Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns (again). Shaggy owns "Mr. Boombastic", but I own a copy and occasionally dance to it very poorly while dusting my living room.

Unbeta'd, unedited. Anyagal kindly fixes my Russian, although I sometimes tinker afterward, so any mistakes are mine.

Jan 12
U.S.S. Kearsarge
Mediterranean Sea
One hundred nautical miles off the coast of Sardinia

Two hundred and fifty pounds smacked the mat.

"Did you see what I did there? How I used his body for leverage?" Rosalie asked, glancing over to Bella as she circled the man in MARPAT, now flat on his back. When the Marine let out a low, pained groan, she rolled her baby blue eyes and toed his shoulder with her boot. "Quit being such a titty baby."

Cross-legged on top of a dove gray storage locker, Bella nodded and set her laptop aside. A second later, her eyes dropped to the mat, and her lips twitched at the big man's pissy, scrunched-up face. She didn't have to be a psychic to know what was coming next.

"Titty baby? Really?" One meaty paw shot out to swipe the gunny's ankle as she passed. Almost as quick as Alice, Rosalie lithely skipped out of the way. Before Emmett knew what was happening, she pinned his knuckles to the deck with her heel, and he yowled like a cat.

"I don't think so, Staff Sergeant."

Emmet yanked his hand from under her, and that scowl turned into an outright glare. "Fuck, you're in a mood."

"A mood." One sculpted brow arched in eerie challenge. "You want to elaborate on that?"

Emmett climbed to his feet, towering over the tall blonde and looking every bit the hardened warfighter he was. Of course, Rosalie wasn't even fazed and stepped right into him, and almost on cue, an icy morning breeze whipped across the open deck. As the two sergeants stared at each other in some silent, private argument, the hair on the back of Bella's neck stood on end.

"Ohhh!"

Every Marine on deck flinched, and Bella jerked left just in time to catch a dark, inky mop pop around the corner of the command tower. Decked out in an olive drab flight suit, earbuds in, and utterly oblivious to the tension, Captain Alice Brandon – call sign Tinkerbell – danced out onto the flight deck. Listening to what Bella didn't know, but no more than a dozen feet away, Alice shot her a mischievous wink before abruptly dropping into a ridiculous sideways stripper squat.

With a suggestive thrust and grind, Alice vaulted back up, belting out a loud, off-key, "She call me Mr. Boombastic. Tell me fantastic. Touch me on my back. She says I'm Mr. Ro.. Ro.. Man–"

Bella's palm clapped over her mouth as a chorus of "Nos!" screamed out, and she laughed even harder as Emmett bolted toward the pilot. "Don't you start that today, you little shit!"

"Call me fantastic. She touch me on my back," Alice sang, laughing her ass off as she continued her impromptu club grind and serenade. When the big man swung out, she feinted right, pirouetted, and sashayed under his tree trunk arm with a hard, repeating jab into his ribs. "She says I'm Mr. Boom-boom-boom-boom-Boombastic!"

Emmett slapped his forehead and whined to the sky. "God, could you please pick something else for once?! You're killing my ears!"

Naturally, Alice replied with a squawky kissy face and kept right on singing at the top of her lungs.

Across the mat, Rosalie sighed and shook her head as she made her way over. When she gracelessly plopped down on the locker beside her, Bella almost asked. Instead, she just watched the lanky, gray-eyed sergeant, currently leaning against the nearby bulkhead and studying their twirling pilot with rapt fascination. When Jasper finally caught Bella looking, she snickered as a pale, splotchy pink climbed his neck and cheeks.

"Idiot," Rosalie said, grumbling as she dug into her pack for a water bottle.

Bella tried and failed not to smile. Burrowing her face into her fleece to hide, she sucked in a breath of warm air that still held lingering hints of an all-too-familiar masculine aftershave. "Which one?"

"All of them." Grimacing, Rosalie threw back a third of the bottle and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

"Do you want to ta-"

"Fuck, no." Rosalie sent her a withering glare before abruptly shoving off the locker with a pissed-off grunt. She yelled over to Jasper. "Jazz, you're up!"

Jasper froze in a beat of confusion. His brows hit his hairline, but then he threw the gunnery sergeant an arrogant, lazy grin, shucked his gear, and drawled, "You ready to lose, Gunny?"

Five minutes later, Jasper's shoulder hit the mat with a muffled thump. Rosalie's heel slammed into his left thigh in a blur of tan, green, and blonde, hitting the pressure point with unerring accuracy. Her opposite leg pinned his chest, and with a harsh growl, she rocked back and levered his arm into an ironclad armbar. "Who's losing now?"

The younger man thrashed beneath her, trying to throw her off. Rosalie wasn't going anywhere, however, and when she adjusted her grip to crank the angle on his arm, he tapped out with a high-pitched yelp. "Fuckin' A, you win!"

Still perched on her locker, Bella leaned forward, and her head tilted as she tried to make sense of the gunny's pretzel-like maneuver. "Can you guys do that again? I think I missed that last part."

Finally – finally – breaking into a wide, beatific, model-like smile, Rosalie hopped up and dusted off her hands. "I can do this shit all day long."

"Damn it," Jasper muttered, panting as he slowly followed her up. As they began circling again, he swiped a layer of sweat off his forehead and cut Bella a sideways glare. "Thanks, Doc. Really, really appreciate this."

Bella snorted at the dry delivery. "Just think," she said, innocently flashing him a row of pearly teeth. "Every time you lose, I learn something."

Alice's peal of soprano laughter broke the silence, and on the opposite side of the mat, Emmett grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "That's five points."

"Yeah, like you did any better." Jasper peeled off his long-sleeve top layer, stripping down to his usual plain tan tee, and launched the wadded-up fabric at Emmett's head. He spat off to the side. "Blondie kicked your fuckin' ass, Bear-man."

"The fuck, she did!"

As the two Marines went at it again, this time with Emmett playing the gleeful referee, Alice slid onto the locker. Something yellow and shiny floated in Bella's periphery. There was a loud crinkle, and no more than a second later, the distinct scent of fried potatoes hit Bella's nose.

"Want a chip?" Alice asked, angling a giant, wrinkly bag in her direction.

Bella made a show of peering inside – over half-empty already – and her nose scrunched. "Alice, it's…" Her gaze fell to her wrist. "It's six-thirty in the morning."

"Really?" Scratching her head, Alice looked around in mock confusion before cramming a handful of salty goodness into her mouth. "I guess that explains some things."

Bella's shoulders shook, and the two women grinned at each other. "How do you even–" Bella started and then stopped, shaking her head as she waved a hand at the captain's general person. "Never mind. What's with the flight suit?"

Smirking for all she was worth, Alice jabbed a freshly-painted bright pink finger toward the end of the deck where a crew of sailors milled around a lean, mean, pale gray attack helicopter. More than a half dozen hardpoints hung from its stub wings, fitted with a full-blown arsenal of missiles and rockets. Just below the cockpit, a large-caliber, triple-barreled rotary cannon stuck out from its chin.

"Got a new ride. So… I'm taking her out to see what she can do." Alice shoveled in another handful of chips, spewing crumbs everywhere when she spoke again. "Her name's Margaret, by the way."

"Okay, I'll bite…" Finally giving in, Bella stole a chip and motioned to the long line of similarly aggressive helos parked on deck. "Why?"

"Why Margaret? That's a perfectly good name!"

"No, dummy." Bella rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh. "Why the new ride? And why now? And how do you even know you can fly it?"

The woman scoffed like she'd just insulted ten generations of ancestors, but when Bella frowned, Alice's whole face split.

"I'm just fuckin' with you," she said, bumping her shoulder. Alice tipped her chin down the deck. "Same platform and controls, but that baby's brand-spankin' new, and she comes with all the toys." The pilot's eyes narrowed as she watched a pair of servicemen adjust the tail rotor, and Bella swore she heard the other woman tsk in irritation before looking back and shrugging. "Next-gen stealth panels and blades. A badass upgraded Longbow. New power plant, means she's wicked fast. Much bigger payload… Scooby legit drooled when I texted him a pic." Her brows wagged. "Oh, and she's got the longest range on the planet."

Not responding at first, Bella looked out onto the open water, still choppy from last night's winter storm. In the distance, she picked out the blurred, gradually lightening line of the horizon, but in between, there was nothing but gray-blue water as far as she could see.

At least she didn't want to hurl anymore, which, as far as she was concerned, was a vast improvement over the last time.

"You're going to need it, too."

Bella startled at the low purr of the major's voice and spun sideways.

Propped against Jasper's bulkhead and with his arms folded across his chest like he'd been there for hours, Edward was the picture of casual at ease. When Bella scowled at him and his never-ending sneakiness, his eyes, dark in the early morning light, glittered, and one corner of his mouth curved into a barely-there smile. He thumbed to Alice's new helo, and that smile vanished. "You better get your ass moving if you want to test drive that bird."

Alice's demeanor instantly transformed, straightening and morphing into a mirror image of her commander. "We got a lead?"

"Supposedly," Edward said, nodding, and something cold and hard flashed across his features. "Eli should be here in a couple of hours." Pushing off the bulkhead, he stepped toward them. "General's called a meeting at oh-nine-hundred."

With ballet-like grace, Alice hopped off the locker and shoved her now-empty bag of chips into a nearby bin. "Where we going?"

"He wouldn't say until Langley confirmed it." Edward's fists fell to his hips. "Regardless, I doubt we'll have much time for planning."

"Well, that doesn't sound good."

"No shit," he said. The major thumbed at the helo again, but then his hand darted out with whip-quick speed, mussing Alice's hair before she could duck. "Now, go do your thing, Tinkadee."

When Alice stuck out her tongue and started to turn, Edward cut her a flat, unamused stare. "But do not – I repeat – do not do anything that will result in me doing more paperwork. Are we clear, Captain?"

Grinning, Alice spun on her heel and trotted toward the end of the deck, calling over her shoulder, "Yes, sir!"

Once she was out of range, Edward scrubbed his face, rasping over two-day stubble. He let out a quiet sigh and leaned against the locker, and for a moment, all too aware of the quiet woman beside him, he just watched his foul-tempered gunny destroy his sniper… again. Edward winced at the smack of flesh hitting flesh and then again when Jasper slammed into the mat. Rose was not playing today.

"So," Bella said, clearing her throat as Emmett barked out a loud, raucous laugh before tagging in to take the younger man's place. "What exactly could Alice do that would result in more paperwork for you?"

"Who knows," he said, huffing. "I'm sure she'll find something."

They were quiet for a moment, where the only sounds were those of combat training and the distant caws of the seagulls floating alongside the vessel.

"How'd you sleep?" Bella finally asked, eying the hard, no-nonsense planes of Edward's face, once more marred by stress and lines of fatigue that her fingers itched to smooth away.

Edward glanced over. "Honest?"

"No," she said, giving his shoulder a gentle shove. He didn't move an inch, and beneath her palm, the lean muscle there might as well have been carved from granite. "I really want you to lie to me."

"Like garbage." Edward's cheeks creased, briefly erasing the fatigue. Then, abruptly serious, he roamed her face in a slow, repeating circuit that sent warmth curling through her veins. "You?"

Bella glanced down at her lap, noting the bright blue ink smudges staining her thumb and the meat of her palm. "About the same…" She looked back at him, and her heart thumped against her sternum. "Guess I've gotten used to having my own personal space heater."

"Is that so?" Without conscious direction, Edward shifted closer, enough that his shirt brushed her knee, and his lips curved into another one of those barely-there smiles.

When he would have spoken again, a high-pitched, mechanical whine came from the end of the flight deck, followed by a rapidly accelerating, repeating chuff of whirring blades. A beat later, frigid air blasted across the deck, and behind the cockpit glass, Edward watched his pilot beam.

Like a kid in a candy store, Alice flipped down the next-gen augmented visor display. She gave the crew an enthusiastic thumbs up, blew one of them a kiss, and before Edward could blink, she had that bird hovering twenty feet off the deck.

By the time he blinked again, Alice was up another twenty and banking right. Without any hint of warning, she peeled away from the carrier at break-neck speed, only to turn up into a hard, angular climb that reminded him all over again just what kind of pilot she was. Edward followed her, shielding his eyes from the rising sun until she was little more than a speck against the gray dawn sky.

"And here comes the paperwork," Edward muttered, shaking his head as the helo lined out high, high overhead and settled into a slow, counterclockwise, rotating hover.

On cue, her cockpit dipped down, and Alice plummeted in a sharp, nauseating dive that had half the sailors on deck yelling out curses. When her helicopter pulled up far too close to the water for Edward's liking, Bella's fingers curled around his shirt and clenched. "Holy shit!"

"Ooh-fucking-rah!" Emmett bellowed, popping off the mat. As Alice's helo buzzed the tower and shot over the bow of the carrier, he threw up a hand in salute and then slugged Jasper in the arm, laughing. "Float like a motherfuckin' fairy, eh, Jazz?"

An hour later, Bella watched over the top of her laptop as Edward briefed his Marines. Her stomach churned as all joking and laughter immediately ceased. When the major dismissed them with a barrage of curt commands, every one of them obeyed without question, moving with the purpose and fluidity of a well-oiled machine.

"We really have a lead?" she asked as he walked back over.

"CIA was finally able to track that white van from the plaza," he said. "Came up from Marseille a few days before the attack... Looks like they arrived by ferry." Edward shoved a rough hand through his hair. "Whoever it was, they swapped plates and added some tint and a bunch of fake badging. But Langley's saying it's the same vehicle."

Bella stilled as another cool breeze cut across the deck, punctuating the silence. Her heart climbed her throat, and her voice shook, barely above a whisper when she spoke. "Do they know where it came from? Who was in it?"

"That's what I'm waiting on."

They were quiet again, but after a few more minutes, Edward softly asked, "You all right?"

Closing her laptop, Bella angled toward him. "Edward, I'll be fine," she said as her back and shoulders stretched and straightened from hours on her computer. "We talked about this. Don't worry about me. You have eno–"

His hand sliced the air. "Stop."

"What?" Bella's forehead crumpled.

Edward stepped in front of her, and she registered the featherlight weight of his fingertips bracketing her knees. Bella glanced down at where they touched and then back to his face, only to find him staring at her, wearing an emotion she couldn't quite name.

It was anger and fear and love, all rolled up into a grim expression that sent a chill skating down her spine, even as another round of warmth hit her square in the chest.

"What?" Bella whispered again as she trailed her fingers down his forearms, sinewy and bare from where he'd rolled up his sleeves despite the cold. When she reached the back of his hand, she traced the outline of a jagged, iridescent scar, one of the dozens that littered his body. Despite where they were and who might see, she threaded her fingers between his and squeezed.

"You talked about it, not me," he said. "And I certainly didn't agree." The hard line of his jaw rolled. "Don't ever ask me not to worry about you, especially here and especially now." Lips mashing together, Edward captured a flyaway strand of hair and studied how it shimmered before gently slipping it behind her ear. "Might as well ask the sun not to rise."

Jan 12
Undisclosed Location
Somewhere in Northern Africa

Her hand stung.

"Please," the man said, pleading as he cupped the side of his face. "I've done what you asked!"

Frustration warred with disgust as Jana stared at the dark-haired, thirty-something engineer cowering on his knees and covered in filth. Plum-red bruises and blackened, seeping burn marks stained his gangly arms, chest, and back. Long, bloody lines carved up his skin. His scalp was wet and matted, too, and as he cried out, there was no mistaking the gurgle of a punctured lung. Broken blood vessels turned the whites of his eyes crimson.

"Lyosha!" she called over to the other man, where he sat by the window cleaning the dirt and grime from beneath his fingernails with an ancient combat knife. "Chto ty, blyat', sdelal s nim?"

It was a rhetorical question. Jana knew exactly what Aleksey had done to him.

"A chto?" Aleksey scowled, then his broad, muscled shoulders rolled in a lazy, arrogant shrug. "On ne staralsya!" He threw up his hands, and she could see the splattered evidence of his particular brand of encouragement. "A chto ya po-tvoyemu dolzhen byl sdelat'?"

"Dolboyob," she muttered, spitting on the dirtied tile. When Jana turned back to the man on the ground, he let out a pathetic wail and began to beg. She rolled her eyes at both of them. "Stop crying, Dr. Yorkie." She kicked his swollen ankle and spat again. "Be a man. Have some respect for yourself."

Tears streaked down his filthy cheeks as the engineer chanted, "I did everything you asked." A pair of mangled fingers motioned to the row of vials lined up on the old laminate counter, each filled with a pale, faintly amber liquid that flowed like silk. "God forgive me, they're all there, exactly like you wanted."

"And your efforts are very much appreciated," she said, light, almost singsong, as she gifted him a dark, bone-chilling smile.

A loud whine spilled out before he could stop it. "Please, please let me go!" Dr. Yorkie scrabbled backward until he hit the cinderblock wall and pointed a shaking hand at Aleksey. "He said you would!"

Jana almost pitied him, but then he started crying again.

Annoyed and impatient, Jana whipped out a matte black Glock from the back of her waistband, pressed it to the man's skull, and fired. The round clapped like thunder, and blood sprayed the wall behind him, wet and viscous. She pivoted before his body even hit the floor, and as she shoved her weapon back into her waistband, Jana glared at her partner. "Get everything ready. We leave in an hour."

Aleksey cocked a haughty brow, but he didn't say a word, and when her hip pocket started to buzz, he jumped off the stool.

"Just leave Dr. Yorkie here." Jana waved at the crumpled body as she blindly pulled out her phone and snapped a sharp, "Allo."

A soft baritone chuckle made her stomach instantly flutter, and her pale blue eyes slid shut at the low, soothing sound of his voice. "Is this how you greet me now?"

Turning away, she swallowed. "Prosti menya… Ya dumala– "

"Khvatit," he said, though there wasn't a bit of heat to it. "Is everything in order?"

"Of course, exactly as we planned." Unthinking, Jana touched the thick braid of her hair as she stared at the row of vials and then at the mutilated man at her feet. "Lyosha is preparing as we speak. We will leave within the hour."

"Good, well done." He paused, unnerving in his silence. "Dmitriy will meet you there."

Jana's fist balled by her side, and the hand holding her phone tightened until her knuckles turned white. "I don't need another one of your… babysitters."

"I am aware," he said, unfazed by her anger. He paused again, and in the background, she picked up the whistle of the mountain wind and the sound of children laughing.

"Tim–"

"Do not argue with me," he said, this time harsher. "You are valuable to me, more so than all the others."

Head tipping toward the ceiling, Jana sucked in a slow breath and willed her heart to cease its trembling. A few seconds later, when he didn't speak again, she murmured a soft, husky, "Ya skuchayu po tebe."

Another low, masculine chuckle spilled out, and again, the sound of it knotted her stomach. "Solnyshko…" He purred the affectionate pet name he'd given her so long ago. "Posmotri na menya."

Startled, Jana pulled the phone away. She tapped the video, and at once, a pair of shrewd hazel eyes sitting behind a pair of thin wireless frames stared back at her. With warm, tanned skin, light brown hair, and a mixed, dueling heritage, he was handsome, yet not, appearing somehow both older and younger than his fifty-odd years. A seemingly kind, compelling smile stretched his cheeks, belying the cold, brutal man beneath.

"Kogda ya smogu vernut'sya domoy?" she asked.

His smile widened, and as he stepped out onto a balcony, she recognized the familiar, desert-colored walls of the compound and beyond, the high, rocky mountains now blanketed in pristine white. "Soon, my sweet, I will see you very soon."

.

.

.

Notes:

You might recall from O:BtD that Alice flies the Bell AH-1Z, aka Viper, which has been in USMC service since 2010. "Margaret" doesn't exist (yet); that's just me playing around. Also, because she's Alice, she gets to break all sorts of rules in this story… because it's more fun that way.

Russian [transliterated]:

Chto ty, blyat', sdelal s nim: What the fuck did you do to him?

A chto? On ne staralsya: So, what? He wasn't trying hard enough

A chto ya po-tvoyemu dolzhen byl sdelat': And what do you think I should have done?

Dolboyob: Fuckwit / stupid ass

Allo: Hello

Prosti menya. Ya dumala: Forgive me. I thought…

Khvatit: Enough

Ya skuchayu po tebe: I miss you

Solnyshko… Posmotri na menya: Little sun/sunshine (common term of endearment). Look at me

Kogda ya smogu vernut'sya domoy: When can I come home?

Glossary:

Armbar: in grappling, an armlock is a single or double joint lock that hyperextends, hyperflexes or hyperrotates the elbow joint or shoulder joint. An armlock that hyper-extends the arm is known as an armbar.

Bulkhead: this is boat-speak for wall

Command tower: this is the multi-story superstructure you see on top of the flight deck of an aircraft carrier or ship. It houses the bridge, flight control, etc.

Hardpoints: refers to mounting points on the airframe of military aircraft that carry weapons (e.g. gun pods and rocket pods), ordnances (bombs and missiles) and support equipment (e.g. flares and countermeasures)

Longbow: refers to the AN/APG-78 Longbow, a millimeter-wave fire-control radar (FCR) target acquisition system and the Radar Frequency Interferometer (RFI). It's capable of simultaneously tracking up to 128 targets and engaging up to 16 at once