Hope

"Don't you think we should talk about this?" Low-Light didn't glance over at his patrol partner when he asked. The Marine wouldn't look at him. She was too much of a professional while on-duty. All business, and weirdly, it was a trait he admired in her. Probably something he should have kept to himself, but wouldn't. Rarely, there were things more important than the job.

"Talk about what? The patrol?" Ricochet played dumb with her answer. She knew what he meant, and was, like always, avoiding the thought. There was too much going on to even think about what he was proposing.

"About us." Low-Light pushed the issue, scanning to his left. Their patrol route was the outermost perimeter. A five mile hump through the desert at night. The only duty he enjoyed pulling more than the hike, was perching in the guard tower. But there wouldn't have been privacy up there. Not like the desert at night.

Ricochet was silent for another few minutes. What kind of answer was he looking for? She wished she could read minds, or at the very least, understand what he was thinking. There was no way he could imagine that fraternization would get them anywhere. Except maybe disciplined.

"I don't think-"

"Stop thinking then." Low-Light shrugged. "You apologized in the cornfield. Did you mean that? Did you really regret that?"

Ricochet stopped walking. Low-Light only noticed five steps further. He turned to study her. In the moonlight, she was a statue carved from silver. Neither of them had felt the need to use their nightvision goggles, both knew that the half-moon would provide more than enough light to see by given enough time. He couldn't pick out the details over her expression though, not with the shadows cast by the cap that covered her hair.

"We shouldn't, Coop. We shouldn't even feel like this, or.. or..?"

"Or what? Fraternize? Have you seen Flint and Lady Jaye? Cover Girl and Shipwreck? Duke and Scartlett? Please." Low-Light rolled his eyes and turned back to the patrol route, simply expecting her to unroot herself and catch up. He wasn't disappointed; he hadn't gotten far when he heard her double-time to catch up. "It's not unheard of, Kirsty. It's not even frowned upon. We're not like other units. All I wanna know is if you really meant that. Do you really regret what happened in the cornfield?"

Ricochet took a deep breath. "No." It was Low-Light's turn to stop short, but she anticipated that, and stopped with him. For the first time since the beginning of the patrol, she looked up at him. "I think about it a lot, actually. About how... right, it felt."

Low-Light felt the smile grow in his chest before he expressed it. Shifting his grip on his rifle, he brushed his knuckles against her cheek, before cupping her face gently. "So, what you're saying is there's hope for us after all?"

That got her to smile, the expression like a sunbeam in the moonlight. Before he could second-guess himself, he leaned down to taste that expression, capturing her mouth with his for long seconds. This time, she kissed back, rising up on her tiptoes slightly to prolong the moment.

Flushed and breathless, she laughed as her heels returned to the desert floor. "You know, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, right?"

"About what?" Low-Light caught her hand, and tugged her back onto the route, walking side by side. "The whole... relationship thing? Good, cause.. me either. Guess we'll just have to figure it out, together."

Ricochet laughed again. "Well, shit, MacBride, I was hoping to follow your lead."