Timeless

Chapter 19

A/N: This is what I like to call the turning point....so from this point on, please make sure you're paying attention to the tags and any warnings I leave at the beginning of the chapters! Thank you!

March 1944

Dear Buck (and Bucky),

It's been four months since I found out you were alive. I've sent one letter ahead and received one from you both. Hopefully this one will find you in good health. I think of you both often and keep you in my prayers.

Things have been different here at camp. That's not to say that things are bad, just different. It's quieter, that's for certain. I wish I could send you some sort of package, but I'm lucky if you get this letter. Please don't give up hope. Please keep fighting. Keep trying to come home. I'll keep waiting for you both.

All my love,

Kathryn

She wished she had more to say than that. And maybe she'd write another one before the month was up. But honestly, Kathryn wasn't too sure about that. She didn't like writing to them. It was just another sign that she was here and they weren't. That she was achingly alone and without the people she cared about most.

Maybe though, the real reason she was having a hard time writing a letter was because of the fact that she was totally and completely out of her mind. Kathryn Egan felt nothing . And she wasn't sure when she had turned into the mirror image of her brother, drinking himself to death every single day. But here she was.

Kathryn felt like she had a handle on it. Felt like, for the most part, she controlled herself and that no one even suspected anything of her. After all, women didn't drink as much as men. Not publicly like they did. Not outrightly, like they did. It just wasn't what women did.

But how else was she supposed to cope? With the push into Germany and the constant influx of new boys coming through, she felt like she was just staring at the faces of those who were dead and those who were about to die. All of them were just the walking dead and the ghosts that lingered around the base were too many to count.

There was one constant, one person, who maybe—just maybe—was going to do what Dye did. Was going to have 25 missions and bring back a spirit of hope back into the camp. And that was Rosie. He was a near-constant presence around the nurses now—though Barbara kept him from flirting too heavily with Laura.

Then again, Laura kept him from flirting too heavily with herself. See, the thing about Laura Wilde is that she was an intensely and singularly focused woman. And though Rosie had asked her, about a month ago, if she'd like to go steady with him, she had refused. And it wasn't because she didn't like him or that she was rejecting him in any way, shape, or form. That would have been pure insanity—a man like Rosie wasn't someone that you just walked away from, after all.

No, she just didn't want to focus on anything other than her job until the war was over. It was good motivation for Rosie to keep coming back. It kept him on his toes enough, certainly. Then there were the rumors about him and the nurses, one that kept him plenty respected with the men in camp.

See, the thing about going away for Christmas with four unmarried women was that rumors tended to spiral. The most outlandish one revolved around the fact that he was the secret father of Becky's child—though most people knew that one to be totally unfounded and baseless. However, his interest in Laura and unexpected friendship with Kathryn certainly led to enough rumors about the three of them.