Rosalind was disturbed by how Lt. Martinez ignored her fairly obvious ‘I want to escape’ vibes, but she was kind of interested in getting to know these pilots a little more before they leave. She also wanted to use this chance to further convince herself that these were good people. In all honesty, she could tell they were but wasn’t able to convince herself of that fact.

            “Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll come to the get-together,” Rosalind said with a sigh.

            Lt. Martinez took her shopping cart from her, with her precious candy, and began asking people what chips they wanted and piled their requests into the cart.

            “Rosalind, what do you want?” Lt. Martinez asked with a smile.

            “Well, you have to get popcorn for a movie,” she retorted sarcastically.

            Rosalind had somehow been adopted into the group of pilots in an instant. She was able to speak freely with them while trying to avoid Lt. Anderson for a variety of reasons. He was so quiet even now that she had to ask someone what he was like.

            “Hey, Lt. Kapadia, can I ask you something?” Rosalind quietly whispered to Lt. Kapadia who had fallen behind the crowd and happened to be close to Rosalind.

            “Yeah, what’s up?”

            “Is Lt. Anderson always so quiet? Or is he quiet whenever I’m around?”

            “He’s quiet all the time. He speaks only when he feels he needs to. It’s an eerie quality he has.”

            “Oh. Okay, thanks.”

            Rosalind became silent while trying to think about the information she learned. Lt. Anderson is a quiet guy, but he speaks up when he has to. That seemed to follow with the numerous awkward silences that Rosalind had experienced between her and Lt. Anderson the last few days. She began to wonder what specifically made him a good leader and thought to pull his file when she got back to the office on Monday and read up on him. He was the leader the mechas had chosen, and not to mention he was Bleu’s pilot.

            When the pilots had grabbed their junk foods and drinks, Lt. Martinez was about to head for the check-out lanes, before Rosalind spoke up.

            “Uh, Lt. Martinez?”

            “What, Miss Rosalind?” He asked returning Rosalind’s sarcastic voice to her.

            “Shouldn’t we get dinner too?”

            “Oh yeah, good point. I almost forgot.” “Hey Charlie, should we get dinner here or order food, or are you cooking?”

            Rosalind who wasn’t quite familiar with the pilots' first names, looked to see who responded. It was Lt. Anderson.

            “Whatever you all want to do is fine with me,” Lt. Anderson replied softly with little emotion.

            “So, Rosalind, what do you want?”

            “Why do I have to be the deciding party?”

            “You were the one that brought it up!”

            “Fine, let’s order food,” Rosalind replied with a hint of anger.

            “Okay, okay. Well let’s hurry before Rosalind faints,” Lt. Martinez joked.

            “That’s not going to happen today!” Rosalind retorted. She began pushing Lt. Martinez who was still driving the cart towards a check-out lane. Lt. Martinez began laughing and Rosalind and the other pilots did too. This was fun, Rosalind thought. Play fighting with Lt. Martinez and having people know about her condition and herself enough to joke about it, but conscious of it to prevent it from happening.

            Another thirty minutes escaped the group before they had made it to Lt. Anderson’s home in Lt. Martinez’s minivan. Rosalind recognized his truck that was parked in the driveway and her heart began beating fast. She knew it was a residual response from the attack and she hoped that understanding who he was and proving to herself the attack was a freak accident, that he just wasn’t the type of person to attack people for no reason, would calm her mind.

            The home on the inside looked like a typical show home, with books on shelves, on top of cabinets, on a chest in a hallway held up with book ends, and gently arranged in one stack on a coffee table. Besides the books located everywhere you looked, the house was clean and organized, very much the opposite of Rosalind’s home.  

            Rosalind watched as Lt. Martinez made himself at home immediately. He began pulling the groceries out of their bags and setting the bags aside, and then rummaging through the cabinets for bowls for the candy, popcorn, chips, and salsa. He also pulled out glass cups, one for each person there. Then he called everyone around the kitchen table to discuss the topic of dinner.

            “Come on over everyone. What is everyone feeling like for dinner?”

            They all crowded around the table, and everyone started to nibble on the assortment laid out in front of them. Rosalind grabbed a gummy bear to start quenching her stomach before it began to beg her for food.

            “What are the options?” Rosalind asked, not knowing what was available at this base.

            “There’s Mexican, Chinese, Italian, BBQ, pizza, and burgers.”

            “Alright. Any of those is fine with me,” Rosalind replied while turning her back to the group after grabbing a few more gummy bears to keep looking at all the books in the living room from the kitchen. She was trying to read the titles of the books to first determine if they were actually a topic or genre that Lt. Anderson regularly read or if they were placed for looks. Most of the books seemed to be on aviation, which jived with his professional experiences.

            “Rosalind, we decided to order Italian food. Is that fine with you?”

            “Yes, that’s fine,” she said after turning around.