Chapter Text
Sarah can tell something’s off about Ron when she comes home from her twelve hour shift at the hospital. The snow’s slushy and icy in a way that makes Sarah miss living in San Diego, and she huffs under her breath as she kicks away some stray slush on her way to the door with her boot, clutching her bag strap with one hand and her sneakers in the other.
He’s sitting in the living room when she finally strips off her jacket and scarf, kicks off her boots, and hangs her bag, clutching a mug of something (coffee, black with a splash of cream, she mentally fills in—probably), and looks lost. She sits next to him, not bothering to go upstairs and change out of her scrubs, and he turns to her and smiles, just a little. Just a little for her.
“You’re looking…” Sarah looks for the right word, and pecks him in the meantime, sighing a little into it. Ron slides a hand to cup her neck, hand big and open and warm on her nape, and it still, all these years later, makes her feel a little weightless.
“Distracted?” he offers, before shifting his cup to one hand and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “You’ve got my number, baby.”
“You gonna tell me why?” she asks, settling her face on Ron’s shoulder, and pulling her knees up. “Or is it, you know—above my clearance?” She’s mostly teasing him, but something flares in his face. Sarah pulls back, frowns.
“What?”
Ron opens his mouth, then groans a little, rubbing his hand over his jaw and face. “God,” he mutters, “if Ice figures out I told you this before it all goes down, he’ll skin me. Like a goddamn bear.”
“Tom’s not going to skin you like a goddamn bear,” Sarah retorts. “We grew up an hour away from the beach for—I don’t know, 75 percent of our childhood. I doubt he’s ever seen a bear, sweetheart.”
“I’ve seen a bear, Sarah.”
Sarah rolls her eyes. “Is this the part where you start waxing poetic about your beautiful home state?”
“I don’t— Montana’s a great place. Plus, I’ve seen him make grown admirals shrivel by looking at them.”
“You’re not actually scared of him, Ron, plus we’re immune to that. Long-time exposure.”
“Oh, Dr. Kazansky,” Ron responds, mock-affronted and giving her a shit-eating grin that’s just on this side of a little dirty, “are you going to give me my physical? You’ve gotta at least call me in first. Also, I want my fucking lollipop at the end.”
She swats him on the chest, and he cracks up instantly, making her smile. Ron always laughs with his whole body: his big shoulders shaking, his eyes crinkling, pushing his hands through his hair, and pulling her in. She rolls her eyes, but starts laughing too. After that, Sarah climbs into his lap and kisses him—the benefits of an empty nest, since Liv went off to college, and look, it’s been a long shift and he’s still smiling at her—Ron slides his hands down her back and pulls back to kiss down her neck, and they don’t talk for a while.
—
After, when they’re mostly wedged on the couch together (it’s a tight fit, since Ron’s still a giant sequoia, but whatever—she’s tiny, so it works) and huddled under the quilt stolen from one of the armchairs, Sarah leans up on her elbow and looks down at Ron.
“Really,” she asks, curious. “What’s eating you?”
Ron opens his mouth with a look in his eyes, and Sarah slaps a hand over it. “No innuendos. No dirty jokes.”
He starts kissing it, which only makes her bite down a laugh and pull it away. “Bastard.”
“You love it, baby.” Ron sighs. “Look—it’s really under wraps.”
“Either talk about it or don’t, Ron,” Sarah says, settling back down in his side and pulling the quilt over them. She reaches over to rub his side, and he melts a little into it. “You can’t half-ass it and talk around it.”
Ron’s quiet for a moment, before: “They’re recalling the top three graduates of each of the last four TOPGUN classes.” He sighs, looks at the ceiling. “It’s for…Jesus, I don’t even know exactly, but Ice found out about it. Got pissed and yelled at SOCOM and the Pentagon since they were trying to do it through NAE without telling him.” He’s silent, then looks at her. “Fuck, Sarah—Bradley’s on that list. And Ice? He’s got the bright idea that Mav’s the only one who can teach the kids to pull this shit off.”
Sarah stills. Suddenly, all she can think of is opening the door late one morning in 2002 at the house in San Diego to find Bradley on their doorstep—blotchy and red-faced and so angry, still in his pajamas, and clutching onto his backpack an a duffel—mumbling, voice hoarse, “Aunt Sarah‚ ‘m sorry. I just—they—” then starting to cry, and she’d just pulled him in his arms. He’d stayed with them until he’d taken off one night for Virginia and left a page-long note, including: I’m sorry. I’ll call; I promise. Thank you for everything.
Bradley still actually talks to her and Ron and Liv and Maddie, but like he’s walking on eggshells, like he’s trying to sidestep all those landmines. Sarah knows Ron’s been desperate to patch all of this shit up since 2002 because he’s never known what to do with large rifts, great chasms like this. But Sarah grew up with a father who barely raised her, and a mother who died when she was twelve, and Tom, who would do anything to keep his loved ones safe. So she’d understood, and she didn’t point fingers; mostly, she was disappointed in everyone.
“Goddamnit, Tom,” she mutters, resting her head on Ron’s chest. Ron’s hand comes to rest on her back, his lips at her hairline.
“I wanted them to talk, Sarah,” he murmurs into the crown of her head. “Get their fucking selves together in a room and actually figure it all out, but—not like this. Not like this. Jesus.”
Sarah shuts her eyes. “Nothing's happened yet,” she reminds him.
“Yeah,” Ron replies, but he still sounds uncertain as hell. “There’s that, I guess.”
—
Of course, it does end as well as it can, although, well—Sarah’s pretty willing to fight Ron on who gets the honor of being Tom's best person. Love of her life be damned (Not really, of course).