“Action!”

Kurt jumped into the scene, abs glistening in the bright Arizona sun as he threw a vicious-looking uppercut toward Hap’s eternal foe, Zulfikar Qadir. He pulled his punch at the last second, so he barely made contact with the chin of Julián Tapia, the actor playing Hap’s loathsome ISIS enemy.

Julián was a good guy. They’d acted together a few times, and slept together twice. Kurt fought hard to keep from accidentally hurting him, even though he wasn’t as coordinated as he had been before he got pregnant. Maybe if it had been Bill Cavalcante, who played Zulfikar’s best henchman, Kurt might not have tried so hard to pull back.

Julián went flying back, just as the script demanded. Kurt jumped onto Julián’s belly and rained blows down onto his face, once again pulling them to keep them from landing. The blood and effects of the injuries would be CGIed in later. Julián did have to pop the blood packets in his mouth, though, to get the blood spatter to land right.

“I told you to keep your hands off of her!” Kurt screamed, as fake blood spurted into his face. “I told you there was no place you could hide from me!”

Anisa put her hand on his bare arm and tugged. “Hap, Hap!” She pulled. “Don’t kill him. He has to come back to Washington, to face justice.” Makeup had given her a black eye and a cut lip. Her costume had been torn just enough to reveal a perfect body. “We’re supposed to be the good guys here, Hap!”

Kurt tried not to roll his eyes on camera. As if a SEAL would resort to beating a man to death when he had a freaking gun on his hip. “Fine.” He gestured to the extras waiting in the wings, men whose insignia indicated they were of a much higher rank than Hap would ever be. “You chain him up but good, do you hear?”

“And cut!” Ariston, the director, stood up from his chair. Everyone froze in place for a second, and then they relaxed. The crew stepped onto the set. The cameras weren’t rolling anymore. “That was perfect,” Ariston continued, as PAs approached with light robes for both Kurt and Anisa. “Got it in one take, just like always. I’m seriously so impressed, guys. We’ve been at this for five weeks now. We set an intense production schedule, and we knew we were going to have to work damn hard to make it, but hell if you haven’t knocked it out of the water.” He looked around the filming area, encompassing the crew in his gaze. “I can’t wait to do the publicity interviews for this one. Even though this isn’t exactly Oscar bait, no one’s going to believe we’ll have gotten the filming done in two months. That’s unheard of. You guys amaze me. Seriously.” He grinned. “Now, go get out of the sun while we get set up for the next scene.”

Kurt had to grin while he headed off to his trailer. Julián followed him, spitting fake blood onto the sand. A PA ran up and squirted water into his mouth, which he rinsed and spat like a boxer. “Thank you,” Julián told him, ditching his cheesy fake-Arab accent for his normal Bronx tones. “You’re a lifesaver, Pam.”

They ducked into Kurt’s trailer. “Hey, how come they give you and her coverups but not me?” Julián pretended to grouse.

“Because they don’t want me to get any browner than I have to be, since I’m playing a white guy. And they don’t care how brown you get, since you’re playing a brown guy.” Kurt flopped down onto his couch and closed his eyes. “That sun is intense.”

“I want a coverup,” Julián pouted. “Yours has pretty roses all embroidered on it. I’m totally jealous.”

“I’ll order you one special,” Kurt teased. “So what’s your next project?”

Julián rolled his eyes. “I’ve got my choice of terrorist, drug dealer, or gun runner. I think I got one in my in box for ‘anti-hero janitor.’ Someday I want to play a good guy, you know? I get that I should be glad I’m working, and steadily. A lot of guys can’t say that, but it’s wearying.”

“Right?” Kurt shook his head. “So, who’s your agent?”

“Josse Behr, same as you. He introduced us back in the day, remember?”

Kurt grimaced. “I’d rather just think about the actual sex, and not the whole getting set up for publicity reasons. But listen, I’m working on a project with Mike Lieberenz and I’ve gotten the green light to start production on a smaller film. It’s not going to be a big blockbuster, and it’s not going to pay like a blockbuster. But it will get a leading character credit on your filmography. We’re talking hero, not antagonist.”

Julián’s eyes lit up. “Seriously? What’s the premise? Please tell me it’s not another gang life, shoot-em-up kind of thing.”

“No. It’s about a doctor who gets stuck in a hospital in the Rust Belt while he works off his loans. The film looks at joblessness, the opioid crisis, and some of the different tensions affecting Rust Belt areas. We’re hoping not to come off as too judgmental about anyone in the film, although it might not look that way to everyone. Want me to send you the script? We’ll pay you through Josse, but if I send it through him it’ll never see your inbox.”

“Oh, that’s right, didn’t you fire him?” Julián laughed. “I’ve been thinking about it myself. But yeah, send it over. It sounds nice, and it’ll be nice to do something good like that, you know?” He got up and grabbed two bottles of water from Kurt’s fridge, just as someone knocked on the door.

“You stay there. You look heated.” Julián waved a hand at Kurt and opened up the door.

“Did you say he looks heated?” Ben Michaud poked his head around the door frame. “That’s not good. I should check your temperature.”

Kurt didn’t have to fake his grin. “Dr. Ben!”

Julián scowled. “You know this guy?”

“He’s a friend of mine from back in Virginia.” Kurt only hesitated a little bit over the word friend. “He’s also my doctor.”

“Good, you’re backing me up. That’s what I had to tell the studio goons to get them to let me on the set. It’s been a while since your last checkup, Kurt.” Ben wagged a finger at him. “And if you’re overheating yourself in this weather, that’s not a good thing.”

“Ah, he was just beating me to death. Not really working up a sweat.” Julián waved a hand.

Ben smirked. “I see.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m Dr. Ben.”

“Sorry.” Kurt blushed. “Where are my manners? This is Dr. Ben Michaud, he grew up around the industry so you’re not going to freak him out with comments like that. Dr. Ben, this is my friend Julián Tapia. We’ve known each other since we were still doing movies about middle school life.”

“Oh, hey. I remember seeing you in River of Gold. You were really impressive. I liked the depth you brought to a guy who was intended to be a villain. It was hard to root for the good guys, you know?” Ben flashed Julián a quick grin. “Anyway, Dave’s at the hotel with Cam. I just stopped in to check up on you because Van Heel said you told him you were going to be working double time on this.”

“It’s worth it.” Julián made a face and then reached into Kurt’s fridge for another bottle of water. “It’s a great crew to work with, but the script itself is shit.”

Ben laughed. “So, how are things going? I stopped by your house and ran into John. He said they weren’t keeping you busy enough so you took on a second job.”

Kurt blushed. “Well, you know how it is. I don’t like to be idle, and you know…” He trailed off, looking at the ground.

Julián took that as his cue. “I’m going to go check my inbox and stuff. I’ll see you after lunch, okay hotshot?” He ruffled Kurt’s hair on the way out.

Kurt picked up his tablet and sent the script over as Ben watched him go. “He seems nice,” Ben commented. “He’s so menacing on screen, but just sitting around here he’s like anyone else.”

“He’s a pretty incredible actor,” Kurt nodded. “I’m hoping to sign him for a project coming up—”

Ben held up a hand. “You do know you’re supposed to be resting during pregnancy, right? Stress hormones are bad for the baby?”

Kurt heaved a mighty sigh and drank from his water bottle. “I know,” he said after a moment. “And I do try. I keep my feet up when I’m not on set. I try to minimize the amount of running around I do. But if I have down time, I think about Dom, and I don’t want to think about Dom.”

“Why not?” Ben leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you feel like you parted on bad terms?”

“He took me out on an incredible date on Saturday night. It was amazing. He didn’t even try to have sex, because he wanted me to have one experience that didn’t involve someone trying to get into my pants.” He blinked back tears. It wouldn’t do to undo all of Jenny’s hard work, not when she’d already spent two hours on his face once today. “If I think about him, I get sad.”

“Isn’t that normal, though?” Ben tilted his head to the side. “People usually get down after a breakup. It’s part of the grieving process.”

“But here’s the thing. We weren’t ever really together, were we? My wretched former assistant put us together to keep my name in the press. She kept pushing us together so I’d be too distracted to look into the money she was stealing from me. I like him—I miss him—but that’s not exactly a circumstance to build a relationship on, is it? It’s kind of stupid when you think about it. ‘Here, go moon around over a guy you weren’t even supposed to be with for more than a couple of nights. That will do wonders for your sanity and leave you in fantastic shape to raise a child by yourself when it arrives.’” He gave him two thumbs up and a huge plastic smile.

Ben laughed. “Well, no, when you put it like that you’d be absolutely nuts to base a relationship on it. But you know, stranger things have happened. I mean look at me and Dave. We couldn’t stand each other at first. It was supposed to be a quick, shipboard fling. Now we’re married, and I’ve stopped working in war zones to work near his base.”

“Right. You could do that. My skills don’t exactly transfer. I’m responsible for my mum, too. And again, I’d be foolish to quit my job to hang around with no money, with a guy who’s going to throw my past in my face every time we fight.”

“Maybe a little bit.” Ben smirked. “What if he left his job for you?”

Kurt laughed out loud. “What, Dom leave the SEALs? That would never happen. For one thing, I’d never ask him to. For another, he loves it too much. Even if he did leave it, even if I asked him to and he said yes, he’d resent me for the rest of his life. I couldn’t do that. And he’s such the patriot, you know? He’s Mr. USA, and I’m not. How could I ask him to leave a country he loves for one he doesn’t even know and probably wouldn’t like? You don’t get farther from Texas than England, I’m afraid.”

“You don’t think he’d make any sacrifice necessary for his family?” Ben stilled, but he still smiled.

“I’m not his family. Maybe if we’d had more time it could have turned out differently, but at the end of the day I’m not his family. I’m just a guy.” Kurt shook his head hard enough to make his curls fly into his eyes.

“Maybe you’re right. I think he’d be open to changing that, but you’re probably right. You know what, though? The baby is his family.” Ben leaned forward. “All of the SEALs feel pretty strongly about their kids. Did you have a chance to speak to Fitzpatrick at all? The SEAL, not the nurse. When he found out ten years after the fact that he had a son, he was ready to move heaven and earth to keep that son safe. Trent Kelly? When he got Mal pregnant and Mal was in danger, that whole platoon moved mountains to get Mal to safety in America. The whole platoon is pretty set on family, Kurt. They want to help. They’ll do anything they can to help. They just need to know you’ll let them.”

Kurt sighed. “I don’t object to them helping,” he told them. “I don’t. I just don’t see how any of them can help.”

“Don’t you worry about that, Kurt.” Ben winked at him. “You just let them handle it. You put your feet up and get the rest you need. Oh! And guess what I brought?” He reached into a black leather bag—an actual doctor’s bag, just like in old pictures—and pulled out a portable fetal doppler.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kurt sat up a little straighter.

“Hell, yes it is. I know you’re planning to deliver back in England, so I thought you might not have bothered getting an obstetrician here in Arizona. Which is probably fine, to be honest, not that you should tell anyone I said that. But since you’ve got a doctor here and all that, I can do the important bits for you. Do you have a scale in here?”

Kurt got up and ran to the bathroom. He’d never been so giddy for a weigh in before. He was less giddy about the look on Ben’s face when he saw the result. “You should’ve gained a little bit of weight at least, Kurt. Have you not been eating well?”

“I’ve been eating,” he said. “I just haven’t had a lot of appetite, and of course I’ve been busy. I’m sure I’ll start gaining once I’m not out in the heat all the time sweating out every spare bit of moisture.”

“Hm.” Ben narrowed his eyes at Kurt, but he gestured to the couch. “Let’s have a listen. Are you feeling okay?”

Kurt pulled his robe open so Ben could spread gel on his abdomen. “Like I said, not a lot of appetite, but I’m not bad. Really.”

Ben moved the sensor over Kurt’s belly. At first, all he could hear was a weird little watery sound that was probably his own insides. It made him blush. Then he heard it, a steady hammering that went faster than he could have imagined. “Is that healthy?” he asked, holding his breath.

“Yes.” Ben told him, smiling and patting him on the shoulder. “Your child’s heart sounds perfectly healthy so far. It sounds like that because they’re so small. It’ll slow down by the time it’s born, trust me.”

Kurt smiled in unfeigned bliss as he listened to proof of his future child’s life. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Dom were here to hear it with him.

* * *

Dom packed up the last of his belongings and sealed the box shut with clear packing tape. There wasn’t much, and he figured he should feel bad about that. He hadn’t had time to accumulate a whole lot in the way of stuff, and of course an E-6 didn’t make a whole lot of money to begin with. He’d donated his furniture to a local organization helping domestic violence survivors rebuild their lives. It might not be high-end furniture, but it still had plenty of life in it, and there was no point in hoarding it until he found a place to land.

This might be the biggest leap of faith any SEAL had ever taken.

He carried the final box out to his car and stuffed it into the trunk. He didn’t have any trouble fitting it in, even with his duffel bag and his bedding back there. Ah, well. A SEAL couldn’t exactly get away with lugging a bunch of crap around the world with him. Maybe someday he’d develop a love of stuff, but today was not that day.

He felt naked. He hadn’t been a civilian in eight years, and now here he was, just driving through the South. No one had any authority over him. No one was going to tell him where to go or what to do. If he wanted to stay up all night, sleep in all day, and not move on until the day after that, well, he had that option. If he wanted to keep driving all night and push the safety limits of his own endurance, he could do that too.

He didn’t report to anyone anymore.

He also didn’t have a gun anymore. It definitely felt weird to not be able to just reach for a firearm if he needed it, and he stopped at a couple of gas stations in South Carolina and southern Georgia that night that made him wish he’d ignored the law and brought one with him. He was capable of defending himself with anything that came to hand, and he knew it, but not having the reassurance of a firearm with him for the first time in so long just felt unnatural to him.

He stayed in a cheap motel that night, another circumstance that made him long for his sidearm. While he heard plenty of shouting on both sides of him, nothing escalated to the point where he felt the need to get involved, and he slept passably well.

The next day, he drove on through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. He stopped at the Texas border, hands sweaty. Did he have the time to stop in Austin? It was pretty far out of his way. On the one hand, he’d be missing his parents. It had been a while since he’d gone home for a visit, and one day wouldn’t be enough. If he’d separated from the Navy to go chase after family, shouldn’t he focus on, well, family?

On the other hand, Ben’s text burned a hole in his phone. Kurt’s wretched movie was moving along well ahead of schedule. They’d be done filming soon, and then Kurt would leave. Dom would never catch up to him then. He had to do this now, before Kurt and their child were lost to him forever.

He could go back through Austin. Then he wouldn’t be going to his parents with his hat in his hand, the fool who’d left a job and a sure thing with the Navy to chase after an actor with a dubious reputation. He’d be the man who’d gone to do the right thing by his child and the man carrying him. And he could show Austin off to Kurt. Austin was everything that was right about America, damn it.

He stayed in another cheap motel that night. This time he did have to chase off a couple of drunks trying to break in and steal the TV. Maybe it would have been better if he’d sprung for a better class of lodging, but Dom just couldn’t bring himself to splurge. Not on something like that.

He chased off the drunks, dealt with the police, went to a diner, and loaded up on coffee. He might as well get a little further. Maybe he could get all the way through Texas today, if he really pushed it.

He did make it all the way through Texas, and even as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico that day. He headed out for a run, just to get rid of his jitters, and then hit the sack. He didn’t want to be anything less than fresh for when he saw Kurt again. Six weeks, almost seven, was a long time.

The next day, he pressed on through the rest of New Mexico and then Arizona. Maybe he’d appreciate both states a little more on the way back. They were beautiful, and he knew that deep in his brain. Right now, he couldn’t think of them that way. They were just too big, too in the way, and they were keeping him apart from Kurt.

He drove eight hours the next day to get to the hotel where Ben and Hopper were staying. Their nanny had a room too, although little Cam slept with her parents. Dom had to wonder about that, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t have time.

His hands shook as Hopper steered him toward the shower. “You look like you’ve been on a four day bender, man,” Hopper drawled. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Dom tried to push him off. Did he just not understand how desperate Dom was? Production was ending soon! What if Kurt snuck off in the middle of the night? Dom would have thrown away his career, and his child, and Kurt, and driven across the seedier parts of the South, for nothing. He couldn’t articulate the words, though. He could just grunt and push ineffectively.

“Dude,” Hopper told him, settling his hands a little more firmly on Dom’s shoulders. “The AC on that car of yours is about as effective as a duck call at a skeet shoot. Go wash. Kurt will still be here when you’ve gotten cleaned up. They’re still filming for the next little while, okay? Even if they were done with Kurt, he’d still be here.”

“John’s in on the plan,” Ben confirmed. “I spoke to him earlier in the week. Wash up, Van Heel. No one’s going near my patient without a good amount of soap.”

Dom wasn’t about to argue with the doctor, not as far as Kurt’s health was concerned. He couldn’t let Kurt get sick.

He washed up and put on some clean clothes—he still had some, fortunately. He traveled light, but not that light. “It’s funny,” he said to Hopper as he got his shoes back on. “This has the feel of getting ready to go out on an extraction. I never gave a crap how I smelled on an extraction before.”

“Well, no.” Hopper nodded reasonably, blinking at Dom. “As a general rule, hostages aren’t too picky about the way their rescuers smell.”

“I’m not even going in with my guns blazing, though. I’m a civilian now. I can’t go in with my guns blazing, and he’s probably not in any danger. I have no idea how this is supposed to work.” He wiped his hands on his jeans. “I’m going to mess this whole thing up, and then someone’s going to shoot me.”

“If it makes you feel better, I brought my gun. And the nanny has hers.” Hopper winked. “We’ll lend you one if you need it.”

The nanny gave a disdainful sniff. Dom wondered if she’d be the one to shoot him. She was thinking about it, he knew.

They piled into some massive SUV thing that Ben had rented, or rather that his brother had sent as a “gesture of goodwill.” “I think he thinks the SEALs have some control over who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t,” Hopper snorted. “Ben tried to tell him that if he was clean he should be fine, but he still seems nervous. I don’t even know.”

It took a second for Dom’s brain to catch up. “Your brother’s in government?” he asked Ben.

“Ugh. He’s a Congressman. From the current administration’s party. And he’s only a half brother,” he added quickly, and with a pained look. “He’s going out of his way to be helpful now, and I honestly don’t think he took any of Smolak’s dirty money. He’s not a big fan of Smolak’s kind of politics. But I’m okay with letting him sweat it out anyway. He broke my stethoscope when I was eight.”

“Sometimes I don’t regret not having siblings,” Dom told them, and looked down at the baby in the car seat. “What do you think, Cam? I’m sure you’ve broken plenty of stethoscopes.”

She drooled and grinned up at him, proudly.

Apparently Kurt had rented a house, because the local hotels weren’t up to Kurt’s exacting standards or something like that. Dom laughed at himself. They weren’t Kurt’s standards at all. Kurt was happy with a couch and a blanket. John would have booked a house, because he didn’t like the hotel standards. Or maybe he didn’t like the hotel’s security. Either way, he’d done it, and it was a good thing he had, too.

The house looked fairly normal from the street, prosperous and well taken care of but not ostentatious. There was a gate, though, and thick clumps of cacti under every window. “John’s a smart guy.” Dom gripped his seat belt. What had happened to put John out on the streets in the first place?

He got out of the car as soon as the engine stopped. John must have been watching for him, because he opened the door just as soon as Dom turned up the little walkway. “Good to see you, Dom,” he said, shaking his hand and meeting his eyes. “I’m glad you made it. He hasn’t been quite right without you.”

“Not quite right how?” Dom stiffened. Was Kurt hurt? Sick? Had he gone back to his old ways? Not that I have a right to object if he did, Dom reminded himself. I just want to know what I’m dealing with.

“He’s just…he’s down. Working until he passes out on the couch, not eating right. It’s not like we don’t have the food. I hired a chef so he didn’t have to go out to restaurants all the time.” He sighed. “Well, Ben, you know how he’s been.”

Dom bowed his head. “This is my fault.”

Hopper nudged him. “Oh, come on, you mean you didn’t drop everything and go AWOL? Get yourself sent to Leavenworth? Come on. The baby’s healthy, you guys will be fine, let’s just wait right here and surprise him.”

Dom glanced over at John. “Wait, shouldn’t you be with him?”

“I told him I was going home to take care of laundry.” He made a face. “I send it out, he insists on it. But I still have to do it, you know? Anyway, he’ll be home any minute.”

Everyone sat down on couches like it was the most natural thing in the world. Dom couldn’t sit down. He didn’t want to sit down, and even if he did his natural energy wouldn’t let him. All he could do was pace. Would Kurt look different than he had before? Would he still want to see Dom? Would he be showing yet? It was probably still too early, but Dom could hope.

They waited for ten minutes, and then they heard the unmistakable sound of a car in the driveway. A moment later, a key turned in the lock. The door creaked open, and Kurt shuffled in the door.

He looked exhausted. He’d lost weight instead of gaining it, and his skin had gotten darker. He didn’t see anyone else in the dimly lit living room, because he was too busy looking at the ground.

“Hey John, we should probably make plans to move on soon. Today was my last scene. I should probably stick around and be supportive, since everyone was so supportive of me, but I don’t want to be the fart in the corner at the party.” Kurt yawned.

“Are you sure you want to leave so soon?” Dom licked his lips and stepped forward.

Kurt dropped his bag and stared. He didn’t move a muscle. If this had been a science fiction movie, Dom would have said he’d been hit by some kind of freeze gun. After a long, tense silence, Kurt spoke.

“I’m dead,” he said, in an oddly unbothered tone. “I’m dead, and this is one of those dying fantasies or some such thing.”

Dom huffed out a little laugh as he caught Kurt up in a bear hug. “Does this feel like a dying fantasy to you?” he asked, spinning Kurt around in a slow circle.

“I don’t know. I’ve never had one before.” Kurt laughed now, eyes alive and twinkling. “This can’t be real, though. You’re in the Navy. You can’t just go tearing across the country on a lark.” He covered his mouth with his hands. “Tell me you’re not AWOL. We’ll smuggle you down to Mexico. I won’t let them take you.”

Ben covered his eyes with one hand. “Kurt, we don’t have to smuggle him to Mexico. We can just bring him to France.”

“Oh.” He turned to Dom, who couldn’t stop grinning. “Dom, we’re not going to let them take you. We’ll get you out of this somehow. Just let us figure this out.”

Dom caught Kurt’s hands in his own. “Babe. Kurt. I’m not AWOL.”

“You’re not?” Kurt knit his eyebrows together. “Then how are you here?”

“I’m separated. I left the Navy.”

Kurt took in a breath so deep and so loud it woke Cam, who cried. Ben left her to the nanny, because it sounded like Kurt was in distress. “Breathe with me, Kurt. Breathe. Come on. In, out, good. Does it hurt? Where? Okay, come over here. Sit down.”

Hopper nudged Dom. “Dude. A little preparation.”

“It’s okay.” Ben looked up and took Cam from the nanny. “It’s not a heart attack. It’s just a bit of acid. He’s been under a lot of stress.” He glared down at Kurt. “Which I did warn you about.”

Kurt pouted. “I know. I know. But Dom—you left the Navy?”

Dom squatted down in front of Kurt. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you raising our baby by yourself—not because you aren’t competent, or because you wouldn’t be a loving parent, but because I want to be part of it. I think kids do best when they have two loving parents, if that’s possible. Frankly, I want to raise our child together, with you.”

“You were right. It’s not right to expect you to drop everything. And with the way things’ve been going, you know, I didn’t have the same taste for the job I once did. I still love my brothers, but I was always going to be wondering what was behind every order from on high.”

“My enlistment was up. So I decided not to re-up, packed up my stuff, and drove down here.” He swallowed. “I want to be your partner. I don’t know if we’ll be perfect together, but we can sure as hell try. I’ve even applied for permission to live in the UK, if you’ll let me.”

Tears dropped from Kurt’s perfect lashes. “Oh, my God. Dom, Yes.”