by Aiden Bates
So they'd resorted to hand to hand combat. Mal was pretty good with his hands or with a blade. It was a point of pride with him. He would have preferred to not have to take on three large men while pregnant. Having to defend the bump was harder than it looked, and he hadn't liked it at all.
But he'd done it. At the end of the day, he'd pulled it off. He'd killed all three of them and got away with only a few cuts and bruises. As near as he could tell, only one injury would require stitches, and that one was on his leg. He also got away with the bad guys' wallets, cell phones, and laptops. So he was going to go ahead and consider that a win.
Once he'd washed himself off, he got to stitching. Stitching himself up in silence was no big deal. He'd done it a thousand times. It was a damn sight better than stitching himself up while arguing with Trent, that was for sure.
Once he finished patching himself up, he threw some sweats on and crawled into bed. Pretty soon he was going to have to bite the bullet and buy some paternity clothes. Maybe he would head out for a minute or two in the daytime, tomorrow or the next day, and pick some up. He'd have had to replace yesterday's clothes anyway.
Before he plugged in his own phone to charge, he sent Morna a text. Back from my hunt. Got some good game.
Morna texted him back right away. Oh yeah? Are you ok?
Mal frowned at the phone. Aren't I always? Had someone else gotten hold of Morna's phone? She knew better than to let that happen. What's our little brother's name?
She texted him back a middle finger emoji. Phelan, you arse.
Mal relaxed. Maybe Morna had just gotten into a mood. Anyway, maybe in the morning you could find out what Chief wants me to do with this stuff. I'm beat right now.
Sleep well.
Mal rolled over and fell asleep before he finished moving. If he dreamed about life in a green place, warmed by sun, he didn't dwell on it in the morning.
Chief called at ten. Mal was awake, but still in bed. He didn't want to disturb his leg more than he had to, and he'd left his laptop nearby and now he worked tracking down a different lead. "Mal, it's Master Chief Boone. I'd like to come by and talk about the find you had yesterday. Would that be alright with you?"
Mal closed his eyes. He didn't want visitors right now. He wanted to go out, buy some new clothes, and maybe have another nap. "Sure thing, Chief. I'll look forward to seeing you soon."
"Excellent."
Mal gave him the hotel's address and then rushed to make himself presentable.
Chief arrived quickly, and he arrived alone. Mal couldn't tell if he was glad or disappointed. He chose to be glad. He didn't have time for drama right now. "It's good to see you, Chief. Come on in." He gestured to the little table in the corner, and Chief took a seat. "I hope all's well."
"It is. Our raid here in Toulon went well. No friendly casualties. We did take out a few baddies, but we got a live prisoner so that's good. He's recovering in a secure ward." Chief narrowed his eyes at Mal. "You're limping."
"Oh. Well, you know, these things happen." Mal shrugged, although it warmed him a little to know someone noticed. He didn't get too excited, though. The words "secure ward" didn't generally mean anything good.
"They do. They do." He ran a hand through his gray hair. "How are you holding up, really? A few of us are a little concerned about you taking off to take on a job against a group like White Dawn by yourself."
Mal snorted. He didn't mean to be dismissive, but their concern didn't mean much when they were perfectly willing to let him twist, pregnant and alone, while they went back to Virginia. "Look, Chief, the job has to get done. I made sure to choose a target I could reasonably expect to fight, and I did. Not that I went in looking for a fight, of course. I'd have been content with their laptops."
Chief blinked slowly. "But you had to fight them…"
"Well, you see, they weren't so fond of giving up their laptops. Now I have their laptops, their phones, and their wallets. Life is all about choices, I'm afraid." He smirked. "Anyway, I thought I'd see what you wanted to do about them. I know you were forbidden from investigating White Dawn, and these weren't seized in a raid related to anything you're directly involved with. I'll be copying all of the information, of course, but I wanted to ask if you wanted it too."
Chief looked out the window. "That's not face-to-face meeting talk."
"Well, no." Mal scratched his head. "You're the one who wanted to come over. I'm always glad to see you, but to be honest, I was feeling a little iffy on the whole 'trousers' thing today."
Chief snickered. "All right, all right, I'll admit it. I was hoping we could talk a little bit about Trent."
Mal pinched the bridge of his nose. "I kind of thought that might be the case. I hoped it wouldn't be, but you know. Hope only gets you so far in life."
Chief shrugged. "True. Listen, Mal, I know you and Trent are having some trouble seeing eye to eye on a few things."
Mal lifted an eyebrow. "That's putting it mildly." He didn't want to get mad at Chief. He liked the Master Chief.
"The thing is, the time for walking away is a little bit in the past, don't you think?" He glanced down, significantly, at the bump. "That baby is going to need two parents."
Mal gritted his teeth. "You're okay with me just traipsing into America on a tourist visa and hanging around for awhile, then? Or under an assumed identity?"
Chief jumped back, as though Mal's words had burned him. "What? No!"
"Of course. And I'd be iffy on that too, since getting caught would put everyone who knew at risk. So the only way to have both parents in the kid's life would be for me to get a visa to move to Virginia or for Trent to leave the Navy and move somewhere with me." He held up a hand. "I did mention it, but you needn't worry. I might as well have offered to castrate him. He's not so keen on leaving your unit."
"You can't understand what it is to be a SEAL, Mal. It would be like asking you to abandon your family." Chief leaned forward again. "Try to understand that."
"He is asking me to abandon my family, remember?" Mal closed his eyes. "Assuming he can get me into Virginia, I'd have to leave everyone I know behind. I'd be isolated beyond measure, and if the way Trent's behaving is any indication, I'd be expected to sit indoors all day and never even look out the window lest I somehow violate the baby's rights in some way." He rolled his eyes. "I'll admit I'm not exactly as gung-ho about Uncle Sam and apple pie as you all are, but that wouldn't appeal to me even if I were."
Chief leaned back and nodded, stroking his white beard. "Okay. I can kind of see the conflict. Of course, someone would have to take care of the child and raise it. It's not like Trent would be at the office, so you could call him to pick the baby up at the sitter's in an emergency."
"I'm aware." Mal glared at him. "It's all moot anyway, because there's no way he's going to bring me to Virginia."
"You don't want to come to Virginia." Chief put his hands on the table.
"Well, he's not exactly selling it, is he? 'Look, you'll have a very nice cell, and you'll basically be reduced to a vessel for my spawn, but won't it be better than living the life you have here where you have some autonomy and get to serve a cause you believe in?'"
Chief laughed. "It's not that bad. My omega's had five already."
"Mmm. And do you let him leave the house?"
"Of course. And you're overreacting to what Trent's asking you to do. He's asking you to stop going out into the field so terrorists can stab you and shoot you, and so you don't get exposed to chemicals. That's all." Chief toyed with a paperclip he found on the table. "He's not some weird monster that locks omegas in closets. You should know that about him by now."
"I didn't think he was either, until he started yelling at me." Mal tightened his mouth. "He wasn't even happy to see me. Why would I put myself in danger, and go halfway around the world, to spend the rest of my life getting yelled at?"
Chief acknowledged that with a nod. "He's a good kid. And yeah, he's worried about the baby. He's pretty upset
that you don't want the baby. When he's stressed or upset, he can sometimes lash out. He's an alpha, Mal. We all are. We're men of action. We don't hide our emotions away, either. We can't afford to let things fester in our line of work.”
"He had an outburst when you two got back together. He was afraid, and it didn't come out in a healthy way. We've spoken about it, and I think he's starting to understand that he could have handled things better. But he didn't. He loves you. He does. How do you feel about him?"
Mal blinked. "I was willing to consider going to Virginia." He kept his voice quiet. Even saying the words out loud, to someone who wasn't Trent, made his heart speed up. "I was willing to take the risk of being hunted by the people I've known my whole life, to go someplace I only know from not very flattering news reports, where I have no friends or even contacts, and try to build a life with him. I'm starting to see where that might have been a little foolhardy. I mean who does that?"
"People in love." Chief sat back and stared at Mal with a piercing gaze. "You're having second thoughts."
"He only cares about the baby. And let's be real, he's not going to be able to get me to Virginia. Not legally." Mal snorted. “Who were we kidding?"
Chief shook his head. "There aren't any guarantees. We're pushing for an expedited process, but we're dealing with a hostile administration. Even under normal circumstances, it would be a lot easier if you were married. Even then, it's usually a process that takes years, not months or weeks. Like I said, we're pushing for an expedited process."
Mal covered his mouth with his hand. He wasn't sure if he was trying to muffle a sob, a hysterical laugh, or a scream. Either way, he managed to stay quiet. "He's never even mentioned marriage. Goes to show what a fool I've been."
Chief lifted his chin and gave him a measuring look. "You're not in the habit of trusting, are you?"
"No." Mal sat up straighter. "No, I'm not. If you think about it, trust isn't a survival trait, the way I grew up. You can trust someone to a certain extent, but you can't plan your life around it."
Chief huffed out a laugh. "It's going to make building a long-term relationship a bit of a challenge, but maybe that was never part of your life plan anyway. Not until Trent and the baby, anyway."
"I don't have long term plans." Mal took a deep breath. "I have possibilities. They're based on things I can achieve. I have to be prepared to drop them and choose another path, depending on the circumstances. Always."
"Fair enough." Chief nodded. "All I'm asking is that you keep an open mind. I know you're hurting, and you're scared. I'll try to coach Trent on how to talk to a human being." He chuckled. "In the meantime, let's talk about what to do with all these electronics. I don't have anyone local who can do a damn thing with them. I'd have to ship them back to Virginia, and then they'd get put into a queue."
Mal smirked, glad to have the personal discussion over with for now. "The hazards of working for a massive bureaucracy."
"Right? Here's the thing. You're here. You can get into those machines, and you can tease out all of their secrets. I'm not asking you to do this to keep you out of the field." He grinned. "It's a nice side effect, don't get me wrong. I don't like the thought of losing you either. But we don't have anyone else who can do it."
Mal bit his lip. "Yeah. I can do it." He looked up at Chief. "But I'm going to need a few hours. I need to do a little shopping."
~
Trent hadn't been the kind of guy to pace a lot before Mal. Sure, he got anxious about a few things, but he didn't pace. He acknowledged his concerns, he evaluated his options, and he trusted the process to get him through.
Nothing in his life had prepared him for a force of nature like Malachi O'Donnell.
He all but pounced on Chief when he got back to the barracks house. "Did you see him, Chief?"
"Down, boy." Chief snorted. "You know, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by going in and talking with your boy, instead of getting it into your head that you're the authority and he's the subordinate. That might have flown back when this port town was first built, but this is the twenty-first century. You were raised by an alpha and omega pair, and if I know Jonas or Nick Kelly that kind of crap would never fly."
Trent stopped himself short. He hadn't realized he was trying to set himself up that way. "Do you think I was being authoritarian?"
"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Chief made a face.
Trent tried not to think too hard about the comment. The Master Chief sometimes mixed his pithy sayings. Trent certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell him.
"He didn't suddenly become a delicate, sheltered flower when he got pregnant, Trent. He's a competent warrior in his own right. Treating him like he's suddenly some kind of fluffy marshmallow is just going to alienate him.
"And that's another thing. For as much as he seems pretty laid back and fun loving, his life has been pretty bleak. No one leaves the Wolves, Kelly. They don't retire. They die. And I'm not sure anyone's ever taken care of him, either. He's not sure what to make of it. You tell him you're going to bring him to America, and give him a place to live, and he immediately starts thinking cages."
Trent sat down on the couch and let out a little whistle. "Look, I knew it wasn't the greatest life, but I figured he might have exaggerated a few things. His dad wouldn't really kill him for getting pregnant."
"He might." Chief pursed his lips. "We don't know, but think about it for a minute. When you can't even tell him you're happy to see him, but just start yelling at him, you're both acting the way he expects, and you're treating him like some kind of incompetent."
Trent ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, but look. He can't go putting himself in harm's way like that!"
"He's a free and independent man. And right now, he doesn't think he's ever going to get to Virginia. When you act like that, he doesn't see what's in it for him. Try repairing your relationship, give him a reason to think there's something to look forward to, and maybe he'll stop throwing himself headlong into danger." Chief grinned. "I know it's hard. You're used to wearing your heart on your sleeve, and you're a family guy. You're worried about the baby too, but you can't go making him into a mindless receptacle."
"No." Trent sighed. "I should go talk to him."
"He's out shopping. Apparently his clothes are getting too tight."
Trent tried to figure out where Mal would be shopping, and with Chief's permission, headed out to try to find him. It took a couple of tries, but he found him at a discount retailer in the Mayol shopping mall.
Mal was looking at a rack of paternity clothes. His pretty lips were curled into a sneer he didn't even try to hide. Trent tried to figure out what could be causing the problem, but aside from a few outliers everything just looked like clothes.
"Okay," he said slowly. "So the sweater that says 'BÉBÉ' right across the belly might not be what you had in mind, but fuzzy pink sweaters don't look great on redheads anyway. Maybe just pick something else?"
Mal recoiled. "It's not that. Well, not just that. None of it is sturdy! It's all…it's all shoddy crap that will fall apart the first time I wash it, never mind the first time I get blood on it."
Trent bit down on his lip. He would not lose his temper. Mal was going to do what he was going to do, and nothing Trent said or did was going to change that. "Well, yeah," he said, after the red receded from his vision. "How else do you think they make money?"
"But I can't go out and fight if my clothes are falling to bits every time some terrorist or trafficker so much as looks at me!"
Trent put his arm around Mal's shoulders. "People are staring," he whispered. "I get you're upset, and you have every right to be, but yelling about terrorists and traffickers makes it hard to keep your secret organization secret."
Mal took a deep breath and blinked. "Of course. Sorry." He stayed there for a moment, letting Trent hold him, and then he stepped away to grab a handful of black trousers from the rack. "These will have to do, I suppose."
/> Trent accompanied him to the register, where he paid with his phone. Then they left, heading to a little cafe in the building. "So that was fun." Trent nudged Mal with his shoulder. "Do you often melt down in shopping malls? Because that could make life in America challenging. We've got a lot of malls."
"Filled with armed crazies." Mal shuddered and poked at his quiche. "Catch me in one of those enclosed death traps." He made a face. "I'll stay in the open air, thank you very much."
"We have got to get you consuming better media." Trent chuckled quietly. "How are you doing? You look tired. And I noticed the limp."
Mal grimaced. "It's just a little flesh wound. I'll be right as rain in a day or two."
Trent crossed his arms over his chest and gave Mal a stern look. "And how many stitches did your little flesh wound take?"