The trip back to Virginia Beach was not fun. It was a tension filled nightmare. Colin had thought the trip to Egypt had been ugly, but no. Compared to this, the trip out had been a pleasant ocean cruise.

There were some important differences. This time, some folks were willing to stand up for him. These seemed to be the older SEALs and, with the exception of Kulkarni and DeWitt, were SEALs who had husbands and children. Chief kept an eye on things and made sure no one got into his face. DeWitt kept him and Mansur busy by asking for his help in the office. Kelly, Kulkarni, and Fitzpatrick all helped out by sitting with him and Mansur in the mess hall and keeping them from getting too lonely.

If any of this had happened on the way out to Egypt, Colin would have been over the moon. All he'd wanted had been one kind soul to make him feel like less of an alien. Now that he had a few gentle people willing to help him pass the many boring days between Cairo and Virginia Beach, all he wanted to do was sit alone in his bunk and maybe cry for three weeks.

That wouldn't have been healthy or productive. Eventually, when the dust settled and he'd adapted to his new life, Colin would appreciate the men who didn't let him wallow in his room like a sullen teenager. He'd been through that once, not that any of the terrible poetry had survived.

The younger SEALs backed Ed. That didn't mean they agreed with him or thought he'd done the right thing. Some of them didn't have all of, or any, information. Some of them didn't know any more than that Colin, who none of them liked to begin with, had gotten pregnant with Ed's baby and then dumped him. It was enough for them. Ed was their brother, had saved their ass numerous times, and Colin was some nobody they only tolerated because they had to.

Mansur bristled at that, but Colin couldn't. He was glad someone was standing by Ed, because Ed looked like shit.

Colin avoided Ed. He didn't want to. He wanted to go and talk to him, just like they used to, but those days were over. It was exactly like he'd told Ed before they left. There was no chance they could stay friends anymore, not after the way everything had gone between them.

He asked Chief to keep an eye on Ed. The white-bearded officer gave him a funny look and tilted his head. "I thought you broke it off with him."

"I did." Colin shrugged. "And I don't think that's going to change at all, because you can see how things turned out. But I don't hate him."

"The guy's pretty broken, Church. If you don't hate him, walk over there and patch things up with him."

Colin ground his teeth together. "It's been two weeks, Chief. Do you think, in two weeks, he's stopped seeing me as property?"

"You'd have to ask him that." Chief shrugged.

"I can't take that chance. But anyway. If you could just, you know. Keep an eye on him, look out for him. I'm worried about him." Colin tried not to be obvious about moistening his lips. What was it with all of these guys trying to put the onus on him to fix things? It was Ed who'd decided he didn't want Colin anymore, just a brood mare. It was Ed who hadn't been willing to listen, and it had been Ed who'd completely flown off the handle with jealousy.

Sure, Colin had been the one to break things off. But no rational person could have stayed.

"Yeah. I'll keep an eye out for him. But seriously, Colin, give a thought to reconsidering, would you? He's a good guy. He deserves another chance." Chief scratched his beard. "He's got some issues to work out. I know he's jealous, and we've talked about that."

"You've talked about it." Colin ran his hand through his hair. "You have, but we haven't. I tried. He'd say he was over it, but the next time something came up he'd lose his mind again, and it would all be directed at Mansur. So…no. How many times do you let someone give you a line before you stop falling for it?"

"I guess that's a good point." Chief grimaced. "We'll have to see what time brings. There's not much he can do on this tin can, can he?"

There wasn't, and Ed didn't seem all that inclined to try.

They arrived in Virginia Beach. Colin and Mansur disembarked. They went through customs, and Colin found them a Lyft to get a hotel.

Colin headed to the Hampton Inn, because he had more Hilton points than Marriott points, and it was convenient. Neither of them cared that they were sharing a room. After everything, all they cared about were clean beds and a bathroom they could use alone.

Colin called Bradley the next day. He hesitated to disclose his pregnancy, but now that it had caused a problem with his assignment he figured it would be better to hear it from him instead of from some Navy PR hack. He explained the whole situation, from start to finish, and then waited for Bradley to fire him.

Bradley went quiet for a long moment. "Well, I'll be honest. I did not see that coming. I'm not going to pretend I'm thrilled. These things happen though. And hey. You brought Mansur Mohammed back. I don't suppose he'd consider working for us?"

"What, in my job?" Colin laughed. It was all he could do. "It's not like I'm going to be able to do it anymore, not with a baby strapped to me."

"About that." Bradley took a deep breath. "I don't want to get your hopes up, because that's just cruel. I might have a lead on a job you can transition into. You're still employed here for now, if you want to be. You've got a few weeks left on that assignment—"

"Bradley, half the platoon wants my skin for pork rinds." Colin pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Don't worry about that for now. You can interview SEALs outside the group, you can interview SEAL spouses. That's a great human interest angle right there, right? Lots of people want to know more about them. That would be fantastic. See if you can set those up. Talk to their kids, if they're old enough. Then we'll go from there. We'll keep paying for the hotel room, don't worry about that. Let me make a few calls."

"Thanks, Bradley." Colin took back every negative thought he’d ever had about the guy.

Mansur accepted a job with the Times. Most journalists, given an opportunity, would. He wasn't so enthusiastic about roaming around the world and living out of hotels for the rest of time, though. "I always liked to have a base to come back to," he said. "And it's not like I don't have money of my own. Let's find an apartment together. At least then you'll have a place to stay, right? As your plans take off, you can pay rent. If things get slow, it's not like it's going to be an issue if you have to hold back for a little while."

They took some time to look for apartments in the area, simply because it was where they'd landed. They could have moved, Colin guessed, but Virginia Beach's only drawback was the base, and Colin could avoid that without a problem.

Colin missed Ed, but he had plenty to do to keep himself busy in the meantime. He was still assigned to the SEALs, as Bradley had explained. The team was recovering from their recent deployment, so in theory he would have just been hanging around the base and watching them work out. While that could be a pleasant aesthetic experience, the muscles and masculine beauty had kind of lost their glow by now.

He reached out to some of the spouses instead. Mal came first. Colin hesitated to call him and even asked Mansur to come with him for the interview. "I know he's an omega, but he's also a terrorist omega. I can fight, sure, but I'm pregnant and more of a runner while he's been training to do this his whole life. I'd feel more comfortable if I had someone else with me, if you know what I mean."

Mansur agreed, and Mal met them at a "family dining" restaurant in Portsmouth near the hospital. He brought his young son with him, which made him seem a little less threatening. "The day care center is right here, and I figured why go all the way home just to drop him off?" He grinned at Colin. "Besides, I understand you should probably get used to being around one of these soon enough, yeah?"

Colin winced. "I suppose I'll have to. It doesn't seem to be a bad dream, so there'll be some adaptations."

"I was pretty much in your shoes." Mal arranged the little boy in a high chair. The boy, whose name was evidently Danny because someone had a sense of humor, found the high chair delightful. He was a happy baby, all smiles and giggles. "I mean I didn't hate kids, but I wasn't a fan. And I didn't have the first clue what to do with one. I could more or less figure out which end the bottle went into, but after that, I was useless. Thank God for the nurses in the hospital, right?"

Colin nodded and faked a smile. "So Kelly—er, Trent—wasn't much better?"

"He'd at least been around children, but you know—alphas." Mal wrinkled his nose. "All thumbs and testosterone. Anyway. What is it you wanted to talk to me about? I hope you're not holding any grudges."

"No, no grudges," Colin lied.

"That's a relief." Mal grinned. He had a bouncy kind of energy to him, a kind of charisma that almost had Colin believing. If only there hadn't been the whole kidnapping thing. "I guess you're doing stories about all of the guys."

"Well, yeah." Colin sat up a little straighter and glanced down at his tablet. He didn't want to get lost in conversation. He just wanted to get the job done. "Human interest stories now that we're off deployment. I did some features too."

"I saw the one you sent in with the monks." Mal turned to Mansur. "You're the one that prayed over their bodies, aren't you?"

Mansur grimaced. "I wasn't supposed to be that obvious." He wiped a hand over his face. "I suppose it's all moot since I'm here now, but still."

"I do have a little more information than other people. But it was a good story. It had a lot of people talking. Apparently, it generated a lot of money in donations for their monastery, too. So good work, I guess."

Colin wondered when this interview had gone off the rails. "So given that you're not really supposed to be talking about how you got here, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that a story about how you met isn't in the cards. I do know your husband is gone for long periods, and of course he's doing a job that's fairly intense. How do you handle that?"

Mal looked off into space for a moment. "I'll be honest. At first? It bit. I'm sure you'll edit that part out, or change it to make it palatable, but it sucked. I was alone, in an alien country. And remember, all I knew about America was what I'd seen in the news. Think Mad Max with a lot of fast food product placement. You know, Trent's a great guy and all—when he's around. And his uncles are tops, but they've got lives of their own.”

"As soon as Danny was old enough to go to daycare, I went and got a job. Sometimes I felt guilty. Sometimes I still do feel guilty about having him spend so much time apart from me. We don't need the money. Don't put this in your article, but come on, Colin. You know what I can do, and you know what I've done. I did it because I was going mad without some way of being useful."

Colin glanced at Mansur, whose eyes danced as he looked back at Mal. "I'll come up with a way of making that look like you're not a national security risk," he said with a wink. "So, you haven't found the community of spouses and families to be as strong for you as its reputation."

"Not at first." Mal smirked. "At first, I had no idea what I'd talk to them about. None of the guys in the platoon had anyone, except Chief. They were all from these very normal backgrounds, and I'd been raised to kill extremists from childhood. That's not a great conversation starter.”

"Then I met up with Nick, who wound up with Fitzpatrick. We work together at Portsmouth. And their older kid, Sam, is close with Chief's oldest, Noah. So we both got to be close with Chief's husband Tony. So you build a community, little by little. Even though it might seem like you'd have nothing to say to each other, there's no one else in the world who's going to understand what you're going through."

Mal's eyes bored into Colin's. "Your husband is thousands of miles away. When he comes home, he's had this whole different set of experiences with a whole different group of people. He spends more time with those guys than he ever will with you. They're his brothers. And you knew that when you got together with him, so you can't say anything.”

"These guys—and, if you branch out beyond just this platoon, the Navy wives too—they're the only ones who understand. They're the only ones who aren't going to judge you if you get jealous. They're the ones who, even if you've just moved into town because your husband got transferred with no notice, will drop everything and pick up your kids at school so you can make a doctor's appointment, or go to meet your husband's ship when it comes in too.”

"Even if you don't actually like each other, you'll come together for each other. Just like our husbands, we're brothers. And sisters," he added, with a grimace. "I don't know if I could have handled the rest of that year, if I hadn't had Nick."

Colin looked down. He'd never had that. The closest he'd come had been on the Olympic team, but even then there had been rivalries and tension. "And everyone just gets along?"

"For the most part, sure. We're not all saints. But we don't leave each other out to dry." He leaned in toward Colin. "And we stick up for each other, even when it's the alphas being asses." He sat up straighter again. "No offense."

Mansur held up a hand. "None taken." He grinned. "It sounds like that probably happens more than some people would like to admit?"

Mal took a sip from his water. "Well, I noticed Colin's story about Baudin. Nice job on the mental health care angle, by the way. Let me tell you a story."

Colin sat back and listened. He would never be part of a brotherhood like that. It was hard not to feel like he'd missed out.

* * *

Chief let Ed have a day when they docked in Virginia Beach to wallow in self pity. Then he showed up at Ed's condo.

"What progress have you made on getting counseling, Sailor?"

The whole situation felt so absurd that Ed just had to laugh. Ed was still in his underwear, not having bothered with pajamas. He was also hung over, since he'd decided to commemorate being on land for the first time since winning and losing the love of his life by consuming every bottle of liquor in his apartment. Chief wore civvies, which as far as Ed was concerned was a lot like seeing Chief naked.

So he laughed, which hurt his stomach. That made him run to the bathroom, leaving Chief with full run of the condo. Ed could live with that. Chief was the most trustworthy man in the Navy.

He re-evaluated that position when he got back to the main room and found Chief emptying the rest of a bottle of Southern Comfort into the sink. Ed wasn't typically a SoCo guy. He didn't know where that had even come from, which gave him pause.

"That's right." Chief smiled brightly at him. "You were on a real bender last night, weren't you?"

Ed bit his lip. He wasn't going to be the one to say he was entitled. Not to Chief.

"Good plan." Chief patted him on the bare chest, as though he'd spoken aloud. "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to go hit the shower. You're going to spend a minimum of twenty minutes in there, scrubbing. And then you're going to put clothes on." He looked Ed up and down. "Clean clothes, I should add. And then you and I are going to take a little trip to Portsmouth."

Ed knew better than to argue. When he got into the shower it did occur to him that he was on his day off and Chief probably couldn't come over and order him around like this, but he went along with the orders anyway. Whatever they involved would probably be in his best interests, or at least get his mind off his lost family, and he could definitely use the shower.

When he'd found some presentable civilian clothes, he presented himself back out in the common room. Chief glanced around himself with barely concealed disdain. "Have you bothered to actually put in any furniture, or is everything in here built from pallets and milk crates?"

"Er, I guess I never saw much point, Chief. I'm not here all that often." Ed tugged on the edges of his shirt.

"Well son, let me tell you something. You probably saved quite a bit of money by not spending it on furniture, right?" When Ed nodded, Chief put a hand on his shoulder. "Take my advice, son. Buy some furniture. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it should be sturdy. Something a toddler can't bust up in a day."

Ed scowled. "Chief, he's never going to let me see that baby."

"There's laws about that and courts. We might not have to go that route if you clean up your head. Come on."

And with that, Chief bustled Ed into his car and drove him out to an appointment with a Navy psychologist by the name of Dr. Chaudhary.

Dr. Chaudhary was a man of about average height and middle years. He greeted Chief with a broad smile, which told Ed that Chief had pulled some strings to get him in here. His cheeks burned, and he couldn't lift his eyes from the floor. What kind of a guy needed his CO to jump in and pull strings to unfuck his life like this?

Chief patted Ed's shoulder. "I'll be in the waiting room. Scream if you need me." And then Ed was in the office alone with Chaudhary.

He sat down in one of the chairs across from the doctor's desk. "So. You're a counselor?"

"I'm a therapist. I work with service members and their families. I've got a lot of experience working with alphas, in particular." Chaudhary drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't let someone talk to me about a patient. But your CO did a lot of work to convince me to see you. He didn't think you'd be forthcoming, initially. He mentioned you had some trouble expressing your emotions constructively, and it caused you some difficulty in your relationship."

Ed glared at the door. "There is no relationship."

Chaudhary made a note. "You have any thoughts about elaborating on that? Why does your CO think there is a relationship?"

"There was a relationship. But, um. We wanted different things. And I got jealous. Really jealous." He bounced his foot up and down. "Is that something you can fix?"

"The human brain isn't like an engine or a gun, Ed. I don't have a wrench that just goes in, tightens a few bolts and then bam, you're fixed. There are some medications that can help adjust certain conditions, but I don't think jealousy is one of them. But I'll let you in on a little secret." He leaned forward. "Jealousy's a secondary issue anyway."

Ed had to huff out a laugh at that one. "Chief said the same thing."

"Did he? Huh. My job, Sailor, is to work with you to find the primary issue. When you get to the primary issue and resolve it, you should find the jealousy resolves itself. Tell me about this relationship."

Ed did. He talked about Colin, and how he'd loved him since they were in middle school. He talked about how happy he'd been when they finally got together. He talked about the baby. "I won't pretend it's a convenient time. But it's a baby—it's our baby. And you don't just decide it's inconvenient and throw it away, you know? It's family. You keep your family with you. You're supposed to love it, not decide you don't want it. And you're not supposed to think of it as a damn burden. It's yours, be happy about it."

Chaudhary glanced at Ed's file. "Hm. It says here you were raised by your grandfathers."

Ed clenched his fist around the arm of his chair. "So?"

"Do you want to talk about that a little more, maybe? How was that for you?"

"It was fine. They didn't have a choice. I mean maybe they did, technically, but they were stand up guys. My mom, she had a bad head, you know? My bio dad went to jail before I was born. He ain't never getting out, and good riddance. Mom took up with this other guy, a dealer, when I was still a baby. Some stuff happened, I don't know, and they stepped in for a while. And then they just kind of kept going." He tapped his foot again. He couldn't stop. "What do they have to do with this? They've been dead for years."

"I'm just trying to get at what might be causing some of the feelings you have. What about Colin? Did he know about this?"

"I mean, he knew I grew up with my granddads, yeah. He even lived with us for maybe two months while DSS tried to sort out something with his relatives." He chuckled. "I don't think he lived with the same family member for more than six months at a stretch. Ever."

"Okay. Now we're getting somewhere." Chaudhary grinned. "That's good. I'm seeing the root of part of your conflict right there."

Ed frowned, but he kept talking when the doctor prompted him to. The hour ended before he knew it, and his knees buckled as he left the office.

Chief grinned at him when they walked away. "How'd it go?"

"I'm not a hundred percent sure. The whole inside of my head itches. But you trust this guy, right, Chief?"

"He's helped me." Chief nodded. "I like him. He doesn't mess around with a bunch of fussy nonsense or new age crap. He's direct and to the point. I figured you might pull a gun if I tried to bring you to the other kind."

Ed's laughter was genuine this time. "So, am I cured?"

"Hell no, you're not cured. It's going to take a few more weeks before you can even approach cured. But you're making steps."

Ed went to two more sessions over the next week and a half. He did have to go back to work, too, but he liked that. Work gave him something to focus on.

He still had yet to see Colin around the base. That hurt. If he wasn't going to be allowed to see Colin or talk to Colin, or be part of his and the baby's life, he needed to be able to make a clean break. Unfortunately for both of them, Colin still had time left on his assignment with the SEALs. And, as Ed discovered two weeks after they returned, Colin found a new job that meant Ed would be seeing even more of him.

It was Mal Kelly that told him about it, at a housewarming for the new place he'd just gotten with Kelly. Colin wasn't there, of course. Colin wasn't part of that world, and he wouldn't be. Mal walked up to Ed, though, and struck up a conversation about him anyway. They must have patched up their differences.

"So did you hear about Colin Church?"

"No." Ed sipped from his beer. "We're not on speaking terms these days. Is he okay?"

"Yeah. I mean he and Mansur are still living in a hotel room, but Mansur's buying a condo, so they'll be moving soon. Colin said they might as well share the space, since they were both learning their way around and all that. Anyhow, Colin's editors at the Times helped find him a job at the local TV station. He's going to be a news anchor."

Ed frowned. "He's going to be a what?" He scratched his head. "What's he going to do about child care? Or paternal leave?"

"He's already talked to a handful of other folks in the newsroom. He's one hell of an organizer. He hasn't even started yet, and he's already organized them to club together to get child care at the office. There are a couple of other pregnant ladies, and one other pregnant omega on staff in the sports department. It's in everyone's best interests, and the company's going to chip in for half."

"Holy crap." Ed blinked. Then he grinned and stuck his thumbs into his belt loops. "You know, I should have known he'd find a way. The man's nothing if not resourceful."

"Mmm. You should appreciate that more." Mal took a sip from his drink.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ed glanced over at him.

"Look, Trent told me everything. Did you tell him to find another job, or did you tell him sitting at home was just the way it was going to be?"

Ed hung his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I did that." He wanted to get defensive about it, but he had to just accept what he'd done. "So what, I should go and congratulate him?"

"It's a reason to reach out to him." Mal raised his glass at him and wandered away, calling out to Fitzpatrick's omega.

Ed asked Chaudhary about it the next time they met. "Do you think I'm ready to reach out to Colin?" He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I know I've still got a bunch of things to work on here, but I miss him so much it hurts. And I'm going to have to see him on TV and everything. Can't I just reach out and try to talk to him? I could at least try to be friends again, if not what we were."

Chaudhary chewed on the end of his pen for a moment. "Ed, let me ask you something. Do you want to resume your romantic relationship with Colin?"

"Yes." Ed kept his answer simple and short even though he had a list of about ten snappy comebacks to offer. "I do. I'm ready to accept that he might not be ready, or might not be willing. But I want to reach out. I love him. And I want him to know I've been trying. I've been fighting to be someone he can love again."

Chaudhary hummed. "And if you go to see him and Mansur is there?"

Ed swallowed. "I will remind myself—probably a few times—that I made my bed, I have to lie in it, and I had my chance. Colin chose me, and I screwed it up. If I want him to choose me again, I should listen to him. Not the voice in my head that tells me Mansur has something I don't."

Chaudhary nodded. "I think it's worth trying. You might be jumping the gun a little, but you do love each other. It's not like you won't be continuing with therapy."

Ed headed over to the hotel after work, but Colin wasn't there. Instead, he found himself face to face with the person he least wanted to see. Mansur.

Mansur narrowed his eyes at Ed. "Are you here to make him feel worse?" He rubbed his hand along his stubble. "Because I don't think I can let you in, if you are."

Ed opened his mouth to rip into his rival, and then he remembered himself. Mansur wasn't the problem. "I don't want to make him feel bad. I want to talk to him, like adults. If you want to stay and make sure I behave myself, that's fine. I've earned it. I just—I've been working on some stuff. And I want to tell him. I want him to know. And I need to tell him how I feel."

"Well, he's not here right now." Mansur smiled, proud and easy. "It's his first day as the new face of Virginia Beach's evening news." He gestured to the television, where the intro music for the local news was just now coming on.

"Welcome to WWCD, Virginia Beach's premier source for local news." Colin smiled at the camera, confident and assured. God, he looked amazing. The man on the screen could never have used his own hand to block another man's sucking chest wound. He would never have faced torture and worse for his job. No, this guy was the very picture of calm, comfort, and security. "I'm Colin Church."

They watched Colin's first day together in companionable silence. Then Ed turned to Mansur. "So. Condo, huh?"

Mansur tensed. "Well, you know. Can't live in a Hampton forever. Especially with a baby on the way. It's already a little uncomfortable. And I like to have a home base, you know?" He paused. "It's a new concept for Colin, I suppose."

"I wanted to be the one to give him that." Ed looked down.

Mansur stared at him for a minute. Then he shrugged. "We're moving in on Saturday. If you wanted a chance to speak to him, that would be a good one." He grinned. "We have separate bedrooms, you know."

Ed laughed. "Am I that predictable?"

"You are. But it's okay. You're getting better. I didn't expect you to come here tonight at all."