"Yeah, hospital food would have been a welcome change," Noah said. "At least I knew that after a year or so, I could go back to real food - you're kind of stuck with the hospital food, huh?"
"Kind of. We order pizza sometimes, but that's really hard to sneak around a floor full of kids. They have radar." Leto said, grinning. "It's not so bad. All the jello and popsicles I could ever want."
Noah laughed. "Pizza was the second meal that I requested when I got home. I wanted a McDonald's hamburger first and pizza second." At the mention of jello, Noah's grin softened into a nostalgic, sad smile. "My parents would send me care packages while I was in the desert and they sent us a 6 pack of cherry jello cups. I, of course, shared it with my guys. They adored it. There was one cup left over and I stuffed it in my pocket for later. We were out going from door to door trying to track down some insurgents. We had barged in this one house, well more like a hut. There was a little girl there - she couldn't have been over 7 years old. She was naked and I could count every one of her ribs. Her parents had been shot in the hut and she was crying over them. How she survived, I have no idea. I fed her my leftover jello and she loved it." Noah looked down at the table, not sure why he had shared that story. It didn't have a particular happy ending. He could still hear that little girl's crying - her wailing sobs still haunted his dreams.
Well. Crap. Leto watched him as he told his story, and couldn't help but feel bad for bringing up a trigger. What could she say to that? She wanted to ask what became of the girl in the end, but she knew enough to know that those sorts of stories seldom had a happy ending. "As a mother, I can't imagine what it's like over there. The idea is a little terrifying."
Still not back from the flashback, Noah nodded, his eyes faraway. "It's the most horrible sight anyone could witness." He fought to crawl out of the flashback and succeeded when his eyes focused on Leto, on her concerned expression, the sound of utensils clinking against plates, and finally the room came into focus.
He gave Leto a small half smile. "The flashbacks..." he tapped his forehead with two fingers. "...they just pop up at random moments. I'm sorry for that...and for bringing down the mood of dinner."
"Don't apologize." Leto said, shaking her head. "It's a good story." Kind of. Morbid, but good. It was just hard to think about people going through that. "Have you thought about what you're going to do next?"
Noah sighed inwardly. It was a question that everyone asked. One for which he had no answer. "I have no idea, to be honest." He paused. "I really like kids and they usually respond well to me, so maybe something in that. Or maybe some kind of civilian job on a post. I'm just focusing on phasing back to "normal" life for a while and then I'll figure out my future."
Wanting to know more about her, he asked, "Have you always wanted to be a nurse? To work with kids?"
"Pretty much." Leto answered, easily letting the subject slide. She figured too much of talking about him would make him feel uneasy. "When I was little I thought maybe I'd be a teacher, but I made up my mind when I was a teenager. I worked trauma first, which I love, but the hours weren't great to mix with raising a baby."
"Trauma, huh?" Noah asked, interested. He leaned his elbows on the table. "I can definitely see you in the ER...your calm presence must have worked wonders." Noah grimaced. "Although, I bet you saw some pretty gruesome sights."
Leto smiled under the compliment, or what she took as one. "I didn't mind gruesome. I was never one of those girls that fainted at the sight of blood. I liked the pace of it, and the urgency, and it was very rewarding. It was a lot of fun when I was younger, but the hours can be insane. I just couldn't do twelve-plus hour shifts once I had Levon, I didn't want to be an absentee mother."