"So, where will you go?"

"Home, I guess. Seattle."

"I thought you and Beth...?"

"Yeah. But my Mom's there. Besides, I had a job offer last time I was home on leave."

"What kind of job offer?"

"I don't know exactly. I was coming back, so I turned it down before we got into specifics. The guy checked up on me though, so I guess he needed a trauma surgeon."

"I'm not sure I can picture you in a civilian hospital."

"Y'know, Mase – I'm not sure I can either, but I've got to do something and the Army doesn't want me any more. If they need a trauma surgeon in Seattle, then I'll go to Seattle. It's home, after all."

"You know what they say, Hunt."

"What's that?"

"You can never go home again."

******

Those were the words playing over and over in Owen's head as he sat in his truck down the block from his mother's house.

You can never go home again.

It had made sense last night to check into a hotel. It had been so late when his flight got in, and he hadn't told her he was coming. A knock on the door in the middle of the night would have brought all her worst fears to the surface, and she didn't deserve that.

This morning it had seemed crazy to take a cab to her house, when he could drive himself. He needed a new car anyway, to replace the one junked that night on the ice.

Of course, it made to sense to buy a car when he had no job, so he'd gone to see Richard Webber at Seattle Grace.

******

"Major Hunt, good to see you again!"

"Thank you sir. I hope you don't mind my coming by."

"Of course not. Especially if you're here for the reason I think you are."

"I am sir. If the offer is still open, that is."

"It is, it is. You're finished your tour?"

"Yes and no sir. My unit – my unit suffered heavy losses and I was given an honorable discharge."

"I'm sorry to hear that Major. It must feel good to be home."

******

It must feel good to be home.

So he had a job, and he'd bought a truck, and he'd driven to his old neighborhood. He had been halfway there when he felt the pain in his hands. Hands clenched so tightly on the wheel that his nails had dug into his flesh. He'd loosened his grip and kept on driving until he saw the house. And suddenly his breath had been hard to find.

He could see the front garden. The perfect front garden his mother tended with such care. Everything was planted in containers. The lot of an army wife – you can make a garden pretty, but you'll only have to leave it behind. She'd told him once that leaving her first garden had almost broken her heart, and even though she'd lived in the same house for 25 years now, she'd never given up the containers. "Never get too attached to what you can't take with you, and if you do get too attached – find a way to take it anyway."

And he knew. In that moment, he knew he couldn't see her yet. 25 years of living in the same house hadn't erased the loss of a garden and 15 years of moving from base to base. An honorable discharge, a job and a truck hadn't erased the loss of his unit. He'd got too attached, and he couldn't take them with him, but he hadn't left them behind either.

You can never go home again.