They walked into the warehouse command centre to find everyone gathered in the hallway. The asshole pilot, Brent Brown was grinning at them from where he was sitting with his legs outstretched on the tatty couch.

"Thought you'd take her out for a little spin did you Ibis?" Brent smirked at Luca, who pulled a face that Bay couldn't tell whether it was a muted grin back or a grimace.

Part of Bay secretly hoped that Luca wasn’t actually pals with a guy who reminded him of the meatheads that used to shove him into lockers in school.

"You could have told me you were going to go after the pilot!" Lily demanded. She was standing squarely in front of them, her arms folded across her chest, "I would have provided backup, I think the rules are bullshit too and you know that!"

Luca nodded at her.

"Well this is all very lovely pilot bonding but er...where's Jenkins?" Bay questioned nervously, he could see that Toby and Sydney were just shaking their heads at him.

Bay wasn't left wondering for long as a door slammed open and Jenkins emerged looking less than pleased.

"What the bejesus were you dumb fucks thinking?" The Major bore down on them in a way that made Bay shrink back, stumbling into the front of Luca Jeong who rolled his eyes and pushed Bay out of the line of fire.

"Major, I take full responsibility for any insubordination," Luca began.

"Any...any insubordination? Did you get too many shots of mind-altering drugs up there Captain Jeong? You disregarded direct orders and now we've got an incident on our hands, a real pretty mess that I'm going to have to clear up. I can't be following my fucking crews around with a bucket, you understand?"

"Yes Sir."

Jenkins looked almost defeated at Luca's absence of loquaciousness.

"Right...well. I would normally ground you - the whole sorry bunch of you!" He exclaimed sweeping his hand over all the gathered teams.

"But we're running low already on three pilots here and I can't afford to register that this mishap even happened, do you understand?"

"Yes Sir," Luca repeated, still looking wholly unaffected whilst Bay’s shrivelled testicles were slowly re-descending from inside of him.

"Okay then. The pilot?" Jenkins asked.

"Returned in an unconscious state Sir," Luca nodded.

"Bullshit Jeong. I just got off the phone with Captain Singh and she already told me that the lost pilot was recovered at the south side of the Base, awake and babbling about spacemen or something."

Bay winced, he may have noticed the pilot's eyes opening when they were hauling him over the fence wearing their full body suits and helmets.

"Not only that Jeong, but I've got reports of people in the camp hearing strange noises, like an unearthly whine from some kind of aircraft."

"We were in stealth mode Sir, Pereira saw to that," Luca replied.

Oh great, now Jenkins was looking at Bay.

"I had the engine in silenced mode Sir, it's just...it still makes a noise, albeit a strange one," Bay stuttered.

Jenkins glared at him then looked around the hallway, "Right - everyone back to your bunks to get some fucking sleep. We'll debrief in the morning."

Bay let out a sigh of relief and turned to go as Sydney rushed over to him.

"Apart from you Pereira!” The Major yelled. “You're coming with me to give a full in-depth and detailed debrief of the systems operations, given that you got so extensively acquainted with them tonight." Jenkins finished yelling and disappeared back into his office.

Oh that was just peachy.

Bay's muscles were telling him he had just ran the New York marathon twice and all he could think about was his bed right now, screw technologically advanced operating systems.

Sydney shot him a 'serves you right' glare, then tugged Toby off behind her down the corridor.

Aziz put his hand on Bay’s shoulder, "Tough luck man." Then also turned to go, evil heavily armed traitor.

Bay could hear Tegu's winch-man Merit Cooper calling out to Aziz excitedly, "Did you get a chance to use the stun gun, did it actually work?"

Brent chuckled as he pushed past Bay roughly with Angelos and Lily in tow, "Later Luca, later Geek." He smirked.

Oh you are just the worst kind of person.

Bay rolled his eyes and turned back round. He flinched when he saw that Luca was standing close in front of him.

Luca looked slightly awkward for a moment before he nodded abruptly and pushed past Bay, nudging his shoulder, but with slightly less force than Brent, it could almost have be deemed affectionate. Bay shook his head, grinning after him, "Pilots."

***

"You look like shit." Sydney was staring assessingly at Bay over the breakfast table.

"Well I was up all night with Jenkins," Bay grunted.

"Ew. Dude, way too much information," Angelos winked at him. Bay tried to rearrange his exhausted features into one of disgust and contempt.

"My debrief took fucking hours, seriously, at the end I think he was just trying to see how many times he could get me to explain 'yaw stabilisation'," Bay huffed.

Toby grinned as Bay let out another frustrated groan that morphed into a rage yawn.

"No, I'm serious, the guy's a sadist or something. I get that I'm being punished but it's not fair - the other Ibis team members got to go to bed, and they're the ones that are actually trained in having stamina!"

"Well speaking of your 'special little mission' last night, it's caused quite a stir in the Base," Sydney declared, reaching across to take Bay's toast.

"Yeah, that pilot you brought back is still babbling about aliens and spaceships," Toby piped up.

"And here's the chief alien right now!" Sydney announced as a tray was clunked down next to Bay. Bay jumped and looked up, Luca Jeong was glowering down at him.

Luca Jeong was sitting with them? Since when did pilots sit with systems operators?

"Debriefed?" Luca asked Bay as he swung his legs over the bench.

"And then some," Bay muttered, thinking he caught a faint smile on Luca's chiselled face.

There was another unexpected clunking of trays and Bay looked up. The blonde pilot Lily Hart had slid in between Toby and Sydney, the latter giving her a patented death stare.

Aziz and Merit joined them moments later, sitting next to Angelos as they began to eagerly discuss the new gun Merit had been equipped with for the Tegu.

Bay eavesdropped and coincidentally learned that Merit had the best aim out of the entire squadron and could run ten miles wearing the full body armour suit, and those things were heavy.

Bay startled as a new hunk of buttered toast was dropped down on his plate. He glanced to his side to see an undeniable faint blush on Luca’s cheeks.

“You need to eat more,” Luca shrugged whilst avoiding eye contact.

"What the hell? We all one big happy family now or something?" Asshole pilot Brent asked loudly. He was standing at the end of the table holding his tray looking between Luca and Lily.

Luca ignored him but Lily shrugged, "Thought we'd bring the chopper teams together, why? Afraid they might play too rough and scratch your pretty face?"

Brent snorted and sat down at the end, sprawling lazily, "The only one here with claws is you Lily."

Lily gave him a shit-eating grin and returned to her cereal.

"Did you hear?" Bay whispered to Luca, "The pilot we rescued was discharged from medical by Deaton today and he thinks we're aliens."

"You say that way too proudly Bay," Toby said, shaking his head.

"Like in Star Trek..." Bay whispered again to Luca, lowering his voice even further.

"No Star Trek jokes Bay," Luca replied in an equally low whisper, but Bay could have sworn the other man was smiling into his cornflakes.