Titular description; Royce's first date with the 141, where he gets punished.

"Where have you been, Sandy?" Royce asks, yawning on his bed. He rubs his eyes and has another look at Roach, who by this time is clean-shaven and dressed in his PT attire. "Couldn't sleep?" he asks again.

Roach flops on his bed. "I had assplosive-"

"If it's diarrhoea, I don't want to hear about it," Royce cuts in, hugging his pillow tighter. Roach purses his lips, makes the gesture of locking it and throws away the imaginary keys. "You keep getting it lately, too. Have you been drinking coffee with the new artificial sweeteners we have in the mess hall?"

"Uh-"

"Well don't do that, you might be intolerant to that stuff. Oprah says you might also be having it because of bacterial infections," he continues, mumbling into his pillow.

Roach breathes in sharply and asks, "You're still reading her magazine?"

The one with his head sinking into a pillow suddenly jumps up, and emphasising his irritation, frowns deeply. "Excuse you brah, not everyone likes baggy pants and loose jackets."

"Darn, Royce. How did you ever come to be Royce?" he asks. Royce flops back onto the pillow and starts to tell a story.

He remembers the first time he went out with the team. Mountain climbing in the Himalayan mountain ranges with a team for training. Royce looked up to Archer above him on the wire. He struck the ice with his axe.

There was a dreaded crack.

Before he could say the words, "I thought you had the ice recce'd!" the ice sheet that provided footing gave way. He slipped, and his weight pulled Archer down with him. Toad was in turn dragged from the safety of the ledge and to the perils of hanging by a wire. It all happened quickly, and it stopped just as abruptly as it had started. Ghost and the Captain were still on the ledge. The first ice screw atop the cliff had saved the team.

"Okay, stabilise! Archer, is the second screw intact?" MacTavish yelled out.

"Sir, it's gone!" Archer shouted back.

The Captain decided pulling on his wire to move up would end up risking their only ice screw that kept them from falling. He got out his ice axe. "Move up with me!" he shouted down to the team.

Right, left, ri-

Crack

Ghost slipped down and now he was on the edge, lower half struggling to find footing on the loose cliff side. The more he tried to pull himself up, the further down he slipped. "Wanker of a cliff!" he cursed.

"Sir, I can try swinging to gain momentum to reach the cliff side!" Archer yelled overhead. He struggled to pick at the cliff that was two metres from his reach.

"Negative, it's too risky!" MacTavish shouted to him.

"Sir," Royce shouts. "We're stuck and we're too heavy!"

"Whatever you're thinking of doing, I'm not giving the order!" MacTavish asserted.

"But it's-"

"I made my point clear!"

"Sir, he's got his knife out," Archer shouted, looking on.

"Royce, I'm going to NJP you after you're dead!" John MacTavish said with all the confidence he could muster. "And I'm going to NJP your mother while I'm at it!"

Half the team were literally hanging by a wire, with one ice screw being all that kept them from plunging to their deaths. Their Lieutenant was struggling and straining to get himself up, bearing with him the weight of three men. Sooner or later they would fall. Royce shut his eyes for a moment and blocked out his Captain's words. He inhaled and swiped the knife on the rope. And he fell,

down,

down,

down,

do-

"UFF!" he coughed, writhing in pain. He didn't know a magical ledge existed.

"Shite!" Ghost panted as he suddenly felt much lighter.

"Sir, he's still alive!" Archer said, looking down in horror. "He might've broken something but he's there!"

"Good. We need to climb back up first and contact base! On my right," MacTavish said. "Right!"

Right, left, right..

Royce remembered feeling as if a bulldozer had run him over. At the same time, he felt numb all over. Throbbing numb. He couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't feel his back. But he was pretty sure he landed on his legs and not his back. Fuck it all, he thought. His mind blacked out.

The next thing he remembered was looking at the ceiling panel of a helicopter. It was sunset too. The breeze was in his hair and the Captain was sitting a feet from where he lay. Was he dreaming? It felt like a dream. During that heli ride endless trains and cargo ships of thought plowed through his mind. He thought about the worries of life. Chicks, cash, chicks, politics, the environment, cash, how fucked up everyone was, chicks and how Archer kept stealing his porn magazines. He only worried about them because he wanted to. He could free himself from them. Choose new beliefs and not have to stand for Archer's bullshit "Toad-told-me-to-do-it" excuses.

It felt like an epiphany. It felt like he found peace itself.

"Cap'n..don't talk shit 'bout m' mother.."

"Shut yer trap."

Royce sniffs at the memory. "I was fortunate I only broke my ankle. But the Captain NJP'd me anyway," he says. "Since then, I've been trying to live my life by the Dharma."

"You're like the antithesis to Meat."

"Sands, trust me. That guy's the gayest one of all," Royce says with a cheeky grin.

Roach gets up from his bed and flicks his ears. "Come on, PT's in fifteen."

"Can I go in my underwear?"

"No."

Author's Note; After what he said at the start of Takedown, Royce really strikes me as a softer person, compared to most others in the 141. And I've been considering typing Soap's chatter for the upcoming chapter like, "Aye mate yer pissin' me off wit' yer Ned talk aboot things!" And maybe Ghost can be like, "I lahv thy scones and bones - Guv'naaar!" But obviously that won't happen. Would it?

Military acronyms used;

PT: Physical Training

Recce (also Recon): Reconnaissance

NJP: Non-Judicial Punishment