Are You Totally Incapable?


Thea sat on the windowsill, one leg on it, the other, swinging casually in the room, as she paused in her mission to light a cigarette. Second squad was totally dumbfounded and stared at her for a while, till Webster broke silence.

"So this is where you were?" He asked, amusement lacing his voice.

Said woman looked away from the mock street and replied with a coy smile, throwing a wink at the Harvard Boy. I frowned, feeling a pang of jealousy in my stomach. I hated when she'd flirt or pretend to flirt with the other guys.

"Oh Bill, I thought you'd put up more of a surprise than this." a teasing, familiar Californian voice came from the door way, as Second squad sat together.

"You guys were behind this the whole fucking time, huh?" he smiled wryly, admitting defeat, as he looked at the jovial face of Danielle.

"Sorry boys." she shrugged with a grin, "All is unfair in espionage and war."

"So what exactly are you three supposed to be doing?" I asked Thea, as she flicked her cig end outside and hopped off the windowsill to sit on my shoulders..

"Capture enemy intelligence and as many enemy's as we can. We get Sobel, we get a drink each."

"From Sink?"

"Speirs."

I frowned and didn't say anything, but looked away before she could see the jealous look on my face. Skip rolled his eyes at me. We both knew I was hopeless.

"You should have seen the look on Sobel's face when burst in through the window!" Taylor howled a few weeks later, "I've never seen him look more surprised or mad!"

We were heading to another camp in the morning and we had all gathered in the barracks to hear how the rest of the exercise went, since for the past couple of weeks, we'd been training pretty hard. We all laughed loudly, as we revelled in Sobel's misfortune.

"I would've killed to have seen his face!" Lieb laughed, shaking his head.

"I can't believe you came flying through the window like that," Bill grinned, "You scared the shit outta me!"

"I rather think I scare the shit out of anyone, if they saw what I looked like in a morning."

"Aw don't be like that my little cactus." Taylor cooed, cuddling her shorter friend.

"You know if you really wanna scare the shit out of people, wear your gas mask."

"That would be scary." Taylor agreed with Elle.

"Scary? That'd be fucking terrifying! Imagine that coming out of the dark at you... Huh, guess it is a good idea." Thea ended up agreeing.

Our group carried on laughing and joking long into the night, till one by one, everyone began to leave to go to sleep. Pretty soon, it was just our cabin and the girls that were still up.

"I'm going to bed guys, I'm knackered." Thea yawned, arms outstretched above her head. Taylor, Elle and the rest of us guys who were still awake, were playing poker on the cabin floor, and as they spoke to her, didn't look away from their cards.

"Alright Thee, just be careful." Elle paused, "In fact, someone walk her back please? I don't want anything happening to her."

Thea rolled her eyes, rising to her feet she said with a sigh, "I'm quite capable of looking after myself Elle."

"I know, but it's for my own peace of mind."

"Okay, okay I'll take someone with me." she relented, looking around for volunteers.

"I'll walk you back." I offered, looking up at her from where I was spectating on the floor. "My hand is pretty lousy anyway."

Thea smiled, thanking me for offering, and the two of us were followed out by wolf whistles and the usual kind of jokes.

"Set of idiots." Thea smiled happily, as she walked side by side with me, back to her cabin she shared with Taylor and Elle.

"Yeah, but you'd not have any of us any other way." I replied, not meaning to look worried. She couldn't help but laugh at the look that rested on my face.

"Obviously!"

We chatted idly as we meandered to her quarter, which was followed by a short silence.

"Thea, whatever the guys say about me to you, they don't mean anything by it." I suddenly blurted out. Thea looked up in surprise.

"Malark I-"

"I think of you like you're one of the guys, so..." I lied, catching a small flash of disappointment, or was it hurt? Either way the conversation between us soon turned awkward. Thea bid me good night as soon as she was in sight of her cabin, and quickly walked away.

"I'm sorry, are you trying to be the worlds biggest fucking dumbass, or is it just by accident that you're totally incapable of talking to a woman you're attracted to?" Skip scolded, pinching the bridge of his nose, holding his sixth cig of the past 20 minutes. This man, was my best friend, but he couldn't help but totally lose faith in my apparent lack of ability to speak to the opposite sex..

I was once again in the shit, after telling my friend about the previous night.

"You don't say shit like that! You just ignore it! Play it off as we're just joking!"

"I'm sorry! I got nervous, alright? She makes me nervous!"

"You know what makes me nervous?" he asked, standing in front of me, while I sat, defeated on his bed, "You. You make me nervous. You know why? Because I dread to fucking think of what you'll say to the poor woman next!"

Outside the cabin, I could hear the rest of our friends snickering and laughing at the way Skip was telling me off.

"What an idiot!" Luz snorted.

"A grown man, being told off by a guy who sounds like a mom." Perco shook his head, "I thought that was Lip's job."

"Hey guys, what are you doing?" I asked. They all stood rigidly, and slowly looked around. I stood barely a few feet away from them, curious as to why they all looked like they were up to no good.

"Uh.. hey.. Thea, what are you doing here?" Penk stuttered, eyes darting between me and the door.

"I left my lighter here last night, I wanted to know whether anyone had seen it or not..." I replied slowly, scowling at my friend's suspicious behaviour. "What's going on?"

"What? I don't know what you're talking about." George panicked

"You mean to tell me that you're all stood here looking like deer in headlights, because what? Did my accent startle you? Forget I'm British?"

"Hey hey, there's no need to accuse us of doing something we shouldn't be!" George argued, trying to defend himself.

"I only asked what was going on, since most of you are out here.."

"We're just taking in the air, you know, before lunch."

I raised an eyebrow, like fuck did I believe them, but before I could say anything else, Malarkey and Skip walked out of the cabin. They stopped in their tracks when they saw me, a horrified look dawning on each of their faces. Skip quickly recovered, throwing a metal object over to me.

"I found your lighter."

"Thanks.." I muttered. "I'll see you all in the by the trucks... Weirdos."

She turned around, once more as she walked off, still curious of our strange behaviour, but decided to shrug it off and put it down to the fact that we were, according to her, all pretty weird, and sometimes it was all of us being weird at the same time.

"Did she..?" Skip began to ask, as our small group watched her disappear from view.

"I don't think so..." Penk slowly replied.

"They're men, what do you expect from them?" Elle smirked, as the three of us went to meet Winters, Nixon and one of the new officers. As we arrived we walked past the Black Swan, saluting him, while he pretended to not notice us. Elle rolled her eyes when he was gone and said how happy she'd be when the day came that she could pretend that he didn't exist for a change.

In the hut, Nix was packing, while Winters had finished hours ago. Today was the day we were shipping out to a camp near New York.

"Ladies!" Nix greeted them happily. Us three friends grinned at the tall, dark haired man.

"You're just in time, this is our new officer, Harry Welsh. Harry, this is Lieutenant Danielle Toya, or Elle as we call her," he began gesturing to our tall, blonde friend. He then gestured again, this time to the burgundy haired tomboy, Taylor, "This is Taylor Roebuck and last but not least, is Thea Donnellon."

Welsh smiled at each of us, before his smile turned into surprise, as his friendly gaze settled on me, the short young woman with the chocolate brown fish tail braid over her shoulder.

"Are your eyes..."

"Yes, they're lavender sir." I finished for him with a friendly smile.

"Sorry, I've just never seen that kind of eye colour before." he apologised, feeling that he had been rude. I waved him off, kindly.

"Don't worry, I get it a lot."