{Normal POV}
(Friday, July 16, 2021-7 pm)
{The Cove; Raven Point Park}
Without hesitating, Troy got in his car and bolted without breaking the speed limit to get to the park. Immediately after parking the vehicle; he saw the others pulling up in different cars. Troy didn't wait for them as he hurried to The Cove. Sure enough, Hayden was there; sitting at one of the picnic tables with his head on his arms. What scared Troy was that Hayden didn't appear to be moving at all.
"Hayden…" Troy whispered in fear.
"Is he here?" Spencer asked. Troy didn't say anything, but he did start making his way closer as Dustin held the others back with a hand out while keeping his eyes on the situation ahead of him. Troy got just close enough to see the gun resting on the picnic table, but Hayden's hand on the handle and his index finger on the trigger.
"Hayden?" Troy asked. No answer, which only brought on more of a scared feeling. Troy went to knock on the wood so he wouldn't startle Hayden. However, a few fireworks went off as Hayden buried his head down, covering his head. "Shit," Troy muttered. Hayden was shaking; the hand with the gun fell to the table, but it had the barrel pointed at the side of his head. Troy knew it wasn't intentional, but one wrong move and Hayden could snap to stop hearing bombs. Troy needed something to bring his boyfriend out of it so he would remember where he was. Then it hit him; Troy moved behind Hayden and prayed that this would work. "Stop! Don't do it!" It had been the very first thing Troy ever said to Hayden when they met in 2018.
Instantly, Hayden froze and raised his head a little. "T-Troy?" he asked,
"Hayden?" Troy said. Hayden quickly turned around, and on his feet now as he saw Troy standing there, panting and afraid. Tears welled up in his eyes, and Troy could see that Hayden had been crying a while. "Give me the gun, babe," Troy put his palm out.
"I-I wasn't going to…do anything with it," Hayden tried.
"Please give it to me. Just so I feel better given the circumstances that you're here alone, visibly upset, and have it out," Troy remarked. Hayden fixed his hand to be holding the barrel, then Troy took the weapon by the handle as he threw it aside and then promptly pulled Hayden into his arms tightly. Hayden buried his face into Troy's chest, his arms against it too. Hayden just gave in and started crying. "Stop now; relax a little," Troy consoled while trying to rub his back and arms. After ten minutes, Hayden was calming down. Troy's phone rang as he reached into his pocket to check the caller. "It's Bludvist,"
"W-Why is he calling?" Hayden asked.
"Tell you after," Troy said, then answered the call, tapping speakerphone. "Raseri," he greeted.
"I told you to call me back, Sergeant Raseri!" Troy winced at Donovan's anger. "You know this is a severe matter that Lieutenant Haddock is nowhere to be found! You know the dangers of PTSD getting out of control. You are the one who called me in concern of Haddock's whereabouts! I ordered you to inform me after you contacted the Archia Isle and Berk transportation centers. I know you want to find and help him, but the worst thing you can do is attempt this on your own. We will locate Lieutenant Haddock and get to the bottom of-,"
Troy called Bludvist to find him? Hayden quickly took the phone. Troy was getting his ass chewed out because of him. "Commander Bludvist, I am right here, and it's not Troy's fault, so please stop yelling at him?"
"Haddock?" Donovan asked.
"Yes, sir. I apologize for any inconveniences. I assure you a search party is not needed, and I am perfectly fine," Hayden said right away. Troy's eyes widened.
"Why could no one contact you?"
"My phone is otherwise inoperable as I dropped it overboard on the ferry going to Berk. Someone bumped into me, and it slipped out of my hands. I didn't go straight home as I've been out trying to get a replacement, then activate the device and retrieve my contacts and pictures," Hayden lied. Troy didn't understand, why was Hayden doing this? Did he have any idea how much trouble he could get into?
"I see. However, I have some concerns about your first evaluation. Sergeant Raseri mentioned you're having a bit of a hard time adjusting to civilian life?"
"I am okay, sir. It's all the same stuff I reported in the mandatory physical, emotional, and mental evaluations," Hayden said.
"Lieutenant, reacting to horns, flashes of light, and loud bangs are not in your-,"
"I assure you with 100% certainty, Commander Bludvist, that they in fact are. You may want to speak with the person who wrote my results, but I confessed to having nightmares and reacting to war-like sounds that occurred at random without my previous knowledge they would be happening," Hayden informed calmly.
"You and I will be having a sit down with the doctor who did your evaluation and get to the bottom of why it's not in your file. And with your consent, I'd like for you to go through another one, updated, with me present during the evaluation." Donovan questioned.
"That is fine with me, Commander. Would you like me to come in tomorrow, or shall we schedule it for first thing Monday morning?" Hayden inquired.
"Tomorrow, if you wouldn't mind. 0700 hours alright?" Donovan asked.
"I will be there at 0645," Hayden replied.
"Great. Thank you, Lieutenant Haddock. Have a good night,"
"You as well, Commander Bludvist. See you tomorrow, sir," Hayden said, then ended the call and handed the phone back to Troy.
"Why did you lie to him, Hayden? You're far from okay," Troy asked.
"That may be true, but my slight case of PTSD has no bearing on any of why I was upset. And what I said about my evaluation report is actually accurate. It's in or should be in my file about all that stuff regarding the reactions to the war-related sounds. If it's not, then someone fucked up somewhere, and it will be sorted out tomorrow morning. As for the phone thing; how is Bludvist ever going to know that I didn't drop my phone overboard? As far as he's aware; the phone I have is my new one. Donovan can't tell the difference as my phone looks like it's still new," Hayden enlightened.
"Do you have any idea how worried I've been about you?" Troy stared at Hayden. "You haven't answered messages or calls. You've been off work since 4 pm, and back here in Berk since 5:30-ish. It's now going on 7:20. Almost TWO hours, Hayden. Everyone was worried!" he motioned to the others as Hayden looked over, and then cast his eyes to the ground.
"I'm sorry, Troy…I just got off work and needed to go somewhere quiet to think for a bit," Hayden admitted.
"And you couldn't have sent a message that you needed a little time? The only reason there isn't a search going on for you is that I thought you might have been feeling depressed enough to want to kill yourself, and I made a guess you might be here because this is where I found you three years ago. I got here and saw you slumped over on the table, with that gun in your hand. What was I supposed to think was going on? And you reacted to the fireworks; yes, I believed your PTSD had a huge role to play in this," Troy remarked.
"I only had the gun out because there were a bunch of teenage punks picking on some middle schoolers; I might have said I was military police to scare them off in addition to mentioning that my father is Chief of Police and my boyfriend's father is the Director of Archipelago Law Enforcement. Teens ran off, kids left, and I just kind of sighed out heavily in frustration and exhaustion, then…fell asleep. I completely lost track of time until the fireworks woke up me, and I freaked out because it wouldn't have been a first time that we do an overnight guard and get awakened by bombs...Like I said, I don't react to the noise unless I don't know it's coming," Hayden explained.
Troy smacked his forehead and sighed heavily. "Okay, I'll accept that answer to why the hell you've been gone and not returning calls. But Hayden; why did you need to come here to think, babe? What did have you upset?"
Hayden sighed. "I was thinking about the last couple of months since we got home. Only a few people remembering my birthday, my friends blowing me off; no sexual pun intended. I'm still mourning my grandfather…I'm not gonna lie; it started feeling like a few years ago where everyone just didn't want me around. And…I felt like you and I were falling apart because you've been so distant the last couple of days. I got scared you were going to break up with me-,"
Troy's eyes widened. "What?"
"Earlier when I was at work and got your message that we needed to talk; I got scared you were going to say you wanted to break up with me. I started feeling depressed and decided to just come out here to think for a bit and not panic about the talk we'd have because maybe I interpreted the words wrong. It was just a big mess of stuff, and I wanted to clear my head first. I didn't mean to be gone so long, or fall asleep here and worry everyone," Hayden said.
"Hayden, we're sorry. We only broke those plans because we noticed you'd been feeling kind of down about your grandfather being gone. You weren't saying or doing much when we did hang, and you didn't seem into it, so we thought to give you a little time to mourn in peace since when he did pass; you were deployed, and I know you didn't yourself do it then. We never meant to make you feel like we didn't care or were ditching you. Plus, most of those were when Avery was there, and we weren't sure if you'd want to be near her with what happened," Hailey said gently.
"I figured you weren't doing it intentionally; I guess what happened before came back and I let my fear of it repeating take over. And I know not a lot of people remember my birthday if it's not a leap year. Everything was just kind'a happening at once," Hayden replied, then looked at Troy, who still seemed a bit surprised. "A-Are you mad at me?"
"No, I'm just…really surprised you thought I was going to leave you. I guess I shouldn't have made the text sound so severe, or that something was wrong. I could have used a better word choice than a set that makes people think something bad is going to happen. I'm sorry for that, babe. Truly, I am. Will you forgive me for scaring you?" Troy took Hayden's hand, kissing the back of it.
"Only if you forgive me for making you worry so much?" Hayden smiled softly at him.
"Done," Troy nodded, then he pulled Hayden against him, and planted a kiss right on his lips. Hayden blushed a bit but returned the action. Afterward, "Come on; it's getting late, and I'm sure you're starving. Let's get home,"
"Okay," Hayden nodded. "Wait…Where'd you toss my gun?" he asked. Troy looked around, then found it. Troy picked the object up, brushed it off, and handed it back to Hayden. Once that was taken care of; Hayden and Troy made their way over to the others who hugged and greeted Hayden; thankful he was alright. Finally, they all began walking through the park to get to their cars and leave to return to the Raseri Home.
. . .
[Raseri Household]
Getting to their destination, the first thing Hayden did was change out of his clothes and grab a quick shower before meeting everyone outside on the back porch. It gave Troy just enough time to make sure everything was ready for the proposal. Hayden came out while Dustin was grilling up the food. Troy took Hayden's hand and pulled him close for a hard kiss.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Hayden inquired.
"A serious matter about you and me," Troy replied gently.
"Should I be worried?" Hayden asked.
"I would hope not," Troy chuckled. "I wanted to ask you something,"
"Okay? Shoot then," Hayden invited. Troy twirled Hayden once so that his back was to Troy's chest. Troy leaned in close to Hayden's ear while pulling something out of his pocket and flipping the top open.
"Will you marry me?" Troy lifted the black leather box up to reveal a band, but the top was an infinity symbol. One path had a set of circle stones set in the order of a rainbow to represent Gay Pride, the other piece that crossed under but was still connected to the colored gems trail had two circle diamonds; one on each side of the rainbow piece since the two passed one another. It appeared that the parts were side by side, but the idea was obvious enough. Overall; it was a beautiful ring.
"Y-You're …se-serious right now?" Hayden asked in utter shock.
"Of course, babe. You're my first relationship, and…I want you to be my last. We're best friends, lovers…We've had two incredible years, and I want as many more as I can get until our time in this life ends. I won't say until death do us part because I don't even think such a thing like that could separate us. There is nobody else that I want to be with. I love you, Hayden Haddock, with everything I am. I do, I have, and I always will, forever. So will you do me the greatest honor of becoming my husband and marrying me?" Troy said lightly. Hayden could have cried.
"Yes, I will," Hayden nodded to him, smiling broadly and trying not to cry. Troy pulled the ring out of the box, took Hayden's left-hand ring finger, then kissed him passionately while slipping the ring into place. Everyone clapped and cheered for them. "I love you too," Hayden said afterward, letting a few tears fall. "Is this why wanted me to come right home?"
"It is, and this is also why I've been so distracted the past week. I was setting all this up, babe. Inviting everyone, picking out the ring…I wanted it to be perfect," Troy said.
"Well, it definitely is. And I can't wait to marry you," Hayden leaned against Troy.
"Neither can I," Troy nodded. And just like that, everything worked out perfectly as Troy had hoped. Now, they were engaged to be married. Absolutely nothing could make either of them happier right now, but they were sure that would change when the big day arrived and they tied their lives together in matrimony.