Ad Astra Per Aspera [2] - Band of Brothers

58 | simply you

" She was everything real in a world of make-believe."

- Atticus

✰✰✰

Matilda had been right. 

George had pulled off his Class-A coat, hanging it up on the nearby hanger and was walking around in his casual, beige button up, just like Catherine, making her mother laugh, the girls giggle excitedly, and telling some jokes in the process. But a voice had interrupted them.

" Catherine?" The voice had been one she hadn't heard in quite some time. Catherine softly turned and her eyes laid upon eyes similar to her very own. 

Her father. 

They watched each other from across the room, almost as if they were studying one another. She didn't fail to notice that her father's eyes moved over to George and looked at George standing there, plates and cups, ready to set the table in hand.

" Hi Dad." Catherine said - the tension was getting to her head, and the onslaught of tears that threatened to well in her eyes wasn't helping either. The look from her father, simply just looking at her, for the first time in years simply just proudly. And her father slowly dropped his work bags and took a few steps between where he stood and Catherine and engulfed her in a hug. 

Catherine stood there, completely and utterly confused. 

Why was he hugging her? 

Why was he holding her in such a warm hug? 

Why was he almost in tears? 

What was going on? 

Her father pulled back and looked down at her.

" I didn't think I'd see you again," he said and she heard his voice break a bit. 

And the tears in Catherine's eyes were not from joy of seeing her father again, no she felt they'd never be. 

After a childhood of being told you weren't good enough, and now this? 

Acting like those years hadn't affected her in anyway and she was just supposed to stand there and hug him and act all sappy? 

Is that what she was supposed to act like? 

Catherine just nodded, slowly stepping back from him - she was afraid to open her mouth and let the tears roll down her face and then fully breakdown. She'd done that far too much in her past. She was stronger than that. 

Catherine slowly stepped back and gently glanced towards George, placing a hand gently on his tensed back. 

George knew about Catherine's father. He remembered a day in Austria, back under the sun, sitting by the lake with towel's wrapped around their shoulders, sun-tanned and glowing, when Catherine had fully told George about her father. She had broken down after that, but George just held her under the warm sun, kissed her head softly, and let her cuddle into him.