UNITED

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trust in who we are
And nothing else matters

Steve turned around facing the right side of his bed. A little smile escaped his lips and he breathed in the faint scent of orange blossoms mixed with vanilla. He would recognize this pleasant smell every time and everywhere. It was her typical odor. His smile grew and for the first time in many months this smile reached his eyes.

"Cath", he whispered, reaching out to her but not daring to touch her, because he was too afraid she would disappear into the darkness of the night. So he just rested his hand on her pillow, closed his eyes and breathed in her perfume again.

"Hello Steve...", her voice was soft and calm, even a little bit insecure. Normally she would have said "Hello Sailor" and both of them would have known to what this would lead. But not now. That was not important. Important was to be together again, to be in pairs, a pair, to hear the other one's breathing, to see the other one's smile.

"You're back... I still can't believe it", Steve said, his voice low. "You're here. With me."

"I had to come back. I couldn't- I just couldn't bear to be without you." She paused.

"So here I am."

Steve didn't know what to say, he didn't know how to react. The last weeks – after his breakup with Lynn – he constantly thought about Catherine. Imagined how it would be if she came back, wondered what he would say and was completely at a loss how he would feel. Anger? Rage? Sadness? Denial? Or just simple happiness?

And now it was all of this. And it was nothing of this.

She had come back exactly at that time in his life he couldn't take it any longer. Exactly at that time his thoughts and reflections were circling more and more around his life, his losses, the pain and ache. Physically and mentally. What was his legacy? The guy he met a year ago in the chapel at Tripler told him all the lives he'd saved, all the people he'd rescued were his legacy. He thought about that a long time and came to the conclusion that he wanted more. Maybe he was selfish, but he wanted a life. Just a life; not a normal life, he knew his life would never be normal. But at the end of the day he wanted to come home to a, well, a home. A real home. Not an empty house. He wanted to have something like that with Catherine, but then she left him. Because obviously she wanted more too – and that was not him.

Catherine sensed his tentativeness and came a little bit closer. Steve could see tears glistening in her eyes. "I am sorry", she said. "I am so sorry."

"Don't be", Steve answered. "You did what you had to do. I understand."

"How can you?" Catherine's voice became a little bit louder. "I hurt you. Don't tell me that I did not hurt you."

Steve took a deep breath. "That doesn't matter any longer. I am happy you are back. I really am. Nothing else matters."

"Nothing else matters? You're quoting Metallica now?" She tried to smile but failed. "Life is ours, we live it our way. All these words, I don't just say. And nothing else matters."

"Trust I seek and I find in you", Steve completed the lyrics with a low chant.

"Trust?" Catherine shook her head. "How can you trust me, Steve? After all I've done to you?"

"Done to me? Don't say that. I can -"

She interrupted him. "Take it? You can take it like you took so much in your life? Dealt with so much horror and loss? And torture? Maybe it is time for you to start thinking about yourself, not about others. You deserve it more than anybody else I know."

"But-", his voice broke and he cleared his throat. "But when I am thinking about myself I am thinking of you too." He reached out to her but again didn't dare to touch her. Everything felt so delicate right now. "Maybe you know that you really love someone when you can't hate them for breaking your heart."

"There you said it, Steve. I broke your heart." Steve could hear her sniffle. "So don't tell me I did not hurt you."

Steve closed his eyes and rolled on his back. This situation wasn't going the way he wanted it but maybe he had to get it off his chest.

"Yes. Yes you hurt me." His voice was barely audible. "You said I was not enough for you. You left because of me. It felt exactly like the day my father sent us away. Or the day I learned my mother faked her death. It ripped my heart out. I didn't know what I had done to deserve that everybody I love leaves me." He opened his eyes and turned his head to Catherine. "I know. I know that is stupid. The one thing has nothing to do with the other. But I can't help it. It felt this way. You could have said 'I've orders. It's classified'. I would have understand, you know that. But you lied. Hurt me at the very spot you must have known it would hurt me the most. And I don't understand that, Cath. I don't." The look in his eyes turned desperate. "Why?" His voice was scratchy.

He felt it more than he could see it in the darkness of the room that Catherine sat up and leaned her back on the headboard of his bed. She did not answer for some time and Steve did not want to force her and if he was honest, he was afraid what her answer could be. They both listened to the ocean and the waves breaking upon the shore. Steve loved this sound, it always calmed him, reminded him of better times.

After a while he heard the rustling of sheets again and he could feel Cath looking at him. "I thought it would be easier this way..."

"Easier?" he asked in a strangled whisper. He didn't understand.

"I- I thought, it would be easier for you if you hated me." Her low voice got lost.

Steve sat up too and looked at the dark ocean through the French window at the other side of his bedroom. "Well, that didn't work."

"What?"

"I could never hate you, Cath. I love you."

"I love you too, Steve," she whispered. "Remember: I would have said Yes."

"When all the things, the … bad … things happened to me, the torture by Wo Fat, the Taliban, the horrible moments in the plane when I thought I had to die, all these times, every moment I had a picture of your face in my mind's eye. And sometimes I was afraid I would lose this picture, therefore I always welcomed all the memories. All of them. And because of that it never happened. I never lost your picture. It was my anchor. You. You have been my anchor."

Suddenly he felt the featherlight touch of her fingers on his body.

Ever so slowly and gently she touched the scar over his left eye, then her fingers were caressing the scar on his collarbone before her delicate touch traced the rough outline of the long scar on his chest.

"What are you doing?" he asked mesmerized.

"Shh," she hushed him, tenderly kissing his chest. "I want to cover the horror with something beautiful."

"Well, that works." Steve smiled.

"That is good, sailor, Very good."

Steve's smile grew bigger. "That was the first time."

Cath looked up to him. "What do you mean?"

"It was the first time today you called me sailor."

She stopped her gentle ministrations and leaned on her elbow. "Others won't understand this. They won't understand us. They won't understand that I am in your life again, you know that, right?"

Steve shook his head. "I don't care what others think. This," he waved his hand between the two of them, "this is our history, our feelings and our love. This belongs to us. Only to us. Just the two of us. Cath, just us."

And that was the reason, she visited him only at night.

PAU