AN: I got so emotional writing this one oh my goodness

When Wayne had looked around at what was happening to the men he was fighting with, and saw what was happening to them, how they were changing, he was sure that wasn't happening to him. He thought he would make it out the same way he went in. Nothing was wrong with his mind.

He saw what was happening with some of the others. They had horrible, loud nightmares, waking themselves up with the sound of their own screams, and they often got so deeply lost in thought that it was almost like they were in a trance. Some of them got so bad that Wayne thought they should be discharged. They never were, though.

Nevertheless, none of that happened to Wayne. He was fine. Sure he went a few days without sleeping, but he saw horrible things during the day. It was hard to sleep when you had those images etched into your brain. But other than that, he was okay.

Or, he thought he was okay, until he returned home. At first he was relieved to be back home, to finally be able to see his wife and children again. And they were glad to see him too, even though he knew he'd been gone for so long that Grady didn't remember him. But then, Wayne started to notice things about himself, and the way he began acting.

The things that his children did that he used to just brush off now set him completely on edge. If Emily stood on a chair to reach something, or if he noticed Grady using a toy that could potentially become a choking hazard (even though his son had never been one to put things in his mouth), he felt this sense of terror overcome him, and he had to stop it. So he would force his daughter back down onto the floor despite her confused protests, and take the toy away from his son, even though he knew it would cause a tantrum.

He didn't know why he did it, but it felt like he had to.

Over time, things got worse. He made his children go wash up if he noticed any type of food or dirt on their faces. He spent over an hour washing the dishes. He got into countless arguments with his wife if dinner wasn't at the same time every night.

It wasn't because it was upset with them. He wasn't angry with his family. It was, he realized after a while, because he needed consistency. He needed everything to be in order all the time, because that's how it was supposed to be. He relied on that. And when it wasn't there, he felt like he was losing everything.

And then he did.

Because his family noticed. His daughter made subtle excuses to avoid him every time he suggested doing something with her, and his son was on the verge of tears every time he picked him up.

But what hurt Wayne the most was his wife, Alice. He loved her, more than anything, but he suspected ever since he returned home, she'd begun to fall out of love with him. Well, she was still in love with him, he supposed, but she loved the man that she had married, that she'd had children with. When he came home, it became evident to the both of them that that man was gone.

She didn't know how to cope with it, he knew, but the way she chose to deal with him was not the right way. She yelled at him every time he did something that irritated her, every time he did something she didn't agree with. Then one day, she'd had enough. So she decided to kick him out.

Unbeknownst to anyone else, the day he moved out, he checked into the hotel room and spent that entire night crying. That wasn't the way things were supposed to have worked out. He was supposed to have been okay. He was supposed to be the one person unaffected by the war. If nothing else, he was supposed to be living at home with his family, not alone in some hotel room.

But the months went by, Wayne moved in with Nick, and that was when he understood.

The people that had kicked him out wasn't his family. Not really. He loved them still, and he would do anything for his wife and kids, and he knew they loved him too, but they couldn't accept his flaws.

No, he learned that the band had become his family. Because if nothing else, they put up with him, and that was something the people he left couldn't bring themselves to do.