The Top Gun's Return

faster than her footsteps.

'Hi,' she said as she approached him, breathless as a girl. 'What are you doing down here all by yourself?'

He turned slowly toward her but didn't answer the question. She wondered if he'd heard it. He seemed so distant. 'Kids take the boat out?' he asked, and even his voice sounded faraway.

'Yeah.' She tilted her head, smiling just a little, hoping he'd smile with her. 'Have you forgiven him yet?'

'Forgiven?' He looked bewildered for a moment. Then suddenly the lost look on his face vanished, and he gave a rueful snort and rubbed the back of his neck. 'Guess I'm gonna have to, aren't I? He saved my life. More than once.'

'He's a good person,' Jessie said, moving closer.

Tristan watched her warily, like a nervous animal eyeing an extended hand. 'Yeah, he is. Sammi June could do a whole lot worse.' His laugh was another soft snort. 'Took me by surprise, is all.'

'Me, too,' said Jessie.

He inhaled cautiously, as if testing his ability to breathe. 'I'm gonna have to figure out a new way to be with her. I know that…With you, too,' he added after a moment, and looked away. When his eyes came back to her, they had that lost look again, but not the distance. This time the loneliness was right there, so close to her she felt the ache of it in her own heart. 'I guess I always thought of you as somebody I needed to take care of, you know? Lead…teach…protect. I never knew how strong you are.' He drew a quick, hurting breath and looked away once more. 'The truth is, Jess, you don't really need me at all.'

She wanted to cry out a denial. Instead she reached a hand toward him and said in a voice soft with anguish, 'Oh, Tris. I don't need you to take care of me…I just need you to be.' His eyes jerked back to her, dark shadows in the dusk, and she cried out in a shaking voice, 'Is that too much to ask?'

'Sometimes…lately…yeah.' He looked at her, and the fear in her heart was like a vise, squeezing…squeezing. Then, so quietly she barely heard it, he said, 'I almost died today, Jess.'

'I know.' The pain, the tension in her chest had become unbearable. She tried to lighten it. 'And I'm not sure if I've forgiven you for that yet. If you'd died, I swear, I would've killed you.'

Tristan's lips twitched, but the smile died before it reached his eyes. 'I've been thinking…about what you said to me way back, before I left for the Gulf.' Jessie caught her breath in a guilty little gulp. She'd been thinking about that, too. 'You told me I was selfish,' he went on, 'to go off and leave you and Sammi June like that. At the time I didn't…but now I think you were right.'

Jessie was shaking her head. 'Uh-uh…no, I wasn't. Not unless being true to who you are is selfish.' He gave his head a shake, not understanding. She reached out to him once more, touching his arm this time, and the tension in him made it feel more like steel than human flesh. The tension reached into her, and her voice quavered with it. 'You told me then, it was something you had to do. I don't think I understood that then, but I do now. It was what you had to do, because that's just who you are. Like today. You had to jump into the water to try and rescue those people. I wanted to kill you for doin' it, but you couldn't not do it.'

Tristan shook his head, and there was a stubbornness in his jaw she knew very well. 'No. What I did-it was unfair to you and Sammi June. Look what-'

'It was unfair,' Jessie interrupted, shaking in earnest now. 'And, dammit, I'm not gonna let you take the blame for that. You know what? Life is unfair. Sometimes it just plain sucks. You went to the Gulf because you had to, and you jumped into that lake today because you had to, and both times I wanted to kill you because of it. But at the same time, I know it's just part of you. Part of what makes me love you.' And she was crying now.

'Do you?' he whispered, and finally asked it. 'Do you love me?' The vulnerability in his eyes broke her heart.

She could barely get the words out. 'Yes, I do. I always have. And I always will.'

Tristan was gazing across the lake. And even through the haze in her own eyes she could see that there were tears on his cheeks. She caught her breath, bit back a cry, and he whispered, 'Jess-I don't think I'm going to be able to do this by myself.'

She brushed at her eyes, fierce and protective. 'Do what? You don't have to-'

'I can't…find my way home. I've tried, I thought I could, but…' He shook his head and drew a breath, sounding overwhelmed by weariness. 'I'm sorry. I didn't want to burden you. But I can't do it alone. And I want to…so bad.' His voice broke at last. 'I need you, Jess.'

Strength and courage surged up in her like a well of healing waters. Stepping close to him, she put her hands on his waist, looked up at him and said calmly, 'I was wondering when you were going to figure that out.'

He seemed dazed as he lifted his hands to her shoulders. The look on his face…the way his fingers walked across her shoulders, as if she were a miracle he expected to vanish in a puff of smoke…reminded her of the very first moments of his reunion with her, in the guest house in Landstuhl. But this time when he folded her into his arms, she could feel his body quaking, as if a terrible battle were being waged inside him.

And why on earth, she wondered, exasperated, is it so hard for men to cry? His voice, when he spoke, was like something tearing. 'Oh God, Jess…they beat me so badly. There were times…I couldn't stop screaming. I tried to stay strong…I tried…'

She stood silent and strong, steady and brave…holding her husband tightly, rubbing his back and absorbing his pain while he talked. Around them the last of the sunset's color faded into darkness and the stars began to appear in the springtime sky.

Epilogue

'Look,' said Sammi June, 'it's the Wishing Star-see it?' She lifted an arm to point, and Cory gently brought it back into the circle his arms had made around her.

'Hmm,' he said, bumping the top of her head with his chin, 'that looks like Venus, to me.'

She lay her head back against his shoulder, shimmering inside, while the boat drifted on the quiet lake. 'I told you…I used to wish on it, when I was little,' she murmured, and after a while added hesitantly, testing her new- found happiness, 'and…when I wasn't so little. Sometimes I still do.'

'Tell me how you do that,' he said softly, melting her heart. As if it weren't already totally mush.

'Okay. First, you say the poem, 'Starlight, star bright, first star I've seen tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.' Then you close your eyes, and…you make a wish.'

'Okay, let's do it.'

She squirmed around to look at him. 'Are you serious?'

'Sure, why not?'

She smiled and settled herself once more against his chest. She could feel his heart beating against her back as she drew a careful breath and whispered the poem and heard his deep voice echoing the childish words. She closed her eyes and after a moment felt his warm breath tickle her ear.

'Okay, what'd you wish for?'

'Uh-uh,' she whispered, tilting her face to his, 'you're not supposed to tell. Otherwise it won't come true.' Then he chuckled and touched her smile with his, and she knew it didn't matter because what she'd wished for was already hers.

'What did you wish for when you were a little girl?' Cory asked, sometime later. 'Did those wishes come true, too?'

'Oh, I always wished for the same thing.' Across the star-spangled waters of the lake, in the last of the twilight, she could see her mom and dad standing together on the dock, the two of them making one silhouette. Her chest quivered, and suddenly she could only whisper. 'I guess it's okay to tell you, though. Because I think it's coming true…'

Holding her tightly, maybe because he felt her tremble, he bent his head and murmured gently in her ear, 'Tell me.'

Sammi June drew a quivering breath, and as tears slipped down her cheeks she smiled. 'I wished my dad