He could hear the carnage around him. He could hear the yelling and the screams around him. He could feel the shattered glass landing on his skin and the cool breeze on the blood dripping from him. But, he couldn't bring himself to focus on that. All he could think about was how peaceful he felt. He wasn't even sure what happened, all he knew was his body felt like it was floating, weightless and unburdened. He'd never been this relaxed before.
"Ok, Jay. On the count of three I want you to open your eyes".
The disembodied voice floated through his head like an echo.
"One".
He felt himself sinking back down
"Two"
The blood flowing from his arm was beginning to feel cold
"Three"
His eyes snapped open and he could smell the gasoline, he looked around and felt the cold grip of his M16 in his hands. He heard a loud explosion and he immediately crashed down to a crouch as he raced over to a body lying near the shell of the humvee they had been in not long before. He raced over and grabbed the soldier by the strap of his vest and dragged him to cover under the armor. He could tell by the amount of blood he saw on his hands the guy was gone. "MEDIC" he yelled out before he looked around frantically. His eyes locked on to someone a few clicks ahead, he was motioning to that there were unfriendlies on the roofs. Jay knew there was a covered route to get to the rest of his team. He also knew the second he left the protection of the humvee, his friend, a man he was in charge of, would be taken and burned in front of cameras as a propaganda piece. He laid the body of his friend down, grabbed the dog tags from around his neck and said a silent prayer. "I am so sorry, Tony".
"Jay, it's time to come back"
He was struggling to stay with his friend, looking through his pockets for the photo of his wife and two daughters. He needed to bring a piece of this man home to his family.
"Jay, I need you to come back here. You're safe here".
The disembodied voice was wrong, he knew what was locking in on him right now, but he couldn't change how this memory was going to unfold. He knew he'd be shot in a moment, it would miss anything vital, but it had to happen. He was going to be shot trying to run to safety. He was going to lead a sniper right to the rest of his team. He'd be the reason they got ambushed, the reason most of them died.
He heard the crack of the bullet he waited for the burning sensation, but it didn't come. Instead he sat bolt upright, realizing he was no longer in Kandahar, but on a couch, in an overly neutral room. It took him a moment to remember he was at his therapist's office, but that didn't stop his heart hammering in his chest, a loud static sound in his ear and the scar just below his adam's apple from aching.
"It's ok, take a sip of water." She walked over with a glass of water and a tissue box. He realized she was going to expect tears, but they weren't going to come. He learned to stop crying over the guilt a long time ago.
"No, if it's alright I think I'd like to go home". He went to stand up, but he could feel his legs shaking like he had just bench pressed a car.
"Jay, I really think we made some progress, if you leave now, we'll lose it. I want to discuss your memory of that day."
He just couldn't hear it, he couldn't talk about the lives that were lost, because of him. He couldn't talk about the families he had to see when he got back home, waiting for the coffins of their dead husbands.
The bile was hot as he threw up again into the toilet, flushing it down quickly before he laid against the cool tile in the bathroom.
"You keep throwing up like that and I'm gonna make you take a pregnancy test". Will had somehow managed to jimmy the lock and was standing in the doorway holding a beer for him. He was going to turn it down but Will was too fast for him and was already putting it down next to him.
His head was pounding and his stomach was still in his throat burning and threatening to come up again, "I think I went a little too hard last night, I'll be alright".
Will shook his head, but couldn't wipe the amused grin off his face, "well, at about 2 am, you got deposited at my door by Herrmann and Otis. Mumbling about Mouse and some guy named Tony?" Jay's whole body stiffened when he started to remember the day before. The night was blank, but the memories flooded back. Will could tell he said something he shouldn't have and sat down next to his brother, taking a sip of his beer.
"You're welcome here as long as you need to be. But," he signed and looked down at Jay, "but, and I am saying this as the guy that got kicked out of a country for my partying." He nudged the beer over to him, hair of the dog would do the trick, "you need to slow down. I'm proud of you for finally talking to someone, but Jay? It's been six weeks of you passing out drunk on my couch, missing work, refusing to talk to Erin when she calls." He paused for a moment trying to figure out how to say this, "I just don't want you to wake up a year from now and realize you tried to take a step forward and instead ended up drunk and married in Vegas. And, you've lost your job, you've lost the only woman willing to show up here every week to make sure you're still alive and you're all alone, drunk on a couch". He knew he didn't have to say the last part of the speech he had been rehearsing for a while
Jay slowly pulled himself up and leaned against the bathtub with his brother, it was a sobering thought. Not that he was falling down the same rabbit hole he had been in before, but that it had been six weeks. He couldn't believe it had been that long. "Like dad". He rubbed his face and felt the several days growth on his cheeks, suddenly beginning to piece together a few broken memories. The therapist's session had been a three weeks ago, and not the day before. He hadn't been sober in almost a month. He also hadn't gone to his doctor since. He took the beer and took a gulp, not to drink it but to swish it around his mouth before he spit it out into the toilet and looked down at his hands.
"You have the support system this time, Jay. I'm here, Erin's here, Voight and Antonio are here. You just need to open your eyes and realize it. It's not going to be like last time, if you don't let it". Will slowly got up off the floor and took the two beers back with him, leaving Jay to silently sit there, thinking about his options.
She had run out of things to clean weeks ago. She had managed to take all her clothes out of her closet, wash them, rehang them and spent an entire weekend putting it into color order, down the the shade of color. Her floors had been waxed, walls repainted and she had even gone out and got some of those posters Jay liked and hung them. So here she was, Friday night, TV on some sort of documentary and a glass of milk.
She had tried so hard not to focus on the empty side of the bed, the empty desk, the empty car. She never knew how much of her day was spent looking up and getting that reassuring smile. Now it was just empty. She should have been used to the empty by now, it was empty growing up, why wouldn't adulthood be empty. She just didn't expect the empty to come from someone she loved so much.
She was about to wallow in self pity when she heard something fall into her front door and then a meek knock. She stood up slowly, her cop senses tingling and she quietly walked over to her counter to grab her piece. It was late, she was alone, and someone just fell into her door. She wasn't in the mood to regret not having her gun on her.
"Erin, it's me". Jay's voice was barely loud enough to make it through her door, but the second she heard it the butterflies formed and she put the gun back down and ran to the door. She took a deep breath as she unhooked the latch and opened the door.
She didn't know what to expect when she saw him. Usually, when she went to Will's house, he refused to let her in. He kept telling her she didn't need to see him like that. To say she was shocked was an understatement. His clothes were dirty and he hadn't shaved in what looked like a month. His eyes gave him away, because this man wasn't the Jay she knew.
He couldn't even muster out words, he was sober-ish, his body heavy and exhausted from what he had been putting it through and refusing to sleep wasn't helping him any. But, he needed to lean on someone now. Will was right and the path he was going down was what almost killed him the last time. He wanted to reach out and anchor himself to her, but he didn't have the strength anymore. But, she was a good partner, and knew him better than he knew himself and she immediately moved to hold him, letting him collapse into her arms.
All she could do was hold him until he regained himself long enough to bring him to the couch. He just collapsed into it, deep down into it. She climbed onto it to check him over, make sure he wasn't hurt. But his pain wasn't a physical ailment. His deep breaths and the light in his eyes were gone, he looked lost, a ghost of himself. "You're scaring me, Jay. Please talk to me". She had never asked him to talk to her about his past, she always wanted him to know she was there and willing to listen if he wanted to talk. But, now? Now she needed him to talk to her.
He wanted to talk to her, but he couldn't get the words out. His hands were shaking as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a set of dog tags. They were rusted and barely readable, but needed her to understand. He could feel the sting of tears in his throat, and he wiped his nose on the back of his hand before he put the tags back into his pocket. Clearing his throat, he quietly began to explain.
"It was an ambush. We were clearing a village, it was supposed to be recon, make sure it was safe." He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was back on the road, the humvee stopped a few meters behind him, he was walking leisurely down a small street. They'd been told it had been cleared a week ago, no one in or out. He had no reason to have his guard up, but then all of a sudden hellfire rang out. "The humvee rolled over and IED and was on fire. All of a sudden there was gunfire, guys screaming on the comms. I got hit by a piece of shrapnel and got knocked out. I don't know for how long, but when I came too I saw Tony." He lifted up the dog tags and couldn't control the cracking in his voice, "he was gone, half his neck was just gone. He had a wife and a family."
He had to stop to try and regain his composure, "I saw Mouse, he was about 100 yards ahead of me, and I could see the muzzle flashes so I knew my squadron was entrenched in this mud hut. So, I um, I pulled Tony to safe cover so I could take his tags and something I knew he'd want his wife to have and I went to make my way to my team. Regroup and call for air support." He touched the scar on his neck, "then I heard the shot, and felt the burn. It bounced off a piece of my armor so it was only a ricochet, but a sniper was locked in on me". He had to stop again as he could feel the hot sun on his skin, he could hear the guys screaming for ammo or the medic. He remembered the crouched running back to the hut.
"I panicked. I ran to the hut. The sniper locked in on the hut". He shook his head as he looked away from her the tears falling freely down his cheeks, all she could do is stare at him with her mouth slightly open. He took a deep breath as he cleared his throat one more time and then looked up at the ceiling to keep his tears from continuing to fall. Mouse pulled me into the back to check out my neck, stop the bleeding until we could get support." He closed his eyes again and heard the whizzing outside, but by the time you hear it, it's too late. All he could do was grab Mouse and duck. "They shot an RPG into the hut. We were sitting ducks".
Erin reached out and grabbed him by the face, she already knew where he was going with this story and she wasn't going to let him do that to himself. "You are not to blame for what happened, Jay. It was a war, and you got Mouse to safety. You got Tony's dog tags back for his wife. You cannot blame yourself for what happened". Somewhere deep down, he knew that what she was saying may have been right. But all he could do was see the guys go flying as the RPG hit the hut and exploded.
"If I had just stayed at the humvee, they wouldn't have seen where they all were hidden. They could have gotten support, I could have held the ambush off long enough for them to scramble a jet." He took her hands off his face, his shame was too much and he felt if she touched him, she'd be tainted with it too. "I got them all killed Erin. Nine guys in my unit, I was in charge of them all. And, I came home. I came home and had to look at all the wives standing there, waiting for their husbands bodies. The kids standing quietly not understanding why I got to come home but their dads couldn't."
He collapsed again, he had never said it out loud to anyone before. The guilt of letting his men die, in a moment of cowardice. A moment he refused to ever experience again. He was the first one in last one out now because of that day. All the lives he saved would never make up for the ones he lost. Erin grabbed him and pulled him close to her chest as he sobbed holding onto her for dear life. She had no idea how to comfort him now, all she could do was hold onto him, keep him there, where he was safe. She'd hold him all night if he had too, every night, she was going to be the support he always was for her.
He didn't know if he felt better finally telling someone his story. He knew it wasn't going to suddenly dissuade the guilt he always felt, but he couldn't keep it down anymore. His fists closed in on the dog tags tightly as he pulled away from her to wipe his face, his tears were soaking his beard and began to make his face itch. "I know it's a lot to take in, and I'm sorry I laid all of this at your feet without warning. But, I every time I close my eyes, I'm back there. I know what's going to happen, but I'm powerless to stop it. My mind knows I can't run to the hut, and I will my feet to stop, but I end up there anyway." She covered his mouth with her hand and forced him to look at her, "shh, there is nothing to apologize for. We're partners, you've been there for me to pick up the pieces and now, I'm here to do the same". She pulled him back into her again, hugging him tightly, "you know what you always tell me right? This is why you have back-up".