Epilogue -- Game Over
"Nine hours. It's been almost nine hours!" Even bound by two slings and plaster on one arm, and in obvious pain, Jake paced the room like a caged tiger. Anson almost felt the lashing of his tail, Jake was so wound up. "What could be taking so long?"
"He has three bullets lodged in him." Anson replied on a sigh. "It takes hours to stabilize a man, and the wet suits are real hard to get off without hurting him. They would have to cut it off with razors to avoid further injuries."
"But what if they found something pierced...an artery? What if infection set in and he hasn't got the strength to fight it..."
"That's some imagination." Anson tried to smile, hating the picture Jake had painted. "You should try your hand at writing."
"Maybe a spy novel." Wildman suggested grinning. "You could write a blockbuster, based on your life story."
But Jake wasn't diverted -- nope, not even for a second. He didn't even acknowledge the news of Falcone's capture, or his sitting in the brig below, awaiting immediate extradition to the States. Anson doubted a nuke dropping in front of Jake would get his interest. "What if one bullet is lodged too deeply to reach? And if..."
Braveheart stepped in front of Jake, not touching him -- he could see that Jake had Keep Off signs posted all over him. "He'll pull through -- he has a lot to live for. He has a family."
"But... but... I" Jake worried at his lips, clearly on a negative and fearful trip, despite the non response of the team.
Skydancer took over the job that Braveheart had, for once failed to get right. He smiled at Jake with the understanding of a family man. "Jake, I've seen Flipper pull through impossible situations and heal from wounds in weeks that would take most guys heal in months. You know him; he's one tough nut to crack..."
"That he is." Jake gave a short, bitter laugh, and like a torrent bursting from banked-up clouds, he broke. "He told me about his past, you know, but only when it suited the mission. He gives me so much, but he doesn't share unless it helps the job. It's as if my knowing anything about him as a man is a breach of international security!"
The men all shared wry looks. Yeah, that sounded familiar. Adrenalin junkies, they could respond to an SOS in seconds, but when it came to love they were as dysfunctional as a fourteen-year-old boy suddenly meeting Justin Timberlake or Cameron Diaz.
Even Heidi had that look on her face. The comprehension none of them wanted to face: how their lives and personas squared up to civilian expectations and their complete inability to live up to that one word none of them could handle. Sharing.
But Anson had seen the look on McCall's face when he looked at Jake and the kid curled up on a cot in the corner. After ten years of the most faithful life-and-death service he could ask for in a commander, McCall needed -- and deserved -- a bit of help here. But what to do he didn't know, apart from handing over McCall's file, which was classified information. Right this moment he was almost tempted if it would keep Jake quiet for half an hour and let them worry for Flipper without imagining him bleeding to death on a table.
Before Anson could do more than toy with an idea he knew he'd never give in to, the O.R. doors swung open and Jake forgot everything else. His gaze fixed on Irish, blazing with hope and need and terror. It was obvious that Jake Silver didn't just love McCall -- he'd handed over his soul. Anson felt another tug of crazy wistfulness -- the kind he'd felt too often lately.
No. it was irritation. Losing his best, always on call operative to love. Evoking damnable, irremovable memories.
"Well?" Anson barked, to cover his weakness.
Irish looked hollow-eyed and gray with exhaustion, but he and Songbird had radiant smiles on their faces. "He's lost a lot of blood and his spleen's gone, but he'll make it. He's awake."
While the Nighthawks celebrated with grins and back slapping and jokes, McCall's man fell to his knees, his face incandescent with gratitude and love. And though he spoke in Portuguese, almost everyone could translate his words. "Thank you Father for saving him. I will keep my promise to you. I will make him happy for the rest of my life."
Anson damned the grit in his eyes. He wasn't the kind of guy who indulged in emotion. Hell, no. He had a life, and it was best lived alone.
But that grit in his eyes was damn annoying.
Anson shook his head to clear it, and stalked into the O.R. to apprise his Commander of the outcome of the mission, before he let love have its way with the most committed and courageous commanding operative he'd ever had.
Fairy kisses wakened McCall from the exhausted doze he'd fallen when Anson finally finished the debriefing of the mission.
They were featherweight, sweet and tickling sensations were shooting through his nerve endings. Each and every one was a healing of body and spirit. Each whispered word a balm in his wounded soul.
"Amo-o." Jake whispered, over and over as he kissed McCall's face with ultimate tenderness, in pure love. "Minah alegria, faz me viver, meu amado, meu Brendan."
"You have to get well." Jake whispered between kisses. "I can't live without you. I love you."
McCall turned his face, meeting Jake's petal-soft kiss with one of his own. "I know." He whispered back in Portuguese. And the miracle was, he did know. He finally felt Jake's love in all his damaged heart and soul. The thought of what Jake had done for him unlocked the dark vault holding his trust captive. His terrified cynicism could no longer override the faith in Jake that had begun the night he'd given him his name, and heart. Jake loved him. Jake, his wonderful, incredible Jake truly loved him, a one-in-a-lifetime love. It wasn't like the brief infatuation Mom had had with his handsome, wild father, so easily won and just quickly destroyed. "I love you too." He said in Jake's native tongue.
Jake kissed him again, then again. His eyes, those amazing, unforgettable eyes were shining with happiness. "I know."
McCall grinned. "Love in two languages. This is fun." Then he truly looked at Jake. He was beyond exhausted, still clad in the grubby gear from the church, arms bound in slings and plaster, but his smile was radiant, lighting his eyes from within.
Jake leaned into McCall, nuzzled his unshaven cheek, his jaw, his lips. "I've been so scared, Brendan." He shuddered, but Jake's kiss was filled with sweet relief.
When the kiss ended, McCall touched Jake's sling, his plastered arm. "You broke your arms, holding on to me until we reached water."
Jake's lovely eyes, red-rimmed with exhaustion, filled with tears. "I had to. My life is empty without you, meu amado." Jake said.
My love, my joy. To Jake, that's what he was -- what he'd always been. After long years of wandering in the darkness alone, Brendan McCall found home, and love and the courage to give Jake his complete heart. "Not again. I won't leave you again. We're getting married -- properly this time -- and we will never be apart again."
Jake shone and glowed like the sun, but shook his head. "Don't make promises you can't keep. You'll always have to go away on missions. Just make sure you come home to us. I can't do what you do, but I'm proud that you help make life safer for so many people. You keep making a difference. I'll be at home with our children, waiting for you."
Moved beyond words by Jake's love and pride in him, not trying to change him, McCall drew Jake down for a long deep kiss. "You'll never have cause to regret it. "I'll make sure of it."
"So long as I have your love and our family, I'll have all I ever wanted." Jake whispered, kissing him all over. "I want babies, Brendan. We are going to get big fat babies."
"We will started on that as soon as we settle down." He murmured huskily.
"Daddy? Dad?"
The doors had swung open while they'd been wrapped up in each other, but at the quavering little voice, McCall looked around. "Hey, Danny boy, I could use a glass of water, if you've got one." He joked to lighten the worry on Danny's face.
His son. Man, it felt good to think of this adorable, giving child as his own and part of a family as beautiful as the one he had claimed.
A family. He had a family...
"He is now calling you Dad and he calls me Daddy." Jake stated.
McCall smiled. "I like it."
Danny was beside him before McCall had finished his sentence.
"Do you hurt much, Dad?"
McCall grinned as he hugged the boy. His heart was warmed by Danny's words. "I'm fine, buddy. I'll be up and out of this bed by tomorrow."
Danny's anxious dark eyes scanned McCall's "Really?"
"Really." McCall vowed solemnly. "We'll be playing ball in a few weeks. Got to get you off the bench. And Daddy can join us. I have to teach him too."
Danny's face broke into a smile -- a big, wide-open grin of disbelieving joy. "We're going home? You will be coming with us?"
"You betcha, kid." McCall winked at him, ignoring the pulling twinges of pain in about a million different areas of his body. Pain meds were starting to wear off. "I guess what it boils down to is that I love you and your Daddy, so you're stuck with me from now on."
He winced as Danny almost jumped on him, snuggling his head almost flush against bullet wounds, but McCall didn't complain.
Game over. And he won. They won.