Dawn { a javier peña fanfiction }

Chapter Ten - Young and Beautiful

A.N. hi hi hi! i'm so sorry this took so long. i've been going through it. thank you to everyone who still cares about this story, i promise we are so close to the end. this is the last real chapter, epilogue will be out soon (i hope). if this reads like shit, i apologize... i've been having a really hard time and it's been a process to get myself motivated enough to write. i love you all, especially those who have reached out to me during this little hiatus. thank you a thousand for the love <3

"Dear Lord, when I get to Heaven, please let me bring my man."

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Javier lasted ten days.

Ten days before those words fully rooted themselves into his head and urged him to run, run— barrel toward something, anything that could redeem what he was sure was broken inside of him.

Work in progress.

That's what he was, what Richie was, but the difference between them was that Richie was doing something, even if that something was still fighting a war that was as brutal as it was futile.

Javier was doing nothing.

What else is a guy like you gonna do?

The DEA office in Laredo had shut down all operations earlier in the decade, which meant that the closest office was all the way in San Antonio, a two-and-a-half-hour drive on a good day...

Two and a half hours wasn't a horrendous amount to drive every day, but it was a lot when tacked onto a forty plus hour work week.

Maybe he could convince Mia to move to San Antonio... perhaps one of the schools up there was hiring. Though, the prospect of uprooting her life did make a swirling, nauseating bout of guilt erupt in his gut.

He still didn't know if the DEA would even take him back.

Spencer certainly wasn't bunkered down at the San Antonio office, waiting for him, he didn't even know if his offer to make his bullshit resignation go away still stood.

He still didn't know if going back to the DEA was the right choice at all.

What else is a guy like you gonna do?

But he didn't know anything else.

Perhaps fighting the drug war from this side of the border would be more advantageous... the logical part of him knew that to be false, knew the entire thing was a wash, a scheme for the people at the top to continue funneling drug money into their campaigns, their businesses, their estates, but he couldn't sleep, he couldn't think about anything other than those words, over and over again.

You've done nothing with your life, Javier.

So he had to try, had to try to do this the right way this time. No Los Pepes, no bent rules, no sleeping with his informants.

He couldn't tell Mia his plan, which made the guilt in his gut swirl and contort into something that felt fatal. She would throttle him if she knew what he was up to. He just needed to get up there, speak with whoever was in charge, see if they even had a spot for him before he told her anything. He didn't want to fight about something that might not even happen.

He didn't want to think about what he would do should they not have a spot for him there.

He would cross that bridge when, if he got to it.

The more imminent issue was Mia. He didn't even know how to lie to her, which was why he'd trashed the idea of telling her he was going out of town for a rancher's convention the moment he conceptualized it. She would be able to see straight through his bullshit the moment the words came out of his mouth, so he'd texted her that afternoon instead, while she was at work, right before he got into his car and started the two-and-a-half-hour journey to San Antonio.