One shot, takes place after Angels Take Manhattan. Not twisted, like my last one.
She thought she heard it.
Which was impossible, really. She knew it was a sound she would never hear again. So sure of this was she, but still, everyone once in a while she would find herself rushing to the window, looking for that colour she knew all too well. Tonight her subconscious woke her from a dream she'd rather forget. It was of another adventure she'd never get to have. She'd lived for so long waiting for that sound; she sometimes wondered if she'd ever come back from that.
She slipped back under the covers, looking lovingly into the face of her husband. He made all of this worth it. There were days when she'd get so caught up in the memories that she'd forget why she would ever give that up. The answer was found in him. He'd waited for all those years, and if dying before she'd ever lived was the price she'd have to pay, then so be it.
Still, she missed the life she'd had. She missed the box. She missed her daughter. She missed the years of her life she'd never get to live. But most of all, she missed that crazy man. She missed his clever remarks, his ingenious lack-of-plans, and that stupid forehead of his. Years she spent waiting up for him, but she knew she'd made the right decision.
When it happened, there wasn't time to think. Love's like that; when it comes down to life or death, you'd do anything to stay with them. She'd do anything.
Life was certainly different, but they were together. They were happy. They'd learned how to deal together. He learned to let her be when he came home to her crying in the bed, or at the typewriter where she spent so much time. They traveled a little bit, a lot at first; it was difficult to stay in one place for too long. Once, at a museum in England, he had wandered off by himself. She found him much later, staring into the distance near the Rome exhibit. She allowed herself a moment of remembrance before taking him by the hand. They shared a look, a brief second of acknowledgement that they both felt the same way. She wiped the stray tear from his eye before they found themselves laughing.
And that's just how it was. Sometimes the sadness was too much to take, and other times they talked late into the night, sharing a bottle of wine and swapping memories, the little moments they shared with their daughter and the crazy man with the box. She told him stories of things that happened before he joined them. Sometimes they couldn't talk about, and they went through weeks when they forgot, or pretended to. Better were the weeks when they laughed about it, or the weeks when they felt blessed for the time they had.
And when she really missed her daughter, they discussed children. She couldn't have children, but they wanted one. It was '46 when they adopted a boy they named Anthony. They loved him, and he them, and he loved their impossible stories of the man with the box who traveled all of time and space.
He worked numerous jobs, but she became a writer. Sometimes she wrote of her adventures, and other times she wrote fiction, adventures she made up. She found happiness when she wrote, though no one ever expected words to be her muse.
And that's how they lived, all three of them. Maybe they'd be called casualties, but despite all the sadness, and how much they missed their life in their time, and how much they missed that madman, they were happy, blessed with memories only the luckiest of people get to have. They got to live knowing that our world has a protector, and that he would bend the laws of space itself to keep it safe.