What I've Become

by Poe-TheRavenOfNevermore

This is a short Webgott piece from Joe's pov. It implies a previous relationship and it set after Bastogne and Web's return. Warning: I own nothing, am making no money, & mean no disrespect. This is based off the characters. Love any and all input!

What I've Become:

"Every so often we long to steal

To the land of what might have been

But that doesn't soften the ache we feel

When reality sets back in"

Idina Menzel- Lyrics to "I'm Not That Girl"

I see him now. Once again, he takes my breath away with his beauty, his graceful moves, so calm and casual. You would never know he had been gone so long by his actions but his appearance and our memories betray him. The minutes that it takes the others to recall his face is a sharp and cutting reminder to us all. Even though he acts so at ease among us he doesn't belong and is rebuffed because he wasn't there.

Unlike the others, I knew him the moment he came near, I didn't even have to look up I knew that voice anywhere. Whether a loud and exuberant "Hey guys" or a quite and breathy "Hey Joe", I would know his voice. The idea of him, the details of the tones and shadows of him, was all I could think about during those long cold months. Yet, I could never touch the meaning of the aching pressure behind the memory, the floating image of his lips as they moved closer to mine.

The happiness of knowing I had him back safe and whole or that he would once again fit so perfectly in my arms was tainted, stained by my knowledge and all that I had seen. I know that even though he still seems the same as before I am not. I have been changed by the bombs and the bullets. By the blood that won't come clean. It is still there every time I close my eyes. I cannot banish it just like I can't release the anger I still feel from it now.

Though the others will at first rebuff and then forgive. I cannot but not because I'm incapable or desiring. In truth I want nothing more then to take him in my arms. To fold myself into the warmth of him and shut out all of these images from my mind. To suffocate them and myself in the feel of him.

Even though I can still feel all of that. Even though I'm still capable of comprehending that aching need. Feeling it pressing on my heart, forcing gasps from my lips at its palpable ferocity. Even as it fills me with warmth I haven't felt in a long time, it has become twisted. Contorted into odd shapes and manifestations. It is the only way it could have survived inside the form I have taken. So even though I know I still love him I know I can never again be with him.

I love him too much to touch him with what I have become.