September 5th

Damn her and her perfect bloody hair.

Long, the most gorgeous red you have ever seen, ever strand always in place…ARGH. I have started wearing my baseball hat again to cover the absolute mess that my mouse brown mop has become. I need a haircut…and I need it NOW.

I keep trying to grow it out…but I just don't have the patience to deal with the transitional chaos. I am too far away from my stylist, and these army barbers are hacks...I always just end up cutting it all off to save myself the grief.

What I DON'T need is her amused commentary.

Sigh*

Scarlett and I have what you might call a love-hate relationship. She and I are roommates, and have become quite close over the 5 years I have been on this team. That doesn't mean, however, that we always get along. Far from it! Both of us have very short, fiery tempers…and when we get going the fur starts to fly.

Sometimes she really gets my back up. Red feels because she is older, more experienced, and out-ranks me that she can lord it over me like some despotic big sister.

Ok…it helps that she can probably pound the crap out of me in a fight. Not that I would be found lacking when things come to blows. I can certainly hold my own when push comes to shove…after he heard about that fight with Zarana Flint took to calling me Mohammed Allie (I can still see him shadow boxing around my room in his boxers chanting `floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee' while I iced my black eye)…but Scarlett has got the whole martial arts thing going for her.

Ah…but when it comes to a verbal brawl…she has more than met her match. I can tear apart the best of them. Sometimes I have to watch myself lest I get carried away in my angry rants. I know I have really hurt her feelings a couple of times.

In fact…she was subject to one of my snarky remarks when we first met. `Tawdry Redhead', I think I called her…among other things. It's a wonder we ever became friends! Lately she has been pretty quiet. I am sure it has something to do with Snakes. Those two have been an item for longer than anyone can remember…but lately there has been some tension there. She never talks about it, but I think it has something to do with this whole ninja force thing that Hawk was ‘convinced’ to introduce to the team.

The Brass seem to think that if one Ninja is good…more must be better. I disagree. One ninja is quite enough thank you very much.Its funny, she is always has some comment or other on my…what did she call it?... `destructive' relationship with Flint…and yet if there was ever an example of a high maintenance couple it would be the two of them! That man has more issues than People magazine during the Oscars!

Don't get me wrong…I love him like a brother. In fact, he is one of the first people I go to when I have a problem…I sometimes tell him things I can't say to Flint or wouldn't tell Shana. He is a good listener and I know he won't tell a soul. And not just because he is mute!

And in his own quiet way, he gives sound and meaningful advice. All in sign language, which I understand very well. I picked it up easily from watching him and Shana.

Hey…I wasn't eavesdropping! It isn't my fault I pick up languages so easily is it?

Anyhow…I know their relationship isn't all champagne and roses. I just hate it when Red starts going on about Flint and I. People in glass houses…

How can she judge? She doesn't know him like I do. No one sees the man I see…She only sees Flint, whom she has no patience for…she doesn't know Dashiell.

`She doesn't know him like I do'. Hmmm…I just reread that and realized that Psych-Out would have a field day with that little tidbit. Sounds very much like an excuse someone would make to their friends when they are in denial about a destructive relationship.

If only things were that simple.

Problem is…that sentence is the very truth. No one knows him like I do.

I don't know how I came to be his confidant…but he has told me things, things about himself…that I know he has never told anyone. Its both an honor and a curse…an honor that he trusts and thinks highly enough of me to confide these things…and a curse because it is the very thing that has bound my heart to him. Bound it so tightly, touched me so profoundly, that I fear I will never be able to fully extricate him from my life.

Enough of that…back to Shana.

She really shouldn't judge. She should get her own love life in order before she starts analyzing mine. I mean, talk about destructive!

I guess I am just pissed off with her right now for giving me that disapproving look as Flint left my room the other morning. Sure I was crabby all week because of the whole `child' incident at Stalker's…and maybe…JUST MAYBE…I might have taken it out on her.

Nothing happened that night. We just held each other for a while before falling asleep in each other's arms. It was his quiet way of apologizing.

Not that its any of her business what I do and don't do.

She thinks I am weak. She thinks I can't walk away from it…

Ha…she has no idea!

I have walked away from a man who loved me and who I felt I would be spending the rest of my life with. I walked away from my friends and the only life I knew and went into the army. I walked away from more money than she could ever dream off…

No…it would be difficult…but I could do it if I felt it was necessary. It would kill me…I think it might very well destroy a part of my soul…but if it came to it…I could walk away.

I just pray that it will never come to that.

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