AN: I do not own or operate the characters from Victorious. I just keep them alive. Someone else owns them and has already made a fortune from them.
I have this plan to write a number of One Shot stories placing our girls in different historical situations. These are not romantic stories but friend stories. I hope you like it.
Enjoy S.M.
Alhoha
"So I will see you tomorrow morning and we will go to church and have lunch afterwards. I have to get to the hospital now." A dark haired girl told her roommate as she was racing out the door trying to attach her nurse's hat to her head.
Her roommate was getting ready for a date and she too was running late. Jade waved to Victoria as she ran off to the hospital. Jade was brushing out her long dark hair and then applied her makeup. She wanted her look to be flawless tonight.
She was going out with a navy officers who she met in a coffee shop that was near the library where she worked. As soon as she set eyes on him she knew that she was going to go on a date with him.
Jade looked at the clock on the wall in the kitchen of the small house that she and Victoria rented in Honolulu. She had originally come over to Hawaii hoping to be a teacher. She knew Victoria from high school. Victoria became a navy nurse and Jade got a job at a school working with kindergarten children. It was Victoria that convinced her to move to Hawaii with her. They thought that it would be a great adventure, but they had no idea how big of an adventure.
They knew nothing about Hawaii other than it was an island in the Pacific Ocean and pineapples grew there. It was a different time, a naïve time. A time when two young women could pick up and move to a place they didn't know and be safe doing so.
Victoria at least had some contact with the hospital. She had written them a letter telling them she was interested in working in Honolulu. They wrote her back and told her that they were always short of nurses and if she could get to Hawaii they would have a place for her. Jade on the other hand did not have any information on jobs at schools.
They got off the boat after a week of sailing. They spent most of what they had saved up on the passage on the ship. After they found this little house and paid the first month's rent it didn't leave a lot left for food let alone comforts.
Their furniture was old wooden crates and a couple of large flat lava rocks they found out back of the house. They found an old table and a couple of mismatched chairs in the alley about a block away where someone was moving.
For artwork on the walls they had a travel poster of California to remind them of home and a calendar that they got from the gas station down the street. It wasn't much, but as Victoria put it, "we live in paradise why do we need pictures to have a view."
There were no words for how beautiful Hawaii was. The light breeze blew in from the coast. The beaches with their blinding white sands and blue water were so inviting. Even the air had different scents than the two girls were used to. There was the perfumed smell of flowers and fruit that in most places would have seemed contrived, but in Hawaii it was all real and very comforting. People say that Hawaii gets in your soul and once you have experienced it you will find nowhere else on earth that quite takes hold of you quite like the islands. If you leave it will call you back your entire life.
That first day that they arrived in Hawaii Victoria went to the hospital to meet with the doctors and sign on with nursing staff. Jade was asking around about jobs with the local schools, but she was not able to find anyone hiring. She decided to stop in at a library that was in the old center of the city. She was told that it was the oldest library in Hawaii.
She sat down to read through the local paper hoping to find a job listed that she could apply for, when a woman came up to her with a book and asked if she had ever read it.
Jade took one look and saw that it was one of her favourite books by Charlotte Bronte. She told the lady all about Charlotte Bronte and her life. She told her about Charlotte's sisters and how much she loved her books. Before she was finished she told the woman that if she liked the book Emma she should read the book Shirley after that.
The woman thanked her for her information and opinions. Then she went to check the book out. Jade noticed that the woman was pointing at her while talking. Once the old woman had left the librarian came over to talk to Jade.
The librarian thanked her for helping the woman chose a book. Then she asked Jade if she had ever worked in a library before. Jade told her that she had not, but she had spent a lot of time in libraries as she loved to read. It wasn't long before the librarian told her that they were looking for a part-time girl and it had possibilities of becoming fulltime.
Jade thought about it for about thirty seconds before accepting the part-time position at the library. She would start the next day and she couldn't wait to tell Victoria all about it.
That night they celebrated by having a meal of rice and chicken. They normally couldn't afford such a luxury as chicken, but that night was special. It was the finest meal they had since moving to the islands.
Before long their little house started to fill up with real furniture and pictures on the walls. They both agreed that they were a little stronger for having had some hard times. These girls were as close as any sisters could be. When one had a success they both celebrated and when one had a loss they both felt it.
Jade's date with the navy officer was going well. He was very handsome and knowledgeable on many topics including books. He was telling her that it was a big mistake that the United States had not joined the war yet. He said that it was their duty to stop the evil in Europe and some said that Japan was a threat as well.
Jade listened intently, but really had no stomach for war. She didn't really understand all the politics that were involved and had a hard time imagining it while living in Hawaii. This paradise living made the reality of the war seem so far away.
When they were finished with their meal Lt. Oliver took Jade for a ride around the island in his newly acquired open air MG. She loved the little green car. The sky was clear and from the top of Diamond Head you could see the light of the full moon on the water and the lovely stars.
It was very romantic and Jade decided that her officer was moving too slow for her liking, so she was the one that initiated the kissing. At first he was taken aback, but he soon got used to this aggressive girl and enjoyed the moment.
They watched as a flight of three corsairs flew down the coast. Jeremy Martin explained that they were on routine patrol and that it was mostly just precautionary and nothing to worry about. The pilots enjoyed the break in the boredom of sitting in the harbour doing nothing.
He asked her if she had been down to Pearl Harbour to see all the big ships at anchor. When she said no he told her that he would pick her up in the morning and take her down if she didn't mind going early, as he was due back on duty by 0900h. She decided that because it was a Sunday and she didn't work she could have a nap later if she was tired. They agreed to 0700h as the time he would pick her up. She told him that it would be great because she was meeting her roommate for church at 11:00.
The hospital was rather slow. This gave Victoria time to get caught up on the charts and some general cleaning. She really liked working in Honolulu. At first it was like any other job she was nervous and rather wide-eyed, but now that she had been doing the job for four months it was just where she worked and everything was becoming rather normal.
Most of what she had seen since she started there were bar fight injuries and sun burns. She helped with one emergency appendectomy and the rest of her time was reading to a welder's assistant who suffered flash and had temporary light blindness. Victoria was never one to complain, however other nurses were bored and wish they would be a little more active. Victoria's mother always told her to be careful what you wish for you might just get it.
The night had been quiet she was looking over some paperwork when she heard the airplanes fly over low. Hearing airplanes in Hawaii wasn't all that much of an event, but these seemed to be far too low and there were more of them than you would expect. She walked outside expecting to see the familiar navy and army planes, but what she saw froze her in her tracks.
There were unmistakable red dots on the wings. They had all been trained in enemy awareness. These were Japanese airplanes and many had torpedoes attached to their underside. They were heading towards the navy base at Pearl Harbor. She had to tell someone.
Victoria ran down the hall and found the doctor on duty and told him what she saw. He looked out his window and confirmed what she had told him. They instantly went into top alert. They knew the war was starting and it was starting in their backyard. Soon there would be a number of injured coming to them. It was Victoria's job to get on the phone and start waking up the staff to get down to the hospital as soon as possible. She could hear explosions in the Harbor while she was on the phone.
Jade and Lt. Oliver were walking arm in arm along the Harbor and he was describing each of the massive ships that were moored to the white cement blocks that listed their names. Jade couldn't believe the size of these ships. She also was surprised by the number of men each one had on board. She was enjoying this tour very much.
When the airplanes came over their heads she asked what kind they were. Lt. Beckett Oliver was speechless when he saw the airplanes. They were Japanese zeros and they were now dropping bombs and torpedoes into the harbor. They stood for a moment watching the bombs fall and explode like it was the fourth of July. The whole scene was very surreal. Neither could process the information that was coming in through their eyes. They were at war!
Lt. Oliver had to get to his ship. He kissed Jade quickly and then started sprinting across the parking lot to the harbor gates. Jade turned and started run away from the attack. She was being pelted with mud and sea water from the explosions. She then felt a searing pain in her leg and fell to the ground. She reached back with her hand and when she brought it up to where she could see she found it was covered with blood.
She tried to get back to her feet and an explosion knocked her to the ground again and that was when she lost consciousness. She had no idea how long she had been out cold, but she came too and dragged herself to her feet. She was now covered in mud and any other thing that fell from the sky on her. She smelled of oil and fuel and blood.
Jade knew that she was injured and she looked back towards the harbor and she almost vomited. There were burnt bodies floating in the water and walking wounded everywhere. She saw that a number of the ships were half underwater and others burning. The sounds were something that would be with her for the rest of her life. Screaming, explosions and bullets firing. Then add in the sirens and people shouting. She felt like just laying down and letting go. She had to find Victoria she would be able to help her.
The hospital was slammed. The wounded started arriving in ambulances, jeeps, private cars and on foot. Some of the men were burned from the burning fuel in the water sticking to them as they jumped in to save their lives. Others had broken bones or cuts to say they were over-extended was an understatement.
Some were able to be helped and others were beyond anyone's help. It was hard on Victoria sorting through the wounded looking for those that she could help. Many a sailor died in her arms that morning. It was starting to wear on her. She was here to alleviate pain and suffering and there was very little she could do for most of the wounded.
Victoria found herself dealing with things she never dreamed of doing before this day. She was doing jobs that in most hospitals would be jobs for the doctor, but because there were many more patients than doctors the nurses started taking over. She cleaned and stitched wounds and treated burns the best she could. She even started thinking that if things were different she might like to be a doctor rather than a nurse.
She at one point was forced to operate on a man who had a large piece of wood lodged in his hand. She removed the wood and cauterized the blood vessels in the hand and then stitched and wrapped his hand. She alone had saved this young man's hand.
If someone who didn't know what was going on in the harbor that day would wonder what happened to Victoria. She looked like she might be injured. She was covered in blood and dirt. It was hard to even start to keep things sterile in a situation like this. This was the worst possible of conditions to deal with injuries, but they had to deal with them because there were more and more still coming through the door.
One young man she tended to was burned beyond recognition. She couldn't do anything for him other than give him morphine and give him comfort. He was trying to say something, but she couldn't hear him. She had to lean over him so he was whispering right in her ear.
She was almost ill from the smell of his burnt flesh, but she was stunned with what he said to her. "Jade, Jade, Is she here?"
That was when it hit her, Jade was on a morning walk with a navy lieutenant down by the harbor. This must be her lieutenant. Where was Jade? She looked around the area but saw no females among the injured. She was starting to panic. Her heart was beating wildly and she was having trouble drawing a breath. Where was Jade?
She stayed with Lt. Oliver until he had passed. She gave him the dignity of a small prayer and covering his face with the sheet that was over him. She was sad for him, but she couldn't help but worry about Jade.
Jade was having a hard time seeing out of one of her eyes due to the blood flowing down her forehead and into her eye. She also had pieces of metal sticking out of her leg. She was dizzy and she had a headache that was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Her entire body was screaming for her to lay down, but her mind told her to find Victoria.
Victoria ran out to the parking lot weaving through the wounded people streaming into the hospital. Then she saw her blindly walking down the street. She was headed in the wrong direction if she was trying to get to the hospital. Victoria ran to her and grabbed her in her arms. She screamed for a corpsman to come and help.
A couple of older men came quickly with a stretcher and helped to lower Jade and carry her to hospital. She knew it was wrong to push her friend to the front of the line, but many of these soldiers and sailors were already dead, they just haven't left. Doctor Pearson quickly came over and took a look at Jade. He started working on her injuries right away.
It wasn't long before he had Jade stitched and the metal removed from her leg. She was going to be okay. Victoria asked the doctor later why he helped Jade when there were so many others ahead of her. He told her that at that moment he needed a patient that was going to live and get better. He said he had his fill of death and depression by that point and needed success.
That wouldn't have made a lot of sense to a lot of people, but Victoria understood completely after the number of deaths she had witnessed and how she felt so helpless.
By the next day all of those who were going to die had died and those that had a chance of getting better were showing signs of getting better. The flood of patients had stopped and that told the hospital staff that the rescue teams were no longer finding anyone alive.
Victoria checked in on Jade as often as she could. Even when she was ordered to go home and rest the closest she came was sleeping in the chair next to Jade's bed. She was napping when Jade came around. Victoria quickly checked her vitals and when she found her to be normal she hugged her and told her how worried she was for her.
Jade asked about the situation and how she end up in the hospital. She didn't remember anything after Lt. Oliver picked her up for their morning date. Victoria filled her in on the details that she could and then she had to tell her about Lt. Oliver. She left Jade alone for a while after that. She felt she would need her space for a while to get her mind wrapped around what had happened.
When the sun set on December 10th Victoria was settling Jade into their little house. At the time neither one understood the fact that they had survived an event that would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and someday be one of the most defining moments in American history.
The next evening Jade and Victoria walked down to the beach and dropped lei made with the plumeria flower into the ocean. They said a silent prayer for the lost and for the living. The waves carried the lei out to sea.
That was a day that would live in infamy and would change everyone forever. The dreams and naivety of a young navy nurse and the librarian were gone. That beautiful sunny morning in December the Japanese blew them away along with all of America's innocence.
The End
AN: Well that was my first Jori in history one shot. I have some more ideas for different times in history, but before I write them I would like to know if it will be well received. Please let me know what you thought of the idea. This was fun. I had to take a short break from my longer story, because this was in my head and now I can move on. I hoped you liked it. Let me know what you think. S.M.