Chapter Warning: Mentions of nonconsensual sex and mating.
The first thing they did was take him through decontamination, the hissing and the fog in the room scared the little boy so bad, he clung tightly to Walker, burying his face into her shoulder until they left the room. Then he was all wide eyes as he looks around at the facility, trying to take in all of the details of each room and hall as they pass by with a single glance alone. Grace takes them to the section of the facility strictly for the upkeep of the avatars. Grace then orders one of the techs to grab a large plastic tub, put whatever was in it aside and bring it to the showers, and to make sure that it was big, and deep.
Once they get to the shower room, and the large tub shows up, Grace cleans it out before setting it under one of the shower heads and fills it up. She tells the tech to get her a small loincloth from the archives where they categorize and take stock of anything and everything Omatikaya. She had quite a few here in case some of her kids had accidents while she was teaching and didn't want to force them to walk through Hometree embarrassed. She had yet to restock her supplies at the temporary facility where she teaches until the school is built, which ended up being fortunate. The one that Tsyeyk was currently wearing was too small for him, and the poorly made strings to tie it together has rubbed the skin raw, digging into pronounced hip bones.
Tsyeyk sits on one of the hard tile ledges in the bathroom, feeling it with his little fingers, eyes wide, while Grace and Walker mull over his hair. They could try and wash it and brush it out as best they can, but they'd probably just have to wash it again. They decided it's best to just start fresh and Walker vanished to get everything that they would need while Grace had Tsyeyk strip down and get to scrubbing his filthy skin. She was extremely careful with that knee wound, nose twisting in disgust at the smell of infection coming from it. She made sure to clean it thoroughly and order antibiotics be prepared for him.
Tsyeyk didn't notice her worry over his leg. He was fascinated by everything around him. Out of all the rooms that he's been in - which was very few, and a hall to bring him here - this one was his favorite so far. It had so many very cool things for him to admire. The water from the "tiny waterfall" and the strangely smooth and rough "rocks" of the ground and walls. Even the echoing chamber of the space was fun for him to explore.
By the time Walker returned, his skin was irritated from being rubbed clean but him and Grace were singing some of the songs she knew from the Omatikaya. She had pinned up the knot of hair onto the top of his head while she was trying desperately to salvage the long braid that probably covered his queue at some point but was so badly maintained, it was just a knot now. She unravels it, carefully, using the brush that Walker brought to work through the strands.
Once the tub is full of warm water, she helps Tsyeyk move to sit in it. Walker takes scissors right to the mop on his head, trying to salvage as much of it as she can, starting with the massive knot, cut it off, before taking a second brush to it in an attempt to brush out what's left. Despite how bad the smell was, both women managed to keep their expressions clear as Grace and Tsyeyk keep singing. Once the biggest chunks were cut out of his hair, Walker dumps a lot of shampoo into his wild mane and thoroughly rubs it into his scalp. He wrinkles his nose a bit, Na'vi senses too keen for the overly artificial smell of the shampoo.
"Don't like," he says to Grace.
"I know," Grace says kindly, moving his queue off to the side so that Walker can tip his head back, dunk a cup into the water and pour it over his hair. Again and again and again until all the suds are out. "We are trying to clean your hair, get the knots out."
"Okay..." he says softly, not fully understanding.
Once his hair is cleaner than before, they get back to work. Tsyeyk plays in the water, splashing and singing. Despite his little squeaks of disapproval at a too harsh of a pull from one or both of the females behind him, he doesn't complain. He's content to play and sing, casting shy looks at the women behind him every once and a while, but he seems willing to let them dote on him. Too touch-starved to turn down any form of it. Walker gives him a little bit of shampoo to put onto the tip of his tail and show him how to scrub it in.
"That's going to have to do," Walker says, wrapping up the far shorter strands of black hair up onto the top of his head so that Grace and finish washing the longer chunks that surrounded his queue. Once the hair and the important limb are all cleaned up, Grace sets to work braiding it up again, managing to save enough hair to cover it once more, which was a relief to her.
While she's doing that, Walker sees to Tsyeyk's swelling wrist and then to his other wounds, taking note of what needs to be immediately looked at and what could use just a bit of antibacterial cream and a band aid. Walker pulls her water bottle out of her backpack and opens it up, offering some to Tsyeyk. It takes him a moment, but he recognizes it and immediately opens his mouth, tipping his chin up so that she can pour the water down his throat.
He takes a few mouthfuls before turning away, shivering a bit with how cold the water was, but seemingly pleased, nonetheless. Once Grace has made it most of the way down Tsyeyk's queue, Walker carefully pulls his hair down and starts measuring it, trying to make sense of some of the mess left behind. She tries to tame the beast, clipping away at the chopping parts, trying to clean it up. She's no hair stylist, but hopefully it won't turn out too bad.
"What happened?" Grace finally asks.
"The Colonel will - "
"I didn't ask Quaritch, I asked you."
Walker sighs, shaking her head as she snips away. "He found us out in quadrant B-127. We were checking out the area, continuing with our grind search for your school, but he found us while we were resting. He was in a bad way but curious about us. He let the colonel give him some water and touch his face. He seemed very... well... lonely. As you could tell, someone hasn't seen to him in a long time."
Grace nods, looking down at the bones poking out against his skin.
"We followed him back to his home, which was really just a protruding stone wedge between two rock formations with just enough space for him to live under. An adult lived there with him at some point, or he somehow located things made by one of the clans in the area, but whoever they were, they hadn't been back in a while."
"B-127?" Grace echoes, frowning. "I don't... I don't think there is any clans around there. I know it's plentiful hunting grounds and that a lot of clans come to hunt there as it's nestled between four separate clans so it's a neutral ground but that's about it."
Walker frowns, looking around Tsyeyk to see his eyes drooping closed. The warm water, their fingers gently running through his hair, his own exhaustion, it's probably been a long day for him.
Walker shrugs. "There wasn't anyone around. And when I asked him about his mom, he walked home crying. It was utterly heartbreaking."
Grace chews on her lower lip, looking down at the little boy, drifting in the makeshift tub. She pauses in her braiding, hands cramping a bit, to touch at his too warm forehead. He can't stay in this cooling water for much longer.
She keeps braiding, carefully asking, "And... anything about a father..?"
Walker glances over at her with a frown. "No. Why?"
Grace doesn't respond, staring down hard at the little boy's queue. After a few moments of silence, she says, "We'll get him some food and antibiotics, take a few samples, make sure all of his wounds are immediately seen to and put him somewhere to rest for a bit. Then, I'm going to need to speak with Quaritch."
"Is something wrong?" Walker asks, frowning.
Grace shakes her head. "Just pass the message along. I need him, Wainfleet and Mansk." Walker frowns at that, but nods, figuring if the doctor was going to tell her anything more, she would have already. And if she didn't, it's none of her business.
Or that it's not Grace's place to say.
"Walker said you wanted to speak to us, Doctor Augustine?" Quaritch asks, voice carefree. But his posture is closed off. Following his lead, the other two men look just as closed off, not liking to be singled out. Most of the now human versions of Blue Team are loitering around the other side of the room, pretending that they were giving them the illusion of privacy, but they could sense that something was amiss too. Grace had gently offered that the rest of Blue Team be let go for the rest of the day, but Quaritch just shook his head and said, "They're fine."
After the bath, Tsyeyk was lively enough to get a little bit of food in his belly and tentatively accept the poking and prodding by Grace. She took a few blood samples, gave him a few shots that he took with a shaking lower lip and water filling beautiful blue eyes, but he accepted Grace's hug and her kiss to his forehead praising him for being such a good, brave boy, then brought him somewhere that he could sleep for a while.
He kept thinking that they were going to take him back home, but Grace asked him to stay. That she wanted to keep an eye on him because she was worried about him. He had looked so perplexed by her worry, as if it was foreign to him, but she promised that they would eat some more good food in the morning, and maybe go out to play if he was feeling up to it. Tsyeyk looked so blindingly happy that Grace felt sorrow building in her chest. He would agree to anything so long as he didn't have to be alone. He wouldn't even go to bed until Grace sat beside him and gently rubbed his back while he dozed.
In that time, his hair, now shoulder length instead of down to his hips, had dried enough to reveal... curly hair. Not tight curls, but large, loose curls. Not wavy like is normal for the Omatikaya, and other forest Na'vi, but all the ends are curling in some direction or another. Making him actually look like a little black-haired lion. It does nicely cover the shorter strands on the top of his head, it just looks like a thick mop of hair. Wild and untamed but definitely endearing.
And currently impossible to braid. Not that he had any other than the one around his queue to begin with.
Grace, who was now sitting at her chair about a half hour after putting Tsyeyk to sleep, stands up and walks over to the observation window, looking down at the dimly lit room down below. It's usually reserved for waking up avatars and looking after them for their first test drive, but right now it's being used to let the little boy rest. He seemed confused by the bed and has since moved from it to lay on the floor between the two with some blankets and pillows. He got a little bit of food in him and medicine, but he seemed mostly tired from all the excitement and from at least months of inadequate care.
She sent most of the scientists on break, wanting to have this conversation in private. Only Max is by her side right now, typing away at his computer at the desk next to her own.
"So..." Quaritch draws out when Grace doesn't immediately respond to his question. "You going to take care of the kid or let him loose in the wild after you fatten him back up?"
Grace turns from the window, staring at him with a complex look on her face. "We will. We'll take care of him. He was dying in slow motion out there. He's lucky that no predators found him out there as it was. No, he'll stay with us until I have a better idea of what to do with him. He's clanless, which is dangerous, especially out there. No clan will easily accept a child born outside of a clan."
Quaritch nods, even though he doesn't actually understand, shifting his weight from hip to hip, pursing his lips out. His ice blue eyes burrow through her, and Grace crosses her own arms as if to guard herself against him and his intense gaze.
"What's going on, doc?" Wainfleet asks, shaking his head. "What do you want?"
Grace sighs, rubbing at her forehead. Max stiffens, glancing over at Grace as she says, "His queue is in the wrong place."
Wainfleet and Mansk both glance at one another. Wainfleet lets out a shoulder-heaving sigh while Mansk just shrugs his own shoulders, also unsure of why that matters. Quaritch just tilts his head, blue eyes locked on. There is something predatory about that tilt.
"And..?"
Grace rolls her shoulders back and says, calmly, "A Na'vi's queue starts at the back of the head up towards the crown. An avatar's queue starts at the base of the skull. Tsyeyk's starts at the base of his skull."
"Okay..." Wainfleet says slowly. "So, what? He's an avatar? That doesn't sound right."
"Because it's not," Patel says, rubbing at his own forehead. "He's, uh... we took a blood sample, and he... he has spliced human DNA."
Even with all the equipment in the room, beeping and whirling, and the computers humming, somehow the room feels deathly quiet. The rest of Blue Team on the other side of the room, don't react, doing whatever they can to pretend to be busy. Not one of them utters a word.
"What does that mean..?" Wainfleet asks, his voice taking on a defensive tinge.
Grace looks down at her feet, shifting her weight a bit. "It means that one of his parents is an avatar. I've got the genetic make-up of all of the avatars made by the RDA. In a few minutes, I'll be able to discover his parentage. But, while there is a pool of people that could be his father, it's his age that's got me. Judging by my calculations, I think he's somewhere just shy of six years old. And if I'm right, and his gestation was the same as a typical Na'vi - "
"Then he was conceived that night," Quaritch says, voice flat. Wainfleet and Mansk both stiffen at both his words and his tone. "The night the clans gathered and hosted us for the first outreach with the RDA."
"Yes..." Grace says quietly. "And if that's true, then the three of you are the only avatars that were unaccounted for at any point that night. And listen, I know the situation was... not ideal - "
"They poisoned us," Wainfleet says, anger twisting his features. "With that drink. Dosed us."
"It wasn't intentional," Max says, delicately. "We had no way of knowing it would affect the avatars the way that it did."
"Easy to say when you had no part in any of it," Mansk says, narrowing his eyes. "You remember those affects followed us back, right? I couldn't walk straight for three days afterward. My whole equilibrium was thrown off."
Max looks away, frowning. "No, you're right, of course. I'm sorry. I didn't - "
"I still felt drunk, weak. I could barely lift my head. Black outs, for days," Mansk says bitterly. "Anything could have happened. Just like that night - "
"Forget about it," Quaritch snaps, eyes like shards of ice, cutting between the two scientists. "What matters is that you think this boy is one of ours. Because we were the only ones that didn't get wrangled up like the rest of you were."
"I just... wanted you to know, all of you, that there was a chance. A very good one, that one of the three of you is his biological father. All three of you had... relations that night..." Grace sighs, casting a look over at the darkness below, where the little boy that was the topic of conversation is sleeping.
"'Relations'?" Quaritch laughs, and it's cold. As cold as his eyes. "Yeah, okay. What matters here is that kid could be - " He stops, blinks, then looks over at the observation window, frowning. "Well, I'll be damned."
Grace frowns, sharing an unsure look with Max. "Colonel?"
"The knife. The goddamned knife," Quaritch lets out a laugh that's anything but mirthful. Other than the tewng, that had been the only thing on him. And while he was more than happy to put on a tewng that fit, he insisted on keeping the knife, made by the RDA in a sheath too big for his tiny leg. "She took it and gave it to the kid." He turns, finally uncrossing his arms only to rub at his forehead. "Wow."
"Colonel..?" Grace calls out slowly. "Did you end up... do you remember-"
"Yes," Quaritch says flatly. "Like I said before. I wasn't as inebriated as the rest of you. I remember everything." In his attempt to force her to believe, he met her eyes. But she didn't believe. He was just as messed up as the rest of them had been. But he continues to insist that he remembered everything, that he was in complete control. That she couldn't have unknowingly raped him because he hadn't been like them. He had been fine.
As if insisting on it changed anything.
The Na'vi couldn't tell. They had no concept of unwillingness. Their reproductive organs were intensely keyed into their will. They couldn't be forced. Avatars aren't like that. They don't have protective coverings to prevent something like that from happening. And what was just a normal alcohol to the Na'vi turned into a very potent drug in their system.
It was a party, everyone was having fun. They were building bonds. Grace didn't know. She never would have put anyone in that position. The Na'vi didn't know if could affect the avatars that way. They just thought that they couldn't hold their alcohol. It was an accident all the way around and Grace has been trying her hardest to help them through it. No one knew for sure that they had been taken advantage of, but Grace always suspected that something like that could have happened. And this is proof. This little boy's existence matching up with that day, no, she couldn't just pretend that her worst fears were true.
And Quaritch had been very closed lipped about that night, insisting that he remembered everything but that there hadn't been anything to talk about. She didn't believe him then, and she still doesn't believe him now.
"The knife is yours, Colonel?" Wainfleet asks slowly.
"I lost it that night," he says stiffly. "Must have dropped it or something." As if it could just fall off of him while he was walking around. But that would explain why it was way too big for Tsyeyk despite how tightly it's pulled together. It was made for a full-grown adult male avatar, it was never going to fit on a body that small.
Grace rubs at her forehead, looking down at the ground, trying to organize the whirling thoughts in her head. "Okay. Okay. So, at least this answers a few of those questions."
Max lets out a breath, causing Grace to look over at his screen. Mansk and Wainfleet step closer to look but Quaritch doesn't. He steps up to the observation window, peering down in the dim darkness to the pile of blankets and the little sleeping body below.
There is a picture of Quaritch on the screen and a data analysis of his avatar's DNA written beneath it. "Genetic match to the colonel," Max says quietly, but his words felt ungodly loud in the quiet room.
Grace rubs her forehead again, no doubt having rubbed the skin pink a long time ago. "Okay, colonel, until further notice, we'll keep the kid here on lockdown, get him healthy and teach him how to better survive and then I'll see about getting one of the clans around here to adopt him. He's still young and can pass as a Na'vi. A clan like the Omatikaya will probably take him in."
"Why would you do that?" Quaritch asks, stiffly.
"They'll be more likely to accept him if he's not sick and is at least able to contribute a little bit, they are one of the kinder clans in the area."
Quaritch waves his hand at her, turning away from the window to look at the chief scientist. "No, I mean, why would you give him to the Omatikaya?"
Grace frowns at him. "He'll never survive on his own out there. He's too young. Besides, most of the clanless don't survive. There are clans out there that will simply kill them on sight. He needs the safety of a clan."
Quaritch stares at her, face twisted in a very strange expression. Mansk and Wainfleet shift a bit, anxiously, as Quaritch says, "What I mean is, doc, that he isn't going anywhere. You got the proof right there on your screen. He's my son."
Of all the things that Grace figured would come from this hard conversation, that certainly wasn't it. "I'm sorry?"
"He's mine. My kid. And he sure as shit ain't going anywhere. He's staying here."
Grace sputters, confused. She can't wrap her mind around any of this. Thankfully, the other three men seem just as confused by all of this. He's talking like this was the simplest, easiest situation to comprehend. Thankfully, she's not the only one short circuiting while trying to wrap her mind around what he was saying.
"Quaritch... he's from... well, he's from that night..." she says delicately, not wanting to rub it in or keep picking at the scabbed wound, but she's not sure he's really thinking about this.
"I know how and when he was conceived," Quaritch snaps, blue eyes like shards of ice. And then, it was like seeing doubles. Tsyeyk's eyes were the same exact color as Quaritch's human eyes. They had seemed familiar to him, so strange a color for a forest Na'vi like Tsyeyk. But it seemed to be the only obvious trait that he got from his biological father.
"You... want to be around him? I would figure that would be - "
"Look, doc, I know what you think that you know, but you're wrong." He smiles, and it's acidic. "I'm a father! To an alien baby." He laughs, and there's no mirth. "I never would have thought." He sighs, shakes his head, then he looks over at Mansk and Wainfleet. "And he was a cutie too. Got some good genes, from me, no doubt." Both men nod, not daring to breathe a word.
"Colonel," Grace tries again, delicately.
"She left him, Augustine," Quaritch snaps on a dime, eyes burning in rage. "She left him to die. And she left him with shit. She didn't take care of him. She didn't love him. You saw what she did to him. He waited! And she didn't come back. She had better be dead, because if she ain't, I'm going to kill her myself."
"It's unusual behavior for a Na'vi," Max says, softly, looking unnerved by the anger of the man across from him. "For her to abandon her child? I mean... the two of you would have had to bonded for her to be pregnant. She would have had to choose to get pregnant for it to even have a chance." He shakes his head, trying to wrap his mind around this situation.
"Then why would she leave the kid behind?" Mansk asks, quietly. "If she chose to bond with the colonel, and have his kid, why would she leave him to die?"
"Good question," Grace admits. She looks at Quaritch, trying to decide if asking the question was worth incurring his wrath. Tentatively, she asks, "Did you make the bond? With the queue?"
"No," he says, frowning. And it was certain. No hesitation, no confusion, no uncertainty. Just no. Maybe he was more cognoscente than Grace originally figured.
"Then..." Grace hesitates. "Maybe..." No, she's not going to say it. She can think it, acknowledge that maybe something in male avatars don't require consent. Maybe it's something on both sides. Maybe avatars and their ability to interact and interface with the Na'vi allows them to reproduce both without the bond and without consent from both parties, on both accounts.
So strange why it would be that way. That doesn't seem right. It seems like it should still work the way that it always had. At least in regard to her getting pregnant. She should still be able to deny a pregnancy. Or prevent it, but they didn't bond? It happened without their bond. At least, as far Quaritch is concerned. Something was really not adding up here.
"We should let him rest for now, just an hour or two, then we'll get him back up again, so he'll at least sleep through the night," Grace says carefully. "We'll keep him here, so, feel free to visit him whenever..."
Quaritch nods, face falling impassive as he turns to look over at the observation window, down to the dark form of Tsyeyk, curled up into as small of a ball as possible. He considers something, pursing his lips, before turning and walking away.
It was methodical. It was robotic. It was cold and calculating. He just... did it. He went to his office, closed the door and got to work. There is this feeling of drowning and floating. Like he was sinking into the abyss, but also soaring above the clouds. His mind raced. His hands flew over his computer, working on reports and documents for Selfridge, but he doesn't speak of Tsyeyk. He didn't put a word of the boy in his report, not yet. His hands just froze, trying to think of what to say. Tsyeyk, that's his name. Yet it was alien spelling. He didn't know how to spell it, no doubt. Shouldn't be spelling Tsyeyk's name wrong in his very first report with him in it. So, he should wait.
Just until he learns how to spell it. What the hell is Selfridge going to care?
He works in utter silence, very unusual for himself. He used to listen to music while he worked. Loved to sing along to his favorite songs while he did. They thought his accent came out while he spoke? It really came out when he sang. And when he lost his temper.
A knock at the door pulls his wintery eyes up from the report he was glaring holes through. Lyle is standing at the threshold. Their eyes lock for a single moment, before he steps in and closes the door behind him.
"Tsyeyk has no meaning."
"Excuse me?"
"Doctor Augustine, she said that 'Tsyeyk' means nothing. His name has no meaning, which is very strange for Na'vi. All names mean something. But not his. That was her first clue. Then the queue. She hadn't really thought about the knife outside of it being weird. But we'll look at it when he wakes up. They had yours and Collins' engraved, right? Your initials?"
Quaritch nods, watching as his friend lowers down into the seat on the other side of the desk. "Should have 'MQ' by the hilt."
Lyle nods, looking down at his hands for a moment, considering. He lets out a heaving sigh before looking back at the older man. "Are you okay, Miles? I mean, really. No bullshit. No bravado. You know me, and I know you. You don't have to take responsibility for this kid, no matter what you say to them, I know the truth. You were more fucked up than we were. With the news about your brother, you had every right to get black out drunk. I'm just... sorry I couldn't look out for you. Especially when you needed me most."
"You aren't responsible for me or my actions," Quaritch says stiffly.
"No," Lyle admits. "But it wasn't something you did, it was something done to you. You had no control over that. No one will blame you if you want nothing to do with that kid. No one. Even Doctor Augustine was trying to give you an out, and she's a bigger hardass than you are. What happened to you wasn't right, and sure as shit don't have to accept the repercussions of it."
Quaritch stares at him for a moment, warring with himself. He laces his fingers together and leans into them with his elbows on his desk. After a few moments of silence, he says, "I want the kid. I've always wanted to be a father, thought I would in my thirties, when I was stable and had my life put together. Be a better one than the piece of shit daddy of mine that raised me. But turns out the war had other plans for me." Lyle closes his eyes, hiding the pity, Miles appreciated that.
"Even if I didn't buy Augustine's excuses, they didn't know it could happen, a child shouldn't have been conceived, you shouldn't have been able to have sex to begin with," he continues, swallowing thickly, "that boy isn't to blame. He deserves to be loved and cherished. I know the Na'vi are all free love and shit, but a part of her must have wanted a child too, right? Even if it wasn't with me. She wouldn't have been my first choice either," he says bitterly.
Lyle nods slowly, licking his lips. "Okay. If you really can look at it like that, then fine. You know we've got your back."
"I hate her," he says, voice low, as if the walls could hear. "If they are as smart as Augustine claims, she should know. But that boy did nothing wrong. He didn't deserve a bitch mother who couldn't tell a man falling over drunkenly wasn't in his right mind to say shit about what was happening around him, but you know what? I don't care. It doesn't even really matter." Lyle doesn't agree at all. But he doesn't say anything now, not while the wounds are so fresh again. "And he certainly didn't deserve to be left alone to die in the forest. She had a clan, I know it. Yet he didn't live there, with them. She had him alone, in the woods, and left him there to die. My fucking kid deserves a hell of a lot better than that."
Wait. Had he... known her? Recognized her? Had they seen each other before? Spoken? So much vitriol, for good reason, but now... it felt like there was more. More than Quaritch wasn't saying, and Lyle wasn't seeing. He wanted to ask. He wanted to understand so that he could help his friend. He wanted to find the magic words that would somehow make it all okay, but there wasn't any. Nothing could undo what happened. Maybe it wasn't entirely nonconsensual, but it certainly hadn't been consenting that night.
Even if he did really want a kid, and definitely doesn't blame this kid for being alive, he wasn't able to give his permission in that moment and that's what matters. If Quaritch can find it in himself to not see the boy as a product of what happened but rather an opportunity to have what he's always hoped for, then Lyle will accept his judgement. Either way, Quaritch has his loyalty and respect, eternally.
"You want the kid," he says instead, forcing his mind to focus.
"He came to me, Lyle," Miles says, voice strained, but his eyes are shards of ice. "It's like a part of him knew. Maybe a part of me knew too. Those are my mother's eyes. I got them, my brother got them. Now him, my son. Alien DNA be damned, those eyes survive."
Lyle nods. "Those are some pretty eyes he's got."
Miles nods too, face blank, any flashes of trauma earlier are hidden again behind the wall erected by those eyes. Those shards of ice, quick to freeze over and keep out.
"He's mine, Lyle, you hear?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm going to take care of him, raise him as my own. I just..." he looks down at the computer, something flashing too quickly in his eyes for Lyle to catch. There and then gone. "I need to finish some things, get some affairs in order. I'm sure the good doctor will look after him for a bit while I do."
"I'm sure she will," he offers. "Take your time, colonel. We'll keep an eye on him." Quaritch sends him a look, as if confused. Lyle sits up, straightening his spine. "You say he's yours? We hear you. If he's yours, then he's ours. We don't bow, we don't bend, we don't break. Semper Fi."
Quaritch wars to keep his expression even, the myriad of emotions washing over him. "Ooh rah."