"It was a senseless accident." Andi agreed softly. Brushed her fingers lightly down his cheek. "But that doesn't change
your mother's heart." Andi lived based off an entire religion that was built on the power of a sacrifice given for love. It
was a single act that had made all the difference for an entire world. It had brought redemption. And a second
chance. "Maybe it’s time to pay attention to what your other parent thought, instead of the one you have been paying
attention to all along." She told him softly. Brushed her cheek against his, chest aching. "Because things might have
been different. Or they might not have been all that much so." His father was a drinker before the accident. Who
could say? Only God and He was usually merciful enough not to tell. Voice softer she added: "And I would miss you if
they were. More than I would miss my own life."
"My grandmother said stuff like that." He said with a chuckle. "'Ev'ry single moment leads to the next, chile. You skip
one, you'll never get where you're supposed to. And the moments might hurt, but they're for a reason, but it ain't for
us to figure out, you see. That's for Him, and He's the one person I don't argue with.'" He said in a pitch perfect
imitation of his grandmother. "But it's human nature to question everything I guess."
"She sounds like an intelligent woman." Andi offered with a fleeting smile. His gift of imitation was so good she could
almost hear the older woman in his voice. Shifting so she could slide her legs over one of his and rest her head
against his shoulder. Still scared deep down in her bones for him. It wasn't his job that terrified her. That was just
worry and worry she could deal with. It was that he might decide one day that it just wasn't worth coming back from.
She slid one arm around his back as she tucked into him. "So why did you listen to your father instead of her?" She
asked softly.
"His voice is louder." Hector said with a laugh. And there was just something about that idea. If his father thought he
was a piece of shit, his own father, there must be something to it, right? "But I'll leave that to another day. Only so
much introspection I can be expected to do in one night, right? Keep it up soon I'll be crying and bawling over AT&T
commercials."
"Mm." Andi made the noise as she turned her face into his shoulder, arms tightening around him in a hug. "Then your
sisters would beat me up for making you cry." She commented mildly. She hadn't lied. She wasn't going to try to 'fix'
Hector. That implied not only that he was broken to start with but that she wasn't satisfied with him as he was and
thought he needed improvement. She didn't think that. She loved him just as he was. But the wounds inside his soul
were still open and raw and they weren't healing right. Mostly because no one was letting them heal. Because, if they
healed, and scarred, he'd still be Hector. Who he was now. He just wouldn't be so hurt inside. And she thought he'd
more than earned the right to heal. She slipped a hand up to curve against the side of his throat and lifted her face to
press a kiss to the other side. Hoping... praying... that something tonight had made a difference, planted a seed,
lodged its foot in the door. Something to let him, in the weeks and months to come, start seeing things through
something other than his father's twisted eyes.
"I love you." She murmured against his skin. "So no AT&T commercials tonight. Whatever those are."
"Good, cause we don't have a TV anyway." He said with a chuckle. He didn't see himself any different from the rest of
the family, they were all bleeding souls, with no band-aids in sight. Even Andi could only get so far. It wasn't
conscious, it was a life time of protecting himself that he was fighting against with her. And it was all trial and error.
"Just the ocean, which beats most of the crap on TV anyway. I only watch sports, maybe an occasion movie really."
He admitted. "So you're not missing much."
"Mm." There was a bit of silent laughter in the noise this time. She didn't need everything at once. Understood that
things couldn't all be healed all at once. That sometimes healing even the basic things took a very long time. She was
a doctor, which, apart from the old joke, meant that she did have patience.
He talked to her. He opened his mind and his heart and his soul. She didn't try to wedge herself further in. It was
enough to come where he welcomed her and, waiting, know that he would welcome her further in if she waited. As
gentle as he had been so that she could get used to his body, she could be gentle and patient with his soul.
"I haven't watched sports with you yet." She added. Settling in against him and relaxing. So far to go. But it was all
right. He'd be all right. *They'd* be all right. She slipped a light kiss to the underside of his jaw, lips smiling. Willing to
rest now. "But I do like watching movies with you. Very much."
"Even when we don't exactly finish the whole movie?" He asked with a grin. They'd never gotten around to finishing
the Tolkien trilogy. Neither seemed to mind overly so, though. "Thanks." He said. "For everything."
She might not even know it, but what he had opened up about tonight, was something his fellow Delta, not to mention
his family, had been trying to get him to do for years. Cassie didn't even know all the details of their mother's death.
Sometimes he thought even his father, who had been there, didn't know all the details.
"Especially when we don't finish the movie." She was enthusiastically sure about that as she tipped her head against
his shoulder to look up at him with a brilliant grin of her own. Then her face softened and the smile warmed and went
intimate. Gentle she rubbed the back of her hand against his cheek. "We promised." She told him simply. Though
they hadn't exchanged solemn vows or spoke it. But they'd promised each other that they were staying. And that
meant working at it.
"You hold me when I have my horrid shakeaparts." She answered softly in response to his 'thank you'. "And I'm
British. Being embarrassed is worse than a slow and agonizing death for me." She said it flippantly. But that didn't
mean it wasn't true. The only thing that kept her from trying to hide afterward was that he wanted all of her and never
pretended otherwise. And hiding from him would have been cheating. Cheating both of them out of what they had
between them. She wasn't going to lose that openness. Not even for mortification. How could she when it was so
precious and rare? And when he so simply and honestly answered her quiet 'tell mes'? It was a bit like running around
nude, really. All the time. She couldn't have born being that way for anyone else. But with him she couldn't bear not
to. Metaphorically that is. Realistically, one did have to get dressed from time to time. Especially when leaving the
house... One of her hands, long fingers absent, played with the buttons on his misbuttoned shirt.
With a smile, she asked:
"Have I told you how much I love you in the past few minutes?"
He looked at how he had buttoned his shirt and laughed. Realizing, just now, just how much of a daze he had been in
when he had woken up. Never mind that he had one finger that wasn't quite at a hundred percent.
"Keep this up I'm going to start a new trend among fishermen of the gulf coast." He said. "Ratty jeans, dress shirt,
misbuttoned of course, and no shoes. I think it'll catch on pretty fast. After all, fish don't care what you wear, right?
And your 'shakeaparts' aren't horrid or horrible."
Oh. He melted her inside. She shifted around in his arms to face him more completely, eyes soft.
"Yes they are." She answered softly. Meeting his eyes and giving him a gentle smile. Reaching up to brush fingers
through his tousled hair, tenderly settling it back into place. Or closer to it at least. "But you keep them from being as
scary as they should be." Her hands slipped down from his shoulders to curve in the fabric of his shirt and she leaned
in to kiss him. Voice low as she quietly added: "And I would be so lost if you...without you."
He realized belatedly how that sounded. "I didn't mean they're not horrible to go through, just that I don't think it's
horrid when you let me help you with them. Does that makes any sense, not exactly at my sharpest right now, I don't
think." He felt like he was doing a lot of back tracking, because he hadn't meant to belittle her own demons, hadn't
been a thought, it just came out wrong. "I'm not going anywhere. Besides, you're the first person brought to these
gatherings that didn't run away screaming." Now she had to understand why Danny, Cassie's husband, made himself
scarce.
"I understood." She told him, lips curving softly. They really hadn't talked about her - episodes before. "And there
aren't many people that would feel that way in the face of - me losing my mind." She gave him a flickering smile. "My
heart is building quite a lot on the fact that you stay." Quite a lot indeed. Far too much to ever survive intact if he ever
left. She rested her forehead against his and looked down. Long fingers starting to slowly work the misbuttoned
buttons loose. "And I'm not going anywhere either. So your family is just going to have to get used to me being
wherever you are. Wherever you go, I go."
He thought the shirt was a hopeless cause, himself. And it was just evidence on just how out of it he was when he
woke up. If his father had dreams anything like his, no wonder the man was drinking his liver into a pickled state.
"You've always gone with me." He said. "Even when you were still in Africa. I'm starting to nearly expect that too." He
shook his head and took off his shirt, it wasn't worth rebuttoning properly, and it was warm besides. "But I'm more than
willing to cut down on family gatherings for a while."
For events, like birthdays, graduations, things like that, he'd just show up after the party was done, after his father
had left.
He'd been serious about not wanting to see that man before either of their funerals.
Oh. His family very much wasn't going to be happy with that. Andi hardly had to be a mind reader to realize that. And,
because it was easier than taking responsibility for driving him off themselves, they were going to blame her.
Which was actually alright by her. Better they blame her than try to take it out on him. Doctors got to play scapegoat
sometimes because it was easier for the people they were giving the bad news to. This wasn't really that different. As
long as they saved their angry comments and jabs for her and continued to swoon over Hector she thought that was
more than right.
Such a tiny price to pay compared to hearing him say she was always with him...
"We'll take a break." She agreed. Not about to argue with him over that. "When we're ready we can always invite
whoever we want over instead of going there." She settled back down in his arms, head on his shoulder, long hair
draping across his bare skin. Her lips curved as she relaxed against him. "If the fishermen of the Gulf coast do start
imitating your style of dress right now, there will be quite a few grateful women. Or at least there would be if they
looked like you."
He laughed at that. "I don't know, some of the shrimpers I saw when I was little were huge. Biceps the size of my head,
I swear. Maybe I best be keeping you away from them, they got bigger muscles than me." He pressed a kiss to the top
of her head.
"Sorry I freaked you out. It's been a while since I've had a nightmare. Thought I was over them."
She shook her head softly against him, snuggled in close and safe. Of the two of them, she didn't think she'd been
the one 'freaked out'. But she also hadn't been the one dreaming whatever nightmares it took to scare Hector in his
soul.
"It’s all right." She told him, gently tracing over his collarbone with her fingers. "You have sleeping nightmares and I
have waking ones. With what we've seen in our lives its surprising that's the worse we've managed to develop so far."
True, Hector had seen, and done, far worse than she had. But slaughtered bodies were slaughtered bodies whether
it was a refugee camp or a village left in the wake of drug lords. As he'd said, the theme was the same. How evil the
world could be given the opportunity. "I'm glad you didn't push me away." She added, voice softer.
"I'm glad you didn't try to wake me up. A few years back," he said, his voice serious. He needed to pound this point
home. "Clancy woke me up when he thought I was having a rough dream. I broke his nose before I even opened my
eyes. You develop, what do they call it? A startle reflex. Keeps you alive most times, but sometimes, it's not pretty."
Her lips shifted. It was safe to smile about now. But she was glad she hadn't tried to wake him up earlier. She touched
the tip of her nose with a finger.
"Then I'm glad too." She answered. "I like my nose the way it is. And - you wouldn't have been wondering if you were
awake or not if I'd been reacting to a broken nose." She turned her face to press a kiss against his chest. "Keep your
'startle reflexes' and I will keep my nose out of 'startling' range. Next time I'll just toss a glass of cold water at you from
a distance. Yeah?" Sure she *sounded* like she was kidding... Which meant she'd have to start keeping water by the
bed because she was hardly going to let him wake up from something like that to find her missing.
"I like your nose the way it is, too." He said and laughed about the water comment. "Because we couldn't drown the
baby, you're going to drown your sleeping boyfriend. I get it. Gotta one up the Catholics."
He was just too highly trained, and spent too much time in situations where if someone touched you when you were
fast asleep, that was a bad thing. He'd gotten used to Andi being there as he slept, longed for it when she wasn't
there, so that wasn't a problem. It was when he was already in 'battle mode' during the nightmares that it could be.
Andi smiled a bit jauntily.
"Well, if a bit of water is good for driving out demons, just imagine what a whole glass of water would do." She
suggested cheerfully. It was all right to tease. They were far enough distant from the event, wrapped in each other's
arms. Despite the threat, she'd have to think if she couldn't find a gentler method of waking him up. Maybe along the
lines of flipping on a light. But if he tried that trick with the matches again, she'd hit him with water whether he was
awake or not. "Though I suppose," she added, "I should just throw the water and not the glass too."
"Wow...." He said. "Now we're up to full blown threats of bodily harm. Don't waste the glass, will probably bounce off
my hard head and break." He chuckled, drifting off to a sigh as he watched the night mists roll along the shore and
out to sea, and back again. 'Grandma's house is too far inland I think sometimes."
She laughed softly at that. Having found it far too easy to imagine first the water and then the glass spiraling in as a
afterthought to bounce off his head with a 'doink' noise. Not that she made it a habit to throw things. And then she
remembered how she'd taken to throwing small objects across empty tents whenever he'd been gone for long
missions and not allowed to write to her and decided it might be something she should be careful of after all. Then
she turned her head to look out at the water.
It was peaceful. Dark and wishful and sighing. Restful. She slipped both her legs over one of his again and rested her
hand over his heart. Feeling the warmth of his skin, the steady beat in his chest. Today had been - mad. But it was all
right to let it go here, somewhere between the water and the world.
"I've never stayed by the water before. Not ocean water." Her voice was quiet. Not drowsy but something soft and
comfortable just before drowsy. She tucked her face up under his chin, against his throat and shut her eyes. Simply
enjoying the sounds and the smells. And the feel of Hector surrounding and permeating everything. "Can we come
back from time to time, do you suppose?"
"I tell ya, the US has it all. Oceans, deserts, blizzards, rains..." He said with a chuckle. "Probably anything you wanted
to see I could bring you to see. Hawaii is an island, tropical paradise really. We could go there next." He offered. She
might have had her fill of being that close to his roots, god knows he was almost there.
"I think I'm falling in love with water." Andi offered contentedly. "I like it here. And your house is nice and green and
alive. That's nice too. I would like to see more of the States. There's so much to it. I like exploring with you. Especially
if we can snuggle down in a place like this afterward." She paused. They hadn't talked about where she was going to
go after this. When Hector went back to his unit. She suspected he might be avoiding it. Not his leaving. But where
she'd be without him nearby. Andi already knew where she was going to go. She just suspected that he knew too. And
didn't want to.
"I think Mum and Da would like to see you again too. I know Da, he's already got projects in mind he thinks you can
help with."
He was silent for a moment. "We can go there if you want. After this weekend," since he had promised Josh, "we can
get plane tickets and just...go. Can't be as spontaneous when trans-Atlantic flights are concerned, but that's pretty
close, right?"
Her hands curled slightly against his chest. But she shook her head and raised her face to look up at him, opening
eyes that were calm and peaceful.
"No." She told him softly. "It’s all right. Not this time. This time is for here." She touched the side of his chin lightly with
a finger. "This time is for us. For here. And that's the way it should be." She brushed a soft kiss against the side of his
jaw and settled back down. "Mum and Da understand waiting. Da's a very patient devious plotter. The extra time will
only give him more to brew in his head for you. For this time I just want to be here. I want us to be here."
Where you go, I go, meant a great many things. In a great many different ways. She wanted - needed him to
understand that she was content in this place with him. Because she didn't know when she would be coming back this
way again.