#operation apollo

There’s no rush to open your eyes. The ache and throb, and painful dryness of your lips brings you no respite from the way things had been before you had fallen asleep. Blacked out. Whatever you want to call it— it hadn’t helped. 

Your nose wrinkles at something offensive. Sterile and sharp smelling. Wrinkling it comes with a crunch, and sharp pain. There’s a dry feeling in your nostrils where old blood still sits. 

The smell is chemical, antiseptic. It’s so strong smelling through all of that blood and pain that it forces your eyes open. That’s worse. That hurts more. Fluorescents above you. You’re left with no choice but to squeeze them shut again— and the sudden realization that you’re not where you were before, at all.

There’s no hard, painful metal chair holding your weight. The burden of being held now falls to something much softer, so soft that it feels like you’re sinking into it like sand. It doesn’t hurt much less. 

Your legs hurt, a prickling static feeling. Your ass hurts from however long you were sitting there like that. Your back hurts, a numb and stiff feeling. You attempt to turn your head and your neck reminds you suddenly not to overlook it— a gasp tears from your mouth and makes your lungs burn almost as much as your bruised throat.

Two voices say your name at once. A chair scrapes across the ground, two sets of shoes hit the floor. People are coming. The gasp, despite your burning throat’s protests, becomes a choked whimper. 

“Don’t— Don’t touch her,” Allen. You’re dreaming again, just like you had been when you heard Jake’s voice. “Maybe we should get the doctor.” 

You try once again. The bright, blinding white stuns your sore, unadjusted eyes. You squint through it, determined as ever. Allen’s weathered face steadies and becomes more clear. His mouth hangs open, watching your bruised face start to move with recognition.

“Stay still, sweetheart, don’t move.” He’s speaking to you. He lifts his hand and reaches. His fingers extend towards you and your skin comes alive, buzzing with electricity like you’re being shocked as you tear back from his extended palm.

He winces as you cough out a choked cry, doubling over in pain from the sudden movement. 

“Doctor Owens?— Doctor Owens!” Your mother. Her voice is further away, growing in urgency. She’s barely recovered herself. She shouldn’t have come.

The monitor beside your bed beeps wildly as your heart rate kicks into another spike, and footfall echoes in the hall as people rush for your room. So many shoes hitting the ground at once that you can’t place how many of them there could possibly be.

“Don’t.” It comes out choked and horse, but loud. “Don’t touch me. Allen. Don’t— I don’t want—“

“Calm down, it’s alright,” He tries, he really tries. The footfall grows closer and you thrash as Allen’s fingers graze the curve of your shoulder. You’re just hurting yourself more. “Stop. Try to stay still, alright? — You’re — Stop. Stop!”

There’s nothing peaceful about the way you’re sent back to sleep, thrashing and crying and screaming as your IV is adjusted and filled. With everything that you’ve been through, they had warned your loved ones that recovery was going to be far from linear.

Over the course of the next two days, you wake three more times and are put back to sleep in a similar fashion. With your stitches and recovering internal injuries, they need you to be still. For now, every time you have opened your eyes has been another fight that your body just isn’t ready to take.

The fourth time comes easier than the rest. Your broken nose has started to heal by now. Under the hospital gown, your ribs are black and blue. Your lungs have stopped making that rattling sound when you inhale deeply now. Still, everything hurts.

The fluorescent lights are off. The curtains are open, the television is on. You blink heavily, your chest aches as you breathe in. 

Allen looks up at the soft rattle of your first breath in. His brows furrowed slightly, green eyes widening as he watches your eyelids blink heavily. 

“Hey…” He whispers cautiously, like he’s afraid to spook you. Your gaze settles on him, the fuzziness of the picture dissipating with each heavy blink. His face is sullen, tired. “Hey, sweetheart. It’s just me. It’s just us, you’re okay.”

Just us. The idea is more comforting than anything you’ve heard in a long time. It’s not really just the two of you, but Allen keeps that to himself. You don’t need to know the amount of security posted around this building.

You want to answer him, but your throat is dry and hoarse when you try to speak. Allen sits forwards, grabbing the underside of the chair with his good hand and pulling it closer.

“It’s alright.” His voice voice croaks. It’s not alright, but you will be. He hopes you’ll understand, when it’s time for you to learn how it all went down. 

Stubble coats his jaw and his hair is longer than he usually ever lets it grow, salt and pepper all the way through. Your fingers twitch and your arm aches as you force it slowly upward, reaching for him. Allen grazes the tips of his fingers over yours. He slides his hand slowly into your palm, and watches your eyes fill with sudden tears.

“What… happened?” You whimper.

“I’ll tell you everything once you’re feeling a little better,” He whispers, thinking back to the strict orders from your mother not to upset you. He lowers his mouth just slightly and presses his lips to your knuckles, squeezing your hand tight. “You scared the shit out of me for a second, there.”

A burning sensation behind your eyes makes you wrinkle your nose, your bottom lip trembling as your chest flares with heat. There’s real fear in his eyes. He shouldn’t even be here, he’s supposed to be retired — there’s no money in this for him.

And yet, he’s the only person at your bedside.

He’s holding your hand, and holding your gaze firmly. Letting you think it’s all okay. Your throat hurts as you swallow softly. 

There’s a news broadcast on the television to Allen’s right. The skyline buzzes, alight behind him. It plays on as he opens his mouth to speak again, he seems to have forgotten that it’s playing.

“Following the events of Thursday evening, we have received word that due to complications, a second surgery would be necessary — which is underway as we speak,” The reporter explains solemnly. She and her co-anchor are both wearing black. “The nation’s thoughts are with you, Mr. President.”

You blink at the fuzzy television screen. The picture they used of your father is from your kindergarten graduation. He’s younger there, his hair dark rather than they grey it has been growing into more recently — he’s got an arm around you, and he’s grinning proudly.

“Shit.” Allen breathes out, sitting up suddenly straight.

 The news broadcast is gone with an abrupt beat. Allen drops the remote down onto the side and scrubs a hand along his salt-and-pepper stubbled jaw, studying the ground.

Your lips flatten into a firm line, your muscles screaming as you lift your head from the pillow. 

Your gaze hardens. “Is he alive?”

Allen swallows. He gives you a small, serious nod. “Yeah. He’s upstairs, in surgery.”

The tone of his voice makes your chest ache. Serious in a way Allen rarely is.

Creeping into his office in your pyjamas. Scolding him for all the times he missed you teddy-bear tea parties. Sitting with him on the swing set in the backyard of the first house you remember. All the times you had told him you hated him as a teenager. How strongly you had meant it the last time.

Your gaze flickers back to the blank television screen, losing yourself in its sudden darkness. 

“How?” You croak out.

Allen hesitates. He presses his lips together and shakes his head softly. “I’ll explain everything when you’re feeling better.”

You turn your head, blinking heavily as you look around the sprawling hospital room. Your parents really spared no expense. Well, your mom— you guess. 

“Jake?” You ask.

“He’s here,” Allen nods solemnly. “He’s sleeping.”

And you can’t see him. It wouldn’t be good for you to see him, not until you’re feeling better.

“Is he—?”

“He’s going to be fine,” Allen sounds sure, and not in a sugar-coated way. He sounds more positive than he had about your father. “You should rest. He comes to see you in the mornings.”

Being on a ward himself, Jake’s been getting on the nurses’ nerves around here, trying to break the rules so he can wander out and see you for as long as possible. His shoulder is just about fine now, he can almost roll it back the way he used to. The doctor says an injury like his doesn’t heal that fast, but Jake has always been ahead of the curve.

He has spread his time between your room on the fourteenth floor, and where the President has been falling in and out of being classed as critical on the fifteenth with little regard for the fact he’s recovering from a surgery on his shoulder himself. With you breathing, he couldn’t care less about being hit himself.

If the bullet hadn’t caught his shoulder, it would have torn through your father’s lungs and killed him right then and there.

You shoot a quick glance toward the darkened hallway. Allen sighs.

“No.”

“I want to know what happened.” You don’t. Not really. You want to pull these foreign covers up over your head and hide and cry your eyes out, scream this whole place down. There’s no easy way to say it, and really, no one knows how you’ll handle it.

You close your eyes for a moment and wait. 

Somehow, you’re safe — you’ll be okay. Jake’s okay. Your father won’t make it through the week. You don’t remember a thing. None of it makes sense.

Jake remembers every detail. He sits awake too, not in his own room but in the hallway of the twelfth floor — as close as he can get to the operating room without being put on his ass by a serviceman. 

In the mornings that he’s able to visit you, Jake likes to talk to you. You’ve been out of the woods for a while now, everyone knows that it’s just a waiting game until you’re stable enough to be awake. Really awake. On the Monday just passed, you had opened your eyes for a few seconds and just blinked at him.

Brows drawn together all stern, your lips pursed, your eyelashes fluttering. He never thought he would be so grateful to see you frowning at him.

He has heard about the past few days. The panic and stress. He has made a strong case for himself to be allowed to be there, but the people who make the calls won’t budge. It’s just not the right time. 

That’s not true. It’s his punishment. 

It’s his punishment, for not being the one in that operating room with his chest cracked open and twelve surgeons fighting to keep his heart beating.

Having spent most of his adult life working in environments where he was the expendable one, Jake had heard a lot of stories. He had heard, most frequently, that time always slows down in the moments that matter.

Not that day. It had been a blur. He had walked into that exchange with certainty; you would be leaving there with him. 

To an extent, he had been expecting Elias to be bluffing. No man on the planet couldn’t be bought — Jake had been expecting a bidding war, and he knew your father had the right amount of money to make this go away.

It hadn’t been that at all.

His stomach twists when he thinks about how they had paraded you before them. The look on Matthew’s face as he studied the dried blood in your hair, and the fresh blood trickling from your temple.

They had hurt you to prove a point. Almost killed you, to send a message. It was too far gone to be about the money.

Jake knows that he isn’t responsible for this, he isn’t the one that put your father in this situation. He’s the only reason that those surgeons are even trying right now — if he hadn’t been there, you’d both be dead. 

He’ll never not be there again.

Jake sits there through the surgery. On the floor with his elbows on his knees, his head rested back against the wall, he sits there for six hours. It should have taken six hours.

At a little after seven, Jake is startled awake by an orderly rushing past him with a rattling metal cart. He checks his watch, which is now settled on the wrong wrist due to his sling, and clumsily pushes himself up from the ground.

“Hey, buddy,” Jake strains, sighing at the ache through his side and clearing his throat as he finds his footing. “How’s he looking?”

The twenty-something year old in scrubs whips around to look at Jake, his eyes wide with heavy blue marks under them. He looks like he’s been up even longer than Jake has.

“You’re the bodyguard.” The kid seems to realize, blinking as his rattling cart comes to a stop. He glances back in the direction of the theater, then at Jake. “Uh… I don’t know. It’s going to be a while before they can say, I guess.”

A muscle in Jake’s jaw ticks. At seven, Jake walks to your hospital room and usually starts to bug whoever is in charge of watching you until they let him visit early.

He glances towards the operating room, and then back at the orderly. This could take hours, something urgent could happen in the next few minutes. He hesitates.

Then, his phone buzzes in the pocket of his sweats. Jake takes it from his pocket and glances quickly down at the screen, with every intention of answering the kid in front of him.

She’s awake. Asking for you too. 

And Jake’s mind is made up. He can’t wait a second longer. His heart feels like it’s in his mouth by the time he’s pushing open the door to your hospital room.

He has seen the bruises fade from blue to yellow, and the IV lines and monitors all around you every day for almost a week. It does nothing to prepare him for the sight of all of those things once you’re awake and staring at him.

“Honey…” His breath catches in his throat, his brows drawing together.

The comprehensive list of your injuries is still typed up at the foot of the bed. Jake could list them off by heart, by now. Fractured eye-socket. Broken ring and middle finger on your right hand. Soft tissue damage to your left foot. Extreme bruising to the abdomen. The fracture in your rib. Every single one of those god-damned bruises.

Your right eye had been swollen shut that first day. Now, it’s wide open. The bruise is yellowed and sore looking, your eyes filled with fear. 

“Jake.” Your voice cracks and your breathing hitches.

It doesn’t matter that Allen is standing right there, sitting back against the window ledge with his arms folded over his chest. Jake couldn’t care less that your mother is watching him like a hawk. 

She has been every single time he has visited.

The security guard steps out of the way as Jake charges forwards. He takes slow, long strides. He’s trying so hard to remember what you’ve been through, and remind himself to be slow with you, but every fibre of his being wants to pull you close and never let you go again.

He stops at the side of your bed and hesitates, just for a split-second. His eyes scan across your face, searching for doubt or fear. As he makes his decision, you make yours too.

 He leans forwards swiftly as you ball your not-injured hand into his shirt, his fingers curling gently around the nape of your neck and pulling you against him.

The room falls silent. Your nose fills with his smell, your cheek presses firmly into the soft cotton of his t-shirt. His thumb strokes at your skin.

For all you care, the other people in the room could have disappeared from the second that Jake touched you. He holds you close, silently. He doesn’t know how much you know yet, whether it’s all or nothing, and he doesn’t care. For now, you’re okay, and you’re with him.

It takes a moment before you notice that he’s only got one arm around you.

Jake watches as you pull back, searching for answers and landing on the blue sling resting around his shoulder, covering his right arm.

“I’m fine,” He assures you instantly, already shaking his head as his palm moves to cup your jaw. He holds your gaze, certain. “I’m fine. It’s superficial. We’re okay.”

Superficial. Allen bites his tongue, but can’t help but disagree. That bullet tore through ligament and bone, and Jake is lucky to be recovering so well. It was far from superficial— the surgery had taken all night. 

“I’m sorry.” Your voice cracks, weak sounding and trembling. You drop your head forwards to rest against his unbandaged shoulder. “This is all my fault. This is all my fault, you shouldn’t ever have even met—“

“Stop.” Jake whispers, turning his face towards yours and trying to coax you back to look at him. He closes his eyes, pressing his mouth to your temple. “It’s over now. I’m never going to let anything happen to you again. It’s over.” 

Your mother watches. There’s a cautious, nagging feeling that tugs at her that she really doesn’t know you at all. There isn’t much that feels familiar about watching you with him — she wouldn’t have a clue how to calm you the way that he does.

“I want to go home.” You whisper, balling your hands tighter into his t-shirt. If he didn’t know any better, he’d guess that you’re trying to pull him right into your hospital bed with you.

“Yeah, a couple more days, honey,” Jake nods his head. He’s been speaking with your doctor. Once they’re certain that you’re stable enough, you’re free to go. “We’ll get you back to the house.”

“No.” You rush out, so fast that it almost makes you hiccup. It’s then that your head turns, your eyes wide and searching as you look around the room. Just as quickly, before you’ve even met the gaze of Allen or your mother, you bury your face into the crook of his neck and squeeze your eyes shut. Just quiet enough for Jake to hear, you whimper softly. “I don’t want to go back there. I want to go with you.”

Jake feels your mother’s gaze burning into his back, and knows what she must be thinking. She’s about to lose her husband and she thinks that Jake’s going to take you too.

“With me?” He murmurs, stroking a hand over your hair. Your mother has been taking pride in maintaining it — she has cared for you in so many quiet ways recently. Jake will tell you all about it, another time.

“Could — maybe we could see your mom again?” It feels ridiculous to ask, and from the second that the words leave your mouth, you’re already worrying about the kind of danger you could be putting them in.

But for Jake, it makes his heart catch with sudden relief.

“Yeah,” He hums. “Yeah, we can do that.”

He perches on the edge of your bed, draping his good arm around your shoulders. Your mother watches as you curl against him, closing your eyes and finally unballing your fists.

The room falls quiet, and stays that way. 

Allen lets the two of you have the peace and quiet. Your mother, simply, has little to say. 

An hour later, a little after eight, there’s a commotion in the hallway. Jake watches the bustle between the security guards silently, a heavy feeling settling in his gut as he braces for what is coming. 

He feels you perk up at his side as their voices grow more hushed, trying to peek over him.

He turns his face towards your hair and kisses the top of your head softly, wrapping his arm tighter around you. “It’s alright.”

He pities the poor guy who opens the door to the room, forced to meet your mother’s gaze with a sullen expression. He clears his throat weakly, hands tucked behind his back. “Ma’am.”

Your mother isn’t a dumb woman. She doesn’t need it explained to her. The doctors had explained the risks, and explained that he might not make it. Her husband is dead.

For as long as you can remember, you had known that your father was going to be president. It was always discussed as a given. It was the coup de grace; he had been working towards it much longer than you had even been alive.

Those fourteen hour work days, and sleepless nights. The hard decisions and the time away from his family. All along, Matthew had sworn that it would be worth it. It would, one day, be enough.

Then, the first set of polls came in after those primary debates the summer before his first election run and with it, intel that Matthew plunged a sixth of his savings in to. Politics and bribery go hand in hand across most of the world; this wasn’t even the first step off of the beaten path. 

The intel was clear as day; It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough. All of that time, and work, and desperation that he poured into his career, it wasn’t going to be enough to win him the presidency. The guarantee was next to nil.

But there was still time.

He remembers one evening, in particular, sitting with his advisors in his home office, and just sobbing. Every birthday he had missed, every milestone — it was all going to be for nothing. 

“Look, Matt,” Arnie had said, stubbing his thin rolled cigarette out into a crystal ashtray and sitting back in the leather arm chair, sinking into it like the lazy waste of space that he was. He was a good friend of the family back then. “There’s still time. We’ve got options, buddy. Plenty of ‘em.” 

Matthew had rolled his neck back slowly — he still remembers the stress-induced stiffness those days had caused him —  and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, Arnie? — And what options are those?” It was a biting remark, untrusting and downright hateful by that point. Arnie had promised many things already, and rarely had delivered. On the times that Matthew thinks back to his twenty year friendship with Arnold Paulson, he finds himself glad that that asshole now resides six feet under.

The older guy had just shrugged, letting that snide little smile creep across his face. “I know a guy. I think he might be able to, uh… help you out. For a fee, if you get where I’m coming from.”

Ellis Armstrong. After three days, and more phone calls than you care to remember, you have a name. He’s a business-man, and a rather successful one at that. Works in corporate development — he’s not hidden from the public eye like you would expect a guy like this to be.

No, he’s got thirteen offices spanning three continents and a portfolio that would put the Forbes list to shame. Once upon a time, he had been a friend of the family. It’s easy to piece together the headshot of him sitting at the wide, mahogany desk in his new office and the fuzzy memories of the tall man in your father’s office late at night.

You remember him distinctly. The sound your bare feet had made, tiptoeing down that long, curving staircase in the old house. Far past your bedtime, your princess nightgown grazing your ankles. The halls dark, illuminated by lights pouring out from under doors. The house was never really empty back then. Pushing open the heavy pocket doors that separated your father’s office from the parlour. 

The gaunt, tall blond man sitting in the armchair. His sunken eyes that had seemed so dark in the dimly lit room. His thin lips and hollow cheeks. The long, straight nose and the deep lines between his brows. Skeletal and still, he had looked like a monster. Something that belongs in the dark, lurking in wait. 

“What are you doing up, princess?” Matthew had scooped you off of your feet and suddenly you were looking at him instead, in all of the warmth and glory and familiarity of a man adored by his little girl. 

“I couldn’t sleep.” You remember, but it’s hazy now. You don’t remember the softer, higher pitch of your voice or really what had made the man in the chair quite so scary looking, or what had driven you out of the safety of your bed that night. 

There’s a fondness to his smile in those hazy memories, a softness to his touch that feels so far away now. The stars and unicorns on your bedsheets, and the stuffie he had tucked under your chin. The safety of your childhood bedroom, with the warm pink glow of your nightlight and the embrace of your stuffed animal. How far away the fear of that man in the chair had felt once your father had kissed the top of your head and closed your door.

It doesn’t just feel far away, it is far away — everything about it. Your parents no longer own that house, you’ve long outgrown that bed and that stuffed animal ended up in the donate pile after one of your big moves. You’re no longer hiding from the scary man sitting in the armchair; you’re looking for him.

“I don’t understand,” You do, but showing your cards has never been part of your strategy. The woman opposite you forces her creasing mouth into a deeper frown as she pulls her coffee cup protectively closer. “Tell me, exactly, what you remember about your time working for my father.”

If Allen knew where you were, he would skin you alive. If Manny knew, he would be right here with you. If Jake knew, you wouldn’t be here at all. He would have locked you in a hallway closet before he let you set something like this up. 

The woman sitting opposite you is a timid little redhead with big brown eyes and a disposition that brings new clarity to the term ‘afraid of her own shadow’. She’s jumpy, and looking over her shoulder constantly. You, are considerably cooler for a person more alone than they have been in more than a decade.

Her name is Ida — she was your father’s personal assistant the year before his first election, and it cost you to even get her to this cafe in Pasadena. You remember the long skirts and the narrow glasses, but you don’t remember Ida being quite so… afraid.

“He wasn’t— he isn’t a bad man, darling. That’s what you have to understand, it’s just that—“

“Ida, slow down.” You bite, growing tired of this. You don’t have long before someone notices that you’re gone, if they haven’t already. The sky outside is grey, and sullen, the cafe is almost empty for now but the lunch rush is approaching. “This isn’t about whether he’s a good guy or not. Tell me where Ellis Armstrong comes into this.”

Sitting opposite you, the mouse-like woman’s eyes turn wide like saucers as she shrinks down further into her seat, wringing her hands into the checked fabric of her skirt.

“He wasn’t going to win the election by himself. There was intel out there that… painted him in a bad light.”

“Details, Ida.” You click the pen and stare across at her impatiently. She swallows softly and checks around her again.

“Your father had an affair. It was all going to come out — it would have tanked any kind of campaign he could have put together, and you remember what times were like then… the kind of money it would have taken to make that go away…” The coffee mug in front of her scalds her trembling hands as she finally lifts her chin enough for you to look her in the eye. Raindrops start to beat into the sidewalk outside. A silence sets across the coffee shop as the soft indie playlist stops between tracks.

If you were still little, padding barefoot along the hall in your princess nightdress, this would have hurt so badly. The warm smile and his gentle disposition — and he was already betraying you, even then. You’re not little now. It doesn’t hurt like it would have then. You scrawl messily across the page.

“What was her name, who did she work for?”

Ida pauses briefly, blinking. Truthfully, she hadn’t been expecting this calculated coldness from you. She’s seen the videos of the frightened girl clinging to her bodyguard. She wonders how far he might be from you today.

“Suzy Blake. She was a political analyst for the New York Times back then.” Ida tells you, turning her head and checking through the rain-dotted front windows of the shop. You scribe the information and look back up to her, unsatisfied.

“All I’ve got on this is your word?” You prompt her.

“And her daughter — Matt never took a paternity test, but Suzy was always so sure.” This, Ida can see it worm its way under your skin, writhing under those years of collected conditioning. She blinks across at you and taps her nails against the coffee cup, glancing down at the milky liquid.

You have never heard of Suzy; couldn’t even begin to picture what she looks like. Her daughter would be nine, at least, maybe older. She could look like you, maybe. You press your lips together and grind the tip of the pen into the lined page, threatening to leave indentations of your anger through the rest of the book at once.

“So, Ellis paid for her to disappear?” You confirm, looking back up at Ida with an iciness that gives her a glimpse of her former boss. 

“Ellis paid for a lot of things.” Ida answers you suddenly faster than she has in the entire hour that you’ve been sitting here. She doesn’t look at you as she says it, lifting the mug from the saucer and taking a long drink of her latte. The liquid shivers in the cup, disturbed by her trembling fingers.

“Ida.” You sigh, growing frustrated. She turns her head and looks towards the window again, craning her neck slightly. Frightened of her own shadow, you condemn her cowardice. “Details.”

Her eyes follow two raindrops as the grey droplets race along the windowpane. “He bought the presidency for your father.”

Your father is a proud man. He has told you the story plenty of times, of how your grandfather had tried to give your parents the down payment for a house, how your father chose to spend his first year of marriage in a studio apartment rather than taking it. Back then, you wouldn’t have believed he could do such a thing.

Now, you aren’t sure where to draw the line on where your beliefs lie. 

“Extra campaign funding, promotions, big names,” Ida’s cup jingles as she sets it rockily back down onto the saucer. She turns her head back to the table, but avoids your gaze nonetheless. “Votes. Ellis made it all happen. He saved your father’s career.”

Your gaze flicks up from the scrawled information on the page, and lands on her hands. She picks restlessly at her cuticles, her attention shifting to every corner of the room but you. Your brows draw together seriously, taking a moment to check the empty space around you before you focus on her. 

“And what did my father do to him?”

Such a clever little girl — that’s what Ida remembers most of you. So inquisitive, and engaged. So interested. It’s such a shame that no one had time for you, you really deserved someone who would have answered those wonderful questions you came up with.

She swallows softly, unsure of exactly how much information is encompassed by the umbrella of ‘everything’. In her industry, you never let go of all of your secrets at once. That’s just bad business.

“He ran for re-election,” Ida says calmly, her voice more confident sounding, even in its soft tone. She exhales slowly. “And, after the successes in his first term, it became clear that he could win the presidency again. Without Mr. Armstrong.”

Across the table, you set the pen down on the edge of the notebook and check the time on your watch. You should be getting back before Allen has time to deploy a whole search party. 

“Again, Ida… I’ve just got your word on this.” You remind her. A jaded assistant from nine years ago isn’t exactly the concrete evidence that you broke out of your house for. The fear in her eyes is all the proof you need, but that won’t stand up in court.

You’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, as your research has deepened into your father’s past. You came across a picture yesterday, where he was your age, and smiling in the foreground of a Greenpeace conference. It struck you to consider if that young man would hate the man he was going to become as much as you have grown too — if maybe the two of you would have gotten along once, if things were different.

If you would be able to stand up in court and send the smiling young man, with the purest of intentions, to prison. 

“You’re right,” She starts to shake her head and her chair scrapes across the floor. The loudest sound that has come from her all day. She twists in her seat and grabs her jacket and her bag from the back of her chair. “You’re right, I can’t prove this. This was a bad idea…”

Your eyes go wide as she scrambles for her things. “No, Ida, wait—“

She pauses, briefly, to look you in the eye. “I’m sorry.” She turns swiftly, and heads for the door, dinging the bell above it and slipping out into the sheets of grey rain outside the door. You slam your notebook shut and fumble to slip it into your back, all thumbs and no fingers, stuck in the struggle as she disappears from the view of the front window. 

“Shit…” You mutter, slinging the bag onto your shoulder, forgetting your coat completely as you head after her. She’s much faster than she is loud. Rain chills your cheeks and dampens your hair before the bell above the door is even done ringing. Your shoes slap against the pavement, splashing fresh rainwater onto your jeans. You round the corner and squint through the grey ahead of you in search of her.

Her plaid skirt dips behind a car up ahead as she crosses to the driver’s side.

“Ida! Wait!” You call out for her, securing a hand around your bag as you jog to keep up, rushing for the blue sedan as she ducks into it. It doesn’t take you long, her hands are shaking too much to get the keys into the ignition. You slow, but don’t make it to a complete stop, reaching out to knock hard against the passenger window, as something cold, sharp-edged and hard slams into your right eye socket.

Your elbow hits the ground first, then your knee, then your left temple, before your body collapses to the wet pavement all together. Thrown off balance and reeling, your years of conditioning haven’t ever prepared you for this. Your skull aches, throbbing like you’re being hit with that first impact over and over, before you even feel the fingers curling around your arms and hoisting you off of the ground.

The car door clicks open. Blood rushes to the right side of your face, swelling in circles to form the deep bruise that will be left behind. Slow, blinking, your eyes drag themselves open and blink as you realize that it wasn’t the door of the car that opened. A second impact comes, but this one isn’t stone — it’s all skin. You can feel the warmth of the hand, and the ridges of each knuckle, as it drives forwards into your face.

After that, you can only imagine how easy you make for them to get you in that trunk. It hurts too much to open your eyes. Maybe that’s a pathetic thing to think, as you start to think of what they’ll do to you next — what pain is yet to come. But, it’s dark anyway, and in here, at least you’re alone. Your phone is in the bag. Maybe that’s still on th pavement, or maybe it’s in the car. But it isn’t with you. 

Each turn sends you forwards or back, your body rolling over the thinly carpeted trunk, slamming into the back of the seats or the metal of the hatch. You can feel your face swelling, the heat from it stings like a burn.

Jake’s going to be so angry with you, for doing this to yourself.

Maybe it’s just a short ride, or maybe you black out a little on the way, there’s no way of knowing for sure. But, when your eyes feel open, they’re trying to focus to the new bright light after ages of dark. When they’re closed, it doesn’t look much different.

It’s cold, and the echo of the voices around you tells you that the space you’re in is wide open and empty. A warehouse, most likely. The perfect spot for an execution. 

You’re held up by a hand on each of your arms, and your feet drag, scrambling for leverage against the ground as they tug you forwards. There’s some fight left in you after all. If it lasts long enough for someone to figure out where you are, that’s another story. You should have told Manny. Or left a note. Something.

The country is going to put your father on a pedestal when he’s grieving the loss of his beloved daughter.

Abruptly, you’re thrown down into a chair and your arms are torn backwards, making you cry out. Rope. Heavy, and fraying, rough against your wrists as you’re bound to the metal backing of a wooden chair. Fingers dig abruptly into either side of your cheeks, pressing the flesh of your mouth into your teeth until you’ve got no choice but to open up in complaint.

 The second that your lips part, something is forced between them. A dry rag. It’s tied tight at the back of your head, digging into your cheeks, muffling your sounds of struggle.

Muffled and restrained, there’s no way to defend yourself when another blow comes. It hits the centre of your face hard, another fist, this one harder than the first. Not pulling the punch in the slightest. Instantly, liquid streams from your nostrils and the taste of copper floods your tastebuds.

Your screw your eyes shut and force yourself to blink, you force your eyes to adjust. You refuse to surrender your last sense. Gradually, the room steadies and your vision focuses. It’s grey and industrial, illuminated by a singular lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Empty, almost, bar a few storage crates, and a scary man sitting in front of you.

He smiles softly as your gaze settles on him and burns with rage.

“I know, I know,” Ellis offers with a small smile. He gives a small shake of his head. “This is none of your fault, darling. I know that. I’m sorry, really I am.”

You’re silent opposite him, your heartbeat thudding in your ears, sickened by the fact he has the satisfaction of watching you bleed. Turning your head slightly, you catch sight of the two men in your peripheral. Security, you guess, in case you do something.

This time, when you turn your head, you aren’t scared. The man in front of you is afraid of little, old you — so much so, that he needs backup.

“But Matt has a debt that I’m… not willing to forgive.” Ellis is wearing a green crewneck and black jeans, not like the suits in his pictures. This must be a casual kind of affair for him. His thin lips twitch, hinting at a smile as your gaze remains, unwavering, on him.

Saliva pools in your mouth, copper-tasting as your nose continues to stream with blood. It saturates the makeshift gag, spilling down your chin, your jaw aching and numb at the same time, pins and needles stinging through your hands as the restraints bruise your wrists. 

“You understand, don’t you? — Smart girl like you, you get why we had to go after you, I mean.” Ellis sits opposite you with his long legs stretched in front of him, his palms braced on the cargo box that he is perched on. Maybe it’s because he’s closer now than he ever was before, or maybe it’s just because you aren’t a little girl anymore — but you look into those dark, hollow eyes and there’s not a fibre of your being that needs your father to rescue you from him.

“Fuck you.” You spit. It’s easy enough to pretend that the damp rag secured around your mouth doesn’t cut into the corners of your mouth when you speak. You’re stronger than that.

Ellis presses his lips together and sits forwards, his gaunt face leering closer to you as he twitches towards a smile. He lifts one of those bony, skeletal hands and reaches for his phone, angling it towards your bruised face. “Don’t worry, darlin’ — we’ll get you back to your boyfriend soon enough. Just smile for the camera.”

tags: @alanadetigy @thedroneranger @momc95 @basicchelsea @perpetuelledaydreaming @cherrycola27 @eviesaurusrex @xoxabs88xox@desert-fern @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @khaylin27 @cowboybarbie @marchingicenotes7 @marantha @lgg5989 @herladyshipxx @chaoticweirdogeek @mak-32 @obiwankenobis-lap @diamond-3 @wolvesofthewinter@shawnsblue@itsmytimetoodream

…

Jake doesn’t sleep well anymore. This seems to be a settled fact. From the day that Dani died, he just doesn’t rest like he used to. When he was with you, things got better, for a bit. They’re bad again now.

Now, he spends his nights tossing and turning and wandering to the bathroom of his hotel room to splash water on his face to remind himself that his nightmares aren’t real. It’s been two days since he heard your voice, and growing harder to convince himself of reality.

Allen promised to check in in the morning. It’s technically morning now, as the breaching sun threatens the skyline. Morning. It’s too fucking vague. Dawn and 11:59 leaves Jake a lot of time to pace the San Diego shore.

Nothing settles him these days.

He leans his palms forwards on the bathroom counter, and cocks his head to the side. His therapist had once told him that it wasn’t helpful to try to remember the day Dani had died. It always ate at him that he couldn’t really remember receiving the news. He remembered the before, and god, he wishes he didn’t remember the after — but he could never remember hearing the news for the first time.

He remembers the abruptness of it all.

Convincing himself that her voice was still fresh in his mind in the evenings was the only way he could keep her alive. It hadn’t worked much. He doesn’t think of her in the evenings much anymore, and she’s still dead.

When your voice echoed in his ear a few minutes ago, it’s the first thing he thought of — that her voice outlived her.

The cold water drips down his chin, saturating days old stubble, falling in thin droplets onto his naked chest. His eyes are narrowed, smaller than normal and heavy with sleep. His shoulders are hunched. His skin looks barren without the trace of your touch.

His bed is unmade and the sheets are wrinkled from the sleepless night he’s leaving behind. He inhales deeply and considers just taking a shower and starting his day before the morning sun.

Then, his night-morning medley is interrupted. Three calm knocks on the door. He closes his eyes, shutting out his reflection and the fluorescent noise of the bathroom, and tries to reason with himself.

Two further knocks confirm to him that the sound is real. It’s not part of another one of his bad dreams.

Jake walks barefooted out of the bathroom, and leans up to the peephole. He’s unsure, really, of who he is expecting to see outside of the door at five in the morning, but the sight of two secret service agents standing there makes his blood run cold and his mind fill with thoughts of the first woman that he loved.

Though he can’t remember that day, he knows it was less of a formal affair. He can’t take more bad news. He pulls back the chain and turns the lock with little thought about what they could be there for, not wanting to let his mind linger on the worst possibility.

“Agent Seresin,” The taller one says, his thin lips stretching into a tighter line as he looks the man before him up and down. If Jake had been sleeping better, maybe he would have gotten dressed before answering the door. The morning air chills his bare chest and thighs, his underwear doing little in terms of providing warmth. “You’ll have to come with us, sir.”

Sir. The word makes the hair at the back of Jake’s neck prickle, and his stomach tighten. Sir, please calm down. He remembers hearing that on the day Dani died.

“Where is she?” Jake asks.

“We can’t say.” The shorter, dark-haired one won’t meet Jake’s gaze. That’s good. They would have told him if you were dead. “But we need you to come with us. Now.”

The entire West Coast network is abuzz as Jake is driven up to the house in the hills. As the count ticks over into seventeen hours since you were last seen, and four hours since that video was received, everybody who is anybody is working on your disappearance.

Allen was the first to report it yesterday. You had been gone for two hours already by the time he came to check on you, and found Jake’s bed empty. It’s his fault. He had assumed you were finally sleeping, and he had waited too long to check on you.

By the time he realised, you could have already been out of the country for all he knew. His experience in this field told him a lot of things — not a single one of them reassuring.

He first alerted the West Coast liaison. After confirming there were no active hits on your location in a six mile radius of the house, things went nationwide. He considered calling Jake then, but there were too many eyes on him to sneak a call.

Once nationwide, your parents had been alerted. Matthew landed on a private airstrip just after midnight, thirty-five minutes before the video footage was received. A dark, grainy two-minute long video with no timestamp.

The first thirty seconds is almost silent. The camera is focused, unmoving on your face. You’re staring at something above the lens, the man behind it, with pure venom in your eyes. You’re already hurt, bleeding from your nose and your hairline, your eye sore looking and swollen.

From the second that the voice first rings out, Matthew recognises exactly who it is. It’s the first question they ask of him — if he knows who could have wanted to hurt you. The answer is more complicated, because it’s not that Ellis would have wanted to hurt you specifically. Ellis would have wanted to hurt Matthew.

But, Ellis hurts all kinds of people every day, for reasons that span far beyond simple dislike. It’s why the debt between the two of them is something far beyond what money can settle.

The instructions on the video are clear.

Shadows dance across cracked concrete walls, the lone lightbulb wobbles on its wire above your head. Your wrists itch and burn, your arms stiff and your neck aching. You lost the feeling in your legs a while ago. The blood from your nose has dried around your mouth and chin, your eye has started to swell. Your head throbs.

You have been alone for two hours.

Occasionally, someone will pass by the door. No one seems to care much about checking on you. As the hours have dragged on, you’ve stopped moving so much. Getting out of your restraints is decidedly impossible. Your eyelids feel heavier and heavier with each slow blink.

“Don’t fall asleep.”

Your eyelids flutter, your vision blurred and unsteady as you search the shadows of the room for the voice. For his voice; Jake’s voice. Even like this, you know what he sounds like.

“Come on, honey,” Fingers brush across your hair, soft, unbothered by the blood crusted into your hairline. “Keep your eyes open. I know it hurts.”

It does hurt. You’ve never hurt like this before. Wrapped in bubble-wrap, hidden behind thick walls and tall fences — maybe if they hadn’t kept you so safe, it wouldn’t all hurt so bad now.

“Jake?” Your throat is dry, your voice is hoarse, the rag cuts into the corners of your lips.

“I’m here.” He isn’t, and the realisation makes you want to cry. You can pretend he’s here, and pretend he’s telling you to fight all you want. He isn’t here, and you’re tired.

Ellis’ terms have been circling your mind for all of the hours you have been alone. You, for her. Your father, in exchange for you, as to be delivered by Jake.

The government would never let it happen. Jake would never let it go. Your heavy eyelids droop shut and you leave them that way.

When they’re closed, you’re not here either. You’re at home, and in Jake’s bed. Your cheek is on his chest and he’s asleep, you rise and fall with each one of his breaths, your fingers smooth across the heart-shaped, thumb-sized birthmark on his hip.

The morning sun is shining, the bedroom walls are white and the mattress is soft. Jake’s right arm is draped around your shoulders, cradling you to his chest. There, it’s safe to fall asleep.

A little after nine, the bright sunlight spills into the living room. Another sunny morning, like the world hadn’t been turned upside down overnight. Jake has never felt quite so out of place in this house. It feels colder without you here. He stares at the dark, blank screen in front of him, sick to his stomach.

Your picture is gone, but the image is burned in his mind. Your bloodied, bruised face staring right at the lens, your lips pressed into line, adamantly refusing to speak. God, just speak. Do what they tell you to do. Please.

Slowly, he leans forwards and hits the button to replay the video. It’s his fourth time watching it, now. There it is again, your tear-filled eyes and the stubborn scowl on your exhausted face, the long fingers curled around your chin, angling your face towards the lens.

Jake has been filled in with some need-to-know information. Ellis Armstrong was an associate, and informant and a business partner of Matthew’s from before the elections. He’s a bad, bad man.

Outside of the need to know — Matthew is the only one who really knows the extent of what this guy will do, of what he has done on behalf of Matthew himself in the past. Of how far this debt reaches.

Matthew, I know that you’re far too much of a coward to face me in person. You have done an excellent job of avoiding me so far. How lucky I was that your clever little girl sought me out.

Jake turns his head. He studies the skulking man in the corner of the room, his head turned toward the ground and his fingers trembling as his hands wring together in front of him.

Things hadn’t ever seemed this serious back then. At the start of it all, it was just a little maintenance, making a little indiscretion disappear. Then, the favours had gotten bigger — and then they had stopped being favours at all.

Jake and Matthew are far from alone in this living room. They’re surrounded by agents with years of combined experience, government advisors and White House big-wigs. And yet, Jake is the only one that Matthew can’t bring himself to look at.

I know you won’t come to me yourself. That’s why she’s so perfect. We’ve all seen the news. If you won’t come to me yourself, the bodyguard will bring you to me. You, for her.

Apparently the message was supposed to reach Jake privately, which is why he was intercepted. He sits with the thought for a moment as he stares down the man who raised you; he would trade him in to keep you safe in a heartbeat.

That’s why the first point of call was to bring him here. Here, they have an eye on him. They can’t risk him trying anything stupid.

You have twenty-four hours to reach the location provided. Say goodbye, sweetheart. The faceless fingers curl into the hollows of your cheeks and Jake grits his teeth. His gaze flickers up, and this time Matthew is watching him.

“You’re going.” Jake tells him, from the spot on the couch where he had kissed you for the first time. Everything had unfurled here, in this house, up until Jake had taken you home.

It’s a shell of a home and it always was. Cold and white, almost clinical in its modernity. It’s the place you met but it’s not your home, and it’s not Jake’s. He just decided that. The two of you will have a real home.

His gaze is a cold green, steely and serious. There’s a movement around the room, uncomfortable murmurs of disagreement as the crowd prepares to stop the bodyguard. “This is your fault. You didn’t protect her, and she’s in danger. You’re going to fix this.”

“No, Agent, that’s not how we’re going to—” The serious looking man in the Armani suit, who considers himself responsible for Matthew’s safety here, doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.

“I’m done with the plans.” Jake decides, pushing himself up from the couch. He makes no efforts to step towards the president, this isn’t a threatening motion, it’s merely a man who won’t stand back idly once again. He gives a cool shake of his head. “The plans are what got us here. You… deserve this. You fucking owe her this.”

Matthew swallows dryly, loosening his tie.

“Jake,” Allen steps up from his perch by the wall, giving a soft shake of his head as he reaches out to rest a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “We’ve got to keep our heads about this.”

It’s not a sudden thing, that the attitude in the room is that Jake is the crazy one here, but the mood shifts nonetheless as he rounds on the older man and points a finger squarely at him.

”Don’t. Don’t say a damn word to me — where were you?” he spits.

“I… she promised me—” Allen shakes his head dumbly, blaming himself more for this than your own father does. He’s blind with worry, that image of your bloodied face just won’t leave his mind.

“You promised me.” Jake bites.

Silence falls across the room for a beat. Manny wipes his nose with the back of his hand, squeezing his eyes shut as tears spill silently down his cheeks.

When he had gotten into this business, he had first felt invincible. A background in Tactical Ops and a pristine track record, he told everyone that he was perfect for the job. Then, he had met you and he had realised quickly he was out of his depth — but he liked you, and you reminded him that there was more to this line of work than the rules.

He hadn’t ever thought he would let you down like this.

“I’ll go.”

Jake turns his head. He isn’t impressed. He isn’t pleased. It’s barely enough, after what he has put you through. Looking at Jake, your father knows that.

“Mr. President—“

“Those were his terms,” His eyes are shut now. He can’t bare to look at the man before him, knowing that this wouldn’t be a difficult decision for him to make in the slightest. Jake would put his life on the line for you without thought. He shivers through an inhale, “We come up with a plan around them, and we get her out of there.”

“But, sir—“

“Figure it out. You can keep both of us safe. That’s your job.” Matthew exhales finally. Opening his eyes, he finds Jake once more and finds himself chilled to the core. The look on Jake’s face is finally, wholly sincere. If it came down to it, Jake wouldn’t give a fuck about keeping Matthew safe.

“Sir—“

“Figure it out, god damnit, or I’ll take myself.” Matthew bites out finally. It’s not like he has much of a choice in walking away from this, anyway.

When Jake closes his eyes, and thinks of you afraid and alone, it makes his choice easy.

Matthew feels like a clock within him has started ticking. As the men and women around him scramble to draw together a plan that will keep him and his daughter alive, he feels it counting down his last moments.

He tries not to look up, because when he does he finds Jake looking at him every time.

It’s like Jake can hear it too, that awful ticking. Time passing by. Counting down the moments.

“Catherine?” Matthew calls weakly, rubbing two fingers against his temple from his spot in the corner of the living room. His secretary turns attentively and graces him with her full attention. “I’d like to make a statement, and I’d like you to write it down. Do you understand?”

Jake can’t sit and listen to them anymore, but that’s not what makes go wandering. He starts out in the kitchen, looking out over the pool. The place he had first seen you. Then, he takes the stairs and winds up in his room. His bed is unmade here, as it was in his hotel.

His shoes are quiet against the floor as he walks over to the bed and lowers himself to the edge of it. His fingers smooth over the faint dips in the pillow, where your head had last laid.

Jake has money from his time in the Navy. From his work in the service. He hasn’t had much to spend it on. The job involves living with clients, expenses are usually covered, and his sisters won’t let him spoil his nieces too much. Enough for a house. One with a big bed, so you can stretch out all you want and still wind up draped across his chest.

The thought almost makes him smile, and then a lump in his throat threatens to make that smile spill into tears.

He hopes he gets that.

He can only imagine what you’re doing now. If you’re still stuck to that chair, if your eye is hurting you, if they have touched you again since. He’s not even sure if you have water. The one thing he does know is that you’ll be waiting for him. You’ll know that he’ll get you out of this.

A little after noon, the plan is as good as it is going to get. Twenty four hours since your disappearance, sixteen hours until Ellis’ imposed deadline.

Jake stands with his back to the front door as the President listens to the briefing once more. There are back-up plans on backup plans and protocols coming out of his ears, and Jake doesn’t care one bit.

Allen doesn’t like the look on his face.

“Jake,” The older man broaches the topic softly, trying not to alarm the already flighty ex-pilot. “I know you’re going to do what you need to do. I can’t stop you. But, if this goes south — and you’re responsible, you’ll never see her again.”

Jake knows what he’s trying to say. If he lets the President go, he’ll suffer the consequences. As much as he wants that house, and those lazy mornings in that big bed with you, he would let it all go if he could know that you would never be in danger because of this man again.

“I know the plan.” Jake tells him calmly.

Ellis isn’t an unintelligent man; he knows that if Jake was going to be able to deliver Matthew successfully, it wouldn’t be alone. That makes things a little easier — they don’t have to be as sneaky.

But, if Ellis has a feeling that the trade is a set up, they’ll both be dead. Jake won’t let that happen.

It’s just himself, and your father for the journey there. It’s two hours from your place, and there’s practically a motorcade escort most of the way. Once they hit the five mile out mark, security drops back, and for the first time — they feel alone.

“So, what did you actually do?” Jake squeezes his hands around the leather of the wheel, with no real interest in small talk. He shoots a look towards the cars in his peripheral, and then at each mirror. Last, comes his scope of the skyline. Habit. He was a good agent.

There’s no point lying anymore.

“You’ve got to understand, Ellis is a powerful man.”

“More powerful than the president?” Jake scoffs.

Matthew makes an uncomfortable sound of consideration. He wouldn’t expect Jake to understand.

“Having powerful friends makes him more powerful. You know?” He tries to explain it anyway, it beats listening to the silent radio and the tyres rolling. “I let him do me a lot of favors. Money, marketing, making people go away.”

He looks across and studies Matthew’s face for a moment.

“Not with money.” He realises, watching the stretch of road. There’s one turning, the only one Jake can see. That’s it.

Matthew looks ahead of him, colourless as he gives a weak shake of his head. “No. Not with money.”

It’s already in his head that your father is a scumbag, but it stings Matthew to realise that Jake isn’t surprised by this. It shouldn’t. He shouldn’t care about what someone like Jake thinks — and he supposes he wouldn’t, if it wasn’t for you.

“So what’d you do to him?” Jake prompts.

“I tried to get away.” Matthew says quietly. The wheels turn and the car pulls into an empty parking lot at the rear side of an old hangar. “Put some distance between the two of us — between him and my family, my career. It’s not the kind of thing he was willing to let go.”

“Go figure.” Jake answers bitterly. The car pulls to a stop and the ticking rings out loudly in Matthew’s ears. Jake turns his head, green eyes colder than ever. “You ready?”

…

tags: @alanadetigy @thedroneranger @momc95 @basicchelsea @perpetuelledaydreaming @cherrycola27 @eviesaurusrex @xoxabs88xox @desert-fern @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @khaylin27 @cowboybarbie @marchingicenotes7 @marantha @lgg5989 @herladyshipxx @chaoticweirdogeek @mak-32 @obiwankenobis-lap @diamond-3 @wolvesofthewinter @shawnsblue @itsmytimetoodream

“I think that this might literally be my worst nightmare.” 

Jake scrubs a hand over the stubble on his jaw and shakes his head as he scans over the packed living room. Sweaty bodies covered in paint or glitter, or who knows what else. Stupid costumes obstructing half of their faces, all the damn lights in the house off and replaced with string lights in the form of skulls or spotlights that shine red and purple.

“Loosen up. You’re not supposed to be working!” Manny prompts him, jabbing at Jake’s ribs with his elbow. The catch is, though, that they both survey the living room as he says this. 

Jake shakes his head. “Where is she anyway? — She’s missing her own party.”

Manny knows that this is just an excuse for Jake to set off in search of you, probably hoping to catch you alone. But, Jake’s energy has been stressing him out for twenty minutes now, so he watches him go with a smile.

Music blares, bass thudding through the house as he pushes through crowds of people he didn’t even know that you knew. Balloons filled with helium litter the ceiling and there’s a Rihanna song playing through the speakers in the next room. 

Jake twists his neck, glancing through the crowd, feeling his pulse start to thud. He doesn’t even know where you are, or where you’ve been, or who saw you last. 

He swallows, his throat thick. Warmth prickles at his skin, an uncomfortable kind of hot. With every body that he brushes past, he finds another face that isn’t yours.

This was a bad idea, and he never should have agreed. Not with everything that has happened. The break-ins and your bad dreams, and on a whim he agrees to let you fill this entire place with strangers—

And there you are. 

Standing on the patio, a giant grin on your face and a group of enthralled friends around you as you eagerly tell a story that Jake has gotten to hear in private. 

In the middle of the sentence, your eyes catch on him. Arms folded over his chest and one shoulder propped against the patio door, his eyes already on you. Your lips twitch and your smile grows as his gaze drops to take note of your costume. 

Immediately, he thinks back to one morning last week, when the two of your had been laying in bed together. Tracing your fingers across his chest, huffing exasperatedly as you had tried to get your answer from him. “Come on, you didn’t have any fictional crushes growing up? — None?”

“I dunno… Lara Croft maybe?”

He had spent so long worrying about this stupid party, he hadn’t once thought to ask you what your costume might be. 

Your eyes glint with mischief, watching him study the holsters secured to your thighs and the shorts that sit a couple inches above them. His tongue dips out to wet his lips, his eyes catching on yours once more.

It’s like everything goes quiet.

“Sorry, just excuse me for one second.” You’re still grinning as you excuse yourself, black combat boots soft on the ground as you head right for him. Your hand comes to rest on his stomach, a touch that’s a little too personal for a girl and her bodyguard. “Did you need me for something?”

Jake’s lips almost twitch, he isn’t quite as media trained as you are, and he likes feeling the way your fingers curl slightly into his fitted black tee.

Rather than smiling, there’s an almost sternness to the way a muscle in his jaw ticks. His gaze flickers down, and then back up. Those fucking holsters. 

“Yeah, I think we had better go talk.” He agrees, that look in his eye that ignites flames in your stomach. 

Now it’s your turn to try not to smile. It feels like you’re parading through the house with a neon sign above you about what you’re about to get up to, but Jake’s about as inconspicuous as a man can get while he leads you away.

It’s once he’s gotten you inside that he’s able to stop pretending. 

The door clicks shut, totally inaudible under the racket of the rest of the house, leaving the two of you inside the bedroom that you have been sharing for months now. His green eyes look vibrant as the lights from outside catch onto his wandering gaze.

“Lara Croft, huh?”

His voice is low and dry sounding. He’s totally unashamed, practically licking his lips. 

You reach for him, planting your palms on his chest, grinning as his back hits the closed bedroom door.

“I knew you were feeling a little nervous about this party,” One finger in front of the other, you walk your index and middle along the taught plain of his stomach. His eyes trail your journey toward his belt. “And I wanted to make sure you’d enjoy it as much as I will.”

He huffs out, his chuckle breathy as you unthread the leather through his belt loop. 

“Is that right?” There’s just something about watching you sink to your knees in your new costume that has him straining against his jeans.  “And it’s got nothing to do with the fact that you just love to push my buttons?”

Opening wide your tongue skims his navel while your hand shoves his t-shirt up his stomach. He swallows, his mouth dry. The smile that creeps across your mouth has his heartbeat thudding in his chest. The tip of your tongue flicks across the gold button on his jeans.

“These buttons?” 

This earns a grin. His eyes roll shut and his head rolls back against the door as you push forwards on your knees. Now, this is exactly why he’ll always find it so hard to say no to you.

Not just because of the way your mouth makes his stomach tighten and his breathing grow fast, either. It’s that look in your eye, watching him through your lashes, that really gets him. He just can’t say no to that look. 

Lips parted, his broad shoulders rising and falling heavily. He nudges at your knee with his foot, “Spread your legs. Let me see.”

Your mouth stretched around him, eyes glassy as you strain to take more of him, you spread your knees apart. He can see right down that fitted tank from this angle. The way your chest heaves when you swallow around him. The way your thighs flex around those fucking holsters.

…

Jake has been having weird dreams recently. No, weird isn’t the word. Downright unnerving. The kind of dreams that have you waking up breathless, and drenched in sweat, and alone. He has been here before. Not in this particular hotel room is SoCal, but in this position. Alone, and having weird dreams.

The sheet under him is damp, and he can feel one bead of sweat in particular following the length of his spine. It’s a sick kind of feeling, like waiting for a fever to break. He swallows thickly before he even begins to stir. His throat is sore and dry. His legs ache before he even attempts to stretch them

Without opening his eyes, he knows that his bed is empty.

But, even in this empty bed, filled with that sick kind of feeling, Jake would rather be here. Being awake, left with the sobriety of conscious thought, is a far milder form of torture than letting himself drift off again. Here, awake, you’re alive.

You aren’t in danger, screaming out his name and begging for his help. Even here, even awake, the sound of your voice rings in his ears and his forearms tingle like your fingertips are still digging into them.

He can barely sleep now, not until the exhaustion finally comes for him and he knocks out. Even then, even when he finally manages to sleep, he doesn’t rest. He’s met with the same dreams over and over.

This hotel room in San Diego is far from feeling like home. It doesn’t smell right. It smells like air freshener and laundry. He can hear traffic and voices in the hall. The room feels too still. Jake misses that familiar feeling of your restless sleep, your limbs all over him and your face pressing into the crook of his neck, your heart beating against his skin. He misses the smell of you, the soft perfume of your body wash that always lingers from showering with him the night before.

He parts his dry lips and lets out a long exhale. His fingers twitch at his side before he manages to lift his arm and rub at his eyes.

As much as real rest would probably heal the aches in his body — he’s not in his twenties anymore, nature keeps reminding him of that — Jake won’t let himself stay in bed. An hour after sunrise, he’s jogging along the viewpoint by Ocean Beach. He’s listening to his country running playlist that you make fun of him for.

He thinks of all the mornings he let you coax him into staying in bed. Those mischievous little smiles and your legs stretching out across the fabric, tangling between his, your hands adventuring across his muscles. He has always been an early riser, but he misses those lazy mornings. He hates himself for wasting so many — arguing with you or beating himself up for what he was keeping from you. None of it seems worth it now.

This beautiful day, this soaring sun. Clear sky, ocean air, salt on his skin. He would give it all up in an instant.

He’d give anything to come home and find you sprawled out along the couch, a straw between your lips and another one of those mischievous little smiles toying on them too, asking him, “How was the run, cowboy?”

His feet hit the pavement to the beat playing through his ears, his heartbeat starting to quicken through his chest. Faster than normal. He’s a pretty fit guy, he works out regularly. He hasn’t been sleeping well. Or eating great. Sweat beads along his hairline as he pushes himself harder anyway. A simple 5k hasn’t ever stunted him before, and he won’t let it now.

The shore passes him by in his peripheral, traffic on his other side. He wonders if you’re up yet, if this is hitting you as hard as it’s hitting him. There are a hundred and twelve days left of your father’s term, three-sixty-five after that where you’ll still have a service detail. Jake read those papers from back to front twice. Four hundred more days of this is going to kill him.

Twenty minutes into his 5k, something snaps him out of his pity party. Something to his right, barely there in the corner of his vision. He turns his head, brows drawing together. Harvard. Brigham fucking Lennox, a kid who was brought up to be just as pretentious as the people who named him that had hoped.

The Weapons Systems Officer is leaning out of the driver’s side window of a black Jeep Wrangler. Shirtless and wearing sunglasses, probably on his way to some party on the beach that Jake would have been throwing if things had gone down differently. He’s yelling something.

“What?” Jake pants out, plucking the earbud from his ear, squinting through the sun at the ghost of a friend, leaning out of the driver’s side window. Harvard’s smile practically doubles, stretching ear to ear.

“I said congratulations, Hangman!” Harvard’s East-Coast accent booms across the street. Jake’s brows draw together, his mouth pulling into a contradictory frown.

Just like that, the light turns green and Harvard lifts one of those stupid bear paws he’s got for hands and waves, then the Jeep pulls off down the street. Congratulations, Hangman. Jake stares after the car, catching his breath.

It speeds away from him with the flow of traffic, while Jake himself can’t fathom moving from this spot. There’s a twisting, tightening knot in his stomach that threatens to have him heaving on this sidewalk like a hungover teenager.

Straightening up a little, Jake inhales all the sea salt and humidity that this little patch of earth has to offer. It weighs down throat sick feeling just enough for it to sink back to the pit of his stomach. If there’s one thing that Jake will remember about his career in the Navy, it’s how those guys tick. That Cheshire Cat smile doesn’t ever mean anything good.

He stretches his neck side to side and pushes his right hand into his pocket. Jake has to lift his left hand to shield his eyes as he looks down at his phone and finally turns off the do not disturb feature. He hadn’t wanted to listen to his mother’s pity for the second time in a five year period — he loves her, but he won’t ever let her see him with a broken heart again.

Blinking, he pulls the phone closer to his face. He’s got almost nine hundred notifications pending on his Home Screen. He swipes briefly into them and reads the top text message.

Hey, man, it’s Rooster. Hope you’re doing okay. Just saw the news.

Jake squints. He didn’t even know that Bradshaw still had his phone number. Jake’s mind instantly thinks of the worst. She’s dead. He’s been gone for a week, and now she’s dead. Swallowing, he continues. His thumb pushes the notification away and unlocks the phone all together.

He opens an internet browser and moves to click on the search bar, but he doesn’t have to. It’s right there staring back at him. Headline news, highlighted on the browser. First Daughter’s illicit affair with bodyguard. Your name plastered across the front page. Then, his eyes land on it. Knocked up.

It’s a picture of you with your hand extending backwards towards Jake in a crowd. It was from before anything had even happened with you. He remembers that dress, and the way your palm fit into his. It’s got emojis edited over it, tabloid-style, babies and bottles.

“Sorry, excuse me.” Jake flinches. His head whips around and finds a woman with a stroller staring at him apologetically. It’s double-wide, and there are two twin girls sitting in the pink and white thing, staring at him too. Twins.

His eyes widen. They aren’t very old. One of them is drooling all over their fist and the other is happily making some kind of cookie turn to mush in their hand. They’re watching him intently.

He’s blocking the sidewalk. That’s all it is. That’s why all three of them are staring at him. He’s just standing like an idiot in the middle of the path.

“Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.” Jake mutters, stumbling back out of her way, turning his attention back to the phone and clicking on a link. He’s zoned out again just as quickly, brows furrowed as he studies the webpage.

Insider source. Going on for months. Fired. Cover-up. Uncovered images. He sits on the wall bordering the beach and gawks.

The leaked security feeds had nothing to do with you, even though you had figured it would all come spilling out eventually. Once the media gets a whiff of a scandal, it’s impressive what they can find. Oddly, you’re okay with the evidence that they found. You know that there must be worse out there.

The worst that they’ve got is you and Jake pictured leaving the same bathroom minutes apart in the White House. Couple of kissing pictures. Old photos of Jake guiding you through busy crowds with his fingertips brushing yours are suddenly front page news.

You might be okay with what the internet has discovered — after all, you were prepared for it. Jake, however, suddenly starts to understand why that sick, twisting feeling won’t leave him alone.

He studies these images for longer than he’ll ever admit, all of these photos of the two of you together, grainy and from a bird’s eye angle. All it does is make that feeling in his chest grow. A simmer spilling over into a full blown boil. His ears hot, his throat thick, his fingers trembling. All of these reminders of how many times he got to touch you, and he sits there by the beach not knowing if he’ll ever get to do it again. Not after this.

It’s far too nice of a day for this. Mid-morning down by the San Diego River Bikeway. Blue skies and a soft, salty breeze cutting through the warming day. Everyone carries on around him.

He stares at the image left on his phone now. It’s a picture of you as a kid, standing next to your father and looking up at him with a big smile on your face. Even then, it’s at a campaign event. He isn’t even looking at you. Right next to that, a stark comparison, is a picture of you at the party you had snuck out to in the hills. You’re wearing a cap sleeve mini dress that hugs your body like a second skin, and Jake’s standing right behind you, smiling, pointing to a table of liquor.

That’s the narrative they’re spinning, and Jake is glad.

He’s panicking, he’s sick and his head feels like it’s going to roll right off of his shoulders, but he’s so glad that it isn’t your name being dragged through the mud. Suddenly, his biggest concern is no longer whether you’re awake and missing him. You’re all alone, probably scared out of your mind.

All those mornings with you keeping him in bed, sure, they were the focus a few minutes ago. Now he’s thinking of the evenings he had spent with you wrapped tight in his arms, calming your worries, soothing you to sleep. He hadn’t once dreamt of leaving you alone with those worries ever again, much less of being the cause of them.

The two of you hadn’t exactly been careful. Jake hadn’t touched you much since the two of you had been here together, four or so weeks ago now. Not since he had gotten that phone call in the Hard Deck. But before that — there were points where the two of you had slept together four times in one day.

Jake’s feet stumble as he goes for his first step, almost tripping over himself. He picks at straws in his mind, finally starting to move, wracking his brain for answers. The downstairs bathroom near the garden in the White House — fuck, Jake hopes he didn’t make a baby in that place.

He’s still thinking about it once he’s stepping out of his car and slamming the door shut. Truthfully, he drove this route on autopilot. If Bradley Bradshaw still has Jake’s number, he probably still lives in the same place. That old bird always had a thing for the sentimental.

Speaking of sentimental, Jake’s got a bad taste in his mouth thinking about this whole thing. It’s not like, if you have this kid, it’s ever going to experience a normal life. Family Christmases seem far from possible after your dad just threatened to send Jake to jail.

He swallows softly, walking up the steps and knocking against the glass pane in the door. This place had seemed weird and old back then. A fifties style bungalow with awkward links to the city and far too much peace and quiet; it paled in comparison to Jake’s bachelor pad near base.

Now, it looks the exact same. Nothing has changed but Jake. Now, he looks at the six foot fence around the backyard and the slightly longer driveway so that it’s quiet and off the road, and it all makes sense. It’s practically perfect.

Jake blinks as the door pulls open. There he is again, for the second time in just over a month after four years of no contact. Bradley stares, eyes wide for a second as he processes who is standing in front of him. It takes a moment to register. He stiffens and grips the door handle tighter.

“Jake.” Bradley realizes, frowning slightly as he bumps the door against his shoulder, blocking the entryway with his body. He gives his old friend a quick look up and down. If there’s one person he hadn’t been expecting to see on his porch, shirtless and looking like hell, today it was Jake. “What’s up?”

“Can I use your phone? I need to make a call.”

“They didn’t have one in your… hotel room?” Bradley frowns. He nudges closer and pulls the door with him. Jake’s expression changes. So, Bradley’s got some girl inside. Jake couldn’t care less. There were times when they were deployed that Jake has heard and seen Bradley do things he’d rather not remember.

Now, he’s standing on Bradley’s front porch and ready to name each and every one of them in alphabetical order if the dumb bird doesn’t get a lot more compliant, quickly.

“I was closer to here. Look, I don’t care who you’ve got in there — can I please just make a call from your phone?” Jake rushes. Bradley sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek and turns his head to glance through into the hallway of his apartment.

Rooster has seen the articles. He knows why Jake’s standing at his front door drenched in sweat right now. He also knows that if he was in Jake’s shoes, he would be going out of his mind right now. Hell, if Rooster was in Jake’s shoes, he’s not sure he would have survived the past four years.

“Yeah. Sure. Come in, I’ll grab my phone.” He decides finally, already feeling that this is a bad idea from the second that Jake’s foot crosses the threshold. Bradley’s back is turned for exactly six paces.

“Babe—“

Jake’s head turns as Bradley picks his phone up from the couch. His brows knit together at the sound of a familiar voice — a masculine voice. They both turn their heads to stare at the man standing in Bradley’s hallway.

Javy swallows. He shifts uncomfortably on his weight and crosses his wrists like that will hide the fact that he’s wearing nothing but a charcoal coloured pair of Calvin Klein briefs.

Jake turns his head again, and this time finds Rooster turning beet red. If he wasn’t freaking out so badly, he might have cracked a joke.

“I mean… Rooster.” Javy corrects.

“Bradshaw, phone.” Jake reminds. Rooster blinks, tossing his phone across to Jake. Jake catches it in one hand and heads back out onto the front porch silently.

These people used to be his best friends. Once upon a time, this news would have been ground breaking to him. Rooster and Coyote. This would have taken him weeks to get over. Today, he doesn’t give a shit. Truthfully, from the deepest part of him, he doesn’t care about those people in the slightest.

All he cares about is you, going through exactly what he’s going through, alone.

He taps the number in to Bradley’s phone and it rings once before it is answered.

“Sir, I told you, she won’t speak to y—“

“Allen.” Jake breathed out and the other man stops speaking instantly. This isn’t allowed. This conversation shouldn’t be happening. No one really tried that hard to prevent it though, not really. Not when it was this easy. “Put her on the phone.”

Allen swallows softly as he turns his head and looks into the living room at the furious girl on the couch. Your father has been calling you all day, and now you’re being grilled by a California press representative. You just won’t talk.

“I can’t, sir. She’s in the middle of something right now.” Allen carries on like he’s still speaking to Mr. Head of State himself.

Jake opens his mouth but then quickly decides that he has to sit down before he can say something like this outside. He stumbles forwards and drops down onto Bradley Bradshaw’s porch step. He threw up here once in his twenties. Bradley didn’t invite him back much after that. “Is she pregnant?”

“I’m not sure. Sir.” Allen answers quietly. He presses his lips together in a tight line. With how fragile you’ve been recently, you’re going to lose it if you find out he spoke with Jake today. Currently, you appear to have taken a vow of silence. You’ve been tapping away at a laptop for hours. The entire staff has tried to put you on the phone with your father several times each. You just won’t talk to him.

Allen knows why you’re doing it. You want that selfish old bastard to panic. He can’t say he blames you.

“What do you mean you don’t fucking know? — She is or she isn’t. Allen, put her on the phone, I need to speak to her.” Jake bites. He rubs at his eyes, his head is pounding.

“I can’t do that. I would if I could.” Allen answers softly. Jake could continue to argue, but he knows this old jerk isn’t going to change his mind. His fist clenches around the chipped wooden step.

His throat strains. “Is — Is she okay?”

“No.” Allen answers calmly, leaning his back slightly against the wall behind him. Shooting a quick look in each direction, he lowers his voice again. “I… I think she might have let this get leaked on purpose.

“What?” Jake gawks. For the second time today, his world is turned on his axis and he has to reevaluate all of the information he has seen before. He rubs his knuckle into the socket of his eye, shaking his head like that will unscramble his train of thought.

“She told someone. I don’t see why she would, unless—“

You’re not pregnant. If you were, you wouldn’t tell a stranger. Unless this is the same girl you told before, about you and him. Fuck, he’s not sure what you would do anymore. He doesn’t have a clue.

“Fuck. Fuck. I need to see her. I know it’s a lot to ask, but—“ Jake pushes his fingers into his head and shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He can’t pretend he hadn’t ever thought of what it would be like to have a family with you. Far in the future, he had hopes for plenty of things.

This wasn’t ever how he dreamed of finding out he was going to be a dad, he’s terrified. He can’t imagine how you’re feeling.

He needs to see your face.

“Jake. Don’t.” Allen whispers angrily, making Manny’s head shoot up. The older man turns on his heel and heads for the back door. This conversation can’t continue here, when Jake’s being this ridiculous. “What phone is this? — The house is full of staff right now, you can’t do this now. I could get her to call you. Later.”

“Yeah. I can keep the phone. Get her to call me back on this number. I swear, Allen, if I don’t hear from her today then I’m going to drive up there.”

“Alright!” Allen hisses into the phone, checking over his shoulder. He could be tanking his thirty year career just by having this conversation, much less by aiding and abetting your little affair. “I’ll figure it out. Just calm down. She’s… in a weird place right now and I don’t need you making it worse. This is going to blow over.”

“Making it— are you fucking kidding?”

The line clicks dead. Jake almost throws the phone across the front yard, but he doesn’t. For two reasons. The first, he needs to speak to you — if he doesn’t hear your voice today, he might actually go insane. The second, he knows that Rooster is watching and would be upset if Jake obliterated his phone.

Jake swallows dryly, then pushes himself to stand. Rooster and Coyote spring into action, trying to make it look like they hadn’t been eavesdropping, as Jake walks back into the living room. Javy is wearing sweatpants now. Jake doesn’t take notice of either one of them, not really.

“I need to keep your phone for today.” Jake says, offering no explanation to accompany the statement. They were listening, he doesn’t need to elaborate.

“Uh… alright. Can l… see something on there first?” Rooster asks, shooting an awkward glance across at Javy. Javy’s eyes widen as he turns to look at the phone in Jake’s hand. Jake passes it over compliantly.

Rooster perches on the arm of the couch and gets to work hiding all of the naked photos of Jake’s best friend in a secret album. Silence falls across the three of them. This is especially rough because anyone who knows Javy, knows that he’s a chatterbox. He loves to talk. He could talk to anyone about everything.

But he doesn’t know how to talk to Jake now.

The feeling isn’t good. Jake is the one who left. The one who couldn’t bare to see their faces, or hear their voices, or even think about the Hard Deck. He shut them out on purpose and most days, after he had first lost Dani, Jake had hoped he wouldn’t ever see a single one of them again.

He guesses now that maybe if he wasn’t seeing them, he could pretend that she wasn’t dead. That she was still sitting in that bar, playing pool with her friends, growing older like she was meant to.

Jake and Javy are thinking of the same thing. Dani. What things would be like if she hadn’t died. If Jake might have stayed — that’s not much of a question; he would have. He loved his life back then. But that’s all an if. Jake hates playing the ‘What If’ game. His counselor told him it isn’t healthy.

He could love his life now, maybe even more than he had back then. He doesn’t like to thing about you in the same vein as Danielle — it doesn’t seem right to compare you when you each were so different, and he was so different when he loved you and her.

He can’t keep thinking about it, it still makes him angry. So, he swallows and crosses his arms over his chest, turning his head towards Coyote. “So… you’re fucking Rooster.”

“Actually, I’m the one—“ Bradley stops talking as Jake and Javy turn to look at him together. He just smiles sheepishly, then turns his attention back to the phone.

“Actually, we’ve been dating for four months.” Javy explains, his lips tugging at a smile. He won’t quite let himself give into it. They’re both pretending that he isn’t standing there barely dressed.

Jake raises his brows. “Wow. Dating… you didn’t say anything when I was here last.”

“You didn’t tell us that you were sleeping with the President’s daughter.” Javy retaliates, this time giving into the amusement and letting a smirk plaster itself across his angled features.

Rooster looks up quickly and shoots a stern look across at his boyfriend. When they had discussed what they would say to Jake if they saw him during all of this, they had specifically agreed not to come at him head on.

Jake makes himself smile. “Dating. I guess. More than fucking, anyway.”

Doesn’t feel right to say that he might have found the love of his life, not when they all thought he had found it before.

Javy smiles back at him, arms folded across his bare chest. He gives a small nod. “So… are you really going to be a dad?”

Rooster looks up again, this time handing the phone back to Jake. Both of them stare at him now. The Hangman they knew back then would be taking this news a lot worse.

“I don’t know. I hope not.” The hope isn’t that there’s no baby because he doesn’t want one with you. That’s clear. He just can’t let you go through that without him right by your side. He wants more for you right now. He wants independence, and privacy. He wants whatever you want, and you’ve never once signaled to him that that would be a baby.

“Well… we were just going to watch the game later. If you wanted to hang out here, take your mind off things.” Bradley offers, giving a small shrug of his shoulders. Jake glances over towards Javy, then back. Then, down at the phone in his hand. It’s probably not cool to steal Rooster’s phone.

“Yeah, okay.” Jake decides quietly.

There’re a small clock in the corner of the TV screen. Jake sinks into Bradley’s couch, his arms crossed over his chest, and watches the minutes tick by. Bradley and Javy sit either side of him trying to prompt the conversation onward.

If this was a couple of years ago, Jake would be cracking jokes and this would feel as natural as breathing. Now, even breathing doesn’t feel all that natural. Each inhale feels like winding clock hands into place. Every exhale feels like he’s in flight school feeling that G-Force nausea again for the first time.

He wishes he hadn’t let it get this bad. That he hadn’t let these guys become strangers. He wishes he would have been there when Rooster and Coyote started dating, so he could figure it out before everyone else and bet Phoenix out of twenty dollars. He wonders if she knows yet.

“So, is my phone number gonna get put on a CIA watch list or something?” Rooster asks, one arm tucked behind his head and a beer in his hand. Jake almost scoffs at the idea, then stops to consider it. Maybe, actually. He turns his head to look at Rooster.

“Worried they’re going to hear all those voicemails Mav leaves you reminding you to water your plants?” Javy taunts from the other side of Jake. Jake snorts, looking between the two of them.

“You’re a farmer now, too, huh?” Jake chimes in.

“Oh yeah. Chillies, herbs, tomatoes, zucchini. He’s even got little gloves he wears when he gardens.” Javy spills, making Jake laugh for the first time. This next inhale feels softer, a little more natural. Making fun of Rooster will always feel natural.

Four hours away, your vow of silence still hasn’t let up. For the first time all day, you’ve moved from the couch. Allen had watched you stand up, slamming the laptop lid shut and tucking the thing under your arm. It hasn’t left your side in a day and a half.

If he’s right, and you’ve orchestrated this entire thing so far, he knows that it doesn’t stop with a scandal. No, you’re going right for the jugular with this thing. He trails behind you, footsteps quiet on the rug. And yet, you hear him anyway.

He stumbles as you round on him, doing his best to slow down and not completely mow you over in his stride. Those crows feet and sun-aged freckles aren’t fooling you, that stern-looking old man hasn’t ever been able to stop you doing anything.

“Why are you following me, Allen?”

He narrows those grey eyes at you and leans closer, “What the hell are you up to? — Don’t lie to me.”

Briefly, he’s met with silence. As much silence as is possible in your life. Downstairs is still buzzing with life, with phone calls. The entire house is trying to clean up the mess you made, all at once. Just like you wanted them to. Now, they’re all busy.

“I’m keeping a promise that I made to my dad.” You shrug. It’s the truth, in simple terms. You promised him you were going to ruin him, and that man raised you not to quit.

Allen looks heavenward, resting his hands on his hips. He remembers the day he met you, and how angry you were back then. Far too often since that day, he has found himself thinking of what he would say to you if you were one of his daughters. He sniffs, then exhales, dropping his neck and studying the carpet.

“I spoke to Jake today. He saw the news and he called me.” This time, when he lifts his gaze and looks at you, his jaw sets and his brows knit together. You might not be one of his daughters, but he knows you like you are. “I’m gonna let you speak to him, and you’re going to promise me something, kid.”

For the first time all day, that indifferent, angry look drops from your face and Allen sees you for what you are. Devastated. You nod your head furiously, blinking at him. “Anything.”

His expression dullens, eyes growing stormy. “You’ll drop this. Whatever you’re planning, whatever you’re doing — you’ll let it go.”

Your face blanks in front of him, then calms. You’re poker-facing him, he knows that look. He has known how to recognise it since you were young. Still, he waits for your answer.

“Okay.” You tell him, straightening out your mouth, giving him a curt nod.

Swiftly, he takes one step forwards and invades your space. He has let you get away with too much for too long. He acknowledges now, after he had retired, you would probably be dead if it wasn’t for Jake. He won’t make the same mistake twice.

“No. I’m serious. Swear to me that you won’t do anything stupid.”

If his definition of anything stupid is even remotely similar to Jake’s, you’re confident that you will have already disappointed the both of them. They would never approve. It’s not safe. But you’re not made of glass, and the things you have found could change everything.

It’s scary, really, the way you’re able to relax your face so solemnly. Allen’s been looking at that face almost every day for the last seven years, and you still manage to fool him.

“I swear. I swear that I’ll leave it alone, if you let me speak to him.”

Jake gets the call just after seven. He practically throws Coyote out of the way heading for the door. He staggers out onto the back porch and rests his hand against the stair railing, bracing his weight.

“Jake?”

For the past four nights straight, Jake’s subconscious has subjected him to nothing but your voice, strained in terror and pain, calling out for help. To hear it now, soft and calm — it feels like Jake’s lungs untwist and he can inhale deeper.

“Fuck, honey, I missed you.” He breathes out all at once, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Faintly, he can hear the soft whimper you make on the other end. The slight sniffle. He can’t see you, and he doesn’t ask to confirm, but he knows that you’re laying in his bed. It’s not just wishful thinking. He just knows that if he got in his car and drove there now, that’s where he would find you.

He likes the idea. If he has to wake up alone, at least he knows you’re still waking up in his bed somehow.

“I miss you so much.” You tell him quietly, your eyes squeezed tightly shut, his comforter hugged to your chest. With your eyes closed, it’s easier to pretend that he’s here with you.

“I have to ask. You’re not… — You aren’t—?”

“No, shit. I’m sorry. No.” You remember, giving a quick shake of your head. “I’m not. I’m not.”

Jake exhales and takes two steps down from the porch, shuffling down, settling onto his back on the grass. “I’ve been thinking all day about it. We haven’t talked about kids.”

“No, but it’s fine. I only said—“

“I want that,” Jake tells the sky, the phone pressed so close to his ear that he can listen to you breathing. “One day, I want to hear that news and I want us to be happy. And I want it to be our news, just ours. At least for a while.”

You press your face into the cold fabric of his pillow, letting it soak up the tears on your cheeks. He listens to you breathe a little while longer. It’s not what he’s used to. If you were really here, you’d be closer. Each of your exhales would fan out across his chest.

“I…” You almost tell him that you want that too, and it’s ridiculous but in that split-second, it just sounds too daunting. After all you’ve been through. All that the two of you have faced together. You’re just too scared to tell him. “I’m so sick of living like this.”

“I know, sweet girl, I know.” Jake murmurs. He’s so close to the phone that your mind fills in that blanks and you swear you feel the rumble in his chest that you only hear when you’re laying on him.

If you ever want any semblance of the life that Jake wants to give you, something has to give. You’ve got to be brave about it. It was never going to be easy.

“I really love you.” You tell him quietly, pulling his pillow close against your body. Jake blinks up at the sky and just for a moment wishes he was back home. At least there, the sky’s dark enough for him to pick out constellations. There, he would have something to focus on other than how empty he feels without you.

“I love you too, so much. I - I can’t stop thinking about you. Tell me you’re okay. Tell me what you’ve been doing.” He’s rambling a little. Salty tears spill onto your lips as they twist into a sad smile. If he wants to hear that you’re okay, that’s what you’ll tell him. The lie comes just as easily to Jake as it had in the promise you had made to Allen.

If you’re brave now, you’ve got the chance to make things right.

…