CH 13. Now that we know a little but more about where Ashley is coming from, it's probably Spencer's turn.
"Seriously?"
"I am very serious."
"You're really going not going to come in?" Ashley asked, placing her hands on her hips.
Spencer risked a glace over to the empty Olympic sized swimming pool that served as the background to their senseless argument. Ashley was trying to goad her into swimming with her.
She wasn't quite sure how much of her racing heart was coming from the proximity of the water and how much was coming from the fact that Ashley Davies was wearing a lacy red bikini.
Though they were safely within the confines of the White House, Spencer and Chelsea were still on official Davies duty this afternoon. Christine was hosting foreign dignitaries in the guest suites of the White House and that meant security was more tight than usual. Unless the first daughters were within their own apartment, security protocol demanded an escort.
Kyla had decided to spend her chilly December afternoon studying. Ashley had decided she needed to swim.
"I'm just going to watch." Spencer replied as firmly as ever, pleased at how she managed to keep her voice even and calm. She could handle this. She always did – it's why she had been able to keep her job.
"Just going to watch, Carlin? I'm pretty sure that when the object of your attention is gallivanting around in a bikini they call that voyeurism. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you had some leanings." Ashley smirked and before Spencer had time to even blush and wrap her head around a retort covering retort, Ashley ran over to the edge of the pool, tucked herself in a ball, and cannon-balled in.
Spencer couldn't help wincing at the sound of the splash. She forced herself to sit, oblivious of the fact that the pool chair she had just collapsed into was soaking wet from a previous occupant. She could not tear her gaze away from the still surface of the pool.
A year later, and it still make her knees quake to look at it.
Ashley quickly surfaced (much to Spencer's relief), but didn't let the issue drop.
"What sort of Marine wouldn't join a girl for a swim? Aren't you supposed to be amphibians?" Ashley asked, completely unaware of the flashback she had just sparked.
"We're an amphibious combat group," Spencer heard herself respond. "Amphibians are a class of animals including frogs and salamanders. There is a difference."
"That's what I said," Ashley replied, splashing at her gently. "You are really not going to come in here with me?"
"No," Spencer replied definitively. "I'm on the duty. It wouldn't be responsible." She was working desperately to hide the tiniest hints of shaking that she still couldn't quell. She tried to focus on her breathing, as her father had taught her, and managed to calm herself down marginally.
"Is there absolutely nothing I can do to convince you…" but the rest was all blubs and bubbles as Ashley submerged herself under the water, letting herself fall deep within the pool.
Spencer squirmed in her seat, waiting for Ashley to come back up.
She knew Ashley was just playing around.
She really did.
But the seconds were ticking away.
"She's fine," Spencer tried to convince herself. Logically, she knew, Ashley was just playing around, but what in reality had to be fifteen seconds felt to Spencer like an hour as she sat and watched Ashley's body sink deeper and deeper in the pool.
What if her hair was caught in a pool drain? Or she was having a seizure? Or had hit her head on the bottom of the pool and had lost consciousness?
What if there was someone hidden in the pool that was holding her down?
Spencer let herself feel, just for one second, what it was like to drown again, and before she quite realized it she was diving into the pool.
The water was warm as she slipped in with a neat dive, and her clothes pulled her quickly down to where Ashley was hovering near the bottom. The chlorine stung at her eyes, but Spencer refused to close them and lose track of Ashley. She swam up behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist and kicked for the surface.
It felt like forever before first Ashley, then her herself broke the surface. Spencer didn't stop kicking until she had reached the side of the pool, rolled Ashley's petite form unto solid concrete and sprung out behind her.
She knelt carefully over Ashley, brushing the damp hair out of her face, tilting her head down to check for breath sounds.
"What the hell Spencer!" Ashley protested with a laugh, shoving her back a little to make room for her to sit up, "I know you've got a hero complex, but I was only kidding around."
Spencer let her eyes roam across Ashley, checking for injury, noticing how her chest moved with regular breathing. Only once she was certain that Ashley was okay did she let herself process what had just happened.
She sat backwards heavily, staring in disbelief back and forth between Ashley and the Olympic-sized swimming pool.
"Don't… don't you ever…" she was too angry to get out a complete sentence. She shoved herself to her feet, back peddling a few steps to put distance between herself and the situation.
"Spencer," Ashley wasn't laughing anymore, now clearly understanding that nothing about this was a joke for Spencer. "I'm fine, see," she too stood up and flailed her arms around in what was apparently supposed to be a convincing manner, a pleading smile on her face.
"Don't you ever - EVER! - Scare me like that again!" Spencer was practically shouting now. Her voice echoed in the empty pool room.
Ashley took a tentative step forward in Spencer's direction. "Spence," she tried again, but Spencer was not hearing any of it.
"That's not a joke," she yelled, pointing to the pool beside her. "Drowning… you don't know…" She had to stop herself before she could too caught up in her emotions. "If anything ever happened to you, I…" She stopped herself again. She really could not talk about that either.
"Spencer, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" but she was cut off by the sound of door bursting open at the other end of the pool. It was Sydney, one of the other Secret Service agents assigned to watch over the Davies sisters when Spencer and Chelsea were off duty. She sprinted into the room at first, but noticing that both Ashley and Spencer were apparently all right (if obviously soaking wet), slowed to a trot.
"Everything all right here Ms. Davies?" Sydney asked, eyes giving a quick scan of the perimeter. "I was watching the security monitors for this area when I saw Sergeant Carlin dive into the pool… I was worried something was wrong."
Neither Spencer nor Ashley knew exactly how to respond. It was Ashley who spoke first. She was talking to Sydney, but her eyes were locked on Spencer, pleading. "Everything is fine here, everything is fine."
Spencer shook her head, shaking water into her eyes. She suddenly felt ridiculous for the way she had reacted.
"Would you mind taking over for me for a while Agent Sydney? I'd like to go dry off and check my equipment." She pulled at her now soggy earpiece, hoping no permanent damage had been done. She didn't even want to think about her phone or gun.
"Sure thing," Sydney replied. The words had barely left her mouth before Spencer turned to walk away. She needed desperately to clear her head from all the nightmarish memories that were fighting the way into her consciousness thoughts, but it was already too late. As she made her way down the hall outside the pool, she was caught in a vicious flashback.
It was times like these that Spencer really wished she spoke Dari. The Afghan President's two youngest daughters were crying there in front of her, and there was nothing she could do to calm them down, other than stroke a grimy hand across their hair and murmur what she hoped were soothing noises. She had never really been good with kids – that was more of Chelsea's thing. But Chelsea was guarding the perimeter right now, and from the sound of it, taking heavy fire.
Things were going from bad to worse in the blink of an eye. If Spencer ever found out who had alerted the Taliban to the presence of the girls in this village, she would have more than just a few choice words for them.
"What are we supposed to do Corporal?"
Spencer turned to see Katie Price, one of the PFC's under her command, returning from escorting the President's eldest daughter to the latrines. Spencer was relieved when the teenager took her place beside her younger sisters and started cooing to them in a language they actually understood. It proved to be much more effective in calming them down.
"What we are supposed to do is wait for the Black Hawk that I just radioed for emergency transport, but they can't be here for another thirty minutes. Not enough time."
"Shit," was all Katie could say, clutching her M16 closer to her chest.
The walkie at Spencer's hip attracted her attention as she finally received her requested update from Chelsea's squad at the perimeter.
"Shit's hitting the fan out here Spencer!" Her best friend's voice was grim as it crackled through the receiver. In the background, Spencer could hear the ever present report of gunshots. There was almost no delay between when she heard the shots through the walkie until the actual sound waves reached her ears.
The insurgents were close. They would break the gapped line that Chelsea's fire squad was holding at the north end of the settlement well before thirty minutes were up.
Spencer's mind worked furiously, trying to figure out what the hell they were going to go.
The Second Lieutenant who was supposed to be in charge of their group was dead, hit in the neck by one of the first shots the insurgents had fired in their surprise attack.
Somehow that made Spencer Carlin, her Corporal's stripes barely sewn into her uniform, definitively in charge.
Her first course of action had been a strategic split of their remaining forces. Chelsea, as the next highest ranking officer at only Lance Corporal, had been left at the perimeter of the village to hold off the attackers, while Spencer, Kate and another now dead PFC had made a strategic retreat with the girls to safety. The girls were the mission, and Spencer was determined to see to it personally that they made it out of this attack alive.
"Corporal," Chelsea's voice came through again, "We're taking heavy fire out here. I don't think we can hold them off."
"Then don't." Spencer heard herself reply. She couldn't let her men sit there and get picked off one by one. Trying to hold off insurgent forces that seemed to outnumber them five to one was suicide. They needed to retreat, but there was nowhere to go, at least for Spencer, Kate, and the three girls. They were deep in the heart of the village. They would not be able to move more than a few blocks without someone seeing them and reporting their position to the Taliban fighters once they stormed the town.
"What?!" Chelsea replied after a pause of disbelief.
"You heard me. When I give you the go ahead, I want you and the rest of the squad to retreat. Disappear into the desert. There is enough cover out there. Split up into two's and three's and hide out until you hear the helicopter approach. Me, Price and the girls will meet you at the chopper."
"Spencer!" She heard Chelsea protest.
"Just do what I said Lance Corporal!" If there was ever a time to pull rank on her best friend, it was now. Spencer had to put her own plan into motion. She glanced wildly around the room, finally seeing what she was looking for.
"You ever play Hide and Seek, Price?" She asked Katie as she ripped open the closet door to examine the space. It was just big enough. It would have to do.
"Yes Ma'am," Katie confirmed, trying to follow what in the world Spencer was thinking. "Hide N' Seek champ of Greendale Drive, Davidson, Kansas four years in a row."
"Awesome," Spencer replied distractedly as she dug burlap sacks of grain out of the kitchen closet. "We are going to put those skills to the test."
Fifteen minutes later, Spencer was sprawled, hidden out on the rooftop of the building across from the one where Kate and the girls were hiding, her rifle trained on the doorway, intent on stopping anyone who thought they might try to make their way inside the home.
The town was eerily quiet now. The shooting had stopped not long after Spencer had given Chelsea and the rest of the squad the signal to head for the hills. She could only hope that the silence was a positive sign of their retreat and not an indication that all of her friends were dead. They were radio silent now, and she had no way of knowing how many of her people were still alive.
The insurgents would be looking for them now. The only sounds she had heard were bits of shouting - what she knew were instructions for the men to search the village.
She didn't realize that someone had already found one of the infidels until she felt a rifle butt crash into the back of her head and she passed out.
When she woke up, she was on her knees, hands tied behind her back, and she was surrounded.
She was terrified to realize that she was in the very house where she had hidden the girls with Price. She forced herself not to look directly towards the closet where she had stashed them away. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that somehow the towel she had hung on the doorknob was still there, swinging innocently in the breeze through the open doorway, a clear sign that no one had yet tried to open the door to see if anything of interest was inside.
Spencer gave a quick thanks to God that these insurgents had not been trained to think like Marines. She would have had her men check every nook and cranny of this house before she chose to walk around without a weapon at hand, as the leader of these men appeared to be doing.
He was pacing in front of her, going on and on about something in Dari… or was it Arabic? Spencer still had trouble hearing the difference, especially with the way her head was throbbing. All she knew was that he was talking – probably to her – in a language that she definitely did not understand. He would figure it out soon enough.
There was an inflection at the end of his last sentence, and Spencer assumed there was a question in his rambling. All she could do was glare at him, and ignore the twitch in her neck that was developing from the angle that the man behind her was pulling her hair.
Whatever it was, he asked the question again. When Spencer gave no response, he waved over one of his companions to translate.
"Where are the girls?" The second man, really a boy asked, shifting the rifle resting on his arm.
She forced herself to stare into his eyes and resisted the urge to look over at the closet.
"What girls?" She asked, playing dumb. The girls were just kids, innocent kids, who happened to be the daughters of a man that these people wanted dead. If they captured the girls, she could only imagine the horrors they would face in order for Taliban to hurt the current Afghan president-elect.
"The three girls, the daughters of the traitor Ali!"
Before she had a chance to formulate a plan, the leader of the group backhanded her across the face to emphasize the question. He really wound up, and Spencer barely turned her head in time to dispel some of the force. She felt like he might have broken her jaw.
As she swallowed tears of fear that sprang unbidden to her eyes, things got very, very real for Spencer.
If she did not tell them where the girls were, she knew that at the very best, they would kill her. More likely they would torture her until she gave them the information they wanted anyway. And she knew she would probably tell them whether she wanted to or not. She had heard the stories of what these people were capable of. It wasn't a matter of if she would talk – rather it was a matter how long she was willing to suffer to delay them.
There was a scraping sound outside, and Spencer looked up to see a young man dragging a wash tub into the room, pulling it into place right in front of Spencer. With no warning, her face was shoved into the water and held there.
Remembering her aquatic training, she forced herself to relax and not think about the giant breath of air she had not had time to take before her head had been shoved into the water. She squeezed her eyes shut as they began to sting from the soap in the tub. She tried not to resist as the hands holding her down thrashed her around, enticing her to burn precious oxygen fighting their push and pull.
All of her training went to crap after about ten seconds. She panicked, started fighting against the weight of the man in front of her. Her lungs were burning, screaming for air. Bubbles escaped her mouth, stirring up the water around her, making her panic even more.
She was only twenty years old, too young to die! Not like this. Screw bravery.
No matter what anyone had ever told her, drowning was painful. When she could hold her breath no longer, she tried to breathe in under the water, and the liquid entered her lungs like acid.
No sooner had she opened her mouth, than her head was pulled up into sweet, sweet oxygen. She coughed and sputtered, trying to get the water out and the air in.
But before she could take more than a handful of breaths, before she could control her coughing, before she could make up her mind to tell them everything they wanted to know in the hopes that they might kill her quickly and end this torture, she was shoved back under.
She was even less prepared this time around, but now something had changed. She was still afraid, but more than the fear, she was really pissed off. She was going to tell them everything they wanted to know, and what the hell to they do, but go ahead and try to drown her again.
She welcomed the anger though.
It cleared her head, made her realize that she had almost let temporary fear ruin everything. They were going to kill her, one way or another, but if she held out the information, there was a chance that their reinforcements would come in time to save the girls, maybe even her.
She just had to hold out just a little longer, and damn it, it would be even easier if they never gave her a chance to speak!
The chopper team had said that they were thirty minutes out. How long had it been since she called them?
There was hope, and so she tied it together with the anger as her head was shoved under the water a third time – a fourth – a fifth.
It wasn't long before she lost track of how many breaths had been stolen from her. Everything was starting to go fuzzy and she couldn't quite remember what it was that she wasn't supposed to be telling them. And judging by the way that the time they gave her to say something each time her head was pulled from the water got shorter and shorter, maybe they couldn't quite remember why they were torturing her in the first place either.
But the next time Spencer was pulled from the water, her hair was released and unsupported. She fell sideways onto the ground, her hands still bound behind her back. There was shouting and then deafening gun fire. She struggled to regain her breath and squint through her stinging eyes.
She felt a presence behind her, a brief pull on the ropes binding her hands, and then she was free. Strong arms pulled her to her feet, and one of her arms was wrapped securely around someone else's neck as she continued coughing out the water that had made its way into her lungs.
"I got you Spence, you're okay." All it took was a familiar voice for Spencer to return her sense of self. She trusted Chelsea to guide her as her friend half dragged, half carried her through the village. She could hear heavy gun fire, but it was further away from them now.
By the time she regained her senses, she was being tossed into the back of a Black Hawk helicopter.
She could breathe now, but the panic of what had just happened – how close she had just come to dying – had her hyperventilating.
"You're all right Corporal," a voice from beside her made her turn. It was Price, neatly surrounded by the three girls, all of who were crying now. "The girls are safe, you did your job."
"Where's the rest of the squad?" She yelled over the noise of the helicopter, trying to take a quick count of her squad. There were at least four of them missing. One of them was Chelsea.
"Where's Lewis!?" She yelled in panic. How could her friend already be missing when she had just been by her side?
"All present and accounted for ma'am," came Chelsea's voice from the doorway of the chopper. She and another Marine heaved what Spencer could tell was the body of one of her men into the chopper before jumping in themselves.
"Let's get the hell out of here!" She yelled over to the pilot, and quite before Spencer could wrap her head around the whole thing, they were a hundred feet in the air and speeding away into the desert.
For obvious reasons, Spencer still avoided pools of water when she could. She hadn't realized how much her brief capture had affected her until she tried to take a bath on her first two-week leave home from Afghanistan after the rescue mission for President Ali's daughters.
Her father had been sweet enough to run a warm bubble bath for her right when she got home on leave, knowing that washing away the sand was always Spencer's favorite part of her brief homecomings.
But this time she had frozen at the sight of the soapy water. It was the first time she had been faced with another tub full of water since her capture (living in the desert did have some perks) and she was completed unprepared for the onslaught of emotions that hit her.
After they had been evacuated by the helicopter, there had been little time for Spencer to react or reflect on what had happened. They'd been debriefed and given another assignment just days later – their unit was one of the few on the ground who had the security and special operations training they had and so their services were in high demand. She'd stuffed the memories from that day as far back in her mind as she could in order to focus on getting her team through the next assignment, and the one after that, and the one after that.
When Chelsea had tried to talk to her to see if she was okay, she had downplayed the whole issue. She'd only been underwater maybe a few minutes. It was nothing – she was fine. They had managed to complete the mission, only losing three marines including the commanding officer. She and Chelsea had even received commendations for their valor, and hints of promotions in the near future. Everything was fine, or that's what she had thought.
But when her father found her, an hour later, still fully dressed in her fatigues, sitting on the toilet lid, crying silent tears, he knew everything was certainly not fine.
Spencer thanked God every day that her father was the man he was. He recognized the signs of PTSD right away, encouraging her to talk about what had happened. She hadn't wanted to share those memories with him, but sometimes it felt like the warm embrace of her father was the only thing that could make everything right again.
By the time her leave was nearly over, she felt like she was in control again. Her father hadn't wanted her to return to Afghanistan, and he had suggested that she request leave to get some help and real rehabilitation. But she was unwilling to abandon the people who had risked their lives trying to save her. They were family, and she had duties to return to.
She could face the water now without a complete breakdown, even get in it, if the situation was high pressure enough (today was the perfect example). But she sure as hell didn't like it or the memories it brought back to her.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by a knocking at her door. Spencer started, not realizing that she had already made it back to her and Chelsea's apartment. She was still wearing her wet clothes, and now had produced a rather large and embarrassing wet spot beneath her on the couch.
She shook her head, amazed at how easy it was for her to get caught up in the past, especially with such a traumatic trigger as seeing Ashley drowning – or what she had convinced herself was drowning.
She would never, ever let Ashley experience anything close to what she had gone through, not if there was still breath in her body.
Another knock at the door called Spencer back the present. She figured it was probably Agent Walker, here to tear her a new one for being such an idiot and damaging all his fancy equipment.
But when she opened the door, she was face to face with none
other than Ashley herself, hair still damp and curling deliciously, a towel wrapped around her body.
"Can I come in?" She asked, hesitantly.
Spencer found herself nodding. She had a hard time denying Ashley anything these days. She retreated into the apartment, leaving Ashley to trail behind her, gently pushing the door closed.
The two girls stood awkwardly, neither really looking at the other.
"I'm sorry," they somehow managed to say at the same moment. Spencer had to smile a little at that.
"You nothing to be sorry about Spencer. I'm the one who acted like an idiot. I'm not five years old, I should know better than to even joke about something like that. You were just doing your job…"
"I wasn't just doing my job…" Spencer tried to explain. As soon as it left her mouth, Spencer realized that there were so many ways that could be taken – and she meant them all.
"…but I'll admit, I might have overreacted a little…" She blushed a little, recalling her actions.
"What was that, back there?" Ashley asked after an uncomfortable pause.
"That was…" Spencer hesitated but Ashley's warn brown eyes encouraged her to continue, "Back in Afghanistan, I had an… an experience with water. It was bad. And sometimes I go back there in my head." Spencer winced, realizing how stupid that sounded. "I was worried you were drowning."
But Ashley didn't look like she had heard anything stupid. She just nodded softly and rubbed her thumb along the back of Spencer's hand soothingly.
"I am so sorry Spence, that I made you think that even for a second. But I'm okay, and you're okay right?" The fact that Ashley even had to ask her that told Spencer that she wasn't as good as she thought she was at swallowing her fear.
"I'm okay," Spencer promised. She forced herself to continue, "And I completely understand if you want to tell Agent Walker you would like someone a little less crazy assigned to you for your protection."
"What?" Ashley asked, and Spencer could tell she was genuinely confused. "Why would I want that?" She gave Spencer's hand a gentle squeeze, forcing the Marine to look up.
Spencer shrugged, too worn out from the whole ordeal to even try to explain.
"I don't want anyone else." Ashley promised, giving her fingers another gentle squeeze. "Besides," she continued, a trace of cockiness returning to her voice, "I've got freaking G.I. Jane as my body guard. Who could even come close to replacing you?"
Spencer heaved a weary sigh. "G.I. Jane was both a fictional character and a Navy SEAL,"
Ashley shrugged, "Same thing," God, the girl could be so antagonizing – but there was no one better at distracting her.
A/N: I'd like to take a moment to remember all the men and women who lost their lives twelve years ago today. I'd also like to extend my gratitude to all of those – both military and civilian – who work to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. 9/11 – Never Forget.