fanfic_name = Every Silver Lining

chapter = 2

author = Kitsune-Baka

Rating = AP

Type = Angst

fanfic = Robotech's not mine, not doing this for money, please don't sue me.

Chapter Two: Reunion & Rebellion

"Hey," Rick called, "Cut the chatter, you two!"

"What's wrong, boss-man?" Mackey asked. "Has something happened?"

"No, but you need to learn good comm discipline." Rick resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck. "Didn't they teach you that at Flight School?"

"Yes, sir," both of the younger pilots chorused.

"Well, see that you put what you've learned into practice," he said. Suddenly, he was very glad that Lisa hadn't been on duty; she might have heard that. He could just imagine her teasing him; "Well, look who's starting to sound like an officer."

Actually, though, he couldn't wait for Lisa to get back on days--teasing or not. He missed just hearing her voice, even when it was for something as mundane as patrol instructions.

For a moment he was tempted to call her--but she was probably already asleep. Instead, he concentrated on riding herd on his two newbies, and tried to ignore the headache that stabbed through his skull.

* * *

For a moment, Lisa's question seemed to hang in the air--but she didn't need an answer. With a choked sob, she flung her arms around her father. "It's you. It's really you." She buried in her chest, trying to erase the memory of the last time she'd seen him, of the screen flashing bright with the image of an explosion, and then going dark. "I thought--oh, God--"

He held her close, murmuring, "It's okay. Shh. It's okay." His hands closed on her shoulders, clutched like a drowning man at his only safety. What had he been though, she wondered, since that terrible day at Alaska Base?

She looked up, and saw the tears streaming down his face, cutting streaks in the dirt and grime. She was shocked to realize how thin he was; even with the backpack still on, she could get her arms around him He'd always been a big man, solid, but now she was afraid a strong wind would blow him away.

She tightened her grip, to keep that from happening. "Oh, Father..."

"Lisa," he murmured. "I never thought I'd see you again."

So many questions were racing through her mind, so many things she wanted to ask him, so many things she wanted to tell him, but she couldn't put them into any coherent order. Instead, she held him close.

"Hey," someone, one of her neighbors, called out. "Is everything okay over there?"

"Everything's fine," she called. But now, she was starting to feel the chilly wind. And by the looks of him, her father would be glad to get off his feet. She turned and unlocked the door to her quarters. Admiral Hayes limped across the threshold--distinctly favoring his right leg, Lisa noticed--shrugged out of the backpack, and dropped onto the couch. He stretched his leg out, grimacing as he did so.

"Are you all right?"

"All right. Yes." He scrubbed his hand over his face, smearing tears and dirt. "My little girl--alive--how could anything possibly be wrong?" Lisa laughed, overcome by the sheer joy of the moment, and hugged him again. It could only be described as a miracle.

"But--how?" she asked at last. "I saw the explosion--"

His eyes lost focus for a moment, his face twisting in remembered pain. Lisa knelt beside him on the couch. "Father--it doesn't matter. The important thing is, you're here now."

Hayes blinked, pulling himself out of whatever memories still lurked, and smiled up at her. "My little girl. That's all that matters."

"Of course."

He sagged against her, and closed his eyes. For a moment, Lisa thought she could feel his bone-deep exhaustion--but then he straightened, and frowned down at the filthy clothes he wore. "I'm sorry. I should've gotten cleaned up before I came."

"Probably a good thing you didn't," Lisa said. "You have no idea how determined the shelter personnel are. Once you showed up at the refugee camp, they would never have let you go!"

"Oh? I didn't realize they had an army to back them up."

Lisa laughed, imagining just how overmatched the relocation corps would be against her father. "Why don't you take a shower while I fix us something to eat."

Hayes pushed himself to his feet, wincing as he did so, and stood swaying. Lisa moved to support him, but he shook his head. "I'll be fine. Nothing wrong with me that getting off my feet for a few days won't fix."

"Of course." Lisa fought to keep the concern out of her voice. "Do you have any clean clothes?"

He looked over at the backpack. "I couldn't spare the room."

"Well, I'm sure I can scrounge up something."

"Thank you."

She poked through her drawers and found one of her oversized sleep shirts and a pair of sweatpants Rick had left. Well, that would have to do. She slipped them through the door, and went to the kitchen to see what she could fix. She wasn't much of a cook, but there had to be something....

Soup, bread, a hunk of cheese. She could work with that. As she worked, she took a moment to think about Rick. She wanted so badly for him to get along with her father. Deep down, she knew they had a lot in common, but between Rick's insubordinate attitude and her father's overprotectivness, she knew that they could just as easily rub each other the wrong way.

She glanced out the window, at the blue sky, the same sky Rick was flying through now. She hoped he was having a nice, uneventful day.

* * *

"Skull Leader, please come in." The nasal whine of LCDR Tanya McIntire cut through Rick's thoughts. It was times like this that he missed Lisa's cool, calm voice. Even when she was screaming at him, her voice didn't have the fingernails-on-chalkboard effect that McIntire's had.

But being stuck with McIntire couldn't be helped, so he touched the screen. "Yes, Commander."

"We've got reports of Malcontent activity we want you to check on. I'll transmit the co-ordinates."

So much for a nice, uneventful day herding newbies. "I'm on my way." Rick checked the readout, then banked his VT to put him on a course for New Detroit. Quickly, he briefed Mackey and Fernandez about the situation.

"Malcontents?" Mackey asked, sounding for all the world like a kid whose parents had promised him a bike for his birthday.

"Yes, so be on your toes when we approach," he said, before Mackey could start rhapsodizing. "Our ETA is about ten minutes."

He did his best to tune out Mackey's excited chatter. Of its own accord, his hand wandered to the box he had tucked in one of the pockets of his flight suit, just over his heart. A tiny thing, really--but with all the focus of life being on survival, not luxury, the price of diamonds had quadrupled. The ring was worth more than a year's salary; he'd cleaned out his savings to buy it.

He only hoped he worked up the nerve to actually put it to use--and soon.

But the tower of smoke in the distance pulled him from his reverie. "Time to go to work," he muttered, as he switched to Guardian mode and dove in for a better look.

* * *

Lisa was in the process of setting the table, when her father came limping back into the room. Clean-shaven, his hair cut--though unevenly--he looked a lot more like himself. But now that she could see his face better, Lisa was shocked by how gaunt he was; cheekbones protruding from skin that had pulled tight against his skull. She also noticed a scar that bisected his left eyebrow.

But then, she supposed no one had gotten through the war unscathed.

"Sit down," she said. "The soup should be just about heated through."

* * *
The smoke hung like a pall over New Detroit city; Rick followed it, the newbies in his wake, to a manufacturing center on the southeast side of the city. There were three battlepods and half-a-dozen suits of power armor down there.

Rick sent out a call to the rest of the Skull. "Looks like I'm going to need some backup. What's your ETA?"

"Five minutes," the answer came back.

"Okay, we'll try and keep them out of the city until you get here. Mackey?"

But Mackey was already diving into the fray. And not, Rick realized, from the town side of the area.

"Mackey, break off and come around," he called. "You're going to drive them into the city!"

But Mackey was too intent on what he was doing. The battlepod he had lined up in his sights leapfrogged back, heading, Rick realized, for a residential area. He switched to F mode for a burst of speed, banked, and switched back to Guardian.

"All right, Mackey, we'll try to catch him in our crossfire." And you and I are going to have a little talk, as soon as this is over.

* * *

Three grilled-cheese sandwiches and two mugs of tomato soup later, Admiral Hayes had finally eaten his fill. Lisa sipped the last of her own soup, watching him, irrationally afraid that if she took her eyes off him for too long, he'd vanish. "When was the last time you ate?" she asked.

"Yesterday morning. Once I saw the skyline, I didn't want to waste any more time."

"I can understand that." She picked up the dishes and dumped them into the sink. There'd be plenty of time to clean them up later. "Is there anything else you want? Tea?"

"No, I'm fine, thank you." He looked at her. "So--I remember you told me about a pilot you were seeing. Did he...make it?"

"Yes. In fact, he was the one who got me out--" Out of Alaska Base, she'd meant to say, but she didn't want to cause her father any more pain by reminding him.

But he only smiled. "I'd like to meet him sometime."

"Well, he was talking about taking me to dinner when he got back from patrol. Hmm--we need to get you some better clothes."

"Yes, that's--" Whatever he was about to say was lost in a yawn. "I'm sorry."

"Let me guess--you haven't slept since yesterday morning, either."

"No," he admitted.

"Why don't you get some sleep, then. We'll have plenty of time to talk, after you've rested up."

"No--I'll be fine." But his eyes were already starting to drift closed. If she didn't do something soon, Lisa thought, he'd drop off right there at the table.

"Come on, Father." She pulled him to his feet, and prodded him toward the bedroom. "I'll still be here when you wake up."

"I can take the couch."

"No, you'll take the bed. I'm going to be up for a while, anyway." She still had three reports to write, and the next week's patrol schedules to work up. "I'll be right out here if you need me."

He sat down on the bed, but looked up at her. "Promise me. You won't just leave." His eyes held the same desperately fearful look he'd had the first year or so after her mother had died, as if he were afraid she would vanish if he looked away from her for too long. "If you have to go on duty, wake me up."

"Of course," she reassured him. "Now get some sleep."

Hayes eased himself into the bed, and Lisa pulled the covers up over him. She had a sudden flash of memory--how many times had he tucked her in at night? Back then, he'd been her hero, her rock, the center of her universe. She'd assumed, with the naiveté of childhood, that parents were indestructible. Even after her mother's death, her father had been there. "The original immovable object," she murmured.

Admiral Hayes--the gaunt, exhausted man who'd somehow survived everything the Zentraedi and the wilderness had thrown at him--made a questioning noise from the edge of sleep. Lisa stood looking down at him for a few long, long minutes before she went out to work on her reports.

* * *

Rick switched to Battloid mode, swinging the gatling gun up to engage the Zentraedi who'd decided that breaking into the construction bay was a good idea. "This is your last chance. Surrender, or find yourself under fire."

The Zentraedi had clearly spent plenty of time among Humans--he extended a yard-long middle finger in Rick's general direction, before taking a swing at the Rick's Battloid with a heavy beam.

Rick kicked out, knocking the Zentraedi down--but then, another one appeared around the corner.

Rick sighed. "Looks like it's going to be a long one."

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