All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

26: Home

The moment the train pulled into the station, Posey was on her feet and pushing her way to the doors. When she stepped out onto the platform she felt the smile on her lips as she took in a deep breath of air. The air of London. The air of home.

Those first few steps back on the London pavements brought tears to her eyes, though she could hardly fathom why - she had a few blocks to walk yet before she'd be anywhere near her neighbourhood. But this was somewhere she recognised, the train station she had had to use as a child to get to school. She may not have been at her house yet but she was home.

Her walk was leisurely, spent taking in her surroundings and laughing to herself every now and then because she had actually done it. She had made it through basic and gotten her jump wings and then made it back across the Atlantic. God, had it been hard, but she'd done it. The streets and corners sped away from her as she ran through what she would say upon knocking at the door over and over again in her head. Would a simple 'Hi, Mum' do or did the situation call for something grander? Would she even be able to get out any words at all with how emotional she already was, just walking the streets?

As she drew closer, Posey lifted her eyes from the floor in the hopes of jolting herself out of her reverie - she would say whatever came naturally, she had decided, and that was that - and felt her breath catch in her throat. With every step closer to home the buildings seemed to appear increasingly more broken, ranging from damaged to destroyed, skeletons of what they'd once been. The pavements, usually grey and glittering under the sun, were tainted black with soot, and even the sky seemed to darken with every footfall. She didn't know how long it had been since she'd last breathed but when she finally did the breath rattled through her, a stuttering, choked sound as she begged what she thought might have happened to not really be the truth.

Not being able to bear knowing the answer a second too soon, as soon as Posey turned into her old road she had her eyes glued to the floor. She tried to force herself to believe that when she looked back up again she would be standing in front of her home and it would be as pristine and beautiful as she remembered it. Comfortable and quaint and pretty and warm. The home of her childhood, where a little girl had played with her brother and a husband had loved his wife.

Posey stopped in front of where she knew the house was - she still remembered counting how many footsteps it took to get there from the end of the road back when she was seven - and forced herself to breathe. She had jumped out of aeroplanes and shot guns loaded with real bullets - hell, she had cut all her hair off and pretended to be a man so that she could join the paratroopers! If she could do all that, surely she could look up.

When she did, her knees gave out. What was before her, collapsed into a heap of rubble and debris on the ground, was not the home of her childhood at all. Not even the bright red door was discernible from the midst of the damage. She felt the pavement digging into her trousers and knew she was likely bleeding but didn't care. All she could do was stare, even as the disaster before her became a blur of black and brown when the tears pooled in her eyes.

There were a few minutes of silence. Her little corner of London seemed to be entirely abandoned in that time, no cars or pedestrians making their way into her little bubble. She simply sat and stared at the wreckage of the home she'd been dreaming about, the tears in her eyes the only discernible emotion on her face.

Her hands were pressed firmly to the ground, attempting to dig in and gouge it out in a handful, her legs curled underneath her whilst her head ducked gradually forwards. Her entire body wracked with the impact of her first loud, howling sob. The rest came in quick succession afterwards. When her arms buckled under her as well, she wailed into her hands, which stung with how firmly they were pressed into the ground.