DISCLAIMER: All recognizable characters belong to the genius Don Winslow. This story was written purely for fun and entertainment; no infringement was intended, and no profit was made.

Song: Better Man, James Morrison

Thank you for bugging me to post this, maxiekat :)

You see me, love me just the way I am

I said for you I am a better man

And Chon thought that Laguna had hot days.

There was no heat like in that hell hole called Afghanistan. He didn't know whether the sunrays reflected off the sand that seemed to cover every damn thing in that country, or if the same sand absorbed them, all he knew was that it felt like they were being roasted. And maybe they were – under 60 pounds of equipment and gear, they were slow cooking from the inside. At least, that's how it should feel. It was his first deployment, but Chon had been there long enough to know that he should be sweating bullets. He had been trained to think he could overcome anything. But he was also trained to recognize when something was wrong with his body. It was about 5pm, the sun was still up, and yet he felt like he was shivering on the inside. He stopped on his tracks, hands on his knees. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he thought he was good enough to keep on trekking back to their base.

Only he wasn't.

A blinding pain coursed through his guts, and Chon saw red dots everywhere. His first reaction was to bend over, to try and ease the pain. Bent as he was, his stomach churned violently and he started puking.

In a second his teammates were around him, asking him what was wrong. Chon wished he could answer, but he couldn't stop himself from vomiting so he just raised a hand, signaling them to stay away – he thought that maybe if his stomach emptied, the pain would go away. His pulse peaked, as he tried to regain control of his body, with no success. He inhaled deeply and stood up straight, clearing his throat; he washed his mouth and spit out the water, unable to swallow anything. His mates stood still, looking around for potential threats to their safety, but mostly looking at him.

"I'm good."

"But McAlister, you just..."

"I said I'm good", he said, raising his voice. "Let's go."

He knew it was a flat out lie, but he wasn't about to let an indigestion stop him.

"Fucking MREs, man", he heard someone saying as they resumed their walk. While Chon was trying to remember what he had eaten for lunch, the pain hit him again, but this time he fell to his knees, his back hunched over, throwing up again, and again, until there was nothing left, and yet he couldn't stop it. Chon felt a familiar bitter taste in his mouth and he knew that if he opened his eyes, he would see his greenish bile spilled all over the hot sand. But he couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't even think straight. The SEALs grouped around him and he heard Lt. Johnson's voice thundering in the dry air, ordering them to stay back and give him room to breathe. As if he could really do that.

In the distance, Chon heard Johnson calling his name, nickname, rank, everything to make him respond, but all he could do was give in to the illness. As a paramedic, Johnson must have realized that this was no heartburn. Chon's face was dripping with sweat, and by then he was on all fours, unable to even sit back on his own. The paramedic knelt down in front of him and tried to give him some water. At the rate Chon was going, dehydration was the next step. He tried to take a sip, but as soon as the liquid touched his tongue, his stomach disagreed with it. This time, his arms couldn't hold his weight any longer and he collapsed, face first onto the hot sand.

"Shit... I think I blacked out", Chon thought when he realized he was laying on his back, somewhere in the shade, his head resting on his assault pack. The sun was setting and the temperature was about to drop dramatically, which didn't help his case since he was already feeling cold. He tried to swallow, in vain; there was nothing to be swallowed, his lips cracked, his mouth as dry as the sandy floor. As much as he knew he needed water, the mere thought made him feel sick again, so the idea was dropped as fast as it came. Slowly, Chon turned his head to the side, squinting, and spotted one of his mates. It took him all his strength to try to raise an arm, which caught his mate's attention.

"Where..."

That was the only word he could mutter. It was enough.

"We had to look for cover so that you could lie down. Johnson thinks you have food poisoning or worse, so he's out there trying to work out a way to get you hydrated, since you can't drink anything without puking your guts out."

"I can't..."

He tried to prop himself up on his elbows but failed miserably, falling back on the floor, his head hitting the pack that served as a pillow. Food poisoning? You have got to be kidding.

"Shut up and stay still, McAlister. We're vulnerable enough as it is."

The thought of being a burden to his team made him even sicker. Chon thought they should just leave him there and keep on going, but he also knew very well that that was not the way they operated. They left no man behind. The last thing he saw before drifting off again was his mate griping on to his rifle. That was no ordinary slumber. It was more like a state of daze, induced by the lack of pretty much everything: food, water, sleep, sanity. A hazy state of mind in which Chon didn't know if he was awake or dreaming.

At one point, he jumped out with a shiver, and as his eyes snapped open, he saw small, sparkly lights above his head. He couldn't focus his gaze, but they looked like tiny little lamps, flickering with the cool breeze. Those lamps looked familiar, he thought, frowning. Was it Christmas already? Was his mind too far gone that he had lost track of time, or worse, that he was seeing things? He'd had his share of drugs to know that he was indeed hallucinating, and it felt great. Chon could use an alternative reality, anything to pull him away from that moment, so he gave in to it. He knew those lights, and he knew he had only seen them once before. At Christmas. So it could only be December. Even the temperature had dropped, or so he felt it; it should have been around mid-fifties, which was just as cold as Laguna gets. His eyelids fluttered, and being unable to keep his eyes open, Chon finally let go and embraced the improbable sound of the waves breaking; the humidity that seemed to cover everything; the soft sand below his feet, so different from the thick sand that covered his uniform. At that moment, there was no war. There was nothing but the sounds and smells from that Christmas night, and the overwhelming presence of her love. He would recognize and welcome that feeling anywhere, at any time.

"What are you doing, John?"

Chon didn't need to look to his right, where the voice was coming from, to know that Nina was there. It didn't matter if it was her body, her spirit, or her mind. Her presence was real. He turned his head and saw her, wearing a pair of light-washed jeans and that horrendously oversized beige knit sweater he hated. He didn't care, because she was as beautiful as she would ever be. Her hair was almost golden, reflecting off the lights hanging over her backyard, and her eyes shone bright, excited to see him again after so many years. A shy smile played on her lips and Chon could swear that she was glowing. She might as well have been; as far as he knew it, she was a saint to have put up with him for that long. And he was an idiot to have left her.

He cleared his throat and shook his head.

"I don't really know."

"Figures. But look at you", she said, checking him out with a smirk, "you really went all GI Joe, didn't you? It suits you, you know."

He watched as Nina looked back down at her feet, and he followed her gaze for a moment before looking up at her face again. When did she get that radiant?

"How come?"

"Well", she shifted her body so that she was facing him now, hands in her pockets. Chon had forgotten how much he loved when she was barefoot. Whenever she wore heels, she would be almost as tall as him; barefoot, she was the perfect size. He would pull her to him and her head fit right on his chest, close to his shoulder. That was where he always wanted her to be. She kept on, while Chon found himself unable to stop staring at her, taking in whatever he could from that moment, hanging on to her image.

"You're the bravest man I ever knew. If that's not enough to be a soldier, I don't know what is."

He chuckled. Of course she wouldn't recognize his uniform; she didn't know anything about any of that.

"Not a soldier, Nina. A Navy SEAL", he said, knowing that the name should mean something, but it didn't. At least, not for him. Just an empty acronym.

"That's even better. You have to be braver, and stronger, and smarter than all of them, and you are. I know you are."

Only she would say that. She always knew what was going through his head, every damn time. Right then, she read right through him. That was one of those days when he looked at himself and saw a lie. It had been happening more and more often. The cruel truth was that Chon didn't give a shit about defending the country. He joined the Navy because he had to, otherwise he would have been arrested for assault; and he stayed in it because, well... he was crazy enough to endure the training; but more than that, he knew he could use the abilities they taught him. Not a lot of people had that skillset, and that was interesting.

But out there, on Stan-land?

It wasn't all that interesting. His teammates had that innate love for their country, a true selfless desire to die for a cause. The only cause Chon would die for was Ben and O... and the girl standing beside him then. At least that was what he was seeing and feeling.

He had been pretending for too long. Pretending to be patriotic, pretending he didn't want to go home and have a beer and a decent burger, pretending he wasn't tired of the killing, pretending he had forgotten about her, pretending he didn't miss the man she once convinced him that he could be.

She reached out and touched his cheek with her long fingers, her face lighting up with that smile that could as well end the war he was fighting in.

"I kinda like the beard."

"Well, I am definitely keeping it then."

With a fluid motion, her hand moved to his neck, as she reached up and pressed her lips against his. Her soft, warm mouth tasted like something heavenly, and then he realized just how much he had missed her. The kiss didn't last nearly as long as he wanted it to, though. She pulled back, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, her eyes leveling with his.

"I will always be there for you, John. Always. I need you to know that."

"I know", he stated, reaching to hold her hand. He had never doubted that, he had only forgotten. Nina ran her thumb over his knuckles, in a gesture he knew too well. She was his home, all over again. There was nothing he wanted more than to go back to the start. To that Christmas night when he felt, for the first time, that he belonged. A peace of mind like he had never experienced before, and it soothed him and freaked him out at the same time. But most importantly, Chon wanted to go back to the time when she made him believe he wasn't the guy that everyone else said he was. "I don't want to change you", she would say. Nina knew that the "real John" was lurking inside him somewhere, waiting for a heaven-sent hand like hers to show up. Chon never admitted to her that he ended up believing in that as well. In fact, he still did, but he was starting to fear that the "real John" would soon be lost for good.

As he got lost in those thoughts, she started to fade away. Chon shut his eyes closed as hard as he could, trying to hold on to her, he couldn't lose her, not again, no, not again. In a dark corner of his mind, he mentally apologized to her, even though he wasn't sure why that was. He had made a million mistakes, and being as kind as she was, she probably had already forgiven all of them. Saint. Idiot.

But it was all useless. She vanished. And once more he missed the chance to tell her what mattered the most. That he loved her so much that most of the times he didn't even know how to deal with it.

Maybe she was still out there somewhere, between the sea breeze and the fading lights. So he muttered, under his breath, not because he needed to hide it, but because he knew that's how she would like to hear it.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry for everything, Nina."

And then Chon opened his eyes to the real world again. That sandy, cold, twisted world he found himself in. It hit him like a hammer – did he have to feel that sick to be with her again, even if for a short while? Because it was worth it. It was the best trip he had in a long time, and for him, that was saying something.

He took a deep breath and stretched, turning to his side to see Johnson preparing something that looked like an IV. Chon couldn't care less. At that moment, they could take off his spleen in cold blood and he would still be smiling.

"I never knew you had a girl, McAlister", Johnson said, without turning around. The answer came fast, concise.

"I don't."

"Who's Nina then? The one that got away?"

The men chuckled as the paramedic took a few steps closer to where Chon was. He failed to see how that was funny.

"She didn't get away", he said, looking up and realizing that the Christmas lights were only holes in the tin ceiling. "I did."