Title: Habeas Corpus (You May Have The Body)
Author: Major Clanger
Email: majclanger@aol.com
Category: missing scene
Pairing: Tobias/Newman
Spoilers: S3 Shades of Grey
Season: 3
Rating: R

Warning: a little BDSMish behaviour (consensual)

Status: Complete
Summary: The off-world rogue teams were a bunch of nasty characters, weren't they?

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and all its characters belong to a shadowy organisation known as The Powers That Be (TPTB). Scarier and shadowier, even than the NID. In writing this story no copyright infringement was intended. However, the original characters, situations and stories are the property of the author. That is me – and  I write under the name of "Major Clanger" for reasons that are unclear, even to me – so please leave them alone. These stories may not be posted elsewhere without my consent, although if you really want to, you could send me an e-mail and ask. After you get the smelling salts under my nose, I'll probably say "yes".
Author's notes: I beta for someone with a fantastic imagination. And he recently wrote a couple of great fics featuring Claire Tobias – the embittered scientist/engineer from Shades of Grey. I've always loved that ep – it appeals to the secretive, non-comforming part of me. Any mention of BlackOps and sneaky-beaky stuff gets my pecker up, so to speak. But I digress. I think that the people who agreed to take part in Mayborne's off-world teams, must have been a little... what's the word? Flakey? Like to live close to the edge? Probably they didn't behave like this – but it's fun to play with these characters, isn't it? Thank you so much to Delease who not only betad this for me, but told me that the whole thing is suffused with a feeling of Despair. All in all it's pretty depressing.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

"I am every bit as good as she is!"

"Oh you're good," Newman leaned back and put his hands behind his head, "and you're a pretty good scientist too!"

"You're hilarious," Claire Tobias leaned over and twisted his earlobe, her scowl causing his mouth to twist in a sly smile.

He sighed. She was like a pre-schooler throwing a tantrum. His best course of action was to get as far away from her as possible. Of course, Newman was never one for taking good advice or he'd never have taken up his current job. Newman considered his options. Tobias was always at her best after she'd thrown a hissy fit: Goading her some more won out over the sensible option of calming her down. "Now now, you know what they say: They're the best of the best – and we're the best of the rest. Live with it."

"Bite me!" Tobias loomed threateningly over Newman, who reached up quickly and grabbed her upper arms. "Ow! That hurts!"

His mouth was close to her ear, his stubble scraped painfully across her cheek as he spoke. "But that's how you like it," he growled before releasing her.

Newman lay back and closed his eyes, grinning when the bed dipped as Tobias first sat down, then crawled under the covers. As he moved closer she rolled as far away as possible, curled up, foetus-like, at the edge of the thin mattress. Newman risked a hand on her hip, grinning to himself to note that she was taught as a bowstring and shaking with what he assumed was anger.

He was about to have a whole lot of fun.

Tobias did not push him off, and when he slid his hand up and pushed it under her arm to stroke her breast she relaxed a little, letting him touch her wherever he wanted. It was almost as if she had reached a point in her anger where she no longer cared what happened to her body. Again Newman's feral grin appeared, Tobias might be detached now, but she would soon return to herself.

His hands roamed at will for a few minutes, soft caresses here and hard nips there. After a short time she turned back to face him and almost attacked him in her furious passion. They gave in to their base needs, neither taking especial pleasure in the act – certainly neither of them gave any – both quickly reaching their climax.

Afterwards, as usual, they lay apart and slept until the morning.

Tobias woke first, grabbed her things and left without waking Newman. He slept on until he was roused by one of the team bringing him what passed for coffee on their improvised base. Experience had taught the others that when Tobias was riled – as she had been by the sudden announcement that O'Neill would join them – it was best to let her work out her nasty temper on Newman. Nobody had yet mentioned Tobias and Newman's 'relationship' to either of them, although it was a much discussed topic of conversation when they were not around.

It wouldn't hurt to let him know that they knew, however. "Nasty scratch," he pointed at Newman's shoulder.

Newman twisted round to look and made a face. "I've had worse." He sat on the side of the bed, bleary eyed, and sipped at the drink. "I swear this stuff gets worse. The least Mayborne could have done was send some decent coffee with O'Neill."

~*~

Tobias was scrutinising what appeared to be a lump of metal when Newman entered the lab. She didn't acknowledge his presence, merely continuing to give a running commentary on her findings to Colonel O'Neill, who was sitting in the corner.

Newman gave O'Neill a curt nod, leaned with a forced casualness against the workbench and stuffed his hands in his pockets. She was playing a blinder, he thought, pulling out all the stops to impress their new leader. After a few minutes of techno-speak Newman gave up trying to understand and left them to it. He winked at the Colonel on his way out and raised his eyebrows. "I hope you're an expert in 'Geek-Speak', Colonel O'Neill, Tobias is fluent."

Without breaking her stride Tobias rolled her eyes and continued to relate her findings. O'Neill looked interested, but Newman doubted that he understood a quarter of what she was rattling out.

Newman spent the day organising his teams into what amounted to scavenging parties, and relayed their plans to Mayborne. All in all a normal day for the abnormal base, with the exception that they now, apparently, had the famous Colonel Jack O'Neill on their side.

The Infamous Jack O'Neill, thought Newman with a wry grin.

The ex-leader of SG-1 spent no time making small talk, although he did join in some of the discussion at the evening meal. He made no special attempt to get to know any of the team. They all assumed – correctly – that Mayborne had provided O'Neill with their files, and saw no need to give him any more information than he asked for directly.

After dinner Newman sat with some of the others in the moonlit courtyard while they smoked the last of their cigarettes. Tobias perched on a stool, on the fringe of the small group, looking as if she might bolt at any second. This did not surprise Newman; she was taciturn and unsociable at the best of times – he doubted that outside of operational situations he had spoken more than fifty words to her in the last month. A wide grin spread over his face as he thought of what some of those words had been. As he watched she stood up and left silently, Newman idly wondered if she were still sufficiently angry to grace his bed with her presence.

"What are you thinking about, Newman?" Walker gave an exaggerated wink.

Newman stubbed his cigarette out and flipped it away. He didn't care where it landed, there were no white glove inspections here, just hard work. And hard play, he thought as he stood up. "I'm thinking I'm going to turn in. Big day tomorrow."

"Yeah?"

"Taking O'Neill out," Newman supplied. "See what he's made of."

"I think you'll find I'm made of the right stuff." O'Neill stepped out of the shadows. "Newman's right. It's a big day tomorrow. We should all turn in."

"We don't take orders from you," Walker's posture and tone were agressive. "Who died and made you king?"

"I'm not giving any orders. Just a suggestion." O'Neill turned and sauntered into the building.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The remainder of the group merely exchanged hooded glances.

Newman shrugged. "I'm going to get some shut-eye," he repeated.

His quarters were dark but he could make out Tobias' sleeping form in his bed. He grinned, she could no more stay away from him than he from her.

During the day when they had plenty to do they had no need of each other.

The nights were a different matter.

Mayborne had made the risks more than clear when he recruited his team. He had painted a very bleak picture indeed – especially laying emphasis on the fact that they would be on a planet with no means of getting home. The crew he assembled were mostly loners, those who had been rejected by the SGC – not on grounds of skill, but because they did not fit the strict psychological profile demanded by the Hammond. SG teams that went out from Cheyenne Mountain worked within a well established heirarchy, each a cog in a wheel that knew its place. Each SG team was far more than merely the sum of its component parts. Tobias, Newman and the rest of the rogue team really were the best of the rest – in some cases it had been a very close call indeed, and more than one member of the SGC would be shocked to know that they had only been picked despite the fact that on some of the practical tests they had come second.

Newman recalled a conversation during which Mayborne had revealed his second thoughts about Tobias. The woman's temper was legendary, and Mayborne had fought his superiors to get her on his team. He considerd her nearly the equal of Major Carter scientifically, but what had finally swung in Tobias' favour was precisely the reason that General Hammond had rejected her: A complete and utter lack of scruples and her total disregard for any other species than Homo Sapiens from Earth. Newman wondered if it was safe to get so intimately involved with such a wildcat. The thought made him smile. What was that overused Latin expression? Carpe diem? Well the day was over but Newman had plans for what – or more precisely who – he would be siezing that night.

It was the work of a few seconds to shrug himself out of his clothes, silently running his belt out of his pants he flexed it a few times. Silently he advanced on the sleeping the sleeping woman. He moved swiftly and, before she was fully awake, Tobias found her hands secured to the bedhead. A stream of invective made Newmann twist his mouth in a wry grimace.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" A furious flash of her eyes was his only reply. Oh boy, perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned her family. His comment didn't halt the flow of words, some of which he had never heard before, some of which were making suggestions of how he might best attempt to reproduce himself with various of the  artifacts they had collected. "Stop that, you're making me blush," he growled after one particularly inventive suggestion. "I don't even think that is possible."

He reached behind him and picked up his discarded t-shirt, which he sniffed disdainfully, and twisted it around his hands. Moments later the foul words were muffled behind the garment and Tobias could only show her anger and frustration by giving him the type of look that could fell a Jaffa at one hundred paces.

"Now, now, Claire. You know you like it, no need to fight."

The gag precluded any verbal reply she might have given, but her eyes spat enough fury at him to know that he was treading a very thin line. It was a warm, muggy night. Tobias had gone to bed wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. The shorts gave him no trouble as he yanked them down long, slim legs and tossed them on to the pile of clothes. He sustained a few bruises from the wildly flailing legs, but nothing serious. Newman wondered briefly if Tobias intended to hurt him, or if she was just playing along. He gave it little thought, as usual he thought only of his own pleasure and needs, she would have her fun he knew, but this time they would do it his way.

Her t-shirt presented more of a problem. Again Newman returned to the small pile of the next day's laundry and extracted his knife from his pants pocket. Tobias' eyes were gratifyingly large and concentrated on the black commando blade as he advanced on her. All movement stilled as he sliced from the hem to the neck of the t-shirt. It was only as he cut through the last threads that Newmann realised that he was mutilating his own clothing.

He ran the point of the knife down past the hollow at the base of her throat, along her collarbone and back then down her sternum. Newman drew lazy circles around one breast with the knife, mirroring the movement with the index finger of his free hand on the other. Until the knifetip brushed lightly across her hardened nipple Tobias did not move – indeed she hardly seemed to be breathing. But at that point she gave a huge, shuddering sigh and arched upwards.

"You like to live dangerously," he pushed her flat to the bed as the knife moved down across her stomach and traced a pattern around her navel before moving back up again to rest on the beating pulse in her neck. Newman had learned a thing or two during his military service, some more useful than others.

That night he used every trick he had ever learned in the many brothels he had visited – and added a few of his own invention. Torturing Tobias and himself until he knew that he could take no more, he stabbed into her three times before shouting his triumphant climax into the darkness. Prolonging the moment for Tobias a little longer, Newman finally took pity on her, for once taking great pleasure in her shuddering orgasm.

Later, after he had released her and was smoking the very last of his cigarettes he caught Tobias looking at him and knew that something had changed between them. As usual he was propped up against all the pillows, one hand behind his head, ashtray balanced on his stomach as he inhaled smoke into the deepest recesses of his lungs. Tobias was lying on her back, sheet pulled demurely up to her chin, staring almost unblinking at the grubby ceiling.

A small light, jury rigged to hang over the headboard, gave an eerie blueish glow, which added to the strangeness Newman was currently experiencing. Suddenly she spoke into the post coital silence.

"He's here to bring us all down."

"For an intelligent woman, you can be incredibly stupid, Claire." The use of her first name startled both of them into a shared look – which was quickly broken when both looked away equally quickly.

"It has nothing to do with how clever anyone is – except for maybe him and Mayborne," the tacit joint decision to ignore Newman's moment of weakness was a relief to both. "I bet that rat fink is shafting us somehow."

"He wouldn't do that."

"This is Mayborne we're talking about. Harry Maybourne. Colonel, USAF. And all round Rat Bastard of the highest order. Of course he's shafting us." Tobias propped herself up on one elbow, and ran her index finger lightly along the pathway of dark hair which lead from Newman's navel. Her hand disappeared under the sheet and to his relief came to a rest. "The difference between us, Newman, is this: I don't give a flying fuck."

"And you think I do?"

Her eyes, always indicative of her mood, flashed dangerously. She was about to use her knowledge against him, Newman could feel it. "I think," her hand squeezed, "that you are beginning to. That's a bad attitude to have. We're going to crash and burn. I can feel it in my bones." One more squeeze and she withdrew her hand, then withdrew her body from his bed. Swiftly she pulled on her clothes, and delivered her parting shot from the doorway. "Thanks for the ride, though. It's been fun."

~the end~