Walking back to the base to be back in time for breakfast, Tucker was pondering over what he had just learned concerning all of the shit Mac that had to go through: like the whole shit-fest of Elbon, the shit with North, and all the other fucking crap…
Tucker let out a heavy sigh. Compared to her fate, his own seemed much more bearable. Okay, it wasn't that common that you got knocked up by a fucking alien and become a dad-mom to a baby alien. But he wouldn't change the past now. Not even for a million dollars.
Junior was the best thing which could have happened to him in the past and he would do everything he could to keep it that way!
Wash had to go through a lot of shit too, so maybe Tucker's fate was one of those of the Blood Gulch Crew who had gotten better off when he thought about it some more.
There was Grif and Simmons with their partial body swap, there was Wash who had to go through a lot of shit in Freelancer, there was Church being an AI, and Caboose being somewhat not completely there.
There was Donut, who had gotten shot and was somewhat nuts anyway.
And Mac, of course, for a variety of reasons.
So yeah, aside from Sarge and maybe Caboose, he didn't have such a bad past actually.
Although he would have loved to cut out the baby right away when he had learned from Doc that he was pregnant, he decided against it in the end. And he was fucking glad he had.
Sure it was rather painful for him until the drugs had kicked in, but afterwards he didn't realize much of it anymore as Doc had started cutting open his abdomen to give Junior an easier exit without the alien destroying anything vital inside the aqua armored soldier.
When he came to some hours later, Junior was lying beside him and sleeping soundly, obviously as tired from the birth as Tucker was.
Seeing the boy, he was happy he had decided against an abortion by his own knife.
Stumbling over a rock, the soldier cursed under his breath. It would be better to focus on climbing back down. Seriously, why did Mac have to climb up so far in such a rough area?!
Passing the entrance of another cave, he reactivated his helmet's tracker. If anyone asked, he could say that he lost track of time when he was exploring the cave.
Shortly, he shot a message to Mac.
I'm back online.
His HUD blinked seconds later, indicating an incoming message from Mac.
Good. Take care out there and don't grind the Lieutenants too much.
Tucker couldn't help but replying in his trademark fashion to that perfect setup.
Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow!
He laughed when he got the answer from Mac. He could see her rolling her eyes but laughing at his sexual joke.
Jerk!
Neither of them spoke about it, but it was clear that Mac trusted him and didn't want him to brag about what he had just been told. And Tucker didn't want her to mistrust him after all they went through by running his mouth. He would only talk to Wash about it, since he knew about her past too.
Speaking of Wash… That brought a question to his mind, and he immediately worded it out in a text to Mac.
Does Wash know about Sasha?
Tucker preferred using the name instead of the word pregnancy in case anyone would read their conversation later. They would think they were talking about one of the orphans in the orphanage that Mac would visit regularly to spend some time with the kids there.
Mac's answer was short.
No.
It was quiet for a moment, then another text came in, as if written with a huge sigh.
Knowing you, you can't keep your trap shut on that… So okay, you can tell him. But ONLY him. And the rest will NOT learn about that. Got me?
Tucker groaned.
Yeah, yeah, untwist your panties, I'm not going to broadcast that. I just wanted to tell Wash since he knows about your past too.
The answer was a stylized middle finger constructed out of the regular alphabet and signs available in their message board.
Whoever set up the messaging system hadn't thought about putting in some emojis. Jerk…
Arriving at the base, he directly went to the mess hall, deciding to meet the guys there since everyone would be there by this time now and eating food. Considering that it was the first meal of the day, he should be there preferably earlier than Grif to get some food before that fat-ass could scarf down everything.
Entering, he could see that there were different figures already sitting, but they were all of the previous Project Freelancer: York, North, and Wash. Carolina probably already left and was about to set up the daily missions and beginning to group soldiers together for that.
Sighing, he got a tray and sat down beside Wash with a mumbled "Morning!"
Detaching his helmet, he decided to start eating to prevent his stupid mouth from babbling something out that he had promised not to.
"You look like you had a rough night." North said, immediately picking up on Tucker's tired face.
Although he was tired, he couldn't help the grin that appeared on his features, "Bow-chicka-bow-wow."
Wash groaned beside him, elbowing the dark-skinned man in his ribs. This earned the steel and yellow Freelancer a one-finger-salute.
"Ah, young love." York cooed, a huge grin on his face and making fake dreamy eyes while North looked at them with a small smile.
Tucker couldn't help but feel like this smile held something rueful in it. Maybe that was because of Mac. He could try to find that out sometime later.
Given the fact that York and North hadn't been conscious for the last ten years, it was highly likely that the whole thing with Mac, or he knew her as Ala, felt like only some days ago for him.
Knowing that ten years are over but your memory provides information as if it had happened merely days ago must be difficult. Tucker could imagine that North was asking himself if Mac was still alive, if she was doing well and if she still remembered him. He never went through that, but it would be a logical conclusion to think that after such a huge event.
Tucker almost felt bad that he couldn't tell North that Mac was close by and doing well, and that she still was thinking about him.
Shoveling another forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth, he watched how Wash, York, and North bickered about something. He could feel the amicable connection they shared, knowing from Mac that they used to sit together like that in the project's mess hall back then.
Emptying his tray and seeing how the other Reds and Blues had started entering the mess hall, he got up and muttered something about getting ready.
This caused Wash to raise an eyebrow at him in confusion.
"Training starts in three hours at the earliest. You're up way too early."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Tucker muttered, not in the mood for a banter between him and Wash and decided to let the guys catch up themselves.
Tucker, for his part, needed some time alone to do some training and get his head clear to train the Lieutenants… Otherwise they wouldn't stop harassing him if he appeared to be distracted.
Passing by the war room in which he was sure he could hear Kimball and Doyle arguing once again, he spontaneously decided to inform Kimball about Mac's longer stay in the wild.
Entering the room, he was almost shell-shocked to notice that it was deadly silent in there.
Right, Tucker suddenly remembered. Doyle had died almost three weeks ago. They hadn't even had the time to plan a proper funeral up until now…
Coughing, he got Kimball's attention. She had been brooding over some reports.
She looked up when she noticed Tucker standing in the room.
The aqua clad soldier decided to play the nonplussed asshole and spoke up casually, even though Kimball's eyes could bore holes into his skull.
"Mac decided to stay hidden a little bit longer. She needs some time to sort shit out." He didn't say what shit or why, but he was sure that the leader was smart enough to find out herself that her strange behavior was stemming from the appearance of their two new arrivals.
Kimball grumbled, "She's scheduled to train the Lieutenants in her class sniping again."
"Yeah, about that…" Tucker scratched the back of his head, trying to come up with a solution just then, "I was told that North Dakota is a pretty good sniper. Maybe another teacher could help loosen the Lieutenants up and get them to learn something they haven't been taught yet by Mac, or at least not in a different kind of way. You know what I mean?"
This caused Kimball to perk up a bit, "I already heard about that too and since Wash decided to vouch for them… And he as well as Agent Carolina seem to know them well, I decided to give them some credits in advance to which they will have to live up to."
"Uh, wow, that's great. I am sure those two won't betray you like others did." With the betrayal of Felix fresh in mind, Tucker was pretty impressed, that Kimball trusted these two so easily.
Possibly because Carolina and Wash knew them and given what they already did for Chorus, she seemed to have decided to trust these two assholes too.
Carolina had asked them about special Freelancer knowledge, such as their codenames. York was Foxtrot 12 and North was Tango 16. Why the Director had chosen those names was beyond Tucker's understanding. They already wore codenames and had been given yet another codename for their codename.
Tucker had thought about that when trekking up to Mac, reaching the conclusion that this just showed how fucking paranoid the Director had been.
There were also other questions, like what their activation codes for the project were so that nobody could gain access to their stuff.
There were also other questions, but Tucker didn't listen to them afterwards because they were way too long of codes to ever know. Seriously, he would have trouble knowing only one correctly, but Carolina obviously knew all the codes for every Freelancer.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand.
He was still standing in the war room, Kimball looking at him expectantly, "Is there something else, Captain Tucker?" She then asked, looking obviously a tad annoyed with Tucker for spacing off.
"Uh, no, I just wanted to inform you about Mac and stuff. She is having some trouble, so I'd prefer her being able to take that time out to get that sorted out."
Kimball looked at him, prompting him to continue, but Tucker decided against telling any details.
"I don't want to abuse her trust. Let's just say she had quite a bit of a rough past and some days ago something happened what made all these memories come back up again when she almost got hit by a ricochet. One of her buddies in Elbon died like that."
Tucker knew that Kimball knew about her past with Elbon, but not about her past with North. This little lie would have to do the trick.
"Okay, thank you, Captain Tucker." Tucker nodded at that, deciding to take his leave now before he got into another awkward situation.
The door wasn't even shut when he heard Kimball going back to her papers again. Great.
Tucker groaned. He only hoped she would be able to lead Chorus properly when she was brooding over plans all the time.
Putting his helmet back on, he decided to use the remaining two hours for some work out.
He would start with some jogging, going on to squats, crunches and all the shit Wash had taught him and then after that do another jogging unit, this time longer.
His plan however, flew out the window the moment he noticed a steel and yellow armored figure falling in jog beside him.
He didn't even look when he accepted the request to open a private channel between him and Wash.
"You looked distracted in the mess hall." Wash stated, casually jogging beside Tucker.
"Yeah, got a load of information when I was with Mac last night." Tucker stated, looking ahead to not land face first on the ground because he hadn't seen a stone in his way. …Which wouldn't be the first time this happened, but all the other times he had been occupied by checking Wash out. Well, a man had to set priorities, thank you very much!
"I assume she told you about her past?" Wash didn't even break a sweat while Tucker was already starting to feel how his body temperature started to rise.
"Yeah, she told me." Tucker muttered a bit sullenly.
"Hey, Tucker." With that, said man looked over to see Wash looking directly back at him, "She didn't mean it ill by not telling you. I only happened to know because I was in the same project. Mac wouldn't have told me otherwise. Guess she never told you because she never thought that North would ever show back up again."
"Yeah, I know. Still it hurts a bit since she knows quite a lot about me, but I obviously didn't know as much about her." The sullen expression was still there, although he could understand his adopted sister's reasoning.
"That explains why you looked so distracted and didn't answer my questions." Wash stated casually, still keeping up with him.
"Exactly. Wait… You asked me something?" Tucker then asked, suddenly picking up on Wash's statement.
"Yeah, I asked you three or four times if you're okay, but you just stared at your scrambled eggs like you wanted to fry them with your glare." Wash's tone definitely was amused.
"Uh sorry… Guess I didn't hear that." Tucker muttered, earning a hum of approval from Wash.
Luckily, he didn't decide on pressing the subject further.
After another two or three rounds, Tucker broke the silence again, "Hey, Wash."
"Yeah, Tucker?" Wash still sounded so fucking relaxed, not even a bit out of breath!
"We have our day off tomorrow and I thought we could go somewhere together?" He had refrained from asking the Lieutenants. They never would let him live that down if they caught him skating with Wash. There were other possibilities. And he had one in mind.
"Sure, why not?" Wash agreed, although Tucker could hear his voice going up a tad.
A huge grin exploded on Tucker's face.
"Neat!" he laughed loudly, "We can meet up at the old mall downtown at two in the afternoon?"
"Sure…" Wash trailed off, sounding embarrassed as Tucker could feel his cheeks warm up. He wasn't quite sure that Wash understood that he meant this as a date, but they would go out together and he would fucking enjoy their time together.
When they stopped after their warm up, Wash obviously wanted to continue, but Tucker didn't move. This caused Wash to look at him questioningly.
Sure they both wore armor and shit, but after living together for so long, you learn to read the body language of the other, even with their armors on.
"Sorry, Wash." Tucker began after that, which caused the Freelancer to look even more confused, "I really appreciate you being here with me, so please don't get me wrong."
Now Wash was completely confused. Tucker could understand that he was confused. The aqua armored soldier practically never used the word 'please' when talking, "But… Is it possible for me to do the workout alone today? I need to get my head clear. We can talk today after training, but I first need to get stuff sorted out for myself."
Tucker couldn't put a finger on it, but Wash looked a bit relieved and disappointed at the same moment, "Yeah, okay, no problem."
Just when the Freelancer wanted to turn and walk away, Tucker surged forward and grabbed his arm, "You're really okay with that?"
"Yeah I am, Tucker." With that, Wash turned around and Tucker heard the small smile in his voice.
"Look, let's talk about this in the evening. I'd like us both to be on the same page in regards to that."
Wash nodded at that suggestion from Tucker, "And we can do some sparring tomorrow morning, how's that sound?" This brought a smile to his voice.
And Tucker couldn't help but smile himself at the smile he heard in Wash's voice at this idea, "That would be a great idea." He replied then.
After another moment Wash spoke up again, "You mind?" he asked, pointing down to Tucker's hand still tightly grasping his wrist.
"Oh, sorry." Tucker muttered, happy for the helmet concealing his blush, "I just… felt like you took my request the wrong way. "
"I am okay, Tucker, really." There was a warm smile in his words, "I know it's better to let you train so you can get your head clear."
"Uh, yeah…" Tucker muttered, "See you in the evening?" he added with a hopeful glance.
"Yeah, see you then." Wash muttered, giving Tucker a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder and left with that.
Tucker decided to go back to his training before his thoughts could derail too much at the conversation he and Wash just had.
Later that day, in the evening to be accurate, Tucker was freshly showered and meandered over to Wash's room. The Freelancer was sitting in there, obviously freshly showered too and waiting for Tucker to appear.
When the dark-skinned male entered, the Freelancer looked up with a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Tucker closed the door and decided to take a seat beside the blond male. He felt somewhat nervous all of a sudden.
Sure he came to talk about Mac, but he was well aware of them being alone here in the room.
"Um… You wanted to talk about Mac?" Wash asked, a bit insecurely which gave Tucker a start.
"Yeah, as you know, she told me about her past with North." The dark-skinned man replied, looking over to Wash with a serious glint in his eyes, "I wanted to ask you if you could tell me what you know about her past with North?"
Wash first looked contemplative, before starting to tell him what he knew about the past of their shared friend.
When Wash finished, Tucker still was looking in his direction, but he effectively stared to a point somewhere beside Wash's head, deep in thought.
"Yeah, that's about it." Wash then stated, giving Tucker another start.
He sighed deeply, "Yeah, I heard about the same as you from her, except for the fact that she kept something to herself that I learned yesterday." Tucker started explaining.
"She didn't tell you that she has a Tattoo on her back." Wash's eyes got a curious glint in them at that bit of information, "It's a tattoo of North's birthday and day of death. Underneath that is another name with a birthday and a day of death." Tucker sighed deeply, "It's the name of a boy. Sasha."
Wash looked at him with incomprehension in his eyes, "She was pregnant, Wash. She would have become a mom if she hadn't lost the kid from the stress of North's dead."
It was silent for a moment, before Wash asked with an incredulous pitch in his voice, although speaking lowly, "Wait… Mac and North would have become parents?"
Tucker sighed and nodded at that, "Yeah… But North doesn't know." Tucker explained, a somewhat sad expression appearing on his face, "Mac learned about it the day North died. She never had the possibility to tell him."
There was a heavy silence settling in between the two of them.
"That means that Mac not only lost North on this day, but also their child?"
"Yeah." Muttered Tucker, feeling somewhat shocked still at the information himself.
"Well, that explains the strange pattern of blood I found on the ground beside North." Wash muttered, rubbing his hands over his face.
"She said something about having been bleeding." Tucker muttered in return.
Wash only nodded, staring at his hands.
After that, they started discussing more and more subjects revolving around Mac, North, and their past—deciding to respect Mac's request to stay quiet towards North, but they wouldn't watch this drama unfold forever.
They would have to talk to the black-haired woman when she was back and things had settled down a bit.
They were on the same page about the fact that Mac would have to tell North at some point.
When the curfew was about to come, Tucker got up, confirming the sparring match for eight in the morning and their date at two. Wash confirmed both of them with a smile starting to spread over his face.
"Good night, Wash." Tucker muttered with a smile on his own lips.
"Good night, Tucker." Wash replied, sporting the same grin.
The next morning passed by, both of them meeting up for sparring without their armors around eight.
Neither of them got larger blows in, but Wash complimented the dark-skinned man at the end of the
session, after about two hours of sparring, "You've increased your skills quite a bit. I'm impressed,
Captain Tucker."
"I had a good teacher." Tucker replied with a huge grin, which made Wash cough awkwardly.
"So I will go and take a shower before grabbing something to eat." Wash began after another awkward
silence, "We will meet up at two at the old mall downtown like you said yesterday?"
"Yeah, sure! See you there! Oh, and, Wash?" Said Freelancer turned back around as he was already
leaving, having a towel draped over his shoulders, "Put on some civilian clothes. No armor on our day
off!" Tucker put up his fake enthusiasm, trying to cover up the slight disappointment of having to part
with Wash.
The blond nodded before turning and leaving the training room.
But Tucker could understand that he would only drive Wash away if he was too persistent about being
around the Freelancer all the time.
Sometime later, Tucker was already waiting impatiently in front of the old mall, wearing blue jeans and
a teal tank top. He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, waiting for the blond to appear.
He didn't know how often, but he was sure to have checked the clock at least for a thousand times up until now.
He had two skateboards with him, the only thing missing now was Wash.
Who just in this moment showed up around a corner, looking around as if he was searching for
something.
"Hey, Wash, over here!" Tucker lifted a hand, waving the Freelancer over.
Wash's posture got a bit more relaxed and a smile appeared on his face when he spotted Tucker.
"Found you." Wash muttered a bit awkwardly when he arrived at where Tucker was, noticing the skateboards soon after, "You brought these?" Anticipation lit up in his steel grey eyes.
A grin exploded on the aqua wearing man, "Yeah, I was told that you're quite good at skating, and so
am I, so I thought we could check out the old mall and skate around a bit."
"Just don't whine afterwards when I beat you at skating." Wash quipped.
"I'll give that comment right back at you, old man." Tucker retorted with a grin, snatching a skateboard
and entering the hall with Wash hot on his heels with the other skateboard in his hands.
They were starting on the ground floor, Tucker soon using his slight advance to run up a staircase to
the first story with his skateboard. When he heard the wheels of Wash's skateboard hit the floor behind him, he was just jumping up on a bench, sliding along the lower edge where the legs of people
sitting usually would be.
Wash was past him by now, using a low handrail around a place where a tree had been standing
years ago for his slide, ending it with little trick before speeding up again.
"What was that about you going to win?" Wash asked, jumping over a pillar that had fallen down, the board going through underneath it and the Freelancer landing with great accuracy.
"Just you wait, I'm going to hand you your ass. Bow-chicka-bow-wow!" Tucker tried doing the same, only
barely managing to stay on the skateboard with a lot of flailing.
The Freelancer only laughed at that, an open and wholehearted laugh Tucker rarely heard that from the
Freelancer and it warmed his heart.
Well, he could lose the skating battle now, Tucker thought, sliding down an old and broken escalator,
making a pirouette at the end before landing smoothly. The dark-skinned man was surprised that it worked so well given that he had tried it for the first time just then.
Well, it seems like love was really making people grow wings and take things much easier than usual.
Wash laughed behind him loudly, before clapping his hands and complimenting Tucker on the trick.
The aqua clad soldier beamed at his crush, although his trick looked so old the moment Wash started
his, sliding down on the rear tip of the skateboard, putting in a full turn in the middle and another rather
complicated-looking trick at the end when hopping off the handrail of the escalator.
Tucker huffed in mock annoyance, "Showoff!"
Wash grinned at that. "I thought you knew I can skate?"
"I knew you can skate, but I never knew what a showoff you are about it!" Tucker retorted,
deciding to again make a tour through the mall while performing some stunts on the playground and trying to beat Wash with his skating.
Some hours later, and it was already around dinner time. Tucker had to admit defeat in skating since Wash only got better the longer he skated and the better he got the hang of it again. They were both sitting on the swings of a rather large indoor playground, talking and swinging.
That was when Tucker, in hindsight it was probably both the worst and best idea he could ever have had, had the idea to make a little jumping contest.
"Wash, you know the game where kids swing and try to jump as high as possible from the swings?"
"I remember that, but I haven't really played it since I was a kid." Wash replied, already starting to
swing a bit faster.
"The one of us who jumps the highest gets a blowjob!" Tucker yelled, jumping off the swing and landing smoothly with Wash shortly after landing beside him.
They did that for several more times until something went horribly wrong.
When Wash tried to jump off the swing another time, his grey shirt got caught up in one of the chains where the swings were fixed on.
It ripped, throwing the Freelancer out of balance midflight.