Chapter Text
The plane's engines drowned out any other noise. This wasn't a civilian flight with comfortable seats and stewards. This was a military transport, from Qatar to New York, 14 hours surrounded by loud engines, on hard fold down seats, surrounded by cargo and soldiers. The seats were positioned along the sides of the cargo bay and Jin could see some of the others leaning in to talk to each other over the noise.
No one was sitting next to him, let alone trying to talk to him. He had made it clear over the last two years that he didn't do small talk. Some had tried in the past but gave up quickly. The only people Jin willingly talked to was Major Himmal and his Delta 1 team, but they had been sent back to their state side base in South Carolina two weeks prior.
Everything had started to change six months ago. When a US military team doing a routine village check got ambushed. They had been severely outnumbered and requested immediate aid. Jin had been the closest support to them and had gone without hesitation. He had known that they weren’t Delta 1 but still people under Major Himmal’s leadership. The Major was someone Jin respected, and if pushed would probably even call a friend. He couldn’t bring himself to just ignore the situation and let the Major's people die.
When Jin had gotten to the team it had been chaos, one of the three vehicles had been flipped on its side, the ten U.S. soldiers pinned down by about twenty extremists. He had gone to work, methodically taking down targets from the rear until the whole area was cleared. In the end, none of the soldiers died and only two were seriously injured. Unfortunately Jin had taken two bullets to his right thigh. They had gone straight through the muscle at the back of his leg, painful, but not immediately life threatening. He had made a risky move to stop an RPG from being launched and it had cost him.
Delta 1 had shown up only ten minutes after the fight had ended. The Major had taken one look at Jin and shoved him into one of the evac vehicles with a gruff "Get the fuck in Jin".
That was what they knew him as "Jin", Arabic for demon or spirit. He had picked up the name a few years prior when he had started working in this part of the world.
The real problems began when Jin stupidly let it slip that he had actually been born in the states, Baltimore. He blamed it on the pain medication the medic had insisted he take. The whole team had freaked out, asking a million questions that he refused to answer but that hadn’t stopped them from going on a campaign to get him back to America.
Now Jin was just a couple of hours from joining them. It would be his first time back on U.S. soil in almost five years.
The plane's back cargo door slowly opened and there stood the Major, in his military uniform, dark brown hair freshly cut, and smiling like an idiot.
“Welcome home kid!”
Jin ignored the Major's ridiculous greeting and stepped off the plane, leaving Jin behind, and becoming Neil again for the first time in ten years.
Once Neil was off the plane the Major guided him through the base to the vehicle he had rented. Their traveling wasn’t over and this part was going to be even more exhausting than the first leg, a civilian flight to South Carolina. Luckily with the Majors clearance Neil's luggage would be secured and allowed on the flight. Most airlines frowned upon all the guns, knives and other military gear that he was carrying. It still put Neil on edge when security pawed through his stuff. He was seconds away from just saying fuck it and driving, when they finished and took his bags to be loaded. It's too late for Neil to change mind now.
“Okay we have 45 minutes before boarding so why don’t we get something to eat…. Coffee too, you look like shit”. The Major added after a long look. Neil just nodded and followed behind. He was on edge now, feeling naked without his gear in such a crowded place.
They picked a small café that was close to their boarding gate. The Major ordered some fancy lunch sandwich and coffee while Neil just got peanut butter on toast and a plain black coffee. His stomach still couldn’t handle very heavy food even after a couple of months of it being available. Too many years living off of nutrition bars and MRE’s.
“So how does it feel? Being back” The Major excitedly asked.
Neil leaned back in his chair, scanning the area as he took a sip of his coffee, ignoring the food in favor of caffeine. “Its fine”
The majors face fell a little at that but he recovered quickly, used to Neil’s personality
“Fine… it doesn’t feel good to be back and out of that hell hole?”
Neil just shrugged one shoulder “got used to it. This is… different”
He could tell the major didn’t really like that answer by the way his shoulders dropped with a sympathetic look in his eyes.
But Neil had gotten used to it, it was what he’d known for most of his life. If he was honest, being back was overwhelming. Too many people, too much noise, too many variables and vulnerabilities. But Neil had agreed to this and he would give it a chance. He could always disappear and go back if he needed to.
They finished their food and coffee in silence after that and soon their flight was boarding and Neil was heading to South Carolina. Being that much closer to his brothers brought an equal amount of peace and anxiety, even if they weren’t in South Carolina anymore. Neil had never mentioned his brother’s to the Delta 1 team and thoughts of Kevin and Jean occupied his mind throughout the rest of the flight.
South Carolina Military Base
Neil knew that when he had agreed to come back, it was going to get messy. He was going to have to answer questions that he had evaded for years.
The whole thing started out fairly easy with the mandatory physical consisting of a full physical exam, blood work, and questions about any health problems. He told them his age, 22, and listed some of his major injuries. He had to watch as the doctors’ and nurses' faces fell the more he talked. Then they finally started the physical exam, the nurse started crying and had to walk out. Neil still didn’t really understand that. Yeah, his body was wrecked, with his childhood and then years of being a mercenary it was inevitable. But there was nothing to do about it now, so why cry about it?
Once the physical was completed Neil made his way back to the Majors office. That’s where the Majors first (of many) freak outs started. They were going over forms for citizenship and security questions, when he asked Neil for his full legal name. Neil responded without hesitation or emotion, like he wasn’t dropping a bomb in the Majors lap.
“Nathaniel Abram Wesninski, but I go by Neil”
The Major let out a long breath, and started typing it into his computer before he started talking again. “Jesus kid, Why has it taken two years for me to know your actual name?”
Neil just shrugged one shoulder and waited. Face carefully neutral. It wouldn’t take long with his real name, age, and place of birth. He saw the moment it flagged in the system, the major's eyes went wide, mouth falling open as he read. His gaze slowly coming back to Neil's’ before asking.
“Is this true?”
Neil just waited for him to continue.
“Are you really Nathan Wesninski’s, the Butcher of Baltimore's, son?” His voice started to rise slightly in volume and pitch as he talked “This says you went missing with your mother fourteen years ago, both presumed dead.”
Neil kept his expression blank and voice even.
“Yes, though obviously I didn't die. You should probably contact the FBI though, before they try to get you in trouble for "hiding” me or something like that.”
“And you mom?” He asked gently.
“Dead, 14 years ago”
“Shit. Sorry kid but how the hell did you even end up in Syria?!”
Neil already knew he couldn’t give the full truth to that question. They didn’t need to know about the Moriyama’s, some of those demons were still alive and kicking, and he didn’t need the FBI stirring them up. So Neil went with the simplest truth.
“My father.”
Silence. The Major just stared at him before muttering a quite “fuck” and picking up his phone.
The next couple of weeks passed as Neil had expected. The FBI sent agents, an Agent Browning taking the lead and becoming his handler of sorts. Lots of questions centered around where he’d been, “Around”(truth), or how he'd gotten there, “my father sent me away”(truth, but stretching it to its absolute limit). Neil refused to answer any “why” questions.
By the end of day 2 the FBI wanted to put him in prison. The Major was not pleased by that and argued a very good point that was “Do you have any proof he's committed a crime on American soil?”, They didn’t. After a lot of back and forth between the Major and Agent Browning, Neil was allowed to stay in America, on the condition that he helped the FBI with his fathers case. Even though the man was long dead, there were still a lot of unanswered questions regarding his criminal network and murders he was suspected of committing.
~~~~~~~
“You should go to college. Do something normal and fun” Miller had blurted out one day when they were eating in the mess hall.
Miller was part of Delta 1, a sniper, only a couple years older than Neil. One would think being a sniper would have meant he would be calm and collected. Wrong. Miller took it as he had to make up for all the time he had to sit still and quiet by talking extra any time he wasn't actually working. He could talk for hours without any input from no matter who he was talking too. Miller had decided from the beginning that they were going to be friends and hadn’t left Neil alone since.
Neil answered dryly, not looking up from his food. “College is fun?”
Miller, excited that Neil had actually answered him, continued.
“It can be, it's a good place to make friends and it will give you some time to integrate and n\be a normal kid. Give you time to figure out what you want to do next. You're good with languages, you know like a billion, you could probably major in that.”
It wasn’t a horrible idea. Neil really didn’t have anything else he wanted to do. He also hadn’t decided if he was going to contact Kevin and Jean, or continue to watch them from afar.
They both seemed happy and he didn’t want to ruin that. Both of them played in the NHL on the same team, the Colorado Avalanches. They even owned a house together. Neil was also pretty sure Jean had a crush on or was dating the Los Angeles Kings star forward, Jeremy Knox.
In the end Neil couldn’t bring himself to contact either Kevin or Jean. He did decide that he would go to college, Palmetto state university, the same one Kevin and Jean had attended and where Kevin’s father still worked. Neil felt like he was, in a way, sharing something with them again. It also worked well because it was only a 4 hour drive from the base so he would be able to come back when he was needed by Agent Browning.
Weeks of studying and tests followed. Neil got his GED, got accepted into PSU and tested out of enough classes to be able to start as a junior in the fall. He did end up going with Linguistics as his major and choose math as a minor. All that was left now was to wait for the start of the semester.