Emily made it back to her tent very late that night and for the first time in nearly a week, she was able to sleep the entire night without waking up. She woke up unable to stop smiling. She felt happy. “No not just happy. What beyond happy. Ecstatic? In love?” She thought to herself giggling like an idiot.

She headed to the showers to take another long Hollywood shower. “I know he doesn't really like me like the way I do him but that's ok. I was just probably just another one night stand with him but that's ok..” She told herself.

She made her way to the chow tent and got in line not really paying attention to anyone just remembering the night. “Morning beautiful.” His deep voice spoke behind her. She felt herself shiver and goosebumps rose all over her body. She smiled and turned around to see him standing behind her.

“Hey you,” she said leaning in towards him.

They sat together for breakfast and walked back towards the hanger together. She really wanted to hold his hand but they were in public on a military base in the middle of a war zone. Val was sitting in her chair by the entrance of the hanger just like when Emily first met her. She looked at David and Emily and smiled. She didn't say anything she just nodded.

Bubbles and Rags were sitting on a pair of fold-out chairs by the basketball net talking about football. After a few seconds, Emily realized that they were talking about soccer. “Hey hon, I need to check in. I'll see you later?” David asked in a quiet voice. Emily nodded and watched him go.

Emily sat down on the ground and after a few Val joined her. “You know you're not so bad. For a ground pounder. You would have made an okay Marine.” Val said watching Bubbles and Rags talking.

“Thanks, I think,” Emily said frowning.

“Michael was looking for you last night after the show,” Val said lightly.

Shocked Emily looked at Val. She cursed. “I don't think of him that way. He's a good guy and ….”

“He's gay,” Val said laughing.

Emily cursed again then punched the laughing Marine. “That was mean.” She told Val.

“He wants your permission to write a book about you. Well, not you but someone like you. He writes superhero fiction. He wants to base his lead character to be like you.” Val said rubbing her shoulder.

“Oh yeah, that's fine. If you see him before I do can you tell him I said it was cool.” Emily said awkwardly.

“You know that if you keep going as your going he's not going to have to make anything up. Three Main type supers at once. That's amazing. In all my years in Uncle Sam's service, I've never even heard of anyone taking on more than one Main and surviving let alone three. Not only that but taking out the butcher and a pyro. Honey your life is already made for movies. You know the average Main type super only sees combat with another main maybe once or twice a tour. You haven't been in-country for more than six months and already you've seen more action than all of us put together on this tour. Hell, my lifetime count is eleven. Bubbles has one confirmed and two claimed and Rags has four confirmed.” Val said looking serious.

“What's David's count,” Emily asked.

“He has one up on me,” Val said shaking her head. “All I am saying is watch your back. That ambush might have been for any one of us or the OCS knows about you and they set that ambush specificity for you. It's been a very bad couple of months for the OCS.”

“Ok, Val I'll keep my eyes out.” Thanks.”

Val hugged Emily and said, “If you need me for anything just call.”

Emily received her orders less than an hour later to return to her unit. She stuck around the hanger until David finally came out of the office. He had the same orders that she did. Even better they were flying out on the same airplane. She headed back to her tent and packed. She had to make a quick stop at the armory to return her borrowed rifle before she was able to leave.

“How the hell am I going to explain that I broke another rifle.” She thought to herself as she turned over her rifle. “The armory sergeant back home is going to be pissed.”

The plane that was waiting for Emily to fly her back was a six-seat jet that looked like some corporate jet. Besides David and herself there was one other man beside the pilot. Emily and David sat in the back while the other guy sat in the front. Emily covertly held Davids hand the whole flight. They talked about a bunch of stuff like how David was a big Dallas Cowboy fan while Emily tried to explain that there was no other team but the New England Patriots. Emily had a lot of fun on the flight back.

Jan and Wonder were waiting on the plane when they landed. They had somehow acquired a Jeep. “Hey lady you need a ride?” Wonder said from the drivers set smiling.

Jan was standing up on the passenger seat was holding up a cardboard sign from behind Wonder that said Captain Obvious. “Captain Obvious. Is there a Captain Obvious here!” Jan yelled pretending to look around. Besides Emily, David chuckled.

Emily smiled and turned to look at David. “You need a ride somewhere?”

“Don't mind if I do,” David said smiling.

“Hey guys, you mind if we give a lost sailor a ride,” Emily said nodding to David.

“Sure tell your sailor to grab his stuff and let's ride!” Jan said giving Emily a questioning look.

Emily and David grabbed their gear from the rear of the plane and climbed into the back of the jeep. “So where does your sailor want to go Never?” Wonder asked starting the jeep.

“Hi. Names David most people call me Double T or just T.” David said settling down in the back seat.

Wonder spun around surprised and cursed. “Your him. I knew you were stationed here but your really him!” She said geeking over David.

“Wait. The Navy Seal's Double T? Your him?” Jan said. Here eyes wide.

“Oh, you guys know him?” Emily asked.

David laughed. “If y'all don't mind I would kill for a pizza.”

“You want to eat with us?” Wonder said leaning forward.

“Hi I am Jan and this crazy lady is Wonder who should be driving us to the bowling lanes so we can get this man his pizza,” Jan said punching Wonder in the shoulder.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

According to Jan while Emily had been away they had been doing training ops with an Afghan Main type super that just arrived back in the country from the United States. Once he woke up the Afghanistan government had sent him to training in the United States.

“He still has a lot of rough edges so we are still going to have to let him come on our ops for some more experience.” Wonder said pulling up to the bowling alley. “The OCS had a huge bounty on his head.”

“Why us? Why do we have to train him.” Emily asked frowning. She did not like the idea of a half-trained super coming along on one of their ops.

“It's probably because there is no one else who is free at the moment,” David said shrugging. “Val is really busy after retaking the city. What I do take a ton of training so if he knew he won't be going with me so that just leaves you.”

“What about Rags or Bubble?” Emily asked grumbling.

“Rags is British different training and Bubble's power is too exotic for any new Brute,” David said giving Emily I am sorry look.

Everyone was quiet until they sat down and waited on their pizza then Wonder asked. “So how was Rudbar?”

Emily tried to tell the story but David butted in saying that she was not telling it right. So she sat there while David told them what happened. He was really good at telling a story so much so that even Emily was engrossed in his story. David had them laughing about how when Emily jumped from a third story building and when she broke the sidewalk. When he got to the part of the ambush Jan reached under the table and squeezed Emily hand. They were laughing again when the pizza arrived. He was telling them how Bubbles took her up in the air for a ride only to return complaining that Emily weighted too much.

They spent the rest of the day at the bowling alley having fun. After eating they ended up playing a few games of bowling. David could not stop laughing once he noticed how bad Emily was at bowling. He did hug her every time she got a gutter ball. The night ended with David giving Emily his number where he could be reached if he was on base. With a body melting goodnight kiss he left to report in.

Emily woke that night in panic reaching for Righteous looking around for shadowy enemies. She panicked further when she could not find it. She only started to calm down once she remembered that she had put her tomahawk on her desk across the room. She let herself fall backward in bed putting her forearm over her eyes and tried to get back to sleep. After a few minutes, she cursed and got up again to grab her tomahawk. She walked back to her bed and place Righteous under her pillow. This time she was able to fall asleep with no problems.

The next day she met the Afghan Main at the daily briefing. He was sitting in the back of the room by himself. He was a short man clean-shaven man roughly in his late thirties. He was waiting quietly by himself watching everyone go about their business. While he was staying on the airbase the rest of his unit was not. They were coming in from Afghanistan Army base just south of the airbase.

Emily sat down in one of the chairs near him and gave him a nod but looked away. In Afghanistan, it was not polite for a woman to introduce herself to a man outside of certain circumstances. It was best to let him introduce himself first. While the western in her rebelled at the idea she was professional enough to understand that she was in his country and should act accordingly.

As the XO entered they all stood at attention. The Afghan super was a little slow but he stood as well. “At ease.” The Major said nodding to the room. “Welcome back Never from your vacation with the Marines. Hope you're ready to get back to work.”

“Dick.” Emily thought as the Major chuckled at his own joke.

The Major went on for a few minutes about cleaning or in his mind the lack of cleaning that was being done. He went on with a few other items before handing off the briefing to First Sergeant. He left not waiting at the end of the meeting.

“Well, I like to reiterate the Major and welcome back Never. No rest for the wicked right Never? Anyway, for those of you who have not met Sergeant Sakhee Odeh, he is the Afghanistan Main. He will be with us for a few weeks getting the last bit of training before being deployed with the Afghanistan army. Never I need you to get with him and see what he needs training wise. We are doing some small compound clearings here on base for a few more days and then we go live with a live Op on Monday.” The First Sergeant said. He went on to say a few more mundane things then dismissed the company.

Sergeant Odeh introduced himself. He was a former sidewalk food vendor. He had worked for his uncle who rented him a food cart. When his uncle's family had come into trouble from a rich landowner he and a few of his fellow food vendors went to help. The landowner had become upset with a farmer who was related to his uncle.

The landowner had taken the farmer's daughter and sold her to human traffickers. So Sakhee's uncle gave them all weapons and they went into the landowners compound to get the girl back. They were ambushed by the OCS who were friends of the landowner and all but Sakhee had died. Sakhee had awakened and wiped out everyone in the compound including the landowner but the little girl was already gone. The Afghanistan government help track down the little girl and with the help of the US military they got the girl back. In return, Sakhee joined the Afghan Army.

“The US Military moved the little girl and her family to the States. The landowner had many friends. She would be targeted again.” Sakhee said beside Emily as they walked to the mock-up compound used for training.

“Wow,” Emily said shaking her head.

“This war it's not one war. It's a bunch of little wars. Everyone here in Afghanistan has a grudge. The Uzbeks hate the Pashtuns. The Pashtuns hate the Hazaras who hate the Uzbeks. Everyone hates everyone. The OCS they use these Hates. They say they are here to make things better when really they are just replacing the old bad things with new bad things.” Sakhee said sadly.

“What about us?” Emily asked in Urdu the same language that Sakhee had been taking in.

“You're nicer than the Russians and you people throw money around like water during a storm but Afghanistan is Afghanistan.” He said with a shrug.

They arrived at the compound but they had to sit around until the Afghan Army unit arrived. They went through several dry runs slowly to show the Afghani unit how to do clearing runs. Sergeant Sakhee Odeh was clearly well trained but his fellow troops were not. To make things worse they kept making the same mistakes. The Afghan Officers screamed at their troops and instead of trying to instruct them and when they kept messing up the officers physically slapped and punched their soldiers. No one on the American side did anything but watch.

They stopped for lunch and Emily accidentally walked in on two male Afghan soldiers having sex. Embarrassed Emily walked away. The rest of the afternoon was just as bad as the morning. Emily was glad when they were dismissed. Back at her barracks, she had a message from David asking if she and her friends wanted to go to the moves together.

“...and then when I walked around the corner and there were these to guys having sex. I mean right there in public where anyone can see what they are doing.” Emily said to David, Jan, and Wonder as they sat in the movie theater waiting on the movie to start.

“Being gay in Afghanistan is a crime with a death sentence. A lot of gay men join the army to meet other gay men.” David said munching on popcorn.

“So they just have sex in the open just like that?” Wonder asked.

“Kinda. While most of the time its overlooked as long as they are discreet they still can get into a lot of trouble. On an American base, no one will say anything if they get caught so a lot of gay soldiers use this time to get their freak on. Most of their officers, who are the ones who really cause trouble, are to busy hobnobbing with America officers. The enlisted have their own code of silence and will keep it quiet. The worst that can happen on an American base is that they get yelled at. Back at their own base, they could have a fatal training accident if the wrong person sees it.” David said shrugging.

The rest of the conversation was interrupted as the movie started. David slung his arm around Emily's shoulder making her smile. The Movie was a comedy that had the Ultimate playing a cop who has to protect a bunch of kids from a Super Villain. It was funny seeing the strongest man on earth being overwhelmed by a bunch of kids. Plus there were some really good one-liners.

They went for dinner afterward then they went out to the baseball field to watch a game. Emily could not stop laughing at Wonder who would heckle the batter really loudly. She was really inventive with her heckling. She only quieted down when the umpire told her to either shut up or leave. Wonder sat around for a few minutes before she got Emily and Jan to help her start a wave. Emily and David snuck out behind the stands for some alone time. When they came back Emily looked a little flushed. If Jan or Wonder notice they didn't say anything. It was late when the game ended. Emily left with her friends after getting a really passionate goodnight kiss.

Emily was woken up in the middle of the night again by her nightmare. She found herself holding Righteous when she woke up. Looking around to make sure she was really alone she slid Righteous back under her pillow and went back to sleep.