Dave had never been on familiar terms with the word "love." Throughout most of his life, the two had been distant cousins at best, bitter strangers at worst. He supposed he'd felt some form of affection for Campbell, or at least as much as you could feel affection for a man such as Campbell. The soldier had been the closest thing to a father Dave had ever known, and he felt as though that warranted some sort of emotional connection.
He imagined he had loved Gray Fox at some point or another. He had been his best and only friend, and Dave had cared for him more than any other person in his life, but still, loving someone and being in love with someone is not the same beast. He had cared about Gray Fox, but the relationship was such a naïve one that Dave doubted he could have even distinguished a complex emotion like love at such an age.
Then there had been Meryl. Dave had thought he loved Meryl, he really, truly had. It was something he had kept at arms length, being the type of person he was, but he had had no doubt at the time that if he did not love her, he could very easily grow to love her. That had been a folly assumption on his part. He hadn't loved Meryl. He had cared for her, pitied her, but never loved her.
In the end, it had taken a scrawny computer tech Dave had happened across in a locker on Shadow Moses Island to teach him exactly what love felt like. Dave still had a hard time comprehending it himself, and he happened to be a tactical genius. Any sane person would have taken one look at the pair and, gender aside, thought the two completely crazy for even considering a relationship. They were barely compatible for friendship, let alone a romantic relationship.
None of that seemed to matter, however. Dave loved Hal, loved him more than he loved anything else. The man was the most real, genuine person he had ever met. The little nerd had melted the soldier's stiff, war-torn heart, and that, Dave was sure of, was something only love could do.