A/N: Let's check back in with the girls, shall we?

Ashley had kissed a lot of people in her day, more than she was really proud to admit, but as she melted into Spencer's lips, she realized that she must have been doing it all wrong because nothing had ever felt like this.

She moved her hand up Spencer's arm, aching to slide her fingers into the hair at the base of the marine's neck so she could deepen the kiss, but her progress was halted by an unexpected triangle of rough fabric near her shoulder. Some sort of…patch.

Ashley's eyes snapped open and her worst fears were confirmed.

With a barely contained sob, she pushed off against Spencer's shoulders and slid her chair backward to take in the full sight of a clearly dazed marine dressed in a type of a uniform Ashley had never seen her wear before.

A combat uniform.

"What the hell is that?" Ashley rasped, pointing. She felt her already racing heart leap into her throat.

"Hmmm… what?" Spencer sounded out of breath. She shakily climbed to her feet, brow wrinkled in thought. "Ashley, I…"

But Ashley couldn't wait for whatever the hell she was going to say about what had just happened. There were more important issues at the moment.

"What is that?" Ashley repeated, pointing with emphasis at Spencer's chest. "Why are you wearing that?" She was fighting to keep her breaths even.

Spencer looked down, finally following Ashley's line of questioning.

"My uniform?" she asked, looking back up at Ashley for confirmation. She raised an eyebrow. "What you want to talk about right now… is my outfit?"

Spencer looked like she was finding the whole situation kind of funny, but Ashley was having none of it.

Ashley couldn't laugh, or be embarrassed or think about her still tingling lips until she knew what the hell was going on.

"Where are they sending you?" She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, willing herself not to hyperventilate when she noticed a military issue backpack leaning against the doorframe behind Spencer.

"Sending me?" Spencer echoed, following Ashley's gaze to sneak a quick peak over her shoulder at the pack. "Ashley, it's Christmas. I'm just going home to Ohio to spend the week with my family, you knew about that."

Ashley relaxed marginally, but was not yet quite convinced. "And that's what you wear to go see your parents?" She nodded again to the camouflaged uniform.

Spencer shook her head. "I have to make a stop at the Marine Barracks over in Southeast to renew my firearms certifications tonight before I catch my red-eye home for the holidays. We're supposed to wear utility uniforms at the shooting range."

"Right." Ashley replied as casually as she could, turning her back on the marine so that she could compose herself and get a little relief from those piercing blue eyes. It was all she could do to remain standing as the relief washed over her.

Spencer was safe – for now.

"Ashley," Came the frustratingly unreadable voice from behind her. "What was that?"

Ashley had to admit, that was a fair question.

What was that?

She had just cold-kissed Spencer Carlin, her marine bodyguard.

For a girl about to get engaged to a guy she hated in order to play the straight card and appease the President of the United States in the hopes of simultaneously making the country a better place for gay Americans and keeping her bodyguard from being sent back to war, Ashley really needed to work on her impulse control.

Seriously, was there any possible way she could have handed the situation worse?

"That was ah…" Ashley licked her lips, trying to get her suddenly dry mouth to produce speech. "That was one of Chopin's cello sonatas." Without turning around, she gestured halfheartedly over at her cello. "I've been preparing for this concert…"

Yes. There were definitely ways of making the situation worse – tactless deflection was one of them.

A quiet, "Ashley," and the impatient scuff of a combat boot along the floor were her only reply. She could feel Spencer's eyes boring into the back of her skull.

Ashley rubbed her palms against her closed eyes and racked her brain for a way out of this mess.

God, how did she manage to screw up everything in her life?

This is what she got for falling for straight girls. Would she never learn her lesson?

She wondered what was going through Spencer's head right now.

She was probably already composing her resignation letter. Dear Madame President, I regret to inform you that I can no longer serve as the guardian of your eldest daughter, Ashley Marie. You see, she seems to have misread my dedication to my work as affection and recently attacked my lips with her lips…

But that really wasn't Spencer's style, was it?

No matter how off-put she was by the kiss, Carlin would still find a way to be professional about it. In fact, she'd probably try to let her down easy. Ashley, I'm sorry if I've said anything or done anything to lead you on, but I just don't think about you that way…

That would be worst of all.

Ashley didn't think she would be able to get through the next few months if that was how they left things.

"Ashley, are we not going to talk about what just happened?"

Ashley would have been totally okay with that, but she knew Spencer wouldn't be.

She only knew of one way to handle this, one way to protect both her heart and her marine at the same time.

She took a deep breath, put on her game face and turned around.

"What did you expect Carlin? You asked me what you could do to help me feel better. A quick fuck usually does the trick."

She hated herself the second the words came out of her mouth. She hated herself even more when she saw Spencer's reaction.

"A quick fuck?" Spencer scoffed, staring at Ashley in disbelief.

"Don't act so surprised Sarge. You've met me right? Shit gets tough, I look for a little relief and there's nothing more relieving than banging a hot chick. Thought you were offering." She waggled her eyebrows, looking Spencer up and down like she was trying to pick up a girl at Gray. "Obviously, that kind of body guarding is outside of your comfort zone."

The irony of the fact that this was exactly the sort of thing that Ashley would have said to Spencer a few months ago did not escape her. She could only hope that Spencer would be as resilient to her taunting now as she had been back then.

When she shifted her gaze from the relative safety of the wall just behind Spencer's left ear and instead risked a glance at the marine herself, Ashley was met with Carlin's fiercest of poker faces.

"Obviously."

In spite of the cool, even delivery of the retort, the new Ashley could see now what the old Ashley would have missed. Spencer's fists were clenched tightly at her sides and Ashley could see the little veins on the back of her hands popping up against the tension.

She might not know how exactly they had been taken, but Ashley could tell that her words had hurt Spencer. She wanted to take them all back - to tell her how much Spencer's friendship meant to her, even if that's all the marine had to offer. But Spencer's uniform served as a reminder that strengthened Ashley's resolve.

Ashley's only chance of protecting Spencer now was to put some distance between then - to push the borders of their relationship back out and away from the comfortable space they had built together.

Even if she had been willing to give everything else up – to go back to ignoring how hard her mother worked to deny rights to people like her, and forget the sort of power she had to sway the American public's opinion on homosexuality, it didn't change the fact that Spencer was caught up in Christine's hatred for Ashley just because Ashley had a schoolgirl crush.

She didn't like it, but Ashley would rather have a pissed off Spencer with her than a dead Spencer coming home from Afghanistan in a flag-covered box.

She was better at pissing people off then getting them to like her anyway.

"Well then Carlin, I guess the best way you can help me now is to leave me alone. Shoo fly, don't bother me. Consider yourself dismissed."

Ashley nearly jumped at the sound of the marine's boots thumping together. Spencer snapped stiffly to attention and saluted. "Yes ma'am." Ashley did not fail to miss the ice in her voice.

The marine twisted one leg behind the other and executed a crisp military-style turn. She strode purposefully out of the room, pausing only to shoulder her bag and never looked back.

Ashley was pretty proud of herself for keeping it together.

Sure, she might have remained frozen in the practice room, unable to move for about an hour after Spencer had left, but eventually she had willed herself to pack up her cello and dragged herself upstairs to her and Kyla's apartment.

She returned to find Kyla sprawled on the couch, making a good show of causally channel surfing when they both knew that she had been waiting up for Ashley's return.

Ashley knew that her sister wanted to talk, wanted to help, but there was nothing to be done.

She ignored Kyla's attempts at conversation and shut herself into her room.

Without bothering to turn on the lights, Ashley used the last of her energy to face-plant onto her bed.

She heard and felt something very un-blanket-like crinkling under her torso.

She shifted and pulled out a slightly squashed bag from underneath her.

Ashley frowned, not remembering the red and green gift bag being on her bed when she had left her room earlier that night for dinner. She flicked open the tag attached the handle.

To: Ashley

Merry Christmas, Spencer.

Before she could logic herself out of opening it, Ashley dove her hand down into the tissue paper and wrapped it around something small and soft.

She pulled out something furry and brown that turned out to be a stuffed otter. Ashley recognized it as they kind they sold at the National Zoo, except this otter appeared to have been customized. It was wearing a tiny Purple Venom t-shirt and attached to one of its front paws was miniature plastic cello.

That was when Ashley finally let herself cry.

Carmen Sanchez couldn't believe her luck.

Earlier this week she had been kicking herself for letting her firearms certifications get dangerously close to expiration.

Life had been so stressful lately that she had almost forgotten to schedule a certification trial before the end of the year. It would have meant a mountain of paperwork and very pissed off superior officers if she hadn't managed to snag the last slot in this evening's session at the Marine Barracks.

But maybe it was meant to be, because when she had made her way to her assigned station at the firing range she discovered one Spencer Carlin assembling an M16 in the station right next to hers.

She couldn't have planned it better herself.

Before the younger woman noticed her and inevitably put her guard up, Carmen took a second to appreciate the sight before her.

Even years later, it was easy to see what had attracted her to Carlin in the first place. The girl was drop dead gorgeous. Even in a MARPAT utility uniform and with her hair tightly contained in a regulation bun, Spencer was beautiful. Her blue eyes stood out sharply against the dark greens and browns of the winter camouflage. And her body – damn. She was the perfect combination of curves and muscle, right down the fingers that were nimbly loading the rifle in front of her.

Dios, Carmen definitely remembered what else those hands could do.

"Imagine running into you here Carlin," Carmen rasped as she set to work assembling her own weapon.

Spencer spared her a quick glance and a tight, "Staff Sergeant Sanchez."

Ouch. Carlin was going to play it formal again.

Maybe the third time really wasn't the charm.

Carmen wasn't exactly the sensitive type, but Spencer's rebuffs still stung. There was once a time where she probably would have admitted to loving the girl, and Carmen wasn't exactly the loving type either.

When Spencer Carlin had appeared in the training group Carmen had been assigned to assist at Paris Island, that summer became the bright spot in an otherwise particularly dark part of her life. She'd almost thought it was too good to be true when Carlin had actually responded to her playful flirting during boot camp.

Those few months of lingering glances and hurried rendezvous behind the mess hall had probably been the best of Carmen's life. She'd just connected with Spencer in a way that she'd never been able to with another person before or since. Spencer had just made her feel so alive, so loved.

Carmen couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt about what their relationship had become.

Somewhere from behind them, the range master declared the range hot. The test would soon begin.

Carmen cleared her throat and attempted to make conversation again before things got too noisy. She wouldn't get anywhere with Spencer again if she didn't try to warm things between the two of them first.

"So, you still know how to use that thing, or has that Davies girl made you go soft?"

Carmen had tried to keep her voice playful, but apparently she'd said something wrong. Spencer's face went from vaguely distracted to ice-cold focused in no time flat. She shouldered her weapon and emptied a quick round into the distant target at the opposite end of the range.

Carmen sighed but turned her focus to her own target. She proudly wore the expert marksman qualification badge on her uniform – the highest of the three certifications available to non-sniper marines. There was no way she was going to return to work with a downgrade.

She lifted her weapon, took a few deep breaths to steady her hands and her heart rate before focusing both eyes on her target and squeezing the trigger on her next exhale.

When she'd emptied her round, she didn't have to wait for echoes of the gunfire to fade or for the assistant certification marine to call the all clear and check the targets to know that her bullets had all made neat holes in the red center of the target.

A quick glace over at Spencer's target paper when it was returned to her showed impressive results, though nothing quite at Carmen's level.

As she loaded up for the second distance of the rifle certification, Carmen couldn't help but think back to Spencer's early struggles with the M16 and M4 rifles at boot camp. Carlin had been a standout among the female recruits that summer – a natural athlete with one hell of a resolve. It had almost been funny to watch the perfectionist recruit discover that she wasn't a natural with a rifle.

Good thing she'd had a private tutor.

"Carmen!"

"Mmm?" Carmen mumbled from where her face was pressed into Carlin's neck.

"Carmen, have you even been listening to a word I've said?" The neck beneath her lips vibrated pleasantly. Carmen smiled appreciatively into the flesh when she felt the breath catch in Carlin's throat as she explored a particularly sensitive spot.

"Mmmhmm," Carmen replied. Any further speech would have detracted from her current mission to explore soft skin and she was a very mission-driven marine.

Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be an appeasing response to Spencer who twisted around in her position between Carmen's legs and pulled her neck agonizingly out of reach. She caught Carmen's eyes and gave her a playful glare.

"Then what was I just talking about?"

Carmen sighed, but couldn't help how the corners of her lips tugged up into a teasing smile. "You were whining about how you're not yet an expert marksman after only a month of rifle drills. Now get back here." She wrapped her arms firmly around Spencer's waist and pulled her back to rest against her chest.

It was cool up in the night air and Spencer was keeping her warm. Their secret meeting spot of choice this evening was the mess roof top, cuddling under the stars.

She felt Spencer scoff, but the marine recruit relaxed back against her anyway. "I'm not expecting to be perfect, I just want to be good. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm trying really hard."

Carmen chuckled. "Did you ever think that maybe 'trying really hard' might be half your problem?"

Spencer shifted to look back up at Carmen. "What do you mean?"

Carmen shrugged. "You'll understand by the time you're out on your first tour. The rifle should be an extension of your body, another limb. You don't have to think about how to use your arm, do you?"

"You sound like my grandfather."

Carmen laughed outright this time. "I can't say I've ever been 'grandfather-zone' before." This got a laugh out of Spencer too.

"Jerk. That's not what I mean! My grandfather said something similar when he was teaching me and my brothers how to shot pistols. You should see me shoot a 9 millimeter – I used to compete when I was younger."

Carmen pressed a kiss to the younger girl's temple. "All this talk about guns is kind of turning me on," she purred in mock seduction.

Spencer merely laughed. "Carmen, everything turns you on."

Before she quite realized it, the rifle certification test was over. Carmen flipped through her collected targets before she turned them back over the certification team, pleased to see that desk work hadn't made her lose her edge. Her biweekly training sessions had kept her skills sharp. She was confident she would be re-certified at the expert level.

Carmen disassembled her weapon and carried it back to the munitions station to exchange it for a pistol. In the Corps, each weapon was certified individually. Though her current line of work as an assistant to the general didn't require her to have the credentials to carry a pistol, Carmen liked to keep in practice.

You never knew when you might need a sidearm in a potential Davies-related assignment – not that she was holding her breath on Christine Davies taking her up on her offer to serve as the sisters' bodyguard. It had already been over a week since their meeting and Spencer's presence at this certification session meant that the president had opted to stick with her current security arrangement.

Minutes later, Carmen found herself stationed next to Carlin again.

Maybe fate was telling her that she had another shot at this.

"So, how'd the rifle go?" Carmen asked, trying to keep her voice casual. She didn't look up from where she was loading her Baretta M9 handgun.

There was a pause, but eventually Spencer replied. "Still stuck at Sharpshooter." Carmen didn't miss the humorless chuckle that followed. She wondered if Spencer was remembering their conversation from long ago too. The marine was definitely irked that she had made only the second highest qualification with the weapon.

Carmen risked a glance over at the other Marine. "You say that like it's a personal failure. Obviously you can shoot – you didn't survive four tours in Afghanistan on your looks, did you?"

She risked a wink and was rewarded with a small smile. "No, I survive four tours with my sparkling personality alone."

There was the Spencer that Carmen had been waiting for! Maybe there was hope for her yet.

"Besides," Spencer continued as she checked the slide on her weapon and snapped a magazine into place. "I'll feel much better after I make you look like a 6-year-old with a nerf gun in with these next few rounds."

Carmen chuckled. "Easy there Sergeant. I don't think you've ever seen me shoot a pistol. Might want to rein in the swagger before you get burned."

Now Spencer full out grinned. "Might want to get off your high horse there Staff Sergeant. I don't think you've ever seen me shoot a pistol either. You know I was having kind of an awful night, but I think handing you your ass is about to make it much better." Her words were sharp, but her eyes were playful.

After the range master called the range hot again, Carmen turned back towards her target and squared her shoulders. "Consider my ass yours for the handling." She neatly emptied her round into the center of the target without breaking a sweat.

Spencer met her challenge with a perfect round of her own.

The two marines quipped back and forth through the series of targets and ranges, keeping up with one another shot for shot.

Carmen had to admit, Spencer was damn good with a handgun. Where the rifle had always looked somewhat awkward in her grasp, the pistol really was a natural extension of her body.

And damn, did that woman look sexy in a shooting stance.

Before long, the range master and the rest of the marine staff at the range were following the friendly competition between the expert shooters, getting in on the action by picking sides and egging the women on. When the official test ended (and both marines handily earned their expert qualifications), they were allowed to stay on and practice at increasingly creative and difficult targets.

"All right ladies, I've got one more for you before we've gotta close up shop for the night," the range master said jovially as he slapped a pair of boxes down on the tables at their stations almost an hour later. "Let's see how you shoot with these." The man seemed pleased to have a break from the usual routine of his work.

"What are they?" Carmen asked, putting down her pistol so that she could turn the box over in her hands.

"Plastic bullets," Spencer replied, loading up a magazine with the new ammunition without missing a beat. "We use them sometimes in our unit. They're meant to be non-lethal, but they still pack one hell of a punch at close range."

Carmen rolled a bullet between her fingers. "I've heard of them, but never fired one before."

"They're pretty much what you'd expect - just don't have quite the same range as your typical bullet. They're good in the 40-60 meter range. Any further and they get less accurate, any closer and they get less non-lethal. We used them in a few urban operations in Kabul. You just need to feel them out a little, then you'll adjust."

Spencer was right, the new ammunition did take a little adjusting to and Carmen couldn't quite match Spencer's level of accuracy at the further distances. It looked like she had something new to challenge herself with.

"Well Carlin, consider me humbled." Carmen admitted as they walked together to turn in their guns.

Spencer laughed. "That's gotta be a first Sanchez." She gave her shoulder a friendly bump.

Spencer had warmed up significantly during their little competition. It was almost like old times, and whatever reservations about her Spencer had had before seemed to be out of her head at the moment. There was nothing quite like an evening at the shooting range to improve a girl's mood.

They both lingered in the locker-room when they had gone to pick up their personal effects. Carlin fiddled with the straps of the pack she had shouldered.

Carmen figured if she was going to make a move, it was now or never.

She leaned casually against a locker. "Hey, you busy tonight? Want to go grab a drink? I really would like to hear some of those war stories." She flashed what she knew was her sexiest grin.

As Spencer hesitated, Carmen was pretty embarrassed to feel her heart rate pick up – not a lot made Carmen Sanchez nervous but apparently asking an old flame out for drinks still had the ability to rattle her.

Some badass, she thought to herself. Carlin had always been a weakness. She forced herself to take an even breath.

"Thanks for the offer, but I can't." Spencer finally replied.

"Can't or won't?" Carmen couldn't help but let a trace of annoyance slip into her voice. She wasn't the kind of girl who got turned down very often. For a closeted marine officer, Carmen still typically had her pick of the ladies, so long as she was careful – she'd learned her lesson about being careful the hard way with Spencer all those years ago.

And just like that, Spencer was closed off again. Damn her temper.

The Sergeant offered her a non-committal shrug and a somewhat suspicious glance. "I've got a flight to make."

"Sure." Why the hell did Carlin have to make this so difficult? Didn't she know how much easier everything would be for them both if they were just back together?

Carlin gave her a nod. "Merry Christmas Staff Sergeant Sanchez." And with that, she walked past her and out the locker-room door.

"Merry fucking Christmas." Carmen muttered to herself, closing her locker with a slam.

Maybe this was for the best. Maybe now she could stop being so distracted.

She was an important person with an important job.

Carlin didn't know what she had just passed up.

A/N: I know you're all probably disappointed with how I left things – our ladies had a real moment there. But don't worry… Spencer and Carmen will meet again. I know you're all Sparmen shippers out there, right? HA!