Promises (or lack thereof) - Pt. 11/25
Challenge: love_bingo
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Major Edward Beck/Heather Lisinski - other characters (canon and OC as needed)
Genre: Het; Romance
Rating: PG to PG-13
Words: 709
Prompt: LI1 - Birthdays and Anniversaries
Warnings: Nothing too explicit but will warn for violence/implied torture in a couple of the later parts (I'll post a specific warning on those posts). Everything in the series and comics is fair game, so spoilers ahoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with, CBS or Jericho or...whoever else may actually own this show. I just like to take the characters out to play. I put them back, mostly unharmed...although not always...this is for fun, not profit and no copyright infringement is intended.
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Heather slowly healed. As these things went, she told Emily, she'd got off lightly. They hadn't permanently scarred her physically; they'd never progressed to sexual assault, and if she sometimes still woke shaking and sweating from nightmares, well, that was only to be expected.
Just a few more to add to the list, really, she thought ruefully.
As the five-month anniversary of Beck's departure got closer with still no word from him directly, she wondered what was truly happening in the east.
In the meantime, they were busy fighting a war of their own. So far no one in Cheyenne had connected Hayes' death with anyone in Jericho. An accident, a burned body, and the rest of his men smuggled across the border into Mexico - or so Hawkins told her and she chose to believe him - they'd at least managed to avoid any direct retaliation against Jericho.
But they were busy. They continued to replenish their arms and, with other towns who were determined to resist the ASA, they carefully planned, with steadily increasing frequency, guerrilla attacks against ASA convoys. They'd been sharing the truth, and more and more towns were starting to follow Jericho's lead. The coalition Beck had begun with his military colleagues was now beginning to spread to the civilians they'd once protected.
Jake and Hawkins and their allies were careful to ensure the locations of the guerrilla attacks were seldom in the same location twice, or used the same tactics each time. J&R and Ravenwood weren't stupid, though. They could almost feel the net of suspicion tightening around them - with Jericho directly in the centre.
In a half-hearted attempt to remember what "normal" was, Heather kept reminding herself that her birthday was also coming up. She doubted she'd celebrate it in any way although she couldn't help but hope that, through some coincidence of timing, she might hear from Beck - a note, a phone call; a rumor that was more personal than the propaganda that painted him as some larger-than-life enemy of the state, or the rumors that saw him more as a symbol than as a man.
She healed, she worked, she worried, and she hoped for the best. From a far more practical and pragmatic point of view, she helped Mimi doctor reports to J&R so they got a few extra supplies. She helped build generators and air filtration devices as the salt mine workers expanded the mine so Jericho's people would have a place to hide. She helped Hawkins plan, build and stock other, less obvious, places of refuge. She helped doctor documents so the troops Beck had left behind without the ASA's knowledge appeared to have been citizens for years, if not decades.
She'd made a promise to Beck, months ago, that they would hold Jericho as a safe haven within the ASA. That they would defend Jericho in his absence, and hold it as a place of refuge for him and his troops.
She'd promised him they would not go down without a fight, and she was going to do whatever she had to do to keep her promise.
The five-month anniversary came and went, and time marched towards her birthday - and six months since he'd left.
On the morning of her birthday, Dale came to her door, carrying a dirty and worn package. He handed it to her with a slight smile. He told her they'd picked it up weeks ago, with strict orders to deliver it on this day. Heather frowned, puzzled, then her face lit up as realization dawned.
She thanked Dale with a radiant smile, took the package into her livingroom and sat with it on her lap, unable to stop grinning.
She slowly opened the present, savoring the moment, and found a white t-shirt and a note, written in Beck's hard scrawl
Heather -
It's your birthday and I literally have nothing to give you but the shirt off my back. I hope you're safe and happy. Please know you're never far from my thoughts.
Beck
Heather thought her grin was going to split her face in two, as she hugged the shirt to her.
She slept in it every night. Somehow, it made the nightmares easier to bear.
Part 10 Part 12