Chapter Text
March 7th, 1945
It had been a long day, and for Claire, it was turning into an even longer night. There weren’t many soldiers coming through surprisingly, but the ones that had were in rough shape, barely clinging to whatever life held them there. Claire hated nights like these, just watching the soldiers slip away knowing there was little to be done except to try and keep them holding on until they could be evacuated. The evacuations were backed up, too many extreme cases going in and not enough being stabilized, Claire and the others were doing their best to keep the patients coming in comfortable, but most of them were too far gone to even care what was happening to them. Just as Claire had caught a breather, getting another solider to get some rest to keep him from moving around with his wounds, more came bursting in with fellow soldiers.
“What’s wrong with him?” Claire asked as she ran over to the soldiers who carried the soldier in, other nurses swarmed around him and started trying to stop the blood, though it was hard to tell where the wounds came from exactly.
“He took a shot to the stomach and one to his left leg.” One of them replied, Claire immediately ran over to the chaos while the other nurses ushered the soldiers out.
“I’ve never seen so many beautiful ladies all at once.” The solider smirked, his voice was weak and his eyes were barely held open, he was losing too much blood and Claire was astounded he was still even talking at all.
“At least he’s still breathing.” Karen, Claire’s sister, mumbled while she started wiping away some of the blood pooling on his chest. “We’re going to need to lift him, this bandage has to go all the way around to keep pressure on this one until we can get Zara to get the bullet out.”
Claire and all the others helped, they wrapped the bandages as tight as they could and Karen managed to get the bullet out of his leg, but there was so much blood, and Claire doubted he’d make it through the night.
Claire checked on him periodically while making her rounds around the tent that night. While the soldiers had stopped coming in thankfully, the evacuations for the wounded were still backed up and a morning evacuation was looking far more likely. Once all the other soldiers had drifted off, Claire sat down by his side, the only one whose name she hadn’t caught that night in all the chaos. He still had his dog tags on despite everything else having been torn up to wrap up his wounds and wash off the blood. Claire reached over and carefully brought them closer for her to see, she could just barely make out his name in the dim light: Grady, Owen.
“Find something?” His gravely voice interrupted the silence and caused Claire to jump in her seat, dropping the dog tags onto his chest.
“I’m so sorry,” She whispered, her hands covering her mouth. “I just…I didn’t get your name earlier.”
“You know everyone’s name in here?” He asked curiously, a faint smirk on his lips though Claire noticed how pale he was from the blood loss and how weak his voice was getting.
“Yeah.” Claire answered with a nod. “I try to remember everyone’s name.”
Owen tried to move his hand, Claire grabbed it to keep him still, but he squeezed her hand and pulled away, pointing out the unconscious man next to him.
“What’s that guys name over there? No cheating.” He grinned.
“Thomas Gardner; slight head trauma, more than likely a broken rib or two, and he’s lost hearing in his left ear as far as we can tell.” Claire stated with a smile of her own.
“That’s pretty good, do you do that trick at parties too?” Owen asked, trying to stifle a cough.
“Sometimes.” Claire answered, a smile still plastered on her face like a fool.
“You know, I’ve got to say, you’re the prettiest nurse I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of nurses lately.” Owen sighed.
“I bet you say that to all the nurses.” Claire played along, knowing that more than likely it was his blood loss having him talk right now more than genuine remarks.
“No, it’s true.” He mumbled, his eyes slowly closing as Claire gently placed her fingers on his wrist, keeping a pulse to make sure it was just sleep that was taking him over and not something far more final. “I’ve got a thing for red-heads.”
“Get some sleep Grady, you’re going to need it to pull through this.” Claire sighed.
“I’ll make you a deal.” Owen said, fighting to keep his eyes open. “I’ll pull through if you promise to go out on a date with me.” He grinned.
“You can’t promise something like that.” Claire smiled, though part of her wished that he could promise something like that, she’d say yes in a heartbeat if it kept him alive.
“Watch me,” Owen mumbled. “What do you say? Will you promise a date with a dying man?”
“If that dying man fights to stay alive, than yes.” Claire caved in.
“Good, now I’ve got something to look forward to. Can’t die now that I have a date with such a pretty nurse.” Owen smiled. “Goodnight…I didn’t catch your name.”
“Claire, Claire Dearing.”
“Goodnight, Claire Dearing.”
“Goodnight, Owen Grady.”
It was somewhere towards the early morning when emergency evacuation finally showed up. Most of the smoke from the battlegrounds had cleared and no more injured soldiers had stumbled into the tents overnight. Claire was struggling to keep awake here and there, and while she and the other nurses kept a fair rotation of all the patients, Claire tended to linger over Owen a bit longer than the others, making sure his breathing was stable. They were loading up the patients one by one when Owen suddenly woke up, gasping for air and taking a few nurses to hold him down while they opened up his airways.
“Get him out of here, he’s going to need surgery, now!” Zara barked as the nurses scattered, the emergency evacuation nurses taking over and loading Owen up into a separate truck to get him out of there.
Claire didn’t have time to say another word to him, the last image she had in her head of him was of him gasping for air, looking like he was right at death’s door. She was a nurse, she had many patients come through that didn’t make it, it was all a part of war after all – people died and not even doing your best could save them. Claire wiped away the few stray tears that escaped, she fully expected to see his name on the list of deceased at some point, someone being given the task of calling his family and saying that he wouldn’t be coming home.
“Claire, are you alright?” Karen called out to her, her hand on her shoulder now and pulling Claire away from the sight of the truck speeding out of the area.
“I’m fine, it’s just…hard sometimes.” Claire sighed as she wiped away more tears.
“I know.” Karen nodded somberly. “You never know, he could be okay. I’ve seen worse pull out of it.”
Claire could tell when her sister was lying, but she was just trying to make everything easier as she always did. It was in her nature to just try and make everything a bit easier to swallow, and Claire appreciated it more than anything. Just for once however, she wanted her sister to be right, that Owen would pull through and be fine in a couple of weeks.
March 21st, 1945
Weeks past and Claire continued to go about her days as she always would, though the nagging thought of Owen kept popping up in her mind from time to time. She’d been watching the lists everyday, looking for his name to show up on the list of fallen soldiers, and while she felt relieved to never see his name there, it only made her wonder more what had happened to him. But she carried on, as everyone else was supposed to, and it wasn’t until she took a walk through the soldiers camp to check on a soldier that had supposedly gotten a cold that she finally got her answer. He was sitting outside one of the tents, he leg was still all bandaged up and she supposed that his chest still must have been as well, but he was upright and breathing, still alive despite what had happened. Claire stopped and froze for a moment, and she knew that must have been what captured his attention and caused a broad smile to cross his face.
“Told you I wouldn’t break a promise.” He called out to her with a grin.
All his other fellow soldiers outside the tent with him, some familiar faces from the night they dragged him into the infirmary half-dead, started grinning and elbowing Owen in the shoulder, leaning over to ask him what he had going on with Claire exactly. Claire felt her cheeks heat up, she knew she must have been bright red, before he could call out to her again and cause a commotion among the others she carried along to continue what she came out here for in the first place. But Owen was alive, that was by far the biggest relief, he managed to pull through something that should have killed him, and while Claire felt better knowing he was fine, she couldn’t quite stop her heart from fluttering a bit while remembering the sight of his smile.