(Untitled)

[gotacigarette]

In the end, she all but takes the hut apart.

There's a certain sort of person that survives by not letting very few people meet the real them. Eden became one of those people when she was not much older than four. Later, she became Major Sinclair, and she all but forgot that she'd even got a birth name, for a while. But she never forgot her

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[not_a_quaker]

"Major."

That's all I say before sitting down next to Eden. Anything else I could offer would be useless platitudes, things I know she doesn't want to hear. None of that matters when you're trying to make sense of a loss, it doesn't matter how true any of those cliches may be. I do want her to know, though, that she's not alone.

[gotacigarette]

Eden wipes her face on her hand, head up and eyes fixed on the ocean. Her nose felt raw and saw. Alice's wedding band digs into the palm of her hand.

"Hello, Major," she says. Nelson lifts his head and regards Winters with baleful pale green eyes.

[not_a_quaker]

I'm never sure whether Nelson will purr or try to scratch my eyes out if I pet him, so I wait to see whether he deems me acceptable company first.

"Looks like you've been busy," I remark, looking over at the remains of Alice's hut.

[gotacigarette]

Nelson's gaze didn't waver, and Eden watches him for a moment before she looks back to the sea. The hut's still standing, just, and Eden'll have to make repairs to it, but not yet. Not nw.

"Had to do something, Major," she says, quietly. "You'll understand."

[not_a_quaker]

"I do understand," I reply. In battle, what we had to do was keep fighting. That was what we had, instead of time to linger on what had just happened. Here, that isn't the case. There's no war going on here, and that means soldiers like us have all the time in the world to contemplate every single loss, both the ones that happen here and the ones that came before.

And as evidenced by my nightmares, the ones that might have been.

"If there's anything I can do," I offer, and it's an empty statement, but one I feel I need to make. It's one I would make to any of my own men; even if I can't actually do anything I can at least be there.

[gotacigarette]

Eden shakes her head and then she looks at him, face tear stained, and there's a ring on her finger and another in the palm of her hand. She palms her hair back from her face and then she fumbles out her cigarettes one handed. She slips one between her lips and offers him one.

"No, Major. There's nothing that you can do."

[not_a_quaker]

I shake my head at the cigarette offer. "I'm sorry," I say, wishing I could offer more than empty words. Not sure if she'd accept a hug or push me away, I rest a hand between her shoulder blades as a sort of silent offer.

[gotacigarette]

There's a part of her, a small part of her, the part of her still called Major that doesn't want him anywhere near her. That part of her doesn't remember how to feel anything.

But it's been a while sine she was that person. And Babe loves this man, would trust him to the end of the earth. And Eden loves Babe. So, in the end, she leans in against him. Eden does, and it's nothing to do with Major Sinclair.

[not_a_quaker]

I slide my arm around her, thinking about Buck, wondering what I'd do if Harry ever disappeared. Nix, well - he's a different story. That I can't contemplate.

"It never gets any easier, does it," I comment softly. That's true on a grander scale, not just with disappearances. It never got any easier to lose men out on the line, either.