I wanted to tell her that I wouldn’t die, that her worry was unfounded, dramatic even. But how the hell could I do that when I knew what she said was the truth? When part of me felt like coming full circle would end with her holding my flag? “Would you want that man? The one who knows he’s capable of helping, of being where he’s needed, but does nothing? Who stays at home while others die in his place?”

Her chest heaved as her head hung low. Finally she looked up at me. “When it comes to you, to how much I love you, Josh, I have no morals. No honor. I would lie, cheat, murder, steal, dishonor everything I hold dear if it meant spending my life with you. No measure of duty, or God, or country could ever make up for losing you.”

“I can’t sit home while others risk their lives. This is the right thing to do, and you and I both know that what’s right and what’s easy are never the same thing. We’ve always chosen the hard road, but, baby, we’ve always come out on top.”

“Until we don’t. You’re playing Russian roulette every time you go, putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. You’ve nearly died twice. Lightning has struck you twice. What the hell happens when you go and this time you don’t come back?”

Words failed me. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either. But this… How could you just spring this on me? How long have you known it was a possibility?”

“At the barbecue, Major Trivette said something that triggered me, about how Alice would have been the first back on the line, and I knew he was right. And that was the honorable thing to do. So Rizzo and I both asked the next day, and Captain Brown told us about the last flight out, but I swear, I didn’t know for certain I would even be capable of going until they’d gotten me back in the air. I’m current, ready for missions as of this morning.”

“And there was no point in this process where you thought you might want to tell me?”

“I didn’t know it was a definite possibility. There was nothing to tell.”

“Don’t you dare start lying to me now.” She grabbed the glass of wine on the counter and downed it like we were still in college. “You made this giant decision without so much as asking my opinion.”

“I already knew what it would be, and if there had been time to discuss it, we would have. They cleared me and needed the manifest all within the same hour.”

“Then get to a phone, Josh!” She leaned on her elbows, resting her forehead in her hands, and let out a primal cry. “How could you do this?”

The tears I saw hitting the granite fractured pieces of what was left of my soul and cracked my resolve. God, how could I do this to her? Leave again? After what she’d just been through? But how could she love the guy who didn’t go?

“Because it’s what we do.” Do not yell. I looked past her, to where Will’s West Point ring box still sat on the fireplace mantel. “It’s what Will would have done.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t ask Will, because he’s dead.”

“Because of me! Because of my choices. I have to make up for that somehow.”

“Were you going to use that same argument with my dad? Because I’m not sure if you noticed, but he’s dead, too, and you had nothing to do with it. That’s just what happens. War kills the people we love, either in body or soul, but they’re both equally devastating. So please don’t stand there and talk about what they would have done, because they didn’t get to make the choice. You are making the choice.”

“How many more people die if I don’t go? Trivette, Will…how many more bodies should I add to my tally?”

She looked away.

“I know the timing is shit. I know I should have asked you, talked to you. But what if that had changed my mind? What if while trying to keep your love, I became something you loathed? God, please, December. Forgive me. I’m so sorry, but there was no other way.”

She turned her back on me but straightened her spine. “Two and a half months?”

“That’s it.” Was there a possibility that she’d accept this? God knows I wouldn’t have. Had it been Ember, I’d have tied her to a fucking chair to keep her safe, and I was the worst kind of hypocrite for expecting her to let me go.

I could risk my life in a heartbeat, lay everything on the line, but I could never chance her life. In that regard, she was so much stronger than I could ever dream of being. Where I’d give my blood, she gambled something so much more precious—her love. And I was the ungrateful bastard taking it half the way around the world.

“That’s ten weeks. You typically flew five days a week, so that’s fifty days of flying. Countless lives you could save.”

“Yes.”

“Countless chances for you to be killed.” Her head started to shake. “No. I can’t. It’s too soon.”

“December—”

“Don’t do this.”

Fuck. My. Life. “Please, don’t ask that.”

She turned toward me, and the sight of her tear-streaked cheeks and reddened eyes destroyed another chink in my armor. “Don’t say good-bye again. I’m begging you.” Her face twisted, and she drew her lower lip between her teeth. “I can survive almost anything, but not another good-bye. Not now.”

“I wouldn’t be the man you loved if I stayed.”

She crumpled, her shoulders sagging as sobs wrecked her. “I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it as long as you’re not dead. I know it’s wrong, and I’m supposed to stand by all proud that you’re such an incredible man, and you are. God, you really are. You have more integrity than anyone I’ve ever known. You’re strong, courageous, selfless, everything an amazing officer should be.” She walked around the island until we stood toe to toe. “And maybe this makes me a wretched person, or even a coward, but Josh, I’m begging you. Choose me. Choose my love over your integrity, just this once. I promise I’ll be ready when the next deployment comes, just…not this one. This one already tried to kill you. I don’t know how to hand you over to it again.”