Timeless

Chapter 11

A/N: Another double update for TEA purposes. Becky, we love you anyway.

It was a cloudy morning in late August when Kathryn first felt real trepidation. It was one thing to be on call and to be ready for boys to be coming back. It was quite another thing to be told that the boys wouldn't likely be back for at least a week and that the nurses wouldn't be able to see the boys first initially.

Kathryn didn't like that one bit. It's not that she was possessive of her boys, per say. But they were her boys, nonetheless. Her friends, her brother, her boyfriend . It was slightly different when she had all of them going up and now things were more clear to her—more serious and real than they had been before.

The flowers that had arrived on the doorstep to their bunk this morning brought her a small smile, but Kathryn didn't have a lot of things to smile about at the moment. This fog was thick as soup and she wasn't sure how the pilots could take this—it looked like something out of a nightmare outside.

It reminded her of how Edgar Allan Poe would write. It certainly had to be foggy in his stories and poems, and this is surely what he meant by the gloom and doom of his writing. She had never much liked his writings all that much—far too depressing for her taste.

For now though, Kathryn just kept her focus solely on the sheets that she was washing. It made her hands raw and nearly numb to the bone to keep scrubbing at the sheets like this. "I don't like this weather," Annika murmured, kneeling beside Kathryn and working on her own set of sheets.

"Me too," Laura's voice was quiet as the trio worked on their sheets.

"You ever think that God...does this kinda stuff on purpose?" Annika questioned, glancing over at them.

"How do you mean, honey?" Kathryn questioned, pausing and glancing over at her.

Annika just gave a shrug, looking a bit more thin than normal. "Like...maybe he's tryin' to punish us sinners for not doing enough."

"I don't think the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor was God's way of telling us to get involved with the war, if that's what you mean." Laura said pointedly.

"Besides, I thought you were the prayin' one." Kathryn added, nudging at Annika with her arm.

"I am," Annika paused. "It doesn't stop my mind from wonderin' though."

"That's fair enough," Kathryn's voice just felt far away from her body. "But I also think that sometimes, people are just people. And we're not good and we do stuff like war and God can't stop us."

"Do you ever think it'll be over?" Laura had to set down her sheets at this point, looking over at the other nurses. "Or will this...just...go on forever?"

"God, I hope not," Annika murmured, eyes flickering with sadness.

"I miss home too," Kathryn said quietly. "But we've just got to keep going. If we don't smile and tell these boys to keep going, then who will?"

"I guess Meatball could try," Laura gave a small smile.

"He could, but that would be one hell of a howl," Kathryn said.

"That dog has never bothered you once." Annika said pointedly.

"And he probably never will."

"You're his mother."

"I share custody with all of the men." Kathryn smiled and Annika finally gave a laugh—and if there was one thing Kathryn Egan was committed to, it was making sure that her fellow nurses could keep up their own morale.