7.
~ "Thank God for him he was wearing his helmet!" The doctor grumbled as an American soldier was laying on the gurney. Burns blacking the jacket he had been wearing. Glass and debris sticking out as Ariadne helped cut the clothing off him.
Ariadne had helped the doctor on duty with the victims of the recent bombing. The device hitting a home and the subsequent fire burning it down.
"Tommy!" A woman was crying outside the trauma area as an American officer with blond hair brought in a small boy wrapped in a blanket.
"Nurse." He whispered catching Ariadne as the doctor nodded for her to leave. The American soldier on his table was unconscious, and the doctor could manage for now.
"What happened?" Ariadne asked the Officer with the Captain's bars.
"A bomb hit his house. My Lieutenant over there went in to save him. Building collapsed on both of them." The Captain said.
Ariadne pulled back the blanket to reveal a little boy, his face red and charred black from the fire. His skin cold and his breath still.
"He's dead." She whispered to the Captain.
She looked up at his blue eyes. He looked sad and haunted. The American Army had just arrived in London and the horrors of the bombing bothered them. The natives of the London had become immune to the daily deaths. But the Americans were not so prepared.
"Can you put him on that table?" She asked him as the Captain didn't seem to know what to do with the child.
He nodded and gently laid the boy's body on the table. He was careful with him. As if the child was only sleeping and he didn't want to wake him.
"My Lieutenant." The Captain asked.
"Were doing all we can." Ariadne assured him. Her training giving her the confidence she had so dearly longed for. The ability to stand tall and not be afraid of anything.
"Nurse!" The Doctor shouted.
She turned and went back into the trauma room. She was shocked to see the wounded soldier was awake now and fighting the Doctor in his confusion of pain and fear.
"Get off me!" The young man shouted. "David! Get out of there! David!"
In shock and pain, he didn't seem to know where he was or what was happening.
"Americans!" The Doctor grumbled as she readied an injection of Opium to calm the young officer. "All they want to do is fight!"
She didn't respond as, with a hard won confidence, she injected the American Lieutenant in the hip with the syringe.
~ The Doctor she was helping had served in the Great War. He liked to talk as he pulled fragments of glass and metal from the young Lieutenant's back. Describing the diseases that ran rampant in the trenches of Belgium.
"I'll kiss the feet of the man who invented Penicillin." He said as the American officer, now much calmer from the drugs, sat on the gurney. His eyes unfocused as his allowed the Doctor to pull free debris from his back.
"Without it, so many more would die in this war." He said as Ariadne looked over the Lieutenant.
"How are you doing?" She asked the young man. She had helped the doctor remove his clothes to reveal a myriad of wounds to his back. His helmet and Army jacket had protected him from the worst of the house falling on him. It had been a miracle he had survived at all.
"The boy." The officer said numbly as the Doctor removed a large piece of metal from his skin.
It made a loud clink in the kidney dish as the Doctor dropped it.
"He didn't make it." Ariadne said as she circled around to face the Lieutenant.
She saw that he was awake, but heavily disoriented. Calmly sitting on the edge of the gurney as they cleaned his back. His warm brown eyes looked oddly unfocused and sad. Like he could drop off to sleep at any moment. He was only a few years older then she was. His lean body looking abused from the cuts and bruises of the house fire.
"He's dead?" The Lieutenant asked.
"Yes. I'm very sorry." Ariadne him.
The young man brought his head up with great effort. The drugs making him woozy and his eyes sleepy.
"Hello." He said when he saw her. His eyes lighting up as if she were a new and wonderful thing. A creature he was not expecting to see.
"Hello." She said back. A smile coming to her face as he was obviously feeling no pain from the Doctor's steady removal of glass and metal from his back.
"Where did you come from?" The Lieutenant asked as if he expected her answer to be some far away kingdom by the sea.
"France." She said meekly. "Before that, Canada."
"You got out before the invasion?" He asked. His voice low and husky. His eyes confused from the drugs.
She, the Lieutenant and the Doctor were the only ones in the trauma room. The Doctor was so engrossed in sewing the patient up, he didn't seem to notice or care about what they were saying.
"Yes." She said softly as his sedated eyes were looking intently into her own. She had never been made to blush before by one of her patients. Many of the wounded had flirted with her before, but not like this.
This young man was looking over her face like she was a piece of art. She tried to move away from him as her heart beat loudly in her chest.
His large hands suddenly fastened onto her waist. Preventing her from leaving him. His arms pulling her back to stand before him.
"Where's your family?" He asked worriedly. "Were they in Paris?"
"Just outside of Paris." She whispered as he trapped her there. His eyes boring into her. Making her breath come harder.
"I haven't heard from them since the invasion." She added.
"I'm sorry." He whispered.
Before she knew what was happening, his lips were on hers. His mouth was gentle and soft as she felt his breath mingle with hers. She didn't try and fight it as the whole thing had taken her by surprise.
She found her own lips were moving with his as he lightly kissed her. His hands holding fast to her hips.
"I'm so sorry." He whispered as she pulled away from him. Her cheeks reddening at what had just happened. The Doctor ignoring the whole exchange as he bandaged the young man's back.
"What's your name?" The Lieutenant whispered as he pulled her hips closer to him. Bringing her body back to him. Her lips back to his.
"Ariadne." She whispered. Half of her afraid as she felt him kiss her neck as smell her hair.
"You smell good, Ariadne." He said softly into her ear. "Your so beautiful." He added.
She was glad the Doctor was ignoring them. Glad the Lieutenant was speaking in a low voice.
"Shh." She told the young man as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Careful not to touch the wounds littering his back.
The Lieutenant rested his head on her shoulder.
"When the war is over, we can find your family." He said.
"It's okay." She whispered.
"I'll make it better." He said in her ear. "I'll fix it. I promise."
"I know you will." She said sadly. Part of her actually believing his drug educed promise. The Opium making him very open and honest with these people who were strangers to him.
"I'll find your family, Ariadne." He whispered as she shushed him. "I promise. I'll help you."
"I know you will, Lieutenant." She said gently.
"Call me Arthur." He said in her ear.
"Arthur." She repeated dutifully.
"I love you." He whispered to her as his arms wrapped around her waist. Holding her close to him like they were real lovers. His hands so strong on her hips she couldn't pull away and didn't try to.
"I love you to." She told him softly.
~ The American Captain was waiting for the Doctor and Ariadne to tell him his Lieutenant was alright. They had see the young man, Arthur, off to the recovery ward. Ariadne telling him to go to sleep and he did as she told him.
His eyes closing as soon as he laid down. Ariadne covering him securely before an orderly wheeled him away.
"He's going to be just fine." The Doctor told the American Captain as Ariadne tried to hide the blush from her face.
"Thank God. When will he be out?" The Captain asked. "He's my right hand. I need him."
"A few days. If he's up to it. Well see how he does in the morning. He's a fighter." The Doctor said.
"Yes, he saved that family. All except the boy." The Captain said smoothing his blond hair back.
Ariadne tried not to think of Arthur's hands on her hips. His lips on hers. His heated whispers that made the blush come back to her cheeks.
"Thank you, Doctor." The Captain said.
"Your most welcome, Captain?" The Doctor asked.
"Cobb. Captain Dominic Cobb." The blond officer said.
~ "Doctor, I would appreciate your discretion on what happened in the treatment room." Ariadne said as she and the older man climbed the stairs up to recovery.
"That poor soldier was drugged and didn't know what he was saying. I was just trying to comfort him. I wasn't looking to seduce or entice him. He's a wounded man and I know that's strictly forbidden." She said wringing her hands.
The last things she needed was a lecture from the Matron of the hospital. A sour, boney woman who had eyes like a hawk and tolerated no flirtatious behaviors on the part of her nurses.
"Why nurse, I don't know what you mean." The Doctor said with a secretive smile. "I just saw a very competent nurse trying to an keep a wild American calm."
Ariadne looked at the Doctor.
"I do intend to tell the Matron that. It will impress her I would think." He said with a wink.
"Doctor." She said nervously.
"Do you think I'm as stuck up as all that?" He said when they reached the recovery ward. "I was in war time before, don't forget. I know what it's like to be a young person."
"I'm not looking for a husband here." She stammered.
"Why not? Your only young once. You only go around once. Nurse, we almost died tonight. You really want to go to your death without falling in love?" He asked.
She said nothing as the Doctor walked away.
~ In the stillness of the recovery ward, Ariadne checked on her charges. The men were all sleeping peacefully. The orderly, a teenage boy, snoozing in a chair. The ward dark except for dawn's light peeping from the large windows. She spied the American Lieutenant, Arthur, then. He was sleeping peacefully in a clean, white bed.
His breathing long and clear as his eyes batted back and forth under closed lids. He was dreaming.
The memory of him kissing her, made her lips tingle. She looked down at her shoes and hurried back to her station. Trying to look busy, she attempted to read her book again.
Suddenly, the romance of Rhett and Scarlet were not so exciting anymore.