Damon
The sound of a chopper is what woke me up. I found myself lying on top of the sand, somehow. I really have no clue how it happened. I was blacking out from lack of oxygen as the sand began to crush me.
But I made it out, somehow, and must’ve passed out once I was safely out of the hole. And then an American chopper happened to come by and find me in the dark of night. Again, I don’t know how that happened either.
All I do know is that we’re coming into the base in Pensacola now and I’m about to get to make one hell of a phone call to Liv. I wonder if she knew I’d been left behind.
Hopefully she has no idea about what I went through. Man, if she does know, she’ll never let me go on a mission again!
The lights of the base come into view and my heart revs up as I think about setting my feet on American soil. It’s only been a few days, but I sure missed the place I call home.
Hell, it’d even be great to set foot on English soil at this point. Anything but sand!
I’m wearing only a T-shirt, as the medic had to take off my other shirt so he could stitch up the hatchet wound on my bicep. That’s a thing Liv will surely ask about and I’ll have to tell her something.
What kind of a lame story can one make up about a hatchet wound that leaves his woman not worrying about him going out on another mission?
The chopper lands on the helipad and I waste no time exiting the machine that’s brought me home. Nearly home, anyway. I do have to get back to London as fast as they’ll let me go.
I miss Harry and Liv so much it hurts!
I’m quickly met by one of my superiors, who looks a bit aggravated as he approaches me, which I find weird.
“Lieutenant, I’m damned glad to see your ass alive!” He grips my hand with a hard handshake.
“Glad to be alive, sir,” I greet him.
He points to where he wants me to go with him. “Over here, man. You have one stubborn-as-hell woman waiting for word on you, and she doesn’t understand our security policies.”
“What?” I ask, completely confused.
“She showed up a few hours ago and refuses to leave the base without an answer about you. Which we had, as you know, but were uncertain about your health. You seem to have made it through just fine. You’ll have to go to the infirmary for a full evaluation, you know.”
“Is the woman’s name, Liv, by any chance?”
“Livacious Tillman. Yes, that’s her. And she has a little boy who’s with her. Poor kid needs to be asleep, not listening to his mother hounding our top personnel for answers they can’t give her yet.”
A smile breaks out over my face as I follow the General into the building where I’m about to find the two people I miss the most in this world.
Liv’s agitated voice echoes down the hallway as she says, “Who came in on that chopper?”
“We can’t tell you that, Miss Tillman,” comes a man’s voice.
“And why can’t any of you tell me anything at all? Your secrecy is beyond annoying and I’m close to getting the media involved in this. I want to know where Damon was last seen. And I want to know what the hell you’re doing to find him! Now!”
“Baby?” I ask as I come into the room.
Liv and Harry turn around and I watch the color drain out of both their faces.
“Daddy!” Harry shouts and runs to me at full speed. He jumps into my arms and I wince a little as the wound on my arm stretches a bit.
“Damon!” Liv says breathlessly. “You’re here!”
She runs to me too and I pull her in for a group hug where I find them both crying like babies. It’s not that I don’t feel like crying right along with them, but my fellow Navy men are looking on, and that’d be kind of sissified if I did such a thing.
“Feel free to take them to my office so you three can have your little reunion, Saunders,” the Captain tells me as he opens the door for us. “We’ve heard enough from your girlfriend to last us a lifetime.”
Wrapping my arm around Liv’s narrow shoulders, I kiss the top of her head. “I bet you have.”
Liv just stares at me as we walk down the hallway. Harry hides his face in my chest, and I can’t stop looking at either of them. “Damon, you are really here, right?” Liv asks me with quivering lips. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“I don’t think it is. But to be honest, I keep wondering the same thing. You have no idea how much I missed you both.”
Stepping into the General’s office, I find a long sofa along the wall and take a seat. Holding Harry on my lap, and Liv as close to me as I can get her, I let the tears flow. Liv does her best to kiss them all away, but there are just too many. “Oh, Damon!”
“We have to make some changes, baby.” I let her know.
“First one, you put in for retirement,” she bosses me.
“No, the first one is you marry me, Livacious Tillman. I don’t want to spend another day without knowing you’re a permanent part of me. You see, when I found you two, I found a treasure I didn’t even realize I was seeking. So, first, I want to really make you mine.”
Her tears choke her up and she can’t seem to tell me if she’ll marry me or not. I watch her as she swallows, then nods. “Okay, we can do that first. Then you put in the paperwork and retire. Deal?”
I didn’t know I was going to do this. I really didn’t. I had no preconceived notion that my mouth would open and tell her she was going to marry me. Not ask, just tell. And I had no idea I’d be agreeing so quickly to retiring. But I guess a near-death experience will do that to a man.
“Daddy, did you see Mummy?” Harry asks me as he pulls his head off my shoulder.
“How’d you know that?” I ask him with amazement.
“I saw you and her together in the sand. Is she okay?”
His eyes sparkle and remind me of hers. I kiss his plump cheek and answer him, “Your mommy is fine, Harry. She loves you very much. She told me to take good care of you for her, and I will do just that. Don’t you worry, Daddy isn’t going on any more dangerous assignments. He has two special people he has to keep safe now.”
“Me and Aunt Wiv, right?” Harry asks.
I nod and ask him, “Do you think you could call her mommy, instead of Aunt Liv? You see, Daddy’s going to marry her a little later today when we three go to Las Vegas. Then she’ll be your real mommy, Harry.”
His eyes move to look at Liv, and she runs her hand over his red cheek. “I’d love it if you did call me your mom, Harry.”
“K,” he says with an innocent smile that tells me we three will be just fine. As long as we have each other, we can make it through anything.
The End