Chapter 4

"You planning on sitting here all night?" his smoother voice entered her ears again, it was much softer than the authority he had when he was giving his speech. Lauren looked at him, a little caught off guard. He looked at her expectantly "Well?"

She swallowed the lump that had somehow formed in her throat, blinking rapidly at him "I was just...I was going to go…"

"Without filling in the form?" he leaned back in the chair, folding his arms. Lauren saw a strange look of surprise, confusion and possibly a little disappointment on his face.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked softly, her voice quiet and almost weak.

He sighed and sat up, staring directly into her eyes. "out of all the people I've met in recruiting over the last few months, you're the one person I really saw the potential in. You have the right attitude."

"You don't know me" she told him frowning, repeating her words from earlier in the day.

"No I might not, but the part of you I've seen… well I'd be stupid to not put up a fight to get you to at least submit a form." Reaching behind his ear he pulled out a pen, the end chewed within an inch of it's life, and handed it to her "Fill in the form."

Lauren took the pen, ensuring she didn't touch the mangled end. "Now?"

"Yep. I'll help you fill it in, and then I'll personally place it on top of the pile." She stared at him, a lopsided smile beginning to seep onto her lips. "Go on then" he laughed and Lauren began to fill in the details she didn't need any assistance with.

She filled in her personal details: Home Address, Date of Birth, name etc. All the time Sergeant Adams was sat at her side, watching as she wrote everything out perfectly. "What does this one mean?" she pointed to a question about her service of interest.

"let's look… Ah well it means what are you interested in. The army, The Marines, The royal air force?" he asked listing off many things Lauren really didn't have much knowledge about.

"The army I guess…" she shrugged

"Tick this box then" he pointed, and Lauren did as he asked. "Right you need to say if you want to be a fulltime recruit or in the army reserves" Lauren looked at him blankly. "in other words, do you want to be in the army full time as a full time career , or do you want to be living a normal life and be a reserve, so basically when your needed you can be called up."

"Oh… well I'd say full time, if I'm doing this I'm doing it full throttle." She said almost to convince herself. She saw him nod.

"Next question…" he remained silent as he read the question over, looking up to see Lauren staring at him dreamily when he'd finished. "Alright?"

"Hmm? Oh sorry ye…" she blushed and shook herself a little, telling herself to get a grip.

"Ok, what part of the army are you interested in, what aspirations do you have?"

"I don't really know." She flushed a deeper shade of red "I kind of zoned out when the other dude was talking… his voice was a little drone."

He laughed and looked at Major Carney "Don't let him hear you saying that, he'll have you shot at dawn." He joked, but Lauren paled. "I'm Joking" he assured her. Lauren released a breath and he saw her relax. "so basically there are different careers and regiments. So if you have any certain attributes or interests I can see what your best suited too. Ok?" Lauren nodded . "What interests do you have?"

"None" she said, a small notion of laughter behind her voice. "Does clubbing count?"

"unfortunately not. Do you see yourself as a logical person?" she shook her head "Combat?"

"Hmm maybe, I'm quite protective. I like photography I have a college qualification in it."

"Really? Now that we can work with" he wrote something down on her form, keeping his writing as similar to hers as possible. "I've put down Artillery observer, intelligence operative and Family support…"

"I like the sound of Family support and the intelligence operative" she smiled, moving onto the rest of the form. She gradually worked her way down through the questions, feeling slightly embarrassed when she'd had to answer "yes" to having a tattoo. It definitely wasn't one of her finer moments. One section of the form became particularly difficult for her to fill out. Not because she didn't know the information, but because they were times she didn't particularly want to remember.

She was quite coy when filling out the one section, but nothing got passed the eagle eye of the sergeant next to her. Lauren was filling in her person background section, and a question had asked if she'd ever been in care, or had a care plan. "You've been in care?"

"Unfortunately" she sighted reluctantly filling out yes to the next question too.

"And you have a criminal record?" There was slight shock in his voice but he actually seemed quite amused.

"Only a tiny one and I wasn't actually fully prosecuted she shrugged. I was 12 I ran over my dad, he was a prick, still is but y'know." She said nonchalantly.

"Well, well… your full of surprises aren't you?" he tapped the form seeing she'd stopped. "come on fill in the last bits…"

*JL*JL*JL*

Ten minutes later she closed the form and held out to him "all done"

"Well done Miss Branning…" he stood up and walked over to the table, placing the form on top of the plies and sticking a small green sticker to the corner. "You've officially started the process to join the army... we just get to decide if we want you or not"

Well that took a while to get those reviews in... but as promised next chapter. So Lauren took the plunge, wonder how things are going o go from here, back tomorrow...

I'll reply to reviews in a sec xx