The trip back hadn't diminished her rage, instead fueled and fanned the flames higher than she had ever had them before. Hands that tried to be helpful were swatted away; an officer who tried to deliver a message was halted in his tracks by the look on her face, and more than one person crossed themselves and found an excuse to be somewhere else.

"You."

Just stepping out of his battered cockpit, Hawkes froze at the sound of Tyler's voice and then reluctantly turned to face her.

She stormed up to him and it took all of his strength not to take a step back when she reached him. He'd never seen her this angry. Oh, she was always angry, but not like this. While before her rage was cold, freezing, this fury blazed like fire in her eyes. Electricity charged the air around them, actually lifting the baby fine strands of hair surrounding her face, giving the impression of barely-checked violence.

That's what she wanted to do, he realized. She wanted to lash at him physically, to unleash her anger in ways that would leave him battered and bruised and scarred so he would never forget this day.

"You wanna kill yourself you don't do it on my watch, do you understand?" she hissed, jabbing his chest with an index finger.

West, Cullen and Rain were standing behind him, looking grim and concerned, but they stayed back, keeping away. He couldn't blame them, they couldn't help him with this. They knew better than to try.

"You go into a dark corner somewhere and off yourself quietly, and without fuss," Tyler continued, harshly, each word punctuated by another jab at his chest, each one successively stronger than the last until she was almost pushing him. "You don't take anybody else with you, and you don't do it in public where people are obligated to stop you!"

"Stand down, Captain," a low voice interrupted.

She turned to see McQueen and Ross entering the flight deck. She cursed inwardly -- this was not how she planned her first meeting with her new CO would be.

"I'll take it from here," McQueen continued.

"Sir," she stated hotly, turning back to Hawkes, "this Marine broke formation, disobeyed direct orders, recklessly endangered his life and that of his squadron, lost his plane, endangered the convoy and its passengers, went against the primary directives of the mission and generally fucked up big time. I demand he be subject to disciplinary action."

"Believe me, he'll get it" answered McQueen, his voice quiet, but just as dangerous. "But I'll be the one to mete it out."

If she hadn't been so angry she'd have been amused. So, it was starting already, was it?

It took her a while, but finally she managed to rein her anger in. "Very well, Colonel," she acquiesced, stepping away from Hawkes. "I'll leave it in your hands. And Sir?"

"Yes, Captain?"

She saluted, and the rest of the WildCards did the same. "Welcome back, Sir. Now if you'll excuse us, my team and I need to discuss certain things." She turned to the rest of them, her eyes still flashing mayhem. "The rest of you, on my six."

West risked a helpless, backward glance at both Hawkes and McQueen. The Colonel was glaring at the top of the younger InVitro's bowed head. He wished he could stay and greet McQueen properly, ask him to go easy on Cooper. He had an idea of what had gone on in his friend's brain during that battle, and that McQueen being inside one of those APCs had played an integral role in Hawkes' brief stint as a berserker. He only hoped McQueen realized that and give Cooper a break.

McQueen caught his look and gave him a short nod of acknowledgement. The blackness of his countenance didn't ease Nathan's worry. But, he thought, hurrying back to catch up with the rest of the 58th , whatever it was McQueen had in store for Hawkes, it had to be better than what Tyler had planned for them…

West, Cullen and Rain collapsed on the floor of Cargo Bay 5, out of breath. Defeating an entire Chig division hand-to-hand was nothing compared to a full half an hour of squats. And that was after fifty running laps around the area, and a hundred push-ups.

Tyler stood motionless, with her back to them, ignoring the sound of their collapse and the groans now filling the air. Inside, she couldn't stop shaking. At first it had been from anger, but now it was something else. Oh, the anger was still there but now the rage was tainted by an unexplained fear, and a helplessness she didn't understand.

Goddamn stupid tank.

She gritted her teeth and fought down the emotions. She was _this_ close to throwing a temper tantrum and that wouldn't do at all.

"On your feet," she ordered, lowly, still without facing them.

"So, Captain," West asked when he had caught his breath and they had all found their feet again. "What little torture do you have for us next?"

She turned around, noting their exhaustion impassively. "Ten minutes rest," she answered coldly. "Then another hundred push-ups."

"And after that?" West challenged.

"Then six passes each in the flight simulator, extreme scenarios. After which you have exactly one hour to get a meal and get cleaned up. You're all confined to quarters till we go on patrol."

"Captain, we didn't do anything wrong," protested Cullen.

"I'd belay that if I were you," she growled. "In fact I don't want to hear anything from any of you. You are all _this_ close to serious disciplinary action as it is." She glared at them in disgust. "The only thing that is keeping me from throwing the lot of you in the brig is my own role in this goddamn mess."

She faced them squarely. "We almost lost a man today. One of your team, your friend, took it upon himself to disobey orders, risk his life, your life, and the life of every grunt fighting in this goddamn war, and for what? For himself. And do any of you know why it happened? It happened because he believed, because he was allowed, perhaps even encouraged," -- here she glared specifically at Nathan -- "to believe that this squadron is less than what it is -- a United States Marine Corps Space Calvary squadron. A team. My team." She started pacing.

"It happened because he believes that it is acceptable to put himself before the team and the mission. It happened because he thinks that personal opinion has an actual place in the life of a Marine. It happened because he somehow got the idea that an order is something that resembles an option. A choice."

She stopped pacing and faced them again. "None of us have a choice." In contrast to the fury still blazing in her eyes, her voice was quietly, deadly, calm. "I'm telling you right here and now, people. This is gonna end."

She gave up any pretense of generalization and went to stand before Nathan, who stiffened at the accusation in her eyes. "Hear this CFB, the 58th is my team. You wanna stay on my team, you play by my rules. I didn't ask for this, but I'm stuck here, same as you. I don't like you and you sure as hell don't have to like me, but I am not going to stand for any more of the bullshit you've been dishing out like so much candy. I don't care what your other commanders allowed, but we're gonna be clear about my rules until you can recite them in your sleep."

"This is a war," she continued, her glare once again encompassing them all. "I need fighters. I need warriors. Real Marines, not children who think that putting on a uniform automatically makes them soldiers. I need people who think and who obey orders and who don't make it so fucking easy for the enemy to take our future away." West looked like he was going to protest but she quelled his words with a look of sheer contempt. "The best squadron in the fleet," she sneered. "This squadron is a joke. You're insubordinate and undisciplined and you think all you need to do is be on this side and we'll win. Well, you can't BS your way through this war, Lieutenants. You are not children. I am not here to babysit. This is not a fucking game!"

She turned away, taking a deep breath to control herself. When she turned back to them her face was unreadable. Calm, almost, but something glittered in her eyes. "You think you're so hot," she mocked softly, huskily. "You think you're special." She shook her head slowly. "You're not. All you've been is lucky. And someday that luck is gonna run out."

She dug her hand into one of her flightsuit's pockets and brought out a palm-full of dogtags. "You see this?" she asked harshly, waving the tags in front of them. "This is all that's left of the 114th Squadron. The BlackWings. At Pensacola there's a collection of medals -- Silver Stars, Montgomery Stars, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts, heck, even a couple of Congressionals. Six years' worth, fighting everything from AIs to hostile governments to eco-terrorists to Chigs." She closed her fingers around the tags and bit her lip, her eyes glittering, but her control held.

"This is all that's left of them," she repeated, her face set in stone. "Six men and women who were better Marines than you could ever hope to be. They didn't play around, they didn't fuck up, and they didn't take chances. They did everything right and they still died." She shook her head, her expression a mixture of sorrow and contempt. "What the hell kind of chance do you think that leaves you?"

She held her fist against her chest for a moment, before thrusting the tags back in her pocket. "None of us have a choice," she said again, grimly. "Except maybe to go easy or to go hard. You're Marines. Make it impossible." She gestured coldly at the floor. "Now drop and give me a hundred."

No one knew he was here.

It wasn't the first time, but now that McQueen was back, it'd probably be the last.

McQueen's quarters were a little cramped for a Lt. Colonel, but Hawkes already knew that the man didn't have a frivolous bone in his body. McQueen's cabin was spare, painfully neat, not an inch wasted, no item unnecessary. This was his space, his haven. And McQueen would kill him if he ever found out he'd picked the lock.

Well, he'd worry about that later.

He should have gone somewhere else, but he couldn't face the idea of facing Tyler or any of the others right now. He'd checked the new schedules and their next rotation wasn't for another ten hours. The rest of the 5-8 were either down at the Tun tossing back a few or grabbing some shut-eye in their barracks. He wouldn't be missed.

He just needed to be by himself for a while. McQueen would understand.

He hoped.

He knew McQueen didn't want to see him right now he had tried to see him anyway. Angry or not the Colonel was still the closest thing to a father that he had. The doctor on-call had made him wait until after the examination before telling him that McQueen was confined to the medbay, under observation, for the next forty-eight hours. They told him McQueen needed to rest. That he'd been through a lot in the last eight weeks and he hadn't gotten through the trip as well as the doctors had hoped he'd come here. It was the closest thing to being able to talk to McQueen, to having that comfortable presence around.

He felt so alone, it was tearing him apart. But being with the others was worse. With Nathan, who didn't seem to care about anything now that Kylen was safe back on Earth. With Cullen and Rain and their endless bickering. With Tyler.

Shit, anything was better than being with Tyler.

The truth was that woman scared the hell out of him. She looked at him like he was something that had crawled out from under a rock, making him feel useless and unwanted. Since joining the WildCards he'd started to believe that there was actually a purpose to his being, that he was necessary, important, special. Tyler brought back all the cold hard insecurities he thought he'd left behind.

He could still hear her words: Eject, you stupid tank!

Tank.

McQueen had said once that they weren't tanks, they were Marines. More than the Corps itself, it had been being part of the 58th that had made him feel like a Marine. The acceptance, the friendship, the mutual respect. But Tyler, Tyler made him feel like a tank, made him feel like a liability. And the sad truth was, she was right. He'd fucked up, big time. Even McQueen agreed. He could still remember McQueen's ice-blue eyes glaring at him after Tyler and the others had left.

"I didn't spend the last eight weeks trying to get back here just to see you get blown up, Lieutenant," the Colonel had stated, his ice-blue eyes glaring. "What you did out there was irresponsible, thoughtless and incredibly stupid. I don't even want to look at you right now. I'll call you when I do."

So he was hiding.

So what?

He tried to get some sleep, but the events of the day kept repeating in his mind. Finally, he got off the rack and made his way to McQueen's head.

This was by far the cabin's best feature.

A shower. With hot water, bless the Corps.

He stripped quickly and stepped under the spray.

The water felt wonderful. It had been a while since he'd taken a shower for the simple pleasure of it. The heads provided them were cold sterile places, not encouraging leisurely ablutions. They were never private, and someone was always waiting to take their turn. He would always finish as fast as he could, and get back to the relative privacy of the 5-8 barracks.

He let the water wash over him, through his hair, and on his face, over his shoulders and the rest of his body. He let it wash away the tension in his body, the aches, the pains, the stress.

He didn't hear anyone come in, but suddenly he knew he was no longer alone.

He turned around slowly and found her standing there. From his dreams, from his nightmares.

He should have been surprised, even startled to see her, but he wasn't. It seemed inevitable that they would find themselves here. Each second since they had met, counting down to this one single moment.

He would have backed away, but she stood so still, so motionless, a strange expression on her face that he found himself oddly transfixed. Everything about her was so tightly coiled he was afraid to speak, afraid to break the strange trance-like air that surrounded her. Something else was different… Her hair. Usually it was braided, in a low ponytail or coiled behind her head in an impeccably neat bun. Now, it fell, free and straight, cascading down her back to disappear into the blackness of her shirt. A few stray drops of water from the shower spray landed on her hair, on her skin, but she was dry, and she was dressed. That seemed wrong to him somehow.

Finally, she spoke.

"You will never go against a direct command again, do you understand?" she said lowly, intensely. "You do and I swear to God I'll blow you out of the sky myself."

He didn't answer.

"Do you understand?" she demanded.

"Yes," he answered, responding to the command in her voice.

She stepped into the spray and looked up at him, his greater height protecting her from the main force of the water.

"When you're out there," she stated succinctly, "there's only you and the enemy. There's no room for anything else. No distractions, no deadweight, no baggage. I won't tolerate it, I won't accept it. Is that clear?"

He stared at her, unmoving.

"Is that clear?" she repeated harshly.

Somehow, he found the will to nod.

Her hands moved, and for a moment he thought she was going to hit him, to let him feel the full lash of her fury. But he stood unmoving as her hands found their way to his shoulders and behind his neck.

"No baggage," she repeated, and pulled his face down to hers.

He was lost then. In the kiss, in her. His soul fell squarely into her hands, to do as she willed.

She moved closer, fitting her body to his, and he deepened the kiss, closing his hands around her. Open mouth, tangled tongues -heat, scorching heat. Her clothing frustrated him - he wanted to feel her skin, wanted to taste it, wanted to taste her. His hands moved lower, found the fringes of the shirt and pulled up.

He lost contact for a moment, and it was the longest moment of his life.

His hands moved lower, encountering more cloth. Her sweat pants. Her briefs. Her hands moved over his, helping him. Somehow, he… she… someone, got them off.

He had no idea what happened to her shoes.

He was engulfed by the smell of her, a scent that he would know anywhere, that had laced his dreams for longer than he cared to admit. His hands tangled in her hair, falling straight and true behind her back like a river of darkness.

In the last moment of sanity, before his mind closed-off and overloaded, before his brain short-circuited from the heat and electricity, he managed to pull out of the dive.

"It won't work," he whispered, urgently. "Whatever it is you're trying to do."

"Yes, it will," she said, just as urgently. "It has to." Then she kissed him again and he surrendered. To her, to the insane need that suddenly seemed to own him.

For a long time afterwards he lay awake, stroking her tangled, still-damp hair, enjoying the weight of her head upon his chest, her soft breath warming his skin.

He realized he could get used to it, to holding her, very easily.

She should have ended it earlier. She should have left the bed, or at the very least moved away and redrawn the lines. Instead, she had snuggled against him, and fallen asleep, his arms still wrapped around her.

He didn't understand what had just happened. It was as if he had stepped inside a vortex and had been swept away. He didn't know why she had come here, why she had said the things she'd said. Why she had let him touch her, make love to her. She was Natural-Born. She was Captain.

And she wasn't Shane.

Morgan faced the cold spray, resisting the urge to knock her head against the tiles, hard.

Shit, she thought. What had she done?

She been careful, so careful, each move precisely orchestrated, each decision weighed and counter-weighed.

So where had last night come from?

All she could remember was being so furious she wanted to choke the life out of that stupid tank. Instead she had kissed him, allowed her mind to shut off and her body to take over.

Why?

And why, in the name of heaven, did she want nothing more than to go back to that bed and take further advantage of the still-naked, still-vulnerable Cooper Hawkes?

The doctors were right after all, she was insane.

Okay, she thought, steeling herself mentally. Regroup.

She groped for the water control and turned it to the extreme left.

That was better…

He awoke to find her already dressed, staring at something posted on McQueen's wall. He moved closer and he saw that it was the satellite photograph of the Chig black 'Ace' fighter. The one had been responsible for Kelly Anne's death. McQueen, for some reason, had printed the words 'Who am I?' in bold silver letters across the image.

He wondered now what Kelly had felt as she floated in space, staring at Chiggy Von Richthoffen as the bastard prepared to kill her in cold blood. Had she been afraid? Or had she felt like he had, during that insane minute in space, when he thought it was over - unafraid, accepting, slightly expectant.

He wondered how McQueen had felt, facing that heartless bastard.

When Morgan saw that he was awake, she pointed dispassionately to a stack of clothing on a nearby chair. A set of his clothes, he realized. He wondered how she had managed that, and the fresh set that she herself was wearing. Last night they had left her clothes wet and crumpled on the shower floor.

"Get dressed, Marine," she ordered lowly. "We go on patrol in 30 mikes."

He tried to reach for her, but her haughty gaze stopped him. She looked cold, untouchable. As if she had never slept naked in his arms, as if he didn't already know every inch of her.

"I don't understand," he said, softly, trying to hide his bewilderment. "Last night --."

"Was last night," she finished flatly. "And has nothing to do with today."

"But --."

"Make no mistake about what happened here, Lieutenant," she cut in. "I told you I would tolerate no distractions. This," she continued gesturing broadly to the room around them, "was an exercise, that's all. It needed to be done to bring back the focus. Tension and release, that's all it was."

He didn't really understand what she was saying, but he knew enough about natural-borns to get the general idea. "So…" he said carefully, "you're saying it never happened."

She looked away, her gaze returning to the photo on the wall. "It happened," she acknowledged, tonelessly. "It just didn't mean anything."

The first impulse was hurt, overwhelming hurt. Then anger took over, coming to his rescue as it had so many times in the past. "I get it," he whispered harshly. "I've known people like you before. I'm a tank, I'm just meat, right?"

To her credit she looked surprised by the accusation. Then she gave a small shrug, neither denying nor confirming the charge. "Do yourself a favor, Lieutenant," she said instead, still flatly. "Don't take anything I say or do personally. It's not about you. None of it is."

"Not even this?" he asked, echoing her earlier action of gesturing around the room.

"Especially not this," she stated matter-of-factly. "I told you, it was an exercise, that's all."

He recoiled at the even tone of her voice, at the lack of expression on her face. "An exercise?" he demanded harshly. "Or another one of your little games? Isn't that how you get your kicks? Seeing how badly you can screw me up?"

She returned his look coolly, implacably. "I repeat, Lieutenant. This wasn't about you."

"Bullshit," he snarled. "It was me on that bed, lady. Me and you." He caught himself reaching for her again, this time wanting to do violence. He wanted to hit her. He wanted to grab her and break her neck. But whatever she said, whatever she implied, he wasn't like that. "You can't stand it, can you?" he challenged harshly. "You can't stand not being in control. You think it's that easy? You think all you have to do is touch me and I'll do anything you want? "

She glared at him. "That was never my intention," she denied lowly.

"It didn't work," he sneered, not listening. "Whatever it was that you were hoping to do. It didn't work."

She smiled then, coldly. "Actually, Lieutenant, I think it has."

"You think going to bed with me changes things?" he continued on. "You think I'll forget everything that's happened? You think I'll forget Shane?"

She blinked, but her smile stayed in place. "You're starting to sound hysterical, Lieutenant. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"'No distractions, no deadweight, no baggage,'" he quoted mockingly. "Ain't that what you said? Wasn't that what last night was all about?"

She looked at him squarely. "You are amazingly obtuse, Lieutenant," she said wryly. "You really don't get it, do you? I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about me."

Next : The Left Hand - part 4 of 4

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