A/N: About time for the conclusion, right? I told you I can't write on a schedule.

Hope you liked it, Fer!

Dirty Little Secret, Pt. II

East of Port Farrall, fourteen days after the evacuation of Jacinto, 14 A.E.

Baird hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep until a snore woke him with a start. He looked around the hovel, but nothing much had changed. The fire had been raging (as much as it could) the last he remembered, but now it was just a pile of embers. He had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been an hour or ten minutes. The wind still hadn't let up, and from the cracks in the walls of the shack he could see that it was still dark. Sam had nodded off as well; he could tell from her breathing. He didn't know if her being asleep made the situation more or less awkward.

This was probably his punishment for staring at her ass earlier.

Sam moved slightly. Baird heard her yawn, and then she went immediately rigid. He wondered if she was worried about falling sleep next to him when she said, very quietly, "What is that?"

At first, Baird had no idea what she was talking about. But then she shifted her hips, to drive home the point, and an unexpected bolt shot up his spine. Oh. This is just humiliating.

"It's not what it looks like," he said lamely, flushing.

"Oh really? Because it feels like your dick is pressed up against my ass."

The tone of her voice snapped him out of his embarrassment. Now he was just indignant. "Don't flatter yourself," he growled. "This may come as a shock to you, but guys get hard-ons during the night—and it has nothing to do with dreams, before you freak out. It's all neurological stimulation."

Sam scoffed. "At least you skipped the rude innuendos about body heat."

Her body shuddered against his. Baird's stomach dropped. They might have staved off hypothermia momentarily, but spooning in the sleeping bag wasn't going to cut it much longer. Before his common sense could stop him, his mouth was open and he was saying, "Well, now that you bring it up…"

She tensed up again beside him. "You've got to be kidding."

Oh God, am I really suggesting this? "You can't tell me you're not feeling the cold. I don't like this any better than you, but I'd rather not get hypothermia and die." She didn't punch him immediately, so he took that as a good sign. "So… what do you say?"

There was a moment of silence. Oh hell was this going to be awkward if she said no. He'd almost prefer dying. Actually, she'd probably kill him. He'd heard the rumours about her breaking a corporal's nose for getting a little too touchy.

Then she rolled over to face him. "If you say a word of this, so help me God, I will put a bullet in your brain."

For a second, he was completely dumbfounded that she'd agreed. Hell, he still couldn't believe he'd suggested it in the first place. But he recovered quickly. "Trust me, that is not going to be an issue."

He moved to get on top of her when she pressed her hands up against his chest.

"What are you doing?" She looked ready to kill him.

"Uh… did I miss something in the last two seconds?"

"You can't just stick it in me because you're ready." She rolled her eyes. "Have you ever even been with a girl before?"

Oh, that was uncalled for. He wouldn't deign to answer that. Just to shut her up, Baird brought his hand up to her breast. As his fingers brushed against her skin, she sucked in a breath. Her back arched slightly. He smirked, even though he knew it was just because his fingers were freezing. Now that she'd questioned his expertise, he was going to go out of his way to prove her wrong.

He started teasing her very deliberately, enjoying the bemused look on her face. Yeah, he was more than just a pretty face. He'd been pretty popular with the ladies before E-Day, and for good reason. But he could do better. And shit had it been a long time since he'd done this. All he had to do was forget it was Sam under him.

His hand moved down between her legs. For some stupid reason, he hesitated a moment. He could feel Sam glaring at him. There was a small noise—a half-formed word on the way out of Sam's mouth—and apparently that was all the encouragement he needed. She sucked in a breath as he slid one finger inside. Thrusting in and out firmly, all his old moves came back to him. Yeah, he could do this. He wanted to do this—just not with Sam. But she was easy enough to forget.

However, as he pumped harder, he didn't hear the expected noises of pleasure. After trying harder for a couple more seconds, he finally glanced up at Sam. Her expression sent a bolt right through him. The wrong kind of bolt. She didn't look like he was rocking her world. She didn't even look mildly aroused. If anything, she just looked impatient. His thrusting slowed as doubt began to creep annoyingly into his chest.

Her eyes flicked down to him; his frustration must have been showing. She could have laughed at him, or rolled her eyes, or sighed, or done a dozen other things that would have wounded his self-esteem. She didn't. Without saying a word, she took his hand in hers. She guided his hand to a different spot, rubbing gently, slowly. Once he found a good rhythm, she released him. Her head fell back against the ground and her eyes closed. A small smile spread across her lips. He wondered if she was thinking of anybody. It didn't matter.

When her knee came up to rest in the hollow of his waist he took that as a sign that she was ready for him, and repositioned his hips. He could feel the warmth between her thighs. He pushed in.

He stifled a groan at the old familiar feeling. Half-formed thoughts threatened to ruin the moment, but he forced them all away. Nothing mattered right now. All he needed to do was turn his brain off and enjoy this feeling, and forget that this was all to stave off hypothermia. If he closed his eyes, he could be anywhere, with anyone.

But somehow he couldn't keep his eyes closed. His gaze fell on the woman beneath him. Her torso, her breasts, and—he tried to stop but he couldn't—her face. With each roll of his hips, her expression changed slightly, subtly, and somehow he couldn't look away. Her eyes were still closed, her fingers curling in the threadbare fabric of the sleeping bag. Let her fantasize, then. That shouldn't have bothered him.

After a few minutes of silent thrusting, he could feel himself reaching his limit. He was determined not to come before her, though, because then he'd never hear the end of it. Before he could start to worry, she pressed her lips together tightly and arched her back. She constricted around him, and he gritted his teeth as his climax followed hers.

He quickly rolled off, chest rising and falling faster than normal. It had done what he expected. The bite of the cold air was a little further off now.

"We'll be cold again soon," she remarked, almost startling him.

"Just give me time."

They repeated the process several times as the snowstorm continued to rage well into the night. The cold got so unbearable at one point that Baird had to leave the protection of the sleeping bag in order to rip up some more wood and start another meagre fire. When he slipped shivering back into the sack, Sam's warm body pressed up against him instantly. She wrapped her arms around him, and when his shaking subsided, her hands travelled south to start things again.

Hardly any words were spoken between them in those heated, confusing hours. Words weren't needed, and if either one of them had said anything, the fragile moment that they had created would fracture.

They barely made eye contact, either. Sam kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut for the most part. However, during their latest exertions, when Baird found his gaze once again wandering up to her face, he found her staring at him. It was stupidly jarring, considering the circumstances, but his stomach flipped uncomfortably nonetheless.

And then—idiotically, unthinkably, unexplainably—he found himself leaning closer to her, so close that he could feel her breath settle on his face. He closed his eyes—

Static crackled for a split second, and then Cole's voice was exploding in Baird's ear. "—body out there?"

It was so unexpected and so close that Baird nearly jumped out of his skin, and found himself glancing quickly around the room, foolishly terrified that Cole had somehow teleported into the shack. Once he recovered, Baird rolled off of Sam and onto his back. He pressed a finger to his earpiece.

"Yeah, we're here, Cole."

There was a breathless, relieved laugh on the other end. "Shit, man. I've been trying to reach you for hours. How are you?"

"Freezing our asses off in some rundown hovel. How the hell did you make it back?"

"Rossi's got a good sense of direction. The storm's breaking and we've got your GID reading now, so we'll be right over."

Baird craned his neck to look through the bigger cracks in the shack. Shit, he hadn't even noticed that the blizzard had more or less died down. "Just hurry up. It's fucking freezing."

Cole laughed and broke the connection.

For a few horrifically awkward seconds, Baird had no idea what to say or do next. His buddy was coming, and there was no way in hell that Baird would allow himself to be caught in such a compromising situation. However, he knew he had to handle this delicately. Otherwise Sam would probably castrate him. He turned to look at her, but still he couldn't find the words.

Sam opened her mouth, and that stirred something inside him. Before she could say anything Baird blurted out, "No one ever hears about this."

Her mouth snapped shut. Something flickered across her face—disappointment? But it was gone so quickly that Baird couldn't be sure it wasn't only in his imagination.

"Agreed," she said. "This'll just be our dirty little secret."