Gone 2 Long (Christen Press/You)

Chapter 24

Y/N POV

"Christen, this is Zoey London, my battle buddy, my lifesaver many times, and my best friend. My sister."

"It's so nice to finally meet you!" Zoey says as she hugs Christen. Zoey introduces Christen to her girl, Josie.

I interlocked my hand with Christen's as we entered the base. There were a lot of people walking around with their families. Kids all over the place. It was great to see this place alive with civilians.

"Mama this is where you work?" Braelynn asks wide eyed. She took in everything around her as she looked around amazed.
"Yeah I work here."
"Not for long though." Christen smiles as she squeezed my hand giving me a smile which I returned.

We walked around, I introduced her to some of the men and women in my battalion. Along with some of the new marines out of boot camp that I've been training.

I got to show them some tanks, some of the marine equipment. Braelynn was amazed by everything and Christen kept looking at me giving me a look like "our daughter better not want to join when we leave here."

I held onto Braelynn's hand as we walked over to a group of marines showing the families and attendees our workouts and doing pull-ups.
They showcased armed drill moves, flipping the rifles and wowing the crowd.

"Oh and everyone look, two of the best Staff Sergeants we have here! Staff Sergeant Kinsley and Staff Sergeant London!"
One of our students, Justin, of our company announced to the crowd around him and a few other trainees.

Zoey and I waved to the crowd as Braelynn looked up at me beaming a smile.
"London, Kinsley why don't you show the audience how we marines get down on the pull up bars?"
"I'm a bit sore but Kinsley will gladly do it!" Zoey says pushing me towards the equipment.

I give Zoey a "I'm going to kick your ass" look with a fake smile before letting go of my daughters hand.
I looked over at Christen who looked a little excited about me doing this. I mean, she was always a sucker for me when I was working out.

I gripped the bar, crossing my feet before pulling myself up over and over again.
"... 24,25,26,27,28,29,30! Okay okay stop!" Justin says as I got down smiling.

"I wanna do that mama!"
"One day, that ones too high for you." I say ruffing up Braelynn's hair.
"That was really hot." Christen whispers in my ear. I smirk giving her a wink as we continued to walk around with Zoey and Josie. We stopped to grab some food before continuing our tour around the base.

Zoey of course took the liberty of telling embarrassing stories of us from boot camp. Didn't ask for this conversation to come up but it did anyway.

Just as we were heading to the field, some guys Zoey and I were with on our last deployment ran up to us.

"YO! Congratulations! We just heard you and Zoey re-enlisted in infantry! The whole crews going to be back together! You know I'll always fight by your side bro!" Lucas Calloway gave me a hug before hugging Zoey and walking off with a huge smile on his face.

Well shit.

Zoey and I stood there not wanting to turn to our significant others because neither of us told them yet. I feel more like a burden because Zoey wasn't going to re-enlist in infantry but, the marines, were closer than family in some aspects. She was down in the trenches with me before and she didn't want me to go alone again.

"You what?!" Josie speaks up first. "Babe I can explain." Zoey says as she follows Josie off.

Christen was looking at the ground and then looked back up at me. Shit.
"You're what?!"

"Babe, okay look, I-"
"Save it. Take Braelynn and I home please." She mumbled as she carried our sleepy child towards the parking lot.

We got in the car and Christen didn't say a word to me. She wouldn't even look in my direction. Instead, she kept her head turned and looked out the window.

. . .

"Braelynn's in the bed." I spoke as I walked into the living room. Christen sat there with a cup of tea in her hand as she ignored me.

"Babe, can you at least talk to me? Tell me how you're feeling?"

"Y/n, you re-enlisted without talking to me about it! How am I supposed to feel?! I just got you back and there's a huge possibility I'm going to lose you again. It wouldn't have been such a big deal if you maybe talked to me about it or if you would just do a job that keeps you here. You want a family again, right? How is that supposed to work when you're not here? And don't feed me bullshit about the possibilities that you won't get deployed."

"I need my own type of income and what I do now, it's all I know. When I left you, I had nowhere else to go, that was my only avenue. I didn't make this decision lightly."

"Doesn't seem like you thought about it either. You couldn't become a recruiter or do like other people become a cop or a firefighter something here Y/n! Braelynn needs you and so do I. If it's about the money, fuck it I can financially take care of us. You know that!"

"Chris I need to feel whole and like I'm doing something important. And I know you could financially take care of us but I don't want you to do that. I'm supposed to be taking care of you, I don't want to depend on you for that."
"That's what I'm here for. What did you think was going to happen if we would've got married?"

"I had no other choice Chris."
"Yes you did! There's always another choice, maybe if you would've talked to me we could've figured things out but you decided you wanted to just sign your fucking life away. So for the next 4 years, my daughter possibly will have to grow up with you not present once again. And me, I have to keep going without the love of my life. But hey, you don't care right?"

Christen stood up from her spot with tears falling from her eyes.

"Of course I care don't ever say that I don't, I needed to make a decision for me, for Braelynn's future."
"Right, everything's always about you."
"Chris stop. Just listen to me for once!" I got closer to her making her flinch and move away from me.

A silence fell upon the room.

"Are you scared of me?"

"No- i- this just reminds me of those moments. You broke me Y/n. I don't want it to happen again."

My heart broke just thinking about our past. I lost myself then, and I lost control.
I walked over to her wrapping my arms around her.

"I'm sorry, for everything, Chris. I want us to work this time and I want you to feel safe with me. I'm sorry I made a huge decision without you but, you have to see where I'm coming from. Look, I'll talk to my sergeant when I go in next week and see if he can switch my field out. I should've included you in this and I'm sorry. None of this changes anything. I still love you and I want to build our family with you."

Christen looked me in the eyes closing the small gap between us. Her plump lips on mine as we moved in sync. She jumped wrapping her legs around my waist as I walked us to her bedroom, closing the door behind us.

Just as I got her shirt off, the door busts open.
"There's a monster in my room, mommy!" Braelynn runs over to Christen's side of the bed as I sat there, ready to get in the mood.

"A monster?!" Christen playfully asks and Braelynn nods as she weasels her way in the middle of the bed.

I stand up grabbing Christen's shirt off the floor and hand it to her.
"Mama close the door the monster will come!"
I chuckled closing the door before getting in the bed. I couldn't help but to smile looking at the two most important people in my life.

A/N: DOUBLE UPDSTE COMING SOOONNNN. ALSOOO, Chris knows that you've re-enlisted 🥴