Lori spent the rest of the evening tied to the chair for her insolence, but she was nevertheless glad they hadn't gotten anything out of her. Though there were no windows in her room of confinement, her mental clock told her it was nearing five A.M. She had caught only brief moments of sleep, and it was difficult to rest in such an uncomfortable position, but Lori knew that she wouldn't do any good if she was exhausted.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but it simply would not come to her. So instead, she tried to form an escape plan, starting with getting unbound. The chair she was tied to was of the simple metal folding kind. Three horizontal sections of rope bound her upper body, and two sections bound her ankles to the chair legs. She was otherwise unrestrained. Lori wriggled experimentally, and the chair slid across the floor a little. The scratching, screeching noise it issued was louder than Lori wanted it to be, and she cursed as footsteps sounded out in the hall.

The door burst open and Tucker stepped in. "Hey, Red… what are you doing?" he asked shiftily.

"Changing my view," Lori replied coolly, turning the chair to the side.

"Oh… well… stop it. It's loud," Tucker said. Lori rolled her eyes and he shut the door.

Now she needed to rethink her plan. Aside from a cardboard box near her, there was nothing in the room she could use to escape. If she made any more noise, Tucker would come in again.

"Now what?" Lori sighed.

--

"Now what?" Simmons sighed. He had just recounted the fiasco at the Blue base to Grif; he was afraid to approach Sarge after his reaction to the flag getting stolen—if Sarge found out that now the flag and one of their own had been captured, he'd probably bust a cap in Simmons' ass.

"Well," Grif said slowly, "maybe we can still negotiate with them."

"Yeah, since I'm sure Sarge will be happy to give up our base for one of us," Simmons replied moodily. As if he didn't already feel bad enough about having to return empty handed.

Grif shrugged. "We could always make something up," he offered.

"Like what? That we have a bomb set to blow up their base if they don't send Lori and the flag back?" Simmons snorted, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Hey… that could actually work," Grif said seriously, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Hey guys," Donut piped up, sticking his head in the doorway to Grif's room, where Simmons and Grif were talking. "Sarge wants to see Simmons, pronto."

The green-eyed, first class private felt his stomach tighten. He had best prepare himself for the worst. Grif gave him a sympathetic look as he exited with Donut.

When Simmons entered Sarge's office, his superior actually looked calm despite the early hour. The greying officer looked up at Simmons as he sat down, his eyes hard. His pose was relaxed, with his feet propped up on his desk and his hands resting behind his head. Simmons didn't dare to break the silence. Once Donut had closed the door behind him, he was alone and isolated with Sarge.

"You didn't git the flag back," Sarge muttered after what seemed like eons. It wasn't a question. "An' now it looks like we got ourselves a hostage situation," he added, scratching at the stubble on his cheek. He sat up, letting his feet drop to the floor and leaned forward on his desk, his hands gripping the wood tightly.

Simmons swallowed hard. He had never seen that wild, manic look in Sarge's eyes before.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Sarge asked in a deadly whisper. "DO YOU?!" he roared. Simmons flinched.

"S-sir, we didn't anticipate—" he stuttered.

"Do you know what they'll DO to her?!" Sarge bellowed, drowning out Simmons' timid response.

A horrible image of Lori being tortured flashed through Simmons' mind. What wouldn't they do to her?

--

"Caboose, for the last time, I'm NOT a princess, so stop trying to find me a prince and… and… go play solitaire or something!" Lori begged in exasperation. Being tied to a chair and being subjected to Caboose's nonsense was far worse than being slapped.

The kindly—but stupid—Blue just smiled. "Aw, that's just your amnesia talking, Princess Lori."

She could have thrown up.

"What about that guy that came here with you last night?" Caboose asked, sitting on the cardboard box he had moved in front of Lori's chair. He clutched a teddy bear to his chest.

Lori looked at him as though he were crazy. "Simmons?" She laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, like that will ever happen."

Caboose tapped his feet on the floor and sucked on his lower lip, his eyes screwed shut with contemplation. "Hmm… you guys seemed close… I mean, like you were all—" he adopted a feminine voice, " 'Forget about me!' and stuff." Lori shook her head.

"I thought he'd be able to get back to the base with the flag," she corrected him.

"But he didn't take your flag back," Caboose pointed out. "He left it."

'Well, duh,' Lori thought.

"So he really does care about you," he continued. "More than the flag. Church says it's super important."

Lori started to explain that the flag was really just something people fought about for bragging rights, but Caboose's next words gave her pause.

"That Simmons guy looked so sad when he left."

She looked at him for a long moment while he hugged his teddy bear, wondering if this was a test set up by Church or if Caboose was really just talking to her. She decided it was the latter.

"He did?" she asked, her tone even. Caboose nodded.

"He looked like he was going to cry," he assured her.

'Probably because he knew Sarge was going to beat him up later,' she thought automatically. "That's stupid," she voiced aloud to Caboose. "We hate each other." He looked up at her and shrugged.

"He didn't look like he hated you," he replied before rising and exiting the room.

Lori was left more confused about Simmons than she had ever been before. Caboose's last words echoed in her head. "Hmph. He doesn't care if I live or die anyway," she told herself, going back to forming an escape plan with renewed vigor.

--

"I hope she's alive," Simmons said to himself as he stared up at the ceiling of his bunk. After getting a harsh lecture from Sarge, he felt even worse about screwing up the mission to get the flag back. "She already hates my guts. I bet she'll shoot me when she gets back."

The thought of it somehow brought a smile to his face.

Next door, Grif sat on the side of his bunk, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He let out a long, miserable sigh. "I should have been guarding the flag," he berated himself. "Then none of this would have happened. Lori wouldn't be…" Captured. Gone. It was really the same thing to him. He really… liked Lori. She and Grif actually got along. He had fixed up her bullet wound. She smiled more with him than she did with the other members of the team. Grif was proud of that. Lori was pretty when she smiled.

"…I have a crush on Lori," he finally admitted to himself. That would certainly complicate things. A lot. Especially since Simmons had returned. He looked… sad that Lori had been captured. Was Simmons starting to like her too? "But they hate each other," Grif reminded himself." Yeah, they hated each other. Which meant she was free game for Grif.

Right?

That's what Grif hoped. It wasn't like he had to ask Simmons for permission to date her. They weren't dating. They hated each other.

"Yeah," Grif smiled to himself, relieved. "No problem."

Well, no problem besides the fact that they still needed to rescue her.

Grif sighed again. Back to square one.