Calling Home

Disclaimer: Same as before. Just some slightly sentimental clutter that was in my computer files. I promise the Ninja attack is on the way...

~ ~ ~ ~

Shipwreck was glad that the two Air Force Combat Control guys had installed a second satellite phone system in his house. Lately the number of calls the Task Force guys made to their homes was making his phone bill shoot up like no tomorrow. At least with the sat-com they could make free calls, the guys on guard duty in his house.

He was making another attempt to cook breakfast when he saw Chief Brewster walk in, and punch in a number, "Morning sweetheart, it's Dad. Things are going OK on deployment, congratulations on veterinary school, I wish I could've been at graduation. I know its been rough since mom left, but you've been strong about it. I'm glad you understand, its made these past few years easy for both of us."

"OW! Damn frying pan!"

"Shipwreck, you're supposed to touch the handle, not the round part of the pan." Chief remarked.

"Very funny Chief!" Shipwreck replied, "Owww..."

"Well, I gotta go back to work. I love you. Goodbye." Chief said, "That's my daughter, Kate. I've been in the Navy fifteen years now, and Kate's been the little trooper throughout that time. She was eight when I enlisted, leaving the business world to prove I was more than an economic consuming and producing animal but a man, to become a Navy SEAL. My wife left two years later, and I've been the single dad ever since. Thank God for her grandparents, my parents of course, to watch over her. I keep forgetting she's a grown woman now sometimes..."

"God I hope my daughters grow up a bit before they reach twenty-three..." Shipwreck remarked.

"Awk! Althea's more mature than her Dad! Awk!" Polly remarked.

"Come here you!" Shipwreck said, chasing Polly with a rolling pin.

Chief saw D'Artagnan walking down the stairs. He knew that the Frenchman was still searching for lost people from the Destiny Islands, he had been on the original mission that evacuated Armand and some others. "No luck this morning Chief." D'Artagnan said.

The Frenchman's plight was heartbreaking. Many times he stayed up late, combing records, updating a Have You Seen Us web page, chasing leads, but finding few if any answers. Chief could count the number of holidays he had invited the Frenchman into his home on two hands.

Chief handed the phone to Sergeant Hedaya who eagerly dialed up numbers. The Hispanic sniper was always calling home every chance he got. The others used to jibe him about that, but Hedaya took it all in stride.

"Oh my God! Oh my God!" Hedaya said, he was practically speechless.

"What's going on?" a sleepy Bilby said, staggering up from the couch. The ninja nonsense night had been a long, though humorous experience.

"I'm a DAD!" Hedaya shouted, jumping through the air, nearly tearing the phone from the mounting in the wall, "I'm a DAD!!"

He started dancing around the room with a very surprised looking D'Artagnan before skipping through the halls and waking up the entire household yelling, "I'M A DAD! I'M A DAD!"

"Is he always this peppy? " Chief asked.

"Not always, but usually he is." Bilby replied, rolling his eyes, "Then again, we'd never heard of Hedaya having children yet."

"It's better than Scuttle having kids." D'Artagnan remarked.

"Or Captain Jacobs." Chief remarked, referring to the football obsessed Ranger company commander.

"Or Beach Head having kids." Bilby replied.

"You should be shot." D'Artagnan remarked, "Now I'm gonna have a mental picture of a million little baby Beach Heads running around."

"One is enough." Bilby remarked, "Now I'm creeped out."

"You two are a bunch of sissies, a bunch of Baby Beach Heads is nothing to worry about...." Chief remarked when he heard a shout.

He saw four Rangers, Hockle and Stoty if he wasn't mistaken followed by Illario and Rossalvo, Sergeant Dominic Rossalvo was holding an all too familiar teddy bear.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HOLDING SERGEANT SNUFFLES!!!!!!" Beach Head shouted.

"Maybe you two are right, for once." Chief remarked, "Beach Head's really gone off the deep end over this Sergeant Snuffles matter."

"Yeah, when those Ninjas came running from the house and the insane kids, which I'm glad are all out cold today they ran smack into D'Artagnan's shotgun and Beach Head going berserk when they accidentally took Sergeant Snuffles." Bilby replied.

"According to Cover Girl and Shipwreck, the GI Joe Talent Show was a complete disaster due to the theft of said item." D'Artagnan added.

The Ranger squad that had been acting as a roving patrol to keep an eye on Shipwreck's house stopped by. Sergeant Scott Whalen, a twenty-five year old Ranger from London, England who in his younger days was one great hell raiser. He met Julia, his current girlfriend in college. They had both flunked out by freshman year, second semester. Both decided to straighten up. For Julia it meant taking a low-level job with an advertising agency in London and for Scott it meant the Army. He fingered the small gold band on his ring finger, he had been engaged to Julia for nearly a year. This surprise deployment and its preceding work up cycle had meant he hadn't seen her for over eight months. Weekly long distance phone calls didn't count either.

"Phone's all yours, I'm gonna try to contain our future Daddy right now." Chief said, reading into Scott's expression. The phone in the hangar was almost always in use, and Scott usually found himself waiting to make calls to England. Julia, luckily, understood about all this, but daily Scott was in a quandary. He was torn between not hearing her voice for weeks at a time and feeling lonely and miserable and hearing her voice occasionally on a phone in a crowded living area and feeling lonely and miserable.

"You'll get used to it buddy." Chief said, giving the Ranger sergeant a pat on the back.

"Thanks Chief." Galen replied, looking a death and daggers look at Illario who usually liked to make funny little jibes at him.

"Julia?" Galen said, "I'm glad I caught you before you go to work today...."

"Damn it." Galen groaned, it was the answering machine again, "Look sweetheart, I called to say I love you, I miss you, and I really want to hear your voice again. I'll try to call back later. Scott."

"Boy I'm glad I'm not getting hitched..." Illario remarked.

"You gotta find a woman that'll stand you first Illario." Bilby remarked at his old friend.

"Remind me to get this guy later." Illario remarked, "I mean, he's worse than Payback ribbing on me."

"Who's Payback?" Galen asked.

"He was a guy in our old division. He worked with the LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols) as a rifleman/radio operator. His real name was Marv, but no one called him that. He lost his world to the Heartless years ago..." Bilby replied.

"This Payback fellow, he doesn't happen to have brown eyes, dark hair, with a tan islander's complexion who always wears a shark tooth pendant and has scars from a shark attack on his right forearm, does he?" D'Artagnan asked.

"Why, yes he does." Bilby replied.

Armand smiled, a toothy grin, a real grin of genuine triumph and happiness, "You just found one of my friends from the Destiny Islands. Marvin Weims, he used to live across the street from me. Where is he now?"

"Last I heard, he's still with the LRRPs in the 25th Infantry Division." Bilby replied, "They should get back from deployment tomorrow."

"I'll be damned." D'Artagnan replied. He walked off with a notable spring in his step, feeling hope for the first time that more people had survived the Destiny Islands' destruction. Now he could find the fates of others when Marv got back, he could pump him for information on the missing and see what he knew.

Scott Galen walked towards the door while Armand D'Artagnan went on to the front porch to clean his trusty assault shotgun. Galen sat down on the other side of a long bench, a New York City park bench that Shipwreck light fingered from Central Park years ago.

"So, D'Artagnan, do you have a girl back home." Galen said. Most of the Rangers were in their teens and early twenties, and thus didn't really relate as well with the older fellows in the hangar like himself. The Gammas, SEALs, and Air Force Spec Ops guys were a little older, but intimidating, like the hulking, battle hardened Grinch. D'Artagnan seemed the most approachable out of the four SEALs.

"No." Armand said, "I'm not really sure what we were back then..."

Armand's mind drifted back years to the peaceful Destiny Islands. He could see her perfectly now, in his mind's eyes. Jackie Harris, one of his good friends, someone he always competed with Gary for her attention. Her chestnut brown hair glistened in the sunlight, her brown eyes thoughtful and compassionate, her kind-hearted exterior concealing a stronger personality. Armand knew that the word beautiful would only begin to describe her. She had been among the missing since the loss of the Destiny Islands.

"Were you friends?" Galen asked. D'Artagnan felt comfortable talking to the man, he knew he had found a friend in Sergeant Scott Galen, "Had you two ever kissed? Made out? Or anything?"

"We were friends, yes, but no to the other two questions." Armand replied, his voice growing sad, "I never really had the chance to find out how she felt about me. The Heartless destroyed our world before I could begin to find out. Now I don't even know if she's even alive anymore."

"Don't give up hope man." Galen said, "Love is a splendid thing, wonderful and uniting hearts together. You'll find her again and when you do, you'll have someone to call."

"I hope so." Armand replied, "I really hope so."

As he fingered his engagement band Galen said, "I do hope Julia picks up the phone, I've been wanting to hear her voice for nearly three weeks now, but whenever I try and use the sat-com phone in the hangar some other guys using it or she's not home."

"Tell you what," Staff Sergeant Mendoza, who had been hanging around listening to the two talk for a while, "Next time I'm up on the phone, I'll call you over and you can talk to your fiancé."

"Thanks Miguel, I owe you one." Galen said.

"Don't mention it." Miguel Mendoza replied, "But since you insist, how about drinks at the e-club."

"Gotcha mate." Galen replied, his pasty complexion set in a grin.

~ ~ ~ ~

Up next: I know I promised humor, but this idea hit me for introducing some more minor characters and showing more of their personalities.