chapter = Chapter IX

author = Cicero_Phelps and KnightsTemplar

Rating = AP15

Type = Angst

fanfic =

Chapter IX

Rick clinched his eyes closed a little tighter and tried to ignore the sound that was echoing in the back of his head. It was typical of his roommates to wake up and screw with one another, shaving cream in the hand, fingers in hot water, but this was a new one.

Humming in the morning? Alan must be getting desperate.

He rolled over and groped around for a pillow, and upon finding one, covered his head with it, muttering and cursing about damn humming, and how annoying it was. In spite of what his mind was saying about his idiot friends, and stupid pranks, something was telling that it wasn’t Alan humming aloud, and in a very feminine voice for that matter, despite the fact that he had some feminine aspects in his voice.

Rick struggled, trying to figure out what his mind was trying to connect, but try as he might, he couldn’t. Then he felt something flop onto the bed and he groaned and opened his eyes.

If he was having a hard time before, he wasn’t anymore; he remembered it all now. He smiled to himself.

“Well hello gorgeous,” Rick said looking at Lisa, his expression changed to that of a confused in thought look, “what’s your name again.”

Lisa’s expression changed and she got a menacing look on his face, that turned into a menacing smile, “Oh, forgot my name have you,” she asked in a haughty tone, “well, it’s ok, you were pretty forgettable too,” she said with sly look on her face.

Despite the sarcasm and wildly obvious humor in her tone, Rick cringed a little at the thought of being that forgettable. While some women he knew would say otherwise, for some reason, the friendly barb stung a little, rubbing him just a little the wrong way.

“Well, sorry,” Rick said, tone a little harsh, but his tone still mirthful, “I didn’t know I had to live up to anything, especially in light of what you had been with, I thought I would have towered over the competition,” Rick said, pushing buttons.

Lisa’s expression changed, her smile fell, and a somber look came over her.

Rick reached for her, putting a hand on her shoulder, and smiled at her, “Sorry babe, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Rick told her, trying to reassure her.

She smiled a little, and curled up next to Rick, feeling his warmth, felling his arms wrap around her, making her feel safe, making her feel like everything was going to be alright in a world where anything and everything was still very much up in the air.

“I just don’t know how ready I am to see him again,” Lisa said to Rick.

She felt odd, feeling like she was divulging too much to someone that she had only met a handful of times and only spoken to as many times. Now she found him in her bed, spilling her soul to him.

Lost in thought, she was suddenly aware that he had pulled her closer to him, making her feel happier, and more secure than she had in the last few weeks. She looked at him, hoping that this wasn’t something random, something meaningless. She hoped to herself that it was something vastly more substantial.

“Rick, what becomes of us,” Lisa asked, hoping for the best, but steeling herself for the absolute worst.

He looked down to her, thinking about her question, asking himself the same thing for the first time. He had thought that he was still torn by Anna, but something had changed that, and he knew what it was now.

“Well, what do you want to happen to us,” Rick asked, “because if you don’t want anything serious, I guess I understand, I don’t agree, but understand.”

Lisa looked to Rick, not sure about what he said, trying to still process it. Why wouldn’t she want something serious?

‘But how’s he supposed to know that,’ Lisa asked herself.

She looked him over, looking for any sign of disingenuous behavior, or just to feel him out, get a sense of whether he was on the level or not.

A wave of happiness washed over Lisa and she knew exactly why. A tremendous weight still bore down on her, she knew why about that too.

“Rick, I don’t want to see him, I don’t care if he did it or not, I don’t want to see Karl again. The idea of him, and what he did makes me…makes me sick,” Lisa said, burying her head into Rick’s chest.

Rick, for his part, held onto Lisa a little tighter and pulled her close all at once.

“I know, I know,” Rick cooed to her, reassuring her. He hadn’t known her long, but he knew well enough that this wasn’t normal behavior for a woman like her. That to break down to someone like she was now was not something that she would normally have done.

“I don’t want to have to deal with it either, it makes all of this,” Rick gestured to the room and everything around them, “all of this seem so unreal, or real, because the last twelve hours with you have been unreal in a good way.”

She smiled up at him, “You know, you’re a goof ball,” she told him picking at him coyly.

Rick smiled and pulled Lisa to him and kissed her again, this time having thought about it instead of giving into the carnal urges that had bubbled up in him last night, but he didn’t regret it, just like he didn’t regret this now.

He liked Lisa, cared about her in a way that he hadn’t realized that he had only a few days before. In spite of all that, he had no regrets about Lisa, and for that matter, no reservations about what he was doing now, and based on Lisa’s reactions to him, she didn’t either.

They broke the kiss, and looked at one another for a few moments until Rick rolled over on top of Lisa and looked at her, a wild look in his eyes, along with a mirthful tinge to it.

Lisa’s surprised look was replaced by a coy sensual look, “Oh, someone is a bit assertive aren’t they,” Lisa asked rhetorically.

Rick gave her a smart look, “Forgettable am I,” Rick asked a twinge of sarcasm and anticipation in his voice. He began to kiss Lisa’s neck and let his hands roam all over her.

Lisa arched her head back and let a moan escape her mouth. Rick smiled.

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Lisa closed the door, smiling as she ushered Rick out so that he could go get ready for the trial.

She made a sour face as she thought about it, ‘The trial, the one thing I have been dreading having to deal with was now here.’

For Lisa, it wasn’t that she felt that Riber should have been able to get away with going AWOL, and conduct unbecoming of an officer of the United States Navy, it was the insult of also being charged with rape.

Lisa knew better, it hadn’t been rape, it had been a lie, a sham, and nothing more than just lust, but rape it was not. Lisa could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and she fought to maintain her composure in the face of her overwhelming emotions.

Despite her best attempts to hold the line, defend the walls, and hold back her emotions, she couldn’t help it as they burst out of her.

She felt the tears fall down her face and she sank down the door, her back pressed to it all the way. She again tried to pull herself together and retake control of herself, but for everything she got a grasp on, she lost two more.

Her life it seemed was no melting down all around her and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to help herself. Karl had been special to her, she had loved him there was no doubt about it, but this wasn’t her happy ending, this wasn’t how the story was supposed to end.

As much as Lisa fronted for herself, she knew that at the core there was no denying that she was a woman, and still had that idea of a happily-ever-after, something that she should have known better than to expect in her life.

She cried, crying out everything she had held inside, not just about Karl, but about Rick, the war, her family, crying so hard that she thought that she might run out of tears.

Lisa had never been much of a crier in her life, but she knew the necessity of being able to vent all your emotions, get it all out. But this was more than that, it was the catharsis of her life, of all the most recent happening of her life.

She thought back and remembered that the last time she had cried this hard. It was when her mother had died. That had, and was still the darkest day of her life. Even with all that she had been through in the last few years, nothing could eclipse that day, that cold, bitter day in December.

Lost in her reverie, she had failed to keep track of the time. She absently looked at her watch, and saw that she had only thirty minutes to get to ready for the court-martial. She sighed deeply, picked her head up, dried her eyes and forced herself to restore her “Hayes” cool.

She stood up and walked with grim determination, and an equal amount of dread, to go prepare for the very thing she wanted to avoid like the plague.

‘Life’s a bitch,’ Lisa thought.

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Rick sat idly on the couch in the guys’ dorm. He looked around, the only one he saw was Max, the only one last night who had been without a date, but still ever the trooper and threw himself out there with the rest of them on the “You Lose That Lovin’ Feelin’” that capped the night.

It still brought a smile to his face, that and the amazing night he had spent with Lisa, and all the fun they had had with one another. Rick smiled, the childish reference to sex and calling it fun still made him smile and chuckle.

But Rick knew it was getting close to that time. His smile quickly disappeared into a tight lipped frown. It wasn’t something that Rick had been looking forward to in the slightest, as a matter of fact, he had been dreading it with every fiber of his being.

He had no hate for Karl, a dislike, but that was to be expected for what role he played in the demise of his relationship. Even if it had more to do with Anna’s seeming inability to be content.

Despite what he had now, or seemed to have with Lisa, it was something that he was not happy about having to deal with. This was one of the few times that he would have preferred to have run away from the issue.

Rick steeled himself, and got up to go prepare for the court-martial. He stopped where he stood and felt a tear run down his face, the last tearing of a world that had seemed so happy, so close, yet a million miles away. It was the passing of a simpler time, the tearing away from youth and the start into adulthood.

‘Why does life have to be such a bitch,’ Rick asked himself.

Rick entered the hearing room with Max flanking him on his left, noticing that Alan, Rodney, and Ben were there already, mostly rested but still with a bleary-eyed look that suggested that they were not yet fully recuperated from the prior evening’s events. He smiled at them all, then sat down with his back ramrod-straight on the back of the bench, waiting for the show to begin.

Lisa trembled as she walked unsteadily towards the hearing room; it took both Claudia and Vanessa to flank her to make sure she didn’t stumble. Her heart was made of lead; she couldn’t think straight, and was having trouble focusing her vision. She was walking in a fog; this was all too surreal for her liking. Fortunately, it shouldn’t last too long, in her mind; one of the charges, rape, would be thrown out for lack of supporting evidence, and the others, conduct unbecoming and desertion, would be impossible to refute.

The ladies took their benches on the opposing side of the aisle from the guys, and waited for the JAG, a Lieutenant Colonel Adams, to enter. That could be a good thing, Lisa mused; Adams wasn’t known for excessive formalities and drawn-out procedurals; she figured they could probably leave without being called, but would have to stick around for the formalities anyway.

They didn’t have long, as the bailiff entered, and the hearing got underway.

Anna got up on the stand first, and made for a poor witness for the prosecution. She appeared drunk, hung over, poorly dressed, sporting hair that Cousin It would be ashamed of. She rambled on and on in her answers, to the point that the defense counsel declined to cross-examine her on grounds that she already did his job for him.

“Cadet Hayes, please step forward,” the bailiff called out.

Lisa stood up, fought off a wave of nausea that swept over her, and walked with parade precision to the witness stand. The bailiff swore her in, and the prosecutor fired away. “Cadet Hayes, please tell the court about what happened the night of the 16th?”

“My squad mates and I were enjoying dinner, when we received a phone call saying my then-boyfriend, Karl Riber, was at the Pink Coral Motel with another woman. We…”

“Excuse me for interrupting, Ma’am, but you’re referring to the defendant and the prior witness, correct?”

“Yes, I am,” Lisa said. “We, meaning my friends and I, rushed to the motel immediately, where we found the Air Force cadets likewise pulling up to the motel…”

“You mean Cadets Hunter, Stirling, Dixon, Wakefield, and Abernathy?”

“Yes, I do. We all entered the room, room 205, and saw the previous witness crying and begging forgiveness from Cadet Hunter.”

Lisa’s voice started to shake a little, and she coughed as the prosecutor asked her next question. “Was Cadet Bucholtz in shock at all?”

Lisa looked at Anna from across the courtroom, who was glaring red hot daggers at Lisa. “Only in that she was found out, Ma’am.”

“Objection,” the defense counsel said. “Speculation.”

“Sustained,” Col. Adams intoned.

The prosecutor tried another tack. “How did Cadet Riber react to your sudden entrance?”

“He went out the window, trying to escape from us,” Lisa answered.

“Then what happened?”

“Cadet Abernathy caught him in the alley, and Cadet Riber tried fighting his way out, so Abernathy gave him a few punches. Then Hunter and I showed up and stopped that.”

“Did you hit Cadet Riber?”

Lisa winced. “I did, yes,” she answered, clearly embarrassed.

“Did you assault him?”

“No, it was a single blow, and then we all departed.”

“Why did you hit him?”

“Because he betrayed me, he broke my heart, and he tried running away from the facts as opposed to staying there and taking it like a man,” she cried, fighting the tears back.

“Nothing further, Cadet. You may step down,” the judge instructed, calling for a ten minute recess.

Rick looked at Lisa, and felt his heart turn to putty. He saw her red-faced, puffy-eyed, and heartbroken, and every instinct in his body told him to comfort her. But decorum, and the sense that he wasn’t sure if she’d accept his comfort, kept him back, sitting across the aisle, as they had to stick to decorum. He looked at his squad mates, and saw them stealing glances at their dates from the prior night, as he pondered what was transforming within himself. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice Lisa staring at him with a forlorn look, almost beseeching him to comfort her, to be her rock.

The door opened, startling them out of their reverie and to attention. The magistrate entered, and then assumed his position at the head table.

Colonel Adams looked at Karl, who sat shock-straight in the dock, wearing a formal uniform devoid of all insignia. “Cadet Karl Riber, stand at attention.”

Karl stood and faced the magistrate, who looked at him and fumed. “Desertion during wartime is an offense that can be considered treasonous, and the penalty for that is death. I have the sworn statements from everyone in the gallery there that attest to your whereabouts two nights ago, and the written statement from the cadet supervisor on duty that you did not sign out properly for your rendezvous. I don’t find credible evidence of a rape,” he said, “but the other charges are beyond believable, and are, in fact, persuasive. I find you deficient in the character necessary to be an officer in the United States Navy, and I find you to be a deserter.”

Karl blanched at the thought of the imminent penalty, and the observers in the box held their breath; would they erect a gallows? Would he be sentenced to prison? What was going to happen next?

“Karl Xavier Riber, I sentence you to be stripped of your cadet status and reassigned to the labor battalions, where you will engage in forced labor for six years, which is the time left on what you would originally have for your commission,” Adams said. “In addition, Cadet Anna Bucholtz, step forward.”

Anna stood upright and took a step towards the table. “You are hereby remanded into custody for a hearing on similar charges,” the judge said. He looked up at the rest of the entourage and said, “Court is adjourned.”

AN: This chapter is a bit of a joint effort, and it took a little extra effort, but we hope you like it. Please, please, please…READ AND REVIEW!!! Reviews are food. Please feed us.

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