"You have no idea how glad I am to see you!" Woody caught her up in a hug and lifted her off the ground.

Jordan laughed and threw her arms around his neck as he spun her around. Her vision grew blurry with tears. Woody was here. He had been trapped, too, somehow, and they were in this together.

"Mind telling me what this is about, soldier?" Garret stepped forward with his hands on his hips.

Woody set her down and stuck out his hand. "Oh, sorry, doc. Capt. Woody Hoyt from the 82nd, Charlie Company."

Jordan frowned. Why didn't Woody know Garret?

"Well, that answers that question. Why all the excitement?"

"I've been stuck up at HQ since the 15th. It took me four days to get back down here, the weather was so bad." Woody was wide-eyed. "I've got a lot of men out in the field about to lose their toes to frostbite or trench foot. We've got one lousy medic, and he's so shell-shocked he can barely move. Someone told me there were some medical personnel holed up in the church here. Gosh, you're a sight for sore eyes. Or I guess that would be sore feet." He chuckled at his own joke, and Garret rolled his eyes.

Woody took off his helmet and ruffled his hair. "Sorry, ma'am, if I was a little forward. I just couldn't contain myself." He looked at Jordan and bowed his head apologetically.

"That's okay." Jordan smiled wistfully. He was here, but he didn't know her. He didn't know any of them.

"Captain, huh? You barely look old enough to be out of knee pants," Garret snorted.

Woody looked hurt. "I'm 31, sir. I was born in January 1913, the same day as Pres. Wilson's inauguration. That's why my parents named me Woodrow Wilson Hoyt."

"Fascinating." Garret deadpanned. "I'm Garret Macy from the 96th Army Field Hospital. This is my nurse, Lt. Cavanaugh. We've been pinned down here for days. Can you radio HQ and tell them we're here?"

"Will do, doc."

Garret headed off. "Send your men up here when you can, captain. We'll take a look at them. In the meantime have them change their socks at least three times a day."

"Thank you, sir!" Woody called after him with his familiar earnestness. He turned back to Jordan. "Well, I guess I'd better get back to my men. They sure will be glad to see you, ma'am."

"Please. Stop calling me ma'am. It's Jordan."

"Jordan Cavanaugh." He turned it over thoughtfully. "Jordan. That's different, but it sure is pretty." She walked him back out the door and down the steps to his jeep. "Wait 'til the men hear. You have no idea what it's like to get proper medical care for the first time in weeks."

She shrugged. The "hospital" at St. Denis was woefully inadequate by 1944 standards let alone the 21st century standards she was accustomed to. "It's the best we can do under the circumstances. We're running low on morphine, suturing thread. You name it."

He slipped into the driver's seat and looked back up at her with narrowed eyes, studying her face with intensity. "I feel like...I know you."

"Like we've met before?"

He screwed up his face and shook his head. "No, not exactly. I don't know. Crazy, huh?"

"No. Not crazy at all." He smiled and started up the jeep. She thought of him driving out into those woods beyond the village, facing cold, hunger and worse. "How is it out there?" she asked quietly.

His smile evaporated, and he didn't speak for a moment. "It's bad. It's the worse I've seen since...since Omaha Beach." He looked ahead of him onto the road that led into the forest.

"Be careful," she whispered.

There it was...he flashed her that smile again and he was Woody. "Aw, don't worry about me. You should be more worried about being overrun with lovesick G.I.s once they find out there's a pretty nurse in the village." He winked at her as he drove off. "I'll be back!"

She stood, arms folded across her against the chill, even after the jeep turned and disappeared at the end of the street. Finally, she went back inside to where Lily was still tending to their patients.

"Jordan Cavanaugh, you're blushing!"

"I'm not blushing, it's frostbite."

"Mmm-hmm." Lily smiled and raised her eyebrows.

"You know, I think I will lie down if you don't mind." She walked to the front of the church where several cots were set up by the altar. She stood staring at them. It was absurd, beyond bizarre. One of these cots was hers, and she had no idea which one. She had to laugh to keep from crying.

Two of the cots were set off behind a bed sheet curtain, and she assumed those were hers and Lily's cots. She was too tired to try and guess which was which, and she collapsed on the closest one.

She drew her knees up to her chest and tucked herself into a ball. Every fiber of her body ached with cold and exhaustion. She had been running on adrenaline since she had awoken here, but now the inevitable crash was following.

She lay there not knowing where she was or how long she would be here. To make things worse, men were facing almost certain death out there beyond the little Belgian village. And Woody was one of them. He didn't know her, but he was still Woody. With every nervous stammer and every smile, she knew it. Back at home, he was lost to her, but at least he was alive. Here, she could lose him forever just as she had found him again. For all she knew this was her eternity, and she wasn't sure she wanted to face an eternity without him.

She lay there and cried quietly, her eyes turned up to the sky, as it glowed with the sunset and faded into the blackness of night.