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Trent.
“Man down!”
Trent snaps his gaze to the side, fear sliding down his spine at Ray’s panicked call. In the brief second he has his eyes off of their shooter, he’s able to see the prone form of Clay, and knows it’s forever going to be seared into his brain.
He feels sick as he provides cover fire. This can’t be happening. Jason just lost his wife, they cannot go home and tell him they lost his rookie, too.
That would break the team, Trent thinks, watching Ray carefully as he tries to line up a shot. More than that, it would break Jason if he knew that Clay died and he wasn’t there.
Ray makes the shot. Trent keeps his eye on the slumped body in the window just in case.
“Clay?” Ray’s voice echoes across the small courtyard. “Clay!”
“Cover,” he snaps to Sonny, unable to keep his eyes on target when he hears the naked terror in Ray’s voice. “Brock, move!”
The dog trainer runs across the wet pavement to Ray’s side. Trent feels sick with adrenaline as Ray shakes their newly anointed Bravo two. Clay is completely limp under Ray’s hands. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t respond at all.
“I can’t check him out here.” He tells Adam, failing to see if there’s blood on Clay’s vest. The dim light does him no favors.
“We passed an empty loading bay; doors are at the end of the alley.” Sonny pipes up immediately, his eyes glued to Clay’s limp form, watching as Ray and Brock each grab an arm and heave Clay over their shoulders.
“Good.” Adam nods. “Watch out for new tangos, I don’t want any more surprises. This way!”
Trent runs through the possibilities in his head as Ray and Brock carry Clay back into the alley. Clay isn’t moving, his boots dragging on the ground. Trent is still unable to see any blood, but it’s an awkward angle, and he’s supposed to be focusing on clearing their path ahead.
Cerberus leads them to the loading bay, letting out several sharp, stressed yips as he does. Trent clears the dimly lit room with Adam. “Get him into cover.” Their temporary bravo one orders, as if Brock or Ray needed the encouragement.
Trent knows Adam only says that out of fear. Adam and Clay are close. Trent is aware of the history there that extends beyond green team. Even if there wasn’t, he knows that Adam is thinking the same thing as the rest of Bravo: how are they going to tell Jason that they got Clay killed?
Realistically there’s two options that Trent can think of. The first is that Clay got the wind knocked out of him real hard, he’s unconscious, but the vest caught it and he’ll be okay with some smelling salts under the nose.
The second is that he’s already dead, and they just dragged his corpse out of that courtyard.
Seeing as Ray did a good deal to rouse Clay before they moved and nothing worked, Trent is waiting for the latter.
It doesn’t happen though. It’s absurd, it’s— Ray pulls his hand from under Clay’s vest and there’s no blood on his glove.
Didn’t penetrate. Not breathing.
Fucking think, Sawyer! He yells at himself internally, getting to his knees next to Clay. He doesn’t see any blood still, and he thinks he should, he thinks his eyes are lying to him even as he pulls out an adrenaline dart and slams it into Clay’s chest just above his collar bone.
Clay gasps awake immediately. Trent’s hands are moving, and he’s talking, sitting Clay up because this is his job to take care of his teammates like this, but Jesus fucking Christ, he can’t seem to get himself caught up with reality.
He keeps looking for blood, even when Clay is standing. He keeps looking at Clay’s back, expecting to see a gaping hole where the bullet should have exited. He keeps thinking that he’s hallucinating all of this, because Clay should be fucking dead. He prepared himself for Clay to be dead.
Clay’s not dead.
Trent shares a dark look with Ray, who seems equally as rattled. He knows they’re thinking the same thing, wondering if later they should tell Jason about what just happened or stay quiet about it.
After Alanna…he doesn’t know if Jason’s going to be coming back. Knowing what happened to Clay could sway Jason towards returning to the teams, and Trent doesn’t want that.
Jason needs to want to come back, he needs to be 100% sure in himself. He can’t come back just to protect his teammates.
“No faster way to the university.” Adam nods to the group. “Let’s move.”
Trent taps Clay’s shoulder as he moves past, making the kid go in front of him. Sonny moves with Clay, Ray next, leaving Trent with Brock to hold up the rear.
“You alright?” Brock asks quietly, Cerberus trotting at his side.
Trent shakes his head. “Are you?”
“No.” Brock glances at Trent, letting his emotions show on his face for a moment. The fear is raw and palpable on their usually stoic dog handler. “You’ll keep an eye on him right?”
“Always.”
.
Adam is dead.
Adam is dead, and there’s no doubt about it, there’s nothing Trent or anyone could do for him. He tackled a suicide bomber (and what in the actual fuck was that guy doing out here on the street, just hoping for some soldiers to take this route to the university?) and he saved their lives by giving his.
It’s probably something awful that Trent immediately thinks of Jason. Ray tells TOC “We lost Bravo one.” And Trent’s mind conjures up an image of Jason lying there. It’s not a hard thing to do, because the blast hit Adam face first.
We lost Bravo one, and Trent is thinking that Emma and Mikey don’t have parents anymore.
It’s— it’s not Jason. Adam is dead, not Jason, but Jason’s probably going to do the next of kin notification. Emma is friends with Adam’s daughter.
Adam was Clay’s mentor, and Ray wants Clay to leave his body there on the street.
”We come back for him,” Trent interjects before Clay and Ray go to blows. “Yes, we need to get the kids, but we come back and get him.” He pins Ray with as much of a pleading look as he can muster. “You know what they’ll do to his body if we don’t.”
Ray swallows hard and nods. “Move him to cover. Keep him hidden.”
Trent moves quickly with Brock and Sonny. Clay still seems frozen, but he moves when Ray tells him too, lurching into motion to drag a dumpster out of the way. They set Adam down on a pallet and start creating a bit of camouflage structure with the trash cans and debris.
Clay slips into the space between Trent and the side of the dumpster, reaching out to Adam then aborting the movement halfway.
Trent made himself check a pulse. After confirming there was none, he went about taking Adam’s dog tags from his neck. A particularly gruesome task, considering the amount of burnt flesh.
He gives the tags to Clay. Closes Clay’s fist around them when he won’t. Tries to find the right words for him. “He died for us. For those kids.” Trent squeezes Clay’s hand. “His death means something. It is not for you to take on as guilt.”
Clay lets out a choked wheezing sound of pain, but nods. They back away from Adam’s body and move the dumpster back so it’s in front of him.
“Let’s move.” Ray says. Bravo filters after him one by one, leaving Trent at the back to survey their carnage.
If it weren’t for the burn marks on the street, he could pretend nothing happened here.
.
They rescued the kids. They completed their mission as assigned. They have time.
“I’m going.” Clay snaps, angry and hurt and desperate. “I don’t care if I have to go by myself, I’m going to get Adam.”
Trent exchanges a glance with Brock. Clay’s voice ends with a reedy wheeze, something that’s become more pronounced now that they’re no longer moving. That, or Trent can actually hear it since they’re not getting shot at anymore.
Either way, there’s zero chance Trent is letting Clay out of his sight. Not after what happened. Not when Adam died less than ten feet from them.
It’s enough that Jason will have to do deal with Adam’s death they are not telling him that Clay’s gone too.
No, they’re only bringing one SEAL back in a body bag. And by god, they’re going to bring him back.
“Davis is watching him on ISR.” Ray tries.
Clay blinks at him, incredulous. “And that’s good enough for you?” He shakes his head, scanning the cars in the tiny parking lot they’re standing in. Clay tests the door of an old pick-up and finds it unlocked. Cerberus tugs at his leash, wanting to follow and giving Brock a dirty look when the dog handler doesn’t let him go.
“Clay.” Trent glances at Ray, noting the warning in his voice. He’s not actually going to try and stop Clay. He cant. He wouldn’t.
Ray finds Trent, returns his gaze. Sees that at the very least, Trent’s going.
He nods to the remains of Bravo, makes a circular motion with his pointer finger. Their universal expression for mount up.
Damn right.
Brock and Kairos jump in the back immediately, Ray following. Trent has to intercept Sonny before he grabs shotgun.
”Mine.” He says quietly, pointedly glancing at Clay in the drivers seat. Sonny looks like he wants to protest; he probably wanted some semblance of privacy to check in on the kid.
Sonny lets it go easily enough though. “Yeah,” he says with a nod. “Reckon it’d be best you stay next to him.” Once Sonny is in the back and Trent is in the passenger seat with the door closed, Clay manages to get the rickety old truck into gear, and they’re off.
Davis guides them back through the streets, confirming on ISR that no one has been near Adam. The boys in the back move quickly. Trent keeps his rifle up, scanning the alleyway through his rolled down window and Sonny posts up back while Ray, Brock, and Karios take down their carefully constructed camouflage.
Trent listens to Clay breathe as they get Adam into the truck bed. He’s taking very short, controlled, shallow breaths, but the wheezing isn’t there much. Maybe because he’s sitting down, or maybe the noise of the truck’s engine is covering it. “You alright?” he asks quietly.
Clay shakes his head no. “Would appreciate it if my ribcage could remember how to expand.”
“Yeah, your chest is going to hate you for a while.” Trent shifts, watching through the side mirror as Sonny climbs into the back. “You tell me if it gets worse, okay?”
Clay gives him a pained half smile and huffs. “Clay,” Trent bites his lip, trying to figure out how to toe the line between concerned and overbearing. He turns his head to look at Clay, biting his lip. “I’m serious.” You weren’t fucking breathing.
Clay looks at him, and whatever is on his face must be enough to get through to the kid because he nods. “I will.” Someone wacks their hand on the side of the truck a couple times. Clay forces the stick into first gear. “I promise, I will.”
.
Trent isn’t sure what’s more depressing to him: that they confirmed Jason was the one to notify Adam’s family, or that Adam died on a mission that he shouldn’t have been on. That he was only in the field because Alanna was killed by a fucking drunk driver.
So Jason had to go tell Adam’s wife and daughter that Adam died when he was supposed to be retired from the field. That Adam died because Alanna died. That Adam only went out as a favor to Jason, because Jason was grieving and now—
Two parents lost in the span of a week.
Nothing they could do about either one of them.
He hears Ray talking to Clay during in the flight, telling him to stop trying to make order to the chaos. Ray’s right, of course. It is chaos. It’s not Jason’s fault, and it’s not Clay’s fault, and it’s not Trent’s fault either, but that doesn’t change the guilt and it doesn’t change the way their brains naturally ask what if.
They all want to make sense of the pain. They can’t.
Trent forces Clay rest, sequestering him to a row of bench seats in the back of the plane. Clay’s too mentally and physically exhausted to fight him on it. He takes the Tylenol Trent gives him, acknowledging it won’t touch his pain but refusing anything stronger.
A hammock would just make it worse, so Trent shoves a few bags under Clay’s shoulders to get him propped up, and leaves him be.
That works for a couple hours. He checks on Clay periodically while he’s working, repacking supplies and writing out an inventory list. They donated a lot of their medical supplies to the aid workers, so Davis is going to have quite a shopping trip before they spin up again.
Once he’s done he sets up his hammock and gets ready for the rest of the flight, hoping to read some of his book and rest a few hours. The slight wheeze that Clay was sporting on the ground is still there, but it hasn’t seemed to have gotten any worse.
Trent is still making the kid get checked out when they land, and he’s going to be benched for a while until his ribs heal, but he’s doing…okay. At least from what Trent can tell as he’s draping a blanket over him. His breathing is still fucked, he’s pale, and he looks like he’s in pain even while sleeping. There’s not much Trent can do for him, especially since he knows that Clay won’t let him check him over.
He finishes situating Clay (Trent refuses to label it as tucking him in) and turns around to immediately be faced with the rest of the team.
Trent gives them all a flat look then rolls his eyes. “C’mon, not where we can wake him.” Brock, Ray, and Sonny all trail after him. If Sonny were to look anymore worried, he’d be wringing his hands together. “Okay,” Trent plops down on a seat, muscles aching and sore. “What do we want to know?”
That stalls the three of them. They fidget, look at each other, and even open their mouths to speak before closing them abruptly. Trent looks at Ray. “I’m not the one who’s going to be telling Jason.” He figures he should head that off at the pass. “I’m not even sure we should tell Jason.”
“He’s gonna find out, right?” Brock asks, looking a bit on edge. “I don’t want to be running hills because we didn’t tell him.”
“How’s he going to find out though?” Sonny cracks his knuckles one by one, more of a nervous movement than a threatening one. “He’s got enough on his plate right now, don’t he?”
“I don’t want to bother Jace anymore than you guys do, but I would prefer he hear it from us than find out later from someone else on support.” Ray’s got a point, Trent figures, but so does Sonny. Support shouldn’t be talking openly about this op or any other, so it stands to reason that Jason could be kept out of the loop.
Trent shifts in his seat, hating that they’re even having this conversation. “Jason already notified Adam’s family. After Alanna, I cannot imagine how difficult that was.” He pauses, eyeing Ray who seems just as torn up about this as Trent is. “We tell him what happened to Clay, and that just gives him another thing to feel guilty over.”
Ray crosses his arms over his chest, nodding. “Okay, so maybe we don’t tell him all of it.”
Sonny raises both eyebrows. “I get that we’re all pretty darn uncomfortable discussing if we may or may not tell our team leader something, but I feel like a half truth is worse somehow.”
“Yeah, if Jason finds out that we didn’t tell him the full extent, he’s going to be even more pissed at us.”
Trent tilts his head at Brock, thinking it over. “Maybe. It’s not going to affect him. There’s nothing Jason can do about it now, and besides we’ve got him.” As if Clay can hear them, Trent’s ears pick up a cough from the other side of the plane.
“Right,” Sonny nods. “Sides, we’ve done worse with less decent reasons.”
“That’s not the argument you think it is.” Ray mumbles, dragging a hand down his face. “Okay, we tell him Clay took a round, but that he’s fine. No one elaborate, got it?” He gets a chorus of nods. “Great. Everyone get some rest, we have to debrief when we land.”
They disperse slowly, leaving Trent to sit by himself. He can hear Clay cough again. He puts his head in his hands, trying to breathe deeply. He’s alright. They’ve got him.
Trent repeats it in his head again and again. They’ve got him. He’s alright. They’ve got him. They’ve got him.
“Trent,” Clay mumbles, coughing again. “I think I have a problem.”
Trent snaps his gaze upwards, not aware that Clay even stood up. He’s opening his mouth to ask what the actual fuck that means, when Clay shows him his arm. More specifically the inside of his elbow, which Clay was just coughing into.
It’s splattered with blood.
.
“Sonny, get my kit!” Trent snaps, grabbing Clay’s outstretched arm and dragging him over to the set of bench seats he was just sitting on. “Lay down— now, Clay, fucking lay down. Ray, get me something to put behind his head, he needs to be propped up.”
Brock appears next him, helping Clay get flat on his back. “What else do you need?”
“A fucking hospital,” Trent hisses, catching his bag as Sonny tosses it clear across the plane. Ripping it open, he pulls out his stethoscope. “See if you can get me an ETA to landing.”
“You can’t treat him here?” Ray is back with several bed rolls, probably curtesy of Davis.
Trent shakes his head. “I can’t treat him until I know what I’m dealing with. Could be a punctured lung, could be a PE, could be a pneumothorax. They all sound similar, and I’m not going to stab a needle through his chest wall until I know for sure which it is.” He nods to Clay. “Shirt— no, do not take it off yourself. Sonny, cut it.”
“Move the hands, bam-bam.” Sonny orders, swatting away Clay’s attempt at doing it himself. Ray has evidently decided on being the thing that props up Clay’s shoulders, which is great because he can hold Clay still while Sonny uses his trauma sheers to make quick rags of the worn t-shirt.
“Fucking shit,” Sonny hisses, seeing the huge bruise that’s spreading across Clay’s entire chest. Trent wants to kick himself in the head. He should’ve known, he should’ve been watching for this, but he was so caught up in his grief over Adam he didn’t. And now Clay is in serious trouble because of it. “What’s a PE?”
“Pulmonary embolism,” Trent answers him quickly, shoving the buds of the steth into his ears and listening to Clay’s chest. “Easy breaths Clay, alright? As deep as you can.”
Clay’s panicked eyes meet Trent’s, but he nods all the same and does his best. He maintains the rapid, shallow breathing but it’s slightly more controlled.
Fuck.
“Okay,” Trent takes the stethoscope from his ears and runs a hand through his hair. “No crackling or bubbling sounds, so probably not a collapsed lung.”
“That’s good, right?” Sonny asks, desperate. “Lungs should remain uncollapsed.”
“I said it’s probably not a collapsed lung. He needs a chest CT and x-ray to confirm—”
“—you just said you could—”
“I said he needs a hospital!” Trent snaps, then squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to take a deep breath. “I can’t diagnose him without that.” he continues, much more calm. “I’m not going to do a needle decompression at thirty thousand feet on a maybe pneumothorax. It could still be a PE. He could still have a punctured lung. I don’t know.”
“Alright, we’re freaking out the patient here,” Ray interjects, nudging Trent with his foot. Trent looks down at his patient, finding Clay’s eyes wide as saucers. He’s gripping both Ray and Sonny’s hands. “What can we do for him? As in immediate action, right now.”
Right. C’mon Trent, three foot world. Christ, he can almost hear Jason saying it. “Alright, don’t talk, just nod your head. Your chest pain, is it radiating? Sharp? Shoots down your arms, your back, your jaw?”
Clay nods.
“Any pain in your legs at all?”
A sharp shakes of the head no. “Thank fuck for that.” he mutters to himself, digging around his med bag. “I’m going to give you a breathing treatment, okay? It’s probably not going to help much, but the oxygen is going to make you feel a little better.” Trent eyes Sonny. “See if you can get an IV in him, I’ll be right back.”
He dashes across the plane, finding Blackburn who’s been waiting patiently and generously staying out of the way. “Working on getting us clearance to land earlier.” The Lt. Commander says before Trent can even get a word out. “Germany is close.”
“Define close.”
“Less than an hour if they let us.” Trent digs into the footlocker that holds more medical supplies and glances at Davis. Shes doing a good job of hiding her worry, but the concern for her friend and teammate makes her voice waver just slightly.
“Anything you can do to make sure we’re allowed to land?”
“Working on it.” Eric nods towards Clay. “What are we looking at? Anything I can tell ground to prepare for?”
“He was the man down.” Trent pulls out a nebulizer kit. “Took a round to the chest. I never had time to check him out, Eric, I’m sorry.”
Blackburn shakes his head. “This isn’t your fault. We’ve got enough grief and blame to go around, don’t add this to your plate.” All three of them glance over at the bodybag with an american flag draped over it. “What happened after he got hit?”
Trent winces and goes back to digging through his supplies. “Well, he, uh. He wasn’t breathing, for a second.” Davis makes a noise of alarm in the back of her throat. “But we got him back easily. He was mobile, alert and aware, he was okay, I just— I fucking forgot to check him, I should’ve known the plane would’ve given him trouble.”
“Even though the plane is pressurized?”
“Even the subtle change in pressure could’ve been enough. He’s probably been dealing with this since before we left.” Trent glances at Lisa. “He’s going to need something stronger than Tylenol for pain meds.”
She moves off quickly for their medications locker. “IV stuff only!” He calls, then to Blackburn, “I’m going to give him pain meds and something for his anxiety. I can’t diagnose him for sure without several tests, and I can’t treat him without a diagnosis. When we get the clear to land, tell them to have an ambulance on the tarmac. He needs a chest CT and he needs it yesterday.”
“Understood.”
“Trent?” Lisa tosses him a vial and a syringe. “You need a flush?” Trent shakes his head, making his way back to his patient.
His stomach drops to his toes, because Clay does not look good. His lips are blueish, his capillary refill is awful, but at least he’s still breathing despite how strained. “Hey kid,” Trent glances at Ray then Sonny. “How was Sonny putting in an IV?”
Clay, despite the fear in his eyes at not being able to breathe, gives him a shaky thumbs down. “Hey!” Sonny cries. “I got it first fucking stick! How much better was I supposed to do?”
“You could’ve done without wiggling the catheter around.” Ray mumbles, still acting as a recliner for Clay. Sonny thwacks him on the shoulder. “I’m just saying!”
“Good blood return,” Trent murmurs to himself, mind running a million miles an hour as he goes over dosing and how he’s going to manage Clay’s condition here. If they can’t land in Germany they should for sure be able to land in the UK, but that’s more time. Clay doesn’t have more time. “Here, get this hung up.”
Sonny takes the offered saline bag and uncoils the line. Ray adjusts his hold on Clay as Trent pulls two different doses of meds. “What’s that?”
“Pain management,” Trent replies, pushing the Tramadol. “And something for the general hindbrain terror of not being able to breathe.” he adds as he injects the second syringe.
“We can’t do anything for that? Like, actually helping him breathe?” Trent takes the tubing from Sonny and attaches the saline, opening it so they can keep him hydrated.
“Not much to do.” He says to Sonny, running a hand through his hair with stress. Clay’s relaxed a little with the pain meds, but it’s no big stride in helping him. “If we don’t land soon, there’s no great outcomes here.”
If it’s a pulmonary embolism, he needs blood thinners. If it’s a collapsed lung, he needs surgery. If it’s a pneumothorax, he needs meds and probable surgery.
“We can’t give him a breathing treatment?”
“I—” Trent makes a face. “Yeah, I am. I’m going to. It’s just not going to do anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a fucking Navy SEAL,” Trent snaps at Sonny. “You don’t get to operate in Tier One if you have asthma.”
“Trent.” Ray says his name quietly, pointedly looking down at Clay who’s looking more and more panicked.
Fuck.
Trent sighs. “Brock can you get me— thanks.” Brock hands him the mask, and Trent carefully situates it over Clay’s mouth and nose. “You’re fine. You hear me?” Trent holds Clay’s face in his hands, sees the fear in his eyes. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Of everything that Trent’s done, that’s the thing that actually works. Clay’s muscles are straining in his neck, his oxygen levels are abysmal, but he calms down. He spends the rest of the flight as still as he can be, the perfect patient for Trent…so long as Bravo remains by his side. The only time he gets agitated is when Brock slips away to get Cerberus.
He trusts Trent. He squeezes Sonny’s hand periodically, and pets Cerb with the other. The frequency of his movements slowly decreases as his eyes start to shutter, which serves to elevate Trent’s blood pressure to rather unhealthy levels.
Bravo stays with him, keeps him awake and calm all the way until the wheels touch down on the tarmac.
Blackburn isn’t playing around. There’s an ambulance waiting, two paramedics standing ready with a gurney the moment the belly of the plane opens. Trent was right, the neb treatment did nothing for Clay, and he’s starting to really decline.
He gives report to the medics as they get Clay on the gurney and rush him to the ambulance. The medics attempt to get Sonny to separate from Clay, just once, and Clay almost clocks the medic closest to him when he tries to get Sonny to let go of his hand.
Sonny goes with Clay in the ambulance.
It’s pouring out, cool and damp. The exact opposite of India.
Exact opposite, because this time Trent could do something. This time Trent has the ability to treat his brother, to take care of him, to keep him safe.
Exact opposite because he thinks he caught it in time. Opposite because Clay will survive.
“Well,” Brock takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Shit.” He looks at Ray and Trent. All three of them are drenched. Even Cerberus, who followed them out onto the tarmac, is looking like he just got out of a tub.
“What the fuck are we going to tell Jason now?”
…
In the end, there is no ‘we’.
Trent gets the short straw, because of course he does. The second that they get news on Clay, the entire team is looking at Trent with their version of puppy dog eyes.
And he means the entire team. Even Blackburn looked at him with a hopeful expression, Lisa next to him, all of them asking without asking if Trent would call Jason.
They cited his medical knowledge as the prime reason, but Trent knew damn well they were all just shit scared to talk to Jason right now.
Mostly because of this reason.
“Jesus Jace, you didn’t have to break the sound barrier to get here.” Trent grumbles, catching the pale and harried looking team leader by the arm and towing him down the hall. He nods to the secretary, who gives him a wry smile and goes back to her computer. “I told you he was okay.”
“No, you told me he was shot.” Jason hisses, running a hand through his hair. He looks like shit. “You told me he couldn’t breathe, and that you had to land the fucking plane so he wouldn’t die.”
Trent huffs. “I didn’t say those words.”
Jason gives him a dark look. “You do realize you’ve been on my team for seven years? I can translate your medical speak well enough by now.” He glances through the window of the door they’ve stopped in front of, but the curtain is pulled across.
“Yeah, and then I told you he was okay.” Trent snaps. “He’s okay. Hear my fucking English here. Believe it or not, doctors know how to treat pulmonary embolisms. In fact, they’re very well versed in how to treat them, especially the military trauma docs that saw him in Germany. Those doctors talked to these highly trained doctors and everyone knows his condition. Everyone knows how to treat him. Everyone agrees that he is okay.”
Jason lets out a breath, deflating. He turns and paces a few feet, rotating his hands between pulling at his hair and settling them on his hips. All telltale signs of a very stressed out Jason. Trent watches him without a word, looking for any sign that this is too much.
He really hated having to call Jason. He did. But he’s sorta glad it was him, and not Ray. Or Blackburn. Or anyone, really, because he knows Jason. Seven years on Jason’s team will do that.
Jason has nothing to go after, nothing to blame for Alanna. He can’t blame himself. He can blame the drunk driver, sure, but he’s dead too, and so Jason has been forced to the harsh realization that there’s nothing that he can do to bring his wife back. He just has to carry the grief.
Clay, on the other hand. Clay was in combat. Clay was on a mission that Blackburn sent him on, Clay was shot right next to Ray. Jason’s brain is already dealing with an incredible amount of stress. Adding on Clay’s injury and how it happened, and Jason is going to look for an explanation. His brain is going to look for some sense of order.
If it were Ray or Blackburn or even Sonny telling him, he knows Jason would’ve blamed them. He would’ve found a reason, he would’ve said things that he couldn’t take back, and it would’ve been bad.
But Trent called him. Trent explained what happened from a clinical standpoint, why it went unnoticed, how it developed. He apologized for missing it, and let his own guilt seep into his voice when he did.
Jason hadn’t been angry with him. He was angry at the situation, sure, but even on that phone call, it sounded like he was too tired to be angry. He wanted Clay home, and he made Trent promise to let him know the moment that Clay was back in Virginia Beach.
He said if Trent missed it, than everyone would have. You’re a former Navy corpsman, Trent. If there’s anyone I trust to take care of Clay, it’s you.
Yeah. That made Trent feel great about his previous decision to not tell Jason anything.
He texted Jason only once Clay was settled in a room, because he didn’t want Jason to hurry to the hospital and then wait an hour. Still, he didn’t expect Jason to get here that fast.
Trent watches Jason pace back and forth, frowning. He never thought that Jason would hesitate to see Clay. “What’s going on Jace?”
Jason glances at him. Crosses his arms over his chest and goes back to pacing. “Adam.”
Trent clenches his jaw, the grief still fresh. He’s never going to forget the way Adam looked after that s-vest. He’s never going to forget the way he felt inside. “You told his family.”
Jason nods. “I did. I had to. He was there because—”
“—it’s his job.” Trent fires back. “He was there doing his job. He saved us, Jason. All of us.”
“I know, I know, it just won’t stop going around in my fucking head that he was there because of me.”
“He was there because Alanna died.” Trent says gently. “He was there because he was ordered to go, because it was his job. He was fucking good at it.”
Jason lets out a deep breathe, nodding. They both know it’s going to take time to make peace with that. They haven’t even been able to mourn Alanna properly, and now it’s Adam too. It was almost Clay.
“You’re worried about Clay because Adam died?”
“You’re fucking right I am!” Jason snaps, dragging a hand down his face. “Adam is— was, fuck— more to Clay than his green team instructor.”
Trent raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know.”
“No, Trent, he was—”
“Jason.” Trent hisses. “I fucking know. I know what Adam was to Clay because Clay’s told me. And in a really fucked up way I’m glad he got complications from being shot, because at least it’s a physical problem. At least now when someone asks what hurts, he can point to it on his body.”
It’s as if everything is finally welling up inside Trent, all the stress he thought he dealt with in Germany, it’s all here now, and it makes him want to scream. “At least now, he’ll have a reason to accept our help. Because if it was just Adam dying in front of him, it was just a bad bruise, he’d never let any of us in. He’d fucking internalize it, just like he did Brian, just like he does everything with his dad.”
“Trent—”
“He’d blame himself, and he wouldn’t dare talk to you about it, even though you’re the only person he would talk to about it, because you just lost your wife.” Trent heaves in a breath. “But now, now he’ll let me help him. He’s—”
Trent is cut off by Jason — his Jason Hayes, badass SEAL, Tier one operator, Bravo team leader — moving forward and wrapping his arms around him.
“I’m sorry.” Jason says quietly, voice wavering. “I’m Trent, I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
Trent grits his teeth against the sob that threatens to escape. There’s tears dripping down his face, tears that he didn’t even know were falling, tears that are soaking Jason’s shirt while Trent returns the hug. “I thought he was— when that bullet hit him Jason, I was sure that he was— that I’d have to tell you we lost him.”
Jason lets him free of the embrace, and Trent pulls back with a sharp inhale. He forces himself to calm down, breathing shakily through his nose and quickly wiping at his face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…you’ve got enough to deal with right now.”
“Sure,” Jason nods. “But that doesn’t mean I no longer care about my brothers. Losing Alanna doesn’t mean I have to lose my team, too.”
Trent looks at him in surprise. Jason sighs, scratching at his clean shaven face where the stubble is already starting to grow back in. “Emma, she…put things in perspective for me.”
“In what way?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jason dismisses him with a wave of his hand. They’re both now staring through the window, memorizing the curtain that obscures their view of Clay. “She was right. Especially now, I need to do what’s best for my kids. And that means staying on as Bravo one.”
Trent barely manages to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. He swallows down a noise of surprise and nods to Jason. “Good to have you back, boss.” He chokes out, failing at keeping his voice even. He steps forward and enters the room after so Jason won’t see the relief on his face.
He’s selfish, he thinks. Trent is selfish in his relief, just as he was selfish in his secret want for Jason to stay. So much had changed in such a short amount of time that Jason retiring would’ve felt like they lost him too.
Nevermind how much that would’ve fucked Clay up, Bravo would never been the same again.
Clay is still conked out from the sedatives they gave him for the flight over the Atlantic, but his color is much better. Trent takes a seat opposite the door. It gives him a full view of the way Jason’s face changes when he sees the kid.
“I meant it, you know.” Trent murmurs, eyeing the pulse ox monitor and telemetry views on the wall. “He’s okay. They’ve only admitted him to monitor for complications from the plane ride. If he’s good overnight they’ll kick him home tomorrow.”
“Right.” Jason says weakly, nearly collapsing into a chair on the other side of Clay. “Yeah.” He reaches towards Clay and hesitates only briefly before scooping up his hand.
Trent stares at their connect hands and wonders if Jason is thinking the same thing that Trent is: that he never got the chance to do this with Alanna or Adam. That he didn’t get to be there when they died.
That Clay isn’t dying. So the one person Jason would get the chance to say goodbye to isn’t leaving.
It’s all types of fucked up in a cosmic sort of way. That’s life, though. Nothing Trent can control or change.
He looks at Jason holding Clay’s hand, waiting for him to wake up, and thinks they’ll get through it like they do everything else.
Together.