Ben's stomach roiled for no good reason. He chalked it up to anxiety or maybe to a little bit of seasickness. He'd been on the ship for a couple of weeks now, with a week's layover in between. He'd have expected any kind of seasickness to come up before now, but the human body was capable of some incredibly weird things. It wasn't that big a deal in the greater scheme of things.

He circulated among the beds in this ward. They'd lost a patient last night over in the ICU. She'd been another long-shot patient, this one with severe head trauma they hoped to get the better of. Her body couldn't handle the consequences, and it simply shut down. Given that nothing stopped the swelling in her brain—not surgery, not medicine—Ben had to wonder if it wasn't kinder that way.

It certainly wouldn't be kinder for her family. Her daughter had lost an arm. She lay in a drugged haze, occasionally whimpering for her mother. Eventually they would have to wean her off of the sedatives, but for now this was helping her to heal.

He shook his head. He couldn't save everyone, he knew that, but he could try.

"Hey, handsome." Dave leaned up against the door. "How's it going?"

Ben gave him a tired smile. "It's going. I wish there was something we could do to stem the tide, but that's probably not about to happen, is it?"

"Not by anything you or I can do." Dave took his tablet out of his hands and put it into its docking station. He smiled over at Aziza, who was rocking baby Khadijah to sleep in a corner, and took Ben's arm. "And honestly, I don't think it's going to stop as long as humanity still walks on the earth. Humans have this thing. We're territorial. We're tribal, too. We've never been okay with people we see as other. We're an aggressive species. When we see something we want, that some other group has, our first instinct is to take it."

Ben let himself be led out into the corridor and toward the mess hall. "I don't know. I mean maybe when we were wild little pre-humans barely coming down from the trees or something, but I think we're pretty cooperative. It's in our best interest, as a species, to be cooperative. There are exceptions, but look at our patients. They work with each other to escape violence, they don't try to feed each other to it."

"You probably wouldn't see the ones who did, babe. It does happen, all the time." Dave put his hands on Ben's shoulders. "I see it every day. It's not pretty. And being aggressive isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean I don't think I'm hyper-aggressive, I don't go looking for people to hurt, but when we find that guy from White Dawn I am looking very forward to hearing him squeal a few times. Aren't you?"

"Not really." Ben pulled back. "I won't cry when one of those dirtbags dies, but I can't say I enjoy seeing people in pain. Bringing yourself down to his level isn't justice. It's gross."

Dave got his tray of food. A line appeared between his dark eyebrows. "Look, I'm not suggesting that we should torture him, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing him dead, and I'm not going to apologize for it. And yeah, I want him to suffer. I don't think that's a bad thing. He's been behind the deaths of so many. Why shouldn't he suffer?"

Ben took his tray and followed Dave to a seat. "I see enough suffering." He shrugged. He wasn't sure what exactly was going on here. Were they fighting, or having a simple philosophical difference? He poked at the food on his tray. "There aren't a lot of ways to go that don't hurt, honestly. Torturing someone doesn't somehow teach the person a lesson. And it doesn't bring the people they killed back. It doesn't give the injured their health or happiness back. It's just…I don't know. I don't see the point. It just devolves." He shuddered.

"Okay. But it's okay for me to go and fight him, try to take him down, right?" Dave arched one eyebrow at him, dangerously.

Ben put his fork down. "I'm not here to try to tell you what is 'okay' for you to do or not. We aren't married and even if we were, that's a level of controlling jerk I'm just not comfortable with. He's going against the safety and peace of a whole lot of human beings, so someone has to stop him. There's a difference between stopping someone waging war on a majority of humanity and wallowing in blood and pain and pretending it's somehow justice."

Dave considered this. "I take it you're not a fan of capital punishment."

"Not even a little bit."

Dave huffed out a laugh. "Not even for the worst offenders?"

Ben looked up at the ceiling. Why did they have to have this conversation now? Was Dave trying to sabotage their relationship so they didn't have to figure out a long-term solution for their relationship? Was Ben? "I think it's impossible to be so certain someone committed a crime that it's justified to murder them." He shrugged. "We've seen enough cases of planted evidence. We've seen enough cases of botched testing at police labs. We've seen too many cases of mistaken identity from alleged eyewitnesses. Capital punishment isn't applied evenly or fairly, in any country that still uses it. So yeah, I'm opposed to it, even for the worst offenders. Even when we think we're sure they did it, because we've seen false confessions too."

"Even if they hurt children?" Dave leaned forward.

"Again—there's no way to avoid any of the problems inherent with the death penalty. So yeah. Even people who hurt children, loathsome as they are, should get life. We've seen plenty of innocent people executed."

Dave's lip curled for a second. "I should've figured that would be your answer. I mean that whole doctor thing and all. Plus, you've been pretty sheltered, you know? You haven't been the victim of a violent crime."

Ben pushed his tray away. "Excuse me?"

Dave sighed and rolled his shoulders. "Look, it sucks that you lost him, it does, but he was the victim. Not you. No one's ever attacked you. You've never been in any kind of danger, other than danger you put yourself in with Borderless. You have no way to wrap your head around what it's like to be in fear like that, to not be able to rest knowing the people who hurt you are still out there. Okay?"

Ben put his hands on his legs, hidden underneath the table. He didn't want Dave to see them balled into fists. "Okay. Obviously there's something you're not sharing with me, and that's your choice. I'll respect it. But Dave, you're making an awfully big assumption here. You have this idea that because I grew up rich everything was sunshine and roses, and it's not fair of you to assume nothing ever happened just because I can afford a good lawyer.

"The guy who killed Zahi is dead. They shot him during the police standoff. Did that somehow bring Zahi back? Eye for an eye? No. Did being rich somehow insulate me from that? No. Instead he bled out, over my hands. There's no…there's no kind of justice for that, Dave. No such thing. The only thing there is, is trying to stop it from happening to someone else, by getting people like that guy off the streets. Not by causing them greater pain. It's not like they got that way with cuddles and extra cookies at lunch, for fuck's sake."

Dave looked away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dismissed what happened with your fiancé so easily."

Ben clenched his jaw. "What's really going on here, Dave? This whole…thing…seems kind of out of the blue. It's concerning. Maybe it's just me, but I'm feeling kind of attacked here."

Dave went silent for a moment. "I'm not sure. I don't know. It started out nice and normal, and then it got kind of dark. I guess it started when I mentioned finding that White Dawn guy. I mean you know my job isn't just to be an over-armed orderly, right?"

Ben blinked. "Yeah, of course."

"I'm a SEAL. I'm a warrior. My job is to be aggressive, and Ben, I like it. I like fighting. I like finding the bad guys and taking them down. I don't exactly bathe in their blood or anything weird like that—"

"That would be incredibly unsanitary." Ben made a face, like he was being serious, but in reality he just wanted to change the subject. It felt like Dave was lashing out at him, and he couldn't understand why. He hadn't said anything critical, had he?

Dave kept going as though Ben hadn't interrupted him. "But I do take pleasure and pride in my work. Sometimes my work is hurting people, to make the world a safer place. And I feel like you're judging me for that."

Ben pursed his lips. How was he supposed to respond to this? He should be calm. He wanted to be calm. At the same time, he couldn't look at his own words or behavior to see where he'd passed any kind of judgement on him. So he kept his voice as calm and as reasonable as he could while he asked, "In what way did I make you feel that way?"

Dave ran a hand through his dark, beautiful hair. "You're just—all that stuff about not needing to hurt people, not thinking people are inherently aggressive." His foot beat out a rhythmless tattoo on the floor, and he wouldn't meet Ben's eye.

Ben bowed his head. "I think you were looking for judgement. And that if you wanted someone to fall all over himself drooling at torture and violence, you probably shouldn't have started screwing a doctor." He put his hands flat on the table. "I do love you, Dave. I don't know what sparked this. I'm a little concerned, but it's been a challenging day, and I'm not sure I have the energy to comb through this and find the answer with as much patience as we'd both need. Are you okay with tabling this discussion until we're both rested, or do you want to turn this into a full-blown fight?"

Dave sucked in his cheeks, but then be nodded his head once. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. Goodnight, Ben."

"Goodnight, Dave." Ben returned his tray to the kitchen, untouched.

He headed back to his bunk. He didn't know what else to do. His mind was spinning from the bizarre conversation with Dave. They'd bounced from topic to topic. Dave had said he felt "judged." What was that supposed to mean, anyway? He said he'd felt judged but he'd been the one choosing the subjects.

Well, they might love one another but they didn't know each other all that well yet. Maybe Dave had been going through a list of make-or-break issues, trying to find some common ground to base a long-term relationship on. It would have been better if he'd said so, but not everyone operated that way.

Ben wasn't sure that issue was the case, anyway. Dave was hiding something from him. That "something" was something he was afraid of being judged for. Ben would bet his life that was what was on Dave's mind. As they got closer and considered a life after deployment, their pasts became more of a factor in their present. After all, neither of them would be who they were without the past.

Ben knew next to nothing about Dave's past. He knew Dave came from poverty in West Virginia. That was about it. Dave knew just about everything significant about Ben's. Of course, Dave and his buddies had done the research, and Ben's family was famous. Ben would have to invoke his father's privilege if he wanted to dig into Dave's background, and he didn't want to reach out to his father about Dave. Or anything else.

He didn't want to break Dave's trust, either. He loved Dave, even with the weird behavior tonight, and he wanted to earn his trust and faith. If Dave wanted him to know, Dave would tell him in his own time. Ben had said as much today. He had to live by it.

He lay back in his bunk and picked up his tablet. He could seek out some of the corpsmen, or he could seek out Aziza. Neither of them appealed right now. The situation with Dave had him in a whirl of doubt. He wanted to get over it and get his head on straight before he tried to interact with the outside world.

He found an email from his father waiting for him, as if the thought had summoned him. Hope your new documents found you well. You should stop putting yourself in harm's way like this. You're not getting any younger. I'll give you a flat in Grenoble, if you like. The Defense Minister has an alpha son, an orthopedist. I'm sure you'd get along swimmingly.

He tossed his tablet to the side. He'd left France when he was twelve. His father's latest wife hadn't wanted his "excess baggage" hanging around, and so he'd been sent to make his permanent home with his mother in California—such as it was, because she'd shipped him off to boarding school as soon as he arrived. His father had no way of knowing who he'd get along with or not.

And frankly, no one got along well with orthopedists, whether or not they were the Defense Minister's son.

He didn't want another politician's son. He didn't want to live in some gilded palace in France or another one in California. He wanted Dave. He hadn't been looking for anyone at all, but he'd found Dave. Dave was smart, open, honest, and genuine. Dave wasn't going to sit there and expect him to spend his days overseeing a huge staff of household help.

There would be no public appearances with Dave. There would just be a long, happy, private life. They wouldn't be famous, or infamous, but they'd be with each other and that would be what mattered.

Of course, maybe Dave wouldn't get over whatever had upset him tonight. Maybe Ben had given the wrong answers. Maybe Dave had just been looking for excuses. Ben stared at the ceiling for a long time that night, striving for clarity and missing it.

* * *

Dave wished he'd been surprised when Adami sidled up to him not ten minutes after Ben left the mess hall. "So. First fight, huh? You going to get a souvenir from this one and put it in the scrapbook or nah?"

"Not the time, Adami." Dave gritted his teeth. It hadn't been a fight. It had just been a discussion. Yeah, that was it. Dave wasn't sure what kind of discussion it had been, other than a complete and unmitigated failure, but it had certainly been a discussion.

"Ah, come on, bro. Don't be like that. I'm here to help you." Adami pressed his hands into his chest. "You helped me, after all. And did I ever need help."

"You still do." Dave rolled his eyes. The problem with being in a platoon with these guys was the complete lack of privacy. No one had any respect. It was all jokes and nosiness, all the time.

"Yeah. I do. And I'm getting it, when I'm in town. Professionally, like." Adami's face turned serious. "So. Let's chat. Because that?" He pointed toward the door through which Ben had walked. "That looked like a real turning point. And considering what I overheard, I'm hearing a lot of self-sabotage, bro."

Dave took a deep breath. Adami knew. Dave had told him one night, when they'd been out and drunk as skunks. "Oh come on, man. He was totally judgmental."

"Not really. Maybe here and there toward the end, but dude. You asked him questions you probably already knew the answers to, and then you got mad about them. How is that not self-sabotage? And he was totally right, by the way. If you want someone whose heart goes all aflutter at violence, a doctor probably isn't the way to go."

Dave closed his eyes. "I know. I know. And I don't want that…really. I just…I mean he knows we're going out there to kill people. He has to know Bogdanovic died under questioning. We didn't torture him, but it's not like we didn't know the guy was delicate. Ben did take up with a SEAL. He knew what he was getting."

"He did." Adami flipped a French fry up into the air and caught it in his mouth. "And he knows what you do. He might not love every aspect but come on. Do you love him putting his hands all over other people day in and day out?"

Dave shrugged. "It's his job. It's not like there's anything sexual about it. He doesn't even see their faces, for crying out loud."

Adami gaped at him. "Can I bottle some of your chill and like, stir some of it into my coffee in the morning? Seriously. Anyway. There are things about him you're not overly enthusiastic about, right?"

"Of course." Dave massaged his temples. "I just—damn it. He's going to find out, and he's going to so look down on me."

Adami didn't have to ask what Dave was talking about. "Dude. I can see why that would be a concern for you. I can. I have to say, though. This guy, he gave up everything he had, every comfort, to go to some of the most hellish places on earth and save lives. He's seen some of the worst things humans can do to one another. He's probably seen something just as bad as what happened to you, and worse."

Dave scoffed. "There's that, but that wasn't my fault. I mean there's the whole thing with me being the one she picked, but I don't think he'll judge me for that." He waved a hand. There was no accounting for family, sometimes. "I think he's going to be upset by how I feel about it."

Adami frowned and put down his next trick French fry. "How do you mean?"

"I ain't forgiving. I ain't forgetting. I want the guy dead. I want her dead too. I know why she did it, and it's not like I'm going to go hunt her down or anything. I just—it was so beyond wrong. And yeah, there's no justice. But I'm never going to feel safe again, knowing she's out there. Or him. And hell, they all got mad at me, for not just going along and telling the cops and everything."

He blinked away tears, and Adami put a hand on his. "Yeah. Look. If he tries to get judgmental about how you feel about it, bro, I'll punch his lights out myself, okay?" He gave Dave's hand a squeeze. "That's all there is to it. People can tell you how to act. They can't tell you how to feel.”

"But Dave? Don't assume he's going to be anything but sympathetic. He's seen a lot of shit. He's been through a lot of shit. And he loves you. I mean you were kind of an asshole to him, and instead of throwing his food in your face and maybe tossing you off the side he called you on the fact that something else was at work here, told you he needed more patience than he had in that moment to tease it out, and asked if you could maybe come back to it another day."

"I guess." Dave chewed on his lip. "Maybe he was just trying to get away clean, without a big blow up in the mess hall."

"Nah. Trauma doctors will fight whoever, whenever if they have to. I've seen it. They fight dirty, too. They've got, like, scalpels hidden up their sleeves. They'll cut you good." Adami waved a hand. "Seriously, though. If he was willing to say he'd see your face again even after you brushed off what happened to that fiancé of his, that's love, bro."

Dave clutched at his stomach. "Ugh. I said that, didn't I?"

"Yeah you did. And you apologized. Why don't you give some thought to where you want to go with this, and then have a chat with your guy in the morning? Or even in the evening. Don't wait too long, though. Believe me. He's going to forget anything you said that was good first."

Dave hit the gym to try to work off his anxiety. Then he went to bed, dreaming about the trunk of a BMW and a twisty mountain road.

The next morning saw a new influx of injuries coming in. Most of these couldn't be helped by surgery, because they were victims of a chemical attack, but Ben still pitched in to help with triage anyway. Afterward he had to have a decontamination shower, as did everyone else working on the victims. Dave couldn't think about the decontamination shower without getting hard. It might be a decontamination shower, necessary for some terrible reasons, but it was still a wet and naked Ben. His anxiety about last night's quasi-fight kept him in check, though, as he waited outside.

Ben didn't look all that surprised to see him when he got out, in fresh and clean scrubs. He didn't look all that thrilled, either. He looked nervous.

Dave held his hands up. "Can we go and talk somewhere private?" He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "It turns out Adami was eavesdropping the whole time."

Ben made a face. "I'm not sure how I feel about that." He gestured toward the door. "Let's go."

Dave led the way back toward Ben's cabin. "It's honestly a good thing he did. He knows me pretty well. He helped me to unpack a lot of what was going on in my head. I wasn't consciously picking a fight, but I think I was kind of looking for something. I was scared."

Ben nodded. "Yeah, I guessed as much. You don't have to talk about it, if you're not ready."

Dave turned around to face him. "Even though I was an unmitigated dick to you?"

"You were kind of a jerk, but it was just so weird. It was out of left field. If I'd known you'd run across a trigger or just had an exceptionally bad day, I'd have known how to handle it better." Ben hesitated for a second, and then he reached out to put a hand on Dave's arm. "I don't necessarily have to know the whys. I don't have to know the hows. I care about you. There's a very small list of things I'd judge you for, Dave. I'm pretty sure they'd toss you from the Navy for any of them." He kissed Dave quickly on the lips.

Dave blinked and followed Ben down the hall. "Just so we're clear, what are they?"

"Hurting children and forcing yourself on people." They'd gotten to Ben's cabin by now. Ben opened the door and they both slipped inside. "Like I said, I'm pretty sure the Navy would give you the boot too."

Dave sat down on the bed. "What if I wanted to hurt someone who'd done those things?"

Ben sat down beside him. "Well," he said after a moment, "I don't condone torture or murder, but I can see where you'd want to do either or both of those things. I couldn't judge you for that. I couldn't blame you for it either." He stroked Dave's face. "I'm not prying. You'll talk to me when you're ready. But I'm guessing you have some experience with this."

Dave tried to swallow, but the lump in his throat was too big. "I got away," he finally squeaked. Even getting those words out helped to dissolve the lump. "My family—like I said, we were poor. My mom found a way to make some money." He took a shaky breath. "She sold me. To this guy, for fifty grand."

Ben's eyes bulged. "Oh, my God." He put his arms around Dave and held him close.

"I fought like hell, but she fucking helped him put me in the trunk of his damned BMW. So I waited." He closed his eyes and leaned into Ben's touch. He tried to wrap Ben's scent around him, like a cloak. "When he opened the trunk, I clobbered him with the tire iron. Then I ran.

"I made it to the local sheriff's office. It was…it was a long way. But I had good motivation, you know? Well, I don't know how they believed me, knowing what I know now about the way these things usually go. Maybe it was the way my feet were bleeding. I didn't have any shoes, you see. Mama had taken them.

"So the sheriff called my Aunt Sadie, who was a sheriff in a different part of West Virginia. She came and got me. And they arrested the guy, who admitted he'd bought me fair and square. They found blood in his trunk. It wasn't mine." He ran his tongue against his teeth.

"Jesus." Ben gripped him a little tighter. "I'm so glad you got away, Dave."

"You know what? The only other person who said that was Aunt Sadie." Dave chuckled. "Like I said, we were real poor. The rest of the family was mad. They really needed that money. One of the babies was sick, and my parents couldn't afford her medicine. We hadn't had any heat in our house the last winter or hot water. Mama was like, 'Well, it's a hard decision to make, but it's one kid against these other seven, and my old sick dad—and she took the money.

"And I get that. You do what you have to, for your family. But I was part of the family. And there are some lines you just don't cross. I mean what exactly did she think was going to happen to me? He was going to adopt me as his son, and we were going to live happily ever after?"

Ben combed his hand through Dave's hair, a soothing gesture. "None of that was your fault. And you were part of that family. You deserved better."

Dave nodded. "Well, I went off to live with Aunt Sadie. She got me into therapy, which I desperately needed. Mama got ten years, which just seems stupid. Ten years for trafficking her own kid?" Dave clenched his hands into fists. "The guy got twenty."

"Only twenty?" Ben's outrage cracked his voice. "That's outrageous."

"Right? They found blood in his car, and it was too much for a human child to survive, but they couldn't tie it to a specific body. And why would they? Kid's parents probably sold him off, they wouldn't ever report him missing." Dave shook his head. "The whole family was furious. Thought I should have gone along willingly, for the good of everyone else. Everyone but Sadie."

Ben kissed his cheek. "Honey, it sounds like your Aunt Sadie is a sensible, good woman."

"I hope you get to meet her sometime. But here's the thing. I don't care to do the whole 'let bygones be bygones' thing. I want them dead, for what they did to me." Dave met Ben's eyes. "I do. Does that make me a monster in your eyes?"

Ben, God bless him, didn't even hesitate. "Not at all. It makes you human."

"Even though you don't believe in the death penalty?" Dave smirked.

"Oh, that's right." Ben snapped his fingers. "I completely forgot to send out that memo about how everyone is required to conform to my beliefs at all times. No one to blame but myself, I guess." He chuckled, and his smile brightened when Dave laughed alongside him. "Look, Dave, honestly, I wouldn't cry to see them dead either. I do hate them for what they did to you. The other stuff? It's a philosophical difference, one we can live with. I'll vote one way, you'll vote another. You'll do your job, I'll do mine. Sometimes you'll kill people. Sometimes I'll save lives you'd probably rather I didn't." He sat back and held Dave's hand. "But honey, we can always agree on one thing. How we feel about each other."

"You really don't care?" Dave couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. He'd always kind of felt not loving his mother made him a monster. Plenty of the guys he'd dated over the years had shared that belief and let him know about it too.

"I care that it happened. I care that it obviously had an effect on you, over the long term. I don't have any kind of right to feelings about how you respond to it." He squeezed Dave's hand. "I have the right to stand by you and support you, and that is all."

"Are you an actual unicorn?" Dave got up and pawed through Ben's hair, messing it up. "I'm trying to find the horn, but you could have had it sawn off or some crap like that. If anyone would know how to amputate a unicorn horn it would be you."

Ben laughed, throwing back his head. He had dark circles under his eyes. Had he had trouble sleeping last night, too? "Are you feeling better now?"

"I am. I'm feeling more confident, I guess you could say." Dave stopped looking for a nonexistent unicorn horn. "I really am lucky to have found you, you know."

"I think we're both lucky," Ben said and kissed him.