A/N: For those of you who followed The Pain Lives On, this is the other little surprise I mentioned. Also yes, I know the cover image is weird and kinda funny but hey had to put something in there.

So here it is. Hope you guys enjoy it. Read and review as always.

~CJ

EDIT: I have replaced the silly image with a more suitable one now. Thank God for GIMP!

Alone sat a man who stared out his open window from his nearby desk, closing his eyes as he listened to the soft pitter-patter of the rain while smoking his cigar. The mixture of the cool mist and the cigar smoke created this odd scent that was neither good nor bad. It was as if it was a dream. Then his cigar became unlit due to the rain once a few stray droplets flew in from a burst of wind.

He let out a heavy sigh. "Damn it…", he muttered as he took the cigar and threw it into his trash bin. Reaching behind him, he grabbed a dangling metal chain and pulled it, turning on a dim lamp as he listened to the bustling streets of New York.

It was then that he heard a knocking on his door. He sighed. It always seemed that whenever he wanted to relax on a Friday everybody always wanted to ruin it for him. "Come in. Door's unlocked.", he called out.

A loud, drawn creak and the clacks of heels signaled the entrance of the person. He hoped to God it wasn't Miller. Last thing he needed was another job. Judging from the sound, it was a pair of high heels. And last time he checked, Kaz didn't wear that stuff. Swiveling around on his large leather desk chair, he noticed a woman standing in front of him.

And what a sight she was! She had brunette hair that flowed down and rested on her shoulders, serene and crystal-clear gray eyes. Her cheeks had the faint hue of natural makeup and her lips were a darkened rosy red, all curled into a tight, tucked position as she closed her umbrella and checked her fur coat for any signs of wetness.

She looked up to meet the gaze of the man and gasped in shock at the sight of his face. Though his structure was not damaged in any sort, he had pieces of shrapnel stuck in his head, and stiches all over. His hair, though slightly messy from wearing a hat, was slicked back in a handsome manner.

"My god…", she remarked at him, simply marveling at his presence for a while. The staring eventually annoyed the man.

His eyes squinted in annoyance and he leaned over on the desk, pushing the typewriter a little forward to make room. "What're you here for miss? If you're only here to stare at me like I'm some sort of freak circus act, then get the hell out."

She shook her head quickly. "No, no! I'm sorry! I just…never knew…"

He clicked his tongue. Judging from the accent, she was Dutch. Her face was familiar to him…and not to mention that voice. But with the giant piece of metal stuck in his brain, it was hard to remember, even with therapy. "Never knew what, lady?"

"Never knew…that you…forget it.", her hand covered her mouth and then waved off as she sighed and slowly stepped over to the dual chairs in front of the desk.

"Wait.", interrupting her path, he held up a hand and got up from his seat, moving over around the large hunk of wood to her. Grabbing her fur coat and sliding it off gently, he stepped over and put it on the hanger that stood near the door. It was here that the woman noticed that he was also an amputee. Gone was the left arm from the bicep down, this being made apparent by the mass at the top of his suit sleeve and the slimmer, dangling part of the same sleeve.

She could almost feel the tears well up in her eyes. Was this what happened to him?

He then turned around and took her hand softly, holding it by her fingers, guiding her to the chair and pulling it out for her. She smiled and sat down, soon feeling the chair move forward as the man pushed it. For a person with only one arm, he sure was strong. "Thank you.", she folded her legs and spoke to him.

"You're welcome. Anything else you need?", he asked as he plopped down on his seat.

"No, but thanks for being such a gentleman.", her lips tugged at both ends into the sweetest smile the man had ever seen for a long while.

"Anytime, miss.", he returned her gaze but found it hard to even cock a grin. After all the things he's done…all the pain he had to go through to head home…it was hard to be happy. Especially when those that even kept that emotion alive died along with the good times. "So what brings you here? Can tell you're not from these parts."

"Yea. I'm looking for someone in this city. I met him before in the Netherlands, but he was gone before I knew it."

He bit his inner lip. Was this woman really searching for someone who she only met for God knows how long? He really hoped it wasn't another dumb love quest. He dragged the typewriter to him and began to insert paper and ink into the machine. Pushing the mechanism sideways, the paper was loaded and ready to be typed.

He immediately began typing away the date and time. "Might I ask your name and contact number Miss…"

"Joosten. Stefanie Joosten."

"Last name spelling?"

"J-o-o-s-t-e-n."

"Right."

A cocking back of the typewriter and he looked at her again, this time pulling out a notepad and a pencil, the latter at the ready in his right hand. "Right…now Stefanie, I need you to give a description of the man. What does he look like, how tall is he, things like that."

"Um…", she rolled her eyes up in thought as she racked her brain trying to find the details. She then put her attention back to him. "He's about…I would say five feet eleven inches. He has a squared chin…oh! He also has this weird blank eye. And…he has a blue eye too. That's all I can remember for now."

Right when she was talking about the blank eye, he suddenly stopped scribbling and scrunched his brow. Then the blue eye part. Then all the details came together. It was him. She was looking for a man who was standing right in front of her. But he wouldn't tell it outwardly, whether by words or body language.

"Hm. ", he wrote down the details about the eyes. "Do you remember how you met? What was his personality like? I think I might know him.", he asked, slightly expectant in his tone. He wanted to confirm his suspicions.

"I remember exactly how we met.", she then got this big grin on her face as she reminisced the moment. "It was a nice, moderate day in the Netherlands. News of the allies pushing back Nazi forces in Normandy. Pretty soon enough, they began retreating from our land and we were free from tyranny. Then these nice men from Britain and the United States came town by town, liberating us without firing a single shot."

This sounded real familiar to him now. His memory was starting to jog now. All those Dutch villages full of people hiding in their homes and publicly humiliating those who collaborated with the Nazis. It was a shame, but nothing he could've done about it. He probably would've felt the same way if he was in that situation.

"And one day, this really handsome man and some other troops came to my town, waving their flags and accepting the clamoring crowds' kind paybacks. I was so overjoyed at their sight, especially this one. He stood out to me for some reason. I couldn't pinpoint why.", she shifted from side to side as her coy smile lit up.

" I went up to him and hugged and kissed him on his cheek. Then soon enough…we started talking. He was so surprised I knew English very well, even if I was a native Dutch. Told him about my American father was the reason and how he came here, and everything else I could conjure up. And just as he was about to tell me his name and things about him…he had to go.", he face now had a hint of downtrodden feelings as his lip pushed towards her left side.

"All I heard from him over the loud sounds of the people as he left was "New York". So I came here to see him, to live in America. All the things he told me about his country were so interesting to me. All the dreams that could come true here…the happiness. And the history of the nation. It was weird at first…but I came to love everything about this country. Nearly a year goes by and now the Japanese were defeated, I still couldn't find him.", the smile disappeared from her face afterwards, and she inhaled deeply.

Exhaling, her speech slowly got more hitched. "Then I hear how a soldier who fought in Europe decided to continue in Japan. The reasons were unknown…but it was like he was empty. Devoid of everything positive. All that was left was bitterness and anger."

Now the man focused in more on her story. Just how the hell did she know about him going to the Pacific war? And how did she know about his anger? She must've asked around the Marines herself or something.

"And in his plight of revenge…he was torn to pieces by Japanese machine guns and artillery. He was hospitalized with terrible wounds…but he made it out surprisingly. He was "one tough bastard" as someone put it."

That sounds like something…Miller would say about him. Was Miller giving her hints and sending her on a wild goose chase? Reminder: yell at Miller for not only revealing too much info about his condition, but for playing with a young, pretty girl's heart like that.

"He was in a coma for two years so far. But he had just woken up, and was recovering. Then, many months later…I lost him again. I didn't know where else to look. I was about to give up and cry but…I held on to some hope that he was here. Then I found a place to help thanks to the locals here. This place. I figured getting an investigator would help me find him."

Seeing a tear roll down her face, he grimly pulled out his handkerchief from his coat pocket and handed it to her. She dabbed her eyes and the single tear that rolled down her cheeks. Some shaky breaths later and she was calmed again under closed eyes.

She then reopened them, staring deep into his eye as she readjusted her seating position and put her hands on her lap. "Isn't it weird? I hardly know a man for a day, yet I love him like I knew him for months. So much so I spend years trying to find him."

Then came nothing but the sound of dead silence, rain, and cars rumbling by as they drove off. The man inhaled sharply and shakily. He could almost feel a tear coming. This woman really was after him. She really did love him that much.

But just like before, he easily suppressed the emotion. From his experience in the battlefield, it was easy to do this. Or well…it was easy with his comrades around. He lost them all in a blink of an eye. After that, the only thing he could feel was anger and hatred. Something he found himself having difficulty to suppress. But he learned. Oh, did he learn.

Yet this woman went after him, even if his demonic attitude out in the Pacific was revealed to her. It really made him think.

He was always so distant, so stoic. He pondered how she could like talking with him, let alone wanna go on a fetch-quest for him. Never had he known this kind of love since his now deceased mother. He crumpled the notepad paper and tossed it in the tiny trash bin nearby as his eye stared needles into his desk.

"Miss."

"Yes?", her head tilted slight with her eyes full of concern.

He slowly turned his gaze up to her. "I am that man you wanted to find."

"I knew it.", she smiled and exhaled noisily before hopping off the seat and trotting over to tightly embrace him. "I finally found you. After all this time…", she whispered into his ear as she held him close.

He stiffened up pretty quickly, being that he hasn't felt the touch of a woman other than his mother for so long. He simply stared at the back of her head for a bit before he slowly moved his arms around her. He couldn't find the words within him to comment on the situation after being so used to having the same emotional integrity as a brick.

The only words he could muster was, "Yea. I'm here."

She parted from it and stared into his eyes, her smile immediately reverting back as she tilted her head at him. There was this period of rather awkward between the two. "It's not polite to stare, miss Joosten."

She then quickly shook her head, breaking herself from the trance. Her eyes were glued to the floor as a light blush flooded her cheeks, making them slightly warm. "S-sorry. It's just…you look so different from before. And your eyes…they're hazy. And it's not cause one of them is blind."

The man blinked at her words. He let out a sigh before he uttered another word. "Yea…war does that to you. Especially when…you're the last one alive out of the group.", his eyes closed slowly and let out a shaky breath.

Once more, a hand covered the young Dutch woman's mouth. Was he truly the last survivor of his platoon? What a terrible fate. And damaged no less, both physically and mentally.

"I'm sorry.", she almost felt herself tear up.

"It's fine. Nothing you could've done anyways. I'm just glad I was able to blast the heads off those totalitarian fucks.", he was about to reach for his cigar when he felt a hand grab his. He turned to her, noticing her dead-on stare as she tried to hold back emotions.

"I know I couldn't do anything back then. That's why I came. Not just to love, but to fix…now and later."

A simple smirk erupted from the detective as he pulled her into another tight hug. It caught her by surprise, seeing as this was one of the few emotions he ever showed. He kissed her cheek lightly before rotating back around whilst rubbing her back softly. "You're one hell of a woman, Stefanie."