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"Oh god, you have no idea, honey. This family is competitive as fuck. We actually have family rules for when and how we're allowed to compete, because it can get messy. And it goes for the adults, too." I frowned, laughing. "The old grownups, I mean."

"So the moms would buzz the boys as fast as possible?"

"Yup. But my dad adjudicated it, and he was obviously the expert on buzz cuts, since he and his unit used to buzz each other before every mission. If it was too patchy, it didn't count. It had to be a good buzz cut. Points were taken off if blood was drawn.”

“If blood was drawn?” She sounded horrified.

"Well, yeah. It happens—you get nicked. Not often, and never very badly, but it did. Aunt Claire was the worst offender, but she was also the fastest. She could get through her line and re-buzz the no-reps before the other moms were done."

"No-reps?"

“Yeah, the ones that didn’t count."

"This is complicated."

I laughed. "We don’t fuck around with our competitions."

"Guess not." She turned her head slightly. "How’s it going back there?"

I assessed my work so far: not great. "Um. Don't worry about it." I winced at my handiwork—uneven, lumpy, and messy. A lot like her attempt at rolling a joint. "To be honest, honey, it's some Dr. Seuss lookin' shit."

"So what does this have to do with you braiding my hair?"

"Oh!" I laughed. "I'm so delirious I forgot why I was telling that story." I undid some of the braid and tightened it up. "The point is, I used to have to braid my girl cousins' hair all the time. I got pretty good at it until we were too old to play house. I've obviously lost some of my touch, but it's starting to come back to me."

"Jax." Her voice was shaky and soft.

"I'll braid your hair for you whenever you want, Tea. I'll practice until I can do it so good you'd wear it out of the house and not want a paper bag over your head."

She was silent, then, as I finished the braid. The top part closest to her skull was kinda funky, but you could tell my fingers had started to remember by the time I got to the end. I twisted the hair tie onto the end and then gave the braid a gentle tug.

"There you go," I said. "Not perfect just yet, but…"

Her shoulders rose and fell slowly, deeply. She didn't say anything.

"Tea?"

Her shoulders started to shake. Just little trembles at first. Then she was heaving shaky breaths in and slow shudders out, all silent.

I rested a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, I…" I swallowed hard. "Should I not have done that?"

She shook her head, reached across her body to put her hand on mine. "No, I…no—I mean yes." Her voice was thick and wet. "I came up here because I had a nightmare. One of the super fun, multi-part nightmares I get sometimes." She was obviously trying like hell to compose herself through sheer force of will; being Tea, she was mostly succeeding. "There was Luke dying, the usual stuff there. Another crash I had, where I was filling in as a long-haul transport co-pilot on a hop from a base in Kuwait to Rammstein. We hit bad weather in Germany and had to make an emergency landing. I wasn't the pilot on that one, but it was still not fun. We hit hard, lost our landing gear, and skidded off the runway. There was a part where I was walking on a ridge in Afghanistan, and I kept falling off, and I’d end up back on the ridge right before I hit."

"Was that based on any kind of reality?"

"Oh yeah. I had to go across this insane ridgeline. Like, it was a knife edge, just this goat path a few feet wide with a drop of a couple hundred feet on either side. I nearly fell once, so that features in my nightmares occasionally."

"Jesus, Tea. The more you tell me about that, the crazier it gets."

"Yeah." A pause. "What woke me up was more of a dream than a memory."

My heart clenched as I connected the dots between hair braiding, her crying, and a bad dream or memory. "Your mom?"

A nod. “Yeah. The day she died. I was at school, sophomore year. Algebra class, second hour. Dad appeared outside the door in his service khakis, and I knew instantly something horrible had happened. I felt it. I saw it on his face. I mean, he wouldn't have shown up outside my classroom otherwise, but I…I felt it. His face was…stony. Impassive. Nothing in, nothing out. That wasn't abnormal, as my dad is generally about as emotive as a tree stump. But his eyes. He couldn't hide it. So I…I see that moment where Dad met my eyes, and I knew Mom had died, just not how." Her voice broke. "Then I see us at the hospital. Tania and I stayed in the car while he went in and ID'd her body and then he came out with a bag full of her belongings. Dad was…his fucking…his lip was…goddammit—goddammit."

“Tea," I whispered. “I’m here." What else could I say?

She nodded. Shook all over. "Never before and never since has my father shown that kind of emotion. I… that was when I realized he really did love her, and us. Until then, I just…I guess I didn't understand the whole stoicism thing. That he may have felt things I couldn't see. They weren't…lovey-dovey. Mom and Dad, I mean. But they never fought, never. Not where I could see or hear, at least. And I remember we were at the NEX, the store on base, this one time. Some sailor was talking shit about Dad, and my quiet, calm, unassuming Mom went haywire on him. She tore him a new asshole without raising her voice. I mean, he was a fuckin' ensign shit-talking a commander, in public. Big no-no. In front of said commander's wife? Bigger no-no. He's probably still peeling potatoes at Lemoore."