Chapter 10 #3
She kept her face neutral. Which was difficult.
"Why?"
He looked up at her. "Because you'd finally put yourself back together.
I could see it even from the outside. The way you moved through your life, your people, the work …
You had, or should I say have, something, Raven.
This works for you. And I was the thing that had broken you in the first place.
" He paused. "I didn't have the right to walk back in and break you again. "
She thought about that night—whichever night it had been—and what it had actually been.
Her team was great about checking on her and making sure she was okay.
She didn’t know which of her team talked to her that night.
They seemed to rotate that responsibility.
Big brothers who made sure she was really okay and not just saying it.
"Dan."
He waited.
"I need to tell you something." She looked at him, direct and unflinching. "What you saw from outside that window? That wasn't me put back together. That was me being very good at looking put together. Those are not the same thing."
His jaw tightened slightly.
"I built a real life with Guardian," she continued. "That's true. My team is real. The work is real. I'm not pretending any of that." She paused. "But there has been a …" She searched for the word. "Space. Since you. A void that didn't fill back in, no matter what I put there."
The words cost her. She felt them leave her and felt the vulnerability of it, and yet she didn't want to take them back.
Dan was very still across the table.
"I'm not saying that to …" She stopped. "I'm not handing you anything.
I'm not making a declaration. I'm just—" She looked at him. "I needed you to know that your calculation was wrong. You stood outside a window and decided I was whole and let me drive away. And I need you to know that that was the wrong call. I would’ve traded that day for one more minute with you. For one more touch. For knowing you were alive.”
The silence that followed was the most significant one they'd produced yet. Heavier than when she’d seen him the first time at the Niger compound. Heavier than her doorway the first day they spoke. This one had weight because it was chosen. Because she'd chosen it.
His voice was very quiet when he responded. "I know it was the wrong call."
"Okay."
"Okay?" Dan’s brow creased in confusion.
"I said what I needed to say. Now, we both know." She picked up her chopsticks. "Eat your food."
Emotion moved across his face. She refused to name it even though she knew what it was.
But she felt it. She felt the shift in the chemistry between them.
Her words made a crack in the foundation of the distance she'd been maintaining.
She was trying hard to carefully piece herself back together.
To find her new normal, to find herself again, and herself with him again. It was a puzzle she needed to complete.
The distance wasn’t gone, and it wasn’t resolved. But there was a place to begin.
They finished eating in a silence that was different from the others. Warmer. More careful. Like two people walking on new ice. They’d have to test each footfall before committing.
* * *
At 0130, they geared up. Their transformation was immediate and familiar. This was the part she understood completely. This was solid ground.
She moved through her kit with the efficiency of years of Guardian operations. Dan moved through his years of solo work. Different rhythms. Different muscle memories. But the same fundamental language.
She was checking her own gear when she reached out and adjusted the strap on his left shoulder. The reaction was automatic.
She felt him go still. Completely still. Her hands stopped. She'd done it without thinking. Had reached for him the way she reached for her team. The people she trusted with her life. She looked up.
He was watching her. His expression was doing something complicated and careful, like a man staring at something fragile.
She held his gaze.
She didn't apologize. Hell no, she wasn't going to apologize for that. Because that movement, that concern, was true. Whatever else was complicated and unresolved between them, in this, right now, geared up and ready to move, he was the person she was trusting with her life tonight.
And he needed to know that.
She finished adjusting the strap, her mind flashing back to when she’d done the same thing every time they’d gone to training when they were younger. The habit of ensuring he was ready, and of letting him do the same for her, came from a place of loyalty, trust, and love.
"Good," she said quietly.
He exhaled once in a controlled manner. "Good," he said.
She turned and moved toward the door, and he followed.
Outside, the cedar forest was dense and still around them. The mountain path lay ahead, and the compound was waiting for them on the other side of that mountain.
She didn't look back. But she knew exactly where Dan was. Three steps behind and to the left.
Right where he'd always been.