Back down in the tunnel, Kinch headed for the radio and began the process of contacting London. Hogan walked softly over to the sleeping alcove and peered in.
On the closest bunk, Ted was sitting up, knees drawn up, his head pillowed on his arms crossed over them. Hogan had seen exhausted men sleep this way before, but the upright tenseness of Ted's body made clear that he was awake. Hogan reached down and gently touched his shoulder and then, when Ted looked up with a start, silently jerked his head towards the main room. Ted gave him a long stare, which Hogan met, raising his chin slightly. Then the younger man rose quietly, mindful of his sleeping crewmates, and followed his father out of the chamber.
Hogan led him down to Carter's lab, which was far enough down the tunnel that they didn't have to worry about being overheard unless they started shouting. Hogan hoped beyond anything that they wouldn't, that they could really talk this time instead. He was determined to try, and to keep a tight rein on his own temper. Two footlockers sat on the side of the chamber, across from the shelves stocked with chemicals and the bench where Carter did his work. Hogan pulled the two footlockers out slightly away from the wall so that they could face each other and sat down on one of them, gesturing for Ted to take the second. They sat there for a moment in awkward silence, until Hogan took a deep breath to speak, but Ted suddenly leaped in first, his voice rough.
"I'm sorry about earlier. I . . . I hadn't thought it through. Like you said. Sergeant Kinchloe and Captain Luck explained it to me. Why it's—why I'm dangerous for you."
"I'm sorry too," Hogan answered back quietly. "You've been part of a fine crew, earned yourself a good place on a good team. That's hard to give up, especially when you have to do it for someone else, not for yourself."
Ted managed a fraction of a nod, jaw tight, staring down at the earthen floor.
"What I didn't have a chance to finish saying earlier is that I'm not trying to ground you as a flier. A pilot like you—you're too valuable for that. You have at least two choices, maybe more," Hogan offered tentatively.
Ted's lips parted in astonishment as he looked up in surprise. "I can still fly? How?"
Hogan forced himself to keep his voice steady. "You could change your name. Officially, I mean. Robert T. Hogan is too dangerous, but Theodore Mahoney isn't. Though flying over Germany would still be out—it's just too risky that you might be physically recognized if captured—so you'd have to move, maybe down to the Italian front. Or . . . you could transfer to the Pacific." He reached far down inside to summon up at least the ghost of a smile. "You could even retrain to fly fighters there, maybe. Like you originally hoped to. I could, ah, suggest it to our contacts in London, for them to pass on to the U.S. brass. If you want me to. To make up for you getting pulled out of your crew now."
Ted blinked, taking a couple of short breaths, obviously surprised. "I . . . I don't know . . . ."
"You don't have to decide this moment," Hogan broke back in, trying to ease the pressure off the younger man. "You have time; nothing's going to be decided till after you and the rest of your crew are back in England and you've all been individually and collectively debriefed. So think over what you'd like. You can, uh, talk with Captain Luck, get his advice." He had to fight to keep his tone even on the last part.
"My name wouldn't matter in the Pacific," Ted said hesitantly, after a couple of moments.
"No, it wouldn't. You could go ahead and change it . . . or not. Whatever you wanted."
"Which do you think I should do?" Ted asked him directly.
Hogan shook his head. "I can't choose for you, Ted. It's your life. Your career. You don't have obligations at this point—like a wife or kid, I mean. Though maybe you have a special girl?"
Ted shook his head. Feeling a slight pang, Hogan went on.
"Then you're nineteen with the world in front of you. It's a dangerous place right now; you already know that. So you should do what feels right for yourself, deep down in your gut. But I can say this: from what I've seen you're clearly a very capable man, and I'm sure you'll do well, whatever choice you make." His smile this time was genuine, as he looked at his son, letting all the affection he felt shine in his eyes.
Ted swallowed, his eyes suspiciously bright, then looked down and away. "No obligations, unlike you had at my age?" he asked. But there was no rancor in his voice.
Hogan sighed. "If your mother had lived, I'd never have seen her or you as obligations. Just joys." He shut his eyes for a moment, remembering Katie in the hospital, radiantly holding day-old Bobby—no, Ted—damnit, no, as a newborn baby he'd been Bobby, even if he wasn't any longer. He opened them again and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at Ted intently.
"I don't know if I made a mistake letting your grandparents have you. Maybe I shouldn't have; maybe I should have kept you and raised you myself. I don't know at this point if I was thinking of what was best for the Mahoneys or for me, or even how capable I was of thinking straight about it back then, with Katie—with your mother . . . gone, so fast, so unexpectedly." His voice nearly cracked and he pushed on past that quickly. "But I do know I wanted the best for you, whatever that was. Everything had fallen apart for me, for us, but I know I wanted you to grow up happy. So I made the choice that seemed best at the time." He briefly scrubbed at his face with his hands; Ted watched silently. "That's all anyone can do," Hogan added. "You don't know till later if it's the right one or wrong one. And a lot of the time, you never figure that out anyway because you don't know what would have happened if you'd chosen otherwise."
"Like me right now," Ted murmured.
Hogan nodded. "Yep. All I do know at this point is that however good or bad my choice was then, you turned out fine. Better than fine. All your family can be very proud of you, son," he added very carefully, reaching out to lightly touch Ted's knee.
In the dim light, he thought he saw Ted eyes mist over. Ted blinked rapidly a couple times, then replied with just a slight wobble in his voice, "Thanks, Dad."
Hogan smiled and squeezed lightly. "So will you tell me now what you've been up to? I'd still like to hear about those baseball games I missed, the girlfriends you've had, your graduation: anything—everything."
Ted laughed, still a little shakily. "Okay. But it'll take a while."
Hogan smiled back. "Right now, I've got nothing but time."
ooOoo
Kinch approached Carter's lab carefully. He'd been basically standing (well, sitting) guard down in the main room for the last couple of hours, making sure no one disturbed Colonel and Lieutenant Hogan. He'd heard no shouting, which seemed like a good sign, and eventually he'd heard what sounded like some distant laughter, which was an even better one. But dinner time was approaching, and roll call after it, and Colonel Hogan was going to have to go back up above for a bit.
As he drew near the lab, he could overhear the lieutenant's voice, animatedly telling a story.
". . . so right between the east and west wings there's this dip, where you go down about three steps and then back up. No one's ever figured out why they built it that way, but there's this four-foot long tiled square floor space between the two sets of stairs. It just seems like wasted space, right? Just begging to have something done with it. So I get Jim and Rocky to go on a Sunday fishing trip and we bring back five small-mouth bass in a tub, still alive and not too big, and go right to the high school. We get in through a loose window we know of in the back of the building. Jim's got this big rubber sheet, which is what gave me the idea, and we line the depression between those stairs with it, fill it with water and some rocks and plants we'd brought, and then put the fish in. I'd built this eight-foot wood footbridge for the upcoming fall dance, had it stored in the woodshop, and we put it over the steps so people could actually cross over our pond. Then we put up a sign that said 'No Fishing or Removal of Zoological Specimens,' just like the one Mr. Bernhardt had over the aquarium in the science room."
Kinch put his hand over his mouth to smother his laughter. Clearly, this apple hadn't fallen far from the Hogan family tree. And judging from the colonel's laughter, he was fully appreciating his offspring's ingenuity. Kinch rapped gently at the beams of the doorway, to let them know he was there, and glanced in the room at the father and son sitting on the footlockers. His eyebrows shot up, but all he said was, "Colonel, dinner's in about fifteen minutes."
Hogan looked surprised, then down at his watch. "Didn't realize it had gotten so late." He looked back over at Ted. "I'll have to go up above for a bit. I've kept you from getting any sleep; you might want to try now. We'll bring dinner down for you guys after roll call."
"Sure," the lieutenant agreed easily as they both stood up and stretched. The colonel led the way out to the main chamber, and paused. Kinch headed on up the ladder, giving the colonel another moment with his son.
Hogan turned to Ted. "I want to give you this while I'm remembering it. It's not much, but at least it's something safe to give you, that doesn't reveal where you've been. And I think you're old enough these days to enjoy it." He reached inside his jacket, to the inner pocket, and pulled out the cigar he'd gotten from Klink earlier in the day.
Ted grinned as he accepted it, pulling it up to his nose and taking an appreciative whiff. "That's a dandy. Thanks, Dad—for everything, really," he added shyly.
Hogan nodded. "Get some sleep now, if you can."
"You give me a cigar because I'm grown up and then send me to bed like I'm a kid," Ted teased, and was answered with his father's laugh.
Shortly afterwards, Hogan climbed out of tunnel and tapped the entrance to close it. He turned and found everyone in the room very carefully not watching him. The atmosphere of tactful restraint and concern was so thick it was suffocating. There really wasn't any point in pretending they didn't all know more or less what he'd been doing for the last couple of hours.
"It's okay, fellas," he smiled. "Hostilities have ceased and an armistice is in place. I think it might even lead to a true peace."
The looks on all the men's faces lightened. Carter grinned happily, LeBeau and Newkirk nudged each other at the table, and Saunders, Addison, and Foster visibly relaxed. Garlotti, Barnes, Davis, Chapman, Greenberg, Olson and Pike, none of whom officially should have known anything about the situation, also looked much easier; Hogan wondered just how much they knew and just how far the gossip had gone. He was going to have to speak to Kinch about that; he doubted it had spread further than their barracks, but it would be better to keep a lid on it.
Kinch coughed. "Um, sir? The next time you, ah, conduct negotiations, you might want to do it in a different location."
Puzzled, Hogan looked questioningly at him. "And what was wrong with where we were?"
"Those footlockers that you two were sitting on are where Carter stores the TNT."
Hogan blanched visibly at the revelation.
"Aw, that's okay, Kinch, Colonel," Carter put in. "It's not that dangerous without the blasting caps."
"Well," Hogan responded a bit shakily, "that's something to keep in mind. At least we didn't set it off this time around."
Author's Note: Ted's high school prank is adapted from a real one played by students (but not by me!) a few years ago at my own college.