A/N: Sorry it took me an extra week to get this one written. I caught some ick that's been going around and it's been hanging on to me for dear life. Hard to write, or concentrate on anything, when hacking up a lung.

Chapter 3: Reflections

The house looked lonely. Not just empty, but lonely. When he inadvertently bought it out from under Roy last year, Johnny hadn't thought of it that way. He had thought of it as full of potential. The potential for large parties. The potential for possible roommates. The potential home for a future wife, or even a girlfriend. The potential home for kids, his kids, even maybe. Now when he looked at it through the front windshield of the Land Rover as he sat in his driveway, it just looked lonely.

All the way back from Roy's house, Johnny had been telling himself that his partner was right. He needed to call his folks back home and tell them he wanted to visit. Family was important to him and Johnny needed to reconnect with his. "Roy's right. I need to go home," had been his mantra during the whole twenty minute drive.

Now, looking at his lonely house, his confidence fled.

The slender paramedic slowly opened his driver's side door. A long leg reached out toward the ground and supported its owner as he slid himself off the seat and out of the truck. Without thinking, he closed the door as quietly as he could and locked it.

Mounting his front porch, he dropped his car key to the bottom of the keyring and moved his house keys up into his fingers. They still looked new and shiny as he slid first one into the dead bolt lock, turning and removing it, then the other into the doorknob lock doing the same.

He swung his front door open into the small front hall that held a console table on the right. He dropped his keys into the basket he kept there for that reason and avoided looking at himself in the mirror he had mounted on the wall above the table. He turned around and stepped into his den.

Johnny's eyes landed on the phone he kept on the small desk he used to pay bills. "Right. Just lemme take off my shoes. Then I'll call them." He turned back around and headed to the stairs leading to the second floor where the bedrooms were. At the top of the stairs he turned left and walked the short hallway that led to the two bedrooms that were that side of the house. They were separated by a bedroom sized open space. The real estate agent had called it a "loft". The other side of the stairway held the other three bedrooms, a bathroom and the laundry room. Johnny's bedroom was the master suite in the back of the house. The door was open and he could see his bed as he approached. Sitting down on the edge of it, the silent man first untied and then unlaced his boots and took them off. John thought about putting them where they belonged for a minute, but then just shrugged and tossed them against his dresser.

"I think I'll put something on more comfortable, first." He stripped off the tight jeans he was wearing and tossed them on top of his discarded boots. Then in one continuous move, he grabbed the bottom hem of his tee shirt, pulled it over his head and sent it sailing into his laundry hamper. Now naked but for his socks (Johnny always went commando unless he was at work) he stepped on the toe of his right sock and pulled his foot out. Leaving that one on the floor, he repeated the procedure with the left sock. Picking both up with his toes, he transferred them to his hand and pitched them into the hamper.

Holding off putting anything back on, Johnny wandered into the master bathroom to pee, wash his hands and stare at himself in the mirror for a minute. "You can go home. Really, you can," he told the face that stared back at him. He looked into his own eyes for a minute more, then clenched his teeth, shook his head and walked away from himself.

Johnny snatched up his green-striped pajama pants from where he'd left them on the bed that morning and he put them on, along with a loose fitting tee shirt. He considered this his "home uniform" and it was what he wore when he was alone. It was dorky, but it was comfortable. And who did he have to impress right now anyway?

He plodded barefoot back down the stairs. Making a U-turn at the bottom, he avoided the den and made his way down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. He circled the whole way around the center island and walked back over to the fridge, opened the door and stared inside it for a minute, then closed the door again. He wandered around opening up random cabinets. He was looking for something, but he didn't know what. Courage, maybe? Turning around and leaning against the counter, Johnny let out a big sigh. He looked to the ceiling for aid, but saw only the light fixture mounted there.

"Damn," Johnny berated himself. "What am I gonna say? 'Hi, Ma. Sorry for not calling since August. I was wondering if it's safe for me to come home.' Stupid." He pulled his arms in from where he was holding the edge of the counter and crossed them over his chest. His head bent down, he dragged in an extra-large lungful of air through his nose, held it, then forcefully blew it out again the same way.

Johnny crossed the breakfast nook and stepped down a step into his living room. He walked to his sofa and dropped himself down onto it. He leaned back. He stared into the depths of the blank TV. He willed his brain to give him an answer, any way he could face his family and not break down in tears. Not feel guilty. Not feel like a coward.

Silently, he sat that way for longer than he had awareness. It suddenly dawned on him that it was nighttime. He looked over at the Grandfather clock in the corner to see that it was just after midnight. The family lived in Mountain Time, two hours ahead. It was 2 am there. No way in hell he was gonna call his folks at 2 am, their time. He'd give them a heart attack. No, he would wait 'till tomorrow. Or, the day after tomorrow, actually. He was on shift tomorrow. Which meant that he was up way too late. He needed to get to bed right now if he was going to be able to get up early enough to not get latrine duty.

"Yeah," he said to himself, "I'll call them when I get home from shift." He repeated that thought in his head several times as he got up from the sofa and made his way back to the stairs and up to the second floor. He paused once on the stairs, grasping the railing. "I promise," he said with a deep breath, then headed off to bed.

TBC