Chapter 19 - Returned
The shaking was what finally woke Jeff.
He didn't remember his dream, but he had a vague impression of fire and blue eyes and a bitter taste in his mouth.
He didn't open his eyes. There was a strong smell of flowers, he wasn't sure which, but violets were a strong option. And something enveloped him. Something thick and heavy.
His ribs didn't feel great, but worse than that, his head ached as if he had consumed all the alcohol in the world, and then a ruffian came and smashed him with a hammer.
He tried to move his hands, and something prevented him from doing so. A sharp pain pierced the side of his body, and he groaned.
"Oh, you're finally awake."
A somewhat familiar, utterly irritating female voice made him open his eyes. One eye was covered with some cloth, but he saw that he was lying on the floor in a wide carriage with light curtains covering the windows, wrapped in blankets that restricted his movement. He moved his eyes, looking for the sound source, but only one of them was bare, so the search was futile.
"I got used to your groans, but this one sounded different, so I realized that you finally decided to bless us with your presence. Welcome back, commander." She leaned over him, sitting on a bench close to his head, her yellow curls framing her pretty face above him, her lips pressed with displeasure.
The nurse. The blonde nurse. The blonde nurse who liked Rick and annoyed Jeff by merely existing. He couldn't remember her name.
"You," he said, surprised by his scratched throat, his hoarse voice.
"Me," she agreed. "Nurse Perry, to you. You're welcome, by the way. No doctor could accompany you, except me who volunteered."
Accompany where? Why did he need someone to accompany him? Why is he on the floor?
"Is Rick here?" He asked. Of all the questions, that was the stupidest he could ask, but his brain was a mixture of porridge with unidentified pieces floating in it. He remembered the men around the fire, talking about women, and the expression on Rick's face, a look of yearning as he talked about the stupid nurse. Jeff wasn't sure why, but that look reminded him of something, something that upset him. If nurse Perry was here, his lieutenant would probably not be far away, and he could explain to him what the current nonsense was about that got him to where he was at the moment.
She turned away from him, and he caught a hint of dismay. "He's not here," she said. "He was asked to replace you after you were injured. He wanted to escort you, but the commanders wouldn't allow him. After your condition improved, Dr. Preston ordered you be returned home, at the recommendation of your loyal lieutenant. He said..." She rolled her eyes, "That if you stay in the camp there is a danger that you might want to return to the battlefield to protect your soldiers."
"I was injured?" His brain was still porridgy, but things were starting to clear. "We were in the middle of an operation! We conquered a post..."
"Could be. You were badly injured. You were shot in the side of the body and in the head, here." She drew a line on her head that started over one of her eyebrows and continued swiftly across the temple, like a shotgun bullet in flight. "The wounds caused you to lose blood and lose consciousness, but they brought you in time to the clinic and Rick knew how to stop the blood until then. The side wound was the deepest, but it didn't damage any important organs. It will take you a few months to recover, but you will be fine in the end. Although chances are that in the winter your ribs will hurt before it rains."
He blinked, realizing that he wasn't blind in his right eye, even though it was covered in cloth. The darkness in his right eye was darkness that he saw. Whoever bandaged his head didn't think he would need his eyesight in the near future.
"Rick saved you. You owe him your life."
"Perfect Stephenson," Jeff muttered to himself. "Always the hero."
She sighed again, not in the dreamy way girls sighed over their beloved, but with sorrow. He didn't ask. She can miss her version of Annie's Rich as much as she wants, he didn't care.
Annie...
Sapphire eyes, half hidden under thick lashes. She bit her lip before pulling him to her and pressing her lips to his, his hands wrapping around her waist one last time. it was cold; The wind was blowing. And he didn't care for anything except kissing her until the last possible moment. And her choked voice in his ear, begging, "Come back to me..."
He exhaled sharply and began to sit up, but something under his chest cracked and the pain flashed from the right side of his body to his back and legs, and he yelled.
"Don't get up, you oaf," she huffed. "You have injured ribs! You shouldn't move for at least a week!"
"It's bad enough that I'm injured, I don't need to be called names," he hissed, his eyes closed tightly.
"You deserve it if you move when it's dangerous for you to move!"
"You only now told me that! Besides, we're in a moving carriage!"
"But you—" She paused for a second. "Yes, we're in a carriage. But we wrapped you in four blankets so you couldn't move. So don't move."
He let out a long breath to calm himself and the pain. Arguing made it worse. "I won't move," he murmured.
Annie... he promised her to come back. He almost died, but some god has decided to play with him and bring him back to life, some strange joke at his expense. But if he were alive, there was at least a chance that he could return to her, to their small house, to her bed; to her arms.
He opened one eye, the one that wasn't covered.
"Where are we going?"
"To your Godforsaken town. Green Bay, or something like that."
"Greendale," Jeff said quietly, closing his eyes. "We're going back to Greendale."
"Yes."
He spoke no more, and after a while sweet sleep took him again.
:::
Annie sent the kids for a break. She thought she would feel worse and worse as the pregnancy progressed, but she actually felt better. It was a relief, but the kids were restless and she couldn't teach them that way. Better for them to play, exert energy, and come back with open ears. Elijah Bennett asked permission to go check if there was a telegram to be delivered, and she let him. She took the time to check the status of her lists, made notes and corrected small mistakes.
Elijah returned quicker than expected, placing a note on the table. She didn't lift her head from the lists, added a missing letter in a surname, and checked who hasn't been getting enough help recently.
After a few minutes, she noticed that the boy was still at the table, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. She looked at him. "Do you need something, Elijah?"
"It's a message for you, Miss Winger." He pushed the note to her.
Her eyes went over the words before she could grasp what she was reading. The third time her mind caught on, and tears filled her eyes.
The few children who were still in the classroom noticed her strange silence, and Gilly asked, "Miss Annie, what's in the note?"
Annie read the short message again:
Commander Jeff Winger was wounded in battle. His wounds prevent him from fighting. He was sent home with a nurse.
"He was sent home," she whispered. He's wounded, but he returns. "Our sheriff is coming back to Greendale," she told the children, smiling.
"Miss Annie, why are you crying?"
"Sometimes adults cry," Annie told Woody who asked the question. He returns, but he's wounded. She didn't know how injured, what and how, and wished the telegram had allowed for more detailed messages. "It's alright to cry, even when you're a grown-up."
They still stared at her anxiously, their mom-aged teacher, sitting in the classroom crying over a note.
"I'm fine," she tried to appease them. "I'm happy, actually."
"You're happy?" Gilly again.
"Yes," Annie said, sniffling. "I'm just thinking about all the work that awaits me. I'll have to go back to our house, clean it. Buy food." She wiped away the tears with a handkerchief that Elijah offered her, and smiled in gratitude. He's coming back.
:::
"Wake up!" The nurse woke him with a slap to the shoulder. It stung, and he gritted his teeth.
"You don't have to hit me," Jeff said. "I'm already wounded."
"You sleep like a log," she informed him. "Now get up."
He let her help him sit up, and looked at the carriage door in confusion. "Have we arrived?" It's been a week since he woke up. The woman allowed him to shift his weight the day before, so at least he could move without taking her reprimands.
"We're passing through a town where we can stay for a night," Miss Perry said. "Aren't you tired of sleeping in a carriage? And you have to start walking. So your body doesn't forget how to walk."
"I remember how to walk," he resented, leaning heavily on her as they descended the carriage in the yard of a hostel they had stopped at. Then he fell when he tried to take a step by himself.
She let out a distinctly non-ladylike snort. "Yes, I see, commander," she said sarcastically.
After taking a few steps down the yard, she added in a more gentle tone, "Even if you remember how to walk, you've been lying a while and your muscles didn't work all that time. It makes sense that they'll be weaker. I assume you used to train, to strengthen the muscles?"
"I was the sheriff," he murmured, concentrating on moving one foot after the other. It annoyed him that she was right; his legs were weak. But they weren't useless, and they walked, albeit very slowly, and he had to lean on the blonde woman's shoulders in a kind of ridiculous embrace. "I had to defend the town. So yes, I trained to be strong." That was true for the most part. He trained to look good and feel good, but the sheriff's job was the official reason.
"Then you see. You'll have to practice before you get back to what you used to be."
"Ah ha." He still hated it.
They ate in the tavern, and slept in separate beds in a single room. She made a big deal of forcing him to close his eyes when she changed into sleepwear and got into her bed, but it wasn't necessary. He closed his eyes and thought of Annie, of the enormous nightdress she wore in the first months of their marriage, and how the garment did little to hide her beauty.
"My letters?" He asked the room. After a minute of silence, he repeated in a louder voice: "My letters!"
"You're talking to me?"
"Yes, I'm talking to you," he puffed. "Do you see other people here?"
"You talk in your sleep," she replied. His neck warmed as he realized she might have heard his most guarded thoughts. "I thought you might be sleeping."
"I'm not asleep," Jeff said, opening his eyes. He glanced at her side of the room. Miss Perry was completely covered with a duvet, and lied with her back to him. "I ask questions in my sleep?"
"No, actually. But there's a first time for everything."
He gave up. "I asked if my letters were here." When she didn't reply, he added, "The letters that were in my tent in the camp."
"Maybe," she replied after a thought. "One of your soldiers packed your bag. The bag is in the carriage. I'll check tomorrow."
He was tempted to tell her to go now, but it was too petty, even for him. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what Annie had written to him. He had read these letters more times than he would care to admit.
Recalling the five minutes she allowed herself, he tried to imagine five minutes of his own: It's the end of the day in their bedroom. Annie combs her hair, humming to herself a cheerful tune. In his mind, he's sitting in his nightshirt on the bed, watching her. She turns to him and catches him looking, and a fair blush covers her cheeks, neck and chest. He reaches out to her. "Come're." She climbs onto the bed and lets him cover them both, and pulls herself towards him. "Promise me," she whispers to him, and he rubs his face against the velvety skin of her neck. "Whatever m'lady says," he murmurs, and she accepts it.
The five minutes passed and he opened his eyes in the hostel room with the annoying nurse and his weak body.
He was a shadow of what Annie knew. He wouldn't even be able to climb the stairs without help. Not to mention make love to her. What would she think when she saw him? Would she be happy he kept his promise? Or she'll finally see the pitiful man he really was: too old for her, too weak to work and support her, too selfish to let her go...
Fortunately, his body was tired enough to fall asleep and stop him sinking further into self-pity.
Unfortunately, the annoying nurse was there every morning of every day. A two-week trip felt like an eternity with her. At least she was a distraction from the bleak thoughts of what he would find when he returned to Greendale. It was the only good thing he found in her. That, and the fact that the next day she searched his belongings and found the letters. They were wrinkled, but that didn't bother him.
He read the words and clung to them like a drowning man: I miss you. I wish you were here.
"They look like they'll crumble if you so much as blew on them," Miss Perry told him when she caught him reading the letters again.
He shoved them under his seat and ignored her.
"I think the bandage can be taken off your head," she said after a while.
"You think?"
"It wasn't a terrible injury, the blood no longer stains the fabric. It's a shame you go on without an eye. You're not blind."
A biting reply was on the tip of his tongue but he stopped it. "Then take it off."
The bandage came off easily, until it reached the part that was stuck to the skin with dry blood, and the blonde woman had to tug harder. He cursed. "Damn, woman! Can't you be gentle?"
"Do you want me to be gentle or do you want to get it off fast?"
"Gentle!"
She pulled the last part in a flash, a sharp pain pricking his forehead, causing him to spit an obscenely colorful curse.
"Here, it's all off," her smile was smug, and he would have hit her without hesitation if he hadn't been busy pawing at his head. He opened his eye and blinked. And blinked some more. After ten minutes of blinking and looking around, the eye mostly recovered.
He shifted the curtain and looked out at the mountain scenery rolling on the dusty road. With both eyes, the landscape looks different. More real.
"Better?" She asked behind him, and he heard the smile in her voice.
"You're a witch in lady's clothes," he murmured.
"Oh, really? I'm glad to inform you that you're a frog in gentleman's clothes!"
He didn't argue with that.
But now that he could see with both eyes, the thoughts of what Annie would think when she saw him were less bad. At least he wasn't half blind.
:::
The house was covered with white fabrics, over which laid a layer of dust of three and a half months. But it was orderly. She brought in assistants to help her take over all the preparations, and at the moment Abed and Troy were busy removing the fabrics and dusting the living room.
"I'm just saying, I've barely seen you lately," Troy told Abed, folding the fabrics in a pile by the door. "You're with her all the time."
"It's ridiculous. I sleep most of the time. Then I eat, then I write, and then I-"
"You know what I mean," Troy interjected. "The time we used to spend together, now you spend it with her! You know when was the last time I saw you? Three days ago!"
Annie chuckled quietly.
"I don't understand what the problem is," Abed said, dusting the table in the middle of the living room.
"Three! Days! Ago!"
Annie checked the situation in the kitchen. She would tell the guys to clean the higher shelves because she had no intention of climbing the counter again. She briefly remembered Jeff holding her waist and helping her get off the countertop, and what followed, and she blushed like a silly girl.
Upstairs, Shirley finished dusting off all the furniture in the bedroom and now laid new bedding on the bed.
"You shouldn't have," Annie told her, but was glad for the help when Shirley and she stretched the sheets on the wide bed. Much wider than her bed in the inn. It's designed to accommodate two people, one of whom is Jeff, she reminded herself. And she sighed as her heart skittered at the thought.
"Andre is back in town," Shirley said.
Annie turned in surprise. "Really?"
"Yes." Shirley looked surprised and shocked herself, as if she had just heard the news. "He sent me a letter, so he'll probably be here before Jeff, in the next few days. He doesn't know that we have a telegraph in town."
"Wow," Annie said. "This is great news!" She noticed Shirley's face. "...Right?"
"I... don't know," Shirley said. She removed pillows from the chest in the corner of the room, and began to wrap them with coverlets. "I haven't seen him since Ben was born," she said. "That was three years ago! He must be so different now... What if he doesn't love me like he used to? What if I don't love him?"
"Shirley," Annie said, half reproachful, half sympathizing.
"It's like a chance to fall in love again," Shirley said, placing the covered pillows on the bed, puffing them absently. "Or to fight. I'm scared and excited at the same time."
"Yes," Annie said affectionately. She understood.
"I will have to change my cooking to match his preferences. I don't remember what he likes!"
"I'm pretty sure you do," Annie said. "Didn't you tell me he didn't like cabbage?"
"Oh right," Shirley paused for a moment. "But... What about sleeping arrangements? I got used to sleeping alone! And now there will be a man to get used to..."
Annie nodded and pulled the blanket on the bed. Then she took the white cloth and gave Shirley one edge, covering the bed above all the bedding and pillows. After all, she didn't really know when Jeff was coming. Maybe this week, maybe next week. There was no way to know by the telegram. It was better to protect the bed from dust in the meantime.
"What if he takes the blanket in the middle of the night? And what if - what if he wants us to..."
Annie looked up at Shirley. She didn't think Shirley was a woman who worried about that, after all she had three sons.
Shirley murmured, "We never had any problems in bed, but... it's been three years..."
She sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh. Annie smiled at her, taking her hand in both of hers. "I understand."
"Yes." Shirley gave half a smile.
"It's scary."
"Embarrassing how much it is," Shirley shook her head.
"But wonderful."
"I still love him til death do us part," Shirley mused. She shook Annie's hand. "I love him, after all this time. I hope he's still the same man I fell in love with."
"And if not..." Annie thought for a moment whether to ask, and finally continued: "What will you do?"
Shirley thought about it, swinging their linked hands between them, her gaze hovering close to Annie's middle. "We'll handle it," she finally said. "We'll get to know each other again, and we'll be fine. He can't be that different."
Annie smiled. "I think so too," she told her. "You'll be fine."
Annie took one last look before leaving the room, to see that everything was in order, and closed the door behind her.
:::
"I didn't know you had a wife," the nurse told him at their next stop. She pulled him to have a stroll before going into the tavern, and at the moment he was leaning heavily on her.
"And how did you infer that?" He said when they stopped to give him a rest. Last time he was panting like a bull, this time the effort did not take its toll on his breathing. But his legs hurt, as if he had spikes growing around his muscles.
"These letters of yours," she told him. "I saw the name written on them."
"Hmm."
"And you also talk about her in your sleep."
He tripped, and she caught him. Not only did he have to be with her every-day-all-day and endure her clumsy treatment, and lie in a jerky carriage that didn't help his pains, she also listened to what he said when he was unconscious. His suspicion that some god decided to abuse him for fun grew stronger each day.
"Nothing embarrassing!" the woman said. "But obviously you miss her."
"Nurse Perry," he said, gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs, "it's none of your business."
"True, but I..."
"You what?"
"You worry all the time. Exhausting yourself with thoughts. I thought maybe I could help. Maybe you could tell me what your worries were about her, and I could help, as a woman."
"You might be a woman," he croaked, "but you're nothing like my wife."
"But why are you worried?"
"It's none of-"
"I just want to help. In my profession as a nurse, I vowed to help my patients."
"Medically," he told her. "Not emotionally. And I don't want to talk about it. And as far as I'm aware, only doctors take that oath."
"So what! I vowed, too," she huffed haughtily. "I'm just like a doctor, for your knowledge!"
"No, you're not."
"I'm not-?! Aughh!" She groaned in frustration. They almost reached the door of the tavern. He tried to step to the door but, as he was dependent on her, halted when she grabbed him and aimed him the other way - away from the door. "Another round will do you good."
"You're trying to starve me," he complained under his breath.
"You need it to get stronger. You can't lean on me every time you want to go anywhere."
He muttered to himself some tasteless reaction, but was more concerned with the walking than with the insult.
"So tell me about your wife."
He tried a different tactic. "So what happened with Rick?"
"If I tell you, will you tell me about your wife?"
"Hmm," he didn't promise directly, but that was enough for her.
"Rick..." She didn't want to talk about it, almost as much as he didn't want to talk about Annie, and the reasons he was afraid to see her when they got to Greendale, but she spoke anyway. "He... was busy with the war. He couldn't make time for me. When they appointed him to command in your place, he came to ask me to accompany you home, he was convinced that was what you wanted, and that you deserved compensation after everything you did for America. He convinced the commanders to let you go if he finds you an escort. He asked me, and I didn't want to do it."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Jeff said, only half sarcastic.
"Surprised that I didn't want to travel with the commander who insulted me in my own clinic?"
"It's not... forget it. So what did Rick say?" He was truly interested in her story, and it distracted him from his screaming muscles.
"He said... He told me that if I stay because of him, I shouldn't. He said... that he's going into battle and he'll probably die, and that I shouldn't wait for him. He said he didn't want to stop me from going on with my life and finding a husband."
Jeff was silent.
"He didn't want me," she said simply. "Such a good man, he found a way to let me know he wasn't interested without offending me."
"I think he really meant what he said."
"He didn't," she replied instantly. They reached the door again, and to his relief she walked them inside. "You didn't see his face. He didn't want to be there, glanced at the door constantly. He wanted to go to his soldiers and never see me again." She led them to an empty table, helped him sit down. "I know what I am. No man wants a woman who deals with sick people all the time. It's not feminine, it's disgusting. If I had money to spare then maybe he wouldn't care, but since I'm poor as well..."
Jeff almost said something in the vain of 'But you look half decent', and at the last moment held his tongue. He preferred not to be whipped again. She hasn't refrained from hitting him in the past.
"So he said goodbye and sent you with me?"
"Sent me to the other side of the country, to be away from him." She was hurt, though she didn't look in his eyes. She signaled to the tavern worker to bring them food, and sat down in front of him. "I can get a hint when I'm not wanted."
That's not what Jeff saw. Rick really liked her, and the fact that she was a nurse didn't bother him. On the contrary, it made her smart in his eyes. But maybe he did love the war more than her. Maybe he was hoping to die like his brother. He was a strange man.
"Well, I told you," she said, changing her tone, smiling cynically. "Now tell me."
"Okay," Jeff nodded, preparing to give her as little detail as possible. "She's called Annie, and she's originally from Thornton. She's a teacher."
"She's from Thornton? So am I! What a coincidence!"
"How amazing," he remarked dryly. "I thought you were from New York."
She sighed. "I wish. I studied in New York, but my parents are from Thornton."
They got the food and Jeff loaded a spoon with food, lifted and filled his mouth.
"Wait, so about your wife-"
He pointed at his full mouth.
She waited for him to swallow. "So it's your turn to tell me what the problem is-"
"Still none of your business."
"But you promised that if I told you, you would tell me!"
"I promised nothing," Jeff said with a winning smile. "I believe my exact words were 'hmm-mmm'."
She made an affronted sound. "You-you-you! You're terrible," she blamed, red blotches of exasperation on her cheeks and forehead. "You know, Rick would fill his side of the bargain even if he didn't clearly agree!"
"And still your dear Rick is... not here."
She stared at him with her mouth open. "I can't believe I told you, how despicable and mean!"
"But he's an idiot, and you shouldn't give him another thought."
It silenced her, and he was able to finish his meal without any further comment. A gift from heaven.
At the end of the meal she quietly asked, "Do you really think so?"
It was a simple question, and he had no problem answering it. He looked directly in her eyes. "Yes. He shouldn't have pushed you away like that. Maybe he was afraid, after so long, to finally commit to a woman. In any case, he was an idiot. You better forget him and find someone better, who's ready to do whatever it takes to be with you." He meant it. He didn't hate her, not really. But he would love her to stop trying to poke her nose in his personal affairs.
"I didn't think of it that way," she said quietly.
He resisted saying, 'I didn't know you could think.' He assumed it meant a temporary fire strike.
The strike lasted until the next morning, when she woke him with a considerable shake, and he returned to fantasize about throwing her out of the moving carriage. If only he were strong enough.
:::
Annie left the pile of clothes on the couch in Shirley's inn, and almost ran outside when she learned that Jeff had arrived in town. It was a cloudy day. Luckily the rain that had poured all morning stopped long enough for a rushed walk to Dr. Baker's house.
She didn't think about what she was wearing or what she looked like, and only when standing in front of the door did she turn to pat her hair in place and smooth her sweaty palms on the apple-green taffeta of her dress.
The doctor's daughter let her in and led her through the living room, pointing to an open door on the left at the end of a hallway. "Dad put him there," she told Annie.
Annie thanked her, and as the girl went, Annie walked down the hall, apprehension slowing her steps.
Voices came from the room.
"Get away from me, you damned woman!"
"I just want to rub it on your wounds!"
"I don't want you to rub anything on me."
"Dr. Baker made the ointment for you. Don't be ridiculous—"
"Don't touch me!"
"So put it yourself!"
"How do I know you haven't put frog legs in there?"
"Why, are you afraid of your species?"
"No, I'm afraid you'll poison me!"
"Why would I try to poison you?"
"Not on purpose, of course. But I know your healing abilities..."
"All right, stay battered and tattered!"
"Thanks so much, that's all I asked for!"
Annie stood in front of the door with wide, shocked eyes. He sounded so… mean. And irritable. She barely recognized his voice.
A woman in a white cap stepped out of the room, slammed the door shut, and headed toward Annie. When she saw Annie she froze, like a child caught stealing a cake from the oven.
"You... did you hear all of it?" The woman asked with guilty eyes. She seemed close to Annie's age, the cap covering golden curls, a white apron over a simple blue dress, a small jar in her hand.
Annie nodded.
"I'm sorry you had to hear that," the woman said. "I'm not usually like that. Most patients don't treat me with such suspicion when I try to help them."
"He was rude," Annie said. That's what she heard: Jeff insulting the woman for no apparent reason.
"Yes, but… he has good reasons, I think. He didn't really tell me, but he was wounded in the war, and he's stressed that his wife is coming and he..." The woman stopped talking and examined her. "It's… you," she said. "You are Ms. Winger?"
"Yes. You're right. That's me," Annie laughed awkwardly. "And you are?"
"I'm Brita Perry," the woman said. "I volunteered to accompany your husband back home. I'm a nurse. I studied in New York. You could say I'm his nurse." The woman curtsied, stumbled slightly, and straightened.
Annie curtsied back. "Nice to meet you. Annie Winger."
"You must be a special woman to have married him," Miss Perry said honestly. "I heard he's a good man, a war hero, but he's a terrible patient."
Annie chuckled. "I never had to take care of him, but he was always impatient with certain things, so I believe you."
The blonde woman looked at her with a tilted head, and finally said, "I think I like you. Look," she stepped forward and grabbed Annie's hand, "I don't hate your husband, despite what you've heard. He's not a bad guy, but he's in a bad place right now. He took his injury badly, I think. He can't handle being in bed all the time, being weak. I don't care if he takes out some of his frustration on me. But he needs help." She put the jar in Annie's palm. "Maybe you should give this to him."
Annie lifted the jar to her eyes. There was a creamy substance with black particles inside, grind kernels of some plant. "What is it for?"
"It's an ointment for cuts. He..." The nurse gave a tentative glance back to the closed room. "He shaved this morning for you, and of course didn't let me help him. He cut himself a couple of times, and Dr. Baker made an ointment, but as you saw... he didn't want to get it from me." She looked back at Annie. "Ms. Winger, he might agree to take it from you. And if you can, put it on him too."
"I'll try." Annie said. "And please, call me Annie."
The woman smiled in surprise. "Really?"
"Yes. And thank you for everything you've done for him so far. Please accept it on his behalf as well."
The nurse nodded, wiping her hands on her apron. "All right. And call me Brita." She was a rather handsome woman, Annie decided, especially when she smiled. She seemed to need a friend in this foreign town. Annie remembered how it felt.
After saying goodbye to the nurse, Annie approached the doorway, put her hand on the door knob, straightened her shoulders, and opened the door.
The room was a typical guest room, without much furniture, with a tall bed in the middle of the room. A large window allowed the wintry sun to illuminate most of the room, including its tenant, who was reclining on three pillows, his face turned to the window, his arms folded over his chest.
Annie gripped the jar with both hands, approaching the bed with a pounding heart.
"I told you, I have no intention—" He began, turned to look at her, and fell silent. He looked surprised, alarmed, and finally, remorseful. He closed his eyes and pain crossed his face.
"Hello, Jeff," she said softly.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you were someone else."
"No," Annie said. "She sent me instead." She moved a few steps closer to the bed, examining him. Everything seemed to have changed, yet nothing at all. She forgot what it was like to be near him, to feel like he was filling the whole room with his presence. As if him being there changed the essence of the place. It wasn't just his physical size, though it helped, it was... him. She could feel her entire body throbbing, simply from the fact that she was standing in the same room with him.
"Annie.." He murmured her name. She moved further, taking courage to stand by his bed, which easily reached her middle. In the posture he was sitting, he had to raise his head to her, but not much.
He looked tired, purple circles under his eyes, his features sharper than she remembered. Thinner. His cheeks were smooth as she had never seen them before - he kept a stubble or a short trimmed beard - and she easily found the places he cut himself, one below the cheek, second on the other side, below the jaw line. She bit her lip. "Jeff-"
"I kept my promise," he said before she could add another word. "I came back. But apparently I'm bad at keeping promises, because I'm not healthy nor in one piece." There was bitterness in his voice, and he didn't look into her eyes.
"You look in one piece to me," she said. "But... the truth is, the telegram didn't say what your injuries were."
He gestured to his head. "One bullet scratched my head," he turned his head and she saw a brown scab from his brow along the temple, the hair around it shorter. "A superficial wound. A second bullet through the ribs. Penetrated through the flesh, didn't damage the organs, but broke one rib." He moved the blanket and pulled the loose shirt he was wearing to show her the bandages that covered him, thick as a cocoon.
"Oh…" She couldn't help it, reached out with one hand to touch the white cloth, her fingertips stroking the rough strips before he flinched with a gasp, and covered himself again.
"Sorry," she apologized guiltily. "Is it painful?"
"It's not... Yeah, it hurts, I just wasn't ready for you to... You didn't hurt me."
"Sorry."
"Stop apologizing."
She smiled at the words that reminded her of old conversations. "Fine, but only if you explain to me why you were so obnoxious to Nurse Perry."
His eyes widened at the name. "Did you hear or did she tell you?"
"I heard," she told him. "You accused her of trying to poison you." She showed him the jar. "She suggested I apply this to you in her place."
"She..." He looked away. "You don't know her. She's full of herself, thinks she knows what's best for everyone, and enjoys insulting me perpetually."
"It somewhat reminds me of you," Annie said with a small smile. She put the jar on the nightstand by the bed, opened the lid and took some cream on her finger. He followed her actions with his eyes, his face guarded, not giving away his thoughts.
"Will you allow me?" She brought her hand to his cut cheek, slowly, as if dealing with a frightened horse.
His eyes jumped to her fingers close to his face, then to her face. He was looking at her lips, she was sure of it. He lowered his eyes to the blanket. "You have my permission," he murmured.
Annie sat down on the bed next to him, settling comfortably, trying to ignore the tingling that arose in the side of her body wherever they touched. There were a fair number of fabrics between them, but after almost four months of longing, it was more than enough to make her head light. She leaned against his face, concentrating on the task before her, placing a good amount of ointment on the cut in his cheek, before gently smearing it to the length of the wound.
She was very aware of his gaze on her. The way he looked at her made her stomach tighten and her breath quicken, but she ignored it to the best of her ability, absorbing herself in the task.
"So..." he murmured, "the town has a telegraph now."
"Yes." She took more substance from the jar. "Very efficient. That's how I knew you were going to arrive two weeks before you did."
"Where did the mayor get the money for the telegraph?"
He didn't sound very interested, but she understood his need to talk about safe topics at the moment, about things that were unrelated to them, so she cooperated. "Actually, Pierce bought the device. He has a lot of money, did you know? That's what gave me the idea to get him to donate to the organization." She blabbered, but he didn't say anything, just watched her as she gingerly applied the ointment to his skin. "The women asked him for a donation several times and he never agreed. A dragon, they called him. Sitting on his gold, you see? So Abed and I came up with a plan to make him want to help me..."
He listened quietly, his hands to his sides, and didn't comment even when she finished applying the ointment under his jaw, placing her hand on his shoulder, close to his neck, as if offhandedly. She wanted to touch him more than that - she wanted to hug him, kiss him, but he felt like a stranger, closed off, and the simple touch, the closeness between them as she sat on the bed beside him, felt like a great deal.
"Pierce loves you so much, Jeff, you have no idea. In the end, he offered to help us even more than I dared to dream! And after we did it, Troy escorted me back to the inn, since it was dark and I wouldn't go alone. "
"Good," Jeff said quietly, speaking for the first time since the story began. "That's why he stayed behind. To protect you."
"Yes, well…" Annie rolled her eyes. "He did a good job, that's for sure. Even when it started to get on my nerves..."
"He's a good chap."
"Yes. We ended up becoming good friends, but I'm definitely glad you came back to stop him from following me everywhere..."
"I'll tell him not to stop," he said.
"Because he- excuse me?"
"I can't protect you right now, Annie."
She blinked several times. He was so serious, solemn. As if he had announced that someone died. "I'm not a child who needs protection," she blurted.
"That's not- I didn't mean-"
"It was nice that he helped me carry things all this time, especially since the pregnancy, but I don't need a guard. I'm not some valuable porcelain cup that might break if you so much as hold it..."
"I'm not saying that's what you are," he said. "But I promised you I'd protect you when we got married—"
"And I needed protection then," Annie interrupted. "But now the situation is different." She smiled. "The women... they stand up for me." She remembered the protective wall they had created that day. "And I also carry a knife everywhere I go." She buried her hand in her green skirt, found the hidden pocket, grabbed the knife and pulled it out. The small blade gleamed when the faint sun rays from the window fell on it.
Jeff stared at the knife, before his eyes returned to her, and he raised his eyebrows skeptically.
"I'd like you to teach me how to use it," she admitted sheepishly. "But at least I have a weapon to defend myself." She put the knife back in her pocket in a quick motion.
He opened his mouth, blinked, and finally said, "Annie, you are... amazing. But I... I can't teach you. I'm not the man you knew before the war."
She moistened her lips. "What... what do you mean?"
"I'm weak." he said. "Miss Perry took me on walks when we had stops along the way, but every time I had to lean on her. Almost every move causes me pain. I'm... I'm a wreck."
"That's not what I see."
"Really? I saw myself in the mirror today. I look like a demon." He was wrong. He was handsome like the devil that it was almost unnatural, though the injury made his allure more rough, less obvious. She wanted to protest, but he said, "I'm back, but I'm hardly worth a spit. It would have been better if I hadn't come back. Troy could have continued to take my place..."
"As sheriff or as a husband?"
He swallowed and looked away.
"Don't you dare talk like that!" She shot, and her hand on his shoulder clenched, grasping the fabric of his shirt between her fingers. "I've been praying all this time for you to come back, and you think I care if you're weak? You are mistaken, pal!"
"Annie…" She forgot how she loved to hear him say her name, but not in that pleading tone, the tone that said he was going to say more things that would anger her.
"Don't say another word defaming yourself! You're injured, I see, but you're still my husband! And I'm carrying your child!" She grabbed his hand, which was resting beside him, and put his palm on her stomach. "Do you feel it? It's real!" His eyes rounded as he stared at her stomach beneath his hand, and his heat penetrated through the fabric to her flesh. "You can't escape this marriage with faint excuses, Jeffrey," she scolded. "If you think for a moment that I regret it, then you are awfully wrong."
"Annie," he looked up from her stomach to her eyes. "I… I want the best for you. I would like to be that thing... but I am not."
"You can't decide for me what's good for me," she told him. She removed his hand from her stomach, but continued to grasp it. "All this time I was waiting for you to come back, so we can be together again. I want you. You make me happy. I want you to come home. I… I want my husband." She turned away from him, trying to stifle the tears. "All of the lonely nights... All I wanted was for you to hug me and tell me it's gonna be alright. True, Troy is young and healthy and he has a lovely disposition, but he's not you. I want you."
He remained silent for a long time, and she didn't dare look at his face until she heard his sigh.
"You... want me to come home?"
"Yes." On second thought, she added, "Please."
He let out a laugh, and she finally looked up at him. He had that special tenderness that was reserved only for her, a softness she forgot she had missed until she saw it. "A bit late for pleasantries," he muttered with a half smile. "You pretty much demanded that I come home just now."
Her cheeks warmed. "Just because you're as stubborn as a wall."
"That's true, but you already knew that."
"Yes."
They sat quietly for a while, then he murmured, "I... can I touch... feel your stomach again?"
She took his hand and led it to the bulge that rounded recently, which was noticeable in her nightgown, but the puffy skirts still hid well. This time his arm muscles were relaxed and not stiff as before, and his thumb moved slightly, unconsciously stroking her. "It's one thing to know you're pregnant," he said quietly. "And another to see it with my own eyes."
"Yes..." she breathed. His hand on her body, his closeness, and the soft look in his eyes... It was very difficult to stay upright and not lean to him and crush his lips with hers.
"All right," he said. "I'll come back, if the doctor agrees that I'm able."
She sighed. "Thank you, Jeff."
He looked up at her face. "But I'm not what I was before," he said. "Who knows how long it will take for me to come back to my old self. Miss Perry said it could take months."
"I don't care," she smiled. "Speaking of which, you must be nicer to her. She was an angel and took care of you all this time, and you treat her dreadfully."
"You have no idea how irritating she is!"
"I'm sure not as irritating as you claim, and in any case, it's no excuse."
He smiled, a genuine smile, which brightened his whole face and reached his eyes, and for the first time since seeing him, he returned to being the same man she had desperately fallen in love with, shortcomings and all. She didn't hold back anymore and leaned over him, planting a kiss on his lips.
He didn't respond.
"Sorry," she apologized, moving away from him, but he grabbed her neck and pulled her to him, his lips soft and firm and his familiar scent surrounded her, and she let herself sink into him, enjoying his arms around her and his kiss, fast and hungry, which expressed much more than words how much he missed her. Her hands came to rest on his stomach -
"Arrgh!" He flinched and his face twisted with pain.
"Sorry, sorry!" She felt awful when she realized she pressed on his broken rib. "I forgot you-"
"Excuse me, I'm not interrupting, am I?"
Annie's head jumped to Brita standing in the doorway, and Jeff groaned loudly behind her. Annie smiled, remembering his frustration every time they were interrupted in the past.
"No," Annie told the nurse. "I have to go, actually, I was supposed to give some repaired clothes… And I need to make sure our house is ready to be lived in— "
"We need to ask the doctor first," Jeff reminded her.
"Of course, but the pantry needs to be filled, and I want to be ready anyway."
Annie sadly got off the bed, Jeff's hands dropping from her body. She really had to go though.
The nurse approached them. "What is it? What do you need to ask the doctor?"
"I want him to come home," Annie told her, smoothing her skirt.
"Hmm, he needs rest and treatment," Brita said. "But I can come to your place every day, if need be."
Annie thought of something. "We have a guest room-"
"No!" Jeff called behind her. Annie turned to him in surprise, and he covered his eyes with a hand. "She doesn't need to stay with us in the same house," he hissed under his breath. "Nothing wrong with her staying at Shirley's." He lowered his hand from his face and looked at her so desperately that she couldn't help but laugh. She turned to Brita again. "No problem with you coming to us every day. You can live at Mrs. Shirley Bennett's inn, it's not far from us."
The nurse nodded.
"Then the matter is settled," Annie said, pleased with the turn of events. She turned to him, kissed his forehead, lingered for a single moment, and reluctantly walked away. "I'll come tomorrow, alright? Talk to the doctor in the meantime, if you can."
He sighed, but didn't look as solemn as he seemed when she entered the room, which was a good sign.
Miss Perry accompanied her to the exit. "I will also talk to Dr. Baker," she said. "I hope he might want to employ me, if I'm going to stay here for a while."
"Thank you, Brita."
The blonde woman gave her a sincere smile. "No problem. And hey, I saw that you were able to give him the ointment! Either you're a fairy, or he simply can't resist you."
Annie laughed, and her heart sang. "The second option."
:::
.
.
.
.
AN: Well... he's back and very much alive (and grumpy).
Bet you didn't expect this much Brita in this chapter... and neither did Jeff
Thank you for the reviews, you are awesome! Hope you liked this one - I particularly enjoyed the bickering, and the first meeting of our adorable couple.
CabbagePatch93: Thank you for your kind words! I came here too to find closure, I see exactly what you mean. As for your question: I am definitely planning on posting the rest of this story when I can. I admit, it is not finished yet, but: I have written the next 4 chapters (thanks to covid-19, quarantine etc.), and I have the complete outline of the story. We are entering the last act of this fic. I estimate it will have around 30 chapters total. Thank you for reading even though you weren't promised an end anytime soon, I know how frustrating these fics can be...
Next up: First night together, a lot of fluff and catching up, and Brita killing the mood.
DFTBA