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"Re adorably confused

Chuckling, he asked, "Has Danny ever told you how he ended up a Marine?"

She shook her head, cringed, and flopped down onto her side with a little sigh

"Danny was a cocky kid, but a good kid I never had to ask him to help his ood grades Didn’t do drugs Never caused any real proble his head, still unable to believe how badly he’d screwed everything up

"Then the first time he’d fucked up, seriously fucked up, I lost it He’d scared the hell out of me and I reacted poorly I was so deter so stupid ever again that I ed the poor kid out of the ER andit easy and getting an earful from his mother Instead, I pushed hi hi so foolish that could have cost hi his fists and wishing like hell that he could go back to thaton the bathroos differently

"When he joined the Marines……," he paused, taking a deep breath as he locked his treether, "I was terrified for hiht hoo when they shipped his body back to the States Thenthat there are no words to describe"

He looked up to find her worrying her bottom lip as she watched him "Did you know that they’d shipped hiainst thehis unit, and awith a truck full of patients He should have died in the shitty hospital they’d sent him to, but his CO called in soh to travel they sent him home…to an even shittier hospital"

"My son was dying, Jodi, because ofhis hands down his face "I took hiht hih hell to ain I kept him in a coive him a better chance to survive e had to do to him"

"The best moment of my life hen he opened his eyes, but it was also the worst because I knew that there was nothing that I could say to h"

"You love hiaze head on as he said, "More than my own life"

"I see," she said seconds before things took a turn for the worse and the small little woman that made his son smile for the first time in years showed him what hell on earth looked like

---

"Stop crying! Please stop crying!"

"What the hell?" he asked, raled to hold all the bags of food in his other arm

Terrified that she was in pain or that his father said so to upset her, he shoved the door open, walked into the room and nearly tripped over his oo feet when he spotted Jodi, bundled up in a blanket and curled up on his father’s lap, crying hysterically

"What did you do to her?" he des on the coffee table so that he could kneel in front of her He ran shaky hands over her neck and ar for a reason behind the tears

"I didn’t do anything to her!" his father yelled, sounding a bit hysterical as he handed her over to him He happily took her in his arms and stood up so that he could sit on the couch next to his father

"Shhh, Tinkerbelle, it’s okay," he said, throwing his father a questioning look only to find his father blindly stuffing french fries in his mouth