She didn't know what it was; maybe it was his eyes, blue as cobalt and ten fathoms deep.
Maybe it was his manner, carefree and wild as he roamed without fear of reprisals.
Maybe it was his commitment, the way he followed his military life with unerring loyalty, never faltering, never unsure.
Maybe it was the set of his jaw, softly squared and strong.
Maybe it was his dangerous profession, she had always liked a bad boy and it seemed he was one of the worst.
Maybe it was how sentimental he could be, keeping parts from jobs under his bed to remind him that he could have died many times in the past.
Maybe it was the way he cared for her, the way he taught her to look after herself in the field.
Maybe it was his hands, soft and capable as they sifted through wires and metal to find the small detonator.
Yes, that was it. It was his hands, and the way they would guide hers through the mess of electrical tape to find her goal. The way they used to stroke her forearms gently, a ghost of a touch, as if hoping she wouldn't notice. The hands that had patched her wounds, cut her hair, saved her life.
The tools that, with the right person, could change the world. Or atleast the life of a scared little GI Jane who had never seen a second of combat before she landed in Delta Squad.
She found herself remembering his touch; recalling the way it felt whenever his hand landed on hers by accident, the way her heart would pound when they stacked up and his chest pressed tight into her back, the way he made her feel.
He made her feel alive.
But he loved only one thing, and she knew that to be by his side she would have to do that thing with him. Maybe that would earn her a place in his heart.
Her little Jack-in-a-Box, with his illogical feelings and his irrational desire to put himself in harms way.
Who knew she could fall so deeply in love. So deeply in love that it did not matter whether he was her squad leader, that it did not matter if he was five years older than her nineteen years, that it did not matter if she died by his side.
"James?"
"Yeah."
He looked up from the dead man switch he had acquired at the UN building in Iraq, his strong fingers curling around the black plastic and coloured wire covering.
"What would you do if you were about to die?"
It was a curious question, possibly not curious enough to warrant the overly strange answer.
"I'd touch the sky and think of you, Sergeant Scott."