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Hi, everyone! I'm so glad that you've decided to come back for another chapter of my story. Thank you so much to those of you that have read, reviewed, favorited, followed, and private messaged. Your support means the world to me.

I'm sorry that I got this chapter up a lot later than intended – I know that I told several people that had messaged me that I planned to have it up Wednesday, but the dreaded stomach bug hit our home this past week. I got it, my two children got it, and my husband smugly remained bug-free and took care of all of us. Yesterday was the first day that we all felt better, so we spent it taking it easy. I hope you've all managed to stay stomach bug-free during this crazy season. WASH YOUR HANDS!

There is good news, though. As a reward for your patience, I will be putting up THREE chapters this week! Yay! They're already edited and waiting, so now I just have to get them posted. I hope you're as excited as I am.

Anyways… if you like the chapter, please consider leaving a review! I absolutely love to read your thoughts and opinions. My previous readers also know that I'm more likely to update quickly if I'm getting a lot of reviews, because reviews equal motivation to me. Also consider favoriting and following the story and/or me. Thanks in advance! You all are the best!

Happy Reading!

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Chapter Four: Here, There Is Rest

Twelve Years Ago

Steve

Dr. Young's fever took two days to disappear. At one point, Carson had said that he was worried that she wouldn't make it through another night, and we'd all taken shifts staying up to watch her and make sure that she was still breathing.

My shift had passed slowly as worry and concern clawed at me. This doctor – this woman – had volunteered for a dangerous program in a dangerous part of the world. She'd known the risks, and she'd signed on anyway because she believed in what she was doing. She had wanted to make herself available to soldiers dealing with the worst kind of trauma. Soldiers very much like me.

Her breaths weren't strong, but they were there, and I prayed to a God that I wasn't even one hundred percent sure that I believed in that she would recover and grow stronger with each passing hour. If anyone deserved mercy, it was this brave woman. Surely, after going through the hell that she'd endured, a loving God would grant her peace.

That peace came the next afternoon.

"Hey, hey, she's awake!" Carson exclaimed excitedly.

The rest of us had been finishing our "lunch" while he checked on her, but we quickly scurried over to see what was happening.

Dr. Young's eyes were, indeed, open. They were also the color of a clear sky warmed by a burning sun. Her skin was pale, her blonde hair dirty and tangled, but she was so wonderfully alive.

Carson shined a light in each of her eyes and then asked her if she remembered what had happened. When she answered with a weak "no", he told her about the rescue mission gone wrong due to a fallen helo and an avalanche. He also did some quick introductions and then asked Ramirez to get her some water.

"There's plenty of fresh water," Carson said conversationally as he hung the last bag of fluids that he had for her. "We've been trying to dig our way out of this cave for a few days, so there's lots of snow to boil and drink."

"And use to cover-"

I elbowed Rivers in the stomach before he could finish that thought. In a low voice, I told him, "She doesn't want to hear about that." She was a doctor and I was certain that she'd seen more disgusting things, but still.

"She's going to have to use the bathroom eventually, too, you know," he mumbled back, but let it go.

She drank plenty of water, coughed a few times, and then asked Carson, "You're the medic, then?"

He nodded. "I am. But now we have a real doctor on hand."

Her laughter ended in a fit of coughing. "Sorry," she apologized and drank some more water. "What antibiotic did they send?"

"Zithromax," he responded. "I used the last bag of it last night."

"We're lucky they sent a few extra in case of an emergency," LT said softly. "Or this might have gone a little differently."

We all knew that he meant that she would have succumbed to her pneumonia by now.

She nodded towards the IV. "Fluids?"

Carson nodded. "The last bag. But now that you're awake, you should be able to drink some water to rehydrate yourself."

"And eat something," Rivers spoke up. He didn't need to mention how malnourished she looked – we'd seen that from the moment we'd pulled her out of that tent. Her captors obviously hadn't cared how well she'd been taken care of.

"I'm not hungry," she said softly and closed her eyes as if she was in pain. "I'm still pretty weak and dehydrated. My head is killing me."

"I have some acetaminophen." Carson began to dig for it, but she shook her head.

"No. Save that for when we really need it."

"You should definitely try to eat something, then," he told her in a stern voice.

"How do you even have food out here if it was just supposed to be a quick smash and grab job?" she asked.

"We always have MREs packed," LT answered her. "Be prepared for everything."

"Plus, we grabbed some food from the camp when we realized we would have to run," Ramirez put in.

"We'll help you sit up so that you can eat," Carson decided and waved me forward. "Steve, help me get her up. Ramirez and Rivers, roll those blankets up to put behind her so that she can rest against the wall. LT, can you make sure that the IV doesn't get tangled up?"

I stepped forward to slip my arm beneath her, unsurprised that we moved her with little effort. She had a lot of weight to gain back, when all of this was over.

Once she was comfortable, LT told everyone to get back to digging. Except… "Stay behind," he told me with a nod to Dr. Young. "Keep her company. The only thing keeping us from being bored out of our damn minds is the digging, and Lord knows she can't help us with that."

No, she wasn't going to be in a condition to do hard labor for many months, thanks to those assholes. But… "What am I supposed to talk to her about? She's a doctor." Her intelligence had to be twice that of mine. And I doubted that we had much in common.

The look that he gave me put me back in my place. "I get that you'd rather be helping us dig out, but someone needs to keep her calm and reassured. Right now, that someone is you. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

With a stiff nod, he headed off to join the others.

I grabbed a couple of MRE packages and some more water and then joined Dr. Young on the floor. "My name is Steve McGarrett," I reminded her. "Mind if I keep you company while the rest of the guys are tunneling out?"

Those baby blues turned on me with surprise and curiosity. "Surely you'd rather be helping them than sitting here with a near invalid?"

Wow, she was good. It had taken her less than five seconds to figure that out. But I shook my head. "I'm right where I need to be."

She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. "Okay. Then tell me about you, Steve McGarrett."

"Why do you psych people always want to get in people's heads?" I was only half joking. With every eval I'd been forced to undergo, there was a mental health professional wanting to dig in and figure out what made me tick. None of them had ever completely succeeded. At least… I didn't think so.

The slight narrowing of her eyes told me that she had homed in on that. "You don't like to talk about yourself?"

"No. I mean… there's really not much to say. I'm pretty boring."

"I don't like to talk about myself, either."

I felt my eyebrows raise in surprise. "Really? I thought all you mental health people were all about talking and sharing?"

Her laugh was weak, but still musical and full of a lightness that I desired. Nothing had felt light for me in a long time. "Not all of us. For me, I just feel that there are millions of more interesting things to talk about than where I grew up or what my college major was."

"What was your college major?" I asked her. "Psych?"

"No. I didn't know that I wanted to do psychiatry until I was in my third year of medical school. I majored in Biochemistry."

The thought of spending hours in a lab mixing chemicals and graphing results made me want to bang my head against a wall. "Did you always know that you wanted to go to medical school?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She smiled, and there was a sudden determination in her eyes that called to an intimate part of myself. "I love a good challenge. Medical school is competitive and very, very hard. I chose psychiatry for the challenge, too. It's a very quickly-evolving field. They're coming out with new studies every month. And the diagnosing can be… well… incredibly challenging is an understatement. But it's also incredibly rewarding."

"And this program?" I asked her. "Did you accept it because it was a challenge?"

"I did military psychiatry because my father was a marine that lived for years with undiagnosed PTSD. Psychiatry is a very in-demand specialty, and especially so in the military. I wanted to go where I could do the most good. This program…" Suddenly, she closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. "I was supposed to be helping people."

The anxiety and sadness rolled off of her in waves, and I reached out and grabbed her hand without a thought. Surprised, she opened her eyes, looked at my hand, and then looked up at me, eyes shining with unshed tears.

"You did," I assured her. "You've been helping soldiers since the moment your plane touched down. What happened to you… it was a freak thing, okay? But it doesn't undo all of the good that you've done."

A tear escaped and she quickly wiped it away and gave me a shaky smile. "Thanks. I'm usually the one giving comfort to emotional patients."

"I think you've earned the right to be emotional, after everything." Slowly – and regretfully – I withdrew my hand and opened the MRE. "You should eat something. I'm sorry that it's not exactly gourmet, but you do have a few choices. Let's see here…" I read them off as I went through them. "Spaghetti with meat sauce, corn, pound cake, or chipotle snack bread."

"I'm really not that hungry," she protested. "You all should save that food for yourselves. You need energy to tunnel out of here."

"You need energy to fight off the last of this pneumonia," I argued right back. "If you're not that hungry, I recommend the pound cake. It's not very filling, but it might do for you."

She nodded and then watched as I expertly prepared it for her. She thanked me when I handed it to her, a small smile playing on her bow lips. "You're very good at that."

"I've had a lot of practice. I will warn you, though, if there's cheese spread with any of your meals, I'd steer clear."

"Thanks for the tip." She took a small bite of the pound cake and nodded. "Not bad. Then again, I haven't eaten much in the last several weeks."

"They won't be winning any awards anytime soon, but they get the job done." I smiled at her. "Do you like to cook?"

She spent the next ten minutes making me salivate over her baking stories.

"That's it," I concluded. "Once we're back stateside, you have to make me a batch of your grandmother's snickerdoodles."

"It's a deal," she agreed and finished off the last bite of pound cake. "I'm stuffed."

Unsurprising, really. She was just getting over a terrible illness. "Good. Drink some water. Or there's disgusting coffee, if you'd prefer?"

She laughed and shook her head. "I'll stick with the water, thanks. It has an odd taste, but it's refreshing."

"I think boiled water always has an odd taste." As I spoke, I watched the graceful arch of her jaw as she drank and hated myself for it. She'd just been rescued from a terrible hostage situation and I was actually tempted to flirt with her… I needed to get a hold of myself.

Once she'd had her fill of water, she encouraged me to go and help the others dig. "I really need to get some more rest, and you'll be much more useful to them than as a bodyguard to me while I sleep."

It was a fair point. Still, I was loathe to leave her, and not necessarily because I thought that she needed a bodyguard. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," she said and winced as she tried to move. "Just maybe help me get back down onto the ground?"

"Of course."

More gently than I'd ever done anything in my entire life, I slipped my arms around her and picked her up, adjusting the blankets with my feet before placing her on them. She shifted ever so slightly and then smiled at me. "Thanks."

Throat tight, I nodded at her.

Within seconds, she was asleep.

I should have stood up and headed off to help the rest of my team with their tunneling efforts. Or even gone to make myself a cup of crappy coffee to help get me through the rest of the day. Instead, I knelt there for a few moments longer, just watching her. And as I did, something that I couldn't place shifted inside my chest…

Like two magnets clicking together, their own private language whispering, I belong right here.

Try though I did to ignore it, it was there.

For the next two days, I volunteered to watch over Bailey (as she'd asked me to call her) and keep her company while the rest of the team worked at digging us out of there. We talked about anything and everything – our favorite movies, worst dates, first kisses – except for the fact that the rations were dwindling and we only had food for a few more days, at best. And that was after we had already cut down the rations. Bailey didn't eat much, but that wasn't enough to offer a tremendous amount of help.

LT had told me that my job was to keep Bailey distracted and from finding out about the anxiety-inducing lack of food. She already wanted us to keep all the food for ourselves, and she would only grow more stubborn if she knew that it was going to run out soon.

So, I talked to her about my past, even though I'd been so against it a couple of days prior. She just listened, for the most part, unless I asked for her opinion. "I'm not a therapist," she would say, "but in my opinion…" She was working on getting her counseling degree to better serve her patients, and she told me that I was excellent practice.

I didn't mind talking to her, which was surprising to me. I'd never been one to open up to people – especially people that I hadn't known for very long – but there was something different about Bailey that made it so easy. Maybe it was her own openness and willingness to talk about anything, or maybe it was just her and her refreshing outlook on life. Whatever it was, I found myself spilling more and more to her in that little cave in the Alps.

"What happens in the Alps stays in the Alps, right?" I asked her one evening as we ate spaghetti with meat sauce together. I'd told LT that I would split my package with her, but I'd given her the bigger half when she'd been distracted. She needed it more than I did.

"You're not technically a patient, but just for you, I'll extend the same confidentiality. How's that?"

I nodded my agreement. "Because if the guys ever found out about that date…"

She held back her laughter, but it was still dancing in her eyes. "Don't worry. Your embarrassment is safe with me."

"Good."

She had just opened her mouth to say something else when there was an excited shout from the cave entrance. I stood to see what was going on, but everyone was talking all at once and the chatter only died down when LT called out.

"We're out!" Rivers shouted, and the cheering was practically deafening.

With an efficiency that was trained into every SEAL officer, LT sent Carson and Ramirez out to scout the area. The rest of us were to pack up and be ready to move out as soon as we knew where to go. Suddenly, the cave was a mess of activity.

"Okay," Bailey said slowly as she observed what was going on. "I get that I'm technically in the military, but all this lingo has me a bit lost."

I smiled and sat back down to quickly finish my meal. "We've finally tunneled out safely. Carson and Ramirez are going to go out and see if they can find a village or somewhere that we might be able to get help."

"You guys didn't bring a sat phone?" she frowned.

"It got lost in the snow."

"Oh." Her tone was grim. "Then let's hope that the nearby villagers are in a helpful mood."