When I wake up the next morning next to you, Barney, fully clothed and on the same bed, you are looking at me most strangely. There's something behind your eyes, something searching and hoping, that makes me want to help you find and answer your prayer.

I revel in the startling lightness of my heart. Last night the wound in my soul split wide open, and all the infection drained out. Now, I am shocked at the way I feel: absolutely free.

So I croak with painful relish, "Hey."

You reply, "Hey."

That word says it all: there's an inflection in your tone that was not there before. I have to smile at it, because it is voicing a chorus with your eyes.

I slide off your chest and walk to the bathroom, needing some air. It is not fair to accept your gifts (the look, the tone, and the emotion behind them) without knowing you are certain you want to give them. We have only known each other for a month. You know me as a person, but not my history, my past, why I am the way I am.

Put that tone away for now, Barney, and those beautiful, beseeching brown eyes. Until you are sure, I cannot accept them.

I can tell you are waiting for the other foot to drop, as though last night was an escalation and not a surrender. Even as we get up, start the day, and retrieve our laundry from Lou's you are very quiet and observe me closely like you would a hostile force approaching your ambush.

I notice the looks we get as you trail behind me in Walmart, but I cannot focus on them and the unimaginable amount of things on the shelves. We drop off my prescription at the little house in the middle of the store, and waste time until it is ready. The hugeness of the store amazes me: a testament to America's consumerism. Some things are obvious as to their purpose: DVDs, books, yarn, pillows. Other things are more obscure, and I stop to examine them until I understand them: neckties, whisks, dog beds, Nintendo DS, baby shoes, weirdly scented candles. I go up and down every aisle, and you are so shell shocked from last night that you don't even complain.

As I glimpse you pacing outside the women's underclothes section, waiting for me, I remember that you cried last night, too. I frown in thought, because the memory is so vivid it disturbs me. Why did you cry? Are you that invested in me? Is that the well from which flows your searching looks, your tender tone?

Do you care so much about me? If so, why? This question cannot be answered by looking at it, unlike the blue brassiere in my hand. I cannot stare at you until I understand, and that is somewhat frustrating. I know you feel kinship and affection, but that might be just a product of living so closely.

In the end, as we eat our MREs at home, I resign myself to wait. This mystery will only reveal itself fully if I gather the facts as they present themselves.

Because if the answer is what I am expecting, hoping, wondering...

I cannot afford to be wrong.

The hairbrush I had so looked forward to using turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Instead of making my hair shiny and silky like the small photo on the cardboard backing, it gets snarled uselessly and firmly.

I struggle with it for probably ten minutes before I realize: I have so little attachment to my hair, anymore.

If I let go of the weight on my head, will the weight on my heart be let go, too?

You cut my hair hesitantly.

We watch the tangles blow away down the tarmac, and I feel a piece of my hurt go with them, into the night, never to be seen again.

When Christmas drops by, I am caught off guard.

I hear you bolt to the front door at the sound of a motorcycle, and wonder why.

When I poke my head out, your friend surprises me and sends me back to the that dark hut in the jungle for the shortest moment. I remember him last toting a gun, copious amounts of mud, and camouflage facepaint.

So, for lack of something better, I do what I have seen on television: invite him in, sit him down, and offer him coffee.

You, Barney, are glaring at him like he's broken a promise. Do you not want him here?

As I sneak your stout into a coffee mug, I figure it out. You are worried I will suffer a setback from Christmas' prescence. I steel myself at the thought, because I have not come this far in the few days after my breakdown to throw it all away.

It might be best if he came back another time, though. I am put off by him more than I care to admit. As I help you clean up the mess from the small fire on your workbench, I hint at that.

You take it as an opportunity to test me. In the thick of it all, I manage to put aside my ill associations with Christmas, and even start to like him because he is good to you and kind to me.

The next thing I know, I'm thundering down the tarmas on the back of Christmas, or rather, his Ducati.

Oh. Oh.

Now I understand! Now I see why you do this! Elation fills me and I forget I am with Christmas, forget I am scared to death of falling, forget I am still healing, forget everything in the face of the rush.

But Christmas is not the one I want to ride with.

When I shyly ask if I can ride with you, Barney, you get this flush about you that makes myy insides flop.

I fall in love with motorcycles that day, and with my arms wrapped securely around your chest, my head resting on your back over your raven and skull tattoo, I start to feel something of the same for you.

Barney, present:

Later in the week, I get two job offers that change the course of our lives: one via a visit, and the other through a phone call.

I've got the truck up on ramps in the hangar bay, and I'm under it changing the oil. You're there with me. I gave the goggles to you because, knowing your curious cranings, you'd get a faceful of spent oil before I'd have time to warn you.

I'm steadfastly ignoring the way your hair fans out on the ground like a coffee halo, and how geeky-cute you look in the clunky goggles, and how politely patient you are with your ankles crossed and hands folded on your stomach. It's a look I would love to see you sporting with less clothes, and on a much cushier surface...

Dammit. That's my near-constant manatra these days: dammit, Ross. Get your head on straight/mind out of the gutter/priorities aligned/gumption up to just fucking talk to her about it. I've never been one to turn down an opportunity to grow a pair, but talking to you about the attraction that grows between us every day like a weed? Mayday, mayday, mayday.

"I read the manual for the truck," you say while you watch me work the wrench on the bolt. "It told me when and how to change the oil, but not why."

The bolt is fairly stuck. Even with the degree of care I take, she still rusts in some places. "Well," I grunt, my angle awkward because of the drip pan underneath the filter. "It improves mileage, and keeps everything else working better, for good or bad, depending on if you keep it up."

"Like if you stub your toes, it affects your entire body by the way you walk?"

"Yeah, a little like that. Watch out," the bolt comes free, and the filter comes off in my hand, and the thick black substance streams out.

You adjust the pan to catch it more squarely, and we're left to watch the dark fluid fall. "I read about the different kinds of oil. What is the difference?"

I mimic your pose: ankles crossed, hands folded on my stomach, which is still sore from sparring. The smell of your hair and the oil faintly teases my nose like a mechanic's wet dream. "There's a couple of different kinds - "

I stop, hearing something in the distance that makes my hackles raise and eyes narrow. I look out from under the truck, to the hangar entrance.

You see the change and ask concernedly, "What is it?"

I roll out from under the truck, and you are quick to follow. "We aren't expecting visitors in cars."

There's a BMW rolling across the tarmac, headed straight for the hangar.

I turn to you and say in a no-nonsense tone, "Go get the .38, now." I would tell you to go inside and stay there, but whoever is nearing the hangar has already seen you, and you would hate to be coddled.

Your face looks trepeditious as you jog into the living quarters and return a few seconds later as the car rolls to a squeakless stop. You're holding the gun behind your back like your hands are clasped, and the demure look about you is enough for me to almost chuckle at your poker face.

Almost.

The car turns off, and I'm pretty tense: my hand's on my own pistol, ever-present in my waist holster, and I'm hating that I can't see past the window tint.

"Stay sharp. If I tell you to move - "

"I got it," you say evenly. Your eyes are as sharp as mine.

The car door pops open, and out steps Trench Mauser.

Son of a bitch, I think. "Son of a bitch," I say.

"Nice to see you too, Barney," replies the Austrian native. His full height drawn, he slams the car door and takes two steps closer, leaving only two steps more between us.

"Close enough," I growl, hand around the butt of my pistol. "Whatchyou want, coming to my home? Is Austria doing the invading, for once?"

He laughs sarcastically. "Funny guy, Barney. That's why I kill you last."

You stiffen, and your glance to me is furtive.

I'm not terribly worried: he's got no visible weapons. And besides, this sort of word war is our version of...well, I guess you could call it foreplay. It's a measured sort of posturing aggression between two male lions of different prides. Trench's mercenary crew has been my team's only competition for a long time. Sometimes we beat them out of jobs because of experience, other times they underbid us, and still others it's reversed.

"Not likely," I snort. "I say again: whatchyou want, Trench?"

You're reading the dynamics and catching on quickly. I see you marginally relax.

"Bad manners, Barney," chides Trench. He pins you with his best thousand-yard-stare, like he's inspecting your very soul. "You haven't introduced me to your lady friend."

To my pride, you don't flinch. I know what it's like to be under that scrutinizing glare. If my hidden power is my instantaneous Look, Trench's is the longer Stare. You stare back at him like you're eyeing a grenade: acknowledging it's destructive power, but knowing the pin is intact. "My name is Meera," you say clearly, with the barest hint of a throat tweak.

Trench smiles without mirth, and cocks his head at you, then me. "I didn't know you took in strays, Barney! If I see any cats in the alley, I'll be sure to pick them up for you."

"Watch it," I snap, clenching my gun tighter but keeping it holstered. Trench knows I can peck the wings off a butterfly at twenty paces: I can hit him somewhere nonfatal but painful as hell in less time than a blink if he continues to piss me off.

You look mildly insulted, but you know the power of words is minimal. "I would offer to shake your hand," you reply cooly. "But I hate getting dirty."

Trench doesn't miss a beat. "That would require you letting go of the gun you've got."

Your face sours and turns contemptuous. "Maybe you will hear it better in a different voice: what are you doing here?"

He grins at you patronizingly. "Just how old are you? Let the grownups talk, little lady."

You lose any chill you had. "Hey, assbutt - !"

I put out the hand that isn't on the butt of my pistol to stop you from taking another step towards him. "Easy," I say softly. To Trench, "Anything you have to say, say it now."

You glower at him like a bobcat in a trap, and put your own pistol by your side.

"Well-trained stray, too, I see," he coos. "I recently bid for a job in the Himilayas and won."

"Whoopty-fucking-doo," I snap.

"That was before I knew of some...extenuating circumstances that prevent me and my crew from carrying it out."

That's a completely new one on me. Since when does Trench Mauser have extenuating circumstances? "Such as...?"

He smiles infuriatingly. "That's for me to know, and you never to find out. My point is, I don't want the job. I've told the biddee as much, and he suggested I find someone who can do it in my place."

"Or, let me guess, he'll stuff your nuts down your throat," I snicker. "You already took his money, attempted the job, and failed, didn't you?"

Trench's face flickers with something so fast, I have to read its wake as worry, if not outright concern. He stiffens his jaw. "I will pay you your normal fee of one-million dollars per member of your crew, if you take this job for me. Are you interested or not?"

"Make it one-point-four mill apiece, and I'll consider it," I rejoin.

He stifles a flinch like a good soldier. "One-point-one."

"One-point-two, not a damn cent less," I counter. You nod firmly in agreement.

He sneers, but we both know that his expenses will be covered with whatever he's taking off the top, plus pocket lining. "Fine. One-point-two."

I extend my hand, not as a peace offering, but as a formality, and he grasps it. We meet eyes like two snakes, and for a split second, try to crush each other's hands.

"Here's how you can get in touch with the biddee," Trench says, tossing me a prepaid cellphone. I glance at the contacts list, and there's only one number. I nod.

"I'll be seeing you never, Ross," says the Austrian, pulling on a pair of shades. "And you, Meera, maybe again."

As one, you and I flip the safeties off our guns with twin clicks.

"I'm going, I'm going," Trench says lazily, getting back into the car. It hums to life, and he leaves a skidmark on my hangar bay floor.

"I really do not like that guy," you mutter, flipping the safety back on and putting the gun in the back of your jeans.

I scoff. "I've worked with him before, and I know his own mama don't like him." I glance sidelong at you. "Assbutt?"

You blush faintly. "It just came out."

"I see." I look back over at the truck. "I think the oil's done draining."

You sigh to let go of the tension and follow me back under the truck.

As I slide the pan aside, I mutter, "You totally could've taken him."

You smile fiercely. "Shit yeah, I could."

"You're on your third curse word already. I'm proud."

"Just show me how to put the filter in, Barney."

Okay, shameless plugging of old Arnold, there. For those who need a refresher, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Trench Mauser in Expendables 1 and 2. In one of his previous movies, he says that line: "You're a funny guy Sully. That's why I kill you last." In real life, Ah-nold is in fact Austrian (that's why he can't run for President: he's not a natural-born USA citizen), and I don't know what nationality he plays Trench as, so I rolled real life into fiction.

Yep, bring out all the woodwork characters, here. :)