A/N: It's Little Women reference time, and YES, you probably will cry during this chapter.
Over the course of the next week, Kathryn's condition simply worsened. Her fever got worse and she developed some sort of body pangs and pains. It was a whole state of delirium for the young woman and she had never been this sick in her life. She hardly remembered the week—and during that entire time, she was certain that she was dying .
Quite truthfully, she wasn't sure how they hadn't already killed her for being this sick. It seemed a rather strange thing, but she attributed it to her brother and to Buck. They simply weren't allowing her to die on them. She couldn't keep down food and scarcely remembered eating during that entire week—except for when her brother was forcing her to eat.
One of the things that she did, in fact, remember quite well was her brother reading to her. At one point, she had awoken in horrible pains, almost unable to move or bear it. And she realized that she was laying on someone's leg and her brother's voice was a steady beacon as she lay there.
Kathryn struggled to make any sound—her throat was so dry and every breath was like a sharp needle jabbing her in the ribs. "Is that... Little Women ?"
Bucky seemed surprised by the sudden coherence. She seemed to be present only half of the time she was fighting this fever, and her bouts of coherence were few and far between. "Well it was either this or the Bible since Guys and Dolls isn't exactly good reading material out here."
She wished she had the energy to smile about that, but Kathryn could barely even focus on the words that he was saying. "You finished it?"
"It's a good book," Bucky mumbled. "You didn't tell me that Beth dies though."
Kathryn felt like she was very far away from her own body at the moment. Like she was just watching this through some sort of screen and she was stuck in the backseat of a car. She remembered giving Little Women to her brother for his birthday—well, it was over a year ago now. And Buck had warned her that if he finished it and actually enjoyed it, it was likely that he'd never read anything ever again. Now he had finished it. And Kathryn didn't know what to say.
She shifted ever so slightly, head raising as much as she could to look at her older brother. "Beth's always supposed to die. It's in the writing, even if you don't want it to be. All throughout the book. You know."
Something seemed to change in her brother's gaze as he looked at her and he just shook his head. "You're not Beth."
"Well you're not Jo."
"I mean it, Kath," Bucky's voice just sounded pained. "It's not written out. You're not dying."
The fact of the matter was that Kathryn wasn't so sure. She certainly felt like Beth March did at the moment—and with the fever sapping all of her strength, she really had no other scope to compare this to. It scared her. And the worst part was that she could tell that it scared her brother too.
Bucky had always seemed indomitable. He was untouchable and unafraid of literally anything. He had stared death in the face time after time—but right now, he seemed just as scared as she was. It was unnerving and a testament to the fact that Kathryn was certain that she was, in fact, dying.
Kathryn felt another sharp pain roll through her body and she wanted to cry—but she didn't have enough energy in her body to cry. "Johnny?"
"Yeah, Kath?"
"What are you gonna tell ma?" Kathryn's voice was barely above a whisper as she laid there, eyes flickering in and out of focus.
Bucky didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about it one bit. Because it was one thing having to sit there and read to his sister, who was delirious with a fever. But for her to ask that kind of a question meant that she almost certainly thought that she was going to die. And in a place like this, mentality made the difference. If you thought you were going to die, then you certainly were.
"I'm not telling her shit." Bucky raised a brow, rubbing her shoulder gently. "So you get better or I'm gonna find a way to haunt you for the rest of your life."
"Ha," Kathryn mumbled. "That's not...that's not how that works."
He had a perfectly good response waiting for her, but she had drifted off again back to sleep. He just sat there, staring at his thin and gaunt little sister— she was not Beth . And he would not let her be. And whether it was Jo March's spirit that possessed him in that moment, he determined that he was going to will her to live. Her will had always been strong enough for him and Buck—now she just needed some help with it. And he could do that.
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That week was hell for everyone in that cabin. Tina and Annie didn't want to watch another nurse die. In their eyes, Kathryn Egan, Doctor Egan—she was a force of nature that was untouchable and immovable. A force as immutable as gravity. For them, she had always been the constant.
But as far as Annie could tell, this fever and sickness was brought on by the physical examinations that they had received. She didn't think that equipment they used had been cleaned in any ways and she was almost certain that the combined force of torture and the unhygienic tools that had been used had caused this. It was jarring, watching Kathryn go from being untouchable to being helpless in that bunk and unable to even sit up on her own.
Hadn't they lost enough? Hadn't they been through enough?
It was still a miracle that Buck Cleven and Bucky Egan had managed to keep the entire thing under wraps. They weren't sure about the lengths that they had gone to in order to ensure Kathryn's survival. They weren't sure how the Nazi's left them alone every single day. But whatever they had done, it was working.
Tina and Annie just went about their daily chores and tried to keep a close eye on Kathryn's illness. When it progressed to the point where she could barely move without being in agonizing pain, they knew that unless she broke that fever, it was over for her.
But for both of them, they had rarely seen such tenderness and gentleness from any sort of men in their lives. And it wasn't just Buck Cleven and Bucky Egan that were going the extra mile to ensure that Kathryn Egan lived. No, it was the other men in the 100th and in that cabin. It was the extra food they managed to scrape together to ensure that she could keep something down. It was the way that the men huddled together for warmth so that Kathryn could have more blankets—
And she wasn't even coherent for the situation at hand. She would have hated the doting and the hovering. She would have hated being waited on like this—but she had cared for them time and time again and now it was her turn. And they could bear that burden for a while if it meant Kathryn Egan surviving this illness.
The next time that Kathryn Egan was semi-coherent was after a nightmare of sorts. It had been visceral and she was absolutely certain that it was really happening. In her nightmare, she found herself on the front-lines again—but this time was different. There was no gun, no scalpel, no way for her to fight back. And so when Hausmann shot her in this dream, the bullet ripped through her like she was just a piece of paper—like he was striking a ball and this was just another game of baseball.
Her cheeks were wet when she woke up, still trembling from the dream and the fever. It was in this state that she found herself mostly awake—and in the arms of none other than Gale Cleven. She didn't even remember him coming to see her in this haze, but here he was, nonetheless.
"Gale?" She mumbled out his name like it was some sort of prayer.
"You were cryin' in your sleep. I couldn't leave my best girl crying," Gale's voice sounded close to her ear and she realized, in her haze of mind, that their position was somewhat precarious. He was behind her and holding her up, with her head resting on his chest. At the moment, she couldn't even bring herself to care. She was still shivering madly, teeth nearly chattering.
"Just a bad dream," Kathryn mumbled, finding his hand and entwining it with hers.
"A real one?"
"Real," Kathryn barely said the word. As she held his hand, she realized that one of her fingers was touching a piece of twine and she nearly froze—because surely, after this long—he wouldn't still have that damn piece of twine that she had tied to his finger? She weakly lifted his hand to stare at the piece of twine. "You—you kept this?"
He nuzzled his head into her neck for a moment. "Course I did."
After nearly a year of being gone and locked away in this place, Gale Cleven still had that damn piece of twine tied around his finger. He had kept her like a sacred prayer and oath—and the gesture was something so inherently pure that Kathryn was absolutely floored by it.
"He took your ring," Kathryn mumbled to him. The reference to Hausmann didn't even phase him—he knew that the ring was long gone and it wasn't something they were getting back at this point.
"I'll get you a better one."
Kathryn wasn't even sure she was going to be alive to receive a better one, quite truthfully. "You will?"
"Absolutely," he promised her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "You're still shaking—are you cold?"
"Just a bit," Kathryn admitted. "Mostly my hands—"
The second that she had mentioned her hands, he had brought them both up to his lips and was breathing on them—a sharp contrast to the cold that she was feeling. And for a moment, Buck Cleve's gaze remained on her hands.
If he had thought a year ago that her hands had been brutalized by the laundry she had been doing in Thorpe Abbot, he had been sorely mistaken. These hands of hers were cracked and sore—with callouses and her nails were still growing back in some spots. It made his stomach churn to even see the amount of cracked cuts on her hands.
"When we get back," Buck murmured to her. "You're never doing laundry again."
Kathryn blinked in surprise. "And who will do the laundry then?"
"I will."
"You're going to do the laundry?" Kathryn almost sounded amused by the thought.
"These hands aren't touching it ever again," he pressed feather-light kisses to the tips of her fingers and Kathryn was transfixed by him, unable to tear her gaze away from his eyes. His eyes, which were so full of light and some sort of unspoken promise in that light. "And I'm going to buy you lotions."
At that, Kathryn gave a pained smile. "That's a lofty promise, Buck Cleven."
"Well I absolutely mean it." Buck's gaze washed over her and he just felt a pang of sadness . Her cheeks had sunken in and her eyes were full of exhaustion. And though she was still the prettiest person he had ever known, he could so clearly see the toll that this illness was taking on her body.
He didn't fail to notice the slight wince that she gave as another round of pangs ran through her body. "Hey, stay with me," he murmured into her ear.
"Just tired."
"I know, honey," he murmured. But quite truthfully, he was worried if she fell asleep, this fever would claim her in her sleep. "But I need you to stay awake."
"So keep talking to me."
"Tell me about our house."
" Our house?" Kathryn smiled at the thought. "The house doesn't matter much to me. I've got you, don't I?"
He grinned and bumped his forehead against hers. He was certain that this was the most he had smiled the entire time he'd been in the damn camp, but the circumstances were horrific . And he wasn't even sure that Kathryn would remember these conversations if she made it through this. If.
"There's gotta be something, darlin'."
"Well there is one thing."
"What's that?"
"I want a porch," Kathryn said quietly. "So we can sit out there in the spring and summer. And maybe I can convince you to dance."
"Baby, I'll dance with you every day," he murmured.
"Careful, there," Kathryn nearly smiled. "My brother might think I've corrupted you."
"Well I found the right partner."
There was a beat of silence and Kathryn could no longer keep her head up. She leaned back into Buck, exhaustion washing over her. "Buck?"
"Yeah, honey?"
"I'm...I'm scared."
He didn't say, ' me too .' But he was certainly thinking it. "Just rest, okay? I'm still going to be here when you wake up."
Night had nearly fallen when something had changed for Buck. Kathryn's breathing had finally evened out and the tension had left her body, allowing her to relax against him. And when he placed a hand on her forehead. And almost immediately, relief filled his body and he let out a tired exhale, tears nearly filling his eyes.
"Bucky—"
Almost instantly, Bucky was on his feet with wide eyes. "Is she—"
"Fever finally broke."
"Oh thank God."
The worst of it was over. And everyone in that cabin could finally freely breathe. Because she had made it through the worst of it. And that meant that there was hope for the future.