Drill Sergeant Lovato

Part 7

"Maybe we..." She started, but stopped herself. She snorted a laugh. "No, there's no way..." She pointed at me sternly. "You... YOU do this to me, Sel. Got me trying to figure out some way we could make it work when there is none right now. But I'll see you later today, okay? It's not like the field again." 

I nodded and sighed. "I know... it just sucks that we can't spend more time together tonight. I really missed you." 

Devonne folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "And you think I didn't miss YOU?" 

I laughed nervously, seeing her bow up to me like that. "No, I know you did it's just... ugh." 

She pecked me on the lips quickly. "Scoot. I'll see you tomorro- err, later today." 

"Okay..." I said, defeated. 

I stood at the door, with my hand on the knob, and turned my head back towards her. 

"Sweet dreams, Dev." 

She smiled. "You too, baby." 

I made to turn the knob and stopped. Baby? 

"Wait, you can't just call me that for the first time and-" 

She shook her head, still smiling. "Oops. It slipped." 

I couldn't fight the smile that took over when I turned back around and left. 

I was her baby...

-

As I feared, the next week went by way too fast. As all of our command had told us prior to the night of the NIC and the ruck march, we weren't really doing much except preparing to graduate. The days went by fast, and there was a lot of down time. We had our phones permanently now - something I swore to myself I'd never take advantage of again - so I texted Devonne a lot when we weren't doing anything. I tell you, if you saw her texts you'd never believe she was some kind of hard ass drill sergeant, the way she abused smiley faces and exclamation points. 

She explained to me over time what had happened with the whole Heather situation. Heather's phone and computer had been confiscated by CID and all the data had been wiped, because Devonne had said she had reason to believe that military intelligence was compromised. It seemed to me that you'd need some kind of proof to warrant that happening and not just saying something, but I guess when you're a well respected staff sergeant/drill sergeant, CID takes you seriously. I guess we'd never really know if Heather had been telling the truth and actually had a picture of us, but I also guessed she learned her lesson by making threats. Have fun putting all your contacts and applications back on your stuff, bitch. 

We had a class on how to set up our dress uniform one day, which was all the proper measurements of where our ribbons went on our jacket, as well as our name plate. DS Lovato brought her uniform in, and it looked somewhat similar to how I'd dreamt it did when we were in the field and I had that horrible nightmare. It was very impressive, and made all of ours look boring by comparison with our two ribbons and a medal for our rifle qualification. Of course, I was one of the few that had an 'expert' badge, and this was something I took great pride in. 

As the days went by, and graduation drew closer, I began to realize I had been completely off in accusing Sanders of possibly telling someone about us. We had gotten away with it, and Sanders had kept her promise in not telling anyone. Unfortunately this also meant that we'd gotten away with it, in that we weren't gonna HAVE to get away with it much longer, since I'd be leaving at the end of the week. 

Graduating. Moving on. Starting my career in the Army. I'd made it. I kept reminding myself of that throughout the day, and it was something I was reminded of automatically at night when I'd see my dress uniform hanging up in my locker.