Sonny has to admit that being sent across the Russian border on a mission does have its downside, what with the whole "no ISR or comms or QRF, and if you get caught you might die and also start World War III" thing.

On the other hand, getting to spend some time in the beautiful, chilly Altai Mountains makes for a nice break from all the goddamn jungles they've been trudging through lately.

Bravo's most recent mission, completed just under a week before, was especially miserable. Despite dousing themselves in insect repellent, the entire team damn near got carried off by mosquitoes and biting flies. Sonny managed to stumble into some kind of plant that gave him an ugly rash that is only just now starting to fade. Ray got bitten by a spider. Clay fell into mud and then spent a good three days complaining that he couldn't get it all out of his lovely golden locks.

A little bit of snow sounds downright heavenly by comparison, and danger aside, Sonny can tell he isn't the only one who thinks so.

As far as objectives go, the mission is relatively simple. A small U.S. drone malfunctioned and went down a few miles inside the Russian border, where it should never have been in the first place. The members of Bravo all know better than to bother asking why it was there; it's quite possible that even Mandy herself doesn't actually know.

Regardless of how it came to be in Russia, the drone now needs to be retrieved, preferably before the Russian government figures out that it's there. Currently, the area seems clear so far as Mandy and her people can tell, though reliable real-time data is hard to come by for obvious reasons.

Bravo will be starting out in Mongolia, then hiking across the border to retrieve the drone. Stealth is imperative; even while still on the Mongolian side of the line, they need to avoid drawing any kind of attention on their way in. That means they'll approach the border area in nondescript trucks, ditch those in the woods, and go on foot from there, remaining under the cover of the trees as much as possible.

Sonny starts the mission in good spirits. Unfortunately, something starts to drag his mood down before their plane even touches down in Mongolia. That 'something' is blond and blue-eyed and currently acting mopier than a kicked hound dog.

Something is bothering Spenser. Sonny just can't figure out what the hell it is.

Is Clay and Stella's on-again, off-again relationship newly set to 'off'? Has Clay's dad given up on his 'decent human being' act and pivoted back to being a great big walking asshole? Did Clay's mom call with a sob story about needing money, then get pissed at him when he offered to pay for her to go to rehab?

Before Sonny can decide whether he should try to figure out what's wrong (and if so, how), Ray beats him to it.

Bravo Two casually eases over to sit next to Spenser. He lets silence hang between them for a moment, then asks in that soft, even tone he has perfected, "Everything all right, brother?"

Clay narrows his eyes. "I am fine," he says, more than a little snappishly, and then he leans back and crosses his arms across his chest.

Ray blinks a couple times. "...So I see," he replies mildly, and gets up to go sit with Jason.

Yeah. If Spenser is biting Ray's head off for no good reason, then something is very, very off with him.

After they're on the ground in Mongolia, Sonny can't resist making his own attempt to tease out what's wrong; predictably, he gets shut down just as hard as Ray did. Jason ends up broaching the subject while they're gearing up, and while Clay manages to rein in the annoyance a little with his team leader, he is still very emphatic about stating that he is absolutely fine, and why does everybody keep asking me that?

As soon as their youngest looks down to buckle on his gear, his teammates exchange a volley of meaningful glances over his head. After a few seconds of silent communication, there's a sort of unanimous shrug. Of course they aren't dumb enough to actually believe him, but Spenser has long since proven his ability to keep his head in the game, to operate effectively even when things back home aren't ideal - so while this is a bit concerning, they mutually agree to let it go at least until after the mission is done.

(Later, when he can't get the bleeding to stop, Sonny will want to reach back through time and throttle every last one of them, including himself, for being so goddamn stupid.)

On the drive, Sonny stares out the window, taking in the scenery. The woods are made up mostly of conifers, dotted here and there with deciduous trees bearing sparse golden leaves intermixed with bare branches. As the road winds upward into the higher mountains, patches of snow become more and more frequent.

Despite the beautiful landscape stretching away into the distance, Sonny's gaze keeps landing back on the kid who is huddled in a corner like a petulant toddler, resolutely not looking out the window.

Something about this keeps gnawing persistently at the back of Sonny's brain. It isn't until after they've left the trucks and headed off into the deep, shadowed, icy woods that he finally places exactly what it is.

Clay squints when he's in pain.

This is something Sonny figured out early on, back when the kid was a rookie whose mere existence he found barely tolerable. Back when Sonny would have laughed in the face of anyone who told him he'd end up becoming best friends with the cocky little shit.

If Clay is hurting and thinks he's alone or not being watched, he'll squeeze his eyes tightly shut. If he's trying to hide it, he'll just squint a little, and the lines around his eyes will grow deeper. Which is what's happening right now.

Son of a bitch.

Spenser is trudging along quietly, keeping up with the rest of the team but making no attempt to join in on the conversation. Sonny marches over to him, leans his head in close, and asks in a harsh whisper, "What's goin' on with you?"

When Clay makes that lemon-sucking face again and starts to open his mouth, Sonny snarls quietly, "Do not give me that crap again. What. Is. It?"

Spenser's shoulders droop. He sighs. For a second, the only sound is the crunching of iced-over snow and frozen grass beneath their feet. Then Clay admits quietly, "Kinda got a headache."

Sonny squints at him suspiciously. Spenser isn't prone to headaches, and while he's maybe had a few before, Sonny has never seen one make him act this… off. He can't be hungover, can he? He didn't seem to have been drinking when he showed up to the briefing, and usually not even Clay is stupid enough to get plastered right before a mission.

"It's not that bad," Spenser adds quickly. "Just a dull throb, no other symptoms. I can push through it. If I couldn't, I would have told Trent or Jason. It's just… making me cranky."

After a minute, Sonny huffs an almost-laugh, and some of the tension eases from his neck. "We noticed."

Spenser smiles a bit ruefully. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

With most of his worry assuaged, Sonny is free to enjoy the taste of crisp mountain air and the whisper of wind through branches overhead. As the team nears the Russian border, all conversation dies off, and they move in silence.

There's a tense moment near the Mongolia-Russia line when they round a bend and come upon a cabin Mandy didn't warn them about, but a closer glance shows that it's obviously abandoned; the wood is weathered, several windows are broken, and the door hangs half off its hinges.

Maybe half an hour after they cross the border, Spenser starts noticeably flagging, struggling to keep up with the group.

That concern Sonny thought he'd gotten rid of? Yeah, it comes rushing back stronger than ever.

He isn't the only one to notice, of course. Jason quietly halts them with a hand signal, and Trent immediately materializes at Clay's side, hand on his arm. Now that they've stopped moving, Spenser is swaying slightly like he might fall. Sonny helps Trent ease him down to sit in a patch of bare grass.

Clay's eyes are glazed, there are red blotches over his cheekbones, and sweat stands out on his face. Trent touches his forehead and swears softly. Sliding his hand down to take Clay's pulse, he says in a whisper, "You're running a fever. Any other symptoms?"

Clay leans his weight against Sonny without seeming to realize he's doing so. "Dull headache," he replies, barely moving his lips. "Tired. Legs started aching pretty bad around the time we reached the border. Kinda feel like I might…"

He trails off, and then clarifies the rest of that sentence by leaning away from Sonny and throwing up.

Trent leans back on his heels, looks up at Jason, and shakes his head a little. Hayes turns away, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Aborting the mission now could prove disastrous. They've got absolutely no way to contact HAVOC without hiking all the way back to the trucks, then driving far enough from the border to safely use comms again. By the time Mandy managed to get another team here, their window for successfully recovering the drone would almost certainly have passed.

That said, it's pretty obvious that Spenser isn't going to be able to continue, probably not even if they dose him up on painkillers and fever reducers. He can't even keep up in this condition, let alone operate.

A second round of heaving closely follows the first, and Clay pukes until he's bringing up nothing but bile. Sweaty and obviously miserable, he spits, wipes his mouth, and looks up at his team leader. "Jace, I didn't know," he says in a cracked whisper. "Swear to God. Thought I was fine."

In full mission mode, all business, Bravo One ignores him. "Trent?"

The medic sighs. "Flu, maybe. Impossible to know without getting him to a doctor. But he's not finishing the mission."

Clay gives them all his very best wounded, kicked-puppy look, which is pretty effective at the moment. "Y'all go on," he tells them, pushing away from Sonny, trying to get to his feet. "I'll head back to the trucks. Wait for y'all there."

He makes it halfway up before his legs start to buckle. Sonny catches him.

Whatever this is - the flu from hell, or plague, or Ebola - it's taking Spenser down terrifyingly quickly. He seemed mostly fine barely over an hour ago, and now he can hardly stand.

When Clay leans over to dry heave some more, the rest of Bravo shares another of those meaningful group glances.

The mission is important. They need to get their asses in gear and get it done. They are all very aware of that.

They also know there's no way in hell they're sending Clay back across the border alone, through this terrain, in the cold, when he's too sick to even walk by himself.

"I'll go with him," Sonny hears himself say.

Jason's eyebrows just about jump off his forehead. Sonny can understand why, because he's been on Bravo for a long time now, and his teammates know that he's the last guy to willingly remove himself from the action.

Or at least he was. Right up until Bravo drafted a cocky, annoying rookie who ended up getting under Sonny's skin before he even realized what was happening.

Now, he feels almost desperate to get Jason to agree. "Y'all can pull this one off with four," he says. "I'll get Spenser back to the trucks."

"I'm fine," Clay mumbles.

Sonny pats his shoulder and kindly tells him, "Shut up."

Jason blows out a breath that hangs in the air like smoke. Reluctantly, he nods.

When they part ways, Sonny is torn. Part of him desperately wants to go with his brothers toward the danger, not away from it. He forces himself to look ahead rather than back; to focus on the task of getting the kid back to safety as fast as possible.

Turns out, that ain't as easy as it might sound.

They stagger along for a while, Sonny taking most of Clay's weight. Spenser's fever keeps rising until Sonny can feel the heat radiating through all their layers of clothing. Periodically, they have to stop so Clay can heave, even though his stomach is long since empty.

They're probably nearing the Mongolia-Russia line when it starts to snow.

The wind picks up, rattling bare branches, the chill of it burning Sonny's eyes. The sky darkens to a slate gray. The snowflakes that come down are small and hard and icy, the kind that bite into exposed skin.

Clay, who has been stubbornly stumbling forward with his head down, starts to shiver hard. Clasping his arms around his chest, he closes frost-crusted lashes and whispers, "Cold."

"I know," Sonny responds, tightening his arm around the kid's shoulders, not bothering to tell him that being cold is definitely not his actual problem at the moment.

By the time they reach the abandoned cabin, the wind is absolutely howling, and the snow is coming down so hard Sonny can barely tell where he's going. The sight of the cabin is a relief, because it confirms that at least they haven't strayed off the trail. Yet.

Clay staggers forward one more step, and then, despite Sonny's best efforts, he folds slowly to the ground.

Sonny looks at the cabin, nearly hidden by the swirling snow. He sighs. "Come on, kid. Up."

Inside is only marginally warmer, but at least the wind is no longer cutting through them and they're mostly out of the snow. Sonny sets about trying to take off Clay's outer coat. The cold has long since lost its novelty, and he's now regretting ever having complained about the jungle heat - but if there's one good thing about the frigid weather, it's that it might help bring down Spenser's blazing fever.

Semiconscious, Clay tries to mumble a protest, but eventually gives up and just closes his eyes. Sonny eases him down next to one of the broken windows, then sets about trying to prop the broken door so that it will at least mostly block the wind.

When he hears Spenser start heaving again, Sonny doesn't think much of it. Not until the gagging stops and Clay whispers, "Sonny. Sonny, I think…"

Sonny glances back over his shoulder, and everything - the cold, the howl of the wind, the weatherbeaten wood beneath his hands - seems to fade into the distance.

All he can see is the pool of blood, standing out vivid crimson against the thin coating of snow on the floor.

Clay coughs, spits out another mouthful of blood, and whispers, "I think something's wrong with me."

Sonny's heart sounds like a drum beating in his ears. Abandoning the door, he goes to sit next to his teammate, carefully shifting the kid over to rest on his shoulder, wincing at the shocking heat of Clay's skin.

"You're okay," Sonny says, calm and reassuring, patting Spenser's back like he's a child, like he's Mikey or Jameelah or RJ. "You're gonna be just fine."

All he can think is, Please.

Please let him be okay.

Trent, please hurry.