Gigi Sinclair

I didn't, as the archaic military saying goes, expect a ticker tape parade when "Enterprise" docked at Jupiter Station. It would have been nice to have some kind of recognition, though. After all, we'd just saved the world.

Instead, we waited silently and a little suspiciously, as if we didn't dare believe it wasover, until the turbo lift doors slid open and Admiral Forrest boarded the ship.

Captain Archer had assembled us in the shuttle bay to await his arrival. A few months earlier, that would have meant the MACOs assembling on one side of the room and the Fleeters on the other, but now, we stood shoulder-to-shoulder. It's hard to live through what we had without feeling some kind of kinship with those who'd shared it with you. No matter who they are.

I had Reed on one side of me and McKenzie on the other when Forrest stepped on board, looked around and took a deep breath in that speech-starting way they much teach at Starfleet command school. Forrest even looked like Archer did when he was about to embark on some long-winded lecture, and I clearly wasn't the only one who thought so. Reed leaned in and whispered,

"If he mentions gazelles, I say we mutiny."

I snorted. We'd all heard about that one.

Forrest wasn't as zoological as Archer, though. He just said, "While they may not know it, the world owes you an enormous debt of gratitude. I'm only sorry you won't receive the recognition you deserve."

So was I. Hawkins and Banning and the others deserved to be remembered for the sacrifice they'd made, but of course, that would never happen. According to the powers that be, the world at large wouldn't be able to handle knowing just what we'd done, just as they couldn't handle knowing the seriousness of the war we'd fought in Venezuela, or what our POWs had gone through in the Philippines. I sometimes wondered if those powers didn't occasionally underestimate the intelligence of the general population, but that was the way things were.

"As a mark of respect," Forrest continued, "No other crew will fly in this ship. 'Enterprise' will be decommissioned."

"Brilliant," Reed murmured. "Guess who'll have to sort that out?"

Honouring people by making them do extra work. Maybe, I thought, Starfleet wasn't so far from military after all.

"For now, though," Forrest said, "I'm sure you are all eager to see your families again." Of course we were, but that was another week or so away at least.

There was a murmur of genuine surprise when Forrest added, nonchalantly, as if he'd been practising how he could reveal the news to greatest effect, "Which is why they have been brought to the station to meet you."

Strange, I thought. For ten years, I'd taken Miguel for granted. Now, after just eight months in space, my heart hammered and my stomach fluttered like a teenager's at the thought he was somewhere on the other side of the hull plating.

The burden of command had never been greater than when it forced me to be one of the last people off the ship. By the time I disembarked, the station meeting room was already full of happy reunited families. I smiled at McKenzie, who had her arms around a man who looked so much like her he could only be her brother, and at Money and her tearful parents. Then a voice called, "Daddy!" and I forgot about everyone else in the room.

Heather had grown since the last time I'd seen her, and I couldn't remember her hair being that long. She'd put on weight, too, or else my health had deteriorated, because my back spasmed painfully when I bent to pick her up. I kneeled and hugged her instead, closing my eyes as she threw her arms around my neck.

"Don't go away again," she ordered.

No problem there.

I released Heather and straightened up again, glancing around. My heart picked up again, and I was about to ask Heather where Miguel was when suddenly, he was right there, looking at me like he wasn't sure this was real. I could sympathize completely.

"Hello." I hesitated. We had never been a demonstrative couple, and we hadn't exactly separated on the best of terms. I wasn't sure what he wanted me to do, until he said,

"Hi," and put his arms around me. Then it was very clear.

This was all I'd fantasized about for eight months on the ship, and the months of training before that. Every terrible thing I'd been forced to do, every impossible decision I'd had to make, every man I'd seen blown apart in front of me faded away as I held Miguel tightly, his arms around my waist and my hand on the back of his head. I could have stayed like that for hours—hell, I could have stayed like that for the rest of my life—but I felt moisture on my neck and I pulled back far enough to see tears in Miguel's eyes.

I kissed his cheek, struggling to keep my own emotions from overtaking me, and slid my mouth over to his ear to whisper, "Not in front of the troops, Major."

Miguel's body shook as he snickered. "It's the damn recycled air on this station. I don't know how you survived." He wiped at his eyes.

I told him the truth. "I thought about you." Then I kissed him. A real, long, publicly inappropriate kiss that I hoped communicated everything I'd felt while I was gone as well as some of my plans for the future; namely, never leaving him again. I think he got it. He kissed me back just as passionately, his hands gripping the front of my uniform like he was never going to let me go. We were still at it when I woke up.

"Fuck." I rolled over, trying to hang on to the dream for just a moment longer.

"Good morning to you, too."

I opened my good eye, the one that still had its retina attached, and stared at Reed, who was dressing on the other side of my cramped quarters. "Fuck off."

"Now, now, Major." He bent to retrieve his boots from under my bed. "I hope you're not going to be in a bad mood all day." After waking up like that, it was a pretty safe bet I would be.

"Why do you care?"

"I do have to work with you." Reed muttered something that may have been "more's the pity", that I chose to ignore. I'd never thought fucking him would improve our working relationship, which was good because I would have been sorely disappointed.

I rolled onto my back. If Reed was getting dressed, that meant I would have to get up too, but I wanted to stay in bed with Miguel and Heather. I closed my eyes, trying to recall the way Miguel's mouth had felt against mine, but the dream was already disappearing. I looked up again when I felt the bed dip, and saw Reed sitting on the edge fastening his boots.

"If I don't make it, take care of my men," I said, because it suddenly felt important to say something and I trusted Reed to do that. Whether my men would be inclined to listen to him was another story, but I'd have to speak with them about that.

"Of course." Reed glanced over his shoulder at me.

"And when you get home, speak to my family for me. Tell them," I hesitated. "That I was just doing my job." Pathetic last words, but I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Reed considered this. "I'd rather not."

"What?"

"I said, I'd rather not," he repeated, in that annoyingly precise voice of his.

"You don't get a choice. It's my last request."

"So?"

I sat up. "So, you can't refuse my last request. It's…" I hesitated. "Disrespectful."

"You'll be dead," Reed pointed out. "How will you know if I've done it or not?"

"I won't. But that's not the point." I didn't want Miguel having to guess what had happened to me. I wanted him to know, no matter how bad the details were. He could handle it, and he didn't deserve to be fobbed off with military, or Starfleet, vagueness.

"So, you want me to go up to your boyfriend and tell him 'By the way, Matthew's dead, but he was a really good lay?'"

"I assumed you'd leave that part out." This wasn't sex, anyway. It was stress relief, desperation, what soldiers did to survive when they were facing death every day. Reed wasn't a soldier, but he understood that. Or at least I thought he had. Then I saw his smirk, and realized he knew exactly what I meant. "This is serious, Reed."

"I know." He half-turned on the bed and faced me. "Of course I'll do it." Good. Miguel would appreciate Reed telling him the truth. He and Reed might even get to appreciate each other. It wouldn't have been the first time that kind of thing happened in those circumstances, and half the people on the ship seemed convinced Reed and I were virtually interchangeable anyway.

As unlikely as it would have seemed when we first met, I had to admit, if I weren't around it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for Miguel to have Reed instead. Reed was solid, reliable, responsible, and annoying as hell, but Miguel seemed to go for that type of guy. And Reed and Heather could have tea parties until the non-fat simulated cream cows came home.

"I'd ask you to do the same for me," Reed added, "But I can't think of anyone who'd be particularly bothered to hear I was dead." He used his sarcastic tone, the one he'd been using more frequently since our encounter with the alternate "Enterprise," the one captained by Tucker and T'Pol's dysfunctional son.

I swung my legs over the side of the bunk and put my feet on the cold floor. "Would you give that a rest, already? So you didn't have kids. Big fucking deal."

Reed shrugged. What I hadn't told him was that Karyn Archer's mother, who apparently had fond memories of her Hayes from when she was a kid, had come to me and explained how I could hack into Hayes's personal logs. The password was easy to guess (apparently, I didn't change it very frequently) and I was able to read all about Hayes's—my—private life with Reed.

Apparently, I went for that type of guy, too. At least when there were very few other options.

"I'll see you in the armoury," Reed told me as he left. I reluctantly got out of bed and into the shower.

***

I had trouble concentrating on my duties all morning, mainly because I couldn't stop thinking about Heather. The way she looked at eight weeks old, when we'd first brought her home and I'd been petrified to touch her. The first time that she, aged two, climbed into our bed at night, not a particularly wise thing to do to an ex-POW, but Miguel kept me from doing anything that would scar her for life.

I remembered her first day of school, her first ballet recital, the Christmas party at the base when she'd pulled the fake beard off Santa Claus in front of six hundred children, parents and military brass, and had then yelled across the room at me, "You were wrong, Daddy, it's not some old pervert, it's Colonel Swarovski!"

I had never wanted a child, but when Heather arrived, she changed my life in a way I'd never expected anyone would. Especially not someone with dark brown pigtails, freckles, and a penchant for ponies, caterpillars and scale models of military ships.

When it got to the point where I could barely look at a technical schematic without thinking of the drawings we had posted on the refrigeration unit back home, I told Reed I was taking an early lunch. He looked surprised, probably because I rarely took any lunch at all, but didn't ask, and I headed to the mess hall.

Corporal Hawkins was already there, sitting in the corner with a bowl of soup and a PADD. I got a sandwich and a vacuum-sealed packet of cookies and went to join him.

"Major." The corporal half-stood. I waved him down.

"Corporal Hawkins." I hadn't spent much time with him lately. I'd been too preoccupied to spend time with any of my men, but some of them, like McKenzie and Kemper, always managed to make themselves heard. Hawkins was quieter, less experienced. If I remembered rightly, he'd only been made corporal a few months before we left Earth. He was younger, too. He looked like he was barely out of school, although I knew he had to be at least a little older than that. "How are you?"

"Fine, thank you, sir," Hawkins seemed thrilled to have been asked. He was good-looking, there was no doubt about that, in a star-high- school-quarterback way. Not my type, even if he had been ten years older and not under my command, but the kind of guy you wouldn't mind your younger sister or brother dating. Or your child.

I took a bite of the dry, unappetizing sandwich and washed it down with equally disgusting Starfleet coffee. One more reason I couldn't wait to get home. Military coffee was an acquired taste, but once you had it, nothing else would do.

"Permission to speak freely, Major?" I glanced up at Hawkins, who was frowning back, clearly concerned.

"Yes, Corporal?"

"Are you all right?" I gritted my teeth around the sandwich. "Yes."

"You look a little…space sick, sir."

I almost laughed. That was the least of my problems at the moment, although when we'd first come on board, it had put all of us out of commission for days. There's nothing like trying to save the world while you're puking your guts out.

"I'm fine."

"OK." Hawkins slurped his soup. "I think we all get a little space sick sometimes, though, sir. I do."

"Then you should speak with Phlox."

"I usually just think about my mom and my brothers and it goes away after a while."

I looked at him. He looked back, smiling. "I see." I did, although I'd never have expected him to. "Space sick, huh?" I guess it was more honourable than plain old homesick.

Hawkins nodded innocently. "Yes, sir." He smiled. "With that cute little girl of yours, I'm sure you're space sick a lot."

"All right, Hawkins." This was veering into dangerously uncomfortable territory, particularly for a conversation with a subordinate.

Hawkins slurped up the last of his soup and put the spoon in the empty bowl. "Permission to be excused, sir?" But he was smiling as he said it.

"Granted, Corporal. And," I hesitated. "Thanks."

He nodded and wandered off grinning, leaving me to finish my lunch alone.

On the way back to the armoury, I stopped by sickbay so Phlox could examine me. I was getting used to living without the eye. I'd been practising on the range, and my marksmanship had improved dramatically. Phlox wanted me to wear a patch so, at some undetermined point in the future, the eye would be ready for him to operate on, but I wasn't about to do that. There was no need to telegraph my weakness to the enemy, or to my own men.

This time, Phlox didn't try and change my mind about the patch, although he did hold up what looked like an inch-long pink maggot and said, "Major, I believe I have devised a new treatment for your damaged eardrum. The Bartavian carpenter worm…"

"No," I interrupted, as the worm writhed on the end of Phlox's long tweezers.

"But if it is correctly inserted in the ear canal, the Bartavian carpenter worm…"

"No." I repeated.

Phlox frowned. "If you will not take responsibility for your own wellbeing, Major, I cannot possibly assist you in your recovery."

"I'm fine. When I feel the urge to have someone shove a worm into my ear, you'll be the first to know. "

Phlox huffed something about being, "Exactly like Lieutenant Reed," which I chose to ignore.

***

I didn't know if Reed was planning on paying me a visit that night. We usually got together a few times a week, but there was no set schedule. That surprised me with Reed. I'd figured him for the kind of guy who planned everything down to the minute, including his illicit orgasms.

When he hadn't shown up by 0100, I went to bed alone, and was almost immediately besieged by dreams. This time, though, I didn't dream of an invented future, but of a remembered past.

Six years ago, when we'd been together a few years already, Miguel and I took a six month tour of duty at Fort Davison outside Nome, Alaska. It was Miguel's way of supporting my desire to go back to the Arctic, and within a week, we both hated it.

I spent five of every seven days training the army's stupidest recruits in cold-weather survival while Miguel stayed on base and taught first aid for hypothermia and frostbite, and STD prevention, the biggest medical problems on a northern army base.

Our accommodations were bunk beds in a room we shared with four other officers, one of whom, Major Evans, came up to me on our first day there and said, "I didn't pay for any in-room gay porn, so keep it in your pants or I'll report you for harassment."

Three months in, that dishonourable discharge wasn't looking so bad.

Late one afternoon, I brought my latest group of survival-trained numbskulls back to the base with minimal injuries, dismissed them, and headed to my room. Evans and the others weren't there, thank God, so I dumped my pack on the floor beside the bunks and, since I was too tired to climb up to my bed, I collapsed on Miguel's instead. He'd clearly been expecting that. There was a long, loud farting noise, and I reached under the mattress and pulled out a whoopee cushion, complete with a note: "Welcome home to hell frozen over." I put the whoopee cushion back under his pillow and headed for the infirmary.

Miguel was working on a PADD beside Cyril the army-issue CPR dummy, complete with a wide-open mouth that, according to Miguel, was defiled in more ways than one in every army med school. I came up behind Miguel and lay a hand on his shoulder. "That my replacement?"

"Give it a couple more days and he may very well be." Miguel smiled up at me, and I squeezed his shoulder. "How was the trip?"

"Fucking idiots."

"Yes," Miguel agreed. "That's the problem. There's been another outbreak of chlamydia."

I grunted. The morons could fuck like rabbits, but Miguel and I couldn't touch each other. That pretty much summed up the entire Fort Davison experience.

"You need to get going on that vaccine."

"Yeah. Funny, though, the army doesn't want to pay me to research it." Miguel put his hand over mine and interlaced our fingers, his signet ring digging into my chapped skin. The sensation went straight to my groin, which just showed how long I'd gone without it. "They'd rather give me twice as much money to cure the damn thing."

"Not fair," I agreed, pulling my hand away before I got carried away. I didn't move fast enough. Miguel glanced up at my face, then down at my groin.

"You haven't been fooling around with the recruits, have you?"

"No."

He smirked. "You sure? No fumbling in the sleeping bags? No late- night hero worship in the lean-to?"

I snorted. "When I get that desperate, I'll kill myself."

"Good." He stood up, making sure to rub his body against me, and closed his mouth over mine. I didn't have the chance to stop him, and I didn't really want to. I wound my hands in the collar of his uniform and kissed him back, then drew away.

"Three months, Miguel." I tried to sound like that was no time at all, but at the moment, it may as well have been thirty years.

"I know." Miguel looked disappointed, and for a second, I was, too. I would never take such a stupid risk myself, but I thought he might. And of course, if he'd initiated it, then I might have been able to convince myself of an obligation to go along for the ride. "Come on," Miguel heaved the CPR dummy off the bed and onto the floor. Then he patted the thin biobed mattress. "Get up. I need to examine you."

I looked at him. "Why?"

He looked back, perfectly innocent. "You've been out in the field for five days. I need to make sure you're OK."

"I'm fine," I said, but I was already taking off my jacket. "What if someone comes in?"

He pulled the privacy curtain shut around us.

Miguel was my doctor before he was my lover. We met in the very romantic atmosphere of a field hospital in South America, and our first date consisted of him trying to keep me anaesthetized long enough for him to take four bullets out of my leg. Apparently, I kept trying to get up.

When we first started sleeping together, it disturbed me that Miguel already knew everything there was to know about my body. He told me it wasn't like that, that seeing someone as a lover was completely different from seeing him as a patient, but it was still hard to be sexy for a guy who'd seen me throwing up before he even knew my name. But that was one of the perils of dating a doctor, and I soon got over it. Now, when Miguel lifted all my layers of clothing and ran his electronic stethoscope across my chest, there was nothing remotely clinical about his touch, and I didn't want there to be.

Just as I was enjoying the feel of his fingers against my skin, he pulled my shirts down and put the stethoscope to one side. "That looks good. Lower your pants, please."

"What?"

"I told you, there's been an outbreak of chlamydia. I need to make sure you haven't picked it up."

"Miguel." Much as I wanted him, we were on base, and on duty.

Miguel affected a bored expression and picked up a PADD. "Major Hayes, it is my duty to ensure you are not carrying a communicable disease."

Right.

I unbuttoned my thick pants and pushed them, my shorts, my long underwear and my briefs down to my knees. One of the disadvantages of life in a cold climate; it was a major production every time you wanted a quickie. I remembered that very well from my adolescence.

But Miguel didn't seem to have any desire to be quick. He ran his hand up and down my very unprofessional cock, and I squeezed the bridge of my nose in an attempt to keep control. "You look fine," Miguel finally determined. "Although it couldn't hurt to take a closer look." He bent over and ran his tongue up my cock. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, but a grunt still escaped when Miguel took me into his mouth and gave what he referred to as the "med school special."

For my part, I was about to do my impression of a four-star general at a strip club when I heard the infirmary door open and Evans called, "Major Ramirez?"

Miguel stood up and smirked at me. Then, sounding calm and slightly peevish, replied, "Yes, Major Evans?"

"I'm looking for Major Hayes. Have you seen him?"

"He hasn't come here. Yet," Miguel replied,winking. I closed my eyes and let my head fall, as silently as possible, against the biobed pillow.

"If he does, tell him I want him." The door slammed again and Miguel leaned forward.

"Too bad," he whispered, kissing my bloodied lips before sliding back down. "He's mine."

I woke up a second later, sweating and staring at the ceiling of my cramped shipboard quarters. Feeling nauseated, I sat up and waited until the room stopped spinning before I went over to the bathroom for a drink of water.

I drank deeply, then ran a hand through my hair and stared at myself in the mirror. The memory was so vivid, for a moment I half- expected Miguel to come in behind me, bleary-eyed in shorts and an army T-shirt, and ask if I was OK.

I wasn't. Romance had never been an important part of my life. I'd done a lot of things with a lot of people, but I hadn't felt anything until Miguel. Once I met him, though, I knew he was it for me.

Except he wasn't. On the other ship, Reed and I were lovers, and not only in the most literal sense of the term. That was obvious from the log entries I'd seen. The other Hayes had cared about Reed; enough to share quarters with him for sixteen years, enough to be seriously distraught when Reed died in a firefight with some new enemy they'd picked up.

And if he loved Reed, it must have meant he'd given up hope of seeing Miguel and Heather again. That wasn't something I ever wanted to do, no matter how "space sick" I got.

***

The hardest part of command is letting other people take charge. I wanted to go to the sphere myself, but after my last away mission, I knew that wasn't the greatest idea. So, sucking up my personal desire, I sent Hawkins down instead.

"Keep an eye on Reed," I told him before he prepared to board the shuttle. "You know how the Fleeters can be. Don't let him get too carried away."

"No, sir." Hawkins grinned, and then he was gone.

Shortly after, so was Ensign Sato.

It happened so fast, I didn't even have time to feel like it was my fault. None of us had anticipated they would abduct her right off the bridge. Still, it was what the MACOs had been brought onto "Enterprise" to protect against, and we clearly hadn't done that. The Xindi had a Starfleet crewmember hostage, and I knew Reed was going to be pissed as hell when he found out.

It was nevertheless my duty to meet the shuttle, and I wanted to see how the mission had gone in any case.

As soon as the shuttle docked, T'Pol, Mayweather and Tucker were off, talking about data or something I didn't catch. I hung back, waiting for the people I really wanted to see.

I knew something was wrong when Reed came out before Hawkins, but I asked anyway. "Where's Corporal Hawkins?"

Reed looked at me. "The sphere had an automated defence mechanism." Well, whoop-de-doo. "He was killed." I blinked. "I'm sorry, Major."

He couldn't be. He didn't know Hawkins at all. Hell, I barely knew Hawkins, but he'd told me about his family, and about missing them. He was a happy young guy, the kind of person Heather could grow up and marry if she felt so inclined, and now he was dead.

I swallowed and realized I had to say something. "Well, I'm sure you did everything you could." I didn't doubt that for a moment. Reed was a pain in the ass, but he was as far from negligent as it was possible to be. "I'd appreciate a full report." I had to have something to tell his family.

Reed nodded. That was all I could handle. I turned on my heel and left the shuttle bay before I showed something I knew I was going to regret.

Just because you happen to be sleeping with a guy doesn't mean you want him to see you lose it.

And that was exactly what I did. As soon as I left the shuttle bay, the numbness changed into something else. Without thinking, I walked until I ended up at the deserted gym.

There were a lot of things I could have been doing: planning the rescue mission, figuring out how we were going to get Sato back, writing the obligatory letter to Hawkins's parents. But I couldn't do any of those things feeling the way I did at the moment. I couldn't concentrate on anything, except for the squeezing sensation in my chest that popped up every time I thought Hawkins, and the conversation we'd had just the other day.

So instead, I took off my jacket and punched the hell out of the quietly swinging bag.

"Major?" I didn't know how long I'd been there when McKenzie showed up, but it must have been a while. I gave the bag one final hit and pulled my hand away to see bruises already forming on my knuckles. I flexed my fingers and swore at myself. The last thing I needed was to go into battle with a broken hand on top of everything else, and I was going into battle, that was a given. There was no way those motherfuckers were getting away with this.

"Corporal?" I snapped, pulling my sweaty T-shirt away from my body.

"We heard about Hawkins. He was a hell of a man."

"I know."

"We knew there were going to be sacrifices," Mac continued. "Nathan did, too. He was prepared to take the risk."

"There's a difference between taking a risk and throwing your life away." Or throwing someone else's life away.

Mac looked at me. "You've lost men before."

I knew that, and I'd pushed it aside, worked through it, told myself it was just a part of the job. I'd even lost a few men on this mission, once through my own fault. But this felt different. "I should have known him better." Hawkins had known I had a daughter; he'd no doubt seen her when we shipped out. I didn't know what his brothers were called, if they were older or younger than he was, or even how many he had. I'd known nothing about him, but I'd sent him to his death without a second thought.

"You have a lot on your mind, sir."

Too much, and that was the problem. I needed to get my head back on the job before we lost someone else. I grabbed a towel, then decided I should probably head to the showers. "Meet me in the armoury in ten minutes," I ordered. "We have work to do."

I expected Reed to be there when I arrived, but he wasn't. I couldn't say I was particularly sorry. McKenzie and I had more experience with this kind of thing. We were done the plans, and the MACOs were already preparing, by the time he came in and said,

"Have you assembled your boarding party?" I glanced up at him, then back at my console. "Ready to deploy on your command."

"I wish I was leading it myself."

No way in hell. "Your place is on the bridge, sir." I hated calling him that. Since we'd been fucking, Reed didn't like it, either. I guess it didn't sit well with his whole "abuse of rank" complex, no matter how many times I told him the minute he tried to abuse his rank would be the minute he found my fist against his jaw. Again.

I went over to the other, larger, computer console and brought up the crude map we'd devised of the inside of the sphere. After a moment's silence, Reed followed. "No offence, Major. It's just that Ensign Sato's a friend." I knew that. I liked her, too. In the early days, when we'd first come on board, she was one of the very few who'd tried to make us feel welcome. Kemper had seemed particularly fond of her for a while, but that seemed to have lessened over time.

I looked at Reed again, then turned determinedly back to my work. He didn't take the hint. Instead, he thrust a PADD at me. "Here's my report on Corporal Hawkins."

It figured that he'd have it done already. I didn't want to read it yet, but I took it from him politely. "Thank you." I hesitated, but since I couldn't ask him to go away, I said, "Would you like to go over my rescue plan?"

"First, I'd like to know if we have a problem."

I stared at him. If it had been anyone other than Reed, I'd have thought he was talking about some "relationship" shit, in which case I would have said yes. The whole thing had been a problem, because it had taken my mind off the situation at hand. There was a reason you weren't supposed to fraternize in a war zone, and now, I knew exactly what that reason was. "If you blame me for the corporal's death."

That was a harder question. I was the one who'd sent Hawkins out there, but Reed was the one who'd been with him.

I wasn't sure what to say, so I went to what Miguel referred to as my "comfort zone": military protocol. "Permission to speak freely, sir."

If he'd refused, I would have said it anyway, but Reed didn't refuse. He didn't say anything, so I went on. "I've never liked putting people under someone else's command." It didn't matter who those people were. If they were my men, they were mine. They were counting on me, they needed me, and I was responsible for them. It was more than a duty, it was a privilege, and I took it very seriously. The same went for my private life, but now wasn't the time to be thinking about that.

I turned to face him. "You're senior tactical officer, but they're my team, and I can't help but think that if I'd been there, things might have turned out differently." They hadn't last time I'd been there. Last time, I'd lost Private Banning, but I'd also learned a lesson or two. Or so I liked to think.

Reed didn't appreciate that, but I didn't expect him to. "I did everything I could. Things happened very fast."

"I understand." I did. I'd been there countless times myself. But I hadn't been there for Hawkins, and that meant I'd let him down.

"I'm not finished," Reed snapped. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from snapping back. We were about to mount a rescue mission. The last thing we needed was Reed and I going at it like stray dogs again. "Hawkins may well have been a MACO, but he was my responsibility out there." Reed's voice broke, and I could see real pain in his eyes.

And that made me feel even worse. Of course Reed had felt it, too. A guy who wouldn't let me call him "sir" because it made him feel like he was abusing his rank wouldn't be the kind of guy to brush off the death of a subordinate.

Embarrassed, I looked away and tried to think of something to say.

Reed and I didn't talk, that wasn't part of our relationship. We were adversaries on duty, we kept each other company off, but we weren't friends. Asking him to go see Miguel and Heather was as close as we'd ever come to a heart-to-heart conversation.

Until now.

I took a deep breath and jumped in. "When we first came aboard 'Enterprise', we definitely felt like outsiders."

Reed being Reed, he was right there with a comeback. "If I contributed to that, I apologize…"

It was my turn to cut him off, which was very satisfying indeed. "My point is, none of us feel that way anymore." Not even McKenzie, not even me.

If Lorian's "Enterprise" was anything to go by, the MACOs who had been the most uncomfortable at the beginning of the mission were the ones who ended up merging most successfully with the Fleeters, professionally and personally. McKenzie and Mayweather. Cole and Phlox. Reed and I. "We're all part of the same crew, no matter which uniform we wear. Don't worry about Ensign Sato. We'll bring her home."

Reed held my eyes for a long moment. For a second, I wanted to reach out and touch him, but we weren't doing that anymore. We should never have started. It wasn't fair to anyone, not to our families back home or to the crew up here counting on us.

This friendship thing, though, that might just work.

***

During the course of my career, I'd fought alongside some pretty unusual allies, but the aquatic Xindi had them all beat. I couldn't wait to get home and tell everyone about them. Well, everyone with a top-level security clearance and approval from the government.

I waited with my men by the transporter while Reed blasted the sphere and the insectoid vessels from his post on the bridge. We stood silently, and I knew they were all thinking the same thing as I was. That Reed's order to deploy might be the last we ever heard, and that it would be worth it if we saved Ensign Sato.

It was Money who finally spoke. "I just wanted to say, sir, it's been great serving with you."

I didn't know her very well, either, but I did know she had a reputation as something of a motherly figure with the men. She was a good soldier, too, who volunteered for every mission and got assigned to most. She was that reliable. "Likewise, Corporal. Although I'm not ready to discharge anyone just yet." I looked at her. "And I doubt any of you are ready to go."

If nothing else, the MACO grapevine, also known as Mac, told me Money was involved with George Parsons. I hadn't done anything about it, because it hadn't affected their work, and besides, I lived with another soldier and I had until very recently been sleeping with a Fleeter. I wasn't in a position to cast stones.

"No, sir," Money answered, as determinedly as I'd expected.

"Major Hayes." The comm sounded and Reed ordered, "You have a go." I looked at Commander Tucker, who'd been assigned the task of sending us down and hopefully bringing it back, then at the machine that was going to dissolve our bodies and reassemble us again. Hopefully.

That was the most worrying part of the mission. But I was in charge, and I had to lead by example. Drawing my weapon, I set aside my nervousness, stepped onto the transporter pad and nodded at Tucker.

A moment later, I was standing on the Xindi ship, and it was damn hot.

The red metal walls didn't help, and within seconds of arriving on the ship, I was sweating. That was just something we were going to have to ignore. Jerking my head at my men, I crept forward, looking around. When I didn't see any sign that we'd been noticed, I led the team down the hallway.

The Reptilian Xindi were disgusting. They reminded me of the huge lizards they'd had in Venezuela, the ones that crawled over Mac and I as we lay in our jail cell. That made it even better when I took one out before it even knew I was there.

I finished it off with a single blast, then squeezed past towards the room Reed had pinpointed on the map he'd sent. According to T'Pol, that was where Sato was being kept.

I wasn't an explosives expert. That was Mac's strength, but we couldn't all be in the boarding party. I had to have someone I trusted back on the ship, just in case.

I stuck the explosive device known as a "lockpicker" (because who said grunts couldn't have a sense of humour?) onto the door, then ducked behind one of the red panel walls. Ten seconds later, the lockpicker blew, and I used the hole it left behind to heave the remains of the door to one side.

Sato was there, just as Reed and T'Pol had said, lying in a corner of the sweltering red room. She didn't get up when she saw me, which meant one of two things. Kneeling beside her, I pressed my hand against her neck, and was relieved when I felt a strong pulse beneath my fingers.

"Ensign." I tapped her cheeks, but there was no reaction. I tried again. "Ensign." When Sato still didn't open her eyes, I pulled out the comm. "Hayes to 'Enterprise.'" There was nothing, not even the trill of a comm line opening. I knew it was futile, but just in case, I repeated, "'Enterprise' respond."

No answer came. I glanced at Corporal Kelly, then back at Sato. I had no way of knowing what they'd done to her, and I knew very well how dangerous it was to move someone without being sure of their injuries. On the other hand, in battle situations it was often more dangerous to leave an injured person where they were, and this was definitely one of those cases. "We should get back to the beam-in point." There were many possible reasons for why Reed wasn't responding. I couldn't assume the worst just yet. I didn't want to.

The doctor in Miguel would have been horrified to see the way I hoisted Sato over my shoulder, which was one more reason to be glad he wasn't there. Sato was small, but she wasn't light, and I grunted as I shifted her into a position I could maintain. Without wanting to, I thought of Heather, who still liked to be picked up even though she was a sturdy six years old and otherwise independent. Forget dying, I'd be lucky if I got out of here without a hernia.

There was clearly something serious going on, because the ship corridors were suspiciously deserted. We crept through them for what seemed like hours, but could only have been a few minutes, before I heard a weapon and I dropped Sato against the wall as gently as possible.

Leaving my men to provide cover, I pulled out my communicator and tried again. "Hayes to 'Enterprise.'"

This time, Archer picked up the phone. "Go ahead."

"We've got Sato."

There was no reply. The Xindi fired again, and the blast bounced off the wall just above my head. Instinctively, I leaned over Sato, protecting her body with mine. She didn't move.

"Can you hold your position?" Archer's voice buzzed in my ear.

"Affirmative." It wasn't like we had a choice. Another blast came, and this time I drew my own weapon and fired back just as two more lizards showed up on the other side.

Reaching for my belt, I grabbed a grenade, pushed the button, and tossed it down the hall immediately. There was no room for error with the grenades, which is why I normally didn't like to use them. But it worked this time. The two lizards stared at the grenade for a fraction of a second before it blew, and once again we only had the other two to contend with.

That was more than enough. I knew we couldn't hold them for long, and a very long moment later, my comm sounded. "Tucker to Hayes."

I'd never been so glad to hear his voice. "Go ahead."

"I'm ready to get you out." Thank God for that. "But I can only transport two at a time. I'm going to have to reset the buffer."

I turned to Kelly without hesitation and indicated Sato. "Take her." Then I relayed the message to Tucker. "Lock on Kelly and Sato." A second later, they dissolved, and I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. Figuratively, as well as literally. Sato was safe, the mission had succeeded, and Reed would get his friend back.

The weapons fire continued to come down around us. Money gasped as she was hit in the leg, but she didn't let it slow her down. She got in a couple of good shots, then I got one of my own, hitting one of the lizards squarely in the chest.

"Ready for two more," Tucker told me.

I nodded at Money and the other corporal. "You two next." After all, Parsons would kill me if anything more happened to her.

It was down to one lizard and me now, and from the looks of it, he had enough ammunition to last a good long while. I glanced down at my weapon and saw the warning light flashing, telling me I had a few more rounds at best. "I could use a change of scenery," I told Tucker, because it sounded more commander-like than "Get me the hell out of here."

"Stand by, Major."

I backed up, heading for the more substantial shelter of the next wall. If I was going to be stuck without ammunition, I was going to need as much red metal plating as I could get between it and me.

It was a rookie mistake, even for a guy with one working eye, but I didn't see the other lizard until it was dissolving in front of my eyes. I didn't even know I'd been hit until I rematerialized on the transporter pad with what felt like a six-foot long spike through my chest.

***

The next thing I knew, I was in a child's bedroom I'd never seen before, although I knew where I saw. Miguel and Heather had moved to Texas after I'd left Earth, and this was clearly Miguel and Heather's house. The ugly old army blanket over the frilly white bedspread, the military action figures beside the fashionable blonde dolls, the teddy bear in fatigues were all things I knew very well. As I stepped further into the room, I saw Heather, her dark hair spread over the pillow and her mouth slightly open.

I couldn't help myself. I went to the side of her bed and smiled down at her. Sleepily, she opened her eyes at smiled back. "Hi, Daddy. Are you home?"

Apparently, I was, although hopefully not in any way that was going to scar Heather for the rest of her life.

"Just for a little while." I could only imagine what Phlox was doing to my body back on "Enterprise." All things considered, I was glad to be here.

"I missed you." She reached out her arms. I hugged her tightly, burying my nose in her hair, trying to memorize exactly how she looked and felt.

Too soon for me, she let go and lay back down. "Night, Daddy." She rolled over and went back to sleep.

I kissed her one last time on the forehead and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

I hadn't been in this house before, but I still knew where Miguel would be. Sure enough, I found him in the room immediately beside Heather's, lying on our bed in a T-shirt and sweatpants. Well, I thought, it was February, even back in Texas.

Miguel didn't wake up when I came into the room. I looked at him for a long moment. He was fucking hot, not to mention brilliant and funny, and just about the best friend a guy could want. Funny how it had taken eight months away for me to really appreciate that.

I bent over and kissed him on the lips. Then, just like the Xindi ship, the bedroom faded away and I was in sickbay, looking into Phlox's concerned face.

"Nice to have you back with us, Major," he said, but he didn't look very relieved.

"I'm ready for duty, doctor," I replied automatically, even as my chest constricted and my head pounded like I was at a Sunday morning parade, after a very long Saturday night before.

"Lieutenant Reed is on his way."

"What?"

"He will be here momentarily," Phlox continued gently, like that was supposed to comfort me. He touched me briefly on the shoulder and turned away.

When Phlox said "momentarily", he meant momentarily. I'd barely had time to squeeze my eyes shut and try to suppress the pain when Reed was at my side. He looked so worried, I said, "I told him I was ready for duty."

"I'm afraid he's a bit of a mother hen."

I smiled, and the headache went from Sunday morning parade status to full-on New Year's Day hangover. "How's Ensign Sato?"

Reed looked at Phlox, who replied, "Her bio-signs are stable." I'd spent ten years with a doctor, so I knew what that meant. She wasn't out of the woods yet, but they weren't getting the epitaph engraved, either.

Which, really, was all we could ask for.

For a moment, I wondered if Reed was going to cry. I hoped to God he wouldn't. I didn't want to be mortally embarrassed on top of everything else.

He didn't cry, but his voice did catch as he said, "Thank you for bringing her home."

"All in a day's work," I joked. The headache and the chest pain was joined by a wave of nausea, and I swallowed hard to keep from throwing up on Reed's shoes. I knew he didn't even like it when I came on his sheets, although he tried to hide it.

Strangely enough, I still thought everything was going to be all right, until I shifted on the bed and suddenly, it felt like there was a hand squeezing my heart. The pain was too intense for me to catch my breath, and four words that had never previously crossed my mind showed up in big flashing neon letters. This could be it.

And I couldn't leave Reed alone without some kind of plan. "Use McKenzie," I told him, as soon as I gathered enough air to say it.

"What?" Reed leaned closer, which didn't really help.

"She knows the team." Everything about the team, and she was going to kick my ass for leaving her with the Fleeters. Well, I thought, that might not be a bad thing. Mayweather was an OK guy, after all.

"No more of that talk. That's an order." Reed almost snapped, and for a second, it was like old times again.

I had to tell him, I decided. He needed to know he hadn't been alone on the other "Enterprise", the way he thought he had. He needed to know that while fucking him during wartime might have been a mistake on my part, living with him during peacetime hadn't been. According to his logs, the other Hayes had been very much in love with his Reed. His Malcolm. Who knows what might have happened between us if Lorian hadn't been prepared to sacrifice his crew?

I was about to say all of this, when the fist squeezed tighter and I was gripped by a kind of pain I'd never felt before, and I'd been through some serious shit in my time.

***

"Major? Major Hayes?" I felt a hand on my shoulder, but I didn't want to open my eyes just yet. The sun was warm on my face, there was something soft underneath me, and I was as comfortable as I'd been in a long time. "Major Hayes! Please wake up, sir."

Sir. Which meant responsibility, which meant waking up and threat assessment and leadership. I should have known.

I stretched and opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that both my eyes were working, which was a very pleasant surprise. The second surprise was Corporal Hawkins looking down at me.

"Hello, sir." He smiled widely. "Are you all right?"

I took a deep breath. There was no pain, both my eyes worked, I could hear him very well. Everything was perfect. Except for one small detail. "Yes." I sat up. "Where are we?"

"We're not sure. We don't even know how long we've been here."

"We?" I looked past Hawkins and saw Private Banning and Corporal Rosenfeld standing behind him. "Oh." I felt a little guilty as I looked at Banning, and Rosenfeld was clearly embarrassed to see me. He avoided my gaze, instead looking at the lush green grass that covered the hillside we were all apparently hanging around on.

Awkward as the situation was, it wasn't the time to get into unrequited crushes and less-than-honourable ways of diffusing them, so I turned away.

"Do you know what's happening, sir?" Hawkins sounded hopeful.

"No," I admitted. "But we're MACOs." We'd handle it, whatever it was.

I stood up. I was in uniform, but I didn't have any weapons. Neither did any of the men, but for some reason, that didn't concern me the way it usually would. I felt confident, almost peaceful, and I knew exactly why.

"Come on." I stood up and looked around. There were grassy hills as far as I could see, but I didn't know what was beyond any of them. Picking a random direction, I glanced back at the men and told them, "Whatever it is, we face it together." I would take care of them, and they knew it. As I started forward, three voices responded,

"Yes, Major," and I headed down the hill with my men right behind me. Exactly as it should be.