Re: [Orchard: Bea & Holly]
When they were both younger, and she had first met Holly, he'd been shorter, a sparer version of himself. By the time he'd joined the service, he'd added weight and muscle, but the softness of his mouth and eyes had always disarmed her. The version of Holly that had come back after Basic had been even more alien than the grown-up one she'd married, but he was still Holly. She felt the same about the blank-faced man in front of her. When she looked at him her mouth shook, especially around the edges. She tried to keep her voice chilly.
"You just think you're not him, because you don't know me. But I know you, even if you don't want me to. We can pretend I don't, I guess..." She didn't think she could do that. Bea just didn't have it in her to be a martyr that way.
She stopped walking the moment he said the word 'divorced,' and looked at him. They'd gotten into some raging fights before he'd vanished, and both of them had threatened it. She'd never heard him say it in this tone before, this certainty that it must occur. Her nostrils flared and she looked away from his face, into the trees. "I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this. Should I be sad, because you died? Angry, because I went through it all alone for nothing? Happy, because you're not dead?" Now she looked back at him. Her voice wavered. "You... you don't recognize me at all?"