DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.
A half-hour passed, Jamie's weight resting on Mitch's chest. The noise of the soldiers had long since passed and died away. They were still too scared to move. Her chin was tucked into the curve of his neck. Every breath she took was him. The beat of his heart pounded in rhythm with hers. Every breath lifted her. She rocked with him as though a boat on the ocean. Her arms and hands bracketed his waist. Her legs rested alongside his. His own arms were wrapped across her back. His nose, buried in the hair behind her ear.
This was torture.
"We need to talk," she finally whispered into the skin of his neck. Her voice sounded far too loud in the empty space after such prolonged silence.
"About what?" His voice was gruff, vibrating under her ear.
"Us. You and me." One of her arms lifted, gesturing beside them at each of them in turn.
"Last time we tried that, it didn't end so well." He tapped a finger on her back. She huffed. "I believe your final word on the subject was to move on."
"I shouldn't have said that." She lapsed into silence. She had no comeback. It hadn't been her finest moment.
He broke the lull first, "Is that what you really want?" She couldn't help but hear a sense of desperation in his tone. Eagerness. Hope. Oh, God, how she had hurt him. Guilt welled inside her.
She had initiated the kiss on the plane and he had responded, quicker and with more desire than she had dared imagined. Then all hell had broken loose. Now, well, she wasn't even sure they could pick up the pieces and start over, let alone pick up where they'd left off.
But, yet, here they were once again, working together, saving the world, and in each other's arms. It felt right.
"No." Her voice was soft. She hesitated. "Yes."
"I don't know how to take that."
Honestly, neither did she. She needed to make up her own mind. Risk the pain of never knowing or the hurt of having it all go south, like every other one of her relationships. "Nevermind," she finally mumbled.
"I'll be here once you decide."
But, for how long?
In the quiet of the jeep, between the beats of his and her heart, all he heard were Allison's parting words - a threat - and Jamie's hesitation echoing through his head all his worst fears about himself. He wasn't the acquired taste he'd once told Jamie, but a poisoned berry. He hurt everyone close to him. Perhaps she was better without him pining away for her.
Now was not the time, though, for him to fall back into that well of self-despair. He needed a bottle of scotch to drown in first.
"I think we're good." Mitch shifted Jamie off of him and rolled away from her, sliding her down onto the bed of the jeep. It had been another half-hour at least. "I'll take a look around." Moving to his hands and knees, he crawled toward the rear, careful of squishing her. With an exhaled whoosh, he shook his head and stuck it out between the slit in the cloth cover. Half expecting to be blown away, it took him a few seconds to realize he was still alive.
He shoved his shoulders through, too, waited, then took a more serious look across the garage lot. They were alone.
"The coast is clear." He looked back inside at her. She had rolled onto her side, propped up on an elbow, knees pulled up, curled almost into a ball. She looked miserable.
"Wonderful. However, we're still on the upper level. How are we going to get out of here? Clear or not, I don't think we will make it down another level and out the gate without drawing some attention." And she sounded even more depressed.
He pointed at her. Gave her a sideways smirk. "You've got a point. We need a distraction."
"Thought that was supposed to be the animals."
"Yeah. Me, too." Draping the military drab cloth back a bit, allowing the late afternoon sun to lighten the interior of the jeep's bed, he removed his glasses, holding one earpiece between his lips as he ruffled his hair and stroked his stubbled cheeks. "We need another one."
He glanced at the case above Jamie's head. It had a lock but didn't appear to actually be locked. Hard plastic, about the length of a human body and a foot and half deep, he guessed it contained some kind of weapon or weapons.
Sliding his glasses back onto his nose, he gave the case another once-over, then crouching low shuffled back to it, this time reaching for the lid.
"What are you doing?" She'd sat upright a bit, obviously curious.
"Looking for another idea." He smiled down at her and bounced his eyebrows. Her lips softened in response.
The lid opened easily - he was right, someone had forgotten to lock the thing - and he peered inside. A layer of gray foam covered something rather large and bulky. He lifted a corner of the foam.
"Oh."
"What did you find?"
"Come see." He dropped a hand to her shoulder and gripped it, yanking slightly, until she moved up beside him. His eyes never left the inside of the case. He needed her to see what he did. To tell him he was wrong and this was not what he thought it was.
"What is that?" She sucked in her breath, "a bomb?"
Damn, he was right. He nodded sullenly.
"Why-"
"No clue." He looked across at her, tried to play off the proof in front of them. "Maybe there's a good reason."
"Yeah. Like he doesn't just want to poison the animals and two million people, but wants to take out the government?" She met his eyes and held them, trapped in a grim reality. "So. What? Are we going to set off a bomb?"
He didn't want to. "We need a distraction."
"A bomb."
"You keep saying that."
"I thought you didn't want to kill Davies."
"I don't want to kill anyone." Something in those words made her flinch as he said it. He saw the way her features twisted, ugly and painful, and the effort it took for her blink it away and set her features right again. It was brief, but he'd never forget it. "Plans change."
"Okay. We're going to set off a bomb." The smile she gave him was sincere, yet he didn't believe it.
"No. I'm going to set off a bomb. You are driving the getaway car."
The shock and anger suffusing her body, stiffening it in preparation for a fight made him chuckle.
"We are not splitting up."
Mitch faced her head on. With the hint of laughter still in his voice, he used his best professor voice to set her straight. There was only one way. "Yes, we are. We have to. It is the only way this is going to work."
"In theory…" she mimicked his go-to phrase. Did he really use it that often to convince the others to trust him? God, he hoped he was right.
"Yeah, in theory."
She glared at him for a solid minute, then turned away and stared down at the bed of the jeep. "I hate this."
"I know."
