A/N: So. Last week was Fred Week, this week is MC Week. I still have four chapters in the buffer but I already posted all of them to (that is, their German translations) a while ago and people over there really deserve a new chapter so I'll try to finish one this week. The great side effect for you is that my buffer of English chapters will remain nicely full and I can keep up my posting frequency ;)

Four

DeLisle

Well. So she's on the run now. Or rather… we are on the run. The only difference between us is that I know on whose orders I am on the run. To find out who ordered her… well, that's my job. And I hate that job, did I mention that before?

Okay, maybe I did but it's still true. I hate it. It's not actually the fact that I'm supposed to spy on a former fellow soldier. And not even the fact that in order to do that – to get really close to her, that is – I have to sleep with her. No, it's the fact that this is not sanctioned whatsoever by my commanding officer.

That is, not my immediate superior. Not Major Moore and I really don't even want to think about what's going on with my team right now. And what will happen when I get back. If I can get back, anyway.

God.

I sigh soundlessly and get back to going through our supplies. We've been hiding out in this shed in the Middle of Nowhere, Colorado for three days, and quite frankly, that's too long for anyone who's ever done this professionally.

Okay, most of all it's far too long for someone who's got half the government conspiracy community on their heels, and I don't mean the guys with the funny hats and the "Take me with you… or at least bring us back Elvis!" pickets in front of Area 51 by that. Damn, whatever Noruega did, it pissed off a lot of people, and her ex-bosses – ours, actually – are just somewhere in the line.

However, they are those who own the closet my skeletons are lying in and they have a vivid interest in getting Noruega under lock and barrel, whatever the cost. Yes, this is capture or kill here and I wish it were over, preferably without any killing. My days as part of targeted killing operations are long gone and I'd prefer it to stay that way… because that was when my skeletons started to populate the closet.

Oh, okay, enough with the metaphor already. And enough with the fucking skeletons. The only good thing about this whole thing is that when I can get it done with hopefully only a minimum of fuss and blood and generally everything unpleasant that could happen, the skeletons will be gone. Or at least be put in a different closet… Alright. I said enough with the metaphor. I…

"You know, the reason why I went straight for you? I really like strong and silent type. But I really do not like brooding type. What's going on, Sy?" Yes, of course she would notice it. Actually, I was starting to wonder what took her so long to say something.

I try the little meaningful and ambiguous grin I could always get her with – actually, I can also get Laura with it… or could, because of course I never actually tried it on her – and reply, "Just wondering… who exactly did you piss off, Tali?"

She shrugs and grins. "Everyone I could piss off?" Yeah, right. Of course she'd say that.

"How about I name a few and you just nod or shake your head?" Come on, go for the suggestive half-grin. You always liked that. Or at least you told me you did.

"You can ask but I won't tell, Sy. I never did." That's true. She never told anyone about the thing we had going for two or three years, before I was pulled off the CIA and back into Special Operations Command, to have a watchful eye on that green young Lieutenant, fresh out of the first half of fighter school.

However, if she never told and I never told… how exactly did the guys back at Langley know that I'd be the right person to be put on her trail, huh? Jesus fucking Christ, I am seriously fed up with this. I really shouldn't have picked up the phone that day. Instead, I should have gone AWOL for real. At least then I could really disappear from everyone's radar.

But I did. And I have to face the consequences. "Come on, Tali, if we're in this together… we need to work together… as a team." That was… risky.

"Are we?" Fuck. "In this together, I mean." Fuck, fuck, fuck. She's got me. She knows that I'm here on orders. She has to know I'm here on orders.

Okay, play it cool, Dee, just play it cool. "Course we are. I wouldn't be here if we weren't." Nope, wasn't enough. Right. I've got one more. "Besides, if you haven't lost your touch, you double-checked my story. And then went back to triple-check it. You haven't lost your touch now, have you?"

That's right, go for her ambition. And… there you go. "Sneaky, Sy. You certainly haven't lost your touch, either. I really thought they'd turned you, those losers on that "team" you were with."

Calm, Dee. Cool and calm. She can't hurt you, she can't hurt the team. She just never learned how to rely on other people, how to trust them… it's not her fault. They bred it out of her in the CIA, what little ability to trust people she had. She's just another victim. "I'm offended, Tali. Don't ypu remember who was the guy who never got turned in training?"

"Good point," she says and grins. Yeah, that's right. That guy was me. Because I never stopped believing that you always have a choice, I always chose not to be a traitor, not to turn anyone in, not to be turned around myself… even if the exercise ended with "Bang, you're dead, soldier."

When did I stop being that guy?

"Come on, Sarge, we gotta go." Right. Yes. We have to.

Trying not to keep on wondering what the hell happened and why the hell I chose to go on this mission, I pick up the backpack and leave the hut I'd shared with her for the last three days. It's gonna be a hike of a couple of miles, deeper into the mountains so she can set up shop to contact a couple of people with money and with a healthy interest in a lot of secrets that should never see the light of day instead of scruples. Well, or not, if I do my job right.

And so we set off and even though I know it may be futile, given what I know about the Major and how he usually reacts when he thinks someone betrayed his trust, I slip a short piece of thin rope with three knots tied into it over the inside of the door handle. Maybe they'll never see it. Maybe someone else will find it and throw it away or put it somewhere else where it doesn't make any sense at all. Maybe they will come here but overlook it… but I have to try, don't I?

Damn… I wish I could drop more hints like those I left at the SGC. Precise and still small enough people would leave them alone, unless they were searching specifically for them, and the guys back at Langley most probably made sure no MP or JAG or even intelligence officer would feel compelled to do that. My team, well, that could be a different stor…

Oh, okay, actually, I know I should wish I'd just stop thinking about dropping hints for the team… stop thinking about the team at all. I swear, I really do wish I could just go back to my loner days with the CIA. At least then all of this wouldn't be so fucking painful.

Moore

It's staring at me. I swear it is.

Or, okay, maybe I am staring at it… No, it's staring at me. The bundle of papers in the folder Laura threw on my desk is staring at me with glittering evil little eyes. Or it would if it had eyes.

Anyway, it's sitting there, daring me to open it but I know I won't. Because, see, it'll just be a load of bullshit. I know it will. The girls might think they know Dee but they don't. I, however, do. I know I said it before but clearly, he doesn't want to be found. If he wanted to be found, he wouldn't have just gone AWOL without leaving any message at all. If he'd left a message I'd have found it, I'm positive of that. There's no way I could have overlooked something.

Well, or there would be if I'd actually gone looking for any messages. I… never really did, though.

And I sure as hell won't start now, you offending piece of fucking paper. I know that my Sergeant has some secret government history that's not even in the parts of his records that only I on this entire so top secret base that it doesn't even exist for most of the Pentagon brass am allowed to read. So I have every reason to suspect that it has something to do with that past and he knows that I don't want to have anything to do with it. I've got enough skeletons in the closet as it is.

And until now, it was never an issue. He never talked about anything of that stuff he did before we started to work together and I never asked, and it was a silent mutual understanding that it would stay like that, for however long we'd serve together. And no, I still don't wish it would have been different because as much as I didn't want to hear it, I also somehow always knew he didn't want to tell me. That alone was reason enough not to ask.

But, well, it also means… it also means I never really got to know my Sergeant… the person I have worked closest with and been through the toughest shit, and that's including Laura, Lorne and Williamson.

Goddammit. Why can't it be simple? Why couldn't it have been desertion – as unlikely as that seems for someone like Dee, granted – and the MP could have just caught him and I could have found a way to get him out of jail and we would have been done with it? But no, it had to be the vanishing act, leaving behind only stuff my girls are setting their hearts on, out of foolish wishful thinking.

And now one of them threw a folder on my desk that's still kind of glaring at me and daring me to open it and I'm so thoroughly fed up with all of this that I have just decided to get out of this fucking office – maybe paperwork will do itself, just for once – and hit the workout room. God, I really need to punch something so fucking bad.