Chapter Text
Everything is hazy.
There is movement. Rocking and shifting and lifting.
There is sound. There are voices. Talking. But the words are indecipherable. A dull hum that can be felt as much as heard.
Trying to grab onto anything specific brings a wave of darkness crashing over everything.
The next time the blackness parts, Cruz is aware. Aware of dim fluorescent lights above her. Aware of dull throbbing pain in her arm. Aware of voices talking to her.
She tries to answer but all that comes out is a dry groan that sets off a coughing fit.
“Take a sip of this and try again, Sleeping Beauty.” Cruz looks up to see Randy holding out a cup of water with a straw sticking out of it. She is happy to see her team, but the water is the only thing she has eyes for right now.
Reaching for the water doesn't get her very far. Her right arm is strapped to her chest and pain flares in her shoulder, sending Cruz back to the mattress.
“Try again with your other hand,” Tucker advises from beyond the end of the bed where he is leaning against the opposite wall. The entire team is packed into a very small space like sardines.
“You broke your arm well and good. You’ve got to have surgery, what did they call? Oh right, it’s an open-reduction internal fixation,” Tex says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Gotta screw the bone back together or something.”
“Almost as bad as this wetsuit wedgie,” Two Cups mutters before Bobby elbows him in the gut.
“Ignore them.” Randy holds out the water in front of her, and Cruz leans forward to take a long sip. “Better?”
“Yeah. Where the hell are we?” she asks, looking around the non-descript metal-walled room that gives next to no clues about their location.
“Welcome to the USS Roosevelt’s med bay. Well, it’s actually a storage closet they set up for medical treatment. Can’t have us mixing with the crew,” Tex adds brightly from further down the bed, giving her blanket-covered knee a quick squeeze. “You had a twelve-hour nap while we’ve been playing hide-and-fucking-seek with the Spanish Navy.”
Cruz takes another sip from the water, it gives her brain time to catch up. She remembers the extraction with Aaliyah. Aaliyah! “Where’s…Joe?” Cruz tries to keep her voice calm but the beeping of the heart rate monitor gives her away.
“Everyone’s fine. Mission success. Flawless extraction. Just a tiny little wrinkle.” Bobby waves Randy and the water away before cranking up the bed to allow Cruz to sit up straighter.
“Just a tiny, heiress-shaped little wrinkle. You screwed the pooch, sister,” Tex says with a light laugh. Her stomach clenches at the laugh, but Cruz forces herself to relax. Tex isn’t mocking or angry, he isn’t Edgar or Ehsan. Just a soldier dealing with the fallout from Cruz’s decision to bring Aaliyah along after killing her father. Again, her stomach clenches, but this time it is deserved.
Cruz had killed Ehsan and Ali in front of Aaliyah. She didn’t have a choice, that’s true. Her cover was blown and the next minute was all instinct. But asking Aaliyah to come with her, while covered in the blood of two men she loved…that was a choice.
“Where is Aaliyah?” The QRF team exchange looks back and forth that worry Cruz. “Where is she?”
Bobby steps forward to put a hand on Cruz’s left shoulder to keep her from sitting up. “Meade called in an air strike while you were out. Didn’t trust you when you confirmed the kill, what with you bleeding all over the fucking deck. Fire bombed the ever-living fuck out of that house.”
“Where is Aaliyah?” Cruz repeats, feeling an icy ball of dread settle in the pit of her stomach.
“Miss Amrohi is going to be assisting the CIA for the foreseeable future. And that’s all you’re cleared to know.” Six heads swing almost in unison towards the hatch Joe is casually leaning against.
It is only Bobby’s hand on her shoulder that keeps Cruz from flying out of the hospital bed, but it's a near thing. She knows what a guest of the CIA means and still has wounds to prove it.
“Hey Boss, maybe cut the cloak and dagger shit with the walking wounded over here,” Bobby chides, keeping the pressure on Cruz’s prone body.
Joe sighs like Bobby is ruining all of her fun. “The Deputy Director and the Secretary of State have deemed it worth the risk to offer asylum for her cooperation. Especially since CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera are reporting that both the al Rashdi and Amrohi families were wiped out in a retaliatory strike from a rival oil mogul last night. Including the bride, one Aaliyah Amrohi, the night before her wedding.”
It takes a long moment for Cruz’s thoughts to make sense of Joe’s words, but the idea of Aaliyah being at Joe’s mercy almost makes Cruz wish she had left Aaliyah behind. Almost. “If you hurt her I swear I’ll-”
“You’ll what? Break your arm at me?” Joe asks coldly, stepping forward with a syringe that Cruz knows would have her out for the count. “You aren’t going to do anything but take another nap so you can be sent stateside for surgery.”
Changing course, Cruz takes a deep breath and lets the fight bleed out of her. “Please? Please just let me see her.”
Cruz doesn’t like the way that Joe looks assessingly at her but she simply looks right back. She doesn’t know what Joe is looking for, but the other woman seems to find it. “Clear out. Across the hall, one bulkhead down, first door on the right. I will know if you wander.” The last part is clearly directed at Two Cups if his answering chuckle means anything.
“Yes, Ma’am.” Two Cups sketches out a half-hearted salute on his way out the door.
“Give me a call when you’re feeling better,” Bobby says simply to Cruz, with an accompanying shoulder squeeze, before following the boys out.
After one last long look at Cruz, Joe follows the rest of the team out, leaving Cruz alone.
When the silence stretches out uncomfortably, Cruz wonders if Joe had lied about sending Aaliyah in to see her. Or worse, maybe Aaliyah doesn't want to see her at all, regardless of whether Joe allows it or not. “Fuck!” she groans, putting her good left arm over her face. Her eyes feel hot and full of the pinpricks that warn of oncoming tears.
Cruz tries to stay mad, a surefire way to keep tears at bay. But anger only sustains her for so long before those bitter tears break free. Wracking sobs tear their way out of a painfully dry throat until there is nothing left.
She is so involved in her pain that Cruz fails to notice anything else until a burning sensation flares in the back of her good hand. Cruz looks up to find Joe standing next to her, empty syringe in hand.
The tingling sensation creeps up her arm and as much as Cruz wants to protest, a haze begins to blanket everything. Joe has drugged her. “I need to see Aaliyah. Why won’t you let me see her?” Cruz slurs, the words stuck in her throat as she calms despite her best intentions.
“Pull yourself together, Manuelos. It’s going to hurt a hell of a lot more before it gets better.” Without another word, Joe leaves again, and Cruz is alone again as everything blurs.
Cruz is as empty as she has ever been before, except for the pain. But the pain has been such a constant companion throughout her life that it is almost a comfort. And, finally, Cruz allows herself to succumb to the temptation of nothingness.
The next thing Cruz knows, she’s waking up almost a full day later at Walter Reed. The nurses are blandly kind, but they have no information to give when Cruz asks about her team.
The doctor, when one comes to see her, is full of hopeful prognoses and exhortations of using pain management techniques. Cruz does her best to listen but she isn’t able to muster the effort to care.
With only thoughts of Aaliyah and her own pain to keep her company, Cruz spends the next two days alternating between agonizing over ever having wanted to be a Lioness, and short bouts of fitful sleep.
It is mid-afternoon of the second day after her surgery the next time that Cruz regains consciousness with anyone else in her lonely private room. And Cruz immediately decides that she must be dreaming still. That is the only explanation for Kaitlyn Meade to be seated in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair, typing out emails without so much as looking at Cruz. But why would Cruz dream about Kaitlyn Meade?
“Good, you’re awake. I don’t have all day.” No, that has to be Kaitlyn, in the flesh. No way Cruz could have dreamed up that level of disapproval and detachment.
“What are you doing here?” Cruz asks groggily, still not entirely convinced that this isn’t a dream.
“I’m here to offer you an opportunity,” Kaitlyn tells her, primly crossing one leg over the other and leaning forward.
Whatever opportunity the CIA is offering, Cruz wants no part of it, and she tells Kaitlyn as much.
“That you think you have a choice is funny. Despite the mission’s technical success, it has also been a huge international incident, despite what the media is telling everyone. And, despite what Reaganomics says, only shit rolls downhill.” Kaitlyn pulls a manilla folder from her bag and lays it across Cruz’s knees. “And this, this is your golden ticket to avoiding a clusterfuck that would land squarely in your lap.”
Cruz touches the folder gingerly, looking at the woman in front of her and not the paperwork. “What is it?”
Kaitlyn sighs a weary sigh and turns to the first page of the stack. “This is the original enlistment agreement that you signed. It stipulates that you have 15 more months of active service left. Now, you could be eligible for a medical discharge under honorable conditions, but that is not in your best interest, because then we can’t protect you if anything comes out concerning your…involvement.”
Cruz barely glances at the file before silently agreeing with the assessment. For a brief moment, Cruz considers taking the discharge. But despite everything she has been through, especially the last few months. The Marines are the only family Cruz has, and she is in no hurry to be on the outside looking in again. “Okay, that can’t be it though.”
“It’s not. I can pull some strings, make some threats, and call in favors I haven’t even begun to earn yet. After you rehab your arm, you’ll go to Parris Island for Drill Instructor School.” Kaitlyn reaches over to turn the page to the next one, this one crowded with words that dance past Cruz’s dazed vision like an overturned anthill. “Once you graduate, and you will graduate, you will serve the rest of your term training new marines.”
That makes Cruz’s head come up. “Drill instructor is a three-year duty tour.” It is only the first hurdle in an assignment she hasn’t ever dared hope for. Being a Marine Drill Instructor is a plum post with the honor of making marines, and the implication that you are the best of the best. “I’m not a sergeant either. Drill instructors are sergeants, at least.”
“You are, or rather you will be. You’ll be made a sergeant, retroactive to when you joined the Lioness program. If you take the offer,” Kaitlyn says simply. Kaitlyn looks over Cruz appraisingly. Cruz can’t begin to guess what is being appraised, or if she passes.
“What else?” Cruz asks eventually, tired of the weighty silence. “There has to be some string I’m not seeing.”
“After your tour as a drill instructor, you’ll be discharged from the Marines. After that, well, we’ll see.” Kaitlyn holds up a hand to forestall any protest.
But when has a hand ever stopped Cruz before? “What does that even mean?”
“Whatever the hell I need it to mean. And it’s nothing you need to be concerned with now, seeing as that’s more than a year from today. The only thing you need to decide is whether you want to be cut loose, or you agree to work with us.” Kaitlyn lays it out succinctly before gathering up the file as if Cruz has already made her decision.
And does she have much choice but to agree to the decision Kaitlyn was laying out? She is a high school dropout, even if she had gotten her GED after the fact. If she wasn’t actually charged with assault, there is probably still a notation in some file somewhere about what went down with Edgar; she’d been asked about it more than once in the enlistment process. And what practical skills does Cruz have that don’t break down to flipping burgers, shaking her ass, or shooting people? But there is something more important before she could commit to this.
“Where’s Aaliyah?”
The look on Kaitlyn’s face is inscrutable, but Cruz looks anyway for any hint of emotion or information. “That’s need to know,” Kaitlyn says finally, the implied ‘and you don’t need to know’ hanging between them.
“Please. Just tell me she’s okay.” Cruz doesn’t like to lower herself to begging, but she would do it and more just to know that Aaliyah is safe.
Kaitlyn gives her another long look before she puts away the file. “As far as the world is concerned, Aaliyah Amrohi was killed in a retaliatory terrorist attack on her father.”
“But she wasn’t! You know it and I know it and this is-”
“Shut up!” The venom in Kaitlyn’s voice brings Cruz up short. She has crossed a line, and it is so far back in the rearview mirror that it isn’t easy to see. “You don’t have anywhere close to the security clearance for the information you want. And even if you did, I do not feel inclined to give it to you.”
“Please.” Cruz changes tack and whispers the plea. “I just want to know that she’s okay, I don’t have to see her.” It isn’t what she wants, but just the knowledge that Aaliyah is safe would have to be enough.
“You weren’t going to see her anyway,” Kaitlyn snaps but quickly recomposes herself. “Suffice it to say, the CIA will be extracting as much information as possible from her, and once the breadth and depth of her knowledge has been assessed, she will be given a new life and a new identity. One you will know nothing about. Especially because you will be on the first plane to Parris Island the day you are discharged.”
Cruz has to be satisfied with this little crumb. And she will be, just knowing that Aaliyah gets to live a life here, free of the restraints that had chafed so badly. “Thank you.”
Kaitlyn doesn’t acknowledge her words, she simply straightens her blazer and walks to the door. “Don’t fuck this up. Because if you do, there isn’t enough goodwill in the world to save you from a bullet between the eyes.” Kaitlyn holds Cruz’s gaze for a moment before she slips out the door, leaving Cruz to her own devices once more.
And isn’t that just the way life seems to go for her? From being alone on a transport to Parris Island to being alone in base housing. The two months when Cruz has nothing to fill her time with except shuffling between rehab and therapy appointments are painful in new and different ways.
Being unable to even come close to her usual fitness levels is almost as hard as the therapy sessions. Every shred of her self-confidence is routinely ground to dust, but it hadn’t exactly been sky-high to start with.
To have to dig into everything she’s ever done wrong while the therapist tries to tell her that it wasn’t her fault. Which is bullshit, it has always been her fault. All of it. From Josecito to letting Edgar obliterate any pride and keep her underfoot.
Not to mention Aaliyah. Not falling in love with your mark is probably rule number one in some undercover manual. And she’d fucked it up, hard.
It is just easier to be alone. There are a lot less ways to fuck up that way. And after the last mandated therapy session, Cruz doesn’t look back.
Well, that isn’t true either. The only thing Cruz constantly looks back at is Aaliyah. And she’s the only thing on her mind. Morning, noon, and night.
The lilt of her voice is music to Cruz’s ears. Cruz can feel ghost fingers mimicking the way that Aaliyah would just touch her; because no one ever just touched her casually or gently, and it was as thrilling as it was terrifying. She misses the smell of Aaliyah’s innumerable lotions and perfumes that were soft and warm and inviting.
Before she starts at DI school, Cruz is putting every scrap of effort into getting fit again. It’s hard, of course it is, you don’t let just anyone train marines. But, even just two months post-op, she is only barely meeting minimum fitness requirements where before she was leaving them in the dust. They would probably waive the requirements in her case, but Cruz doesn’t want special treatment. So she works even harder to get back her fitness. Her arm fucking hurts, but she’s a Marine, is she supposed to let a little bit of pain stop her? And if, every time she lifts weights or does crunches, she thinks of the way Aaliyah’s hands traced over her muscles…well, no one needs to know that besides Cruz.
For three months of schooling, Cruz mostly keeps her head down. The other sergeants training with her talk about former postings or friends in other units. It isn’t meant to exclude her, but Cruz can’t very well tell them that she worked for the CIA and stupidly fell for her mark. Or that being here at Parris Island, being away from Aaliyah, is more punishment than reward.
When she’s alone in her bunk at night, she imagines Aaliyah going to school, for what Cruz can’t begin to guess. And when she’s trying to slow her breathing during marksmanship, it's thoughts of Aaliyah that jack up her heart rate. It's Aaliyah whenever her brain has a free moment and, most especially, when she doesn't.
Despite all the thoughts of Aaliyah that chase themselves around and around in Cruz’s head, she does manage to keep herself on task once DI School starts. And as hard as she worked to get back into shape, she works twice as hard at the classroom learning; because a drill instructor is required to do everything a recruit is required to do, and more. It isn’t just running herself ragged on the DI Playground or learning uniform code to the quarter fucking inch. It isn’t just learning that certain tone of voice that can wake even the most dead-asleep marine or testing your own endurance to the breaking point and beyond. It is responsibility. It is perfection. It is being a fucking Marine Drill Instructor.
And after graduation, when she’s assigned to stay at Parris Island for her duty station, it isn’t a surprise; if only because female DIs and recruits are never stationed in San Diego. But she’s a drill instructor now, and the only person she wants to celebrate with doesn’t exist on paper anymore.
Instead, she calls Bobby, who is congratulatory, but ducks the oft-repeated question of ‘Do you know where Aaliyah is?’ just like she always does. And Cruz believes it as much as she ever does, which is to say not at all.
And she is really fucking good at her job. So good, in fact, that the Chief Drill Instructor mourns the loss of her after only three platoon cycles.
“Manuelos, if I could chain you to this duty roster, I would in a heartbeat,” CDI Paulson admits while they are sitting in his office the day after her third recruit platoon leaves the nest.
“Thank you, sir.” Cruz doesn’t know why she is sitting there. It was made clear those long fifteen months ago that this was the end of the road. Her reenlistment period had come and gone, all without even a whiff of instructions from Kaitlyn or Joe or anyone about what to do from here. Even the semi-regular calls she makes to Bobby are getting answered less and less. Maybe Master Sergeant Paulson will clue her in.
“Like I said, you have the stuff. I would kill for a handful of DIs who were half as good as you. Which makes letting you go even harder. I know these new third hats fresh from school will probably disappoint me, like they always do.” Paulson is casual behind his desk, but the uncertainty has Cruz’s back ramrod straight.
“Sir?”
“Orders from up top,” he says, pushing a sealed envelope across the desk to her. “Serious ones, the kind that would get me court-martialed for even breathing on them.”
Cruz tentatively opens the envelope and her heart lifts for the first time in months. She knows it’s stupid to hope for news of Aaliyah, but she can’t help herself. And that hope just compounds how much she wilts when the paper contains only the single line ‘Car will pick you up, tomorrow 9:30 am.’
“Whatever your orders are, I wish you well, Manuelos,” Paulson continues, unaffected and unaware of what a disappointment the words on the paper are to her.
Still, she knows the playbook here. She stands and salutes and heads back to her housing to pack up her belongings. Of course, just like they had fifteen months prior, all of Cruz’s personal possessions manage to fit into the single duffel bag that sits forlornly next to her much larger gear bag.
By the asscrack of dawn the next morning, Cruz is already awake; if how she spent the whole night tossing and turning can even remotely be considered sleeping. She’s nervous. She’s excited. She’s scared. She’s so many things and it’s too many things. She doesn’t use the word lightly, but waiting until 0930 feels like torture.
The nervous energy that courses through her leads Cruz to fidget, and she hates fidgeting. Instead, she starts doing crunches and planks and even runs in place. Anything to alleviate the anxiety that curdles the single cup of coffee in her stomach.
But once Cruz does her standard routine, she needs a shower. Since it's barely 0700, she allows herself a quick shower. Just enough to rinse off and quickly, quietly, guiltily get herself off to thoughts of Aaliyah.
Sure she feels the usual guilt and self-loathing that accompanies this activity, but it does calm some of her agitation. Enough to get her through until 0930.
And it is exactly 0930 when a black SUV pulls up to the curb and idles there. Since the driver doesn't seem inclined to help her, Cruz lifts her bags into the trunk. It surprises Cruz that there is someone else in the backseat with her, but not more than the identity of her fellow passenger surprises her.
It's Joe. Of all the people she could have expected, and Cruz didn't expect anyone, she wouldn't have guessed Joe would be her minder. “Shut the door, we don’t have all day,” Joe says without ever looking at Cruz, busy with something on her phone.
Cruz pulls the door shut and the car speeds off without pause. When the silence goes on too long, Cruz breaks it. “Where are we going?”
“Airfield,” Joe says simply, not looking up as she types away at her phone.
“To where?” It is almost like Cruz hadn’t said a word. But this time, Cruz won’t just roll over like she had in her last conversation with Kaitlyn. Cruz isn’t just a soldier who takes orders anymore. “Where are we going?”
If Joe hears her, she doesn’t show it to Cruz. But before she can ask again, Joe sets her phone face down on the seat between them and looks at Cruz. “We’re going to Langley. You’ll be working with the Lioness Program again.” That's it and Joe picks up her phone once more.
It’s the last thing said between them for the rest of the ride. Or at least, it’s the last thing Joe acknowledges. Because Cruz could be asking questions of a wall for all the acknowledgment she gets.
The airfield is small and not far from Parris Island with a single plane idling on the tarmac. Joe is out of the vehicle as soon as it parks, and walks up the plane’s stairs before Cruz can ask another question.
It only takes one trip to stow her gear onboard; Cruz notes that Joe is comfortably ensconced in a chair and not bothering to even offer assistance. But what else can she expect?
The plane ride takes about two hours. Specifically, an hour and forty-eight minutes from take-off to touch down; Cruz can say for certain because her in-flight entertainment consists of watching the minutes tick by after playing the single game on her phone that doesn't require a WIFI connection.
When they've landed, Joe finally speaks again. “Leave your gear, someone will take it to the apartment we're setting you up in.”
Cruz simply shrugs, though she knows Joe isn't watching and gets in the identical black SUV awaiting them planeside. If Cruz knew where they landed she might have tried to figure out how long this second silent drive will be, but instead, she follows Joe’s lead in watching the rural landscape give way to the DC metro area.
The car takes them north and east, which means they landed somewhere in Virginia, but more than that she doesn't know.
One thing that she's becoming more certain of is that Joe is probably not going to kill her. Two hours of flight time is a lot of work for someone that nobody would miss. The CIA could have made her disappear just as easily in South Carolina as in Virginia.
The drive is long and the traffic is intense but Cruz swears she can see the Washington Monument in the distance, it's too bad they're heading in the wrong direction for a better view. To be fair she could see it from the apartment she’d been in in Georgetown too, but that seems like so long ago now.
The traffic clears as they get closer to Langley. And Joe does her favorite flex at the gate, whisking Cruz in without identification in a trick Cruz is no longer impressed by. She's sure there's a record of her arrival, despite Joe’s posturing.
The car bypasses the large parking lots where people are coming and going on what must be lunch. But Cruz isn't hungry, if only because her stomach is knotted in anxiety that Joe’s silence doesn't help abate.
Finally, they come to a stop in a loading bay behind one of the main buildings. It feels unnecessary, especially considering the multitude of cameras covering every inch of the property, but Cruz isn't going to ask another question just to have it met with silence again.
Being paraded through Langley, Cruz decides they’re probably not going to kill her. She doubts there’s a lot of killing going on in Langley proper and that that kind of stuff goes on out of the public view.
The floors are polished to a spit shine that would make a drill instructor proud, but Cruz wants the whole charade to be over and done. She’s almost regretting getting on the plane if this is what being at the CIA’s beck and call again will be like.
Eventually, they come to another nondescript door that Joe unlocks with a key card. “Briefing is in 10 minutes, make yourself comfortable.” Cruz almost thinks she's imagining Joe talking, after the last few hours of silence. But all the same, she makes herself comfortable in one of the chairs at the large wooden table.
Unsurprisingly, Joe doesn't join her but leaves Cruz to her own devices. Not that there's much to look at in the glorified conference room. Wood paneled walls, the CIA logo projected onto a wall left blank, and a dozen uncomfortable chairs.
When the door opens again, Cruz doesn't bother looking up, ready to give Joe back some of her own medicine. But the voice, when it speaks after a long moment, doesn't belong to Joe.
“I had forgotten how pretty your face was unbruised.”
Cruz’s head whips towards the door at supersonic speeds. She has to blink a few times but the vision before her doesn't change. “Aaliyah.”