Gigi Sinclair

Change can be a soldier's best friend, or his worst enemy.

An old CO of mine told me that years ago. At the time, I'd thought it applied only to dinosaurs like him, guys who could still remember an age before laser weapons and the world government, and the dozens of little factions who opposed it and kept all the world's armies on their toes.

I was young then. Now, I knew change could be an enemy for other reasons, as well. Too many changes distract you, take your mind off the situation at hand, and the moment a soldier takes his mind off the situation is the moment he's in real trouble.

This change was one of the hardest I'd gone through. For the first time in my life, I wanted to go home.

It wasn't a vague homesickness for decent food and a comfortable bed that could easily be pushed aside by reminding myself of my duty to my mission and my men. This was a gut-twisting, physically painful reminder that I was a very long way from the people I cared about, and I would very possibly never see them again.

The reminder of how homesick I was came in the form of a message that I opened one afternoon. It had already been a bad day. I'd spent a particularly trying shift of arguing with Lieutenant Reed and telling Kemper I didn't give a damn if we were about to die, he wasn't getting involved with one of the "Enterprise" crew. I didn't even want to know which crewmember he had his eye on. I collapsed into the chair at my console, rubbing my shoulders and trying to be grateful that I at least had my own quarters, tiny as they were. Kemper had stormed off to sulk with his roommate, Chang. Even Mackenzie had to share her room with Cole, which is how I was alerted to the situation between her and Commander Tucker.

Putting that aside, I opened my messages, ignored three from Captain Archer and one from Mac, and went straight for the one from Heather.

She'd grown since the last time I'd seen her, and she'd had her hair cut. "Hi, Daddy!" Heather waved at the camera. "I made cookies! They're chocolate chip and Papito says we're going to take them to Cindy's on Saturday. I wish I could send you some. Do you get cookies on 'Enterprise?'" Yes, but they mostly came wrapped in plastic and tasted like it, too. "We have our ballet recital soon, and I'm the elephant. That's why we're going to Cindy's, so her mom can make me a costume. Papito says he'll send you the video, OK? Love you!" She kissed the camera and hopped down, disappearing from the screen. A moment later, the message ended as someone, presumably Miguel, turned the camera off.

I was doing this for Heather. That was what I'd told myself when I signed on for the mission. Heather had lost her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins in the Xindi attack, and I wanted to ensure that she would never again lose anyone to them. I just hadn't realized that being parted from her would hurt so much.

And, selfish as it may be, I had to admit that it was just as painful to see that she clearly wasn't feeling the separation like I was.

I played it again, staring as if that would bridge the millions of miles between us. Then I saved the message and turned off the monitor. I thought about crawling into bed with a bottle of bourbon, but I was hungry, and I knew it would be a long time before I could sleep anyway. So I got up and went to the mess hall, hoping I wouldn't run into anyone who wanted to talk.

It was a forlorn hope. I grabbed a tray with a sandwich and a piece of cake and was about to head back to my quarters when Ensign Sato cut me off.

"Major Hayes! Do you play Ping-Pong?"

"No." Although it wasn't the strangest question I'd ever been asked.

"Oh." Sato looked disappointed. "Would you like to learn? Commander Tucker made a table, and I'm trying to get a league started."

I was surprised Commander Tucker had time to make anything, in between brooding over his sister like she was the only one who'd died in the attack and getting involved with anything with legs.

"I don't think so, thank you, ensign."

"OK." She went off again, and I started for the door. I was halfway there when I realized I didn't have a fork.

On my second attempt to escape, I was accosted by Captain Archer himself, looking disappointed. "Major Hayes. I understand there's been some more trouble between yourself and Lieutenant Reed."

"Nothing out of the ordinary, sir." Mostly because Reed was a controlling despot who had no desire to learn anything from me, despite the fact I'd been conducting guerrilla warfare in the jungles of Venezuela while Reed was still at Scout camp.

"I'm getting tired of it, Major. I really wish you would just work things out." Archer frowned. "Trip and T'Pol did."

I was a trained soldier, with a lifetime of military obedience and subordination under my belt. It was still a struggle not to ask if that meant Archer wanted me to start giving Reed massages on the side.

"I will do my best, captain."

Archer half-nodded, and I left before he could make a bigger issue out of it.

I had been in conflict with other officers before, many times. I'd be the first to admit I'm not the easiest commander to get along with, but then I didn't join the military to make friends. My job is to keep my men alive, not to make them happy, as Kemper could attest. I had still never experienced anything like what went on between Reed and I. I had never known anyone who irritated me as consistently and as intensely as Reed did, and I knew the feeling was entirely mutual. Working with him made the last few weeks before my separation from Miguel look like a honeymoon.

It had all come to a head a few days earlier, when we went at it in the gym. There were other factors in play, of course, but the raw emotion was all too real. We had the will, the ability and the desire to kill each other with our bare hands, and it was only our "civilized" natures that kept us from doing it. Not a comforting lesson, given that civility is the first thing to go out the window when times get tough.

When I got back to my quarters, I ate my meal and watched Heather's message again. Then I recorded a couple of messages of my own, one for Heather and one for Miguel, just for old times' sake. We were together for a long time. We'd seen a lot of bad stuff, and it had brought us together before it split us up.

When I'd finished recording, I ducked into my tiny shower cubicle, reminding myself that for most of my professional life, I would have killed for a bucket of cold water and a dirty rag. I fell asleep wondering if I would ever see Heather again, and if she would recognize me anyway.

***

Venezuela, October 2143

"Where the hell am I?" The last thing I remembered was shoving my sergeant behind a tree as rebel gunfire ricocheted through the jungle. I got in a few rounds myself before I joined him, but after that, everything was dark.

"Kansas. Why? Did you think you were somewhere else?" I looked down to see my right leg wrapped in bandages and propped up between two pillows. I was wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt, the metal dogtags—traditional and guaranteed to work even when retinal scanners were unavailable and the implanted ID chips were damaged—resting on my chest. At the end of the bed, a dark-haired man in fatigues was looking at a PADD.

"Funny."

The man flicked his eyes up at me. "I thought so. How do you feel?"

"Like hell."

"It's an improvement. When you arrived, you looked like shit."

"Where's Howard?"

"He's fine. He was only grazed. The bullets decided to head straight for you."

"Bullets?" We'd known the rebels didn't have a lot of high-tech weapons, but actual bullets?

"Yes, it's very quaint. The whole time I was taking them out of your body, I was wondering what I could get for them at an antiques market."

"So you're the doctor?" I assumed so. He wasn't much of a comedian.

"Unfortunately." He came up to the side of the bed. "Miguel Ramirez." Major Ramirez, from the rank insignia on his lapels. "And you're going to be fine. You'll be back in the field in forty-eight hours."

I tried to be happy about that. We had a war to fight, a war I believed in and was committed to winning. But a couple of days off would have been nice. Not that I'd ever admit it.

"But I might advise seventy-two," Ramirez continued. "Provided you're a model patient."

"What does that entail?"

"Not complaining about the food and hitting the bedpan, mostly." Ramirez smiled. It must have been the drugs, but my stomach shifted downwards. A moment later, I knew it definitely was the drugs as I was slammed by a wave of nausea, and Ramirez thrust a bedpan in front of me just before I lost all of my recent dehydrated meals and a lot of canteen water.

"Well," he commented, when I'd finished emptying my stomach and most of my internal organs into the bedpan. "That's one for the 'possible side-effects' report." He ran a hand through my filthy hair and stroked down the side of my face. Even though my stomach was empty, it flipped a little more, and I wondered if this was strictly professional behaviour. On either of our parts.

Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, a siren blasted and the doors at the end of the ward swung open. Ramirez left, speaking rapidly in Spanish, and I glanced at the soldiers on either side of me. To my left, a young woman was lying asleep, monitors beeping around her. On my right, a man of about my age was playing with a handheld game device.

"Richards?"

He looked over at me and nearly dropped his game in his haste to salute. "Captain Hayes, sir."

I raised an eyebrow. "Enjoying your downtime?"

"Major Ramirez is going to release me in a couple of days."

"I see. Well, take advantage of it while you can."

"Yes, sir."

"Because as soon as I'm out of here, we're finishing this whole thing once and for all." I'd had more than enough of Venezuela, personally. I was ready to go home, and I didn't mean Fort Bragg. I wanted to see snow again, the sooner the better.

***

When I arrived in "Enterprise's" mess hall, I found my MACOs in their usual place, far away from the Starfleet personnel, chuckling over a PADD. Grabbing a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, I slid in next to them.

"What's so funny?"

"Mac made it," Kemper, apparently forgetting that he was in a snit with me, passed the PADD down. A dark-haired cartoon character in a blue jumpsuit was standing at rigid attention, blinking occasionally and moving his mouth soundlessly and continuously. After a moment, there was a white flash and an animated cloud of smoke, and the character reappeared horizontally, his eyes closed. A yellow-haired character bounded onto the screen and said, via speech bubble, "Ah don' understand it, cap'n, he followed Starfleet reggalations to the letter."

"Nice to see you have so much time on your hands, Mackenzie." I handed back the PADD, trying to keep a straight face.

"Yes, Major." She didn't roll her eyes or do anything openly insubordinate, but we knew each other too well. She put the PADD away and picked up her knife and fork. "Orders for today, sir?"

"Just the usual. Try not to kill any of them. Even in animated form."

She smiled. "Yes, sir."

After breakfast, I went to the armoury. For once, Reed wasn't there, poised to start bitching as soon as I was within earshot. It was a very pleasant surprise, but I knew it couldn't last.

"Where's Reed?" I asked Ensign Tanner.

"I don't know, sir," Tanner replied.

Ah. Well, I thought, best to take advantage of this while it lasted. I headed over to the station that, after several months and many complaints, Reed had assigned to me and flicked through the gamma shift's report.

"Reed to Hayes." And there it was.

I reached over and hit the comm. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Would you come to your quarters?"

"What?"

"I'm afraid there's been something of an accident."

As usual, that was an understatement.

"What the fuck…"

"Wiring malfunction," Commander Tucker replied easily, like that explained the huge charred hole in the wall beside my bed. "It's probably been smouldering for a few hours. Lucky you're an early riser, huh, Major?"

"How the hell…" I started again. This time it was Archer who cut me off.

"We don't know how it happened. Trip's looking into it." Good for Trip.

Tucker shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I fixed the problem, but it'll be a while till we can get this patched up. My people are real busy at the moment."

I looked at the hole, and the rat's nest of wiring and blinking lights within. "I'll move my bed."

"You can't stay in this room until the wall is fixed," Archer informed me. "Starfleet safety regulations."

If he'd had any sense of humour, I would have assumed him to be kidding. As it was, I replied, "I'll be all right, Captain. I've slept in much worse places."

"It's not up to me, Major. If anything happened to you, the military would have my ass. You'll have to find somewhere else to sleep."

"Then I'll bunk down with Kemper and Chang."

"I have a better idea." Archer and Tucker exchanged a look, and I thought about the rumours I'd heard, the ones that claimed there was more than just friendship in their past. Of course, there seemed to be similar rumours about the love lives of just about every member of the Starfleet staff. I assumed that was the reason we'd been sent in to organize things; the Starfleet people were too busy having sex to actually get anything useful done. "Why don't you share Lieutenant Reed's quarters?"

"Excuse me?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?" Reed looked as alarmed as I felt.

"Makes perfect sense," Archer smiled smugly. "This could be just the chance the two of you need to get to know each other a little better."

"Captain, I can't possibly share my quarters with this man," Reed looked at me like I was something the cat had digested and left on the rug.

"I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea myself, Lieutenant," I snapped back. "And with all respect, Captain, you can't order us to sleep together."

Tucker snorted. I glared at him.

"Maybe not, Major," Archer's smirk grew. "But I suggest that it would be the best course of action. Strongly suggest." He looked pointedly between Reed and I. "You're both military men. You know what that means." It meant that if we didn't do what he told us, the rest of the voyage would be an even greater barrel of laughs than it already was.

"It won't be for long," Tucker put in. "I should be able to get a crew on it by the end of the week."

"The end of the week!" Reed looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. If I hadn't felt the same way, I would have been heartily enjoying the situation. "You must be joking."

"Sorry, Malcolm." Tucker left my quarters, Captain Archer close behind him. Reed looked at me for a moment, opened his mouth, shut it again, and then stormed away.

Sighing, I looked for a long moment at the gaping hole in my wall, then picked up a duffel bag and threw in a few uniforms and my earplugs. I had a feeling I was going to need them.

***

Venezuela, May 2144

The rebels stole my watch, and Private Mackenzie's. That was the part I resented the most, that they'd totally prevented us from keeping track of time.

At first, I'd tried to record the days in the time-honoured prison manner, carving lines on the stone wall, but I'd stopped as soon as I realized I had no way of telling when one day ended and the next began. There was no sunlight, food was delivered erratically when it was delivered at all, and Mackenzie and I slept so much, there was no way to know whether it was 0500 or 1400 or 2130 when we woke up. We didn't know whether we'd been here a few weeks or a few months, and as psychological warfare went, this was one of the best techniques I'd come across.

"Give me three words with four vowels," I ordered. Mackenzie looked up at me. As her superior officer, it was my duty to keep us as sane as possible, but after however long it had been, I was starting to run out of ideas.

"In English?"

"No, in Cantonese." I turned at a flash of movement, and saw a daddy longlegs the size of my hand stalking down the corridor outside our cell.

"I was thinking of French, sir." We'd been alone together for however many weeks or months, but she still called me sir, and I still called her Mackenzie. We both needed it.

"You speak French?"

"Some. From high school."

"I didn't know that."

"I don't have much cause to use it."

"I guess not." I spoke passable French myself, along with as much Spanish as the army had managed to cram into one half-day training session before we shipped out.

Mackenzie sat up lethargically, her back resting against one of the smooth stone walls. Our cell was a reasonable size, about ten metres by twelve by eight. There were bars on one wall that let us see a stone corridor, but nothing beyond it. Food was delivered through a slot in the bars, and there was no way of escape. We'd tried, repeatedly.

"Three words, Private."

Mackenzie thought. "Hawaii, eyeball, magazine."

"Eyeball only has three vowels."

"Y is a vowel, sir."

"Only if there aren't any other vowels in the word. Like," I searched for an example, "sky." Which we hadn't seen lately.

"I don't think so, Captain."

"I think so, Private."

Before we could explore this topic any further, I heard a crashing noise, like a door being broken off its hinges.

I went over to the bars and peered out as far as I could, which was just far enough to see a flash of khaki uniform at the end of the hall. I hadn't seen many of the Venezuelan rebels dressed in khaki and, in any case, at this point, we had nothing to lose.

"Somos americanos!" I called, which wasn't strictly true but which was virtually the only phrase that had stuck in my head from the less-than-successful Spanish lesson. I rattled the bars in my hands and repeated, "Somos americanos," gesturing for Private Mackenzie to join me. The daddy longlegs fled immediately, but it took another minute of concerted yelling for three heavily armed soldiers to appear in our field of vision.

"Well, who we got here?" The sergeant had a broad Texan accent, but it still sounded like home.

"J.M. Hayes, Captain, 5131497," I informed him, as he pulled out his retinal scanner and flicked it over my eye. The scanner beeped, and the sergeant's eyebrows went up. "Captain Hayes. You were declared MIA five months ago."

So that was how long it had been. Funny, I would have guessed longer.

The sergeant ran the scanner over Mackenzie's eye.

"Can I ask you a question, Sergeant?" Mackenzie asked politely, as the sergeant pulled out his e-communicator and typed in a few words.

"Sure thing, Private."

"How many vowels are there in the word 'eyeball'?"

The sergeant glanced between us, then at the woman behind him. "Jefferson, get the medic here, stat."

"We're fine, really," I countered. And I would be, as soon as we got out of here. "We should move out before someone realizes what's going on."

The sergeant gave me an irritatingly sympathetic look. "There's no one here, Captain. The war's been over for days. We're looking for POWs."

"Oh. Well, you found some." Thank God.

"Captain Hayes?" Corporal Jefferson returned with a familiar-looking doctor in tow. I tried to remember his name, but drew a blank. "Ramirez," the doctor put in helpfully, as he unceremoniously lifted one of my eyelids and shone a light into it. I flinched and pulled back.

"You remember me?" It seemed unlikely, given the number of casualties who had passed through the field hospital in the few days I'd been there.

"I remember all my patients." Ramirez smiled and lifted the other eyelid, a little more gently. "Especially the ones who insist on leaving before they have to."

"I needed to get back to the field."

Ramirez raised an eyebrow. "I can see why." He put down the penlight and stuck a digital thermometer strip to my forehead before doing the same to Mackenzie. "You've been here five months?" He reached out for me.

I stepped back, suddenly aware that I'd been wearing the same clothes for, apparently, five months, and I hadn't done a lot of bathing in that time. Ramirez didn't seem to notice. He ran firm hands down my arms and torso, then bent to feel his way along my legs.

I propped myself against the bars to keep from falling over, and Ramirez looked even more concerned, barking, "Get a medi-transport here," at the Texan sergeant. He pushed a few more buttons on his e-comm. "Think you can walk out of here, Captain?"

"Yes," I answered, without hesitating. "But take Mackenzie first."

Ramirez smiled. "We can take you both at the same time. Jefferson," he jerked his head at the corporal, who put a supportive arm around Mackenzie's waist. Ramirez did the same to me.

"I don't need any help," I tried, but it was a feeble attempt at best. Ramirez helped me down the hall, up a short flight of stairs and out into the bright sunshine, the green foliage and the surprising quiet.

I held on for another fifteen minutes, until the medi-transport set down in a nearby clearing and a team of medics dressed exactly like Major Ramirez and babbling in a language all their own surrounded us. Ramirez stayed close to me, a hand on my shoulder, as he snapped orders I could barely understand. Mackenzie flashed me the thumbs up as they loaded her onto the medi-transport and, sighing with relief, I finally let myself slide into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I was in a pristinely white hospital in what I later learned was Florida, with Mackenzie asleep in the bed to my right and the fully-clothed Major Ramirez passed out on the bed to my left.

***

I'd had a lot of bunkmates in my career, but none were quite so unaccommodating as Lieutenant Reed. I had planned on avoiding the captain's non-ordered orders by sleeping on the couch on the observation deck, but at about midnight, Tucker found me and said, "I don't think the captain'd be real happy about you bunking down here, Major."

"It's none of the captain's business where I bunk down," I replied.

"True enough. But in about half an hour, the gamma shift's gonna start taking their lunch breaks, and from what I've heard, they like to eat up here. So if you actually want to get any sleep before you go on duty, I'd advise going somewhere else."

My next thought was sickbay, but Phlox had clearly been warned about this possibility. "No, no, you can't sleep here, Major. Quite out of the question, I'm afraid."

"But you have all these empty beds." I pointed them out.

"Empty now, yes. But what if there was an emergency?"

"Then I'd get up."

Phlox shook his head emphatically. "I'm afraid Starfleet regulations clearly state that only patients or close relations of patients may sleep in the medical beds."

"So if I stabbed myself in the chest, you'd let me stay?" I tried to sound sarcastic, but it was a genuine question. At the moment, it seemed like the preferable option to spending the night in Reed's quarters.

"No. If it was just a minor injury, I'd sew you up and send you home."

With that avenue closed, and because I didn't feel like finding out what Phlox would consider a major injury, I thought about heading to Kemper and Chang's quarters, or Mac and Cole's. I knew that if I showed up, they would be obliged to let me stay, but I also knew they'd feel compelled to offer me their beds and I didn't want that. I thought about how much I would have resented it if my CO had come waltzing in and removed me from my own bed. I decided to be an honourable leader and a bigger man, and headed for Reed's quarters.

The door was locked. When I inputted the code Tucker had given me, it came back rejected, and I ended up banging on the door.

When he finally answered it, Reed was in sweats and a T-shirt and looking less than enthusiastic. Join the club, buddy.

"I was asleep, Major."

"If you hadn't changed your damn code, I could have gotten in by myself."

"I changed the code because I expected you to be here at a reasonable hour." Sighing heavily, Reed inched aside, leaving me just enough room to enter. I found my duffel bag in a corner, next to a rolled-up sleeping bag and a deflated air mattress. "Some of us have important jobs to do in the morning."

"Sorry to disturb your beauty rest, Lieutenant, but it's only," I glanced at the chronometer. "0100. This is an early night for me."

"While you're partaking of my hospitality," he replied, sniffily and without a trace of irony, "You will get here no later than 2300 hours."

"I haven't had a curfew since I was sixteen, Lieutenant."

"And I haven't had a roommate since I was at the Academy, Major." I pulled the tab on the air mattress and let it inflate while I unrolled the sleeping bag. "It wasn't my idea to start again now."

"It wasn't my idea, either." I picked up the duffel bag. "And it was your friend who doesn't want to fix the problem."

"It may be hard for you to believe, Major, but Commander Tucker does have more important things to worry about than the wiring in your quarters."

"Like seducing half the female crew?" Reed flushed dark red, which I took as a victory. "Where's the bathroom?"

"You can use the public ones."

"I'd prefer not to traipse through the ship in my underwear." However I had been in the army long enough not to care about taking off my clothes in front of other people. I started to unfasten my uniform.

"It's over there," Reed pointed hurriedly, as I pulled off my shirt and got to work on my pants.

As I'd expected, everything in the tiny bathroom was meticulously ordered. I deliberately left my towel on the floor and put a large smear of toothpaste on the sink.

By the time I emerged, Reed was back in bed. I pulled the air mattress as far away as possible from him, until I was next to the far wall. "I certainly hope you don't snore," Reed snapped.

"I'll try my best, Lieutenant." Grunting, Reed turned out the lights. I turned my back on him, reflecting that I'd never thought I'd be nostalgic for my nights of sleeping in rain-soaked foxholes and makeshift shelters deep in enemy territory.

I still waited until his breathing evened out before falling asleep myself.

***

Washington D.C., July 2144

"Congratulations, Captain. The world thanks you for your contribution." The President of the United States, an office never dispensed with despite the new unified world government, smiled vaguely as she pinned the medal to my chest, then extended her hand.

"My pleasure, Ma'am." I shook it obediently and saluted. She, a woman who clearly had no military background, inclined her head graciously and turned to the next recipient as I was ushered down the line, saluting and shaking hands until I finally reached the last dignitary.

If it had been up to me, I would have gone to sit in the large crowd that had gathered in front of the Washington Monument. If it had been up to me, actually, I would have received my Distinguished Service Medal via courier, and I would never have left Fort Bragg. But my CO made it clear I had no choice but to accept this medal in person, and one of the uniformed ushers now made it clear I had no choice but to return to my chair, conspicuously placed on the platform at one end of the Mall.

I sat, sweat running down my back in the Washington heat, trying not to fidget or wonder why, in the mid-22nd century the army was still incapable of making a dress uniform that was remotely comfortable or even slightly appealing. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the President returned to her place at the podium and said,

"The men and women before you are the best the armed forces have to offer. I for one sleep better at night knowing that they are out there, defending the causes of unity and freedom from all those who would challenge it." There was a pause while the audience whooped and clapped. The band inside my hat became saturated with sweat, and the residue started to roll down the sides of my face. "We owe them all a debt of gratitude." More clapping, and I shifted in my chair as the sweat reached my collar.

"Problem, Captain?" The major next to me asked.

"No, sir."

"Then pay attention. This is a good day to be a soldier." I was a soldier, and I loved my job. But my job didn't include things like this. There were billions of people around the world who lived in abject poverty, who fought for their lives on a daily basis, who were lucky if they could even eke out a meagre existence, and here I was, accepting fawning congratulations for doing my job, and not particularly well. It seemed wrong. And that was before the three shuttles, shooting red, white and blue laser light, flashed across the sky to the strains of "America the Beautiful."

I escaped as soon as was physically possible, which wasn't soon enough. I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel, take off my cloying uniform and pack my bags for my two weeks of upcoming leave, but of course, that wasn't to be. I was still battling the crowds—who, despite their apparent agreement with the President's declaration that "there is no greater force on Earth than a dedicated soldier" still seemed disinclined to let me through—when I heard a voice behind me.

"Captain Hayes!" I tried to ignore it, but the voice repeated, "Captain Hayes. How are you?"

I turned to see Major Ramirez beside me, also wearing his dress uniform but looking much more comfortable in it. Not to mention much more attractive, although as a soldier, I of course didn't notice that. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in the neighbourhood. Congratulations." He gave me a salute, which I returned automatically.

"I didn't do anything." No more than every other soldier, at least.

"You survived sitting up there for four hours." He pointed at the platform, which had been covered by a stifling white tent just to increase the heat that extra little bit. "That's worth a hell of a lot more than a medal. Are you going to the reception tonight?"

"I wasn't planning on it."

He shook his head. "Good decision. When you've been to one, you've been to them all. Can I buy you dinner instead?"

I blinked. "Why?"

Ramirez smiled. "Because I patched you up twice, and I like to make sure my work isn't going to waste." He looked me up and down and I wondered if the sweat stains were evident, and if that would be considered a form of desecration, like spitting on the flag. Then I remembered this man had seen me in much worse states than this.

"I don't think…"

"Come on." He insisted, lowering his eyelashes, which I now saw were much longer than seemed normal. Before I could ask myself if it was common to notice that kind of thing about a superior officer, he added, "You look like you could use a drink."

"Alcohol doesn't help cool the body." As a doctor, I would have assumed he knew that.

"Fine, then you deserve a drink, after sitting through that. And so do I. Unless you're here with someone?"

"No," I admitted, before I could consider lying to a superior officer. It had been a long time since I'd been anywhere with anyone.

"OK, then." Ramirez put a hand on the small of my back and steered me through the crowd.

He was my superior officer, and for that reason, I was reluctant to turn him down. When we finally got the cool, dark restaurant and Ramirez ordered us two beers and a plate of nachos, I was glad I had agreed. The beer was just what I needed.

"Don't tell my mother I'm eating Mexican food, OK?" Ramirez smiled, as the nachos arrived. "She'd kill me."

"Aren't you Mexican? I assumed from your name…"

"Common mistake. I'm actually one of the Swedish Ramirezes." I opened my mouth and closed it again, unsure if he was kidding or not. Finally, he took a sip of beer and smiled. "We're Cuban."

"Oh." I knew nothing about Cuba, beyond that it was an island off the coast of Florida and a protectorate of the United States.

"Where are you from?"

"Fort Bragg." It wasn't the best beer I'd ever tasted, but at the moment, it was the nectar of the gods. I tried to restrain myself and not drink the entire thing in one gulp.

"You don't sound like North Carolina."

"I'm originally from Iqaluit."

Ramirez frowned and took a stab at it. "Vermont?"

"Nunavut. Canada," I added, because that didn't usually help.

"What are you doing here?"

"It's a long story." Involving my father, spite, and a lot of other factors I didn't particularly want to get into.

"You been back there recently?"

"I'm going tomorrow. Two weeks' leave."

"Yeah. My mom told me I have to go see her next time I get a few days off. You ever been to Cuba?" I shook my head. "You should go sometime. I bet it's a hell of a lot warmer than None-of-it."

"Nunavut."

"And," Ramirez smiled and indicated the nachos, which I hadn't touched. "My mom would love you."

After dinner, Ramirez asked if I wanted to go back to the Mall to watch the Independence Day fireworks. "Not particularly." My appreciation for fireworks had been somewhat dampened the first time I'd seen a shell go off in a man's face. "I should really get back to the hotel. I'm flying out tomorrow morning."

"Is all your family still up there in…"

"Iqaluit. My mother is."

"Your father take off?"

I couldn't begin to fathom why Ramirez would be so interested, but I answered truthfully. "He's dead." I wasn't feeling quite truthful enough to admit that death had come at his own hands. At his own gun, anyway.

He winced. "Sorry, John."

"What?" I looked up sharply.

"That is your name, right? John Hayes. It's what it says in your file."

"I go by my middle name. Matthew." Because Colonel John Hayes was my father, and, while I wasn't any more superstitious than the next man, it seemed like tempting fate to start using the name after he was dead.

"I'm Miguel."

"Oh. All right." We walked in silence for a few minutes, until we arrived at my hotel. "Well, thanks for dinner, Major…ah, Miguel." I put my hands behind my back, then wondered if I should salute or shake his hand or what.

"No problem." He smiled again. "Hopefully I'll run into you again sometime."

"Right."

"Or, you know, you could comm me. If you don't want to leave it entirely up to chance."

I frowned, but before I could ask what he was talking about, he leaned forward and pecked me on the lips. Things were suddenly very clear, even to me.

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say. Miguel licked his lips and swallowed, and I felt like I had to do something. So I went for what seemed like the best course of action at the time, and kissed him again, a little more meaningfully. I was out of practice, but apparently my performance was still acceptable. He smiled again, and I felt my chest constrict.

Well, I thought, it had been a long time, and he wasn't an unattractive man. He wasn't my subordinate, and he wasn't my direct superior, either.

"Want to, ah…"

The smile grew. "Thought you'd never ask, Matt."

No one ever called me "Matt." I was a strict "Matthew." I was about to correct him when we stepped through the revolving door, his hand landed on my shoulder and I realized he could call me anything he wanted.

***

I had never seen anyone look quite so unapologetic as Commander Tucker when he told me, "Sorry, Major, it'll be another couple of days at least."

"But it's already been four days." Four days of showering in the gym. Four nights of sleeping with the most hostile roommate I could imagine and getting deliberately stepped on when Reed went to the bathroom, as he seemed to do with incredible frequency. He hadn't even appreciated it when I'd given him the friendly advice to either cut down on the tea or ask Phlox to check out his prostate.

"What can I tell you?" Tucker shrugged. "If it'd happened last week, there'd have been no problem. But we're all tied up at the moment."

"Thank you, Commander," I snapped, in my iciest tone.

Tucker just smiled. "No problem, Major."

I stalked into the mess hall, hoping that Mac might have come up with another completely unprofessional yet very satisfying animation sequence. Instead, I found my men huddled around a Ping-Pong table, while Corporal Chang and Ensign Tanner engaged in a fierce competition. Chang seemed to be winning, at least.

I took my PADD over to one of the empty tables and logged into my personal files. A pop-up box informed me that I had two visual messages that needed to be accessed from a station. I thought about going to the armoury, but I didn't really want anyone who happened by to overhear my private messages. Instead, I went to Reed's quarters, hoping he wouldn't be there.

He wasn't, and I took advantage of his absence. The first message was from my mother. I skipped through it quickly, getting the general idea that a cousin in Vancouver was having another baby and my Aunt Catherine was going in for knee surgery. The second message, from Heather, I watched all the way through.

"The dance recital was so good, Daddy. I was the best elephant ever, even Miss Laura said so. And I didn't fall even once, not even in the hardest part." She smiled proudly. "I hope you're having fun in space. I can't wait till you come home." She waved at the camera and the computer asked if I wanted to open the attached "Dance Recital" file. I agreed, and an image of the dance studio in Texas appeared on the screen. I couldn't see her face, but I guessed Heather was the one in the baggy grey costume with the trunk.

She and the other girls in her class, dressed in various animal costumes, were running around the studio while the harassed-looking teacher tried to get them to stand in a line at the front of the room.

"Want me to do that, Miguel?" A male voice asked, as the camera panned over the crowd, then back towards the kids at the front of the room.

"I'm fine, Ray." Miguel replied.

"Just let me know."

"I will." The music started and Heather arranged herself between a short giraffe and a hefty rabbit. As she did her little points and pirouettes, the only thing I could think was, who the hell is Ray?

"What are you doing, Major?" I didn't hear the door open, but Reed didn't exactly sneak in.

"Watching my messages. I am allowed to do that, aren't I?" I turned the screen off, but not fast enough.

Reed raised his eyebrows. "Didn't peg you for the ballet type."

"It's all physical training." I hated ballet, in fact, but I wasn't about to give Reed the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Of course. And I suppose the costumes enhance the physical benefits."

"That was my daughter's dance recital, not that it's any of your business."

"Oh. I didn't realize you had children." He seemed alarmed at the prospect.

"Even soldiers have been known to reproduce on occasion."

The sneer came back to Reed's face. "I know that. I just never pictured you loosening up enough to do it."

Adopting Heather had been anything but relaxing, but Reed was the last person I was going to explain that to.

"Live and learn, Lieutenant."

"Indeed."

I got up and left, taking my PADD with me and still worrying about this mysterious "Ray." Because of Heather, of course. Miguel himself was a grown man who could do whatever he wanted.

***

Cuba, February 2146

"Stop, Miguel," I tried to protest, but it was difficult with his tongue in my mouth and his hand down the front of my bathing suit. "Someone's going to see us."

"Like who?" Miguel ran his tongue down my neck, neatly distracting me from the sand working its way into my shorts.

"Like your mother." She had a house overlooking the beach, and a tendency to look out the window at inopportune moments. As I'd noticed when I'd let Miguel talk me into skinny-dipping, only to have Juliana thoughtfully inform me, as we sat down to dinner that evening, that sharks tended to be attracted to dangling objects in the water.

"She knows this is how we spend our free time." And according to Miguel, she was gradually accepting it, at least to the point where I didn't have to worry about eating her cooking. Anymore.

"I'd still rather she didn't witness it first hand."

Miguel laughed, moving his mouth back over to mine. He tasted like margaritas, saltwater and extra-strength sunscreen. By the time I remembered I wasn't participating in this, I had my hands in his hair and was making some very non-discouraging noises.

"Matt," Miguel finally pulled away, breathless. "Keep doing that, querido, and she is going to see more than I'm comfortable with."

"Inside?" I suggested.

He nodded and climbed off me, extending a hand and pulling me to my feet.

Unlike her son and I, who spent our lives in khaki and were glad of it, Juliana had good fashion sense. The guest bedroom was done in different shades of white, which I'd thought of as an oxymoron until I actually saw it. The decor was hideously frilly, of course, and not at all like either of our quarters back on base, but I had to admit, Miguel didn't look too bad on the white bedspread on top of the white canopy bed.

Lying in a post-coital daze with his head on my stubbornly un-tanned chest was a pretty good look for him, too.

"Matt," Miguel murmured, as I began to reluctantly think about getting up for dinner. Juliana didn't appreciate latecomers, and I needed all the Brownie points I could amass. "Why don't we get married?"

"What?" I froze.

He propped himself up on one elbow. "Why not?"

Logically, it was a reasonable question. Since Miguel had transferred to Fort Bragg, there weren't many people who didn't know about us. I would have preferred to keep it quiet, but since Miguel wasn't my direct superior, there wasn't much anyone could legitimately complain about. There were still a few people in the military who longed for the return of "don't ask, don't tell", but they tended to also be the people who favoured segregated units and keeping women out of command positions in battle situations, and no reasonable person paid them much attention. If Miguel and I were married, we'd qualify for better housing, joint benefits, and a tax break.

But that wasn't enough to convince me to change my life like that.

"I can't, Miguel." Disappointment flashed briefly across his face, and my heart sank. "I'm sorry. Really. You know I," I cleared my throat. "Care about you and everything, but I can't."

"Do you want to break up?" He asked, in a calm, reasonable, doctor-like tone.

"No! I just want things to stay the way they are." Indefinitely.

"Nothing stays the way it is," Miguel pointed out.

"I know." But that didn't mean we had to go making changes just for the sake of them.

Miguel hesitated for a long moment. I waited, more nervous than I had ever been in the middle of a minefield or with an enemy soldier in my rifle sights. Finally, he said, "OK, Matt."

I was so relieved, I did something I hadn't since Miguel and I first got together. I rolled him over and started a second round.

If there was one positive aspect to sharing quarters with Lieutenant Reed, it was that he wasn't quite so inclined to seek me out and bitch at me during the day. He got all the bitch-time he needed at night, and I had the feeling he didn't want to spend additional time with me anymore than I wanted to spend it with him.

When Reed came into the gym one evening and saw me on one of the exercise bikes, he hesitated and looked like he was about to turn around. I didn't do anything to discourage him, but he changed his mind anyway and asked, "Are you almost finished, Major?"

"Ten more minutes."

I scrolled down on the PADD I was reading while he mulled this over. Finally, he decided to climb onto the other bike. The gym wasn't completely deserted. Cole was doing crunches on the mat while two of the Starfleet personnel I didn't know by name worked with the free weights. On top of that, I was certain Reed was completely capable of doing his routine without talking. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to speak to me.

"I've set up a new program in the armoury. It automates the monthly proficiency tests so we don't need to run them ourselves."

"Hm." The monthly proficiency tests took up a lot of our time, but they were vital to make sure our personnel were ready when we needed them. "Is it accurate?"

"I tested it today with Ensigns Sato and Mayweather. It was perfectly accurate."

"Unlike Ensigns Sato and Mayweather."

I expected a dirty look, and possibly a few comments about my MACOs that would be scurrilous lies, since my worst shot was still ten times as good as his best, and he knew it. Reed just snorted.

I slowed down my pace as I came to the end of my routine, and decided I had nothing to lose by adding, "Good idea, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, Major." He sounded surprised, not without cause.

"You're welcome," I grunted, got off the bike and left before things could get too nauseatingly touchy-feely.

***

The Philippines, September 2146

Miguel looked up with exhausted eyes as my 2IC and I crashed into his medical tent.

"Good day at work, dear?" Miguel took in my mud-caked uniform, lingering on my left ankle. It was a sight worth seeing, swollen to about the size of a standard soccer ball and straining the confines of my already-unlaced boot.

"I'm fine," I gasped, gritting my teeth against the searing pain.

"Clearly. I'll just look at everyone else first, then, should I? Captain Randolph, how's the athlete's foot treatment coming along?" He turned to my second-in-command, Captain Randolph, a dedicated soldier with no sense of humour.

"You should look at Major Hayes, Major Ramirez," Randolph suggested. "He might have broken his ankle."

"And how might he have done that?"

"He tripped," Randolph replied.

"It was a trap," I corrected. A cunningly placed trap, too.

"It was a hole in the ground." If he'd been the type, I'd have wondered if Randolph was being insubordinate.

"Put there by the enemy."

"Or animals, Major Hayes."

"Can't it be both?" Miguel indicated the medical cot, and Randolph helped me onto it. I tried not to shriek in pain as Miguel took off my boot. I couldn't stifle a groan, though. "Oh, yes, I can see you're perfectly fine, Major. I'm surprised you didn't cartwheel your way in here." He glanced up. "Thank you, Captain, I'll take it from here."

"Sir." Randolph saluted and left. Miguel pulled over a supply cart and a stool and closed the privacy curtain around us.

"How bad is it?" I bit my lip as Miguel put a hypospray to my thigh, and let out a long sigh as the pain slowly seeped away.

"If I had decent supplies, it wouldn't be a problem. As it is," he returned the hypo to the cart and ran his hands over my numbed ankle. "You'll be out for five days, at least. Unless you want to hobble around the battlefield on crutches."

"What?" I frowned. "There's nothing wrong with me, Miguel. I just twisted it."

"Sprained," he corrected, reaching for a box of bandages and pulled up my pant leg. "Badly, too."

"So give me some painkillers and send me back out there. They need me."

Miguel stared at me. "And I don't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What it sounds like." He wrapped the bandage around my ankle, yanking hard as he pinned it together. If I'd had any feeling in that leg, I probably would have thought he was being a little vicious about it. "How long is it going to be until you come in here with a spear through your chest and tell me it's just a flesh wound?"

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not stupid, I'm a doctor. That means taking care of you is my job. Funny, I kind of liked it as a hobby, too, but the feeling's apparently not mutual."

"We made a deal. The job comes first." It had to. It was the only way I could possibly live with myself, let alone have this relationship succeed.

"And everything else is last, including common sense. Strange, I always thought that was one of the more important qualities a soldier could have in war."

"This isn't a war, it's a diplomatic mission," I replied automatically. Miguel rolled his eyes. I couldn't blame him; no one believed that line, not even the media.

"If it was a diplomatic mission, I wouldn't have used up all my fucking supplies patching up kids hit by mortar rounds."

I looked down at Miguel, who had already finished wrapping my ankle and was typing on a PADD. He seemed more tired than I'd seen him for a long time, which was understandable. The medical team had the hardest jobs of all. The rest of us were paid to die for the government. The medical team was paid to keep us from doing just that.

I wished I could tell Miguel I understood what he meant, and that I appreciated him. But verbal communication outside the context of giving and taking orders isn't a skill prized by the military, and I didn't know how to go about it.

Still, I tried. "Miguel." He looked up at me. I smiled. "You know…" That was when it fell apart. I shrugged. "Right?"

Miguel nodded and put his hand on my right knee, the one I could still feel. "I know, Matt." He looked at me for a long moment, and I wished I could give him more. He deserved a guy who could articulate his feelings, who didn't risk his life every time he did his job. A guy who would marry him. Instead, he had me, and while I wasn't complaining, it did seem like he'd gotten the rough end of that deal.

He stood and pulled back the curtain. "Three days minimum, and I'm serious."

"But I'm fine."

"Three days," he repeated, "Or when we get back to the States, you're sleeping on the couch for a fucking month."

I couldn't argue with that.

***

Thursday, which just happened to be the one-week anniversary of moving in with Reed, I went back to his quarters exactly fifteen seconds before the proscribed 2300 curfew—I was never too early, lest Reed think I was listening to him—and found that he wasn't alone. He and Tucker were both sitting on his bunk, and both stood up quickly when I came in.

"Major Hayes."

"Commander Tucker." I looked at him coldly. "How are things progressing in my quarters?"

"It's a bit trickier than I first thought. Could take a couple of weeks."

"Really." I was unimpressed, but not surprised. "I must say, I find this extremely inconvenient."

He shrugged. "Sorry, Major, but like I say, it's a real son-of-a-bitch."

"I'm sure." I raised an eyebrow. "May I suggest that it might not take quite so long if you spent more time doing your job and less time," I glanced over at Reed, who, unusually for him, hadn't said anything. "Engaged in other pursuits?"

Tucker reddened a little, but crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. "I don't see how that's any of your business, Major." "It's my business when your libido disrupts the functioning of the ship. I can see I was quite justified in preventing Cole from having anything to do with you."

"You didn't prevent anything. Amanda and I were just being friendly. Who knows, if you tried it yourself once in a while, you might be a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around."

"It's not my job to be 'pleasant', Commander. It is my job to assure that we complete our mission."

"Are you sayin' I don't care about the mission?" Tucker's nostrils actually flared, anger practically radiating from him. I, on the other hand, was quite enjoying myself. As we used to say back at Fort Bragg, there's nothing like letting loose on a subordinate—or a civilian, in this case—to reduce stress.

We didn't say it too loudly.

"Gentlemen, please." Reed interrupted my stress-relief, standing up. "Trip, you'd better go."

"I don't think so, Malcolm."

"Trip." Reed repeated, more definitely this time. "Go. Now."

Tucker stared at me like he was going to take issue with that, but he turned on his heel and left, muttering to himself.

Once he'd gone, I didn't give Reed the satisfaction of asking. I knew he would expect me to, and I'd be damned if I was going to give him what he expected. Instead, I laid out my bedroll in my usual corner and started to undress.

"It's not what you think," Reed said, finally.

"I don't think anything, Lieutenant," I replied, then realized that wasn't quite the cutting reply I'd had in mind and added, "Your personal affairs are no concern of mine."

"I know that, Major."

"As long as your mind's on the job when I need it," I continued, "I couldn't care less how you spend your free time." Although he wasn't using that time efficiently if he still hadn't convinced Tucker to fix my quarters so they could be left alone.

Reed snorted as he got into bed. "You're too generous, Major."

"Probably." Tucker clearly had problems. In the army, we'd have called him the unit bike, the one that was ridden by everyone. I was sure there was an equivalent term in Starfleet. The human shuttlepod or something. "But if that's my biggest fault, I guess you can't really complain."

I got into my sleeping bag and pretended not to hear him when Reed muttered, "It's not."

***

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, April 2148

Having a baby was entirely Miguel's idea. He was from a large family, but I didn't think that was something he particularly cared about. Until he turned forty and, after some very enjoyable birthday sex, turned to me and said,

"I always thought I'd be a father by this time."

"Can't help you there, buddy." I rolled over and closed my eyes.

"Artificial conception by same-sex couples is fifty times more prevalent now than it was twenty years ago."

Same-sex weddings were popular again, now, too, but that didn't mean we were about to have one. "I'm not about to jack off into a cup." Not to mention that artificial conception was far too expensive for two soldiers' salaries.

"We could adopt. There are plenty of kids who need families." I knew that. We'd seen it in Venezuela and the Philippines. The kids were always the ones who suffered the most, and I felt bad about it, although not bad enough to make that kind of change.

"I don't think so." I expected that to be the end of it. We were both on duty early the next morning.

I opened my eyes when I felt Miguel get off the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"Downstairs."

"What?" I sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. Miguel took this as a cue to pull the comforter off the bed, leaving me with a sheet. "Miguel…" I rubbed my eyes.

"Forget it, Matt."

"What the hell…"

"I don't want to discuss it."

"Fine." I rolled over, frowning. If he was going to be completely unreasonable, then I could do the same.

I lay, resolutely not caring, while he went downstairs. I expected him to come back, but he didn't. He was equally cold at breakfast, and at dinner, and when I went to the infirmary to get a serious splinter removed from my hand. Finally, after three days, I did some strategic manoeuvring and went to the base Family Services department to get some information—just information—about adoption. It would be a change, sure, but Miguel leaving me would be an even bigger change. Or so I thought.

***

Ensign Sato's Ping-Pong tournament was still in progress when I arrived in the mess hall at lunchtime the next day. Most of the dining tables had been angled to give a good view of the action, which currently consisted of Sub-commander T'Pol whipping Captain Archer, while managing to simultaneously look like she was bored out of her mind.

The only person not watching was Reed, who was sitting on the other side of the mess hall. This was also the only table with a free chair and, sighing heavily, I took my tray and went up to him.

"Is this seat free?"

He looked pained, but he admitted it was. I sat down and arranged my soup and crackers in front of me.

"I don't suppose you've heard any news about when my quarters might be ready," I said. He glanced up from his PADD. "I'm certain you'll be the first to know, Major."

"Ah." I stirred the crackers into the soup, which appeared to be made with some kind of lentils, and couldn't resist adding, "I thought being so close to Commander Tucker, you might have an inside edge."

"Commander Tucker is my friend, Major. Nothing more."

I tasted the soup, which wasn't bad. After a lifetime of military rations, most of Chef's food was practically food for the gods, although I would never admit it. "Which would explain why he harassed Cole."

Reed's eyes flashed. "Trip would never 'harass' anyone, Major." He glanced back down at the PADD. "He has gone through a difficult time since the death of his sister."

Reed's tone of voice made it clear that Reed had gone through a difficult time since Tucker's sister had died, too. For a moment, I felt a flash of sympathy, but then Reed said:

"And would you mind asking your men to clean up the gym after they've used it? It's disgusting." And the sympathy passed.

"No more disgusting than the condition in which your men leave the showers," I replied. "Someone is definitely going bald, because we found another wad of hair in the sink yesterday."

"Well, excuse us, Major. We didn't realize you were that precious." But the sniping sounded automatic, like Reed's heart wasn't really in it.

We ate the rest of our meal in silence.

***

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, April 2153

"I just don't see the point in moving when you could just as easily stay here."

"This is a far better position, Matt."

"For you." I finished packing Heather's lunch and put it in the refrigerator. "What about Heather and I?"

"Heather will be fine. And they'd be glad to have you at Fort Hamilton."

"I don't want to move to Texas." I'd been bumped around enough earlier in my career. Now that I was finally established, I didn't want to voluntarily give that up.

Not to mention that things had been a little rocky between Miguel and I lately, anyway. "Why don't you ask Harrison if he'd come with you?" If he hadn't already "come" with Miguel during the recent six weeks I spent field training in the Australian outback. As I suspected he had.

"Oh, for God's sake, would you give that a rest? There's nothing between Jeff and I."

"Jeff, is it?" Before I'd gone to Australia, it had been Sergeant Harrison, or, in a pinch, "Nurse."

"Can you hear yourself?" Miguel asked. "You sound moronic."

"Thanks."

He scowled at me. "I'm taking the job at Hamilton, Matt. You can come with me or not."

"Threats, now? How mature."

He opened his mouth, shut it, and stalked off. A moment later, I heard him switch on the video screen.

I made sure Heather's backpack was ready for daycare the next day. I wouldn't say that becoming a father changed me, but it did change my priorities. Miguel's, too, which may have been where our problem lay. Before Heather came along, we could give a hundred percent to our jobs and still have energy left over to give at least seventy-five percent to our relationship. Now, we gave a hundred percent to Heather, another hundred percent to the army, and we had nothing left over for ourselves.

And the worst part was, I didn't necessarily mind. During those six weeks in Australia, I'd missed Heather every minute of every day. I'd only thought about Miguel when a scorpion stung one of my men and the medic we had with us was a little slow with the antivenin.

I was heading upstairs to Heather's room, to check on her one more time before I turned in, when Miguel said, "Matt, come here."

"I'm going to bed, Miguel."

"Right away." His voice sounded strange, almost hoarse, and I turned around on the stairs.

At first, I thought he was watching a horror movie. Powerful lights illuminated a huge smoking crater that looked miles wide. The camera panned over the scene, then the commentator's voice said,

"The attack occurred approximately an hour ago, when what has been described as a large, unidentified vessel flew over a strip of land including Florida and Venezuela. To date, no surviving eyewitnesses have been found."

"What…" I couldn't even take in what I was seeing.

"Preliminary reports estimate the death toll could be as high as fifty million," the commentator added, as the image dissolved to another of fires burning in what had once been a neighbourhood.

I looked at Miguel, who had gone pale. That was when I remembered which island lay between Florida and Venezuela.

Miguel jumped at the sound of the communicator. I glanced at him, wondering if he wanted to answer it, but he shook his head and I hit the comm.

"Major Hayes." Sergeant Faulkner looked back at me gravely. "The general has asked that you and Major Ramirez report to the base at once."

"Thank you, Sergeant." I cut the communication and looked at Miguel, who was still staring at the screen. Then I called our baby-sitter and went to get into uniform.

Within twenty-four hours, I was in Florida, one of two thousand troops trying to bring some kind of order to the chaos the Xindi had left behind. Miguel was excused from the mission on compassionate grounds which, for the army, was saying something.

Two weeks after the attack, I was in a disaster relief centre near what had been Key West, trying to entertain a little girl lucky enough to have been staying with her father when her mother's apartment block was annihilated, when General Garrett's lackeys found me.

"Major John Matthew Hayes?" The uniformed lackeys looked between me, the puppet on my hand and the little girl sitting on one of the hundred cots set up around the high school gym. "Could we speak with you a moment?"

I took the puppet off my hand and gave it to the kid, and told her, "I'll be right back."

We went into what had once been the main office, but had been commandeered as military headquarters. They'd kept the furniture, though, including the sign flashing such scholastically inspirational messages as "Believe in yourself" and "Junior Prom Friday, April 20." It was now Thursday the twenty-sixth, and most of the people in the gym were a little underdressed for the occasion.

The lackeys had already set up a comm screen in the principal's office, and, as I sat at the desk, I found myself face to face with the five-star head of the American army.

"General Garrett, sir."

Garrett returned my salute. "Major Hayes. How are things in Florida?"

"It's under control, sir." More or less, but that wasn't a qualifier you used with a five-star general.

"Good to hear it, Major." He sighed. "This is a terrible business."

"Yes, sir."

"Something we're going to remedy. Starfleet has a ship heading into the Expanse."

"Yes, sir." It was news to me. I did remember the fanfare when "Enterprise" first left Jupiter Station, but since I'd been a little preoccupied with Heather and my job at the time, I hadn't taken much notice.

"We're sending a military unit along with them. To offer backup."

"What kind of backup?" If the Xindi had the technology to obliterate entire countries, I doubted we'd be engaging them in a lot of ground combat.

"The Starfleet people are used to peaceful exploration, Major. We need someone with combat experience there to offer advice." He looked at me. "And we'd like you to lead the mission."

"Me?" I repeated, then realized I sounded like a Miss World contestant. "I don't know anything about space travel, General. And I'm just a major. Surely a general or a colonel would be more suited to this kind of mission."

"You have proven yourself to be a competent leader, Major Hayes. Your subordinates all speak highly of you. Particularly," he glanced down. "Sergeant Mackenzie?"

"Mackenzie?" It had been years since I'd seen her.

The general shifted in his seat. "We're not unaware of the personal effect this has had on you."

It took a minute for me to understand what he meant. Once I did, though, it was crystal clear. We had no idea what kind of enemy we were facing. If I were just fighting to avenge my planet, I might be tempted to give in to cowardice. If I were fighting to avenge my daughter's family, though, I'd stick to the cause no matter what. Personal vendettas make for better soldiers than general ones. Or at least soldiers willing to take bigger risks.

The next day, I was back in Fort Bragg, getting ready to take a team into space.

"You don't have to go," Miguel pointed out as I packed.

"I have my orders, Miguel."

"I don't think they can strictly order you to get onto a spaceship and go fight aliens."

"I want to do it. For Heather." The only reason I could see for doing it.

"How about staying here and not getting yourself killed? Seems like that would be a better gift." He looked at me, his eyes showing all the stress you'd expect of a guy who had lost his entire family in one attack.

We'd been together nearly ten years, but I didn't know what to say to him. I put my arms around him wordlessly, and he hugged me for a moment. When he drew back, Miguel said, "I'm going to Texas."

I was going into space. I wasn't in a position to argue. "I'll keep in touch," I said, like I was a casual acquaintance or an old drinking buddy. Miguel nodded, and I went to say good-bye to Heather.

She was stoical about things, as she'd been since the attack.

"You have to stop the bad aliens from coming back," she agreed calmly. "So when you come home, we can play outside and not be worried."

"Right."

"I'll take care of Papito."

"Thanks." I hugged her. The next day, I went to San Francisco for a five-day crash training course. Sergeant Mackenzie hadn't changed much since the last time I'd seen her. She still didn't know her vowels.

***

"Here we are again," Reed sighed.

"Maybe they're doing it deliberately," I suggested idly, as I lay out the sleeping bag.

"What?" Reed looked over.

"I wouldn't put it past Archer to force us to stay together until we're bosom buddies." I hadn't known him long, but it seemed like the kind of thing he'd consider a good idea.

"Then maybe we should pretend we're bosom buddies," Reed replied. "Although I doubt my acting ability would be up to it."

"Or mine," I replied automatically and climbed into bed.

"Why are you so difficult?" Reed asked, after a long moment of silence.

"I beg your pardon?"

"From the moment you stepped on this ship, you've done nothing but try to undermine me."

"Maybe it's because you don't seem to realize I know what I'm talking about."

"So do I. That doesn't mean you have to disparage my way of doing things."

"You haven't exactly rolled out the welcome mat yourself, Lieutenant," I shot back. "The first thing you said to me was, 'This is my ship.'"

"And it is. We managed very well for two years before you showed up. I run a closely-knit team."

Now, I snorted. "Which didn't exactly make it easy for my men and I to come on board and try to work with you."

"You didn't try very hard."

"Neither did you."

There was a brief silence, which Reed finally broke. "I was somewhat preoccupied at that time. I didn't want you on board," he added, as if I was going to get the wrong idea. "But I had other things on my mind as well."

"What are you trying to say, Lieutenant?"

"I'm trying to say, Major, that maybe it wasn't all about you."

I grunted. I'd been thinking of other things—other people—when I'd first come on board as well, and perhaps I hadn't handled Lieutenant Reed as well as I would have under other circumstances. "It's difficult," I said at last. "Not knowing how to help." Tucker had lost a sister, Miguel had lost his family, and there was nothing either Reed or I could do about it.

Beyond destroying the Xindi.

"Good night, Major." Reed said, after yet another lengthy pause.

"Good night, Lieutenant." I rolled over and closed my eyes. As usual, I tried to wait for Reed's breathing to even out before I dropped off and, as usual, I fell asleep before I heard any change.

Reed usually left his quarters while I was dressing, but the next morning, he waited for me to finish. I didn't comment on it. When we arrived at the mess hall, he went to his usual table, with Ensign Mayweather and Ensign Sato, and I went to Kemper and Mac. She slid a PADD over as soon as I sat down.

"What's this?"

"A new cartoon." She smiled, and I activated the PADD. This time, the dark-haired cartoon figure was standing in a blue-shaded room that was apparently supposed to be the decontamination chamber. A pointy-eared figure appeared from the side of the screen and said, in a speech bubble,

"It is logical that you assist me with the application of the gel, Lieutenant."

The dark-haired figure turned red and said, "That's more Commander Tucker's area of expertise."

A blond figure bounded into join them, and his speech bubble appeared a moment later. "Did someone call?" The Tucker-figure's triangular eyebrows waggled suggestively and he put a hand on both the Reed-figure and the T'Pol-figure.

Mac sniggered as I handed the PADD back to her. I glanced past Kemper to Reed's table. Reed smiled vaguely as Mayweather said something and both ensigns laughed. A moment later, Tucker came into the mess hall. Reed's eyes went immediately to him. Tucker half-nodded as he passed their table on his way into the captain's dining room. Reed watched the door close behind him, then turned back to Mayweather and Sato.

"Major?" Mackenzie asked. "You OK?"

"Lay off, would you, Mackenzie?"

"I'm sorry?"

I couldn't blame her for being surprised. I was the last person I'd have expected to defend any of the Starfleet personnel, let alone Reed.

"Leave them alone. They're just doing their jobs, like we are."

I expected Mac to ask if I was feeling all right, maybe attempt to force me into seeing Phlox and having me declared unfit for duty. Instead, she just looked at Kemper and said,

"Sorry, Major."

I shook my head and finished my breakfast.

The shift was uneventful. When I got back to Reed's quarters, I found him putting the few belongings I'd brought with me next to the door.

"Your quarters are ready," he told me, smiling with about as much relief as I felt. "Trip just called to let me know."

"Great." I grinned and picked up the bags. "About time."

"Exactly."

I faltered for a moment, wondering whether I should say good-bye. But, since I was going to see him again in about eight hours, I just said, "Thanks," and left.

I couldn't see any evidence that Tucker had been working on the wall for more than a week. The hole was repaired and a new panel had been put in place, but that was all. I put my things away, gazing fondly at the pictures of Heather I had arranged on my shelf and I hadn't seen for a while. Then I came to the single picture of Miguel and made a snap decision. I sat down in front of the screen and, trying not to sweat too visibly, came out with some other words I'd never expected to hear myself say.

"When I get home, why don't we get married?" I took a deep breath. "In Texas?"

Then I sent it off before I could change my mind. Take that, "Ray."

A moment later, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to see Reed standing in his workout gear, a towel in hand. "Major."

"Lieutenant."

He shifted, a little nervously. "I was, ah, wondering if I could interest you in a sparring session."

"Sparring?" I didn't feel like getting into another fight with him. Archer certainly wouldn't be pleased.

"Real sparring," Reed added. "If you didn't have any other plans."

"No other plans." And, I thought, I was tired of working with the machines and the bags, anyway. "I'll meet you there."

Reed actually smiled. "I hope you're prepared to lose."

I smiled back. "We'll see, Lieutenant."

My old CO told me change could be a best friend or a worst enemy. Now, though, I knew sometimes it's just a part of life.

Not that I'd ever tell Reed that.