Time, which had always stretched out ahead of me, suddenly had an end point.

Two weeks until Steve had to report to the MEPS in Oklahoma City.

At which point there would be no such thing as time, because my life would stop. Unless they found him ineligible, he would go straight from the medical to induction. When he went to Fort Sill to be turned into a soldier, my life would stop. I couldn't think past that. Couldn't even begin to get my head around what would be next.

That first night, I asked him, I downright begged him, not to go. Said I didn't care what he did, he could get himself sent to prison, I would prefer that, at least I would know where he was and I could wait that out.

Steve looked at me then, for long, slow seconds. He hadn't moved from the chair. By that time I was collapsed to my knees in front of him. He reached out his hand and held my face and he just said,

"I'm sorry, babe."

He couldn't tell anyone else that first night, not even Soda. We went to bed and he kissed away my tears and made love to me for a long, long time. He told me everything would be okay and I desperately wanted to believe him.

But as we lay in each other's arms, the light that had gone out of his eyes stayed gone.

xxXxx

"Coffee. I heard that you drink enough coffee to make your heart race, they stamp you 4F right off," Two-Bit suggested.

"You can burn your draft notice. Hell, you'll get on the TV." Pony made it sound so simple.

Soda had desperation in his eyes. "Canada. We'll throw a few things in the car, set off now. C'mon, Canada, man, you an' me."

Steve shook his head. "I ain't a coward, I ain't fakin' anything." His voice was toneless. "An' I can't burn it. All the guys who already went, it'd be like spitting on them. And what about our dads? They hadda do it, back in the day."

"You think it's the same? You think the Second World War, or Korea even, compares to Viet-friggin'-nam?" Pony spluttered. I couldn't tell if he was angry with Steve or the situation. I guess it didn't matter.

Steve sighed. "No. I ain't sayin'... Jeez, Pony. I ain't comparing the wars, I'm comparing the people. What makes me different? What makes me better, that I shouldn't go when they had to?"

I was so angry that he felt like that. I had a deep, secret pit of rage that he couldn't see that he was different, was special. To me, to all of us.

It was Darry who came up with the only sliver of hope. Darry, who'd been eligible for the draft, and then - overnight - no longer eligible, for the worst reason, when he became Soda and Pony's guardian.

"Tell 'em about Jay. Get your lawyer moving and tell 'em Jay's your dependent."

xxXxx

Carol cried. That was inevitable.

The twins were confused, because they asked if Steve wanted to be a soldier and couldn't understand that it wasn't really a choice.

"And you said a bad word, Daddy," Scott piped up. "You said that the Nam war was a bad word and Mommy said to watch your mouth in front of me and Jamie." He sidled up to me, hissing, "You wanna know what bad word it was?"

I told him, no. I had plenty of my own bad words for the war, circling around in my head on an endless loop.

"There must be something we can do," Carol kept saying. "I can't lose you again."

"It's just two years. I'll be okay." Steve's jaw couldn't have been any tighter.

"Walt, we must be able to call someone..."

"No. It is what it is, Mom. I'll be okay."

Walt started to tell Steve about all the jobs that weren't front line. What he should try to aim for, when he was tested. How to make the best of a bad deal. I don't think he stopped to think that he went into the war in Europe as a college grad. Spent his time behind desks, not on the front line.

I knew that boys from our neighborhood were always infantry, not clerks; grunts, not officers.

I went out on their patio, but I couldn't even summon the energy to smoke.

"Evie? Do you want Steve to stay here?" I looked up as Jamie hovered next to my chair.

"Yeah, honey, I do."

"I do too." He put his little hand on my shoulder, his lip wobbling. "I'm thinking the bad word."

I pulled him onto my lap and held him tight. "Me too, honey. Me too."

xxXxx

It took another ten days for Mr. Hollings to come back from his family business. Turned out that his mother had been dying. I tried real hard to be sorry for him. But that was ten days lost. We ended up seeing him the very day before Steve was due to report to the draft board.

And in that time, Becky moved. Steve went to the apartment, to give her more money, to see Jay, and the place was deserted. He tracked down Angela Shepard and nearly got into it with Curly, for yelling at her, but she couldn't, or wouldn't, tell him where Becky was.

We'd talked about finding another lawyer, but by the time everything had been explained again – and the new lawyer's time paid for, just to duplicate everything that Mr. Hollings had already done – Steve felt he might as well stick with what he had. And he trusted Mr. Hollings. I thought he was right. Not every lawyer in town would have given an unwed greaser father the time of day, never mind seemed like he was on Steve's side.

But Mr. Hollings's reaction to the draft notice wasn't encouraging:

"This is not the best news for us."

"No shit?"

I slapped Steve's arm, horrified that he'd sworn. But Mr Hollings waved my concern aside.

"I don't mean on a personal level, although..." He changed his mind about whatever he'd been going to say. "I'm sorry, I mean the timing. If we'd had time to secure custody, it would actually have made you ineligible for the draft, as the sole custodian of a minor. As it is now, with the mother still retaining the child, I'm afraid your being drafted undoes some of the positives – a more stable home life, etc. – that we were using as bargaining tools." He sighed. "And we haven't had time to build up a believable family relationship to apply for custody yet. We can't even prove you've been contributing financially to the child, which means he is not your legal dependent. No custody, no 3-A deferment. Dammit!" He threw his pen down in frustration.

My heart sank and Steve looked kind of sick. Mr Hollings frowned.

"Maybe, if you were -" He stopped. And then, strangely, it wasn't Steve he squinted at thoughtfully. It was me.

"If he was what?" I asked apprehensively.

xxXxx

Not something you carry around. I hadn't needed it since I got my driver's license. But I knew where it was. I flew into the house, barely even noticing Ma saying hello as I dived past her, opening the cabinet in the corner of the room.

Thanking Sarah's neat freakery in my head, I dragged out the file box, rifling through the papers until I saw the one I wanted, grabbed it, like my life depended on it. Which in a way it did.

Sarah came in, rubbing her eyes, just up from a nap.

"What on earth are you doing?" was her perfectly understandable greeting.

I hesitated, looked between her and Ma. I loved them both, but Steve was waiting in the car and there was so much riding on this.

xxXxx

Steve's house was next, and he was in and out equally quickly, thanks to Eddie's special drawer, where Steve still kept all important documents. There had to be a lesson in that, somewhere.

I had to remind him twice to slow down as we sped away, across town. The last thing we needed now was a ticket.

xxXxx

"If you were married, it might convince the court that the home environment is more stable. For the child."

And that's how Steve and I ended up at the county courthouse, how we paid the clerk for a marriage license and waited in line to be married by a judge. Never in a million years would I have thought that there would be a line, late on a Wednesday afternoon, on a random day in February. Although, I guess we were lucky - if it had been the day before, we'd have been up against all those Valentine's romantics. As it was, Steve and I hadn't even marked Valentine's. It hardly seemed important against the fact of the draft.

We were next up, and the clock was heading towards four thirty real quick. I was watching it from the chairs where we waited, willing the people who went before us to talk quick and let us get in there, before the court closed for the day.

Footsteps cannoned off the walls, making me look around.

Two-Bit skidded to a stop, panting. "Seriously? You don't write, you don't call...?"

"Yeah, where were the invitations?" Soda grinned, his DX shirt flapping open, as they both caught their breath.

"How the hell...?"

I turned to the noise of even more panting. Sarah was hurrying towards me, on Tony's arm.

"Your sister called the DX, I called Two-Bit." Soda beamed at us.

Steve stood up and let Sarah sink into his chair. Tony beetled off again.

"Here," she panted, handing me a bunch of daffodils that must have been ripped from our yard. "You can't get married without flowers." Oh, lord, I was going to catch it from Marian...

"Or a ring," Two-Bit piped up helpfully. Steve and I looked at each other. All we had on us were our birth certificates, all that we'd taken the time to grab, when Mr Hollings said they'd be needed.

"Sh..oot, Randle." Two-Bit changed what he'd been about to say, with a guilty glance at Sarah. "You old romantic. Didn't bother with a ring, huh?"

"I don't think it's gonna matter." I was looking at the people coming out from the courtroom, then up at the clock. It was twenty five after four. We'd run out of time.

"Never say never," was Two-Bit's cryptic reply. He beckoned Steve to one side and turned his back on me.

Sarah patted my arm as I looked at the clock, fighting back tears. It was hopeless.

A piercing whistle made us all look around.

Soda was sticking his head out the courtroom door, beckoning us over. "You gettin' hitched, or what?" he demanded.

He'd slipped inside, the second the last couple had left, and spoken to the judge about us. The judge who took pity on the fact that Steve was being drafted and who admired our 'old fashioned values'.

'Old fashioned values' that Mr Hollings had pointed out, meant that Jay could be living with his stepmother even while his father was away serving his country. Maybe even get Steve's service switched from overseas to Stateside, because of 'extenuating circumstances'. And whatever other legal sounding shit would let him keep working on the custody issue.

"One second." Tony's voice held us up, but he wasn't alone.

"Evelyn Grace, if you think you're doing this without me, you think again, young lady."

"Ma?"

"Here," she handed me a handkerchief, with forget me knots embroidered on the corner. "'Borrowed' and 'blue'." She looked me over. "I guess everything you're wearing is 'old'."

I hugged her.

Two-Bit cleared his throat from the doorway. "Time to get a wriggle on, Tink."

"Two-Bit?" Tony stepped forwards. "Would you mind escorting the ladies?"

"My pleasure." Two-Bit gave an arm each to Ma and Sarah and they went in.

"Just us, then, Evie. If that's okay. I mean, I thought...but if you prefer not..."

I told Tony to shut up, took his arm and walked into the courtroom. It wasn't exactly walking down the aisle, but I loved him for thinking like that.

Whether the judge had ever married a girl in capris, to a guy in jeans, with a DX attendant as best man and a weeping pregnant woman as matron of honor, I don't know. He took it in his stride.

When it came to the part where he asked about rings, I piped up, "Oh, that don't matter." But Steve produced a ring box and put a ring on my finger. It was just as well everything was about done by then, because I was lost for words. I got a massive wink from Two-Bit when I looked up.

I caught Steve's eye as he went to kiss me. What I saw there, in that split second, was everything I needed to know about being loved. I hoped he saw the same in me.

The judge asked to shake Steve's hand and wished him luck. He was a chunky old guy, he looked like he could have made a good department store Santa, if you imagined a beard on him. He smiled at me and asked if he could kiss me on the cheek. He told me that we were the couple he had the most hope for out of everyone he'd married that day. That was probably breaking some rule or other. I'm sure judges aren't supposed to have favorites.

Outside the court house, everyone else wanted to kiss me too, which was slightly freaky. I was more concerned about Ma, who was starting to look nervous. Sarah took her over to Tony's car and she seemed more comfortable. I handed back her handkerchief.

"Else it wasn't borrowed," I pointed out.

Sarah sighed. "You didn't have anything new to wear."

I waved my ring finger at her. "Sure I did. Look!" I hugged her and thanked her for the flowers, when what I meant was 'Thank you for being here'.

I was looking at the ring as I walked back over to Steve. It was a simple gold band, nothing fancy. Pretty much what I would have chosen, if we'd had that luxury. "Where did this even come from?"

Two-Bit answered, folding his arms and looking mighty pleased with himself. "Last time I wanna hear my antiques called 'junk', okay?"

"It ain't fenced, is it?" I had to ask.

"Hey! I don't do that. It came from a perfectly respectable source. It fit?"

I nodded. "Almost."

He shrugged. "I grabbed the smallest ones I had, for Stevie to pick one. I heard that new Mrs. Randle was an itty bitty thing."

Soda snorted with laughter. "Oh, yeah. 'Mrs Randle'. Shit, you two are really married!"

xxXxx

"What are you doing? I just wanna go home," I didn't want to sound scratchy, but I could think of better things for us to do with our remaining time, than get a freaking milkshake.

We'd gone right back to the lawyer's office, catching him as he was leaving, so Steve could sign whatever it was that made a difference, now that we had a marriage certificate to prove we were serious about everything in the whole goddamn world. I think Mr Hollings stayed back, hoping that we'd made it, I don't think lawyers work past five thirty as a rule; for sure, all the other offices were dark.

But now, Steve ignored me and pulled into the DQ parking lot.

"Get out, babe. Please."

I started to argue, but he repeated the request. He grabbed my arm and marched me around the side of the building. I started to find it hard to breathe properly, because I knew, all of a sudden, what he was doing.

Too early. Too goddamn early. It should be March. Our first kiss had been in March and after last year's anniversary of that, he'd promised me we be here this March too...

"Next year too, huh? I dunno what we'll do if they ever tear this place down."

Oh, God. How had we considered the building disappearing, but not one of us? Where would he be next March?

He kissed me long and hard, almost hurting me with how hard he held me.

"Evie." He kept us close, speaking right into my ear, his voice husky with emotion. "I can't believe they screwed with our anniversary, but I will be back. You hear me? I will be back."

I ignored the tears that were pooling in my eyes and I nodded. Because if he said it, it would be true. It had to be true. Please God. Please.

"Anyway," I choked out. "This is our anniversary now."

He wiped away a tear from my cheek. The only one I let spill.

"Babe. I got a favor to ask. I know you wanna go home –" and, oh Christ, it was his house he was talking about, that was home now, we were married, that was my house too, my home now, like I'd wanted, but I didn't want it to be for this reason...

"Evie?"

I got a grip. I had to, for him. I couldn't have him worried about me, I needed him to focus on himself, keep himself safe. I blinked furiously, heard him out and agreed to what he was asking.

He smiled. "Thank you. Gimme another kiss first. This one's gotta count for next year too."


A/N: And that's where the song title borrowed for this fic comes in...

Love me two times, baby
Love me twice today
Love me two times, girl
I'm goin' away
Love me two times, girl
One for tomorrow
One just for today
Love me two times
I'm goin' away