Brenda surveyed the scene in front of her. It was all too much to take in. Daniels, Sanchez, and, surprisingly enough Flynn, were in front of her asking her if she was ok.
Of course she was. He had missed and she had had to watch one of her friends go down in the middle of a shootout and there was nothing she could do to help him because she wouldn't have made it to where he was.
To quote herself earlier the year before, "I'm alive, but I am NOT okay." She heard the statement leave her lips as she pointed to downed figure in front of her.
She didn't hear the screams of her team. Her ears had shut down but she could see the anguish entering their eyes and she saw the hurt, and the terror. And she decided that was worse than if she'd heard their cries for their friend and teammate.
They didn't look back at her, she knew that they wouldn't. But one person did. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close as her walls finally broke.
She noted as she was in his arms that her squad had turned and in their own heartbreak had pulled her from that embrace and wrapped her in one of their own.
And there they stood as one mass of heartbreak, anguish, and torment.
Fritz comforted her at the funeral. It was awful to have to sit there listening to her squad give their eulogies to their fallen comrade. And then it was her turn.
"Most of you know how I came here. I didn't know where anything was, and I constantly got lost. He was the first one of all of my squad to give me some respect though I still don't think he liked me that first year. But that second, when we all started to get along. That was a different story. He was there as always. And we had our disagreements. But I will never forget the kind of sergeant and friend he has been to all of us, but especially to me. To Sergeant David Gabriel."
She was already crying before she stepped up to speak. And seeing her squad so incredibly heartbroken at the thought of continuing without Gabriel made her sob. It would be hard, but they would do it because that was what David Gabriel would have wanted. And they would do it for him.