"Fear is an emotion indispensable for survival."
                                         ~ Hannah Arendt
 

"Are you sure you don't want anyone staying with you while I'm gone?" Nathan Bridger asked as he stuffed a few more papers into his already full briefcase.

"Nah, I'll be fine... if I run into any problems I promise I'll call the Doc." Lucas was sitting slouched down in a chair in Bridger's office watching the older man sort out the things he was going to need on his trip.

"Okay, at least I'll only be gone tonight. With any amount of luck I'll be back tomorrow evening."

"How are you getting to the airport?" Lucas asked leaning even further back into the chair.

"The duty driver," Bridger said ensuring that the lock was fastened on his overnight bag. "You've got the number of my hotel, right?"

"Right," Lucas reassured him.

"And you've got Kristin's number in case you've got any problems at all, right?"

"Right," the boy repeated with a tolerant nod.

"And you know the rules, right?"

"I know the rules," Lucas said nodding again.

"No parties, no one over, stay out of the beer," he looked over at the smirk on Lucas' face, "and no cops."

Lucas started laughing. "No cops... I knew there was something I'd forgotten."

Nathan hefted the case onto his desk. "You sure you don't want to go in my place?"

"Oh, yeah... that's high on my list," the boy said sarcastically. "Spending a day getting grilled by the good folks over at the Pentagon... sounds like just a lovely trip." Lucas grinned at Nathan, "Nope, I wouldn't want to deprive you of all that fun."

"Your concern is touching," Nathan teased. He leaned back against his desk and turned to more serious stuff. "What are you and Kristin doing tonight?"

"We're gonna go out to dinner. I figured I'd show her Scarlotti's."

"That sounds nice."

"Lucas says that the food's good there... and since he's the resident expert on food..." Kristin said coming through the office door.

"You'll like it... kind of a mix of pasta and what ever they make steaks out of these days," Nathan grinned. Kristin flashed him a doubtful look.

"Honestly, they're pretty good," he reassured her.

"Alright, I'll take your word for it... and we'll make sure that we miss you." Nathan smiled at her as she walked over to him and they exchanged a quick kiss.

"Gee, I can't tell you how good that makes me feel," Nathan teased. He turned as a knock sounded at the door of his office and he saw the duty driver standing there.

"Ready anytime you are, Captain," the young private said.

"I'm ready now," he leaned over and kissed Kristin again. "See you two in a day."

Lucas turned restlessly in his bed trying to find a comfortable way to lie. He punched his pillow a couple of times and glanced over at the clock on the night table. 2:30 in the morning. Oh, hell, why couldn't he sleep? It wasn't like he wasn't tired. After he and the Doc had finished their dinner they'd gone walking on the beach for a while. She was an interesting person to talk to sometimes. Their subjects had ranged from dolphins to the vocorder and eventually even went over some discussion of how things were going between him and Bridger. It was kind of strange. He'd never really had anyone who cared much about him before and now he had two people looking after him. He sighed as he reflected that he wished that his mom could be like Doctor Westphalen. She didn't try to hold him back. She listened to him and was concerned about him. She talked to him like a person and not like he was an interference with her life. Lucas could understand what Bridger saw in the Doc. She was really a nice person.

Lucas sighed as he tried to settle down again, closing his eyes in search of elusive sleep. A moment later his eyes snapped open as he heard a sound outside the house. He lay there for a moment with a frown on his face trying to determine if the sound had really happened or if he'd dreamed it. He had just decided that the sound was his imagination and relaxed, closing his eyes and snuggling down under his blanket when he heard the sound again.

He stared into the darkness, concentrating his senses, trying not to breathe so that he could hear better while his heart threatened to pound through his chest. Lucas slowly and carefully rolled over onto his back and listened... listened hard. There... that was the sound again. Lucas tried to identify the sound. It sounded like someone outside the house... maybe on the stairs. He heard the sound again. A little longer this time. Someone was messing around at the top of the stairs and Lucas thought that he could hear them trying to open the door.

Trying to make as little noise as possible Lucas slid out of the bed and crept to the door of his room. He stood in the hallway listening and heard the noise again. It definitely sounded like someone messing with the door. Lucas thought for a moment about what he should do. He could call Westphalen... but she was 15 minutes away. He could call 911... but he wasn't sure what the noise was and he didn't want to call the police for nothing. Oh Lord, he wished that Bridger was here. He'd know what to do.

Lucas heard the noise again, a little more insistent this time and came to a decision. He slowly walked down the hallway trying desperately to avoid making any noise until he slipped into Bridger's room. As quickly as he dared he moved over to the Captain's closet and pulled the door open. Moving into the closet he reached up and felt the top shelf until his hand closed on a small box. He pulled the box down and then gasped as he almost dropped it. Holding the box close to his chest Lucas carefully opened it and took the objects inside it out. He stepped out of the closet and warily put the now empty box onto the bed.

At this point Lucas didn't know what scared him worse, the noise at the door or the heavy weight of the metal object that he held in his hand. Taking a deep breath Lucas slid the clip into the handle of the pistol until it clicked home. The noise sounded tremendously loud in the darkness. Hefting the pistol in his hand he clicked off the safety and quietly slid out of the bedroom and down the hallway.

He listened for the noise. Leaning against the wall and concentrating he felt like his mouth had gone completely dry. Lucas snapped his head around and gasped as he realized that whoever it was that had been working on the outside door was now on the porch. He could see a silhouette of a man faintly outlined through the drapes that covered the door to the porch and he could also see that the man was working on the lock.

Lucas felt around the wall and found the light switch with his left hand. The muscles in his right arm were beginning to cramp up from the tension of holding the pistol up. His fingers tightly clasped the butt and he moved his finger to rest on the trigger. A light from the street reflected off the door handle for the porch and Lucas swallowed in nervousness as he saw the handle begin to turn.

The door opened quietly and he saw the dark shadow move as the man from the porch stepped inside the house. Lucas took a deep breath and snapped on the lights.

"Freeze!" he said in the most ominous voice he could manage. He had only a quick impression of the shocked look on Bridger's face before Bridger took in the pistol pointed at him and dived behind the couch.

"Jesus Christ, Lucas! It's only me!"

"Captain!?" the boy said in a terrified voice.

Bridger slowly stuck his head up so he could see over the couch. He ducked back down a little. "Will you point that god-damned thing at the ceiling?!"

"Oh Christ," Lucas mumbled as he slowly raised the muzzle of the pistol to point up.

Nathan stood up from behind the couch and Lucas saw the paleness of his face as he came towards him. By the time Bridger reached him Lucas was literally shaking, unsure what the Captain was going to do to him. Without a word Bridger's hand closed over the top of the pistol and he gently twisted the pistol from the boy's fingers until Nathan held the weapon in his own hands. Only then did Nathan let out the breath that he'd been holding before he looked up into the frightened eyes of the boy.

"Are you alright?"

Lucas blinked a couple of times before answering. "You're supposed to be in Washington," he said accusingly.

Nathan nodded. "The flight and then the meeting got cancelled. It seems that it's snowing in DC." He moved towards the living room and dropped into one of the reclining chairs. Lucas followed him and sat on the couch.

"You should have called."

"Yeah, I should have called."

"You scared the crap out of me," Lucas said with a frown.

Bridger nodded again. "Then we're even. You scared the crap out of me too."

"Shit," Lucas said leaning back and folding his arms over his chest while glaring at Bridger.

Nathan slipped the safety on and then pressed the release on the side of the pistol. The magazine clip dropped into his hand and he placed it carefully on the footstool. Then he put his hand over the top of the pistol and pulled the slide back to eject the round in the chamber. His eyes came up and met Lucas' glare. The boy noted that Bridger had gone just a touch paler than before.

"I could have shot you," he said still frowning.

Bridger let the slide fall back to its normal position and then turned the hand he'd held covering the ejection port over. It was empty. "Not with an unloaded gun, you couldn't have."

Lucas' frown deepened. "What do you mean 'unloaded'? I put the clip in."

"Yeah," Nathan took a deep breath, "but you never cycled a round into the chamber. It wouldn't have shot."

Lucas stared at the pistol in Bridger's hand. "Oh, I didn't know," he said in a little voice.

"My fault," Bridger sighed. "I should have called to tell you I was coming home and I should have never left the gun unlocked." He shook his head once again. "And I have to fix that lock on the door, it keeps sticking."

"I could have shot you," Lucas repeated. He looked almost like he was ready to cry.

Nathan leaned back in the chair, the pistol resting on his leg and pointing at the mantelpiece. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

Lucas frowned at him again. "Nothing in particular... why?"

Bridger glanced down at the pistol and then up at Lucas. "You and I are going to do some firearms training tomorrow." Nathan let out a breath again and shook his head. "If you're going to spend time around these things you better know how to handle them."

This time it was Lucas who nodded. "Yeah, I think that might be a good idea."

Nathan stood up and picked up the clip off the footstool. Lucas stood too and Nathan put his arm over the boy's shoulder. "Let's see if we can manage any sleep, kiddo."

"Alright, sir," he looked over at Bridger amazed that he was taking all this so calmly. Then he noticed the tenseness that was still apparent in his face and figured he wasn't quite as calm as he seemed. Lucas moved over and grabbed the bag that Bridger had dropped on the porch as he dived through the door and followed the older man down the hall. He put it inside Bridger's room and watched as he put the pistol back in its box and then put it up on the top shelf of his closet again.

Nathan turned from the closet and saw Lucas watching him. The boy still had a slightly panicked look on his face. "Are you alright?" Bridger asked him softly.

Lucas looked at the floor quickly and then glanced back up at the Captain. He nodded a little. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I'll see you in the morning, sir," he said as he turned to leave the room.

"Goodnight, Lucas," Bridger said after him as he closed the door.

Lucas stood in the hallway just a moment before turning to his room. He shook his head to himself. Sometimes it took some getting used to... the fact that Bridger wasn't going to hit him because he'd done something wrong. He'd half expected that Bridger would blow up at him, at least yell at him for taking the gun down but instead the Captain had blamed himself for not locking the weapon. Lucas walked into his room and turned on the light before sitting on the edge of the bed. He knew that his Mom would have hit him. Hell, he expected that if he'd done something quite as drastic as this that even his Dad would have hit him... but Bridger didn't. Lucas was really beginning to like it here.

Lucas and the Captain showed up in their office about 4 p.m. the next afternoon. Nathan had called Ford earlier in the day to let him know that they were spending the day at the range. Lucas was dressed in an old pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt while Bridger was wearing a Navy issued woodland camouflage uniform. The boy was all smiles as they entered the office and headed for his computer to check his mail. Nathan was at one of the desks getting his messages from the petty officer on duty when Kristin Westphalen came up behind him and pinched him in the sides.

"When did you get home?" she asked with a smirk.

Nathan frowned at her a little. "I never left. It snowed in DC yesterday and you know that town. A little snow and it shuts down." He shrugged. "They canceled the meeting."

Kristin looked him up and down. "What's with the G.I. Joe outfit?"

"Umm, Lucas and I spent the day at the range," he answered calmly. He didn't figure the conversation would be calm for too much longer.

There was a hesitation before Kristin's next question... a definite hesitation. She tilted her head slightly and looked him right in the eyes before responding in a flat voice. "You what?" she asked shortly.

Nathan indicated his office with a nod of his head. "How about we take this off-line?"

"Umm hmmm," Kristin nodded at him as she walked past him into the office, her eyes never quite leaving his. She waited until he had shut the office door before her voice took on a more strident tone. "What the bloody hell were you doing at the range with that boy?" she asked angrily.

Nathan took a deep breath before answering. "We were doing some weapons training."

"Are you out of your God damned mind, Bridger??"

"We had a little incident last night," Nathan started in a still calm voice.

Kristin broke in on him irately. "I don't give a damn what you had last night. Just what the hell do you and that pin-head military mind of yours think you're doing teaching that boy about guns?"

Nathan could see that she was going to keep on going if he didn't do something about it. "He almost shot me last night," he said.

That stopped her. Kristin straightened up and looked him right in the face. "He what?"

"He almost shot me last night," Nathan repeated. Kristin leaned back against the edge of the desk, her eyes deep with concern. "I didn't think to call him before I got back to the house about 2:30 last night." Nathan shrugged. "I figured he'd be asleep and I didn't want to wake him. He heard me fumbling with that damned lock we have that keeps sticking and thought it was someone breaking in the house so he went and got my pistol out of the closet." Nathan shook his head a little. "And he faced me down. As I came through the door he snapped on the lights and there he was pointing a gun at me."

"Nathan," Kristin said, shock in her voice.

"I honestly don't know who was more scared, him or me."

"But he didn't shoot," Kristin asked cautiously.

"No, fortunately" Bridger sighed. "It seems he forgot one integral part of the procedure." Kristin frowned at him. "He put a clip in the gun but he never cycled the slide to put a round in the chamber."

"Good Lord," Kristin breathed.

Nathan shook his head in disgust. "If I'd really been a bad guy I might have come home to find Lucas dead."

"What was he thinking?" Kristin asked.

Now it was Bridger's turn to get a strident tone in his voice. "He was thinking that I was breaking into the house since I didn't use the brains God gave me and call him before I came home." He shook his head again, disgusted. "And I was dumb enough to leave an unlocked weapon sitting in my closet." Nathan shook his head again and leaned against the desk next to her.

"You couldn't have known that he might try to use it."

"But did I have to make it so easy for him?" Nathan sighed irritably. "And I had no idea that he didn't know how to use a gun. So today I just thought that if he was going to spend so much time around me that maybe it would be a good idea to at least get him familiar with the different kinds of weapons he might come across. So we spent the day on the range."

Kristin pushed off the desk and stood in front of him. She brought both hands up to rest on his shoulders. "It's alright, I understand." She looked at the self-disgust evident in his face. "It's called a mistake, Nathan." He looked at her with a self-depreciating frown. "Even ship's captains make them sometimes," she teased.

Nathan nodded slowly and slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her close to him. She tucked her head into the side of his neck and encircled his shoulders with her arms.

"At least you're both alright," she said softly.

A quick knock was heard on the door to the office before Lucas came barging through it. He quickly took in the two adults locked in an embrace. "Um, am I interrupting again?"

Bridger smiled a little and shook his head. "Nah," he said as Kristin untwined herself from his embrace. "No more than normal, Lucas," he said good-naturedly.

The boy grinned back at him and then turned his attention to Westphalen. "Hey, Doc, did you hear where we spent the day?"

"Yes, I did. It sounds rather interesting."

"Oh, it was great," Lucas said happily. "I learned a whole lot about different kinds of weapons and how to shoot them and how to treat them safe."

"That's good, Lucas," Kristin smiled. "Especially that last part."

"Yeah, and we even stopped to get the Captain a lock for his gun."

"That's a good thing too, Lucas." She looked over at the two of them. The excited, happy boy and the man who wasn't quite sure how calm he was about all this yet and smiled. "I don't suppose you two have any plans for dinner."

"I wasn't even supposed to be here," Nathan grumbled.

"Nope, I don't have any plans," Lucas said.

Kristin took in Bridger's uniform. "I think you need to change clothes though."

"I've got a change here," Nathan assured her.

"Good, then we'll let you change and then go out to dinner."

"Okay," Nathan said as he reached for his gym bag and Lucas went out the door. Kristin followed him to the door and then turned around to look at Nathan again.

"I don't suppose that you're going to take him to the range again any time soon, are you?"

"Probably," Nathan shrugged. "He really should have a refresher in a few weeks so the information sinks in." He grinned just a little. "He was a little bit too excited today to absorb a lot of it."

Kristin nodded. "Um hmmm." She glanced out at Lucas and then back to Nathan. "Look, when you take him again how about including me?" Nathan straightened up and looked at her, amazed. "I think you're probably right that if someone was going to spend much time around you it would probably be a good thing to at least know something about guns." Nathan was still staring at her and she shrugged. "I know about rifles and shotguns because we had them at home when I was young but I don't know about handguns and laser weapons and stun guns and the rest of that stuff."

Nathan nodded at her. "Sure," he said softly and then he just watched the closed door for a while after she'd gone through it.