Inception - The Girl He Left Behind
Aug. 29th, 2010 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charybdisLook! I wrote something that's not for the kink meme! Go me!
She was twenty when he died. Or rather, according to official records, she was nineteen when he died, four days away from her twentieth birthday, and more than a year away from being legal to drink her grief away.
She was twenty when they told her, still a little disappointed that he hadn't been able to call on her birthday, but the training program he was attending in was incredibly tough, and he'd remembered to wish her a happy birthday on their last weekly call, so it wasn't like he'd forgotten. Lieutenant Alex Ryan Teague would never forget his fiancee's birthday.
Unless he was dead. And two days after her twentieth birthday, he was well and truly gone. His tags were cold between her palms, the way his hands and his arms and his mouth never had been.
Training accident, they'd said, coming to her first because he hadn't had real parents since he was six. He'd died without any real next-of-kin, and they'd come to her first because she'd been one goddamn training camp away from becoming the first family he'd had in a decade and a half.
She asked about his body, for burial. They told her it was impossible. She tried not to think about what that meant. Instead, she made arrangements for the funeral service, and thought about how he would have said, "I'm so sorry, baby," and been completely honest, even though in a few years it'd all be chiding words about how he'd saved her the expense of a coffin, at least.
He would have kissed her neck and made it up to her with his arms around her shoulders and the strength of his body solid at her back. He would have murmured apologies into her ear, and meant every word. He would have let her cry.
Except he wouldn't. He was dead. In June of 2002, Lieutenant Alex Ryan Teague died in a training accident, leaving behind nothing but his identifying tags and a couple of old photographs.
And her. He left her behind, too.
***
In May of 2009, Heather Rees married a highway engineer that she'd been friends with since childhood. He was clever and friendly and just a little too thin to be truly handsome. Every day, when they woke up or crossed paths on their way out the door, she smiled at him and said, "You're perfect for me," and she meant it.
The night before her wedding, Heather dug up a seven-year-old box, and took out the old tags. They hadn't changed. Alex Ryan Teague. But it had been so long, she'd forgotten what the animation of his face looked like, how his expression changed when it wasn't still and silent in a photograph. All she remembered of him was a sense of security, and the quiet peace of being wrapped up in his arms.
She held the tags until they warmed to the heat of her skin. They hadn't changed, but her grief had. Tomorrow, she would be getting married to someone else, someone who had never needed her as much, someone who would inevitably -- somewhere down the line -- forget their anniversary, but that was alright.
She pressed the metal letters of his identifying information against her lips, and set the tags back in the box.
I will love you forever.
She was twenty when he died. Or rather, according to official records, she was nineteen when he died, four days away from her twentieth birthday, and more than a year away from being legal to drink her grief away.
She was twenty when they told her, still a little disappointed that he hadn't been able to call on her birthday, but the training program he was attending in was incredibly tough, and he'd remembered to wish her a happy birthday on their last weekly call, so it wasn't like he'd forgotten. Lieutenant Alex Ryan Teague would never forget his fiancee's birthday.
Unless he was dead. And two days after her twentieth birthday, he was well and truly gone. His tags were cold between her palms, the way his hands and his arms and his mouth never had been.
Training accident, they'd said, coming to her first because he hadn't had real parents since he was six. He'd died without any real next-of-kin, and they'd come to her first because she'd been one goddamn training camp away from becoming the first family he'd had in a decade and a half.
She asked about his body, for burial. They told her it was impossible. She tried not to think about what that meant. Instead, she made arrangements for the funeral service, and thought about how he would have said, "I'm so sorry, baby," and been completely honest, even though in a few years it'd all be chiding words about how he'd saved her the expense of a coffin, at least.
He would have kissed her neck and made it up to her with his arms around her shoulders and the strength of his body solid at her back. He would have murmured apologies into her ear, and meant every word. He would have let her cry.
Except he wouldn't. He was dead. In June of 2002, Lieutenant Alex Ryan Teague died in a training accident, leaving behind nothing but his identifying tags and a couple of old photographs.
And her. He left her behind, too.
***
In May of 2009, Heather Rees married a highway engineer that she'd been friends with since childhood. He was clever and friendly and just a little too thin to be truly handsome. Every day, when they woke up or crossed paths on their way out the door, she smiled at him and said, "You're perfect for me," and she meant it.
The night before her wedding, Heather dug up a seven-year-old box, and took out the old tags. They hadn't changed. Alex Ryan Teague. But it had been so long, she'd forgotten what the animation of his face looked like, how his expression changed when it wasn't still and silent in a photograph. All she remembered of him was a sense of security, and the quiet peace of being wrapped up in his arms.
She held the tags until they warmed to the heat of her skin. They hadn't changed, but her grief had. Tomorrow, she would be getting married to someone else, someone who had never needed her as much, someone who would inevitably -- somewhere down the line -- forget their anniversary, but that was alright.
She pressed the metal letters of his identifying information against her lips, and set the tags back in the box.
I will love you forever.
