MoD
"Good job, commander."
"Thank you, Sami."
"Splendid work, ma'am!"
"Thanks, Sasha."
"Damn good, commander."
"Heh... thanks, Max."
"Bravo! You have slayed the dragon, fair warrior!"
"Ha... forsooth, Javier? Erm..."
All the attention was getting to Rachel, and she nervously hurried her pace back to her tent. She brusquely shook off the congratulations and compliments and made her way through the pathways of the field camp, which was slowly being disassembled.
Finally, she found it. She could tell it from anywhere- two guards were stationed there, techincolor statues if you looked long enough. They only moved to salute her as she nodded and crept into her large tent.
She sighed as she immediately fell face first on her cot, bouncing up a couple of inches and losing her cap as usual before settling. She rotated so that she could see the ceiling of the tent. She had spent many restless nights under this tent, studying every wrinkle of the brown fabric. Same tent, same cot. Different spots, different wrinkles.
Same war.
She gave a passing glance to the things in her tent. There was the organized pile of clothes, all in a perfect stack. Like pancakes. Oh, how she was craving a stack of those. Anything could make her think of those right now.
She groaned from the torturous cravings and took a look at the picture of her and Nell on the rickety wooden table one would find at a conference. Behind it was her communications base for more casual times- such as addressing the very sister in the picture next to it. There wasn't much to this room, but every time they set up a field camp- more often than thought- it looked like this. Same layout every time.
She felt around for her cap and pulled it to her chest, too apathetic to put it on. She faced the picture of her sister one more time. Her sister, the great commander of Orange Star. One she had hoped she had made proud with her efforts.
It felt so strange, though, that she felt uncomfortable at all the people congratulating her and thanking her for their victory. For certain, it was a group effort, was it not? She should be thanking them that it was not just her and Jake fighting the war. She was nothing special like that- she just helped run the show.
Last week, she was Rachel. If the war were still on today, she'd still be Rachel. But they won, and apparently now she's the commander. What had changed so much?
She closed her eyes, gripping her hat tight against her chest and letting her thoughts lull her to a distant state of rest. For a few minutes, she was there, resting, when she opened her eyes and got to her feet. It just felt...wrong. To be resting. Relaxing. Not doing anything- no orders to make, no strategies to plan, no troops to dispatch, no losses to cut, no suffering to create. Normalcy.
Normalcy just seemed like the most abnormal thing to her right now. She felt a need to make sure everyone and everything was safe. Even if it was a group effort, their safety was her responsibility. And it just seemed so... odd,with everything
She flopped back down on the cot and closed her eyes again, but not for too long. She heard a familiar voice just outside her tent, and she got a laugh out of his dialogue. It was like a phone conversation with only one end heard, so much louder his voice was than theirs.
"Yo, dudes, what's up? What, no, I just wanna visit Rach, that's all. Yeah, I don't bite. Need I remind you that I'm a commander as well? That's what I thought, bro."
She heard the tent flap quietly creep open, and she smiled as she started to adjust herself. As she began to sit upright, she heard him say "Oh... sorry, dude, if you were sleeping-"
"Nah," she gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm all good. What's up?"
"...what do you mean, what's up?"
"You know. What are you here for? Or as you say, 'what's the foshizzle,' or 'what's the haps, dawg?'"
Jake chuckled. "You do a really bad me, bro. Like, really bad. But anyway," he chuckled as he took her fold up metal chair from under the table, "I just wanted to visit. You know, have a sort of toast. High five; really, anything like that."
"...that's all?"
"That's all, Rach?" he chuckled, taking a seat in the fold up chair directly across from her. "Kinda harsh, isn't it?"
"Well, something could have happened. They could have been attacking again." she defended herself anxiously, drumming her fingers on the metal bars of the coffin.
"What? No way, man," Jake argued with a slight grin. "We owned those suckers! They aren't coming back for nothin'."
Rachel didn't respond, sitting quietly, musing. He decided to help her out. Taking her hand, he smiled sweetly and declared "The war is over, Rachel. It's all done. You don't need to worry about anything anymore. We're cool."
Rachel's eyes widened, and she grabbed a hold of his gaze, fixated by his passing words. He saw as it slowly dawned on her- it was over. She was finished. No more problems. No more war.
Jake got to his feet, leading Rachel to stand next to him with her hand. As soon as she was firmly on two feet, she grasped Jake in a hug, pulling him against her. He cooperated effortlessly, almost expectantly, as he felt her tears drip onto his shoulders. Their frames shook with her soft sobs, rebounding off of him. He knew that the looser her grip became on him, the looser her troubles' grip on her soul was.
She cried her burden off of her for a good minute, before lettin go, straightening up and smiling weakly. No explanations or apologies, not even a defense. Just a simple 'thanks.'
He grinned. "No problemo, Rach."
She always did like how when others were addressing her by title, he still called her by his nickname for her. As a result, she giggled. He really did know her well.
"We did it," Rachel breathed, the lovely words tickling her lips as they passed through.
Jake nodded. "We sure did. And a bang up job, I may add."
Rachel smiled, keeping his hand in hers as they continuted to talk. It felt so good again to be a friend, a partner... perhaps something more, once again. War was desensitizing, and it felt good to be human again.
She knew that there'd be other wars. But for now, it didn't matter.
They did it.
