cecilia x maël, 1940s AU?
As the letters flow back and forth, Cecelia sees the boys return from the war front with amputated limbs and traumatized nerves that jerked whenever someone shouted or the war is mentioned - and she thinks of Maël each and every time and prays for another letter from him, no matter how short (and often recalls countless memories from before the war of bickering and defying her parents and simply being blissfully unaware).
She thinks of their hometown, the one her family fled from long before it was lost to the enemy and was reduced to nothing but rubble and fighting ground - the one she stayed back despite her family’s urging - and how the town had to be fled from either way. She did what she could, helped where it was needed and developed blisters on her hands where work had never touched before but needed to be done now.
For Maël, for their lost home, for the innocent souls dragged into this war...
It weighs on the both of them, but when the war is finally over and she sees him entering the town, she throws her arms over his skinny body and kisses his sallow cheeks and whispers, “It’s over, it’s over...you can come home. You’re home.”
