AN - I'll be back to work at the beginning of next week, so I don't know how well I'll be able to maintain this every other day tempo, but I don't intend to go any longer than a week between posts. I'm aiming for more often than that, but we all know what happens to the best laid plans. I hope you and your families are staying safe out there!
Brad took one last look around the room, feeling a pang of regret welling deep in his chest. More than any other place in the world, this room felt like home. Slinging his duffle over his shoulder, he stepped through the door for the last time.
Fleur was waiting for him in the hallway. She smiled at him, but he saw right through it. Her eyes betrayed no sign of the night she'd spent silently weeping into the pillow beside him. Though she looked as beautiful and perky as she ever did, he knew her well enough to see the little things.
The droop of her shoulders, the uncomfortable shuffling of her feet, the tremble of her jaw just before she fixed him with that dazzling smile...it all showed him how she was really holding up, and he hated to leave her like this. This must be what it felt like for normal soldiers to leave their families behind. It was dreadful.
"Hey," Brad greeted her as she closed the distance between them, melting against him in a strong hug. He hugged back just as tightly, his nose buried in her hair as he did everything he could to ensure he could remember that pleasant scent. Neither of them fully let the other go afterward.
"Hey," she repeated after a long silence between them. She tilted her head up to look at him and he leaned down, pressing his lips to hers. For a moment, everything else stood still.
"The Floo is ready-" Henri called from the office, followed by an audible slap and the sound of Henri protesting as Apolline chastised him for the interruption. The damage was done, however, and they broke apart, only their fingers remaining intertwined.
Together, hand in hand, they walked mechanically the rest of the way down the hall and stepped into the office. The fireplace brimmed with the telltale green flames. In the middle of the office stood Henri, Apolline, and Gabrielle. Henri was holding his youngest daughters shoulders, and all of them wore looks of grim acceptance.
Brad felt a wrenching tightness in his chest at the sight, and tried to run the parting words through his head once more, willing himself to get it right. He'd practiced the conversation in his mind countless times, every night since returning from the isle, knowing that if ever there was a time to say it...a family to say it to...it was now and with them.
With one last reluctant squeeze, Brad released Fleur's hand and stepped closer to the flames. Fleur went to stand beside her mother, and Brad turned to face the four who had come to mean so much to him.
"I wanted-" he started, but his voice cut out. He could feel the rush of blood to his cheeks, that rising demon in the back of his mind telling him that he'd choked and he might as well give it up. He wasn't one for listening to that particular demon.
"I wanted to say thank you," he managed to complete it this time, and when Apolline opened her mouth with a smile to respond, Brad held his hand up. He was going to get this out. "For everything. You all took me in, made me a part of this family…" He found he had to pause, because the tightness in his throat made it too hard to speak and he had to swallow hard in order to continue.
"That has meant more to me than I can tell you." A deep breath to pause, and then he pushed it the rest of the way out. "I love each of you, and I am going to miss you."
Instead of the dread he felt at every thought of uttering those words to anyone, he felt that crushing anxiety washed away by relief and joy as, without hesitation, all four of them pulled him into a tight embrace.
Hot tears ran down the back of his neck as Apolline muttered into his ear, "We love you too, mon fils."
They finally broke apart and Brad saw that each of them were wiping tears from their eyes. He wiped at his own. He would have been ashamed had Henri not been doing the same.
It was too much to bear, standing there and delaying the inevitable any longer. He gave Fleur one last chaste kiss, and stepped through the flaming portal.
"Welcome back, Captain," a tall and lanky boy with huge glasses greeted him with a huge smile, seemingly unfazed at the disheveled appearance Brad must have had.
"Uh, thanks," he replied, stepping forward. It took a moment, but he recognized where he was. The bar with a minifridge stocked behind it, the stools...he was in the Operators Bar at Fort Bragg.
"Right, yeah, optics," the boy said, as if it explained everything. Brad narrowed his eyes in irritation. "We couldn't send you straight back there from France, if the Ministry detected the transit from their end it would be a disaster. Don't worry though, I'll have it calibrated in no time."
"Right," Brad replied lamely, not really caring in any way. He walked down the bar, trailing his hand along the familiar worn wood, feeling grooves cut by combat knives he and his brothers had held.
The boy, James Montgomery the Second, droned on for a few minutes about detection of magical travel, international statutes, and maybe one other thing before realizing that Brad, sipping on a cold cherry soda from the fridge, was paying zero attention. Finally, blessed silence reigned.
Brad sat on a stool, resting his feet on his duffel and leaning back against the wall, sipping that soda and letting the memories of this room wash over him. He could almost hear Mike laughing after one of the many pranks he pulled on Nelson. Thoughts of Mike left him missing the simpler days.
"No fuckin' way!" a sharp voice rang out through the room, almost knocking Brad from the stool. He hadn't realized how relaxed he'd been. Brad jumped up to meet the man charging in at him. They were only a few steps apart when Brad recognized the hard charger.
"Sanderson!" Brad called out in surprise and the two met in a grinning hug, followed by pats on the shoulders. "How've you been?" Sanderson was still grinning from ear to ear, as they walked over to sit at the bar properly.
"We're doing good here, bro," Sanderson said, popping the top off of his own drink, a sasparilla. Brad had never been a fan of black licorice and Sanderson chuckled at the look of distaste, making a show of swirling the liquid around his mouth before swallowing.
"I hear you guys have been killing it here," Brad replied with a chuckle at the antics. He'd missed the bastard.
"You hear right," Sanderson confirmed, his tone a little more serious now. "We've fucking wiped the floors with every manner of dark creature we could find. The tempo was high there for a while, we were running our asses off. Now, we're lucky if we get one or two ops in a month, and nothing on as wide a scale as it was."
"Fuckin' A, good work."
"Fuckin' A. Can't go two steps without some MACUSA intern thanking us profusely, and hells bells if some witch or wizard from the street catches wind we work with TFA. Some of 'em straight up try to give us gold!"
"You don't have to rub it in!" Brad nudged the operator in mock irritation, and he grew somber.
"I heard about Mike, bro." Just like that, the aura of ease evaporated. "Nothing you could've done. The shit fell where it did, and you did your part. Dished out some serious pain in that graveyard if memory serves."
"Yeah," Brad said, taking a long swig and draining the rest of the soda. He'd been on the receiving end of quite a bit of pain, too.
"That's the dice we roll, brother," Sanderson said, wrapping an arm around Brad's shoulder. "Every time we step onto the battlefield. No matter how prepared we are, shits gonna happen."
Just because it was true didn't make losing a friend any easier, though. He figured that if Hermione's ring had changed, he'd have heard something about it. A small part of him held onto her hope that he would be found, but every day made that chance seem less and less likely.
"Alright, Captain," James said from uncomfortably close behind them. Sanderson let go, turning in his stool to face the little wizard-tech and fixing him with a glare fit to kill. Brad stood up though. No sense delaying the inevitable.
In truth, he was starting to look forward to seeing his guys again. Jason and Eric, Sara now. She was filling Mike's spot and he was glad to have her. She'd proven herself a badass and he was sure she'd fit right in. "Tell the boys I said hey."
Sanderson tipped his drink in acknowledgement and watched as Brad stepped through the Floo.
"Captain, welcome," the unfamiliar voice greeted him. A glance at the breast and then collar told Brad that this was Colonel Boyd. He had assumed that Colonel Boyd was some JSOC desk jockey and hadn't heard anything about Colonel Sumner being replaced.
"Stow that hand, son," the colonel said, waving away the salute Brad was snapping to. The colonel was short and thin, with peppered grey hair and an almost solid white moustache. "Have a seat."
They sat down at a small wooden table in the front dining area of a small restaurant, having just stepped though it's fireplace.
"Colonel, I-" Brad began, but the Colonel held out a hand, choosing then to speak.
"Don't worry about it, Sumner will be back here in no time, I'm sure. And no, I didn't come all the way down to Hogsmeade to greet you. You're sitting in OP Hogsmeade, and I was here for the final inspection."
"How about a butter tart." A middle-aged woman appeared from nowhere, setting two miniature pies in front of the soldiers before tucking away, murmuring to herself about something wrong with the recipe.
"Thank you, Charlotte!" Boyd called after her, taking a bite of the pastry before continuing. "You, Phantom, and Spectre are going to be on rotation out of here, acting as QRF and supplementing the surveillance unit however they need. The rest of your team will arrive when school starts back up. Go ahead and get to the FOB, I'm sure you want to get settled."
Brad knew when he'd been dismissed, so he grabbed the pastry, slung his duffel, and started for the door.
"Not that way, dear," the baker said, again appearing out of nowhere. She led him downstairs to a hole in the floor. "This'll take you to the edge of the woods. Head northeast from there and you'll find the FOB."
She threw him for a loop, dropping military terms like it was nothing. Then he remembered this was an OP and not a real bakery. He headed into the cramped and very dark tunnel and started out of town. His shoulders kept brushing bits of dirt down the back of his collar, but he managed to make it to the end without the tunnel collapsing.
The path to FOB Phoenix was just as she'd described and once there, he headed straight to his bunk to stow his clothes. He was lucky, the operators all had private rooms about the size of a closet. They had a bed with a locker stuffed against the opposite wall, with enough room to stand and change their clothes and not much else. Still, that privacy was a coveted commodity.
He pulled the only non-issue items he'd brought with him out of his duffel last, a bundle of pictures. Most were of him and Fleur, his favorite of which was her in her swimsuit, sitting on the dock at that little island with her feet dangling in the water. It was his only enchanted one, and she turned to smile at him as he watched.
He hung the cluster of photos on the wall beside his pillow and sat there for a moment, thinking about them before kicking his brain back into working order. It was time to get his gear set up.
The walk to the armory was brief, and his locker was just the way he'd left it. He pulled out the plate carrier, his helmet, and the myriad of other warfighting tools he'd grown to depend on, and each one helped him feel a little more at ease.
He set about cleaning it all, as he'd not touched any of it for several months. He emptied and restacked magazines, swapped out batteries, and went through every pocket until his gear was ready for combat.
Then, he went to the weapon rack. Sitting in its place was his HK416, with all of its bells and whistles set just as he'd left them.
"I've missed you, baby," Brad murmured to the rifle, running his hand from the integrated suppressor to the trigger guard, and the words brought him comfort. Partial comfort, because it was only a partial truth, but for now, that was enough.