by Britt Graves
Disclaimer: Remember WENN and its characters belong to Rupert Holmes, Howard Meltzer (et al), and you know what channel (much as it galls me to say it). No copyright infringement is intended.
Italics denotes thoughts.
The station platform was crowded as people hurried about trying to get one thing after another done. Everywhere he turned there were men in uniform saying goodbye, or trying to anyway. Hundreds of men saying goodbye to wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters, and assorted loved ones.
And he was alone.
He tried to keep his eyes from looking around, tried to focus them on something other than the scenes before him, but there were too many to ignore. His vision suddenly blurred by unexpected tears, he looked down, as if finding the wooden floor the most interesting thing in the world. He even tried thinking about what he was about to do, things that would keep his mind off the goodbyes in front of him, but it was impossible. As hard as he tried, the only thing that he could picture were his final moments at the station.
"As they say at the Buttery Betty...I'm ready to take your order. What will it be?"
He looked hard at her, willing her to say what he longed to hear, that she chose him and not Victor. She stood silently, her gaze shifting back and forth between them.
"Well?"
"I can't make that decision!"
"You have to make that decision," Victor said calmly.
"This isn't fair! I care about the both of you."
"Betty, let's finish this one way or the other. There's too much going on to dawdle."
"I'm not dawdling! But you've both presented me with a situation that I can't answer in ten seconds."
He had been silent this whole time, watching the scene unfold before him like some kind of bad dream. Scott panicked, not knowing where the conversation was heading. He wasn't used to the feeling.
"Look, I need to know something. I need to know if I have some kind of hope to carry with me or if I need to just forget the whole thing. So which is it?" Scott wasn't sure which was louder, the clock ticking on the wall or the beating of his heart.
She backed away from the two men and turned so they couldn't see her face. The silence in the room seemed to grow louder by the second. When she turned toward them again, her face was pale.
"Go to London, Scott."
Was it possible to be kicked in the gut without ever having been touched? "I...I don't...understand...."
"You've been all over the world, you know so many different people, you can help so many with your work in London. I'm afraid that if Victor went overseas again he might be in so much more danger than you would be. Please understand, I'm not asking you to go for me, I'm asking you to go for this country."
"And if you were asking for you would your answer still be the same?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know." He turned to look at Victor who had moved closer to Betty. She had made her choice and he had no part in it. She started to walk to him.
"Please Scott, don't take it like this..."
"No, no." He threw his hands up in an effort to build a wall around his already breaking heart. "I should have guessed this a long time ago. I was just too stubborn to admit it. Can't blame a guy for trying, huh? But I can't go to London. I signed up to be a soldier like every other man down at the recruiting office and I'm not going to be thought of as someone that takes the easy way out this time. I've done that a little too often." He fought to keep his composure calm. "Have a great life, Betty Roberts."
"Scott..."
Quickly opening the office door, he made his way down the hall praying she would follow. Praying she would grab his arm and tell him she had made a mistake and that she wanted him to stay. Praying she would tell him that she loved him back.
He walked too fast to see what was going on in the studio or the green room. Gertie and Mr. Eldridge weren't at the switchboard so his leaving was made easy. A little too easy. He paused at the front door for a minute and looked around. He wished he could say goodbye to everyone else, but his train would be leaving soon. He hoped they would understand. Would he still think of this place as home when he came back? If he came back? He hoped it wouldn't be a homecoming in a pine box.
He put his hand on the door, gave a sigh, and pushed it open, leaving WENN for a frightening unknown.
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The sound of the train whistle made him jump. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts he had never even heard the train approaching.
"All aboard!" The conductor had a voice that could carry for miles. Scott suddenly wanted to be the first person on the train, if for no other reason than to get out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
She didn't want him. He had opened up his heart for the very first time and she didn't want it.
What a mistake. One he didn't plan to duplicate. Foolishly, he had let himself imagine the future. He had never done it before, but for some reason he thought he could let himself this time. He had pictured a house, a wife, even children. That had been such a vivid dream before, but now....
Throwing his bags on the train and finding a window seat, he forced himself to stop dreaming nonsense. Dreams. They didn't seem to be much good anymore. He had to think about a war and survival. Dreams wouldn't do him any good there.
#####
The dream was too real. There was so much smoke, people were screaming, she was running...her lungs were burning...she needed air. Suddenly, flames exploded from a building on her right, knocking her down. "I don't want to die!" she cried. But she couldn't get up. She was paralyzed by fear and exhaustion. "Help me! Please! Someone help me!"
A shadow fell over her, blocking the horror of the burning buildings. Strong arms reached out to lift her. She closed her eyes, letting her tears wash away the smoke and dirt that stained her cheeks. She felt his hands, his strong hands reach out to softly touch her face. "Thank you," she wept. Opening her eyes to see who had saved her, she thought he looked familiar, but couldn't remember where she had seen him before. His face was badly damaged from injuries during the war, yet he looked at her so tenderly, as if he also had known her from somewhere. "Who are you? I know you...but from where?"
It wasn't the question he wanted to hear. A wave of sadness crossed his face as he gently let her go. He started walking back toward the burning building and for the first time she noticed he was limping.
"Wait! Wait!" Reaching out to grab his arm she turned him around. And the face she didn't recognize before...she remembered. "Scott."
Another explosion came from out of nowhere, blinding her view.
"NO!" Betty screamed as she shot bolt upright in her bed. Shaking, she reached out for the cool washcloth she had placed on her nightstand before she went to bed, knowing she would need it later. She had been needing it off and on for the last eight or nine months. "This has to stop," she whispered to herself. But she knew that was easier said than done.
The knocking on her door made her jump again. "Betty? Betty, are you ok?"
Slipping out of bed and putting on her robe, she padded to the door, speaking through it rather than opening it. "I'm fine, Hannah. Just another nightmare. I'm sorry I woke you."
"You've been having them more often. Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Hannah Murphy was Betty's next door neighbor at the Barbican. She had moved in several months ago and they had immediately become friends when Betty learned that Hannah was also from Indiana, but from Indianapolis instead of Elkhart.
"No...I'm ok, really. Same old thing. I'm fine, go back to bed. I'll see you in the morning." Once Betty was certain Hannah was gone she turned on her light and picked up the letter that she had read so many times she practically had it memorized. It was the one and only letter Scott had sent after leaving to go overseas. He had sent it to everyone at WENN, not to anyone specifically, but she had claimed it for her own. She couldn't rationally explain why she had taken the letter, but she just felt like she needed to have it. The letter itself held no terms of endearment, no tender words, no loving phrases, just an outline of what he was doing and the people around him and how he felt about being there. That's as personal as the letter got. She had her suspicions that he was writing to Maple, but they had been friends for a long time, and Betty had no claims on him.
At least, that's what she made him think the day he left.
The day he left...she tried not to think about it anymore. The first few weeks she had pretended like nothing was wrong. She acted like the station would be fine and that things would pick up where they had left off and nothing would change. But things had changed. The whole world had changed.
Flopping down on the old sofa that she had squeezed into a corner of her tiny room, she re-read the letter for the thousandth time. He had written it not long after he had left, not only as an explanation for why he hadn't said goodbye, but to let them know he was fine. He hadn't written since and many, many months had gone by. Either he had reverted back to his old ways and "skipped town" or he had been...had been....
Shaking her head to dismiss the thought she considered asking Victor or Jeff to see if they could find out where he was. What with their contacts in the military, surely they could find out what regiment he was in, if they couldn't say exactly where he was on the globe. Jeff would be willing to help her, but she doubted she could ask Victor to do that. He and Scott hadn't exactly parted company on the best of terms.
She looked at the clock on her nightstand and yawned. Three o'clock in the morning and she had to be at the station by six-thirty sharp. If only she could stop having these nightmares then maybe she could get things done in a more productive manner. Which brought her back to why she was sitting wide awake in her room at this hour...that nightmare.
She couldn't exactly tell anyone about it. People were having enough problems of their own. But the more she had the dream, the more worried she became, and the more she thought about Scott, the less she wanted to admit what she had been feeling all along towards him. She had finally forgiven him for the whole letter-forging lie, but hadn't realized it until he was already gone. Now she would have given anything to tell him, but couldn't.
Reaching up to brush away the tear that was falling she sighed and gazed out the window. "You'd better be alive, Scott Sherwood. You'd better come back to Pittsburgh safe and sound or I'll...I'll...kill you myself." Comforting herself with that statement of pseudo-vengeance, she relaxed, leaned back against the pillow and dozed off, letting the letter drift onto the floor.
***************************************************************
With the sounds of gunfire and death surrounding him, Scott fell into the safest foxhole he could find while the battle raged all around. He was out of breath, exhausted, starving, cold, and so frightened he could barely move. Out of ammunition and waiting for someone to either join him in his hiding place or grab a dead man's gun later, he struggled to collect his wits. The steady rain that was falling put an even further damper on his mood.
"What I wouldn't give to be sitting in O'Malley's right now drinking beer and listening to the Pittsburgh Pirates lose another game."
But the thought of O'Malley's was pointless...unless he could find some way to survive the next few hours there wouldn't be a reason to think about it. He tugged at his knapsack for the last bit of sustenance he had, a flask of whiskey. Not that this would do him any good, but it would at least slow down the intense rumblings of his stomach. He'd already lost 30 pounds. The possibilities of his becoming a skeleton weren't that far off.
The alcohol numbing some of his senses, Scott burrowed deeper into the hole, obviously created by some type of bomb or landmine, trying to drown out the sounds. His mind began to wander to places he normally refused to let himself reminisce about. He thought back so many years, the loss of his mother and baby sister to tuberculosis when he was just a little boy and his father's never being home long enough to remember he was around. His teenage that were full of enough scandal to last a lifetime. He got good enough grades to enter an Ivy League school, even though Aunt Agatha did have a chat with the admissions board, but his friends at the time weren't the scholarly type and chided him for wanting to get a degree. His decision to ditch college for the adventures of the wide world and the many scams and cons he had either spearheaded or had his fingers in had him one step ahead of the law. "Have I ever done anything right?" he muttered. It wasn't that he meant to focus on the more depressing parts of his life, but it was all that came to his mind right then.
No, he'd done one thing right. The only good thing he'd ever really done was end up in Pittsburgh and at WENN. Then the guilt started when he thought about everyone at the little station. He'd only written them one letter and he'd been gone over two years. They had stood up for him and been his friends when no one else in the world even cared. He thought at first that if he simply stopped writing that they would forget about him. Surely, he was doing them a favor by leaving. As time went on though, he had changed his mind about that and wished he had someone writing him, but he was afraid no one would care now and that maybe they had forgotten him and he simply couldn't find the courage to say he was sorry. For that thought alone he hated himself. He'd never been a coward. He'd met every dare and danger straight on, without a care in the world. This time though...there just wasn't enough courage left in him to last. Never needing anyone before, the loneliness that swept over him was such a foreign emotion.
Of course, with the thoughts of WENN came the inevitable memory of Betty. For two years he had tried everything in his power to forget he had ever met her. Of course, the more he fought trying to forget her, the worse it became. He had found the love of his life, but she loved someone else. The only way he thought he could forget her now was to disappear-permanently-and this certainly was the place to be if it was what you were hoping for. He had volunteered for the most dangerous missions, the most volatile situations, and the most depressing fights.
He also did it because he had met too many men with wives and children waiting back home...waiting for their loved one to return to them. He knew there wasn't anyone pining away for him, so maybe if he could take their place, sacrifice his life for theirs, they could go home and make something of the rest of their lives. There certainly wasn't anything left for him to do. Taking another long swig from the flask, Scott tried to stay as tight in the corner as he could. The rain just wouldn't let up.
"Hey! Hey you! Got any room down there!" A shout erupted from a soldier looking for a place to hide from the same guns and bullets Scott had.
"Yeah! Get in here quick!" Scott grabbed the man's shirt and jerked him inside. "How did you know I was in here?"
"Didn't know, really. Just saw someone fall into this hole and it looked like as good a place as any to take cover." The man threw his gear off his shoulders and peeked out the hole. "You got any grenades?"
"I'm out of everything. Hoped someone would come along and give me something to use. I can't stay here forever."
"I got plenty of bullets. Guy next to me killed two Nazis that were loaded to the gills with ammunition. Figured we could put it to better use than they could. Here." Throwing his bag at Scott, the man pulled up his pant leg to look at a nasty wound.
"I think I've got something you can put on that, at least to stop the bleeding." Scott started toward some strips of gauze he'd managed to keep dry.
"Nah, it isn't deep and the bleeding's stopped already. It's fine."
The two war-weary soldiers stopped for a minute and watched the world go by at a horrifying pace. "You ever figure we'd end up in something like this?"
Scott shook his head, unable to speak. "Me neither. I'd always figured I'd stay home and spend all day fishing. Got no family to speak of, so it was just me and I was happy with that. Then this war broke out and I had to go looking for something different. Should have stayed at home in bed, that's what. I'll remember this the next time I go looking for an 'adventure'." Scott gave a small grin. "Sounds a lot like me." Looking the stranger up and down he chuckled. "We even look a lot alike. Are you sure we aren't related?"
"Unless you're from Nebraska we ain't," he retorted cheerfully. "I'm Adam Leonard."
"Scott Sherwood." He returned the smile. "Nope, can't say I've ever been there. All my family's from Massachusetts. Well, the rest of my family anyway, which basically consists of one great-aunt from Nantucket. The rest of my family is gone."
The two continued exchanging histories until the rain stopped and they saw the sun creeping up over the horizon. The long night was finally over. "I think maybe we should get out of here and see what's ahead. I'm sure the officers have something planned for us." Adam nodded his head and started grabbing his gear. Climbing out of the hole, they cautiously made their way across the bloody field, finding more of their own men and regrouping.
Years later, Scott still couldn't remember exactly what happened next. He could remember hearing gunfire erupt nearby and falling to the ground to keep from getting hit. Then a massive explosion threw him in what felt like every direction.
Waking up, Scott had never felt so much pain in his life. Cautiously giving himself a once-over, he noted that his arms and legs were still intact, but covered in blood. He lifted himself up enough to see that he was surrounded by men either dead or severely injured. Planning to get back to the hole he'd found earlier to take cover, he turned to see if Adam was nearby.
He was nearby...and he was dead. Scott felt like screaming. It was almost impossible to get close to anybody in this war. You risked losing everyone you cared about. Grabbing Adam's things, Scott struggled to get under some kind of cover and out of the firing range. He wanted to get to safety and go through Adam's things in the hope that maybe there was someone back home that Scott could write to. Maybe let them know Adam didn't suffer. Coming up empty he just lay on the ground. As he started to lose consciousness again, Pittsburgh came rushing back loud and clear.
############
Gertrude Reece had never been one to have premonitions about anything, but this time the feeling was just too strong to ignore. She had to go talk to Betty, but the phones were ringing off the hook about the latest drama they were airing. Plus, the W.E.N.N. was planning something big, and people were constantly calling to volunteer to help.
Maple just happened to walk in the door the minute the switchboard had decided to take a break. "Maple, I need you to take over the phones for me for a few minutes."
"I can't, Gertie. I'm on the air in fifteen minutes and I haven't seen my script yet."
Not paying any attention to her aim, Gertie haphazardly tossed a script Maple's direction. "There's your script. I need you to sit here while I go talk to Betty."
Before Maple could argue back, Gertie had ripped off her headset and was making good time down the hallway to the Writer's Room.
Pausing in the doorway before making herself known, Gertie watched Betty as she worked. During the last year or so Betty had become more and more distant to everyone around her. The slightest thing sent her into a frenzy and she spent more time in this room alone than ever before. She was still turning out scripts at an amazing pace, but she really didn't go into the control room much to monitor broadcasts, or spend time with sponsors, or even have coffee in the Green Room with everyone else.
At first, everyone figured that her odd behavior was just her upcoming wedding to Victor giving her a case of cold feet, but then the wedding date was postponed due to Betty being ill, then it was called off because Victor was told to come back to Washington and he wasn't sure when he would be back in Pittsburgh. The latest speculation was that the whole engagement was going to be called off simply because things weren't working out like originally planned.
Gertie watched as Betty stopped typing and let her head rest in her hands. Knocking on the door frame softly so as not to startle her, Gertie walked into the room. "Betty, dear, are you okay?"
Wearily lifting her head from its defeated position, Betty sighed. "I'm just tired, Gertie. I didn't get much sleep last night and I have to get this new show finished for the sponsor's approval--I think he's supposed to be here later this afternoon. Then I have to finish the books, pay the rest of this month's bills, and after all that I have several personal errands to run. I'm so busy I don't have time to turn around." Grabbing a pile of letters, she stood and opened the filing cabinet.
Walking over to her, Gertie wrapped her arms around Betty and held her closely. "You're thinking about Scott again, aren't you?"
Betty snapped her head up from Gertie's shoulder. "I...what?"
"Stop denying it, dear. We all think about him. We're all worried sick and we have no way of knowing where he is or even how he is."
"Well, yes, I think about him, but no more than any other time."
"And how many other times would that be?"
Making an exasperated noise, Betty pushed away and sat down at her desk. "Okay, so I think about him. I think about him too much. Gertie, he's been gone for over two years and we've only gotten one letter from him and I don't know what that means. Either something is seriously wrong or he's just hideous at keeping up his correspondence."
"Now, Betty...it could be that they're just working him so hard he hasn't had a chance to sit down and let us know anything. Even Maple is worried because she hasn't gotten anything from him, either. And we haven't heard anything from the military. That has to be a good sign."
Betty rocked in her chair while fiddling with a stray thread on her sweater. "I shouldn't even be thinking about him. Not while I'm engaged to someone else, anyway." The little diamond on her hand twinkled scoldingly.
"Betty, I hardly think that your being worried about Scott is an endangerment to your upcoming marriage."
"Upcoming...that would be interpreted to mean sometime soon. The last time I checked, there were no wedding plans, not even a wedding date. Thanks to Washington and the rest of the world, I can't even make a decision on when I'm going to spend the rest of my life with someone. Or even if I want to...."
Gertie's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What do you mean, if you want to?"
Biting her lip, Betty's expression was like that of someone cursing themselves for giving away too much information. "Look," she started, "...oh, forget it. It's just me feeling sorry for myself and that's not worth mentioning."
Gertie stood and shut the door so no one else would hear their conversation. "Betty, what is going on with you? You say over and over again that you love Victor and that you can't wait to be married, but the last two times he's called you've told me to tell him you aren't here. You lock yourself up in this room and you don't talk to anybody. You go home late and you get here early and both times you're so tired you can barely move." Placing her hands on Betty's face so that she could look directly at her, Gertie continued. "The last time you did this, it was because we all thought Victor was dead. We know he isn't, so why are you doing this to yourself? Are you really in love with Victor, or is it something else?"
The bravado that Betty had been trying to keep up started slipping halfway through Gertie's speech, and by the end of it she was sobbing.
"Oh, Betty, honey, this wasn't what I meant to do." Gertie fished for a handkerchief in her dress pocket and started wiping Betty's face with it.
"No, Gertie, you're right about everything. I don't know what I feel. Everything is so mixed up inside." Folding the handkerchief in her lap, Betty motioned to a chair for Gertie to sit down. "Please...if I tell you something, could you promise me you won't say anything to anyone else?"
"You know me, Betty."
"Of course I do. That's why I'm asking."
"This is different! I won't say a word."
Betty folded her arms and stared at the ceiling for a moment. She told
Gertie about the recurring nightmare she'd been having and about taking Scott's only letter. "The thing is, Scott left before I could ever make up my mind on who I cared about. Well, that's not exactly true. I care about both of them, but in different ways. And I know that either one of them would make me happy. But I simply can't make a life-long decision one way or the other until I talk to Scott. He left so suddenly. If he'd given some kind of warning beforehand, maybe I wouldn't be feeling this way." Betty reached across and grabbed Gertie's hand. "What if I marry Victor, and then Scott comes back and I suddenly realize that I've made a mistake? That I've chosen the wrong person to spend my life with?"
"But what will you do if you don't marry Victor?" Gertie stared at her hard.
"I don't know. I love him, I know that I do. We have so much in common, we share the same thoughts and feelings about things, we both love the radio so much...."
"I sense a 'but' coming here."
"No, you don't!"
"Yes, I do! Betty, why are you doing this to yourself? You sound as though you've already made up your mind."
"That's the problem. I do sound that way, but I haven't decided anything, really."
"Betty, if you could go back in time, go back to that moment when Scott walked in the door with his uniform and to when he told you he was leaving, what would you tell him?"
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