Tom deployed on Saturday, and Nick had no idea how to feel about it.

They weren't dating. They weren't sleeping together. They were friendly, but people who had a child together should be friendly if it was at all possible. Nick was friendly with a Navy man, who was prone to deployment, and it shouldn't bother him in the slightest that a Navy man was going to deploy.

It certainly shouldn't bother Nick on Sammy's behalf. Sammy didn't really have a father. He hadn't interacted with Tom, and there wasn't any particular reason why deployment should affect his life in any way at all. Nevertheless, when Mal asked him about it on Monday during their coffee break, he had a very different answer to give.

"It's weird. They shipped out on Saturday, and we didn't go to see them off or anything.” Nick took a sip of his coffee and pushed it away. It was still too hot to drink, even though he was desperate enough for some more caffeine he was thinking about it anyway. "He hasn't brought Tom up, really, since that party. He said he didn't want to know him, but that's about it. Yesterday, though, he started asking about deployment. He wanted to know what it meant, what's involved, how long Tom would be gone for, how dangerous it was...” He shook his head and turned the cup around in his hands. "Now that Tom's gone, it's like the guy's on his mind all the time."

Mal smirked. "Of course he is. Because he can't access him, see?”

"That makes no sense at all.” Nick frowned and looked at Mal out of the side of his eye.

"Trust me. My mum took off when I was about Sammy's age. When she was around, in the same town, I wanted nothing to do with her. I was mad because she'd left me and Morna with our Da, and that was no great shakes. But when she was gone, I was all over her. She was a terrible person, and she'd abandoned us both to go running around blowing up Protestants, but I felt like I'd lost something there.” Mal's smirk turned bitter for a moment, and then he softened. "It's perfectly normal. You can try to talk to him about it, if you want to, but he probably won't want to. It's a complex bunch of feelings for a boy who's so bound up in numbers to try to explain."

Nick snorted. "Just like his father.” He slumped. "Do you think he'll ever loosen up?"

Mal shrugged. "Who knows? Do you want him to?"

Nick blushed bright red. "I can't say. I don't know. It feels stupid to want that, you know?"

Mal threw his shoulders back. "I wouldn't worry too much about that. I used to think it was stupid to feel this way or that about Trent too. I mean, I hadn't known him for that long, and of course there were all kinds of obstacles to our being together at all. It didn't change how I felt about him. It just changed how I felt about myself.” He put a hand on Nick's shoulder.

"It's easy enough for me to say this, because I've been through it and come out on the other side, yeah? But trust me. No good comes from beating yourself up about how you feel about a man. The only thing you can do is to sit back and accept it.” Mal dropped his hand and looked down at his pager. "Looks like we're getting a truck in. I'd better get back to work. Hey, do you want to get together for dinner sometime this week, just you, me, and the kiddos? The house seems too quiet with Trent gone."

"Yeah.” Nick knew he was blushing. He wasn't a Navy husband or anything like that, but he'd definitely welcome having someone else around to take his mind off being anxious for Tom.

They decided to get together on Wednesday over at Mal's place. It was just easier, because his son was still tiny and trying to drive around with a bunch of baby accessories was miserable. Nick remembered.

Nick got to hold baby Danny and so did Sam. "I've never seen Sammy take much of an interest in babies," he said aside to Mal, "but he seems pretty good with yours."

"Oh, he and Danny are good friends.” Mal waved a hand. "He's better than I was, in a lot of ways. You guys are new in the area, right? How are you settling in?"

Nick made a face. "Portsmouth is better in some ways than the last place I was. I was up in Boston, working and going to school while I tried to raise my son. It was ugly, to say the least.” He looked across the condo to see Sammy playing with Danny. "He didn't pick up the accent, though, so I guess I did something right."

"Oh, I haven't been up to Boston yet. Maybe I can convince Trent to do a road trip sometime. I hear everyone there is Irish and everything is old.” Mal smirked.

"Oh, sure, everyone's Irish like everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's day.” Nick scoffed. "Everything is expensive, and everyone's a snob. I didn't even think about applying for jobs there.” He picked up a piece of the pizza Mal had ordered and looked at it for a moment. "That was kind of awful of me, wasn't it? I mean I truly didn't consider applying for jobs there."

"Well if you weren't able to afford to live there then no, it wasn't awful of you.” Mal tilted his head. "I don't know a lot about Boston, but I know I've seen it on the list of most expensive cities in this country. I know how much I make at Portsmouth, and we started at the same time. I could afford to support myself and Danny there if I had to. I couldn't do that if we had to leave the area, I don't think. And maybe you could afford rent, if you had to go back there, but you'd always be at the mercy of a landlord. You couldn't afford to have to move all the time. Could you afford to move every year and still put something by for emergencies?"

Nick took a bite of his pizza. The hot cheese exploded in his mouth. "No. No way."

"There you go then. I think Virginia's okay. There's not a lot of America that I have to compare it to.” He drummed his fingertips on the table top.

"Why don't we take a little time this weekend and head down into North Carolina?" Nick offered. "It's not necessarily far, but it's at least one other state. It's something a little bit different, at least."

Mal's eyes lit up. "Can we?"

Nick laughed. "Of course we can. We've got nothing to hold us back, do we?"

The rest of the work week dragged, with some cases that absolutely tore at Nick's heart, but the days passed faster than he'd expected now that he had something to look forward to at the end of them. On Saturday, they loaded the car up with the kids, snacks, and plenty of water, and headed down to Currituck County, North Carolina.

It wasn't a far drive, but in a lot of ways it was like stepping back in time. Virginia Beach was a modern city, supported by tourism and by the strong presence of the Navy. Currituck County described itself as an Old South county on the Outer Banks, full of old historic districts. While tourism formed part of the economy, that tourism tended more toward outdoorsman pursuits such as hunting and fishing.

For some reason, that gave Mal a sense of smug satisfaction. "I knew I'd find them eventually," he said, as they passed a pickup truck with a full gun rack.

The outing turned out to be a success, even though Danny got fussy halfway through and needed some time to be soothed. The next week they explored a nearby county in Virginia, checking out an old plantation Sammy had found on a website "because it has ghost stories, Dad."

They didn't see any ghosts. Nick didn't expect to. They did get a great dinner at a little crab shack near the plantation and gave Mal a better education about American history. Apparently "plantations" were different in Ireland, and he went away shaken and a little sickened.

That Tuesday, Mal invited Nick and Sammy over. It was an odd request, presented with an unusual intensity, and it made Nick look a little askance at his good friend. "What's going on with you, Mal?"

"I'm going to get a call tonight. I know you won't, they won't authorize it because you're not together. But I'm going to get a call, and if you want to have a conversation with the person you've been missing, it might be a good idea to be in the same place where the call is going to be.” Mal winked.

Nick blushed up to the roots of his hair, but he stammered out a reply. He'd be there.

Sammy agreed to go to Mal's place when Nick picked him up at the camp bus. He adamantly refused to speak to Tom, but he understood that Nick wanted to talk to him. "I know you've been chatting outside, Dad."

"You do?" Nick almost hit the brakes in his shock.

"I do. And it's okay. I'm not mad. I'm a little shocked, because I didn't think you'd want that. I mean he was nasty, mean, and treated you bad. But if you want to talk things out or whatever, that's grown-up stuff, and I don't need to get involved.” Then Sammy ducked his head and grinned. "Besides, I can't exactly stop you from going to talk to him tonight. I can't reach the pedals."

Nick laughed. Sammy was a smart kid.

Mal apparently wasn't much of a cook. He had take-out Chinese food waiting for them. Nick wondered if he should say something, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. It wasn't for him to judge, and it wasn't like Mal had time to cook an elaborate meal while Nick was at the bus stop.

Mal smiled at Sammy and turned on the television for him. "I'm going to bring the laptop into Danny's room, if that's okay. That way you won't have to see or hear anything you don't want to. But if you could be a good man and keep an eye on my boy for me, that would be a huge help. I know Boston's playing Washington tonight. You can watch if you want."

Sammy's eyes lit up, and Nick ruffled his hair. His son was a sweet kid.

Sammy scampered over to the couch, where he settled in to take possession of little Danny. "Okay. First lesson, little buddy. Boston is the best team in the world. The Yankees stink, and everything else is just kind of details. Now. The guy on the mound is the pitcher. We've got to get you pitching left handed. That way, you can get a major-league deal and your parents can both retire. Now..."

Mal sneaked off on perfectly silent feet toward one of the two bedrooms, and Nick followed.

"They're adorable together," Mal said, his brogue coming out even more strongly. He set the laptop down on Danny's dresser, and then his fingertips flew across the keyboard. Screens appeared for a second, disappeared, and were replaced by other screens.

This was apparently not going to be some typical videoconference session.

After a long moment, Mal sat back and stared at a blank screen. The screen stopped being blank right away, replaced by Trent Kelly's chiseled, clean-shaven face. "There he is," Trent said, a broad smile splitting his face. His tan looked a little deeper, and the dark circles under his eyes a little deeper, but he looked good.

"Hey, Sailor.” Mal winked at him. "Got a light?"

"For you? Always.” The two continued to flirt, and Nick tried to tune them out. He had no interest in intruding on their private lives. He understood he was privileged to see this much, of course. He could understand a bit of flirtation from Mal, that was just his way, but he'd seen enough of Trent to know he was more reserved.

His stomach tied itself into knots. What if Tom didn't know this had been arranged? What if Tom didn't want to talk to him? What if Tom rejected him like this?

"Nick there's eyes are more glazed than a donut," Trent snorted. "He's not here to listen to us. He's here to see someone else. Hey Fitzpatrick, get your ass in here!"

Another face popped in front of the camera, and Nick thought he might melt. Tom's tan was even deeper than Trent's, and his hair was flat and tousled. He'd been out working hard, God only knew at what. Exhaustion lined his craggy face, but that smile erased it all. "God damn it's good to see your face, Nick."

Nick knew he was grinning like a fool. "How are you? Are you doing okay?"

"Ah, you know. It's deployment. It's a lot of waiting, split up by a lot of running and shouting.” He shrugged and waved a hand, like he could wave away the danger of all of that "running and shouting." "What about you? Are you doing okay? How about Sammy? Is camp still going okay for him?"

Nick's stomach untied its knots and did a backflip. "He still loves camp. You should see him with Mal and Trent's son. He was trying to teach him about baseball when I came in here. I'm so proud of him."

"You should be. From what I've heard, and from what little I've seen, I am too.” Tom ran a hand through his hair. The connection hiccuped, making the image jump, but it came back online quickly. "Trent tells me you've been off exploring with Mal."

"Yeah. It's been fun. You know, we're both relatively new around here and all that.” Nick glanced over at Mal, who grinned.

"Don't worry, Fitzpatrick. He's keeping me on the straight and narrow."

Trent snorted. "Sure he is.” He turned his gaze toward Mal, indulgent and relaxed. "Listen, Chief is sending you something. Do you think you've got time to take a look through it?"

"Aw, for Chief? Anytime.” Mal blew him a kiss. "You tell him to keep it private, would you?"

"Always. We should get going. We're going out tomorrow, and we're going to be out of touch for a while. Love you, Mal."

"Take care of yourself, Nick.” Tom's face softened, and the camera cut out.

Mal looked at the blank screen for a moment, and then he picked his head up. "Hey, Sammy. What did you think of your da?"

The door swung open and Sammy stepped, shamefaced, into the room. "I thought Danny might want to see his dad," he muttered, baby cradled in his arms.

Danny seemed perfectly indifferent to the call that had just taken place. Danny was asleep, little chin tilted up in defiance.

Nick considered saying something, but decided against it. Instead, he put his hand on his son's back. "Come on, let's eat.”

Mal smiled at him and put his son in his crib.

***

Tom grabbed a piece of debris and set it down on the ground. Then he stepped onto the piece of metal. Once he found his balance, he pushed off and slid down the side of the dune. A stupid grin split his face, and he had to bite his lip to resist the urge to let out a whoop of delight.

Kulkarni, only a few feet behind him, didn't have quite as much discipline as he did. As a result, Kelly's voice crackled in their ears. "Button up, you two. We're not here to go sand surfing."

Tom rolled his eyes. They weren't in Libya to go sand surfing, no. That didn't mean they couldn't sand surf if the situation called for it, or more to the point, allowed for it. There wasn't anyone around for miles. They had someplace to be, and it was faster to surf down the dune than to walk or crawl or wriggle or whatever the hell Kelly and the others were doing.

Tom kept his stance low and balanced, and his gun in his hand, until he got to the bottom of the dune. He'd been to BUDS like everyone else. He might enjoy the rush of adrenaline, but that didn't mean he was a fool. Everything they had said there wasn't anyone around for miles, but that didn't mean surprises couldn't lurk around here somewhere.

The others finally got to the bottom of the dune, and they pressed on.

They'd been on the trail of human traffickers here in Libya for two weeks, and out in the desert for three days. They'd been out here camping, tracking the bad guys, and Tom had to admit they'd been outsmarted again. It wasn't their inadequacy. They were a damn fine unit.

The problem was the traffickers. The SEALs had a long list of competencies. They were good at tracking, but their primary competency was warfare. It wasn't humanitarian relief. Tom didn't mind being re-purposed to help instead of hurt, not at all, but it wasn't what he'd been trained for.

The traffickers, on the other hand, did one thing. They took people from one place to another, and sometimes they delivered those people alive. They focused their resources on hiding those people, moving them unseen through dangerous territory. Someone whose training was focused on blowing up bridges and breaking necks wasn't going to come out on top in a skills contest against someone who was focused on hiding people.

Never mind the fact that in this case, they only had the word of a handful of local officials to go on.

They found a place to hole up for the day and set up a schedule. Hunting traffickers by day, in the desert, just seemed foolish. They could move during daylight hours, but they didn't have to. They didn't exactly have any hot leads, and they'd rather conserve their energy and water for a time when they had to move fast.

What were Nick and Sammy doing right now?

Tom had no idea. He barely knew Nick now. Nick was probably asleep, since he had a day shift job. Sammy was probably asleep too. What did that look like for them? Was Sammy a good sleeper or was he fretful? Was he the kind of kid who had nightmares and ran to sleep in his dad's bed or did he sleep like a log?

Tom had missed out on so much.

They kept moving the next night. Local intelligence suggested that their targets were going to move, so Tom and company had to move with them.

Tonight, they caught a break. They moved through the night until they got to a village just outside Derne, where they found a convoy of unmarked trucks with what looked like shipping containers on the back. Tom took out his binoculars to get a look at the trucks.

"I've got a few holes drilled into the sides," he reported. "Six trucks in all.” He squinted. "I've got activity—wait. They're unloading passengers?” He swallowed, unwilling to repeat what he was seeing. "No. They're carrying bodies out of the containers."

"Fuck.” Kelly shifted near Tom's left side. "Let's move in. We can't let this go on any longer."

Kulkarni got on the radio and updated Chief and DeWitt back at base. They'd need to inform their superiors and the embassy, who would take care of crossing the T's and dotting the I's. That was diplomatic stuff, and the SEALs didn't tend to be good at it. They were going to jump in and save any survivors.

Kelly gestured to give them their instructions. Tom circled around to the right of the little convoy, along with Floyd, Buelen, and Toledano. Kelly took the rest. They moved silently and took up their positions as more and more corpses were unloaded from the trucks.

Tom wouldn't have thought so many people could fit into the shipping containers. He'd seen a lot of ugly, nasty stuff in his time, but this just made him want to throw up a little.

When Kelly gave the order, they attacked. Kelly's attack plans, when they were on the ground, didn't tend to be complicated. Few plans survived first contact with the enemy anyway, and they needed to be able to think on their feet. Tom fired at the people who looked like they were most in charge—the drivers. They'd take care of the others, the ones unloading and counting, later.

Firing at the drivers had the additional benefit of not catching the refugees in the crossfire.

While Tom would have been perfectly happy if the drivers would just lie down and die, and prompt their guards and whoever else to accept fate while they were at it, that never happened and it wasn't happening now. They had guns of their own, and they weren't afraid to use them. A few got shots off, one of which grazed Tom's arm and made him curse.

And the drivers had guards, who had bigger guns. Those guys were more than happy to return fire, and Tom and his men had to take cover. "You'd think these guys would be more willing to surrender," Floyd muttered, as he changed the magazine in his gun. "Ain't like they're entrepreneurs. They ain't getting paid enough to die for the guys they're working for."

"I know, right?” Tom fired and got one of the guards in the shoulder. "But hey. It's no skin off my nose if they want to give their lives for whatever cause. Maybe they're working for someone else, but they're still letting these people die."

The fight was over in a matter of minutes. As firefights went, it barely registered. A couple of guys were grazed, but that was it. The traffickers were all taken out of commission, with the exception of one driver who was captured alive.

The refugees weren't exactly thrilled with their rescue. They weren't disappointed, but they weren't thrilled. They all needed medical attention, some more than others. Tom couldn't say whether or not they'd get it, given that Libya had its own economic challenges years after its civil war.

Tom didn't expect gratitude. Not right now. These people had been willing to risk their lives, and in some cases their children's lives, on the slim possibility that they'd be able to somehow reach Europe and eke out a living there. It wasn't like anyone didn't know what the human traffickers were about. Their victims were desperate enough to risk it.

The SEALs didn't need to be told what to do. They got to work triaging the sick and wounded. Some, like Toledano and Kelly, couldn't stomach being around the victims. They got to work setting up a campsite far enough away from the dead to escape the stink of death and dying. Kulkarni and Floyd, along with Toledano, set themselves to finding enough water to tide them all over until help could arrive.

Tom, Tinker, Van Heel, and Buelen dug in and got to work tending to the sick and injured directly.

Some were delirious. Tom realized quickly that some of their guests were suffering from some kind of intestinal illness and had to be isolated from the rest. Assuming that they hadn't already spread their illness to the others, of course, isolation might help.

Chief got back to them pretty quickly. They'd have support vehicles at their location starting the next night.

They lost ten patients that night. Tom counted it as a personal failure. Kelly promised him it was a miracle they didn't lose more.

The next night, vehicles from all over the world poured into their little campsite. Many came in from the Red Crescent, filled with relief workers. Tom hadn't ever been all that religious, but he joined in with the whispered and shouted cries of "Thanks be to God!" from their patients. The Red Crescent brought tents. They brought IV fluids and antibiotics. They brought food and water.

They brought hope for these people.

France brought a contribution, too. England contributed, as did Poland and Germany. Italy sent a hospital ship, to which the sickest were evacuated once they could be safely moved.

As people began to recover, they told their stories. And many had the same story to tell.

The trucks had stank. Some had attempted the journey before, only to be turned back, so they knew what to expect. They didn't exactly expect luxury, when traveling by container truck, but they knew what smells to expect and what would be out of the ordinary. Sometimes they got a little bit of exhaust into the shipping container, just from being stuck in traffic. It wasn't normal to get that much exhaust when they were moving. It wasn't normal to get that much exhaust at all.

Adami, who had some vocational training before enlisting, took a look at the trucks. The French supplied an actual licensed mechanic, who confirmed Adami's suspicions—and snuck off with him to a supply tent later. The trucks had been modified to pump exhaust directly into the shipping containers.

Tom had to go be sick in a corner when he heard that. Kelly and Chief gave him his privacy before approaching. "That's a lot to take in," Chief said. "Do you think it was sabotage?"

Tom wiped his mouth. That sour taste was going to stay with him for a long time. "No," he said after a second. "I saw their faces when they were unloading the dead. I don't think they were sabotaged. I think they knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't surprised by the number of dead. They weren't disturbed by the number of dead. They didn't care."

Kelly paled. "That's disgusting. What would drive that?"

Chief tapped a finger against his bearded cheek. "I don't...I think we've seen that kind of callous indifference, directed at refugees, before."

"Have we?” Kelly wrinkled his nose. "I mean this is mass murder!"

"It is.” Chief nodded. "So were the refugees murdered back near Sete, right?"

"White Dawn.” Tom closed his eyes and shook his head. "I hate those bastards."

"We all hate those bastards.” Kelly balled his hands into fists. "The question is what can we do about it? We can't prove it was them. The guards were all local or from farther south."

"They were probably hired.” Chief shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time those sick fucks hired people they don't like to do their dirty work. And right now, that works out well for us. We can keep investigating the case, so long as it doesn't look like White Dawn to whoever pulled us off the case last time."

Kelly grinned slowly. "True."

Tom couldn't make himself grin. One of the bodies had been about the same size as Sammy. "I want to nail those bastards to the wall, Chief."

"Me too, Fitzpatrick. Me too. But we'll get there. We will get there.” Chief straightened up. "For now, why don't we get you guys back to the ship and get you cleaned up? You could use a good night's sleep."

Tom couldn't argue with Chief's words. He just didn't think a good night's sleep was anything like a reality anytime soon. After what he'd seen, he couldn't imagine ever wanting to close his eyes again.

They got rides back to Darnah with some of the evacuation trucks, which let Tom ride with some of the survivors. He promised a little boy, shaking with fever, he'd get back at the people who'd done this to him. He didn't think it would do much to improve the boy's life. It wouldn't give him his mother back, and it wouldn't erase that terrible experience from his memory. It seemed to soothe the child, though, and that was what mattered.

When Tom got back to the ship, he scrubbed so hard he turned himself pink in the shower. Then he climbed into bed. Chief let him and the other guys sleep as long as they liked.

When Baldinotti radioed them from Norfolk, to let them know they had a new lead, Tom jumped to volunteer for the next fight.