Because we usually are. Hood told himself. Somehow, when it was this late and this dark and this quiet, you just had to be honest with yourself.

"Work is what it always is," he answered. "We've got a crisis. Even with that, what I'm most upset about is you. About us."

"I'm only upset about you," Sharon replied.

"All right, hon," Hood said calmly. "You win that one."

"I don't want to 'win' anything," she said. "I just want to be honest. I want to figure out what we're going to do about this. Things can't continue the way they are. They just can't."

"I agree," Hood said. "That's why I've decided to resign."

Sharon was silent for a long moment. "You'd leave Op-Center?"

"What choice do I have?"

"The truth?" Sharon asked.

"Of course."

"You don't need to resign," she said. "What you need to do is spend less time there."

Hood was really annoyed. He'd been sincere. He'd played his hole card-a big one. And instead of giving her husband a big wet kiss, Sharon was telling him how he'd done that all wrong.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Hood asked. "Nobody can predict what's going to happen here."

"No, but you have backups," Sharon said. "There's Mike Rodgers. There's the night team."

"They're all very capable," Hood replied, "but they're here for when things are running smoothly. I have to be on top of a situation like this one, or like the one we had last time-"

"Where you were nearly killed!" she snapped.

"Yes, where I was nearly killed, Sharon," Hood said. He stayed calm. His wife was already getting angry and his own temper would just fuel that. "Sometimes there's danger. But there's danger right here in Washington."

"Oh, please, Paul. It isn't the same."

"All right. It is different," Hood admitted. "But there are also rewards from what I do. Not just a good home but experiences. The kids have gone overseas with us, been exposed to things other people never get to do or see. How do you break that all out? How do you decide, 'This trip to a world capital wasn't worth missing ten dinners with Paul.' Or, 'Okay, we got to visit the Oval Office but Dad couldn't be at a violin concert at school.' "

"I don't know," Sharon admitted. "But I do know that a 'good home' is more than just a nice house. And a family is built by a lot of little things, ordinary things. Not just big, showy things."

"I've been there for a lot of that," Hood said.

"No, Paul," Sharon countered. "You were there for a lot of that. Things have changed. When you took this job most of the work was going to be domestic. Remember?"

"I remember."

"Then your first international situation happened and everything changed."