She kept seeing a briefcase. It was a handsome briefcase, but a briefcase nonetheless; she saw its faintly transparent outline where the light changed between buildings, in the crack between a door and the frame, in the shadows under tables and chairs.

And you have not been sleeping, she told herself sternly, flipping the rag over and scrubbing at the countertop. Her elbow sawed back and forth in the air and under the loose collar of her dress, the ring bounced against her breastbone.

"What can I get for you, sir?" she asked a man wearing a grey felt hat, his collar flipped up against the spring chill in the air, his fingers stubby as they grasped a traveling salesman's briefcase. She took his order and her throat felt thick, even as she turned smartly on her heel and scooped up the coffeepot. The radio sounded dreamy in the corner, the honey-sweet croon of a man who had lost his love.

It was all Mrs. Nickerson's fault. The last image she had seen at that house, during her most recent visit, was the quilt in the window, the large, single blue star. The quilt, all the other quilts on that tree-lined street, they all blurred, and all she felt now was the slightly shocked realization, like a suddenly sensitive tooth. Blue and gold stars everywhere. Their novelty worn off, they were practically invisible to her now. And then, Edith had told her, her tired and somehow frenetic gaze touching each spotless corner of the room, one by one and over again, then the long black car would come down the street and a man would give her the news, and when he had come to Mrs. Jacobs's, he had been carrying a small tan briefcase, so smart that she had mistaken him for something else, anything other than what he was. Death at her door.

But the tired, pink-rimmed eyes of her customer gave away no world weariness any different from her own, and Nancy poured him his coffee with a nod and the pretense of a smile as he returned to his newspaper. The broad sheets crackled under his palms as he smoothed them out, blanketing the whole surface of the table; even columns in black on grey-white. She automatically sought the list of the dead, shivering a little when she turned away.

Briefcases. Edith had her worried for nothing.

On the other side of the plate glass there was a strange fog, come rising from the pavement, damping the sounds of the night, and the honey-sweet singer's voice faltered in the static for a few seconds before the orchestra rose to play him away. Hamburger sandwiches cut neatly in half on white bread waited for Nancy on the split counter, and through the narrow window she could see the greasy smears on the cook's apron, smoke swirling and eddying from his lit cigarette, rising through the sublimated grease, the hiss and crackle of browning meat.

There will be a time when all this is over.

Mrs. Cauley and her little boy John sat quietly at their table, straining a little to hear the radio over the quiet, the hushed silence from without. Johnny was kicking at the rungs of his chair, but the smile he turned on her was brilliant in its sincerity. A night out, a true night out, even if it was the same diner they went to every month.

"Johnny!" Mrs. Cauley swiped at his face with a napkin, and Nancy hid her smile as he squirmed. "What would your father think of you?"

But Johnny's father was a blue star in a window, Nancy thought, remembering her own mother and how she was just a cipher, too, just a terse entry on a family tree that culminated with her name and the finality of the dash behind the year of her birth.

She glanced out at the fog, blaming it for her morose thoughts, before turning to Johnny and, leaning in conspiratorily, whispering, "You know, I think the cook has one of his outlandishly unspeakably wonderful blueberry pies in the kitchen. Do you think your mom would like a slice?"

Johnny nodded eagerly, his eyes wide, biting his lower lip a little and glancing over at his mother, who had a tired version of the same. Tired. There will be a time, Nancy thought again, glancing over her shoulder as the bell over the door rang again, announcing another customer, but for now all the happiness in the world could come with just a slice of perfect pie, topped with a dollop of whipped sweet cream.

She brought the coffeepot and an empty cup and saucer peremptorily, once Johnny was tucking gleefully into the pie and his mother was taking her own slow, obviously reluctantly considered bite. The salesman drummed his fingers next to his nearly empty cup and she swooped down on it, filling it deftly while she sized up the new customer. A pair of crutches were propped next to him, against the wall, but that wasn't so unusual anymore, and his pants leg was faded from battlefield washing and the elements.

She put the cup and saucer down next to his elbow and poised the coffeepot just so over it, as he glanced up. "What woã"

The words died on her lips, and her fingers started shaking, when Ned's eyes met hers. They widened, brilliantly, and it wasn't so much surprise on his face, he had to know from her descriptions in her letters that this was where she worked, but maybe his surprise at finding her here, maybe his surprise at how much she had changed, at how she didn't look anything like herself anymore.

"Ned," she gasped out, loud and ugly and shocked as a bleat from her, private as a sob. The coffeepot slipped from her weakening grasp and fell onto the coffee cup and saucer, smashing that neatly into shards, before cracking on the edge of the counter and exploding with a tremendous crash at Nancy's feet. She knew there was mildly hot coffee bathing her from knee to ankle. She couldn't stop staring at him.

And then he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, burying his face against her belly, and she slid her fingers into his hair and cried, because from the day she had stopped hearing from him, from the day his letters had stopped, she had been waiting every single hour, with every single car that passed and every telephone ring, for the news that he had been lost.

"Nancy?"

They were all staring at her. The man in the grey felt hat, Mrs. Cauley and Johnny, and Barry, his thick glasses fogged from the grill, stubby fingers absently running over the barrel-curve of his rounded belly and yellowed apron, had come out of the kitchen to see what was wrong, to see why she had suddenly lost her mind.

"He's come home," she said, smiling, the tears making her eyelashes sharp and stubborn.

She was still on shift for another hour, really, even though she took her apron off and sat down at the table in the back corner with Ned, and Barry put the other pot of coffee on the counter so that the salesman could get his refills as he slowly made his way through the newspaper, reading every story, every caption, every advertisement.

"I can't believe you're here," she said quietly, squeezing the crumpled apron in her fist, her legs still streaked brown from the coffee. She couldn't take her eyes off him long enough to go back to the washroom.

"I can't believe you're here," he returned, searching her face again, searching her eyes. Everything they said was gentle, cautious. The person she had been while writing her letters seemed like someone else entirely, a much bolder, much more careless girl. Their hands were touching, between them on the table, and his thumb kept stroking her index finger, over and over, just barely.

"Are you out? Free?"

He glanced down at his leg before answering. "Yes. I'm free."

"Youã"

She glanced down at his leg and met his eyes again, and when he saw the fear there his face softened. "Oh, no. No, the shrapnel's out, I just have to keep my weight off it for a few more weeks and then I'll be good as new."

She almost laughed out loud with relief, even as guilty as she felt. So many men had come home irreperably damaged, or not at all, and she had sworn that if he came back, as long as he still had eyes to stare into and a mouth to kiss, as long as he still knew her, that was all she wanted. Even crutches were enough to make her feel like a hypocrite.

"Shrapnel?"

He shrugged. "I got off lucky," he said gruffly.

She squeezed his hand. "I did too," she said.

He glanced around. "I never really saw you as a waitress," he admitted. "It was hard to imagine. When I was..." he waved his hand, vaguely, "I had such strange dreams, and this just feels like another one, seeing you like this..."

"I think I know what you mean," she said, her eyes sparkling, and he laughed for the first time, and the sound warmed her all the way up her spine, into that cold grainy place where she had been seeing briefcases and gold stars, black veils and fresh earth.

"Have you been home yet?"

He shook his head. "Walked from the train station," he said. "Everything looks so far away in the fog, and I wanted you with me."

"You're lucky I had plans this weekend and I can drive you. Otherwise I wouldn't have had any gas saved."

He nodded and she saw that look again. Plans for the weekend. Plans that, of course, were not meant to involve him. She had already chosen a yellow and white gown Hannah had recycled from one of her older dresses, and she had fully planned to remember the songs she danced to, so that in her next letter to oblivion she could tell him how it was.

"Did you want to go now?"

Johnny and his mother had long since finished their pie, but she could see the look of wistful longing on the older woman's face even from across the room. She was seeing Ned and thinking of her own husband. The sharp, fluttering tones of a female singer sounded unhushed from the kitchen, all the hamburger sandwiches made, all the bacon fried and ham browned. Barry would be on the back steps, watching the smoke from the tip of his cigarette drift lazily over his head, the fog creeping into his clothes.

Ned shook his head. "I just want to look at you," he murmured. "I want to sleep for four days and when I wake up I want to see you, really you, not some picture I've worn out from looking at it so many times. I could draw that smile with my eyes closed, I know it so well," he said, and touched her cheek when she replied with a smile of her own.

"I..."

He silenced her with the brush of his thumb over her lips, and she watched, still and quiet, as he pushed his chair back, as he with some difficulty and visible pain got to his feet unaided, then dropped to his knees, clutching the chair on either side of her skirt. He gazed up at her and her heart was pounding.

"I love you," he said, and she couldn't stop herself. She started crying again, silently, shaking with quiet sobs. "I've loved you since the day we met and no one else, no one, is as important as you are, as this, is to me. I love you, Nancy Drew."

Dimly she could hear Mrs. Cauley clapping from across the room as she knelt down, touching her forehead to his, one of his arms sliding around her. "I love you too," she whispered, brushing the backs of her fingers over the strong line of his jaw, her thumb stroking his temple. "I love you so much and thank God you came back to me, Ned..."

He tilted his head and kissed her once, gently, the press of his lips firm but brief, and the blush climbed up her cheeks as she grabbed him and kissed him soundly, her hand buried in his hair. Somewhere in her rushing ears she thought she heard Johnny wolf-whistle, only to be shushed by his mother.

"My blood pulled you home," she whispered against his mouth, and he nodded, his head moving under her hand. "You came home to me, you brought my home back to me, and don't you dare ever leave me again."

"I won't, I swear I won't," he whispered, sliding his arms around her waist. "I won't ever leave you again."