Mal woke up in Trent's arms. He had soreness in his legs and body, but it was the good kind of sore. It wasn't any different than he would feel after a good training session or something like that. What was more, Mal was warm and safe in someone else's arms. That wasn't something he got to experience very often.

 

He carefully disentangled himself from Trent's embrace and threw some clothes on. Trent would probably appreciate something to wear, but nothing Mal had would fit his partner. Trent was huge, all muscle and sinew. Mal usually tried to avoid the big, muscle-bound guys. He didn't want to be vulnerable. With Trent, though, he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

 

In sleep, Trent looked younger. His face was calm, relaxed. Mal knew, better than most, what these guys went through. He could respect it, even if he wasn't comfortable with their leadership. Would it kill them to let someone take care of them for a little while? Let them get a good meal, put their feet up, have a beer, or rest? Spend a little bit of time not killing and not thinking about killing?

 

Mal chuckled at himself and fastened his belt. For all he knew, Trent had a string of omegas back in the States, all vying to be the one to bring him the beer or massage his feet. Mal wasn't going to be the one, though. Mal might not be a big, muscular alpha, but he was just as battle-worn as Trent and he had the scars to prove it. If he was starting to think about American sailors needing to be taken care of, he must be getting old.

 

Trent's green eyes flew open when Mal chuckled. "What is it? What's wrong?"

 

Mal shook his head. "I'm getting on in years, that's what's wrong. How are you feeling? Let me have a look at those stitches of yours."

 

Trent rolled his eyes, but he sat up and let Mal get at his injuries. "They're fine, Doc. They itch a little, but they're fine."

 

"Well, don't go scratching at them. Those stitches need to stay in place for a while yet. I can sneak into Komotini and get some more antibiotics, but I'd rather not unless it's an emergency. A guy that looks like me stands out around here, you know."

 

Trent raked his gaze over Mal, from head to toe. "You don't say."

 

Mal blushed. He hated his pale skin, which made his embarrassment so obvious to everyone. And he hated being around other people before coffee; when he was less able to control his reactions. "Hush, you." He glanced at the door. "I don't have much to offer you in the way of clean clothes. Mr. Baudin, maybe, but the rest of you are on a little too large of a scale."

 

"If you can give Baudin something, that's enough." Trent swung his legs over the side of the bed. "It's more than enough, actually. You've already done so much. You don't like Americans. Why would you help us?"

 

Mal brought Trent his clothes. The blood had crusted on them, and Mal made a face. "I don't like your bosses, no. But in that particular case you were innocents. We're not in the habit of killing innocent people."

 

Trent slid into his pants. "Who are you guys, anyway? IRA?"

 

Mal scoffed. "No. Well, our ma was sort of IRA. Still is, probably. It's been a while. But no. We're just a group of concerned people who try to keep the world safe for everyone."

 

Trent smirked. "Safe as you define it."

 

"Well, yeah." Mal wasn't about to deny that. "If we know about a terrorist attack, we do what we can to stop it. Any kind of terrorist attack," he added with a dark look at Trent. "We don't trust governments."

 

Trent squirmed. "You're anarchists."

 

"No. Not at all." Mal put his boots on. "We just think it's important for all people to be able to live in peace, with personal autonomy and safety."

 

Trent looked pained, or maybe just gassy. Mal was used to that reaction. Military types usually had it. They didn't care for freethinkers, as a general rule. Ah, well. Mal hadn't intended to be with this guy for the rest of his life, or even the rest of the day.

 

Waking up with him had been so nice though.

 

He dismissed the thought and grabbed his bag. "Let's go check on your friends."

 

Floyd and Lupo were sacked out in their room. Floyd jumped up when they walked in, but relaxed when he recognized Trent. "Lupo's still got a fever," he reported, glaring at Mal.

 

Mal took Lupo's temperature. "He does, but the temperature's come down a bit. That's a good thing. The wound site is looking better too," he said, peeling back the covers to check the injury. "The antibiotics are working."

 

They went to check on Baudin, too. Baudin was already awake. While he was still a little woozy from blood loss, he was able to stay upright, and he wasn't delirious. He accepted clean clothes from Mal. They were too short for him, but didn't have crusted blood or grime on them.

 

Everyone convened in Lupo's room, because Mal didn't want him on his feet any more than he had to be. "So what's the plan, Kelly?"

 

Did Trent have rank? Was that why everyone kept looking to him for direction? Mal sat on the windowsill beside Morna and watched the SEALs interact.

 

Trent cleared his throat. "I spoke to the Master Chief last night. We should be able to get evacuated tonight, hopefully. He's aware of our situation. There were too many casualties to deal with yesterday for him to come back for us then, so he'll have to wait until tonight."

 

"So until then we just sit tight?" Baudin eyed Mal and Morna with suspicion.

 

"More or less." Trent winced. "Check your equipment, take inventory. Anything could happen between then and now, so be prepared to hunker down."

 

Mal wouldn't mind having Trent around for another day or two.

 

There wasn't much else for them to discuss, so the party broke up. The SEALs mostly kept to themselves. They didn't have to, but they wanted to. Mal got that. They became a family when they became SEALs. That kind of training alone created a bond no outsider could intrude upon, never mind the bond of combat.

 

For their part, Mal and Morna went about their business too. They fed their guests from their meager supplies. They could always steal more or buy more in another town. It wouldn't be a problem. They even shared their carefully hoarded coffee.

 

As the sun descended over the Western mountains, Trent's radio crackled to life. He and Mal both jumped for it. "Chief?" Trent said.

 

"You boys still okay, Kelly?"

 

"Yes." Trent grinned, relief pouring off of him in waves. "How is everyone?"

 

"We've got a couple of close calls, but I think they'll pull through. How are your men?"

 

"Lupo could use a real doctor. We're patched up and ready to come home."

 

"All right. Let me talk to that lunatic helping you out and we'll set up a location."

 

Mal took the radio. "Chief, so good to hear your voice." He sat up straighter and poured on as much charm as he could muster. "I trust we can do this like honorable and honest men?"

 

"I'm not going to try and seize you on the shore, if that's what you're implying. Although it is tempting." Chief sighed. "It seems I do owe you one."

 

Mal grinned. "Excellent." He rattled off a set of coordinates. "It's near an old amphitheater. I can get the car there without arousing much attention. Mr. Lupo has a leg injury, and I don't want to risk further injuring it if I don't have to. Do you think you can get a small craft in there to get your men home?"

 

"I can do that," Chief said after a minute. "I'll see you there in four hours."

 

"Excellent."

 

Mal looked to the others. "Does this sound good to you?"

 

"I kind of think you're an idiot if you trust this exchange." Morna examined her fingernails. "But other than that, sure."

 

Floyd glared at her, but directed his words toward Mal. "Do you know that site is safe?"

 

"It's as safe as any around here. We've gotten deliveries around there before." Mal shrugged. "It's what we can do without extending your tenure with us and with the Opel. Unless you're keen to make a border crossing jammed six in an Opel?"

 

"No." All four SEALs could agree on that, at least. They spoke in unison, and Mal could laugh at that.

 

They packed their things up. Mal and Morna carefully cleaned them out of the abandoned hotel. It didn't take long, because they'd done this a thousand times before, and when they were ready, they loaded up into the car and headed down to the coast.

 

The clear, moonless night was perfect for a little people smuggling. Mal typically disapproved of people smuggling, but he could make exceptions. Getting a bunch of American soldiers out of Europe, for example, was something he could get behind. He wouldn't mind if Trent stuck around, but that would probably get to be problematic much faster than Mal would believe. He needed to remember who and what they both were and stop thinking with his libido.

 

When the big raft washed up onto the beach, all four SEALs straightened up. Mal recognized the Master Chief. He didn't recognize the man with him, another SEAL of average height with broad shoulders.

 

Chief looked the men over. One corner of his mouth twitched when he got to Baudin. "You're out of uniform, Baudin. You look like a badly-stitched scarecrow."

 

"Chief." Baudin looked straight ahead. "Infection concerns. Also the stitching is very good."

 

Chief snickered. "Hop on the raft, Baudin." He helped Lupo on board and greeted Floyd. Then he turned to Trent, Mal, and Morna. "So. Al Qaeda, huh?"

 

"Yes." Trent nodded.

 

"No, Chief." Mal shook his head, even as Trent spoke. "Daesh again."

 

Trent glared at him. "I'm telling you, it was Al Qaeda."

 

"Daesh. We've been following them for a year. But we did find something interesting." Mal couldn't say what it was that made him volunteer the information. He didn't care if the Americans got it right. It would be better for everyone if they wrote it off as Al Qaeda and wandered off back to their continent of gun-toting religious maniacs.

 

"What exactly qualifies you to discern the difference between Al Qaeda and ISIS?" Chief crossed his arms across his chest.

 

"Well, like my brother said, we've been following them for a year. And he does speak Arabic, pretty well actually." Morna stepped into the Master Chief’s space. She might not support Mal's decision to tell the Americans what was going on, but she wasn't going to let them know that. "But that's not the important thing here."

 

"What do you think is important here, missy?"

 

If Morna's blue eyes could have set fires, Chief’s pyre could have been seen from space. Mal winced.

 

"The fact is that we didn't go to that site following Daesh. We came here looking for Daesh, but we were following cell phone signals from some distinctly non-Arab men who aroused our suspicions. Which led us to a fallout shelter belonging to the school, where we found Daesh. And fifteen cans of Spam."

 

Trent frowned and turned to his superior. “Muslims don't eat Spam."

 

Chief scratched his chin. "It wouldn't be the first time we'd seen supposedly Islamic terrorists breaking their own rules. Remember the time we found that cache of tequila?"

 

Mal raised his eyebrows. That sounded like a fun story.

 

"No," Trent said. "But at the same time, it sounds to me like they probably know something we should hear about."

 

Chief made a face. "You guys want to come on board and talk about this?" He held up his hands. "As guests, not prisoners. We can offer showers."

 

Mal looked over at Morna. "What do you think?"

 

"I think they're going to try to lock us up again. Breaking out of that brig was a pain." Morna glared at Chief. "And I don't like him."

 

"They might be able to help us track down those other guys." Mal licked his lips. Was he more willing to work with the Americans because they had resources, or because it would give him more time with Trent? "I'd like to get to the bottom of why they were there."

 

Morna glowered at Mal. "Where do you think they'll drop us off, hm?"

 

"Who cares?" Mal spread his hands wide. "We can go anywhere, be anywhere. It's what we are, Morna. Come on. Right now, our job is this attack and the people behind it. If there's a connection to another group, it's our job to dig in, don't you think?"

 

Morna's shoulders slumped, and she let her head fall back. "Mark my words. It's going to all end in tears, with you and me in Cuba, and those Daesh-linked pervos running amok in the high street. I'm telling you." She pointed at him. "And you look ridiculous in orange."

 

"You look just as ridiculous in orange, Morna." Mal tilted his head to the side.

 

"If the two of you would like to put your bickering on hold until we get on board the ship, that would be greatly appreciated." Chief gave them a tight smile.

 

Mal glided into the raft. He could feel Trent's eyes on him, boring holes into his back. Trent had no way of knowing how much of the bickering was real and how much was show.

 

What did Trent think about bringing Mal and Morna on board? It was hard to tell. He didn't say anything as they rode back out to the destroyer the SEALs were based on right now, and of course he couldn't. He'd been in charge of the team when they went out, but now he was a subordinate.

 

Mal needed to stop thinking about Trent. He'd been a one-night stand, and neither of them had intended anything more from the encounter. It shouldn't matter what Trent thought about having Mal on board. Mal wasn't going onto a United States Navy vessel for a weekend romp. He was climbing that ladder to exchange information.

 

He got to the top of the ladder and helped get Baudin and Lupo on board. The sailors looked at him a little oddly when he did, but these were his patients. Until he'd met with their ship's doctor and made sure they had full knowledge of the men's injuries, they were his responsibility. He offered Trent a hand too, but Trent refused.

 

So, that was how it was going to be then. Ah, well. Mal could live with it.

 

The ship's doctor stepped forward, followed by men with stretchers. Mal followed her to sick bay to hand off the cases. He had a job to do, and mooning around over inappropriate men wasn't part of it.

 

~

Trent helped himself to a shower. He needed it. Grime and blood were part of the job, he understood that, but no amount of training or combat would acclimatize him to the way dried blood itched. It didn't matter if the blood was his or someone else's. He could push it off during a job, like pain or hunger or fatigue, but once the job was done he needed to wash it off.

 

After he got cleaned up, he reported to sick bay. The doctor took a quick look at Mal's work and pronounced it good. "I don't know where he got his training, but the guy's pretty good. I wouldn't mind having him help out back here in a pinch, if we needed it." She shrugged. "I get that it's against regulation, but if shit hits the fan, you take what you can get."

 

Trent nodded. He knew all about shit hitting the fan and taking help where he could get it, he guessed. "How are the others?"

 

"Lupo and Baudin are doing fine. I'm not even sure Baudin will need surgery. We'll get that casted up and then let someone on shore make that decision." She sighed. "I'm less sanguine about Fitzpatrick, Iniguez, and Kulkarni. They're all pretty badly hurt. I'll feel better when we've gotten them to a hospital."

 

Trent grimaced, but that was the only reaction he allowed himself. It was the job. They got hurt sometimes. Sometimes they got more than hurt. It was a risk they took, and a risk they were proud to take for their country. "Thanks, Doc."

 

"No worries. Keep those clean and dry and I'll take them out in a week or so."

 

Trent headed for his bunk. He shared space with five other guys, but he was used to it by now. He had his own bunk and his own locker with his own things in it. He felt like a whole new man as he lay down on a clean mattress, in clean clothes, with clean skin. There were five other bodies in the room, and he could hear them breathing, snoring, and muttering in their sleep.

 

He settled in and closed his eyes. Would Mal even want him here, in this place?

 

He didn't have time to follow the thought through to its natural conclusion. He was asleep almost before he'd completed the thought. When he woke, he dressed and headed for the mess hall.

 

Chief found him there. "Hey, Kelly." He sat down across from Trent. "We should be putting in at Chania in just a couple of days. We can dump our little stowaways there. Before that, we should probably figure out what they know. Assuming they know anything, of course, which I'm thinking is doubtful."

 

Trent sighed. "They seem to know a lot." He looked around the mess room. "I don't know if it's right or wrong, but they have a lot of information. It can't hurt to get at it."

 

"Hm." Chief pressed his lips into a thin line. "I don't like it. I did some digging after the last time, and as near as I can tell those two are ghosts. None of their IDs come back to anyone, at all."

 

Trent considered. "Mal told me his mom was IRA. I don't know if that helps."

 

"It might. It might. I don't know. I just can't be comfortable with people who claim to be on the side of good but aren't accountable to anyone." He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "You and your men are the only ones to make it all the way through that job, Kelly."

 

"Chief, that's just luck. We were in the basement, so we were protected from some of the worst of it, and we got help. If Mal and Morna hadn't shown up when they did, we'd have been killed. We were outnumbered and hemmed in on both sides. It was curtains." Trent shuddered at the memory.

 

"You guys are SEALs. You've survived worse, and you'll do it again." Chief slouched a little bit. "That said, I'm glad they showed up. For better or worse, they did save your asses."

 

Trent chuckled. "That they did."

 

"Did you sleep with him?"

 

Trent almost choked on his coffee. "Wait, what?"

 

"He's a good looking guy, and it was one of those near-death experiences. Don't think I've never been there, Kelly." Chief snorted and passed Trent some napkins.

 

Trent's cheeks burned. "Okay. I might have slept with him."

 

"I wouldn't put that into any incident reports, but there's no shame in that." He grinned. "It's a normal thing to do. You're a healthy, single alpha, he was a healthy, willing omega — he was willing, I assume."

 

Trent glared. "Of course. I wouldn't touch him if he wasn't." Then he slumped. "My dad wouldn't have done it." He could barely remember his father. He remembered a few glimpses of a white officer’s uniform and a closed — and probably empty — casket. He still knew, thanks to his uncles and every Navy man who’d ever known his father, that his dad would not have had sex with someone under suspicion of terrorism.

 

"Your dad was married, son. And was mostly based out of Charleston. The situations were completely different. If you don't believe me, ask your uncle the next time you speak." He leaned forward. "Are you afraid this guy's going to get too attached?"

 

"No." Trent laughed. "No, not at all. He's not a big fan of the US. And since that's entirely who I am..."

 

"Yeah. It's just as well." Chief stood up. "Should we go debrief with our Irish friends?"

 

"Let's do it." Trent stood up.

 

Mal had apparently gotten a shower in too. Someone had gotten him a change of clothes. It wasn't anything fancy, just typical Navy dark blue sweats and a yellow tee shirt. Somehow it managed to look stunning on Mal, like his hair and beard were that much more intense for being set against such a drab background. Trent tried to think about something else, like Arctic assignments or cleaning latrines.

 

Mal looked Trent up and down. Morna elbowed him. "Working here," she said, not bothering to hide her irritation.

 

Mal affected a hefty sigh. Trent now knew it was an affectation. He'd seen Mal at work. He'd seen Mal in a couple of unguarded moments. That flirtatious, over-the-top persona wasn't Mal.

 

"Morna dear, could you be ever so kind and put a cork in it?" Mal fluttered his eyelashes at his sister. "Thank you kindly." He turned to Chief and Trent. "Are we waiting for anyone or can we get right down to business?"

 

Lt. DeWitt walked into the room. "Just me," he said. "Lt. John DeWitt." He offered his hand to both Mal and Morna. "Thank you for your help with saving my men. I appreciate everything you did for them."

 

Morna gave him a thin smile. "You're quite welcome, Lieutenant. We're not in the business of leaving good men to die, if we don't have to."

 

DeWitt cleared his throat. "I'm afraid to ask what your business in an Al Qaeda cell might have been."

 

Mal made that face at him, the one that made the blood in Trent's head rush south. "It was Daesh, actually. And we knew they were planning something near the airport. That's why we were in town."

 

Chief tapped his pen against a notepad. "You knew this how, again?"

 

Mal winked at him. "We have our little ways, Chief. We have our little ways."

 

Morna scoffed. "At any rate," she said, "we were scouting out the town when we were approached by two men at dinner. They were also English speakers."

 

"Not unusual, in a tourist town." Trent folded his hands on the table.

 

Mal pretended to pout. "No," he said. "When they were hitting on Morna they claimed to be consultants working on a project at the airport, but couldn't produce a business card, and that certainly aroused our suspicions. The waiter warning me not to leave them alone with my sister, that made me a little twitchy. And tracing their mobile numbers to an abandoned school?" He chuckled. "That, my friend, was the clincher."

 

"And you found Spam in their bunk." Chief steepled his fingers in front of himself.

 

"We did. We took out four of them, but we didn't see Morna's beaux in the nest."

 

Morna moved. Trent couldn't see what she did, but Mal grunted and his eyes bulged. Trent would guess she'd stomped on her brother's foot, under the table. "'Morna's beaux.' Would you listen to yourself? I don't show up to see beaux with a shotgun, you horse's arse. And is it 1817 now? Who says beaux, anyway?"

 

Chief held up a hand. "Do you remember enough about them to give a description to an artist?"

 

"Oh, sure." Morna shrugged it off. "I don't see why not."

 

DeWitt looked over at the Master Chief. "Are you thinking Adami?"

 

"Yeah. He's a trained sketch artist, among other things. We can see if we can get an ID on them." Chief looked at his companions. "What I don't understand is why a bunch of white Europeans would be hanging around with a bunch of radical Islamic terrorists?"

 

Mal shrugged. "The enemy of my enemy and all that?"

 

DeWitt narrowed his eyes at Mal. "Go on."

 

Most of Mal's pretense faded, and he sat up a little straighter. "Remember that I don't know which group we're dealing with here. I'm just guessing, but we've seen this kind of thing before here and there. You'll see, oh, I don't know. You'll see a bunch of ethnic radicals join up with a bunch of religious radicals to pull off one particular job, because their interests happen to coincide. For that matter, we'll work with other groups if it makes sense for us to do it."

 

Chief frowned. "Like who?"

 

Mal spread his hands to encompass the room, and the SEALs' uniforms. "I can't say as we're exactly on the same page most of the time, but right now? You don't like this group. We don't like this group. It's in both our best interests to figure out what's going on."

 

DeWitt pursed his lips. "I can't say as I like that attitude."

 

Mal shrugged. "Like it or don't, our interests coincide. We have skills that would probably be useful to you in this case. You have resources that would probably be useful to us. And I have a vested interest in not seeing my hard work patching up your men go to waste."

 

DeWitt and Chief both grimaced.

 

Trent tried not to get his hopes up. He knew Mal didn't mean anything about him, specifically.

 

"All right." DeWitt sighed and stood up. "Let's get Adami in here to get the sketching done. In the meantime, are you two comfortable hanging around on the ship until we get to the bottom of this?"

 

Mal and Morna exchanged glances. "We're comfortable working with you to find the enemy," Mal told him. He smiled, sunny and complacent.

 

Trent hadn't known him long, but he knew that smile was bullshit.

 

DeWitt and Chief didn't, though. They took off, probably in search of Adami and to get away from these "civilians”. Trent knew better. The O'Donnells were no more civilians than he was.

 

He turned to them once the door was closed. "Do you have to needle the Lieutenant?"

 

"I think we do," Morna told him. It just confirmed what Trent already believed about their bickering. It was just an act, intended to make other people dismiss them.

 

"If he doesn't like it, he shouldn't be so easily needled," Mal added. Then he rolled his shoulders. "I've never spent much time on a Navy ship before. It's very gray."

 

"Well, yeah. It's a workplace, not a cruise ship." Trent stood up and stretched his back.

 

Adami came in and got descriptions of the men Mal and Morna had met. Once they fed the names and images into a search program on Mal's computer, they sat back to wait.

 

Trent decided he wasn't going to ask how Mal had a signal on the ship. He didn't want to know.

 

They sat in silence for an hour. Trent tried not to be uncomfortable. He could think of plenty of ways to fill that silence, but none of them were appropriate on board the ship. They were less appropriate in front of Mal's sister. When the computer went ping, though, Trent jumped.

 

Mal and Morna both looked at him like he had three heads. Did neither of them feel the tension in the air?

 

"We've got a hit," Mal told him after a second. "Phil and Piers seem to be their real names. Phil Rivers and Piers Moran have warrants out for their arrest in England, Ireland, Germany, and France. They're known members of a white supremacist organization called White Dawn, how very original, based out of Montenegro."

 

"You got all of that in an hour?" Trent gaped. "Let me go find the Master Chief and Lt. DeWitt."

 

Mal just gave him a smug grin and kept typing.

 

Trent found his superiors in their quarters. He announced Mal's discovery as dispassionately as he could. His pride was all internal. Mal found all that without breaking a sweat.

 

Of course, Chief was suspicious. "How do you know it's real? How do you know he's not just pursuing some kind of vendetta?"

 

"Why would he? He has no reason to play us. If he could have done it without the pictures, he wouldn't have agreed to come onboard the ship at all. It can't hurt to do some digging into this White Dawn group, right?"

 

DeWitt shrugged. "We might as well go see what they're about."

 

They followed him back to the conference room, where Mal's face had turned from smug pride to disgust. "Are you okay?" Trent asked, crossing over to Mal's side.

 

Mal looked up at him, startled. "Hm? Oh, yes. I'm just looking at this White Dawn group's record. I'm a little bit disturbed that we haven't done something about them yet." He gestured at the screen. "Look at these people. They've been accused of massacring refugees in six countries."

 

DeWitt sucked in his cheeks. "Well, there's your ISIS connection." He curled his lip. "ISIS loves Islamophobia. They couldn't be happier than when the West shuts their doors or hurts Muslims."

 

Morna turned away from the screen. "Right?" She rubbed her hands on her arms. "And that explains why they'd be so willing to help take down a Greek plane."

 

"The Greeks blame the Turks, because a few centuries of enmity don't go away like that." Chief snapped his fingers. "Everyone has to take sides, and then you've got a good old-fashioned World War."

 

"White Dawn gets their genocide and Daesh gets their bizarre holy war." Mal rubbed at his face. "I think I'm going to be sick."

 

Trent dropped his hand to Mal's shoulder. Mal leaned into the touch. "Hey," he said. "We stopped it."

 

"This time." Mal turned his head aside. "What happens next time?" He frowned. "And why weren't these people on our radar? Why weren't they on yours? They killed, or they're blamed for killing, three hundred people, but neither of us has given them any thought. Am I the only one who's bothered by that?"

 

Trent gripped Mal's shoulder and looked up at DeWitt and Chief. He knew the answer when he saw their faces. "We'll get to the bottom of this," he promised. "Probably not quickly, but we'll get there."