8 minutes into the new episode and i’m already near death so like this for a teddy starter for the first time in two years !!!

THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE

forever died too soon;

         a companion series to amelia-hurricane-shepherd‘s 
           ‘i was counting on forever’ from Teddy’s POV.

part one; the world he left.

If only she could make amends. She’d have bowed her head, and welcomed them with pride unquestionably absent from her heart. Her dignity, her honor, her ego — Teddy would have sold it all in an instant if it could bring Owen back. Months had passed her by without hearing his voice, and Teddy knew the time had come to face what she’d been running from.

Her guilt.

It’d been her choice that consigned him to a relentless war; her hand that had signed the forms for his deployment. When she’d taken this job, she’d never once imagined that her voice would be the one to damn her friend. 

And, just short of an hour ago, she’d received a gift and a curse so innocently wrapped in a bare paper bag. 

His dog tags. They lay coldly and mockingly in the palm of her hand; a wordless claim to Owen’s disappearance. In all the years she’d known him, Teddy knew of nothing he kept closer to his heart than those dog tags. They stood for his pride; his very nature, for the marks of a soldier never strayed far from the man who bore them.

An unwilling touch met unyielding metal, fingers tracing the ridges of the words. Major Owen Hunt, they read. Blood type, date of birth. In a better lifetime, Teddy might have laughed at such superficiality. To her, Owen was so much more — the mere surface of his dog tags could never hope to encompass that. How could any word or language hold the way he lent her his strength — how could they express the very greatness of her friend? Owen had saved her in an instant she hadn’t known she needed saving, and still she hadn’t repaid that debt. 

For that reason alone, the fact that his return was crucial went without saying. And more so than that, Owen’s absence had cast her adrift — he’d been the anchor that kept her safe.

But there was someone else. Someone else, who left their past in pieces. Someone so precious, so loved, that the friendship Teddy had prided faded into the peripheral.

Amelia.

A bigger man could not have loved Amelia more than Owen did. Maybe it was the hurt between them; the desperation — Teddy wouldn’t pretend to understand something she couldn’t. And in her heart of hearts, she was eternally happy for her friend. 

It seemed more apparent than ever that this particular brand of happiness had an expiry date, for time might never allow it to last

She’d kept the dog tags from his wife long enough. After all, she had no claim to them — holding on was akin to the human selfishness that had led Owen to Iraq in the first place. As their best man at the wedding, Teddy could only speak to the fact that she’d failed in an abysmal way.

“They found them in the field,” Teddy said, voice catching upon the condemning words. “No sign of his body. We’re still looking. We haven’t given up yet.” And still, her fingers found reluctance in letting them go. To Teddy, that was the very last of Owen she had left — Amelia, at least, would always have his love. Teddy was not proud of her indulgence, especially that she had in herself; as her silence grew, the words she couldn’t speak for her arrogance drowned her in their cloying, muttering need.

I’m sorry. It was my fault; it always has been. And I’ll do everything in my power to make things right again, even if it means losing myself. I won’t live with myself knowing I killed my best friend.

And, for a moment, Teddy realized she’d been wrong about one thing, among many. One look behind those tortured eyes, and Teddy knew — there was indeed something Owen held closer to his heart.