Right I know that it has been a REALLY REALLY REALLY long time; I'm sorry...and I offer no excuses...

so on with the chapter...

Rebekah followed the unit at a large distance, and tried to fade into the background once she entered the mess hall. Though in a room full of men, a girl in her late teens trying not to stand out, was like putting a white dot on a black page and expecting no one to notice. Though unlike the day before the men were concentrating on waking up and getting ready for their training for the day. They ignored her, and she ignored them. Each party with the mentality of: 'if I just ignore it, maybe it will go away'. She quickly went up to the counter and grabbed a bowl of what apparently was porridge, though looked suspiciously like what they had eaten the day before of dinner.

She quickly glanced around the room and spotted the same lone space she had sat in before. She quickly sat and ate avoiding eye contact with the rest of the soldiers trying to avoid any unnecessary confrontations. Once she finished the meal she got up and left, noticing the eyes of K-unit on her as she left before them. She smirked seeing Wolf with Eagle in a headlock, rubbing his knuckle across his scalp.

"What was up with last night?" Eagle asked, "What did I miss?"

"There was a scream that should have woken up the entire camp last night," Wolf explained, "yet I seem to be the only one who remembers it."

"Maybe you were just imagining it Wolf-man!" Eagle exclaimed, earning a smack in the head from Wolf.

Through the exchange Fox looked over to Snake and raised a single eyebrow, and mouthed 'Wolf-man' and had both of them resisting the urge to laugh. Fox had to admit that this was something that he had missed while in MI6 – there it was every man for himself, here though, it was a team where everyone would watch your back. Every unit was like a kind of family, slightly dysfunctional when out of danger, though cruel and focused when one or more were threatened, and fiercely protective of each other.

The unit glanced up seeing Lynx leave, Eagle exclaimed, "when did she even get in here? I didn't notice her!"

"That's probably 'cause you were thinking up nicknames for Wolf," Snake answered as he stood picking up his tray, then asking, "What do we have first?"

"Languages," Fox answered also getting up.

Rebekah arrived at the hut quickly and she sat down onto the bed frame she was sleeping on. She looked around the room, apprising the rest of the unit's stuff seeing what it said about them. By Snake's bed was a pile of what looked like letters – she had already had him pegged as the sentimental type so the fact he would have letters next to his bed wasn't a big surprise, though compassion was needed for a medic – that way you could be sure they would do all they could to save you if you were in need. By Eagle's bed there was a magazine on guns and ammunition and a book on the history of the grenade, this surprised her, as from what she had witnessed about Eagle he was not the sort she would have had pegged to be trusted with the ammo, but then again looks could be deceiving. By Wolf's bunk she saw a pack of cards and a pack of cigarettes, not much surprise in what he had on display out of his possessions. Finally by Fox's bunk she saw a battered copy of 'Colours of Magic' and what looked like photos of the unit – the fantasy novel surprised her, as she couldn't see him seeking escape to a made up world as a solace, or even as a form of enjoyment.

She heard voices of the unit approaching and abruptly finished plaiting her hair, she almost smiled at the fact that she now looked a bit like Lara Croft with a single plait down her back and the army gear, but refrained.

The unit made their way over to the language lab, which was fairly close to HQ, and sat down at the desks. The teacher entered the room and to Rebekah it seemed that he had been taking lessons from the sergeant on how to look intimidating.

"I am not going to molly-coddle you, even if you have a kid in your unit!" he roared, "I am here to teach you a language,"

The unit seemed undeterred; they probably had to put up with this every year she reasoned.

"Lynx," he sneered, "which language are you learning, French?" he continued for her.

"No I can already speak French fluently, Spanish also," she replied in unfaltering French.

The teacher looked startled for the moment, well almost everyone did – all that is except Fox, he knew that Blunt wouldn't have chosen just anyone to take on the role. The teacher came back to the present, and then stated, "German it is, then."

The language class lasted two hours of which she spent most of the time learning about German Grammar. There wasn't much else to do, as she was one of the three in the group of ten learning the language, so for the pairing up and speaking section of the class she was ignored.

After a thoroughly productive languages session the unit made their way over to a different section of the training area to prepare for endurance testing. These generally included doing a shuttle run for as long as you could until your lungs felt they were on fire and your legs like jelly, and then continuing; swimming for three-quarters of an hour full pelt after wards; then there were the generic testing such as push-ups.

The only comments throughout the exercise were made by the soldiers, generally a gruff, "not quite as good as Cub was…"

These were the comments that grated on Rebekah – she could deal with being ignored, but she had spent too much of her time being compared to an unknown standard. That was the reason she had been in so many homes. Everywhere she went there was a bar to reach and it was always just out of her grasp. Her grades weren't good enough, she wasn't happy enough, she didn't smile enough, and she wasn't civil enough. The list went on and on. She had enough of it, and silently promised herself that she would show them. She would finally meet the standard set for her…

Well there you have it, and you probably won't like how most of that has been sat on my computer hard-drive for the best part of a year and a half...but still it's now up...

Let me know what you think

~Angiesmile xxx