July 31, 2020

Aaron and Niamh emerged from their bedroom hand in hand, freshly showered but still slightly flushed from their early-morning activities. The rest of the household members were sitting around the dining room table, enjoying another hearty breakfast from Alyssa. The babble of conversation faded away as they approached, with every face displaying a unique emotion. Alyssa’s lighthearted warmth and Mike’s accepting smile warmed Aaron’s heart, while Sam’s lascivious gaze warmed something else. Unfortunately, anger and sadness still warred on Jenny’s face, more than a week after Alyssa had joined their family.

Aaron kissed Niamh’s hand before stepping into the kitchen alongside Alyssa, letting Niamh join the rest of the group at the table. “Thanks for cooking, Alyssa.”

“How’d you know it was me?” she asked, gathering up the empty plates and loading them into the dishwasher. “You missed a button,” she whispered to him.

“Nobody else would make this many delicious and fattening dishes for breakfast on a random weekday,” he answered, hastily adjusting the buttons on his shirt. Wardrobe malfunction remedied, he piled two plates high with cheesy scrambled eggs, buttered English muffins, bacon, sausage, and a token bit of fruit salad. Setting one fully loaded plate in front of Niamh, he sat next to her and started to wolf down his breakfast.

Niamh stared at the huge amount of food in front of her in disbelief. “I can’t eat this much food for breakfast. I’ll be passed out by eleven.”

“Really?” asked Aaron, gleefully snatching a piece of bacon off her plate. “Such a shame. If only someone had a solution for this deeply troubling situation.” He grabbed another slice of her bacon, tossing it to Sam who happily joined him in solving Niamh’s “problem.”

Jenny, unamused by the friendly byplay, glared at them. “Can you guys take anything seriously?”

“Who takes breakfast seriously?” asked Aaron.

Before anybody could figure out what the stressed-out woman meant, their breakfast was interrupted by the now-familiar sound of a Humvee rumbling up the driveway.

Mike hurried to reassure his panic-stricken wife. “I’m sure they’re not here for me. It has only been a couple days since Alyssa arrived.”

“It’s been more than a week,” she shrieked, visibly paling. “She could absolutely be here for you.” As she started to hyperventilate, Mike dashed to her side, his chair clattering loudly to the floor in his wake. Sam and Niamh were just a step behind him, enveloping the troubled couple in a dogpile of support and comfort. Alyssa was left standing helpless and alone in the kitchen, at a total loss for what to do.

Shoving a final bite of sausage into his mouth, Aaron gave her a hug, grabbing another English muffin behind her back. “Alright guys. Nothing’s gonna’ get better by ignoring it. Let’s go and see who’s joining our family this time.”

The six members of the Teams Palmer trooped out of the house to greet their newest partner with varying degrees of anticipation and dread.

The group was brought up short when they were greeted, not by the petite Corporal Smith, but by a Hispanic woman in fatigues. Glancing at her nameplate and noting the unusual rank insignia, Aaron stepped to the front and greeted her with a warm smile.

“Welcome to our home Airman Salazar. This is a surprise. We’ve gotten used to seeing Corporal Smith making these deliveries. Is she alright?” Frowning, he continued. “It’s not DuoHalo is it?”

The cute woman shook her head and chuckled, clearly smiling behind her paper mask. “Not at all. Team Bertram is also getting a new member today, so she switched routes with me for the day. She wanted to be the one to deliver that surprise to her partner.” As the back door to the Humvee swung open with a bang, the airman’s professional demeanor reestablished itself.

“Anyway,” she said, consulting her tablet, “I’m going to need a signature from Aaron Palmer before I can head back to McConnell.” Jenny gasped in relief, sagging into Mike’s supporting arms.

“That’s me.” Aaron scrawled his name on the bottom of the screen and handed it back to Airman Salazar. “Who’s the newest member of the family?”

Before the airman could read the name off the form that Aaron had just signed, the new arrival announced her presence with a booming voice that was shockingly familiar to him. “Hank!” A tall Asian woman unfolded herself gingerly from the back of the vehicle, a broad grin splitting her face.

“Princess!”

Aaron was swept off his feet by the muscular woman, trying (and failing) to match the bone-crushing force of her hug. “How can you be even stronger now? You were already strong as hell in Afghanistan?”

“You know how it is on deployments, Hank. There’s not much to do during your down time and basketball is wildly boring. So…weight lifting. Non-stop lifting. Besides, it’s a lot easier to ‘improvise, adapt, and overcome’ when you’re jacked.”

“Fair enough,” he laughed, turning back towards the rest of his family. The Amazon draped her arm across Aaron’s shoulders, leaning slightly into him. “Princess, these are my partners, Niamh Gutierrez and Sam Birch. That hideous monkey over there is my brother Mike and the blonde pixie next to him is his wife, Jenny. The leggy brunette next to them is Mike’s newest partner, Alyssa Matthews. Everyone, this is my dear friend, Captain Diana Sasaki, one of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.”

“Uncle Sam’s what now?” asked Jenny.

“I was in the mother fucking US Marine Corps. Oorah!”

Aaron grinned at the outburst, reminded of Diana’s tendency to intersperse swearing into every conversation, occasionally in multiple languages. The perks, or risks, of hanging out with a Marine linguist.

“Let’s head inside, Princess. We can stow your gear in a bedroom and then we can relax a little.” Aaron leaned over to grab her seabag but she laughingly swatted his hand away and effortlessly scooped up the heavy suitcase, following slowly behind the group.

“We’re just…gonna go downstairs and watch a movie,” said Mike awkwardly, clearly desperate to escape before Jenny could further fixate on newly-arriving partners. “Give you some space to get to know each other.” He slunk off, towing Jenny along with him. Alyssa gave them an apologetic smile and then followed her Teammates.

Diana gave Aaron an inquisitive eyebrow at this interplay. “She’s having a hard time adjusting to the new reality,” he explained. “She’s a nurse, she knows that this is vital, and she would do anything to keep Mike alive. It’s just hard for her, it seems.”

“We’re all doing our best to help her work through it, but nothing’s worked, really,” said Sam as the members of Aaron’s Team got comfortable in the living room.

“Honestly, I feel worst for Alyssa,” said Niamh. “She’s barely out of college and she’s been dumped into the middle of all this. It must be rough being the first new person added onto an already-married couple.”

Diana nodded thoughtfully before responding. “Hopefully we can come up with something to help them all with this pizdets situation. Because things are going to get worse, not better, for a while. When my old CO called me out of retirement and ‘suggested’ I volunteer for this Op, he hinted that Teams were gonna get pretty fucking big. Probably five or more women for every surviving man.”

Startled, Aaron interrupted. “Wait a second. What did you just say?”

“Five or more women for each man?”

“No, no, not that. I mean, that’s obviously fucked up and Mike is totally screwed, but we can deal with that later. What did you say about retirement? You retired? I thought for sure that you were a lifer. What the fuck?”

“I thought so too, but it was time. Got dinged up a few too many times.” She pulled up her left pant leg, revealing a vicious scar along her ankle.

“Jesus, Princess. What the hell did you do to yourself?”

“Compound ankle fracture. Maldito helicopter fucking crashed into a chertova mountain in the middle of Afghanistan. I could still get medically cleared, but it all got to be too much in the end. I had to retire while I could still fucking walk, you know? I’d like to be able to play with my kids without being in constant pain. So, about a year ago, I retired. Moved back to Monterey to be close to my parents and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my life since then.”

“I guess that makes sense. I mean, Jesus, that ankle looks gruesome.”

“No shit. Not to mention I’ve also been stabbed, shot, and blown up, though that last one was kind of your fault.” She jokingly punched Aaron in the arm, making him wince.

“Not my fault,” he said. “You got yourself blown up. Nobody made you tackle my dumb ass like that.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” shrieked Sam, horrified that Aaron had apparently been in mortal danger while he was in the Navy. “How do you get blown up on a boat?”

“OK, first, I didn’t spend much time at all on boats. Not everyone in the Navy is a sailor. I was in a Construction Battalion. Doing construction. Which doesn’t happen on boats. Usually.”

“Whatever,” said Niamh. “What about the getting blown up part of her question?”

“I wasn’t blown up. I was only almost blown up.” Neither of his partners was amused by this distinction. Gulping, he continued his explanation. “It was my first tour in Afghanistan and we’d only been in-country for a couple of days. My dumb ass is walking along when the rocket alert siren starts going off. Before I can move a muscle, something grabs the back of my vest and throws me to the ground and then jumps on top of me. Nothing happens for a moment, and then we hear the buzz of the Phalanx trying to knock a rocket out of the air and then a deafening roar.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

His audience was spellbound as Aaron cast his thoughts back to his first tour. “Once the dust settled, I realized that the hulking mass that had me pinned to the ground was swearing non-stop. Like, I don’t think there was a single non-curse coming out of her mouth. I managed to wriggle out from underneath her and discovered that she’d been hit by several pieces of shrapnel. Most were stopped by her vest, but she took a couple hits to the legs and had a gash along one arm.”

The other women gaped at Diana who simply lifted her left arm, revealing a faded six-inch scar.

“I pulled her up and Princess here used me as a crutch to get to the nearest bunker. She got patched up and we’ve been friends ever since.”

“He’s not too bad…for a Squid.”

Aaron saw his partners’ immediate confusion. “She means a sailor. Marines are Jarheads, sailors are Squids.”

“Anyway, that’s the story about how I met Diana and almost got blown up.” Tension somewhat broken, he finally pulled a hesitant laugh from Niamh and Sam.

Silence fell across the room, until eventually Diana couldn’t restrain herself any further. “Is this the part where we fuck?” she blurted out.

Aaron burst out laughing, not realizing until that moment how tense he had become. “Count on Princess Di not to sugarcoat things.” He stood and stretched a hand out to his friend, helping her up. Now that he knew to look, he noted a subtle wince as she stood up and her slightly ginger stance. Without releasing her hand, he led the way back to the open bedroom connected to the one he shared with Niamh and Sam, ignoring the lewd cheering from his other partners.

Standing at the foot of the bed, face to face, Aaron had no idea how to proceed. Staring into her deep brown eyes, he gently tucked an errant strand of shimmering black hair behind her ear.

“I’ve never seen your hair loose like this. Not hiding in that stupid bun. I like it. Very pretty.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” Diana asked with an uncharacteristic giggle.

“Not a fucking clue. How do we go from friends to…”

“Friends with benefits?”

“At least.” He hesitated. “Maybe even more. Possibly. If you’d be interested.”

“More would be good.”

At her admission, he stepped closer, gently kissing her. “More would be good,” he agreed. As he pulled her in for another kiss, she grabbed his shirt and ripped it open, buttons shooting across the room.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” she chuckled, pushing the remains of his shirt halfway down his arms, pinning them in place. “Now,. Palmer, I’ve got you right where I want you.” She grinned ferally down at him before pulling him into a soul-searing kiss.

Not content to remain a passive part of the action, Aaron wriggled his hands free and the couple frantically ripped their clothes off. Stepping back to take in her body, tautly muscled but still feminine, he growled appreciatively. She tackled him onto the bed, holding him at her entrance.

“They told me that this first one is pretty intense, so you’d better batten down the hatches, sailor boy.” She slid down slowly at first but started spasming and thrashing with one of the most intense orgasms Aaron had ever seen. Her motions eventually slowed and she braced herself on his shoulders, breathing hard. “I guess they weren’t lying.”

“Just wait until we get to the next one,” he said. “Sam and Niamh both said the imprinting orgasm was even more intense.”

“Let’s put that to the test,” she murmured, starting to ride him again.

“It’s for science,” he agreed, matching her motions. Before long, he felt himself about to lose control. With a final thrust, he came with a long groan, sending Diana careening over the edge with a moaning scream. He lurched up, catching her torso as she went limp. He gently laid her on her side, disconcerted as always by the muttered “imprinting…imprinting…imprinting.” Covering her sleeping form with a blanket and giving her a kiss on the forehead, he slipped out of the room to rejoin the rest of his family.

* * * * *

August 1, 2020

“Time to get up, hot stuff.”

Sam’s call stirred Aaron from his slumber and he rolled over to greet his newest partner. When Diana failed to wake, he gave her a gentle nudge. “Rise and shine, Princess.” No response. “Diana?” He gave her shoulder a harder shove, but she remained unresponsive.

“What’s going on?” Seeing Aaron’s concern, Sam stepped into the room. “Is this normal for her? I mean, is she usually a heavy sleeper?”

“How should I know? I’ve never slept with her before!” Worry climbing, he continued fruitlessly trying to wake her.

Sam dashed from the room, returning quickly followed by Jenny, medical kit in hand. Jenny bodily knocking Aaron out of her way, putting a surprising amount of force into her shove. After a quick examination, she stepped back, looking confused.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Aaron.

After a pause, Jenny said, “As far as I can tell, nothing.”

“What the fuck do you mean? Something’s clearly wrong, she won’t wake up. That’s not nothing.

“She’s got a slight fever, but her heartbeat is strong and regular and she’s breathing just fine. There’s nothing obviously wrong with her. She just…won’t wake up.”

“What the hell are we going to do?”

Ignoring him, Jenny pulled out her cell phone and scrolled frantically through her contacts. “They gave everyone at the clinic a phone number to call for any medical questions relating to DuoHalo or the vaccine. I just need to find it…”

An indecipherable conversation filled with medical jargon followed, leaving Sam and Aaron with nothing to do but stare at Jenny, finally seeing her fully in her element. Eventually, she turned to Aaron and Sam. “Does she have any significant scars I can check?” she asked.

“She’s got a big one on her left arm,” said Aaron.

“And another on her left ankle,” added Sam.

Jenny lifted up Diana’s left arm, revealing a strange white growth tracing the route of her shrapnel scar. After checking the ankle, she returned to the phone call. “Yes, it does look like that. Both scars. No other obvious signs.” After a few final exchanges, she thanked the person on the other end of the call and hung up.

As Sam and Aaron stared at Jenny in anticipation, she clearly savored the momentary feeling of control, a sensation she hadn’t experienced since learning about the seriousness of DuoHalo or the consequences of its vaccine.

Slipping back into her professional persona, she briefed the couple. “Everything is going to be fine. Better than fine, really. I’m guessing, based on the scars you mentioned, that she had a pretty significant medical history. Is that right?”

Aaron nodded vehemently. “She’s been through the wringer, over the years. Scars, broken bones, joint damage. Hazards of the job.”

“You can consider all that a thing of the past.” Seeing their puzzled faces, she continued, shaking her head in disbelief. “Every time I learn something new about this vaccine I end up more confused than before. Apparently…this is crazy…anyway, apparently some women, during the imprinting process, will…heal. And I mean super duper heal. Like, full on regeneration healing.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Aaron was dumbfounded by this news. “Regeneration?”

“If that Air Force guy wasn’t lying, She’s going to be 100% good as new when she wakes up.”

“And when will she wake up?” asked Sam, laser focused on practical concerns. “And is there anything we need to do for her, either while she’s unconscious or after she wakes up?”

“Best guess is that she’ll wake up sometime tomorrow. This vaccine is supercharging her body’s repair mechanisms, so she’s going to be incredibly thirsty and hungry when she wakes. Let’s make sure she has some water or Gatorade on hand, along with a couple of protein bars to tide her over.”

“How confident are you on the wake up timing?” asked Aaron.

“Not very.”

He turned to Sam who immediately nodded. “We’ll be sure to have someone in here full time then,” she said. “I’ll go let Niamh know what’s going on and ask Alyssa to bring you some breakfast.” She left, missing Jenny’s instinctive flinch at the mention of Mike’s other partner, though it didn’t escape Aaron’s notice.

“Still having a hard time?” he asked sympathetically once Sam was gone.

She nodded wordlessly.

“Anything I can do to help? You know that we’re all here for you. Even Alyssa. Everyone here wants this to work.”

“I know,” she finally said. There was nothing more to say. As one of the few medical professionals in town, Jenny had received a thorough briefing on the DuoHalo pandemic, along with as much information about the vaccine program as the Air Force was willing to release. Unfortunately, this intellectual understanding hadn’t yet won over her heart, which still struggled with the idea of sharing her husband.

To avoid further discussions, Jenny returned to needlessly checking on her patient’s condition. Giving her the out that she so desperately craved, Aaron fell silent, turning his attention to Diana’s still form. When Alyssa brought him a tray loaded with another delicious meal, Jenny took the opportunity to slip out.

Alone with his thoughts, Aaron decided to just talk with Diana for a while. “After all, you’re supposed to talk to coma patients, right?” he mused. “Or is that just a TV thing? Who knows. I guess Jenny might know, but she’s not in a great headspace right now, you know?” Diana entirely failed to respond. “Glad you agree, Princess. I could always count on you to be a good listener.” He chuckled at his own dumb joke. “You’ve always been full of good advice too. Hope that hasn’t changed. I could really use the help.”

After several moments of silent contemplation, he continued. “God, I’ve missed you. I didn’t know how badly until you showed up on my doorstep.” His vigil was interrupted by Niamh’s arrival.

“Sam gave me the rundown,” she said. “I’ll sit with her for now. You need to get out of this room and clear your head. Go for a run or build something or whatever will bleed off some of that tension.”

“Don’t you have to work today?”

“It’s Saturday doofus. I’ve got nothing but time today. Now get out. It’s girl-talk time.”

“Should I send Sam to keep you girls company?” he joked.

“Probably a good idea. That way we can get Diana used to conspiring with us.”

He chuckled before giving her a quick kiss and stepping out. Her comment about building something took root in his brain and he headed out to the workshop, eager to get his hands dirty for a bit.

* * * * *

August 2, 2020

A rasping croak and gentle movements stirred Aaron from his uneasy slumber. He bolted upright and flipped on the bedside light.

“You’re awake,” he whisper-shouted.

Diana nodded gingerly, croaking again when she tried to speak.

“Oh shit, Jenny said you would be thirsty. There’s a Gatorade on that side table.” Diana followed his gesture and gladly grabbed the bottle, draining the entire thing in one long drink.

“What the fuck happened to me?” she rasped. “Something’s wrong. I can’t feel my ankle. What happened? It feels like someone sucked every last drop of energy out of my body with a big ass straw.”

“Your jarhead ass decided to be all extra about imprinting and you pulled a full Wolverine on us. Total regeneration. Top to bottom.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. According to the info Jenny got from the Chair Force docs, you should be completely and totally healed. Check out the scar on your arm.”

She checked the back of her arm and was shocked to see…nothing. No scar. Nothing at all to indicate that she’d ever been almost blown up. She struggled upright, desperate to confirm that the same had happened to her leg.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s some straight-up science fiction shit, Princess. I don’t understand it, but it seems to be legit. Just be glad it happened to you.”

Any response she might have made was interrupted by a loud growling from her stomach, reminding Aaron about Jenny’s instructions from the previous day.

“Come on, you desperately need a shower. You’re covered in dead skin and all sorts of other gunk. I’ll make you some breakfast while you get cleaned up.” He checked his watch, realizing that it was only a little earlier than he normally woke up. “Actually, let’s save Alyssa the hassle and make breakfast for everyone. She could use a break.”

As he turned to leave the room, Diana grabbed his hand and pulled him back for a quick kiss before the couple separated to start their day.