“I’m sorry.” Chase sucked in a deep breath, feeling the cooling calm wash over her, and exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry, guys. I just, I need a minute.”
She turned and went back into her tent, collapsed immediately on the cot, and cried.
Norah could hear Chase’s quiet sobs through the tent wall. She wanted to give her space to process whatever she was feeling, but also knew Chase needed her. Norah knew Chase hated crying and, even more, hated anyone seeing her cry. And in the last couple of weeks she’d already cried once in front of Norah. The last thing she’d want was for John to know too.
“John, why don’t you head back to medical and get an update on Stevens.”
John smiled kindly and nodded knowingly at her.
“Chase? Can I come in? I’m alone.” She tapped gently at the door to Chase’s tent, knowing full well the sound wouldn’t be loud enough to carry.
Chase sniffled noisily and cleared her throat. “Uh, sure. Come on in.”
When Norah unzipped the opening, Chase was still busy wiping her eyes, as if it wasn’t already clear to Norah what she’d been doing. She offered Norah a contrived smile.
“How are you doing?” Norah asked.
Chase, still sitting on the cot, angled her body toward Norah and folded her hands in her lap.
“Fine. I’m doing fine. You know, as good as anyone can be. Am I right?” She laughed stiffly.
Without asking, Norah made her way to the bed and sat down next to her. She was silent for a while, just looking straight ahead, giving Chase the space she needed to open up to her.
“I’m scared too,” Norah finally said.
“You are not. Impenetrable Captain Norah Bishop, tamer of lions, battler of evil pathogens. I call bullshit.”
Norah released a flood of laughter, and Chase’s face visibly relaxed. “I am! Really. When I heard about Stevens, I nearly had a full-blown panic attack. My mind immediately spun out into the worst possible scenarios. Privates dropping dead all around us, people eating each other to survive…”
Chase exploded, laughing so hard the tears came back. “Why on earth would we have to eat each other?”
“I don’t know! It’s just where my head went!”
It was a thousand degrees inside the small tent, and sweat was pooling over Norah’s upper lip. She could hear voices outside as others busily hurried about trying to figure out what was next. Norah wanted to touch Chase. She wanted to touch Chase so badly the urge was primal, visceral, something that felt almost otherworldly. She wanted to comfort her and show her she wasn’t alone. And, more than anything, Norah wanted to feel like she wasn’t alone either. But she didn’t touch Chase. She kept her hands at each side of her while sitting as close to her as physically possible.
“I’m not scared of getting sick, Norah.” Chase turned and looked deep into her eyes, like she was searching all the way inside of her.
“You aren’t?”
“No. I mean, sure, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to get sick. But what really scares me, what’s going to keep me up all night, every night until we beat this thing, is losing you.”
Norah felt her heart leap directly into her throat, and her own tears, which seemed to have been hovering just at the edge of her eyelids for days now, threatened to jump free. She started to speak, but her voice failed. And she knew if she tried again, she’d break down in Chase’s arms.
“I know I shouldn’t say this,” Chase continued. She always took Norah’s silence as an invitation to keep speaking, though Norah wished she wouldn’t. She wanted Chase to keep this simple and not invoke the loss of what was or the loss of whatcould be again. “But you…” Chase scrunched up her shoulders and sucked in a sharp breath, closing her eyes, “…you were the love of my life, Norah. No, youarethe love of my life. And even if we’d never met up here in all this craziness, you still would be. No one who came before you and no one who could ever try to come after you was ever going to change that fact. What we had? That was it. You don’t get two of those in a lifetime. Most people don’t even get one.”
“Damn it, Chase.” Norah’s heart was rippling in her chest now, her head light and airy. This was all she’d ever wanted to hear. And yet she wanted nothing more than for her to stop.
“No. I know you don’t want to hear it. And I know it doesn’t change anything between us. But I lost you once, and the thought of losing you again is just, well, it’s way more than I think I can accept. So that’s why I’m scared. Not of getting sick, or even of dying. I’m scared that I’ve found you again, only to have to watch you leave.”
The tears weren’t going to listen to Norah’s marching orders as well as her privates did. They didn’t give a damn whether Norah wanted to show the vast array of emotions that had been tumbling around inside her. They were coming whether she liked it or not. And come they did. Without warning, Norah let out one loud sob, and a gush of salty tears spilled onto her lap. She felt Chase’s arm wrap around her shoulder to pull her in, but Norah stiffened, regaining her composure and tapping into the stoicism she’d learned over the years.
“We should go check on Stevens,” Norah said, standing abruptly and shaking off the desperation to crawl under the covers with Chase and never come out.
Chapter Ten
By the time Chase and Norah made it to the medical tent, a five-minute drive from their camp during which neither of them said a word, Chase was feeling a little more together and, with that, a lot more embarrassed. She hated breaking down in front of Norah like that. In all their years together, she had never been overly emotional. Norah was always the crier, managing to drum up a few sniffles for even one of those Sarah Mclachlan animal-rescue commercials. Now, after so much time apart and so many years in the military, Norah was like a machine with the ability to switch her feelings off whenever she found them unnecessary or inappropriate. But no matter how good she’d become at regulating herself, it was clear to Chase that her words had gotten to Norah. And she believed she felt the same way.
“Will you be okay?” Norah asked when they reached the entrance to the medical tent.
