DISCLAIMER: I don't own any part of the Gears of War universe. It all belongs to Epic Games and CliffyB. I only play with the characters when they aren't looking.

It's nearing the end of Baird's shift when Marcus approaches the engineering base of operations, picking his way through the mechanical detritus that radiates outward from where Baird has set up his workbench in the main hallway of the hotel tower, right next to the elevators. Marcus can hear Baird's strident voice as he supervises the unloading of a pair of generators, regularly admonishing the Gears to "be careful, for fuck's sake." Marcus shakes his head and leans against one of the elevators, watching Baird harangue his unfortunate volunteers, knowing that the engineer has probably already seen him. He's observant like that, almost as much as Marcus. Sure enough, after the other Gears beat a hasty retreat, Baird turns to Marcus, wiping his hands on his cargo pants. The lenses of the goggles perched eternally on his forehead are streaked with sweaty condensation from his hair, and there are shallow burns up and down his forearms.

"Need something?" Baird asks, rolling his head sideways until his neck pops, the picture of casual.

It strikes Marcus that Baird has never looked at ease unless he's surrounded by machinery. Lucky for him that the COG remnants are stranded on Azura, a treasure trove of countless rigs, loaders, monitors, computers, and other stuff Marcus doesn't bother with.

"Yeah. Come find me when you're done closing up shop."

Baird nods, a slight frown tugging at his mouth. "Sure. You staying in your Dad's quarters?"

Marcus doesn't miss a beat, even though he feels his heart contract slightly at the old wound, now freshly re-opened. A splinter that his body keeps trying to get rid of, but it stays just below the skin. "Yeah. It's time we talked."

Baird looks suddenly uneasy, as if he's just realized his social faux pas and actually regrets it. He turns his attention to one of the generators and whips out a wrench from his pocket. "I'll be up in 10 minutes, okay?" He can just see Marcus out of the corner of his eye.

Marcus nods and calls the elevator. It's a credit to Baird's skill that it arrives silently, the doors gliding open with only the faintest whisper. He punches the floor number, and it's only after the doors close that he allows himself to sag against the wall and cover his face with his hands.

—-

Baird waits until he hears the elevator begin its ascent before turning back around. He enjoys being the biggest asshole with an even bigger mouth, but sometimes he wishes that he had more than a thimbleful of tact. He knows what Marcus wants to talk about. He's been waiting for Marcus to approach him about Dom's death, but he's been too cowardly to bring it up. It took all of his shredded courage to ask Marcus about Santiago in the first place, during that hellish night when they were storming through the hotel, hunting the Locust Queen.

And once Myrrah and her gigantic flying death wasp (lovingly nicknamed 'Tempest') were destroyed, Marcus and Anya disappeared. They were together, Baird knows, because they couldn't leave the island. No one could. But why else does a man slip off with a woman he won't admit he loves at the end of an inarguably epic last battle? It certainly wasn't to have a heart-to-heart, although that probably happened in due course. Mum's the word. Too bad every Gear on Azura knows Marcus is getting some serious tail from a certain comms officer.

Baird checks his watch, a nice chronograph he pilfered from the desk in the room he has claimed, and sees that it's already been ten minutes. He allows himself a sigh, and slips the goggles off his head. Baird wipes his forehead on the sleeve of his shirt and cleans the goggles before positioning them back in place. He can't stall any longer.

—

As he's about to knock, he sees Marcus and Anya in the crack between the doors. They are in front of the window, and she is giving Marcus a lingering kiss, her short blonde hair threaded through his huge fingers. Her hand brushes his, lightly. Marcus briefly crushes her against him, a predatory, sensual movement that lasts for only a few seconds before Anya pulls away and leaves. As she sidles past Baird, she gives him a knowing, confident smirk that he admires in spite of himself. Anya Stroud has grown tenacious in the busy days since the war ended.

Baird gives Marcus the same knowing smirk as he ambles in.

"Finally," he says.

After a few moments of deadpan, Marcus slowly allows an incredulous, wondering smile, as if he can't believe it either. It's small, but it changes Marcus' demeanor entirely. The harsh scars on his face soften, and his eyes are just blue instead of ice chips.

"I don't think I can get used to you smiling," Baird quips, and immediately realizes that he should be encouraging the man instead of cracking jokes. Seriously, it took how many years before Marcus admitted that he and Anya were an item? Anya should win some kind of masochistic award. Baird scratches the back of his head, an old tell of insecurity, and recovers with "I mean, Anya looks good on you."

Marcus continues to look at him with an amused expression, and walks past Baird to shut the door.

"So I get the feeling you didn't ask me up here for relationship advice. At least, I hope you didn't."

Baird has never been comfortable with attention that didn't come from his mechanical skills, and he gears up to say something else, but Marcus claps a solid hand on his shoulder and says, "Baird, you never did know how to shut up."

Baird lapses into silence, feeling wrong-footed. He doesn't understand how Marcus has said the same line to him countless times during the war, but unlike all the other times where he felt irritation behind the words, now they seem…different, even though Marcus is using the same tone, pinning him with those icy blue eyes. He knows why Marcus asked him here, but he doesn't want to be the first to talk about the real subject. Baird is determined to wait him out.

A stray thought shoots across his brain and suddenly Baird blurts out "Are you doing okay, man?"

Even though it looks like Marcus is okay, and he has Anya to help him through Dom's loss, he is worried that Marcus isn't okay. What a fucking joke, that he's developed empathy for a man he both despised and envied until very recently. But he understands (more than anyone gives him credit for) that they've all been acting like they're carrying on, that they're okay despite the crushing depression and bleakness of everything. And really, only the Cole-Train has a healthy way of dealing with this shitstorm that composes most of their lives. Baird's own coping strategy is to lose himself in his machines and avoid the real world.

Marcus' hand tightens for a brief moment on his shoulder before falling away, and Marcus moves across the room to his father's desk. "I'm…processing it." He says, hands flat on the desk and staring down at the jumble of notes and schematics.

He is silent for a few minutes, and Baird lets the time stretch out, knowing that Marcus is gathering himself.

"I know I said I would tell you what happened with Dom."

"If this isn't a good—"

"No. You asked. He was your brother too. You care. You've always cared."

Baird grabs the back of his neck and looks at the floor, feeling uncomfortably like his shriveled heart is on display. He wills himself to stay there, to not fidget, to focus on their conversation. He wanted to know, right? Marcus looks forlorn, his gaze anchored to the desktop as he grasps for words. Baird remembers that he and Marcus do have one thing in common; 'Emotionally available' wouldn't show up on a short list of their marriageable qualities. Where Marcus is a broken machine, Baird runs continuously, and neither of them has room for squishy feelings.

"Dom…sacrificed himself in Mercy to help our cause."

Baird viciously crushes the urge to say that he knew the official report already, that he wants the gory details. Because he understands what a shocking loss feels like. One minute you have shitty parents you're working hard to forget, the next minute you're called down from Ephyra to identify what little dental records remain. The only solace he drew from being orphaned was the knowledge that his parents' plan to fuck him over had backfired, and he was free to pursue engineering. At some point, he figured, he may have to make sure he wasn't bitter over the whole thing.

"The Formers surrounded us, the grubs behind them…we were finished." Marcus' voice was quiet. "Dom crashed a fuel truck into the mob and blew everything to hell. There was nothing left."

Something in the timbre of Marcus' voice makes him look up from the ornate carpet.

Marcus' shoulders are shaking as he stands over the desk, hands fisting in the papers. Baird feels like he's watching a carefully controlled explosion in slow motion. He wonders how much of this grief Marcus has allowed Anya to see. Sexual distractions can only bring so much relief. He finds himself moving forward, unbidden. For some reason, he doesn't want to see Marcus lose his shit anymore. Not after everything they've been through together, willingly or not. Baird doesn't understand why Marcus would lose composure in front of him, but he understands that Delta has left an indelible brand on each of them, and brothers to the end means brothers to *whatever* end. That creed is sacred. It's the only thing he believes in other than science. He'll wipe his ass with the Octus Canon in public before he would ever dishonor that creed, even if adhering to it now means offering emotional support to a man who has ridiculed him, and has more in common with a statue than any human being.

He claps a hand on Marcus' back, uncomfortable with the overly masculine gesture. Marcus bows his head, releases a shaky sigh that is entirely too effusive, then straightens and turns towards him. Baird is thunderstruck by the unshed tears in Marcus' eyes. The swelling silence between them is unbearable. He feels miles away from the bustling activity outside this room, miles away even from Marcus. A thousand thoughts race through his head, and for once, his filter is functioning, and he rejects each of them out-of-hand. Words simply won't fix everything in this new world of social sensitivity. Brothers to the end, he reminds himself with a mental grimace before pulling Marcus into a hug. He may as well have been hugging a Raven. He doesn't know how Anya does it, finding warmth in this glacial man, and he's sure she's been the only one to touch him, besides Santiago.

An eternity passes in a few moments before Marcus' arms encircle Baird, and he resists the surge of sarcasm that is fighting to be expressed, warring with his own discomfort at being physically embraced. He is careful to keep his head up, eyes trained out the window, even as he feels a dampness on his shoulder, because if he allows himself to analyze this instant, he instinctually knows it means losing the potential to be someone other than Baird: Delta's Resident Asshole. When the fuck did he become so caring? He was not a demonstrative man. But it's what Cole would do, if he was here instead of Baird. After years of enduring hugs and pats, Cole has finally worn him down.

"Dom did what Dom does best: putting everyone else first. And this is the part where I'm supposed to tell you that Dom would want you to live on, for him, and that you should look on his sacrifice with a smile. But as nice as that sounds, it isn't true."

He feels Marcus stop breathing, and he hurries on before he loses his nerve.

"He'd want you to live for you, for Anya, but he couldn't live for himself. Dom died the day his kids died and Maria went missing. The man you've been saving Sera with was just a shell, the last remnants of Santiago as he was before E-Day. Dom wants you to live on in spite of him, but you'll have to settle for living on in the wake of him. It's not perfect, but it's something." The words tumble out, and he knows they are the purest truths he has ever uttered aloud, the most he has ever spoken seriously about anything.

Marcus pushes away from Baird, his expression both chilly and disarming. His eyes are dry as ever, and Baird wonders if it was just a trick of the waning light filtering through the palm trees outside.

"That's not quite…what I was expecting," Marcus said, his voice rough and strained. Geez, no wonder the females Gears fantasize about lining up for a fuck. That sad voice is almost enticing to *him*.

Baird chuckles and slaps Marcus' shoulders none-too-gently. "If you wanted sunshine blown up your ass, you should have gone to the grief counselor, but a certain thrashball birdie told me that you told her to fuck off."

Marcus rolls his eyes and scoffs, but he's smiling, and Baird senses the awkward, touchy-feely moment is over, to his undying relief.

"What did you think I would tell you?" Baird asks, despite his better judgment.

Marcus quirks an eyebrow. "I didn't think you would tell me anything."

"Ah."

"And if you did, it would be what Hoffman told me: It will hurt less with time. Make the most of his sacrifice."

Baird grins and makes eye contact. "Oh, c'mon, even *I'm* not that much of an asshole."

Both men stare at each other for a moment before roaring with laughter. It feels good to laugh at something that isn't about the war or the Locust. They laugh well past the joke, and Baird marvels that he is laughing at himself with Marcus Fenix. As they lapse into silence, Baird feels light-headed. He can't remember the last time he genuinely laughed. He grins again at Marcus and shakes his head, aware that they are unguarded in this private moment, and it doesn't feel forced. He makes a mental note to compensate for this loss of composure by being an even bigger asshole than usual tomorrow.

He knew circumstances would change if the war with the Locust were ever truly over. The emotional rationing all soldiers employed in times of war would give way to a horrible abundance of it, a concept that disquieted him whenever he had two moments to rub together in self-reflection. That dam had already broken on Vectes, with the abandoned COG soldiers and the current Gears trying to adapt to each other, to accept people and ideas outside their realm of understanding, and that was before the Stranded and UIR had shown up.

Long-dormant resentment from the Pendulum Wars had almost caused the last surviving humans of Sera to obliterate each other over old world hate and geography that had been reduced to ash. Frankly, it was a miracle that the COG and the UIR had managed to cooperate. People carried their old countries within, the same old hurts, observing their customs in unobtrusive, careful ways. Now, the rules of the past were broken; no one knew how to act around each other. Clinging to the past was the only way some Gears resisted suicide, but it had driven Dom inexorably to his end.

Baird stares at Marcus' back as the man looks out the window, one hand resting on the gilded telescope beside him. He imagines that Marcus is desperately clinging to the only family he knows in the turbulent, unreal aftermath of a world without Dominic Santiago, a world he had never predicted. Baird truly feels sorry about the circumstances that have brought Marcus to seek solace in a man like himself: emotionally destitute, with a list of defense mechanisms longer than his arm.

Was it possible that Marcus was extending the olive branch? That he had spoken to Baird not just out of duty but a desire to fill the abyss Santiago left behind? Baird would have scorned it under any other circumstance, if for no other reason than the abiding rawness of the promotion of a dishonorably discharged prisoner over himself.

But shit was different now. Baird wants to try to understand this new Marcus with a full head of hair. Everyone left in the wake of this war is walking wounded, and he finally has proof that Marcus is human. One of his favorite jokes was that their little Jack-Bot had more personality than Delta's vetted leader.

It makes Marcus more accessible, Baird thinks. All Marcus ever wanted was to be accepted, to be judged on his own merits and not those of his god-like asshole of a father. Marcus likes to think he's heroic and mysterious, but he's just a study in classic psychology.

Even Bernie I-eat-cats-and-use-their-fur-to-line-my-boots Mataki, who had known Marcus since he was a fresh recruit, had tried unsuccessfully to lure him into a talk about Dom, before they lost radio contact with Anvil Gate and everywhere else. And yet Marcus saw fit to bond with Delta's resident smart-ass. Something was happening here; Baird had enough of a social IQ to realize that. Marcus must be drawing close to him, to Cole, even Jace and Sam, trying to figure out if there's any room for friendship now that the old fraternal bonds have been severed, and a man's no longer defined by the jumbled pre-fix of letters that precede his last name.

Marcus' eyes are still pained, but the hard lines around his mouth have eased. He looks ridiculously young without his kit and doo rag. Baird doesn't think he'll ever get used to seeing him without the glowing power indicators on his back and shoulders. The real world was defined by explosions and dust, mortar shells whining in the distance, the sound of your heartbeat in your ears, the smoke rising from the white-hot tip of your Lancer as you slam a new clip home. This new peace is just an act from a play, each person stiffly reciting the lines he has been given, everyone wearing masks that hide the true ugliness of everything. Baird knows he's not adjusting well to being a civvie. Fuck, maybe *he* should go see the grief counselor.

I hope I said the right thing, Baird thinks, knowing that it will take more than this small instance to sustain Marcus through these weird days of sorrow and elation.

"Want me to send Anya up? I found some slinky lingerie in my wardrobe that she's welcome to " Baird teases, allowing one of his rare, real smiles to flash obnoxiously.

Marcus turns around, eyes flashing with amusement. "Only if you can bear to part with it."

"No problem. Lacy teddies aren't really my taste."

Marcus growls under his breath and rolls his eyes. "Don't you have a generator waiting for you?" He says, trying to sound stern.

Baird wolf-whistles and outlines a rectangle in the air. "I sure do. Thinking about those angles just gets me—"

"Goodbye Baird," Marcus interrupts, grabbing the younger man and frog marching him to the door.

"C'mon Marcus, this is the part where we get to paint each other's fingernails and gossip," Baird says in a cajoling tone, his trademark shit-eating grin plastered from ear to ear.

Marcus just stares at him, bewildered, before snorting and slamming the door. Baird can hear him laughing on the other side.

Pleased, the blond engineer makes his way back to the elevators. He really does have a generator waiting for him.