Fic: That'll Do (GK, Brad/Nate)
That'll Do
Brad/Nate (but mostly about Nate) || ~1800 || pretty work safe
Summary: One day can be an eternity.
Notes: Written for preromantics for the yagkyas exchange. As such, it was submitted before the vote to repeal DADT. Thanks to why_me_why_not for beta duties; any remaining errors are my own. The image included below is modified slightly from Bryan Denton, combat photographer. This is a work of fiction based on portrayals of and by actors, and is meant to imply nothing about any real people. Can also be read at the original post here.
There's things to know
and so we're told
But the days
keep rolling on so painfully slow
-Jason Mraz
It will be nearly a full day after it happens before Nate becomes aware of the battle. Not that it will get a title, not like Wanat, but that's what it is, he decides when Brad tells him about it, months and many glasses of scotch later.
It's half the world and one email, phone call, or facebook post away, but no word will get out before the company goes on communications lockdown.
As it is, Nate works late, eating Thai at his desk and powering through a backlog of work-related reading and the paperwork that accumulated while he organized CNAS's most recent symposium on the military transitioning in Afghanistan. He catches one of the last red-line trains home, and checks his personal email before bed. The inbox is empty, which is disappointing but not surprising. Brad's electronic correspondence is regular but not constant. Nate knows he's gotten complacent, used to Brad being at a forward operating base with regular access to the internet. It's a far cry from his rotations through combat outposts in the eastern mountains on the Pakistan border, where there wasn't even electricity some days.
"Pussy civilian privilege, sir. You can make do."
He must be tired if even Brad's teasing insults sound warm and comforting in his memory.
+
Nate has a routine. He established it when he moved back east, when he was floundering, trying to find his way.
He'd been inching toward normalcy when Cara Wynn called with the news about Kocher and Morel, and he has no idea what he might've done if he hadn't already been on his way from D.C. to Virginia Beach for Sergeant Patrick's medal ceremony. Pinning Pappy's Bronze Star to his uniform while his foot was in a cast from being re-broken and set again might've been a reproach, a reminder that he hadn't gotten his men home whole, but he was there at least, not in Fallujah bleeding out.
"There are a million things we can't change, sir. Find the one you can and start with that." Pappy's drawl made words Nate's heard from a half-dozen other people sound like an order, rather than a suggestion.
Nate finished the Kennedy School application that had been languishing on his desk the next morning.
His alarm beeps at him at 5:15; by 6:30 he's back from his 10K run, cooled down, stretched, showered and dressed. As long as he remembers to set the timer, there's coffee to fill his thermos before he heads to the metro station. One of the rules Nate set for himself: in the morning, he doesn't check his personal email from his home computer, a MacBook he bought a year ago to be compatible when CNAS upgraded all their systems. (Every time Brad bitches about Apple, Nate grins a little wider, and tells Brad that next time he's due for an upgrade, Brad can build Nate's computer himself.) That account is not synched to be automatically routed to his iPhone, deliberately. He doesn't want Brad preoccupied by thoughts of him when he's on duty, and Nate makes every effort to do the same.
What they do, what they are, is hard enough without distractions.
Laurie has a stack of messages waiting for him at the office. Buried among them is one from Patrick Dill, asking, "Heard from Colbert or Marine? Big op going down in Sangin. I want details, Fick."
He shoots off a quick No comms recently. You'll get the 411 with the rest of us POGs before dialing into a conference call with Dave and Michele Flournoy at Defense. That runs over the time he'd scheduled, so his meeting with John turns into a working lunch, and then he spends the afternoon catching up on Foreign Policy Review and working out the logistics of a trip to South-East Asia, which they are projecting to be the next area of interest for American military and foreign policy, if the morass of the AfPak dispute doesn't consume them.
Over the course of the day, his phone rings and his inbox signals arrivals, but none of them are from Brad, Keith, or Patrick, and none of them seem urgent.
+
Brad doesn't email every day, or even every other day. Partly his reticence stems from the continued enforcement of DADT, but his own reserve is to blame as well.
Once upon a time, Nate thought that sending his men into combat without advanced scouting and an accurate sit-rep was the worst thing he'd ever endure. Now he's part of the policy establishment that sends his friends and loved ones into harm's way for prolonged periods.
Nate's spent a considerable amount of time on self-examination. And the thing is, Nate still firmly believes in pre-emptive war, still believes in the forward-leaning posture of the US military as an arm of foreign policy. If the evidence of weapons of mass destruction or widespread human rights violations exists, and if a true coalition of the willing participates, he would support another invasion.
Beyond that, he knows that Brad loves testing himself almost as much as he loves Nate. Brad savors the moment of fear and the adrenaline rush that kick off a mission. He runs toward danger if given the choice between it and safety. He loves the Corps and he loves Recon, and he'll go wherever he's deployed no matter which think tank has the ear of the Secretary of Defense.
Nate supposes that he's lucky that said think tank happens to be the one he heads.
He could learn the gritty details about Afghan operations. He could ferret details from Brad's sporadic calls and more regular emails. Pentagon contacts offer him tidbits, and he could ask them for more. Nate doesn't ask, because he doesn't want to know; knowledge might be power, but that power brings with it a heavy burden.
Just because Patrick's email has his antennae aquiver and he hasn't heard from Brad in a few days, that doesn't mean he's going to change that self-imposed rule now.
Nate is not listed as Brad's next-of-kin. He won't be the one to answer the official knock at the door, but if anything happens to Brad, Ruth Colbert will call him.
He doesn't wait for that, though. Nate's electronic footprint remains small: he doesn't Tweet, his facebook account is locked for his family, and he is perhaps the only person at CNAS without a blog. But he knows where to look, starting with iCasualties and moving on to spousal support networks on facebook.
There's nothing new posted on the former, but the latter are lit up with comments about radio silence from 1/1 and 3/5.
That... is not what Nate hoped to find. The only reason for a unit-wide blackout is to prevent casualties and deaths from being made public before families have been informed.
It's early afternoon in DC, mid-day in California. He could call Cara, who helps run the Family Readiness Group, but if she's dealing with grieving families, if they're all just getting the news, she'll be swamped. In the end, he texts her Heard from Mike lately? and makes sure the ringer on his phone is not silenced. Just in case.
By four p.m., most of the retired military on staff - and that's a considerable percentage at CNAS - know that something's happened, and they stop by Nate's office, ostensibly to chat, but also to offer their tacit support. By six p.m., Nate's ready to shove them all out the door. He declines Ex's offer for company. Andrew means well, but Nate doesn't want comfort, and if he gets bad news - the worst news - he doesn't want a witness.
He plans on making himself dinner as a form of distraction, but he scorches the stir-fry in a moment of inattention. In the end, the pan and the blackened vegetables land in the sink to soak, and Nate pops open a Clipper City Pale Ale and settles in for an evening of clock-watching. The television provides background noise, but Nate has no idea what he watches. Mostly he's counting down the minutes until 3 a.m., when the last of any notifications on the west coast will have been made.
He's staring blankly as a pretty blonde anchorwoman flirts on-screen with a meteorologist when his phone rings. For a terrible moment, all he can place is the Oceanside area code on the display, but then he shakes himself: Brad's mom is in Chula Vista, so whatever news this caller - Cara, that's the Wynn's home number, his brain supplies - has, it can't be a death notice.
"Cara?"
"Nate. First, I want to tell you that Brad and Mike are both okay."
Nate expels a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and tunes back in to hear,"They're alive and unhurt. Mike's on his way to Bagram with MacFarland, and Brad's with H&S at FOB Robinson."
"Is Mike staying in Afghanistan, or is MacFarland heading to Qatar?"
"He didn't say."
"Did he tell you what happened?"
"Mike and the general happened to be in Kandahar, he wasn't involved. He didn't have any information about the 3/5, but from what he could gather, 1/1 was clearing a village. A small-arms skirmish broke out, they took some casualties, and there was a delay getting a helo out for the cas-evac, so they were in a vulnerable position while they waited for extraction. The captain is fine, but there are multiple injuries and five deaths."
Nate forces a rough laugh. "Mike probably had a lot to say about that, huh?"
"You know how he is when it comes to protecting his men. He hates being stuck at headquarters or trotting alongside a desk-rider instead of out in the field, but I've never been so relieved in my life."
This time the laugh that emerges ends on a sigh.
"You sound exhausted. Go to bed, Nate. But check your email first."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks, Cara."
"No problem."
The time it takes for his computer to boot feels like an eternity. There are no less than two dozen emails in his inbox, but he zeroes in on the relevant one immediately.
TO: ncfick@gmail.com
FROM: cwynn_frg@gmail.com
SUBJECT: FWD: Send this to Nate for me?
________________________________________________________________________________
TO: cwynn@frg@gmail.com
FROM: mwynn_tx1@gmail.com
SUBJECT: Send this to Nate for me?
DATE: 18 September 2010 04:22:45 +0000
1 ATTACHMENT (136 kb)
Proof of life, Nate. There's not a scratch on him. Maybe he really *is* the Iceman or some other superhero.
A click of the thumbnail image, and there's Brad, dirty, tired, curled in on himself. He probably didn't even realize that Mike was taking a photo. Or maybe he did, and the next snap on Mike's camera is Brad awake, his eyes glaring directly at the camera, a single-finger salute captured forever.
Nate studies it, drinks it in, almost afraid that if he looks away, if he closes the window and logs out, he'll wake to find that it was dream. He falls asleep like that, his laptop open on his knees, and wakes for his morning run out of ingrained habit. When he sets the laptop on the coffee table, it activates the screen again, and he can see there's a message from Brad at the top of his inbox. He traces the trackpad, lets the cursor's arrow hover over the message, and then clicks.
Sometimes rules need to be broken.
Brad/Nate (but mostly about Nate) || ~1800 || pretty work safe
Summary: One day can be an eternity.
Notes: Written for preromantics for the yagkyas exchange. As such, it was submitted before the vote to repeal DADT. Thanks to why_me_why_not for beta duties; any remaining errors are my own. The image included below is modified slightly from Bryan Denton, combat photographer. This is a work of fiction based on portrayals of and by actors, and is meant to imply nothing about any real people. Can also be read at the original post here.
There's things to know
and so we're told
But the days
keep rolling on so painfully slow
-Jason Mraz
It will be nearly a full day after it happens before Nate becomes aware of the battle. Not that it will get a title, not like Wanat, but that's what it is, he decides when Brad tells him about it, months and many glasses of scotch later.
It's half the world and one email, phone call, or facebook post away, but no word will get out before the company goes on communications lockdown.
As it is, Nate works late, eating Thai at his desk and powering through a backlog of work-related reading and the paperwork that accumulated while he organized CNAS's most recent symposium on the military transitioning in Afghanistan. He catches one of the last red-line trains home, and checks his personal email before bed. The inbox is empty, which is disappointing but not surprising. Brad's electronic correspondence is regular but not constant. Nate knows he's gotten complacent, used to Brad being at a forward operating base with regular access to the internet. It's a far cry from his rotations through combat outposts in the eastern mountains on the Pakistan border, where there wasn't even electricity some days.
"Pussy civilian privilege, sir. You can make do."
He must be tired if even Brad's teasing insults sound warm and comforting in his memory.
+
Nate has a routine. He established it when he moved back east, when he was floundering, trying to find his way.
He'd been inching toward normalcy when Cara Wynn called with the news about Kocher and Morel, and he has no idea what he might've done if he hadn't already been on his way from D.C. to Virginia Beach for Sergeant Patrick's medal ceremony. Pinning Pappy's Bronze Star to his uniform while his foot was in a cast from being re-broken and set again might've been a reproach, a reminder that he hadn't gotten his men home whole, but he was there at least, not in Fallujah bleeding out.
"There are a million things we can't change, sir. Find the one you can and start with that." Pappy's drawl made words Nate's heard from a half-dozen other people sound like an order, rather than a suggestion.
Nate finished the Kennedy School application that had been languishing on his desk the next morning.
His alarm beeps at him at 5:15; by 6:30 he's back from his 10K run, cooled down, stretched, showered and dressed. As long as he remembers to set the timer, there's coffee to fill his thermos before he heads to the metro station. One of the rules Nate set for himself: in the morning, he doesn't check his personal email from his home computer, a MacBook he bought a year ago to be compatible when CNAS upgraded all their systems. (Every time Brad bitches about Apple, Nate grins a little wider, and tells Brad that next time he's due for an upgrade, Brad can build Nate's computer himself.) That account is not synched to be automatically routed to his iPhone, deliberately. He doesn't want Brad preoccupied by thoughts of him when he's on duty, and Nate makes every effort to do the same.
What they do, what they are, is hard enough without distractions.
Laurie has a stack of messages waiting for him at the office. Buried among them is one from Patrick Dill, asking, "Heard from Colbert or Marine? Big op going down in Sangin. I want details, Fick."
He shoots off a quick No comms recently. You'll get the 411 with the rest of us POGs before dialing into a conference call with Dave and Michele Flournoy at Defense. That runs over the time he'd scheduled, so his meeting with John turns into a working lunch, and then he spends the afternoon catching up on Foreign Policy Review and working out the logistics of a trip to South-East Asia, which they are projecting to be the next area of interest for American military and foreign policy, if the morass of the AfPak dispute doesn't consume them.
Over the course of the day, his phone rings and his inbox signals arrivals, but none of them are from Brad, Keith, or Patrick, and none of them seem urgent.
+
Brad doesn't email every day, or even every other day. Partly his reticence stems from the continued enforcement of DADT, but his own reserve is to blame as well.
Once upon a time, Nate thought that sending his men into combat without advanced scouting and an accurate sit-rep was the worst thing he'd ever endure. Now he's part of the policy establishment that sends his friends and loved ones into harm's way for prolonged periods.
Nate's spent a considerable amount of time on self-examination. And the thing is, Nate still firmly believes in pre-emptive war, still believes in the forward-leaning posture of the US military as an arm of foreign policy. If the evidence of weapons of mass destruction or widespread human rights violations exists, and if a true coalition of the willing participates, he would support another invasion.
Beyond that, he knows that Brad loves testing himself almost as much as he loves Nate. Brad savors the moment of fear and the adrenaline rush that kick off a mission. He runs toward danger if given the choice between it and safety. He loves the Corps and he loves Recon, and he'll go wherever he's deployed no matter which think tank has the ear of the Secretary of Defense.
Nate supposes that he's lucky that said think tank happens to be the one he heads.
He could learn the gritty details about Afghan operations. He could ferret details from Brad's sporadic calls and more regular emails. Pentagon contacts offer him tidbits, and he could ask them for more. Nate doesn't ask, because he doesn't want to know; knowledge might be power, but that power brings with it a heavy burden.
Just because Patrick's email has his antennae aquiver and he hasn't heard from Brad in a few days, that doesn't mean he's going to change that self-imposed rule now.
Nate is not listed as Brad's next-of-kin. He won't be the one to answer the official knock at the door, but if anything happens to Brad, Ruth Colbert will call him.
He doesn't wait for that, though. Nate's electronic footprint remains small: he doesn't Tweet, his facebook account is locked for his family, and he is perhaps the only person at CNAS without a blog. But he knows where to look, starting with iCasualties and moving on to spousal support networks on facebook.
There's nothing new posted on the former, but the latter are lit up with comments about radio silence from 1/1 and 3/5.
That... is not what Nate hoped to find. The only reason for a unit-wide blackout is to prevent casualties and deaths from being made public before families have been informed.
It's early afternoon in DC, mid-day in California. He could call Cara, who helps run the Family Readiness Group, but if she's dealing with grieving families, if they're all just getting the news, she'll be swamped. In the end, he texts her Heard from Mike lately? and makes sure the ringer on his phone is not silenced. Just in case.
By four p.m., most of the retired military on staff - and that's a considerable percentage at CNAS - know that something's happened, and they stop by Nate's office, ostensibly to chat, but also to offer their tacit support. By six p.m., Nate's ready to shove them all out the door. He declines Ex's offer for company. Andrew means well, but Nate doesn't want comfort, and if he gets bad news - the worst news - he doesn't want a witness.
He plans on making himself dinner as a form of distraction, but he scorches the stir-fry in a moment of inattention. In the end, the pan and the blackened vegetables land in the sink to soak, and Nate pops open a Clipper City Pale Ale and settles in for an evening of clock-watching. The television provides background noise, but Nate has no idea what he watches. Mostly he's counting down the minutes until 3 a.m., when the last of any notifications on the west coast will have been made.
He's staring blankly as a pretty blonde anchorwoman flirts on-screen with a meteorologist when his phone rings. For a terrible moment, all he can place is the Oceanside area code on the display, but then he shakes himself: Brad's mom is in Chula Vista, so whatever news this caller - Cara, that's the Wynn's home number, his brain supplies - has, it can't be a death notice.
"Cara?"
"Nate. First, I want to tell you that Brad and Mike are both okay."
Nate expels a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and tunes back in to hear,"They're alive and unhurt. Mike's on his way to Bagram with MacFarland, and Brad's with H&S at FOB Robinson."
"Is Mike staying in Afghanistan, or is MacFarland heading to Qatar?"
"He didn't say."
"Did he tell you what happened?"
"Mike and the general happened to be in Kandahar, he wasn't involved. He didn't have any information about the 3/5, but from what he could gather, 1/1 was clearing a village. A small-arms skirmish broke out, they took some casualties, and there was a delay getting a helo out for the cas-evac, so they were in a vulnerable position while they waited for extraction. The captain is fine, but there are multiple injuries and five deaths."
Nate forces a rough laugh. "Mike probably had a lot to say about that, huh?"
"You know how he is when it comes to protecting his men. He hates being stuck at headquarters or trotting alongside a desk-rider instead of out in the field, but I've never been so relieved in my life."
This time the laugh that emerges ends on a sigh.
"You sound exhausted. Go to bed, Nate. But check your email first."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks, Cara."
"No problem."
The time it takes for his computer to boot feels like an eternity. There are no less than two dozen emails in his inbox, but he zeroes in on the relevant one immediately.
TO: ncfick@gmail.com
FROM: cwynn_frg@gmail.com
SUBJECT: FWD: Send this to Nate for me?
________________________________________________________________________________
TO: cwynn@frg@gmail.com
FROM: mwynn_tx1@gmail.com
SUBJECT: Send this to Nate for me?
DATE: 18 September 2010 04:22:45 +0000
1 ATTACHMENT (136 kb)
Proof of life, Nate. There's not a scratch on him. Maybe he really *is* the Iceman or some other superhero.
A click of the thumbnail image, and there's Brad, dirty, tired, curled in on himself. He probably didn't even realize that Mike was taking a photo. Or maybe he did, and the next snap on Mike's camera is Brad awake, his eyes glaring directly at the camera, a single-finger salute captured forever.
Nate studies it, drinks it in, almost afraid that if he looks away, if he closes the window and logs out, he'll wake to find that it was dream. He falls asleep like that, his laptop open on his knees, and wakes for his morning run out of ingrained habit. When he sets the laptop on the coffee table, it activates the screen again, and he can see there's a message from Brad at the top of his inbox. He traces the trackpad, lets the cursor's arrow hover over the message, and then clicks.
Sometimes rules need to be broken.