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Otherwise you’d be swinging here till you turn purple in the head and die. Hell, I ought to let you turn purple.”
    Julian let her yammer on. He made no excuses for himself; no sense blaming the wind shear. Besides, Sayers was basically harmless. She had an uncanny ability to berate a person roundly and simultaneously get things done. Slated for commissioning, same as Julian, she would make a good officer. She chewed him out, all the while hoisting herself up into the branches where he was caught and using a utility knife to cut him free.
    â€œYou got your own knife,” she pointed out. “Why the hell didn’t you get yourself down?”
    â€œI was going to. Wanted to make sure I didn’t cut the wrong strap and land on my—” He plunged to the ground, slamming against the forest floor. He felt the impact despite his helmet.
    â€œHead,” he finished. “Thanks, Mom.” In the unit, Sayers’s nickname was Mom because, although she fussed and bossed everyone around, she cared about each one of them with the fierceness of a mother bear.
    â€œDon’t thank me, fool,” she said. “Just you hold still while I put a field dressing on that wound.”
    â€œWhat wound?” He gingerly touched his forehead, feeling a warm slickness at his hairline. Great.
    She jumped down, landing with a grunt, and radioed the base.
    He wiped his hand on his jumpsuit, and that was when he thought about the ring. He’d carried it around for a long time. Even during the jump, he had kept it in a pocket next to his heart, layers deep, zipped up tight.
    When the ring was offered to Daisy, it wasn’t going to be like last time, in the midst of a fistfight on a train platform, for Chrissake. This time…
    He ripped open the Velcro collar tab at his throat and plunged his hand inside, fingers grappling with a zipper closure on his shirt.
    Sayers knelt down in front of him. “What’s the matter?”
    â€œJust checking for—ah.” Julian went limp with relief as his hand closed around the ring box. He pulled it out and flipped it open to reveal the prize—a certified non-conflict diamond in a warm gold setting, engraved on the inner curve with “Forever.” He angled the box so Sayers could check it out.
    She studied it thoughtfully. “Sorry, Jughead,” she said, using his nickname, “but I don’t love you in quite that way.”
    â€œSure you do.” He snapped the lid shut and tucked the box away. “You’re on your knees, baby.”
    â€œMmm.” She ripped open a blister pack of sterile wipes. “It’s your wounds I love. I swear, Jughead, you are a walking, talking crash test dummy. I love that about you.”
    Sayers wanted to attend medical school one day. She was obsessed with blood and guts, the gorier, the better. Julian, with his penchant for going to extremes, had provided her with more than his share of abrasions, sprains, bruises and bleeders during their training.
    She cleansed the gash and clamped it shut with a few butterfly bandages. As she worked, she said, “What are you doing, carrying that damn ring everywhere you go?”
    â€œI don’t know what else to do with it,” he said. “Shoving it in the back of my underwear drawer seems a little…well, that’s where I used to stash my—never mind.” He didn’t want to go there with Sayers. “Sad to say, campus theft happens.”
    Unspoken was another truth they both understood. If the jump had proven fatal, the presence of the ring box would’ve been a silent final message to the woman he loved, the woman he wanted to love forever.
    â€œI figure I’ll keep it handy and I can pop the question when I know the time’s right.”
    Sayers shook her head in disgust as she touched gentle fingers to the row of butterflies. “A word to the wise,” she cautioned. “Make sure the poor