Author's Note: Well, this somehow came to me this morning, and now that it's here, I thought I might as well post it. (Sorry about the crappy format, I seem to have forgotten how to make that work properly since the last time I posted something…)

Disclaimer I don't own anybody or anything, which in some cases is a pity. g

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THERE have been so many times that I wished I could have been with you. Just for a moment, to hold you or to kiss you, fleetingly, just so you would have known I'm not as far away as you think I am.

As it is, I never could, and never will be able to. It's one of those unalterable things that hurt deep down, somewhere in your chest.

Would you believe me if I told you it has been as hard for me as it has for you?

She smiles. Probably not. Because you wouldn't believe my voice to be anything other than imagination to begin with. Not now, anyway. In the first few weeks, perhaps, but now you've just seen too many dead people, and they never come back or are anything but, well, dead. Gone. A shell of flesh and bone and not a thing beyond that.

And how I wish you wouldn't be doing that to yourself. The work you do, I mean. All the dead people, all the destroyed lives. That's all that you're ever surrounded by. Death, pain, and the dark side of human souls.

And I know you're not immune to that, you're just not that kind of person. I'm sure there are people who can deflect such things, divide the world in black and white and believe that it's, metaphorically speaking, occupational hazard that they see a lot of black every day.

You can't do that. I know everything is grey to you, and you don't believe anymore that people are inherently good. That's why you don't trust, no one aside from those very few that, by the way, I really like. And they are good people, you know. I can tell, I see a lot of what they do and think. You mustn't ever stop trusting them.

My God, it is unbelievable how much you've changed. I think I never would have thought it possible that anyone could change so much.

You never gave anybody such a hard time as you do practically everyone now. You really weren't complicated, or easily irritated, or so restless. Now? Jeez. She has to laugh. Do you know that I still love you, though?

I do, and I miss you, and this is as hard for me as it is for you, however strange all of this might sound. So many times that I wished I could have been there for you.

In the desert, the sandy heat and the din of God knows what machinery, when the parson told you we were dead. I didn't really know what was going on myself yet, and Kelly was so confused too, we weren't sure what had happened.

It didn't take too long for me to understand, though. Everything grows quite clear pretty quickly here, you see. Surprisingly, I wasn't frightened or even startled. What did startle me, though, was the explosion.

I wasn't as worried about you as I would have been in life. Somehow, I think I knew that you wouldn't die yet. Not that I can foresee the future, I can't. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, your tomorrow, that is. I'm as clueless as anybody else, but I had a feeling then that you wouldn't die.

Although I think I also felt that perhaps you wanted to. No, you did want to. I know everything just was wrong for you then. It didn't make sense.

Things never make much sense when something you had faith in, suddenly crumbles. In your case, that was – well, without meaning to sound dramatic, I'll call it America.

You were the one at war, and in your eyes, if anyone in our family should get killed, then it was you. In Kuwait, enemy territory, hostile environment.

Not your wife and child, home in the United States of America, under the Stars and Stripes of the safest place imaginable, a Navy base, under the protection of a federal agent.

It didn't make sense. People don't return from war to a dead family and an empty house. They return home, or not at all. Anything else didn't make sense.

How I wished I could have been there when you woke up in hospital, wanting to believe you had only dreamt, and realizing that it wasn't so.

Sometimes I wonder if things might be better now if you had not woken up again. I know that sounds harsh, but will understand what I mean. It would have meant so much less pain. Perhaps you would even be here with me, although I'm not sure about that. I haven't really found out how things work after death.

A little while later, how I wished I could have been at the beach with you, the beach we so loved, where Kelly learnt horseback riding and fishing and got her fingers and mouth and hair sticky with melted marshmallows, and you and I, after we had put her to bed, drank the worst wine we ever tasted. I liked it all the same. It tasted right.

I hated to see you alone on that beach, and I wished I had solid hands to take that gun away from you, and an audible voice to tell you that not everything the world was bad just because we were gone from it.

I know you wouldn't have believed that. Sometimes I think you still wouldn't, and don't, although you might occasionally have seen proof of the contrary.

I admit I didn't look for a while. I couldn't, because, this time, I did not have a feeling that told me you weren't going to die that day. I don't know, I think there was too much going on inside you for me to see clearly.

I have to say that I hadn't been expecting you to consider doing something like that. Because, actually, you're too proud and too strong. I was surprised, and a little scared – and infinitely relieved when nothing happened.

Again, I'm not sure if you were, though. I know that when you think of that long, cold day now, you often wonder what kept you from pulling the trigger. You don't know, and I don't know. The difference it that I don't care what it was, because it's enough that is was there, but you do care because you aren't sure at all if it was worth not dying for.

I also know you think about that almost every time you drink, because you only drink Bourbon and it was Bourbon you drank that windy day on the beach.

You drink too much, you know. Generally, and because of the associations.

That's where I'm thankful for Jenny's appearance in your life.

I hated whiskey when I first tasted it – my father drinks it, as I'm sure you remember, although he prefers Scotch, naturally – and so did Jenny. Funnily, her father also drank Scotch. She came with her own tag of associations where whisky is concerned, it reminded her of her father and his suicide. It hurt, just like it hurt you.

But she began to like it because she had begun long before to like you, and as she fell in love with you she started to love the whiskey. Bourbon, though, not Scotch.

The smell and taste hurt less because it meant youinstead of her father, and just as well you thought a little less of a grey, deserted beach and the barrel of a gun as time went by. Now Bourbon means Jenny as well, and that's good because you still like her, and that's why I like her as well.

She laughs again.Suspicious as you have grown, do you believe that? It's true. And I didn't mind the other women, either. Although I admit that, at some point I began to wonder where your judgement had gone.

No, I'm just teasing you. I know it had little to do with judgement. You're not given to self-conceit and if anything, you sometimes have a too realistic view on things.

You never expected any of those marriages to last forever, or to be like ours. It wasn't about replacement or happiness. It was about safety.

Making sure that there would never be somebody in your life again whom it would hurt so badly to loose as it had hurt you to loose us.

You didn't marry them because you loved them, you married them because you didn't love them.

I know you liked them, a lot even, of course you did. You don't use people. But you didn't love them. Not like you loved me.

I'm so sorry, too, you know. It's … what we can do to people close to us, just by being loved by them.

You would be a completely different person now if you didn't love me so much. You wouldn't be so tired and exhausted, so wary of everything around you, and so strained. You wouldn't have forgotten how to laugh and how to sleep and to be at ease.

I wish I could give you a little of our peace, because it is peaceful here.

I would visit you in a dream, but you don't dream anymore. And if you do, everything is dark and jagged, and I cannot find a way in.

How I wish I could be with you, sometimes at least, at night, and just hold you close and help you sleep.

How I wished I could have been there all those nights you hunted those horrible men who killed children and young women, and the thought of them being somewhere out in the world wouldn't give you a moment's rest and painted everything black, because it there was one of them out there you know of, how many more could there be that you didn't know of.

I wished I could have been there when Kate died, to tell you that there was nothing you could have done. I see everything from a distance, I can tell.

It wasn't the wind. The bullet was meant for her. But you couldn't have known, believe me. You couldn't have known that day on the roof and you couldn't have known the night you offered her a job. Things go wrong, and sometimes they don't even need help to do so. If only I could make you see that.

I wish I could be there every time I see you with a child. I see how much it hurts you, because no matter what they look like and what age they are, they always make you think of Kelly, how she was the same or different, or how she would have been.

It also makes me smile, though, as it does Jenny, because she's right, you are wonderful with children. You were wonderful with our daughter. I have to think of our time together each time too, Jethro, and I wish I could tell you that I miss it as much as you do, and that I miss the time we never had as much as you do as well.

I also wish you wouldn't have had to loose us all over again, and get your whole life turned upside down, and loose faith all over again.

Most of all, however, I wish you wouldn't blame yourself for what happened to us. It's not your fault, Jethro. Most of the things that rob your sleep each night aren't. You're not responsible for other people's actions, and some things just happened.

I always had trouble imagining that myself when I was still alive, but now I know that, sometimes, there just is no reason.

Things really didn't turn out the way we planned, did they? How a single moment can change everything.

But one thing I always believed in, and still do, is that nothing is inalterable, no matter how convinced you are that it is.

Of course we can't go back, there are one way tracks after all. But you can go on.

How I wish I could be there to show you how.

Fin

Thanks for reading, and do leave me review. It's Christmas after all. ;)

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERBODY!!