by Aiden Bates
“It’s just so different,” I said.
“From? Oh.”
“Yeah. With Jason, it was so sudden. I remember the day his dad came and told me about Jason, that there’d been this accident, and Jason was gone, just like that. I never got the chance to say goodbye, to tell him I loved him one last time… I thought that was the cruelest way to lose someone because it was all so sudden.”
It was more than I’d ever said to anyone about how I felt that day. Marcos couldn’t know that, but I think my expression, the wistful sound of my voice, clued him in that this wasn’t just rambling for the sake of rambling. His arm tightened around me.
“I never, ever thought I’d be able to move on. Jason was my whole world, and for a long time I was okay with that never changing. I didn’t see how it was possible for me to love someone again. I remember when Silas told us about Garret, and then Teddy and Roman got back together, and Bennet got involved with Jason’s dad, and then Mitch with Oliver and then you. I remember all those moments and never really felt jealous or envious. I’d already had that. I’d had that once in a lifetime kind of love, and I was happy for my friends. I’d just gotten the short end of the stick. And then…Pedro happened. I learned how funny and sweet and caring he is. He treats me like I’m not broken, and he showed me I had a chance to live again, love again. And I did. I love him, like really, really love him. And to watch him die in this really slow drawn out way is, well, it’s worse.”
Marcos listened to all my thoughts pour out without commentary, giving me the space to get out all the things I hadn’t yet had words for, plus all the anxiety I felt about the surgery. Marcos gave me one more tight squeeze before he pulled his arm away.
“Don’t think about it that way. Trust me, you’ll drive yourself crazy if you do. I used to spend hours just watching Pedro breathe. It felt like…if I wasn’t there, if I didn’t see it, it might not happen. And that was sort of ridiculous when I look back at it. I didn’t have any way to control that. But I don’t regret being there for him. I never have. I just wish I’d been able to keep more of a balance. It’s hard when it’s someone you love. But through all of that I realized my brother is probably the toughest person I know. I already knew he was a stubborn bastard, but now he’s just taken it to a new level. He’s already pulled out of a four-year coma, still kicking and spitting like a mule. This won’t take him down either.”
Marcos’s words shouldn’t have made a difference, but they did. I felt more confident about what we were facing than I had all morning.
“Besides,” Marcos added. “He’s got more to come back to than ever now. I imagine that’ll make him twice as stubborn.”
I blushed even though it was stupid to. Marcos was already very aware of our relationship. “Thanks Marcos. All that helped.”
“You shouldn’t be saying thank you to me. I should be thanking you,” Marcos said, clearing his throat awkwardly.
“What? Why?”
“You don’t even see it, do you? You’re so good for him. It’s like watching someone come back to life. I mean, really, really living. I may have gotten the stubborn fucker to open his eyes, but you? You made him back into Pedro, like he was before, maybe even better.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, and Marcos was crossing his arms against his chest like he didn’t really want to go into any more detail about it. So, instead, we just sat there waiting. The news was on. It wasn’t riveting television, but it helped pass the time.
Eventually, I spaced out, thinking about what I would need to bring to the hospital to wait on Pedro to wake up, when a familiar face flashed up on the screen. It was a photo of Joshua King.
“Marcos, look!” I said, whacking his arm gently.
“Hmm?” he asked. I realized, that despite how horribly uncomfortable these chairs were, Marcos was fast asleep. Old habits die hard, I guess.
“It’s that reporter who was investigating Paxium. He was the one who was saying he thought the medicine was tampered with. I talked with him outside of my pharmacy when everything happened. He’s dead? How? It can’t have anything to do with what he was investigating can it?”
They’d found his body in King’s Place here in Fort Greene.
“Dios, that’s where you and Pedro live.”
“Yeah, it is.” We watched as the newscaster told us what little information they had so far. I felt sick to my stomach. Where Joshua died was really close to where the apartment was, and I couldn't help but think it was a terrible omen.
28
Pedro
I’m in the desert.
No, I’m not. I’m probably not. After all, I was just home, at…
Fort Greene?
Yeah, but all around there was rough, dry sand under my feet, so I was definitely in the desert, in Malmur, but I could see Fort Greene just up ahead.
Well, that was easy enough. All I had to do was walk out of the Malmur part and toward the Fort Greene part. Simple as that.
Except, when I tried to walk, the sand pulled at my feet, almost like each grain weighed a ton instead of micrograms. Even so, I had to get home. Fort Greene was just over that dune. I could make it even if I had to drag myself the entire way there.
Focusing, I put one foot in front of the other, ignoring the blistering heat and the fact that I was alone. I guess Long, Carpenter and Marcos had made it already. That was okay. I would see them when I got home.
After a while, it got harder to see. The sun was setting and darkness was beginning to fill the sky. Where Fort Greene had stood, its buildings in sharp contrast with the desert behind it, now all I could see was a dim silhouette.
I stopped to get my bearings, exhausted, and not sure if I was seeing things right. I’d been walking for hours, yet I wasn’t one inch closer to Fort Greene than I had been when I started. I turned to look behind me. The sun had practically set. Pretty soon it would be pitch black out here, and I wasn’t going to be able to see where I was going. But that wasn’t really the worst of my worries. As soon darkness descended all the desert night creatures were going to come out, and I was going to be bitten by something poisonous, like scorpions.
Venomous. Not poisonous. Venomous was something that killed you when it bit you. Poisonous was something that killed you if you bit it, like a pill with bad side effects. Or maybe a pill with no side effects. Or maybe barbiturates because those put you in a coma.
That felt important for some reason.
Anyway, regardless of whether scorpions were poisonous or venomous, they were definitely going to come out and sting me once it was dark.
I went to take another step, but I couldn’t. My legs felt so heavy, weighed down by exhaustion and the goddamn fucking sand!
I needed to rest, just for a little bit. Not to stop, not to quit, just to rest. That wouldn’t hurt, would it? I could still go home, I wasn’t quitting. I was just going to take a rest.
I sat down for a moment, just to see how it felt, and a blissful weightlessness immediately flooded my body, almost like someone had injected it directly into my veins. I closed my eyes, loving how I no longer ached, how my limbs no longer shook, how I could just relax and not feel like I was letting anybody down.
“Woah, woah,” a voice said behind me before I was wrapped in two strong arms and bodily lifted to my feet again. “Up. Come on. Don’t do that. On your feet. There you go. Stand up. Quit that lazy bullshit, Acosta. I’m not going to hug you the whole way there. Stand up on your own feet.”
I turned to look my shoulder and found myself almost nose to nose with Jason.
“Sorry…” I said, shaking my head slowly as exhaustion once again took over my body.“M’sorry. I just thought—”
“You better not have thought about taking a rest here, ranger. None of that. We gotta keep moving. Come on,” Jason said, finally unwrapping his arms from around me. He tilted his head toward Fort Greene and started trudging in that direction. I automatically started following him, exactly as I’d done in comba
t.
The sand no longer felt like it was purposefully holding me down, and I found myself easily keeping pace with Jason as we both headed toward home.
“I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon,” Jason said as he marched beside me.
“Back where?” I asked, but Jason completely ignored the question.
“What gives?” he asked, instead.
“Oh, well, not too much. Marcos’s omegas are having babies. And I suppose you know Teddy got married to Roman, and Bennet married—”
“I meant with Charlie.” He was just like Sarge sometimes. Most times, when he was just fucking around, he wasn’t. But when he got down to business, it was spooky how much he could act like his dad.
“Charlie? He’s good. Actually, we’re having twins.”
“Huh,” Jason said, like he was only halfway paying attention. “Are you married?”
“No, no, no, no… Not married yet. Not even engaged yet. Nothing’s wrong, it’s just that between the babies and the—”
“You ought to,” Jason said with a little huff, like he was laughing at me under his breath. “You ought to pop the question, don’t you think? Aren’t you going to?”
“Yeah, of course. Of course I am. I wasn’t going to let him have the babies and not marry him. My mami would murder me with a broom before I did that,” I said, which made both of us chuckle. “No, you don’t have to worry, as soon as I get back, I’m going to ask him. Make an honest omega out of him, I guess. Not that he needs to hear that, he’ll roll his eyes, I bet you anything.”
“Yeah, he will,” Jason agreed just as he shook his head, like he was remembering something he was fond of.
“It’s crazy, though, that someone can just take over your life and your heart, so quickly.”
“How do you figure?” Jason asked, but I swear to god it sounded like he was just humoring me. Like he already knew the answer.
“I don’t know. It’s just…a little over three months ago I barely knew Charlie, and now he’s everything. He’s all I think about. Him and the nug—”
“The nuggets,” Jason said with a smile I could see at the corner of his lips. “Yeah, go ahead.”
“Yeah,” I said, not sure how or why he knew that. “Him and the nuggets, even though they’re not even here yet. I’m crazy about the three of them. I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m always thinking about them, planning things for them. It’s like I gave away three quarters of my brain and got three extra helpings of heart. Is that—”
“Nah,” Jason said. “I know exactly what you mean. Love can make you do and say funny things, make promises you can’t keep.”
“Oh, no, I intend to keep my promise to him.”
“It’s not your promise that got broken,” Jason said as he stopped to wipe his hands on his pants.
“What do you mean?”
Jason shook his head, and then pointed ahead. Dawn had broken, lighting the sky with pink and gold fingers. Fort Greene was practically close enough to sprint to. I could see the dark green of its trees, hear the low buzz of traffic. I could even see people walking along the streets.
We started walking again, Jason still by my side.
“You’re nearly home, Acosta, and home is where Charlie is. After this tour is done, maybe you should stay there and raise the kids. Maybe buy a bigger house so you have the option to work on a few more in the next couple of years.”
I laughed at the idea of already planning more kids with Charlie when we still hadn’t even met the twins yet. I did agree we needed a bigger house, though. And the whole enlisting thing had been Marcos’s idea in the first place. I kind of liked the idea of not reenlisting and just staying home, same as Jason had been planning to do with Char—
Oh. Oh. Oh, god.
“Oh my god,” I said, this time out loud. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at Jason in horror. “Oh my god…”
“What?” Jason asked, curiously.
“I’m so fucking sorry! I don’t know what came over me, dude. My memory lately, it’s been all over the goddamn place. I’ve been talking about Charlie like he’s mine, but I completely forgot. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know how in the fuck… How could I have forgotten that Charlie is your—”
“Stop.”
I brought both my hands up to my face, completely disgusted with myself. I couldn’t believe I had just been crazily fantasizing about marrying Jason’s fiancé right in front of him after he’d saved…
“Stop,” Jason repeated. “You know where you are.”
I nodded. Of course I did. I was in Malmur, trying to get home, where Charlie was waiting for me to wake up—
Wake up? Did that mean… Oh, fuck. I was asleep, so that meant Jason…
“Man, and I thought Carpenter was supposed to be the slow one,” Jason said with a chuckle.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, still terrified, but for different reasons now.
“Really? ’Cause…I’m not,” Jason said, shaking his head and waving me off casually as if I’d just offered him a granola bar he didn’t want.
“How? How are okay with this? You were supposed to be the one looking after Charlie. Not me. I feel like an imposter.”
Jason stood in front of me, looking like he was patiently waiting for me to figure it all out. “There’s only one reason why I’m okay with you giving Charlie babies, why I’m okay with helping you get home. It’s the best reason in the world. It’s a reason you ought to be really familiar with. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Why I was here? Why was I here? It was because I had been here before, which had given me a focal, temporo…pario…whatever lesion, and then they put me under, all the way under, which I didn’t want to do, but I let them do it anyway, all because…
“We love Charlie,” I said.
“Yep,” Jason said with a nod, relieved like it was about time I realized what the fuck was happening. “I loved Charlie, and I promised to love him my whole life, which I intended to be a little longer but…”
“But you died because of me.”
“Because of you?” This time when he laughed, the sound came from deep within his chest. “Jesus, Acosta, that’s arrogant as all hell, don’t you think?”
“You did, though! You…you…you fucking died trying to—”
“No. I didn’t die because of you. I died trying to protect the entire squad, not just you. Roman, Garret, you, Marcos. All of you. Nobody’s turned up here, either, so…”
“Yeah, you did it,” I said quickly, trying to reassure him that his sacrifice hadn’t been useless. “We all made it. I was the most touch-and-go there for a few years, but we all made it back in some way or another.”
“Right,” he said, as if he’d known the answer the whole time, anyway. “For you. Not because of you. I died for you, for all of you. You all would have done it for me, if you could.” Jason shrugged.
“But what about—” I didn’t want to say his name now, not if it would hurt Jason to remind him of what he’d left behind.
“Charlie? I loved Charlie. And I loved you. I did what I did because I wanted you guys to have the chance to go home and be happy. Everything I ever tried to do for Charlie was to build him a home where he could be happy. How could you ever think I would be angry that you were giving him exactly that?”
I thought about it, about making Charlie happy, about giving him the home he’d dreamed of, the life he was now working toward. I wanted to help give that life to Charlie. Yeah, Jason was right. Why did I ever think anything differently?
Jason nodded as if he knew I’d agree with him, and then he broke into a soft smile again.
“Anyway, ultimately, it’s up to Charlie, right? He picked you and wants you to go home. The only thing I’d be mad about is if you managed to disappoint him.”
For a moment, Jason’s easy, vaguely teasing demeanor sort of slipped, like he’d thought of something sad. But, just as quickly, it was gone.
“Alrigh
t,” Jason said, preparing to give me my marching orders. “I can’t go any further. But home is right over there. Keep walking. It might not be easy, taking those final steps, but you have a job to do, ranger. So, don’t stop until you get there. Not for anything, do you hear me?”
“Yeah. I hear you, and I won’t let you down. I’ll look after Charlie, I promise.”
“Never doubted you would. Now go.”
I started walking, the sand dragging at my feet again, but I could see my goal now, I could see exactly where I was headed, and nothing was going to stop me.
I turned back once, to see if Jason was watching me, if he was waiting to see if I got home safely.
But he was gone.
29
Charlie
My back ached a little after sitting in this chair for two weeks. Two, long, scary, frustrating weeks.
I’d been lucky, I know I had. Between Mitch, Oliver, Marcos, and Alverita, someone had been up here every day checking on Pedro, checking on me and the babies, and bringing us food from home. Once or twice someone else from our lives would drop by. Silas and Garret had come the day after the surgery as had Bennet and Logan. It had surprised Bennet, but Logan had wrapped me up in a big hug. It didn’t surprise me. Logan and Teddy were such a big part of my life for so long. They’d almost become my family, and that didn’t just go away.
“You alright, kiddo?” he’d asked gruffly.
“Yeah, Sarge. I actually am.”
Logan let go of me and nodded exactly once. “Good. That’s all I ever wanted for you,” he told me, and then wouldn’t say a word more, while Bennet and I cooed over their baby.
Even Roman and Teddy had video chatted with me. It had been good, knowing everyone was supporting Pedro… And me. Pedro and me.
It could have been a whole lot worse, but as I glanced up from my tablet to Pedro’s still agonizingly still body, I told myself it could also be a whole lot better.
