A Revelation of War

Disclaimer: The characters of Remember WENN and the brilliant show itself is the property of Rupert Holmes and Howard Meltzer Productions. No copyright infringement intended.

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 he could picture were his final moments at the station.

The sound of the train whistle made him jump. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that 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 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 that 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 that 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 Barbicon. 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 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 problems enough 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…or…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 that had raged all around came to a temporary halt. 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 never being home long enough to remember he was around. His teenage years 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 done was end up in Pittsburgh and at WENN. Then the guilt started when he thought about everyone at the little station. He had 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. But 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. So 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, he 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 his companion 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 which direction.

Waking up, he 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 dirt and 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 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 that 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. And 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 also 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, and 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 lifelong 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.

Betty’s face grew sad. "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 go back to when he told you he was leaving, what would you tell him?"

"Okay, this can’t be heaven since I feel like death warmed over, but it certainly can’t be hell since I’m not out in the middle of a battlefield. Where am I?" Muttering, trying to pull himself upright and still groggy from his drug-induced stupor, Scott slowly realized he was in a hospital. "I guess that explains the nurses."

Wanting to get up and move around, Scott started to pull the sheets off until he noticed the number of bandages and the sharp pain that followed. Gasping, he froze where he was. "On second thought, maybe I’ll stick around here."

"Hey! You shouldn’t move!" A frazzled nurse came rushing over from another patient across the room. "I’m sorry. We didn’t know you’d be awake so soon. You need to stay in bed, preferably lying down. Rest, rest, rest!" The nurse rushed about straightening his sheets, pillow, and IV while talking at a rapid pace.

Scott looked amused. "I think it’s you that needs to rest."

"No time for that. Too many of you boys in here to take a break. Now, can I get you some water or something?" Her hands flew as she talked and she fussed with his pillow in a motherly manner.

"What’s wrong with me and when can I get out of here?"

The nurse smiled but shook her finger at him. "Now I can’t answer that question but I’m sure a doctor will be around shortly so you rest and don’t concern yourself with that. If you need something to help with the pain so you can sleep I can take care of that, but I’m not Western Union so you’ll have to wait for the doctor for information."

Scott smiled back at her. "Sorry. Didn’t mean to add to your workload. I can wait."

"Good boy. Now, swallow this and get some sleep." Handing him a pill, Scott obediently swallowed and handed the cup of water back to her.

"Will I see you again?" The nurse looked tired, but the twinkle in her eyes made Scott feel better just looking at them.

"Probably. Now, close your eyes and not another word out of you."

Chuckling, Scott closed his eyes and began to drift off. Before he fell asleep, he wondered how many other men she had bossed into better health. That thought alone made him truly smile for the first time in months.

When he woke up again he vaguely remembered dreaming about Pittsburgh. Something was nagging at him and he couldn’t place it. The more he lay there, the more he knew the nagging feeling was his conscience telling him to get a letter back to Pittsburgh. He had to let everyone at WENN know he was still alive. Especially Betty, although he figured by this time she was married and had forgotten he had even existed. That thought alone bothered him.

"Oh! I see you’re awake again Lieutenant. The doctor is making his rounds and should be getting to you in an hour or two." The nurse that was watching him now was a different woman than before, much older with graying hair and stern eye.

"Nurse, I was wondering if I could have some paper and a pencil? I need to write a letter."

"Certainly. I’ll see what I can find."

Upon returning with the requested items, she helped Scott sit up as best he could and gave him a tray to use as a writing surface. "When you’re done with your letter, just leave it in the envelope and I’ll take care to get it where it’s supposed to be."

"Thank you." The nurse managed to crack a smile and left Scott to his letter. He thought for a few minutes, furrowed his brow in concentration, and started writing.

The day had been going well…too well. She was almost convinced something was wrong by how well everyone was acting. The shows had gone flawlessly, the actors were getting along, and the sponsors were happy. Betty felt like she had stepped into some kind of alternate universe.

"Hilary, I just wanted to tell you that your portrayal of Elizabeth today was very well done."

"Thank you Betty. If I could request it though, having Elizabeth as an undercover secret agent to spy on Brent during another one of his bouts of amnesia isn’t much of a confidence booster, and I would like it if we could get off this line of storytelling? People are listening to enough war news without it invading our soaps. The Hands of Time is a romance, not a statement about the insanity of war."

"Sorry Hilary. I guess I just got carried away again." She let the statement hang in the air and turned to go back to the Writer’s Room. Hilary looked after the retreating figure and sighed sympathetically.

"Going back to the Writer’s Room to hide. But considering the circumstances, I guess that’s to be expected."

Several weeks before, Victor had returned to the station specifically to talk to Betty. He was tired of her avoiding him and demanded to know what her true feelings were. They started talking in his office, but the conversation soon escalated into an outright argument.

Sitting in front of her typewriter, Betty thought of her last conversation with Victor. She knew she had made the right decision, she just wished she had gone about it differently. Now she wondered what would happen when the war was over. And she worried daily about Scott.

Leaning back in her chair, she switched on the little radio by her desk in order to monitor the broadcast. Five minutes later, someone was shouting her name in the hallway.

"BETTY!!! BETTY!!! A LETTER!"

Leaping out of her chair like she’d been shot out of a cannon, Betty flew down the hall towards the reception area. Gertie, Maple, and Eugenia were waving something in the air wildly as it passed back and forth between the three of them. Maple was in tears.

"He’s written, Betty. It’s a letter from Scott. He’s okay! He’s alive and he thinks he might get to come home soon!"

Shoving the letter into her hands, Gertie pushed Betty towards her chair in front of the switchboard. With trembling hands, Betty started to read.

May 1944

To everyone at WENN:

You don’t know how sorry I am that it has been so long since I’ve written. I could make the excuse that a war makes it tough on a person to pen a letter, but I think you’d all know the truth behind that. I’m writing from a hospital right now. Can’t really tell you more than that, but I’m still in one piece and if I’m lucky, the military will let me come home in a few months. If I can’t come home I’ll be put in an office somewhere; my injuries won’t allow me back on a battlefield. I guess I should be thanking my lucky stars for that. Someone has been looking out for me…I’d like to think it has been all of you keeping me alive these last two and a half years.

This letter will have to be short because the doctor has been around and I have to rest, but I promise I will write more often than every two years from now on. Piece of cake.

Scott

The smell of spring was in the air and those that were able to appreciate it had taken advantage of the situation. For the moment, peace had taken the place of those awful sirens declaring the presence of bombers or invading foreign troops. If it weren’t for all the building rubble and bullet holes, a person might never suspect the people were going through a war. On leave for a few precious days from his military duties, Scott had taken his latest batch of letters from WENN to a table outside of a pub to read and enjoy. He still couldn’t believe that after such a long time of not sending them anything, they wrote him back in droves. This mail day had brought him letters from Maple, Gertie, Mr. Foley, and Mackie. Maple almost wrote him on a daily basis at this point. He still felt bad about not writing her before, but they had discussed this over many months, and all was forgiven and forgotten now. He had even gotten a few letters from Betty, though they were short. He could tell she wanted to say a lot more, but held back, whether from fear or anger he couldn’t tell.

His stint in the hospital had been long, but since it had been over, Scott began appreciating things he’d never thought of before. "Who knew?" he mused. Now he couldn’t wait to start his life over again. "No more scams, no more cons, no more lies." He had to start over. Even, he thought, if it meant leaving the one place that had truly changed him.

"But where would I go?" he thought mournfully. Scott really didn’t want to go back to Nantucket, at least not permanently, and there wasn’t anywhere else for him to go except Pittsburgh. His "family" was there and they were waiting for him. He didn’t know if things would be the same when he went back…he had gotten letters from friends that had already been sent home and had found it wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be to get back into civilian life. Their wives had changed, their children had changed, and they simply couldn’t go back to the way they and lived before the war. It was a hard transition and they seemed to be grasping at straws. "I wonder if everyone at WENN will treat me the same way." He wouldn’t know until he was able to go home…whenever that was.

But that was a depressing thought and he didn’t want to be depressed today. Opening his letters he started reading and forgot about going anywhere. Mr. Foley’s letter was chock-full of gossip and hearsay. Gertie’s letter was full of even more gossip and hearsay. Scott pondered whether or not they got together to unload their information and if ears across Pittsburgh burned. Mackie’s letter was full of jokes and stories to make him laugh out loud…he even told the joke about the elephant and the 10 bucks again.

Hearing laughter across the street, Scott looked up and saw a couple walking hand in hand enjoying the day like everyone else. Something about it made him smile, but also made him a little wistful. Would there ever be anyone he could walk with like that?

Maple had told him in an earlier letter that Betty and Victor’s engagement had been broken off and that Victor had moved to Washington for the duration of the war. Often, Scott thought back to that day in the office; back to his own dreams of what might have happened if he had been the one to stay and Victor had gone to London. Now, he thought, he wasn’t sorry he had come, just sorry he hadn’t handled it better.

He wanted to go home. Back to WENN and Pittsburgh. He had never felt homesick before, but it was almost overwhelming him now. He wanted to go back to where he felt needed and wanted. Romance wasn’t even an issue anymore. Even if he and Betty never developed any relationship past being friends, he knew his world wouldn’t come crashing to an end. He would always love her, but if she never felt the same, he could go on living. But he would never know how *she* felt unless he could get home to talk to her.

If this war would just come to an end….

He started to go back to his letters, but an odd commotion was erupting in the pub and down the street aways. He could hear people singing and laughing, dancing in an overjoyed manner. Grabbing the first soul out of the building, Scott inquired about the sudden party-like atmosphere. "What’s going on in there?"

The old man, who had thrown off his years-long sorrows like a blanket, joyously exclaimed, "Hitler is dead! Germany has surrendered! Europe is free!!" Impulsively he threw his arms around Scott and squeezed hard. Weeping, he then let go and left Scott standing by his table.

"I have to get back to headquarters," he suddenly thought. But in the background he could hear a radio blaring the news and he couldn’t move. The news he had waited so long to hear had arrived. Watching the joy on people’s faces and listening to them as the word spread like wildfire, he drank in his surroundings, lifted his eyes to the skies and smiled.

Maybe now he could go home.

As the strains of Jed Jenner, G-Man came to a close, Betty stepped out of the control room to get some much needed coffee. What with all the news of the war coming to an end in Europe and picking up in the Pacific, she had stayed up late getting scripts re-organized in order to accommodate all the news from the teletype. There were stacks and stacks of scripts in order, piled everywhere in the Green Room, and Betty wanted to be sure they were put in their proper places.

"There! One less task to deal with today." she groaned. Sipping her coffee carefully, she thumbed through an old script from Sam Dane. One in which Scott had played the crafty detective. Chuckling to herself, she remembered the times when he threw himself into the part, and the rest of the cast trying desperately to keep up. More often than not, they eventually took over and he had to figure out where he was in the script.

Ever since that day last year when he had written, she couldn’t wait to talk to him again. She was glad she had written him, she just wished she had really been able to say what she felt. Mere words on paper couldn’t do it, although it was somewhat ironic considering she could write scripts for radio shows until her fingers gave out, but couldn’t get a letter written without some kind of apprehension.

She still wrote Victor letters every now and then. He seemed to enjoy getting them and helped her with ideas for new shows, complaints from the staff, etc. He wasn’t dating anybody, but had made mention of someone there he was interested in taking to dinner. With that, Betty breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted no one carrying any torches for her. If he found someone else, that was wonderful, but if not, there was nothing saying they couldn’t still be close friends.

Of course, much of what she dreamed anymore depended on whether or not Scott came home. And if they got a chance to talk. She wanted to know for sure if she had ended her engagement for the right reasons.

"I want him to come home." she whispered to the script in front of her.

"Hey Betty," a voice suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts. "I’m gonna take Maple here out to lunch, so if you’d leave my scripts on Gertie’s desk for when I get back, I’d love you for it." Mackie poked his head through the swinging doors and gave Betty a grin.

"Sure thing Mackie," she grinned back.

An hour later, as Jeff and Hilary started the afternoon lineup, Betty enlisted the help of Gertie and Mr. Eldridge to box the remaining piles of scripts and stack them in the storeroom.

"Gertie, can you hand me that pile? I can put these in the broom closet since we seem to have run out of space everywhere else."

"The storeroom just needs to be reorganized so everything will fit," Gertie stated factually.

"I know, I’m just going to put these up front since we’re out of boxes. I’ll deal with the storeroom later." Arms full and almost overloaded, Betty carefully walked out of the Green Room doors and down the hall. A thin man in an ill-fitting uniform was standing with his back turned to her and the desk. He was looking at the pictures on the wall. Funny, she hadn’t heard the door open.

"Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?"

She saw the man jump, as if startled, but he didn’t turn around immediately. Slowly, he did turn to face her. Just like in her dream, she recognized him. And she dropped the pile of scripts into disarray on the floor.

"Oh…. Oh my…."

Scott didn’t need to say anything, but overcome with emotion, he couldn’t if he’d wanted to. He had waited so long to come home. Pittsburgh was home; WENN was home. He held out his hand to touch her, make sure she was real and that he wasn’t still in a hospital somewhere dreaming. Her trembling smile was the most beautiful sight on earth.

Betty moved to hug him, to welcome him back, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she held him close and wept. To her surprise, he started to cry, too. She couldn’t hold him up as he then sank to his knees and kissed the floor, saying over and over again, "Home…home…home." Her heart ached for him and for what he had been through the last four years and she planned to tell him so.

"Scott…."

He shushed her quietly and stood up to face her. "Not yet. There will be time for that soon, but I just have to see everything again. Make sure it’s all still here."

"We’ve all missed you so."

"We?"

Betty smiled and wiped a tear from his cheek. "Yes, we. Come with me into the Green Room…I know everyone else will be so glad to know you’re here." Taking his hand in hers, they started down the hall. Neither one knew what the future would bring, but they felt certain it would be an interesting several weeks to say the least.

They couldn’t wait to begin.

*fin*

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