Basic Training
He'd be awake at four and by six he'd have breakfast.
Usually, it was scrambled eggs and bacon, a toast or a roll and a slice of fruit, all was good at boot camp. But the coffee was shitty, it tasted like water with dirt. He'd been told it always was and it always would be shitty.
Drinking his coffee early in the morning reminded him of Talon. How many varieties were available there, the million ways to spruce up a cup of Joe and jack up the price. He missed the Talon, he missed Smallville and he missed Lana.
He often wondered why he had joined in the first place, wasn't it about Lana, for Lana? Then why was he here slaving off on basic training, following the whim of madman in a drill sergeant's uniform? Why was he crawling in ditches and climbing up walls?
He missed her too much, he believed. Everyone at boot camp left someone behind, but nobody wrote as often as he did. At night he would will her form from his head and he'd always see her in Talon, an apron on, a notepad ready to take an order. She'd be smiling, she always smiled while taking orders, her eyes would sort of smile too, though it was possible that was how it seemed to him.
Then she'd look up and smile at him, then afterwards she'd be over to him, she'd kiss him briefly and get whatever it was the customer had ordered. Tall-short-cream-latte-mocha-frap, whatever, it didn't matter. He'd check her out from the bar and she'd blush when she sees him looking.
But they were a memory, like fog that covered the grounds at four in the morning. That was time to work out and then at six, it was time for breakfast and shitty coffee.