He remembered realizing that he wanted his roommate, when the sallow cabin light had turned his braid to a heavy red-gold rope down his back, and he started stroking the head resting on him. The braid had been sacrificed to Starfleet years ago, and the ruddy metal of what was left of it had bleached to butter and was starting to go a little sandy. James's hair was as naturally changeable and inconstant as the rest of him, and would probably never be exactly the same color two years in a row for the rest of his life.
"You smell good. What are you thinking about?" James asked, or maybe Gary had just picked up on something he was thinking. It was hard to tell, when they were so close. But no, he'd felt the words through his Fleet-black-boring pajamas. Oh, well, he'd known it couldn't last.
"Your hair," he answered. "Fleet tries to make everyone cookie-cutter perfect, but you couldn't be consistent if you tried, could you?"
He felt James's lips twitch up against him. "Blame it on genetics," he said drowsily, "or my sign. Fire, masculine, cardinal."
"That's you," he agreed, and felt James feeling quiet and happy on top of him. And how disgusting, that it should take so little when the kid had been ready to kill someone only minutes ago. Gary was of a mind to go hunt down the guy whose fault it was and show them their lungs.
Except that it was probably his fault, this time. Scratch that idea, then.
This was nice, though. He tended to forget, when he wasn't making an effort, how right it could be when he did. Now, if James would only keep his mouth shut and let the moment hold...
No, of course not. "What's funny?"
"Just thinking."
"Now, there's a novelty." He waited. "You going to tell me, James?"
There was that facial shrug again. "That."
He sighed and James chuckled, somewhere between pleased and tired, and tightened his hold. "Okay, kid, you lost me."
"Did you know that I don't exist without you?"
Ohdamn.
James laughed outright at his sudden stillness, and flipped over to grin in his face like the infuriating little pest of a child that he was. "Christ, Gary, I didn't mean that. Good grief, the ego on this man."
He didn't think he deserved that. "What then?"
"I didn't say I couldn't live without you. How pathetic do you think I am? Besides, I've done it. --Don't say it. Since I met you, I've done it."
Oh, yeah. The sleeping pills.
James snatched his pillow from under him and whacked him over the head with it. "That had nothing to do with you! Sheesh. Besides, there's nothing wrong with sleeping pills."
"Wait, did I actually say that?"
"No."
"You cheated on your psi-tests, didn't you."
"Beg pardon?"
"Okay, fine, I'm not getting a straight answer. Again. Never mind." He replaced his pillow with folded arms. "So feed my ego, James. Tell me more about how you don't exist without me."
"Not me, exactly," James conceded, subsiding. "Just James. I'm not James with anybody else, you know."
"I'd be upset if you were, kid," he lied.
"Like hell you would," James returned mildly.
"You did cheat. I knew it!"
"I don't have to be an esper to know when you're lying, Sir Gareth the Impure. I know you. Besides, you're a rotten liar."
"Better than you."
"I," James said reasonably, "am the best liar on the ship. I've been lying to everyone for years, and even you don't know it. I'm really a half-trained shaman from Sioux Nation, Oglala Lakota Teton, Black Hills reservation, specialties in clairvoyance and being a medium. That's why I'm the number-one target on this ship for alien possession."
"Oh, is that why?" Gary asked, grinning. It was true that, for whatever the real reason was, the brainsucker aliens went for James nine times out of ten, but the rest of it was silly.
"Yup. My mission: to erase the faces of Mount Rushmore from the Black Hills. And work on my shielding. And you knew me when I had my braid, too; shame on you! --What? What's so funny? I bare my innermost heart to this city kid and he laughs at me, what is this?"
Gary doubled up and fell off the bed, sputtering. "Okay," he gasped from the carpet, "you got me."
James leaned over the side and hauled him up, smirking. "But, see?" he began more seriously when Gary had gotten most of his breath back and stopped kissing him. "I'd never dream of saying anything like that to anyone but you. James minus Gary equals Jim, one more boring officer who happens to win at chess most of the time. You're my laughter, Gar," he said, in deadly earnest now, "and I think I love you for that more than anything else."
After a time, when his throat had cleared up, Gary whispered, "Foul, kid. Emotional blackmail."
James rolled his eyes, and reached over to brush Gary's hair back from his eyes. "Gary, this is not blackmail in any way, shape or form. If I wanted to blackmail you, believe me, you'd know it. It's not," he said, almost to himself and with a faint shade of bitterness, "as though you don't give me the material to work with. Not blackmail, Gar," he repeated gently. "Not even a setup. I just wanted you to know."
"Now you're lying," he returned, nearly as gently.
"Maybe. I don't think so. I can't see the endgame right now."
"You know I hate it when you talk chess," Gary grumbled. "Shut up."
James's face exploded in one of its rarer, more glorious smiles; both sides of his face, for this one; and didn't even bother telling Gary to make him before he struck.
"I thought so last night," Jim returned judiciously. "However, on reflection, I think I feel worse. I can bear an honest bastard, but hypocrites annoy me."
"Know what you mean," Wesley confided. "Look at my plate. What do you see?"
"Technicolor geometry?"
"Right. Now look over there at Doc's plate."
"Imitation meatloaf and frozen iceberg lettuce. Although how they manage to make imitation meatloaf is beyond me."
"That makes two of us. Now, between the two of us, Doc's more overweight than I am. But is he on a diet?"
"Nope."
"Is he eating--what was it you said, colorful geometry?"
"Technicolor geometry. Nope."
"Is he eating recycled CHON gas?"
"Yes, he is, actually, it just looks better."
"And tastes better."
"Nope. You must have forgotten, being on that diet so long and all."
"Oh, really? Well, here, switch plates with me so I can remember."
"I thought you hated chicken."
"Not worse than soy squares."
Jim surveyed their plates doubtfully. "Tell you what, I'll trade you half my sandwich for the yellow and green ones."
"Done!" There was a moment of swapping and chewing, then, "You're right. This is awful."
"Coffee's not bad," Jim offered in consolation.
Wesley snorted. "It's terrible, the way you kids drown that swill. You're all going to end up as caffeine addicts before you hit thirty."
Jim shrugged. "Since I fully expect to get myself killed before I hit thirty-five, what does it matter?"
"Not much, true. So, Mitch."
"Screw 'im," was Jim's grandly dismissive judgement. "How 'bout them Yankees?"
"Why's he a hypocrite? You had a screaming fight, he apologized, and you ended up in bed, right?"
"Wrong. We gave the first two parts a miss. So don't ask me why we got to part three."
"Oh. Well, maybe he's had a change of heart."
"I think the problem is that he had one quite some time ago."
Wesley choked on a blue thing. "What? Christ, Jim, you sound like you're reading a grocery list."
Jim pushed out a half-smile. "Actually, I think I could get positively rapturous over a grocery list right now. Steak," he began feelingly, "and dairy, from actual cows, no tofu or other soy-related products whatsoever, fresh fruit, real coffee beans, ice cream--"
"Knock it off, Commander. You know what I mean."
"I spent a year on Vulcan right before I went to the Academy. Shanai'Kahr. My parents thought I needed to be somewhere that felt safe and calm after Tarsus."
"Did it work?"
"No. I spent the whole time catfighting--or le-matya fighting, I guess, with pointy-eared bigots. It was cathartic, though; I lost most of the time, but at least I got to hit back, and none of them were actually trying to kill me. Besides, most of them came around, eventually, when they saw I kept getting up and coming back." He grinned fiercely. "They claim that stubbornness is illogical and in defiance of c'thia, but I think I proved that this particular human at least is not as weak as his body. But I did pick up a few habits."
"Does Mitch know this?"
"He knows about my time on Vulcan, and he knows a good fifth of the practical jokes I've pulled. I don't think he connects the two."
"Jokes? I thought you said you fought them?"
"Well, yeah. But if I'd just used fists, all I would have proved to them is that humans are uncivilized pigheaded barbarians who aren't even all that good at martial arts, especially compared to them, especially in 2g. They already knew that. However, being bound by logic, they found it difficult to be 'good Vulcans' and keep up with my runaway imagination at the same time." He grinned evilly. "You should have seen what I did to some of their computers."
"I can imagine."
"I doubt it," Jim said cheerfully, "A-15 or not. I may be only a B-1 as yet, but nobody in the explored galaxy thinks anything like me when I really get going. This is probably a good thing," he added thoughtfully.
"Probably. What do you mean, as yet?"
"Didn't I tell you? I've been studying for my A-levels when I'm off duty. Lt. Commander Lambert is going to give me the test in a couple days."
Wesley stared. "You're kidding."
"Why would I be kidding? If I get promoted, I don't want to have to be totally reliant on my science officer for information. What if he-she-or-it decides to get close-fisted on me? I want to at least have the ability to do things myself, even if I don't actually do them."
"Commander, were you hyperactive as a boy?"
"Not that I recall. You could ask my mother; she might have a different answer. Why?"
"When do you sleep?"
"At night, like everybody else. Although I've been staying up later than usual, lately. Gary's been playing the weirdest avoidance games, and it makes me contrary."
"I pity your yeoman."
"Sorry?"
"I pity your yeoman. And your first officer. And your tactics officer, for that matter."
"Sir?"
"I can just see it now. There you'll be, running around doing everybody else's jobs because either your mind or your metabolism is set on hyperdrive, I'm not sure which, and when you have one of those brief periods of excitement Starfleet is famed for, you'll need them to do the paperwork they should have been doing all along. But they won't be used to it, and they'll be late, or they'll botch it, and then you'll have to reprimand them. And it won't be their fault."
"Sir, that's not fair. I've never micromanaged in my life."
"That's not what Roger says."
"Captain Komack," Kirk returned measuredly, "doesn't like me."
"Now, Jim--"
"No, I mean it. He's like my fifth-grade teacher that way."
Wesley, munching Kirk's sandwich, sat back in his chair. "I don't follow you."
"My teacher, in fifth grade. She nearly got me expelled for plagiarism--"
"In fifth grade?"
"Well, the principle didn't like me, either. Her excuse was that I wrote a history paper exceeding her exacting standards."
"Now you've really lost me," he said around Kirk's chicken.
"She didn't like me, but she could find no fault with my results, so she decided that my methods must have been unscrupulous. I had to show the principal all my citations. And all my drafts. Which was embarrassing; the first few were godawful."
"Point taken. But his officers agree with him."
"Oh." Spearing a yellow triangle on his fork, he regarded it intently for a moment, then put it down. "Can't argue with that, I guess. But I'm certainly not micromanaging now."
"Jim, that's because I run you off your feet! I make sure you don't have the time or energy to poke into other officers' business. And that's fine. That's my job. Roger underutilized you on the Republic, and you were bored, right?"
"I wouldn't say that."
"Because he's your superior."
Jim flashed a grin at him. "Who am I to argue with my captain?"
Wesley snorted. "You'd argue with God himself, just to see how far you could go before He smote you. But I'm trying to make a point here."
"Well, put it into real small words, and I reckon I can make it out," said Jim, all intelligent attentiveness.
"Jim, except for the odd day or week here and there, being a captain is boring. You sit in the chair, you stare at the viewscreen, you take care of morale and the crew, you sign fuel consumption reports. I'm heavily oversimplifying, but it's true. It's almost like being idle rich, except the food is lousy and the chair's uncomfortable. It won't be so bad for you if you get the Lydia Sutherland; she has a tense beat. But there will still be days when nothing is happening, and you want to prowl around your bridge sticking your nose into everything. And you can't. It's not fair, and it makes people uncomfortable. And if you get a starship, it'll be worse." He grimaced. "I should get a new Tactical officer, just to ease you into the transition."
"I wish you wouldn't, sir," Kirk ventured.
"Meek is not a good look for you, Commander. All right. I won't take you off it cold, but I want you to stop Śrunning inspections' every available microsecond and start finding and training your replacement. Don't look so disappointed, Jim: this will be harder. You'll have to do a lot of interviews and make solid evaluations and find me a good one."
Making a face, Kirk protested, "I know that. I'm not arguing with you. But I can't help feeling like dealing with Gary is really enough people-problems for now. I don't know what to do with him."
"So what are these avoidance games you said he was playing?"
Naoko Lowell stopped at their table. "Excuse me, Captain, but the Chief isn't getting anywhere with that Altairian, and we were wondering if we could borrow the Commander."
The men exchanged glances. "Did the Chief ask nicely?" Kirk asked, with wide eyed interest.
"Oh, she doesn't know, yet. We thought--"
"Understood, Lowell. Excuse me, Captain, I have to go barge in and play Bad Cop." He stood up, and his nostrils flared briefly, and he got a very odd expression on. "Jasmine?"
"Yessir, my aunt sent me some soap. From Earth."
"I see. How... very thoughtful of her, Lowell. Captain?"
Wesley waved him away. "Oh, dismissed, go away. Lowell, have you eaten? Jim's barely touched his soy squares, and I don't feel like lunching alone."
She looked down at Kirk's plate, with its anemic crusts and torn bits of skin and sickly sallow triangles, and turned several shades paler. Wesley glanced up at Kirk to share an amused smile, but Kirk was staring at Lowell's back with narrow-eyed starkness in the brief moment before he turned and was gone.
Once he got to the bridge, he'd found out that the night-shift navigator had plotted a course which would have taken them into a meteor shower in four hours, if both the ship and the asteroid field kept on at their current speeds. It had taken him until half past lunch to make a correction that wouldn't take them too far off course or plunge them into the gravitational fields of the planets in the system they were passing.
He'd spent all afternoon trying to ignore the helmsman, who wasn't James and wanted to chat. James, apparently, was off doing something tactical or security-related. He wasn't entirely sure which; the Captain had been tightlipped. Then, when he'd joined Elaine for dinner, he found out that James had been working in security, not their quarters, because she was freaked out and itching to talk about it.
"...I mean, Jesus, Mitch, he's always locked me out before when he was grilling someone and I never dreamed it would be anything like that!"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down, Lady--"
"Would you cut that out!"
"Fine, fine, okay, cutting out."
"Thank you!"
"Now, anything like what? What did he do?"
Elaine laughed, near hysterical. "What did he do? What didn't he do? He did everything you can do without touching the guy, Mitch, and he was so cold the whole time, and so angry; I didn't know anyone could be like that, Mitch!"
Mitchell sighed. He knew. "Then I guess you've never pissed him off. You're really bothered by this?"
"You mean you're not?"
Rolling his eyes, Mitchell reminded her, "I don't know what happened. I wasn't there."
She blinked at him. He didn't think she was actually in the room with him, despite the racetrack she was currently wearing into the floor. "No, you weren't, were you. You don't know."
Patience was not something Mitchell had ever had a lot of, and now he felt his hands clenching around frustration. "No, I don't. And unless you tell me, I won't. Sit down." He went to the replicator and brought her back a cup of nearly hot tea, some arcane combination of too many herbs and too much sugar. He didn't know if she'd like it, or if she even drank tea, but it was what he always brought James when the kid was in a lather over something or other--which was practically every day, some weeks. The kid was much more excitable than Elaine, but it seemed to calm him down, and they both liked it.
She took a huge gulp, gratefully, almost half the cup, and then screwed her face up in aversion. "That's disgusting. Who gave you the recipe for that?"
It had been James' grandmother, Leora Pipesmoke, that one shore leave James had taken him to meet the dragon-queen, after Lester and before they'd moved their beds together. She had taken one long, piercing look at him, argued with James in some rushing language like high tide for nearly fifteen minutes, and then loaded him down with instructions on how to take care of her chicklet.
She had called the kid Robin, which Gary supposed must be his middle name,and spoken of coyotes and bears and birds and great cats. She had talked with fingers and wrists, from the shoulders, and towered over everyone, all five feet of her. She had looked and moved like a girl, and her eyes and voice were older than an ancestor, and in her presence the kid was no longer a kid, and the family resemblance came out stronger than blood and deeper than bone.
Mitchell had found Robin lighter and more laughing even than James, just as powerful and much more fey, and his helpless delight in his friend had melted the emerald hauteur to him before the end of the first afternoon. It had been one of the better weeks of his life, and he had spent it in a haze of sun and leaves, his usual steely cynicism tossed aside contemptuously by darting fingers and strong hands. He had never resented Starfleet more.
He didn't feel it politic to mention Pipesmoke to Elaine just now. "If you don't like it," he asked reasonably, "why do you care about the recipe? Come on, tell me what happened."
She twisted at her knuckles, and picked up the cup, putting it down again as soon as the steam reached her. "Nothing, at first. He just stood me in front of the door and sat down and stared at the guy."
"'The guy' being?"
"You remember Rory Kent, the guy who tried to sell rose quartz for dilithium last year?"
"While we were still looking for a new engineering chief? The skinny Altairian with pink hair?"
"That's him. Only it isn't pink anymore, it's all black and yellow stripes."
"Was James wearing sunglasses?"
"No, why would he wear sunglasses?"
"That explains why he got ticked off. Besides, he hates bees, and he's got this idea that tigers are his exclusive territory. So, what happened?"
"Like I said, nothing, at first. He'd set up the table so I could see them both. I don't know why he did that. Do you know?"
Mitchell grimaced. "Knowing our esteemed executive officer, probably so Kent would think he had a shot at getting away, and hate himself for not trying."
She nodded slowly. "That sounds right. They were just glaring at each other for the longest time. Then Kent started fidgeting, and suddenly he started blustering at the Commander, making threats and things like that. You know."
"What did James do?"
"Nothing! He just sat there. I couldn't even look at him. It was like he wasn't even listening, only I could tell he was. He was sitting there, taking notes, and he didn't care. He just let Kent run down, and then he started talking, and Mitch, it was like he was a computer."
"I know that mood. What did he say?"
"The kinds of things you're not supposed to say until your guy's on trial. List of offences, list of evidence, all chronological order, which isn't how you're supposed to do it anyway. Honest to God, Mitch, he sounded like a master detective out of a mystery novel, only he was lying half the time."
Mitchell's head snapped around. She had his attention now. "What?"
"He was making things up, Mitch! We have no evidence that he's traded with Romulans, certainly none that he's in collusion with them! But he really looked like he believed it, and like he believed it was the most evil thing in the world, Mitch, and he half convinced me on both counts!"
Nothing about this until now had bothered Mitchell at all, but this shook him badly. He could still hear James claiming to be the best liar on the ship, and everything that had nagged at him last night buzzed urgently around the front of his brain. He could barely think. "So, what did Kent do?"
"What do you think? He said, 'That's not true!' And the Commander gave him that look, you know, the real mild one when he's about to take you down, and said, 'Which part?' And Kent started shouting again."
"Is he still alive?"
She hesitated. "He's breathing." He stared at her, and she flapped her hands at him irritably, rigid and limp. "Oh, Mitch, they're never alive when he's done with them. He'll have stopped thinking with his lizard brain by now, and he'll be himself again by the time Starfleet's ready to sue him. Don't worry about it."
"Are you kidding? He yelled at James twice in ten minutes? I think somebody should bring him some comfort food."
"I did," she said, still irritable. "The Commander gave me standing orders to get chicken soup and extra blankets to them after he's done."
But that meant he knew what he was doing to them. Mitchell didn't want to think about that. "If all he did is stare at the guy and recite charges," he snapped, "I don't see why you're upset."
She looked at him like she'd found his fingerprints on the cookie jar. He wasn't going to apologize for defending his superior, though, much less his oldest friend, so he just narrowed his eyes at her and waited. She gave up quickly, with a shiver, and went on. "Well, it wasn't all. He leaned across the table--you know, with the fisted hands, and started using that voice."
He raised his eyebrows. "Which one?"
"You know, the really terrible one."
And despite his suspicions, he couldn't resist. "What, he started singing Irish ballads?"
She swatted at him. "No! Come on, Mitch, this is serious. The intent one that's got a lot behind it but you don't know what."
"I usually know."
"Well, good for you," she snarled. "Half the time I thought he was vamping the guy, and the other half I thought he was going to haul off and hit him, and the rest of the time you could have scraped ice off the walls."
"Wait, wait, we're getting into higher mathematics, here."
"You're the navigator. Deal with it. And he kept switching back and forth, and there was no pattern to it, and he never moved, and he never blinked, and it was the scariest thing I've ever seen!"
"Want some chicken soup?"
"That's not funny! And then on his way out he turned to me, and said, 'This is the way we cops get results without violating the Geneva convention, Miss Lowell,' and I felt like he'd slammed me, Mitch. He was absolutely furious, and I'd thought it was with Kent but then I knew it was me he was mad at, and it wasn't an act, and he let me watch just so he could scare me, and Mitch, he knows. I'm sure he knows."
"Captain said you dragged him away from lunch. And if the Captain knows that, he was probably being sociable. James doesn't really like it when people interrupt his playtime," he reasoned, speaking more to his suddenly clenched lungs than to her.
"But Mitch," she protested, muddy eyes wide and fixed on his, "he called me Miss. Not Mister. Not my rank. He never calls anyone Miss. If he doesn't know..."
"He called me Miss Mitchell a couple of times when I was in his class and I slacked off," he reassured her truthfully, lying through his teeth. "You probably just let him see you were scared and he wasn't impressed. And he really gets into these acts he puts on sometimes; it takes him a while to calm down. I'm sure he won't hold it against you, especially since you've just come off light duty."
"If you're sure," she said doubtfully.
"Of course I am," he said. It was the truth, since he hadn't said what he was sure of.
He went back to his quarters at twenty-one hundred, as usual. He didn't see James until alpha shift. And it was all wrong.
At lunch, he didn't even wait for a break in the kid's conversation with the Captain before he sidled up and said, "You look horrible, kid."
James looked up at him and returned, "You look hollow, Gareth."
"Everyone thinks we're fighting."
"Are we fighting?" he asked calmly, laying down his fork, the red-brown in his eyes coming out and glinting.
"Where were you last night?"
"Botanical deck."
"Sleeping?"
"Theoretically."
On the basis that a strong offensive was usually a good thing, he demanded, "What's wrong with the bed?"
James looked at him, saying nothing with his mouth, and 'you were in it' with eyes gone rusty copper.
Pushing was never a good idea when James turned on the frost, but he couldn't help himself. "What's eating you?"
James took a sip of his scarlet juice, just for that dramatic pause, and informed him, glass still hovering in the air, "Jasmine smells rancid."
He narrowed his eyes right back and challenged, "You didn't think so last night."
The kid smiled slightly, and Mitchell's scalp prickled. "I changed my mind."
"I thought that was the woman's prerogative."
"I thought you liked me changeable." He set the glass down carefully, and looked back up with the expression that meant the universe was about to bend to his rules. "Don't smell like that again, Gary."
"God, you are a bastard," she said, too weary from fighting him to shout. "I wouldn't have slept with you otherwise. And I don't think I've hurt you at all." Seeing that he had nothing to say to this, she surged on. "I guess I just don't understand, Mitch. You told me you weren't in love with him anymore. You swore it up and down. Did you lie? Because if you didn't, why are you doing this to me?"
"I didn't. I'm not. I don't think I am, anyway. But he's still in love with me. And I do love him."
"You said he'd understand."
He sighed. "I think he does. That's the problem."
"So break up with him. It would be kinder, wouldn't it?"
"Do you have," he asked after a moment, as serious as she'd ever seen him, "a bright thing in your life? I won't give him up just because that disease we call romantic love has let go in me. Have you ever been somebody else's bright thing? I don't want to see him lose me. It's been fun, Lady, but I won't do that to either of us, not even for you."
She sighed, and blinked hard. "At least give me a proper goodbye," she demanded quietly. He took her willingly into his arms and kissed her, going through all the motions of passion and feeling none. She clung to him as long as she could bear it, then pushed him away and opened her eyes.
And, seeing wide hazel eyes pulling up short behind him, she pulled him back to her on vicious impulse and had another go, making it too sweet and promising for a farewell, until there was a flash of turning gold and a swift retreat, and then, smiling, she let him go.
Once he was seated, his face calmed and firmed into steady decision. Mitchell barely recognized him. "I know what to do, now," he told the Captain quite clearly, a little high-pitched and strange. "Now I know what to do." His eyes turned unerringly to meet Mitchell's, and drew him forward towards him. "Sit, Gary," he said, in a voice that Mitchell had no thought of disobeying.
"What's up, kid?" he asked, masking nerves with flippancy.
James met his gaze, still with that bedrock stability, but Mitchell could see the flickers of nerves beneath it. "Gary, I'm about the be very selfish with you, and I hope you'll forgive me for it. You see, Starfleet has just offered me command of the Lydia Sutherland--"
"Good for you, kid!"
"Shut up and listen, Mitchell." There was no laughter in the words, and Mitchell, shocked, shut up as ordered. "Thank you. As I was saying, they've offered me command. I'm going to ask for you for my navigator, Gary, I want you on my bridge with me. But I agree with the no-fraternization policy."
Mitchell was, for the second time that hour, utterly speechless.
"I'm sorry, Gary. But the fact of the matter is, I can't have you both in my bed and on my bridge, not if I'm going to be the captain, if I'm going to have to make decisions about your life. And I'm going to need you on my bridge." He waited a moment and, when Mitchell failed to speak, went on. "We're meeting up with them back at HQ in four days. I need an answer from you by then."
Gary sighed, and closed his eyes. "I'm not letting you leave without me, James."
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