere deep in the back of her head say, 'You have to die, so you can be reborn.'

"Podpolkovnik Fedorov, you have a phone call. I'm sorry." Jeff Hansen took Grace's hand from hers and gave her the mobile phone. "It's from Kiev."

Olga walked away silently. "She knows you love her, Podpolkovnik, she knows it."

The voice on the other end of the phone told her that her grandfather had died that afternoon.

* * * *

Olga Fedorov hid. She hid and she cried. She did not want the Americans to see her cry. She did not want the Alliance Troops to see her cry. She did not want Jeff Hansen to see her cry. She cried like she had never cried before. She could not believe that the two people she loved the most, both of which she had ignored and never, ever told how much she loved them, had died within minutes of each other.

Jeff Hansen was waiting for her outside the door of the small hut that served as a camp mortuary.

"She wants to be cremated and have just have her ashes sent back to Wisconsin," he told his commanding officer. He was speaking as Grace's friend, not as a clerk.

"What, we have no facilities for that? She'll have to go home in a body bag tucked under an American flag like everyone else," Olga replied.

"No, we talked about it a lot. Grace saw how the refugees cremated their own on those open fires and told me that if she ever died here, that is what she wanted. I believe if you go through her things you will find papers to that effect."

"Tell you what, Petty Officer Hansen, if you find the papers, and get the new mortician to agree, we can do it. Otherwise what's left of Grace Paxon will be flying back to Wisconsin tomorrow."

* * *

Olga walked into the hut and immediately recognized him, even though his back was turned. 'Mortician,' she thought to herself, 'was a job for which he was uniquely qualified.' She just wished someone else would have been his first.

"Hi!" He spun around and smiled at her. How dare he smile at a time like this? Grace's naked, mutilated body was lying on the table between them. "I'm Harry Holst. You must be . . . "

She wanted to say a lot of things. 'What in the hell are you doing here? Can't you let her die in peace? Where do you come up with those cheesy aliases?' But all she said was " Podpolkovnik Olga Fedorov."

"I've talked to Petty Officer Second Class Hansen. He was pretty fond of this young lady. Told me she wanted to be cremated."

Ares had realized immediately that the farm boy from Wisconsin, who had shared the last moments of Grace Paxon's life, was actually his brother, Hercules. The medical clerk had no idea of the real identities of the mortician, his commanding officer, or his friend who had just died. Strangely Ares did not feel his usual rage; he had no need to taunt his brother. They were all here together, fighting on the same side, for the greater good. This was a strange war. Interpersonal conflicts could wait for peace.

"We'll see about that," Olga answered.

"She will you know. She was always very thorough. I am sure she has all the details spelled out. Including the small bag of ashes for me to give to you."

"You bastard."

"Careful, Xena. Someone might hear you."

"Don't call me that. Please don't call me that. Why did you kill her?"

"I didn't kill her, a land mine killed her. Do you think I would have chosen such a chicken shit way to off her? What do you think I am?"

"I believe I have already called you that. And, just in case you don't realize it, I can have your bogus ass on the next plane back to London or whatever you call home these days."

"London is good. But not as good as Moscow. Or Thrace."

She was sick of his sneering and his arrogance.

"I hear your grandfather died, too. Don't fret about him, Xena, he never stays dead very long."

"How did you, do you, know about my grandfather?"

"I know him almost as well as I know you. I knew poor little Gracie here, so tragic." He reached down and pulled a sheet over her body. "She won't stay dead long either, Xena."

"What can you do about her, Ares?"

"So you do know who I am."

"Yes, my grandfather told me. What about Grace?"

"I guess it will take about nine months, give or take. . . " His eyes lowered and seemed to stare at her stomach area. He smiled the biggest smile she had ever seen.

"What?"

"You don't know do you? Have you been too busy, or are you just in denial, Podpolkovnik Olga Fedorov?"

A shudder ran up her spine. She hadn't been listening to her body. Hadn't even dawned on her. That was one advantage lesbians had. They didn't have to take birth control pills or mess with diaphragms or implants. They didn't even have to keep track of their menses, they always came eventually. Afghanistan was hard on a body, and with her recent weight loss. She hadn't even noticed.

"I'm not?" Her hand covered her stomach.

"Well, my sister Aphrodite is usually the first to know, and this time she was so excited she had to tell me. Not for me, mind you, but she always loved your little friend -- Gabrielle, Grace, whatever you call her. She and my sister were very close."

"I'm a military leader. I can't have a baby. Not here."

"You might have to go back to Moscow, for a while anyway. Other women have had babies during war. You did, Xena. But this one is different. Her father is the God of War -- but her spirit belongs to --

"Peace. Grace Paxon."

* * *

Jeff Hansen's entire jaw ached. He drank his unopened bottle of mouthwash and it still hurt. He couldn't believe it. It started hurting almost the same time he had delivered Grace Paxon's papers to the British mortician. The man had stared at him, looked as if he should have recognized him, and then his mouth started aching. He had never had a toothache like this. Maybe he had cracked it when he clenched his jaw while carrying Grace back to the camp, and didn't feel the pain until she had died. All he knew was that now it felt like his jaw was going to split in half. He lay on the cot in the medical tent and looked up at the red-haired doctor poking around his mouth.

"Boy are you in luck," Lt. Commander Janice Marsh said as she examined him.

"Yesterday I would have had to pull that tooth, but today we have a new guy, Captain Iverson. I think a dentist, even if he is a Kiwi, will do a much better job than a gynecologist."

Jeff feigned a smile. He was sure of it, too. He relaxed as the IV drip brought the Sodium Pentathal into his system. He didn't even think about his dead friend.

"Just relax, Jeff. He'll be here in a few minutes. Close your eyes." Her voice trailed off.

He opened his eyes and saw the small blonde man bouncing around the room.

"Well buddy, that was a fun one. You split that sucker right down the medial axis."

Jeff hated dentists. He hated the sound of drills. He hated the smell of their offices. This guy seemed better than most, even though he still talked like a dentist.

"Didn't think I would be pressed into action quite that quickly. Open up and let me rinse it out one more time. Don't want to have a dry socket. Think you are going to have to wait until you are stateside to have the restoration done though."

The dentist leaned over and looked into his open mouth. His smock was open, and a carved stone pendant fell out and hit Jeff in the chest.

"Is that part of the official Kiwi uniform?" he asked. He wasn't sure. Something about this guy seemed very familiar.

"What do you think, buddy?" The dentist seemed to be trying a little too hard to be friendly.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not your buddy, Sir. I'm not really in a friendly mood. My best friend died yesterday. I carried her back here after she stepped on a land mine. She died holding my hand. It's hard to lose someone you love."

"I'm sorry. I am truly sorry." The dentist's blue eyes looked into his. It was a look of deep friendship, of understanding, of almost love, from a man he had just met. Not the artificial concern of someone who was always upbeat, but something much deeper. Despite his recent losses, Jeff Hansen had a feeling that he would soon have a new friend, to share his cinnamon mouthwash and his crazy stories. He had a feeling that he had known that man for a long, long time.

Fred Iverson, who had recognized him immediately, felt like a newborn.

* * * *

Thus it has been, and thus it will be. For over two thousand years bodies have lived and died, yet spirits live on. You have to die so that you can be reborn. Lovers and friends together for eternity. The names and bodies may change, but love remains confusingly constant.

November, 2001

Revised February 2002