49.

~ Robert sent her flowers. They were beautiful pink roses that filled her little room with a light perfume. She had never had a man give her flowers before Arthur. The roses Robert sent were perfect and smelled heavenly. Exactly as roses should smell. Arthur had given her wild flowers he had picked from some field before taking her to the movies. They smelled like summer and sunlight.

She was quick to hide the roses before Beth saw. Her heart racing at the note Robert sent.

Ariadne,

I'm sorry for whatever it was I said to upset you so much.

Please come by and see me so I can know what I did to make you so angry with me.

I don't like it when were not talking.

Robert.

She had gone to his home to care for Maurice. The older man glad to see her. His son trying to get her alone so they could talk. The pretty nurse making any excuse not to be alone with him.

~ "Ariadne, I'm really sorry." Robert pleaded as she fixed Maurice something to eat.

"I'm not mad." She told him stiffly as she went back to the older man. She bought a new dress. A brown ugly thing that would allow her belly to grow and not need changing maternity dresses. It would be serviceable as a work dress.

The older man was eating his bread and he seemed to see her larger belly for the first time.
"I'm so glad to see you like this." Maurice commented. "So glad Robert has you and the little one."

Ariadne thought for a moment to explain, but Maurice was in his own world most days. He had been having a very good day and wanted to talk.

"Robert will be a good father. Better then me. He was always so caring." Maurice told them as he nosily sipped soup.

Robert was sitting at the table with them and looked amazed his father had said anything nice about him.

"I never made time for my boy." Maurice told Ariadne as she turned her attention back to her sewing. She was making another jumper for the baby.

"My wife died when he was still young and I just didn't know how to care for him." Maurice said sadly. "I think the only time he and I ever spent alone was a trip to Yankee stadium." He laughed.

Robert was quite as his father ignored him.

"Robert drew this picture of the ball players." The old man chuckled. "I showed him how to turn it into a pinwheel. He thought it was so great."

Maurice looked sad.

"That was the only time I was able to ever make my son happy." He said sadly. "He was such a good boy."

"Mr. Fischer, you have to remember to tell Robert this. I'm sure he would love to hear it." Ariadne said.

The old man shook his head.

"He knows." Maurice said. Back to his grumpy self. "Robert will be a good father."

Maurice finished eating and told Ariadne he hoped the baby would be a girl.

"Why?" She laughed.

"Girls are nicer. We need nicer people in this family." Maurice grumbled.

~ "Thank you." Robert whispered to her as he walked her to his car. He still insisted on taking her home each day. "For getting my dad to say that."

"He wanted to say it, Robert." Ariadne said. Her hands to her belly. She felt shy around Robert lately.

"I had forgotten about that day." Robert laughed. "He took me to a ball game. Spent the whole day with me. He taught me how to make that pinwheel. I didn't think it meant anything to him." Robert said. Tears pricking his clear, blue eyes.

The nurse in her, the person who cared about others came out. She took Robert's hand.

"He loves you, Robert." She told him.

Robert held her hand as they were slowed by traffic.

"Dad and I never agree on much, but I think I would make a good father." He said not looking at her. "If you would ever think of having me." He said in a voice so soft she almost didn't hear.

Ariadne didn't release his hand. The idea of a life with Robert flooding her mind. A family with him was something that would be so easy.

A life that was not complicated by war or hardship or a past. Robert would give her a new life. A life where she never walked out of France from a family that wasn't hers. A life where her feet were never bleeding and she wasn't sure if she was alive or dead. A life where she never ran from bombs or treated the wounded till her hands shook.

She blinked as she saw Linda stepping out of the cab in front of them and walk to Ariadne and Beth's building.

"Robert, I have to go. Thank you for the ride home." She said in a robot like voice.

"Ariadne, wait." Robert said.

She opened her door and left him in traffic before he could say more.

~ "What are you doing here?" Ariadne asked the glamors socialite that was Arthur's ex.

Linda was waiting for the elevator when Ariadne surprised her. She jumped and put a hand to her heart.

"Oh, you scared me. This is a scary neighborhood!" Linda laughed in that annoying false tone of hers.
"What are you doing here?" Ariadne asked again.

Linda looked at Ariadne's belly.

"I was hoping we could talk." Linda said.

~ "Have you heard form Arthur?" Linda asked as Ariadne fixed her tea in the apartment she shared with Beth. Arthur's sister wasn't home yet and they were alone.

"No, I was hoping maybe his mother received some information." Ariadne said and Linda politely sipped her tea.

"I'm afraid she hasn't." Linda said. "She's so worried. She has been thinking a lot about you and your baby."

"Arthur's baby." Ariadne corrected coldly.

Linda looked slightly annoyed.

"That's what I came to talk to you about. Lydia wants to see the baby after he or she is born. If she thinks that it is Arthur's child, if it looks like him, she wants to see it. Spend a few days a week. That kind of thing." Linda said very formally.

"Why didn't she come to see me?" Ariadne asked.

Linda didn't answer.

"We hope Arthur will make it home." Linda said at last. "If he does, we hope that you will let him and I take custody of his child. I have searched my heart and I can forgive him this... indiscretion. If he wants to be in this child's life. Then that's what I want. I am willing to be a mother to his child. I care for him that much." Linda said stiffly.

Ariadne didn't understand what she was hearing.

"Linda." She said. Her voice like ice. "I'm not some girl he met in France and fooled around with. He married me. I was never in his bed until our wedding night. I have no intention of giving you my child. Arthur is coming home. But he is not coming home to you. He's coming home to me." The pretty nurse said. Her steel seeping into her bones and making her body hard.

Linda glared at her.

"Men do all kinds of things while their away at war. They behave without decency at times. He was caught up in the romance of war and Paris. But when the war is over, and he is home, he will see what a mistake he has made." Linda said.

Ariadne thought the glamorous socialite looked like an ice queen. She had given voice to everything that Ariadne had ever feared.
"It must hurt you, to know that you are just some war time fling. But I promise Arthur and I will take care of his child. If it is his baby." Linda said in a sickly kind voice.

Ariadne felt odd somehow. As if possessed by an entity she didn't own. If anything, she felt like... the Matron.
"Linda, it was so nice you took the time to see me. I doubt I will take you up on your offer. I, for one, question your skills as a mother. Arthur also had his doubts which is why he didn't want to marry you. Please don't come back because Arthur is done with you. But tell his mother I would love to see her." Ariadne said taking her guest's cup and opening the front door.

Linda looked dangerous somehow as she eyed Ariadne and stepped off her chair. Her lean, graceful frame carrying her out of the apartment.

~ Arthur was sick. He woke up with a high fever and his body was hurting. He knew he threw up at one point and Colonel Burch was yelling.
"You're not cutting off my boy's damn arm you butcher!" The gruff old man barked at a medic. Arthur tried to open his eyes but his vision was blurry and his face felt so hot.

His arm felt too big as a medic was cutting his shirt off. The place where he had taken the shrapnel a few days ago, felt so hot and tight.

"Sir?" Arthur croaked to the colonel helplessly.
"Don't you worry, Son." Burch said to him. "Their taking you to London. You're going to be fine."

"I'm so hot." Arthur gasped as he looked at his arm.

It was swollen and the large wound was bright red.

"We need to drain it. Get the puss out." The medic said getting a scalpel ready.

Before Arthur could protest, he watched in horror as the medic cut his arm open. Large amounts of amber colored fluid streamed out of the incision as the medic bore down.

"Oh." Arthur breathed as he was mesmerized by his arm. The tightness in his skin eased up and his arm felt better as he watched the medic rid the infection from his arm.

"We need to move him." The medic said. "We have a truck ready."

"Sir, my bag. My pictures." Arthur choked out. He didn't want to leave without his cigarette case. Not without his sweetheart.

"It's all ready." Colonel Burch said soothingly. "Don't you worry, you'll see her soon."

He nodded and passed out as they gave him pain medication. He never got the chance to tell Colonel Burch goodbye.

~ Arthur woke up in a strange place. He took his time looking around. Not wanting to let anyone know he was awake. His basic survival skills kicking in from all the months he spent fighting at the front.

He was in a long room. Clean, white hospital beds running together. Crowding the already large room. It was night time and the other patients were all sleeping. There were others, men who were moaning in pain. But the majority of them were making deep sounds of heavy sleep.

'I'm in a hospital.' Arthur thought looking around him at last. He spotted a nurse and an orderly at a desk but didn't call to them. His arm was throbbing in pain and he looked at it. Half expecting it to be three times it's normal size. The memory of the swelling and the medic draining it came back to him.

It was a normal size. Cleanly wrapped in white dressing. Everything about this place was clean and well kept.

"I see that we are awake." Came a voice. Arthur looked over and saw the chubby nurse with thick glasses coming to him. Her accent was English.

"Where am I?" He asked. His throat was dry and his body felt weak as he tried to sit up.
"You're in London." She said pleasantly looking over his arm. She stood and gave him some water. "I must say, we are very glad to see you awake. You have been sleeping so much the past few days we thought you would never come out of it."

"How long have I been here?" He asked trying to sit up again. His arm hurt too much and he collapsed down in the bed again.

"Oh dear, that won't do." She said worriedly. "I'll get you something for the pain, Major." She said going back to the nurses station.

She came back with a shot and told him he had been taken from the front, to London on special orders form some important Colonel.

"You had a very bad infection." The chubby nurse said pleasantly. "Doctor wanted to amputate your arm right there at the field hospital in Berlin, but the Colonel said no."

"Field hospital?" Arthur asked as he could feel the drugs kicking in. "I don't remember that." He said sadly.

"Well, the Doctor here saved your arm and you'll be going home. War is over. Hitler's dead."

Arthur didn't process what she had said.

"My things?" He croaked. "I... my cigarette case... where are my things?" he croaked.
"Relax, Major." The chubby nurse said holding up his pack. "Everything is here."

He ignored the pain in his arm and searched though his pack. His things had been thrown into his bag hastily, most likely by the gruff Colonel. Arthur's hand alighted on the cold cigarette case and her face appeared before him again.

"There you are." He whispered to her, feeling himself calm down.

He closed his eyes, and dreamed of Ariadne.