Author's Note: Okay, so I would have everyone know, I have written the ending to this story finally! Now I just have to finish writing all the chapters on the revision and better tie in the ending . It is going to take awhile to get finished I am not going to lie; I just hope you guys find it worth the wait. I do have to explain though, I am joining the military, and I just started my Pre-Dentistry. So my priorities are literally: 1. School, 2. Working out, 3. Studying for my DAT, 4. Family and Friends, 5. Working on everything else that doesn't include ten years of college. I just wanted to give everyone and idea on why this is going to take awhile, but I promise it will be finished one day lol.
Ic3ColDNukaCola: thank you for your review and I am sorry that you didn't like the bra scene, all I can say is I liked it that is why I wrote it. I do thank you for your input though. One thing though, please don't take my author notes so personally. I am not defending myself to people who just are giving me constructive criticism, like you, to someone who is just being a troll, like someone who just emails me that my story completely sucks because my character is a "mary sue". I can tell the difference from a flamer and someone who just has advice. Yet thank you again for your input, it was valued.
Lightan117: Thank you so much for leaving a review, it means so much that you did! And thank you so much for enjoying my story! I love you btw lol
: I already told you I loved you, but here it is again. I love you! Thank you so much for your review!
She glared at him with an intensity that she was surprised that she could muster in her state of lack of sleep and pain. He was asleep unlike her, and snoring, rather loudly. She knew she was over exaggerating, but the noise he was emitting from his throat sounded like a rusty grind lift. She would be able to sleep through a battle, but not through his sleeping. How in hell had he managed not to wake himself up by his own snoring was beyond her. So she glared at him, her eyes in slits just to show how angered she was by his snoring. She wanted to wake him up, to stop the annoying loud noise, but he had been nice to her earlier, helping her up, and even getting the nurse for her. She figured being nice was out of his character because the rest of the night he had sneered at her. At least he had helped though. So she let him continue to make that monstrous noise that kept her awake when she should be the one resting.
It was awkward laying there, glaring at him, but she couldn't look away. Her eyes were completely glued to him in awe and anger. Awe because she was just sure any moment he would wake himself up, and anger because he wouldn't shut up. As she glared, she took the time to study him. He was rough looking, but oddly attractive to her. It had been a long time since she allowed herself to even admit that someone was attractive. She bit down her emotions and let her eyes scan his face. He had a few facial scars, but it added character to his sleeping face. The only thing she didn't like was his patch of blond hair under his bottom lip, she figured he thought it made him look good, but she thought otherwise. She let her eyes trace his face so she could remember it. It was something she used to always do, commit faces to memory. She never forgets a face, she made sure of that. Plus one day she was determined to repay him for the bruise on the side of her face, and she had to remember what he looked like.
"Can you stop staring at me?" he asked, not bothering to open his eyes as he spoke to her. His voice was just slightly louder than a whisper, but it didn't hide the annoyed tone that struck her ears like a switch. "No, you quit snoring, and I will quit staring." she mumbled as she still glared at him. She hadn't noticed that for the past three or four minutes he hadn't been snoring. She had been too busy glaring to notice that he had woken up. He grunted loudly and finally opened his eyes to look at her. She gulped loudly as her black eyes met his light blue green eyes. His eyes held his annoyance at her. She didn't care, annoyance made his eyes all the more appealing.
"You know it is rather hard to sleep when you keep staring at me like that." he said, as he continued to hold her gaze. She took notice that his voice had grown softer when he said that, but his eyes stayed hard at her. "Well, it is even harder to sleep when you won't shut the hell up. You sound like a dying bear or a rusty grind lift." she whispered, starting to feel small in his gaze. She didn't let it show. He sighed rather loudly, exasperated with her, which he also did so he wouldn't laugh at her analogy. Do I really snore that bad? He wondered to himself.
Silence engulfed them like a wild flame and she just continued to stare at him. There was a certain look in her black eyes that he could not place. He furrowed his brows into and intense frown as he continued to stare back at her.
Baird raised an eyebrow finally in question when she persisted to just stare at him. "What?" he spat, confused that she wouldn't look away. His face was contorted with anger because like anyone who has been stared at as long as he has, he felt like a trapped animal. "I have to use the restroom again." she whispered, embarrassed that she was about to ask him for help. But she didn't have to; he got up with an angry groan and came to assist her. She was at his mercy and she knew that, and she thanked whatever higher power out there that he pitied her enough to come to her aid. She envied him at this moment. He was in the hospital, but didn't have to wear the ugly embarrassing gown that gaped in the back, and didn't have an IV hooked to his arm as she did. "Come on, swing your legs over the side." he said as he came to stand next to her bed.
He removed her blanket gently, laying it to the side, and then watched as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. He put a hand on her elbow and pulled her to her unsteady feet. She swayed but didn't worry for his grip on her arm was firm, and he wouldn't have helped her up just to watch her fall now. "This is so embarrassing." she mumbled as he started to escort her gently to the bathroom. "Damned right it is. I am not a fucking nurse." he spat at her. His voice was all annoyance pointed straight at her. She looked up at him, surprised to find him smiling at his own joke, though. Again he was trying to make her not feel so awkward. He opened the door with one hand for her and helped her to a hand rail next to the toilet. "Call me when you're done." he said as he left her to do her business.
"Damon." she called a few moments later after she was done. He came in looking a mix of emotions, most of all being stunned, the other uneasy. "What?" she asked confused as he grabbed her elbow gently yet firmly. "I'm just not used to anyone calling me by my first name anymore." he explained. She nodded in acknowledgement, understanding that military life sometimes made people forget that they had a first name. It didn't explain why he looked uneasy though. She would have questioned him further but she figured it was none of her business.
He escorted her back her bed and tucked her back in. "Now go to sleep and don't stare at me." he said with a huff.
"Well then quit snoring." she whispered. He huffed as he lay back down in his bed.
"Um, Damon, thank you." she whispered as she looked over at him. He was on his side, turned away from her. He shrugged his shoulders and then pretended to be asleep. He didn't want to get too friendly with this woman. Even though he was having a harder and harder time trying to be mean to her. It was like nice just came out in him while he was around her.
He wasn't sure he liked the feeling that she had the power to make him feel nice to her. He decided that it was because of the state she was in. He decided it was not being nice, it was him pitying her. It was something he was sure that she thought. She had to think that he pitied her.
It didn't help that he liked the way she said his name. Something so entirely simple as saying his name made him feel…. Feel what exactly? Good? Maybe that was what he was feeling. It was nice to know someone could call him by his first name, it made things more personal. He sighed heavily and tried to change his thoughts to something else. He couldn't turn his mind from her though.
Xxxxxxxxxx
Two days later she was alone, again. Baird had been released a day ago when there was no sign of infection developing. The lucky bastard, she thought as a sigh escaped her lips. She stared blankly at the nasty ceiling as she listened to the battle rage outside her window. While Baird had been in here with her, she hadn't even noticed the war out there. She missed him already, well not really him, but the company of human contact. Well, okay maybe him just a tad bit. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she rather liked his brash personality and his company in general. He made her laugh, well not really laugh, just want to laugh. Laughing wasn't an option, her stitches wouldn't allow it. She for only a moment even missed the horrible snoring.
She shook her head and immediately rid herself of the notion that she missed his snoring. There was no one who could miss that.
She played with a hangnail as she thought, trying to block out the screams through the barrier of her window. She hissed in pain when she pulled the hangnail off. It bled, but only a little bit. She put her finger in her mouth and sucked on it, which stopped the bleeding, and soothed the sting.
It was chilling to know that she lay in bed and could hear screams and feel the rumble of the ground, and couldn't do a damned thing about it. She took her finger from her mouth and examined it slightly before a frag grenade exploded a click away, or what she presumed was a click away from the sound it had made. Even though it was that far away, dust and a ceiling tile fell to the ground of her small hospital room. Some of the dust fell into her lap, and she coughed and dusted herself off. She looked to the window and thought that the battle was getting closer to the safe zone, or what the COG now called base. They were going to have to move sooner then they all thought they were going to have to do. Another frag went off, but a lot closer then the first one had.
She sat up in bed and looked out of the dirt filmed window again. That last frag was actually a lot closer then she had thought. She could see the smoke from her window.
Sirens began to go off louder than normal at that moment. Then a blast went off and the wall that stood between her and the outside world fell into rubble. The blast knocked her bed over on its side, making her fall out of it as if she were a sack of potatoes. She shrieked loudly in pain and grabbed her middle. It took a instant for her to recover from the mind numbing pain that had shot through her. She looked at her stitches quickly to make sure they were still intact, which they were. She prayed silently to thank for that, because she was very lucky not to have split open any of her stitches when she tumbled out of the bed when it was turned over on her.
She sat up and crawled under the bed that Baird had laid on when he was in the hospital with her with her elbows. She couldn't get her legs to work for her, yet she didn't have time to worry over them as she crawled. She hid herself there because she heard grubs running around where her wall had once stood. She trembled in fear as her fingers took the IV out of her hand. The IV had been twisted at an odd angle, making her hand go numb. As she pulled it free of her hand, blood squirted up into her face, and she jumped because she had not expected it to do that, or hurt as much as it did. She clamped her free hand over the bleeding hand to stop the blood that sprayed forth. In a few minutes the blood clotted over, stopping the bleeding.
Fear gripped her again when she saw a Locust run past her. If she would have been dressed in her armor, with a bayonet to protect her, she would feel fine. She didn't even have a knife to protect herself with, so she was afraid.
She had already shook death's hand recently; she didn't feel like walking hand in hand with it today. She closed her eyes, and tried to blend with the shadows of the bed. She knew though in the back of her mind that she hadn't survived what she had just to die in a dingy hospital gown, cowering under a hospital bed.
Xxxxxxxxx
It had been two days since the Locust had over taken the base, and Delta squad was ready to depart to a new safe zone. They knew when they lost ground and this ground they had definitely lost. "Dom, you drive the APC. Cole, you lay down cover fire with me. Baird, navigate." barked Marcus as he crawled on top of the APC. Everyone nodded.
Baird turned to look at Hoffman who was helping Anya into a Raven Gunship. He then scanned the area. There were three cargo trucks filled with patients from the hospital. Curiosity got the better of him and he did a quick scan of the cargo trucks to look for the new Delta member. He checked quickly, and furiously for they didn't have too much time to waste on him searching for her. He only found her missing among the patients.
"Hoffman." he called over the COMM as he let go the flap to the last jeep he had come to.
"This better be good Baird." replied Hoffman on the COMM. Baird could almost feel the hate through the COMM that had been pointed at him from Hoffman.
"Just wondering where your niece is." Baird responded in a rude voice as he turned to look at the older man who was standing next to the ready to depart Raven.
Baird watched as realization hit Hoffman like a bag of bricks. Hoffman looked stunned and more then angry with himself. Both Hoffman and Baird turned to look at the almost demolished Hospital a click away. Without a second thought Baird checked to see if his Lancer was secured on his back before he took off sprinting in the direction of the Hospital. "Boy, I can get my niece." said Hoffman into the COMM. Baird huffed as he was gaining on the Hospital's entrance.
"But I am quicker than you old man." was all Baird said as he entered the Hospital, skidding to a halt to listen. He unholstered his lancer and aimed around as he listened.
It was dark inside, and already smelled like stinking Locust grubs. It was silent so he took that as a sign as there were no grubs inside. He ran all the way to her room, encountering only a rat on the way. He entered the room quietly so not to draw any grubs his way. He reholstered the gun as he began looking for her.
"Ezra?" he whispered harshly as he searched desperately.
Then he saw her. She laid belly down with her head turned to the side, staring at the door lifelessly. His heart sank instantly. He had never looked at a more pitiful dead body. He walked over and bent down to close her eyes. She grabbed his ankle in a whimper. He had to bite his lip to keep from screaming as he fell back onto his ass. He looked horrified at her tear stained face, she looked like a crazed zombie as she glared up at him. "If you lay here and look dead, the grubs don't know the difference." she said as she tried to roll over onto her back.
"You scared the shit out of me." he whispered in a mad voice.
"That's what that smell is." she said with a half smile. He grumbled as he got back up. "So I guess you came to save me?" she asked, actually in a nervous voice as she stared into his eyes.
"Yes." he grunted as he bent down and helped her stand up.
"Baird?" she whispered helplessly.
"Yes." he said as he looked into her eyes, he was confused on why she switched back to using his last name.
"I can't walk. I already tried, but I fell on my belly and couldn't get back up. My leg isn't responding like it should today, or maybe it just hurts to fucking much." she explained, biting her lip nervously after she was done talking. It made her nervous to be like this, helpless. He grumbled to himself about how she was a big burden. In the end he picked her up though. One arm under the crook of her knees and the other under her shoulders. He took care not to bother her stitches as he did so. She wrapped her trembling arms around his neck so she could hold onto him. "Thank you for coming." she whispered, her voice covered in pain. "Welcome." was all he said as he started to leave the Hospital.
Once they entered the hallway again he was greeted with a great problem. There stood a squad of grubs. He gently placed her behind some cover as the first grub noticed him there. It spoke in a language he didn't understand and they all turned and started to fire.
Baird pulled out his Lancer and started to fire. He got lucky; his first shot buried itself into a skull, dropping the grub instantly. "Gun." she called, trying to get him to pass her his Boltok Pistol, but he ignored her. She grabbed his pants and pulled herself up crotch level with him. Which was hard for her to do. He glanced down at her with a wicked smile on his face, making him look devilishly attractive. She frowned for thinking such things about him. This was war, she couldn't stop and smell the roses with this man, she needed to get a grip. "I could get used to that." he joked before turning and firing again, dropping the second grub, leaving six more.
"Bet you could." she joked back, but in a serious tone that suggested that she didn't like the joke. She pulled out the Boltok Pistol from the holster at his hip roughly. She crawled into a position so she could help, and stay safe from oncoming fire. She took aim and shot a grub, making its head explode on contact with the bullet. She had forgotten these guns were like the Longshot rifles, very powerful. A smile spread across her face, she felt that satisfaction of dropping her first grub in over a week.
He dropped four more grubs, and she wounded the rest. He hurried over to finish them off before coming back to pick her up. "We make a good team." she said, happy that she got to use a gun again, and feeling important. He laughed and took the pistol and put is back in the holster. "Right." he joked as he made sure that she was secure in his arms.
Walking back outside he was greeted with the rest of the Delta squad who were about to come in for back up. "Here." said Baird as he passed Ezra into Marcus' arms. She looked at him confused but then she noticed he favored his left side. "You have been shot." she said as she pointed to his side. He looked back at her, angry that she said that aloud. "Leave it to you, to get shot baby." laughed Cole. "First you let a wretch get you, now this?" joked Dom. Baird rolled his eyes, he hated when he got hurt, no one was going to let him live this down.
He glared at Ezra, until his face softened, again whatever power she had over him made him want to be nice. She looked apologetic, and it made his anger dissipate. He was beginning to think that this power might turn out to be a good friendship. While he was in the hospital with her, he felt like he could cut loose, and relax. He felt like more of himself in her presence. It made him feel hopeful, and indifferent at the same time.