Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.

A bar in a small town about an hour from the research center, roughly around the same time the Crane and Chance started searching the building.

"Whoa, girl! I almost didn't recognize you!" Brody jumped off the bar stool and dashed towards Ames, hugging her tightly. "Let me take a look." He spun her around. "Your beautiful hair… but this suits you, makes you look all grown up, and new clothes, too... You're becoming a real lady… " He looked at her face and froze. "You definitely grew up. What happened?"

Ames shook her head, not meeting his eyes. "Everything is fine, Brody."

"Hey!" He reached out and lightly pushed her chin upwards so that she was forced to look him in the face. "Anyone who touches my sister has to deal with me! So whom shall I beat up?"

She couldn't help but smile… it was as if they were back in that awful foster home, where the foster mother had forced them to play outside till darkness fell, no matter the weather or season, so she could smoke her joints in peace. They spent a lot of time on a decrepit playground and Brody picked fights with everyone who dared trying to bully Ames. More than once, however, it had been Ames who had to jump in and rescue his ass from getting severely beaten.

She would have never thought it, but she actually wished things could be as easy as that once more.

"I need your help", she told him, reached into her purse and showed him the circuit board the Crane had brought them.

Brody made an impressed whistling sound. "Where did you get that from?"

"Long story", Ames replied, handing the board over to him. He took it with an expression that spoke of awe.

"That, girl, is a circuit board from the most sophisticated military detonator you can get right now. Best stuff available! Extremely hard to defuse, it's very important to follow a complicated order of steps, otherwise: Kaboom!"

Ames immediately realized what this meant: If whoever blew up the old research center had used this thing for his bomb, it was quite likely he'd do it again, wasn't it? She knew Chance and the Crane were searching the new research center right now. What if they found a new bomb?

"Tell me how to defuse it."

Brody shook his head. "Can't. The company who builds these things keeps it a secret. You buy one of these, they hand an instruction over to you, but it hasn't been leaked so far. Only military institutions are allowed to buy them, probably that's why."

"So the only way to get one of those instructions would be to break into a military base?" Ames had been worried before, but this was really bad news.

Brody, however, smiled. "It's not as difficult as you think, sis." He reached into his collar and showed her – she couldn't believe her eyes – dog tags.

"You joined the military?" And there was Ames thinking the complicated-to-defuse detonator had been bad news. "With your criminal record?"

"I had a friend who owed me a favor. He got me a new ID and I signed in. It's not that they're looking very closely right now…Gonna see the world soon!"

Ames had to press her hand to her mouth. "Iraq?"

"Off I go", he said. And his eyes were actually twinkling… "But before that I help you to get that defusing instruction. I've seen bombs with these kind of detonators at our base, so the instruction must be kept in the commander's safe. Think you can crack it if I get you into his office?"

Ames nodded, 'course she could. And in the back of her mind another plan formed. A plan to safe Brody.

He got her into the commander's office alright. The safe wasn't exactly a piece of cake to crack, but, as Ames had told Guerrero at their very first meeting, she was good at cracking safes. It probably would have gone faster, however, had she not battled a severe conscience problem simultaneously. Should she really? What she was about to do would hurt Brody, definitely. She'd betray his trust and she'd make his life miserable.

But he would live.

For the first time since the team had held her captive to prevent her from killing herself she truly had an idea what they must have gone through before making the decisions they had made. She had thought things had been easy for them – a taser, a couple of restraints, a ton of well-meant yadda yadda sermons…

She had been wrong.

Nothing had been easy.

Just as they stepped out of the commander's office, Ames tripped the alert. On purpose. Yes, on purpose. She also grabbed Brody on purpose and pushed him right into the area the security cam which they had so carefully avoided on their way in, covered. They definitely got an up close shot of him.

"What the hell are you doing?", he shouted, but there was no time to clear the matter – running footsteps, wailing sirens… They fled the base and escaped by a hair's breadth.

"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?", Brody shouted at her as they raced away from the base. "You've just made me a fugitive! That was my ticket to a proper life! An honest life! Isn't that what you've been preaching all along?"

"It would have been your ticket to death!" Ames replied through clenched teeth. His accusations hurt as if he was actually hitting her. And of course her conscience was raging, too. She had just, with a simple shove, condemned Brody, HER Brody, to a life on the run. But better a life on the run than no life…

Or?

She dropped him off at an old contact of hers who'd help him in the first few days. "I'll send you money", she told him before she drove off, feeling hunted herself.

"Shove it up your ass!", he bellowed after her.

Back at the hotel where they had set up HQ she didn't tell them about her extra escapade with Brody. The detonator issue was complicated enough.

Having the instruction was one thing, getting it to Chance was a totally different story, given how hermetically sealed the research center's premises were.

"Thanks to the jammer we've got no way to contact Chance and hand the instruction over to him prior to the party", Winston said, frowning deeply. "If they discover a bomb with that detonator before the party and try to defuse it …" He didn't even want to think about that possibility. "Once the party begins Ilsa would be an option, but all guests will be searched thoroughly at the entrance. No chance to smuggle a memory stick in, or even plain paper…"

"Unless we hide the instruction in plain sight", Guerrero replied, a small grin forming on his face. "Ilsa, we need to go shopping."