"It means something to me that you'd ask," Linda said. "Look, I'm not quite ready to go to sleep, so… wanna share a coffee? I can smell it, you know."
Brutus hummed, and got to his feet. "Sure. Then maybe we can run you a warm bath, and then you'll be able to get some sleep. I've got a quiet day of studying planned for when you're out, so I won't disturb you."
"Not as romantic as I'm sure you had in mind,” Linda said, trying to get up, but Brutus waved her down. "Seriously?"
"Serious. You earned the chance to put your feet up and relax for a bit," Brutus assured her.
Going into the kitchen, he made her a cup of coffee just the way she liked it, with two spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of skim milk. Bringing it out along with a cup of black coffee for himself, he handed it to Linda, who took a grateful sip.
"Good?"
"You spoil me… I can get used to it," she said with a soft laugh. "Not too many people have. I don't let too many people even try."
"Why is that?" Brutus asked. "Because of your position in the unit?"
"Not just that, really," she admitted. "Growing up, we had to fend for ourselves a lot. Maybe familia is big to us Boriquas, but when your parents are working ten, twelve hours a day just to put food on the table, that didn't leave a lot of time or energy to ask for anything from them. So I learned not to. Then in the Army… yeah. Women have been able to serve in the infantry for less than ten years. I can remember as a little girl a time when women in the Army were only allowed to be in certain jobs. Even now only a handful, about a hundred, have graduated from Ranger School. I'm not one of them. That Charlie Company has three women is a statistical anomaly. Me, Jess Adams, and Lieutenant Starr, we all have to fight for our right to be respected and accepted. There's a lot of people, in uniform and out of uniform, that would see us out of the infantry and back to doing other jobs. Some would try and force us fully out of the combat arms. To them, we're good for nothing more than being MPs, maybe the ADA. And of course there's those who want to see the military go back to the days of women being nothing more than nurses and WACs, never wearing boots and being issued high heels for their uniform. No fucking way am I letting that happen."
"Is that why you didn't have this guy arrested?" Brutus asked. "To show that you weren't bothered by what happened?"
"Perhaps a bit. Let's face it, everyone's going to know it by Monday, and the only reason the officers are going to stay out of it is because they'll respect our decision to handle it in house. They take notice, it requires paperwork." Linda sighed. "I had to ask myself, if this guy had tussled with a male NCO, take away the grope, would he be seeing paperwork? Because as you can see, my boobs are just fine."
"They do look like they're where they're supposed to be," Brutus admitted. "So would he?"
"In some units, sure. But I've always tried to give my soldiers a chance to fix their mistakes, to correct their shit. Hell, the guy's lucky really."
"So you fight," Brutus said. "In your way. Would it sound too biased if I said I think what you're saying is totally badass?"
"Maybe a little biased," Linda said, "but I like it."
"Yeah well, you're badass, fighting the way you do. As for those people who say you shouldn't be in the infantry… fuck that," he said. "I've seen you. Yeah, maybe if we played football you can't play linebacker, but then again in football I've learned that I can't play receiver, or lineman, or god forbid, kicker. Could you imagine me trying to kick a football?"
"It may or may not go in the right direction down the field?" Linda asked.
Brutus nodded.
"Tell that to the people trying to take my job from me."
"And they're wrong. Because in football, every position is important," Brutus said. "And you can help your team win from any position. I mean, look at the scoreboard, and I'll tell you that our kicker scores more points in a single season than I have in my entire career. What you're doing… that's the sort of leadership the military needs. If I were to turn my future kids over to the military, I'd hope their drill sergeant would be like you."
Linda took a long drink of coffee, and set it aside. "Speaking about that, what are your thoughts on kids?"
"Do you mean have I thought about having them?" Brutus asked, surprised by Linda's question.
Linda nodded.
"Well, sure. I mean I come from a decent sized family, and I've definitely got a nest egg ready for them when the time's right. I do know I'm going to be a different dad than too many of the teammates I've had."
"What do you mean?"
Brutus sighed, shaking his head as he finished his own coffee. "There's too much accuracy to the stories about pro athletes and fatherhood. Too many parenting via child support checks. We've got a wide receiver who literally has to get the team to cut the game checks to four different women because of how much he fucked around. He can't even name two of the kids, that's how bad it is. I won't be that way. I'm going to be there for my kids, and I'm going to make time for them." He lifted an eyebrow, looking up at Linda. "What about you? Have you thought about children?"
"Sometimes, but in mostly non-concrete ways," she admitted. "Like, I know if I have a baby, that's it for me in Charlie Company. I'd be non-deployable for two years, the whole pregnancy and then twelve months afterwards. That's an eternity for an infantry NCO, I'd basically be losing my entire Staff Sergeant time. So I'd have to either transfer to another branch, become a schoolhouse NCO… or leave the Army."
"None of which sound like something you want to do," Brutus said, and Linda nodded.
"Until I met you, I'd never even met someone I thought I'd want to even have kids with," Linda said. "But you're… different, Brutus. Maybe I'm just so fucking tired that I can't stop my mouth, but when I think of you, and the past week staying here with you all the time… yeah, a baby sounds nice. I figure your DNA and my DNA could make a pretty decently smart kid. Good looking one, too."
"As long as we don't make a daughter with her father's shoulders and weak ankles." Brutus got to his feet. "You know, maybe there is a little time for what I had hoped to do before going to sleep."
