"Okay, let me get this straight," Tucker said. He, Church and Caboose were all following me as I headed back to my room, helping to carry some of my things. "Your boss had to drag you from Blood Gulch all the way back to headquarters to tell you that he thinks you should come right back?"

"I already explained this," I said, exasperated. "We couldn't communicate through the radios or any technology. There was too high a risk of the AIs interfering and listening in on the conversation."

"This is some bullshit, Ells. How are we supposed to defend ourselves if no one knows where the AIs are located, how many there are, or how they're getting around? All we know is that they've been messing with all our technology shit."

"That's as much as anyone knows right now," I said. "That's why we're back. We just need to wait until Command and the CIA find out enough about the AIs to either tell us how to capture them or let us investigate further. Right now, though… it's just a waiting game."

"A waiting game?" Church replied darkly. "More like a 'sit-around-and-try-not-to-get-killed' game."

"Well, it's the best we could do," I said, opening the door to my room. Nothing had been touched, to my surprise. It was still my room. I smiled. "Besides, I didn't even get to the worst part of all of this yet," I said, turning to them as they placed some of my bags on the floor.

"What's that?" Church asked.

I smirked. "You're forced to have me around for who knows how much longer."

They laughed. "Yeah, what a shame. We were just so happy that you were finally gone. Couldn't stand your face."

"You know what the real shame is, though?" Tucker asked seriously, his eyes flickering in the direction of the bedroom down the hall. "Wash is here. What the hell is up with him anyway?"

"What do you mean? Hasn't he always acted this way?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, he's always been a cockbite," Church said. "Like the sarcasm and shit. But he wasn't really ever moody. Like in a shitty mood in general."

"Yeah," Tucker added. "He would get annoyed with us and stuff, but he'd just roll his eyes, add in some sort of insult, and move on. What's up with him? PMS?"

I shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. He's been a douchebag to me ever since... well, ever since Project Freelancer. I don't know why he's so pissy lately."

Hmm. The Blues had noticed Wash's odd behavior too. I wasn't just imagining things.

After a nice visit with the Reds—Donut and I gossiped while Sarge bossed Simmons around and Grif napped—I returned to Blue base. The Blues and I were going to watch a movie, and, though I extended an invitation to the Reds, Sarge busted Donut's excited plans in an instant. He claimed that they had spent enough time with their enemies and needed to get back to their plans to kill them.

Whatever.

I walked into the Blue base and headed toward the living room. Church was popping one of the Indiana Jones movies into the DVD player while Caboose burned popcorn in the kitchen. Again.

I plopped on the couch beside Tucker as we cleared the smoke from the kitchen and got the movie rolling. He casually put an arm around me when we turned out the lights, scooting closer to me. I blushed slightly, but leaned against him a bit as well.

"Where is Agent Washingtub?" Caboose asked as he brought a rather blackened bowl of popcorn into the living room. "He is missing the movie!"

"I don't know that he wants to join us, Caboose," I said. "He's not really—"

"What the hell is happening?" asked Wash urgently, striding quickly into the living room. "Is there a fire? There's smoke—"

He stopped as he saw Caboose with his singed popcorn.

"I should have known," he said, rolling his eyes. "I should know by now that every alarm is a false alarm. Idiots." He crossed his arms irritably, glaring at Caboose.

"Come on, dude," Church said to him, annoyed. "Stop bitching already and lighten up. You're stuck here with us, so there' s no use complaining about it. Why don't you just join us for the movie?"

Wash saw what we were watching, hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, I guess I don't see why no—"

He stopped as his eyes fell on me and Tucker. An unmistakable darkness spread across his face.

"You know what? No. I'm not going to watch," he growled. "You all have fun together."

Without another word, he turned on his heel and left. We stared for a moment at the space where he had been standing and then gazed at each other questioningly.

"What the hell?" Church asked, confusion evident on his face. I felt Tucker's arm tighten slightly around my shoulders.

I sighed. "This is going to be a long mission, guys."

"Dude, he wasn't even acting this way when we were at the UNSC dance thing," Tucker commented. "Yeah, he was being sort of a dick, but it wasn't like he was in a bad mood himself."

"Oh yeah, no big deal," I replied sarcastically. "He was only trying to get into my pants."

Church chuckled. "Well, that ended up coming in handy for us, didn't it? Thank God he had all those extra suits in the jet."

I shrugged. "True."

We continued watching the movie, but I wasn't really paying attention. My thoughts were all scattered and confused. I tried to clear my mind—get my thoughts on anything but the gray soldier—but he was just being so damn weird. I just couldn't comprehend why he was acting so out of character. I could handle his being rude to me. I could handle our fights. Hell, I could handle the abnormal pervy Wash, and even the weird "recovering-from-Epsilon" Wash. But… moody Wash?

This just added another complicated layer to my already confused mind. I sighed heavily without thinking about it, and Tucker looked over at me worriedly. I smiled at him, hoping he wouldn't see that something was bothering me. He watched me closely, but didn't say anything. He only gave my arm a quick squeeze.

I wonder how long it'll take for Command to give us the all-clear.

Because nothing is clear right now.

( Well, here's your surprise, everyone. It's a bit late, and it's actually kind of lame, but I posted some quick sketches. You can see them either on Eleven's blog:

ask-agent-eleven[dot]tumblr[dot]com

Or on my DeviantArt account:

SkyGirl211[dot]deviantart[dot]com

Again, they're nothing special. Just a little extra something to celebrate 11/11/11. Until next week! :]

-Stella )