Alien vs. Alien

and it looked familiar. “Where, exactly, are we headed, baby?”
    “The Embassy ballroom. It’s loaded with people and equipment, though.”
    “Shouldn’t be a problem. Richard, hold onto Kitty and Chuck, will you?”
    My jaw dropped. This was the first time I’d ever heard Jeff call Chuckie anything other than Reynolds. White took our hands as requested, Jeff finished his fiddling, grabbed my free hand, and we moved.
This felt nothing like a gate transfer or hyperspeed. There was no nausea, no feeling of movement, really. But we could see where we were going, in a sense, but we were moving by everything so fast it was something of a blur. The movement and feeling was very similar to how ACE had shifted us all to Alpha Four and back again at the end of Operation Invasion.
    We stopped quickly enough, right in the middle of the ballroom. It dawned on me that I’d forgotten to tell Jeff that the Embassy was shielded, but apparently that hadn’t been an issue, because we were all okay.
    “Jeff! Jeff! Jeff!” Bellie sounded overjoyed. But she stayed with Oliver. I wasn’t sure if he had a death grip on her legs or what, but I was thankful for the small favor.
    Jeff winced. “Whoa. All of you are really stressed and upset.”
    “Why wouldn’t we be?” Christopher snapped.
    “Why are you all mad at us?” Jeff asked.
    “You do realize we’ve thought you were kidnapped all this time,” White said calmly. “Therefore, while Missus Martini and I have had a few moments to come to grips with the fact that the two of you are back with us, most of the rest of the room is relieved to see the two of you alive and reasonably well, while at the same time being remarkably perturbed that you have waited so very long to reassure us of your health and well-being.”
    “What Richard said. Only not nearly as nicely.”
    Naomi stared at Chuckie. “We thought you might be dead,” she said finally.
    “Clarence said he had you,” Abigail added. “He almost convinced Sis to go with him to save you.”
    “I’m sorry.” Chuckie looked as though he had no idea of what to say in this situation. Come to think of it, he probably didn’t.
    “You didn’t call,” Naomi added. She walked over to him. “In fact, you didn’t text, send a mental message, or send an emotional message, either. Nothing. I thought you were
dead
.”
    “I didn’t mean to worry you.” Chuckie looked and sounded worried.
    “Clarence actually sort of had us—” Jeff said.
    Before he could finish, Naomi burst into tears. Chuckie pulled her into his arms, held her, and did the soothing murmur thing. He also did the nuzzling of the head thing, as well as the stroking of the back in an intimate way thing. I heard a couple of terms of endearment in there, too.
    This didn’t shock me all that much. I’d had a strong suspicion for quite a while, after all, and if White calling him Charles the moment we were with Naomi hadn’t been the clear clue, her actions when Chuckie was in danger certainly left no room for confusion. And some of the Poof Population Explosion was also explained. But not all. Wondered if the Poofs somehow knew what was coming and had been staffing up in preparation. Decided I could find out another time.
    I looked at Jeff. In contrast to what I would have guessed even this morning, he didn’t look shocked at all. He also didn’t look angry. He looked incredibly pleased. Clearly their time alone together had been great for bonding.
    Jeff looked at me, and the pleased look left his face to be replaced by a guilty and apologetic look. He ran his hand through his hair. Now that we were in the light, I could see that he’d definitely taken some kind of beating. Because A-Cs healed fast, he didn’t look as bad as he’d probably looked a couple hours prior, but Jeff was definitely going to need adrenaline. He probably needed isolation, but I doubted we had time for that.
    “I’m not going to turn on the waterworks. Because I’ve been too busy to focus on the fretting, so I’m not nearly as upset as Mimi is, and because I’m just under the emotional level where I’m so angry that I’m going to cry. But if you don’t tell us all exactly what the hell is going on, quickly, succinctly, and immediately, I’m going to show you that Naomi has nothing on me in terms of histrionics.”
    Jeff looked at Chuckie, who nodded.
    “I told you he wasn’t in love with me any more,” I said quietly.
    “Yeah, yeah. You know, he’s a