Giles

“Caroline,” I yell, laughing as I chase her through the woods.

She darts through the trees, her blonde hair flying behind her, soft giggles mixing with the birds’ songs.

“Catch me, Giles,” she calls out.

But the faster I run the further away she gets. The forest gets darker and the birds stop their singing.

“Giles,” her voice floats around me, but I can’t see her anymore.

“Caroline,” I yell, panic clawing at my throat.

“Here,” she appears to the left of me, standing by a cave opening.

I follow her into the darkness.

“Caroline,” I call out again.

An orange glow fills the cave, and she’s standing in front of me, her back to me, but when she turns, it’s not her face, it’s Tia.

My wife.

My heart.

“Come back to me.” Tia reaches for me, and I try to hold on, but she vaporizes in my arms.

“Tia,” I cry out, feeling her loss like a missing limb.

“You can’t be with her here.” This time it’s Caroline’s face, her voice. “You need to choose, Giles. Her or me.”

My heart beats wildly. This girl was everything to me. But she’s no longer my future, only my past.

“I love you,” I say, throat squeezing. “So damn much.”

“I know.” She smiles sadly.

“I don’t want to let you go.” Not again.

“But you have to. It’s not your time.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” I choke out.

“Keep Tia safe. She loves you.”

“I love her too.”

I do.

“Go back to her,” Caroline says, a small, accepting smile on her lips. “If you stay here any longer, you won’t be able to.”

Fear races through me. The thought of leaving Tia, worse than anything I can imagine.

“Go,” Caroline calls after me as I start running through the cave. “Hurry.”

As I run the air becomes thick, choking me, the darkness so black I can see nothing, and the silence is deafening. And I wonder if I missed my chance. If I’m stuck in the place where there is no light. Where there is no... Tia.

“Giles, wake up now,” Fallon’s voice floats through my dreams. “Please.”

The voice brings me back to the land of the living and my eyes open slowly. I feel dizzy and faint and thirsty. So damn thirsty.

“Water,” I say, my hand reaching out. But it can’t go far because an IV is attached to my hand. I try to sit up, despite Fallon’s protests, but fall back on the pillow.

“Thank fucking, God,” Fallon hisses.

No idea how long I’ve been out. My throat is dry, and I ask again for water.

This time a straw is pressed to my lips, and a hand rests behind my head lifting me up. I drink as if I haven’t drunk in a hundred days.

“Slowly,” Fallon warns. “Shit. Thought I’d lost you, man.”

Thought I was lost myself.

I remember drowning.

The lake.

Caroline.

My first love telling me to go back to my wife.

My wife.  

“Where’s Tia?” I say, voice scratchy, frantic with the thought of not having her. That something could have happened to her while I was unconscious and unable to protect her.

“She’s sleeping,” Fallon says, placing the glass of water on the table beside the bed. “And we aren’t waking her. She hasn’t slept in days.”

I exhale. “Days?”

Fallon nods. “I didn’t think you were gonna make it,” he says again, gripping my good arm. “You fucking scared me. Scared us all.”

With my head against the pillow, I turn and look at my oldest friend, seeing tears in his eyes. Tears in Fallon’s fucking eyes. Not possible.

“You getting soft on me?” I ask, forcing a smile.

“Don’t start. Damnit, Giles.” He roughs a hand over his beard, then back through his hair, and I see the strain on his face. “I really didn’t know. I thought, hell, I thought you were a goner.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

We look at one another for a minute and a silence surrounds us, it’s not uncomfortable though. It is the kind of silence you can only have with your oldest friend.

“You kept talking about her,” he says, finally.

“Tia?”

Fallon shakes his head. “No. Caroline.”

“I’ve been thinking about her a lot,” I tell him. “Going to the cabin, it kinda messed with my head.”

“Me too,” Fallon admits. “This whole lottery has fucked with me.”

With me too. It’s a new beginning, but it’s also brought up a lot of ghosts from the past.

“I couldn't believe it when they called your name,” I finally tell him, then chuckle. “You’re the last person I ever thought would go through with it.”

He raises his eyebrows. “What do you think I thought when I saw you?”

“Fair enough.” I look around my bedroom. Besides the IV stand, there’s medicine and syringes along the dresser. I can only imagine the pain I put my family through. “Why did you?” I ask him, glancing back and holding his gaze.

“What?”

“Put your name in?”

Fallon runs a hand over the back of his neck, then admits, “I saw her.”

“Tia?”

He nods.

“When?”

“I was the one who found her on the cargo ship. We were just doing an inspection and there she was, practically dead. So damn fragile, so broken, and it was like a fucking force, pushing me to take care of her. To protect her.”

I smirk, surprised at the words coming from my old friend’s mouth. “Love at first sight?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs, moving to the door. “Maybe it was fate, you know? Our destiny.”

“Right.” I look down at my leg. The bandage is fresh and once again I feel a stab of guilt. “And my destiny was to die of fucking sepsis.”

Fallon smiles. “No jackass, that’s on you. You should have told Banks.”

He’s right. Thought I could muscle my way through it. Have never been good at accepting help. But now I see that I should have trusted my family.

Maybe I’m more like Tia than I originally thought.

“Will you get him? I owe him an apology.”

“Yeah, but uh, everyone in the house was pretty freaked out, you know?”

I sigh. “You saying I should apologize to all the guys?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

Apologies are another one of my weaknesses. But I can only imagine what the men and Tia have gone through, thinking I might not make it. I sure as hell know I’d be pissed if any one of the men pulled a similar stunt.

I nod and watch Fallon leave the room to get Banks.

It still feels like I’ve been run over by a herd of elephants, but I’m already stronger than I had been before the sepsis took hold of me. Thank fucking God one of Tia’s husbands happens to be a doctor.

It takes Banks an hour or so to check my vitals, give me another round of meds and apply fresh bandages. The whole time he is working he can barely look me in the eye. He isn’t going to make this apology easy. He keeps muttering under his breath how I’m a lucky bastard, and he isn’t exactly jumping up and down over the fact I’m fucking alive.

When he finishes all the men have gathered in the room.

Fallon stands by the bed, hands in his pockets. Salinger and Huxley lean against the wall, arms crossed. Emerson stands like a statue, jaw twitching, brows drawn down. And Banks gives a hard nod, and says yet again, “You’re one lucky bastard.”

I’m sitting up with my back resting against a pile of pillows like I’m the Queen of fucking Sheba and not a lethal military man. I feel like an idiot. But I know all the tension in the house isn’t good for anyone. What I need to do now is put it all out there, for better or for worse.

I clear my throat, looking at the men chosen for Tia.

“I want to apologize,” I say. “I know I put you all through a hell of a lot.”

“Understatement of the year,” Huxley mutters.

Salinger grunts in agreement.

“I made a mistake not asking Banks for help-”

“You think?” Fallon says, brow arched.

“I should have said something. I’m sorry.”

A few of the men mutter under their breaths, but I see the acceptance of my apology in their expressions.

“Did I miss anything while I was out?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Same fucking shit as before,” Huxley mutters.

“I hope you’re not still giving Tia a hard time,” I say, shifting slightly on the bed.

“No more than she deserves,” Huxley mutters.

“Hey,” Fallon speaks up. “Can you try and be something other than an ass for a minute?”

Huxley scoffs, looking away from Fallon.

“I know there are a lot of things about Tia we don’t know,” I say, already feeling the exhaustion of sitting up for this long. I don’t want to argue with the men, but we have to be on the same page. Our one and only goal needs to be keeping her safe. “But, isn’t that what we signed up for? We married a stranger hoping a life with her would be more than a life lived alone.”

“Except she wasn’t being honest on her intake forms. No fucking way is she some farm girl from the middle of nowhere,” Banks says. “She practically saved your life. She knows more than the nurses at the hospital.”

“And that makes you want her as your wife more or less?” I ask. “Because it doesn’t change a goddamn thing for me.”

“She could be a criminal,” Salinger says, arms still crossed, his usual goofy grin replaced with a scowl.

“And your best friend Huxley isn’t?” Fallon tosses back.

“This isn’t helping,” Emerson says, his voice even and calm. “It doesn’t matter who Tia is, she’s our wife.”

“That’s sweet, but she’s a liar,” Salinger says.

“A liar you’d like to sleep with,” Emerson tosses in. His words may be cutting but he says it sincerely, without malice.  “Maybe you’re just mad that you haven't been with her.”

Salinger drops his arms and takes a step towards Emerson like he’s ready for a fight.

“Can we not discuss sleeping with Tia,” Banks says firmly, jaw twitching. “Stick to the point. Who is she?”

“She’s our wife,” I repeat. “In sickness and in health, for better or worse, till death do us part.” I let out a long sigh. “She’ll talk to us when she’s ready. Why push her?”

“Because people are going to start talking,” Salinger says. He clenches his fists, his expression not the usual smug one he wears. This is a side of him he doesn’t often show. Serious. And ready for battle.

I just worry that he’s not seeing who the real enemy is. Because it sure as hell isn’t our wife.

“Did you mean the vows when you took them?” I ask him.  

“Of course, I did.” His nostrils flare and he looks away, rubbing his temples. “I may not have fucked her yet, but I care about her, and I’m worried.”

I want to punch him for talking about making love to my wife in such a barbaric way, but I hold back. Not that I could punch him even if I wanted to. The conversation has drained me and I feel weak.

Plus, I called them here to make amends, not to start another fight.

“We need to let Giles rest,” Banks orders, brows draw down in concern when he looks at me. “We aren’t going to work this all out right now anyway.”

Everyone nods in agreement and leaves my room, Banks though, checks my meds again and then pauses at my bedside.

“Listen,” he says. “You can’t fight this battle. You’re not well enough to.”

“Which battle is that?”

“Making all the men in this compound friends. It’s not going to happen for a while. We’re all too different.”

I shake my head. “I don’t agree.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Look,” I tell him. “We’re all different, but Tia is somehow finding common ground with all of us. Why can’t we do the same? Our job is to protect her, and any military man knows a unit has to get along if they want a fighting chance at victory.”

Banks nods. “Sure, but no one wins if there is an enemy in the camp.”

“She isn’t our enemy.”

Banks inhales slowly. “Then who is she, Giles? Why hide who she is if she’s the good guy?”

“I don’t know. But hell, Banks, we have nothing to gain by going against her.”

“And what happens if you’re wrong?”

“It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Pretty sure I read that in a book somewhere, and it rings true now. I came back from the precipice of death and survived. I won’t waste my time fighting the woman I love. “Maybe that’s my problem,” Banks says grimly, after a long pause, then admits after a deep sigh, “I don’t love her yet.”