Blood Stripes

-Prologue-
She woke up with no real sense of time or location. All she knew was darkness and them. No not them, rather their presence. She also knew that somewhere in the dark was a girl pleading and begging someone to help her, her words muffled by the T-shirt tied around her face.

She wanted desperately to help but she was pinned to where she was, something was keeping her from moving. And then there was them. To her it seemed they were everywhere, breathing hot and heavy covering her face as they groaned and gasped, one after the other.

They also commanded the crying girl to shut up, they hit her and throttled her but she continued to beg that they stop what they were doing. They continued however, harder with her every plea. Barely saying anything amongst themselves though obviously enjoying themselves.

She felt herself slipping away again, gratefully moving away from the violence that was enveloping her conscious world at present. The last thing she heard were the words of the one that started it all “Whose gonna want you now baby girl? No one cause you’re mine.”

She let the emptiness take her before coming to the realization that the girl sobbing into the T-shirt was herself.

-1-
They stood outside the ICU room, watching her sleep through the window. Having no next of kin, Sergeant Gavin Wilkes was her emergency contact. "We've known each other long enough to be siblings." He explained to the doc. "What happened?"

Another Sergeant from his platoon, Wade Tabers, had drove him over, having been right there, knowing her almost as well as Gavin, and having parked his truck closer that particular day. Seeing the doc was reluctent to tell them he eased into a different approach. "Can we see her, doc?" Wade whispered but his deep voice still echoed through the empty hallway.

The major in front of them shook his head, staring at the floor. "I won't lie to you, Marines, I've never seen a woman in such a bad way before. The bruises will heal in time, but I don't think she's going to be the same woman you knew before this."

The two looked at each other and then back to the doc, "What are you saying?"

Sergeant Ember Reeves awoke and was watching as her doctor relayed the details of her situation to the only two men she would ever trust again. She gasped when Wade turned and punched the wall. Gavin looked sick, but glued to where he was. Wade turned and leaned his head against the window of her room, she motioned to him and before she could blink he was there clinching her hand as if trying to keep her from disappearing.

"Wade, it's ok." She ran her hand over his head as he layed his forehead on her arm.

"We're supposed to be telling you that, Em." Gavin almost chuckled as he entered the room, barely flinching at the bruises on her face.

"I already know." Ember looked up at him, stubbornly. "Did you tell him to let me out of here?"

Wade looked at her, wild-eyed, he leaned back in his chair "Where the hell you think you're going missy?"

Ember rolled her eyes, "Ya know sometimes you grunts are dense."

Wade crossed his arms and just stared at her. "Oh fine!" she said exasperated, "I've got to get back to work. I've got Marines and duties I'm responsible for just like the two of you."

"Damn girl, slow down, rest, heal." Gavin sat on the edge of the bed and gave her foot a squeeze, "After what you've just been through your Marines will understand."

"I doubt that Gav," she chuckled as she readjusted to get a little more comfortable, "Out of the ten mechanics in my shop, I'm the only female." The grunts looked at each other, not speaking but knowing what the other was thinking, and as if she read their thoughts, Ember shook her head ,"Don't even think about it boys. Just go talk to that doc and tell him to get me out of here!"

"Fine but you'll come home with me." Wade stood up, focused on the orders she just gave.

Wilkes sat in the chair Wade had just vacated, and studied Ember's bruised face, "How do you know-?"

"I don't Gavin, ok?" She was getting frustrated, "I don't know if they were the ones or not, but I know that ya'll throwing your careers away over me is not something I want to deal with for the rest of my life."

Gavin shook his head and sighed as he looked at the ceiling, "But living with this is exceptable?"

"I never said that!" She got defensive, "I just don't want you to shooting up the place Wyatt Erup style before NCIS has time to do their jobs!"

"NCIS only looks out for Marine Corps interest, not yours!" Gavin stood up and started pacing.

Ember got a little quieter, "That's why I have you and Wade ya know?" He stopped and looked at her, she continued, "And who would help look out for my interests if the two of ya'll are in Leavenworth?"

Gavin just stared at her, almost like he'd never seen her before now. This was not the Ember he grew up with, but didn't the doc just tell him she would change?

Wade came back in holding some paperwork, "Everything's good to go, just got to bring you back tomorrow for follow up and once a week for awhile." He looked back and forth between the two of them, "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing." Ember shook her head and held her arms out to him "Lets get out of here, boys. I've got to talk to ya'll about how this is going to work."

-2-
Two months later, Gavin stopped his truck amid the cloud of dust that had followed him up the road. It mingled in the thick morning air with the dust from the driveway and it made him feel like he was breathing mud as he slammed his door and walked toward the house.

"You're up early this morning Gavin!" Came a Wade's voice from around back.

Wilkes followed it and found his platoon mate shirtless in the humid Carolina dawn. The larger Marine's head was buried under the hood of his truck, grease and grim blackened his forearms, as well as his tattooed covered torso. He stopped his off-key humming to the song on the radio in the kitchen window when Gavin rested against the fender. After a few seconds of silence it was obvious neither was in a talking mood.

"How is she?" Wilkes asked when he couldn't stand the song on the radio any longer.

Tabers continued working, but nodded his head as though that answered the question leveled at him. He added, almost as an afterthought, "Last night was a good night. She only cried out once or twice."

His fellow Sergeant seemed satisfied with that answer, "Where is she now?"

Again, Tabers didn't look up from the truck engine. His reply was nonchelant. "In my bed, probably still sleeping."

Gavin all but turned on his comrade, "What the hell Tabers!?"

Wade finally looked up, and after putting his tools down, threw up his hands in a signal of truce, or surrender; Gavin wasn't sure which at the moment. He waited for an explination while the man in front of him lit a cigarette. Wade took a few drags before he spoke. "Look bud, she wanted out of the house, so we went for a drive. We was riding past Lucky's and she saw some female she knew in the parking lot. We pulled in and she was cutting up and carrying on, seeming like her old self which was great. She was laughing and everything, man! Well we was about to leave and out of the bar stumbles Rayes, Scott and Miller. I'm their Sergeant, Gavin, I couldn't knowingly let them take off driving drunk as they were, so I piled them into the truck with us."

Wilkes wasn't going to just give in and let that be it. "But still, man! After everything she's been through!"

Tabers looked dumbstruck for a few seconds then laughed, long and loud. He ran his grease covered hand over his closely cropped hair and lowered his voice, "You still want this cherade to go on right?"

Gavin nodded his head and opened his mouth to speak, but Wade cut him off, "Then I couldn't very well sleep on the couch with them with my pregnant girl in my bed. Would look way too funny!"

"They know she's pregnant?""Gavin asked in disbelief.

"Why else would she turn down a beer?" Wade shot back as though that explained everything. He leaned against his toolbox facing away from Wilkes, watching the dark clouds roll threateningly above the trees. It was the first time Gavin was fully aware of the toll this situation was taking on his friend.

He moved to the other side of the truck and leaned against the fender, facing Wade. "Do you want battalion to think this is your kid?"

The question got a sour look in response, "Her command's already on her to take an administrative seperation. All they're thinking about is the major black eye for the Corps if she starts talking. What do you think those brass would try if they learned she was knocked up by one of them?" He almost shivered and his eyes got darker, "An even worse thought is what THEY would do if they found out the baby's not mine."

Miller had been a few steps away, unnoticed, when he heard what Sergeant Tabers had said. Unaware that he'd gone unseen he stammered. "I-I-I'll just come back later." He took off back to the house, but was stopped by Gavin.

"FUCK!" Wade shouted, opening his tool box again with a slam. He put a cigarette in his mouth and motioned from Gavin to Miller. Too late for discretion now he thought angerly, aloud he calmly stated, "Tell him."

Miller leaned against the truck door with a smug look of superiority on his face. before Wilkes could begin he spoke, "She's a female Marine, Sergeant. What's to tell?" The statement was self-explanitory and Wade saw red.

"Dammit all to hell Gavin square that boy away!" He slammed the wrench onto the fender and lit the cigarette.

Gavin moved closer to the Corporal, and took pride in watching the superior look fade from the younger Marine's eyes as he explained. "My best friend from childhood is Marine Sergeant Ember Reeves. My parents adopted her when her folks died in a car wreck. She helped me bury my parents when cancer took my dad and a heart attack took my mom. She's a shop chief over at MLG, there are ten mechanics in that shop; she's the only female. I'll leave the rest to your imagination." Gavin gave the kid a disgusted look and walked way to where he left his cigarettes on the fender of the truck.

Miller spoke again after a few seconds, his tone measured this time. "Maybe you shouldn't let me fill in the blanks, Sergeant, 'cause what I'm thinking-"

"What?" Tabers interrupted, throwing his cigarette away and moving toward the younger man. "What were you thinking Miller?"

The Corporal didn't back down from the larger Marine but when he opened his mouth to answer the question no sound came out, so he closed it again; instead locking eyes with the seething man in front of him.

"Go ahead and say it Miller." Tabers tone was quiet now, but there was still a very real edge. "Say the words, man, it ain't that hard." He lit another cigarette "Or maybe you were thinking about numbers! Right? Nine men, most of whom are our size, against her: five foot three, a buck thirty soaking wet and carrying a rifle, and that's if she's lucky. And what about time right? From 2200 when the duty has her logged back in from getting a late chow til dawn when a recon team on a mock scout just happened to find her. Maybe you were remembering how hard it was for us to find our way around the last time we had to work in the wooded swamps out there in TLZ Falcon; which is where they took her to after they jumped her in the ladderwell of the barracks and loaded her into a truck."

Miller had turned pale and that had slowly faded to a light green. He lowered his eyes and shook his head slowly. "Sergeant, I-"

"WHAT!?" Tabers bellowed then quieted down again, throwing a glance at a wide-mouthed Gavin as his last word echoed over the empty fields surrounding the small clapboard house. He continued, quieter now then before, almost whispering in a menacing tone. "Were you trying to take an inventory of gear, Corporal? The 550 cord they used to tie her to the trees, or the shredded cammies found by NCIS at the crime scene. Or maybe the poncho liner that recon covered her with, but then you can't forget the Ka-Bar they used to carve designs into her flesh while they waiting their turn."

Gavin stepped up, putting his hand on the larger man's shoulder, "C'mon Wade that's enough, he's got the point."

Wade shrugged him off, "I don't think he does Wilkes, I don't think he realizes what kind of hell she went through. How many bruises and scars she still carries two months later to forever afterward from the damage they did taking what no man has any right to." He paused, "Besides I think he needs to say it. He needs to ask out loud how many turns they took. Go ahead, Miller, say it. Tell me what you were thinking, because I bet your worst nightmares from Iraq doesn't compare to the inhuman brutality that Marine endured at the hands of her fellow Marines. A punishment for which she did nothing to deserve! Go ahead and tell me Corporal, tell me you were thinking about rape!"

-3-
A few days after his breakdown Tabers was in the company offices. He was getting better at controling outbursts where Ember was concerned, but he still had an issue pinpointing where the anger had come from in the first place.

He was leaving the First Sergeant's office when Miller came through the door to talk to one of the Staff Sergeants. Tabers tapped him on the shoulder with a closed fist, "A word with the Corporal?"

Miller nodded and filed out silently behind the senior Marine to a tree on the backside of the building. They sat wordlessly for a few seconds and finally Tabers offered him a cigarette. Lighting one himself then tossing the lighter to the younger man Tabers spoke, "I had no call to speak to you the way I did Saturday, Miller."

The Corproal shrugged staring out at the river, "Hey Sergeant don't worry about it. If something like that happened to one of the girls in my life, friend, sister, my girlfriend, it don't matter; I'd be tweaking too."

"Yeah, but-"

The Corproal shook his head, "We've got bigger problems then that right now, Tabers. When you went into the house after your fit, Sergeant Wilkes asked me to keep an eye on the company, and as much of the battalion as I could manage, and there's been talk."

Wade exhaled a cloud of smoke, "What'd'ya mean? Talk?"

Miller nodded, "A few guys were out with me at the bar last night and they were running their mouths about how word's coming through the Lane Corporal Network that the kid ain't yours; that Sergeant Reeves really got knocked up by a guy in her shop named Bailers."

"You can't take stock in the Lance Corporal Network you know that, kid."

The Corporal shrugged, "It was Scott who said that he heard this Marine, Bailers, running his suck at the riverfront about doing Sergeant Reeves, and from the way Scott said it the guy didn't sound to nice about it."

"Any idea how far this has gotten?" Wade was feeling a little sick. How can anyone brag about something like that?

"Most of Golf and H&S are saying the same trash. All about how you got suckered by a typical WM and how they all thought you were a smart man til now." The Corporal snuffed the cigarette out on the sole of his boot and stood shoving the butt in his pocket. "I ain't running my suck about none of it except to say that what I know of her the Sergeant's an awesome woman and Marine."

Tabers glanced up at him, almost absentmindedly, "Yeah you're a good man Miller, thanks." The younger Marine nodded wordlessly and walked off. Tabers pulled out his phone and hit a speed dial number, "Hey, we got a problem."

-4-
"I think you've lost your mind!" Ember shouted from the kitchen and appeared in the doorway of the living room seconds afterward to make her point. She looked from Wade to Gavin, "Gavin tell him he's lost his mind!"

Gavin shrugged, "Why? Sounds like he's set on it to me." He sat back in the couch and seemed to look right through Ember. "I think you're the one who's scared, baby girl."

Ember griped the door facing for support and closed her eyes. "Scared? You better be scared, baby girl." The voice was a harse whisper, one she couldn't place, and as soon as it was there in her ears it was gone again. She opened her eyes and found both men staring openly at her when she looked up. She wasn't going to lean on them anymore, she was strong. Damn it, I'm a U.S. Marine! She yelled to herself, out loud she snorted, "I will not be marrying you today or any other day, Wade Tabers, you're out of your mind if you think I will!"

She returned to the kitchen and continued cooking supper for the three of them. "Why on Earth would I ever marry him?" She hadn't realized she spoke out loud until Wade responded from directly behind her.

"Because you know it's one of the safest and smartest ways to settle this matter with the Marine Corps once and for all." She jumped, brandishing the knife she was using to chop peppers. He should've known better to sneak up on her, but before she could blink he had the knife from her grasp and set aside on the counter. "You know it is." he repeated.

"So? How is it fair to tie you down with a child that ain't your own? When I get out of here I bet you can sucker any number of women into taking care of you and waiting around for you to come home while bearing your own demon spawn." She threw him a small grin. When he kept his straight face she turned back to the food.

"This is about as settled as it gets for me, girl. How you plan on tying me down if I don't want to be?" He watched her visablly flinch to his choice of words, even though they were the exact ones she had just used. He knew how that worked, it was different coming from him. Like when a boot made a referance to combat the boot himself had never seen. Wade moved up behind her and set his hands on her shoulders, he lowered his voice. "Ok so what I meant was I'm asking this because I want to, you didn't come to me with the idea. It would be different if you had, you would have a valid arguement, but this is the situation we're in and I think we ought to just put it to bed, darlin."

"Don't you mean 'put her to bed' Tabers?" They both jumped and turned to see Gavin storm back through the living room and slam the door.

It took Ember a few seconds to registar what had just happened, she stopped staring at the door her oldest friend had just disappeared through long enough to glance at Wade who was frozen where he was, "Did that just really happen?"

He slowly nodded, his eyes still stuck on the door, "Um, yeah, I think it did." He turned and looked at her, almost gauging her reaction. His eyes silently pleading unasked questions. Should he go talk to Gavin? Would she be ok if he did?

She nodded and turned her attention back to the food, wordlessly, as she felt the weight of his grip lift off her shoulders and his footsteps fade until the door was shut. Thoughts of Wade's unorthodox purposal were shoved aside by concern for her best friend. What was wrong with Gavin?

Out in the driveway, Wade was asking himself the same question, and he planned on asking Gavin, if he could get a word in edgewise. "This has nothing to do with taking care of the baby or protecting her," Gavin was saying loudly, "This has to do with your infatuation! You want her in the sack so bad you can almost feel it I bet."

Wade wanted to laugh out loud but he knew that would lead to Gavin punching him and a fist fight with his platoonmate was not where he was looking for this to go. "Seriously, Gavin? Where's your head at man?"

"My head is where it's supposed to be, and where your's is supposed to be! Protecting that woman in your kitchen from whoever did this to her!"

Wade scoffed and pulled out a cigarette, "Buddy, you really need to get in touch with some situational awareness. It was you two who started this whole deal remember? I went along with it, made out like the kid was mine. Lying to battalion and NCIS about it even; well now it's coming down through the entire battalion the kid ain't mine cause somebody heard Bailers from her shop running his suck about doing her. It seemed like the next logical step to save all our asses was to get hitched so it wouldn't matter who's fucking kid it is."

Gavin's demeaner changed for an instant. "Bailers? That was the kid's name? You're sure?"

Tabers finally lit his cigarette, "Yeah Miller said Bailers."

Gavin's mood darkened again, "I won't let you destroy her Tabers, that girl, by all rights, should be with me if she's going to be with anybody."

Wade watched him drive away and silently acknowledged the growing pit in his stomach. He had known Gavin Wilkes since School of Infantry and Maching Gunner's training. Gavin had never acted this way before, but then again he was never in this kind of situation before. Wade put out his smoke and went back in the house knowing something was off, but unable to put a finger on exactly what it was.