As it turns out, Ash Spencer wasn't there just to catch up and have a beer with Clay. He made that perfectly clear when Clay saw the news and saw Ash on TV spilling the news that he knew of insider information and he was going to exploit his relationship with his son. Clay was furious. And he wanted absolutely nothing with his father after seeing the interview.

They walked out the bar and Ash was chattering on about the second book deal and most of it was going in one ear and out the other. Suddenly Ash stopped outside of Clay's car and turned to his son. He became quiet and Clay knew Ash was about to drop another bombshell on him. "You're right, I didn't just come here to have a beer. I have something to tell you."

"Ash, just get it out," Clay was disgusted with his father's actions and just wanted to leave, go home and have a beer in peace and figure out his next moves from there.

Ash grimaced. "You have a half sister."

Whatever Clay was expecting, it wasn't that. "Excuse me?"

"Her name is Kelsey. She's 21 or 22, I'm not exactly sure."

Clay wanted to punch his father, lights out, KO, right then and there. A half sister? Whoa. What the hell else was Ash hiding? "I have a half sister who's 21 and you're just telling me now?"

Ash held up his hand. "Kelsey's mother wanted to shield her from my life."

"Gee, I wonder why," Clay spat out.

His father shook his head. "I get it kid, you're pissed at me and I can see the fire in your eyes and before you punch me, just hear me out. She's a Marine, she's doing TBS at Quantico and wants to meet you. And before you ask her, no, I haven't had much contact with her during my life. I paid child support and that was it."

So many things were running through Clay's mind. A half sister, who was military and doing The Basic School only 3 hours from him in Quantico? Holy shit. That was a lot to process. So much to think about. Instead he took the card from Ash that had Kelsey's number on it and put it in his back pocket. "I'll think about it," he said and got in his car.

He had so many thoughts on his way home that he barely remembered the drive. He had a half sister. A sister. Who was now military and got his way of life and got the craziness of having Ash Spencer as a father. And he just learned of her now. What a crazy turn of events. He leaned against his door once he closed it and sighed heavily. He grabbed a beer from his fridge and fished the card from his pocket. All it said was Kelsey Vanderhoek. 480-013-3214. So, she didn't share the infamous last name of Spencer.

Before he lacked the balls to do it, he got out his phone and decided to text her. If he didn't do it now, he would lack the nerve. He knew she might not text back, given her probably rigorous schedule at TBS and the fact she might be in the field right now. And the fact that, like him, she might need time to process all this.

Hey Kelsey, this is Clay Spencer. Ash finally told me about you and said you wanted to meet. I'd like the chance as well. I know you're at TBS so just let me know when you're free and I'll work something out on my end.

Two and a half weeks later, Clay found himself on the I-64, on his way to Quantico, to meet his little sister. It had taken her a couple days to reply, as she was on a field exercise. And then he had been spun up to Mali with the boys. And then she was busy that weekend she got back so finally they had managed to make something work- Saturday afternoon.

He drove a bar in Triangle, which was the town just outside Quantico, where he and Kelsey agreed to meet. He found her sitting on a table outside the bar, in civilian clothes, with her blonde hair down. She was scrolling through something on her phone but lifted her head up when she saw him approaching.

"Ma'am," he greeted.

Her face broken into a smile. "Chief Petty Officer," she greeted back, laughing as she got off the table to hug him.

As he stepped back, he had a smile on his face. "Having a little sister who outranks me is a little weird." He was just glad she wasn't in uniform, being a 2nd Lieutenant where he would really then have to ma'am her.

She started to walk into the bar. "Please don't ma'am me again," she laughed. "It's weird enough thinking about the fact that people have to ma'am a 21 year old and then to think that my older brother now technically has to."

"You're gonna have to get used to people ma'am'ing you," he said as they sat down at a table.

"So, I bet you have some questions."

He raised an eyebrow. "A few. But how did you find this place?" It looked like his type of bar.

The waitress had already brought a beer for Kelsey, obviously she was a regular. Clay just ordered something on tap. "My step-dad. He's a Master Sergeant, stationed at Camp Pendleton. Spent some time at Quantico in his career and he told me about this place."

"So you're a Marine brat then?"

She sipped her beer. "No. Definitely not."

"Then how did you end up in the Corps? To piss Ash off? Because that is a great way to do it." Clay could just imagine Ash's head exploding when he found out his daughter was going into the military, then finding out she was going into the Marine Corps and to top it all off- she was going officer, not enlisted. Definitely would have made his head explode.

She nodded. "There were definitely some words said when he found out I was going into the Corps. No, Ash didn't find out until after I had done OCS and was commissioned."

"Would have loved to heard that conversation."

"I guess we should start with the beginning," Kelsey said. "I don't really know how it happened, I've never asked questions, but my mom had a couple months left on her tour in the IDF when she got knocked up."

Clay rubbed his hand over his face. Leave it to Ash to get a woman pregnant in a foreign military. "Wow, okay, continue."

"My grandmother is Israeli, my grandfather is Dutch. They all moved back to the Netherlands after spending about 10 years in Israel. My mom gave birth to me in the Netherlands. We lived there for about 5 years before my grandpa got a job over here. He was a big shot Wall Street banker. We moved to the States. So I hold three citizenship's- Israeli, Dutch and US."

"I thought the Netherlands wasn't a dual citizenship country?"

She sipped her beer and raised an eyebrow and then decided she was talking to a US Navy SEAL, it was his job to know those facts. "It isn't. But I renewed my Dutch passport two years ago and nobody said anything. They are changing their citizenship laws this year to be a little more relaxed."

"Three citizenship's will be hell to get a top secret clearance," Clay commented.

She just rolled her eyes, she already knew but she would wait to drop that bombshell on him. "My mom raised me as a single mom for a long time. We moved around a lot. She followed my grandpa into finance and is doing quite well for herself. We found ourselves in Scottsdale, Arizona my senior year of University where she met my step-dad. Who is a Master Sergeant. She moved to Oceanside after marrying him, I decided to go to ASU. Somehow walked on to the varsity soccer team there and partied my ass off. Right around the time that I had chosen a difficult major and was contemplating life decisions, a recruiter showed up at a soccer practice. Turned out he had been watching me ever since I was doing track in high school as he had a poolee that went to the same high school as me. He found out I had a new step-dad that was a Master Sergeant and thought it would be a great time to approach me."

"You got recruited, wow."

She shrugged, as if it was no big deal. "It took a lot of convincing between Jon, my step-dad, and the recruiter but finally I caved and signed a NROTC contract. Went to OCS between my junior and senior years and now I'm here."

"You find out your MOS yet?" Clay asked. He knew a little bit from how TBS worked, where officers found out their career choice at the end of the six month course, from a Marine who had been attached to the first SEAL team he had been in.

She took a long sip of her beer. "0204."

Clay racked his brain and then raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Intelligence. Wow, good job. Don't you have to go to Infantry Officer Course?" The Corps hadn't exactly been progressive about putting woman in combat jobs. And Intelligence was hard to get into, it was competitive and there were usually only one or two slots open, if that.

Kelsey shook her head. "In 0203 you do as that is ground intel. 0204 is human intel."

"I'm sensing a but coming."

"I've been asked if I'd consider going to IOC."

"How many women have passed IOC?"

She smiled briefly. "2."

Clay sipped his beer. "Does anybody know that you are Ash Spencer's daughter?"

"Only one other person. My best friend here. We went through OCS, we were tight then, both in NROTC but she's going to be a pilot actually and we never thought we'd be in the same TBS class but here we are. She'd never rat on me though."

Clay thought carefully on his words. "Take it from me, do not let anyone else know you are. They will make your life living hell, even if you are in the Corps. And if you successfully graduate IOC, which I have faith you will, he will exploit that and use that for publicity. Do not let anyone know you are his daughter."

"Advice taken. Enough about me. What about you? What's your story?"

Clay rolled his eyes and sipped on his beer. "Oh boy. Well, my mom died when I was young so I was raised by her parents. Lived in Florida my whole early life. Decided in high school that I was going to go Navy and ended up following the old man's steps."

"So I'm guessing the last name Spencer has caused you some trouble being a SEAL?"

Clay shrugged. "It's more convincing people that I'm not him and I'm not anything like him, has been the problem."

She rolled her eyes. She could see some of their father in Clay. "Yeah, okay," she said sarcastically. "You're a DEVGRU operator, don't lie to me, you're going to step on a few toes on the climb to the top."

"Nobody said you weren't observant," Clay said.

Kelsey shrugged. "Ash was never really involved in my life. He'd show up once a year though, give me a birthday present. Without fail. No matter where we were living, or if my mom refused to tell him where we were living, Ash would find us."

"Yeah, he's good at that," Clay admitted. "When did you find out about me?"

"Not until this spring. My mom wanted to wait until I was 18 and it was my choice and then the book deal came out and she got spooked. She wanted to distance me from Ash as much as possible. That and she knew you were a SEAL, she didn't know how much you took after our father. Jon told her that wasn't her choice to make. So they decided to wait a little while and my mom really had her reservations about dragging me farther down Ash's hole, because she had heard rumblings of a second book deal. However, Jon told her that with me at Quantico and you being at Little Creek there was a low, but still a chance, I could meet you. After all, the military world is very small. She agreed. Jon showed up on my doorstep, pounding on my door at 6 am, on a Saturday, like any good Master Sergeant should be checking up on his now 21 year old daughter in NROTC ,with a bombshell.

"I was very hung over, drinking coffee and taking aspirin by the handful and he was giving me a lecture in his very Master Sergeant voice when he takes out your picture and tells me I have a half brother, who is a US Navy SEAL. I reached out to Dad pretty quickly after and yelled, and yelled and yelled some more. And then I told him I wanted to meet you."

Clay smiled at Kelsey. "I'm glad you reached out to Ash."

"And I'm glad you texted me. But I have to ask, why the bitterness towards him?"

He sighed. He didn't even go into depths with his relationship with his Dad to Stella, but this was his sister. Probably the only person on this planet who could probably begin to understand the fucked up relationship he had with their father. "It was like your life, a revolving door of appearances. When I needed him, he was nowhere to be found. I guess you know. Nobody else understands but you do."

"Oh I know, I know," Kelsey said.

"The rage right now comes from two weeks ago. He showed up at my place three weeks ago, with some bullshit about wanting to go for a beer. I blew him off and then I was spun up. I was intrigued so I decided to meet. He took a call from his fucking publisher and then there was a TV interview on in the bar so I got the bartender to turn it up. He was bragging about how he had insider information, about an op in Saudi. An op I was on."

"Son of a bitch," she breathed hard and finished her beer. "Son a bitch. Doesn't even surprise me. I guess that's why you told me to let nobody know I'm Ash Spencer's daughter because he will exploit it."

"If you do go to Infantry Officer Course, make sure he doesn't know. When do you have to give your decision?"

She shrugged. "Next week."

"You can leave for a weekend, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, if we want to. I don't usually."

"Come down to where we are. We'll make sure you're ready for IOC before you give your answer."

Kelsey smiled. "You're on. Girlfriend is not going to mind?" she teased, like a little sister would.

He rolled his eyes. "There is no girlfriend."

"That's definitely a sore subject. Recent breakup?"

Clay ran his hand over his face after he downed the rest of his beer. "Yeah," he decided to lead with the truth. "Told me she couldn't be a SEAL girlfriend basically. Couldn't do the lifestyle."

"Ouch. I'm sorry."

"What about you. Any boyfriends I need to beat the fear of God into like a big brother should be?"

Kelsey laughed, because she'd pay money to see that. She could have used a big brother's older judgement against her high school boyfriend's, that's for sure. "No. There's a guy from back home but not many guys really want to be Mr. Kelsey Vanderhoek. I'm pretty career orientated right now and I'm gunning for MARSOC. I've been told that it would be hard to live up to me, being my boyfriend."

"Then I guess he'll have to be a hell of a guy to keep up with you."

"Hey, when was the last time you had any real fun?" she asked, posing the question like a little sister would.

He shrugged. "That's a loaded question, Kels."

She tilted her head towards the door. "Let's go bowling. Victoria and I were thinking about going later. My platoon and I are really tight; I can probably drum up some of them and make it even more fun. There's a bar there and well if you drink too much, there's a Marine base with free rooms for squids like yourself."

He was starting to see her happy go lucky demeanour. "And how are you planning to explain me?"

She shrugged. "Victoria knows the truth but to the rest of them, you can be a friend from ASU who is in the area. I only have to spend four more weeks with these jokers, so who cares."

"Alright, let's go bowling." For the first time in weeks, Clay was actually excited to be out and about. He didn't know any of this crowd that Kelsey was bringing along with but if she was friends with them and they were military, he'd probably get along with them. And it was nice to be away from Virginia Beach as well.

Kelsey had a big smile as Clay put a couple bills down on the table for their drinks and followed her out of the bar. "Come on, sailor. Let's go have some fun."

Clay put his arm around his little sister's shoulders as they walked outside. He knew her statement of "let's go have some fun," was double meaning- about tonight and about life. He was certainly glad for the little ray of sunshine named Kelsey Vanderhoek that showed up in his life when he needed someone the most. He just didn't think it would come in the form of a little sister.

AN: Just an idea that popped into my head. I don't normally write Clay so let me know what you think.