Act Upon Your Intentions

Her muscles are aching. Her body tenses at the sound of a backfiring car and for one moment she’s back there, in the desert sand, listening to the screams, feeling the searing heat of the explosions around her, unable to fight the death that surrounds her. Like always, and maybe forever, she is the one to shake Marley back to reality with gentle words and careful touches “You’re here.”

Here.

Home.

Apartment.

Bed.

Leah.

Leah.

“Babe, breath.”

Hands are running down her spine, finding the tense knots in her back and smoothing them away with nimble fingers. Marley worries her lip, the stabs of pain bringing her some relief as one of Leah’s hands snakes around and wraps around her wrist “Where are you?” she asks gently, and Marley exhales a shaky breath.

“’partment.” She mumbles, taking another breath, this one not searing her chest as much as the first “Apartment.”

“There you go.”

It’s a gentle encouragement “The car.” Marley starts to explain, the ever present need to explain herself taking over, but Leah stops her with a gentle kiss to her shoulder blade.

“I know.” She mutters into her girlfriends shoulder, pulling Marley even closer into her body “ You did amazing. You’re here.”

Marley curls in on herself instinctively, more out of the continued embarrassment of her PTSD running her life than anything else. It’s not that she’s ashamed of her PTSD, she knows lots of soldiers that suffer from it, but it’s the lack of control that comes with it that she can’t handle. Marley needs the control, craves the control that the Afghan desert stole from her and while she’s finding some of that control back Stateside, the PTSD robs her of it all over again.

“Talk to me.” Leah whispers, feeling her girlfriend caving in on herself, closing out the world as she fights for balance.

“It’s been six and a half months and I’m still jumping at shadows.” Marley pauses, forcing breath “I can barely make it through the morning without loosing my fucking mind.” The words are tumbling out of her now as she lets the frustrations of the past months go “I was a Marine Leah, a Marine and now, now I’m…” she trails off as she bites at the tears, fighting them off as she looses the words she wants to say.

“Still a Marine.” Leah finishes, rolling in the bed so that she’s straddling Marley and looking straight into her eyes, her hands intertwining themselves with her girlfriends trembling ones “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” She pauses, leaning in to steal a kiss “You told me that.” She whispers as her lips ghost across the toned jaw line and plant another kiss on a tanned neck.

“Marine’s don’t jump at cars.” Marley counters, trying to pull away but find her girlfriend’s gentle grasp unyielding.

“Right.” Leah whispered, pulling back so they were but inches apart, their noses millimeters from touching “I know you Mar, I know how you think and I know that right now I am annoying the crap out of you because I’m telling you all this stuff that you don’t believe. But you know what Marley, I will tell you the same damn thing every morning, every time you tell me that you were a Marine and every time you try and disagree with me on the fact that you are the most wonderful, amazing person in the world.” She pauses, lips brushing, emotions rushing and then she adds “And I love you. I fucking love you Marley Corbet.”