Alex knew that she had to keep working, so she forced herself to turn around and go back to her marking, but part of her heart was crushed in a way that drained some of her spirit. Hayley was dead, and she had no clue whether or not Danny and Rafe were still alive.

She and Evelyn marked men until their lipstick tubes were empty, and they went back inside to help with whatever procedures they could. They worked side-by-side for the next couple of hours, seeing so many wounds and smelling the scent of blood for so long that it began to feel like this hell was never-ending. Everything seemed to blend together and they operated on autopilot, so immersed in their work that they didn't even notice when Danny and Rafe found them and were standing right by their sides.

"Evelyn. Alex," Rafe called, watching the two exhausted women trudge around him and Danny as if they were roadblocks. "Hello?"

Evelyn looked up, her eyes wide and startled. Every piece of her focus had been concentrated on her patients and remaining calm for their sake, and she'd been the most successful by far of all the nurses, but now she felt her world tilt. "Rafe?" she asked softly, afraid that she was imagining things and when she blinked he would be gone. "You're okay?"

"I'm okay," he assured her, walking closer and pulling her into his embrace. She felt fragile, and so unbelievably precious, against him. "Are you?

Evelyn hugged him back, pressing close against his dirty shirt. "Oh Rafe… I was beginning to think you'd never come back…"

"Of course I came back. Are you all right?"

"I'm okay. It's just…" She shook her head and glanced up, and even though her eyes were rimmed with red, she didn't cry. She didn't let herself. "So much has happened…"

"Shh, it's okay," he whispered soothingly, rubbing her back. "It's okay now. It'll be okay."

Alex and Danny just watched each other for a second. He could see the anguish in her eyes and the way her shoulders slumped like they held too much weight. All she could see was that he was unharmed—dirty, his clothes torn at places, but still whole, still alive.

Slowly, she stretched a hand out to touch him. The second they made contact, just her fingers brushing up against his, she dissolved into tears. She'd thought that maybe she'd reached a numb place inside herself, but seeing Danny now, finally, brought feeling back with a vengeance.

Danny hurried to take her in his arms. "It's gonna be all right, Alex. Are you okay? Were you hurt?"

"No. But…today things happened that we can't fix." She shuddered and buried her face in his neck. He was covered in dirt and smelled heavily of smoke from outside, but she didn't think she'd ever been happier to have someone hold her. "People we can never replace died. So much happened that never should have been… and I was so worried you were gone."

"I'm right here, I'm not leaving you." Cradling her close, Danny looked around at the hospital and tried to remember how immaculately clean it had always been when he came by to visit Alex during her shifts. It was hard to believe it was even the same place. "Were you here when it happened?"

She shook her head. "At home, getting ready."

Rafe winced. "You and the girls are lucky you got here okay."

He knew he'd said something wrong immediately from the way Evelyn stiffened and seemed to hold on to him even tighter. He could hear his sister's sobs, see her body shaking with them, from where he stood. "Alex, what's wrong?"

Alex took a deep, shaky breath and pulled just far enough away from Danny to meet Rafe's eyes. "Hayley's gone," she admitted, tears pouring down her face. "She came in earlier… I tried but… I couldn't save her. She's gone."

Both men looked stricken by the news; Hayley had been a good friend to all of them, happy and full of life. "I'm so sorry…"

It was so easy to melt against Danny, to soak up the comfort after everything that had happened, that Alex let herself for a long moment before she pulled away. "I need to get back to work," she murmured, laying a hand on his dirty cheek. She hoped that touch could convey the words she couldn't say—above all else, how important he was to her.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" he asked.

"Blood. We need blood from anyone who can spare it," Alex answered. "Neither of you were hurt, right?" The question just came out naturally, but she already knew the answer. It had been the first thing she looked for when she saw them.

Rafe shook his head. "We're fine." Actually, it sounded like he and Danny were in better shape than the women.

"Okay, come this way," Alex beckoned, leading the way out of the room. Even when she had to navigate through the crowded halls, she didn't let go of Danny's hand.

There wasn't space in any of the rooms, so Rafe and Danny ended up sitting on folding chairs at the end of a hallway, blood flowing through tubes in their arms down into sterilized Coke bottles.

Suddenly, Danny frowned. "Alex, what happened?" From his seat on the chair, he had an easy view of the scrapes that covered the front of his girlfriend's legs. "You're hurt."

"I'm fine," she insisted, pushing at him when he started to stand up. It was her tone more than the shove that made him stay in his chair.

"What happened?" he repeated.

His concern for her was sweet, but given the circumstances, completely unnecessary. Still, she could see that he wasn't going to stop until he had an answer, and reluctantly admitted, "I fell rushing to get here. Really, it's nothing."

Rafe leaned toward her. "You're bleeding. It's not nothing."

"Rafe, there are doctors performing amputations on hallway floors," she pointed out gently. "Don't worry about a couple of cuts."

"You had anyone look at them?" Rafe pressed.

Seeing that the men were in protective mode—and who could blame them, she supposed—Evelyn laid a hand over her boyfriend's. "I'll clean her cuts if you boys will stop fretting," she offered.

Alex's eyes widened. "Ev—"

"We're just waiting with them anyway," the older woman reasoned. She went to get some ointment and a few bandages—a much harder task than usual, because nothing was where it should have been anymore—and when she returned Danny had already urged Alex into a folding chair by his side, and she was picking at her wounds with a pair of tweezers.

Evelyn checked the scrapes and saw the foreign particles lodged in the cuts—bits of glass and gravel she'd picked up in the fall. She handed over the bandages and took over the job. "Where were you last night?" she asked as she worked.

Rafe and Danny exchanged a look. "We were talking things out," Rafe explained. "We sort of fell asleep in his car and didn't wake up until we heard the planes earlier."

Alex ran her fingers lightly over Danny's hand. "So did you bust up your knuckles talking things out, or did that happen today?"

Both men had the grace to look ashamed. "That was last night," Rafe mumbled.

Evelyn actually let out a short laugh as Alex rolled her eyes. "Where were you today?"

"Trying to find a plane to get into the sky so we could fight back," Danny replied.

"I'm glad you didn't find one," Evelyn sighed. "You both would've gotten yourselves killed. There were too many of them out there—some say three or four hundred."

"Actually, we found the planes and went up," Rafe admitted, and both girls froze to stare at them in shock. "We're fine. Played a little chicken with the Japs—they're not as good as me and Danny." He shared a smile with his friend, in that moment connected despite any personal drama that had happened between them. There were still things to be sorted out, but in the air—communicating through souls as much as the scratchy radio—both of them had been reminded how strong the bond of their friendship was.

"Wait—you played chicken? With the bombers?" Alex demanded, her tired brain struggling to understand. She remembered Rafe writing to her about their training on a base in New Jersey, how they would play chicken in the planes and barely escape punishment by coming up with what he'd called "grade-A lies." It had scared her then, the thought of her brother and his best friend flying at each other at full speed and waiting until the exact last moment to turn away, and that had been when there was no one else in the sky.

"They didn't seem to get the game," Danny agreed with Rafe. "Crashed right into each other."

"You're both lucky you didn't mess up and get yourselves killed," Evelyn chided as she put down the tweezers and started disinfecting Alex's injuries so she could bandage them.

She barely noticed the sting. "I'm just glad it worked," she said in a soft voice. "Too many innocent people died today without any reason."

Before either of them could reply, a man approached them. He was wet and covered in soot, and judging by the way he moved, he was exhausted. "Are you hurt?" he asked of Danny and Rafe, who shook their heads. "When you're done in here, we could use you outside. Hundreds of men are trapped inside sinkin' ships, and we need all the help we can get to free 'em."

Rafe gritted his teeth. There wasn't much that sounded more like hell to him than being trapped in a sinking vessel, waiting for the water level to catch up with you. "We'll be right there."

The man nodded and moved on, looking for more help.

Alex started removing the needle from Danny's arm at once; the Coke bottle was nearly full anyway. "Promise me you'll be careful."

Danny squeezed her hand. "Promise."

He worked up a smile, too, and the familiarity of it—the squinty eyes, the slight gap in his teeth—warmed something in Alex that felt as if it had frozen over. She managed a half smile in return. "Okay then."

"You'll be okay here?" Rafe asked Evelyn, who had finished Alex's legs and removed the needle from his arm.

"Of course, we should get back to work anyway. Be safe." She kissed Rafe and left, ever conscious of the need to be a leader for the others around her. She would work hard and keep her composure, and hope they could as well.

Alex stood, glad to note that the light wrapping on her legs wasn't a nuisance, and picked up the Coke bottles. "Thank you for these. And good luck on the ship." Forcing herself to stand tall and not look back at them like a child reluctantly going off to school, she walked away.

"Think they're okay?" Rafe hissed, watching her leave.

Danny sighed and shook his head. "No, but they're gonna need time. Come on, we have to get those men out of that ship."

It was days before the bodies of the dead could be collected and honored the way they deserved. The tarmac of Hickham Field was covered with long, neat rows of coffins that had been draped with American flags. Mourning loved ones left things on the coffins as they paid their respect, decorating the empty space with pictures and flowers.

Standing straight in his dress uniform, Danny watched Alex approach Hayley's coffin and gently place a flower next to the framed picture Levi had put up. Beside her, Wanda cried openly and Levi stared down, stony-faced. Danny knew the other man well enough to understand that if he looked up, if he met any of their eyes and saw that ever-present combination of sorrow and sympathy, he'd break down.

Silently, Alex walked back to Danny and leaned into his side, as if the burden of her own weight had become hard to carry. No more than a few feet away, Red, Amy, Evelyn, and Rafe were gathered around Betty's coffin. She hadn't made it through the battle, either; she'd been caught twice in the stomach by enemy fire.

Evelyn stared down at Betty's coffin and felt the tears running down her cheeks, but chose to ignore them. It was still hard for her to believe that two of her best friends were gone, both of them so young and hopeful about the lives ahead of them. Betty, the free spirit who couldn't wait to leave home, hadn't even seen her eighteenth birthday.

Rafe felt his heart break for Red as he watched him struggle to compose himself, without much success. Red was a good guy, but he was horribly nervous and had never had much luck with the ladies before he met Betty, the golden-haired angel who looked past his blush and stutter. They'd started planning a life together after the war, and in the blink of an eye it had all been ripped away from them. "That could be me," Rafe realized with a start.

Evelyn heard his whispered statement and sighed. "It could be any of us." The truth of that frightened her as nothing else did. Days ago, life and death on Pearl Harbor had been nothing more than the luck of the draw—Rafe's good luck, Red's bad.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant Rafe McCawley?" a man in uniform asked as he approached them. He was an Army Air Corps major.

Rafe frowned a little. "Yeah, that's me."

"And do you know where I can find Lieutenant Daniel Walker?"

Danny turned at the sound of his name, his eyes curious. "Right here."

The major nodded. "Colonel Doolittle wishes to see you both in his office. Please come with me."

Alex glanced up at Danny, worry written on her pale face.

"It's all right. It's probably nothing," he assured her with a small smile as he squeezed her hand. He was lying, but the way he saw it, there wasn't much else he could do. Doolittle never called men in for nothing.

Rafe released Evelyn with an encouraging smile and they both followed the major off the tarmac and to Colonel Doolittle's office, where the man left them.

Danny and Rafe exchanged salutes with their superior before he told them to sit down. "I've heard a few things about you, McCawley, Walker," Doolittle began. His expression gave nothing away.

"We can explain it, sir," Rafe replied nervously, thinking back to the fight at the bar and the damage their personal issues had caused.

"Explain what?" Doolittle asked.

Danny shifted a little in his seat, uncertain. "Whatever it was you heard, sir."

Doolittle chuckled; he'd always liked these cocky young pilots, with their well-spoken bullshit. "About you two flying in those hulushirts?" he asked pointedly, "Or the seven planes you shot down?" There was respect in his eyes when he looked at them, and that wasn't something he gave lightly. "You're both being awarded the Silver Star and promoted to Captain. You did well, but now I have a new challenge for you. Do you know what a top secret mission is?"

"Yes, sir. The type of mission where you get medals but they're sent to your families," Rafe offered, going right to the truth.

"A top secret mission is something that has never been done before," Doolittle corrected. "Only the greatest go and only the absolute best will come back. Are you two up to it?"

"I am," Rafe answered immediately.

"Count me in."

He nodded, having expected nothing less. "We go Stateside tomorrow," he announced, handing them each an envelope with their orders. Then, without any more fanfare, they were dismissed.

When they got back, Evelyn was still by Betty's coffin, standing with Red as he spoke to one of Betty's friends. Seeing them, she gave him a quick squeeze on the arm in silent support before excusing herself from the conversation.

"What happened?" she asked quickly, not bothering to pretend that a thousand scenarios, most of them awful, hadn't run through her mind since they walked away.

Rafe knew that the truth was probably one of the worst possible things in her mind, and decided to wait until they were alone to explain it. "We'll talk about it later. Don't worry, everything's fine," he assured her. He glanced around quickly. "Where'd Alex go?"

"Oh! She needed to get away from this for a while. Danny, she asked me to tell you that she went to 'your spot.' She said that you would know what that meant," she reported.

"Thanks, Evelyn. I'll see you two later." He quickly left them.

"What is it?" Evelyn asked softly, reaching up and turning his face towards hers when he looked away. "Rafe, what happened? Tell me."

"Not in here," he coaxed, leading her away. Evelyn cast a last look at Betty and Hayley's coffins, then followed him.

When they'd put a little distance between themselves and the field, she pulled him to a stop. "Rafe, please, just tell me what's going on," she pleaded. "What did Doolittle say to you?"

"He talked about what we did," Rafe began. "You know, goin' out and chasing after the Japs. He wasn't mad or anything. Actually, we're getting promoted… and Danny and I are going away."

Evelyn stared at him, any sign of relief quickly vanquished by fear. "What?"

He wished that he could explain it, but even he didn't know anything about the mission except that it was top secret, and those words didn't exactly inspire confidence in anyone who knew what they meant. "We got new orders, Evelyn. We're leaving tomorrow."

"What? What orders?"

"The secret kind," he admitted.

She paled. "The dangerous kind." When he didn't answer one way or another, she pressed, "That's what secret means, right? Suicide mission?"

"Evelyn… it won't be like that."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I know that you're a great pilot, but Rafe…"

"Evelyn. Please don't be upset about this," he implored. "You know I have to go on this assignment. Whatever it is, it has to have something to do with gettin' revenge for everyone lying in those coffins back there. If I have a chance to do that, don't I owe it to them—to Betty and Hayley?"

She closed her eyes against the horrible pain that came with realizing he was right. After seeing firsthand the physical damage done to thousands of men, she of all people knew that the Japanese had to pay for what they'd done. She just didn't want to lose Rafe in that process. Waiting for him to return from Britain had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done; she didn't look forward to doing it again.

And this time Danny would be going, too. Even as she was relieved to know that someone would have Rafe's back unconditionally, Evelyn felt a rush of sympathy for Alex. She had been through so much in her young life and while Rafe had been away, Danny had been her support, the thing holding her together. With both of them gone, Evelyn feared that she and Alex would not be strong enough to stay completely sane.

"You have to go," she agreed reluctantly. "I just wish things were different."

"Don't even worry about us. We'll be back. We'll be fine."

"I'm going to worry about you."

He smiled at her. "I know. You wouldn't be you if you didn't."

She chuckled and went willingly into his arms, listening to the sound of his heartbeat through his uniform. She prayed that nothing would happen to make that heart stop. "What am I going to do if you don't come back to me?" she asked softly.

Rafe considered that seriously, resting his head on top of hers. "Well, I guess you'll go back to Massachusetts with Alex and go on living like you were before we met."

"I could never just erase everything we've been through," she protested.

"You don't have to. I don't want you to," he promised. "But I do want you to go on living if something happens to me."

"It doesn't seem possible."

"Silly girl, haven't you learned? Anything's possible."

"Including you and Danny both coming back from this mission, healthy and whole?"

He hugged her tighter. "Yeah. Especially that."