It was simple fact: Captain Hilary Becker did not get sick. Not because he was superhuman, not because he was some sort of neurotic germophobe; it just didn't happen. He worked out every day, went through litres of orange juice a week – he just liked the taste – and as far as he could tell, he'd just been blessed with an above-average immune system. Which was good, because he didn't have time to get sick.

He was head of security at one of the most vital and covert agencies in the world; in charge of hundreds of highly-trained soldiers; and, perhaps most challengingly of all, responsible for keeping a team of highly intelligent, ludicrously accident-prone scientists alive and at least predominately unharmed.

He said predominately, because really, he was only human, and trying to keep track of the lot of them was like herding kittens. Errant, daft, self-sacrificing kittens.

So, no. Just looking after them was a full-time job, and that wasn't even his full-time job. And despite all the jokes and the good times they had, he took what he did deadly serious. They weren't just his charges; they were his friends. And more. He would protect each and every one of them to his dying breath or theirs, and he wouldn't bother wasting the breath to say which he'd rather. He'd die for them in a heartbeat, no questions asked and no hesitation. He just would.

Until such a day that happened, though, he would do everything he could do to avoid having to make the choice. That meant not only being present, but performing at his best each and every day. Which was why, when he woke up that Monday morning with a tickle in his throat, he wrote it off as dryness, sleeping with his mouth open, nothing more. A hot cuppa with his orange juice that morning cleared it right up, and he went on the rest of his day like nothing was the matter. Because nothing was.

Except the next day, it was back. In force. It felt like he'd swallowed sawdust and glass shards sometime in the night, and chased it with some paste to account for the strange tackiness in the back of his throat. Tea helped a bit, but by the time he made it in that morning, it was back the way it was.

"You alright?" Connor asked that afternoon, when he ran into him in the hall. It was the first he'd seen of him that week, which was rather strange, given their...situation. No. Not situation; that was too cold, too calculating, too...well, it was too Becker for what they had between them.

A relationship. That's better, he thought. Still didn't do it justice, he didn't think, but in lieu of anything more fitting, it would have to do.

"I'm fine," he told him. And he was. Even if his vocal chords felt like two scraps of sandpaper grinding up against each other.

Connor nodded, and for one hopeful moment, Becker thought that might be the end of it. Knowing Connor as he did, he really should've known better. "Right," he said. "'Course you are. I was just askin' 'cause you seem a little...I dunno, out of sorts."

"That so?" Becker arched an eyebrow. He'd only just run into him, and Connor wasn't exactly the most perceptive.

"Well, yeah, if you don't mind me saying. Sounds like you're a bit hoarse. Do a lot of shoutin'?" he asked with a cheeky smile and that chipper little lean-in he did when he thought he was being clever.

Becker eyed him a moment, eyebrow still arched, and even though there was no smile on his face, there was one in his eyes. His throat was sore, and there was a steady throbbing starting at his temples, but that didn't change the fact that Connor's grins and good cheer were almost infectious.

In hindsight, not the best choice of words.

"Loads," he told him dryly. And this time, when he spoke, he made a special effort to sound normal. Not hoarse at all. Not one bit.

Which apparently backfired, if the little wrinkle of Connor's nose and the furrow of his brow was any indication. "Not comin' down with somethin', are you?" It sounded like a jab, but Becker could hear the underlying seriousness of it. He was genuinely asking that question.

Becker nearly snorted at the very thought of it. "Absolutely not." In all the years he'd known Connor and vice versa, the closest he'd ever come to being sick was the odd hangover, and even then, he usually suffered a lot less than the rest of them. Fast metabolism and a lot of experience getting utterly pissed came in handy. That Connor would even think a little rasp was cause for concern, while charming and quaint, was ridiculous.

It was Connor's turn to raise an eyebrow. Or two, as it were, in his trademark 'I don't buy it but I'm butting out now, thanks' look. "If you're sure," he said, and started to turn to go back to...whatever it was he was doing, but stopped before he got more than a step or two, spinning back around. "Oi, I meant to ask you – you have any plans for the night?"

"As of now, it's a football match and takeaway from the Thai restaurant on the corner."

"Right. And uh, are those plans, y'know, locked in?" He illustrated the point in his usual fashion: with his hands, emphatically. "Or...?"

And despite everything, Becker couldn't help the small, if vaguely exasperated smile that turned up the corners of his lips ever so slightly. "I dunno. Really had my heart set on curry tonight."

Connor couldn't have looked more like a kicked puppy if he'd had ears and a tail. He practically deflated, face falling pitifully and shoulders slumping. "Oh," he said. "'Course. Can't compete with curry, can I?" As jokes went, it was a weak attempt. It was also classic Connor.

He had to take pity on him. With a roll of his eyes, Becker put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm kidding, Connor," he said. "You're welcome at mine, if you like."

And just like that, Connor lit up again, his big dimpled grin stretching right back out, as if it'd never left his face in the first place. "Brilliant! I'll just bring the beer then, shall I? What time's the match start?"

"Quarter to eight."

"I'll be there at seven then, yeah?"

Becker nodded, even though he knew chances were good Connor wouldn't turn up until at least half past. And it was even odds he'd turn up empty-handed and realize he'd forgotten the beer, then insist on going back out to get it, even though Becker already had a twelve pack chilling in his refrigerator.

Which was why the match actually started at eight on the dot. Becker's way of adjusting to what he fondly referred to as "Temple Time," without losing his bloody mind or his bloody temper. He honestly couldn't have said which would go first, not with Connor.

And yet, the moment Becker looked at that big, dimpled grin and the way it scrunched up his eyes at the corners and crinkled his nose just so, it was hard to worry about losing either. As long as it was never Connor he had to say goodbye to, he could happily suffer the odd quirk.

"Brilliant," Connor said again, and after a quick glance 'round the hall, stood up on his toes to press a quick kiss to Becker's cheek, before turning about and heading back on his way.

It took Becker a second, but then, "Connor, there are camera's in the halls." The rebuke lacked any bite, though. As much as Becker liked to stay professional in the workplace, there had been enough slip-ups since he and Connor first started seeing each other that it was perhaps the worst-kept secret in the ARC. Which, strangely for a so-called secret organization, was actually saying a lot. No doubt he'd hear about it from his men on the monitors before lunch that day, but a quick look would silence them, and that would be that.

It was worth it, anyway. And Becker would have to be a real arse to, what, tell Connor he had to stop being affectionate? He was already making an effort, and Becker would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the odd reminder. Connor was his. And anyway, what was a quick peck in the hall going to tell anybody that the bruises on his and Connor's necks wouldn't tell them?

Regardless, he didn't linger in the hall after that. There was a lot of work to be done, and unless he wanted to be ordering into the office that night and listening to the game on his desk radio – it wouldn't be the first time, not even that month – he needed to get to it.

Which he did. He spent the day doing his rounds through the ARC. Routine security checks, testing a few new upgrades Connor had done on the system. Not that they didn't trust him, because they did; Connor was a bloody genius, responsible for nearly all the infrastructure systems in the ARC in some way or another. He just got ahead of himself sometimes, forgot little things that had, once or twice, turned into not-so-little things. Tests just helped point out the bugs before they became real problems. Because Lord knew they had enough of those.

That afternoon, for instance, there was a dinosaur. There's always a bloody dinosaur. It was in the lake this time, a nothosaur Connor said. Ten feet long, and less interested in harming people than protecting the eggs that had come through the anomaly with it. The thing was harmless, really, but closing down the anomaly had been a bloody nightmare. They always were, when they were underwater. There was no way to really lock the things, and they'd had to get the nothosaur herded back through before the thing closed.

In the end, nobody was hurt, but there wasn't a one of them in the exclusion zone that escaped the ordeal dry. Some of them just got a bit damn, like Connor, splashed on the banks when it made a pass. But Matt, Becker, and a handful of his men, all ended up soaked to their knickers in frigid lake water and spitting up algae before all was said and done. The unfortunate side effect of trying to keep from having half a dozen nothosaurs hatch at the bottom of a London lake, and the momma having trouble seeing the reason behind a handful of blokes in a loud machine circling them on the surface. She'd capsized them, and they'd all gone for a little dip, ended up moving the eggs through the hard way and dragging their miserable, shivering selves out when it was all over.

He was at his SUV, leaning against the boat and staring balefully at yet another mobile sacrificed to the cause when he heard a whistle and looked up to see Matt approaching.

"Bit brisk," he said conversationally. He had a blanket wrapped round his shoulders that Becker wasn't petty enough to envy him for. But he'd be lying if he said he didn't wish he had one. They really needed to start supplying the trucks better.

Might be worth investing in waterproof mobiles while we're at it, he thought. He knew a lost cause when he saw one, though, and tossed his phone back into the boot to join its other fallen brethren and shifted his weight to his other foot. "I've gone in worse," he said. The words formed a fog in front of his face as he said them, a sign of the chill in the air. As if he hadn't felt bloody miserable enough before. "Could've stood to be a bit warmer, I guess." He talked a big game, yeah, but the only thing keeping his teeth from chattering was sheer force of will, and it felt as if his joints were creaking when he walked. A side-effect of the cold water, he supposed. He really did need to look into finding one of those blankets for himself.

"We'll be going soon, at least. Get into something drier when we get back to the ARC."

"Just as soon as we're done dragging the lake." It was only mostly a statement. With this lot, things had the odd habit of springing up. He still wasn't entirely sure they'd gotten all the eggs up, and he wanted to make bloody certain there wouldn't be any more of these things popping up. Last thing the UK needed was another Loch Ness monster.

Matt nodded, pulling the blanket up a little tighter round his shoulders. "Aye, just as soon as we're done dragging the lake."

And then it would be back to the ARC, back to paperwork and cleanup and then the rest of the normal routine, and bloody hell, four hours had never sounded so long before as they did now. That steady throbbing in his head from before had become a sharp pound, like his head was a drum and someone was taking the business end of a screwdriver to it in time with his pulse. It wasn't the worst he'd ever had, but it certainly didn't bode well for the rest of the day.

But then he would be home. He could down some aspirin, order his food, drink his beer, watch his match, and spend some time with his boyfriend. He'd be better off, then. Warm and dry and sprawled out on his gloriously comfortable sofa with Connor, he'd be fighting fit come morning.

Now where are those bloody blankets?