20. Chapter 20
Chapter 20
T he morning sun bounced off the Pacific, bright and relentless as the boat cut through the water, salt spray hitting Isaac in the face.
He barely felt it.
His mind was already locked in, already anticipating the dive ahead, already cataloging every possible issue that could go wrong before they even hit the water.
Colson Shaw, LPO, stood at the helm of the boat, barking something at one of the new guys, his usual mix of gruff authority and amusement.
“Better not fucking puke, Harper,” Shaw called over the wind. “Last guy who puked on my boat ended up doing fin drills till he cried.”
Harper—one of the new divers—looked green as hell but nodded stiffly, gripping the edge of the boat like his life depended on it.
Isaac smirked.
Same shit, different day.
He adjusted the straps on his dive rig, checking and rechecking the gear. Even the smallest fuckup could cost someone their life.
Zach was beside him, quiet, eyes locked on the horizon.
Isaac nudged him. “You good?”
Zach exhaled slow, measured. “Yeah.”
Isaac watched him a second longer.
Zach had a bad dive last year. Nearly drowned. Hadn’t been the same since.
And while no one said it out loud, everyone knew—Zach was fighting for his place here. To be fair, they all were. Every day.
Isaac wasn’t about to let another solid operator get benched because his head wasn’t screwed on tight enough.
“Remember your breathing,” Isaac muttered, voice low, calm. “Keep your movements slow, deliberate. No rushing.”
Zach nodded, shoulders tense, but focused.
The boat slowed, Shaw glancing at his watch.
“Alright, guys,” he called. “We’re doing this clean and easy. We have limited bottom time. No bullshit today.”
“That’s new,” Heath muttered from the other side of the boat.
Shaw shot him a look. “Shut the fuck up.”
Isaac smirked, adjusting his mask, but his focus stayed on the new guys.
Harper and Morales looked tight, nervous, and Zach’s hands were clenched just a little too hard on his gear.
Isaac knew the feeling. The gnawing anxiety, the waiting for something to go wrong. And he also knew the only way through it was forward.
“Alright, let’s go,” Shaw said.
Isaac moved first, stepping to the edge, adjusting his mouthpiece, and dropping in.
The second he hit, everything shifted.
The world went quiet.
Nothing but the sound of his own breathing, the slow, rhythmic pull of air through his regulator, the dark blue of the ocean stretching infinitely in every direction.
One by one, the others followed. The team descended, weightless, slow, shadows drifting lower into the dark.
Isaac kept a careful eye on Zach.
Zach’s breathing was a little fast, a little shallow, but he was holding steady.
Isaac tapped his shoulder, giving him a quick, firm signal—You good?
Zach hesitated. Then nodded.
Isaac narrowed his eyes but let it be.
They continued down, bodies moving in perfect synchronicity, trained for this, built for this.
They hit the bottom—silent ghosts in the deep.
The drill was simple. Navigation, buddy breathing, equipment failure contingencies. Standard shit.
Until Zach froze.
Isaac saw it immediately.
The way Zach’s movements went rigid, the way his breathing spiked, the way his eyes flicked too fast from one point to another, panic setting in.
Isaac swam in fast, placing a firm hand on Zach’s shoulder, squeezing once.
Stay with me.
Zach’s eyes locked onto his.
Isaac nodded once, slow. Steady.
Zach’s breathing evened. His body relaxed. He gave a short nod.
Isaac released him.
The drill continued.
By the time they surfaced, breaking through the water, the sun was high and bright, the boat waiting for them.
Zach hauled himself onto the boat, ripping off his mask and exhaling hard, his breathing still a little uneven from exertion.
Isaac surfaced a second later, scanning him closely, assessing—not just physically but mentally.
Shaw stood at the helm, watching them board, his arms crossed. Expression unreadable.
“No major issues,” he said. “Not bad.”
Zach took a water bottle from Heath, his hands barely shaking now, but Isaac still noticed.
He clapped him once on the back—firm, steady, reassuring.
“You handled it.”
Zach exhaled, nodding once. “Appreciate it.”
He took another long pull from his water, his body finally coming down from the dive.
Isaac rolled his shoulders back, stretching the tension from his arms as he checked his watch.
Almost noon.
They’d been out for hours. Time moved differently out here. You got in the water before the sun, and when you came up, half the day was already gone. He was in the middle of the ocean. He had no idea when he’d be home.
His phone was locked up on base in a secure compartment, useless at sea, and for the millionth time, he thought about how this shit was impossible for most relationships to handle. The sudden departures, the silence, the weeks of no contact.
They had to trust.
Blindly.
Unconditionally.
And most people just weren’t built for this level of uncertainty.
He thought about Rosie.
The promise she made this morning.
The look in her eyes.
The way she made him feel like he wasn’t some heartless, selfish, commitment-phobic piece of shit.
He had no fucking clue what to do with that.
* * * * *
The boat cut through the water, pushing toward the docks with steady precision. The ride back to base took about an hour, standard time for their offshore drills, but Isaac didn’t register the passing minutes the same way civilians did.
Time wasn’t measured in hours out here. It was measured in rotations, training cycles, team readiness—whatever it took to keep them sharp.
By the time they tied off at the pier, he was already running through his mental checklist.
Post-dive debrief. Equipment breakdown. Cleaning and stowing gear. Medical check-ins if needed.
Zach was holding up fine, but Isaac made a note to track his recovery.
They secured the boat and unloaded gear in practiced efficiency, moving with the kind of wordless coordination that came from years of working together.
Shaw, ever the hard-nosed LPO, was already looking ahead.
“Debrief in twenty,” he said, not wasting a second as they hit the dock. “Get your kits cleaned up. I want full reports on today’s run before 1400.”
“Copy that,” Isaac responded, already unhooking his rebreather.
Zach was beside him, rolling his shoulders. No real signs of fatigue. Good.
As soon as they hit the lockers, everyone moved on instinct—breaking down their rigs, rinsing equipment, running post-dive checks without needing to speak.
This was business as usual.
It was quiet work, but Isaac didn’t mind. He liked the methodical routine of it—checking valves, securing hoses, flushing out regulators. The kind of small details that meant the difference between life and death when they were deployed.
Across the locker room, Dom was already done with his gear, drying off with a towel.
Isaac met his gaze, nodding once.
“How was it?” Dom asked, his voice level, always calm.
Isaac stripped off the last of his rig, tossing it onto the bench. “Zach held up fine. Shaw’s pushing the new guys, but they’re keeping up.”
Dom huffed out a short breath, clearly unsurprised.
Shaw always pushed hard. It was his job to.
Dom wasn’t a diver—he was their sniper—but he rotated into dive cycles like the rest of them. Every skill had to stay sharp.
And like always, there was an unspoken conversation running beneath his words.
Isaac didn’t have to ask to know Dom had kept an eye on him today.
Even six months later, Dom was still waiting for signs of damage.
Still waiting to see if **what happened back then—**when Isaac had been **taken, beaten, interrogated for information on Isabel—**had left cracks in him.
Isaac knew better.
Dom was watching. Waiting.
Because Dom was going to pay that debt back one way or another.
But Isaac didn’t need it.
Didn’t want it.
Because nothing had changed.
He was still here. Still operational. Still locked in.
Just another rotation.
Dom didn’t press. He never did.
Instead, he leaned back against the bench, crossing his arms. “You sticking around base after this?”
Isaac rolled his neck, stretching out the last bit of tension. “Nah. I got something to handle in town.”
Dom smirked, the barest flicker of amusement crossing his otherwise impassive face.
Isaac ignored it.
He didn’t need the scrutiny.
“Shaw said they might run us through a long-range course next week,” Dom said, shifting gears.
Isaac nodded. They were overdue for one.
“Fast rope insertions still on the schedule?”
Dom sighed, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “Still waiting on approvals. Might be next month.”
Isaac just hummed, mind already working through logistics.
One day they were in the water. The next, they were running airborne ops, night navigation, urban combat drills.
There was no rhythm to it. No predictability.
And that was exactly why most relationships didn’t survive this life.
The job demanded everything.
Women wanted time, consistency.
SEALs had neither to give.
Zach walked over, securing his gear. “You guys hear anything about the next overseas rotation?”
Isaac shook his head. “Shaw’s keeping it close to the vest. He’ll tell us when he knows.”
Dom leaned back, expression unreadable. “It’ll be soon.”
Isaac exhaled, already accepting that reality.
Because it was always soon.
You trained. You deployed. You came back. You trained again.
And for the first time in a long time—
He thought about what he was leaving behind.