HOMECOMING.

I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close to you
I feel

She sits on the cheap plastic chair of the waiting room, now and then glancing at the clock, absently flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine. Though she wouldn't admit it, she does find some interest in the frivolous glossy pictures of designer shoes and expensive make-up. She sights in studied annoyance as she lets her eyes linger on a black Chanel pochette, with the golden double "C" emblem carved on the clip button, and wishes she had asked something like that for the past Christmas instead of replying with the usual "Nothing, thank you. I'm not accustomed to celebrate on such a giddy occasion." Her answer identical year after year.

Along the same lines of the one she gave when a colleague asked her what party she'd be going for New Years. "I don't appreciate going to parties." But truth is that she would have loved to, only she knows how much she had secretly hoped to be invited at a party, any party. Even the company's traditional Christmas vernissage would have been nice. Well, she did receive the invitation card to that one, she simply didn't show up – not that they'd expect her to anyway.

She turns another page and raises her gaze to the pretentious looking clock. How pathetic. A poor imitation of a Victorian pendulum made in pure plastic. Nearly as dreadful as the painting on its left. God, Matisse was surely turning in his grave after some dog had painted what was probably the worst reproduction ever made of his 'Woman with a Parasol'.

The hours hand ticks for the second time since she's arrived, and no one is showing up yet. There was another man some time before, but he'd left after about thirty, forty minutes. It makes no difference since they were both minding their own business and had no intention of starting some courtesy talk. She tosses the magazine on the small table and stretches lightly in her chair wondering if they remember that someone is still there at all. She briefly considers grabbing her handbag and leave as well, but it's just a thought and she pushes it back. She'll wait as long as she has to. She had come quite a long way to get there, and she isn't going back with empty hands.

Her eyes wonder around for a minute or two before going back to another colorful magazine, if only to save her from the visual torture of the horribly furnished room and it's green walls. It's the kitschest waiting hall she'd ever seen with the ugliest match of wallpaper, it looks as if someone had deliberately chosen some random pieces from a dump and put them together. If that's the case, the guy has surely done a remarkable job.

Cosmopolitan. Her mother used to read that, too. Sometimes. Rarely. Very rarely. In fact she'd only seen her once. What makes her even think that her mother read that particular mag on a regular basis? But she likes to think so. She's been been also pondering about many other things lately, most of which she believed she had completely forgotten. Some of them still hurt a little even after all these years, but it's surprising how many good memories come together with the painful ones. A shame that she couldn't recall them for so much time. But they are all here now, and maybe this is another reason for choosing to stay and wait. This empty room is the perfect place to linger on those long gone days, blissfully wasting her time on a copy of Cosmopolitan, pretending that the rest of the world has started spinning backwards.

Because there was a life before the disaster, and that letter and then the phone call two days ago simply reminded her. She sets the mag on the chair right next to her, spread open not to loose the page, and starts serching for the white envelope in her bag. The one with the R.C.M.M. logo on it. What a surprise when she saw that in the mail box! The first thing that popped in her mind had been to throw it away with the rest of the junk mail, but she really couldn't help herself from giving at least a look at whatever was coming from the Memorial Organization, especially when it was specifically addressed to her, especially since it was over fifteen years since she had last heard of them.

Something like six, seven years after the nuking of the city, an NGO had decided to create a Memorial Museum, collecting all they could from what was left in the debris, mainly a collection of the few objects that had somehow survived the explosion. There hadn't been much to start with, but the intentions were good, and after raising a memorial gravestone where there once was the City Hall with all the names of the 101.247 people who'd lost their lives, they built a small but shocking museum to remember the world about those seven days of Hell at the end of September 1998. It was nothing like the Hiroshima Peace Museum, but even this one had its fare share of horrific exhibits: melted car wrecks, a twisted section of the railway, a couple of insignias, a pair of glasses, melted pieces of electronic devices, more personal belongings and a lead safe. All of these were obviously found far from the epicentre of the bombing, but the destructive power of 60 megatons doesn't leave much to look for.

Anyway, she can't say that she'd been too interested in this horror museum when she'd first heard about it on the news. She was otherwise busy back then, and those events where still too fresh to even want to think about them. And so time passed, following her tutor across the globe, rather unwillingly pursuing her father's career, until that final incident in Africa nearly twenty years ago.

Until the financial crack that followed the premature demise of her father's friend, she had never realized the concept of personal property. The company she worked for had always provided her with everything, and she hadn't really needed any money... Of all the many problems she had, surely she had never considered that she could end up without a penny. Another bitter moment that she'd gladly forget. Seeing the government agents confiscating all her belongings, leaving her with nothing but the clothes she was wearing, and that out of pure pity - since they were supposed to take everything.

And regardless her abilities, it had been bloody Hell to find a job that wouldn't somehow throw her back in her father's world. All she wanted was a normal life and... well, that's what she eventually got. She pretends to be happy now, but she is all to conscious that she's been deliberately wasting her talent. iIt's a small price to pay in order not to end up like him, she reminds herself more and more often as she grows older. Besides, she can't complain of her life: she has a good occupation, a nice apartment by the sea in Menton, a car, she's a respected professional.

She looks at the open page of the gossip paper, mentally picturing herself with that pair of Dior decoltées, and glances at her own overused shoes with half concealed despise. Yes, once she's done here, she's definitely going to a boutique to buy herself something nice and ridiculously expensive. Not that a pair of high heels will by any mean make her look flighty all together. She is a serious scientist, and a very devoted and talented one, too. The truth is that she doesn't really care about her colleagues, but about what her parents might think of her indulging in such nuisances. They're dead, and they've been dead for so so long now, but she can't help it. The idea of somehow disappointing them, especially her father, still follows her in every decision. However, today is different and who knows, things might change for the best from now on. Today she recalled that her mother read Cosmopolitan, and if she focuses deep enough, she is sure she'll remember that her father did something normal people do, that he too had a few normal interests.

She unfolds the letter for the hudredth time, and reads it again though she know its content by heart.

The museum is closing for lack of founds. Of course, the tragedy of the mid-western town is still fresh in the memory of the population, but apparently not fresh enough to get the good American citizens to open their wallets and offer their concrete support. Sad and comforting at the same time how, sooner or later, every wound eventually heals. So, in the process of dismantling the exhibits, someone had the idea of trying to open the safe.. and its content gave whoever in charge a reason to call her, and had convinced her to come back to this place, so far in both space and time.

The light click of heels in the corridor drives her attention to a young woman walking in her direction carrying a cardboard box. The girl in front of her is in her early twenties, and the fact itself is quite curious. She hadn't expected to find anyone younger than herself in this place: this kid wasn't even born when the city was destroyed. Why would someone like her want to work in a sad place like this...The employee smiles awkwardly at her inquisitive glare. "Sorry for the long waiting, doctor," the other woman starts apologizing. She simply nods and smiles back in a cold but polite fashion. "Here are your belongings," the young one sets the package on the low table in front of her. It's pretty small, she notices. Somehow she had expected it to be bigger. She inspects the outside, casting but a distracted and rather suspicious glance on its content. "Is this all?" She questions, her light blue eyes observing the other, knowing fully well how unsettling her stare can be. The inexperienced secretary nods, starting to fiddle with a loose strand of brown hair. Her hair is brown too now. She had dyed them after moving to France, and she had kept them like that ever since, as if changing colour could help her cut with her past... and maybe it did, but her hair was blond, and it would always be.

For a moment she considers inspecting the box right there, to check everything is in order, but thinking about it, there is no way in the world she can tell if anything is missing since she doesn't know what her father's safe was supposed to contain in the first place. Yes. Much, much better to wait till she is back to the hotel, alone. She stands up from her chair, grabs her bag and takes the box with both hands.

A genuine smile graces her features. "Thank you very much, Miss..." she reads her name tag, "...Miss Coen." She casts a final look at the oddly furnished room, and though she's glad to leave it, a vague sense of nostalgia starts creeping in the back of her mind. The place is closing down for good, and eventually, no one will be left to remind the world of this tragedy. "Now I really have to go. Goodbye."

"Goodbye and thank you for your patience, Dr Birkin."

**

"Come in," he responds to the insistent knocking on the door of his study. "Shouldn't you be in bed now, young lady?" He is about to scold her and send her off to her room, but after all... "Okay, come in... but don't tell mommy."

The seven year old child smiles conspiratorially and closes the door. He observes the curious look on her face as she enters the room hiding a hand behind her back. "So, what is it?"

"I made something for you," she hands him the drawing she's spent the past hour on and looks down, feeling suddenly a little embarrassed. What if he doesn't like it? Her technique is far from perfect, and thinking about it, it's so childish...

"Thank you..." Puzzled, he looks at the kid's present. A picture. A picture of the two of them holding hands on a very naively drawn meadow under a clear blue sky. It's far from being realistic, with no proportions and no perspective, but it's the most beautiful gift he has ever received.

Under the astonished eyes of the child, he reaches for the frame he keeps on his desk and carefully takes out the family portrait replacing it with his daughter's drawing. Then, turning back to her, he hands her the photograph. "Keep good care of this, okay?" She beams with pride at the sight of her framed picture on her father's desk as she holds the photo of the three of them in her tiny fingers. "Now off to bed, Sherry, it's really late." She nods, and whispering an excited goodnight runs quickly up to her room, hoping not to wake her mother.

Months later her disappointment is nearly heartbreaking when sneaking unnoticed in her father's study, she doesn't see the picture anymore, but she doesn't dare ask... she isn't supposed to be in his room to start with. But it hurts her child's pride and feelings all the same. Littles does she know that at some point, on the very same night she'd given him the present, her father had gotten up from the chair and opened the safe he kept hidden behind a row of books on molecular pathology, only to put his girl's drawing together with the most precious things he had./i

Sitting on the bed of her hotel room, the forty-two year old daughter can't hold back the sobs as she holds the cracked frame in her hands. She had never cried for him. Because he was the one who made her suffer more, he was the one who was never there... and he had never deserved her tears, till now.

The colours have faded and the protective glass is in shreds, but damn, he'd managed to save it from a nuclear Hell! And it's both relieving and horrible to learn that she'd thought him wrong for such a long time. Yes, he hadn't been much of a father, surely not, but she feels so stupid anyway for not believing that he loved her much, much more than he showed.

Careful not to cut herself she brushes a finger over the the tallest of the two human figures, for an instant she regrets not having portrayed her mother as well... but that drawing was meant only for him, and for him is this moment, to catch up with the few good memories she still has of the man she loved the most. And after thirty years, in the anonymous room of a suburban hotel, father and daughter are now finally home.

My side of a trade with KitsunexBlade.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything so don't sue me
Verses from "I am the Highway" by Audioslave