Page 49 of What We Brave
"Not what you did."
"No."
She looks at me then. Really looks, the way she did that night in my workshop, when everything went sideways. But this time there's no fear in her expression. Just... curiosity. And something else I can't quite name.
"What did you do, Blake?"
The question hangs in the cold air between us. I could deflect. Make a joke, change the subject, find some excuse to walk away. That's what I should do. That's what would be smart.
But Laine's standing there in her too-big jacket with her cold fingers and her steady eyes, and she's asking me a real question. Maybe the first real question anyone's asked me in years.
"I broke things," I say finally. "And people. That was my job. Being good at breaking things."
The words hang there between us, and I can see her trying to piece together what I'm not saying. Like how sometimes our missions didn't make the news because they weren't supposed to exist. How we'd go into places where the line between good guys and bad guys got so blurry you couldn't tell which side you were on anymore. How I got really fucking good at things I can't talk about, even now.
"Some of it was the kind of work that keeps people safe," I continue, my voice rough. "But some of it..." I stop, shake my head.
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
"And now you fix them."
It's not a question. It's a statement, simple and direct, and it hits me so hard I forget how to breathe for a second.
"Trying to," I manage. "Not sure I'm very good at it."
"You're here." She gestures at the camp, at the people huddled around fires and heat lamps, at the whole messy sprawling chaos of it. "That counts for something."
I want to tell her it doesn't. That showing up to hand out blankets and hold clipboards doesn't erase the things I've done, the people I'vehurt. That being here tonight doesn't make up for what I did to her, to Reid, to whatever chance they had at being happy.
But before I can figure out how to say any of that, someone calls Laine's name from across the camp. She holds up a hand in acknowledgment, then turns back to me.
"I have to?—"
"Go. I've got the station."
She hesitates. "You sure? There might be more blood."
"It wasn't the blood. Mostly. It was the smell. And the pus." Yeah, I gotta stop thinking about that. My knees don't fucking like it.
That almost-smile again. "Try not to pass out while I'm gone."
"No promises."
She walks away toward whoever called her, and I watch her go. Can't help it. The way she moves through the camp, stopping to check on people, adjusting someone's blanket, crouching down to talk to a kid who shouldn't be out here in this cold?—
She's something else. She really is.
And she's not mine. Never was, never will be. She's Reid's, or she should be, and the best thing I can do is make sure I don't fuck that up any worse than I already have.
But watching her out here, doing this work, being exactly who she is?—
Fuck. It hurts.
It hurts more than Cortez bleeding out in my arms. More than the dreams that still wake me up at 3 AM. More than any of the shit I've been through, because at least that pain made sense. At least I earned it.
This? Loving someone I can't have, someone I don't deserve, someone whose life would be better if I'd never walked into it?
This is the kind of hurt that doesn't heal.
