VII.

Things go back to normal, more or less.

The bruises disappear, the wounds heal, and over time, the scars fade. She regains her strength, gets cleared by medical, and joins the team back in the field where her hands never waver and her aim is straight as ever.

Things go back to normal.

But it takes a lot of work to get there.

...

She doesn't have nightmares or wake up screaming or anything like that.

Her sleep is as deep and dreamless as ever, and for the most part, she wakes feeling rested and whole. It helps that Patton has taken up a permanent vigil outside her door, though he always seems to end up under the covers curled at her side by morning.

She doesn't have flashbacks or panic attacks either.

Perhaps she is a little quieter and a little jumpier than usual, but that's to be expected considering everything she went through.

In other words, she's okay as far as the medical professionals can tell.

But here's the thing about trauma.

It doesn't always fit a neat list of symptoms or look the way you expect it to.

For Jaz, it looks like forced smiles and an almost imperceptible flinch when anyone touches her and early mornings sitting in the kitchen staring off into space.

It sounds like strained laughter that no longer comes easy and one-word answers when asked how she's doing and an echoing in her ears when she hears the sound of gunfire.

It feels like guilt every time she sees her face in the mirror and the thundering of her heartbeat when she pulls on a white shirt and an almost fanatical adherence to the rules, lest she forget what happened the last time she went off-book.

It tastes like blood and smells of it too.

...

Here's the thing about trauma.

It causes collateral damage as well.

Because Jaz may have been the one who was tortured, but she is not the only one who suffers.

And for the rest of the team, it looks like this: Hannah and Noah calling every day even though the line is only supposed to be used for official intelligence briefings; Amir cooking more food than they could ever eat at odd hours of the night and practicing his daily prayers out in the common room; McGuire keeping a syringe of epinephrine in his pocket and waking from a dead sleep to check her vitals; Preach talking to his family twice a day and whispering passages from the scripture under his breath when he hangs up; Dalton offering to let her rotate home early, watching her when he thinks she doesn't notice, and softening his tone when he says her name.

Here's the thing about a team like theirs.

When something happens to one of them, it happens to all of them.

In other words, none of them are okay.

...

She doesn't talk much about what happened, but everyone knows anyway.

The facts of her capture are expressed in short, concise sentences on the mission report, and the damage left by the knives and fists are all too visible on her skin. Her team knows every detail of what happened to her body, but the havoc that room wreaked on her mind is harder to see, and even harder for her to admit.

Like every other operative, she was trained to withstand physical and mental torture and taught to compartmentalize her emotions. It's easy in theory and harder in practice, but that day in the white room, with those photos in her lap, it was damn near impossible.

She saw their faces – heard that they had been captured, heard that they had been killed – and for a split second, before she remembered her training, she had believed it.

This is the part that's hard to admit.

In that brief, brutal moment, she would have done anything to save them.

She would have spilled all her secrets, betrayed her uniform and her country, and put countless other lives at risk.

In that moment, she would have traded anything and anyone for the promise of their safety.

It would have been worth it.

...

When they blast the doors open and drag her out of that van – risking their lives, disobeying orders, and defying all logic and common sense to rescue her – she realizes for the first time that she is worth it to them as well.

That's another thing that's hard to admit.

Because caring for someone else is easy, but allowing yourself to be cared for, that's harder. It means more.

It means you have more to lose.

...

She comes close to losing them in Colombia, but she doesn't find that out until later.

...

Dalton approaches her as she's checking over her weapon, and he's quiet, not quite meeting her eyes.

It takes her a second to realize what that means. She's sitting this one out. He's making her stay behind.

At first, she's sure that he's joking, trying to keep her on her toes, but then he reminds her that she hasn't been cleared yet, and coming from him, it feels like a low blow.

That's just an excuse.

With a team like theirs, they have a lot of latitude in how they operate, and there's been a long-unspoken understanding among them that a piece of paper from medical is just a formality.

Not this time.

This time, Dalton insists on following the rules.

He tells her there are procedures in place for a reason, as if he's ever cared about them before. He tells her he's not qualified to decide if she's fit for duty, though, being the team leader, there's no one better qualified than him.

These are just more excuses.

But then he confesses that he'd never forgive himself if something happened to her, and maybe that's the truth, the real reason he won't let her go.

It's not because she's not ready to go back into the field.

It's because he's not ready to let her.

...

Since joining the Omega team, Jaz can count on one hand the number of missions she's missed.

The first time was when she was recovering from a concussion and a broken arm.

The second was after they lost Elijah.

This is the third.

It's different this time.

...

There is a part of her that resents him for grounding her, so she storms out of the room, making sure her displeasure is known.

But there is another part of her that understands his decision, even if she doesn't agree with it, so she comes back before they leave and reminds them to be careful.

By the time the helicopter lifts off, her irritation has all but faded away.

It's hard to stay angry when there's no guarantee they'll return.

...

She'll never admit it, but talking to the shrink helps.

It's so quiet around base without them, without the noises that accompany them – the rustle of a prayer rug, the creak of the fridge door, the clanging of horseshoes, the pounding of boots hitting pavement. It makes her feel restless, and when she gets this way, her mind races to the worst possible scenarios.

She thinks about everything that could go wrong, all the different ways she could lose them, and pretty soon, she's not sure if she's sweating from the workout or the stress.

She hates feeling so helpless and powerless and afraid, but more than that, she hates talking about how much she hates feeling this way. Really, she just hates talking about her feelings, but with Captain Martin – Xander – she hates it a little less.

He's not pushy or patronizing like the woman she had to see after losing Elijah, and he doesn't act as if he knows her better than she knows herself. Mostly, he just listens, quietly and without judgment, as she tells him her thoughts and her fears.

When she's done speaking, he tells her something no one else has ever told her before.

The trick is not to focus on overcoming your fears. Sometimes, it's enough just to learn to live with them.

And for the first time that day, Jaz finds herself breathing easier, she finds the fear loosening its grip on her.

There are still so many different ways she could lose them, but there are also so many reasons she is grateful to have them. And later that night, when they come back, she realizes that's all that really matters.

When they come back, she realizes this: there is a cost to having them in her life, and that cost is the possibility that she could one day be without them.

She decides she can live with that.

...

The day Jaz finally feels like herself again, the rest of them feel it too.

Because that's the thing about a team like theirs.

When something happens to one of them, it happens to all of them.

In other words, they are all okay.

Because she is.