Mal knew, right down to the minute, when Trent's ship was due to arrive at Norfolk. He also knew, right down to the second, when the ship docked. The Navy was a bit of a challenge to hack, but it wasn't like Mal had shrunk from a challenge before. Sailing across the open Atlantic was scary. They used to give people wakes, before they set out, just because they weren't likely to survive the trip, didn’t they?

 

But the ship docked at Norfolk. Mal didn't expect to hear from Trent right away, and he didn't. He heard from Trent some ten hours later, when Mal was just sitting down to dinner with Morna. Just woke up. Made it safe to Virginia Beach. Thinking of you.

 

Mal sent him back a selfie of himself and Morna up on their roof deck. They wouldn't be staying long, but he might as well send a memory of the last place he and Trent had been together.

 

He and Morna packed up that night. "It's been nice to stay in one place for so long," Mal sighed. "You know, at the same address. Sleeping in the same bed. You know."

 

Morna curled her lip. "Ugh. Next thing you know you'll be wanting to get a house with a garden, maybe grow some roses."

 

"Roses aren't an inherently bad thing, Morna. They look pretty and they smell nice, unlike your laundry heap." He gave his sister a significant look, but he had to sigh in the process. He knew he'd never be able to tell her the truth. If things came through and he was able to go to Virginia — or he decided to run off to Australia or South Africa — he would have to keep it a secret even from her.

 

"So buy them at the store. It's not like it's really your money." She scoffed. "You took it from some bastard who didn't earn it anyway. Who's your target this week?"

 

Mal grinned. "Oh, Luke Smolak. He earned my ire while I was researching that hotel where White Dawn was staying. Turns out he donates an absolute ton of cash to organizations that try to 'honor traditional American values, and bring back America's strength.'" He snorted. "He's been donating an awful lot to Red Beard dot org for the past few weeks. He'll never know the difference."

 

Morna scratched at Mal's beard. "Yeah, sure, unless he meets you."

 

"If he meets one of us, it would be because things had gone very badly for him, very quickly." Mal waggled his eyebrows. "If he makes that connection in the ten seconds before he dies, he's welcome to it." He didn't have to fake his laugh this time. "Alright. Where to this time? I kind of feel like we've worn out our welcome in Greece."

 

"What do you say to Munich? I love Oktoberfest, and that will be coming up soon." Morna leaned forward, a bright smile painting her face.

 

Mal made a face. "I love Oktoberfest too, but it's not going to love me this year." He sighed. "I suppose we could do a lot worse, though. I'll see what we can do about finding lodgings."

 

He turned his attention to relocation and found them a cheap flat quickly enough. It wasn't all that close to the city center, but that was fine by Mal. If Morna wanted to go party for Oktoberfest, she could make her own way into town. Mal would rather have peace and quiet to work, and the outskirts of town would be better for his needs anyway.

 

They took a ferry back to the mainland, and they hopped onto a train in Athens. After a long train ride, with several transfers over several days, they found their way to Munich, where they caught a cab to their dumpy little flat. It wasn't much of a place, a one bedroom hovel with no view and no parking, but they didn't need much. All they needed was a landlord who wasn't inclined to ask a lot of questions and some quiet space.

 

Mal took the couch in the main room. He didn't need as much privacy as Morna did right now, and being on the couch would hopefully make it easier to cope with the loss of Trent. They still hadn't spent an entire night in one another's arms, but Mal would have to learn to live with that.

 

Trent continued to say they were trying to get him to the US, but Mal didn't take that seriously. It wasn't going to be possible. Why would it? Trent would have other things on his mind now that he'd been successfully detached from Mal. He needed to focus on the job in front of him, not on fantasies.

 

Conveniently enough, he found out about an impending attack on Oktoberfest. According to Da, there weren't any other Wolves in the area. Since Mal and Morna were the only ones in town, it fell to them to deal with it. Neither of them minded. Their long Cretan layover had been nice and restful, but they were used to action.

 

They did research in their own ways and came up with information they could agree upon. From what they could tell, White Dawn members had approached some disaffected young men at an impoverished mosque near Munich. Mal had seen their plans and their messages back and forth to one another. The white supremacists had encouraged these young men in their anger and their resentment, until they were ready to make a move. Then they'd set them up with a contact in Daesh.

 

Now the young men intended to carry out suicide attacks during Oktoberfest. Mal and Morna knew who the men were. They had two options. They could either provide their information to local authorities and let them handle it, or they could deal with it themselves.

 

Neither O'Donnell trusted local authorities to handle it themselves. It wasn't that they thought the Munich police force lacked intelligence or bravery. They knew the authorities got hundreds, if not thousands, of this type of threat every day as Oktoberfest neared. They had to evaluate each threat as it came in and consider the source for credibility. A tip from members of an organization considered to be little better than terrorists wouldn't get the time of day.

 

Morna wanted to go in hard and execute the would-be attackers, before they could kill anyone else. "You know how this works, Mal. You've seen the evidence for yourself. They've made their choice, and we can't take the risk that they'll hurt other people. You know this."

 

Mal bit his lip. He was perfectly capable of going in and cutting throats when they had to, but he had other things to consider now. He didn't believe Trent or Chief would be able to get him into the States, but what if they did? And what if they went before the magistrate or whoever, what if it got as far as that, only to have the magistrate turn around and say, "He cut these people's throats without any deference to the law. And that's after he knew you were trying to bring him to America. Petition denied."

 

"There might be a better way." He pressed a few keys on his laptop, and some windows on his screen opened. "If we know where they're staying, we can break into their apartment and rig their vests to be duds, yeah? That way they don't explode, and no one gets hurt. And we can get these young men the help they need, and maybe even give White Dawn a wedgie while we're at it."

 

Morna made a face. "You don't really think that's going to be possible, do you?"

 

"I have to hope, little sister. I have to hope. If it doesn't work, then we can cut all the throats you want."

 

It only took a moment for Mal to find where the young men were staying. He and Morna broke into their apartment while they were at Friday prayer. He had a moment of fear as he fixed the suicide vests so they wouldn't explode, but he knew what he was doing. He was good at his job, and so was Morna.

 

Once their work was done, they waited until evening to go to the mosque and speak with the Imam. The Imam turned out to be a good man, cheerful and welcoming. He was German of Turkish descent, and he was horrified to learn of the plot in his midst. He didn't believe the O'Donnells at first, but Mal showed him proof, and he had to bow his head in the end. "I can't believe it, not now. Not with everything that's been going on."

 

Mal gave the man a sympathetic grin. "Does it make it better to know they were targeted by neo-Nazis? That this wasn't something your congregants came up with on their own? They were manipulated by evil men."

 

"It doesn't make me feel particularly better, no. I'm not sure what to do with the information now." He threw his hands up into the air. "How can I help these boys? They're not more than boys. They're barely twenty."

 

"The first thing is to get the authorities involved. They'll bring them in. While that will cause some rumblings in the community, it will come out that the information came from within the Muslim community here. The message will be that this is your home too, and that you want peace as much as everyone else here." Mal rubbed at his face. "While they're in prison, those young men will get help. In the meantime, keep an eye out for anyone who isn't part of your community who shows an unhealthy interest in your congregation."

 

The Imam met Mal's eyes. "You think this is part of a larger pattern."

 

"We know it is." Morna smiled thinly. "It's just a matter of putting a stop to it. We want everyone in Europe to be free and safe, sir. Not just the pale people."

 

The Imam chuckled at that. "InShaAllah."

 

The would-be bombers were arrested that night, two days before the start of the Oktoberfest celebration. Mal and Morna watched events unfold on the news. Everything played out just as Mal told the Imam it would. A few people shouted Islamophobic drivel here and there, but for the most part the arrest was a non-event. It was a non-event specifically because the men had been turned in by their own.

 

White Dawn members, both from the online arm and the deadlier direct action arm, were aghast. The keyboard warriors railed against the "false flag" sent up to obviously distract from the real danger the evil, bad Imam was probably planning behind closed doors.

 

The direct action arm, where no one could see them, erupted in flames overnight. They knew they must have a leak. Their contacts within Daesh wouldn't have given them up. It wasn't that they were loyal to White Dawn. They just wouldn't want to give credit to White Dawn for any of their work. No, the leak had to have been one of their own, and their messages back and forth to one another were full of dire threats against people who could have been involved with the "vile cowardice."

 

Chief and Trent both messaged Mal, Trent in secret.

 

Was that you? Chief's message was terse, but that was just the Master Chief. Mal thought he could learn to like the older sailor, even if he wasn't as attracted to him as he'd initially pretended to be to get a rise out of Trent.

 

Mal admitted to the role he and Morna had played, without looking for undue credit. Best part was we got it done without any bodies.

 

Germans are saying Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber are already singing like ugly little canaries. Good work.

 

Mal preened under the praise. He resented himself for wanting it, but he loved it.

 

Trent's message, sent on the secure account, was a little more personal. Good work with that Munich thing. I can tell that was you even five thousand miles away. It's weird and completely out of the box. Morna would have wanted to kill them both.

 

Mal had to laugh at that. You've spent too much time with us. It would have been efficient.

 

But not gotten any information out of the suspects. Good work. And then, in a new paragraph, Please tell me you didn't put yourself in any danger to pull that one off.

 

Mal winced. He thought about the way his hands had sweated as he disarmed the bombs in the vest and the way his hands had shaken when he was done. None at all. It was practically a milk run, Trent.

 

Liar. You need to stay safe. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you right now.

 

Mal looked around at the dumpy flat. I'll do what I can. It was the best he could do. His life wasn't safe and never had been.

 

That begged the question, what would he do if he did go to Virginia? He wouldn't be living this life anymore. He wouldn't be in constant danger. He'd be, for all intents and purposes, safe.

 

Would he go insane from boredom?

 

Or would he find a way to thrive? Maybe he'd find a new career. Maybe he'd find an affinity for homemaking, baking cookies, and ironing fitted sheets. That didn't sound like him, but it could happen. Anything could happen.

 

He'd gotten just as antsy as Morna had in the month or so they'd spent in Souda, and he'd spent plenty of time working during that time. Somehow he didn't think baked goods or fitted sheets would exactly fill the void.

 

He dropped his hand to his belly. He wasn't showing yet. He still had a couple of months before he had to worry about it. Still, he knew there was a fetus in there. An embryo, anyway. Would the person it grew into be enough to keep him busy, and give him enough action to keep him from falling back into his old habits?

 

He shouldn't worry about it, not yet. He had about seven months to worry about who the little person would be, and a lot could go wrong between now and then. Virginia was still an alien concept to him, as alien as safety, and he wasn't going to count his chickens before they laid eggs or whatever that saying was.

 

He found himself grateful not to have gotten all that dependent on the idea of Virginia when he got Chief's next message, about three days after the first. I don't suppose you know of a link between White Dawn and drug sales.

 

Not off the top of my head, but they must be getting their funding somewhere. Why?

 

Because all of the SEAL teams just got a memo reminding us that our job is not investigating white supremacist organizations. I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

Mal closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. He wasn't going to cry.

 

Hell if he didn't want to.

 

~

 

Trent got the same memo everyone else did. He had to fight against the pit that formed in his stomach, such a physical thing he almost puked. Okay, so the SEALs weren't a police force. They hadn't set out to find neo-Nazis, but they had set out to deal with terrorism. How was what White Dawn was doing not terrorism?

 

And if they weren't supposed to be fighting White Dawn, how were they supposed to bring Mal over? Half of Trent and Chief's strategy had been to cite Mal's helpfulness in the fight against White Dawn.

 

Trent was disappointed, and a little surprised, but he guessed he wasn't exactly shocked. He was more shocked when DeWitt declared a unit meeting and declared it to be held at Trent's house after dismissal that day.

 

Trent wasn't prepared to host a party. His house was neat and clean, because Trent spent virtually no time there, but he didn't have enough furniture, utensils, place settings, or anything like that. He certainly didn't have enough food. The Master Chief, being the practical soul he was, assigned everyone to pick up certain items on their way over, and the problem was solved.

 

They were SEALs. They had sat on the ground in the damn desert, with scorpions and everything. They didn't need folding chairs.

 

After work, everyone descended on Trent's condo with the subtlety of a herd of baboons. Did baboons travel in herds? It didn't matter. The unit, when on leave, was a herd of baboons. Trent deemed it so, and he could only hope his neighbors were kind enough or sufficiently intimidated by his job to leave them be. They tromped into the house and yelled questions about where the bathroom was, where to put the food, what about the beer, why did he have ten different kinds of gin but no whiskey, and so forth.

 

DeWitt and Chief gave everyone time to settle down and fix themselves sandwiches from the platter they'd brought. Once everyone had a drink and some food, the two commanders got up in front of the rest of them, in Trent's small living room. "Alright, fellas," DeWitt began. "Thanks for coming here tonight."

 

"It was a hard decision." Floyd gave Robson a little nudge. "Robson had a hot date."

 

Robson rolled his eyes so hard Trent thought he might detach something. "Oh my God, Floyd, would you shut up already?" He glanced around at all of the staring men. "I was going to play multiplayer Civ, okay?"

 

The guys stared, and then they hooted and laughed. "Robson, you are such a geek!" Hopper patted Robson's back. "You could at least play Call of Duty or something."

 

"I like Civ. It's comforting. Repetitive." Robson sipped at the cider he had by his side.

 

"Anyway," DeWitt continued in an annoyed tone, even though he was grinning, "I know it's a little unusual to call a meeting off base. And it's definitely unusual not to tell the person whose home we're invading. Thanks to Kelly for being so accommodating."

 

The team applauded, and Trent blushed. He didn't feel accommodating. He felt railroaded. He didn't say anything, though. He just kept right on drinking. He was probably going to need it, if this morning's memo was anything to go by.

 

"You all got the same memo I did today," DeWitt told them. "About how we're not supposed to be investigating white supremacist organizations."

 

Fitzpatrick raised his hand. "Sir, don't get me wrong. I hate me some Nazis, and I hate 'em about as much as anyone whose family isn't going to be directly hurt by them can hate them. I got no problem with taking them out. If I get the order to shoot, I will cheerfully pull that trigger and put a bullet in the head of every sorry son of a bitch who thinks Mein Kampf makes great bedtime reading.

 

But sir, we're sailors. We're not cops, and we shouldn't be cops. We're military. There's been a line between cops and soldiers in this country for a good long time, for a good reason. Maybe that's what this is all about?"

 

A couple of the guys nodded. They didn't necessarily look convinced, but they definitely looked pensive.

 

Panic rose in Trent's throat. He tried to wash it down with beer. Didn't these guys understand? This wasn't about White Dawn. This was about Mal, the man Trent loved. This was about the child Mal and Trent had made together.

 

This was about Trent. This was about family.

 

Chief scratched at his chin. "Well, you're right about that, Fitzpatrick. I'm not thrilled about the idea of pretending to be cops, or about interpreting the law. I'm not paid for that. You're not paid for that. And what do I always tell you boys?"

 

"Don't do shit you ain't paid for," the unit chorused, with one voice. Even DeWitt joined in.

 

Chief beamed. "What do you know? You were listening. Here's the thing. We've already proven the link between White Dawn and the kind of terrorism we were already fighting. That's assuming we didn't already think running down a boat filled with migrants is terrorism." He fixed Fitzpatrick with a steely glower.

 

Fitzpatrick didn't argue that point. Trent figured that was a wise decision.

 

Baudin raised a hand. "How do you expect us to continue to investigate White Dawn without getting court-martialed, sir? We're sailors. We follow orders. That's what we do."

 

DeWitt nodded his head vigorously. "That's right, Baudin. You follow orders. We all follow orders. Here's the thing. We do have a certain amount of leeway in how those orders are followed. We're not going to ignore a terrorism case just because we see that it's White Dawn and not Islamic State, right?"

 

"That would be stupid, sir." Kulkarni frowned.

 

"Right. And we're always going to be working on jobs in the Mediterranean and the Near East. What do you think the odds are that we're not going to run into this issue again and again?" DeWitt made a face. "We keep doing what we're doing. And we document every damn White Dawn connection we find. We don't have to go tearing off to Montenegro to find them, but we sure as hell will not turn a blind eye to this stuff."

 

Trent shifted his position in his seat. All of this sounded well and good, but what did any of this have to do with Mal or the baby? Maybe it was selfish of him to be so worried about them right now, but he couldn't just write them off as a lost cause.

 

Then he frowned. "Wait, sir. When did we, as a country, decide we were only going to worry about one kind of terrorism?"

 

Chief pointed at him. "Give that young man a prize! The order was sent around by SEAL command after the SEAL commander had lunch with Senator Peter Blake, from Indiana."

 

The men all looked at one another, confused. Trent was just as confused as the rest of them. "I have no idea who that is, Chief."

 

DeWitt made a face. "You need to get out more. Senator Blake was just elected last November. He's an arch-conservative, and a lot of his funding comes from a foundation backed by none other than Luke Smolak."

 

Toledano lifted his chin. "Who owned that hotel we raided."

 

"Right." DeWitt nodded slowly. "Now, that doesn't mean Smolak is involved with White Dawn, or that he's somehow supporting them or white supremacy. There's been a lot of stuff going on here at home, and funding for tracking domestic white supremacist terror has been eliminated. So if we're not allowed to address it at home…"

 

"We can't address it abroad." Iniguez gripped his stomach. "It's like someone's playing political football. With, you know, neo-Nazis."

 

Trent finished his beer in one gulp. "Fun thought."

 

"I know, right?" Iniguez looked a little green.

 

"Regardless, we do the job in front of us. We're not hunting for White Dawn, but if we find them Nazi-ing around somewhere, we'll take them out as part of our routine job. That's what I'm sticking to. That's what I'm asking all of you to stick to. Can you do that?"

 

"Hell yeah," Floyd said.

 

No one else was going to have a problem with it. Going against orders was beyond the pale, but this wasn't defying command. This was simply doing their job.

 

The rest of the guys relaxed after that. Trent couldn't relax. All he could do was think about Mal. If someone in government decided to side with White Dawn, and Mal had just smashed a White Dawn plan, then the odds of bringing Mal into America had just dwindled to nothing.

 

He settled back into life off deployment quickly. They all did. It was a normal part of the job. They did their training, just like they always did, and the training reminded Trent of why he'd bought the indulgent bed. The physical training was intense. Everyone liked to ooh and ahh over Navy SEALs, and over the Navy SEAL body, but no one ever wanted to do what they had to do to get that SEAL body.

 

Even the SEALs didn't want to do what they had to do to get that SEAL body, most of the time. They just had the proper motivation to push past the part of their brain that was screaming, "You know this is killing you, right?"

 

They didn't just run, swim, and climb. They sparred, too. They sparred against each other. They worked out against other units who were similarly off deployment at the moment. They had grueling days when they had to push themselves and each other to the absolute limit and back again, only to get up and do it all again the next day.

 

At least when they were deployed, they got to rest when they got back to the ship or to the base.

 

Still, they had time to stand down here. Once they were done with training for the day, they could go home and crack open a cold one, or head down to the bar with their buddies and enjoy a night out. Trent considered himself to be in a relationship, but he could still enjoy watching Fitzpatrick try to pick up omegas and fail miserably. Lupo wasn't quite up to dancing much yet, but Iniguez and Buelen could go out and show off their moves on the floor without embarrassing the Navy too badly.

 

Trent made a point of visiting his uncles, too. They weren't comfortable taking on his baby, and Trent wasn't angry about that. He couldn't be. It wasn't really their job to do it. It would have been helpful, but they were older now, and Uncle Jonas had diabetes. Uncle Nick was having trouble with his hearing. They weren't catastrophic issues, not yet, but they weren't a great combination for running around after a little kid.

 

Trent wanted to make sure they understood he wasn't upset, so he stopped in to visit as soon as he could. "I'm doing what I can to bring him over, and then it won't be an issue, of course," he told them. “In the meantime, I'll figure out some other backup plan. Maybe I'll pay Chief's omega to take care of it when I'm deployed. What's six instead of five?"

 

Nick snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure he'll be right on board with that."

 

"I'm pretty sure he was joking, sweetie." Jonas told his omega, with a little kiss. "Seriously, Trent, why are they making such a stink about bringing him to America anyway?"

 

"He's apparently had a bit of legal trouble. Apparently his mom didn't appreciate something their dad did and tried to sell them out. Charming, I know, but he's a good guy." Trent couldn't tell them the whole story, it was classified, but they both understood that.

 

"How many of the translators and other allies who got brought over during the last war had criminal records?" Nick waved a hand. "If they could do it for them, they should be able to do it for you. Right?"

 

Trent was pretty sure it didn't work that way, especially not with the new ban on investigating white supremacist organizations. It was another avenue to look into, but probably not their best bet.

 

"You're going to have to be prepared for us to not be able to bring Mal over right away, or maybe not at all," Chief told him after a couple of weeks. "It's not what we want, but it's a distinct possibility. How would you provide for your child if you couldn't bring Mal over?"

 

"I have no idea." Trent had to steady himself at the very thought of not being able to bring Mal home. "That's not even on my radar. Mal's a good man, he's helped us already. He saved my life and the life of the guys I was with. That alone should be enough to get him a green card, damn it."

 

"Sure it should. It probably would if we were talking about a war zone, but we're talking about someone who had already escaped US custody and on friendly soil. These are the sacrifices we make, Kelly. It's not just our lives, it's our freedom as well. We can't just say, 'Well, I'm going to build a new life with this hot guy.' It's a lot more complicated than that for us."

 

Trent understood that, at least in theory. It was the practical side of things that was giving him trouble.

 

Through all of it, he still heard from Mal. Mal didn't say a lot in his communication, but since he was mostly sending messages through their more public channel they were both limited by circumstance. Hey, Trent. Hope you're doing well. Things here are okay. I miss you. That was all he had to say for himself the day before he took down the Oktoberfest bombers.

 

Hey, Trent. Hope all is well with you. We're on to the next big thing. Saw a seal the other day, thought of you.

 

What did that mean? Was he someplace Nordic? Did that mean he was chasing down a lead in Scandinavia? Or had he taken a trip to the zoo? It was so hard to tell with Mal.

 

Trent sent back equally inane little notes on their less-private channel, but he reserved their private channel for anything intense. He reported on their inability to investigate White Dawn, but Mal was unconcerned. Chief warned me. Don't get yourself into trouble. I'll keep you — or him, whichever — posted about what they're doing if it crosses with what you all do. I get you don't operate independently.

 

I'm still trying to bring you home. He stared at the sentence for a while before hitting send. Home seemed to be a loaded word. Had Mal ever had a home?

 

I know you are. Mal didn't hesitate before responding. I appreciate that. Hopefully we'll see each other again.

 

Trent wasn't about to trust to hope. He got back to research.