He led her out into the backyard where the shed was and unlocked it. "Okay, ladder, nails, hammers. And shingles."
Like everyone in the neighborhood, he had a supply on hand of shingles to replace any that needed it at any time.
He handed her the nails, hammers and shingles and he grabbed the ladder.
"Promise to still love me if I swear myself blue in the face?" He teased. After all, it was inevitable that he'd hit his hand
or thumb, which led to the inevitable swearing and cursing.
She laughed quietly at him as he got the ladder in place, stepping sideways to kiss him around the shingles.
"Teach me some new words and I'll even resist using the hose on you while I'm fending off rabid neighbors." She
promised. Then she handed up the shingles and joined him on the roof.
It was a beautiful morning and there was a nice light breeze to go with the blue sky and the sun that wasn't high
enough to do more than be a pleasant warmth. She surveyed his neighborhood from her new vantage point, simply
enjoying a moment of calm and peace. Then she shifted, reaching for one of the hammers.
"That's the evil dog's lair of malcontent and base of terrorist operations?" She asked with a crooked grin and a
sideways look at Hector as she gestured to the fenced in yard that backed his.
"Yes, that's his realm of all things evil and unclean." He said, mock severely as he divvied up the nails and started
covering the bare spots on the roof. "I swear one of these days I'm going to report that mongrel to the Department of
Homeland Security, you know, do my citizen's duty and all good things like that." He chuckled and turned his cap
around so the brim was behind his head as he worked, his hair getting long enough to start to curl around the edges
of the cap. "Then I'm going to report Paige's cookies for weapons of mass destruction. These people fail to realize
that I've got connections!"
She chuckled over that, settling in to the steady, easy work. It felt good to be doing manual labor again. Despite
being a doctor there was a fair share you did at the Red Cross camp and before that she was used to helping her da
keep everything running for both their place and all the neighbors. So it felt nice to be using familiar muscles and
doing familiar work that didn't result in a wrong decision causing life altering damage to anyone.
But it was also nice to be working next to Hector. Just - simply to be doing something solid and steady with him
nearby. It was silly how - warm it made her chest feel in fact. Just - right. Natural. As if things were finally the way they
were supposed to be.
"I'm glad it was me." She stated softly after they'd worked in comfortable silence for a while. Watching what she was
doing instead of Hector. "That was taken." She knew the roof wasn't the place to be inducing flashbacks but - she
didn't feel shaky or threatened the way she had before the last two. Instead she felt - at peace up here. "If they had
to take someone, I was the best choice. Thinking about that happening to Suz... or Molly... I'm glad they didn't have
to go through that. They're not - built the way I am. And I think it would have been very bad if it had been someone
else. But that's not all. When I got back, when I had time to think, I realized that - I was just as glad that I wasn't on
the other side, so worried and - and torn apart." She paused between shingles and looked at him along her shoulder.
Confessed softly. "I'm such a selfish person I'm glad I wasn't having to go through what you did."
He put his hammer down and watched her silently as she spoke her surprising confession. He realized in that
moment that there was a lot about that time the both of them had to sort through. He was just putting off his half
until.....he didn't even know 'until what'.
"Well, your reasons are valid, but I'm NOT glad it was you." He said. "And I'm sorry I couldn't get there quicker, and
that you had to see me at work..." Which was something he had never intended her to see. Just exactly what he was
capable of and just exactly what he had been trained for.
She set her own hammer down and picked her way across the roof until she could settle down in front of him. Careful
of where she sat and she slipped one long leg on either side of him. Took off the cap so she could rest her forehead
against his as she took his face gently in her hands.
"I know." She answered him softly. Answering the real issue first. "I know you are. I knew you would be the moment I
realized it was you in the dark and shadows of that hut. I know it’s not a part of you that you wanted me to ever see."
She touched the tip of his nose with hers. "But - after everything I had already seen in that camp," she inhaled and
concentrated on Hector and Hector alone. "You were my avenging angel, my love. My terror that I felt no terror of. In
that world, in that place - I can't tell you how impossibly safe and relieved that made me feel. Perhaps that makes me
evil or says something disturbing about what I am deep inside. But I needed exactly what you were that night."
"Well, I was going to get you out anyway I could." He said, a bit uncomfortable with being compared to an avenging
angel. That seemed a little too clean for what he did, whether that night or for a living. His father liked to tell him, on
every occasion he got, that he brought chaos and left destruction wherever he went. Two different people viewing
him through two different extremes.
So he'd take the middle ground.
"I knew that too. I was waiting for you to come. Knowing you would made it easier to pretend I was brave." It was -
cute in the worse misuse of the word the way he reacted to her comparison of him. But what did he think the victims
he saved thought of him as? She was probably doing them injustice by not being as effusive as she should.
"I'm no angel." He said again. "I think when I have my own personal judgement day, I probably won't be judged too
favorably." Some would say his hands were covered in blood. And he always just washed them and continued on.
"But, today's a good day, I'm happy and you're safe. So I'll take that as some sort of blessing and continue on."
She slipped one of her hands against his. So it rested palm to palm and she could spread her fingers against his.
Possibly the only man she'd ever met with longer fingers than her own.
"Don't argue theology with me."She warned with a smile. "Judgement isn't about what we do. No one's that good. It’s
simply our faith that He is Who He says He is that makes the difference there. When my da looks at me, he sees the
hurts and the mistakes but he's so proud of what I've become despite them. I've always felt God was that way too.
You help people. At the end of the day, that's the point behind what you do. It’s why you do what you do. And, if it’s
you coming, it’s because no one else can help them. Do you think He doesn't know that?" No one got to belittle what
he did. Not even him. Not before. And especially not now that she'd felt what it was to be on the other end of that line,
hopeless and lost with no hope of rescue before the night filled with shadows of the best kind that would save her
and then disappear without waiting for a word of thanks. She'd been proud of him before. But now she really
understood what he meant to the people he rescued from the darkness. Gentle, she brushed some of the curling
hair back from the side of his hat. "I shouldn't be surprised if you have a cheering section in heaven." She teased.
"Complete with big foam fingers and silly hats. If you're looking for a blessing, you should probably be glad you can't
hear the advice they're most likely yelling at the screen right now."
He had to laugh at that. "Hate to see what happens when they do the wave." He said. "Never know, maybe I can hear
some of the advice they're screaming. Stranger things have happened." He said with a wink and kissed her lightly
due to their precarious balance on the roof, high above the neighborhood. "I'll let the cheering section think that one
was for them, how's that?"
His faith in any higher being wasn't as strong as hers. He'd seen too much and done too much to believe in a
benevolent God that ruled over a heaven filled with roses and puppies. He envied her that.
She laughed quietly. Pleased.
"How did you know that was what they were yelling?" She teased with a grin. How he could think, with his child's heart
and his man's will, that God didn't love him even more than she did she didn't know. But her da had been much
kinder than his. You saw things in the light that you'd grown up knowing them. But as much as she'd coated what
she'd said - she'd meant it. God had a special place in his heart for battered warriors. He'd been one Himself. He
would know.
"I will either beat you there one day far from now, or you can meet me at the gates even farther down the road in
time." She kissed him again, softer and sweeter. "One little lifetime with you isn't enough." Then she flipped her cap
back on and gave him a jaunty smile before moving back over to the patching she had been doing originally.
"Didn't I tell you?" He said as she moved away back to her side of the roof. "I hear voices. At least that's what I'm
thinking of telling the shrink I'm sure they're going to send me to." He said with a chuckle as he went back to
pounding on the shingles. It wasn't as bad as he had thought, and besides, he had help this time around. So even
with the quickly heating sun beating down on them, they were finishing quicker than he had originally thought they
would.
Of course when he had done his original calculations, he had thought he'd be hammering away by himself. "Hey, as
long as heaven comes with a lawn service and a roofer, count me in." He said with a chuckle. "Otherwise I'm fine right
where I am."
Her soft laugh flowed across the roof as she gathered up the unused shingles.
"What happened to the whole 'conquering the wildness'?" She teased as she carefully dropped the shingles over the
side to land near the foot of the ladder. Then she tipped her head and looked at him from under the brim of the cap
that was riding low over her eyes. "Who sends you to a psychologist? The army? When you're on vacation?"
"Oh it’s normal." He assured her. "We all go through it once a year to make sure we're not walking cases of PTSD
with really really cool weapons." He said with a grin. Of course, his had been moved up a few months because of
what had happened in Africa, but no need to clue her in on that. It was going to happen anyway, the psych eval.
"And roofing does not constitute conquering the wilderness." He said as he tossed his shingles and then his hammer
down onto the waiting ground below.
"No." She agreed. "I thought you said that was what sweating all the liquid out of your system instead of buying goats
was all about." She teased. Giving the roof a pleased look. It really hadn't been that bad to start with. Certainly
nothing leak worthy. But - she felt as if she'd done something. She gave Hector a grin and started down the ladder.
"Still, if you're going to tell them you hear voices - which I don't believe qualifies you for PTSD so they should let you
keep your really cool toys - then I think you should make it more reality based. For instance, those voices need a
body. I nominate Mr. Snuffles since you're convinced he hates you and is stalking you anyway. Any stress test should
rate you right off the charts with him." She waited at the foot of the ladder for him to descend before gathering up the
bits of their work that was left over. "You can even smuggle him into the waiting room and let him stare down the
secretary while you're having your evaluation."
"He does hate me and if he's here in this country then he's definitely stalking me." He said as he climbed down the
ladder, swinging off before the last few rungs and gathering some shingles himself. "Think I'll leave the elephant out
of it. Never know what twisted thing the shrink might come up with the explain that little neurotic twitch." He laughed.
"Nah, I'll just do what I always do and talk circles around them until their heads spin and they sign me off for another
year." Last time he flew into Washington DC for the day and flew right back out. This time he was going to a local
base.
"Well, as long as you have a plan so you can fool them into thinking you're sane..." Andi chuckled as she walked next
to him to return everything to the shed. She had nothing for or against psychologists but she knew, thanks to
Hector's long, drug induced ramble that he didn't view them very highly at all.
She glanced down at her watch and then realized she hadn't put it on. Which was actually a nice comment on her
time here. Still, they'd both gotten up rather early - job hazard she supposed - and it didn't look like it was near noon
yet. They'd made good time on the roofing. While Hector put everything away she took her time and looked at the
inside of the shed. The outside of his house from this angle. The wooden fence hung with some kind of vine. Trying
to do more than memorize everything. Trying to - 'inhale' it so that she could keep it, and the way it made her feel,
forever. She had to tip her head to see him under the brim of the cap when he came back out and she gave him a
grin.
"If you point me at something green that you want dead, I can take care of that while you mow." She suggested.
"Unless you think you're going to be famished afterward in which case I can make us some lunch that will hold until
you get done first." She was perfectly content either way. Not minding letting him call the shots anymore than she
minded what he called. She was feeling useful and awake. As if she was starting to shake off the strange - 'stuffing'
that had been around her until now.
"Well, I don't have anything I especially need killed, especially since you won't volunteer for the terrorist poodle." He
said with a laugh. "And if I make lunch, I guarantee we're having peanut butter sandwiches and twinkies." Which was
fine for him, but knew that she, as Andi, and as a doctor, would be utterly appalled by that.
"Should take me an hour or so for the lawn." He said. "And if for some reason I'm cursed as well as blessed today
and Paige comes over with her cookies, politely take them, and the minute her back is turned, throw 'em out. Trust
me, they're bad." He wouldn't even eat them, that said a lot.