Only the Good Die Young

***

No one had a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do. 

Dorothy Day

***

The one thing Javy well and truly hates about the military is the tendency for gossip to become gospel.

Apparently, a friend of Natasha's caught wind of what happened in the course and drew the same erroneous conclusions, and now Jake is Hangman as he and Javy report to the Vigilantes. 

Javy's started thinking he hit the wrong person.

Jake takes it with a vicious grace that's honestly a little bit scary, responding with "They shouldn't have been stupid enough to get caught" and "Who fucks up their career over a flight school romance?" anytime it comes up.

Because they've already heard that Bradley and Natasha didn't last through their separate postings. 

***

They don't find out until years later that Bradley broke it off because of the rumors Natasha's friend spread and his guilt over the blame Jake and Javy took.

Years later, it's why he can't bring herself to commit to trying again.

But that's years from now.

***

The Vigilantes have a reputation for efficiency and aggression in the sky. They fly harder, faster, and higher than any other Navy squadron. They fly more missions on deployment and rack up more medals and awards than any other.

Jake falls in love with the organization instantly.

So, while Jordan is proving just how deadly a Texan can be with a rifle in the SEALs and Peter is fostering rebellion and revolution in the Green Berets, Jake becomes the deadliest thing in the sky.

And Javy gets to relax a bit.

***

Jake and Javy arrive just as a new Commander takes over the squadron.

Cole Hauser is a no-nonsense perfectionist who absolutely refuses to play politics or games of favors of any kind, so Jake's a little unsure how he made it so far in his career.

And then he sees him fly.

Nobody can get rid of him because nobody can catch him.

He's faster, sharper, and more vicious in the sky than anyone else, and Jake knows immediately that he won't be the best until he can beat Cole in the sky.

And he's positively shaking in excitement at the chance to go up with him.

Jake demolishes the first few pilots they throw at him, and where it normally takes a few weeks before he'll go up with the Commander, Jake flies with Cole on his third day with the Vigilantes. 

With Javy on his wing, they last two hours before Hauser manages to take them down.

The rest of the squadron is waiting when they finally land, fuel lights bright and soaked with sweat.

The debrief lasts four hours, with every member of the squadron crammed into the small room.

Cole makes Jake fly against every member of the squadron over his second week and then names him one of four strike commanders.

And Jake works his way up to beating each one of them with an obsessive drive that would scare anyone outside the fight-obsessed Vigilantes themselves.

When Emily shows up a few months later, the romance has long faded from their relationship, but the friendship is strong. She picks up a wingman callsign Fox, and they actually give Jake and Javy a run for their money.

The hop is impressive enough to make the four of them a semi-permanent strike force as they prepare for their first deployment as active-duty aviators.

And Javy becomes Coyote when he bites a few hands that reach out against Jake.

None of them are foolish enough to try twice.

Emily becomes Vixen after she temps a few unfortunate targets into Jake's missile lock.

***

They spend three years with the Vigilantes, although it's not a full three. Jake gets loaned out often, Javy less so, but still frequently enough that they're only with the Vigilantes full-time for about half of that. 

They fill in at other units, pop out to cover deployments and attend Top Gun.

No one else from their Cohort is there, and Jake doesn't see them in any of the pictures on the walls.

Haven't made it yet, Javy says. He and Jake are going a full two years early compared to most, and Javy just smiles and lets Jake grin so wide it hurts when he takes first place and shatters every record the schoolhouse has. 

Javy's only a couple of points behind, the rest of their class several behind him.

A lot of brass shows up, including a tall, blond Admiral that Jake hears is soon to take over the Pacific Fleet.

He shakes Jake's hand and says congratulations and all the right things about the future, but he looks at Jake with something like suspicion, and Jake can't shake the feeling that he couldn't find what he was looking for.

He has no idea if it's a good thing or not.

***

Jake and Javy get one last week at the ranch before they head for the war and their first real deployment.

And while Jake spends his time teaching Dustin to ride and Lily Grace to rope and spending long hours riding every inch of the fence line, Javy finally gathers his courage and asks Celia out to dinner.

She slaps him for taking so long and for starting something as he's leaving for a war, but they're off to the races after that.

Lily Grace is ten going on thirty, all serious eyes, Seresin attitude, and righteous fury. She's her father incarnate, and unlike her baby brother, she doesn't follow Jake around everywhere when he's home. 

She walks at his side, eyes always forward. She's already started helping Celia manage the ranch. Is up every day with the ranch hands before she goes to school.

Jake had to sit her down and convince her school is important and that she can't just stop going because all she wants to do is work on the ranch. 

Her namesake loved school.

So, she takes it like another duty to the family and goes, and if Jake does her homework for her on the occasions he's home, no one says anything.

She's a phenomenal rider, better than Jake was at her age, and already competing in local rodeos, and she's hellbent on picking up Jake's talent for breaking horses.

Dustin is the gentle one. Sensitive, quiet, and always smiling. He clings to Jake when he's home, less concerned with doing things on his own than he is with doing everything possible with his father.

It's harder than he ever thought possible to leave them when the week is up.

They're Jake's legacy. The only thing he's leaving the world, besides the Seresin ranch and whatever story comes from his death, and he doesn't want to miss a second of their lives.

But he also can't stand still.

He can already see the call in Lily Grace, who's constantly moving from one thing to another, practically vibrating out of her skin with the need to do something.

Jake remembers feeling like that at her age, not old enough to understand what it actually was. She'll figure it out soon, not that it'll make the feeling go away.

Jake's felt it every day of his life for as long as he can remember. Javy used to sit on him to make him stay still for a little while. 

And even as an adult, he has no problem using his bulk to his advantage and laying on Jake to keep him from running off when he needs a break.

It sits under Jake's skin like shards of glass that he can never quite dig out completely.

It's a voice in the back of his head always screaming, "Go! Go! Go!" like someday he'll be fast enough to finally outrun everything.

Like someday, he'll run fast enough to make it to his fortieth birthday.

Jordan and Peter manage to overlap their leave with Jake's for a couple of days before he leaves, and they have a Seresin brothers-only night at a bar, celebrating the memory of everyone who's already gone and mussing about what it'll be that takes the three of them out.

They've learned to have these talks in private. 

No one on the ranch takes it well.

Javy tried to make Jake go to therapy the last time he overheard it.

Peter and Jordan are both headed out for rotations not long after Jake, so they're all relatively confident that at least one of them isn't coming back. 

They say their goodbyes privately the morning Jake and Javy leave, each of them counting days.

***

Deployment is an entirely new experience for both of them.

Jake's heard his brothers talk about it. Has heard the stories passed down about wars that are long over.

He's got it easier than previous generations, that's for sure, but it's still challenging.

Being trapped on a boat for days on end is not Jake's idea of fun. It's more like torture, and no amount of running and working out at the gym can calm his nerves.

But finally, they're in position, and they start flying sorties immediately. Jake practically throws himself at his plane, and Cole has to remind him three times when their hop is over.

Jake flies every day for months. The first month Cole pulls him aside and asks if he's pushing himself too hard, but it's not like anything is happening on the flights, so Jake's not exactly exhausted. They come to the agreement that as long as Jake checks in and stays in contact with his family, he can fly twice every damn day as far as Cole's concerned.

The Vigilantes outfly their predecessors, some squadron out of Japan, numbers for their entire deployment in the first month.

Jake notes, absentmindedly, that that's Bradley's squadron now.

Hangman, Coyote, Vixen, and Fox quickly become the top performers of the deployment. 

And Jake settles enough to hang pictures of his kids and the ranch on the walls.

Vixen and Lily Grace get on like a house on fire when they meet over Skype, and Jake resigns himself to introducing them in person when they get home.

Fox and Javy help him read Dustin bedtime stories, the three of them making up voices that leave everyone listening in stitches.

Any time Emily and Jake have an itch to scratch, they fall into bed, but it's never more than a one-off. Comfortable and safe. 

Fox and Javy commiserate over being oceans away from their loved ones, and they all make plans to meet up at the ranch on leave when it's finally over. 

***

Halfway through deployment, Jake gets his kill.

A regular patrol, nothing out of the ordinary, quickly turns into something else when Fox has engine trouble, and as they're turning back, they're ambushed by three enemy fighters. Vixen breaks to protect Fox, who does his best to get out of the way as Hangman and Coyote go full throttle in an attempt to buy time. 

Jake doesn't start out with the goal of killing, but one of them clips Javy's wing, and then Vixen has to protect Coyote and Fox while Hangman loses his shit, takes down one with a missile, and chases the other two so far that when he finally turns around and lands on deck his flying on fumes. 

Cole dresses him down in the midst of the celebration and then congratulates Jake on being the only one of his generation with a confirmed kill and tells him a therapist is waiting on his call.

Jake calls his kids first, lets them talk until he falls asleep, and then calls the therapist in the morning under Javy's watchful eyes.

***

Contrary to civilian beliefs, deployment is not a constant dogfight, and everything's back to normal boring the next day.

Over the next month, they end up having to send two pilots home for family emergencies, and one of their replacements is a rising star, as much as you can be in the Navy.

Julie Fallon's great-granddaddy flew bombers over Germany, and every generation since has flown the same thing.

Until her.

She wanted something faster, more powerful, something more impressive.

She wanted to be noticed.

Looking back, that was Jake's first clue.

The second was that Julie Fallon and Emily Vargas HATED each other.

Julie makes a point to introduce herself after a briefing, with an elevator pitch about herself and how thrilled she is to be flying with them, finally.

Turns out, she'd been aiming for the Vigilantes since the Academy and had lost her most recent spot to Emily after Jake and Javy had recommended her. 

Jake and Javy are both very confused about why Julie blames Emily for it but not them.

And really, that's another clue.

And why becomes very obvious, very quickly.

Jake runs into her one night at midnight chow, clearing out to let Javy and Celia have some private Skype time.

In truth, they kicked him out after he accidentally walked in on their sexy time after the gym, so now he's eating stale cake covered in sweat and bemoaning the shitty wifi signal on his phone.

Julie slides into the seat across from him and before he can even say anything, introduces herself again and tells Jake that they were actually at the Academy at the same time. She was in a different cohort, but she's friends with Natasha and Callie, and she heard all about what happened to Natasha and Bradley and Jake's supposed role in all of it.

Before Jake can give his standard response, she pushes on and somehow ends up simultaneously threatening him that she doesn't like people who turn on their friends and can't be trusted and hitting on him as she says he seems to be impressive and they clearly have a lot in common, and hopefully Jake turns out to be a better person than he seems, because she thinks they could be good together. 

Needless to say, Jake is very confused by the time she leaves, promising to run into him again soon. 

And also vaguely disturbed. 

He abandons what's left of his cake and hightails it back to his room, knocking loudly enough that Javy and Celia have time to get decent before he barges in. 

They forgive him when he tells them what happened, though Javy's off the mind that she's just trying to prove herself to the boys, and Celia insists she's a psycho.

Jake's leaning toward Javy's view because the next few times they see her, she's as friendly as can be and seems to be integrating well with her temporary squad. So, Jake puts the whole thing out of his mind and focuses on stepping in as XO when Cole has to send him home for the birth of his kid. 

It's challenging, but no more so than keeping the ranch and a bunch of rowdy cowboys in line, and since Jake came in strong with the goal of being the best, he's less integrated as one of the guys. It makes it easier to tell them when they're being stupid, and it means more when he hands out compliments. 

A few times, when there's a lull in everything despite everyone's best efforts, Jake stands out on deck and looks out at the endless blue ocean and the endless blue sky and thinks of his father. Thinks about all the children whose fathers and mothers died worlds away for something so much bigger than themselves.

The world's a mad place these days, and Jake finds it helps him to focus on the few good things there are and the goal of making more. 

***

Halfway around the world, in a steamy jungle most would never dare to enter, Peter Seresin takes three rounds to the chest and one to the head before his team can subdue the drug runners they've cornered. 

They lose him twice on the medevac, but the medics are driven and highly skilled, and he's stable by the time they reach the hospital in Honduras. 

But there's still a bullet in his skull, and the messages sent to Jordan and Jake are not promising. 

He's thirty-two.

***

Javy is on a hop when it happens.

Jake has just stepped out of the shower, still fretting over the two replacement pilots that were supposed to be there the day before, when the night watch runner gives him the message, and the fool leaves when Jake tells him to, saying he's just going to get changed. 

It's not a Red Cross message because Peter's unit knows exactly where Jordan and Jake are, and it's faster to pull strings and get a simple message out while the official notification makes its way through the system.

Jake reads firefight, medevac, and head wound before the tears make everything too blurry, and he collapses into a mess of panicked sobs. There's white noise in his head so deafening he can't hear the ship anymore and an endless yell of "there goes another one" and "one down, two to go!" and then Jake's breathing starts to go.

Jake doesn't find out for years who it was, but someone else was in the showers when he had the panic attack. Strong arms and a steady heartbeat Jake doesn't recognize, and Jake's body automatically knows to match the steady rise and fall pressed against his back. 

It's hours before Jake is calm enough to come back, exhausted and dehydrated, and when he wakes up in the medical bay, Javy and Cole are there, and there's a plane waiting. 

Javy escorts Jake back, and Cole chews out Peter's unit for not warning him so he could have made sure someone was there, but twelve hours later, Jake and Jordan are at Peter's bedside. Alternating crying and making fun of how weird their brother looks with half his head shaved.

The doctor got the bullets out with minimal trouble, and there's no sign of significant brain trauma, but it's still a bullet to the head and three to the chest, and no one knows if he's going to wake up.

Cole tells them they're not returning before the end of the deployment, so they've got a solid month to worry and fret, and Javy spends most of his days keeping three commands and the family updated. Celia doesn't want to pull the kids out of school until they know for sure, and Jake agrees and knows Peter would, too. He used to be the one that made Jake go to school.

It's difficult to relate the soldier in the bed with the boy Jake grew up with. Peter was always the gentlest of them, wanted to be a paramedic before he finally heard the call and joined the Army. He'd been one of the few on the ranch who'd been openly relieved with Jake and Celia getting pregnant in high school because Peter had no interest in children, and it was a load off to know the Seresins would go one despite Peter's selfishness. 

It wasn't selfish, in Jake's opinion or anyone else's, but trying to convince Peter of that was impossible.

His unit rotates through, and Jake learns that Peter shoved two of them out of the way of the bullets and that there's a medal on the way.

There's always a medal on the way when a Seresin dies, Jordan says, and Peter's unit doesn't look surprised, so he'd clearly told them about the family legacy.

And it's debt.

The Vigilantes start rotating home, and Vixen and Fox and Cole all come to the hospital for a few days. Jake tells them all about the Seresin family legacy, and while they're all disbelieving at first, by the time Jake gets to the generations of the First World War, they're convinced. 

It's actually the first time Jake sees Emily cry, and she insists on swinging by the ranch to meet Lily Grace in person on her way home. They send Jake pictures of Emily decked out for the rodeo with Lily and Celia, and Jake makes fun of her in frills and sequins. 

Cole tells Jake to call Julie, and when he has no idea why, it comes out that Julie wasn't all that subtle when she tried to find out if Jake was okay, and she certainly wasn't subtle when she hinted to Cole that they were together.

Since Jake wasn't aware of it, Cole's willingness to look the other way concerning a relationship between squadmates fades to nothing and is quickly replaced with concern. 

He tells Jake not to contact her, and Javy agrees, and Emily and Celia both say I told you so, but all the drama quickly moves to the back burner when they pass the third week without Peter waking up.

Fox stays the longest, Cole has a squadron to run, and Fox lost his mother to cancer as a kid and still remembers those long days in the hospital at the end.

Lily Grace turns eleven, and Jake turns twenty-seven.

Thirteen years left, Jake thinks. 

They've been at the hospital for twenty-eight days.

Jordan is thirty-four.

Dustin is seven.

Jake's been in the Navy for six years, four on active duty.

Three trips to war zones.

One actual deployment.

One kill.

Unlucky thirteen.

~tbc~