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

Unbeta'd, unedited.

July 9, Morning
Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer Hospital
Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv District, Israel

It was just past dawn when Edward's eyes finally opened and stayed that way.

For a long, quiet moment, he just stared at the plain white ceiling above, watching the retreating shadows and sorting through the dizzying blend of memories and dreams. Already knowing what was coming, he inhaled a slow, deep breath that tugged on his chest and abdomen – inside and out – and instead of gunpowder and blood, he tasted the bite of antiseptic and bleach.

Repeating the same routine a few more times, Edward pulled in more and more air with each measured breath, gradually testing and stretching the tightness in his ribcage. There wasn't an inch on him that didn't ache, but that godawful sensation of being crushed alive had vanished, and what soreness that remained had been muted by some kind of narcotic. He frowned at that, hating the numbness and fogginess that went against his entire being.

Mid exhale, somewhere to the left, leather creaked.

He automatically turned toward the sound, drawn from the blank white slate above to the wall-to-wall eastern window. There, warm, golden light streamed in between the narrow blinds, haloing a shape Edward knew in his sleep.

Curled up in a too-big leather chair with a textbook on her lap and wearing an all-too-familiar old, oversized fleece, Bella might as well have been another dream. Sunlight danced and played across the dark strands framing her face, throwing a dozen shades of copper and auburn. When she turned a page, scowling at something she'd read, that mangled pen of hers found its way to her mouth, and Edward didn't even try to fight the curve of his lips. For a second, he just stared at her, damned near mesmerized as a deep, abiding warmth flooded his veins.

When she went to turn another page, scowling even harder, he finally gave in. "Hey."

Across the room, Bella's head shot up. In a beat of mute surprise, those too-pretty lips of hers parted, but then, as her dark eyes locked on his, they spread into a broad grin that lit her entire face. Chucking the book to the table nearby, she scrambled out of the chair.

"Hey," Bella said back, barely above a whisper, as if she were afraid of breaking the spell. Her fingers, cool from the hospital air, skimmed down the inside of his forearm and wound themselves between his longer ones, squeezing and trembling. Her eyes searched his face, and for a minute, they just looked at each other like besotted fools. "You're awake."

Edward's calloused thumb skimmed across the back of Bella's hand, ghosting over soft, smooth, feminine skin. "What day is it?"

"Friday."

His forehead crinkled and he swiped his face, scratching at the itchy stubble. "How long was I out?"

That grin of hers turned down, and the inside of her cheek sucked between her teeth. "You've been in and out for a few days. You've gone into surgery twice."

Not surprised, Edward nodded. "Where are we?" he asked, although from the faint but familiar voices that drifted in from the hallway, he already had his suspicion.

"Somewhere right outside Tel Aviv, I think. They gave you a transfusion and put the chest tube in on the carrier, but you were going to need some additional… work." Her hand gave his a tight squeeze. "They had you back on a helicopter to here within an hour of us landing on the carrier. This was close. And apparently, it's a really, really good hospital."

When he would have agreed, Bella's nose scrunched and then that full-face grin was back. "And by the way," she said, almost conspiratorially, and abruptly clamped down on her bottom lip to bite back a laugh. "You should probably know that El'azar's going around saying that with all the blood they had to give you, you're half Jewish now."

Edward's shoulders shook, pulling on sore muscles and tender skin. "Of course, he is."

"He keeps telling me he's going to recruit you." Bella's eyes went wide as saucers. "Wait, is that even possible, or is he fucking with me again?"

"Technically, I guess it's possible." The captain's shoulders shook even harder, rattling the bed beneath him. That soreness turned into something truly painful, but seeing the responding amusement and warmth written in every one of Bella's features, he couldn't bring himself to care. "But never in a million years would I work for that lunatic."

"How do you feel?" Her voice was quiet, unexpectedly serious.

Edward shot her a wry smile. "I'm fine."

Bella made a tsking noise, and he swore she was a hair's breadth from pulling a Rosalie and beating him into the ground. But instead, she just said, "I'm banning that word from your vocabulary." When her fingertips brushed across his rougher skin, a small V appeared between her brows. "Seriously, how are you feeling?"

Edward glanced up to the ceiling, trying to put a name to the myriad of sensations and emotions that spun through his head. "Tired... Sore..." Turning back, he pinned her with a pointed glare. "Pissed off." But then he paused as another slug of warmth crawled through his limbs. That fist in his gut, that horrible dread he'd felt when she'd been taken, was gone, replaced by something else altogether. "Happy."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Taking in the subtle, persisting lines of stress and the smudges of plum-gray in the hollows of her eyes, he turned her question back. "How are you?"

"Fine."

Edward cocked a single brow, daring her to lie.

Blowing out a loud, annoyed breath, Bella finally answered, "Okay, fine, a little bit tired… a little bit sore." She threw him her own glare, one that he wanted to kiss right off of her. "Very angry." That put-on glower vanished as quickly as it appeared. "And very happy."

For another long, quiet moment, they simply stared at each other, neither saying a word as the air seemed to swell and spark. Her fingers spasmed, tightening around his, and a sheen of wetness made her irises shimmer. So softly he almost didn't hear, Bella asked, "Is this normal?"

"Is what normal?"

"This… this overwhelming sense of relief… and happiness." She moved in a little closer, pulling their entwined hands to her chest. "That we did it – that we won." She swallowed past a lump in her throat. "And those awful people are gone. But you're here. And I'm here… We're here, together."

Never mind the flare of pain in his back, Edward leaned forward and cupped her cheeks. His thumbs gently stroked the fine, angled lines of her cheekbones, where the bruises were already starting to yellow. She twisted a little, touching her lips to his fingertips. "Edward, it's like my skin is too tight. I feel like I'm about to burst, like I can barely breathe from it."

"Come here," he whispered, sliding over and motioning her forward.

"I don't kno–"

"I do know." He tugged with far more strength than anyone in his condition had the right to have. "And I want to hold you. I didn't think I'd get to again."

Gingerly, with a surreptitious glance toward the half-pulled curtain and the hall beyond, Bella dropped the low rail and climbed in next to him, careful not to put weight against his side. "I'm afraid I'll hit something and hurt you."

Shaking his head, Edward leaned back down to the mattress, dragged Bella's arm across his waist, and pulled her tighter into his side. "Impossible." As he eased her cheek onto his shoulder, he kissed her forehead, inhaling the light, clean, citrusy scent he'd never associate with anyone else. "Now lay down and let me have this."

Smiling at the irritated command in voice – that little reminder of exactly who he was and what he could do – she buried her nose into the warm crook of Edward's neck and just breathed. When his arm, solid and strong, tightened around her, tucking her even closer, her lips found the hard, stern plane of his jaw and then the dip at the base of his throat, rasping against the stiff, days-old hairs. She smiled against him. "You need to shave."

Just because he could, he scrubbed his scruffy chin against her cheek. "I need a lot of things. Like a toothbrush. And a shower."

Bella's whole body stiffened.

And Edward just laughed as the heat from her cheeks warmed his neck. "Not that kind. At least not… today." He kissed her forehead again, letting his lips linger. Careful to avoid the splint and bandages wrapped around her left, he dipped his fingertips into the cuff of his fleece and slowly rubbed the inside of her wrist. "Not sure I could manage that just yet." Those gemstone eyes of his – no longer dull or flat – twinkled and danced as he whispered, "I mean, unless you just want to climb o–"

"Oh, my God…" That heat turned into an inferno. "I wasn't thi–"

"I wasn't either." His fingertips crawled up her arm to her elbow, sending a wave of tiny goosebumps across her skin. "But I am now."

"You're just as bad as the rest of them, you know that?" Bella told him, but he didn't miss her palm gently flattening against the muscles in his abdomen. When she trailed lower, avoiding the angry incisions to trace the hard valleys and lines beneath the sheet between them, Edward almost changed his mind. Instead, he let her mindlessly explore, as if she were reassuring herself that this was all real. When his lips brushed across the soft wave of her hair, his chest tightened in a way that didn't hurt, and he was momentarily struck by just how long it'd been since he'd experienced this level of intimacy with anyone, if ever.

A second later, he just shrugged, lifting her with him, and answered. "What do you expect? I'm a guy, and there's a beautiful woman in bed with me… but blame it on the painkillers if it makes you feel better."

This time, she was the one shaking, which was its own special blend of torture.

Sometime later, as the tip of her nail traced his sternum, following the fading marks from her fists and the desperate attempts to keep his heart pumping, Bella said, "You've had a lot of visitors."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Your team comes by every few hours. They usually stay until Emmett and Alice get into it and then they're asked to leave." He could feel the incredulity in her expression. "Seriously, they've been kicked out twice." Peeking over Edward's shoulder, Bella glanced toward the hallway, to the sounds of pinging machines and people, and then to him. "They're ridiculous. I thought Rosalie was going to murder them the last time."

Edward barked out a laugh, immediately regretting it as a low burn spread down his entire right side. "Christ, stop making me laugh."

When he hugged her closer, she made a small noise of contentment. "Oh, and your uncle is here, too."

"Shit, really?"

"Yep, he said your aunt wouldn't let him come home until he could deliver a first-hand report on your condition."

Twisting a long strand of hair around his forefinger, Edward held it up and watched the way the incoming light bounced and gleamed. "Not surprising," he said after a second. "You think Rosalie is intimidating... my aunt puts her in the shade." His expression turned thoughtful. "Esme would have been a superb infantry commander."

Bella smiled at that, imagining the small, genteel, caramel-haired woman she'd seen in the picture on the general's desk running roughshod over a battalion of battle-hardened Marines. "Did you take after her or General Cullen?"

"Both probably. And my dad, before he died." Lazily curling another strand, in a distant, almost wistful voice, he mused, "I guess I'm a mix of all of them."

Resuming that slow tracing, her fingertips skimmed back down Edward's chest to those same hard planes of his abdomen, this time drawing small, soothing circles. The muscles there rippled at the tickling, almost-hypnotic sensation. With little effort at all, his eyelids slid shut, and coupled with the warm weight against his side, he might as well have been floating. "You trying to put me to sleep?"

Her voice was soft and gentle. "Not unless you want me to."

He gave himself a little shake and carefully captured her wandering hand. "Not yet. I want to spend some time with you."

A few seconds later, Bella made another one of those faces that he could feel. "Captain Black and his team are somewhere nearby," she said. "And El'azar, too. He said next time, if you weren't awake, he was going to bring Tanya and let her talk you into consciousness."

The captain's face stretched, imagining the chattering waif of a little girl who'd once boldly declared she was marrying him, or else. "I guess he'll be disappointed then."

Bella propped up on her elbow and looked down at him. "So, what happens next?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do we do after this?" she said, waving a hand at the room. "Where do we go?"

"We go home." His shoulders rolled, and one corner of his mouth pulled up into a half-smile. "They'll probably say I'm good enough to fly in a couple of days, supervised, of course." He rolled his eyes. "You can go back early with Carlisle if you want."

She huffed like he was an idiot. "I meant when we get home."

Edward's shoulders rolled again. "We go back to work. You'll get your lab back, if that's what you want." His features pinched. "They'll probably make me teach some boring-ass recruit class or something until I can pass a fitness test again." He paused. "God forbid, they put me behind a desk." An irritated hand raked through his mess of hair, and his jaw ticked. "I will go work for El'azar then."

She grinned because she knew he wasn't lying.

"And then at night," the captain said, as soft as spun silk. "You'll let me take you out to eat or to a movie. We'll do what normal people do." Staring into her dark eyes, intense and probing, Edward slowly reached up to frame her too-pretty face. His fingers slid into the satin of her hair, wanting more than anything to pull her mouth down to his. "And we'll ask each other a bunch of dumb questions that don't really matter because we're supposed to get to know each other before I'm allowed to ask you the important ones."

Butterflies fluttered in Bella's stomach. "Like what's your favorite color?" she asked, running her nose along his jaw.

His eyes slid shut, content in a way he'd never imagined when he first met her that day in the general's office.

"Well? What is it?"

One eye opened. "What's what?"

Another one of those annoyed huffs spilled out. "Your favorite color."

His eyes – bright and fiery in the morning light – roamed her face in a slow, repeating circuit, finally stopping and boring into hers with that same intensity that made her stomach dip all over again. "You."

It took her a second. "Holy shit, that's good."

He grinned for all he was worth, looking half a decade younger. "Yeah, but it's true."

Bella's lips curved in an involuntary response. "So… dinner, movies…" One brow climbed high. "And questions."

Before he did something stupid – something that would likely hurt – Edward pulled her back down to his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. "And then anything else you want."

A few moments later, she curled in tighter into his side and a knee draped over his. Her palm ghosted across his chest, flattening on his right pectoral where the sharp, dark lines of his Eagle, Globe, and Anchor showed through the thin, white sheet. "You really meant it when you said you didn't want to play games."

"Yes, I meant it." Edward glanced down and then waved a haphazard hand at both everything and nothing. "Life's too short, and nothing is ever certain, especially for me considering what I do for a living. Why would I waste what I have?"

Instead of replying, not quite sure she trusted what might come out of her mouth, not when her blood was racing through her veins, Bella just gave him a careful squeeze.

Sometime later, somewhere around mid-morning, when sunlight bathed the entire room in soft, yellow light, Edward cleared his throat and asked, "Are you okay?"

Drowsy from the warmth beneath her and the languid heat beating in from the window, Bella mumbled against his chest, "What do you mean?"

"How are you dealing with everything that happened?"

Bella froze, just for a second, and her splinted hand gave a small shudder. "You mean shooting Walker?"

Edward's long fingers combed through Bella's hair, gently massaging her scalp. "That... and everything else."

She didn't answer for a while. Her heartrate ticked up in time, stuttering against her ribcage, and it felt like a small ball of ice lodged in her gut, but when she finally replied, her voice was solid and strong. "Jasper and I talked the other day while you were in surgery. Has he ever told you his story about the old coyote on his family's ranch?"

Edward chuffed. "Yeah, he's mentioned it."

"He's right, you know. Maybe a month from now, I'll wake up and freak out over them taking me, or maybe I'll feel shitty about shooting him, but right now I don't. That probably makes me a bad person."

His fingers walked down the back of her neck, and when he pressed into the small, telltale knots, she made a humming sound. "No," he said as he dug into a larger, deeper knot where her neck met the top of her shoulder. "You're not that at all. Trust me."

"Maybe some of it's revenge for what they did to Riley. And me. And you. And those other poor scientists they kidnapped. But more than that, I know that what we did was the right thing to do, that those people needed to be put down." Her fingers balled into a tight fist. "I'm glad they're dead, that they can't hurt anyone else. I don't feel guilty about that at all." She lifted her head so she could look at him. There was something bitter and sad in her expression – a tightness at the corners of her eyes, a creasing along her forehead – and Edward already knew what she was going to say. "The only thing I feel guilty about is you."

"And you shouldn't... at all."

Frustration warred with bitterness. Her lips parted, then closed, and then parted again. "Edward, if you hadn't come to get me on your own, if you hadn't put your armor on me, if you hadn't jumped in front of that goddamned bullet…" Bella looked out the window, focusing on the distant tall, leafy trees. "You wouldn't have almost died. You wouldn't be laid out here in a hospital with holes all in you."

"Listen to me," the captain commanded, firm and sure, like everything else about him. He touched her chin, drawing her gaze away from the window and back to his. Emerald fire – hot, churning, and alive – stared back at her. "Those were my decisions, not yours. And I would make every one of them again." His thumb skated across her lower lip, and then those long fingers slid to the back of her neck once more, spreading as if to hold her there. "If there is ever a choice between you being hurt or me, it'll be me every single day of the week. Full stop."

Bella's face scrunched up. "I don't like that."

"Tough shit."

She made an aggravated noise, but when he expected her to push the issue, she brushed the mess of unruly hair off his forehead and asked another, even harder question. "Why did you order me to shoot you?"

"You know why. It was the best shot, the one with the highest probability." His lips mashed together into a stern frown she knew oh-so-well, but the gentleness of his grip didn't waver. "I'm trying very hard not to be mad that you didn't take it."

Fury flashed across her features. "Then we wouldn't be here." He didn't miss the unspoken, derisive Idiot there at the end.

"I know that, and a large part of me is extremely grateful that you didn't. But taking him out and ensuring you got out would have been worth it to me."

Bella sucked in a slow, deep breath, tamping down the sudden urge to beat him senseless. "Going forward, how about neither of us get hurt?"

The captain smiled at the poorly disguised frustration written in every one of her too-fine features. Beneath his hands, she nearly vibrated with it. "That's the plan," he said, again rubbing and soothing those knotted muscles and tendons. "But I'm serious, Bella, every decision that was made was mine, and I don't regret them, even if it had meant I wouldn't be here. I don't want you to either… And if you ever need to talk about any of this shit, my time and anything else you want is yours."

Instead of arguing or punching him – like he knew she wanted to do – Bella leaned down and slanted her mouth over his. Slowly exploring and stroking and touching, she turned his brain inside out. And when she fisted his hair, kissing him harder and deeper, tinged with lingering desperation, again, it took every bit of self-discipline Edward had not to flip them over and drive into her, right then and there, stitches and breathing and aching muscles be damned.

Fortunately, his scientist had better sense. As if she knew exactly where his head was going, Bella eventually eased back down, wearing a smile that nearly stole his breath and sanity. And for a while, as her breathing slowed to warm, humid pants against his neck and as he slid back toward sleep, everything was right in the world.

July 9, Early afternoon
Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer Hospital
Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv District, Israel

"Oh, fuck."

He'd registered the deep baritone, but it was the high-pitched squeal that really jolted Edward back to awareness.

"I knew it!"

Not bothering to knock, Alice waltzed into the hospital room and targeted the leather chair in the corner. As she sidestepped the frozen, gaping staff sergeant, she slugged him in the shoulder. "I fucking knew it!"

One eye cracked open, squinting at both the light and the onslaught of sound. "Al, come on," Edward mumbled. "Take it down a notch."

Plopping down in the chair without a hint of grace, his pilot swung around and threw her legs over the armrest. "Fine," she whisper-yelled, beaming and preening like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. "I. Knew. It!"

Wiping his face and nowhere close being ready to deal with this – at least not right now – Edward glanced over to the Marine standing inside the door by the half-opened curtain. Boggled halfway out of his head, Emmett's eyes were glued on the slender, sleepy woman still draped across Edward's side – the woman who was now wide awake and blushing the color of the setting sun. When Bella tried to scramble up, Edward just hauled her back down and muttered under his breath, "No point now."

Of course, like always, Bella didn't listen to a word he said and jumped up like she'd been bitten. After a second of awkward indecision that made him want to sigh and laugh all at once, she settled into a sitting position at the bottom of the bed. Tucking one ankle underneath the opposite knee, she picked at a loose thread on her utility pants and studiously avoided the team of Marines filing in through the door.

"Captain?" Emmett said, drawing it out like he wasn't quite sure how to proceed. He scratched the back of his newly shorn head. "You… you… and… Doc?"

Hitting the button to raise his back and head, Edward sent the man a piercing glare. "Shut up, Staff Sergeant."

A slow, wide, mischievous smile spread across the Marine's face. "Hot shit."

When he would have continued – no doubt with something completely inappropriate – an elbow jabbed into his ribs, and this tap was far harder and delivered by the stony-faced blonde who stepped in beside him. "Be quiet, asshole."

Emmett's eyes sparkled. "Or?"

Arms crossed over her chest, Rosalie's responding stare was flat, almost bored, like he was nothing more than an annoying bug to squash. "I don't think you want to play that game with me today."

For once, the man kept his mouth shut. No, he just continued to eyeball his commander, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin that Edward had ever seen.

Ignoring him – and Alice, who was still beaming – Edward nodded to Rosalie. "Rose."

"Captain," she replied, just as flat as her gaze. But he didn't miss the slight twitch in her jaw, nor the full-on smirk sitting on his corporal's face.

They were all assholes – every single one of them.

"So… how you feelin'?" Jasper finally asked as he threaded between the two sergeants, heading over to the chair to stand next to Alice.

Emmett scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Duh, Corporal, he's obviously doin' just fine."

Rosalie's elbow flew again, this time netting a loud, painful-sounding oomph! "What did I tell you?"

"Goddamnit, woman, you're goin' to hurt me one day." Emmett made a show of rubbing his ribs. Before the big man could say anything else – probably something that would earn him another jab or three – a deep, resounding bellow came from the open door.

Strolling in like he owned the place, El'azar pushed through the curtain. "You fucking totach!"

Now at that, Edward grinned. "Ma?"

"Ach sheli, you know exactly what. You left us nothing to do!" El'azar belted out another loud laugh and rattled the bedrail in put-on aggravation. "Aro, Walker, that redheaded bitch, even Spetsnaz, which, by the way, wow, remind me not to piss you off." El'azar's brows climbed to the top of his head, and he shot Edward an exaggerated chef's kiss. "That was truly art."

Still pink from the neck up, Bella finally glanced up. Her gaze lapped the room, settling on Edward. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing." Edward cut El'azar a sharp glare.

"Pfft!" The Israeli rolled his dark eyes. "Zeh lo meshane, did you see what she did to Walker?"

That scowl turned even sharper. "Dai! Ad kan."

"Major?"

For a moment, the two men stared at each other in silent argument. Eventually, El'azar just shook his head like Edward was crazy and threw his hands up in surrender. "Kapara," he finally crooned to Bella, smooth and silky and utterly incorrigible. He sent her a playful grin that was nowhere close to the truth. "As my good friend says, lo kelum."

Bella grumbled something under her breath and said, "It doesn't sound like nothing." When she looked back over to Edward, his jaw rolled, and he wouldn't quite meet her eye. And that little tell made her stomach twist enough to let it go, at least for now.

"Anyway, I see that you are well on the road to recovery," El'azar continued to Edward, along with a slow wink over to Bella that had her face flaming all over again. "And here I was hoping to offload Tan for a while. She will be most disappointed."

Edward just shook his head, trying not to laugh. "I'll be fine." Suddenly serious, he extended his hand. "Eli, thank you for your help. It was very much needed, and your team delivered, as it always does. No way we'd all be here had you not been there."

"Al lo davar." Assuming the same solemn expression and demeanor, El'azar grasped the captain's hand in the same firm handshake they'd shared countless times over the years. "Of course, my friend. It's always a pleasure training with your team." His mouth flattened. "Although, I did lose a bet with Captain Black's young pilot. Apparently, I promised him a grenade launcher if he could fly that damned helo, and that little chara actually expects me to give him one."

The two commanders grinned at each other like a pair of foxes.

"Alas, but now I must go. I was just stopping by to see if you'd awoken. Unfortunately, I have a meeting with the Aluf," he said as he made a show of straightening his freshly pressed olive-green fatigues and fussed over the maroon beret folded under his left shoulder strap. Those dark eyes rolled again. "He wants to hear all about our training exercises."

From the corner, Alice snorted. "Training, my ass."

"So, if I do not get to see you again before you go..." He grasped Edward's hand once more. "Shalom, my friend. Le'hitra'ot." El'azar then turned to Bella, and without a hint of his normal teasing, he dipped his chin and smiled. "It was truly a pleasure, Bella Swan. I suspect I shall see you again, hopefully very soon."

Bella eyed the Israeli, shook her head at the whip-quick shift in demeanor, and then simply nodded. "I hope so, Major. Until then."

Just as soon as El'azar departed, Edward turned to Alice. "Alright, now report. Tell me everything."

A loud, whiny groan answered him. "See, this is why I hate your fucking job. Don't ever ask me to do it again."

"Al..."

An hour and a half later, after rehashing every last minute and movement of the assault on the compound, including the Deltas' and Israelis' recovery of the other missing scientists and engineers Aro had kidnapped, Jasper rapped Alice on the top of her head. When she started, he quietly motioned toward their captain, whose eyes had gradually closed and who'd slumped against the pillow behind him.

But as they filed out, far quieter than when they'd arrived, Edward's lids cracked open again. "Blondie, stay a minute, will you."

"Captain?"

Edward rubbed his eyes and then glanced toward the bottom of the bed, where Bella still sat. Without a word, she smiled that soft, knowing smile she seemed to reserve just for him and climbed off the edge of the bed. "I'm starving," she said as she stretched and rolled her neck. "Is there a cafeteria anywhere?"

Emmett slapped his hand over his face. "No! Don't get her started!"

Bounding across the room with the kind of energy that made normal people tired just watching, Alice looped her arm around Bella's and dragged her toward the door. "Is there ever! There's a place right near the bus stop that has the most ah-mazing falafel and sabich! B, oh, my God. You will die."

With a last, trailing, panicked look toward the captain, Bella disappeared behind the curtain and out the door. As soon as the rest followed, Edward looked over to Rosalie. "So, how bad was it really?"

Rosalie's lips mashed together. "Manageable... Not something I'd like to repeat."

"Deltas?"

The gunnery sergeant scowled. "Black's team was… "

"An asset?" One side of Edward's mouth quirked.

Spitting out a laugh, she replied, "Well, I was going to say acceptable, but whatever. He didn't showboat... too much." She shrugged. "And Jared is always solid."

The captain grinned at the grudging respect in the gunnery sergeant's expression. "Good to know."

Rosalie paused, but then her blue eyes glittered. "Paul did get hit in the ass, though."

Edward barked out a laugh, and immediately winced. "Seriously?"

"Apparently, some fucker they'd missed. Happened sometime after we'd already dragged your ass to the helo." She sent him a megawatt smile. "Trick said he's being a complete titty-baby about it, too. But he'll be fine."

Chuckling at the image – one he could easily replace with his own staff sergeant – Edward clapped his arm over his abdomen and tried his damnedest to keep from stretching the muscles and incisions any more than he already had. "Maybe we should send him some flowers."

That megawatt smile morphed into something truly wicked. "Pretty pink ones."

"Alice?"

Grabbing a nearby stool, Rosalie plopped down beside the bed. "As much as she complained about it, she did well." She paused, taking a second to tighten her ponytail. Her expression turned thoughtful and then she flashed him a pissed off scowl. "There's no fucking way they can keep delaying her promotion now."

Edward nodded. "Good."

One sculpted brow arched high. "Same for you, Captain. I doubt they're going to let you decline promotion again."

At that, Edward grimaced and scratched his chin. "I have neither the patience nor desire to work a desk or run a fucking battalion for some jackass lieutenant colonel. You know that."

"So? Cut 'em a deal." Rosalie snorted. "You're probably getting a Medal of Honor or at least another Navy Cross for this shit. Tell 'em you'll take Major if they leave you alone. No way they'll say no to you."

"Yeah, I doubt that."

She just laughed at him and then cocked another brow. "So... you and Doc, huh?"

"I suppose." Edward sighed, but there was no way he could hide the small, responding smile, not when he could still smell the light, clean scent of her lingering on his skin, not when he could still feel the shape of her tucked up against his side. Of course, Rosalie just smirked at him, no better than the rest of them. "Is something amusing, Gunnery Sergeant?"

"Fuck, yes, it's amusing."

Edward leveled her a flat look that would have made most run away screaming. "Care to enlighten me?"

"She'll be good for you," Rosalie said, not one bit intimidated by the captain's dry, unamused command. "You need someone who's not afraid of you and who won't jump or cry every time you get bitchy, which is a lot. And you know how much I love watching cocky men, especially dumb ass officers, get their asses handed to them."

"Jesus," he huffed. "Em's right. You are mean."

"Damn right." Still wearing that ridiculous smirk, her shoulders straightened into mock attention. "Sir."

Edward shook his head, having nowhere close to the energy needed to deal with his nail-spitting gunny, and her expression softened. With sibling-like affection, she reached over to tousle his bed-mangled hair. "You need to sleep."

"Probably." He rubbed his tired eyes and noted the dark circles around hers. "So do you."

"What's new there?" She shrugged. "Is that all?"

"Almost," Edward said, slowly, watching her face and posture for the tells he knew would appear. "Dr. Swan has informed me that she thinks my gunnery sergeant and my staff sergeant are in love with each other."

Rosalie went ramrod stiff.

The woman didn't even breathe.

After a long, tense moment, she stood and replaced the stool with stilted movements. Turning back toward the bed, she wore a mask of careful neutrality and cleared her throat. Enunciating each word, she said, "Dr. Swan is a highly capable, brilliant woman – and a fucking excellent shot – but she would be wrong on this." Rosalie swallowed and squared her shoulders. "Even if it were true, as you're aware, that kind of relationship would be highly inappropriate and frowned upon."

Edward smiled at the show of formality. "It would," he said, far, far calmer than his Marine. "But if it were true…"

"Which it's not."

"I'm just saying," Edward replied, staring her straight in the eye. "If it were, you should know that I wouldn't care… at all. In fact, I'd be very happy for you."

Rosalie's jaw ticked and she looked away. As she started toward the door, she abruptly jerked back around, leaned down, and wrapped her arms around him in a stiff, awkward hug. "You dumb fuck," she whispered in his ear. "Don't you ever pull that solo shit again. I'll beat you into the ground if you do."

Hugging her back as much as his sore body would allow, Edward smiled and said, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I love you, too."

.

.

.

Notes:

Hebrew (transliterated):

Totach: literally "cannon", but figuratively an impressive, stand-out guy

Ma: what

Ach sheli: my brother

Dai: stop / enough / stop it

Ad kan: enough

Zeh lo meshane: it doesn't matter

Kapara: literally, atonement, but like neshama, used as a term of endearment

Lo kelum: it's nothing

Al lo davar: you're welcome

Aluf: general

Shalom: peace, hello, goodbye, etc

Le'hitra'ot: good bye / until next time

Sabich: an Israeli sandwich made with pita or laffa bread. It's stuffed with fried eggplants, hard boiled eggs, salad, parsley, amba, and tahini sauce. The dish is based on a traditional breakfast of Iraqi Jews.

Arabic (transliterated):

Chara: or khara, means shit. [Again, swearing in Arabic is commonplace in Israeli military. Also note: as one of my Israeli friends shared with me, chara is a word in Hebrew, too, with a different meaning. In the chapter above, El'azar is definitely using the Arabic swear :)]

Glossary: