Echoes

Chapter 5

When Leah woke the next morning and went to make some coffee, Simon was still sat at the table where she'd left him. "You stayed" she commented, with a bright smile.

"I gave you my word" he said simply.

"Thank you. I'd offer you some breakfast but I guess you can't eat or drink" she said, before feeling a little guilty for bringing it up.

"I'd love a tea" he said with a sigh, before chuckling softly.

"Didn't you get bored sitting here all night?" Leah asked curiously.

"Had a lot to think about" Simon responded plainly.

While having her breakfast, Simon asked her about her work. She explained about Captain Jacobs offering her a job and how she'd only been there a week and he listened intently to everything she said. It felt good to have someone to talk to and Leah wished that in some way, Simon would stay. But she understood that at some point, he would have to leave for good. Reluctantly she got herself ready for work and prepared to leave.

"Simon, you're welcome to come here anytime you want to" she said sincerely before hesitating to say goodbye.

Leah had a pretty busy day at work, with most of her transcription complete and reviewed, she had started working on a new intelligence project. The new project involved building a multi function database for use throughout several state defence systems, to allow them to collate and share intelligence reports, audio and visual resources as well as to enable cross disciplinary team projects. It was quite an ambitious project, but Leah was confident that her previous experience of systems could easily be adapted for defence use.

Coming to a natural pause in her project, Leah packed up and headed home, looking forward to getting stuck into clearing the spare bedroom, ready for redecorating over her weekend off. Leah felt the dip in her mood as she entered the cabin and saw that Simon wasn't there. Her mind automatically went into concern that he'd been drawn back into his nightmares.

She knew she couldn't keep worrying like this as only Simon, held the power to stop the destructive cycle. After having a snack, she was grateful for the distraction of emptying the spare bedroom and deep cleaning. Simon didn't appear that night and she heard no footsteps or movement during the night.

----

Leah had a lie in before grabbing a coffee and sitting on the porch, allowing the cool morning air to help wake her up and boost her energy. After a decent breakfast, she got straight to work with her decorating, enjoying getting absorbed in the repetitive movements. The smaller room had a full first coat of paint in no time, so Leah broke for lunch and spent some time wandering round the property trying to stop herself from her worry about where Simon was. By dinner, the room was complete, so after washing up her equipment, Leah had a shower and changed into some comfy clothes, intending to chill for the rest of the night.

As she came from the bathroom, still rubbing her hair with a towel, she stopped when she saw Simon sat at the table. Rather than start interrogating him as to what had happened and where he had been, she smiled and simply said "Good to have you back Simon".

Grabbing herself a coffee, she sat at the table and looked him over to see if anything had changed. Immediately she noticed that his military gear was now far more defined and she could see he was wearing a utility belt, complete with spare ammo and grenades.

"How are you doing Simon?" she asked with interest.

Simon looked up at her "Something pulled me away again, but it wasn't the demons. I don't know what it was, but I found myself in the desert again" he replied sounding puzzled.