A/N: Still own nothing here, boss. Thanks to my repeat reviewer, Lluvia-the-Wolfgirl!
"I trust the lieutenant has resolved all your issues to your mutual satisfaction?" Hunks had set down the newspaper, but did not yet pick up his pen and paperwork.
"Er - yes, sir." Surely the captain wasn't implying what Alice thought he was implying. While she had more practice than most, the lieutenant couldn't always decode that carefully bland gaze or the expression conveyed by those teeth set firmly around his pipe. She still didn't think that he would intentionally draw out Oland's luminescent blush.
When Randel went red, it covered at least as much of his face as his scars did. It made them look fresh, as if there was still a chance to heal them, still time to protect this gentle giant who fought not because he wanted to, but because she'd made him. She couldn't and wouldn't stop him if he wanted to desert the unit; he'd chosen to help them take out those ex-troopers and their poisonous artillery holed up in the dam, but it had been her words that had persuaded him into joining up again. She had convinced him that war relief was worth fighting for. As such, it was her duty to try to choose her battles a little more carefully, so he wouldn't have to do so much of what he hated to make her happy.
She was blushing, too.
"Good job, big guy!" Oreldo flashed them the thumbs up. "I figured you had it in you, but I wasn't sure if the lieutenant would."
"I just- wait, what?" the tall, now beet-red corporal stumbled over his reply. She shouldn't leave Oland to field all of this nonsense, but Alice needed a few deep breaths before she could come up with a half-coherent response.
She'd expected the cheeky smirk on Oreldo's face and wasn't surprised to see Martis looking curiously at them or Stecchin's secretive smile. The dark-haired girl kept humming under her breath and sneaking little star-struck glances, smiling wider as she did so. Alice didn't have to like all of this sort of attention on them.
"Oreldo, don't tease the corporal. Really, Captain Hunks, I would have thought that you would be a little more mature about this sort of thing."
The blond sub-lieutenant just leered, satisfied amusement glittering in his green eyes. "Hey, the captain knows that Webner pays out bets to him as well as anyone else. As long as Oland's all right, then."
"Sir, we just talked," Oland forestalled him before Oreldo could bait his superior officers any further. Not that Alice expected that Hunks would get too upset, but it was up to Alice to set a good example and keep the men in line - as well as herself. At least Oland was enough of a gentleman not to rise to the bait.
Stecchin leaned over the sub-lieutenants' desk, placing a hand on the back of each of their chairs. Had Oreldo's been upright, Alice would have expected her to swing between them like an excited schoolgirl. As it was, Oreldo ended up being the one rocking unsteadily until he put all four chair legs back on the floor. "Don't be embarrassed, you two. You don't need to do anything you aren't ready to do." She winked a little too broadly. "I think it's romantic, and so does Sub-lieutenant Martis, don't you, Mr. Martis?"
"Sure," Martis agreed weakly, keeping his eyes on his paperwork-strewn desk to avoid making eye contact with either Alice or Oland. He wasn't blushing quite as hard as them, but he wasn't looking Oreldo or Stecchin in the eye, either. "So you went and told her, eh, big guy?"
"He told me about his concerns with this mission. That was all we discussed," Alice's tone was final. "Now, until you three are ready to be intelligent adults about this, perhaps we should seek more sensible company. How are your cats doing, Corporal Oland?" She put a hand to his elbow, half-tempted to drag him out without even asking for permission to leave from the captain and not return for a week, but Alice was trying to be the responsible one here.
Besides, she wasn't sure what she'd be doing with Randel Oland for a week, provided she could even move him that far, or at least she didn't want to think about it when her ears were already burning. "They're, uh, they're fine, ma'am," he answered her awkwardly, still glued to the spot. "They've got plenty of food."
"Good to hear you've got at least a few friends who can avoid gossip," Alice sighed, then straightened to face Captain Hunks's desk. "Sir, is there anything outside the office that needs doing? Immediately?"
"Well," Hunks said mildly, lingering longer than Alice would like over the question, "there aren't any tasks that require our urgent attention, but you could save Stecchin a trip to the mail room if you can't sit still and finish your paperwork. See if the latest reports from the work commune have come in."
"Sir," Alice saluted him and turned, never releasing Oland's elbow as she started for the door. Probably a good thing he was dragging his heels; it kept her from darting out of the room.
"Um, ma'am? Maybe it would be better if I stayed here, or went out for you, just so…" He hadn't removed her hand from the crook of his arm, but he was quite possibly the most awkward "escort" she'd ever pulled along behind, and word of her dancing skill (or total lack thereof) had spread fast, even after she had made an intensive effort to improve, if only to please her sisters. Most previous contenders for her most reluctant partner had come from those lessons, abandoned as quickly as she'd started in favor of further fencing practice. Men expected one to nearly run them through during those. Why Oland appeared to anticipate a similar amount of injury from a mail run was beyond Alice. "I don't want to give the wrong idea."
"Nonsense," she cut off any further protest. "We both need to leave until the rumor mill dies down a bit. It'll be good to clear our heads."
Oreldo waved them off from his chair, tilting it back once more. "While you're out, big guy, could you pop in on Webner? Apparently I owe her a beer. Don't know what Hunks owes her, but Martis could've won big if he'd bothered to place a bet."
"Oreldo," his best friend hissed before Alice could respond. "Ixnay on the etbay."
"It would be good to see her latest reports on the repeating rifles." Hunks chose to ignore the sub-lieutenants' antics for the moment. "Any chance we have of tracing their origins is a step towards potentially smoking out our quarry." As if it were the gravest connection to those words he would have to deal with today, the captain picked up his pipe, tamping out the ash before refilling it as his underlings looked sheepishly among themselves.
Embarrassed or not, Alice shouldn't have let her emotions get the better of her, and she knew that despite her efforts to keep her cool, her attempts to remove herself had only exacerbated the issue. She loosened her grip on Oland's elbow, though the guilty look in his dark, guileless eyes made her feel too sorry for him to drop her hand completely.
"Will do, sir," Oland said, exiting the office at a much more deliberate pace. That was more in line with his usual behavior - anything he did, Randel Oland tried to do it right. He'd never been one to rush, or disobey the spirit of the laws and chains of command.
The only time Oland seemed to act without thinking things through was when he worried for someone as helpless as a lost kitten, particularly children (he seemed to have a knack with them, perhaps because of his great size - Alice herself, while of fairly average height, felt tiny as a young girl beside him, - secure, but small) or for a member of his unit: Martis, in the work-bay, when those saboteurs had snuck aboard their captured tank, or in the process of capturing said tank, when Oreldo had barely gotten the three men unchained from one another in time, or when those bullying pencil-pushers from Section I had attempted to follow up on their earlier session of baiting Stecchin.
Fortunately Oreldo had handled the last before Oland had had to do more than stand up - despite the playful betting pool Webner had set up (greatly favoring the Pumpkin Scissors, at least according to Oreldo,) the last thing they needed right now was an interdepartmental war. If Corporal Oland was truly worried for Lily, it would not have remained a playful one for long. Oreldo and Martis knew how to fight dirty, but Randel couldn't fight fair against a tank. It was just really no contest, as far as Alice was concerned.
And she'd certainly seen him fight plenty of them… For his lieutenant and her naïve dreams for peace, truth, and justice most of all. He had dedicated himself to helping her with that dream for the Empire, and as long as Randel Oland embraced those ideas just as strongly, working toward them in that slow, steady, and unstoppable way of his, Alice had to believe that the proverbial pumpkin of injustice stood no more chance than the tanks. No more chance, dare she say, than a pumpkin.
She had let her hand linger on his arm longer than she should have. "We'll discuss this later, corporal."
"Yes, ma'am."