Marcus sat at the bar and they were an hour from opening and Troy hadn't shown up yet. He was setting up when the door opened and he expected Troy; but was surprised to see Shannon 'Shane' Vansen enter and wave at him. "Hey, Girlie."
"Hi, Pop's. You seen Jayme?" She asked sitting on one of the tall bar stools. He set down his bar rag and leaned against the counter, and said, "Not for several days. She's back on duty and making up for lost time." He shook his head, and asked picking up the towel again, "How have you been?"
She leaned back and stuck her hands in the pockets of her coveralls, "Things have be busy on the flight lines and we are teaching the 28th MEF medical personnel to fly the Hawks between missions, and there's just been some heavy stuff going on with me that I can't talk about..."
He poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass and slid it to Shannon, and ordered, "Drink up!" Shannon looked tired, but with war on the boarder and back to back missions and assignments, who wasn't. "Do you know what day it is?" he asked her.
"The 12th." She said with a frown and then a light came on. "Jayme's birthday."
"Right. And I bet she's working." He said setting his coffee down. "Want to help me?
She leaned forward. "How?" For the next hour they planned and Shannon headed out to contact, Kassia and Tarik, and Nathan. He'd contact Jayme himself. Soma opened and Troy showed distracted but reluctant to take the day off to straighten out whatever was on his mind. They worked together and it was a quiet night. At eight O'clock he took a break and left Troy to tend the bar, and he walked out and headed for Marine Country to find his daughter and drag her to dinner at Soma. He found her in the gym the second place on his list. "Go get dressed, I'm taking you to dinner!" He ordered. She looked up at him finished the rep with the weights and sat up mopping her face with her towel..."What?"
He placed his hands on his hips and looked down on her. "Get dressed Jayme, we are going to dinner."
"Dad," she said. She was tired and moody and certainly wasn't in the mood to go out, "Sorry, I can't I have several reports to write tonight."
"Even retired, I out rank your ass. If you want, I can call your Colonel ..we'll see if he approves of these 16-20 hour shifts your working..." he let the sentence deliberately trail off with the promise of the threat. He watched as she stretched and stood. "Fine." Together in silence they walked to her quarters and she left him sitting in the living room while she sonic showered and changed in to Civvies for the night. Ten minutes later she was out wearing the black stretch pants, and a variegated purple sweater with the sleeves pushed up around her elbows. She sat and put on the little boots that went with the pants. "Okay?"
"You look fine. Hope Soma's is OK because that is where I have a table reserved."
She stood and followed him to the door. "Soma is fine...beats MRE's." He turned as he stepped through the door and frowned at her...he hoped she wasn't living on them again. They talked about little things on the way and entered the semi dark bar and he led her to a table that was already occupied by Tarik, Kassia, Shannon and Nathan and in the center of the table was a cake. "Surprise, everyone said at the same time." Troy walked over and joined the celebration and led the small group of people in Soma in singing "happy birthday." Jayme looked at her father and smiled before wrapping her arms around him in a huge hug. After cake and some punch which was heavily spiked with something Jayme felt much better and more relaxed.
After several hours he saw Nathan escorting Jayme out onto the promenade. Marcus had enjoyed the surprise, hated bullying her into coming, and returned to work until closing.