Ned... my husband, love of my life. My dearest.

I fall asleep missing you with every fiber of my being. I fall asleep missing you so much that I ache for you—for your kiss, for the feel of your hand against mine, the brush of your lips against my skin. My heart feels quieter without yours to match to it. My bed feels so cold and empty without you to warm it, and I have taken to sleeping with a pillow beside me, but oh, it is no substitute. None at all.

For a handful of seconds when I wake, sometimes a dream of you lingers, and before I open my eyes it's as though you have only just left—or, better, that soon you will return from your morning run and I will find you in the kitchen making us breakfast. Sometimes the sensation is so strong that for an instant the scent of bacon lingers in the air, before I realize that it's only my own fancy.

I went to see your mother on my return, and I could see the question in her eyes but she never asked and I never told her. Oh, I have told your parents and my father that on your return, you and I plan on having a formal ceremony at your parents' church—I thought you would want that, and Mapleton isn't too far from River Heights. She was excited, I could tell; a part of me wondered if somehow she could see it on me, if she could sense that the white dress she said would look so darling on me... but maybe I will be telling her the truth soon; maybe I will be telling all of them the truth soon. I don't know yet.

I thought I knew what it was to miss you. I had no idea, my love. I understood so little then.

No matter what, I am glad we were able to have our time together, but Ned... how is it that I feel so close to you even now, as though some intangible part of me could reach through the distance between us and pull you home? Maybe it is because I wish it so, so much. I had believed myself a whole person, but when I met you those years ago, from that moment, I suppose that in a way I truly was. I take my hands, my fingertips, for granted; I take my sight, my next heartbeat, my next breath for granted, and I took your presence in my life for granted. Slowly you became so indispensable to me, like fingers slowly entwined. How is it that we can fit like those intertwined fingers, my love? How is it—I am still awestruck when I think of how we fit together. Flesh of your flesh.

I must stop. I was always shocked when Bess would write such... such words to Tommy, and now I find myself doing the same. I thought her foolish, silly, lovestruck. Now I am as she was, as she still is. When I think of you, all else seems to fall away. I don't care how foolish or silly it may seem to anyone else. I know how much I love you, and all else pales in comparison.

It feels like a fever in me, and I grow delirious with it. I catch myself daydreaming of you. I long for you in a way I've only rarely had to long for air, but it feels just as necessary.

I know you said you would not have me follow you, and I will not, I promise. But, love, if I could, for just five minutes with you... oh, a part of me wishes that you could feel it, how desperately I wish I could have that chance, and another hopes that you don't. I wouldn't wish this loneliness on anyone, but I brought it on myself, and I would gladly choose it again. I could never regret the time I had with you. Never.

We have had our honeymoon, my love, and we will have another when you are home, and then our life together can begin. Our honeymoon. I told you once that we would live together among the stars when we were apart, and that life I imagined for us on the moon, it was nothing like what we had in San Francisco—but it was more, my love. To spend every day and night of my life with you... it is not everything I wish, but it is so much.

I adore you, my husband. Even now I feel my heart beat in the cage of your ribs, and I pray you can feel your own in the safety of mine. I pray you safe and well. I pray you happy and whole, and most of all I pray that this separation will be much shorter than the last. I will find my strength in your arms; until then I use it all to wait for you.

Please, Ned. Come to me. Come home to me as soon as you can.

With all my love,

your devoted wife,

Nancy

Nancy, my one, my only. My beautiful wife.

I understand exactly what you mean. The perfection in how our bodies fit together and how intense the pleasure was, the pleasure that we were able to share. The way we knit together, how sometimes I could almost say what was on your lips at the same time you did. The wedding band you put on my finger is in contact with my skin always, every day; is it in contact with yours?

It is so hard to put my thoughts together. It was so hard to come back after the delight of an entire week in your arms, to sleep beside you and hold you, and love you as I always wished I could—and even before that, to be with you so often. Just the sight of you was like the first sip of water after a year of thirst. I feel the loss of you like an ache. I feel every inch of the distance between us, and it is intolerable. I would not take back our marriage either, but before, I was convinced that I could never miss you more, could never desire or long for you more. I did not know how mistaken I was. When I wake sometimes it is to the sound of your laughter, and for a moment all this, all that's around me, is less real than the memory of you.

If sheer will could bring me back to you, you would not need lift a finger, my love. I would be beside you before your next breath, and this time, nothing would make me leave your side. Save the only knowledge that brought me back here. If in some way I can stand between you and the danger we're fighting here, if my being here keeps you safe—and, love, I must believe that it does. That alone is the only reason I remain, and why as much as it pains me, until I know you and all the other people I love are safe, I cannot fully begrudge being here. I may despise the stress and fear, the exhaustion, the emptiness—but your heart beats between my ribs, my darling, and I have sworn to protect it and bring it home.

My home is you, Nancy Drew Nickerson. Always and ever you. Being without you is indeed like living without a hand, an eye—but it's more than that. I could live without a part of me much more easily than I could live with the knowledge that I will never be with you again.

I will be with you, my love. When I sleep, know that I want nothing more than to wake in your arms, to see your sweet lovely face smiling up into mine when I open my eyes. And when we are together again, my sweet, we shall spend that week together rediscovering all the joy and pleasure that being together can give us.

Being with you felt like a dream, the most enchanting dream I have ever experienced, and now when I close my eyes and find the image of you captured in my mind's eye, that image of my sweet loving wife, I dread the waking because it means leaving you all over again.

I want to have children with you, my love, as many as you wish or as few. Even now, our son or daughter might be growing inside you, and while it might be selfish—I wish I were there to see it, to be with you. I want to be with you no matter what, but when I imagine that I could miss one of the most important events of my life, that I might have left you to have our child without me, I grieve. I would not want to miss a single second. That first laugh, the first blink of those blue eyes.

I know you said you would, but even if we were not given that gift—my parents, please, please talk to them, please let them help you if they can. You are their daughter-in-law, after all. You are their child too. While I'm gone, please... I know you don't wish to have our marriage known, and nor do I while we are parted this way, but they love you and they always have. You are my beloved, my promised, and you always will be. I'm glad you have been to see them already.

It is so strange, love. I feel like a coward, as though I am lesser, for having left you. I would feel like a coward if I had stayed. I could not win, and so I am miserable without you, praying that every moment passes like two, every hour like five.

Tell me everything, Nancy. Tell me how it is there now so I can imagine it. I have not seen River Heights and Mapleton for so long. I want to see you there. Now, in the photographs I have of you from San Francisco, I see you smiling, cheeks flushed and eyes twinkling. I can almost hear the sea and your laughter, always your laughter.

I love you, Nancy. I love you beyond and past everything. I will love you for every day of my life, and all that I have beyond it. I will be with you again, I swear it. Stay safe and I will come back to you. I could not bear the alternative.

I will write again soon, as soon as I can, but in the meantime

I will remain, always and ever your loving husband,

Ned

Nancy had memorized them all—the letters he had written to her, the ones that had actually made it to her; the letters he had given her when they had reunited in San Francisco, the ones he hadn't ever actually sent. Even though she knew that she shouldn't expect it, Nancy couldn't help it. She checked the mail every day. Ned's latest letter had come two days earlier, and still she shuffled through the envelopes, her heart rising and then sinking when she realized that no envelope bearing his handwriting was among them.

The day before, her cycle had begun. It was heavier than usual, and Nancy had agonized over it for a few hours before she had called Mrs. Nickerson and asked if she might be able to come to Mapleton and see her after the dinner shift at the diner. Going back to work had been a partial blessing; it gave Nancy something to do other than miss her husband quite so desperately.

Even calling him that, even though it was in the privacy of her own head, felt so unreal and so incredible. She wore the wedding band he had given her on the same chain necklace she always wore, tucked under the collar of her dresses, against her skin. Close to her heart.

Once Nancy had made the trip to Mapleton, she had asked to speak to Mrs. Nickerson alone. It had taken Nancy a while to work up the courage to talk about it, but she felt desperate for the answer. She feared she already knew it, but she had been so naive at just the act of lovemaking that she didn't know if what she knew was wrong.

"If a woman is married," Nancy had asked, her gaze on her hands in her lap, "and she has her cycle three weeks later... she will not have a baby, will she?"

Edith made a soft sound, and Nancy swallowed, then glanced up at her. The older woman's eyes were gleaming faintly. "Oh," she said softly. "Oh, Nancy, I'm sorry."

So what she had thought was right. She wasn't pregnant.

The relief and sadness came over her at once. Ned hadn't wanted to miss seeing their child, and now he wouldn't. Now she could keep working; now their marriage could remain a secret until he returned home. She would not have to raise their child alone.

But if he didn't return, if she had seen him for the last time, then their last chance had passed. They would not have another. She could not present him with a child on his return, and if he never returned to her, she would have no piece of him to keep.

Then the relief was swept away by the sadness and guilt she felt, and Nancy felt tears prick at her own eyes, and then Edith had wrapped her in a hug. "I'm sorry," Nancy whispered, and she didn't know why she was saying it. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Edith murmured, patting Nancy's back. "It was too much to hope for, I know. But I did..." She sighed.

After they had both dried their tears, Nancy sat back and looked into Edith's expectant eyes. "So the dress you bought right before I came back home—"

Nancy nodded. "Yes. I wore it that Monday. Oh, I have some pictures; I didn't think to bring them with me. But I will."

Edith smiled at her. "Why didn't you tell me, Nancy?"

Nancy shook her head, looking down at her hands again. "I didn't want you or Mr. Nickerson or my father to be disappointed in us and what we did," she murmured. "To think that we did this on the spur of the moment, because we knew it—it might be our only chance." Nancy choked up a little. "And Ned... he told me that he would wait for me, that he would marry me when he returned, that it... he didn't like that he would be swearing to spend the rest of his life with me, and then he would be going back. And I told him that I didn't want to wait. If we had another week together or eighty years together, I didn't want to wait."

Edith sniffled. "It was a hard choice," she said softly. "I know it must have been. But I knew that the two of you..."

Nancy smiled and looked down. "I love him so much," she said softly. "And if we—if there had been a baby, we were going to tell everyone. He made me promise to come to you and Mr. Nickerson, to let you help me."

"And we would have. We will," Edith said. "You're our daughter-in-law, after all. I know he was so very happy to be back, to see both of us, but the way he looks at you, the way he always has felt about you. He cares for you very deeply, dear, but I suppose you know that."

Nancy smiled. "I do now," she said. "He... he didn't really tell me until just before he was leaving, when he received his draft letter. And I didn't realize how I felt about him until then, either. So much has changed, though. So very much."

Edith nodded. "You were still quite young, when he left," she said. "And you are young now, but you've grown up a lot. You're a fine young woman. Since Ned told James and I how he felt about you, I've been hoping that you felt the same way. Dear, please know that if you ever need anything, anything at all, that you can come to us."

Nancy nodded. "I will."

Edith's lips turned up faintly. "I suppose in a way it's for the best," she said, looking away. "I feel terrible for those women left having to find a way to provide for their babies with their men gone to war. But if by some chance, you miss your cycle next month, it could be; I've heard of it happening before, rarely. If you were, if you are, then I would—well, I would not insist that you move in with James and I, but it would be difficult. He's my baby, Nancy. He's my only baby. And to know that he is gone again, that too many women I know have been given that terrible news..."

Nancy shook her head, distressed as Edith's voice began to break, and she wrapped her arms around her mother-in-law again. "He will come back," Nancy said, closing her eyes as she murmured the words. "He will. He has too much to do, too much of his life to live. He will. He has to."

Edith sniffled. "I pray every night that you're right," she murmured. "Every hour when I hear the clock chime, every morning when I wake. That soon he will walk back through that door, and then you and he will find a nice place to settle down together. And then, in a few years, I will have grandchildren to spoil and care for."

Nancy's heart skipped a beat at that thought. "Yes," she murmured. "In a few years."

But Nancy shook herself a little, coming back to reality as she looked down at the mail clutched in her hand. Her dreams centered on seeing him again, on being with him again. The idea of them living together, while sweet, was just as strange as that pale house on the moon they had described to each other so many times. It was a state between wakefulness and sleep, in that faint twilight, and just as insubstantial.

The reality of it, Nancy was sure, would be far beyond anything she had ever dreamed or hoped to find.

Nancy had just shouldered out of her coat and taken off her gloves when she heard a brisk knock at the door. Her father had cautioned her to be wary of suspicious characters, as she lived in an apartment house without a man to protect her, but nearly every unexpected knock was a neighbor asking to borrow or return something, or a traveling salesman too old to have been drafted. Nancy often took pity on them, buying what little she could with her own money. A few times she had been happy to open the door and find someone who had a small puzzle for her to help them solve, like a misplaced will or a missing person.

The man standing at the door when Nancy opened it didn't have that faint aura of desperation and hunger shared by most of the traveling salesmen. He wore a smart dark suit, and he held his hat in his hand.

"Good afternoon. Mrs. Edmund Nickerson?"

Nancy flushed immediately, her hand rising to instinctually cover the wedding band beneath the collar of her shirt. "My name is Nancy Drew," she replied.

"And you were married in San Francisco last month," he replied easily, lifting his hat a little. "May I come in?"

Stunned, Nancy took a step back and wordlessly gestured for him to enter. Other than she and Ned, only Edith knew about their marriage; they had seen people after their wedding ceremony in San Francisco, had been seen wearing their wedding rings, but Nancy couldn't imagine that this man had seen them there. Once he had wiped his feet and come inside, Nancy walked over to the table and sat down, and he hesitated for a second before sitting down opposite her.

"M—How would you prefer I address you?"

Nancy had felt a thread of pleasure at hearing herself addressed by her married name, but George might come in soon, and besides, to have this man address her that way when her father didn't even know she was married, when it still felt so new, so secret and private... she didn't like that. "Miss Drew would be fine."

"Miss Drew, then. You most likely recall the code Captain Morrow brought you to study two months ago?"

Nancy didn't respond immediately. Instead she studied his face, the close-cropped hair, the faint shadow of stubble that lined his jaw, his clear green eyes. "Might I ask how I should address you?"

She saw a flicker cross his expression, some mild amusement, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather flip wallet. "Agent King, miss."

Nancy gave the identification he showed her longer than a cursory glance, hoping she was making her point. "I did speak to Captain Morrow," she said. "As to anything we discussed..."

Agent King smiled. "You do know that your refusal to discuss it is as good as admitting it," he pointed out.

Nancy sat back and crossed her arms. "You'll pardon me for my caution," she said.

"I will," he said with a nod, sitting back himself. "And I will say this: you came very close to cracking it. When he passed it along, we were able to figure it out from your notes and decode the original message. Which means I'm here to give you a very unique offer, Miss Drew.

"You're talented. We need someone like you. We will pass along messages, and we would appreciate your help in discovering what they mean.

"I doubt I need to tell you this, but your assistance would be a help to the war effort. In some small way, you would be doing your part to help us win, and bring your new husband home sooner."

Agent King leaned forward. "Have I piqued your interest?"

Ned, my love. Heart of my heart.

The ring you put on my finger rests always against my skin. I hated to take it off, but I knew I had to; I went to the lavatory on the plane to do it so no one would see me, and I cried almost the entire flight. I only stopped and freshened myself up so no one would be concerned when they picked me up, although doubtless they could tell my spirits were low from having left you. They still are. But I carry your ring with me on a necklace, the same one I wore the other ring on before, and it rests always near my heart.

My love, it is almost certain now. I will not be a mother in a few months, and you will not return to find yourself an expectant or new father.

I am so sorry to write that. I was unsure, and so I had to speak to your mother; I could not share something so very personal with Hannah, and I wasn't sure who else I could ask. But she has confirmed it, and now she knows, but she had already suspected, just as I thought. She is grieved that she is not a grandmother, and I am grieved that I am not a mother, and I am grieved that I am relieved for it.

That small relief I feel is from knowing that, if we are blessed that way, that we will share it. That you will be here and sleeping beside me when I feel the baby's first kick in my belly, that you will be with me when it is time for us to go to the hospital and meet our child for the first time. For I need you, my love. I would need you by my side, or I would surely dissolve into panic. You have always been my steadiness, my constant, and you would make an incredible father. And you, love, you are my husband even as you are parted from me, at the other end of the earth, but our child would need you here even more than I do now.

Even so, I do grieve. During our week together I couldn't help but imagine it, and even though it scared me, I was curious. To be your wife; to be mother of your child as well. We have shared so much with each other, so much that we have shared with no one else, and I would have been happy to find that this was another experience we would share.

But I believe that we will, my love. It just wasn't the right time yet, but when you return, we will.

I will leave you with that, beloved. You must return to me, so I can hold our beautiful daughter or handsome son in my arms. I know that your mother will be happy, maybe even nearly as happy as we will be.

You ask me to tell you everything, all about my day, and there is one thing I wish I could tell you, but it will just have to keep until your return. I will tell you in person, when we are tucked up warm and happy together in our bed. I will tell you between stolen kisses and freely given kisses.

Otherwise I will tell you this: my feet ache, I'm exhausted, and last night I nodded off while sitting on the couch; just the space between the couch and the bed seemed too long a distance to navigate easily. The weather has become so beastly, so hot, and soon it will break; soon the leaves will turn every color of fire and the breeze will turn cool, then cold, and then I will huddle under my blankets freezing and praying that I will soon feel the warmth of your skin against mine. This Sunday I will be at church with your parents, as I've promised them. Afterward I will go spend time with my father; it has been too long.

I love both of you so much, both my father and you, my husband. You are both great, honorable men, and I admire you both so much. He was pleased to know that we will marry on your return. He looks forward to having you as a son-in-law. I think a part of him might be disappointed that you did not discuss your offer with him beforehand, but as he tells me so often, the world is changing. He never expected me to take a job like the one I have in the city, to move out and be on my own without being married and having someone else to support me, and he hoped that the Great War would be the only one. After all that, the small matter of the gold band which hangs just beneath my dress seems inconsequential—and yet, to me, you and my relationship with you are so much.

Some nights I am too exhausted to sleep, even though I wish for it with every beat of my heart. I wish for the chance to join you, in a dream if not in body. And I close my eyes and then open them and I imagine you coming into the room with me, sitting down at the edge of the bed, cupping my cheek in that large palm and smiling down at me. You tell me that you'll watch over me while I sleep but I wonder who will watch over you, and if only the desperation I feel to have you with me again keeps you safe... as though I cannot sleep because I must keep vigil for you.

My every breath is a vigil for you, my love. My every smile and every quickened beat of my heart is for you. I know it is just my fancy, that couples have always been in love, have always felt their love the purest and most true, but with every passing day, though it seems impossible, I love you more.

Return to me, my love. Every night I kiss your lips a thousand times and a thousand more. Every night I feel all within me still and waiting, so very patiently, for you. To be with you again.

In the meantime I will remain,

Always and ever yours, my only love,

Nancy

Nancy, my dearest, my love.

Don't think that I am not intrigued but what you've said. I do intend on hearing all of it, all that you can't yet tell me, between kisses. I need to re-count your freckles, darling. I want to hold you to me against the cold, and I want to believe that this can't last another winter. I want to be home for Christmas, to celebrate with my family, with you and my parents and all the people I love. I want to spend every Christmas for the rest of my life with you, love.

I am so sorry to hear that you aren't expecting our child—but I'm glad, too. I will share it all with you, every moment that I can. I want so much to be with you, at this moment so, so much that my entire body seems to ache with it. I want to practice loving you until it's perfect—but it was always good, and it always will be.

Though we will not have a child just yet—love, please know that even if there is no baby, you carry a part of me and that part will always live with you. Your blood beats through my heart, darling. What we have shared, and how I have loved you and always will, that will never, never change. You are my flesh, my blood, my heart. The thought of you gives me strength when little else does.

I never imagine you here with me, my love; I haven't the heart. To see you in the midst of all this pain and suffering would break me. When I think of you, it is in our home on the moon; when I dream of you, we are in San Francisco, the sea breeze coming through the windows and your hair like silk when my fingers comb through it. You are right, my beloved. I would keep watch over you every night. I would shelter you and keep you safe, my angel.

I look forward to the day I can tell your father how completely I adore and cherish you; I respect him so much, and telling him that I wish to, that I have, taken something so precious from him, I don't relish that thought. But I do love you so, so much, and for you I would try to withstand anything. I look forward to the day I can see you walk down the aisle to me in your mother's dress, wearing that secret smile you give only me, as we let all the people we love share in our joy and happiness, and let them see us promise ourselves to each other all over again.

I would have waited for you, my angel, but I am glad we didn't.

And if we never see that day, if my eyes have bent on you for the last time and my last memory of you is one of sorrow and grief—I believe that one day we will have that union, even if it isn't here, even if it isn't to be the way we imagined. My most ardent wish is for you to be happy, my love. Happy and safe and whole. I would never forgive myself for breaking your heart, should that ever happen.

What I have found with you is beyond anything I have ever imagined, and my love, I never want to say goodbye to you again. I never wish to part from you again. The next time I take you in my arms, I never want to let you go.

They say it's coming, soon. They say that soon it will be over. Just a little while longer. We just need to hold out a little while longer, my angel.

I love you with all my heart, all my soul, all my life. Being apart from you feels like an infinity, but I will be glad for it when it's over. I will be so glad when all this is behind me, when the nightmare ends and the dream can begin again anew.

I will see you tonight, my love. In our house on the moon.

Until I feel the warmth of you in my arms again, until my last breath and beyond, I remain,

Always, only, and ever your loving husband,

Ned