Chapter Thirty-Seven: On the Home Front

"There she is," Cal said, smiling ear-to-ear as he showed me an ultrasound picture Brewer had sent him via letchip, a day after the briefing. "Or he." My best friend looked at me then, still grinning. "Want to find out with me?"

I smiled, too. Couldn't help it. "Of course. Let's see who Logan's little playmate will be."

Caleb tapped a flashing icon of a gift box in the corner of the screen, and animated confetti and balloons came out, all in a single color. My friend let out a surprised laugh.

"Pink," he said. "It's pink. I'm having a girl! Ha!"

My buddy threw his arms around me jubilantly as we sat together, and though I thought I felt the air leave my lungs for a second, I grinned wide and hugged him back.

"Congratulations, Cal."

"Thanks, Cooper." He seemed to catch himself and glanced around. Other Marines sat nearby, chowing down on their lunch in the mess. "I mean, ma'am."

I waved him off. "It's fine." We always remained formal in uniform, and kept it more casual off-duty, but I couldn't fault him too much for the slip-up given the news. "So?" I asked him with a slight smirk. "You ready to have three girls in the house?"

He chuckled. "Ah, no, ma'am. I don't think so. But I know Alexis will be really excited to have a little sister."

"And you and Dani?"

"We just wanted a healthy baby, which, so far, she is." He smiled proudly at the ultrasound again. "Only four months to go, and we'll finally get to see her sweet little face. I can't wait."

I didn't want to put a damper on the mood by saying that we didn't know if we'd be done here on Sanghelios by then, although the thought crossed my mind. Instead, I said, "The wait is always the hardest part. Every time I was pregnant, I couldn't wait to meet whoever popped out." There'd been once that Willis and I hadn't gotten that far, but in the moment I focused on the other three times we had. "With Gabriel I was very ready for him to come out. Kid made us wait right up till the end. The twins, though, were early. So was my little Logan."

"Do you think you'll have kids again?"

The question seemed to just spill out of him, and it caught me off guard. I knew the answer, had for a while now, but for a moment, I couldn't find my voice. "Uh. I think I'd need to patch things up with Willis first. But - " I said the rest on a sigh. "No. I think I'm finally done with that part of my life."

"Sorry. Didn't mean to put you on the spot," Cal said a little sheepishly. "I just...the way you talk about your kids, it's like - they just light up your whole world."

I couldn't keep from smiling again. "Well, they do. And I miss them very much." I gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Just wait till your daughter's born."

We turned back to our meals then. The happy vibe lingered until I glanced up with a full bite and saw Willis approach.

"Is it true?" he asked, looking from Caleb to me and back again. He saw that I wasn't able to answer and finally settled on my buddy. "Our messages are getting hacked?"

"If you're asking about one in particular, yes." Lloyd continued eating with one hand as he handed over his datapad to my husband with the other. "I can show you, if you give me a sec."

"Sure."

Willis was talking like I wasn't there, even after I managed to swallow my food. I sat and watched uncertainly for a minute, fork poised for another bite but waiting.

Willis surprised me then by breaking into a small grin. "A girl for you and Brewer, huh? Congrats, man."

"Thanks, Hawk." Caleb leaned over the table to take back his device. "This is the file, here. I've highlighted what tipped us off to the discrepancies. And I already traced it back to the source. Which, as your wife mentioned yesterday, is definitively not Ackerson."

My husband sat down across from us and spent a long stretch of silence looking it over. I almost felt like he was looking for a reason to doubt it, until he abruptly handed the datapad back. "Okay. Thanks." It was only then that he glanced at me again. "Cooper, can I talk to you outside for a minute?"

"Yeah." I gave Cal a look as I stood; I wasn't even really sure why. Maybe for reassurance. My friend had his face buried in his food, though. I was on my own.

When we reached the courtyard I stood by the building and waited.

Willis didn't say a word for a while. He stood in front of me, close, arms crossed, but didn't speak. I thought I might need to break the silence, even if I didn't want to, until he finally cleared his throat and looked at me.

"I'm sorry, Coop."

"Willis - "

"No, really. You told me this wasn't what I thought it was, and even though you screwed up, you've always been honest and forthcoming about everything that happened between you two. I...should've listened this time, too."

I almost chuckled at his words, though not out of humor. More disbelief. "Willis, I can't fault you for not believing me. I mean...I get it. If the roles were reversed, I - " I stopped there, shaking my head.

"So..." He sighed heavily. "What now?"

"What do you want?" I put my hands on my hips, awaiting his answer.

"What do I want?" he repeated. His golden brows furrowed, not quite understanding.

"Yes," I said firmly. "Because yesterday, at the briefing, you already knew this information, and you still walked out. You still...walked away."

Willis glanced skyward. "Natalie, I needed some time to think. Getting this info was...not what I expected. As far as I was concerned, we were done."

"Oh? When were you waiting to tell me?"

"I did. When you came to talk to me, and again when you got sick."

I shook my head, suddenly frustrated. "You said you couldn't. In that moment. At that point in time. You never came to me and said, 'I want a divorce.'"

"I - " Willis threw his hands up. "I don't really know what to say." He swallowed. "I just know that this changes things."

"For you, maybe!" I dropped my arms at my sides and blew out a breath, looking away. "Willis, once again, we're just circling back to an old problem. I can't trust you anymore to be by my side - to stand by me, to support me! And you can't trust me either, for reasons we already know. I fucked up, I get it, we've been around and around this damn rodeo too many times now. I just - " I took in a deep, painful breath, and slowly let it out. "I can't keep doing this with you. I love you, so much, but I can't." I met his gaze then, saw the hurt and confusion in his eyes. "You need to take more time. Decide if you really want to be with me. If you can look past, let go, whatever you want to call it, everything we've been through the past several months and work towards moving forward. Towards healing this. Because if not, and if you're just going to leave me at every fucking fork in the road from now on, then...then we really shouldn't be doing this again." I felt a tear leak out of one of my eyes and I brushed it away quickly, angrily. "You need to decide if you can finally forgive me."

Leaving him standing there, without an answer, was harder than I'd imagined, but I knew I had to stand my ground on this. I didn't want another five-minute reunion. If we did get back together, I wanted it to be for good this time. I wanted to be secure in what that really meant. I wasn't expecting him to forget what happened between us. But I did wish that if we got back together, we'd move on.