A/N: Again, thanks for all of the kind words. They mean the world to me. I'm just letting my muse tell this one and staying out of the way. Blame him for the scientific inaccuracies. Small military note - I can't for the life of me figure out TN's military structure. I believe it's officers are on a Navy system and it's NCO's are more Army/Marine. In any case, I'm sticking with Navy for Wash and Taylor. Again, please enjoy and let me know your thoughts.


It's three days after her memorial service when they finally come across a rare spot of good luck (if one could call it that) and are thus able to locate her tags. It happens quite by accident during a routine recon trip through the jungle area a few clicks to the north of Terra Nova. The tags are badly damaged, burnt and bent nearly in half, and completely non-operational (which explains why multiple attempts to find her body using the tracker within them have come up empty).

It's Jim Shannon who picks them up, knowing exactly what they are without even having to wait for verification. Her name is just barely visible on the charred metal. Oddly enough, it's her nickname – Wash – that he sees clearly.

"Hers?" Reilly asks quietly.

"Yeah."

"So they dumped her body and left it to the dinos then?" There's obvious anger and distaste in her tone – she's furious about the treatment of her lieutenants' corpse. It's wrong and just hammers home the lack of anything good or moral about the men who had taken over Terra Nova for a few horrific days.

"Probably," Jim replies, his fingers closing over the dog tags. Wash hadn't always worn them around her neck (always on duty, most of the time off as well), but they'd always been somewhere on her person. Like any good soldier, she'd felt somewhat naked without them. Now, they're all that remain of her.

"It doesn't seem right not to be bringing her body home to the Commander."

"No, it doesn't," Jim agrees. "But finding these will mean a lot to him."

Reilly nods, but it's clear that something is bothering her. Jim briefly considers leaving it alone – he's not her CO. That said, in the absence of Wash, he's kind of stepped into the role until a replacement can be found. Which means that her soldiers – her kids – are now his.

"What is it, Corporal?"

"Sir, I know I shouldn't be asking this, and it's none of my business but –"

Jim cuts her off, knows exactly what she's thinking about. It's the same thing everyone else in the colony has been. "He's holding up. He'll be all right."

"We all know what she meant to him."

"Honestly, Reilly, I doubt any of us really had a clue in the world just how much she meant to him. But – and I hate to say this - he's been through this before; he'll make it through. If for no other reason than because the Colony needs him."

"That's…pretty unfair."

"Yeah, it is." He glances around, looks up at the sky. It's growing dark quickly. "We should be getting back," he tells the corporal. "I'm in no mood to play chicken with a Slasher tonight."

She inclines her head to show her agreement, then moves silently around to the passenger side of the Rover. He gets into the drivers side, powers up, and heads back to Terra Nova, Wash's tags still clutched tightly in his hand.


A week into their on-foot trek back to Terra Nova (he's taking the very long way around, through the jungle) and he's realized three things about this stimmed-up version of Lieutenant Alicia Washington.

First, this woman who is already intense is downright fucking terrifying like this. In the seven days that he's been forcibly injecting her with the stims, she's barely slept more than a few hours (and then only during her coming down periods).

She's hyper alert and hyper aware. Every one of her senses is in overdrive, and her body is almost painfully rigid with anxiety. While her vitals have seemed to calm, it's clear that every moment for her is like standing on the edge waiting to jump off – or be pushed off. Funny thing is, he's pretty sure that her conscious mind is completely unaware of all of this. When she's high on the stims, there's no sign of the good lieutenant. It's all soldier, no woman.

The second thing he notices is just how bad the coming down period is for her. During that time, she almost completely loses her ability to control her body. She's, of course, still quite badly wounded, and she seems to feel that in abundance once the stimulants are stripped away from her. Her memory also seems to fade in and out, as if suggesting that only the drugs are permitting her brain to function at a higher level.

No, Lucas corrects – a more instinctual primal level.

Drugged up, she falls into protect and attack mode. Her body becomes a vicious weapon that can't be slowed by human emotion or doubts. It's fascinating.

The third thing he realizes as he wipes blood away from his lip is that even coming apart at the seams, she's still dangerous as hell when she's slipping backwards. He'd learned that lesson the hard way when he'd turned his back on her after noticing her fall to her knees in pain.

She'd then thrown herself into him, grabbing at his neck and face with her hands. He'd been completely surprised (he knows just how weak she is, has seen her shaking ferociously after each come down) and thus allowed her to get in a couple good hits before coming to his senses and slapping – well punching really – her back and away away from him.

Now, they're both bloody. Difference is, she's furious. He's intrigued.

"I will remember that, Lieutenant," he says with a small smile. "I won't turn my back on you again."

"Good idea," she growls out. She's blinking quickly, trying to stay conscious, fighting not to slip back beneath the dark waves that are crashing towards her.

"I'm sorry about hitting you."

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

"Lucas, you don't have to do this. He's your father. No matter what you think, no matter what you've done, he still loves you."

Lucas snorts, his emotions shifting towards much uglier ones. If the lieutenant knows she's in danger, she doesn't show it. She figures after all she's gone through over the last couple of weeks, what more could he do to her?

Kill her? Oh please, bring it on. Whatever is on the other side of the big white door that she's now glimpsed twice in her life has to better than this.

"My father doesn't have a clue what love means."

"Yes, he does," she replies simply, tiredly. She wearies of this argument, one they've had parts and pieces ever since he's been drugging her up.

This time is different, though. This time, she realizes quickly (not quickly enough) that he's not bantering around with her. He's actually angry. Maybe it's how tired he is. Maybe he's still in pain from his own wounds. Whatever it is, he's no more in the mood to play around than she is.

He stalks towards her, handsome and oddly graceful. When he gets to her, he lifts her up by her forearms, grinning cruelly when he sees her legs go rubbery beneath her, refusing to support her weight. "And how would you know that?" He reaches out and grabs a handful of her hair, giving it a none too gentle tug that makes her already fuzzy brain go gray. "Do you actually remember anything?"

"No," she admits. "But I know."

He laughs, but there's no humor in the tone. "You knew my mother, Lieutenant. You may not remember that right now –"

"I remember her," Wash inserts quietly. And she does. Sure, the memories are fuzzy and foggy and she can locate neither time nor place with any of them, but she absolutely recalls the face of Ayani Taylor. Could never forget it.

"…but you were friends. At least she considered you one. My fathers' favorite soldier. Bet she had no idea what was really going on in your head."

His words are biting and furious, an almost violent expulsion of rage from a boy who never quite learned how to become a man. Instead, his maturity had been frozen at the state it had been in when he'd been forced to watch his mother tortured and then butchered in front of him.

Now, a young boy who she recalls as quiet, brilliant and sensitive has been destroyed by hatred, and turned into a psychopath completely lacking in simple human compassion or care. What he's doing here is grotesque and she knows that he must know that as well. He just doesn't care anymore.

And even in her damaged state that scares the hell out of her.

"Lucas, you have to…you have to stop this." The word "please" lands on her lips, but she can't quite force it out. Isn't that far gone just yet to resort to begging.

He ignores her, instead tightening his hold on her hair. She tries not to show him her physical reaction to the pain he's causing, but the lack of active drugs in her system, her exhaustion and her head injury are cocktailing together to steal all the control she has left away from her.

"Tell me the truth: when you met my mother, were you already in love with him? Were you sleeping with him then, too?"

"No," she answers.

"I don't believe you."

She can hardly believe that she's willingly playing his game, but something in her desperately needs to make him know the truth. And though he doesn't know it or care to, she's saying what she is as much for Nathaniel's honor as for her own.

"I swear to you, Lucas, your father and I were just friends. We never did anything. We never even thought about it." She's somewhat amazed by just how strong the conviction in her words is considering that she can scarcely loop two mental images together in her head. Her memories are shattered at worst and shaky at best, but she's certain of her words.

He releases her then, his body straightening. "I believe you. You're honorable and loyal. That's what you are, what you've always been isn't it? That's what made you the perfect little soldier for my dear father. So moldable."

"Your father is a good man."

In retrospect, considering the pain she's already in, perhaps she shouldn't have said that last bit. What greets her in response is the back of his hand across her already bruised face. It's not the hardest hit she's ever absorbed, but it gets the job done just fine. Gasping in surprise, she hits the far wall of the cave they're hiding out in for the night and staggers backwards.

Well, she tells herself, at least she'll get some sleep. That's something.

Lucas, unfortunately, has other ideas for her completely. She feels him climb atop her, holding her down with a hand against each shoulder. For a moment, primal panic goes through here, and she struggles, even manages to clip him a time or two. He's so much stronger, though.

"Stop it," he growls. "Just stop. I'm not going to…I saw them do that to my mother. No matter how much I want to hurt you, I would never do that to you."

It's a sign of how terrified she is of what she'd feared he was going to do to her that she's somewhat relieved when she sees him pull out one of the syringes instead. That relief only last seconds before she's thrashing again.

She knows what will happen once he injects her – she'll slides away, her mind becoming a spectator, utterly unable to stay in control. Coming down is somehow worse simply because she's an active participant in that part, but she completely fears what her body is made to do while she's high on the stims.

And she fears what the stims are doing to her.

She's in desperate need of medical attention for her head wound. Aside from that, she exhausted and likely quite sick thanks to lack of adequate food and drink. The stims are keeping her patched together like an extremely strong brand of duct tape, but even they can't keep her moving forever.

But she supposes they don't need to.

Only long enough to get her back to Nathaniel.

That's Lucas's plan here, she figures – drug her up, control her, and then set her upon Nathaniel in a state where she won't be able to keep herself from trying to hurt him. Worse, it'll be nearly impossible to stop her without injuring her.

Either way, likely a win-win for Nathaniel's completely bent on vengeance son.

"You don't have to do this," she tells him. She thinks for a second to remind him that she's never done him any harm, always treated him kindly and with respect, but stops herself before she can – simply because she knows it doesn't matter.

His hatred towards her boils down to two things – her love for his father and her loyalty towards him. Those, in Lucas's book, are unforgivable offenses.

He smiles almost lazily at her, then slams the syringe into her arm. She gasps in pain, ghosts of previous injections making her flesh at the point of injection extremely sensitive. Which she know won't compare at all to how her skin will feel in a few minutes – once he's cocktailed the stims.

"I'll see you in a few hours," he tells her, just before he pushes the second syringe into her. "On your way back down."


He stands outside of the Commander's office for almost five minutes (hell, maybe more, he thinks as he shifts foot to foot) before the deep voice sighs and says, "You going to stay out there all day or come in and talk to me, Shannon?"

"I'm coming in, sir," Jim replies quietly, stepping inside.

When he sees the wary expression on Jim's face, Taylor immediately stands, his muscles coiling in anticipation. "What's wrong? Problem on the recon?"

"No. Everything was fine. Everyone is fine. But we…uh…I think we found her."

"Her? Was...Wash?"

"Yes, sir. Her tags at least." He holds up the wrecked pieces of metal, allowing them to catch the light in the room. They seem to gleam a bit. "The tracker is completely broken. Not quite sure how, but it looks like the tags took some of the sonic blast that Lucas hit her with."

"Makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose. Where did you find them?" Taylor asks as he takes the tags from Jim, turning them over in his hands. He touches a button on the side, the one that should power it up, but it's too far damaged for that. He'll need to pull out the memory card by hand, and see what she has on it. Alive, the idea would infuriate her, but in the next world, he has to think she'd want him to see what she held most dear to her.

"About three clicks north. Around the Sutter Fork."

Taylor frowns at that. "Awful long way to go to bury bodies. You find anyone else out there?"

"No, sir. We were thinking maybe she got…"

"Dragged there by the wildlife."

"Yeah."

"I see. Thank you."

"Sure. Anything you need, Commander?"

"No. But thank you for not giving up until you found these. That means a lot to me, Shannon. It'd mean a lot to her."

"She meant a lot to my family, sir. And to me."

Taylor nods, then turns his attention back to the tags. He doesn't even hear Jim let himself out, doesn't really care. A few seconds later, he's got his knife out of his belt and is working on prying the memory card out.

Everything else can wait.


Somewhat shockingly, he's not always an insufferable bastard on her way down from the stims (which thanks to her prior exposure to the drugs occurs about three times a day – a hideously painful and maddening cycle indeed).

Sometimes, he says nothing at all to her, instead just puts a blanket over her to help lessen the harsh tremors going through her abused body. Other times, he helps her eat (normally this would be humiliating for her, but she's not so proud as to be willing to go without food – in this case some kind of broth – just to make a point) and then holds her when her stomach inevitably tries to reject the food just a few hours later. On those occasions, she feels him rubbing her back, whispering into her ear, telling her everything is going to be just fine.

Strange words from a man she knows is trying to destroy her. But for reasons she can't completely understand (though she suspects she could if she could just remember), his odd occasional caretaker behavior has a ring of honesty to it. Like maybe this is something he actually likes to do – maybe even enjoys doing.

One night, while she's shaking like a junkie in withdrawal (which she realizes with some degree of bitterness is exactly what she is now), he slides himself behind her, and loops an arm around her, pulling her to his chest.

Normally, she'd protest or fight back, but right now he's very warm, and she's quite the opposite, and the way her head feels, she's struggling to remember why she hates this man so much. She knows the reasons are there, but for the life of her, she can't quite figure out why they matter.

"Tell me a story?" he asks, intertwining the fingers of his right hand with hers. It's an intimate motion, but she makes no move to pull away.

"About what?" she whispers in response to his rather bizarre request, her teeth chattering. He pulls her closer, the fingers of his left hand settling atop her cotton covered abdomen. She feels him drawing lazy circles there, each touch far more intense then he realizes. Thankfully, as the withdrawal increases, the sensitivity of her skin decreases. A weird and not necessarily beneficial trade-off.

"Whatever you remember."

"I don't remember much."

"I know. Tell me about my mother." Such an oddly childish request indeed.

Wash thinks about this for a moment, trying to force her exhausted brain to function. She finally manages to pull forth a mental image of Ayani Taylor.

"I remember…I think I do anyway…the first time I met her."

"Is my father in this story?"

It takes her a few seconds, but then she shakes his head. "Not really. He wasn't able to come home so he sent me instead."

"Tell me."


2135. Somalia.

She's on leave. Four days of it to be exact. Her plan had been to spend it lying on her back, sound asleep in a rented hotel room in one of the relatively safe parts of town. Far away from the pain and violence of the war. If she gets around to wanting some action, there's a bar just down the street for that.

Course all of her best laid plans had changed just a few minutes before she'd been due to get on the transport that would have taken her from the base to the hotel. It's a six hundred mile trip, but in these fast little taxis, it'll take about an hour total. Or at least it would have.

Just before leaving, her CO Nathaniel Taylor had come to her asking for a favor. He can't get away – his own leave had been canceled – but he'd been concerned because hadn't heard from his wife in close to a week. Could she maybe do a drop-by visual check-in? Just to make sure Ayani and his son Lucas are okay. He knows that it's out of her way, and could end up consuming her leave, but it's vitally important to him, and he only feels right sending someone he trusts.

That's what does it – that one word: trust. That and she'd learned real quick that she pretty much sucks at saying no to him about anything.

She agrees immediately, never letting him see the disappointment she feels at the loss of her do-nothing plans. He thanks her, tells her he owes her one. She promises that one day, she'll collect on that. He smiles and says he'll be waiting.

The village his wife is living in with her and Nathaniel's son takes almost a full day to get to. She spends the time reading through prior mission debriefings, and looking over research on the latest in field medical aide – including case studies on the new hot drug of the moment also known as Level One Stimulants.

Back during her in-training days at the hospital in Mogadishu, like every other medic there, she'd used the Level 2s and 3s every now and again in order to help her through the longest of the emergency care shifts. They'd always given her the energy and focus she needed to stay alert and awake, but the side effects had been unsettling to say the least. After one fairly bad come-down, she'd sworn them off even as her peers had increased their usage dramatically.

These new Level One stimulants seem like they're taking everything bad about the 2s and 3s (and there there's already so much bad there), and making them that much worse. That and some of the docs are talking about cocktailing them. Yeah, no thanks, she thinks to herself as she sets down her plexpad. She turns to gaze out the window. It's muggy, smoggy and overcast outside.

"Your stop is up next, ma'am," the driver states. He glances back at her through his rearview mirror, taking in her neatly pressed almost off the rack clean BDUs.

When the taxi comes to a stop outside of a dusty depot, she offers him her travel ticket. He scans it, hands it back, and wishes her a great day, his eyes seeming to say that he'll probably never see her again. She repeats his words back to him, then gets the hell away from him. In her time in the military, she's come to dread meeting people who view soldiers as broken dolls. She knows the look – sympathy and pity. And damned if she doesn't hate that.

She makes her way to Nathaniel's house, small and unassuming. A place to get away from the drama of war. The village around is something she's seen only a few times before – a true look at community. It's kind of amazing to see the way these people interact with one another, like they actually care about each other.

Returning to the reason she's here at all, she lifts up her hand and knocks on the door, then stands there waiting, her hands clasped behind her back. It takes a few moments, but then the door is opening and a woman she has only seen in pictures is standing in front of her with one of the most stunning smiles that she has ever seen. Ayani Taylor is somewhat petite, though far from small. She's in her late forties, but still incredibly striking with piercing green eyes.

"Hello?" Ayani asks after a moment has passed, and Wash has said nothing in which to explain her presence (though her uniform likely somewhat does that).

Wash regains her composure quickly. "Ma'am," she says, extending a hand. "Private Alicia Washington. Lieutenant Commander Taylor was concerned that he hadn't heard from you for a few days. He asked me to check in on you." It occurs to her that this must have happened at least once before because Ayani hardly seems startled or surprised as most spouses would be if they saw a soldier appear on their doorstep while their loved one was in the middle of war.

"Did he now?" Ayani asks with more amusement than is probably warranted. "Honestly, the man worries entirely too much. As you can see, I'm just fine. I was just busy. But nevermind that. Come in, you look tired."

"I'm fine, ma'am."

"Ah, I see you've been through the Nathaniel Taylor school of lying through your teeth whenever someone asks you how are," Ayani chuckles. Then, before Wash can protest, she gestures for the private to enter her house. "My son, Lucas, is still at school. He should be home soon. I'm sure he'll have a lot of questions for you – he always has a thousand for his father every time he returns here."

"Must be hard on him not seeing his son as much as he'd like to."

"It's hell. Not that he'd ever admit it."

They share a small smile, one of understanding. Wash has only been serving with Nathaniel for about eighteen months now, but even she knows how fiercely proud Taylor is. He rarely if ever admits to the demons in his own head – especially the ones that hurt the most as she knows this one surely must.

Wash follows Ayani inside, glancing around the home as she does so. It's serene for the most part, clearly influenced by Ayani's tastes. Every now and again, though, she sees signs of Nathaniel. A few pictures on the wall of him with game, one with him with his family, proudly showing them off.

"He must be quite fond of you to have sent you to do this," Ayani notes as she leads them towards the Living Room. "He doesn't trust just anyone to this."

"I suppose so, ma'am," Wash answers, hoping that the smaller woman will allow this particular line of conversation to drop away quickly (she still isn't completely sure she buys Taylor's line about sending only someone he trusts because she figures that he trusts almost everyone in the unit). Mercifully, as if reading the private perfectly, Ayani does exactly that, changing the subject.

"So, I'm taking it they revoked his leave again?"

"They did, ma'am."

"Private, how about we make this easy for both of us. You can feel free to call me Ayani if I may call you Alicia?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Starting now perhaps?"

Wash smiles at that, and nods. "He sends his regrets. He was really looking forward to this trip home."

"I know he was. I was as well. Lucas, too. But when you marry a military man, especially one like Nathaniel, you know what's expected of you." She sighs, then waves her hand in the air as if brushing away all of the dark emotions. "I assume you'll be staying for dinner, yes?" Her tone is light, but Wash would be a fool not to hear the slight order beneath it. Apparently, despite the appearance of being more teacher than soldier, Ayani Taylor is every bit the leader.

"I'd be honored."

"We'll see about that. I was planning on a simple vegetable soup tonight."

Wash laughs. "If you know the kind of food we've been eating, you'll understand when I say that a simple vegetable soup has never sounded better to me."

"Unfortunately, I do know. But unlike you, apparently, Nathaniel is quite fond of tasteless jerky and beans in a can."

"That's because that's all he can cook," Wash cracks.

Ayani lets out a full belly laugh at that. "So you do know my husband. And you're not wrong. Every time he comes home, I have to remind him what real food is."

"He's been banned from cooking while we're out on mission. Every time he does, someone willingly chooses to go without dinner. Usually me," Wash tells her as she takes three plates from Ayani and starts setting the table.

"That's not the first time I've heard that." She offers Wash three glasses. "So tell me, Alicia, what do you do for the unit? You don't have the look of a gunner."

"I'm the units' chief medic, ma'am. Well, actually I'm mostly your husbands' medic," Wash tells her, wondering if maybe she should shut her mouth. Nathaniel had provided her with absolutely no instructions on what she should or should not say to Ayani, but most likely, she figures, he hadn't intended for her start yammering on about his food and health habits. And yet there's something about Ayani that makes her want to spill every secret that she's ever had.

Well, almost every secret.

"Some things will never change," Ayani sighs. "When I first met Nathaniel, he was lying in the middle of a road covered in blood from a motorcycle accident. He'd flipped it, and nearly caved his head in. I helped take care of him until an ambulance arrived. He asked me out on the way to the hospital. So of course I said yes. And you know what? Two weeks later, he was back up on that damned bike like nothing had ever happened."

"That's the Lieutenant Commander all right," Wash confirms.

"Well, thank you for keeping him put together. I'm rather fond of the man."

Wash doesn't respond with the first thing that goes through her mind – something along the lines of "so am I", but instead replies, "It's my pleasure."

"Oh, I doubt that. Fixing him up every five seconds probably just about drives you half insane," Ayani chuckles as she opens the refrigerator. "Would you care to have a beer with me before dinner, Private?"

"I probably shouldn't, ma'am."

"Relax, Alicia, you're on leave, yes?"

"Kind of."

"Except Nathaniel asked you to do this instead of what you would have preferred to do, right?" Before Wash can deny it, Ayani holds up her hand, "I know, it's an honor, but it's also a giant inconvenience. My husband sometimes is blind to the needs of others. He's a wonderful man, Alicia, but terribly short-sighted at times."

"I honestly don't mind," Wash counters. "This village is…it's kind of incredible. Everything I wish I'd had when I was growing up."

"That's what he said, too, when he brought us here. Not sure if you noticed on your way in, but he's been slowly but surely moving the families of many of your fellow soldiers in. Nathaniel likes to keep those he cares for as close as he can."

"Ah," Wash says. "And now I get it."

"I'm guessing as honored as you were to take on this little mission for him, you've still been wondering why it had to be you to do this job." Off Wash's somewhat annoyed nod, the woman continues with a broad smile, "And now you're realizing that he probably sent you here to do more than just check in on me?"

"I don't know why I'm surprised. The man always has an agenda," Wash growls, running a hand through her hair. It's up in a ponytail, and she finds that she's looking forward to shedding her uniform just so that she can let her locks down.

"Did you mention to him recently that you were looking to move?" Ayani probes.

"A couple weeks ago. Not that I'm ever at the apartment I have now. I just wanted something…safer. He didn't say anything at the time. I should have known he was up to something. He's always up to something." She's ranting a bit, and it's wholly unprofessional to be so openly annoyed with her CO – especially considering she's speaking to his wife, and yet she feels like opening up to Ayani is almost absurdly easy to do. The woman is just so…comfortable.

"Yes, he is," Ayani replies affectionately. "All right then, now that we know why you're here, I insist you have a drink with me. You've checked in on me as asked. As such, you are now off-duty, and therefore allowed to drink, yes?"

"Affirmative."

"Then it's settled." She offers Wash a bottle, the cap already off. "Not the best there's ever been, but hardly that pisswater the military gives you to drink."

"The Lieutenant Commander is pretty good at finding us good liquor."

"Always has been." She holds up the bottle and clinks it against Wash's. "Cheers, Private. And welcome to our little slice of heaven."


"I remember that," Lucas murmurs. "When I got home, you and my mom were drinking on the front doorstep."

"I never got the chance to move in," Wash whispers, the shadows dancing in front of her eyes. She's almost all the way down now, her body shaking fiercely. The pain in her skull is growing, intensifying with each blink of her eyes.

"Why not? You had plenty of time to."

"I don't remember," she answers, then winces as a sharp stabbing pain in her head just about steals her vision away.

"Are you in pain?" His tone has changed from an almost wistfully gentle one back to the strange cruelly curious one. His grip around her has hardened as well, becoming possessive and controlling as opposed to compassionate.

She clenches her jaw shut, refuses to answer even though it's quite clear she is.

"I know you are, Alicia. You know, you should thank me for what I'm doing. Nothing hurts when you're on the stimulants."

"I'd rather be in pain than be controlled."

"You've always been controlled. By the military, by every CO you've had. By my father and now by me. I'd think you'd find it comforting."

She just glares at him in response.

"Have it your way, Lieutenant. But no stims for now. I'm going to let you try to sleep for a few hours. You body needs it, and I need you to hold up at least until I give you back to my father as his birthday surprise."

She blinks at that, trying to connect his words to an actual memory and coming up empty. It's like that date just isn't in her head anymore.

"You forgot didn't you? It's five days from now. Going to be one hell of a show."

He gets up then, wraps the blanket back around her (almost lovingly) and then wanders off, headed in the direction of the opening of the cave. She's not bound, but it hardly matters; she couldn't stand up right now if she tried.

And Lord knows she's tried.

Instead, she drops her head back and tries to sleep.

It comes almost immediately, and for a few short hours, she actually heals.


It takes Nathaniel Taylor almost two hours to break into her tags. The thin metal encasing is so twisted and damaged that he has to be gentle about how he pries the tiny memory card out. He probably should have taken this task to Boylan, but the idea of anyone else getting to see what she has on the tags is just about more than he can handle. For once, he chooses to be selfish.

Once he has the memory card, he slips it into the opening on his plexpad, and waits (impatiently) as it reads the data on it. There's a soft sputter, and for a long moment, he thinks the card isn't going to read at all.

And then he sees the pictures.

Five total, about as much as the card can hold if she has other things on it like music and videos (he's somewhat amused that his almost painfully by the book lieutenant has not only hacked her tags, but done so completely, putting every kind of media contraband on them).

The first pic is one of her with the unit from back in Somalia. Everyone is covered in dirt and blood, but they're smiling and holding up beers. Cheering on a victory. It's a wonderful photo, but a heartbreaking one because he realizes that he's the only one in it that is still alive.

The second pic is one of her in a hospital room. He's never seen the image before, but he's guessing it's one that someone else had taken after she'd woken up from her near fatal shooting. He wonders why it's there, thinks maybe she'd kept it to remind herself about how she's survived when she'd had no right to.

The third pic is one of the two of them at her commendation ceremony. It'd been the first time they'd seen each other since Ayani's murder and her near death experience. She'd limped up to the stage, her body recovering, but clearly still hurting. She'd refused to take his arm, instead stubbornly insisted she make it up to the platform on her own. And of course, she had. In the photo, they're standing shoulder to shoulder. He's smiling widely, she with a bit reserve as always.

The fourth pic he remembers well, like it was yesterday. It'd been taken on their first day together in Terra Nova. He'd been filthy from one hundred and eighteen days in the wild, and she'd been flushed from the exposure to fresh air, but they'd both been beaming as they'd embarked on their new beginning. Their second chance. It'd been a day so full of promise and hope.

The fifth pic is the one that just about does him in. It shows him sleeping half-naked on her couch (actually, he muses, considering there's a blanket thrown over his lower body, he's probably completely unclothed), looking comfortable and at ease. Even at peace one might say. The time stamp on the picture shows it to be about a year old. On his birthday actually.

He recalls the events of that afternoon, remembers how Wash had tried to give him a quiet no-fuss day like they'd both have enjoyed, and had instead ended up being forced to endure a massive colony-wide shindig. None of which had compared to the party that had happened once they'd returned to her quarters.

Ah yes, that's where the couch had come in, he reminds himself.

The memory brings a smile to his face, which quickly fades away to a grimace of anguish. He's not yet ready to see only the happy moments, not able to separate the pain of her loss from the joy of her presence.

He touches the picture, his fingers ghosting over it. "You weren't supposed to go first," he whispers. "Why do you always have to go first?

There's no answer, of course. He hadn't really expected one. That doesn't make it any easier. Not even a little bit.


He can see her coming apart, and is starting to understand just why these stims are such bad news. When she's on them, she's locked in and hard core, but she completely lacks all ability to feel any kind of emotion. Even pain is alien to her.

Just a few days out of Terra Nova (and three days until his father's sixtieth birthday), he tests this theory by taking her hand and breaking one of her fingers. It's violent, and completely unnecessary, but curiosity gets the best of him.

She barely reacts to the pain.

When she comes down that night, she's in shock, and her fever spikes high. She drifts in and out of a delirious state for a few hours, crying out. He finally re-injects her with a stim (a bit early) just to calm her.

He almost feels bad for her.

And then she calls out his fathers' name, and everything inside of him shatters once more.

TBC…