for: @yeehawwrites who: daniel + charlie verse: permanent marker au timeline: Mid September
“You are going to shine a hole through your shoes.”
As much as the comment made Charlie want to chuck the boot at Sam’s head, the girl wasn’t wrong. The boots physically couldn’t get more shined. Charlie had been working on them for at least the last twenty minutes. Charlie finally slide them onto her feet before standing and looking over her uniform again.
For once every single item was perfectly in place. Her rank pin shined almost as much as her shoes and Charlie had pinned and unpins her name tag at least seven times trying to make sure it was in a perfectly straight line. She had to make sure everything was perfect. The slight singular hair out of place wouldn’t go unnoticed and Charlie needed to look exactly perfect.
The letter came from her father two weeks before he was set to come visit and Charlie had been anxious ever since. She could feel the tension in her neck as she stood looking over herself and clearly Sam could see it as well as the girl grabbed her shoulders and tried to give her a shake. Sam had seen her this way many times. Any time her father was set to visit her school Charlie would get the same way. Only relaxing then if she had a drink.
God she wished she had a drink.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t excited to see Richard. It’s not that Charlie was homesick as some of the other members of her squad were. Charlie was use to going months to years at a time without seeing her father. But she wanted to show off. She wanted her father to see her here. To see her doing well and actually proving she was able to do this. Charlie wanted her father to be proud of her.
“It’s going to be fine Char.” Sam tried to reassure her when she could see Charlie’s mind spinning.
“I know.”
She checked her watch again knowing the time her father told her to meet him. Charlie knew he got on the base much easier that day when she was still in PT. He wasn’t there just as a visit to her after all. Coming to check on the base and how everything was going. Richard made it clear that he would make time to have lunch with her in the mess hall but the rest of his day was booked.
Charlie was outside the mess hall almost fifteen minutes earlier then she needed to be. Wanting to show her father she could be there on time and in perfect shape. When she saw him approach her stomach dropped when she noticed who he was walking with. No, this was suppose to be her lunch with her father. Why was Daniel walking with her father.
She tried to keep her face blank as she shot into a perfect salute as they both approached and wished there was a way for it to be clear it was for her father and not as all for her Staff Sergeant, but there wasn’t and she knew if she didn’t greet her commanding officer as she greeted her father she would hear about it as the first words out of her fathers mouth.
“Master Sergeant Powell.” She tries not to change her tone as she looks over at Daniel. “Staff Sergeant.”
Her father gives her a small nod before giving her the order of “at ease” and Charlie relaxes.
“Your Staff Sergeant is going to be joining us for lunch.”
Charlie’s expression flickers to disappointment for a second as she looks down at her feet. Fuck, while she already knew it, she still had hoped he would dismiss himself after they walked up and Charlie could have just the lunch with only her father.
Charlie has to force the “yes sir” out and refuses to look at Daniel as she lets them answer the mess hall ahead of her.
















