The trip to the bombsite had been unusually quiet for the Squad team. With six of them working as a tight unit, they were apt to spent the time together in the truck joking, laughing, or speculating and placing bets on exactly what they'd be tackling today.

After witnessing their teammate being chewed out by the G-Force Eagle, and her resulting solemn mood, not one of them was willing to open their mouths and begin any kind of conversation. The only one who seemed willing to breathe out a word was her partner, and all he could manage was a whispered: "Are you going to be okay?"

Barron had been grumpily quiet on his own. His only shortly spoken phrases were directed at dispatch, where he stubbornly demanded each and every tiny piece of information about the explosive that was possible.

It was Princess who finally raised her head to attempt to lighten up the mood in the truck. She feigned a lighthearted attitude and although convincing to anyone else, her team knew differently.

"What do you think we have, team? Something deliciously evil, or just another one of those benign suspicious packages?"

Damien smirked with a lowered head. His facial expression, although still somewhat concerned, turned mischievious. "My bets are on something Spectran."

Eric laughed. "With you it's always Spectran."

"Yeah, well. Maybe I want something fun to play with for a change."

Princess raised a brow and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. "You really scare me sometimes, Damien."

He shrugged. "Oh come on, with you and me down there getting dirty, Cass, there's nothing to worry about."

Barron snorted. "Tell that to the county, Knight. After your stunt in the lab …."

"Must I constantly be reminded of that," he groaned in interruption.

Barron's response was simple. "Yes. You do."

Princess actually snickered into her hand and as they approached the hot zone, started to feel a little lighter.

~O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O-O~

Lisa sank into the passenger seat of her Honda Accord and glared across at her commander. She was confused, concerned and irritated by his behaviour but was unsure about how to express her feelings. It was obvious that the Eagle had fully engulfed all sides of his personality. She could tell by the lowered head glare through the brows expression he wore while driving that he was going to be unreasonable if she tried to speak to him …

… But she knew she had to.

She began by clearing her throat. "What happened back there, Mark?"

His eyes didn't flick from the road. "In your three days with criminal investigators I assume you've picked up enough skill to work it out yourself."

She coughed, widened her eyes and flicked her hand at him in response. She couldn't help but adopt a kind-of Valley girl tone of voice when she responded. "Oh, no, you didn't just speak to me like a child."

"No," he answered smoothly, "I spoke to you like an idiot."

"Unjustified if you ask me."

"I didn't."

She blinked and locked her jaw in a half-open position of disgust. "Jason warned me you had anger displacement issues – you really should work on that a little."

"Are you asking me to apologise?"

She was mortified at the emotionless and inconsiderate manner with which he was acting. Sure he had to be pissed off, but who the hell did he think he was taking it out on her? "No. I'm asking you to pull your head out of your ass and stop treating me like I was the one who did you wrong."

His head tilted yet lower as his eyes narrowed, so focused they were almost crossed, on the traffic ahead of him. "How dare she," he growled dangerously.

"She had her reasons."

"None of which justifies her not letting me know I have a daughter."

"She'd probably argue with that."

He tilted his head slightly toward her. "Are you agreeing with her?"

She shrugged. "No. I don't even know what her reasons are, Mark. She and I never spoke about it. I can only assume she figured the two of them were safer being away from you."

His foot came down hard on the brake and the car skidded sideways in response. His entire body turned to Lisa as he growled: "Are you telling me I can't protect my own child?"

She grunted as her shoulder hit the car door hard from the twist of the spinning vehicle. "Jesus, Mark! Are you trying to kill us?"

He lurched forward to her and angrily groped at his own seatbelt as it locked up and prevented him from full movement. "I am the Eagle, damn it. Who on this planet is better protection than me?"

She wanted to back down and cower but bravely shifted her body toward him in a mirrored move of aggression. "Do not take your anger out on me, Commander!" She leaned across him and opened the car door. "Now get out of my car and find your own way home."

His eye twitched as a glimmer of the man inside the Eagle peered into reality for a moment. He was gone in a second, however, as Mark unsnapped the seatbelt and hauled himself out of the vehicle. "I'd make a great father," he growled as he grabbed the door to slam it. He watched her eyes rise to him as she crawled across the seat to the driver's side. "She had no right to take that from me."

Lisa raised her eyes to him and pulled the door shut. She spoke to him through the open window. "Then tell her that." Her eyes flicked away from him as she turned to the road. "Taking it out on us isn't going to help you at all."

"Don't you dare drive away, Lisa."

"Go get a drink or something, Mark, then call Jason. He can put up with your shit better than I can."

Mark curled a lip and set his fist on the roof of the car. "I'm ordering you to let me get back in the car."

She shook her head and floored the accelerator, leaving Mark standing in the middle of the road with traffic honking their horns angrily at him standing in their way.

"Lisa!" he demanded into his communicator, as he remained standing in the center of the westbound traffic lane. "Lisa, answer me."

When he received no answer from his sixth, he curled a lip and stalked to the other side of the road toward a bus shelter. He ignored a stray page of a newspaper wrapping itself around his calf and ankle as he strode to the glass structure housing only two passengers – a sleeping drunk and an iPod-wearing teenager.

He took a long and deep breath as he stood on the outside of the shelter and let his forehead drop onto the glass wall.

"How could she do this to me," he asked himself softly as he felt the first sting of tears in his eyes. "I deserve better than this."

His breathing rate deepened and increased as the urge to break down to his knees grew inside him.

As the first, second and third tear hit the pavement and tips of his shoes he finally allowed himself the chance to expel his frustration. With a loud, low and pained cry he drew his arm backward and launched it at the wall. The glass wall shattered with his punch and he fell through, fell to his knees and broke down. On his knees with his hands bloody and clawing at the shards of tempered glass, the Eagle finally let the man out.

It wasn't until he felt the firm hand of his second fall heavily on his shoulder that Mark moved from that position.

"Come on, Mark. You and I need a drink …"

~O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O-O~

Eric was excited at his first chance to join his two supervisors into the field of battle. It was only a mere two weeks ago that he had completed his part-time training with the Academy. The chance to be able to work with the field team actually diffusing the bomb, rather than sitting in the truck on closed circuit feed, was taken with more enthusiasm than typical. Detective Anderson and Knight were the leading operatives in the city. Academy cadets from all over the state wanted to work with the pair. He'd be an idiot to pass it up.

He could feel his nerves prick as Princess fastened the straps on his bulletproof vest. "We wear a different vest to everyone else," she commented softly as she grit her teeth to pull a strap tight. "It's heavier than what you're used to and has more coverage. I warn you, it'll get pretty hot in there."

He smirked and looked up adoringly at her pursed lip smile. "Thanks, Cassandra. I won't let you down, I promise."

She winked. "I know."

Damien shoved a gun into a holster on Eric's thigh. "Not that a bullet will do much against a bomb, but rules are rules, man."

"I really don't think a full chest plate will do much against a bomb blast either, Damien," he muttered as he pulled on his helmet. "Suit of armour might serve us better."

Damien shrugged as he strode past and swiped an earpiece from Barron. "Less protection we wear, the less mess to clean up, right Cass?"

Princess raised her eyes to her partner as she fixed her own communications device into her ear. "Faster death, you mean." She smiled as she holstered a remote radiation sensor. "Too much protection just prolongs the agony."

Damien nodded in total calm agreement. "Yup." He smirked and let out a laugh at the sudden horrified look on Eric's face. "Ahh, don't fret it Eric. If the bomb goes boom and you're next to it, you won't feel a damn thing."

Eric cleared his throat and held tightly on to a large digital camera. "Thank you for that," he stammered as he swallowed. "It's good to know today might be my last day on earth."

Damien laughed. Princess smacked him on the shoulder. "That's not nice, Damien. Don't you remember your first time out?"

He shrugged and pulled on his own helmet. "Yeah, we didn't stand around wasting time talking."

With only a simple command from their squad leader, the trio walked into the evacuated building.

~O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O-O~

Mark threw back a shot of whiskey and slammed the small glass onto the table. Sitting in a dimly lit corner of the bar, inside a booth under a dull light inside a pool-table style shade, he and his second were happy not to be either noticed by other patrons or bothered by excitable fangirls.

For ten minutes they'd been sitting in relative silence. The only words uttered as far were questions about which drink the other would like to nurse, shoot or gulp. Neither gentleman really wanted to begin the conversation that was inevitable. It was easier for one to let the other start so that if there were terse words or if a fight broke out the blame was easily laid on initiator.

Today, however, Jason knew he'd have to assign himself the blame. He cleared his throat and drew his finger around the rim of his glass of bourbon. "So get it out."

Mark's eyes rose. "It's easier to keep it in."

Jason lifted one side of his nose in a sniff. "By that you mean taking your anger out on any poor soul who pretends to give a shit."

"Which is you, I guess."

Jason shook his head and cut straight to the point. "Lisa told me what happened in her car, Man." He took a small sip of his drink and swished it in his mouth before swallowing. "That was uncalled for."

"Then I'll apologise."

Jason was less than impressed at Mark's monotone and nonchalant manner of speaking and raised his eyes to his Commander. "Not with that level of sincerity you won't."

Mark leaned his elbow on the top back of the bench seat he was on and tapped his fingers on the table. "If you're asking me to beg and plead for forgiveness ..."

"I'm asking you to be a man, suck it up, and admit you were wrong." He leaned his forearms on the table and leaned a little closer to him. "Cause you getting pissy on Lisa – I don't know – because she's a chick, is just going to make things really ugly."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll apologise, kiss her ass …."

Jason's fist hit the table. "Don't. Just don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't pull this shit, Mark. Just because you're all pissed off doesn't mean you can take it out on the rest of us."

Mark coughed, but remained steadfastly calm and emotionally detached. "Easy for you to say, Jason. You know, I'd really love to see you be a good little boy if Lisa pulled this same thing on you."

Jason shrugged, folded his arms and leaned back in the seat. "Never happen, man. See there is this little rubber thing called a condom, one of it's many fine purposes is to prevent pregnancy." He sniffed. "And besides, I'd never give her cause to walk out on me in the first place."

Mark's eyes narrowed. "This isn't my fault."

"Not entirely. It's yours and Princess' fault. You fucked up, and she fucked up ."

Mark's fast rise of the brows at the accusation made Jason skip his words. He fast saved a fight by raising a hand to prevent a rebuttal.

"Yes, Princess fucked it up much more than you, but come on. Look at it from her perspective." His hand fell to his glass. "She's thinking you strayed because you didn't want to commit, because you didn't want to be with her. She also knows you better than you know yourself. She knows if she'd come back with your kid growing inside her that you'd stay with her no matter what you wanted."

"She's what I wanted, Jason. I wanted her, only her. What happened with Melissa …"

"She doesn't know or understand all that."

Mark nodded and then shook his head. He thumbed at his nose with the hand leaning on the back of his chair and looked away from his second. "Yeah. Take her side."

"Hey," he shrugged as if to dismiss everything. "I'm not taking anyone's side. I don't blame you for being pissed off beyond all fucking reasoning. I would be too."

"Then why are we sitting here?"

Jason raised a finger to ask Mark to let him finish. "What she did is completely inexcusable. It's not unforgivable, but there is neither excuse, nor reason for it. You had every right to know about the kid. What I'm kicking your ass over is how you're taking it out on us, and not her."

Mark clicked out of the side of his mouth and watched his fingers stretch and roll on the seat back. "I don't want to take it out on her, Man."

"Which makes absolutely no sense."

"She's the mother of my child. How can I?" he groaned. "I want to yell at her. I want to make her pay for what she's done. I want her to suffer and realize how much this has hurt."

"But you can't."

Mark shrugged. "If I do I'll lose the both of them."

Jason pursed his lips and took another sip of his drink. "You still love her?"

He laughed sadly and shook his head. "Right now? I hate her."

Jason smirked. "Love, hate, same shit."

Mark shook his head. "No. This is different, Man. She betrayed me in the worst way possible. She denied me the chance to be who I need to be. I should be a husband and a father now, not a lonely miserable fuck who doesn't even know who he is anymore." He shrugged. "And does she even care?"

Jason widened his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, she does."

He pointed up at a TV monitor broadcasting the news flash with an image of a content, yet determined, Princess with two of her teammates ready to go diffuse a bomb. "Does she look like it to you?"

Jason slid his head to a tilt and smiled at the image of the three of them all dressed in green and black bomb squad fatigues. "She's always been a good actress, Mark. If she's distracted and miserable do you think they'd let her go in there?"

"They might."

"Don't play a dimwit with me. You know full well they'd ground her ass if she was even slightly distracted. And you also know she doesn't take groundings very well – need I remind you of the time you tried …"

Mark shook his hand. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever." His gaze was locked on the screen, watching the three officers enter a building surrounded by the police force, S.W.A.T. teams and paramedics.

Jason snapped his fingers in front of his Commander's face. "Look, Mark. I spent two hours with her yesterday as she sobbed and killed herself over this whole thing. She told me some shit that …" he sighed. "Well you really need to hear for yourself."

Mark snorted, his eyes still on the screen. "Let me guess …" he adopted a squeaky feminine voice. "I was so scared to come to him. He doesn't love me. He doesn't need me. He doesn't need her. He couldn't commit to be a lover, how could he commit to fatherhood?"

"Keep it up," Jason warned, "and I'm going to lean across this table and punch your head in."

Mark's eyes flicked to him. "Then do it."

"I know you're angry now, man. But you'll eventually get over it and probably spend some of your selfishness understanding part of where she was when she made this decision." He lowered his voice. "You'll probably take her back, make love to her every night, marry her and have more kids."

"Unlikely."

"You say that now."

Mark sighed. "You have no idea how much this hurts. After the screwed up childhood I had, with no father, losing my mother and not knowing who I am, I vowed to make sure the same wouldn't happen to my kids."

"Then make sure it doesn't."

Mark threw himself back heavily into the chair. "It already has."

Jason shook his head. "The only one screwed up right now is Princess. Amanda isn't even a year old yet. She won't know anything." He pushed a new shot glass of whiskey toward Mark. "You and Princess know there was a hiccup there, but she's not going to know."

Mark screwed up his face and shook his head. "I can't. Not right now."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know if I'll have any control the next time I see her."

Jason's brow twitched. "Control over what?"

"Anything."

He pursed his lips. "And the overriding passion right now?"

"Hate, anger … " His upper lip twitched. "I want to punch her, throttle her, kiss her and make love to her all in one hit."

"I'll warn you now that if you go with the first of those reactions that you'll have an entire police department, S.W.A.T. team, Rangers squadron and one mighty pissed off Condor hunting you down to get medieval on you."

Mark humphed. "Give me some credit. Just because I want to doesn't mean I will. I'm not an abusive asshole."

"That, I have to agree with."

Mark was silent for a moment as he let his eyes linger on the newscaster on the screen above the bar. The side of his mouth finally gave a twitch and he spoke to his second without looking at him. "You know what is really pissing me off right now, Jase?"

"What?"

Mark slowly let his gaze fall on Jason, who had his face cupped in his hands as he lit a cigarette with a match. "I don't know what to do."

Jason's mouth twitched over the cigarette as he shook the flame from the match and tossed the spend stick into an ashtray. "Who would?"

"No, you don't understand. I have no idea how to approach this or what to do about it."

Jason raised a brow, inhaled, but said nothing.

So Mark continued. "You can put me in any combat situation and I can analyze the data, weigh the options and come up with a plan before I take a breath." He exhaled. "But as usual, when it comes to her, I come up blank. I honestly don't know how to approach this, what plan to take or …"

Jason punched at the left side of his chest to indicate his heart. "Go with that, man. You can't lose if you go with what this tells you."

Mark rolled his eyes and let out a cough of a laugh. "I thought the gut was the only option."

"Depends on who you want to hurt along the way. The gut is selfish, and steers you its way. You know your heart won't lead you astray, man."

Mark had to raise a brow in response. "Jason, that's deep, too much for you."

He shrugged and smiled as he drew back a sip of his bourbon. "Call Lisa a bad influence."

"Yeah, she's turning you into a chick."

Jason couldn't help but lower his head deviously and chuckle. "Well, only a woman knows what a woman likes, right?"

"I'll make sure I'll add a pretty pink satin teddy and fluffy slippers to your Christmas stocking."

Jason answered with a smile and flip of the bird.

Mark seemed to relax a little and sighed as he looked across at a small group of lunching police officers. "Do you think she enjoys it?"

Jason followed Mark's gaze. "The force? Yeah, she's a team player, needs to be out there fighting evil and protecting people."

"Do you think she'll come back?"

Jason shrugged. "Dunno, Mark. A lot's changed, and she's got and extra little life to think about now. Policing is far safer than hanging out with us."

"We've always kept her safe and alive before."

Jason inhaled on his cigarette and blew the smoke out quickly. "Tell her that and she'll deny it. She did it all on her own."

Mark replied with a look, smirk and tilt of the head, but said nothing.

Jason winked. "You and I know it, Skipper. But she held her own pretty good."

"Yeah. She was beautiful to watch."

"Still is." He pulled at his ear and set his eyes on the officers, who were making a toast to an arrest they'd made that day. "Couple of days ago I watched her lose her mind on a group of thugs. Damn that brought back some memories."

Mark's attention flicked quickly to Jason, "What did …"

His words and attention were fractured by the sudden, alarmed yelp from the table of officers. Both he and Jason immediately set their sight and attention to them.

"Bomb Squad's in trouble!" One yelled as he pulled his wallet from his pocket and dumped crinkled dollar bills on the table. "Gun shots and an explosion …"

Mark and Jason shared a look, a nod, and quickly leapt out of their booth. Mark was on the com-link as Jason apologized to the waitress and promised to pay up the tab next time they were in.