ARRIVAL by Alison Email: xalison@excite.com Category: Implied slash, Langly/Byers post-episode vignette Disclaimer: Not mine, etc Archive: Ephemeral and Gossamer when I get round to it: otherwise wherever you like! Summary: Langly waits for John to come home after the events of the Pilot episode. Note: Seeing two new Byers fics in one day from Surreal and Sally sent me scurrying to blow the dust off my WIP file to see if there was anything worth resurrecting! I was working on this in early September 2001. For obvious reasons I shelved it and more or less forgot about it till recently. I can't remember what I planned for it and I don't think I'll be adding to it, but I think it can stand on its own as a vignette. 2.30 am LANGLY John's coming home. He called a couple of hours ago. I was out back and Frohike took the call, he could only talk for a minute, he was on a payphone in the airport and he said his dad was standing right there too. They were waiting to board a flight back to Reagan National. They've spent the last 36 hours in New York, dealing with the fallout from the incident on the plane. The FAA, AAI, Aviation Security, Air Traffic, Department of Transportation and god knows who else were all over it, talking to everyone on board and taking that plane apart. I don't know what John's said to them, we'll have to wait till he gets back to hear all that. But Mel said he sounded like he was up against a blank wall. It sounds like his dad wasn't prepared to back him up, and there's no hard evidence to prove what happened. Same old story. Mel said he sounded tired, so tired. God knows how he could get back on a plane so soon. I don't think I could. But John just goes on surprising me. No, not surprising me. Astounding me, aweing me. I am just in awe of the courage in him. I think I know him, then he does something that just blows me away and leaves me shaking. I love him so much. But it scares me, it scares me so much when he does something like this. It terrifies me that one day he won't come back from something like this. I don't think I could live without him. So - he's on his way home. With his dad no less. I don't know what to think about that. If they're on speaking terms again, then that's gotta be good. And yet - his dad hurt him so bad. So bad that John's never told me anything about him, all the time we've been together. He's locked it away, deep down, too deep even for me. And yet - after so long, his dad needed him, and he was right there, in an instant. But that's John all over. But if his dad hurts him again - well, Mister Bertram Byers, I can make you one promise. You lay one finger on John again, ever again, and I can make you sorry. You'll never hurt him like that again. So - he'll be home by morning. I'm not even going to try to sleep. I can work on my game a bit, or look for something to make the next big headline now that we're left without a story. Anything, as long as I'm here for him when he gets home. He'll need someone to be here for him. And god, I need to see him. Just to hold him and know that he's alive. I so nearly lost him. Those minutes when we thought the plane was going down and we couldn't stop it, *I* couldn't stop it, couldn't help him, couldn't save him - those helpless nightmare moments when I *knew* he was going to die and leave me - I prayed. I haven't prayed since I was a little kid. I don't even know what or who I was praying to. I remember burying my head in my hands and saying, "Come on, Frohike" but I wasn't speaking to Mel. Something or someone, some power-that-be that looks after the rightness of things, something I haven't believed in for years - but in that moment I would have given anything, sold my soul, given anything asked of me if only John could be safe. If they had asked me to give my own life, I would have done it in an instant. Just as he would, unquestioningly, for me. I love him so much. Guess it wouldn't hurt to crash out on the couch for ten minutes, so's I'm awake for when he gets back . . . End