Part 3: Aftermath

Saturday, March 8, 2043, 3:48 pm Sam returned to duty following six and a half months of intensive recuperation and recovery. The Saturday before, she prepared a belated broiled salmon dinner for Tim. Commenting from the kitchen doorway, Nigel observed dryly: “I’m sure Lt. McCorkindale would love to see you answer the door like that tonight.”

Grinning, Sam raised a middle finger and responded in a matching English accent: “I’m sure he won’t find out from me that I prepared dinner in my underwear, Nigel.”

Nigel tut-tutted. “Tim has no idea the anguish you put me through parading about in your Victoria’s Secret matching bra and panty set.”

Sam glanced down. The royal blue bra encasing her breasts conveniently concealed both the entrance and exit wounds on her torso. Where the bullet had penetrated her side between the 4th and 5th ribs, the satin panel wrapped around back to hook with its opposite number. The cup supporting her reconstructed left breast cloaked the faint blemish marking the exit wound site. Numerous surgeries had confined Sam to Newark-JohnsHopkins for nearly two months.

“The garter and thigh-highs may be overkill,” Nigel commented.

“No!” Sam responded indignantly. “I bought them as a set! I need to feel like a woman tonight, not some cog in a great machine that I’ll be again Monday morning.”

Nigel rolled his eyes. “Is Tim aware that you spent a month’s salary on lingerie and a slinky black dress for dinner?”

“The dress is not slinky!” she said in a huff, hurling the knife in her right hand, which Nigel deftly caught and returned to the cutting board. “And no, he knows nothing.”

“Except that you look ravishingly beautiful in your underwear tonight.”

“He doesn’t know that, either,” she muttered, blushing.

Tim had seen her underwear only three times before, and never had she been at her best. The night in Waco, she’d worn Rita’s borrowed bra and those horrid wardrobe panties. Not that Tim had cared. Tim only cared about getting them off.

“You really care for this man.” It wasn’t a question.

“He’s my colleague. Of course I care for Tim.”

“You’ve never cooked a colleague dinner in your underwear so as not to ruin your pretty dinner dress. You have other clothing, by the way, and a number of dressing gowns that I can fetch for you... ?”

“Don’t you have something to do? Besides, torment me? Ow!” she yelped, nicking her finger with the knife. “Go to your room, Nigel!”

Instead, Nigel stooped to retrieve the various carrot rounds, slices of green pepper, onion slivers, and lettuce off the floor to drop in the disposal.

“I often wish I was outfitted with a pleasure model package.” He sighed. “You have no concept what shaving your underarms, legs and pubic area does to me. I haven’t even the option to masturbate to relieve my stress.”

Sam giggled girlishly. She often wondered whether she would experiment if Nigel were properly outfitted. They sold conversion kits, she knew, and he could be returned to DeArmand for a substantial upgrade (TTRA employees received deep discounts thanks to Gloria), but Sam was skittish about sex in general (her lack of experience had been obvious with Tim), and the concept of surrendering to a replication was especially troublesome.

“I have to finish this salad. Be a dear and set the table for me?”

“Two places, or three?”

“Don’t be a smartass, Nigel. No one likes a smartass.”

Tim had drawn a one-month suspension without pay for disobeying a direct order. Handing Maria off to Kate O’Dare, he had shoved aside the tech in charge of transport and programmed the return sequence himself. Despite repeated warnings from Kate, he’d entered the K-cage again and initiated the transfer to 1993. Upon his return with his critically injured partner, he’d spent a week in hospital along with Sam. His full recovery was expected; Sam had died three times on the operating table.

Five minutes before Tim’s expected arrival, Nigel assisted Sam into her tight black dinner dress, and then retired to his quarters for the evening. Anxious and jittery, Sam examined herself from every direction possible before the bedroom mirror, not nearly long enough to display her correctly. She’d never felt the need for a full-length mirror before today. Now she blasted her shortsightedness.

“You have a visitor,” Sam’s AI announced. “Lt. Timothy McCorkindale of the Time Travel Reg--”

“Let him in!” she cried. More calmly, she advised: “I’ll meet him at the front door.”

“As you wish, Sam. You have a stray lock of hair over your right ear.”

Dammit, Sam thought: I’m no good at this dress up crap.

Tim came prepared for the occasion as well, sporting a brand new (or rented for the occasion) suit. Seeing him cleaned up just for her made Sam color with embarrassment. “Hi. You look rather marvelous, tonight.”

Laughing, Tim returned the compliment. Then made it obvious he awaited an invitation to enter, making Sam blush even harder.

“Please. Dinner awaits you, sir.” Standing aside, she ushered him in with a flourish.

Accepting the bottle of modestly priced Chianti Tim had brought (Tim made no more than she did), Sam placed it in the refrigerator and offered him a cocktail. She faltered at his crooked grin. “Maybe you’d rather have a beer? I have Heineken?”

Tim laughed, nodding. “That would be great, thanks.”

Reopening the refrigerator, Sam removed two bottles and handed one to Tim, and then her own at Tim’s insistence.

“Gentlemen never let a lady open her own beer,” he quipped, handing it back.

Or remove her dress and underwear herself, Sam thought distractedly. Then started as Tim leaned close and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“For being alive. I never actually got to say it before.” Following his month-long suspension, Tim was temporarily assigned to Riyadh Station, and then to a secret facility in Scotland. He’d returned only last Wednesday; this was his first real time alone with Sam.

Blushing harder under Tim’s scrutiny, Sam allowed: “I wouldn’t be alive, if not for you. You got me back to the future, Tim.”

“Got you shot,” he grumbled. “I put you in mortal danger, Sam. Kate was right to suspend my ass. I coulda gone back and got you any time. I didn’t need to go back just then.”

Sam switched hands with the cold bottle and caressed his cheek with her right palm. “Who knows what would have happened if I had stayed in that room. This whole thing...” she shrugged helplessly.

“Seemed arranged?”

“Preordained.” She shook her head. “Let’s not talk about it now. We have all evening.”

With Tim’s assistance, the broiled salmon went from the oven to the waiting stasis chamber, and out to the dining room table. Sam prepared the salads, worrying that balsamic dressing might give her bad breath later. Instead, she chose creamy French, while topping Tim’s salad with his preferred ranch dressing. The fried rice and steamed broccoli went into stasis containers of their own and placed on the sideboard.

“I don’t know what smells better, you or the broiled salmon.” Tim leaned in close to sample her expensive perfume. “That would be you, I guess. May I kiss you?”

Startled, Sam blurted what immediately came to mind: “Before dinner?”

Tim chuckled. “Consider it an aperitif.”

His lips made light contact with hers, and Sam kissed him back. It was the sweetest kiss they had ever shared. Sam would not object to him dropping her to the floor and taking her right there in the dining room. She wanted him to. More than she’d wanted the kiss.

“Can I ask you something?” Her breathing was labored and her heart beat erratic. “Chicago and Waco. It wasn’t just stress from the job, right? You really wanted me?”

“I want to marry you, Sam Dunbar.” Carefully removing a black satin pouch from his jacket pocket--a box would have been too obvious--he opened it to display a diamond engagement ring. “This isn’t a question, Sam. As your superior, I am ordering you to marry me.”

Stunned and feeling every possible emotion at once, Sam stared at the ring, and then into Tim’s eyes. “We can’t! Regulations forbid marriage between agents. We’re not even allowed to have dinner together, much less have sex afterwards.” She blushed at the embarrassing admission. “One of us would have to quit, Tim.”

“Or transfer out of station.”

She blinked at him slowly. “I’d rather quit.”

“We’d see each other often enough.”

“Bullshit, we would! I’m not playing the long-distance wife. It doesn’t work, Tim.”

He slipped the ring on her finger anyway. “Say no all you want. You’re still marrying me, Sam.” Then, with minimal resistance from his betrothed, he lowered Sam, and took her on the dining room floor.

Sam watched Tim’s finger circle the dime-sized scar on her ribs. The 223 round had blasted through both lungs, nicked her aorta, and ejected most of her breast tissue upon exist. The wound location on her left breast was much less noticeable than the one on her rib cage. It was a miracle she had lived.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’ll marry you. Despite your insistence that I have no say in the matter.”

Tim cupped her left breast, and then her right. Theoretically, he should feel no difference between the two. Reconstructive surgery had come a long way since the turn of the century.