Killer Instinct

"You're being honorably discharged McMahon. You'll leave the service with a purple heart, so don't feel to bad. You've done your duty now do one for yourself and go home. Let that shoulder and neck heal up right girl."

"Yes Master Chief." She said softly laying on the small bed in the medical bay, the bullet had been removed from her shoulder and there was a swab of cotton tapped to her neck were a bullet had grazed it. She didn't want to leave really, hell she was twenty-three and up until now this was her life. She felt like she hadn't done anything for the war efforts in Iraq, she was going home a failure in her eyes.

"Can I tell you something I told my daughters before I came here Shaun?" He asked using her name for the first time. She nodded, "The war may not be at our front door but the people at home are doing as much good in this as we are. If it weren't for the people at home it wouldn't be worth fighting to get back home to them."

"But Master Chief I can do so much more here for us then I can at home." She said softly.

He grinned at her and ruffled her hair slightly, "you're one of the people worth fighting for Shaun. I thank god for people like you."

She cringed he just had to say that, she shook her head. "No offence meant sir but I don't feel worthy of anything like that." She would just go home live in her father's mansion and work at the WWE for the rest of her miserable little life. She would be good for nothing but entertaining a bunch of civilian minds with fake relationships and planned out comes.

"Trust me Shaun your worth it. You did good, you've done things very few grown men can even do. You stood in the face of the enemy and got shot not once but twice and still finished your mission. You lived to come back here and go home to your family, I don't think even I could do that."

Shauna blinked back tears, she'd also taken forty-four lives, she knew she counted, and that fact alone made her feel unworthy of it. "But I killed so many people."

"They would've killed you without the remorse your showing now." He said softly. "You're one of a kind Corporal, don't ever change." He stood up taking a moment to rearrange his pant legs until the creases sat straight. "Go home Shaun. Go home, rest, and let yourself heal, grow old, and die comfortable in your bed surrounded by your grand babies. Not getting shot at here." He said walking out of the room before she could say anything.

She rolled onto her side, her injured shoulder in the air as she pulled her knees up to her chest a few tears falling from those sad brown eyes.