Saepe Expertus Chapters Seven-Ten

Country: Iraq, Location: Undisclosed- November 1023 hours

"Fuck all that Tyson just get us there! Dammit Ryans! C'mon!" Mitchell had told First Sergeant to keep Ryans behind the wire, and they had all agreed. Lieuntant Hielson, on the other hand, didn't look at the medical report and sent him on patrol. Mitchell swore he would see the officer pay for his stupidity, but for now the task at hand was helping Doc Lyn keep the Corporal alive long enough to reach Camp Fallujah. Tourniquets and IVs aside, what else could he do?

He looked helplessly at the Corpsman who seemed to be moving faster then the speed of sound. Without taking his eyes off what he was doing Lyn shoved a bag of fluids into the Sergeant's chest. Loveless was in the torret cursing and shouting in both English and broken Arabic for people to get off the road, get out of the way.

"Hey Mitchell." Ryans voice was weak and gravelly, as he regained conciousness. "You gotta do me a favor."

"Shut up Vance!" Lazaro loudly interjected from the passanger seat, in between radioing the larger base to advise them of the situation. "You ain't beating nobody to gaurd duty at the Pearly Gates today boy! So don't go asking Mitchell to give your wife no final messages!"

The younger Marine tried to laugh, but only ended up coughing and taking a shaking, wheezing breath instead "Fuck you, Laz! I need my boots taken off." he replied with a small grin on his face, "The damn things are killing me."

Mitchell reached over to comply, but Doc Lyn stopped him, mumbling something the Sergeant couldn't hear. Ryans didn't seem to notice, "Hey, it was a hell of a day, Sergeant." He gave another small cough.

"It ain't over yet, Ryans, we gotta get you to the docs at the MEK and you'll be good to go." Dade looked ahead through the front seats to try and figure out where they were, he gave up after a few seconds. "ETA Tyson!?"

"ETA is momentarily so if he buys it now let him know I'm going to make sure those docs bring him back so I can beat the hell outta him!"

Looking back down at the bloody mess that was one of his best Marines he thought Ryans was trying to tell him something, but he wasn't making a sound. Mitchell leaned in closer, "What Vance?"

"Oh nothing, Sergeant, I was asking God to watch over you guys and my wife. You know, just in case-"

Doc spoke for the first time since they had put Ryans in the Humvee, "Hey shut the hell up, Vance! You ain't going no place but to the MEK you hear?"

"Roger that Doc," Ryans gave a short nod, "But it's not like the guys would miss me; they'd be too busy splitting my gear to notice." He was able to get a small chuckle out at his own joke this time.

The doctor at the MEK looked at Mitchell before following behind the team that had taken Ryans inside, his voice ws cool "Your company's sure getting tore up this time around, huh, Sergeant?" Mitchell was certain if that doc had taken one second longer to walk inside he would've punched the smug Major square in the nose!

Stateside- July, Day Fifty-eight

Stormie didn't know what startled her awake at four in the morning. Reaching for Dade's shoulder she discovered his absense, certain she hadn't dreamt going to bed at the same time as her husband, she pulled on the pajama bottoms that matched her Tshirt and went on a search for him. She found him out on the steps of their front porch, he turned his head to the side, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Wordlessly she sat next to him, he offered her a beer as he finished his latest out of a number Stormie didn't want to guess. She shook her head and watched him as he opened it and drank greedily. He lit a cigarette and sat there, staring at nothing.

Stormie finally spoke, "Worse this time."

Dade knew what she meant and grunted by way of response.

"Well what are we going to do Sergeant?"

He flinched at the sound of his new rank coming from her lips, almost as though he'd been physically struck. He didn't like bringing work home, he said as much.

Stormie snorted and put her hand on his shoulder, "And that might work if you hadn't brought whatever this is and dumped it in the middle of the living room floor with the rest of the sand-filled leftovers from this deployment." She moved to stand and he grabbed her hand, holding her in place.

She sat back down and stared openly at him, waiting. After a few minutes of staring at each other she kissed his cheek and rested her head on his shoulder. Dade found that he couldn't hold it all in anymore, he had to tell her. She HAD to know, and she had to know NOW.

"I question myself so many times, too many times, about so many things." He stared at the bottle in his hands. He quickly glanced at her face, she was waiting for an explination. Could he find the words?

She spoke again before he did, "I've told you time and time again, sweetheart, what you want to tell me you can tell me, what you don't want to tell me you don't have to. Iraq is Iraq, home is home, I'm not going to demand to know every little detail of your every waking moment over there."

"Yeah, yeah, I've got that speech memorized already," He grumbled sourly, "But what about the stuff you need to know? The stuff you should know? You don't want to hear that either?"

Stormie shook her head and got up to keep from yelling at her husband and waking the neighbors, she picked up a dodge ball from the front yard and tossed it back and forth in her hands, she faced him, "I never said I didn't want to know what you went through, what keeps you up at night eating at your insides. I said it's not my place to pepper you with questions, hounding you til you tell me, that's what I said and that's what I meant."

Dade stood up and put his hands behind his back, at parade rest. He stayed that way for a few minutes, almost as if choosing what he was going to say next. He should have chose better. "That's a cop out, Stormie. That's what you say to make up for the fact that you'd rather not know because it's easier for you that way." He walked over to his truck and got a new pack of cigarettes from the glove box. He was closing the door when the dodgeball struck him in the back of the head. "What the fuck?!" He turned and she was glaring at him, hands on her hips.

"Easy?! You think all this is EASY!?!"

Dade was mad now. "You're damn right you've got it easy, you're just a wife! You don't have this replaying in your head, awake or asleep, every single moment! You don't have to deal with knowing what I know, seeing what I've seen or doing what I've done!"

She slowly walked toward him, locking eyes with him and lowering her voice. The last thing they needed was the neighbors calling the MPs. "Oh yeah? And you have no idea what it's like to wake up wondering if the person you're laying next to is going to be fighting mad for no reason at all or at least not any reason they're willing to discuss with you! You're not the one that had to walk on eggshells all night last Wednesday night because there was still 3 plates from lunch in the sink at suppertime or some other mountain you've made out of a molehill just for the hell of it!"

He shook his head "Stormie I-"

"I'm not finished, Dade! We've not even touched what deployments are like for ME! You have no idea what it was like the two weeks I waited for your call!? Do you?! Not knowing if it was your truck that was hit or if I was going to have to run over to Alexa's or Jae'Lynn's at a moment's notice because it was THEIR husband's who got blown up and all the while wondering exactly which one I was supposed to be begging God for! Knowing that ya'll got into a bad way on that last patrol, but not knowing who was KIA and feeling like scum cause all I could think of 'Lord please don't let them knock on my door!' Seven months were spent just like that! Wondering where you are, if you're hurt or when you're going to call. Staring at the phone wishing like crazy the damned thing would ring, but praying that it won't because it may not be you!" She wiped the tears from her eyes and moved to sit back down on the steps.

He sat down next to her, but didn't look at her. "I had no idea."

Stormie let out an exasperated sigh, "No Dade Riley, of course you didn't, because you don't need any of that. You don't need to know how it affected me this time, or the 2 other times before. You don't need to know because it's not your place to worry about how I'm managing. A distracted Marine is a dead Marine. But now that it's all on the table I'll tell you that yes I wish I knew what was bothering you, but no I'm not going to force you to tell me. I live with PTSD the same way you do, because I love you. I know I can't help you, even if you do talk to me about whatever this is, and that's the hardest part of all this. I know how long you're going to be this way, tearing yourself apart over things you can't change, and that's why I laugh when I hear someone say 'two minutes, two months', because I know you really only have two seconds to make the decision and you'll monday morning quarterback yourself for the next two lifetimes because that's the nature of the game."

She kissed his cheek and stood, staring down the street at the first signs of the coming dawn showing at the edge of the sky, "I love you Dade, and I love our life, but I pray night and day for a little respite, for all our sakes. Just one full twenty-four hours when you don't have to see, hear or relive any of it, and I'll keep praying until it happens. I know those experiances are what made you into the man I love today, and I know you wouldn't trade them in for anything, but I think you need to think long and hard about the rest of us before you decide that you're the only one in this house that deals with Iraq on a daily basis."

Knowing he wasn't going to say anything else Stormie walked back into the house and started getting ready for the busy day ahead of them. After she left Dade cracked open another beer. "Way to go Mitchell." He scolded himself aloud, "Maybe next time tell her childbirth's a cake walk while you're at it, idiot." He lit a cigarette and watched the sun rise, spending the next hour perched exactly where he was trying not to think.

Country: Iraq, Location: Undisclosed- November, 1400 hours

One rifle, one helmet, one pair of boots, one set of dogtags; all of it was the gear of Marine Corporal Vance Ryans. Ryans, who was smiling proudly in the picture leaned against the sandbags holding the rifle in place. The recorded sounds of bagpipes crying Amazing Grace coming from a CD player off to the side seemed to surround the Marines as they stood in formation in front of the memorial.

Sergeant Mitchell shouted "present" when his name was called and listened as the First Sergeant called Ryans' name three times. Ryans, why Ryans? The unanswered question echoed in his pounding head along side images and flashes of memories shared with the fallen Marine. A familiar pit formed in his stomach, the same as it had the previous times before. He stood at attention silently trying not to notice the hot tears running down his face, or the faces surrounding him.

A whisper behind him almost caused him to break ranks. Heilson! He's responsible for this! He's why Ryans bought it! Mitchell clinched his fist and gritted his teeth; maintaining his position in the formation when he really wanted to beat that man to a bloody pulp was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he did it for Ryans. Out of all the Marine officers in the Corps why did his Marines have to get stuck taking orders from this ignorant Pogue? This man knew nothing about combat, or how to run an infantry platoon and he knew even less about what it meant to be a good officer Mitchell thought angerly. Here they were saying good-bye to a Marine that HE got killed and he didn't even have the common decency to keep his mouth shut!

After the order to fall out Tyler and Simms knelt beside him in front of the memorial and Mitchell couldn't hold back any longer. He sobbed into the back of his hand for a few minutes so hard he was fighting to breathe. Tyler gripped the shoulder of Mitchell's cammie blouse and Simms put his hand on the top of his head. Neither saying a word, but both reassuring him they were there.

"Did you know his wife's knocked up?" They heard Lazaro say behind them, breaking the semi-silence with words no one expected.

Mitchell leapt to his feet, not caring, or not noticing, he was facing the majority of his platoon in the state he was in. "What!?! When did he find out?"

"Just that morning. He was trying to find you to tell you before we rolled out but ya'll must have crossed paths coming from and going to the phone center. He was so excited man, he wanted you to tell him everything about how to be a good dad and help him pick out a name."

At that moment Lieutenant James Heilson sauntered up to the gathering, "Marines, Sergeant, perhaps we should riegn in such emotions and save them for private moments of reflection."

Mitchell didn't try to hide his contempt, "What makes you think so, sir?"

Heilson was oblivious, "It dampens the morale of the men to see such displays from their NCOs. Help them focus on the mission by doing that yourselves and it will help ease your pain, gentlemen." He turned on his heel and walked away, as if nothing could possibly be wrong with the day.

"I'll show you focus on the mission you asshole!" Mitchell bellowed and started after him, only to run into Gunny Rios.

Gunny turned quickly to make sure no attention from the brass Heilson had joined had been drawn to the group he had walked up to and wrapped his arms around the Sergeant in an attempt to help restrain and calm him down."Now is not the time, Sergeant. Mast has been requested concerning Heilson's decision to send Ryans on patrol despite medical reports saying he shouldn't be there. With luck he'll be gone soon."

Mitchell pulled away and straightened his blouse, he squared his shoulders at the Gunnery Sergeant, "He'll only result in the loss of more good Marines, Gunny, and we're a dying breed as it is."

Gunny nodded wordlessly as the group filed past them. He smirked as he watched Tyler throw his arm over Mitchell's shoulder, Lazaro slap the Sergeant on the back and Simms punch him in the ribs. "A dying breed, indeed, Sergeant."

Stateside- July Day Sixty-Six

Most of the Marines in Mobile Assault Platoon Two of Weapons Company would have bet a paycheck that at one point of another Sergeant Dade Mitchell and Mrs. Jae'Lynn Loveless were involved with each other, without the knowledge of their respective spouses.

One of those times was at a cook-out at Lazaro's new house on base, a few blocks from The Mitchells, in fact. Dade's moods had only been getting worse and rumors that he was binge drinking and maybe even addicted to pain killers were wild through the battalion. A Marine in Fox Company had even mentioned to one of the Lance Corporals from Mobile Assault Platoon One that at the comissary a few weeks back Stormie Mitchell had looked away from him and his wife in attempts to hide a black eye. None of this escaped Dade's attention, but had only made his spiral downward that much worse and now, a case into the night with no signs of stopping, and brushing off his wife's attempts to stop him; Jae'Lynn had seen enough! She never even bothered to acknowledge the rumors about her and Dade; she was friendly with all the Marines in Weapons Company, and even some in Golf. Wives that were jealous of how the Marines took to her nuturing, laid-back approach to friendship had started those rumors and as long as Nikolas knew better then to listen to them she didn't care how they talked about her.

One she loved more then most was Dade, he was like the brother she had lost in her youth; that's what drew her to him. She sat down beside him on the back porch steps, where he had isolated himself with his beer and cigarettes, and put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. Declining his offer to help herself to one of the first beers from the second case he had just started on, she sat in silence for awhile, waiting for what she knew was coming.

"I can't tell her Jae'." He choked out finally. Almost on the verge of tears for a reason Jae'Lynn wasn't ready to attribute to the quanity of alcohol he had consumed just yet. "I try everyday, I just can't."

"Why Dade? Why can't you tell her?" she didn't move from her position, or even flinch when he turned and slammed his fist into the solid wood railing beside him. Her eyes followed him when he jumped up and started pacing.

"I just can't! I want to! I want to so bad it's driving me out of my mind, Jae'. I just can't put it on her. All the horrible images that go through my head daily. How do I inflict those on someone so innocent and so trusting of me to protect her from those very things?"

"So don't tell her, Dade, tell me." She laid her arms across the top of her knees and stared at him, waiting for the rest of it.

"I need her to know, Jae', besides I'm sure you already do. I need her to know all of this, but if she decides to leave me-"

"You know that ain't gonna happen, Dade Riley, so shut up!" She stood and walked toward him. "You make it sound like you need validation and that's not it at all. You want her to know so she'll tell you that you're still the man she loves, and the man she wants to be with. So you need to stop drinking yourself to sleep every night, man up and talk to your wife, Marine!"

She wrapped him in a hug that he had no choice but to accept, "Dade, you're one of the best men I've ever known and she's the woman for you. She's not going anywhere if you would just stop wallowing in this and get it off your chest. You need to stop wasting your days in a bottle and get around to living them again because before long ya'll are going back and you're going to hate yourself for how much you missed."
Country-Iraq Location: Undisclosed- December, 1000 hours

"So anybody wanna tell me the location of the worthless grunt my sister was stupid enough to marry?"

Mitchell snapped around, stunned at the familiar voice coming up behind him, he fell a few steps back from Tyler and moved like he was going to punch his brother-in-law in the stomach. Laughing the muscular Marine fake blocked and made a move towards Mitchell's face. They embraced briefly chuckling, and then fell in step with Staff Sergeant Aidan Collins taking up the middle.

"We thought ya'll rotated back last month." Tyler stated after the casual small talk died down.

"Nah, we got a month left of showing ya'll East Coast toolbags how it's done. We're just here to have your motor pool look at one of our seven tons before we head back out to Ramadi. Damn thing was fine when we left Baghdad!" Collins slapped Tyler on the shoulder and turned to Mitchell pulling an envelope out of his cargo pocket. They stopped and sat in the shade of the closest building and Aidan lit a cigarette, "Ma sent me those, but I'm sure you got more."

Mitchell nodded his head as he flipped through photos his mother in law took of the kids at Halloween and the family at Thanksgiving. He handed the envelope and it's contents back and lit a cigarette of his own, "How's Grace?" He asked just for something to say. He didn't perticularly care of Aidan's girlfriend, but he wasn't ready to give up the small comfort of his brother-in-law's presence just yet.

The larger Marine shrugged and looked between Mitchell and Tyler, " We all know how tag chasers are."

Mitchell raised an eyebrow, "Tag chaser? I knew she was stupid but damn man, seriously?"

Tyler shook his head, "They oughta make it a law that women who cheat while their Marines are at war are like guilty of treason or something."

Collins laughed out loud and slapped Tyler's shoulder again, "I don't think Grace was worth a firing squad, dude, but that's a good one!" he got serious again, "Yeah, she sent me an email about how she was moving in with this Corporal from the seventh. Whatever dawg, I was looking at PCSing back to home anyway and she wouldn't marry me because she knew it."

Tyler snorted in disgust and dug his heel into the sand, "Some women are meant to be military wives and other's are meant to be entertainment."

Aidan's laughter caught Tyler off gaurd this time, because the other Marine had been serious. "Dude, where did they find you? I seriously need to request this company, ya'll are great!" He stood, watching the two Sergeants in front of him stand as well. Not bothering to swat at the sand in the wrinkles and creases of his battered utilities he shook hands with Tyler and gave Mitchell another quick hug, "Keep your heads down Marines. We'll see ya'll."

Mitchell and Tyler waved as he walked away and turned, continuing to their original destination, the phone center in hopes of a few minutes to talk to their wives. They had only just got to the doors ten minutes later when a crowd emerged from inside the building shaking their heads and complaining.

Lazaro seemed to appear from out of the crowd in front of them "Comms just got shut down." He didn't have to explain or say he had no explination. Either it was a random disruption or some idiot violated OPSEC bragging to his girlfriend.

Mitchell and Tyler looked at each other silently and the three started back to the huts that had been converted into the rooms they were living in. They were halfway their when their trucks came roaring past, barely skidding to a stop as their rifles, flaks and kevlars were heaved at them.

Tyson had a grim look on his face as he explained from his position behind the wheel of the Humvee that stopped in front of them, "Grunts that just left are pinned down in the city and taking heavy fire with a few casualties reported already, we've been called out to assist."

Mitchell felt his blood run cold. he watched Lazaro disappear into the Humvee in front of him and reappear seconds later in the torret above his head. His gaze snapped back to Tyson "Aidan-?"

Tyson just gave a shake of his head before Tyler drug Mitchell by the shoulder of his newly donned flak to their truck. "Oscar mike!" Tyler shouted before his door was even closed. "Fucking move this thing now!" He bellowed at Simms, who already had the Humvee topped out blowing through the gates of the compound.

Stateside- July Day Sixty Eight

"There's no denying it, Stormie, darling, you are indeed pregnant." Stormie was so glad that Raelyne Rios was a midwife at the OB clinic. Most of the other midwives and nurses were mouthy and liked to gossip, but if she told Raelyne to keep in quiet Stormie knew the older woman would understand.

Sensing her hesitation Raelyne patted her knee and then turned to her desk to finish Stormie's paperwork, "It'll be alright, dear, you'll do great!"

"How far along am I?" Stormie asked, finally able to speak.

"Oh between six and eight weeks I'd measure for now, we'll know better once we've done an ultrasound. Quite a welcome home, huh?" Raelyne winked at her.

"So that means the due date is in November." Stromie quickly calculated it and her mood fell again, Dade wouldn't be able to be at the birth.

"November tenth to be exact." Raelyne chuckled and even Stormie smiled. A child due on the Marine Corps birthday, even if he couldn't be there the date would be enough to make Dade happy.

Raelyne's tone turned serious, "How are things at home, Stormie?"

Taken aback Stormie answered, "Fine."

Raelyne just nodded, "Alejandro's told me about how hard readjusting as been for Dade this time around."

Stormie just shrugged and stood up, "No worse then any other time." It wasn't a lie, she told herself, it was protecting her husband since Raelyne was obviously being the Gunny's wife right now instead of Stormie's friend, and besides, just because Dade's got it rough doesn't mean he's a bad Marine.

Raelyne touched her arm, "I'm not trying to come off like a mother hen here, but we're all worried about him, and you. I mean first with the drinking, and then with the fight-"

Stormie tried to keep her tone even, she failed "What fight?"

Raelyn sighed heavily, "I thought you would've known. He knocked out a Sergeant from Fox Company for saying something about him hitting you or something."

Stormie snorted, "Who can blame him then." And when she saw Raelyne's look she added "C'mon now, ya'll really thought I'd let him hit me and get away with it?"

The older woman opened her mouth but nothing came out so Stormie continued, "I mean sure Dade's got a temper, and sure he's had a few rough patches since they got back but, everybody else should know he's too smart to raise a hand to me cause he knows what would happen if he did." She grinned at Raelyne, "And I'll just say it has something to do with the kitchen full of cast iron I got at home!"