Chapter Text
Why did she always end up being the one with prison duty? It was the most boring job in the entire National Guard. Then again, having to protect the council members couldn’t be better. Some of them had less personal life than a corps. Still, Raphaela hated prison duty more than everything.
“Oh, stop pouting, Rapha, I would gladly do prison duty. Instead I’ll be stuck in the court. An entire month!”
Joshua, one of her two best friends, rolled his eyes. Since they got their allocation yesterday, Raphaela had been in a bad mood. So, had he, because court duty meant staying in the court room all day long, listing to criminals protesting their innocence. Exhausting.
“Court is better than prison. At least you get to hear some drama. I’ll have to listen to them whine about everything. Again! It’s the fifth time I’ve got prison in the last eleven months. What did I do?”
“A good job, maybe?”
Until now, Georgia had listen silently. In her opinion, both her friends behaved childishly. She had instruction duty. Her favourite kind. It meant she could spent the next month on academy grounds and train the novices. Josh’s favourite was operator protection, while Rapha preferred actual military service.
At the end of this year, which was this month, they could apply for their preferred position. If they were qualified, they would get the job, unless too many applied. If their application would be denied, they would be assigned another duty. Military service was the most prestigious job in the entire country and therefore only very few got selected to do it. Second to it was prison duty and third was operator protection. For most people, being allocated as prison guard more than once would have been a great honour. But Raphaela aspired higher things. For her, only the best was good enough.
“I’ll end as prison guard, I just know it.”
“You have a good feeling for such things, Langley.”
Their instructor and supervisor, Jefferson, sat down next to them. He was a very handsome man, somewhere in his late twenties. Which was one of the reasons why he was as popular as only very few other instructors. Another reason was, that even though he was strict, he was very fair and usually didn’t privilege anyone. Well, that was until Raphaela had come along. From the first time that he had seen her, she had been his favourite. And since Rapha was quite clever, she had realized that soon. But she had never tried to gain anything from that. She would rather fail in grace, than get where she wanted to go by cheating, she had told her friends over and over again. Which was only partly true, she wouldn’t cheat, but Raphaela had no intention of failing whatsoever.
“Oh c’mon, we didn’t even apply yet and they already decided?!”
“I’m sorry, Rapha, I’ve tried telling them you’re the best, but they didn’t agree. No one will get into military service this year.”
Surprised, Raphaela blinked at Jefferson. For the last five years she had broken one record after another, there were only few she hadn’t broken yet and she was still working on that. She was the best of her year.
“If you ask me, they’re trying to shut the military down.”
“Don’t say that too loud, Redfield, if it’s not true, you can lose your chances of getting into protection, if it is true, however, you can lose way more.”
“Whatever, I have to go. See you next weekend.”
“I can drive you, Rapha, I have to be at the prison for a meeting anyways.”
“Thanks, Jeff.”
As they walked away from Josh and Georgia, Josh shook his head. He and Georgie had been waiting for them to get together for almost five years now. It was obvious that Jefferson liked their friend a lot. When they had left academy a year ago, they had been sure that it was a matter of weeks ‘til it happened. But it hadn’t and they were a little disappointed.
Raphaela, of course, knew of her friends plans and she knew, that Josh wanted nothing more than see them married. But she had no intention of granting him this wish. Not because she didn’t like Jeff, but because she wanted to be a soldier serving in the military. The was her first and foremost priority. Falling in love hadn’t been on her agenda and therefore she wasn’t interested in being in a relationship with Jefferson. And being a bit oblivious when it came to that matter, she had no idea that Jefferson was both.
“You could try to apply as instructor. They’ll surely take you.”
Instructor was a good job, save and well payed. All the instructors, with their families, lived in a village near the academy. It was a nice and quiet place for a nice and quiet life. With a husband, kids and probably a dog. Considering both prison and protection bored Raphaela to death, she wouldn’t have much choice but to send her second application in for instructor. Which almost certainly meant, that she would eventually fall for Jefferson and merry him in the end. A depressing thought. Not because of Jeff but because it wasn’t even the tiniest bit exciting.
“No need for that much excitement.”
“Sorry. Yeah, I won’t have to many options, will I?”
“Gate duty?”
Jeff was smiling and making a joke. Gate duty was the lowest job the National Guard had to offer, the Gate was an old ring of stone. It was a portal to other worlds and sometimes travellers came through, but only rarely. In case of an attack, the Gate had a security system. The Gate Guards were just there for publicity reasons. Their entire job was it to stand next to the Gate and inform higher authorities if a traveller had come through.
“Why not, is about as exciting as-”
“Don’t you dare saying instructing!”
“I wanted to say prison duty. I mean, c’mon, I can spent my day talking to Jordan about how he tried to free the devil. Or did he want to free us from the devil? I can never remember. I guess I’ll just have to listen to him for the sixty-seventh time.”
“Wow, that’s patience. See, that’s why you’d make a great instructor.”
“Admit it, you just want me around and if I’d go for prison or military, no I won’t give up!, I would be too far away.”
“I know that you won’t give up. And okay, I admit it, I would like you being my neighbour.”
“I’d be a great neighbour. And who knows, if you one day managed to find a wife, our kids could play together.”
That was not even close to what Jefferson had imagined, but he didn’t say that. Saying, ‘I’d hoped you’d be my wife’ would be considered awkward by most people. Then again, Raphaela didn’t exactly care about awkward. If he’d said it, she would’ve most likely just shrugged her shoulders and responded with, ‘Okay, well, we’ll see about that when I get the job.’