With a glass of well-aged scotch in one hand and one of his mother's coveted cigars in the other, Sam eyed the horizon with a newly appreciative glance. The sun had gone down hours ago and he couldn't help but feel exhausted and elated at the same time. His voice was hoarse, and he hadn't spoken this much since his court martial. The silence in the early morning was broken by the sound of animals and the hum of the porch light.
"Ma?"
"Hmmm?" Slumped in her rocking chair, her own glass drained and her cigar a bare nub, here eyes flickered open. "Go to bed, Sam."
"I was going to tell you that," he took a swig of his drink. "Come on, it's about 0400."
"My boy is home and he's trying to get rid of me," she sighed deeply and roused herself with a frown. "Did you hear someone come back into the house?"
"No?" He paused and remembered that he shared the house with someone else now. "Where is she?"
"Probably sleeping in the barn," his mother yawned and stood. "I'm too old to sleep on the front porch. Keep quiet when you go upstairs will you?"
"Sure thing, Ma." He grinned faintly as she bent down long enough to kiss his forehead. "Sleep well."
"With one of my boys home," she ruffled his hair, "I'm sure I will."
"Yeah." Dan was still in England and probably due home sooner or later.
He didn't stay up too much later, as much as he wanted to savor the quiet and the peace of the ranch, he knew it was a bad idea to stay up late when he had no reason to.
Besides, he had the rest of his life to enjoy the ranch.
The next morning he woke to unfamiliar sounds and vaguely familiar smells and the very familiar timbre of his enemies voice. Jolting upright, he had to take a few deep breaths and right himself in his surroundings and remind himself of what was happening.
Dressing and moving downstairs, he found the house empty but a covered plate in the kitchen with a note from his mother that she would be down at the garden patch by the southern pond. It was...bizzare to eat alone. He was used to soldiers and nurses and noise. He was used to...people being around at all hours of the day.
He heard footsteps on the gravel lot, a tread more familiar than his own.
Leaping up from the kitchen table, Sam was across the house and down the porch steps before he even registered what he was doing. Captain Jack Moffit of the scots grays, beret perched jauntily on his head and carrying as many bags as he could, beamed as Sam approached. His blue eyes widened in alarm as Sam didn't slow down, and he yelped as the shorter man seized him around the middle and hoisted him into the air.
"I say!" Moffit protested, as Sam spun him around. "I think as the shorter one that you ought to be the lady!"
"You're earlier!" Sam crowed, the sadness lingering in the back of his mind vanishing. "When did you get in?"
"Earlier than expected!" Jack said, and with his free hand smacked Sam across the forehead. "Put me down." Sam obeyed, dropping the Englishman to the gravel. "Caught an earlier bus and convinced the mail carrier to deliver me as well. Thought I'd spare you the trip into town."
"For as far as I've gone to bail you out of trouble, do you really think picking you up from the bus stop would bother me?"
"That business in Alexandria was entirely unrelated," he sniffed, beaming.
"That was your fault!" Sam picked up a duffle bag, and a suitcase. Jack had never been one to travel heavily, and Sam wondered what he'd brought with him. "I spent my leave getting into fist fights with smugglers and you tried to duel a museum curator!"
"My thesis is my work! My life's work was under attack!" Jack tilted his beret back and surveyed the ranch house. "Wonderful! American architecture styles are fascinating. You can watch the styles change as you progress from New York to Wyoming."
"Really?" Sam paused and turned around. "Jack...there's...you…." he paused and the door opened to reveal the very person he'd been trying not to think about. Dietrich in jeans with her shirt splattered with water and mud, and a firm frown stamped across her face.
"I," Jack stared, glancing at Dietrich, the house, and then at Sam. Then he set down his bags and snapping his heels together, gave a perfect German's gentleman's bow. "Hauptmann Dietrich."
"Captain Moffit," Dietrich inclined her head.
"Dietrich's here," Sam said unnecessarily.
"I see, and what divine intervention can we blame for having deposited you at the Troy ranch?" Jack's manners could be so exact they circled right around back the rudeness, and sometimes he was so rude that even Sam noticed.
Dietrich was silent so Sam intervened.
"Fellow prisoners tried to kill her," he said, and Jack's eyes widened faintly.
"Captain Rotterdam should be here within two weeks," Dietrich told him, imperious from her elevated position. "You may direct your complaints to him."
"Hannelore?" Both Jack and Sam exchanged a glance as the door opened again and Mrs. Troy stepped out. "Oh. Sam! 'She beamed and her eyes fell on Jack. "JACK MOFFIT!"
"Mrs. Troy," he accepted her outstretched hand to give it a kiss, but Mrs. Troy swept him into a hug that hoisted him from the ground. "Ah, it's a pleasure to meet you!"
"Jack Moffit, you little cup of sweet tea!" She set him down, and flatted his cheeks with heavy kisses. "You brought my boy home! What'll you take? Half my land and my son's hand?" Despite himself, Jack chuckled.
"Which son?"
"Whichever you like," she beamed over his shoulder at Sam, who was hearing radio static.
"MA!"
"I'm afraid negotiation like this cannot take place without my own mother present," Jack said, ignoring Sam's heavy glare. "As she runs the estate."
"Sam, how'd you manage to snag two Euros with fortunes?"
"MA!"
burst into laughter, patting Jack's shoulder a few times. "Come on in, Jack. We'll get you settled in."
"I wouldn't want to displace anyone," Jack said as they hauled his bags inside.
"I'm in the attic," Sam told him, "Dan's room is free."
"Attic?" He blinked as they entered into the house, his eyes sparkling with glee. Ever the anthropologist, he seemed to be as fascinated with the Troy home as much as he had with every home he'd been invited into in North Africa. Sam had long ago begun ignoring the blatant curiosity. Jack was also too clever to not miss the way the lean German moved from the living room and into a bedroom. "Ah...forgive me..Sam...isn't that your room?"
"It was," Sam groused, hauling the duffle bag over to his brother's room.
"Oh dear," Jack was smiling faintly.
"Listen to me, boys," Mrs. Troy said with such firmness and a scowl so intense that Jack could pin-point exactly where Sam had learned a glare that could stop a parade of privates on a prank bender. "You don't go bothering her."
"I have no intention of disturbing the good captain."
"I'm up to my ears in captains," Mrs. Troy scoffed and patted his shoulder. "Get settled in, Sam'll give you the two-bit tour."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Psh, don't call me ma'am. Call me Ma, everyone does."
"Of course, Ma," Jack was grinning in the understated way that Sam knew to be his version of bellowing laughter. "Of course."
"Hmph," Mrs. Troy grinned. "Now I get why she looked like she had a headache when I mentioned you were coming. One's bad, but both are worse."
"Dietrich has always been a two-man job," Sam interjected, "everyone knows that." He wasn't sure why his mother left laughing as loud as she did.
"I understand quite a bit more," Jack said, removing his hat as eyeing the room. "You have rather exact maternal instincts, my friend."
"I do not," Sam frowned.
"Of course not," Jack agreed plainly, "Dr. Havers never had to kick you out of the hospital tent and I am certain I never heard a nurse complain about you fussing at our bedsides. "
"Your nickname was Heer Mutti," Dietrich said, passing by the open door.
Jack chuckled and Sam flushed faintly. "What?"
"I do not think of another commando who would have helped Corporal Lang when he was injured."
Sam had hoped that Corporal Lang would keep quiet about his momentary capture by the Rat Patrol. The young, doe-eyed man just in from Germany had been terrified when he'd been captured for a whole day. Injured and aching, the only way to get to calm down had been to speak to him as if he was a kid.
"I am not a mother."
"Of course not," the woman agreed, "of course not. I am certain Hitch and Tully would agree with you, Troy."
"Don't you have something to do?" he demanded, and Dietrich paused.
"There are some asses that need to be taken out to pasture," she replied, straight-faced and Moffit turned to the side, chuckling faintly.
"I'm sure they're going to take up most of your time," he growled, but Dietrich's smile was light and her eyes sparkled with humor.
"Of course they are, no one has beaten any sense into them yet."
"I'm sure you'll do your best to remedy that, Dietrich," Moffit agreed, stone faced.
"I shall do my best," with a significant glare that had left men freezing in their seats, she left. Head as high as ever.
When she was gone, Moffit turned to Sam, "why didn't you tell me that the good captain was a woman?"
"Same reason no one told me until I met her up close and personal," Sam replied, "didn't want you to make the mistake of underestimating her. Lot of people did and a lot of people died, and I didn't want a man on my team who didn't take the enemy seriously."
"I see, and did this approach usually work?"
"Always," Sam grinned, "you should have seen Hitch's face the first time he met her."
"Shocked? Doubtless Tully was able to cope."
"Yes, he was fine."
"I have never seen anything ruffle him truly," the man mused, "he truly is impressive and loyal."
"Well, it's not safe to get his temper up. Only time I've seen him get close to losing it was the situation in." He paused, and the silence was enough for both of them. "Never want to be on the receiving end of that."
"No, certainly not." Jack agreed, and the compatible silence that followed was completed when he reached across the table to pat his hand. "What are we going to do about the good captain?"
"What do you think we can do? We're only captains."