#and when the colonel comes back he says hes gone into ''early retirement''. i think he was confirmed dead in a book...? idek if thats canon

[skyburger]

number one jim houseman (secretary of defense) fan of all time... thats me baby

[lovelyirony]

@rhodee for you

When Tony had gotten back from Siberia, he hadn’t been able to see anyone for a long time. 

But people had been to see him. 

He wasn’t expecting Rhodey to come and see him for a variety of medically-related reasons, but he was hoping for an email or a phone call, at least a message about Tony being a “dumbass.” 

And then he asked Pepper how Rhodey was doing, and she tenses up. 

Pepper has never been a good liar to Tony, not since they got drunk together for the first time and she told him every single tell she had for lying. They could never hide from each other after that. 

“He’s...knocked out, still.” 

Tony raises his eyebrows. 

“So, he’s not knocked out, something happened to him.” 

“Tony, he...he doesn’t remember.” 

“What, the fall? I wish I couldn’t remember that either, but I’m betting that that’s not what you’re talking about.” 

“He doesn’t remember any of us. He doesn’t remember anything except for his freshman year of college. All of this information is...overwhelming for him.” 

Tony freezes. 

He and Rhodey didn’t live together freshman year. Hell, they didn’t even know each other freshman year. They became sort-of-friends near the beginning of sophomore year, and that meant... 

Oh god.

Rhodey wouldn’t remember three important things: 

1.) He’s bisexual.

2.) He’s an accomplished man who has achieved much in his lifetime and has grown comfortable with himself with years of help.

3.) He married Tony. They’re married. 

For a long time, Rhodey didn’t really want to admit that he liked guys. It wasn’t something he ever talked about, nothing he ever wanted to discuss. He didn’t mind that Tony had an attraction to men, but he always seemed to put himself at a distance when Tony brought someone over for dinner or a study session. 

Rhodey didn’t want to come to terms with it at first. He was very adamant that he would marry a nice girl and settle down, and Tony hadn’t contested it, hadn’t challenged him on it. That could have very well been the situation. 

It wasn’t until the end of sophomore year--into the summer, actually--that Rhodey even wanted to tempt to talk about what attraction would even mean for him. 

They had gotten together senior year, and Tony has a picture framed in their bedroom of Tony dipping Rhodey into a kiss (and dropping him after the picture was taken) after graduation. 

“They had to take off his wedding ring for the surgery, but I wasn’t sure what to tell him. The doctors said to avoid bringing up any information that would surprise them, and I remember that you talked about it once...” 

“Yeah,” Tony says thickly, his chest hurting from more than just a frisbee-toss gone wrong. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s, uh...let’s just transfer him over to the headquarters. I’ll just...I’ll figure something out.” 

He can’t tell Rhodey he has a husband. He can’t. The reaction alone would be terrible, if he’s knowing what he knows. 

-

So he doesn’t. 

Tony welcomes Rhodey into the compound after taking down every single romantic photo, briefing everyone who still lived there that Rhodey had lost his memory, and praying to whoever would listen that Rhodey didn’t find out until he was comfortable with it. 

“I don’t go by Rhodey,” was the first thing off of his lips. Not a hello, not a smile. “I go by Jim.” 

“Right,” Tony says, smiling in that flashy way that Rhodey usually told him to stop, because it creeped him out because he knew what that smile was actually all about. “Jim. Nice to see you back.” 

“I wish I could say the same, but I’m not exactly sure I remember you. Your face looks really familiar, though.” 

“Well, that’s what nearly twenty-five years of knowledge can do to somebody,” Tony says quickly. “Let me show you to your room. Sorry about the lack of decorations, we didn’t really want to overwhelm you with anything.” 

“I’m fine,” Rhodey says, clearly annoyed. “It’s just weird knowing that I’m way fucking older and apparently I graduated college and managed to make something of myself and I can’t remember any of it.” 

“I can’t say I understand, but I can say that it sucks,” Tony says. “But, lucky for you, I kept some of your stuff.” 

“A friend kept my stuff?” Rhodey asks. “Why?” 

“Because I’m annoying and you pretend like you hate me, when I am the best thing that happened to you,” Tony says, smiling. 

He then turns when he can see Rhodey’s--Jim’s--expression turn sour. 

“Ah, anyway,” Tony says hurriedly. “You just...keep stuff sometimes.” 

(He’s not going to mention that it’s because they shared an apartment. Or a house. Or a room. Or, on occasion, a bank account.) 

“Dinner is gonna be at seven, feel free to come down,” Tony says, smile wearing thin. 

- 

Jim doesn’t come down. 

Or he did, but he came down early. 

Because he doesn’t want anything to do with Tony. 

“It’ll just take time,” Pepper tells Tony over the phone. “Give him some space.” 

So Tony does. 

But it’s hard giving your amnesiac husband space when you’ve never done it before, not really. 

Tony has always been around Rhodey, always been invading and crawling into his space, and Rhodey really only complained when Tony’s hands would sneak around his chest when the nights were dark and cold. 

Now they’re at a distance, and Tony doesn’t know how to bring up any facts about their life. 

So far, all Jim’s been doing is catching up on history. 

“We fought Captain America?” he asks, gaping at the article about finding Captain Rogers in an iceberg. “Why?” 

“He likes putting his foot in his mouth a lot.” Tony says. “And both sides have been notoriously bad at keeping their cool.” 

“Oh. So we just...I  fought him? Because I’m just friends with you?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says, quite uncomfortable with the insertion of the word “just” in that sentence. 

“...weird.” 

“The future’s crazy, honey-bear.” 

Jim looks up. 

“Why do you call me that?” 

“Call you what?” 

“Honey-bear. It’s weird.” 

“Inside joke we have,” Tony says, chest tightening. “We thought those couples that have the lovey-dovey nicknames were ridiculous.” 

“Oh. Gross.” 

“Yeah, it is,” Tony says. “But kinda funny. One time you called me ‘sugar-tits’.” 

Jim laughs at that one. 

“Oh god, that’s...rough. What else did I call you?” 

Baby. Honey. Love of my life. Darling. 

“Uh...” Tony says, pretending to think. “I think love-muffin was also an option.” 

Jim throws back his head and laughs. 

“How did we...how did we become friends?” 

“Well, it all started with a dining hall and you trying to steal an entire painting without getting caught, and my valiant rescue...” 

“Why do I get the feeling that that’s not true?” 

“Because it isn’t,” Tony grins. “Just making sure your bullshit-detector is working again. It is. We met because we weren’t supposed to be roommates but they fucked up and the rooms filled up, so you dealt with me as best you could.” 

“Oh,” Jim says. “What do we do for fun?”

Go on date nights. Talk about how stupid we were as kids. Debate who asked out who. Cook together. 

“Uh, we used to...shoot hoops.” 

“You don’t seem like a basketball kinda guy,” Jim says. 

“Oh believe me, I wasn’t,” Tony responds with a laugh, “but you were, and you always liked kicking my ass on the court.” 

“Good to know that I can still probably do that,” Jim says, smug and self-satisfied. “Hey, where did Pepper go?” 

“Oh, she’s busy with a contract this week, what do you need?” 

Jim puts his hand on the back of his neck in that nervous habit he always got (that Tony only knew about because every single time he would walk into the room after he realized he liked him in that way, Rhodey would do that). 

“Um, just want to ask her something. About my life.” 

And Tony can’t breathe. 

He doesn’t know and that’s...that’s everything. 

“She’ll be back for dinner,” Tony says. “In the mean time, I’ll be in the lab working on some stuff, feel free to do whatever.” 

“Thanks, man.” 

- 

Pepper stares at Jim, who for so long has been one of her best friends and is now asking if he had anyone who he was involved with romantically. 

“You...what?” 

“Did I have a girlfriend or anything?” Jim asks. “Because, um, it’s going to kind of suck if I didn’t.” 

“You had a girlfriend sophomore year,” she answers carefully. “That lasted for about three months or something. You’d have to ask Tony more about it, he knows more about you than I do.” 

“And you said we’re...friends? We didn’t date?”

“Yeah, we are friends, no we didn’t date,” Pepper says. “We get lunch on Thursdays if you’re in town.” 

“I’m in the army, right?” 

“About to retire, too,” Pepper says with a grin. “You were really happy, you were planning on taking Tony on a trip.” 

“I was?” Jim asks, frowning. “We’re...that close?” 

“Well yeah, you’re-” Pepper pauses for a moment. “You’re best friends. You always like spending time with Tony.” 

“Oh,” Jim says. “Okay.” 

He knows that they’re lying to him. He gets why: if he learns too much, it could cause some sort of damage. And according to Friday, “Colonel Platypus” (whatever the fuck that means) keeps his personal life intensely private. 

He doesn’t know why he’s done that. Why he’s kept everything so private. It’s not because of his military status, he thinks. Unless, of course, they put him on all sorts of secret projects. That could definitely be a thing. 

Tony keeps almost calling him Rhodey. It’s a weird nickname. He doesn’t know why he apparently loves it. It sounds...stupid. Weird. Jim works just fine. 

Pepper also said they were just friends. And she sounds like she means it. And Tony says they’re just friends, but he doesn’t sound like he means it. 

But that doesn’t mean...? 

No. Of course not. There would be pictures and rings and all of that sappy, gross shit that comes with weddings. 

...would there be? 

“Hey Friday?” he asks. 

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes?” 

“Um. Is gay marriage legal?” 

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes, it is. Would you like further articles about the decision?” 

“Uh...sure. I guess.” 

He keeps reading articles (with reading glasses) and learns a lot about what’s been going on. 

He’s just interested, obviously. In current events. 

- 

It’s a week later when he asks Tony about it. 

“So...did you remember the whole legalization of gay marriage thing?” he asks Tony, who pauses at his coffee. “I, um. Read an article where they said you were bi, so I wasn’t sure if you-” 

“No, I am,” Tony says. “I remember it really well. I celebrated well that day.” 

he grinned as he looked at Rhodey, and swore to rent out the entire metropolitan museum of art, just for him. he would do anything for him, anything at all-

Jim looks at him. 

“What did you do to celebrate?” 

“Well, there were quite a lot of people at gay bars. We danced. I drank a glass of champagne. And then we danced again.” 

“Someone was with me?” 

“You were,” Tony says. “You were here when it happened, and it was...it was a good day for us.” 

“I’m not gay though,” Jim says with a frown. 

“Doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate,” Tony says, eyes holding something in them that makes him look like he might cry. “Some people’s triumph can be a momentous occasion.” 

It can the occasion where your marriage is finally recognized everywhere. It’s where you get the iconic photo of mashing cake in your partner’s face, and all of the guests are grinning and you’re happy, and--

Tony shakes himself out of that train of thought. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Jim says. “Just...please tell me that you didn’t get any embarrassing pictures.” 

“Oh I did,” Tony replies, grinning maniacally. “Would you like to see yourself in a feather boa or a flamingo floatie?” 

“Oh my god,” Jim moans, throwing his hands to the dinner table. “No...” 

“You looked a dream, gorgeous,” Tony teases. “And I have the pictures to prove it. I’ll get them out another time, I promised Dum-E that I’d help him pick up his mess.” 

“Who is he?” 

Tony grins. 

“He’s our baby, metaphorically speaking. We built him on a half-drunk, half-dare kind of situation,” Tony says. “He’s a disaster.” 

Jim thinks about it for a moment. “Can I...can I meet him?” 

-

Dum-E hasn’t seen his dad in forever. He’s wheeling around Rhodey, beeping and nearly running over his feet. 

“Great, your return has pushed back any build-up coordination training we did,” Tony scolds, although his tone doesn’t sound serious at all. “Dum-E, your father and I agreed to help clean, although methinks that Jim will be a great surveyor for us.” 

“What’d you spill?” Jim asks. 

“Couple of glass stuff,” Tony says. “He’s been really into stained glass recently, I think he was trying to make his own.” 

“He can think?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says. “His coding, by the way, was like sixty percent you. That’s why he’s so damned stubborn and also why he puts motor oil into smoothies, genius.” 

“Hey, that most definitely was you,” Jim says. “You didn’t grocery shop that day, so I was weak and malnourished.” 

Tony stills. 

“You...remember that?” 

Jim pauses for a moment. 

“You...you were supposed to go grocery shopping and I made a list,” he says, smiling fondly. “And you didn’t take the list because you said you had an eidetic memory, but you still forgot the lemons, so I don’t believe you.” 

Tony throws back his head and laughs. 

“Glad to have a memory for you, Rho-Jim. You want a glass of water or anything?” 

“Water sounds fine.” 

Jim watches as Tony works around Dum-E, obviously used to his quirks and mannerisms as he banters and threatens with nothing backing up that threat. 

He smiles as he wheels himself over, grabbing a dust pan on his way over. 

“Figured we’ll need this,” he offers. Tony accepts it with a smile. 

“Thanks Jim.” 

“You can-you can call me Rhodey. If you want.” 

Tony looks at him for a moment. 

“But is that what you want?” 

Jim pauses. 

“Yes. For now.” 

“Okay,” Tony says, smiling. He’s not showing how fucking happy he is, how ready he is to leap for the moon and bring stardust down on his way home. “Thank you.” 

Jim nods. 

“I think I’m gonna turn in for the night.” 

“Have a goodnight, Jim. Let me know if you need anything.” 

-

He lies awake in bed that night. 

“Hey, Friday?” 

“Yes, Boss?” 

“I...I’m not being told everything, am I?” 

“Information can potentially be triggering to the current state you are in, Colonel Rhodes.” 

“Are you being paid to say that?” 

“I don’t get paid,” Friday says. “Although if I did, I would not want to take the money.” 

“So I am missing something,” Rhodey says. “I just...I don’t know what.” 

“It will come with time, Colonel Rhodes.” 

“And if it doesn’t? If I have to relive life all over again?” He asks, growing agitated. “If my memory doesn’t come back, Friday...I’m not sure they’ll ever tell me anything.” 

“It is already a good sign that you remembered Dum-E. He was missing you quite terribly.” 

“Can I...can you show me a picture of me with him?” 

“Sure thing, Boss.” 

- 

Rhodey has a sharp intake of breath. 

Right there. 

Right on his left hand. 

A wedding ring. 

And then he looks at Tony, Tony who is looking fondly as Rhodey and Dum-E are reenacting some stupid thing, and there’s a-

A ring. 

On the left hand. 

That wasn’t there before. 

Shit. 

[stillbandofbrothersthirsty]

I feel like Harry doesn’t get enough love and attention in the fandom 🥲 and since it is The Summer of Harry, could we get a small fic or headcanons about being best friends with Harry and getting into shenanigans with him?

xoxo

Omg yesss I love Harry, I agree he does not get enough love!!!

Here’s my unsolicited preamble: I truly adore him. In all honesty he’s the character I relate to most, personality wise. SO I had to do both a few headcanon’s and then a short lil fic that played those out. Not sure if this was exactly what you had in mind but this is what I picture being besties with Welsh would be like :) (p.s. sorry for any typos, I didn't do a lot of re-reading and I'm dyslexic sooo free pass)

- I feel like Welsh would be a very affectionate and physical love kind of friend because he seems really sure in his body language and physical space.

- He would be the kind of bestie you could cuddle with without any sort of apprehension over it being anything more than friendship.

- Welsh is the kind of friend that will lead you straight into trouble but charm your guys’ way right out of it.

- Welsh is the kind of friend to give really good advice but never the kind to pressure you or judge you if you don’t take his advice.

- At the same time he’s a bit of a hot mess himself but in such a confident, surly way that keeps him from becoming a basket case. Which means he’s not an exhausting friend to have. He gives energy to his friends.

There was a good chance that those who didn’t know you and Harry well would assume you had a flirtationship. Everyone knew about Kitty, especially after three months of having Harry as an Easy Company officer. So a judgmental look from an onlooking stranger wasn’t uncommon. But those who knew you well knew things could not be more platonic between you two. You and Harry had bonded from the beginning; like long-lost twins. You filled in each other’s gaps. You met each other note for note in every situation, from teasing Winters to sobering conversations about core values. Most dangerously, you fed off of each other’s mischief (much to Winters’ chagrin). That night wasn’t much different from the many you shared with Harry. The difference was that it was preceded by a particularly terrible day.

You were exhausted by the day's work. You had had the privilege of being singled out by Sobel who had berated you at length without real cause. You had very little energy to do anything except take a shower and go to bed. But it was a Friday, and Harry wasn’t about to let you get away with that.

“Good evening!” Harry skipped through the doorway of your barrack. He was cleaned up and dressed neatly in his khaki uniform.

“Hi Harry,” you said unenthusiastically from where you were stretched out.

“What’s up, cookie?” he kicked the side of your cot, trying to elicit a jolt of action from you.

“Crappy day.”

“Well come out and we’ll at least make sure it ends well.”

“Not in the mood.”

“Aw come on,” Harry whined, “I want to go have fun.”

“I’m in a bad mood, Harry,” you protested.

“Who put the bee in your bonnet?” he sat down beside you.

You wriggled slightly out of the way to make room for him. “Sobel.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “the guy’s a yuck, don’t let him ruin your night.

“Too late.” You knew you were just being a brat at this point. But Harry knew he was going to win you over.

“Come on, you’re getting up and we’re gonna have a great night. Dick’s coming out for an hour or so, you can’t miss that.”

“Is he drinking?” you sat up in shock.

Harry huffed, “pff, no, of course not. Still, it’ll be good to chat with him. Come on, get up.”

The pub was full of soldiers from all of the Airborne companies. Harry was leading you to the bar when you spotted him, Sobel.

“The hell is he doing here?” You asked.

Harry followed your eye line. “Gross,” he muttered, “come on.” He pushed forward.

“Harry,” you said reluctantly.

“Trust me,” he grinned mischievously. You recognised that glint in his eye and you couldn’t help but smile in excitement.

“Captain,” Harry addressed Sobel formally as he approached. The haughty officer barely acknowledged them with a nod but Harry began to spin his web.

“So rowdy in here,” he leaned on the bar conspiratorially, “so much reckless drinking.” He paused to make sure you were in on the conversation. “We were just discussing how drinking should only be done in fine taste, with quality liquor.” Sobel seemed to be listening despite his silence.

“We were,” you jumped in, “the ability to appreciate quality is a mark of superiority.” You matched Harry’s buttery tone, careful not to appear too direct with Sobel.

“That’s why Colonel Sink has all those beautifully decanted scotches in his office! Have you seen those?” Harry directed to you, across Sobel.

“Beautiful!” you enthused.

You two let those words hang there. Sobel had obviously taken in your words, you wanted them to settle.

“Anyways,” Harry said cheerfully, “can I buy you a drink, Captain?”

“Oh uh-,” Sobel stumbled, “I uh-,”

“I’m gonna get your strongest scotch, neat please,” Harry grinned charmingly at the bartender. Then he turned to Sobel, “should I make that two?” There was a challenging look in your friend's eye. You suppressed a grin but relished in the situation.

“Sure,” Sobel said curtly, then as an afterthought he turned to you, “are you getting one?” Had it been anyone else it would’ve considered him thoughtful.

“Oh no,” you said you said nonchalantly, “can’t stand the stuff. It’s wicked strong.” You swelled with sadistic delight as you watched Sobel’s eyes widen in fear.

“Cheers!” Harry handed the officer the dark brown drink with a mischievous smile.

To Sobel’s credit, he did take a generous sip of the liquor with only the slightest of flinches.

The two of you posted up at a table with Winters, Nixon, and a few of the other officers who had distanced themselves from the enlisted men. You sat chatting and drinking and generally having a good time. After a drink or two, you spotted Joe Liebgott in the crowd. He smiled over his drink at you and you couldn’t help but smile coyly back. He always seemed to catch your eye on nights out. Though nothing ever came from it you enjoyed the attention from the handsome man.

Welsh caught the exchange between you and Joe. “That boy is trouble.”

“What? I thought you liked Joe!”

“I do, great soldier.”

“But trouble?” you asked jokingly.

“Yeah, part of why I like him. Why don’t you go for someone sweet?” Harry scanned the crowd, “like Carwood?”

“Lipton’s married, Harry.”

“Oh right, Shifty then!”

You sighed, “you know I adore Shifty but..”

“You’re right, he’s too sweet for you. Better stick with, Joe.”

You and Harry stared at each other until you both broke into laughs.

“Thanks for the romantic advice,” you teased.

“Anytime,” Harry laughed into his drink.

The night progressed. Winters left early and eventually, Nixon retired as well. Soon enough, you and Harry were left alone at a table playing tiddlywinks with coins. Between the alcohol and the company, you were feeling good. The pains of the day had melted away.

Smokey Gordon, with the assistance of George Luz, began to lead the crowd of soldiers in song. It was a darkly humoured Irish ballad that Harry seemed to know well. From beside you at your table he belted out the words off-pitch, a cigarette burning away between his fingers, momentarily forgotten.

“You’re shit!” you laughed over the music, “you’re a terrible singer!”

Harry paused quickly to say, “shut up, I’m singing,” before launching his voice back into the chorus.

You laughed as the Easy Company men wrapped up their song in cheers. You smiled to yourself, grateful to be a part of such a great group of men.

You were feeling intoxicated late into the evening but nowhere near as intoxicated as Harry. He had had a fair amount to drink but luckily he held his alcohol well. He wasn’t a sloppy, sick or angry drunk. The alcohol only exacerbated his most questionable traits; characteristics you had grown to appreciate.

“You hungry?” you asked him as he polished off another beer.

“I can always eat,” he responded.

“Do you think they’ll serve us something here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said, “I bet they’ve closed the kitchen. Probably hours ago!”

You eyed the bar. Things had died down slightly. Many people had gone home and the patrons who hadn’t were losing their energy. Conversational groups furnished with half drunk pints peppered the pub. “I bet we can make them serve us something. Surely something!” you said.

Harry looked deep in thought before saying, “you know, you’re right.”

“What’s the harm in asking?” you said with an alcohol-induced sense of confidence.

“You’re right! Let’s go!” Harry pulled you up from the table and the two of you made for the bar.

Harry leaned across the wood counter. “Can we get anything to eat? One of those pies maybe?” he asked the bartender.

“Ooh or eggs and bacon!” You interject. The thought of breakfast made your stomach rumble.

“Oh yeah, that sounds really good! Good call,” Harry turned his attention back to the exasperated bartender, “can we can some eggs and bacon please?”

“You think I got bacon?” The bartender asked dryly. “It’s midnight…during a war,” he explained like he was talking to idiots, which he kind of was.

“Mm good point,” you were quickly defeated in your inebriated state.

“Ah come on, Fred,” Harry said, “I know you have food! Please, for one of your most loyal patrons.”

It was true, Harry was a loyal customer. He had quickly become a regular at this pub. You had dragged him off a barstool more than a few times when he was meant to be elsewhere.

The bartender Fred eyed the grinning, gap-toothed man. “Fine, but you gotta eat it in the back. I don’t want everyone seeing I’m serving food or they’ll all want some.”

“Ah thank you Fred!” You thanked him exuberantly. He shot you both a stern look as you scrambled around the bar.

You two of you waited patiently perched upon apple crates in the back kitchen as Fred fried you up a couple of eggs and slices of ham. It wasn’t exactly bacon but it hit the spot. You had never tasted anything so good in your life.

“I could eat this for the rest of my life,” Harry said through a mouthful of food.

“Mm s’good,” you responded with equal impropriety. You swallowed, “thanks for forcing me out Harry.”

“Aw,” Harry wrapped an arm around your neck and gave you a sloppy kiss on the forehead, “anytime, cookie.”

[imalifegen89]

A Legacy Left Behind - Chapter - 5 - The Gemmond Incident

Part 5 - Final

Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain - Colorado

As promised, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell had shown up with SG-1, which had included himself, Teal'c, Vala Mal Doran, and Dr. Daniel Jackson. Sam Carter had not been available since she had been called away to the Daedalus for an urgent matter. Dr. Rodney McKay and Dr. Radek Zelenka had both shown up in her place to specifically study the two downed crafts and find a solution to free the trapped Gemmondians. SG-3, SG-8, and SG-9 had accompanied the Colonel in order to disperse around the city and help with the clean-up and whatever other tasks the citizens were in need of help with. Dr. Sandy Van Denson and Dr. Ian Carmichael along with three other medical staff had also shown up, bringing along the promised medical assistance for the traumatized Gemmondians.

Sheppard and the team had been upgraded to local celebrity levels and almost all of the people there in the city had wanted to catch a glimpse of the Tau'ri who had managed to successfully wipe out the Wraith. The locals had insisted on the feast they had somehow managed to prepare despite everything and made the SG-11 the guests of honor. The team had stayed for a few minutes, enjoyed a few local cuisines, and taken their leave in quiet relief when Mitchell and the other teams had finally shown up to take over.

..........

"Fucking hell! Hearing about all this crap in the briefing and looking at nasty photos is one thing. But this, man - this is something else." Danny's voice was equal parts awe, fear, and incredulity.

"So, this telepathic attack basically had a domino effect on these creatures. Powerful as they are when they are mentally connected to each other, it can also be a major weakness. Too bad only the ATA gene carriers have this ability," Adam Noshimuri sounded wistful. He was fascinated by the footage they were all now going through of the day's operation.

SEALs always went on ops with recording apparatus as a part of their standard kit. SG-11 had permission to keep this particular Special-Operator-trait for their operations, in keeping with the Navy standards, and it came in handy. They could always study the ops footage later to get more information and also it could be used to educate other teams whenever they went through something like this. Only a few of the team had body cams that day since they had been going to a party. But they had managed to team up to maximize the coverage and now they had mostly complete footage of the entire operation.

They had all gone for their post-Gate-Hop medical checkups once they had returned to the mountain. As promised, Colonel Mitchell had retrieved the rest of the SG-11 from the village near the jungle and they had returned to the mountain about 20 minutes later. They all had reunited in the infirmary during their medical checkups. Sheppard, Lorne, and Danny had garnered extra attention - the first two because of their dealings with the Wraith and Danny for getting partially stunned. But they had all been cleared without needing to spend the day in the infirmary once the doctors had been satisfied. They had all had early dinners in the mess hall and the two pilots had retired to the quarters since they had both been still suffering from headaches. The rest of the team had gathered in one of the smaller recreational rooms to go through the footage and get their AARs (After Action Reports) done for the debriefing the next day. They had already gone through the cam feeds from Steve, Bates, and Vega and now knew what each team had faced. They had exchanged praises, criticisms, and good-natured ribbing while watching different areas of footage with fascination. Now they were all at the part from the cam Lorne had been wearing.

"Yeah, that's the thing. These guys are rare enough as it is. When the Wraith find out about this, they’re going to start hunting them. The gene carriers are a real threat to Wraith. All they have to do is ask the Goa'uld to take care of the gene carriers while they deal with the non-gene carriers. We’re going to have to try and keep this stuff under wraps as long as we can," said Vega, after they had all finished watching the feed.

"Keep what under wraps?" asked Sheppard at the end of a huge yawn. He was leaning against the door of the rec room and was wearing a black t-shirt, loose sweats, and a pair of slippers. He still looked half asleep and Steve wondered what had made the man wake up and come looking for them.

"Ah, sleeping beauty, come take a seat. We were just talking about your horror show," said Danny, with his usual lack of tact.

They were using the TV screen in the room to watch the feeds and a few laptops and PDAs were scattered on the stool in front of them. Steve, Adam, and Kono were sitting on the long couch, Danny, Bates, and Vega had claimed sofas and Cadman was settled between Higgins' stretched-out legs on the floor. Sheppard pushed off from the door frame and walked into the room eyeing the seating arrangement. Then he huffed and went to settle on Steve's lap, who let out a quiet laugh and moved to accommodate the burden. John wriggled and shifted until he was sitting comfortably, resting sideways on Steve's chest with his head on Steve's shoulder, and let his long legs dangle off the armrest of their side of the couch. Steve wrapped his arms around the sleep-warmed body on his lap and closed his eyes. Then John looked at Danny expectantly. Danny keyed a few commands on the laptop closest to him and started the feed from Lorne's cam for John to have a look.

Steve felt him tensing up the moment John saw himself on the screen. It occurred to Steve then, that this was the first time John had seen himself going through the 'online experience.' The other time he had been alone and when he was discovered, he was already back to normal. Steve rubbed his back, offering silent comfort.

"Wow! That's... um... disturbing. My eyes - they look creepy - I look creepy..." said John. He was thoroughly disturbed at witnessing his physical transformation.

"I don't know brah, I was once involved in a raid at a meth factory. I've seen creepier-looking dudes running around, believe me," said Kono matter-of-factly from the middle of the sofa.

"And I know for a fact that you are a complete lunatic. One, because I've seen you fly and have had the misfortune to fly with you several times. Two, you are dating the other lunatic you are sitting on. So this little drama is nothing. I wasn't even that surprised," said Danny, his hand slicing away at the space in front of him, emphasizing his point. John and Steve both sent identical glares at Danny who just upped the wattage of his shit-eating grin.

John could clearly see the easy acceptance from his team of his rather weird ability, and That made it much easier for him to accept the fact himself. (He did remember how Lorne had looked during the change. Okay - he had looked like he was high on something - but not a full-on-mutant like John, though.)

"So the point we were discussing was, to keep this bit of intel from falling into the claws of the Wraith because that would lead to those fuckers declaring open-season on gene-carriers," said Bates, with a grimace. The others nodded in response.

"Dr. Carson is working on artificial gene therapy. He says his serum would have a 75% chance at activating junk DNA in a non-gene carrier to become ATA positive. I actually helped him to find some information he needed from the Alteran archives back in Antarctica. The way things are going, we are going to need him to deliver soon, so that we'll have enough people to deal with these assholes," said John thoughtfully, his mind drifting back to discussions he had with the Scottish doctor during his visits to the Defense Outpost in Antarctica.

"Yeah, and let's not forget the Snake-Heads. At least we have some sort of warning system against the Wraith. But the Goa'uld - do we even have a way of identifying them in advance?” The question was from Steve. he still had his eyes closed, enjoying the proximity to John.

"There are some medical scans that can spot them. Other than that, the Jaffa and some of the previous hosts, like Vala and Carter can sense them. Of course, the Tok'ra would know. But that's about it I think," said Cadman, remembering the facts from Daniel Jackson's lectures.

"Yeah, they've been quiet enough on earth for what, closer to two months now? But busy stirring trouble in other worlds? Whatever they are planning, we are not going to like it much when it happens. I really can do without these times of suspense, you know?" said Vega.

"I know it's tempting fate, but I do agree. By the way, did you guys hear? The word is, that the big boss is going to show up tomorrow. Probably for our briefing. He usually shows up when things are really going to get sent up the creek without paddles," informed Cadman conspiratorially.

"What big boss?" asked Sheppard at the same time Steve asked, "Where do you even hear this stuff from anyway, hah?"

"Oh, I've got my sources, Mr. Major, Mr. Lieutenant Commander," said Cadman, grinning from ear to ear.

"Awesome. Better get our paperwork and shit together then, yeah?" suggested Bates and grabbed the PDA closest to him.

Sheppard slid off the comfortable lap he was sitting on and settled on the floor between the Commander’s legs, then grabbed two PDAs - one for himself and one for Steve. They all then got busy with their respective reports on the day's events.

..........

Early next morning, Sheppard was sitting inside the Jumper helping the Air Force Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter to extract the data pertaining to their jaunt in Gemmond. He was transferring the flight records, blueprints of the Darts and Wraith Dart Carrier, all details about hull compositions, weapons, and other data, the scans and the footage the Jumper had managed to capture to Carter's PDA. When the data transfer finished, Samantha Carter went away, letting Sheppard know that they'd be called in for the debrief later on.

He knew that Kono and Steve had also prepared a comprehensible version from all the cam feeds they had on themselves during the mission as well. They had all submitted their detailed AARs to the SGC server already and were now waiting to be called to the briefing room for a Q&A session with the General and whoever else was present.

The summons came via Sergeant Harriman who came to fetch the SG-11 team leaders, Sheppard and McGarrett, into the main Briefing Room just after breakfast.

Briefing Room, SGC, Cheyenne Mountain - Colorado

Entering the Briefing Room, Sheppard experienced a feeling of déjà vu, since the atmosphere held the same intensity as his first briefing at the same place, several weeks ago.

This time there were more participants. Even in his BDUs, the bald Major General had an imposing presence. Brigadier General Jack O'Neill was sitting to his right and Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell was to his left. Next to O'Neill were Dr. Daniel Jackson and Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter with Teal'c sitting beside Mitchell. Dr. Rodney McKay was also present, busily typing on the laptop in front of him while munching on what looked like a blueberry muffin. Dr. Zelenka was sitting next to him trying hard to look like he had absolutely no association with McKay. SG-11 leaders had the seats on the opposite side of the big conference table, facing everyone, completing the assembly. There were two projector screens, on opposite sides, so no one had to twist their necks to see the feeds or any other data that was projected onto the screens. They also had their own PDAs or laptops with them, so they had ready access to anything they needed at any moment.

"General, you wanted to meet the trouble magnets. Well, here they are. The team leaders of SG-11." General O'Neill made an unorthodox introduction as they both entered the room and gathered in front of the conference table.

"You shouldn't complain much O'Neill, when you were the one who was bugging me for a group of special operators in your ranks. Now you've got some, and if they’re bringing extra workload for you, well, you've got no one else to blame," said General Hammond pleasantly.

"You know, it was more like Marshall's wish, come to think of it," O'Neill informed General Hammond. Colonel Marshall Sumner who was at the Earth Alpha site on an inspection, was not there to defend himself.

General Hammond shook his head in amusement, already much used to General O'Neill's eccentric ways, and turned to address SG-11." Anyway, gentlemen, it's a pleasure to finally meet you two. I have seen your personal files and the files of everyone in your team, of course, but I always like to meet trouble magnets in person, whenever I can manage. Please sit and make yourselves comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while," he informed the Major and the Lt. Commander.

"Major Sheppard, if you can please give a brief report of what took place in Gemmond?" he looked to Sheppard once they were seated.

Sheppard recounted the mission as ordered. He started from the point where they had to force the connection to Gemmond via the Jumper's DHD and detailed their entry to the hot zone. Then he briefly described the recon they conducted and the subsequent entry to the Wraith Carrier. Then he recounted the rescue operations and the entanglement with Wraith. He then summarized blowing up the ship, how they split up to accompany the Gemmondians and how the rest of them returned to the gate to report back to SGC, followed by the handover to Lt. Colonel Mitchell who showed up to take over the clean up. Once he finished, General Hammond turned to Mitchell.

"Lt. Colonel Mitchell, will you tell us what happened next?"

"Yes Sir. I went to Gemmond with SG-1, SG-3, SG-8, and SG-9. SG-3 was sent with the medical staff to the city to provide medical help and SG-8 went with them to help with the clean-up. I dropped off the Doctors McKay and Zelenka at the Dart crash sites along with Teal'c and SG-9 and took the Jumper to orbit to run a scan in near space. There were no other Wraith Spaceships in the vicinity. Then I returned to the city and stayed there to coordinate with the city council. I also spoke to some of those travelers who were taking refuge in Gemmond. They were from Holdus, Aegis, some even from Charos. They all had similar stories about this 'Culling', as they called it. It seems that this started about two weeks ago and there seem to be few other worlds targeted as well. So far they've been avoiding the technologically advanced planets though," continued Mitchell. "Then I took a trip to the village near the jungle where the rescued Gemmondians gathered with a couple of medical staff. They were all okay and being taken care of by the Nasyans. We spent the whole day in the city and the clean-up was rather quick, seeing as SG-11 got there pretty quickly and the Wraith didn't have much time for a larger attack. Then I collected the Doctors from where they were camping near crash sites and returned to the mountain for the debrief."

The General then turned his attention towards the two scientists;

"So Dr. McKay, Dr. Zelenka - any luck extracting the people stuck in those Darts?" he asked.

"Hmm, we've scanned those two Wraith Darts and found a way to connect with their interfaces. Basically, we’ve gone over the controls that dematerialize people, store their information, and then rematerialize them again when commanded to. It's a very complex process and requires a lot of power. Now, the Dart I scanned has five life signs and Radek's one has eight life signs. But according to the power readings we've got, those darts don't have enough power to rematerialize people on their own. But we can hook up a Naquadah generator into each of them and give a bit of extra oomph to restart the controls and activate the beam. Sort of like jump-starting a car battery." Rodney looked quite proud at having managed a properly dumbed-down report for the academically challenged.

"Ano, Rodney, we discussed this. There is a chance that those generators might not be the best way to restart those controls. You mustn't forget the biological components in those Darts - they are not like normal batteries that we can jump-start." Dr. Radek Zelenka pushed his spectacles further up his nose and reminded Rodney.

"I know, but if we regulate the levels and write a subroutine to abort if it gets over the power levels we need, it'd be fine." Rodney turned to face the Czech scientist and gestured with his muffin.

"A subroutine that we need to translate to match the coding on the interface. Yes, yes! It might work. But then we need..." Zelenka had already started typing something fast and McKay was leaning over to watch his screen.

"Ah, wait, there," he interrupted and the Czech said something unintelligible in his own language, still typing away. Now Rodney had abandoned his muffin and was also busy on his PDA while talking to Zelenka about code.

The two scientists had forgotten about the rest of the assembly and were completely immersed in their planning, typing, and conversing in increasingly complex scientific jargon. General Hammond let it continue for a while and then decided to interrupt when the scientists showed no signs of returning to the briefing. Out of all of them, only Carter seemed to be able to follow the dialog between them with an amused look on her face.

"As riveting as it is to be listening to you two gentlemen, can you please tell us whether this venture is possible or not? We really don't need to know the exact process," Hammond asked them both with great patience.

"Yes, General. We can do this. Maybe by tomorrow evening, we should be done. We will need a Naquadah generator though," said McKay, without looking up or without stopping his typing.

"Jack, can you accommodate that?" asked the Major General.

"Yeah, I'm sure we have one or two of those lying around here, somewhere," General Jack O'Neil replied, looking pointedly at Sergeant Harriman who confirmed with a firm nod.

"Well, then," started General Hammond, but was interrupted by Dr. Zelenka. "Can we be excused? We need to clean this up and get a proper program before we need to return to the planet."

"Yes, please. You may both take your leaves, doctors." A rather relieved General excused the pair without further delay. They both got up with their PDAs and left the room, bickering about the code and power levels.

"Commander, I was informed you have the footage of the entire operation?" he then inquired of McGarrett, who confirmed. "Now, Jack, I think this is something we should get all our Gate teams to start practicing. There is always one team or another who runs into something unexpected whenever they conduct Gate operations." He turned to the General.

"Yeah, I agree. But there is a concern, you know? What with the IOA and all their crap about respecting the privacy of the natives and such. SG-11 has a bit of leeway on this because they are a joint ops team and we had agreed to keep up their SEAL standards. So all their Gate missions go under Special-Operations per that agreement with the Navy. I think it's about time we took a long hard look at those pesky civilian regulations, especially since it's starting to look like trouble's brewing," said Jack O'Neill, for once looking completely serious.

"Hmm, I have a meeting with the IOA in a few days. I'll speak to the President as well before I meet with them. The chances are that we are going to have to raise the threat levels and will have to change some protocols accordingly, very soon," replied the General. He was already thinking about reaching out to the other races with advanced technologies and capabilities the earth had connections with; about this latest threat and ways to defend against it.

He then turned to Samantha Carter. "Carter, I'd like to review that footage now please."

Lt. Colonel Carter projected the video onto the screens on either side while Harriman dimmed the lights in the conference room. For the next 90 minutes or so, the entire conference room was quiet except for the sounds coming from the footage of the mission.

General O'Neill took it upon himself to break the thick silence that had descended in the Briefing Room at the end of the mission footage. "You know, I remember I sent SG-6 last year to Gemmond for the harvest celebrations. They brought back cake - really nice cake - and even nicer wine," he said wistfully, and then turned to where Sergeant Harriman was seated. "Walter, remind me next year when the time comes around, yeah?"

"Of course, General," the Sergeant replied with an equally serious air.

"That was an excellent bit of soldiering. My compliments to your team. Well done." General Hammond said. He was extremely impressed with the way the team handled the situation. He had harbored some concerns about how well they could mesh a SEAL team with an SGC team and this incident proved that it could be done quite seamlessly. He could see that each and every member brought a unique and impressive skill set to the team.

"Jack, I need a copy of this footage and all other data collected in a summarized report so I can present this to the president and the IOA. I might call an extra-planetary meeting to discuss this too. So be ready. And keep me posted if you get news from other planets on any encounters like this," He informed O'Neill. "So far, is there anything on the surveillance on those satellites and the Goa'uld activity?" he inquired.

"Nothing, but I believe this explains why they are waiting for the Wraith to stock up on supplies before starting whatever they are planning on. I have a feeling this might include an armada or two of alien fleets by the way things are going," said Jack O'Neill thoughtfully.

"The work on Prometheus is nearly completed. She will undergo her space trials in the next month, bringing our fleet to six. We shall see if we can persuade our allies to contribute as well. This information might just be what we need to apply that persuasion," General Hammond reflected. "All right people, thank you for your time. I will be in touch." He stood up, bringing the briefing to an end.

With that, everyone stood up as General George Hammond took his leave.

..........

It had been two days since the meeting with Major General George Hammond and SG-11 had just returned from a training session at the Alpha site, off-world. They had completed the medical checkups, cleaned themselves up, and were seated around a long table enjoying their dinner in the mess hall when Steve's phone started ringing.

The call came from a landline bearing a Hawaiian prefix. "Is this Mr. Steven McGarrett?" The voice was female. Steve winced at the 'Mr.' involuntarily, not used to being addressed as such.

"Yes, that's me. Who is this?" he asked.

"Sir, my name is Diana Curtis and I'm calling from Honolulu General Hospital. You’re listed as the next of kin for Captain John McGarrett. He was admitted to the hospital yesterday when he suffered a heart attack. Sir, his condition is stable for now. But we'd like you to be here and visit him if it is at all possible?” The professional no-nonsense voice delivered the news in such a calm manner, it took Steve a few seconds to register what the woman was saying and the seriousness of the situation.

"WHAT?" he barked into the phone, when he had recovered from the shock. The team sitting around him all stopped what they were doing and stared at Steve.

"Mr. McGarrett, please calm down. Your father's condition is stable for the moment. He was brought to the hospital on time. Are you able to make it here safely as soon as possible? Is there anyone who could bring you here?" The hospital admin on the line tried to placate the very agitated SEAL.

"Uh? Yes, yes. I'm not in Hawaii at the moment. But yes, I'll be there as soon as I can. Thank you for calling and letting me know," Steve collected himself enough to reply. His mind was still reeling at the shocking news he had just received. He had called his old man only two days ago and he had sounded fine on the phone - even happier at the fact that Steve was stationed somewhere in the mainland and could call home more or less on a regular basis.

"You’re welcome sir," the voice said crisply and disconnected the call. Steve stared at the phone in his hand dumbly, his mind refusing to cooperate and start being useful for the moment.

"Steve, what was that all about?" The touch on his arm and the concerned face of John - which was quite close to his - brought him back from the stupor he had got lost in. Steve stared at him for a moment and then found the words to reply.

"That was the Honolulu General. My dad, he's in the hospital, he had a heart attack," Steve said in a dull tone, still not able to believe that it was real. He felt John's grip tighten around his arm at the revelation.

"What? When? How?" Questions bombarded him incredulously. Steve took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to bring his turbulent mind into some semblance of control and deal with the situation.

"I don't know, but I need to go there now," he said decisively, standing up.

"Hey, Steve, hey, they didn't say it's bad, did they? Just don't go by yourself." John was also standing with him and he realized John was holding him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. He grabbed onto John automatically, his presence so close to him, helping Steve to ground himself. He concentrated on what John was saying to him and could hear the regret in his voice at not being able to go with Steve. They were the team leaders of SG-11 and one had to be at the mountain if the other was going to be unavailable.

"Don't worry man, I'll go with him," Danny was also standing up and looking worried. He also looked determined to follow the SEAL home no matter what Steve had to say about it.

"I need to go pack a bag, and yeah, Danny, you can come with," said Steve, starting to mentally list the things he needed to do in order to get moving.

"I'll help," Kono volunteered.

"Let me talk to Walter and contact Peterson AFB - there might be a transport or something going that way. It'd be quicker," Sheppard suggested, and was already moving towards the elevator to go to level 27. "I'll come back and see you in your quarters," he threw back over his shoulder as he entered the elevator.

"Shit, I need to apply for leave," said Steve, watching John disappear into the lift.

"Don't stress Commander, we'll take care of it." Bates patted him on the back and Cadman nodded along. "We will apply on behalf of you two. This is an emergency. So it'll be fine," said Vega. Then she and Bates both took off towards the HR offices to handle the paperwork for their Commander's emergency leave.

"Thanks, guys," Steve shouted after them. And then he hurried towards his own quarters with the rest of his team tagging along. He already had a duffel packed for emergencies and only needed to add a few more things. He tried calling his dad’s friend but the call went to voicemail. He figured that he could try contacting them once he reached the hospital. He wouldn't even think about calling his sister until he had the chance to see his father and knew more about his condition.

..........

Within 20 minutes, Steve and Danny were both waiting by the exit at Cheyenne mountain for the vehicle that had been signed off for them to be delivered to Peterson AFB. Walter had made the arrangements. There was an army cargo plane making a training run to Hickam and he had managed to arrange transport for the two SEALs with it. They'd make their own way back after the visit to the hospital.

"Steve, listen, it's gonna be alright. You hear me? It'll be fine! Your dad's a tough guy, he'll be fine." Sheppard was holding his face in his hands and Steve found himself nodding along to the assurances pouring out of his boyfriend. Then John kissed him softly on the lips and Steve sighed, leaning into the comfort. He rested his forehead on John's and wished with all his heart to wake up and realize that this was all just a bad dream.

"And don't forget to call, yeah?" John implored as he straightened and very reluctantly let go of Steve.

"Sure John, I'll call," He promised as the SUV came to a stop in front of them. He and Danny both got in and seated themselves. He then gave a short wave to John who was still standing there by the exit watching them leave. Steve hoped what John had told him would be true, that his dad would be able to make it through. He was not ready to lose his only remaining parent. ‘God please, not again! Not so soon...' His mind was repeating the mantra as Steve let out a weary sigh and closed his eyes.

[starrybouquet]

The Scorns of Time

The Stargate throws SG-1 into the future.

For Sam/Jack Ship Day 2020. This grew waaay longer than intended, and Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c begged for their own chapters. So this is now a WIP. I'm sorry. XD Hope you enjoy. :)

Read on AO3 or under the cut:

“Daniel. You’re late,” Jack O’Neill said impatiently, tapping his P90 against his thigh as Daniel joined the rest of SG-1 in the ‘Gate room.

“Sorry, guys. I forgot to eat dinner--didn’t realize it was time to gear up yet.” Daniel rubbed his eyes blearily. “Why do we have to ‘Gate out so late, again?”

“Carter?” Jack turned to his left.

“P7X-047 has a thin atmosphere, so it gets cold at night, despite having a temperate climate during the day,” she explained. “But it’s much larger than Earth, so one day there is equivalent to roughly three Earth days. Our mission was scheduled for 2330 in order to maximize daylight. The sun rose on P7X-047 just-”

She was interrupted by the kawoosh of the Stargate. “SG-1, you have a go,” Hammond’s voice boomed through the speaker.

Jack gave a lazy salute and trudged up the ramp beside Teal’c, Carter and Daniel right behind them.

They stepped through the blue puddle into a room. The room had no windows, and was eerily silent, lit only by dim yellow lights. The walls were lined with bronze plaques and display cases, marching down far into the gloom.

"Uh...Carter?" Jack swung his P90 around. “I was promised a sunrise.”

Carter shook her head, alarmed. "This isn't P7X-047, sir."

Jack raised his eyebrow in an unspoken question.

"Sir, I don't know what happened. The dialing sequence was completely normal."

He sighed. Why couldn't they ever do anything the easy way? "Alright. Daniel, dial us back."

"O'Neill," Teal'c said from his left. "There does not appear to be a dial home device in the vicinity."

"Carter!" Jack swung back around to scowl at his 2IC.

She shrugged helplessly. "The MALP showed visual confirmation of a DHD, sir. But this definitely isn't P7X-047."

"Uh, guys?" Daniel said, in the tone that tended to make Jack do a mental count of how much ammo they had. "You might want to see this."

The three other members of SG-1 trooped over to where Daniel was standing, inspecting one of the plaques. He turned, eyes wide and befuddled behind his wire-rimmed glasses, and gestured to the left side of the large plaque.

Jack's hand spasmed on his P90, and beside him he felt Carter tense.

There, mounted on the wall and chiseled out in bronze, was a picture of them.

"Daniel," Jack enunciated carefully. "Why are we here?" He waved his P90 at the display.

"Jack, it's in English!”

Carter peered at the plaque.

"Sir, Daniel's right. And...it's talking about us."

"What?"

"At the inception of Stargate Command in 1997, a flagship exploration team was established under the command of Colonel Jack O'Neill. Known as SG-1, they became Earth's first and most vital line of defense against the Goa'uld," Carter read. Her shocked voice echoed in the silence of the room.

"It's surprisingly detailed and entirely accurate, at least so far," Daniel offered.

Carter looked around the room wildly, and then her worried blue eyes locked onto his own.

"Sir, I think we've traveled to the future."

“The future.”

She nodded. "Just like when we were thrown back to 1969, a solar flare must have occurred at the exact moment we went through the 'Gate. Except this time, it threw us forward in time instead of backwards. Sir, we're still on Earth."

"Then where is everybody?"

"I have no idea. We could be hundreds of years in the future. The SGC could be abandoned." Carter was talking quickly, and he could see the gears spinning in her mind, thinking of all the possibilities.

"So...what do we do?"

"I guess the only thing we can do is read the plaques,” Daniel offered. “This is clearly a museum exhibit of some kind--maybe it'll give us a clue where and how the Stargate can be operated in this time frame."

"Museum time. Great. Thought museums were only for rocks."

"These aren't artifacts, Jack. Well, they are. But to us, they're our life.”

"Hold on, Daniel. I don't know if we want to do that,” Carter said carefully.

"Not seeing any other way to get out of here, Carter,” Jack put in mildly.

"Well, we can't pollute the timeline. What if we learn something about our future that causes us to change it? We should try to make contact with someone, get help."

"Daniel Jackson, O’Neill, Major Carter," Teal’c called from behind them. “There is something of interest here.”

They trooped over to Teal’c, who gestured to an inconspicuous sign mounted on a pole to the side of the ‘Gate.

Daniel inspected the sign. "This is written in Asgard. It says, 'this is a shrine to those who called themselves the Tau'ri. Though the rest of their planet is no longer habitable and the species has ceased to exist as it once was, we have preserved their history as they had recorded it, in hopes that other descendants of the Ancients may come of age and learn their history.'" He turned to the rest of the team. "Earth is abandoned."

Jack sighed. "Guess we're not getting any help. Carter, what if we just...promise not to tell anyone? Pinky swear?"

"I don't see another option, sir," she agreed, moving to the wall and beginning to read.

At first, it was interesting and a little gratifying to read about herself. Sam was honored and amazed that of all the things someone had chosen to memorialize and preserve the history of them--SG-1. She skimmed through the parts she already knew, figuring there wouldn't be much information there. As she approached the part about her future hesitantly, she noticed a section titled Life Outside the SGC. Apprehensively, she began to read.

As was common during the early decades of the SGC, Samantha Carter lived a quiet, solitary life outside Cheyenne Mountain. SGC personnel in general during this time struggled to maintain personal relationships when their life’s work was top-secret yet all-encompassing.

They got that right. Sam stole a glance at the profile of her CO, studying his own display, before continuing her reading.

Though the reveal of the Stargate program to the general public removed these barriers for most SGC personnel, Carter’s meager off-base presence would stay the same for the rest of her life. Due to her overnight fame as one of the most prominent faces of the SGC, she retreated even further from Earthside life after the program went public. Carter never married and kept a tight lid on her friendships, even with the other former members of SG-1.

After retirement, Carter became increasingly reflective on her life outside the SGC. Indeed, a retired Maj. Gen. Carter, in one of her last public interviews, lamented, "I was so focused on the stars that I refused to see what was right in front of me here on Earth, even when I needed it most." Much speculation has resulted from this cryptic comment, and the many similar ones that appeared regularly in the last years of her life.

Since her death, General Carter has become one of the most-studied heroes of all time. Military strategists are fascinated by her tactics, scientists by her numerous scientific achievements far ahead of her time, and historians by the duality of the various facets of Carter’s personality, and the psychological effects of being, effectively, a living legend at a scale previously confined to superhero comics.

Well, that was cheery. She repressed a shudder at the wrongness of the entire situation and headed for the next display.

After an hour of perusing the displays, they hadn’t found anything that gave any indication of how the Stargate could be dialed out. A quick exploration of the rest of the base revealed that all the rooms were either empty or stuffed with boxes, and the dialing computer was gone. Since they'd 'gated out so late, the Colonel announced that they'd all get some sleep and continue their search for a way to dial out in the morning. Finding two VIP quarters complete with beds and sheets in a display on "diplomacy at the SGC", they crashed the display and bunked down for the night. Daniel and Teal'c shared a room in order to spare the others from Daniel's snoring (it never bothered Teal'c’s kelnoreem), leaving Jack and Sam to share the other.

Sam tossed and turned for well over an hour before giving up on sleep. She sat up quietly, trying not to disturb the sleeping Colonel on the other side of the room, and made her way to the conference room. Usually, she’d have gone to her lab to think, but she’d found that her lab had apparently been demolished at some point, as all that stood in the space now was a conference room.

Which was why she was here, arms crossed, looking out of the viewing window blindly. That sentence she’d read kept echoing through her head, in an approximation of her mother's voice. I was so focused on the stars that I refused to see what was right in front of me here on Earth, even when I needed it most.

She'd never minded being a workaholic. Especially not since she'd begun working on the Stargate project. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of as a child looking up at the stars, better than being simply an astrophysicist and better than being an astronaut. And though she sometimes wanted someone to come home to, to share her bed at night and her shower in the morning (and here she tried very hard not to identify that “someone” in her head), she didn't think that was the be-all end-all of her life. She had the best friends anyone could ask for, she loved her job--all of it. And at the end of the day, there was no way anything could ever matter more than saving the world. She knew that.

Still...she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even when I needed it most.

She heard footsteps, and saw the Colonel in the reflection of the glass.

“Carter?” He stepped further into the room.

“Sir,” she said, not turning away from the window. He came to stand beside her, hands shoved in pockets.

“Whatcha doin’?”

She sighed. “Just thinking about what I read today. It’s not every day you get to read a biography written years after your death.”

“Ah. Don’t think too much about it, Carter. All that time stuff--it can change, right? This is just one possible future, or whatever.”

Sam smiled a little. She doubted he realizes how much he revealed with that little piece of advice. He may not have been an astrophysicist, but Jack O’Neill was whip-smart, even if he did his best to hide it. “You’re right, sir. I guess it’s just hard not to think about it.”

They stood there for a while, just looking down at the ‘Gate. From this distance, the dim lighting and the clutter of museum displays around the room made the ‘Gate look more like the centerpiece of the dusty basement of an antique collector rather than an otherworldly piece of alien technology. The Colonel flicked at the dust particles gathered on the windowsill, letting her have her space.

“My life--it wasn’t a happy one,” she said eventually. “The plaques talk a lot about professional success. But in all the interviews, all the artifacts, I was bitter and cold. I said I regretted a lot of things.”

She turned anguished eyes onto him. “Am I really that selfish? They called me a superhero, said I saved the world. And I sat there, in those interviews--”

Her eyes moved back to the ‘Gate, and she felt her cheeks heat with shame, because he was her commanding officer and even worse, one of the people whose opinion she cared about most in all the world, but she couldn’t stop the words pouring out of her mouth.

“And the worst part of it? I agree with her, the Sam in the pictures. I agree. I looked at all those medals on my dress blues, and I read those interviews, and I agreed with her--me. This isn’t some alternate reality, it’s my future, and I don’t want to be some lonely husk of myself, just General Carter, no Sam. But I know it will happen, because it has happened. The case below the plaque about my life after my retirement--that’s all it has. A set of dress blues.”

She blinked back tears.

And then the Colonel--Jack--shifted towards her, as if he couldn’t help himself, and wrapped his arms carefully around her. She buried her head in his shoulder and relaxed into his embrace.

“It’s not a crime to want to be happy, Carter,” he said softly.

She stood in his arms like that for a while, much longer than she ever had before, and he seemed content to hold her, just letting her breathe.

Eventually, Sam felt tiredness settling into her bones. Her breath hitched, and she stifled a yawn.

"Think you can sleep now?" the Colonel asked, surprisingly relaxed given their position.

"I'm not sure."

"C'mon." He let his arms fall away, placed a hand at the small of her back, and steered her out of the conference room and back to their quarters.

He nudged her back toward her bed, pulled back the sheet, and nodded. "Go on, get in."

She tugged off her jacket and slid between the sheets, and he pulled them up and tucked her in carefully. Sam looked quizzically up at him, ready to apologize for falling apart, but there was nothing but care in his brown eyes. No discomfort, nothing.

Well, maybe something a little more intense than care that she couldn't name.

Sam thought he was heading back to bed himself. Which was why she was shocked when he circled to the other side of her bed instead, and lay down on his side facing her.

She rolled on her side as well, and their eyes locked.

"You won't end up alone, Carter," he whispered, never breaking eye contact. "I promise."

And his gaze was so intense, brown eyes fastened on her so completely, that she believed him.

"C'mere," Jack said in that same low tone, and pulled her toward him. He turned onto his back and settled her head into his shoulder, one arm securely around her waist, hand splayed against her back.

Sam didn't protest, didn't say anything, just turned her nose into the cotton of his black t-shirt and snuggled closer, sneaking a leg across one of his.

And in that moment, it didn't matter when they were, whether they were stuck centuries in the future. Her best friends in all the world were right down the hall, and she was in bed, in Jack's arms. And that was more than enough.

[revolution-john]

Madam Dixon

by STEVE LAMBERT

What set the whole thing off was Sam Heintzman leaving a vase of long-stem roses on her front step. It was early still, around seven, and she heard something outside the front door. She peeked out the window and saw Sam waddling back towards his place across the street.  They were beautiful, the roses, and the ring in the middle of the vase were all open and singing, and the ones around the lip, for some reason, huddled in on themselves like little old ladies wrapped in shawls.  A tiny card taped to the vase read, “Let me know if you need anything.  My deepest sympathy.  –Sam.” She leaned in, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

Sam, who had been an engineer at the Cape, was recently retired.  His job had been something to do with making the tiles on the front of the space shuttles.  But now he alternated between working in his yard and sitting in a lawn chair in his driveway, drinking canned beer and admiring his landscaping while the sprinklers ran. He had almost no fingernails, and his fingers were nubby at the ends.  Nubbiness, she’d often thought, was his defining feature. On more than one occasion, she’d seen him pop a beer tab with his house key. She couldn’t imagine “needing” anything from him.

Rich and Sam hadn’t exactly been friends, but living so close to each other for so many years, they’d became steady acquaintances, treated each other in that excessively cordial way that people do who don’t know each other intimately; all those handshakes and nods and winks and courteous chuckles—affirming gestures, like two salesmen.  Plus they both spoke the dull Latin of lawn care.  She recalled how on late afternoons the two of them would walk slowly around their or Sam’s yard, each with a can of beer in hand, pointing at various imposters, pulling them up and naming them: tickseed, dollar weed, chick weed, etc., etc.  She didn’t know the language.  It was an easy way for them to be, but she saw the way Sam looked at her sometimes.  She thought Rich noticed, too, but he was not the jealous type.  Never was one to get territorial.  

              She didn’t really feel like visiting, but probably should, she thought, go thank him for the roses before it got too late.  For some reason, she thought about how hard she’d found it to be alone at night, especially not being a sound sleeper. That was the most pronounced absence she felt in the wake of Rich’s death—his not being there, next to her, when she lay in bed at night.  It was just her now when she’d wake up at two or three in the morning; her and the intermittent sounds of the night settled down around the house, gently crushing it into the dirt, like a child slowly pressing its soft, fat hand down on a toy it has decided is no longer fun to play with.

She glanced over at the vase of roses on the bar, where she’d put them, and decided to walk over to Sam’s and invite him for lunch.  Why not? She thought. It’s a neighborly gesture. It would be an imposition for me, to go to lunch, but it would probably mean a lot to him. Anyway, it’s the right thing to do.  

 He answered the door in his usual attire: plaid shorts, white V-neck and flip-flops—big grin on his round face.  “Madam Dixon,” he said in a voice like a retired boxer’s, and bowed, his rubber flip-flops squealing under the strain.  

“Sam,” she said, “the flowers are lovely.  Thank you for them—and the card.  It was very nice of you.” She didn’t mean to sound dismissive but thought maybe she had. She hoped he hadn’t noticed.

“Come in, come in,” he said, moving to the side, and she reluctantly stepped into the dark living room. She found herself wondering if was her first time inside his house. A couch hunkered to her immediate right, and a small hallway stretched out beyond it.  Light funneled in from the back of the house. Particles floated and swirled around in the rays of light like nebulae.

“Thank you,” she said.  No, I must have been in here before, she thought, but couldn’t think of a single time she had.

“Have a seat.” He pointed to the couch, and then touched a stout finger to his nose, as if nudging it into place.

“It’s rather dark in here, don’t you think, Sam.”

“I guess it is if you’re coming in from outside,” he said, and he opened the blinds. Light slanted in in thin layers. He winced a bit.

“How’s that, madam?”

“You don’t have to call me that, you know,” she said.  Now that Rich is gone, she thought, it seems silly somehow.  She had been “madam” to his “Colonel.”  

“Oh, it’s just for fun,” he said.  “Would you like something to drink?  A cold adult beverage, perhaps?  I have some Busch in the fridge.”

“No, thank you, Sam. I just stopped by—”

“I believe I’ll have one, if you don’t mind.”

While he was gone she noticed a very large framed photograph on the wall, opposite the couch, of a space shuttle blasting off of a launch pad.  She pointed it out when he returned with his beer.

“Oh, her.  She’s the Columbia. A real beautiful craft.  The first to go to space.…April twelve, nineteen eighty-one.” He clicked his tongue then sipped his beer.  She found it mildly irritating that he referred to it as “her,” but didn’t dwell on it because she realized something.

“Rich took me to that launch, Sam.  We were there, at the—what do you call it—where the bleachers are? Where everyone watches?”

“The Causeway?” He slightly tipped the beer can and slurped, like he was trying to be extra careful not to spill any.

“That’s it. The NASA Causeway.  That’s where we were. We’d been transferred to Patrick about, I don’t know, a month prior—from Barksdale, in Louisiana.  He was so excited about that—getting to see that first shuttle launch.”

She remembered: on the way to the Cape, Rich driving huddled up close to the steering wheel, pointing up at the sky, and her just sitting there listening. “Folks who’ve been to rocket launches say you can watch it the whole way up. You can see everything: the glint of sunlight on the metal, the tower of smoke, like a string of popcorn, like on a Christmas tree—everything.  Takes maybe an hour to disappear, to dissipate.  Course, this’ll be a little different.”  Neither of them knew exactly what a shuttle was, but he made it sound much more interesting than she would have found it all by herself. The car swerved a little under the strain of Rich’s excitement.

And it was something. And crowded with people—people with binoculars and telescopes and wearing sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats and men in shorts and Hawaiian-print shirts, open at the front.  One woman chased a little boy, who was about three, in circles.  She was short, but pretty, and had on a black one-piece bathing suit.  The little boy chuckled as his young mother chased after him, one hand keeping her sun hat on her head. And they all watched it lift off and go up and it all seemed so slow, but it wasn’t slow, it was fast, hundreds of miles per hour, but from where they stood everything was happening in slow motion, beautiful and vivid and big.

“It was a big deal, Madam. Very exciting.”  Sam walked closer to the photo, swigging as he moved, like a kid with a glass of milk. She half expected him to start blowing bubbles in his beer. “Who knows,” he said, “the guy or gal who took this picture might have been standing right next to you.” He looked away from the photo. “Barksdale,” he said, and scratched at the top of his blotchy bald head. “Seems like I’ve been there…”

She watched him and wait for more, but nothing followed.

“Sam,” she said, “I was wondering.  Do you have any lunch plans?” It seemed absurd the second she said it. Of course he didn’t. She imagined him opening a can of tuna and eating straight out of it with a fork.

“Oh, well,” he said.  He put the beer can down on the coffee table and scratched at his head again.  He moved closer to the wall with the photo of the shuttle on it. He put a hand on the wall, like he was bracing himself for a dizzy spell.

This can’t be happening, she thought.  He isn’t even attractive. He’s an old troll. I don’t like him a bit, to be honest. Drinking beer this early in the day.  She got a flush feeling and her face felt warm.  He thinks I’m a sad, pathetic old widow.

“I do, as a matter of fact, Marie.  I’m going out to the—” He looked at his watch.  “And won’t be back till—Maybe we can—”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said.  She stood up, shook her head.  “Really. It’s fine.”  She thought she might start crying, which was completely out of the question.  This is not a rejection, she told herself. It’s just bad timing.

“Well,” he said, and he smoothed the palms of his hands across his shirt front.

“No need to explain, Sam.  It’s fine,” she said, smiling. She found that she was pressing on her hair with one hand. She made herself stop. “Rain check,” she added, without having thought about it beforehand.

“Yes!” he said, happy to have a word for the awkwardness he felt.  “Rain check, indeed, madam.”

 She watched from her living room window as Sam got into his burgundy Chrysler and pulled out and sped off down the road and out of sight.  Where is he going so fast? She thought.  She picked one of the roses from the center of the bouquet and smelled of it.  Its scent was so faint that she couldn’t think of a word to describe it.  He’d said he wouldn’t be back till late.

 She’d loved Rich, she often thought, because he made her feel like somebody. In the beginning, when they were dating, she’d felt unfamiliar to herself when she was with him. Later, after they were married, the wife of an Air Force officer, she felt confident and important. Initially, anyway. She loved him for that, for that gift he probably didn’t even consider a gift.  She loved it better than any jewelry or flowers or exotic getaway. It felt almost permanent, and it was real. But things always change. Things didn’t get better or worse—they just changed.  They were two people in a habituation together. She continued to love him, and she supposed he still loved her.  But towards the end it wasn’t a gift so much as an ill-fitting pair of jeans you can’t bring yourself to give away because you are sure you’ll fit back into them some day.

 She waited till dusk.  She put on dark clothes and her old running sneakers and grabbed the flashlight out of the catchall drawer in the kitchen. She preemptively took two Ibuprofen. If I have to do any climbing or crawling or anything I’ll be sore tomorrow, she thought. It was very quiet outside.  

She checked his side door, the one that goes into the garage, and it was unlocked, of course. No one locked up in their neighborhood. There was no need to. It smelled like gasoline and fertilizer in the garage, and the smell made her feel lightheaded.  She lifted the mat at the foot of the door that led from the garage into the house, but didn’t find a key. she shone the flashlight around until she saw a little metal hook on the wall, to the left of the door, with a ring of keys hanging on it. She tried five before she found the right one. Before she turned the key in the lock she took a moment to consider what Rich would think of this.  Presumably, she thought, he could be watching me at this very moment.  What do you think, Rich? she whispered. It gave her the creeps to hear her voice in the dark, stinky garage.  She heard something scurry and thought rat or possum and inserted the key and quickly entered the house.

In the yellow glow of the flashlight bulb the photograph looked mythic. She immediately had an urge to cry, standing there looking at it with what amounted to a spotlight on it.  For the first time in a month she was feeling the full weight of her grief. Before she knew it she was sitting on Sam’s couch looking up at the photograph, sobbing—like a proper widow, she thought.  What an odd place for mourning?  But the photo captured something, and not just the shuttle launch—that was secondary—but the color and feel of that day, that point in time.  The quality of light.  A small bit of her life, as it had been once, paused—a crystalized memory she’d forgotten she had.

She got up and walked over to the picture and put the flashlight right on it. Maybe if I look long enough I’ll find us, she thought, me and Rich, with our hands shielding the sun from our eyes, watching the shuttle climb up towards space.  Maybe I’ll find the petite young mother and her little boy. She looked and squinted and searched the photograph.  But she needed more time with it.  Most of the onlookers were blurry. It was too dark now. The shuttle, lifting off, and the dense exhaust, were the most vivid things. She stared so hard that things got distorted and she started to zone out. She imagined Sam ripping his nubby fingernails off and sticking them to the black nose of the spacecraft.  He ripped one off and stuck it on and went for another one.  Then he took a sip of beer. Disgusting old troll, she thought. Who drinks beer in the middle of the day, anyway?  

A few minutes passed and she pulled herself together. She sat and stared at the huge thing hanging there on the wall until a light from outside grew and intensified and she realized that it was the headlights from Sam’s car, shining in through the window as he pulled into the driveway.

She wasn’t sure what to do. She heard the car door slam. She turned off the flashlight and put it in her back pocket and carefully hoisted the photograph off the wall and crept, bent over, to the door that let out to the garage. From inside the garage, she heard the key in the front door, heard it turn and the door open. Sam sighed as he closed it. She slowly put the keys back on the hook by the door in the garage. She paused and heard an interior door, a bedroom door. She left the garage and stole quickly across the street, tip-toed home in the dark, the picture under her arm, like a cat burglar.  But what I’ve done doesn’t feel like stealing, she thought, as she sat the photograph against the wall in her bedroom. She took the flashlight out of her pocket and sat on the edge of her bed. It feels like something else. Feels like a resurrection.

()

Steve Lambert’s writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Saw Palm, Chiron Review, New Contrast (South Africa), The Pinch, Broad River Review, Longleaf Review, Emrys Journal, BULL Fiction, Into the Void, Cowboy Jamboree, Cortland Review, and many other places. In 2015 he won third place in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction contest and in 2018 he won Emrys Journal’s Nancy Dew Taylor Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of four Pushcart Prize nominations and was a Rash Award in Fiction finalist. He is the author of the poetry collection Heat Seekers (CW Books, 2017), the chapbook In Eynsham (CW Books, 2020) and the fiction collection The Patron Saint of Birds (Cowboy Jamboree, 2020). His novel, Philisteens, will be out May 2021, and his second full-length poetry collection, The Shamble, will be out in October, both with Close to The Bone Publishing. He lives in Northeast Florida, with his wife and daughter, where he teaches part-time at the University of North Florida.  

[writehardwhumpharder]

FMA fic - Appendicitis and Fever 7k+ words

Ed didn’t think much of it when he woke up with a slight stomach ache for the second day in a row. Between researching the stone and doing missions for Mustang, he was beyond stressed and wondered how something like this hadn’t come up sooner. Al, of course, was as lively as ever, not the least bit exhausted from their nonstop work. In fact, he only seemed to get more hopeful and determined with every hour they spent reading in the library. Edward couldn’t stand to let his brother down so he put a smile on his face and got dressed. They had an early train to catch but once they were on their way to the next town in their search, Ed could spend the four hour train ride taking it easy.

“Are you ready to go brother? I don’t want to miss the train!” Al called excitedly from outside Ed’s room. They had plenty of time to get to the station and they both knew it but Edward tried to mimic his brother’s enthusiasm, throwing his coat on even quicker, the budding pain in his stomach long forgotten.

“Yeah Al just let me grab my things,” Edward laughed, grabbing the small suitcase tucked away in the corner. They probably wouldn’t be gone long enough to need a change of clothes but you never know and Ed used the rest of the space in the suitcase for a couple books and some paper that he’d need to write his report for Mustang and any other important notes he had.

Ed reluctantly allowed his to brother carry his bag for him. If he was being completely honest with himself hauling the heavy bag was making his side ache a little bit. Despite not having a human face, Al’s expression seemed to brighten at the thought of being useful. His soulfire eyes glowed happily. Ed wished he felt that good. Unlike Al, the smile on his face was a carefully constructed mask made for the sake of his brother.

They walked to the station and boarded the train fifteen minutes before its scheduled departure. Al stowed the bag on the shelf above them and sat down. Ed sank heavily into the seat across from him.

“Are you okay, brother?” Al asked, picking up on Ed’s subtle discomfort.

“I’m fine. But I make it a point not to wake up before eight and today is no exception. I’m gonna take a nap, you won’t be too bored will you?” Ed asked as he settled across the bench. His small stature allowed him to lay down on the seat easily. They had gotten up earlier than usual that morning so Al thought nothing of it when Ed laid down and closed his eyes.

“Go ahead,” he said, turning to face out the window where the city would shift into rolling hills as they went by once the train got moving. After everyone else was settled on board, the train jolted to life sending a sharp but quick pain through Edward’s stomach. He contained the grimace before his face could react and immediately went back to resting. Maybe he ate something that didn’t agree with him. Again Edward dismissed the thought in favor of drifting back into a light sleep.

Al was perfectly content to look out the window as they passed some farms and smaller towns. The hills were dotted with sheep and cows and Al wished brother was awake so he could point them out to him. But Ed was still sleeping which was a little odd. It was nearly eleven and Ed never had any breakfast. Al decided he’d rather wake up his brother with some food and coffee to offer him, knowing how cranky he got when he was hungry, so he got up and headed to the car with food and drinks. He picked out a bagel that looked good and ordered a coffee, pouring in just a hint of milk and a lot of sugar, just they way his brother liked it. Solemnly, Al thought about how he couldn’t smell or taste the food he was holding as he made his way back to where Ed was sleeping. To his surprise Ed was awake and sitting up when he got back.

“I was just about to start looking for you,” Ed said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Since Al himself wouldn’t need to leave to go to the bathroom or grab food he was surprised to wake up and see him gone.

“I just went to get you some breakfast, I figured you’d be hungry when you woke up,” Al said cheerfully, setting the bagel and coffee down in front of him. Ed was surprised to find that he actually wasn’t hungry but Al had gone through the trouble of getting it for him so he’d eat every last bite of it. He also knew that hungry or not his automail needed constant fuel to function properly.

“Thanks Al, this looks great,” he said taking a large bite from the bagel. It didn’t taste bad, but it didn’t taste good either. He wolfed down the food and coffee though like he always did, not wanting to worry Al. Which was stupid because there was nothing to worry about.

“Do you think we’ll find anything here?” Al asked suddenly. Edward drew his attention away from the window.

“I don’t think we’re going to pop in, grab the stone, then head back to Central but I’m sure we’ll find out something important that gets us a little closer to the stone,” Ed said with what he thought was a reasonable amount of hope. That was how these things usually went. They would go to a small town looking for the stone and inevitably find some kind of trouble. If there was anything the brothers could do for the people they would do it, using their alchemy to quickly fix things in desperate need of repair. And in the unlikeliest of places they found some important piece of information which took them right back to the library and Mustang’s office respectively.

Edward couldn’t be more relieved when the train finally rolled to a stop. He was starting to get motion sick. Al followed Ed off, carrying the suitcase with ease. Edward paused to take a deep breath, the air was just so refreshing and cold. It took some kind of weight off his shoulders.

“What is it?” Al asked.

“The weather is perfect today, being in the city makes me forget just how nice fresh air is,” Ed said. Al didn’t comment, he had nothing to say about the wind that he couldn’t feel. Ed’s heart sank, “Sorry…” he started.

“Don’t apologize,” Al said quickly, already knowing where his brother’s mind was going. There wasn’t a single day that Ed didn’t regret what he did, it should have been him. Al seemingly read his mind again, “If you were the one that lost your body, I wouldn’t have been able to bind your soul like you did for me, then I’d have to live without you. I wouldn’t want that. This way we can still be together, and we’ll both get our bodies back.” Al said.

Edward wondered just how his brother always managed to stay so positive. Maybe he was right, there was no use dwelling on it now. Why was he so emotional all of a sudden anyway?

Edward quickly shoved his feelings aside, mental and otherwise, and proceeded forward, “Come on, let’s go find this alchemist.”

***

The sun was now high in sky and the pleasant breeze hadn’t gone away but Ed felt like it was only getting warmer and warmer outside. He was glad that Al couldn’t feel things like temperature because he certainly would have questioned it when Ed was forced to take his coat off.

“Man, the sun really came out since we got here,” Ed commented casually as they walked through the small town. The cobblestone streets weren’t quite wide enough for cars so everyone walked to and from work. They were looking for a retired author whose notes on alchemy they had come across in the Central library. Thankfully they hadn’t come looking for a fight, the promise of information on the philosopher’s stone their only reason for the visit. Given the ever present cramp in Ed’s side which ached with every step he was glad he wouldn’t have to do any serious alchemy.

Ed pulled the scribbled note out of his jacket pocket and double checked the address. The house in front of them was looking a little worse for wear, not at all what they expected of a renowned scientist and author. Then again if he moved all the way out here he probably wasn’t trying to draw too much attention to himself. When they ran the idea past Colonel Bastard he said that the man had been very cooperative with the military in the past and probably didn’t pose a threat. Ed and Al were still a little on guard though as Ed approached the door, Al standing just a few steps behind him.

“Mr. Haruta?” Ed called as he knocked on the door. The door opened abruptly and Ed almost stumbled inside, finding a gun aimed right at his chest. Every muscle in his body froze up and he readied himself to jump out of the way. A startled looking man stared down at him behind a pair of glasses.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, no one has called me that name in a long time,” he sighed, lowering the gun, “You must be the Elric brothers, do come in.” he said politely as if he’d been expecting them.

Ed and Al exchanged looks, “How did you-“

“It’s my job to know these things, I may be retired but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep up with the news. What brings you here?” Mr. Haruta asked. Ed and Al stepped inside hesitantly, understanding that this may be a conversation he wouldn’t like to have on his porch in plain view.

“My brother and I have been reading some of your books on alchemy and have a few questions.” Ed explained with a smile. The older man gestured for them to sit down which Ed gladly did. Being off his feet did help a little with the growing pain in his stomach that sat like a ball of lead weighing him down. Despite his long nap this morning Ed was oddly exhausted. The couch dipped beside him as Al sat down.

“Which books would those be?” Mr. Haruta asked, sitting down in an armchair across from them.

“The fifth volume, specifically the part where you theorize about the making of a philosopher’s stone.” Ed said cautiously. Normally he wouldn’t lay it all out like that but he was hoping to catch the train back to Central later today and they didn’t have much time to waste if they were accomplish everything they came to do and avoid being stuck here an extra day. Mr. Haruta’s face hardened into an unreadable expression. Al felt his brother tense beside him, unsure of how the alchemist would react to that question.

“There is a reason those books are classified, they are dangerous and I will not discuss them,” He said strongly, keeping his voice from being too harsh. To be fair he’d been caught completely off guard by the question.

“Please sir, whether you help us or not we will find the philosopher’s stone,” Al interjected, his voice grew quiet, “we have to.”

Mr. Haruta shook his head uncertainly, “I am familiar with your… predicament. But I vowed never to pursue the stone again and I would advise you to do the same.” The way he said it the brothers knew that his decision was final. His face softened again, “since you’ve come all this way why don’t you stay for lunch and tea. I just made it before you arrived, should still be warm.” He said, getting up to grab the dishes from the kitchen. Since Ed was fairly certain that the man wouldn’t have had any time to poison the food he graciously accepted the offer, hoping the warm tea might ease some of the hollow ache spreading through him. He seemed like a nice man but Ed had met plenty of “nice” men before and he had to worry about these things. Mr. Haruta brought out a tea kettle and three cups as well a pot of stew. The meal had clearly been made for one but they managed to spread it between them. He poured three cups of tea and offered Ed a bowl for the stew, apparently planning on eating the meal in the living room rather than the formal dining room. Al picked up his cup of tea, unable to drink it, feel its warmth, or even smell its herbal aroma. He was grateful though that Mr. Haruta had bothered to give him any tea at all knowing he wasn’t able to drink it. It made him feel included. Ed ladled some stew into his bowl and stared at it curiously.

“Something wrong?” Mr. Haruta asked with a hint of concern. Ed started to answer him but he suddenly closed his mouth, setting the bowl down on the coffee table. He swallowed thickly and took a steadying breath before speaking.

“Actually, would you mind if I used your bathroom?” he asked, voice quivering slightly.

“Sure it’s right down that hall,” their host pointed. Ed wasted no time getting up from the couch practically running toward the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. It had come on so suddenly. The smell of the food was enough to make his stomach turn and he fell down next to the toilet, heaving up the bagel and coffee he’d had on the train. Al’s voice drifted in from outside the bathroom door.

“Brother?! Are you okay? I’m coming in.” He said. Ed quickly flushed the toilet. Though he knew Al couldn’t smell the vomit he was still embarrassed about him seeing him like this.

“Okay,” he grumbled, knowing Al would come in either way. He leaned his head on his arm which was draped over the edge of the toilet bowl. He felt miserable — sick, dizzy, achy, and suddenly way too hot. Al moved past him to the sink and wet a washcloth and wiped his mouth clean before refolding it to put on his forehead. Ed couldn’t have been more grateful and he took the cloth from his brother, holding it to his face himself. He could do that much.

“What’s wrong?” Al asked, trying and failing to hide how concerned he was for his brother.

“I don’t know, I just felt sick all of a sudden.” Ed explained, leaving out that he’d had a stomachache all day before it climaxed just now. “Let’s just go back to Central okay? Mr. Haruta won’t give us any information on the stone so we might as well go home and get some rest before I have to hand in my report.”

“We can’t travel with you feeling like this. I saw a nice inn in town by the train station, we can leave tomorrow morning if you’re feeling better.” Al said, grabbing his brother by the shoulders to help him to his feet. They still had plenty of time before the last train would leave so Ed didn’t see the harm in laying down for a couple hours. Maybe by then Al would calm down and agree to heading home. Mr. Haruta appeared at the end of the hall.

“Is everything okay?” He asked, seeing how pale Edward looked. He was pretty sure he knew what had happened but he didn’t want to pry.

“Yes everything is fine, Edward is just a little sick so we’re going to the hotel. Sorry to have bothered you.” Al said as they walked to the door.

“Wait. Hold on just a minute,” Mr. Haruta looked conflicted but he had made up his mind seeing how the brothers looked out for each other. He could make an exception for them. Finding a scrap of paper and a pen he wrote something down, thrusting it into Al’s metal hands hoping he wasn’t making a mistake that would get the two boys hurt. It didn’t seem like they could get more hurt than they already were.

“Take this before I change my mind. And good luck,” he said. Al thanked him and Edward managed to mumble a thank you as well, still looking pretty pale and shaky. After a few more steps Edward felt strong enough to walk on his own, sliding out of Al’s grip.

“I’m alright now Al, really, the smell of the stew was just a bit overwhelming and my stomach hurt-“ Ed started, only to be cut off.

“When did that start?” He asked, knowing Ed had a tendency to hide this sort of thing.

“What?” He asked innocently, hoping to just skip over it.

“You didn’t tell me your stomach hurt.” Al said, if he still had a human face Ed was sure his brows would be scrunched together, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“I didn’t mention it because it’s not a big deal.” Ed lied.

“You promise?” Al asked with the voice of a little brother much younger than he actually was. His heart panged at the thought of blatantly lying to him.

“I promise,” He said, flashing Al a little smile as if to prove how okay he was. Al wasn’t too sure he believed him but his brother had promised so he dropped it for now. They rounded the corner and approached the small inn framed under a cheerful yellow awning.

A woman behind the counter perked up at the sight of them, “can I help you boys?”

“Yes we’d like a room for the night, whatever is cheapest,” Ed said, leaning heavily on the counter. While he did have plenty of funds from being a state alchemist he didn’t intend on spending much time in the room.

“Very well, we have a room with a queen bed on the first floor, we also serve basic meals,” she said kindly.

“Perfect, we’ll take it,” Ed handed her the money and she led them down a short hallway to the room. After unlocking it for them she handed off the key and told them she would be available at the front desk if they needed anything. There was a phone out there they could use as well since there wasn’t one in each of the rooms.

Setting down Ed’s suitcase Al watched his brother take off his coat and jacket before laying face down on the bed. Al couldn’t help but notice his movements were a little stiff, but he chalked it up to not wanting to upset his stomach further. Al could hardly remember now what having a body felt like so it was hard for him to determine whether Ed was actually okay or not. He seemed to relax as he sank into the mattress.

“I’ll call the Colonel and tell him we’re coming back tomorrow morning,” Al said. Edward abruptly sat up, concealing a wince.

“Don’t call him, we can take the train out tonight, I’m fine, really.” Ed assured him. Al hesitated by the door but ultimately gave in to his brother and sat down on the chair in the corner of the room.

“Fine, but for now you should just get some more sleep.”

“Hey, what did Mr. Haruta give you?” Ed asked. Sleeping sounded pretty good to him right about then but if they had a lead, that was more important.

“It’s a list of books in the Central library, just the call numbers and a couple names. It’s nothing we can look into now so don’t worry about it.”

Ed groaned, he was probably right.

***

When Ed woke up again it was dark outside, Al still sat in the same spot as he did before but his suitcase was open and a few things having been unpacked.

“What time is it?” Ed demanded, “why didn’t you wake me?”

“You were sick, I thought it best just to let you sleep, there’s no rush to get back home,” Al said. The hell there wasn’t. The pain in Ed’s stomach only seemed to get worse and he desperately wanted to be back in his own bed, not some random hotel room in a different city. He wondered for a second if that was Al’s plan was all along, to let him sleep through the last departure back to Central. That was crazy though, he wouldn’t be that conniving.

“I could have slept on the train, Al. Now we’re stuck here until tomorrow,” Ed whined.

“Actually it’s about 1am now, the next train leaves in four hours so stop pouting.” Al said. Crap, had he really been sleeping that long? He vaguely remembered waking up a couple times, only to resign back to sleep when the pain in his side got to be too much. He wasn’t sure how he could possibly convince Al that he was fine after sleeping through the second half of the day but he really was feeling better.

Ed got up from the bed and walked around to the desk, snatching up the slip of paper Mr. Haruta gave them.

“You said there was nothing we could get started on. I see three names listed here we could start looking into,” Ed said walking over to the small stack of books resting next to his suitcase. One of them was a book checked out of the library dedicated solely to personnel records from the last two decades. If any of these people were alchemists or military he could find out and that would give them some idea as to where to start their next search. Ed dragged the chair  opposite Al out from under the desk and sat down, opening the book on military records. He scanned through the different sections and titles looking for the names. Ed was a little surprised to find that none of the people had been state alchemists but two of the names were listed in the book. The first was a women who served as a personal assistant to an alchemist ten years ago, the second was a scientist who had also served in the military four years ago. Once they got back to Central they could start looking for a connection between them.

Ed managed to stay awake until they had to get ready to head to the train station, he couldn’t fathom the idea of going back to sleep after wasting half the day before. As exhausted as he felt, he had to keep moving forward, for Al, but when he was about to stand up from his chair a flicker of doubt stopped him.

“Hey Al could you call ahead and let the bastard know I’ll report in around 9am but might be a few minutes late,” He said trying to get his brother’s back turned for a few moments so he could collect himself. Also it was better to just tell the guy that he might be late so the Colonel wouldn’t start getting irritated after only ten minutes of waiting. Once Al was out of the room Ed stood up, unsurprised when a wave of dizziness threatened to knock him back down. His blood roared in his ears and it took a minute to get his bearings. He managed to at least look steady on his feet as they checked out. The station was only a block away, Ed could manage walking for that long, couldn’t he?

He found himself shivering against the wind, the cold seemed to penetrate all the way down to his core. He wrapped his coat around himself tighter, but when that didn’t work Ed realized that nothing would because it wasn’t the weather that was messed up, it was him. Ed chanced a touch to his forehead when Al wasn’t looking, confirming that he likely had the beginnings of a fever. He’d almost gotten used to the steady throb in the right side of his stomach as well. Looking back, the fever must have been worse than he realized because the idea that something might actually be wrong didn’t even occur to him as the pain continued to worsen. If he had eaten anything since yesterday morning he was sure he would have thrown it up by now so he was glad that the biting hollowness in his stomach was worth it if it kept him from having to repeat yesterdays events.

Ed leaned his head against the cold window as he stared down at the blank page in front of him. He still needed to write his stupid report. He had gotten halfway through it when realized that he’d literally addressed it to Colonel Bastard. His brain was starting to feel like warm jello so rather than starting a fresh report like he should, Ed crossed out the name and rewrote Mustang above it. He didn’t bother to hide the mistake very well, and if he didn’t feel like his stomach might burst into flames at the action, he would have laughed at the subtle insult. Al glanced over at him often during the train ride. It was still terribly early in the morning though so both boys were happy to spend it in peaceful silence.

Edward tensed suddenly, grabbing his side under the table. Only one thought consumed his fevered mind at this point — he couldn’t let Al know. He had no idea why that was so important but he avoided showing any kind of vulnerability at all costs, even if he was just with his brother. The pain was starting to make him sweat so Ed got up to go to the bathroom to clean up a little.

“Where are you going?” Al asked, seeing his brother shift in discomfort as he got to his feet.

“Bathroom, be right back,” Ed said. Walking proved to be more of a challenge than it should have been and once he was in a different car from his brother he allowed his flesh hand to grip his stomach, curling in on himself in hopes that that would somehow help with the pain. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he got more nauseas with every second he was upright. Someone else reached the bathroom at the same time he did but they took one look at the ill boy and insisted he go first.

Ed gave a lazy nod of thanks and scrambled into the bathroom, bolting the door behind him. He used the rim of the sink to gently lower himself to the ground where he positioned his head over the toilet. There was nothing left in his stomach but his body insisted on purging it anyway. Ed dry-heaved until he thought he might actually start puking up his intestines. Every contraction of his stomach sent a wave of red hot pain through his body.

Once his body had finally given up on the futile act, Ed dabbed at the sweat gathering above his brow. He stood up carefully, being sure not to straighten up too quickly. Despite his efforts Ed was assaulted with dizziness as he lifted his head and he was back on the floor before he even knew what was happening. “Did I just pass out?” he wondered, looking up at the ceiling of the small bathroom. It could have only been a few seconds but Ed had the unmistakable feeling of waking up. Surprisingly, after having lost consciousness for a short second he didn’t feel nearly as dizzy as he did before. The fever ravaging his body was still there and the pain pulsed along like a second heartbeat but he didn’t feel like he was going to faint again so he slowly got back to his feet again, leaning on the sink for support. The mirror in front of him showed that he looked paler than usual, the thin sheen of sweat only making him look sicker. His eyes lacked their usual spark, seeming dull and glazed over. He didn’t care how bad he looked though, he was determined to deliver his report and go home without incident. Why, he didn’t know, since he did enjoy purposely frustrating the Colonel. Deep down he knew he was worried someone would send him to the hospital and his skin crawled at the thought of Al worrying about him more.

“I’d better get back,” Ed thought, realizing he had been staring at the mirror for who knows how long, he’d kind of spaced out and when his mind did come back to him he accidentally said his thoughts out loud. Al must be getting suspicious. He rubbed as much life back into his face as he could and pushed himself away from the sink, standing on his own for a second just to make sure that he could before walking back towards the car Al was waiting in. He nearly bumped into him as he slid the connecting door open.

“Oh, brother, I was just coming to check on you. What took you so long?” Al asked as he stepped aside so Ed could walk back to their sits.

“You can’t just ask people why they took a long time in the bathroom, Al,” he chided, trying to sound vaguely offended at the question.

“Right, sorry.”

Ed picked the report back up to continue where he left off but when his eyes scanned the page letters blurred together, the words swirling dizzyingly on the paper. He blinked a couple times and decided to just add a couple more sentences summarizing their findings, then he could put it away. Mustang was used to less than stellar reports from him. Ed let the ink dry before folding the paper and sticking it in his coat pocket. Why on earth was he still wearing it? It was like 100 degrees in there. Slipping out of his coat, Ed groaned when he accidentally twisted his torso the wrong way.

“Are you alright?” Al asked. Everyone else on the train still had their coats on and seemed just fine, Ed was sweating visibly through his shirt.

“Yeah fine,” Ed said, sounding a little distracted.

***

The rest of the ride back to Central was a blur. The brothers stepped off the train, Al still carrying Ed’s luggage. Normally he would have insisted on carrying it himself but he seemed tired so Al didn’t even give him the chance. Not that Ed even noticed. They were surprised when they saw a familiar black car idling by the curb. Hawkeye sat behind the wheel, Havoc was next to her in the passenger seat smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the open window. The scent almost made Ed want to hurl again but he pushed the thought out of his mind and climbed into the backseat when Hawkeye told him to hop in. Apparently Roy wanted them all back at his office immediately. The only issue was that there simply wasn’t enough room in the back for both Ed and Al. Al noticed and casually said he was just going to go straight back to the dorms, getting the hint that they probably didn’t want him going with them. It was like that sometimes, with Ed being the state alchemist and all. Sometimes things were above his clearance or there just wasn’t a reason for him accompanying Edward. Ed watched him disappear in the direction of the dorms as the car pulled back onto the street.

He took a moment to thank the gods that Hawkeye was such a good driver. She avoided every pothole with ease and made smooth, gentle turns. He wasn’t sure he could have made it if it was Havoc driving instead who paid no mind to the bumps in the road and sometimes didn’t even slow down before veering onto another street.

“Could you stop smoking please?” Ed asked quietly. He hoped that they hadn’t picked up on the way he gripped his stomach that burned with pain, or the way he grew pale whenever the smoke drifted into the backseat. Asking Havoc to stop smoking was like asking a person to stop breathing but the man reluctantly put it out and put his cigarette case and lighter back in his pocket. The fact that Ed was just a kid, far too young to be smoking, especially when he obviously still had some growing to do, made him a little more compliant. Hawkeye eyed him in the rearview mirror.

“You don’t usually mind the smoke, something bothering you today?” She asked, taking in the circles under his eyes and the unusual paleness to his skin.

“No, just didn’t get much sleep, and besides, smoking is gross,” he deflected, which might be the most boldfaced lie he’d told all year. He slept over twelve hours yesterday if you combined each of his naps but Hawkeye didn’t know that and Al wasn’t there to contradict him. All he needed to do now was turn in his written report, he could probably get out of reciting it if he played his cards right. He had to wonder though why they had bothered to pick him up at the train station.

“So what’s going on? What’s so urgent that I couldn’t just walk like usual?” He asked, forcing more strength into his voice than he had.

“Big meeting, we can’t get into it now but he wants to brief us all on a new threat,” She said. Being Mustang’s assistant Ed had no doubt she knew exactly what was going on but it was apparently secret enough that they couldn’t talk about it until there were behind closed doors. Ed briefly considered telling them that he was sick at the thought of enduring a meeting on top of reporting in but he couldn’t bring himself to admit how much pain he was in. He also suspected his fever had gone up significantly since leaving the hotel, oh well, he could sleep when he got back to the dorms. He probably just caught some stupid stomach bug.

As they neared the building Ed started to panic as he realized he’d have to walk up all those steps. His legs felt weak, like they might not support him when he stood up. Edward was stubborn though, he’d make it through this meeting with sheer will power if he had to. He was the god damn Fullmetal A-

“Are you coming Fullmetal?” Hawkeye asked, holding the door open for him. He hadn’t even noticed that they had arrived.

“Yeah of course,” Ed said, hopping out of the car only to start swaying when his feet hit the ground. Hawkeye quickly grabbed his elbow to steady him. He looked much worse out in the sunlight where she could see the slight shine of sweat on his skin that came with the fever.

“Really, be honest, are you okay?” Her voice was stern yet caring.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I swear. It’s just this heat,” Ed said, shooting a glare at the looming sun.

“What heat?” She asked, really starting to get concerned. Shit, he had slipped and his mind was moving too slowly to come up with a realistic excuse for it.

“Oh nothing,” he smiled, jerking his arm out of her grasp. She followed him up the stairs, he still looked a little shaky but seemed okay. Maybe he really was just tired. Mustang had a tendency to overwork the boy, partly to keep him from getting into more trouble and partly to instill some level of military work ethic.

They made their way to Roy’s office where a few other military personnel were waiting including Hughes and people Ed didn’t recognize.

“Thank you for joining us Fullmetal, I hoped to address everyone at once but since you’re late as usual you missed most of the briefing.” Mustang said, leaning against his desk. Then he looked out at the officers sitting and standing near the two couches, “If you have no further questions you are dismissed.”

Everyone got up and filed out of his office. Havoc followed them out leaving only Mustang, Hawkeye, and Ed. The room somehow got more suffocating with just the three of them if that was even possible. Ed didn’t wait for permission to go sit down on one of the couches. The pain was getting to be too much to bear and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hide it. Roy didn’t comment on Ed’s lack of manners. That was nothing new. He set down a folder on the coffee table for him to look at and started talking. Ed took the opportunity to reach one hand under his jacket while he was hunched over the file, pretending to read it. He caught bits and pieces of what Mustang was saying but it didn’t quite make it through his brain.

“..so make sure to be careful of that.” He said, walking around his desk to sit down. Hawkeye took up her position next to him.

“About what?” Ed asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Have you been paying any attention at all? This is serious,” asked the Colonel, frustration evident in his voice. He sighed deeply, “Just bring it here,” he said, talking about his mission report.

“What? You mean… the file?” he said, looking at he pages in front of him. He gathered them up and made to stand but before he got that far sharp pain exploded from his right side at the movement and he gasped, falling back onto the sofa.

“Did you hit your head or something? I meant your mission report. Turn that in and you can go home and get some rest.” Mustang said as if it was painfully obvious, which it was to everyone but Ed.

“What report? Why are you yelling at me?” Ed said, cradling his head in one hand. His words slurred slightly and both Mustang and Hawkeye caught it, exchanging worried glances. At Roy’s nod Hawkeye approached Fullmetal.

He tensed suddenly, folding in on himself with his arms wrapped tightly around his middle, “Oh god…” he moaned in pain.

Riza crouched down in front of him, “What’s wrong?!” she asked looking him over for wounds. His face was scrunched up in pain now and his breathing became ragged. Hawkeye tried to move his hands away from his stomach so she could get a look at him but Ed only curled tighter. When she successfully forced him to straighten out a little he yelped loudly.

“Fuck, fuck it hurts.” Ed said through clenched teeth. She felt bad causing him more pain but they needed to figure out what was wrong so they could help him. She held the back of her hand up to his forehead, drawing it back quickly.

“Oh my god, he’s burning up. Roy, call a medic,” She said urgently. Mustang picked up the phone at his subordinate’s orders and started barking into it to whoever was on the other side.

The burning pain started to blur along with his vision and Ed pitched over sideways onto the couch when he got too dizzy to stay sitting. Riza muttered comforting words that he couldn’t quite understand. He started to go slack and she slapped at his face desperately, “You have to stay awake Fullmetal, medics are coming but you have to let us help you. Let me know if this hurts.” She knew the pain was coming from his stomach by the way he kept trying to curl into a ball with his arms covering it. In the brief moment that he was too out of it to stop her she pressed down and Ed jolted back to alertness screaming in a way that they had never heard from him before. When she removed her hand he only seemed to scream louder. His eyes rolled back, trying to escape into unconsciousness but Hawkeye wouldn’t let him.

“No I don’t know what’s wrong with him just send help and hurry,” Mustang slammed the phone down in frustration. The medics knew where to find them and he didn’t have any more answers so their questions so he hung up and ran to where his subordinate laid on the couch in utter agony.

“What’s going on?” He asked, a little out of breath.

Hawkeye’s face hardened, “I think its his appendix, he has a really high fever and the pain seems to be coming from the right side of his stomach. Roy brushed away some of the hair sticking to Ed’s forehead, getting a feel for his temperature. He too jerked his hand back as if afraid he was going to get burned.

“I’ll, I’ll get a cold cloth,” he stammered, completely out of his element.

“Don’t… don’t make me go…” Ed whined deliriously. Hawkeye’s heart broke at how young and fragile he looked in that moment, “don’t let them take me.”

“Shhh, calm down Ed we’re here to help you.” Ed blinked at her as if he didn’t recognize her face. She had no idea what he was talking about but she tried to comfort him anyway, “No one is taking you anywhere yet.”

Ed started to shake, his face grew even more pale, a deathly white compared to the rest of his flushed skin, “I don’t want to go to the hospital,” he cried hysterically. If it really was his appendix they would have no choice but to take him. He’d likely need surgery, and soon.

Mustang came back a moment later with a wet cloth that he laid on Ed’s burning forehead, he used it to dab at his face and neck too. They both cursed themselves for not noticing sooner. He must have been in terrible pain for a while now for it to be this bad.

Ed lurched, leaning over like he was going to throw up again but there was nothing left to throw up. His stomach convulsed sending a wave of pain worse than anything he’d ever felt through his body. His breath caught in his throat, unable to even get enough air in his lungs to scream in agony. His eyes grew vacant as he came close to blacking out from the pain.

“Stay with us, Fullmetal,” Roy ordered as he gripping the boy’s shoulder to keep his attention. To his surprise Ed snapped his eyes open again, fighting to obey the order. He stared at the two of them, you could see it in his face somehow that his mind wasn’t working right, that he was delirious from the fever.

“Where’s Al?” he whimpered, “he needs me.”

“Al is fine Ed, don’t worry about that,” Roy said, still dabbing at the kids neck. If he weren’t worried for his subordinate’s life he might have felt awkward about touching the kid’s face so tenderly, “you’re gonna be fine too,” he said, trying to be soothing. He turned to Hawkeye, “guide the medics in, they should be here any second.”

She got up and rushed out the door returning two minutes later with two medics and a gurney. Ed had deteriorated even more in those short minutes. Roy was glad no one was there to see the single tear that escaped his eye as fear started to take over. A woman shoved Roy aside, none too gently, to get immediate access to the patient. Ed was still conscious, barely, moaning in pain and staring off into space. The two medics got the gurney level with the couch and lifted him as gently as they could. Ed didn’t have the energy to scream but he did make some horrible strangled sound of pain. The woman shined a light in his eyes as the man raised the gurney and reached under Ed’s shirt to assess him.

“He’ll need to go straight into surgery. I think his appendix already burst.” The medics talked to each other as they wheeled him out at top speed, leaving Hawkeye and Mustang standing there speechless. Luckily the military hospital was connected to this building and they could get him into surgery in no time. They just had to hope that it was enough, knowing that if his appendix already ruptured it might be too late.

“Do you think he’s going to be okay?” Hawkeye asked quietly.

“He’s too stubborn to let his own organ kill him, I’m sure he’ll recover. After all he has been through worse,” Mustang said sadly, though with a little bit of parental pride. Ed was a strong kid, he was sure of that.

[aswithasunbeam]

September 1793

“Bring out your dead!”

The clanging of a bell cut through the quiet morning, nearly drowning out the booming voice hollering from the horse drawn wagon as it clattered past the President’s Market Street residence.  Washington reached out a hand to still the fluttering mountain of pleas and petitions upon his desk. For a moment, he considered closing the window, then decided against it. The cool fall breeze was refreshing in his stuffy upstairs office and closing it would do nothing to halt the reality of the outside world.

The stranger’s voice echoed eerily as the cart rolled further down the street, the bell still sharp even from a distance. At least the cart hadn’t stopped too nearby. None of the close neighbors had yet needed its services.

Not so long ago, the sickness had been confined to the rundown shacks along the wharf. The disease had spread from the waterfront with startling rapidity this year. Soon men were collapsing all along Philadelphia’s neat cobbled streets. Whole families succumbed in one fell swoop, leaving no one to care for them as they languished in their beds, waiting for death to claim them. And death was all too happy to oblige; the death toll was rising by the minute, with hundreds dying each day.

Washington reached for the next letter in his towering stack. He squinted at the address for a long moment, confused. When he called for his aide, the young man bustled in, bright-eyed and overeager despite the obvious pique in the President’s voice.

“Yes sir?”

“Did I not give orders for this letter to be delivered to Mr. Hamilton’s office yesterday?”

“You did, sir,” the young man confirmed.

“Why was it not delivered?”

“Mr. Hamilton wasn’t there, sir. He left with his family for the country, or so Mr. Wolcott said. He did leave that for you, though, sir.” He gestured to the letter sitting underneath the returned correspondence. Hamilton’s familiar scrawl decorated the front, yesterday’s date in the upper corner.

“I see.” When the aide didn’t leave immediately, Washington shooed him away, reaching for Hamilton’s answer.

Cracking the wax seal, he unfolded the note and scanned it quickly. A perfectly ordinary update regarding the functioning of the Treasury. He nearly set it aside, ready to move on to something more pressing, when his eye caught the postscript: “Mrs. Hamilton joins me in extending Mrs. Washington and your family our compliments. We will soon be retiring with the children out to the country. I am exceedingly unwell and fear I may be in the early stages of the prevailing fever.”

Washington felt his heartbeat quicken.

The bell rang out in the distance.

No. Surely not.

Hamilton had always had a worryingly delicate disposition. The memory of the boy huddled near the fire in army headquarters, a handkerchief in one hand and blanket wrapped round his shoulders as he worked at some important correspondence, came easily to Washington’s mind. How many times over the years had he watched one of his other aides fighting to test Hamilton’s temperature or attempting to force tea upon the sickly Colonel?

While that delicate disposition may have left him vulnerable to the prevailing fever, it could just as easily mean he’d fallen prey to some other, less serious illness, could it not? Perhaps Hamilton was experiencing merely an autumnal fever, or, more likely yet, simply the effects of stress. And besides, Rush had the fever well in hand, did he not? Hamilton was one of the most senior men in the government; he wouldn’t be left to rot in the streets like those other unfortunate souls.

His imagination conjured the scene for one horrible moment: Hamilton sprawled out in the alleyway by the Treasury building, pale and still; horses whinnying as people flew past on the nearby street, desperate to get out of the city; flies buzzing curiously around the body.

He closed his eyes, shaking away the image.

That wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. No reason for panic. No reason for his heart to be stuck in his throat as it was. He took a long, deep breath. Pushing the letter aside, he reached for fresh paper and set down his quill.

He read over the note when he’d finished, pleased he’d been able to express concern without undue panic. The invitation to dine at three o’clock that afternoon with Mrs. Hamilton was perhaps too hopeful, but, oh, if the boy would only come and relieve the pit of dread now building in his chest.1 Sending the letter off immediately with the rest of his finished letters, he sat back at his desk and started on the next letter in his heap. He could do nothing but wait and hope.

Not an hour later, he heard a soft rap upon his office door. “George?”

“Come in, Patsy,” he said without bothering to look up.

“I’ve just had a note,” Martha said. “From Mrs. Hamilton, thanking us for the invitation.”

Relief swept over him. “Yes, yes. I invited her and Alex to dine with us today. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“George.” The note of fear in her voice sent his heart up into his throat all over again.

“What?”

“It’s Alex.” She stepped closer to him, her face full of compassion. “He’s ill, George. He has the fever.”

He shook his head, though the news should hardly have been a surprise. “An autumnal fever, perhaps. He’s usually poorly this time of year, poor lad. I’m sure he’ll be—”

“No, George.”

“He’s…but….” The words trailed off into nothing, the cocoon of denial cracking around him. “Patsy.”

Martha’s arms wrapped around him in a comforting embrace. “Eliza says he’s a bit better today. More lucid than he was last night, at least. An old friend of his is helping him through, a Doctor Stevens. I’ve sent over three bottles of our aged wine, and three more of our better bottles. And I told her to write to us, or Mrs. Emerson after we’ve gone to the country, if they need anything more. I wasn’t sure what else to offer. The poor boy. And she’s like to run herself ragged looking after him. We can only pray she doesn’t’ fall victim herself.”2

He felt Martha turn her face into his hair, in need of taking comfort as much as she was giving it. Her maternal feelings towards the pair easily rivaled his paternal affections, he knew. He patted at her arm, the horror of her news still sinking in.

“Doctor Rush isn’t with him?”

“No. Doctor Stevens,” she repeated. “A childhood friend of Alex’s, according to Eliza.”

He stood up.

Martha’s arms slipped away from him, though she remained close by his side. “George?”

“I’m going over there.”

“You can’t.” Her hands gripped at the lapels of his coat.

“He’s sick. I have to do something.”

“It’s nearly an hour’s ride out the Fair Hill where they’re staying. And what will you do when you get there? Nothing but risk your own health. He has his wife to mop his brow, and a doctor to see him well.”

“I have to do something,” he repeated, desperation creeping into his voice.

“We must put our faith in God now. There’s nothing else to be done.” Her hands clutched tighter at the fabric of his coat. “I can’t lose you to this plague, George. I wouldn’t survive it.”

He remained standing up, purposeless, even as he understood she was right. Outside the still open window, he heard the dreadful bell clanging in the distance as the cart circled past the house once again. His eyes squeezed shut against forming moisture.

“Bring out your dead!”

[egoiistas]

Time Lost

ao3

a/n: HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY @meiosis2! Conchi, this also serves as your Christmas present bahahha! Have some angst. 

Word Count: ~4500 || Rated: T Angst/Hurt/Comfort - Royai

Eastern Amestris, 1910

As of late, Riza Hawkeye’s lips acted on their own accord without any say on her part. Surprising her in arbitrary moments throughout the day where she had been lost in thought.  Never in a way that could endanger herself or Lieutenant-Colonel Mustang, like blurting classified information, but it was equally as dangerous in her eyes.

Riza was catching herself smiling.

The danger sprung from rather intrusive thoughts. The danger was in the evenings, when the work day called for late nights and the fatigue would dismantle the professionalism and allow more than just camaraderie to slip into their conversations. The danger was jokes that brought out tears and hurt her sides from laughter. In those times, her mind would think more of meanings in his gestures, like hands brushing or silent, awkward rides home -  as if they were waiting to say something. It felt like they were toeing the line, approaching something far from innocuous, and she felt that in her chest, despite nothing ever actually happening. She was reminded of all this staring out the train window as the scenery of the late fall landscape passed them by in rapid succession.

Some days, it had been necessary to do an hourly reminder of where exactly Riza’s place was in the grand scheme of things. He was a walking reminder of what had happened in the desert - what she carried on her back and yet, there were things about him that made it easier to forget.

“You’re awfully quiet today, Lieutenant.” Riza looked over to him. He was flipping through the documents he’d pulled from her bag.

Of course he forgot his, Riza thought, wiping away a smile just in time for him to look up.

“Something on your mind?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve visited the countryside, sir. It’s a different place, but very reminiscent of a lonely, little town out there somewhere.”

He stared out the window before dark eyes landed on her. “It’s not too far. Perhaps a quick detour wouldn’t hurt?”

The tracks in her mind switched. That’s not something she wanted. Not yet. The thought of it chilled her. “That’s not necessary, sir.”

The Lieutenant-Colonel shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He handed her the files, effectively changing topics to her relief. “Will you run by me these details again so I make sure I have them accurately?”

Their fingers briefly touched beneath the folder, and she told herself to make nothing of it. “Absolutely,” she said without faltering, but swallowed thickly as she separated the sheets of paper. Riza briefed him on the main points of their mission: “An inspection, ordered by General Grumman of East City, is required to investigate the rumors of alchemists transmuting coal and other materials into gold and other precious metals and gems in violation of Official Code of Amestris Annotated Section 16-3-1.

“Local military and policemen have been unable to capture these alchemists due to their hasty departure or diversions, such as setting buildings on fire or creating massive low-visibility dust clouds. The smaller towns are suffering from coal shortage, especially with the approaching winter. We are to investigate, but are explicitly ordered not to engage unless sufficient backup is present.” A tiny smile emerged as he scoffed, but she continued. “There’s enough evidence in this file from testimonies and forensic portraits to believe we are looking for a “Felix Scuttle”, but could be going by a different alias.

He and his crew were last heard of in Giribaz working their way down from Fisk.” She presented the mugshot of man with a deep frown in his late 30s measuring tall at 6’1” with average features including wavy brown hair and with a brown eye and a cloudy eye in the other. “He should be easy to identify. Doesn’t exactly look like the townspeople in these parts.”

The Lieutenant-Colonel inspected the photo. “Looks like someone trying to bring about economic disaster.”

She snorted from his remark, “Consider him armed and dangerous, sir, as with the rest of his crew. ” Riza spread out the rest of the photos across her lap.  

“Heard loud and clear, Lieutenant.”

She secured the files backed into the safety of the folder. Riza pulled back the sleeve of her thick jacket for the time only to be met with a watchless wrist. She asked, “Do you have the time?” as the train attendant announced the proximity to Giribaz.

“Quarter after five,” he responded and tucked the silver watch back into his pocket. “Too late to start covering ground now.”

Her legs ached to stand and move around. “We should start early. There’s a car ready for us from one of the smaller military offices.”

“And a room from the local inn is secured as well?”

“Two, actually.”

“Oh, good.” He said it in a way to end the conversation and she urged herself to not read further into his silence as he looked out the window.

They arrived with a whine and a bout of smoke from the steel giant’s whistle. They had embarked on the midmorning train and now, the sun was beginning to sink under the horizon in rich gradients of red and vibrant oranges. Without question, it’s a town significantly smaller than East City by population density and size with smaller municipalities dispersed far and wide. Giribaz had been a wonder to a younger Riza whenever she left the true countryside for supplies not available back home. Like the other areas their perpetrators have hit, it doubled as a mining township with occupations centered around the success of the mines.

The inn was around the same size as the manor she grew up in. She wondered why she had made the comparison. Riza felt both solace and annoying disappointment when they ate dinner with little conversation. She succeeded in making no show of any it. As a female officer, Riza grew aware that it was far more prudent to be scant when it came to emotions - which is why her smiling problem was a concern. It happened before she realized it. They retired to their respective rooms and Riza stared at the ceiling that night. Her mind elsewhere, she searched for the watch that she had forgotten back in East City.

The wild goose chase began at the break of dawn.

Riza set out before the Lieutenant-Colonel woke up. A layer of dark blue dampened the wood buildings and dirt roads, hanging around and waiting for the sun to chase the shadows away. Enroute to the local military branch, she saw miners beelining to the mines with the handles of pickaxes over their shoulders. Vendors set up shop, and their children, she assumed, with yawns tugging at their mouths with sleep still heavy in their eyes. It was all too nostalgic for Riza.

By the time she returned to the inn with a vehicle, he was sitting at a table enjoying a cup of warm coffee with two eggs sunny-side up and a single slice of toast. His usual. “Good morning, sir. Lieutenant Hawkeye reporting for duty.”

He waved her down. “I don’t know how anyone can get up so early,” he rubbed his eyes, “I already have enough trouble getting up at 0700.”

“Merely a habit, sir.”

He ate quickly. “I trust you’ve already procured the vehicle.”

“Yes, sir.”

A smile and she shoved away the delight. “Good. Let’s get this over with.”

Except it was not as easy as getting it over with. From the moment they set out from the inn, they questioned and interrogated the people of Giribaz. Mine workers covered in earth, mothers with babes in their arms, and the elderly on their way to a game of shoji, the reply was the same: the alchemists in question were seen for no more than a few hours within town before stealing away a good amount of coal. In spite of this, the local authorities offered them a tip that Scuttle’s crew were heading to the town of Crawley, an hour or so northeast of Giribaz, but it was vague and with no real assurance there’d be anything there should they spend the hour drive and back.

“We’re don’t really have a choice, Lieutenant.” The Lieutenant-Colonel said as he settled the suitcase in the trunk of the car and chivalrously helped her with hers.

“I just think there’s more to be investigated here if our intel says this is where they were last seen.”

He moved in closer, close enough that she held her breath, but she convinced herself he did it for discretion. “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that everyone had the same story to tell? Besides…” His eyes flickered between the walking townsfolk. “There’s something missing here.” She stood there, processing it, while he shut the trunk with a good shove. “Time to go, Lieutenant.”

Upon arriving, Crawley consisted of a single strip of buildings that made up the “town.” A post office, a small inn, and a tavern. The rest of it was farmland belonging to private farmers growing crops like grain and tobacco. Riza asked the people within the main part of town if they could identify the man in the photos, or any of the rest. After coming up short, they visited the small military office consisting of a total of three officers: a lieutenant  and two privates. Lieutenant Blast, or as the Lieutenant-Colonel liked to nickname him “Lieutenant Last” on account of his deliberately slow cadence and gait, showed them the scorched farmland belonging to a family acres away. Riza heard the man assure them that the investigation was exhausted and the trail had thus gone cold. Skimming through Crawley’s evidence files proved as such.

Something kept the Lieutenant-Colonel silent while he looked through the photos on Blast’s desk; probably engrossed with the manner the fire was used.

“Have you heard anything from any of the other areas? From other offices?” Riza inquired, notepad and pen in hand.

“There was…,” Blast slowly sucked in breath, “...a disturbance one ...other town.”

“Spit it out, Blast.” She heard the subtle bite in his voice.

Lieutenant Blast nodded slowly. “Three hours from here… South. Past Giribaz…”

Riza gripped her pen tighter. “Yes, and the name of this place?”

What was probably seconds felt like hours as his beady little green eyes glazed over trying to remember. “Chasteaux.”

In her peripheral, Riza saw the Lieutenant-Colonel’s head snap up as her own body failed to respond for a moment.

“Did I hear that right?” He closed folder holding the pictures and documents. “Did you say Chasteaux?” She knew the answer to that just as well as he did and that made for a painful silence in the car.

The entire way, he had this look on his face like he wanted to ask a question. Not the question when they sat in silence for seconds in front of her apartment building. It was a questions he didn’t know how to word or how to even form the words, because it might hurt or reopen wounds that were never treated properly. A festering that would rather be put out of sight than ensure it didn’t turn gangregious. The weight in her chest was heavy and it sunk further as she saw the hilly outskirts of her old hometown come into view.

Dusk was beginning to chase away the day. Chasteaux always looked like a place time forgot. The buildings were ancient, as were the houses. She was sure that had it not been for the invention of synthetic fabrics the people would look exactly the same. In her time here, the only alchemist she ever knew was her father and, by extension, his apprentice Roy.

A new building had been erected in her year of absence, she noticed, and it stuck out like a sore thumb.The inn was colored in pastels and brightly shone with lights, dwarfing the other establishments around it with the multiple storeys. It would be better, she reasoned, if they stayed at an inn than if they stayed at her abandoned house - to track their movement should the military need it. Riza told the Lieutenant-Colonel as much.

He parked the car in front of it and turned to her, hesitating. She didn’t want to look at him. Riza didn’t know if she could take that same look of pity when it mirrored the last time they were here, so she leapt out of the car before he could say anything.

There was still enough daylight to ask a few people around, but she felt securing a room was equally important. Luckily, she didn’t recognize the innkeeper. Wearily, she approached the old woman with glasses looking over a ledger until she saw Riza approach. “Hello, how can I help you, dear?”

“Two rooms please.”

Riza was given a sympathetic look. “Apologies, miss, all our rooms all but one are occupied”

Incredulous, and after 5 hours of stuck in a vehicle, she said tiredly, “What? Who can possibly be taking all the rooms?”

“The Winter festival has become a bit of a big thing for this old, forgotten town. It’s brought new life to it.”

She’d never heard of any festival in Chasteaux save for the Harvest. Even then, that was sparse event drawing a paltry number of attendees from nearby towns. Mystified, she asked, “How?”

The old woman smiled. “The people were tired of being forgotten.”

Riza felt that sentiment hit too close to home. Whether it was because of being mentally spent or not, she didn’t know. Accepting, she said, “All right, I’ll take the one room.” She could stay in her own house. It’s just one night. She clenched a fist, imperceptible to the the older woman writing in her log; maybe she was putting it off long enough.

“One bed, okay?”

It made no difference to her. “Perfect.”

Riza was given the key with a key tag labelled “6-11”. She left the brightly-colored building to find the Lieutenant-Colonel and found the car alone instead. Her hands ran through her face, feeling the fatigue all at once.

“Riza?” Every muscle suddenly became taut from her name. “Riza Hawkeye, is that you?” She turned around to see Mrs. Tilde walking towards her; a baker back when Riza was a girl now wrinkled with streaks of gray hair and gripping a cane for support.

“Mrs. Tilde,” she said courteously. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“You’re the pleasant surprise. Why, look how you’ve grown and in the military too.” She grasped at Riza’s arm and tugged gently. “Come, let’s go see who’s around.”

“Oh, my apologies Mrs. Tilde, as much as I’d love to, but I’m actually on duty right now and--”

“I thought I saw Roy running around here, is he here with you too?”

The old woman glanced at Riza’s hands. “But I don’t see no ring.” She smiled deviously. “Let me guess, shotgun wedding like your mother and father?”

Please don’t bring them up. Riza blinked several times before she got over the embarrassment, “No, he’s my superior officer.” She really needed to leave, but she knew, to them, she’d been gone for four years. The people assumed Roy had taken over the Hawkeye estate when he went into town for her first aid supplies to treat her burns. Riza tried to make a move to leave but she didn’t know how without using force and the old lady wouldn’t take a hint she had places to be.

“I see,” Mrs. Tilde’s face fell. “Well, I told this to Roy the last time he was here. We’re sorry about your father and that we all missed his funeral.”

Riza chewed on the inside of her cheek. Quietly, she said, “I didn’t know anyone would come to the funeral of a recluse.”

But it was too low for Mrs. Tilde, or she ignored it. “I’m also very sorry about your house. Beautiful architecture.” She shook her head in the way grandmothers do disapprovingly. “It burned everything before anyone could do anything about it.”

“What are you talking about?” There had been no question about what she had just heard, but her head went light.

“Aren’t you here to investigate the fires, dear? And to find the awful, awful hooligans who did it?”

“What fire?”

Mrs. Tilde’s eyes widened and the lamplight casted a shadow over them. “Did… “ She began to let go. “Did no one tell you? Write you?”

Out of breath, she shook her head slowly and said, “No. ...I’ve only just arrived, Mrs. Tilde.” Riza glanced around, breathing quickening - she wasn’t sure what she was looking for as the tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Lacking the keys to the car, she walked the route she knew back to her house on the dirt road she travelled on so many times. The fatigue pushed to the back of her mind. It always took half an hour on foot - past the tree with a split trunk, over the bridge separating her property and the town, beyond the browning open fields until she saw the rusted mailbox barely standing off the side of the road.

Morbidly, she thought it looked better burnt down than it did up. It didn’t, however, stop the suckerpunch she felt in her stomach, stealing her of breath. The dilapidated manor was reduced to charred rubble with only a few weight-bearing studs jutting from the foundation. Riza walked through the creaking metal gate. The sounds of life and night were far-off.

Walking into what was once a foyer, she thought it ironic that the house of Berthold Hawkeye, the master of fire alchemy, should be demolished by the element of his specialty. It was ironic that it was within those walls that she had his protege burn his secrets off her back.

It was ironic that she wasn’t the one to do it.

She wanted to -- fiercely. It’s why she left. It’s why she didn’t come back. She’d meant to keep her mother’s belongings at a time when she was ready and to organize the skeletons placed in her closet. To lock the proverbial door and throw away its key. She always said she’d return to burn the notes, the books, the clothes, the cold keepsakes, and the memories of cruel man who taught others alchemy and taught her pain and fear.

Right then and there she wanted to blame him for everything that happened her. The resentment. The secrets. The poverty. Riza could see the events of her life rolling like snowball, gaining size down a mountain. Left with no choice, she enlisted because there was nothing left to her name, not even enough money to bury him, no family to turn to. She envied the kids who enjoyed going home because she had a  very different definition for hers. The burden of a responsibility she wasn’t worthy enough to even look at, bestowed her father’s secrets to the one person, she thought, had showed her kindness because she was naive and young. She still was! She indebted herself to his cause out of the guilt from his betrayed trust. All a result of something she didn’t ask for. All because ...perhaps, her father held no love for her. This was the truth she was trying to avoid and the subsequent loneliness of its wake.

She held herself, covering her mouth.  She wanted to curse Berthold Hawkeye who lied in his grave ignorant to his daughter’s misfortune. For everything, everything.

But what good would that do now? Anything that mattered has been blown or washed away in her absence. It wouldn’t bring back her mother. It wouldn’t save those Ishvalans. They would remain as pictures in her head, fading with time, as with these ashes surrounding her.

The whole situation felt like a sardonic joke. A punishment was better suited for it. She was the joke as she wasn’t as quick on the draw as she liked to believe; another addition to the list of things she took too long to act on.

There was a wetness to her cheeks and suddenly the realization consumed her that she hadn’t grown up from the scared girl from before. She was still scared.  She hadn’t grown; she only succeeded in masking her with the face of a murderer.

Stepping forward, she kicked something on the floorboard. It was hard to see with the sun now settled beyond the horizon. The moon was enough to point her in the right direction. In her hands, she held the face of a watch; the bands burned at both ends, but somehow the face had been spared by the fire. The glass was cracked and the mother of pearl underneath gave off a sheen. It released from her like a river’s rush during a downpour with a sob that wracked her body, holding her mother’s watch in her gloved hand. She turned quickly to get away until she slammed into something solid.

Unmoving, Riza knew better than to be surprised. She gripped the lapels of the stiff, woolen coat, but she still wanted to be angry. She needed that ire to fuel her - to change her, but it was useless. To her father’s dismay, she wasn’t someone who would be consumed by fire; she melded with it. Worked with it. Guided it. And there’s no one else who would care coming out this far, certainly no one from town. Only the military or apprentices from Central or Flame Alchemists. But she asked anyway, “How did you find me?”

“After I found out what happened here, I realized they hadn’t left Giribaz when nothing was touched there. I called Eastern Command to dispatch so we can arrest them in the morning.” The words resonated deeply in his chest. “I went to go look for you after that.”

She wanted to laugh. Laughter would have been nice, but she made no sounds. Riza stood there, forehead to his chest. Her arms were now dead beside her and he made no move of his own. She stepped back and the wind picked up the air of burnt wood. With no place to stay the night, she said, “It’s time to go back, sir.”

He made jokes about how they should invest in infrastructure out in the rural areas instead of human weapons on the bumpy ride back. She was silent all the way to the inn and that’s when she could hear the worry in his voice.

She sat on the side of the bed, back to him and the door. He said something, but she was lost in her own thoughts until a hand rested on the shoulder of her uniform that yanked her from drowning in them. She jumped and he sounded apologetic. “Sorry, I said I was going to get food. I wanted to know if you wanted anything.”

Without looking up, Riza grabbed the hand on her shoulder. “Stay,” She worried that if she threw in the word “please” she would break.

“Lieutenant...”

She tugged the arm toward her center and looked up, hoping the tears would stay at the corner of her eyes. “Riza is asking you to stay.”

Something in his face changed. She couldn’t read what it was.

Her inexperience with people thus far had limited her social cues, but she had Rebecca to thank for normalizing her to society again. She pulled him on the seat next her without staring at him in the face and the bed gave into the weight. “I need…” She released his hand and unclasped the button, then two, of his coat. Her eyes met with his, “...someone.” Comfort.

“I don’t understand,” he said unsure. She let the fall of his coat off his shoulder communicate for her and he received the message. Roy was still for a moment and she watched the gears turn behind his eyes. He shook his head. “Riza.”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated.” She didn’t know herself anymore. The things she wanted to ask for, it wasn’t her. Her emotions were wrapped in something foreign; it became unrecognizable. She wanted to make a choice of her own for once. “I don’t want to feel. No one has to know in some forgotten town in the East”

“It’ll become too complicated. We- I’m sorry. You’re my subordinate. And..”

Riza let go of him like he burned her. The embarrassment settled right next to her sunken heart. Smiling sadly, she turned forward and wiped a tear off her cheek before he could notice something so childish. It couldn’t have been worse, she realized, than suggesting something as insolent as making advances to a superior officer. “No, I should be the one apologizing. I’m coming to terms that nothing will be as before. I should know better. That time is gone.” She spoke to the fingers on her lap. “It won’t happen again.”

If he made any semblance of a response, Riza didn’t hear it. She saw him leave her side from her peripheral, and heard the boots cross the room until the door opened and closed. She shut her eyes with it so that the tears that were pooling at the bottom of her eyelids could finally be freed. She wrapped her arms around herself, clenching teeth and eyes, as a sadness hollowed out a void in her chest. Her breath stilled in her lungs if only to deny herself the agonized cries begging to be released. Everything felt so wrong and she had no clue how to make it right. She isolated herself to a profession she had no love for. She had nothing else, but she dragged that through the mud because she couldn’t keep silly, little emotions in check. If he didn’t transfer to another unit for insubordination, she would feel the urge to resign herself were it not for the alchemy she felt responsible for.

Riza jumped when the door opened. Her arms fell like dead weights. She didn’t turn from the cowardice of staring him in the face after her folly, but she took a deep breath. This time, his footsteps were hastened as he walked past the front of the bed, and stopped in front of her. None of her muscles moved, with or without her willingness, for the few seconds he didn’t say anything.

Her eyes travelled upwards by the nudge of two fingers under her chin. He swooped in to kiss her. Her arms supported her against the plush bed as he nudged her further on to it. Her legs were lifted and she was centered on the mattress followed by his weight over her. She took the entire gesture in stride without a moment of hesitance. Her coat fell off her in the middle of it, then his shirt, then their ranks.

“No one can know,” he murmured against her lips.

She nodded. To make up for lost time.

[tonyjones2222]

POLITICO

MAGAZINE

THE AGENDA

PRO

SEARCH

2020 ELECTIONS

‘She had no remorse’: Why Kamala Harris isn't a lock for VP

No one disputes she's the frontrunner to be Biden's No. 2. But there are lingering doubts, primarily over the issue of trust.



Sen. Kamala Harris, a California senator who has built a national following as a leading combatant against the Trump administration, has been seen as a likely Biden VP nominee even before he started running. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

By NATASHA KORECKI, CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO and MARC CAPUTO

07/27/2020 04:30 AM EDT

Facebook

Twitter

Link

More

When former Sen. Chris Dodd, a member of Joe Biden’s vice presidential search committee, recently asked Kamala Harris about her ambush on Biden in the first Democratic debate, Dodd was stunned by her response.

“She laughed and said, ‘that’s politics.’ She had no remorse,” Dodd told a longtime Biden supporter and donor, who relayed the exchange to POLITICO on condition of anonymity.

Advertisement

“Dodd felt it was a gimmick, that it was cheap,” the donor said. The person added that Dodd’s concerns about Harris were so deep that he's helped elevate California Rep. Karen Bass during the vetting process, urging Biden to pick her because “she’s a loyal No. 2. And that’s what Biden really wants.” Through an aide, Dodd declined to comment. Advisers to Harris also declined to comment.

Harris, a California senator who has built a national following as a leading combatant against the Trump administration, has been seen as a likely Biden VP even before he started running. More than a year later, despite a campaign that didn’t even make it to the first nominating contests, Harris still appears to be in the pole position for the post: Interviews with more than four dozen elected officials, strategists, former Biden advisers and plugged-in donors said they think Harris is the closest Biden has to a “do no harm” option.

Kamala Harris is the one to beat in Biden's veepstakes

Share

Play Video

And people in three other competing camps privately said that while their candidates have a shot for VP, Harris is more likely to get the nod.

Yet with Biden set to make his decision as soon as the beginning of August, there are still hang-ups over Harris — largely over the matter of trust.

Advertisement

Former high-ranking Democratic Party officials and elected officials have expressed concerns about her to the vetting committee in recent weeks, according to four sources who've spoken to the Biden vetting team.

The interviews for this article revealed a contingent of Democrats who are lobbying against Harris for VP — some privately, some openly. Several California Democrats who spoke to Biden's vetting team have shared glowing reviews of Bass, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus and a former state Assembly speaker. Others touted Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who earned a Purple Heart in combat, and former national security adviser Susan Rice, whom they came to know though her connections to Stanford University in the Bay Area.

“I don’t think Kamala Harris has it in the bag,” said former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), reacting to the dozens of Democrats who believe Harris is the likely pick. Reid, who speaks frequently with Dodd, met with Harris recently and said he thinks highly of her.

POLITICO DISPATCH:JULY 27

Eleven candidates. One running mate. Dispatch is spending three days with POLITICO campaign reporters to look at Joe Biden's top choices for vice president.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Subscribe on Google Podcasts

It’s difficult to overstate the bad blood that flowed between the Harris and Biden campaigns immediately after that June 2019 debate. Harris opened her attack on Biden by saying, “I know you’re not a racist.” She then accused Biden of giving segregationist senators a pass and opposing a federal busing program in the 1970s that integrated schools she attended as a child. “That little girl was me,” she said.

Advertisement

The campaign quickly branded the phrase on T-shirts and boasted about its preparations for what became Harris’ big moment. Eventually, however, Biden gained the upper hand when Harris admitted she had essentially the same view on busing as he did.

A contingent of Bay Area donors has publicly endorsed Duckworth, snubbing their home-state senator. They include Susie Buell, who was early to endorse Harris’ presidential run but drifted from her campaign to also back Pete Buttigieg in the primary, and attorney Joe Cotchett, a Biden loyalist who was a major fundraiser for Barack Obama.

Both Buell and Cotchett lauded Duckworth’s war-hero status. Cotchett said in an interview that he feared Harris’ time as a prosecutor would end up harming the ticket. While Buell supports Duckworth, she said she didn’t necessarily have reservations about Harris and trusted Biden to make the best choice.

While some of Harris' detractors say they’re still concerned about her record as California attorney general, others who interacted with her earlier in her career told the Biden team they're wary of how she would conduct herself as a No. 2.

Still, others have raised concerns about Harris’ presidential campaign itself, which launched with great promise before 22,000 people, but steadily lost ground. Harris dropped out a month before the Iowa caucuses.

“Look for someone who does no harm,” former California Democratic Party Chair John Burton said he told Dodd. Burton said he worried President Donald Trump and GOP allies would weaponize Harris’ clash with Biden on the debate stage over race.



Running-mate rundown: Tracking Joe Biden's VP pick | Illustration by Megan McCrink/POLITICO

Despite those question marks, there are compelling reasons why Harris hasn't budged from the top of Biden VP lists.

No other contender matches her experience as someone who was elected three times statewide in the largest state in the nation and has gone through the wringer of a presidential campaign. As the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, she would be a historic selection.

Her prosecutorial chops inspire confidence that she would hold her own, and then some, against Vice President Mike Pence in a debate. She was close with Biden’s late son Beau, a fact that might help offset lingering doubts about the busing attack.

One former Biden adviser described Harris as “Tier 1," while "everyone else is Tier 1B.” The person added, “All of those other people, they have the challenge of the Harris bar — it is just so high. She checks everything that’s so important to him.”

Doug Herman, a Democratic strategist in Los Angeles who headed a pro-Harris super PAC when she ran for Senate in 2016, said "it'd be hard to bet against" Harris.

“There may be some drawbacks from what transpired in the debates, but she makes a strong addition to the ticket,” he said. “The flip of this is that historically it’s the dark-horse candidates who have ended up getting picked, and folks don’t see it coming because they are focused on the odds-on favorite.”

Reid said Biden has not made up his mind. Harris, he said, is among a group of women who remain under consideration, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Though Harris does not have the VP position locked up, Reid said Biden is “too much of a gentleman” to hold the debate incident against her.



Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris greet each other at a Democratic presidential debate on July 31, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

Harris declined an interview request about the search, as she has throughout the VP process. But her allies have been trying to convey to Biden's team and publicly that beyond her own appeal, she could be a trusted partner. They point to the scores of endorsements she landed from current home-state officials.

Advertisement

“She is somebody who has always loved to campaign and work on behalf of other people—going back to her earliest campaigning for state Sen. Barack Obama. She’s often more comfortable talking up others rather than herself,” said Brian Brokaw, a Democratic strategist who managed Harris’ runs for state attorney general.

Democratic strategist Karen Finney said Harris holds an advantage after having already built a national profile by running for president.

“The reality is you have a short period of time and you're trying to win the election,” Finney said of Harris’ edge over others. “How you do it is also challenging, given the Covid reality. You’re not able to do the big rally" to introduce a new face to the nation.

Carla Marinucci contributed to this report.

FILED UNDER:

 

JOE BIDEN,

 

JOE BIDEN 2020,

SHOW COMMENTS

POLITICO

Facebook

Twitter

Link

More

MOST READ



2020 ELECTIONS

‘She had no remorse’: Why Kamala Harris isn't a lock for VP



2020 ELECTIONS

Biden's VP shortlist comes up short



WHITE HOUSE

‘We will not be betrayed again’: Trump’s SCOTUS list hits a new roadblock



2020 ELECTIONS

Bernie Sanders delegates mount convention rebellion over 'Medicare for All'



2020 ELECTIONS

Running-mate rundown: Tracking Joe Biden's VP pick

Previous Slide

Next Slide

 NEWS ABOUT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP



Trump taps renegade retired colonel for Germany ambassador post



First presidential debate moved to Cleveland amid pandemic concerns



Mayors ask Congress to ban deployment of militarized federal agents in cities as Trump mulls sending in more



National Guard officer calls treatment of Lafayette Square protesters 'deeply disturbing'



Drugmakers refuse to attend White House meeting after Trump issues executive orders on costs

SPONSORED CONTENT

The 10 Highest Paying Jobs in PanamaTrendingstock.today

‘He Is and Always Will Be a Terrified Little Boy’

Use This Simple Memory Trick to Learn Spanish Up To 50% FasterOne Month Spanish

Florida Democrats return PPP money amid scandal

The underbelly of impeachment: A tangle of principles, politics and personalities

Democrats oppose Pentagon policy nominee who called Obama a 'terrorist leader'

By 

About Us

Advertising

Breaking News Alerts

Careers

Credit Card Payments

Digital Edition

FAQ

Feedback

Headlines

Photos

POWERJobs

Press

Print Subscriptions

Write For Us

RSS

Site Map

Terms of Service

Privacy Policy

Do not sell my info

[ausaplenty]

Toy soldier

Kiara Scuro. Alexa Myers. Howard Stark. Gilbert Mead. Captain America AU.

Kiara fidgeted in her costume under Alexa’s scrutiny. The brunette’s brow furrowed as a scowl spread across her face.

“What,” she hissed, “is that?”

“It’s my costume. You saw it in Azzano,” the captain explained, feeling even more ridiculous than she had the first few times she’d stood on stage.

She felt like a stupid pin-up girl, waiting for the soldiers to throw tomatoes at her.

“You wore it on stage. I didn’t think they’d be idiotic enough to send you into war in it,” Lexie snapped as she crossed her arms.

Kiara patted her chest. “It’s reinforced with something to make it harder for the bullets to go through.”

“Oh good. So they put that damned target there deliberately.”

The blonde glanced down at the red star splayed across the bright blue hue of her uniform.

“Well, if I can survive a bullet better than you and the others, why shouldn’t they aim at me?” Kiara shrugged.

Alexa’s face darkened.

“We’re going to see Stark,” she announced as she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room Kiara had been assigned. The blonde followed, caught in awe.

Lexie was rarely the one going to pick fights. She went in Kiara’s wake, waiting to see where she could intervene. The times where their roles were reversed were few.

“Stark!” The telepath called, striding through the rows of supplies and weapons.

There was a clang, a quiet curse, and Stark appeared, his sleeves pushed past his elbows. “I’m busy!”

“Not at this moment,” Alexa informed him tersely. She gestured to the suit, to Kiara trailing behind her. “Did you have a say in this?”

“Just with making sure she wouldn’t turn into a colander during her first fire fight,” he told her as he leaned against a work table. Kiara rolled her eyes at the way Stark’s gaze assessed her best friend. No doubt he was imagining her as one of his models.

“And how often do you intend to replace it? Because She is sure as hell going to piss off a lot of Nazi.”

Kiara opened her mouth to argue, but Lexie silenced her with a look.

“They’re sending us to remote locations, are you going to tag along with replacements? You don’t seem the type to go traipsing behind enemy lines,” the telepath continued. “A Hydra sniper is going to take one look at her and start shooting till she falls down.”

She stepped closer, her voice low. “How will you find your answers if the experiment is gone?”

Kiara didn’t think she was meant to hear. She wouldn’t have used to, when fevers had dampened her ability.

Alexa glanced back at her, her face softening.

The blonde wasn’t offended. After the Vita Ray, she’d gotten used to being seen as government property. A way to raise money. A way to unlock the secrets of the serum.

Croft and Lexie were the only people who say her as something more.

“What if we changed it slightly – nothing major, just darken it and change the star,” Kiara suggested, tired of being ignored.

“And less red,” Alexa added, her eyes a little dark. “I need to be able to tell when she’s bleeding.”

“Colonel Phillips won’t like it,” Stark mused, sounding vaguely intrigued by the idea. “I haven’t seen him riled up since Cap marched hundreds of soldiers back into camp.”

The man had turned an awful shade of red. Kiara had seen him in a tizzy since then, but Stark hadn’t been there – Kiara had a way of pissing the colonel off that Lexie said was authority figure’s innate response to the blonde.

“Fine, I’ll do it. Just give me some time to figure somethings out,” the inventor relented. “Anything I should know so you don’t come barging into my workshop again?”

“I just want a hood,” Kiara stated.

“How reinforced can you make this thing? Because Kiara gets into a lot of fights,” Alexa pressed, arching her brow.

When they left, Alexa satisfied that Stark had understood her, the brunette knocked her shoulder against Kiara. “Don’t do that again.”

The blonde frowned. “What’d I do?”

“You’re not property. You’re not America’s toy soldier, easily disposable. You’re Kiara,” Alexa chastised. “There’s enough people trying to kill you out here, don’t let Uncle Sam be one of them.”

~*~

“Captain?”

Kiara braced herself as she turned toward the voice. “Yes?”

“My name is Agent Gilbert Mead, Director Morpheus sent me to escort you and get you geared up,” the freckled man with a mop of blond hair explained. “Make sure the new uniform fits.”

“New?” Kiara’s skin prickled at the thought. She’d seen Iron Man in his flashy suit.

Mead seemed to notice. “Nothing drastic. Just aesthetic changes and security enhancement – Make it so it can withstand a stronger beating.”

He gestured for her to follow him through the halls lined with florescent lights.

Kiara tugged her hood lower as she obeyed.

“Do I seem like I get into a lot of fights, Agent?” the super soldier said wryly.

“With all due respect, ma’am – I idolized Captain America and the Howling Commandos when I was growing up, and I’m something of a collector,” her escort informed her with a small smile.

Kiara froze. “I hear they had trading cards.”

“I have the entire collection and several duplicates of Alexa Myers. She was my favorite,” he explained.

She smiled sadly.

“But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I did my research. All the Howling Commandos reports, post-war interviews. I even got the chance to hear Dum Dum Dugan speak while I was in high school.” Agent Mead’s warm brown eyes twinkled. “He called you a holy terror for the U.S. Army. Talked about the early days in England, when he got a week of cigarette rations because of a bet.”

“Did he mention he’d lost a pack two weeks earlier?” To Lexie. Who took perverse delight in never smoking them. Just kept them sitting in her pocket, taunting Dum Dum. She’d called a lesson, to never bet against Kiara.

“He did not,” he laughed as he opened a door with a code. “This room has been designated for you specifically, because of your needs.”

Kiara stared at the suit, gently backlit so the navy blue uniform stood out. It wasn’t as bulky as her old one had been, and the stripes around her abdomen were missing. She pressed her hand against the white star, flanked by two horizontal lines on either side.

“For a while, we were in possession of Howard Stark’s notes and research. I found reference to an incident where Alexa and you apparently disturbed him enough that he took very detailed references to what Alexa didn’t want in a uniform.” Mead tapped the uniform with his knuckles. “I wouldn’t want to go against her wishes.”

The captain sucked in a breath.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The agent smiled. “The suit can be changed after the mission, if you’d like. I can show you my collection and you can tell me about Alexa.”

“I’d like that,” Kiara told him.

Later, Kiara stared at the bloodied cards Director Morpheus tossed in front of her – Alexa Myers’s haunted figure stained crimson.

“Agent Mead had these with him. I guess he wanted to show them to you,” the one-eyed man told her.

Kiara didn’t change the suit.

~*~

Kiara curled against Alexa, their fingers entwined.

“I’m tired,” the super soldier murmured, her eyes meeting Alexa’s.

“I know.”

Of course Lexie knew. She knew everything, quietly lending strength to the blonde.

“Ryan said you’d retired during the Snap,” Alexa said with a pointed glance. “I think he knows better.”

“Captain America retired, except for major crises,” the blonde explained, closing her eyes. “I traveled around after Thor killed Thanos, making sure people weren’t being preyed on. I tried therapy, organizing a support group, moving on –“

Alexa snorted. “As somebody who spent a few years running from you, I don’t imagine that went well.”

“I’m going to leave it to Jake.”

The telepath knew she meant more than the therapy. She squeezed Kiara’s hand comfortingly.

“I’m so tired of fighting, Lexie, of being a symbol and not a person,” the blonde whispered, softly crying. “And I can still help, but I don’t want to spend my days waiting for the next fight. I’m tired of wearing the uniform. I’m tired so many things but, most of all, I’m tired of losing you.”

“Kiara.” Lexie brushed the hair away from Kiara’s face and wiped a tear away with the pad of her right thumb. “Nobody will blame you for wanting to be you. You’ve been Captain America for so long or trying to straddle the border, but it’s time to be you.”

She pressed her forehead against the blonde’s. “You can give Jake the shield, we can get away. The world will get used to a new Captain America.”

Modern Design

WW2 Design

Initial Design

[itsworn]

This One-Owner 1968 Camaro was found in Griffith Park

There are landmarks you won’t find in any guidebook. Get familiar with a town, and you’ll recognize cars that tell the city’s stories better than any cut-roof bus tour. Such is the mysterious Griffith Park Camaro, a faded Tripoli Turquoise 1968 Camaro that is as regular a Los Angeles sighting as the stars on Hollywood Boulevard or waves against the Malibu sand. The car is always parked in the same spot at the top of Observatory Road in the hills above Los Feliz, California. It sits there every day, headlights toward Hollywood, wheels turned hard to the left, employee parking badge dangling from the rearview mirror. Those in the know can tell you it’s a one-owner car, a daily driver with a half-million miles on its well-spun odometer, but its full story is one of rockets and moon men. It starts both in outer space and in the scrub brush of California.

E.C. Krupp is the owner of the Camaro and the director of Griffith Observatory, three pleasingly symmetrical art deco scoops of chocolate stone against the wild green-gold hills of Los Angeles. The observatory sits in the hills on the south end of Griffith Park, L.A.’s wild, 4,310-acre answer to New York’s manicured Central Park. The land came as a gift in the late 1890s from millionaire “Colonel” Griffith J. Griffith. His gift was controversial. Although he was vocal and poetic about the importance of public land and support for the sciences, he suffered from alcoholism and delusions and spent time in prison for attempted murder—he shot his wife. She survived but sensibly left him. The resulting scandal meant that Griffith’s dreams of a public observatory and theatre in the hills over Hollywood wouldn’t come to fruition until after his death. During his life, the city council wouldn’t accept the donation, and he left it in trust as part of his will.

None of this violent history is apparent when you visit the observatory. To the west is the famous Hollywood sign, and to the east is the strange mirage of downtown L.A.’s skyscrapers rising from the suburban sprawl. In the dark, Griffith Park belongs to mountain lions and coyotes, but at sunset it’s a mass of tourists. Spend any time there, and you’ll know “Say Cheese,” or its national equivalent in 30 different languages. Although most photographers aim their lenses and selfie sticks at the famous remains of Hollywoodland or the observatory dome, some face in toward the parking lot, framing their pouts and smiles against a backdrop of blue Chevy F-body.

They don’t know, these visitors, that the #oldcar in their Instagram shots is the daily mule of the science center’s big boss. Krupp bought the Camaro new in 1968, and it’s been his sole transportation up until 2004, when he bought a backup car—a 1994 Miata. Krupp describes himself as “not a car guy” because he hires a mechanic to wrench on his fleet. He’s a smart man, but he’s wrong here. There are many ways of being a “car guy,” and certainly keeping a classic on the road for half a century is one of them.

Krupp has worked at Griffith Observatory since 1970, and his enthusiasm for the place is undimmed. When we met to talk about the Camaro, he took me on a mini tour inside the observatory. We followed the curve of the dome to a conference room, where he went immediately to the window and raised the blinds, giving us a view of the city, dollhouse-small below. He looked out for several breaths, maybe retracing his morning commute up the twisting park roads, then sat down and adjusted his glasses. “Start at the beginning,” I said, and he told me about the Colonel, the building of the observatory in 1933, and his father—a mechanical engineer with a passion for the budding space program in the 1950s. “He told me he didn’t want to go to the moon,” Krupp said, “but he wanted to push the button.” When E.C. was 12, Krupp Sr. moved the family to Los Angeles in hopes of finding work in Los Angeles’ active space race scene. They settled in the San Fernando Valley, and as a kid, E.C. could see the glow of Apollo rockets being tested in the Santa Susana pass. As he got older, E.C. was also interested in the stars and studied astronomy at UCLA. While still a graduate student, he started working at the Griffith Planetarium. “I didn’t care for it at first,” he said. “But eventually I realized, ‘Hey, I drive through a park every day to get to work, and the work is hands-on. It’s immediate. It’s a small team. I can make things happen.”

The drive might have done something to win Krupp over to his work, but it was hard on his car at the time, a 1963 Austin-Healy Sprite. After expensive preventative maintenance and numerous breakdowns that didn’t get prevented, Krupp’s dad laid down an engineer’s law of logic. “My father finally said, ‘You need a reliable American car.’” Reluctantly, the young Krupp traded in his sporty car. “There was a deal on Camaros,” he said.  “I got the cheapest one, maybe $2,600. Straight-six, three-on-the-tree, manual everything. I hated it.” Compared to the Austin-Healy, the Camaro was a big, sloppy boat. “I called it the mushmobile. But I just kept driving it.” As the odometer turned, his dislike turned to acceptance and then affection for the F-body. “You keep something for a while for practical reasons, and eventually it becomes romantic.”

One of Krupp’s priorities as director of the observatory is keeping it relevant. He modernized the planetarium and supervises new exhibits and technologies to keep the 80-year-old facility up to date in the modern space age. Knowing this, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect with the Wi-Fi in the Leonard Nimoy Theatre and the six-banger ’68 parked outside. “The key with technology is pushing the edge to do the job you need,” he said when I asked about it. “There is a big difference between style and need, and my personal ideas of style are more Luddite. I see no point in spending money or energy on things before I need them.”

For almost 50 years and 501,189 miles (more since we shot it), this approach has kept the Camaro on the road, through two engine rebuilds, four clutches, brake jobs, steering repairs, tune-ups, new upholstery, and three repaints. The whole time, Krupp has always gone for stock replacements. No LS-swaps or even four-bbl carbs for his Camaro. Again, that’s a choice that started as sensible—why complicate a working system—and became emotional. “I don’t mind spending the money for repairs,” he said. “It’s just getting hard to find people who will work on it the way I want. At this point, I don’t have an interest in changing the car. You want as simple a technology as will do the job.”

Rantz to the Rescue

One of Krupp’s concerns when he told us his story was that he didn’t count as a car guy because he didn’t do his own repairs. We don’t think turning the wrenches is a requirement for loving cars, but we did want to hear from the folks who helped Krupp keep the Camaro on the road. In the ’70s, finding a mechanic to work on a 1968 Camaro was easy—after all, it was still a new car. The trouble started when Krupp’s long-time mechanic, Del Stapp, retired in the early 2000s. How do you find someone to keep everything stock and humming on a nearly 40-year-old car?

Many of Stapp’s former clients were going to a new place in Eagle Rock called Rantz Auto Center, which was run by a father and son named Ricardo and Anthony Antunez. Krupp gave them a try and found kindred spirits. “We’re old-fashioned, too,” Anthony said. “We always tell him, ‘Keep it stock; don’t open that can of worms.’”

Since 2005, Ricardo, Anthony, and service manager Jesse Nuñez have been keeping the Camaro in tune. “It’s his baby,” Anthony said. “We always make it a priority when it comes in. He has a backup car now, the Mazda, but we know he prefers to drive the Camaro.” Anthony said the car is a sort of neighborhood celebrity, attracting attention whenever it comes in for maintenance and repairs. “We do whatever it takes: go to the junkyard, find a parts car, research for original parts. Mr. Krupp is an amazing person, and we want to get him back out there.”

Does Anthony have any advice for someone thinking of daily driving a classic? “Have a strong left foot if you want a manual car, stay out of traffic, and learn how to say no when people ask to buy it!”

In 2014, E.C. Krupp’s one-owner Camaro had accrued 481,555 miles, the distance of a trip to the moon and back again. The timing matched up with Griffith Observatory’s 80th anniversary and Krupp’s 40th year at Griffith. He celebrated by driving the Camaro to the anniversary party in an Apollo 11 spacesuit replica. “I had to practice ahead of time to see if I could work the clutch in astronaut boots.”

For an academically minded hippie in the late ’60s, trading in a cool English sports car on something as “Establishment” as a Chevrolet was a bummer, man. A young Krupp attempted to reclaim his counterculture cred with painted “stained glass” graphics on the Camaro’s quarter windows. “It was a Thomas Pynchon reference, [the muted horn from the novel The Crying of Lot 49] with an added astronomy reference [the sun],” he said.

In 1968 you could get a “big” 250ci six-cylinder or the most base of base engines, a 140-hp 230ci mill. Krupp’s Camaro is the little one. “There was a deal on Camaro,” he said. The engine has been rebuilt twice but never replaced or upgraded.

One of the biggest challenges for Krupp’s mechanic was finding a correct steering column for the three-speed column shifter. “For a while I had an aluminum brace around it,” Krupp said. “I didn’t think it would last, but I figured I’d just keep having the machinist make me a new one. It actually worked fine and was still in place when we finally found a replacement column.”

A clutch in L.A. traffic gets a workout, especially climbing the steep roads surrounding Griffith Observatory. Krupp said the benefit to a manual car and parking on hills is being able to jump-start from a roll when the battery dies. He’s on clutch No. 4. That’s about 125,297 miles per rebuild.

Krupp and his mechanic, Anthony Antunez, agree on keeping the Camaro as original as possible. The only place where they differ is on the subject of paint. Anthony thinks the car deserves to be shiny but says: “Mr. Krupp, he likes that vintage look.”

  Krupp said a lot of keeping the Camaro running is getting attuned to changes in the way it feels. “You get used to its idiosyncrasies, and then you know the feel of the clutch or the brakes. You can predict when it’s time to deal with them.”

The first Camaro A six-cylinder column-shifted Camaro might not be the first combo you think of when you think of that most bitchin’ of cars, but the first Camaro of Camaros was exactly that. Camaro No. N100001 is known as a pilot production car, and it was used in press conferences and photo shoots to introduce Chevy’s new ponycar in 1966. It then was sold to a dealer, who kept it as a display car for two years, so the first production Camaro didn’t end up on the road until 1969. The Camaro went through numerous owners and was modified as a drag car until a 13-year-old kid named Logan saw it for sale and pointed it out to his dad. Logan and Corey Lawson bought the Camaro and restored it, building a database of Camaro history along the way. Spend some time on their site, www.pilotcarregistry.com, to learn more about Camaro numero uno. Unlike Krupp’s always-stock ’68, Camaro No. 1 went through many modifications.

The post This One-Owner 1968 Camaro was found in Griffith Park appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/one-owner-1968-camaro-found-griffith-park/ via IFTTT

[newstfionline]

How The Next World War Starts?

By David Wood, Huffington Post, April 4, 2017

Several times a week, a U.S. Air Force pilot takes off from the Royal Air Force base in Mildenhall, England, and heads for the northernmost edge of NATO territory to gather intelligence on Russia. One of these pilots is 40-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Webster, a veteran of many such expeditions and a hard guy to rattle. On a typical flight, his four-engine, silver and white RC-135 jet will rise gracefully over the old World War II bomber bases in East Anglia. It then flies over the North Sea and Denmark, taking care to remain within international airspace. When Webster reaches the Baltic Sea, the surveillance operation begins in earnest. Behind the cockpit, the fuselage of his plane is crammed with electronic equipment manned by some two dozen intelligence officers and analysts. They sit in swivel chairs, monitoring emissions, radar data and military communications harvested from below that appear on their computer screens or stream through their headphones. Inside the plane, it is chilly. The air smells faintly of jet fuel, rubber and warm wiring. The soft blue carpet helps absorb the distant thrum of the engines, and so it is also surprisingly quiet--at least until the Russians show up.

As the Polish coast fades into the distance, Webster may swing left to avoid passing directly over the heavily armed Russian base at Kaliningrad. This is where, without warning, a Russian SU-27 fighter may materialize as if out of nowhere, right outside the cockpit window, flying so close that Webster can make out the tail markings. No matter how often this happens--and lately, it has been happening a lot--these encounters always give Webster a jolt. For one thing, he and his crew can’t see the planes coming. Although his jet is carrying millions of dollars worth of the most sophisticated listening devices available to man, it lacks a simple radar to spot an incoming plane. So the only way Webster can find out what the Russian jet is doing--how close it’s flying, whether it’s making any sudden moves--is to dispatch a junior airman to crouch on the floor and peer through one of the 135’s three fuselage windows, each the size of a cereal box and inconveniently placed just below knee level.

In normal times, being intercepted isn’t a cause for concern. Russian jets routinely shadow American jets over the Baltic Sea and elsewhere. Americans routinely intercept Russian aircraft along the Alaskan and California coasts. The idea is to identify the plane and perhaps to signal, “You keep an eye on us, we keep an eye on you.” These, however, are far from normal times. Every few weeks, a Russian pilot will get aggressive. Instead of closing in on the RC-135 at around 30 miles per hour and skulking off its wing for a while, a fighter jet will careen directly toward the American plane at 150 miles per hour or more before abruptly going nose-up to bleed off airspeed and avoid a collision. Or it might perform the dreaded “barrel roll”--a hair-raising maneuver in which the Russian jet makes a 360-degree orbit around the 135’s midsection while the two aircraft hurtle along at 400 miles per hour.

In international airspace and waters, Russia and the U.S. are brushing up against each other in perilous ways with alarming frequency. This problem, which began not long after Russia’s seizure of the Crimea in 2014, has accelerated rapidly in the past year. In 2015, according to its air command headquarters, NATO scrambled jets more than 400 times to intercept Russian military aircraft that were flying without having broadcast their required identification code or having filed a flight plan. In 2016, that number had leapt to 780--an average of more than two intercepts a day. There has been a similar increase in Russian jets intercepting US or NATO aircraft, as well as a significant uptick in incidents at sea in which Russian jets run mock attacks against American warships.

Russia is hardly the only source of anxiety for the Pentagon. American and Chinese ships and aircraft have clashed in the South China Sea; in early 2016, Iran seized 10 Navy sailors after their boats strayed into its waters. But senior U.S. officials view run-ins with Russia as the most dangerous, because they are part of a deliberate strategy of intimidation and provocation by Russian president Vladimir Putin--and because the stakes are so high. One false move by a hot-dogging Russian pilot could send an American aircraft and its crew spiraling 20,000 feet into the sea. Any nearby U.S. fighter would have to immediately decide whether to shoot down the Russian plane. And if the pilot did retaliate, the U.S. and Russia could quickly find themselves on the brink of open hostility.

With these issues in mind, I traveled to Germany this winter to talk with U.S. Air Force General Tod D. Wolters, who commands American and NATO air operations. We sat in his headquarters at Ramstein Air Base, a gleaming, modern complex where officers in the uniforms of various NATO nations bustle efficiently through polished corridors. “The degree of hair-triggeredness is a concern,” said Wolters, a former fighter pilot who encountered Soviet bloc pilots during the Cold War. “The possibility of an intercept gone wrong,” he added, is “on my mind 24/7/365.” Admiral James G. Stavridis, the commander of NATO from 2009 to 2013, is more blunt. The potential for miscalculation “is probably higher than at any other point since the end of the Cold War,” he told me. “We are now at maximum danger.”

This may sound counter-intuitive, given President Donald Trump’s extravagant professions of admiration for Putin. But the strong consensus inside the U.S. military establishment is that the pattern of Russian provocation will continue--and not just because the various investigations into the Trump campaign’s links with Russia make détente politically unlikely. By constantly pushing the limits with risky intercepts and other tactics, Putin forces NATO to make difficult choices about when and how to respond that can sow dissension among its members.

According to an analysis by the U.S. Army War College, “the top leadership is moving the country onto a war footing” in response to what it sees as “an arc of crisis around Russia and a period of great turbulence in international affairs.” since the departure of Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, his foreign policy team is now dominated by officials who advocate a hard line on Russia.

These include ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, and senior National Security Council Russia adviser Fiona Hill. Secretary of Defense James Mattis predicted at his confirmation hearing that “there are an increasing number of areas where we are going to have to confront Russia.” For all these reasons, Philip Breedlove, who retired last summer after three years as supreme allied commander of NATO, isn’t optimistic that Russia will back off anytime soon. “We’re in a bad place and it’s getting worse rather than better,” he told me. “The probability of coming up against that unintended but strategic mess-up is, I think, rising rather than becoming less likely.” When Breedlove’s successor, General Curtis Scaparrotti, took command in May 2016, he grimly warned a gathering of diplomats and officers of a “resurgent Russia” and cautioned that NATO must be ready “to fight tonight if deterrence fails.”

All of this is happening at a time when most of the old Cold War safeguards for resolving tensions with Russia--treaties, gentlemen’s understandings, unofficial back channels--have fallen away. When a Russian jet barrel-rolls a U.S. aircraft, a senior U.S. official hops in a car and is driven to the white marble monolith on Wisconsin Avenue that houses the Russian embassy. There, he sits down with Sergey Kislyak, the ambassador who has recently attained minor fame for his surreptitious meetings with various Trump associates. A typical conversation, the U.S. official told me, goes something like this: “I say, ‘Look here, Sergey, we had this incident on April 11, this is getting out of hand, this is dangerous.’” Kislyak, the official said, benignly denies that any misbehavior has occurred. (When I made my own trip to the embassy late last year, a senior official assured me with a polite smile that Russian pilots do nothing dangerous--and certainly not barrel-rolls.)

Among the many senior officers I spoke to in Washington and Europe who are worried about Russia, there was one more factor fueling their anxiety: their new commander-in-chief, and how he might react in a crisis. After a Russian fighter barrel-rolled an RC-135 over the Baltic Sea last April, Trump fumed that the Obama administration had only lodged a diplomatic protest. He considered this to be a weak response. “It just shows how low we’ve gone, where they can toy with us like that,” he complained on a radio talk show. “It shows a lack of respect.” If he were president, Trump went on, he would do things differently. “You wanna at least make a phone call or two,” he conceded. “[But] at a certain point, when that sucker comes by you, you gotta shoot. You gotta shoot. I mean, you gotta shoot.”

One day in the mid-1980s, I stood with a cluster of American troopers on a hillside observation post near the Fulda Gap, on the border between East and West Germany. If there was going to be a war, it would come here. The Red Army would pour across the border and attempt to bludgeon the smaller U.S. and NATO forces into surrender. Each side had deployed nuclear weapons close at hand.

The soldiers at the border post were tense, serious. A few nights earlier, a man had tried to escape from the East, sprinting jaggedly across a stretch of plowed ground, somehow avoiding snipers, landmines and teams of killer dogs. The East German police shot him as he scaled a chain-link fence mere yards from the safety of West Germany. Impaled on the barbed wire, he bled slowly to death as the Americans watched in horror, his fading cries cutting through the night.

From my vantage point on top of an old concrete bunker, I looked across the misty farmland. A mile or two away were the emplacements of the Soviet Red Army. “See ‘em? Right there!” a sergeant told me. Not sure whether I was looking in the right place, I raised my hand to point. The sergeant swiftly knocked it down. “We don’t point!” he exclaimed, almost panicked. Russian and American commanders had banned such gestures, since they could so easily be mistaken for someone raising a weapon. Among troops on the front line, there was an unmistakable sense that catastrophic war was more likely to be set off by an accident than by an intentional invasion.

Looking back, it seems nothing short of miraculous that the Cold War actually remained cold. On so many occasions, misunderstandings and confusion could have erupted into mutual annihilation. One of the most frightening near-misses came in 1983, when the aging Soviet leadership in the Kremlin was convinced that an attack by the U.S. was imminent. They had been badly rattled by President Ronald Reagan’s declaration that the Soviet superpower was an “evil empire” destined for “the ash-heap of history,” and by his talk of developing a so-called Star Wars defense system capable of zapping any target from space. And so when Soviet spies began reporting on a large-scale US-NATO military exercise, code-named Able Archer, the Kremlin concluded that they were witnessing preparations for a massive conventional and nuclear offensive.

It did look like the real thing. The Pentagon sent tanks, artillery and 19,000 troops into Germany for weeks of mock combat operations. Bombers were loaded with dummy nuclear warheads in a rehearsal of procedures for transitioning from conventional to nuclear war. In Moscow, the General Staff began calling up military reserves and canceling troop leaves. Factories conducted air raid drills. Fighter and bomber squadrons were put on heightened alert. And inside the Kremlin, senior leaders considered a preemptive nuclear strike to avoid defeat, according to a top-secret U.S. intelligence report produced six years later. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency picked up some of this, but officials simply didn’t believe the Soviets thought the U.S. intended to launch a nuclear attack. After all, they reasoned, these rehearsals were an annual event and the U.S. and NATO had even issued press releases describing Able Archer as a training exercise. They didn’t realize that in Moscow, these assurances were waved aside as lies.

The Soviets decided not to act, for reasons that remain unclear--but misunderstandings like these alarmed both sides. The U.S. and Russia together had more than 61,000 nuclear warheads, many mounted on missiles targeted at each other and on hair-trigger alert. And so, beginning in the late 1980s, the United States, Russia and their allies started developing a set of formal mechanisms for preventing accidental war. These treaties and agreements limited the size of deployed forces, required both sides to exchange detailed information about weapon types and locations and allowed for observers to attend field exercises. Regular meetings were held to iron out complaints. Russian and American tank commanders even chatted during military exercises. The aim, ultimately, was to make military activities more transparent and predictable. “They worked--we didn’t go to war!” said Franklin C. Miller, who oversaw crises and nuclear negotiations during a long Pentagon career.

And yet few of these agreements have survived the brewing animosity between Moscow and Washington.

An agreement between the U.S. and USSR on the “Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas” set rules for safe navigation for ships and aircraft, with violations discussed at annual conferences. For some years, there was continuous communication between Russian and American officers between conferences, but that has stopped.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty eliminated all short- and medium-range nuclear and conventional missiles and launchers from Europe (nearly 2,700 were destroyed). Today, Russia charges that the U.S. deployment of a missile defense system in Romania is a violation of the treaty; Russia’s recent deployment of nuclear-capable cruise missiles appears to violate the agreement. No resolution is in sight.

The Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities was signed by the U.S. and the USSR. It established rules and crisis communications between their respective military forces in Europe. The agreement became null after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and was never replaced.

The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe mandated reductions of armed forces to agreed-upon limits, verified by site inspections. Russia suspended cooperation in 2007. In 2011, the U.S. announced it would no longer abide by certain provisions pertaining to Russia. In March 2015, Russia formally ended participation.

The Vienna Document currently has 56 signatories, including the U.S. and Russia. It limits the size of exercises and mandates notification of military activities and of hazardous incidents. The agreement failed during the Ukraine crisis when Russia refused to admit monitors and ignored violations cited by inspectors in Ukraine. The U.S. has proposed updating the agreement; Russia has declined. According to NATO officials, it is now routinely observed by NATO and routinely ignored by Russia.

The Open Skies Treaty, which went into effect in 2002, provides for unarmed aerial observation flights over NATO territory, Eastern Europe, Russia and elsewhere. For the past two years, Russia has restricted U.S. military flights over Kaliningrad, its fortress on the Baltic Sea.

The result is that the U.S and Russia are now more outwardly antagonistic than they have been in years. Since the Cold War ended in 1991, NATO has accepted 10 European countries formerly allied with the Soviet Union. In response, Russia has expanded its military; engaged in powerful cyberwar attacks against Estonia, Germany, Finland, Lithuania and other countries; seized parts of Georgia; forcibly annexed Crimea; sent its troops into Ukraine; and staged multiple no-notice exercises with the ground and air power it would use to invade its Baltic neighbors. In one such maneuver last year, Russia mobilized some 12,500 combat troops in territory near Poland and the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. According to a technical analysis by the RAND Corp., a lightning Russia strike could carry its troops into NATO capitals in the Baltics in less than 60 hours.

Last year, NATO shifted its official strategy from “assurance”--a passive declaration to stand by its allies--to “deterrence,” which requires sufficient combat power to repel armed aggression. The alliance also approved a new multinational response force, some 40,000 troops in all. In January, under a separate Obama administration initiative, the United States rushed a 4,000-strong armored brigade combat team to Poland and the Baltic states. (Lieutenant General Tim Ray, the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, explained that its objective is to “to deter Russian aggression” by stationing “battle-ready” forces in forward positions.) Army engineers have started strengthening eastern European runways to accept heavier air shipments and are reconfiguring some eastern European railroads to handle rail cars carrying tanks and heavy armor. This March, a U.S. combat aviation brigade arrived in Germany with attack gunships, transport and medevac helicopters and drones, and is deploying its units to Latvia, Romania and Poland.

So far, these efforts to shore up NATO have proceeded despite the Trump administration’s occasional shows of disdain for the military alliance.

Trump has called NATO “obsolete” and repeatedly chastised members for not paying their fair share of defense costs. In a March meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump pointedly did not shake her hand. In late March, Scaparrotti acknowledged that he had not yet briefed the president about NATO-Russia relations. However, Trump’s secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, recently made a point of affirming that NATO is the “fundamental bedrock” of American security. Any change to that policy would be met with fierce opposition in Congress from defense stalwarts like Senator John McCain of Arizona, who is demanding that the United States use “all elements of American power” against Russia.

This February, the two top commanders of the United States and Russia met in Azerbaijan, in a rare effort to bring some stability to U.S.-Russia relations. A month later, they met again in Turkey to review a procedure to prevent accidents involving aircraft operating over Syria. But that’s a narrow issue. A broader restoration of the Cold War-era constraints on military activity seems unlikely. Increasingly, each side sees the other as an adversary. A senior Russian diplomat put the blame squarely on the United States. “We are being seen as an object to deter--as the enemy,” he told me. “In that case, how are we going to talk?”

What this means is that there are few remaining mechanisms to defuse unexpected emergencies. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in late March, Scaparrotti acknowledged that he has virtually no contact with Russian military leaders. (“Don’t you think that would be a good idea?” Independent Senator Angus King of Maine queried. “If you could say, ‘Wait a minute, that missile was launched by accident, don’t get alarmed’?”) In 2014, in response to Russia’s intervention in Crimea, Congress passed a law halting almost all military-to-military communications. Even the spontaneous and informal exchanges that used to occur among Russian and American officers have largely ended.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who commands U.S. Army forces in Europe, told me last year that he knew his Russian counterpart--at the time, Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov--but had no direct contact with him. If a problem arose--say, a U.S. Special Forces sergeant serving as a trainer in Ukraine suddenly encountered a Russian commando and gunfire broke out--Hodges couldn’t have called Kartapolov to cool things off. There are no other direct lines of communication. Once, Hodges told me, he sat next to the general at a conference. He filled Kartapolov’s water glass and gave him a business card, but the gestures were not reciprocated and they never spoke.

In December 2015, a Turkish F-16 jet shot down a Russian SU-24 fighter on the Turkish-Syrian border. The Russian fighter plummeted in flames and its co-pilot was killed by ground fire. The surviving pilot, Captain Konstantin Murakhtin, said he’d been attacked without warning; Turkey insisted that the Russian plane had violated its airspace. Within days Putin had deftly turned the incident to his advantage. Instead of seeking to punish Turkey, he accused the U.S. of having a hand in the incident, without any evidence. Then he coaxed Turkey, a NATO member, into participating in joint combat operations over Syria. He also engineered Syrian peace talks in which the United States was pointedly not invited to participate. It was a bravura performance. Russia, says Breedlove, the retired NATO commander, “is playing three-dimensional chess while we are playing checkers.”

Putin’s favored tactic, intelligence officials say, is known as “escalation dominance.” The idea is to push the other side until you win, a senior officer based in Europe explained--to “escalate to the point where the adversary stops, won’t go farther. It’s a very destabilizing strategy.” Stavridis cast it in the terms of an old Russian proverb: “Probe with a bayonet; when you hit steel withdraw, when you hit mush, proceed.” Right now, he added, “the Russians keep pushing out and hitting mush.”

This mindset is basically the opposite of how both American and Soviet leaders approached each other during the Cold War, even during periods of exceptional stress such as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Having endured the devastation of World War II, they understood the horror that lurked on the far side of a crisis. “When things started to get too close, they would back off,” said Miller, the retired Pentagon official.

The term of art for this constant recalibration of risk is “crisis management”--the “most demanding form of diplomacy,” writes Sir Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London. Leaders had to make delicate judgments about when to push their opponent and when to create face-saving off-ramps. Perhaps most critically, they had to possess the confidence to de-escalate when necessary. Skilled crisis management, Freedman writes, requires “an ability to match deeds with words, to convey threats without appearing reckless, and to offer concessions without appearing soft, often while under intense media scrutiny and facing severe time pressures.”

A recent textbook example came in January 2016, when Iran seized those 10 U.S. Navy sailors, claiming that they had been spying in Iranian waters in the eastern Persian Gulf. President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, immediately opened communications with his counterpart in Tehran, using channels established for negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran. By the next morning, the sailors had been released. The U.S. acknowledged the sailors had strayed into Iranian waters but did not apologize, asserting that the transgression had been an innocent error. Iran, meanwhile, acknowledged that the sailors had not been spying.

Neither Putin nor Trump, it’s safe to say, are crisis managers by nature. Both are notoriously thin-skinned, operate on instinct, and have a tendency to shun expert advice. Stavridis, who has studied both Putin and Trump and who met with Trump in December, concluded that the two leaders “are not risk-averse. They are risk-affectionate.” Aron, the Russia expert, said, “I think there is a much more cavalier attitude by Putin toward war in general and the threat of nuclear weapons. He continued, “He is not a madman, but he is much more inclined to use the threat of nuclear weapons in conventional [military] and political confrontation with the West.” Perhaps the most significant difference between the two is that Putin is far more calculating than Trump. In direct negotiations, he is said to rely on videotaped analysis of the facial expressions of foreign leaders that signal when the person is bluffing, confused or lying.

At times, Trump has been surprisingly quick to lash out at a perceived slight from Putin, although these moments have been overshadowed by his effusive praise for the Russian leader. On December 22, Putin promised to strengthen Russia’s strategic nuclear forces in his traditional year-end speech to his officer corps. Hours later, Trump vowed, via Twitter, to “greatly strengthen and expand” the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. On Morning Joe the following day, host Mika Brzezinski said that Trump had told her on a phone call, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” And in late March, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was becoming increasingly frustrated with Russia, throwing up his hands in exasperation when informed that Russia may have violated an arms treaty.

Some in national security circles see Trump’s impulsiveness as a cause for concern but not for panic. “He can always overreact,” said Anthony Cordesman, senior strategic analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a veteran of many national security posts throughout the U.S. government. “[But] there are a lot of people [around the president] to prevent an overreaction with serious consequences.” Let’s say that Trump acted upon his impulse to tell a fighter pilot to shoot a jet that barrel-rolled an American plane. Such a response would still have to be carried out by the Pentagon, Cordesman said--a process with lots of room for senior officers to say, “Look, boss, this is a great idea but can we talk about the repercussions?”

And yet that process is no longer as robust as it once was. Many senior policymaking positions at the Pentagon and State Department remain unfilled. A small cabal in the White House, including Bannon, Jared Kushner and a few others, has asserted a role in foreign policy decisions outside the normal NSC process. It’s not yet clear how much influence is wielded by Trump’s widely respected national security adviser, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. When lines of authority and influence are so murky, it increases the risk that a minor incident could boil up into an unintended clash, said retired Marine Corps General John Allen, who has served in senior military and diplomatic posts.

To complicate matters further, the relentless pace of information in the social media age has destroyed the one precious factor that helped former leaders safely navigate perilous situations: time. It’s hard to believe now, but during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, for instance, President Kennedy and his advisers deliberated for a full 10 weeks before announcing a naval quarantine of the island. In 1969, a U.S. spy plane was shot down by North Korean jets over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 Americans on board. It took 26 hours for the Pentagon and State Department to recommend courses of action to President Richard Nixon, according to a declassified secret assessment. (Nixon eventually decided not to respond.) Today, thanks to real-time video and data streaming, the men in the Kremlin and White House can know--or think they know--as much as the guy in the cockpit of a plane or on the bridge of a warship. The president no longer needs to rely on reports from military leaders that have been filtered through their expertise and deeper knowledge of the situation on the ground. Instead, he can watch a crisis unfold on a screen and react in real time. Once news of an incident hits the internet, the pressure to respond becomes even harder to withstand. “The ability to recover from early missteps is greatly reduced,” Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has written. “The speed of war has changed, and the nature of these changes makes the global security environment even more unpredictable, dangerous, and unforgiving.”

And so in the end, no matter how cool and unflappable the instincts of military men and women like Kevin Webster, what will smother the inevitable spark is steady, thoughtful leadership from within the White House and the Kremlin. A recognition that first reports may be wrong; a willingness to absorb new and perhaps unwelcome information; a thick skin to ward off insults and accusations; an acknowledgment of the limited value of threats and bluffs; and a willingness to recognize the core interests of the other side and a willingness to accept a face-saving solution. These qualities are not notably on display in either capital.

[ongames]

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

KINSHASA, Congo ― In early 2014, few people worried that the Ebola virus, which is up to 90 percent fatal, would pose a global threat. So the World Health Organization sent shockwaves around the world when it announced that Ebola was spreading out of control in West Africa.

Before the epidemic was over two years later, it had killed thousands of people. They died in terrifying and painful ways, often passing the disease on to family members before and even after death. Doctors and aid workers died, people who should have been able to stay safe while offering care.

But not everyone who is exposed to the Ebola virus, which spreads through contact with blood or other bodily fluids, falls ill. Such is the case of Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, who in 1976 became the first scientist to come into contact with Ebola and survive.

The Congolese virologist, now 74, placed himself square in the path of the disease as he worked in harrowing and hazardous conditions to identify what was killing some of its earliest victims.

“I am like Johnnie Walker,” he quipped, referencing the well-known Scotch whisky slogan, “Born 1820 ― Still going strong.” Muyembe giggled as he strode around his office imitating the brand’s iconic “Striding Man.”

It’s a joke in service of a very serious message from a doctor who has spent years battling the worst viruses. Don’t make the same mistake, he warns, that the world made with Ebola when it first arose. Don’t ignore the threat because it seems far away.

Muyembe, who now leads the Democratic Republic of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, had been home from studying in Europe just a few years when he received a phone call in 1976 that would change his life forever.

“The minister of health rang and said, ‘There’s a mysterious disease that’s killing people at the Catholic mission in Yambuku in Equateur province. I’m going to send you there to find out the cause.’ I was the country’s only virologist,” Muyembe recalled.

The mission hospital was more than 600 miles northeast of the capital city of Kinshasa, deep in thick forest. Muyembe set off overland in a jeep with a military colonel who was also an epidemiologist. It was “a real adventure,” he said. All they were told was that there was a suspected outbreak of yellow or typhoid fever.

But when they arrived in Yambuku, the hospital was deserted. They went to sleep at the mission and woke to a very different scene.

Three nurses and one woman had died at home overnight, and the hospital was now full of patients ― some pushed there on bicycles, many feverish ― after word had gone round that doctors had arrived from Kinshasa.

Muyembe examined and drew blood from the sick and dissected the dead to take tissue samples ― all with bare hands. Later, he would shudder at the thought of how much contact he’d had with feverish patients, many of whom didn’t stop bleeding after he withdrew the needle or scalpel.

“The blood would pour out all day. My hands were covered in blood. I didn’t have gloves,” he said.

Muyembe thinks that what saved him from death that day, and the many others when he handled infected samples with no protection, was his speedy request for soap and water. But luck must have played a role too.

The blood would pour out all day. My hands were covered in blood. I didn’t have gloves. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum

When a nun fell ill ― with fever and red marks on her body ― Muyembe and his colleague told the mother superior that they wanted to take the samples they’d collected and the sick nun back to Kinshasa. The nun initially refused to go ― she didn’t want the community to think she was running away ― but she relented after Muyembe insisted. Another sister accompanied her on the journey to Kinshasa, so they were a group of four squeezing together in various planes and cars.

“I was always next to her,” Muyembe remembered, still looking relieved decades later at the thought of his close brush with death.

The samples from Yambuku, including the nun’s, were sent from Kinshasa to a lab in Belgium, where scientists initially thought they showed the Marburg virus, which causes another hemorrhagic fever found in Congo and neighboring Uganda.

Meanwhile, when the nun, her traveling companion and a nurse who had treated her in Kinshasa all died from the same sickness, and the epidemiologist who had gone with him to Yambuku developed a fever, Muyembe panicked. He quarantined himself in the garage at his home so as not to infect his wife and children. He couldn’t stop thinking about the test tubes full of blood samples that he had brought home briefly after returning from Yambuku.

“It was terrible because the assistant medic who had come with me sent me a message saying, ‘Ah, I am sick,’ and then poof! He was dead. The nun we brought with us had died and had contaminated another nun and a nurse. I was very afraid,” Muyembe said.

He finally got a call from Belgium that the virus wasn’t Marburg but a previously unknown hemorrhagic fever. Researchers later named it Ebola, for the river that runs through Yambuku. It was after this call ― and the death of his fellow scientist ― that Muyembe destroyed the lab samples, terrified of further contamination.

Nearly 40 years later, when Ebola hit West Africa, Muyembe was surprised by the lack of research into the virus and the poorly coordinated global and local response.

“It really was chaos,” he said. “People thought it was just something that affected East and Central Africa, so they hadn’t even studied it and weren’t prepared.”

Muyembe had worked on research into a possible vaccine nearly two decades earlier, but it was only when Ebola briefly touched Europe and the United States in 2014 that he finally saw scientists start to take this killer seriously.

During Congo’s third Ebola outbreak in 1995, the experienced virologist had transfused blood from people who had recovered from Ebola to a group of patients infected with the virus. Of the eight patients who received the transfusions, seven survived ― a result that Muyembe quickly passed on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S.

“We kept saying, ‘Antibodies do protect.’ But for 20 years, this virus, and its treatment, was neglected,” he said. In late 2016, an experimental vaccine – developed principally in response to fears of Ebola being used as a bioterrorism agent – was shown to provide 100 percent protection against the virus. It arrived too late for the 11,000 people who died in the 2014 outbreak.

More recently, Muyembe has watched scientists scramble to stop the Zika virus once it began affecting wealthier countries. The virus is named for a forest in Uganda, where it was first found in 1947.

“Because it was an African disease, we neglected it. But with climate change and modern transport, the insects will travel to Brazil, to Europe,” he said.

There are other diseases that could devastate whole cities, countries or regions of the world, Muyembe warns.

I wish I could say that onchocerciasis would make everyone in the world blind, because then we’d have a vaccine. Dr. Muyembe

So-called neglected tropical diseases affect over 1 billion people worldwide, mainly in poor parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Some of these diseases ― echinococcosis, dengue and Chagas, for example ― have already infected people in the U.S. in small numbers. But they attract very little attention in Western media and garner limited research funding.

“I wish I could say that onchocerciasis would make everyone in the world blind, because then we’d have a vaccine,” said Muyembe of a disease otherwise known as river blindness, which threatens up to 14 million people in Congo.

“We call them neglected diseases because they come from underdeveloped countries,” he said. “But these neglected diseases can become a threat to developed countries. With travel and everything we have now, the world has become a village.”

Our world needs better research and monitoring aimed at African countries, Muyembe warned, because that’s where many diseases start. And if they’re allowed to develop, “they will be like Ebola, which came from Central Africa, went to West Africa and then suddenly was threatening the U.S. and Europe.”

Muyembe is also determined to raise up the next generation of Congolese researchers to continue his legacy. “We must train the young people,” he said, slapping two young researchers on the back. Like him, they earned their Ph.D.s in Europe and then returned home to help.

Despite cheating one of the world’s most deadly diseases and plenty of other rare illnesses since, he too plans to keep fighting. “The most important thing in dealing with a lot of these diseases is washing your hands,” he said with a fatalistic shrug.

What frightens the doctor more than staring death in the face is retiring and dying of boredom.

“I must continue working,” Muyembe said, straightening his white coat and rushing off to his next appointment at the lab.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

Volunteers With No Medical Training Are Fighting Diseases The World Ignores

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget. published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY

[yes-dal456]

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

KINSHASA, Congo ― In early 2014, few people worried that the Ebola virus, which is up to 90 percent fatal, would pose a global threat. So the World Health Organization sent shockwaves around the world when it announced that Ebola was spreading out of control in West Africa.

Before the epidemic was over two years later, it had killed thousands of people. They died in terrifying and painful ways, often passing the disease on to family members before and even after death. Doctors and aid workers died, people who should have been able to stay safe while offering care.

But not everyone who is exposed to the Ebola virus, which spreads through contact with blood or other bodily fluids, falls ill. Such is the case of Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, who in 1976 became the first scientist to come into contact with Ebola and survive.

The Congolese virologist, now 74, placed himself square in the path of the disease as he worked in harrowing and hazardous conditions to identify what was killing some of its earliest victims.

“I am like Johnnie Walker,” he quipped, referencing the well-known Scotch whisky slogan, “Born 1820 ― Still going strong.” Muyembe giggled as he strode around his office imitating the brand’s iconic “Striding Man.”

It’s a joke in service of a very serious message from a doctor who has spent years battling the worst viruses. Don’t make the same mistake, he warns, that the world made with Ebola when it first arose. Don’t ignore the threat because it seems far away.

Muyembe, who now leads the Democratic Republic of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, had been home from studying in Europe just a few years when he received a phone call in 1976 that would change his life forever.

“The minister of health rang and said, ‘There’s a mysterious disease that’s killing people at the Catholic mission in Yambuku in Equateur province. I’m going to send you there to find out the cause.’ I was the country’s only virologist,” Muyembe recalled.

The mission hospital was more than 600 miles northeast of the capital city of Kinshasa, deep in thick forest. Muyembe set off overland in a jeep with a military colonel who was also an epidemiologist. It was “a real adventure,” he said. All they were told was that there was a suspected outbreak of yellow or typhoid fever.

But when they arrived in Yambuku, the hospital was deserted. They went to sleep at the mission and woke to a very different scene.

Three nurses and one woman had died at home overnight, and the hospital was now full of patients ― some pushed there on bicycles, many feverish ― after word had gone round that doctors had arrived from Kinshasa.

Muyembe examined and drew blood from the sick and dissected the dead to take tissue samples ― all with bare hands. Later, he would shudder at the thought of how much contact he’d had with feverish patients, many of whom didn’t stop bleeding after he withdrew the needle or scalpel.

“The blood would pour out all day. My hands were covered in blood. I didn’t have gloves,” he said.

Muyembe thinks that what saved him from death that day, and the many others when he handled infected samples with no protection, was his speedy request for soap and water. But luck must have played a role too.

The blood would pour out all day. My hands were covered in blood. I didn’t have gloves. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum

When a nun fell ill ― with fever and red marks on her body ― Muyembe and his colleague told the mother superior that they wanted to take the samples they’d collected and the sick nun back to Kinshasa. The nun initially refused to go ― she didn’t want the community to think she was running away ― but she relented after Muyembe insisted. Another sister accompanied her on the journey to Kinshasa, so they were a group of four squeezing together in various planes and cars.

“I was always next to her,” Muyembe remembered, still looking relieved decades later at the thought of his close brush with death.

The samples from Yambuku, including the nun’s, were sent from Kinshasa to a lab in Belgium, where scientists initially thought they showed the Marburg virus, which causes another hemorrhagic fever found in Congo and neighboring Uganda.

Meanwhile, when the nun, her traveling companion and a nurse who had treated her in Kinshasa all died from the same sickness, and the epidemiologist who had gone with him to Yambuku developed a fever, Muyembe panicked. He quarantined himself in the garage at his home so as not to infect his wife and children. He couldn’t stop thinking about the test tubes full of blood samples that he had brought home briefly after returning from Yambuku.

“It was terrible because the assistant medic who had come with me sent me a message saying, ‘Ah, I am sick,’ and then poof! He was dead. The nun we brought with us had died and had contaminated another nun and a nurse. I was very afraid,” Muyembe said.

He finally got a call from Belgium that the virus wasn’t Marburg but a previously unknown hemorrhagic fever. Researchers later named it Ebola, for the river that runs through Yambuku. It was after this call ― and the death of his fellow scientist ― that Muyembe destroyed the lab samples, terrified of further contamination.

Nearly 40 years later, when Ebola hit West Africa, Muyembe was surprised by the lack of research into the virus and the poorly coordinated global and local response.

“It really was chaos,” he said. “People thought it was just something that affected East and Central Africa, so they hadn’t even studied it and weren’t prepared.”

Muyembe had worked on research into a possible vaccine nearly two decades earlier, but it was only when Ebola briefly touched Europe and the United States in 2014 that he finally saw scientists start to take this killer seriously.

During Congo’s third Ebola outbreak in 1995, the experienced virologist had transfused blood from people who had recovered from Ebola to a group of patients infected with the virus. Of the eight patients who received the transfusions, seven survived ― a result that Muyembe quickly passed on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S.

“We kept saying, ‘Antibodies do protect.’ But for 20 years, this virus, and its treatment, was neglected,” he said. In late 2016, an experimental vaccine – developed principally in response to fears of Ebola being used as a bioterrorism agent – was shown to provide 100 percent protection against the virus. It arrived too late for the 11,000 people who died in the 2014 outbreak.

More recently, Muyembe has watched scientists scramble to stop the Zika virus once it began affecting wealthier countries. The virus is named for a forest in Uganda, where it was first found in 1947.

“Because it was an African disease, we neglected it. But with climate change and modern transport, the insects will travel to Brazil, to Europe,” he said.

There are other diseases that could devastate whole cities, countries or regions of the world, Muyembe warns.

I wish I could say that onchocerciasis would make everyone in the world blind, because then we’d have a vaccine. Dr. Muyembe

So-called neglected tropical diseases affect over 1 billion people worldwide, mainly in poor parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Some of these diseases ― echinococcosis, dengue and Chagas, for example ― have already infected people in the U.S. in small numbers. But they attract very little attention in Western media and garner limited research funding.

“I wish I could say that onchocerciasis would make everyone in the world blind, because then we’d have a vaccine,” said Muyembe of a disease otherwise known as river blindness, which threatens up to 14 million people in Congo.

“We call them neglected diseases because they come from underdeveloped countries,” he said. “But these neglected diseases can become a threat to developed countries. With travel and everything we have now, the world has become a village.”

Our world needs better research and monitoring aimed at African countries, Muyembe warned, because that’s where many diseases start. And if they’re allowed to develop, “they will be like Ebola, which came from Central Africa, went to West Africa and then suddenly was threatening the U.S. and Europe.”

Muyembe is also determined to raise up the next generation of Congolese researchers to continue his legacy. “We must train the young people,” he said, slapping two young researchers on the back. Like him, they earned their Ph.D.s in Europe and then returned home to help.

Despite cheating one of the world’s most deadly diseases and plenty of other rare illnesses since, he too plans to keep fighting. “The most important thing in dealing with a lot of these diseases is washing your hands,” he said with a fatalistic shrug.

What frightens the doctor more than staring death in the face is retiring and dying of boredom.

“I must continue working,” Muyembe said, straightening his white coat and rushing off to his next appointment at the lab.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

Volunteers With No Medical Training Are Fighting Diseases The World Ignores

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2nP9hiG from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nKIFz1

[imreviewblog]

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

KINSHASA, Congo ― In early 2014, few people worried that the Ebola virus, which is up to 90 percent fatal, would pose a global threat. So the World Health Organization sent shockwaves around the world when it announced that Ebola was spreading out of control in West Africa.

Before the epidemic was over two years later, it had killed thousands of people. They died in terrifying and painful ways, often passing the disease on to family members before and even after death. Doctors and aid workers died, people who should have been able to stay safe while offering care.

But not everyone who is exposed to the Ebola virus, which spreads through contact with blood or other bodily fluids, falls ill. Such is the case of Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, who in 1976 became the first scientist to come into contact with Ebola and survive.

The Congolese virologist, now 74, placed himself square in the path of the disease as he worked in harrowing and hazardous conditions to identify what was killing some of its earliest victims.

“I am like Johnnie Walker,” he quipped, referencing the well-known Scotch whisky slogan, “Born 1820 ― Still going strong.” Muyembe giggled as he strode around his office imitating the brand’s iconic “Striding Man.”

It’s a joke in service of a very serious message from a doctor who has spent years battling the worst viruses. Don’t make the same mistake, he warns, that the world made with Ebola when it first arose. Don’t ignore the threat because it seems far away.

Muyembe, who now leads the Democratic Republic of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, had been home from studying in Europe just a few years when he received a phone call in 1976 that would change his life forever.

“The minister of health rang and said, ‘There’s a mysterious disease that’s killing people at the Catholic mission in Yambuku in Equateur province. I’m going to send you there to find out the cause.’ I was the country’s only virologist,” Muyembe recalled.

The mission hospital was more than 600 miles northeast of the capital city of Kinshasa, deep in thick forest. Muyembe set off overland in a jeep with a military colonel who was also an epidemiologist. It was “a real adventure,” he said. All they were told was that there was a suspected outbreak of yellow or typhoid fever.

But when they arrived in Yambuku, the hospital was deserted. They went to sleep at the mission and woke to a very different scene.

Three nurses and one woman had died at home overnight, and the hospital was now full of patients ― some pushed there on bicycles, many feverish ― after word had gone round that doctors had arrived from Kinshasa.

Muyembe examined and drew blood from the sick and dissected the dead to take tissue samples ― all with bare hands. Later, he would shudder at the thought of how much contact he’d had with feverish patients, many of whom didn’t stop bleeding after he withdrew the needle or scalpel.

“The blood would pour out all day. My hands were covered in blood. I didn’t have gloves,” he said.

Muyembe thinks that what saved him from death that day, and the many others when he handled infected samples with no protection, was his speedy request for soap and water. But luck must have played a role too.

The blood would pour out all day. My hands were covered in blood. I didn’t have gloves. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum

When a nun fell ill ― with fever and red marks on her body ― Muyembe and his colleague told the mother superior that they wanted to take the samples they’d collected and the sick nun back to Kinshasa. The nun initially refused to go ― she didn’t want the community to think she was running away ― but she relented after Muyembe insisted. Another sister accompanied her on the journey to Kinshasa, so they were a group of four squeezing together in various planes and cars.

“I was always next to her,” Muyembe remembered, still looking relieved decades later at the thought of his close brush with death.

The samples from Yambuku, including the nun’s, were sent from Kinshasa to a lab in Belgium, where scientists initially thought they showed the Marburg virus, which causes another hemorrhagic fever found in Congo and neighboring Uganda.

Meanwhile, when the nun, her traveling companion and a nurse who had treated her in Kinshasa all died from the same sickness, and the epidemiologist who had gone with him to Yambuku developed a fever, Muyembe panicked. He quarantined himself in the garage at his home so as not to infect his wife and children. He couldn’t stop thinking about the test tubes full of blood samples that he had brought home briefly after returning from Yambuku.

“It was terrible because the assistant medic who had come with me sent me a message saying, ‘Ah, I am sick,’ and then poof! He was dead. The nun we brought with us had died and had contaminated another nun and a nurse. I was very afraid,” Muyembe said.

He finally got a call from Belgium that the virus wasn’t Marburg but a previously unknown hemorrhagic fever. Researchers later named it Ebola, for the river that runs through Yambuku. It was after this call ― and the death of his fellow scientist ― that Muyembe destroyed the lab samples, terrified of further contamination.

Nearly 40 years later, when Ebola hit West Africa, Muyembe was surprised by the lack of research into the virus and the poorly coordinated global and local response.

“It really was chaos,” he said. “People thought it was just something that affected East and Central Africa, so they hadn’t even studied it and weren’t prepared.”

Muyembe had worked on research into a possible vaccine nearly two decades earlier, but it was only when Ebola briefly touched Europe and the United States in 2014 that he finally saw scientists start to take this killer seriously.

During Congo’s third Ebola outbreak in 1995, the experienced virologist had transfused blood from people who had recovered from Ebola to a group of patients infected with the virus. Of the eight patients who received the transfusions, seven survived ― a result that Muyembe quickly passed on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S.

“We kept saying, ‘Antibodies do protect.’ But for 20 years, this virus, and its treatment, was neglected,” he said. In late 2016, an experimental vaccine – developed principally in response to fears of Ebola being used as a bioterrorism agent – was shown to provide 100 percent protection against the virus. It arrived too late for the 11,000 people who died in the 2014 outbreak.

More recently, Muyembe has watched scientists scramble to stop the Zika virus once it began affecting wealthier countries. The virus is named for a forest in Uganda, where it was first found in 1947.

“Because it was an African disease, we neglected it. But with climate change and modern transport, the insects will travel to Brazil, to Europe,” he said.

There are other diseases that could devastate whole cities, countries or regions of the world, Muyembe warns.

I wish I could say that onchocerciasis would make everyone in the world blind, because then we’d have a vaccine. Dr. Muyembe

So-called neglected tropical diseases affect over 1 billion people worldwide, mainly in poor parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Some of these diseases ― echinococcosis, dengue and Chagas, for example ― have already infected people in the U.S. in small numbers. But they attract very little attention in Western media and garner limited research funding.

“I wish I could say that onchocerciasis would make everyone in the world blind, because then we’d have a vaccine,” said Muyembe of a disease otherwise known as river blindness, which threatens up to 14 million people in Congo.

“We call them neglected diseases because they come from underdeveloped countries,” he said. “But these neglected diseases can become a threat to developed countries. With travel and everything we have now, the world has become a village.”

Our world needs better research and monitoring aimed at African countries, Muyembe warned, because that’s where many diseases start. And if they’re allowed to develop, “they will be like Ebola, which came from Central Africa, went to West Africa and then suddenly was threatening the U.S. and Europe.”

Muyembe is also determined to raise up the next generation of Congolese researchers to continue his legacy. “We must train the young people,” he said, slapping two young researchers on the back. Like him, they earned their Ph.D.s in Europe and then returned home to help.

Despite cheating one of the world’s most deadly diseases and plenty of other rare illnesses since, he too plans to keep fighting. “The most important thing in dealing with a lot of these diseases is washing your hands,” he said with a fatalistic shrug.

What frightens the doctor more than staring death in the face is retiring and dying of boredom.

“I must continue working,” Muyembe said, straightening his white coat and rushing off to his next appointment at the lab.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

Volunteers With No Medical Training Are Fighting Diseases The World Ignores

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2njwhVK