Chapter Text
“Dude, she was totalling checking me out.”
SSgt Jasper pulled anxiously at his sorry excuse for a deployment mustache, as he watched a female soldier walk past them and out of the dining facility. Multiple rows of long tables filled the room, although only half of them were occupied this close to the end of dinner hours.
“She was definitely not checking you out,” A1C Monty muttered into his mashed potatoes. “And besides, she wasn’t even that hot.”
“Not that… are you crazy?” Jasper was up in arms, literally and figuratively. The M9 pistol in his shoulder harness flopped against the waist of his flight suit as he flailed in agitation. “She was definitely a 10.”
Clarke was already used to conversations like this from these two (and every other male on base), but she decided to try to inject some sanity into their world anyway. “We all know that deployed 10’s are 3’s or 4’s back home… and I have to agree with Monty here. She’s absolutely not a 10.”
Clarke frowned at what she had just said. Was she seriously objectifying women who walked past them in the chow hall, too? Raven would have smacked her upside the head for that… or joined in, Clarke couldn’t be sure. They had both been deployed for what seemed like forever (even if forever was only two months).
Clarke had been spending most of her time with the men in her unit since she had arrived in Kandahar, and it was beginning to show. There were so few women there that it was actually a relief whenever Clarke saw one. Not that she was ogling them, or the men on base either, but… it had been a long time.
Besides, it didn’t matter how many attractive men or women were on base--Clarke wasn’t looking for romance or sex or anything of the sort. They were deployed with their aeromedical evacuation squadron for six months, and they had a mission to complete. Clarke didn’t have the time or energy to waste on a deployment fling, even if it would be a nice distraction from the injured patients, the rocket attacks, and the horrible excuse for food on her plate.
“There’s already enough competition in this hell hole for you to be checking out the ladies too, Griffin,” Jasper sighed dramatically, scraping his plate clean.
“I wouldn’t say it’s much of a competition,” Clarke declared, earning a high-five from Monty and rolled eyes from Jasper.
“Think they got chocolate ice cream today?” Clarke asked as she got up from the bench. Why continue eating slightly green roast beef, if she could eat ice cream instead?
“They haven’t had that flavor in weeks,” Monty said, sighing. “I’m beginning to think this may be the Great Ice Cream Famine of 2015.”
Clarke laughed at him, before making her way across the chow hall. Some soldiers watched a baseball game playing on one of the TVs with enthusiasm, while local Afghan workers cleaned up the tables that weren’t in use. A group of Marines was making their way through the serving line, piling food into to-go containers.
As she walked toward the dessert area, Clarke realized in consternation that the Afghan man serving the ice cream was glaring at her--again. She had never seen that man smile, and she didn’t know how a person seemingly so absent of joy ended up dispensing ice cream.
As she approached, she put on what she thought was her most charming smile. She already knew the tan flight suit did wonders for her hips and ass, so she was confident she could win this guy over if she wanted to.
“Hello again, how are you?” Clarke asked with a smile. She waited for a response, but his glare only intensified.
Clarke gulped and decided this had been a bad idea. She just needed to get her ice cream and get out. “I’d like a scoop of the chocolate, please…”
But when Clarke finally looked down at the display case, she realized there was only one flavor left. Mint. She hated mint.
She felt someone sidle up to her left with a to-go container full of food: a huge salad, chicken breast, and some potatoes. Clarke glanced up to see a young female Marine and then found that she couldn’t look away.
Clarke had never seen her before--and she was sure she would remember if she had. Sure, being deployed tended to lower a person’s standards in what they found attractive in other people, but there was no denying it: this woman was gorgeous.
She had prominent cheekbones, full lips, and thick, wavy brown hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her wide shoulders hinted at muscles that were concealed under her Marine camouflage uniform. She was slightly taller than Clarke and had an M16 rifle slung over her back. Opposite the US Marine Corps tape on her chest was the name “Carey,” while the three black chevrons over crossed rifles on her lapels indicated she was a Sergeant.
But it was her eyes--large, green, bright, piercing--that truly caught Clarke’s attention.
Clarke only realized she was staring when she noticed that the Marine--Sgt Carey--was staring right back.
Sgt Carey finally cleared her throat and looked down at the display window, before returning her gaze to Clarke. “Not a lot of selection today, is there?”
Her voice was silky soft and higher-pitched than Clarke expected. It wasn’t the voice of a battle-hardened Marine, or so Clarke thought.
Without skipping a beat, the Sgt Carey turned to the ice cream server and spouted a long phrase in a language that Clarke didn’t understand. Pashto? Dari? All that Clarke knew was that the Marine sounded remarkably fluent in it.
The man’s eyes lit up, and Clarke swore he was smiling under his thick beard. He hurried off behind a closed door that said “Authorized Personnel Only,” leaving the two of them standing alone in front of the case.
Clarke frowned in amazement at Sgt Carey. “How did you… what did you even say to him?”
But the only response Sgt Carey gave her was the slightest upturning of her lips. It was so subtle that Clarke wondered if she had imagined it. But for some reason, it was enough to cause the blood to rush to Clarke’s cheeks.
A moment later, the man returned with a bin of ice cream and silently scooped up a bowl for each of them, filling them to the brim.
Sgt Carey said what Clarke presumed to be “thank you” to the man before turning to Clarke with a slightly raised eyebrow. “I hope you like chocolate.”
Clarke stared in bewilderment. “What did you say to him? All he ever does is glare at me.”
The Marine shrugged a shoulder as if she didn’t care about it, but Clarke could see how smug she was. “I just promised to buy him a dirty magazine the next time I’m at the BX. Our cultures may be different, but the men are the same.”
Clarke laughed at that, looking back to Jasper and Monty at her table. They were staring unabashedly at them. Jasper even gave her a none-too-subtle thumbs up.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Clarke murmured.
Sgt Carey followed her gaze, and Jasper and Monty quickly returned their attention to the plates in front of them as if the white ceramic was the most interesting things in the world.
“Friends of yours?” the Marine asked curiously.
“You could say that,” Clarke said, frowning. “Friends, co-workers, endless sources of frustration. Kind of depends on the day.”
“Sounds familiar,” Sgt Carey said with a hint of amusement
She glanced back to the Marines who were waiting impatiently near the chow hall exit, and the movement only accentuated Sgt Carey’s sharp jawline.
Clarke swallowed hard. No one had the right to look that good while deployed.
“Sergeant!”
Clarke’s attention was caught by the yelling brunette Marine who was waiting for Sgt Carey. She was petite and yet still looked like she could more than hold her own against the much larger male Marines at her side.
“Quit your flirting!” the brunette continued. “Gunny’s gonna have our asses if we don’t get back by 2100.”
Sgt Carey sighed loudly, closing her eyes. “Speaking of endless sources of frustration…”
But Clarke was enjoying the red flush of the Marine’s cheeks. “Flirting, huh? Is that what was going on?”
Sgt Carey’s lips--which Clarke had certainly not been studying--broke into the largest smile Clarke had seen from her yet. “That depends on if it was working or not.”
Yes. It had been. Obviously.
But while Clarke was working out a slightly less embarrassing response, Sgt Carey looked down at Clarke’s name tape on the chest of her flight suit. Even though Clarke knew she was just reading her name and rank, it didn’t stop her heartbeat from quickening.
“It was nice meeting you, Staff Sergeant Clarke Griffin,” Sgt Carey said in a soft but deliberate voice.
Hearing the Marine say her full name was enough to render Clarke mute on the spot. And even though Sgt Carey hadn’t smiled when she turned and left, her gaze had been so intense that Clarke knew she would be thinking about those green eyes for a long time.
Clarke belatedly realized she hadn’t moved from in front of the ice cream case while she had been staring at the Marine leave--and to her credit, she had only glanced down at her ass once.
But of course Sgt Carey chose that exact moment to glance over her shoulder, and she caught Clarke red-handed. Clarke knew she wasn’t imagining the smirk that sprung up on the Marine’s lips, or the flutters in her own stomach at the sight.
But Clarke could feel the heat of the ice cream server’s glare, and several Soldiers were approaching to get their dessert fix before the chow hall closed. She turned to go back to her table, fully aware of the shit that Jasper and Monty were going to give her, when she noticed a small object on the floor.
It was a photograph, folded in half, crinkled from repeated opening. Clarke bent down to pick it up and unfolded it curiously. It displayed an attractive, raven-haired woman, wearing civilian clothes and smiling coyly at the camera. Clarke flipped it over, but there was nothing written on the back.
It had to be Sgt Carey’s, and it had to be valuable to her. Clarke considered running outside to return it, but she doubted she would be able to find the Marine in the dark, cluttered camp outside.
Resigned, Clarke tucked the photo into her flight suit pocket. She could figure out how to get it back to the Marine later. The thought made her smile for whatever reason.
Clarke crossed the chow hall and sat down cautiously across from Jasper and Monty. They were both grinning like idiots.
“What are you smiling at?” Clarke asked grumpily, taking a bite of her ice cream. It was already starting to become a pool of liquid chocolate in the bowl.
“We may be smiling at a certain Airman who had a major flirt fest with a certain Marine hottie,” Jasper said with excitement.
Clarke rolled her eyes at that. That may have been exactly what had happened, but there was no way in hell she would admit that to Jasper.
“How do you know that, when you couldn’t even hear what we were talking about?” Clarke asked
“Sometimes body language can express so much more than words…” Jasper rocked his hips around comically while he sat, eliciting a glare from Clarke. “But seriously, she was shooting some major lust eyes at you, and you shot them right back.”
“I saw it too,” Monty added. “Irrefutable lust eyes.”
It wasn’t worth arguing with them when Clarke that they were right. “Whatever. Just help me eat this,” she said, placing her bowl of ice cream in the middle of the table.
It had been flirting. Clarke had liked it. And judging by how Sergeant Carey’s cheeks had reddened ever so slightly, Clarke thought that she had enjoyed it, too.
And with the folded photo in her pocket, Clarke had the perfect excuse to see her again.