How a CID agent suddenly becomes 'the Hero of Ranger Company.' A (mostly) pre-series Colby fic.
Lots of warnings and labels on this fic.
Not my characters: Charlie, Don, David, Colby, Nikki. My characters: Smitty, Rodriguez, Lerg, Smith, Jeeter and Osterman. My characters will try to play respectfully with their visitors. Thank you to the Numb3rs creative team for giving my imagination somewhere to go while my body is crammed into coach-class seats on long plane trips.
This is a pre-series (read "military") fic. Soldiers curse, though I try not to. I will not write curses out, but you will all know what they mean anyway. Don't like, don't read.
This is a fic set in a war zone. There will be violence and death.
There's going to be a fair amount of military jargon in this fic. In recognition of the fact that most of the world's citizens have never worn a uniform, I will end each chapter with a military-to-civilian translation. If you don't understand a word, take a look at the glossary. If I didn't translate your word, let me know and I'll fix that in the next chapter.
Colby's cell phone rang as he went out to his patio to retrieve the steaks. He answered it one handed, juggling a set of tongs with the other. "Hi," he said distractedly. After all, it wasn't like the call was going to be from work: his boss and all of his teammates, even Charlie, were in his living room. His attention was immediately grabbed, though, by the voice on the other end of the line.
"Hey Hero. It's Smitty. How ya doin'?" Colby dropped the steak he'd been turning over, instinctively tried to grab it before it fell, and managed to burn his hand in the process. He yelped. "Hero? You OK?"
Colby knew he was grinning like an idiot and didn't care. "Yeah—SMITTY!! How long has it been?" Several minutes later, Don wandered out onto the patio looking for his youngest agent. He found Colby leaning on the railing, a wide smile on his face, cell phone at his ear and the steaks still on the grill. All were a bit over-cooked. When Colby realized Don was there, he looked a tad embarrassed. "Oh. Damn…Smitty, can I call you back? My boss is here…really? Sure. Let me give you my address…"
Don retrieved the steaks and headed back to the living room with that patented "Don grin" on his face. When the team shot him questioning looks, he shook his head. "I don't know, but if the look on his face is any indication, I think he's on the phone with a woman."
"Not a woman." corrected Colby, coming up behind his boss. "Just an old friend. He's in town just for the day and wants to come over and catch up."
"You want us to leave?" inquired David.
"Nah. Watch the game. Smitty loves basketball. He'll join us…." Colby looked a little embarrassed, though. "I just gotta warn you about a few things, though." The team collectively tensed. Sometimes old friends of Colby's could be troublesome. Colby noted their sudden silence and correctly judged its cause. He rushed to explain, "No, nothing like that. Smitty's one of the good guys. It's just…well, he was in an incident in Afghanistan. He's in a wheelchair. He lost both of his legs. So…I just wanted to warn you."
"Colby, man," David replied for the whole group. "That's not anything you have to warn us about. We're not going to stare or embarrass you. We all is sofistikated types." He said it with a mocking grin and a Deep South country-bumpkin accent. Colby laughed. David noted a wary look in the man's eyes, though. "What else, man? That can't be what you were worried about."
Colby shrugged. "It's not a big deal. You're right. You guys are great. Smitty's a bit over-the-top, but he's a great guy. Never mind. I'm gonna put another steak on the fire. When he rings, could somebody buzz him into the building?"
Smitty turned out to be a thirtyish, stocky man already beginning to go bald. He was not, however, in a wheelchair. When Colby answered the door, he was looking eye-to-eye with the man. Colby started, then grinned and hugged the other ex-soldier tightly. "Damn, man! Look at you!"
"Magic Legs" Smitty quoted, Forest Gump style, lifting his pant legs enough that titanium "ankles" showed beneath the cuffs. A cheer sounded from further inside the apartment. Smitty didn't even skip a beat before bowing, as if to an audience. "Thank you, thank you. For my next trick, I will walk across the foyer, completely unassisted!"
Colby laughed, shaking his head in a resigned manner. "You haven't changed a bit. My friends are inside watching the Lakers. You want a beer?" He asked, leading the other man into the living room.
"Absolutely. You have friends? Are any of them cute?" They entered the room and Smitty looked around. On the couch and floor sat Don, Charlie, David and Nikki. He lifted an eyebrow at the newest team member before Colby stopped him with a quick remark.
"She's dating Ian Edgerton."
Smitty's eyebrows lifted even further. "THE Ian Edgerton?" At Colby's affirmative response, the soldier whistled. "Sooooo no cute 'friends' here for me. For the best, I guess."
"I don't know," replied David, "Charlie's got a boyish thing going on…" he tried to pinch Charlie's cheek. Charlie smacked him.
"That would be David, my partner." Supplied Colby, then introduced the rest of the team and left Smitty ensconced in a la-z-boy while he went to fetch a round of beers and the food. When he returned with the beers, steaks and some chips and salsa, he found a commercial on the TV and his friends and Smitty chatting.
"Why does he call you 'Hero,' Colb?" asked Charlie, popping a chip in his mouth.
Colby grunted. "Long story," he mumbled. "Not an interesting one. I told you Smitty was prone to exaggeration. What's the score?" Smitty looked at him curiously.
David quirked an eyebrow, but didn't push the subject. "26-10, Lakers." The group settled down to watch the game and eat.
An hour and a dozen beers later, the game was over (56-50, Lakers), and the agents and ex-soldiers were laughing and teasing like they'd known each other for years. "So, really," began Charlie again. "Why do you call him Hero? Inquiring minds want to know."
"Yeah," interjected David. "And you never told me what that sniper Clay Porter meant when he called you 'The hero of Ranger Company.' I'm betting Smitty can tell me what that was about."
"Hero of Ranger Company?" Don wondered. Neither David nor Colby had shared that bit of trivia with him. "Didn't you tell me you had a desk job that kept you out of the line of fire?"
Colby blushed, laughed, and took a swallow of beer before answering. "Yeah. I spent nearly my whole year there behind a nice, safe desk in Kandahar. I wasn't even there with the Rangers. I was CID."
"No man," interrupted Smitty, leaning forward with a scowl on his face. "I can't let that stand. I just can't." He addressed the assembled agents. "This man saved my life. And not just mine, either. And I can't let him pretend like he spent his whole tour behind the wire. I'm a Ranger, and he saved my ass. And he saved my fiance's ass, and he got us and my CO home."
Colby jerked. "Fiance?"
"I'll get to that, Hero." He said, making a shushing movement with one hand. "First I'm going to tell your friends here how we met."
**********************************************************************
Military to Civilian Glossary:
Rangers: Not really a company, but the term is close enough. Ranger School is one of the toughest Army schools around. It's physically and mentally brutal. Most soldiers called "Ranger" are also Airborne Infantry. That's about a half rung less impressive than Special Forces, though neither Rangers nor SF would ever say it.
CID: Criminal Investigative Division. Basically, CID is to Military Police what detectives are to big city police departments. Sort of FBI-esque.
***********************************************************************