A/N: Hellllooo happy readers! Finally got around to splitting this off from Protect. If you've been reading along, this is Chapter 185 from Protect.
As of today, 6/5, Chapter 238 was posted. If that was where you last read, please proceed to Chapter 54 as that is the old 238...if that doesn't make sense, message me...my brain has turned to moosh.
Anywho, Love you all. 3
"What's going on…?" Carolina asked after walking into the conference room for the meeting and seeing that Grif was looking unusually hostile as Tucker started rubbing the back of his neck. No one answered. Rolling her eyes she walked over to sit down. "Seriously, I heard the yelling next door in my office. You are very lucky it doesn't seem to bother Tyler. Someone start talking."
"Do you know what this asshole was doing last night?" Grif snarled pointing at Tucker.
"I assume something that displeases you," Carolina smirked as she leaned back in her chair. "Of course, if you don't just come out and tell me, I'll never know."
"Might be better if you didn't know," Wash mumbled shaking his head, his fingers pinching the brow of his nose.
"I don't know, Wash…from the yelling it sounds like we might need another counseling session," Carolina replied.
"No. What needs to happen is that Tucker needs to stay the hell away from my sister!" Grif screeched.
"Oh. That," Carolina scoffed, rolling her eyes at Grif's outburst. "Chill out. They're both adults."
"CHILL OUT!? You're telling me you knew!?"
"Keep screaming at me, I dare you," Carolina glared at him. He seemed to second guess himself after a minute and sat down in his seat next to Simmons, muttering under his breath. "Personal matters aside, we have business to discuss."
"Aren't we missing people?" Sarge asked looking around.
"York had to take Ally to school, Emma should be joining us in a minute," Carolina answered. "Depending on if she can get Oliver to sleep, North may be listening in from his end. Not sure where South and Locus are."
"They'll be here in a minute," Church answered popping up in the middle of the table.
"Hi Church!" Caboose greeted cheerfully.
"Hi Caboose…Anyway," Church huffed. "What's this about Tucker and Grif's sister?"
"Church, was that really necessary?" Carolina glared at him as Tucker lowered himself more in the seat and Grif's knuckles started turning white.
"What?" Church chuckled. "It's entertaining."
"It's only entertaining to you," Wash commented.
"Yea, but definitely not as entertaining as Ross throwing that knife at you," Church chortled.
Wash rolled his eyes as Carolina turned to look at him, "I thought you were going to do the smart thing and avoid going to check on her?"
"I was…and then I let myself worry," Wash sighed.
"Well then you deserve it," Carolina shook her head at him.
"What's wrong with Ross?" Tucker asked leaning forward. "Is everything ok?"
Wash waved a hand, "Everything is fine. Just dehydrated from being so sick. Mei is making her sit with an IV."
"Baby's ok?"
"Baby is fine," Wash nodded.
"Whoa, wait a minute," Simmons interrupted. "What baby?"
"The one Wash is having with Ross," Grif chuckled as Wash shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sure he was going to tell you all about it."
"Were you?" Simmons asked giving Wash a wide eyed look.
Wash scratched his head, "Yes I was going to, but has there really been a good time? Besides, Mila wouldn't let me announce it until right before everything went down so there really hasn't been time to go around and tell everyone. The only reason-"
"Wash," Carolina cut him off, "I think they're kidding with you."
"Oh…"
"You are kidding with him, correct?" Carolina raised an eyebrow at the Simmons.
"Uh, yea, sure," Simmons stammered.
"We get dibs on this one too," Sarge muttered.
Carolina and Wash exchanged looks before Wash narrowed his eyes, "What do you mean by dibs?"
"Have to even the teams of course," Sarge shrugged crossing his arms. "It's not fair if we let Blue team acquire yet more people."
"Sarge, there is no more Red vs Blue going on anymore," Grif rolled his eyes.
"Yea, besides," Tucker chuckled, "Wash is Blue team so kid is automatically Blue team."
"Genetics don't equal dibs!"
"Pretty sure they do," Tucker nodded.
"Then why is Grif's sister on your team and not with Grif on Red team?" Sarge questioned.
"That is an excellent idea Sarge," Grif turned to him. "I'm all for Kai joining Red team and not being on Blue team near a certain womanizer."
Wash gave Carolina a look as she laughed quietly as the others argued back and forth. The door opened and Donut walked in with Emma and North. Donut held out a container to Wash who took it with a confused look, "What are these…?"
"Those are for Mila. She keeps telling me that it's the only thing she can eat that doesn't come back up so I made her a baker's dozen so that she can feed that baby," Donut informed him as he sat down next to Caboose.
"You told Donut before you told me and Sarge?" Simmons
"I didn't tell anyone in this room except Tucker!" Wash huffed.
"Mila told me," Donut said. "Course she kinda puked unexpectantly in front of me so I kinda took a guess and I guessed right. Been around enough of them so wasn't all that hard."
"See, I told you we weren't missing much," North chuckled looking at Emma.
"Shut up," Emma rolled her eyes. She looked at Carolina, "We waiting on anyone else?"
"Just York," Carolina answered. "He can catch up if we want to get started."
"Isn't Kimball coming?" tucker asked.
"Why, so you can sleep with her too?" Grif grumbled.
"Oh my God, enough already!" Carolina snapped. "If I hear one more word out of either you on the subject of Kai, you will not be happy with your punishment. Understood?" Neither said anything. "I said, understood!?"
"Yes ma'am," Grif and Tucker both mumbled.
"Great," Carolina gave them both a smile. "Now. Emma, what kind of info have you gotten?"
"I sent summary reports to everyone with key points," Emma answered. "Garth finally got a hold of me this morning. Hargrove has been delivered to lock-up and will be questioned in due time. I have acquired the location of the rest of his undercover labs and forwarded the information to General Davies who is personally seeing to any and all investigations."
"So what I'm gathering from everything," Carolina replied, "Is that our part in this is basically done."
"Basically," Emma shrugged. "I mean…I'm still going through things so who knows."
"There's also the issue of CT still being a threat," Wash pointed out.
"Just have Church deal with her the way he dealt with the first dude," Tucker waved a hand.
"Uh yea, not happening," Church replied.
"I feel like we should wait until she actually pops back up again to do anything about her," North suggested. "It's not like she's trying to burn us down as we speak. It's not really pressing until she comes after us again."
"And what if by letting her go, she comes back even stronger?" Carolina asked.
"She's alone. The world think she's dead. There's only so much blending in she can do."
"We should at least have the UNSC put out flyers with her picture on them," Wash sighed scratching his head. "Then once we get any kind of hint about where she is, we'll talk about who's going after her to bring her in."
"Any objections?" Carolina asked looking around the table. No one said anything. "That's one thing. If I feel we need to revisit the situation, we will."
"Great. So we can go?" Grif asked standing up.
"No. There's still a few things we have to discuss," Carolina raised an eyebrow at him.
"What do you want me to do about access for your old pilot?" Emma asked.
"Limited."
"How limited are we talking?"
"Same kind of limited we gave South when she first showed up. Until we know with one hundred percent we can trust her," Carolina replied.
"Got it."
"So was there a reason you were so late?" Carolina asked as she changed Tyler on her desk.
"Ran in to Niner downstairs," York answered. "Miss anything important?"
"Not really. We were just discussing a few things."
"Great. See didn't even need to be there," York smirked at her. "Make sure you make that snug enough."
Carolina looked up at him, an eyebrow raised, "You want to change him?"
"You're doing fine," York smiled at her.
"Then shut up," Carolina huffed. "Hear what happened to Wash earlier?"
"Let me guess, it involves a knife coming at his head?" York chuckled.
"How'd you know?"
"I may have been there when it happened," York shrugged sitting down in her chair.
"You were bugging your mother, weren't you?" Carolina raised an eyebrow at him.
"Possibly."
"I told him not to go in there…" Carolina shook her head.
"You know how well he likes to listen," York chuckled. "She seemed better though when I left."
"That's good. I know the morning sickness is kicking her ass still. Between her and Emma, I'm glad I just had the nausea."
"You threw up a couple times," York said after a thought. "Once of which was on Wash's shoes."
"Which was right after running through the course with South," Carolina sighed.
"Still."
"So is Niner settling in ok?" Carolina asked changing the subject.
"She appears to be. She's been spending a lot of time going over the Pelicans we have with Jensen and Lopez," York informed her. "I think she's still waiting for us to say get out."
"Which won't happen. It's just going to take a bit for all of us to trust her fully. After all, we've been apart for how many years and she's been working with Hargrove," Carolina pointed out.
"True enough. One thing that is still hard to wrap my head around is that she had no clue none of us were involved in what he was doing."
"No way to prove anything," Carolina sighed. "You want to handle bath-time tonight?"
"Sure," York nodded. "I mean, I know I for one hope that what she's saying is true and that she had no idea any of us were involved."
"I'm sure that's the case," Carolina replied as she picked Tyler up off the coffee table where she had changed him and settled him against her. "At least you showed up for the meeting."
"Yea, I took notice that South and Locus were missing. We have any idea where they are?"
"Not a clue."
"Rumor has it they're moving in next door to Wash."
"I heard something of the sort," Carolina nodded. "I'm sure we'll hear all about it."
"Still mad at me?" Wash ventured as he walked out from the kitchen. Ross was sitting on the couch picking at a muffin. She paused and threw him a glare. "I honestly didn't think Mei would make you sit there with an IV…"
She rolled her eyes as she popped a piece of the muffin into her mouth, "Whatever. Better safe than sorry. Your concern is appreciated."
"Can it be appreciated without a knife getting throw at me?" Wash gave a laugh.
"Don't take all the fun out of me being annoyed at you."
"Oh good. Annoyed I can deal with," he chuckled. "Mad? I would've fretted all night and probably not slept for fear of waking up with said knife at my throat next."
"I'm not that mean…"
"Whatever you say," he chuckled. "How's your muffin taste?"
"Heavenly," she smiled. "I will have to stop by the kitchen and thank him. He didn't have to do that."
"Don't tell York, but he snuck chocolate to Carolina all the time," Wash chuckled. "And strawberries to Emma. Donut's a good one to have around."
"Especially since he won't give me the recipe," Ross sighed.
"Less work for you," Wash pointed out.
"True. Speaking of work-"
"Yes I would love it if you stopped coming to drill."
"Not what I was going to say," she glared at him. He gave her an innocent look. "When do you want to start working on the baby room?"
"That is an excellent question," he sighed. He scratched his head thinking, "I suppose I can start cleaning it out this weekend. There's not a lot of stuff in there thankfully. Just a few odds and ends. Any thoughts on what you want to do in there?"
"Not really, no," she said after thinking it over for a few minutes. "Just figured that they're probably going to be here before we know it and that things should probably be as close to ready before then just so we don't have to scramble."
"Makes sense," Wash nodded. "I will clean it out this weekend and dust and we will go from there."
"You are the best," Ross smiled at him, crinkling her nose. "I was also thinking that when it comes time to picking up some things that unless you are gung-ho about going with, that I ask Carolina and Emma…"
"That would be fine with me. You know I don't really do the whole shopping thing."
Ross nodded. "Big stuff though, I want you to come."
"What kind of big stuff are we talking?" he asked curiously.
"Furniture."
"I can definitely come along for that. You just tell me when you want me and I will happily oblige."
"You will also be pleased to know that I have told all of my friends," Ross huffed.
"Good. The rest of mine know too," Wash smirked at her. "Sarge said they're claiming he or she for Red team." Ross gave him a confused look. "Don't ask...he's still on about it even after finding out that it was all a sham."
"Must be a pride thing," she shrugged. "And if it makes him happy for now, sure. Though once they're old enough, they will get to decide where they want to be."
"I'm sure that will make Sarge sooo happy," Wash chuckled.
"Definitely."