Chapter Twenty-Eight: Harboring a Secret
My quarters were silent as a tomb when I walked in compared to the overabundance of sounds I'd experienced outside during the fight. I'd been hyped up with adrenaline on and off for the last few hours, too; now I just felt exhausted. I set my weapons down carefully near my desk, including my DMR, the dead Jackal's sniper rifle, and my pistol holster, knowing I'd have to throroughly dry and clean each later, part by part. For now, though, I finished tugging off the rest of my outer layers of equipment, then headed for the showers.
It was while I was under the spray of lukewarm water that I really started to feel the physical impact of today. My whole body felt sore, my still-healing nose was throbbing, I had a headache from my conversation with Matthew, and I could feel a hundred tiny pinpricks of pain here and there from scratches and bruises I'd sustained during the battle - most coming from throwing myself on the ground hard with all my gear on to evade shots. And mortars. And grenades.
I decided it'd been a long half-day so far.
Yet the physical was still nothing compared to the mental turmoil I faced now.
I shut my eyes tight under the spray and swallowed down on the sudden lump in my throat. Willis's arrival groundside could either remedy that for me, or make things worse. And the fact that the latter was even an option was my fault. I was keeping something from him that I'd known all along I shouldn't, but to protect the men and women I led, I'd agreed to my brother-in-law's bargain.
Only after this morning, I wasn't quite so sure anymore how good that deal really was. Some of Matthew's information had indeed helped us, but most were things our spook had already found out on his own, well within the time frame established for him. I'd discovered the rebels' plans to attack us without Lloyd's knowing, but at the same time, I'd been wrong about when, and that had gotten me into morally ambiguous territory when I hadn't been able to prepare by issuing non-lethal ammunition and ordnance to my men as I'd wanted to. And despite the foreknowledge, I'd still almost gotten Matthew killed while attempting to keep my own Marines safe.
That wasn't right. None of this was. I saw now that the costs were starting to far outweigh the benefits. And that I'd made a big mistake.
Turning off the water, I remained standing there for a moment longer in the stall, bracing my hands against the wall with my head down, deep in thought. I was thirty years old now, nearing thirty-one soon. There was no good excuse for my actions anymore, no way to say I was too naïve to know any better. I did know, and I'd still done it. Somehow, I'd found myself trusting and believing that a nineteen-year-old boy actually knew what he was doing, and so I'd inadvertently put him in harm's way instead of getting him out. I should've told Matthew when I met up with him earlier, then and there, that this was done.
But I hadn't, and now I'd have to wait till the next time I saw him to tell him. I wasn't going to put him in danger again, whether he wanted me to or not. Yet until I spoke with him, I'd still have to keep the secret from Willis...and that killed me.
By the time I toweled off and changed into a spare set of fatigues, fifteen more minutes had passed. I figured my husband had to be dirtside by now. I'd stepped into the mess to grab a quick cup of coffee before returning to my quarters when I saw him.
He was sitting alone at one of the tables, nursing a hot mug of joe himself, still dressed in his flight suit. His short, light brown hair had been flattened a little on top from his helmet, but he still looked as good as ever. I smiled to myself, momentarily forgetting everything I'd been worried about for what seemed like ages lately, and walked over to greet him.
"Hey, Mister," I said, my smile morphing into a big grin.
Willis finally glanced up then and he grinned, too. "Hey, Cooper." He looked around a little nervously at the other Marines eating around us. "I'd greet you properly, but...doesn't look like the right environment for it."
"That's never stopped us before."
I leaned down and kissed him lightly on the lips. It was a lot less than what I wanted to do after almost two weeks apart, but it sufficed for now. Just having him here in front of me again was already more than I could've hoped for this soon.
When I took a seat across from him after that, he was smirking. Willis shook his head.
"You don't know what you do to me sometimes, Coop."
I snorted, aware that the stupid grin was still on my face. "We've been married ten years now, honey. I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Such a tease." He took another sip of his coffee and then leaned in close, his voice going low. "And to think you're my superior. You're setting a terrible example, Major."
I laughed, then gently shoved my hand against his chest to push him back. "All right, enough. Why don't you tell me where you've been the last couple weeks."
My husband raised an eyebrow at me as I took a sip of my own drink. "Why not the other way around? You were supposed to call me, remember. I haven't heard from you in days."
That's because I've been trying to figure out how to keep the fact that Matthew's still alive a secret from you, I thought.
I was instantly filled with self-loathing over that, and the smile abruptly faded from my face. Ever the perceptive one, Willis picked up on my sudden change of mood in seconds.
"Natalie? What's wrong?"
In the past, when I'd met Willis in the mess hall after some time apart with joy followed by apprehension, it'd been because I was about to tell him I was pregnant. This time, that wasn't the case - although the information I wanted to blurt out at him would probably have about the same emotional impact. For now, though, I held my tongue for Matthew's sake. I wasn't accustomed to lying, however, and I stumbled around my words.
"Nothing, Will," I said with a quick wave of my hand. "Don't worry about it." I let out a sigh then to cover it up. "It's just been a very long morning, is all."
"Tell me about it. From what we could see up in the air, that skirmish looked crazy. It must've been pretty rough for you down there."
I took another swallow of my coffee before replying, "Yeah, it was. But the fight wasn't even the half of it."
"What else happened?"
"I almost got shot today," I said. "Four times. More if you count the point-blank ones. Came close with two different explosives, too." I snorted into my cup for the second time. "That's gotta be some kind of record, right?"
I didn't want to worry him, but I also wanted to be honest - at least about everything that wasn't in relation to his brother. That, I'd have to explain to him later, and hope he'd understand.
For the first time in the thirteen years I'd known him, I sensed that my husband couldn't quite figure out what was going through my head. Still, Willis reached across the table and offered me his hand. I took it.
"Shit, Natalie. I'm sorry. That sounds bad. Did you just get unlucky, or do you think..."
"That someone wants me dead? That they were targeting me, specifically? Yeah, I do. It started off as just one sniper. And it was right before everything else."
"Damn," he replied. Running his free hand over his hair, he added, "Please be careful, Coop. Even more than you have been. I don't want to see you get hurt."
"I will." I gave his hand a small squeeze. "We've got a spook out here, you know. I'm going to have him look into it for me, along with some other stuff."
"Like what?"
It was my turn to give him a questioning look. "Did you get any updates of what's been going on down here while you still aboard ship?"
He shrugged. "A few. Not a lot. I was counting on getting most of that from you when you called."
"Oh. Well, there's a lot to catch you up on, then." Without thinking about it, I found myself counting off events on my fingers. "I guess our story starts with those two Marines that were killed by snipers the night before we got here. Then there was the bomb that went off at my build site that took another one. Then the nocturnal hit-and-run later that night." I finally met his hazel eyes. "All of it culminated with today's assault."
"Wow. Holy shit. You guys haven't had it easy down here, huh?"
"Nope," I answered. "Not so much."
My husband shook his head in disbelief. "All that in less than two weeks? Fuck, Natalie."
"It's okay, Will. I'm still here."
"Yeah, but - "
I smiled wryly at him. "This is what we signed up for, remember? Gotta roll with the punches sometimes." Even if it landed you in a creek. "So? Tell me what brought you dirtside, and what living in the lap of luxury in that bucket in the sky was like while I've been gone."
Willis knew I was trying to distract him from his worries by changing the subject, but he bit. "Officially, we're here to take back some of the wounded to our facilities upstairs. The Suave Affair's medical bay is better equipped for the complex stuff from what I hear. There's more supplies, and it's safer from attack. Since we're already down here, we brought in some new gear, too." He leaned forward again. "I hear the outpost CO might want us on an op soon as well. Strafing run...or maybe more of what we did today."
That could only mean the rebel HQ. I sat there a moment, thinking how obvious that was as our next move, but worrying the entire time about the fact that Matthew was still a part of that, and might be there when shit finally hit the fan. I'd have to get him out before then.
"Does that bother you?" I asked quietly. "You know these are people, right? Not ex-Covies?"
"It does and it doesn't. They're people, yeah, but they've chosen to turn on us. On the rest of humanity. They've tried to kill you, for God's sake, multiple times it sounds like. A part of me feels bad, but...I've got to protect my family." He took my hand again and gave it a squeeze. "I've got to protect you."
Your family includes Matt, though, I thought to myself. And whatever you do against the rebs for now will hurt him, too.
There was no easy way out of this, I realized then. I'd made a huge mess of things without meaning to, in an attempt to do good. To spare lives. But it had backfired.
Soon, I knew I'd have to find a way to make it right.
By the time we got back to my quarters, I was ready for a nap. With no orders to resume construction coming down the pipeline - and with the battle we'd just fought still fresh in all our minds - I decided to give my battalion the rest of the day off. That freed me up as well to spend time with Willis. I had to make sure his being here was approved of first, though.
As I laced my hands around the back of his neck, I looked up at him and asked, "So...are we squared away?"
"You mean did Colonel Dwight approve my request to be billeted together while I'm groundside? Yes."
I smirked as he slowly pulled me closer by my belt loops. "Good. Nice work, Captain."
"Thank you, ma'am."
He leaned in and kissed me then, still delicate but with more passion than the one I'd given him in the mess. I tightened my own hold on his neck and kissed him back a little harder.
I'd really missed him. During the Human-Covenant War, two weeks apart would've been nothing, as we'd routinely spent much more time separated, but the last four years we hadn't gone more than a week without seeing one other. He was my lover, my best friend, my partner in everything, and the father of my kids. It made it all the more difficult to come to terms with what I was hiding from him.
I almost felt guilty making love to him when I knew the magnitude of the secret I kept. But for just a short while, I wanted to forget about everything else and just be with Willis.
