Disclaimer: All previous disclaimers apply.

Author's Note: It has been literally a year since i have written or posted anything. I am trying to get back into it, so any feedback at all is much appreciated.

"Awake again, little one?"

It was instinct that had The Captain turning without thinking and throwing the steak knife that he'd taken off the table after dinner three nights prior as hard as he could toward the voice that had startled him. The beautiful woman with the long, caramel hair and the kindest eyes and softest hands he'd ever met didn't even flinch as she caught the knife by the hilt just before it buried itself in her eye. He felt the shame build immediately, hot and stinging, in his chest until it worked its way up his throat and had him falling to his knees, shaking, as his stomach voided itself all over the porch.

"Oh, my love."

He tried not to flinch when she knelt next to him and prayed that she wouldn't touch him. He didn't want to be touched. He didn't think he could handle it if she touched him with any sort of kindness right at that moment. Right when he had nearly killed her and probably would have killed her if she'd been anyone else. Not that he wanted to. This place…this place was the best place he'd ever been to. Everyone spoke with kind, soft voices. Everyone touched with gentle hands only when he said they could. They always had enough to eat. They were always warm. And they didn't have to train unless they wanted to. The big man that had the same eyes he saw every time he looked in the mirror…Steve…He'd told them they could call him Steve…never hit them, never even looked at them with anything but kindness. And all The Captain had done to repay the kindness, the gentleness shown to them was bring them pain.

The gags and vomiting turned into uncontrollable sobs as he felt the heavy cloak the beautiful, soft woman always wore draped around him, a warm, comforting weight that he didn't deserve.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, "I'm sorry!"

This wasn't the first time his instincts and his training had hurt or nearly killed someone in the house. The first day they'd been brought to the large house on the edge of the woods he'd attacked the big man, recognizing him from the reels they'd started being shown for training. They hadn't seen many of them, but enough, and seeing the man they were told was their enemy had been too much for him, for both of them really, with the other changes that had happened. The Soldier had attacked him as well and between the two of them they'd managed to break his nose and bruise his ribs before he and the redhead had gotten them back under control, holding them both gently but firmly as their panic ran itself out. He hadn't spoken, but she had, pointing out to them both that the place they had come from, where they had been hurt so much for so long, had hated this man. So, if logic followed, the enemy of his enemy was his friend, was safe. It had made sense and so they had stopped fighting. They had to trust someone in this new position they found themselves in.

But, no matter how much they wanted to trust, what had been trained and beaten into them their entire lives long couldn't just be undone in a day. At first, they couldn't sleep, the countryside around them too quiet when they were used to an entire base worth of noise all night every night. The food that was prepared for them, at first, made them sick, too rich for what their digestive systems were used to. They even had to wear sunglasses for a while, their eyes not used to natural sunlight. Those things were easy to adjust to. Steve got them a sound machine for the room they shared, helping them to sleep. They were given bland foods with more complicated foods added in as their stomachs could handle them. They spent more time outside until their eyes and their skin and bodies got used to the sun. Those things were easy.

Even things like the nightmares and insomnia were being handled. They weren't easy to handle, of course, but they were under control. It was the instincts, the training, and the lack of ability to trust, that was causing the problems. But, just for him. Jamie, as The Soldier had taken to calling himself, seemed to be handling it better. After their initial attack on Steve and the logic presented to them by the redhead Jamie wasn't nearly so on edge. And he seemed to have found ways to deal with the times that his mind forgot what it had learned. He took time to read alone in the "family" room. He ran wild through the woods. He even had Steve training him in boxing, a way to fight that didn't hurt people, at least not the way that they had been trained. Every day he seemed more like the children they saw when they watched films and shows with the family.

But, The Captain…For some reason he just couldn't seem to do that. Since that first night when they had attacked Steve he had also almost broken Neville's arm when the young man walked up behind him a little too quietly. He'd thrown a knife at Kurt when the other boy had teleported into the room. Steve had reacted with lightning speed and put his hand out so that the knife buried itself in his flesh instead of Kurt's. And it was only due to the interference through the magic of the woman with him on the porch that he hadn't accidently killed Clarice by breaking her nose and pushing the bone into her brain when he'd turned the corner and run into her unexpectedly. Frigga, Nana as the others called her, had used magic to pull Clarice away before his hand could make contact. He wasn't safe for them. And it didn't seem to be getting any better. It's why he'd been outside in the middle of the night. If he wasn't in the house with them he thought he couldn't hurt them, the only people who had tried to be kind to him his entire life.

"I'm sorry!" he sobbed until he was getting sick again.

"My love," Frigga didn't seem to fear him at all as she picked him up, wrapped in her cloak, cradling him as if he were an infant, "My darling." She pressed a sweet kiss to his forehead and moved over to the porch swing, still holding him.

He wanted to fight. He'd fought all of the others, not feeling like he was worth the time, the affection, but none of the others had kept holding him even when he struggled. Steve had told him they didn't want him to feel trapped by them. But, even as he struggled in her arms Frigga would not let him go. And he was just so tired of fighting. Just so tired of being afraid, of being on edge.

"My darling," She murmured again, just holding him tighter when his body seemed like it was going to shake apart with the force of his emotions, his fear, "Still just a little boy. It's alright, my love. Let it out. Let it all out."

And he did. For the first time he allowed himself to feel without shame and allowed himself to express everything he was feeling without fear of repercussion. He cried, he howled, he screamed, even. And through everything Frigga just held him, rocked him, kissed him, encouraged him to let it out. She never told him to quiet himself and she never let him go.

When he came back to himself, he felt as if his head was three sizes too big, he'd never breathe through his nose again, and…calmer than he'd ever felt in his life. He knew he was falling asleep as he looked up at the beautiful woman holding him. He was too tired to worry about what he would see on her face, but felt a warmth he'd never felt before settle into his chest when she just smiled down at him softly, something he thought might be love shining in her eyes. He sighed and closed his own eyes, ready for sleep and, for the first time in his life, feeling safe enough to do it with someone else holding him. He allowed himself to snuggle closer to her, laying his ear on her chest so that he could hear her heart beat, slow and steady, and didn't even have the energy to startle when he heard another voice and felt a large, gentle hand stroke his hair.

"He looks so much more peaceful than I've ever seen him." Steve's voice said quietly.

"He's been so afraid of hurting us all, so afraid that we would give up on him. It's been so hard on him. He's still just a little boy in his heart, despite all he's been put through."

"So, what do I do, Ma? I love him so much already, but if being here isn't the best thing for him…"

"Our love is the best thing for him, Steven," Frigga said firmly, "We just keep loving him. It won't be easy at times, for him or for us, but as long as we keep loving him through it all we'll find a way through."

"Yeah…" The hand stroked his hair again.

"And he needs a name. Not just the title those despicable people gave him."

"I…Jamie picked his own name and I was kind of waiting for him to do the same, but I'm not sure he will. I think I've been treating them as more of a unit than I should. They're individuals, not two parts of the whole."

"Yes. They are themselves as much as they are a pair. Perhaps he needs you to choose for him. Or to help him choose." She paused for a moment, "You've already chosen a name for him, haven't you?"

"Well, I mean, if he doesn't like it we could always find him something else, but…In my mind he…well, and my heart. I mean…"

"Steven, you're rambling. What is his name, my son?"

A gentle kiss that wasn't from Frigga was pressed to his temple and made him sigh happily into a deep sleep as that loving voice whispered his name for the first time.

"Jake. His name is Jake."

Jolene Porteous was not a wilting flower. She was as tough as they came and she knew it. Her daddy had raised her that way after her mama died birthing her. She boxed in the gym her daddy owned, could take down any man that came after her, whether they outweighed her or not, because they usually did. She'd never put on the height or the weight that she was hoping to when she was a little girl. She was strong, sure, but no matter what she did her muscle remained whip-cord instead of bulking. And though she'd never managed to grow an inch past five feet she was fast as hell.

Now, none of that was to say that she didn't have a soft heart. Like her daddy had always told her, "Tough as nails outside, soft as marshmallow inside." She cried when she saw an abused animal and then she took it home to nurse it back to health. She cried when one of the people she loved was hurting and did everything in her power to make certain that whatever it was, whoever it was, that hurt them was taken out, or was very carefully informed of exactly what was going to happen if they didn't remove themselves from the lives of those they'd hurt immediately. Her friends and family were never hurt twice. And she cried like hell when she was happy.

In the past few years, since meeting Linwood Porteous, she'd cried more than she'd ever thought possible, and all of it because the man made her happier than any man had since her daddy died when she was nineteen. She'd cried when he filled her apartment with roses the day after she let him make love to her for the first time. She'd cried when he'd convinced his squad to invest in her daddy's gym so that she didn't lose it, even though they probably wouldn't see much of a return ever. It was just a small neighborhood boxing gym, after all. She'd fallen to her knees in front of him and kissed him silly through her tears when he asked her to marry him and there was hardly a picture of her wedding day where her eyes weren't wet. She'd cried when she took the pregnancy test, not sure if she was crying because she was happy or because the morning sickness was making her feel so damn miserable. There was no question that it was happiness that she was crying with when she told Pooch they were expecting and he picked her up with a whoop of joy to spin her around. Then she'd thrown up on him. She cried when he told her that he had to go away for an op so close to the end of her pregnancy, but she hadn't worried. He had gone on so many of these ops before. And he'd always come back.

So, why the hell, hadn't she been able to cry since they told her he was dead? Him and his entire team. Sure, Clay was an ass and she'd never cared too much for Roque's misogynistic tendencies, but Cougar's silent strength and Jake's playful silliness that hid so much more than anyone but she and Cougar (And Jake's family, but that was another story…) seemed to see made the two of them some of her best friends, just as they were Pooch's. She knew in her heart, that she should have cried for them already, that, really, she shouldn't have been able to stop crying for them, but she hadn't shed a single, solitary tear.

It didn't take her long to realize that the reason she wasn't crying, wasn't mourning the loss of the father of her child, wasn't mourning the relationship they would never have, was because she knew in her heart that they weren't dead. That what the military was telling her was a crock of bullshit. There was no way that her husband's team, those she loved and those she tolerated, would ever do what the military had told her they'd done. And if they were dead, where was her husband's god damned ring. Unless he had removed it himself she knew that there was absolutely no way he would have let someone take it from him, that he would have let someone leave her without the closure, without the physical remembrance to keep with her for the rest of her life. The fact that the soldier boys at the hangar wouldn't, or couldn't, tell her what had happened to it just solidified everything for her.

After she'd come to the realization that there was no way her husband and his team were dead she'd packed up her dog, packed a few bags, left her cousin in charge of the gym, and drove. It took her three days, because she refused to exhaust herself, but after a couple of nights in a couple of nice hotels and a whole lot of driving she finally made it to Colorado and up into the mountains. As she pulled up she saw a half dozen cars surrounding the house, half a dozen brooms propped up on the front porch, and a quinjet in the clearing a half mile from the back porch and felt like she could finally breathe. Her heart and her mind hadn't betrayed her or at least if they had they'd also betrayed the rest of the family.

"Baby girl," She heard a rough voice call out to her just as she turned the dog loose, knowing she was just as used to the house as Jolene herself was. She turned back to the front door to see the two men she'd come for making their way to her from the open door of the large old house that had been as much home to her as any place she'd ever lived since the moment Jake brought her and Pooch here for the first time, "What the hell were you thinking driving half way across the country in your condition? We left a half dozen messages at the gym for you."

"Why'd I give you a StarkPhone if you're not going to use it?" Uncle Tony whined from where he'd stopped on the porch to let Daddy and Papa approach her. Since they'd learned that too many people around her before she settled in could set off her anxiety not more than two people had ever come to greet her when she first got home.

"How you doing?" Papa Len took her face in his hands, looked into her tired eyes, "Your back okay? Hips? Feet so swollen they swelling doesn't go down when you stop and put them up at all?"

"No, Papa," She answered without hesitation, rubbing into his hands like a kitten, "Promise. I never drove for more than three hours without taking a break and I spent the night in hotels to relax, not in the car. I know better."

"Good girl."

"We were just waiting to hear from you, sweetie," Daddy Steve said gently, "We were going to send one of the kids to pick you and Lili-Pup up to bring you here."

"I wasn't thinking about anything but getting here, Daddy," She allowed the big men to wrap their arms around her, allowed herself the tears of relief that she could depend on them, let them take over from there, "They're not dead!" She sobbed, "I know they're not."

"Shh, shh," Daddy whispered in her hair, "We know, sweetie, we know."

"We're gonna get them back, baby girl," Papa whispered at the same time.

And when they said it, it was something she believed.

"You know," Jensen's voice wasn't as confident as it had been in the past when he called out to Pooch, but Pooch knew he was trying and he appreciated the effort. He looked up from the car he knew was in topnotch shape because he had tuned it every single fucking day since they had come to this middle of nowhere shit town and tried not to grimace. Jensen was losing it. He looked fucking exhausted. His fingers were twitching, as if he wanted to type, but since Clay had destroyed his main system, his backup system, and his primary and backup phones, he hadn't been able to do that, hadn't been able to keep his mind occupied. Pooch knew that Cougar had found him on the roof, about to slice his own wrists to feel something, the other night. They both knew it wouldn't kill him if he'd done it, but it was a path of self-destruction they didn't want him going down, and it would be hell to try to explain it to Clay and Roque if they'd somehow seen it. Pooch reached out next to him and grabbed a wrench to hand to Jensen. He pointed to where he was going to tighten something in the engine and watched as Jensen jerked his way over, then took a couple of tries to get the wrench where it was needed.

"What?" Pooch asked, wanting to put Jensen's mind on something that would hopefully slow it down a little.

"Huh?" Jensen responded.

"You came in here saying 'You know.' What do I know?" Pooch prompted gently.

"Right." For just a few moments Jensen stopped twitching and he almost smiled as he began to turn the wrench smoothly, "You know that Jolene is with my parents, man, with my family. So, you don't have to worry about her or the baby. Or the dog, come to think of it."

Pooch chuckled a little, "Yeah. I know you're right." He shrugged, "She's smart and she's tough. She probably made it Colorado before we even made it here and I know your folks and your family are going to take care of her."

They were quiet for just a short amount of time, half smiling at each other, before Jensen turned back to the engine.

"Speaking of your family, man…" Pooch ran a hand over his head, "Any way they could, you know, help us out?"

"I know they can. I just have to figure out a way to contact them. Clay destroyed everything, even my spelled shit. I don't know how the hell he found all of them. But, soon as I figure out exactly what Clay's play is here, soon as I figure out how to contact any one of them, I'm gonna do it, man. You're going to be with Jolene when she has the baby. I promise."

"I don't need you to promise, man," Pooch put a hand on Jensen's should and allowed himself to grin, to hope for the first time since the helicopter had come down, "I know you're going to do it. Now, you wanna tell me something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, man. Something that doesn't mean anything. You need to talk, get your brain to slow down, and, God help me, but your chatter has become something that helps me relax."

"Liar," Jensen snorted, "But, thanks, man. Yeah. Let's talk about how you hack into the Stark database, getting in and out without JARVIS ever knowing you're there. Step one…"

Pooch smiled and closed his eyes, letting Jensen's voice wash over him. Yeah. They were gonna get home. He was gonna see his baby born and if he was lucky, Jolene wouldn't kill him in between the two.