Elliot: I’m not going to let you dictate my outfit.
Hudson: u do remember what the tattoos do to me, right?
Elliot: No. Head injury. Remind me?
Hudson: dumbass. Wear a fucking T-shirt and I’ll make it worth your wild
Elliot: It’s ‘while’
Hudson: shut up
Elliot grinned. God, he missed him so much it hurt.
ETA for the red eye from Seattle-Tacoma was thirty-two minutes ago. Elliot’s eyes were locked on the double doors, opening and closing every few seconds to let strangers through.
He’d gotten a call from Hudson just past midnight and answered it with his eyes closed.
“I swear I’ll make the flight. I just had to go straight from Lewis-McChord to my apartment to grab some stuff.”
“If you're not here in six hours, I’m gonna come over there and get you myself.”
Hudson laughed. He sounded tired, but relieved too.Elliot understood. Coming home after a deployment like that was equal parts exhausting and liberating.
“Oh, by the way. I talked to Taylor… hold on—” Hudson shuffled with his phone, thanked a woman, then returned. “She insisted on being there even though I explicitly told her not to bother.”
Elliot opened his eyes. “Be where?”
“JFK. Sorry… you don’t know her. She’s fucking relentless. Elliot, gotta go. Boarding.” The noise in the background intensified. “See you soon, okay? Love you.” And then he’d hung up.
Elliot scanned the arrivals hall warily. Besides the photo he saw on Hudson’s fridge when he visited years ago, he didn’t know what Taylor looked like. He imagined an energetic woman with Hudson’s curly hair and strong jaw walking around like she owned the place.
After ten minutes he concluded there were no such women there. Maybe she had in fact listened to Hudson, which mildly surprised him. He was focusing his gaze back on the sliding doors, when someone appeared at his side.
“You look like someone my brother would do.”
Elliot turned.
She was standing directly beside him, which meant she had approached from this blind side. He was choosing to attribute that to the noise rather than any lapse in situational awareness. As expected she had Hudson’s jaw, and his eyes. She was wearing a Taylor Swift tote bag with the words ‘I’m the problem, it's me’ over one shoulder and a very excited look on her face.
“You're Elliot, right?” she said. “I’m Taylor. Obviously.”
Elliot eyed her. “That opening line would have been a significant miscalculation if I wasn’t.”
Taylor stared at him for half a second. Then she laughed out loud. “Hudson didn’t tell me you were funny.”
“I’m not.”
“Mom,” Taylor turned to call over her shoulder. “He’s funny.”
Gloria Hale materialized from behind Taylor, shooting her a look that saidcut it out.She was small, had short, blond hair and piercing, dark blue eyes. She smiled warmly at Elliot and he felt the nape of his neck turn a little sweaty.
Okay. So Hudson’s family was here too. He could have used a little more time to prepare.
“Elliot,” she said and engulfed him in a tight hug.
He hadn’t expected it. Here he was, in the embrace of a woman he had never met before, feeling oddly comfortable. She smelled like coffee and sweets. He thought about his own mother and how he’d almost forgotten what she smelled like.
“I’m very glad you’re all right,” Gloria said, pulling back. “You had us all very worried. Especially poor Hudson.”
