"Another dee-lightful meal, compliments of the U.E.O.'s finest chefs," Lonnie mumbled under her breath as she eyed the discolored slop on her plate.  The aqua-gardens that Bridger had so painstakingly tended had not fared so well in the year since his departure.  Meals tended to be preprocessed these days.  Still, military life left its soldiers hungry--she wolfed down as much of her nutritious (if distasteful) supper as possible.

She glanced at around the mess, and the emptiness of the room rang about her.  With the loss of Brody and Fredericks (funny how nobody ever called her J.J.), the crew was in a state of chaos--carefully masked with an attitude of stern, quiet organization.  With that crisis and Dagwood's extended leave (something to do with a classified mission involving Bridger, Ford, and Lucas), she found herself knowing fewer and fewer people.  The new recruits tended to eat in the first shift--they'd left the room half-an-hour earlier.  She laughed at herself inwardly.  New recruits indeed!  They were as experienced as she.  She just hadn't really gotten to know many of them in the six months since seaQuest had mysteriously reappeared.

Strangely enough, the newest officer, Commander Kimura, was third-in-command of the boat now.  She'd been on duty only a month.  Hudson still wasn't happy about Heiko's commission, but they'd come to regard one another with a stiff professional civility.  The Captain had his tempers; however, overall he was a fair man.  Although he gave the new commander no room for mistakes, so far she hadn't made any.

Lonnie watched from across the room as Kimura left the mess into the dim corridors.  She was probably heading to the open moonpool area to practice martial arts in solitude.  After a minute, Henderson cleared her tray and began to leave, too.

Her path brought her close to a table full of officers and seamen--more or less the only people left in the room.  After finishing their suppers, they engaged in a loud conversation, peppered with off-color jokes and bantering.

"Dancing?  Yeah, right...  Well, I heard she was pregnant with Commander Ford's love child," said one young ensign in a stage-whisper.  She didn't know the young woman well, but this wasn't the first time that rumor had circulated about the boat.  With all the trouble that she and Jonathan had been having, it didn't help to have nonsense like this floating around.

Lonnie rolled her eyes. Am I invisible?  Do they not see me here, fifteen feet away?  She let the conversation roll off her back, like she had a hundred times before.

"I don't know anything about that!" Lucas protested vehemently, though nobody had asked his opinion.

"Well, she's had her turn with everyone else," O'Neill interjected dryly.

"Not me," muttered Tony.

"What?" Tim honestly had not heard.

"Hmm?"  Tony played innocent, not wanting to reveal his feelings in this crowd.  "Oh, nothin'.  Just talkin'."

She did her best to tune the chatter out.   However, a particularly loud burst of laughter sprang forth from the group just as she was steps from the door.

"Well, what are our choices among the comm staff, anyway?  Lonnie ‘C'mon-ie' Benderson, or Commander Ice Queen..."

In a second, her face flushed hot, cold, then hot again.  Henderson paused, glanced over her shoulder at them, looked back at the hallway, and made her decision.

Studiously casual, she squared her shoulders and approached the round table.  She took her time, letting the rubber heel of her boot hit the floor first, and allowing each step to roll forward.  They had plenty of time to notice the leiutenant's approach, but were intent upon their own antics and "clever" jokes.

She slipped in between O'Neill and Piccolo, slamming the fiberglass tabletop loudly with the heels of both hands.  Startled, the group fell into an awkward silence, their eyes expectantly focused on her.  Clearing her throat, Lonnie did her best to speak in a clear voice.

"If you think," she began dangerously, "that I am going to stand by while you drag Kimura's name through the mud," she made eye contact with each of them, "if you think that for one single second," her gaze was now locked with O'Neill's, "then you'd better change your minds fast."

Tim's eyes were sparks of bitter fire behind his spectacles.  "After what her spying has earned us!"  There was more, but he was cut off.

"THAT'S IT!," she yelled, a raspy shout that somehow managed to avoid shrillness.  What little noise remained in the dining hall stopped abruptly.  Somewhere behind her, a dropped fork clanged  against the floor.  "I've had it, you guys.  You're not doing to her what you did to me."

With all the people crammed around the small table, Tim had trouble pulling back his chair and standing, but he did it anyway with an indignant stiffness.  "What are you talking about?" he asked incredulously.

She was nearly face-to-face with him.  "Do you think I'm deaf?  Or stupid?"  Lonnie's lips curled in a tight, angry smile, and her breath came out in throaty syllable that landed somewhere between a laugh and a sob.  "Oh, I know you all think I'm stupid.  I can't count how many times I've walked into the room, and the conversation just ended.  Maybe with the word ‘stupid' coming out of your mouth.  Or ‘tramp.'"  She spoke faster now; the words were unstoppable--water released from a dam.  "Or ‘bitch' or ‘slut' or ‘whore!'"

Tim's jaw dropped, as did many others, but if there was a response, nobody had time to interject it.

"I hear the jokes and the rumors.  I watch you all sit there and laugh at them.  I've been through a lot with you guys, and would expect better of my friends."  Lucas looked down uncomfortably at the tabletop.

"Lonnie ‘C'mon-ie.'  One of yours, originally, wasn't it, Tony?"  Her expression was venom.  "Nice to hear that it stuck.  If, as your superior officer," (she knew how much his low rank bothered him), "if I went around calling you ‘Pony Gigolo', Hudson'd have me off this boat on account of sexual harassment in a matter of minutes."

His face flushed red with embarrassment at the new nickname.  "Sexual harrassment?  Aw, c'mon, Lonnie, that's a little... loaded, ain't it?  It was all just a joke, in good fun, y'know?"

"Some fun, Tony.  This isn't the twentieth century anymore.  Wake up!"

Tim looked slightly vindicated by this--at least she wasn't focusing on him anymore.

Unfortunately for him, she wasn't done.

"It always starts with you, Tim.  You like some girl, she bruises your ego, and suddenly you've got nothing but slander coming out of that pious little mouth of yours.  I've been there.  I've dated you."

Shocked and hurt, his jaw worked wordlessly for a moment.  "My ego?  After what happened to Freddie, you think this is about my ego?  She not only used me, she endangered us all, attacked Lucas--just so she could defect to the greener side of the fence."

Neither of them was screaming, but the room held such tension that they may as well have been.  "Yeah, Tim, it is about your ego.  The information she brought us about Chaodai technology prevented a war.  Freddie was a real soldier; how dare you use her death as an excuse make cheap shots at the commander!  Defection isn't about one person, it's about..." Lonnie stumbled--she was figuring this out as she went along, "...it's about a principle.  She gave up everything to be here--everything.  And all you can talk about is how after a six-month InterNex relationship, Kimura wasn't the woman you'd expected.  What's wrong with you.  With all of you?"

No answer greeted her.  What had she done?  The illusion that everything was "okay" with her friends had been shattered.  In the silent limbo that followed the argument, Lonnie wasn't sure if that was good or bad.  She turned and scuffled out with none of the bravado she'd shown before.

Once safely in seaQuest's cooridors, she made a sharp left and flattened herself against the cool metal of the wall.  Now that the moment was done, the gravity of it hit her.  She shook and sweat and breathed deeply, waiting for her heart to slow itself down.

A figure emerged from the anonymity of a hatchway.  "Henderson.  You do not need to protect me."  Her head tilted to the side a fraction, as she realized how ungrateful that sounded.  "I appreciate your effort, but it is not your place.  These battles are my own."

The commander's short hair bounced as she started in mild surprise.  Lonnie was laughing silently.  "Maybe," she began, and stopped to fist an unwanted tear from her cheek, "Maybe I didn't do it just for you."  It was half an answer to Heiko, and half just thinking out loud.  "Maybe I needed to do that--for a long time.  I didn't know I was that angry."

The commander didn't say anything.

"They have a point, kind of," Lonnie admitted after a moment.

"How so?"

"I'm strong, but I'm not tough.  Not like you.  I have to say what I'm thinking.  What I'm feeling.  I always have."  A little of her anger came back, and her speech became more spirited.  "I've made no secret of the intimacy I've had with my friends on this boat.  I'm a modern woman, and I won't pretend that I'm not.  But I thought it was mutual; who knew I'd end up as one of their... regrets.  We've all worked so hard, and done so much togther; how can they say those things?"  She sighed, remembering Jason's last words on Tartarus Colony.  "I guess I was always easy to fool."

"You are not a fool.  Those who speak with falsehood and malice," Kimura made a gesture that might have indicated the cafeteria, "are fools.  Betraying a friend is abusing a gift."  She nodded a little, with a sad faraway look in her eye.  Apparently Tim had still not accepted her apology.  Her own betrayals--of old friends and new, weighed heavily on her narrow shoulders.

The commander's aura of apparent calm had helped Henderson regain control.  "Well, I suppose I stirred things up, but I didn't do anything wrong."

"We can only move forward from here."  Was that a hint of a smile on her lips?  From anybody else, it would have sounded trite, but something about the way Kimura said it seemed wise.

Something seemed unsaid.  She locked eyes with Heiko.  "Thanks."

"No.  Thank you--", she hesitated, "Lonnie.  It has been a long time since someone cared to fight the battle for me."

The two women walked together toward the bouncing lights of the moonpool.