Chapter 87: Fourth

If there was any doubt in Olivia's mind at all about Alex and Ettienne's feelings for each other, they were dispelled the next afternoon when the Joes' Hummer came back from picking Alex, Clayton, Shana and Dash from Fort Hamilton. Clayton was the first one out, handling his crutches carefully, and Olivia's heart ached as she thought about her own unresolved issues. She hadn't had the courage to ask Doc to do a pregnancy test, she didn't know Clayton well enough to know how he would react if she told him she was pregnant.

But Alex was the second one out of the Hummer, and she dropped her overnight bag on the garage floor as she ran toward Ettienne. Both their faces radiated happiness and joy at seeing each other, and if there was any doubt left in anyone's mind, the long, fervent, enthusiastic kiss they shared would have settled that. Dash and Allie greeted each other quietly but happily, and Snake Eyes gave Shana a hug just before the redhead said cheerfully to Alex and Ettienne, "Oh, go find a room already, will you?"

The few soldiers assembled there broke into laughter.

Clayton addressed all of them. "Allie, Shana, I'd like to talk to you in my office. I assume Courtney's out with Wayne—" getting into trouble was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit down on it. "It's nothing bad, just some policy changes I want to make around here and I'm not certain I know how to go about handling this."

By the twinkle in Allie's eye she knew exactly what it was he wanted to talk about, but she didn't comment until they were seated on chairs in Clayton's office. "What changed your mind?" she said bluntly. "Just for future reference."

"So we can rub salt into the wound," Shana said cheerfully. "Was it seeing Ettienne with Alex and knowing that if you don't accept that he has a relationship with her you'll lose him, or was it Olivia?"

Clayton stared at the two women. "Can't I have any secrets?" he asked plaintively.

"No. You can't." Allie said flatly. "You're Hawk because there's little that goes on in this base that you don't find out eventually. But it goes both ways, Clayton. There's nothing that we girls don't find out about eventually."

Clayton sighed. "All right, I guess in this case I deserve it. I've been an ass. You two and Courtney are allowed to have relationships off base, but the guys can't, and that's not fair. So as of now, I'm rescinding that policy. I just don't know how to tell everyone it's okay without making a big public announcement.

"You don't need to. Just let us take care of it." Shana grinned mischievously. "It's not as if the rule hasn't already been ignored and trampled on every chance we got, after all."

Clayton stared at her suspiciously. "Just how many of the guys have been breaking that rule? No, I'm not going to yell—it would be kind of pointless—"

"—but you'd like to know just how much has been going on that you don't know about," Allie finished. "Well, let's see. Wild Bill. Brawler. Doc and Lifeline both, Lifeline's got this cute little nurse at Manhattan General and Doc is sort of seeing a doctor at the Brooklyn Medical Clinic. Stretcher has been seeing a young private over at Fort Hamilton. Striker has been flirting with this little bartender in the Village and Quick Kick's been seeing a receptionist for one of those big Manhattan law firms. There are a few others but I can't think of them right now."

"So does this mean that you're not going to reassign Ettienne if he wants to continue seeing Alex? I heard Olivia and Ettienne talking in the mess hall last night. Ettienne said that if the policy remained in place he was going to ask for a transfer to another Marine base…and if he couldn't get one in the New York area close enough to be with Alex he would muster out, resign his commission, and open up a Cajun restaurant in order to be near her." Allie told him flatly.

Clayton belatedly realized his mouth was open. "You're kidding."

"Nope." Allie folded her arms and sat back.

"But…he's a career soldier. He wouldn't give up his career for the last girl he was in love with, when he signed on ten years ago."

"He loved her, but he wasn't in love with her. His career was still more important than she was. I saw that when he signed on. But with Alex…Ettienne's in love with her, Clayton, and it's not going to be a passing thing either. He's found someone he cares about more than he cares about his life, his career."

"But what if Alex doesn't feel the same way, Allie? What if she's with him right now because he helped her out during the worst of her recovery, but what if once she's completely healed and back on her feet, what if she decides he's not what she really wants? What will he do then?"

"Oh please, have you seen the two of them together? Have you seen the way they look at each other? Did you see what happened when you all got off the transport? She took one look at him and her face lit up like a Christmas tree. You could see her happiness, it was just radiating off her. If you think that's not love, then you haven't really been watching Dash and Allie all these years because she looks the same when Dash comes back from a mission without her." Shana smiled sweetly at Allie.

Allie shot a dirty look at the redhead, which Clayton chose to ignore for the moment. "Olivia asked Ettienne that question," Allie said, pointedly ignoring Shana's outburst. "She asked Ettienne what he would do if he went and made this huge step, if he resigned his commission and opened up that restaurant and then found out after he'd done that that Alex wanted to see someone else. You know what he said? He said that was her choice if she wanted to do that, he just wanted to make sure she was happy." Allie sat back and a tiny smile curved her lips. "And then he threatened to hurt whoever made her unhappy."

Shana burst out laughing. "Can't you just see him standing there in a chef's apron waving a meat cleaver and threatening to make andouille out of whoever the poor sucker was who went out with Alex?"

Clayton had to chuckle at that mental picture. "Problem with that is that I know he has the skills to make sausage out of whoever breaks Alex's heart," he said. "But seriously, getting back to the original question…no, I'm not going to demand that Ettienne give up Alex, especially after hearing what you just told me. He'll stay here as long as he wants and see her as long as she'll have him. And if they decide they want to grow old together, then, well, I'll support them in that too. She's had too much heartbreak and pain already in her life, I don't have to make it any harder. I've seen the way they look at each other, and I can't get in the way of that and consider myself a good person." He rose, reached for the crutches. "So go spread the word through that female grapevine of yours. Off base relationships are fine. I don't mind if my soldiers spend an occasional night at some girl's place either, so no sneaking back in after curfew. Just…no bringing those civilians on base. That is an official rule. I broke it for Alex and Olivia, but they are leaving now that the current emergency's over."

Shana disappeared with alacrity, no doubt gone off to spread the word, and Clayton expected Allie to do the same. He was therefore surprised when she didn't disappear immediately, but waited for the door to close behind Shana. "Still got something on your mind?"

She didn't smile, which made him suddenly worried. "What's wrong?" he asked her, sitting down again.

She sat for a minute, silently, then blew out her breath all at once as if she'd just made up her mind about something. "There's a little part of me says I shouldn't say anything until she comes to you herself, but I don't know if you may have had a discussion with her about the topic already and made your feelings clear. Clayton, have you and Olivia discussed kids?"

His stunned look told Allie what she wanted to know. "What did you tell her?"

"Why do you need to know?"

"Clayton, for God's sake, don't be such a thickheaded male. Just tell me what she told you…and what you told her."

"She said she would love kids but she'd never found the right man, and now it was too late. And I told her this was a dangerous job and it would be too easy for someone who doesn't like us to use them against me. So I don't want kids."

"When did you have this conversation?"

He had to think. "Right before we left for Washington."

She stared at him for long moments, then got up slowly and stalked to the door. "Jesus, Clayton, sometimes you can be a real asshole."

"Watch your mouth, Staff Sergeant, I'm your commanding officer!" He was angry now. "Just what the hell do you mean by that?"

"You're the commanding officer. Figure it out. Didn't you tell Dash that you understood how he felt after the way they made Dash rape Alex? I assume you meant Velez did the same thing to you, right? Jesus, Clayton, get that goddamn thick male head out of your ass and think about it!" She whirled and left, slamming the door to his office.

Alone in his office, Clayton stared at the closed door. Allie never slammed doors unless she was really, really pissed. And she never swore. Once, only, and that was when a new recruit had been so busy showing off in front of his buddies that he'd stepped in a hole in the ground and broken his leg. She'd sworn at him in every language she knew, including English, and her command of invective had left even Courtney's eyes popping out.

What had he done? A discussion with Olivia about kids. They'd chatted lightly on one of their dates, then the discussion about Calvin in Colombia, but he hadn't paid much attention, he'd been just trying to keep her mind off her own pain. And then here at base, when she'd come in the rec room in the middle of the night. Looking at the chess board. Talking about whether Alex would let him cheat. Cheating…like Dash felt, wrongly, that he'd somehow cheated on Allie having sex with another woman…

And then it hit him.

He sat down hard in his chair, barely noticing when it jarred his injured leg. "She can't be." But it made sense. He had no idea how many times he'd been forced to come inside her, how many times they'd both come. And no other male had touched her.

She'd bled, she'd torn, but he remembered the doctors saying something about the tearing being only superficial, that it hadn't torn her uterine walls. He'd been half-awake when he'd heard one doctor say 'she'll still be able to have kids then.'

Wouldn't she have asked for a pill? But even as he thought that, he answered himself; no. She was completely out of it, between the drugs and the pain, dehydration and blood loss and infection…the doctors in Medellin would have concentrated on patching her up to send her to Miami, and Chief General Hill had been mostly worried about getting all of them home. No one would have thought of asking, and she might not have even thought of it herself. But now he could see the signs were there…her extreme fatigue—though that could have been because of the drugs. Nausea—though that could have been attributable to the antivirals they'd given her just in case she'd been exposed to HIV or other disease. The infection the doctors were worried about—always a cause for worry, but if she were pregnant it would be an even bigger cause for concern.

She's pregnant. And it's probably mine. The thought hit him like a ton of bricks. Part of his mind went into gibbering panic, thinking about bottles and diapers and midnight feedings…but suddenly a new mental picture intruded. Playing football on a grassy lawn with a little boy who looked like him. Working on Olivia's car with a little boy who had Olivia's eyes and Clayton's smile.

Or…a little girl with Olivia's big brown eyes and short brown hair, screaming with laughter as she danced in and out of a sprinkler. A little girl with Clayton's blue eyes and Olivia's brown hair bouncing up and down in the back of Olivia's Mustang. Or a tomboy like her mother, working on the car with him in ten years or so, handing him wrenches and tools.

And then another thought; Olivia, glowing and hugely pregnant with his child. Complaining about her weight gain while he laughed at her and bought her pickles and ice cream or whatever it was that pregnant women craved. Olivia, cuddling a tiny baby in a hospital bed, glowing with motherly pride and emotion and exclaiming over tiny feet and hands. And the thought that she'd wanted a child, for a very long time, and he'd been able to give her what she wanted.

"I am an asshole. Oh God. I told her I didn't want kids and she's pregnant and she thinks I'm going to abandon her or insist that she give it up for adoption or have an abortion. And she wants kids so badly she was willing to go through red tape to try and adopt and the bureaucracy wouldn't let her. You were right, Allie, I'm an asshole."

He heaved himself out of the chair and grabbed for the crutches. Fourth of July, Joe base. It was a tradition that any Joes still on base on the night of the Fourth would gather at the Narrows Lighthouse on Battery Weed and watch the fireworks in New York Harbor. While for much of the country it was a cause for celebration, the Joes were usually quiet when they gathered for the fireworks because each one that went off was a personal offering to the ghosts of the fellow soldiers and friends that they had lost. Allie, Shana, and Courtney usually brought candles, placed them on the ground, and kept them lit for the entire fusillade of colored light, ending the evening with a solemn recitation of the names of friends they'd lost over the last year. Sometimes the list was short, sometimes it was longer, but it was tradition, and this year he just knew Olivia and Alex would be with the rest of the Joes.

Allie was sitting on the ground next to Dash; she turned at the sound of Clayton's crutches scuffling the dirt, but he shook his head when she made a move to get up, then brought one arm up in a salute. To her. Her eyes softened; she knew he knew what Olivia had been trying to tell him, now, and she nodded slightly, to where Olivia was sitting by herself, looking out over the dark water to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

"Hey." She didn't start; she'd known he was coming. He took her silence as assent and lowered himself to a sitting position next to her, then tried to figure out what to say to break the uncomfortable silence between them.

"I don't know for certain." Only he, sitting so close to her, would have heard her whisper in the dark. "I haven't had the nerve to ask Doc if he would do a pregnancy test. But Allie says she's about eighty percent sure I am. And I don't…I don't know what to do."

He didn't even think. "Olivia, if you are pregnant, do you want the child?"

"Yes." Unhesitating.

"Then I don't see the problem."

"You said…you said you didn't want kids. And I do. And I'd love any child of yours; you're a good man, and I know that even though I haven't known you long. But…if you really don't want them, are you going to…to ask me to…" she couldn't even finish.

He was horrified. "Olivia, for God's sake, no. If you really think I'm a good man, how you could even think that I would ask you to…do that…Jesus."

Her voice was so quiet that he had to strain to hear her. "My mother was raped by my biological father. Every time she looked at me she saw him. She started drinking when I was very young, and when she got drunk enough she'd…hurt me."

Oh, Christ. Clayton's heart pounded painfully in his chest, and he wrapped an arm around Olivia, feeling tears sting his eyes. "Are you worried that you'll turn into your mother? Are you worried you won't love the baby?"

"No. No, I'm not. I could never…I know how I felt and I could never do that to a child. I'm worried that…that if I…have the baby…you'll hate it because you were forced to rape me."

"No. Never." He hugged her fiercely. "Olivia. What happened wasn't the baby's fault. It wasn't your fault, and it wasn't mine. Circumstances just forced us into that situation." He took a deep breath, cupped her chin, forced her to look up at him. "But you want a child. And you're in what, your forties? There may not be another chance. So if you want it, have it. I'll support you, in whatever decision you make. And you won't go at it alone. There's a base full of people who will be glad to help babysit. Including your best friend, who just happens to be my Private, and my Staff Sergeant, my Master Sergeant, and my Corporal."

"You're not going to be one of those traditional types that's going to insist that I marry you, are you?"

Clayton laughed. "Leaving aside the fact that I will never hear the end of it from my soldiers, no. I have known you for all of about two months, and that's not long enough to know if we can really love each other or if it will be a marriage of pure convenience. I've never wanted a wife who I had to protect, but neither have I ever wanted one who I didn't love. Liv, if you want the baby, then have it. And we'll just…take things as they go. I'm not going to insist my name be on the birth certificate, and I'm not going to sue you for custody unless you were to suddenly go stark raving mad and become a danger to it. However, I will have to insist that since I'm a two star General and you are a lowly public servant, I will be paying for some of the diapers and bottles and blankets and whatever else the baby needs."

"If I'm pregnant and I have a baby."

He nodded. "If you're pregnant. Which right now you're not sure. So let's sit back, enjoy the fireworks and our private ceremony afterwards, and worry about everything else tomorrow." And as he spoke, the first flare of color splashed across the dark night sky.

Halfway through the show he felt her hand creep into his, and grasp his fingers in a gentle squeeze. He smiled, squeezed back, and they watched the rest of the fireworks holding hands.