Chapter 20

October 15, 2552, 1625 Hours, Losantiville, Seven Hills Region, planet Mars

What are you doing here?" Melanie asked, unbridled hostility lacing every word.

Natalia froze. This was not what she'd expected. Mike was not in the room, just the attractive Spartan and two younger ones. "I…uhm…I'm, I mean, I'm here to visit with the CO."

"Fine." Melanie's voice was cool but her deep blue eyes flashed red hot.

"Is Lieutenant Commander Mike around?" Natalia blurted out, instantly regretting the question.

For some reason that really bothered Melanie. Of course that was the reason she was here. It wasn't to see Colonel Ackerson; it was to connect with Mike. And she was in the position to do that.

Privilege.

And it enraged the seasoned veteran. "No, I don't know where he is," Melanie replied briskly. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, well, I just thought if I was here I'd say hello, that's all."

The smug little smile on the billionaire daughter's face increased Melanie's agitation tenfold. It wasn't that the smug chit was pleased, she had no clue what was going on with Mike. Melanie wasn't sure if she wanted anything more with him or not but she was certain she didn't want this privileged chick to have him.

Natalia turned to walk out of the room without saying anything else.

Melanie was going to let her and move on but she was already in a sour mood so instead decided to speak her mind. "Oh, you just 'happened' to drop in and you just 'thought' you'd say hello if you were here. How special."

Natalia was taken aback by the sarcastic and directed comment, initially drawing away from the larger Spartan. But another part of her had her stand her ground. She was, after all, a boxing champion so instead fought back. "Glad you think so. That's what real friends do. It's called being polite."

That caused a spontaneous snort from the beefy male Spartan in the room.

"Is that what you call it? Wow, how thoughtful," Melanie shot back sarcastically. "From my perspective it seems like someone walking around with their head up their ass unaware of the reality of the world around them. Privilege sure looks good."

"Oh, and you're so worldly? You talk of privilege?" Natalia countered, thrusting her chin out. "You walk around in your little bubble world here while the rest of the galaxy goes on living, trying to carry on despite the destruction going on around them."

That really grinded Melanie. "How dare you talk to me about being in a bubble!" Her voice raised and she stepped forward menacingly. "It's our sacrifices that allow you keep your life going on."

"Yes, and martyrdom is so attractive." Natalia stood her ground despite being two inches shorter, all her recent frustration being channelled into this moment.

"Yea, and so is throwing yourself at anyone who'll give you what you want."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Natalia retorted

"I know who you are and what you are," Melanie shot back.

"You know nothing about me," the billionaire's daughter responded, cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

"Really?" Melanie pressed in, knowing she'd landed a heavy blow. "I know enough to know you'd destroy Mike like you have so many others. He deserves better than that."

If the Spartan had punched Natalia in the stomach it would have hurt less. Blind rage at the accusation built and she felt her fists cock.

"That's enough! This has to stop."

The quiet female voice broke the tension of the moment and both women looked over at Maia who'd been observing the altercation the whole time. The look of disappointment on the teenage Spartan's face brought the two near-combatants back to reality.

"I'm sorry." Natalia apologized almost automatically, embarrassment filling her. She then took a mental step back and realized how this would have looked. She also finally realized that this woman before her likely had feelings for Mike too. She couldn't fault her for that. Then the faces of Noble Team came to mind and a flood of humiliation for what she said built up until she felt she could retch. "I meant no disrespect to what the Spartans have sacrificed. That's not where I was going but I was out of hand and I apologize. You guys are holding so much together for us. I'm really sorry for what I said."

Melanie could see the sincerity in the woman before her and it made her hate her more. But she knew she needed to respond but such words were not a strong suit. "Yea, I was out of line. I apologize."

"Good, now let's put this aside and move on, okay?" Maia asked sensibly.

Natalia nodded her head in agreement, averting eye contact. Saying nothing and with head lowered she slunk out of the room and headed for the exit as fast as she could.

Melanie stood transfixed, shocked at the depth of emotion she'd experienced during the exchange and disappointed at her own inability to control them. She certainly had something to think about.

Matt and Maia shuffled awkwardly out of the room to allow the Whisper some time for herself but Melanie did hear Matt say as they left, "why'd you stop it? Things were just starting to get good."

Only minutes later, and just missing Natalia, Mike sought out Matt and Maia. He'd tasked them to work on the load-out for the next day's major exercise so checked in with them before standing down for the night. The Lone Wolf was in an unsettled mood so somewhat distracted as he reviewed the kit manifest for the mission to come. It took him a few minutes but something didn't seem right with the two teenage Spartans. He couldn't put his finger on it but they seemed a bit off.

"What's up?" Mike asked, finally wanting to get to the bottom of why the task was still not fulfilled.

Maia said nothing, avoiding eye contact.

Her beefy team mate had no such reservation.

"Your lady friend got a chance to get to know Whisper a bit better a little while ago," Matt piped up, a leering grin filling his hard face.

"What do you mean by that?" Mike asked in surprise, the declaration catching him totally off guard.

"The woman you knew from Reach, sir, was here," Maia explained politely, trying to ignore Matt's obvious delight with the situation. "She and Melanie got into a bit of an argument."

She was here?" Mike asked incredulously.

"Yes sir," the female Spartan confirmed.

"And they got into an argument?" Mike asked a bit dumbly, still trying to process the news.

Maia nodded her head reluctantly.

"How do you know this?" Mike pressed in, hoping it was just some kind of mistake.

"Because we were there," Matt chimed in. "Got to see the whole thing."

Great, Mike thought angrily, this is just great. Shit. He had a sinking feeling about the catalyst but needed to know. "And what were they arguing about?"

"What do you think?" Matt responded, his grin growing, and then added as an afterthought, "Sir."

Yes, pretty obvious, Mike thought. So somehow Natalia had shown up at the training center and had a run in with Melanie. And he'd been unaware of the whole thing. Just when he thought he had a grip on things this showed he still had a long way to come. Anger began to spike into his embarrassment at what happened. Well, it was time to start dealing with this stuff head on.

"All right, well carry on with finishing the manifest, it looks good," Mike declared. "I've got a few things to take care of so I'll see you later." With that he turned and walked out of the supply area.

"I bet you do," Matt said lightly after he'd left the room.

Mike did physically pause halfway down the hallway and consider if he should do what he was thinking. There was already enough tension within the whole Special Ops training unit it didn't need any more but he also knew what he felt and so needed to clear the air. The thoughtful man also considered how much easier things were when he was a cold, killing machine. But those days were past and so he had to deal with this head on.

Mike searched around the complex until he found Melanie. Striding purposefully into the room she was in Melanie leaned back at the aggressive posture the Lone Wolf entered with.

"Mel, I heard you and Natalia had a confrontation a little while ago," Mike opened pointedly.

"We did," Melanie confirmed, avoiding eye contact. She'd been caught in mid-thought about the exact incident and still hadn't come to grips with her own emotions or response. Mike's intrusion had thrown off her train of thought and caught her off guard.

"What was up with that?" Mike pressed in aggressively.

Melanie had still not sorted out the real reasons behind her anger at the privileged ONI officer, nor more importantly her feelings for Mike. So instead she defaulted back to an emotion she could handle effectively in the moment-anger. "Yea, well what was up with her just waltzing in here to meet the CO?" she shot back.

"How is that any of your business? Mike countered, relieved to hear Natalia seemed to have some reason for being there, though it seemed pretty thin. "Do you even know what her orders are?"

"Orders? As if she takes orders."

Mike looked at Melanie hard in response to the glib response and she had to confess, "I don't know. I just didn't like her being here."

"And so you had to confront her in front of my team members?" Mike leaned in, his granite grey eyes suddenly on fire.

So they're 'yours' are they? Melanie thought bitterly, so much for the 'us'. It seemed he thought of her as just a 'consultant'. That went down bitterly. "Hey, I wasn't the one here for no purpose," the hurt woman declared. "I have a job to do. But then some of us have to work for a living."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mike blasted back angrily.

"Oh, I'm not referring to you, Michael, you work very hard." Melanie's tone had shifted to a pleasant yet patronizing manner as the door to her heart was locked. "I'm referring to others with more privilege."

Mike caught the shift in tone and then realized how this must be sounding. Though confused about his own feelings he could see he'd hurt her and she was withdrawing back into a shell. He remembered seeing that happen years before and it had caused him pain then as it was now. This is all so confusing. He shook his head. "Listen Mel, I don't want to fight with you over this, okay? There's too much going on and besides we've just reconnected. I'm just trying to sort things out, okay?"

"You're just the same idealistic little boy from Onyx. When are you going to wake up and see how the world really works?" Melanie responded acerbically.

That comment stung Mike. He was hurt she'd bring their mutual past into this argument.

Melanie opened her mouth as if to say more but in the end stayed silent.

Mike looked at Melanie and while she didn't seem to be taking any joy in his discomfort she also wasn't doing anything to alleviate it. Suddenly feeling very weary he massaged his temples and then rubbed his eyes with his fingers. The Spartan commander had a major exercise the next day and was now totally distracted.

Melanie could see Mike's response and part of her felt bad for what she'd just said. She'd actually enjoyed the confrontation and making the rich, attractive woman squirm but her sharp rebuttal had hurt Mike she could see. This would give her pause for thought but not right now. Mike had talked in some of their conversations about starting to feel again. She'd not understood initially but now she did.

She was feeling all right.

The reflective female Spartan also figured out that likely it had been Natalia Misriah who'd helped unlock these feelings in her former teammate and friend. The thought made the competitive woman angrier. If this is what it meant to feel, she wasn't sure of the appeal but so be it.

Mike saw she wasn't going to say anything more and there was little point in continuing the conservation. She'd made her point and seemed to have no intention of retracting anything. "All right then," he set his jaw and eyes narrowing declared, "I'll address this issue. In the meantime I don't want you talking to her anymore. It's disruptive to the team. This needs to be our number one priority. Is that clear?"

Melanie could see the coldness shroud his eyes and consume his voice. Suddenly the equally confused woman realized her heart had not truly been locked away to this man and that she'd in fact gone too far.

"I said, is that clear?" Mike demanded.

"Yes," Melanie answered meekly. Before she could add anything more Mike stormed out of the room, leaving her to ponder a new emotion she was experiencing-regret.

Mike stomped to his quarters in a rage. Several facility support staff he passed scurried out of his way, catching the anger in the Spartan so not wanting to block his path. He was livid at Melanie for how she'd acted in front of the team members and furious at Natalia for being the catalyst. He was confused enough about his feelings but at least now he was crystal clear in the moment.

The angry commander of the Wolf Pack went directly to his quarters, picked up his communications device and aggressively punched in Natalia's number.

The woman saw his number come up and had a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Her confrontation with the aggressive female Spartan wasn't sitting right and the wise woman knew it wouldn't go over well with Mike. Then she thought maybe he doesn't know, maybe he just wants to talk.

There was only one way to find out

"Hi Mike. Good to hear from you," Natalia answered cheerfully.

"What were you doing here earlier today?" he demanded crossly.

He knew.

"What…what do you mean?" Natalia tried to delay as she furiously attempted to collect her thoughts.

"I heard you were here and you had a confrontation."

"Well, yes, but I was there to see your CO."

"About what?" the Lone Wolf pressed in.

"Okay, to be honest," Natalia confessed, "I was hoping to see you."

Mike paused to consider the response. She seemed sincere and without intended malice. He could see her intention and also that she was likely unaware of the negative impact. He sighed heavily as his anger bled away and was replaced by a crushing fatigue. "Oh Natalia."

"I'm sorry!" she responded, emotion growing in her voice. "I didn't mean to cause problems. I just thought I wanted to say hi."

Mike considered the response and measured his words. "I get that and it was nice of you to think of me but you just can't walk in on an operational setting and try to make a social call. I have things to do; everyone here has things to do. You coming like that without any reason makes it look like you have…" he allowed his voice to trail off, hesitating to make the statement.

But Natalia knew exactly what he was thinking and the implication cut to her core. "It makes me looked privileged," she finished his sentence, crushed that she had done the exact thing she'd always feared.

Maybe she was no better than a spoiled little rich girl.

"Mike, please, that was never on my mind," Natalia pleaded. "I just...I just wanted to see you."

"I know, you didn't think how it would look," Mike countered graciously, touched by her sentiments. Natalia fell silent and he knew from her silence this was hard for her. Yet he also knew she had to overcome that tendency. Since the issue was now raised, and each of their moods seemed shot anyway, he decided to address the issue Melanie had raised with him. "Natalia, there's something I need to ask you."

"Ask anything you want," she responded but with less conviction than it sounded.

"Okay, well I saw something about you getting into a fight in a nightclub back on Earth and you being arrested," Mike began.

Great, he knows about that Natalia thought. "Yes, that's true," she confessed. I got drunk and acted stupidly. I regret so much that happened, please believe me Mike."

"I do believe you Natalia, and I know people make mistakes, I've made lots of them myself. The point is, if you were arrested after something like that, how are you still operational and here?"

It was a fair question, asked without malice, and one that begged an answer. The problem was Natalia didn't want to confess the answer, especially to Mike yet she knew she had to. "I was released from custody and Admiral Parangosky sent me here because…because I was an embarrassment to her and ONI. But in reality I wanted to come here because I wanted to see you, so it actually worked out for me."

Mike knew she wasn't telling the whole story but he also could tell the confession of her standing with her dangerous commander would have been embarrassing. "Okay, makes sense," he let her off the hook, "and I'm glad you're here. Listen, I have my operation to get ready for so we'll talk again when I get back. Oh, and no more unauthorized visits, okay?" he added playfully.

Natalia knew he knew and yet he didn't challenge her on it. She couldn't help but love him even more. "For sure Mike," she confirmed with a bit of chuckle in her voice, "I learned my lesson. Have a good mission."

As Mike finished up the conversation and pondered the implications of what it meant back in the Wolfpack team quarters the day's events dominated the conversation.

"I'm telling you man, the Wolf has girl troubles and that's going to spell trouble for us," Matt went on again, as he'd been doing the whole evening.

"Come on Matt, the boss always comes through, you know that," Adam countered yet again. Each time he'd tried to change the conversation the belligerent Spartan had brought it back.

"Well, I know which one I'd pick if I were him," Matt doggedly stayed on the topic.

"Yea, which one is that?" Alissa inserted herself into the conversation, her own anger growing. "The rich girl?"

"Of course, is there any other option?"

"Yea, well Mel is one of us. If they have feelings for each other than they shouldn't have some spoiled snot sticking her nose into it. That chick's lucky I wasn't there," Alissa added fiercely. "I would have sorted her out."

"There's nothing to sort out," Maia entered the conversation quietly. "This is Mike's business and we shouldn't get distracted by it."

"His business is our lives," Matt shot back. "And if his head's not in the game then it's our butts on the line."

"Trust him; he'll get this sorted out. It's been like two days, just relax," Maia held her ground, trying to redirect her explosive teammate.

Adam again had lost the initiative in the conversation and had been effectively pushed out. The insecure teen fell into a funk.

Maia could see her friend and teammate grow silent and fall out of the conversation that now Terrell had joined. She knew him well enough that this meant he was withdrawing into his insecurity. The realization pained the quiet teen who felt things deeply though didn't show it.

Maia's calm exterior façade hid a sensitivity of spirit and depth of thought the others didn't know about. Hers was not the passion of an Alissa who wore her heart on her sleeve but rather a reflective insight that caused her to see a lot of what was going on. She had little memory of her family, which was unusual since she generally had excellent recollection. The quiet teen did remember her home town of New Mombasa and that could always bring a slight smile of remembrance. But not her family. No, that had been pushed deeper to a place she never went. Her training and augmentation as a Spartan was something she viewed more clinically, almost like a necessary evil, but since then her teammates had become her family. Adam was a like a brother to her and so she watched out for him as a good sibling would.

Maia liked Mike and had thrived under his leadership but could see the danger of the conflict within him over these two women. To her nothing good would come of it so that was part of the reason she never formed anything other than a platonic attachment to anyone. But then what chance did she have as a Spartan, she reminded herself.

The squabbling over their commander continued for the team and some like Matt and Terrell saw it as a good-natured distraction before a mission. The always-competitive Alissa treated it as another challenge to win while Adam and Maia viewed it as a potential problem to not only their training but combat effectiveness. Regardless, this was a team not focused on the task at hand.

The next morning Mike was still in a fog from the previous day's drama. He'd barely slept that night, his mind racing. Not only was his conversation with Melanie not sitting right with him but the confrontation between her and Natalia was all over the training center. He was irritated with both of them for the way they'd acted. Melanie had withdrawn into a protective shell and hadn't even come out to see the team as it prepared to move out. While things had smoothed over with Natalia there were still elements of her visit to their base and also the fight on Earth that disturbed him. Each the Lone Wolf left to their own devices, he didn't have the time or patience right now to deal with that.

"Sir?"

Mike realized someone was talking to him. Giving his head a quick shake to refocus he saw that Adam was trying to talk to him.

"Pardon?" he asked a bit sheepishly as he tried to refocus.

"I said, is there any last minutes changes to the load out? We're getting ready to mount up," his 2ic obviously repeated himself. Rather than being irritated Adam seemed concerned though by the apparent lack of concentration from the leader of the Wolf Pack.

"No, that's fine Adam, we'll go with what we got," Mike responded without any real thought.

"Understood. You okay, sir?" Adam asked, concern obvious.

"Yea, I'm good," Mike deflected. "I'll meet you at the Pelican."

In truth Mike wasn't good and Adam knew it. This concerned the teenage Spartan and for good reason. They were about to depart on a now three day exercise. It had been on the training schedule as two but then a third day had been added by Colonel Ackerson as a curve ball. They had been already going out with minimum ammunition and food while facing off against the full complement of the ODST training detail and there was no increase in any supplies other than water. This was going to be by far their most significant challenge.

The objectives for Team Wolfpack were aggressive and the timeline allowed for little flexibility. In many ways they were being set up to run a gauntlet to test not only their resourcefulness but also resilience. To have a distracted team leader was not a good way to be going into it.

Mike could see Adam's concern and knew it was well founded. He too was concerned but just couldn't shake the fog he was in. He resolved to sort these things out when he came back.