"I Will Come Back, When the War is Over"

A continuation of "Stories From the Front Lines"

By Jake Sisko

There are some stories that are just begging to be told. This is one of them. It's stories like this that make one grateful for the gift of being a writer. My grampa always said to me, "Write what you know, and write from your heart," so that's what I'm doing.

This is a true story. For the sake of privacy, and reasons that will soon become obvious, the names of the people involved will not be mentioned. It's also a story about finding romance where you least expect it. While this isn't the type of thing I normally write about, I have to confess that I'm a romantic at heart.

It all started when my best friend and I were enjoying a rootbeer float in Quark's (He said I could mention his real name, by the way, probably hoping to get free advertising out of the deal.). My Ferengi friend was precariously leaning back on the bar stool, like he always does, when he abruptly returned forward.

"There she is," he whispered to me with a nudge, "the girl I was telling you about—don't look!"

"How am I supposed to see who you're talking about then?" I asked.

"OK, now you can look."

I turned to see a pretty woman not much older than myself. Like me, she was human. She had fair skin, with contrasting dark features and sky-blue eyes. I had seen her before, but at first I couldn't place where. Later that day, I remembered. She was a volunteer civilian nurse. Every Friday, she checked the casualty report Captain Benjamin Sisko posted. To her relief, the name of the person she was looking for wasn't ever there.

"She turned me down flat," my friend complained, crossing his arms. "She's interested in somebody else, but she wouldn't tell me who."

There was something about her that spoke to me. I knew she had a story, and I wanted to write it.

The following Friday, my dad grimly approached the information panel on the Promenade after coming from the ward room. Though the Romulans had recently allied with us, and the tide of the war was turning as a result, his manner had never changed.

As I predicted, she was there, waiting in the small crowd of civilians that had gathered. It wasn't hard to get close up behind her. I only had to pretend that I, too, was anxious to see if anybody I knew was on the list. What I didn't predict was that she would search the Romulan casualties.

Satisfied with what she saw, or rather what she didn't see, she quickly moved aside for the next person. She then made her way to the replimat, and sat down with a cup of coffee. Now was my chance, and I wasn't going to waste it.

"Hi, I'm Jake," I said to her. "May I join you? There aren't very many available seats."

She looked up from what looked like a letter she was composing. "Of course."

I've never been one for tact, so I just came out and asked her the question that was burning in my mind: "Who were you looking for on the casualty report?"

She smiled back shyly. "Someone I care about very much."

"Tell me about him." I flashed the most charming smile I could muster, hoping it would persuade her to open up to me.

"How did you know it was a man?"

"I have a knack for these things. C'mon, you want to tell somebody. It's written all over your face."

She really did want to tell somebody, but she still hesitated. "You'll think I'm crazy..."

"Nah!" I waved her concerns aside, "We're all a little crazy, aren't we?"

"Well," she began cautiously, watching to see how I would react, "He's a Romulan pilot."

"No way!" I pretended to be surprised. "How does a girl like you get involved with a Romulan pilot?"

Now that she saw that I didn't disapprove of the idea, she immediately dropped all pretenses. When the Romulan hospital on the Bajoran moon of Derna was first opened, they were considerably understaffed. So Starfleet sent over some volunteer temporary medical staff. She was one of them. Apparently, this was before the Romulans began to store weapons on Derna.

"He was brought in on my first day, barely alive," she explained. "His comrades told me of his bravery, about how he fearlessly blew up a Jem'Hadar command post. He had gone into it believing it was a suicide mission, but he miraculously survived."

"So he was your patient?" That figured. I've often heard about instances of the "Florence Nightingale Effect." Even though it's become somewhat of a cliché, I had never encountered it in real life. I could see where this was going, but I wanted to know how it would get there all the same. Like my dad always says, "It's not so much the destination as the journey that's important."

"He regained consciousness the next day, and he was there for over a week. We spent hours talking together every day." She looked away bashfully, "And he even asked me if I was married. I told him no, and he was about to say something else when his CO walked in."

"I guess you nursed him and got him back on his feet again?" I asked with a smirk.

Her eyes became sad. "Not quite. He only recovered 75% of his vision. You see, Romulan military standards require at least an 85% recovery to return to active duty. He begged me to pass him anyway. He wanted so much to fight again. But most of all, he didn't want to be considered 'defective.' For a Romulan, that can be humiliating."

My mouth hit the floor. "You passed him? Isn't that a bit unprofessional?" Falling in love with a patient was bad enough. I began to wonder how this girl had kept her job all this time. But then again, she wasn't in Starfleet, she was a volunteer. During a manpower shortage, beggars couldn't be choosers. And one could only get in trouble if one was caught.

"I couldn't say no to him," she insisted with starry eyes, "He was so handsome and brave. He deserved better than to be packed off back to Romulus as though he were unwanted baggage! He's a hero."

"Then what happened?" I didn't dare question her decision further.

"Just before he shipped out to the front lines, we saw each other one last time. He said that he was in my debt, and that if I ever needed anything to let him know. I joked with him and said he should be careful, lest I take him up on his offer. And he flirtatiously said that he hoped I would."

"Ah," I grinned, "So it wasn't just a one-way street?"

"Of course not! He's going to come back when the war is over," she informed me with absolute confidence.

"How do you know for sure?" I asked, though I didn't want to burst her bubble. I'm ashamed to say that at the time, I hadn't quite gotten over my prejudice against the Romulans. I thought this guy was going to end up breaking her heart.

She blushed again. "He's told me so. He writes the most wonderful letters to me, you see."

It was then that she suddenly noticed the time. She was late. With a hasty apology, she was off to work.

As I watched her go, I marveled at the irony of the situation. Only a few short months ago, a human and a Romulan in love would have been unheard of. A part of me was envious. I wished that I was in a beautiful love story like that. Perhaps I will be. The Dominion hasn't killed me yet!

There are those who say that once the war with the Dominion is over, we'll have the Romulans to contend with. We just can't get over the three hundred years of hostility between us, they say. I don't know if that's true or not. Maybe it really is because I'm a hopeless romantic, but I'd like to think that this story has a lesson to teach all of us. That lesson is: there is a true hope for a permanent peace, because we're not so different from each other after all.

Until next week!

A/N: I may continue this series if more ideas for "Jake's" stories come to me, but for now, this is a stand-alone.