Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not my own, yadda yadda yadda. I'm not making any money off of this. (Though I wish I could.)

"Get up! Lets go! Lets go, lets go!" A piercing whistle accompanied the loud yelling and I snapped awake. My eyes popped open and I immediately wrenched them them shut again as the room was suddenly flooded with bright light.

"What the fu…?" My bunk mate, Alicia Andrews muttered.

"I think we're dead," I answered, my head ringing. I coughed, my throat dry, and felt my stomach heaved a little. We both sat up from our bunks and looked towards the door of our room where one of our company CO's was currently pacing back and forth, a megaphone in her hand.

"Alright, boys and girls. Time for a ruck march. Lets go! Get your shit and meet out at formation. We leave in two hours!" Captain Simons yelled. I groaned and flopped my head back down on my pillow.

"That bastard. She encouraged us all to go out last night and party. She encouraged us to 'enjoy' ourselves, because starting Monday we'd be back to training. She planned this whole thing," Andrews muttered darkly, rolling out of her bed, still in her civvies from last night. I grunted.

"Of course she did. Shes an asshole." My answer was mumbled, because somehow my head had snuck itself back under my pillow. "What time is it?"

"0430,"

"Fuuuccckk. We got back here at, what? 2?" I grumbled.

"Well, we would have gotten back sooner if you hadn't decided it would be a great idea to try and have a drinking competition with Sgt Piers."

"She told me I was a light weight!" I snapped, peaking my head out from under the pillow.

"You are," She shot back.

"Ah, hell with you." I answered. She laughed then, and I winced. My head really was pounding now, and I could feel bile in the back of my throat.

"Why did you let me drink so much?"

"Oh please. You did it all on your own." She tossed a pair of pants at me. "Come on. Lets' get dressed and get our shit together. Aren't you glad I got you to pack your gear before we left for the movies?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I rolled out of bed and glanced down, realizing I fell asleep with my jeans half down my legs, my bra unsnapped but still on, and my tank top nowhere to be seen. I gave a sheepish grin to Andrews and she rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to grab a shower. I suggest you take a quick one, too. Who knows when we'll get back from our travels."

"'kay," I answered unenthusiastically. I stood up and tugged my jeans back up while I gathered my personal hygiene bag. I owed Andrews. While most of my company, us girls, and the guys in the next barracks over, would be scrambling to pack their gear in their rucksack, Andrews, myself, and a few others had done just that the day before. Andrews had insisted that we do it, claiming that she had a feeling we'd come to appreciate it. None of us had really wanted to, but when she got it in her head to do something, she could be very… persuasive.

After a few minutes, Andrews returned and I headed off to take a shower. Within ten minutes, I was out and drying off. The army had taught us to do many things quickly. Shower. Eat. Sleep. Which was ironic, because the amount of time we spent standing around and waiting was ridiculous.

I hastily pulled on clean undergarments, light S.I. thermals, and my ACU's. Following that was a pair of my winter-weight army boots. It was cold up here in the mountains and I was glad that I had had the foresight to break my boots in as soon as I learned the date of our training up here.

"Hey, Conner, Andrews, you two almost ready to go?" I threw a look over my shoulder and grinned despite myself. Sgt Piers was looking a little worse for the wear, too. It made me feel a little better. She flipped me off when she noticed my grin.

"Yeah. I just gotta grab my gear. What about you, Conner?" Andrews asked. I nodded and regretted that motion the second I did it.

"Just gotta throw my hair up in a bun and grab my gear, too." I answered.

"Don't say throw up, please," Piers muttered. I gave a dry laugh and wandered over to the mirror that was sitting in my locker.

A pair of blue eyes looked back at me and I grimaced at how bloodshot my eyes were and at the bags that currently occupied the space below them. I grumbled to myself, muttering something about 'never drinking again,' before I started to twist and pull my long dark brown hair into a bun. With a few well placed clips and ties, my hair was smoothed tight and slicked back along my skull, a bun secured at the base. I adjusted my dog tags so they sat between my breasts, tucked in my bra so they would stay warm against my skin. I glanced myself over in the mirror and made a few adjustments here and there to my uniform; tightening the Velcro around my wrists, tucking my shirt into my pants, straightening the pocket flaps on my sleeves. I turned around to find that Piers had already left and that Andrews had her things gathered. Her light blonde hair was cut short, the tips curled under her chin. Green eyes looked me over and she came over and stuck her arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, Shorty," She tugged me along with her and I scowled at her as we left our small room and made our way down the hall.. Andrews was 5'8", where I sat closer to 5'1" or 5'2" at best. I had been made of for being short all my life, so by now it was just another in a long string of jokes that were my life.

The next few hours passed slowly. Our 200 people company had gathered in front of our respective barracks before boarding the buses that were to take us to the outskirts of a small town we were to start our march from. According to our head co, Major Stiles, we were going to break into small squads and make our way though a small portion of the 3200 square mile wilderness we were in. We had to hit certain markers, touching up on our navigating skills using compasses and maps.

At roughly 0900, we arrived at our starting point. We stood in a small clearing that lead into the dark woods before us, the crisp air causing our breaths to mist before us. We were surrounded by cliffs and hills, and the sky above was beginning to darken, despite the early hour. We were served a hot breakfast (which I could not stomach even looking at, let alone eating) and given plenty of water to drink.

We picked up our M16's, complete with bayonets, ammo, packs of food to travel with, and filled all three of our canteens. Their was much rustling of cloth as we tugged on our tactical vests (read; bullet proof vests), each with removable ceramic plates in it, our head gear (helmets) and threw our ruck sacks over our shoulders. We were split into our squads and gathered for our final briefing.

"It should take you roughly three days to get to our base camp. You will find stations to refill your canteens, but you should ration your food carefully; it should last you four days. Five if you stretch it. The first five squads to get there will get hot showers, hot meals, and the following day off. The next five, hot showers, and a hot meal. The rest of you get whats left of the water, and MRE's for chow. Company, attention!"

We all snapped our legs together, one arm coming to sit at ours sides, hand cupped and fingers curled, the other arm holding our rifles to our sides.

"Dismissed!"

There was much milling around as everyone checked over their gear, making their last minute changes and adjustments. Then slowly, but surely, squads began to disappear into the trees.

I glanced around at my squad. Sergeant first class Alicia Andrews, one of my best friends, was our squad leader. Then came myself, Staff Sergeant Talya Marie Conner. Next came Staff Sergeant Michelle Brown, a quite girl who was much tougher than she looked. Brown eyes peered out over her glasses as she looked over the map she had in her hand, her opposite hand coming up to impatiently brush away a strand of dirty blonde hair. She would be our navigator, since she could read a map faster than any of us. The last two in our squad were relatively new to our company.

Private First Class(PFC) Dawn Downy had been with our company about three months, whereas PFC Amy Wallace had only been with us for about three weeks. PFC Downy had bright green eyes and always in a good mood and tried to be friends with everyone. Mousy brown hair stuck up here and there, and I grinned slightly to myself, amused to find that she had still not perfected getting her hair up and off of her shoulders, a requirement of our uniform.

PFC Wallace, however, had her deeply red (and dyed, I suspected) hair pulled up and slicked back with gel and tucked under her helmet with perfection. Hazel eyes scrutinized the rest of us with a slight scowl. Out of all of us, she was the one I was curious most about. She was fanatically groomed and hated it when even a nail was out of place. She hated the rest of us, and hated the army more. I could never understand why she joined in the first place.

"Alright, lets get this show on the road. Everyone have their rations? Their water? Good. Lets move our asses. If any of the boy's squads reach base camp before any of us girls, we'll never live it down," Andrews adjusted the straps of her ruck and turned towards the woods.

"Onward, fearless leader," I said, waving the others on.

I watched the others fall inline, frowning when I saw how slim Wallace's pack looked. I shook my head and, taking one last look around us, headed into the woods behind my squad.

After an hour or two, it grew more and more quiet as our company splintered out. Everyone had slightly different coordinates and points we had to hit so we could not cheat and just follow each other to the different points.

We were walking at a relatively decent pace and we had all stayed quiet up until now. I walked with my head down, starring at the ground in front of me as to not trip. The longer I walked, the more disorientated I began to feel, and I seriously regretted drinking so damn much the night before. It really was not like me at all. I was usual the DD. But life had been dragging lately. It was painfully stale and repetitive. When we had been encouraged to go out for the night, I seized the chance and dragged a few of my battles' along with me, first to dinner, then to see the Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, and finally to the bar. We had hit the bar at about 9pm. Much after ten, I could not remember.

I heard a boot crunch particularly close and I lifted my eyes to see a concerned Andrews.

"You alright, Tal?" She asked quietly, using the nickname reserved for my friends. "You are lookin' a little on the pale side."

"Fine, fine. Just hungover." I answered back, giving her a tight smile.

"Are you sure? I know you drank a lot, but you are really pale. And shaky."

"Im fine, Ally-cat." I said, a little forced. "Just tell me I didn't do anything terribly embarrassing."

"Other then ending up crying because of Thorin Oakenshields' death, and how it he deserved a happier ending…"

"I did not." I groaned, imagining a very drunk me sobbing with my head on the bar, bemoaning the fate of a fictional character.

"You did. Thankfully for you, it was once we had already gotten into a cab and headed home. Other than the cabby finding it hilarious, you were safe. Otherwise, you totally would have made an ass of yourself. Or more of one, anyways. You had already spilled your drink over Corporal Emery's shoes- not that the bitch didn't deserve it. The way she was hitting on Scott…"

"Scott, now is it? What happened to Sergeant Mitchel?" I jumped at the chance to tease her over her not-so-secret crush. She blushed scarlet. Success. I was glad the conversation was off of me now, and we all began to talk and joke around. Even Wallace smiled a few times.

At one point, we all pulled out our stashes of crackers and peanut butter to munch on as we walked. My stomach even behaved.

"Alright, Brown, pull out that map of yours." Andrews said, after taking a swig of her canteen.

"Well, here is roughly where we started from, and just about where we are now. We can choose to go a few different directions." Brown started, having pulled out the map from her back pocket. She began to point at faintly traced pencil marks.

"All three of these lead to roughly the same place. This path here will be the easiest, but also the longest. We will be going the long way around this ravine here," She pointed," and up this hill here. The second path isn't two bad, but we'll have to cross the river twice since there is no bridge. Our third option is here," She followed her finger up a short but winding path. "We'll be following a ravine, and we'll be doing a lot of climbing, but there is a bridge here, which if we reach, will bring us up to this point here. We'll only be about a mile short of our first mark."

"What do you guys think?" Andrews asked.

"We should take the easiest path. This isn't something we trained for and we shouldn't risk getting hurt." Brown answered. "Plus, I don't know how long the rain will hold, and I don't want to risk a flash flood in that ravine."

"I agree with Brown. I don't know if I am up to all that hiking around." Downy answered.

"The faster we get out of here, the better. I want nothing more than to get a hot shower and a day off, even if it's a pain in the ass getting there." Wallace said.

"You know I'm with you, Sergeant," I smiled wryly at Andrews. We'd been best friends ever since basic training, four years ago. We'd helped each other through everything, and she had become the sister I had never had, as cliche as that was.

"Thanks, Conner. I'm beginning to think that's just your way of getting out of having to think on your own," She snapped back, smirking.

"Of course it is,"

Andrews sighed and looked down at the map.

"I checked out the forecast this morning. It's only supposed to be a light rain. At worst, we get a short thunderstorm."

"How likely is a flash flood?" I asked, an eye brow cocked. Brown fidgeted.

"Not terribly. I mean, that last flash flood that happened was fifteen years ago."

"Well, then there is your answer." Wallace snapped. "Flash flood, my ass. I want to get the fuck out of here."

Andrews slowly looked to each of us.

"The third path it is."