Author's Note: In which we end.

Ordinarily the thank-yous ought to go at the end of the fic, but I feel it would kill the impact of the final lines, so I'll say it here instead. THANK YOU. Thank you to all the wonderful readers, reviewers, critics, casual onlookers, G.I. Joe fans and fellow writers that ever read or commented on this fic. I could not have completed this story without you! It didn't end up exactly where I thought it would, but it's been a great experience and yes, I'd do it all over again.

In the time spent writing this story I graduated college, got a job, published a novel (with two more coming next year!), and in general … grew up. Sort of. Kinda. Maybe. The Joes—and Annie—were my constant mental companions, and through them and my interactions with you guys, I learned so much about storytelling. Thank you so much to all of you! This fandom is incredible.

One more note. The final bit of this chapter is an excerpt from a certain piece of … well, I won't say it because I don't want to spoil the impact, but I didn't write it and if you Google it you'll find it right quick. It's a lovely piece; please read it through.

And as ever: Yo Joe!

Disclaimer: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Closing Time

Two days later …

Carter Hall left the Pit in a plain metal box. No flag or send-off for a captured terrorist.

Annie watched from the fence as the four greenshirts on work detail heaved the box onto the loading ramp. They were exhausted and sweating from a long day in the desert sun, and one of them was wearing a Barenaked Ladies t-shirt with his BDUs. As they worked, stacking the long box with dozens of other crates, they joked and argued and traded insults and weekend plans. The one in the t-shirt was getting seventy-two hours of leave to visit his girlfriend in California; one was planning to go on a tear through every bar in a fifty-mile radius; the other two had something nefarious planned for Beach Head's latest baby of an obstacle course. Business as usual.

Footsteps disrupted her thoughts, and a moment later, a short, lanky man in frog-and-leaf camo came jogging up to her. He had wild brown-blond hair and the slightly dazed expression of a nervous hamster, and above his own olive-drab shirt, his clerical collar was on upside-down.

"Private," he said, skidding to a halt and panting a little. He had an English accent, a little blunted from long years in the States but confirming that she had the right man. "Sorry I'm late."

"Sergeant." Annie saluted. "You know, I thought you were a myth?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Officially, I am. You know, priests aren't supposed to join tank crews." He fingered his collar, frowned as he realized it was on upside-down, pulled it off, and tucked it into his pocket. "Fortunately, the church sorted that bit out for me by kicking me out. I'm no longer actually empowered to perform weddings, funerals, or anything else."

Annie shrugged a little before turning back to watch the loading crew. The obstacle-course plotters were discussing the merits of greased A-frames versus sabotaged tightropes as they stacked empty crates on top of the long box. "That's good, because a funeral isn't really what I had in mind."

The defrocked tanker, known to the Joes as Hell Raiser, gave her a side-eye. "You know, the Pit does have an official chaplain for this sort of thing. One who still has clout with the Lord."

"He's not on-base. Anyway, this isn't really official in any sense of the word." She crossed her arms, shivering a little. "Look, he … this guy was an asshole. He helped invade the last Pit. He worked for Cobra. But he gave me good intel, okay? He didn't lie about the important stuff, and Cobra murdered him for it. And now they can't find his family. I mean, I don't even know if he's being buried under his real name."

Hell Raiser contemplated that for a moment. Then, without another word, he opened the book he was carrying. To Annie's surprise, it wasn't a Bible: instead, it was a little leatherbound volume stamped Libera me de morte aeterna in peeling gold. He began to read softly, and Annie belatedly crossed herself.

"I am well pleased that the Lord hath heard the voice of my prayer, that He hath inclined His ear unto me; therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me round, and the snares of death had hold of me. I shall find trouble and heaviness, and call upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul …"

Annie shivered again, but didn't say anything. She was a Christmas-and-Easter Christian at best, but some support-division part of her found the ritual comforting. Even if she didn't recognize any of the words.

Hell Raiser closed his book as the the last of the boxes were loaded onto the plane. "Not very orthodox," he said, patting the worn cover, "but I'd like to think that God overlooks the little things. Which reminds me, Flint wants to see you."

Talk about a mood-killer. Annie turned to look at him, frowning. "What? Why?"

"How should I know? I'm just a tanker." Hell Raiser handed her the book. "But he told me to bring you along when I returned his copy of the Office of the Dead, so I'm killing two birds with one stone here."

"Wait, this is Flint's book? He knows about this?"

The ex-priest smiled that lopsided grin again. "He was the one who gave me the hour off to do this."

Annie wasn't sure how to respond to that. From his expression, Hell Raiser knew it, and the look he was giving her had worrisomely Psyche-Out-like qualities. Maybe years spent hearing confession made him think along those lines. She would definitely be avoiding him in future.

But he'd helped her. That meant something. "Thank you, sergeant," she said, saluting.

"You're welcome, private."

Flint's office looked like a paperwork bomb had gone off in the middle of it. A small battalion of empty coffee cups was lined up at the edge of the desk, and several had crumpled pieces of paper marinating in the dregs at the bottom. Annie would never dream of making comments about a superior officer's health or welfare, but judging by Flint's expression, he was hard at work on an ulcer or three.

"Sit down, private," he said. Annie sat and slid the book across the desk. "Thank you. Have you been cleared for light duty?"

"Yes, sir." Some days Flint, being a Warrant Officer, was a sir and some days he wasn't. It depended on who you were talking to and how official the situation was. Today was definitely a sir day.

"Good. Your kitchen privileges are being reinstated, and once you're healed up enough to requalify on rifle you'll have an opportunity to earn those sniper tabs." Flint pulled a folder out of the morass of paperwork and flipped it open. Annie saw, with a peculiar yet familiar sinking feeling in her stomach, that it was tagged with her serial number. "Regarding the events of two nights previous, G.I. Joe is officially marking this as your closing interview on the topic. Once you leave this office, the whole incident will no longer have occurred. Understood?"

"I. Uh. Yes, sir." Annie looked down. "Permission to ask a question?"

"Permission granted."

"Am I being kicked out? Because I'd rather not have a dishonorable discharge on my record." She was going to add "I'd like to wash on my own terms," but her throat was oddly dry and the words never quite made it out.

"No." Flint turned over one of the pages of the file, frowned at it, and made a note. When he looked up at her again, though, his expression relaxed somewhat. "Don't worry, private, you're not being reprimanded. You performed well enough, considering the circumstances, and G.I. Joe doesn't discard greenshirts simply because they were injured in the line of duty."

She shifted her bad arm. The dryness seemed to be spreading to her mouth. "About that, sir."

"Yes?"

"If none of this happened—then I don't have to talk to Murphy again, do I? Or anyone else? I don't think I could talk to Zartan."

Flint smiled a little wryly. "Nobody likes talking to Zartan, private. And the answer is no. Zartan and Murphy are both being transported to a secure facility which I'm sure you'll understand I'm not at liberty to name. They'll be leaving tonight, once we have the extra guards needed to keep them from killing each other, so they'll be out of our hair from now on."

The image of Murphy and Zartan, sitting in a van glaring at each other, popped into Annie's head and she couldn't hold back a short bark of a laugh. "I guess spies don't get along with each other, huh?"

"Not when one spy was sent to kill the other." Annie's eyebrows shot up, and Flint nodded, this time with a touch of resignation in his expression. "I'm only telling you because I know it'll be all over the base soon enough. Zartan was sent into the Pit specifically to eliminate Murphy. Cobra changes leaders like we change socks, but that doesn't sit well with someone who believes in the ideology."

"A TB," Annie murmured, remembering Carter Hall's words. A True Believer. She didn't know Zartan very well, and she had no desire to, but she was willing to guess he wasn't the kind of guy who believed in peace and saving lives by sabotage. Unlike Murphy.

Jesus, Murph. What went wrong?

"Sir," she said. "About Murphy. What'll happen to him?"

Flint's expression darkened a little. "That's classified, private," he said.

"Understood, sir. But I don't think—I don't think he was evil. If that's even a thing. Zartan was just mean, mean as a snake, but Murphy?" She swallowed. "I think he was trying to help. He was trying to save lives. He went crazy, sir, but I don't think he went mean. I think."

There was a frozen moment of silence in the office. Then Flint nodded, and his face softened. "I know what you mean, private," he said. "We always have to hope."

"No, sir," she said. "We're support. We always have to help."

That was it, wasn't it? Something seemed to tear loose in her chest, and she lowered her head again, taking a deep breath.

She remembered a litany. Not from church, either, but it might as well have been. She'd memorized the whole thing once—what felt like decades ago, now. I can shape the course of combat, change the outcome of battle, it had said. Look to me.

"A commendable attitude," Flint said, closing the file. "And one G.I. Joe always needs. As it stands and in light of current events, General Hawk has authorized your promotion to full Joe status. Your pay will be adjusted accordingly, backdated to the beginning of the month, and you'll be authorized to wear the Joe patch on your BDUs. A certain amount of customization is also permitted under the uniform codes; you'll need to talk to Storage Vault for a complete list of what's acceptable."

Annie's mouth opened, then closed without uttering a sound. Half of her still wanted to beg for a discharge: no more breaking arms or vent crawling, no more confusion and fear and god. Damn. Ninjas. The quiet life sounded good. But sometime in the last couple of days the world had shifted, and she found herself looking back at Flint with a strange kind of frightening certainty.

Murph had fucked up. He'd forgotten what it meant to be support. She did too, sometimes, but she never wanted to forget forever. She didn't want to go crazy or mean.

"Um," she finally said. "Sir?"

"What is it, Short Stack?"

"Are full Joes still eligible for the GI Bill?"

"Yes," he said. "Joes are still eligible for the GI Bill. We have several former Joes attending school right now."

Well, she had joined the military to pay for college. Getting promoted to full Joe wouldn't put that in danger. And the extra money could always come in handy, right? She could live off her savings while attending school, and devote herself more fully to her studies. Okay, her studies of what she hadn't a clue, but Annie was from a town of five hundred and just getting to college was the important thing.

She could feel her justification and rationalization circuits kicking in. What passed for her sanity was screaming at her to get out, now, run so fast that she'd leave a cartoon dust cloud behind her. But … college. It wasn't as if she could get the money elsewhere. That was absolutely a reason to stay. The only reason.

"You're also allowed to consider a new code name," Flint added. "Maybe something a little more dignified. Hard Tack?"

Oooh. She liked that. Cooking-related, yet also martial and with the implication of doing tough work. But—

"I don't know, sir," she said. "I've kind of gotten used to being Short Stack."

She walked back to the kitchen in a daze. She wasn't sure what had just happened, but she might have made a decision that would affect the course of her entire life. It would have been convenient if someone would warn her before one of those came up.

Murphy had been right. Sort of. She hadn't signed up honestly thinking that she would have to kill people, and she doubted she was alone in that. People joined to help their country, to pay for school, or because their families had always been military. Murphy had seen G.I. Joe's best and brightest go through hell, and he'd decided that he couldn't live with that any more. He'd been trying to help.

But the flip side of the Murphy coin was Carter Hall. A Toxo-Viper, someone with no known family or apparent ambition, stuck in the shittiest job a terrorist organization had to offer and just trying to get along. Hall, who'd been rude and cynical and a total asshole, but who might have been salvageable. She didn't give steak sandwiches to just anyone, after all. He had helped.

How was she going to handle this?

Annie wasn't on the evening duty roster, but she went into the kitchen anyway. The post-dinner cleanup had been mostly completed, and only a few KP monkeys were left to mop floors and wash dishes. She bypassed the industrial-sized urns and took an old stoneware coffee pot from the cabinets. Her hands were only shaking a little as she put the water to boil.

The monkeys were giving her odd looks. When she reached past one for the sugar canister, he flinched sideways and busied himself wiping some dishes that were about as wet as the Sahara.

Thoughts were roiling in her head, and she struggled to make sense of them. This greenie was a new guy. He wouldn't know anything or be plugged into the networks yet. She needed … aha. "S.O.S.!"

The younger quartermaster looked around. He was balancing a pile of dirty dishes with the ease of someone who would probably have a long career in the Army—or, failing that, as a juggler. "Yes?"

"You're the one who talks to Maintenance, right? How well do you know Sgt. Dusty?"

"A little. He's cool." S.O.S. carefully deposited his load in the nearest counter and opened the enormous dishwashing unit with one foot. "Is this about the spy?"

It didn't surprise her that S.O.S. knew about that. The whole base probably knew by now, and as a central hub of gossip, the kitchen would know more than most. "Sort of. What part of the air vent systems is most likely to break?"

S.O.S. hesitated. "You're not gonna go hit him, are you? We get in trouble when we do that. Military discipline still applies. Sort of."

"No, I'm just picking up the slack. Murphy left a lot of work behind." S.O.S. took a step back, startled, and Annie held up her hands. "Non-Cobra work! Non-Cobra work, I swear."

"Right." S.O.S. noted the broken arm. "Well, he could kick your ass if you tried to kill him, so … He's probably changing filters in the motor pool. Top Shelf always bitches about the smoke and dirt that ends up in the vents around there."

"Thanks. I'll owe you one."

The Annie part of her brain watched, somewhat bemused and annoyed, as she filled a Thermos with coffee and tucked packets of sugar and cream into her BDUs. The Short Stack part ignored the Annie part's comments and, after a moment's thought, added a plastic baggie of fresh cookies as well.

She half-expected the motor pool to be quiet, but it was as busy as ever. Almost a dozen old-model Jeeps were lined up on the concrete, all with their hoods up and their insides busily being pulled out by a grease-spattered work crew. Clutch was supervising, but at the moment he seemed to be in a heated argument with Cover Girl, who looked about an inch from doing something very un-militarily-disciplined with a socket wrench. Annie slipped on by.

After fifteen minutes' searching, she located a second-level maintenance duct above the motor pool. A sturdy but deceptively slender-looking metal catwalk gave access to the duct, and two-thirds of a body in desert camouflage were sticking out of the open grill. She nudged one of the legs with her foot, and the body jumped. A muffled thud and cursing echoed through the grating.

It took a moment's struggle for Dusty to extract himself from the duct. His eyebrows shot up when he saw Annie standing there with a Thermos, but didn't say anything until he'd pulled a cleaning cloth out of his tool bag. His face and shirt were once again smeared with grease, and as he mopped himself off, smears of the stuff came away caked with dust and lint. There were dark circles under his eyes, though it was hard to tell through the grime and the heavy tan.

"Hi," Annie said. "I thought you'd want coffee."

The eyebrows climbed a little higher. Annie held out the Thermos cup, already filled. "Two creams and four sugars, right?" she said. Maximum Eyebrow Skepticism Level was achieved, and Annie realized belatedly that knowing that kind of thing looked a little weird. "Don't worry, sergeant, I'm not stalking you," she added quickly, turning red. "92Gs pick this stuff up. Sergeant Major takes it black with two sugars, Sgt. Clutch swears he likes it black but it doesn't count because he uses half a can of powdered vanilla creamer, Sgt. Storm Shadow hates caffeine but he still drinks it on the sly—"

"All right, I believe you," Dusty said. The eyebrows retreated, and he broke into a small grin as he took the cup with one smeared hand. "Thanks. What prompted this? Am I being bribed for something?"

"Well, my mom always said to be nice to people with bloodthirsty attack spiders." Annie perched on the catwalk railing. "Did you find it, by the way?"

Dusty shook his head before taking a sip of coffee. "Not yet. I've baited some no-kill traps with her favorite foods at all the major junctions, and one of the greenshirts swears he saw something trying to crawl through the shower drain in D Block this morning, but when I went to look it turned out to just be a hair clog from hell. People are blaming Spirit."

Annie couldn't quite restrain a snort at that. "Did he sic Freedom on anyone?"

"Nah, Spirit wouldn't do that. He's way too calm and self-controlled to get into our petty bullshit." Dusty shrugged one shoulder. "But if someone's shoes just so happen to end up full of eagle barf, well, accidents happen."

She couldn't hold back a laugh and dropped the baggie. Dusty caught it and made quick work of the first two cookies. For a few minutes there was nothing but companionable silence on the catwalk.

From their perch, they could watch the Pit at work. The motor pool was one of the major crossroads of the installation, and everyone passed through sooner or later. Seen from above, the movements of trucks and people turned into an intricate, not-very-well-choreographed dance. Messengers came and went, vehicles were moved, supplies were brought in, shifts changed, guards circled and gossip passed on. Short Stack watched it and thought about grinders and a box with no flag on it.

"So," Dusty said after a long while. "Murphy."

Her stomach did another little flip, but the shock of the name was fading now. "Yeah," she said. "Murphy."

He shot a sideways glance at her. "How're you handling it?"

"Denial, mostly." She shifted again. "I mean …. it was Murphy. Murphy. I helped that guy unclog a sink." That drew a small smile from Dusty, which made her scowl. "Hey, that's a major sign of comradeship in some circles, you know. You have to really believe in your buddies when you've got your hand buried in the garbage disposal."

"Trust is trust."

"Yeah, trust is trust," she said after a long silence. "You trust your buddies, right? I mean, that guy Mainframe you mentioned, and the ninjas—you trust them, don't you?"

Dusty sipped his second cup of coffee, apparently considering her question before answering. "Yeah," he said finally. "I trust them. To have my back, anyway. To not do something stupid?" A crooked grin creased his features. "I'll have to get back to you on that one."

The quartermaster's first instinct was to roll her eyes and say something sardonic, but for once she restrained herself. Shrugging a little, she considered the man sitting next to her.

Dusty. Good ol' Dusty. Amiable, smart, just the kind of guy you want to have at your back in a firefight or a survival situation. But while Short Stack hadn't known much about the desert when she came out to the Pit, she had learned a bit since then, and she found herself wondering just how Dusty managed. You don't get to be an expert in survival without being willing to do what needs doing, and the iron will of the other survival specialists in the unit confirmed it. Those little flashes of temper, that look in his eye when he restrained Long Arm, those had been clues too. The proverbial steel fist in the velvet glove.

And if he was all about survival, trusting his buddies to have his back because if he didn't he'd be dead … what would his reaction to an insider in Joe be? Someone who'd been with the unit since the very beginning, who'd learned all their secrets and probably personally served his dinner hundreds of times, throwing them over for Cobra?

She shook her head, feeling ashamed on behalf of the quartermasters. As Short Stack, she had put her allegiance to the unit: she would be taking out the change in bad dreams, but she had still made her choice. Murphy had been a friend, but if he was also the kind of man who'd betray the unit's trust, she wanted no part of him or the people he was paid by. Maybe he'd just gone crazy, not mean, but that crazy had risked peoples' lives and shaken G.I. Joe to its core. He'd failed as a quartermaster.

We don't just do a job. Our job is to make sure that they can do theirs.

She'd said it before, but now, she believed it.

Dusty glanced up, surprised, as Short Stack abruptly stood. "What're you doing?" he asked.

"I'm in serious danger of moping," she said briskly. "And my ma always said that time spent moping is time that would be better spent working." She considered her target, mentally running through everything she remembered seeing him go after in the mess. "I think I'm gonna go make some gingerbread."

The grin on his face told her that he'd twigged to her game immediately. Smart boy, Dusty. Still … "Gingerbread?" he said, putting down his empty cup. "With the crunchy caramel bits on it?"

"The honor of the 92Gs is at stake, sergeant." Short Stack gathered up the coffee urn and the baggie, sweeping away the crumbs. "And after all, an army marches on its stomach." She reached for the coffee cup. "Are you finished with that?"

"Depends. Can I have some gingerbread?"

She grinned up at him and held out a hand. He put the cup into it. "I think I can manage that, sergeant."

I am Quartermaster. My story is enfolded in the history of this nation. Sustainer of Armies …

My forges burned at Valley Forge. Down frozen, rutted roads my oxen hauled the meager foods a bankrupt Congress sent me … Scant rations for the cold and starving troops. Gunpowder, salt, and lead.

In 1812 we sailed to war in ships my boatwrights built. I fought beside you in the deserts of the great Southwest. My pack mules perished seeking water holes, and I went on with camels. I gave flags to serve. The medals and crest you wear are my design.

Since 1862, I have sought our fallen brothers from Private to President. In war or peace I bring them home, and lay them gently down in fields of honor.

Provisioner, transporter. In 1898 I took you to Havana Harbor and the Philippines. I brought you tents, your khaki cloth for uniforms. When yellow fever struck, I brought the mattresses you lay upon.

In 1918, soldier … like you. Pearl Harbor, too. Mine was the first blood spilled that day. I jumped in darkness into Normandy, D-Day plus one. Bataan, North Africa, Sicily. I was there. The 'chutes that filled gray Korean skies were mine; I lead the endless trains across the beach in Vietnam.

By air and sea I supported the fight for Grenada. Helicopters above the jungles of Panama carried my supplies. In Desert Storm, I was there when we crossed the border into Iraq … sustaining combat and paying the ultimate sacrifice as we liberated Kuwait.

I am Quartermaster. I can shape the course of combat, change the outcome of battle. Look to me. Sustainer of Armies … since 1775.

I am Quartermaster. I am proud.