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Number 175 in the 1000 Themes Challenge
Reunited
The smoke blinded him. He stumbled forward, squinting in a useless attempt and see where he was going. Coughing, he tripped on something on the floor. The fallen, smoldering beam hindered his progress, but he kept pushing forward as he tried to make his way to the front door.
The heat from the flames was intense though, and soon it was getting to be too much to bear. He fell to the floor, rolling onto his back. Too hard, not worth it, not worth it…
He let out a wheezing cough. Turning his head, his gaze settled on a picture hanging from one corner on a wall a few yards away from him. It was blackened by the smoke, but the image was still visible, if only barely.
The picture was of his first wife and daughter – though both of them were now long dead. The two of them sat on a grassy hill under a shady oak tree. They were smiling wide, innocent smiles at the camera. He was the one who had taken the picture all those years ago.
He closed his eyes, letting a few tears slip down his cheeks. It had been years since he had last allowed himself to cry, but it didn't matter anymore - nothing did. It wasn't like he was going to be alive much longer.
He missed them terribly, his wife especially. A memory popped into his head. It was Christmas, twenty years ago.
Shannon was standing off to the side, smiling warmly down at him. Kelly was jumping up and down on the bed.
"Wake up, daddy!" she yelled. "C'mon, daddy!" Giggling, she landed on her stomach and crawled over to him. "Wake up." Kelly smiled sweetly at him. "Please, daddy?"
'I can't!' he wanted to scream at her. 'I can't. There's no point. You're dead, Shannon's dead… There's no point.'
Trying to push Shannon and Kelly out of his head, he took a deep breath, now welcoming the smoke. It poisoned his lungs and his body coughed, trying to reject it. There wasn't much time left. With another cough, Shannon came to mind again. She was so beautiful, and so indisputably gone that it broke his heart all over again.
He missed them more than he ever let on, his wife and daughter, so he didn't mind dying as much as he should have, as much as most other people would have. The smoke was killing him, but for some reason, he couldn't seem to feel sad, regretful, pained. Only hope, only thankfulness. It was getting hard to breath. Soon, he stopped trying.
'I give up,' he thought.
As he faded, a smile spread across his face, contradicting the tears that wound in delicate streams down his cheeks. He was actually going to see them again, his beloved wife and adorable daughter. They were going to be rightfully reunited, uncountable years later.
With that smile in place, and with the memories of Shannon and Kelly in his mind, Leroy Jethro Gibbs took his final breath.