[ Oooh, this is a long chapter. :D I hope everyone enjoys. Please review if you like, or don't. Always down for improvement. Other than that… not much to say, but I might need someone to help fill me in on some of the GOW universe since I haven't read the books/comics. Any takers?

Oh and you guys will love the clock story later.]

"Tell me your location Sam!" Marcus yelled into the receiver as the rig bounced and jerked mercilessly over toiled dirt and misleadingly deep pot holes. He almost dropped it several times since he and the remainder of Delta Squad sans cavalry had taken off upon receiving the distress call. The only response he would get for several more minutes was static until they cleared the tunnel and reception returned. From the other end they heard war, literally. Screams and explosions, artillery fire and commands to fall back filled the cab Marcus, Baird, Anya and Jace had forced themselves in. Not unfamiliar sounds to any of the soldiers they all exchanged the same knowing looks.

"Situation is FUCKED Marcus!" Samantha Byrne's voice yelled. "We're going to have to fall back. We didn't expect their insurgency to be so big, twelve-hundred maybe from what I can see. How did they …GET DOWN!"

Baird could feel the iceberg in his belly shifting as he gripped the edges of the e-notebook pinned to his thighs, desperately trying to pin point Byrne's location. They'd had no luck getting a fix on anyone since leaving the base, whatever signal jam the insurgence had put in place had them completely locked out. It was nothing he'd ever seen the locusts use before.

"I repeat Soldier, where are you?" Marcus yelled again, forcing the APC over a downed and dead tree that caught and scraped against the undercarriage for the next half a mile.

"I don't know! Close to the city's center, but I said you need to fall back! I'll find a street sign or something when we relocate, right now we-"

*Tsssssssssshhhhhhhhhh!*

"FUCK!" Fenix threw the radio's receiver at the windshield and stomped his foot causing the vehicle to surge forward, it's human contents shifting in their seats and nearly out of them.

That stupid girl. She'd taken off with Carmine and Alpha-1 members to sweep a city for supplies somehow unaware it had been overrun with the stranded during the last months between their visits. The stranded drew in a bigger baddie though and the Locusts had an easy time taking over the town that had already been cleaned up for them by their human prey. The Gears had no idea what was waiting for them when they arrived about an hour or so after heading out and sent their distress signal not too long after.

Baird had been uncharacteristically silent for the past thirty minutes or so and they knew why. He'd been so focused on the lit screen in front of him, sorting through codes and signals his mind had switched over to auto-pilot. Eyes glassy and bloodshot they finally looked up when the radio came back to life. Eventually they all would as well.

"RUNRUNRUN! GET THEM IN THE BUILDING, CARMINE!"

Their was the sound of another explosion, silence as the radio signal was lost for a second and they all held onto bated breath. Again, another explosion. The radio came back on.

"Fenix? Fenix, can you hear me?"

"Yeah Sammy, I got you," said Marcus softly. Her own tone told him everything they needed to know about her situation. "We're almost there, we've got six other squads with us. I need you to hold on okay! Where are you?"

"I-I don't know…everything's blown to shit! It's so smoky. I'm sorry … I lost Carmine…"

The silence hit them again. Baird had stopped looking at the notebook and stared helplessly at the CB radio's receiver, unable to effect anything on the other side from where he was. Oh fuck, Sam. His Sam. Marcus smacked him out of it.

"BAIRD! Where the fuck is she? Why don't you have a location already?"

"I don't know! I'm trying! I can't get a lock on anything in that place, they have a jammer up." Fuckin hold it together Baird. Teeth clenched. "Just get us to the fucking city…"

They were cresting a hill as he spoke and as they reached the horizon they could see their destination in the distance. Smoke billowed from the few buildings still standing and the firefights they'd heard over the radio were now carried on the wind. The explosions just looked like fireworks from their vantage point, on the ground it was a different story. Sam was crouched behind a burnt out car, eyes and throat stinging of smoke and soot and her rifle running low. From what she could see, she was the last one left. There was the convoy Marcus was bringing with them, but it wouldn't be enough, not six squads. Maybe sixty.

"FENIX! Tell the men to turn back! You can't enter the city, it's a trap."

That was it, Baird snatched the receiver from Marcus. "God damn it Samantha, just get out of there!"

"Damon?"

He felt his throat tighten. "Y-yeah Sam, it's me. Everything is jammed, we can't get a fix on you or Alpha. Can you find somewhere to hold out?"

She wanted to reply, her end of the speaker was held down still but she said nothing. Then finally, "Baird…this city is coming down. The locusts will find me soon and well…you know what they'll do."

Something on his notebook beeped and he grabbed it from between his thighs. The jammer keeping him out of the network had gone down. It must have been from the latest explosion they saw. "No, no they're not Sammy. I took down their firewall, it won't be long I just-"

"Baird you idiot…"

It made sense why it took so long to crack. It was their own, Baird had never even thought about trying to undo a COG signal. Granted it had been greatly modified but the basics still seemed to be all theirs. But then that meant…

"I jammed the signal. Tell the men to turn back."

"SAM YOU FUCKING IDIOT, DON'T!"

The image on his screen told the story pretty well. She was a tiny red dot moving towards the center of the city, encircled on all sides by an ever growing blue blob. That blob was thousands of tiny blue dots swarming and surging forward.

"Agh! Ah., ah…fuck, oh fuck." Sam screamed suddenly in agony but tried to recover. Her voice was still lowered, and she was painfully out of breath. "That hurt. I got tagged by one of the bloody assholes. Just my shoulder…Damon?"

Baird was trying to think this through and see the end but he couldn't. Stupid fucking girl. He panicked because he knew he could never change Sam's mind once it was made up. The tears were starting to come and he glanced back to the screen. They couldn't have been more than ten minutes away but it wasn't enough time. The dark blue around Sam seemed to have gotten larger and encompassed most of the city now. Her tiny little dot had stopped in the center.

He let out a deep breath to right himself and replied, "Yeah Sammy?"

"I'm sorry for just about…everything. "

"Shut up, we're almost there. Just…just fucking hold on alright!"

Maybe he could speak to her ego. An alert message popped up in another window. Light Mass Bomb 2-0 Charging…

"Sam, no… We can still reach you!"

"No you can't baby. They're here now."

Over the radio came horrific shrieks of unnatural creatures followed by a minute of steady unwavering automatic fire, Sam's voice indistinguishable over it. Then six loud pops of a pistol. She had spent her last ammo. Baird looked up to the city through the windshield, they were close. Marcus was trying not to look back to him, foot never having left the gas since they started practically. Baird threw the notebook by his feet. Light Mass Bomb 2-0, 89%…90%… He wanted to yell at her, tell her how stupid and selfish she was and that she couldn't leave him, not now. It wasn't fair what she was doing to him.

"Hey Sammy," he called to her, trying to smile. "Remember what Cole told you about the clock I had in grade school?"

"Yeah."

"It was true."

Light Mass 2-0 Functional - Starting Charge

"Please don't do this Samantha…Just …just run. Just hide."

"Damon, you know I can't do that." She was crying on her end now. "I have a name to live up to, you know?"

The city had already brought dawn to the night as it burned in the darkness, but he could see the glow change. It was charging, growing…consuming.

"Oh Damon…God baby, …it's so beautiful…"

*Kscccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!KRAKKRAKSSHHH*

With heavy lids, a cloudy mind and fading motor skills Baird knew he needed some sleep. He'd actually already tried that option and didn't find it so rewarding. It was why his forehead bore a large rectangular bruise where he'd hit his head on the bunk above him when waking tonight from a frightful sleep. He should have been having another filthy dream about Private Byrne which while he didn't feel good about, were better than the first dreams he'd had regularly to rob him of his sleep, and that one just now. The time he'd been captured wasn't something he'd talked about to anyone but Cole but it haunted him nightly for months, so his time in the shop and on projects almost doubled after his rescue. At least when he fantasized about Sam, awake or asleep he just felt like a filthy pervert, but an aroused and rested one. Now his dreams of her were turning dark as well. What did any of this shit mean? Cole wasn't around tonight to talk to even if he wanted, so he had gone back to the garage to assist on the small remaining fleet of vehicles the COG had left behind as they were deemed in disrepair. At least there was something he could fix. There might have been something else too, JACK was tucked under his arm and along for the ride. Even if he didn't find a good power source for his creation yet he wouldn't be completely alone while he worked.

The only thing in his life he could count on for sure didn't fail. As soon as he slid a pair of work gloves on the haunting screams he couldn't forget up until then started to fade and the hairs on the back of his neck settled. It had been chilly in the small efficiency room he'd secured for the night but the garage was warm, he could take off his thermal there. The clatter of a tool box might have as well been wind chimes to his ears and he popped the hood on an APC Vehicle. A hard case of déjà vu struck the mechanic, it was the same vehicle they'd been racing to Sam in, just moments ago. He shook the thought and focused on the metal. 'In disrepair' was speaking rather courteously.

"What a piece of shit," Baird remarked but remained unsurprised. At least it was something that would keep him busy til he gave up on it. Damn near every screw and bolt in it was stripped, his wrench slipped on them more than once so that by the end of it his knuckles were busted and freshly scabbed. There was a lot of cursing and by the time he finally lost his temperature, kicking the fender with outrage things started looking up. The first screw loosened, having no choice but to give way under the total force of his sheer masculine strength, so Baird told himself as he wiped his greasy hands on his wife beater.

"See sweety, eventually they all give in to me. No reason to fight so much now, right?" He chuckled, obviously pleased with his success.

There was a lot to be done with the vehicle but he'd gotten past the hardest part. Everything beneath the hood was protected from sabotage and enemy salvage by multiple steel frames put into place over them. Obviously they could be removed, they were just completely annoying and time consuming. What he would give for something cold to drink, like in the days he could work on vehicles for fun. Hah, fun. That was an interesting idea now. Oh he found it alright it just had a completely new definition for the man these days. This victory was certainly worthy of a break at the very least so he set down his wrench and walked away from under the hood, stretching out his sore lower back on the way. He couldn't escape the sad unlit eyes of JACK staring at him though and he frowned.

"Don't give me that look, I'm doing what I can buddy. I don't know if you've noticed but we're fighting for our very existence now, I'm not ignoring you." Baird spoke to the inatimate object as he took a seat beside it on the work bench, thumb and forefinger wrapped around his chin as he pondered sleep deprived ideas. "Hmm, that's not the worst thing we could do, but without a power cell you're still just my favorite paper weight."

It struck him how quiet the city could be still. Soon after the siege, shells and mortyr fire somehow everything went back to normal and people still slept, not him of course. The others were gone and he worried of course for their safety, his dreams let him watch dark horrid fantasies of their demise he would be too far away to counter should they come true. No, sleep was definitely for the civvies because a COGs work was never done.

"I think you have a better relationship with that thing than any person I've seen you meet. Is that it? You just need someone who won't talk back."

Of course he was ready to turn around and say something scathing to just whoever thought it was okay to stand around and observe someone without the least bit of warning, but had to stop. Bernie stood at the shop's bay doors where she had watched and decided whether or not to intervene for a moment or so. The mechanic stuffed his tongue in his cheek and waved her on in, loathing whatever conversation they were about to have.

"How about someone that just won't talk," he said.

"Mmm, well I'm afraid I can't be that certain someone then," the older woman chided him as she came further into the light where it only pooled in the center of the garage for work to be done. "Can't sleep?"

"Oh no, I actually did all the sleeping for my life about a year ago this way I just don't need to anymore," he answered. "Figured I'd do something than just sit around with my thumb up my ass. You mind?"

Her face was always warm and gentle but the woman was a battle axe underneath which Baird was no stranger to. All the mindless insults and complaints would always bounce off because coming from him she knew they were harmless protective jabs. Still she frowned a bit that caused her forehead to wrinkle.

"I do since you're in my garage." She was right. "It's okay to be worried about your friends, you know? I am. I tried to get Hoffman to stay and send the younger men out but he wouldn't listen, so off he went before the embers had even finished burning here. I know he'll be safe but I don't think I'll stop worrying til he's back by morning."

"He's got Cole with him, I can tell you right now that they're fine."

He'd come here to escape all these sorts of thoughts but Bernadette just had to bring them in with her on rolling baggage wheels. With his molars gritting again he went back to the vehicle, hiding under its hood and picking up where he'd left off. The cool metal of the wrench in his hand was soothing and helped him pretend that he was feeling fine, really.

"So why aren't you sleeping?"

The wrench slipped out of his hand and clattered against the cement floor because of her prying. His middle knuckle caught on a bolt busting it's wound back open and Baird let out a hiss of pain, shaking the hand in question afterwards to ease the ache. The older woman took an oil stained rag from a tool box open contents and offered it so he could keep the blood from going everywhere.

"I have this problem with nosey women who keep asking questions. It's gotten hard to rest with all the nagging filling up my ears."

"Are you just going to avoid every question I ask Damon Baird? Or do you think for one second you could realize I'm asking because I care?" The battle axe re-emerged, her tone reminiscent off Hoffman's almost.

"I just had a bad dream. You know the shit; faces of the dead, endless wars, watching your brothers die in battle. Is that okay?"

"I don't know, are you?"

This was getting ridiculous and he threw the rag she'd given him across the room into a dark corner with frustration. It seemed like the only business people were interested anymore was his own and he wasn't even interested in it now. His overreaction had Bernie nodding to herself, having gotten a clearer answer than she had at first expected. Baird sighed heavily and asked himself the question seriously for once.

"No, I mean I don't know, but no one is. Look at your god damn city. Are you going to tell me you're okay?"

"Of course not Damon," she laughed. "But I know I'm not."

He stayed silent, knowing what she wanted him to say but unwilling to admit to the defeat of truth. The way she looked at him reminded him of the same gaze Sam got when she caught on to the fact he was bullshitting her over something. Fuck, he hated that gaze and threw Bernadette a bone to make it stop.

"I'm fine Bernie. I've still got ten fingers and all my limbs, I'm exceptionally handsome and until otherwise I'm the best company this God forsaken city has. People who are hurt, lost someone or saw their city burn, they're the ones who aren't okay." Baird said, trying to sound as casual and caring as possible. He thought of Sam again, this time the other night where she'd turned to him of all people for a moment of comfort. What was it with the women of Anvil Gate?

"I suppose," Bernadette sighed and decided to drop the issue here shortly, but first something else about the man that had been bothering her needed to be addressed. "Anyone in particular you think isn't so okay?"

"Damn it Bernie!" He should have known it and kicked himself for not just cutting to this first of all. "Fuck, Sam, okay?"

She started laughing, which wasn't the response he'd wanted. Soon Bernie composed herself to go on, "Do you think for a second when something happens in this city I don't know? You can only stare at Byrne for so long before everyone just fills in their own details." The younger man was grumbling something to himself and wringing his hands while Bernie spoke. She wasn't very far off though he had a hard time keeping his eyes off of Samantha, even if they were going to be the last two people to realize it. "She'll be fine Damon, she's a tough girl. All Anvegad women are."

"Yeah, they're all pains in the ass too," he couldn't help but quip while suppressing a smile. Bernie smacked his arm, but soon after wrapped her thin hand around a portion of his bicep. It was a rare moment Baird didn't bawk at human contact.

"Walk a lady back to her quarters, Corporal?"

His hand over hers Baird had already began to walk with her per her request. However, she had left herself completely open.

"I would love to Bernie. Just show me where I can find one around here."