Miss Pauling arrived the next day without calling or fanfare, merely a slight, black-haired figure in a black suit who walked in with breakfast. She stopped in the dining room door, a hush spreading around her like oil. Removing her jacket, she exposed an efficient-looking shoulder harness and two large gun butts, which stuck out from under each arm. She laid her jacket on the back of the nearest chair, startling the Scout sitting in it, and rolled up her sleeves, then gestured imperiously at the Medic, who stood to follow her. They both walked out of the room, every eye in it fixed on their backs.

"Who was that," the Cook asked as Miss Pauling walked out of the room.

"That, Birdie, is the fixer." The Sniper put his fork down. "And someone is about to be proper fucked by the head office."

"What do you mean by fixer?"

"Lady," the Scout said, "when someone or something is an obstacle for the company, she's who they call in to make the bodies and clean them up." He turned in his chair to finger Miss Pauling's coat, lifting it to his nose briefly. "She's who they call when they decide that someone is too much trouble to deal with and she… retires the problem."

"I take it," the Cook said, "you don't mean retiring someone with a pension."

The Demo looked over at her, face grim. "No, we don't mean pension. We mean death, lassie."

"We all die every day. Why are you all so tense?"

"She has the power," the Heavy rumbled, "to turn off respawn. Is the last death."

The Scout was still touching the coat behind him, absently stroking two fingers up and down it as if fascinated. She watched him for a moment, at the yearning on his face—he's attracted to her, she thought. Miss Pauling's face, the Cook thought, had been slightly pinched for her tastes, but the graceful strength in Miss Pauling's forearms had been intimidating. The movement of her arms had picked hard, individual cords out of her forearms that spoke loudly of bodies manhandled and limbs sawn through. Behind her, she heard someone clear their throat, and a husky contralto voice spoke. "You will come with me."

The little hairs on the back of the Cook's neck stood up and she turned slowly, finding the strong forearms in white cotton sleeves, small but dense shoulders, and a slash of a mouth, disturbingly red against the pale skin. Miss Pauling looked down at her. "Now."

Her green eyes were agate hard and terrifying blank, the Cook noticed. She stood slowly and turned to follow Miss Pauling, who pushed open the door and walked through it. The Cook's footsteps dragged, and the hall grew pale as she walked.

Miss Pauling gestured at the living room door and the Cook pushed through it, breathing heavily and dragging herself to a couch. Her shoes clicked on the floor as she circled the couch, back to the Cook. Staring into the fireplace, Miss Pauling said, "I trust you remember the terms of your contract? Shall I remind you?" She turned, folding her arms beneath her breasts and over the gun butts beneath them. "You were to come and cook."

The Cook wrapped her arms around herself before answering. "I have been."

"Let's try again," Miss Pauling said. "Did you read the section under termination?"

"I scanned it." The Cook said, defensively. "I wasn't planning on violating the contract."

Miss Pauling smiled grimly. "Very few people do." She took a breath, the gun butts bobbing gently where they crowded her breasts. "And yet, I am called in on an amazingly regular basis." She unfolded her arms and shook them out gently, loosening the muscles. "You have a choice: you can comply with your contract or I will terminate it."

The Cook looked up at her, pulse jumping in her neck. The slim woman in front of her was terrifyingly brisk, and the lack of inflection in her voice was as convincing as a list of her crimes would have been.

Miss Pauling waited for the fear to blanch the Cook's face, then continued. "We chose you precisely because you are mostly unconnected, because of your proclivities, and because you were thought to be the most… flexible… candidate for the position. We were delighted when you started spending part of your day in the field, since it gives RED a slight advantage in terms of numbers. But if you continue to make yourself a liability to the team, we have no reason to keep you."

She smiled again. "We don't even mind that you've been fucking them. In fact, we took for granted that you would, given your history. Of course, the company won't pay you for it, but it's my understanding that you've enjoyed it."

The Cook flushed and looked at the floor, her shoulders creeping up toward her ears.

Miss Pauling sneered slightly as she spoke. "We won't make you fuck them. However, the company has to insist that you go back to doing the job you were hired to do. Overall ratios between kills and deaths are increasingly one-sided, and if I have to field one more request from the BLU team for their own… cook, I will be taking it out on the next problem I have to eliminate."

The Cook finally found her voice. "And what happens if reach the end of my contract?"

"If you manage to serve out your contract without making this kind of mess again, the company will honor its agreement, pay out the amount specified, and you'll be free to go." Miss Pauling paused and considered the leather toes of her heels before looking up. "I find people often don't want to see me twice. Will I be seeing you again?"

The Cook shook her head desperately, fingers digging into the couch.

"Then I suggest," said Miss Pauling, "that you make peace with it, whatever it is."

"I don't know how." The Cook looked up into those hard, green eyes, terrified by the casual strength in Miss Pauling's arms and the guns hanging inches from her nose.

Miss Pauling snorted. "The problem with submissive types is that they typically don't take any responsibility for their own goddamn enjoyment." She stalked forward, the tiny click of heel and toe on the floor echoing in the room. "You, with your history, have less room to complain than most. You are not a virgin from the middle of nowhere." She stopped, legs just brushing the Cook's knees. "If you enjoy this—the violence, the sex—stop kicking yourself for it." Miss Pauling leaned forward, grabbing the Cook's forearms and digging her nails into them. "You get over it," Miss Pauling breathed, her red lips parting lushly, "By getting over it, one day at a time." Her eyes slid down the Cook. "Or perhaps, in your case, getting under it."

The Cook looked up at the face inches from hers, confused, terrified, warmth creeping up her arms.

"I know what the BLU team did," Miss Pauling said quietly. "And they'll probably do it again, as soon as the RED team stops running itself ragged to protect your spoiled ass when you go on the field. They'll do it until Blutarch gives in or you leave."

The Cook took a sobbing breath and Miss Pauling continued. "According to your file, you're resilient. Resiliency is usually bought in pain and experience." She regarded the Cook for a moment. "Tell me something—how much of this is a moral crisis and how much is trauma?"

The Cook whispered, "I don't know."

"How much of this," Miss Pauling whispered back, "is self-indulgence?"

The Cook looked at Miss Pauling, at those merciless eyes, finally starting to get angry. "I'm allowed to have my own pain."

Miss Pauling laughed at her. "No one can take that from you, Sugar. Not a therapist, not a friend, nor a good fuck. It's the one thing that's absolutely yours. But it's not the pain you're hiding from, is it?"

The Cook laughed back, a weak little chuckle. "Pain is the one absolute. There's no hiding."

"Then," Miss Pauling whispered, "you'd better stop hiding and do something about it."

Miss Pauling released the Cook's arms and took several steps back, smoothing the lines of her suit. "Get your head out of your ass in the mean time. And for the love of god, take a goddamn shower." She made a face and looked at her hands. "Have a little pride."

As the sound of Miss Pauling's heels receded down the hall outside the living room, the Cook slowly drew herself to her feet, bent like an old woman. She hobbled out of the room and down the hallway, to her own room. The shower cut in before she had finished closing her door, and the Engineer stepped out of her bathroom. "I was hoping you would come out of the room, Missy, but none of us are ever quite sure where Miss Pauling is concerned. Some of her 'come to Jesus' talks end with a double-tap and someone digging a hole in the ground."

The Cook shivered, arms wrapped around her sides.

"Yep, looks like she did a good job of scaring you. Well, come on then. You can take a shower and we'll have a little chat." The Engineer gestured with his flesh hand. "Water's hot, bathroom is warm and I don't mind playing father-confessor if it'll snap you out of it." He stepped forward and snagged one of her arms, pulling gently, and escorted her into the bathroom.

The Engineer closed to door behind them, trapping the steam in the bathroom and turning it into a sauna. He gently unwrapped her arms, then deftly set about stripping her. "Did you need me to get in there and scrub," he asked, "or do you think you can manage that on your own?"

The Cook took a deep breath and stepped into the shower on her own, flinching at the first hot spray to hit her skin. The Engineer flipped the lid down on the toilet and sat down, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

"Little girl, I'm of the mind that this is probably a moral crisis for you of some description. You're right good company when you're in the mood to be, and I don't think it's natural for you to be this sulky."

The Cook stood under the spray, head tilted up, letting it slick her hair to her skull and back. Her hair, grease at first resisting the water, finally fell in a flat sheet hanging down her shoulders. The hot water pounded at her face, and her skin flushed, fever warm. Deep inside her, some stubborn, essential core felt like ice, untouched by the heat of the water around her. She wanted to laugh at the word "sulky," but couldn't think of any way it could be funny.

"If this is about killing a man, I promise it gets to be less trouble. And it ain't like any of us is going to die permanently. It's more like… sending us to the locker room. Pretty much exactly like that, in fact." He ran his fingers over the stubble of his scalp. "I think this might be about more, though. Look, Missy, if you're worried about sleeping with the lot of us, you shouldn't."

The Cook scrubbed her hands over her face under the spray, knotting her fingers in her hair—torn, she thought. I feel torn. One man is happy, the next is sad, then they're talking about eating me, that I can't love them and they can't love me. She touched her head to the wall of the shower, the water beating down on her. Why can't any of them love me? Why can't I love them?

"I know," the Engineer continued, "that you probably got all them talks growing up about good girls, bad girls, and bad things that happen to bad girls. If we were in Peoria, or Bee Hill, or any other tiny little town, we'd all have to be more circumspect."

The Cook unknotted her fingers and reached mechanically for the shampoo.

"But we ain't in a little town in the middle of nowhere. And I think you'll pardon me for saying that Jesus ain't watching." He cleared his throat. "Neither is your Aunt Sally, or whomever you're thinking about. It's just us, here on the edge of nowhere, in about as strange a circumstance as you can imagine."

She ran her fingers through her hair and decided to wash it again.

"This may not be what we all were taught to be expect, Missy, but it ain't all bad. And swapping around is about as normal as being interested in sex in the first place—not everybody'll do it, nor will they do it honestly, but a whole lot of it gets done despite the priest, the reverend, nosy Parkers, and all the laws or moral rules about who gets to have sex with who." He shifted, sitting back. "And if we make you happy and you make us happy, what's wrong with it?"

The Cook leaned down and turned the shower off, then stood dripping in the tub. "I don't—" she paused. "It's not that I feel bad about all this, exactly. Or at least that part."

"Well, what's eating you, little girl?"

She pulled the shower curtain open and looked at him, struggling to put words on a visceral ball of horror and memory. He waited, leaning on his elbows and watching her face. After a minute, he said, "tell you what, knock once for yes and twice for no."

The flash of irritation knocked the words out of her. "I'm a monster."

The Engineer blinked. "Where?" He stood, craning his head around her before looking back at her again. "I don't see any monsters."

She looked at him, disbelief scrawled across her face. "Are you trying to tease me until I feel better?"

He grinned at her, a fan of skin appearing next to his bright blue eyes and sat back down on the toilet lid. "Maybe. Got you talkin' at least. So, did you want to talk about murder or sex?"

The Cook squeezed the water from her hair and reached for the towel. He handed it to her, watching her tuck it around herself. "I… both? Neither?"

"Well, if you don't want to talk about sex or murder, what do you want to talk about?" He reached out, gesturing, and she let him pull her from the tub to stand between his knees, his arms wrapped around her hips. For a moment, he was so strongly reminded of his wife that he nearly called her Bea—the intimacy of holding a woman fresh from the shower to talk to her undoing him. The Engineer sighed and released her hips, sitting back. No good comes of it, he thought. They sent you in here because you're the only one who's been married and can wrangle unhappy women. Of course, he added silently with a moment of wry amusement, if it were Bea you wouldn't be talking about murder, just why it's okay to fuck the neighbors.

She looked down at him unhappily. "I can't really afford to get used to all this. I only signed a contract for a year, and what happens at the end of it? I've become a killer. How do I go back to cooking in some restaurant somewhere with the knowledge that I can pull the trigger on a stranger?"

Oh hell, the Engineer thought, does she really still think they'll let her leave at the end of the contract? Will they? "People are kinda flexible, little girl," he said. "Put them in one circumstance and they'll be one way, then change their scenery and they'll do something else. We managed not to murder the town they let us go to, despite being hardened killers."

He considered her for a moment, watching her shift from foot to foot. "But it ain't just about the killing, is it? I heard what the Spy did, and I know what his buddy is like."

She flushed immediately, turning red from her hairline down to the top of the towel.

"I see," he said. "You know, this is a conversation that's best had somewhere comfortable." He tugged gently at her towel. "You might as well get in bed. It's too cold to stand around in that."

The Cook looked at him archly. "All this to get me in bed?"

The Engineer sighed before answering. "Not entirely, but somebody should play good cop, and they ain't a social group. Only other fella who's been married is the Medic, but we figured he might make more problems than he fixes." The expression on her face was utterly miserable, and the Engineer scowled. "He's got a tongue like a razor when he's good and pissed, little girl. Don't take him too seriously. He likes to hurt people."

The Cook dropped the towel around her body and crawled into the bed. The Engineer joined her seconds later, kicking off his boots and curling up to face her under the blanket. He absently tucked it around her, looking at the flush on her face.

"Well," he said. "Out with it."

After awhile, she muttered. "It feels good."

"Which it we talkin' about?" He hadn't known it was possible for her to turn any redder without bursting into flame. After a very stern word with himself about what kind of probing he was doing, he spoke again. "If this is the 'it' I think you mean, it would after what they did. You need to understand, little girl, that the human brain is kind of stupid in several important ways—if you get it happy and make suggestions, it'll pick some of it up. The Spy was trying to make you happy, in his own sneaky way."

She cringed. "He… he went about it wrong."

"Yeah," the Engineer said, a bleak expression on his face, "he did." He contemplated the wall behind her head for a moment, struggling with his temper. "He didn't think you'd adjust if he just talked to you about it. 'Course, if there's a chance for him to get his dick in something, he'll try it. They both will."

"It's not just what they did. I'm…"

The Engineer interrupted her. "Probably not, for that and what I think you're about to say. Can't put something there that isn't there at all. It ain't like the movies. Of course, lust and violence ain't rare contents, if you could cut people open to see it. And it ain't unusual for people to have mixed signals, even signals that are really mixed."

She rolled her eyes up at him, panic starting to edge them in white.

"No, now, you panic every time we're in bed together. I'm going to start to be hurt if you don't cut it out." There was a suggestion of tears in her eyes, and the Engineer reached out, smoothing her cheek. "You don't strike me as the kind of girl who wants two and a half kids and a white picket fence. That ain't a bad thing. If you're a little stabby around the edges…" He shrugged, tenting the covers over his shoulder. "We're all stabby 'round here where we ain't shooty." After a moment, he added, "or burny."

"If I'd wanted that," she said, "I could have stayed home and married like my family wanted me to."

"I'm glad you didn't," he said quietly, smoothing his thumb across her cheek. "This has been a lonely war for all of us."

She looked at him in disbelief. "You're being charming and understanding. Did you want something?"

The Engineer snorted. "Let's finish the discussion first, because I want your head in a good place for fucking. We have the day, since they never call Miss Pauling in without calling a halt to it. Now," he said, pulling her toward him, "tell me something: why are you suffering from an advanced case of woe-is-me over your sex life?"

"I feel guilty."

"I can tell. But why?"

She couldn't answer him. Church bells, and all the aunts and uncles, her mother and father, people in that town, all the people who expected her to be something else: the Cook knew she couldn't be what they wanted, but didn't know why it still mattered. And the things the Demo and Medic had said to her, that she was heartless, empty, and broken—what else was there to feel but guilty?

"Well, let me ask you something, little girl. What's the worst that could happen?"

The BLU soldier swam in front of her eyes momentarily, followed by her nightmares, all replaced by the years winding down, solitary and lonely, full of rejection and rootlessly wandering from city to city.

"I can see something in your eyes, Missy. Out with it."

She stared at him, lips pressed tightly together.

"You know, little girl, pride is a fine thing. Except when it keeps you from getting something you want."

She shook her head and he sighed. "You can't have what you won't ask for." He pulled away from her, pushing the blanket aside. "If there's anything I've learned over the years, Missy, it's that you can't have what you won't ask for."

He stood, leaving a cold hole in the bed that she reached a hand out to touch. "You let us know what you want, then." The Engineer grabbed his boots and took two steps away from the bed before she responded.

"I want you," she said softly. "I want them. I want this." She took a deep breath. "I don't want to be alone, but I'm afraid of being a monster."

He turned toward the bed with a half-smile. "So don't be." Well, Dell, it ain't lying, he thought. It ain't that easy, but there's a little room in your heart and the base for her, and taking pot shots at the BLU team don't make her a monster.

"Please," she said. "Come back."

The Engineer turned back toward the bed, dropping his boots with a thud, and pulled his googles from around his neck, letting the bounce on the floor. "I don't want you in fear, little girl. I don't want you in unhappiness, or desperation, or in any sort of dire straits. I want you in happiness. I want to find out where you're ticklish, and watch movies with you. I want to paddle your ass and make you squeal."

He pulled his denim shirt from his pants and shrugged it over his head, then unbuttoned and stepped out of his pants. Naked, he stood in front of the bed. "You can get your torture from other people, little girl. I want something else."

The Cook looked up at him, shy and unsure how to react to the appeal of it, to the intimacy and warmth in his tone—acceptance, she thought with a shock. He's offering acceptance.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and drew her into his lap, her legs wrapped around his waist. "What I want, little girl, is for you to stay. And I know that's what you want to hear, even if you're too goddamn chintzy to admit it. And if you're a little inclined to murder, well, you ain't alone."

The Engineer grinned at her. "You are real inclined to fuck, and trust me when I say it's appreciated. I don't know that I even care why, either, I'm prepared to just enjoy it." He watched the expression on her face soften, desperately pleading. After a moment of confusion, he blinked, shocked—maybe I shouldn't be surprised, he thought, considering who's at the base, but fellas, you couldn't have offered the girl a little kindness?

She shifted slightly, sliding his cock into her, and sat facing him, looking at the expression on his face. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her tightly into his body, and thrust up, gently. "I ain't in a hurry, so don't expect to be done soon. I also ain't alone in wanting you to stay, but those fuckers will probably drop dead before saying it. Ain't a one of them that can be honest about how they feel if they ain't pissed off. 'Course, they hired a base full of war vets right out of World War Two and Vietnam, so they're big soppy mass of sturm und drang, the German leading the pack."

One of his hands cupped the back of her head, pulling it down to meet his, and he kissed her, gently. "Stay," he said into her mouth, and went back to kissing her. He took a breath. "Stay for this, and for all the inventive shit we can think up. Stay for the whips and the chains, if you like. Stay for the spankings, and the tutu I'll make you. Stay because there's nowhere else you'd be at home."

She pulled back to look at him, her face falling, and he stared back. "That's how we all ended up here, little girl. It's the only place we could be." He fell silent, looking at her, thrusting slowly and shallowly. "It ain't so bad," he whispered. "It ain't all bad."

She watched his face grow quiet, watched him searching her face for a sign. "I'm still afraid," she whispered. Do you care, she asked silently. Do you think I'm broken and empty?

"One day at a time," he said, his free hand reaching up to touch her face. "You can learn to be less afraid one day at a time."

He wrapped both arms around her, nudging her with his head until she leaned back and he could reach her nipples with his mouth. Holding her back, he sucked one into his mouth, the rough stubble on his face leaving a prickling trail as his warm mouth tugged at it. She felt herself go limp, and he chuckled around her nipple. She pulled her knees up slightly for better leverage and helped him, legs contracting to bring her down on him harder, eyes on his face as the expression changed from amusement to intent.

"Oh no, little girl, it'll be shallow right up until I change the pace on you, several minutes after you get that adorable little whine in the back of your throat."

She smiled and stuck her lower lip out.

"I'll bite it if you leave it out like that."

True to his word, he did, waiting until the pout had become a gasp, until she wriggled looking for just a little more sensation. He bit her lower lip, bringing prickling tears to her eyes, and rolled them both over, scooting them both back until his knees were on the floor and her ass hung over the edge of the bed.

She left her legs wrapped around him and squeezed, bringing herself to him hard. He wrapped both hands around her waist and, watching her face, fucked her until she shrieked, fists twisting in the sheets, and came as her cunt clamped down around him.

He knelt there for a moment, panting, before speaking. "Wrap your legs around me tight."

She did, looking up at him in dazzled curiosity, and he slowly, carefully, stood up, still inside her, sliding wetly. He turned and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

"Look me in the eyes, little girl."

She blinked at him, eyelids and lips swollen.

"This is what I want. Is this what you want?"

"It's not a fair question right now, Engie."

"Don't make me make it even more unfair." He flexed his stomach, sliding himself in her as she moaned. "Is this something you want?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes it is."

"So stay."

She put her head forward, resting in on his shoulder, and sighed. "Let me think. This is kind of a lot."

In her ear, he said quietly, "I'm not the only person who wants to be persuasive, I'm just who was best at dealing with tears. If I were you I wouldn't bother with much in the way of clothes today or they're liable to get ruined." He chuckled. "We don't necessarily share in groups, but we are willing to share."

She pulled herself off of him and stood up. "Why?"

He looked at her, leaning back on his arms. "Why not? This ain't Peoria, and it's nice to get to be honest with somebody. Bugs me to go into town and lie for company. And I like to be touched, little girl. The pros don't want to do it, and taking some girl to bed I'll never see again don't suit me."

"Will I be allowed to go to town?"

"I don't know why not. We don't get to go much, but you are a part of the team."

She grimaced. "Team hooker."

"Don't run it down, little girl, or papa will spank. And sometimes, papa will spank anyway because it's fun. Fucking shouldn't be serious all the time." The Engineer smiled at her, a filthy grin that was both sex and fondness. "Pull a robe on and go talk, or come back to bed and get that spank."

She walked to the bathroom and pulled her robe off a hook by the door.