Conundrum

She followed in Edward’s footsteps, joining the military. Maria made more enemies than friends over her first few years. 

Maria even found love in the form of a nurse a couple of years older than her. After being injured on deployment, she woke up to a blonde haired woman with grey-blue eyes staring down at her.

“Hey there, don’t move around too much. You’ll undo your stitches.” The nurse instructed gently, “How are you feeling?”

She understood the question, but her brain didn’t seem to be functioning like normal and she didn’t seem to make any correlation between being alive, and this beauty hovering and speaking to her. 

Stupidly, Maria asked, “Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” The nurse replied, with a smile in her voice that was hidden by her face mask. “I’ll take it as a good sign that you can at least string a simple sentence together. I’m Jen by the way, the nurse assigned to your care. Can you tell me your name and the last thing you remember?”

Maria learned that ‘Jen’ was short for ‘Jenna’, and she was the middle child of three children and had grown up in a middle class family. When she asked why the nurse chose her profession, the woman gave a wistful kind of look and answered. “Someone’s gotta pick up the pieces that broke fighting for us.”

Jen was every bit a centrepiece to Maria. They shared similar interests. Their favourite thing to do together was to debate. Not about anything in particular, they debated and often played devil’s advocate simply because they enjoyed the intellect required. But it was more than that too. The nurse was soft where Maria was rough around the edges, and Maria's overall pragmatism helped reel Jen in when Jen was overwhelmed; and they taught each other some of the other’s skillsets.

Not only that, but Jen influenced her to be softer and kinder.

Maria found herself whispering words of admiration and affection after a lot of trial and error - and after continuous patience and encouragement was given by the nurse.

There was a major point of contention in their relationship though. Maria’s dedication to their relationship was far outmatched by her dedication to defending, protecting and serving.

“This isn’t living, Maria.” The nurse murmured into her shoulder after she had broken the news about another upcoming deployment.

“This is living,” The brunette disagreed, just as softly and meaning her words. “There’s nothing that I want more than to come home to you.”

“Then stay with me. Stop leaving.” Jen begged quietly. “And this isn’t living - All the secrets and lies, we can’t tell our friends or our colleagues. We don’t even have the comfort of stability. We only have brief moments of time in the dark. I’m afraid, Maria. I’m afraid that one day you can’t come home, and I’ll never know what happened.”

Maria considered Jenna’s words and her fears. She considered her response carefully and refused to give false promises. There was no guarantee that Maria would return from each deployment. There was no guarantee that Maria would return intact each time - if she did manage to come home.

The soldier held Jen closer to her. “I promise you’ll never have to wonder. You’ll know if something happens. Our ‘brief moments’ are what makes it all worth it to me.”

“Brief moments aren’t enough for me.” The nurse pulled away, and slept on the couch that night.

She tossed and turned, mentally debating what was the right course of action. What Maria wanted was right for her and her beliefs and yet, it was in direct opposition to what seemed to be right by Jen.

The following morning, Maria gave Jenna one last regretful look before leaving the house for her deployment.

She didn’t expect for the nurse to wait around for her return.

*

The cost of doing the right thing was high, and Maria hit her lowest point when she lost it all. 

She had jumped onto her Captain in an attempt to shield him from the incoming fire. Maria was going to die. Bullets and concrete were embedded painfully into her body, and there was a slow and steady pool of blood beneath her that seemed to get bigger and bigger.

Her body was shoved roughly off of the captain, and her breathing was ragged as she was rolled onto her back. 

A moment later the man was staring down at her. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn’t expect her to make it.

By the pain she felt, she didn’t expect to make it either.

It didn’t stop him from making an effort to crouch to lift her up.

Maria shook her head in a haze. “Leave me. Get the others.”

“I’m not leaving you, Hill.” He promised.

But she shook her head again as the sound of a building collapsing next to them caused a cloud of dust. 

Maria coughed, and managed to sputter out, “Get the others, sir. Just tell the nurse - Jenna, Tell Jenna I won’t be coming home… Tell her it was instant. Tell her… -”

She never did end up finishing her sentence.

Her time after that was filled with hazy and unreliable memories. As if the events weren’t quite happening to her. 

She most definitely didn’t trust her eyesight when Jen’s grey-blue eyes looked down at her again.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Maria rasped out with effort.

Her throat felt raw, tight and thick.

“Glad to see you too. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for the last three weeks and have received fluids through an IV and food through a feeding tube, so don’t mind your throat if it’s sore. The pain will go away in time.”

She closed her eyes at the greeting and took time to digest the information. What spoke loudest to Maria was the professional wording and demeanour - The specific lack of warmth from Jen.

“I told him to tell you.”

“We’ll discuss this later, Hill. Rest now.”

“Will you be here?” She asked the nurse awkwardly and fell asleep against her efforts before a reply was given.

Jen didn’t visit Maria at the hospital again.

Her Captain had told the nurse what Maria had thought to be her last words. The nurse looked pale and shaken when she let herself into the house.

“You’ve got mail.” Jen informed her, seemingly unable to think of anything to say.

She nodded, also in the same boat and began opening up her mail as if the task could really detract from the immediate tension in the room.

Maria read the contents of an official letter.

“They’re transferring me to another hospital,” The nurse murmured, still lacking any kind of warmth. “And you’re being discharged from service.”

She let out a breath and fell onto the couch. 

“Of course I am.” Her words were a matter of fact, as if everything she knew and was, hadn’t just been taken away. “That should make you happy.”

“It’s just as well, we weren’t going to last much longer anyway - literally and figuratively speaking.” Jen continued to murmur, now sounding as lost as she felt.

Maria leaned back against the backrest heavily. “As cliche as it sounds, I’d die for you.”

“That doesn’t mean much - You’d die for anyone you believed in.”

She cleared her throat and tried again, “I’d live for you. I come back for you.”

“You live for duty and legacy. I’m just a welcomed break in between.” Jen disagreed.

“That’s not true. I’m trying to do the right thing for everyone.”

“And what is that, Maria? Is it right I should sit by when you’re out getting shot at and worrying over whether or not you’ll come home? Is it right that for the first time in eight months I literally have to care for you after I watch the doctors operate on you? Please… Is it really right that I want a life with you and it feels like you’re never here? Even if you aren’t deployed, you’re training, you’re running drills with the newer recruits or volunteering your spare time cooking of all things?” The nurse let out, on the verge of tears. “No, that’s not right, at least not by me. Even if you came with me - knowing you, you’d probably try and join the police force or something and it’d be like this then too.”

Maria leaned forward and ran a hand through her hair as she digested the words and their meaning. 

It wasn’t a self pity when she thought that she was just a small cog in a large machine. 

Even the smallest of cogs had their uses.

She tilted her head towards the nurse with resignation. “I’ve valued our time together, Jen. But you’re right. I haven’t done right by you.”

“Nor have you done right by yourself.” Jen replied, ending the conversation at that note by walking out the front door.

From there, time flew by in a haze for Maria, always physically present by never quite aware. She went running in the mornings still, began packing up the house, continued to volunteer around the base and finished her day with her standard exercise routine.

She kept doing what she thought was the right thing, and swore never to face the conflict of work and relationships again.

She moved to another city, and traded her car for the freedom of a motorbike. Maria became  a labourer by day and a bartender at night. She always made the effort to help the homeless, either by giving them the leftover food that would otherwise be thrown in the trash or letting one or two of them sleep in a quality tent with warm blankets she had set up in her backyard.

Maria never trusted anyone at all to step inside her home.

Despite her busy life, there was a void - a distinct lack of satisfaction that never went away. It was monotonous, tedious and empty.

Each night she looked at herself in the mirror, she had the same thought. 

Her father would be ashamed at her lack of accomplishments.