"Hey Danny I just ran into that pretty blonde nurse friend of yours. She wanted me to bring this to you." Mike said from across the breakfast table, partially scared he may inadvertently insult Annaly and wind up with his cereal in his lap. Danny took the note and rose from the table. He wandered around the base until he found a spot he'd be alone. Climbing into the cockpit of his P-40 he pulled the letter from his pocket.
"Dear Walker," Danny couldn't help but laugh even in a letter she refused to use his name. He wondered if he asked Mike to bring the note to "Walker"
"Dear Walker,"
I'm so unbelievably sorry for what happened yesterday. I take full responsibility. I beg you not to tell Evelyn, she's one of my closest friends and I couldn't stand her to be so mad at me. I know I told her I'd be her I'd go to your wedding but I can't. I think Rafe can handle being Best Man and Maid of Honor. I just know deep down that you two are going to be happy together. The only thing that bothers me is we'll never be able to spend any more time together. I won't be going out with you tonight or any other for that matter, so please don't come to pick me up. I'm sorry 1000 times over. See you in the future.
Annaly"
"Jesus Danny what have you done? You put the moves on your best friend's girl friend you kiss your girl friend's best friend. What kind of person are you?" Danny gripped the throttle so tightly his knuckles were white as the engine started to sputter and he taxied down the runway. Nothing took his mind off things like a trip threw the clouds. After a few minutes of peace Danny noticed another plane coming up beside him.
"What do you want Rafe?" Danny called into the radio without even looking to see who it was.
"I was about to sit for breakfast and I noticed you weren't there. When I went lookin' for ya I noticed your plane was gone but not logged out. You don't do stuff like that unless you're upset." Rafe answered the younger pilot. "Are you alright?"
"I don't wanna talk about it Rafe." Danny said frustrated.
"Come on Walker you haven't been able to keep things from me since we were kids."
"Don't call me Walker, Rafe. It's about Evelyn."
"Easy Danny. Forget I asked. Let's just fly." And that's what they did they flew. Flew until their tanks were empty, till their minds were empty, until the only things left in the world were them and their planes.
"Where ya headed now?" Rafe queried once they had shut down their engines.
"I've gotta go talk to Evelyn about the wedding." Was Danny's reply. And he set off toward the hospital where she was serving her last shift before maternity leave.
"Danny!" Evelyn said when she saw him walk threw the door. "Are you okay?" She pushed herself out of the chair.
"I'm fine Evelyn we need to talk about our wedding. You know make arrangements." He said only partially making eye contact.
"We do don't we. Go into the office and get a piece of paper from one of the notebooks."
Danny walked down the short corridor to a room with six desks each belongs to one of the nurses. You could tell who was whose buy the way it looked. Evelyn's was obviously the one with the picture of him and Rafe as the returned from Doolittle on it. Barbara's was a complete mess but Danny noticed the slight shine of Billy's dog tags coming from under some paper. It was awful the day after the Pearl attack anyone mobile had to walk around looking for any survivors. Danny was sent over to the airstrip were Billy had died. He didn't find Billy's body, maybe what could've been pieces of it, just the dog tags that had been hurled 50 feet away. He remembered the look on her face when he brought them to her. Then he moved passed Sandra, Martha and the new supervising nurse who happens to be Mrs. Doolittle. The last desk was Annaly's there was a picture of her, him and Evelyn framed and sitting on it. Danny was in between the 2 even in the picture.
"If this is a sign it's not a very good one." He mumbled digging threw a stack of supply inventory and patient logs on a shelf in front of him. When he came across a plain notebook. He opened it and was about to pull a blank piece from the back when he noticed what was written on the page before it.
"Dear Diary,
I've never kept a diary before; I guess I never had something happen in my life that was this wonderfully awful happen before. Something that I can't tell anyone and can't keep to myself. I'm in love with Danny Walker. Every time I even hear his name I catch myself looking around in hopes he'll be there. His eyes hide the secrets of a life I want to know about. His lips are like the frontier and yet I can't explore them. It's an unobtainable dream that is just beyond my fingertips. And yet my arm isn't getting any longer."
Danny's mind was racing he was almost dizzy from processing this news and yet he read on to the next days entry. It had no title or heading just the words that make Danny's problems so much greater.
"Dear God help me. I kissed Walker and I liked it. No I loved it I can still feel it as I sit here writing this now. His lips were cool and salty from the water yet warm and sweet like I always imagined them to be. Evelyn can't here of this she's going to marry him have his baby. He deserves better then me anyway, I'm nowhere in comparison to her. She's so perfect. All I am is a treacherous bitch a poor excuse for a best friend. I don't deserve to breath the same air as them. They belong together they're both perfect."
"What's taking you so long?" Evelyn's voice came from behind him.
Danny snapped the book closed quickly.
"I was um looking for some unused paper. This is all written on."
"Well I was thinking the baby is do next month, and we don't want to push the wedding off until after it's born, so why don't we just have a quick ceremony at the base chapel. We could do it Sunday after church."
Danny looked down at her not truly focused on what was being said his mind was still milling over Annaly's journal.
"Whatever you want is fine."
"Good. Now about those stitches in your chest there coming out tomorrow right?"
"Suppose to be, why?"
"So why don't you let Annaly take them out now since you're here? I'd do it but I can't really bend over."
They walked back towards the care section of the hospital neither reaching for the others hand, neither wanting to. Each wondering if they other knew that they loved another but no one had the gall to ask. It was uncomfortable but if they were to spend the rest of their lives together they'd have to get over it.
