Just found this in one of my old spirals...
Notes: AU
A toddler Max wobbled slightly then fell with a resounding smack onto the kitchen tiles.
Her eyes welled up with tears, but she pushed herself up again, and continued towards the outstretched arms. When her father's arms came around her, she burst into tears.
She was old enough to understand what her father was saying, but but not old enough to fully grasp how serious his words were.
"Come on mijah, make your papa proud before he has to go off to war. It's alright to cry, shh."
"Papa," pudgy fingers gripped his white shirt fiercely.
"Dry your eyes, little one, I'll be here, in heart and mind. Hush my daughter, sleep now sleep. I'll be here for you." Jeb Batchelder sang in his husky voice, knowing that a mere year away, he would be shipped off the war.
(Seven Years Later)
Martinez-Batchelder was sitting in the couch, weeping uncontrollably, and forlornly.
"Mama?" asked a nine year old Max with six year old Ella looking over her older sister's shoulder.
"Oh! Ninas!My babies, mijahs. Your papa isn't coming home." Her voice died off, and she dissolved into a fit of sobs.
"Papa gone?" Ella's squeaky voice was sad,and her only answer was her mother's tears coming faster.
The three sobbed together, in mourning for the fallen hero.
Valencia Martinez-Batchelder gave Max the dog-tags that were found with her husbands body.
They were like her security blanket, she never took them off.
As the years passed, the shattered family, broken and despairing, began to move on.
Ella became a soccer star, even getting a scholarship to go to Tech. Max was a Senior in Oklahoma state, preparing to get her bachelors degree.
To this day she still wears her father's dog-tags.
So?