Somewhere Out There

She sat there, looking out the porthole window at the glowing, blue-green orb of the planet, wondering if, or when, he would return. Just yesterday, he'd departed for Earth to join the conflict and had left her behind. She knew very well that when he'd enlisted he could be called upon at a moment's notice and whisked away to help the cause on Earth. And, she knew he would be fighting for something that he believed in, something he would die for, she mused, as she wept there waiting. And, she thought that she had been prepared for this, but now, the realities of what he was facing were setting in, and, though the tears were falling, he wasn't there to comfort or console, but a world away with his fellow soldiers, engaged in a bitter conflict, where they were fighting, living and dying, together, together and alone, at the same time, and wouldn't be coming home until the war was resolved. And, sadly, many of them wouldn't be coming home at all, and those that did would most likely be changed forever.