FanFic100: #055 Spirit
She stares at the empty piece of paper in front of her. Has been doing so for at least ten minutes now, since she entered the mess hall. Before that… she’d been staring at it for more than two hours in her quarters. And before that she’d been staring at it in the junior officers’ bull pen for at least an hour.
However, it all got her nowhere with this. She should be able to do this - write a letter to Lance Corporal Andrew Redmonn’s parents explaining about his death and expressing her deepest condolences, as it is proper for her as his commanding officer - but it seems that somewhere between OCS and Atlantis she forgot all about the lessons they taught them about this kind of stuff. She knows there’s a certain way to write something like this but for the life of her she can’t remember it.
It doesn’t help either that whenever she starts writing that standard letter some memory of Redmonn comes back. He’d been on her team for two years and even thought they’d had their fair share of… disagreements at the beginning they had somehow managed to become proper teammates and maybe even friends.
Unlike Lance Corporal Brendan Hiller, her other military team member, Redmonn had been one of those Marines’ Marines, all about doing drills and yelling at people and for at least two months she’d felt like he was the one judging her performance, not the other way around. Then she had beaten the crap out of him in front of at least 20 guffawing and grunting Marines and Airmen and the matter had surprisingly been settled ever after.
God, she can’t believe she feels her eyes going moist. Didn’t Dr. Obecheva, the biologist on her team, cry enough for all of them? She’s a Marine, dammit, and Redmonn would lose the respect for her she worked so hard for if she started bawling her eyes out now. He’d want her to buck up, maybe yell at a few newbies in his commemoration and then continue being the kick-ass officer he recognized her to be.
Except… except she’s also Laura, not only Lieutenant Cadman and… and… “Evening, Lieutenant.” Her head whips up and she sees Major Evan Lorne sitting down across from her. Taking great care not to betray any of the feelings inside of her, she leans back, trying to look casual.
“Evening, sir.” He doesn’t answer right away, only looks at her for an almost endless moment.
Then he seems to have decided something and leans forward to gesture towards the piece of paper in front of her. “Letter home?”
For a short moment she contemplates telling him to get lost but then again… he is her CO. Even though that doesn’t explain where he suddenly came from in the middle of the night but that’s not the point here right now. “Something… like that, yeah.” Damn, why hadn't she simply said yes? Now she caught his attention and he’ll start bothering her and then she’ll have to be insolent and…
“Well, then… I’ll leave you to it.” Oh. Okay, that was not what she expected. She also didn’t expect him to actually get up again and leave the table and…
And she didn’t expect herself to be desperate enough to clear her throat and say, “Actually, sir… I could use your… advice.” She will not sink as low and actually say “help”; that’s for sure.
He turns around, raising his eyebrows. Why does that seem like he… rehearsed that? Huh. “Really? With what?” And that sounds like he… already expected her to say that. Nah, she’s imagining that, what with the stress of losing Redmonn and having to keep the remainder of her team together and everything.
“It’s some… official stuff and… everyone knows you’re pretty good at it and everyone knows I’m not really a big fan of it, so… I figured…” Oh God, that came out totally wrong. If Redmonn saw her like that - stuttering like a teenage girl in front of her CO - he’d roll his eyes and go somewhere to retch or something, she’s sure of that.
Major Lorne, however, simply sits down again and gives her a funny look… like he knows exactly what this is about. “Just to make this clear: I’m not good at all ‘official stuff’.” What… is he trying to get at? “For example…” with that he rubs a hand over his eyes and this doesn’t look rehearsed or cocky or anything like it, “condolence letters.”
He… does know what this is all about. Oh well… he isn't the city’s second in command for nothing and even Redmonn respected him almost from day one, even though he’s just Chair Force. “Right, sir.” She looks at the empty piece of paper again, wondering if Major Lorne ever felt like she does now; intellectually and emotionally inadequate as an officer and a Marine - intellectually because what the hell is so difficult about writing a simple letter and emotionally because she wishes she could detach herself from the loss of Redmonn and simply see it as a professional matter rather than a personal one.
Seeing that she isn't going to volunteer more, he lowers his head and rubs his neck and racks his hair. Then he says with a distinctive frustrated undertone to it, “Lieutenant… if you want me to write the letter to Redmonn’s next of kin… just ask me.”
What? No! How dare he? Insinuating she’s not capable of doing something as simple as that? The only reason she doesn’t stand up and leave the table this minute is that Major Lorne is in a position to seriously wreck her career if he doesn’t like the way she talks to him… or even looks at him. It doesn’t keep her from adding some ice to her voice, though, when she replies, “No, thank you, sir. I think I can do the job myself.” Whoa. Redmonn would have been proud of her for telling off that Zoomie, even if that Zoomie happened to be both their CO. Major Lorne, however…
Oh. To her surprise he doesn’t get mad at her instantly. Instead he shakes his head, obviously trying hard to keep it civil… yet. “I wasn’t… Lieutenant… Laura, I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately and… it’s not a bad thing to accept a little help now and then.”
She should be pissed off now. She should get up, yell at him, tell him to get lost for all that he just said and implied but the only thing she does is wiping her hand over her face and saying, “I know that, sir. But Lance Corporal Redmonn was a member of my team. I was responsible for him and he trusted me to either bring him home in one piece or take the responsibility for it if I didn’t. No offense, sir, but… he was a Marine and I am a Marine and that’s why I have to write this.”
Goddammitholycrapthisjustcan’tbetrue… now she did start crying. Or well, not outright crying but… something that feels suspiciously like a lump formed of tears threatening to overspill constricts her throat. Major Lorne doesn’t say anything at first but then he takes a deep breath. “I see, Lieutenant.” Something must have tipped him off that she doesn’t really believe him so he adds, “I really do. But you know… it surely won’t hurt asking a fellow officer - even if he’s a Zoomie - for a suggestion or two as how to start the letter, will it?”
That last bit is accompanied by a little half-smile. Who would have thought Zoomies were capable of showing some self-irony? And well… yeah, she could live with that. Even though Redmonn would probably have to say a piece or two about that. But then again… maybe he would have found it okay, even if it was only grudgingly because this is Major Lorne of whom Redmonn once dared claiming that it was almost a pity that he’d joined the Chair Force instead of the Corps.
She tries a smile herself. “No, I guess not.” Then she bites her lip and forces herself to say, “So… do you have any? Suggestions, I mean.”
He nods, looking glad that she finally gave up being a stubborn jarhead and replies, “As a matter of fact, I do. See, usually it’s best if you…” As he goes on explaining to her how to tell the parents of a 25-year-old Lance Corporal that their son died in a place that shouldn’t even exist for most Earth inhabitants with being honest about it without compromising COMSEC or OPSEC she finally finds the words that have so long been eluding her. And she finally stops feeling like she can’t do either Redmonn, her rank or the Corpse justice… and she hopes that one day she’ll be able to repay Major Lorne the favor he did her tonight. Because Marines… they always pay their dues and Redmonn would not be amused if she didn’t.