Disclaimer: They all belong to DPB, CBS and Paramount, I am just playing with them and giving them back in one piece, ok maybe I keep Harm a little longer.
Thanks: Thanks to Cat for betareading.
WAITING FOR HIM TO COME HOME
At night
Rosslyn/Virginia
0345 ZULU
Meg woke up to the sound of loud thumping on the staircase. Thump. Thump. She looked outside. The wind was howling as if in anger, heavy raindrops crashed against her window, lightning and thunder boomed like they were in a war. It was the middle of the night as she listened to the things happening outside of her room.
He was home.
Many nights she had lain awake, waiting for him to come home.
It all started when she had been a little girl, waiting for her father to come home, but he never came. Not alive. Dan Austin died in Vietnam and returned home in a coffin.
Maybe it was the night when they received the news about her father's death when all started. All she could remember now was that it had been around this time. Meg could clearly remember the night when her mother stood in her room, crying, looking at her, saying the fateful words: Meg, he isn't coming home.
After this she waited every night. She waited for someone to come home, first for her father, but he never came. Later she waited for her brother.
Many nights she stood at her window, looking outside. When she heard footsteps outside her door she knew that he was home.
Now she waited for her husband to come home each night. She would never stop waiting until the day she would receive her call home.
"Still awake?" she heard a voice from the doorstep.
"I couldn't sleep" Meg lied.
"Yeah sure, and that's why you sit awake in our bed until you know that I am home."
"I am just waiting for you."
He walked over and sat down on the bed next to her.
Harm knew that she was not really waiting for him. At night she was the little girl she once had been, daddys little girl, and she still was waiting for her father to come to her.
"Meg, he never comes home to you. Your father is dead" Harm said.
"I know but" she trailed off.
"Yes, I know how it is. You are still waiting for him" Harm said and took her in his arms, holding her, giving her a feeling of safety, one she had thought had been long lost.
He was home.
THE END