A/N: Well, that sure was a successful date. Fluffffff! There is plot, really there is.

Set just before Chapter 9, heavy spoilers to Chapter 5. Fluff, swears, and a lack of clothes. The aerobics happen between the paragraphs, so it's a weak M, kids. However, if this is not your cup of tea, I encourage you to come back in (edit) three more chapters. If you wait for (edit) four more chapters, you'll be right in time for some H.B. abuse (edit: I just wrote an extra chapter).

Lila is not Cross, not even close, just an NPC that can't say no. Everything else belongs to the blushing geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT.

There is no depth I will not sink to …. God help me.

Jack woke in darkness, lying on the floor of an unknown room. Normally, he'd be on his feet, instantly alert, but his body was strangely reluctant. Almost still in sleep mode. Inert. He waited for a sense of panic, but his mind was also strangely calm and empty.

Where was he? He could swear he was still in New Los Angeles. Every centimeter of the city thrummed with a deeply familiar vibration, the signature of the human technology he knew so well. Hell, he'd helped design some of it, and had built a fair chunk of it. So, he wasn't in some xeno location. Certainly not the Ma-non ship, with its cheerful high-pitched shiver of power. Anyway, their ship was built of large bronze assembly halls and small personal pods, nothing like this room

The room was a little smaller than his own limited living quarters and more cluttered. Sounds were dampened. He could just make out the edges of the door, and he felt a thin carpet under him. Smelled books, that dusty mix of paper and thumbs. And he realized that he wasn't alone.

Lying against him was a soft, warm, curvy person. About this point he realized they were both naked.

Memory flooded his mind, with the brightness of luminous Noctilum flowers, although the scenes had taken place in darkness. How he could remember when he was sure he hadn't been thinking at all was a puzzle.

Hallelujah, he had finally bagged Petty Officer Brown. And about time too. He'd given up just about any thought of it, much less hope, yet here he was. Here they were. Here she was, plastered against his hip, one arm over his chest, fingers arrested in the act of grasping for his shoulder. Her hand was a long way off, more in the region of what would be a heart, except that the kids in mimeosome development had moved that assemblage a little higher and more to the center.

Hot damn.

Jack relaxed on the floor, although in truth he didn't move a muscle from his original relaxed position. He just stopped thinking about getting up. Rather, he'd thought it, decided he had a good hour before he had to be anywhere, and dismissed the question. He slanted a look down at Lila. Still asleep, and if she wasn't smiling, then he really needed to eat more carrots, because he could feel the curve of her lips, the crinkles at the edges of her eyes.

He'd rushed her with an indecent amount of haste. They hadn't made the couch before he'd had her t-shirt off. Hell, they'd barely made it through the door. She was about as quick as he was, tugging at his tank, but he knew it was up to him to show more control. Rolling on the floor was the exact opposite of control.

It'd been damn fine, though.

He'd been hot for her for, what was it, almost 6 years now? The moment he first saw her sweet little ass wiggling backwards from under an engine, he'd felt a very unencumbered appreciation. Not exactly a feeling of desire, but a recognition of something very fine indeed, a fact he'd measured in the same moment he'd calculated that the engine in question was both too heavy and too underpowered to get the job done. Useful things to know, really. Weak engine, nice ass. She'd popped to her feet, a swift movement, no scrambling, cradling a leaking compression chamber assembly with more respect than it deserved in one arm, and holding a wrench with somewhat less respect in the other. She'd looked at him in surprise, then smiled broadly, her warm brown eyes with those ridiculous silver speckles twinkling.

"You must be part of the team that's going to show us what's what." She snorted. "Good luck to that!"

He was still in civvys, having been dumped into this project with no warning. He probably looked like a part time biker, part time bartender, certainly not an officer, but something must have given him away. She'd switched, again as swiftly as before, to attention, although not perfectly since she was hampered by the afore mentioned wrench and machinery. Her face was calm, chin up and eyes straight, but he swore she hadn't quite removed the twinkle. "Sir…" she said with a faint questioning tone.

They'd made their introductions, and she'd even managed a proper salute. He'd been amused at how she'd slung the chamber around to her other arm, and even managed not to smear grease all over her forehead. Of course she'd managed it, just fine. She'd speedily led him to the project manager (former project manager), saluted again, and evaporated upon dismissal.

There had been no question of developing any interest in her. Above and beyond rules about fraternization and proper respect for subordinates, he knew what a bitch life in this man's armed forces could be for any woman, and he was the last one to cause anyone that sort of grief. Least of all her. That didn't mean he couldn't admire such aspects as were appropriate to admire. Her ability to find lost papers and tools. A deft but firm hand with cylinders and machine treads. The fact she only complained when her arms were already full of gear and she was moving at a quick trot. A tendency to refill the team's coffee jug just because it was empty. Her very neat way of presenting reports, short and sweet, and then throwing it all to hell by cocking her head and dropping an aside that blew any plans to pieces. "By the way, sir, Seaman Cruz is worried but I'm not sure about what." Which meant he spent the rest of the day beating a confession out of said team member about the very clear failure of previously perfect results. Not how he had wanted to spend the day, but it saved them weeks of frustration trying to chase fairy tale findings. And if he occasionally gave her butt a respectful glance, well, he did it at a distance and at a minimum.

The project had wrapped up quickly, to all outside observers a disappointing failure. Gravitational engines would never work to power naval vessels. Seaman Brown had returned to her beloved submarines, and Jack had been returned to the California/Nevada border to make use of the project's real findings. It would never work for something both as big and as small as a maritime craft, but there were definite possibilities if you went larger. Much larger. The size, say, of a small city. Or a White Whale.

He'd forgotten her, completely. Completely untrue. Which is to say, the instant he saw her name in his inbox, he'd laughed at how he'd raced to open the message. She hoped he'd remembered her, blah blah, she was a Petty Officer now (good for her, he wasn't the least surprised), blah blah, could he write her a letter of reference? He'd had to laugh again at his disappointment. What did he want, a confession of unspoken love, or better yet, erotic fantasy? He'd stopped laughing when he realized where she wanted him to send the letter. Right to the center of the White Whale base, something she had no business knowing about and which nonetheless she'd managed to figure out. Of course she had. She clearly didn't know exactly the extent of the project, how they were building a massive ship, capable of extremely long distance space flight, nor why exactly it was so important, but she was sending in her resume cold, in the hopes that she had found something interesting. And she'd somehow matched him with the whole thing. Clever girl, clever, clever girl.

He'd had to bite his tongue for five days before her name came up in a staff meeting. Eleonora had passed around the letter she'd received with some amusement. Nagi was pissed about the breach of security, and half suspicious that Jack was the cause. Jack hadn't spent any time defending himself (he WAS innocent, but he weirdly didn't feel that way). He just pointed out that she was a good resource, and better to have her in than out. Not that this was a problem; if they decided to keep her out, they had nothing to fear. She was solid, and would take a negative answer without a fuss. But that, really, she was a good asset, possibly for the skell team. She'd shown real genius keeping forklifts going, he remembered, and the hydraulics weren't all that different. Okay, hugely different, but she'd catch up.

She'd been accepted, without any further complaint. Lila really was a good match for the endeavor, and Eleonora had been pointing out for weeks that they needed to start pulling in more hands if they had a shot at completing the Whale in time. He'd looked forward to her arrival with something like excitement.

Only, they'd put her in his department. Of course they had. Under his supervision, not exactly directly, he had a ton of staff and a dozen focus teams at that point, but still, he was her superior. Hell and damnation. It was where she'd belonged, best for the project, but it had shot down any ideas of, well, getting to know her a little better. And by better, he meant getting any closer than one meter to her. He would take a bet that that was Nagi's way of, well, punishing him. It felt like punishment sometimes.

This here, however, was no punishment. And definitely closer than a meter. God, this felt good, and she was still sleeping, even snoring a little. Thursdays were always her rough days, and he knew she must be tired. Wednesday tended to be an all-nighter in the refueling station, and then she would power through the next day, fueled by the coffee she reserved only for emergencies. Mostly a tea drinker, he'd learned that much about her during the years on board ship.

She'd almost not made it on board. An echo of the panic he should have felt when waking in a strange room shivered through him. The synch with her mim was buggy, and that meant being bounced from the team. Can't have a motion sick team member. Her case was worse, a sort of total perceptual collapse in open spaces that left her unable to leave the indoors for even the shortest of distances. Not exactly unable, though. She'd covered up the problem for three days, even though he later realized that it must have been like walking in a hurricane or worse every time she'd gone outside.

He'd found her, jackknifed and whimpering, by a small experimental solar array. He'd been watching her since she'd been placed in her mimeosome a few days before. She'd needed a special frame, just like he had, which had made him stupidly pleased. The synchronization team hadn't switched her into some anonymous, identical, perfectly acceptable body. She'd stayed exactly right, curvy and short and nicely tight in certain ways. Again, to be clear, he wasn't going to do a damn thing, but occasionally he let his eyes take a 3 second vacation and he would have missed that. But he'd noticed strain, something off, and wanted to smooth any problems she had.

He hadn't expected the extent of her troubles. They both knew what it meant. Off the team. And he sure as hell knew what that also meant. She probably did too, although the crew wasn't supposed to know and most still didn't. A death sentence, because something very nasty was headed very fast towards Earth. You either made it out on the White Whale or didn't make it at all.

She'd looked straight at him, and he was gutted by how calm and brave and damn honorable she was. She'd take his answer and not whine. But she hadn't given up. That stubborn silvery twinkle was back in her eyes, even though she hadn't been able to focus just a minute before when he'd dumped her on a chair in his office. "Respectfully, sir…"

He'd couldn't swear, even now, holding her and glorying in what had been one of the most excellent evenings of his life, what would have happened if she hadn't spoken up. What should have happened, sure, dismissing her from the project, never saying another word about it, and regretting it forever. What could have happened, that too, going to Nagi and threatening to leave the project himself if she was bounced. It would have worked, and he would have hated himself, a different but equally ugly feeling. Provided she didn't get wind of it, which of course she would have and which would have made the whole thing pointless because he knew she'd have refused, walked straight into the desert, mind storm or no mind storm, never to be seen again. Of course. All of which made it not worth even trying, but he wasn't certain, now less than ever, that he wouldn't have done it anyway.

Especially now. She was sighing slightly, maybe waking up. Dear God, he hoped she was waking up, because he was feeling much more awake, in specific ways, than he had been just a few moments before. He wasn't going to rush her again, but he wasn't going to ignore any opportunities either. He judged he had enough time.

Her voice, all those years ago, carefully clear despite the touch of panic. "Respectfully, sir, the synchronization works fine indoors. And it's only been three days…"

That had been just enough of a lead. He'd snapped at it. Anything to give him time to find something better. He'd dumped her on Alexa and her skeleton skell maintenance crew. Abandoned Lila to the lowest work in the skell hangers, night shift to boot, indoors all the time with never a breath of fresh air. She'd be safe there. He'd figured that if worse came to worse, he could bribe Alexa somehow into ignoring the deadweight he'd tossed at her. Probably with a whopping great engine. But Lila had done brilliantly. Of course she had. Somehow she'd organized the hell out of what had been up to that point the messiest branch of the project, without upsetting the short tempered team leader. And had somehow buttered up Eleonora to boot. Jack had a sinking suspicion that Lila had told the Staff Head the whole truth and gotten her approval to stay. Didn't quite trust him to make the right decision, did she? Well, perhaps she was right in that.

Did she trust him now? He wanted her badly again, and he was hating everything that made control so very very important. He rubbed the top of her head with his chin, very gently.

Lila's brown eyes fluttered open, and she arched her body so she could look straight into his eyes. She pushed herself up from the floor and stretched towards his face, placing a kiss, not in the least shy or uncertain, on his lips. "How did you ever get to be so gorgeous?" she murmured, and smiled. He was sure of it. Hot damn, gorgeous, huh? Her hands were already roving across his chest. "May I be a little greedy?"

"Honey, you may be very, very greedy."

An undetermined time later, but with not a minute to spare, Jack checked his pinging comm device. "Voice only," he growled, because he still was in no condition for anything but select company. Select, greedy company, currently making some very late night coffee in the alcove. While singing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning." He had less than zero interest in whoever was on the other end of the line. "What?" he rapped out.

Eleonora's voice cut in, altogether too chipper. "Oh, just a little emergency, possibly a line on the Lifehold. BLADE Tower, in 10 minutes."

"Right. I'm on it."

"Oh, and Commander," Eleonora's voice said sweetly, "she likes flowers, pink ones."

Commander Vandham swore silently, but with heartfelt passion. God damn bitch know-it-all freak mind reader! She pulled this kind of crap on the rooks all the time. Now she was doing it to him! She'd known exactly where he was, maybe from his comm signal, maybe from the flying monkeys he swore she kept as pets, and he'd have to keep a straight face for God knew how many meetings while she looked on with silent laughter.

As he looked for his boots, he pondered the bigger problem: where the hell was he going to find pink flowers on Mira?

a/n: D'awwww. Eleonora's only trying to help with skittish partners, right? (FYI Gino lost many credits to Mara.)

This is the first piece I ever wrote for XCX, before I'd done Ch. 8, even, because I remember thinking, "Huh, I've got to make up a name for him." A month later, when Vandham said his name during the Battle for New LA (and proved he could count backwards), I lost my …er… composure. Can't even remember what my guess was.

Everything I've written (posted or not) is an excuse for this piece. That's a whole lot of excuses. Love. This. Pair. And, I repeat, you got a different ship? Sail it and I will salute, because I am omnivorous. Except Vandham/HB. OnePirateWolf's Nagi-Vandham fluff festival is the bestest, I can't decide whether to swoon or to squee. (You know I'll read V/HB, but I do have one real exception: if it is set before 2061, keep away from Lin, grrr.)

Also, a quick apology for the AU aspect of the ECP – because it was written so early on, my head-universe had the evacuation project being far more secretive for far longer than in the canon XCX universe. I'm too lazy to fix it myself; suggestions welcome but likely to be ignored, at least for all things Lila. (Oh the retconning I'm going to have to do for Alexa's educational backstory… well, it does mean I have to write another Alexa/Doug story eventually.)

Next up: (edit) Whoops, we have a new chapter, because of timing. PSYCH! It was all a dream.

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(no it wasn't)