Hayes spotted Noah sitting on the floor beside Sarah and walked over to him. “Hell,” he said plaintively, “you could’ve saved a little fun for us.”
“Sometimes,” Noah said, “people just need to do things for themselves.”
Hayes looked at the ruined face of Nicolaich Andropov and then glanced at Sarah, who was still clinging to Noah and crying her eyes out. He turned his eyes to Noah’s own and nodded silently.
*
The cleanup took a couple of days. Under questioning, some of the mercenaries who had been working with Andropov gave up the address of the house he had been using as a base of operations, and the FBI found evidence linking them all to the raid on Neverland.
Noah called Molly to let her know that Andropov was dead, and at her insistence, Noah and the team stayed at her house while they cooperated with the FBI and NSA. The day after the final confrontation with Andropov, they went and recovered their things from the police evidence building, and then sat through hours of debriefing by a team of FBI agents. When it was over, they were told they were free to leave.
“Well, you don’t have to be a stranger, now that I know you’re alive,” Molly said. “Besides, me and Sarah need to sit down and have a nice long talk about you. I can give her some pointers on how to survive being in love with a Vulcan.” She rubbed her hand on Noah’s arm. “That girl has been good for you, Noah. I know you well enough to know you’re going to claim you were just carrying out the mission, but something’s changed. You’re still not normal, but you are definitely attached to that girl. I’m glad to see it finally happened.”
“I made a promise,” he said. “I promised my team that we would never leave anyone behind. I keep my promises.”
“I know that,” Molly answered. “Just don’t try to be something you’re not. That’s guaranteed to cause heartache for somebody, whether it’s her or you or somebody else. Just keep being yourself, Noah. That’s the Noah we need.”
They said their goodbyes and Molly hugged each of them before they got into the car, but then it was time to drive away. Sarah had seemed perfectly normal since she stopped crying after killing Andropov, so she was back behind the wheel and chattering away like always.
Moose and Neil were in the back seat, and when they got onto the interstate, the two of them started playing a game that involved finding a sign that began with each letter of the alphabet. They were doing fine, until they got to X. Finally, Neil pointed to a sign for a hospital that listed x-ray as one of its services, and they bent the rules enough to let it pass.
Both of the guys spent a lot of time on the phone speaking to their respective girlfriends back at Neverland. From the sound of things, both of the relationships were getting kind of serious, and Neil even asked Noah if he had any objection to Lacey moving into the trailer with him.
He didn’t.
They stopped the first night at a motel in Illinois, then made it home the following night. Doc Parker had told him to take it easy for a couple of days after they got back, and come in for debriefing the next Monday morning. It was so late when they got in that they all stayed at Noah’s house for the night, but the next day it was back to being just Noah and Sarah.
They didn’t talk about the mission, or about what had happened at the end. Noah knew enough about psychology to realize that Sarah had to process what she had done for herself before she’d be able to talk about it, so he didn’t press. They spent the weekend relaxing, and even took the boat out on the lake for a while on Sunday.
Mondays always come, however, so they reported to the office at nine AM, right on schedule. Art Jackson was there in the conference room when they walked in, and he pointed at the inevitable coffee and doughnuts. Moose was already there, and Neil had come in just after Noah and Sarah, so the four of them were sitting there talking with Jackson when they heard the door open.
They turned, expecting to see Doc Parker, but Allison Peterson stood there. She was using a cane, and her hair was a lot shorter, but other than that she was the Dragon Lady they knew and respected.
“Well, hell,” she said, with only a slight slur to her words. “Did you save me any doughnuts?”