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Morgan's Genie Ch. 00

By: bashfullyshameless



July, 1098 A.D.

Somewhere near Antioch

"You shouldn't have come here, Thomas. You don't belong." His tone carried neither friendship nor respect. The soldier with the axe made no attempt to conceal his easy contempt.

"That becomes clearer every day," grunted Thomas. He dismounted from his horse, leaving it to stand or walk as it wished. His round shield was already on his left arm. Sweat and dust from the road coated his brow. Thomas was barely twenty-three, but the Crusade had already left him feeling far older than that.

Screams and pleas for mercy came from women in the lonely house behind William and his axe. Two bodies in pools of their own blood attested to what had already passed before Thomas arrived. Both Saracens—hardly men at all yet, now never to be—had been shot down with arrows before they had even crossed blades with William or the other Crusaders.

Thomas couldn't imagine what the family here did to support itself. There was no sign of farming, and it didn't look like good grazing land for sheep. Moreover, he didn't know how the Crusaders hadn't sacked it before now. They were only a few miles from Antioch. Given the desperate foraging for supplies during the lengthy siege of the city, surely someone should have spotted this lone home before now.

Antioch had fallen a month ago. The Crusaders had then triumphed over the Turks who had come to save it. None of it mattered to Thomas. Not anymore.

William stood before the doorway to the house, hefting up his axe at the ready while his face retained a casual expression. Violence and killing had become fairly casual affairs for him. "Why not just go home, then?" William asked.

"You murdered John," Thomas said levelly.

"Oh?"

"The night we took Antioch. It was not the Saracens who killed him. It was you and yours."

William's brow rose. "You know," he said dryly, "John interfered with us while we searched for plunder among the Saracens, too."

There was no denial. Thomas had no patience for one, anyway. "Geoffrey!" Thomas bellowed as loudly as he could. "Hide in there and die like the wretch you are or come out here to face judgment as a man! Make your choice!"

The ultimatum disrupted whatever was going on in the house. The women's screams fell to frightened whimpers. The taunting calls of the men within ceased. Thomas drew his sword, his shield still on his arm.

"Your idiot friend cost me four of mine," William growled, stepping forward with his axe at the ready. William lunged forward, a touch faster than Thomas had expected but not so fast as to catch the younger warrior off guard. Rather than block the axe with his shield, though, Thomas held the shield close to his chest and spun away, letting William's momentum take him past. The shield was up around again, held parallel to the ground as it slammed into the back of William's head. The crunch of bone was unmistakable. William's body jerked, flailed and fell to the ground.

Thomas paused only long enough to see his foe convulse on the ground before he looked to the house once more. There was a curtain in the doorway and certainly an ambush behind it. Thomas turned back, heaved William to his feet, and forcefully ran the beleaguered soldier at the doorway.

The curtain fell, pulled down as William tumbled into the waiting spear held by the man on the other side. There was a shriek and a stumble of confusion. Another foe advanced from around the side of the doorway, sword at the ready. Thomas gave ground, preferring to fight outside where he had room to move. As the bearded stranger swung left and then right, Thomas expertly blocked with his shield.

Thomas had the measure of the man by the time the one with the spear freed himself from the tangle of William and the curtain and rushed out to join the battle. Tellingly, Sir Geoffrey came storming out after the spearman only once Thomas was fully engaged with both soldiers. "I'll have you drawn and quartered for this treason, Thomas," the knight snarled.

"Your lord might," Thomas grunted. He parried away the sword, blocked the spear with his shield, sprang to his right and slashed expertly into the swordsman's gut. His enemy's mail was shoddy and weak; links split along with skin and muscle. The man let out a shocked, garbled cry of pain before he sank to his knees. Thomas turned with his guard still up. "You won't live to see it."

Sir Geoffrey blinked as his swordsman went down. There was a wary pause; while Geoffrey certainly couldn't be called a coward, he was a man who calculated risks. He should have had a four to one advantage here, but that already been halved at no cost to his foe.

"Harold," Geoffrey said, "go left." He stalked around Thomas to the right. The spearman moved left as instructed. "Walk away and I let you live," Thomas offered evenly to Harold. "William and Geoffrey here owed me blood. You don't share in their crimes."

It didn't work. Harold said nothing, but rather looked to Geoffrey, then back at William, and awaited his chance. There was a long, tense standoff, two foes circling Thomas while he waited calmly for one or the other to make a move. The wind began to pick up, carrying dust and sand along with it.

"Your friend died protecting Saracen sluts, like you are now," Geoffrey sneered. "He bled out in the dirt for the sake of those we came to conquer. There's a special place in Hell for traitors."

Thomas didn't take the bait. He merely kept his guard up, doing his best to keep track of both circling opponents. More dust blew by.

Geoffrey tried again. "You are a dead man, Thomas," he said. "Even if you should survive the night, you'll be hanged as a traitor. If you are lucky."

"Indeed," Thomas nodded. "That much is already decided. Either I die here, or I die on the morrow. In light of that, you might reconsider your odds of talking your way out of this before you waste more breath."

Geoffrey spat. He kept creeping to the right, searching for an advantage. Thomas kept him in view, listening carefully for any shift in movement or stance from Harold. Yet as Geoffrey moved, Thomas caught sight of someone behind him.

The old man was dressed in darkly-colored Saracen peasant's garb. Though his face bore age, it still carried strength. Rather than lean on his staff, he held it aloft in one hand while the other hand released sand into the wind.

It was just enough of a distraction. Harold made his move, rushing forward. Thomas spun. There was ever more dust in the wind, thickening with every heartbeat. He had to squint while he brought his shield up to block the spear, pushing forward hard, slamming into the enemy. It was only to put Harold off-balance. Geoffrey would be there in a moment.

Thomas turned just in time to block Geoffrey's swing and bring his own sword down across Geoffrey's face. He couldn't recover quickly enough, though; the spear hit him from behind. It bit across the back just below the shoulders. Thomas felt the head of the spear slice into his backbone, more of a slash than a stab. There was a split-second of horrible realization of how deeply he'd been cut, and then nothing.

His arms went limp. The blade fell from his hands even as Geoffrey tumbled to the ground dead. Thomas swayed, trying to turn with limbs that would no longer move for him. The sandstorm grew worse.

It hadn't been that dusty out here. It was bad land for grazing, but it wasn't desert. The storm was so strange, and so sudden...

A moment later, Thomas realized there was someone right there in front of him. He only had sight of the old man for a second. Then the staff slammed into Thomas's head, and the world went dark.

* * *

"I have always known that Christians are prone to fighting amongst themselves," someone said in the darkness. "I have seen it. It is not so different from my own people, sadly. But I did not think to find Christians killing one another at my door."

Thomas couldn't open his left eye. He couldn't move from where he lay, either, yet he felt nothing holding him down. His right eye flitted open, treating him to the sight of the stars above.

The old man knelt beside him. "You killed all but the one with the spear," he said simply. "That one I let run off back to the city."

"Why?" Thomas croaked.

"He hasn't much more time, anyway," the old man shrugged. "He is sick. He doesn't know it yet, of course. Few of your men do—yet a good number of them are. I saw no need to stain my hands with his blood."

"And mine?"

"Not much need for that. I can do little for your wound, I'm afraid. It is all I can do to keep you alive as it is. You would at best be bedridden for the rest of your life."

He could not rise, but Thomas was still capable of a shuddering breath. "Then killing me would be a kindness."

"Do you deserve such kindness, Christian?"

After a long moment, Thomas let out another shaky breath. "No."

"Tell me, Christian," the old man went on curiously, "Why are you here?"

"I came to avenge a friend," Thomas managed, "and to honor his memory."

"Oh, I gathered that," the old man replied. "You also saved my daughters from rape and death. Alas, not so much for my servants."

"I am sorry for that. Truly."

"Why? Were they not pagans? Monsters?"

"No...they were just boys. There are no more monsters here than there are among my own people. I know that now. John tried to tell me, before he died. I should have stayed in Normandy. Found a woman. Made a home. We were fools to come here."

"But why did you come?"

"Because my liege demanded it. Because there was a holy cause. We came to reclaim the Holy Land for Christ."

"I have read of your Christ," the old man nodded sagely. "I have read your sacred texts. Have you?"

"No."

"A pity. You might have found, as I did, that there is no point where Christ instructs anyone to shed blood over this land. I seem to recall his message was one of peace and love, not war."

Thomas swallowed hard. It was difficult. He was dying, and knew it. "Then I may have been misinformed," he managed.

The old man laughed. "So, that eliminates Christ from the question. And your liege?"

"Is far less worthy of all this blood than Christ," Thomas answered after a moment.

"I see. Not a good Christian?"

"Nor a good man," Thomas sighed. "I knew, but...I told myself that he was good enough. I was wrong."

"It is a terrible thing, to serve someone who is unworthy."

"It is." Thomas fell silent for awhile. The stars were beautiful. "I'm going to die tonight."

The reply did not come immediately. "What would you do if you did not? Would you leave here?"

"Yes."

"And to what end? To find a worthy liege? Or perhaps a woman? Peace and love?"

"Yes," Thomas answered. A tear fell from his eye.

The old man nodded thoughtfully. "These are difficult things to find. It could take you a very long time."

"It is a sin to settle for less," Thomas whispered. "I know that now."

The old man's hand was on his shoulder. He couldn't feel it, and only knew it was there because he saw the old man reach down. "You saved my daughters and avenged my servants," the old man said. "I owe you a debt."

"I am the one who owes," Thomas whispered.

"If you had a chance to serve out the debt you feel you owe," the old man asked, his voice grave yet hinting at hope, "would you want to live? If it were in service to another?"

"Only," Thomas gasped, then swallowed, "only if it was someone worthy."

The old man produced a bottle then, sealed and decorated with complicated patterns of lines. It wasn't terribly ornate, nor did it look to be made of any precious metal, but the bottle was striking just the same. As he removed the top, smoke began to rise forth, billowing out with a dozen pleasant scents.

"What is happening?" Thomas asked.

"We must talk of service, Thomas," the old man said simply. "We must talk of service, and of worth, and of second chances."

* * *

Harold didn't have long to run. His horse was not far away, nor those of his now-dead comrades. Harold paused at those horses only to quickly check them for supplies and booty before rushing back to Antioch. He had to ride through the night, feeling a touch feverish and fatigued but knowing he must press on.

He found his lord on the road outside the city, riding with several others. "Charles!" he cried out. "My lord Charles!"

The husky, bearded warrior on his horse turned a curious eye on his man. He couldn't help but immediately note that Harold came to him without his spear, nor any other weapon on his belt or on his horse. He watched as Harold dismounted and bowed. "Speak," he said.

"We found the old man. It...well, we found his house first, and attacked. He didn't turn up until later. It was as you said; the charms you gave us were proof against the magic in his home. We broke down his wards, we had slain his servants and lay in wait in his home, but..." Harold broke off in a coughing fit, wheezing as it passed to control himself again.

"What happened?" Charles growled. "Where is my son?"

"Dead, my liege. They're all dead. All but me."

"The old man killed my son?"

"No, lord. Not the old man. Thomas."

Charles glowered at Harold for a short moment. His first thought was to kill Harold on the spot, partly out of rage that he had survived when Geoffrey had not and partly out of pure frustration. But there were more important matters to resolve here. "Show me," he said before waving to the rest of his men to follow.

Morgan's Genie Ch. 01



Author's Note: Again, no smut here, but it'll come!

More importantly: This chapter includes some very serious topics. Please understand that while this will ultimately be a fun, racy fantasy, I take none of the real-world issues herein lightly. No disrespect is intended in any way.

Chapter One: Valor

January, 2009

Baghdad, Iraq

"No, no, no, I joined up in '02 when it was still just Afghanistan and we were going after the assholes who actually attacked us. No WMD bullshit and certainly no Abu Ghraib," Morgan Anderson declared firmly. Her eyes were vigilantly turned outward as the armored Humvee rolled through the streets despite the growing tension of the conversation.

"So what, you think everyone who signs up now is just an asshole?" asked the soldier seated on her left.

"Did I say that?" Morgan countered.

"Sounds like you wouldn't have enlisted if you had known what was gonna go down here."

"Jensen, that's like ninety percent of us," First Sergeant Gomez called from the front passenger's seat. "I don't know many guys who honestly want to spend every other year in sunny Iraq."

"Y'all can take my next deployment when it comes up if you want it, Jensen," joked Washington in the driver's seat.

"Look, we didn't come out here and do all this for nothin' is what I'm sayin'," Jensen scowled. "Getting' rid of Saddam was a good thing. This wasn't a big waste just 'cause they got the intel wrong. You'd know about that, right, Anderson?"

"Ouch," Gomez chuckled. Then he turned back to the radio handset, distracted by a new voice on the line.

A thin smile came across her lips as she eyed him for a moment, then went back to looking out her window. "I'm in counter-intelligence, jackass," she said. "Don't try to pin the old military intelligence oxymoron on me. I'm a dummy. Says so right there in my job title." It got a laugh from Washington, sitting in the driver's seat, but Gomez was distracted with the radio. If Jensen thought it was funny, he didn't laugh. "And I was still in language school during the invasion, anyway," Morgan added.

"Right, right," Jensen nodded. He was looking out his side of the Humvee, too, but the streets still looked relatively unthreatening. "Learning Arabic. 'cause that's what they speak in Afghanistan for the real war, right? Oh, wait. No, they don't speak that over there, do they?"

"What's your point, Jensen?" Morgan sighed. She was beginning to regret the whole conversation.

"My point is if you're so against us bein' here, why didn't you, I dunno, conscientious object or something?"

"I'm not sure that's an actual verb phrase."

"Yeah, but you know what I mean."

"I signed up, just like you did," Morgan said. "I took my oath. Wasn't the Army's decision to be here. That was stupid politicians. We're already here, might as well try to make the best of it on the ground. Like we did today," she added with no small tone of assertion.

"Hey, I ain't complainin' about today," Jensen shrugged. "Rape's rape. Don't matter whose side you're on. Ain't no call for that, ever."

Morgan nodded, not that Jensen saw. They were both turned away from one another, warily watching out opposite windows. She thought, briefly, that the earlier topic had been dropped. A moment later, though, Jensen said, "You went for fuckin' Kerry, didn't you?"

"Jesus," Morgan scowled, "Bush can't even eat a fucking pretzel right, and you think--?"

"Anderson," Gomez interrupted. He held the radio handset over his shoulder. "You've got a call."

She took the handset from him and answered, "This is Anderson."

"What's the verdict, Staff Sergeant?" asked the voice of an older man on the line.

"She positively ID'd Hutchinson, Franklin and Woods, Colonel," Morgan said. "I have her full statement, recorded and everything."

"You don't think she was coerced at all? Coached?"

"No sir," Morgan answered. "She spoke with me alone. I think she's got some good support from her family, sir, but the parents clearly didn't know we were coming and neither did she. This wasn't rehearsed. She even showed me bruising that matches what was reported on Franklin's phone. And I think she'll go the distance and testify."

There was a pause. It was, after all, a heavy thing. "You have it all on tape?"

"Yes, sir."

"It's amazing that she would talk to any of us at all. Outstanding work, sergeant."

"Thank you, sir," Morgan said. She felt a rush of satisfaction. The situation was certainly as ugly as anything she'd seen in Iraq—it was hard to smile about this after all the pain she had just witnessed—and yet the moment left her feeling a little proud. Morgan felt a pang of guilt for thinking of herself at a time like this, but she couldn't deny that it felt good to know she was very good at her job.

"Very well. Is Morkot there with you?"

"No sir, he's in the other Humvee, but he recommends arrest."

"Alright, we'll get to that. You just—"

She didn't hear the rest over the explosion that blew the Humvee ahead of hers end over end to land on its roof. Washington slammed on the brakes before he struck the wrecked vehicle. Curses of surprise and anger erupted from inside Morgan's Humvee, followed an instant later by gunfire as they took hits from both sides. She saw blood burst from Jensen's left shoulder beside her as the allegedly bullet-resistant window on his side shattered.

Her M4 was already in her hands. She leaned left while Jensen groaned and reflexively jerked right, almost putting his head in her lap. Even as she pointed her weapon out Jensen's now open window, Morgan spotted a man shooting an AK-47 from behind a parked car. Another man beside him wielded an RPG. The streets of the area were lined with shops and small merchants' stalls, though any civilian who hadn't already found someplace to hide was desperately doing so.

The hostile with the rocket hesitated; the one with the rifle sprayed wildly. Morgan was far more controlled as she shot back. Training took over as she fired tight groups at the greatest threat first. The one with the RPG jerked back as a red, wet spray burst from his head. The other went down much the same way.

More bullets hit the vehicle. The situation was too chaotic at first for her to tell which way they came from. Morgan looked down at Jensen, who was already groaning more in anger than in pain. His shoulder was covered in blood, but the arm still moved. "It's not too bad," he managed.

Washington was already on the radio calling in the ambush. He crouched down away from the windows just like everyone else. "We gotta get them out!" Gomez snapped. "Jensen!"

"He's hit," Morgan grunted. "I'm with you."

"Jensen, can you cover from the door?"

"Yeah! Go!"

"Ready?" Gomez asked. He only waited for a quick nod, then turned back and opened his side door just as Morgan opened hers. She was greeted with the sight of another masked attacker, literally within arm's reach of the door, crouched beside the rear wheel. She saw him toss the small black shape inside, right in her lap.

"Grenade!" she yelled. She had it in her hand within a second, out the door in the next, slammed the door shut once more and ducked. When it blew, her window held up much better than the one beside Jensen had. The armored vehicle rocked hard just the same, collapsing on her side without much of a right rear tire left to hold it up. She glanced over to see that Gomez had reacted just the way she'd hoped. He had slammed his door shut as well.

There just wasn't time to process any of it. "Ready again?" Gomez asked.

"Go!" she answered. She saw his door open and threw herself out of her own. There was plenty of smoke from the grenade, along with plenty of blood on the ground around her, but her first concern was over keeping up with Gomez. She found him already crouched in front of her, almost bowling him over. He fired at targets up ahead.

There were hostiles at the doors of the overturned Humvee. One had turned his attention from the doors of the Humvee to Gomez, but came up on the losing end of the ensuing exchange of gunfire. The other gunman beside him scrambled to get to cover around the front of the wrecked vehicle.

It was a lot to take in all at once. Morgan had been in many tense situations before in Baghdad, had been very close to live firefights and had even seen an IED take out the vehicle ahead of hers on her second deployment, but she hadn't ever had cause to fire her weapon outside of training. She had always been diligent about going to the range—she knew where she'd be deployed, after all—and had been through the pre-deployment combat refreshers, but she wasn't an infantry trooper. There had to be a hundred things she didn't even know enough to worry about here.

She quickly looked around, saw no targets in view, and immediately followed Gomez into the smoke around the wrecked Humvee. "Watch right, watch right," Gomez warned, and as he kept an eye on the forward field of fire, Morgan kept up her guard for anyone who might shoot from the buildings on their side of the street.

A bullet ricocheted at her feet. As she jerked over to the side of the wreck she heard Jensen and Washington open up behind her. Looking back quickly, she realized they were both shooting for the rooftops.

"Help me!" Gomez demanded. She turned back, seeing him with the door to the Humvee open and a battered and bloody soldier inside trying to crawl out with Gomez's assistance.

She reached down with her left hand, grabbing the soldier by his web gear to help drag him out. He groggily fumbled around on hands and knees while she and Gomez heaved him clear. Morgan had him almost upright and moving back to her still mostly-intact vehicle when something slammed into her back and her right thigh. She staggered, whirling around without meaning to. Other bullets bounced off of the side of the Humvee beside her.

The impact knocked the wind out of her, but her body armor saved her from much worse. The small of her back came up against the Humvee, right where she had been hit, preventing her from falling all the way to the ground. Gomez was down. She saw him there, clutching at his chest. Gunfire roared from several directions, but the bullets weren't going for her. Through the broken windows of the shop on the street, two masked gunmen unloaded on Jensen and Washington to keep them down.

Another leapt forth from the doorway, bringing the butt of his AK-47 down across Morgan's head. She tried to block but was too sluggish. The blow was harsh enough to knock her down to one knee. She felt her weapon torn from her hands by another attacker. Then they both grabbed her and yanked her back from the street, hauling her into the storefront.

She cursed and struggled, but it was two against one and both men were considerably larger than Morgan. One had her by the left arm; the other, on her right, managed to get her sidearm out of her belt as they crossed the threshold of the store. There were shelves and hanging trinkets everywhere. Another hostile waited inside with a sack that looked like it was meant for her head. A fourth covered the others from the window.

Morgan kept fighting. She got one arm free, shrugging off blows to the gut and the constant struggle to get her completely under control again. Before they could stop her, she snatched a grenade from the belt of the one on her right. Morgan twisted up into her left arm rather than trying to get free from the man holding it. It was a fumbling, desperate fight.

The moment she had a finger through the pin of the grenade, she yanked it free and let it drop at her feet. Her Arabic was quite good; she heard the man yell, "Grenade! Get away!" as he shoved her free.

She had three seconds after that. Morgan grabbed onto another of her attackers, using him to haul herself out of the way. Her weight threw him off balance, sending him to the floor beside the grenade. She took one limping step, just enough to haul herself around a long shelf of pots, pans and tall bottles before the grenade went off.

Shrapnel tore through her left foot and calf. The rack shielded her from the rest of the blast, but her leg simply wasn't clear in time. She went down as the heavy rack fell against the one next to it, leaving her enough space that she wasn't crushed. Falling cookware battered her just the same.

Morgan couldn't hear anything but a constant throb that reverberated through her skull. Even with the smoke and darkness she felt the world spinning around her.

There wasn't time to think about that. Just keep moving, she thought. Move. Move. Morgan forced herself to crawl forward through the tunnel made by fallen store shelving. Her foot and ankle were in agonizing pain and the opposite thigh didn't feel any better. Her back hurt like hell, too. Morgan pushed pots and pans out of her way, fumbling along. The gunfire had stopped—that, or she had gone completely deaf. She couldn't think straight enough to really consider either possibility. Her head started to clear as she got to the light at the end of her tunnel.

As soon as she had a hand clear of the fallen rack, someone grabbed her and dragged her the rest of the way free. It wasn't a friendly face. Angry eyes glared out over a checkered cloth covering the nose and mouth. A fist came down on her eye.

"Slut!" the man roared in Arabic. "Whore!" He punched her again. "Leave my country!"

Morgan tried to block with one arm, fumbling for something—anything—to use as a weapon with the other. She grabbed onto a bottle, tall and metallic and decorated with an intricate pattern of lines. It looked very old and had solid weight to it. She blocked the man's next punch and slammed the bottle into his head.

The blow staggered him. She hit him again and he stumbled to the floor next to her. She kept up her assault.

Smoke began to surround her, but she didn't stop swinging. It was what she had been trained to do. "Stupid motherfucker!" she screamed back at him in English. She kept hitting him. "Stop fighting us and we will fucking leave!"

Smoke and more smoke. It was all coming forcefully from the bottle. Her opponent was down and out after she lost track of how many times she had hit him in the head.

Still on her hip, unable to stand, Morgan saw only dark gray smoke around her. She crawled only a foot or two forward before her hand touched someone's hair on the floor in front of her.

She caught only a glimpse of him—dressed in a chain shirt, pale-skinned, groaning and clutching his head as if he had just suffered the same kind of beating as the Iraqi behind her—before injury and blood loss overtook her.

Someone in the distance was calling out her name. The world finally went black.

* * *

Thomas groaned in pain as he lay on the floor, trying to regain some semblance of composure.

He was fairly sure that he was supposed to kneel and say something grave and sincere and formal. Something about service and loyalty and honor, and what he could provide. Instead, he had an absolutely splitting headache and the rest of him didn't feel all that great, either. However, he could move, and that was certainly an improvement on his condition before the old man had bound him in the bottle.

There were voices—male, firm, tense yet controlled. He couldn't make out the language right away. As Thomas managed to open his eyes, he found himself in the wreckage of a shop. It was very different from anything he'd seen before. He knew the world had changed a great deal, and he didn't really know how long he had been bound, but to some extent a merchant's shop was a merchant's shop.

Men moved through the shop dressed in strange clothes with intricate and confusing patterns of brown and tan colors. They swept through the shop carefully, with black objects held at the ready and intent expressions on their mostly pale but occasionally dark-skinned faces. The men had to be warriors—that much seemed quite obvious—and the black objects therefore had to be weapons, but Thomas couldn't tell how their weapons were to be used or how they might be dangerous. They looked rather awkward. The warriors seemed quite serious, though, as several stalked right past him.

They didn't notice him at all. No one would, he realized, except for his master. Mistress. He knew her face. He'd had a flash of it when she first grasped the bottle. He knew instinctively that she was different from most who had grasped the vessel in the past. But then everything went insane and the pain began.

She lay there on the floor in front of him as he forced himself up. She was dressed just like the warriors but badly hurt, with blood pouring from her right leg at the thigh and her left at the foot and ankle. Her comrades—could she be a warrior, too?—tended to her. Thomas instinctively reached out to mend her wounds, but then stopped.

Witnesses to magic were to be avoided, Thomas realized. He was still unsure of the scale, but the old man had told him that magic became less and less reliable as one's witnesses increased in number. Thomas had no perspective on that. He understood that this was why a wizard such as the old man had not simply thrown the Crusader Army into the sky with a powerful whirlwind, but surely a few witnesses mattered little.

To work such obvious magic without permission from his mistress, though, was perhaps overstepping his bounds before she had even established them. It was his duty to protect her. He knew that without even needing to consider it. He felt it, right through his heart. But this situation was so confused, and he had not yet even introduced himself. He didn't know what she would want. He didn't know, and could not know.

A soldier wrapped her foot in white cloth and soon her leg as well. Thomas became increasingly sure that his mistress was indeed a warrior herself, amazing as that was. The world had changed a very great deal.

They laid her upon a litter made of metal and strong fabric, speaking to her all the while as she mumbled and groaned. Thomas listened intently, quickly learning the language. He didn't even realize he was doing it at first, but before long, the words became clear.

"...back to base and fix you up," the one tending to her wounds said. Around him, two others picked up the litter, one at her head and the other at her feet.

"Gomez?" she asked. Her mouth was bloody and looked like it would soon bruise nastily. "Is Gomez okay?"

"They're all okay, Sergeant," the other warrior said. "They're all gonna be fine. You done real good, Sergeant. Just hang in there. Keep breathing."

Thomas followed the men and his mistress out into the street. He winced at the brightness of the sun. His eyes adjusted, though, allowing him his first real look at the world beyond his bottle.

It was a lot to take in all at once.

* * *

Morgan's first action upon waking was usually a languid stretch, but as hazy consciousness came over her she was all too aware of pain. Her back hurt. Her face hurt. And her legs...

She groaned, shifted a bit and tried to open her eyes. Only the right would open; the left had something over it. The room was dim but not dark, with a great deal of light leaking in from the open door.

Woozy. If anyone had asked her, she'd have to say she felt woozy. Someone kept messing with the zoom and autofocus function on her eye. She must be on painkillers. Good ones, but not good enough. She still hurt.

"You'll have to be careful," someone said. "You are in the...infirmary? You were gravely injured."

"MMnno shit," she mumbled, looking around for the voice. He was sitting in a chair next to her bed. Morgan frowned. He needed a shave, would probably be cute with the lights on, but..."Why're you dressed for a Renaissance Faire?"

The man blinked. "If you would have me wear something else, I will gladly see to it," he answered simply. "I can certainly see how out of place my garb is here."




Morgan's Genie Ch. 01



Morgan frowned a bit. "Who are you?"

"My name is Thomas," he told her. His voice was soft, gentle. "I am your servant." He saw her frown deepen. "I apologize," he continued. "I have many things for which to apologize at the moment. I did not think to meet you like this and I am very much out of sorts. The world is nothing as I remember it. So while there is much to tell you, you have been through a great deal. The last thing I wish to do is harm you or cause you alarm."

Morgan's head turned to look out the door. "They check on you every few minutes. There are a great many people here very concerned for you. I do not understand what is going on in this land, but it appears that you are safe from your enemies."

"Ah. Gotcha. But I'm I safe from you, right?" Morgan asked skeptically. "You're like the happy friendly kind of weirdo guy?"

"I would not and cannot harm you," Thomas said, bowing his head somewhat. "As I said, I am your servant."

"Right," Morgan nodded. "So you're like Murdock from the A-Team crazy and not like Hannibal Lecter here to eat my spleen crazy."

Thomas frowned. "No, I'm not here to eat your...erm. Anything of yours."

"You're a weirdo. I must be really stoned."

"I don't believe anyone threw rocks at you. Certainly not that I saw. Though your battle must have been quite the struggle. The wreckage was impressive."

It was Morgan's turn to frown. This was one hell of an hallucination. "Why are you here?"

"I am what is called a djinn, or a genie," Thomas told her with a simple shrug, "though I have learned that the legends of such are quite different from the reality."

"Genie."

"Yes."

"Okay. Done being stoned now." She looked around her bed.

"What can I do for you?"

"Get me someone normal to talk to," she said. "There's a buzzer here. There's supposed to be a buzzer to call a nurse or whatever. Isn't there? Ugh," Morgan groaned. "Y'know, if you really are a genie, I wish my head would clear."

Thomas promptly rose and reached out to place two fingers on her forehead. A moment later, all the cobwebs and the throbbing headache disappeared. Amazingly, her wounds hurt much less. She looked up at him in shock. "What the hell did you just do?"

Thomas raised a hand to caution her. "You are safe," he said, "but you should know that no one else will see me. Not unless you specifically instruct me otherwise."

It stopped her. She didn't know whether to call for rescue from the crazy person or not, but she certainly didn't think this could be a prank. You simply didn't pull pranks on people in the infirmary the moment they woke up after combat injuries. And where in the hell would anyone get chain mail in the middle of Baghdad?

"I wish for a million dollars," she said flatly.

Thomas paused. An awkward, embarrassed look crossed his face. After a moment he explained, "I don't know what dollars are."

"Seriously?"

"I have learned your language, but most of the references make no sense to me yet. I was only released from my vessel a few hours ago."

"Oh whatever," Morgan frowned. "Y'know what? Fine. Gold. You know what gold is, right? Give me a gold brick. No no no, wait. I wish for a gold brick."

He nodded, then looked down at her bed. He reached down his hand beside hers, and then under her fingers was a solid gold bar.

Morgan blinked. It was real, it certainly looked like gold, and it was way too heavy to have been dropped there by sleight of hand. "Holy shit!" she blurted.

"Staff Sergeant Anderson?" a voice asked. Without thinking, Morgan quickly pulled the blanket up over the gold bar. An orderly poked his head in through the doorway. "You're awake," he said with a smile, coming into the room and turning on the lights.

She winced. "Ugh. Yeah, yeah, I'm awake," Morgan smiled awkwardly. "What happened? Is everyone okay? I remember someone telling me everyone was okay." If there was one thing she had learned to do in counterintelligence, it was how to pretend something wasn't going on. The best thing was to shift attention to a new topic, preferably one of genuine importance.

"Well, there are a couple more people from the ambush here besides you, but we think everyone will pull through okay. How are you feeling?" The orderly's nametag said identified him as Nguyen.

"Like I just got shot up and beat to hell. What's wrong with my eye?"

"Just some swelling. It should be fine in a day or so. Your left foot and ankle aren't too good, but they did a real job on it when you were brought in. There will probably be some rehab, but you aren't going to lose it or anything. Right leg was pretty clean tissue damage as gunshots go. You lost a lot of blood, but we've already got you on the mend there. And you've probably got bruised ribs from the hit you took in the back, but your body armor saved you from anything worse."

"Thank God," she breathed out.

Thomas was still standing there. As he had warned, Nguyen didn't seem to notice the strange man in chain mail at all. Nguyen came over to go through the routine of checking her vitals. Then the medic pulled the usual pen-light-in-the-eyes thing. "I suppose there's no need to ask if you know your name or where you are," he mused as he put the light away.

"I'm Madonna and we're all in Disneyland, right?" Morgan answered. "But I gotta tell you, the rides here suck balls."

"Yeah, but what I wouldn't give for dinner at the Blue Bayou right now," Nguyen smiled. "We thought for sure you had a major concussion on top of everything else, but I guess that was a rush to judgment. You seem pretty lucid, even with the painkillers."

"Huh. How 'bout that," Morgan mumbled.

"Well, there are people who wanted to know when you were awake. Do you need anything before I go off to spread the good news?"

"Just some water," she said. "And can I sit up in this thing at all?"

He smiled and passed her the control for the bed. "You lucked out and got one of the powered beds," Nguyen told her. "I'll be back with some water in a moment."

Morgan got the bed moving up as Nguyen left. She realized then that Thomas was holding out a wooden cup. "I would think his appearance odd," Thomas said, "but then I am staring at a bed that moves on its own, and you were brought here in a cart that had no horses. And something flew in the sky with people inside of it."

She looked up at him curiously. "He's Vietnamese, the 'cart' is called a car, and you probably saw a helicopter." She took the cup from his hands and took a gulp. Then it was time to go back to being suspicious. "Thank you. Okay, two questions. Where are you from?"

"Normandy."

"Right, sorry. I meant when? When are you supposed to be from?"

Thomas thought for a moment on how to answer. "I went on the Crusade called by the Pope to free the Holy Land from the Saracens," he explained slowly. "It was summer, and we had just taken Antioch. That was when I was bound into the vessel that held me until you freed me."

"What vessel? What are you talking about?"

Thomas reached down for something in the chair. He showed her the bottle that she had grabbed in the store with all the intricate line patterns. It was barely recognizable as a bottle any longer, what with all the dents and cracks. "This was to hold me until some worthy soul figured out how to get it open. A test of wisdom as well as worth. Many had tried, but...no one ever considered simply breaking it open on a man's head before now," he explained with a wry smirk.

"Are you still bound to that thing?" Morgan asked. It didn't look like it could hold much of anything anymore.

"No," Thomas answered. "I am bound to you."

"Okay, that's a little creepy."

"I will do all that I can to make this easy for you. I do not wish to cause you discomfort."

Morgan grumbled. Interviewing people was a major aspect of her job. She handled both Iraqi subjects and American and allied servicemen. She handled the liars. She handled the nutjobs. She watched for body language, for inconsistencies, for tells. Her training and experience had made her very good at sniffing out lies.

For all his wild claims, Thomas struck her as completely genuine. And then there was the gold brick, the instant pain relief, the way Nguyen didn't see him at all...which led to her other concern. "So how do I know that I'm not just crazy and imagining all this?" she asked.

Again, Thomas paused before he answered. "How would anyone ever know for certain that the world was real, and not of their own imagining?"

"Guess you've got a point there," Morgan sighed.

"I saw men in a flying metal cart today," Thomas reminded her with a touch of humor in his voice. "I could ask you much the same question. Have I heard correctly that we are in Baghdad?"

"Yeah," Morgan nodded. What the hell, she figured. If I've gone this far off the deep end this suddenly, at least my delusions are kind of cute. "It's, uh...it's the year 2009, and we're in Baghdad. But you should be careful talking about the Crusades around here. That was nine hundred years ago and people here are still pretty pissed about it."

"You are yourself part of a foreign army here then, yes?"

"We're from the United States. That's, um. That's a land that hadn't even been discovered yet when you were born. But my country invaded Iraq. Baghdad. About six years ago. And the people here are still pretty pissed about it," she added wryly.

"I would imagine," Thomas nodded. "I have many questions, if you would be willing to indulge me."

"Yeah. Probably not right away, though. We're not gonna be alone long."

"No," Thomas agreed. "Your name is Lady Anderson?"

"Morgan," she corrected. "Call me Morgan. No 'lady' business."

"You don't wish me to call you mistress or something more formal?"

"Hell no," Morgan chuckled. "That'd be weird. Kinky. Maybe later, but not right now. I mean you're cute and all, but..." she paused, watching him look away for a moment. "You can really do whatever I ask for?"

"There are limitations. I have never used these abilities before, and am only learning them now. Witnesses will complicate anything that I might do and make magic unreliable. We will both have to learn as we go."

"Can you get rid of the beard? The mustache?" she asked. A moment later, his facial hair vanished as if he had a fresh shave. "Fix your teeth? Make them nice and straight and healthy?" Thomas blinked, reaching up to his mouth for a moment, and then when his fingers fell away and he offered a soft smile, Morgan smiled back. "Definitely handsome," she decided.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"You're gonna need different clothes, too. That chain mail is freakin' me out. Can you give yourself clothes like the other guys out there wear? A uniform?"

Thomas cracked his knuckles. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and soon he seemed to fade for a moment until he was wearing standard desert BDUs. The nametag said "Anderson," and his insignia were identical to those she wore on her own uniform.

"Well, you can get rid of the shirt," Morgan smirked. "A black t-shirt would look good on you. Like the guys out there wear under their uniform shirts, but black."

A moment later, Thomas was dressed exactly as she wanted. Morgan's grin had his face reddening. "You're blushing," she observed.

"This is a bit awkward," he admitted.

"I'm sorry," Morgan shrugged. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Thomas shook his head. "I will be fine. Do not concern yourself. I am your servant. It would not be so if you were not worthy of my power or my trust. There are...worse things than to have a woman such as you tell me that I am handsome."

"Such as me?" she smirked.

"You may be bruised, but I can still see that you are very beautiful."

"Hah!" Morgan laughed, and then coughed. "You're just sayin' that 'cause I've got all my teeth and I don't have any scars from the pox!"

"These are no small things."

"They are where I'm from," she replied dryly. "I've been told I'm pretty before, but...well. Thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

"Can you fix what's wrong with me? My foot and stuff?"

He nodded. "Again, witnesses make magic somewhat unreliable, but if they arrive after the work is done, there is no issue. Since it seemed clear that you would survive, I did not want to take action without your leave."

"Probably for the best. God knows I wouldn't be able to answer those questions." She thought for a moment. "You're really a genie and you're really going to serve me?"

"Yes."

"And I'm not limited to just three wishes?"

"Why would there be a limit?"

"Nevermind. And you're not going to try to twist my wishes around to fuck me over with them? Or fuck over someone else?"

He paused to consider her strange phrases. "Why would I do any of that?"

"Alright. Just keep quiet, then. We have to play this subtle until I figure out what to do with you. And you'd better get rid of this," she added, tapping the gold bar. A moment later, it vanished into thin air.

They both fell silent for a moment. Morgan listened for activity outside her door as she thought. "What did you mean, 'worthy?'"

"I took up the sword for Christ, but found myself serving only cruel, greedy men," Thomas answered with a touch of guilt in his voice. "Men who would slaughter one another for Saracen plunder, to say nothing of what they did to the Saracens. It was folly. All of it. Good people on both sides died for no good reason. When I...I was as good as dead when I was offered the chance to become what I am. I agreed, but only if I might serve someone who was of good and just heart. My conditions were met," Thomas finished with a shrug. "You look sad," he observed.

"So do you."

"It is a sad story."

She reached out to touch his hand. There were voices coming down the hall, voices she recognized. "Maybe you'll get a happy ending out of it." They looked at one another, and then she released his hand as the voices grew near. He took it as his cue to step into a corner.

"Besides," she added with a grin, "you're really hot."

Nguyen returned. Thomas, confused, raised his hand to his head to see if he was feverish, but soon others in the room distracted him from such concerns.

Among the people with Nguyen, one stood out among the rest. He was a big man, dark-skinned and completely bald, and the authority with which he moved was instantly recognizable even to Thomas. The man had something of a smile playing at his lips. Thomas glanced to Morgan, who inhaled sharply and even tried to sit up. "Colonel Wallace," she began.

"Just relax, Morgan," he said with a deep voice that resonated with a gentleness that seemed somehow out of place to Thomas. He had a hand up to indicate that she should relax. "It's not like there's a regulation for laying in the infirmary at attention." 

"Yes sir," Morgan said, sinking back only slightly.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked.

"Please," she answered quietly.

The older man claimed the chair next to Morgan's bed. The other people stayed standing near the doorway. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better, but I could be a lot worse, sir."

"You had one hell of a day."

"Sir," she simply nodded back. "Is everyone else okay, sir?"

"They're gonna be fine," he smiled softly, "largely thanks to you."

"Gomez was in charge, sir. I just followed his lead."

"Gomez didn't take out an RPG and then pick a grenade up out of his lap and huck it back out the door," Wallace countered. "You saved everyone in your vehicle, and really the one in front of it, too." He paused, then added, "They were going for prisoners, Morgan. That's why they didn't just bomb and run."

It hung there for a moment. There were no illusions about what would have happened to anyone who had been captured. "Gomez saw what you did when they grabbed you, Morgan. He said that move with the grenade was about the gutsiest thing he's ever seen. The guy you pulled it off of survived and told us what you did, too, and let me tell you, he thinks you're nuts. And that other prisoner you took isn't gonna be a happy camper once he recovers from the concussions you gave him." Wallace couldn't help but chuckle. "Jesus, Morgan, what'd you hit him with, anyway?"

"Some old bottle," she said. Morgan was still just enough off her game to glance reflexively at the battered bottle on her nightstand.

Wallace saw it, noticing the bottle for the first time. He picked it up and looked at it oddly. "Now how'd that get in here?" he asked.

The colonel glanced back at Nguyen, who simply shrugged. "I suppose one of the medics who took care of her might've brought it along," he said. "I don't know."

Morgan said nothing. The moment gave her pause. If she really was just hallucinating about Thomas—if she really was crazy—then she had to be pretty far gone to have other people interact consistently with her delusions. As Wallace shrugged and put the bottle back, she glanced to Thomas, who only shrugged with embarrassment.

"I think you and I know what was really impressive about this, though," Wallace went on.

"Sir?"

"Sergeant Randall already came down and retrieved your gear," Wallace explained, "and Morkot's basically okay. The MP's have already rounded up our suspects. Morgan, I don't know how you got that woman to talk, but you did a damn good job today. A damn good job."

"That's good to know, sir," Morgan nodded.

"Captain Smalls wanted me to convey his thanks, too. Hard to do an investigation on your own guys, but once he saw the weight of the evidence he made up his mind pretty quick." Wallace laid his hand on Morgan's and squeezed it.

"I think she'll testify if she has to, sir," Morgan told him.

"Yeah, well, if they have any sense, they'll plead guilty before it comes to that. Otherwise they're gonna have to face both her and you at their court martial, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody after today."

Morgan tried not to blush. It wasn't easy. "Thank you, sir," she said quietly.

He just nodded, then patted her hand, and fell silent for a moment. "So the doctor tells me that you might be laid up for awhile with the leg," he went on. "You'll walk again, he says, but it's going to be some months before you're fit for full duty again—if ever," he added honestly, "and as I recall your enlistment is up before that."

"In March, sir," Morgan nodded. "Right after we're due to rotate back out. Terminal leave has me out in early March."

"Well, then, you've got some things to think about," Wallace told her gently. "I know you weren't seriously considering reenlisting. I'd probably question your sanity if today's festivities changed your mind," he smiled wryly.

"Probably not, sir," she admitted, returning his smile.

"That's too bad. That Purple Heart you just earned counts toward promotions," Wallace winked. Morgan snorted ruefully. "Well, nobody's gonna move you for a couple days at least, and we're going to need to wrap up your current workload in any case. You'll probably have more than a few visitors, and we'll make sure you aren't bored or lonely."

Morgan chuckled. "I'm sure I won't be lonely, sir." She stole a glance at Thomas, who remained quiet and unnoticed in the corner.

"I'm sure."

"She should probably have some rest for now, sir," Nguyen spoke up.

Wallace shared an eyeroll with Morgan. "Medics," he smirked, but stood up as suggested. As he turned to leave, shooing his entourage out of the room, Wallace stole another look at her. "Y'know," he said, "I know six or seven guys right now who are alive thanks to you. There's a whole pack of insurgents who won't be hurting anyone else anymore. Three scumbags are gonna go to Leavenworth for rape, and the woman they hurt is gonna know that. And the next fool who pipes up in Congress or on TV about how women don't belong in combat is gonna hear your name when he gets shut down. That's pretty good for a day's work."




Morgan's Genie Ch. 01



Morgan's breath came out with a quiver. She bit her lip for a second, trying to blink away the tear in her eye, but gave up on it. "Thank you, sir," she said in a wavering voice. The etiquette for the moment was all wrong for it, but she saluted anyway. Wallace returned the salute, holding both it and Morgan's gaze for a moment longer than necessary, then headed out again.

She was alone then. Morgan let out a single, shuddering sob, bringing her hand to her mouth to keep it from quivering. A second tear fell, and then a third. Morgan looked around for a tissue box—there had to be one—and, as she reached for it, saw Thomas still standing there quietly in the corner.

"Sorry," she mumbled after she blew her nose and regained her composure.

"Why?"

"Just...embarrassing," Morgan shrugged.

"Is that man your liege?"

"He's my C.O.," she answered, then immediately realized Thomas wouldn't understand. "We don't swear loyalty to individual people. Colonel Wallace is in charge of my unit. My group of soldiers. And he's...he's about the best leader I've ever known."

"He's very proud of you," Thomas noted simply.

"Yeah," came her shaken reply. "Yeah, I guess so. He doesn't...that meant a lot from him."

Thomas didn't say anything after that, allowing Morgan a moment to regain her composure.

"You can really fix me up?" she asked.

"I can," Thomas nodded. "I could do it instantly and create illusions for others showing injuries. I believe I could create the impression of rapid but normal natural healing if we take some time to be subtle about it."

Morgan thought for a moment. She looked around for something. "What can I get you?" Thomas asked.

"Nothing," she said. "Just...nothing at the moment. Give me a second." There was a mirror hanging on a nearby wall. She'd have preferred to see up close, but she would have to take what she could get in that moment. Morgan then peeled the tape and gauze away from her left eye, revealing the ugly swelling and bruising. As she suspected, she couldn't really open it. She turned to Thomas. "Fix this," she said, pointing to her eye.

Thomas reached out for the side of her face. Over the course of a few heartbeats, Morgan felt the swelling decrease and found herself able to open the eye on her own. She was able to see with it just fine. In the mirror, her eye looked completely unharmed.

She glanced up at Thomas again, who looked down at her quietly. It made her lose her train of thought. For that moment, all she could think was that she very much liked the way he looked at her.

"Okay, do whatever will make that look natural," Morgan instructed. "I don't really want all that bruising back, but whatever will seem like good progress without being strange or suspicious is fine."

He touched the side of her face again. "And the rest?" he asked.

"We'll have to get to that later," Morgan said. "I have something else for you to do right now. I don't suppose you can speak Arabic?"

"I can learn very, very quickly," Thomas nodded.

* * *

Raneen took her time washing the dishes. She had kept herself busy with cleaning ever since that ugly night, taking care of the kitchen, clothing, linens and anything else she could find. Her family's small home had never been cleaner. It had become a chore just to find things to do.

Mostly, she wanted to clean herself, but her mother and father had both finally told her that this could only go so far before it was unhealthy. There were people who would say that one such as her could never really be clean again, but Raneen knew that those people were themselves simply ignorant and cruel.

She knew that in her head, but it was hard to tell that to her gut.

Until tonight, her cleaning habits had always come on with great energy. She focused on little things, little stains, trying to wipe or scrape away anything that was out of place to the point that she sometimes wondered if she imagined it. Tonight, though, she took her time. Her hands didn't shake. She was still cleaning, of course...but for once, she wasn't afraid to think while she washed the dishes.

Raneen had been mortified when the Americans came that morning. Her parents weren't going to let them in, and were enraged at her brother for having told them what had happened. They had themselves lived for a very long time in a world where one simply didn't speak of the things that soldiers did. Her brother, so enraged at what had happened to Raneen, couldn't stop himself.

In the end, neither could Raneen. The woman soldier with the green eyes had an expression to her face that was unmistakable. Compassion, but not pity. She pleaded to Raneen—-pleaded with her, no intimidation, no threats, just pleas—-not to let the other soldiers get away with what they had done. Not to let them do it again to someone else.

For the first time in so many nights, each of them seemingly endless, Raneen felt like she might have some sort of power. Some sort of way to fight back. All she had to do, the woman soldier said, was to tell her story. And so Raneen brought the woman soldier, Morgan, into a small room and fought back her tears and her fear and told her story.

When it was done, Morgan asked Raneen if she could tell it again to others. After a moment's thought, Raneen decided that she could. She could not fight off three armed men, but she could certainly speak.

Better to die, she decided, than to stay silent.

It was one thing, though, to speak to Americans about Americans. They would someday leave. They had to leave someday. Raneen didn't relish the idea of facing her neighbors, though, or what they might say. She hadn't really left her family's home since it happened.

She was thinking about this when there was a tap at the window. Raneen jumped a bit, startling as it was, but felt strangely unafraid. She looked out of the kitchen to her family, who sat in the next room talking—Hasan apparently hadn't yet absorbed enough of their father's wrath—but they did not seem to have heard the knock.

Against common sense, perhaps, Raneen moved over to the window and opened it. Standing outside was a lone soldier, unarmed and with his hands out in the open. "Morgan sent me," he said simply.

Raneen blinked. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Morgan asked me to look in on you," he said. "Are you alright?"

"I am fine," she said, but frowned. "Are you alone? You have no gun. Aren't you afraid?"

The soldier shook his head. "No one will see me," he told her. "Morgan asked me to look in on you and tell you not to be afraid. There will be no trouble from your neighbors. I have seen to it."

Raneen frowned. His words had the ring of truth to it, but still she asked, "How can you be sure?"

"You will have to trust me," he shrugged, "but please. Don't be afraid. You are going to be fine. I am also to tell you that Morgan was in a battle today, but she is fine. If you hear about it, don't worry. She was hurt but it isn't bad."

"She was hurt?" Raneen said. "May I see her?"

The soldier shrugged. "I will ask her, but I suspect that could be arranged." He paused. "Morgan wanted me to tell you that you are very brave."

Raneen blinked. "Tell her thank you," she said, "and tell her that I will pray for her."

The soldier bowed. Raneen thought this was strange -- she hadn't ever seen American soldiers bow -- but she nodded her head, and as it seemed like her conversation was ended, she closed the window.

The dishes were done. There was nothing left to clean, and no need. Raneen moved through the kitchen, joined her family in the other room, and listened to her father tell her beloved brother in all sorts of new and amusing ways how stupid he was sometimes.

It was the first time Raneen had laughed in many seemingly endless nights. Her father, mother and brother all noticed, but did not say anything. Instead, her father continued to rant at Hasan for another half hour. Raneen laughed more; her father was quite good at this.

Hasan's intellect was compared to that of various animals, vegetables and rocks, but as it brought the first smile he had seen from his sister in so long, he didn't really mind.

* * *

All talk of betrayal and collaboration with the Americans ceased in the neighborhood that night. It happened in one house after another, suddenly and with finality, but no one actually took notice. The subjects simply changed. The fighters who came through to investigate reports of American soldiers interviewing a family never found out what family it had been, or why, and quickly forgot about the whole thing.

The sickness that threatened Raneen would never take hold. It disappeared from her body without her ever knowing she had been infected. It was simply gone, as if the men had never touched her in the first place.

That couldn't be remedied, of course. Thomas had the power to erase it from everyone's memory, to undo the damage done and make it as if it had never happened, but Morgan had counseled against that. It was a moral quandary for her, but in the end there was too much that could go beyond Thomas's control. Erasing the past was a tricky thing. Ensuring that one could survive it, however, was more reliably done.

That was bound to happen without his aid, but magic certainly didn't hurt.

Thomas slipped into the small home again when Raneen finally went to bed, unseen and unheard as he passed through walls and peered unhindered through the darkness. He helped her get to sleep, and when that was settled, he helped her through her nightmares. Fewer and fewer of them would trouble her in the nights to come.

He would go back, Morgan had said, once she had thought things through more thoroughly. But in the meantime, the family would be safe from reprisal or illness or accident. The healing had begun before Thomas had ever even shown up. He wasn't there to fix things. He was just there to make it all a little easier.

As he returned to the base and the infirmary, Thomas thought back to Antioch and the warnings of the old man. There were men who rode in flying metal carts here, and other carts that rolled on with no horses to pull them, and women who fought with an army that would follow orders from men of dark skin. The world had changed so very much.

The old man had warned him that it would take a long time to find a worthy master -- or mistress. But as Thomas found Morgan asleep in her bed, he felt no regret. This woman seemed very much worth the wait.



Morgan's Genie Ch. 02



Chapter Two: Intensive Care

The Next Day

Baghdad, Iraq

"Oh thank God. I thought it was gonna be oatmeal or grits."

"Hey, you ain't that busted up," said the other soldier as he placed the tray over Morgan's lap. "And I don't know about you intel types, but torture's illegal in this hospital."

Morgan smiled as the soldier left, then leaned forward to smell her breakfast. "Wow," she said, "I don't think this came off the assembly line." She poured the cup of syrup over her pancakes, swirled the lump of butter around the top, and then pulled off a forkful to put in her mouth. Her eyes closed -- they had removed the eye patch early in the morning -- and her smile became serene.

When her eyes opened again, they turned to Thomas, who had returned to his seat. Every time someone came in the room, he got up in case they would want the chair. But whenever they were alone, he took up the spot again. It was where he was when she awoke. "You ever had pancakes?"

"What, bread? We had bread," he shrugged. "The sauce you are using is strange, though."

She pointed with her fork. "Pancakes, not bread. The sauce is maple syrup. The white stuff is just butter, and the yellow lumpy stuff is eggs."

"I know what eggs and butter are," Thomas said gently.

"C'mere," Morgan told him. She cut off another lump of pancakes with her fork. "Open your mouth," she instructed, and then fed him his first taste of pancakes with maple syrup, along with a long moment of eye contact.

"Mmh," Thomas blinked, chewing slowly. "That is very good."

"I think you're gonna like modern food," Morgan smiled, then cocked her head curiously. "So okay, genie man. Do you need to eat? Sleep? All that stuff?"

He shrugged. "I'll know when I get hungry or tired, I suppose. I haven't been either, though I'm not surprised that I am not tired. I've been in a dream state for hundreds of years, after all."

"But you're not hungry, either?"

"Now that I think about it and there's food in front of me, I am," Thomas nodded. "Famished, actually."

"Well, good, 'cause I'm not gonna be able to eat all of this." Morgan decided to put some scrambled eggs in his mouth, too. "They're probably gonna think it's weird if I order up enough food here for two people, though, so you might have to go find the mess hall and swipe something all on your own. Or just order it, if you can show yourself."

"I can show myself," Thomas said after swallowing. "What is a 'mess hall?'"

Morgan snorted. "Oh man. This is gonna be a constant thing, isn't it? I don't suppose you could just magic up an understanding of the modern world, could you? Maybe pull it out of my head or something?"

Her secret companion shook his head ruefully. "No. It would appear that language is one thing, but knowing what is in another person's mind is quite another. I affected Raneen's dreams by speaking to her as she slept. I can misdirect attention and make things easily forgotten, but that would appear to be the limits of my ability to affect the mind."

"Fair enough," Morgan said. She continued eating, finding herself increasingly happy to have him around. He was pleasant, friendly, cute, adorably lost amid electric lights and modern medicine...and sincerely eager to please her. "So okay. You can make yourself invisible to people and you can heal me, and you can make gold out of nothing. What else can you do? Anything?" As he opened his mouth to reply, Morgan grinned excitedly. "Wait, wait, don't tell me. You can't kill anybody, you can't make anybody fall in love with anybody else, and you can't bring back the dead?" He blinked thoughtfully, yet with a little confusion. "Sorry. Childhood movie reference. Aaand you don't even know what a movie is. Wow, I'm just making this more and more complicated, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"Sorry."

"I feel perfectly capable of killing," Thomas said after a moment's consideration.

"I don't plan on asking you to," Morgan replied quickly.

"I suppose that's good," he shrugged. "As for the rest, yes, I doubt that I could raise the dead. As far as making a person love someone, I suppose I would have to try."

His mistress shook her head. "Sorry, that was a tangent. But what else can you do?"

"The old man told me that matters of the soul were very difficult to affect with magic...which leads me to believe that love would be difficult, though not attraction. I cannot simply create a soul, so I would not be able to create a person from nothing." He paused. "Or animals. Though I believe I could create convincing illusions of both that would affect all senses."

"Plants?"

"Surely."

"Turn back time? Travel through time?"

"No," he said after a moment's consideration. "I wouldn't know where to begin in even trying."

"You had that gold brick. Did you create that, or did it come from somewhere?"

"I created it. I believe I could create most anything that you asked for, as long as I understood what it was. I could create more maple syrup for you now that I know what it is," he added slowly as he considered it.

Morgan watched him think. It seemed odd that he didn't know all of his own powers, but at the same time it was interesting to see him try to explain it. Given her work in interpreting and interviewing, she understood how difficult it was to communicate concepts when a common frame of reference was sketchy at best. Thomas may have been a common foot soldier nine hundred years ago, but he seemed naturally bright.

"My ability to heal includes some degree of manipulating the body," he went on. He seemed to be staring at her chest, which, Morgan considered, wasn't exactly flattered by her hospital gown. "You will die of a wasting illness in twenty years, perhaps somewhat more."

Her eyes went wide. "Um. Can you fix that?"

"I can," Thomas said, and after a moment with his eyes closed, he corrected, "I have."

"That's nice," Morgan grunted. She didn't feel any different, but as long as she was going along with all this -- and everything told her that Thomas was for real -- then it was certainly a sudden relief.

"Had you lost your foot or leg from yesterday's battle, I could have restored it," Thomas continued. "I could make you look different. Make you healthier. These would be real changes, not mere illusions."

"You picked up modern English and Arabic pretty quickly," Morgan noted. "Do you think you can learn other things that fast?" Thomas merely shrugged, leaving Morgan to ponder it. "Sixty-three weeks at DLI to learn Arabic and you pick it up in a few minutes," she grumbled.

"What is DLI?"

"Defense Language Institute," Morgan answered as she pushed her plate away. There was still some food on it. She offered it to Thomas, who happily accepted it. "It's a school in my country where they teach foreign languages to the military and diplomats and such."

"Do they send all warriors there?" Thomas blinked.

"No," she chuckled. "Not even close. Just people who are likely to need the training, which admittedly is several hundred people at a time."

"That seems like a long time to spend on learning a language. How much time do you spend learning to fight?"

Morgan snorted. "That depends on how much of your job is fighting. Most soldiers don't specialize in fighting anymore so much as doing all the things it takes to support those who do the real fighting. Everybody trains to fight to varying degrees, but...well. There's a lot that can vary there. Like with me, I'm a woman, so I can't be in a front-line fighting specialty in the first place. So while I was taught to fight, I didn't get nearly as much training as someone in the infantry would."

"Ah. You were ambushed yesterday," Thomas remembered. "You didn't go out looking for the enemy."

"Not so much, no."

"What do you do as a soldier, then, if you do not fight? You are here as an interpreter?"

"Largely," Morgan nodded. "My job is counterintelligence. I was what's called a 'human intelligence collector' before that. I'm supposed to help figure out what the enemy is going to do before he does it. And I'm supposed to help catch his spies. But a lot of that is about talking to people, so I have to know the language. And since I know the language, I get pulled to do all sorts of other tasks that aren't always about my job."

"Like dealing with Raneen yesterday," Thomas said.

"Exactly. The men who attacked her were military police. They're supposed to be the ones to catch our own soldiers when they break the law. But since they're the lawbreakers here, we didn't want to use one of their own people who speak Arabic to interview Raneen. That's how I got called into it...and maybe it's arrogant of me to say, but I can't imagine too many other folks getting her to talk like I did."

"What will happen to them?"

"Well, they're under arrest now and the crime was pretty serious, so they'll probably stay jailed until they go on trial," Morgan said. "If they were civilians -- I mean, if they weren't soldiers and this had happened back in my homeland -- then they might have a good shot at getting out of trouble in their trial. But military justice isn't as easy to escape. They're definitely in trouble for stuff related to attacking Raneen, but I think they'll be found guilty of the attack itself, too."

"Will they be put to death?"

"Nah. But they'll do hard time. They'll be in prison for years, and it'll be military prison. It won't be pleasant. And it'll be awfully hard to pick up and move on when they finally get out." She was quiet for a moment. "Hardly seems like enough for what they did to her, but it's better than nothing, I guess."

After a long moment, Thomas said quietly, "Your army considers rape a grave crime."

"Supposed to, anyway," Morgan sighed. "It's not like guys don't get away with it sometimes."

"My army would hardly have cared at all."

Morgan looked up at him, surprised at the look in his eyes. "What about you?" she dared to ask.

"I struck a serving girl once, before the Crusade. I was drunk and angry and stupid," Thomas admitted. "It was commonplace. Worse was commonplace. But I was horrified at what I had done. Most of my friends laughed at me and called me soft, and thought I was foolish to have made such a fuss over apologizing and trying to make amends. But I was foolish to hit her. I knew that the moment my hand landed." He looked Morgan in the eye. "And I never struck a woman thereafter."

"But you went on the Crusade," she said. "You fought Muslims?"

"I did," he nodded. "It was what the Church told us must be done. They told us the Muslims were evil. That they did not have souls. That they were servants of Satan. That fighting them would cleanse us of sin."

"What happened then?" Morgan asked softly. "You don't seem to think that now."

Thomas shrugged. "I realized they saw much the same evil in us. And in looking at my fellows, I could not argue the point." He inhaled deeply, as if such things were difficult to say. "I looked around at my fellow Christians and could not see any reason why one would want to accept Christ."

Morgan reached out and found his hand. When he looked her in the eye again, she said, "My country is mostly Christians. I was raised as a Christian, but I'm not terribly observant anymore. In my country, our very first law says that there can't be laws about religion. Nobody gets to tell anyone else what religion they have to be. We have many Muslims. We have many Jews. We have religions you've never heard of, and we have people who don't believe in a god at all. And we've got some real idiots, I'll admit, but most of my people would go nuts if someone really tried to force out one religion or another."

The thought amazed him. "How do you manage that?" he asked.

She grinned. "It's a total pain in the ass sometimes," Morgan conceded, "but we love it."

"I look forward to seeing it with you," Thomas smiled back quietly.

"We don't put up with slavery, either," she said with even greater seriousness. "It led to a civil war a long time before I was born. We'll lock a man up for a crime, put him to labor...but it's not slavery. We don't do that anymore. So that's kind of a problem here with you and I."

"I came to this state as a form of penance," Thomas assured her. "There are reasons why only a worthy master could open my vessel -- or mistress," he corrected with a slight grin. "My power comes largely from service. I am not sure how much I would be weakened if you were to set me free, but I know I would lose much. I would be utterly lost in this time." He fell silent, pondering a resolution to this. "Surely your country permits willing service?"

"It does," Morgan nodded slowly. "You'll say something if you feel differently about this in the future?"

"If that is your wish," he bowed slightly. When he raised his head, he added, "Bear in mind how far I was willing to go in service to a mortal lord and my faith once before. I do not believe that I would be bound to you now if your nature was incompatible with my conscience. That was the point of the enchantment on the vessel. My faith may have been misled, and I can already tell you now that you are a far better person than my previous liege. I would not give my unconditional service again lightly...yet I swear it now to you."

They were silent for a moment before Morgan took a long breath. "Wow," she said, "this conversation got awfully heavy."

"It did," Thomas agreed. "I apologize."

"Not your fault."

"I imagine we both have a thousand more questions."

"Yeah. Well. I've got one more for now. Are you ever gonna go away?"

"I wouldn't presume to be immortal," he said, "but I will only ever leave you if you ask it of me."

"See, I'm not gonna want you hovering over my shoulder all the time. That's just creepy. Clingy, too. It's unattractive."

"I see your point," Thomas conceded. "I can certainly come and go freely if that is your whim. You could always summon me at your wish. But my presence or absence is ultimately contingent upon your whim." He paused. "And it would be difficult while you hold my hand." Morgan blushed and mumbled an apology as she started to turn back but Thomas squeezed warmly. "I don't mind."

Her breath shook a bit, but her smile held. If anything, her face only reddened as he looked in her eyes. "You're a charmer," she admitted.

"Not many have said so. Thank you."

"Did you...have a wife? A woman at all?"

"No one," Thomas shook his head. "My family was poor. I admit that the Crusade provided an opportunity to better myself. Faith was my motive, but to say I did not have small hopes of earthly rewards along the way would be a lie."

"So no women at all? Ever?"

"Well, I didn't say that," Thomas chuckled with a hint of embarrassment. "But I left no one behind. And you? A husband?"

"Well, I've had boyfriends," Morgan said, "but the last one...we were living together before I came out here, but just before I left I found out about his other woman. But we weren't married. We were, um...I'm not really much of a Christian when it comes to all that," Morgan confessed. Her grin shrank, but remained.

"I am no one to judge," her companion shrugged. "Surely I am damned for being tainted by heathen sorcery, anyway."

"I kinda doubt that."

"Do you want him back?" Thomas asked gently. Morgan blinked in surprise as Thomas added, "I don't believe I can make him fall in love, but I am certain I could help you in such a pursuit in many ways."

"No. Hell, no," Morgan shook her head. "He's an asshole. I don't want that. Thomas...that wouldn't bother you? You wouldn't feel...weird about that?"

"My first and only real loyalty is to you, Morgan," Thomas told her. "If you have romantic interests, I stand at your service in pursuit of them."

She eyed him for a long moment. She was good at reading people. Very good. It was, after all, at the heart of her job. As much as his gaze and his voice and those shoulders left her heart all aflutter, she was pretty sure she had a good read on Thomas.

At least, that was what she told herself.

The pair fell silent again, but their hands remained together and the gaze held. "If I ask something of you that you object to," she said slowly, "and I mean really object to because it'll hurt you or it feels wrong...promise me you'll at least say something?"

"I am not worried," Thomas answered, "but I will speak my mind if that is your wish." His voice was as resolute as any gung-ho, can-do affirmation she ever heard from her comrades, yet he was considerably cooler about it. "Command me without hesitation."

"Good. 'cause I've got instructions."

His mouth curved into a half-grin. "I am at your service, milady."

"Alright. So like you said, magic only really works if we keep it quiet, right? So it'd probably be a bad thing to have you just heal me. But this laying in the hospital when I can have myself fixed up just right is crap." Thomas nodded, listening as she spoke. "Can you make sure we're not disturbed for awhile? Give us some extended privacy?"

He thought about it for a moment, then rose and closed the door. He laid his hand upon the door for a moment, then nodded. "Done."

"And nobody's gonna think that's odd?"

"They'll presume that things are normal and that there is no need for alarm," Thomas said, "though I wouldn't advise running with this deception for long. Not until I am more accustomed to your world and the expectations of those around you."

"Fair enough. Now, can you heal me but fix it so nobody notices?"

He considered her wish. "I could," he said. "As I said, I can create elaborate illusions. I could heal you and ensure that those who looked upon you would still see the injuries you have now. Or I could genuinely revert you to this state if it were truly necessary for secrecy."

"Ugh. Thank God. Okay, fix me right now," Morgan grinned. "I want to be perfectly healthy again. Healthier than I've ever been."

Thomas came to stand over her at the foot of the bed. He reached for her heavily bandaged and wrapped left foot, slowly running his hand around it, and her ankle, and her lower calf. Morgan felt her flesh stretch and knit in sensations that were decidedly odd yet not at all painful.

Then his attention shifted. Morgan inhaled softly, watching him with bated breath as his hands moved to her right thigh. His touch was gentle and warm as he wrapped his hands around her knee and slowly slid upward. He went as far as the bandages around her gunshot wound, and then somewhat higher, but as muscles mended and skin grew over the wound Morgan found herself thinking less about the wound and more about his hands.

When those warm hands came away from her leg, she was almost a bit disappointed, but then his eyes met hers. She bit her lip. "Your back," he said softly, reaching one hand under her right arm. Taking his meaning, Morgan sat up, twisting a bit so he could place his healing touch on the ugly bruises from where her body armor had saved her from bullets. Again, she inhaled softly. Morgan realized that she was trembling.

Thomas guided her down onto her back again. He finished, as she knew he would, by reaching to the left side of her face. He looked in her eyes and yet just to the side of them as he worked his magic around her eye socket, which was still tender. She loved the way he looked at her. She never thought of herself as more than passingly pretty even when she was all made up for a date. Here she was beaten to hell and laying in a hospital bed, hair matted and well over a day past her last shower, and yet he seemed absolutely dazzled.

"Wow," she whispered. He responded with a humble smile until she said, "I hope Raneen wasn't embarrassed about being touched like that when you took care of her...?"

His eyes widened. Morgan bit her grinning lip as his embarrassment became obvious. "I hadn't...ah..." he tried.




Morgan's Genie Ch. 03



Chapter Three: Perspective

Later That Night

Baghdad, Iraq

"So it could have been much, much worse," Major Bhandari continued. She traced out several small lines on the x-ray photograph of Morgan's ankle. "From what I surmise, either one of the hostiles had fallen in between your leg and the grenade when it blew, or you're simply phenomenally lucky to have caught so little in the way of burns and shrapnel. I have to say I lean toward the former."

"Well, better lucky than good, right?" Morgan replied. She deliberately looked at the doctor sitting in the chair next to her bed, because looking at Thomas's expression of amazement at the x-ray was going to make her giggle. She couldn't help but smile as it was.

"I will take luck any day," Major Bhandari nodded. Her accent was still closer to her Indian-schooled Queen's English than that of her American comrades, and the doctor's coat she wore looked much more fitting on her than her fatigues. Morgan felt an instant liking for Major Bhandari. She had an excellent bedside manner. Bhandari skipped straight to calling Morgan by her name rather than rank right off the bat. "And it's also good to see you in good spirits."

"I can't complain about getting to lay in bed all day," Morgan shrugged with a slight grin. She flashed a wink at Thomas that the doctor didn't notice.

"You may be the only person in this hospital who feels that way," Bhandari mused soberly. Morgan's grin disappeared. She was silent as the doctor wrote notes on her clipboard. Thomas noted Morgan's crestfallen expression with concern but said nothing that might make it difficult to pretend he wasn't present.

"So," Bhandari went on, "you'll be laid up for a couple of weeks, give or take, and you'll have to be on very light duty for a couple of months after that -- possibly three, though you're already doing marvelously. Given that, I have to say, you won't be here in Baghdad much longer. I can't say when you'll be off to Germany, but I can't imagine you being here more than a few days at the most. There simply isn't room for you."

"How...how bad is it, ma'am? In the rest of the hospital, I mean?"

Bhandari looked up at Morgan curiously. "We have a couple here that might not make it through the night," she said bluntly. "But as I'm sure you know, it's not like it used to be. We save many more of our patients than our predecessors could in earlier wars. It's the healing and the adjustments that are the real challenge." Bhandari paused, and then smiled a bit sadly. "It's not as bad as it was on my last deployment."

Seeing the sober nod from her patient, Bhandari put her hand on Morgan's. "I've already heard what you did, Morgan. You saved a lot of lives, and you saved yourself."

"So I'm told," Morgan shrugged. She looked up at the doctor thoughtfully. "How do you deal with working here? How do you manage it?"

"I put my head down and wade in, just like you did and just like all the grunts out there," Bhandari told her simply. "And I take care of myself as best I can."

"Feels kind of bad, now that I think about it," Morgan mumbled. "Sitting in here while all that's going on outside."

"A lot of patients feel that way. Morgan, you have a right to be happy. You're alive and in one piece. Being happy for yourself doesn't make you a bad person, no matter how badly off others are. You can't save them all. And you're no good to anyone else if you're never good to yourself."

She looked at Morgan, waiting for her patient to nod. It wasn't entirely convincing, but Bhandari couldn't linger. "On that note, though, I've got others to look in on. So like I said. Rest, eat and drink well and let us know if you feel any differently at all. And whatever you're doing for yourself, keep doing it, because you already look better than someone in your position normally would." Bhandari smiled kindly, gave Morgan's hand a maternal pat, and headed out.

"Thank you, ma'am," Morgan mumbled. She didn't know if the doctor had heard it or not, but there were other things on her mind already.

"Those were really pictures of your insides?" Thomas asked in awe as he stepped closer to her side. "The material alone is amazing, but what artist could paint--?"

"I'm such a douchebag," his mistress interrupted. "Such a selfish twat."

"You are not," Thomas frowned, knowing neither what a twat might be or what a douche was (or why one would need a bag of them), but understanding the tone perfectly.

"Thomas," she said, looking up at him now. "You aren't powerful enough to stop the war, are you? If I wished it? Could you make it stop?"

He shook his head. "Were genies that powerful, surely there would have been no Crusade. I could go out in search of your enemies. I could lay them low bit by bit, in groups of dozens or perhaps even a few hundred...but the more of them I face at once, the more my powers fade. Yet ultimately I would merely be one very effective warrior amid an entire war."

"Yeah. Okay. I kinda figured that." Morgan didn't give it much more thought. He was magical, but he wasn't psychic, and that would lead to the same basic problem of the war: if the enemy could be drawn out into large, open battles, there very quickly wouldn't be much of an enemy anymore, and the enemy -- however one defined them -- knew that all too well.

She put it aside. Fretting about that would only make her more insane. There were other productive things that could be done. She had to think of something. "You can help the people in this hospital, right? The wounded? The sick?"

His gaze held a warning. "I can," he nodded, "but I have to remind you that we must be careful. Magic must be kept hidden by its nature, and—"

"Alright, I know already. Look, I'm not asking you to just magic everyone's problems away. But anything's better than nothing." It was hard to keep from sounding desperate. She probably wasn't doing a good job. "You can do something, right?"

"I suppose that would be a matter of circumstance," the genie shrugged. "I would have to see each one at a time."

"Then I need you to get out there and help people however you can. Can you sneak me around with you? Or would that slow you down?"

Thomas considered it. "I don't yet know the limits of my power. I only know that it is finite. But I understand so little of what is going on here. I can't imagine that I would do as much good alone as I would if I had you to guide me."

"Then get me up and make me invisible or however it is that everyone ignores you," she said, gesturing to the door. "Just...look, we can't let anyone die here tonight, all right? I don't want to think about people being in pain and dying while I'm laying in here getting laid and having a good time, alright?" Her voice cracked at the last. Tears were forming in her eyes.

"I'll do my best," Thomas bowed. He reached for her legs, mending each one in seconds.

Morgan swung herself out of the bed, pausing only to test the strength of her legs. "Sitting in a hospital in the middle of a war," she grumbles, "and the first thing I think of when a fucking genie lands in my lap is that I want to try out his cock."

Thomas blinked. His face flushed. When Morgan looked up at him expectantly, he could do little more than clear his throat.

"Am I invisible?" she asked. "And can we make sure nobody notices I'm gone?"

"Yes. Of course," Thomas nodded. He raised a hand toward the bed, and soon there was another Morgan laying in it sound asleep.

"Good enough. Let's move out, soldier."

* * *

It was an education in how much the world, and warfare, had changed.

The hospital, as Morgan called it, was swarmed with people. He came to understand that her room was an anomaly, as many of them were shared. Yet the two or three wounded soldiers per room was still an astounding luxury to his thinking, as was the meticulous cleanliness of the building.

After some consternation in trying to learn her way around herself, Morgan brought him to the "emergency room." It was, she said, where the newest patients were brought, and therefore where those in most pressing need would be. He thought, on arrival, that men and women were simply not brought to this floor of the hospital (as Morgan called it) until they were bandaged and no longer bleeding, but even on the bottom floor where the wounded were brought in, he found that spilled blood and bile and such were promptly cleaned up.

It made for a considerably less unpleasant setting than the sort of mess made when the wounded were gathered from the sorts of battles he was used to.

There was blood, though, and pain. Few cries for aid. Those happened, too, but to his thinking there was less anguish from the wounded than there was urgent conversation from those tending to them. The sheer amount of aid was jarring as well -- so many soldiers devoted to healing, so much equipment and space and energy.

"Okay, so make sure none of these guys die...can you do that?" Morgan asked softly. She stayed on his arm, clinging to it almost, guiding him as much as she used him to steady herself. His mistress had her hand over her mouth and nose. It seemed in keeping, he realized, with the number of masks people around him wore on the bottom half of their faces.

Yet for a place where the wounded and dying were to be brought, Thomas was amazed at how little the room stank at all.

"That one shall live without my aid...so will that one...and he..." Thomas frowned. The injured man lay on a table of sorts, tended to by several soldiers whose expressions and tones conveyed urgency. Someone was pushing down on his chest, rhythmically, looking on at another healer for some sort of confirmation. "He is dying."

"Keep his heart beating," Morgan mumbled, "and, um, has he lost a lot of blood? That's what they're saying. Can you give him more?"

"I can," Thomas nodded, turning his mind to it.

"You need to keep blood, not lose it," Morgan went on. "We don't put leeches on people or 'bleed' the sick anymore. That's stupid, it's...it's counterproductive, you're supposed to stop bleeding."

He paid only little heed to her explanation at first. What she asked of him required some concentration. Yet after a moment, he was satisfied that he had fulfilled her directions. The urgency in those around the injured man lessened somewhat, and the one pushing on his chest let up. Thomas turned to Morgan. "In my day, such steps were taken well after the battle, not in the immediate aftermath," he smirked. "One doesn't immediately think, 'That man is bleeding out, but if I ensure he bleeds more he will survive.'"

Morgan opened her mouth as if to say something, then caught his expression and let it go with a bit of a fuming breath. "Smartass," she grumbled.

"These men will all recover. That one, however, will suffer from great confusion. Disorientation. It is as if he has suffered a blow to the head much worse than yours. Yet it seems to have hit him all over."

"Can you fix that? Lighten up the injury some?"

Thomas nodded. He stared at the next patient for a moment. "I have," he said. "He is still injured, yet not nearly so much. I believe he will recover. And his pain is lessened," he added.

"Thank you," she breathed out.

"If I might ask," Thomas frowned, "what manner of battle is it that harms these men so? I don't see cuts from swords. Some of these wounds are punctures as if from splinters, yet it is metal. And so many of them, like that last, seem to have been injured in much of their bodies all at once?"

"You don't...you don't see a lot of up-close fighting anymore," Morgan tried to explain. "Most of it happens at range. You had bows and arrows. Crossbows, too, right?"

Thomas frowned. "Yes," he said. "Effective, but many feel it's cowardly to fight at distance. They don't take much training to use well compared to a sword or a bow."

Morgan was already leading him out of the room and down a hallway. "Well, these days, people don't really worry about what's cowardly or not. You think about how to make the other guy dead and make sure you get home alive."

"I suppose there's sense in that," Thomas shrugged.

"Well, anyway, I'll show you more later, but the weapons that get the most use now are called guns, and they're a little like crossbows. Much smaller, though, and what comes out of them flies faster than you can see. That's some of what you're seeing. The rest...well, the rest are bombs. Explosions. You ever, um..." Morgan thought as she walked, leading him around several people walking their way without noticing them. "You ever see burning wood burst in a campfire? Well, think of something like that happening without the burning first. Only with a lot more power. It's kind of what happened to my leg."

He frowned. "Yet it was all metal that went through your leg."

"I'm explaining this poorly. I'm not a history expert. I'm not sure what you'd understand and what you wouldn't, because we just don't have the same frame of reference." She looked around, reading the signs. "Oh God," she breathed. "Burn ward." Morgan kept hold of his arm. "C'mon."

* * *

"You mustn't be hard on yourself," she heard Thomas say gently.

She laid in her bed, turned on her side, one arm underneath the pillow and the other hand tugging the blanket close. Thomas sat in his chair again, speaking to the back of her head.

It had been less than two hours before he confessed that his powers were spent. They had seen to the worst cases in the building, thankfully, and he still had power to use on the pair of Iraqi policemen who were brought in with gunshot wounds...but after that, Thomas could only look to her sadly and shrug. He didn't know yet how long it would be before he was up for more.

"We could've done more," Morgan sniffed. "Could've probably helped someone else if I hadn't spent all day playing with you like you're my personal magic porn star."

He didn't respond immediately. "Do you mean," he said gently, "when we laid together?"

"Yes. Laid together. Had sex. Fornicated. Fucked."

"I see," he replied. She imagined him nodding. The gentleness did not leave his voice, but he sounded a bit embarrassed when he said, "It did not take so much energy."

"Then my legs must have taken some energy, I'm sure," she countered bitterly. "Bouncing back and forth between hurt and healed just for the hell of it."

"You had been through a great deal, and were confronted with sudden fortune. You should not be hard on yourself."

She didn't respond. Morgan was being dramatic, and knew it, and was irritated by that, too. It wasn't her style at all. Even now, she knew she could and should cut it out. It wasn't doing her any good, let alone Thomas. He was probably more worried about whether or not their earlier fling was suddenly forgotten.

But she was doubly irritated by the fact that she could be conscious of her own dramatics in light of what really bothered her. She had all this power here at her disposal, ready and eager to please, and instead of thinking about her fellow soldiers or the dozens of Iraqis here, combatant and civilian alike, she thought of herself. People all around her were in pain while she was getting it on in her hospital bed. Selfish. Stupid. So stupid.

"How long has this war gone on?" Thomas asked.

"Goin' on six years," Morgan said. "Since March of 2003. It's January of 2009 now. And no end in sight."

"And how many of your countrymen have died here?"

"Four thousand somethin', last I heard," she sniffed. "Couple hundred allies from other countries."

He let out a breath of shock. "Four thousand," he murmured. "I saw nearly that many cut down in a day at Dorylaeum."

Morgan turned to him at that, looking up but not knowing what to say.

"What I saw tonight was terrible, make no mistake. I do not belittle what you or your comrades have suffered. I am sure you have lost friends; I have as well. But to my view, what you have done here has been nothing that would bring shame. Many would not have even considered sharing fortune as you have. And you gave of yourself just yesterday as well. Your liege, Wallace, said so himself. Were it not for you, others would surely have died."

"I just...don't feel like it's right for me to have a good time while all this is going on around me," Morgan said softly.

"Perhaps," Thomas shrugged, "perhaps not. But it is as the healer -- Bhandari? -- told you. You have to take care of yourself. Keeping good spirits will aid your recovery, and you must look to that. My magic can heal what ails your body, but I cannot so easily heal the scars on your heart. And there are such scars. Any who have seen war will carry them."

He fell silent for a moment, looking down at his feet and then back at her. "I know not what our future together holds, or what place I might take in your heart, or if even thinking of such is presumption...but laying with you this day meant a great deal to me. You were not the only one to feel joy or solace." His words came out slowly. Softly. Thomas hadn't struck Morgan as a stoic or a macho man, but realized now that he likely didn't have many outlets for discussing emotion. "And so if you do not feel that it was necessary for you...I can tell you, for what it is worth, that it was very much what I needed. And I will always be grateful."

Something inside her crumbled. Morgan's lip trembled a little, and her eyes began to water again. She hated crying -- she was tougher than this. Yet her secret companion had suddenly shown her an unexpected side. She hadn't thought of him as a toy, certainly, but somewhere in the deep, stirring voice and the battle-hardened sexiness, Morgan hadn't really thought too much yet about what lay inside.

She gingerly reached out her hand, which he took up and softly kissed. She smiled a bit, feeling like she should blush or something, but was after all this a bit too emotionally spent for that. Yet his gaze was stirring. Heartfelt admissions or no, he certainly hadn't lost his composure.

"It meant a lot to me, too, Thomas," she told him. "I really like you. A lot. And I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to have you here. Or for today. And...I don't want to sell today short, but I'm even more grateful for what you did tonight."

He bowed his head just a bit, though smiling tenderly. "I am at your service. You should not feel reluctant to command me. Even if it is something just for yourself. You have already done much for others, even before I came along."

Morgan nodded. "Any more magic juice back?"

"Some small portion," he answered after a moment's consideration. "It returns in a trickle. I could not yet do much, but being at rest helps me recover."

"I don't know...I don't really know how far we're gonna go," she said. "You and I. But I really like you. You're warm. You're good. And I'd really like it if we could at least consider each other friends and maybe work from there?"

He smiled. "I would like that." Then a wry smirk appeared on his lips. "Do friends...in this day and age, do friends lay together? Has that become normal?"

"It's not normal," Morgan laughed, "but it happens. For friends like us, anyway," she said. Looking in those eyes again, she found herself losing a small battle within. She knew she should be more guarded than this, for her own sake -- and, she understood now, for his -- but she just couldn't take the thought of him suffering over ambiguities. "More than friends," she added in a final compromise with herself. "I would really like it if you would lay here with me tonight. Not to have sex, but just to be close to me."

"I would very much appreciate that, too," he said. Morgan shifted as best she could, tugging on his hand, and Thomas clambered up to squeeze into the bed as best he could. There was certainly less room on it now than there had been earlier in the day through his magic. "I could make the bed wider soon, I think," he suggested with a frown.




Morgan's Genie Ch. 04



Chapter Four

Two Days Later
Baghdad, Iraq

"You see? The city is getting better," Hasan said, coming out of the office with a big smile.

"You got the job?" Raneen gasped hopefully.

"I got the job!" he announced, and accepted his sister's hug with pride and gratitude. "Oh, I thought I was done for when I saw that they were interviewing five other people today!" He released her and gestured down the street, then took her hand as he walked with her. There was a market down just one corner, reopened after months of inactivity. Traffic on the street had steadily increased and was almost approaching something like normalcy. 

"I told you they would want you. If they hire someone too smart, they will have to pay more." Raneen grinned mischievously, earning a scowl from her brother, but then a laugh.

"They must have hired the man who hired me with the same ethic in mind," Hasan said in a noticeably quieter tone. "They offered to pay even more than I had hoped."

"That's wonderful!" Raneen exclaimed. She tugged at his arm and pointed down the market street. "You can buy me a new book."

Hasan sighed. She had always been like this with him. His good fortune was hers, and really, he couldn't fault her for it. But sooner or later his parents really needed to find her a good man and marry her off. Her brother shrugged and gestured for her to lead the way.

Raneen wove through the customers and vendor stalls, tugging Hasan along by the hand. It was good to be out in the city again. She was thinking of better days, when she was just a girl and there had not yet been war, when she promptly found herself faced with a tall white man in fatigue pants and a black t-shirt. He looked like an American soldier, but his hair was too long. She knew this man.

"Hello, Raneen," the man said, tilting his head in something like a bow.

"Raneen? Who is this?" her brother asked, stiffening in alarm. His gamble in reporting the crimes of a few American soldiers might have worked out for the best, but the experience hadn't left him trusting of all Americans. He would have had more trust in them had there never been need to report anything.

"This is...this is Morgan's friend," Raneen said hesitantly.

"I am," the man nodded, still smiling. His demeanor was unthreatening. His voice was confident but gentle. He didn't even seem to have a weapon, which was very, very strange for an American soldier. They all had weapons and helmets and body armor. This man had a t-shirt and a duffel bag. "Please, call me Thomas," he said.

"Hello, Thomas," Hasan said warily.

"Raneen, Morgan asked me to come find you to tell you that she is leaving sooner than she expected." His Arabic was flawless.

"Oh. Is everything alright?"

"Things are fine. She is being taken to a hospital in Germany. Her legs need to heal, and so they will send her there before she goes home to America."

Raneen smiled a bit sadly. "I am sorry I don't get to see her before she goes. Will you tell her that I am very grateful, and that I pray for her?"

"I will. She wanted me to give this to you," he said, holding out the duffel bag. "It holds a few things that she does not need to take home. She knows that things are still tough in this city and she wants you and your family to be well."

"Oh. Thank you," Raneen said, accepting the bag curiously.

"There is a phone in there that has her phone number. If you ever want to talk to her, for anything, just call."

Hasan's brow furrowed as he listened. "Morgan has been very...thoughtful."

"Raneen was wronged," Thomas shrugged. "Terribly. Morgan only wishes that she could do more." He paused, and then said with a conspiratorial wink, "You might want to be careful who you show."

Hasan turned to Raneen as she opened the bag. His sister's mouth fell open as she looked inside. She promptly wrapped it shut again, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she looked up in shock.

Thomas was gone. There was just the market and the customers.

"What's in it?" Hasan asked, reaching for the bag to take a peek inside. Raneen just stared at him incredulously as he looked. Her brother had much the same reaction.

They fought back grins as Raneen zipped the bag shut and held it tight. It would have drawn too much attention to react as they felt. The street was becoming awfully crowded.

"I think you can afford your own books today," Hasan suggested breathlessly.

"Yes, I think I can," Raneen nodded.

"Or maybe your own book store."

"Bomber! Bomber!" someone yelled. Raneen and Hasan looked up, frozen in shock as the crowd around them began to panic. A young man, no older than Raneen, came running straight for them with a wild and desperate look in his eyes. His coat was too big for this weather and too bulky for his size.

The youth yelled something, but neither brother nor sister heard exactly what. He looked at nothing in particular as he ran for the closest clutch of people nearby, which included the siblings. He pulled out a device attached by wires to something inside his coat.

Something flew through the air between Raneen and Hasan, silvery and gleaming, right at the bomber. The dagger struck him squarely in the center of his chest. Impossibly, the impact lifted the bomber off his feet to send him flying backward through the air as if hit by a car. His body tumbled to the ground, rolling and finally coming to rest underneath an old truck. Everyone threw themselves behind cover the bomb exploded. Raneen jerked Hasan back behind racks of dates. It was all she could find in the split second she had to think.

It should have been a bigger blast. The truck was lifted into the air, but only by a few inches. It seemed to suffer the worst of the explosion, too, for little in the way of shrapnel or flame erupted out to the sides. There was a loud boom, and smoke, and screams of panic...but none of pain. No one was close enough to the bomb to be hurt. No harm done at all, save to he who intended it.

As Raneen picked herself up off the street, she clutched the duffel bag close and looked around. She knew she would not see Thomas.

He would go home with Morgan. She knew that, somehow. But he had already done more than enough.

* * *

"Could be a month, could be two. The doctors figure two, but I think I'm getting better faster than that," Morgan said into the phone with a bit of a grin. No one was looking in at her room. She lifted her legs up off the bed and stretched them in circles as if pedaling a bicycle, then promptly settled them back down like a good little invalid before anyone came by.

"Well, just take it easy and don't push yourself. You don't want to end up like I did when I hurt my back," her father said. "That was the worst year for all of us."

"I know, Dad," she smiled gently. "Look, at best they're gonna have me on light duty. Soon as I'm out of the hospital, I'm gonna be behind a desk at Fort Lewis until the clock runs out."

"I can't tell you how glad I am that you're stationed so close by. It'll be good to have you home."

"Yeah," Morgan huffed emphatically. "Be good to be home." She paused. She always paused before she asked. By now, he had to know what was coming by the momentary silence. "How's Mom?"

She heard him sigh. That wasn't good. Morgan was wincing before he even spoke. "She's back in rehab."

"Aw, man..."

"Jan showed up drunk on my doorstep about a week ago Friday night. Wanted to patch things up, wanted to tell me what a mess she'd made of things...wanted a hundred bucks."

"Was she driving like that?!"

"No, her new boyfriend or whatever was driving, and he was out sitting in her car." He sounded tired. The subject always left him sounding tired. "Anyway, Linh was staying over here. She was out of the house, thank God, but some of her stuff was in the living room. Jan saw it and went off, started throwing things, breakin' stuff, and finally I just said the hell with it and called the cops."

"This was a week ago Friday? Why didn't you tell me before now?" Morgan's shoulders sank. She wasn't mad so much as disappointed, and not with her father.

"At first I was still waiting for news so I could tell you how it played out. I mean it's not like you can do anything about it out there but worry. And then when I talked to you last on the phone, you were just so busy. This is the first time I've really had a chance."

Morgan grumbled a bit, but she could see his point. "So how'd it play out?"

"Cops showed up. They were gonna cite her for drunk and disorderly or something, hell, I dunno. But then they checked out her boyfriend and one thing led to another and next thing you know, they're carting him off for all the meth in his pockets. And Jan, well, she freaked out, and they cuffed her and put her in the car, and then last Thursday she called me to say she was sorry she was such an ass and she broke up with Ronnie or whoever the hell he was and the judge was letting her go back to rehab."

"Oh God. She's doing meth now?"

"Nah. She wasn't that stupid. Says she didn't know he was into that. Says it was just the booze. But still...pretty dumb stuff."

"I don't even know why you still talk to her at all, Dad."

"Fifteen years. Lotta good times with the bad. She's a good person underneath all the booze and bullshit. Least she's not doing coke anymore. I think. I was hoping she hit rock bottom for real last time, but I guess not. And she's your mother."

"I imagine this didn't make a good impression on Linh."

"Oh, I told her when we started seeing each other that I was still in contact with my ex and that she was crazy. Linh was pretty annoyed by the whole thing, but she's okay. Just didn't want me giving her any money."

"Neither do I. Dad, it's not the money, it's—"

"I know, hon. I know. I'm done. I've been done for years."

"Okay."

"You might wanna try to call her, though. She gave me the info to get hold of her in case you wanted to talk to her."

"I will," Morgan grumbled. "Just don't know when. Maybe when I get to Germany."

"You're gonna call me when you get there, right?"

"If you want me to?"

"I do. The minute you're on the ground in a friendly country."

"Okay. Soon as I can."

"I mean it. I worry about you, hon. We all do."

"I know. I'm gonna be okay, Dad," she said, and as if on cue, Thomas entered. He knew immediately to stay silent as he took his seat. She had warned him that she might be on the phone, and what that meant. Not for the first time, he confessed to be far more in awe of the modern world than he was of his own magic. Looking at him, she couldn't help but smile again. "I think I'm gonna be okay from here on out."

"So when is it you're out altogether? March?"

"If I take all my leave at the end, yeah."

"You looking at getting into school right away?"

"I am. I'll worry more about that when I'm in Germany, but yeah."

"Let me know if I can do anything to help. Thought of a major yet?"

"Nope." Morgan frowned, staring at her feet. "I still don't really know what I wanna do."

"Well. Get the hell out of Iraq and we'll figure it out then."

"Yeah. No shit."

"I'm proud of you, Morgan." It hung there on the line, surprisingly every bit as meaningful to her as when Colonel Wallace had said as much. Then again, maybe it wasn't so surprising after all. For all his faults and failings, her father had never given up on her. "I'm really proud of you."

"I love you, Dad."

"Love you, too."

"I gotta get going, though," she said. "People waiting to talk to me."

"Okay. Call me when you're in Germany. I don't care what time it is. Wake me up, okay?"

"Will do. Love you, Dad. Talk to you later." She hung up and laid the phone beside her bed.

"Your father is well?"

"He's doing alright," Morgan shrugged. "My mom's a wreck, though."

"Mom. Your mother? What's wrong?"

"Lots. More than I wanna talk about right now," she frowned. "Is Raneen okay?"

"She is well. Her brother found work today and seemed very pleased with the arrangement. I gave her the bag, and...protected them. Shortly after we spoke, a man attacked the marketplace with one of those bombs you spoke of strapped to himself."

"Oh my God," Morgan blinked, "was anyone hurt?"

"Only the man with the bomb. As I said, I protected them." He paused. "It is good that you showed me some of those movies yesterday, otherwise I would not have known to make sure that the fire was kept to a minimum when it burst."

Morgan let out a relieved breath. "Thank you," she said. "Good timing being there for that."

"Indeed. I followed them home to ensure that they were safe. No other danger presented itself." He paused. "They both looked very pleased with all of that paper money in the bag," he added wryly. "I still don't see why you didn't want to leave them with hard coin, but I guess you would know best."

"I can't wait to get out of this fucking country."

"If I could make time pass more quickly, I certainly would. I could help make it a more pleasant wait...?" he offered slyly.

Morgan's lips twitched in a grin, but she shook her head. "No. Nothing puts me out of the mood like talking about my mom. Sorry. Maybe later, when my mind's off of it."

"Certainly," he nodded in understanding. "Is there anything else I might do for you?" His mistress nodded and grinned evilly. His shoulders dropped, but he nodded obediently. "I will go see what other Discovery or History Channel DVDs they have in the recreation room."

"It's for your own good," Morgan teased as he rose. "I thought you wanted to learn all of this!"

"I did until we watched the one about the Crusades. I don't believe I am yet ready to spew forth the proper amount of vitriol and bile to give an appropriate reaction."

The Next Day

C-17 Globemaster III

Somewhere over Iraq

She had the top bunk, stacked three high without anyone below her. She considered it a lucky break. Morgan glanced around the open cargo bay of the plane, where soldiers and Marines were laid out sometimes two or three high along the bulkheads. Some had simple conditions – sports injuries, common illnesses just bad enough to require medevac.

Others weren't so fortunate. Morgan figured she'd gotten a good bunk space, but then, she was much luckier on quite a few counts.

"You all set there?" the crew chief asked as he came by. He was an older guy, dressed in the standard tan flight suit. He had a casual air, but Morgan could tell that he was checking her straps and her gear. He had reason to be brief with her. She didn't need a lot of help. No IV drip, no electronic monitoring. No head trauma.

"I'm all good, Sergeant," Morgan nodded. She had a knapsack within reach on the rack below hers, stuffed with things to read, her headphones and a couple of snacks. They weren't long out of Kuwait. With no windows and limited mobility, it was bound to be a dull trip to Ramstein.

"All good. You need to go hit the head, just wave your hand and get our attention. We'll help you get down and get around."

Morgan smirked. "I was wondering about that."

The crew chief grinned back. "This is where I make a highly inappropriate joke and get myself in a lot of trouble."

"That's alright. I'll just forget whatever it was you said because of my terrible emotional trauma."

He rapped on the side of her bunk. "That's the spirit. Play that card for all it's worth." With that, he moved on to the next stack of bunks.

Morgan was about to turn away when the crew chief's spot was taken up by a wide-eyed and amazed Thomas. "Morgan, it's wonderful!" he hissed. "You can see for so many miles! I can't even guess how many!"

"You sure that nobody's gonna see me talking to you?"

Thomas paused. He looked around the bay of the plane for a moment, waved his hands, and then turned back to her. "We'll be totally ignored. We are practically invisible to them. Morgan, this is the most amazing thing I've ever experienced!"

"It's better when you're on a civilian plane," she shrugged. "You usually get your own window."

"And those men in the...cockpit, was it? So many buttons and...and..."

"Switches, lights and knobs," she suggested.

"You are making another movie reference."

"I am."

Her genie blew it off, and instead looked around the bay in wonder. "We're actually flying," Thomas said in amazement. He inhaled deeply. "The air smells so strange up here."

"That's 'cause it's all pressurized."

"What does that mean?" His excitement hadn't abated. "Are there videos about it?"

"You goon," Morgan laughed. "I didn't want to spoil the surprises for you. I figured you'd think it was pretty neat. Yes. There are tons of videos and books about flying. Sure we'll have time to get you all caught up once we're in Germany."

"In six hours! Morgan, when I left Normandy for the Holy Land, the journey took many months. I thought before that it was incredible how much faster the cars and trucks are than horses, but this...this is wonderful."

"You saying you couldn't conjure up a magic carpet and fly us there even faster?"

He paused. He hadn't really given it much thought. "I think perhaps I could," he blinked. "I don't really know. But certainly not everyone has magic."

"Speaking of. You already check on everyone on the plane here? Anything you can do to help them without it looking suspicious?"

Thomas waved a dismissive hand. "Already done, most even before we took to the air. As you say, I can't fix everything, but all will improve to some extra degree. Anyway, is it common for people to fly like this now? Everyone here seems so casual about this."

"Well, I told you before, my country's the most powerful on Earth. Ever," she shrugged. "It's not strange for people to fly. Pretty much every country has planes. You can fly all over the world. But it's expensive, and not everyone can afford it. Plenty of people never get on a plane in their lives."

"I look forward to seeing your country," Thomas nodded.

"Yeah," Morgan said with a softer tone. "Yeah, me, too."

His head tilted curiously. "What's wrong?"

Silence. She wasn't looking at him anymore, just staring off into space somewhere toward the overhead. Thomas waited, gently brushing his fingers through her hair. "I don't know what I wanna do," she admitted.

"What do you mean?"

"When I get home. I'm gonna get home and get out of the Army, and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I mean with my life."

"You said you wanted to go to school. University," Thomas reminded her, as if that were enough. The notion had seemed fine to him, but then, he was impressed by how educated Morgan – and everyone around her – already was. Were it not for his magic, he wouldn't even yet know how to read.

She shook her head. "No, you go to university to learn to do something. Well, okay, ideally you're supposed to go just to learn and become a smarter person, but...after college, you get a career. A job you pursue for life. And I don't know what I want to do."

"You need not do anything," Thomas smiled gently. "Nothing you don't want."

Morgan glanced up at him and offered a small, thankful smile in return. "I know," she said. "I know. I've got you. But that's...I mean I'm gonna be perfectly happy to let you spoil me rotten in every way, but health and wealth aside, I still need to do something with my life."

"Well, what does your father do?"

"Oh, hell, no. Not that. My father was a fisherman. Months at sea, out in the cold? Fuck that noise. I respect the hell out of him, but no. Not that."

Thomas thought to ask about her mother. It stood to reason that in this age it wasn't odd for women to have their own professions. He'd seen so many working women already. The subject of Morgan's mother seemed likely to lower her spirits, though. "You don't want to do work like you have done in the Army," he supposed.




Morgan's Genie Ch. 04



"I don't think so, no," Morgan said. "Maybe, but...I dunno. It's a lot to think about."

"I'm afraid there is only so much advice I might offer," Thomas shrugged. "I'm not familiar enough with the world as it is now."

"Guess not," she nodded. She glanced up again. "Still. You're really nice to talk to. And to have around." There was a long pause. "I'm really glad you're here with me."

"As am I."

Intimate as they had been already, Morgan still found herself a bit overwhelmed by his affection. He was attentive and loyal without smothering her. When he looked at her like that, as if she were the only woman on the planet, Morgan couldn't help but blush inside and glance away. She could initiate whatever she wanted, with something as subtle as a come-hither gaze or as blunt as direct demands. Yet when he looked at her with those eyes and that strong, confident smile, she found herself feeling quite shy.

She had worried, at first, that he would obsess about her. The whole "command me, mistress," bit had been a touch unsettling. But he was soon dazzled by video players, cars and phones. He was eager to get caught up with the world, even understanding that doing so would take him a lifetime. And he took an interest in the lives of others. His interest and affection had some perspective, at least.

The thought that filled her with butterflies wasn't that he was her genie to command at her whim, but rather that the look in his eyes and the sound in his voice were both entirely genuine.

"Um. Anyway," she mumbled, glancing at him, then away, then back and forth again. "Lot to think about, but like I said, it's a six hour flight. Okay, only a six hour flight," she corrected, smirking at him. "If you want to, um, go look around out the windows or whatever again, I'm fine."

"I have your leave, mistress?" he asked.

She chuckled. He was playing. "You do."

"Then, if I am to be trusted with my own discretion..."

She gasped softly as his lips descended onto the side of her neck. A hand trailed up her leg, while the other, wrapped around the top of her head, stroked her cheek. "Oh," she sighed softly. "That's really nice."

"You did say something about spoiling you rotten," he murmured beside her ear.

The hand that roamed over her legs and then her belly touched her as if there was nothing between them. She felt skin and warmth instead of mere cloth and pressure. Her body responded, tensing and shifting languidly under his touch. Morgan's face turned slightly, inviting the deep kiss that was soon on her lips. As their tongues slid together, filling her with wonder, Thomas unbuckled the latches on the straps securing her to the bed. They fell away on their own.

Morgan's hand was in Thomas's hair, holding him close as the kiss went on and on. He smelled so good, tasted so wonderful. It was utterly unfair to have something this good all to herself, but she didn't think for a moment about letting him go.

It wasn't until the kiss finally broke that she gave any thought at all to the rest of the world. "Seems a little weird," she whispered, "doing this in a plane full of people."

"What people?" Thomas asked.

She glanced past his shoulder at the opposite bulkhead, where the Marine was reading a Maxim magazine and the injured airman above him had been playing with an iPod...only they were gone. "Is that an illusion?" she asked.

"I thought you might like the sense of privacy," he said gently. "As much for your own sake as for theirs. They will be even less aware of us as you are of them. They'll see you napping soundly, nothing more."

He kissed her again. She accepted it eagerly, surprised at how much she wanted this. Her next thought was that she was surprised she hadn't thought about spending at least some of the flight like this in the first place.

His free hand roamed over her. She felt naked underneath his touch, felt vulnerable as he stood over her and kissed her. Eventually she didn't feel anything at all other than her increasingly more comfortable bunk and her genie's touch. When their kiss finally broke, she glanced at herself and realized she was nude.

His lips fell from her mouth to her neck again, and then to her collarbone. The arm that cradled her head slipped away, his hands now tracing over her arms and her sides. "This still an illusion?" she breathed.

"What fun would it be if you knew for sure?" she felt him grin against her breast.

There was a reply on her tongue, but it died there as his lips teased around one nipple and then lovingly took it in. She gasped, feeling his tongue swirl in soft circles around its hardness. Morgan hadn't been so sensitive there before him. There was a lot about her that was different before he came along.

The next rack of bunks past her feet was entirely empty. That was no illusion; it was empty when she came on. It was a good thing, because there was nothing odd about Thomas clambering up with utterly unrealistic grace to lie partly on Morgan's bunk, partly on the next one over, and partly suspended between both.

Realization flashed through her mind. He hadn't done this yet. She wasn't even sure he would, but his trail of kisses over her hips and along her thighs certainly foreshadowed his intentions. Thomas slipped a hand over her inner thigh, then mirrored the touch at the other, encouraging her to spread her legs for him.

She did. Her hands slipped into his hair again as her thighs parted, inviting him in. Morgan was wet and needful and wanted him to know it. She felt his breath before his kiss, warm and tender, slowly fell against one leg just short of her lips, lingering, and then teasingly against the other.

Morgan let him tease. She wanted to savor this. Her body was at once relaxed in luxury and alive with electricity as his first gentle lick brushed along her lips. Morgan stole a glance at him, looking between the valleys of her breasts and then between her legs, seeing his eyes look back. His tongue descended again, out of her sight but now much more intently than before.

Her eyes fell shut at the sensation. Her hands stayed light against his head. She wanted to encourage him without guiding him. A small part of her wanted to just pull him in and make him devour her, but he clearly knew what he was doing. His tongue parted her lips and probed lovingly and made it pointless to think about much of anything else.

His focus rose and fell along the full length of her sex, bottom to top and deep within. Morgan laid back and whimpered in appreciation as his kiss brushed against her clit, once and then again. She felt wet fingers enter her. She gave herself up to him completely, moaning out loud in surrender.

The one hand coaxed her to greater pleasure, fingers finding even more sensitive spots within her and stroking them expertly, while Morgan felt the other one slide up her leg and her belly to take a spot on her breast. She encouraged it, sliding her right hand up his outstretched arm to hold tightly over his.

His soft but relentless tongue and beckoning fingers left her panting. She lingered there, happily drifting in bliss, for a long time.

A very long time.

There was no move or moment that put her past the point of no return. She eventually realized, belatedly, that she was beyond that point, and gradually her body tensed and trembled under him.

Orgasm came with a long and unmistakable build. She finally came, spasming joyously and uncontrollably for her lover, and that went on and on, too. Bursts of light and color against her tightly-shut eyelids dazzled her in time with her body's every eruption, one after the other.

Thomas brought her down as gently and tenderly as he had begun. Her head swam with pleasure as she roused herself to look down at him. There was some small amount of pride in those eyes that hovered just over her pussy. She couldn't blame him.

"Can you...can you do that again?" she asked.

"I'd love to," he said softly against her wet lips. "We've only got four more hours."

* * *

She held out until well into the third hour, but eventually she couldn't resist. Morgan beckoned to her man, hands tugging at his shoulders and neck, coaxing him to lie against her where she could kiss him. He was perfectly warm in this, too. Comforting, confident, masculine. She had expected to taste herself on him, and when she didn't, she could only grin into his kiss.

Then she lay back, slowly catching her breath. He waited, tracing his fingers across her body to relieve her of sweat and fatigue. Four hours of tensing and spasming muscles had left her gloriously worn out.

Morgan saw the look in his eye and grinned in spite of herself. She had spent so much of the flight coming for this man and yet she still felt shy.

"Why do you look away like that?" he asked.

"Like what?" She looked back at him and then glanced away yet again.

"Like you're embarrassed for some reason," he pressed quietly. "Does it bother you when I look at you?"

"No! No." She got ahold of herself, forcing her eyes to look in his. "I love the way you look at me."

"Then why do you look away?"

She shrugged, which had the effect of only cuddling her up to him more. "Guess I'm just not used to it. I might never get used to it."

"Well, if you're going to continually look away from me, I'll have to stop."

"Don't you dare," she muttered. There was a long silence as he waited for her to explain, and finally she relented. "You look at me like I'm the most beautiful thing you've ever seen."

"You are."

"Oh, bullshit. I like it, but come on. Seriously?"

"I don't understand. You're very beautiful."

"No, I'm passingly pretty," Morgan sighed. "I'm healthy. I'm in pretty decent shape. And maybe I clean up well, but I'm not..."

Thomas frowned at her, not without humor. "I suppose it should be comforting that I've finally found at least one thing that hasn't changed over the centuries. Women are still capable of convincing themselves they aren't as pretty as they are."

It was Morgan's turn to frown. She nudged against him as she grumbled, then looked around the plane. "Hey," she said, "bring us back to reality a bit."

Her clothing returned. Her fellow passengers faded into view. Thomas was still there, but as usual no one noticed him. Morgan looked off to her side. The Marine in the middle bunk had dozed off, his magazine on his chest.

"Grab me that?" Morgan asked, pointing to it. Thomas slipped off of her bunk and retrieved the magazine, handing it to her.

Morgan took one look at the Maxim cover girl and pointed to it. "She's gorgeous," his mistress said. She flipped through the pages, pointing to model after model. "Pretty. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Okay, that chick just looks like trash. Pretty. Beautiful. I mean, I'm not saying that you have to dress like this to be attractive, because this magazine is ridiculous. It plays to fantasies, not real behavior. And these photos have had a lot of help. But do you see their faces? Those bodies? Do you get what I'm saying?"

He paid attention thoughtfully. The women were unarguably lovely, but also dangerously skinny. A tough winter would certainly end every one of them. To compare them to Morgan seemed like nitpicking, as she was hardly heavyset or lacking in curves herself. 

"I mean, what would you say is beautiful?" Morgan asked. "And don't say me. I mean in the abstract. In general. How would you describe a beautiful woman?"

His mouth opened, but then closed again. He hadn't given it definitive thought in some time. He looked at the magazine and pondered. "Good health. Smooth, clean skin. A body that is slim but not skin and bones," he shrugged. "I suppose I would say that a narrow waist is attractive. Men might argue how curved a woman should be, but..." Again, he shrugged.

Morgan yawned. "Well, whatever. I guess it's nice to have you look at me like that. It really is. I'm not complaining at all. It's just that you asked. I know I'm not a hag, but I'm not the woman that all the guys flock around at parties, either." She held the magazine back to him. "Wow. I'm more tired than I realized. You wore me out," she smiled appreciatively. "I think I need a nap."

He leaned in and kissed her forehead, eliciting another appreciative smile. "Thank you," she murmured. "For everything. You're wonderful."

His thoughts were still on the matter at hand. Thomas glanced at her, seeing her quickly dozing off. "Morgan," he asked softly, "would you want to look like these women?"

"Sure," she mumbled, already half-asleep and hardly thinking. "Who wouldn't?"

It didn't lift the frown from his face. Rather than press the subject, Thomas swung himself up to sit on the empty rack just past hers. He thumbed through the magazine yet again. After a bit of thought, he understood what Morgan meant: many of the pictures seemed hardly realistic, though it wasn't as if he really had a solid grip on what constituted reality in the 21st Century. He was willing to take Morgan's word for it, at least. But whether or not the situations depicted were believable, the women in the pictures weren't paintings or drawings. They were real. Weren't they?

What did Morgan mean in saying that the pictures had had "help?"

Thomas kept looking. How any woman could be that tanned and yet clearly never work a day in her life was perplexing. But then, no one in Morgan's land had to do even so much as draw water out of a well; it was right there for the taking from those faucet things, which seemed to be in every room. And perhaps all of these women were racially mixed? It certainly seemed plausible.

He looked from a picture of one woman, lying around on a beach in some sort of undergarments, and back to Morgan. She had larger, fuller breasts and hips than his mistress. Her legs were no thinner, but they were somewhat smoother. Her features were slightly more delicate. They all seemed like such marginal differences.

Thomas hopped off the rack and replaced the magazine on the sleeping man's chest. He looked around the open bay of the plane for more such materials. The magazines in Morgan's knapsack were virtually all words and no pictures.

He kept looking throughout the plane, ignored by everyone around him. It wasn't long before he found other magazines, though most had far more in the way of words than pictures, and of those pictures fewer were of strikingly attractive women. Eventually, though, he slipped from bags and bunks a couple more magazines similar to the one Morgan had showed him.

There was no denying that the women were attractive. They probably needed servants and attendants, what with how delicate they all seemed, but...

He pondered as he put the magazines back where he found them. Maybe all was not as it seemed?

Eventually, Thomas returned to Morgan's side. Her desires were clear enough, arguable though they were by a matter of degrees. Thomas reached out to her face, tracing his fingers over her skin so softly that she hardly stirred in her sleep. He smoothed out her skin tone. He brushed away tiny blemishes and wrinkles.

Thomas smirked as he continued on. If his lovely mistress wanted to be even more beautiful, he certainly wasn't going to argue.



Morgan's Genie Ch. 05



Two notes: Chapter Zero (the prologue) has had a little new text added to it. Also, look to my profile if you're wondering what's going on with me. Hope you enjoy!

July, 1098 AD

Somewhere near Antioch

More Crusaders arrived outside the old man's home the day after his servants had been slain. The home itself lay smoldering, having burned the night before. His servants were buried. Their murderers lay wrapped in their own cloaks away from the ruins. Everyone else was gone.

They found him sitting in the dust, with his legs crossed and his head bowed. His staff lay across his lap. He surely heard the approach of twenty men on horses, but gave no indication that he was concerned. He merely sat and waited.

Two soldiers dismounted, drew arms, and moved off to each side of the old man where he sat in the dust. Two more soon joined them.

Finally, the apparent leader of the group joined, walking over to the old man with his sword drawn. He was a husky man, with a dark beard and a grim temperament. "We've been looking for you," the bearded man said.

"So I have gathered. I regret that I was not here when your first batch of men arrived. You are the one they call Charles?"

"I am," sniffed the Norman. He looked around. "I suspect you already know your magic will not work on me, nor on my men."

"Nor would you have dared to come here otherwise," the old man put in with a faint, knowing grin. "I wonder how your men would feel about you or your protection if they knew the details. It is one thing to convince men to do awful things in the name of their god. It is another to knowingly ally oneself with—"

"You are dying already," Charles interrupted.

"Yes. A wasting illness, now in its final stages. It is quite beyond my ability to remedy. The Practices of healing were never a strong study of mine. I know only enough to mask the symptoms. There was a time when I sought to prolong my lifespan through magic, but the only prospects I could find came at unacceptable prices. The necessary bargains are all so very...distasteful. Aren't they, Charles?"

He looked up at Charles then, needing little time to evaluate the man. "You came here in search of knowledge and power. Tomes, ancient scrolls, all that sort of thing. Sorcery by way of banditry, I suppose. As you can see, I no longer have any. Even my own personal power is quite diminished."

"They said you were the greatest in the region," Charles sniffed again, trying to maintain an air of indifference. His true feelings showed in his eyes. The old man needled him, and he did not like it. "The wise hermit out in the wilderness. The mentor. You trained so many."

"I did," he acknowledged. "Truthfully, most of what I taught was merely the value of hard work and independence. Perhaps in the end I was a better teacher than a Practitioner myself."

"There was power here, though," Charles said. "I sense it in the air. I smell it. But no longer in you. Why?"

The old man shrugged. "I made a bargain with someone."

"You said you don't like bargains."

"I didn't like the bargains that were offered to me. Others may find bargains that suit them just fine. All a matter of details. What were yours, Charles?"

The Norman's eyes grew colder. "I need not answer your questions. Where is Thomas?"

The old man tilted his head curiously. "You send out four men, only to have the lowliest of them return empty handed. You seek power, only to find none to be had. No treasure. No prize. I imagine, then, that thoughts would turn toward revenge. Yet you find no one to suffer your wrath but an old man taking his dying breaths. Tell me, servant of the Pit: how does it feel to be thwarted at every turn?"

At that, Charles gave up any pretense of calm. His reddening face screwed up into a snarl of rage. He grabbed at his sword, jerked it free and strode within reach of the old man.

His target smiled at the sight. Then his eyes closed. Charles ran him through, again and again, stabbing and hacking the body to pieces. All the while, though, he knew that the man was dead before the first cut.

It only made him angrier. He would hold onto that anger for a long, long time.

* * *

February, 2009

Rammstein, Germany

Morgan's trainers at Fort Huachuca had told her they would teach her to be more observant. Human Intelligence, they said, was about constant vigilance. It was about reading people. Noticing what they noticed. Always having your eyes open, even when in a friendly, safe environment. They had done that. Experience in the field had expanded on that vigilance dramatically.

She'd have had to be blind not to notice how many people, men and women alike, had to do a double-take on her as they wheeled her off the plane, and to the bus, and then through the hospital to her room.

At first she thought there was something stuck on her face. She frequently brushed at her nose, hoping she didn't have a booger hanging halfway out or something equally horrifying.

Morgan wanted to ask Thomas, but he was, once again, utterly fascinated by his surroundings. He looked around like someone seeing the world for the first time. To be fair, that wasn't too far off the mark. She didn't want to spoil the moment for him. She also didn't want anyone to see her talking to her invisible friend. Morgan left him alone, though she couldn't shake the feeling that even Thomas was stealing looks at her.

Professional habits took over. Morgan kept her mouth shut, pretending like nothing was wrong. She waited and watched. Eventually, she caught onto the patterns. Guys stole more looks, and tended to smile. Women generally looked twice, then turned to whatever else they were doing, and their body language generally conveyed less interest.

Every time she found a reflective surface, it was either too high, or quickly blocked by someone moving around, or she was turned away by the guy pushing her wheelchair. It wasn't until she was finally left sitting in a waiting room while her attendant went to check her in at the front desk that she finally had a moment of independent mobility.

"This city is amazing," Thomas said for the millionth time, looking out the window. "I had thought Baghdad was impressive enough, but this place...look! Another of the planes is taking to the air!"

Morgan didn't look. She wheeled herself over to the coffee table, brushing aside the magazines she found there and bending over in her chair to see her reflection on its black surface. It wasn't ideal, but it did the immediate job.

Her face was different. Definitely. That was still Morgan staring back at her, but there was something different. She had lost a little weight in her face. Her skin was smoother. Her mouth had changed somehow; her lips were now just a little fuller.

Morgan's eyes went wide. She sat up straight again. Her gaze darted left, then right, then left again. She waited for just a moment's privacy, just a second when no one was looking. Finally, the opportunity hit. In a flash of movement, Morgan's hands went to her own breasts, groped for just a split second, and then returned to her lap so fast they made a slapping sound.

Yep. Bigger. Not obnoxiously so, and hidden somewhat by her hospital shirt, but bigger by at least a cup size. Probably two.

Her jaw set. Her slender, perfect, no-longer-marred-by- pimples-that-wouldn't-die jaw.

"Sergeant Anderson? Oh, there you are," the pleasant, heavyset attendant smiled as he came over. "Got your room and everything. Ready to go?"

Morgan looked up at him and smiled as if there was nothing wrong. "Hm? Mm-hm," she nodded.

The attendant smiled back. He stepped around behind her wheelchair and pushed her along. Thomas followed. The aide brought her to a room, helped her up out of the chair and into a hospital bed, and mentioned something about a doctor coming in to see her soon and how she could ring up assistance while she got settled.

She didn't listen, really. For all the pleasant, appreciative expressions and smiles and nods she directed the attendant's way, and for all her normal vigilance, Morgan's only thoughts were about the awestruck goon gawking out her window that only she could see.

Then the attendant left. The bed next to hers was thankfully empty. "Thomas," she muttered through gritted teeth.

"Such an amazing view," he breathed.

"Thomas," she repeated more assertively.

"Hm? Yes?" he turned around to face her.

"Privacy," Morgan said. "We need privacy. In here. Now."

"Ah," Thomas blinked and then nodded. He looked at the door for only a moment. "We'll be left alone for now. Is something wrong?"

"What. Did. You. Do. Thomas?"

His brow furrowed. "Do to you? What do you mean?"

Morgan jerked a thumb at her own face. Then she grabbed her breasts again. She glared as understanding dawned on him. In the back of her mind, she realized it was most likely two cup sizes. They were also more sensitive than before. Her own hands almost felt good.

"Oh. I am sorry. You wished to look differently."

"What!?"

"You said as much on the plane," Thomas shrugged, looking at her in abject apology. "Morgan, are you distressed? I thought this was something you wanted. You said—"

"Something I wanted? Or something you wanted!?"

He looked like he'd been slapped. "Morgan, I will undo what I have changed if that is your wish."

"I thought you said you liked me the way I was."

"I did! I do! You were the one who objected. Don't you remember the conversation we had about modern beauty?"

"Yeah, I remember that just fine. I also remember pointing out that those girls in those magazines weren't real."

"...you said they needed 'help,' but I'm not sure what that meant. But you fell asleep saying that you wished you could look like them."

Morgan grumbled. They had miscommunicated. She got that now. Her brain understood that Thomas had, at worst, taken a liberal interpretation of something she said. It was still difficult to let this go.

"Those women are genetic freaks in the first place, Thomas. Nobody actually looks like that. Well, okay, hardly anybody. A distinct minority. I mean okay, yeah, they're naturally beautiful, but—dammit, but that's not the point!" She fumed at herself more than at him now. "Thomas, they alter those photos with computers now. You can't really hold anyone to that standard of beauty. Not in real life. That's what I was trying to say. Or meant to say. Ugh."

Tactfully, Thomas waited a long moment before he spoke again. It gave her time to release some of her frustration. "I apologize for causing you any distress," he said when it looked safer to speak. "I never meant any insult at all. I would never lie to you, Morgan. I concede that I see the differences between those pictures and your natural face, but I hope that you understand I truly found you beautiful from the moment we met. And moreso as time has gone on. I didn't change you to please myself. I changed you to please you."

One of her eyebrows rose suspiciously. "You sure about that?" she said, placing one forearm under her breasts and pushing up meaningfully.

Thomas stepped on a grin. He shrugged in apology. "Again, it seemed to fit the image I believed you sought. I think you know my judgment of you was not built upon your bosom."

The snicker escaped her before she could stop herself. She tried to put her hand over her mouth to control her grin, failed, and then finally allowed herself to laugh. "I think that line got away from you," she said.

"Aye. I think it did," he admitted.

She sighed, her expression changing to one of chagrin as she looked at her genie. Then she glanced around the room. "Would you find me a mirror, please?" she asked in a more polite tone.

Thomas spotted the one over the sink, out of Morgan's reach, and used a little magic to pull it off the wall. He held it before her.

"Huh." Morgan grunted. She brushed at her hair, staring at herself. "Hm." She looked again. "Wow."

Thomas waited. Finally, her eyes flicked up toward him. "You did a good job."

"Thank you."

"I'd hit that," she shrugged.

Thomas blinked at her odd turn of phrase, then blinked again when he realized what she meant.

"Oh man," she said, rubbing her eyes. "We're gonna have to have that talk, too."

"I'm sorry?"

"Nevermind. Could you put the mirror back, please?"

He did so, finding it little trouble to mount it back where it came from. "I am deeply sorry if I offended you," he reiterated in a gentle tone.

"Yeah. Well. You didn't, I guess. Just a little freaked out because we didn't communicate well. I suppose there are much worse things than being smoking hot."

"So you don't want me to change you back?"

She paused before she answered. "No," she said. "Much as I hate to admit it. No, I don't."

"Why do you hate to admit it?"

"Because I feel like I shouldn't be hung up on my looks like this. That it shouldn't matter. I don't know. I imagine this makes you happy, too, right?"

"You make me happy regardless."

"Thomas," she said, smirking a little coyly, "we're already awfully intimate. You can tell me what you think."

"I cannot imagine finding another woman more attractive than you regardless of this," he replied evenly, "but yes. I concede that you are...slightly more pleasing to the eye thusly."

Chuckling at his wording, Morgan asked, "And you're not gonna be bothered by other people finding me more 'pleasing?'"

"Why would I?"

"Because other guys might do something about it. You wouldn't get jealous?"

Her genie gave a little head shake, then moved over to take her hand. He'd have sat on the side of the bed but for the railing on the hospital rig. "I've considered this," he said softly. "As I said before, if you have romantic aspirations with anyone, I am your servant. I am here to do what you want."

"That was before we started sleeping together."

"Yes," he nodded, "and I hope we continue. Truly. I've...never felt this way about anyone before." He reached out to run his fingers through her hair. "In another life, I'd have wanted you all to myself, yes."

"But not this one?"

"I'm not a normal man in this life," Thomas replied. "I am here to serve you. If you wish to have another lover, or even many, I would not begrudge you. Perhaps it is a measure of the enchantments upon me, but this thought doesn't cause me distress. I want you to have what will make you happy."

"You sure?" Morgan pressed softly. "I don't want to hurt you. You mean a lot to me, Thomas. I'm not even...I'm not asking your permission here so much as I want to really know how we both feel about us. On the one hand I'm just afraid to rush things—like I haven't already, right?—but on the other, I just...I don't want you to think you're just some toy to me. You're real. We're real."

"In a way, Morgan, I was forced upon you. Neither of us met before I was bound to you as your servant. I don't want you to think that my feelings for you are anything less than romantic. But I make no presumptions, and I ask nothing of you that you are not ready to give. Again, perhaps it is unnatural, but I feel no distress at the prospects of you being with another.

"And at any rate," he added with a bit of a grin, "I somehow doubt that any ordinary man could rival the sort of intimacy we share."

She giggled a little. "No, I guess not," she said. She squeezed his hand. "Or the performance. Or the security. I just don't want to have my cake and eat it to if it's at your expense."

Thomas shook his head. "Would you enjoy dalliances with other men?"

Blushing fiercely, Morgan confessed, "Yes. Especially if it didn't come with lots of baggage. Er, without complications afterward," she elaborated. "I mean, I don't want to have sex with every cute guy who walks through the door or anything, but I...yeah. I really like sex. You're amazing, Thomas, but if I'm not hurting you, variety's always...you really don't mind? You're really offering me this?"

"I am. Naturally I'm properly mortified by the scandalous appetites of my liege," he smirked, plainly not the least bit bothered, "but alas, you are my liege, and I owe you every service within my power. Given your natural radiance, though, I imagine you would have no shortage of easy pickings. I can make sure there is no 'baggage' or embarrassing discoveries."

"Would you be freaked out if...if I was ever with another woman?"

His eyes widened a bit. "No," he said, "no, I would not."

"As long as you got to watch, right?" she grinned.

"I make no conditions."

"Yeah, yeah. Typical guy. Just...that doesn't freak you out at all? No? Okay. Good. Just wanted that out of the way." Morgan indulged in his affectionate gaze for a longer moment, then shook herself and stretched. "Okay," she said, "I need to back off on this or I'm gonna pull you down on top of me."

"Well," he said somewhat humorously, "my inability to feel jealousy aside, I would always choose to lay with you myself rather than step aside for another."

"No, silly. We can't. We just got here. Somebody's bound to want to check in on me."

"Ah. Yes. That." Thomas stepped around to peer out the door. "Indeed, there is a man outside I suspect is your doctor. He's distracted by my enchantment right now, but clearly he means to see you."

"Okay. Let's get this done. Remember, we want him to think I'm mending quickly, but we don't want to make it look unnatural. Go ahead and let him in, and Thomas—thank you," she said. "For everything."

"Your servant," he replied, bowing low. Then he retreated back toward the window.

A knock came at the side of the open door. "Sergeant Anderson?" a man asked.

"Yes?"

"Hi," the doctor said as he walked in. He closed the door behind him. "I'm Dr. Richmond." He did the same blink and double-take as everyone else had today, covering it well but plainly noticing Morgan's beauty nonetheless.

Morgan did a double-take, too. Dr. Richmond was a good-looking man. He had strong, well-groomed features and a nice smile. A very nice smile.

"It's very nice to meet you, Sergeant," he said, shaking her hand. "We heard about you on the news. Hell of a piece of, uh, work you did out there."

"Thanks," she grinned shyly.

"You're in good hands here. We're going to do everything we can to make you comfortable and healthy again." His grin was a touch more than friendly. Morgan read him like a book. He didn't want to be unprofessional, but his attraction was plain on his face.

He said things to Morgan about her legs and her other injuries, but she didn't entirely hear them. Her mind was suddenly set on having cake and eating it, too. She glanced toward Thomas, who kept track of the situation, but innocently shrugged and looked out the window when they made eye contact.

"So I should give you the once-over here," the doctor said. "Vitals and all that. Then we'll check your injuries and see how you're coming."

Morgan bit her lip. This was a doctor. An officer. No wedding ring, but he might well have a girlfriend...but then again, maybe not.

She glanced again at Thomas. He gestured to himself and then toward the doorway, silently asking if she wanted him to leave with a knowing grin. He'd never asked anything like that before. She couldn't believe it. He wasn't just okay with her screwing around; now he was enabling her.

With the doctor distracted by his clipboard, Morgan mouthed, "You sure about this?"

Thomas rose and walked toward her. The doctor was completely oblivious to it, to Morgan's hesitation, and even to how he fumbled with his stethoscope like he'd never used it before. "Indulge yourself," Thomas said without the slightest worry. "No one will think anything odd of this or worry at all. Including the doctor," he added. Then he was gone.

"Sergeant?" the doctor asked, again with his disarming smile.




Morgan's Genie Ch. 06



February, 2009

Landstuhl, Germany

Her eyes fluttered open to the sight of Thomas in the chair across from her hospital bed. Whatever book he was reading had him interested well enough, though she couldn't really make out the title. He seemed relaxed. Calm. Unconcerned. Morgan was about to ask him what he was doing over there instead of getting into bed with her, when she realized that this wasn't Baghdad anymore. This was Landstuhl.

And then her heart leapt into her throat and her eyes snapped open wide. She hadn't meant to fall asleep.

Alerted by her sudden change of breathing, Thomas looked up with a warm smile. "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said.

"No, it's not... I just..." Morgan blinked away her surprise and took a few breaths to steady herself. Her hospital gown was back in place, the sheets covering her once more, but she still felt as disheveled as she had been when the doctor left.

Or, more to the point, when the doctor left his nicely-fucked patient lying in her bed.

Thomas waited for her patiently. He kept doing that. She felt no less flustered for it. He had said that he was fine with this—he encouraged her, covered their sounds and made sure they'd get away with it, and left to allow her some privacy for her spontaneous fling. Even so, wasn't he the least bit bothered?

It had been an easy thing to accept when she was excited and aroused. It wasn't so hard to worry about the repercussions of a random lay while it was actually going on, but then Thomas didn't come back afterward. That had left her worried. Her smiling afterglow had given way to pensive waiting, then a nervous series of rehearsed apologies, and now...

...now, she realized, she had fallen asleep while waiting for him. Some show of sincerity that must be. Morgan bit her lip as she thought of something to say. All those words she'd thought up before falling asleep deserted her.

"Hey," she tried, and felt stupid for it.

"Hello yourself," Thomas smiled. "I have patrolled the hospital and alleviated what suffering I could without arousing suspicion. I believe I have done some significant good. There may be a miracle recovery or two in the offing," he shrugged.

"You did that without my even asking?" Morgan asked in a small, quiet voice.

"It seemed the most likely thing you would want me to do. To be honest, I've come to expect it. And as long as you've no need of my power, I thought... I thought I might take the liberty. Was this wrong?"

She sniffed. Her eyes welled up. "No."

Thomas stood, stepping toward her with his concern plain on his face. "What is it?"

"You're just... everything's really normal? You aren't mad? Hurt?"

"I hesitate to call anything 'normal' after all that I have seen. And you have a genie in your life, so there's that, but... why? What should I be upset about? Your tryst?"

The lump in her throat threatened her ability to speak. She merely nodded, looking up at him with apologetic eyes.

His easy smile remained. "Do not trouble yourself. As I said, I don't feel particularly jealous." He paused, searching for the right words. "It was probably good for both of us to verify this. I am yours, Morgan, not the other way around. I cherish you, but I have no claim upon you."

She shook her head, grabbing his wrist to draw him close enough to hold him. Her head leaned against his chest. "That's not true."

He knelt beside her, bringing his eyes level to hers. "Did he hurt you? Was something wrong? You slept so peacefully, I thought—I thought you must have enjoyed yourself."

"I did," she sniffed, "I mean, yeah, but not as much as with you."

An amused grin crept across his mouth. "Morgan, you are free to dally or not as you wish. But I would ask that you not make a habit of comparing your lovers' performance, at least out loud. Sooner or later someone's feelings will be a bit bruised. Even mine."

Laughter burst from her, short and unexpected. "No, I just mean you're..." she couldn't help but smile at him now. "You're amazing, Thomas."

"I have unfair advantages."

"No," she shook her head. "It's not those." She squeezed his hand. "But keep using them anyway, okay?"

"Of course."

"I was just worried when you didn't come back right away that you might be mad."

"You could have summoned me."

"I don't know how."

"Just call for me. Even under your breath. I'll be there quickly. I don't believe I can simply vanish in one place and appear in the next," he shrugged, "but I can move very quickly these days." He tilted his head curiously. "Was I away too long? Admittedly, I got distracted by watching what was going on in the operating rooms, and then there was another room with a television going. I thought you wanted to make sure we both had some space from one another on occasion. That has been one of your concerns all along."

Morgan gave a nod. "Yeah, it is, I just..." she looked around for the clock. He had been gone for hours. Night had fallen. She smiled again. "I'm starting to think we're gonna be fine."

"I am glad to hear it. You were worried that I was hurt by your tryst?"

"Nobody calls it that anymore," she said, embarrassed by her snorting laugh. She covered her mouth, then laughed again. "You call it a fling. Or a booty call. Or a one-night stand."

His eyebrow quirked. "People stand now? That seems strange."

"No, you doof!" she shoved him playfully. "Well. Okay. I mean you and I should try it, but only because you can use magic and I'm sure it'll be awesome." She smiled at the look of interest on his face. "Anyway, yeah. I was worried. I know you arranged all that—"

"You seduced him all on your own," Thomas corrected. "I just made sure he wouldn't have to worry about being caught."

"Okay. Fine. Anyway, yes. People say and do things they don't mean for the sake of other people all the time. I'm sure they did it in your era, too, didn't they? I don't want to hurt you, Thomas."

"As I said, you are my liege. All my affection aside, I would not presume otherwise."

"I don't want you to put your affection aside. We've gone too far for that now."

He took up her hands and kissed them. "I feel no jealousy. No betrayal. I am happy to know that you had a pleasant time. If you wish to pursue this man, I will aid you. If not, I need no further details. It will be the same in the future."

Morgan bit her lip. "Can you, um... clean me up?" she asked.

He smiled, showing nothing but understanding, and then kissed her forehead. The feeling was subtle, but it was there: her skin felt fresher, the matted feeling in her scalp vanished, and the sense that she needed to get into the shower or the bath no longer troubled her.

"All the way?" she asked quietly, blushing fiercely. "Inside, too?"

"It's done."

"Little too much information there, huh?" she smirked.

"You are not my first liege," Thomas assured her, "and I'm able to use magic. I hardly even need to think about this. Even so, at least you haven't gotten so drunk you can't find your way outside to—"

"Too much! Too much," she laughed, then squeezed his hands again. "I can't believe I get to have all this."

He shrugged. "It's magic. I wanted a liege whom I would truly feel deserving of my loyalty. I don't pretend to know the intricacies of magic, but on some level, you earned me."

"I don't plan to make a constant habit of this."

"I don't care if you do. Well," he corrected, "I imagine I'll care if you stop making a habit of me."

She just grinned. "I'd really just like you to hold me tonight, Thomas. Not because the other guy was better or because I don't want you. He wasn't—yeah, you'll have to live with knowing that—but he wasn't, and I do still want you. But tonight I just want you with me because I know we'll have more time together later."

Thomas slipped one leg up onto the bed, then another, his clothing vanishing as he moved until there were only the boxer briefs she seemed to like so much. The pair indulged in a kiss before Morgan settled into his arms, putting her head up against his chest as she had on other nights. His fingers drifted through her hair, leaving her feeling all the more spoiled.

In the solace of his arms, Morgan found her feelings for him growing. She'd been increasingly attached to him all along, but now she knew just how little she had to worry about Thomas getting clingy. He could give her space. Stay away for more than a couple hours at a time. Find his own interests. And even step aside for other men.

She had a lot to think about, and a lot of feelings to sort through. She'd known that all along, too. Yet now she looked forward to coming to those conclusions.

* * *

"Bored now," Morgan declared. She turned off the television set, put aside the remote, and stared at the blank screen. She had been in Landstuhl for little more than forty-eight hours and had been told earlier today that she'd likely be on her way back to the US in five days. She'd spend two weeks at Walter Reed, give or take, and then be on her way home to Fort Lewis.

That sounded dumb to her. There was a perfectly good hospital at Fort Lewis. Largest military hospital on the west coast, even, last time she checked. There was also a car there with her name on the registration. And an apartment full of her stuff. And her future.

Five. Days.

"Thomas, I wish you were here," she said out loud. And then she waited.

She remembered what he said about coming to her when summoned, but just the same it hadn't happened yet and sometimes his powers surprised him. She had been with him for the vast majority of his practical experience with his magic. Maybe he was wrong, and he'd appear in a big blue puff of smoke? Or maybe a bolt of lightning would crash through the ceiling and boom! Genie! Or maybe a big shower of glitter?

Please God, no, not glitter, she thought to herself. I could not fuck any guy who glittered for any reason. That shit's just not okay.

Seconds passed, but not minutes. To Morgan's mild disappointment, Thomas merely walked through the door. Not flashy, but very punctual. "You called, mistress?"

She sat with her arms folded across her chest. Her frown diminished somewhat with his greeting. "I can't decide whether you calling me 'mistress' is ridiculous or hot," she said.

"I will call you whatever you wish," he replied with a slight bow. "We've established this already."

"Yeah, I'm not complaining. That's the thing. I feel like it's terrible of me to enjoy the power trip, but I really enjoy the power trip!"

Thomas only smiled. He playfully got down on one knee and reached up to hold her hand. She burst out laughing before he could even say anything, and stopped him with a raised hand. "Don't. Whatever you're gonna say, don't."

As ever, he bowed to her wishes. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Oh, lots, but right now I have something in particular in mind. Thomas, I'm being a crabby, selfish bitch right now and I've run out of ways to talk myself out of it. Did I interrupt anything for you?"

"Your courtesy and your laugh would seem to indicate otherwise," he observed hesitantly. "A crabby bitch wouldn't ask me if I was doing anything important. And no, I was merely out walking around. For all the modern wonders, this place wears on me."

"Huh. How about that. Thomas, I need you to make me all invisible and stealthy and stuff. I need you to make sure the cameras don't record us going anywhere and that nobody notices that I'm out of the bed, and I need you to come with me. We've got a job to do."

He nodded, then rose and offered his hand. "We shall be as ghosts," he said, helping her courteously out of bed.

"Thank you, kind sir," she smirked. "Will we be able to talk to each other without anyone knowing?"

"As you wish," he nodded.

"Good. Follow me." With that, she walked out of the hospital room.

Thomas fell in behind her. He kept silent, staying close by and watching as Morgan went to the nurse's station for her ward. Naturally, he had plenty of questions—he always did—but since the previous day's tryst and their conversation last night, Morgan had kept her own counsel. She asked politely to be left alone to think, and though her tone remained no less friendly, she had been decidedly less affectionate today. That she admitted being called mistress was "hot" was something of a relief. At least she still openly acknowledged their attraction.

Yet here they were together again, and she was still short on conversation.

The floor was quiet at this time of night. The nurse was not actually at her station when they got there, which suited Morgan just fine. "You're on lookout duty," Morgan said. "Anyone starts coming this way, let me know."

"I shall," Thomas nodded, and took up a spot where he could watch the hallways. He saw Morgan move to the vertical file holders along the wall behind the nurse's station. She quickly searched through them, pulling out a few key papers and laying them aside.

"Make sure nobody bothers to look at these files until I'm finished with this stuff," Morgan said. "Just throw the same enchantment over the file rack that you use for us. You can do that, right?"

"Ah," he blinked, "yes?" He scratched his head. That was, he realized, within his power, yet he hadn't really considered it before. "How did you know?"

"Seemed like a reasonable guess, given what you've already done. Now give me a minute to read through this." She shuffled through more of the papers, removing a couple from the files. Then she put the group of files back where they belonged. Finished, she found a seat just by the nurse's station. "Okay, you can let the nurse come back now."

Thomas frowned. "I hadn't really done anything. She isn't here."

"No, but when she comes back," Morgan muttered, waving her hand. "Should be in just about a minute."

"Ah." He waited again until finally he saw the nurse coming. "On her way now. How did you know?"

"It's my job to notice things," she muttered. A moment later, she finally lifted her eyes from the papers the nurse as she strode casually toward her station. "Okay, you can't read minds, right? Right. But can you make people move slower without noticing?"

He blinked. "I suppose?"

"Great. Put Nurse Oblivious here into slow motion as soon as she sits down at her station and memorize what I say." She stood and loomed at the nurse's station, looking carefully at the keyboard to the computer.

Thomas waited until the nurse pulled out her chair before he used the enchantment. Morgan watched carefully as the nurse rolled the mouse on its pad and then lazily keyed in a single word. "G-O-S-L-U-G-S-1," she said aloud, heedless of how close she was to the nurse. True to Thomas's word, the woman noticed nothing. "G-O-S-L-U-G-S-1," she repeated, and then looked at Thomas.

"G-O-S-L-U-G-S-1?" he asked.

Morgan chewed on it. "Oh. She went to UC Santa Cruz. That won't be hard to remember at all. Damn, they really do have the coolest mascot," she muttered. "Um. You can let her move at normal speed again."

Releasing the nurse from the spell, Thomas stood waiting for further instructions. None were forthcoming. Morgan kept watch over the nurse's shoulder. "Oh, awesome," she said to herself, "Dr. Booty Call has the next two days off. He won't even know."

"Ah, mistress?" he asked, hoping he wasn't overstepping his entirely-unclear bounds.

"Yeah, you should only call me that if you're hitting on me," she grunted. "I'm not complaining, but still."

"What are we doing?"

"Hm? Sorry, I guess she's just gonna sit here and surf the internet for awhile." Morgan stood. "We're going home, Thomas."

He tilted his head curiously. "I thought you said that would cause problems for you? Force you into hiding?"

"Only if we vanished into thin air or if I walked out of here on my own power," Morgan said. She waved for him to follow and headed down the hall. "If I did that, then yeah, I'd wind up with a lot of questions to answer. I could probably pull a good disappearing act—a great one with your help—but I don't really want to have to keep up with it. I'd have to work out a new identity and everything, and I'm not interested in that. I like being me."

"...so?" he asked.

"So we're gonna cut me some slightly unusual orders sending me to the hospital closest to home. Practically my hometown. And it'll be all in the paperwork and the computers, so nobody'll think twice about it. By the time anyone notices it's wrong, I'll be home and it won't be worth fixing."

"I see," Thomas said. His tone conveyed some of his doubt about this. "I'm sure I could work this out with magic...?"

"You don't understand well enough how computers work," Morgan said with a shake of her head. "Or Army bureaucracy. That's okay, though. I've been taught a thing or three about how to catch people being naughty. Turns out you learn how to be naughty along the way. Watch and learn, buddy. First thing we need is a copier, and then we need to find Dr. Richmond's computer and figure out how to get into that.

"Goddamn counterintelligence specialist with a fucking genie," she grumbled under her breath. "No reason at all I should be taking up a hospital bed."

* * *

February, 2009

Madigan Army Medical Center

His hopes for an amorous flight, like the one they'd had from Iraq to Germany, were dashed when she asked to be put to sleep for the duration. Thomas fully intended to provide a long, lingering bout of intimate bliss for his mistress, but that was not to be. He wondered if he should have suggested his intentions openly before they got on the plane.

The flight did not bore him, exactly. Flying in a giant metal machine was still exciting and new. Everything, it seemed, was still new. He wandered the plane listening to conversations and watching the pilots work. Maps and charts fascinated Thomas, showing him how the world truly looked when all he'd ever seen before this century were effectively scribbles and wild conjecture. He stimulated the healing of the other injured soldiers. He read, too, which was something he could not get enough of now that his magic had taught him how.

But nothing, he found, fascinated him as much as Morgan. He adored his liege and his friend, and had dared to begin thinking of her as more than both. She never took him for granted, always showed her appreciation, and still spoke to him with affection, and yet the flirtation had diminished significantly since her tryst with the doctor. Thomas believed her when she said that it wasn't as enjoyable nor as fulfilling as what they shared. He did not feel jealousy and couldn't fault her for indulging in her freedom. If she wanted another, he would aid her in that pursuit, and be happy for her.

Just the same, her apparent loss of interest bothered him. It wasn't as if she had shut him out of conversation, but the tone had changed somewhat. What had he done wrong? Was it actually that—had he done something wrong? Or failed to do something? 

She liked him a great deal. Found him attractive. Enjoyed his company, both as a friend and as a bedmate. But now she seemed preoccupied and distant. Could it simply be a matter of pensive feelings as she returned home?

Moving to wake her before they landed, Thomas leaned in to kiss her forehead and then paused. Was this still appropriate? Was it what she wanted? She knew his affection for her. Yet if for any reason she wanted to ease the passion between them, he had to respect that. Regardless of what they had shared, fate had forced him upon her and her life.

He reached out to place his hand on hers, and smiled down at her as her eyes fluttered open. "We have arrived," he said to her.

Morgan took a deep breath and stretched her arms over her head, arcing her back slightly and consequently pushing out her breasts. Enamored as he was by Morgan's original, natural appearance, Thomas still couldn't help but feel a bit mesmerized by her now. He'd done an amazing job in enhancing her beauty.




Morgan's Genie Ch. 06



Her smile didn't quite match his. "Thank you," she said. There was more friendship in her tone than authority, and yet... "I need you to pay close attention to where we go and what goes on around us while we're in the hospital. I won't want to spend the evening there, but we have to be careful about how we slip out so we aren't missed. Okay?"

Thomas merely nodded. "As you wish."

Her lips pursed. "Yeah, that's another movie I'm gonna have to show you."

"I'm sorry?"

"Word choice. Nevermind."

"Morgan, is there anything wrong? You've been somewhat distant in the last couple of days."

"There's plenty wrong, but none of that is right in front of me just yet. It's closer, now that we're here, but..." she shrugged and looked up at him. "I've had a lot on my mind, Thomas. Some of it is stuff I have to work out for myself. I've felt like talking to you would only confuse things. Be patient with me just a while longer?" she asked.

He gave a half-nod, half-bow. "Of course."

"Right now I just want to focus on the job—which is making sure we can slip out of here tonight without any issues. I'm not interested in spending the night in a hospital, or with my leg in a brace."

* * *

Learning the routine at Madigan Medical Center turned out to be much easier than that of the hospital at Landstuhl. This was, after all, familiar ground for Morgan. She only knew so much about the hospital itself, having come here only occasionally and for brief visits in the past. But she knew the area, knew the general ebb and flow of activity around Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and knew how stateside military folks liked to arranged their schedules.

As Morgan expected, practically everyone who checked her paperwork muttered something about her transfer being irregular, but gave the matter little further concern. She was processed, given a quick check by a nurse and then a somewhat more thorough exam by a doctor, all with raised eyebrows and encouraged smiles about her rapid recovery.

All the while, Thomas made his rounds of the hospital. He knew now how to look for cameras and exits, what to read and when to listen. By the time Morgan had been admitted to her room—again, thankfully, one she did not have to share—he knew most of what he needed to know.

He found her with her laptop opened and at work, scanning her screen with interest as she clicked her way through her work. "Mission accomplished?" she asked.

"I believe so," Thomas said. "There is a written schedule on the nurse's station for this floor. I took the liberty of conjuring a copy for you," he explained as he handed it to her. "This hospital is not as busy as Landstuhl or Baghdad's. I believe we can get away for an evening."

"Outstanding," she smiled, taking the schedule and reviewing it briefly. "So you made me a gold bar once. You can make beds larger and smaller. And you made clothes for yourself. Think you can make outfits for two?"

"Easily," he nodded.

She spun her laptop around to show him the picture. "Can you make that?" she asked. On the screen was a handsome man in black slacks and a stylish silk blue button-up shirt.

"It doesn't seem like it would flatter your beauty, but I can manage," he smirked.

"Hah. For you, doof. I'd like to see you in that, if you're willing to wear it."

"Of course I am," Thomas said. He changed in the blink of an eye; one moment, he was in fatigue pants and a black t-shirt, and in the next he was dressed for a night out. It fit him perfectly.

"Now how do you even know how the fabric feels?" Morgan asked, reaching out to touch his clothes. She found them softer than she expected, smoother and likely more comfortable than the real thing. "Or, then again, I guess it doesn't really matter, right?" 

"It's magic," he shrugged. "I've used my imagination. I've come to find that the magic itself does a little bit of work to fill in the gaps."

"Gotcha. Well. As long as we're not getting hung up on little details." She turned her computer back to her, clicked through a few pages, and paused to assure herself of what she wanted before she spoke further. "Okay. It's past seven, so traffic out there won't be so bad. Can you make sure we're ready to go? Cast whatever magic spells you need so we can just slip out of here when I'm ready?"

Thomas nodded deeply once more, then turned and looked out the doorway. Morgan noticed that this trick seemed to be mostly centered on the entryways of a room more than anything else. When he stepped back inside, he said, "You'll be found sleeping soundly and with everything in a state of peace and normalcy," he explained. His head tilted curiously. "Are we going to visit your home?"

"No," Morgan huffed as if that would be a bad idea. "No, we're not going there at all. I'm not ready to deal with that yet. Feels kind of bad that I haven't called Dad yet to tell him I'm here, but..." she clicked around a little more on the laptop and sighed. "No, I've got to settle the rest of this first." She spun the computer around again.

"Here," she said. "I wish for these panties, these shoes and this dress, and I wish for them to fit me comfortably and perfectly so I'll look ravishing. Please," she added, smiling at him. Then she pointed to the bed. "On the bed, please. Not right on me. I'd like to get dressed under my own power."

He couldn't help but smile. The thought of Morgan walking beside him in a flattering, figure-hugging black dress like the one on the picture certainly lifted his spirits. The warrior of old Europe very much appreciated modern women's styles. There was much to be said for a dress with a long slit up one leg.

A moment later, the clothes appeared on the bed in front of Morgan. "And the brace? The bandages?" she asked pleasantly. "Thank you," she said when they vanished within heartbeats.

"May I ask what we're up to tonight?"

"Date night," Morgan said. "You'll have to step outside, please. I'd like to get dressed."

"Date night?" Thomas asked. "What date is it? Is there something special about it?"

Morgan let out a melodramatic sigh, fighting off her grin. "A 'date' is any sort of prearranged meeting with possible romantic intent," she explained. "As in, 'Do I really like this guy?' or 'Will she sleep with me if I buy her dinner?' It's what we do now instead of having our parents decide who we're gonna marry."

"Ah. I see. The extensive 'try-out' period you discussed before."

"Yeah. And it's not just a matter of marriage. Sometimes it's just short-term interest. I've dated guys I knew damn well weren't gonna be my lifelong one and only. Anyway, out, you. I'm taking you out on a date tonight and I want to look good."

Thomas stepped out of the room. He had observations and corrections to make about what she had said, but they could wait. Seeing her in that dress could not.

* * *

"This city is even more amazing than the last!" Thomas exclaimed for the third time. He sat beside Morgan in the backseat of the taxi, looking out with wonder at all the lights, tall buildings and cars.

Morgan tried hard not to roll her eyes. It wasn't like he really knew any better. "It's only downtown Tacoma," she said.

"It's wonderful!"

She sighed. He had a lot to learn. Still, it was once again his night to be awestruck. The dress fit her perfectly, so much so that she figured just staying home and staring at herself in the mirror for awhile would be entertaining enough on a rainy night. Yet he had even more fun using his magic to cleanse and curl her brown hair, to give her a little eyeshadow and to redden her lips.

She felt beautiful, and loved it, and had no interest in being shown up by Tacoma of all places. "Hey. Magic man," she said, giving his hand a squeeze. "I'm over here."

Thomas turned back to her and gave that smile she'd come to adore. "My apologies," he said. "I'm new in town. Have I been ignoring you?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "Wow, sometimes I don't really know what I want," she confessed. "Half of me feels a little put out and the other half is glad that I'm not the only thing that can hold your attention."

"Eventually I'll become accustomed to this city and the others like it," Thomas assured her. "You will always be able to hold my attention." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it softly, never breaking eye contact.

The two just stared at one another for a long moment. For the first time in days, Thomas had finally gotten Morgan to blush again.

"This is the place you wanted, right?" asked the cab driver. He pulled up to the glowing lights and shining black glass of the restaurant.

"It is," Morgan said. She pulled the card out of her wallet to pay for the taxi ride, smiling to herself as Thomas exited, rounded the car and opened the door for her even before the driver got to it. He waited with his hand extended, and helped her out as if he'd put in several years as a personal valet.

He even opened the door for her on the way in, but knew to let her take the lead from there. It wasn't as if he knew his way around a modern restaurant. So far, all he knew of them was from a handful of movies.

"Hi, we don't have a reservation," Morgan said to the hostess. "Table for two? Under the name of Thomas?"

"Absolutely," said the hostess, who did the same double-take on Morgan that everyone else seemed to need lately—and, for that matter, on Thomas. Morgan couldn't help but smile at the way the young woman's skin seemed to flush with color as she glanced up a third time at her escort. "It'll be at least a twenty minute wait, though. Would you like to have a seat in the bar?"

"We might in a moment, but I thought we'd go out on the patio for a few."

"Um. Okay," the hostess nodded, unsure as to why anyone would want to hang around outside on a late February night. They weren't exactly dressed warmly. "We'll let you know when your table is ready."

Morgan took a deep breath, and held tightly to Thomas's hand. "Thank you," she said, drawing him out behind her.

"I could be mistaken," Thomas said, "but this seems like a place for the wealthy, even with all these modern standards that I'm not used to."

"Yeah, you'd probably be impressed by a standard burger joint," she grimaced. "Don't worry, there'll be plenty of that, too."

"I can surely pay for all this," he mused, "presuming they accept gold? I could conjure more of your paper money, but you said that was to be avoided."

"It is. That's counterfeiting. Screws with the economy, and on principle I don't want to do that. Don't worry," she said, drawing him out to the well-lit patio and its heat lamps, "I'll take full advantage of your magic for material gain soon enough. Right now I can afford a single swanky night out. I'm buying for both of us."

"Thank you," he said.

Morgan turned to him, drawing both of his hands into hers and stepping close. "Can you make sure nobody's listening in on us? Or notices if I make a big scene?"

He tilted his head curiously, but nodded. "Done."

Again, Morgan took a long, steadying breath. Thomas waited patiently, feeling a bit guarded. For all her cheer, something weighty concerned her. "We need to have the talk, Thomas. The one I've been avoiding while I sorted things out."

"I... understand?" he replied, though he plainly didn't.

"I've been distant because I wanted to sort out how I felt about things. About you. My life. Everything. You're kind of distracting. Honestly, part of it was that I just wanted to see if you could get the clue and give me some space when I needed it, and you did, and I'm grateful. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was playing games with you. Honestly, that wouldn't be an unfair way to describe it. Women who play games like that with guys suck, and I'm sorry, but I just had to know."

He shook his head. "Morgan, you have nothing to apologize for. I am your servant."

"That's not all, though, is it?" Morgan asked. She looked at him intently. "Thomas, I need you to tell me how you feel about me. I need you to be honest and open. The truth, the whole truth, all that." She had her poker face on; though it was plain she cared about him, she left no indication as to what she wanted him to say.

She hadn't seen much in the way of self-doubt in his eyes before now, or at least, not when it came to his emotions. Morgan studied his face as he searched for the words to answer her. "I fear I still don't have enough sense of this time to answer you easily and directly, as a modern man could," he confessed. "I am unsure if what I would say will sound to you as it does to me.

"You are unlike anyone I have ever met, Morgan. The thought of being your friend, companion and your servant—as that is what I am now by nature of my magic—that thought fills me with joy. I am awed by your strength, your wit, your courage. Your heart. I have a sense now, I think, of how independent you are even by modern standards, and I admire that. You need no genie, nor even any ordinary servant.

"I wish to make you happy, whatever that might mean. And though it might be outside the bounds of my service, or inappropriate to my station or..." he shook his head, unsure of how to complete the thought. "I love you, Morgan."

She listened to him, her eyes beginning to shimmer, and finally took hold of his shirt and tugged him close, leaning her head against his shoulder with a sniffle. His arms came around her. "Oh, God, I thought you were building toward letting me down easy for a second there," she half-laughed and half-sobbed.

"Was that what you wanted to hear?" he asked.

"I wanted to hear the truth."

"That was it."

"Yeah," she sniffed again, and wiped her eyes, and looked up at him. Morgan grabbed the hair at the back of his head, pulling him in for a fierce kiss that she found difficult to maintain because she couldn't stop smiling. Her arms shook, and then she realized it was her whole body, and it wasn't from the cold. Thomas had taken care of that. He'd taken care of a lot of things. "Thomas, I'm in love with you, too," she whispered in between her kisses.

His embrace became more passionate, as did his lips. Before too long, Morgan had little trouble with her smiles anymore. She was happy, but his mouth on hers felt too good to disrupt with a grin. Morgan allowed herself to melt against him, feeling his body as he held her. Eventually she realized he was shaking a little, too.

She wasn't the only one with lowered defenses.

"So. Yeah. That's where I'm at," she managed as the moment cooled enough to speak again. He didn't release her, nor did she want him to. "Thomas, I feel awful about you being the servant and me being the mistress and all that, and half of why I feel awful about it is because it just feels so fucking awesome."

He shook his head gently. "I entered into this condition knowing I would serve someone. My only condition was that it be someone worthy. That it is someone I also love seems much more than I could have hoped for."

"Love shouldn't be about servitude. I don't want you to have to be the servant. I want you to be my lover and my partner. That's what's actually important."

"It is what I am," he shrugged. "I trust you. Treat me as you will. I know how you feel now." His lips came to her forehead. His warm embrace never wavered.

"This doesn't change anything for you?" Morgan asked. "I'm not a hypocrite for wanting a boyfriend and a genie? What about the whole jealousy thing? Don't I owe you as much loyalty as you owe me?"

He chuckled. "You mean your 'fling?' I never once thought there was any disloyalty in that. You have a fortune in magic now. In beauty. Why wouldn't you indulge? I hold you to no expectations."

"Yeah, but I don't want that, Thomas," she said. "I want you to be my lover. My man. With all that means. I don't want you to wait for some sign from me to tell you to get cuddly or frisky. I want you to follow your own moods. Speak your mind. All that. Please don't treat me like I'm just your boss and sleeping with me is just a job perk."

Thomas shook his head. "I will not," he assured her. "I will act as your lover and your servant. Trust me in this. It is what I am and it is what I want. Do you want other lovers?"

"Not seriously, no," Morgan huffed, "but you can't dangle candy in front of me like you have and not expect me to grab for it."

"So grab as much as you like," he shrugged.

Morgan grinned at him mischievously. "Sooner or later that shoe's gonna be on the other foot, y'know," she warned.

"I am not interested in other men."

"Not what I mean," she laughed, swatting him on the shoulder. She pulled away from him just a little, holding his hands and looking at him. "Part of me wants you to tear my clothes off right now, but I wanted to talk about other stuff. Our future. Us. And I wanted to do it before I lost my mind in bed with you. That, and... well, I wanted to be here so we'd have something to distract ourselves with if this conversation didn't really go like this."

"Thoughtful of you."

"And I've wanted a real steak for weeks. Ohmygod," she groaned. "I thought over and over again about wishing one up, but I wasn't sure if you'd really know how to make one, so I figured I'd just treat you."

"My love is too kind," Thomas grinned.

She grinned back. "I like the sound of that."

"As do I."

"Thomas? Party of two?" called a voice. The hostess smiled from the door, clearly approving of the lovely couple and their stance. Regardless of Thomas's magical concealment, a pleasant sight was still a pleasant sight.

Morgan wiped her eyes one last time and led him in by the hand. "C'mon, you."

They strode through the restaurant to a quiet, candle-lit table in a corner. Morgan was grateful for the natural shadows and noise control of her surroundings. She was also grateful, she had to admit, for the few admiring double-takes she and Thomas received on the way in. It was ego and it was petty and she knew it, but being so smoking hot that she was a walking distraction had so far been pretty awesome.

Still, none of them made her feel as beautiful as Thomas did merely by looking at her. She noticed as they sat that he was far less fascinated by his surroundings now. He accepted his menu with a polite thank-you, as did Morgan, but hardly gave it a glance. Everything was just scenery now.

"So don't let me tell you what to do here," Morgan said, "but I'm tellin' you that you want the New York steak medium well."

"What I want has very little to do with eating food," Thomas grinned.

She smiled and even blushed. It felt good that he could still do that to her. "You say that, but you haven't had a good steak yet," Morgan taunted him. She didn't even really need to look at her menu, and couldn't be bothered with it just now anyway. She put it aside, making no further pretense of looking at it while she trembled with the excitement of the moment.

"That's what I mean, though," Morgan told him. "I mean not right this second. I really want a nice romantic dinner with you. But I want you later, and I don't want you to just follow my lead."

He turned his head curiously as he listened to her. "You've still a lot to say," he observed.

"Yeah. I do. Thomas... I'm kind of a mess right now. I was a mess before you found me, and I mean even before the whole fight—and I know I don't look it, but that kind of freaked me out, too. And I know I'm really good at hiding it.

"My family's a mess. I figure any day I don't get a call or an email from my mother is better than one when I do, and that's just sad. I worry about my father. I joined up with the Army because I'm a believer, but the fact is it also just offered me a way out of the life I grew up with and I took it and never looked back. But the closer it got to time to getting out, the more scared I got of what might come next. Sometimes I think half the reason I stuck with the decision to get out was that I just refuse to be afraid of leaving."




Morgan's Genie Ch. 06



He gave that little tilt of his head again. "Are you sure you want to leave?"

"Yeah!" Morgan exclaimed. "Thomas, I've had enough of the war and of living where someone else tells me and all that. I've done my bit for God and country. I'm done. But that's just another big batch of baggage, y'know?

"I found out right before I deployed that my shit boyfriend was cheating on me, and I've still gotta deal with that. I mean theoretically my stuff is all just in storage and he's supposedly been paying the rent on the apartment we leased together, but I know there's gonna be more of a mess from that. We aren't even talking anymore. It's a mess. I know it's a mess. And I've gotta deal with it, but I just can't until I'm done with this whole hospital bullshit.

"And yeah. There's the war. All of it. Two deployments, and I felt really distant from my civilian friends after the first one. I still get nightmares, and after this last one I know they're only gonna be worse. They haven't crept up on me yet and I'm sure that's because of you."

Thomas nodded, reaching his hand out for hers. "I know of what you speak," he told her. "I had nightmares, too."

"Figured," Morgan swallowed. "So I need time, Thomas. I need to get through the next couple of weeks where probably all I'd have to do is sit around thinking about all this bullshit and spin myself up. And then it'll be time to get out of the hospital, and out of the Army soon after that, and I still have no idea what I want to do."

"You do realize," he ventured, "that with me at your side, you don't necessarily have to do anything? You could simply enjoy your life? Your world? Me?"

"Sooner or later, I gotta find something productive to do with myself, or it's a wasted life," she said. "But for a little while? Maybe a couple of years? Yeah. That's exactly what I want, Thomas. I want to take selfish advantage of you and just have a good time and put some distance between myself and the last awful couple of years."

He squeezed her hand. "I think that would be good for me, too."

"You were basically on hold that whole time in the bottle, weren't you?" Morgan asked. "Didn't really have time to come to terms with everything you'd been through?"

"Not much, no," Thomas shrugged. "I would occasionally have brief moments of awareness, but then there would be clouds once more. The time passed swiftly. Had I actually been lucid in that bottle for almost a thousand years, I surely would have gone mad." 

"Right. So. Next couple years, we just focus on having a good time together. Deal?"

"Only a fool would refuse," he smiled. "So then all we need concern ourselves with is getting through the next few weeks until you are freed from your commitments? And your hospital stay?"

"Yeah. That. That's the other thing I wanted to talk about. I've got something in mind, but I need your magic for that. There's something I want to do in that time."

"What might that be?"

"You," Morgan said levelly, and held her amusement in check even though she wanted to burst out laughing at how he blinked in shock. "Like I said. I don't want to dwell on things. I want to have a good time. I want you, Thomas. I don't want to do anything in that hospital bed other than make love with you. We gotta let the doctors and the orderlies do their little check-ups and stuff, but past that?"

Her voice became serious. Hungry. Controlled, though with an undercurrent of passion. "Thomas, I wish to make love with you for the next two weeks. I want to be sweet and gentle and dirty and rough and I want you to be every bit as possessive as you feel like being because I love it when you take charge of my body."

"You..." he swallowed hard. "You mean this?"

She gave a long, slow nod. "Thomas, I want you to use your magic to keep our bodies hungry and ready so we can just go nuts. I want it all. I want to taste you. I want to wear slinky underwear and have you tear it off of me and fuck me like you won me in a tournament, over and over.

"And when we're done with this whole hospital business, I want you to make love with me every night from now on until I say otherwise. And I honestly hope I never do."

His mouth wasn't quite on the floor, but he was every bit as awed by her demands as she'd hoped he might be. "You would give me this?"

"Us," Morgan told him. "I'm giving this to us, to share. That's how we're gonna start putting our baggage behind us."

Silence stretched between them, though there seemed hardly any real distance at all. If anything, Thomas felt closer to her than ever.

"Hi," said a voice. "I'm Susan, and I'll be your server tonight. Would you like to start with drinks or an appetizer, or are you ready to order?"

Thomas couldn't take his awestruck gaze off of Morgan. She just sat back and grinned. "He's gonna need a glass of wine," she said. "And a New York steak. Medium rare."

* * *

It was late when she led him by the hand through the hospital. He was staring, she knew, at her figure, her legs, and her ass and how the black dress flattered them all. She didn't mind. He loved her and respected her, and if along the way he also looked at her like a piece of meat, she could enjoy that very much, thank you.

It wasn't as if she didn't feel exactly the same way.

Morgan trembled with excitement as they came back to her room. The scenery was anything but sexy. It was hardly even hospitable. She knew her man could fix that.

They rounded the doorway to her room, closing the door behind them with an enchantment to ensure that no one thought this odd. Morgan stopped a few feet past the doorway. Thomas slipped in beside her, his hands on her hips and roaming slowly upward as his lips came to her neck. "Close your eyes," he whispered against her earlobe.

She shivered as she obeyed. His lips felt good. His hands felt good. His body pressed up against hers from behind excited her, promising carnal thrills.

"You may now look," he said again, his mouth still close enough that the words seemed to touch her physically.

She stood with him in a room of medieval luxury. There was a warm and active fireplace embedded in the furthest grey stone wall, with tapestries and candelabras adorning the other sides. Soft, thick fur rugs covered the floors. The bed was less than historically accurate, looking too luxurious and clean to be anything but a modern piece, but its strong wooden frame and the patterns of its sheets matched the setting just fine.

"Wow," Morgan smiled. "Is this an illusion, or did you actually change the whole room?"

"I believe the phrase you taught me was 'need-to-know information,'" her lover taunted her.

"Mmm. I'll go along with that. You've set the alarm?"

"I have. We will have plenty of warning to ready ourselves for any visitors. Until then..." he kissed her neck further.

"Say it," she whispered.

"Until then, you are mine."

Her smile shrank, but not because she was displeased. Her arousal had simply grown well beyond smiles. Perhaps Thomas was using his magic on her to make that happen, too, but Morgan doubted it—and didn't want to know in any case. It felt too good to question. She trusted him. Loved him. And had told him, explicitly, that she wanted him to be as possessive as he pleased tonight.

It was only fair, given how possessive she felt in turn. Given the trust they had established, it also turned her on fiercely.

Morgan slipped out of his grasp, turned and looked into his eyes. Her hands came to the shoulder straps of her dress. Thomas watched her as she slowly brought them down. He didn't smile, either, but Morgan could see in his eyes just how much he appreciated her beauty as she undressed for him, taunting him a bit by holding the dress to her breasts before letting it slip away. Morgan swayed slightly as she pushed the fabric the rest of the way down her hips to let it land in a pool at her feet.

She stood before him in only her panties and heels. Morgan couldn't get enough of his gaze. Putting on a show was not one of her habits; men had often told her they found her pretty, but she doubted herself nonetheless. Here her confidence soared as she turned for Thomas.

Stepping closer to him once more, touching his shirt and breathing heavily, Morgan said, "Take the rest." She felt his arms come around her. Felt his hands slide down her bare back and then around her ass, groping and holding it freely as his mouth came down on hers. She whimpered and shivered again as she let him play with her.

He could tear her panties off, she thought, bend her over and take her right there and she'd love it. No foreplay. No affection. Just intimacy and possession. She felt so aroused and so wet that she was ready for him to get right to it, and loved him dearly for the time he took in just enjoying her.

When his fingers finally hooked into her panties and began to slowly slide them down, Morgan's heart began to beat harder than ever. His mouth left hers to trail kisses down her neck and her chest as he knelt. His lips came tantalizingly close to each of her nipples, bringing them to eager hardness, but never actually graced them with a lick or a kiss. Instead, his mouth crept ever downward to her groin and her bush.

"Make it however you like it," she whispered to him. Her hands came to his strong shoulders as he kissed the bones of her hips. "Bare. Natural. I don't care." She looked down with curiosity, though, and smiled as his magic reshaped her bush to a thick strip of short, soft brown hair. She felt his tongue probe gently between her legs and saw his eyes look up at hers. Morgan shook her head. "I won't stop you from that," she told him, "but I don't want my turn yet, if that's okay. I want that later. Right now, I want yours."

He grinned just a little, standing at her gesture. Morgan explored his body once more with her touch, starting with him fully clothed and continuing on as she unbuttoned his shirt. She couldn't help but smile, looking at his muscles and his faint scars. She liked this body a lot. More than once, Morgan leaned in for a kiss or a nibble.

"Morgan," Thomas murmured. Whatever more he would have said, though, was derailed as Morgan unfastened his belt and slipped it free.

"Shoes," she said. "Socks. Off." She turned aside to grab a pillow off of the bed and drop it at Thomas's bare feet, and then guided his pants off in much the same way as he had shed her panties. She kept her face close to his skin the whole time, feeling not the least bit shy about caressing his erect cock with her cheek. She had grown quite fond of it.

He watched breathlessly as Morgan sank to her knees in front of him, taking his cock in her hand and stroking its hard length indulgently. "I have a wish for you, Thomas," she said.

His eyes fluttered. "Anything."

"I wish for us to taste wonderful to one another," Morgan smiled, her words coming out slowly and seductively. "I wish for you to use your magic to make this comfortable for me. Pleasant. Use your imagination. I want you to make sure I like doing this so that I'll want to do it for you often."

He opened his mouth to speak, but the sensation of her tongue gliding from the base to the tip as she watched his face robbed him of words. His hands ran through her hair as she teased him. "Something to say?" she teased.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes," Morgan answered, still working him with one hand while the other softly enjoyed the feeling of his ass. "I'd do it for you anyway, but I'll be glad to have incentives." It was the last thing she said before her lips came to the head of his cock, kissed it reverently, and then slowly opened to take him into her mouth. She brought her face ever closer to his groin, enveloping more and more of his length without ever breaking eye contact.

Thomas let out a long, awed breath. It was a moment or two before he could regain his sense of anything but pleasure. Morgan's mouth pulled back, releasing all but the tip from her kiss, and lovingly rolled her tongue over the head a few times before she moved to take more of him into her mouth again.

"I thought you wanted me to be more possessive," he whispered, "not more possessed by you."

"Mm? I do," she taunted, kissing his cock reverently.

"I am at your mercy here," Thomas confessed, "much moreso than you are at mine."

"So remember it's the other way around," Morgan winked, "and do what comes naturally." With that, she began to slowly devour him again.

His head swam. His legs trembled. On her third such motion, Thomas remembered her wish. With her fourth descent on his cock he heard a moan of pleasure come from her as Morgan found herself able to take his full length into her despite his size.

Her hands now clutched at his ass. Her eyes fell shut. She thrilled to the ecstasy of having him fill her mouth, enjoying a smooth and pleasuring magical sensation nearly as good as having him between her legs. Morgan felt his hands on her head, felt him push forward with his hips, and felt no discomfort or degradation at all. She felt only the desire for more, and followed it.

Despite the burning need between her legs, Morgan happily continued on. It only aroused her more as Thomas began to let out long groans of satisfaction. They fell into an indulgent cycle together, bowed head and slowly thrusting hips building a blissful rhythm.

She felt him tremble again and willingly took in as much of him as she could, all the way to the base of his tool with her nose pressed up against his groin until finally he could hold back no more. Morgan felt him release down her throat, thrilling to the sensation as he filled her and knowing that there was nothing natural about how good it all felt.

"Morgan," he moaned. "I must have you."

She released him from her mouth, but not from her hands. There would be much more of this. Hours of this. "What?" she teased. "This doesn't count?"

"No." With his hands still on her head, he gently guided her up, holding and turning her as gracefully as if they were dancing, until finally she faced away from him with his front pressed up against her back.

"Oh," she murmured, "I see—aaahh!" She felt his cock tease the scorching wet lips between her legs, sliding across their length only once or twice before he bent her forward at the hips and back at the shoulders in a stretch that normally only looked good in pictures. The strain of her muscles felt good; the sensation of him penetrating her and making her his was as good as any climax she'd ever had. It only left her wondering how good her actual orgasms might be tonight.

Morgan cried out in willing surrender as he took her, slamming his hips up against her ass to drive into her pussy. Her last coherent thought was of how good it was to trust someone like this, to cede all her control knowing that it would all be returned eventually—and at this point, the first Tuesday after never sounded like a good time to ask.

Then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she couldn't think of her life or the war or anything more than the glorious fucking she was getting from the most amazing man she'd ever met.

She felt him deep inside of her—deeper than he could actually be going, again with no discomfort or pain or anything but the desire for more. She gave no thought to time, knowing only that it went on and on until they finally built together to a climax that shook her so hard she cried out his name and then hung from his embrace, held up by his arms and the length of him inside her, with tears running down her face.

Warm fluid ran down her legs, and down his as well. She loved it. She should have been sore, or at least too sensitive to go on, but true to her wish she was neither. She wanted more. "Thomas," she whimpered.

He turned her head to his, kissed her, and then brought her to the bed where she could relax as he went at her again.

Morgan often cried out for more that night. After the second rutting, with his animal urges somewhat sated but his passion only further inflamed, Thomas laid Morgan onto her back and pushed into her again. Her legs spread out welcomingly, then wrapped around his hips, and her lips found his and kissed and chewed on them lustfully as they possessed one another.

Somewhere along the way, Morgan's orgasms began to feel so good they left her weeping. She thought, briefly, that perhaps it was less about the sex and more about their love, but then Thomas kept fucking her and it was several long hours before she could think so straight again.

* * *

March, 2009

Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington

"...actions are credited with saving the lives of several members of Staff Sergeant Carter's unit. The valor, tenacity, resourcefulness and the high proficiency of skill demonstrated by Staff Sergeant Carter are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Army. The Silver Star and Purple Heart are hereby awarded."

The men and women in the audience all around Frank Carter rose applauded, but he found it difficult to do so. He needed to blow his nose, and thankfully his girlfriend, Linh, had wisely held a tissue in her hand for just that eventuality. The big man gave up trying to look so tough in front of all of these soldiers and airmen. He'd done his own time in uniform, had put in twenty years on crab boats in Alaska after that, and his daughter had just won a combat medal—and stood on the stage in one piece. He was entitled to a few tears.

There were other awards that day. Plenty of other soldiers and airmen had been in scrapes as nasty as hers, if not nastier, but Frank wasn't so interested in those. He just held his girlfriend's hand, stared at his daughter there on the stage in her dress uniform, and waited patiently until he could finally slip through the crowd of men and women in uniform and their loved ones and wrap her up in his large arms for a hug that would, he intended, last well into next week.

When the ceremony finally broke up, he did just that. He had to wait his turn, though, as by the time he'd gotten to her he found her in the arms of a tall black man with the gold birds of a colonel on his uniform. The man released Frank's tearful daughter on his approach, knowing a father when he saw one.

"Dad," Morgan told him, jumping into his arms. There was a tear or two on her face, too, but by now Frank was much more composed.

"Mr. Carter," the colonel said, holding out his hand when the moment was right, "I'm Colonel Wallace, Morgan's C.O. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

"You, too, colonel," Frank said, happily shaking his hand. "Morgan's told me a lot about you."

"We'll miss her a lot," Wallace told him. "She's leaving some big shoes to fill."

"Thank you, sir," Morgan smiled.

"Bah. You're almost a civilian now. Don't call me sir. Call me Bill. And if there's anything I can do for you, just call me." He gave her a last nudge on the shoulder before excusing himself, wading into the crowd to greet more dependants and relatives.

"Hi, Linh," Morgan said, looking past her father's shoulders to his patient girlfriend. "Sorry I didn't, um—"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Linh waved dismissively. "We're just glad you're home."

"Yeah. Yeah, I am," Morgan nodded, squeezing her dad one more time. "Hey, there's someone I want you to meet." She needed only a moment to find Thomas standing nearby, dressed like all the other soldiers and having no trouble at all fooling everyone around him.

"This is Thomas," she explained. "My boyfriend."

"Oh, really?" Frank chuckled. "This is something you hadn't mentioned."

"Sorry," she offered as the two men shook hands. "I just haven't really been sure how to explain everything until now."

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you've enjoyed this series! It took me a long time to figure out how to end this. To be honest, part of my intent with this story was to establish a sort of open-ended premise for writing random sexy fun whenever I felt like it. I feel like I've finally got this down now, and yet I also wanted to give this a solid conclusion. There may be random stories of Morgan and Thomas in the future. There may not. I can't make any promises.