Title: Going Home
Rating: Oh, I never know. Probably PG
Spoilers: Third season up to about , maybe.
Feedback: Please. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Note: I started this before Full Disclosure when I was stuck in an airport for about seven hours, waiting to go home, and had finished all the books that I had brought with me. Boredom is a dangerous thing.
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It's always good to go home.

Julia's hands were chapped, red and burning from the cold. A network of tiny cuts that spidered over the back of her hands, she examined it with interest. She touched a finger to the back of her left hand, and the dirt stung in the cut. She tried to think back to the last time that she had washed her hair, or any part of her body. Or eaten. She sighed again, and watched the sad little puff of breath make its way skyward. The next breath, coming warm through puckered lips, she captured in her fists in an unsuccessful attempt to warm her fingers.

She turned on her heels, and headed back toward the cabin. The snow barely crunched under her boots. The sky seemed to stretch on forever overhead, and was made sharp and clear by the cold. Sound carried straight and fast.

A large metal bucket sat freezing on the porch of the cabin. The porch was lightly dusted with snow but held little else besides the dented metal bucket. Julia filled the bucket stooping, swooshing and packing the snow in tightly. Granules of snow clung to her thin mittens. She would melt on the fire for a bath.

While the products of several trips outside with the pail simmered over an enthusiastic fire, Julia sat at a table, pen in hand, staring at a sheet of good paper, filled with writing. Satisfied with the contents, she folded it over, using her fingernail to make a sharp crease. She picked up the pen again, and wrote For Sydney in careful, centred cursive on the envelope. She had so little time left.

She emptied the boiling water into the old bear claw tub, painted purple long ago in some ill-considered fit of whimsy, where it mixed with the cooler water already there to produce a blend of an acceptable temperature.

She stripped quickly, felt goosebumps spread over her body at the shock of the cold, only to tingle and curl at the sudden warmth when she sank bellow the water. She closed her eyes, and lowered her upper body under the water, compromising by raising her knees. Her wet skin felt uncomfortably cool outside the water.

She ran her fingers over the scar on her stomach, over and over and over, concentrating on the difference in texture. She wondered when Sydney would find out how she got the scar. She hoped never.

Going home can be hard, too.
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She packed neatly and efficiently. There wasn't much that she needed, really. A toothbrush, a change of clothes, some other essentials. She couldn't afford sentiment, and didn't believe, really, that she could take talismans with her into her next life. Wouldn't really want to.

Long ago, her father had taught her about packing. She had used to watch him prepare to go on his many trips, and had admired the precise compartments and neatly folded and organized luggage. He had taught her about the importance of choosing just what she needed and leaving everything else behind. He taught her to sort socks from shampoo bottles, to keep them separate, to put them in airtight containers to keep them from contaminating each other.

When she'd put the last of her things into an olive drab satchel, she glanced a her watch, then walked steadily out of the cabin, the bag over her shoulder, trailing wire behind her. At the edge of the clearing, she turned around, and breathed deeply through her nose. She pushed a detonator switch.

When the flames were dying down, she walked back toward the rubble. She tossed a blond wig on the fire, wrinkling her nose at the smell of burning hair. She turned a final time, and walked away, creating a furrow as she passed in the otherwise untroubled snow. Earlier, her radio had announced that a blizzard was due in the next few days. When it came, she knew her trail would be wiped out.

An hour later, in another clearing, she heard the helicopter coming. She stood at the edge, leaning against a tree, as the helicopter landed, as the buzz of it blaze tangled her brown hair, and made her squint her eyes. She ducked her head under the blades, tossed her bag in the back. She sat in the next to the pilot, and settled the seat belt over her hips, pulling off her thick gloves to fasten the cold metal latch with a click. She nodded curtly at the pilot, he lifted off. Julia closed her eyes, and tipped her head back against the seat, tilting her chin up and breathing out in a warm stream all at once. Her face relaxed, but her shoulders stayed rigidly square, and her spine stayed straight.

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The helicopter landed on an old airstrip in an abandoned airfield. The blades slowed to a lazy whump whump whump before stopping altogether. She slipped out of the helicopter, landed with an accustomed spring on the concrete.

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Lying on the operating table, she willed her body to relax, forced her breaths to be longer, shallower, until her shoulders unwound themselves.

He came up to her, showed her a syringe.

Okay, Julia? he asked, slightly scared and gloating all at once.

She nodded, once, tersely.

He touched the needle to her, dimpling, but not piercing, her skin.

Last chance.

She didn't nod this time, just looked at him before turning her head away and closing her eyes.

In some distant part of her mind, she felt the sting of the needle slipping into her arm.

And Julia died.