PLEASE READ THIS. IT'S IMPORTANT TO THE STORY!

So. Anybody remember this moment from chapter ten?

Julie was having a nightmare, screaming...

"No! Leave him alone! Please take me instead! Thomas! Thomas, NO!"

Yeah, well that comes into play in this chapter.

Also, I know nothing about guns, so excuse that as much as possible. I tried to do a bit of online research, but everything was contradictory, so I just guessed. My apologies.

Lastly, I am immensly disappointed with the lack of feedback I recieved for the previous chapter. It had about 500 reads by the end of a week and no reviews at all. It was very disappointing. I live off feedback, so honestly, even if it's only a word, please leave me some.

That being said, I do not own OUran, and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 14

I suppose that I'll start at the beginning. I know that you wanted to hear about my job, but… I think that you need the whole story to really understand it.

I had a happy childhood, give or take. I took ballet, wore fluffy dresses and played with dolls. I had the best brother any girl could ever ask for, a mother who loved me more than anything, and a father who was aloof, but approved of the things I did and who was proud of me.

Before we go any farther, I should mention that my family has a very strong military background. My grandfather served in the Navy during the Cold War, my great-grandfather served in World War Two, Uncle Jim, my father's brother, was in the Air Force before he got sick, and three of my other relatives are currently serving in various facets of the armed forces, not including David who went MIA in Iraq a while back. My father would have served if he'd been able; he's got asthma, severe allergies and a bad knee from playing hockey when he was in high school. He's the most patriotic, "support-our-troops" person I've ever met, and that includes my trainers, Special Forces, veterans and generals from armies all over the world.

I always knew that dad expected Joshua to join up someday, too. It was basically his legacy. But I had always figured it would be a long ways in the future, when we were both grown up, and I had a job as an actress or a model or a principle dancer in the National Ballet of Canada, or any other such girly things.

Operation Parvulus was started by the Canadian Special Operations and Intelligence Agency in 2002, when Josh and I were seven. It operated on this theory that children are more perceptive to learning skills such as languages and martial arts, amongst many other things. They wanted to create a team of child operatives who could complete tasks that adults couldn't, in places like schools or amusement parks. Children would be less obvious in these situations, and nobody would suspect them of being undercover military operatives. They began looking for children to take part in the experimental phase of the operation.

When father heard about it, he immediately signed Joshua up. This… was not okay with me. We were at that phase where we did everything together, and I wasn't about to let him do it alone. Father wasn't happy—the military was not a place for a girl like me, I should be delicate and dainty and graceful and all that stuff—but he let me, knowing that I only wanted to join because my brother was and that I would probably give up on it after a couple of weeks.

Both my brother and I made it through the selection process easily. Living near the border with Québec, we already spoke a fair bit of French and a little Cree from the natives on the reservation that we sometimes visited. They tested our strength, balance and flexibility, which I sailed through thanks to my ballets lessons. Josh did too, because I always taught him everything I learned in dance class. They tested how well we could stay calm in stressful situations, banging things, yelling at us and many other things. Clearly, they had never seen our father in a rage before…. Needless to say, we passed that part too.

Along with twenty other children, Joshua and I had just become official members of Operation Parvulus.

Training was hard; I'm not going to lie to you. Especially at first. Joshua and I had a head start on everybody in languages, but weapons training was killer. Our hands were too small to handle most of the guns comfortably, and do you know how much it hurts when a rifle recoils into your shoulder? A lot! There were a lot of days when I wanted to quit, but then Joshua would do something small, like taking my hand or whispering a joke about the trainer's mustache in my ear, and I remembered that my brother was there with me and everything would be okay.

We got better as time went on. Our hands were less clumsy on the weapons and we could actually lift the machine guns and RPG launchers. The languages remained pretty easy. Had a bit of an issue with Spanish at first, but that smoothed itself out. We began to study hand-to-hand combat, various styles of martial arts; karate, judo, tai-kwan-do, kendo, kung-fu, jiu-jitsu…. We studied fencing and boxing, strategy and tactical thinking. I excelled in all of these, though I enjoyed fighting the most. It's… graceful, you know? Sort of like dance in its own way. I felt at home there. I still do.

After a couple years training all together, they divided us into five groups based on our strongest skill set; political, technological, intelligence, alpha and beta. We still did whole group training for some things, but we began to study more specialized material based on our group.

The political group specialized in dealing with people. They were the ones who debated with government officials (and usually won…), pulled the strings to get us permission to operate in various foreign countries when the need to arose, got us access to classified files (not that we couldn't have hacked into the systems if we had needed, we just liked to ask nicely before resorting to drastic (and illegal) measures), and provided the cover stories for some of our larger operations.

Intel and Tech worked very closely together. Tech made all our gadgets, they were the computer nerds. They created and tested weapons and other gear. They were also master hackers. Thing is, so were Intel. They were in charge of gathering all our information. They could hack classified sites in minutes, and were in charge of organizing and maintaining our target database, and researching background on every mission we were given.

Beta was out backup squad, for lack of better way to put it. They never took any major missions unless none of the alpha operatives were available. They were very good, don't get me wrong, but they were lacking something; be it tactical thinking, the ability to function effectively under pressure, or just confidence in themselves. Joshua was put in this group. He had all the necessary skills to be an alpha, but he was somewhat lacking in motivation and he didn't do too well outside of controlled situations, hesitating to act if lives were at risk. He would rather have sacrificed himself than let anybody else die.

I was a part of team Alpha. The best, the brightest, the most ruthless, Alpha was the top group, the leaders, with a moderate amount of skill in hacking and with people, plus an unmatched prowess in martial arts and tactics. Imagine my father's surprise when his darling little girl was placed into the top team of operatives!

We started field training shortly after we were split into groups. Each of us was assigned to an operative for training. Mine was named Phillip. He was a man in his mid-thirties, gruff but loyal. Ex-MI6 agent before he immigrated to Canada. Scottish. Lovely man.

The first time he saw me, he said "I will not work with a little pansy like that."

That was before he saw me go through the trials. Before he saw me load and fire off a full machine gun clip in under two minutes. Before he saw me hit a circle of targets dead on with a pair of handguns. Before he saw me take out five full grown martial arts champions one after the other, no break necessary.

He was okay with training me after that.

…

…The first time I ever killed someone, I was barely eleven. I had been training with Phillip for about six months. We were on a fairly simple mission; hostage situation. But the guy… he was crazy. Completely insane. He… he somehow managed to get in a lucky blow against Phillip, and he was going to shoot this woman. She had a child with her, and I didn't see any way around it so…. I had a handgun for precautionary measures—we weren't supposed to kill anyone unless there was no alternative—and… I… I shot him. One round, right in the chest. He seemed shocked for a moment, and then he fell face first on the ground. It all happened so fast…. I never even knew his name. Phillip… he recovered and went over to the body, feeling for a pulse in his neck.

"Dead," he said after a moment and patted me gently on the shoulder before going on with the evacuation process.

I was inconsolable for weeks. I felt like a monster. I still do, sometimes. I wouldn't allow anyone to see me but Joshua. After about a week, Phillip muscled his way into my room and told me something that I use to cope with the killing to this day.

"Look child," he said, "I know that you're hurting right now. I understand. I do. But you have to remember that in killing him, you saved so many lives. You stopped that child from becoming an orphan. In this line of work you have to look at things this way else you'll drive yourself mad. Don't think about the deaths, the lives you've taken. Think of all of the lives you've saved."

And then he ruffled my hair and walked back out.

I cried. I hadn't really done so before that point, but that night I did. Josh stayed with me the whole time. He didn't say anything; he didn't have to. His presence was enough.

After that, things were fine for a while. I killed a couple of other people that we went up against, but only when I absolutely had to, and always keeping Phillip's words in mind to keep from driving myself insane with guilt.

I knew about PTSD (that's post-traumatic stress disorder, in case you didn't know) and the nightmares and flashbacks and all that stuff that veterans often have problems with, but being as young and naïve as I was. I figured that it would never be a problem for me. And it wasn't.

Not until… not until Thomas.

…Ah, God I'm sorry *sniff*. It's still really hard for me to talk about this without breaking down….

Okay.

So, when I was fourteen, I started my first large-scale, long-term undercover operation. Intel had gotten wind of this plot to assassinate the young heir to a large company. I can't give you any details, hell, I can't even tell you his last name, but his first name was Thomas.

My objective was to infiltrate the boarding school and become close enough to the target to provide protection and aid in his escape if need be, as well as doing some low-key investigation concerning the responsible party and their plans. Phillip was there as well, disguised as a janitor, to supervise more than anything else, and to provide assistance if something went wrong, or if it seemed that I needed it. Josh was my backup.

Thomas knew none of this, of course. As far as he was concerned, we were just the children of a big-deal politician from a small-deal place that he'd never heard of. He actually befriended Josh first—they bonded over their mutual love for cricket, of all things. Apparently, he was nervous around me. He thought that I was beautiful, the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen.

Months past, and we grew closer. Mine and Josh's fifteenth birthday passed, and Thomas called me aside on the Saturday of our party, and we talked, sitting out on the roof of the school. He told me that he thought he might be in love with me.

I couldn't say anything like that back to him, since I wasn't entirely sure I would mean whatever came out of my mouth, so I kissed him instead.

We were "in a relationship" then, and as a couple more months passed, I realized that I was doing the one thing forbidden to me, the metaphorical death of the undercover agent.

I was falling in love with the target.

Of course, right when I got up the nerve to tell him so, it all went to hell in a hand basket.

The assassins struck a month earlier than we expected them to. Apparently, it was impromptu and unplanned. Thomas and I ended up running, me leading, him stumbling behind in shock, until we reached the secret bunker that Phillip had hidden in the janitor's office.

"What the hell is going on?" Thomas yelled at me. So, as I loaded my M4 semi-automatic rifle and harness my side-arms, I told him basically what I've told you, albeit very much condensed.

He didn't take it well.

Ha was angry. SO angry. I just wanted to get him out of there, but he resisted every step of the way. We were almost out when he decided to stop dead and not move another inch until—God, I still remember every word that he said.

He said, "Just tell me this Julie (is that even your real name?). Am I just some sort of a job to you? Do you even care about me at all or was acting like you did just another part of the job?"

The whole time I was shaking my head furiously, pleading with him to please come on, that we'd talk about it later, once we were out, but he refused to budge an inch until I told him the true extent of our relationship, exactly what he meant to me. But, I couldn't force the words out. I just couldn't make myself say it.

The position we were in was very exposed. I knew that, but Thomas wouldn't listen.

They… they shot him. One bullet from the second floor balcony, angled through the chest. It missed everything vital, but he would bleed out in a couple of minutes nonetheless.

He died in my arms.

That's when the nightmares started. Over and over, I see myself losing him, I see the eyes of all of the people I've killed, all the people I've watched die, unable to do anything to help them. Their eyes… they haunt me.

Nobody would let me go anywhere for ages after Thomas. My first solo mission after that was about three months ago. Simple recon, though it was still exhausting. That's the only reason they got me. I was too tired to fight off more than one at a time, and I completely forgot about the other one, who fired off the tranquilizer.

So, here I am. That's my story.

I ask that you don't bring it up again. I try not to dwell on the past too much. It was painful enough the first time around.

I'm really tempted to write the Thomas story and post it on my fiction press, considering as it's not really fanficttion. Should I? Let me know and I might!

If you wanna check out my fictionpress account, it's the same username as here without the underscore. I would love to hear some feedback on the only thing I have posted there so far, a short romantidc-trajedy type thing! It's called Flower Shop Girl.

Now I'm done shamelessly advertising.

What are your thoughts on this chapter? Let me know!

~JM~