A Warning for the Future

The reception had been going for several hours, and even Olga was beginning to get a little tired. As Maia continued her tour of the guest, thanking them for coming and exchanging pleasantries Olga slipped quietly away to catch her breath. Standing near one of the empty outer tables sipping her Champaign she gazed Maia again, revelling in her happiness. Her mind had started to wonder to what was going to happen later that evening when they finally made it to the bridal suite, when a strangely familiar Scottish voice from behind her interrupted her thoughts. "I'm glad to see that you two have finally tied the knot, the only question now is how long will it last?"

Olga spun around to face the speaker, and found herself facing a tall lean figure in military uniform. Ordinarily, she would not have recognised the full dress uniform of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, but not only did she recognise the uniform, she also instantly recognized the wearer are well. "You are the officer who was in command of the guard of honour when I arrived?" "Yes," replied the stranger, holding out his hand. "Allow me to introduce myself, Captain Angus McCain, Field commander for Section 51's Angel Falls station. It's a pleasure to finally get a chance to meet you in person Olga, or should that be Mrs Walkiria?" Olga accepted Angus' hand a little wearily; he seemed to be friendly enough but his initial remark had put her on edge. "Olga will be fine," she replied in a cold voice, "And what do you mean, how long will it last?"

Angus ignored Olga's question, instead he continued in a conversational tone. "You, know, the two of us actually have quite a lot in common. We are both the children of farmers who grew up in the countryside. Both of us started out as solders and then became something much more than that. We are both outsiders in this country brought here by circumstances beyond our control, and keep here by a sense of duty." He paused and took a sip of his drink before continuing."We also both share a fondness for strong redheads," pointing across the crowd, Olga followed his direction and saw that he was indicating at one of his solders, a lean female with short red hair and protruding fangs. "Sergeant Aislin Burke," he explained, his expression softening slightly. "My right hand woman, my closest friend and the love of my life. I also trust her more than anyone else in the world."

"That is all very interesting," Olga replied she was becoming increasingly annoyed by Angus' chatter. "But what does any of that have to do with my wedding?" Angus looked straight at Olga, the smile disappearing from his face in an instant. "There is one other thing we both have in common," he said, voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "We have both faced the same personal demons in the past. I know all about your drinking, and I'm telling you it has to stop now."  Olga was stunned by Angus' comments, "How do you know about that?" she spluttered. He appeared completely unaffected by her outburst, continuing in the same ominous whisper. "Like it or not, you are a very well known public figure, and that means that when get drunk and start causing trouble, people take notice. And when that sort of thing involves meta-humans, then I hear about it soon enough."

"You know nothing about what I have been though," Olga replied, both her and anger and her voice rapidly rising, "How the hell can you stand there and lecture me on my behaviour?" Angus fixed Olga with a fierce stare, "I know because less than a year ago I was in exactly the same place you are, spending every night drowning my sorrows in some miserable bar, trying to forget my pain." With a fierce urgency he grabbed hold of Olga's arm and started to pull on it. While Olga could have resisted his efforts with ease, Angus' last outburst had silenced her anger and left her intrigued. She understood that this was something that Angus did not want to speak about in public, and she allowed herself to be led to one side where they could talk in private.

When they were far enough away Angus let go of Olga's arm and turned to face her. "Up until a couple of years ago I was just an armourer in the British army; I had no idea that i had any special powers. After I discovered them I was recruited into a secret Special Forces unit for metahumans, they carried out covert operations for the British Government. Assassinations, undercover reconnaissance, sabotage, that sort of thing. It's where I first met Aislin, she was the point woman for the team I took command of. We spent two years in that together unit, undertook more than a dozen missions and saw some terrible sights." Angus paused, obviously remembering past horrors. "There was one mission, we'd been sent to eliminate a drug cartel in South America. They were reciting meta-humans to help them smuggle drugs into Brittan, and the government decided we should deal with them first. We'd just had a couple of new members transferred to our squad, I didn't think they were ready but there was nothing I could do about it. The plan was to infiltrate their jungle base, kill everyone there and be gone before the dust had settled. Unfortunately, as we were trying to sneak in, the two new recruits decided they were going to ignore orders and go running off on their own. They blew our cover and alerted the entire base." Angus paused, overcome by the memories. When he continued, it was in little more than a whisper. "We were outnumbered and out gunned, I tried my best but there was nothing I could do. In the end, I carried Aislin all the way back to the extraction point on my shoulder, she barely survived. We were the only members of that team to make it out alive."

Olga had fallen completely silent, remembering her own past battles. Angus continued with his story, his voice still full of emotion. "My life went to pieces after that. I blamed myself more the disaster, for not dealing with the two new team members. I started drinking heavy and getting into brawls all the time, I was on a path to self destruction. "Angus paused again, and Olga couldn't help but speak up. "How did you manage to recover?" He smiled in response, "It was all down to Aislin. She found my one night when I was sitting in some grotty pub drowning my sorrows. She started going on about how what had happened wasn't my fault, that there had been nothing I could have done to prevent it and that there was no point in me surviving that only to throw my life away like that. Then she started going on about how grateful she was that I had saved her life, about how much she respected and trusted me, and about how she didn't think she could handle staying in the unit alone if I left. As she kept talking, something inside me clicked and I did the one thing I had wanted to do to her since we first met. I leaned over and kissed her. "

As Angus talked about that night his mood improved. "I'd fancied her for ages, I've always been attracted to strong confident women and even then there was no-one else I trusted more than her. But I was to professional to ever do anything about it, I knew the regulations and didn't want to upset the unit cohesion. Besides, I never thought she would feel the same way about me. But that night, I figured that since my life was already falling to bits I may as well take a chance. After all, it wasn't like there was much else that could go wrong!" Angus smiled as the memory. "Fortunately for me, it turned out Aislin felt exactly the same way about me. It seems she thought of me as her 'Alpha Wolf', or something like that. We ended up spending the rest of the night kissing and talking. The thing is," Angus continued, " after that night I realised what I had been doing to myself, and where it was leading. I also realised that it had to stop, because if I continued not only would I destroy my own life but I would drag Aislin down along with me. And if that happened, I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

Olga suddenly realised why Angus had had told her his story. As her expression changed, Angus nodded. "You are in exactly the same position with Maia that I was in with Aislin. You have someone who depends you now, whatever happens to you will affect them as well. I almost destroyed myself though drink, and you will as well in time. If you cary on like this you will drag Maia down with you and I don't think you would be able to forgive yourself if that happened."

His speech finished Angus turned away from Olga and started walking back towards the party. Just as he was about to reach the rest of the crowd he paused and glanced back at the shaken Olga. "The drinking has to stop, or it will destroy both your lives. I'll be watching you closely, I hope for your sake I don't have to talk to you about this again." With that Angus slipped back into the crowd, leaving Olga alone with her thoughts.