[Round 13] The Toof Frengi

[Toni]

((Sickbay))

:: Standing in Sickbay hardly felt real. Only a few short moments ago they'd been fighting between life and death against a more than formidable foe. Heath looked down to his dangling rifle and felt the urge to stow it where it was supposed to be. Armoury. No where else. He felt a hand squeeze his own.::

Turner: ::whispering: : Our time will come.

West: I know… I need to go put this back and… ::he sighed:: Other stuff.

:: She kissed him, then reluctantly, her hands slipped slowly out of his.::

Turner: I love you, Heath West.

:: He exhaled through a small smile.:: West: I love you, too. Now, go on, get to it. You're needed here.

:: Toni turned back to her patients with two other Doctors. Heath, however, turned for the entrance. The walk, albeit a short one, seemed to pass in slow motion as stretchers hurtled past him through the large doors into the main area. He caught a face of one; a Marine, a face wounded by the bullet holes of the Drones.::

:: Worn like scars, the Nanoprobes were still penetrating his system. Heath whipped round to watch the man cry out as they moved him through to the secure unit. It was terrible.::

(( OFFICE, CIC ))

:: With the rifle safely back where it should be, Heath perched himself on the edge of the desk and looked at it. He didn't change out of the attack uniform but just sat, looking at the rifle with his arms folded. It wasn't any different than any other rifle in the cabinet, it was normal, exactly like the others it neighboured only it had been his clutch on life for a lot longer.::

:: He wondered if that was how the Soldiers of the Great Wars felt. If the Infantry of the Gorn War had looked at their weapons the same. If the Marines from Wolf 359 had regarded their lives with the same

emotion. When the future was decided by the comedy of idiots; did every man think the same?::

:: The door bleeped, shaking Heath from his near daydream. He stood up.::

West: Come in.

:: The door shunted and the smallest person behind it peeked through the opening, toothy grin with one small one missing in the bottom left. Heath's eyes lit up and he crouched down as the little girl ran through the doorway and straight into his arms.::

Vee: Daddy!

:: That's what soldier's thought about in the field. Family. Home. ::

West: Hello, Princess. You been a good girl for Captain T'Pen?

:: Vee nodded her head vigorously and drew back from her hug, pointing her index digit at her missing tooth.::

Vee: It came out and wen' plip plop plip on the f''oor. J.J pick it up and sai' it was my brains fallin' out.

:: Heath rolled his eyes upwards.::

West: I'll have to have a word with him then, won't I…

Vee: But, Auntie Yoyo said that it's my teefs and I growin' up now and I should put it under my pillow for the toof Frengi.

:: The Kerelian [...]ed an eyebrow at his young daughter.::

West: Toof… Tooth Frengi?

:: She nodded again.::

Vee: Wif the lowbes and the latnum. The Frengi.

Major Heath West

Marine XO

SMFC Detachment

USS CHALLENGER