I sit down heavily on the bench, my clean clothes forgotten in my lap. The adrenaline from the call and the shock of Sierra's appearance is starting to wear off, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that has nothing to do with the three hours we spent fighting the apartment fire.
"We were together for two years," I hear myself saying. "Before the warehouse fire. Before I came here. She was—" I stop, searching for words. "She was everything. The kind of woman you marry, you know? The kind you build a life with."
No one speaks. They're listening, really listening, and I realize this is the most I've ever told them about my life before Blackwater Falls. In eight years, they've gotten bits and pieces, enough to know I was running from something, not enough to know what.
"Then the fire happened." My hands clench into fists on my thighs. "Seven people died. I pulled twelve out, but seven didn't make it. And I… I couldn't stay there. Couldn't drive past those buildings every day, couldn't see the memorials, couldn't face the families. Couldn't face myself."
"So, you left," Hudson says. No judgment in his voice, just understanding. He's got his own demons from his Army days. We all do.
"I left. Told Sierra I needed a fresh start, somewhere with no reminders. She said she understood." I swallow hard, remembering that conversation. The way she'd held my face in her hands and told me to go, to save myself, even though I could see her heart breaking. "Two months later, she found out she was pregnant."
"And didn't tell you." Griffin's voice is neutral.
"She says she thought it would either save me or destroy me, and she wasn't willing to risk the latter."
Silence. Then Rowan lets out a low whistle. "That's actually kind of—"
"Fucked up," Asher finishes. "That's fucked up, man. I'm sorry."
"Is it though?" The question comes from Dallas, and we all turn to look at him. He's leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his captain's face on, the one that says he's thinking three steps ahead of everyone else. "You left because you couldn't handlewhere you were. She was pregnant with your baby. Maybe she made the choice she thought was right."
"By not giving me a choice at all?" The anger flares hot and quick. "By deciding for me what I could or couldn't handle?"
"I'm not saying it was right," Dallas says evenly. "I'm saying maybe it wasn't as simple as right or wrong. Maybe it was just hard, and she did the best she could."
I want to argue, want to rage against the unfairness of it all, but the words die in my throat. Because part of me, the part I don't want to acknowledge, understands.
I left. I walked away from her, from our life, from everything we'd built together. I was barely functional, drowning in guilt and nightmares and the kind of grief that makes you want to stop existing.
Would I have been any good to a baby? To Sierra? Or would I have dragged them both down with me?
"She looks terrified," Rowan observes. "Like she thinks you're going to eviscerate her."
"I'm not going to—" I stop, running a hand through my hair. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how to process any of this."
"Start with the kid," Hudson suggests. "The rest you can figure out later. But that little girl in there? She just met her dad for the first time. That's what matters right now."
He's right. They're all right. Whatever anger or hurt or confusion I'm feeling about Sierra needs to take a backseat to Ruby. To my daughter, who's been waiting seven years to meet me.
My daughter.
The words still don't feel real.
"What's she like?" Griffin asks. "I mean, besides looking exactly like you. That's kind of spooky, by the way. It's like someone put you through a shrinking machine and added a ponytail."
Despite everything, I almost smile. "She seems smart. Talked about daylilies and asked if I was really her dad with this—" I gesture vaguely. "This combination of hope and fear that made me want to promise her anything."
"You're in trouble," Asher says with a grin. "Daughters have a way of wrapping their dads around their little fingers."
"I don't even know her." The reality of it hits me fresh, painful. "She's seven years old and I don't know anything about her. Her favorite color, what she likes to eat, if she's good at school, what makes her laugh, nothing. I know nothing."
"So, learn." Dallas pushes off the wall, coming to sit beside me on the bench. "Go outside with her. Talk to her. Ask questions. Be present. That's all you can do."
"And Sierra?" I look at him, needing guidance from someone who's not drowning in the same emotional whirlpool I am. "What do I do about Sierra?"
"What do you want to do?"
That's the question, isn't it? What do I want? To yell at her for keeping this secret? To thank her for protecting Ruby from my worst moments? To ask her why she still looks at me like I'm something precious when I walked away from her eight years ago?
