Author's Note: Not that I was pleased at all with my first few chapters, but Charlett and my writer's block have gone and convinced me with very little persuasion to do a little revising. Less of a Mary-Sue beginning. I apologize to anyone who had to see that. :(

The veteran walked through the halls with a determined scowl on his face. All these damn punks, goofing off, not a care in the world. Half of them were singing songs and making daisy chains and all sorts of other anti-American hippy bullshit, and the other half were chattering away about some Brit thing or another. It was days like this that made him lose hope for the next generation.

The veteran stopped in his tracks and sighed. Not again. He was a ways away, but he could still understand the entire situation perfectly. He had seen it many times before.

She sat on the ground, hunched over with one knee to her chest and the other nudging a backpack lamely. Clad in a pair of black hip huggers and a men’s white T-shirt, she was pointedly ignoring a man standing above her. He was twiggy and unthreatening, the veteran noticed, but he was holding the girl's surplus store BDU jacket. She had bought it when her father took her school shopping earlier in the year; her father had picked the olive-drab green color for her.

“I don’t even know why I bother talking to you! It’s obvious you either completely do not care for our school rules or you’re just too stupid to understand them,” the man berated, gesturing wildly with the hand that held her jacket while tugging at his suit lapels with the other. “Judging by your grades, I’m inclined to say it’s the second one.”

Twiggy and unthreatening as he was, he still carried himself with an air of importance, and his strict, crisp appearance might have convinced many other students of the same. Both the veteran and the girl were the exceptions.

For a moment, he smirked, believing he was about to receive a reaction from the apathetic looking girl. His face fell when he saw her reach forward and dig a bottle of Coke from her bag and open the bottle with a house key.

He crossed his arms after flinging her jacket into the nearest trash can. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing. “I have no choice but to permanently expel you from this school. Your flagrant disregard for authority has gone on for long enough. I’ll call that mule of a father of yours right away.”

She stood up wordlessly, her boots making an ominous clunk as she did so. Her eyes spoke loudly enough, but she decided to use her glass bottle, just in case he didn’t get the picture. Restraining herself some, she bashed the bottle against his head, smirking as it shattered.

“Don’t talk about my father,” she muttered, grabbing her bag and her BDU jacket from the trash. It was about then that she saw the veteran standing there. He was scowling deeply at her, even more so than he had been before. “What?”

“We’re going,” he told her simply. Sighing, she nodded and marched quickly behind him, like some well trained yet still highly affectionate puppy.

They stood outside the school for a few minutes. He had something to say, but he didn’t know quite how to say it. Finally, in his own traditional fashion, he simply blurted it out.

“I got that job. Those RED team maggots practically begged me to join their ranks. I’d make enough to send you off to a decent school and get us a decent house,” he told her. “So starting next week, I’ll be shipped off there. I get two weekends a month, so you’ll see me then.”

Her hands balled into fists, and she shoved them into her pockets, looking at the ground. “Next week?” she asked, her voice calm. She knew it had been coming... didn’t make it any easier...

“I put in your application too. Y’never know,” he said, trailing off. She nodded, and there was a long pause.

Finally, she felt him punch her shoulder. “C’mon, kid, let’s go home. I ain’t gone for a week yet.”

“Yeah. I’ll cook dinner,” she told him, sighing and rubbing her shoulder. No one ever said anything to her again about the bruised man next to the trash can after that. She wouldn’t have cared if they did.