"Already did." Swanson said with a sigh. "And then she told Suzette, who told me, and now I'm reiterating it for you."
"What?" Hector asked, opening his eyes for that part and looking at his chalkmate.
"You heard me. Keep up. So, yeah, that's what Suzette's all freaked about." Swanson said. "Me too. And looks like you
three. Think the only ones okay with it are her and him."
"You know, as it should be." Hector said.
Mike couldn't stop laughing.
"You jerk." He managed again. "No wonder why she's so happy even though you're stuck in a bed with a gun shot
wound. You fucking distracted her! That's what Potter was talking about! Damn, man." He shook his head. "You'd
either better not get shot again anytime soon or you'd better buy the ring now. 'Cause I don't know how you're going to
top that one if you have to duck her again."
Swanson choked on the piece of apple he'd been biting into.
Hector raised an eyebrow at Mike before closing his eyes.
"How do you know I don't have a ring?" He asked. "And if I do and if I ask, believe me man, you'll be the last to know.
Again."
"I hate when he does that." Swanson said while making hand signals that there was no ring.
Mike shook his head and then caught Swanson's gestures. And ended up coughing laughter again. Oh God. Last
night... Suz and Swan looking so guilty in the barracks... Did that mean what he thought it meant?
"You're kidding right?" He managed to get out, looking at Swanson with a mixture of admiration and absolute 'you're
insane'.
Swanson shook his head about him kidding, flushing a bit at that. He still felt guilty and took the crossword puzzle and
the pencil behind Mike's ear and wrote 'know how to fix a lock on a footlocker by chance?'
"Nope." Hector said, still thinking everyone was talking to him. "Believe me, I'm keeping both of you out of my loop."
"Out of the loop." Mike agreed with another snorted laugh. Only managing resisting taunting Hector's smug mind set
because Swan looked so up a creek. Still, it was hard to keep from singing 'I know something you don't know'. He gave
some thought to Swan's new problem. "Terrible place to be." He commented in keeping with his vocal thread. 'Replace
with a new lock?' he wrote and than crossed it off. Dead giveaway. Finally he settled on 'rig it so it sticks and he thinks
he's the one that's broken it when he finally gets it open?'. He handed it back to the fair haired Delta with a raised brow
and a shrug. The best he could offer. "Yep." He continued. "I'll just have to make sure I stick close to Suz to get all the
latest news then."
'Might be an idea.' Swanson wrote. "So some of us still have work to do." Swanson said, throwing the apple back
toward Hector, but not at him. Landed on the bed next to him. "Catch you later."
"Later." Hector said. And picked his head up enough to look at Mike after Swanson left. "Thanks for dealing with it so
well. But I like my mis conjugated verbs in German."
"Suz and Andi don't argue in German." Mike clarified. Shaking his head with a crooked half smile. "I get I lost her." He
stated. "Even if I never really had her. I'm just glad I lost her to someone that's such an idiot when it comes to her. If
she'd picked some of the jerks that went after her, I would have ended up having to hide the dead bodies by now." He
settled back in the chair and absently picked up the pencil again. "Just don't underestimate her. Andi's a big believer in
trading fair." He met Hector's eyes. "Friend to friend, man. Only time I warn you about this. You shut her out of any
area of your life and she'll think its because your relationship can't handle the whole truth. And she'll start shutting
down parts of herself she doesn't think you should see either. I've seen her do it before. Could be wrong," he
shrugged, "but I get the impression you don't just want parts of her." He arched an eyebrow. "Ring or no ring."
"This is a whole new process." Hector said. "The whole letting people into all of my parts. But I'm learning. I'm trying.
But I'm also a realist. And that's all I can promise. Hopefully, that's enough to not get me killed."
Mike chuckled and went back to his crossword puzzle. Knowing, to cover Swan's butt, he should really tear out the
page they'd written on. Yeah, yeah. Maybe later. Part of him was getting a real inward chuckle out of imagining
Hector's face if he ever figured out what his friend and that crazy French woman had apparently done and why they'd
been doing it in the first place.
"That's what you trust your friends for." Mike told Hector. "Sometimes we really do know what we're doing when one of
you's getting too noble for their own good. I'd call you in a heartbeat if anything ever happened to her. Well, anything
over the level of a paper cut. I'm not calling you ever time she gets one of those."
"Good." Hector said. "And I'm going to hold you to that too." Knowing all too well that things could happen in the blink
of an eye in these parts.
Mike made a grunting noise and filled in a word.
"She has to trade fair too." He pointed out with a smile at the edge of his mouth. "So she has to put up with us telling
on her too. Don't worry. She even comes down with a nasty case of the flu and you're going to hear about it from me.
Mostly because I'll blame it on you somehow." He looked at Hector over the book. "And anything ever breaks her heart
I'll pass that along to. Just so you know why she's stopped eating." Serious discussion delivered for the day, he
scribbled another word into one of the lines and asked with a grin: "So spill it at least. She told you she loves you back
yet or is she leaving you hanging?"
"I like leaving you hanging." Hector said. "She kept me hanging for hours. And yes, I'm counting when I was sleeping
too, or when the nurse kept making me pass out...evil woman. I whole heartedly believe that the nurses here are evil."
"Good girl." Mike chuckled. "And yeah, nurses are all evil. Not just the ones here. Its in their blood. Ultimate control
over life and death and pain medication. Goes straight to their heads. And, being female, they're even more malicious
and clever about it than us guys." He glanced over at Hector. Doing his own monitoring without showing it. "Of course
they do tend to end up getting stuck with obnoxious, stubborn, annoying, egotistical, pain in the ass patients who won't
listen to what's good for them too. So it might just be a self-defense thing."
"You can't be talking about me. I've been as harmless as a newborn lamb." Hector said with a chuckle. "So someone
else must have set them off before I got dragged in here." Sure, his forearms were still bruised from IVs he decided he
didn't want. And his wrists were still red and slightly chafed from the restraints he felt were unnecessary...and Dr
Martinez could probably qualify for a Purple Heart at this point...."Don't worry, I don't plan on repeating this little
occasion."
"Better not." Mike agreed mildly. "I'm getting tired of driving back and forth twice a day. And I want my CDs back when
you're on your feet again. None of this 'I'll get them back to you next time, dude' stuff." He watched the rise and fall of
Hector's breathing and chuckled, shaking his head as he went back to his crossword puzzle. "Word of advice, get
some sleep, man. Cara's still not back and that means Andi's gotten herself into all kinds of mischief. Better catch the
shut eye while you can."
Hector sat up a bit more at that idea. "I think maybe I should go liberate her from the evil clutches of the US Military
medical staff." He said.
"If you can leave the infirmary, then she can go back to our camp." Mike pointed out, without looking up. But he could
hear the bed settle back down under Hector's weight.
"Bastard."
"Thank you."
She came back a little after lunch time and Hector was sleeping. Sleeping deeply and without medication. Which was a
good sign. Cara had been with her and smugly unhelpful when Mike had suspiciously asked what they'd been up to.
The look he gave Andi was - she'd never seen him look at her that way again. Impulsively she'd given him a hug and
he'd held her tight and kissed the top of her head before ruffling her hair and giving Cara a wink as he headed out the
door. Hopefully to get lunch for himself.
Andi silently set down her own bag and slipped out of her shoes. A nap did sound good. Since Hector wasn't plugged
into anything she could curl up along him and snuggle in with a tired yawn without worrying about knocking anything
loose.
Chuckling quietly to herself over how she'd spent the afternoon, she settled in close and dozed quickly off.
Cara managed to unobtrusively check on her patient and his...friend...through out her shift. It was remarkable how
deep the sergeant was sleeping. Then again, his little walk had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. Along
with the strenuous healing his body was doing.
Hector slept through lunch, he slept through dinner, and when he opened his eyes, the infirmary was dimly lit, and he
realized it was night. He silently chuckled, but made no move to awaken the woman sleeping next to him.
Mike was long gone, leaving only the crossword puzzle with the pencil marking his page behind to note his presence.
Potter was back in his regular chair, same book in his hands. Andi, feeling Hector's chuckle move through her as well,
gave a quiet sound of contentment and snuggled closer in her sleep.
Potter, without looking up but very aware that Cara was on the other side of the room and couldn't hear when he kept
his voice quiet, stated calmly:
"Don't know what you did but you've had quite a few visitors today while you've been out."
"What kind of visitors? And how come no one woke me? Great company I musta been." Hector replied drowsily and
softly as he held Andi firmly at his side, moving his eyes only to look at Potter. He couldn't quite understand why he still
needed to be under guard, but at least it wasn't the MP he swore suffered from untreated extreme ADD.
"Nah. Don't think they were here to talk. Or not to you. All you had to do was lie there. But every female on base must
have come through here with some excuse or other 'to see Cara'." Potter shook his head without looking up as Cara
came back over. "I swear they're planning a revolt or something."
"Wouldn't surprise me." Hector said with a chuckle as Cara came over and promptly stuck a thermometer in his mouth,
shushing any more talk about a 'revolt.'
"Keep up talk like that, well, there's more than one way to take a temperature." Cara said to both Hector and Potter.
"Men. Don't know why we put up with you half the time."
"Because we're angelic looking when we sleep?" Hector said with a chuckle.
"About the only time." She remarked as she wrote down his temperature, much lower. Which was a good thing. She
wondered if his body was finally responding to the antibiotics they'd been pumping into him, or if somehow Andi had
accomplished that.
Cara knew full well why she was suddenly the popular stopover point for the entire female population of the camp. And,
in a camp like this one, the female population was incredibly small and incredibly tight knit. They were living in each
other's pockets whether they wanted to or not after all.
"Ask your doctor why we're suddenly on the tour." Cara grinned. It had, after all, been a fun afternoon. It had been a
while since she'd had a fun afternoon.
"I plead the Second Amendment." Andi offered without opening her eyes or shifting from where she was tucked in
close against Hector.
"The right to bear arms?" Potter asked and Andi coughed a laugh.
"Buggar. Whichever one it is that means I don't have to say anything that would incriminate me."
"That's the fifth." Cara offered and Potter cleared his throat.
“Anyone want to break it to her that she's not American?"
"Good God, one should hope not." Andi supplied, sounding truly horrified.
Hector laughed at that reaction, so hard he had to grab his side. "Don't get her wrong. She loves Americans."
"Some of them." Potter commented from his book.
"Okay, Doctor." He said, still chuckling, looking at Andi. "Why are the women coming in to talk to Cara all of a sudden
when none of them would come near this place unless they had to work before?"
Andi opened a single eye and shifted its bright depth to look up at Hector as the hint of pink flushed her cheek under
the pale freckles. And that eye was laughing at him. Than it shut and she shifted over onto her back, propping her
head on his arm.
"Because Cara's a very friendly and effervescent woman with a great deal to offer." She stated matter of factly.
Without opening her eyes and fighting to keep the smile from her lips.
"Hear that?" Cara asked Potter. "I'm 'effervescent'."
Potter had the common sense to grunt instead of answering.