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Jaz gets taken out when they’re in the field as a mission turns south in the blink of an eye. She thinks he’s in danger and she runs to him as he finds himself surrounded, shooting the two tangos right in time to save his life. It’s not part of the plan and she should have stayed on overwatch, but Adam has never been happier to see her. Because he got two bullets in the vest and he probably would have died if she hadn’t come to his rescue.
She lets go of her sidearm and falls on the floor next to him. « You’re good, I’m there, » she whispers more for her than him, because the danger’s gone and fear eventually ended up being more substantial than his injuries. She cradles his head in her hands and sets him up on her knees, pulling in deep steadying breaths.
« I’m all good, Babydoll, » he jokes, referring to their last op where the pet name had slipped more than once as they tried to convince the world they were a couple. She gives him a shaky smile and he brings his hands to her wrists, relishing the contact.
It’s probably why he doesn’t see the man behind him. The ball is intended for Adam, but Jaz pushes him down to take the guy out, and ends up taking the bullet as she shoots him. She falls down and everything slows for Adam.
He stops breathing and it seems like the whole world has tilted on its axis. Adam presses his palm to the wound, on her breastbone, right above the vest. Her blood spills between his fingers in such quantity that his head spins. He hears himself calling out for McG without even realizing he’s doing it.
Jaz’s eyes are fixed on him and he mumbles her name with an urgency that he’s never had on the field. Adam knows he’s losing control, that he’s neglecting his duty as her CO, but panic seizes him by the throat and he just can’t fight it.
« Stay with me, » Adam’s hands tremble as he keeps pushing on her wound, trying to keep her from bleeding out. But Jaz isn’t answering and her eyes are closing and Adam shouts for McG in his coms. He sincerely hopes they’ve eliminated everyone, because he won’t stop trying to save her even if he has to take a bullet for her. Through the haze of panic, he figures out command must have started to communicate with the guys, because he can’t hear anything but the frantic voice of McG as he runs towards them.
« Jaz, Jaz come on, » he says and it’s his turn to fall to his knees and cradle her head on his lap. « Answer me, please, » his heart constricts so hard in his chest that it physically hurts.
But Jaz is rapidly losing consciousness. She gives him her dog tags and holds his hand tightly as her eyes close once more. Blood is everywhere and her grip is losing its strength and Adam panics, calling for the guys in the coms.
McG arrives and Preach has to pry him away from her. Amir calls an emergency chopper because there’s no way Adam can do it, not when the only thing he can see or hear is Jaz as she bleeds out in front of him. Preach takes over the coms, speaking with command. In the chopper, McG hooks him up to Jaz for a blood transfusion since he’s the only universal donor.
McG tries to take out the tube too quickly for Adam’s taste. « I don’t want to take too much blood from you, » he explains as he starts to peel off the tape that keeps the needle in place. Adam stops him with a firm hand even though he’s also feeling woozy from everything he’s just given Jaz.
But Adam saw the pool of blood she lost and he knows how critical her state is. « Take all that she needs, » he mumbles, because a life without her isn’t a life anymore.
He feels like a part of him is lost, or on the verge of being so.
At the hospital they all try, but no one actually manages to separate him from Jaz. He keeps watch on the plastic chair next to her bed night and day, taking her hand and pushing her hair out of her forehead and whispering how much he misses her, how she needs to come back to him.
« You need to Jaz. I- I can’t live without you. I’ll do anything . I swear I won’t bitch anymore when you leave your shampoo in the shower. I’ll let you call all the shots. Jazzy, come on, »
But she doesn’t wake up and that image that’s always on the back of his mind, of the two of them and their life after the army, it only fades.
So he talks to her about it to try and bring it more colors, more vivacity. How he sees them living together in a house near DC, with Patton running around the yard. « We could have a family one day, you and I, » is what he keeps ending with.
She kissed him by the fire, a month ago. Adam remembers how she pushed herself on him and he pulled at her, kissing her back before his mind caught up to his actions. He’d pushed her away gently, telling her they couldn’t, that he wanted to, but it didn’t change the fact that they couldn’t. And she’d bitched and huffed and pushed herself against him again, kissing and touching and just trying her hardest to convince him, but duty had been too present on his mind that day.
He’d mumbled a half apology. A wish that they wouldn’t be doing that job before leaving her to her dark thoughts.
How he wishes he’d acted differently, that he hadn’t pushed her away. He could have shared a complete month with her. Adam sees clearly now how much he loves her, how he can’t live without her. Her dog tags are cold in his hand.
Hard days come, hitting Adam straight in the chest as he does his best to keep himself alive. He wants to spend all his time next to her, but she doesn’t wake up and the guys gradually manage to make him eat a little. He keeps on sleeping next to her bed, where he can always reach for her hand and press his fingers to the side of her neck where the pulse runs strong now.
It’s hard for him to see Jaz like this: pale and silent. Adam realizes with startling clarity that he’s never heard her at loss for words and he’s now driven crazy by her lack of talking, ironically something he’s been tempted to strangle her for so many times.
The days keep rolling and Adam keeps on talking to her. He slips her dog tags back around her neck, but he takes one out of the chain and adds it to his. Adam isn’t sure why exactly he needs that dog tag sitting on his skin, next to his heart, but it gives him comfort to think she’s there.
When she wakes up he’s so overjoyed he trips on himself trying to get to her. He’s coming back from his coffee break and finds McG crouched in front of Jaz, giving her the brightest smile he’s ever seen. At that point, Adam is almost crying and he leaves because the guys are there and it’s not the time to be making a confession.
He misses the way her face falls.
Xxxxx
There’s a blast and she screams. Because Adam was in that building and it’s currently shattered. Her own voice feels distant to herself, the only thing she can think of is that it sound so broken and raw in a way her voice has never been.
She’s with McG at that time, a rare occurrence, and it’s all he can do to stop her from running towards the rubles.
« Let me go, Joe, » Jaz pushes him but his grip on her is firm.
His eyes are glued to the building and she can feel his heart banging in his chest. « Wait, Jazzy, »
There’s another explosion, this time a little farther and she screams his name again. McG’s hold lossens, part from the shock of that second detonation and Jaz bolts out of his arms. She doesn’t care about anything at that moment as she runs faster than she’s ever ran, heading straight for the danger. Her hands are shaking and hurting and she slips through the rubles, ninja like, calling Adam’s name over and over.
She finds him and he’s in a pitiful state. Jaz sinks to her knees and touches his face because she doesn’t know what else to do. Adam’s pulse is slow, too slow and she keeps calling him, pleading for him to come back to her.
« You have to Adam. Come back, please, for me, »
And then she breaks down. Because he doesn’t answer and she knows he’s pretty much gone and the only man she’s ever really loved is slipping through her fingers at that very moment.
It’s a peculiar thing to feel, the loss of a life. Jaz has already seen it with Elijah, she knows exactly what happens, how it feels, to sense a soul slowly leaving a body.
Jaz refuses to let him go. Not Adam. Not after all this. So she grits her teeth and pushes back at his life with her hands, forcing it back inside, all the while praying and pleading and begging Adam to hold on. To just hold on for her, please.
The guys come in and McG jumps on Adam. They don’t even try to pry her away from him when the medical chopper gets called in because they’re as worried for her as they are for Top.
When they get to the hospital, they whisk him away and she stays still in the middle of the hallway, not thinking, barely breathing. It’s McG who finds her and wraps his arms around her. She knows she should be feeling something, but she’s nothing more than a shell at that point because she felt it again, that soul slipping through her fingers.
Jaz isn’t sure she can do that anymore.
McG gathers her to his chest and she buries her head into him and he makes a soothing sound. That’s when she breaks for real. It’s not tears, but sobs. They wrench something inside of her that feels a lot like her heart and she struggles to breathe as her body convulses.
Joe has to carry her down to an empty room to calm her, because she’s shaking and her knees just give up and nothing in this world makes sense anymore. It takes more than an hour for the sobs to subsidize, but they still hurt more than she’s ever been hurt. It’s worse than that time her father burned her knees with cigarette butts, worse than when she took a bullet for Adam. It feels like when he pushed her away next to the fire, multiplied by ten.
Once he’s out of surgery and they say he’ll probably make it, she finally lets herself breathe for real. McG brings her in Adam’s room and she touches his face gingerly, not quite believing it’s him. He’s got cuts and burns and too many stitches, but it’s still that adorable bottom lip she fell in love with, even if it’s split in half.
The guys know better than to force her to come back with them, so Preach finds a pillow and a blanket somewhere and wraps her in it before they leave because she’s shivering and she might need the pillow for sleep. Jaz nods, but she knows she won’t be able to sleep. Not until he wakes up.
She’s left all alone in the dark room, staring at Adam as his chest rises and falls with the help of the machines. Jaz climbs in the bed next to him and stretches her body so she’s touching every inch of his side. It’s her way of making sure he’s still warm and breathing and on his way to come back to her.
Her head goes for his chest, fingers tracing the tubes and IVs they’ve plugged him to and she lets herself cry once more.
« Please Adam. You have to wake up, » She kisses him and he doesn’t even stir and she cries harder.
Jaz turns around to reach for the tissue box on the bedside table when she finds them. His dog tags. He has three, two of them are his own, and one is hers. It’s the one she gave him when she thought she’d die.
It’s then that she really knows she’s lost it.
Life without Adam Dalton isn’t life for Jaz. Because he’s become her whole world and breathing without him is too difficult, too hard.
Jaz runs a finger over her dog tag, snuggling into Adam. He might be a bit more sentimental than she’d thought and it makes her smile. She flattens a hand over his beard and presses her head back to his heart, listening to the steady beating under her ear.
« I love you, » Jaz whispers into his chest as she closes her eyes. « And you better come back to me so you can tell me the same, »
Sleeping next to him, that she can do. Jaz cuddles Adam in a shameless way, peppering his chest with slow, soft kisses that taste of desperation and she tells herself she’s allowed to do so, especially when he might not get back to them.
She wakes up in the middle of the night to Adam gently shaking her. She’s still clutching their dog tags in her hand and his eyes are huge on her.
« Jaz? » he croaks out and she barely registers that he took out the breathing tube by himself. This stupid, headstrong, idiotic man who doesn’t want to listen to anyone but himself is staring at her with eyes so big she melts.
But there’s plenty of time to chide him later for the tube, when she’s sure he’s safe and sound and that he’s never leaving her line of sight. Never again.
Jaz reaches for his face, brushes over his beard and closes her eyes, letting the tears fall freely once again. « You’re here, » she whispers as Adam’s hands go for her cheeks, « you’re really here, »
« Hey, I’m- I’m good Jaz.» She can see it in his eyes, the desperate way he looks at her. She knows he loves her and she also knows he knows she loves him and she’s barely grasping why he doesn’t want them to act on it.
« There was an explosion. Actually two explosions and I felt you slipping through my fingers and I thought you were gone and- Adam, » her words are messy and they tumble out of her mouth in hard powerful waves that shake her whole body.
« You can’t do that to me anymore, » she mutters, eyes shining with unshed tears. Her entire being trembles and he wraps her up in his arms and Jaz doesn’t give a shit about where they are or who might see.
She lunges for him, crashing her lips to his and pushes and pushes until he has no choice but to push back.
This time it’s not him who breaks them off. She does, still panting and crying and her eyes hold onto his. « I love you Adam, »
He stares at her and she panics, kissing him again before throwing another confession at him. « I thought you were dead, and everything felt empty, like I couldn’t live anymore, »
« Jaz, I- you know I love you, » he starts, but his fingers aren’t so soft on her cheeks anymore.
« I’m done, » she whispers, cutting him off before he decides to push her away once again. « I’m done with this job, with always wondering if the next time will be the one when one of us doesn’t come back. I can’t not be with you, Adam, »
They look at each other and suddenly it’s him who kisses her. It’s his arms that wrap around her and don’t let go, his voice that whispers her name in her ear.
« I think it’s time for us to go home, »
Jaz looks at him, bewildered. « Yeah, let’s go find ourselves a home, »
xxxxx
And eventually, they do manage to find a home. They have to build it from the ground up and it looks nothing like Turkey, but it’s theirs and they learn to love it.
It looks like groceries and desk work and arguing about who takes the kids to school. This, this home, this life of theirs isn’t like anything they thought they’d ever do, but that’s what it makes it so precious, so special to them.
They clawed their way in, painstakingly building this home of theirs and on those lazy Sunday night where there’s nothing to do but tuck the kids into their safe and warm beds, they smile at each other and think that this life is pretty damn good.