Thank you for reading!

Major was not surprised to be called into a meeting the next day, with Russ Roche in tow. He was surprised, however, to find that Peyton Charles was one of those present, along with the current mayor of Seattle. She was the last person he wanted to have to face after shooting up the offices of the press—well, last after Liv, he supposed. But he couldn't afford to let her see how badly he felt, not in front of Roche. That would undo everything he had tried to accomplish. So he sat stone-faced while Mayor Baracus calmly laid out all the reasons their actions at the newspaper office the day before had been emblematic of an incendiary level of overreach by Fillmore Graves.

Next to him, Major could count on Chase Graves' own stone face to keep the meeting calm. He was less sure about Roche, without whom they wouldn't be having this meeting, after all.

But he couldn't take the risk of craning his neck to see what Roche looked like, and he certainly couldn't look Peyton in the eye. He fixed his eyes on the wall on the other side of the room, above her head.

Baracus finished speaking and paused, waiting for Graves' reaction, but there was none. So Baracus smiled, a calm and reasonable but tense smile. "Come on, Chase. It was a mistake. Admit it and move on. Shooting up a newspaper office, shutting them down, it's like you're begging humans to riot."

Chase Graves spoke up for the first time since they had all taken their seats, his voice emotionless. "Are they rioting?"

"No reports of riots," Russ Roche responded. His tone was not emotionless. In fact, it sounded smug. God, Major hated that guy. Still, he was supposed to be pretending to be on his side, so he tried to look smug to match.

Baracus was not amused. The tension ratcheted up in his expression and the smile faded.

Graves leaned forward across the table. "I'm placing a bet. I'm betting that no one cares enough to take to the streets over one rinky-dink alt-weekly closing its doors. I suppose all the city's sex workers will have to find a new place to advertise."

Peyton spoke up for the first time. "Shutting down the press over a critical story. Isn't that what an autocrat does?" Her voice was as emotionless as Graves', but to the point. Major was hard put not to wince. But then, Graves had little choice. He was presiding over a divided city, as much as or more than Baracus was, and he was charged with keeping the peace and keeping people alive.

His eyes on Peyton's face, no visible reaction to her words, Chase Graves spoke quietly into the silence that followed her accusation. "That's what I am."

Her eyes widened at the admission, and she looked at Major, who immediately looked away.

Graves continued, "You want to know when democracy doesn't work? It doesn't work when you're sitting on a powder keg. It doesn't work when your people are starving. It doesn't work when your entire species is on the brink of extinction."

Peyton crossed her arms, clearly not buying it. Major realized that she was the only human in the room, and he wondered if she felt that, if she felt the differences between them, or if, to her, they were all the same. He couldn't really remember what it had felt like to be human any longer.

"So," Chase Graves concluded, "you can lament the closing of the 206 Weekly. But they tried to make a hero out of a woman who made it harder to keep our population fed." Even as Peyton's head tilted, outrage clear on her face, Graves' voice rose, loud and determined. "I want human smuggling stopped so I can save lives. I don't regret the execution of that woman."

"I didn't ask if you did," Peyton said. "Your soldiers didn't just lock the doors of the 206 Weekly. They terrorized the staff. They caused thousands of dollars in damages—"

Before she could really get rolling, Russ Roche cut her off. "Fake. News."

Peyton and Baracus both stared at him in disgust. Even Major couldn't keep himself from turning to his fellow soldier, wishing the guy would just keep his damned mouth shut.

"Fake, huh?" Peyton demanded. "You didn't shoot up the place?"

"Nope."

"You sure about that?"

In the increasingly charged atmosphere, Peyton's anger rising and Baracus utterly done with all of them, Chase Graves said, "Lilywhite, clear this up. What happened?"

Major would have given all the Xbox games in his collection not to be here at this moment, not to be put on the spot in front of someone he loved and respected having to lie about something he was ashamed to have done and pretend it was okay. But that was what the job demanded of him today. Peyton would understand if she knew everything, he told himself. She would.

But he still couldn't look at her, addressing himself solely to Mayor Baracus. "The situation was under control until reporters failed to follow instructions. They became belligerent and attacked us. The limited gunfire was warranted to control the situation."

"So, there you have it." Chase Graves got to his feet. "Well, we always appreciate a visit from the mayor's office. We need to do this more often."

Everyone else stood up as well, Peyton not taking her eyes off Major's face. He couldn't look at her—she would read the truth if he did. As she left, Roche grinned and slapped Major on the back, spouting some nonsense, but Major wasn't listening. He was wishing he could haul off and hit this guy, throw him out the glass windows of Chase Graves' office … and as he met Graves' eyes over Roche's shoulder, he could see that his boss was wishing the same thing.

It made Major feel somewhat better to know they were in this mess together.