A/N: Hmmm… these chapters are getting really angsty. Hope it's not boring it's just, I guess when you do have a personal insight into these sort of situations, you really want to do it justice. Only, the thing is, these situations suck. And not just some of the time. More often than not, it all just sucks. Hence major angst.

In a nutshell – and speaking as someone who's copped a fair amount of homophobic shit in a rather short lifetime – moving on isn't really an option because you live with that pain every day and besides, if you just forget about it, it's never going to get better.

And then there's the flip side of that: the Pride movement. Yes, it does amazing things. Yes, it's the driving force for change but, what people don't realise is that there is so much pressure to then yield to all that and let it be the major factor in your life.

Either way, it all tried to make out that being gay is the biggest deal of your life and personally, I like to think I'm a whole lot more than just that. Now, I'm a fairly confident person (nowadays) and that's mostly due to hitting absolute rock bottom a few years ago, and I still find it tough. Imagine how someone like Schofield – dealing with major changes in their lives, still struggling to accept who they are, sometimes proud, sometimes very much not and mostly just confused about the whole bloody thing – imagine how much harder it is again.

So yeah, that's a pretty personal note I guess but I really wanted to explain why these chapters are like this – because this is what it's actually like. Crazy!

On a lighter note, I toyed with the idea of revealing who the marine who died was but seeing as nobody worked it out (if you think you did, please tell me! :p) it shall remain that way.

Sorry for the long time it took to get this chapter out, it's nice and long to make up for that! And it gets increasingly fluffy for the less angsty inclined.

Chapter 23

As the lights dimmed and the cameras switched off, the room around him seemed to shrink. Letting the enormity of exactly what he'd done sink in, Schofield thought that real life felt oddly unreal, diminished. He didn't look up as the cameramen and sound guys and other technical crew for whom this sort of drama was absolutely normal began to pack up around him, looking right through him. His eyes caught on a small scratch at the edge of the table – perhaps someone else equally as nervous as he was had worried it there with a fingernail until it was blunt – but the small notch caught his attention and he couldn't let it go even when a soft hand with perfectly manicured fingernails fell on his shoulder.

"Congratulations Captain," the blonde woman whose name he would probably never know said, "You're going to be a national hero and a beacon of hope for the gay community. You must be very proud."

The weight of responsibility fell hard onto Schofield's shoulders. He hadn't really considered the implications of this. That if this bill were to be passed, his name would forever be enshrined with it. He wasn't sure he wanted that. He knew he wasn't ready for it. Hell, wasn't his life complicated enough.
He would have liked to live out the rest of it in peace.

He hadn't even noticed he was crying until a solitary tear slid down his face and splashed against the marked table top.

For the first time since that unimaginably awful day, he let himself cry for every young soldier he had ever known who had had their life torn from them in the cruellest of circumstances but especially, he cried for his young friend who should have had his whole life ahead of him.
But even as he cried – silently, with only the odd tear, he supposed he had just internalised so much of the survivors guilt that ever really letting it out was going to be nigh on impossible – he realised that he did still have his life to live; and more than that, he had a responsibility to live it well for their sakes.
To not make waste of their sacrifice.

He didn't know how long he'd sat there but when he finally felt his eyes and his head clear, he reached for his sunglasses and slid them back on. As he did so, he noticed a figure hanging around the door. The president nodded at him and he managed a nod in return.
And then he was gone, slipped out of the room in a more innocuous way then Schofield could ever have imagined the president pulling off.

Standing up, he made to leave as well, knowing exactly what he had to do now.

It took him nearly an hour to drive to the quiet, leafy suburb at the edges of D.C. but eventually, he pulled up in front of just a typical little bungalow house with an immaculate lawn and a few neat flowers. The weatherboards looked as though they had just been painted a clean, crisp white and the door was blue.

He knew he should have made this trip a long time ago and every day he put it off was only going to make it more difficult. Holding his white peaked hat formally under his arm, Schofield took a deep breath before knocking on the door.

In the thirty seconds or so before the door was answered, he reckoned that the segment had probably aired half an hour ago, which meant there was a reasonable chance that the people who lived here had seen it. On one hand, it would make it a lot easier on him if they had but on the other, if anyone, these people deserved a proper explanation from him. The door opened and before him stood a slight woman. Though age had bleached her once blond hair a striking white, she had exactly the same bright blue eyes her daughter had once had.

"Mrs Gant," he said slightly stiffly, unsure of where his boundaries lay anymore.

Schofield had imagined this moment many times over and thought he had accounted for all the possibilities. He was anticipating polite awkwardness. He was anticipating being on the receiving end of a serious slap and if Libby's dad were around, he wouldn't at all be surprised if he'd been shot at. What he hadn't expected was for this woman he had once known so well, and known her to be strong, to crumple into his arms and start to weep.

He wasn't sure if he comfortingly ushered her back into the kitchen or if she hysterically dragged him in. Either way, he ended up sitting at their kitchen table as she bustled about making tea and drying her eyes. Looking around, he saw that the paint on the roof was starting to flake, that the tap was dripping and that Libby's mother had added a generous slice of homemade cake onto a plate to go with the tea. As she handed him the plate and a steaming mug of tea, she gently grabbed his hand and at that moment, he knew.

Her hand was soft like worn linen and creased with age. Schofield stalled for time by running a thumb across her knuckles. Looking up, he caught her eyes and saw that she was smiling at him, encouraging him to ask.
"You saw it, didn't you?" He said and Anne Gant nodded.

"I'm proud of you."

Of all the things she could have said, that was the only one that just about knocked him over with surprise. There was no need for her to say anymore, that said everything. That she knew and understood and didn't hate him for leading on her daughter, for never getting the chance to tell her and now, he never would.
As much as he had loved Libby – and he had – he had loved her family just as much. It had been everything that his wasn't. In this small kitchen with a leaking tap and the amazing smell of still warm cake – like she knew he'd be coming – he felt more at home than he had in a long time.
He knew he should have done this earlier.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner," he said. Although the conversation between them was almost unnecessary, this was one thing he felt he had to say.

Mrs Gant shook her head at him.
"Let's hear none of that," she said. "After everything that happened, you needed to get your head on straight again, if you'll pardon the pun."

Shane couldn't help but laugh. Libby had inherited her razor wit, her ability to always say the right thing and her kind nature directly from her mother. After the funeral, in which there was no actual body to bury, he had left without as much as a glance in Anne's direction because it hurt too much. He had felt so much grief and guilt that back then, he didn't want to remember. Surprisingly now, he found that he could think about her, about everything that was wonderful about her, even sit in her family kitchen with the woman that reminded him so very much of her and not hurt.

"Now, you eat that up," Anne said stern but with twinkling eyes, patting his hand again as she stood up, "And I'm going to go and get something to show you."

Schofield had just tucked into the delicious cake – the only thing Libby had failed to inherit from her mother was her ability to cook, and given his own meagre abilities in the kitchen, this had proved to be a bit of a problem. Always sunny, Libby had insisted they try and learn together, resulting in some of his funniest yet most disastrous memories – when Anne returned holding a large stack of paper.

She handed Schofield the pile and, holding her tea to her lips and gently blowing on it, surveyed him over the rim.

It was a mixture of old photographs and letters, all slightly tatty around the edges by many thumbs through. Schofield looked and read with fondness, amazement and the ever present pang of grief.

There was Libby as a small girl wearing a sunflower dress and that brilliant smile. She had hitched the dress up so her knickers were on show for all the world to see and her face was smeared with what looked like ice-cream. She couldn't have been more than three years old.

He saw her growing up – photos of her learning to ride a bike, graduating school, getting married.

There was even a very battered picture of a group of people standing on a tropical beach in pearl, all wearing loud Hawaiian t-shirts.
He was fairly sure it was the same copy he'd given her.

Then there were the letters, stamped from Afghanistan. They must have been sent whilst she was doing her tour of duty.
Letters that spoke of her love for him and her growing suspicions that the feelings weren't returned, or at least, not how she wanted them to be.

That once, just once, she thought she had seen him look at somebody else in a way that he didn't look at her, although other men did; and that somebody else was a man.
She had been confused and angry – rightly so – and worried that maybe she was just making it up in her head.

She wondered if he had ever even considered the possibility he wasn't quite as straight as he thought he was.

That she knew he was faithful to her but sometimes, she wished he wasn't because it would give her a chance to confront him outright.

She confessed she had even felt guilty because she thought she might have pressured him into sex.

She had known that he was going to propose but she had these niggling doubts growing in the back of her mind.
She wanted him for sure but importantly, she wanted him to be happy more because that's what real love is like.
She was going to say no for his sake.

Ironically, he thought, he was only going to ask because he thought it would make her happy, and one of them deserved to be.

Everything that they had never had the chance to talk about was right here before him. Everything that she'd been thinking but never asked him, turning instead to her mother.

He had just noticed a post script at the end of the longest letter when the sound of someone clearing their throat startled him out of his thoughts. The voice was far too deep to have been Anne's and he was pretty sure it hadn't been himself, which left only one possibility.
Libby's father was standing in the doorway, staring down at him pensively.

For a moment, neither man moved.
It was Anne Gant who had to break the tense silence.
"Pete dear," she said, "look who finally dropped in to see us."

Schofield squirmed a little under the heavy gaze. Peter Gant had always been a man of few words and Shane had always found it difficult to know exactly where he stood with him. After all, isn't it a matter of principle that every father ought to be wary of any man dating his little girl? Schofield didn't think that this particular father was going to take it well when he found out that he had been leading on his little girl, no matter how good his intentions might have been.

So he was surprised, pleasantly so, when Mr Gant extended his right hand with a gruff sort of noise that might have been acceptance or perhaps just indifference. Feeling like a foolish rebuked schoolboy, Schofield hastily got to his feet and shook the offered hand. The handshake was firm but neither sought to crush the other and Schofield took that as a good sign.

Pete Gant was a firm believer that a good handshake was a mark of respect, from one man to another.

Then, he had hung his jacket up on the peg by the door and was out of the room before Schofield could have turned around twice. As he sat down again, slightly bewildered, Anne patted his hand reassuringly in the way that only a mother can and said brightly,
"Well that was pretty good for him."

"Now," she added as she began to tidy up around him, "did you finish reading those papers yet?"

The post script that had caught his eye flashed back into his mind and he ruffled through the papers, searching for the one.

Mama, it read, I don't want to worry you and it's probably only morbid thinking, this dreadful place encourages it, but I can't shake this funny feeling I won't be coming home. If something should happen to me, tell Shane I love him no matter what.

No matter what.

All my love,

Libby

He stared at her signature for a while, just remembering, until her mother's voice interrupted.
"She was a beautiful woman," she said sagely, "and smart too."

"She was special," Shane agreed without looking up from her handwriting. The letters were rounded and shapely. If letters could look friendly and open, then these ones did. They were just like Libby herself.

"She knew," Anne said softly.

"She deserved better," he replied.

"But she wanted you."

For a while they were struck still, Shane sitting at the table holding the letters and Anne standing behind him with one weathered hand resting gently on his shoulder, both just looking at the words.
All her love, all for them.

Suddenly, Schofield's phone blared to life. The shrill buzz startled them both and reminded him that between the president and television and tea, he'd managed to pass the majority of the day. Outside, the sky was just starting to glow red.

He couldn't interpose on the Gant's kindness any longer and besides, his unit was probably worried sick about him. After quickly sticking his head into the living room to holler a quick goodbye to Pete, Schofield found himself standing on the porch in the light of the setting sun with Anne Gant.
He promised he'd come back to fix the tap and with a swift kiss to her cheek, he turned to leave but her voice called him back.

"Shane love," she said, "do you have a boyfriend?"

He saw her smile in response the assuredly goofy grin that was spreading across his face.
"Yeah," he replied simply.

"Make sure to bring him over for tea sometime."

With a smile, he tipped his hat to her and headed off down the neatly trimmed garden path. As he closed the gate behind him, he heard loud and clear;
"He's a lucky fella."