Telling Gabriel his story - Maritsu and Gabriel POV

-Maritsu POV-

Taking a deep breath, Maritsu forced himself to calm down.

Gabriel was a man he didn't know before, for some reason though, he had shown him trust and understanding.

Furthermore, he had bared his soul for him to see. Showed the most ugly scars which weren't yet healed. All he could do was reciprocate.

Calming himself down, he said in an almost emotionless robotic voice. "I can tell you, but it's a long story. Dating back a long time."

"No worries," he heard Gabriel say. "I have nowhere else to be, and besides, the story I just told also happened a very long time ago. That doesn't mean, though, that it doesn't affect us."

Maritsu felt relieved hearing him say that and instantly calmed down. His demeanor also showed relaxation. He knew Gabriel would give him the time he needed to tell his story, and that gave him all the comfort in the world.

So he started his story.

It started when my mother got sick, and I just started high school. My mother was too sick to earn a living and our dad had abandoned us long ago.

Then my brother made a choice so that I could stay in school while my mother would have enough money to get payments for the treatments she needed. He enlisted in the armed forces.

He dug around his color and took out two sets of dog tags. One was his, the other was his brother's.

One he would never take off, because of fond memories of his brother, but also to remember that his brother made the ultimate sacrifice for them.

You had dog tags just like these so you must know what they represent, Maritsu continued in an even tone, showing no fluctuation in his voice.

Like he was almost telling someone else's story.

My brother sacrificed in the armed forces. If he simply just sacrificed himself for the greater good. I would probably already be a graduate from an Ivy league college by now.

Like my brother and my mother always wished for me, but I am not. I am here now.

- Gabriel POV-

When Maritsu talked in an emotionless voice. He had his doubts if Maritsu was ready to tell him the truth.

However, he quickly put that thought aside.

He had been around several people who had to deal with trauma. Everyone dealt with trauma differently.

There was no correct way to go about dealing with trauma. One just had to learn to cope, and everyone's coping mechanisms were different.

Any psychologist worth their salt would say as long as he is healing and dealing with it, everything is fine.

If the person traumatized coped by crying his eyes out, or trying to rationalize their experiences, or simply tried to create a distance. They were just all mechanisms to cope.

One coping mechanism wasn't superior to the other and sometimes a coping mechanism for a specific person was a mixture of all of the above.

Only the person dealing with personal trauma could decide how to deal with it. There was no one size fits all solution.

So he waited and heard him out.

After all, he knew the way Maritsu was speaking was maybe just the way he dealt with his trauma. To rationalize and create distance from a painful past. So, he would wait patiently before jumping to conclusions.

When he heard him talk about his brother, he knew he probably had guessed right, and he let out a small sigh of relief.

This showed that he must have gotten through to him and he at least had won Maritsu's trust, which was a step in the right direction.

When he saw Maritsu in the office he was in tonight; he was mostly surprised. How could someone who worked his way up the ranks with such vigor break the rules for something unimportant?

Maritsu probably had an excellent reason for his actions tonight and by listening to his story, he would find out if the reason was indeed a good one or if it was just a stupid decision on Maritsu's part.

However, he believed in the reports he had read about Maritsu and therefore he had and would continue for now to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He had faith that Maritsu's reason must be a valid one.

When his thought were proven correct. When he heard Maritsu say "that he wasn't where he was supposed to be, he was here now". He knew he had guessed correctly.

However, he wasn't happy about being right, but he felt a cold shiver travel up his spine.

If what Maritsu said was true. That means another person would have been sacrificed for no good reason at all.

If someone had to sacrifice for the greater good. To serve and protect the motherland and the people in it. Then it was part of the job description.

Sacrifice, sadly enough, would always be a part of the risk of serving in the armed forces.

It didn't make the loss any easier for those left behind. However, having your death serve a purpose was easier to make peace with for the people who were left behind.

The enormous gap, the heaviness and emptiness, the loss left when a person passed away, could be comforted by knowing that the sacrifice wasn't a meaningless one.

He had a feeling, though, that since Maritsu joined the army with such ferociousness. That it probably wasn't the case. His brother must have died under suspicious circumstances.

Causing Maritsu to become unable to reconcile his brother's death.

If this wasn't the case, he would see why Maritsu would have changed his future with such an abruptness that it seemed to come out of nowhere. Only suspicions would explain his choice.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have made that change. A change what would impact the entire future he had imagined for over a decade. After all, that wasn't a simple thing to change and you would only do so for an excellent reason.

When he looked into Maritsu's eyes and he saw the look that came over his eyes. He was shocked, it was a look he recognized all too well.

It was, after all, a look which he had seen daily when he looked in the mirror, staring back at him.

It was a look of unresolved grievances and a carrier of resentment. Not his own resentment, but someone else's. He simple carried it and became responsible for it.

His heart went out to the boy in front of him. He knew how heavy it was to carry a weight like that by himself.

He had carried the weight of the resentment of others, only after tons of missions with the Night Hawk's. Besides that, he had also been older and more seasoned. Trained to bear the weight, and it still hadn't been an easy weight to carry.

He struggled with the weight almost daily.

The boy in front of him, though, didn't have his training or his age. What had happened had pushed him in the deep end without any preparation at all.

His heart went out to the young boy still talking with an emotionless voice in front of him.

Gabriel calmed his mind and reeled in his wandering thoughts.

No matter what Maritsu would tell him next, it was something he needed to know. So, he needed to focus and pay attention to what he was saying.

Regaining his focus, he heard how Maritsu described his last moments with his brother.

How his brother had expressed his concern about the mission and his team members. How the last few missions hadn't felt right to him and how he suspected the death of a teammate.

That he had told him he would leave a letter for his brother if he died. However, because he was worried, he also left a letter in his care. For if he didn't come back.

How when the army brought the news of his brother's death, he was told that his brother hadn't left a last will…

How he had doubted himself, but that he was sure his brother said he left a will behind. So, how did a letter that should have existed suddenly not exist anymore?

The implications of what he was being told once again made Gabriel shiver.

How deep did the claws reach of the people responsible for his brother's death? After what he was told, he had no doubt left that there was indeed something fishy about his death.

This confidence came from the fact that a last will wouldn't just disappear. It had to be foul play.

It was unimaginable to him how Maritsu had dealt with all of this himself for all these years. How did he do it? Especially when he was still so young.

Maritsu, however, was none the wiser of the thoughts plaguing Gabriel, and he simply continued his story. How he had changed his career path, death set on getting answers for his brother.

How he had made his brother a promise to either get justice or revenge.