Timeless

Chapter 33

A/N: What if I arrived with a surprise because I'm thinking about domestic Buck/Kath and they just mean the world to me? Anyways, send me your thoughts and headcanons for them PLEASE :)

December 1944

That week of being sick brought about a fundamental change for Kathryn Egan. It seemed as though there was a merging of Doctor Kathryn Egan and the Kathryn Egan that others knew and truly loved. Somewhere along the way of her sickness, Kathryn had taken the best parts of herself and let them back in. She had taken down her walls and fronted with vulnerability at times—but she kept the resilience and strength of the Doctor that she had become.

Things had settled into normalcy—well, as normal as a Prisoner of War Camp could get. After that week, Kathryn regained energy and began to focus on health and regaining strength. She talked to her brother, she talked to Buck, she joked at times, and she forced herself to start doing the work that she needed to do again.

It was different now. Things had been changed on such a fundamental level that there was no going back. Kathryn, quite truthfully, wasn't sure she wanted ever to go back to being either Doctor Kathryn Egan or her old self. She didn't know how to find them again—and this amalgamation of personas had given her strength and finding love again had given her something that she hadn't had in a long time, and that was hope.

Kathryn didn't fail to notice the difference between her relationship with her brother. The way that he seemed to linger in the doorway wherever she was—the way that he now concretely had her back. It felt like old times again, before they had ever initially fought and before all of those things had been said. They could rely on one another.

And the difference with Buck was like night and day too. He still found little ways to bring a smile to her face—with the twine or by writing small little one-lined notes for her. And although he wasn't outright about everything, she always felt his gaze on her and she felt safe in his presence. It was a stark contrast to how things had been previously going.

Even things with the rest of the 100th and the other nurses seemed to be falling into a sort of monotonous pattern. Kathryn was alright with that—she could handle the joking with DeMarco and the card games that she was now included in. She could handle seeing Annie and Tina smiling and laughing in this place.

Try as hard as the Nazi's might, they had not broken their spirits. The powder keg that they were absolutely certain was going to go off had self-imploded and then repaired itself. Because that was what they did. They underestimated the power that the Egan siblings held when they actually chose to work together.

Because Kathryn Egan had been right about something, all of that time ago. She had inherently believed and felt on a deep intimate level that something was going to get them through all of this. That they were going to survive this and come out alive. It wasn't faith, it wasn't the universe, and she was fairly certain it wasn't God.

It was just them .

Her brother had warned her though—that if the fighting on the front got too close, then they would be moved. And when they were moved, it would be some sort of march and they would have no way of knowing how long it could go on for. She needed to be ready for any sort of circumstances.

She had found herself praying for the first time in a long time that the Russians got to them first. Because in this German winter, Kathryn was absolutely certain that people would die. And with how thin she was, added to the fact that she was still regaining her strength little by little each day, she wasn't sure she would make it through a march.