Author's Note: In which we discover things, Annie swears a lot, and this fic officially switches to Humor/Drama.

Disclaimer: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

Chapter Twenty: Burned

Consciousness returned slowly. Annie blinked, licked her lips, and immediately regretted it. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it.

It felt like years before her brain kicked in and started processing information again. Annie thought about opening her eyes, but decided against it: life was hard enough without having to process all that 'light' bullshit. Instead, she focused on cataloging body parts. Was everything still there?

Item: two legs, slightly achy but present. Toes, when commanded to wiggle, wiggled.

Item: one left arm, clumsy and strangely tingly. Fingers, commanded to similarly wiggle, responded slowly and with great reluctance. Hand felt swollen. Still broken, then, but at least no longer hurting as much.

Item: one right arm, also tingling but placed strangely. Instead of lying sedately at her side like its cooperative but broken partner, her right arm was stretched out to the side and raised up slightly against the bedframe. Maybe she'd fallen asleep on it.

Item: head. Nonfunctional.

Annie twisted a little, and something on her neck made a rough scraping noise against the pillow. Felt like a Band-Aid: at least the evil medic had had the courtesy to stick one on after tranquilizing her in the hallway.

The worst part? He hadn't even used a dart gun.

Snipers were scary. Some part of Annie still hoped for further training, but that hadn't stopped her from maintaining a healthy terror of,Low-Light and his fellow elite sharpshooters. She didn't particularly relish the idea of dying, but if someone was good enough to headshot her from a blind five hundred yards away there wasn't much she could do to avoid it. Lifeline, however, wasn't a sniper. He'd just calmly uncapped a syringe and popped it into her neck before she'd even realized he was there. Drugged, at close range, by a pacifist. She was never going to live that down.

With great reluctance, she finally pried her eyes open and looked around. The infirmary seemed just the same as it had before, although a certain ceiling tile was back in place and bolted down. Lifeline's and Doc's office doors were closed, which was a good sign for Annie. No time like the present, right?

Annie shifted and tried to sit up. Mistake: her good arm seemed stuck to the bed frame, and her momentum almost wrenched it out of her socket before she realized what was going on. Swearing under her breath, she twisted awkwardly to check it and came to two conclusions.

One: her good arm was handcuffed to the bed. Kinky.

Two: her good arm, and in fact the entire rest of her, was in hot-pink pajamas with pictures of My Little Ponies on them. Also kinky, but not in a good way.

"The fuck?" she said aloud.

Lifeline's door opened, and the possibly-more-hateable-than-all-the-ninjas-ever medic emerged, looking calm and carrying a clipboard. "I thought you'd be waking up," he said, making a note. "How are you feeling?"

"Dizzy, and kind of scared." Annie rattled the handcuff for emphasis. "Is this legal, sergeant?"

"'First do no harm,'" Lifeline reminded her as he flipped over a page on the clipboard. Annie squinted: it seemed to be a medical chart. "That includes preventing patients from doing harm to themselves. The Army has strong precedents for psychiatric confinement, suicide watch, and so forth. Think of this as preventative care."

"And the pajamas?"

"Also preventative."

"Preventing what?"

"Preventing anyone who sees you from not realizing you're escaping from the infirmary again." He made another note and flipped the page back over. "My job is to make sure that you get better, Short Stack. Part of that is stopping you from hitting your head in the ducts or aggravating a broken arm by falling out of vents."

"I had stuff to do," Annie said grumpily. Her inner grownup, momentarily overwhelmed by her inner teenager, pushed the whiny little bastard away and took control of her mouth again. "I mean, I don't feel I'm adequately servicing my duties by remaining in medical confinement, sergeant."

Lifeline couldn't be more than thirty, but the look he gave her was so old it had cobwebs on it. "Nice try," he said, "but it happens to everyone sooner or later. I think there's something in the air here that makes people flout regulations. I don't suppose you can tell me what 'stuff' you had to do?" He paused. "You do have patient confidentiality, you know. If something's bothering you . . .?"

He let the question hang in the air, dangling its punctuation like a fishhook. Well, Annie wasn't taking the bait: how was she supposed to know that he wasn't a traitor? Handcuffing a patient sure sounded ethically-questionable to her. Caught between the ingrained habit of doing what she was told and the impolitic urge to say exactly what she thought of his bedside manner, she split the difference and stared at the blanket.

"I see," Lifeline said in a voice that said he in no way considered the issue closed. "All right, then. Any time you want to talk about it, let me know. In the meantime, you're going to stay there and heal, all right? If you start feeling any more pain or anything strange happens—anything at all—let me know. Someone will be by to wake you up every thirty minutes, and yes I know that's annoying, but it's standard concussion procedure." He made a few more notes on the chart.

"What am I supposed to do while I'm here?" Annie said. Her head was still aching, and more sleep sounded like heaven right then, but she was sure it wasn't the time for it. Last time she passed out, handcuffs and childrens' cartoons got involved. And if Lifeline was the traitor, he'd find it easy to get rid of her while she was unconscious. No, thanks.

"Heal," Lifeline said. "Doc's very firm on that. If you're bored, though, you can watch TV. Any escape attempts do get patient remote privileges revoked. Other than that—well, I'm a medic, not a cruise director."

Was it her imagination, or had the evil medic just made a Star Trek joke? That didn't wash. Annie blinked as the room wavered for a moment, then decided she wasn't going to push the issue.

She must have passed out again at some point, because she vaguely recalled being prodded awake by interns with exceedingly bony fingers. They'd check her pupils, quiz her about fingers held up and state capitals (who or what was a Baton Rouge?), and let her go back to sleep again. Less a sleep and more a heavy doze, though: she always awoke muddle-headed and in pain, with a cottony taste in her mouth like she'd been chewing on her blankets. Maybe she had.

The day's first encounter with bucket chow didn't help. Chopper turned up, looking surprisingly cheerful—gee, she wondered why—and served, with aplomb, some truly godawful food. Annie wasn't very religious, but she was beginning to suspect karma was something to look out for.

"So what's the word?' she said, clumsily tearing a piece of bread in half with her one good hand. "Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

"Sorry, kid," Chopper said affably. "Right now the only news is you. You were making a hell of a racket in those vents, you know. Sgt. Storm Shadow said that if you're going to be in there a lot, he'll have to make sure you know how to crawl quietly or buy some industrial ear defenders."

"Oh, hell. Does everyone know what I did?"

"Pretty much." Chopper pushed the tray a little closer, making it easier for her to pick up her glass of orange juice. "After Pitfall and having a prisoner murdered right here on base, people are edgy. A greenie QM getting tranqued makes everyone feel better—like things are back to normal. Oh, by the way, Ace wanted me to thank you. He took the outside bet on your escape and made about fifty bucks."

"Do I get any of that?"

"You didn't opt in so . . . no. If you're going to be doing shit like that on a regular basis, you can talk to Ace about setting up a standing bet on yourself. I hear that's what Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow do."

"I'm not planning on it. In fact, I don't know if I'll even be here much longer."

The words slipped out before she could pull them back, and Chopper frowned. "You'd better not let Sgt. Major hear you say that. He doesn't like quitters, so threatening to drop out becomes an automatic kick."

"Sue me if I'm not too worried about what Screaming Beachie thinks." The orange juice was from some kind of powder, tasting faintly of oranges and more strongly of stomach acid. She put it down before her vocal cords could melt. "I'm probably going to quit anyway, Chop. If I survive the week."

Chopper's frown deepened. "You sound like you're planning on doing something stupid. Do I need to get Lifeline?"

"I'm not planning on doing anything stupid, I swear. No stupider than anything else that's happened recently, anyway."

Annie looked into Chopper's eyes. He was a good guy: he'd always helped her out, didn't laugh too much when she made stupid mistakes, and knew his way around the best damn Monte Cristo sandwiches on the planet. It had hurt to suspect him, and the confirmation of his illicit tête-à-tête with Eighty-Six had . . . well, not humanized him (she was pretty sure he was human already. Probably), but reminded her a little that G.I. Joe itself was composed of people. If you prick us, do we not bleed, etcetera. Maybe it was just her normal pettiness, letting her enjoy the knowledge that someone else had fucked up—or maybe it wasn't. This was deep-level philosophy for someone with a head injury.

Ahhh, fuck philosophy. She decided to just go for it. "Chop, there's a traitor in the base."

That got the other quartermaster's attention. He'd been standing up, tray in hand, but her words stopped him in the middle of the motion and he paused in an awkward sort of half-squat—like he'd just spotted a large, angry spider on his toilet seat.

"Bullshit," he said bluntly.

Annie looked around before saying anything else. They seemed to be alone, but ninjas, medics and Rangers had all proved their ungodly stealthiness over the past few weeks. She beckoned him closer and lowered her voice again, just in case. "Flint told me. He gave me a list of things to ask Carter H—the toxo-viper. The last one on the list was 'possibility of informants within GI Joe.' I should know, he made me memorize it."

Chopper was frowning again, but he didn't seem about to call her a liar. "This isn't some kind of grudge against Storm Shadow, is it? It's true, he used to fight Joe and he killed more'n a few of us, but green support personnel shouldn't be sayin' it. You haven't earned your stripes in this unit yet."

"What? No, this isn't about Storm Shadow! It's about a traitor on base." She took a deep breath, trying to arrange her thoughts. Bullets—messages—mislaid communications—Jesus Christ, she was cracking up. Three-quarters of this would be impossible to explain, so she decided to focus on the more openly-known part of the tangled mess. "Just think about it. Everyone in Admin is acting twitchy. Then Zartan somehow gets out of his cell, but stays to murder one toxo-viper intead of escaping? Even if you don't believe I did get any orders from Flint, you have to admit that's pretty damn weird!"

There was another moment of silence before Chopper spoke again. "Well," he said finally, "I'm not saying I believe you, but I'm guessin' you believe you."

"Sneak me some sodium pentothal and you'll find out just how damn much I believe me, Chop. And trust me, it gets worse."

"Wait." He held up one hand. "I don't think I should be hearing this. You know quartermasters aren't cleared-"

"Well, it's a little fucking late for that, isn't it?" she said hotly. "I wish someone had told Flint that. Or Psyche-Out. Or any of the other head honchos who always seem to know more than they're letting on and don't clue me in!"

Chopper shook his head. "All right, all right. Listen, say I believe you. Why're you even telling me this? You know I can't get you out of here."

"No, but you have access to the kitchen right now." Annie sat up as much as she could. "Listen. Whoever the spy is, they've got access to the security office—they had plans and classified documents. They're in my bra. I think." She shifted a little, but her one uncuffed hand was swollen and useless. "Dammit. You might have to stick your hand in there, and no offense, I'm not feeling up to that. Trust me, they're there. The point is, they were using the steam trays to pass messages. Can you ask around in the kitchen and find out if anyone with really high-grade security access is acting weird lately?"

"In this unit? It'd be easier to look for someone who isn't acting weird." Chopper stood. "Look, I'd love to help, but I can't. I've got work to do, and if any of this is true, I'm really not cleared for it."

"Chop, please. I need some help here!"

He didn't meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, I can't."

Oh, hell. She didn't want to do this, but she didn't know what else she could do. For years her greatest strength had been talking, and any gossip knew the power of information.

"That's funny," she said. "You seemed to have plenty of time for Eighty-Six yesterday."

Chopper froze. "Wait—what?"

"I was in the vents, remember? And I might be a greenie, but I'm not blind." Something twisted a little in her chest when she saw Chopper's face fell. His expression was half-fear, half-sadness—something in his eyes contradicting the big tough biker-with-a-cleaver image. The balance of power shifted: she had dirt on him, and he knew that if she wanted, she could ruin him.

Suddenly, they weren't friends anymore.

"I mean it," Annie added, trying to keep her voice steady. She couldn't show him how much it hurt to see his face like that. You needed guts in the spy game. Or the blackmail business. "I'm sorry, Chop, but I need to know what's going on right now or we could be very dead very soon. Whoever the spy is, they must've let Zartan out on the day the toxo-viper was killed. I need you to find out if anyone was acting suspicious that day. Do you understand?"

He understood, but his expression said that he was still mainly concerned with the fact that she was threatening to rat him out if he didn't help her break the rules. He stood there for a moment, his grip on the tray white-knuckled.

"All right," he said finally. "I'll be back."

The door closed behind him with a final-sounding thud, and Annie pulled up her sheets and tried to blink away the burning sensation in her eyes. All's fair in love and war, right? she told herself sternly. You're not just some quartermaster anymore, you're trying to help everyone. You have to use anyone you can trust. Why was this bothering her so much?

Maybe it was the 'use' part. Groaning, she pulled the blankets over her head as best she could and tried not to think about it. All right, her methods were unorthodox, but Chopper had to understand that. He'd come through, right?

Chopper didn't come through. The ward was utterly quiet for hours; if she didn't know better, Annie would've suspected the entire medical staff had knocked off for the day. She tried to watch TV, but her fingers were too swollen to work the remote very easily and once she got the damn thing on, she found she couldn't concentrate. "Wheel of Fortune" had never been very good at holding her interest, and Vanna White's shiny smile seemed sinister now. She turned off the TV again and stared at the ceiling, her brain whirring.

Around 1800 hours, she heard the familiar clank of the bucket chow cart. She sat up again, hoping for news, but the face that appeared around the door wasn't Chopper: it was Tripwire, doing his very best not to stumble over the cart and failing.

Tripwire had no news for her. He'd been put on KP after accidentally spilling soup on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but his job had been dishwashing until Chopper hurriedly switched him onto bucket duty that afternoon. Annie scowled, thanked him with bad grace (he didn't seem to notice; like Dusty, Tripwire appeared to live in his own little world where asshole behavior didn't exist) and picked at her chicken noodle soup without actually tasting it. Her appetite was suddenly gone.

Now what? Rat on Chopper? It was the only weapon she had, but her stomach curdled at the thought of actually using it. What else could she do? She was still new to the spy game.

She left the container of soup on the bedside table and, shivering a little, pulled up the blankets again. Her thoughts were running around and around in her head like caffeinated hamsters, crashing into each other and making no sense whatsoever. If only she could put the hamsters on a wheel and make them produce some energy . . . maybe powering one of those little lightbulbs that were supposed to appear over your head when you had a bright idea . . .

At some point, she must have fallen asleep. The next time her eyes opened, the ward was filled with nighttime gloom and absolutely silent. For a moment Annie lay absolutely still, wondering why she was even awake. Her eyelids felt like lead and nothing would have been better than going back to sleep, but something was tugging at the edge of her brain and she wasn't sure why—

There was someone standing there.

For a moment Annie thought she was going to have a heart attack. The figure was absolutely still and half-concealed by the natural fall of shadows in the ward, turning it into something that might have been an optical illusion. If it didn't have fingers. And night-vision goggles.

"Oh, fuck," Annie said.

"Private," said the figure.

"I—what—sergeant Low-Light?" Annie struggled to sit up as best she could, accidentally knocking her broken arm against the rail as she did so. "Ow! Dammit! Sergeant, what the hell?"

"Quiet," he said.

Silhouette, that was the thing. Shadows and light reflections too, but silhouettes were crucial. The eye was drawn to motion, and living things changed their silhouettes in the dark as they breathed, expanding and contracting. The brain was hard-wired on a primal level to watch for that kind of motion. Something so still that its edges never changed, not even in the dark—that had to be a rock or something. Trying to tell her lizard hindbrain that the unmoving thing in front of her was a living person gave her a case of the screaming Uncanny Valley heebie-jeebies.

For a second, she wondered if he was the traitor. It would fit, right? The motionless, emotionless creep who sees everything and says nothing. That was some Hannibal Lecter shit right there. Was he here to kill her?

But she quickly dismissed that thought. If Low-Light wanted her dead, she wouldn't have even woken up—and wasn't that a cheerful thought? She loosened her grip on the sheets and tried not to act like she'd had the shit scared out of her by yet another super-sneaky, terrifying spook of a G.I. Joe.

"Hi," she said. Low-Light didn't respond.

There was a long moment of awkward silence before Annie coughed and sat up a little more. "So, er," she began, "what can I do for you, sergeant?"

"I heard you blackmailed Chopper," the sniper said after another long pause. "He went to Flint."

"He told Flint I tried to blackmail him?" Oh shit. Oh, shit. "I didn't—I mean, I wasn't trying to—"

"No. He asked Flint about a spy in the Pit." Low-Light stayed quiet just long enough to make Annie nervous before continuing. "Flint cited need-to-know. Chopper's nervousness made the blackmail obvious."

"Are you here to kick me out?" Annie asked carefully. One part of her leaped gleefully at the thought of leaving, but another part curdled in fear. What would this do to her record?

Pause. "No."

Clearly, Annie was going to have to carry the brunt of the conversation. "Then can I ask why you're here, sergeant?" she said as respectfully as she could.

"Something's going wrong," Low-Light said. His tone was flat and lifeless, and it sent a chill down Annie's spine. "Learn a lot by sitting still and listening. Easy to pick up on what people say and think when they don't think you think at all. Obvious there's a traitor."

Annie's breath came out in a whoosh of relief. "Oh, thank Christ," she said. "Listen, sergeant, can you talk to General Hawk? Please? I swear I'm not crazy, I just—"

Low-Light shook his head. "Need-to-know, private. Some kind of strategy being played out here—above our pay grades. Everyone involved is in for a reason, and every involved denies it for a reason. Not supposed to even know."

"Then why are you here?" The words jumped out before she could stop them, and Annie fought the urge to slam her head into the wall. Jesus Christ, not again! So much for sitting still and listening. She was never, ever getting back into sniper training, that was for sure. Even if she survived G.I. Joe.

"Information. You wanted Chopper to look at people behaving strangely on the day Zartan escaped?"

"I . . . yes, I did. I thought it was someone in the kitchen at first, but I checked the security records and Whiskey Down's sign-in sheet had everyone reporting on time. Well, except for Chopper, but I think I've eliminated him." She could feel her face turning red. "He kind of, uh, had other priorities."

"So I heard. Which is interesting." Low-Light's goggles glinted as, just for a moment, his head moved the tiniest bit. "Because Whiskey Down was part of my class requalifying on long-range rifle that day. Wasn't in the kitchen until dinner."

"But that means-"

The thought hit her like a slap in the face. Whiskey Down hadn't filled out that security report. He couldn't have. Which meant someone else had done it—someone who could have altered the information about when the quartermasters arrived or what they were doing. Suddenly the entire kitchen staff was back on the suspect list, and her stomach twisted at the thought of it.

"Sergeant, I'm fucked," she said. It seemed like the only thing she could say. "What do I do now?"

He didn't say anything. Light flashed off metal in the dimness, and there was a click as what looked like a bobby pin was deftly inserted into the handcuff lock. A deft twist of the fingers, and the handcuff popped open. Annie was free.

"Go find out," he said. And before Annie could say anything else, he stepped back into the dimness and was gone.

She shook her head. Jesus Christ.

It was about a quarter after midnight when Annie snuck out of the infirmary again. At least this time she was able to use the door, but her satisfaction was somewhat blunted by the fact that she was still wearing My Little Pony pajamas. What kind of medic locks up spare clothing? Oh, right. A G.I. Joe medic. Even just plain old expulsion was looking better and better.

Her thoughts were churning. The hamsters seemed to have gotten on the wheel after all; unfortunately, they were dragging their lazy fuzzy asses and the lightbulb was still dark. Just producing a lot of squeaking and fruitless running in circles. Story of her life, really.

Tears were threatening to escape. Mopping her eyes furiously, Annie ducked into the nearest janitor's closet (spending a lot of time hiding, Annie-girl . . .) and hunkered down by the wall, determined not to make a sound. So she was out. Now what? Low-Light had let her out for a reason. He wasn't much of a talker, but he was trying to make a point.

Low-Light. Low-Light saw everything that happened in the Pit, just like the support staff—but he didn't pass it on. He wasn't a gossip who traded in information, he hoarded it. While Annie and the others were swapping juicy tidbits and making fun of the soldiers who looked down on them, indulging in their little private branch-versus-support wars, Low-Light just watched everything and filed it away in his head.

She probably should have gone to him in the beginning, she reflected. She could cook and she could talk, but Low-Light was the kind of guy who understood the value of not talking. And when you have a rep for staying quiet, nobody worries about letting valuable info spill in front of you. Low-Light was a better spy than she'd ever be.

But Annie wasn't a spy, was she? She was a quartermaster. She was Short Stack, for God's sake. If they'd wanted to set a spy to catch a spy, they would've put someone like the sniper on the job. He'd have known how to do things like find out who'd be picking bullets out of steam trays. She was just there to cook and do the cleanup . . .

Oh.

Oh.

God dammit.

At least this time she didn't have to take to the vents. It wasn't too far to the bunkroom, and while the pony pajamas were ugly as sin they were a lot less obvious than crashing around in the ventilation system and sending up clouds of dust. She flattened herself against the wall and checked the coast for guards before carefully opening the door and slipping into the dimmed room.

Eighty-Six was the only one there, thank Christ. Annie knelt down next to the bed and clapped her hand over the other woman's mouth.

"Shhh!" she hissed as Eighty-Six's eyes shot open. "Don't scream! It's me, Short Stack!"

At which point Eighty-Six promptly bit her.

So much for staying quiet: it was all Annie could do to keep her cursing to a minimum as she bent over, clutching her rapidly swelling hand. "Sometimes I really hate people," she muttered, biting her lip. Eighty-Six was sitting up in bed now, fully awake and ready to attack. "Goddammit . . . owww . . ."

"Th' hell d'you think you're doin'?" Eighty-Six hissed. "Breakin' in here, scarin' the hell outta me!"

"I—ow—have a question," Annie said, massaging her bitten hand as best she could. "Are you half-piranha or something? Ow."

"Where y'at in your head, dumb shit? You're gonna get y'self court-martialed!" Eighty-Six accompanied the words with a smack on the temple. Annie reeled back and sat down hard on her haunches, the world spinning again.

"Watch the concussion, would you?" she whispered angrily. "Look, I'm sorry! I'm not here to hurt anyone. Hell, I'm not even supposed to be out of the infirmary!"

Eighty-Six's expression softened a little as she got a better look at Annie. "Oh, you sure ain't. What's goin' on? Why're you out like this, dummy?"

"Well, first, please don't hit me again." Annie gingerly massaged her aching head. "I say again, ow. But listen, did you hear that there's something strange going on in the kitchen? I bet Chopper told you I was acting crazy, anyway." From the way Eighty-Six's eyes narrowed, Annie could see that that was a yes. "I know, I know, I shouldn't have threatened him. I'm sorry. Look, you remember those bullets we sometimes find in the steam tray?"

". . . yeah. What 'bout it?"

"Well." Annie took a deep breath. Time to think like a quartermaster. "Who cleans the steam trays?"

Eighty-Six frowned. "Used to be SOS's job. Got taken over six months back or so . . . Whiskey said SOS wasn't shit at it. Murphy does that now. Why?"

"Long story. Pray it's just me being crazy again." Annie staggered to her feet. "I've got to go now, okay?"

She could feel Eighty-Six's puzzled gaze on her back as she ducked out of the bunkroom again. Her head was still spinning (the other woman had a damn hard slap on her. Chopper better not piss off his girlfriend, she thought wryly) but the hamsters were running at full speed and finally there was the tiniest spark of light appearing in the depths of the brain bulb.

Murphy. Murphy, who'd been with Joe since the beginning. Murphy, who volunteered to take over other peoples' shifts and was trusted as much, if not more, than Whiskey Down himself. Murphy, always so friendly with poor confused Short Stack and who knew the base so well that he could predict when the shrink might be sicced on her. Who had access to the check-in sheet. Oh, God, she hoped she was wrong.

But if she wasn't? Well, then she had to do something. It was time to get back in the kitchen.