Everything Else Can Wait

Summary: For at this singularly perfect moment in time, with bombs falling from the sky at night and duties pulling them apart, everything else could wait.

It was the softest of awakenings. The gentle, silent rays of the morning sun slipping in from behind threadbare curtains, tickling her eyelids into blinking open and coaxing a smile to curl her lips. She murmured slightly, curling into the warmth beside her as she felt the rough hand at her waist shift. She listened as she moved her ear to rest upon his chest, to the gentle rhythm of his soothing breaths, savoring the feeling of him so close. If she could stay in this one singularly perfect moment, she would never want for anything.

"Good morning, love," came the soft greeting. She only stirred slightly as his fingers rubbed smooth circles on her skin, his warmth seeping from his touch and spreading all throughout her. Her eyes flickered open wider, her hand moving to trace the scars on his chest. She hated his scars. They ran like a map of the war he had seen across him. She hated them for being reminders of when he had left her and she was too late to save him from the pain they brought. She hated those scars, but she knew each one.

His free hand came up to meet hers, capturing it. He knew what she was thinking, of how her eyes always held such sadness when she looked upon the physical wounds he returned with, reminders of his nighttime flights that she never knew if she would see him return from. She blinked at their hands interwoven with one another, before she lifted her head from his chest to meet his emerald gaze. "Good morning," she replied, equally as soft in fear of ruining what little moments of happiness they were allotted in between the horrors and constant terror they faced.

She leaned into him, pressing her lips with his, a longing kiss that told of her worry for him, her loneliness when he left her side, but her hope for his return and love that she sent with him wherever his plane flew. A smile curled onto his handsome face against her lips as he kissed her back, knowing the woman in his arms was worth every shot he took and every scar that it left.

"I love you, Arthur," she murmured as she pulled from him to look him the eyes. She always said it. She had to. If she ever didn't, she feared he wouldn't come back to her. It was then her violet gaze came to rest upon the little clock that stood dutifully at the side of the bed they shared. She let out a small gasp, pulling away. "I'm late! I need to—"

But all further words that were about to tumble from her mouth were cut off as his gentle, war-torn hands brushed her cheeks, soothing her and drawing her gaze back to him. "Stay with me, Madeleine." That was all she needed for her to curl up against him, his strong arms about her. She needed him to tell her and that was all he ever needed her to say and he was grateful for this small grace. For, that was all he ever needed her to do: to be beside him. She was the only constant, brightness that colored his otherwise gray existence and he was her protector against what destruction the night would bring.

They lay, side by side, enjoying the presence of one another. The warmth of their arms intertwined and the moments of peace completely unbroken. For, at that moment, it didn't matter to them what was happening outside of the bed and room they shared. Everything else could wait.

It did not matter that he was a major of the Royal Air Force and that he was to lead a mission over German territory and its heavy barrage of artillery, shooting into the pitch-black night sky as he led his men to near-death, each praying that that night would not be the night their plane was hit, leaving them to immediately meet their ends or to fall into the blackness below. That could wait.

It did not matter that she would treat the burns of the service men that returned from the frontlines, each baring wounds more grievous than any she wished to see but treated nonetheless, both physically and mentally. Or that it would be her to tell them that they would never see again, that they would never walk again, that they would never be fathers. Each night brought yet more terror that fell from the sky as she attempted to save her patients from further sorrow. That could wait.

It did not matter that her brother had forbidden her to see him or that he was betrothed to another woman not of his own choice. That could wait.

For at that singularly perfect moment, they were just a man and a woman. A man and a woman who had found refuge from the war around them in each other, a love blooming in the wake of such great sadness and destruction. A man and a woman that were never supposed to meet—a volunteer nurse and a RAF officer—but fate had led them to share in each other something that should have never been; to share in each other's happiness and sorrow, loss and victories, and, above all else, love.

"I love you, too," he said, for her ears' alone.

Everything else can wait.