Ever since Bravo returned to the states after hunting Doza in Mexico, Clay felt like his life was falling apart. His thoughts kept him up at night. Stella was gone, with no sign that she ever even lived in the apartment, Ray was constantly on him about questioning Jason's choices in Mexico and 'disobeying orders' and for some reason that annoyed Clay even more. Jason should be the one questioning him, not Ray. He felt like Jason was so focused on proving Mandy wrong about him being ready to be back, that he was willing to sacrifice the lives and safety of everyone on Bravo.
Clay sat on his couch in the dark, resting his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, and thought back to the night in Mexico when they were ambushed and almost killed. A night that never should have happened in Clays eyes. It was that night that Clay started to lose trust in his team leader, and that scared him.
As Clay was getting deeper and deeper into his thoughts, his phone rang, pulling him back to the present time. He looked at the caller ID and rolled his eyes. 'God, this is the last thing I want to deal with right now' Clay thought. He hit the decline button and put his phone down on the coffee table. He then attempted to sink back into his thoughts, but his phone had other plans. It rang two more times before Clay finally decided to answer it.
"Hello." Clay answered the phone, but it wasn't a friendly hello. Annoyance could definitely be detected in his voice.
"Well hey there son" the voice on the other end of the phone said.
"What's up? What do you need?" Clay wasn't in the mood for small talk, and definitely not from his father, so he wanted to get straight to the point.
"Can't a father just call his son to see how he's doing?" Ash Spenser said.
"You never call me just to see how I'm doing..." Clay was now annoyed and slightly confused at his father's sudden concern for him.
"That's not fair, you know how busy I am." Ash tried to defend himself.
"What do you want dad?" Clay was tired of him beating around the bush and knew arguing would be like beating a dead horse.
"I'm in town. Was going to see if you were around to take you out to dinner?"
"What!? You're in town? Why?" Clay had so many questions and by now has figured his dad has some sort of ulterior motive. Usually when Ash comes to town, Clay doesn't even know about it until after he's gone, so for his dad to call and invite him to dinner was out of character for the older Spenser.
"I'll pick you guys up around 6. We can talk then." Ash replied.
Clay agreed and then hung up the phone. 'You guys' Clay kept repeating in his head. His dad had no idea Stella was gone and was expecting her to be at dinner tonight.
The last thing he wanted to do was tell his father Stella left him. He had to think of an excuse as to why she wouldn't be there or else he would never hear the end of it from his dad. He slumped back into the couch and started thinking.
Exhaustion finally caught up with him as he pondered an excuse for not only Stella's absence, but also for a way for him to get out of the night. He fell asleep and woke up around 5:00.
"Damn it." He whispered to himself. As much as he needed the sleep, he now no longer had time to cancel his dinner plans. He quickly jumped in the shower and got ready.
At 6:00 on the dot there was a knock on Clay's door, causing his stomach to drop. He was really not looking forward to dinner. He took a deep breath in, let it out, grabbed his keys and headed for the door.
"Hey son!" Ash said rather enthusiastically as he pulled Clay in for a hug.
"Uh, Hey dad." Clay quizzically said back.
"Where's your other half. Figured you two would be attached at the hip by now."
There it was. The question Clay was dreading. "Huh. Oh, yeah. She said sorry she couldn't make it, she has a bunch of midterm exams that need to be graded so she stayed late at work." Clay completely lied through his teeth hoping his father would believe it. "Where we going anyway?" He asked trying to change the subject.
Ash immediately picked up on Clays body language and the mention of Stella and knew whatever Clay was telling him was a lie, but he decided to let it go for now. "Some new Italian place downtown. Heard it was awesome and have been wanting to try it. Figured since I was in town, I'd take you out, see how you've been, catch up a little bit."
"I've heard good things about that place." Clay replied, still suspicious of his father's sudden interest in his life.
Once they were seated at the restaurant Clay started to believe that maybe his father really was interested in how he was doing, allowing him to slightly drop his guard. It actually felt the way any normal father/ son time should feel. And then Ash finally dropped the ball, right before their food arrived.
"So how's bravo team. They treating you alright?" Ash asked.
"Bravos great." Clay replied. He hated talking about work with his dad and he damn sure wasn't going to inform him about his true feeling toward bravo at the moment.
"Yeah. I'm sure." Ash answered sarcastically. "What happened in Mumbai and then Mexico,that sure sounds like things are going great."
"I didn't come here with you to talk about work dad." This was definitely one of the last things Clay wanted to talk about, let alone with his father.
Ash completely ignored his son and continued talking teams, aggravating Clay. "You're a great SEAL, you should be on a great team, not a team that's gonna get you killed. I have a buddy who's putting together a team, says he wants you as his number 2. I told him I would talk you..."
Clay was in disbelief. Did his father really just give him a compliment about being a great SEAL? "What makes you think I want to leave Bravo?"
Ash laughed. "Clay look at you. You're a mess. You were shot in Mumbai, Adam was killed." Clay tensed up at the mentioning of Adam. "Barely escaped Mexico alive. Bravo team is turning into a shit show. Jason is in no shape to be leading a team, Sonny is such a drunk, I don't even know how he functions, and the other three, they just follow suit. To be honest, I can't believe any of you came back alive after Mexico. What does Stella think? Is she ok with you practically dying on your last two missions?" Is she..." Ash paused as he noticed the change in Clay's body language once again at the mention of Stella. "She's gone isn't she?"
Clay just looked at his father, didn't say a word.
"I knew it. The second I saw you I knew something was off. You look like you haven't slept in days. You're clearly not taking care of yourself. She couldn't handle it could she?"
"I don't want to talk about her dad."
Ash had a slightly evil grin on his face, part of him was glad his son's relationship had failed. "And here you thought you could do better than me. Not so easy to have both a family and the team is it?" He couldn't help but rub it in.
Clay pit his fork down and stood up. He'd had enough. "You know, I knew this was a bad idea. I'm fine where I'm at, I don't need you pulling strings to help me advance. I'm perfectly capable of doing that on my own. The last thing I want is to owe you anything and I never want to hear you mention anyone on Bravo or Stella's name again. And don't ever compare me to you! Just because it didn't work with Stella doesn't mean it won't work with someone else. I'm outta here. Bye." Clay then began walking towards the door.
"How you getting home? I have the keys remember?" Ash said with a sly smile on his face.
"I'll walk." Clay said back quietly. Not wanting to make a scene.
"That's a far walk. You'll be walking all night." Ash laughed.
"Better than a car ride with you." Clay said back as he turned around and walked out the door.
Once outside his head was swirling. His mind was going a mile a minute. He was already in a dark place before his shitty dinner with his dad, now he felt like he was heading Deeper and Deeper into the darkness.
The entire walk back to his apartment, and it was a long walk, he mentally beat himself up. At one point he had thought about calling someone from the team for a ride but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He wouldn't call Jason because at the moment, he wasn't a fan of his boss, Ray would just lecture him about anything and everything and anyone else he called would just tell him to get over it or let it go or something else along those lines and he didn't want to hear any of it.
Once he was finally back inside his apartment, he hung his jacket up, went to the fridge and pulled out a beer before sinking into his couch. He was starving but his fridge was smelly due to his lack of motivation to go food shopping and nowhere that delivers was open considering it was the middle of the night.
He just sat there sulking, occasionally sipping on his beer and stared blankly at his television.