A/N: It has been a while since I've posting anything, but it would be a shame to leave it hanging here, even though adding to a story that has started out as a christmas one on the last day of January is somewhat, well, odd. But then again, I do not care much for rules and regulations, and this one is almost done.

Enjoy, once again, thanks for reading and leave a review or personal thought on your way out to reality.

۩

X

The surprise was clearly visible on his face when she came in. 'You're back?'

She nodded and she placed the bottle of grape juice she bought on the table, together with another box. 'You didn't expect me to come back, did you?' He shook his head.

'But here I am, and I brought you something,' she said and pointed at the box. 'Go ahead, open it, it's for you.' She saw his hesitation and she encouraged him to pick up the box. So he did. He opened it and took out a robe. He just stared at it.

Then he looked at her. She nodded. 'I thought the least I could do is to give you something to stay warm in while you're here. It sure beats the hospital pyjamas.' His fingers felt the soft cloth, and he looked up at her. 'I….I don't know what to say…..'

'You could say Thank you…' she offered, smiling.

'Why are you doing all this for me? I don't understand…..'

'You don't have to understand, just enjoy it.'

'But….why?'

'You look like a broken record, Walter, you're repeating.'

'You mean sound like one….'

'Not to me.' He frowned and then a smile, a very hesitant smile was coming through. Sue had the feeling he somehow would not show too much of himself, an act of self defence she thought, worn in by the years living on the streets where softness was absent, yet he was lowering this shield ever so slightly.

'I….I'm still confused about all this, one minute I'm on the street, the next in, well, heaven…..' Sue began to laugh. 'Well, this is still a hospital, so I'm not that sure about the heaven-part.'

'Is….is your friend coming too?' he asked, almost shyly. Sue nodded. 'Lucy is on her way here.' That seemed to cheer him up. 'I still can't believe you are doing all this for me, buying things, visiting me. Don't you have a day job?'

'Yeah, I have, but afterwards I can go here, anywhere I want, if work permits.'

'Sue, it was, wasn't it?' She nodded. 'Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to…'

'Sure, ask anything you want.'

'What kind of work can you do when you're deaf?' Sue smiled. 'Pretty much anything you would want to do, or hate to do for that matter.' Walter nodded, grasping what she had said and processing it inwardly. 'So, you do what you want?'

'You mean, for work?'

'Yeah…'

'Yes, I do what I always wanted to do. And I got the opportunity to do it.'

'What…do you do? If I may ask?'

'I work with the FBI', she said. She saw how uncertainty and perhaps even mistrust crept in his eyes, probably due to previous, unfaithful encounters with law enforcement, she figured. She placed her hand over his, she felt relieved he didn't pull back. 'I'm not here to do anything to you, I'm here because I care, it has nothing to do with my job, Walter, trust me.'

'Oh, okay.'

'No, honestly, Walter, nothing whatsoever.' He took the robe again. 'Do you think it will fit?'

She got up. 'I had to take a little bit of a gamble on the size, but we'll find out won't we?'

'You mean now? Here?'

Sue nodded as she held the robe in front of him, mustering the size. 'Unless you're shy in the presence of a woman.' Levi gave a soft bark. 'And a dog,' she added.

'Eh, I don't know…'

'You know what? I'll ask the nurse first if you're allowed to do so, then, afterwards you'll try it, with or without us present. D-E-A-L?'

'What was that last part?'

'I said deal, fingerspelled.'

'Like in sign language, or something?'

'Yes, in ASL. My language.'

'But….I thought English is your language, you speak it all the time…'

'True, but I consider English to be my second language, like a foreigner. My native language is ASL, American Sign Language.'

'Oh, I see….wow.'

'I'm sorry?'

'I said 'wow'.' She smiled.

۩

Then, Levi pricked up his ears and got up, looking at the door. Sue turned to see what was happening. 'Hey, Luce.'

"GOOD EVENING" she said, the heel of her right bent hand, palm facing forward, tapping twice against the thumb side of the left open hand she held across her chest, palm facing down. 'Hi, Walter, how are you?', she asked as she knelt down to ruffle Levi's fur.

'Sue bought me a robe', he said, like a child who has been given a most precious gift and wants to share it with the whole world. 'And, do you like it?' He nodded.

'I was just about trying to get him to put it on, but apparently, he's shy in the presence of women….', Sue joked. Lucy smiled. 'Don't let her get to you, Walter, just put it over your pyjamas. After all, that's what a robe's for. Miss Thomas here just likes to tickle men every now and then. Especially handsome men.'

'Lucy!' She pulled an innocent face. 'What? You're not saying Walter here is not a good looking man?' Sue rolled her eyes. 'Every now and then, she just talks nonsense. This is one of those moments. Don't pay attention to it.' Walter had watched their interaction with a soft light of joy in his eyes, enjoying the moment, their playful banter.

'So, did you sleep well last night?', Lucy asked.

'Right after you left, the docs gave me something.' He grimaced as pain once again shot through his chest. 'You're still in pain, aren't you?', Sue softly asked.

'I've had worse.'

'In war, you mean…..'

He looked at them surprised. 'Yeah….how did you know?'

'That would be me,' Lucy said. 'When I went to collect your belongings the man who had it stored said that there were some medals in the box and some photo's. Nothing else really.'

'You looked in my stuff….'

'I must admit I got curious after seeing such a small box, I thought it was really small and wanted to check if it indeed was so little. That's when I saw the medals and a photo.' She took Walter's hand. 'I'm sorry I just went through your belongings, that was wrong of me, I should've asked your permission…..'

He shrugged. 'Everything was in it, it's okay. You've been so nice to me, I can't be mad.'

Lucy smiled to him. 'Thank you.'

'So, you've seen them….'

'The medals you mean?' He nodded. 'There was not much else in it was there?' Lucy shook her head, a sympathetic smile, feeling sorry. He waved it off. 'No need to feel sorry, I made a mess of it, well partially anyway.'

'We're not here to judge,' said Sue. He open the drawer of the small closet near his bed and took out the box. He placed it on his lap and opened it.

'I don't know if you recognized them, but this is the Purple Heart, and this one is a Bronze Star.' He held the medals up for them to see. 'Can I take a closer look, Walter?' asked Sue. He gave her the medals. 'Korea,' he said.

'I'm sorry?'

'The Korean War.' Sue did not get it. "K-O-R-E-A" Lucy helped.

'Oh, Korea, now I get it,' she said. Her right 'K' hand touched near the outer corner of her right eye, palm facing in, and twisted the hand forward with a double movement. "KOREA"

Both Lucy and Walter repeated her, naturally, Walter's attempt was far from perfect, but Sue was nevertheless warmed with his gesture. 'Yes, that's very good, Walter.'

'I may not know much about Military medals and all, but I know the Purple Heart is something you get for injuries, right?'

'Yes, Chosin Reservoir, December 1950.'

'I didn't get the first part, what reservoir?' Sue asked looking at Lucy who shrugged. 'I'm afraid my knowledge of Korean geography is somewhat limited to Seoul.'

Walter smiled. 'I never heard of it before, but ever since, it's carved in me. Literally.' He pulled up the legs of his pyjamas, revealing a nasty scar. Both Sue and Lucy shivered. 'I got more, but you get the idea what shrapnel can do to you.'

'That's where you got the medal for?'

He nodded. 'Nothing brave about it. We were on the western side of the Reservoir and the Chinese wanted it too. Three days after Christmas Eve they raided us.' He rolled down the legs again and stared at his hands. 'Lost many of my buddies right there and then.'

'I'm so sorry,' said Sue, placing a hand on his. He looked up, his eyes expressing acquiesce. 'What can you do about it? It's war, things happen.'

'Those men on the pictures….'

'Most of them are dead, some of them still there somewhere….'

'My god…'

۩

'That other medal is a Bronze Star, for bravery,' he huffed, cynical, his eyes thousands of miles away, as if he was there again. Reliving the horror. He was silent for several minutes.

Then he pointed at a young looking, quite handsome man on the picture he held. 'That's me, in better days.' Both women took a closer look. "NOT BAD" Sue said, "HANDSOME YOU"

Walter looked puzzled. 'What did you say?' Sue smiled. 'I said you look handsome.'

'All those signs mean handsome?' Sue shook her head. 'No, I said, 'not bad', then I signed 'handsome' which in fact is the signs 'Face' and 'Clean' together.'

'Oh, I see...complex.' Sue squinted her eyes but then she understood. 'Yes, ASL, like any other language, is complex.' Sue studied the other men's faces. Each in the prime of their life, laughing into the lens, confident, untouched by the terror yet to come. She couldn't shake of the chilling idea most of them had been killed, or were still missing. No loved ones around, no grave to go to…..

'Yep,' he concluded. 'Those gooks got us pretty good.'

'What happened afterwards?'

'I got hit by shrapnel when I was busy hauling one of my buddies out of the line of fire. My back, my legs, they were all torn to pieces. It burned like hell. The MASH took care of the first things, then I was shipped to Japan for more surgery. After that, I went back to the US.' He shifted his weight in bed for a more comfortable position. 'My legs are as stiff as a column and my back is still to pieces. I never fully recovered.'

'Your wife, how did she take it?' He smiled. 'How did you know?' Sue pointed at the picture where his hand, resting on the shoulder of another man, showed a ring on his finger. 'Don't forget, we work with the FBI, we're trained to notice things like that,' she said with a wink.

'I should have known…..Anyway, she had run off with someone else when I got home after those months in recovery. Never kept contact again.' He stared out of the window.

'In a way, I'm still there, back in those grassy hills, in the birch woods, in the snow. It never left me, there's not one single day I don't think about Korea,' he said and he gestured at his legs. 'If I tried to forget, these suckers did remind me anyway. So I began drinking to forget, to be numb for the pain. After that, I lost my job, my pension. And landed on the streets.'

He sighed, which triggered a series of bad coughs. Both Lucy and Sue shot up to help him. He waved them off. 'There's nothing to be done, the docs said. A matter of weeks and I'm gone, perhaps days…'

'Don't talk like that, Walter,' said Sue. He shrugged. 'It's the truth.'

'You're not afraid?' asked Lucy. 'No, not really. I've seen death's ugly face in Korea, and here on the streets too. Nothing the Grim Reaper throws at me will scare me.'

'But you're dying, Walter.' He shrugged. 'It's long overdue…..' He closed his eyes and laid his head on the pillow.

'I'll finally be together with the friends I lost.' A smile crept over his face as he relived parts of those days gone by. 'Finally together…..'