"What happened?"

Wood sighed as he glanced past Ali at where Pixie's brother sat in a chair in one of the Faraday's meeting rooms. "We got out, then Eoin stabbed his sister."

"Yeah, well, I didn't invite her so that she -" Eoin withered in his chair as Ali turned to glare at him. He swallowed as he subconsciously rubbed at the spot on his head where she'd grabbed his short hair and used it to steer him. Dried red blood gave an odd highlight to the ginger where Ali hadn't yet washed Pixie's now dry blood from her hands. Now she'd had a moment to calm down she knew she'd crossed a line, but after they'd beamed aboard he'd instantly started arguing and complaining as Wood had frogmarched him down the corridor. Eoin's protests combined with Ali's worry over Pixie had boiled over and she'd snapped.

"The only reason you are here and not in the brig is because Pixie is your sister," Ali warned the younger man. "Now, you better give me a damn good explanation."

"About?"

"Everything," Wood explained simply as he strolled up to the man. Ali watched him go, knowing that he was trying to take control of the situation before she did something that couldn't be rationalised. It was an action she knew she would appreciate if she wasn't quite so angry.

"I don't owe you lot anything!" Ali didn't see what Wood did as he now stood behind Eoin's chair, but she saw the way Eoin flinched and she had to work against her amusement to hold on to a stern expression. "Ow! Okay, okay! I thought it'd be cool, you know..? They're like the best merc group in the sector. I'm nobody back home, but as a tough merc with cool weapons…"

Ali and Wood shared a look as if to ask if Eoin was really so dumb. Ali wished they had more to go on, but Pixie didn't often speak of her family, or at least not recent events. She'd regale them with all sorts of funny stories from when she was younger. "That's all you know about them?" Wood asked.

"Well, yeah? What else are you supposed to know about a merc group?"

"Pay? What type of work? Whether or not you need to sleep with a gun?" Wood asked calmly as he stepped back into Eoin's line of sight.

Eoin glanced between the two of them again. "I… Well, yeah, I checked on money."

Ali had heard enough. He clearly didn't know anything. "Screw this," she said as she unhooked her scanner from the back of her belt - Eoin flinched as if he expected her to grab his hair again - and quickly tapped into his electronics.

"Hey! What're you doing?" Eoin demanded as he realised he was being hacked and quickly reached for his devices that were carefully laid out on the table nearby. Wood's hands snapped out to hold him in his chair.

Ali didn't even move her head as she looked up from the scanner, trying to get it through Eoin's thick skull that he wasn't important right now. "It's this, or we find out just how good your pain threshold is," she paused as if she'd just thought of something. "Actually, you want to be a merc? Then let's test out just how well you'd really do in that life -"

"No!" He squirmed between Wood's hands and the chair in a futile effort to move away from her. "I… honestly, I don't have anything! I just heard about the rally and thought it'd be cool to check it out. Honest."

"How did you hear about it?" Wood asked.

"Just some dive bar, the bartender and the guy next to me were talking about it," he explained before glancing at Ali. "Can you stop hacking me now?"

"No."

"Aw, come on! Does this not breach my rights or something?"

"You were at a rally to join a group that is bombing embassies," Ali said as she leveled her firmest stare at him. A little part of her smiling at the way he wilted in his chair. "I don't care what rights of yours I infringe right now."

"But-"

"You really don't know when to just shut up, do you?" Wood asked. Eoin finally went quiet with the warning as Ali finished downloading the data from his devices. As she put her scanner away with a nod, Wood let go of Eoin to properly confiscate his limited gear. Once collected he beckoned Ali over to the doorway so they could confer. "What do you want doing with him?"

Ali took a steadying breath. She wanted to toss him out of an airlock, but that was simply because she was angry and frustrated. She knew they couldn't do that, she knew that she'd never live with herself if she did. "Could you toss him in the brig? I want to go and check on Pix." Wood nodded, and she thanked him for temporarily acting as her head of security before heading to the medical bay.

~-x-~

The medical bay was oddly quiet as Ali arrived, she didn't have time to worry about what that meant as Etsile instantly greeted her with a scanner. "Ets, I'm fine," she said tiredly.

"We have different definitions of fine then," Etsile argued. "You have a number of contusions, hairline fracture in one rib and are exhausted."

"So… I'm alive?" Ali quipped and Etsile attempted to frown at her but he couldn't stop himself finding it at least a little funny.

"At least let me give you something to aid your healing process," he said. It sounded like a suggestion but Ali knew it was an order as he started rummaging around in one of the cupboards.

"Sleeping pills?" Ali continued to joke before her face fell as he turned back with a medical doser. Drugs were no longer administered with old fashioned syringes with prominent needles, but Ali knew it contained a disposable, retractable needle. They still hurt. She sighed. "Fine." Etsile didn't even gloat at her defeat but simply pulled her uniform far enough away from the back of her neck where it met her shoulder and pressed the doser to it. Ali tried not to flinch from the brief sting of pain. "How is Pixie?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"You mean -"

"She's fine," Etsile promised as he safely disposed of the used needle and replaced it with a new one so it was ready to use the next time he needed the doser. "She's stable and we're regenerating the lost blood. I'll be able to release her in a few hours, but I will be recommending she rest for at least a day. No field work until we've fully assessed the damage to her leg and any physiotherapy needs."

Ali nodded. "And if I need her on the bridge tomorrow?"

Etsile considered her request. "Only if it's necessary," he acquiesced.

Ali agreed and thanked him before he indicated where Pixie was resting. She pulled the curtain back just enough to poke her head in, only to find Pixie awake. "Hey, captain, come to tell me you've smacked some sense into my dumb, little brother?"

Ali had been about to ask if she could come in, but instead took that as an invitation as she stepped inside the curtain. "No, I've saved that job for you."

A brief, wry smile flitted over Pixie's pale face, before being replaced by exhaustion. "I can't believe he stabbed me," she admitted in a quiet voice.

"Did he say why?"

Pixie shook her head as her eyes glistened with tears. "I was hoping he would've told you."

Ali wanted to give her a good explanation, but she didn't have one either. "I think he thinks you sold him out," she eventually said. Pixie gave Ali a puzzled look. "He said he didn't invite you so that you could do something, though he never finished the sentence." She paused as she considered how much she should tell Pixie right now when she was supposed to be recovering. "He seemed to want to join Cosmos' Champions so he could be a merc instead of a nobody."

Pixie slumped even deeper into her medical bed. "The stupid, little…" She trailed off as she thumped a hand into the mattress. "I'm going to tear him to pieces."

Ali raised an eyebrow. This was a side of Pixie she'd never really seen before. "Pixie, what's going on?"

Pixie deflated as she took a breath. "There's five of us Dent siblings, he's the youngest. He's always had some chip on his shoulder about not being noticed, that we all overshadow him. Caolán's a teacher for Christ's sake! We're not all superheroes, though dad got himself known for saving a child when we were nippers." Pixie caught the inquisitive look on Ali's face. "He was a fireman, it was his job."

"I mean, it's still a good thing."

"Oh, yeah, no kidding," Pixie agreed with a brief laugh, "my point was that it's not like there's this long shadow we all cast that he couldn't climb out of." She sighed. "I knew he made some bad friends as a teenager, but we all do, I didn't think he'd end up running with mercs." A flicker of embarrassment crept onto her face. "No offence, captain."

Ali chuckled. "I wasn't a merc from choice, and I never affiliated with any of the big groups." She paused. "Eoin's in the brig and he's still in one piece."

"He won't be once I've given him a piece of my mind."

"I think you should maybe listen to him first," Ali suggested with a hint of a chuckle. "You can beat the crap out of him when you're back home."

"Sounds like a plan," Pixie agreed, "though if he's scared of facing me, he's forgotten the lashing that the rest of them'll give him."

"Maybe he wanted to be a merc for an easier life then," Ali joked. Pixie couldn't help but giggle.

"I promise we're nice to each other really," Pixie assured her captain, "but what are siblings for if not to torture?" As an only child Ali had no answer to that other than to laugh at the joke. Somewhat reassured that Pixie was on the road to recovery, even if there was still a way to go.

~-x-~

Ali had uploaded the data from her scanner to the Faraday's systems on her way to the Endeavour and asked Olkant if he wouldn't mind scouring over it whilst she went to go and fight some fires.

She wasn't surprised she found Spud in the Endeavour's lounge, curled over the bar nursing a drink. What looked to be the latest in a long line of them. Ali glanced at Tun'luh and he simply used his trunk to count to four as he continued working. She sighed and slid into a seat next to Spud. "Don't ask me," Spud ordered into her drink. Her voice was wobbly yet determined.

"I wasn't going to," Ali promised.

Spud turned to her with watery, red eyes and all Ali could do was pull her friend into a hug as Tun'luh placed fresh drinks in front of them. "How am I supposed to feel about this? People keep asking me how I'm doing. How am I supposed to react? My ex-wife suddenly rocks up into my life again, only to put my best friend in danger! Serious, life threatening danger!" Spud's gestures were getting wilder as her temper flashed. Ali knew her well enough to know when to dodge. The tetnar helped, as Spud was in no condition to be guarded about what she was feeling. Not that she ever was. Suddenly her head dropped back into her hands on the bar. "It was like she broke my heart all over again."

Ali rubbed Spud's back as comfortingly as she could. "If we could control our emotions, a lot of suffering would be avoided."

Spud flashed her a watery smile at that. "I should be over this by now."

"Should you?" Ali questioned. "You and Petra were together for so long, and you didn't divorce because either of you stopped caring. You can't control what your heart wants."

"God, I never thought I'd be a one woman girl," Spud laughed bitterly.

"Yes, you did," Ali corrected. "You married your childhood sweetheart." Spud's bitter laugh turned into a wry one and she took a deep drought of her drink.

"I just can't believe where she has ended up," Spud admitted, "she was a good person. How can she be working for them now?"

Ali paused as she sipped on her own drink. "We don't know that she has," she offered, though she wasn't sure why. "We don't know how long she's been undercover this time, she might have had a plan. I just couldn't take a risk on that unknown."

Spud nodded absentmindedly before eventually whispering. "Thank you for not hurting her."

~-x-~

"Is that Wood's report?" Ali asked as she entered Grey's ready room. He nodded. "I think the technical term is cluster."

Grey chuckled despite the seriousness of the situation, and the mess that they were in. "That was the gist I got. Though you should ask Ben what his summary was." Ali raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't so much hitting the fan, as the fan exploding in our faces," Grey quoted and Ali giggled as she took a seat.

"So… do we throw for who has to report back to S-Core?"

"I could pull rank."

"And I could counter by pointing out that as senior officer it's your responsibility."

They held each other's stare for a moment before Grey sighed. "Playing a game of luck against a telepath is a bad idea."

"I would never cheat!" Ali pretended to sound affronted.

"Uh huh," Grey didn't sound like he believed her and Ali shrugged unrepentantly. "Be that as it may, letting you break the news to S-Core would probably result in your own arrest." He paused as he glanced back at Wood's report. "Though I imagine Duus might beat our report with her own." Ali nodded. That was a possibility, though it would depend on how deep undercover Petra was and which side of the line she was still playing by. "What do we know about her motivations?" Grey asked, obviously having the same thought.

Ali shrugged hopelessly. "I don't know. My senses were pretty scrambled at the time, but I didn't sense any deception. Then again, she's a trained undercover operative. I just can't tell you."

"I was afraid you'd say something like that." He sighed and turned to his desk. "I suppose we better get this over with." Ali gave a wry nod of agreement and he opened a comm channel back to HQ.