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Jamie stood outside the guys' cabin and knocked. "Female present! Are you guys decent?"
"Jamie?" came a muffled sound from the other side of the door.
She laughed. "Who else would it be, silly?" She recognized Lance's voice telling her to hold on even as sounds of trunks slamming shut and furniture moving around had Jamie cocking an eyebrow as she waited for a few moments before the door swung open. "Everything all right in here?" she asked with a grin as she looked past Lance's shoulder to see the other guys in the room calmly laying on their beds or, in Chris's case, standing at his wardrobe fixing his hair. Justin was even whistling a tune to himself as he lay there, flipping through a magazine. "At ease, gentlemen," she teased as they said their respective hellos to her. "What was going on in here just now?"
"And what makes you think anything was happening?" Lance asked her, giving her his best innocent look.
She had to laugh. "Call it female instinct. Let me guess, you guys are trying to dig yourselves out of this joint before we leave tomorrow."
"Hey, now why didn't we think of that?" Joey exclaimed. "If we start now, we could probably make it!"
"Yeah right. It's a little too late I think. If we start now, I think the furthest we'd get would be the dining commons, and that's not far at all," Chris pointed out.
"So we'll shoot for the dining commons then. No one would think to find us there tomorrow!"
Jamie laughed. "The way you guys can eat, I think that's one of the first places they'd look if you weren't around for roll call. Anyway, fine, if you guys don't want to tell me what's going on, I'll let you guys off the hook for now. Lance, come walk with me?" she turned her attention to her husband and held out a hand to him.
"I'd love to," came the reply as he took her hand and stepped out into the evening, the two of them ignoring the teasing coming from the temp building behind them. As soon as they were a good distance away from the building, Lance turned to the woman next to him. "So to what do I owe the pleasure of this little after dinner stroll?"
"Oh, nothing special. I just wanted to take a walk."
"And talk…" he added, seeing the worry on her face.
She nodded. "And talk," she agreed quietly before giving a sigh. "Lance, I'm scared. If I was scared before, it's nothing compared to what I'm feeling right now. I can't believe we're actually leaving tomorrow."
Lance gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "I know. It's pretty unbelievable. We've been here for a month training for this war but it still hasn't seemed real, none of it really. This was all just practice it seems."
"But that's the thing. It was all practice for something that is real. Today, we're in the US. Tomorrow, we'll be only God knows where with combat right around the corner. Tomorrow, a different destiny awaits and it won't be like anything we could have dreamed."
"So what's the biggest thing you're worried about?" Lance asked, knowing her well enough to see that there was something at the root of her troubles.
Jamie sighed. "That whole feeling like something terrible is going to happen, it hasn't gone away Lance, not since I first heard your name announced when we were still back in Orlando."
"Your instinct again? You just had that earlier when you were getting me away from the guys when we were goofing off."
"That's different, Lance! I was teasing you guys just then because you all had those innocent looks on your faces that showed you were clearly hiding something. This other feeling though, it's real and it's terrifying me. I don't like knowing that the future is so uncertain. I don't like going into this knowing that one day, one of the guys might not come back, that maybe it will be you who won't be coming back. I can't make believe that that isn't a possible scenario just as much as I can't make believe we're actually leaving in the morning and heading into true combat zones. Lance, I've been in difficult situations before and I know I can handle my own, but I was on my own then and things are different now. I have something to lose this time around, and I definitely don't want to be losing you!"
"Hey, come here," he said, drawing her into his arms as tears flowed freely down her face and her body shook with her sobbing. "It's okay sweetie, it'll be okay," he whispered as he rubbed her back trying to give her the support she needed.
"But you don't know that Lance!" she protested.
Lance closed his eyes and gave a small sigh. "All right, no, I don't know for sure that things will be okay. I can't guarantee it or promise it, but I can try to believe it Jamie. I've got to hope that this will all turn out okay, that come the end of each day we're away from our home, you'll be there for me and I'll be there for you. We're in this thing together sweetie and I'm not going to leave you willingly, you hear me?" he asked as he kissed her on the head.
Jamie clung onto him tighter, not wanting to ever let him go. "I hear you," she whispered, praying with all her might that all would turn out fine in the end.