Gone Forever: Three Days Grace
For: Mrs. Frank Hardy
Ben stared at the piece of paper in his hands, for the past hour. Reading its contents as if they would change at any moment. That the words wouldn't be the same as they were last week, or forbid the two weeks prior to that. It was a simple letter, that held no emotions, but was still the most important thing he had read.
The short paragraph was typed, probably the same as every other letter that had gotten distributed from MI6. Though what irked Ben was the timing, it took too long to be delivered from the head, as if they hadn't sent out hundreds of these forms before.
The first sentence was what stood out, forget that it was from one top government agency, just the few words that stated, we are sorry to inform you, would send warning bells off in anyone's mind. Let alone a spy that worked for said government agency and knew how protocol worked. Which is exactly why he put it away for the following week, imagining he had never gotten it, but it couldn't be ignored.
He didn't actually read the letter, until he got a phone call about the remains. Then it struck him, that this was real, and he couldn't keep ignoring it. He found out what he expected, that the body would be delayed about a week since it was out of the country. Though Ben didn't cry, not even when he had to be present to identify the body. He still went back and read the letter over, perhaps it wasn't the person he knew, the person he knew it could only be.
However much thinking he did, that didn't change the fact that it was true, and the funeral proved that.
It didn't actually dawn on him until the second time reading the letter, picking it up by mistake, then staring at it for the next twenty minutes. That was the first time he shed any tears for his fallen partner. But now reading it a fifth time, at the kitchen table, in the span of three weeks. It hit him, hard; that he didn't notice the tears until they hit the sides of the letter.
"Are you crying?"
Ben looked up to see Wolf standing in the doorway. He sighed and flipped the letter over and wiped his cheeks off with the back of his hand.
"I'm not crying," Ben told him.
"Right, so what a river is just flooding your vision?"
"Why are you here?" Ben asked ignoring the remark.
"Checking up on you," Wolf responded.
"Well, you checked, I'm fine, you can leave," Ben told him.
"Obviously you're not 'fine' when you're staring at that damned later crying. Oh sorry, not crying, just a river flooding your eyes," Wolf told him. "Ben, you need to cope."
"I am coping."
"Crying over the informative letter is not coping. It's moping. Come on Ben, I know you were the closest one to the kid, but you have to get over it."
"I am over it, I went to the funeral, paid my respects, its done," he told Wolf harshly.
"You need to accept that he's gone, and not coming back," Wolf clarified.
"I-I just can't Wolf." Ben was quiet for a minute, thinking about how to put his thoughts into words. "You don't know what it was like living with him, coming home in the middle of the night from a mission he had been on since the previous week. Only to turn and run out the door on another one the day after. My mind keeps telling me that he's on a mission and that's all, that he will be back soon. That he's not gone..."
"Well, we're going to change that, come on," Wolf said and helped him up, leading him out the door.
"What are we doing?"
"Helping you cope. If Eagle could cope by staying up straight for a week, then crashing, I'm positive you can do it in a much better fashion."
"Like what?"
"Well, we aren't SAS for nothing, Fox. Paintball of course."
"I don't know-"
"Ben, I am not letting you mope around anymore, it's almost been a month. Now Cub would want you to be a man, get over yourself, and cream some little kids in paintball. Now, what do you say?"
"Well, I would say pick out our teams evenly. But Cub would recommend a everyone for themselves against the SAS teams," Ben said. "So, what do you say?"
"So...we get to kick ass either way?" Wolf asked.
Ben smirked, "Yes, we get to kick ass either way."
So, here is the next song/chapter. Since Mrs. Frank Hardy put in two requests the next chapter will be the other song, but the contents will be related to this chapter, so make sure you read this one otherwise the next one will be a bit confusing. Thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a good day. :)
