***
"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what the storm's all about."
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
***
There is a reason all the great strategists preach surprise as one of the most valuable assets a force has.
And training has always been the best way to successfully handle an enemy with the advantage of surprise.
Surprise is the only reason Julia gets two shots off before either Bradley or Peter can do anything.
Training is the reason Peter manages to throw himself in front of Bradley in time to save his life.
Round one hits Peter in the chest, direct to the heart, and he's dead before he hits the floor.
The second round goes between the ribs, and with no bone to stop it, it goes through Peter and into Bradley, clipping his spleen and the blazing pain and the hit he takes to the head going down are enough to put him out cold, so he doesn't see Natasha arrive, just seconds too late.
Julia doesn't get a third shot off.
Natasha reaches her as Bradley falls, and by the time Callie, Natasha is so far gone she's broken most of the bones in Julia's face, and it feels like she's mostly hitting pulp.
She keeps hitting.
Hits through Callie's yelling.
Hits through Callie's frantic checking for a pulse and calling 9-1-1.
Through the neighbors running over to help.
Through the ambulance showing up and Callie doesn't let the paramedics anywhere near Natasha and Julia.
No one pulls her off the other woman until the police arrive, and it's only Cyclone's sudden arrival and the neighbor's testimony that they saw Julia fire that keeps Natasha from getting cuffed.
Cyclone rides in the ambulance with Bradley. Harvard and Yale arrive and drive Callie and Natasha to the hospital, and Yale doesn't even complain about Natasha getting blood all over his car.
She doesn't regret a single blow.
She does regret trusting Julia.
She regrets not paying attention because there must have been signs.
She regrets not trusting Jake and not being more supportive. And she regrets not stopping Bradley from getting involved with Jake in the first place because he would never have been in Julia's sight.
Julia used to spend hours getting ready to go out and wouldn't leave the apartment in anything less than a full face of makeup and well done fair.
No matter what you do, she'd always told Nat, the first look is the one no one forgets.
Julia had never forgotten that first glimpse she'd gotten of Jake walking off the tarmac in flight school, top of his class and the guy to beat and someone her family would approve of.
Once Julia's healed, Nat's going to find her and do it again and again and again until even the best plastic surgeons in the world won't be able to stop her from looking like a rotted pumpkin for the rest of her life.
***
Bradley's in the hospital for over a month. Unconscious for most of it and high out of his mind the rest of it.
According to the doctors, damage to the spleen can run the gambit from barely noticeable to ensuring death, and unfortunately, Bradley's leans more to the latter than the former. Aside from the massive hemorrhage that sends him into shock, the doctors desperately want to save his spleen to prevent later immune system issues.
Ice can't say for sure if Bradley would ever be allowed to fly again if they have to take it out, so they spend a few weeks rotating through the hospital and three surgeries until the doctors are confident they've managed to save it.
It still takes another week before Bradley's awake and coherent enough to recognize them.
Pete and Tom are with him when he does wake up early, early that September morning.
Cyclone and the others off keeping the squadron running.
Natasha had a panic attack at the thought of facing him. So bad that Bob nearly called for the doctor and got her grounded.
Jake is…
Jake is not there.
***
The last time Natasha ever speaks to Julia. To a woman she once thought of as a sister. Is in the hospital the day after Bradley finally wakes up and stays awake.
After spending half a day crippled from a panic attack, all she has left is fury.
She storms into her room, Harvard's father hot on her heels because he flew in as soon as Brigham told him what happened, and he won't let any of them talk to anyone without him present for now.
Julia's had two reconstructive surgeries on her face so far, and her family is quick to threaten Natasha with every lawsuit they can think of.
It makes Harvard's father laugh, and Natasha suddenly understands why his nickname at work is Satan. He doesn't just look like someone who could play the devil in a movie; he is the devil, and he spins words about security, money, friends and influence, and the fall of empires and reputations.
I promise you that you'll never be able to show your faces anywhere but a gas station ever again.
Confidence never lasts in the face of the devil, and Julia's family looks well and truly cowed by the time he's finished.
Julia's just hurt that Nat brought a lawyer with her.
Now that Natasha knows how deep the delusion goes, she's pretty sure Julia was expecting her testimony on her behalf.
Natasha is here to make it very clear that that's never going to happen.
She will testify. She's going to tell them every little thing from the moment Julia started texting Bradley to her oddly insistent questions about Jake. About the requests to stay the fuck away and all that stuff Javy shared while Jake was sedated, and he was ruled by fury that none of them knew about, and the insane amount of texts and voicemails and the spiral that morning she left.
"But you're my friend?"
"I'm not. If I was your friend, why would you shoot Bradley? You know he's like my brother."
"But he's not! And you're my friend! We're supposed to stick together. Don't you remember our promise!"
"That didn't include you shooting people! And what the hell were you going to do to Jake?"
"He cheated on me!"
"He never dated you!" Natasha screams at her, "You made it all up!"
"That's a lie! We did date!" And she sends such a fearful look at her family that Natasha almost feels bad for her.
Almost.
Harvard's father pulls her away after that. Doesn't want to risk any sympathy for her old friend or any breakdowns that mean she'll have a chance at an insanity plea. Delusions about non-existent relationships notwithstanding.
He really is the devil.
***
It takes her another few days to work up the courage to go see Bradley.
Despite everyone's insistence that she's not responsible, that there was no way she could have known what Julia would do, Nat can't let it go. Not even with Cyclone's threats to ground her and send her to mental health.
Which he ends up doing anyway.
Bradley has been her best friend for so long. The brother she never had and the last person she ever expected to lose.
Even with their jobs, she'd somehow deluded herself into believing that Bradley was always safe. Because he flew safe. Because he didn't drink and drive. Because he didn't do stupid things just to look cool like most people their age.
The startling revelation that all those things don't equal Bradley living to old age destroys whatever equilibrium Nat had.
It's not fair.
Bradley might be a morose drunk and pissy before his first cup of coffee and fully capable of holding grudges until the end of time over the tiniest fucking things, but he wasn't a bad person. Even with the worst things he'd ever done, he'd never deserved this.
So Natasha can't understand why or how it happened.
It doesn't make sense, and Natasha likes things that make sense.
That are controllable.
That was one of the things that brought Bradley and her together, to begin with.
And Bradley is far worse than Natasha when it comes to dealing with people who take away his choices.
Case in point: Maverick.
How many years had Bradley gone on alone and angry and hurt?
And how long had Maverick and Iceman let him?
No one in that family knows shit about how to communicate, she thinks. All of them are so scared of hurting one another that they stay silent and hurt each other in entirely different ways.
It's just one endless, stupid cycle that no one seems to know how to stop.
How is she supposed to face him now?
She let him get shot.
She let Jake's brother die.
What other choices has she made that she thought were right but are actually wrong?
Bradley's hurt, and Jake's alone, and Natasha doesn't know which one she feels worse about, but it's all her fault, and she breaks down in the hospital hallway before she can even reach his room again.
***
The last one.
Last man standing.
Alone.
Jake is alone.
There's no one left.
He's the last one.
Peter is dead, and he might have two children, but it doesn't matter right now because all his siblings are gone.
There is no one left alive who knows what it's like to be Mary and Davey Seresin's child.
His parents are dead and buried, along with everyone else who's ever shared Jake's blood.
The family cemetery is growing faster than the family filling it.
The panic attack comes fast and furious when he hears, and he wakes up two days later in a hospital room, groggy from the sedatives.
Ted is there, and Javy, of course, and Cyclone comes by to give him an update, as much of an explanation as anyone can manage.
She snapped, they say. Completely unexpected, red flags were missed, possible history of family issues, but they're rich, so it got written off and tucked away.
None of it explains why Jake no longer has a brother.
Why his children have lost their last uncle.
Why the love of his life is fighting to survive in another room in the same hospital.
None of it explains why Natasha's never going to be able to look him in the eye again.
He leaves without speaking to any of them.
***
Grief was an odd place.
An endless house filled with empty rooms and memories and muffled voices you can never quite catch up with.
It sits on a street filled with details you can never quite make out in their entirety.
In a town, you remember like a tourist instead of a resident.
It was like you saw the whole world through a fog that dulled your feelings as much as it dulled your senses.
Eventually, the images became fainter and fainter, and then your imagination moved in to fill the gaps, and you could never be sure if you were remembering the real thing or some odd amalgamation of what you thought you should be remembering.
Or what you wanted to.
That was when the guilt truly came. When you couldn't tell if the person you remembered was the one you'd actually lost or the person you wanted. People started to seem blameless, faultless in their absence. Guiltless.
The bad memories were already slipping away. All those times, Peter had been a moody teenager too busy for his too-energetic little brother. When Jake had stuck his nose in things he shouldn't and pissed him off, the few times they'd fought over something on the ranch. That Peter's tendency to keep everything to himself had driven Jake absolutely up the fucking wall because it had felt like his brother hadn't trusted him.
Now, all Jake can remember is the brother who snuck him candy before dinner and spent hours helping him with his math homework. The one who'd always been patient and happy to listen to Jake rant and rave on the days when the anger won.
Remembers the expression on Peter's face the first time he'd held Lily Grace and Dustin.
There was a fellow soldier at Peter's funeral who looked far more wrecked than the rest of them. Who Peter'd left a letter in his will. Jake's never met him, doesn't even know what he's supposed to say at this point because Peter never fucking told him.
Hopefully, he moves on and manages to have a life after this.
Jake goes on the last ride by himself.
Takes Trigger, Sky Lark, Rose, Cloud, Gunner, Rum Runner, Baby Seal, and Storm out to the far pasture at the foot of the hills and lets them loose.
Another generation gone because Jake's the only one left, and he's only got so long.
There's only so many years left.
The sun's barely breaking over the horizon as he watches Trigger and Sky Lark run for the horizon. The others scatter briefly before coming back together to follow.
His entire family making a break for the sunrise and the rolling hills of North Texas and leaving Jake alone, shielding his face against the dust.
They're leaving him behind.
Have left him behind because there's no way they're ever going to be able to come back for him.
They won't even look back or feel any regret. They can't even think about him occasionally now because no Seresin has ever been religious enough to think there's a life after death.
It's nothing but endless silence and restful darkness, and there's a horrible part of Jake that thinks that doesn't sound too bad right now.
The hurt would stop, at least.
The guilt.
Because if regret doesn't exist past death, then neither can they.
But he thinks of Lily Grace and Dustin, Javy and Ted and Amara and all those others on the ranch who have been watching him with eagle eyes the last few days, almost like they're waiting to see if he's just going to fade away.
Thinks about Bradley and how they've barely made it out of the honeymoon stage. Haven't even gotten to the point where the other's breathing drive's them nuts at night (which Javy assures him happens to every couple once they've been together for a while. Apparently, Celia tried to smother him once??).
Jake's never been this weak before. This tempted. Takes after Mary far too much for that.
But if there was ever a time in his life that he felt tempted, it was now.
He even dismounted and stripped the tack off Bluebell and let her loose.
She'd never liked letting him out of her sight when they were out in the fields together. Even now, despite her obvious longing to join the others, she hesitated and glanced back at Jake.
Even Trigger and Sky Lark nudging her along couldn't do much.
Stubborn beast, though eventually, they tempted her into a run, and he watched them race along the draw, getting smaller and smaller.
You never longed for anything more than something you'd lost.
Grief lends strength to temptation, it seems. Further justification for something you could know was a bad thing but wanted anyway because it seemed like it would offer some small, temporary respite from the pain.
Grief made greater fools of people than even love or hate because nothing, nothing was more powerful than regret.
And between those two, all the plans Jake had for the last years of his life are in question if they're not outright gone, and he just hasn't accepted it yet.
And it's just… he only has a few years left.
He's been blessed overall. He has beautiful children who will follow in his footsteps for good and ill. He has wonderful people who stuck by him despite everything. He's been hated and admired in equal measure and loved above all else.
Bradley.
It's selfish to want more than he's got.
But standing out here, under the endless Texas sky, with nothing but the herd running free as dawn breaks…
Jake wants.
Bluebell comes back as Jake is walking back to the house. Angry that he left, she butts him so hard that he ends up on his ass in the dirt.
***
Bradley knows Jake's gone when he wakes up and he's not right there.
The anger and the hurt last about 30 seconds, as long as it takes Ice to tell him what happened, and then the guilt comes on so strong it brings the nurses running.
Nat can't face Jake either, and she was just friends with Julia.
Peter died protecting Bradley.
How the fuck is Jake supposed to look at him now and ever see anything but his dead brother?
His last brother.
Christ, Jake must be distraught.
No, Jake is probably angry. Angry that he has no control and hurt and alone.
And what if he never speaks to Bradley again?
What if he never comes back?
Those thoughts are in and out of his head fast as lightning because Jake loves flying and he loves the Navy and he loves Bradley.
But that means it's up to Bradley to prevent Jake from getting hurt, and Bradley has always been terribly overprotective of the people he loves.
Confined to a hospital bed, Bradley can't do anything but think, which isn't a good thing for anyone, let alone someone who already has a tendency to overthink.
Between the heart-wrenching fear that he'll never fly again and the shattering guilt that someone died for him, his self-esteem plunges in the dark hours.
All he knows how to do is fly, the Navy is the only environment he's ever worked in. Everyone he knows and talks to on a regular basis is affiliated with the Navy in some way.
If he loses all that, what's the point of his entire life? What has he spent the last thirty-plus years working for?
What did he leave Mav and Ice behind for?
What's the point of Peter saving his life when it's over, regardless?
He spends a few terrible hours in the darkness, thoughts spiraling lower and lower until dawn breaks and the new light feels like an elixir more powerful than penicillin.
This must be why that old high school teacher told him never to make important decisions at night. Everything seems a hundred times worse in the dark because in the daylight, Bradley can see so much clearer.
Can see hope. The world's beautiful in the daylight, and Bradley's always loved hiking and camping, he could fly for the parks service.
Even if he can't fly, he could be a ranger.
He could teach music, piano. Play for money.
He could settle down and have kids and actually be around to see them grow up.
He could live anywhere, not limited to a Navy base.
The weight on his chest eases as the sun moves higher, the years rolling out along with it. Years of long days and longer nights and laughter and arguments and the constant race to surpass one another. A challenge that would last a lifetime.
A limited lifetime, but Bradley finds the idea of that isn't as scary in the daylight.
Anything seems better than nothing.
He can be furious that Peter saved him and didn't bother asking his opinion, but it's harder in the daylight to blame him for anything. Peter did what he thought was best, and Bradley's done that enough without asking the other person that he knows he's a hypocrite to be angry about it now.
Bradley might not agree with Peter's decision and might resent the weight he's left him to carry, but he can be grateful at the same time. Humans are complicated creatures, that same high school teacher has said. They rarely make sense.
It makes it easier for Bradley, who knows he has control issues, to live in the grey area he's found himself in.
But that still brings him back to Jake. Jake doesn't have any more brothers now because one of them thought Bradley was worth saving.
Worth dying for.
Would Jake agree?
Probably not. Jake loved his brothers, and even Bradley's not cruel or deluded enough to expect Jake to love him more than one of them. He and Jake haven't even been together all that long in the grand scheme of things.
And that whole dying by forty thing….is not an excuse Jake would ever accept.
Jake might still love Bradley, would have mourned him if he'd died, but he'd also be happy his brother was still alive.
The question he finally settles on then is this: Does Jake love Bradley enough to move past the loss of his brother? Or is his grief enough to snuff out anything he feels for Bradley?
Is the combination of grief and love, joy and heartbreak, too toxic for Jake or Bradley to move on from?
It is, he finds, not a decision Bradley himself can make.
Selfish of him, perhaps, but Bradley realizes he loves Jake enough to be that selfish and put the decision on the other man.
***
It takes another week before they'll let him out of the hospital, and Bradley doesn't make it to Texas until the end of September. Cyclone had extended Jake's leave through November, and Bradley's still a month away from a medical review anyway. Though it looks promising, so all those dark thoughts were for nothing.
Javy's there because, of course, he is, but he just hugs him tightly and sends him out to the far range where Jake is repairing fences.
Despite embracing their relationship, Javy clearly isn't over everything because he doesn't warn Bradley about the dark mood Jake's been carrying the last week or that the far range is a dusty wasteland that immediately ruins Bradley's nice clothes.
All Bradley can do is cough and try fruitlessly to wave away the cloud of dust as Jake snarls at him, infuriated equally by Bradley showing up without warning as he is by Bradley traveling before he's fully healed.
So complicated. It sends a fissure of gleeful pleasure through Bradley, makes him smile as Jake shoves him into his pickup and closes the door so he can finally breathe again.
"What the fuck are you smiling at, Bradshaw?"
"You."
"No shit. What the hell were you thinking coming here?"
"I wanted to see you."
"Shoulda called."
"You wouldn't have answered."
The scowl Jake gives him is as much of an answer as anything, and it just makes Bradley smile wider. All the emotional upheavals in the world and it's still not enough to change some things. Jake's a contrary bastard and always will be, and it's oddly comforting, even though Bradley's going to be the one who has to deal with him the most.
At least, if Jake lets him.
"How are you?"
"I'm not the one who got shot."
"We both know you took the harder hit, Jake. I'm sorry I missed the funeral."
"It's fine. Wasn't sure you'd even want to come."
"There were a few nights."
"And what? You got over it?"
"No. Just…accepted that I have priorities."
"Since when have you ever just accepted something?"
"I didn't say it was easy."
"It hasn't been that long."
"Yeah, but I haven't had much else to do the last month. They practically strapped me to the bed."
"And you took that lying down?"
"Couldn't do much else."
Jake cracks a grin at that before scrubbing a hand through his hair and turning to look out the window. He's something else covered in dust and touched by the sun, and Bradley's never even considered living out in the country before now, but if this is what Jake looks like most of the time…well, he could get behind that.
"You going back to the Navy?"
"Yeah. Not quite ready to give it up. You gonna be able to fly?"
"Looks like."
"Good. Hate to win by default."
"You haven't won shit. It's not over yet."
"I'm not giving you a handicap just because you're old."
"Old!? Listen up, punk. I'm not going anywhere."
"Showing your age there, gramps."
"With age comes wisdom."
"Get out."
"You're gonna make an injured man walk all the way back to the house?"
"You walked out here."
"I think I pulled something."
"You fucking liar."
"Kiss it and make it better."
"Oh my god. I can't believe you just said that."
"Says the grown man saying oh my god."
"Bradshaw-"
"I want to marry you."
"Jesus Christ."
"Not immediately, but eventually."
"Bradley-"
"I figure I can be angry about Peter's choice and thankful at the same time. That's enough for me to get through it."
"Sounds easy."
"It's really not. But it's worth it. I'm not ending this, us. So if you want me gone, you have to do it."
"Lazy."
"Desperate."
"I miss him."
"Me too."
"I hate him for what he did. But I love him for it, too. I love you."
"Enough to keep trying?"
"Yeah, Bradshaw, enough to keep trying."
***
Javy's Best Man Speech (given at the adults-only reception the night before because Celia saw it beforehand and realized it would not go over well with all the kids at the actual ceremony) goes like this:
"You fucking fuckers..."
~tbc~