Tex-the recent addition to the crew of the Nathan James- was spending his first day since leaving Guantanamo getting familiar with the interior of the ship

He had already had his official talk with captain 'commodore' Chandler, bringing him up to speed on what was going on in the world, what was left of it anyway. He already knew that it was bad, but he didn't quite know that it was that bad. It was difficult keeping tabs on things while cut off inside a prison while fighting for your life.

To say that is was a shock when he saw all the footage they had been sent would be a major understatement.

And, now, he was here- running about on a small, destroyer- completely out of his comfort zone. He was not used to the constant rocking as they trundled through the waves, he always liked to keep his feet firmly on the ground

But, there were little options to take. It was either go with the Nathan James and keep moving, or stay at Guantanamo and slowly go nuts from the boredom. For Tex, it was an easy choice.


Finally, he recognised something somewhat familiar to him. The Officers Mess. He remembered it from when he was given the 'short and sweet' tour of the ship. He stepped inside and looked round the several crowded tables of crewmembers scattered round the room.

Tex spotted the arrange of drinks and food lined up on one of the tables. First thing on his list- coffee. He had to restrain himself from running all the way over there. So, he calmly paced his way there and immediately poured himself a cup of the piping hot liquid. He definitely did not groan in pleasure as he finally tasted the overwhelming smell of coffee hitting his nose.

In a few short gulps, the cup was already empty. Tex couldn't help it. It had been a long few months since the power went out and he and the remaining guards had to rough it. Tex then went for the yoghurt stack to the left of the coffee machine. He took three and held them all in one hand while he used his other hand to pour himself another cup of coffee

"You might want to take it easy" someone chuckled behind him

Tex turned round and behind him stood a small, lean figure with dark hair. Her hair was tied behind her hair in a knot. He looked her up and down

'Damn! she is hot' Tex thought to himself

He looked down at her nametag to file away for later. He read it with a smirk

Foster

'Interesting name' he said to himself 'Definitely gonna have to find her some time later'

"Uh…sorry, ma'am" Tex said in his thick Texan accent as he stepped to the side to allow her access to the food table

Kara just smirked and shook her head as she sidestepped him and grabbed a cup of coffee for herself. He watched fondly as he watched her walk back to her table. It was then that he realised that the person she had been sitting with was glaring daggers at Tex. Tex frowned and tried to capture a glance at his name patched onto the side of the man's jacket. All he could see was 'Gr-'. He tried to guess what could finish that

Grun? Granger? Gray? Gregory? Green, maybe?

All Tex could do was try to avoid the heated glare thrown his way as he sat down at an empty table. One question kept going through his head

'What was his problem?'

The rest of his breakfast, he ate in silence, acutely aware of the several glares that tall and brooding kept sending his way. He finally spotted his name to be Green and, by the look of his uniform and sheer muscle, he was definitely a SEAL. Not the kind of person you wanted as an enemy. Tex sighed resignedly. He had only been here one day and he already had one of the most deadly men on-board hating him. This was not gonna end well.

Tex's gaze shifted from his glaring war with Green as Foster stood up from her and Green's table and made her exit. As subtly as he could, Tex stood from his own table, binned his yoghurt cartons and placed his cup in the cleaning tray before exiting the Mess room. He looked left and right, trying to see which was she went. He went with his gut feeling and went left.

Quickly, he managed to catch up with her "Lieutenant Foster" he called out to her

Tex watched as her head spun round to face his with a half welcoming, half suspicious look that he had only seen a few times before. She looked him up and down curiously before staring back at him

"Yeah?" she responded

"Uh…I was just wondering if ya wouldn't mind awfully showing me round this rust-bucket later. I didn't really get to see much from my little…induction" Tex said relaxed, as if he was just having a regular conversation, not his attempt at flirting "When do you get off your shift?" he asked hopefully

He watched as Foster looked his over again, as if she was sizing him up for something

"Yeah, listen I got to get back to my shift" she said as she started to turn around. She started to turn around again to head back to the bridge as she said "But, maybe you could ask someone else" she said, a very slight warning tone in her voice that silently said 'you better get away from me now'

Of course, Tex, ever the flamboyant person, didn't pick up on it. He reached for her arm and squeezed gently to keep her from leaving "Hey, wait" he said "How about you just show me a few of the cool places that you navy's like to hang out at when you stop doing whatever it is that you do" he tried again.

Tex silently watched as Foster casted a small glance over his shoulder "You should probably leave me alone" she tried to tell him "Right now" she reaffirmed. Her voice sounded as if she was afraid something was going to happen.

Before he could say anything else on the matter, she was already out of his grip and had disappeared though the winding corridors in front of him. For a brief second, he thought he could feel someone watching him. He looked behind him to see no-one else.

"Huh" he huffed, amused

Maybe I could try my luck with that hot doctor I saw hanging around that helicopter bay he thought happily as he walked in the opposite direction as to where Foster went.


Several minutes earlier…

Danny and Kara were happy as they sat across from each other on their table. They had taken to spending their breaks together- never doing anything more than what friends would do- whenever they could when they both had free time.

Danny softly chuckled as Kara mentioned a joke currently circulating around the ship about Master Chief Jeter. It was good that jokes were still being passed around even with everything going on in the world. Good for morale. As long as they had that, then they could do anything they put their minds to.

He couldn't help that he might have stare longingly at her face as she carried on talking oblivious to the fact that Danny was totally and completely in love with her. He just kept looking at her, taking in every feature that was on that blessed face of hers.

That was until the door to the Mess Room swung open. He watched as a man with long, scraggly hair, wearing a navy green shirt with beige trousers walked in. Danny immediately recognised him as the one they had picked up while they were in Guantanamo Bay. The last man standing of the prison guards. He watched as the man looked about the room before settling for the food table.

The only thing that broke him out of his curious looks were when he heard Kara mutter "I'm going for more coffee" When he saw that that 'Tex' guy was still there, he wanted to pull on Kara's sleeve, bring her back to the table and keep her by his side until that guy left again. But, that would have been just too obvious. Still, that didn't stop Danny from not trusting the guy.

Danny had plenty of reasons to not trust him. Firstly, he had released convicted terrorists from a high security detention wing. If anything, that was just plain stupid. And it was helping enemies of the United States. If most of the world wasn't already too busy, Tex would have been branded a traitor. That was reason enough for Danny to keep an eye on his at the very least.

Secondly, and more importantly, the way that Tex was looking at Kara right now had him on edge. He looked at her as if she was his next prey. A guy like that could have been with plenty of women. There was no way in hell that Danny was gonna let this piece of crap guy try to take her away from him.

It took everything for Danny not to get up, go over there and punch this guy's face in until he couldn't see straight. Instead, his hand gripped tightly on one of the legs of the table. He didn't need to see it, he knew that he was gripping on so tightly his knuckles were going white.

When he saw that Tex was admiring Kara as she walked away from him, back towards Danny, he could have sworn that he heard the unmistakeable sound of metal beginning to bend. He just hoped that no-one else heard it.

He then noticed that Tex had realised that he was glaring at him. He had the intelligence to not call Danny out on it. As he watched Tex retreat to an empty table, Danny could have sworn that he looked a little bit…nervous.

'Good' Danny's mind was quick to supply 'Set him on edge. Show him not to mess with me'

"Danny?" Kara's voice broke him out of his silent anger "You okay?" Kara was back sitting where she was before, looking at him with concern filling her eyes. It was one of the things that Danny loved about her. With a single word, she could break him out of any raging feelings he had for anyone

"Uh…yeah. I'm fine" he tried to reassure her. He really was, as long as that Tex guy didn't come any closer to them.

They spent the next several minutes chatting about nothing in particular. Danny kept glancing over to Tex to make sure that he hadn't tried to get any closer to them.

"Anyway, I gotta get back to the bridge" Kara told him as she pushed herself away from the table

Danny smiled warmly up at her "Okay, beautiful" he whispered too quietly for anyone else to hear

Kara rolled her eyes but couldn't help the smirk from appearing on her face. Danny watched her as she exited the Officer's Mess. His senses were sent back on high alert when he spotted Tex getting up from his table

'Oh, hell no' Danny grumbled 'This is no coincidence' he decided. He watched as Tex exited the Mess room as well. Danny waited a second before pursuing them both. He kept his distance as he silently walked through the hallways. He came to a stop when he watched Tex and Kara talking. He couldn't hear what they were saying. But, he didn't have to. He would just watch and intervene only if he had to.

Then…the worst thing that Tex could have done, he did. Danny's breathing picked up pace rapidly. He silently snarled as he saw Tex grab Kara as kept her in place. He stepped forward and was about to bury this Texan hillbilly's head into the nearest bulkhead when he saw that Kara quickly looked over at him. Only then did he stop and think

'Not in public, Danny. Not in public, Danny' he kept telling himself as his breathing began to slow and his anger started to go back to a slight simmer instead of raging.

He watched as Kara spoke only a few more words to him and then left. Before Tex could see him, Danny turned and walked back to the Mess Room, planning on how he was gonna get the message to Tex.


Tex walked down the corridor, trying to find the allocated quarters he had been given by the captain. He had the number written on a piece of paper in front of him, and he was trying to match it to the number on the door.

After more time than he would ever admit to, he found the right one. All he knew about the person he would be bunking with was that it was a guy. He had to admit, he was a little disappointed with that. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

At first, he thought the empty bunk meant that he was alone

He was quickly corrected

Suddenly, his arm was pulled up behind his back with almost enough force to break it. Before he could react, his head was slammed into the upper bunk. His head shot back up. Immediately, he had a splitting headache and there were dark splodges beginning to form in his vision

"Gooooood!" he groaned loudly "What the hell?" he asked, dazed

He was flung onto the lower bunk, his hands shooting up to cup his forehead. When his vision started to clear enough to see a figure looming over him. It eventually cleared completely and he recognised that it was that SEAL that he saw earlier in the mess.

Green

"Man! What in the hell was that for?" he demanded

"If you ever touch Lieutenant Foster ever again…or any other member of this crew" he growled in a deep, threatening voice "I will break the bones in your legs into enough pieces so that you won't be able to walk straight for the rest of your life!"

Tex was about to ask who the hell he was talking about. Lieutenant Foster? Why was this guy so violent towards his? What concern was it of his what he did with one young-

'Oh' he thought as it clicked in his head 'Ohhhhh'

"Ah, shit, man" he said as he tried to apologise while throwing his hands up in surrender "I'm sorry. I didn't know she was yours"

He saw that Green became slightly nervous for a brief moment, nothing but panic in his eyes. But, he quickly pushed those thought down and brought the strong, confident Navy SEAL mask back to the surface.

"She's not mine" he growled in a less threatening voice "You're on a navy ship. You're gonna act accordingly to that, and respectfully towards everyone" He told him

Instead of trying to argue with him- cos, seriously, doing that was probably gonna get him killed at this rate- he went for the easiest option

"Alright, man" he agreed "I'm sorry. First day and all" he tried to pass it off "I'll try and keep my little…urges to a minimum"

Green pointed an accusing finger towards him as he said "See that you do" Green started to walk off towards the exit to leave when he turned back as he remembered something "Oh, yeah. By the way…I'm your new roommate. So, I get to keep an eye on you" Green stormed off out the door

Tex definitely did not whimper as he got that little piece of news

'Perfect' he groaned 'Just great. I not only managed to piss off the most deadly guy on-board by messing with his girlfriend, but I also have to bunk with him now'

He was definitely gonna have one hell of a headache in the morning, worse than any kind of hangover could cause.


Danny walked away, happily smiling to himself.

'Hopefully, that should end any ideas that guy had' he pointed out mentally

His smirk fell when Kara walked towards him from the opposite direction. She stopped right in front of him, one hand on her hip and one eyebrow raised. Danny was able to tell that the next sentence that she said would begin with a 'Well'

"Well?" she asked

'Knew it' he mentally smirked

"Is he still alive?" she asked, half teasing, half serious

"Yes" he told her "He'll have a splitting headache for a few days, but he'll be alright. I don't think he'll be a problem anymore"

Kara rolled her eyes playfully as she sighed. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Danny's neck as he wrapped one of his large arms around her waist

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a very possessive person?" she teased

"You" he chuckled "All the time"

Kara smirked as she recalled the memories of her telling him exactly that

"Well, I love you all the same" she told him

"Good. Then show it" he said, hinting at something more devious

"What do you mea-" Kara was cut off as Danny pulled her in for a long, loving kiss. She took a second before her brain caught up with her and she started to kiss him back.

One thing was for sure.

Danny was gonna be making sure Tex keeps his hands to himself.