V: Alicia Washington

Wash was as efficient as ever with her debrief after she came back from scouting the Sixer camp, all badass in black with her dark hair pulled up in a ponytail and a smudge of dirt along the side of her face where she'd missed it in her quick wash-up between the gates and the command center. Jim would hate to have been the thing she'd been stalking through the twilight. But he didn't think he was imagining the concern in her eyes when she looked at the Commander, or the slight increase in warmth in her attitude toward him. He'd been getting a lot more respect and a lot less perfunctory obedience from all the soldiers in general lately, but Wash had maintained her skepticism for quite awhile.

Perversely, while he was far more obsessed- yes, he was admitting it- with his interactions with Taylor, he was a lot more smug about having earned the lieutenant's good will. She'd made him earn it, and he always appreciated that in a person.

Jim's daughters adored her, too; especially Zoe. Maddy might still want to go into the sciences, even after her bad experience with the guy who'd had himself facemodded to look like her hero, but the littlest Shannon wanted to be just like Lieutenant Washington someday. He was saving that little tidbit to spring on Wash at just the perfect moment.

The aftermath of Skye's revelation that she was the spy, and Lucas' success in reversing the portal, was not that moment, though. Especially when she pinned him with that glare that made him feel like he was a rookie all over again, jerking her chin to direct him back to a chair when he made to follow Taylor out of the command center. He wasn't sure what was up that she wanted a solo conversation with him, but he wasn't fool enough to beg off, not with the Sixers on the move and threat of invasion through the portal imminent.

Her expression softened once he dropped into a seat, though, and she linked her hands on the tabletop. "Shannon..." she started to say, then paused, her manner strangely hesitant.

Okay; so maybe it wasn't a military type of conversation after all- because he couldn't imagine her being less than sure in either her work or Taylor's command. "Yeah, Wash?"

She tapped her blunted fingernails against the table, thinking, then nodded. "I just wanted to say- thanks."

Jim raised his eyebrows. He hadn't done anything specifically for her, lately. "For what?"

"For..." she gestured vaguely in his direction, somehow conveying the whole idea of him sitting there in his unaccustomed armor. "For what you've done for the Commander."

He shifted self-consciously in his chair, still not sure what she was getting at. "I'm just doing my job," he replied.

"That's... not exactly what I meant," she began, then chuckled and favored him with a wry smile. "Though I have to admit- as far as the job goes, you do know what you're doing. I had my doubts, the first time he left you in command of the colony."

Jim had been well aware that most of Taylor's men had been humoring him at first, listening to him because the Commander had told them to and for no other reason, but he was a little taken aback that Wash was actually bringing it up. "You sure didn't show it. Though I was a little surprised everyone went along with it so easily. Cop or not, I'm still a civilian as far as the soldiers are concerned- and an escaped felon, at that."

Wash's smile turned a little more teasing at Jim's honesty. "Yes, well. Commander's prerogative; if he says we have to call you sir for a day..."

He chuckled, sharing the smile. "When he says jump, you ask how high?"

She shrugged. "And of course, the law you were convicted under doesn't exist in Terra Nova. It would be a little pointless to try to enforce it with only a thousand or so humans occupying the planet."

As opposed to the double handful of billions back uptime. Not that the law had been consistently enforced even then, especially in countries not so technologically advanced. Sky-eyes, show-me ID's and wrist comps made it a lot easier for first world governments to surreptitiously keep track of their people and monitor their 'four people are a family' population limits, but the determined, the desperate, and the non-traditional still found plenty of ways around the draconian laws. Unless they were so unlucky as to have someone else turn them in.

"Yeah, well," Jim shrugged, pleased. "I appreciated it, anyway. But, ah. If that wasn't what you were thanking me for... do I dare ask?" He tilted his head.

She returned the appraisal, eyeing him up and down in an evaluating kind of way. "Off the record?"

"Of course," he assured her.

Wash nodded, then said plainly and rather obliquely: "Before you arrived, he hadn't gone fishing in three years."

So it wasn't just Reynolds who'd noticed. Apparently, Lucas really was the last person Taylor'd tried to drag out there to share a little peace. Still, to be thanked for that? "I didn't think it was that big a deal."

She shook her head. "I've known Taylor for most of my career, Shannon. I knew him before Somalia; and before Lucas disappeared; and before you showed up, and believe me, those were all three very different men." She cleared her throat, then continued more slowly, her expression pained. "It's that- he talks to you. About personal things, not day to day concerns and assignments. He almost never does that anymore, not since the Sixers declared war on the colony."

Jim sensed difficult ground there; he knew Wash had been Taylor's second in command, field medic, and general all-around right arm long before he ever came on the scene. "Not even with you?" he asked, carefully.

"Not even with me," she confirmed with a wan smile.

He rubbed a hand over his chin, thinking. Wash was too strong a person to need his reassurance; but in her situation, he was pretty sure he'd still appreciate someone pointing out the obvious. "It would take a blind man not to see how much he relies on you. And how much you respect him. Whatever might be going through his mind lately, you know he trusts you to have his back."

"That's sweet of you, Shannon, but I think you know that's not what I'm getting at," she replied, dryly.

Then she sighed and kneaded her forehead with a weary hand. "Imagine that, Jim Shannon trying to be polite. All right, then; if you're not going to bite, I'll go ahead and lay it all out. When we first came here... you realize, he didn't actually intend to remain the Commander forever. He'd made plans to designate a replacement after a few years, once Terra Nova was large enough to support its own economy and things had settled. He would have transitioned over to governor, left me with the day to day military duties, and then we could have-" She paused, glancing toward the windows, and grimaced. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter anymore."

"Wash," he blurted, sympathetically, unable to stop himself. He'd wondered; of course he'd wondered whether there was anything more between the two of them. Half the colony probably speculated about whether they'd christened Taylor's vanity desk; and fear of Wash folding, spindling and mutilating him had been nearly as high on Jim's list of 'don't go there's' as the lack of clear signals from Taylor himself. Somehow, finding out that they had been, but weren't anymore, hurt more than it would have to find out they were still a couple.

Wash waved him off, plainly not interested in his pity. "Those daydreams stopped after Lucas vanished," she continued briskly. "But it wasn't until half the Sixth Pilgrimage turned on us that he really started walling me out, and I figured out what was going on. He didn't trust anyone else with long term command anymore, not even me. Not when information and supplies kept leaking out, and it was clear from the start that the spy had access to closely restricted information. If he stepped down without knowing who it was..." She shrugged, smiling crookedly, and spread her hands in lieu of a conclusion.

"There's no way he ever doubted you," Jim objected. Even when Taylor had told him he trusted no one else in the colony but Jim, that day he'd left Jim in charge, he'd specifically excluded Wash from the limitation: he'd been careful to remind Jim that she was patrolling one of the far outposts that week.

"I didn't think he did," she replied, carefully. "He's never directly said or done anything to give me that impression. But regardless of his feelings, he never talked to me about his concerns- or Skye, and the possibility of her betraying him was probably even further from his mind." She raised her eyebrows pointedly in Jim's direction at that, her implication clear. Not foster daughter, not second and ex-lover- Taylor talked to Jim. "He just... withdrew, farther and farther behind the Commander mask as the years went by. It got harder and harder to reach him as anything more than my C.O."

"And what makes me so different?" Jim asked, uncomfortably. He couldn't trust his own impulses, there; he had to ask.

She raised an eyebrow at him, inspecting him as though he were a particularly dim child. "Are you really going to make me spell it out? You'd been here how long before he started turning to you before anyone else?" Wash chuckled, gesturing toward the window that opened onto the command center's balcony. "Though I guess to be fair, you weren't there to see him gawking at you through a viewer the day you were playing king of the weeds. Saving his life that day just gave him permission to follow his... shall we say, inclinations."

He gaped at her, torn between surprise at what she was implying and embarrassment as he remembered his behavior on the day in question. He'd stripped his shirt off and straddled the fence, raising his arms in a cheering V for victory, sweaty and self-satisfied and completely unaware that anyone might be watching.

"But I didn't think..." He broke off again, trying to recall just when he'd decided his interest in Taylor was completely unattainable. "Back when Ken Foster died, before we knew Curran killed him, when we still thought Rebecca Milner's husband had done it, he said he wouldn't tolerate any of his men getting involved with a married Terra Novan. And he's never- he's never even hinted that he might think of me that way."

Wash rolled her eyes. "Men. I'd wondered why he's still running with the early patrol at the crack of dawn; he only does that when he's sleeping alone, and I ought to know." She smirked again as he flushed at her straightforward reference. "Look; back then, he probably thought your marriage was like his and Ayani's, so there would have been no reason to say anything. You and your wife love each other very much; that's obvious to anyone who sees you together. It was awhile before it became apparent that the details are a little more... flexible in your partnership; and he's still probably going to wait for you to say something first, to be sure. Taylor has a problem with betrayal, not legalities. You should know that by now."

Jim was still having trouble believing that Wash was actually discussing the Commander's love life- and by proxy her love life- with him. "And you're really... okay with that idea?" he asked, skeptically.

"Okay with it?" she shrugged, smiling tightly. "I wouldn't say that. I miss the old Nathaniel; my Nathaniel, and if you tell him I said so, I will end you." She aimed a finger across the table at him to underscore the point. "But that's Lucas' fault, and my own fault for getting tired of him shutting me out; it's nothing to do with you. If you can give him what I haven't been able to lately... I'd leave you naked in a bow on his doorstep and call your wife 'sir', if I thought it would move things along."

He laughed in surprise. "Better be careful there; Liz might appreciate it more than you might think."

"Oh, I bet." She grinned at him. "Anyone who thinks you're the most dangerous Shannon clearly doesn't know the women in your family very well. So let's hope it doesn't come to that. As far as I'm concerned, once we leave this room, we never had this conversation. But considering what's about to come down on us- I thought I should take the opportunity to clear the air."

Jim finally got it then, why Wash had brought the topic up at all, and smiled at her, touched. "You wanted to ask my intentions. No; don't give me that look. You did, admit it."

She glanced away, adopting an aloof attitude as she shoved back her chair and stood. "I don't know what you're talking about, Shannon."

"Right; right." He smirked at her, then sighed. "I'll take it into consideration, all right? If there's a good opportunity. But the last thing I want to do is distract him right before all hell breaks loose. And you never know," he felt compelled to add, feeling even more awkward as he did so, "he might forget all about the scruffy insubordinate cop with the baggage when the dust settles and he remembers that you're the one who's actually been there for him, all along."

"Bring him back in one piece, and we'll see about that," she said, then smirked. "Although... so you know, I've started considering the merits of a drawing up a contract like yours. I could always keep him around to flex his biceps and take things down from high shelves, then send him over your way when he starts being difficult. Not necessarily in a temper, though; with him, that's not always a bad thing."

"Wash!" He blurted, flushing again as she waggled her eyebrows.

She left the room chuckling as he dropped his head into his hands. "Elisabeth's never going to let me hear the end of this."

-(5/6)-