Chapter 3.9- Of hell and heaven and all the things in between
She could have cried with the relief of hearing that American accent. Instead, she finished the task in hand, took a deep breath and composed her sternest face before turning to him. She had prepared a cutting remark but when she turned around, saw he was covered in blood. She knew she was over reacting but she couldn't help herself. She pulled him under the light of the makeshift operation room and almost ripped apart his uniform. She looked him over up and down, thoroughly, feverishly. She run her hands through his head, his torso, his arms. He let her inspect him. He knew she need it. They had both seen more than their fair share of death, of dead and maimed today. He was quite certain that none of them would be able to forget about any of it. The images were burnt on his retina like a vision of hell. The moans of the dying, the prayers, the despair. Zach's silly smile though he knew he was dying. He would deal with the guilt about not keeping the kid safe later, on his own. He would not burden her with that particular sharp pain. But his breathing came easier just from the nearness of her.
He held her hands in his to hold her still. He knew she was running on adrenaline and that she needed to blow off steam before anything else.
"McPretty... Temperance..." His voice soothed her. He ran his hand through her hair and pulled her to him, into the safety and the comfort of his arms. She took her time surrendering to that warmth of his, her body too jazzed up to mould to his right there and then. But he kept on murmuring something in her ear, something that sounded remarkably like I love you and slowly, gradually, that electric buzz in her ears and in her fingers gave way to a sense of peace and calm. She finally relaxed into his arms, melting into him. She hadn't seen him for nine months but he still smelled the way she remembered, his arms were still home and the beating of his heart was still an old song in her ears. One of those days she would tell him all about that, how it felt to be his. But not now. She did not want to associate the moment she told him she loved him with the ugliness of the war, of the battle he had just survived. Tears ran freely down her face. She wasn't even aware of them, not even when he pulled her back just a fraction to kiss her. Or when he tried to kiss all her tears away.
He picked her up in his arms and walked away from the tent where those that had died on the operating table were still piled up, a stark reminder of just how blessed they had both been, to walk out of hell without so much as a scratch. There was a tent where meals were being served. He walked in and settled her on a chair to go fetch them coffee and something to eat. When he came back, he had also a bowl with water where he soaked her hands. There was dried blood on them, under her nails, between her fingers. He washed her hands gently as she looked at them in shock. When he'd told her, all that time ago, about how some people should not be in a war, he never thought he would see her going through this. His bright angel in London was now sporting a broken wing. He wished he could have spared her this. He wished he could have protected her from this, from all that could cloud her eyes.
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The night was spent under the cover of the stars. There was no where they could have slept together. The Rangers had their own barracks as did the Red Cross staff. So after a meal, they sat by the fire burning outside, oblivious to all those that still lingered outside. Most of them were unable to sleep. But Booth and Temperance were just lost in each other's eyes, in each other's scent, in each other's presence.
As the morning arrived, the Rangers prepared for their next mission. They would leave camp by 0800. Their ultimate goal was the liberation of Paris. But there was a long stretch both of road and battle before getting there.
Booth took her hand and walked away from the camp. He wanted to look at something nice, wanted to say see you later looking at other than the haunted faces of those around them, away from the smell of blood that wafted in from the beach with the sea wind, away from that insane war. They walked inland, hand in hand. They heard a creek nearby and found it surrounded by happy yellow daffodils, incongruently pretty against Zach's blood still on his uniform, against the orders shouted just yards way from them. He picked one and put it in her hair. Temperance dreamt often, in the times to come, of daffodils, smelling their scent, blind to any colour but that jolly yellow. She met Booth in her dreams, always in that field full with daffodils growing against death.
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Temperance had decided not to return to London with the Red Cross. She just couldn't. She had to be as close as possible. After Booth left, she sat with Commander Cullen and informed him of her decision. It did not shock him. He had seen her walking the beach like she was in a trance of some sort and how her eyes died just a little bit with each man she pronounced dead in her operating table. He figured it might have something to do with the American he had seen carrying her lovingly out of that tent. He intended to defer her request and transfer her to Paris though he wasn't quite sure why she'd want to do that. Reports arriving from Paris were of a dismal situation. Maybe she wanted to meet the American there... who was to to know. But he signed her transfer papers and arranged for safe transport for her.
Angela met her at the Gare du Nord. They held on to each other as sisters would. They were as such to each other.
"So tell me, are the news true? About Normandy? Was it really that horrible?" They immediately hushed their conversation and showed their Red Cross papers to the man in the SS uniform that stopped them.
"Yes..."
"Sweetie... Have you seen Booth? Was he there? I heard that the Rangers were involved..."
"Yeah..." She showed Angela the medal that Booth had told he did not want back yet. "Not a single scratch on him Angela. A single one. Who's Hodgins?" Angela smiled. It was a sad smile, so unlike the Angela Temperance used to know, but a smile nonetheless. They took a bus to Angela's flat in Montmartre. It was unlike Angela to spare any details. But this was a different Angela. It took some getting used to. She's been at war too.
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July went by like a flash. Temperance worked alongside Hodgins and Angela at Les Invalides. It was gruelling work with very limited resources and far too many in need of medical care. Hunger and and hunger related diseases festered. At nine o'clock every evening, they would congregate around a clandestine radio Hodgins had supplied to listen to the BBC World Service. Sometimes, there would be a message from Booth. The angel is taking me closer. Stay safe. There would be a location and she would check it on the map of France and track his progress to Paris. She knew there were battles and skirmishes along the way. He did not give any hints on it. But she knew. In her heart, she knew the danger he was in. And she held on to the medal hanging from her neck as, she was sure, he would hold on to the brass button on his pocket.
And then one day, a civilian clad Booth walked into the hospital. He never explained how he found her there. Never had the time. He walked into a room behind her and whispered in her ear
"What does a guy have to do around here to get a decent coffee?" She turned to hug him. He had to push her back slightly as his arm was in a sling. Angela had walked in behind him, intrigued by the tall figure of a man. Her usual smile was back in face when she recognized him.
"Lieutenant Booth" and she ran to hug him.
"It's Captain now, if you don't mind!"
"Wow!" She kissed him once on each cheek and walked out of the room. "Sweetie, I'll stay at Hodgins' today. Get out of here now. Don't wait for something else to happen."
Temperance finished writing the chart for the patient sleeping peacefully on the bed and hung it and then turned to Booth.
"She's right. Let's get out of here." And prepared to walk ahead of him. Booth took her hand and pulled her back to him. It seemed to him that his angel's broken wing was not yet healing. He lifted the arm on the sling to fit her against his chest and them closed himself around her. She resisted at first. She needed to resist. If he was going to be in Paris for a few nights only, she would need to guard herself. She would need to be strong for the time ahead without him once more. But then, and because he just had that effect on her, that he just pushed away at the sadness and the heartache, she just yielded. To the warmth, to the reassuring heartbeat, to the feeling of completeness when she was in his arms. How did that song go? Your arms are my castle... Yes, that would be something like that. God knew that he had been in every single one of her actions, of her thoughts, of her prayers for the last year. God, it had been a year since they had made love and she could still smell him on her skin, still feel him on her.
Temperance wouldn't have remembered how she got to the apartment of the Rue des Artistes. It would have taken them a bus ride and a walk, but she couldn't remember for the life of her. But one moment she was still in uniform standing in from of a sleeping patient and the next, she was standing in her little room not quite believing that Booth was really with her, in the flesh, not as he usually was, a translucid presence with no more substance than her memories, vivid though they were.
Booth couldn't quite bare the sadness in Temperance's eyes. He would have been forgiven for thinking she wasn't happy to see him. She had seemed distant in the hospital. Except then, when he hugged her, she slowly came back to him. The journey to Paris had not been easy to him. The battle for Omaha had been as close to hell as he'd ever want to be with young Addy dying in his arms. It was Addy's blood on his uniform when he'd found Temperance. But for her it would have been unbearable. And he just knew that a lot of her had died that day, on that beach.
There wasn't much that he could do except give himself to her. He hugged her in the warm early August air. Someone played music from an old gramophone outside their window. He did not understand French but the voice was quite extraordinary. It called out to the romantic heart in him. He sat on her single bed and pulled her to him, to lay down on that small bed cuddled up in his arms. She wasn't even aware of how sad she was until she saw it in his eyes. There it was, that worry, the grief and that extra indefinable thing she read in his eyes. He was finally in her arms and she was not giving him all that she had saved in her heart to tell him when they next met again. She moved to kiss him. She wanted to kiss him lightly, just to gather the courage for what she had to tell him, that she had felt him with her everyday, that she had seen him everyday in her waking hours and in her dreams, in her prayers and every other conscious thought, that he had became as the air that she breathed. She just needed a light kiss to gather her courage. But when he kissed her back, she also remembered the fire all over her body when they kissed, the heat and wet between her legs, the absolute need to consume him physically, to surrender, to burn herself in his fire. It was a need so pressing that put on hold all that she had to say and concentrated on the healing power of his touch. How he pushed away at the loneliness and the sadness and brought back the light, just like when you walk in a dark place and then the sun comes up suddenly, blinding in all its glory. She gave him access to all of her, to her body and to her heart. And she demanded her own space in him. They made love. The made love in silence, each too engrossed in the other to say the words I love you out loud.
