"Wash."

…

"Washington."

…

"Washington."

…

"Wash!"

Washington startled, waking from his - surprisingly deep - slumber. His head shot up, banging harshly against the metal of the wall his bed was sunken into. Groaning, he clutched at his head, despairing at the ratty feeling of hair that was well past its 'wash-by' date. He really needed to remind Donut to stop hosting hot tub cocktail parties one of these days. Or, at the very least, remind him to stop doing it at Blue Base with his hot water.

Washington chanced opening his eyes and immediately regretted it. Epsilon was floating in the room beside him, the glow of his holographic construct standing out harshly against the soothing darkness he'd been experiencing. Washington's head fell back against his pillow again, his arm covering his closed eyes in a further attempt to keep Epsilon's light out.

"What do you want?" he groused. Washington wasn't overly fond of Epsilon on a good day. He was objectively spiteful of him in the middle of the night when he was supposed to be sleeping. "It's Tucker's turn to wake up with Caboose. I made that schedule for a reason."

"Can we not be smartasses right now? Please?"

Again, Wash cracked an eyelid, ignoring the stab of bright light for the benefit of his witty comment. "Are you lecturing someone on how not to be a smartass right now?" It really just wouldn't have been the same without the wry eye-crack. Proper blocking for your jokes was always important in getting them to land.

"Carolina needs your help," the AI said bluntly, his willingness not to engage in the childish banter evidence enough of how serious he was taking this.

Washington was awake. He sat fully upright in bed, both eyes opened wide to a light that no longer hurt him. "What? What happened? Is she okay?"

Epsilon snorted, unable to help himself. "Yeah, Wash, she's great," he commented dryly. "That's why I woke you up at three o'clock in the morning."

"What's happening?" Washington demanded, now unwilling himself to argue.

Epsilon scratched at the back of his nonexistent head. It was interesting to Washington, how human Epsilon could be sometimes. None of the other AIs had ever indulged in those kind of gestures. Theta was the most outgoing of all of them, but even he limited it to party tricks that would amuse an audience. Epsilon alone was one to use human mannerisms for the sole purpose that they felt...like something he should do. Certainly Delta never had. "Look, usually I wouldn't even bother you about this...in fact, she's probably gonna kick my ass for doing it, but this is the third night in a row she hasn't slept, and I finally got a look at why and...just go help her, yeah?"

"Why isn't she sleeping?" Washington wondered.

Epsilon barked a short, humorless laugh. "Yeah, I'm not walking that far into the minefield, Wash. She'll pull me for a month if I reveal that much of her humanity."

"Right," Washington ran a tired hand down his face. "Can't have the troops thinking our fearless leader isn't fearless."

"Yeah, well, you know how she is," Epsilon shrugged. More to himself, he muttered, "Takes after her mother."

Washington, with practiced ease, ignored the flashing of a memory that wasn't his and stood up. "Fair enough. Thanks, Epsilon. I'll go...see what I can do."

Epsilon turned his eyes to follow him as he walked. "Dressed like that?" he asked, humor filling his voice.

Washington looked down. He was dressed in his usual night clothes. A faded t-shirt with adorned with a cat wearing hippie glasses and a pair of polka-dotted boxers. Given the mission at hand, he figured he was dressed appropriately. For some odd reason, he didn't feel that waltzing into Carolina's room fully armored at three in the morning would go over well.

"Well, what does Carolina wear to bed?" he asked dryly.

Epsilon scratched at his head. So very human. "Pretty much the same as you. Oversized t-shirt and panties." Epsilon chuckled slightly. "Yeah, she used to sleep naked but...Tucker, you know?"

Washington's brow shot up. "Tucker has seen Carolina naked?"

"The fact that he didn't manage to is the only reason he's still alive."

Washington laughed, shaking his head. "Right, well...I think I'll be fine. Thanks, Epsilon...again."

_(*)_

Carolina's room was oppressed by the weight of fear and the humidity of sweat when he entered. The sliver of light from the dim, overhead lighting of the base that poured through the door as Washington opened it cast a pale glow across her flushed skin. Her hair, which she had grown out to hang several inches below her shoulders since Chorus, was fanned out across her stark pillows like a vibrant sheet of blood. It made Washington's stomach churn for a moment, but the feeling subsided when he slid her door closed and cast the room into darkness once more.

In the dark, without his sight and with his hearing amplified, he could make out the sound of her panting gasps. She was sucking in air as if she believed she'd run out of it. Washington wondered for a moment if she was going to start hyperventilating but dismissed the notion. Even like this, he couldn't help but think she was above that kind of reaction. Slowly, Washington tiptoed across her room, careful to avoid the desk to his right, the corner of which had caught his hipbone painfully the last time he had been in here. The room was small, barely more than a bed and a desk. It only took him three and half steps to reach her.

He ducked his head and, slowly, carefully, lowered himself onto her mattress.

Washington would have to remember to ask Epsilon exactly how many milliseconds it had taken Carolina's instincts to register the weight difference and wake her up. Washington had not even settled his entire weight onto the bed before an iron grip latched around his throat, a closed fist took the air out of his stomach and a hurling body tackled him to the floor. A knife appeared within the fist that had punched him, pulled from some secluded hiding place, and he felt the blade cut into his cheek. All of this within the span of two seconds.

Washington held his breath, careful not to fight too hard against Carolina's grip and calmly tapped his fingers against her bare forearm twice. Two paranoid, jumpy, former black-ops soldiers in a base full of invasive idiots had been a recipe for disaster from the beginning. The arm tap was the signal that the intruder they were attempting to kill was friendly. Not that Caboose, the most common infiltrator, ever used it. He just tended to shout happily until Washington and Carolina recognized his voice. Carolina's corded muscles relaxed in an instant, and her weight receded, pulling off of his chest and settled on his waist which she was now straddling. Her fingers reached up, found the overhead light on her bed and flicked the switch. The dim light shined from behind her, silhouetting her form and obscuring her face, but Washington knew her well enough that he could see with perfect clarity the look of annoyance she was wearing.

"What the fuck, Wash?" she grimaced.

"I know," he half-smiled, reaching up to prod the shallow cut with his fingers. They came away bright red. "What am I gonna tell Tucker to explain this?"

Carolina winced. "Sorry," she muttered. She stood then, reaching down to offer him a hand which he took. Upright, he was a good three inches taller than her and much wider in the shoulders. Not that, that meant anything. Outside of armor, Carolina's lithe frame had always been to her benefit. She was always underestimated by the pool jockeys York would get into bar fights with. No one ever guessed she was the most dangerous one in the room. Unless they knew her.

Washington shook his head. "My fault," he assured her.

Carolina sat down without a lick of grace, silently tucking the knife back under her pillow before glaring up at him with emerald eyes he could see much clearer now. "Yeah, it is," she groused, tucking a stray hair back behind her ear. Not that it helped the seventeen cowlicks she had decorating the top of her head. "What are you doing in here, it's...wait, what time is it?"

Washington sat down beside her and smiled apologetically. "Sometime after three," he told her. "Epsilon told me you were having a nightmare."

She narrowed her eyes. "Did he now?" she growled.

On cue, the AI appeared, hovering beside Carolina's face and looking as bashful as possible behind an armored visor. "Hey, I was just trying to-"

"Shut up, Church," Carolina cut him off. She reached up, her fingers latching onto Epsilon's implant. "We'll talk about this tomorrow." She pulled the implant free, rubbing at its absence for a moment.

Washington quirked an eyebrow at her as she placed the implant on the bedside table. She caught his glance and shrugged.

"Something tells me I don't want him eavesdropping on this particular conversation," she complained dryly. She muttered, more to herself in exactly the same way that Epsilon had done earlier, "Wash the therapist. Always want to get 'deep'."

Washington ignored her muttered insult, if that was what it was meant to be. "Won't he know everything tomorrow anyway? You two share a brain basically, don't you?"

Carolina shrugged again. She allowed herself to fall backwards, twisting so that she landed on her pillow. Her legs stretched out behind Wash, leaving her fully prone. It seemed she was fully committing herself to 'Therapist Wash's' tender care tonight. "Doesn't mean I want him to actually hear what's going on. I don't need his smartass comments about wandering eyes."

"Your eyes or mine?" Washington teased.

Carolina didn't bother to grace him with even an eyeroll. "I've already cut you tonight, Wash. Don't make me stab you."

Washington chuckled. "Yes, Boss."

They fell into a companionable silence. The light stayed on. Carolina's eyes stayed open, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. Washington found a particularly interesting dark spot to stare at, waiting.

"Aren't you gonna ask me what I was dreaming about?"

Washington shrugged. "Sure. What were you dreaming about?"

Carolina's eyes shifted to stare scrutinizingly at Washington's back. He still had not turned. He hadn't even looked at her. "You don't actually care, do you?"

"I care that you're not sleeping," Washington argued. "But what it is that's actually keeping you awake? No, that's between you and you. And Epsilon, I guess," he added as an afterthought.

They fell back into silence, but Carolina wasn't staring at the ceiling anymore. She was staring at Washington. At the silhouette of his head, only the faintest hint of his blonde hair visible in her bed's dim light. He continued to not look at her. She knew him well enough to know it took a conscious effort.

"Do you know who my mother is, Wash?" she asked suddenly.

His shoulders stilled for a moment and then sagged. "Yes," he admitted quietly. Washington waited. For a question or for a knife. He didn't know which was more likely. When she did nothing, he continued, "Epsilon wasn't my AI for very long, Carolina, but he left his mark. I remember...a lot of things I shouldn't."

"I see her every night," Carolina whispered, barely audible. "And I mean I see her. Not Texas. Her. Allison Church. My mother. The woman who raised me. Before the Director...perverted her."

Washington finally turned to look at her, something unidentifiable in his gray eyes. It wasn't pity - he wasn't suicidal enough to ever pity Carolina. "Wouldn't those be pleasant memories?"

Carolina snorted, but the sound lacked impact. There was something else underneath it. A sob she refused to release. Washington wondered how long she'd been holding in that particular noise. "They're unpleasant exactly because they are pleasant," she said. "Those years were the happiest in my life. She was gone a lot, but...she always came back. And she always smiled at me when she did. He did, too. He...smiled a lot back then. Before."

Washington didn't say anything. He let her continue. This was clearly something she needed to say to a listening audience. Something told him he wasn't meant to commentate.

Carolina's eyes moved to once more stare listlessly at the ceiling. "Then she left, and she didn't come back," Carolina was saying. "All those missions. All those battles. All those wounds. And then, one day, it all just stopped. I don't know what it was. Aliens. Artillery. Sickness. Trauma. Friendly fucking fire? Who knows? Maybe somebody pulled a Caboose on her." Carolina released a quiet, shallow laugh that had no humor in it at all. "She was gone. And we never got a goodbye…"

"She hated goodbyes," Washington said at the same time as Carolina.

The redhead's eyes shifted again to him, searching for something within his own. He didn't know if she found what she was looking for, but the tightened look on her face eased somewhat. She nodded.

"I dream about her every night," Carolina repeated. "About that last night with her. She braided my hair, and we drank shitty wine even though I was too young and sang 'Sweet Caroline' so loud I thought the neighbors would call the cops." Washington's eyes widened at the song choice, aware of its significance, but wisely kept his mouth shut. "I see...that fucking scene every night. Playing on repeat like that goddamn video message that D…" Carolina caught herself, her face tightening in pain. "That the Director wasted his life watching."

"Carolina," Washington tried to speak, but she cut him off.

"Every night, Wash," she whispered, her voice cracking ever so slightly. "Every fucking night. I see her. I keep seeing her. I can't stop seeing her! Washington, I…"

"Carolina," Washington said again, more firmly this time as he took a firm grasp on her hand. She looked down at it, as if she didn't know what she was feeling. There was no recognition in her eyes, as if she had never seen her hand locked in the embrace of someone else's. "Carolina, you are not your father."

Her eyes found his again. Her breathing was shaky, and there was a pain deep within her gaze, that Washington reluctantly thought would never truly go away no matter what he said or did.

"I don't remember Allison Church," he told her, the name sounding foreign on his tongue. It wasn't the name in his head. It wasn't the woman he'd known. Memories were funny that way. They were always biased towards their own viewpoint. Particularly when the memories weren't his. "I only remember the woman that Epsilon remembers. That Alpha and the Director remembered. And you know how she was."

Carolina winced.

"But I remember the Director," Washington his said, his voice distant, his eyes faraway. "I remember a cold hearted man, who couldn't see beyond his own self gain. Who ruined the lives of well-meaning soldiers looking to do their part for the betterment of their species. Who broke laws, who acted inhumanely, who hated and hurt and lied to get whatever he wanted. I remember a man who didn't care about anyone but himself."

Washington looked very deliberately into her eyes.

"I've never met a man less like you in my life," he promised her.

Carolina didn't cry. Washington didn't know that she ever had or ever could. But pools of unshed tears welled up in her eyes as she looked across at him. She groaned and wiped angrily at them with her free hand, sniffling as she did so.

"You made me cry," she said accusingly, something akin to a smile on her face. "You know I have to kill you now?"

There was no reticence in Washington's smile. "Yeah, Boss," he agreed. "But do it tomorrow. You need your rest."

He squeezed her hand tightly, trying to convey with that simple gesture everything he felt for her and everything she meant to him. Then he let her go and moved to stand. Her hand found his again, tightening almost as much as it had around his neck. He turned back to her, confused.

"I don't have Epsilon plugged up right now," she nodded her head to the implant resting innocently on the night table. Washington smiled crookedly at it, his eyes alight with amusement. Was that...mischievousness in her eyes? She only turned that on when she was messing with Tucker and Grif about her singing voice. "I need somebody to monitor my vitals."

Washington stifled a chuckle and settled back onto the bed. "Yes, ma'am," he gave her a two finger salute.

More serious, she told him, "Wake me up if I get too bad, okay? I promise I won't try to kill you again."

Washington didn't bother to hide his laugh this time. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Boss."

He reached up and turned off the light.