All the sleep I've actually had has only felt like brief dozes. Only one of my pillows has an indent. The right side of my bed is occupied; the left sides' occupant is indefinitely not going to occupy it for some time. I have to hope that we can fix this. That I can fix this. In the brief moments I do find sleep I'm rolling over, my arms blindly reaching for the warmth of my partner that isn't there. I've despised myself since the moment I figured it out. The one thing I'd kept myself from all my life, was the detriment of the family I'd become so accustomed to. That sisterly bond I had with Astrid, the unidentifiable "brothers in arms" type relationship I had with Broyles, the father I'd come to love. The witty, stubborn, quick thinking beauty I'd come to love. I'd blown it all away. Now I was missing the bedmate that wasn't the person I'd thought her to be. Missing the warmth of another body, a body that wasn't the body I'd come back for. The little late-night conversations we had, the confidant I was entrusting my uncertainties to, that was here to take away the lives of the people I'd come to love just like family. It hurt to know that it wasn't her after all that. To know that I'd seen the changes and not acted on them. That I'd wanted to believe the lie she was telling because I was sick and tired of running and wanted to finally feel like I belonged somewhere. It tore me up to hear the words slip from her lips; you pulled me back over...You helped me remember. She had held onto me while she was trapped Over There. The look on her face when I told her, the venom in her voice when she spoke to me in the garden. I was missing a body that wasn't the one I'd stayed for. It felt selfish, and sick. I felt like the little kid who missed his stuffed toy at night. In either reality it was true, I was missing something my body had become used to. I have to get used to the lack of it, like the kid with that stuffed toy. I had to hope that I could fix what my blindness had set into motion, that I could mend both my and her heart. Because if there was one thing I knew, we all had to stick together.
On call in North Texas. I was used to an empty bed whenever he had to travel. I had the knowledge in my head that he would come back, and it held me together. I thought that after I came back home it would all be the same, like nothing ever happened. Just like Lee had said. The moment I saw him, I had wanted to hug him, and cry, the moment I saw Charlie I wanted to hug him and cry. I had to prove myself, that living her life hadn't softened me, I had to tell myself I didn't care about the people I'd lived with for eight weeks. I had to persuade myself that Colonel Broyles was a trader for helping her get back home and that his death was just unfortunate. Awake I could, but when I was alone in the bed that felt almost foreign to me, the walls in my head were torn down and a floodgate of uncontrollable thoughts was forced to fill every little crevice of my mind. Colonel Broyles didn't need to die, he didn't need to be cut up for me, they should have used someone who was already dead. Their Broyles didn't need to see himself cut up and mutilated. I also missed the lively perky Astrid Farnsworth; she had just as much brains as the Looker, but by far more personality. I was missing a bedmate I knew wouldn't be sleeping next to me for the rest of my life. Because the bedmate I was missing was a great billion of atoms away, and he wasn't planning to visit anytime soon. I could tell already even when he wasn't here to share my bed with me that my doctor wouldn't fill the blank of the bedmate I was missing, the smell on the pillows, the memory that was glued to my brain on how he slept, it wasn't the same. It felt wrong and dirty to be missing him. Like a child who was trying to prove she didn't need her comfort toy, and was too proud to admit it. I was missing an assignment and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I knew that Over There they weren't planning a war. I had to stay loyal to my side I had to be strong, I had to let the body I was missing fade away and never bother me again. I had to. I can't yet.