My fellow FanFicition denizens! I haven't been updating this story because of this: I have reached a roadblock as to HOW to tell this story. I know what I want to have happen, but I just don't know how to verbalize it. And that, reviewers, is where YOU come in! I would like to pool this story idea to all of y'all: how would you feel if I told the next several chapters of the story all in letter for between Joey and Chris? Comment and let me know what you think! And now, allons-y!

CHAPTER 17 (CHRIS POV): MEANWHILE, THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY….

P.S. I love you. Just in case you forgot

I folded up Joey's letter again and held it close to me. "I love you too," I whispered as I tucked the letter under the pillow of my bunk. The mosquitoes outside buzzed annoyingly, making it even harder for me to get to sleep. Being away from Joey and the boys was bad enough; being away from Joey and the boys in the middle of the jungle was way worse. And being away from Joey and the boys in the middle of the jungle in the same battalion as Ace Merrill, the psycho who's had it out for me my entire life? Not exactly how I wanted to spend my first year after graduation, if you know what I mean.

Still, even though I missed home awfully, being in Vietnam actually hadn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be. My battalion hadn't gotten into any huge battles yet; we were just going around on peace missions to the different villages. But somehow, that goddamn Ace always found a way to make me miserable, just like he did when we were kids.

This was illustrated when, in the early morning hours, I felt someone sit down on my bunk on top of my bad ankle and say, "Get up, Chambers, time to die."

I groaned out, "Ace, it's 3 AM. We have to be up in two hours, just let me sleep." But Ace was too fast for me and yanked out Joey's letter from under my pillow.

That was when I got mad. "Give me back that letter, man!" I yelled, getting a lot of tired curses and complaints from the other guys in the troop.

"Aw, come on Chicken Shit, I just want to see what your little girlfriend has to say," he laughed gleefully.

"Ace. Give me that letter. Now." I got up from my bed and strode towards him threateningly.

Ace scoffed and walked right up to me. Our noses were almost touching, we were so close. "She still have that scar on her cheek I gave her?" he whispered. "She thought she could cross me, little bitch."

I grabbed Ace by the forearm and warned, "Don't you EVER talk about Joey that way again, you punk, or else."

"Or else what, Chambers?"

"Or else…" I paused. I had to choose my words carefully, because I knew that, especially here, Ace would have no qualms at all about killing me. "Just know you'll be sorry you ever crossed me when we're in the middle of a battle."

Ace seemed to falter, but then just rolled his eyes, scoffed, and returned, "Whatever." He crumbled up Joey's letter, the first one I had gotten from her since I got to Vietnam, and threw it onto my bunk as if it were no better than yesterday's garbage.

I sat down, stewing about Ace and trying to smooth the letter out, when I felt weight on the end of my bunk. I turned to see Peter Crow, who had been my bunkmate since boot camp, sitting on the edge of my bed. "Is that the girl you told me about from back home?" he asked.

"Yeah." I passed him the letter so that he could read. Normally, I would have showed only Gordie, Teddy and Vern something like this, but Peter and I had become really close throughout our time in the army. I felt like I could trust him.

When he was finished, Peter gave a low whistle. "Shoot, you're lucky, Chambers. To have a girl love you like that?" He eyed the picture I had of Joey hanging above my bunk and added, "AND to have her be a looker? You're the luckiest sonuvabitch in this whole damn Armed Forces!"

I shrugged. "Well, now… yeah I really am," I laughed.

Peter shook his head, strolled back over to his bunk and plopped back down on it. "God, I wish I had a girl back home. All I really have is my best friend, Rick. I mean, I love the guy and everything, but I don't love him enough to marry him when we get back to civilization, you know?"

I laughed and took the letter back from him. "I know," I said as I brought out an old shoebox from underneath my bed to put the letter in. In the box itself (besides the letter) was a pack of cigarettes, an old baseball card from when I was young, and pictures of the whole gang from right before I left: Vern and Kathy, holding Lily and standing in front of their new house, smiling next to the sign that said, "SOLD"; Teddy leaning against the hood of the car he was working on in the garage, striking his best James Dean pose with a grease covered face; a photo booth strip of Gordie and Dana, slowly changing from goofy faces to sweet kisses; and finally, buried in the bottom of the box, was a picture of Joey. I had hung a picture of her on graduation day above my bunk, so that I would have something current of her to look at every day. But the picture of her that really meant the most to me was on the bottom of this shoebox.

It had been taken on Teddy's 11th birthday, when we all headed down to the baseball field to play a quick 2 on 2 game (Teddy insisted that, because it was his birthday, he didn't have to play). His mom had saved up enough money to buy him his own camera, and while he sat in the dugout, Teddy snapped pictures of all of us while we were playing. At one point in the day, we decided to allow outfielders to tackle the hitters, because regular baseball just wasn't hard enough for us. Joey smacked a solid double, but Gordie had caught it in his glove, and then lunged at Joey just as she was rounding second base. The two of them had then collapsed into the dirt in a laughing, screaming heap, but when Joey got up, there was dirt smudged all over her face, and her ponytail had fallen out to reveal a mass of thick, brown curls. As Teddy yelled out, "HOLD IT THERE, JOE!" I couldn't help but think to myself, "God. I never thought about it before, but Joey has really nice hair. And her freckles are…cute, I guess. Plus, when I look at her, I get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach… whoa! Holy shit… do I LIKE like her? Like Eyeball likes Rachel? Or Rebecca or whichever girl it is this week?" I remember that, throughout the rest of the game, I kept stealing glances at her, and after each glance, my heartbeat would quicken, and my palms would get all sweaty and gross. It was that day that I realized that I loved Joey as more than a friend. And I always kept that picture as a reminder of the fun, caring, bright girl that I fell in love with all those years ago in an abandoned baseball field in Castle Rock.

I touched the photo lightly, put it back in the shoebox with my other Castle Rock memorabilia, and took out a pen and paper. I hadn't had a chance to write Joey since I joined the army, and I had been wanting to tell her about everything that had happened to me since.

Dear Joey-

It's okay that you weren't there to see me off; believe me, it wasn't pretty. Kathy and Dana were crying, Gordie and Vern kept trying to comfort them, and Teddy just sulked on the platform before the bus came to pick me up. You didn't miss much. Actually, the army hasn't really been that bad. Of course, Ace is still as psychotic as he's always been, and the mosquitoes are annoying as hell, but still. We haven't had to do any real fighting yet, and I have this buddy, Peter. Oh, Joe, you'd love him; he always knows what to say to make the whole platoon crack up. I'm glad Berkeley is as nice as you hoped it would be, but that Mark character? Make sure he keeps his… weapon holstered, if you know what I mean. Oh, come on, you can't blame a guy for worrying: away in a foreign country and all. And, Joe, you never have to worry about being scared; I'm scared too. Scared of fighting, scared of being lost, scared of being alone… but you convinced me to not be afraid. It might sound cheesy, but I'll just keep reminding myself that it'll only be one more day until I make it home whenever I'm afraid. I'm serious; it'll be like a bad TV movie. You be strong, okay? You've got a whole big future ahead of you out there in California, and it begins right now. I'm so proud of you. Don't you ever forget that. I love you too, and I miss you.

Love,

PFC Christopher Chambers (pretty classy huh?)