Chapter Text
The desert sun is unrelenting.
Eddie sits against a concrete barrier, his back damp with sweat under the thick, sand-crusted fabric of his uniform. His rifle rests across his lap, untouched — his hands busy flipping through a small, worn notebook filled with scribbles he never intends to send. Just a way to let the thoughts bleed out before they come for him in the stillness of the night.
Behind him, the base hums with the usual noise — rotors slicing the air, boots pounding the earth, men shouting like the end of the world is something you could get used to.
But Eddie’s learned the quiet is worse.
The last letter from Shannon had been short. Curt. He doesn’t blame her — not really. He only blames himself. She’d stopped signing them with love a while ago. Chris’s drawing is still folded in his chest pocket—fraying, smudged, and sacred — a stick figure drawing of them having a picnic at the park, a tradition he aches for. The only thing that doesn’t feel like it’s slipping away.
The mail doesn’t usually come on a schedule. It just shows up, maybe every two weeks if they’re lucky, tossed in with the crates of powdered creamer and spare parts, dumped onto the concrete behind the comms tent like an afterthought, sometimes not even making it to them at all.
The makeshift “mailroom” smells like dust, half-full and littered with letters, greeting cards with missing envelopes, a few drawings from school kids. This is where lost mail goes to die — anything that doesn’t have a place. He pauses, reading the scribbled sign taped to the front of the metal tray:
'Morale Mail — Take One, Pass it On'
Whoever came up with the idea meant well, taking something that would probably get thrown out anyway and giving it to a poor, lonely soldier with time to kill. Giving civilians an opportunity to show their gratitude to the people crazy enough to leave their families to fight for God knows what. Giving them a sense of hope in a war-torn world — at least Eddie is sure that’s what they intended.
In reality, most of the soldiers here won’t give it the time of day, some of it reminding them of the loneliness that consumes them while they’re here, away from the people they call home.
Eddie used to believe this was the noble path—the path to be proud of. Handing your life over in the service of your country. And he is... proud. But what they don’t tell you is how you get chewed up and spat out, left to glue the pieces back together, hoping you’ll return to some semblance of normal.
Eddie isn’t sure why he came in here tonight. Maybe it’s the lack of communication with Shannon lately, or the guilt in his gut for leaving the little boy who believes in him so much, lying to himself that he came here to support his family — that he isn’t running from the fear of not being good enough. But really, Eddie just wants to feel connected to someone again. He wants to feel less alone.
Shaking his head and thumbing through the multitude of children’s drawings and letters starting with “Dear Hero,” he almost leaves, laughing at himself for even thinking he could find what he was looking for here.
Turning on his heel, something catches his eye.
It’s worn around the edges, thrown haphazardly into a large stack of mail, tied together, and sitting in the corner. The colorful picture is a stark contrast to the white and gray papers surrounding it.
A postcard.
The stack of mail is neatly labeled:
‘Hershey General, Military Support and Outreach Program’
Some hospitals have these kinds of things, one of those programs where civilians can write letters and send care packages to deployed troops they’ll never meet, a way to say ‘thank you’. They would bundle them together and send them biweekly — or monthly — whenever they had enough mail piled up to justify it.
Most guys would thumb through it, toss it or get a good laugh — Eddie would even join in sometimes. But today feels different. His hands are shaking as he goes to pull the postcard from between two crumpled papers — drawings, no doubt from some elementary school activity — his hands are light, handling it with care, not entirely sure why.
The picture on the back is a dark tree line contrasted by the wide blue sky above it. ‘GEORGIA’ is written in big white letters across the top, the bottom saying 'Welcome to Adventure'. It’s faded and worn, like it has taken one too many trips in the back of a mail truck.
Eddie flips it over, the back scrawled with quick but somewhat neat handwriting, something personal. Scanning the words, his eyes drop to the corner.
The address.
‘Maddie Kendall, 1500 Hemlock Ave, Hershey, PA 17033’
What the hell?
“Dear Maddie, bet you’re surprised to hear from me. I’m done being mad at you. Mostly,” the card continues, dancing through the life of a free man, unbound by life's responsibilities, ending with, “I miss you. - Evan. P.S. I’m sending these to the hospital cuz I don’t trust Doug not to toss them in the trash. Have you left him yet?”
The words on the back of the postcard are rushed, a little messy, but feel intimate—too intimate to be sitting here like it doesn’t matter. Eddie finds himself reading it again, slower this time, as if the ink might tell him more the second time around. The card doesn’t read like a thank-you. It isn’t some canned note to a stranger. It’s too specific, too intentional.
At first glance, the cadence is casual, but there’s a weight in it. Eddie can’t put his finger on why it hits a nerve; the words aren’t profound. But they’re soft, gentle. And Eddie, god, he’s forgotten what gentle feels like.
Eddie turns the card over again. The treeline blurring slightly at the corners from wear. There is something in the way the ink sits on the card that makes it feel… fresh. Like the person who wrote it still hasn’t really let go of what they were asking.
Have you left him yet?
He folds the card carefully, hands moving gently to ensure he doesn't crease or damage it.
Then he tucks it into the inside pocket of his jacket, where he keeps Chris’s crayon drawing of the two of them standing under a crooked sun. He doesn’t know why he takes it, it just feels wrong to leave it behind — something that tethers Eddie to a place far away from here, somewhere with a wide expanse of trees and beautiful mountain tops, a blue, cloudless sky.
With the card now sitting above his heart, he walks back to his tent. Laying down on the firm mattress, he allows himself to drift off to sleep.
For the first time in weeks, his dreams are calm. Full of large, distinguished mountains, towering pine trees reaching up to beautiful blue.
And somewhere in the distance, a voice he hasn’t heard yet, calling him forward.
After a couple of weeks, the Georgia postcard had faded a little.
Its corners now soft, edges curled just enough to show it had been held one too many times, stuffed in and out of the inner pocket of his uniform for those first few days.
Eddie doesn’t know when he stopped reading it. After a couple of days, when the comfort of it was no longer strong enough to quiet the ache of his current reality. He doesn't even think about it that often anymore. Not the words, not the name signed at the bottom. It's just… there.
Quiet. Familiar. Easily forgotten.
Life on deployment doesn’t make a lot of room for softness.
There are no breaks between shifts. No clean edges. Just long, sun-bleached days that bleed into each other, one patrol after the next. The kind of exhaustion that settles into his bones and makes everything blur. Holding him hostage to the monotonous routine, his body moving while his mind goes quiet.
The second postcard doesn't come the usual way. It isn't in the stack on the mess table or left on his cot by the admin crew; he doesn't go looking for it this time.
It finds him.
He’s on his way to the water cooler, ribs still sore from the last field run, the sun just starting to bake through the corrugated walls of the base. He wipes the sweat from his neck with the edge of his sleeve, distracted.
Then he sees it.
It’s taped — taped — to the corner of the comms board.
Someone probably thought it was funny, morale mail in a warzone, equivalent of a breakroom joke. A little color to contrast the wall full of maps, casualty stats and heat warnings.
At first, it doesn’t register, just another scenic photo from somewhere that isn’t here. A warm-tone beach, a walking path, wind cutting mist off the waves. Soft cursive across the top:
'Virginia Beach'
Eddie’s breath hitches, moving closer slowly. The postcard has been stuck carelessly, a single piece of tape barely hanging on, one corner peeling up like it wants to come with him.
He peels it off gently, careful not to rip it, and flips it over.
“Dear Maddie, I finished school! Bartending school. I’m the coolest mixologist in Virginia Beach.” The card talks about learning to surf, loving the ocean, and childhood memories of missed opportunities, but the last sentence sticks in Eddie’s mind.
“When I’m out there, I feel like there’s nothing but possibility. There’s no stopping me now.”
Signed, Evan.
Eddie stands there for a while, surrounded by the hum of the base — the sharp edge of a far-off chopper blade, the scuff of boots on concrete, radios buzzing behind doors. All he can hear is Evan’s voice in his head — or rather, the version of it he’d built in his head — full of hope, echoing. Possibility.
Eddie imagines himself on a beach, wind scraping through his hair as he paddles out into the water, nothing but possibilities. No fear, no regrets, just happiness.
His fingers curl around the card slowly, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one is watching before sliding it into the same inner pocket where the first one still lives.
He doesn’t smile, but he feels lighter than he has in days. As he steps out of the comms room and back into the heat, he thinks,
Maybe someone out there still remembers what it’s like to feel alive.
About a month later, they're out on an assignment.
It isn’t supposed to be complicated.
Just a supply escort — light perimeter check, nothing special. They’ve done it a dozen times before. Same dusty stretch of road, same half-secured checkpoints, in and out by dusk. The same routine that blurs the days and weeks together endlessly.
“Easy in, easy out,” someone mutters as they load up.
But then the radio goes dark. The truck ahead veers too far into a ditch, clipping something buried beneath the surface — maybe debris, maybe worse. The blast isn’t enough to take anyone out, but it jolts them hard. Eddie’s Humvee lurches sideways, his shoulder slamming into the frame.
Then comes the gunfire — not aimed at them, not really — but a warning. Noise. Chaos.
“Contact—left ridge!” Someone shouts from the rear.
“Eyes up! Don’t move unless I say!” Eddie barks the words without thinking, body already shifting into position, his heart pounding, his weapon steady.
Panic rises like heat, the rest of the unit scattering for cover they don’t need. A few are diving too fast, too far. One guy slips while trying to vault over a crate.
“We’re good,” someone calls, “just noise.”
Eddie’s jaw clenches, “Tell that to the guy who reacts a second too late.”
He keeps scanning the ridge long after it goes quiet, the kind of silence that hums too loud in your ears. He doesn’t lower his weapon until the last truck is back on the road.
Night falls, and he can’t sleep. The rest of his squad snores around him while Eddie lies still, staring up at nothing.
“You good?” Greggs asks from across the tent, his voice low and groggy.
Eddie doesn’t look over. “Fine.”
Greggs grunts, “Didn’t look fine when you had your jaw clenched halfway to hell.”
Eddie doesn’t answer.
His mind imagines warm smiles and blue skies, laughter and fun, being with Chris — not thousands of miles away. One hand rests over the corner pocket of his jacket, where the first two postcards live.
He doesn’t take them out, just holds them there. Like they might be enough to remind him he’s not stuck here forever.
He doesn’t go looking for it, but some may call it fate. Tucked beneath his towel in the small metal cubby above the sink, folded once down the middle like someone had slipped it in with a quiet kind of care. A postcard, two days after he'd stared up at the canvas ceiling and silently prayed for one, as if Evan could feel he would need it.
He hesitates, then reaches for it. ‘Florida’ is printed in soft bubble letters across the top—a sunset beach bathed in orange and gold, mist flying up off the tide, a couple walking in silhouette, small and distant, like they’re part of another life.
Eddie stares at it, water still dripping from his jaw to the concrete floor, the heat of the shower still steaming around him, he turns it over.
The same rushed handwriting detailing days in the sun, bartending and surfing, summer flings and heartbreak. He’s working in construction now, ending the message with, “It’s kind of fun—me and the Jeep going wherever the work takes us.”
Eddie huffs a quiet breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. “Of course, you make that sound easy,” he mutters under his breath.
There’s something about the way Evan says fun so simply. Something about how he moves forward without bitterness. No big emotions. Just... another step forward.
He starts sliding the card into his towel to dry it off when something slips free.
A photo.
He catches it mid-air, barely.
And stops cold.
Evan.
Standing in front of a pile of construction materials. One hand on a steel railing, the other gripping a white hard hat. Jeans, a white long-sleeve shirt, a high-vis vest dulled by dust. His boots are planted, posture relaxed but solid, hair messy — stuck slightly to his forehead like he’s just taken his helmet off.
No smile, just a face in motion, and boy, did Eddie's imagination not do Evan justice.
And well, he looks at the picture too long.
His eyes trace the strong lines of Evan’s jaw, the tension in his brow, the stretch of fabric over his shoulders. The sweat darkening the edge of his collar. The way the light catches his hair.
Eddie thoughtlessly pulls at his bottom lip with his teeth, fingers running along the edge of the glossy paper, “He’s handsome…” He voices quietly, the thought slipping out before he can stop it.
Not a thought exactly… more of an observation. Something obvious.
Pressing the photo back against the postcard, Eddie folds them both into his uniform before stepping out of the shower stall.
He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror.
Doesn’t want to see what’s showing on his face.
But when he steps out into the bone-dry morning, sun already burning off the dust, he feels… off balance.
He wants to know what Evan’s voice sounds like.
Wants to know if it matches the softness in his words.
Wants to know who this man is, this stranger, who keeps showing up in his life like he’s supposed to be there.
He tells himself it’s nothing. Just another card. Something he can hold onto, to remind him the world still has warmth.
But his hand finds it more than once that day.
And every time he closes his eyes, it’s Evan looking back at him.