The two officers stood solemnly under a street light as they watched a truck load of caskets being unloaded in front of a funeral parlor. They could hear the muffled wails from the mothers and wives of the deceased French soldiers. Dick looked down at Rose, who let out a shuddering breath. He could see the pain pooling in her deep, brown eyes and the tears glistening on the rims. He couldn't imagine how many of those caskets she saw every day. A little part of him died with every one of his men he'd lost, but compared to her, he hadn't seen anything.

Dick slipped his hand down around hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. That warm hand broke the nurse out of her trance. Her eyes snapped up to his sympathetic ones and Rose suddenly felt very feeble and weak. She quickly wiped the forming tears away and straitened her shoulders.

"Huh," she despondently laughed "didn't think I was even cable of doing that anymore."

Dick squeezed her hand again. "You're only human."

She smiled sorrowfully up at him and grasped his strong hand back.

"I wish that I was more than that. Maybe I wouldn't have to put so many in those damned things."

Dick didn't let go of her hand. Instead, he gently pulled her along and they walked back towards the train station. They strolled quite awhile in silence, both slowly slipping back into their own little, painful worlds. Rose thought of all the lives she hadn't saved. Dick thought of all the lives he had taken.

Occasionally, Dick looked down at the sad, beautiful woman whose hand he still held. She looked much older than her 23 years. What the hell was she doing in this mess anyway? She should have been back home, married, with children running up to her screaming "Mama".

He felt bad for thinking about it, but most nurses in the Army were unmarried for a reason. He'd often heard the men complaining about the lack of looks in the hospitals. But, Dick didn't like Rose just for her looks. Sure, she was beautiful, but he wouldn't have been holding her hand at the moment if her looks were all she had…

"Rose?" he suddenly asked, breaking their long silence.

Rose jerked her head up to his handsome face. He'd caught her off guard by using her first name, but she liked it.

"Yes?" she answered softly.

"Why are you here? Why did you join the Army?"

Rose looked up at him and shrugged.

"Oh, you know…adventure, free clothing, a wonderful salary…terrific food…" her voice dripped with sarcasm.

Dick chuckled, but looked deeply in her eyes.

"Really though…of all the things you could have done for the effort?" Dick earnestly wanted to know.

Rose sighed and stared down the darkened, empty, cobblestone street. She could have told him what she simply told everybody else: "I joined to serve my country" or "couldn't let the boys have all the fun." But, Rose didn't want to deny him the truth. With him, she felt safe to tell him…tell him everything.

"My father was in the Army during the first go 'round. He called me his little miracle because all those chemicals they fought with were supposed to have made him infertile"

Dick watched her eyes glaze over in sadness.

"I never knew it, because he still worked as hard as ever on the farm, but he'd been hurt real bad in France. They'd missed a piece of shrapnel in his leg. One day, my mother found Dad out in the barn unconscious. That shrapnel shifted and cut his femoral artery and he died of internal bleeding. I was only four. He was my hero…and I don't remember what his voice sounded like." They walked in silence for about a block before she continued. "Then my mother remarried this man who owned the feed mill. He didn't like any of us kids. He worked us to exhaustion…had to earn our keep since he took us in." she sneered.

Dick swore he could feel her hand trembling in his. He could see it was painful telling him, but he could also see she had to get it off her chest, so he squeezed her hand and let her keep going.

"He used to make my mother get all dolled up on Friday nights and they'd go out. He had some bootlegger friend and he'd come home higher than a kite. I woke up one Saturday when I was nine and instead of my mother trying to hide her bruises, the sheriff was in the kitchen telling my brothers they'd found our car in a ravine…" she trailed off as her soft voice began to crack.

"After that, we moved in with my grandparents." a glimmer of a smile snuck into her eyes. "Pop taught me to be strong and he raised me like a boy, but Ma made me wear a dress and convinced me to go to teacher's college instead of fighting my way into medical school. Then," she sighed heavily. "my best friend, Molly, joined the Navy as a nurse because her boyfriend had joined. She begged me to go with her. She knew I wanted to be a doctor instead of a teacher."

Dick could see the sorrow seeping back into her face.

"I almost did too. Had the papers ready and everything, but I just started teaching and Pop pulled a lot of strings to get me into our local schoolhouse, so I stayed home." She looked up into Dick's eyes, her turmoil clearly written across her face. "She was at Pearl Harbor. She's buried across the lane from my father in the cemetery. They couldn't even have an open casket."

"Rose, I'm sorry…" Dick whispered.

She just kept going. "I felt so guilty. I was supposed to go with her…she was always getting herself into things way over her head, but I'd always saved her. Maybe if I'd been there…" she trailed off.

Dick suddenly pulled her to a stop and turned to face her, still holding her hand. Rose was looking down at his ribbons, trying to hide those damned tears she'd cried a million times before. Dick gently hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her delicate face to his.

"There's no way you could blame yourself for that. Some Japanese Admirals and politicians are to blame for her death. Hell, blame Hitler!"

The tears rolled down her soft cheeks. "But I would have saved her. I always did. She would have been somewhere safe…"

"You don't know that. You could have been stationed somewhere else… thousands of miles from Pearl Harbor, or worse…" his hand cupped her cheek and he wiped the tears away with his thumb. "You could have both died…but you're here."

"I lose everybody…my father, my mother, Molly…so many young soldiers…I should have saved them all…" she whispered hoarsely.

"Rose…for every soldier you lose, you save a hundred more."

Neither of them had realized how close their bodies had gotten. The only thing keeping their bodies from touching was the fact that Dick was still holding onto her hand, which he'd brought up against his chest. His other hand was holding her face carefully and his callused thumb tenderly wiped away her last tear. Rose wasn't even aware that she barely breathing. She carefully searched his gentle eyes.

For the first time, Dick could smell her perfume. Every one of his senses was being invaded by her. He could feel the heat from her body through his thick, wool uniform and he could hear her short, shallow breaths. She seemed to being leaning more and more into him, and he welcomed it. Suddenly, his eyes fluttered closed as his head dipped down to hers.

Rose felt her heart leap. She could feel his breath on her lips. Their lips brushed ever so slightly and…

Then a boisterous laugh made the two officers jump apart.

Two French policemen came around the corner, talking to one another. They smiled kindly to the Americans, who'd expertly masked their surprised faces with one of composed coolness. Dick nodded and Rose smiled as they passed by. They stayed like that until the Frenchmen disappeared from the same manner as they had appeared.

Rose sheepishly looked down at her shoes. She couldn't believe she'd let herself do that. They could have been caught. She could feel the embarrassment burn up her neck and settle in her cheeks.

Dick could hardly slow his pounding heart. His mouth was painfully dry and could still feel were her lips had just barely touched his. What if they hadn't heard those men coming? He doubted they would have reported them, it was France after all, but just thinking about someone like Sobel walking around that corner made him sick to his stomach. He nervously scratched the corner of his eye and looked over at Rose.

"Um…" Rose said awkwardly after several moments of deafening silence. "We should probably get on that train before it closes for the night."

Dick cleared his throat. "Yah," he said hoarsely. "Yah, you're right."

They continued on their way like before, but with a wall of tension keeping them a good distance apart. Dick unconsciously kneaded his fingers in his palm, where hers used to be. It took a great deal of will power to not look down at her because he was so embarrassed. But suddenly, after several minutes of silence, Dick couldn't help himself. He had to re-break the ice somehow.

"So…why didn't you join the Navy?"

Rose snapped out of her self-induced trance. After getting over the fact he'd actually spoken to her again, she couldn't help but chuckle.

"Well, the Army is a Beyer family tradition and since both of my brothers were rejected I guess I didn't want to be the generation who broke it." She looked up at the tall Captain and looked at him sheepishly. "Plus, I get seasick."

Dick eyes twinkled and he couldn't help but laugh, but it still didn't change the fact he'd almost kissed the woman. He took a deep breath and refocused his eyes forward. Rose did the same.

They entered the sparsely filled train station and waited for the last train. There was no denying the tension between the two, but they deftly acted as though nothing was wrong. Dick was a little let down when she chose the seat across from him, but he quickly reminded himself it was the proper thing to do.

He settled in to the long train ride back to the hotel, but then he saw him…