Author's Note: I really should be working on other stories… Or sleeping. Yeah, sleep would be good, since I have to be up early in the morning. But will this plot bunny be nice and leave me in peace for a little while? Or come and bug me at a normal time of day? No, of course not. So, since this is the only little plot bunny that seems to be hopping around in my head at the moment, and because I can't sleep until I give into it and write this, here you go- a sequel, if you really want to call it that. Or maybe chapter two. I don't know, it's another one-shot about Bourne coming home. Goes with my other one-shot, "A Past Remembered, A Future Yet Uncertain." This one is from Jaime's POV. Enjoy, review… You guys know the drill. -Jess
Disclaimer: Yeah, still don't own Bourne or anything associated with him or the books or the movies…
Some little girls dream of growing up and becoming princesses, finding prince charming, and living happily ever after. Some little girls dream of being astronauts and president, teachers and doctors. And, until she was seven, Jaime Webb was no different. She wanted to be a princess, to fall in love with a handsome prince who would make her just as happy as her daddy made her mommy, and they would live happily ever after, just like her parents.
Only, her parents didn't live happily ever after, after all. She remembered that day, the day her mom had sat her down at Grandma Ruth's house and told her that daddy wouldn't be coming home that night like he was supposed to, or any night after that. Daddy was an angel, her mom had told her. Jaime could still feel the tears that had rolled down her mom's cheeks and fallen to her own hands sometimes. Some days, it seemed like forever ago… And some days, it seemed like it had been just yesterday.
After her dad had died, Jaime had given up on finding her prince charming. She didn't ever want to cry as hard as her mom had, as long as her mom, when her dad died. She'd watched as that light that had always been in her mom's eyes had disappeared, not gradually, but in an instant. And it had never come back. No, Jaime didn't want that.
Her mom had left her for a while, more than once, after that. It wasn't unusual. She'd been left with relatives periodically for long periods of time all of her life. Her parents' lifestyle had dictated that, in order to protect her. She hadn't always understood it, but she'd accepted it. There had been a time, after her dad's death, where Jaime had fought against being left behind by the only parent she had left. Her mom had broken down and cried; she didn't want to lose her daughter the way she'd lost her husband. Jaime had never argued about it again.
She was a happy girl, most of the time. She had her mom, her Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Oliver. There were her aunts and uncles and cousins. She had her friends. She got good grades and was on the swim team. But something was missing, the one thing that she could never have back. Her dad wasn't there, didn't cheer for her at her swim meets or help her with her homework. He'd never met her best friend, or any of her friends for that matter. He'd missed the births of so many of her cousins, the deaths of other family members. Including Grandpa Tom, his own father.
It was her one wish, the wish she'd make every year when she blew out the candles on her birthday cake, the wish she made on the first star she saw in the sky every night. To have her dad back. An impossible wish, a dream that could never come true. She knew it. She wished it anyway.
Her mom had gone to answer the door; Jaime had been watching the clock. She knew to go to the door, to see if her mother was still there, if five minutes passed without her returning. They had. Instantly alert, just the way her parents had raised her to be, Jaime slowly and silently crept out of the living room and down the hallway, as light on her feet as her father.
What she saw from the doorway had her gasping in shock before she started laughing happily. Was it real? Could it actually be real, after all this time? Was he actually standing there, alive and well? Home at last?
Her laughter alerted them to her presence and he looked up. He seemed just as surprised as she was, and she remembered then. They'd had a funeral for her, mourned for her. Her mother hadn't let her out of her sight for a year when she'd been "found," or for months after they'd found out the truth of her kidnapping. He still thought she was dead, just as she'd believed him to be dead until seconds ago.
She heard her mother briefly explain what had happened all those years ago, wondered why he didn't already know all of this. Where had he been? Why hadn't he come home? Questions passed at what seemed like light-speed through her always over-active mind, but Jaime was, after all, the daughter of two CIA agents.
She knew better than most the risks that came with being a part of the agency, knew the lengths some people had to go to in order to protect themselves and their loved ones. She'd been raised to accept those risks and lived with them.
It didn't matter where he'd been or why he'd been gone. What mattered was that he was home, at long last. Her mother seemed happy. Her father seemed happy. And Jaime… well, she was standing three feet away from her father for the first time in six years. Happy definitely did not cover it.
And when he said her name, she knew it was all real. That her greatest dream had come true. "Daddy," was all she could say, and that was fine with her. How many times had she dreamt of this moment, of finally getting to call her father "Daddy" to his face again?
When he fell to the ground, taking her mother with him, and they both opened their arms, inviting her to join them, Jaime raced forward. As she felt her parents' arms close around her, Jaime knew without a doubt that David James Webb was not the only person who had come home today. They all had.