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"I’ for Lish" When Wilco met this request with an empty stare, Peter clarified "Lieutenant Donadio"

"I’ed and ducked back through the flap Peter strained his ears to hear what, if anything, was being said inside But all the voices had gone suddenly silent He waited, long enough to wonder if Alicia would simply fail to appear But then the flap drew aside and she stepped through

It would not have been quite true, Peter thought, to say that she looked changed; she sied The woman who stood before him was both the same Alicia he had always known and someone entirely new Her arms were crossed over her chest; on her upper body she earing nothing rown back over the days, a ghostly scrihts But it wasn’t any of these things thatherself apart froratulations"

Alicia said nothing

"Lish-"

"You shouldn’t be here, Peter I shouldn’t be talking to you"

"I just came to tell you that I understand For a while I didn’t But I do now"

"Well" She paused, hugging herself in the cold "What changed yourhe’d meant to tell her seemed to have abruptly fled fro to do with it, and his father, and A he possessed the words for

He said the only thing he could think of "Hollis’s guitar, actually"

Alicia gave hiuitar?"

"One of the soldiers gave it to him" Peter stopped; there was no way to explain "I’ much sense"

A space seemed to have opened in Peter’s chest, and he realized what it was; it was the pain ofso et back inside"

"Lish, wait"

She turned to face hiain, her eyebrows raised

"Why didn’t you ever tell me? About the Colonel"

"Is that why you ca away; it wasn’t anything she wanted to discuss "Because he didn’t want anyone to know About who he was"

"But ouldn’t he?"

"What would he have said, Peter? He was all alone He’d lost all his men As far as he was concerned, he should have died with them" She paused to breathe "As for the rest, I think he raised ht it was fun, to tell you the truth Stories about bravethe oath, a bunch ofto ht years old, and he took me outside the walls, underneath the power trunk, and left , not even a blade You haven’t heard about that part"

"Flyers, Lish What happened?"

"Nothing I’d be dead if it had I just sat under a tree and cried all night To this day I don’t know if he was testing"Heyou"

"Maybe" She angled her face to the wintry sky "Sometimes I think he was, sometimes I don’t You didn’t know hiest time Really and truly hated hi" She breathed again-deeply, resignedly "I hope that’s true for you, Peter That soive me" She sniffed and wiped her eyes "That’s all I’ve said tooas I did"

He looked at her, her stricken face, and he knew

The Colonel wasn’t the real secret He was He was the secret she had kept That they had kept from each other, even from themselves

He reached for her "Alicia, listen-"

"Don’t do this Don’t" And yet she did not back away

"Those three days, when I thought you’d die and I wouldn’t be there" A fist-sized luht I’d be there"

"Peter, goddale "You can’t do this now It’s too late, Peter It’s too late"

"I know"

"Don’t say it Please You said you understood"

He did; he understood All that they were to each other seemed cradled within this siret but, rather, a deep and sudden gratitude and, with it, a force of clarity, filling hi was and then he knew He was giving her up

She let hi her into the open flaps of his jacket He held her, as she had held hioodbye reversed He felt her stiffen and then relax against hi," she said

"I need you to pro Keep the others safe Get theainst his chest "What about you?"

How he loved her And yet the words the her in his ar of her into his mind, into memory, so that he could take this with hih, don’t you?" He pulled away to see her face a final time "That’s all," he said "I just wanted to thank you"

And then he turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the icy wind outside the silent barracks