Hey guys, :) Just a little one-shot before I go on vacay. Get back to y'all soon, okay? J & K and ANS will be updated as soon as I get back. :) Love, Lil

She was literally a statue.

A gorgeous statue, but a statue nonetheless, frozen in all her twenty three year youth and vitality in the in the center of the doorway next to the waiting area, tea-brown eyes fixed with a rigid kind of desperation on the silver door, hands locked and trembling, black skinny jeans and loose, distinctly male tailored, white dress shirt, only fluttered in the strong air-conditioned breeze. Her hair shone in the light of pre-dawn, the pink and reddish tints from outside the airport's large windows catching the glow of her waist hanging curly strawberry blonde mane, her lashes dark and shivering. A dark hoodie draped on her waist with a lazy knot, and all of her entire being, entire focus rested on that silver door.

He was basically a time bomb.

Taut, wired, and abused, ready to explode, the green camouflage clothing he wore covering the many bruises and a few bullet wounds that he'd acquired. A few tattoos that hadn't existed four year ago decorated the ridge of his shoulder and his hair had finally grown back, the fast lengthening strands free to hang around his face like a shaggy helmet, thick enough to lose one hands into and dark enough to dominate the landscape of dust that they'd been compared to. Heavy duty canvas-colored boots were planted firmly on the plane's carpeted floor as it landed and his coffee colored amber eyes alighted on America like a starved man given a glimpse of food, his soul throwing itself at the confines of the airplane like a crazed spirit. Anyone could tell that all that he cared about in this entire world was waiting for him on other side of that passenger door.

They sensed each others presence as never before when he first set foot on United States turf and her heart exploded in her chest at the same rate as his, forever in tempo as the heartbeats were finally synchronized.

Nothing really mattered as the feet between them got smaller-

The suitcase-

His comrades-

The lone flight attendant-

It was as if they were in a town populated by ghosts, with them the only living people as spirits went about their own lives.

When tea and amber met, she became alive again and he let everything go, running to each other in a desperate, searching, needing way that everyone around them recognized.

She flung herself at him like she was finally on dry land after four years of living on a shipwreck and he caught her and spun her around like he finally held his world in his arms. Tears streamed down her face like a dam being broken, harsh sobs wrenching from the lips that hadn't been kissed in so long. He hugged her so tight to his body that one would think he was trying to pull her inside himself, to never let her go again, his eyes closing as a few drops of salt water squeezed themselves out.

He buried his nose in her long hair and breathed in the ever-familiar smell of carnations, her face pressing itself into his chest to hear his ever-missed heartbeat.

oh god. jack, you're home. you're finally home and back in my arms and oh god.

He pulled his face out of her hair and her face came out his chest and they mashed their lips together, her legs wrapping themselves around his waist as if to never let him go, so many emotions fueling their kiss that no words could describe it.

darlin' you don't know how much i've missed you. you're in my arms, kim. you're with me.

Kim was alive again, after four years of pretending to be fine, to be sane, to be any semblance of okay, but how could she when he wasn't there?-

Jack finally home and safe, back with the woman he would give his life for the life that he had finally got it back, out of torture and horror and mind blowing unspeakable, but he was okay again because she was okay and she was in his arms and no one could ever hurt her again.

I'll be your hero, standing strong, who protects you from, any fight. And when your battles come piling on, I will take them on with all my might. Cry, your tears, on my shoulder. You don't know what the future holds, so I'll be your personal soldier.
-The Wanted