So, ten months later, here we are. I'm not as happy as I could be with it, but it'll do.

Thanks to Des for Beta'ing~

…

The State of Georgia

Chapter 6: Home Sweet Home

"Hey," she said happily, beaming at the pair of them as the door to the surface slid shut behind them, before getting straight to the point of why she had called them there on such short notice. "I realise we haven't really had time to get to know each other between hurried meetings and brief radio calls."

Tucker and Grif exchanged bemused looks under their helmets.

"So, who wants a tour?"

…

Georgia clapped her hands together, giving her two subordinates a wide and toothy grin.

They glanced at each other again, not sure what to make of this new development.

"Uh… okay?" Grif said uncertainly, his confusion mounting. This hadn't been in the job description. What the fuck?

Georgia's smile widened until it seemed almost unnatural. "Awesome!" She squealed, spinning on the spot and swaying a little, before skipping off in the general direction of a large table set in the middle of the cavern.

"Georgia, are you drunk?" Tucker asked incredulously. They both approached the table at a much slower pace, removing their helmets as they went, to find half a dozen empty cans of beer strewn on, and around the table to answer his question.

"Are you?" She replied, raising her eyebrows from the head of the table where she had settled, swinging on the cheap plastic chair. Grif suspected she was being deadly serious.

"I would if I could," Tucker sighed, and Grif knew all too well how he felt. He'd only been in the canyon a few weeks, and already he was starting to feel the slight itch in his left eye he had come to associate with not being very far off from going berserk and killing everyone in sight.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have any more of those, would you?" He asked, pointing to the empty cans hopefully. "Because I swear if I have to sit through one more of Sarge's staff meetings…"

"Nope. Sorry." G shook her head wildly, the dark hair whipping in and out of her face. She giggled, and shook her head again, only stopping when a dizzy expression crossed her face.

"Damn. Worth a try, dude," Tucker said, chuckling slightly and looking at G like she was crazy. "You know, you should get drunk more often. You're sort-of hot when you're wasted. Bow chicka bow wow!"

Grif groaned. "Oh for god's sake, don't start that again!" He growled, "Remember what she said last meeting?"

Tucker winced, obviously remembering. "I believe the key message of that conversation was 'I hope you're not planning on having kids'. But that's the point, she said. You don't actually think she'd do it, do you?"

Grif frowned. He did have a point. In the fortnight he'd known Georgia, she'd threatened Tucker several times, but had shown no indication at all of following through with the threat. What kind of Freelancer was she?

"And besides," Tucker continued, "look at her, she's pissed out her mind and in no fit state to do much of anything."

There, he had another point. Grif turned to look at the object of their discussion to find it rocking backwards and forwards in the plastic seat and giggling like there was no tomorrow.

"I'm sitting right here you know, listening to every word," she said in a sing song voice.

"Yeah, we fucking know," Tucker said with a smile, and Grif noticed the man's eyes following G's every movement.

"Oh, I know you know," she replied with a suggestive smile, and both Tucker and Grif almost fell out of their chairs in surprise.

"I've changed my mind. You're not sort-of hot drunk, you are hot drunk!" Tucker yelled, looking gleeful for some reason. "Bow chicka bow wow!"

"Oh dear lord," Grif muttered under his breath, looking around desperately for a way to change the conversation, otherwise he would probably be stuck listening to Tucker's bad innuendo for the rest of the afternoon. Man, that guy could be an idiot."So, anyway!" He shouted over G's fresh wave of giggles and another 'Bow chicka bow wow!' from Tucker, "G, what were you saying about a tour?"

"Of course!" She shrieked, making Grif actually fall out of his chair, as she jumped to her feet pointing her finger in the air and looking like she was about to shout 'Eureka!'

"Wonderful idea, Grif. Why didn't I think of that?" G cried, completely unfazed by the odd looks both men were giving her. Grif and Tucker once again exchanged looks, as she yelled, "Follow me!" and then she was off, skipping away from them again.

"Seriously dude. What the fuck?" Tucker asked, as Grif scrambled to his own feet and both men made to follow the skipping Freelancer.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Georgia didn't go far; she stopped by a patch of wall that looked like any other, except for a small perturbing rock which she pushed in and a section of the wall slid aside to reveal a door sized hole. Both men were unsurprised at this; a similar mechanism guarded the entrance to the cavern.

"So it's a secret door within a secret cave? Are they serious?" Grif muttered as they approached. Tucker said nothing, but Grif saw the roll of his eyes in his peripheral vision.

"Ok, this," G gestured to the door when they were close enough to hear, "is the entrance to the Maze. I have no idea why it's here, or what it's purpose is, and it's not very hard to get lost in, so I've managedto deduct that it's here for decoration." She giggled once again, swaying more so that Grif had to hold out a hand to steady her. "Although, one time I took a wrong turn for the bathroom at night, and I had to-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, too much information!" Tucker interrupted, throwing his hands up to show his obvious disgust. Grif silently agreed, all the while simultaneously trying not to let his imagination run wild and stopping the female Freelancer from suddenly becoming a lot more acquainted with the floor.

"So, basically," Grif said hurriedly, so that Georgia wouldn't have a chance to finish her little anecdote, "This thing serves no tactical or strategic purpose. Then why is it here?"

"Beats me," the Freelancer shrugged, latching onto Grif's hand and pulling him away from the door. He yelped slightly as she did, suddenly aware that this was the first physical contact of that kind he had had with a girl since… shit, he couldn't even remember. And his sister didn't count.

"Hey, wait up!" Tucker cried in annoyance, running after them. Georgia was taking very determined strides, pulling him away from the still-open doorway of the Maze and towards another seemingly innocuous patch of wall a small distance away from it.

"Here!" The girl cried, stopping short of the wall and letting go of Grif's hand. Tucker quickly joined them, puffing slightly, as the door slid open to reveal a short corridor with several open doors leading off on each side.

"What's this?" Tucker asked, "What are all these rooms for?"

"This is where I live," G said, grinning like mad and spreading her arms as though to say 'Ta da!' This was supposed to be his superior officer?

"Where you live?" Grif asked, scratching his head. "I don't understand."

"What, did you think I slept on the floor, did you? Do you know how uncomfortable that would be?" She giggled.

"It'd be hard," Tucker supplied, a manic grin in place on his face, "And do you know what else would be hard-?"

"So what, this is where you sleep and stuff!" Grif half-yelled to drown the Blue out. Tucker was really starting to annoy him. Not as much as Sarge did, but still enough that it set his eye twitching like it was doing the Macarena.

"Yup. There's a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, a laundry room and some storage area," G listed, counting everything off on her fingers.

"So basically, everything you need to live," Grif stated. She nodded, taking his hand in hers again and started steering him away, once again leaving the door open and Tucker behind. Grif heard him sigh and mutter something, but didn't quite catch it due to the speed at which Georgia was pulling.

This time she led him over to the huge television screen which dominated much of a wall, the same screen which Grif had noticed the first time he had been there. It constantly flickered between landscape scenes of the canyon above, and the two bases nestled opposite each other. One flash showed him a picture of Sarge working outside, tinkering around with the bottom half of a robot and another of Simmons in the mess. Luckily, they hadn't seemed to have noticed his absence yet.

"Here," the Freelancer cried, stopping abruptly in front of the screen and letting go of Grif's hand. Tucker, who had been jogging to catch up again, didn't have enough time to stop and came thundering out of nowhere to crash right into Grif's back.

"Ow! Watch where you're going, asshole!" Grif yelled indignantly, rubbing his armoured shoulder.

"It's not my fault you stopped!" The teal soldier retorted angrily, rubbing his nose.

"Boys!" Georgia yelled, and they both turned to stare open mouthed at her. "No fighting." She put her left hand on her hip and waggled one of her fingers at them, inexplicably reminding Grif of his mother, except for the fact that she was good deal smaller and less intimidating than his mom. It also reminded him of their first staff meeting, before G had revealed herself to be a girl, and had said something similar. Did she think they were children?

Georgia's expression suddenly changed to one of childish delight and she laughed at them. The screen flickered again behind her, and into view came the head and torso of a man with brown hair wearing a grey and yellow uniform, who laughed as well.

"Whoa, what the hell?" Tucker cried, taking a step back and moving a hand to his pistol holster.

"Dudes, you two are both totally whipped, you know? She just owned you completely, with the whole 'No fighting' thing, bros," the man said, completely ignoring Tucker.

Is it just me, or does that guy sound familiar…? Grif thought.

"Wait a minute, " he said out loud, "I know you. Aren't you that guy from Command who's our liaison, or something?"

"Yes, that would be me," the man replied, "Name's Vic, and FYI, I'm not actually a guy. Hey that rhymed!"

"What do you mean, you're not actually a guy?" Tucker asked, looking disgusted. "Please tell me you're not wearing one of those voice thingies as well."

"Ew, gross, no," Vic replied, looking equally revolted. "Can you imagine me as a chick? What I meant was that I'm not actually human. Duh."

"He's a computer program. An A.I.," G chipped in, looking extremely pleased to be a part of the conversation where before she had simply looked as though she was daydreaming, "Artificial Intelligence," she added at both men's blank looks.

"Ah. Wait, but I thought those things were really expensive?" Grif said, frowning. Why would Command waste one of their expensive toys on a backwater simulation outpost like Blood Gulch? That didn't make any sense.

"Wait, so you're telling me that all this time we've been getting orders from a fucking computer?" Tucker said, looking irritated.

Well duh, idiot, Grif thought, sighing.

"Hey! Just because I'm a computer, doesn't mean that I don't have feelings, dude," Vic said, looking suddenly angry.

"Wait, but you don't have feelings. Like you said, you're just a program on a computer. How can programming have feelings?" The teal soldier argued, and Grif could feel a full blown debate coming on from his tone of voice. He sighed again, and Tucker shot him an annoyed look.

"It's just a figure of speech, dude," the A.I. replied, sounding a little more than pissed. "And they probably can if they're programmed to, you asshole.'

"Okay, maybe we should move on now," G interrupted brightly, looking completely unaware in her drunken state of the storm that was brewing between the Tucker and Vic. She bounced in front of the screen and took a hold of both Grif and Tucker, one on each arm, and pulled them both away to the right. "Bye Vic!" she yelled cheerfully behind her back.

"Bye G-hot-dudette-chick!" He said back. "See ya, dudes," he said a little sarcastically to the men, and when Grif looked back he saw that he was giving Tucker's retreating back the finger.

"Isn't he nice?" G said cheerfully, still completely oblivious to the narrowly avoided argument.

"Yeah, nice isn't quite the word I would use," Grif replied.

"Same here," Tucker interjected, "He seems like an asshole. How the hell do you put up with him?"

Georgia looked put out. "Why don't you like him?" she pouted, "He's nice to me."

"Yeah, but you're a girl, everyone likes girls," Grif scoffed.

G opened her mouth to reply, a furious expression on her face, but Tucker got there first.

"Oh, would everyone just shut up," he snapped, obviously still angry at Vic, "Seriously, can't we just go a few minutes without arguing with each other?"

There was a moment of silence, in which Grif stood, frowning.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think you're right, Tucker," he said seriously.

"I am?" The blue said, looking taken aback.

"Yeah," Grif admitted, putting on a thoughtful expression, "I mean, if we're going to spend god knows how long here, then we need to learn to live with each other. And I don't think that's going to happen if we're constantly at each other's throats. So… how about, from now on, no more fighting or bickering or getting on each others nerves or anything like that. What do you think?"

"I think you're a fucking pussy, but all right," was Tucker's response.

"Oh, you asshole."

"What?" The blue grinned playfully, "You said that we're not allowed to fight anymore, so I took the last opportunity I could to insult you before it was forbidden."

"Oh for god's sake! What about you, G?" he said, extremely irritated as he turned to the Freelancer, who seemed to have once again entered a trance-like state while the men bickered.

"What about me what?" she said, starting and looking extremely confused.

"Weren't you listening?"

"No, I was thinking…" she replied in an offhand voice.

"You're pissed out of your mind! What could you be possibly thinking about?" Tucker exclaimed with a laugh.

As soon as he said it, however, Georgia's bottom lip started to tremble, and the next thing Grif knew there were tears rolling down her face and she was sobbing into her hands.

"You asshole, now look what you've done!" Grif cried, gesturing awkwardly towards the distraught woman.

"It's not my fault!" Tucker yelled, looking uneasily at the Freelancer, a strange look splashed upon his features.

"Oh it so is!"

"Is not!"

But Grif was never able to yell back his equally childish response, as Georgia's knees suddenly gave way and Tucker had to race forward to catch her as she crumpled.

"I'm sorry, guys!" she wailed, as Tucker gently lowered her to the floor. "I thought I could handle it, I thought that if I just tried to forget and let go, that it would all go away! But it didn't!" she sobbed, while Grif and Tucker exchanged looks for what felt like the thousandth time that day, this time full of worry.

"What the fuck is she talking about?" Grif asked, concerned.

"I don't know, but I've seen something like this before," Tucker answered, and Grif saw something in his face that seemed quite at odds with what he had come to know about the teal soldier. When before he had seemed immature and idiotic, now he looked worn and worried. It made his face seem years older than it was.

"What? When?" was all Grif could say, to shocked at the change to form any other coherent words. But before he could reply, Georgia was speaking again.

"I'm useless, aren't I?" she moaned, "That's why I've been sent here, because he couldn't think of anything else to do with me and just wanted me out of the way!"

Grif, having no idea who he was nor why the Freelancer was suddenly acting this way, bent over awkwardly and patted the woman on the head. "There there," was all he could say.

"What the hell are you doing?" Tucker asked, eyeing him like he was crazy. Grif noticed that he was kneeling on the ground next to Georgia, and that he had one of her hands clutched in his own.

"I'm comforting her, what does it look like I'm doing?" He snapped back.

"Being retarded. That's not how you comfort a crying girl!"

"Oh yeah, and I bet you've had lots of experience comforting crying girls," he said sarcastically, "Probably right before you took advantage of them." He pointed to the linked hands, his expression clearly showing his disapproval.

Tucker looked at him with wide eyes. "I'm not going to take advantage of her! I mean, sure, any other time if a crying and needy girl had fallen into my arms, I would have swooped on her like a vulture, but just not this crying and needy girl."

"What? Why? You barely know her!" Grif exclaimed, his confusion mounting.

At that moment, Georgia's head lolled to one side on the ground, and a great snore escaped her lips. They both watched her silently for a few minutes, to make sure she was surely asleep, before continuing their conversation.

"Because…" Tucker hesitated before carrying on, avoiding Grif's gaze. He had yet to let go of the Freelancer's hand, the orange soldier noticed. "Because she reminds me of my mom. Go on, laugh."

Grif blinked. "What the fuck?"

"I know it sounds weird and fucked up, but when I was young, a heap of shit happened and my mom… sort of went a little crazy." He pointed at the sleeping woman's face, at the faded dark shadows and the dotted scars. "My point is, that I noticed the same look in her that I saw in my mom around that time. She's seen shit, Grif. Lots of shit," he ended seriously.

"So, what do we do now?" Grif asked after an ominous silence, attempting to sound optimistic after Tucker's statement.

"What else? Take her to her room."

Grif gave him a critical look. "What, to her bedroom? Are you absolutely certain you're not trying to take advantage of her?"

Tucker just rolled his eyes. "I just told you something deeply personal, and you turned around and-and-"

"Calm down, I was kidding."

The truth was that Grif never really looked at Tucker the same way again.