Ch. 8 - What Goes Around, Comes Around, Part II

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x

When volunteering to stay here with Pablo, Kara hadn't realized that she would be stuck here for four days. Four days of sharing a eight-hundred square foot house with a stranger who did nothing but play solitaire. Four days with absolutely nothing to do except watch the three available channels of television, only one of which was in English. Unless, that was, she wanted to teach herself Portuguese from the copy of Moby Dick that was sitting on the kitchen counter, surprisingly free of dust. Four days without a shower. Four days without a damn bra.

And worst, four days without any contact from Danny or Carlton.

The latter was less concerning. Carlton knew what to do under these circumstances - get the Nathan James to a safe distance and wait for the signal that the team was ready for extraction. Plus, Cooper no doubt relayed the appropriate emergency codes to indicate that they were safe and executing as planned. Kara trusted her XO completely. Still, being away from her ship for so long made her edgy.

But far worse than being cut off from the Nathan James was the lack of contact from Danny. Kara couldn't stop the gnawing in her stomach, telling her that something must have gone wrong, insisting that Danny was in danger. Reminding her that the plan was to be in and out and that every passing hour was an indication that it had all gone to shit while Kara was stuck here, with Pablo, wearing a hole in the floorboards, unable to do anything to help.

"It's been too long." Kara stopped in front of the table.

Pablo didn't even look up, tipping his chair back in a manner that was eerily similar to Tex. Actually, over the past four days Kara had become more and more convinced that, at some point in time, Tex and Pablo had both worked for the same unnamed intelligence agency. Chances were that Pablo still did - which made her trust him about as much as she trusted Jacob-fucking-Barnes. Hell, the only reason she hasn't yet done a runner was because Danny apparently trusted this man. "I would have heard if there was a problem."

"Unless they can't contact you," Kara countered, not wanting to think about why they wouldn't be able to contact Pablo. About the possibility that they were captured, or even dead.

"Then I would have heard from my people," Pablo replied, flipping over a card.

Kara resumed her pacing. "You should go out. Get some intel."

"No can do, Captain," Pablo did look up then. "Green said to keep my ass here with you so I'm keeping my ass here with you."

Kara resumed her pacing, wondering if it was possible to break a tooth from grinding your jaw too much. And then her attention was caught by a picture on the television. One of her and Danny from the recent publicity snaps. Then the picture changed to a much older shot. One of Danny and...Kara's heart sunk. Where in the world did they dig up a picture of Frankie Benz? Snatching up the remote, Kara quickly turned on the volume so that she could hear the news anchor.

We have received word that Daniel Green, a commander in the United States Navy who was captured during the recent attack on the city, has been killed by the rebels. Commander Green was a member of the crew of the Nathan James during its historic trip to the Arctic, which allowed Doctor Rachel Scott to develop the cure to the Red Flu. More recently, Commander Green was credited with saving more than twenty civilians during a mudslide while on vacation in Columbia. He was in Rio de Janeiro to participate in the signing of the recent trade treaty between Brazil and the United States. There remains no word on the status of Commander Kara Foster, captain of the Nathan James, who is also missing and presumed captured...

Kara's vision blurred until all she saw was black. Danny was...dead? Was it only days ago that they were dancing and talking? Having sex in a room only twenty feet from where she was standing? Kara's stomach buckled and, for a brief moment, she thought that she was going to vomit. The only thing that stopped her was Pablo's completely neutral face. No shock or horror or even sad resignation. As thought this wasn't a surprise at all. Kara narrowed her eyes on the man. What did she actually know about Pablo? Sure, Danny knew him. But people changed, switched sides, did horrible things. If the last five years had taught her nothing, it had taught her that.

Pablo might have skated for the last few days because Kara did trust Danny, but she wasn't an idiot. Nobody had perfect judgment. Look at what happened with the Fletcher situation. He managed to take in the entire team, working with them day and night for months, only to betray them at the critical moment. A sleeper, they later determined, put in place by the British years before the Red Flu. Nobody could have known.

Kara stepped directly in front of Pablo, leaning down, her hands flat on the table as she waited for him to meet her gaze. "I don't care if you are CIA or Naval Intelligence or some outfit that is so black ops that you would have to kill me as soon as you tell me. But I need to know what's going on out there. And you can either go find out yourself, or you can call someone. But if you don't do something in the next five minutes, I am walking out that door with or without your permission. And, in case Danny didn't bother mentioning this, I am fully capable of making sure that you neither walk nor father children again if you even try to stop me."

Pablo grinned. "Green said you were a spitfire. Should have known that he would never go for docile."

And then he went back to his cards.

Patience at an end, Kara spun, opening the cabinet where she had seen Sasha stash a radio, knowing that she had mere seconds before Pablo moved. Sure enough, she barely had the cabinet open before he reached for her arm. But Kara was no novice, swinging the copy of Moby Dick that she had grabbed down on his fingers before spinning and raising her knee towards his dick. At his instinctual movement to protect the family jewels, she brought her heel down on his foot, before hooking him behind the knee and taking him down hard. A moment later she held the precious radio in her hand, thumb on the transmit button. "Now, are you going to tell me what is going on or do I need to find out from my XO?"

"Damn. Why are the good ones always taken?" Despite being flat on his back, Pablo started laughing. "Who taught you that move?"

Danny, of course, not that she planned to admit it. Kara lifted the radio, her intent clear.

Pablo studied her, seeming to be weighing something, and then spoke again. "Have you ever seen someone hit the point where they have nothing to live for?"

xxxxx

Kara couldn't escape the screaming. The sound going on and on until an arm came around her waist, pulling her out of the surf and, abruptly, Kara realized that it was coming from her. Her head jerking up, Kara stared at Tex, unable to manage a coherent sentence.

"He's dead." She finally managed. "They all are."

All of them. Danny. Alisha. Carlton. Rick. Andrea. Mike and Tom and Rios. Every single person aboard the Nathan James had just gone up in flames, the ship blasted to bits. But the one that cut the most.

Danny.

No chance to figure things out. To apologize. To try to make things right. To see what might have been. Any chance of a future together lost the moment that those missiles hit the Nathan James.

"The James is gone."

The anguish was unbearable and she found herself wondering if this was how Danny felt, back after he lost Benz and Berchem and Smith. If this was why he did what he did. Pushing her away, blocking her out, doing everything and anything to avoid feeling this way ever again.

The pain was unimaginable.

"What do you want to do?" Tex's voice broke though and Kara forced herself to focus on the Nevadan. Wondering how he was still on his feet. Although Tex and Andrea had never acknowledged anything, Kara knew that they were more than friends. She had seen the hidden smiles and casual touches that revealed far more than either of them ever admitted. And she knew without having to ask that Tex was feeling the same anguish that she was right now. She could see it in the flash of anger in his eyes, in the way he clenched his fists.

Kara reached inside and channeled that rage. She might not survive this night, but she would get her revenge. She would do what she had to do to honor those that she had lost in the only way that she knew. "I want to kill every person responsible for what just happened. Don't you?"

Tex smiled grimly. "Hell yeah."

xxxxx

Kara drew in a quick breath, forcing herself to focus on the present. She could not afford to be distracted. "Yeah, I know what that's like."

"I was with Green in Columbia," Pablo continued. "Tavo was celebrating his victory over the United States. Celebrating." He practically spit the word. "The news was running constantly, all about how Tavo's people crippled the Navy and sank the Nathan James. How he managed to do what nobody else could. Your picture was in high rotation. A decorated hero, one of the Vaccine Six, the courageous Captain of the Nathan James who went down with her ship after prioritizing the lifeboats for the civilian visitors. The look on Green's face whenever that picture appeared..."

Kara swallowed thickly. She had known, of course, that the subterfuge had costs. But there had been no choice - not really. The warning had come so late, bare minutes before the attack, and they only got that much because Val had set up a back-up proximity alert that she didn't bother to pre-clear with Command. There was barely enough time to move the crowds and scramble the ships, leaving a few decoys in their place. Disaster averted by the thinnest of margins.

They had known, immediately, that the only way for someone to have gotten so close was if they had help from the inside. Until the mole was discovered, the Nathan James, the Michener, the O'Connor, and the Cruz had to remain hidden, and the world had to be convinced that Tavo's plan was a success. The scheme worked, buying Val and Alisha time to do their magic and for Meylan to find the rat - a twenty-five year old cafeteria worker who broke into the most sophisticated computer program in the world through a damn smart oven. But from the moment that Kara gave the order to go to EMCON, she had understood the price of their deception.

xxxxx

Kara sat with her cell phone in her hand, staring at the message she had typed.

Pizza or Chinese?

A totally innocuous text. One that would mean nothing to anyone except the planned recipient. A way to let Danny know that she was alive. That it was a decoy, just like San Diego.

But she couldn't send the message.

She knew that even as she typed the words. Because how could she ask her crew to stay at EMCON when their Captain was flouting the rules? For the first time, Kara truly felt the weight of what Admiral Chandler faced when he made the decision to turn away from the United States to give Doctor Scott time to develop the cure.

Because every bit of her was telling her to push send.

And, at the same time, every bit of her was telling that she couldn't.

Kara set down the phone.

xxxxx

"I kept Green alive then," Pablo finished. "And I'm keeping him alive now by keeping your ass safe. And if you care about him even half as much as he cares about you, you'll do what he asked and stay here. So, can I get up now?"

Kara kept her voice cool and calm, refusing to allow him to guilt her into backing down. "I gave you a choice. You can tell me what is going on or I will find someone else who will."

Apparently resigned to remaining on the floor, Pablo folded his hands behind his head. "Vargas went to ground. We needed a way to flush him out so some of my guys planted the story about Green being killed. It hit the local news first thing this morning."

Kara stared at him, angrier than she had ever been in her life. The asshole knew that story was going to hit the news and didn't so much as warn her. "And why should I believe anything that you say?"

Pablo raised an eyebrow at her. "Where do you think that we got the picture of Benz?"

Kara barely managed to stop herself from kicking him just for being so damn annoying. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"Fine." Pablo slowly reached into his pocket, pulling out a sat phone that Kara hadn't known existed until now. Her Spanish was far too rusty to follow the rapid-fire conversation even if it wasn't a code, as the liberal use of "tamale" suggested, before he switched to English and put the phone on speaker. "Your girl is a nag."

And then another voice, one she had feared never hearing again, came on the line. "What did you do to piss her off?"

Kara let the radio drop to her side, sagging back against the counter, her relief so palpable that she almost fell to her knees.

xxxxx

Kara knew it was a mistake, sneaking off to find Danny when she was supposed to be sleeping, catching what little rest she could before the dawn broke, and they went after Castillo. She found him awake, by one of the boxcars, fiddling with his gear.

"I thought you were dead."

The whispered words echoed between them. Carefully setting down the powder he was pouring into canisters, Danny reached towards her, catching a stray hair and sliding it behind her ear. "We couldn't risk contacting you. The only way for the plan to work is to keep the James completely dark until we know where the threat is coming from."

"I know." And Kara did. In his shoes, she would have done exactly the same thing. She would have done whatever was necessary to keep the James and her crew safe. But that didn't change the fact that Kara's heart was still pounding in her chest. Didn't remove the need to see Danny, to touch him, to make sure that this wasn't a dream. She moved closer, her hand sliding across his shoulder, and she felt a tear slip down her face. "When I saw those missiles hit the decoy..."

Kara wasn't sure who moved first, or if both of them caved at the same time, but then she was wrapped in his arms, squeezed so hard that she could hardly breath. She cupped Danny's face in her hands. "Don't ever do that to me again."

Then he was kissing her, his answer almost lost as they surrendered to the frantic need to reassure themselves that they were still alive. "I won't. Promise."

xxxxx

Kara took a deep breath. Danny was alive. She could figure everything else out later. "Your friend is an asshole."

Danny chuckled. "True. I run with a bad crowd."

"Any chance of dinner?" She asked. Not a code obviously, but the best that she could do on the fly.

A moment of hesitation. "I should be free tonight. I'll send a car. Gotta go now, though."

The moment that Danny cut out, Kara let loose on Pablo. "You knew that broadcast was going to pop up and you didn't warn me? Calling you an asshole is an insult to assholes everywhere."

"I knew the English news would report last. Figured there was a decent chance that Green would be back before the news even broke," Pablo replied casually. But Kara could tell from his tone that the omission was deliberate. A punishment, as it were, payback for whatever happened with Danny during those days in Columbia. Kara almost snorted at the irony. Pablo raised an eyebrow. "Can I get up now?"

Kara moved out of his way, still tempted to kick him. "Are you going to tell me the rest of it?"

Pablo gathered his cards and returned to his game, muting the television. "The team tracked Vargas to a slum. There were too many civilians to go after him there so they had to wait until he moved. Apparently the news report gave him the push he needed and they picked him up thirty minutes ago. By tonight he'll be across the border, being loaded into transport to the States."

"How are you going to explain Danny's return from the dead?"

"Easy," Pablo grinned. "Tomorrow the United States Navy will officially report that Green is in critical but stable condition on the Nathan James after being wounded trying to save your ass from a kidnapping attempt by none other than Christian Vargas. The report will further state that Vargas himself was captured during a joint rescue operation by the United States and Brazilian government and is being held in an undisclosed location."

Kara stared at the man, realizing that he hadn't learned all of this from a two-minute conversation. "You deliberately kept me in the dark for days."

Pablo glanced up over his cards, eyes suddenly hard. "I'm not here for you, Captain Foster. A friend asked me for a favor and I came through. That doesn't mean I have to like it or you. Capish?"

They stared at each other for a long moment before Kara nodded. She might still want to kick him, but the man had come through for Danny. She would give him that much. "Capish."

xxxxx

Kara looked up at the knock on her cabin door, certain of who it was even before she caught a glimpse. Danny had showered, she could see. Clean, shaved, in a clean uniform, he looked almost like the young lieutenant of old.

"Thought that you might want an update on Tex Nolan, Captain," Danny said formally, but his gaze never left her face.

"Come on in, Commander." Excusing the ensign she had been speaking with, Kara busied herself making coffee in the small espresso machine that Mike left behind when he was promoted. She glanced at Danny. "Want some?"

"Sure."

Danny waited until they were both sitting, coffees in hand. "Clean break and the bone went back into place easily. Rios said that Tex has the devil's own luck. Most people would have needed surgery. About three months in the cast and then three months of recovery. Not a bad shore leave."

"Andrea will be glad to have him home for a while," Kara noted, taking a sip.

Danny seemed to be considering his response. "Tex won't admit it, but I think he's tired of being in the field so much."

"You look better without the beard." The instant the words left her mouth, Kara wanted to pull them back. To keep them on a professional footing.

"Thanks." Danny took a sip of his coffee. "I knew you weren't dead."

Kara gave him a quizzical look. "Okay."

"Back when Tavo hit Mayport," he explained. "I knew that it was a fake-out. Just like San Diego."

"Just like San Diego," she confirmed. And despite knowing better, Kara smiled. "Would it help if I promise not to do it again?"

A pause, and then he smiled back, his lips slowly spreading until he was grinning, and Kara had to force herself not to jump over the desk and throw herself into his arms. "It would."