Jenna was allowed to follow Balal into the emergency wing, but no further. She hadn’t realized it before, but she had a small cut on her knee from falling to Balal’s side, but the pain was dull and inconsequential.

“Please, I need to find Sheikh Balal El-Djourani,” Jenna said to the receptionist at the desk.

She was told that Balal was going in for emergency surgery, and she was just going to have to wait.

Waiting might just make me lose my mind.

The waiting room itself was rather empty, as it was so early in the day. Still, Jenna found herself a chair as far away from everyone else as possible and plopped down into it.

But she didn't stay seated for long. She continually stood up and paced around, to the window and back to her chair, her arms wrapped around herself. It was maddening, having to wait, unsure what was happening just a few floors away from her.

Jenna felt her phone buzz in her pocket and pulled it out to look. It was Adina, trying to find out what had happened. She quickly typed out her reply.

Balal was shot. At the hospital. I will call as soon as I know something.

She hit send, and as soon as she did, she noticed more messages. She hadn't emailed her parents since her first night at the hostel, but she had told them she would probably only have a chance to email them once a week when she was overseas. They had been understanding, but it felt like an eternity since she’d last spoken to them.

She opened the most recent email from her mother, asking a million and one questions about her trip, and felt tears well up in her eyes again. She couldn't keep going with this lie—she knew that she had to tell them. They deserved to know the truth. All of it.

So, she spent the next hour writing out an email to them, explaining everything. She told them that she had set out alone, and not to Paris, but to the Middle East. She told them what had happened to her, and how Balal had saved her. She told them how she and Balal had rescued another woman, and she told them how they had found Balal’s long lost brother, and said that Balal had been hurt, and that now she was sitting in a hospital waiting to see what had happened.

When she sent the email, she knew that she was going to have to face a lot of fallout when she got home. But she was willing to deal with it, knowing that she would deserve whatever wrath her mother would have in store, and whatever disappointment from her father.

More than once, a doctor in a pristine white coat stepped into the waiting room, but each time, he read a name that was not hers or Balal's. It ate her up each time, and she thought for sure that she would go utterly mad with frustration.

She was helpless; all she could do was sit there and try not to bite her fingernails all the way down to the quick.

* * *

Jenna had just started to nod off from pure exhaustion when they finally called out Balal’s. She nearly cracked her skull on the wall behind her, she lifted her head up so fast.

Jumping to her feet, she made her way over to the doctor. He was a kind-faced, gray-haired man with tired eyes, and he smiled gently at her. Jenna searched his face for truths that his words might not convey.

He asked her a question, and Jenna was sure that he had asked her if she was Balal’s wife. She nodded her head vehemently, and the doctor nodded as well.

“Come,” he said in Arabic, then he turned around and led her down the long, white hallway.

As he opened up the double doors at the end of the hall, Jenna felt her heart begin to hammer against her chest.

“Is he okay?” she asked, and when the doctor looked at her, not understanding, she tried again in Arabic.

“Better,” is all the doctor said. He smiled at her once more and stopped at room number 301. He motioned for her to go in.

When Jenna stepped inside, she was surprised to see Balal sitting up in bed, at least partially. He had a tray in front of him, with a small plastic cup full of ice and a little pitcher of water beside it.

“Oh, Balal,” Jenna breathed, then she dashed across the room to him. She threw her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder.

“Easy, now,” Balal said as he patted her shoulder. “I just had stitches.”

She pulled away, her face streaked with tears. She knew she looked a mess, but didn’t matter. He was alive!

He smiled easily at her, and she searched his face.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, still blubbering. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket.

Balal reached up and cupped her face with his hand. She nuzzled into it like a child.

“What, you thought that a wound like this would be the death of me? Come now, it will take more than that.”

Jenna’s lip trembled, and Balal laughed softly.

“I’m quite all right, Jenna. Truly.” He shifted, then, and she could see that it pained him.

She held out her hands, attempting to help, but at a loss as to how.

He exhaled heavily, and then laid back against the pillow. “Apparently the bullet didn’t hit anything vital, but I lost a lot of blood. I had to have a transfusion.”

She felt her fingertips grow cold and the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“But you’re okay?” she asked nervously.

Balal nodded. “I’m okay, but I’m going to need to stay here for a few days so they can monitor my vitals and make sure I’m not losing any more blood.”

She saw that his face had paled since he’d tried to move.

“Here,” she said, and she poured him some water from the pitcher.

She passed him the glass. He took it, then he smirked at her over the top of the cup.

“What?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

Balal lowered the glass and looked at her with a curious expression.

“I heard what you said to the EMTs…about being my wife.”

Jenna’s cheeks burned red, and she tried to cover them.

She felt Balal’s hand on her cheek, and he tilted her chin back up to him.

“I also heard a lot of what you said in the ambulance. About how I rescued you, and how you needed me.”

Jenna swallowed hard. He wasn’t supposed to hear any of that!

Balal’s face softened, and she held his gaze. He lowered his hand to his lap.

His eyes were deep brown now, with flecks of gold like sunlight. She had almost been sure she would never see them again.

“I need you too, Jenna,” Balal whispered. “I realized that I needed you the moment I met you, and my life has been full ever since.”

She wasn’t sure that she had heard him correctly.

“I have been giving this a great deal of thought…” He smiled a wry smile, and he looked down at his hands in his lap. “And perhaps I have completely lost my mind. I realize that this is going to sound entirely mad, especially given what we have just gone through…”

“What?” Jenna asked, taking one of his hands in hers. She squeezed it gently. “Please, you can tell me anything.”

He looked up at her, and she saw something new in his eyes, something she had not seen before. A deep sort of contentment, as well as love, clear as day.

“Jenna Jackson…” he murmured, pulling her gently toward him. “I was wondering…if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Jenna felt her heart leap inside her chest. She had to grab onto the side of the bed to keep herself from tumbling to the floor.

Did he…did he just propose?

“I know I don’t have a ring, and that I’m not going to be able to get down on one knee right now, but…” He laughed, and Jenna was surprised to see a tear run down his cheek. “After all that has happened, after everything with Ahmad, it just made me realize…that I wouldn’t have had the chance to tell that you that I love you. I need you to know that, Jenna. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Jenna threw her arms around his neck, the tears coming once more, fast and joyful.

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, Balal, yes!”