[liutenantsamdonovan]

Finally on the Front

[1ltpowell]

Charlie watched Sam. She use to get slightly envious of her. Having someone who made her light up like that just by talking about them. Charlie would tell Sam she was crazy if she ever stated her worries about the name not being Erin’s. Charlie refused to think the universe was that mean to have two people so in love and not be soul mates.

“Everyone should be a big fan of Charlie Powell.” Charlie flipped her hair. with a big grin on her face. Sam knew well enough to know Charlie’s sarcasm in seconds flat. “We will have a big party when we get back. Erin and your brothers all invited.” Charlie never needed a reason to want to host a party, at least then she will have a valid one too.

There was another pauses before Charlie let out a small sigh. “I’m nervous too.” She finally admitted without looking up from her lap. Charlie let the words hang there for a second. She wasn’t just nervous about being front line, it was more then that. “Never thought I would have seen the day for us to make it here.”

[liutenantsamdonovan]

Laughing softly Sam won’t admit it but she agrees with Charlie, there isn’t anything about Charlie that Sam doesn’t like and she really can’t see why anyone wouldn’t like her. “I can say now my brothers would for sure be up for a party.” The Donovan boys loved to party, any reason they could have to drink a few beers and hang out was something they’d jump at, while Sam and her sister liked to have parties as well, they were always the ones to hang more in the back, preferring smaller gatherings with friends over the brothers love for big loud bashes.

The nerves were natural and Sam could understand how for Charlie it was twice as bad, more than twice as many nerves as anyone else and Sam knew she was the only one outside of the two soulmates who knew why things were most likely going to be awkward when they arrived. She didn’t know a lot about the Captain, she’d done her research and seen he was a good soldier. Not only was Charlie about to be one the front lines for the first time, but she was also about to meet her soulmate. Sam knows she had it easy, her and Erin had been friends for years before anything happened and it was easy to see the other girls name on her arm, they’d been in love for years. But for Charlie, this man wasn’t just her soulmate but her commanding officer as well.

“Well, no matter what happens I’ve got your back.” No matter how things go, Sam always has Charlie’s back and she hopes things will go easier for Charlie with at least one familiar face there. “There’s a lot of people who wish we still wouldn’t be headed to the front. I’m just glad those voices were ignored.” Her father was among those voices, he’d outright ordered her to keep away from it, and Sam had ignored that order. They still hadn’t spoken since then. “Things will be good, as good as they can be out there.”

[liutenantsamdonovan]

Finally on the Front

[1ltpowell]

@liutenantsamdonovan

Charlie nodded. She held tight to the excited feeling. It pushed the nervousness and fear down. War was hard. Charlie saw what affects it had on her father over the many years. Still she craved to be out there. No matter how hard it was going to be she knew it was going to be worth every second of it. “We will.” Charlie commented, slightly lost in her own mind of wanted to make her father prouder when Sam’s comment pulled her back to full attention.

“I knew it. I told you it was going to be Erin.” Charlie can’t help but light up slightly. She’s met Erin, seen the way she looks at Sam. It’s the same way Sam’s face lights up at the slightest mention of Erin. The first time Charlie met Erin she could have told Sam that it was going to be Erin’s name that showed up. In fact many drunken conversations happened before Charlie got her tattoo. When she would try to guess whose name it would be. Telling Sam how it must be nice to be so sure of whose it was before it showed up.

Her fingers jerk slightly. She wants to touch her ribs but forces herself not to. She keeps a smile on her face for Sam. Not thinking about coming face to face with the name on her own skin tomorrow. “Just tell her in that note you got me to protect you.” Charlie smirks more before turning just slightly more serious. “We will be fine and before you know it you will be back here in her arms.”

This time Charlie can’t help her hand from going to her ribs. Sam is the only person to know whose name showed up on Charlie’s twenty first birthday. She didn’t tell her til l about a week after it appeared, after a slight bit of the shock wore off. They hadn’t talked about what Charlie was thinking about him being their Captain. Sam always knew if Charlie wanted to talk she opened her mouth, loudly. Her fingers lightly moved over the hand before she dropped her hand and shook her head. That wasn’t what she needed to be focused on.

“Make sure you say in there I say hi,” Charlie mentions the letter again.

[liutenantsamdonovan]

Sam can’t help but grin at Charlie's comment, blushing slightly as she rubs her thumb on the black letters on her arm. “I was afraid you know, that one day someone else would be there, that I’d wake up one day and I wouldn’t recognize the name.” Leaning back Sam sighs deeply, “I stayed up all night on her birthday, and then it was just there and...” pausing Sam swallows the emotion in her throat and lets her attention fall back to Charlie. “I’m really glad you were right.”

Sam chuckles and nods again, “I’ll make sure to mention you, she was relieved when I told her you’d be going too. She’s a big fan of Charlie Powell.” Sam had been all nerves when she’d invited Erin to come visit, telling people she was gay had always been difficult for her and she’d been around Charlie enough to trust it would go well, Erin and Charlie had gotten along well and once Sam walked Erin to her cab after the visit, Erin had told her she was happy to see someone like Charlie in her life.

Thinking about it Charlie is the first person to know that Erin was her soulmate, and apparently even knew before Sam did. She planned to tell her siblings first, they knew who Erin really was but after that she’d have to tell her parents, that would be the difficult part. Her father would disapprove and she wasn’t sure about her mother, but without a doubt her father would be even more disapproved of her life.

Noticing Charlie feel her ribs, choosing to ignore it, Charlie would say something if she needed and Sam scans the room again. “When we go home again, you’ll have to come around, she’d be thrilled to see you again.” 

[liutenantsamdonovan]

Finally on the Front

[1ltpowell]

So this was it. Charlie laid back in bed but couldn’t have closed her eyes if she tried. Sleep wasn’t going to be easy tonight. She was much to excited. Charlie had dreamed of this since she was a little girl. Most kids didn’t picture being a soldier, but Charlie did. From the first time she waited in an air point for her father to come back from leave she pictured this moment. The second she finally got to be stationed overseas.

Though Charlie never thought she would have actually made it to a front line, right in the action soldier. The military never allowed it from women. From a while Charlie actually lost hope that they ever would allow them to be up there. But here she was, losing sleep because the bill had been passed and Charlie shipped out tomorrow.

Her mother cried; worried after seeing war through her father for so many years. Charlie’s father knew better then to question her choice though. He knew nothing could stop Charlie from leave tomorrow short of getting removed from the military completely. And there was no way Charlie would let that happen. Her father told her how she was going to be working under the leadership of a good man, Charlie still wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

She pushed the taught from her mind and sat up slightly. Two bunks over Charlie could see an outline of Sam’s hand moving in the dark. She smiled, not many people got to leave for war with one of their best friends by their side. Swinging her legs of the bunk Charlie made her way to Sam’s bed and sat down next to her.

“Very. Don’t understand how anyone can be sleeping right now.” Charlie pulled on leg onto Sam’s bed, her arm’s holding her knee close to her chest. “You?” Charlie asked with a slight nod at the letter she knew she had been writing.

[liutenantsamdonovan]

Sam follows Charlie’s eyes and gives the letter a long look and nods, “excited and probably every other feeling in the book.” Looking at the few other occupied bunks of sleeping Sam can’t help but share Charlie’s thoughts, tomorrow they’ll be joining other soldiers on the front lines and the anticipation is building, she’s just glad she can get things done on smaller amounts of sleep.

“Everything is changing,” her voice is quiet when she says it, not just speaking about the new directive giving women the chance to be on the front, but it’s only been a short time since Erin’s name appeared on her arm and Sam can’t stop the small smile that appears on her face and the automatic reaction of her hand going to her forearm. “I’m glad to be given the chance to prove we can do this.”

She remembers her father’s stern disapproval, his order that she not even attempt to join, it wasn’t the first time she’d gone against him, but it was different before. She still remembers how angry he was, when she told her mother what she’d done. He hadn’t said a word before he simply got up and left the room, her mother had been a combination of terrified and proud, Sam knows she’d had flashbacks to the day they found out about Bradley, she was sorry to put her mother through the fear of losing another child. Despite her father’s anger at two of her siblings not joining, she knows her mother is beyond grateful.

“Erin’s terrified, told me she didn’t want to lose her soulmate after she just got her.” The words are out before she even thinks about it, that’s how it’s always been with Charlie since they left West Point, whenever they talk it’s the most comfortable Sam has been with someone that wasn’t Erin or her siblings.

[cptdancox-blog]

Squad Assignments:

lALPHA SQUAD

LT CHARLOTTE POWELL SGT +seasoned, friendly, supportive - grizzly, desensitized, short-tempered CPL DOUGLAS BAKER CPL PATRICK STONE +vivacious leader stout -rowdy overbearing loud PFC ARIEL TRELBEN +loyal clever bubbly  -indecisive quick-tempered moody PFC CLANCY THOMAS +fun loving adaptable gifted -noncomittal airy excitable PV GREG HUNTER  +serious well-read quick -gloomy pessimistic scrawny PV GLENN ADAMS +compassionate educated generous -unassuming reserved timid PV SEJONG PAK +learned with knives iron will stealthy  -unsure sneaky hyperviligantt

BRAVO SQUAD

LT SAM DONOVAN SGT HOWARD M. KING +accessible considerate well liked -complacent mulish old school CPL ASHLEY GREENE + passionate confident responsible -closed off anxious tense CPL  EDDIE BAUER +skilled humble articulate -distractable areligious, unconventional PFC ORSON PRESCOTT +nationalistic passionate humanitarian -emotional hot-headed competitive PV MATTHEW MORGAN +legacy, handsome, proficient - cocky, insubordinate, sexist PV JEFFERY WATKINS +charming honorbound adaptive - resentful entitled lazy PV WENDELL COULSON +hardy adventurous respectful  -rushes into things green squeamish

CHARLIE SQUAD

LT RENEE WRIGHT +strong-willed calm disciplined - unforgiving blunt outspoken

[liutenantsamdonovan]

Finally on the Front || Sam & Charlie

Sam would be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous, if she wasn’t afraid. She had a so many different feelings running through her she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t really sit still. Tomorrow morning Sam and the other chosen two women would be headed off to join their new unit, when the bill had passed and the opportunity arose for women to join the front lines, Sam had jumped at the opportunity without thought. She’d wanted to be in the front for years, since Bradley died and she wanted to do more, the work she did before was important but she wanted the chance to prove herself and stand beside her fellow soldiers in the front and do some more good.

She hadn’t been surprised to see Charlie jump in line to get to the front either, they’d been roommates through the years at West Point and Sam had always seen that same desire to prove your worth in her. Now in just a few hours they’d be off and surrounded by desert and heat and new chances. Now she sat on her assigned bunk for the night, writing a letter for Erin. 

There letters are always long but this one is the most important one she’s written, she hasn’t had a chance to call, she’s tried but things have been hectic and it was only a few nights ago that her mark had finally appeared with Erin’s name, she’d stayed awake all night tracing the letters on her forearm, her eyes are drawn to it again, so distracted she doesn’t even notice anyone else is awake until she feels her bed bounce from someone sitting down.

Her eyes flick to the new person in the room and she grins, Charlie apparently can’t sleep either and Sam is happy for the company, she’s happy to have someone familiar going along to the front lines with her. It’s nice to know she’ll have someone she can lean on and already can trust. She slips the letter to the side and gives her friend her full attention, “excited?”