Quote ('The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution'.) belongs to John. F. Kennedy! Half this story belongs to DracoMalfoysGirl92! I cowrite it with her. We take turned writing chapters. Just giving her credit here.
"So are you gonna be deployed soon?" Kyle Harmon asked his friend as they walked into the lab.
"No, I just got back from a mission last month." the woman walking on his left said. She had a raspy voice with a New York accent.
"Where to?" the woman on Kyle's right asked.
"Christi, you know I can't tell you." she chuckled.
"Hey, Kyle!" they heard. A dark-skinned man was jogging up to them.
"Hey, Eric." Kyle greeted him and shook his hand.
"How you been doing, man? When did you get home from Afghanistan?"
"Just a few days ago. Me and Christi had to get settled in before we could do anything." Kyle said, and pointed to each girl, "That's Christi, and that's Nicole." he said, pointing first to the woman on his right and then the woman on his left, "Christi is my girlfriend of a couple years now."
Eric nodded and shook their hands, "Where'd you all meet?"
"High school." Nicole answered, "Worst years of my life. Lucky I got out when I could."
Eric smiled and gazed at the Navy t-shirt she wore. "You were in the Navy?"
"Still am. Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician." she smiled proudly, "Active duty since I was seventeen. Goin' on my ninth year."
"Impressive."
"But she's only been deployed a few times." Christi was laughing, "Only about-"
Nicole cut her off, "I have been deployed more times than you think, Christina, so shut your trap!" This only made Christi laugh harder. Nicole sighed, "She's so mean to me."
"Me to you?" Christi asked incredulously, "You're mean to me!"
"I am not!"
"Girls, girls." Kyle intervened, pulling them apart from where they were practically in each other's faces, "So it was nice talking to you, Eric. We have to go up and see my dad in his office now."
"Alright, see you around." Eric said, and they parted ways.
When they got to Horatio's office, Nicole put her finger to her lips and told them to stand back. She knocked on his door four times.
"Come in!" they heard him call out.
"Hey, Horatio." Nicole said, coming in. She smiled widely at the man who was much like a father to her.
"Hello, Nicole. What brings you here today?"
"Well, I have a little surprise for you…" she said. She motioned for Christi and Kyle to come into his office. They walked in and Horatio looked up in shock.
"Kyle! Christi!"
He stood up immediately and went to hug both of them.
"Hey, Dad." Kyle smiled at him, "How are you?"
"Me? How are you? When did you two get back? Are you guys okay? Did-"
"We're fine, H." Christi cut him off smiling, "We got back a few days ago."
"We just needed a couple days to settle in a bit." Kyle explained, "We came here to surprise you."
Horatio smiled, "What a surprise it is. I'm so glad to see you both! I missed you guys so much."
"Yeah. Why don't we go somewhere to catch up," Kyle suggested, "Unless you have to work."
Horatio smiled, "I can get off for lunch."
Horatio drove them all down to a café down the road for coffee and lunch.
"So I guess you can figure out what we've been doing for the past year and a half." Christi joked lightheartedly, "But what about you?"
"Yeah, Dad, what's been going on with you?" Kyle asked.
Horatio shrugged, "Not a lot. It's been the usual. A lot of work, not a lot of anything else."
"Jeez, Horatio," Nicole chuckled, "Give yourself a break sometimes."
"If he gave himself a break sometimes then he'd become like-" Christi started, but Nicole cut her off.
"Don't even say the word I know you wanna say, since it really makes no sense at all." Nicole warned her. Christi opened her mouth and Nicole said, "Don't you dare!"
"Like you!" Christi laughed uncontrollably.
Nicole rolled her eyes, "I swear, if I weren't so nice, you'd be on the ground right now."
"I could take you."
"I bet you couldn't. I wanna remind you that I went through fifty-one weeks of hard-core training. More than you did."
"Wanna go?"
"I'll fight you, yeah."
Kyle intervened once again, "Girls, no. You aren't going to fight each other. Both are my best friends, one's my girlfriend… I don't know who would kick who's ass, so I'm saving you both."
"More like ruining the fun." Nicole muttered.
"So, Nicole." Horatio turned to the New Yorker beside him, "How have you been?"
Kyle interrupted, "Have you not been visiting my dad, Nicole?" he asked in a very reprimanding way.
Nicole laughed, "Well not really. I've been busy, you know. I got a dog. My therapist suggested I get something I have to take care of. So I got myself a dog."
"What kind?" Christi asked.
"A Cocker Spaniel. I named him Brittany." Nicole said. She grinned after she said that. She had a scatterbrained sense of humor. It was something everyone appreciated, since she found irony in everything.
Kyle rolled his eyes and said, "Shoulda' gotten a Brittany Spaniel."
"But then I'd have to name him Cocker. And I wouldn't want to be yelling, 'Come, Cocker! Here, Cocker!' whenever I go on walks with him."
"Anything else exciting?" Christi asked, chuckling.
Nicole's black eyes lit up, "Oh! I found out my old man keeled over last week!"
"…That's good?" Christi asked skeptically.
Nicole nodded. Her father walked out of her, her mother and her three older brothers and one little sister when Nicole was only eight years old. Nicole held a grudge against her father now, but no one really understood that well. "Chris, he skipped out on us and left my poor, frail mother and her old lady. I hope that bastard is burning in Hell!"
Kyle, on the other hand, completely accepted Nicole's hatred towards her father. "So are you going to the funeral?"
Nicole shrugged, "I'm not sure. I didn't get an invitation. I only heard about it from my cousin."
"You should still go." Christi said, "It's your dad."
Nicole shook her head, "I'm not going."
"You always seem to do the opposite of what I say. If I had say 'don't go', would you have?"
"Nope." Nicole shook her head, "I wasn't even asking you to tell me what to do, but I was about ninety-eight percent sure I wasn't going to go."
Horatio's phone rang, and he had to get going. He said goodbye to them, and they left as well, walking to the bus stop. On the way there, Nicole stopped down to pick up a glinting object on the ground.
"A penny!" she smiled, flipping it off her thumb and catching it with a flourish.
"Why pick up a penny?" Kyle asked, "What use will a penny be?"
"Maybe when we get to the bus, we'll be one penny short of the bus fare. Pennies always come in handy. I have a drawer full at my house." Nicole grinned.
Christi rolled her eyes, "We've known you for eleven years, since freshman year, and we're still learning new stuff about you. You're so spontaneous."
"Maybe she's just secretive." Kyle said.
As they got to the bus stop and walked on, each paid their fare-two dollars and seventy-five cents each. Kyle was stopped though, having to count out change.
"Kyle, come on." Christi urged him as they sat down.
"I'm a cent short." he muttered. Nicole grinned widely and flipped the penny off her thumb. It landed perfectly in Kyle's hand of change. He looked at her incredulously and said, "How… What?"
"Ironic, ain't it?" she chuckled. Kyle rolled his eyes and sat next to them. They rode to their houses. They lived in a small apartment complex. The apartments weren't in one entire building, but spread out among the property, each separate and individual. They lived in individual houses right next to each other.
They got off the bus and walked toward their homes, and the sight that greeted them was shocking. There were flames, and smoke everywhere. There were several fire trucks there trying to put out the fire that seemed to be secluded to one area of the house.
"Oh my God!" Nicole shrieked, "My house!" She broke off in a run and ran over to the firefighters, trying desperately to get in. "That's my house! My dog is in there!" she cried, "Let me in!"
"Ma'am, you'll get burned." the firefighter restraining her said.
"How did this start?" she asked, "How…"
No one tried to restrain her any more. She had given up and sat down in the grass. She was worried. She had so many questions. What started the fire? How much damage was there? Where was it? Was her dog okay? Was she going to need to do remodeling? What would happened after this? Did she have fire insurance? She was sure she did, but how much would it cover?
Would she need to find another place to live? Where could she live? Her family was all scattered. Her mother moved to California. Her sister moved to Illinois, both of her brothers moved up to New Jersey, and she didn't have her third brother anymore. She didn't have anyone in Miami, except for Kyle and Christi. Would they let her stay with them? Would they help her out?
She really hoped she wouldn't have to. Nicole didn't much like being a burden on people, or being needy or getting help from people at all, really. She had stated at an early age that she was independent. She had broken away from her family and joined the Navy. She was an individual. She supported herself.
As she sat in the grass, Christi and Kyle came over and plopped down next to her. Christi was the first to speak, "Don't worry, Nicole, it'll all be alright."
Kyle nodded, "Yeah. Nicole, we're here to help any time. If you need to stay with us for a while, we're here. We'll help you out any way we can."
Well, that answered one question for Nicole. She sighed and said, "Thanks." They sat in silence, looking at the flames. "They'd be kind of pretty… If it wasn't my house, and all." Nicole said. Her friends laughed at her, and patted her back.
After the flames were finally out, it was explained to her. "It seemed to be just a small kitchen fire." a man said, "The damage is isolated to just your kitchen. Not much overall damage, but there's a lot of blackened parts. Not that much burned though."
"Alright… How's my dog?"
"We got your dog out of the house immediately. He's over there." the man pointed to a puppy resting under a tree. "He's alright. He's got no injuries."
"Brittany!" Nicole whistled. The dog's ears perked up and it ran over excitedly. "Christi, Kyle, this is my dog, Brittany."
Christi scratched the dog on the head nicely while it sniffed them both. Christi smiled reassuringly at Nicole, "Do you wanna go inside?"
Nicole nodded, "Let's go."
They walked into the house together, and viewed the damage. The only bad destruction was in the kitchen. It wasn't that burnt, but it was ruined.
Nicole moaned and fell to her knees. "Oh my God! I cannot believe this!"
"We'll help you out." Christi said immediately. Nicole looked up and Christi said, "We'll help you remodel. We'll help you get new stuff and everything. We'll be here to support you."
"Yeah." Kyle agreed, "We'll be with you every step of the way."
Nicole smiled, "Thanks so much, guys…"
"How did the fire start?"
"They said I left a cigarette burning…" she muttered, not shamefully, but confused. They all knew of her habit of smoking. Christi occasionally smoked, but it was quite rare if she did. Kyle didn't like it too much, and told them to stop, but they didn't. It was never a problem before though. "They said I left a cigarette burning and left it by the window, but I swear I put it out before you guys came to pick me up.
They frowned and Kyle cracked a joke, "Maybe you're losing your mind, too."
Nicole usually wouldn't tolerate that from anyone during a hard time, but it was Kyle. So she smiled at him and laughed a little. "I knew those curtains were a bad idea…"
Kyle chuckled and slung him arm around her shoulder, "So, you gonna quit now?"
"Hell to the no." Nicole rolled her eyes, "I need a cigarette right now…"
She pulled out her pack of Marlboros and lit one up with a special, expensive lighter she received from her brother when she was seventeen. Christi looked at her and said, "Should you really be smoking right now?"
Nicole shrugged, "I think it's a pretty good time. Cigarettes settle my nerves."
She walked out of her destroyed kitchen and into the untouched living room. She walked toward a shrine on a table. There was an unlit incense stick there, surrounded by a few small white candles. Pictures of a man were on the table and on the wall right above it. There were different pictures in different frames. The same man was in each one, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. There were several dried flowers there.
Nicole took her lighter and lit the incense. She made the Sign of the Cross slowly, touching first her forehead, then her chest, each shoulder and then her lips. Afterwards, she reached out to touch the first picture of the man that was front and center.
Kyle and Christi both knew about the shrine, and who the man was. The man was her third older brother. She had lost him around two years earlier to bone cancer. He fought it for three years before succumbing to the terrible disease. He was the one who gave her the lighter, as a present because he was so proud of her for joining the Navy. He was really happy for her, but worried sick.
"Nicole," Christi said once her friend sat down, "Can I bum a cigarette?"
"Absolutely not."
"What? Why not?"
"You always bum from me. Why don't you have your own?"
"I haven't gotten the chance to get any from the Seven Eleven."
"You wouldn't like these ones anyways." she held up her gold pack and said, "Seventy-twos."
Christi only liked to smoke one-hundreds, fifty-fours and twenty-sevens. "Pretend I'm dyslexic and that it says twenty-seven. I'm really wanting a cigarette right now."
Nicole scoffed and handed one to Christi. Kyle rolled his eyes as Christi lit up, and blew a plume of smoke into the air.
It was beginning to feel like old times, before Kyle and Christi went to Afghanistan. The three of them, sitting int eh living room, talking, smoking. There were a few changes. They could see the charred kitchen out of their peripheral vision, and a dog was curled up by their feet, making it near impossible to stand up. But besides that, things were back to normal.