Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns.

Unbeta'd, unedited.

July 1
Rendezvous Point
50 Kilometers Out from Target Compound
Somewhere West-Central Somalia, Along the Ethiopian Border

"Dude, you look like dog shit."

Bella glanced up from the stack of wrinkled papers on her lap just in time to catch Emmett lift up on his elbows and flip off the rough-looking Delta as he slid through the long, dried grasses that hung across the door-like opening of the hut.

Belting out a laugh, Staff Sergeant Paul Lahote leaned his rifle against the mud-brick wall by the entrance and plopped down on an olive-colored ammo box positioned beside the Marine. "Seriously, though," he said, as he chucked his Kevlar to the ground. "What'd that shit feel like?"

Judging by the days-old stubble on his face and scalp, the drooping eyes – one of which was ringed by faint purple-black bruising – and the slump of his massive shoulders, Cullen's staff sergeant had seen better days.

"Which one? The poison or the cure?" Emmett frowned. "Man, I thought my whole body was on fire. Felt like my organs were bein' cooked."

"Yeah?" Producing a small round tin from of his front pocket, Paul popped the top and tucked a pinch of pungent tobacco behind his lower lip. "Doesn't sound that bad."

"The fuck, it wasn't. Thought I'd died and been sent to Hell." Leaning back against his loaded pack, Emmett dry-washed his face and then thumbed over to Bella. "Let's just say you do not want to piss that woman off." The corners of his lips curled down into a hard grimace. "Shit she plays with can fuck your shit up like no one's business.

The Delta's flat gaze moved from Emmett to the Marines' pet scientist on the other side of the room, where she sat cross-legged on top of an old, handwoven mat, wearing a fleece MARPAT jacket four sizes too big. Crinkled papers covered in black and white scrawl littered the dirt-floor around her. Her hair was pulled away from her pale, narrow face into some kind of messy knot with a bright blue pen stuck through the middle. The woman looked more like a librarian than a soldier. She looked small and soft and weak.

"Yeah, she looks terrifying alright." He offered her his dip and laughed at her wrinkled-up nose.

A high, tinkling giggle broke the silence, as Alice vaulted over Emmett's sprawled out legs and danced across the room. "B, don't listen to them," she said, dropping down to another old, faded mat right next to Bella's. "They're just fucking with you. I mean, Em was literally singing you were his best friend ever all the way over from that crap hotel."

Emmett's middle finger shot up again. "Was not."

Deep in the back of the hut, Jasper's head popped up. "Uh, yeah, you were, Big Man. Trust me. You sounded like a dyin' donkey. Thought the Captain was gonna knock your ass out just to shut you up."

"Whatever." Emmett scrubbed his face again. "I don't remember shit. I was too busy tryin' not to puke my guts up. Your driving sucks, Corporal."

"Yeah, okay. You keep tellin' yourself that."

With a quick elbow jab in Bella's ribs, Alice snickered. "See? Told you!" She snorted out another inelegant laugh when the staff sergeant grumbled something under his breath. "And Paul…" Out of nowhere, she whipped out a beige packet with darker beige lettering and tore into it with her teeth. "He's a gigantic butthole who never gets laid. No one even likes him. Ignore everything he says."

The Delta's face scrunched up. "Butthole?" He kicked Emmett's boot. "Did that little shit just call me a butthole?" Bending at the waist, Paul picked up an old, dented bottle cap and flicked it across the room, hitting the mud wall just above the lieutenant's head.

With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, Emmett shook his head before slouching deeper against his pack. "Just leave it, man." The Marine grabbed his cover and flopped it over his tired, bloodshot eyes. "Don't get her started. You won't win."

Alice beamed. "'Bout time you figured that out."

Before either of the men could pop back, the long grasses at the door parted again, bringing in a wide wedge of bright yellow sunlight and a swirl of fine rust-colored dust. Stale and dry, the air carried hints of honeyed sweetness from the ancient, umbrella-shaped acacias nearby.

Squinting into the dark, Rosalie stepped into the old, abandoned oblong hut they'd set up as a forward base, trailed by Black's eerily silent and disturbingly capable sergeant first class. As she dropped her gear next to a propped-up rifle near the opening, she called to the back of the room to their corporal and thumbed toward the door. "Jazz, Captain needs you to go coordinate with Black's long-guns. Scooby picked up some visuals you need to look at, too."

"You got it." The younger man hopped up, clipped in his M110, and skirted through the door before she could even peel off her vest.

Wearing a ghost of a smile, Rosalie shook her head at the corporal's bounding gait and then stepped over Emmett's tree-trunks for thighs. "How do you feel, Staff Sergeant," she asked him, nudging his knee with the toe of her boot. Before the man could mutter out an answer, she turned a sharp, pointed glare to the beefy Delta parked on the ammo box beside him. "Move."

Lazily glancing up, Paul's eyes went wide in a show of petulant surprise. "Oh," the sergeant drawled, barely concealing a mischievous grin that promised nothing good. Not breaking eye contact, he spat a glob of goopy black tobacco to the side. "Am I in your seat, Gunny?"

At the man's sarcastic quip, that stale, stagnant air that filled the room instantly electrified.

Across the room, Alice jabbed Bella's ribs again, and when the other woman startled and looked up from her stack of papers, she eagerly motioned over to the two sergeants locked in silent challenge. The lieutenant crammed a too-big bite of cookie in her mouth and without bothering to chew, behind a cupped palm, whispered a too-loud, "This ought to be fun."

Slowly, deliberately, the gunnery sergeant's sharp, no-nonsense glare turned even sharper, and a beat later, a single sculpted brow arched. "You heard me, dick. Move it."

Paul's lips stretched wider. "What's the magic word, Sweetheart?"

"Oh, fuck, he did not." Alice snorted, as an abruptly pale-faced Emmett grabbed his cover and scrambled to the right, out of the line of fire. Now fully aware of the room, Bella side-eyed their pilot, who just crammed another cookie in her mouth and grinned like the Cheshire cat.

Slowly, Rosalie peeled off her dusty gloves and tossed them to the side. Her fists dropped to her hips and when she spoke, her voice held that same frigid serenity that the captain put on when he was getting ready to rip someone in two. "You will get up before I get you up, Sergeant."

Uncertain and heart beating a little faster, Bella's gaze darted from one member of the team to another, finally landing on the towering, silent operator standing in the back. With his tattooed arms crossed over his vest and forearms flexing, SFC Jared Cameron looked every bit the menace he was. Just as she meant to look away, however, she caught the brief flash of amusement that rippled across the man's stern, unshaven face and Bella had the sudden, distinct impression that he might just enjoy watching his teammate get his ass handed to him by their gunny. When he caught her staring, Jared just winked and began settling into Jasper's vacated spot against the wall for a few moments of shut-eye.

The tense stand-off went on for another handful of seconds, before Paul's cocky grin finally crumpled into flustered confusion. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Rosalie's blue eyes rolled. "No shit, Sherlock. Now move your ass out of my way. I won't tell you again."

With a huff and wearing an unconscious almost toddler-like pout, the Delta slowly lumbered to his feet, topping the pissed off blonde by at least a head, and he scowled over to Jared, who just shrugged his wide shoulders like it was any other day.

"What the fuck, Trick?"

A low rumble of a laugh answered him. "Not my fault you're an idiot."

As he moved past, Paul bumped the gunnery sergeant's shoulder, netting him another eye roll, and he muttered under his breath, "Jesus, you are mean."

The peel of Alice's out of place laughter cut across the silence, followed by muffled chuckles and snorts all around. At the Delta's angry grumble, that nail-spitting glare of Rosalie's abruptly broke into a beatific, model-worthy grin, and she laughed right along.

"Too easy, Howler," she said, wiping away a tear as she took over his spot on the ammo box. "You Deltas are too fucking easy."

Hours later, long after the sun had sunk behind the soaring plateau to their west, Edward stepped out of the nearby barn-like enclosure, leaving Black to work up his strike plan. As he crossed the flat, dusty yard, he signaled the Delta sniper team positioned on the adjacent rise and located his corporal, just as he made another round.

Eyes always moving, searching the rapidly darkening pink horizon, Jasper nodded to his commander. "How's it lookin'?"

Staring out at the same barren landscape, Edward just shook his head.

With a low grunt of acknowledgment, the corporal tugged at his chin strap and then shifted his rifle to the crook of his arm. "Typical shitshow."

"That's one way to put it." The captain's lips mashed together, and he waved an aggravated hand. "Langley is being…"

"Fucking Langley?"

"Pretty much." Sore from so many hours bent over their makeshift maps and portable screens, Edward rolled his neck to the left, then the right, letting out a slow, tired exhale as the tight vertebrae crunched and popped. "Even the General is pissed. Told 'em to get their shit together and stop playing politics, only he added a few choice modifiers."

Jasper's face split into a wide, toothy grin, completely at odds with their location and situation. "Fuck me, but I'd have paid to see that." Shifting his rifle position again, his finger unconsciously curled toward the trigger. "Any idea when we're heading out?"

Edward made a low tsking noise. "Soon. That's the sum of their input at the moment."

"Jesus Christ." Jasper chuckled, lifting his gray-eyed gaze to the winking stars above. High up on the rise, a wrapper crackled, and there was scuff of a boot against the rock. "What about the Israelis?"

"At least there's one thing going our way," Edward told the younger man, recalling the steely, determined – and very eager – expression the Major wore when they'd spoken only hours before. "Eli's team is moving into place as we speak. They can't take direct action, but they'll be positioned to the north of the compound, where they can run some interference and back us up if shit hits the fan."

Which it inevitably would, Edward knew.

"Once they're ready to go, it won't be long. A couple of days more, max." His hands fell to his hips in a familiar pose. "By then we should have some better numbers to go with that intel Black pulled."

"What about Bear-man?"

"What about him?"

Angling slightly, the corporal caught the faint, barely detectable signs of tension crawling through his commander's stance and expression. That he even caught those signs spoke volumes. "He goin' with us?"

After a long still moment, Edward finally sighed. His bright, ever-moving eyes dropped from the distant skyline to the dry, crunching dirt beneath their boots, where he followed a line of crisscrossing boot prints, and then rose again. "We'll see how he's doing," he said softly. "I'd prefer to get his ass back to the carrier or even better to Tel Aviv where they can check him out… just to make sure." His frown turned into a grim scowl. "You can guess how well that conversation would go."

Jasper chuffed. "Yeah, no kidding."

With another tired sigh, Edward dry-washed his face, pushing the heels of his palms into the dark hollows around his eyes. "Plus," he said, blinking at the low throb in his head. "Frankly, we need him. We're short on people already."

"And he's a fucking beast."

A bark of a laugh tumbled out of Edward mouth. "There's that, too."

Glancing down at the slim, burgundy case peeking out from one of his chest pockets, the corporal turned serious. "Least we know Doc's antidote works."

Edward didn't respond, and for a long moment, an easy silence borne from years of working in close proximity stretched on, where both men continued to scan the ever-darkening landscape, searching for any hint of motion or shifting shadow. The soft flutter of a nightjar's nighttime flight came from overhead, just as Edward turned to his Marine. "How are you doing, Corporal?"

With an almost-imperceptible start – a reaction the captain caught only because he was watching for it – Jasper eyed his commander askance. "Huh?"

"Last few weeks have been shit." The stress lines crossing Edward's forehead that never quite went away deepened. "Your count's… getting on up there."

Jasper's shoulders rolled in a lazy shrug. "Not much higher than yours or Blondie's."

Edward glanced up toward the nearby hill, searching for the tell-tale glint of the rising moon off steel. "You and I both know eyeballing targets through a scope and intentionally taking them out is a whole different ballgame. It's not like close combat where you don't have time to think about it."

Following the line of his commander's attention, Jasper pointed a little further to the right, where he could just make out the rounded outline of Quil's Kevlar sitting behind that big old Barrett Black's team always dragged around. That thing could pop a dime in outer space… if you didn't mind humping an extra twenty pounds. One corner of his mouth pulled up into an asymmetrical smile. "I sleep just fine, Captain."

"You sure?"

"You know," Jasper slowly drawled, as he adjusted an out of place strap on his chest harness and then tugged on another to reseat his vest. "When I was growing up back on the ranch, I always had to go way out on the range to check the cattle, especially during calving season." The corporal paused, kneeled next to one of the scraggly tufts of tall, dry grasses, and plucked one of the longer stalks. "Sometimes I'd run across various wild animals, out there just doin' their thing. Never bothered me. I didn't bother them."

Out of habit, the Marine placed the cylindrical blade between his teeth and chewed for a few long seconds. "Used to see this old coyote from time to time." He glanced over to Edward, noting the intensity and focus he wore like a second skin. "Mostly just grabbed moles and rabbits and shit. Never once saw him harassing the cattle and they barely even noticed him, so I didn't care too much about him."

"One day, though," he went on. "I came across a good bit of carnage." Jasper spat to the side and his eyes narrowed. "See that old coyote killed one of the new calves. Maybe a day old or so. Made a mess of it, too. Its mother was only a few feet away, bellowin' and bleatin' like crazy." He shook his head at the pang of memory. "I tried to get closer, just to see if there was anything that could be done, but somethin' was wrong with that animal. He looked… off. Aggressive. Growlin'. Had bloody foam all over his muzzle, and I realized that coyote had gone rabid. Rabies or some shit. And when I finally went to pull that calf carcass, he came at me." Jasper spun the blade of grass between his teeth. "So, I shot him, to protect myself and the rest of the cattle."

Still staring out across the desert landscape, they were silent for a little while longer.

"Sometimes, Captain," Jasper's voice turned soft and low. "I think people go rabid, too. You can't fix 'em or cure 'em. Best you can do is take 'em out before they infect and kill everyone else. And these fuckers? Especially that SOB, Aro, they're like that old coyote. They need to be put down." Abruptly, he flicked the stalk to the ground and stared his commander straight in the eye. "So, no, I don't lose a wink of sleep, and my conscience is as clear as that starlit sky above us."

The tension in Edward's posture uncoiled, just a little, and he gave his youngest Marine a rare, wry smile. "Didn't take you for a philosopher."

Jasper just laughed. "It's all that time sittin' up in hidey holes and shit." The straight line of his shoulders rolled in another lazy shrug, lifting his rifle right along with them. "Nothin' better to do…" A few moments later, as he tracked a subtle rustle in a stand of distant bushes, Jasper asked, "You really think we can do this?"

Edward stared out across the vast, barren landscape, logging the same subtle signs of the desert's nocturnal wildlife. "Honestly, I don't know. But we'll take as many of them out as we possibly can."

"Oohrah." Jasper patted his M110 like it was his baby, and steel crept into his expression. "If it's alright by you, if you don't get to 'em first, I'd sure like a crack at that James fucker. Spetsnaz, too."

A split second of recalled rage flashed across the captain's features before morphing into a mask of neutrality that did nothing to fool his Marine. When Edward didn't respond, and instead just stood there squeezing his fists until the sinewy muscles of his forearms flexed and rolled, Jasper cleared his throat. "What about Doc?"

"What about her?" Calm, cold fury coated every word.

"Those fuckers got a serious hard on for her." Jasper scratched his chin. "Can't we send her back home, or put her with the Israelis?"

Closing his eyes, Edward tilted his head back and tried his damnedest to suppress tendrils of what he could only describe as panic that had been worming their way through his guts ever since Walker nearly stole her away in that godforsaken basement lab. "I wish I could," he finally said, inhaling a deep chest-full of dry, desert air. Something in between a laugh and a sigh came out. "I don't think she'd go, even if I ordered it. She's worse than Emmett."

Jasper's shoulders shook. "Well, she's shit at following orders, that's for sure." His face screwed up. "It's pretty fuckin' funny so long as no one's shootin' at us." Before Edward could reply – before he could tell his Marine just how un-funny it was when he couldn't predict the woman's movements and reactions – Jasper went on, "I like her, though… a whole lot more than I thought I would when they dropped her in our lap."

Across the feet between them, Edward eyed the other man, noting the not-so-subtle smirk that had inched its way into the corporal's features in direct contrast to his seemingly innocent words. Half amused and half annoyed, he blew out a loud breath. "Jesus… you, too?"

That smirk vanished and the corporal's eyes popped in put on indignation. "What?"

"Did Alice put you up… No, wait, never mind." A hand sliced the air. "I really don't want to know." Even in the dark, Edward could see the hint of pink climbing the corporal's neck, and he could only shake his head. As he turned toward the hut in the center of the yard, he called out over his shoulder, "Make sure you get some rest, Corporal. Don't let those fucking Deltas con you into a double shift. "

"No, sir!"

Edward didn't have to turn around to know that that smirk was back and in full force.

A handful of long strides later, Edward slipped through the long grasses and into the hut, silent and light on his feet, and as always, he automatically scanned the room, cataloguing the position of each and every snoring Marine and soldier. In the far left-hand corner, the dim glow of a flashlight grabbed his attention. As he padded through the maze of bodies, he watched the focused stillness of their scientist, as she pored over the pile of papers they'd managed to retrieve from the villa and that lab out in the desert. When he was only a few feet away, without warning, her neck craned, and her eyes, nothing more than liquid pools in the darkness, found his with unerring accuracy.

"Dr. Swan," he murmured, as he shucked his vest and slowly lowered himself to the open spot beside her. As he settled in, his bare forearms brushed against the soft, worn, too-big fleece he'd given her weeks ago. How the woman could stand wearing the extra layer in the heat, he couldn't fathom, but something about her in his clothes made those curling tendrils of panic in his gut ease up, just a little.

When he bumped her shoulder and plucked his flashlight from between her teeth, her lips spread into the soft, easy smile she seemed to reserve just for him. "Captain."

With his elbows propped on his knees, Edward pushed his aching back against the hard mud-wall behind them, trying to force the knots to uncoil. "Thought you'd be out cold by now," he said. His voice was little more than a low whisper.

"I tried." Brows furrowed, Bella blew out a shaky breath, and then with another soft smile – this one just a little forced – she waved a random hand at the room. "These people? They have a gift. I swear they can sleep anywhere."

Without making a sound, Edward's shoulders shook and seeing the wonder written in every one of her too-pretty features, his eyes danced. "Eh, it comes with the territory."

Bella's brows cinched even harder. "Why's that?"

Shoulders still bouncing, the captain picked at a spiky bur caught in his laces. "When you go through long periods of no sleep on a regular basis…" Glancing up to gauge her reaction, he shrugged. "You learn pretty quickly to catch your winks anywhere, anytime." Hearing the familiar chainsaw-like rumble, he pointed over to the hulking shadow across the room. "Em can sleep through a mortar round. I've seen it."

The look she gave him was priceless, but then that wonder abruptly vanished and was replaced by something else. It was something softer, something that he wasn't used to seeing, and something that made his heart thump a little harder against his sternum. "What about you?" she asked.

Ducking his head, Edward picked at another bur. "I'll be fine. I always am."

Bella cocked her head to the side. "You know, you don't have to be superman all the time… at least not around me."

His eyes found hers, soft and warm, and he swallowed against the sudden tightness in his chest and tried his damnedest to tamp down the sudden, unbidden, burned-into-his-brain images of her straddling him in that rundown hotel shower. It didn't help when the tip of her tongue swiped across her bottom lip – a small, unconscious movement on her part – taking with it every bit of his attention.

A few moments later, Bella glanced over to Rosalie, where she sat, dead to the world and slumped against the wall. The mountain beside her had shifted toward her at some point in his sleep, and the two Marines were now a single dark shadow. Her lips twitched. "Rosalie is… intimidating, did you know that?"

Edward started at the unexpected turn in conversation. Following her gaze back to his sleeping sergeants, he let out a soft laugh. "I'm aware." When she rolled her pretty eyes at his flatly spoken understatement, he had to school his responding expression. "Who'd she go after this time?"

"Paul." She thumbed toward the back of the hut. "That dummy called her Sweetheart."

A wide, out of place grin stretched across Edward's entire face, momentarily erasing the tell-tale tired creases and plum-gray hollows ringing his eyes. "Did she punch him?"

Matching his grin with one of her own, Bella pinched her thumb and forefinger together. "It was this close."

"Good for her." Edward picked up an old red bottlecap off the dirt and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. "She probably needed to let off a little steam."

Hesitating before sharing this next part, Bella watched the lines slowly creep back into Edward's features and took a deep breath. "You know," she said, as the already-mangled end of her pen found its way between her teeth. "I think she and Emmett aren't just sleeping together."

Edward's fingers slowed their motion. "What do you mean?"

"She redressed his shoulder at least three times this afternoon and she practically shoveled two of those awful chili mac MREs into him," Bella said, her voice as soft as silk. "She was… fussing over him... in her own way."

He flipped the cap over again, noting the blunted sharpness of the crimps. "Yeah?"

"I think she loves him." When the man beside her went absolutely still – motionless in a way that very few could ever achieve – and assumed a studiously blank expression, she went on, waving her pen like it would magically make her point. "And Emmett… he worships the ground she walks on. It's… very sweet…" Those too-pretty lips twitched again and she shoved her pen back between her teeth. "And, okay, maybe a little scary, because together they're… wow."

It took him a second to reply, as if he were having to turn her words over in his head. "You're probably right," Edward finally said, as he tossed his bottlecap to the side. "I hope so. They deserve to have something meaningful outside of all this. And they're good together… despite the constant bickering." After another few seconds of silence, his Adam's apple dipped behind his collar, and his eyes, intense and probing, roamed her face in a non-stop circuit. So hushed she almost missed it, he asked, "What about you?"

"What about me?" Bella rubbed at a spot of rust-colored dirt on the cargo pocket of her utility pants.

"Are you… I don't know…" His Adam's apple bobbed again. "Attached to someone back home?"

Pale pink climbed Bella's neck to her cheeks. "Um, no." Mouth opening, then closing, and then finally opening once more, she went on. "I don't think we'd have…" Flustered, her hand batted the air, waving at both nothing and everything. "I'd have, well… you know."

A long ribbon of hair escaped the messy knot on the top of her head and curled into her chin. Without realizing what he was doing, Edward reached over and rubbed the silky strands between his fingers before finally tucking it behind her ear. His fingers lingered against her skin a little longer than they should have, and again, his senses were bombarded with those few moments of pent-up tension and intimacy.

"Good to know." His voice was lower, a little rougher.

"What about you?" She stared up at him, leaning in closer, where she could feel the warmth radiating off his trim frame, and where she could just catch the oh-so-faint hint of a now-familiar aftershave. "Are you… attached?"

Edward's response was immediate and absolute. "No, I'm not… at all." He looked away, back toward his sleeping Marines, and cleared his throat. "Not many people can tolerate what I do." Before she could respond, his mouth just kept running, against all better judgement, never mind where they were. "But if we make it out of this, I'm hoping that changes."

The nail rasping across Bella's pants stilled at the sudden roller-coaster drop in her stomach. Not quite sure that she heard what she heard, her teeth worried the inside of her cheek, but then without conscious direction, her hand reached across the scant space between them to find his, and her fingers threaded between his longer ones. "I hope so, too."

They sat there for a long, quiet moment, neither speaking, nor moving. When the calloused pad of Edward's thumb started gently, lazily circling the back of her hand, Bella dropped her head against the hard muscle of his upper arm. Her other hand sneaked beneath her elbow and pressed against his ribcage. The hard diagonal planes rippled against her fingertips.

"What are you thinking about?" she whispered.

A short laugh punched out, and Edward bent down, such that his lips were right at her ear. "I don't think you want me saying that out loud."

That pale pink turned scarlet. "What if I do?"

"Fine." His breath tickled against her bare neck, and a fine, responding tremor skated across Bella's skin, leaving her with goosebumps despite the heat. It took everything she had not to turn and mash her lips against his. Those same lips brushed across her hair and then her forehead, as he whispered, "I'm thinking about just how much I'd like to be inside you again. How I'd like to watch you come. Repeatedly. In my bed, in yours, wherever you'll let me."

Bella's fingertips spasmed against his ribs. "You don't suffer ambiguity, do you?"

"No, I don't," Edward replied, and the intensity the captain wore reminded her all too well of the Israeli major's subtle warning way back in the Negev. "I don't want to play games with you," he went on, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm too old for that. I've seen too much. And when I want something, I go after it."

Bella sucked in a sharp breath, as her stomach took another nosedive. But this time something warm lingered, a molten pool of joy and anticipation that she hadn't felt in a long time and never would have expected to find in the middle of a desert warzone.

Wearing a breathtaking grin, Bella gave his hand a tighter squeeze, brushed her lips along the hard line of his jaw, and gave him his own words right back. "That's good to know."

.

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Glossary:

Nothing new this chapter… I don't think.