I honestly don't know how long I spent on the floor with mom and Nancy. All three of us in tears mourning the loss of a great man we all loved. None of us could find anything to say as we learned that dad did actually die in his office. At some point the thought went through my brain that I don't know if I'll ever get over this hurt in my heart. This numbness I've been feeling just feels like its now a permeant part of my body and I don't know if I'll ever be able to shake it.

What felt like hours later mom pulled away from my body and stood up with Nancy. The two of them talked on the couch for a while while I stayed curled in a ball on the floor. When they were speaking I felt my phone go off in my pocket and I somehow managed to pull it out without dropping it. Morgans name lit up the screen with a few new text messages. I swiped up on the screen to unlock my phone and was able to read the messages.

Flight landed, heading right into a meeting about the op. Hoping to have some good news for you later.

Op is officially a go with Gold Team as a whole being called in to work. Check your email for the details I'm going to send you. I'll let you fill in your team.

Finally back home. It's empty without you here.

And one final text that just came in. Finally in bed now, God, what I would give to have you next to me right now. Call if you need me, I'll have my phone near by.

That's when I looked up at the time. It was pushing 2am and I knew even though I wanted to call Morgan, I couldn't call now. She needs some sleep after the long day of meetings. But reading her messages was enough to pull me back to the present. I wiped away the lingering tears and slowly stood from the floor. I mumbled to the both of them that I was going to the bathroom and walked out of the office and went down the hall. I pushed the door opened and let it shut behind me as I walked up to the sink. Splashing some cool water on my face helped some of the numbness recede and I was able to wake up a bit more. After I wiped it all away with a towel I didn't dare look at myself in the mirror and turned to leave the bathroom.

When I got back into the office mom and Nancy were hugging and I was hoping that means things were wrapping up. Nancy pulled away first and walked over to me and pulled me into a hug.

"He loved you very much Daniella, and he was so very proud of you." Nancy said in my ear.

"Dad loved you too Nancy, don't ever doubt that he didn't." I said back and held her close.

Nancy didn't answer but just pulled me closer to her for another few seconds before she let go. She waved at mom before she turned and took her leave. Mom collected the last few things we left in the office and turned to me when she was done.

"Ready?" She asked looking worn out and tired.

"Yea" I answered. Mom came over to me and took my hand in hers. Together we looked around the office one final time and turned off the lights and shut the door behind us. Before we walked away from the waiting room, I turned back to the door and slid the golden name plate off the door and held it tightly in my hand.

I led mom through the building and as we got to the main reception area the two private who took dads stuff to the truck were waiting.

"Everything is in the bed of the truck ma'am, is there anything else you need from us?" One of them asked.

"No, you guys are dismissed, thank you for helping us with everything. Have a good night." I said and pulled mom from the building.

I held out my hand for the keys to the truck and mom handed them over. When we got to the truck, I saw that the privates took their time and tied everything down to the bed and covered it with the bed cover that we had rolled up. Mom and I got into the truck and I started it up before taking off to get out of base. Once we got onto the high way it only took me a half an hour to get home with nobody else on the roads at this time.

When we got home, mom and I left everything in the truck and just went inside. We found Peyton asleep on the couch with paperwork littering her chest, the floor and the coffee table. Looks like she was waiting up for us. I took Morgan and my letters from moms bag while mom went over to Peyton and carefully woke her up. It took Peyton a few moments to really wake up but when she did pulled mom into a hug right away. When I heard mom start to cry again, I went upstairs to give them some privacy. Quickly I undressed and left everything in a pile on the floor and just crawled into bed. I grabbed the pillow Morgan was sleeping on and pulled it under my head and felt a little bit of peace when it still smelled like her.

Sleep came easily that night. When I woke up the next morning I sighed and held tightly onto Morgans pillow, wishing it was her. I laid in bed for a while letting my body slowly wake up before I turned over and reached for my phone. After bringing it back in front of my face I quickly dialed Morgans number before I lost my nerve. Just when I thought that the call would go to voicemail the call connected and I heard Morgans sleepy voice.

"Lieutenant Alexander." She answered.

"I didn't mean to wake you." I said and placed the call on speaker and put the phone down on the pillow.

"Don't apologize for that, ever." Morgan answered.

"Mom and I spoke to dads lawyer yesterday. I would have called you last night about it but by the time we finished cleaning out his office and got home it was almost 3am and we were both exhausted." I said.

"How did that go?" Morgan asked with a breath of hesitation.

"It was hard Morgan; it was really fucken hard. I don't know how I'm going to go into the condo this week." I said already feeling my eyes start to burn with tears.

"You don't have to go through everything right now Dani, it can wait." Morgan said sounding like she woke up a bit.

"I know, but I want to go through some of it while I'm here because we don't know when the next time we will be home." I said and sighed. Both Morgan and I stayed silent for a minute not really knowing what to say about our pending deployment.

"He left you some things in his will." I said breaking the quiet that fell between us.

"What?" Morgan asked sounding confused.

"Dad, he left you some things in his will. Money, one of his camo jackets and a letter. I can bring it all with me when I come home next week. But dads attorney wants to speak with you about the details, I'll text you his information after this call." I said giving her some more information.

"Fuck I have to go Dani; I'm getting a call from command. Thanks for telling me, text me the information for the attorney, I'll give them a call today. I'll see you soon." Morgan said and sighed.

"Okay, go, good luck with the call." I said. Morgan gave me a quick thanks and hung up.

I stayed in bed for a little bit longer while I texted the attorney's information to Morgan before getting up and getting dressed in my PT gear. It's going to take a little bit to get all of the boxes out of the truck and I wanted to go through some of it to see what I wanted to bring home with me. By the time I got downstairs the house was quiet. I found a note on the table from mom and Peyton saying they went over to Dominics apartment for a while.

It didn't take me long to eat something for breakfast, a simple cup of coffee and another roll with some butter. When I was done, I grabbed my headphones and started up some music on Spotify before grabbing my hat and sunglasses and went outside. Stuckinmybrain by VRSTY played as I dropped the bed of the truck and rolled up the cab cover. It took about a half an hour to move all of the boxes inside. I just stacked them all in the living room for now as I didn't want to go through them again right now.

When they were all inside I gulped down some water and used the bathroom before taking off for a run. It didn't take long to just lose myself to the music coming through my headphones and I ended up finding myself out of breath at the same playground from the other day. It must have been muscle memory that I found myself here again as I stopped by the water fountain to drink some water. The sweat was pouring down my back as it was another hot one out here today.

After taking a few deep breaths and splashing the water on my face I turned and took a seat on one of the empty swings. I just closed my eyes and steadied my breathing as I started to pump my legs back and forth, letting the swing carry me higher and higher. It was almost mediative for a bit. It kind of felt like I was flying without a parachute on my back. Its been almost a year since I've jumped out of plane and I knew that my team and I were probably due for another refresher on that as well but I didn't have the heart to call Monica or Rob to assign them to train it. There were other more important things for them to be fresher on.

So for now, I just flew back and forth on the swing. I only started to slow down when I took my headphones out of my ears because they died. Slowly, I came to a stop and put them back in the case and slipped them into the pocket of my shorts. I sat for another couple of seconds before I finally got up and made my way home.

When I got there, things were still quiet and I knew that Mom and Peyton were still at Dominic's place. So I just went for a shower and when I was done I sat on my bed for a little bit before an idea struck me. I got dressed and made my way out the door again with the keys to the truck. The drive wasn't long but when I pulled into the parking lot, I realized the tattoo parlor might not even be open yet as it is still early afternoon on a weekday.

It still didn't stop me from getting out of the truck and going over to the doors and pulled. To my surprise it actually opened and I stepped inside. The interior was surprisingly light and opened and didn't give off the vibes one would think when walking into a tattoo shop. Looking around the shop, it looks more like an art gallery. The bell on the door rang as it closed behind me and a man walked to the front of the shop. He looked a little bit older then me with kind eyes and tattoos all over his arms.

"Hey how's it going, can I help you?" He asked as he came and stood behind the front counter.

"I'm looking to get a tattoo; I wasn't sure if someone would have time to do it now or if I needed to make an appointment for it so I figured I would stop in and ask before I lost my nerve." I said getting nervous.

"We are usually pretty dead in the afternoon like this and nobody has any appointments right now so as long as you aren't looking to get like a half sleeve, I'm pretty sure we can work on it right now. I'm Shane by the way, what are you looking to get?" Shane asked.

"I'm Dani, I'm looking to get these verses on my inside of my bicep. Over the verse I wanted to get two interlocking sabers and underneath the verse I wanted to get an old school looking cannon." I said and showed Shane the verses of the poem.

"Yea, I can totally do that for you now. Can you just email those to this email address and give me a little more detail on the style of the sabers and cannon and I'll draw it up for you." Shane said.

I sent him the poem and gave him some more detail about what I was looking for and he was set to start drawing it. While I waited I took a seat in the waiting area of the shop and just got the chance to take in the artwork on the walls. It was different from the stuff my mom paints but it was still very cool to look at. About 45 minutes later Shane was back with a design and he showed it to me on his iPad. I didn't even have words, it looks perfect to me, just what I was looking for. I could only nod at him and together we walked over to his station.

I took a seat on his table while he got everything set up. Once that was done he printed the stencil and together we worked through the placement so that all the of lines of this verse fit perfectly to the inside of my bicep. After the stencil was applied I check it out in the mirror for a few minutes to be sure of everything and with one final check on the spelling, I approved of the final design and laid where he wanted me to on the table so we could get started.

"Not sure if you have other tattoos but I'm just going to do a small line first so you get used to the feeling then I'll continue." Shane said and I heard the buzzing of the machine as it started to permanently mark my skin. "You doing okay?" Shane asked after he pulled away from the first line.

"Yea, the pain isn't bad, I'm good." I said and settled in for the remainder of the tattoo.

"So what poem is this from, it seems familiar, I just cant place it." Shane asked over the buzzing.

"It's the fourth and fifth stanza in the poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. This poem has a lot of meaning to me and my dad. He just passed away and I'm getting deployed again sooner then I thought I would be so I wanted to get this so it was like I was bringing a piece of him with me." I said.



"Sorry about your loss, I know losing a parent is hard. When my mom died unexpectedly, I didn't get out of bed for a month." Shane said as he continued on with the tattoo.

"What made you finally get out of bed?" I asked.

"My boyfriend. He talked some sense into me, helped me find a therapist. Things were rough though for a while when I was trying to put myself back together but he didn't waver. He gave me the space I needed and didn't fight me on wanting to take a break from the relationship while I worked through my grief." Shane said and wiped away some ink from my arm.

"He sounds like a keeper." I said and closed my eyes thinking of Morgan.

"Our situation is complicated and not for everyone but we make it work and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't mean to pry but was your father the military officer that passed?" Shane asked.

"I'm guessing the news of his death was a lot more public then my family knew about." I said.

"There really wasn't much you could have done to stop the news getting out. It was everywhere for days and especially after the wake. The news played a video from the burial. Your dad meant a lot to the town. He was always around and came out to a lot of events when he was here. He'll be greatly missed by everyone." Shane said and continued on a long line.

I was quiet for a while. I didn't want to think to much about dads burial again. If I want to try and put myself back together, I needed to put one foot in front of the other and not look back. The pain from the tattoo machine kept my mind blissfully quiet. For the first time in days thoughts of my dad, getting redeployed, being home, Mallory and Morgan all faded into the back of my mind as the buzzing of the machine continued.

"Just wanted to check in on how you're feeling or if you needed a break." Shane said a little while later.

"Honestly, this is the best I've felt in days." I said.

"Tattoos are healing. How's the pain?" Shane asked.

"This is nothing compare to other things I've felt over my military career." I said and actually started to like the pain.

"How long have you been in for?" Shane asked.

"Ten years." I said and finally opened my eyes again to look at Shane. His focus was still on the tattoo and didn't falter at the number.

"Any thought about getting out?" Shane asked and wiped the tattoo again.

"More lately. My job is, it's not for the faint of heart. I'm gone more then I'm home and I'm leaving again for an undisclosed amount of time and I think that uncertainty is finally starting to get to me." I said.

"I'm sure you'll know when the time is right. I'm just finishing up on the lettering. Next up is outlining the sabers and the cannon then I'll go back in for the shading on each." Shane said and put down the machine.

While Shane took a break I picked my arm up and moved it around to get some blood flow back into my hand. It went numb a while ago but I didn't want to stop him to move it. Once I got some feeling back into my hand Shane was ready to go so I put my arm back into place and Shane started on the sabers. This time I felt a bit of pain and winced when he hit one spot at the top of the blades.

"You okay?" Shane asked and pulled away.

"Yea, wasn't expecting the pain to feel like that. It kind of radiates." I said.

"Yea in some spicy places you feel the pain in different areas. I'll try to warn you when I'm about to pull those lines." Shane explained and started another line.

I thanked Shane for the warning and just continued to listen to the buzzing of the tattoo machine. It didn't take Shane too much longer to finish up the outlining. Next came the shading which I didn't really feel much at all and before I knew it, I was all finished. Shane took some time wiping down the tattoo before he told me I could get up to take a look at it in the mirror.

Getting a look at the finished tattoo for the first time it was beautiful. It was everything I wanted it to be and it almost feels like I have a piece of dad with me now. I gave Shane a smile and he went over some after care instructions, which wouldn't be much because he put a piece of medical grade cling wrap over the tattoo that will basically take care of itself. He also gave me a second piece so after I take this one off tomorrow morning, I can replace it.

As we finished up I also made an appointment to see him again Thursday morning for two little tattoos I now had ideas for. Just as I paid him the shop door opened and Shane turned his attention to who walked in.

"There's my little man." Shane said after he handed me my receipt and the reminder card for the appointment.

"Dani!" I heard a little voice yell. I turned my head and saw Logan run to my legs at full speed. The impact almost took me out but I held firm to Logan's back and smiled down at him.

"How is it that I haven't seen you in ten years and now I've basically seen you every day for the past five days?" I picked my head up from the child still attached to my legs to find Mallory standing in front of me.

a/n: moving right along. next chapter is a big Mallory and Dani moment. how do you guys feel about them? what about Morgan and Dani? anybody pick a ship to back yet between the two? i added in the two verses that Dani got tattooed so you guys know which ones they are.

song on the side is STUCKINMYBRAIN by VRSTY which I just realized is actually a cover of a Chase Atlantic song. in my humble opinion, the VRSTY cover is so much better than the original.