A Book By Its Cover
A/N:. Sorry for the delay, but real life got hectic. Here’s a short chapter until I get the rest finished. If this seems exceptionally disoriented, blame it on the Percocet. Thanks to VR Trawoski for the beta service. All remaining mistakes are all mine – I’m greedy that way.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except a pair of cats, and they’ll argue about who really owns whom.

Chapter 7

Awareness returned slowly in a series of disjointed sensations. Flashes of images, snippets of noises, odd touches – at some level, Lady Jaye was aware of them, but all that her mind understood was the deep cold and pain that seemed to reach her very bones. Too disoriented to process the sensory information, the incoherent jumble only added to her mental confusion as her body fought to recover.

An indistinct sense of danger and determination slowly worked its way into her consciousness, and she tried to get up, to escape from the unknown peril, but something held her down. She tried to fight it off, but she was too weak, and – oddly – the restraint seemed warmer than she was. Once she stopped struggling, Jaye instinctively tried to burrow closer to the restraint, savoring the heat it gave off. Soothing noises surrounded her, lulling her into a sense of safety, and she settled into the warmth of whatever was cocooning her.

Gradually, the formless noises coalesced into voices; although the words had no meaning, the tone suggested they were talking to her. When she was lucid enough to try to answer, someone rewarded her mutterings by pouring something warm and sweet into her mouth, and she swallowed it greedily. The radiating trail of warmth the liquid left in her throat dissipated quickly, but it was wonderful while it lasted and encouraged her to focus on the voices.

Time had no meaning for her as she drifted in and out of consciousness, but she finally started to recognize what was around her. Unable to move her body, Jaye darted her eyes from side to side, trying to figure out what was happening. The voices grew more distinct, and she tried to acknowledge their concerned questions.

Someone supported her head, raising it up, as a hand brought the cup to her lips. When she tried to move her hands to grab it, something pinned her arms to her body, telling her to stay still. The directions filtered through her brain, and she stopped struggling, receiving another sip of liquid once she was quiet.

Concentrating on the figure in front of her, Jaye nodded weakly when asked if she wanted more to drink, and the redheaded woman gave her a smile and held the cup for her. Friend: the thought percolated to the front of her brain as she was lowered back down; she continued staring until she recalled the name.

“Hi, Scarlett,” she said finally forced out.

“Hi, yourself,” Scarlett answered, tears in her eyes despite her broad smile. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” Lady Jaye answered, wanting to escape back into the painless darkness.

“Stay awake!”

The chorus of voices surprised her, and she stared at Scarlett in confusion.

“Don’t go to sleep, okay?” the redhead urged.

“You’ve made it this far, Jaye, don’t give up now. Stay with us,” said a voice from behind her. When she tried to turn to see who was talking to her, strong arms held her still, and she realized her warm restraint was a human body. The voice was familiar and comforting, and she tried to look to see who it was. The body changed position and a face appeared above her. “It’s me, Flint. Snake Eyes is over there.”

She lifted her head, staring curiously at the blond man with sunglasses who was dressed in black. She either never saw or didn’t understand his signed comment, and he finally reached up and pulled on the rubber of his mask.

“Okay,” Jaye muttered as Scarlett drew her head down, adjusting whatever they had wrapped around it for warmth. “Why?”

“You were on a mission. We’re here to take you home,” she said.

A sudden bump rattled everything, verifying that they were in some sort of vehicle. “Moving?”

“Breaker’s heading for a new rendezvous spot,” Flint answered vaguely.

Memories flooded back in a confused jumble, and she tried to get up as the danger registered. “The film! After it.”

“Don’t try to move!” Flint ordered, shifting his body so he was practically on top of her. “Snakes has the film. It’s safe. You’re safe. You need to take it easy but don’t go to sleep, okay? Talk to us.”

“Oh,” she managed to say. When he returned to his position behind her, she pressed back against his body, desperate for the added warmth it provided. She was tired, but they wanted her to stay awake; Jaye wasn’t cognizant enough to understand why, but she knew she trusted their instructions. “Sound … worried.”

“Damn straight,” he said after a beat. “Do you know how much paperwork I’ll have to do if you don’t come back with us? Now stay awake. Keep talking.”

“I’ll do … paperwork … for you,” she said weakly.

Flint blinked slowly before turning his head. “Is the next batch ready? Good, let’s get her brain warmed up and working again.”

Jaye’s puzzlement at his comment faded as the cup returned in view, and he supported her body as Scarlett brought it to her mouth, letting her take several small sips. They continued to talk to her, but the words lost meaning as she drifted back into darkness for a while. Despite their best efforts, the pattern repeated, but each time she came to, Jaye felt a shade warmer and more coherent, until she was finally able to make sense of what was around her.

Turning her head, she scanned the area as best she could. They were in the back of an old farm truck; the canvas top didn’t quite cover the wooden-slat sides, allowing her glimpses of the dimly-lit woods through which they were slowly moving. A bed of hay covered the bottom of the truck, with it piled high along the sides and back to hide their presence from causal observers.

Snake Eyes sat closest to the truck gate, with the neatly arranged corpses of mutilated MREs piled around him. He had a metal bucket near his feet, where he was taking out a canteen cup of water and dissolving sugar packets into it; he’d apparently jury-rigged a way of warming the water with the meal kits’ flash heaters.

She was on her side, lying on some coarse material. They’d covered her body with whatever they could find – grain sacks, old horse blankets, curtains, their jackets – with Scarlett and Flint sandwiching her body under the covers, and the final pieces clicked into place.

“Hypothermia,” Jaye said, the word having several extra syllables thanks to her uncontrollable shivers.

“You were pretty frozen when we found you,” Scarlett said, snuggling closer to her.

Jaye nodded, closing her eyes briefly before Flint urged her to open them again; she knew they wanted her to stay awake, but she was so tired. Too tired; what had happened that left her in this condition?

“The film!” she called out suddenly, trying to get up with a sense of urgency.

“Don’t move! Snake Eyes has it. You brought it out,” Flint said, pulling her gently but firmly back against his body. “You finished the mission. We’ll have you home soon enough.”

“He’s right. Just try to relax,” Scarlett urged her.

Lady Jaye stared at her friend’s concerned face for a long moment. “You told … me that … already?”

“A few times,” the redhead teased, drawing Jaye’s head to her shoulder. “Once you warm up, you’ll start remembering what conversations we’ve already had.”

“Sorry … to be such … a boring … conversationalist,” she stammered through her shaking.

“Oh, we’re used to it,” Scarlett said with a sassy smile. “You can’t help that your brain needs defrosting.”

She tried to stay awake, but it was hard to keep her eyes open, and she never knew how many times or for how long she drifted off. Their combined body heat and the sugar-fueled shivering helped to warm her up, and it gradually became easier for her to stay focused. Through it all, the others continued to talk to her, and even when she couldn’t always understand the words, their encouraging tone filtered through her mental fog.

Jaye did her best to keep up her side of the conversation as her friends kept talking to her – even Snake Eyes occasionally moved into view to sign a question or comment to her – but the sporadic bursts of laughter from Scarlett convinced her that her answers weren’t always appropriate. She gave her bunkmate a mock-glare, but her chattering teeth ruined the effect. The redhead gave her a gentle smile, cradling Jaye’s head closer to her shoulder.

Despite the deep chill that pierced her body, Lady Jaye found herself smiling at her friends’ concern, thinking of all the trouble they’d gone through to retrieve her. “Don’t worry about me, guys. I’m just cold.”

“I’m no linguistics expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s what ‘hypothermia’ means,” Scarlett joked, taking a fresh cup of warm sugar water from Snakes and helping her drink some more.

The martial artist continued joking with her, seemingly too chipper given the circumstances, but Jaye was in too much pain to think much about it. The downside of being more awake was an increased awareness of how badly she’d abused her body escaping from the terrorists and the KGB. Her muscles were cramping, and her motions were jerky as she tried to get into a more comfortable position.

“Stay still!” Flint ordered, holding her down again, and for the first time a spark of fear ignited.

“That cold?” she asked nervously. Sudden movements forced cold blood from the extremities back toward the torso, and the shock often caused fatal heart arrhythmias. But if they were worried about that, she had to have been pretty far gone; it was only a concern in severe hypothermia.

“We’re not taking any risks,” Scarlett said reassuringly. “Just try to stay calm, okay? You’re shivering again; that’s a good sign.”

Jaye let out an indignant groan. “I’m going to be upset if I made it this far only to die because we hit a road bump or I sneezed.”

“Try not to worry about it,” Flint said softly. “If you’re coherent enough to understand the risk, you’re probably warmed up enough that it’s no longer a possibility. Let’s just not gamble on it.”

“How good of a driver is Breaker?” she asked, only half-jokingly. “Soviet roads aren’t known for their quality to begin with.”

“Let’s just say Breaker knows who he has to face if he hits any bad ruts,” Scarlett said with a wicked grin, nodding in Snake Eyes’ direction. “We’re not making the best time, but the ride is smoother.”

After she finished off another cup of warm sugar water, the others ate a cold meal scavenged from the sacrificial MREs. Flint and Scarlett took turns pulling away from her long enough to bolt something down, with the other holding her close and chatting to help keep her awake.

During all of this, she hid how badly her body ached from them. She felt the bandages on her feet, but she didn’t ask for details on the extent of the damage she’d managed to inflict. They’d already done all they could to help, and she didn’t want to worry them.

Gritting her teeth, she stared out between the slat sides of the truck, frowning once she realized the sunlight was getting stronger. Her last clear memory about the mission was from the afternoon; she must have been out all night. If she was still this cold, she had to have been in bad shape when they found her. But they hadn’t taken her to the safe house, instead risking moving her cross-country in an open truck.

“The safe house?” Lady Jaye asked

“Not so safe. The terrorists knew about it and got there first,” Scarlett told her. “Breaker intercepted a KGB transmission, so we knew they were heading there, too.”

“Following us?”

“Not likely,” Flint said, lifting up so she could see his face. “Snake Eyes took your clothes back into the bog while we got the truck ready. With any luck, they’re still dredging it for your body.”

Jaye looked at him in confusion for a moment until she remembered that end-stage hypothermia victims often paradoxically strip their clothing off. “Where are we going?”

“They had the border crossing near the safe house guarded too closely. We should slip into Trans-Carpathia late this afternoon, and Duke has a team waiting with an ambulance just over the border. We’ll catch a flight to the army hospital in Heidelberg, and then back to the States once the doctors are done with you.”

“Trans-Carpathia?” she asked, certain she heard him incorrectly.

“It’s the easiest border to get through.”

“You’re taking me over the mountains? Somewhere colder?” Jaye asked, cocking her head as she stared at him.

He shrugged. “Well, it was that or trying to drive through a heavily-armed border crossing.”

“We thought you’d prefer a scenic tour of the Warsaw Pact countryside,” Scarlett added lightly, drawing her head back down. “Sorry we didn’t have time to pack a better picnic.”

She closed her eyes as fresh cramps clawed her muscles. “Why can’t Cobra ever operate out of a tropical beach?”

“I tried to talk Cobra Commander into it, but I guess I’m not his type,” Flint said.

Her lips twitched, even as she tried not to wince. “So much for your famous charm.”

“It never seems to work when I really want it to,” he said, moving back behind her.

It wasn’t until later that Jaye frowned, wondering if she’d imagined the touch of sadness in his tone. No longer able to see his face, she had a hard time judging his mood; while she didn’t expect him to be cracking jokes as freely as Scarlett was, it seemed strange that he was acting so taciturn. Even on rough missions, he usually tried to keep everything light and the team’s spirits up.

He was angry, of that she was certain. They’d worked closely enough for her to know how he reacted whenever something caused an operation to go bad and endangered a teammate. But her memories of the mission were still fuzzy, and she wondered if he was mad at her for screwing something up.

His behavior was odd enough that she’d almost welcome one of his trademark crass lines. Given their current situation, he certainly had plenty of ammunition. Jaye was half-tempted to break the ice by asking if he was wearing a gorilla outfit or if he was just that hairy, but she hesitated to cross that line. Not only was he being exceptionally polite – she hadn’t commented on the times he’d discreetly shifted his hips away from her body – but in a different setting, she’d find the way he had his body wrapped around her highly erotic, and she didn’t want to send their conversation down a sexually-charged avenue.

Those thoughts faded as her shivering increased, and she closed her eyes as her body tried to curl into a ball.

“What’s wrong?” Scarlett asked.

“It’s crazy, but I feel colder,” Jaye answered.

Flint moved quickly, grasping her wrist instead of holding her down. “Your pulse is stronger. The cold blood is starting to circulate again from your extremities. Your core temperature probably is dropping,” he said, moving to cover more of her body with his. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re doing good.”

She didn’t say anything else as her two friends nestled closer to her, but she noticed the awkward moment as they wrapped their limbs over her, maneuvering carefully to stay out of each others’ way. Apparently, they didn’t mind being nearly nude to warm her up, but that ease didn’t extend to accidentally touching one another erotically.

Lady Jaye found the situation endearingly amusing, and she couldn’t resist the urge to make a joke. “The least you two could have done was buy me dinner first.”

“There better not be any reason for you to feel that way,” Scarlett said sharply, narrowing her eyes as she glared at Flint.

“Hey, I’m keeping my hanky as far away from her panky as feasibly possible,” he said in exasperation.

“Such a gentleman,” the redhead said sarcastically.

“If you mean I’m not a creep who tries to feel up a half-de-, a half-frozen teammate, then, yeah.”

Jaye frowned as she tried to figure out the source of their argument, finally deciding that Scarlett had heard an exaggerated tale about their fight on the San Francisco mission.

“It’s okay. I’m so cold I wouldn’t notice if you did,” she told Flint gently, wondering how much ire he’d endured from the martial artists earlier.

“Then there’s no point in it, is there?”

“You really are a gentleman,” Jaye said in jest, but she could feel how tense he was. She turned her head to glance at him. “Flint, I’m comfortable with this, I really am. It wouldn’t bother me to be nude with you guys even if you weren’t saving my life. I know this has to be rough for you.”

“I’ll live,” he said gruffly.

She shifted her arm, and when he went to grab it, she slid her hand into his. He maneuvered it back to her side, gently covering her hand with his and stroking the edge of it with his thumb for a moment. When she felt his muscles start to relax, Lady Jaye decided he probably wasn’t angry with her after all, a fact that cheered her considerably.

Snake Eyes appeared in view with another cup of warm sugar water, and Scarlett frowned after taking it. “What do you mean, ‘after the type of movies she made’?”

Lady Jaye couldn’t see his signed response, but from the way Scarlett’s jaw dropped, she decided that wasn’t the only story the team’s rumor mill had blown out of proportion; knowing some of the guys, her videotapes of theater productions had morphed into pornographic masterpieces.

“Just what kind of ‘acting’ did you do before you joined the military?” Scarlett asked her in disbelief, scowling as she looked back at Snake Eyes. “And when did you watch these movies?”

Smiling, she imagined Snake Eyes’ hectic response, and it deepened when the redhead slowly shook her head before giving her a surprisingly maternal look. “I get the feeling this is one of those things I don’t want to know about.”

“I doubt the story he heard has much resemblance to reality. It’s the danger in listening to gossip,” she added pointedly, darting her eyes in Flint’s direction. “Things get exaggerated.”

“Hmm,” Scarlett said doubtfully, but her manner was milder as three of them continued talking.

Jaye’s good humor didn’t last long, as it became harder to force herself to stay awake. Her body complained at every little bump in the road, and all she wanted was to sleep away the pain radiating throughout her body. They had run out of MRE kits, so she no longer had the warm drinks to look forward to, and she had to remind herself not to take her frustrations out on her friends.

Just before noon, they entered the foothills leading to the mountains, and the air temperature dropped noticeably as they climbed higher. The infrequent mist from the lowlands gradually turned to a light snow, but Breaker had no trouble managing the narrow road.

Burrowed in her nest, Jaye stayed warm despite the lowering temperatures, and the constant shivering slowly gave way to periods of relative calm. Her friends kept a close watch on her, always offering a heartening word when they checked her pulse or adjusted the covers.

Running out of topics of conversation, Flint finally resorted to asking her to conjugate verbs, and – feeling short-tempered – she answered him in Portuguese. Scarlett laughed and pulled out a canteen she’d placed between their bodies, giving her some water to drink.

She was trying to convince them she was warm enough to go back to sleep when Snake Eyes suddenly snapped his head up. After a beat, he grabbed his swords and Uzi, disappearing over the truck’s gate.

Scarlett and Flint slid out from under the covers before Jaye could finish asking, “Why’s Breaker stopping?”

Both of them admonished her to stay still and quiet, moving to the rear of the truck. Scarlett pulled an M-16 out of its hiding place and placed it within easy reach before loading her crossbow. Flint readied his shotgun, a bandolier of shells already slung over his shoulder.

The juxtaposition of them wearing only their underwear and ready to fight would have been funny if the situation wasn’t so dire. With the truck engine off, she could hear the sound of approaching vehicles. They were still in Soviet territory, with only a slow-moving truck for transportation, and she was in no condition to escape on foot.

They were still at least an hour or two from the border crossing; if the Soviet army knew their location, it wouldn’t take long before reinforcements arrived, and even a ninja wasn’t much use against air strikes. The truck was too easy to spot; they needed to abandon it and get off the road – an escape route she couldn’t manage even if she had any clothing.

“Leave me and get the microfilm out of here,” she whispered harshly, but their only answer was to shush her.

“Then give me a weapon,” she hissed quietly, trying to work her arms free from the hodgepodge of material in which they’d cocooned her. She swore mentally as her muscles still worked sluggishly; she hadn’t warmed up as much as she had thought she had.

Flint hushed her again, using hand motions to indicate that she was to be still, but she shook her head in defiance; if they were going to have to fight their way out, she wasn’t just going to lie around while they risked their lives for her.

“Will you stay down?” he growled quietly as Jaye continued to squirm, and he visibly winced when she freed one arm with a rough yank. “Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m a Joe,” she told him in a soft, iron voice. “I’m not that cold now, but the only chance I have of getting out of here alive is if we stay with the truck. I’m not giving up without a fight.”

Flint stared at her for a moment before jerking his head in her direction. Rolling her eyes, Scarlett slid back to her side, laying a knife on top of the covers, and Jaye scowled at her. “A knife?” she whispered cuttingly.

“Do you think I was going to give an automatic weapon to someone who’s shaking like an over-caffeinated jumping bean?” the redhead asked as she scanned the area through the wooden slats. “Especially one who’s behind me?”

“Good point,” she admitted reluctantly, picking up the knife and wiggling into an upright position.

Scarlett absentmindedly adjusted the covers as she continued looking through the slats, leaving Jaye enough slack so she could move her arm. “Breaker’s gone ahead. I can’t see where Snakes went,” Scarlett said as she moved back to the truck gate.

Before anyone could respond, the approaching vehicles stopped. Russian voices barked out orders, but they were too far away for Jaye to make out what they were saying. Automatic weapons started firing, and then a nearby scream rang out briefly before ending suddenly.

TBC