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heygerald · 2 years

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OLD HABITS DIE HARD - Part 8/8

Jake “Hangman” Seresin x oc

The fight is over, the mission completed, and as age old rivalries are finally stowed in the back seat, Zoe realizes that not everything from the past needs to stay that way. Particularly not when it looks at her with starry eyes and a breathtaking smile.

Catch up here: part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / *bonus chapter* / part 4 / part 5 / *bonus chapter* / part 6 / part 7 / ... / *say yes*

Victory was swift and cunning.

The carrier was awash with hordes of sailors cheering, arms thrown up in the air, boots stomping, mouths whooping as the adrenaline from what had just happened flooded the deck like the ocean breeze. Hangman let it shift through his sweaty hair, let himself be hounded with nods of appreciation and pats on the shoulder, let it sink deep into his aching bones as he spotted Rooster amongst the crowd.

Him and Maverick hugged. Something Hangman thought he would never see.

And then, maybe in an even more bewildering turn of events, Rooster offered his hand to Hangman to shake with a nod of appreciation and muttered words of gratitude. Hangman returned it emphatically.

“Not bad,” he told him, only a hint of bite to his words. “You know, for you.”

Rooster smirked beneath his mustache, sweat still dripping down his brow, his hands still shaking in exhilaration as he tugged his suit away from his neck. “Well, it could have gone a little smoother.”

“Just a little?” Hangman laughed.

Rooster laughed too. Fuck, it felt good to laugh; good to sink into the cheers and happiness and giddiness and disbelief of everyone around them.

“Alright, it probably could have gone a lot better. But I gotta say Hangman… when it didn’t go according to plan, I’m glad that it was you that had our back up there.”

Jake blinked at him, a smile cresting his face, eyebrows frozen in his hairline.

Rooster just blinked back at him, almost as if he also couldn’t believe what he had just said either, and suddenly the pair were laughing while shaking their heads at everything.

“Rooster? Rooster, oh my god!” a small body parted the boys as someone tackled Bradshaw around the waist. He stumbled back a few steps in surprise, held up only by Bob, before realizing that it was Phoenix who had lunged on him with everything she had left. He hugged her back, laughing as she cried tears of happiness into his flight suit. “You fucking idiot! What were you thinking?”

“I, uh, wasn’t,” he said as he set her boots back onto the deck.

“Christ,” she punched him in the shoulder, though only half-heartedly and with a look of concern more than anything else. Bob took the moment of pause to pat Rooster on the shoulder, then to do the same to Hangman with the most genuine smile he had gotten from the Southern kid yet. “Fucking hell. Three out of four down. Were you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Rooster curled his brows. “Three? What do you mean three? Who was the third?”

And then, just like that, Hangman was wrenched back into reality as he jerked his head around the deck in hopes of spotting a familiar head of hair.

Fuck.

He had gotten so wrapped up in everything that he hadn’t even thought—hadn’t even bothered—to ask what had happened with Buzzard and Stitch. The revelry died on his face as he spun on his heel in a circle, panic now replacing everything good and lighthearted and happy.

“Buzz and Stitch,” Phoenix’s own smile dimmed as she spoke, not liking the way that Rooster’s smile dropped off of his face. “Their wing got hit by shrapnel from a SAM on the way out of the active zone.”

“No. No, they were fine when I turned back for Mav!” Rooster argued hotly.

“They were fine,” she told him, placating almost. Hangman was only half listening as he continued to spin on his heel, almost hoping that he could bring Buzzard into existence if he tried hard enough. “But they’re engine went out a few clicks from the carrier. Both engines, actually, and their jet hit the water pretty hard. Thank fuck they managed to eject. Although, barely.”

Rooster’s face blanched.

Hangman, tired of waiting, grabbed Phoenix by the shoulders and shook her with a mix of panic and misery crossing his features. “Are they okay? What happened? Is Zoe okay?”

“Yeah—yes. Yeah!”

Relief snapped through Hangman like a broken rubber band. He sank back onto his heels, but didn’t relax just yet. Him and Rooster towered over Phoenix and Bob as they flickered their gazes between the pair.

“So they made it back?” Rooster asked as Hangman threw up his hands with a high-pitched and croaky, “well?!”

“They made it back and they’re okay. Well, sorta,” she winced, but smiled all the same, and once she got her thoughts in order Jake could see the relief shining clearly in the depths of her dark, brown eyes. “Real banged up. Stitch managed to get out before too late, so he’s fine other than bruised ribs and a concussion; Buzz ejected too low though, and she took a beating when she hit the water. They said she’s already awake and talking though and—Jake!”

Hangman didn’t wait to hear any more.

He just turned boot and hustled across the deck, shoving sailors left and right while also trying not to burst any bubbles of relief and comradery as he did so. He threw a few smiles and appreciative nods at people as they did the same to him, knocked Maverick on the back while brushing by, high-fived Yale and Harvard as he flung open the deck door.

He didn’t even know where he was going.

He just bolted left and right, boots pounding on the metal flooring as he tried to orient himself, pausing momentarily when someone gave him vague instructions on where the med-bay was, huffing the entire time. A few sailors yelped as he shoveled past. He didn’t care enough to even apologize to them; not when the ocean air was much staler the deeper he went and the thrum of his heart was beating fast enough that he could hear it in his ears.

And when he finally made it to the med-bay, boots skidding on the grating so hard that he had to catch himself on the door frame, Hangman was dripping even more sweat than before. Maybe he would have cared that he would be fulfilling a promise to the woman he loved—loved, yeah, that was fucking right, he loved her—while dripping sweat and smelling like motor oil, but when he saw her perched on the edge of a medical bed, he didn’t really care about anything else.

“Zoe!” he barked.

“I was wondering when you were gonna show up,” she huffed; half amused and half miserable, smile maybe just as crooked as her hair.

He ignored it completely, barreling past the nurses and doctors and curious observers to pull her into a searing kiss that made the one he gave her on deck an hour prior feel like child’s play.

“Oh,” she sighed. He kissed her harder; held her tighter. “Ow!”

He seemed to remember himself. Or, more importantly, he seemed to remember how she had ended up in medical in the first place, and just as quickly as he had kissed her, Hangman wrenched himself off of her in horror.

“Shit,” he said.

His hand bumbled against her bruises. She winced. “Jesus, Jake!”

“Sorry,” he said again, this time more forcefully. “Shit, sorry!”

Zoe laughed at his reaction; laughed when his face blanched a ghostly white while he tried to carefully extricate himself from her without bumping anymore unfortunate bruises. Of course, laughing hurt (like a fucking bitch) and so it quickly petered off into another wince that had his stare intensifying.

“It’s fine,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

“Fine? You’re fine?” he bellowed. She winced again. This time upon the realization that he wasn’t just about to overlook everything that had happened, even if she promised to kiss him again.

Well, maybe…

“Jesus fucking Christ, Zoe!”

Or not.

“I told you to come back in one piece,” he said, bending back a little bit further so that he could give her a proper glance over.

Her right arm was in a bulky cast that stretched up past her elbow, a sling holding it in place. She had heavy bruises under her eyes, along her jaw bone, and a particularly nasty bruise on her cheek. Stitches on her forehead, stitches on her neck, stitches even on the small piece of skin that wasn’t covered in a cast. Her shirt had been shredded until she was in nothing but her bra, exposing the vast bandages that wrapped around her entire torso. He expected that there were stitches beneath them too.

“This—you aren’t fine!”

“I am,” she said, despite the glaringly obvious fact that she wasn’t, in fact, fine. Not in any sense of the word, actually. Ignoring the way he planted his hands on his hips, Zoe tried to keep the atmosphere light. “I’m here, aren’t I? No limbs lost.”

“Your ship is at the bottom of the fucking ocean right now,” he deadpanned.

“Okay, fair,” she bit her lip, trying to find a way out of this that wouldn’t result in any more trouble. Ironic that she was the one who had just survived a crash landing and he was the one that was acting so scandalized by the entire thing. “But, I guess, if we’re being fair, I promised that I would make it back in one piece, not—well—my ship. So, I didn’t lie… technically.”

Hangman’s gawp turned into a gape which then turned into a glare.

Smooth. That definitely went the exact way she had been hoping their reunion would go. With him pissed off at her cavalier attitude, her having to force a cavalier attitude when her entire body fucking ached, and the nurse eyeing the pair a little too curiously for someone that should be minding her business elsewhere.

Zoe cleared her throat awkwardly. “Um... can we have a moment alone?”

The nurse pursed her lips, eyes darting between the pair.

“Pretty please?”

The woman harrumphed, but left them alone. Her boots clacked across the room before she disappeared down some corridor that Zoe didn’t even remember being carried through.

Oh, that’s right, she thought dismally, she had been unconscious for that.

“Zoe—”

“Jake? Do we really have to do this right now?” she threw her head back with a whine. Tomorrow she would think about how they had seemingly switched personalities; a moment where Jake was scolding her with his hands on his hips and she was looking at everything in the room but him. “Please? I hurt. All over. Can’t we just… not?”

His mouth twitched.

She supposed that was because he had a lot of things to say, but didn’t know how to say them. Or maybe he was just trying to identify which lecture he wanted to say first. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to being on the high road and his brain was suddenly short circuiting beneath the sudden responsibility of lecturing her.

“I—you…”

Yeah. He was definitely short circuiting.

Another moment of tense silence passed before he shook his head, eyes darting to his boots as his shoulders dropped a good five inches. She felt like kind of a dick for it. Not that it was her choice to hit the ocean like that, but still.

God she was pathetic around him.

“I thought you died, Zoe,” he said, disregarding everything else that he had probably been thinking about saying instead. She paused. Yeah, she definitely felt like a dick right now. “You hit the water hard and then I had to go drag Rooster and Maverick back, so I didn’t even get to focus on that until we were back on deck. You ejected so fucking late that I almost didn’t want to go when they told me to. I thought...”

She watched his eyes dart around the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said because she didn’t know what else there was to say.

That spurned him to look up at her. His eyes shimmered slightly when he did; the green murky and bright, horrified and relieved, as he tried to figure out what to say.

“Just… don’t do that again, yeah?”

“I won’t.”

“I mean it.”

“I promise.”

“No, seriously, Zoe, I’m not kidding around, I—”

She kissed him before he could continue, kissed him before those shimmering eyes could drip tears or he could realize that he actually was mad at her for what had happened or...

Well, anything could happen. She just kissed him because she wanted to and because she could. They paused after a couple moments, him clearing his throat anxiously. “Don’t do that again.”

“Kiss you?”

“Wreck your jet like that,” he rolled his eyes, fighting back a flicker of a smile. Zoe felt a bit lighter at seeing it; felt a little bit better about everything.

She winked at him. “Upset that I get all the attention, Seresin?”

“Are you kidding? I just got my second kill. You should have seen the people on top deck; it’s like I’m their new god or something,” he retorted. He wasn’t quite laughing yet, gaze still straying to her bruises and stitches, skin still a little paler than usual. But she watched him shove that to the back burner as he leant closer with a sigh that was both happy and sad. “I think you spend too much time with Rooster, by the way.”

“Why’s that?”

He wrapped his arms around her waist. He was much more careful of her sore spots this time, much gentler as his hands skimmed her burning skin, and when he pressed a delicate kiss to the bruise on her jaw, Zoe arched a brow at him.

“You two idiots really like to make a scene.”

She laughed. Then groaned when her ribs raked against each other. Still, she managed to quip, “I told you he liked the attention two weeks ago.”

“Unplugging a jukebox is a little different than what he did today.”

“Better or worse?”

Jake didn’t give her an answer. But she didn’t really care to hear what he had to say anyway. She just liked the fact that they were back in one another’s orbits again; her bruised with a swollen ego, him worried with a mind of lectures to give her.

But not right now. No, he didn’t tell her off anymore than he already had.

Maybe he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

Or maybe, as tears shimmered in his green eyes, Hangman didn’t want to think about anything other than the fact that she had very nearly died today. And yet here she was, sitting before him, all battered and bruised, still managing a smile.

He kissed her again.

It hurt a little bit, but she didn’t complain. Just smiled into his lips as he ever-so-gently cradled her very bruised jaw between his hands. Laughed when he accidentally bumped the bulky sling her arm would be trapped in for the upcoming weeks. Snorted when he made a joke about how it would look great on their first date, how it would give him the perfect opportunity to be the gentleman responsible for opening the door and pulling out her chair and feeding her spaghetti on a fork.

They kissed and they laughed and they held one another, and Zoe realized that some habits, the ones that were truly toxic and wrong, did die off over time if you let them. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but habits could be unlearned if one was determined enough.

But the other habits, the ones that were perhaps ingrained into her person just like knocking three times for good luck or always checking the weather before she went for a run, the ones that made her who she was, just got better with time. They molded as she molded, changed as she changed, improved as she improved.

And that’s what Jake Seresin was to her.

A habit that only got better with time.

“Hey,” she breathed quietly. Jake pitched a brow down at her, eyes still wide but soft, annoyed but relieved, flickering over the depths of everything she had to offer to him. “I love you too.”

“Yeah?”

Zoe nodded; she didn’t even have to think it through because she did. She did and she wasn’t really sure she had ever stopped; not even during all those years apart. Not even when he had broken her heart into pieces or when he had desperately tried to glue them back together again.

“Yeah,” she told him.

He smiled. Like, truly, smiled; just like he had back on the deck all those hours ago, before everything had happened. It felt like a lifetime ago now. Though, really, Zoe was starting to realize that any amount of time away from him felt like an eternity. It was a breathtaking sight to witness; Jake Seresin looking at her with stars in his eyes and a grin on his lips, cheeks split open, lips glistening as he licked them.

And although Zoe craved to hear those three little words from him again, when he instead kissed her with a passion that she would never get used to, she found that she wasn’t all that upset about his reaction. So she just kissed him back with a smile that matched his own, a giggle against the softness of his lips, and he had just pulled back far enough to catch a glimpse of her face, mouth propped open to say something, when—

“Oh, Christ,” a voice cut through the room, sharp and witty and annoyed.

Hangman pulled back to dart his gaze towards the doorway where a bandaged up Stitch—though not nearly as bandaged as Buzz—stood with a look of displeasure peeling his lips.

The others stood behind him. Rooster, Phoenix, Bob, and then even Maverick.

“You two are going to be fucking unbearable, aren’t you?” Stitch moaned.

“He has impeccable fucking timing, doesn’t he?” Jake muttered against her neck with a bitterness that she didn’t blame him for.

“Maybe Nantucket wasn’t all that bad afterall,” she grumbled back. At least he didn’t have the audacity to ruin the moment every chance he got like Dylan fucking Chutsky managed to do.

“Leave them alone, Stitch,” Phoenix shoved him out of the way.

“Ouch. Watch the—well, everything—will ya? I did just crash and burn thanks to Buzz’s brilliant flying skills over there, ya’ know. It wasn’t exactly a five star experience.”

He went ignored as Phoenix shoved Hangman out of the way, this time with a devious grin, before gently pulling Buzz into a hug. Zoe didn’t even care that her shoulder hurt from the pressure of her friend; just hugged her back as best she could with a single arm.

With her arm around Zoe’s shoulder, Phoenix said, “you really like attention, don’t you, Preston?”

“It wasn’t like I wanted to nose dive into the ocean.”

“Still.”

She shrugged, winced when it hurt a hell of a lot more than it should, prompting Jake to fiddle with the strap of her sling until it wasn’t digging into the bruised skin of her neck, smoothed her hair off her shoulder. Then he winked when she shot him a small, appreciative smile.

From his spot on the other side of the room, Stitch groaned.

“I was wrong,” Phoenix rolled her eyes. “There is someone that likes attention more than you, Buzz. Leave them alone, doofus. At least now we won’t have to put up with their heart eyes and pining all the time anymore.”

“There was no pining,” Jake declared.

Rooster snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy, but we could all feel it. It’s like you were going through puberty all over again. Almost as cute as it was sickening.”

Hangman glared. “Is this gonna be a thing now?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Rooster said. Though, he did know exactly what Hangman was talking about. He really just liked having something to lord over the blonde’s head for once. Particularly if it also was something he could tease Buzz with as well. “Although, you better watch yourself, Seresin. If you mess with her…”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Phoenix shrugged. “After all the shit that Buzz went through today, I doubt Hangman will be the worst part of her year. Probably not, anyways.”

Hangman smiled. Then frowned. “What?”

They all laughed as Rooster nudged Phoenix out of the way to hug Zoe himself. She allowed it for a moment before something furious cracked over her features. Hangman and Phoenix were quick enough to make some room. Rooster, however, didn’t have that foresight, and Zoe socked him square in the chest before anyone could warn him.

“Ow, what was that for?” he stumbled back half a step with a groan.

If she weren’t in worse shape than he was, she might have felt bad about it.

“For almost dying you dickhead!”

“Good to see you too, Buzz,” he muttered.

“Maverick sacrificed himself to save your life, asshole. You weren’t supposed to go back to do the same thing for him. That defeats the whole purpose!”

“Funny. He gave me the exact same lecture when we were stranded together,” Rooster told her while righting himself, tone a little rueful even if he understood why she was yelling at him. Though, when she was in better condition, he would take the chance to scold her just as much as she scolded him.

“I yelled at him too for it, though I didn’t think to deck him,” Mav said. It made her feel a little more self-righteous, if not a little nauseous that she was suddenly agreeing with Maverick of all people on something. Still, when the Captain hugged her, she decidedly left his chest un-punched. “Plus, if it makes you feel any better, I think he pissed his pants while flying with me.”

Admonishment whipped across Rooster’s features.

“I did not!” he exclaimed. When no one seemed to take his word on it, he shot Maverick a dark glare. “But if I did, it’s because you fly like an absolute fucking lunatic. That was the craziest flight I’ve ever had in my life, Mav.”

Mav just shrugged, unbothered. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Famous last words,” Hangman quipped.

“Not yet, they haven’t been.”

Bob pushed his glasses up onto the crook of his nose, eyeing Maverick, before noting, “why do I get the feeling that this wasn’t the craziest flight that you’ve had?”

The room turned to study the Captain who, for once, had the audacity to look a little shy. Shrugging once again, he said, “buy me a beer and I’ll tell you the stories, sometimes, kids.”

“Still can’t afford the bar tab?” Stitch snarked.

“Don’t think I should have to after that,” he shot back. The group laughed.

“Speaking of a bar tab,” Zoe ambled painfully to her feet. Hangman was there in the next moment, hands held out but not touching as if afraid of breaking her in half. Thankfully for her pride, she managed without needing any help. “I could really use some beer right now. Think Cyclone will give us some for a job well done?”

“We wrecked three jets,” Phoenix said.

Zoe pondered. “Think Cyclone will give us some anyways?”

“Ah, nice try,” Rooster rolled his eyes. “There’s no way you’re allowed alcohol with the pain meds you’re on right now. I doubt you and Stitch should even leave the med-bay yet. You look like you’re a set of stairs away from keeling over.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“The man saves one life and all the sudden he’s a doctor,” she muttered. Phoenix snorted, but hid it behind her hand, as Bob tried not to let his amusement show as he fiddled with his glasses. “Fine. No beer just yet. But I could use some food. Lost it all in our plummet.”

“Ew, you yacked?” Stitch groused. “I was in there with you.”

“Phoenix? Hit him for me will you?”

She did. He yelped. The room smirked as Stitch rubbed the back of his head as if she had just committed some great dishonor against him. Maybe she did; no one really cared all that much.

“You’re a dick even when you’re high on morphine,” he glared.

“I said no to the morphine.”

“What?” Hangman paused, suddenly studying her a little too closely for comfort.

She just waved him off. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about the idiots who got themselves shot down over enemy territory, just to fly an A-14. What were you two thinking?”

“There wasn’t a whole litany of options,” Rooster huffed.

“Better question,” Stitch surveyed them as the group slowly made for the door. He limped, though only slightly, and the others slowed their pace without having to be asked. “How did you both get shot down and not have a single bruise to show for it? Especially you, Cap. Aren’t you all brittle bones and viagra by now?”

Mav shook his head with a laugh and something troublesome in his eyes.

“Not my first crash, kid. Not the worst one, either.”

“What could have possibly been worse than that?” Phoenix asked.

“You should ask Hondo about why I got transferred to being a teacher in the first place,” he told her over the crook of his shoulder. When the group all shared curious, prompting looks, his smile grew a little bit more sly. “I may have crashed a prototype of a new stealth jet into the side of the Nevada desert during a test run. Accidentally. It’s not like I wanted to crash, but the Admiral was gonna shut us down. Course, he wasn’t too happy about losing the prototype, but at least we passed our checkpoint. Made it to 10.2 and we were only supposed to touch 9 that day.”

Rooster and Phoenix paused in the door.

“You crashed going 10.2?” Rooster echoed in disbelief.

Maverick just winked at him while slipping out into the hallway. The nurses hadn’t bothered him just yet and he really didn’t want to stick around long enough for them to do so.

“Like I said,” he joked, “this was a fairly innocent crash.”

“Jesus,” Rooster shook his head while sharing a bewildered and disbelieving look with Phoenix. Together, they crept after their Captain, though the entire group was starting to admire him in an entirely different light than they had two weeks prior. “It’s a miracle that you didn’t get us killed.”

“I supposed we could have waited for them to kill us instead,” Mav snarked. “If that’s what you would have preferred.”

Rooster threw up his palms in consolidation. Zoe pondered how the pair had seemingly overcome years of heart ache and hurt in such a short amount of time. Then again, as her good shoulder bumped into Jake’s, she figured that almost dying could do that to someone.

“I’m not complaining. I told you to go for it,” Rooster said.

“Doesn’t mean that you aren’t clinically insane,” Phoenix added.

“That’s one word for it,” Hangman tutted from the back of the group. “I’d say… inspiring, too, but that’s just me.”

Zoe arched a brow at him. “Don’t start getting any ideas.”

“Me? I like my face the way it is, Buzz. You don’t have to worry about that.”

She rolled her eyes, grinning, and as the others slowly meandered down the hallway ahead of them with no real direction in mind other than going up, her and Jake turned to one another. His smile was happy, if not a little strained every time he caught a glimpse at the heavy bruising her body was sporting, and she decided that was better than any other smirk he had ever given her.

“So?”

“So.”

“You regret it yet?”

Jake pretended to think about it as he wound his arms carefully around her waist. His fingers burned the skin that he touched; or, maybe, that was just more bruising yet to come. Either way, she delighted in it.

“I told you that I wouldn’t.”

“You do have a history of exaggeration.”

He bent forward, nose touching her nose, and said, “no. I don’t regret it.”

“At all?”

“Maybe I just regret the fact that I didn’t say it earlier. I love you, Zoe. Like, really love you. It’s almost embarrassing how much self denial I’ve been dealing with these last couple of years just to avoid realizing it until now. It’s a miracle that Coyote hasn’t tried to smother me in my sleep just yet given how much I talked about you.”

“Self retrospection, Seresin?” she teased, reminding him of when they had seen each other at Penny’s bar just two weeks earlier. “How progressive of you.”

He grinned. “Careful, Preston. Compliments go right to my head, you know.”

“As if it could get any bigger.”

He faked mock hurt that made her laugh till her sides hurt, which really didn’t take much, before bending forward to kiss her once again. It was someone hot and cold, soft but needy, sweet but vicious all in one.

“Hangman, you better keep your hands where I can see them!” Rooster bellowed.

They turned to find the whole group staring at them from the end of the hallway, laughter and smiles somehow making up for the embarrassment of being caught once again. Hangman lifted his hands in a gesture of innocence, while she just winked at him.

“They’re not gonna make this easy for me, are they?” he asked.

“What’s the problem, Bagman?” she taunted over her shoulder, liking the way that his mouth quirked upwards at her teasing rather than the way it had previously been tightening while they argued. “I thought you liked a challenge.”

Jake smiled.

Maybe, Zoe thought, that was a picture worth remembering as well.

“Oh, hey, Rooster,” she added with another glance back at the blonde. He didn’t seem to realize where she was going with this just yet, but when he did, she swore she saw panic in his eyes. “Hangman told me the funniest thing earlier. He said that you were a better pilot than him; that you were the better pick for the mission than he was.”

“What? No! No I didn’t,” Hangman jogged after them.

“Ah, c’mon, buddy,” Rooster threw an arm around Phoenix’s shoulder with a smirk. It seemed that he had managed to replicate Jake’s perfectly. Zoe could worry about that another day, when they weren’t so bruised, and when she wasn’t so happy. “I always knew you liked me. Why deny it?”

“I didn’t say that!”

The group laughed. Oddly enough, no one really believed him.

Oddly enough, he didn’t really care. Just gave Zoe another kiss on the side of the cheek as they wandered towards the party on the top deck. And later that night when they were cuddled up in her bed, propped up on pillows and blankets and ice packs that made the sting of what happened a little bit sweeter, when Zoe smiled at him through the moonlight, Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Seresin realized that he would let her say whatever she wanted about him so long as she continued to smile at him like that.

Smiled at him like he was a habit that she just couldn’t quit and maybe that, even after all these years, she didn’t particularly want to.

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