The next day Donny woke up earlier than he was used to, maybe it was the 3 full days of sleep be had under his belt or maybe it was the dreams he'd had that woke him. The dreams were all fire and loud cracks and the feeling of ripping skin. He woke covered in a thin sheen of sweat and breathing hard like he'd just run the marathon.

He spent the first hours of his waking day shifting about restlessly in bed committing every detail of the room to memory. He was not used to being laid up, he'd always had to be moving, running, playing ball, working hard down at the fish docks to save up for his first car. Sitting still for this long was killing him. He debated trying to get up for the first hour, and during the second hour he decided to try for it.

He moved himself to the corner of the bed and shifted his feet to dangle off, the heavy cast making him scowl. He was just about to move himself off of the bed when he heard his door open.

"What in the name of all things holy do you think you're doing Sergeant?" She was at his side in a second whacking him in the arm with a furious fire in her eyes.

"I just wanted to move around a little, can you blame me?" He said as he brushed off her help moving himself back into his former position.

"Just wanted to move around? You shattered your leg 4 days ago! You're a real pig headed idiot if you think you're just going to go for a stroll around the veranda after that."

"I heal quick." He was stubborn she would give him that, but she was pretty damn tough herself.

"No one heals quick after a shattered leg."

"Well I can't sit here for all hours of the day. I'll go stir crazy."

"You're like a stubborn little boy, you know that?" Her voice was hard and her eyes were harder as she rechecked his wounds making sure he hadn't popped any stitches in his silly little attempt at freedom. She knew he was going to be trouble; he didn't seem like he was used to ever sitting still.

"Yeah well..." He didn't have anything to come back with, he knew he was being stubborn as a goddamn mule.

"Yeah well is right." She said bitingly "If you want to get out of the room make a request for a wheelchair and one of us will take you outside for a couple hours with the other patients. You don't need to act like a damn fool"

He looked at her sideways and his eyes got a wry twinkle in them "Language Nurse Cohen."

She glared at him and she made a low noise of frustration.

"Will you be the one that takes me outside?"

She sat up and walked over to the medicine cabinet, she looked over her shoulder and shot back at him "If hell freezes over."

"I thought it felt a little chilly in here." His handsome face was plastered with that same cocky grin. "I'd like to request for you to take me outside today Nurse Cohen."

"Oh, you are a real idiot." She said as she put away her supplies.

"Come on Nili, I didn't mean any harm by it." His eyes were softer now and she could tell he was honestly sorry.

"Yeah well if you had gotten hurt it could have cost me my job and yours." She walked back over to his bedside and she knew she couldn't stay mad at him for long. He was just a big overgrown boy.

"I'm sorry Nili, I didn't know it would look bad on you." She put her hand on her hip and let out a long sigh.

"Well, let me go get you a wheel chair and I'll send in an orderly to help you get dressed."

"Now that won't be necessary I'll be a good boy and help you dress me." His eyes were alight and she couldn't help but smile at his bluster.

"Not if you were the last man on earth Sergeant." She shook her head as she walked out of the door but she could hear him calling down the hall after her

"You'll change your tune soon, sweetheart."

She moved quickly and found one of the orderlies and sent him to Donny before she got back. She reached the nurses station and put in the request for the chair.

"Whose this for?" the older nurse asked as she looked over the paperwork "Aha 513, he's that handsome young Sergeant, right?"

"Yes, he's the Sergeant." Nili's voice was even, if one listened closely they could tell that the even tone was forced, and the old nurse always listened closely.

"I heard that he was askin' the night nurse about you, how old you were, how long you've been here. I think he's sweet on you. I'll cover the rest of your shift today, you take that boy outside and sit with him"

Nili tried hard to protest "Oh, no you don't have to do that Delilah you really don't have to do that. I have so many patients that need me on top of your workload..."

The older woman put up a hand and gave the younger girl a saucy look "It's alright honey, don't you worry." She punctuated herself with a wink "You two young things go outside and enjoy yourselves."

Nili knew that was the end of it and she let out a long breath as she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. The older nurse came back a few moments later with an old wheelchair and she winked again as she handed it off to Nili. The younger girl just sighed and turned sharply on her heel back down the hall

Upon getting back to Donny's room Nili found him sitting up fully dressed in the khaki uniform of an airman.

"There's my girl." He said setting his hands on the bed and making to lift himself up.

"Sergeant, don't even think about it." He just shook his head again and picked his hands up putting them in front of him in a motion of defeat.

Nili moved the chair over to the side of his bed and moved herself to his side. "Now put your arm around my shoulder and let me help you into the chair"

Donny scoffed, "Baby you're nothin' but a little slip of a thing and I'm a pretty big sonofabitch; I'll crush you."

She just growled in frustration again as she grabbed up his arm on her own and shot him a glance that could kill. He tried to snake his other arm around her waist but she whacked it away and stepped back.

"Sergeant if you don't keep your paws off me I swear I'll scream. I already have no patience with you today."

He just chuckled again and raised his hand to gently stroke it across her cheek "I'm sorry sweetheart, I'll behave; For now."

She just shook her head and helped him lower himself down into the rickety wheel chair. He moved his arms to the sides to start pushing himself out of the room when she laid her hand on his shoulder stepping in front of him. "Mother of God Sergeant, you're such a stubborn bastard. Let me push you before I lose my job."

"But, if you're pushin' me then I can't see how goddamn pretty you are."

She moved behind him and took the handles of the wheelchair and pushed him roughly jerking him forward and causing him to jostle his leg. He made a growl of pain and looked up at her with narrowed eyes.

"You're a real charmer you know that Sergeant." She said through gritted teeth.

She pushed him through the hallway, she noted that the other nurses gave Donowitz second glances, but he merely mugged for them, smiling his roguish smile and complimenting them. He wasn't really concerned with them though. He had his girl and she was right behind him pushing him along the hall.

They made it out onto the veranda and for the first time Donny was able to really take in the scenery. The hospital had clearly once been a church, he could tell that much by taking in the large whitewashed building and the statues of the Catholic saints strewn about the gardens. He took in the other patients sitting and hobbling around on crutches, a few other nurses were poking about tending to the worse off ones, the ones without legs and arms. Donny shuddered a little and tore his sight away from his fallen brothers and towards the girl at his side.

Nili wheeled the Sergeant to the corner of the gardens towards a small stone bench so she could sit herself. She set him up next to the bench and perched herself on the side leaning back and letting the sun wash over her, trying to let her frustration burn away.

The Sergeant was quiet for once, not because he wanted to be, because he had to be. He didn't have words. She leaned herself back and let the sun wash over her, just like his Ma's fat old orange tabby used to do. Only now it wasn't some fat cat, it was a woman, a freaking gorgeous woman. Donny's eyes trailed down her neck to the sharp V of her button up dress and down the row of buttons between her breasts. Her body was somethin' else, and if her body was somethin' else her face was on a whole 'nother level. He eyed the lines of her high cheekbones and moved down to her soft lips, and to the deep dimple that formed when she smiled to herself. Her brows were defined and arched prettily over her large almond shaped eyes, those eyes; damn, he could wake up looking into those for the rest of his life.

"You're awful quiet Sergeant." She said after a moment.

"When are you ever going to stop calling me Sergeant?" He asked as he rolled up the sleeves on his shirt, it was hotter than all hell outside and watching her like he was wasn't helping.

"When you tell me your real name E. Donowitz, because it sure isn't Donny." She was quick, he liked that.

"Nobody's called me by that name since 5th grade. S'always been Donny." He shrugged and smirked at her "Don't worry though, you'll find out my real name when we get ourselves hitched."

She laughed so hard she coughed. The man was insatiable.

"Not if you were the last man on Earth, Sergeant."

"Awww come on baby, can I at least get a promotion to the second to last man on Earth?"

She cracked one eye open from sunning herself and smirked a little "Not if you ever call me baby again."

"What do you prefer then, Honey, Sweetheart, Baby Doll? My little latke?" He was grinning wide now and she opened both her eyes to look at him. "I need to know what pet names to call you in front of the kids."

She sat up straight and just eyed him for a minute. This man would be the end of her, she could already tell. His dark eyes were crinkled at the sides and his easy smile was bright. His jaw was cut and his features screamed of masculinity. The rolled up sleeves of his shirt showed off the tanned, toned arms that held more strength than she hoped she'd ever see and she knew underneath that shirt on his left arm was something that meant a great deal to him and her as well.

"What kids, Sergeant?" She knew the answer already, but her frustration at him disobeying her was nearly gone and she felt like she could play along.

"Ours." He said sitting back in his chair clearly satisfied with his own answer.

"Your delusions are getting the best of you, maybe I should up your dosages." She gave him back a playful smirk of her own.

"I think you're the delusional one. Thinkin' like you won't come home to Boston and marry me."

She just chuckled and preoccupied herself with a blooming flower just behind the bench she was perched on. Donny watched her pick the blossom with her slender fingers and twirl it between her index finger and thumb.

She looked like something out of a magazine, here she was sitting here in her short little nurse's dress twirling a flower looking like the picture of innocence and the epitome of everything he'd ever wanted in a woman. Oh the poor bastard, he was smitten.

"I'm going home to New York and working in a hospital after all this is over I didn't just become a nurse for the war. I've always wanted to be one." She let the flower's stem weave through her fingers as she looked up and met his eyes, he was listening to her intently, something she wasn't used to in a man.

"Well, Mass General is a few blocks down from my apartment... They're always looking for good nurses, and I suppose I could live with a wife with her own job."

"Oh cut it Sergeant. You'll tell me all about how you're going to marry me but you won't tell me your own first name." As she was twirling the flower round it slipped from her fingers down by the wheel of Donny's chair.

"You have to earn that." He said as he picked up the flower and tucked it in her hair next to her left ear. "Your hair is somethin' else, you know that?" He gently fingered a strand as he pulled his hand back and he noted that she shivered slightly.

"I am well aware." She blushed a little and cleared her throat. "It never behaves itself." She self consciously ran a hand over the curly mop.

"I like it." His voice was warm as the Sicilian sun and his face was placid and content "I think you're the prettiest thing I've seen that's not in a pin up, and even then I think you could take most all of those girls for a ride. The boys back home aren't going to know what to do when I sail back up the Charles with you on my arm."

She was terribly flushed but she turned her head away from him to hide it. "Sergeant..."

"You think I'm kiddin' around, but I don't kid around. I've never asked a woman to marry me before, barely ever even asked one on a second date."

"Sergeant, be quiet. I'm not going to talk about this anymore." He moved quick even from his chair and grabbed up her hand.

"No, you listen here Nili Cohen. I decided the moment I saw you that you were it for me and no other girl was going to cut it."

"Sergeant Donowitz." She was getting worked up now, but he wanted to tell her how it was going to be, Donny Donowitz was the kind of man that did not take "no" for an answer.

"Can I write you? Once I leave here?" He was quickly trying to reroute the conversation.

She was a off put by him and she didn't quite know what to do with this Sergeant Donowitz. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She tried to shake her head and regain herself. She had to, she couldn't let him get to her.

"Well, that's not a no." He shrugged, he'd never admit it, but his ego was bruised. He'd never ever heard no, or even anything besides yes from a woman.

He was just about to ask her something else when he heard a very familiar voice calling out to the nurses to let him through.

"Come on girls, official brass business, let a man through, I got me an invalid to see, move along now ya'hear?"

"Aldo." He stated smoothly greeting his C.O.

"God lookitchu Donny, out here in the sun in your chair like a goddamn geezer."

"Watch your language Lieutenant."

Aldo took notice of the petite nurse sitting next to his Sergeant. "I'm beggin' your pardon little lady, but your man and I have some con-fi-den-tial bidness to attend to if you wouldn't mind scootin' your preddy little self away for a bit. I promise I'll give him back in the same state he's in now."

Nili scowled a little at the older man but took note of the large dossier under his arm. "Alright Lieutenant, visiting hours are over by 5 so I expect you to be gone by then, notice from brass or not."

"You have my most solemn word ma'am." With that she just nodded and removed herself from the corner. She felt Donny's eyes follow her as she left the yard and moved into the confines of the hospital.

As soon as she was out of sight Donny could focus his mind on the papers Aldo was setting in front of him. The outline was all there. They would select a handful of the best and the most vicious and take them deep into enemy territory. After Aldo had finished explaining the superficials of the plan he opened himself up to Donny

"So whaddya think, boy?"

Donny leaned back in his chair and scratched absently at his thick cast. "Well I think it's a damn good plan Aldo. I've been gettin' restless here and I've only been here 4 days." His mind flicked briefly to Nili and it was almost like Aldo could see into his thoughts "Yeah I can see you gettin' real restless here Donny boy. Specially with that little piece fawnin' over yah."

Donny's eyes flashed at Aldo and he couldn't help what came out "Don't you ever say that she's a piece a tail. You got that right?"

Aldo raised up his hands and chuckled a little at Donny's temper "Well shit Donowitz, take it easy."

"Sorry Aldo." His voice was gruff and he looked over towards the building.

"You're serious 'bout her, ain't cha?" Aldo asked his voice low as he eyed his second in command

"Yeah. I guess I am" Donny replied his eyes not leaving the doorway he'd last seen her walk through.

"She can't get in the way of this now Donny, you understand me?" Aldo's voice was serious as he followed Donny's line of vision.

"She won't, but I'll tell you right now that I don't care if I have to take down every kraut from here to Berlin single-handed to end this war and go home to her."

Aldo shook his head and contemplated how that was just the type of talk he didn't want to hear from his second in command. Donny Donowitz couldn't go soft on him, not now.

"Well then you gotta fight for her, you bastard. What they're doin' over there, if they overtake a hospital she's in and they find out she's a Jew. They'll ship her off as soon as you'd blink an eye. Every Nat-zie bastard you kill is putting her just out of reach of the next. Keepin' her safe."

Then mention of any harm coming to his little nurse made Donny see red. He felt that old familiar rage bubble up inside him, but this time it was ten fold.

"Well then you better get me the fuck out of here Aldo. I got a lot of killin' to do."

"Thatta boy..." Aldo said nodding solemly.