Chapter XX

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, November 2011

Howard had been in Kazakhstan for a week to prepare for the launch. Leaving Bernadette was bittersweet, before he left they had quite possibly the longest talk—and best sex—of their marriage thus far. He remembers it well.

"Why do you have to do this?" Bernadette asked from the couch in 4A's living room.

"Because it's an opportunity I'll never have again," Howard responded pacing the area near the back bookshelf.

"I get that it's a rare opportunity but it's still dangerous." He laughs mirthlessly, "Everything cool usually is."

"Is that it? You just want to be cool?"

He picks up a random book from the shelf then puts it back, "No, Bernie, I'm not looking to waste my life but I do want to do something worthwhile with it. I want to contribute to our technological understanding of the universe and what better way to do that than to be on board the largest man- made object in space giving them the tools to do so?" He asked rhetorically.

She deflated somewhat after that, "But why do you have to strap yourself onto a rocket and do that?" She asked after a few minutes. "You already do that here, with your satellites and other space machinery. You showed me them plenty of times, you've bragged about that camera orbiting Jupiter more times than I care to keep track."

"Because I…," he sighed and walked over to her on the couch, sitting down Howard takes his wife's delicate hand and takes another breath, "want to be extraordinary. Growing up as little Howard Wolowitz was no picnic. I have suffered disappointment after disappointment—I suppose given who I am that's just par for the course," he tried to make light of the situation, "But I never had a traditional upbringing; I suppose that's pretty overrated especially given our friends and their situations but again as a kid I just wanted to be accepted. The only person who showed me any level of unconditional acceptance is my mom. I know I rag on her a lot, I know I joke about how I wish she would drop dead sometimes; but my mom was the reason why I was able to go to MIT, she was the reason that while I know I acted pretty offensively toward women I never forced myself on them—because honestly if any girl was actually attracted to that I would actually run away. All I had growing up was science and engineering. I would look out at night from my bedroom and up at the stars and whisper almost like a prayer, 'I'll see you someday'. Sometimes I didn't know whether I was talking about my dad or my ideal woman or the stars themselves— maybe all three. I found my ideal woman in you, Bernie, I love you. Now, I get my chance to meet the stars. I know it's dangerous, I know it's insane, but if I didn't take risks… I wouldn't be here, with you questioning my sanity together. Because I'll be honest, a part of me doesn't want to go, but a bigger part of me says that if I don't I'll say what-if for the rest of my life. And that is something I don't want to do. I don't want to say what if I never became an astronaut or what if I never decided to man up and go on our first date alone or what if I never married the love of my life? The reason I'm doing this is for the simple fact that I don't believe the way I am, is worthy of you, Bernie. But me the astronaut, will be, and therefore be extraordinary."

Bernadette sniffled toward the end of his monologue. She wiped away stray tears from both eyes

and without saying a word took him into the bedroom. Nothing she could say would be adequate, she'd rather show him.

It was launch day, again. Strapped into a Soyuz space capsule for the second time, Howard thought back to that night. That night he and Bernadette made love slowly and tenderly as if the apocalypse was imminent and they were about to be separated any minute. That is why leaving Bernadette was bittersweet, but at least he and Bernadette understand what Sheldon and Penny must go through before and during every one of his friend's deployments. He has immense respect for Sheldon for his willingness to put his life on the line to protect the country, his family and his fellow service members, but he also has immense respect for Penny and her mental fortitude to hold things together, especially now with a growing family. Howard knows, because he saw first-hand how difficult Penny found it that first year after Charlotte was born; she went to everybody, including his mother asking for tips on how to raise a child alone—but she wasn't alone—she had him and Bernie, Raj, and Valerie. Howard knows it takes a special kind of woman to do all of that, and he's thankful that Sheldon found that in Penny. He can only imagine what Bernadette is dealing with.

He'll be gone just over three months but while he won't be in a combat zone, he will be miles above the Earth—something that few people ever get to experience—and it is because of that small sample size and the fact that the original launch was scrubbed that makes him wonder if this was a fool's errand.

The original launch date, yesterday, was scrubbed because of weather and here they were trying again, the geo-synchronisation timing was better, the sky was clear of clouds, and fail-safes were double-checked. Howard sat in between a Russian cosmonaut, Anton Morozov, who was the mission commander and veteran NASA astronaut aboard STS-109 and STS-125, Mike Massimino, a fellow MIT graduate. He and Mike got along solely because of their shared history as MIT alums, on this occasion he was glad to have a friendly face to see him through this.

The speaker in the crew capsule suddenly jolted him from his internal musings, it was Mission Control, "Запустите шаг двенадцать, читая все в порядке."(Launch step twelve reading okay.)

Anton replied, "Двенадцатый шаг запуска подтвержден." (Launch step twelve acknowledged.) Howard turned to Mike, "Hey Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"I changed my mind. I don't want to do this." Mike laughed heartily, "Good one."

Howard said drolly, "Yeah, I'm a funny guy. I also have a hysterical bit planned for later where I pretend to cry through the whole launch." He hears the countdown sequence start, when it finished although he didn't know Russian he knows the two words that excite and scare the crap out of him, 'blast off'. When the rocket engines roar to life and the capsule starts accelerating, he screams the first and only thing that comes to mind, "Oy vay!"

Pasadena, November 2011

Bernadette is over at Sheldon and Penny's house. Ever since Howard left and especially after she, the Coopers, and the Clarkes all watched his launch a few weeks back she had been quite clingy and missing her husband. She spent Thanksgiving with her family and Howard's mother while Sheldon, Penny and their girls were with Sheldon and Penny's families in Texas.

Bernadette sat down in the Coopers' living room with a cup of tea, Penny had baby Ellie on her knee, "I know we've asked this before, Penny," the petite blonde asked after taking a sip and putting down her drink, "but honestly how do you do it? How do you keep moving forward when Sheldon is away; Howard's been gone a couple of weeks and I feel like I just want to crawl into bed and sleep away the next three months. You, though, I saw you when you were pregnant with Charlotte, then when you had Charlotte; it was hard but you still managed it, how? This isn't Howard's normal job, but…" she trailed off.

Penny smiled sympathetically, she understands how hard being apart can be for newlyweds. While she and Sheldon weren't apart because of war early in their marriage they were separated by his— and Michael's—need to earn a commission, and she knew training deaths do happen. Luckily, both survived and returned a year and a half later and were able to meet their firstborns. "First off, Bernie, take a deep breath, sweetie." She smiles when the bespectacled blonde did as told. "Good, now the answer to your question is a definite multifaceted one. I do it because above all else I love my husband. I love what he stands for; his morals, his sense of honour and duty, and his belief that better days will come if we just take it one day at a time. That is how I was able to make it through my last two years at Nebraska, how I've dealt with every single deployment and will deal with any future ones. I also do it because he has a difficult job to do, I've tried—believe me I've tried—to get him to retire and take a civilian job somewhere, but he won't budge. So we've compromised and agreed to lessen each other's burdens wherever we can, whenever we can. That ensures that each of us is putting our best foot forward every day. And lastly, because the idiom of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' is true. I hate and I mean I hate when Sheldon has to leave; doesn't matter if it's on deployment or training or even to the grocery store, but every time I see him return, I'm reminded of just how much I love him and why. So, if I were you, Bernie, I would use this time apart to evaluate my feelings and make preparations for a hell of a homecoming, if you get my drift," Penny smiles and winks.

Bernadette giggles, and takes another sip of her tea, "I don't think that's possible," Bernadette says biting her lower lip in anticipation, "I'm… pregnant," she sighs.

Penny's jaw drops, "No way… really?" Bernie nods.

Penny laughs, "Damn, Howard works fast, doesn't he? Not even six months in and he's knocked you up. It took Sheldon exactly six months to knock me up."

Bernadette laughs too with a slight blush, "I got a little carried away when I asked him why he was doing this and his answer pretty much made my ovaries want him."

Penny laughs harder, causing Ellie to look up at her, "I'm sorry honey, was Mommy too loud?" Penny apologises, then shifts her youngest daughter from her knee to her shoulder and rocks her gently. Penny then addresses Bernadette, "That's pretty much how Sheldon got me pregnant with Charlotte. We had this huge argument about him joining SpecOps and well, one thing led to another and by late December, boom, I was eating for two."

"Then you got pregnant with Ellie before Sheldon left for Afghanistan," Bernadette said, "Do you plan on making a habit out of this?"

Penny chuckles, "It seems like it right now, doesn't it? But even if Sheldon wanted to he couldn't get me pregnant. Besides my body's still a little sore in places even now after having this little lady. So, no you-know-what for us until I'm ready."

"So he's not touched you since Ellie's birthday?" Bernadette asks a little stunned.

"Oh no," Penny shifts Ellie back into a sitting position on her lap and covers up her ears momentarily, "he has and I've reciprocated but no penetration, yet." Penny uncovers Ellie's ears and moves her back to her shoulder.

"Why did you just do that?" Bernadette asked confused.

"Because if Ellie is anything like Charlotte and given who their father is, it is a high possibility that her cognitive faculties will develop faster than normal; particularly speech recognition. Charlotte was able to sound proper words repeated by six months and speak by a year. Val and I weren't very careful around her or Alex, so Charlotte's early vocabulary included some very choice cuss words, which took forever to suppress. Therefore, I'm not taking any chances with this one or anymore I might have with a Marine with a 187 IQ," Penny explained.

Bernadette snorts with a laugh, "Speaking of, where is Charlotte or Sheldon for that matter?"

Penny snickers, "Emily and Raj invited them to a hockey game between the Kings and Blackhawks."

"Why?"

"Over Thanksgiving, Charlotte got to see a minor league game with my dad and she's been hooked ever since. She's been asking us to find youth ice hockey leagues she can join when she's a bit older," Penny explained.

Bernadette giggles, "Straight forward little tyke, isn't she?" Penny tuts, "You have no idea."

After the hockey game where the Hawks won 2-1, allowing Emily, a Chicago native a few moments of bragging rights; once in the car, the redhead was more than conciliatory toward Charlotte, until she realised the tears the little girl was shedding were crocodile tears.

"Sheldon, your kid is evil… I like her," Emily smiled from the backseat with the little girl.

"You can thank Penny for that side of her personality, I believe. Penny has emotional blackmail down to an art."

"So I heard you and Penny saw Captain America: The First Avenger over Thanksgiving, did you like it?" Raj changed the subject.

"I did, I particularly enjoyed the creation story of Steve Rogers. His liberation of 400 POWs really spoke to me. I know what that's like first-hand. Overall, though while I grew up liking and reading The Flash, Captain America just might be my new favourite—and not just because of my military background. I do have one minor nitpick though."

"Oh yeah?" Raj asked, he was happy they were discussing a topic he had an interest in and knowledge of.

"The scene where Agent Carter shoots Captain Rogers' prototype vibranium shield, moments before Howard Stark had just said it was and I quote 'completely vibration absorbent' and yet when she shot the shield, you can clearly hear three pings bouncing off of it. Penny and I both thought that was just lazy sound editing by post-production."

Raj laughed. "You aren't the only one. There was internet outrage over that within days of it

coming out."

"I won't overly criticise the movie because it's a good movie, but that little detail really bugged me. I mean if Stark had said, 'It will be vibration absorbent after it's finished' I could live with that and then yeah I could've understood why the sound engineers didn't mess with the sound. It was Penny though that pointed out that they could've just gone in during post-production and literally lowered the sound—would've taken maybe 30 seconds—she did it all the time while making her student films in college."

Raj chuckled, "I guess that's what happens when you're married to someone in production, you watch films with a more critical eye. I should watch movies with Penny sometime and compare notes."

"We did that quite a bit when we were dating, and still do when we aren't busy with the kids." "So, let me ask would you like to live in a universe with superheroes?"

"No," Sheldon said after a long pause, "There is enough death and destruction the conventional way, I really do not want to live in any universe where metahumans save mankind by destroying bits of it."

"So you wouldn't want to be Captain America?"

"Another two years and I will be a Captain, but Penny already called me that way back while I was still an enlisted Marine and not a commissioned one."

Emily who had been listening from the backseat guffawed loudly, "So how do you and Steve compare?"

Sheldon cleared his throat, "Penny has never complained."

Emily and Raj both snicker. The pair know the other couple are crazy in love with each other, both have seen it first-hand, so their response to the outright declaration was more from surprise than anything else.

December 2011

Sheldon walked out of the CO's office with a heavy sigh. He was going to miss another Christmas. As a child, he didn't care for Christmas, but as a parent, he could see its appeal. In the three years since Charlotte's birth, he's missed two of three Christmases and he'll be missing Eleanor's first as well, but he chose this life and sacrifices had to be made. If he was being honest, at this point even if he did quit, returned his commission, and sought out civilian employment—like Bobby had done after he left the Marines—he probably would only last a few weeks before he would re-enlist. He needed the military, he needed to ensure that his Marines got back safe, even if at a detriment to his home life—which was why he was evermore grateful that Penny understood. On the bright side, if things go as planned he'll only miss Christmas but still be home in time to ring in the new year.

Sheldon came home and greeted Penny and the girls, almost immediately Penny could tell something was wrong. After dinner, Penny put Ellie down for a nap and Charlotte went to the playroom to draw, which gave Penny and Sheldon time to talk in the living room.

"Wanna tell me what you've been so antsy about since you came home?" "I'm gonna be gone a week starting tomorrow," Sheldon said solemnly.

Penny sighed then nodded, "Are we talking about a work week or an actual seven-day week, here?"

"Full week, I'll be back by the 30th though assuming everything goes according to plan." "Can I ask where or is this one of those classified need-to-know-only things?"

"The latter."

Penny nodded again, "You know, all this is going to do is make Charlotte really start to think that you really are Santa Claus."

Sheldon was confused, "Why does she—" then it dawned on him, "Oh right, because I've been away for two of her three Christmases," he sighed, "Well, better she think that than know what's gonna happen, she and Ellie are too young, I'd rather them keep their innocence and wonder as long as possible."

"I can keep the monsters at bay for a week," Penny smiled, "You just do your job and get back to us," and straddled her husband kissing him deeply. The two were so engrossed in each other that neither registered tiny little feet padding into the living room carrying a finished drawing.

"Mommy?" Charlotte's tiny voice asks.

Penny pulled away from Sheldon in a flash, both parents sporting deer-in-the-headlights looks, at the thought of being caught by their daughter. Penny quickly climbs off Sheldon and straightens out her hair and clothes as best as she could.

"Y-yeah honey, did you need something?" Penny stammered mortified that Charlotte caught them making out, Penny was just thankful she hadn't caught them doing something more—or saw Penny without a shirt on. That would've opened a whole different can of worms that Penny wasn't ready to deal with.

"I wanted to show you my finished drawing," Charlotte showed her parents her drawing which featured the family now including a little stick figure to represent Ellie on Grandpa Wyatt's farm.

"Is this over Thanksgiving?" Sheldon asks. Charlotte nods.

"It's very pretty," Penny said finally calming her breathing enough to register a response.

"I want you to have it, Daddy," Charlotte says holding it out to Sheldon, "Mommy already has one I made on Halloween, now it's your turn."

Sheldon smiles as he takes the picture. "I'll take good care of it." Charlotte smiles and then rushes away.

Penny looks at her husband, "I think she knows." Sheldon nods, "That's very likely."

***

Sheldon gets up early the next morning, he gets ready in silence as he picks up his sea bag in the corner, he walks over to where Penny is still sleeping and kisses her cheek, softly. "I love you," he whispers as he stands up.

He walks over to Ellie's crib in the other corner of their bedroom and strokes the top of his youngest daughter's head and pulls up her blanket, "Daddy loves you, Ellie," he whispers.

Walking out and over to Charlotte's room, he is hoping to say the same quick goodbye before he leaves. Unfortunately, when he strokes his oldest's hair she jostles and wakes; Charlotte had inherited his tendency to be a light sleeper it seems.

"Daddy?" She rubs her eyes.

"Shh," he shushes her, "Go back to sleep it's still early."

"What are you doing?" She blinks and turns on her bedside light. "Going to work."

Charlotte takes in his attire and quips, "You don't usually bring that. Unless you're going away," she points to his sea bag.

Sheldon has to marvel at his daughter's deductive skills, even at this age. "You're right, I am but not for long this time, I'll be back in time to celebrate the new year with you, Ellie, and Mommy."

"But you'll miss Christmas!"

"I know, and as much as I want to spend Christmas with all of you, I can't. But I have your present to remind me of you all," he taps his left breast pocket where Charlotte's picture is folded. "And my present for you is under the tree, but you have to promise me you won't sneak, but if you're good, I'll tell Mommy you can open it a day early, do we have a deal?"

Charlotte holds out her little hand and says, "Deal," when Sheldon chuckles and shakes it. When he lets go, Charlotte lurches forward and wraps her arms around his waist, "I promise I'll be good, Daddy," she says muffled into his utility uniform.

"I know, sweetheart. Watch and help take care of Ellie for me, okay?" Charlotte nods into his uniform. Sheldon kisses the top of her head and tucks her back into bed, "I love you, Charlotte."

"I love you too, Daddy."

"Get some sleep, I'll be back before you know it," Sheldon tells her by her bedroom door, he stands there until she shuts her eyes.

Once outside he takes a breath to clear his head. What he was about to do was a million times more dangerous than going into Afghanistan or Iraq. This could potentially start World War III if he and the rest of Charlie Company weren't careful. During the drive down to Miramar where he would meet up with the rest of Charlie Company and where they would get a pre-mission debrief, then take a transport plane directly to Riga, Latvia, there they would meet up with their main transport for the mission the MV-22 Osprey. Sheldon kept repeating the one mantra he has had since he left Basic: none of us go home, until we all come home.

Riga, Latvia, December 2011

"Okay," Sheldon took a breath, "Any last-minute questions? Any concerns, any expletives, any doubts?"

"Tell me again why they picked us and didn't give this to the SEALs?" Bryant Wiggins asks.

"That I'm not sure, all I know is our success rate might be why and our targets might be more receptive to a Marine company than a SEAL team," Sheldon explained.

"And this has State's approval?" Wiggins asked.

"I guess, I think they're done negotiating," Sheldon shrugged. "Holy fuck…" Wiggins and a few others expressed.

"And you're sure this won't cause World War III?" Derek Givens asks, "Because I remembered you said after we took out al-Momin you didn't want us going into North Korea, now we're heading to fucking Russia."

Sheldon chuckles, thankful for the brief moment of levity, "Yeah, I know but, we aren't there to take out Putin, we're there to take back one of our own."

"Right… by busting him out of prison."

"I don't know about you Givens, but at this point, I'll gladly do that to ensure two former Marines spend next Christmas with family rather than prison walls on trumped-up charges."

The others nod.

"Okay, so we know what's gotta happen, according to prison schematics the penal colony has no backup generator, which is good news, the bad news is they are tied to the local power grid so if we only do this once we'll raise suspicion. Therefore, we only take the colony on the last night. It's also heavily guarded so prepare to get fired upon, however, thankfully the guards are still using AK-47s without any night vision capabilities so we have the advantage, but in order to not raise the alarm anymore than we have to, silencers are required. We are going in guns blazing and fully armed, if for any reason you can't complete your portion, like a weapons jam or other equipment malfunction head back to the extraction point immediately and provide cover support if possible.

This is already a high-risk mission as is, we do not need heroes on this one." They nod.

"Holy shit, 13 US Marines against 191 Russian prison guards; this is either a really fucked up Call of Duty mod or suicide, I can't decide which," Givens said.

Some agreed with him.

"So after we leave this… mission," Barry Williams settled on, "wouldn't our ballistics give us away and make Putin go bananas?"

"That's another reason I think we were partially selected. Our ammunition for this mission is a unique 7.62 calibre bullet that according to Army and Navy weapons engineers has a chamber scarring pattern that is identical to Russian AK-47s, so the hope is at least to Russian ballistics experts it'll look like prisoners took some guards guns and rioted," Sheldon explained.

Mordovia, Russia

From a nondescript safe house, the team are watching both local news and Russian state media report on a fourth straight day of unexplained rolling blackouts. The cause of this is unknown as it occurs sporadically and from anywhere between an hour and two hours at a time. Sheldon stands and walks over to Corporal Evan Pittman, their cyber expert. He thinks that Howard and Evan

would make good friends given their obsession with all things high-tech. It was Evan and a little computer hacking that caused the power outages. They'll use this to full effect tomorrow night. So far the Russian response to the blackouts is wait it out. They've investigated the power plants and checked the optimal energy output and transfer boxes, but given Russia's propensity to commit cyber attacks, Sheldon is surprised they never thought that this was one of them. Regardless that just makes his job easier. Tomorrow night he'll be joining in on his first true assault rather than simply monitoring it over the radio.

This was a delicate mission, insofar as Sheldon knew maybe a dozen people—not including his team—knew about it. They were going in deep, they would HALO jump after Evan gives the all- clear that the blackout was in place with parachutes designed to mimic that of the Russian Airborne Forces or VDV to avoid early detection. Once on the ground, their job was pretty straightforward; gain access to the prison, eliminate any opposition, retrieve two Americans who had been jailed in Russia since 2008 on trumped-up espionage charges, and then leave. Easier said than done.

As Sheldon goes to bed that night, he looks at Charlotte's drawing and smiles, he folds up the drawing, gets into bed, and tells himself, "Just one more day."

***

In the Osprey over and into Russian airspace, Sheldon does a final equipment check and just like the time in Yemen, he got back all affirmatives. Because of the perceived chaos, they were about to jump into—literally—their secondary weapons were HK MP5s.

"All right, the kill-to-encounter ratio to keep us moving is a minimum of 8:1, if you have problems with your weapon system, switch immediately to your secondary, if you run out of ammo—highly unlikely—but if you do grab the nearest AK and continue, if you cannot, bug out and as stated before go to the extraction point. Success or failure on this mission, once we extract and return to Latvian airspace we will have an F-15 escort. Any last comments?"

"No sir!" Charlie Company chorus. Sheldon nods, "Pittman, you're up."

Evan nods. Pulling out a military laptop, he starts typing, and ten minutes outside of the drop zone he signals the blackouts are in place.

"All right guys, drop zone incoming. Good luck, Charlie!" The Osprey pilot told them over the radio. Once over the drop zone the back hatch opened and the Marines jumped one by one.

After reaching terminal velocity they grouped together like the VDV do and opened their chutes. To any civilians watching it was hopefully just the VDV conducting night exercises.

Within three and a half minutes under the chute, they all landed and after folding their parachutes, through night vision goggles they survey the prison. They can see a group of 15 outside trying futilely to switch the power on, several cursing so loud they can hear it distantly from their position some 50 metres away.

"Jesus Christ, it's cold. I realise I promised to fight in every clime and place but fuck!" Givens whispers.

"Welcome to Russia," Sheldon says amusement evident in his voice, then it disappears, "Okay, weapons hot," and signals toward the fence. With no power, there's no risk of an electric fence. Barry Williams and Lloyd Preston cut a four-foot hole on the far eastern end of the fence behind

what appears to be a storage building giving the company some cover. Once they are all in, Sheldon signals the attack.

The 15 guards are dispatched without a shot from them thanks to ambush tactics. "Phase two." Sheldon grabs keys from one of the dead and the company, in columns of two head toward the main building.

They reach the door and Sheldon nods to begin the breach.

The interior of the prison is warmer they let one guard pass by before one of them shoots him from behind. 16 so far, Sheldon counts in his head.

They reach the reception area and surprise two guards on duty. Instead of killing them they handcuff them to the wall and find duct tape and duct tape their mouths.

It's slow going so far but it won't be when they reach the cell area. The company make it through the doors and shoot two more on night patrol. 18.

They split into two teams each taking a cell wing. Givens is leading the second team. They breach the cell area simultaneously in formation; Sheldon's forces take down five right off the bat. The Russians then begin to realise that something is wrong and start shouting and shooting back into the dark. Sheldon is surprised they don't have even a mini flashlight or anything. The shooting rouses the inmates. Sheldon's team takes cover behind a wall and returns fire. Taking out six more. 29.

They move up and Sheldon hears Givens over the radio, "Friendly injured." He mentally curses in his head. He had been hoping they would get through this without any casualties but he supposes that was too much to ask for; at least he was not dead. Sheldon's team takes out another eight, and then the clamouring stops. Was it because it was a night patrol and because it was also winter that the Russian forces were less than expected or were the rest simply asleep or in the satellite buildings? If the latter is true he is glad they opted for silencers. Either way, though he'll take it, the less resistance the better. They took out the 19 guards in this wing and started to scan the cells for their targets, but were unable.

"They must be in the other wing," Scott Dwyer said.

Sheldon nods and the team run back toward the entrance to the other wing taking out two more guards. They carefully break through and see what Givens and the others is up to. The majority of guards were concentrated in this wing and had the Marines pinned down behind a wall. Sheldon's team opened fire and take out the hostiles pinning down their squad mates. A total of 35. Once all 35 are suppressed, the recombined company do a sweep of the wing, finding their targets at the far end of the northwest cell.

The prisoners are scared, "Who are you?" One of them asks.

"US Marine Corps, sir," Sheldon responds, and fishes out the ring of keys he took earlier, "we're here to liberate you." Sheldon tries several keys before one turns and opens the cell lock.

Sheldon hears from others in the wing too once the cell is open in broken English. "Free me Americans!"

"I love America. Open, friend?" "Help, I trapped by Putin!"

"I am America citizen too."

He and the rest of Charlie Company ignore the others' pleas, they got their package. "Early bird, the package is secure, request extraction," Sheldon radios to the Osprey. "Roger that, Charlie leader. Early bird comin' down, ETA two minutes."

Sheldon checks his watch, they'd been in the prison for 40 minutes. He knew that contingency plans were made to aerially refuel the Osprey after 30 minutes, to allow for maximum fuel on the return.

As the others in the company herd the two American prisoners to the extraction point, Sheldon comes up to Derek Givens, "Who's injured?"

Derek looks sheepish, "Sorry about that radio, Lieutenant. A prisoner was grazed by a bullet in the exchange but his cell ricocheted most of the force. All of us are fine."

"You sure?"

"As positive as it is fucking cold out here."

Sheldon smiles. "What was your body count before the hoard of 35?" "10," Derek replied.

"In total, I counted 82, that's 42 percent of the expected prison guard population. That's a pretty good haul for 40 minutes of work."

Derek chuckles, "Only you, Doc would think that."

The company load the prisoners first and then get aboard after grabbing their parachutes.

The flight out of Russia was worse than the flight into Russia. The flight was interminable, just because they had the prisoners didn't mean their mission was complete. They still had to worry about surface-to-air missiles and other air defences; which in and around Moscow because of Putin's paranoia were littered like landmines. They were one foreign military plane flying out of highly-hostile territory. Sheldon didn't realise he audibly let out a sigh of relief when they entered NATO airspace and met up with the pair of F-15 escorts until Bryant Wiggins clapped him on the back.

"It's over, Doc," Wiggins smiles, "mission accomplished."

Sheldon nods and gives Wiggins a reassuring smile of his own indicating he was all right.

Penny was glad to be back at work, she needed a distraction with Sheldon gone, even though the past week had been mostly finalising casting and the script—she and the other producers did indeed decide on Bridget Harrington and Robert Holbrook for the role of her and Sheldon respectively, especially after seeing their screen test. This movie was a labour of love because it told their story, if there was anybody more qualified to tell the story of her and Sheldon, it was her. She wanted it to be perfect, their story wasn't a fairy tale per se, but it was as close to one as could be. It was in her eyes a modern-day retelling of The Odyssey—her all-time favourite—therefore, she wanted A Marine's Journey to make audiences feel what she and Sheldon felt before, during and after they got together. No detail would be overlooked, not when she was directing.

She had just fed Charlotte dinner and breastfed Ellie and allowed Charlotte to 'babysit' in the other room while she was in her home office going over the pacing details when the doorbell rang. She wondered who that could be, she wasn't expecting anybody.

"I'll get it!" She heard Charlotte crow, appearing in the doorway.

"Charlotte! You know the rules, please go watch Ellie for me and I'll answer it."

Penny saw her daughter's face sour, she felt bad, Charlotte wasn't doing anything bad, "Sorry honey, but you're too little to answer the door by yourself, when you're a little older, okay?"

Charlotte bit her lip, as the doorbell rang again. "Go watch Ellie for me, please?"

"Okay, Mommy," Charlotte relents.

Penny walked and opened the door, there standing on the porch was Sheldon in officer dress blues. She broke down and jumped into his arms, kissing him deeply.

"Charlotte, come here!" Penny called.

They saw Charlotte walk out to the front door from the hallway and the second she saw Sheldon she jumped up and down happily.

"Daddy!" And ran into his arms. Sheldon picked her up and Charlotte clung onto his neck and said muffled into his neck, "I missed you."

Sheldon patted her head and kissed her head, "I missed you too, sweetheart."

Penny chuckled through tears and went off to grab Eleanor. When she returned Sheldon had entered the house and put his sea bag down but still had Charlotte attached to him. Penny chuckled again, she supposes he's carried heavier loads. Penny walks up to father and daughter with Ellie and pointed at Sheldon, "Ellie, who's that?"

Ellie recognised her father and began to gurgle and laugh in Penny's arms, Sheldon smiled and waved a finger in front of her. Ellie began to laugh harder, "Dada!" She said.

Penny and Sheldon look at each other with surprise. "Did she just?" Penny asked slowly.

Sheldon nods, "I'm glad I didn't miss it, like I did with this one," Sheldon subtly points to Charlotte still cradled in his arms.

Penny laughs as she holds onto their other daughter, "Yeah, I get that. We're all glad to have you back, honey."