Author's Note: A little background: My obsession with quotes has reached critical levels, and as I was going through my favourite love quotes, I realised several of them could apply to Red and Kitty (my obsession with the show carries over to every aspect of my life evidently). So, seeing as I like writing stories more than I probably should, I thought I'd write a Red and Kitty story with a quote as a basis for each chapter. It won't be very long, maybe five or six chapters, and it will be at random times during their life. Sound like a good idea? Hope you think so. It'll be updated at random, but I hope to finish it by Valentine's Day.

Also, I assume (I don't quite remember from the show, but I thought there were references) that Red fought in the Korean War. According to my pseudo-research, this makes sense. I don't know exactly what happened during the war, and I hate reading about wars, so I skimmed the info and just assumed that 1952 was a good time to set this specific chapter. If I'm wrong at all, please tell me.

Anyway, please enjoy, and feel free to drop a line.


Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire. -Francois de la Rochefoucauld

...

Summer 1952

Another letter from another admirer. Kitty tosses the letter on her desk while she goes through the mail. It's sweet to read the romantic attempts of her suitors, but she can't bring herself to think much of the men. It's nice to know she's so admired and adored, but she knows they can never possess her heart. Her heart belongs to only one man, and she doesn't see that changing.

Her friends think she's silly to wait for Red to come back from the war. They remind her that there's a chance he might not come back at all, but she ignores that. His letters are still coming, one after the other, and that's all she needs for now.

Speaking of letters, there's one from Red. Her heart leaps up in her throat and she drops the other mail on the floor to hastily tear open the envelope.

As usual, he doesn't mention the war. He tells her he misses her and that he loves her and that he hopes she hasn't found someone else yet because then he wouldn't have anything to come back home for. She smiles when she reads that—even though it's in every letter he sends, she likes knowing that he's looking forward to seeing her again. There's a couple of lines about his buddies and some well wishes and the like. The letters are never long—he doesn't have the time and he's always a quiet one—but she cherishes it anyway.

There's a box of these letters under her bed, carefully organised by date, and she adds this one to them. She reads them when she's lonely and she misses him or when there's a gap between letters and she gets worried. She rereads them to remind herself that he is strong and stubborn and he would not die on her.

It's hard sometimes. The stories she reads about the war are terrible, and the tally of the causalities frightens her. There are nights where she wakes up from nightmares of him dying, one more statistic that most everyone will forget. She cannot understand why war appeals to him, especially after those nights.

He's killing her, just like he's killing those Koreans, and although it's unfair, she can't help but feel that way. It doesn't matter how many times he reassures her he'll be fine or how many times she reminds herself that he's tough, there'll always be deaths and there'll always be fear in her heart.

But she pushes it aside for now. She always does when he writes. She forgets it long enough to compose a reply that doesn't involve begging him to come home and be with her.

She picks up the mail from the floor and deposits it in the kitchen where her parents can deal with it later. She throws away the letter from her admirer and sits at her desk with her stationary to tell him once more that she loves him and she'll be waiting here until he comes back.

She leaves out the "alive or dead."