FH: Just Found Heaven Ch. 04: Ben

"Raise your head, look into my wishful eyes. That fear that's inside you will lift, give it time. I can see everything you're blind to now. Your prayers will be answered, let God whisper how, to tell me you need me... I see that you're bleeding... You don't need to show me again... But if you decide to, I'll ride in this life with you, I won't let go 'til the end.... So, cry tonight, but don't you let go of my hand. You can cry every last tear, I won't leave 'til I understand... Promise you'll just hold my hand..."

As if on cue, Sam's fingers tightened in mine, and he finally opened his eyes, and turned his head to look at me. His pupils were back to a more normal size so I could see the blue again, and though he looked physically tired around the edges like he always did after a severe panic attack, he was holding my gaze and leaning upright and back against the truck's passenger seat instead of being slumped in a collapsed heap.

I raised an eyebrow, and gently tapped the edge of my own left ear with my left hand, silently asking Sam if he was ready to take the earbuds out. He had to relinquish his hold on my right hand to do so after he nodded slightly.

We didn't talk for as long as it took him turn the power off on the iPod, and then carefully wind the wired headset around it so that they wouldn't tangle. Had it been me, I'd just have tossed the entire thing into the glove box, and worried about any possible tangles later, but Sam liked routine and for things to be organized, especially when he had to ground himself. So, I waited until he'd finished with his task, and closed the glove box with a soft snick of sound.

"Hi," I said, smiling when Sam offered a lopsided smile and a soft snort.

"No more, how you doin?' he asked, managing to nail Joey Tribbiani's accent better than I ever could which was one reason I'd stopped saying it even though it'd always made Sam chuckle.

"Sometimes simplicity is best. Feeling better?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah...I'm sorry. I was hoping that wouldn't happen... I've gotten better with loud noises. That was just.. a lot."

"Don't be sorry. It's nice to be able to rest for a moment. They've been expanding the fairground a little more every year, but you don't realize how many miles you're walking in circles while you're stuffing your face full of snacks until you actually sit and your feet scream, Hallelujah!"

Sam grinned then moved his hand to rest it lightly on my right thigh. "You and the blasphemy again... it's going to catch up to you one day."

"Nah, God loves it when we give Him thanks in every possible way for every good thing that He does. That includes my feet which he modeled, along with every other part of me you enjoy on a nightly basis."

Sam chuckled again, his thumb lightly rubbing over the denim of my jeans just above my knee like he was still grounding himself a little. "Did you text Sofia that we're out here?"

"Not yet. I will, but I wanted to make sure that you were alright first."

"Good call. Sofia redefines twenty questions so it's always good to have a complete breakdown to slow her down before she starts talking at pitches only the neighborhood dogs can hear."

I grinned back because he wasn't wrong. "True, but even though I love Sofia, and have a humanitarian type empathy for the afore mentioned dogs, I wanted to see if you were ok first simply because you always come first, Sam. Whether it's dragging you out to the car to ply you with a pop love song or sharing the first, and last bite of my pint of highly coveted haggen daaz pineapple coconut ice cream, you always come first to me. The rest is background noise until we're ready to address it, and there's never a time limit."

Sam's expression softened immediately even though I could see a soft flush crawling up his cheeks. I bit back my inclination to smile. Accepting genuine affection and compliments was something we were still working on.

"We should make that our wedding song," Sam murmured, his voice so low that I almost missed it. In my defense, it wasn't a sentence I ever expected to hear coming out of Sam's mouth.

"What?"

Sam shrugged and ducked his head slightly. "It always makes me think of you and...it's the way you bring me back home to you when I get lost in the fuck zone that's my own mind so... it felt appropriate... a way to give it a more meaningful association in our heads than just as a way to talk me off of the ledge... Stupid idea?"

I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt, and I didn't care if I was provoking my TMJ issues. Sam always rambled when he got uncomfortable with tender moments, and it never failed to melt my heart every time. I'd actually been considering another song I'd been going to suggest to him, but after this, it was Lady Gaga all the way. Charlie would've approved. Patrick would tease me about it for the rest of our lives, but Sam was worth it.

God, thank you for giving me this man to love.

"Nope. Not stupid. Not stupid in the slightest. Try ridiculously romantic to the level that I'm getting some ridiculously inappropriate red rosing thoughts right now."

Sam's coloring was currently somewhere between a radish and a beet, but when I teasingly referenced the way he'd proposed to me with the multi-colored roses, he laughed, and the deep sound was so warm and genuine that it washed away all of the earlier angst.

He glanced up, his expression amused. "This is a family friendly park."

"And the reception will be a family friendly event. But it's also a nice hotel with probably more than a few places to briefly duck into for any impulsive, amorous newlywed moments. I'm sure every room has a bottle of Lysol disinfectant spray tucked away in a corner somewhere."

"We could always snag the aerosol hand sanitizer that Roman always carries in his inner jacket pocket first."

We grinned at each other, our minds obviously both meeting in the middle to the night we'd romantically violated Roman's office at his newest club.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone with that level of organizational OCD and I was in the military."

"Roman's always been like that. After he got out of prison, and got his life back on track, he kept himself straight by always having a plan and being organized. But he's also as kinky as they come so the sanitizer and Lysol are must haves."

Sam snickered before he paused and then turned in his seat to completely face me. "Text Sofia to let her know that we're ok, and then if you want to know what I dream about sometimes because I know you're curious even if you don't push...I'll tell you," he said softly.

I didn't want to look over eager because I'd been trying for months to go at Sam's pace and let him share things in his own time. I'd done alright till now, but if he was giving me an open invitation, I didn't need it gilded or engraved.

After I'd obediently texted Sofia and gone back and forth a few times in digital shorthand to give her the cliff notes so that she wouldn't worry or preemptively come to find us, I put my phone on mute, then set it face down on the dash so that Sam had my full attention. He swept me with a slow, silent look then leaned back against the seat, facing forward again.

"You know that I dream a lot about what happened in Afghanistan right?"

"Yes, I know."

Sam wasn't looking at me, but he was talking to me unprompted, so I was fine with admiring the strong lines of his handsome face in profile.

"That's what I usually dream about... what happened, and how I couldn't save everyone who was my responsibility."

I didn't point out that he wasn't Superman, and that it wasn't his fault that his team had been ambushed by enemy combatants because Sam knew that. Guilt was just a heavy and persistent albatross.

"I didn't save the guys who'd have given their lives for me, the men who had my back," he continued. "Instead...I saved Connor...and he didn't deserve it." His jaw ticked and his hands were clenching into fists on his knees. "It was a bad judgement call. I mean, obviously I didn't know about him and Devlin at that point, but it doesn't erase the fact it was a bad call. And now... making a bad call would cost me so much more than it did that night..."

He finally turned to looked at me, and his eyes were calm but rimmed with haunted fatigue. "That's what I dream about. About making a bad decision that puts you or the girl or Tara or Sofia in danger because I've gotten complacent with how good life is right now. I have nightmares about not being fast enough to save them or you if I had to."

If I could've crawled out of the driver's seat and over the console to sprawl in Sam's lap to comfort him I would've, but I had to settle for reaching for his hand to press a kiss first to the top of it, then to every single finger individually, starting with his pinky, and ending at his thumb. I pressed a kiss right into the center of his palm afterwards before gently closing his own fingers back into a clenched fist like he was holding onto the invisible kiss.

Sam raised an eyebrow at me questioningly, and I moved my own hand to gently stroke his cheek.

"Consider that a testament of my faith in you. Remember when you gave me your dog tags to hold onto?"

He still looked confused, but he nodded anyway.

"This is the same concept. I know that we can't always plan for everything that happens in life; good or bad. Sometimes life is messy, and it hurts, but there is also so much joy in the smallest things. So, while every single person who loves you knows that you'd move heaven and earth to keep us safe if you had to, none of us would ever blame you for the hiccups of life. And to prove that, I'm going to play a game with you that Catherine used to play with me based off a book she liked as a little girl called, The Kissing Hand."

Sam lips twitched slightly. He obviously had no clue what I was talking about, but he nodded anyway.

"Every single morning before you leave for work, I'm going to put a kiss right in the center of this same hand, and close it tight so that you can keep it safe as a reassurance of my love for you, and a testimony that I have complete faith that you'll always do your best to keep away the scary parts of life, and return my kiss to me each night so we can save it for the next day."

Sam's lips twitched again, then he chuckled softly though he didn't call me out for the cheesiness of that admission. "And if I can't?"

"Then you just have to kiss all of my newly acquired boo boos better. Hopefully if I have to get a few, they'll be in places that are more interesting than my hand."

Sam chuckled again, but this time he reached for my hand, and clumsily repeated the silly ritual of kisses to each of my fingers, and then the palm. If I hadn't been head-over-heels in love with him already, he'd have effectively owned me right then and there.

I swallowed around the emotion in my throat as Sam closed my fingers around his kiss carefully. When he looked up to meet my eyes, his expression was calm again with that subtle softness it had on the mornings when he woke up peacefully, and realized I was wrapped around him like he was my personal life-sized stuffed animal.

"I love you, Ben."

"I love you too, Sam. Are you ready to go back?"

"I want to, but...I'm not sure I can handle it," he admitted quietly.

I just smiled. "Then we can open up the trunk and have a suburban style tailgate moment while we watch the fireworks from here. It's not as loud, and we'll still have a great view because yeah, huge sparkling booms lighting up the sky are pretty hard to miss anywhere around here."

Sam chuckled and then he'd leaned in to kiss me....

***

"Ben, are you ready? Everyone's assembled downstairs. Tara was talking to Max in the hall, so she asked me to come and get you. We don't want you and Sam accidentally crossing paths until you meet at the altar."

I snapped out of my reverie and grinned when Sofia appeared behind me. I'd seen her and her daughters earlier, but now she'd added a bouquet of blue roses and white lilies interspersed with the same "ice crystals," that were in all of the boutonnieres including mine. She looked beautiful, and dimpled when I told her so before she handed me her bouquet to hold while she pinned my boutonniere to my jacket collar.

"Emma really embraced the frozen theme didn't she?"

Sofia grinned. "Wait till you see Tara. You and Sam are going to owe her boxes of Voodoo Donuts, and pints of strawberry sorbet for probably the next 20 years."

She giggled and I grinned. I hadn't seen Tara in her dress yet, but the rumors had been circulating for weeks.

"Twenty-five is considered a life sentence so I see her angling for that."

Sofia chuckled. She stepped back after adjusting my boutonniere and then took her bouquet back.

"How bad is it really? The last time I talked to her after her final fitting she ended up owing me so many F-bomb quarter fines that I was able to pay half the pizza bill for movie night with the kids at Maplewood."

Sofia laughed again. The kids at the hallway house I ran had been just as amused at Tara's expense since she'd surpassed the highest of their fines by almost 20 dollars. In teenage speech, EPIC.

"She looks amazing. Absolutely beautiful, and if I had any interest in playing house with another woman, she might be late walking you down the aisle." Sofia smiled. "Addie and I secretly bedazzled a pair of wedge flip flops to give to her for the reception. The bling satisfied Emma's need for us all to sparkle, and the comfort will pacify Tara because we all know that the heels she's wearing right now won't last the night.

I chuckled. "Well, Sam and I appreciate you all being here to celebrate with us, sparkle and all. I never thought that this would happen."

"Getting married? Why? You're the most domestic human being I've ever met."

"I think you're standing on that bar right beside me," I said, my lips quirking in amusement when Sofia's flush deepened the already cosmetically rosy color on her cheeks.

"Of course, like most people I hoped that maybe I'd meet someone who I'd want to marry one day, but finding a man who shared my values about faith and family, and who could also accept my past is easier said than done. I've met plenty who met some of the criteria, but never all three. Not until I met Sam."

Now Sofia was the one who looked amused. "You make it sound like he made it easy on you when we both know he didn't."

"No, he didn't," I agreed with a soft snort. "He was a massive pain in my behind every step of the way. But, it was worth it because at the end, I found a man whom I love enough to tone down my wedding vows for, though that was a challenge."

Sofia laughed when I grinned. We both knew that Sam would melt into a puddle of embarrassed goo if I put every deeply felt emotional thought into my wedding vows. I'd spare him the public embarrassment, but when we were alone on our honeymoon in Bali, I had every intention of plying him with both verbal and handwritten love notes, especially in the morning. Sam was always more receptive to lovey pillow talk after I'd screwed him into the mattress. He was very much a morning sex man.

"I also found a family in him," I added. "Catherine told me that my brother came, but the rest of my family didn't. They still can't accept who I am, and they may never be able to, which will always hurt a little because it means I'm estranged from my nieces and nephews, and all of their childhood milestones. But now, through Sam, I have two new nieces in my life, and I'm grateful to God for both of them, and for the sister I'm getting in you."

I caught a whiff of vanilla when Sofia abruptly leaned in to hug me hard. She brushed a light kiss to my check, lingering in the embrace for a moment when I hugged her back. I got another kiss, and a soft pat to my opposite check when Sofia pulled away to carefully set down her bouquet on the bed for a moment so that she could grab some tissues from the box on the nightstand to wipe off whatever amount of her pink lipstick that she'd left behind on my skin.

"We're so happy and so grateful that you're joining our family, Ben, because without you, we probably wouldn't all be together right now. Sam loves us and we all know that. He always did, but whatever happened between him and Connor all those years ago put a rift like the Grand Canyon between us. Without you pushing him to see how capable of love he is, I think he would've run away again eventually. So, thank you for reuniting our family, Ben. From the very bottom of my heart and those of my children."

I gently brushed my thumb against the corner of Sofia's right eye when I saw a tiny. shiny bead threatening to break free of the other tears gathering in her eyes.

"There's no crying in baseball or in my hotel room because if you ruin your makeup, Tara will have one more reason to embark on a homicidal spree, and I was told there are an overabundance of faux plastic icicles hanging from the archway in the ballroom."

Sofia laughed, and carefully dabbled at her eyes with another tissue before picking up her bouquet so that she could tuck her hand into the crook of my arm when I offered it to her.

"Ready to walk me down to hand me over to Tara?"

"Mmmhmm. Sam's not going to know what to do with himself when he sees you."

"That's alright because fortunately, I know exactly what I plan to do with him privately tonight so he can make up for it."

Sofia laughed at the same time that we stepped into the hallway together, and a camera flash went off. Even though I was momentarily blinded, I was also grateful that we'd hired two photographers because that was only one of many happy moments I hoped would be captured tonight.