100 Prompt Challenge - Astelle

Prompt: A modern world AU where Asta is forcibly conscripted to fight a war many don't want any part of. He comes back to his fiancée a very different man.

—

The day they took Asta from her, Noelle swore the world had turned gray.

It wasn't a choice. The draft didn't give choices.

One moment, they had been standing in front of their little apartment, laughing over burnt eggs and wedding plans—dreaming about a future where he would be the one to take her name instead of the other way around. Where he'd become a firefighter, like he always wanted, and they'd build a home together.

The next, there was a letter in his hands.

A summons.

Asta was going to war.

Asta was going to Vietnam.

And no amount of screaming, crying, or begging could stop it.

Noelle clung to him the night before he left, her hands curled into his uniform like it was the only thing keeping her breathing. She had tried to be strong, but when the reality of it crashed down on her, when she imagined Asta stepping onto a battlefield where she couldn't protect him—

"I don't want you to go." Her voice broke. "Please, Asta—"

He kissed her—softly, unlike the way he usually did, with all his fire and recklessness. This time, it was slow, reverent.

"I swear, Noelle," he murmured against her lips, "I'll come back to you. No matter what."

She wanted to believe him.

She had to.

Even as they tore him away from her the next morning, even as the months bled into years without a single word, she never stopped waiting.

Praying.

Hoping.

And when he did return…

He wasn't himself anymore.

—

When Asta came home, Noelle barely recognized him.

He wasn't physically broken—no missing limbs, no visible scars beyond the ones that marred his arms.

But it wasn't the body that had been shattered.

It was his soul.

He was quieter now. He didn't rush forward with that blinding, stubborn energy anymore, didn't talk about the future like it was something he could reach out and seize. The man who once laughed at everything, who grinned even in the face of impossible odds, now barely smiled at all.

Asta had been forged in the fires of war, and the weight of it clung to him like chains.

The first night, he didn't sleep.

Noelle woke up to find him sitting at the edge of their bed, shirtless, shoulders slumped forward as his fingers dug into his hair.

He was shaking.

Her breath caught. "Asta?"

He flinched—actually flinched—like he hadn't heard her approach. When he turned, there was a split second of something raw in his gaze. Then he exhaled, forcing his shoulders to relax.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" His voice was hoarse, like he hadn't used it in days.

Noelle ignored the question and stepped closer. "Come back to bed."

"I'm fine," he murmured.

He wasn't.

She could see it in his eyes—the way they darted around the dimly lit room as if expecting danger. The war hadn't left him. He had brought it home with him.

She didn't know what to do.

So she did the only thing she could.

Noelle knelt beside him, reached for his hands—those hands that once held her so effortlessly but now trembled with ghosts she couldn't see—and laced their fingers together.

He exhaled sharply, closing his eyes.

She brought his knuckles to her lips, kissing them softly.

"You're home," she whispered.

His breath hitched.

And then, finally—finally—he leaned into her touch.

—

It wasn't easy.

Some nights, Asta woke up drenched in sweat, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. He never told her what he dreamed of, but Noelle could guess.

The battlefield.

The gunfire.

The friends he had lost, the ones he had buried.

She never pushed.

Never pried.

But she was there.

She held him when he shook. She whispered reassurances when he couldn't speak. She stayed awake with him through the long, quiet hours of the night, even if it meant sacrificing her own rest.

Because she loved him.

Because he was hers.

And no war, no nightmare, no goddamn trauma was going to take him away from her again.

Asta had sworn to come back to her.

And now, she swore to bring him back to himself.

Piece by piece.

—

It took months.

But one day, as they sat together on their apartment balcony, watching the sun set over the city, Asta turned to her with something new in his gaze.

It wasn't quite the boyish joy he used to have.

But it was softer.

Lighter.

"Thank you, Noelle," he said, voice barely above a whisper.

She blinked. "For what?"

"For staying," he murmured. "For not giving up on me."

She reached for his hand. Squeezed it.

"You're worth it," she said simply.

And then—for the first time since he had come home—

Asta smiled.

It was small. Faint.

But it was real.

And Noelle swore, right then and there—

She'd keep fighting for him.

Until the day that smile never faded again.