Woolgathering

The Lt. Colonel sat with his feet atop the Colonel's meticulously arranged desk, and while normally this would have rendered him smug he was not happy. Against the lurid lamplight that flickered over the cabin walls and maps his gaunt face waxed eerie. He looked like a criminal, and not a charismatic one. He was ten years his Captain's senior, and discomfitingly aware of the fact.

  The Captain was reporting, that bitterly short and icily composed woman. He wished she wouldn't stand at attention while they were together— he was her mentor, and she'd rarely done so in the past. But she was scared, much as she wouldn't let herself acknowledge it.

  "The men are about to riot over the Colonel's punishment," she said. "You need to give them busy work." It was what the Colonel would have done. Run their asses into the ground, make discipline productive.

  "You knew," the Lt. Colonel mumbled through the sweets he was never without, ignoring her demands. "You knew the Colonel was evacuating that village. You could have been implicated. You could have been punished, too. And yet I was told nothing."

  The Captain frowned. She didn't like the emphasis on 'you.' She was too clever not to perceive its roots.

  "It was none of your concern, Lt. Colonel," she replied. "And the Colonel trusted you with a more important duty. I don't see why you would be upset."

  "You know damn well," the Lt. Colonel growled as he rose to his feet. When she didn't respond some of that bravado seeped out of him, bowed his shoulders as he gritted his teeth against the woman he feared most. He circled the desk to take her hand, too tightly for her to withdraw it.

  "The Colonel has an excuse for his stupidity— he loves these men and he knows them all by heart. You don't; you wouldn't let yourself. So what we both know I'm wondering is why you would risk the only joy I have in this shit-hole of a post?"

  It was at times like these his Captain regretted ever kissing him at that battle ages past. It had been a spur of the moment thing, a lapse in her defenses, and he'd gotten too direct, too honest since then. He'd started thinking fool thoughts like he was safe with her. She didn't like it, and she ignored it whenever possible— sometimes even when it shouldn't be. Now, for example. The Captain bit her lip for a moment, hesitated, but that was the only reaction his candor gleaned before she reigned her emotions and broke his grasp.

  "You aren't making sense, Lt. Colonel. Perhaps you should sleep."

  His face soured with a knife of a smile, a dangerous smile whose sharpest edge was the one facing him. "Duty, hmm? Does it please you, not having to decide anything for yourself, having it all written out in a little book of codes?"

  The Captain paused, face stony. It hurt to see him lower himself to those barbs.

  "On the contrary,” she said, “I'm in perfect control of myself, Sir." Because that was it, wasn't it? This was a point at which she couldn't afford to let go. She couldn't afford to let herself be swayed by ideals like the Colonel, or by feelings like her mentor— someone had to stay unattached. Her superiors were the heroes and fools. Someone had to be the unshakeable pillar of reason. If she wasn't controlling herself, someone else would be.

  And that might mean, someday, that she would fail to protect...

  "Sleep, and don't forget to take your pills, Lt. Colonel," she murmured, cursing the tenderness that leaked into her voice as she stepped out into the camp. She could hear her mentor swearing as he realized her motives; he always had been too perceptive. He and the Colonel, they thought too much.

  It made her wonder how the Colonel was taking this.

  III.