It's Love We Must Hold On To

It was easier to forget the site of the vast majority of your team being unloaded from a military transport in flag draped pine boxes when you kept yourself busy. Easier to forget that there hadn’t been enough left of some to even manage that for them. Easier not to ponder the fact that only he and Sullivan had been able to walk away at all and that he’d sat at a grave side, holding onto his wife’s hand, knowing that he couldn’t tell her how her brother had been slaughtered on that island when you chopped and stirred and obsessed over the degree of caramelisation on the onions. Marc had gritted his teeth through it, flinched when a cupboard door had slammed too hard as he’d closed it and shut his eyes, hung his head to lean on the counter as the sudden burst of a lawnmower from the next house over had almost sent him down to the floor in a choking wave of fear.

In that holding pattern between missions, forced to stand down at home, forgetting was all he’d been trying to do. It hadn’t worked much, Marc knew it without Toni saying a word, but he was trying. Maybe lately it had felt like it was working more. He’d gotten through making dinner in the end, hadn’t descended into one of those melt downs that left him filled with equal measures of anger and shame. Was smiling when Toni walked through the door just as dinner was on the brink of done. Dark eyes rising from the chicken he was serving up onto plates, he glanced over his shoulder. ”Dinner. I figured it was the least I could do. I hope you’re hungry.” Maybe not flinching when she approached was a sign that things were turning a corner. He set the spatula down, hung his head slightly as he reached his arm back to settle it on her hip. Content for a moment, settled without that part inside of him that shattered time and time again not tearing itself apart with emotional shrapnel. ”Don’t be long, it’s gonna get cold,” he warned. As she’d drawn back he’d turned, letting out a long breath as she walked upstairs, feeling his love for her coating that broken part like a balm.

They’d eaten, drunk a glass or two of wine. Animated, happy, filled with that affection dinner had almost been easy. Hell, it had even been tasty if he’d had to say so himself. They could’ve lingered a little longer, legs tangled under the table, keeping the rest of their lives at bay while they basked in what had once been their normal – in those weeks where he was home instead of halfway across the world, slowly losing parts of himself in the hell holes they were sent to. Eventually they cleared the table though, doing just enough that things wouldn’t be intolerable when he woke up in the morning, likely drifting downstairs at 5am. Unable to sleep, woken from a dream with a scream trapped in his throat again as he watched Sullivan throw himself into the fray and the world turn white as it shattered.

Not wanting any more of the wine he set his own glass in the sink, padded into the living room as Toni gathered hers and the rest of the wine up. Marc let out a steady breath, sinking down into one corner of the sofa, his hand reaching out for the stereo remote to turn something on low, slow. White noise to a brain that couldn’t handle the subtle these days. ”Is that surprising?” he asked, amusement in his voice as he shifted slightly to curl his arm around her as she settled in against him. He lifted his feet up onto the coffee table, tilted his head to press his lips to the top of hers. ”A little more help from YouTube and I could practically be the next Gordon Ramsey … or who’s that British guy who’s always drunk?” His brow furrowed, a faint chuckle emerging even that he’d stalled over the words Gordon Ramsey. The chef most famed for being unable to keep his temper under control. Too close to the knuckle, far too close consider how hair trigger his own temper still was.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 717

The tension was always there. As a military operator you always had some portion of your brain fixed on the fact that the phone might ring or the radio buzz, drawing you back into whatever fight the powers that be had determined yours. It strung you tight, kept you from being able to entirely leave the job behind even when you’d supposedly cut your tether to it for what was always overdue R and R. All afternoon Marc had resisted checking his phone again, pushing that thought under the industrious surface along with those of his team and the slaughter on the other side of the world that had taken them all but Sullivan. They’d promised him down time … healing time … but he was still on active service and that meant eventually that call would come. Snatching him away again, leaving Toni to keep the home fires burning while she waited to see whether this would be the time he came home in a pine box like her brother had.

Escaping that thought in his own mind and hers he’d spent the afternoon cooking. Losing himself in the orderliness of it, in worrying about whether to add an extra twist of pepper or how finely he’d minced the garlic. It had worked to keep it all at bay, leaving him looking like the man he had been when Toni had walked in. She still approached cautiously though, hovering next to him instead of touching him first, wrapping arms around a man who was likely to start at the touch. He’d reached for her instead, slipping an arm around her as she’d stood next to him. ”Let’s hope it tastes as good as it smells.” Marc kissed the side of her head, letting her slip away as she went to get changed. He shot a warning off after her but he knew she wouldn’t be long.

She hadn’t been in the end, coming down while the food was still hot. They slipped into that comfortable groove they’d had from the start. Back then they’d always been able to talk, never really about either of their jobs, the layers of secrecy they were wrapped in always preventing that, but about everything else. Smiling, actually laughing without feeling like the amusement could side step into something else, opening a door to things he didn’t want to remember, he didn’t want to think about.

Setting his own glass aside, not wanting more even if the alcohol would’ve strip away control and leave his mind buzzing, Marc retreated to the living room with his wife. The two of them settled down onto the couch, his arm settling around her again, the touch a comfort rather than something to cringe away from, as he had done in those first haunting weeks after he’d gotten back. He stretched back, his thumb gliding up and down her shoulder as she had him chuckling. Marc tipped his head back, dark eyes tipped down to her, narrowing faintly. ”I could’ve boiled an egg then,” he countered. It might’ve been entirely raw or bullet hard when it came out of the water but it would’ve been boiled. ”What did I need to boil one for then anyway? I could make mac and cheese out of a box and ate almost everything on base, it was a win-win scenario.” One born of necessity, one that then changed as Toni hadn’t just been someone he was seeing casually when he was in town anymore.

Marc mock huffed as she questioned who he’d meant with his bragging. He gestured at the TV with his free hand, brow furrowing as he wondered if he’d got it wrong. ”The one who’s always on a boat, floating through France like he’s actually gonna make something edible instead of just getting pickled.” It sounded right though. Another late night watch for when his brain would’ve let him settle lately. Padding down the stairs in the middle of the night, not wanting to wake her when he couldn’t settle or the nightmares woke him up in that total panic. He didn’t want to see dark fingertip marks bruised into her skin when he grabbed for her … unsure if he was protecting her from that dreamt threat or imagining that Toni was one of them them. Marc brought his hand up, ran knuckles over his mouth before he dropped it into his lap. ”Might as well make the most of me being home. They’re not sure when we’ll ship out again. You got any requests for what you want on the menu?” He’d cook again tomorrow, the day after, trail the aisles of the grocery store on base or make that breathless drive out of there to pick up what he could locally. Anything to keep his hands and brain busy and avoid that slide he didn’t want to take towards the edge.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 816

He’d held it together while Toni had gone upstairs to get changed. The clatter of the plates as he’d filled them leaving him gritting his teeth for a moment, but he’d gotten them to the table. Gotten through the meal without any triggers hitting him out of left field. It was a rarity these days and both of them knew it. The man who’d come back from Madagascar had been in ruins, mentally, if no longer physically. Those scars, carved deep into his flesh for just a matter of hours had melted away as though they had never been. Skin smooth beneath his t-shirt, the shoulder beneath Toni’s head solid. He could’ve walked back out on another mission weeks ago but Marc knew that even if command had cleared him Toni wouldn’t have let him go.

Dreams leaving him soaked in a cold sweat as he’d woken with a yell. Mental images of his team, broken, bloodied, burned, flickering in the corner of his vision when he turned his head, faces in the crowds on base, a single holler that left his heart racing in his throat as he dropped into a couch, anticipating another grenade tossed in their direction without Sullivan there to shield them. Toni had watched it all, holding the heat of her comments back … for now.

Marc dragged his teeth over his lower lip, knowing that eventually something was going to have to shift from this. God, he didn’t want it to. His laughter felt rusty in his throat but it was there, warming the bite of narrowed flinty eyes as he grumbled at her. Tipping his head down again, Marc smacked a kiss against the top of her head, dropping his lips as close to his wife’s ear as he could get. ”If you had a cast iron stomach, sure. I was pretty hardy. I could take just about any … nightmare …” he laughed again at the word, although it sounded a little strained this time, ”I could come up with. You know, just bounce right back up without looking like I spent all night hurling my guts up from the salmonella.” He shifted back, his voice a low hum in his throat as Toni made retching sounds at the idea of boxed mac and cheese. ”Mess hall cooking.” There was a faint sound of pride in his voice as he twisted a lock of her hair idly around his fingers. ”Never had to learn to cook back home. Watched, figured I’d never have to do it. Mess hall though? They handled the hard stuff for you. You oughta come by one day, I’ll treat you to lunch.” A wink of one of those dark eyes at her. He didn’t need to say before they shipped him out again.

That would come soon enough and when it did he wouldn’t be around to cook. There’d be days of preparation ahead of time, a new team to get used to. Tests, physical and mental to make sure that he wasn’t going to lose it the minute they got outside of the wire. When, not if, which gave all of this a deadline. The minute he said it aloud he had Toni’s breath catch in her throat, watched her cover it with that sip of wine. Marc let a slow breath out, dipping his head slowly as his knuckles fell away from his mouth. ”No eggs,” he promised hoarsely. ”Maybe a barbecue one night. Maybe see if we can get some people over. I don’t know …” If Sullivan was even still around. The two of them were the only ones to have walked away and the older man had been busted up. Word was he was out but … that would’ve left him the sole survivor of the team. The old man now, to pick up and try and potter on, giving some new team cobbled together of the things that were supposed to have an edge. ”What was that stuff your mom used to make when you’d get me over there for your dad grilling out?” Those memories of them dating were fuzzy around the edges, like what had happened, the ambush, Toni’s brother’s death, the PTSD, had eaten away at it all.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 710

Wolves bounced back from almost anything. It was their nature. Super senses, super speed, super healing. That change to animal form and the loss of your mind and sanity for those hours when the moon rose full the cost to the rest of it. Blessings for the curse. If the moon had been full the night they were ambushed maybe he wouldn’t remember every agonising second of what had happened in that village. Seeing his team torn to pieces while he’d been able to do nothing about it. Turned he would’ve savaged everything he could find instead of leaving that village a broken man, carrying the broken and deathly still form of his brother in law. That wasn’t the way it had happened though and Marc could trace every second of it through his memory if he wanted to, even if he didn’t want to when the episodes struck.

Physically he had bounced back now, it was mentally that was the problem. These brief moments of feeling normal with Toni desperately wanted and held on to but never enough to stick for long. Tonight had almost been testing the waters again and it had worked, that jittery feeling from that afternoon melting away into this. Toni’s laughter drawing a grin out of him, curved lips still skimming the side of her head until he pulled back. ”Not gonna happen,” he promised hoarsely. A little less teasing in his tone. He wouldn’t lose her, not the way he had the team and not just because like him, she could heal almost anything physical. She was the one solid thing he had left, the job still risking crumbling away beneath his feet and for that he would hold on no matter what.

The thought was knotted tight in the back of his head as he eased back on the couch. A huff of humour barely creeping through. Marc’s thumb made that slow circuit, brushing up down on her arm. That rhythm had settled him before, when the world seemed to be exploding around him again, the dark water of fear closing over his head. A far cry from where he’d been. Marc shrugged at Toni’s words like he could brush off that past when he was still naïve enough to think that his choices wouldn’t catch up to him at some point. ”You’re the only one I’ve got to thank for it. You pulled me up out of the depths of MREs and shit on a shingle.” The military’s legendary mystery meat and gravy on toast concoction. He squeezed Toni’s upper arm lightly, gratitude in the gesture that stoppered up his throat, dialling back the sound of amusement he made over the two of them catching lunch in the mess hall to a grunt.

After the next mission maybe. It was on the horizon, the time he could stretch out not going back growing short. Some part of him desperately wanted to, digging back in instead of throwing aside the sacrifice his team had made. Like somehow going back out there was going to be a testament to them and not the carving away of another part of himself. Toni knew it too. His hand curled over his thigh, his gaze dropping down to his fingers. ”Before,” Marc said hoarsely. ”Your brother’s birthday.” A celebration that had felt like it was still ringing in their ears when they shipped out. ”It was the relish. She’d have that little dish of it ready, swore it was all just for me.” Now he wasn’t sure if he’d be welcomed back into their home. He hadn’t saved their son after all, he’d been the one to come home alive. ”They always say women marry men just like their dads. We should do it. You know, invite some friends? Make it a thing. We have a few weeks before … we go.” That first trip back on the transport, it was gonna be like putting a wild animal in a tin can, the thought already had tension leaching him, leaving him moving uneasily on the couch.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 680

There were plenty of things out there in the world that could trigger him, and did with a shocking ease on a daily basis, but there was plenty he did to drag himself back under too. He’d been the one to bring family up, just the word ‘brother’ sticking in his throat as he turned talk of food into the last happy memory he had before his world exploded. Marc rubbed his palm over the thigh of his jeans, fingers curling inwards like he could somehow grip that broken part of him and squeeze it back together. A ball of torn Play-doh in his chest if he could just remould it the right way. Only he hadn’t found the shape that’d work yet, couldn’t get it back to how it’d been before the ambush.

It had felt like he was half there tonight but now that cracks felt like they were appearing again. He looked up at Toni, his lips twitching faintly. It had been her brother who hadn’t come home, a double hole in her life that can’t have been repaired any easier than his own. Marc curled his arm around her a little tighter for a second, pressing his lips to the side of her head like it’d help recover his grip. He laughed hoarsely at the memories, his lips curling against her hair before he drew back. ”I think I had her half in love with me too, I always told her if your dad was ever willing to give her up…” He liked to think his mother-in-law had known how he felt about Toni though, right back from the start. ”I’d put it on practically everything – burgers, hot dogs, I’d even just dip handfuls of chips into it.” It had been a taste of home when everything he’d known as that had been left behind in Woodstock, his own family gatherings a thing of the past.

He clucked his tongue lightly as Toni told him it wasn’t something he was getting his hands on daily, her mom’s recipe, the sort of secret that only got passed on when you were going white yourself and you could see the older generation slipping away. He was missing that with his own but he chuckled now. ”It goes deeper than the kitchen,” Marc said sagely. And it grew real shallow the minute you carved the heart out of their family. Determined to try and pack it back again Marc nodded, one corner of his mouth lifting a little. ”I am … I think I can handle it. Might be good to have the house busy again, you know?” The little voice in the back of his head told him it was just more witnesses for a melt down but maybe exposure was what he needed.

Dread settled like concrete in the pit of his stomach as the phone started to ring. It could’ve been for Toni, something to do with work, but chances were … He settled a hand lightly on Toni’s back as she spoke, the weight in Marc’s gut only growing with the tone of the buzzing voice at the other end and the fall of her face. ”I’m …” The word rasped out, the apology sticking tight as he took the phone from her. In a heartbeat she was gone, walking away to give him privacy. ”Fraser.” The growled greeting instantly met with the clipped orders. Shipping out in less than 24 hours, a situation in Syria. No apology for the short notice, but that question hanging, was he ready? ”I’m fit for duty, sir. I’ll report first thing in the morning. Have we got a team?” As almost the last standing member of his last team it was a reasonable question. Yes. Be there.

The phone was set down with a quiet click. Dark eyes rose to the kitchen door. Toni had retreated to start washing the dishes. Her brother had served long enough, she’d married a soldier for God’s sake, she knew what the calls meant. He rose slowly, feeling like the call had aged him twenty years at least. ”Tomorrow morning,” he said quietly, approaching her like he would an anxious dog, waiting for the sharp sting of the bite. ”I don’t know how long it’ll be but … maybe a few weeks. Look, I know … it’s gonna be alright. It’s nothing like the last time. Toni…” His hands settled lightly on her upper arms as he stood behind her, fingers squeezing lightly like that would do anything to reassure her.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 759

If their biggest issue was him possibly leaving his wife for his mother-in-law and an endless supply of relish, this would’ve been easy. That wasn’t a word either one of them could’ve associated with their lives or their marriages for months. Easy had been left in the sand where his brother-in-law had bled out. Broken pieces of their lives shattered like a plate by that bullet. Marc had tried, pulling together the pieces he could get his fingers around but every time he tried those wounds left by those jagged shards opened the wounds back up. Blood pouring free, leaving the shell of what remained of him weaker, closer to crumpling. Not that he would admit to it.

He could’ve done it. Standing out in the yard in a ridiculous apron, master of the grill. The smile would last that long. If he flinched with every pop of a bottle nobody would damn him for it. Details were locked down tight even on base but word always got around. People knew who didn’t make it home, they knew who wasn’t whole out of those who had come back. Another term Marc wasn’t gonna use for himself. He was whole, thanks to what he’d inherited almost anything would heal, the scars melting away until there was no visible sign of what was going on inside. No visible signs but Toni could see anyway and she’d asked. Knowing.

Now she knew again, stiffening up when he walked into the kitchen. Like she was expecting to be hit by one of those bullets herself … or worse, expecting to see him crumple with one. Maybe this would be the time the shot would hit him. A bullet to the heart, to the brain, something even he couldn’t survive. Marc swallowed hard, trying to loosen the grip of the hand around his throat – the general’s no doubt, keeping the men he had left in the choke hold of command. He failed of course, the fist tightening until the words that emerged had been hoarse. She’d known the answer that was coming, always would have done as an army wife. As the sister of a soldier.

Marc’s grip tightened lightly – to stop her, to reassure her, he didn’t know. She washed the suds from her hands before reaching for the towel to dry them. He wanted to be able to wrap his arms around her and be back where they’d been just a few minutes ago. It wasn’t the broken man she was trying to hold together then. It was her husband, the one who was bouncing back. ”I’ve got a team now,” Marc promised. He lowered his head so his lips were almost touching her shoulder. His head rested against hers softly, hands shifting to wrap his arms around her. ”I asked. They’re green for the most part but they’ve been preparing for this. Their team leader’s out for six weeks, popped cartilage in his knee. They need someone to step in and I’m it.” The lone survivor slotting into a place that would soon be occupied again. Maybe that was his place on the teams now, the pinch hitter they’d all looked at with that unrelenting and nauseating sympathy on their faces.

His hands slid as Toni turned to him. Her eyes lifted to meet hers and he knew that she was never going to agree to this. He could argue until both of them were sick of the words but she was only seeing that shattered man, not the one who could hold all those pieces together out in the field again. Marc pressed his lips together, shook his head as he slid his hands down to her waist. ”Command doesn’t agree. They’ve cleared me medically. I have to go back out. There’s no choice in this baby.” The tears cut deep, had him sucking in a breath as he mirror her move and lifted his hand to her cheek to gently brush those tears away with the backs of his knuckles. ”They’re not giving me more time and, Toni, even if they did, I couldn’t take it. We’re going back there. This an end to it. I’ve gotta do this. For me, for them. You get it right? I have to do this.” A plea just as sharp in his own voice. There was a chance to prevent a single pine box coming home from that province again. How could he sit here shaking and sweating and falling apart when the permanent fix was there, just waiting for him to arrive.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 760

Maybe if he’d asked for it afterwards they’d have given him a medical discharge. It wouldn’t have mattered that there was absolutely no sign of the trauma anywhere on him, if he could’ve told the white coats that it was all in his head, that he couldn’t even put his uniform on without seeing his brother in law’s blood spilled down it, they would’ve kicked him. A shaky operator was dangerous in the field and deep in his head Marc knew he was worse than that. Telling yourself you were OK a million times over didn’t make it entirely true and Toni knew it.

He was better, maybe good enough to step out onto the path towards being deployed again but the thick veil of lives stood between better and well. They stood between him and his wife, even with his hands on her shoulders and his lips an inch from her shoulder. Toni saw the lies he told himself, the ones he would tell them and she wanted to make sure he could see them too. He didn’t want to, couldn’t if he did want to keep his career. Marc licked his lips, the sweetness of the wine they’d shared giving way to a bitterness. ”We were trained to look out for each other. This team’s been through the same training, they won’t turn their back on a … on any member of the team. I’ll get to know them, but, baby, they’ll look out for me from the first.” Another thinly lie. The team wouldn’t be happy about their top being out, they’d have heard the stories about what had happened and they would watch him like a hawk, waiting for him to either prove himself or fail.

With Toni’s eyes on his it was harder to push those lies out. He did have to go. He’d made his choice when it came to the brass, he’d told them he was ready, had made sure the docs would sign off on that. Going back now would raise all sorts of ugly questions and would maybe put the new team in jeopardy. The little voice in the back of his head asked if he wouldn’t do that anyway but Marc squared his jaw, dropped his head so Toni couldn’t see right through him in the same way.

She’d seen through command though, the curse coming immediately. Marc squeezed her arms lightly but ended up rocking back on his heels as she pushed him away. He turned after her, dragging his hands through his hair, squeezing the top of his head. ”They need people to fight and that was what I signed on to do. You knew that when we met. They can’t sit around and wring their hands about the people they lost without having someone stand in their place.” Pawns on a chess board. It was what the press had seen them as over the years and now that her brother was gone, Toni was seeing the same. Or little plastic soldiers, stood by up every time they were tipped over.

This had hit closer to home than that this time, her grief tearing at her. Fear, anxiety, anger all swirling around, drawing tears out of her as incredulity cut through her understanding. Marc dropped his hands, folded his arms over his chest as he took a half step back. ”You get why I feel I have to but you think I’m wrong,” he said hoarsely. ”You think I’m still broken, still damaged inside. You don’t think I’m capable of doing this? I’m not staying, Toni.” He took another step back, his throat closing up, his voice clogging with tension. ”I’m going. We’ll … we’ll talk it through when I’m back. I love you but …” Marc shook his head, turning away from her to head upstairs to pack. It hadn’t been an order to report immediately but he couldn’t sit there arguing this all night, slowly feeling the confidence in himself fade away.

Tagged: TONI FRASER * Word Count: 666