Mission Accomplished (/No Love, No Glory)
She’s done it. She’s finally done it. That’s all Sam can think as she walks into the pub after Ryan and sees the bunch of soldiers around a small table. Lyle and Ditzy are there of course, and she immediately sees the black soldier she’s been waiting to meet for over a year. There’s a fourth one, longish black hair, shady eyes, bit mysterious and she can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever fall for her tricks. She’s glad the green-eyed one is not here, around him she feels like she has to watch herself.
“So… this is Sam,” Ryan says awkwardly and she flashes them an almost innocent smile.
“Fucking finally,” Lyle grins.
“We were already making rescue plans,” Ditzy smirks over his beer.
“Rescue plans?” Sam asks, slightly confused but eyes shining in excitement.
“Dragon,” the black-haired man says in a lazy drawl, pointing at Ryan and then looks at Sam, cocking his head. “Princess.”
“Don’t ask,” the black soldier rolls his eyes. “Better for all of us. Hi, I’m Malcolm Davis, nice to finally properly meet you.”
Ah, so Lyle hasn’t been joking for once, Sam thinks as she shakes the man’s hand.
“Dean Mather,” the black-haired guy nods ever so slightly. “I usually go by Kalti.”
“Why?” Sam asks.
“Why not?” he smiles and they all chuckle at Sam’s surprise.
The evening is one of the best she’s ever had, she’s sure of it. Three years she has been trying to truly infiltrate Ryan’s life and now she’s in, laughing with his friends and colleagues. For a while it’s almost easy to forget what made him finally let her tag along, especially since the guys seem to be pretty deep in denial too. It’s only three hours, an inpossible amount of filthy jokes, and way too much to drink (except for Sam, despite the considerable amount of pouting) later, when Ryan stumbles out to the loo, trying to look more sober than he really is that Sam realizes they have all been holding their breaths around him.
“So which one of you is going to tell me who this Frank Graham was?” She says in an unrelenting voice. Kalti is drawing patterns on the table with his finger, Lyle seems too preoccupied with his beer, Ditzy looks at Davis as if asking for advice. None of them speak. “Or do you want me to ask Tommy?”
They all look up at that and in the end it’s Davis who sighs deeply and nods.
“Fine. Come.”
He takes her outside and they sit down on a bench not too far from the pub.
“I saw a picture,” Sam says silently. “Of the three of you.”
“We were at Sandhurst together,” Davis smiles. “Those were good days.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing that couldn’t happen to any of us every day,” he’s struggling to keep his voice casual, she can tell. “They did everything right, it still went to hell.”
“Where?”
“Classified,” Davis hisses between clenched teeth. “That’s the worst.”
“Is he dead?”
“If not, he soon will be.”
There’s something in Davis’ voice that makes Sam want to hold back her next question just a bit longer but she can already hear Ryan calling and she’s not sure she’ll get another chance at asking.
“Were they lovers?”
“Don’t you think you should be asking Ryan about this?”
“I did. He said they were just friends,” Sam shrugs.
“Then you have your answer,” Davis says, looking into the distance rather than at her. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be going now? You have school tomorrow.”
“Don’t you start too,” Sam rolls her eyes. “Are you going to be as bad as Tommy?”
“Worse,” Davis smiles. Sam sticks out her tongue at him and turns to leave but then stops and with a cheeky grin leans close to a more than surprised Davis and licks him on the cheek.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for over a year now,” she chuckles.
It’s a week later that she breaks into the supposedly (Ryan insists) late Frank Graham’s flat and steals the picture. Ryan makes no comment on its appearance on their bookshelf but Sam catches him looking at it once in a while until it slowly becomes just another everyday object in their home. And when four years later Sam gets pushed up against the shelf by her conquest for the night and accidentally breaks the frame Ryan just puts it into a box next to all the other photographs and closes the lid on it.