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"I heard that as well."
"Ethan?"
"No. Your partner didn't say anything."
"Good."
"Where are you?"
"Walking," she said simply.
Thomas said nothing, waiting on the line, but allowing her to speak in her own time. How many times, years ago, when she'd first joined had she so often called Thomas just like this. It had become something of a habit, but then... years had passed, and she'd felt childish doing it. The calls had dried up somewhat. Though she still tried to pick his brain on cases.
But now...
It had been Whitehorse's accusation. A man of similar ancestry who'd scorned her.
Thomas... Thomas, though, understood. More than any of their colleagues could. Rachel didn't think her troubles were any more important than anyone else's. But it could feel lonely, isolating to face certain things alone...
"Walks help clear my head," she said, moving forward. Her boots crunched softly over dead leaves, a rhythmic sound that failed to soothe her restless spirit. "But today... they're just a reminder."
"Of what?" Thomas's tone held no judgment, only the open space for her to fill with her troubles.
"Choices," she replied, pausing to let her gaze dance across the trees stretching towards the heavens. "Paths taken or not. Does it ever get easier?"
"Sometimes the right path is the one you make," Thomas's words reached her.
"Doesn't feel like I'm making anything but mistakes lately," she confessed, leaning against a trunk, its bark rough against her shoulder blade. Her reflection gazed back at her from the black screen before she lit it up again, the digits of her passcode punctuating her turmoil.
"Talk to me, Rachel."
"Every step feels heavy," she admitted, pushing off the tree and continuing her march through nature's cathedral. "Like walking against the tide."
"Rach, you know better than anyone, tides turn."
"Supposed to, don't they?" There was a wry twist to her lips, unseen by her friend on the line. She wished she could believe in the turning tides with the same certainty that she believed in the North Star.
"Trust yourself, Rachel. You're stronger than you think," Thomas's assurance came like a lifeline thrown into tumultuous waters.
"Do you regret joining the Rangers? Leaving the rez?" she blurted out, unable to hold back the words before they came.
The line crackled with the silence that followed her heavy question. Rachel's thumb hovered over the end call button, a lifeline she wasn't sure she wanted to cut.
"Thomas?" Her voice was a mere whisper against the rustling leaves.
"Regret no."
"Question it, then?"
"Every day," he admitted, his voice soft but clear. "But guilt is a ghost that haunts without purpose."
Rachel expelled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, the air mingling with the chilled forest breeze. She felt the weight of his words sink into her bones as she watched a hawk circle above, its freedom a stark contrast to the shackles of her own doubts.
"Protecting people... it doesn't have borders, Rach," Thomas continued, his conviction palpable even through the digital divide.
A fallen branch snapped under her boot, a sharp punctuation to his sentiment. Rachel's gaze shifted from the soaring hawk to the path ahead, lined with the gnarled roots of ancient trees. The idea of borders, invisible lines in the sand, seemed suddenly trivial in nature's grand design.
"Texan first, huh?" she mused aloud, the concept swirling in her mind like leaves in an eddy.
