Timeless

Chapter 47

A/N: I wanna be very clear....Kath is half out of her mind in grief, so she's not making sense to ANYONE okay??

The house was quiet that first night. Kathryn could not bear to even have Gale help her out of the car or to be touched. The thought of someone's hands on her body— it left her reeling and wanting to collapse in sheer fear . She had spent less than a day in that damn hospital and it felt like everything had changed on such a fundamental cellular level that there was no going back, no fixing or repairing what had been shattered for them.

And when she went to bed that night, pain was still radiating from her body—forcing her to tremble and shiver from cold and fire—and she did not weep. She just stared at the wall, laying on her side. And when Gale tried to put his arms around her, she flinched at his touch and he had backed up.

There was now a wall between them. And Kathryn did not know how to navigate it. Did not know how to tear it down or even if she wanted it to be torn down. The fact of the matter was that Kathryn had always wanted three things in her life. She was a simple woman—she hadn't ever been ambitious to the point of forcing herself to achieve things.

No, she had wanted to fall in love deeply. She had wanted to teach children. And she had wanted to be a mother. It was as simple and uncomplicated as that. And if she had known, what seemed like a lifetime ago, that going to medical school in an effort to follow her brother would have gotten her to this point—broken and fractured, unable to stomach the thought of an empty womb—she was entirely certain that she never would have followed him in the first place.

For a moment, just a moment in time, Kathryn considered what this life would have been like. She would have stayed here in the States. Maybe she would have actually gone on that date with Charlie. She and her mother might even like each other, might have gotten along at some point.

She would not have felt the ache and loss of losing Gale Cleven—she would not have been sent to the front. She would not have been raped and had her choices stolen from her—she would not have suffered in a Prisoner of War Camp and had all of her dreams forcibly taken and twisted. She would have married someone else and maybe she'd already be a mother—

And it was not her life.

She was grateful for the life that she had. She was. But the simple fact of the matter was that Kathryn loved Gale Cleven to a point of self-destruction. And the minute that he had admitted that he wanted children, Kathryn had so desperately wanted that with him. Suddenly her dream was their dream and it was just a possibility out of reach.

And then it had been ripped away in a single instance—and she felt deficient. Broken, like a damn toy. And the thought of living a life with just the two of them in this house was not enough for her. But she couldn't want that for herself—because if she wanted it, then it would hurt and she would be forced to fester and burn in the flames of dreams that she could not achieve.

When the nightmares came that night, Kathryn did not scream out. She did not cry. She was still very much awake. And her nails dug crescents into the palms of her hands as she stared at the wall—willing the darkness to go back to where it had come from.

But Gale was light and she was not in his orbit anymore.

The first week went exactly like that. With her responding in nods or shaking of her head—or one word responses when questions called for it. She did not speak, she reveled in the silence and the pain that she was feeling.

Josie had dropped by dinners for the first few days. And Kathryn could barely bring herself to eat any of it. When Gale begged her on her birthday—not even four days later—to eat something and to try and focus on anything else, Kathryn obliged him. She was throwing it up a few hours later, unable to stomach the thought of anything in her body.