Jaye walked towards Hawk's office dressed only in her robe. She was walking silently next to Flint.
Duke took off his jacket and handed it to Scarlett. "Here put this on before the rest of the base sees you half naked."
"Thanks, but I think the most of base already had their morning's treat of that." but took the jacket from Duke and gently wrapped it around herself. It just dawned on her, the full picture of the morning events and burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" Duke asked giving her a funny look as he walked beside her.
"The whole thing! Jaye and myself running around the base half naked. I just pictured some of the men's reactions." as another giggle escaped.
Duke snorted and continued walking watching the newly engaged people in front of them.
"What's so funny back there?" Flint turned towards them. "You think walking the death march to Hawk's office is funny?" then turned to Jaye, "Want me to stop by my office for a jacket or something?"
"Why? What's wrong with what I have on?" Jaye asked innocently.
"What's the matter Faireborn? Can't control that woman of yours?" Duke joked.
"Shut up, Duke." Flint growled, "Seems to me, yours is worse."
"Hey!" Scarlett defended herself.
Jaye giggled at Flints remark as they walked by the rec room and Jaye was given a few comments on what she had on.
Duke turned red in the face and became all flustered.
Flint glared at the men in the rec. room, "Anyone says one more word and I swear, you will be seeing nothing but dots in your eyes for hours!"
"Well, looks like Shipwreck just passed out again." confirmed Scarlett, watching Flint shake his fist towards the others, as he walked in, grabbed one of the throws of the couch and draping it over Jaye.
As they walked towards the offices, several heads popped out of the rooms, watching the four walk the long mile.
"What do you think Hawk will do or worse, say?" asked Scarlett.
"He'll probably tar and feather us." Duke said.
Jaye pulled Flint's jacket tighter around her as if it were some kind of shield.
Scarlett glanced towards the first sergeant, "Has Hawk ever tarred and feathered anyone?"
"This maybe my first time, Scarlett." came Hawk's unpleasant voice. "All four of you in the room, NOW!" making all four of them gulp.
Flint whispered to Jaye, "Can I borrow that blankie to hide?"
Jaye couldn't help it. She started to laugh hard as they walked in.
This caused Duke to laugh too.
"What are you people laughing about? Do you think this is funny? Looks like Scarlett is the only one who sees this seriously!" glancing at the counterintelligence agent, who was holding her breath not to let her own laughter escape. "What in the world is going on? I find four of my best soldiers fighting over something I don't even know! Two of them, which are still in their night clothes. I want answers! Who is going to start first?"
Jaye started to say something but leaned against Scarlett laughing her head off, which made the other woman, who could not hold it any longer, burst into her own fits of laughter.
"Women." Duke commented trying to control his laughter.
Hawk, looked from Lady Jaye to Scarlett, totally baffled, "Well, hope
you two think this is funny. Jaye, Duke informed me that you are having PT with Beach Head for three days, Scarlett here is going to accompany you."
That made both women stop laughing and stared at him openmouthed.
Hawk leaned over, "So, let's start again, who would like to explain this whole fiasco?"
"She gave Duke Brutus." Jaye accused.
"Hey, leave me out of this." Duke replied.
Scarlett turned towards him, "Lee..eave you out of this? Leave you out of this?" she sputtered, taking three strides closer to him. "How could you say leave you out of this, when this is mostly your fault! If you had heeded my warning and hadn't gone in there in the first place! We would not have this whole entire fiasco in the second place! But, no, Mr. Man of Action wanted to see some action!" her voice escalated, backing Duke in one corner, "You were the one who came out of the door, from god knows what sight you saw, fell to your knees and took the bear with you for the night and leaving me to take the heat! So, how in the world does this leave you out?"
Duke's face was crimson, either from embarrassment or anger, but Scarlett's face burned.
Jaye's eyes widened, her jaw dropped and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Wha…wha…WHAT!!" Flint was floored.
Scarlett whirled to face him, her eyes narrowed, her lips pressed together in a thin line.
"Don't you what me." Scarlett took five steps and looked straight into his shocked face. "If you had taken her to your quarters in the first place, where you were supposed to had done, then I wouldn't have heard the entertainment in the second place and had to evacuate from my own room to sleep in the hallway, where one egotistical First Sergeant just had to pass by and both of you composed such a musical effect, to which one First Sergeant just had to explore! If you had followed the plan from the beginning this would had never happened!"
Jaye stared at her in shock.
Hawk's eyes shot open.
Flint gulped.
Duke's mouth hung.
Scarlett then turned to Hawk, "Sir, if you don't need me anymore, I would like to return to my room and change."
Hawk slowly nodded.
With a salute and a flip of her ponytail, Scarlett walked towards the door, but turned before leaving, "Lady Jaye, I didn't have time this morning to say this, Congratulations." sending her a apologetic smile, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Hawk blinked, staring at the door from the fiery redhead's departure. He turned to Jaye, "Um.. Do we give her the Best Actress Award for As The G.I.JOE World Turns?"
"She knew?" Jaye asked Flint her eyes still showing her shock.
"She knew what?" Duke asked oblivious.
Flint rubbed the back of his neck, "Umm… yeah she knew. How else could I do all this without her help. Like the ring?"
Someone cleared a throat, all eyes went towards Hawk, "Hey, she is not the only one who helped Flint, I pulled some strings too, you know." winking at Flint.
Flint grinned, "Thanks again, Sir."
"He helped too?" Jaye asked. "What about Duke?"
Flint turned to Jaye, "Hawk and Scarlett helped me set up this proposal. Scarlett is your best friend Jaye, I knew I needed her help to find out which ring you liked the most. Didn't you think all those times to Tiffany's that you and Scarlett weren't just browsing. And I really needed Hawk's help to get reservations at Caniglia's. Hawk knows the manager there. I couldn't had pulled it off without their help." he stared into her eyes.
Jaye smiled feeling very flattered that he went through all that trouble to make her evening very special.
"Oh gee. Thanks old buddy." Duke said sounding both hurt and mad and turned and left.
Flint turned, watching his best friend leave the room, "I guess I have a real knack on making people exit this room."
Hawk stood up, walked around his desk and gave the Warrant Officer a pat on the shoulder, "Could you come in here more often, especially when I have Beach Head and Shipwreck? " he joked and then turned serious, "I think you need to talk him. He will understand. I am sure. It isn't like he's not going to be part of the wedding."
"Yeah honey, go talk to him. I've got to go get dressed for my Pig PT." Jaye joked.
Flint looked down at her, "Can I have Pig PT too?" he joked, "But as usual, you are right. I'll go talk to him." he bend down and kissed her.
"Ahem.." came from Hawk, "No kissing in the General's office until after the wedding!" he teased.
"Yes sir!" they both saluted and left the room.
She walked back with him towards his office. "You are amazing."
Flint forced a chuckle, "I am? I just hurt my best friend's feelings. But Scarlett did make him feel itty bitty!" Then his eyes widened, "Allie, Duke… emm... last night… oh boy."
Jaye's eyes widened and her face turned beet red. "OH MY GOD!!!"
Flint nodded, "You just took the words out of my mouth. Well, I'll see you later. I need to track down our Field Commander. Have fun with Mr. Pig and Scarlett." he gave her a kiss on the cheek and left, "I love you!" he called over his shoulder.
"I love you too." Jaye called after him then quickly went back to her and Scarlett's quarters to get ready.
A half an hour later, Scarlett was stretching in front of the Obstacle course, waiting for both Jaye and Beach Head. She spotted Jaye running towards her. She hoped that her best friend was not angry with her. She noticed that Jaye, like herself had changed into their PT uniform.
"Hi." Scarlett called out to Jaye when she neared her, but was still alert, she did not know how Jaye would react.
"Hi." Jaye said happily and gave her a brilliant smile.
The redhead returned the smile, "You're not mad?"
"Not anymore. You are an amazing friend you know." Jaye said and sat down next to her and stretched.
Scarlett gave her a grin, "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself when you are not chasing people in your green robe."
"Yeah. That is kinda funny, now that you think about it. Flint wasn't to happy though. Thanks for helping him."
"Did you see their faces! I'm so mad at both of them right now! They let me take the fall, when it was their fault in the first place!"
"What do you mean it was their fault?"
Scarlett glanced downwards before answering her, "Well, for one, Flint was supposed to take you to his room. But, him I forgive, but Duke, well I warned him twice not to go into the suite and what does he do! He goes into the suite!" throwing her hands up into the air.
"You mean he really did see us?!?"
The other woman went silent for a moment, "Can I go with no comment?"
Jaye flopped backwards on her back and covered her face with her hands. "Oh God!!! Is that when he took Brutus?"
Scarlett nodded, "Yes. By the way? Where is Brutus? I didn't see him with Duke when we went to Hawk's office."
Jaye bolted upright. "Where the hell is my bear?"
"I haven't the foggiest, maybe we should go and look for him?"
"You're not going anywhere!" came a thunderous voice from behind them. they glanced up and saw one stern looking drill instructor. "Now, both of you, GET UP!"
Jaye and Scarlett glanced at each other before getting up. This was going to be one long PT session with Beach Head.
The drill instructor took three long strides towards them, "Well, seems to me that you two love playing chase, so that's what we are going to do. You two are going to chase twelve piglets."
"What!" both women uttered at once.
"And as a bonus, the piglets are covered with grease. Making this a little more challenging."
Both women stared at the drill instructor in shock, Jaye mumbled something.
"What was that Lady Jaye?" Beach Head walked straight to her face and breathed on it.
"I said I didn't know you had twelve kids." Jaye said sarcastically.
Beach Head stood silent for a second, then his face started to twitch, his hands started to tremble and his legs starts to shake, "GET DOWN AND GIVE ME FIFTY!!! NOW!" His voice thundered so loud that several Greenshirts walking by, stopped dead in their tracks and fell to the ground and started to do push ups.
Jaye's face was scarlet, but she had to obey orders, she dropped to the ground and began her own sets of push ups.
"What the hell you are looking at, Red!" he yelled, "Join your friend Louise! FIFTY! NOW!"
Beach Head, took three steps back, crossed his arms and glared at them, he did not catch what Jaye whisperer to Scarlett
"He smells like a pig and his office is a pig pen." Jaye whispered.
"What was that?" he growled.
Scarlett glared at him, "Nothing Beach, we were just counting how many to go."
He nodded as the girls finished their push ups and stood back up. He signaled them to follow him, where he stopped at a large crate and inside were twelve greased little piglets, waiting for them.
Walking down the hallway, Flint slowly edged closer to Duke's office. He had made a mess of things. Of course he wanted Duke's help for the wedding. He could never leave his best friend out. It took him a second to realize that he was staring at Duke's door, and had not knocked on it. Shaking his head, he raised his hand and knocked. Nothing, no come in, no enter, not even a grumble. 'He must be mad ' he thought.
His hand reached for the knob and slowly turned it. His timidly entered the Field Commanders office, "Duke?"
Duke turned to face him from the window, a Windex bottle in his hand. Oh oh! This could only mean one thing.
"Umm, Duke? What are you doing?"
"I'm cleaning my window. What does it look like I'm doing genius." Duke said rolling his eyes and turned way from Flint.
Cleaning! Duke was cleaning! Flint stared at the other man, then slowly walked towards him, his arms straight out. "Alright, put the Windex down and step away from the windows."
The only times he saw Duke clean is when he was very angry or upset.
Duke turned away from him and sprayed the window some more. "Don't you have an engagement party or something to go plan." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice.
"Umm… yeah... about that… well…" Flint rubbed the back of his neck. "There's a lot of planning, and we still haven't decided on where to have the wedding.." he chuckled, "Actually we didn't talk much on the wedding last night--"
His eyes widened watching Duke cringe and drop the bottle of Windex to the floor.
"Please let's not talk about last night." Duke said and rubbed his temples.
Flint walked towards the window, and picked up the Windex bottle, "Agreed." he turned towards his best friend, "Duke, I owe you an apology, I was just so excited on the plans of the engagement, I skipped one important part.. my best friend. I wanted to ask you this, before I even asked Allie to marry me. Duke, would you be my best man?"
Duke walked away from him, the two of them were acting very much the high school pals having a spat. "Don't you want to ask Hawk?"
"Hawk? Why would I ask Hawk? True, he's very close to Jaye, but he's more of a fatherly type. The first person I thought of was you. We been through a lot good buddy. Both on the field and off the field. I don't think I could go through this without you on my side."
Duke was flattered. He still wasn't looking at him. "Do you think I would let you make a fool of yourself without me?"
"That's good, if I faint, at least I'll know you will be by my side to catch me."
"Nah, it would be much more funny if you actually hit the floor."
Flint shook his head, "Funny. Jaye said she is going to ask Scarlett to be the Maid of Honor" smirking at him.
"Really?!" Duke said spinning around looking at him with a hint of excitement in his eyes then quickly composed himself. "I mean that's nice."
"Thought so, unless you want her to ask Cover Girl instead.."
Duke shook his head. "No. Red is her best friend, she should ask her."
"Okay, if you are sure." Flint smiled, he loved teasing his best friend.
"Hey, you remember that favor I asked you earlier?"
Flint settled the Windex bottle on Duke's desk, now that he knew the first sergeant was not angry with him, it was safe to put it down, "What favor?" he asked confused. "Don't tell me you are going to ask a certain redhead to marry you?" giving him a grin.
Duke smacked him along side the head. "No...Alpine remember?"
"Ow.. That hurt, remind me not to face you in a boxing match." he rubbed where Duke throttled him, "What about Alpine?"
"You told me you were going to see what he and Scarlett were up to last night."
"I'm sorry Duke, I didn't get a chance to, I guess I had too much on my mind. She went out with Alpine last night?"
Duke turned and stared out of the window, Flint went and stood next to him. "Want me to go pound him?"
"Find out what they did and why him, first."
Flint patted Duke on the shoulder, "Looks like someone is jealous." he laughed.
"I am not jealous!"
Flint laughed, "That is what you say my friend."
Suddenly a loud squealing noise came from the outside, "What in the world?" he glanced out the window to see Lady Jaye chase a small looking pink animal, missed it and slip on the floor. "What the hell?"
Jaye was cursing so colorfully in several different languages that it put Shipwreck to shame.
They watch Jaye stand up, rub her leg and run after the little pink animal. Flint's jaw dropped, "Is that, Red?" his eyes traveled to something red and brown? Scarlett was chasing another pink little thing. She almost had it, when it slipped through her hands, causing her to loose her balance and crash into a tree. "Ouch! That has got to hurt. " He saw the pink animal run towards the redhead and then run towards the other pink ones. "Duke, she's not moving, you think she is hurt?"
Duke was already running out the door to go check on her.
"Duke?" Flint turned to see that the Field Commander had left the room, he followed his friend out of the door.
Down on the lawn, the little piglets ran wild in every corner, Jaye tried to pursuit them, but they kept slipping through her fingers. She turned to just watch Scarlett, miss her piglet and collide into one of the trees, cursing Beach Head in Gaelic, Greek and Italian all rolled into one, she ran towards her friend.
Duke ran outside and was up to Scarlett at the same time Jaye was there, the two literally ran into each other sending them flying backwards and on the ground.
Scarlett lay there still for a spit second before looking up and burst out laughing. "I'm going to have Bacon for tomorrow morning!" Then she glanced towards the fallen Joes, "Are you two alright?"
Flint came rushing to them, "What happened?" he ran towards Jaye and bend over her, "Jaye? Are you alright? How many fingers am I holding?" he asked her holding two fingers in the air.
"Yeah I'm alright." Duke said and crawled over to Scarlett. "Are you alright?"
Jaye grabbed Flint's hand that he was holding out in front of her and pulled him down on top of her and kissed him.
Scarlett watched the couple from the corner of her eye, then looked down on the ground, "Fine." she snapped to Duke, a little more colder than she attended.
"WHAT the HELL is this?" boomed a voice above their heads. "You do NOT make out in my obstacle course! Got that? Now, both of you ladies get your pig rears up and finish your PT! NOW!!!!"
Duke flinched as if he had been slapped by Scarlett but quickly recovered and stood up and looked at Beach Head. "I think this PT session is over."
Beach Head snarled towards Duke, "What do you mean over?" taking a step forward, "They still got one hour with me!"
Flint glanced from Beach Head to Duke then to Scarlett and Jaye who were literally covered in mud and grease. 'The women are having one bad morning.' he thought to himself. He gently helped Jaye up from the ground, "I'm with Duke on this one Beach. You can play Catch a Pig tomorrow with them."
"I'll send Alpine and Bazooka out here for you to mess with." Duke said.
Jaye gave Scarlett a funny look, watching the redhead stand up.
"What did Alpine and Bazooka do to receive Pig PT?" Scarlett's voice cracked the air, her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms staring coldly at the Field commander. She was hoping that Duke did not find out about Bazooka's swimming experience the night before.
Flint looked surprised, 'What was Duke doing?' he thought. He glanced at Beach Head who was also confused.
The drill instructor growled, "Fine. PT is over for today, but tomorrow, there will be an extra hour! And thanks to Wild Bill and his Farmer friend, you two ladies will be chasing five two hundred pound pigs!" And with that, Beach Head stormed off.
"They got you two out of it." Duke said with a smug smile, answering Scarlett's question.
"Yeah nice one Duke." Jaye said snidely.
Scarlett's eyes blazed, "I don't even believe my ears! Both Alpine and Bazooka did nothing wrong! And yet, you were willing to put them through one of Beach's specials!" her voice filled the air. "I can't believe you would do that! That's low, even for you!" she gave him a menacing look before she turned and departed.
The others stared watching her leave.
Flint turned to Jaye, "Have you been giving her acting lessons or something?"
"She learned from watching me but if you ask me blondie deserved it." Jaye said.
Flint chuckled, "Don't let him hear you call him blondie. Or you'll be hiding behind Brutus."
Lady Jaye's eyes narrowed and looked at Duke. "Where the hell is my Brutus?!"
"Brutus?" Duke looked confused at first, then shook it off, "I think I handed him to someone. I was too busy chasing you and Scarlett around the base!" He then turned and left huffily.
They watch him pass a few Greenshirts and made them start doing jumping jacks.
Flint glanced at Jaye, "Is there anything going on between Alpine and Scarlett?"
She gave him an cunning smile, "Sorry, but that is classified information."
He shook his head, "Figures!" then went to put his arm around her but stopped, "You better go to shower and change, you are starting to resemble Dusty but smell like Beach Head."
"Want to run me by that one more time?" she hissed at him.
Flint chuckled, "Well, I like the smell of Jaye better then Beach Head." taking her hand in his as he bend down to kiss her, "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up and dressed."
A shiver went through her, as they both started to walk towards the Barracks, as a few of the piglets followed them.