Chapter 6: Comfort

AUTHORS NOTE: This chapter has everything. Hurt, angst, and romance. I hope everyone enjoys the chapter.

WARNING: There is mention of suicide in this chapter!

Clay had given a very nice speech at the funeral, everyone could tell that he was trying to hold it together. Emma was sitting in the second row behind Bravo. Clay made eye-contact with her during the speech and they somehow had a conversation with their eyes. Clay was hurting, he was in pain, emotional pain. All Emma wanted to do was make it stop. As Clay finished his speech, Bravo walked up to the casket. They lifted it and began moving from the church. He was buried in the cemetery next door, Emma stood as close to Bravo (and Clay) as she could without disrupting the military services.

As the burial concluded and everyone dispersed. Bravo and the rest of the SEALs that were at the funeral were walking to their cars, everyone was talking, except Clay. As they reached the vehicles and discussed what they would do next, Jason made an announcement. "Everyone meet at the Bulkhead!"

"Daddy?" Emma asked while she was looking at Clay, who seemed to be deep in the throat.

"Yeah, baby girl." Jason turned his attention to her.

"I'm going to ride with Clay to the bar. Is that okay?"

Jason looked at her in confusion for a moment then noticed the look on her face, before turning to Spenser. He looked like a lost puppy and Jason nodded. "Yeah, Em, that's fine." Everyone moved to get into their respective vehicles, leaving just Emma and Clay standing there.

"Do you want me to drive?" Emma asked, trying to get Clay's attention. Clay shook his head and looked at her.

"Uh, yeah, Emma that's fine." Clay handed her his truck keys and claimed into the passenger side. Emma climbed in, turned on the truck and began driving. Clay did not say a word to her the entire way to the bar, all he did was stare out the window and think. "We are here." She announced and climbed out of the truck. Clay followed and they entered the bar. Everyone was already there so Clay and Emma took a seat together at one of the empty tables near the bar. Sonny moved over to the table and sat a beer down for Clay, before sharing a look with Emma and walking off. Emma was about to say something to Clay when her dad got up to make a speech. She looked between her father and Clay throughout the speech, her dad was sentimental which is something that she does not get to see very often and Clay was hanging on his every word. Her dad mentioned the medals that each member of the SEALs in the room had. He said that there were three Silver stars between the men in the room and she noticed that her dad was a two time recipient of that medal. She looked at Clay's ribbon arrangement on his chest and noticed that he was the one with the third Silver Star. Her father finished the speech and everyone toasted Brett Swan. She sat with Clay the entire evening. When everyone said their goodbye's, Emma walked over to Clay and hugged him. He was shocked for a few moments before returning the hug.

Later on that evening, Emma and her dad were sitting in the living room.

"Daddy, I'm worried about Clay."

"He'll be fine, Emma."

"Daddy... you don't understand. Clay was hurt and he had to go through months of therapy. You guys couldn't be there but Swanny was. They made a connection. Swanny was like the father he had, daddy." Jason was taken aback by Emma's bluntness. "Can I... can I go over there? He needs someone and I know what it's like to lose a parent."

"Yeah, baby girl. Go ahead. He needs someone like you."

"I may not be home tonight. If it gets to late, can I stay?" Emma asked and Jason sighed. He nodded and Emma went to pack a bag, just in case. She got into her car and drove over to Clay's apartment, which in the last few months had been Swanny's apartment as well. She did not notice Clay's truck in the parking lot, but she went up to the apartment anyway. She knocked on the door and waited, there was no answer. She knocked once again, still nothing. Emma looked through her purse, her dad had given her a key ring with every member of Bravo's house/apartment keys on it for emergencies. She finally pulled it out and tried each key until one fit. She opened the apartment door and walked inside. She looked around and noticed that the apartment was empty. 'Where would Clay be?" She knew he had come home because his uniform was laying on his bed. She looked around the apartment and noticed an address on the coffee table. She took the piece of paper, locked up the apartment and went down to her car. She input the address into her navigation system. She drove out of Virginia Beach and into the mountains. It had started raining about 10 minutes after leaving Clay's apartment. Now it was pouring rain as Emma had to turn onto a long, dirt path. She hit her breaks about a quarter mile down the path because a tree had fallen. The navigation said that the address was half a mile down the path. Emma figured that she could walk the rest of the way and see if Clay was there. She got out of her car in the pouring rain, she took her keys and started walking. About 5 minutes later, she came up to a cabin. She sighed in relief as she noticed Clay's truck parked and the flicker of the fireplace through the window.

She walked up the steps and knocked on the door. Clay opened the door with a very confused look on his face. "Emma? What are you doing here? And why are you dripping wet?"

Emma moved past him and into the warm cabin. "Dad... dad and I... we were... worried about you. I... I went to... your apartment... but you... weren't there... Found... the address for... here." She managed to get out even though she was freezing.

"Doesn't explain why you are soaked to the bone." Clay said as he moved her towards the fireplace.

"Tree down... in the road... walked half... a mile."

"In the rain?" Clay asked, Emma nodded.

"I'm going to get you a towel to dry off with." Clay said as he left her at the fireplace. He returned a few moments later and stopped in his tracks. Emma had taken her shirt off and she was left only in a lacy bra that was stuck to her chest. Her entire upper body was wet and glistening in the light from the fire. "Uh... here." He handed her the towel and looked everywhere but at her.

"Thanks." She took the towel from him and started drying off. "Do you... do you have anything I can put on?" Emma asked, remembering that she had left her overnight bag in her car.

"Oh yeah." He left to get a sweater from his bag. He returned to find Emma in nothing but her bra and panties. She had taken her pants off while he was gone because they were getting too uncomfortable.

"Thank you." Emma said as she took the sweater from him and sat it by the fireplace. Clay moved towards the kitchen to give her some privacy and get them something to drink. He happened to glance up and saw Emma standing with her back towards him. She unsnapped her bra and let it fall, Clay knew that he needed to look away, but she was beautiful. He watched as she dried off and slipped his sweater onto her body. It fell mid-thigh and he saw her bend slightly to take off her wet panties.

'Oh my god! Jason Hayes' beautiful daughter was standing 30 feet away from me, wearing only my sweater!' He thought as he watched her for a few more moments before leaving the kitchen area. She rubbed her hands together and tried to get warm.

"Here." Clay said, handing her a beer.

"You know I'm only 19 right?" Emma asked, before she took the beer from him.

"Yeah, but there isn't anything else to drink here." He simply said, before sitting down on the couch and staring into the fireplace.

Emma looked at him, took a sip of beer and went to sit beside him. They sat like that for awhile until Clay suddenly asked, "why didn't you turn around?"

"What?" Emma asked, not sure what he meant.

"When you saw that the tree was across the road. Why didn't you turn around? You walked half a mile in the pouring rain to some cabin that you had never been too. Through terrain you didn't know. You could have gotten hurt, or worse. Why didn't you turn around?"

Emma looked at him for a moment before sighing, "because I knew that you were here. And... you needed someone that you could talk too. Someone who wasn't your boss or one of your teammates. Someone who could relate to you. Someone who would sit back and listen to everything you told them and they would never say a word to anyone else. And that person is me."

"Emma, you don't know anything about me."

"I know that you are brave, resilient, strong not just physically but mentally and emotionally. I know that you are kind and compassionate yet rough around the edges and a little jagged too. I know that you put your heart and your mind into everything that you do, even when you know you are going to be hurt. I know that... These past few months have been the hardest of your life and you wonder everyday if you are as good as you were before. I know you want someone to understand and love you for who you are. I know that you want to feel something, anything, to make the pain you feel go away. And, most importantly, I know what it's like to lose someone unexpectedly, without even a thought that it would happen." Emma finished, with tears in her eyes. Clay looked at her, thinking that she meant her mom.

"When I was 12, I had a friend. Her name was Alyssa. She was quiet and she always tried to make everything perfect. She was shy and timid. She would let people run all over her, but she was the nicest person in the world. She had a bad home life, her mother was a drug addict and she had overdosed and died. Her father was an unemployed, abusive alcoholic. One day, we were at school and she gave me this necklace," Emma said, motioning to the gold chain around her neck, "it was her grandmothers. It was the only valuable thing she owned. She said that I was the only one that cared about her in the world. When we left school that day I said 'I'll see you tomorrow'. And she just looked at me and smiled." Emma took a deep, shaky breath. "That night, she killed herself. And I spent so long wondering what I could have said or what I could have done to stop her. If there was some point in that day where I could have seen what she was thinking and told someone. But, you know what I've learned? There's nothing anyone could have done. It was too late, too much damage had been done. It's the same situation that you're in right now." She finished in a silent sob and tears running down her reddened cheeks. Clay looked at her with tears running down his face.

"I should have seen it." Clay whispered, thinking back to his last conversation with Swanny. "I should have seen it." He began crying. Emma was crying too as they held each other for comfort. After a few minutes, they pulled apart. The storm was getting worse outside and the lap that was on beside them suddenly turned off.

"Do you have any candles?" Emma asked, Clay nodded. He had found some candles in the hallway closet. They moved together to get them and they lit each of the candles so there would be light. "Whose cabin is this?"

"Swanny's. He told me about it during my PT. This is the first time I've been here." They were both standing in front of the fireplace. "Does it ever get better? The hurt?" Clay asked, looking into Emma's eyes.

Emma turned her head and realized how close they were. "Yeah it does, but it never goes away." She whispered and they both leaned into each other for comfort.

Their lips touched lightly, hesitantly. One kiss turned into another, then another, until they were in each other's arms as hands and lips roamed. Emma worked to take off Clay's t-shirt and kissed a trail down his gorgeous body. She reached his sweatpants and looked at Clay. He seemed nervous, no one other than the nurses, doctors, and Swanny had seen his legs since the explosion. Emma kissed his lips lightly before moving to the scar on his shoulder from a bullet and then to the one of his side from a knife wound. She raised his arm and kissed a scar from Ash. She looked into his eyes and began untying the strings to his pants. She pushed them down his waist and got down on her knees, so that she was eye-level with his legs. There were a few small, slight scars on both legs from shrapnel and surgery. She kissed each of them lightly before standing back up and kissing his lips again. "You are perfect. Just the way you are, Clay Spenser." She whispered and he took her mouth in a deep, passionate kiss. They sank slowly to the floor as Emma ran her hands up and down his back and Clay ran his hands under the sweat shirt she was wearing. Clay's fingers came into contact with her soft, hot folds and Emma moaned against his lips. He ran his fingers gently up and down her slit before sinking one of them into her. She felt so tight, like she had never been entered before. Emma placed both hands on his face and kissed him soundly.

"Oh, Clay!" She gasped out as he began moving the finger in and out of her while using his thumb to rub her clit. After a few thrusts, he added a second finger, making Emma lay her head against his shoulder and dig her nails into his back. They moved together for several minutes until Emma exploded on top of him. They kissed lightly as Clay maneuvered her under him. He pushed his sweatshirt up her body, exposing perfect skin. He kissed every piece of skin he could reach. Emma pushed his boxers off his hips and he settled between her legs. They kissed lightly as he entered her. Emma gasped and closed her eyes as she began to stretch to accommodate him. He paused to allow her time to adjust before pushing in further. After several more moments like this, he was completely inside her. Emma and Clay were staring at each other. This was what they both needed. Someone to complete them. Someone who understood them. Someone who would love the other unconditionally. Clay began to thrust lightly in and out her while Emma wrapped her legs around his waist and moved with him. They continued like this for half an hour, neither chasing a finish, just wanting to be connected and wanting to feel something.

"Clay, please." Emma finally said as her orgasm was approaching. Clay was close as well and began to pick up pace. At once, they broke together. As they came down from their highs, each of them placed light kisses on the others mouths.

"That was amazing." Clay whispered.

"How do you feel?" Emma asked, as they continued to lay there, still connected.

"Like I'm whole again. That's all thanks to you." He whispered and kissed her, before picking her up and carrying her into the bedroom, where they repeated their coupling over and over again that night.