This is Prompt No. 64-Fire

For the next two weeks, Jason contemplated deserting the camp knowing all the while that he couldn't. He shared a tent with Mitchie and winced whenever his thoughts wandered to what Shane might say if he knew that they were sharing. Shane had a tendency to be very jealous. Often, soothed by Mitchie's light, even breathing, Jason would stare up at the pinnacle of the tent and try to run over his plan again and again. He knew what he had to do; his obstacle was how to do it.

The night that the ambush was scheduled to take place, Jason was tensed and taught, like a wire. His hands twisted in the one sheet that covered his body that let even a slight breeze in through its wispy layers and sweat formed on his forehead. There was so much at stake, so much that could go wrong tonight, and it was imperative that it not be his fault. He knew that Shane would be distraught if something happened to the young woman across the tent from Jason.

He turned his head and watched the sleeping figure, smiling as he noticed once again that in the night, under the cover of darkness, she let her features slip, revealing the young, scared girl underneath. "Not for much longer," Jason whispered.

He lay in the darkness for a long while, waiting, counting, hoping that everything would just happen so that he could be done with it. Time seemed to crawl by as he waiting for the camp to stir under the threat of a battle they had not prepared for. His ears strained to hear any sounds of movement, but everything was as still as could be. Jason rolled his head to the side, breaking the silence with the sound of his neck cracking.

Almost as though that had been a signal of sorts, the silence of the night shattered with the rocket of gunfire. Jason jumped out of his blankets, already dressed, just in time to see Mitchie bolt awake, scrambling blearily for the gun she didn't know how to use. She grabbed it, the barrel gripped in her hand possessively as though just the gun's presence would protect her.

"What's going on?" she cried out, trying to be heard over the cacophonous noise outside the tent.

"Sounds like someone's attacking!" Jason shouted back, trying to remember to look sleepy as well. He grabbed his gun and bolted out the flap in the tent. "Stay close to the tent and you'll be fine!" he yelled. "Please," he added in his head as he darted around the men that were running out of their tents, some with their trousers only half on, and some others hopping around on one foot in an effort to pull their second boot on while trying to load their gun. If the situation hadn't been as highly charged as it was for Jason, he might have laughed.

He skirted around the action, firing shots aimlessly when someone looked at him longer than the usual glance to make sure that he was in the same army they were. He didn't want anyone suspecting. "We're running out of gunpowder!" someone cried.

"I thought we had plenty!" another yelled. "Were'd it go?"

Jason tried not to grin as he ran past them. "Oops," he whispered. He felt absolutely no need to inform them that he had been slowly draining the supply, passing it over to the Union Army as part of his mission.

He ran to the edge of camp and stopped, standing straight up in the formation like everyone else, and as a bullet whizzed by him, planned of course, he fell, rolling down the steep hill until he came to the edge of the woods, "dead." Someone roughly grabbed his gun from his still hands and then, with a great heave, threw his lifeless body into the forest, out of their way as they advanced. The moment Jason fell, he rolled the rest of the way, wincing only slightly as his body protested against such flippant handling.

"You alright?" someone yelled, and Jason saw Shane standing there, looking concerned.

He nodded to his friend. "Fine!" he yelled over the gunfire. He stood and leaned forward so that he could speak semi normally in Shane's ear. "Let's get this over with!"

Shane handed Jason a rifle, and Jason bit his lip as he shed his grey uniform, revealing the blue one underneath. He gripped the rifle tightly, feeling as though all eyes were watching him as he ran to the location he had picked out and knelt behind the first rank. His eyes trained over the camp, searching for his tent, and he found it, unconsciously letting out a sigh as he found Mitchie right where he had told her to be. He smiled slightly and moved his rifle up to the crook in his shoulder, ready to aim, when things went horribly wrong.

A gun went off and a soldier fell close to the front line of the Confederate soldiers. Jason recognized him, even from the distance that separated them, and groaned. The soldier was Andy, a young man that loved to sit next to Jason and Mitchie during the nights and tap out rhythms on his knees or the old, practically rusted coffee cup he carried around. Mitchie used to snatch it away whenever possible, letting her façade down as she chastised him about getting sick.

"No!" Jason groaned behind clenched teeth. "Not him!" Mitchie, he knew, adored him in the brother sort of way.

As if on clockwork, a tiny figure dashed out from the safety of the tent and tumbled rather awkwardly next to the fallen soldier. "Stupid girl!" Jason cursed and leaned forward to yell in the ear of the soldier in front of him, "Don't shoot that girl!"

The soldier nodded and fired elsewhere, telling the soldier next to him the same message as he reloaded. Jason raised his gun once more even as he saw Mitchie raise hers, but he was too late. Somewhere in the midst of the army, someone took a shot at her, striking her in the arm and sending her flying backwards into the dirt. Jason paused, his gun barrel slowly lowering as he waited to see if he was needed. "Don't get up," he hissed under his breath. "Don't get up." The almost inaudible demand started to sound like a chant after a while.

Slowly, almost as if the very effort pained her, Jason saw Mitchie rise slowly and turn towards Andy. She nodded once and fumbled with the gun. She meant to reload it!

"No!" Jason hissed and raised his gun, forcing himself to breathe, even as he whispered the command that chilled his heart. "Fire."

He pulled the trigger and the gun went off.