Gigi Sinclair

There was an alarm going off next to my head, and when I reached out my arm to silence it, I couldn't move.

That was my first hint that there was something wrong.

I tried to open my eyes. One refused to cooperate entirely, and while the other made an attempt, it was covered by red cobwebs, and I could only make out a mass of metal beside my head.

I heard someone cough beside me, and I tried to turn my head to see who it was. This was a less than brilliant idea. As I shifted, there was a creaking noise above my head, and a heavy weight pressed down on my chest. I gasped, trying desperately to drag air into my lungs. My head pounded and I saw stars behind my still-closed eye. I felt like I was on the verge of passing out when suddenly the weight eased, and a blurry figure came into view.

"Lieutenant Reed?" It looked like him, but I had never seen Reed quite so discomposed. He was dirty, as well, his uniform and his face covered in grime.

Reed's mouth moved, but I couldn't hear anything. "What?" I asked. Reed wiped his face with a forearm and moved his mouth soundlessly again. "This is no time for games, Lieutenant," I told him, but I couldn't summon the energy to be as harsh as I would have liked. "And don't you think you should clean yourself up a bit?"

I was not particularly adept at lip-reading, but "Fuck you" was simple enough to decipher.

When I woke up for the second time, the shrill alarm had been replaced by a steady beeping, and it no longer felt like I was lying under a large part of the hull. I opened my eyes. One of them still refused to react, but the other had been cleared of the red film and I could clearly see the sickbay ceiling.

"Dr. Phlox?"

No one answered. I sat up, and the beeping became more insistent. I looked around, to see all of the beds occupied, by both my MACOs and the Enterprise crew. Several people were lying on the floor, including Mackenzie.

"Corporal." I hissed, trying not to disturb the others. Mackenzie rolled over on her pallet and looked up at me. There was a bandage on her forehead and another around her right hand. Her gun hand. She wouldn't be pleased with that.

"Major Hayes." She sounded muffled, but at least she was speaking. "You're awake."

"Apparently," I agreed. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure. There were a lot of casualties after that last attack," she explained. I could see that. "I heard the warp core might have been destroyed."

Great. "How many did we lose?"

Mackenzie shook her head. "I don't know. Two at least."

"Which two?" Not that it mattered. They were all here because they were valuable; losing any one of them was a serious blow to the team.

"Leggett and Wilson."

"Shit."

"Major Hayes." I didn't hear Phlox coming. I turned my head to see him standing on the dark side of my bed, next to the eye that was still not doing its job.

"What's wrong with me?"

Phlox looked exhausted and demoralized. I could hardly blame him. "Quite a lot, Major. But you are alive, which is more than can be said for some people."

"I appreciate that, doctor." Although it didn't make me feel any better at the moment.

Phlox sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "You have a perforated ear drum and a detached retina. However, I don't see any sign of spinal cord injury or severe head trauma."

Well, I thought, that was one way to put a positive spin on things.

"I need to go back on duty." Immediately. If there was extensive damage to the ship, they'd need all the hands they could get working on the repairs. If Mackenzie could walk, I decided, I'd assign her to Engineering, and see who else was able-bodied enough to assist.

Phlox shook his head. "Major Hayes, you're half-blind and half-deaf and I have neither the supplies nor the opportunity to treat either of these injuries properly at this time. You are not going anywhere."

"Doctor," I protested.

"Major Hayes," he repeated. "Much as I would like to stay and argue with you, my sickbay is overflowing with patients, many of whom are members of my own staff. Stay here and get some rest." He stalked off again. Turning my head, I made sure Phlox was completely out of sight—not just out of my sight—and got out of bed. I was still wearing my uniform, and while it was dirty and bloodstained, that didn't matter.

"Where are you going, sir?" Mackenzie asked.

"To find out what needs to be done." Because the sooner the ship got fixed, the sooner we'd be able to get the bastards that had killed my men.

The damage was as extensive as Mackenzie had said. The ship was in near-darkness, the only light coming from the emergency bulbs on the walls. There were equipment parts all over the floor, and apparently the ship was off-balance, because it pitched and rolled as I made my way down the corridor towards the bridge.

I steadied myself against the wall, picking my way over the pieces of twisted metal as well as I could given the fact I had only one working eye, very little light and the debris was everywhere. I tripped twice. On the third time, I was hit by a wave of nausea as I tried to stand up, and the ship started to spin faster.

I could wait it out, I decided, leaning heavily against the wall beside a sparking mass of wires. The rolling would stop in a minute, and I would be fine. While I was waiting, surely it made sense to sit down, the better to go over my options. I would need to deploy my remaining men in the most efficient way possible, which would mean I'd need to speak to Archer to find out where the greatest need was. No, I corrected myself, not Archer. He was dead, too. There was someone else in charge, but I couldn't immediately remember who that was.

I heard footsteps approaching from the direction of my good ear and turned my head to see a man coming down the corridor. When he saw me leaning against the wall, he walked faster. It wasn't until he kneeled down beside me that I recognized him.

"Miguel." It was a long time since I'd seen him. I smiled. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, for God's sake," Miguel replied, in an accent that didn't sound entirely like his own. "Get up, Major Hayes." He hadn't called me that in a long time. Ever, really. We'd been on a first-name basis when I was still a captain.

"I don't feel so good," I admitted frankly, because it was Miguel. He always knew when I was lying about that kind of thing. "Phlox will be glad to have your help."

Miguel muttered something in that strange, almost British, accent and the ship shook, knocking another portion of the bulkhead loose. Miguel leaned over me, shielding me even though there was really no reason to. The bulkhead didn't fall, but it had been so long since Miguel had been so close to me that I had to take advantage of the moment. I reached up and kissed him, aligning our mouths as accurately as possible. I didn't do too badly. I felt Miguel's dry, cracked lips press lightly against mine for a moment, then he pulled away.

"I'll do us both a favour and pretend that didn't happen." Miguel's face looked flushed in the emergency lights. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

"I have work to do," I protested, even as I let him put my arm around his shoulders.

"Well all do, Major," Miguel replied. "And it'll be easier if you're out of the way."

***

Archer was back. Even with a detached retina and a system full of painkillers, I could see that. I watched from my bed as Phlox treated him.

Most of the survivors had been discharged at some point over the last few days. Although I was feeling much better, Phlox had forced me to stay and refused to listen to any arguments about how even a doped-up, half-blind, half-deaf military leader could be useful if he was allowed out of bed. According to Mackenzie, my confinement was punishment for going AWOL as soon as I'd regained consciousness, but that seemed particularly petty, especially given that I couldn't remember doing anything of the sort.

Archer, however, was allowed to leave sickbay almost as soon as he arrived. He briefly came over to me and said, "I'm sorry for your loss." He looked a little taken aback when I turned my head so he was speaking into my good ear.

"They were good soldiers," I replied. "I'd like to have some kind of service for them."

"As soon as we have the chance," Archer agreed, then hesitated. "Are you…all right, Major?"

"I'm perfectly fine," I lied, seizing my chance. "If you could tell Dr. Phlox I'm fit for duty, I'll get back to work right away."

The captain shook his head. "You have to get better. I have the feeling I'm going to need you soon."

Gratifying as that was, it did nothing to help me at the moment. "I'm not going to get any better than this, Captain," I pointed out. As he'd told me, Phlox didn't have the equipment, the staff or the time to perform a six-hour operation on my eye, or even a three-hour operation on my ear. I was stuck like this for the foreseeable future, which was a serious inconvenience, but it was better than being dead. Marginally.

"Just hang in there, Major," Archer reassured vaguely, then he was gone.

So I did what I could from my bed. My senior team came in at least three times a day to give me updates, and to take my orders back to the men. Through Chang, Kemper, and Mackenzie, I knew Archer had scheduled some kind of meeting while he was in Xindi custody, but it would be impossible to get to the rendez-vous point without the warp drive, which was, in Kemper's words, "as fucked as a pregnant prom queen." I also knew another alien ship had been spotted in the area and Archer had met with their captain, but none of my people knew the outcome of that meeting. Since we hadn't moved, I doubted Archer had successfully traded for whatever it was they needed to get us out of here.

I was staring at the ceiling, waiting for another report and wondering if I should redeploy even more assistance to Tucker in engineering when the sickbay doors opened. I turned my head to see Reed coming in.

"Major Hayes." He stopped when he saw me, like he'd forgotten who I was.

"Thanks for coming to visit me," I replied. As usual, sarcasm was lost on Reed unless it was his own.

"I'm here to see Phlox."

"I gathered that." Before the attacks, Archer had forced Reed and I to room together for several weeks. Since then, Reed and I had been slightly more civil to each other, but, given where we'd started from, that wasn't saying much. "He's not here."

"Where is he?"

"Somewhere with Sub-commander T'Pol." They'd been having furtive conversations for a couple of days now, well out of earshot even if I had been possessed of two working ears. "I don't know when he'll be back." The conversations generally lasted anywhere between five minutes and an hour. God alone knew what they were talking about.

"Oh." Reed looked uncomfortable. "How, ah, how are you…"

"Still stuck here."

"The doctor won't even release you to your quarters?"

"He doesn't trust me."

Reed smirked. "I wonder why that could be."

"I don't know. I guess I took off once before."

Reed blushed suddenly and shifted awkwardly. There was a long pause, which he finally broke with, "Still blind, then?"

"Only in one eye." That was the key part, as I kept reminding myself. Alive and half-blind was much better than dead with perfect vision. At least this way I'd be able to see my daughter again.

Maybe.

"That would explain the bandage," Reed replied. "I must say, Major, that's going to come in quite handy for me when we're sparring."

"Don't count on it, Lieutenant." I could beat him with one hand tied behind my back, even if he did fight dirty. This wasn't going to disadvantage me in the least. Although, "You can make obscene gestures at me, though, as long as you stand on the right side."

"Really." Reed raised an eyebrow and his middle finger.

"That's not the right side, Lieutenant." ***

Our communications with Earth, which had always been tenuous, were the first thing to go when we were attacked, which meant I couldn't even spend my hours of uselessness recording messages for my family. I thought about them constantly, though.

My Cuban-born partner Miguel had lost his entire family in the Xindi attack on Earth. That was why I was out here, to avenge them and to make sure our daughter Heather never had to go through that kind of loss again. It wasn't until I was out here, though, that I realized how much being separated from them hurt.

A few weeks before this latest attack, just after Reed and I had done our time as roommates, I proposed to Miguel in a recorded message. This was as long as I ever wanted to spend apart from him and Heather. If I made it back to Earth, I decided, I was never leaving them again, so there was no harm in making it permanent.

Marriage had originally been Miguel's idea, years ago, and I'd expected him to be thrilled I'd finally come around. Instead, he replied to my message with a vague promise to talk about it when I got home, and without a specific answer to my question. I'd never had chance to send him a reply, so that was how matters stayed between us. I spent a lot of my time in sickbay wondering exactly what Miguel had meant by that, and if his friend "Ray" had anything to do with his reply.

Not that I minded if Miguel was having an affair. Just because I was as miserable as I had ever been in my life didn't mean he couldn't have a good time. He deserved it, after what he'd been through.

But it would have been nice if I could have distracted myself with mental images of Mackenzie in a pastel-coloured dress and a big floral wedding hat and Miguel in his dress uniform, instead of mental images of Miguel having sex with a faceless soldier called Ray.

Less than eight hours after his first visit, Reed came back. Phlox was there this time, fussing over one of his terrariums. I was watching the doctor with my good eye, trying to come up with the perfect phrase that would convince him to let me out of here. It hadn't worked so far, but I was a MACO. I didn't give up easily.

Reed nodded at me, then said, "Dr. Phlox, might I have a word with the major?"

Phlox glanced between us. "Certainly, Lieutenant. It may be beneficial for him to complain to someone else for a change."

I frowned. Reed disappeared from view, until I reminded him with a, "Wrong side, Lieutenant," and he came back into my limited field of vision.

Phlox left us, and Reed perched on the side of the bed. We sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, he cleared his throat, and said, "I need your advice, Major."

"Really?" I raised my eyebrows. "That's unexpected."

"This isn't the moment for jokes," Reed snapped.

"It's not a joke, Lieutenant." As he knew perfectly well. "You haven't asked me for any input whatsoever since we first came on board."

"I'm asking now, all right?" Reed shifted, and I felt the mattress move beneath me. "The captain wants us to board the alien vessel."

"Why?" According to Mackenzie's latest report, the aliens had been agreeable to trading with us, but refused to give us the one thing we actually needed.

"To steal their warp coil."

"What?"

"We'd leave food and supplies behind," Reed added. "Sort of an enforced trade, really."

"It's still piracy." Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. All really is fair in war, and this was definitely war. If it had been a Xindi ship, I would have been the first to advocate boarding the ship and taking what we could. But they weren't Xindi, and the last thing we needed was to have someone else pissed off at us.

"We don't have any choice," Reed replied, staring at the floor. "I know that. But it doesn't make it any easier."

"If we don't get the warp coil," I said, just to make sure we were clear, "We won't make our date with the Xindi." And if we did get it, we would have made another enemy for Earth.

"We need to make that meeting," Reed nodded, then looked up at me. "But I don't know where to start."

I didn't understand what he meant. "You've done this kind of thing before."

"I've never planned an attack," Reed sniffed indignantly.

"What about that thing with the Klingons?" Reed himself had told me how the Enterprise crew had helped a group of settlers revolt against the Klingons who were taking advantage of them.

"That was different," Reed said, as if that was perfectly obvious. "We taught them to defend themselves. I've never organized an unprovoked attack on anybody." He looked at me evenly.

"And I have?" I hadn't. Not unprovoked attack, anyway, but I had raided enemy installations to rescue prisoners of war.

In a way, I thought, this was similar.

Reed grimaced like he was in pain, then said, "You've had more combat experience. I thought you might have some advice to offer on the matter. That is why you're here, isn't it?"

I knew exactly what it had cost Reed to say that to me. And, I thought, when he put it like that, I could scarcely refuse.

I thought back to my time in combat in Venezuela and in the Philippines, and to all the training I'd had. "We'll have the element of surprise," I said. Right up until the moment of attack, provided Archer could act somewhat convincingly. "Which is a good thing. We'll need a leader who can capitalize on that."

"Captain Archer wants to lead the boarding party himself." That didn't surprise me. For someone like Archer, doing this would be a significant step, and he would never ask anyone else to take it for him. Which was a good thing. The only thing worse than a leader who is afraid to follow his own orders is a leader who overthinks those orders before giving them. And who doesn't know how to let them go.

"We'll still need someone with a lot of combat experience." Which meant either Reed or myself.

Reed shifted again. "We can discuss that later."

For the first time, I empathized with him. If you'd spent your whole life as one of the "good guys", it was tough the first time you have to do something a little villainous. "You're right, we don't have a choice about this." That was war, making the best decisions you could in the circumstances you were living with.

Reed nodded, but he didn't seem convinced. I remembered the first time I'd killed a civilian, an elderly woman who'd done nothing but harbour her fugitive grandson, a man who happened to have killed a hundred innocent people, and then threatened to massacre hundreds more. The grandmother refused to tell us where he was hiding; she needed to be made an example of. Sure enough, as soon as she was dead, the man's sister led us directly to him. I still felt bad about the old woman, but, as my CO at the time had told me,

"You can't make amends if you're dead."

He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded briskly, like we'd been discussing something completely inconsequential. Of course, if we'd been discussing something inconsequential, we probably would have resorted to sniping and perhaps physical violence by now.

"Desperate times and all that."

"Right." I agreed. "How much time do we have?"

"Not much."

I pushed myself up against the headboard. "Then we'd better get started."

*** Reed was going to lead the mission. I would have preferred to do it myself, but Phlox laughed, a little more cynically than I would have expected from him, and said,

"I am not keeping you here uniquely for my own amusement, Major. I have quite enough on my mind without listening to your continual harping."

I frowned. "My injuries aren't that bad. I can compensate for them."

"I have no doubt. Unfortunately, you can't compensate for the effects of the medication, and believe me, you would be most unhappy if I stopped it."

"I can deal with pain," I told him. I'd done it before.

"In this case, Major, it's not up to you." Then he walked away.

But I wasn't a bystander, especially when it came to missions like this. Although I would never have told him, I was pleased when Reed came to me and said,

"I've thought about it, and I know the weapons systems better than anyone. I need to be on the bridge, to defend the ship."

"Then I'll lead the boarding party," I replied immediately. The party was going to need strong leadership, and I didn't trust Archer to be that leader.

"You can't. Phlox said…"

"I don't give a damn what Phlox said," I replied. He and T'Pol were off on another of their secret meetings, anyway. "There is a job that needs to be done." And Reed wasn't going to be the one to do it. I should, I thought, never have expected him to. Reed was a civilian, and this was a job for a soldier.

"The captain won't let you go without Phlox's approval," Reed continued.

I looked at him. "Then we won't tell the captain. It's our decision anyway."

For once, Reed didn't argue any more.

***

I stayed in sickbay until barely ten minutes before the away team was scheduled to board the ship. Then, making sure Phlox was occupied elsewhere, I sneaked out and headed to my quarters to get a uniform and take off my bandages.

Mirrors weren't a fixture of sickbay, and with good reason. My face was bruised and there was a blank look in my blind eye. Well, I thought as I pulled on my uniform, the power was still out all over the ship. With any luck, no one would notice.

The MACOs I'd assigned to the away team were waiting with the Starfleet crew when I arrived in the shuttle bay. Mackenzie handed me a weapon even as she said,

"Sir?" Like she was surprised I was on my feet, let alone ready for battle.

"Couldn't let you have all the fun, Mackenzie."

"Major Hayes. I thought you were confined to sickbay."

I turned to the captain as nonchalantly as possible, bringing him into my line of vision and subtly tilting my good ear in his direction. "Lieutenant Reed needs to man the weapons. I'll be accompanying you."

Archer nodded vaguely. "Remember our mission, people. We get in, we get out, with the least loss of life possible. On both sides."

"Yes, sir." I replied along with the others, following Archer out of the room. I stumbled a little as I squeezed through the broken door. Mackenzie put a hand on my shoulder, steadying me, and said, "What about your eye, sir?"

"It's not bothering me," I replied coolly, "What about you?"

"No, sir," Mackenzie replied obediently and fell into step behind me.

According to the plan, Tucker and one of my men were going to grab the warp coil while the rest of us kept the aliens from stopping them. It was a simple enough plan, but it still started to fall apart within about three seconds of landing on the ship.

This ship wasn't in much better shape than Enterprise. The lighting was dim, and I had trouble seeing where I was going, not that I was about to mention that. I did make out the first few guards who met the boarding party, and I saw my men dispatch them without any trouble. Tucker managed to get into their engine room, but, as we'd expected, it didn't take long for the aliens to rally their forces. I heard Tucker's voice tell Archer the engine was protected by some kind of forcefield he didn't know how to deactivate, then T'Pol said our ship was sustaining heavy damage. Before I could wonder what that meant, exactly, a larger group of armed aliens appeared in front of us. They didn't look too pleased when they saw their fallen comrades.

I jerked my head at Corporal Mackenzie and Private Banning, the soldiers nearest to me, and dived behind a bulkhead. The alien shots ricocheted off the metal and I leaned in close to say, "If we circle around to the engineering hatch, we can take them out from behind."

"They'll see us, sir," Mackenzie protested.

"We can sneak over." I was sure of it. In the darkness, I could see a fallen bulkhead, which provided a shield for an area just large enough for a person to crawl through on their hands and knees. I knew Mackenzie had to see this shield, as well, which was why I was surprised when she said,

"How?"

There was no time to explain. "Just follow me."

Mackenzie didn't look convinced. Even Banning, an effective, obedient soldier didn't seem sure, which should have been my first clue. When loyal subordinates doubt their commander, it's usually not the subordinates who are in the wrong. But I was certain we could creep around without being noticed, and I was in no mood to argue.

Flattening myself against the wall, I made sure to stay crouched behind the hulk of metal as I made my way around the room. Despite their doubts, Mackenzie and Banning followed me. Which meant that when we ran out of bulkhead and found ourselves exposed, it was easy for the aliens to turn and shoot at all of us.

Banning went down first. I watched him fall with a strange sense of detachment, still wondering how our protective bulkhead had disappeared when Mackenzie pulled me down behind part of what was left and hit her comm. "Captain Archer, Banning's down over here."

There was a hesitation, and I heard a strangled cry from the other side of the room. Then Archer said, "I'll get T'Pol to put a lock on him."

"I suggest you put a lock on Major Hayes, too, sir," Mackenzie replied, looking at me apologetically. "He needs to get out of here."

Phlox was waiting for us when we rematerialized on the ship. He frowned at me, then turned to Banning.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I thought we were shielded."

Phlox stared at me. "I specifically told you not to go on this mission."

"There's nothing wrong with me." There wasn't. It had to be the Expanse and those damn anomalies, showing me things that weren't there and putting my crew in danger.

Phlox blinked. "You are on high doses of medication and you have lost fifty percent of your eyesight, yet you at no moment thought this might impair your judgement in any way?"

No, I hadn't thought that. I hadn't, really, thought very much at all.

"Shouldn't you be getting Banning into sickbay?" I said.

Phlox looked at me coldly. "There's no point, Major. He's already dead."

"He can't be." I looked at the pale young man beside me and continued, ridiculously, "He just got hit once."

"Once is enough." Phlox flicked his eyes over my body. "As for you, Major, I would take you back to sickbay, but you clearly don't want to be there, and I have no time to waste on people who aren't interested in aiding their own recovery."

The transporter beam shimmered and I saw Parsons slump to the floor. Phlox bent over her and repeated, "Good-bye, Major."

I went to my quarters. I didn't know what else to do.

An hour or so later, "Enterprise" rocked and lurched, then started to speed away. I knew the mission had succeeded despite me.

I didn't bother going to bed. My eye had started to throb, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to go back to Phlox for painkillers, or for anything to help me sleep.

I didn't want to see him, anyway. I wanted to see Miguel, but he wasn't here, and, at the same time, I was glad of it.

The chime was broken, and it took me a while before I realized someone was knocking on the door. I pulled it open and was unsurprised to see Reed, his chin set determinedly, standing on the other side.

"Major Hayes." He looked at me, and I was sure he knew. "I'm sorry about the private."

I sighed and stepped back, which Reed apparently took as an invitation to step inside. "It was my fault," I said.

Reed shifted in place. "Not entirely."

"What?"

"I should have led the boarding party myself. I knew you were incapacitated." He looked at me. "I neglected my duty."

"It doesn't matter." It didn't. "Banning's still dead. And I should have known enough to listen to Phlox."

Private Banning. His first name was Ryan, I remembered that much from the pre-mission training. He'd been excited to be part of the mission, determined to wipe out the Xindi, as we all were. From some small town in Indiana. Or was it Iowa?

"Banning trusted me," I said, to remind myself of it as much as Reed. They all trusted me. I was the great military leader, the man who'd been given the job of saving the planet even though he was only a major. The man who'd spent eight months as a prisoner of war in Venezuela. The man who'd shot an old lady. The man who was half-blind, half-deaf, completely stupid and a liability to his subordinates.

The sob escaped me before I had the chance to suppress it. All I could see was Ryan Banning, a young man with a family, people who loved him, who would never see him again. Then, the mental images of those grieving strangers were replaced by images of Miguel, whom I'd hurt, and Heather, whom I'd left without a second thought, saying I was doing it for her. I didn't deserve to see them again. They didn't deserve to be saddled with a man like me.

I don't know how much time passed. I didn't care that Reed was witnessing this very un-soldier-like display. I didn't, in fact, think about Reed at all until I felt him awkwardly put his arms around me.

He was strong, but I knew that, thanks to our sparring sessions and our little episode of rolling around the mats trying to kill one another. In any other circumstances, I would have pushed him away, humiliated that anyone, in particular Reed, had seen me like this. But I was sick and injured and I clung to him as tightly as he held me. Finally, pulled away and said, without any trace of irony,

"You thought you were doing the right thing." Then he inched forward. I did the same. I knew what was happening, but I couldn't bring myself to stop it and neither, apparently, could Reed. A split-second later, our mouths met.

I wouldn't expect any one who'd never been in that situation to understand, but Reed did. I heard him take a deep breath, then he was on top of me, lowering me to the bed while his mouth attacked mine and his hands slid up under my T-shirt.

It was strangely similar to the time we'd fought each other almost to the death over stupid suspicions and ridiculous pride. I closed my eyes, not that it made much difference, and ran my hands over his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles beneath his thin shirt. Grunting a little, he pulled my T-shirt off and followed it with his, then came back so we were lying chest-to-chest on my narrow bunk. His erection pressed into my groin. I hadn't noticed that last time we'd been this close to each other. I felt my way down the front of his body and pushed away until I could slide my hand into the front of his pants. Reed gasped into my good ear, and I took hold of what felt like quite a sizeable penis.

It had been a long time, more than ten years, since I'd had sex with anyone other than Miguel. Reed wasn't so different from him, though, or from me, or from any other man. There were some things everyone enjoyed, and I ran my hand over Reed's cock and balls, gently at first, then with more purpose. After only a few strokes, he was panting hard. Then he stiffened and grunted, and I felt my hand fill with hot, viscous liquid.

Reed could be a bastard, but he was also, apparently, a gentleman. After barely a moment, I opened my good eye to see him already repositioning himself.

"Reed," I said, not knowing whether that was supposed to be a signal for him to stop or to keep going. The decision was taken out of my hands—and his—when his mouth closed over my cock.

He'd clearly had some practice with that. I didn't last much longer than he had. After a few long pulls and a few swipes of his tongue, all conscious thought escaped my mind and I came hard. Reed swallowed. I could taste it on his lips when he came back up and kissed me.

"Reed," I repeated. My head was spinning, although I didn't know whether that was from residual drugs, the perforated eardrum, or the insanity of what we'd done.

There was a long pause. I leaned back on my pillow. I knew I should get up, talk about this, clean Reed's come off my hand and my shorts, but I was exhausted. I closed my eyes just as Reed said, "I think you can call me Malcolm."

***

When I woke up, Reed was still there. Not in bed, but standing by my desk, looking at the picture of Heather and Miguel. He glanced over his shoulder and said something. I rolled onto my back in time to catch, "Isn't it?" and his expectant look.

"Deaf ear," I explained. He glanced away, as if he was embarrassed. It was a little late for that.

"Right. Sorry. I said, this is Miguel, isn't it?"

"Yes." I sat up, steadying myself against the wall at the sudden rush of dizziness. "How did you know that?"

Even in the dim emergency lighting, I could see Reed flush. "You must have mentioned him."

I was sure I hadn't, but I let it pass. "Listen, Reed…" I hesitated.

He turned back to the picture. "She's a pretty little girl. You must miss them."

"I do." I didn't know what else to say. I'd never been one for buddy sex, and Reed wasn't my buddy anyway. "Lieutenant," I began again, and again, he cut me off.

"We're, ah, we're going to be out here for a while yet, Major. Things are only going to get more stressful."

"I would imagine so," I admitted, cautiously.

"If you ever need a little…relief," he continued, just as carefully, "You know where to come." Apparently, I did. In both senses of the word.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd make that kind of offer," I said.

Reed narrowed his eyes. "Neither did I, Major."

I wasn't the kind of guy to accept an offer like that, either, in normal circumstances. But this was as far from normal as I ever wanted to get.

I angled my head to centre Reed in my field of vision. "Call me Matthew," I said, enjoying the look of mild surprise on his face. "Malcolm."

Reed smiled a little, nodded, and pulled the door open. As he slid it closed again, I wondered if Archer would be pleased to know about this latest development in our relationship. I figured he would probably be more disturbed than he had been when Reed and I were at each other's throats in the gym.

There were some things only soldiers understood, I thought as I rolled back onto my side. Soldiers like Reed and I. And Private Banning. And Miguel.

I hoped.