7 months later
Kelsey sat in the driveway of her mother and step-father's Oceanside home in her F-150, still in her cammies and laid her head on the steering wheel. She didn't want to move. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to face the questions from Jon inside. Hell, she didn't want to face her own thoughts. Whatever she thought her first day at her new command was going to be like, it wasn't what she thought it that.
Her cell phone vibrated in the console. Her first instinct was to ignore it but when she saw her brother's smiling face, she knew she had to answer after her first day at 1-1. He'd have questions, undoubtedly.
"It was horrible," she replied, answering.
"You're on speaker," Clay replied.
Kelsey sighed. "Good. Ya'll can start a pool on how fast I can get my first NJP under this command."
Everyone in Bravo was silent, letting that piece of news digest. Finally Jason laughed. "What did you do? And who's gonna throw a non judicial punishment at a Lieutenant?"
"My new Captain, that's who."
Ray whistled. "It went that well, huh?"
Kelsey blew her breath out, trying to figure out how much to tell them. She wished she was still living with Clay where she could blow of steam to him but on the other hand, Jason, Ray and Trent had a couple more years on Clay and Sonny and could provide some wisdom- albeit enlisted wisdom to her. "This doesn't leave this proverbial room, do you understand?"
She got a corresponding yes from everybody.
"I'm not telling my husband this. Only you guys. Because if my husband hears this, there will be hell to pay and he's deployed; I don't want him worrying more. If my brother hears this, I know he can't do anything about it because he's in a different service and doesn't have enough sway that my father-in-law has. Because my husband will call the big guns in. And Ray, I am counting on you to restrain Clay. Am I making myself clear?"
"What the fuck happened today, Lieutenant?" Jason demanded, forcefully. In Special Forces, rank wasn't really a thing- sailors and soldiers didn't salute and the formality didn't exist. However, Jason knew Kelsey wasn't SF and he would provide her with a little bit of respect in uniform but with what she was saying, he was concerned and rank be damned. He was going to get to the bottom of it and he was also going to protect her at the same time. She may be a Lieutenant, but she was Clay's little sister and that meant family.
Kelsey opened her mouth and then closed it again. "A little part of me is afraid I'm not going to make it through my deployment without getting fragged by my own men or my chain of command."
That spoke volumes. Clay spoke. No wonder why she was unwillingly to drop that bomb on Patrick. "Who doesn't want you at 1-1?"
"I think it starts with the Lieutenant Colonel. Lt. Colonel Downs. I don't have any proof of Downs not wanting me there yet but Captain Avery Fall is not getting is attitude from anywhere. He's not typical Old Guard Marine mentality."
"Why do you say that?" Ray asked.
"Captain Fall dressed me down with 2 of my fellow Lieutenants in the room and my Gunny. He told me he didn't want me in his chain of command, a woman had no part of being infantry, let alone leading a platoon, I was unfit to lead, just because I had the brains didn't mean I had the brawn and word for word told me he was setting me up to fail."
"Wow. That is toxic. He wants you to fail?"
Kelsey swallowed. "My own Captain told me he will make his mission that I don't succeed on his deployment. He already thinks I'm going to fail by suddenly announcing we are going into the field for 5 days in 2 days, however, everyone knew it was coming. My fellow Lieutenants, including his XO, and my Gunny have my ass covered. Despite my Captain wanting me to fail on this FTX, I'm not going to. And there will be hell to pay for me."
Sonny chimed in. "So turn your CO over to JAG."
"Not that easy, Sonny. Lieutenants word against a Captain's word, even if I have witnesses. Plus- what are they going to charge him with? Undue command influence? It's a good one but I need a pattern of behavior before going to JAG and I don't want to be that girl."
Jason sighed. "The Lieutenant is right. You writing all this down?"
"Notebook in the console of my truck. It's coming with me on deployment as well. I get fragged or injured in the field, tell NCIS where to look."
"Hell of a first day. I thought mine was bad with Bravo," Clay tried to break the ice.
Ray snickered. "I think your sister has you beat. Jason might have wanted to kill your ass but at least we didn't try and bury it like Captain Fall."
They hung up with Kelsey and the boys turned to Clay. Jason raised his eyebrows. "She got married and you didn't tell us?"
Clay shrugged. "It was the weekend you spun up without me after I cracked my ribs."
Ray nodded. "So I'm assuming you were at the wedding?"
"It was just his little sister, Carley, who came down from West Point, Victoria, me, Sloane, Matt Parker and another buddy he went to Annapolis with."
Sonny half snorted. "You don't have any objections to her getting married. I'm really surprised you didn't say anything."
"Wasn't my job to share."
"You didn't answer his question about any objections," Ray pointed out.
Clay sighed and gripped the table. "Wished he wasn't military."
Clay and Sloane were on the couch that night, beers in hand watching a movie. Clay had never felt so relaxed another person, save for his sister, as he did with former Army Specialist Stephanie Sloane. She was a God-send, especially with Kelsey's ever looming date of her getting orders cut for Camp Pendleton. A little bit of him had hoped his sister would get orders for Camp Lejeune, although he knew that would take her away from her husband, but it would put them within driving distance of each other. California was far away from Virginia and she had only been gone a week and he missed her.
Sloane turned to him. "Are you getting spun up in the next few days? Because you're actually awfully on edge."
Clay sighed. "No."
"Want to tell me what's going on then?"
"It's nothing."
She raised her eyebrow. "And I know that look, Clay. It's something military related that you can't fix and you hate when you can't do something about it."
"Something like that. You heard from Kelsey?"
Sloane shrugged. "She snapchatted me around noon her time. It looked like Pendleton and the caption just said 'I'm not in Kansas anymore.' I didn't want to prod. Why?"
"I called her."
"And you talked with her? I know Kelsey; she hates talking on the phone, as do the rest of us millennial's. She never answers your calls unless something big happened, like the day she told you she was going to pick up a marriage license with Patrick."
Clay rolled his eyes at that memory. "My point. She met her Captain and she had some interesting things to say."
Sloane sighed deeply. "Let me guess- toxic chain of command?"
"You sure you didn't talk to my sister?"
"She's not the only female in the military to have a toxic chain of command who doesn't believe in their ability and I won't get into it but I know where she is coming from. I've been there. Not as a leader, but I've experienced it."
Clay looked at Sloane; she had never really talked about her time in the Army. All he really knew is she did a deployment to Afghanistan as a medic and got out as a Specialist. "I'm worried about her on this deployment." He didn't want to share the fact that she was afraid of getting fragged by her own men. Sloane was smart enough and she was bound to talk to Kelsey about the Marine Corps eventually and would come to her own conclusions. Whether Sloane would share those with Clay was another matter; he really hoped she would reach out to him if she thought Kelsey was in danger.
"As you should be but you have to let her do her job. She's going to have to fight her own battles, just like I did mine. Hopefully she has a better outcome than I did. For her, she has family in the military on her side."
Clay looked at his pretty much girlfriend. "You ever going to tell me about what happened to you in the Army?"
"Maybe some day. Clay, look, she has you as a DEVGRU SEAL, she has a husband who's a reconnaissance Marine and her father-in-law is a sitting US Senator! If Kelsey gets into trouble over there, she has resources and I know her and I know she will use them to the best of her ability. If she calls in the big dogs, like Bravo, then she will and it will probably be damn important. Until then, you need to sit down, shut up and support her."
He was surprised to hear all of that coming from Sloane's mouth. "You think she would call her father-in-law if she needed help?"
Sloane took another sip of her beer. "Well Dan Shanahan has Mickey Crawford on retainer to represent his kids, including Kelsey, if they ever get into legal trouble within the military or outside."
"Former JAG lawyer Mickey Crawford?" Clay had heard that name around a couple times- he was a successful Navy JAG lawyer who decided to resign his commission and go into the private sector where he defended a high profile military contractor. The former Colonel wasn't fooling around with his kids' careers- Carley was now going into her senior year at West Point, Patrick had gone to Annapolis and was leading a recon platoon in Afghanistan and now his daughter-in-law was about to be a woman taking charge of an infantry platoon.
She slowly nodded. "That would be the one."
"How'd you find out?"
"Carley made a joke at the wedding that if they got into too much trouble, her Dad would have to call Mickey to bail them out of jail."
Clay decided to table the talk on his sister for now. "Back to you and the Army, you'll tell me eventually, right?"
Sloane shrugged. "Maybe."
The night before she deployed, Kelsey drove over to one of her fellow Lieutenant's apartments. He was single so she was really hoping she wasn't going to find some girl she didn't know about and them having goodbye sex and make it awkward but she really needed to talk to Lt. Austin Briggs.
She parked in the visitor parking lot and then walked up to the door and banged on it. She waited a minute before banging on it again. Finally Briggs opened the door in just a towel around his waist and all Kelsey could do was laugh.
"You are the last fucking person I wanted to be opening the door up to in a towel," Briggs said, as he opened the door for her to come in.
She grinned at her fellow Lieutenant. "Yeah, I'd imagine. I'll stay here while you get dressed."
Briggs groaned before walking to his room. Kelsey decided to go over to the kitchen where, unsurprisingly enough, she found the fridge empty, save for a 12 pack of beer. She got two beers out and opened them.
"Nice to see you made your way around my kitchen," Briggs said as he took the beer.
Kelsey shrugged. "Yeah, well, figured you could use that after I came banging on your door."
"About that; you are also the last person I expected to be banging on my door the night before deployment. Thought you'd be with your mom," Briggs commented. Briggs and Patrick had gone to Annapolis together, albeit Briggs a year ahead of Patrick. They knew each other and Briggs had reached out when he found out Patrick had been also stationed at Pendleton. Since Patrick was crashing at Kelsey's parents house before deploying, Briggs had been over to Leah and Jon Wellington's a couple times.
"My mother left this morning for Bogota on business," Kelsey commented. "And Jon is driving me crazy making sure I have everything."
Briggs laughed a little. "The Master Sergeant is useful to know what to pack for a deployment."
"I appreciate it, but he's driving me crazy. Patrick sent me a list of things he wanted so I mailed them out last week and I put a few of those things on my own packing list," Kelsey said.
Briggs took a sip of beer as he sat down on the couch. "What are you here for then, if it's not packing advice, which you would have probably sent in a text?"
Kelsey was silent for a minute before handing over a piece of paper with a number on it. "I need you to take this for safe keeping."
"Who's number and email is this?"
"Master Chief Jason Hayes. This isn't in my officer jacket and he's not listed as my emergency contact, my husband and my mother are, but I have a half brother. He's a SEAL who happens to be DEVGRU. That's the number to his Master Chief."
Briggs ran a hand over his stubble on his face as he realized the implication of his. "Is this a if-shit hits-the fan number?"
"Austin," Kelsey said, referring to him by his first name which she never did. "My husband trusts you so that means you are on my short list. I am fucking worried about this deployment. If anything suspicious happens to me, outside the wire or inside the wire, and you don't think it's on the up and up- give him a call. Jason will be able to rein my brother in but they will come for blood if anything happens to me. Anything. I am family to them."
Briggs contemplated this. "You're family to us too. I have your back."
Kelsey stood as she finished her beer. "Thanks. Keep the number."
Briggs held the door open for her. "I hope I don't have to use this."
"Me too, Austin. Me too."
AN: Short chapter, more to come. It won't be an easy ride for Miss Kelsey on deployment... at all.
