"A lost love is like a broken mirror. It is better to leave it broken than hurt yourself trying to fix it." - unknown

She wasn't the kind of woman who needed explanations, or excuses for that matter. She had always understood what it meant to be military: the orders that had to be given, the danger that had to be met and faced. Yet here he was resorting to both – explanations and excuses – as the fire burned low and the last beer in the six pack disappeared. A thin crescent moon hung in a misty sky and the lake was a shimmering, inky black.

"You've been military long enough to know that there wasn't another team I could have sent in there," he declared, staring deliberately into the fire. "If I had sent another team you would have had a fit about it anyway."

He dared a glance at her. She said nothing. Fair hair shone almost white in the firelight. Her blue eyes were lost in shadow, nothing but black pockets in a shadow-clad face that lacked definition and expression. Her beauty was still evident. It tore at him.

"You would have said I was being overprotective, that I didn't trust you," he forged ahead anyway, "and I did trust you. I do trust you. I –"

He broke off and sullenly finished the last swallow of beer. He gulped it down and savored the feeling of it in his throat as it blurred his senses. Remaining quiet he began picking off the sweating label around the neck of the bottle. The torn pieces joined the ones already littering the ground beside his lawn chair.

"I tried to find you. Long after everyone said to give up. I got into serious trouble as high up the chain of command as it goes trying to find you. Dammit, Sam! I got seriously hurt trying to find you."

She still didn't answer but her eyes were steady, looking straight at him from the hidden darkness. Jack muttered a curse and rubbed at his wounded left thigh. It was nearly healed but the damp of autumn was reminding him it had happened. Every twinge reminded him he had left Colorado Springs AMA. He'd only been half-healed but he'd left anyway.

He wanted her to speak, to accuse him, or even to forgive him. He just wanted her to say something. But she didn't. She just sat as if the chilling air didn't bother her.

"It's not my fault," he muttered, "Do you think I wanted to lose you like that? Do you think I wanted to lose you at all?"

He looked up at her again and said, "Dammit, Sam –"

And then he broke off because she wasn't there.

Behind him an owl gave a long mournful cry. Just like Jack, he was alone.

Jack let all the breath in his body out in one short rush and followed it with a long string of heartfelt curses. They were as violent as he could make them, a vain attempt to banish the black despair he had felt since Sam had died – a pain he had hoped never to feel again in this lifetime.

He tossed the empty bottle into the fire and stood, ignoring the protest from his wound. Then he poured sand onto it and kicked it apart until he was satisfied it was out. He wouldn't mind going out in a blaze of glory, but he wouldn't take the woods and the cabin with him.

That was no way to repay them for the blessed solitude they had given him.

Aching in heart and soul, he made his way back to the cabin and crawled, fully clothed, into a cold and lonely bed.

(0)

He had no idea what time it was when he dragged himself out of bed the next day. He didn't bother to look. Time had no meaning for him anymore. Very little had any meaning, come to that.

He ran the shower hot and stayed under it until he ran all the water out of the small tank. It didn't help.

He got dressed and wandered outside to sit on the dock and stare at the lake for a while.

Didn't help.

He had believed that he was royally screwed years ago, when he suddenly realized that he couldn't live without someone he couldn't have; at least, he couldn't have right away. They could wait. The war couldn't last forever, and it hadn't. Now he had to live without her forever.

Everything on PKX-9080 had gone to hell fast, and then Sam had disappeared in a series of ground explosions….

And now she was gone.

He stumbled into the kitchen and put on some coffee, then poured a bowl of corn flakes and splashed some milk on them. When he turned around, she was sitting at the table, gazing up at him with those intense blue eyes. He stared back for a moment, shrugged, and sat down across from her.

After a few mouthfuls of cereal he said, "I suppose it won't hurt, now to finally 'Talk About It.' I had conflicted feelings about having you on my team in the beginning. And yeah – you won't like this – it had a whole lot to do with you being a woman. Remember that mess with the Mongols? I don't care how you want to paint it, women always seem to be more at risk; and I wanted to protect you, even then. I know you don't need me to, but I wanted to."

He got up, poured coffee, came back to the table and she was still there, regarding him thoughtfully. He sat down, took a breath and ran straight into eight years of history. It choked him. Bottleneck. Dead stop.

"I could, uh, I could use a little help here. I can't have been the only one who was feeling anything then. Was I?"

Silence met his question but he thought he saw something soften in her eyes.

"You know I couldn't feel that, right? If I...loved you, then I couldn't be your CO anymore. It was crazy to put you in harm's way to begin with, crazy to put any of you there. You're all way too valuable to the program to be in a field unit. I had to protect you. I had to keep a clear head. If I knew what you were like in bed…if I ever let my guard down and loved you the way I wanted…I'd never have let you go back out there again. I would have ordered you into a lab and it would've killed you."

He waited, held enchanted by her eyes on him, the quiet look she was giving him. He took a breath to steady himself and concentrated on his cereal and coffee.

When he looked up again she was gone.

(0)

He didn't see her again for a few days. Then one afternoon she was just there, sitting on the bank of the lake beside him. He had been skipping stones but he stopped to look at her closely for a while.

"Welcome back," he said softly.

She seemed to smile.

He pulled his knees up and leaned on them, gazing out at the lake.

"I was hot for you the first time I saw you. Tall, hot blonde in a uniform was pretty much guaranteed to spark my interest. But I've been suppressing shit like that for thirty years, especially about my fellow officers. Had lots of experience. Falling in love with you was a whole different set of problems. At arm's length maybe, I could handle it. I've been a commanding officer for a long time. It was easy to put it in a place where it was manageable. I didn't know you felt the same way. Not at first. I'm dense like that. You, um, do feel the same way. Right?"

He risked a look at her. She was still there, still smiling at him in a slightly enigmatic way. He waited but she didn't speak. He threw a stone across the lake and watched it for a moment.

Seven skips. Not bad.

"So, look," he went on. "The bottom line was that I still had to be capable of taking care of you, of the whole team. I wouldn't deploy you any differently and I wouldn't grant you special favors. You'd chew my ass if I tried anyway. But I already loved you too much. Maybe that means we should have just gone for it. I'm too old to worry about crap like jealousy and fighting. We could have gone for it and still maintained the spirit of the frat regs." He flung a rock across the lake without attempting to skip it, just to watch it plunge. "But I was the only one I trusted with all of you. I couldn't afford to let myself get any more fucked up."

He looked at her again. "If I had asked, would you have said yes? I know. Romance," he said. "I bet you'd want romance. I can do that, you know. I'm an officer and a gentleman."

He turned to look at her again and she was gone.

"So glad we're finally having these little talks," he muttered sadly.

TBC