some dunkirk!alex au for you... x
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When Alex reached for the door, he had an inkling it'd be open, knowing Y/N's habit of leaving it unlocked for circumstances he never understood. She had her key with her whenever she ventured out, yet the door remained unlocked and open to unwanted visitors like him lurking inside. That was nearly 6 months ago and he wondered just how much she had changed. His palm wrapped around the handle and gently pushed it down, a sigh of relief exerted into the cold air as he gingerly opened the door and let himself inside. Thank goodness she hadn't changed that much.
The warmth hit him, nearly causing him to whimper as he slowly removed him boots, not knowing if she still had the issue with having shoes in the house.
He almost expected his girlfriend to be in the kitchen cooking something delicious for him, running up to him with their daughter in her arms when hearing the sound of him entering after so many months. When nobody ran up to him excitedly, his chest tightened, bottom lip quivering.
The train had brought him back to a station close to her home, and Alex didn't know just how far the train would go next and didn't want to miss the chance to see her face between the intervals and question whether they were still okay, so he had given Tommy one glance and nodded in his direction. Tommy offered him a small smile of farewell, and Alex knew he was in anguish due to his French friend, however his head was spinning with the need to just go home, too tired to feel remorse of his actions.
He'd received stares, but not scathing ones as he'd expected, nor did he get rotten food and stones hurled at him as he walked down the blocks, hands stuck in his pockets and head down. He'd abandoned his upper top that displayed the British flag, too ashamed to be representing his country any further. He carried on without meeting eyes with the people, miserable and eager to get home.
He allowed himself inside her home and when it dawned on him that she wasn't home, his automatic response was to head over to the kitchen to see what mouthwatering food she had created for dinner. It was routine, months ago when he'd return from work, tired and too deprived of her, making his way towards the kitchen where she'd be cooking dinner. He'd wrap his arms around her waist and bury his head in her neck, pressing little kisses. To his dismay, and his growling pinched stomach, there was nothing waiting for him, an empty pit mockingly staring up at him with a smirk.
He sighed, eyes trailing to the staircase where the bedrooms were. He remembered walking up those stairs everyday, sometimes with her across his shoulder or trailing behind her with a hand on her bum cheekily. The thought made his heart stutter. His feet dragged themselves to the first stair, raising his head to stare up ahead at the door to her bedroom that was left ajar. Even from his limited view, he could see that it was spotless. With one heavy hand on the railing, he hauled himself up the stairs and climbed closer to his destination.
The room smelled like her, a wave of nostalgia attacking him mercilessly when he first entered, eyes wide with recognition. He breathed in the scent, eyes watering st the memories that poured into his brain of the two of them living happily before the war. He eyed the picture frames and the old timey clock her grandfather had gifted her, blinking his wet lashes as he breathlessly laughed at one of the pictures the parents had taken together weeks before he was drafted.
She had her arm around his neck, looking up at him with the largest smile on her face as if he'd aligned the stars in the sky and he was looking at the camera, dimples deep with love. They were in the backyard of his parents' home, sheets of snow covering the garden with the exception of their disrupting footsteps.
He ran a finger over her face with a smile on his face, eyes soft. The other pictures were of her and her cat, then a couple of her and her family and friends. The only picture of Alex and her was that sole one, and something tugged at his heart because the room used to be explicitly decorated with snapshots of her life with him to remind her that nobody made her as happy as he did.
