deegeeak | [Fic] Learning to Live

Title: Learning to Live
Pairing: America
Genre: AU, Introductions 'Verse. Human Names
Rating: PG-17
Summary: The story of how Alfred learned to live again, after it all happened.
Notes: This story is sort of inspired by an ex-Vet who suffered from PTSD. He passed away recently and we found out he'd served in Vietnam, and wound up here, homeless and alone after many years of not being able to function in society.
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/ is one of the many groups offering support for Vets who suffer from this. 3/4 of the men and women who wind up on the streets suffer from some form of PTSD before they end up on the streets. By being aware of PTSD and no longer treating it as an imagined disease we can help to prevent our returning Vets from ever winding up on the streets. I think it's the very least we can do for them and we should do more.

Alfred was a confident man. He was able to handle explosive materials without flinching. He'd been his unit's HazMat guy after all, even if the army wouldn't let him near a bomb with a ten foot pole. Alfred had been happy serving his country however he could in the Army. He was always one of the first to volunteer, and one of the last to leave. His unit fondly called him 'Merica', because he tried so hard to be the all-American solider-boy. He was an up and coming officer and was polite, handsome, brave and charismatic. He looked good in his uniform, blond hair slicked back, blue eyes sparkling and white teeth gleaming. Alfred could be counted on to be the eye candy in the background of some political joint, or as a smart, capable escort. Everyone thought he'd go far in the army. Alfred certainly planned on it.

Despite his contentedness in being in the military, he hungered for knowledge. He was good with math and science, so he got his degree in Chemistry and Physics, putting long hours in during his times off. It wasn't enough to satisfy his own desire for learning. He wanted to help others learn. So, Alfred cooked up a plan with Matthew to teach Matthew's students about the real world. He'd get a buddy to video tape him as he stood in some far off place, arms spread out, grinning from ear to ear.

His first video was done in China, along the Great Wall, with an annoyed Peter holding the camera as Alfred jumped up and down in excitement.

"This is Alfred coming in from China," he yelled cheerfully in front of the Great Wall, before spending the next few moments telling the kids about where he was, the history and why it was important. "Did you know this is one of the few man made structures viable from space?"

Peter rolled his eyes and told him, "Hurry up, the other tourists are staring at us moron." Alfred deliberately kept talking for a few more
minuets before finishing up.

"Greetings from Africa," he sang out a few months later - just before a Cheetah decided to pee on top of their safari van.

Another time it was, "Salutations from England!" And so it went, wherever he went, he'd video tape something historical, something that people might otherwise passover, and send the tape on. His direct superior officer, when he found out about Alfred's tapes, thought it was a brilliant idea and quietly encourage him. Eventually other people started doing tapes of their own and their unit became the darling of the PR office. "It's brilliant," they all muttered - and then demanded he sign half a million forms saying he'd never film something he wasn't supposed to.

Alfred was one of the many promising stars in the Army and he was proud of it. He worked hard, played hard and did his best. He loved his job and loved his buddies. To Alfred, being a member of the Army was a lifelong dream and he wanted to be there forever. But one day, the golden time he spent in the Army came to an abrupt end.

It was 2009, and his unit was taking fire while attempting to secure a potential arms depot in one of the many undisclosed locations in a very sandy area. Backup was on the way and they just needed to stay tight and wait for it to arrive.
"Buy you a beer man," Peter Woods yelled over the sound of the bullets. "You and me, we'll go get drunk and celebrate life!"
"You got it!" Alfred remembered yelling back as they hunkered down to wait for backup.

Then...it all went bad. Alfred didn't know how or when or why, but Peter started swearing. He looked up and saw what Peter had seen - a little girl, holding tight to a scruffy looking dog, huddled in the frame of a door. Bullets zinged by and some of them hit the plaster frame. He looked at Peter and Peter looked at him. Both of them knew they couldn't leave that little girl there.

That was almost a year ago. The flash bomb went off almost in his face, as he tried to grab his buddy's body. Even after a year Alfred still has nightmares about that day. Alfred generally forces himself awake right as dream-Peter sprinted towards the door. He didn't want to see his best friend lying in the dust of Iraq, bleeding out. Alfred rolls over and out of bed. He staggers towards the shower, intending to do something to stay awake. Four am is not his preferred time to wake up in the morning but it'll do. Nightmares are never his strong suit, especially since the nightmares are more often the not in techno-color and hi-def sound.

"Nightmares are normal Alfred," the shrink the Army sent him to says. "It's part of the normal healing process." As she tells him that, his eyes wander over the bland, beige walls and the tasteful water color paintings on the wall. There's a window off to the side, but it's firmly closed against the sleet and the hail coming down outside. "You did your best, and that's all anyone could ask for."

Normal healing process his ass. His best, hah! He doesn't like seeing his buddies die before his eyes, helpless to stop it. He hates being helpless to stop the nightmares and he hates he was helpless to stop Peter and that little girl's deaths. No matter what the shrinks tell him he blames himself. There has to be something that could have been done, maybe some more cover fire, or maybe if he'd gone instead. Either way it didn't take long before Alfred started to drink himself to night. The nightmares weren't as bad if he'd had a six pack or two after all.

Not too surprisingly, his twin had saved him from himself. They'd been sitting on his couch after he'd been medically discharged. Matthew had come east from the Midwest to help him move into his new house - bought almost unseen, just as something someone had suggested he might want to do. Alfred slouched down on the couch with his beer in hand, staring at the TV, when Matthew sighed.

"Alfred, you need to get out."

Alfred had blinked, startled at the tone of his brother's voice. "I get out," he protested, "all the time!"

"Alfred getting drunk isn't what I was talking about." Matthew's unspoken 'moron' was well understood by the other blond who hunched his shoulders.

"You think so?" Alfred asked as Matthew struggled to put his shoes on later that night.

Matthew straightened up and met his brother's blue eyes. "I know so."

After that, when he'd thrown all his beer out, he hadn't quite known what to do with himself. At first he kept to a strict routine. He'd wake up at 6am on the dot, his morning run and calisthenics down by 8am. He watched the morning news and then every day, marched himself down to the library where he read for exactly two and a half hours, before going out to the backyard and keeping the garden as picture perfect as a model home.

Matthew beat the crap out of him on the ice when he came to visit and saw how neurotic his brother had gotten. The fight spilled over into the bar. The brothers wound up in a jail cell, sitting back to back. Light from the hall filtered in to the cell. Matthew was a warm presence at his back, a comfort he had

"This wasn't what I meant Al."

Alfred cringed. "I know."

The next morning, when the sheriff let them out, he took his brother to Denny's for breakfast and then saw Matthew off at the airport. Instead of marching himself to the library he walked to the local community college and enrolled for the next semester. Matthew rarely got forceful with Alfred but when he did...Alfred had learned a long time ago to pay attention. Maybe Matthew was right, maybe he needed something to do, something to throw himself into, to make a difference.

If he couldn't serve, then maybe he could help shape the future so no one else had to see their best friend die in front of them.

His adviser was a genteel old lady, gray haired and with a backbone made of pure titanium. She ran the Education dept with an iron fist but was universally adored. Kiona Hills was exactly what Alfred needed in an adviser. She was the one who refused to let him sink further into his depression. The first day he missed her class, he wound up being dragged out his door by the ear as she lectured him. It wasn't therapy as the much hated shrink would have prescribed it, but somehow it worked, her constant and persistent encouragement. Only after he was neck deep in the Education department did he discover Kiona Hills had been a certified psychologist, specializing in traumatic experiences.

When Matthew found out what Alfred had taken up, just smiled and offered to buy dinner at the local burger joint. Four years later Alfred received his third degree, this time in Education to the resounding cheers of his classmates. To all of his classmates he was the 'old man'. All the girls had his number memorized - just in case they needed a helping hand. It usually only took once for Alfred to convince an overly pushy suitor to leave one of his 'kids' alone. All the guys knew he could not only provide an insight to the mystery that was the opposite sex and on occasion, beer to drink, but also had the best set up for Sunday Football.

Three weeks later, Alfred had sold his house with it's nit picky neat flowers and white picket fences, and moved to the Midwest, where a job working with his brother waited for him.

As he walked towards the bus stop, something made him stop. Standing next to the corner was one of the local homeless folks, wrapped in jackets and shaking slightly. Alfred walked towards him and met his eyes. "It doesn't have to be this way," he said.

The old man just looked at him through the dirt and shakes.

"Here." Alfred wrote down Kiona's number and handed it to him. A thin, dirty hand took it. "She helped me. She can help you too."

The old man looked at the piece of paper then up at him. "I.."

"Just," Alfred interrupted, "pass it on. We don't have to live like this."

And with that he walked away, towards his future.