After the many childhood lectures on posture and military protocol, hunching over felt strange, but the sun shined brightly in his eyes so he leaned over and stared at the ground. The sliding door peeled open and out walked the man he wanted to marry if only he could get his mouth to ask the question.
"Hey, nice surprise" Drew said with a smile, reaching out to hug him. Tension vibrated off him and Drew could tell, so Rick pulled short and stopped with his back to the truck.
"About me taking the job, I didn't want to tell you on the phone." he started, knowing it sounded foreboding.
Drew's face ceased unhappily, but the nervousness didn't stop radiating through him.
"So you're going?" Despite the effort to remain unemotional, disappointed flashed through Drew's eyes and that urged Rick to continue, wanting that to go away.
"No, I wasn't planning on it. I have an interview for a job to train state police here. And I had a question" Rick continued, suddenly unsure whether to look Drew in the eyes or look down and glance up for a reaction. In that moment, four words seemed very long. Knowing thinking about it would make it harder Rick opened his mouth again, the busyness in his mind distracting him from the look in Drew's eyes.
And what came out wasn't his intended question. "So I meant what I said when I came back. And in putting this relationship back together, I learned that leaving wasn't my best move."
"Rick, you came back better for it. I'm not mad. Let it go." Drew reassured, appearing confused, because they were retracing steps they already covered.
"Yea, I know. And I'm grateful." Rick looked up for that, clearly having lost Drew. Heck, he wasn't sure where this was coming from; it didn't match his plan at all.
"Um, okay" Drew started, but Rick kept talking.
"And in that vein, I wanted to…" He trailed off, unable to finish.
"Okay, from what I'm hearing, you're thinking about staying." Drew asked, looking at him and Rick nodded. "Which is what you want." Rick nodded again. "But you're acting like someone is trying to shove you off a cliff so tell me what else is wrong." Protectiveness coated Drew's voice and Rick relaxed a little. A lot, remembering all they had been before he left and before he got hurt. Living apart, they hadn't been involved in each other's day to day lives but they had still developed an autopilot to keep track of the other; they called, they texted, they visited, they worried when someone missed a phone call, they took long weekends and meet in places unknown to anyone who knew them. It helped him feel less disconnected, having someone in the world who would notice when he didn't check in, who needed him for more than his military capabilities, having someone who meant it when he asked are you okay. Rick channeled that, took a deep breath and just talked.
"I managed to..." He waved his hand indicating the lack of importance. "I want to stay here and I wanted to ask… if you'll marry me."
Drew stared at him, not comprehending but Rick had been pretty clear.
"Drew?" he asked, after the silence started to stretch out.
"Yes, yes, yes. Of course. I'd have to be a complete idiot to not marry you." Drew responded shaking his head and grinning. A huge wave of nervousness vanished from his body and Rick grinned and put his hands up to hold Drew's arms where his now fiance had placed them on his shoulders.
Something in Drew's face stopped him from kissing him and Rick waited.
"But you should still go to South Carolina."
Rick paused and almost put his hands down but they had moved on from avoiding each other, so he left them there. Depending on Drew's answer he might want to hold on anyway.
"Okay, I'm happy about one of the things you just said." He responded a little hostilely, in a voice that asked Drew to explain.
"That's a great job. One you have been talking about for years. One you would be extremely good at." Drew paused and tilted his head, smiling affectionately at Rick. "I saw your face after you finished that course and I listened to you talk about your unit and watching them succeed. You need to take that job because there's not anyone to do it as well as you will."
"You missed the reason I liked the first option." Rick deadpanned, hearing the compliments but not wanting to accept them, not wanting something to convince him to leave.
"And you're giving up your dream job for me. You shouldn't do that."
"It's my job. I can do whatever I want with it."
Drew took a step back and in the movement Rick wondered if they had already failed at this idea of marriage. Upon further examination, thoughtfulness captured Drew's face, not anger or hurt.
"You're stationed at Fort Jackson, right?" Rick nodded, not seeing where Drew was headed.
"How long is your contract for them?"
"A year and half." Rick answered slowly, having asked that when they offered him the job.
"And you have to tell them by…?"
"This time tomorrow." Rick filled in.
"Mmm." Drew murmured, looking down and appearing to calculate something in his head. Watching him for a second, the curiosity and anxiety distracted Rick from doubt about asking Drew.
"Drew, what? Tell me."
"Sorry" Drew said, digging himself out of his head. "I could come to South Carolina with you."
Shock registered first, following quickly by excitement and hope, which he smashed quickly before he could get too attached to the idea.
"No, you have a job here. You have to stay."
"No, I don't. I have to finish my residence, but that doesn't have to happen here. This isn't the top of my career, this isn't my dream job, I have like five more years before I even get close to that…" Drew said with a smile. "Plus, I'm a combat surgeon training in a civilian hospital with civilian advisors. Which never made a lot of sense given I'm supposed to end up in battlefield hospitals."
Rick started to hope this solution might work, but he cut himself off before he could fully believe it.
"The army didn't have a place for me when I graduated medical school, but they keep sending me on weekend training missions because I'm supposed to be training with military protocol, not civilian. And Fort Jackson has medic training programs and they have military hospitals."
"Drew" Rick started and stopped. He really wanted that job. Drew had it right when he said Rick had been talking about it and imagining it since he passed the Ranger Academy. That initial training gave him something to fight for, a goal to reach again and finishing the obstacle course again had given him back something he had lost with his leg. The rush captured him, almost too strong for him to break free. The chance to feel like that all the time and help people feel like that and serve his country at the same time, it was just about all he could do to consider saying no, giving it up. But he would, if Drew asked, if it meant he could stay and see the man he loved everyday and not to have to have two clocks on his phone keeping track of a time zone for him and a time zone for Drew. What Drew had thought up, if it didn't work the results would not be pleasant.
Hope started to rise in Rick's eyes and Drew briefly considered shutting it down before it could develop fully. He thought quickly, he knew was qualified for the programs for Fort Jackson, he had looked at all the programs in the country when he graduated, wondering where he would be stationed. He knew the programs were expanding under the president's new policies, exactly the reason Rick had the job offer he did, because they needed soldiers and they needed medics to save their lives. Right now he didn't see a reason to squash it.
"I know, I know, I know" Drew said acknowledging what Rick had started. "But think about it. Why do you live in Texas? If I didn't live here, why would you? What do you like about it? Should we really stay here and buy a house and make this the home base for the rest of our lives?" Drew asked, his face with excitement dancing around his face, knowing he had hit gold.
Rick considered, having thought about it before he started looking for another job, but coming up with reasons he could stay. Now the frame shifted and he looked for reasons to leave; he begrudgingly admitted there were more reasons for leaving but the one for staying outweighed them all. But if Drew could come with him, his main reason for staying vanished.
"This is the part of my career where I get a choice. My residence, the army doesn't control that as much as they control my active duty and I still owe them seven years of that. But the next year and a half, I have some control over where I am, enough control that I can switch residences, as long as the army approves of the program and the ones at Fort Jackson, they're already approved because that's where the army trains its Rangers and the medics who go with them." Enthusiasm poured out of Drew, having found a solution to both their problems.
"No, wait. Tell me the problems with this." Unless it actually happened, Rick wasn't letting himself believe it.
Drew stopped, disappointment showing briefly, before the thoughtful look came back.
"You might not get into the programs at the base." Rick pointed out.
"I will" Drew said. "No offense, but yes I will." TC and Topher were highly regarded and they had been training him for months. TC had already offered to write him a letter of rec, Topher would too, Drew was sure, and his commander when he graduated told him that he qualified and that was a year and a half of medical training and three months of tactic training ago.
"Why didn't you get stationed there in the first place?" Rick asked.
"There wasn't room but" Drew countered before Rick could counter him. "Residences switch every year and the program keeps getting bigger. I don't need one of the spots at the bottom, I need one of the spots in the middle, essentially taking the place of someone who failed. I'm not screwing up their new recruiting numbers, I'm filling a spot they already planned on filling. It's way easier to get in half way through, that's why the residences at this hospital are a year long instead of three years long because we have a bunch of soldiers fresh out of medical school who end up taking spots of people who failed."
Rick hadn't known that about this hospital but supposed it made sense.
"All your friends are here." Rick said next, knowing that would give Drew more pause. They're the first group of people he came out to, they supported him endlessly through Rick's recovery, Topher mentored Drew through Rick's boneheaded self imposed separation and Krista, she wasn't his friend, she was his sister.
Sadness stole a moment in Drew's eyes but he took a deep breath and forced it back. "I'm going to have to leave them at some point and it'll hurt like hell whenever I do, but I'm supposed to be active duty in less than two years and the army owns me; I'm not staying here my whole career."
"And you're actually okay with that being now instead of in a year and a half?"
Hesitation snuck into Drew's face and Rick appreciated his foresight in not letting himself believe this plan.
"You can't really switch residences in the middle of a year and I have four months left on this one." Drew admitted.
Annoyance cursed through him that he let Drew talk like this and that expressed itself as a glare.
"No, listen to me." Drew defended himself. "It makes no sense for you to give up this job in order for me to keep a job I got because there wasn't space for me somewhere else. I'm leaving in a year and a half anyway. Do you really want to be here, with a job with the Texas state police while I'm in the Middle East? Or some base across the country, somewhere you can't transfer because you work for a state government and not the federal government?" Drew asked pointedly.
"Plus, this four months isn't like the other ones. We have internet and we're in the same time zone and there are way more flights between here and South Carolina than between here and Afghanistan. You will have plenty of time to put me ahead of your career. Don't do it yet."
"Drew" Rick said tiredly. "There are other military couples and when they're both active duty, they don't see each other for years. I think the record like five years or something. I am so done seeing you three weeks a year or not at all. I don't want that to be us."
Drew regarded Rick again, the latter unable to read his face.
"It's going to be us for a while because the army put me through undergrad and medical school and I don't think they'll let me go yet." He paused for a moment, before saying it, but it was the truth and they can't avoid it. Throwing it out there now, maybe they could keep it from destroying them later.
Measuring his words to take into account Rick's vulnerability at having made that statement, Drew continued.
"It's a lot easier to let go of something once you have it than it is to get it back after you give it away. Take the job; if you still want out in a year, then you can join the reserves and follow me around to your heart's content." He recommended, watching Rick's face.
Grinning at the wording and wincing at the implication that he and Drew still had years of separation ahead of them, Rick continued. "I don't want out; I want to live in the same state as you."
"And we will, after some more time of not living in the same state." Drew said, looking at Rick, knowing he had been given something precious, something he had to be careful with, be careful not to break or neglect or abuse it. Not having a purpose almost destroyed his boyfriend; burned into his memory was the night Rick sat in the hospital and seriously considered letting that necrosis kill him because he can't face living without his leg. Qualifying for this job, finishing this course, they were good for his career yes, but Rick had proven to himself that he could handle everything he could before he lost his leg. It gave him a purpose and a goal, something to chase, made him accountable to a standard again; it gave him a confidence that countered the limp from his prosthetic. With all this in mind, Drew thought about how much he must mean to Rick if he was willing to give it up for him. It intimidated him, being the subject of that much affection and caring.
"And you also have to think about what happens to your career while I'm deployed all the time. Because I'm going to be deployed at least as many times as you were." Drew said carefully, pretty sure Rick had realized this but they never had the conversation.
"It was easier for me to be insanely busy while you were gone. And you love this job; you don't even have it yet and you're ridiculously excited about it." Rick glanced down, embarrassed at having been caught; he had hoped to hide it so he didn't force Drew to take a side in the decision.
"You and I are different but…" Drew paused but forged on. "You've never been the one to stay home before and I think it'll help to have a career you really love instead of one you took because I was here and now I'm not here anymore."
"Plus…" Drew said in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Whether I'm in Iran and you're in Texas or whether I'm in Iran and you're in Afghanistan, we're still not together. And we don't have to worry about renting a house out to someone."
Rick nodded, agreeing and knowing that this conversation had sparkled the need for some reflection and more brutally honest conversations down the road. His gut twisted at the thought of Drew being gone as much as he had. When the time came, he and Drew could deal with his upcoming deployments the same way they had dealt with Rick's; they did everything they could to prepare and then they spend as time together as possible.
"What were we thinking when we decided it was a good idea to buy property here?" Rick wondered, needing a moment to imagine being alone in a house without Drew and not wanting this conversation to tank too low, Rick filed it away to analyze more later and made a joke.
Drew grinned, mostly because Rick had. "I don't know." For a brief second he was tempted to let it stay a joke, but he wanted to tell Rick more of his thought process. "I was thinking the same thing you were, that I wanted to live in the same place as you and have that be more permanent. In hindsight, I probably should have just… asked you to marry me." Drew admitted, with a bashful grin.
Rick felt the fog start to lift off him. He wanted to be happy, he did and he had decided to give up something to gain something more valuable. Drew had come up with a plan to give him both, if only he could stand the four month wait.
"That would have saved me a lot of trouble."
They caught eyes and both burst out laughing, releasing all those emotions and humoring themselves for being scared of the future and confused about what they both wanted.
"Wedding rings are a lot more portable than houses." Rick managed eventually, realizing he liked the idea that, to the world and to themselves, metal linked them together.
"Wait, do I get one? A ring, I mean?" Drew asked, suddenly serious and adorably hopeful.
"No, I mean yes but I don't have one." Rick answered, still laughing.
"Well, why not?" Drew demanded.
Rick stopped himself, stood up straight. "I… um….I don't know your ring size. Come to think of it, I don't know mine either. I don't wear jewelry."
Drew stared at him for a second, not long enough to make Rick suspect he was angry, but long enough to make his point. And then he burst out laughing again.
"You are horrible at this; you actually suck at it." He grasped.
"Then I take it back." Rick countered.
Drew snorted in disbelief until he looked at Rick's face.
"You can't do that, that's so mean." Drew informed Rick, knowing he was messing with him.
"Obviously I can't marry someone who insults me" Rick joked.
"Then again, it's probably better I don't marry someone so rude." Drew continued in the same vein.
The grin across Rick's face spread into laughter again.
"How long have you been planning this? I hope not long."
"Since about…" Rick paused, pretending to think about it, but really stalling because he didn't want to admit it had a short time. "Well…" Rick checked his watch, knowing he was making a show. "Since about seven last night, so almost exactly twelve hours."
Drew curled his arms around his stomach and giggled. Honest to goodness giggling. Rick continued.
"Well, we have established that me wanting to take the job here is actually about me wanting to marry you and I started thinking about on Tuesday, so it has actually been about three days."
Drew's face turned a startling color of red and Rick glanced at the sliding door, suddenly grateful they were still outside a hospital.
"Well, apparently I have unconsciously trying to marry you since about three weeks ago when I started looking at houses, so I win." Drew forced out after a solid thirty seconds of continued laughter.
"You didn't know you were doing it, that doesn't count." Rick shot back.
"I printed things out; did you print things out?"
"I… didn't print things." Rick realized, not liking that answer.
"I still win." Drew decided.
"Hey, no I actually asked you, just now, earlier, that has to count for something, considering I said it out loud, and didn't subconsciously try to communicate the message through wasting trees when you could have just showed me on your phone."
Drew lost it and wrapped his arms around his stomach again and half turned away from Rick in trying to contain himself. Rick lasted a second before he joined him.
They finally calmed down after another minute of their laughter filling the parking lot.
"We are never telling anyone this story." Drew said, wiping his face.
"Hey Krista" Rick started, mock telling Drew's friends about the situation. "I asked Drew to marry me and he said yes and immediately told me to leave the state."
"And I followed that by telling him all the ways I am going to make a horrible husband because I'll be gone most of the time." Drew joined in.
"And then we figured out that I tried to torpedo my career because I unconsciously wanted to be married."
"And the motivation behind my sudden desire to own property is, shocker, actual wanting to be married as well." Drew leaned back a little, his whole body displaying humor.
"And Drew insulted my lack of preparedness"
"And he took it back." Leaning forward now, Drew put his hand on Rick's shoulder and followed that by placing his head there too.
"Wait, we're actually getting married, right?" Rick checked, serious now.
"You want to ask me again or would you like me to go print some more things?" Drew said in Rick's shoulder.
"How about we go get rings and just mutually agree to be engaged?"
"Good idea, take the asking responsibility away from both of us, because clearly neither one of us can handle it."
Having finally decided that, Rick leaned forward and put his head on Drew's shoulder so they were holding each other up.
"I think we forgot the most important part of this." Rick whispered after a second when they had thoroughly calmed down.
"What's that?" Drew whispered back, even though he knew what Rick meant. Their heads meet in the center and Drew kept one hand on Rick's chest and wrapped the other one around the back of his head, pulling him closer so when Rick leaned in to kiss him, Drew was already there.
"Are you sure about this?" Rick murmured when they pulled apart. "Moving I mean, because you don't have to."
"Yes, I do." Drew answered, his words referring to either his responsibility to the military or his desire to be close to Rick. Scanning his eyes, Rick read the latter there.
"I had to convince you to take the job you have been dying to have since you were twenty-six, I can't undo all that work now." Drew reasoned, keeping Rick's hand when he stepped back.
"I'm a little annoyed that you talked me into it so quickly." Rick admitted, in the back of his head nervous that he let himself be so influenced by Drew. Luckily, Drew, this person he had given his heart to, he chose to keep it safe and not break it.
Drew looked at his watch. "We have been standing here for forty-five minutes." He deadpanned. "We have been standing here so long, you're getting a sunburn."
"Want to hear the rest of the plan?" Rick asked, moving on.
A grin lit up Drew's face. "So this wasn't so slapped together so last minute. I approve."
"No, it was. Once I decided, I just kinda…" He made a shoving motion with one hand. "threw myself into it." Rick admitted, looking Drew in the eyes again. "Thanks for stopping me." What he meant was thank you for being you, thanks for looking out for me, thanks for being smarter than me, thanks for knowing me better than I know myself, thank you for proving me right when I let myself love you.
"I'm proud of you." Drew said softly. "You deserve it. I'm not letting you take it away from yourself right at the end."
Unable to articulate the emotion stuck in his throat, Rick leaned into kiss Drew again, resting right in front of him when they stopped.
"Are you sure?" Drew whispered, sounding uncertain. "I will be gone a lot."
It hurt that Drew thought he would be the one to chase Rick away, but it hurt because Rick had been the one to put that fear there.
"When I left, I had valid reasons in my head and in some ways it helped, but I don't plan on doing it again. So, yes, I'm sure."
"What's the rest of the plan?" Drew murmured after a moment of intensely staring at his fiance. "Because we're still in the middle of the parking lot. And I'm really hoping the rest of the plan involves walls."
"Well, rings first and I should probably should call my commander and tell him I accept the job but yea, walls. They're actually in Santa Fe."
"So you're actually somewhat organized."
"No, it's a front; I'm still a complete wreck."
Drew didn't answer right away. "No, you're not."
Rick dropped the grin and once again they were having a serious conversation. "Yes, I was."
"But now you're not and I'm not talking about Santa Fe." Under the surface, not very far, but still under the surface, they were talking about Rick's huge indecisiveness when it came to his leg, his career after that point and their relationship over the course of the last eight months.
"I don't want you to give things up for me." Drew admitted, feeling again that he held Rick back, despite Rick telling him otherwise.
"You're more important to me than a lot of other things. Sometimes I'm going to pick you over them. Get used to it." The words drifted over him, made me him safe.
"Come here" he whispered, wrapping his arm around Rick's shoulders, holding on so he could kiss him properly.
It took Drew a second to snap out of the moment but he grinned when Rick held up a set of car keys.
"When are you leaving?" Drew asked, taking the keys.
"A week and a half."
"One of these days that is not going to be the first question I ask every time I see you." Drew confirmed, still in that secure place he felt when he focused entirely on Rick and blocked out the rest of the world.
"One of these days, the same day someone puts together a coherent plan for world peace." Still watching him, Rick said solemnly, taking advantage of the common saying and pointing out the reality of their lives, given their careers.
Before Drew could start the car, Rick asked another question. "We're both military; is it stupid to get keep putting things off with the assumption that we'll be alive to do them later?"
Sighing, Drew sat back against the seat. "Sometimes it will be, but I don't think this is one of those times. That's something we have to decide on an individual basis."
Thinking about the conversation they just had and his promise he had made himself to reflect on it, Rick turned to Drew.
"If you could own property anywhere, where would it be?" Drew side eyed him.
"We're not buying anything but just in the future, where would you eventually want to live?"
Drew shrugged after giving it a second's thought. "I don't know. What's the scale? I assuming we're staying in the U.S.?"
"Yea, in the U.S." Rick decided. Serving this country so much, he was a bit attached to it.
"I haven't really been anywhere." Drew said. "I mean there a whole bunch of states west of here I've never even flew over."
"It's a really good thing we had this conversation before we actually saw any houses."
"Yea, next time let's have these before we're right at the edge of huge decisions and we can think about them."
Seeing the wisdom in that, Rick nodded, another thought forming in his head.
"Do you feel…" Drew looked at him expectedly and Rick still wasn't sure he wanted to say it out loud but he did anyway. "I don't know, grown up?"
"We're thirty, we've been making decision that could get us killed since we were eighteen, I think we're grown up." Put that way it sounds uninformed, and Rick shook his head.
"But yea, I get what you mean…" Drew continued, the confident tone fading to make way for the reflective one. "Buying things together, being married…" the word still awed him a little so he figured he should keep saying it out loud.
Rick took up where Drew had left off. "I joined the military in part because I didn't know what I wanted to do and everything happened so fast for so many years, I guess I never realized I figured out what I want to… be when I grow up." Rick finished, flushing a little at the word choice. Injury definitely had a place in the amount of thinking and reflection that happened in the last eight months. It pleased him to find he was happy with most of the decisions he had made.
"I knew what I wanted to do, I just needed a way to accomplish it. You were the wild card," Drew said, looking at Rick, a wild card in the best possible way.
"I don't know, I never looked at my life and thought about it being something I could actually achieve. Growing up felt like a long off future that happened only if a bunch of other things fell into line in exactly the right order."
"Medical school is the same way and residence too. It really easy to have an image in your head of what you're supposed to be but it seems pretty impossible that everything will work out the right way and it'll come true."
"And did it? The image in your head match how your life turned out?"
"So far, it'd been better." Drew said with a soft grin. "But I'm not done living it yet."
Either way, for the moment, this part of his life felt sorted; having a person to share his hopes and dreams, having someone to take into account when he made plans to get there, being someone's support system, having someone to be his, it did feel new and grown up and he couldn't wait to see what they made of it.
"What about you?" Drew turned the question back.
"Hard to have an image when you don't know where you want to end up but so far the view's not bad." Heat spread across Drew's face at that, given Rick was looking at him for the second part.
"Another important question." Drew said, changing the tone and unconsciously prompting both of them to pay attention again. "Are we getting married before you leave or after I get there?"
Considering that for a second, Rick tilted his head. "I could come back here for a few days so you don't have to invite all your friends out there."
"Putting things off?" Drew said, referring his comment earlier and teasing him.
Two could play at that game. "Rushing into major life decisions without talking them?" Rick answered in the teasing tone.
"You think we're rushing it? Because I don't think we are."
Refusing the urge to answer immediately, Rick thought. He hadn't considered how he would know that he was ready to be married; he had pushed the idea out of his mind. But thinking about it now, he had tried to give up a job he worked for years to earn. The person he was ready to give it up for, is that who he should spend the rest of his life with?
"No, you're right, we're not."
Drew grinned, and bounced in his seat, like a gliddy little kid.
Meeting the smile with one of his own, Rick wanted the serious discussion to end for a moment and he wanted to enjoy being engaged without having to make decisions.
"Do you know where to buy engagement rings?" Rick asked, too happy to really kick himself for forgetting that part of the plan.
"No idea." Drew replied brightly. "But we're eating breakfast first anyway."
Rick laughed as Drew finally started driving out of the parking lot. The sun wasn't setting or coming up. Darn it, the process of being adults got in the way of the scenic movie ending.