Little Rants of the Broken Mind

Soldier (A Billy KaplanxTeddy Altman AU One Shot)

I looked at my watch for the nth time, trying to wish time away so that time will pass by like swiftly water though the riverbed. I know I should stop doing that, that it would only make the second hand move slower than it should, but fuck me! The anticipation is killing me.

It's been two years since I last saw him. Two years since he left the country to fight for the helpless in Afghanistan. He's a hero like that, and that's what made me love him in the first place.

The distance was killing me. The anxiety drives me nuts. I guess this is what ever other people who dates army soldiers feel every day that they wake up. The constant fear of death following the every step of your lover. The fear that your lover might be kidnapped in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country. And the constant fear that you might be going on with your day like it was normal not knowing that something terrible has happened to your beloved.

I've spent many nights without sleep because I was too overridden with anxiety. I've spent many meals spent playing with my food on the plate, wondering if he had eaten something--anything. I've spent countless times looking at the calendar, waiting for the time when we could see each other again.

I adamantly opposed when he told me that he re-enlisted for the army again. He was on a six month break from his previous duty. (Two years in Iraq, I guess).

"The hell will you re-enlist again," I snapped at him, nose flaring and tears brimming my eyes.

"I know you'll react like this," he sighed. He took my hand in his over the table. We were on a dinner date then. "Look, baby. I-I don't want to upset you or anything--"

"Too late," I had grumbled, looking at anywhere but him. He sighed.

"Billy, please," he pleaded. "Being in the army... I don't know babe. It gives me this sense of purpose. That I was, that i am, doing a thing that mattered. A thing that made a difference greatly."

"And what's at stake? Your life?"

"It'd be worth it," he reasoned. I glared at him. "Besides, it'd look good on my death certificate: Theodore Rufus Altman. Died a hero."

"All it would say to me is that you died because of your stubborness," I retorted bluntly.

His hand on mine went tight. Then he pulled it closer to his lips and kissed it softly. "I'll be safe. I promise. Didn't I survived Iraq for the last two years?"

I gave him a watery look, tears brimming my eyes "You don't understand my point, Teddy. Everyday for he past two years I've lived in worry for you. There hasn't been a day or night that I pray to whatever being is up there to protect you, that you wouldn't get injured or maimed. You don't know how many times I have nearly died whenever the telephone or my phone would ring, thinking that it might be the army telling me that you've died and that they're shipping your bloody coffin to our house. You don't know how much it pains me whenever we talk over Skype, thinking it might be the last conversation we might have.You, Teddy Altman, have no goddamn idea how many times I've wished to wake up beside you every morning and sleep beside you every night instead of feeling so empty and alone and sad in our flat. You... you j-just don't..."

That was when I had brooen down into a watery mess. The tears that I have been holding has fallen from my eyes like rain. There, I have poured my heart out to him, spilt out the things that I have been wanting to say to him, the things that I have hidden to myself. In the middle of restaurant no less. As pathetic and cliche as it sounds. I could feel the eyes of our fellow costumers on us. We might look like two gits fighting here (which we are), but I don't care. At least I got to say my point to my boyfriend.