Ben didn't expect to find it so easy to sleep in the tiny cabin, tucked deep in the bowels of the hospital ship. He'd certainly had worse beds than the plastic-covered mattress he lay on now. The hum of the ship's HVAC systems definitely made better bedtime music than the shrill sound of an incoming mortar round or the constant rat-tat-tat of gunfire. There was enough noise to prove that something, somewhere was happening, though. It wasn't too quiet. He wouldn't have been able to get to sleep at all if he had to wonder why there wasn't any sound at all.

He even had a little bathroom to himself, complete with a shower stall. They were really pulling out all the stops for him today. Surely someone else could use this room, a new mother or a grieving widow. He understood why they wanted him in here, though. At least, he thought he did. Ben was the only omega on the ship, or at least the only one anyone knew about. And if the Sailor with the tense grin had been accurate, the crew had more than a few alphas.

He didn't want special treatment, but he wasn't about to try to challenge the Navy on their own vessel either. Not unless lives were at stake. He showered in true safety for the first time in a long while. He reveled in the freedom of not having to watch his back or rush through his shower just in case, and then he crawled into bed.

The next thing he knew, someone was knocking on his door. He had no idea how long it had been. When he rubbed at his face, though, his usual well-groomed stubble had crossed the line into a nascent beard, so he must have been asleep for a while. "Who is it?"

"Petty Officer Hopper. Chief and our Lieutenant were hoping you'd be willing to have another chat with us."

Ben tried to remember which one Hopper had been. None of the Sailors had bothered to introduce themselves, except for Master Chief Boone and Lt. DeWitt. Oh well—it wasn't like his name mattered. He was going to go with the guy no matter which Sailor he was. He didn't have much real choice in the matter, even if the guy was being polite about it. "Give me a second." He groped for some of the clothes he'd been generously issued, since he no longer had anything of his own. He'd fix that as soon as they got to a port but for now, Navy-issue gray sweats and a tee shirt would do just fine.

He sprang to the door and opened it. He didn't want to keep the officer waiting. "I apologize. I didn't mean to sleep so long." He blinked at the tall, dark-haired Sailor. Hopper was beautiful enough to take his breath away. "Er, was I asleep long?"

Hopper snorted, eyes flat. "You've been asleep for about eighteen hours." He curled his lip. "I guess getting taken hostage takes something out of you."

Ben should probably have been annoyed by the not-so-thinly veiled accusation there, but he couldn't find it in him. He could have crawled back onto the bunk and gone back to sleep for another eighteen hours. "I was the only surgeon left in the hospital at that point. I'd been operating for thirty-six hours by the time we made a run for it." He turned toward the bathroom. "Give me a second to brush my teeth. No one wants to conduct an interview with morning breath."

At least Hopper's sneering tone had taken care of that burgeoning erection. The sweats wouldn't do much to hide or restrain it. Ben glowered down at his crotch as he cleaned himself up. His body had picked an awfully inconvenient time to remember that omegas had needs. Maybe it was just fatigue or the unique chemical euphoria of survival. Whatever the cause, it would pass. It always did.

He emerged from the bathroom to find Hopper watching him. "All right. Lead on, MacDuff."

"Hopper." Hopper walked toward the door.

"Sorry. It's a line from a play."

"I know. We do have books in West Virginia." Hopper stiffened his back. "Some of them might be a little dated, but Shakespeare doesn't get old."

Ben looked up at the gray ceiling. Hopper clearly didn't want to be on friendly terms. Ben would take the hint and keep his mouth shut. He couldn't think of what he'd done to offend the guy, but he wasn't going to find out if Hopper didn't volunteer the information. And honestly, he wasn't sticking around. He'd get off the boat as soon as possible and never set eyes on him again.

Hopper led him up to a gray conference room, where Chief and DeWitt waited for him. A few other guys in camouflage clothes sat in chairs around them, all tense to various degrees. One, whose uniform proclaimed his name to be Kelly, had an open laptop in front of him.

Ben's palms ran slick with sweat. These guys were all big, powerful men. If they weren't alphas, Ben would surrender his surgeon's license. He didn't want to be in a room alone with eight alphas. He didn't want to be in a room alone with one alpha. He wanted to be back in an operating room, saving a life. "Gentlemen." He paused in the doorway.

Hopper moved to leave.

Boone cleared his throat. "Don't be so hasty, Hopper. Stick around for a hot minute."

Hopper froze, but then he slid back into the conference room. "Sir." He didn't want to be there. Whatever Ben had done to piss him off must have been big.

DeWitt gestured to an open seat near him. "Grab some coffee. Have a muffin, if you want it. We'll get one of the guys to show you to the mess hall after this. We apologize for waking you up and asking you questions before coffee. It's hardly civilized, but we're SEALs. People don't really expect us to be civilized." He smirked at his own joke, and then he passed Ben a mug.

Ben took it. He'd probably develop a sense of humor after a steaming mug or two.

Boone snorted at DeWitt. "I told you not to quit your day job, Lieutenant. Anyway. According to your records from Borderless, which they shared to prove that you are not a terrorist, you've been out here doing the Lord's work for something like four years."

Ben nodded. It was hardly a state secret. "Yes, sir. I signed up four years ago, and I've done tours in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan." He sipped from his coffee while he met his hosts' eyes. He had nothing to be ashamed of.

Hopper snorted behind him when he said "tours." Ben pressed his lips together, but he didn't say anything. He didn't care what Hopper thought. The guy could be as petty as he wanted, but his opinions still had no bearing on Ben's life.

"That's enough, Hopper." Boone's tone was mild. "You've probably seen a lot of activity that involved either ISIS or Al Qaeda, then."

Ben nodded. "Sure. Daesh has been all over this thing in Syria. I'm ninety percent sure that the guys holding us in that basement were Daesh, or at least linked to Daesh." His gorge rose at the memory of the stench in that basement. "Has anyone gone into that cellar? How many bodies were in there, anyway?"

"You didn't count them?" Another younger SEAL jumped in, face skeptical.

"No. I sat on the ground and waited, with the nurses, for an opportunity. There wasn't any light. Our captors had guns, and we did not." Ben glared at him. "There weren't a lot of options. My goal was to keep us alive as long as possible." He almost explained what the most senior of their abductors had in mind, but he stopped himself. He'd explained it before, and these guys didn't care. They'd already formed an opinion. Nothing he said mattered.

DeWitt glowered at the man. "That's enough out of you, Adami. Dr. Michaud, did you treat many terrorists during your tour?"

Ben huffed out a laugh. "We don't exactly ask for someone's political affiliations before we operate, Lieutenant. I probably did. In fact, I'm sure I did. There were some who had to be kept separate from other patients while they recovered."

Kelly curled his lip. "So what, you just kind of help terrorists out?" He looked over at Boone. "Hey, Chief, isn't that providing aid and comfort to enemies of the United States?"

"Give it a rest. It's medicine." Ben yawned into his coffee. "If the state can offer a bolster pillow to help a man breathe during his execution, then I can provide medical assistance to anyone who lands on my operating table. Don't forget, one of the Marathon bombers was shot in the neck during their attempt to escape. He walked into court for his trial. Do you think the hand of God came down and healed him? Or do you want to try the whole staff at the hospital that treated him for treason now?"

"Simmer down, you two." Boone leaned forward. "You were just doing your job, Dr. Michaud. I get that. My question is whether or not you maybe had some clients that didn't fit your usual mold. Who stood out while you were working on them, in any of those countries."

Ben furrowed his brow and tried to concentrate. "Well, there was the one case of autoerotic asphyxiation while I was in Afghanistan, but that was a British serviceman whose buddies brought him to us so the Army wouldn't find out. That's probably not what you're looking for, though."

One of the two SEALs who hadn't spoken yet grimaced. His uniform identified him as Lupo. The other, labeled Robson, leaned forward. "Did he make it?"

"Well, he'll never sound the same, and he's going to have to come up with a good lie to tell the wife back home, but yes. He survived."

"Not the point, Robson." Boone glared. "The point is, did you come across any patients whose presence you couldn't easily explain? Like, I don't know. Like a bunch of non-military British guys in the middle of Syria."

Ben ran his tongue against the back of his teeth. "We don't get a lot of IDs from our patients," he said slowly, thinking back. "We don't ask for them. I know we've seen a few foreign-born fighters showing up for treatment, but some of them have origins in the countries at war. It at least makes sense."

Ben watched the SEALs' faces carefully. Boone's mouth tightened, and DeWitt clenched one of his hands into a fist. They were frustrated. What were they trying not to say directly? Did he care enough to play ball, or was he going to just play dumb?

"Did you see many people from Northern Europe coming through your hospitals?" Fitzpatrick pressed his lips into a long, thin line. He was done playing games.

Ben couldn't deny that he had. "Yes. That we did. I can't say who they were or how they got there."

Hopper slammed a hand on the table, spilling Ben's coffee onto his hand. Fortunately it wasn't hot enough to scald, but it still didn't feel good. "Why not? Some kind of seal of the confessional bullshit?"

Boone gave him a look like he'd just started speaking in tongues. "Stand down, Hopper. Dr. Michaud, is there some kind of confidentiality agreement you've signed with Borderless?"

"Not one that's all that different from HIPAA." Ben kept his back to Hopper. "But that's not why I can't tell you how those individuals came in. I didn't interview them. I didn't get a chance to speak to them at all. I literally operated on them, and that was all. They brought their own nurses in, guys from their own crew. I examined their incisions, and they went on their merry way once they were well enough to leave the hospital." He chuckled. "Half of the time they were gone before the anesthesia wore off."

Robson jostled Hopper. "There you go, hothead. You're all thinking he's a white supremacist, and he's just doing his job."

Ben jumped to his feet. He couldn't see the table, the SEALs, or the gray metal of the ship. All he could see was Zahi, bleeding out on the table. A cooler, more rational part of his brain recognized that he was just exceptionally wired right now because of the circumstances, but the rest of him just snapped.

He banished the image with a snarl, but his rage remained. "You thought I was a what?" His own voice echoed off the metal walls. "You thought I was a white supremacist because I treated living patients? What the fuck kind of monster are you that you would even think that? You're a pig." He turned to the two officers in the room, who stared with slack jaws. "Your subordinate here is a pig. I am not a white supremacist, I have never been a white supremacist, and I find it offensive to the highest degree that this man would decide that just because I've treated people who were not Syrian, I supported neo-Nazis. I'll be making sure that everyone I can find hears about this. Congress, the media, everyone."

"God damn it," Hopper hissed behind him.

The officers, and the other men, turned pale around him. "Let's just discuss maybe not discussing it with Congress or the media. Not, of course, that you have the ear of Congress." DeWitt tugged at his collar.

"My half-brother is the representative from Orange County, actually." Ben could all but smell blood in the water. "Don't think you're going to intimidate me into staying quiet. The idea—"

"We're investigating white supremacist ties to ISIS and recent bombings in the US." Boone snapped the words out. "There's a specific organization we find working with ISIS. Every time we document them working together, we get pulled off the case. It's coming from a lot higher up than our superiors." Two beads of sweat caught the light as they dripped from Boone's temple. "Now, Doctor, you seem to have almost as much of an issue with white supremacists as we do. We can't stop them from attacking and killing Americans, and unfortunately others, if we keep getting yanked off the case. I'm asking you, Dr. Michaud, to please not discuss this with your brother or anyone else. Can you do that?"

Ben's pulse hammered away in his throat. He wanted to hit someone or something. He hadn't been able to save Zahi, and his failure would haunt him for the rest of his life. "Which group?" he snapped.

"White Dawn." Fitzpatrick stood up, hands out. "I don't know if you've heard of them."

Ben barked out a laugh. This was just too much. "You're joking, right? White Dawn's been involved with Daesh? They've got every reason to hate each other."

"Yet we can't take a step around this part of the world without tripping over them." DeWitt grimaced. "Have White Dawn operatives come through your operating rooms?"

Ben shook his head. "If they had, they didn't identify themselves to me. I would have refused. I would have had to find someone else to operate. I couldn't have done it."

"Aw, why not?" Hopper rose behind him. "I thought you were just doing your job when you were providing material support to terrorists."

Ben spun to face him. "Because they murdered my fiancé, thanks for asking. It's one thing to help save lives. It's another to ask someone to step in to save men who've done something like that." He clenched his fist. "Someone has to do it, but it doesn't have to be me." He looked Hopper up and down. "Are we done here?"

"I suppose we are." DeWitt looked down. "One of my men will show you back to your quarters."

"I'll find my way back." Ben left the room. If he got lost, then he'd just have extra time to calm down.

Damn it. After all this time, Zahi could still get this kind of reaction out of him. At least he could be sure it had been love.

* * *

Dave stared at the doctor as he stormed out the door. "The hell got into him?" He took off his hat and pushed a hand through his hair.

Adami jostled him with his shoulder. "I don't know. Maybe the whole 'killed his fiancé' thing was kind of a bummer for him?"

Chief raised a hand. "That's enough. Kelly, see if Mal can do some digging. I want to find out as much as possible about this doctor. I don't want to resort to blackmail, but we've come too far to let one guy's temper tantrum get us pulled back to Virginia." He glowered at Dave. "Even if that tantrum was justified."

Dave looked away. Okay, so it probably sucked to lose your fiancé that way. That definitely explained the tantrum. He didn't know if it justified the threats or the snarling. Then again, he'd never been in that situation. He wasn't sure he would, at least not while he was still a SEAL. It wasn't exactly a line of work that left much time for romance, recent pairings-off among the guys notwithstanding.

If he tried to relate through one of his friends, though, it made a little more sense. Adami had been an unmitigated ass at the mere thought of Colin being in danger. Kelly hadn't been much better. So okay, maybe this doctor could be excused for being a little bit of a jerk when something related to his grief came up.

Dave hadn't understood, but that didn't make it okay to egg him on like that.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek. "Apologies, Chief."

Chief smirked. "Ain't me you've got to apologize to, is it?" His smirk fell away as he was forced to reconsider his position. "I don't think he'll be in a position to give us any more information today, unfortunately. Hopper, your Arabic is best. If you can avoid finding the most painful moment in their lives and shitting on it, I'd appreciate it if you could stick around and help out with their interviews. Maybe we'll get something useful out of them."

Dave nodded. His cheeks burned, and he had to be grateful that the Navy let SEALs grow beards because otherwise everyone would see his cheeks flaming scarlet by now. He didn't like Dr. Michaud, and that wasn't any kind of secret, but that didn't mean he should be a jackass to him.

They interviewed the two nurses together. None of the SEALs present had any interest in women, but the nurses didn't know that, and DeWitt wanted them to be as comfortable as possible. Chief took pains to make sure they all knew they weren't in any trouble. "We're just looking to find information about some people who would have been in the area, that's all, and we're hoping you can help us."

They spoke Arabic, because it was the one language everyone in the room had in common. Not everyone spoke Arabic with the same ease, which was why Dave was there in the first place. He was able to take Chief and DeWitt's technical, nuanced questions about foreign fighters working with ISIS and make them understood to Karam and to Altuve, for whom Arabic was a second language.

They managed to tease out a clearer picture of the situation with foreign fighters as they spoke with the nurses. As the picture came into focus, Dave could see why Dr. Michaud hadn't had any of the answers they wanted. He could see the patients had lighter skin or, less often, distinctly foreign features. For the most part, everything was covered but the parts he was operating on. He might never see anything but the patient's arm.

The nurses, on the other hand, saw everything. They were the ones prepping the wounded men for surgery. They were the ones covering the men, ensuring Dr. Michaud only saw the parts he needed. They heard the men's symptoms and assessed their vitals after surgery.

"Some of the fighters, they weren't with Daesh." Karam worried at her lip. "They came from other places, young idealistic men who wanted to help 'liberate' us." Her lip curled. "Because things weren't bad enough, we needed foreigners to come in and blow more things up. But anyway. Some of the fighters would be brought in, and they were different."

Altuve grimaced. "They had issues. Their buddies didn't want them treated by locals, as in at all. If the only available nurses were local, or otherwise had dark skin, they'd take care of them themselves. They'd delay surgery to wait for a white doctor." She scratched at her arm. "We lost four patients in one week because their 'friends' would only let Dr. Michaud operate on them and he was busy."

Fitzpatrick scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. "Did he know about this?"

Karam shook her head. "We'd never tell him. He didn't need that kind of hassle. He worked hard. He didn't need the guilt." She toyed with the hem on her headscarf. "He was a good doctor to work for."

Altuve sat up a little straighter, hand on her friend's back. "He took his job seriously. He didn't ask too many questions about the patients, only what he needed to know to operate. There was always work to do, someone else to save. He always wanted to work. He'd work until he couldn't work anymore, sleep it off, and do it all again."

DeWitt tried to smile. Dave didn't think it was a very successful attempt, but he gave the guy credit for trying. "So maybe this little vacation is exactly what the doctor ordered."

"Maybe." Karam's answering smile didn't reach her eyes. "There comes a point when work is all you have left. It's your solace, your comfort. It's what you have." She sighed and looked over toward the door. "Why are you so interested in a few patients who didn't know how to behave? They didn't like locals, but we didn't quiz them about their political affiliations before we worked on them. We were there to save lives, and we don't get to pick and choose whose life is worth saving. Only the Almighty can do that."

Dave contrasted her words to Michaud's. Apparently Michaud was not a man of strong religious fervor.

Kelly leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Thank you for that. I'm curious, though. Where were most of these soldiers brought in from? And how recent was the most recent patient?"

Altuve gave the question some thought, looking up at the ceiling. "I think the last one was maybe three days ago. He was brought in from the north quarter of the city."

Karam made a face. "He was terrible. He was Canadian, and kept talking about 'Canada for Canadians.'" She wrinkled her nose. "People say all kind of things when they're coming out of anesthesia, but this was over the top.”

Altuve chuckled. "It was better than the guy who insisted he was summoning Ishtar."

Dave tried to hold back a laugh. "I guess they really do say all kinds of things."

"It was especially bad since he was an Imam." Karam covered her mouth to hide a laugh. "We didn't tell him. It would be mean."

Chief cleared his throat, ending all levity. "Did any of them say anything about their positions or location?"

Altuve rolled her eyes at Chief. "Not that you could use. If an Imam could try to summon a demon, or an ancient goddess, whatever babble some unwashed Swede vomits out while the drugs wear off isn't something you can use to chase down a lead."

Dave didn't hold back a snicker this time. Chief should know better than to try to intimidate a nurse, for crying out loud. They didn't intimidate easily. They did the intimidating.

"Okay. That's very helpful, ladies. We appreciate the information." DeWitt opened the door, ending the interview. "Hopper, escort the ladies back to their bunk, would you?"

Dave obeyed. "How are you finding things on board?" he asked them. He could have just left it, but he wanted to make conversation. The nurses seemed nice enough.

"It's okay." Altuve shrugged. "We're bored, but some of the Sailors have been kind and brought us books. It's very nice of them."

"Dr. Michaud has been kind. He's checked on us too, made sure we've had enough to eat and everything." Karam smiled. "He's taking good care of us. When we talk to our superiors with Borderless, I hope they listen to us and understand just how good he's been."

Dave's ears perked up at that. "Do they not like him or something?" He could understand that, actually.

"It's not usual for a surgeon to take on assignments as long as this. They want him to take a vacation." Karam snorted. "They don't understand. He'll never take a vacation. It's not in him. All he wants from life is to help people, to save them."

They arrived at the bunk the two shared. "He's very protective of us." Altuve looked up at Dave and gave him a sad smile. "I hope he finds someone who wants to protect him that much, someday."

Dave scratched the side of his head. He had a lot to say about Michaud's "protectiveness," but somehow he didn't think it would be all that constructive here. "Well, thank you very much, ma'am. Give a shout if either of you need anything. I know it can be easy to get lost on a ship like this, but don't worry. Someone will come and find you. The Sailors are all real helpful."

"We know." Karam slipped into the small room she shared with her friend, leaving Altuve to make their goodbyes.

Dave returned to his regular duties. If DeWitt and Chief wanted him around, they'd let him know about it. For now, they didn't need him. He knew they were talking about White Dawn, something that probably fell under the heading of "shady." He trusted them to let him know what he needed to know. That was what they were for, for crying out loud. They were protecting the men under them, like good Sailors should.

He sat in with Kelly to plan another raid on an ISIS position. The bastards had gotten a real foothold in this area, which surprised everyone given that the area was such a stronghold for the Assad regime. They didn't pay Dave to worry about that kind of thing, though. They paid him to worry about taking out ISIS and whoever else got in the way. He didn't get paid enough to worry about the politics involved.

They finished their planning meeting, and Dave got up with Iñiguez and Van Heel to move on. He lingered, though, when he noticed Kelly opening up his laptop. "Check this out," Kelly said, with a whistle. "I heard back from Mal."

"Oh yeah?" Dave turned back as the other two left. "Was it about Dr. Charming in there?"

"It was, actually." Kelly ran a hand through his brown hair. "Would you believe we've got a real-life celebrity on board?"

"Ah, crap. How do you mean?" Dave sat back down.

"Well, the guy's a Michaud. As in, his father is Flavien Michaud, French billionaire and current French foreign secretary." Kelly stared at his screen for a long moment. "Like, what's this dude doing working in a bombed-out hospital? He should be sunning it up out on the Riviera, right?"

"You'd think." Dave blew out a whistle. "Wait—I thought he said his brother was a congressman."

"Oh, he is. On his mom's side. His mother is Selena Eliot." Kelly threw his hands up in the air. "Like, three Oscars, Selena Eliot."

"Holy shit." Dave clutched at his gut. "So his brother really is in Congress."

"Yup. And he's on the Armed Services Committee too." Drops of sweat gleamed at Kelly's temples. "We are so screwed, dude."

Dave stood up and paced. "Okay, but I still don't get it. Why is he even here? Why hasn't he called the cavalry? His family has plenty of dough. They could have come in and gotten him out at any time. Why would he be out there slogging through a dump like Syria? Why put himself through medical school in the first place? It's not fun. It's not a lark or something. He doesn't need to be working at all."

"Maybe he likes it?" Kelly scanned the information his husband had sent him. "It looks like he avoids his father, doesn't say why. His parents split when he was young, so maybe they're just not close. He did well in school, well enough to jump ahead a grade or two. Worked through the summers at college to get to med school that much faster."

Dave made a face. "Yeah, and he could do that because he didn't have to earn money over those summers to pay his way. He had daddy's cash, or mommy's, to get him through."

Kelly shrugged. "Yeah, probably. It still took a hell of a lot of work, so let's give a little bit of credit where it's due, right? Anyway, while he was in medical school he met and became engaged to another medical student by the name of Zahi Freeman. Oh—yikes."

Dave circled around to peer over Kelly's shoulder. "Yikes is a bad sound, bro."

Kelly scoffed and scrolled down. "Well, it ain't like you didn't know the fiancé was going to die, man. Spoiler alert. Anyway, the fiancé was caught up in a shooting by guys linked to Chaos Tree. He was working at a clinic."

Dave rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh. Wow, no wonder he went off the rails a little bit when we mentioned White Dawn."

"Ya think?" Kelly stretched. "I'm going to go and report to Chief. I'll see you later. We've got a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, so smoke 'em if you've got 'em, I guess."

Dave took the hint and headed back to his bunk. He undressed quickly, put on his sweats, and lay down to stare at the ceiling. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like to lose someone that way, and he didn't want to either. How awful must it have been?

All that doctor's wealth and privilege couldn't save his fiancé. All the money in the world hadn't been able to maintain the life he'd tried to build for himself, for them.

Dave might know something about that, after all. He couldn't relate to losing a fiancé like that, not even a little bit. He knew what it was like to lose everyone and everything, though. He knew what it was like to have everything taken from him in an instant and have the entire world change. Maybe he could cut the doctor a little bit of slack and not expect him to be hanging all over the SEALs in gratitude.

He closed his eyes. It didn't matter what he thought about the stupid doctor. He wasn't going to see him again anyway.