A/N: I managed to crank this one in a short amount of time because it was already half written after last chapter. Now I am off for revision and writing The March of the Black Queen. Stay tuned for more updates!

Disclaimer: The Loud House belongs to Nickelodeon and I do not make any money writing this fic.

Summary: It all began with an innocent look that soared the sporty girl and the man with the plan down a path not meant for them to take together, searing their hearts under siege. LynnColn

Siege of Hearts

Chapter 12

A Long Dream

"Oh my God. Oh my God! It's you…Lincoln Loud, Jesus! You're…you're alive! Nobody ever knew what happened to you!" She screamed, taking him into her arms.

Lincoln blinked in surprise, though when the rest of the crews started to howl in an animalistic way, several Marines thrusting their hips forward laughing hysterically.

"Get sum for ol' JC!" Screamed the TC of 3-2, laughs echoing around the camp.

The white haired boy sighed, disengaging from her arms but surprisingly there was an amused smirk tugged at her hips.

"Military hospitality." She said with a laugh on her own, crossing her arms and waving at the Marines who waved back, cheering and wailing at them.

"Yeah, I am still alive. What gave you that impression?" Lincoln said with suppressed anxiety. In all these years, Polly was the very first familiar face he had seen in years…back before the accident, before everything went to hell. He eyed her over trying to difference the changes she had gone through the years. Besides the antiquated body armor, she kept herself in good condition growing to almost 5'6, with a gray shemagh around her neck, gray colored shirt, combat pants and boots. There was a white pink band around her left arm with an embedded P, perhaps a reminiscence of another time yet her roller skates is what caught his attention, essentially the item that set her aside. Was she that childish that she kept an item that didn't even fit her anymore around her neck? Or perhaps she embraced her past and that item was just a way to honor her background and everything that had let her to this moment. Lincoln only possessed few items from his raging past and only one of them was treasured.

The brunette blinked, eyeing him over before she felt a pat on her armored shoulder, forcing her to whirl around.

"Hey Polly, know this guy?" A news reporter eyeing the rugged young Marine in his green t-shirt and desert camouflaged pants. He looked like any jarhead, the difference being was his shaved high and tight hair was completely white, it did made him an oddity. By the way he was looking at him, Polly saw Lincoln's expression to swift to a dangerous one, reading the placard around his neck as 'Kevin Sites'. Sighing to calm her wild beaten heart about looking at a living ghost, she took action.

"Kevin…hey, this is Lincoln…Lincoln, this is Kevin, I am his apprentice in the NBC."

Lincoln rolled his name on his tongue, trying to decipher where he had heard of the name before, extending his hand out of politeness. The man took it in a strong and firm handshake, something that relaxed his tight muscles around.

"My pleasure." His smile, accented by his dirty beard around his face ended in the slight opening of his mouth. "So, what's your history together?" An eyebrow from lifted off his aviator sun glasses.

"We grew up together." Lincoln let up simply, answering before the brunette could. "I haven't seen her in years." By the way she was fidgeting on the spot it was obvious that she was freaking the fuck out. It seemed that it took was years for the woman to change per personality, she seemed more loose than before, or perhaps it was the war zone...war had a way to slice you raw for all to see. He blinked as the rush of memories almost overwhelmed him…it had been years since he thought of the past.

The man nodded. "I see, Polly, we have an hour before our reunion with the base commander, do you want to catch up?"

Her smile brightened. "Yeah sure. I'll catch in a few."

"Good. Just ask for directions to the air control tower. See ya in a bit, a pleasure Marine." He directed his attention to Lincoln who just grunted in acknowledgement, looking at him walking away.

The idea attracted him entirely as much as it scared him, a feeling that seemed so alien in his body. This person was just a totem to his past and it brought uncertainty to him, for years he had lived in the moment, just doing, never rationalizing things. His heart accelerated immediately, barely suppressing the tremble of his flesh into his skin…and he hated it immediately. There was no way that she was going to greet them as the simmering storm of emotions and fury raged on, especially when he had duties to attend to and a battle to prepare for.

Blinking, he turned to his crew members with a brief smile.

"Give me a sec, Polly. I won't be long."

The woman blinked, looking around his face before she nodded.

"Okay."

Nodding, Lincoln walked to his tank, Swabble had his hands full working in the electrical systems and when he saw him approaching he looked at something to throw in his head but found nothing besides the tools that he was using.

"You know we ain't done Gung-Ho." Calling him by his nickname. "You think you gonna walk out with that hottie while all of us bust our chops? It ain't screwby Corporal." He crossed his massive arms, looking down at him and even if Lincoln was 6'1, Swabble was at least 6'6, he could barely sit down in the turret.

"Be advised, private. What I do on my time is not of your business." He said with a tense tone, making the man to peel his teeth at him in a tensioned encounter of their eyes before they snorted with laughter. Lincoln quieted down. "Look…this is a person from before, if you get my meaning."

The man looked at the reporter and then at him.

Lincoln had his past sealed tightly with lock and key and was perhaps the most secretive person in whole division, even the whole Marine Corps. The only thing he had ever disclosed was that he got kicked out of his home when he was a teenager, forced in a military school and enlisted after his graduation. They didn't know anything of his family or when he even grew up.

Sighing, the bulky man he uncrossed his arms.

"Okay…I'll cover for you, but only if you give me your stash of Arak. And I mean all of it…you can't hide from your ol' pal." He said with a cheeky grin.

"Deal." He agreed immediately to his complete shock never expected him to agree so quickly, by now understanding that this was something serious for the young Marine, his superior, even if he was far older.

"Okay. If Gunny asks, I'll tell him you're looking for more parts."

"You're approved for Sympathy Chit Swabble."

Both chuckled before the white haired Marine walked away.

"Where the fuck is he going?" Ramirez complained, dropping down a 3/4 ratchet at front hull of their tank.

"Don't cha worry…we got us a party." He smiled widely with a wink.

Lincoln approached Polly with an uncertainty on his steps, rather than the wide and dominant way he used to carry himself and that bothered him, but this had to get done.

"Follow me." Lincoln walked past her without waiting for her. He heard a slight screech, half jogging to caught with him.

Camp Fallujah was massive.

Before it was established as one of the their military compounds, it used to belong to Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, an Iranian political militant organization that protected advocates in exile and encouraged the violent overthrow of the current regime in Iran, founded around 1965 and was pretty much a terrorist organization. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the US ARMY had conquered the compound after they surrendered to them with the 82nd Airborne Division took over the facility until the Marine Expeditionary force 'relieved' them of their command, pretty much they gave them the kick. It belonged to the 1st Marine Division but currently the elements from the 2nd Marine Division occupied a sheer part of it to prepare for the battle, the division that Lincoln belonged to.

Naturally it was just plain arid fields with concrete buildings, sleeping tents and training fields with a couple of artillery batteries facing the city; in the hottest days in Iraq, the sand kicked out and stained a lot of their equipment. He guided her through the array of tents quickly finding their sleeping quarters for his crew and closed the flap behind them.

Polly looked around the decrepit accommodations and frowned to which Lincoln smirked.

"It isn't a five star hotel, but it'll do." He said, sitting down on a steel chair, elbows tugged on his legs and cupping his hands, learning forward.

The brunette sighed, taking off her helmet and setting it aside on couple of ammo boxes, fingers digging through her hair in a single braid.

A moment of silence followed, both observing each other.

From Polly's part, it was pure insanity. She would have never expected that after majoring in journalism and becoming a war correspondent she would met an apparition, a person who had disappear entirely without a trace with no clues of his whereabouts. She took a long breath that cut like glass, trying to calm her frayed nerves.

"You're alive." She finally said. "I mean…when you were gone, you were the spotlight of Royal Woods, we thought you were dead…what…what happened to you?"

Lincoln took a long look at himself, looking at his hands, his memories slamming into him with a vengeance.

"I guess it would be fair. I was kicked out of my home and sent to a military school." He closed his eyes, his fists tightening and loosening as he looked aside. "There was something I did to someone…and to my whole family. As a punishment I was casted out and I was so angry…so full of hatred and in retaliation, after graduating the Michigan Military Academy I joined the Marine Corp and got shipped to this war zone after my training."

Poly blinked, processing this information, by the way she looked aside, uncertain, she didn't seem to believe him.

"But that doesn't make sense…your was family is one of the biggest and closest families in Royal Woods…well…not anymore. What did you do justify such treatment?"

At that Lincoln tilted his head, ignoring the last bit, deciding to ask the one million dollars question.

"What happened after I went away?"

The brunette went still, her hands immediately squeezing her roller skates, trying to process everything that have changed over the years, especially concerning Lincoln. He seemed so cold and serious…the last time she saw him, he looked full of life and joy…what had life done to him to destroy such a character and his entire family for things to shift the way they did? It was hard enough to disengage her memories with the actual reality staring at him with a seriousness that scared her.

"Everything went to shit." She started with brutal honesty, knowing all too well that Lincoln was a non-nonsense person. "Your family segregated…pretty much. We tried you know? All of us tried to get answers of where you went but we didn't get anything out of nobody…it seemed like you were gone forever. Clyde even tried to use his parents lawyers to make a case and accuse your parents of murder but it fell through the cracks of the justice system and when that didn't work, he put signs of missing person and checked on the police for months. In the end, he was forced to surrender to the fact that you were gone, then him and his family went off Royal Woods and I never saw them again" She sighed, gazing as his expression turned from calm and collected to enraged, finally showing signs of emotions, even if anger was what came out of it. "And Lynn…"

He growled, not being able to avoid his reaction, on shaky breaths; he crawled his face on his hands and the journalist holds her breath staring at him. He was the hulk of a broken man, a person shifted by the misdeeds of life. Lincoln had lived the life he was left with after everything was taken away from him and casted away to fend on his own. It was a fitting punishment and the only way to pay for what he did to her and his family was selecting this life style where nothing else mattered but the man next to you, it was the best thing to a family that he possessed. He thought that with him being thousands of miles from his former home, that kind of world would never find him…but he was wrong, for the first time in years for his heart to awake after a deep slumber, immediately starting to hurt his very soul.

"What became of her?" He finally asked after being silent for so long.

"After you were gone, she was never the same." Polly looked aside. "She pretty much quit a lot of teams that she was a member to and became a loner, even if Clyde tried to hang with her; I think she only played exclusively basketball. I tried to help her because I was pretty much the closest to her but she never opened to me. She was dripping with sadness Lincoln…I…we thought she was perhaps suicidal."

Lincoln sighed, crawling his face on his face, pain like no other exploding in his heart.

"Go on." His hoarse voice dripping with emotion took her by surprise.

"The last time I saw of her, she got a sports scholarship in WMU, in Kalamazoo. And then we lost contact after that…my family moved to Utah and I went with them, I became a journalist because I've always liked to tell a story. I was offered a job as a war correspondent and here I am, in my third battlefield." She finished, wiggling her fingers together.

For a long time, Lincoln says nothing, just staring at the side of his tent, memories rushing of another time, another place where the horror that he had seen neither committed had found him. Just a happy boy having a happy but forbidden relationship with his sporty sister. But life had other ideas…Was this the price of his sins? To destroy everything that he had touched. If he had known that leaving was going to destroy everything, he wouldn't have…but what could've done differently? He thought that it was the best course of action to give everyone the normal life they deserved…especially to her.

"You don't want to know about the others?" She asks.

"I don't think I have the right to know."

"Why did you leave Lincoln?" The brunette asks, ignoring his babbling, after observing the array of emotions that shifted on his face.

Lincoln chuckled, opening his pants pocket and drawing a cigarette, lighting it up with his zippo. The man takes a long drag that seemed to burn his lungs off, exhaling it upwards in a stream of smoke.

"You wouldn't understand Polly and I don't want to open a can of worms either." He says looking aside, his eyes glowing with the returning detached coldness, his tone dropping a few degrees down.

"Ughh!" Polly screams in frustration. "You're a fine piece of work Lincoln. You disappear for years and now you're going on this path of bullshit?!" She snarls standing up so hard that the chair is on two legs before it crashes down. "Your best bud gone, your family good as gone too! What could've you done that was so terrible for you to leave everything?"

"I DIDN'T LEAVE THEM! THEY ABANDONED ME!" Lincoln screams, a mere fraction of his repressed rage boils down scaring the brunette, staring at him with a mixture of fear. "The day they kicked me out, everyone decided to turn their backs on me, those that knew what happened anyway…only Lynn tried to save me but she never learned where they sent me, dad and mom didn't tell her I assume. Then again, I ruined everything for everyone, especially Lynn's life after I…" His throat chokes on the last sentence, sighing, trying his best to calm down.

"I have seen terrible things too Lincoln. I am sure that whatever you've done won't even affect me. It cannot be that bad"

Lincoln snorts, crossing his arms, lifting an eyebrow in a challenge.

"The memories of the people I've killed and the fucked up shit I've seen in this backwards as fuck country pales in comparison."

"Try me." Polly stands up. "Can't be worse than Nasiriyah and all the bomb blasts that I've been forced to report in Arbil and Baghdad. We were going to Mosul but with the current battle underway battle that the Army is fighting we were rerouted here…and we'll go to Fallujah under the protection of the US Armed Forces. This is the last day of peace I'll have before I enter the battle. I might be not pulling the trigger, like you Lincoln, but I am pulling a switch, a switch that all the world will be able to see, facing war just like you are and seeing it so others can see what's going on."

The sardonic laugh that the white man throws takes her by surprise.

"Should be obvious from the headline. How many sensational buzzwords can we cram in one sentence? Oh let me guess…innocent civvies are killed by Marines, they were innocently just praying in their Mosque when they were hit by a JDAM. Or better yet! We execute the bad guys and shot em in the head to get the bad press going. We also shoot ambulances, schools and hospitals. You wanna keep 'em counting?"

Polly hisses in anger.

"It's not my fault that is politics out there. It's a dog eat dog world after all, you should know it more than I do."

He shrugged. "So why should I give a fuck that you're getting offended at mocking your profession?" He took a long drag, exhaling it from his nose. "I see it every time, crapheads talking bullshit. People that are not in the military will never get it. You don't get to see what we see and you don't get to do what we do. So congratulations in your picked profession Polly but I'm painting you in the same shade as the other ones, you just wanna sell out some bullshit for a quick buck."

She growls. "Still a stubborn blockhead I see. I didn't come with you to butt heads with you. We came to talk, professions be damned! You think I give a flying fuck that you're a gruff veteran at your age? I gave you my side of things, now give me yours…I saw how you opened up when I was talking, c'mon dude, talk to me"

Lincoln once more looks at the side of his tent. Taking a deep breath and crushing the butt of his cigarette against his boot, he turns back to the brunette.

"I don't owe you shit." He spats with a violent clench of his teeth. "But if life has taught me anything is that you give when you're given. I will but only if you answer me one question and if you promise to never tell a soul. Do you agree?"

Polly nods.

"Why do you think we're still here? Tell me then, Pain…what's your out take of the war. Why are we still here? Wasn't the war supposed to be over with Hussein behind bars with no devices of mass destruction found?"

It's the one billion dollar question, after all, even back home, Americans wonder the same thing, demanding to know the answers, demanding to know why so many of their husbands, wives, sons and daughters are sent thousands of miles home for weapons that were never found. But it's a trick question from him; she can tell right away that he does not cares why he's here in the first place. She might not know to what extend he had changed and how much the military had shaped in the way he was now or perhaps the damage started ever since he was run from his home. This young man was even younger than she was and already he had been marked by war. What brutal things he had done and witnessed to destroy him? It was time for some damage control.

She negotiates her next move, but already her mouth is moving before her brain is.

"Saddam iron fist kept a lid at the expense of so many death and suffering. Then Saddam fell and those tensions exploded. Sunnites fought against what they considered an unjust new shi'te regime, Al Tikriti clan loyalists fought against the shi'tes and other clans, Kurds fought against both for their freedom, smaller minorities got fucked by 'em all. Since we took sides, we were targeted as well. For example, the way the fighters of Al Sadr attacked or helped defending on the political favor their religious leader enjoyed with the American pro regime. They don't give a fuck. It's all about money and power to them, the people be damned. Seen it all firsthand…Iraq is indeed a backwards ass country."

Lincoln slowly claps, nodding his head in approval.

"It's good to know that at least some people have their heads off their asses. Clearly my brothers rather prefer to be ignorant of the fact of our real reason, but that's a story for another day"

"Stop stalling Loud, I gave my part, now it's your turn."

Lincoln rolled his eyes. Fuck it, he wasn't going to be in this earth for very long anyway.

"Lynn and I were dating."

Polly's eyes widened in shock, her head recoiling so fast from her position that a roller skate hits her across the cheek. She snarls in agony, standing up with a bang, rubbing at the pain in her cheek, barely able to process any further thought as the revelation works its magic in her head.

"FUCK!"

Lincoln nods in resignation, waiting patiently until the young woman can fight through the pain and able to think for herself.

"I told you, you wouldn't understand."

Polly growls, clawing at her cheek in agony, but her eyes peel on him.

"Dating…your own sister?" The disgust in plain in her tone as was to be expected but with the missing piece, the mystery of his disappearance is solved; the pressure that had drill into her skull from it disappears immediately, finally being able to give rest to it.

"It was our secret, a joyful secret that we did for almost five years." He continues talking, even if her face is shifting into horror, opening memories that had been locked away for so long. "We weren't hurting anybody by being together, our love was a curse…eventually Luna found out." He sighs, the painful memories of that night of horror still hurt him as if they had happened yesterday. "We are not sure how but she did…and she wasn't quiet about it…our parents were furious. They separated us, my dad wanted to just sent me off to live under a bridge and fend for myself, only my mom convinced him to send him to the same military academy that had produced my grandfather, Pop-Pop, who like me was in the Service as a way to fix whatever was wrong with me, Lynn…I am not too sure what they had planned for her but I always imagined the worse for her. My experience in the academy was terrible and after I got out of it and saw my family after so long in the graduation, especially her…I was so full of anger and hatred that burned me from the inside. I decided right there and there that I was not going to stick around …it would've fair to them after destroying everything…everything that I've build with Lynn, only destroyed them. Our love was our curse. I will never understand how Lynn accepted my fucked up feelings; even if she was fighting against our mutual attraction for years…we should have thought things better. But we decided to be selfish, Polly."

He looks away, his fists shake from rage and she makes the revulsion away, observing the violent changes that he's going through, fighting with himself and she can only feel anger burning inside of her. She stands up; her hand lifts halfway before she slaps him hard across the face.

Lincoln's face recoils from the slap, more in shock than pain, caressing the bruised skin.

"You both were selfish assholes. You both ruined your entire family and friends over having a behind closed doors fucked up relationship? Jesus Fucking Christ Lincoln. I…Fuck. I never expected this. Was it even worth it?"

"Every goddamn second of it." Lincoln stands so quickly that it stuns her, his cold blue eyes stare at her and she shudders, in loathing and in shame.

"You both are sick fucks." She says before she can stop herself, barely holding her stomach together.

Lincoln only laughs at her discomfort.

"We were there for the journey, not the destination." He says nonchantly. There is no regret in his words only a finality of acceptance, Polly can only pity their family after destroying them. She has to get out of here. With a snarl, she picks her helmet, placing her back on her head, snapping the clasp on her chin but she stops at the flaps of his tent, shaking violently.

"Why are you really here Lincoln?" She asks without turning around.

Lincoln smirks sardonically, something she cannot see.

"I came here to die Polly. And if I don't expire on my first combat tour, there's always a next one…and so on" His words drip with venom, increasing the horror that he was producing in her. "I have no intentions of going back; I rather die in a blaze of glory. There is no way to fix after what I've done to my family, friends and…her."

She doesn't say nothing for a moment, Lincoln calmly observing what her reaction would be.

"Maybe I was wrong, maybe the selfish asshole is you Lincoln." She turns around, crossing her arms. "You were the glue of the family; with you gone…everything fell apart. Everything, even the soul of your best friends were crushed…and I..I might not be able to understand what you had with Lynn, but you crushed her spirit Lincoln." She observes his eyes widening, glazing over. "You might be a brave Marine who rushes to combat without an ounce of fear…but deep down, you're just a little boy crying for love…I…I pity you and I hate that I feel this way, you forced yourself to become someone you were not and escaped into a bloody conflict so you couldn't deal with the result of what you left behind. What happened to the resilient boy with strong morals, good-hearted and always thinking about the wellbeing of others?"

His eyes turn cold once more. "He's long gone Polly…you'll be surprised how many of us come back for more. Over here we don't have to worry about our demons. There are no morals, there are no inhabitations, it's just us, living in the moment, dying and killing, it's a dance as old as time. Over here I don't have to think about anything…I just do what I am told to do and I rationalize the situation per regulations and my orders. Over here it's just me and my brothers. Nothing else matters but you…" He grunts in annoyance. "You're ruining that paradise."

She punches him so hard that he sees stars, stunned he cannot stop a second punch to his solar plexus that knocks the wind out of him, knocking his ass to the floor, as a kick came to his head, he finally reacts, forcing his body to function, intercepting her leg with crossed arms, pushing them aside, making her lose her balance, but just like Lynn, she's proficient in hand to hand combat. In one only one leg, she jumps to fix her stance, taking his left flexed arms and pulling downwards in an arm lock. Lincoln reacts quickly, ramming a hand on the floor, the move giving him the proper leverage to drive his leg upwards against her head and she's only saved from it due her practiced quick reflexes of many years by tilting her head, letting the helmet take the brunt of the impact that still makes the Kevlar to bounce on her head due the massive force from his kick, forcing her to disengage with a snarl of pain giving the young man time to stand up, slamming both of his feet in a stance on his own, curling his back, fists tugged at his cheeks.

"You wanna go? Let's have some fun, roller bitch." He calls her the very same name that Lynn used to call her. She can't help but to scream her way to him, sending a wide hook that he blocks easily but never expected her head flying to his face, helmet ramming against part of his fist and the side of his head with a nasty crunch. He growls, taking her by the strap of her helmet and threw her aside with ease against the steel chair, banging her arms on impact. The girl hisses with pain, doing her best to stand up rapidly but it is obvious that she never trained to fight with body armor and a helmet, a fact that he quickly takes advantage of, fainting a high blow to her face, forcing her to raise her hands up to defend herself, sliding the armor up and exposing her stomach to him.

A colossal impact on her stomach makes the girl to cough violently, vomiting her stomach contents, gagging on her own fluids. Lincoln snarls, slamming her on the floor, quickly using his body weight and his superior strength to pin her on the floor as she spits and gags on her own vomit, but she reacts quickly trying once more to headbutt him, Lincoln snapped his open palms leaving his sides unprotected. With a snarl Polly slams a punch on his ribcage, sending the man to recoil up from the pain. Her leg swung around his own, wrapping around it and twisting, rotating his body with ease. Spitting aside she brings his fists on his face, splitting his lip, holding his shirt in one hand and lifting the other.

"Had enough?" She hisses, breathing hard on exhaustion.

Lincoln only laughs, dropping his head on the floor.

"You fight as good as Lynn." He commented but suddenly his smile drops, eyes blinking away tears, crawling his face on his hands, crying without abandon. Polly is beyond horrified, immediately standing up, not knowing what to do. She could only hold him as the young man let out the sorrows that he held for so long in his very soul his body wrapping around hers out of comfort as the only thing in this world that could hold him together at the moment. The brunette doesn't know how much time had passed as he holds the young Marine, whose cries had stopped with the occasional whimper from his existential pain, falling asleep in her arms. She cannot even grasp everything that he had gone through, the self-punishment and exile of a gentle soul, corrupted by his very own suffering. Couldn't he see it? That everyone was hurting? She stubbornly let go of her fury and her disgust to see things his way and she's hit by a wave of pity and pain. It was one of the many more painful things that she had seen in this battlefield, in the death fields, one more suffering to add to the others.

Lincoln finally stirs, blinking his dry tears away.

"Lynn?" He calls out, in his blurred vision; he can only see the brunette that held him.

"No Lincoln it's Polly."

The young man blinks, closing his eyes and breathing a shaky breath as the crushing reality of his existence crash around him.

"How do you feel Lincoln?" She asks, rubbing the dried blood from his lips aside.

His eyes flicker.

"Like waking up from a long dream" He says, taking another breath, slowly pushing her arms aside to sit up, the contents of his suffering are quickly pushed inside of his box. His face tilts to hers and he smiles. "Thank you Polly. I needed it that."

She chuckles.

"Glad to smash reality back to you, Loud."

They both laugh.

Lincoln and Polly quickly clean themselves up as best as they could, knowing all too well that their duties would not stay away forever, they had a war to return to, in two different obligations to the world. As they walk, Lincoln is hit by a wave of reality of his situation, he always thought that there was not a way back, but Polly woke him up to the fact that in reality, the only thing he was doing was trying to cover the sun with a finger, guilt like no other ate away at him, thinking, what could have been done for things to go differently? Perhaps if his original plan with Lynn had gone differently…they could've escaped, move to a random town, get jobs and live together, just pretending to be two regular people in love, just like they've had always wanted. But life happened and he had to face the consequence of his actions, only that now, his will to live awoke once more and it called out for her…and the others.

The tank crews see him walking with Polly at his side and they scream, lifting their hands up, once more thrusting in the air.

"Hey his face is all fucked up! You like it rough buddy?" Screamed one Marine, the rest hollering with laughter, Polly quickly joining in.

"HE SAID HE WANTED ME TO KICK HIM ON THE FACE BECAUSE IT GETS HIM OFF!" She screams, the Marines laughing uncontrollably. The white haired man cannot do anything else but to shake his head in amusement, locking eyes with the brunette who gave him a wink and a quick punch on the arm.

They both go their separate ways, returning to their duties.

Swabble and Ramirez laugh at his face.

"Goddamn it, she got you good. You like it that rough buddy? You're a freak on bed Lincoln." The tall African American snorts with laughter and Lincoln can only smile in serenity, the happiest he had ever seen him in his life.

"We were just wrestling, it got out of hand…she's an old friend."

Both Marines look at each other, shrugging.

"You my man just need to grip your commie killer." Ramirez comments, referring to the jargon of masturbation, for the hand which a Marine masturbates with, their firing hand.

He rolls his eyes. "Maybe, but we got work to do. When we're done with the checklist I'll give my part of the bargain."

"Oorah" Swabble smirks, rubbing his palms together.

Polly Pain quickly incorporates to the conference, her head in another world right now. A world that she walked out when she grew up filled with nothing more than the moment she just had with Lincoln Loud. After the conference, the 1st Marines Expeditionary force commander Colonel Jason A. Beaudoin, the acting operation officer in command of the base and its units offers them a pure display of fireworks, which they accepted. Minutes later, standing on the arid field, Polly Pain saw as the full tank battalion of Iron Horse made its way to a firing and maneuvering range, sixteen M1 Abrams tanks rolling on the sands to get into position, firing their massive guns that sent plumes of sand and a wave of sound into their chests, followed by the rapid fire of their machine guns, all under the judgmental gaze of the brunette, knowing too well that Lincoln was in one of those tanks at the moment.

She breathed long and hard.

"Kevin."

She called out to the war correspondent that was in charge of her.

"I need to make a phone call back home. I won't be long okay?"

"Take your time Polly, this is pretty exciting." He smirked while the tanks fired another salvo of destruction down range. Polly excused herself, wiping her satellite phone from her backpack and dialing.

C'mon…pick up…She implored to whoever was listening that he picked up the phone and as the line connected, knowing too well about his sleeping habits, she thanked whoever listened to her. Perhaps the planets lined up, shining their glory on her.

"Hello?"

"Hey HANDSOME!" She laughed with glee and excitement.

"Jesus Polly, you know how late it is?" There was a deep sigh from the other side of the line. "I've been worried sick. Where are you? Are you safe?"

All the tanks in the battalion fired, the impact resounding with a big impact in the distance.

"Polly?!"

"Francisco! For fuck sake I am fine!" She sucked air through her clenched teeth. "I'm in a military base; we don't go to Fallujah until tomorrow, so relax…I just wanted to hear from you."

He sighed slowly; she could almost see his warm and sweet smile.

"I'm glad to hear from you too…I worry a lot."

She covered her phone with one hand and grunted in annoyance, a deep blush covering her cheeks. Even thousands of miles away, he still found a way to make her blush, in the middle of a war zone, no less.

"Listen love…we'll catch up in a second…but guess who I just talked to?"

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A/N: Next chapter will deal more with what's going on with the life of the others in present time. I think that so far, I got the proper background to get the present going. See ya soon!

D4rK