A/N: Here's part two! :D

Oh my God... the amount of reviews that were all wanting more.

It puts such a huge smile on my face.

Seriously. With the amount of crap that I'm being pulled through, you all have truly reminded me that there is goodness still.

I'm caught up in two classes now! So I have to really continue to fight to stay caught up, but I got there. So now I have two more classes to get caught up in. I'm getting there.

I have finally completely finished 'The Soldier'. All parts of it are complete and ready. (unbeta-ed)

There will be 6 chapters total, and a total of a little over 11500 words. (not including A/Ns, cause they make it longer).

I truly hope you continue to read, and that you all have the same reaction to the rest of the story, and will like it.

All my love,

CBC

Miranda swallowed as she curled up on her home office couch and pulled out the slightly worn envelope.

She hadn't heard anything. Not a single word. Not a single word since she had seen the brunette on her porch. It had been a year and a half since Andrea had randomly shown up for all of three minutes, and Miranda had pushed her away.

Removing the contents of the envelope, she flipped through the photos of her ex-assistant in her army uniform. Setting them down, she ran her fingers over the slightly curling and crinkled papers still in her hands, reminding her just how often she had taken these papers out to read and re-read the words that had been so carefully handwritten for her eyes to read.

Miranda,

When I was eleven, I had two goals. Become a journalist, and join the army. I didn't want one, or the other, I wanted both. I had to have both. So I made it happen. In high school, I took an extra class during my lunch period, as well as morning classes, and after school classes, and summer classes. I was taking online courses as well. I hardly had a life, but I had three friends who stuck by me through it all, and my wonderful parents. That was all I needed. I remained at high school for all four years, even as I started taking early college journalism courses, and training for the military.

Do you know where I went right after graduation day my senior year? Well, I was already half way through college, despite still also being in high school, and I had been taking name in my training courses. So, that night? I said farewell to my friends, to my boyfriend, and to my parents, before I was carted off overseas for more intensive training. I had been recruited in order to be sent out to warring countries to lend aid. I had just turned eighteen. I was well on my way to my goals. I was going to the army for three years, and then I was going to return from overseas to finish off my journalism courses.

I made First Lieutenant at the very beginning of my nineteenth month out. It was wonderful.

I'm not saying that war isn't horrible, because it most definitely is, but to be able to serve my country? To be able to come home and wear my uniform and show people that I will protect them. That by my presence overseas that perhaps one of their loved ones will not have to suffer the horrors of war. Whether it is overseas, or at the airport when someone tries to steal a suitcase, as an officer of the army it is my duty to respect and protect. That… that is a glorious feeling.

So, I returned, and finished my time at school for journalism. I reconnected with my friends, and convinced my boyfriend to move to New York with me, where two of my three friends had already gone.

That, is how I ended up under your employment, and intense tutelage. That is how I started out with your demands, and your crazy runs through New York City streets. In the beginning, it was one of the most bothersome, most infuriating things to ever have to deal with.

You are a maddening woman, Miranda Priestly, but I have come to realize there is method to your madness.

You would probably think, that after what I put myself through in high school, as well as being an officer trained to take orders from my superiors that I wouldn't have any difficulty doing as you directed… well, you would be more than wrong.

I was so angry. You took over my life, and took away the time that I had finally gotten. I felt like I earned to have a break, after all my work in high school, but I quickly learned that I wasn't going to let you get to me.

I had stared a man down before shooting him. I could run into a minefield. I could torture myself through high school to get what I wanted, so I wasn't going to allow your madness to get the best of me, and take away my dreams.

I may be an Army Girl, but the Army had nothing on how to deal with you… so I trained myself to anticipate. I taught myself to watch, learn, and repeat. We drove by a shop and you looked at the window? I wrote the shop name down. You took a second look at a piece of paper? That paper went into my drawer for when you would call for it next. You tapped your chin twice? I knew you were thinking about your girls. The way you tossed your coat and purse onto the desk. Or blinked to the count of three instead of two. Everything was a sign. Everything was a tool.

I bet you're wondering about the coffee runs? How did I manage to get them done so fast? Well, a little kindness, and an extra tip pay off. Also, a special treated thermos that had extra insulation became a good friend. I bet you never noticed, did you.

I had several of these wonderful thermoses, and a few of them went to Starbucks, for use only by my needs. Every morning, the wonderful earlier risers to the coffee shop would make your special order coffees, and put it into the special thermoses. So when you needed them? All they had to do was turn, fill, and meet me down the street where I would give the wonderful barista ten dollars for the five dollar coffee.

The other thermoses, you wonder? Well, they went with us on photo shoots. I would bring along fresh, unused cups, lids, and holders from Starbucks, so I would disappear when instructed to get coffee, and grab a fresh cup, where I would fill it from the thermos, before returning.

Then Paris happened. You said that I had a choice. You said that I had a choice about how you tossed Emily to the side and chose me to go with you to Paris.

Well, I had no choice. My boyfriend, and roommate? He left me. My friends? They left me. My parents? Weren't happy when I called them and told them that I was still under your employment. Well, if I had a choice, as you said I did… then my choices were these. Keep my job, and go against all my basic instinct to respect and protect, by hurting Emily… or lose my job, lose my home, and lose my chance at journalism because you would blacklist me.

What choice did I have, Miranda? Can you look me in the face and tell me that I had a choice, after what you told me? I had no choice.

But you did. When you shattered Nigel. You had a choice. When I learned of the plot to overthrow you, even in my frantic state of trying to get a hold of you, I had been able to come up with three ways that would have gotten you to keep your position.

Guess what? Not a single one of them included destroying your closest coworker, and friend. And do you want to know what he told me? He told me that you would make it up to him. Just like that. I sat there, and looked at his completely shattered emotions, and watched him defend you and tell me that you would make it up to him.

Well… have you? Have you made up for it yet?

And then you had the audacity to tell me that we were similar! To tell me that what I had done to Emily was the same thing that you had done to Nigel!

That was when I realized that you had broken me. You had shattered me, just as you had Emily, and Nigel.

Oh, method to your madness or not, there are definitely truths to the sick rumors that travel by way of tabloids.

While I have grown to be able to forgive you for many a thing… I will never forgive you for the way you tossed Nigel to the side. The respect, and commitment that man has shown you for over twenty years, and you crushed him like a bug beneath your pretty Prada heels.

So I walked away. In one of the most unprofessional manners I have ever shown, I turned and left you. I dropped you. I crushed you. Just like you crushed Nigel. You expected me to react a certain way, and I didn't. I don't regret it. I don't regret leaving. However, as time stretched on, I realized something. I didn't regret leaving, but I do truly regret how I left.

There may be many truths to the sick tabloids, but then I remembered how upset and disappointed you were about having to cancel an evening with your daughters because of a lousy photo shoot, that should have gone just fine if they had simply listened to instructions.

Or how upset and saddened you'd been when you missed their recital. You planned that meeting just right, so that you could get home so you could go to school with them in the morning to attend the recital. You did that for every single recital, or performance they had. You may have had to cancel on evenings, but that was the only recital you had ever missed.

I remember the little quirk of your lips when I paid my penance and got a hold of the Harry Potter manuscript. You were impressed.

I remember the pained look in your eyes when you have to trash a shoot. It had been the one you really wanted to work, because your daughters gave you the idea.

I remember the frustration when your ex tried to cut time with your girls down. How hurt you were that he was saying you weren't a fit mother.

I remember the embarrassment when Stephen was drunk. You felt so horrible that your personal life was splashed across the news because of his drunken escapades.

I remember the tears, and the worry for your daughters. The love you have in your heart that people never acknowledge, or even think is there. Or worse, that people abuse knowingly.

That was when I realized, that I didn't hate you. I couldn't hate you. Because, during all of my time as your assistant, as I sat and anticipated your needs, I was so caught up in the moment that I couldn't sit back and realize the little ways that you always said 'Thank you' to me.

Only now, that I have been out from your employment could I realize that… you broke me, but you lifted me up, and put me back together as well. You taught me lessons that I didn't learn in school, or in the army.

And I found myself realizing exactly just how in love with you I had somehow fallen.

Three weeks after Paris, I found out I was almost fourteen weeks pregnant. I hadn't even noticed. I mean, I had been feeling nauseous sometimes, and dizzy, but I thought it was because of all the assignments you had me running around doing.

My boyfriend was gone.

My only friends had abandoned me to take his side on the matter.

My parents? Disowned me because I had chosen that I wanted to keep the baby, and not have an abortion.

Five weeks later I had a miscarriage. I called my parents to tell them, but they wouldn't pick up. I left a message, telling them to call me back. I'm still waiting for that call from them.

I called them when I found out I was being called back, asking them to call me. They haven't yet, and I don't think they ever will.

I called my friends as well, but neither of them answered.

I don't have anyone, so as I write this, I'm truly hoping that when I give it to you, that you will give me a chance.

It's always a nice feeling to know that while you're far away that someone is out there missing you.

I don't have anyone missing me. So I hope that maybe you will allow me to write to you, so at least I have something to hold onto. It's rather lonely across the seas, but the last time I had my family and my few friends all writing to me, and I would write back as soon as I was able.

This time, I don't have anyone, so I'm really hoping that you will let me explain, and you will be my 'someone'.

So at least I can feel as though I'm not so alone.

Well… I guess, that whatever happens... I will be grateful for the time I had as your assistant.

There are plenty of things I wish I could redo.

The top one on the list?

I wish I could go back, and realize before it was too late that, how despite everything, you had your special ways to show your gratitude, and that I could have discovered how in love I had fallen.

I hope that I will have a chance to see you again, if I return from Iraq.

My heart is in your hands,

First Lt. Andrea Elizabeth Sachs

Soon to be Captain.

Miranda placed the long letter down on her coffee table and pressed her fingertips to her lips to keep them from quivering. Her heart ached painfully within her chest and she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. It never got any easier to read, she had read the lengthy letter so many times over she could recite it word by word from memory. She could feel the anguish and pain radiating from the pages, and it beat in time with her bleeding heart.

She had turned her away.

She had insulted her, tossed away the honest apology the woman gave her, and ran her away.

Alone.

A shattered sob broke through her lips, and Miranda let the tears race down her cheeks.

She had to do something. She couldn't just sit here and wallow.

No. That was not the 'Priestly Way' at all. So she wasn't going to do it any longer. She was going to figure out where Andrea was, and get a letter out to her. She was going to make it right. She had to.

Slipping the papers and photos back into the envelope, she stood up from the couch and tucked the envelope back into her desk.

Tomorrow, she was going to find Andrea Sachs.

A/N: There's the end of part two!

What did you think?

I hope you liked it.

Reviews are loved and always appreciated.

There are four more parts to be posted.

All my love,

CBC