Timeless

Chapter 18

A/N: The family resemblance is a lot sometimes....

Christmas didn't feel much like Christmas. She remembered that back in 1941, right after Pearl—Christmas didn't feel like Christmas then either. The only difference was that back then, she still had her brother. Now, she was alone. She was alone, in London—without anyone she could really call family.

There were the nurses, of course. But it wasn't the same. No, because Kathryn Egan had already been planning out a Christmas gift for her brother. And she had already been planning out Buck's birthday gift, seeing as how his birthday fell two days after Christmas. He would have been 25—and Kathryn just felt like she wanted to throw up as she stared at the unopened package that sat on her nightside table.

She had picked the gift out so long ago that it felt like a lifetime ago. There was a scarf that sat inside, along with a journal. And then there was the baseball terminology book that she had gotten him. What no one knew is the fact that she had gone through and annotated the entire thing with thoughts from her brother and herself. It felt like a fitting gift, at the time.

They would have laughed about it. At least, she thought he would have laughed at the gift. Now though, it would just sit there and collect dust. Right next to her brother's gift—gloves, since he had worn a hole through his last pair, and he needed new ones. He didn't think too much about those types of things though. It had always been her to think about those things. To worry about him.

It felt like something out of a Christmas Carol, to be honest. Like she was stuck in the graveyard where Scrooge was buried and she couldn't escape. She was just waiting to find her own tombstone, at this point.

No sign of them being alive. It had been over a month since they had both gone down—nearly two at this point—and not a single sign that either of them was alive. She wasn't sure if it would be worse if she knew. Because if she knew that they were alive, she'd worry more. She'd think about them constantly. Worry about if they were warm enough, if they were eating enough, if they were being tortured out there—

But if she just knew they were dead, she could put her ghosts to rest. Could put things behind her. No, Kathryn Egan's pain lay in the agony of not knowing. Of sitting in the gray area and waiting for a verdict from some sort of higher power, whether it be the Brass or God Himself.

"Have you packed yet?" Laura's voice filled her ears.

Kathryn rolled over to face her. She wasn't sure how long she had been laying there and just staring at the presents. "Not yet," she admitted.

"Well you should probably pack," Laura advised pointedly. "And Harding wants to talk to you about who's going to drive us."

The nurses had hatched a plan, a rather brilliant one, at that. Kathryn was certain that if she was more coherent and less drunk, she would've been more help to the nurses. But day-drinking was just the thing that was getting her through the holiday at the moment. It was too quiet and the silence filled every self-sabotaging painful thought.

They had petitioned Colonel Harding to get the Christmas weekend off and to go spend it in London with Becky. Kathryn wasn't sure how they had convinced him, but he had ultimately given in to the request. But evidently, it was a bit troubling sending four nurses into London—all of whom couldn't drive.

That was a bit of an exaggeration, truth be told. Kathryn was perfectly capable of driving. She had learned how to drive back in the states. But since Bucky had always been around, she'd never really found the need for it. And she had crashed one of the jeeps almost immediately after being given keys upon the base. So she was out for the count.