Hello guys, just me again… Back at it…

Trigger warning:
Mention/talk about suicide
(US Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255)
-Talk to someone, your life matters!

Okay, now that that is mentioned. Hope you enjoy the chapter. (I don't really think this one will be any worse than what you've already read through, but it deals with the subject from another angle.)

Duncan watched as Michelle sat down with her own plate of pancakes.

He could see why Jack had fallen for her. He guessed he could find a couple reasons why she had fallen for Jack too. He was a good guy. Funny and charming when he had to. Duncan had witnessed Jack's 'game' in person, and had to admit it could be impressing. But still he had a hard time wrapping his head around how a smart, cute and awesome girl like Michelle had fallen for Jack. Stubborn, rough, sometimes short tempered Jack…
They seemed so different from each other.

But there were no doubt they were both very much in love. All the stolen glances at the other when the other one wasn't looking. All of those accidental touches. –And the deliberate touches. (If he had been one for all that fancy schmancy romance stuff, he would have said that this romance one was right up there on the top of the list. –But he never cared about romance. Especially not when he wasn't one of the partakers. No… Romance was boring. Not something he cared about.)

He smiled as Michelle leaned against Jack's shoulder and Jack lit up with a smile of his own. He had to admit, he had never seen Jack like this.

He thought he had seen Jack in his element. Where he belonged. Guns blazing, hunkered down in a FUBAR situation, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Just pure guts, recklessness and bad-assery.

But this? It looked even more natural.

The way Jack sneaked a peek at her every chance he got. The way he would let his cast-covered arm rest just a little closer to her than strictly necessary, and the way she would wrap her arm around his elbow when she hugged him. He looked at peace.

Like the wild roaring storm that was Jack Dalton had been calmed by a blissful breeze called Michelle Sawyer.

Duncan shook his head at the intrusive thoughts. Nah… He didn't care about romance.

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After they had eaten breakfast, and Pete had went upstairs to take a shower, the rest of the gang sat out back.

Cooper, Jack and Box were talking about old stories. Mainly pre-military ones.

Duncan sat down beside Michelle. He deliberately placed himself with his left side facing her. Then he looked towards her and flashed a grin he knew would tug at and distort his scar. "What do you think?"

"About?"

"Us. Jack's old buddies…" Duncan shrugged his right shoulder.

"You're an odd bunch…" Michelle smiled back, "I didn't really know what I expected when we drove up here, but whatever it was… You guys are definitely better."

"Even though we are basically one washed up cowboy, one oversized Golden Retriever puppy, one guy marked 'some assembly required' and half a chocolate Joker?" Duncan grinned and pointed to his own scar.

Michelle chuckled, and looked back up at Duncan. "How did you get that, by the way?"

"Well, sometimes I tell people it was back when I was in a street gang… Or I say I got it during my first stint in prison…" Duncan shrugged, "Sometimes it's from a bar brawl, other times auto-accident… -That one's the closest…"

"But that's all lies…?"

Dunc nodded. "See, I was in that same Humvee as Pete… Our car set off an IED, Pete lost his leg. I got this Glasgow-smile and a few other nicks… I was knocked unconscious, woke up later with more stitches than I thought it was possible to get all at once…"

"It's a while ago, right?"

"Almost ten years… Think it was 2008…" Dunc nodded, before he leaned closer, "I've got to say… I'm real impressed with you. Most folks either can't look at my face, or they stare way longer than you would think was necessary… You didn't even raise your eyebrows…"

"Well… When I started out working as a nurse, I worked a little bit at the hospital in Houston and a little at a nursing home near Sealy. There was this old veteran. The whole right side of his face was scarred, plus along with his neck, chest and shoulder." Michelle shrugged, "Looked like it was caused by acid. He didn't like when people got weird about it, but he wasn't ashamed or anything. He just wanted people to be able to look at him casually. At first I tried to avoid looking at it. After a while he stopped me and told me to 'just look at his face good and long, and get over it…'"

Duncan nodded.

"Think we sat in front of each other for ten minutes, it sure felt like it. After a while the scar didn't look as threatening, and believe me… It was the full right side of his face. After that I haven't felt guilty of looking at people's faces, as long as I don't stare. And I have realized that it can be just as painful to people if you're never able to meet their eyes."

"So you're not scared off by this little razor nick?" Duncan gestured to the large curved scar that run from his hairline, down in front of his ear and forward to the corner of his mouth.

Michelle shook her head, "Maybe if you actually dressed up as the Joker…"

"That's been my go-to Halloween costume ever since I got this…" Duncan chuckled, "But then I've got a friend modeling a matching scar for me on the other side. And I go around asking folks 'do you wanna know how I got these scars?' -And I hand out freezer pops…"

Michelle couldn't refrain from laughing. "You've got a twisted sense of humor, you know that?"

Duncan smiled and nodded as Pete came back out in the yard, with a slightly hushed voice he continued. "Pete sent me a picture last year, him and his kids. They were pirates."

Michelle chuckled.

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"So… I guess you're no longer self-conscious about the prosthetic…" Jack nodded towards Pete's legs. The shorter man wore denim shorts and had kicked his legs up on the edge of the fire pit.

"No, not anymore…" Pete nodded and raised his right leg, "As a surgeon, I have to make my patients understand that losing a leg, or an arm, won't mean the end of their life. I can't walk around and show that I'm ashamed of this leg, when I know that my patient will have to live the rest of his life with much less of a leg than what I have…"

Jack nodded, "So… Horrible question, but… -Are you okay with it?"

Pete chuckled grimly.

"Well, honestly… Optimally I'd still have my leg and still be out there with those two clowns…" he pointed towards Duncan and Cooper, "But since shit hit the fan and all that… I'm glad I'm here, even with one extremity less, instead of inside a wooden box…"

Jack nodded.

"-And I get to go home and spend time with my wife and kids at the end of the day…"

"How is that, by the way?"

"-Perfect." Pete grinned.

Then he folded his arms across his chest and chuckled lightly.

"If you ever get the chance… Take it!" Pete winked and jabbed his thumb towards Michelle over at the other side of the semi-circle they were sitting in. "You could pull it off, and still do what you do…"

"You think?"

Pete nodded. "Of course you wouldn't be able to see your girl and your kids every day like I do, but you'd be with them whenever you weren't on missions."

"But what if I leave one day, and I never make it back home?"

"What if you leave for your boring desk job one day and get into a 15-car pileup on the interstate? You can't think like that Jack…"

"But that's what's gonna happen…"

"You don't know that…" Pete looked hard at Jack, "Unless you've suddenly got a crystal ball, you don't get to make assumptions about your future. Especially not grim ones!"

"-I've screwed up everything good that has ever happened to me…"

"That's not true…"

"Georgia, Charlie, Diane, Sarah, you… Do I need to go on?"

"Okay, first of all; Charlie wasn't your fault." Pete stare intensified, and his voice became hushed. "It was his own damn choice, he didn't tell us about where his head was at. We couldn't know. Neither could you… Second; Me and those other guys? We were messed up long before we met you. Again not your fault."

"I could have…" Jack muttered, "I could have known what Charlie would do…"

"Did you have a crystal ball back then you didn't tell us about?"

Jack shook his head, "No… But I should have known…"

Pete studied Jack's expression, hurt and despair hidden behind those dark brown eyes. Pete looked away, took a glance around the circle.

"Maybe we should take a little walk… Or a drive… Given the company here…" he whispered when he looked back at Jack.

Jack looked around the circle, his eyes stopping at where Cooper and Boxer were laughing at some old story. And at Michelle and Duncan talking about something. Then he nodded.

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"Where are you going?" Boxer looked up as Jack and Pete headed towards the door to the house.

"Oh, Jack's just gonna show me the place where you guys flipped that old Bronco out front…"

"Okay… Have fun…" Boxer chuckled, "Remember to drive a little slower than what we did!"

Pete nodded.

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They did what they had told Boxer, they drove out to the curve where Jack, Nick and Boxer had flipped the old yellow Bronco.

"Okay, now TALK." Pete commanded, as he sat down on the folded out tailgate next to Jack.

"I should have known…" Jack sighed, "I should have known he would do something so stupid…"

"You couldn't have known, none of us knew!" Pete butted in.

"I should have…"

"He didn't tell you, now did he?" Pete furrowed his brows and looked at Jack with a stern look, "You couldn't have known."

"He kinda did…"

"Did he tell you straight out that he was going to kill himself?"

"No."

"Then there is no way you could have known!" Pete slid down from the tailgate and stepped in front of Jack. "See, there was no way for you to know. Just like for the rest of us. Even for Coop."

Jack let out a shaky breath, "But he did tell me…"

"You're going to have start making a whole lot more sense pretty soon…" Pete sighed, "He didn't tell you, but he still told you? How did he tell you?"

"Small things…"

"Like what?"

"He told me that the job had started getting to him… That he felt like he couldn't deal with it anymore… Like it was a bit too much…" Jack sniffed.

"Yeah, he said that to all of us…" Pete shrugged, "But he was thinking about quitting. –The job."

Jack shook his head, "And he wasn't eating. And he was sleeping too much. Last couple of months there, I can't even remember him tossing a football. –Or singing…"

Pete nodded, "But none of us bit notice in any of that…"

"And he was reckless. –Remember that last mission? Before we went on leave…"

Pete nodded, "Okay, that was reckless. But he wasn't alone… None of us thought anything about it at the time…"

Jack nodded, leaned forward with his left elbow on his knee and placed his head in his good hand. "I should have known…"

"What the hell makes it so different for YOU? We were ALL there! If YOU should have known, WE ALL SHOULD HAVE!"

Jack shook his head. A sob leaving his lips, "I should have known!"

"Why? Jack… Why…?"

"-BECAUSE I WAS GOING DOWN THE SAME FUCKING PATH!"

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It felt like something collapsed inside of him at that moment. As he looked at one of his favorite Texans, the one who was crying in front of him. And even though Pete seldom cried, tears were stinging behind his eyelids.

Jack's shoulders were trembling. Wet sobs rolled off him to the point where he no longer could control his breathing. When he tried to breathe in it caught in his throat, choking him, causing him to gasp for air every now and then.

Three full minutes passed before Pete was able to find his words. "…Have you ever told this to anyone before?"

Jack shook his head, still crying uncontrollably.

"Damn Jack…" Pete sighed, his hands coming up to run through his hair as he paced back and forth in front of the tailgate. "How long?"

Jack couldn't answer.

Pete walked over and placed a hand on Jack's knee, knowing that if the Texan decided to lash out with a fist, they both would have a hell of a story to make up before they returned to Boxer's ranch.

Jack didn't.

"Hey, look at me…" Pete coerced, placing his other hand on Jack's left shoulder giving it a firm squeeze.

Jack looked up, his eyes puffy and red, tears and other stuff smeared across his face.

"Breathe…" Pete instructed as he let used his left hand as a visual guide when he said. "IN… … … and OUT…"

He repeated the process a few times until he no longer feared Jack would faint from lack of oxygen.

"We need to talk about this…" his dark eyes locked on Jack's equally dark ones.

Jack nodded, sniffed and took another deep breath, just like Pete had him instructed him to do earlier.

"You really thought about doing the same?"

Jack nodded, his left arm coming up to wipe away the moisture from his eyes.

"How serious was it?" Pete asked, mimicking Jack as he wiped away stray tears of his own.

"Had the gun. Couple times…" Jack bit out.

"But you didn't do it!" Pete patted Jack's knee, "I'm very glad you didn't!"

"Last time was just happenstance I didn't do it…" Jack sniffed, biting his lip.

"Okay…?"

"Box called. I already had the gun pressed against the roof of my mouth. Easing pressure on the trigger." Jack's voice was shaking, and he was helplessly trying to wipe away the continuing tears trickling down his cheeks. "I had made my mind up. But then he called."

"And you picked up your phone…"

"Figured I might as well say good bye to one of my best friends…"

"But he changed your mind?"

"-Without knowing it…" Jack nodded. "He still doesn't know…"

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Pete nodded, all of the guys were best buddies. But they had very different relationships between each other.

Boxer and Jack were old buddies. They grew up together. They would call each other up whenever it felt right, talk for hours about nothing at all. If they happened to be in within a three-hour drive of each other they would meet up. Have a few beers and probably get into some minor trouble. And they would set each other straight when it was necessary. They would support each other during rough times, but would never bring up touchy subjects.

Cooper. Coop was a lot younger than Jack. But both men seemed to be eternally young at heart, so they went well together. He had come into the group as a younger (but taller) version of Jack. One Pete had never met. Back before the darkness of war and life had molded him into the no nonsense team-leader the Texan had grown into. Jack and Coop took care of each other, made sure the other one didn't end up as Charlie.

Jack and Duncan worked well together. Jack had always gone well together with wild cards, which was pretty much what their team had been made up of. There were a some of similarities between Duncan and Boxer, Pete couldn't quite put his finger on what, but it probably was the fact that Duncan was to Coop what Boxer was to Jack. Hearing stories from Jack and Box's youth was like watching Coop and Dunc now.

Pete and Jack on the other hand had a different relationship. Of course they worked well together, and they could joke around like everyone else on the team. But Pete was the team medic, and that went deeper than just taking care of his guys when they endured physical trauma on missions. Jack and Pete could talk about some pretty dark stuff, not unlike what he knew Jack and Coop could, but deeper, darker.

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"What did he say to change your mind…?" Pete asked, hand still on Jack's shoulder.

Jack let out a chuckle, "He said he was havin' a party down by the creek… Said that Georgia was comin', and that she'd asked after me…"

"So a chance to get some action saved you?"

Jack nodded and let out a short laugh, "Basically. I said I would come on over, figured I could wait one more day…"

Pete nodded.

"Next morning Coop called…"

"Oh…"

Jack nodded, balling up his left hand so hard the knuckles popped.

They were silent for a couple of minutes. Only noises were the wind and the two of them sporadically trying to stop their snot from running. (One of the most annoying things that happens as a reaction to crying.)

Pete stepped aside and sat back on the tailgate, tilting his head sideways to make eye contact with Jack. "Do you… -Does it still cross your mind? Doing it? Ending?"

Jack shook his head. "No…"

"You sure?"

Jack nodded. "I realized that; 'Ending your life doesn't stop the pain, it just passes it on to someone else'…"

"That's good brother…" Pete nodded, then cleared his voice, "If you ever, and I mean ever, struggle again. –Call me! Day or night, okay?"

Jack nodded. "Same goes for you, alright?"

Pete nodded, "I'll keep that in mind. But you can relax. I've already got someone worth living for back home."

Jack smiled, he knew Pete's wife and kids meant the whole world to him.

"And if you ever just need to clear your mind. I'm here for that too…" Pete slapped Jack's thigh, "I'm here for that too. Doesn't matter if it's four o'clock in the afternoon, or 3 A.M. a Monday morning…"

Jack nodded, "Thanks…"

"That's what friends are for, right?"

Jack nodded.

Okay… Hope you're doing fine. Have a nice day!

Also, Gib… I hope I didn't mess up your guys too much! And again, thanks for letting me borrow them. I'm having way too much fun…