Authors' Note: The fic Code Monkey Like You is a companion to this chapter. Eowyn77's husband contributed a line of dialogue. We won't tell you which. And we wrote the last sections of this while full of Kateydidnt's biscuits, so we had inspiration help. In this chapter, we're going to resolve something that's been up in the air for twelve whole chapters. Hope you enjoy!

I paced my room while my computer booted up. If Creepy Grandpa Mr. Tom Sharpe sir wasn't NotTheToothFairy, then I needed to find out who he was - and figure out what he wanted with Sam.

I had just logged in when Sharsky started swearing in Huttese. "He's in cahoots with G.I. Jamal!"

I bolted to his computer and looked over his shoulder at a video feed of the dorm lobby. G.I. Jamal was standing at ease until Tom Sharpe walked in. He snapped to attention and then held the outside door for Creepy Grandpa.

"We didn't plant a camera in the lobby," I protested.

"I hacked the school's security feed."

"That quick?" I was grudgingly impressed, though I wasn't sure if I should be impressed with his skillz or with how crappy the university's security was.

"Dude, focus!"

Coming from someone with the attention span of a chipmunk, that was an insult. I put my best conspiracy-theory brain to work all the same. "The timing on all this sucks - Creepy Grandpa shows up as soon as Sam's bodyguard gets recalled to base."

"That can't be a coincidence! This is a full-blown, honest-to-Cthulhu conspiracy, Binder! The real effing deal!"

"He's vulnerable now and they know it." The thought hit me like a thunderbolt. "We have to step up. It's our fault, so we need to take Cam's place. We need to be his bodyguards."

Sharsky nodded in agreement. "We can't email anything we find to Sam - G.I. Jamal's probably put keyloggers on our computers. We have to take this off the grid."

Remembering Sam's weirdly serious mood the other day, I parked my butt in front of my computer with an odd sense of duty and got to work tracking down our mysterious creeper.

There were some valid options. Tom wasn't that weird a name, especially given a certain age range. We ruled out anyone twenty-one and under, as well as anyone who was currently incarcerated. There were two people of the wrong race, an octogenarian British author who did not resemble our visitor in the slightest, and then there was the drummer from Mannheim Steamroller - definitely not him.

We also couldn't tell if his first name was his given name or short for something else. If I recalled correctly, half the suspense in one Michael Crichton book had come from a psychotic alien self-identifying as Harry and that corresponded to first names, middle names, nicknames, and an unfortunate typo. We couldn't take it for granted that Google would turn up something based on the Bureau of Vital Statistics.

And then there were the normal weird quirks of any search engine results. There was no way this was the same Sharpe whose LinkedIn profile said he'd been a sales associate at Dayton, Ohio's Best Buy for six years. And unless some of Sharsky's OTHER conspiracies were true, the dead weren't rising and the Colonel Sharpe who'd died in Qatar back in the days of Mission City hadn't stopped by to swap intel. The resemblance was uncanny-though, the dead guy had more hair. My money was on doppelgangers, pod people, or time travel.

A text message on Sharsky's phone chirped up with the Borg Queen's voice saying, "Welcome home, Locutus."

I paused and tilted my head. "Whose ringtone is that?"

"Huh?"

"Ringtone. Or text alert. Whatever. 'Welcome home, Locutus?'"

"That's Lisbeth's. Why?"

"Welcome home, from her?"

"What? She's hospitable."

I glowered at him for a second. "What did she text you?"

He pulled out his phone, but what he read there made him go pale.

"What?" I demanded.

"She wants to know if Cheddar Bay Biscuits will be at our place or hers."

I swore under my breath. "We can't do anything with her right now. We're at DefCon 1."

He nodded in agreement. "It's not safe." He typed something and got a message a few seconds later from the Borg Queen again.

"Well?" I demanded.

He read the text. "I told her it wasn't safe, and she wants to know if we got locked out again."

"Tell her we're not locking each other out, but the Droid of Death stuff is getting ugly again. We'll contact her when it's safe."

With that we both returned to our computers-Sharsky continuing to follow video feeds across campus and me deep in the Google-fu. We only stopped our frantic research when Alienboy himself once again darkened our (undamaged) doorway.

Sharsky lunged to his feet. "Sam! It's the zombie apocalypse!"

"What, again?" Leo asked, one step behind Sam. "They said the next one wasn't scheduled until September."

"Actually," I said, trying to calm things down a bit, "we have some theories we need to bounce off of you about Creepy Grandpa."

Leo muttered something unfamiliar, but probably offensive, under his breath in Spanish and Sam blinked in confusion.

"You know, our visitor? Tom Sharpe?"

"Come here, come here," Sharsky said, "Check out this video feed."

"And what did I say about cameras in the room?" Sam said in an exasperated tone, heading his way.

"In the room," I pointed out. "There's this thing called a threshold. Posts and lintels. At no point did this tech enter the room. Not even in box."

Sam's reply was a roll of his eyes as he bent over to look at the monitor.

"That's right," Sharsky defended. "We did all assembly, installation, and testing in the hallway to respect your boundaries."

Sam took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Knowing him, he was probably counting to ten.

"We didn't do anything technically wrong," I pointed out.

"We did something very right," Sharsky added, "we got a good mugshot of the guy who knows way too much about you. The school's security feed only caught the back of his head."

"Do I even want to know how you got that video?" Sam said dully.

"Well it really wasn't that hard, given that the..." Sharsky trailed off as Sam glared at him. "Never mind."

"They're right about getting a mugshot," Leo pointed out.

Sam blew out a loud sigh before saying, "Fine, the doorframe cam can stay."

The almighty D20 decided that I got to be the extra security detail for Sam's class the next morning. It took three Red Bulls to be alert enough to button my shirt properly. (I had to work later that afternoon and Cami was punishing me for calling in sick during the fake crab from hell.)

When I heard them talking, I crossed through the server room and knocked on their bedroom door. It got quiet on the other side, and eventually Leo opened it. "What?"

I suddenly realized they hadn't been there for that part of Sharsky's and my conversation the day before. "Since it's our fault Sam's short a bodyguard, we're escorting him on campus. I get the morning shift today, while that jerk Sharsky gets to sleep in."

Sam peeked over Leo's shoulder. "You got up early just to protect me?" He looked like he wasn't sure if he was touched or angry and so settled for confused.

"Yeah. That guy knew our names and who you hang with and everything."

Leo scowled. "Look, flunkies, Imma educate you on my after-school job. I am the man on the ground, the Secret Service. Ain't nobody they trust to cover his ass more than me and I'm not letting you screw it up."

"Backup" I protested. "We're here to fill a gap."

"No, you wannabe cholos, I'm here to fill in a gap and you're just here to be a liability."

"Well, apparently, it's not going that well. Did you fend off the Scary Geriatric?"

"No, but who's been there every time Alienboy had a near-death experience?"

"That's not a qualification, it's a disclaimer," Sharsky called grumpily from the bedroom. "Who died and made you James Bond? And keep it down!"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," Leo shouted back.

"Yeah," Sam interrupted squeezing past Leo into the server room and snagging his scarf from the back of a chair, "can we stop marking territory for a second? Why are any of you getting up at the crack of dawn for my security?"

"Droid of Death? The campus shooting? Crab rangoon?"

"Which was your fault, if you remember." Leo scoffed after grabbing his backpack and following Sam into the server room.

"Not the first two," I pointed out.

"Whatever, it's your lost sleep, I just don't want to be late to class." Sam threw his arms up, nearly clipping Leo's chin.

He marched out into the hallway while Leo and I jostled in the doorway trying to get out first. He won and we both scrambled behind Sam.

It was 36 hours into Operation Protect Sam, when I got a text from Sharsky.

Alienboy just got a phone call and said "Thank Muhammad." Then turned around and started walking back to the dorm.

That was weird - Sam had Biology and he was pretty religious about attendance - alien invasions notwithstanding.

Thanks for the sitrep, I sent back.

Then my phone buzzed a second time, this one with Sam's ringtone.

Dorm room council in 15 minutes.

I looked at the clock, my shift in the tutoring lab ended in ten minutes but it would take me seven minutes to get back to the dorm, meaning I needed to leave two minutes early-three to be safe.

The student I had been assisting left four minutes before the end of shift, leaving me weighing the pros and cons of skipping out a few minutes early and the possible wrath of Cami.

Josh, one of the other tutoring assistants, walked in at that moment. He had the next shift, so I was officially off the hook. I grabbed my bag and ran, waving at him as I went by.

I made it to the dorm with 74 seconds to spare. Everyone else was already in their respective office chairs in the server room. I dropped my bag behind my desk, took a Gatorade from the fridge (so I could keep my wits about me) and plopped down on my chair at 15 minutes on the dot.

Once we Avengers were assembled, Sam took a deep breath and let it out in whoosh. "So, I had to get permission before I could tell you, but I recognized the guy on the video, and he's not an enemy. I don't know if I'd call him a friend, exactly, but he is an ally. He's BrassEagle."

"Holy Sith," Sharsky breathed pulling on his hair.

Clearly he'd been raiding the Red Bull. To Sam, I said, "So he really was just a jumped-up ROTC guy?"

"I don't have permission to tell you anything else, but...yeah. REALLY jumped up."

"But...why would he do all that?" I demanded. "He totally had us freaked out."

"Again, all I got permission to tell you was his blog handle." Giving us a sympathetic half-smile, he said, "I'm in the doghouse here, too. I gotta toe the line on this one."

"So why'd you say 'Thank Muhammad?'" Sharsky said puzzled.

Sam blinked at him in confusion, "Huh?"

"On the phone, just before you turned back from Biology, you said, 'Thank Muhammad.' You converting or something?"

Sam's face cleared, "Oh! No, I said 'Thanks, Muhammad' - it's Al-Sharif's first name." After a beat, he said, "Please tell me you didn't think his parents actually named him G.I. Jamal."

Once we got the all-clear, there was only one thing to do: Hike to the nearest grocery store for the ingredients of a thank-you biscuit. Most things were easy access - flour, sugar, and the like - but cayenne pepper didn't come in single-use containers and Sharsky grumbled about the store not stocking actual buttermilk and instead having to do the old "lemon juice in milk" trick, whatever that was. We even sweet-talked a stocker into checking the back for sharp cheddar when all they had out was mild.

Since we didn't have our yellow alien bodyguard to give us a lift, and we didn't think far enough ahead to buy the groceries on Lisbeth's side of campus, we invited her over to our dorm. She beat us there and we found her looking cheerful in our communal kitchen. I suspected that seeing us united and not arguing about something in Geonosian warmed the cockles of her heart.

"We bought enough for a double batch," Sharsky announced proudly, plopping the bags down on the counter.

"Smart thinking. With a double batch, there'll be enough to thank Katie for her part in all of this."

I hadn't planned to thank her for anything other than leaving me alone, but I supposed she had done some good in getting Lisbeth involved. And she hadn't kicked us out of her dorm.

Lisbeth wandered toward the tiled part of the common room and leaned against the kitchen counter opposite Sharsky.

He took as much time setting out utensils as an artist preparing his paintbrushes. I couldn't tell if he'd seen it on some cooking show or if the Sharskinator was taking his baked goods WAY too seriously, but I didn't interfere. I was here to be two parts crowd control and one part food-taster and I didn't have to get involved until there was something on a cooling rack. (Though, come to think of it, we didn't actually have a cooling rack.)

Since Sharsky was absorbed in playing wannabe Paula Deen, Lisbeth glanced my way. "Spring break. You guys have plans?"

"Me and Sam are road tripping," Leo said dismissively, "by invitation only."

"No plans yet," I answered before he could be more rude. "I keep thinking Cami will assign the most annoying tutor to man the fort out of spite, but she claims I'm off for the week. You?"

"That's the thing. I don't want to blow my savings on the beach, but some time apart would be good for my relationship with campus. I was thinking Atlantic City."

"Sah-WEEEEEEEEEEEEET," Sharsky chimed in. "Beer Fest is that week."

The guy had snuck half a light beer at the latest frat party he crashed before Leo had caught him and weirded out five girls without even trying. It was nothing to brag about, much less try again.

"I'm nixing that," I said. "I'm not getting a fake ID."

"I can pass for 25," he protested. "Given the right amount of attitude and the right hair, I can be very persuasive."

"Also," Lisbeth added in a pointed tone that was usually appropriate for toddlers or inattentive students in a classroom, "I don't know what kind of drunk I am. Mean, sloppy, slap-happy… and I'd rather not do that experimenting a few hundred miles from home."

"Seconded," I said. "If I'm going to get busted for something before finals, it's not going to be for underage drinking."

"Besides," Lisbeth echoed, "there are a million ways to have fun around there without things our moms would disapprove of."

"Damn right," I said. "My birthday kicks off spring break this year and I'm…" What came to mind was "Imma get funky," but that didn't sound right. "I'm up for doing something more spontaneous than stupid."

Lisbeth got a sudden and definitely mischievous glint in her eye and started ambling toward the couches in the seating area.

"Tablespoon times two. It's the definition of doubling," Sharsky said waspishly behind us.

Ignoring the doughboys, she said, "It'll be your birthday?"

"Ides of March," I said proudly. "First year Dad won't be around to quote Julius Caesar at me."

I shouldn't give her ideas; she probably had a few monologues memorised and could costume design a toga in five seconds flat. But I would insist on veto power in order to have some fun on my special day.

Sharsky returned to teaching Sam and Leo the way of the biscuit.

"Doesn't it need yeast?" Leo asked, regarding the recipe with suspicion.

"No, the rising agent is the baking powder - it creates a chemical reaction. You don't have to leave it to rise like you do with yeasted bread either."

"I've got an idea." Lisbeth said importantly as she plopped down in the corner of a couch.

"I thought you might," I answered, taking the corner at the opposite end of her couch. "Lay it on me."

"It won't involve beer." She turned her head toward Sharsky and called out, "But I've got something better."

"Go on," he encouraged over his shoulder while Sam counted cups of flour. "Blow our minds."

"You've heard of wine-tastings?"

"Yeah." I waved a hand vaguely. "I hear it comes with weirdly-colored cheese and you're supposed to talk about the unique bouquets or something."

"Or something," she chuckled. "I propose we do something similar with energy drinks. I've heard of some ways to spice things up. Mixins, pairings, even certain flavors of Pringles that go well with Jolt."

There was a pause as I stared in awe at her. The conversation happening by the counter suddenly seemed a lot louder.

"This says make a well in the center?" Sam said, reading the recipe over Leo's shoulder.

"Yeah, make an indentation in the center where you can then pour the liquid ingredients."

"Oh!" Sam said in an enlightened tone, "Like a mashed potato and gravy volcano!"

"...Yes?"

As she looked over at them, Lisbeth had an expression on her face that was somewhere between fondly exasperated and amused.

"I think I'm in love with you," I blurted.

The words were out of my mouth with the suddenness and surety of facing a carbon freeze. Lisbeth didn't blush like rom-coms had taught me she should; but like the true theater major she was, she played it up.

Her eyelashes fluttered as she gave me a coy smile. "Why, Binder, this is so sudden."

Well, yeah, I hadn't known her for more than a couple of months, but Skywalkers fell in love faster than this. Maybe that wasn't the right precedent to mention, so I decided to be as honest as that first line.

"You're smart, funny, and know your way around taurine," I said reasonably. "You're objectively the coolest person on campus."

Sam would agree with me. Sharsky would mention her bod. Leo would say something about chicas en fuego. Thinking of that kicked my brain into gear.

"NO PRESSURE!" I exclaimed.

The conversation by the counter petered out for a moment and Sharsky replied in confusion, "I don't even have a pressure cooker?" He then turned back to Sam and Leo and waved a hand at the bowl of dough, picking up his instruction again.

"No, it's not that." She was grinning a little at my lack of filters, but also had a curious tilt to one eyebrow. "Won't Sharsky mind?"

I tilted my own right eyebrow in confusion. "What's he got to do with anything?"

The he in question suddenly burst out loudly, "No! You're overworking the dough-you want to mix until the ingredients are combined and knead it just a little, but if you work it too much the biscuits will be tough. You have a little more leeway because these are drop biscuits so you won't be working them more by rolling them."

The eyebrow lowered and she looked close to a furrowed brow. She glanced over at Sharsky in some consternation, before looking at me with a no-nonsense expression firmly in place. "I don't want anyone's feelings to get hurt."

Monster mixology and sensitive. If she was trying to turn off my well-informed attraction, she was going about it the wrong way.

"Look," I said, "Sharsky's my best friend and all, but me noticing that you're something special isn't exactly going to come between us. I mean, if anything, he'll be cheering me on."

Lisbeth blinked a couple of times and looked away like I'd just told her that HTML was going to phase out the bold tags - baffled and not quite sure that we were both speaking English.

"Where's the pastry brush?" Leo interjected, opening and closing drawers at random.

"I don't have one, so use a paper towel...," Sharsky paused a moment, "No, not like that, do it that way and you'll get paper towel bits left on top."

Did she really not get it? "I mean, you're a theater major who can code and you rock the stagehand black look like some chicks wear little black dresses. You're nice and a good cook and you've got the body to match, so…"

Her head jerked up like I'd slapped her, and she looked at me slack-jawed.

I realized what I'd said and defensively held up my hands. "Sorry, that probably sounded way more sexist than I meant it."

"No…" she slowly said, "that's not where my brain was going."

We both kind of stared at each other for a second, and I think my expression mirrored her deer-in-the-headlights look. Apparently, we started having two different conversations somewhere along the way, and I had no idea what her conversation was about.

"You didn't preheat the oven!? I asked you to set the oven to 400!" Sharsky barked.

"I did!" Sam protested.

"Set the oven to 400 means set the temperature and turn it ON, not just turn the dial."

"Well, now I know."

"I thought you two were together," Lisbeth mumbled, apparently to the floor.

It took me a second to switch from deer-in-headlights to dawning comprehension and once that had sunk in, I tried not to look like there was anything wrong with that conclusion.

"Oh." I could only think of one-syllable words that wouldn't do anyone good or clear things up. "Well, we're not."

There were much better ways to articulate that, but like with my declaration of love, my brain wasn't currently very good at knowing what those ways were.

"I'm not. And neither is he. And we haven't been." There. I'd graduated to more advanced words. "We're both very interested in women of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, nationalities, and personality types."

I had no idea what would make her think we were gay, but her growing blush made it clear she was really embarrassed. Trying to be gallant, I said, "I think what we have here is a failure to communicate." When in doubt, quote something. I'd learned that much from Cam and Cool Hand Luke seemed appropriate.

Lisbeth let out a snort, "No kidding." She rubbed her face and gave me a half smile.

Leo slammed the oven door shut and clapped his hands, sending flour dust into the air. "We have made our offerings to the fire gods!" he proclaimed.

"NOT IF WE DO IT RIGHT," I shouted.

"Just a tip-if you ever DO work with yeasted dough-don't go slamming the oven or galumphing around." Lisbeth rose from the couch, staging a culinary intervention.

I was more relieved than I should have been that our awkward conversation was apparently over.

"Galumphing? That's not a word," Sam complained.

"It totally is," I interjected, standing up as well.

Biscuits now in the oven, we pitched in to help clean. Doing dishes, throwing out the gunk that Leo had created when forgetting to read one of the labels, and prepping something for the transport of leftovers. Once the thank-you goodies were out of the oven and not the temperature of molten lead, we tested one a piece and deemed them good enough to hide from everyone else, but Lisbeth insisted on saving some for Katie.

With all of that sorted and settled, Sharsky, Sam, and Leo started schlepping ingredients back upstairs. With them out of earshot, I got up the guts to mention a potentially-problematic subject. "Does this mean no Atlantic City?" I asked.

We hadn't talked trips in a while, so it took Lisbeth a moment to reorient herself. "Why would it?"

"Because…" I did the brain version of turning it off and on again to see if it would work better. "Hey, it's your idea, so if there are any reasons to not bring us along, I will understand."

Her expression now resembled that slightly mournful compassion that I'd seen that night on the heating grates. "I don't see any reason," she announced. "I thought it would be fun for four friends to get away for the week and that's what this is."

"Wait, four?"

"Well, yeah. No one's a third wheel and we'll have a good time."

Leo led Sharsky and Sam back into the common room to get the rest of the ingredients. "Dude, are you going to help with anything?"

"Wait! Lisbeth and I are arranging brilliance for Spring Break. You and Sam aren't invited, but Sharsky needs to hear this." Turning back to Lisbeth, I said, "But who's number four for this outing?"

"Katie's going to visit her grandmother," she said, "but you're going to meet a friend of mine. I think you'll get along fine."

If she didn't treat us with Katie's usual thinly-veiled contempt, I could probably get along with most people. The chances were even better when I had enough caffeine.

"Hear me out," she suggested. "It would be weird to roadtrip with a stranger, so how about I introduce you all to her at dinner. If it goes well, we can set up another night to finalise plans, assign supply runs, and synchronise our watches."

Sharsky grimaced. "This sounds like something we'll need a spreadsheet for."

"Or a to-do list," she said. "I'll supply the coolers. My copilot will be in charge of music."

"Your copilot being this mysterious fourth person?" I prompted.

"That's something we can decide after Friday."

Translation: I had a couple of weeks to butter her up so I didn't have to spend the whole drive learning the lyrics to showtunes or begging them to turn off the Carrie Underwood or something. Heck, with the confusion straightened out, I could probably even flirt my way into the copilot's seat.

"I'll make a list of every cord, cable, charger, and container we'll need for a week away," Sharsky offered.

She rolled her eyes, which was a familiar enough gesture that I felt like I was back in my own territory. "Haven't you guys ever thought of going off the grid?"

"Yeah," I said, "but I prepare for emergencies and emergencies include having a phone out of juice in the wrong place at the wrong time." I paused to consider and noticed the suspiciously quiet Sam and Leo stuffing their faces. I shook an admonitory finger at them.

"Oi! Those are for Katie!" Shasky said, following the direction of my finger.

Leo licked his fingers and grabbed another of the dozen or so biscuits in the box. "There's still plenty left!" he protested, spattering crumbs.

Lisbeth laughed and snatched the box away from them, plucking the two crumb-spattered ones out and placing them on the counter. "You can keep those. She won't want them now."

I turned my attention to Lisbeth and our unfinished business and compromised. "We'll never turn down an invitation because of an urgent website update."

"I know you," she snickered. "I won't expect never, but I'll accept that you'll do your best to turn off your laptops and have some fun."

Time was of the essence. Even without Beer Fest, it was important to find somewhere to stay that wasn't cripplingly out of our price range or completely disgusting. "Have you been there before?"

"No, but I know people who have and, between my parents and website reviews, I think we can make it worthwhile."

"I volunteer Sharsky for baking duty."

He piped up with, "I'll bring muffins. Does this fourth person have any weird allergies or aversions to spelt?"

"Good man," Lisbeth said, " And no, I don't know of any dietary restrictions."

"Hold up," I interrupted, trying to get us back on track. "Let's get hotel reservations and talk about departure times and then we'll worry about things like brioche."

"Oooh, brioche," Sharsky sighed.

"You've got the Yelp reviews and parental input and you know our new friend. Me and Sharsky will come up with a schedule and you'll come up with one and we'll compromise if we have to. I'm off for the week, but I think we'd be nuts to head back at the last minute in case we hit any literal roadblocks, so maybe we plan for a mission length of Sunday to Saturday."

She blinked with a slight grin. "You're impressively organised when you're motivated."

She probably didn't mean that to be anything more than a genuine compliment, but it was weirdly nice to know where we both stood and take it as something potentially less than platonic. I took it as an ego boost and grinned back. "You don't mod for a few years without knowing how to set up TOS," I explained, "and you caught me in a good mood."