Hello friends. Sorry this took a while, I've been very busy with some RL stuff. –And my internet connection has been lacking the last week or so…
Sorry, I'm not Wonder Woman… -never claimed to be her either.

By this point, I just assume you've read Gib's 7th chapter of this story. If not, head on over and read it.

Also, posted this without showing it to Gib or Dlwells51.
-Sorry guys. Felt like everybody had waited long enough for me now…

CHAPTER 8

"Got one…" Pete nodded and held up the soft package he hadn't opened earlier. "It's from my aunt, there's bound to be a book in here somewhere!" he grinned.

"Doesn't look that way…" Coop shrugged, that's a soft gift, "I bet it's some clothes or something…"

"Has a hard core though…" Pete informed as he gave the package a gentle squeeze. "And aunt Gioia was the one to get me hooked on books in the first place."

"Well, what are you waiting for? We want to know what's inside!" Jack moaned.

"No, you just want to know who has to open Coop's second package…" Duncan corrected their leader, an accusing finger pointed towards the Texan.

"The one outside?" Mac asked, all of the guys nodded. Their faces grimmer than he had seen them before.

"I say baby brother over here gets a free pass on this one. It's his first time…" Cooper sat back in his seat, the way he had pitched the idea left little room for discussion.

"Alright…" Jack nodded, "Guess that's fair… But come on now Pete… I want to see who has to open up the last package…"

"Alright, alright…" Pete nodded and ripped open the tape holding the all brown packing paper together. "Let's see what's inside here…"

He pulled out some rolled up fabric, he held it in his hand and looked at it. He placed it in his lap and unfolded it a bit. A smile spread across his face as he realized what it was.

"What are you grinnin' like a fool for now" Jack drawled, trying to see what Pete had received from his aunt.

"Yankees T-shirt!" Pete grinned and held it up, and just like he had guessed, a book fell out from inside the roll. "Ooh! And Jack Reacher!"

Jack looked up, mild confusion spread across his face. "Jack Reacher?"

"Yeah, it's a book series by Lee Child. I've only read the five first ones, last one was a thrill ride…" Pete stretched out to pick up the book, "I mean, every book has been a thrill ride. I can't pick a favorite out of them, they're impossible to put down."

"Well, looking at the thickness of that book, I'd say it's impossible to get through it…"

Pete shook his head, "It's only five or six hundred pages or so…"

"Like I said, impossible…" Jack shrugged.

Pete smirked and flipped the book open, a letter fell out, "Nah, I'll be done with this too soon…"

Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I don't get it…"

Pete turned the book over and read the backside. "Man, I feel sorry for you. I don't know what I'd do without books, especially here."

"I get by just fine…" Jack shrugged, "It's never really been a thing for me. Would be weird if I suddenly found interest in it now."

"Okay…" Pete shrugged and nodded at the same time, then he picked up the letter. He opened the envelope with his knife and pulled out the handwritten letter. He quickly read through the letter, it took him less than a full minute. "I'm not gonna read this aloud. Aunt Gioia keeps switching between Italian and English… There's like one paragraph in English, one Italian, another Italian one, three English ones… Another Italian…"

"Not even my parents does that…" Coop mused, eyebrows drawn close together. "Really didn't think people had that problem… I thought people just struggled with spelling when they had problems with a language. Or pronunciation…"

"It's not a problem…" Pete shrugged, "She just switches over to Italian whenever she gets worked up on a subject. She does that in real life too… Reading her letters, it feels like home…"

Duncan smiled, angling his head to look up at Pete. "Okay, now that that's out of the way… Pete, you've got some cards laying around?"

"Low card has to open it…" Pete informed as he shuffled the cards against his knees, before placing the stack in the middle of the circle. "Pick any card you'd like, just don't look at it…"

The five guys looked at the stack of cards like it was some of the most intimidating stuff they had seen. Like life depended on what card they chose. Mac just watched.

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Duncan was the first to pick a card. "Aww, hell… Might as well go ahead…" he mumbled as he leaned forward, he lifted about half of the stack and picked a random card in the middle. Placed the top part of the stack back and sat back against his chair.

Boxer and Jack looked at each other. Jack's eyes darted silently back and forth between Boxer's and the cards. Boxer's eyes were dead locked on Jack. "I dare ya…"

In a blur of motion, both of the oldest team members catapulted out of their seats and came down next to the cards. There were some mild name calling as the two shoved each other to get the card they both wanted.

Cooper ran a big hand over his face and sighed, then he chuckled when he caught sight of Mac with his mouth hanging agape. "Don't worry, this is what happens every time… They both want the card on the bottom. Some old, pre-dinosaur, habit they can't shake. Guess it started when they were in first grade or something…"

Mac couldn't help but laugh, he wasn't sure whether it was because of Cooper's explanation, or the triumphant shout from Boxer, or the way Jack slammed his hand onto the ground. Maybe the mix of it all?

Jack blew a hard breath out through his nose then he picked the card on top of the stack with a pout.

Pete chuckled and knelt down and picked a card from somewhere inside the stack.

Cooper looked at the stack for a few seconds. He was the last one to pick a card. His chances weren't worse than for the other guys, not really, but it felt scarier.

He drew a deep breath and leaned forward. Reached out, parted the stack the same way Duncan had, left the top stack side by side with the bottom one, and picked up the top card from the first one. He didn't look down at the card as he pulled it up to rest on his thigh.

"All at once, or one at a time?" Pete asked, looking around the circle. His eyes were crinkling with a smile, like he had everything under control and knew it.

"Let's keep the suspense for a little while longer…" Duncan shrugged, "One at a time, reverse order from when we picked our cards…"

Pete nodded. Nobody was against it.

"Coop…"

Cooper swallowed hard, he held his card back-side up with the fingers of his left hand and bit his lip. Sending a silent prayer for a high card. He flipped it.

7 of hearts. Not good, not bad. Chances were, he wouldn't be the lowest card.

He didn't grin, didn't laugh, just nodded to himself before he looked up at Pete. "Your turn."

Pete nodded, and flipped the card without hesitation.

5 of clubs. Pete held his expression blank, but he knew they sometimes had lost on five's earlier. He really didn't want to lose.

He combed through his hair with his free hand and stretched out his leg to tap Jack with the toe of his boot. "You're up Boss…"

"It'll be my honor…" Jack grinned mischievously, turning his card around and revealing a red card.

3 of hearts. His jaw tensed and he looked over at Boxer, then at Duncan. "You better not get a high card… Either of you."

"Are the Aces high or low…" Mac questioned in a low voice. Trying to determine Jack's chances.

"Low…" Cooper smiled.

"Well, I'm curious to see what my card reads…" Boxer chuckled, "Ready?"

The guys nodded. He flipped it around.

3 of spades. His face went cold, then he looked over at Jack, "Well, we better hope Dunc gets a worse card, or we're going into a duel…"

Jack nodded, "Dunc?"

Dunc closed his eyes for a second. Opened them. Turned the card around.

Queen of diamonds. A wide smile spread across his face.

"Looks like I'm in the clear…" he announced before picking up the two stacks of cards on the floor, holding them out towards the middle of the circle. "Cards…"

The guys placed the cards back, and Duncan shuffled them thoroughly. Then he divided the stacks in two and handed them to Pete. "Give our seniors one stack each. We don't need to see them going all Wrestle Mania for the duel too…"

Pete chuckled and looked at the two stacks. He handed the one in his right to Boxer and the one in his left to Jack.

"On three…" he instructed as he sat back down. "Pick your card."

Both Jack and Boxer pulled the card from the bottom of their stacks.

Pete smiled, "One. Two. Three!"

The cards were flipped. One black, one red. One heart, one clubs. One showing 10, one showing an Ace.

One whooped with joy, one cussed a lot.

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"Stand back baby brother…" Coop grinned, placing a protective hand against Mac's chest. "You might want some distance between yourself and the package…"

Mac looked up at Cooper, "Is it really that bad?"

"Might be…" Coop shrugged. "She once sent something in a jar, the cardboard box around it was taped so good that when the tape was cut, the whole thing just seemed to explode."

"What was in it?"

"We never found out…" Cooper grimaced, "But it smelled absolutely freaking horrible. Pete couldn't get the stink out of his hair or beard. He had to shave, all of it. -That man better hope he doesn't lose his hair any time soon…"

Mac smirked and looked over at Jack who was approaching the package, like he was crawling under barbed wire during boot camp. Or crawling low where he was hidden from enemy fire.

Jack had his knife in his right hand as he crawled on his elbows and knees, keeping low.

He reached the package. It was sealed with duct tape, all over. He slid the knife along the tape on the corners, nothing happened. Jack pushed up on his hands, getting the overview of the tape-work on the top.

He laid back down and ran the knife along the split under the tape. Nothing happened.

He dared to push up once again. Dared to lean side to side, scan the split tape along the edges and across the top. He sank back down.

"When is he going to open it?" Mac mused, tilting his head as he studied Jack.

Boxer chuckled, "When he knows it's not going to attack him…"

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Jack held his breath as he used his knife to gently push the wings of the box out of the way. Nothing happened.

The box was now open. Nothing sprayed out like a volcano of ill smelling goo, nothing crawled out on its own. He let go of the breath he had been holding.

It was a mistake, when he breathed in the foul smell of moldy something-something.

He coughed and sputtered, crawled backwards and covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

"Damn Lea! That there is TOXIC!"

Cooper laughed and walked over, leaning over to look inside the box. He was careful to cover his nose. He let out a short laugh, then backed away.

"The heck are you laughing about you Scandinavian?" Jack shouted between coughing fits.

"Technically I'm American…" Coop grinned as he made it back to the others. "I was even born in California…"

"Well, your family is Scandinavian…" Jack wiped away the moisture the pungent smell had caused to run from his eyes.

"No… Both mom and dad are American citizens… Charlie was too…" Coop shrugged, somewhat teasingly.

"Whatever… What the heck was that thing your grandma sent?"

"Don't know…" Cooper grinned, "It's your job to figure that out, remember?"

Jack shot Cooper a glare as he pushed to his feet and stomped over to the box. He was shielding his mouth and nose by pulling up the lower end of his t-shirt.

"Pancakes?" he shouted through the mask of shirt, it came across muffled.

"Don't think so…" Cooper shrugged, "Grandma's pancakes doesn't look like that…"

"That other thing? The thing your mom served us the last time we tagged along to California?"

"Lapper?" Cooper asked, "No… Wrong size…"

"You see sizes in here? I just see a solid green-grey hairy lump!"

"Can I give up?" Jack pleaded.

"Guess once more!"

"Cake?" Jack asked, "Lemon cake?"

"Not a cake…" Cooper shook his head.

"Well, what do you think it is then?" Jack growled past the fabric of his shirt, "When can I torch it?"

"Might be waffles, right size…" Cooper shrugged.

"Okay, let us all call it waffles then!" Jack bent down and picked up the package, carried it further away from their barrack. He set it down and backed away. "I'm gonna find some gasoline and we're gonna light that stuff on fire!"

Cooper and the others laughed.

"Yeah, let's do that…" Cooper nodded. "If that really is her waffles, you should rather see, smell and taste it when they're fresh. They are delicious then…"

"Looking at that mess, it's hard to believe…" Jack shot out as he passed Cooper. "But I would like to be proven wrong…"

Cooper chuckled lightheartedly…

Okay… So… Next chapter is Gib's

Y'all already know her chapter will be amazing! She's amazing. And I love playing around with your guys. (Seriously, if I could somehow crawl into the fanfic world completely, I would. Preferably with your guys, and Jack, Mac, Riley and the rest of the bunch… -But preferably not in the scenes you introduced them to us in. I don't think I could handle that firsthand.)

Gib, I love your writing. Just saying it once more…

And Dlwells51, thank you so much for the help with the previous chapters. I would have sent you this too to read over and correct. But I also wanted to post it as quickly as possible, and I just assume 'everybody' lives in America. I don't know if that's right or not, but…

Okay, I'm rambling…
Gib, thanks for letting me play around with your guys! Dlwells51, thanks for the help!

Good night!