Act IV

When he woke, he noticed a spot of warmth on his left arm. The sun had come up and was beaming through a porthole.

Saunders blinked and gently tested his limbs and neck, finding that he was either paralyzed from the chin down, or someone had been kind enough to give him more painkillers.

He heard a grunt at the door to the med bay and saw Kirby cautiously making his way into the room.

"Think you can make it up on deck?"

Saunders pushed up onto his elbows, glanced around the room then said, "Why?"

"You're gonna wanna see this." Kirby said, grinning at him. The corporal was exhausted, and probably also heavily dosed with meds as he was, but the earnesty in his voice, pushed Saunders to sit up.

"Help." Saunders grunted. The seaman on duty in the med bay got to his feet and moved to help Saunders get upright. He was provided with a pair of pants, and the sheet was draped over his shoulders before he was helped up onto the deck.

The yacht was still following behind them, much closer to the Coast Guard vessel than it had been the night before. A clear, blue-sky summer day had risen, and the waters around them were dotted with boats of various shapes and sizes, but the sight that had drawn Kirby back to the side of the boat was on solid American land.

Kirby glanced over his shoulder and shouted, "Looks like we might'a drifted a bit last night."

Saunders limped with the help of the seaman, and stood beside Kirby easing his weight onto his left leg.

Glimmering in the morning's light, arm stretched to the sky, a Greek-featured woman stood with a torch and a plaque, facing out to sea. Liberty Island would pass to their port within the hour. Manhattan Island lay beyond her feet, sprawling eagerly toward the mainland. Upstarts of buildings jutted into the sky, some of them showing new construction, while others had been standing for twenty years or more. The wind coming off the water was crisp and fresh, the city was already wide awake despite the early hour. Even from that distance it thrummed with life and commerce. The statue was the welcoming arms and the city was the apple of the American eye drawing to it all that was new, all that was the future.

Saunders knew there would be kids on the beaches and the docks. He knew there would be vacationing mainlanders staring up at the tall buildings with withered maps in their hands. He knew there would be women standing on balconies, screaming down to their husbands to remember the eggs and bread. A dozen or more languages would be shouted in the streets and answered in kind and the city would stretch and bend and change by centimeters as its population ebbed and flowed. Bakeries were already belching smoke that smelled of sugar and yeast. The men of Wall Street had already commuted to their desks, vacating the subway cars to the tourists and the nannies.

Saunders' breath caught in his chest and even though he was born in Chicago, he loved his sister city like it was his own.

"It's not home, but it's close." He said.

"Sure is." Kirby agreed softly.

"Bette should see this." Saunders said.

"She's seein' it." Kirby told him, nodding toward the upper deck.

Saunders caught the corner of a pale face, a dark bruise, and the flicker of loose blonde strands of hair over the folds of one of the coast guard blankets. This is your future, Bette, he thought. I hope to hell you're paying attention.

After a few minutes Ensign Merriweather joined them. He had a porcelain cup of coffee in his hands and was followed by a messmate carrying a tray with two more cups perched on it. Saunders took a cup, carefully handed it to Kirby, then took his own.

"This is our home port. I know you fellas started in Washington, but I figured you wouldn't mind the detour. Especially since you're both out of Fort Dix."

"I wouldn't miss this for the world, sir." Kirby said, the cup all but forgotten in his hand.

"Where do we go from here?" Saunders asked.

"We berth on Staten Island. We'll turn the yacht over to the authorities on Manhattan, then offload the prisoners on Staten. Most the incident, if not all of it, happened in US Coastal Waters so it'll end up in the Navy's hands eventually. The two of you will be looked at by the hospital. We'll need reports from both of you and then you'll be free to go."

"What about Bette?" Kirby asked, prompting the other two men to look up at the blonde.

"We'll take good care of her but…until we have a clear picture of her part in all this…" Merriweather turned his attention back to the approaching city and said, "I'll keep track of her. Keep you updated if you like."

Saunders nodded, then turned surprised when he heard Kirby mutter, "Thank you, sir."

Kirby was still staring up at the girl, brow furrowed with worry. Saunders watched him until his gaze dropped to the cup in his hands. He gave Kirby his privacy, knowing that even drinking from the cup would be awkward and painful for him. Kirby swallowed most of it in one gulp, letting his arms rest on the railing with a loud sigh.

"Ain't that the battery?" Kirby asked, nodding at a low building perched on the edge of the sea wall.

Saunders nodded, then realized that the boat's engines were slowing and they were starting to turn from the city. Merriweather caught the worried glances and explained. "We're dropping the yacht here, then heading back for Staten Island."

"Where's Staten Island?" Kirby asked, then followed Merriweather's pointing finger behind him.

"Across from Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, which is probably where the two of you will end up."

"Hey that's where-"

"Billy and Little John." Saunders said, feeling warmth bloom in his chest, that might have been fondness, and might have been the coffee.

"More army buddies?" Merriweather asked.

"We got buddies just about everywhere." Saunders said, filling his eyes and his memory with the sight of the city.

"Makes sense, for a guy who has served everywhere."

"Except the Solomon's." Saunders said and Merriweather laughed.

They stood on the deck watching the delicate dance as a pair of tugs took over the yacht. The tow line was detached and the winch wound the cable back into place before the Coast Guard boat signaled with its horn and turned in the harbor heading for home.

They disembarked and were loaded into a jeep and taken to the hospital on the base. In between visits from nurses and doctors, Saunders wrote up a report that started on a train headed for Washington and somehow ended on Staten Island. He'd learned long ago to remove the emotion from a report, and what details were important enough to include. Still he struggled with this one.

As the day wore on the doctors were less and less willing to sign release papers and by night Saunders and Kirby had been told they were staying put for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. A nurse told him that one of the doctor's had caught wind of treatment at Bellevue less than two days before and were outraged that Kirby and Saunders had been released the first time, only to end up in worse condition the second time. They were told it was for their own good.

Saunders agreed to the stay, if the doctors would put him and Kirby in the same room. A deal was struck and before long the lieutenant and corporal had a small private suite, their own nurse, and visitors.

Little John and Billy had received word, sent by Saunders, and had traveled over the bridge separating their two islands as soon as they were off duty. Billy wasn't more than twelve hours past bedrest himself, and Little John still wore a sling. When the doctor came in for his final check of the night, spotted two more injured men happily chatting away at his patients, he made a disparaging comment about the way the army treated their soldiers and warned the army men to keep it to a dull roar.

"Have either of you heard from Caje or Hanley?"

Little John shook his head, and Billy cast a worried glance around the room.

"What's wrong with Caje and Hanley?" Billy asked.

"Hanley was run off the road on his way home. Last I heard, Caje was going to visit him in the hospital. It didn't sound good." Little John explained.

Billy cast a hurt look at Little John and began to demand to know why the big guy hadn't mentioned it sooner. A doctor passing in the hallway caught the side of the open door with a hand, backed up a step and peered into the room. "Did you say Hanley?"

Four pairs of surprised eyes turned up at him and Lt. Jonathan Davis walked into the room.

"Captain Hanley, U.S. Army. Do you know him?" Saunders asked.

The doctor hesitated, shifting the clipboard in his hands to his left arm.

"What are your names?"

Kirby's eyes narrowed, sensing flavors of the conversation he'd had with the sheriff eons ago. "Do you know Hanley or not?" He demanded.

"Kirby." Saunders chided.

"William Kirby?" The doctor asked.

"Yeah. I'm Saunders, Billy Nelson, and Little John…uh, Corporal Peabody."

Jonathan smiled and sighed, breathless now with anticipation. "The rest of the ducklings. Hang on."

Davis ran out the door ignoring the protests of the confused men in the room. He jogged down the hall to the nurse's station and made a phone call that connected him to a Delaware apartment. In seconds two excited Army men were practically rushing out the door, barely remembering to dress and get the phone number for the hospital exchange.

When Jonathan headed back he found the towering giant in the hallway looking for him. He patted the big guy on the arm as he jogged back into the room, holding a finger up to catch his breath before he gasped, "They're coming. Hanley…and uh….Cake…"

"Caje." Kirby snarled, grumpy.

"Caje!" Jonathan laughed. "Yes! Listen…I'm sorry. I can't stay and explain just yet. I have…" Jonathan swallowed and finished, "Rounds. But when they get here…I promise I'll explain everything."

The four men stared at each other as the doctor hustled back out of the room. Little John followed him into the hallway and called, "Hey doc! You ok?"

At the far end of the hallway Jonathan favored him with a brilliant smile and called, "I'm great. Just great!"

"He's nuts." Little John mumbled as he shuffled back into the room, sparking laughter from the other guys in the room.

After an hour of waiting one of the nurses had arranged to bring cots into the room for the two extra men. Billy was content to rest in one of the visitor's chairs with his feet propped up on Kirby's bed. Little John sat on one of the cots with his back pressed against the wall and his feet splayed out across the floor.

They heard Caje and Hanley trying to keep their voices down in the hall, then the voice of the excitable young doctor.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were stationed at Annapolis." Hanley asked.

"I am, but the best trauma center in the Navy is on Staten Island. I've been moonlighting here twice a week." Jonathan responded, then the three men turned the corner into the room.

Jonathan stood back and watched as the men were reunited. Saunders and Hanley exchanged muted smiles and a handshake. Caje drifted through the mess of arms and legs and ended up by the bedside of the fiery corporal, ducking his head and talking quietly to him. The group closed in on themselves and Jonathan became an afterthought. Small bursts of laughter and grins and smiles passed through the group, their exuberance eventually ebbing as the questions started to come out.

"Caje said you were run off the road. We jumped on a train headed for D.C.-"

"I was, sorta. They tried anyway. I ended up on a yacht."

"A big Chris-craft lookin' thing." Kirby asked. "White and wood paneled. With a big pipe hangin' out over the back?"

"Dieter got you on board?" Hanley asked, his voice suddenly the sole sound in the room.

"Not without a fight, he didn't." Kirby said, focused on the haunted look Hanley gave him. Jonathan had more chairs brought into the room and watched as the group began to talk. He stayed because he was a part of it, but knew he was an interloper.

"I knew Dieter had something worse planned. He was too well prepared on that boat. He was toying with me, like I was the practice round." Hanley said.

"He hesitated a little out on that road." Kirby said.

"He didn't hesitate, I put up a fight." Saunders said. "His guys had to hold me down for him to…get off that first shot."

"First shot?" Hanley asked.

Saunders started with the train station and told the group about the conversation with Dieter, being forced into the two cars, then Kirby's escape out on the country road.

"When Kirby took off, Dieter called his guys back, and decided to use me as leverage."

"I take it he didn't get the response he wanted." Hanley said.

Saunders glanced over his shoulder and found Kirby looking at him. "Kirby did what he was told. He did exactly the right thing." Saunders said forcefully. "He came back with a gun, flares, a first aid kit. And then he blew up the cop car."

"I told you there would be an explosion." Caje said.

"Two explosions." Saunders said, smirking. He resumed the story until the point where he had lost consciousness on the yacht. Kirby took over, his patter slowing until he got to the pole.

"Now I know why I never joined the Navy. Them…whips…are no joke."

Caje had paced away from the bed, standing at the window, one hand balled into a fist above his head. Kirby kept his eyes focused on the blanket covering him, picking away at an unraveling seam while he talked.

"Dieter…had a lot to say to me at first. Talkin' about some of the shit that happened to his family at the end of the war. I got the feelin' it didn't matter who did it. So long as somebody other than him and his sister suffered for it. Since he'd nearly bled Saunders dry, all he had left was me. They…put a guy in front of me, cause I kept bangin' my head on the pole. His job was to hold my head, and o' course he got some of what I was gettin' too. He finally put a stop to it. When Dieter threatened to shoot him, the nurse…Squirrel…she come out and kinda took over."

The story went back to Saunders and Kirby glanced back at Caje, laying back and watching the thin man outlined by the lights of the city beyond the window. When Caje finally turned back, the Louisiana-native swept a hand over his face, then sat in the chair by Kirby's bed. He fluffed the pillow under Kirby's head, then bent his ear close to the corporal, listening passively to a request. When he drew back it was to help Kirby sit up, then ease out of bed.

The other men moved out of the way while Kirby quietly asked about the nearest toilet. Jonathan guided both men out the door and pointed down the hallway, watching as the two inched into the darkness beyond the lit room. In seconds Kirby had said something that got a laugh out of Caje. Caje responded and Kirby laughed, and added something that got a guffaw out of the Cajun.

"No, no, no. Leave the nurse alone, Kirby." Caje said, wheeling Kirby away from the detour he tried to take, and into the door of the men's room. Caje stood in the open doorway, then faintly asked, "Do you need my help?"

"You could get that nurse's phone number for me, Caje ol' pal." The reply came.

"You can do your own gold digging." Caje said, then added. "I'll be right out here, Buddy."

Jonathan watched as Caje shut the door, leaned against the wall, and rested his head back, staring up at the ceiling. He had the feeling the man was talking to a higher power, and the idea was confirmed when Caje crossed himself a moment later.

The conversation had died in the room and Jonathan turned his attention back to the others, asking if he could get anything.

"You could show me where I could find a pot of coffee." Hanley said, rising out of his chair.

"I'll get it." Jonathan said, putting his hand up. "All of you should still be admitted to a hospital. Let me get it."

He left, feeling like he'd traveled back in time and witnessed his father and George's shipmates after a long battle. The stories he'd heard growing up were mirrored in what he saw in the hospital room, and as macabre as it seemed, Jonathan was determined to hear the rest of the story and then personally see each of the men returned to full and hearty health.

When Jonathan returned he had arranged for food and coffee to be delivered, and had completed his rounds for the hour. Kirby had been returned to his bed and Jonathan was surprised to see that a chair had been added to the circle. He realized it was Hanley's chair after he spotted the lanky officer easing onto the other end of the cot that Little John occupied.

Hanley told him to have a seat and Saunders resumed their end of the story, introducing them to a man named Merriweather and a Coast Guard boat named 445. When he got to the bomb exploding harmlessly on the surface of the ocean Caje put up two fingers and Hanley said, "Second explosion."

The food arrived while Kirby and Saunders described the beauty of the New York City skyline in the early morning light.

"I ain't too fond of boats, but that's a sight I wanna see again." Kirby added.

"What happens to Bette?" Caje asked.

"Merriweather said she'd end up with the Navy until the investigation ends. Dieter was still alive when he left the ship but he was in a bad way." Saunders said. "He may implicate her, he may not. He may die before they get around to asking him questions."

"I could probably find out." Jonathan piped up.

"We'd appreciate it." Hanley said, after the group exchanged glances. "But don't risk your career for it."

Jonathan gave him a confused look and Saunders added, "Once intelligence gets involved, anybody sticking his nose in becomes a target of their curiosity. If there are guys in three-piece suits hanging around, steer clear."

"Got it." Jonathan said.

Saunders finished his story then looked to Hanley to explain his side of things. He was stopped when he mentioned the decoy that Dieter placed in his car.

"Who was that guy?" Kirby asked, struggling to understand how Dieter had so many recruits with him.

"The police still don't know." Caje said. "They were trying to identify his body after I told them it wasn't Hanley. Probably a transient off the street."

"A whatsient?" Billy asked.

"Transient. Homeless person." Caje explained.

"That ain't right." Kirby said.

"None of it is, Kirby." Little John said.

Kirby shrugged, paled and closed his eyes, struggling to focus on a sudden burst of pain, food in his mouth, and more eyes on him than he cared for.

Little John unfolded from the cot, suddenly towering over the group. He stepped over Hanley's legs and left the room. Hanley levered off the cot and went out after him and Jonathan jolted to his feet, going to deal with Kirby's suddenly elevated pain level.

Caje backed out of the way, taking the food and coffee with him and setting it on the window sill. He stayed by the foot of the bed, ready to do anything he was told. Billy stared around him for a second before he got up out of his chair and left the room, going after Little John.

Saunders closed his eyes and waited. He could do nothing, and there was nothing for him to do. Two separate truths that he understood were different things, no matter how similar they sounded. The healing that had begun in the room needed to continue, and eventually it would, but only if he said and did nothing. He'd learned, after receiving a devastating letter in the field, what the men in his squad could do without him mother henning them at every moment. It had been a valuable lesson, and one that he had relied on more and more as the war went on. So while the others cared for the ones that fate and friendship had connected them to, Saunders sat and waited.

Hanley returned first and quietly asked, "You okay?"

Saunders opened his eyes and grunted. "Will be. Little John?"

"He and Billy are taking a walk. They'll be back." Hanley said, quietly watching Caje, Kirby and Jonathan.

"It's a lot." Saunders said.

"Especially when you weren't a part of it." Hanley said, nodding. "It's not even over yet." He added.

Saunders blinked and stared at him for a moment then sighed. "I had forgotten about the rest of them."

"Klepner's lieutenant, Bruener, Hallow." Hanley said, ticking the names off on his long fingers.

"I'll be a practicing lawyer before the court cases are done." Saunders muttered.

"Taking the plunge?" Hanley asked, smirking.

"If I can make it to the testing site without getting punched, shot or blown up." Saunders groused.

On the other side of the room the tension had eased. Kirby had settled back on the mattress, exhausted, but still awake.

"I'll tell the nurse to change his meds for now. Get a muscle relaxer and update his tetanus shot." Jonathan said, getting a relieved nod from Caje before he turned and left the room.

"Kirby?" Saunders asked.

"I'm okay, Sar-Lieutenant." Kirby said, already drifting towards sleep.

"Muscles in his back cramped up." Caje explained, his hand resting on Kirby's head. His lips moved like he was going to say more, but he didn't get past drawing a breath in. Caje's face didn't change, but his breathing did, signaling an onslaught of emotion that he couldn't swallow.

"Looks like we're spending the night." Hanley said softly, giving the man space by redirecting the conversation.

"Bette…on the boat. She said she didn't have a future." Saunders said after a moment of thought. "Everything that drove her and Dieter, Bruener, Miller…they were fueled from the past. None of them were looking at what would happen after."

Hanley nodded, grunting in agreement. "Not to trivialize it, but that's typical criminal behavior. I want what I want now. I want it because I want it. I'll do whatever I have to to get it. Those piles of court martials I waded through for months, every one of them had witnesses against them. Reams of evidence. They didn't try to hide what they did or disguise it. They were so…convicted by their need, the consequences didn't exist."

"So what…happened? I mean…did these guys never grow up? Did they…regress? Was this shell shock?" Saunders asked, pitching the question silently to the universe.

Hanley gave him an odd look, then crossed his legs at the knee and affected a Bavarian accent. "Vell, Lieutenant Zaunders, in my provessional opinion, zis is a case of juvenileitis."

Saunders chuckled. "Funny. Terrible, but funny."

Hanley smirked, and stared at the tip of his shoe for a long moment. "That's a question for brain doctors, and psychologists. Not men like us."

"Men like us." Saunders repeated. He looked over to Caje. The southerner had regained his composure, tucked Kirby into his blankets then gone to the window to watch the still burning city lights. To Bette, they had been the enemy. To each other they were family. To the nurses and doctors they were patients and to the Coast Guard they had been strangers in need of rescue. There was no single definition for who they were.

There was no set fate for their lives. No single occupation to which they should apply themselves. That was the message he'd tried to give Bette, and might have tried to give Dieter.

He knew Caje and Kirby would be ok with time. Little John and Billy would return. He knew he and Hanley would recover. They had all learned how to deal with change, adapt and survive. Bette, Bruener, Dieter, Miller and Hallow, Klepner. Even Decker. Their lives had changed and they hadn't been able to adapt. They'd instead, relied on the belief that they could turn back time, and restore what once was.

But time machines were things of novels and fantasy. The past was the past. Sometimes you were smart enough to learn from it, and you moved on. If you clung to it, you'd get buried by it.

"You remember that kid you dug out of that quicksand?" Saunders asked.

Hanley snorted, his eyes drifting. "Yeah. Young kid. I think he ended up with Love company." Hanley gave him a look then asked, "What brought that up?"

Saunders explained his thought pattern about the past swallowing you up, and connected it to what he remembered of Hanley's retelling about the sandpit.

"If I hadn't stuck with him until the barrage hit I never would've got him out of there." Hanley said thoughtfully.

"Right. You accepted change, you adapted and-"

"Got damned lucky." Hanley said, laboring the point. "But I get what you're saying. Look to the future, not the past."

Saunders shifted and grunted, weathering the pain and closing his eyes. "Hard to do when the future's a blank page."

"Maybe we can do a little editing…" Hanley said. When he looked back up he knew Saunders was out. He watched the man drift deeper into sleep, then stood and joined Caje silently at the window.

They were quiet for a long time, and Hanley noticed that Billy and Little John had found their way to the same side of the hospital. The two stood watching the city, mirroring the NCO and officer standing above them.

"It should never have happened." Caje said, his voice low and bitter.

Hanley took a breath in, studied the city then looked over to the sergeant. "But it did. And when Kirby wakes up again, he's going to need your help getting to tomorrow. Not reliving yesterday." Saunders' wisdom, Hanley thought, someday I'll give him the credit for it.

Caje turned and studied his Chicago-born brother. "I'm surprised he told us about it at all."

"He wanted us to know. And to know now. For him, maybe, now it's over."

"No…not for good." Caje said.

Hanley winced, remembering the bone-deep sick feeling that had hit him when Kirby even brought up the pole on the back of the yacht. It had started out as an innocuous object, and been turned into an instrument of torture, twice.

"He'll make it." Caje said, almost so quiet that Hanley couldn't hear him. "I'll see that he makes it."

Hanley stood at the window until Billy and Little John began to head in. He mumbled something about going to find some blankets, and left Caje alone in the room.

In the hallway the walls closed in around him and Hanley barely made it to the bathroom before he was bent over a toilet, emptying coffee and food into the basin. He hadn't kept more than scraps down since drinking the arsenic on the boat. It was something he needed to tell a doctor about, to make sure it wasn't an after effect of the poisoning. If it wasn't, he'd be in for a psychological battle that could well last him the rest of his life.

He'd vomited enough in the past few days that he was building the ability to stop the gag reflex after the first volley. The adrenaline rush was enough to get him back on his feet, he could clean up, wash his mouth out, and walk off the rest. Tiny sips of water, or ice chips would stay down, but anything approaching a normal meal would inevitably come back up. It'd taken the joy out of eating, and left him dreading food, and hating the weakness of hunger.

First thing in the morning, he told himself. First thing, he'd find a gastrologist and get it figured out. And then he'd take his own advice and look toward tomorrow. Hanley stared at the haggard, pale man in the mirror. "You need to get the hell outta this man's army." He told himself. But what the hell was he going to do with himself? Teach English?

The idea of getting a teaching license and stepping into a classroom sparked a headache in the back of his skull, that he wasn't sure he could keep the aspirin down to cure. No girlfriend, no wife. No job but the Army. Not even a desire to do something else.

Smoke. He had a desire, he realized, to go out and have a smoke.

Hanley met Little John and Billy briefly in the hallway, and told them where he was going, then headed down the stairs and out the door, finding the same path that Little John and Billy had. He searched the side of the building until he had located the window where Caje still hovered, watching the world, and gave him a wave before he turned his back on the hospital and lit up.

"Alright, Gil." He said. "It won't always be about keeping other men alive. It won't always be about survival. What the hell are you going to do with yourself, hero?"

"Is there someone else with you?" A voice asked behind him. "Or are you talking to yourself?"

Hanley spun around and moved to his left, reacting before the timbre and the tone of the voice fully registered.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I should've guessed you were a veteran." The voice said, and a nurse stepped out of the shadows. She wore a lightweight black coat that had hid her white uniform. Her hair was shockingly short, feathering around her face and ears. She had long lashes, emphasizing broad brown eyes that matched the dark shade of her hair. She'd been crying, judging by the sheen on her nose, the redness under her eyes and her preference for the shadows.

The move had cost Hanley, awakening the pain in his shoulder and back. He did his best to be gallant despite it, failing to juggle the cigarette, the discomfort and the spike in adrenaline. Suddenly he was irritated and he awkwardly excused himself, turning to head back inside.

"No, please. I'm sorry. The other two were out here for so long, and I just wanted to- I'm sorry. Please. I'm due back on the floor anyway. Please.." She said, dumping her own cigarette on the path and grinding it out with the point of her toe. "Have a good night..um..soldier." She added, struggling to interpret the army insignia.

"Good night, nurse." Hanley called after her.

She turned, and called over her shoulder, "Doctor..in two more weeks. I hope." She said, smiling and walking backwards, before she turned, hunched her shoulders and stared at the ground, walking around the corner.

Hanley watched her go, fixated on the short hair, the casual walk. Most of her was hidden by the coat and yet he couldn't look away. So much about her was different.

The disapproving voice of his father chimed in his head, "Go on, boy. Go get her name."

But he stood his ground. He watched New York pulse across the water until his shoulder had settled, and the desire for another cigarette had passed. He found he was hungry, and thought about the foods he could try, eating as slowly as he could manage, hoping it would stay. He entered the hospital and found his way to the source of food, finally grabbing a few pieces of fruit.

On his way back to the room he passed the nurse's station and stopped. He watched the same girl sort through files, a pencil clutched in her teeth, a medical textbook open on the desk. He tilted his head to catch the name on the tag pinned to her uniform.

"Nurse…Tanny, is it?" He asked.

The short-haired, brown-eyed girl snapped her gaze up at him and he watched her recognize him, blush briefly with embarrassment, fight a bout of irritation then pull the pencil from her lips and say, "Tuh-ney, actually. It's Bengali."

She waited for him to comment, and when he didn't, she stuck the pencil back between her lips and went back to her sorting. There wasn't sorting enough for her to do, and she once more pulled the pencil from her teeth and slapped it down on the open book.

"I'm sorry, General, can I help you with something?"

Hanley smirked and looked at his captain bars, then asked, "General?"

"I would have said, Admiral, but you're clearly not Navy." Tanay said, barely holding her irritation in check. "If you want more fruit that isn't my department, and if you're a patient, you should have been in bed hours ago. Visitation is long over, so you must be an officer or higher. There's an army convention in the room down the hall…do you need directions?"

"No." Hanley said, unable to fight the enjoyment he was getting out of just watching the girl.

"Are you on drugs?" She asked him, crossing her arms over her chest.

Hanley cocked his head, then let the grin drop and said, "No. I just…thought I'd say "hello"."

"Well…you didn't say, "Hello." You mispronounced my name and then stood there with a dopey grin on your face."

"Dopey grin?" Hanley said, backtracking the handful of steps he'd taken, preparing to leave the angry nurse to her studies.

Tanay seemed to realize a second too late that she'd practically insulted an officer and she closed her eyes tightly, wincing at herself. "I'm sorry, sir. It was a very soldierly grin, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"Go out with me." Hanley said.

"What!?" Tanay asked.

"Go out with me." Hanley said again.

Tanay stared at him for a long moment and Hanley could see the ticker tape of thoughts flashing through her mind. Finally she took a step back, putting distance between herself and the answer and asked, "Why?"

"Because I like you."

"You don't know me."

"Maybe that's what I like about you." He said. "When do you get off?"

"No, soldier. The answer is no."

"What happened to "general"?"

"Field demotion. Disorderly conduct." She said.

"Specific charge?"

"Asking a very busy, total stranger out on a date." Tanay said, finding the pencil and tapping the sharpened end of it on the open page of her book.

"During peacetime." Hanley added.

"Not everyone is at peace during peacetime." Tanay said, her voice heavy with the sadness that had led to her crying out in the shadows on her smoke break.

"To save my..captain's bars…I'll leave you alone." Hanley said, then stuck his hand out.

Tanay pressed her lips together, considering the hand, then put hers in his. She matched his grip, but didn't try to overpower him. "Tanay Forrest, second lieutenant."

"Gil Hanley, part-time General."

To his surprise the comment got a laugh and a blush from the girl before she drew her hand back. Hanley headed down the hallway, resisting the urge to glance back and see if she was still watching him. That's your future, Gil. He told himself, then ducked into the room, taking a tiny bite of the apple.