Title: Home Again
Author: Me
Prompt: #25 Strangers
Pairing: BJ/Peg - sort of; Peg POV
Rating: Everyone
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own anything. Don't sue … no money.
Archive: Anywhere, just let me know.
Feedback: Would be appreciated - good or bad.
Word Count: 516
Spoilers: None.
Summary: BJ returns home from Korea.
A/N: This is pretty angsty. I swear I'm trying to write something funny/smutty/light … but it's just not happening. At least not yet. I promise to try harder next time.
BJ returned home from Korea today and the man who stood at the foot of the runway was not the man who, two years ago, left me behind. Part of me knew that he wouldn't be the same. How could he be? With all he'd been through over there - all the death and the blood. The unending horror he had faced each and every day in that place.
But this I did not expect. This I did not prepare myself for …
Crystal blue eyes that had sparkled with joyful exuberance, with bright hope for the future, were now dark and cloudy. They swirled with fear and shame and some unrecognizable emotion that I couldn't read. And it scared me to death. The hardness behind those oval pools turned my insides into ice.
His once perfect face was filled with deep lines; far more than a man in his early thirties should legitimately hold. His short, close-cut golden hair was now wildly unkempt and streaked with lines of gray. And he'd grown a moustache - he knew I disliked them immensely - which he kept nervously twisting between his forefinger and thumb. He appeared ancient - as if he had aged fifty years rather than the twenty eight months he'd been away. One could, I suppose, blame the war completely, but I could see that it went far beyond Korea.
I wasn't sure I wanted to know where.
The easy, friendly smile was gone and had been replaced with a sullen, cynical frown. His lips looked as if they were permanently curved downward. Even when I waved and shouted his name, they did not budge and I felt my heart plummet - my soul die.
He began to walk towards me, and I noticed that there was no spring in his step. He moved slowly, his back bowed and stooped. It almost seemed as if he were carrying some unseen burden upon his shoulders and, with each forward movement, it was crushing him. He was sinking, sinking beneath its weight - right before my eyes.
As we hugged in greeting, his body was stiff, tense, while his arms were loose and rubbery. As if they were boneless. Once upon a time, I had felt magic in his embrace. Passion. Heat. Butterflies would fill my insides at his touch. Now, I felt nothing but detached coldness. When we separated, I met his eyes once again, hoping to see some sign, any sign, that my husband was still in there somewhere. Some small piece of BJ for me to cling to. To try and rebuild with. The only thing reflected in his eyes was a sad, bleak emptiness.
And in that moment, I knew that the love of my life, my BJ, was gone forever and that this man, this stranger had come home in his place. Yet, I still reached down and wrapped my hand in his. For Erin, for BJ and for me, I took him home and loved him all the same.
The End