-First off I just want to apologise for the wait, and I hope that the length of this one makes up for it.-

Training at New River was more intense than it had been at Parris Island. H Company went on marches (full pack, in the rain, at night). Sometimes the nurses went with them, other times they stayed behind for advanced field medic instruction (how do you deal with a patient who loosens or removes their tourniquet due to pain?) with the navy nurses and corpsmen.

Evelyn had mixed feelings about the days she had to participate in the obstacle course. On the one hand, she'd rather be in bed, on the other, she liked being able to use the strength boot camp had given her.

"When are we ever gonna do this?" Lena moaned as she crawled on her belly behind Evelyn, a maze of barbed wire inches above their heads.

"Well when the Japs invade our hospital and we're fighting as guerrillas in the jungle, obviously." Evelyn replied with a chuckle.

The imaginary situations in which the nurses would protect their hospital from an invading Japanese army had grown into the realm of ridiculousness. Late at night the girls would come up with extravagant adventures they all prayed would never actually happen. In one scenario Jenny is taken captive back to Japan to marry the Emperor; the war ends two days later.

After clearing the barbed wire, Evelyn jumped up and started running to the next obstacle, a six foot high wall of wooden beams, when she heard a sharp cry and turned around. One of the other girls had caught her hair in the wire and was stuck. The men on the sidelines pointed and laughed, Evelyn shot them a glare as she headed back towards the wire. The poor girl was stuck right near the end of the obstacle, but couldn't be reached from anyone standing on the outside. Evelyn pulled her scissors from her pocket and crawled back under the wire.

"Gladys, I'm going to have to cut your hair." She said when she reached the blonde.

"I don't care, Evie, just get me out." Gladys responded, tears streaking through the mud on her cheeks.

To reach Gladys' hair, Evelyn had to stick her arms up through the mess of wire while keeping her own head down so she herself didn't get caught on the barbs. With a few quick snips, Gladys was cut free. With no room to turn around, Evelyn had to wriggle backwards with Gladys carefully peeking up to give directions if Eve was getting too close to a support post. When they got out, Gladys threw her arms around Evelyn's neck.

"You saved my life!" She cried, holding Evelyn out at arm's length, then bringing her back in for another hug.

"It's not a big deal." Evelyn replied, lamely patting Gladys on the back, she had cut her arm on the barbed wire.

"LADIES GET A MOVE ON OR THE JAPS'LL HAVE YER ASSES!"

The pair sprinted to the wall and climbed over as fast as they could, then swung across a mud pit on ropes, and finally across a balance beam to rejoin the rest of the nurses, who were standing in two straight lines. Evelyn could hear Bob whooping over scattered applause from the men. Major Hartley stood nodding his head, almost smiling, as Evelyn and Gladys fell into place.

"Very well done, everyone. Overall, you're getting much faster at completing the obstacle course, if it wasn't for recruit Johnson's little hang up there, our time would've been much lower than last week. Now take a seat, let's see how poorly the men do." The nurses snapped to attention before walking to the sidelines to watch the men take the obstacle course.

"Oh Russo, hang back for a moment." Hartley called as Evelyn walked past him. Lena and Jenny walked a little ways away and waited for Evelyn.

"I just want to tell you I really appreciate what you did today. As you might have noticed, not many people would've gone back to help recruit Johnson out of the obstacle course." He said almost proudly.

"We're Marines, Sir, we don't leave a man behind." Evelyn said flatly. This had been drilled into them from day one, Evelyn felt there was no need to explain.
Hartley beamed.

"That's exactly right, Russo, that's exactly right." He clapped her on the shoulder as they began walking towards the rest of the nurses. "Oh and just so you know, had this happened out on the battlefield and not in training, I'd be putting your name in for a medal." He handed Evelyn a bandage and walked away, leaving her shocked behind him.

"Close your mouth, you look like a fish." Lena said as she came up to Evelyn.

"What'd he say?" Jenny asked, taking the bandage from Evelyn's hand.

"He said if I'd gone back for Gladys on the battlefield and not just in training he'd have given me a medal."

"Well look at you, our hero. We can all go home now, Evelyn's gonna win the war singlehandedly." Lena announced, throwing her arm around Evelyn's neck and dragging her along beside her.

"Hey knock it off, I'm trying to administer first aid here." Jenny called after them, rushing up to pull Lena off Evelyn.

The three girls sat down on the warm grass; Evelyn closed her eyes and stretched out her aching legs as Jenny wrapped the bandage around her arm.

"Y'know I heard down in Georgia the army has their recruits crawl through pig guts and they fire live ammunition at them."

"Bullshit. Where'd you hear that?"

"Last liberty down in Charlotte, I run into some guy sayin' that at basic they had to crawl through pig guts while they get shot at. Said they had to climb a mountain everyday too."

"Well that sombitch is pullin' yer leg, boy."

The men chatted as they waited to take their turn on the course.

"Just sit back and enjoy the show, ladies."

Evelyn cracked an eye open to glare at John Boyle. He winked and blew a kiss in their general direction. In unison all the nurses scoffed and turned their attention elsewhere. Since his arrival at New River just after the rest of H company, Boyle had been talking himself up to anyone who'd listen, and every week when there were liberties to be had, he'd be leaning against the stairs of the nurses' barracks, garrison cap slapped onto his head on a jaunty angle, asking each and every one out for drinks. Of course, no one ever took him up on his offer, but that didn't seem to dampen his resolve. Eve turned her attention to Bob who gave her a quick thumbs up before Bellow fired his pistol into the air and then the men were off. The nurses and the other half of H company clapped and cheered but all the excitement stopped/ noise ceased when one of the men, Bob's hut mate Runner, slipped and fell from the horizontal ladder. All nurses jumped to their feet, Jenny and Evelyn reached Runner at the same time.

"Check to see if anything's broken." Jenny said, kneeling across from Evelyn with Runner in between them.

Evelyn nodded and felt his neck and collar bones to see if anything was broken or out of place. Bob and the rest of his hut mates were crowding around the trio on the ground.

"Are you an angel?" The delirious man asked as Evelyn's face swam into focus above him. The other men laughed, relieved.

"No you probably just have a concussion."

"We should move him off the field." Jenny said, looking at Bellow who was stomping in their direction.

Together they hoisted him up between them and half walked, half dragged him off the field.

"Hey, Angel, care to join the boys and I out for liberty?" Bob asked, cornering Eve outside of the mess hall. Despite her protests, Runner's nickname for her had stuck.

"I dunno, didn't you boys almost get shot last time?" She asked, eyes following the newest member of Bob's group as he walked past them into the mess. She noticed the backs of his trouser legs were splattered with mud from walking back and forth among the officers' barracks and the men's.

"I promise, no stealing this time. The other girls are invited, too, of course, I just like asking you, Lena's a little…"

"Too eager?"

"I was going to say excitable. C'mon, it'll be fun. It's a sixty-two hour pass, Evie, I'm taking the boys home with me. Last week we went to Indiana to see Hoosier's folks."

Evelyn thought for a moment; she knew Lena would want to introduce Jenny to her parents, but she wasn't sure what kind of reception would be waiting for her at the Russo household, but she'd feel terrible leaving for Australia without a proper goodbye to select members of her family.

"Alright, fine. But you've promised, nothing that will involve even the slightest possibility of getting shot." Evelyn pointed a threatening finger at Bob's face.

"Oh Angel, you sure are an angel!" Bob pressed a quick kiss to her temple then essentially skipped into the mess hall.

"What was that all about?" Lena asked when Evelyn had gotten her lunch and joined them at their usual table.

"Ladies, we are going on liberty."

"Oh Jenny we are going to have a great time back home I promise. Eve and I are gonna take you all over town. There's this bar close by and they have jitterbug contests every week, it's a real gas!" Lena gushed as the three nurses waited at the gates for Bob and his friends.

"Yeah she may not look it but this one was crowned Jitterbug Queen for three consecutive weeks last summer." Evelyn added, trying to hide a smile.

"Yeah I woulda made it a whole month if it hadn't been for stupid Betty Winkler. Ooh if I see her his weekend I'm gonna…" Lena trailed off, miming strangling someone.

Evelyn and Jenny couldn't help but laugh.

"Why what'd she do?" Jenny asked.

"She "accidentally" spilled her cup of coffee on Lena's feet. She couldn't wear shoes for a couple weeks."

"And most importantly I couldn't compete in that weekend's jitterbug contest so my dream of being reigning jitterbug queen was broken." Lena looked wistfully off into the distance.

"Well, also you couldn't work or even wear socks for that matter. Also as far as we know you still hold the record for most consecutive wins."

Just then Bob, Runner, Chuckler and Hoosier came up the path.

"Alright ladies, the taxi should be here any minute. Did you all bring your twenty dollars?" Bob asked, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

"Twenty dollars? You said when five of you go it's twenty each, there's seven of us it should only be fourteen and some change. We've each only budgeted fifteen dollars." Evelyn argued.

"Budgeted? Jeez, Angel, didn't you write your parents to send you twenty dollars? That's what we did." Runner gestured to himself and the other boys.

"The Angel is right. It's 100 bucks to charter the cab for the weekend, split seven ways comes out to about fifteen." Hoosier said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. "In fact, driver should owe us 5 bucks back."

"Whatever as long as we get there." Runner said.

"I do have a question though, there's only one taxi coming, how're we supposed to all fit?" Jenny asked.

"We double up," Bob said simply. "One of us'll sit up front with the driver and you gals can sit on the laps of whoever's sitting in the back."

"That doesn't sound very safe." Evelyn said.

"Driver doesn't mind, he even lets us drive."

"Less lets us and more we sorta just take over." Hoosier stomped out his cigarette as the cab pulled up.

Chuckler, being the tallest of the group, quickly collected everyone's money and handed it to the driver as he slid into the front passenger seat. Bob, Runner and Hoosier slid into the back seat leaving the girls to awkwardly climb in after them to sit in their laps.

"This is gonna be one helluva ride." Runner said quietly as Jenny seated herself carefully in his lap.

Evelyn suppressed a distressed groan at his words and followed Jenny into the cab, perching herself gingerly on Hoosier's knees.

"Isn't this fun?" Lena asked cheerily from Bob's lap.

Evelyn just glared at her as the driver put the cab into gear.

Evelyn tapped her heel against the wall of the parlour car she and her six companions had spent the night in from Washington. They had filled the hours with drinking, laughing and singing but now the sun was rising and everyone else was fast asleep across the seats and on the floor. Evelyn had a headache, her blouse was untucked and wrinkled, and she just knew the lipstick she had carefully applied the evening before had long since faded. She was about to try and fix herself up when the train bumped and Hoosier jerked awake across from her.

"G'mornin' Angel." He stretched his arms above his head.

Evelyn nodded at him then looked back out the window. She wasn't sure what to say to him; he didn't seem like much of a conversationalist. Chuckler and Runner were easy to warm up to, and they always had something to add to any conversation. Hoosier was different. He spoke slowly, Evelyn thought almost as if he carefully picked every word he was going to say next. Besides, she was still a bit embarrassed from having sat on him in the taxi.

They sat in awkward silence until Runner also woke, then one by one so did everyone else. They all sat in a daze for a few moments before Lena staggered to her feet.

"We're gonna be there right away, ladies will you please join me in the powder room?"

The girls composed themselves the best they could then made their way to the cramped toilet on the train to try and clean themselves up before their arrival in New York.

"Let's never do this again." Jenny said, rubbing her temples.

"Oh it wasn't that bad." Lena said as she swiped on a fresh coat of lipstick.

Evelyn and Jenny shared a look behind Lena's back.

"Besides, we do have to do this again on the way back. Evie what'd you think of your new partner?" Lena wiggled her eyebrows.

"I…have no opinion. But you seemed pretty chummy with Bob last night." Evelyn tried to change the subject as she smoothed down her hair.

"And Chuckler." Jenny added.

"Oh well, you know me, I try and make friends wherever I go."

The commuter train and ferry ride to New Jersey was less eventful.

"Well I guess this is where we part ways." Bob said as the group had reached his street.

"Should we meet back here tomorrow night?" Evelyn asked.

"If we don't meet up sooner."

"Sounds good. Have a good weekend, and try to stay out of trouble." Evelyn called after them as they had started walking down the block.

"No promises!"

"Well, where to first, ladies?" Jenny asked, trying to hide her excitement.

"I guess we could go to my house, get cleaned up, change out of these dreadful Class A's, and then we can go wherever we want." Lena said, leading the way to the street she and Evelyn lived on.

It was early summer now and the streets looked vastly different from the last time Evelyn had seen them. Now instead of ice and snow, the grass and trees were lush and green, and a warm gentle breeze blew. As they walked, Evelyn began to feel butterflies in her stomach. They would soon be walking past her house. What if her mother was outside? Martha had told her not to come back, what would she do if she saw Evelyn now? Part of her hoped Martha had only said that to try and make her stay, to keep her safe because she was worried about her daughter, but the more logical part of Evelyn's brain knew that Martha was just trying to manipulate her into staying and continuing to care for her younger siblings, Frank and Penny. Evelyn unconsciously slowed down as they drew near the Russo household. It looked the same as it always had; three storeys, two bay windows, the red brick glowing in the early morning sunlight, the only difference now were the three navy blue stars hanging on their white banner, bordered with red, in living room window.

"Shouldn't there be four?" Lena scoffed as they stopped walking. Jenny looked at her confused. "This is Evie's house. Those stars are for her bothers George, Charlie and Ed, but there should be four, one for our girl."

"Well what's that up there?" Jenny pointed up to a third storey window overlooking the street. Evelyn and Lena backed up to the boulevard so they could see what she was pointing at.

There on the window of the bedroom Evelyn shared with Penny, was a crudely drawn star on a white piece of paper with red scribbles down the sides. Under the star was scrawled U.S.M.C with the S backwards, as Penny usually wrote it. Evelyn's eyes began to water as she looked up at that tiny piece of devotion Penny had for her. She quickly cleared her throat, hoping to get rid of the lump that had suddenly formed, and looked at her watch.

"We should get going, Martha will be up soon and I'd rather her not chase me off with a broom." She said.

Lena and Jenny nodded and they carried on their way to Lena's house. Lena's father was waiting for them on the front porch, he raced down the stairs to meet them, pulling the three of them into a giant hug and kissing each of them on the forehead.

"I'm so glad you're home," he said tearfully "Now come inside, we have a feast waiting for our brave Marines!"

Inside the kitchen, Evelyn was surprised the table was still standing it was piled with so much food.

"Eat, eat! You're so skinny!" Lena's mother led Jenny to the table, forcing her into a chair. "What do you like, huh? You like eggs? Bacon? Cake?" she filled a plate and set it in front of Jenny.

"Thank you, ma'am." Jenny said quietly.

"Oh, it's nothing, I'll go get the coffee, eat! Eat!"

"Want I should fix a plate for you?" Lena's father picked up a plate for Evelyn.

"Thank you, but I think I can manage." Evelyn replied, laughing and taking the plate for herself.

"There, you want more, you eat, you don't want, don't eat." Lena's mother set the coffee pot down on the table then she sat down beside her husband, resting her chin in her hand and staring lovingly at Lena as she filled her plate.

They spent the rest of the morning with Lena's parents regaling them with tales from boot camp, then after they had all showered and changed onto their civilian clothes, took a walk around the neighbourhood, showing Jenny the hospital they had worked at, where they had gone to school, their favourite place to get a good reuben sandwich. They bumped into old acquaintances and coworkers, but took special care to avoid anywhere Martha or Margaret would be. When they returned to Lena's home to get ready to go out to the dance hall, George senior was sitting in the living room with Lena's father. He slowly got to his feet as the girls walked in.

"Dad what are you doing here?" Evelyn asked, surprised to see him.

"Arthur called and told me you were here." He said, pulling her into a hug. Evelyn breathed in the familiar scent of aftershave and pipe tobacco. "I told your mother I was taking Penny to the park, she still doesn't know you're here."

"Evie!" Penny ran into the living room and collided into Evelyn's legs.

"Oh Pen," Evelyn bent down and scooped her up into her arms.

"Oh I missed you, I missed you, I missed you!" Penny cried, clinging to Evelyn's neck like a sloth.

"Oh I missed you, too." Evelyn replied.

"Oh, this is too much!" Lena sobbed and threw her arms around Evelyn and Penny; Jenny joined, too, after taking a hankie from Lena's father.

"So tell me everything," George senior said as he sat down again.

Evelyn broke from Lena and Jenny's grasp and sat down on the chair opposite her father, Penny still wrapped around her, then broke into another retelling of boot camp, editing it this time so as not to upset Penny.

"I just want you to know, Eve, that you'll always be welcome back home. What your mother said was rash, and I know she'll come around. That being said she is still quite upset about it and it might be best if you spend your weekend here with the Mannings. I know it'll be less upsetting for you here." George said as he and Penny stood on the porch, ready to go back home.

Evelyn nodded, her arms crossed over her chest. She wondered how well her father actually knew her mother.

"We'll try and see you again before you go, but just in case we don't, take care of yourself and stay safe."

"I will, Dad."

"Promise?" Penny stuck out her little pinky finger.

"I promise." Evelyn said, linking her pinky with Penny's before pulling her into another hug.

"That was nice," Lena said, putting her arm around Evelyn's shoulders as she stood on the sidewalk and watched George senior and Penny walk hand in hand back home. "Now let's get ready to go dancing!"

The dance hall was the same as it always was; the music was loud, the floor scuffed and smoke hung in the air.

"Time to knock Betty Winkler off the throne." Lena said as she marched onto the dance floor, her blue polka dot dress swaying.

"Should we go with her?" Jenny asked.

"I wouldn't, she gets a little aggressive, but if you think you can handle her, go right on ahead." Evelyn replied as she made her way to the bar.

"Hey Angel!" Evelyn heard Runner over the din and spun around to try and find him.

"Oh look, it's the boys." Jenny said, waving at them.

Runner, Chuckler, Hoosier and Bob were seated right at the edge of the dancefloor. They waved the girls over to their table. Evelyn smoothed the ruffles on her borrowed yellow dress.

"You go on ahead, I'll get us drinks." She continued heading towards the bar as Jenny pushed through the dancefloor to the tables.

Once she had two vodka tonics, Evelyn carefully made her way around the dancefloor to join her friends at their table.

"To be honest, Bob, I didn't expect to be seeing you so soon," She said as she handed Jenny her drink.

"To be honest, neither did I." He replied as the boys slid down to make more room in the semi-circular booth.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to formally welcome you to our weekly jitterbug competition. I'm Carl Jones and I'll be your announcer this evening. And now I'd like to ask all my jump jivin' jitterbugs to make their way to the dance floor and we'll get this party going real soon." The announcer said into the microphone.

"It's a competition?" Chuckler asked. "What do you win?"

"There's no prize." Evelyn replied and took a sip of her drink.

"Evie! Eve!" Lena rushed over to the table "Eve I don't have a partner!" she hissed.

"Say no more!" Chuckler jumped up, finished his drink and started making his way out from the center of the booth.

"Couldn't you have just crawled under the table?" Runner asked as Chuckler tried to squeeze by.

"Here, Chuck, just come this way." Evelyn said and got out of the booth, pulling Hoosier's sleeve so he'd get up, too, and let Chuckler by.

"Hurry up it's starting and we have to beat Betty Winkler!" Lena whined, grabbing Chuckler by the hand and dragging him onto the dancefloor.

The music started again as Evelyn settled back down into the booth. Jenny bounced along, sipping on her drink.

"You wanna dance?" Runner asked her, leaning across Bob.

"Oh I'm not very good." She replied, but a blush crept onto her cheeks.

"Neither am I, it'll be fun!"

"Okay!" Jenny got up and Bob slid out of the booth so Runner could exit and the pair skipped off to the dancefloor.

"You wanna go?" Bob asked Evelyn, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

"Hell no." She replied.

"Good, neither do I." He slid back into the booth on Evelyn's right side and the trio moved down to the center of the booth so they could watch their friends dance.