“I don’t want to!” the little boy cried, stiff-legged in his defiance.

“You gotta,” his mother said.

“Why?” he demanded. “I don’t want to.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted. “But we got no choice. So come on, Matty. We gotta go say goodbye.”

“Why?” the boy asked again, tears beginning to stain his cheeks. “Why can’t he just come home?”

His mother stared at him, then gathered him into her arms, crying her own self. “I wish he could, Matty. Dear God, I wish he could.” She looked at the older boy over the shoulder of her son.

Jayne sat up in his bunk, staring into the shadows, his t-shirt wringing with sweat as if he had just run a mile in full kit, with grenades. He was panting so much he was sure the others would hear. “Gorramit it,” he said quietly.

---

Freya stepped over the sill into the dining area, switching on the light as she did so. “Tzao gao,” she said as she realised someone was already sitting at the table.

“Sorry,” Jayne said. “Did I scare ya?”

“Unsettled, shall we say?” Freya headed behind the counter, opening cupboards at random. She smiled at him, then paused in her searching. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why?” Jayne lifted the mug in front of him and took a mouthful.

“Well, I'm not sure, but I don’t think you usually drink in the dark. “

“Nope, you ain't wrong.”

“So why are you?”

“Don’t need no light for thinking.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

Jayne shrugged. “Guess I couldn’t sleep. What’s your excuse?”

“Woke up with the munchies.”

“Not surprised, all the noise you two were making earlier.”

Freya grinned. “We keep you up?”

“No more’n usual.”

She pulled a bag of dried fruit from a drawer and came to sit down next to him. “So what’s up?”

“Nothin’.”

“Jayne, this is me you’re lying to.”

The big man shifted in his seat, as if he were sitting on hot coals. “Ain’t nothing much, anyways.”

“So tell me. It isn’t like we haven’t got the time. We’re taking the long way round to Greenleaf.” Freya opened the bag a