A/N: all dates of Marine operations in Fallujah are from the Internet. Specific dates are probably wrong for someone in the Reserves, where I've put Danny. We know Danny did two tours in Fallujah, so I have his tour dates as March-December 2003, he comes home for barely two months when Sean is two months old, then goes back for his second tour from February 2004-January 2005, coinciding with the second battle of Fallujah and some of the bloodiest days of the war.
All errors are the author's. Please don't hate me!
Trigger warnings: talk of war, the September 11 attacks.
"I told you I wanted to have another baby, and your response is: You're shipping off to some God-forsaken hellhole next month?"
He sighs. "Linda, I'm in the Reserves. I told you this might happen, after…after 9/11."
"And I figured they'd call you up then, not wait eighteen months. You've served your country—you worked twenty hours a day for months after the attacks. Why now?"
"Because my C.O. said I'm going. I'm a Marine, Linda."
"You're also an NYPD detective with a wife and a little boy. Can't you be excused on…those grounds? Your family needs you more?"
A fragment of a poem crosses his mind, but he decides now is not the time. Plus, he needs to look it up first, so he doesn't botch the delivery.
"When my C.O. says I'm going, I'm going. I'm sorry, Linda."
The next few weeks are tense; he works longer hours, so he doesn't have to hear Linda crying, or see the look in her eyes. When he is home, he wonders if she really is as angry as she seems, because she goes from tight-lipped and terse, to having her hands up his shirt every time Jack's asleep.
The night before he ships off to Camp LeJeune, when Linda's asleep after some of the best sex he's had in a while, he gets out of bed and pads downstairs to his laptop, turns it on, and Googles the poem that's been in his mind for weeks.
He prints it out, then copies it out—by hand—on one of those fancy pieces of stationery Linda keeps for important stuff like invitations to birthdays.
He slips it under her pillow while she's in the bathroom.
Linda has just gotten Jack to sleep—the toddler had screamed for the entire drive home from the airport, yelling for "Dada!"
After trying to quiet him for an hour at home, Linda had just cried along with him. She wants Danny, too. But he's on a plane to Iraq. He said it'll be seven months before he's home. She hopes it isn't longer.
She lies down, frowning when something like paper crinkles under her pillow.
She sits up, reaches under the pillow, pulls out a piece of paper.
Danny's lopsided, messy, left-handed writing covers the page.
To Linda, On Going to the War [based on a poem by some dude named Richard Lovelace—I wonder if he really loved lace ;-)]
Tell me not, Babe, I am unkind,
That from the sanctuary
Of your chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms, I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A gun and a mortar. [Sorry, Babe, rhyming sucks]
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shalt adore;
I could not love you, Babe, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.
Linda sniffles, realizing her face is wet. She wipes her eyes. "How can you be so sweet, Danny? How can you make me so damn angry, and then, go and…do something so freaking adorable?"
She pads into the bathroom so she doesn't wake Jack, dials Danny's cell. It goes to voicemail, and she hangs up, realizing that he probably doesn't have it anymore, or has it turned off.
She types out a text—that'll be easier for him to read and (she hopes) re-read: "Got your poem. I know—you had to do this. Still doesn't make it hurt less. I love you so, so much, babe. Come home soon. I'm sorry I've been so pissy, hormones were rough this month, and…I just really wish you were here. Seven months sounds like an eternity. I Love You More."
She turns the fan on and sobs her eyes out.
It's two months before he's able to call her. He's sent one email, read three of hers; but things in-country are so tense and fraught and hellish…
"I'm sorry I'm not there," he says, and prays Linda doesn't hear the RPG hit outside the base.
He should be used to them by now.
He isn't.
"It's o…no, it's not okay, Danny. You didn't have to volunteer. You did your time."
"I'm in the Reserves, Linda. My country needed me."
"Your country has plenty of 18- and 19- and 20-year-olds ready and willing to enlist. They didn't need a 30-year-old to re-enlist when he has a wife and son."
He hates that they're fighting on their first phone call.
"Linda…I didn't…I didn't know it would take this long. When I re-upped two months after 9/11, I thought…I thought for sure they'd take me then, we'd fight, it'd be over. I didn't know this was a long-term thing."
He's floundering. He doesn't even know what he's trying to say.
"I…I'm pregnant, Danny. Our sons need you."
"Sons?" he whispers, blinking dust out of his eyes. It's dust—definitely not a tear. There's nothing but dust in the air here. "You…you're pregnant?"
"Apparently that last night of angry, passionate, I-don't-want-you-to-leave sex we had…I was fertile, and I was too upset to realize. But I had told you I wanted another baby. It's way too early to know if it's a boy or a girl, but…I have a feeling, like I did with Jack."
He bites his lip, wishing he hadn't lost the video call he'd tried to make ten minutes ago. "I love you, Linda Rose. And Jack. And that baby, so much. How many weeks are you now?"
"Eight weeks."
He clears his throat, so she doesn't know he's choked up. "How are you feeling?"
"Sore, tender, nauseous. Your family…I told your mom and Erin, and…they're helping, when they can, with Jack and stuff."
He sniffles. "God, I wish I were there."
"Danny, are you crying?"
"Maybe, a little. I love you so much. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you more before I left. I'm sorry I got mad. I'm… I love you so much, Linda."
"Love you more, Danny." She sniffles in her turn. "Danny?"
"Yeah?"
"I miss you. I go into the closet sometimes and smell your coat so it still feels like you're near. Your poem is always in my pocket-I made a copy of it, a small one, and laminated it. I read it every night before bed. It's beautiful, and I…I get it now, why you had to go. Just…stay safe, come home to me, and…Danny?"
"Yeah?"
"If…if things get bad, promise me you'll talk to somebody. The chaplain over there, or…write a letter to your Dad. Just…don't bottle everything up."
"I promise," he says, lying through his teeth.
An alarm sounds, and he tenses. "I gotta go, Linda. I love you. Take care of Jack and the baby—and take care of yourself, babe. I love you."
"Love you more," she whispers through tears.
"Love you most," he says, and hangs up.
It's gonna be a long deployment.