Chapter 3: I hate you, I hate you not…

He had stayed with her.

No matter how many times he tried to put that through his head, Pooh-Bear could just not seem to make sense of it.

Stretch had stayed with Lily in that trap. He could have gone, surely he had been given the chance to run away with the rest of Avengers team. But he had stayed behind and he had somehow saved Lily, even though that meant that he was now Judah's captive.

That one action seemed totally and utterly against every preconception which Pooh-Bear held in regards to the Israeli. He had always imagined that, if Stretch was ever presented with a situation like that where he had to choose between running and staying, he would run. That seemed to be in character for him, at least in Pooh-Bears eyes. He had been happy to see him as a coward, as someone who would not have the teams back if they needed him.

But the fact that he had stayed behind, when he could have gone, suddenly made Pooh realise that maybe, just maybe, he needed to readjust the way he looked at him. Of course this also got him thinking that perhaps he had been wrong about the other preconceptions which he held.

'By Allah, I've been a fool,' he shook his head to himself as he came to that realisation.

Thankfully he was alone at the back of the hanger of the Halicarnassus, and Jack was far too busy working on something on the main computer console to hear him, so he was able to internally berate himself without being noticed. He had always prided himself on being a non-judgemental, open person. His ability to accept just about anyone was always commented on as being his greatest quality, and this acceptance was something which had tried to put into practice every day. But with Stretch, he had allowed a cultural and religious feud, which really had nothing to do with either of them, cloud his judgement. He had done his best to see everything regarding the Israeli through a pair of already negatively tinted lenses, and in doing so had prevented himself from acknowledging or even seeing that he did indeed have some decent qualities.

It was just so unlike him, so utterly out of character, that he was loathed to admit that he had been acting like that for years. But he knew that he had, and now all he could find himself thinking was that he hoped that both he and Stretch made it to the end of this mission alive so he would be able to at least try to make things right.

…

Stupid Americans.

Stupid Avenger.

Stupid mission.

Stupid, stupid me.

Stretch bumped his head back on the wall behind him as he thought, repeating the lines over and over in his head. Everything had gone to shit and he couldn't help but think that it was all his fault. If that blasted, mother-fucking Israeli recon team hadn't shown up then things probably wouldn't have gone that badly.

The American's wouldn't have the piece.

The American's wouldn't have Lily.

Zaeed wouldn't have gotten away.

He wouldn't be sitting bound to support strut in an American plane, covered from head to toe in dried quick sand.

And Jack and Pooh-Bear wouldn't be stuck somewhere … or worse, in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

If Avenger and his team hadn't shown up, then none of that would have happened.

Curling his legs in tightly to his chest, he rested his forehead down on his knees and heaved a deep sigh. It was his fault that Avenger had shown up. It was because of him that the American's were now going to win this race.

Internally he cursed himself, cursed his stupidity. He should have known about the chip. Or at least he should have suspected it. It wasn't normal for Mossad to send agents out on such long and high risk missions without having some sort of insurance policy, a way of knowing where the agent was, even if contact was lost. Alarms bells should have gone off in his head when he received no complaint when his monthly reports back to the Masters ceased. He should have known then that they had another method of tracing him, another method which meant they didn't mind when he no longer sent them reports, another method which meant that no matter what, they would get what they wanted and he wouldn't be able to escape.

Of course, Judah had had the chip seen to almost as soon as they boarded the plane, ordering Kallis to remove it. Stretch had actually only found out about the surgically implanted bug when Kallis had pulled out a small switch blade knife and promptly dug the tiny piece of plastic out of the back of his neck.

A small dry laugh caught in the back of his throat as another thought floated into his head. Somehow he was going to have to explain to Jack and Pooh-Bear that he hadn't intended to lead the Israeli team to them. Whenever he next saw them, although the rational voice in his head was telling him that they were most likely already dead and he would be as well very soon, he would have to somehow find a way to convince them that he wasn't the filthy, rotten traitor that they thought he was.

It was going to be very difficult to convince anyone of that when he was calling himself that in his own head.

The hardest person to try to apologise to would be the Arab; most likely Pooh-Bear would not be interested in anything that he had to say. Unfortunately, it was Pooh-Bear that Stretch felt like he owed most of his apologies too. He owed him apologies, not only for fucking up the mission, but also for the unnecessary feud which had been ongoing since he had joined the team. Even though Stretch had told himself that he hated Arab from the moment they had met, that original mind set now seemed … wrong.

For the first time in a very long time, Stretch now found himself wanting the approval and trust of someone other than his masters. He wanted to make up for his mistakes, he wanted to prove that he could be trusted.

He didn't want to think of Zahir Al Anzar Al Abbas as an enemy anymore.

He wanted to think of him as a friend.

But he would probably never be given the chance.