An emergency in the armoury.

A boarding party.

He'd forgotten a training session.

The lieutenant wanted to speak to him about… something. Anything.

He'd promised the Captain he'd walk Porthos!

As Hayes sat there, trying to come up with a good enough excuse to leave a mandated counselling session, Dr. Phlox just smiled good naturedly at him and waited for him to answer the question. God, what had he done to himself?

"Twelve," Hayes finally answered. Short and clipped.

"Would that be considered young? For humans?" the doctor followed up, never losing that kindly smile. Hayes wanted to smack it off. Obviously twelve was young, what the hell kind of question was that?

"Yes, sir." He'd wanted to say something witty but had come up blank. Reed would have come up with something witty; everything out of that man's mouth was some sort of quip or witticism, there was a reason he was the Captain's favourite. Stupid, witty, funny, adorkable… Reed.

The doctor's smile widened slightly. "You can dispense with the formalities, Major. There's no need to call me 'sir' in here." 'Here' being a small room just off sick bay, offering some semblance of privacy. "No need to call me 'sir', at all really. I'm not a superior officer, after all."

"Way I was raised, it's a sign of respect."

"And where was that?"

"Camp Pendleton, California."

"Ah, Camp Pendleton," Phlox said, fondly. "I spent a few months in the dermatology department in the base hospital. Wonderfully close to San Diego, and such a beautiful coastline. So, I, ah, take it you come from a military family?"

"Yes sir, both sides."

Phlox waited for Hayes to elaborate. He didn't. "Did you decide to join MACO because both of your parents were military?"

"No, only my father is enlisted," Hayes clarified. "I meant both of my grandparents. Both sides. All my grandparents. Both grandfathers and my father's mother." He could hear his grandfather now: Glad to know you did so well in you're Mumbling Class at the Point.

Phlox waited patiently for Hayes to get it out. "All enlisted?"

"Just my father."

"And you attended Westpoint, following in your grandparents' footsteps, hmm?"

"Yes sir."

"Seems like a proud legacy of service you're upholding, yes?"

Hayes tensed up at that. "I guess so." He managed to keep his tone even, pushing his discomfort to the side. He could just imagine his grandparents' disgust at what had happened a couple of days ago – he'd certainly seen it enough on their faces. And on others.

His face turned hard, then blank. "You will speak to the doctor, or I will speak to the Captain," Reed said, evenly. "I expect your answer first thing in the morning. Good night, major."

Phlox decided to move on. "Do you have any siblings?"

Hayes hated answering that question and briefly considered lying. He settled for a half truth. "I have five brothers and five sisters."

His hesitation hadn't gone unnoticed by Phlox. "That's quite large for a human family, is it not?"

"Chaotic, sir."

"Do you dislike speaking about your siblings?" Phlox asked.

After hesitating for another moment, Hayes answered. "It just sounds very messy. I don't like the implications."

"And what implications would those be? Forgive me, Major, you may need to explain certain human, uh… conventions for me."

Then maybe I should get a human therapist, Hayes thought, annoyed. He shouldn't have to explain this shit. "It's just a very big family, for humans. People think it's very odd."

"And are they older, or younger?"

"One older sister, the rest younger."

"The second eldest of eleven children, I imagine your parents needed your help quite a bit, what with so many young children under one roof. Hmm?"

"I actually lived with my grandparents; ever since I was two years old," Hayes said, immediately kicking himself mentally; why didn't he lie? Yes, would have been fine, hell, it wasn't even really a lie - he had helped with his younger siblings, so that was true. And every time he mentioned this to a counsellor, or shrink, or hell, any guy he'd ever dated – he got the look.

"You would mind if I asked why you lived with your grandparents?"

He did; he really did. "My parents divorced after the twins were born."

Phlox gave the major a moment before continuing. "I can imagine that was quite difficult, the dissolution of a marriage is always hardest on the children." A flash of sympathy came across the doctor's face. "A galactic constant, I'm afraid."

"It was fine, sir." Hayes had his arms crossed in his lap, as casual as he could make it seem.

"How did your parents work out custody?"

"I don't know; I was two when they separated." He hesitated again, before saying the next part. "We went to live with my father and his parents." Who hadn't had a job, had married his high school girlfriend at eighteen, and had been a divorced single father of four at twenty-one; and not knowing what else to do with his life and not having the grades to get into Westpoint, had enlisted the following year. He didn't remember his grandparents' reaction at the time, but he knew full well that they weren't thrilled about it.

"In Camp Pendleton, where your grandparents were stationed?"

"We lived there, yes sir." His grandmother had been promoted to Brigadier General and given command of the base when he was around seven; his grandfather had been CO of the Mountain Warfare Training Ground from before he was born, to when he retired ten years ago. "They're not putting those stars on me," he always insisted. "I want to work for a living," he added, dodging the couch cushion his wife threw at him, eyes twinkling.

"I take it, then, that your parents remarried?" To Hayes' surprise, Phlox hadn't regarded him with obvious pity yet. More like mild sympathy, and fascination – as though he was one of the creepy thingies, he had in cages all over sick bay and wanted to put him in one to study. Okay, that was probably an exaggeration. What had his last therapist said? Something about 'black and white' thinking?

"Everything's not always completely positive or negative," that annoying little man had said. "But with black and white thinking it can be very easy to pigeon hole experiences into 'good' or 'bad', when a lot of things tend to be in the grey area. Is that something you think you do?"

Fine, the doctor probably was trying to help, and his perverse fascination with human behaviour was only part of the reason he was happy enough to give him counselling sessions. There. How's that for grey area.

"My parents divorced just after the twins were born, and my father remarried about three years later; my mother had three more kids, my father had four," Hayes said shortly. And then decided to volunteer, "My father enlisted a year after the divorce and was assigned to a base in Kenya, where he met my step-mother. She's also enlisted; they were reassigned to Pendleton when I was seven and moved back to California. With their new baby." Take that every therapist who'd ever called him uncooperative.

"And what was it like having your father so close again after so long? Hmm?"

"They lived on base, same as us," Hayes redirected.

"But you continued to live with your grandparents, yes?"

"Yeah," Hayes replied after his longest silence yet. "It would have been difficult for my father and step-mother to start their own family, with four young kids already around."

Phlox paused, before saying softly. "It sounds like your mother wasn't around, either, Major."

"No sir, she moved to Arkansas after the divorce. Met Frank."

"Frank?"

"Her husband."

"Your stepfather?"

"Her husband."

Dammit. But it was a gut reaction when someone mentioned Frank. His mother and her husband were not a grey area – they just sucked. And their sons. Hayes' sister, Harper, was alright. At least his nieces and nephew were cute. "So, as I understand it, your parents divorced when you were young, leaving yourself and your three full siblings with your paternal grandparents; both of your parents moved away, remarried, had more children, and even when your father and his wife moved back, the four of you continued to live with your father's parents in Camp Pendleton." A recap; not a question. "Did you see your father often after that?"

"My step-mother used to pick up kids during the week – they came over most days after school if their parents were busy. My father brought the kids over to see our grandparents most weekends."

"Not every weekend?" Phlox pressed.

"They had soccer, swimming, that stuff; couldn't always make it." Phlox didn't say anything else. When Hayes couldn't stand the silence anymore, he said, "When they went on training tours at the same time, the kids would stay with us; grandparents, my grandparents, I mean."

"Eight children in the one house?" Hayes nodded. "That must have been difficult for your grandparents, to look after so many children at once."

"I gave them a hand; and my older sister. Getting older, they needed it." They'd only been in their fifties, having their only son the summer between their first and second years at Westpoint, but still – eight kids under one roof, all missing their parents and some of them very, very angry about it. But Hayes would let himself be fed to one of Phlox's creatures before admitting that they'd struggled.

"I would imagine that you felt quite abandoned by your parents growing up, being left with your grandparents and having to watch your parents start new families," Phlox pointed out, softly. "I can only imagine what you would have went through as a child, especially if you were helping your grandparents – I doubt it left much time for you to be a child yourself."

Hayes was still waiting for some insight that his past therapists hadn't come up with. He had a feeling he was going to be waiting a while. He glanced at his watch: twenty minutes had gone by. This was going to be a long hour.

"I guess it was."

"Do you think having your childhood interrupted in such a manner has anything to do with why you started to drink at the age of twelve?"

Yup: a very long hour.

He'd rather go through Lunar survival training with a constant hangover than have to do that again. But since he had another appointment next week, and the week after, and the week after that, it looked like that wasn't an option. He'd had to speak to Phlox for a whole hour, giving the doctor as little information about his family and past drinking habits as he could get away with. This was stupid – he'd been sober for ten years because he'd gotten his own ass in gear, not because some therapist had asked invasive questions about how his mommy and daddy hadn't loved him and had gone off and had their real families. Everything Phlox had said to him, he'd heard before, from various shrinks, and none of it worked. Absolutely none of it. He would do this himself: he'd engage with Phlox as much as he'd ever engaged with any therapist, and he'd just stop drinking. He'd done it before, he could do it again. Hell, this time it was probably going to be easier, what with being isolated on a star ship. He'd focus on that: this sucked, but it would be easier than last time. There. Grey area.

"Major, I'm glad you're here; I have a favour to ask of you, if you'd be so good." Speaking of not everything not being wholly good or bad, Lt. Grey Area himself was standing in front of an open wall panel in the armoury with Cmdr. Tucker.

"Sirs," Hayes nodded, coming to stand next to Reed and Tucker, folding his hands behind his back, at ease. "What can I do for you lieutenant?"

He put down the tool in his hand, before turning to face Hayes. Reed's blue eyes were pleasant, and his mouth, while not exactly smiling, was far from the thin, severe line he'd last seen it. From his expression no one would ever guess what had happened two days ago. Or yesterday. Hayes grew warm thinking about it, which only grew worse when he noticed that Tucker had noticed his discomfort. Did Reed tell him? He was Reed's best friend. And Tucker was the Captain's best friend, and he was close with Sato, and if anyone was going to know about it, it was going to be the suitably named Communications Officer –

It could be all over the ship by now.

"About those new LR28 rifles, are you fully trained in their use?" Reed was all business, looking at him with nothing but politeness. As if he wasn't loving having this over Hayes.

"Yes sir, wouldn't have brought them on board otherwise." As soon as he'd been back on his feet after returning from the Expanse, he'd gone to the two-day seminar on a bunch of updated and brand-new weaponry that had been developed in case the Xindi invaded – and then wouldn't leave the firing range until he had them all down. It had been cathartic, and had been a distraction from drinking for about two weeks – until he started thinking about how Reed had modified some of the MACOs weaponry while in the Expanse; and while some of them had been a disaster, requiring Reed to enlist Tucker's help in fixing them ("Normally I love your mad scientist tendencies, but if you blow yourself up by accident, so help me God, Malcolm."), quite a few had been a marked improvement. And then he'd started thinking about how Reed had looked with his head ducked down, intently examining the innards of a rifle, his brow furrowed in concentration, the tip of his tongue adorably poking out between his lips – Hayes hadn't even minded that he hadn't asked if he could take the damn thing apart. That was the point shooting things had stopped making him feel better.

"I was looking over the specs, they seem like they have some pretty decent firepower," Reed said, waving a hand towards a PADD off to the side. "I would appreciate it if you could give me a crash course in the near future."

"I'd be happy to, sir."

"Very well, I'll check in with you later; right now, I need to help the commander align these circuits –"

"Because you went and threw them out of alignment to see what would happen if –"

"And I'd better get back to him, before he accidentally electrocutes himself," Reed cut Tucker off loudly.

"Who is helping who, here?"

Reed nodded at Hayes, before turning back and picking up the tool he'd been using earlier and Hayes considered himself dismissed, leaving Tucker grumbling at Reed; nothing unusual there. At first, he'd genuinely thought the two couldn't stand each other until the Twinkie incident – and even then, he'd believed that Tucker had only lost his shit like that because it was directed at a fellow Fleeter. He'd changed his mind when he'd seen Tucker with an arm slung around Reed in the latter's office. And then he'd gotten the shock of his life when he saw that Reed was crying; he hadn't known he had tear ducts.

But that hadn't been awkward, thank God. No outward hostility from Reed; no disdain, nothing negative, just a normal conversation between them; he hadn't mentioned Phlox where someone else could overhear; no, no, that had been fine. A lot better than he had been expecting, especially after what Hayes had said to him yesterday – though he kept expecting to be called in to the Captain's ready room and be reprimanded so loudly that the whole bridge could hear. That was what normally happened, in his experience. Reprimand, reassign, rehab. Rinse and repeat. But if the Captain genuinely didn't know…

Then Reed had kept his word.

Give him a crash course. Sure, and then let him take it apart and see how it works – without the guarantee he'd be able to put the brand-new rifle back together again. Which was why Hayes had requested extra units, so Reed could tinker and examine to his heart's content; because he was, as he loved to point out, a weapons engineer; and engineer's need puzzles, or else they start taking apart things they shouldn't, the Captain had told him a couple of days into the mission. There was nothing more dangerous than a bored engineer, the Captain had said. Hayes had thought he was joking, until, one morning he'd walked into the armoury to see three of his guys helping Reed and Tucker see what would happen if they fine tuned a phase rifle to send a continuous shot into a large, quartz prism, without shattering said prism.

A disco ball. They had been trying to make a disco ball. And it had worked – on the fourth try. Once the Captain found out, Hayes had expected him to deliver the dressing down to end all dressing downs, but no; on being sheepishly told by Reed that they were doing it 'for science' the Captain had simply responded that he 'liked science' and started helping them. That was the point when Hayes had started to doubt if he could put up with this crew without going crazy; it had also been when he'd noticed that when Reed was happy, his very blue eyes lighting up, and a slight upturn at the corners of this mouth were the only sign.

So, yeah, he'd had to finagle extra units for Reed, 'for science', because he knew at least one of them was going to ripped apart by the armoury team. He'd done it because Reed was Hayes' superior – in position, if not in rank. He'd wanted to get along better with the lieutenant, and they'd come a long way but there was still some tension. And that tension could be swept away, they just had to try and understand each other, and if that meant catering to that mad scientist's whims, then so be it. It had most definitely not been because he loved the way Reed's blue eyes lighting up were the only outward sign that he'd had an eureka moment; how smoulderingly hot he looked as he was trying to work out some problem and how cute and happy he looked when he solved it –

He needed a drink.

But he wasn't going to have one. No, he was going to check the duty roster, check in with Ed, run a training session with Sgts. Mackenzie, Ayodele, Walker, and Johansson on the LR28s, and punch the hell out of a bag in the gym. And then take a cold shower. He could do this.

He could do this.

He had to.