He chuckled, a low, deep rumble that seemed to echo around the grove they'd found themselves in.
"Since when have you ever been about giving me what I want?" He said, leaning in to steal a kiss on the side of her cheek, exactly in the place that he knew she liked.
He took a deep breath, the scent of pine needles, fresh, unpolluted air and just a hint of mulch from beneath their feet filling his lungs. He'd always loved the forest, always felt at home here. Even though they'd headed south, where the forest felt, smelled and was different from what he was used to in the Northeast, it was still nature at its most raw, its most versatile.
And that, really, was what he loved the most. You could be anyone in the company of the trees, the brooks and the barrens. More so than the world of men and women, where everyone wore a face every day. Out here, when you could maybe understand what some of the ancient religions of man were really talking about, when you could genuinely feel a force beyond ken, something that transcended grey, granite blocks and crossroads, you could be something approaching whole.
Or maybe that was just the animal side of him. Lincoln never knew--indeed, had never known, from his early days finding this kind of peace in forests, through to his later days finding the same force in the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the more primal force he'd found in the blood there, through to his return and the painful readjustment to what he called "real life."
He shook his head, scattering those thoughts, before leaning back into Parker's frame. He still didn't have the words for what she'd done to him, the way she'd brought meaning into his life, the way she'd walked into his soul and taken command.
The way she'd saved him, at his darkest moments.
"I love you," he whispered, brushing his lips across her brow in a fumbled attempt to reach her cheek. "Hope you know that."