Jaz had been kind of right and kind of wrong. Amir's stupid shoe trick did kind of work. But they also kind of drowned in the process. Or at least swallowed a shit ton of water.

It was precarious business trying to float undetected under the water with only your mouth breaking the the surface. The shoe had doubled as both a cover for their face and as an air reservoir, but it was certainly no snorkel. It had to be held at exactly the right angle and depth and even then she still ended up swallowing lots of scuzzy paris water. She was probably going to to have some sort of parasite after this.

It also was a bitch on the neck. She had to keep her head stretched upwards at a very uncomfortable angle in order to keep contact with the surface. The swim had probably only taken 15 minutes but it had felt like an eternity before Amir had apparently been satisfied they had gone far enough to avoid immediate detection. She was going to send him her chiropractor bill when this was all over, and maybe consider carrying a snorkel as part of her standard issue equipment. Would have been better than Amir's smelly shoe. She was now way to well acquainted with what his feet smelt like, a boundary she would have happily kept in place forever.

She hoisted herself up onto the wharf gracefully. Okay no, that was a complete lie. She flopped up onto it like a clumsy seal after her exhausted arms gave out mid way up. Flailing her legs a bit she managed to swing the rest of her up on the boards and then collapsed on the wooden platform panting.

Amir accomplished the same to the left of her and also lay breathing heavily. The pair of them were a comical sight. Thank god the team didn't have any drone footage of this. Seeing the two of them flail out of the water, shoeless and sopping wet. They would have been the laugh of the base for months. As it was she was sure their adventure would make the rounds at the water cooler so to speak, but she didn't need there to be further video evidence.

If anyone else were to see them now, no one would believe they were elite military operators, never mind high level terrorists. Thankfully they were mostly concealed by the tourist trap ticket booth to their left and the small fence that bordered the dock on their right. Presumably to keep the happy tourists from falling off as they lined up to board their romantic boat rides along what to her was a very brown, very gross and very unromantic waterway. There was no accounting for taste but she certainly wouldn't be caught dead on one of those even if you paid her the 80 euro entrance fee.

Regardless they should get to ground sooner rather than later and find a way to make contact with the team. She sat up and turned to Amir, surprised he hadn't already insisted on it.

"Alright what's the plan now?"

Amir was staring blankly ahead at the river. He didn't react in the slightest to her only slightly sarcastic inquiry. She was just about to tell him to get a grip when his face suddenly morphed and he rolled over onto all fours, leaning over the ledge and emptying his stomach contents into the water they had just come from.

The man hadn't eaten in at least 24 hours and was quickly was reduced to painful dry heaves that shook his entire body. When he was finally done he crawled away from the edge and settled back against the fencing. He took several deep, purposeful breaths, clearly trying to combat the sudden quell of nausea that he had just lost the battle with.

Watching him she couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy. His one eye was now almost completely swollen shut and his face was chalk white underneath his increasingly colourful bruises. Feeling most of her anger fade at the sight, she swallowed back her planned snipe. There would be a better time to take things up with him later, when they were back and he didn't look so pitiful and then she could ream him out guilt-free for how this had all gone down.

McG had suspected a concussion earlier and she knew from experience that concussions didn't like exertion. She was no expert, but jumping off a bridge and then swimming a few miles probably counted as the kind of exertion you were supposed to avoid. Unfortunately in their line of work it was usually hard to follow doctors orders right off the bat. You couldn't exactly throw your hands up mid-mission and find a dark quiet room to take a nap in.

She had ended up with a nasty concussion a couple years back when she had been shot out of her sniper perch. It was incredibly lucky that her vest had stopped the bullet but the momentum had knocked her from the roof and her head had broken her one story fall. Luckily she had a hard head, unluckily the team had needed to hike up a mountain afterwards for exfil. God that had sucked. Looking back she barely remembered most of the hike out, or the day after really, but she sure remembered the jokes made for weeks afterwards. Elijah had even gone so far as to buy her a bungee jumping kit complete with an obnoxious pink helmet, teasing her that clearly her balance couldn't be trusted at elevations and since she spent a lot of time up there she needed the proper equipment.

She smiled at the bittersweet memory, finding it almost possible these days to remember some of the good moments with him without being swallowed whole by his still had that kit stuffed away in her quarters. Never opened. But that hadn't been the point. Besides, who needs to bungee jump when you can free dive off a bridge.

Sighing and pulling herself from her thoughts she looked at Amir again. He seemed to have regained a tiny bit of colour in the few minutes they had been sitting still. "Alright lets see if we can find you somewhere to lay low for a minute while I find us some transportation and technology"

"I'm fine" he muttered, "let's just get moving."

It would have been a lot more convincing if he wasn't still a slightly green hue and despite his protests he didn't seem to be in any actual hurry to move.

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He had definitely lost that argument. It really hadn't even been close. She had emerged victorious and he was now sitting on the floor of the ticket booth that Jaz had "unlocked" before heading off to "borrow" some new toys.

But he was claiming a victory on their earlier argument over leaving Asim behind so they could call it a draw for the day. Clearly he had been hanging around Jaz too long. He wasn't normally a competitive person but she seemed to bring out that dormant side of him at times.

Resting his head against the wall behind him his eyes kept trying to close and Jaz seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time. He didn't actually know how long she had been gone but it felt like a while. Sitting and doing nothing made every second feel excruciatingly slow. It also allowed his thoughts to drift to places he'd really rather not go. Replaying the last mission. Knowing how close he had been to losing his life and that of the team and all the people in the market. It would have been just like Algeria all over again. Being so close to stopping the bombing but being unable to because he lacked just that one key piece of information. Only this time he would have been dead and wouldn't have had to live with that guilt everyday as well. Did it make him crazy if he would have preferred that to living with more survivors guilt.

He purposely refocused on the situation at hand, unwilling to go down that route and think about the other explosion he hadn't been able to stop. Once Jaz was back they hopefully would be able to get the team's assistance with making a plan for exfil. Which was good because he seemed to have used the last of his creativity and brainpower to this point and his brain felt like sluggish mush right now.

That was assuming that Jaz did come back.

He wasn't sure he could put it past her at this point to not have just gone straight to the cops and turned him in. Maybe any second now the door would be bursting open with swarms of armed officers ready to take him into custody and force an end to this charade.

He didn't think she would. Even if she wasn't a fan of having him on the team she still had some standards. But he had also pushed her to the limit today with his improvisation, so he wouldn't be totally surprised if she had just finally snapped.

Yet, she had seemed almost genuinely concerned about his health. Which had been slightly off putting. He certainly hadn't expected it after what he had just pulled, or even if the best of circumstances really. Maybe she had just been playing nice to give herself an excuse to sneak away and find a way to end this adventure.

He gave up and let his eyes drift shut. He honestly was too tired to care at this point and it was too hard to sort through all the possibilities swirling in his head. Jaz was a puzzle he couldn't solve at the best of times he wasn't going to waste energy trying now. At this point he was content to just see who came back through the door first whether it was Jaz, or the police.

He jumped slightly as the door swung open, as if precipitated by his thoughts. Jaz enters and he tries not to be too surprised it isn't the cops.

She holds up the results of her scavenger hunt, a cellphone and a set of keys. Her triumphant smile sours slightly as her eyes assess him, clearly a little concerned to find him in the same position as when she left who knows how long ago.

Uncomfortable under her scrutiny, he pushed himself up the wall to peer out the window and check if they had any other company in the vicinity.

Satisfied, he turned back to watch Jaz pacing, catching one side of her conversation with the team.

"Yes, we are fine."

"Yah we figured."

"Okay, we can get there."

"No we won't swim there. Funny McG." she makes eye contact with him and rolls her eyes at the joke made on the other side. But then seems to realize who she is commiserating with and the moment quickly ends.

"No, I made my own arrangements for wheels. Going with something a little more reliable this time" she smirked and twisted the keys on the ring around her finger.

"We will keep you posted. See you there."

"Ha… ha…". Obviously not finding whatever was said funny, she disconnected the phone with a huff.

He watched her for a moment, waiting for her to expand but she was lost in thought. Impatient to know what was said he finally prompted her "Soooooo…..."

"Well apparently I am now a high ranking terrorist associated to you. My face is on the 6' o clock news. So there's that."

"Oh….. welcome to the club?" he deadpanned, instantly regretting the lack of filter and cringing in expectation of her reaction.

But she actually laughed.

It was short and probably more of a huff of air than anything else but it made her eyes warm slightly and dance with humour in a way that he had seen them do on countless other occasions around the others.

Ok, he officially gave up. He would never understand her.

He was supposed to be good at reading people and finding ways to work them. But she had been impervious to all efforts. He still winced when he remembers how poorly his attempt at starting a conversation about Religion had gone. "I was raised a New Yorker" she had shot back at him, words just as lethal as the loaded gun she had been holding. Yet, here she was when he expected her to be furious at him, showing concern and joking around with him like one of the guys. Maybe she had a concussion too.

She seemed oblivious to the loop she was throwing him for, continuing to share other details picked up from the call.

"They think our best bet is to go south. Gave us a train schedule and routing. We are going to hitch a ride as a freight train comes through and ride it down near the border. Officially the team is working very hard with the French to try to find Hamid Khedani and his new associate. Unofficially Top will meet us in Spain and we will fly out from there."

He tossed the information over in his mind, processing the different components. Spain huh? A siesta in sun sounded pretty nice right about now. It had been several Mañanas since they last slept. But it looked like the sun would soon be up on another morning so they needed to get moving if they wanted to take advantage of any darkness to cover them on their way.

He nodded to Jaz, tilting his head to the door with a quiet "lead the way."