A/N: Very AU. I left characters unnamed because I felt the flow was better without names. In essence, you can pick your own characters. Any and all feedback is welcomed.
Dejected, he hung his head. he'd been counting the hours, or more accurately the days, since he'd been in this small room. He couldn't see the only window or door; he was facing the opposite wall. But he could see a square of the ever-present, intense sunlight travel across the wall in accordance to the sun trekking across the sky. Thought he couldn't be positive, he was fairly certain he hadn't missed a day. He was out for increasingly longer periods of time, but he didn't think he'd missed an entire day yet.
Somewhere in the past 24 hours, or so, he'd stopped hurting. Vaguely he wondered what it meant, in a physical sense, when his body stopped registering the pain his eyes so clearly witnessed. Escape seemed impossible, hope futile. but he took invisible pride in the fact that although he was beaten, bruised, and very likely near death, his captors had not managed to torture him. The grey-blue eyes he had pictured every night since he arrived in this god-forsaken land and the little girl with the white-blond hair that still played innocently in his mind remained untouched. The rational part of him knew that there was no way these monsters could've reached them but the desperate part of him thanked every God he could think of all the same.
Now, head hung, breathing slower than he thought would ever be humanly possible, he pictured those grey-blue eyes and the woman they belonged to. He was almost sad she wasn't here: his imagination never could do her enough justice, but the feeling was fleeting and quickly replaced with one of relief. There was no reason she should have to witness something like this.
She was beautiful. he never saw the mythical pounds she claimed she needed to lose, loved the nose that was slightly crooked because of a sports injury she had had as a kid, admired the way her entire body seemed to smile and not just her mouth, adored the way she saw so much good in him despite the fact that he had become a man that had committed murder in the name of peace, a man who deserved much less than her. his heart ached that his promise to her, one he tried to keep even when all these miles separated them, would be broken.
Suddenly, she shared his vision with a little girl- the one with the white-blond hair and the innocence only a little girl could carry. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew her birthday would be coming soon. She'd be six. Just old enough to know he wasn't there and want to know why but just young enough to not understand. Sitting in what he was sure would be the chair he'd die in, he prayed that she'd never be a part of something like this- that she'd grow up beautiful like her mother and always be able to carry just a little bit of that little-girl innocence. he wished he could've been there to teach her how to ride a bike, he wished he could be there to see her graduate, he wished he could be there to watch her fall in love, he wished he could give her away to the man of her dreams. In his mind, she'd be frozen in time as the stunning little girl, with the incredible mother, who never knew her father like a little girl should. he never got to kill a spider for his baby girl, never got to chase the monsters out of her closet. That was his biggest regret.
Alone in this silent room in this desolate land, he heard footsteps returning. he cleared the grey-blue eyes and the white-blond hair form his mind. he didn't even want his imagined versions of them to have to see what he was enduring. Behind him a door banged open. Through it he could hear gun fire and shouting: chaos in a language he had come to understand. he braced himself, eyes close, pride keeping his head held high. His mind slowed things down as it happened and he distantly wished it wouldn't be so drawn out. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop it. They invaded his thoughts, however jarbled and distorted they were becoming, and his last vision was of those grey-blue eyes and that white-blond hair.