Chapter 28 #3
Fly stood up and pulled Than to his feet. He wrapped his arms around him, a fierce, bone-crushing hug that smelled of sweat, and sea salt, and home.
“We’ll own it,” Fly murmured into his hair. “Hoo-yah?”
Than closed his eyes, his own arms coming up to grip the back of Fly’s shirt. He held on tight. For the first time, he wasn't just holding on to his brother. He was holding on to the future.
“Hoo-yah,” he whispered back.
Weeks later, after the training slipped into normal routines, the riding calmed them and anchored them, Fly’s training of Copper was something beautiful and humorous to watch, Than stared as the fire burn down.
The team milled around the edge of the light, voices low, laughter muted. Tomorrow he and Fly would head to Coronado. To the grinder. The pool. The surf and sand. The chafing and the sleep deprivation. To Hell Week and a bell that would never be rung.
Than looked over at Fly.
“I overheard the nightmare,” he said quietly. “I listened in on your conversation. I was hungry for answers.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
Fly shook his head. “Don’t be. That nightmare wasn’t just about Mei. It was about us.”
Than nodded once. “I know what she said to you.” His voice stayed steady. “What did she want you to tell me?”
Fly’s expression softened. Firelight caught in his eyes, not sorrow there, but something close to reverence.
“She said she was sorry,” Fly said. “She didn’t mean to leave you. She said you’re allowed to grieve, but not to trap yourself there. She told me to tell you to let her go. To let her live in you, not as loss, but as something that made you brave.”
Than swallowed.
“Fuck me,” he murmured. “Mei.”
The name settled into him differently this time.
Not with the sharp ache that stole his breath, but with a gentler weight he could carry.
He would move forward into the life he chose, not only because he loved her, but because she had loved him, and that mattered.
Happiness and fulfillment were no longer betrayals.
“I don’t know if it was her or just me,” Fly said. “But she knew she was drowning, and she wasn’t afraid.” He looked at Than. “Her last thought was of us. There was nothing else in it. Just love.”
Than leaned forward and clinked his bottle against Fly’s.
“To Mei,” he said. “The girl we won’t forget. The trio that set the bar for every friendship after this. The love and laughter we were lucky enough to share.”
Fly nodded. “To Mei.”
They drank.
The fire cracked and shifted, sparks lifting briefly into the night before fading. Tomorrow would come. The water. The sand. The work.
But tonight, they sat together, steady and unbroken, carrying what they would always carry, and letting the rest finally burn away.
Shawl rode a little behind them.
Bear’s paint moved easily beneath him, broad-backed and steady, the rhythm of his gait familiar and reassuring.
?ha?té Skúya carried himself the way Bear did, solid and unhurried, each step deliberate, as if the land itself had weight worth respecting.
Shawl let the reins sit loose in his hands and watched the two young men ahead of him without intruding on their space.
They rode side by side, close enough that their knees brushed now and then, close enough to speak without raising their voices.
Their banter drifted back to him on the wind.
A dry comment about the heat. A muttered complaint about sore muscles.
A shared laugh that came easy and didn’t carry an edge.
It pleased him more than he would have admitted out loud.
This wasn’t resolution. It was something quieter. A loosening. A return to breath.
Fly rode with his shoulders settled, no longer pitched forward as if bracing for impact.
His attention moved easily between the trail, the horizon, and Than at his side.
He listened as much as he spoke. He adjusted his pace without thinking about it, instinctively matching Than when the ground grew uneven.
Than rode differently now, too. Still grounded.
Still contained. But the tension that had once pulled him tight as wire had eased.
He sat deeper in the saddle, weight distributed, hands steady on the reins.
He glanced at Fly often, not with vigilance or fear, but with an ease that came from knowing where he stood.
They weren’t healed.
Shawl knew better than to confuse honesty with completion. Grief didn’t vanish because it had been spoken. Guilt didn’t evaporate because it had been shared. Those things would walk with them for years, shaping choices, sharpening awareness, demanding respect.
The land opened around them as the trail crested a low rise.
Rolling grass, scattered pines, the sky wide and unencumbered.
The paint flicked an ear back, then forward again, content to follow.
Shawl breathed in the scent of dust and sun-warmed earth and felt the quiet satisfaction of work done well.
Not finished. Just begun.
He thought of Bear and Bailee waiting back at the house, of the worry they had carried quietly, respectfully, trusting him to see what they could not. He would tell them the truth when they asked.
These two were ready.
They had chosen honesty over protection, connection over silence. They had learned how to carry weight without letting it hollow them out.
They would go into BUD/S together, and they would endure it apart, each on his own merits, each with his own reckoning still ahead.
That was as it should be.
Shawl shifted his weight in the saddle and guided the paint a little closer, letting his presence be known without breaking the moment. Fly glanced back, caught his eye, and nodded once. Than followed a second later, his expression open, unguarded.
Shawl returned the nod and said nothing.
Fly had settled Copper, the restless, kinetic sorrel, by matching his fire with a steady, unyielding rhythm, turning the horse's boundless energy into a focused extension of his own.
Hoka, Than's buckskin, had become his touchstone, a solid, grounding presence that moved with an unhurried strength, a living embodiment of the calm Than had fought so hard to find.
The horses moved on, hooves drumming a steady cadence into the earth, three riders bound for different trials, sharing this stretch of ground while it was theirs to share.