I am led away to the yard and I don’t look back.

He puts me in his car, in the front seat, but I refuse to tremble.

And I pray that Fred will run.

But I know he will not.

Shouting lifts behind me, and I want to close my eyes as soldiers haul out their finds—Jews and a handful of partisans hiding in the Sacristy.

None of them are Tory. Or Fred.

Still, my relief is short-lived as they are all—to a one, including women and children—lined up and shot.

The sound still echoes in my soul.

Father Cantero, five other monks, and six lay brothers are taken as the SS rolls out of the yard.

Heinlein drives me straight to my home. It is quiet. Empty.

And I am terrified.

He drags me from the car, because my legs have stopped working. Pushes me into the house.

I will not let him have me.

And yes, for Fred, I must live.

The kitchen pan is where it fell in the kitchen, and swoop it up, my defense against Heinlein as he pursues me. Out of the kitchen, into the yard. I am weeping, furious, terrified—

And then I see him. A dark, furious, resolved hero, running from the courtyard, straight at Heinlein.

He has justice on his countenance as he takes down the German. I can’t watch, but I can’t stop myself.

Please.

Heinlein, for all his presence, is no match for a man whose wife has been threatened.

I turn away, however, when Fred gets Heinlein’s gun and fires.

The report echoes into the air and shakes through me.

Then, Fred’s arms are around me, pulling me tight against him. He is bloody, and sweaty and shaking and yet he holds me up.

I am still in his arms when the rest of Heinlein’s escort pulls up.

Despite his hand in mine, pulling me across the yard, toward the grotto, we are found.

Gunfire, and Fred grabs me, pulls me to the ground, his body over mine.

It jerks with the fire, and I know, even as he holds me, the truth.

“Always and Forever,” he says when the shooting stops.

I lay there, under weight of his embrace, even when I hear more shouts, more gunfire.

More death.

I lay there, willing Fred to breathe, his heart to beat again, willing him to stay.

Faint is the memory of Tory easing Fred off me, of taking me in his arms. Faint is the memory of the next days, even weeks where he hides me in the grotto, back where the Janowitzes lived.

Faint is the memory of the Allies, pushing into Lucca, pushing back the invaders just three months later.

By that time, Sigfrid is alive inside me, kicking, and that memory is vivid. Shall we not accept good from the Lord, and not trouble?