Chapter Text
She was at home, on a rare day off. She was sitting on the couch folding laundry while a mind numbing reality TV show played in the background. Sometimes just having something to fill the silence of the apartment helped.
She thought about texting him. It had only been a day, and that would probably come across desperate. And she was anything but that.
This was ridiculous.
She shook out one of her work blouses and folded it with more force than necessary. The apartment smelled like the floral detergent she’d started buying because she could. It wasn’t the clean and neutral she used to go for. She glanced at her phone on the coffee table for a third time in ten minutes, then deliberately looked away.
Her mind kept drifting back to the ice rink. The first time she had gone skating it had been chaotic and wonderful, falling constantly, laughing until her stomach hurt, that tentative first kiss after he’d caught her. But last night, the second time, had been different. She’d met him after practice and they had gone skating again. She’d fallen less. Moved a little more confidently. At one point he’d taken both her hands and skated backward, pulling her along as she fought not to laugh at how ridiculous and perfect it felt.
Near the end, when they were both breathing a little harder and she felt much more exhausted than he seemed, he’d slowed them to a stop near the boards. His hands stayed at her waist. The air between them had gone quiet and charged.
This time when he kissed her, it wasn’t tentative. It was slower. Deeper. Like he’d been thinking about it the whole time they were out there, and he wasn’t testing the waters this time. She’d kissed him back, one hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat under his hoodie, the cold rink air sharp against her flushed cheeks. When they finally pulled apart, neither of them said anything but it felt like something shifted into place.
It had felt so dangerously easy.
And now here she was, the next day, already wanting more.
Just like she’d willed it to happen, her phone buzzed on the coffee table.
She stared at it like it might explode. When she finally picked it up, Rod’s name was on the screen.
Rod: “Hey. You free tonight? I’d like to take you to dinner. Nothing fancy. Just us.”
She felt her face flush and her stomach flip. She read the message twice, then set the phone down like it was suddenly too heavy. Dinner. A real dinner. Not takeout at her counter or stolen hallway conversations or late night skates that ended in kisses against the boards. This felt very intentional. This felt like stepping into something she wasn’t sure she knew how to deal with.
She picked up the phone and looked at their texts. She definitely wasn’t imagining this one. She typed: “Sounds nice. What time?”
She deleted it. She typed: "I'd like that.”
Deleted that again.
“Get it together,” she muttered to her empty apartment.
Finally she sent: “Yeah, I’m free. What time?”
His reply came almost immediately. “I can pick you up at 7?”
She exhaled slowly and replied with: “7 works”
There. Done. No taking it back now.
This wasn’t like the skating. This felt like a real date. Him picking her up. Sitting across from each other somewhere that wasn’t the rink or the arena. She hadn’t done anything like this in a long time.
The next few hours were a quiet disaster.
Luckily she’d just finished laundry. She stood in front of her closet, completely lost on what to wear. Jeans felt too casual. The black slacks were too much like work. She tried on the forest green sweater Birdy had convinced her to buy last month, then immediately took it off because it felt like trying too hard. She was back to square one. God, why was this so hard?
She grabbed her phone and texted Birdy.
“Emergency. He just asked me to dinner tonight. What do I wear?”
Birdy: “!!!!! Finally!! The green sweater. It makes your eyes pop. Dark jeans, and your nice boots. Don’t go any more casual than that. And breathe. He already likes you :)”
“I almost canceled. This feels like too much.”
Birdy: “Do not cancel. You deserve this. Text me after.”
She stared at the messages, then pulled the green sweater back on. It did look good on her. She let her hair down, added a touch more makeup than usual, and tried not to overthink the fact that she was doing all this worrying for a man who had kissed her for a second time on the ice less than twenty four hours ago.
At 6:55 she was pacing her living room when the knock came.
She froze.
Deep breath in. Hold. Out.
She opened the door.
Rod stood there in a dark button down, sleeves rolled to his forearms, looking unfairly steady and handsome. His eyes swept over her and softened.
“You look beautiful,” he said simply.
Heat rose in her cheeks. “Thanks, you clean up nice yourself.”
He smiled, the small, real smile she was getting more from him. “Ready?”
The drive was easy. Low music, easy conversation. He asked about the book she’d been reading. She teased him about how she still hadn’t learned to stay upright on the ice, and he was supposed to be a coach. By the time they reached the quiet Italian place tucked off Glenwood Avenue, some of the knots in her chest had loosened.
The restaurant was perfect, dim lighting, soft conversation, casual but not too casual. They sat in a corner booth that felt private without trying too hard. They slid in across from each other. She ordered a glass of red wine, and he got a whiskey neat.
They fell into conversation, how they’d started to easily lately. He asked her how she was liking Raleigh, if she found any places that she’d really liked yet. She made him laugh recounting the latest Birdy invented break room drama. At one point his hand brushed hers across the table and neither of them pulled away immediately. The warmth of it lingered.
This was nice.
Halfway through their entrees, the conversation drifted toward work in the way it sometimes did. It was something they very clearly had in common.
“I mean it, you know.” he said, setting his fork down. He looked at her with his steady gaze that always seemed to make her feel seen. “The way you handle things when everything’s going sideways. Media scrambles, tough losses, whatever. You’re the one everyone can depend on. I’ve never had to worry when you’re handling something. You know, no one has. It means a lot. Especially this season.”
She heard what he said, and she knew it was a compliment. But she’d gotten caught on the words.
She felt the icy feeling of dread creep into her, all the way to her core. Her hands went numb and she set her fork down, not trusting herself to hold even that.
She smiled, suddenly on autopilot, “Just doing my job.”
On the outside, she was the picture of composed gratitude. On the inside, the words landed like a blade between the ribs.
You’re the one everyone can depend on.
I wasn’t dependable when it mattered. I couldn’t handle it when everything went sideways then.
The image hit her hard. Suddenly she was no longer in an Italian restaurant in Raleigh but instead in a convoy in the desert heat of rural Afghanistan. Reyes a few trucks ahead of her, the sickening impact, the call over the radio, her running in to help. She was suddenly kneeling in the dust beside the wrecked truck, ears still ringing, hands slick with blood that wouldn’t stop no matter how hard she pressed. Telling him to hold on even as she already knew it wasn’t going to be enough, his hand already going slack around her wrist. The way his eyes had met hers for one terrible second, filled with fear, before they didn’t. And they wouldn’t again.
She’d never forget the look in his eyes.
She took a slow sip of wine to buy herself time. Her hands were shaky and the glass felt too heavy in her hand.
Rod kept talking, easy and warm, completely unaware of what she’d just gone through. She nodded in the right places. Laughed when she was supposed to. But the warmth that had been building all night was draining out of her like someone had pulled a plug.
She was closing herself off. She could feel herself doing it. Giving shorter answers, less eye contact, shoulders subtly tightening. She felt herself glancing around the room more, keeping track of where the doors were.
What was she doing here? Pretending she deserved any of this?
Rod noticed. He didn’t call her on it directly. He just got a little quieter too, watching her with the patience she both loved and resented right now. When the check came he paid and she smiled, trying to piece back together some semblance of what the night had started as, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough.
The ride home was quieter. The easy rhythm from earlier had shifted into something much heavier.
“Did something happen?” he asked quietly.
She paused, unsure how to answer such a loaded question. She didn’t know how to explain what that was. She hesitated and finally responded quietly with “...no.”
She knew she was shutting down on him. She could feel it happening, the same way it used to happen in the field when things got overwhelming. But she didn’t know how to stop it.
When he pulled up in front of her building, he put the car in park but didn’t turn it off.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked for the second time, voice low. He seemed genuinely concerned about her.
She managed a small smile. “Yeah. Long week catching up with me. Dinner was really nice. Thank you.”
He studied her for a moment longer than she could comfortably hold. Something shifted in his expression. He didn't seem upset, just resigned. Then he nodded once.
“Alright. Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow.”
She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. Safe, and her trying to show him that she did really still want this. “Goodnight, Rod.”
“Night” was all she got in return.
She didn’t look back as she walked to her door. She felt his eyes on her the whole way.
The second the apartment door clicked shut behind her, the mask dropped.
The guilt that rose wasn’t just about Reyes. She’d shut down on him. On their first real date. After everything he’d been so patient about.
She wondered if he’d even want to talk to her again.
She leaned back against the door, eyes closed, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth the way she’d been taught in so many Dealing with PTSD briefs. In. Hold… She couldn’t remember how to breathe.
Nothing helped.
She slid down until she was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up. The green sweater suddenly felt too tight and like it was suffocating her. It felt too hopeful, like she’d just been a few hours before. She pulled at the sleeves like she could strip the entire evening off her skin.
You’re the one everyone can depend on.
The words kept echoing around in her mind, in the empty apartment, over the memory of the awful way the evening ended.
She hadn’t been dependable for Reyes.
He trusted her. Every soldier under her had. That was the job. You carried them. You made the calls. You brought them home. And when the truck he was in hit an IED, when everything went to hell in the span of thirty seconds, she’d done everything she was trained to do. She’d moved fast while her teammates laid down cover fire. She’d applied pressure. She’d screamed for the medic and they’d radioed for help and she held his hand while he…
She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw stars.
He was twenty two. From Oklahoma. Joined the Army out of boredom and to see the world. Funny in a dry way that made long nights on deployment bearable. Always volunteering for the shit details so none of the younger soldiers had to do it.
He’d looked at her that day like she had all the answers. Like she could fix it.
She couldn’t.
And now here she was, sitting on the floor of her civilian apartment in a scratchy, annoying green sweater she’d worn for a man who thought she was dependable. Laughing over dinner. Letting herself want things. Letting herself be wanted. Kissing him on the ice like she had any right to something this good.
The guilt hit like a wave. Hot. Suffocating.
She didn’t deserve this. Not while Reyes was gone and she was still here, still breathing, still alive. What right did she have to be happy when she’d failed the last person who had needed her to be dependable?
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out with shaking hands.
She nearly dropped it when she looked at the screen.
Rod: “Made it home. Thank you for tonight. I had a really good time.”
She stared at the message until the letters blurred together.
She wanted to text him back something normal. Something light. Something that would explain away the episode she had at dinner.
But she couldn’t. He didn’t know about any of this. How could she tell him? What would he think of her then? She’d failed at the one task she had above all else as an NCO. As a soldier.
Instead she locked the phone and set it face down on the floor beside her.
The apartment was too quiet. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.
She thought about the photos she kept tucked away in an old shoebox in the back of her closet. The ones of her team. Her soldiers. She thought about pulling them out and looking at them until she could remember the fun times she’d had in the Army. The way she’d done in the past when the weight got too loud.
She didn’t move.
Instead she stayed on the floor, back against the door, arms wrapped around her knees, and let the spiral take her.
She didn’t cry. She never did anymore. But for the first time in a very long time, she wanted to.