***

At some point, you have to realize that some people can stay in your heart, but not in your life.
Unknown

***

Michael Seresin was born on a hot August day.

He died on one twenty-four years later, under a clear blue sky, the heat of the asphalt burning through his clothes until he'd lost so much blood even that couldn't keep him warm.

Two days from his birthday.

Three weeks from his wedding.

It took his family five hours to find out what happened and six days to receive his body for burial.

They buried his fiance seven days later.

Mary Seresin's second son died on a lonely stretch of Texas highway, alone.

The man who shot him, a lead foot on his third strike, ended up killing himself a month later, driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway.

They'd gone to school together, kindergarten through senior year.

Been something like friends for a bit in the middle there, until they just grew into different people the way most did.

Odd how things worked out.

****

There's something holy in a Texas sunset.

And sunrise.

But it's sunset now, and it occurs to Javy that he's had a lot more important sunsets than sunrises.

Always more work in the morning his mother says. Sunrises are for fresh starts and sunsets are for relaxing and Javy may be in his thirties but he still listens to his mama.

Bradley follows him without question.

The idiot.

Seriously.

Jake's probably close to a genius, even though Javy will never be able to convince the man himself of that, and this is who he chose.

Bradley's a glutton for suffering Javy's figured out. Has convinced himself that if it doesn't hurt it's not real or worth the effort.

The man's a fool. So stuck in the past that he can't see the way forward.

He might be getting better, but that could just be Javy's optimism. There's not enough evidence yet.

But Jake's serious. So Javy's going to take it seriously.

Which means Bradley needs an introduction to where he comes from and why he'll crush him before he lets him hurt Jake when he's got so little time left.The walk out to the pasture is relatively short. Twenty minutes.

Juan Cole was heavy and none of them wanted to waste too much energy on him.

The pastures still so flat and compact that nothing grows there. They use it as a branding area now.

Bradley's clearly trying to figure out what the fucks going on.

Patient.

Stuck on that perch.

When's he gonna learn that's what gets him hurt?

"Nice field?"

"It's a pasture Bradshaw."

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes."

"Are you fucking with me?"

"Kind of."

"Right. What do you want to talk about?"

"Jake told you."

"....yeah."

"You believe him?"

"I don't-, I don't know. It seems crazy."

"That's what everyone thinks when they first hear it. Jake's thirty-three."

"I know."

"You know what's important about this place?"

"It's the family ranch?"

"No, not-, this spot."

"Obviously I don't have any fucking idea, Machado, just spit out the shovel speech."

"My old man's buried a few feet deep. Right where we're standing."

Bradley looks a little wild-eyed at that.

"For any particular reason?"

"Because he didn't deserve anything better. He was a mean bastard, useless too. When we ran from him, we had nothing. Would have starved if the Seresins hadn't taken us in. They gave my mom a job. Fed us and clothed us and paid for college for all of us and never asked for anything back. When he showed up a few years later and mom took care of him, they didn't hesitate to help us bury him out here. Ran the cattle over it after so no one would ever be able to tell."

Bradley looks legitimately concerned now, torn between eyeing Javy and the ground.

"There's a lot of bodies buried on Seresin land. Some out of love, some not."

It's surprisingly easy to explain something that Javy realizes sounds very, very dark (and illegal, Bradley points out). Frontier justice isn't nearly as gone as people like to think, especially outside the major cities.

People know right from wrong and everyone knows that the law is a beautiful blessed ideal that doesn't always work.

They do it less and less and really, only Javy's father and the man who killed Lily were buried here in the last two decades.

Obvious exceptions.

That Javy knows about anyway. Ted's very good at not talking about things.

***

The seriousness with which Javy is approaching this subject makes Bradley's guts twist.

Accidents and coincidence and justified beatings are one thing, but he's never come from a place where it's okay to kill.

And he hadn't quite realized places like that still existed in America.

The military has its own brand of justice, outside UCMJ, but even then, Bradley hasn't seen much of it himself.

A blessed life according to some.

Though Bradley wouldn't be so willing to call the years of hurt and loneliness and anger blessed.

"Is this your version of a shovel talk? Because you're going a bit over the top."

"I don't need to threaten you, Bradshaw. Jake can take care of himself. Besides, if you fuck this up, Jake'll just forget you and move on."

"Ouch."

"You aren't that memorable, Rooster."

"Jesus, Javy, I get that you're protective of Jake but I'm not an asshole! I'm not trying to hurt him."

"I get that, but do you get that hurt him anyway?"

"You can't keep bringing up flight school. It's a decade ago. We were young and stupid. Do you think we're all the same as we were back then?"

"I don't care about anyone else."

"That's you're fucking problem! People change, Javy. We were friends, then we weren't, and now we are again."

"We're co-workers."

"And you're being a fucking child."

"I don't have to be your friend, Bradshaw."

"No shit. But you could give me a better reason than something I did ten years ago. For fucks sake, I was barely keeping my head above water then."

"So what?"

It hurts a bit, to realize how little someone he works with cares about him, but Bradley's not stupid enough to really be surprised.

Javy chose Jake along time ago and Bradley hurt Jake and maybe he should have apologized to both of them better, but there's only so long that they can hold onto that.

Onto something that all stupid kids do at least once.

It's not healthy.

The whole point of life is to learn and grow and become better and it makes Bradley bitter that Javy won't even admit that Bradley's trying. That he has changed.

He's not perfect by any means, but he is trying. Progress is slow but ongoing.

And maybe Nat's right, maybe they won't work out in the long run, but other people's pessimism seems like a stupid reason not to try.

***

Last time, Bradley didn't fight back.

Last time he knew he deserved it.

This is not the last time.

This time, when Javy swings, Bradley swings back.

Javy still wins but most measurements, Bradley's never been much of a brawler, but he's not the only one bleeding and limping when this one's over.

Celia is the one who finds them fighting and she is not amused.

***

It isn't hard to find Reaper once the last guests had left. Apparently wakes weren't part of the Seresin Family Funeral Practice.

He'd kicked his feet up on the porch overlooking the ranch, a king watching over his kingdom, a cooler of beer next to him.

Waiting.

Reaper had always been terrifyingly patient, Tom mused, and approached far more cautiously than Pete. Pete would always throw himself in head first.

Always trusting Tom was right behind him.

So they both walked into Reaper's trap, but he was nice enough not to spring it until they'd shed their jackets and gotten beers.

"I hear you don't like my boy, Iceman."

"Which one? Seems like you've claimed an entire horde."

"Feels like it sometimes."

"You must like him, considering he fathered your grandchildren."

"You clearly don't have kids, Ice. I didn't have a say in that, but I do like him. He might as well be mine."

"Seems like they manage to co-parent well."

"They were never together. Celia wanted babies and Jake was worried about the Seresin line dying out. Two stupid seventeen years olds decided the solution was to have kids with a friend instead of waiting."

"And you were okay with that?"

"Do you think they stopped to ask me before they did it? They were scared kids, they were pregnant before they thought it through. The only thing they felt bad about was leaving Javy out."

"Seems like it worked out." Pete, testing the waters.

"Got lucky all the way around."

"I like your boy, Ted. But I needed him to push Bradley."

"I yelled at him for it." Pete offered, making Tom scowl at him without heat.

Ted snorted, amused, and shook his head.

"Nice to see you two haven't grown up completely."

"Never." Pete grinned.

"Did it work?"

"Yes. Apology forth coming."

And just like that they were good, because Ted had always been like Davey in that way. Straightforward and honest. You always knew when there was an issue because they'd say so and then when they said it was done, it was.

What you saw was what you got.

"You'll have to get used to Texas."

Tom must look confused, because Reaper laughs.

"Your boy's not going anywhere anytime soon."

"They can go back and forth easily enough," Pete points out, but Reaper just shrugs.

"This is home for all the Seresins. He'll always come back here. Until the day he dies. Now Bradley will too."

"He's not a fan of Texas." Pete murmured. He didn't necessarily disagree, but no one did a one eighty with their entire life easily or quickly.

Tom frowned, "He's never lived outside a city."

"He won't have to do it long."

Now they're both confused and Reaper finishes off his beer before he speaks again.

"All Seresins die by forty. Jake's thirty-three. Your boy only has to stick around for seven years then he's free."

"Excuse me? What the fuck do you mean they only live to forty?"

In all his years, Tom's never heard Pete sound that dangerous.

Too bad Reaper had never been the type to suffer intimidation.

Ted recites the story easily, from memory and it vaguely occurs to Tom to wonder how many times he's had to tell it.

Starts from the beginning and the first Seresin , the pilgrim's daughter who's buried at the top of the hill out back. The first Seresin grave dug in this land.

And he walks them through the generations since and his voice doesn't break until he gets to Davey and Mary.

Honestly, Tom's a bit numb by that point and Pete looks like he's going to be sick.

"But what is it? What's causing it?"

"No idea. No one knows."

"No one ever wrote-"

"Nope. They've written a lot and a lot's been written about them, but no one's ever figured it out. At least, we've never been able to confirm it. They're all still dying."

"Does Bradley know?"

"Hate to think he's too stupid to figure it out by now."

"Jake should tell him."

Because Pete will always fight to protect Bradley, no matter how much he loves Jake.

"If he cares he should ask."

Pete and Ted face off and Tom has an uncomfortable moment of realization that they could actually come to blows.

"I will tell him if Jake hasn't." Pete's calm, which is never a good sign.

"And I could make sure you don't," Ted's voice is just as cool.

Tom and Pete have both heard him use that tone right before he drops out of a cloud to take out an enemy that had no idea he was there.

It's jarring to be on the other side of it. They wear the same uniform, or they did, and for so long.

But, if Tom's being logical, Jake's probably the closest thing to a son Ted has.

And god knows Ted loved Davey.

Enough to stick around and raise and bury his children over and over.

"I just-, I don't understand."

The truly amazing thing about Pete, Tom thinks, is that he doesn't actually have a malicious bone in his body. He's protective and impulsive and he has a temper, but he's one of the few people Tom knows who's never hurt someone just for the purpose of causing pain.

Not even in anger.

He thinks that's the saving grace with Ted.

"If the boys are serious, Jake will tell him. If he hasn't already. Is your boy going to stick around?"

Neither of them can answer.

They fucked up with Bradley and though those old lines are gone because of everything that's happened, they haven't actually had the time to sit down and talk through everything, to try and find their footing.

What if Bradley is clutching at Jake because he's trying to fill the void?

Because he saved them?

That's what Ted's really worried about.

And Tom's worried about it too.

Bradley trying to fill space caused by hurt with something that's just going to make the hole wider in the end.

"Bradley would never do that intentionally."

Because Pete always saw the best in people.

"What about unintentionally?"

Ted and Tom did not.

***

Lily Grace knows who she's named after.

Has heard the stories over and over all her life.

She's the spitting image of her long dead aunt.

Of the woman Jake and her uncles have always looked up to. Lily Seresin was the hero they all strove to be.

And Lily Grace knows she has a lot to live up to.

And she will.

She's going to carry the Seresin name to new heights. Just like her father and her uncles have done.

She's going to make them all proud. All of them all the way back to the beginning.

It doesn't even feel like pressure. Her dad worries about that.

But its not weight, its not pressure, its not hard.

It's her purpose. Just like it was her aunt's and her grandmother's.

There's not a lot of women in the Seresin line, the odds are something like five to one according to Amara, but those women stood out, long before society would ever allow them to do so.

She doesn't want to fly, no matter how much her father and Uncle Javy love it.

She wants to wear a badge. That's what the first Lily wanted and Lily Grace is going to bring her along in spirit.

Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

She's not sure what to think of her dad's new team.

These Daggers.

They seem alright in the general scheme of things. Of co-workers just passing through his life.

But they seem to think they're going to stick around and be more than that and that's what Lily Grace isn't sure about.

Overall, very few people stick around when they find out about the Seresins. Lily Grace knows some of her classmate's parents don't want them hanging out with her, just in case whatever it is that kills them young could infect them like a virus.

Some people just see the ranch and think it equals money and an easy life.

They have no idea and the hard lesson always drives them away.

There's even a few that really, really think they want that life, until they get it and realize it's not and then they run too.

People are stupid, but her mom and Uncle Javy say she's not allowed to say that outside the house.

Her dad just smiles and winks.

And then Uncle Javy usually smacks him and they start wrestling.

Boys are stupid too.

But Lily's not stupid. She pays attention.

This Rooster.

Bradley.

He stayed in her dad's room last night and now Uncle Javy's leading him off for a TALK.

She sees the first punch and doesn't say anything.

She sees her mom storm over and doesn't say anything.

Lily Grace is going to have her own things to say tomorrow.

With this Rooster.

Find out where he stands.

If he's good enough.

***