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Chapter four may take a little longer...but here is chapter three!
-o-o-
He wants to take her to the Blue Ridge mountains, but it's a bit too much of a drive, so he settles for upstate New York. Letchworth State Park, to be precise, where his parents had taken him and his sisters a couple times as kids.
He'd asked, of course, if there'd been anything she'd wanted to do. Had suggested visiting some of her friends, or spending a few days down the Jersey Shore, or maybe just doing some sightseeing in New York. He'd asked if maybe she wanted to reconsider spending some time with her mom.
He'd even offered to back off, to let her have the days to herself if that's what she'd wanted.
She'd offered no reply, no opinion - had barely even acknowledged the question - and that's when he'd really started to worry. He'd never known Jaz to have no opinion.
He worries that if he leaves her she'll spend five days alone in her hotel room, not sleeping or eating or speaking to anyone, so he packs her into the passenger seat of the car he's rented and heads west, out of the city.
The leaves start to change color as the urban sprawl falls away, as the interstate becomes a country road, and Dalton lets himself enjoy the brilliant reds and golds. It's been a long time since he's spent autumn in the northeast, and he's missed it.
He glances over at Jaz, silent and still beside him. She's also staring out the window, but he's not sure she's seeing anything.
Adam is familiar with grief, with the way it wraps its claws around your heart and steals the breath from your lungs. He's familiar with how it can sneak up on you when you aren't expecting it, with how it crashes over you in waves. He knows Jaz is too.
But he thinks maybe she wasn't expecting it this time. That she wasn't anticipating the loss of her father causing her any pain. He thinks the surprise, the unexpectedness of her grief, might be making it hurt even more.
"You ever been up here?" he asks into the silence of the car, as he pulls off the highway and onto the quiet road that will take them into the park.
"No," she says, her voice still that numb, lifeless monotone.
"It was one of my favorite places as a kid," Dalton says. He grins at the sight of the Mockingbird Diner. "Man, I can't believe that place is still here. That diner's gotta be like a hundred years old."
He lets his eyes linger on the rundown building, on the beat-up Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs in the parking lot. It looks exactly the same as he remembers it, like traveling back in time.
"That's how my sisters and I would know we were almost there," he remembers fondly. He can still picture them, four little kids crammed into the back of a rundown Ford station wagon, fighting over snacks and comic books.
He turns back to the road, catches Jaz watching him out of the corner of his eye. The look on her face is sad and hopeful and full of something he's never seen before. Something he can't describe.
It takes his breath away.
"What?" he manages.
She shakes her head. Gives him a tiny, crooked smile. "Nothing," she whispers, but she doesn't take her eyes off of him.
He takes a quick glance up the road, makes sure he's not about to hit anything. It's the most she's connected with him all week, and he doesn't want to lose it.
"This place has the best waterfalls in the world," he says, and she raises an eyebrow. "I'm serious! I've seen a lot of the so-called great waterfalls of the world, and I stand by that statement."
Jaz breathes out something that might be a laugh. He takes it as encouragement.
"And the stars here - I guarantee you've never seen anything like it," he says. "Sometimes you can even see the Milky Way."
"Yeah?" she says softly.
"Oh yeah. We might be a little late in the year for that, but either way - trust me, the stars are spectacular."
"I do," she says.
"You do?"
"Trust you."
-o-o-
He goes to sleep on the couch of their little suite, and wakes up in the middle of the night to find the bed empty.
"Jaz?" he whispers into the darkness, but there's no reply.
He's on his feet in a heartbeat. She's not in the bathroom, and the room is small enough that-
The curtain flutters in the breeze, and he realizes - the balcony.
He trips over his boots in his hurry to get out there, then freezes at the sight of her. She's curled up in a lounge chair, wrapped in his sweatshirt, staring up at the stars.
He feels a rush of something he can't identify, and the only thought he can seem to grasp is she's so goddamn beautiful.
"You were right," Jaz says hoarsely, without turning around. He shouldn't still be surprised that she has eyes in the back of her head, but he always is.
"About what?" he manages.
"The stars," she says, her voice watery. She's been crying. "They're amazing."
He hesitantly sits down in the chair beside her. "You want me to tell you about them?" he asks. He isn't sure how to read her, isn't sure what she needs.
She shakes her head, and he sighs, disappointed. "You want me to leave you alone?" he offers reluctantly.
She shakes her head again.
He breathes out. Sinks lower into the chair.
She keeps watching the stars. He watches her.
-o-o-
"Do you still talk to your dad?" she asks, out of the blue.
They're sitting on a rock in the sun, watching the Middle Falls crash over the gorge and into the Genesee River. She hadn't said a word on the hike up here, and he'd been content to walk alongside her in silence. It's something they've done a thousand times, and it feels comfortable and normal, even if nothing else does.
"My dad?" he says dumbly.
He's stalling for time, and he knows it - although he doesn't know why.
"Yeah."
He shrugs. Keeps his eyes on the rushing water. "Sometimes."
The answer seems to surprise her. "Yeah?" she says.
"You know, holidays and birthdays," he says. "I see him when I visit my sisters."
"Huh," Jaz says.
"He's sober now," Dalton says. "Feels like a different person, I guess."
"Have they forgiven him?" Jaz asks. "Your sisters."
Adam thinks about that. "No," he says. "I guess we've all decided we could live with him without forgiving him."
He turns to look at her. "When was the last time you talked to your dad?"
She doesn't say anything for a long time, her eyes fixated on the waterfall. He thinks maybe he pushed too hard, but she surprises him. "When I got back from Afghanistan."
Adam takes this in. "Six years ago."
"Yeah," she says. "I'd just done my CST rotation in Kandahar, and I had four weeks before Delta selection. And I just thought…" She shakes her head. "I don't know. It's stupid."
"Wanting to see your parents isn't stupid," he says gently.
"No, but…" She huffs in exasperation. "I wanted him - I wanted something, and I should have known…"
She'd wanted her father to be proud of her, he realizes.
"I thought - you know there were like no women in Delta then," she says. "It was just me and Ashley Black in that class, and I thought - I mean, he'd wanted a boy."
Dalton doesn't know what to say. How to help her, how to make her feel even the tiniest bit better.
"He didn't care," she says. "He didn't - and I realized there was nothing I could do. It wasn't gonna matter."
"And you haven't talked to him since?" he asks.
Jaz shakes her head. "My mother's called, once or twice. I never answer though, and she never calls back, so…"
Preach is wrong, he thinks. She's not going to get any closure from this - there's never going to be any closure.
All she wants is for her dad to tell her that he's proud of her. And that's never going to happen.
-o-o-
He wakes up in the middle of the night again - jet lag is a bitch - and again finds her bed empty.
He sighs. He's pretty sure she's gotten about five total hours of sleep in the last week. He's not sure how she's still functioning.
He goes to check the balcony again - but before he can get there, he realizes she's crying. She's desperately trying to muffle the sound, but it's unmistakable, and God it hurts to hear.
There's only a sliding glass door between them, but it might as well be an ocean.
He tugs on a t-shirt and slips out the front door.
-o-o-
"How's she doing?" Preach asks, in lieu of a greeting.
"We shouldn't have done this," Adam says, in lieu of an answer.
"Top," Preach sighs.
"It didn't give her closure," Adam says. He's angry at himself, not Preach - but he can't help taking it out on his teammate. "It just dug up old stuff."
"Adam, that stuff was dug up already," Preach says patiently. "You couldn't protect her from it."
There's something about the way he says it that punches Adam in the gut. "Protect her?" he says defensively. "I'm not trying to - Jaz doesn't need anyone to protect her. I'm just trying to - I'm the CO! All I want is to…"
He can't seem to finish the sentence.
What is he trying to do?
He'd dropped everything and flown halfway around the world to be by her side at her father's deathbed. They're now essentially on vacation together - just the two of them, sharing a room in a bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere.
He'd done all of it without thinking, without questioning. And now he wonders - would he have done the same thing for McG? For Preach? For Amir?
Come to think of it, would he have rampaged across enemy territory, breaking all the rules in the book, for any of them?
On the other end of the line, Preach is silent.
"I'm just trying to help her," he finishes lamely. "Everything she's been through this year, I'm just…"
"The two of you are a lot alike, you know," Preach says finally.
He does know. They both had abusive fathers, they're both stubborn as hell, they both-
"Neither of you can face how you feel," Preach finishes.
"It's not that simple," Adam sputters.
"Course it is," Preach says. "You just don't want it to be."
-o-o-
In the morning, Dalton takes Jaz up a steep climb to Inspiration Point. He hadn't been able to fall back asleep after his conversation with Preach, so he knows that Jaz was up all night too - but it seems like the exertion might be just what they both need.
"This was my dad's favorite spot," he says, when they finally reach the top. It overlooks another fantastic waterfall, and a luminous spread of wild fall colors that seems to stretch all the way to Canada. "He used to take me up here every time we came. Just me. My sisters would stay down by the creek with my mom, and the two of us would do that climb."
He smiles at the memory, remembers being a little boy struggling to keep up with his father's long strides. Remembers sitting in this exact spot, the sun on his face, his dad's arm around his shoulders, feeling proud and happy and safe.
It's not a feeling he remembers having often. But it's all he can think of when he looks at Inspiration Falls below them.
"That sounds nice," Jaz says wistfully.
She takes a shuddery breath, and he realizes she's trying not to cry.
"Hey," he says gently, wrapping his arm around her. "It's okay to be sad."
She shakes her head, but she can't seem to stop the tears. "I wanted him dead for so long," she confesses. "He never loved me - so I don't understand why...it doesn't make sense that…"
"I think he loved you," Dalton whispers, running his hand up and down her arm. "I think he just didn't know how."
"There are just so many things that I wanted that now…" she chokes.
"I know," he murmurs, pressing his lips to her temple.
She lets go then, crying into his chest.
He holds onto her.
-o-o-
He finds her out on the balcony again, staring out at the setting sun. The glow lights up her face, and it takes Adam's breath away.
It's wrong, he knows. She's grieving, and in pain, and he's supposed to be here supporting her, selflessly.
And it's wrong because they can't. Because he's her CO, and because she deserves so much better than a hidden tryst, than a relationship with consequences that could end her career.
She deserves so much better than him.
"Stop staring," she mutters after a few minutes, and he laughs.
"You ready to go?" he asks, stepping up to the railing beside her. He's made a dinner reservation at a fancy little place in a nearby town, and he's excited and nervous to be taking her out to a restaurant.
Like they're a couple, on a date.
"Thanks for bringing me here," she says, her eyes still fixed on the glowing sun.
"Of course," he says, confused.
She turns to look at him, and he can't read her. "You didn't have to," she says. "You didn't have to do any of it."
"I wanted to," he whispers. His heart is pounding.
She smiles at him sadly, and Adam feels the sudden, overpowering urge to kiss her.
It's scary how badly he wants it. His hands are shaking and his mouth is dry, and he's moving forward without conscious thought or permission.
Jaz's eyes are wide and dark, and he can't seem to look away from them. His fingers slide into her hair, his other hand drifting up her back.
"Top," she says, but he doesn't listen.
His lips meet hers, and then he's kissing her, and it's like something inside of him settles for the first time in his life. He knows he should be terrified right now, knows this is a Very Bad Idea - but all he feels is peace.
Until she pulls away from him, and now he clearly recognizes the look in her eyes.
Terror.
"Jaz," he tries, but she shakes her head. Takes a step back, bumps hard into the railing. "I'm sorry, I…"
"No," she says. She looks around, a cornered wild animal. "No, I - I'm sorry, I...you don't…"
She pushes past him, running back into the hotel room.
He hears the front door slam before he can process what's happened.
-o-o-