Day 45

Strader has been avoiding the team, and for a moment, Riley fears that the man has abandoned the team. "He's still in the building?" Riley asks no one in particular.

"Yes. I've seen him. I've been giving him his space though." Abigail says

"Yeah he seemed pretty pissed to be honest" James says insensitively taking a bite out of his yogurt.

'I think he needs to blow off some steam and talk to someone" Riley says.

"Or to beat the hell out of someone" Isabella answers as she pours herself some coffee.

Riley sighs and pushes himself to his feet, "I'm going to go find him."

∆∆∆

Strader is laying on his bed staring at the ceiling, lost in thoughts about his son. A young man who was just a few years older than Riley, similar eyes and brown hair that he liked to keep long before he went to the Great Lakes Training Area and shaved it off. Lance Strader decided to join the Navy three days after he got his acceptance letter to the University of Northern California. He remembers that day.

Are you sure, son? .

"Positive. Just like you, dad"

Strader had embraced his son tightly; his boy had become a man.

There was a knock on his door and a voice that gently asks "Strader?"

When the brown head peeked around the half open door, and he almost thought it was Lance back from the dead. But it was Riley, the opposite of Lance, a genius and a bit of a wimpy kid who had already graduated from Oxford with a doctorate "What, kid?" he does't bother to sit up.

"I was wondering if you wanted to talk?" Riley steps into the room and closes the door behind him.

Strader sits up fully."Why would I want to talk to you?" Especially since you remind me so much of Lance he thinks.

"Well sometimes it helps" Riley sits in a chair across the room. He pauses. "How long has it been?"

"Five months."

Riley winces. "You could still be in a state of shock you know. It's not uncommon to be fully functional and think that you are okay before something triggers these emotions."

"Yeah…no shit Sherlock"

Riley sighs. "If it means anything…I'm really sorry"

Too late for that, kid Strader thinks.

"My dad died five years ago. I didn't have the shock that you did, we knew it was only a matter of time."

"I know that since he decided to join the Navy that there was a possibility that he would die. But there are times, especially when I hear the rumors about a ship being overrun by a plague that I wish I'd never let him join," Strader says softly. "I'm sorry to hear about your dad."

"Do you think that he would have been happy if he'd done anything else?" Riley asks thinking of his own brother who decided to become a welder instead of go to university.

"He had just been accepted to college, he could have been like you a fucking genius or something." Strader hesitates "Well no. He was never good in school. But you are right, he would never have been happy at college."

Riley chuckles. "I don't have kids, but I think that you did what most parents would. Let him be happy."

Strader looks at Riley in surprise, Who would've thought the geek could be so wise. It was then that Strader allows himself to feel the emotions that he had bottled up for the past months by climbing with Jimmy, who was doing his best to distract him. He is heartbroken that his only son is dead.

A silence fills the room and Strader feels a single tear roll down his cheek which he quickly brushes away. He knows that Riley sees the motion.

"I'll leave you alone. But if you want to talk more, I'm here and so are the rest of the team…well I wouldn't talk to James, he is a bit of an arse."

Strader releases a choked chuckle. As Riley is about to walk out the door "Thanks kid" he says.

Riley turns and smiles before giving him a mock salute and closing the door softly behind him.