“You worried?” Callen asked.
Ethan nodded.
“Yeah, because this is all my fault, and I’m the reason we’re in this situation. I opted to not leave. Had I just got on that jet to get back to DC, we wouldn’t have this mess.”
Callen was to the point.
“There’s no benefit from worrying about the past, Ethan. Haven’t you learned that yet? You can run from it, you can stay and fight it, or you can pretend it’s not there, but it always works out how fate wants it. You came, you decided, and we’re here. This lunatic would have tried this even if we didn’t come here.”
Maybe.
Only, he felt like his selfishness had been their undoing.
“They are going to tell us to leave,” Ethan admitted.
Oh, Callen was well aware.
Lance was the calm head who prevailed, and now, that calm head was dead on their morgue slab.
“So we leave?” Callen asked. “Are you tucking tail and bailing on the rez, again?”
Ethan stood there.
He knew what his brother was asking him, and why he was. They either had to make a stand, or go.
So, Ethan was honest.
“I think that depends on Elizabeth. I forced her hand. If she comes back from this, and wants out, I think we should go.”
Callen stared at him.
“Don’t,” Ethan said.
Well, someone had to, and that someone was him. So, he was to the point.
“You wanted this. You wanted to come back here and find yourself. If it mattered at all, bailing on it…that’s a shit plan. Take Elizabeth out of the equation for a moment. What doYOUwant?” he asked.
Ethan thought about it.
He wanted his wife to be okay. More than anything, he wanted her safe and to not watch her slip through his fingers. It felt like she was just about ready to check out of their marriage.
And that scared him.
Because through it all, the most important piece of his world was her.
Not Chris.
Not Callen.
Not Gene.
And now, he was losing her to all of this madness. Something had to give, and he was scared shitless it would be her.
“I want to stay and be Shaman,” he said. “But I’m not willing to lose Elizabeth over it. That's my hard line.”
Callen dropped his arm around his brother’s shoulders.
“Then stay and let everything fall into place.”
