Charging Into the Fray

Walls

At the gala, Jace was dressed in a black suit and blue tie, Dave said that it made him look like a cop. Kathleen thought that it complimented his eyes. Jace completely forgot how to talk. Kathleen was breathtaking.

Jace picked at his plate nervously, people asked him about his time in the Middle East. He just told them that it was far from over.

Kathleen watched him, Julian couldn't hide how anxious he was.

"This isn't your scene is it?" asked the nurse.

"I'm happy to be here with you."

She only smiled at this.

One of Kathleen's colleagues came up to them. Bartholomew Lincoln, a resident assigned to the ICU. He looked at her like a piece of meat.

"Who's your friend?"

"This is Julian," answered Kathleen.

Jace shook hands with the man.

"I've seen you before, you a frequent flyer?" asked Lincoln.

"Something like that."

"Yeah, you're a Navy guy, right?"

Julian nodded.

"Not much of a talker, huh?"

Kathleen took Jace's arm and dragged him to the exit.

"Did I do something wrong?" asked Jace.

"No, I should've known better than to bring you to an event where people who treated you for injuries from Iraq would be," said Kathleen, apologetically.

"I'm glad that you brought me," said Jace. "I'm glad that you thought of me at all."

"Alright, we did my thing now let's do something you want."

Jace smiled, telling her that it would be a surprise.

He dropped her off at her apartment, kissing her goodnight.

The next day, Jace stopped by with a blindfold and headphones. He drove her to a gun range he frequented, removing the blindfold.

"This is a first," said Kathleen.

Julian just grinned and demonstrated how to load, cock, and fire a Colt 1911. He fired three precision shots into a target another three into a second and a headshot into a third. He handed the pistol to Kathleen, she did as he showed her and fired an entire magazine into a target.

"All center mass shots," Jace was impressed.

Kathleen just laughed, handing the pistol back to Julian. Jace brought her to the diner across the street. She stopped shaking by the time they sat down.

"When you asked me what the craziest thing you could do on a first date I thought you were joking," said a waitress, Eileen, she was in her early forties and all smiles.

"I'm clearly out of my league here," said Jace, gesturing at Kathleen. "So why not blow it in the most spectacular way possible."

Kathleen laughed. "What else you got?"

The following week they went to a festival by the pier, Kathleen drove the bumper car like a Marine avoiding IEDs in the Red Zone.

They learned the hard way that Jace didn't like roller coasters. He kept walking into walls after the ride.

"How can someone who jumps out of airplanes get vertigo from a carnival ride?" laughed the nurse.

"I told you that I was an enigma."

"What else is there to know?"

over the next two months, Jace and Kathleen ate and ran together, she even visited him on base or he stopped by the hospital on her lunch hour.

Finally, invited her to his apartment. He was unsure of how long their relationship would last, Jace just wanted to spend time with her. They sat down on the couch, talking about their childhoods. She told him about her sister, her parents, and her antics in high school.

"Growing up my dad was my idol and my sister was my best friend," said Jace. "My mom kept me on a leash, one time she caught me scaling the side of the house."

"Why? How?"

"My dad showed me how Marines tied knots and I wanted to put it to the test."

"It's been a while since I spoke about the days when I had a sister. When I had a mother."

Kathleen's smile fell.

"I was ten when they died, after that it was just me and my dad. He remarried three times, I think he was trying to force himself to accept what had happened, I just went through the motions."

"You don't have to—"

"I wanna," said Jace. "When I was fourteen, I was tired of the anger, tired of smiling to hide it. I knew that I didn't want to die and I realized that I needed to turn that anger into a drive."

Jace breathed through the pain.

"I decided to be someone my father could be proud of, the kind of person who could've saved Kelly and my mom."

"Do you ever think about dying, killing yourself?"

"No," said Jace. "But ever since Afghanistan and Iraq, I questioned why I lived while others didn't."

"You couldn't have done anything, otherwise the others would've done it too."

Kathleen embraced Jace tightly.

"I know," Jace leaned into her. "I just don't want to fail my team."

"Just make sure that you stay in one piece too."

The next morning Jace woke up on the couch next to Kathleen. He got up, the platoon didn't have anything scheduled for the weekend, they had been training back-to-back for the past two weeks for over twelve hours per day. Jace made steak and eggs, toast, and started a pot of coffee.

He was caught off guard when Kathleen put her arms around him. It took every bit of discipline not to jump.

"Wow, you're really going all out."

As they ate Jace thought about last night, in hindsight, it was what he called a "level ten overshare".

"About last night," Jace, sucked in whatever pride he had left.

Kathleen looked at him intently.

"I don't expect—"

Kathleen cut him off. "I don't think you're damaged and I'm not running for the hills."

Jace did a double take, it took a minute for him to process her words.

"You're the first real human being I've met so I'm not done."

"It's not your job to fix me, I need to—"

"It isn't but you're stuck regardless."

She got up, taking him into his bedroom. She pushed him onto the bed.

An hour later, they were interrupted by a knock on the front door.

Jace slipped on a shirt and jeans and opened the front door.

It was Elaine Grayson, Ben's wife, and Dottie Mavrey, the Captain's wife.

"Before you say no," began Elaine. "Just hear us out."

"We know this really great girl," said Dottie. "And we think that you should gi—"

Both stopped when they saw Kathleen peer out of his bedroom.

"Hello," said the nurse.

The two left, apologizing for the interruption.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Jace. "Every time I told them about you they thought I was making it up to get out of their setups."

Kathleen just laughed and dragged him back inside the bedroom.