(A/N: Hi ya'll, I'm back.!)

Jack did everything in his power to keep her awake. He shook her as he ran and said her name over and over again. "You ain't sleeping on me. You ain't gonna close your eyes." Jack slapped her face gently, leaving blood streaks on her face.

Katherine's head drooped.

"Hey! You ain't doing that! Not on my watch you aren't!" Jack said and lifted her head. "We still got that date remember?"

"Date…" Katherine mumbled as her head drooped again.

He kept waking her up or keeping her awake. He did that until they got to the pick-up plane and even during take-off, during the flight time and landing. He had to keep her awake. He helped fix up her arm and bandadge what they could. He wrapped her arm with gauze and helped with her back and shoulders. He was so taken aback by the sheer amount of injuries she had. They had tortured her over and over again. Maybe each day. The wounds were obviously reopened and they looked horrible. Jack swore if he had the chance, he would hunt down whoever the hell did this to her.

The crew also kept Katherine's men and women awake. They weren't going to lose any of the ones they have saved.

It was a long flight back home, but they managed. Jack brought Katherine to the hospital where she was whisked away by the nurses. He had carried her all the way there and his pace was as urgent as if he was on the battlefield.

"You take care of her alright?" He yelled after the nurses and doctors. The doors closed.

Two minutes after she was out of sight, he sat down on the steps and watched the other men bring in Katherine's crew. He placed his face in his hands. He was tired. His energy was gone. He wanted to talk to someone. He wanted Davey with him most of all. He always knew what to say during these times.

It almost seemed like Jack sat there like that forever, ignoring the people going up and down, praying that Katherine was going to be fine, and ignoring the stares they gave him. He was beat up, messy and dirty. He should have hit the showers a long time ago, he should of attended the debriefing, he should have cleaned up. He just stayed. He couldn't bring himself to move. His better half was gone and his dream was broken. He was scared that she was beyond repair. He saw the injuries all over her body and her condition, he thought that the Katherine now was just a ghost of what she used to be a short time ago.

He thought about this for a long time. He only stopped when a shadow loomed over him. For a split second, he thought it was Davey, but when he looked up, he saw the face of Joseph Pulitzer. He felt disappointed.

He also didn't have the energy to stand up. It didn't even register that he should salute to him.

"Lieutenant Kelly. It seems like you have taken residence in the infirmary steps rather than the debriefing we just had."

The words took a while to process. "Sorry sir." Jack mumbled. He had half the mind to sit up straighter. He then realized he wasn't even out of his flight suit.

"It is understandable, but I suggest you don't miss them anymore. I don't see myself saving your ass in the future. McArthur was fuming."

That at least brought a small smile to Jack's face. "Not unlike my old general eh?"

"I'm still your commanding officer Kelly." Pulitzer said. He paused and looked to the doors. "Is-"

"I haven't checked." Jack replied and all the energy seemed to seep out of him again.

Pulitzer studied him for a moment. "Why don't you go take a rest now?" He suggested. "I don't believe Katherine would like you to see her like this. She would maybe prefer you see her tomorrow."

Jack would have protested, but he nodded numbly and stood up, gave a weak salute and trudged off to the showers.

He removed his flight suit and tossed it to the side and he scrubbed himself down, removing Katherine's blood from his arms. He removed the dirt and grime. He stood in the shower for God knows how long. He leaned against the wall and sighed.

He got out after a while. He went to the mess hall and stayed quiet as he ate. He was on auto pilot, he wasn't exactly thinking about anything besides Katherine.

He ate a lot because he was hungry, but he wasn't aware of what he was he was shoveling in his mouth.

He went back to the barracks and promptly collapsed in his bed.

He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

-LINE BREAK-

Once Katherine stopped hearing Jack's voice and felt the soft bed under her, she fell into a deep sleep.

Her dreams though were anything but peaceful, just as she expected. This was normal, she'd have nightmares after being in the field. This was different somehow. They were more intense, more vivid and she imagined that each of her wounds were being reopened over and over and over again. All of her whip marks and cigarette burns stung like they've been doused in alcohol.

Katherine couldn't wake up though. She couldn't make herself open her eyes because it felt too real.

She only woke up when a Japanese soldier fired a bullet at her head. Her eyes flew right open and she tried sitting upright, but she was strapped down to the bed. A good thing too, if she sat up, her wounds would have reopened. She bit back a scream. That dream wasn't real. She wasn't reliving that prisoner of war shit again. Her heart was beating fast and her breathing came in short gasps. Her fists were clenched tight, though she suspected that her grip was actually weak, considering the lack of food she's had.

Katherine forced herself to calm down. She wasn't there anymore. She was carried off by Jack Kelly. She wasn't a prisoner. She was back home.

She looked around, she was in the infirmary, back home. Her soldiers, at least the women who still survived, were lying in the beds beside her.

She was in the women's wing. She moved her head around and looked at the state of her body. She was wearing a hospital gown. Her arm was heavily bandaged, but not amputated, thankfully. Her legs were covered with bandages and she can only imagine her shoulders and her back. There was a needle in her arm, connected to an IV bag.

A nurse came to her. "Major. How are you feeling?" She proceeded to check on her. She had a thermometer and a cool washcloth. The nurse sat down and began to change her bandages.

"Feel like…" Black spots danced before her eyes, "feel like shit." Her voice sounded like a raspy old hag's.

The nurse nodded and removed the wrappings on her arm. Katherine told herself not to look at it.

"You're very lucky you know, with the arm and all the injuries. You survived it." The nurse said as she rewrapped it with new gauze.

"My soldiers?" Katherine croaked. She needed to know how they were.

"All that arrived are recovering." The nurse smiled warmly at her and finished up with her arm. "I also apologize for the strapping, a General suggested that should be done because accorsing to him you are a mover and we can't have that. I cannot change your bandages just yet."

Katherine smirked to herself. After all the thing she's been through, it's a relief to hear that her father cared a little bit after all. That's the only general that would know about the way she sleeps. "Pulitzer?"

"Pulitzer." The nurse confirmed. "It came through telegram. He was at a debriefing around an hour or two after you arrived."

Katherine nodded. "If he comes…" she paused. "Well. If he comes he comes." She didn't know what she was going to say to her father. Much less explain this complete fiasco.

The nurse nodded, did her final checks and left Katherine alone.

She thought about her fallen soldiers. Mercedes most especially. She thought about the pink ribbon. She thought about the other soldiers and their names and faces she would always remember. She thought about how they left their bodies on enemy territory and how they were never going to retrieve them. Those heroes weren't even buried properly. God knows what the Japanese are doing to those bodies.

She thought about the different ways she had failed. The missing holes. The gaps in her plan. She had planned everything precisely and took in all the suggestions, but she had an nagging fear that she had missed something. A small something that had caused their mission to fail spectacularly. The only information they got out of that base were the torture methods, layout and system, which all wasn't that much. You could get that in any mission. You just have to observe.

But she knew she shouldn't beat herself up over it. She couldn't put herself down because of the mission. She should move on. You make mistakes and move on. Life waits for no one. This had happened before, but it didn't get easier. She made less mistakes as she got older, but the scarier it gets. More people tend to trust you if you have experience, man or woman. She was afraid to let down all those people who depended on her… and she had. Maybe she had overlooked something… but past is past. She had to focus on what she could do right now, not what she could have done.

If she got through the torture, she could definitely get through this. The funerals, the speech she knew she was going to write, the medals she'd see given to the families of those who died, the letters she'd have to write to those families, the pictures, the flags. This wasn't new… but it hurt a lot each time she had to do it.

She gave herself a long pep talk as she tried to stay awake. She closed her eyes after she had successfully talked to herself and fell right back to sleep.

-LINE BREAK-

The next time she woke up, it must have been hours later because the infirmary lights were on and it was dark outside.

She found herself unstrapped and free to move her arms around, but she obviously didn't have the freedom to. Her arms were badly injured and every move sent jolts of pain throughout her body.

She heard paper being flipped and looked to the left. She found Pulitzer sitting in the chair beside her bed.

"Hello father." Katherine mumbled.

"Katherine." He said and looked up from the paper he was reading. "Do you know you're in the news?" He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I was not the one who placed it in the paper, nor was I the one to give information to the reporters. It seems to be heavily inaccurate, knowing you."

Katherine read the front page.

"AFTER TWO WEEKS IN CAPTIVITY, SOLDIERS STILL ALIVE."

Sure, alive. That's one way to put it. Katherine's nose scrunched then relaxed after reading the first paragraph. There wasn't anything she could do about it anyway.

"Now I do know." She said and looked at the ceiling. "What brings you to Pearl Harbour?"

"You did." She heard the chair squeak. He must have leaned forward. "I was… worried about you."

Katherine blinked slowly. Worried. She's been to other missions where she almost died. It's only now he's worried and flew all the way to Hawaii just to check on her?

"Are you going to remind me now about how I should be more like a woman?" She said softly, she couldn't raise her voice or her throat would get hurt. "Are you going to say I should do something else? Retire? Because I'm not in the mood to hear any of that bullshit."

Pulitzer sighed. "I'm not trying to prove my own point. I know you can handle things on your own, but this time I was scared that you were actually not going to come back. I believe in your capabilities. I've seen you do your drills, I've seen you train. I've seen you do it all. I know what you can do." He took a deep breath. "I have never been a father to you, nor will I ever be. But I want you to know that I do care. I don't want to let your mother-" He paused. "I don't want to break her wishes. She said that I am to keep you safe and sound, like she would."

Katherine turned her head to her father, who was now sitting straight and looking at her with the respect of a general. She nodded. "I understand."

Pulitzer looked relieved. "Yes." He looked down and the room was silent for a while. He was never good at emotional expression. Saying those words must have taken a huge amount of effort.

He stood up. "I best be leaving you to rest. My flight is tomorrow morning." He pursed his lips. "You know, that Lieutenant Jack," He said reluctantly, "has been waiting outside. He's been there since he dropped you off here and only left when I arrived an hour ago. He'll most likely visit you tomorrow." He touched Katherine's arm for a second and left.

Katherine watched her father leave the infirmary before turning her eyes to the ceiling.

She didn't know what to make of that. Jack Kelly, the restless Lieutenant, sitting outside for hours, not moving. She thought about it for a while, then her eyelids became heavy and she fell asleep.

-LINE BREAK-

Jack slept like a rock. No one bothered to wake him up because they all knew all the people that went on that mission deserve the rest for a while. McArthur turned a blind eye for that day. Jack woke up a little past 11:00AM. He was going to say something but realized that 1.) Davey was on a mission and 2.) the room was empty.

Jack sat up and sighed, feeling particularly hungry and sore. But instead of going to the mess hall, he grabbed his notebook from his trunk and began sketching.

-LINE BREAK-

Jack went inside the infirmary at around 1:00PM. He had just come from taking a shower, finishing up his sketch and talking to McArthur for a private debriefing. He did ask for permission to go into the women's ward. The nurses seemed a bit apprehensive, but they let him in anyway.

They led him to Katherine, who was sleeping peacefully on her bed.

Jack sat down on the chair beside her and decided he was going to wait for her to wake up. He crossed his legs and opened up his notebook again and began sketching a different thing.

He wasn't aware of how much time passed, but he had finished his fourth sketch when he heard a hoarse voice speak his name.

"Jack?"

Jack nearly dropped his notebook and pencil. He looked up and saw Katherine looking at him with a small smile on her face. "Don't tell me you've been sitting there for hours."

Jack glanced at the clock. It was 5PM.

"Nah." He closed his notebook. "Just two hundred and forty minutes."

"That's four hours."

"I'd like to think that's just minutes."

Katherine nearly laughed out loud but then groaned at the effort.

"Hey take it easy." Jack said and moved to the edge of his seat. "You gotta recover first."

"So concerned." Katherine smiled and relaxed. "Why are you here Kelly?" She said jokingly.

"Can't I just be concerned?" Jack raised an eyebrow and took his hat off his head. "I just wanted to check on you."

Katherine probably wasn't thinking straight when she said the next sentence. "Check on me or check me out?"

"The only checking out I'd like to do now is check you out of the infirmary. I've been checking you out though for a while already. Pretty sure you know that."

She closed her eyes and grinned wider, genuinely amused and happy with the lieutenant. "Yes. Yes I do know that."

A few moments of silence passed.

"I was gone for a while wasn't I?" Katherine mused.

"Well yeah." Jack shrugged. "I mean…" He trailed off and another moment of silence ensued.

"Ya know…" Jack broke the silence, "when you were gone…" Jack rubbed the back of his neck and leaned forward. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for the words to come tumbling out. "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Katherine looked at him again. "What?"

"You were on my mind the entire time. There wasn't a day where I wouldn't think about you. You could ask the others, they know."

"I- I couldn't sleep and…" he opened his notebook. "I'd draw you…" He handed it to her. "I couldn't stop thinking about you… I was worried and I know ya wouldn't like that but…"

Katherine flipped through the pages until the most recent one. There were doodles here and there but most of them were of her. She was training others or running or sitting… all of it. She didn't know someone could see her that way. She looked... beautiful.

The most recent one was of her when Jack found her. She looked so different and she wondered if she really resembled something like that. Thin, broken and bloody.

"I know what it looks like." Jack said and hung his head. He must have seen the expression on her face. "It's just… well. The image was burned in my head and I wanted to get it out. I didn't want to think of you that way."

The one beside it was one of her smiling. She was wearing the outfit and now on their first date.

"You should smile more." Jack smiled to himself, remembering her laugh. "You look… beautiful when you smile."

Katherine closed the notebook and gazed at him. "Jack…" she was wordless.

"I believed in you… I really did." Jack stood up and went to her side. "I knew you were still alive, but it didn't stop me from worrying because… I am afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" Katherine raised her brows, her voice going up.

"I'm afraid of how important you've become to me. Because if you were gone or if you died… I don't know what I'd do with how I felt. If you were gone tomorrow… I didn't know if what we… well what I think we have," He put his hand on the rail of the bed, "would still exist because you'd be…" He blinked and looked down. "I ain't good with words…" He smiled a bit. "You're really something Katherine. I usually got somethin to say… but I got nothing."

Katherine held his hand. She felt Jack tense up. "Jack…" Her eyes watered and she blinked. She wasn't used to someone being like that towards her. "I…" She rubbed circles on his hand as she took in a breath. "I thought about you too." She inwardly cringed. She couldn't amount to what the lieutenant just said.

Jack looked at her with an emotion she couldn't place.

"I thought I was just imagining things when you came. I thought I was just dreaming or that my mind was playing some sort of cruel joke. Turns out, you did save the damsel in distress." She continued and let out a soft laugh.

"You ain't no damsel in distress." Jack smirked. "You're a warrior. You eat damsels for breakfast."

Katherine laughed and then tried to sit up so she could talk to him properly. She grunted.

"Hey no. You're lying down." Jack held her shoulders gently. "You don't need to-"

"No. I got it. I can sit up." She paused. "Just help me."

Jack helped her to a seating position and adjusted the bed so that she would be able to sit down and lean back. When he stopped doing that, they were a mere foot apart.

Katherine smiled at him and ignored the stabbing pain in her back. "You see," She paused and shifted a bit, "I could be the damsel sometimes. Even Ace, Majo rextraordinaire needs assistance." She bit her lip for a second and squeezed his hand. "I've been meaning to thank you for saving me." She said. "I know you were following orders… but I still want to thank you for coming to me and keeping me awake. I also want to thank you for worrying about me. It's rare that anyone would care so much about me."

Jack's cheeks grew warm. He squeezed back gently. "I would gladly save you any day." He adjusted her pillow. "Though I'd rather not have to."

"You said it." She replied.

Jack and Katherine looked at each other for a while, smiling softly. Enjoying each other's company. Their breath mingling and warming the few inches between them.

Jack, by a sudden impulse, began to lean forward. Katherine's heart started beating faster, but this time, she didn't stop him. She just closed her eyes.

She felt his lips touch hers. Gently at first, tentative, but then she moved her hand to his neck and deepened the kiss as she kissed back.

She opened her mouth and Jack followed. His tongue explored her mouth and Katherine felt herself melt into him. She could imagine scenarios where it would be a lot more romantic, but a lot less perfect.

Jack had never done this before… as far as he could remember. He had a vague memory of kissing in high school, but nothing like this. He believed that this was the first kiss that ever felt so right.

Their lips molded against each other as the figurative fireworks started. Each one's heart was hammering against their chest, but they didn't dare stop. It was magical and amazing and special. It was perfect.

Jack had to control himself. He had to make sure he wasn't going to roam his hands on her back. He was very careful not to hurt her. He knew where her injuries were and was very careful to avoid them. He was content with holding her face.

They pulled apart after a while and rested their foreheads against one another's.

"That's… how you kiss a girl Kelly." She smiled.

Jack smirked and they pulled away for real. "Next time… if I were you, I'd worry about my hands." He joked.

He was also bluffing. He had almost zero experience, and that "almost" was very, very rusty.

Katherine smirked. "Looking forward to it."

Jack turned pink, not expecting to get a reply out of his tease. He squeezed her hand and helped her lie down through adjusting the bed again. "I should be letting you rest some more. We still need you to beat up those trainees."

She laughed a bit. "I'll avoid punching their noses this time."

Jack snorted and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "See you around." He smiled at her again and left the room.

Katherine watched him leave and sighed. This man.

This handsome, heroic, charismatic, plain spoken, know nothing, skirt-chasing, cocky son of a bitch had stolen her heart.

She had fallen for her.

Just like he had fallen for her.

-LINE BREAK-

A/N: I KNOW IT'S THE SHORTEST THING EVER! But hear me out. I couldn't put this in the previous because it would be too long and stuff. The fanfic is completed since they're together now. I believe I'll make an epilogue that happens after August 6, 1942. That's all hahah. I hope you enjoyed!