Troy stared at the young man kneeling beside the fire, his arms tucked into wide sleeves and seemingly at peace with his surroundings. He'd come as a prisoner easily enough, but Troy couldn't help but feel nervous. The young man was so strangely quiet and amiable, but so utterly foreign that even Moffit didn't seem to know what to make of him.

"Isshiki," he said, and the young man's eyes opened and turned toward him.

"Sosofu?" He asked, tilting his head to the side in a gesture for him to speak.

"He doesn't speak English, sarge." Tully piped up, "what do you plan on asking him?"

"What does sosofu mean?" Troy asked, the young man had called him Troy-san before switching over to the other word that made no sense. He'd thought that it was another word for American, but since he didn't use it on anyone else, it had to be some term of address.

Isshiki spoke slowly, enunciating his words, and by the time he was done he was staring at Troy as if he was supposed to understand what he had said just because it had been saying slower, despite the fact that he didn't know a single word of Japanese.

"I still don't know what you said," Troy said, hating how helpless he felt with the situation. Finding him had been a day of strange things, the world felt electric around him, and each moment that passed made the feeling worse. Like lightning on the edge of a storm or a tornado before it broke.

Isshiki spoke a few more words and after correctly guessing that Troy wasn't going to say much more, lapsed back into silence. He, like Tully, seemed content with the quiet. His attention was entirely inward until someone from the outside acted upon him.

"Gotta admire a fella who doesn't get worried about stuff," Hitch said, and then grinned at Tully. Tully raised his eyebrows and glanced over at Isshiki. The kid, seemingly harmless or at least not inclined to fight at the moment, had settled beside the blond. When comparing the two, despite stark differences in appearance they moved and behaved similarly.

"Hmm," Tully said, and the young man opened his eyes again and then frowned.

"What should we do with him, sarge?"

"I'd take him back to base but we don't know what his mission is and he could be trying to get taken to our base."

"I don't know, sarge. He doesn't act like a soldier. He acts like he was on a walk and we bothered him."

"I must agree," Moffit said, sliding down a sand dune to join them at their campfire. "He certainly doesn't seem too perturbed."

"Wouldn't you be if you were stopped by soldiers and you didn't speak their language?" Hitch asked, "especially if you were at war? I mean, even a civilian American would know to run from German soldiers."

"Maybe he doesn't know that there's a war on?" Tully suggested, and Troy frowned at him so severely that Isshiki glanced between them with visible concern.

"Sosofu?"

"It's nothing, kid." He waved the younger man down, who subsided only after Troy inverted his frown. "Alright, so it's possible he doesn't know we're at war."

"Again, he doesn't seem like a soldier so even if he did know, why would he think we'd attack him. He's just a civilian."

"He could be a spy?" Moffit suggested, and he reached for Isshiki's sword and had his hand was swatted away. He tried again and this time the young man frowned at him. Reaching into his sleeves, he produced a fan which he used to smack Moffit's hand away a third time.

"Good lord, that is heavy." Moffit patted his hand with a faint frown. "Why did you not confiscate his sword?"

"Thieving doesn't seem to be a smart way to start out with someone who doesn't speak your language," Troy sighed, remembering the many, many mistakes he'd made since coming to the desert. "Alright, since we stopped him then we get to put him up for the night. Have we got the space for him?"

"Sure, Sarge, but we aren't bringing him back to base, are we?"

"There's got to be someone who can translate."

"If he's not hurting anyone."

"We gotta find out what he's doing in the desert first. If they want to land a bunch of new soldiers to back up the Italians and the Germans, then we need to know."

"It would be rather difficult," mused Moffitt, "given the distance between North Africa and the Pacific."

"But not impossible," Sam groused, still staring firmly at the young man. He wasn't that young, about the age of Hitch and Tully, but younger by the fact that he hadn't actually endured a war. There was a definite softness in his eyes and while watchful, he didn't seem paranoid. "We'll figure it out, Hitch and Moffitt, you two take first watch. Kid….get some sleep."

#$#$#$#

Watching his great-grandfather in his element was mind bendingly confusing. He'd always known that Sam Troy had been a soldier and a leader. He'd known all about his service in the war, he'd known about both of his great-grandfather's service in the war, but seeing him perp the campsite for the night was as strange as anything he'd ever seen. Somehow, and he wasn't enough of a scientist to guess, he was here, in the desert, in the middle of the second world war.

Seeing was believing, and riding around in one of the uncomfortable jeeps was enough to make anyone believe.

It wasn't as if he didn't understand what they were saying, and thank God they hadn't gotten irrationally violent. Just wildly curious, and it was deeply satisfying to smack at Sergeant Moffitt's hands with the fan.

It wasn't pleasant to have your hands smacked with it, he knew from experience

He wanted to open his mouth and ask questions, to introduce himself, and to explain what the hell was going on...but who would believe in time travel? It wasn't as if they'd seen the Back to the Future movies...well, he hadn't seen them either but he knew the premise!

How was he supposed to get home?

His uncle was due for a visit, he had things to do, he had to practice, but...he was in the middle of the fucking desert about 80ish years in the past...and dressed in traditional kimono (with a few modern touches) and he had no fucking clue what to do.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to push through the rising panic and when he was a little calmer, focused on the soldiers moving around him.

He at least had his pack, his sword, and his phone, and thank god he'd decided to put on genuine hiking boots instead of house slippers or something else.

It didn't help that he was in almost as much danger with his great-grandfather and his men than without.

His phone was tucked away, turned off, and utterly useless for the moment. He really would have to figure out how to get the hell out of this mess.