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Knox has commandeered the remote control for the bar TV, and has flipped around the dial to find a baseball game. The seventh game of the 1960 World Series, in fact. A classic game. And also something to help with his baseball withdrawal, as in his timeline (as in many others) the ballplayers are on strike. He isn't sure what side he's on in terms of players vs. owners. All he knows is that he misses baseball. And is glad to find an old game on. (He thinks that there would be a market for such things at home, in fact.)

Come say hi. It's not like he doesn't already know how it ends.

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Carlotta limps over on her crutches, and sits down nearby.

"Hallo."

She still has a large metal frame around her right lower leg, though someone has attempted to plaster around the spikes.

"What happened?" He's afraid to guess. There is a war on, after all.

And he remembers what that means all too well.

Suddenly, the Mick and Maz don't seem as important.

"I got shot through the leg." Carlotta says. "I bumped into Will and ended up blowing my cover."

"God." He is just silent for a bit.

"You're back home now?"

Carlotta nods.

"They sent me home on an honourable discharge. The doctors think I'll recover, but it'll take time and I'm too distinctive to be working as an agent any more. Dr Sandhu's been using his fancy bone healer on it in small subtle doses to help it along too.

I got back to my in-laws' house yesterday. Everyone's being a brick, even Fern, but I just feel like I've let everyone down."

"You can't help being shot. It happens in a war. I know about that.

"I don't have the scar to prove it anymore, but I know about that." Notice he says nothing about her cover being blown.

"You were shot?" Carlotta asks.

"Four years ago. Do you know a young woman named Makita? It was in her world, in her war." A war that he thinks will never end.

"I don't think I met her." Carlotta says. "How long did it take you to recover?"

"A few months. From the wound. From the nightmares." He can still remember the sting, the blood, the miracle of Allie Keyes saving his life. "But my wound wasn't as bad as yours." Not after Allie was done.

Carlotta goes slightly red when he mentions nightmares.

"Well I've got health care here, that helps. They started talking about amputating it at home when I got the infection; I'm pretty sure they were being overdramatic, but I managed to get here and treat it."

He isn't going to tell her any of the horror stories his dad's old war buddies told him about lost limbs.

"Wanna talk about what happened?"

She's seen some people who weren't so lucky, on her trip home.

"I don't remember all of it." Carlotta admit. "But... well, I suppose it started when I had to entice some information out of someone, a man called Raul, in an emergency, because he'd found a way to destroy the Gibraltar base. I seduced him, not all the way, but it's fair to say I made his evening.

I decided I'd better move after that, but while I was awaiting instructions, there was a plane crash about half a mile from my room; I saw it out the window. I went out to investigate and found it was Will. He was pretty shocked but mostly unharmed, thank God, so I took him back to my room.

When we were leaving the next morning, one of the other men I've been trailing, Eduardo, who fancies me something dreadful, had heard something from Raul and was heading up to confront me. He started kicking off in the street, yelling abuse. He thought Will was another lover for a moment, then he saw the uniform and pulled a gun.

Will pulled me behind him and shot Eduardo, but in the resulting confusion I got hit in the leg. I don't really remember what happened after that - I lost rather a lot of blood and kept passing out - but I've been told Will carried me across the border to the Gibraltar military hospital, and I woke up with this thing on my leg.

Knox listens, and considers the situation. It's all like something out of an old WWII film, though maybe a little less clean than the sorts of films he watched as a kid.

"So you saved each others' lives, and almost got killed in the process," he quips. "Sounds like it was just a lot of rotten luck.

"But he got you help. That's pretty amazing."

"It is. He carried me at least half a mile, after that I think he put me on a horse."

"How's he doing? Is he going to sit out the rest of the war too?" Which could be a tiny blessing.

"A few cuts and bruises and a sprained ankle." Carlotta says. "Thank goodness. He's been moved back to England too, but he's still a pilot. They thought it best in case the Spanish tried to avenge Eduardo."

"But for now he's taking care of you?" He better be, thinks Knox.

"No, he's back at work. I've not been allowed to see him since the accident. But his family are looking after me, at the stables."

"I guess that's something." Seems completely unfair, though.

"And what does Guppy say about your leg?"

"He says he can speed it up once the infection is cleared fully, but because it's such a complex fracture I'm still going to be off it for weeks. He says I need to be very careful not to damage it further by doing too much acrobatics too soon."

"But you'll be able to do them again?" In her time, odds are she would not get the right sort of care. But how will she explain her amazing healing rate?

"He thinks so. Though he said I might have to alter my act a little, at least for a while. It shouldn't be too difficult for me to ride a horse, or swing on a trapese, but I may have to be careful how I land.

Libby thinks I should start a new act doing upside down housework, walking on my hands." Carlotta adds, with a small smile. "I got bored of being on crutches and she caught me walking across the room upside down to put the kettle on."

She plans to explain that by saying she was in the Gibraltar hospital for a while, and that the dates must have got muddled.

Alex gives a good laugh at that. "Sounds like you will be fine.

"It helps to laugh. And to have someone to laugh with."

Carlotta nods.

"It's good to be back at the stables. In the military hospital, the men would just grumble at me for 'taking up a bed the real soldiers should have'."