• The Beginning

    She studied their faces in confusion as she sat down on the opposite side of the table, straightening her uniform. The three of them greeted her pleasantly but there was an intentness in their expressions that made her nervous. After all, she was looking at her Commanding and Executive Officers, not to mention her Senior Enlisted Officer, and she had absolutely no idea why they wanted to talk to her. She hadn't done anything lately that would be considered either good or bad and there had been no rumors and no warning of this meeting. The only thing that anyone had known was that the end of the hall by the CO's office had been basically sealed off for the past few hours and no one was allowed to walk near where they might overhear anything, not unless they were called that is. The CO, a pleasant enough man if you never did anything bad, started with the first question. "Lance Corporal Bond, we wanted to ask you a few questions about Lance Corporal C***** and Private B***." She relaxed immediately and decided her two friends must have gotten into trouble somehow. She couldn't imagine what B*** could have done, since he was already on restriction. He was just too much of a smart a** for his own good. So she smiled and nodded. "Okay sir." She clasped her hands in her lap and thought that maybe she was going to find out that C***** and B*** had some sort of thing together and that was why C***** had dumped her a few weeks earlier. The way he'd broken up with her... he'd said he couldn't tell her why and only B*** knew. And it would make sense with the way the two acted sometimes if they were gay. So she prepared herself for questions and the first was predictable. The XO asked it. "We've heard that you dated C*****. When were you dating him?" She replied to the XO after a moment of thought. "I didn't date him for very long, only for a week or two. From sometime in the middle of the first week of February until just a few days after Valentines Day." The XO nodded as she and the others took notes. The CO piped in. "Was there a reason the two of you broke up?" Evelyn pushed a strand of loose hair back behind her ear, it might not even have existed except in her imagination but it was a nervous habit that had to be satisfied. Even though she wasn't in trouble, just talking with higher ranking people sometimes made her a little twitchy. "He said that there was a reason but that he couldn't tell me what it was. He said that B*** was the only person who he could talk to about it." Evelyn didn't mention that C***** had admitted that whatever the problem was, that was what B*** and he were always talking about in Russian when she was around and wouldn't tell her the meaning of. It had been something that annoyed her and still did. If they had a thing together though, it would make sense. She waited for the next question, it was quick to come. Her CO looked at her intently and asked her. "Did either of them ever threaten you or give you any indications that they might hurt you?" She could really only stare for a moment, and she wasn't sure afterward, but her mouth may even have dropped open. Her eye-brows drew together in confusion and she answered slowly. "Hurt me... no... I mean, we were going to go out on Valentines night and my old roommate, G*****, she came and told me that I shouldn't go anyplace wierd with C***** or anyplace dark. She wouldn't tell me why. I asked B*** about it and he told me not to worry." She remembered to herself that B***'s exact words were that C***** was gentle as a lamb and wouldn't hurt a fly. She fidgeted in her chair as he asked. "But he never did anything to threaten you or anything strange?" She shook her head and told him, "No, sir. We ended up not being able to go out." The three authority figures glanced at each other before writing more notes. She didn't understand their question, or more appropriately, she didn't understand why they were asking such a question. In her head she asked herself what sort of thing C***** and B*** could possibly have done that warranted a question like that. She paid very close attention to the coming questions, not wanting to say the wrong things. "Did C***** ever tell you about any personal problems?" Evelyn thought back to conversations she'd had with C*****. He hadn't been a really big talker, he'd always seemed sort of shy and timid, but he was always so nice and she thought he'd opened up to her a bit. A bit of a conversation came back to her and she told her audience. "Well, I know that he had some family problems. He used to laugh about how the joke about being beaten like a red-headed step-child was true for him when he was younger. I know that he still has problems with his family." They nodded and continued asking her questions that she couldn't really answer. She had made it clear that she'd dated him for a short time. There really was no reason for them to question her any further. True, she was also his friend and had been before they'd dated, but she didn't hang out with him all the time. Their final question was probably the most confusing. "Would you write a statement that says everything you just told us?" The CO asked. Evelyn nodded. "Sure, sir." He turned to the XO. "Will you take her to the admin shop and have her type that right now?" The XO nodded and motioned to Evelyn to follow her out of the CO's office and to the admin shop that was just down the hall. A statement sounded too official for the really NOT information she'd just given them. It couldn't be anything that they wouldn't hear from all of C***** and B***'s other friends. She decided that they must just think she had more insight because she'd dated C***** and hoped they weren't too disappointed with her lack of it.


    By the time that Evelyn was done, afternoon formation was over, so she was free to go up to her room and change into civies. She tossed her uniform onto her rack and pulled on a pair of jeans, a sphagetti strapped shirt, and a red sweater she'd gotten from Express, her favorite clothing store. Her roommate wasn't there. She was probably with her boyfriend, S****. He was a nice guy, sort of goofy, but Evelyn liked him. Her roommate would sometimes get sick of him though. She told Evelyn that it was because he got too clingy and he'd just get really mushy sometimes. Evelyn didn't think about it too much, because it was none of her business. She went up to the third deck, where her old roommate G**** had her room. G**** had been questioned too, from what Evelyn had heard before she got pulled from formation, and she wanted to see if her old roommate knew why, since nobody else knew anything. When she knocked on the door, G**** answered. "Oh, hey Evelyn. What's up?" Evelyn shrugged. "Not much, I just got done with the CO and XO and Top. I was wondering... do you know what's going on?" G**** shook her head. "I can't tell you." Evelyn bit her lip. "Does this have anything to do with Valentine's Day, when you told me not to go anywhere strange or out of the way with Carson?" G**** told her. "I'm not allowed to say anything about it, I'm sorry." Evelyn could tell she wasn't going to get anything out of her roommate. "That's all right. I was just hoping you'd be able to tell me. How was your leave, by the way?" G**** smiled. "Oh, it was nice, it sucked to come back though." Evelyn returned the smile. "I bet. Well, I'm going to go get something to eat, I'll talk to you later." G**** nodded. "Sure, I'll see you later." Evelyn left and headed out for the chow hall to see if she could find some of her other friends to speculate with. The whole thing was strange.