He smiled in answer and handed her one with a book of matches, and she made her way back to the hallway where the navy officer was lying on the gurney, staring at the ceiling and still awake. He smiled broadly as soon as he saw her.

“You’re back.”

“And I’m taking you for your dressing change,” she said officially, and he looked disappointed.

“They changed them earlier,” he said, as she carefully moved him away from the wall and pushed him slowly down the hallway. She made a somewhat perilous left turn, took him down another hall, and stopped there. There were no treatment rooms, and no patients on gurneys, as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the cigarette and the matches. He laughed as soon as he saw it.

“You’re a sharp one,” he said as he put the cigarette to his lips gratefully, and tried to light it from a prone position, which looked awkward and dangerous. He already had burns. He didn’t need more. She took the matches from him and lit the cigarette, then handed him back the book of matches.

“If you set yourself on fire, I’ll be court-martialed and sent home, and I like my job here. Most of the time, when I’m flying.”

“Thank you for the cigarette. I figured you’d forget about me.” It would have been hard to do, he had a definite personality, and she could see he had a sense of humor, despite his injuries. They had been through hell on the beach, but he seemed in surprisingly good spirits, and grateful to be alive. “What do you do in real life, Alex, when you’re not here?” He wanted to know her, and he wanted someone to know him, and remember him, as though to prove he was still alive, which he very much seemed to be, in spite of what he’d been through.

“I go to parties and fight with my mother,” she said with a grin. “Actually, I’m a nurse in ‘real life’ too, which is how I wound up here. I was stationed in San Francisco with the army for a while, and then volunteered to come here for the air evac transport unit, which is kind of a flying ambulance that brings men back from the front lines.”

“That’s dangerous,” he said, visibly impressed.

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “I’ve been lucky.”

“Me too. Especially tonight, when I met you.” He had finished the cigarette, and she took it from him, stubbed it out on the sole of her shoe, and slipped the butt in her apron pocket. Then she carefully maneuvered the gurney again to take him back to his original location. “Thanks for the smoke,” he said, smiling happily.