Bloody Red Flag

Alhaeron (formerly T.R.)

Disclaimer: Oh, I'm sure you all know by now. Don't own The Patriot, Tavington, anybody in it, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. No profit.

A/N: Back again by popular demand. I wrote this in 2005 and I decided, because I have way too much free time, to re-post it. That being said, I have no electronic copies of it, only hard ones, so this could take a while. Also, due to the fact that I'm writing a real book, that takes precedence, so if I have to choose between working on this and UFS (the book), it'll be UFS. Anyway, like I said way back when, this is a time travel fic. It's not a Mary Sue. It's going to be edited a little bit, because I've gotten a lot better at writing since then and there are some things I wrote that I just can't stand to read now, so I'm not going to inflict them upon you.

Chapter One: Maelstrom

My boots crunched on the snow as I trudged down the road. It was grey with the dirt and grit from the passing cars, and had been so drained of any real liquid that it could barely be called snow anyway. Winter was decaying, but spring was still a long way off. It was depressing, to say the least: walking home from school at one in the afternoon, nose bleeding like a faucet, carrying a heavy backpack and the even heavier news of yet another suspension. Even better, I felt no remorse whatsoever, a clear recipe for disaster. My antagonists had deserved what they'd gotten, and worse. I was sorry, sure; sorry I'd gotten caught! But that wasn't the way to go when you wanted to get off with minimum punishment. As if suspension wasn't enough.

The fight was draining from me, and I became increasingly aware of the throbbing pain in several parts of my body, most noticeably my nose. I sighed, a gust of pale dragons' smoke issuing from my mouth and billowing away into the grey air to join the clouds that hung heavily over the town, and had been for days. It seemed they just couldn't make up their mind whether to snow, rain, sleet, all three—or nothing at all.

Well, there was nothing for it. I bent over the snowbank to my right and dug out a chunk of the least grimy snow I could find, and held it to my nose. Despite the cold air, the heat of my face set to work on it instantly, and I felt runnels of dirty water zigzagging their courses down my lips and jaw. When I got rid of the snow, I would be left with what I called a 'grit moustache,' a dirty grey mask on whatever part of my features the snow had been used to numb. The size of the grit moustache—sometimes it covered all of my face, give or take one eye—was a device my parents used to gauge the severity of the conflict. And I was no stranger to conflict.

Now, there's a few things I have to explain about myself. I'm not a bully. I don't get into fights for fun and profit. In fact, all I want is to be left alone, and if you do that, we'll get along just fine. But ever since my parents (dragging me, of course, kicking and screaming) had moved us from New York to South Carolina, I had not been left alone. This was a good school I had enrolled in. They'd said I'd settle in just fine—but I hadn't 'settled in.' A gang of drop-outs—some having dropped out long before legal age—gave me grief from the moment I stepped onto the premises to the moment I hit home turf again. Once, someone had thrown a rock through my window, shattering it and nearly braining me. I could never figure out who it was exactly, but I had some pretty good ideas.

These kids hung around school, taking lunch money, exacting vengeance for any wrongs (real or imagined) done to them, and keeping a sort of equilibrium of tyranny within the school, slouching around until someone chased them off the premises. They had dropped out of school, sure, but they couldn't seem to leave it. They participated in every activity of school, even taking lunch with the students (although this was probably motivated by the fact that you could get a burger and fries for fifty cents, where anywhere else you could have gotten a single French fry for that much since the fifties). All activities, that is, except classes.

I don't know why they decided to pick on me, though I've formed several conjectures. I guess they don't like the quiet type. Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm not shy, per se; I can raise my voice when I want to. But that's just the thing: usually, I don't want to. More specifically, I don't really feel the need to. But enough about that. The first time one of these assholes jostled me (okay, maybe it was the sixth time; I was trying the 'tolerance' method of making them go away), I punched him. With people like them, usually all it takes is one show of mettle and they decide it's not worth it to bother you anymore. I figured that sending them back to their dens with split lips and bloody noses, whining and licking their wounds, would teach them not to mess with me, and I could continue my life in relative peace and quiet. It was senior year, for God's sake. I had just started a new school, none of the teachers knew me, and thus couldn't write adequate recommendations for me, and I was a virtual nobody in a land where everybody knew everybody else. I needed to concentrate.

Boy, was I wrong.

For one thing, I learned that my antagonists were just the tip of the iceburg. They came back the next day with a couple of giants who had biceps like bowling balls, which they flexed constantly. All right, lovely. This might take a little more work than I'd anticipated.

Boy, was I right.

I got beat up this time, but I was smarter and faster the next time, and the next. But the time after that, I got caught. While these may not have been students, I was entrapped by a rule that forbade fighting, roughhousing, etc. on school premises. And bam. I was slammed into in-school suspension. But it didn't stop. Maybe those assholes couldn't stand to see somebody with the courage to stand up to them, so they kept trying to crack me. I kept trying to tell them that it wouldn't work, but they were so stupid they couldn't even understand fists. I got more discreet about my fighting, but not even ninjas never get caught.

Eventually, though, fighting found me a friend. It had gotten to the point that I got so pissed every time I saw them that I engaged on sight. It didn't matter whether it was me they were bullying, or someone else—they were going down. So, after I'd sent the jackals yelping away, and the red had begun to wash out of my vision, I found that I had rescued someone, one of my fellow students. She grabbed my hand with a jovial air, shook it warmly, and said, "Hey, I'm Christeen. Chris, for short, but I don't think I know you. And you are?"

"Oh, hey…Um, I have a kind of…bad name. It's, uh…it's…" I sighed. I didn't like my name. "It's, uh, Timothea." I waited for her to burst out in peals of laughter, ask what my parents had been smoking when they named me that, and run back to tell all her friends about it, but when she didn't, I added quickly, "But people just call me Tim."

"Tim, it's very good to meet you. I've actually heard about your private feud with these…gentlemen, and I must say, you are widely commended for it, even though you may not know of it. I'm Senior Editor of the school newspaper—" At this, I flinched, but Chris had a discerning eye for human behavior and amended, "But I doubt that a secret warrior such as yourself, one on a private vendetta, really needs to be giving an interview. Too much publicity. Might attract others to the cause, no?"

"Hey," I said, with a false air of zealousness, "I'm all about the people, y'know? I'm recruiting, as a matter of fact. Put an ad in the paper: High school ninja seeks like-minded warriors to defeat asshole dropout clan. Call 1-800-GET-THEM-BACK. Toll free."

"I would," she said with a dramatic sigh, "but alas, it is too wordy. 75-word maximum. Hey, how d'you feel about Drama Club?" And we were off, and I'd found my first friend in this place.

But it was not the school administration. They knew that what I was doing was for a just cause—and they didn't care. Years of experience in the battlefield of school had given them two things: a jaded attitude towards all students, and a complete and utter belief in the authority that only their system could provide. And so they didn't like me—didn't like my 'vigilante dealings,' as they so delicately put it—and most certainly didn't like my problem with authority, which I am here forced to admit to. But the authority I had problems with was not so much theirs as the authority of the people I fought, who held their size, strength, and meanness over the heads of the students, demanding obeisance and lunch money from all.

What I found out, however, from examining this system, was that they were nearly one and the same. The teachers' system was inept, but they wouldn't do anything about it, and the relative order by terror that these…people provided only furthered their illusion, forming a vicious cycle. Only, I was dirt, clogging up the spoke of their great wheel. And so I needed to be eliminated. There were no more warnings about fighting on school grounds. There were just suspensions and detentions and community service sentences, spraying off the obscene graffiti my friends had plastered on any available surface they could find.

But it only drew me closer to my real friend, Chris, who listened to my hypotheses and ranting about the screwed-up 'justice' system and agreed wholeheartedly. She bullied me into writing a series of flaming opinion pieces that she published anonymously in the newspaper. But nobody really read the newspaper; it was just a work of love. So nothing really changed. My parents got wind of the fights, despite my working double-time to cover them up, and their expressions became permanently long-suffering. I had no allies in that quarter.

But that's my history in a nutshell. Well, at least the landscape was beautiful. South Carolina was truly lovely, especially in summer when everything was in bloom. We'd bought an old colonial plantation, one that had been burnt and rebuilt, or so the real estate agent said, and I was inclined to believe that, as I found a piece of blackened timber half-buried in the luscious garden one day.

When Chris heard about the house, she freaked. "Oh my God, that's so cool! I have to see it!" This prompted the beginning of the first of a long line of weekly movie nights at my place. It might have been colonial in origin, but it had a great TV. On this particular day, when, as you can guess, I'd been suspended out-of-school, the only thing I had to look forward to was movie night with Chris. My parents were out of town, so there was no way they could say no, even in light of recent events. I remembered that it was her turn to bring a movie, and that she'd said she was bringing The Patriot. She'd tried to show it to me once before, but I'd gotten bored and fallen asleep. I anticipated nothing better this time around, but Chris was good company and we always liked to throw popcorn at the bad guys, so there'd be something to do.

She was a freak about The Patriot. Seriously. She was madly in love with Heath Ledger, who played some dork named 'Gabriel,' and I'd seen A Knight's Tale and thought he was okay (although just between you and me, Adhemar's way cooler) so I was willing to watch him again. I trudged up the last few steps home and up to the porch, through the door, up the steps, taking a right. My room. The ceilings in these places were ridiculous. I was tall, about as tall as a medium-sized guy, but colonial people had been midgets! I could reach up and touch the ceiling, and my elbow would still be bent.

I locked my door (out of habit, even though my parents weren't home) and brooded. The mirror that lay across the room from where I stood showed an awful mix of blood and dirt on my face. Suddenly, I had no patience for it. Grabbing my favorite red sweatshirt from my chair, I unlocked my door and stormed into the bathroom with heavy steps, even though there was no one to hear my discontent except the silent house. The floorboards couldn't keep their peace, and groaned in protest.

Once in the bathroom, I grabbed a washcloth and began scrubbing at my face, not even careful of my still-tender nose. In fact, I relished each stab of pain, and kept on scrubbing even though the grit was long gone. Finally, I went back to my room, put Coldplay and my sweatshirt on, and brooded a while longer. I was still brooding when Chris breezed in, wafting a smell like a movie theater behind her. She'd brought about ten gallons of deeply buttered popcorn. We might have been Mutt and Jeff physically—she was about 5'1"—but we shared a passion for disgustingly buttered popcorn.

"You haven't been brooding all day, have you?" she said with a disapproving frown. I wasn't in the mood for a lecture.

"No," I said, plastering a smile on my face. She rolled her eyes at me and moved to fire up the DVD player. "You liked Adhemar, so I bet you'll like Tavington."

"Who?"

"Colonel Tavington. The bad guy. He's really mean. Just wait, Tim. He's great. Now come on." She dragged me to the couch and pushed a bucket of popcorn into my hands. Oh well, I thought as I began to shovel food mechanically into my mouth, I'd be getting popcorn. The scene unfolded on a burnished wood-and-brass trunk full of a bunch of tools of war, like an old powder horn. A tomahawk was put into the trunk, and it was closed. Mel Gibson's gravelly voice said something about sins coming back to haunt him, and then the scene shifted.

The hot sun of the movie had a soporific quality to it, I thought as the drama unfolded. As the oldest son, Gabriel, a.k.a. Heath Ledger, returned home and day dawned once again, I was flagging. My eyelids fluttered, threatening sleep. Chris kept pinching me, but as a troop of Green Dragoons (or so she said) came galloping down the dusty road, I couldn't help it. I sank into a half-state, and after a while, even the pinching fell away. I thought I could hear gentle snores issuing from my friend, but I had more important things to do. I dreamt…

***

When I awoke, my cheek was caked with a muddy mixture of dust and saliva. Even without opening my eyes, I had a sense that I was not where I was supposed to be, and when I opened my eyes, glaring sunshine confirmed it. I knew that I had been asleep for some time, as it had been dark when I'd first closed my eyes. I lay on my back and appraised the quality of the light. It had to be perhaps noon. That was interesting. I didn't usually sleep that long. I wasn't sick, was I?

Despite the dust I lay in, it was quite a comfortable spot. I could have remained there for a while, waiting for something to happen, but as my ears began to readjust they picked up the sounds of screams and the occasional burst of gunfire. I scrambled quickly to my feet. I appeared to have been lying in a dirt road of some sort, and off to my left stood a house. It looked eerily similar to the one I'd seen depicted in the movie. I squinted at it. It lay a few hundred yards off, and was surrounded by a large group of men on horses in what appeared to be a kind of uniform and some very strange hats. A larger group of men in a vaguely similar uniform milled around as well, but it was apparent that they were the subordinate group.

One of the men on horseback, whom I was figuring to be part of some sort of army, was obviously in command. He gestured with pistol or hand, and something occurred in the direction of his gesture. At one instance, he pointed at a spot on the ground. Closer inspection revealed shapes stretched out in the dirt. I figured them to be people or brightly painted bags. A few of the un-mounted soldiers aimed muskets at them. A crack of musket fire resounded through the area, and smoke billowed up, obscuring my vision. But I knew what had occurred. They had killed those—"Mmmmph!"

Someone had clapped a hand over my mouth and dragged me to the ground. I had no time to struggle as they began pulling me into a cornfield adjoining the road. I turned shocked eyes upward and saw Chris. When we'd made it into the cornfield, she let go of me, and I instantly rounded on her. "Chris! How'd you get here? Where are we? And who's that guy in the funny hat?"

"Shhh!" she hissed. "Don't you recognize it? This is the Martin plantation! And those are the British Green Dragoons, commanded by Colonel William Tavington, also known as the Butcher of the Carolinas!" She had a rapturous expression on her face. "Don't you see, Tim? This is great! I don't know how we're here, but this is…totally awesome!"

Her enthusiasm was not catching. From what she'd told me of Tavington, he'd more than earned his 'Butcher' rep. Indeed, he seemed the sort to shoot you as soon as look at you. But Chris had seen the movie and I hadn't, so I swallowed my concerns and said, "What do we do?"

"Well, isn't it obvious? This is the Revolutionary War! We've got to find the Continentals, after all this has gone down of course. They'll let us join; they have to! We can help with the Revolutionary War!" I wasn't so sure.

"What about Tavington?"

"What about him? He's going to be killed anyway, at the Battle of Cowpens. But that's a long way off."

"Well, he seems to have control of the situation at hand, not any Continentals. In fact—" I poked my head out of the corn and squinted, catching a glimpse of a blue uniform. Someone in a blue coat was being subdued and restrained. "I think he's captured one now," I said smugly, shading my eyes with my hand.

"Oh yes," Chris nattered on complacently, "that'll be Gabriel. But don't worry; Benjamin Martin's going to get him back in a little while. We should just lay low 'til then. C'mon, let's get closer."

"That's laying low?" I muttered, but followed her as she began to creep through the corn. I could see the situation intensifying up ahead, until one of the boys standing on the porch (I could see the family there clearly now), a boy of fifteen or sixteen, broke away from the group and charged the Redcoats, who were engaged in tying Gabriel's hands. We were about a hundred yards off when Tavington coolly cocked his pistol, leveled it at the boy, and fired. On pure instinct, I hit the dirt. When I finally dared to poke my head up once more, the boy was very dead, and his father, presumably Benjamin Martin, cradled the body in his arms. Tavington gave another order, and a few Dragoons, who carried flaming torches, flung them at the house. It was up in flames instantly.

The colonel raised his arm, and his Dragoons formed up behind him. As they galloped past us on the road, Chris pulled me back down into the corn. I didn't see his face.