My Heroine

“Are you going to tell me what that was the other night? I swear you went as pale as a ghost when Angie came over.” Evans fell into step with Harry after finishing a mission covering the medics. “She’s the one isn’t she?”

Harry sat in one of the chairs located outside, laying his equipment next to him.

“Yeah.” He knew that Evans probably noticed everything that night, especially with that look he had given him.

After that night, whatever nights he was able to dream without her in them were long gone. If she hadn’t already consumed every thought before that night, she did after it.

“So what’s your plan?” Harry looked at him, shaking his head.

“Not a clue. I mean, it’s not like I can just walk up to her and strike up a conversation.” Harry had, over the past 48 hours, gone through any if not every possible way he could approach Lia. He knew enough to know that walking up to the woman you’ve wronged after 10 years with just a “how was your day?” would without a doubt have them question your sanity.

“Why not?” Evans asked, earning him a look that caused him to raise him a hand; stopping any comments of argument that could come from his friend. “Now hear me out before you get all argumentative. What if she is just as scared to see you, as you are to see her? From what you told me, you were pretty angry when you said what you did; perhaps she thinks you still are. Look Harry, you said it yourself; you haven’t seen or talked to her since it all happened. To me, it sounds like she took what you had said to her seriously. If she loved you and respected you, like it seemed by her not yelling at you or even getting angry, she would honor your wishes. She respected you enough to stay away from your future.”

Harry blinked at his friend as everything slowly clicked into place. Out of all the times he thought of her staying out of his life, he never once tied it to her honoring what he had said, that there would be no future with them.

“Ah, now it’s clicking.” Evans joked as Harry’s eyes widened. “Now what’s your plan?”

“I don’t even know where she is.” Harry realized sighing. Evans smirked cockily raising a brow. “What the hell is that smile about? Between the other night and now, what’s the deal?”

“There is no deal.” Evan shook his head. “I do however, know where Angie is, but it’s your decision if you want me to tell you or not.”

“How do you-“

“That’s not important. Focus Harry!” Evans snapped his fingers, gaining Harry’s complete attention.

“Right. Where is she?”

“Building 3B, third office on the right. She’s doing paperwork in her office.” Evans rolled his eyes as Harry continued to sit there. “Wales, GO!”

Harry rose out of his seat, grabbing his equipment to place it back into his locker. As he approached the building, he could feel sweat begin to form at his hair line.

He noticed while walking inside the building that it was mostly little offices. Silently to himself, he counted down the doors until he reached the door that held her name. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door.

“Come in.” He heard her muffled voice from the other side of the door. Moving his hand to rest on the door knob; moving it so the door opened.

There she was, her light hair pulled into a messy bun and body clothed in nursing scrubs, she never looked more beautiful to him. Her face was full of concentration as she continued to work on the form in front of her.

“You can sit down in the chair next to the door; I’ll be with you in a moment.” Her eyes never leaving the papers that she was now shuffling through. Harry closed the door behind him as he took the seat he was advised. As he watched her he couldn’t help but wonder if she knew it was him in the room with her.

“I was wondering how long it would take big mouth to tell you where I was. I’m surprised he waited 48 hours.” She mentioned closing the file she completed, getting up to place the file into the cabinet behind her. Harry, unsure how to respond stayed silent which earned him a questioning look from the beautiful woman in front of him.

“May I ask why you’re here Captain?” Taking her previous seat; turning it to face him. She noticed that he was looking obviously uncomfortable in front of her.

“How are you?” He asked, clearing his throat. Harry noticed that her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I’m fine Captain. How are you? I heard your mission went well from some of the medics.” Harry nodded before shaking his head standing up. “Captain?”

Harry turned to Lia visibly upset.

“Lia stop calling me ‘Captain’. Stop with all the pleasantries and manners.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.” Lia watched him begin to pace in front of her. She knew it was only a matter of time before he was blunt.

“I want you to yell at me, hit me, and call me names! I was a jerk, an asshole to you and I regret it, every day I do. I can’t handle you being…nice to me, polite after what I did. I want you to let me have it.” Harry’s face becoming flushed with every word he was saying. He paused finally looking at her in the eyes, allowing her to see the tears that had filled his eyes.

“Sit down Harry.” Harry obeyed taking the seat by the door once again. Sighing, Lia’s hand went to her hair smoothing it down as she tried to organize her thoughts.

“I’m not going to yell or hit you. I’m not going to swear at you or guilt you Harry. So if that is what you want, I’m sorry but it’s not going to happen.”

“You have every right to though.” He pressed earning a small smile from her. Now he was confused.

“I understand that I have every right to be angry at you; to want to beat the shit out of you and years ago I may have, but only for the fun of it.” She chuckled seeing the look on his face. She could almost see the wheels turning inside his head. “Harry, it’s been 10 years, I’ve gotten over whatever I felt towards you during that ‘event’. We were young, stupid and naïve. I also knew you better than anyone. Harry, I spent many years by your side as your friend then as your girlfriend. I’ve seen you at your lowest and highest during those years. I was able to distinguish your feelings or emotions just by looking at your face, no matter how hard you tried to hide them. You were upset that I was leaving; you were scared about me being gone and not knowing what was going to happen. For so long I was your rock; the person you relied on and that’s all well and good, but you had to learn to rely on yourself, to build that inner strength I knew you had.”

Lia looked at Harry gauging his reaction to her speech. She noticed that his eyes were still wide as she let everything she had said up until then sink in, moments later she watched the understanding enter his eyes.

“I had to do the same for me. I also knew that if I stayed until I was scheduled to leave for the states; I’d cave and never leave you. Gran knew this and that’s why she paid for me to go when I did.” Lia laughed as she watched his eyes bulge. “I see Gran never told you that, can’t say I’m surprised.”

“So you were never angry with me?” Harry shook his head trying to get his mind around everything.

“I wouldn’t say that, I was very upset about what was said. It hurt to hear you say all those things to me. I never thought after 3 years that you’d regret everything….that you’d regret me.” Lia’s voice revealing the hurt she still felt.

Harry shook his head, moving to his knees in front of her.

“My only regret is saying that to you and never going after you when I realized the mistake I had made. Even after 10 years, you are the only person that I am thinking about every day. You have been on my mind every day since I realized my mistake and I swear to you that while I cannot take back what happened; I will spend every day trying to make it up to you.” Harry looked into her eyes allowing his tears to fall over matching the path hers made on her face. “Do you think I can gain a place in your life again?”

Lia nodded after letting everything sink in; holding a hand up when he went to open his mouth to speak.

“It’s not going to be easy Harry. I may forgive you and not have anger directed towards you, but you have to earn my trust again. I don’t know how easy this will be, but we can try. We do have years to catch up on. I am willing to try though.” Harry nodded completely understanding where she was coming from. Then finally after 10 years , they wrapped their arms around each other.

*****

“Are you going to tell me who you’ve been spending all your, very little, free time with these days? I know it hasn’t been me.” Lia looked towards the red headed female seated on her right, the smirk on her lips alerting her of the females teasing nature. “I heard from a little birdie that it was the Captain with ginger hair and piercing blue eyes.”

Lia rolled her eyes but couldn’t contain the smile that spread across her lips. It had been almost 1 month since they talked in her office and so far they were getting along as friends just fine, almost as if the 10 years never happened.

“I think that birdie was right, you are so far gone.” Lia turned to the red head raising a brow almost in challenge, which they accepted. “Oh come on Lia, you cannot tell me that you aren’t attracted to him. That you haven’t been thinking of that tall, built, hot piece of British man on you. No, not just on you, in you, making you say things that would cause you to blush if said in front of your mother. I’m talking about-“

“Eva! Enough!” Lia looked at her friend with wide-eyes. “You obviously have some pent up sexual frustration that needs to be sorted out.”

Eva sighed nodding. “It is the one sad thing about being stuck here, in the middle of nowhere.”
“You mean besides the war and the people losing their limbs or lives?” Lia asked giving her friend a pointed look. Eva sheepishly nodded. “Also, you and big mouth need to stop discussing my life, it’s becoming annoying.”

“But it’s so much more interesting than ours.” Eva released a dramatic sigh with a dreamlike facial expression. Shaking her head laughing, Lia walked away to check the vitals of one the patients she was assigned.

“Am I doing okay?” Lia heard the soldier ask after checking his blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory.

“Everything sounds and looks good. How are you feeling Lieutenant?” She placed a hand on his arm smiling softly.

“Please call me Dave. I’ve been feeling okay, all thanks to you and everyone here.” He smiled at Lia placing his hand over hers.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you are feeling better. Now try to relax and get some rest. If you need anything just push the button on the control for a nurse.” Smiling, she walked away glancing at the clock she passed on the wall, groaning she realized this shift would take forever to end and that’s only if nothing happened.

“Attention: critically injured patient will be landing and all medical staff will be needed upon landing. All hands on available to report to landing area.” Lia heard over the radio at the shift desk. Securing the area and alerting other staff to cover the patients, she ran out the door gripping her stethoscope in her hands.

Lia nodded at Eva who ran next to her as they made their way as fast as they could to the landing area. It didn’t take long for the hustle and fast paced nature of her job to take over. Looking over the soldier that had been saved from the battle field, she knew automatically that it would take a hope and a prayer for everything to work out.

Hours later, Lia looked into the mirror noticing her sweaty, disheveled appearance. It took a total of 5 hours to get the soldier stable, stitched up and in surgery to assess the limb that had been hanging on by threads. As hard or stressful as the job was she enjoyed every minute that she was able to be part of a team helping people, it was all worth it.

Walking towards her office to complete all the necessary paperwork concerning the soldier, she noticed the light on in her office. She hadn’t been in her office all day due to covering her patients and then the emergency. Cautiously, she approached the open office sighing when she saw it was empty.

“You would make a great cop.” Lia jumped as a voice came from behind her.

“Fuck.” She glared at the smirking, wide-eyed male behind her. “Wipe that smirk off your face Harry or I will do it for you. What are you doing here?”

Moving near her; sans smile, he looked at her in the eye.

“I wanted to make sure everything was okay; that you were okay. I ran into your friend Eva, the ginger, she said you spent close to 5 hours working on that last soldier.”

“Yeah, everything is good. He’s stable and in surgery now which means I get to start on the 2 hours worth of paper work concerning everything. The joys of being nursing supervisor.” She tried to joke, but he noticed how drained she looked. Her usual bright eyes and smiling face were now slightly dull in appearance with a forced, tight, almost sarcastic smile.

Lia watched as he slowly, almost cautious like moved her hair from her face. Closing her eyes at the feeling of his hand on her cheek; lightly moving his thumb over the smooth surface.

“So beautiful.” She heard him say so softly, she wondered if he had even said it at all.

“I should get back to work.” Lia said opening her eyes, moving away from his hand. Nodding, Harry moved in placing a soft, tender like kiss on her forehead before walking out of her office.

Lia slumped down in her chair laying her hand on the cheek where his hand had been; her mind immediately went to the comments Eva had said. Lia had been fighting with her inner fears concerning the feelings that were rising within her. She was embarrassed about the dreams, the thoughts she had involving the two of them entwined together, naked and glistening with sweat as they looked adoringly into each others eyes.

She knew she was in deep; that the feelings she had promised herself she would not allow herself to feel towards him again, she was now feeling times ten and she wasn’t sure if she was strong enough to stop it.