He took her hands gently in both of his own, holding them down between the two lovers as he turned to face her and straddled the bench. "There's some bad news," he said quietly. "One of the squads I sent out last week haven't reported in yet. They should have had word back to Central by this morning at the very latest, but we haven't heard a thing. Other squads reported signs of a large force moving near the area where the missing people were dispatched." He took a deep breath and glanced around, then leaned in closer. "We're thinking--Nat and Letto and Sunny and me--that the Vanguard's begun to move in earnest."<br/><br/>He looked her in the eye. "The war is about to break out across this entire region, Lia. And... I'm going to be there on the front line when it does. I'm going to take six squads out to investigate. I know your impulse is to come with me, but. Well." He shrugged. "I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to say about that." He squeezed her hands. "Before you get upset, just hear me out. This is more than paranoia about losing you--which, yeah. That's part of it, I won't pretend otherwise. But thanks to your training with Sunny you're as good as a Strider now, which means you're one of my best people. I need you here and ready to mobilize with the others to where the threat is the most severe. I need you to fight the fight that matters. Okay?"<br/><br/>Carson sat with her for a while longer, holding her hands and listening to the inevitable objections she raised, talking her down until he could convince her to stay behind. When he did get up he found Max just outside the cafeteria and paused next to the former thief, now a trained and able fighter. Max glanced at him sidelong, then looked back to where Malia still sat. "She buy your line of shit, Carson?"<br/><br/>"There's no line to buy, Max. Shouldn't you be getting ready to move out?"<br/><br/>"I'm ready. But you shouldn't lie to her. Everyone knows you're making her stay because you don't respect her enough to hold her own."<br/><br/>Carson turned to face the smaller man, his jaw set. He had come a long way in the last few weeks, but he knew better than to imagine he was over the thought of losing her. Still, he didn't like Max. He didn't like being questioned by someone whose morals could be summarized as 'maybe so'. "I respect the shits she takes more than I am ever going to respect your opinion, Max. If you're ready then muster up in the motor pool. And do me a favor the next time you have an original thought. Choke on it." He gave Max a good hard smack on the shoulder and turned away to march his way to the CIC, to strap on his gear and prepare for deployment.