Taming a tornado...
Well, that was a stupid idea. Who's idea was that? Oh, right—it was hers... and look where it got them; Addy, Praveen, Jeb—dead, and for what, so she could secure a $1,000 grant to help with her research?
She was out of there as soon as she was healed up enough, and she knew it broke her mom's heart when she left, but Kate couldn't stay—didn't want to stay.
Kate rang her mom when she got to New York, mostly just to provide a forwarding address to send her shit to; the rest of what she needed, she could get at shops in town, but her mom wired her some money anyway.
That's just what moms do—they take care of their babies, even if their babies don't ever want to come back home.
It was harder on Javi. He lost them, too. She just pretended like he didn't; it seemed reasonably easier this way. He never even got to say goodbye. It was one day here and the next, Kate was just... gone. He showed up at her place, hoping to talk, but instead, he was met at the door by Kate's mom.
Javi fucked off back to Miami. It seemed easier. A year later, he joined the military. He needed structure.
For a time, it worked. For both of them. But it wasn't long before the gnawing hunger for the chase brought Javi to Oklahoma again. He wanted to pick back up from where he left off but to do that, he needed funding, which is where Riggs came in.
In hindsight, that wasn't a wise choice—but Javi was also a fucking idiot sometimes.
He couldn't chase alone. He needed her. So, he got it out of Cathy where Kate had gone, and hoped on a plane the very next day.
One minute he's standing in the conference room, his heart's pounding, and the next he's sitting across from her in a café. He didn't know what he was thinking when he walked in there thinking Kate was going to jump at the chance to come home. It was stupid. He set himself up for failure the second he stepped off that plane.
Javi thought about it that night, in his hotel room, how much he fucked up, how there was no way he'd convince Kate.
Now, he didn't believe in God, but if there was a creator, the Almighty sure had great timing in that video. It was from back home. Another town hit, more families' lives destroyed. His heart nearly beat from his chest. Bolting upright in bed, the sweat on his brow.
This was it, he thought.
Javi sent a quick text to her, along with a voice clip; he prayed she'd answer. Per her own words, she was shit at a communication. She could just blow him off. He'd get on that plane tomorrow, go back to Oklahoma with his tail tucked between his legs, and that would be it.
But he hit send, and then he went to bed. It was a restless sleep. Truth be told, Javi hadn't been sleeping well for the last five years. A large part of him was angry, mostly at himself, but at Kate, too. He knew she had her reasons for screening her calls, and not texting back. And on those days and those nights when he found himself cursing her name—because it wasn't just her who lost people she loved, he would remind himself it wasn't just about him.
By the time he got to the airport, Javi had convinced himself Kate wouldn't show. That this whole thing was just a pointless waste of fucking time.
When they announced his flight back home was delayed, he swore. He sure as hell wasn't going to stand in line for another two hours. Not when his stomach was literally screaming at him to be fed, because Javi was a dumbass who packed up so quickly that he forgot to eat something. The old him would have had a bag packed weeks before. But the military made it easy for him to shove everything into a suitcase minutes before he had to be anywhere.
After a quick piss, Javi made a beeline for the food court. There were a lot of options, and the dude wasn't a picky eater—he was just indecisive. But when in doubt, always go with pizza as the best option. A gyro sounded good. Had to get a soda, too; apparently there wasn't a lot of people who knew what the fuck 'pop' was.
Javi was a quicker eater—perks of military life, usually, but he wasn't being rushed, so fuck it, he decided to take his time, to really savor the taste of feta on a New York style crust.
All of a sudden, someone had pulled out a chair opposite him and sunk into it, and Javi was seconds away from raising the biggest eyebrow and asking something about the level of audacity this rando had to be sitting at some stranger's ta—
Oh, it was Kate. Nevermind.
To say Javi was surprised would be an understatement; "One week," Kate said, and held his gaze for a fat minute; he's pretty sure he may or may not have forgotten to take a breath.
When he finally did, Javi also remembered what smiling felt like, and he nodded, just as Kate reached across the table to snag a slice. Javi didn't share food. For her, though, he'd make an exception to that rule. Besides, what was fighting a 5'9", 142lbs woman going to do, other than make him look like a jackass?
"Well, alright then, one week," and he knew he had that long to either convince her to stay even longer... or to royally fuck it up; the jury was still out on which one it would be.
Kate swore up and down to heaven, and to whatever else was up there, that she'd never step foot on the soils of Oklahoma ever again. But here she was, in the middle of the damn airport, with a round-trip ticket in hand.
Fuck—what had she gotten herself into?
One week.
That's all Javi had. One week. He was going to try to make the best of it. Besides, it was good to see her again. It just sucks that this is what it took.
Soon enough, they were both on the plane, seating next to each other. She was listening to music most of the time, and Javi was thinking he shouldn't have had that third round of soda. The plane trip itself was uneventful. He was either playing Candy Crush, trying to sleep, or fiddling through the magazines in the seat.
Kate was out 30 minutes into the flight.
When they landed, she was the first to get off. They bypassed baggage claim, going straight to the parking garage. The bags were tossed into the back. And they were off.
One week. Okay. One week.