The Unexpected

Chapter 11

"I thought you'd gone back to your quarters?" Harry questioned Elle when he finally found her as she had shards of glass carefully  pulled from her hair by a nurse armed with a comb and a pair of long tweezers.

"I was on my way when the alarm sounded," she lied. "He pulled me into a shed just before the first rocket hit."

Harry turned to see who she was pointing to. "Jack! What happened mate? You get injured saving the damsel in distress?" Elle smirked behind Harry's back but Jack had a perfect view of her amusement as he got ribbed by his friend.

"Yah, I guess you could say that." Jack admitted reluctantly, while the nurse assigned to him stitched up his hand.   

"Well I see you've met my newest charge then." Harry turned back to Elle and smiled. "You still up for tomorrow then?"

"Definitely." Elle said and she saw Jack's expression change as Harry began to explain what she'd be in store for the next day. She could feel the tension rise as Jack locked eyes with her, obviously upset with the choice she'd made.

"Are we done here?" Jack curtly asked the nurse as he reached over to grab his cap before purposefully placing it back on his head.

Elle wasn't listening as Harry went on; her attention instead was on the exchange between Jack and his nurse.

"Well it could probably use a few more just to make sure it heals neatly," she reasoned as she went to begin another stitch.

Jack jumped up before she could. "It looks great to me." His voice was still strained, "thanks." And walked out of the triage area.

Elle pulled away from the nurse and began to stand. 'Uh, excuse me a moment." And she made her way into the hallway as she said over her shoulder, "I really need to thank him, I'll be right back." She saw the door at the end of the hall swing closed and she darted towards it bursting into the twilight filled sky. She saw him walking across the dusty area that served as a parking area for military vehicles and ran after him.

"Jack!"

He stopped when he heard her call his name and turned to face her, his expression was stoic, catching Elle off guard.

"What's wrong? What did I do?" she was genuinely confused by his sudden turn. They had argued at first, but then, made that connection again, and now he was indifferent and cold. "I honestly don't know what's going on."

Jack suppressed his anger at her decision to put herself in harms way, but still made it clear that he was all business. "Nothing's wrong Elle. You have work to do and so do I; just getting on with it, is all." He could see the hurt in her eyes as she struggled to make sense of his abrupt turn.

"But, in the shed," she obviously replayed the events from that afternoon, "the way you spoke to me, and you protected me, and..."

He cut her off before she could say anything else and grabbed her by the shoulders as he spoke purposefully to her, inches from her face. "Listen to me. I did those things because it's what I'm trained to do and I was only trying to convince you to go home rather than stay here. It's too dangerous for you, and for me, to have you here." He released her from his grip and turned to walk away.

"Dangerous for you?!" Her temper was flaring and it stopped him again. "How do you figure that?!" She demanded drawing attention to their disagreement.

Jack turned back and got close again. "Would you keep your voice down." He hissed. "This isn't Coronation Street." When she gave him a puzzled look, he closed his eyes and shook his head in exasperation. "Never mind."

"Why is it dangerous for you, Jack?" She whispered as she glanced around to see if people were still looking in their direction. When she looked back to him again, she saw his expression had softened briefly, but his seriousness came back when he reluctantly answered her.