Chapter 31: Clancy
"Atten-HUT!"
The entire complement of Joes snapped to attention as Clancy stepped off the plane. To the casual observer, they were respectfully at attention. Only to General Hawk, standing to one side of them similarly at attention, was it obvious that their stances were slightly exaggerated, a subtle indication of their disdain and contempt for the man they now faced. Although Hawk, Lady Jaye, Flint, Wild Bill, and Duke were the only ones who knew about the hidden testimony Scarlett had sent to them, practically everyone on base knew that Alex Cabot had been unwillingly sent out into a dangerous jungle as bait for an enemy who had very personal reasons for wanting her dead. They were united in their contempt at the man who could so casually dismiss what Alex had endured even as they were split apart over the latest rumor that rocked the base.
Word had gotten out that Flint had confessed to raping Alex Cabot during their imprisonment and requested to be thrown in the brig. Word had also gotten out, despite Doc's best efforts, that Flint's DNA had been found inside Alex in a very personal place that had confirmed the rumors. The fact that Flint had submitted a confidential report, Hawk had read it, then firmly denied Flint's request for a court martial and flatly refused to throw him in the brig, only added fuel to the fire.
As soon as Clancy was gone Hawk intended to call a meeting and lay all those rumors to rest once and for all. Right now the base was split between those who believed Flint was innocent and those who believed that he was guilty and therefore should be in the brig. Not that anyone actually believed that he'd deliberately and intentionally wanted to rape Alex—everyone knew he wasn't that kind of person— but debate raged about whether he'd had control or whether it had been completely involuntary. Most of the people in the pro-brig faction (Ettienne was the forefront of this group) believed that even if he had been tied and unable to resist when the militia members had forced him into Alex's body, he still should have controlled his reaction and not come. They continued to hold to this belief even with the strong and (in Allie's case, vociferous) argument from the half of the base who believed him innocent because, as Doc told everyone repeatedly and at length, there was no possible way to control one's body in a situation like that!
It didn't help that Dash was avoiding everyone, even Allie, by hiding in his room with the door locked. Allie was looking strained and worried, and that wasn't helping her recovery any; Hawk was worried about that. Doc had tested them all for blood-borne diseases (direct exposure in Flint and Alex's case, indirect exposure for Allie and the rest of the team plus Lifeline) and come up negative, but HIV had a lengthy incubation period and to avoid even the possibility of any of them contracting the deadly disease, all of them were on a course of anti-viral medications. The medication caused headaches and intense nausea; Allie had commented to Hawk, dryly, that if she ever got pregnant she would already know what morning sickness felt like because she couldn't keep anything down. Already weak from blood loss from the bullet wound, she was now losing weight from the constant nausea and trying to defend Flint from the naysayers on base without being able to talk to him herself was telling on her.
And because of Clancy's incipient visit, Hawk was unable to do anything about the situation at the moment. Clancy would come, walk around and yell at everyone for a couple of days, then leave, and once Clancy was gone Hawk intended to chew out his soldiers for questioning his decisions. In the meantime, the whole situation had him chewing holes in his desk.
The only person unaware of the whole horrible situation was Alex. Though she was spending more and more time every day awake and lucid, they were carefully keeping the rumors from bothering her, both on Doc's orders and because it seemed to be the kindest thing to do. She was healing well; now, when Hawk spoke to her briefly her face was the same one he'd seen in the mission paperwork, and he stubbornly tried not to think about what she looked like under the medical gown and beneath the sheets.
He was also trying to avoid her altogether; as her body healed physically she'd become prone to nightmares. Though she was quietly rational and lucid during the short conversations she was able to manage during the day, nights were a different story. Hawk had been talking to Allie and Courtney in the infirmary two nights ago when Alex had started screaming; just screaming and screaming, writhing in the bed as if she were being tortured all over again. He'd been closer, and he'd stepped over to her bed, touched her arm to try and wake her and calm her. But her eyes had opened, and the look of pain and terror in them made his heart ache even as she threw herself backward, away from him, in horror. Before Doc, Allie or Courtney could react she'd been on the floor in the corner of the room, bruised, scarred arms thrown in front of her in a defensive gesture as she begged wildly for him not to hurt her. Doc grabbed Hawk's arm and pulled him backwards, letting Allie and Courtney crouch in front of the terrified semi- conscious woman, speaking softly and quietly to reassure her. "It's okay, Alex. It's okay. You're among friends. We're not going to hurt you. It's over. It's over." Finally Alex stopped screaming and curled up in the corner, crying, shaking, her body in such a tight ball that Hawk's own muscles hurt just looking at her. Only then did Courtney move closer, touch her shoulder (she flinched and curled tighter) and keep talking until she finally came out of the drugged-sleep fog she'd been in, woke up enough to realize she was on the floor, and the two female Joes helped her climb weakly back into bed. By which point she was so exhausted that she slipped right back to sleep.
He'd stayed away from the medlabs after that, working obsessively instead on keeping his desk clean. Never had he ever had a woman look at him with that much fear in her eyes, and it left a deep impression on him as well as feeding his growing fury over the orders that had placed her in that position. He contrasted this new image of her with that first impression he'd gotten when she'd woken up and sassed him, and he didn't like the contrast. Not at all. On Doc's orders, Courtney, Allie and the female medical staff were tending to her now; Ettienne had been barred from the medlabs too, though Doc made him aware of why before gently banning him and then banning all conversation of Flint in front of Alex. It had seemed kinder to keep her unaware of the conflict; if, as Doc thought, she'd dissociated when the rapes started, she might not remember Flint's body's betrayal. And if she didn't remember it would be kinder to let her regain her own memory of the event in her own time.
Right now Hawk just had to deal with Clancy.
"I want to see whatever mission paperwork you have, including the reports your people have filed. All of them. Now."
"Nice to see you too." Hawk said sarcastically before turning to the assembled Joes. "Company, dis-MISSED!" he hollered, and his people started filing out. He turned back to Clayton, not even bothering with the polite nonsense of a civil smile. "My office is this way." He strode off without checking to see if Clancy was following.
The stack of mission reports looked enormous; Hawk added every scrap of paper he could find that pertained to this operation in hopes that Clancy would miss noticing that Flint's report wasn't there. That item he had no intention of allowing Clancy to see; God only knew what the man would think—or do—if he saw Flint's self-accusation of rape. Clancy spent a long time looking at the summary of the report Doc had written on Alex's medical condition, then skimmed through the rest of the reports. Nearly three hours later, he sat back, fixed Hawk with an angry gaze, then said, "Is there any rule your people didn't break on this mission?"
Hawk bristled even though he'd asked Allie the same thing. "They did a hell of a job looking after themselves and their targets. If it wasn't for their initiative and quick thinking, Alex Cabot might still be in the DRC, most likely dead."
"They informed their target of their identities after meeting her even though they were ordered not to. They—particularly Gunnery Sergeant LaFitte and Warrant Officer Faireborn, indulged in unauthorized activities directly affecting the native population. Deliberate damage was done to a civilian vehicle, for which the US Army could be held responsible. Your people split up in enemy territory, which is a glaring breach in mission protocol. Your first mission team also left behind valuable army equipment assuming the natives would care for the items until your extraction team arrived onsite; the UN forces confiscated these from the villagers. Corporal Courtney Krieger engaged in a dangerous undercover operation to try and smoke out potential assassins; said operation was unsanctioned and again, violated protocol because splitting up is not an option. And then both teams violated direct orders not to mount a rescue mission, and brought a civilian to a highly-classified US military base!"
"If they had not she would have died. Everything they did was in the best interests of the victim they were protecting. Alex Cabot would have died in the DRC if it hadn't been for my soldiers, and I for one am damned proud of them for having the guts to buck a pack of nonsense orders in favor of defending and protecting an unarmed civilian!" He would have said more, but the last thing he wanted was to clue Clancy in on just how much he actually knew about the secret UN operation Alex Cabot had been involved in; first, he didn't know how much Clancy knew about that UN operation; second, because he'd have to tell Clancy how he'd come by that information, and that would turn up the fact that Scarlet and Snake Eyes were currently deep undercover on a fact-finding mission that Clancy knew nothing about and Hawk had no intention of telling him.
"Your people didn't do anything about protecting the other civilian. In fact, there's hardly any mention at all about him—the MSF doctor. If your people were so good at protecting the civilians, why didn't he get out alive? What happened there? It didn't escape my notice that Warrant Officer Faireborn's report isn't in this pile. Neither is the mission target's full medical report. I want to see both."
"First, her name is Alex Cabot. You can say it, it's not a dirty word, Clancy. Secondly, medical files are private; doctor-patient confidentiality applies here. Third, Warrant Officer Faireborn was injured and unable to file a report."
"But he isn't now. Your medical officer states he left the infirmary a week ago. Where is his report? And another thing; if this mission target is on a US military base she is under the purview of military control and I want to see her medical file. I know you've seen it; I want to see it too." His eyes swept Hawk's desk, finally spotting the tell-tale red of a medical file folder under a small pile of papers in Hawk's mail tray. He pounced on it; Hawk sighed and sat back.
Clancy finished reading it, and closed it, his face expressionless. "Your Warrant Officer's DNA was found inside this civilian."
Hawk cursed himself mentally. Damn it, Clancy knew about that now. "Yes," he said, in an icy tone that should have indicated further discussion was unwelcome. "The militia soldiers forced physical contact between Dashiell Faireborn and Alex Cabot."
"Forced physical contact my ass, General Hawk! Your Warrant Officer either raped the mission target or engaged in an unsanctioned physical relationship with the target during the course of the journey, both of which are in violation of protocol! If he raped the target that is a court-martial offense! What are you planning on doing about it? I can't believe Warrant Officer Faireborn isn't in the brig!"
"The events that placed Dashiell Faireborn in that position were not under his voluntary control. He is therefore not responsible for his actions."
"Not responsible—" Clancy choked. "I want every person on this base in the briefing room in an hour for a preliminary hearing, Hawk. You included. And I am hereby ordering that your Warrant Officer be placed under arrest. If a satisfactory explanation cannot be found for this evidence," he waved Alex's medical folder, "then I will have no choice but to transfer him to a military prison to await a full court-martial."
Allie was sitting by Alex's bed talking to her when Courtney came flying into the medlabs. "Oh, excuse me," she said, on seeing that Alex was awake. "Allie, Clancy's called meeting for the briefing room at oh-three-hundred. And Clayton looks mad enough to spit nails. And Dash's under arrest, on Clancy's orders."
Tears filled Allie's eyes. "Damn it, he didn't do it!" she cried. "Why doesn't anybody see that!"
"Do what? What's wrong?" Alex struggled to sit up in bed, completely mystified by this whole conversation. Pain speared though her loins, almost making her cry out, but she was worried about Allie's obvious distress and bit it back. "Didn't do what?"
"It's nothing. It's nothing. Lie down before Doc gets mad at me for getting you upset."
"I'm upset? What about you?" Alex refused to lie back down even though the pain was fierce now.
"I have to go. I'll talk to you later." Allie hurried away with Courtney.
Alex watched them go, mystified. Although she still felt herself cringing involuntarily when there was a male around , especially an African American male like Doc, she was slowly starting to force herself to relax. And this was important. "Doc?" she called, knowing the doctor was just out of her line of sight in his office. "Doc, what's going on?"
He came into the medlabs and approached her cautiously. For some reason, that made her angry even though she knew he was just trying to be considerate of her feelings. "It's nothing. Don't worry, okay?"
"It's not 'nothing'. Allie looked like she was going to cry and Courtney said Dash was under arrest." She looked at him searchingly, forcing herself not to react to the dark African-American features. "It has something to do with me, or you wouldn't be hiding it from me."
Despite his obvious worry, he actually smiled a little. "Allie said you were sharp, for a civilian."
Alex searched her memory for anything that could have happened that involved her, Dash, and him being arrested. Doc, watching her, saw her face change, turn pale, when something finally clicked in her mind and she looked at him. "Did you do a rape kit?"
"Huh?" it was his turn to look confused.
"When you…cleaned me…out, before you stitched me up. Did you do DNA testing on the bodily fluids?" His deer-in-headlights look told her his answer. "You found Warrant Officer Faireborn's DNA in me and assumed he'd raped me." Her voice was icy with fury.
Doc gave up. "No," he said. "Dash requested General Hawk throw him in the brig and court-martial him for your rape."
"And nobody thought to tell me this?"
"You're still fragile," he said. "And according to the team's reports, you dissociated for a while there, during the worst of it, and I didn't want to make you remember something if you didn't already. Hey, what are you doing?" Alex had turned and was sliding her legs over the edge of the bed. "You can't get out of bed yet!"
"Watch me," Alex said through gritted teeth; sliding over the bed had reawakened her awareness that her lower half was pretty much stitched together. The pain between her legs was a sharp spear of agony, but she pushed that aside. "I am not letting Dashiell Faireborn go to military jail for something that wasn't his fault."
"He believes it is."
Alex paused for a moment, letting her hair hang in front of her face, obscuring her grimace of pain. If the doctor knew just how much pain this was causing her he might not let her get up, and she had to get to that hearing. "So does every male who has ever been raped. They all think it's their fault. That doesn't make it true." She lurched forward off the bed, grabbed the rail to steady herself as the wave of pain made her vision gray out, then took a deep breath and stood upright. "Do you have anything I can put on instead of this hospital gown? Because If Clancy so much as smirks I'm going to have to kill him." She doubted her ability to carry out that threat, but she was using her anger as a shield against her pain; if she had something else to focus on she just might get through this.
Doc muttered something about her being stubborn, and she smiled grimly as he handed her a set of scrubs. Getting into them was hell; she had bitten through her lip to keep back her whimpers by the time she was in them, but she suppressed it with an iron will and forced herself to start walking toward the medlab door.
Doc raced up to her with a wheelchair; she eyed it longingly but shook her head. "No. Clancy can't see me in that."
"He doesn't have to see you in it. Can you at least sit in it and let me get you to door of the briefing room? You're as bad as Allie when she's injured!"
Alex managed another smile. "I'll take that as a compliment. Allie's pretty tough. I'm just a civilian."
"If you'd taken a different career path you'd be here," Doc said firmly as she seated herself gingerly. "You'd make a kick-ass Joe. Everyone on the team's said that since you got here. You're a real trooper."
"Thank you." She smiled, even though she wanted to scream. She didn't feel like a trooper at the moment; she was in agony and it got worse every minute. The floor had tiny, minute bumps where seams appeared in the flooring; she wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been injured, but each bump felt like someone was shoving a knife into her lower belly.
But she stopped Doc at the door to the briefing room. "I can walk in on my own." He started to protest, and she cut him off, rather more sharply than she meant to because of the pain. "I've dealt with Clancy before. He won't take me seriously if I don't meet him on my own two feet." Without waiting for him to say anything else, she pushed the door open and walked in.