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liebgotts-lovergirl · 5 months

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Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 22: One Tough Broad

Summary: "I just needed to be someone else for a bit." A/N: I have not spoken French in about three years now, so Gene's dialogue might be completely wrong. But at least I tried 🤷🏻‍♀️ Also, while I've never seen raspberries growing on Currahee, there are so many plants, who's to say they're not somewhere along the trail? Warnings: mentions of war, injury, hospitals, language Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu @hxad-ovxr-hxart

Belgium, 1944

Full of purpose, Gene leads Zenie from the Jeep to the town’s large church. (Perhaps it’s not very big – she’s just used to the small, white, wooden churches of the South where congregations squeeze together in hard pews to sing and renounce.) He hustles her right past the crowds outside, only sparing a glance at the piles of bodies lined up against a low wall. The scene steals the breath from Zenie’s lips, but there’s no time to stop.

“J'ai besoin d'une infirmière,” Gene announces when they enter the church. Some other medics glance up, but none answer. If he had wanted their answer, he would have asked in English.

Instead, it’s a young Frenchman’s voice that replies, “De quoi avez-vous besoin?”

“J'ai besoin de parler à une infirmière. C’est urgent.”

When the young man – Is he a doctor? He doesn’t wear an armband or uniform of any sort. He might be just a young man – rushes off, Gene once again guides Zenie. This time, he starts her toward the back of the church, to a more isolated area.

He finds a small room and leads her into it, shutting the door behind her before rushing back to check on Skinny and his leg. For a few moments, Zenie is alone in the dim room, waiting. Her only companion is the patch of wintery sunlight coming from a small stained-glass window on the wall above her. Some old crates stacked in the back corner provide a place for her to sit. She practically falls onto them she feels so exhausted, though the morning has just begun.

When Gene returns, a young woman follows him into the room. Zenie jumps up as the door quickly opens and shuts. The action makes Gene’s brows furrow.

“Thought you might feel better if you had a, um, a woman to help out with the stitchin’ and all.” When Zenie blanches, he rushes on. “Don’t worry. I trust her.”

The woman is young, maybe the same age as them. Kind eyes survey her as she looks between Gene and Zenie. Though Zenie can’t understand what she says to Gene in French, the question in the woman’s eyes is clear: Who is this soldier, and why are we alone? Whatever Gene tells her, her realization is just as clear.

The woman approaches her the way that one approaches an animal that they are afraid of startling. She motions for Zenie to take a seat and then does the same, settling in on a box across from her. Her hands are folded in her lap when she nods to Zenie’s jacket and asks, “May I . . . ?”

“Yes.”

Zenie assumes that Gene has told this nurse about her situation, but the woman still starts slightly when she pulls back Zenie’s jacket and sees the bandages wrapped around her chest. Her shock is momentary. Her face quickly settles into a mask of concentration as she and Gene inspect Zenie’s arm.

She bites her lip to keep herself from flinching every time they pick a small fragment of shrapnel from her flesh. When she offers her a flask to draw from, she gratefully accepts it and downs the firewater, grimacing at the taste, as the nurse begins stitching up the long gash on her arm.

Before she knows it, it’s all over.

“Très chanceux.” The nurse pats Zenie’s good shoulder and helps her shrug her jacket back on. From the pocket of her apron, she removes a strip of bedsheet that she uses as a sling to secure Zenie’s arm. “Could have been much worse. Could have . . .” She doesn’t have to finish. Her eyes flick upwards, toward the stained-glass window behind Zenie’s head. “Someone is watching over you.”

“You won’t tell?” Zenie blurts out.

The nurse offers her a small smile and shakes her head. It’s all the reassurance that she needs.

“Thank you.”

She nods, then turns her attention to Eugene. “J'enverrai des fournitures avec vous.”

Zenie breathes a sigh of relief when the nurse leads them out of the room, back into the makeshift hospital proper. She hands Gene a small box and begins loading it with what she can. Not able to understand the French words they exchange, Zenie’s eyes wander, taking in the scene around her.

Wounded men are everywhere that she looks, some far worse than others. A feeling that Zenie cannot bring herself to name clings to them, its grip growing stronger with every breath that they take, waiting for its moment to strike. Weary and worn medics weave their way through them. Nurses hold hands and offer solace when and where they can.

Passing through them, she catches a flash – ever so brief – of dark hair rushing by with a man on a stretcher. Zenie pauses for a moment to stare. More nurses and medics follow, and Zenie loses sight of who she thought that she saw.

“How are you feeling, Skinny?”

Her fellow paratrooper looks up at her from the cot they have him situated on as he waits for his turn to be helped. Pain is evident on his face. His eyes are hazy with it, and glassy with that expression that she’s come to know from seeing him in bars and pubs after he’s had a little something to drink.

“They gave me alcohol, but I don’t think it’s doing any good.”

“You’ve built up a tolerance to it with all your partying.”

Skinny grimaces. “I guess. Hey, how about you? They fix up your arm?”

“Yeah. I’m going back with Doc Roe.”

“Oh.” Skinny settles back onto the cot, his body loosening with the action. “You’re getting out of here pretty quick, then.”

“The nurse said I was lucky.”

“You are,” he grumbles. He lifts his head a little, making sure she’s still there. “Hey, Tommy. Do me a favor, yeah? If you see Shifty and the rest of the guys, tell them that I’m gonna be okay.”

“I will.”

“Tommy!” Gene clutches the box of supplies tightly as he rounds the corner. He nods towards the door; time to go.

“Bye, Skinny.”

“Bye, Tommy.” For the sake of her friend, Zenie pretends not to notice the frown that tugs at his lips when she steps away, leaving him alone in a place so full of pain and suffering . . . and death.

Father Maloney is holding mass when they return. A good number of Zenie’s friends are kneeled before him as he speaks Latin. Bill and Babe tried to explain it all to her once, but she can’t figure out if they’re being blessed or reprimanded for their sins.

She thanks Gene for everything and then makes her way towards the group. “Go,” she can hear Father Maloney saying as she approaches. “and fight bravely for your country, and for your God.”

Well, she thinks, that answers that question.

The men stand. There are sighs of relief and a few laughs.

“Well guys,” Skip Muck says with a grin. “If we die now, we’re dying in a state of grace! Isn’t that right, Babe?”

The Philadelphian laughs, starts to say something, then stops short as Zenie and Gene approach. His eyebrows disappear underneath the rim of his helmet.

“You’re back?!”

Zenie can’t help but smirk. She might have a sling on her arm and a nasty looking scar where the nurse – or Renée, as Gene says her name is – stitched her up, but she’s back with Easy Company where she belongs. What was it that Bill had said when he made his glorious return from the hospital?

She claps Babe on the shoulder, smiling when she quips, “Had to come back and keep your ass in line, Heffron.”

Beside him, John Julian laughs. Babe, on the other hand, still looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Boy, Bill will be glad to see you,” Julian says. “None of us knew what the hell he was gonna do when we heard you got hit.”

Me neither, Zenie thinks, remembering how her friend had reacted upon learning her secret. Not badly, but . . . She wasn’t exactly around long enough to deal with any fallout. Beads of sweat appear under her helmet at the thought of what might have happened after she left – or what might happen now that she’s back. If Babe and Julian are joking around with her, then Bill didn’t announce her secret to the world the second that Gene swept her off to dig the shrapnel out of her arm. She hoped that he wouldn’t. Maybe she won’t be court martialed or sent home – today, anyway.

For a moment she stands frozen. Not for the first time, blood rushes in her ears like roaring ocean waves as she considers her options. Should she return to her foxhole? Or find someone else to share one with? She could always try her luck wandering to the outpost to find Shifty, could hide out there for a while.

Fate decides for her.

If there’s one thing that Zenie has learned in all the time she’s known Bill Guarnere, it’s that his insistence that you should never volunteer for anything is a lifesaver. With a sling on her arm, she shouldn’t be on a patrol. Sergeant Martin’s eyes pass over her, not even considering taking someone who’s injured his dominant arm. She slips away as Gene, Julian, and Babe all gather around for their sudden orders, her heartbeat still echoing in her ears.

Grey clouds and the branches of barren trees block the wintery sun that hangs somewhere overhead, out of reach. Its position is impossible to find, and the time is just as impossible to calculate. But if she had to guess, Zenie would wager that Bill is out doing his rounds right now, making sure that everyone is okay – or as okay as they’re able to be in this place. That will give her a minute to figure out what to say when she sees him. Or at least to give her a moment alone where she can breathe.

Her foxhole comes into sight. At almost the same moment, a helmet appears over its rim, shadowing eyes that latch onto her with suspicion. She stops in her tracks.

“Tommy?” Bill jumps out of the foxhole and stands before her in an instant. Over and over again, he looks her up and down, his mouth agape. “You’re back!”

Slowly, she nods. No one else is around, but she asks in a quiet voice, “Should I have stayed in the town?”

Bill’s eyebrows knit together. “Should you – what?” Understanding dawns on his face. “Oh!” He lowers his own voice. “I didn’t turn you in, if that’s what you mean.”

He didn’t say anything. Zenie’s heart slows a bit. Her secret is out, and so far, he’s kept it.

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Bill repeats. “Jesus, Tommy. You’re my friend, that’s why!” He drops back down into their foxhole. When Zenie doesn’t move, he gestures for her to do the same. They sit for a moment, staring out at the line, neither of them speaking.

When Gene learned her secret, he had called her brave. He wanted nothing in return except for her to take better care of herself so that her secret wouldn’t get out. Shifty had also called her brave, back when he uncovered the truth. He had promised not to turn her in, to be in her corner. So far, Bill has said that he hasn’t turned her in. But what happens now?

She glances at him from the corner of her eye. He’s looking straight ahead, out into the nothingness of the snow.

Ages later, Bill sighs. “So . . . Can we talk about . . . this?”

This. This lie, this charade. This secret.

“Okay.” She didn’t have this conversation with Gene; he hadn’t asked why or how she did any of this. With Shifty, she had made the first move by asking what he wanted to know. But with Bill . . . He’s a wildcard. There’s a reason that wild is part of his nickname.

“Okay,” Bill echoes. Silence, for a moment; not something Zenie is used to experiencing around him. When he finally speaks, his voice is much softer than usual – another change of pace. “So you’ve been pretendin’ to be a man this whole time?”

Zenie’s own voice is nothing but a whisper. “Yes.”

“How much of it all was true, though?”

Most of it, she realizes for the first time. She never lied about where she was from. And other than using a fake name, she’s never lied about who she is. Everything that she’s ever said about her family, her early life, her likes, her dislikes – it was the truth.

“My name isn’t really Thomas Driver, obviously. Other than that . . . Almost everything else has been true.” In all the times that she’s wondered how her friends would react if they learned her secret, she never got as far as imagining how she would explain what she’s done or why she’s doing it. Now she’s grasping at straws. “I just needed to be someone else for a bit.”

Still looking out over the rim of the foxhole, Bill nods. “What is your name, actually? Can I ask?”

“Zena,” she admits. The name feels different in her mouth now and fits strangely in her ears. For years now, the only person who has called her by that name has been Shifty. “Zena B McGlamery. But almost everyone back home calls me Zenie.”

“Zenie.” For the first time, Bill looks at her. Like Shifty before him, he’s looking at her for the first time and seeing Zenie instead of Tommy. He tilts his head. “What does the B stand for?”

“It’ll stand for Beat Your Ass if you tell anyone.”

Laughs burst forth from them both. Good; despite everything, she can still make him do that, at least.

“Beatrice,” she amends. “It was my Granny’s name.”

“Granny. God, if she could see ya now!”

Oh God. Who knows what she would say.

“Is that why you did all this?” Bill asks, his voice quiet again. “After she died – Wait! That letter from your ma, right before the jump. Christ! You really did run away! This is why they didn’t know you joined the army.” Half of his mouth quirks upwards as his eyes flick over her, taking her in in a new light. “You know, for someone so quiet, you really got a rebellious streak, huh?” He punches her playfully on her uninjured arm. “Shoulda known you were one tough son of a bitch that day with the raspberries. Er, one tough broad, I mean.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t remember that?”

He squints at her, like it’s the most unbelievable thing in the world that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “When we first got to Toccoa, when they were makin’ us walk up Currahee to get us used to it, Luz pointed out some berries along the trail. Everyone was worried they were poisonous – wouldn’t take a chance with ‘em, especially since there were briars everywhere. But you said ‘They’re black raspberries!’, shoved your hand through the briars, and picked a handful for all of us. Your hand was covered in juice and blood from where the thorns snagged your skin, and you didn’t even care. It was only the second day I’d known ya, and you’d already stood your ground against me and gotten covered in blood just for a few berries.” Bill makes a noise that’s half laugh, half scoff. “I just remember thinkin’, ‘This goddamn shortie is tougher than he looks.’ And I was right – I just didn’t know the half of it back then.”

Granny had taken her out to pick black raspberries when she was young. Of course she would recognize them, try to pick a few if she had the chance. But try as she might, she can’t place this specific story in her memory. She’ll just have to take Bill’s word for it.

The Italian shrugs. “Anyway. God, I still can’t wrap my mind around the whole thing.”

“Well, now maybe it all makes more sense.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Doc Roe and Shifty. That’s it.”

“Since when?”

“Since Toccoa. But Shifty didn’t confront me about it until England, the night that you tried to give me that pin-up.”

He winces. “Sorry ‘bout that. I probably look real stupid now.”

“No,” Zenie assures him. It just makes her look like more of a liar.

Before she can tell him as much, Bill’s eyebrows knit together. “Your ma,” he says, his mind back on the letter from the day of the jump. “She really has no clue. You gonna go back to her when the war ends?”

Zenie hesitates. Mama promised she would protect her. Yet her father . . .

“Probably.”

Bill tilts his head. “Probably?”

“My father,” Zenie explains. “I don’t know what he would do if I came back. Running away, everything I’ve done . . .” She makes a vague gesture, like that explains everything.

“Ah.” Bill leans back against the packed earth of the foxhole, his gaze once again wandering out to the expanse of snow before them. He shakes his head, the action causing his helmet to make a scraping sound against the dirt behind him. “I said I was gonna get you home to your ma, remember? That still stands. Even if I gotta put your old man in his place.”

The mental image of Bill escorting her back into her home, of such a wild young man getting in her father’s face like some sort of brave prince facing the wrath of a dragon, is enough to make her smile. Something she could never hope to do, but that her friend could do without batting an eye.

“You said that you needed to be someone else for a bit,” Bill notes. He falls silent again.

“Yes.”

“I dunno, Tommy. If anything, maybe this whole thing allowed you to be more yourself.”

More herself? Tommy is a role she plays. Someone who’s brave and who has friends and who does all the things that Zenie herself could never hope to. They’re completely different.

When she doesn’t respond, Bill shrugs again. “Just a thought.”

“Your first one ever?” She teases.

He grins. “You know, kid? I think you’re gonna be okay.”

#i love them so much #their friendship means the world to me #the comparison of Bill facing her dad to a prince facing a dragon is 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼#im weeping into my palms #Also the raspberry story ???!!#My queen my beloved #i would pay so much money for a fake dating gone awry blurb where Zenie brings Bill home as “her boyfriend” solely to piss off her father #but of course the charade falls apart almost immediately bc they're not cut out to date each other and they are so fucking awkward that even #holding hands feels like a tremendous effort and it's so obviously strained 🤣#The bright side is that it would make bringing her actual boyfriend Shifty home a lot easier #Because he's a much more palatable option than Bill who cusses like a sailor and totally talks with his mouth full 🤣😭#fic recs

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liebgotts-lovergirl · 5 months

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Fire On Fire: Chapter 28

(Ch. 27) ... (Ch. 1)

II Gallery II Symbol Guide II

Summary: “If we could light up the room with pain, we’d be such a glorious fire.” - Ada Limon

WARNINGS: Graphic Violence, Death, Espionage, Survivor's Guilt, the usual.

A/N: I'm so sorry it's taken me fucking FOREVER to get this out, y'all! A LOT has been going on in these past months (the demise of a longterm relationship, renovations on my house, new jobs etc) but I hope this is worth the wait! 💖

Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @lieutenant-speirs @bellewintersroe @emmythespacecowgirl @holdingforgeneralhugs @parajumpboots @hxad-ovxr-hxart @sleepisforcowards @suugrbunz @ax-elcfucker-blog @chaosklutz @mads-weasley @vibing-away @eightysix-baby @ithinkabouttzu @emmylindersson @flowers-and-fichte

Contemporary: Midnight, December 3rd, 1944. Liart Station, France.

When the door to her private train compartment was opened, Alix made a silent promise to herself: As soon as the war was over, she was turning in her goddamn resignation letter to the OSS and going home. She couldn’t handle any more surprises on the job, not like this one.

“Sorry, I’m late, gorgeous," a lowered voice had remarked wryly as soon as the compartment door slid shut once more.

"You wouldn’t believe the traffic.”

The whisper came from a young man in a heavy coat who casually dropped into the seat next to her as though he belonged there. The dark brim of his fedora was pulled low over his eyes, casting his face in shadow, but she didn’t need to see its entirety to know who it was; she would recognize that gravelly voice anywhere.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded out of the corner of her mouth, making sure to keep her expression neutral as she flipped through her newspaper and fought the urge to smack the newcomer with it.

“Thought Nix woulda told ya,” Liebgott looked almost amused, a smirk playing on his lips.

He too spoke out of the corner of his mouth; someone had taught him well.

“Donovan needed an interrogator with an Austrian dialect. Said this one’s gonna be a real doozy. Called me in as a temp.”

Alix’s dark eyes narrowed, causing her blue contacts to sting.

“You’re the floater? You’re–”

“Lieutenant Fritz Eberhardt,” he finished with a nod, casually taking his right hand out of his pocket to reveal the worn, silver skull ring of the Werwolf Kommandos, engraved with the tell-tale motto of the SS:

‘Meine Ehre Heisst Treue’.

My Honor Means Loyalty.

How ironic.

The paratrooper and translator shot her a roguish wink, leaning back with an arm stretched out lazily along the back of his seat like nothing was wrong.

“I've been assigned to accompany you to your Paris engagement, Fraulein."

The spy stiffened.

This was the first time that she could recall ever seeing Joe out of uniform and it would be a shame to get blood all over his nice coat but sweet Jesus, Alix was about ready to make that sacrifice.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the auburn-haired girl muttered under her breath. “You’re going to get us both killed.”

“You don’t gotta worry ‘bout me,” Joe chuckles. “Trust me-”

"Right, because that's gone so well for me before," the spy snapped sharper than intended.

Joe's eyebrows shot to the compartment ceiling, his cocky demeanor gone in a flash, replaced by a sudden scowl.

"The hell's that supposed to mean?"

Before Alix could find the words to reply, the shrill whistle of the train screamed out, indicating their departure from Liart Station and the spy took a shaky breath, hearing the rumbling of the wheels on the track underneath them.

She was stuck with him now.

Trying to ignore the ache in her chest at Joe's unexpected presence, Alix tried to force her unfocused eyes to stare at the newspaper in her hands but the words only blurred before her.

"Didja do a bug sweep already?" Joe inquired with a casual yawn as he glanced across her to the window, while Alix flipped the page of her newspaper so hard that she nearly tore it.

"Of course I did," the spy answered indignantly, unable to contain her irritation.

"That's why you were supposed to come early: to help me look. Listening devices could've been anywhere in here."

“Don’t gimme that shit,” Joe scoffed in an almost dismissive tone as he tapped the filter of his Reemtsma cigarette.

“Since the liberation, the Krauts have lost a lot of resources and stick to their secret little underground social clubs or whatever. I got the whole rundown from HQ.”

Alix huffed.

Joe was right, damn him.

While on the surface, France had cleaned up its act, the rotten undergrowth of Nazis and their collaborators remained, festering beneath the surface.

The chances of them taking the time to bug train compartments were miniscule at best.

“Still,” she responded with a petulant roll of her eyes. “You should’ve been here on time. You never know.”

"Yeah, well you ain't the only one with shit to take care of, okay? I got held up."

Alix's dark eyes flickered up from her newspaper.

"Define 'held up'," she said coolly, an undeniably bitter edge to her tone. “What, pray tell, was so pressing?”

Joe crossed his arms and took a long drag off his cigarette before replying snippily,

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Tatiana.”

"It's Tanya, Alix snapped before flipping another page on her newspaper as though she were reading it instead of boring holes into Joe’s face.

“And I would like to know, actually. Because I'd like to think you wouldn't be late to your first assignment without a good reason but maybe I don't know you as well as I thought."

“Fine.”

Joe's warm brown eyes were suddenly as hard as the wood paneling in the compartment they shared but he shifted the side of his coat up nonetheless, just enough to show a huge cherry-red stain that had blossomed across one side of his ribs.

"There, that a good enough reason for ya?"

“Madonna mia!” Alix exclaimed, all pretense of anger gone in a flash. “What the hell happened?! Are you alright?”

Joe shrugged nonchalantly.

“Somebody did a shit job friskin' the prisoners so ol' Jerry got to bring a fuckin' boot knife with him to interrogation,” he muttered as he readjusted his coat. "'S not as bad as it looks.”

"Did you have Gene take a look at it?" Alix asked, eyeing his red-soaked shirt with concern. "That's a lot of blood…"

"No, I didn't have 'Gene' look at it," Joe shot back, a mocking edge to his voice as he spat the medic's name, biting down on his cigarette.

"’S fine. Barely a scratch."

The auburn-haired girl snorted, unable to keep the skepticism out of her tone.

"Right, and I'm the Queen of England."

The translator took a long drag, his expression unreadable.

“Well, I ain’t your problem anymore,Your Majesty,” he remarked sardonically as he let the smoke curl into the air.

"So you can lay off."

“You’ll always be my problem,” Alix grumbled under her breath and the pair lapsed into a chilly silence, broken only by the occasional rustling of the newspaper under her fingertips and the rumbling of the train on the tracks.

Still keeping her head angled downward to avoid that familiar ache that seemed to rise in her chest whenever she looked him in the face, Alix let herself study the compartment instead.

In truth, their private compartment was borderline ostentatious – plush maroon upholstery upon the seating, rich mahogany paneling upon the walls, thick velvet curtains adorning the windows to keep the outside world at bay– but the spy could barely concentrate on the luxurious decor either.

Instead, she found herself studying Joe's hands. She still had only fleeting memories of him from before her fall but his hands were one of the few things she remembered the most.

They had been paler back in England, not yet marred by the blood and grime of the battlefield, the blue veins still snaking up the back all the way to his wrist. She remembered tangled sheets and breathless laughter as they each struggled to catch their breath. She remembered her own scarlet-polished nails tracing each vein in the hand resting beside her, feeling the way his pulse would quicken when she smiled at him.

His fingers were still as calloused and long as she remembered, almost graceful in their strength, and she could still feel the ghost of them interlocking with her own like missing puzzle pieces finally finding their way together.

There weren’t any more ink stains on his fingertips, Alix realized, and she was suddenly half-tempted to make a snide remark about chasing two girls and getting neither, but she kept her silence.

No need to make an already awkward situation worse, she thought as she chewed on her bottom lip.

Like it or not, they had a mission to complete.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

The French countryside seemed to pass by in blurs of green, gold, and blue, like the vibrant swirls of a priceless Van Gogh but Alix hardly noticed.

The spy had been fiddling with the worn handle of a discarded leather briefcase that had been left behind in the luggage rack under her seat. Beside her, Joe was violently twisting the Werwolf skull ring around and around upon his finger, wrenching it with such ferocity that it looked as though he might tear his finger off in the process.

"I hate this," he muttered bitterly, seemingly more to himself than to Alix as he glared down at his calloused hands.

"I fuckin' hate this."

"Hate what?" the spy inquired softly, cocking her head and allowing some of her auburn hair to fall over one shoulder.

Joe glanced up at the sound of her voice, clearly not expecting her to speak to him, but he recovered fast as ever.

"This," he replied simply, gesturing to the Werwolf skull ring.

"Wearing this. Gevalt, it makes me wanna claw my fuckin' skin off.”

Alix felt a pang of sympathy. She couldn’t even fathom the excruciating cognitive dissonance Joe must be experiencing right now, playing a role he despised…but why bother playing it in the first place?

Why put himself through the unnecessary pain? He was only a floater– a consultant– for this one mission. He had the power to back out at any time. It didn’t make sense but then, nothing about Joe seemed to make much sense lately.

Alix watched as he lit up another cigarette, his third in an hour, glaring across her, out the window at something unseen.

He was chainsmoking again, like he always did when he was agitated, and all she could do was let the silence sit and watch him wrench the skull ring harder and harder around his finger.

It was unsettling when Joe was quiet: his rage she could combat; his brooding she couldn’t.

The auburn-haired spy found herself sneaking quick glances over at him out of the corner of her eye, the tension hanging thick in the air around them like the early morning fog.

Surprisingly, Joe was the first to break.

“Look, you got somethin’ to say, just say it.”

“What is there to say?” Alix retorted, her grip on the briefcase’s handle tightening considerably.

“I’m perfectly capable of traveling on my own. I don't need a floater and I certainly don't need you.”

Joe crossed his arms and leaned his head back against the seat.

“Well tell that to Donovan then, ziskeit,” he yawns.

"'Cause I got orders to watch your six till the job's done."

Alix opened her mouth to complain but she was interrupted by a light knocking on the compartment door and Joe immediately shoved his right hand deep into his pocket to hide the infamous skull ring.

A disgruntled train attendant appeared, regarding both Joe and Alix with the same beady, bloodshot stare as he stepped inside, sliding the door shut behind him.

“Papers,” the Frenchman demanded with an outstretched hand.

Alix nodded with a casual “Certainement” and set aside the discarded briefcase, retrieving her false identification from her handbag and passing it to the man with what she hoped was a convincingly haughty eyeroll.

The attendant--whose yellowed nametag identified him as Guillaume-- wore a peevish expression almost identical to their old CO, Captain Sobel, which brought a smirk to Alix's face.

The thought of the sadistic superior officer who had made their lives hell for so long being reduced to a glorified bellhop punching tickets and checking IDs was enough to bring them both a smidgen of joy.

Her gaze flickered over to Joe, who returned the smirk with one of his own, the inside joke seeming to almost bridge the gap between them.

The attendant skimmed over Alix's paperwork, handing it back to her without issue, and then it was Joe's turn.

“You, identification.”

Compliantly, Joe dug into his jacket pocket for his passport with his left hand but as he passed the small booklet to the attendant, it slipped from his fingers toward the carpet.

Automatically, the translator’s dominant hand shot out of his right pocket to intercept them but it was too late: the skull ring on his right hand was in full view.

The attendant swore as he snatched up Joe’s fake Austrian passport, staring down at it and back to the tell-tale ring as his face reddened with rage.

“Y-You-” he snarled, his lip curled in disgust and a gloved finger shaking as he pointed at Joe. “You are-”

“Wha- No, no!” Joe protested, immediately reaching out for his passport back in a desperate bid to quiet him.

“I’m not-”

But the Frenchman shoved him off roughly and spat an anti-German epithet at him as Joe’s back hit the seat.

“Boche!”

Joe’s eyes narrowed instantly at the slur and he came back strong, lunging forward to seize the attendant by the collar but Alix stood up, trying to shove her way between them to keep the scuffle from getting out of hand.

The auburn-haired spy could smell the heavy stench of cheap wine on the older man's breath as she separated the pair and she knew there was no reasoning with him.

The drunken attendant spun on his heel, immediately heading for the compartment door, his final words slurred as his rage boiled over.

“Filthy swine! Nazi pig! You-”

Alix felt a block of ice drop into her stomach as the man’s large, gloved hand reached the door handle.

It was no secret that since the liberation, people of German extraction weren't exactly welcome in most of French polite society.

The épuration sauvage was in full-swing, thousands of suspected collaborators being beaten, tortured, and executed by incensed crowds of French people.

If this man went and ran his mouth off about a Werwolf Kommando on the train, Joe could be mobbed as soon as he set foot outside their compartment.

This chilling revelation seemed to flip a switch in Alix’s brain: If the man left their compartment, Joe’s life could be in danger.

She couldn’t take that risk.

Slipping behind the drunken attendant with the silent ease of a tigress, the world seemed to slow around her as her training kicked in. Hopping onto the seat for a better vantage point, Alix reached out and yanked the attendant backwards into the compartment by the collar.

The man staggered a couple steps back, thrown off-balance in his surprise, just close enough for Alix to deftly slice the small blade of her lipstick knife across his throat.

The weapon reached the targeted arteries with surgical precision, right below the larynx. Now unable to scream, the man could only gasp and gargle as his legs gave out and he sank downwards toward the carpet in a heap. Following him down to the ground, Alix gathered the excess fabric of her dress's skirt and slapped the material over the wound to stifle the bright arcs of blood that were spurting out like a gruesome fountain.

The pale lace was already growing heavy, turning from an icy blue to a deep, blood-soaked maroon, the arterial spray oozing through the delicate material slower and slower as the man’s heart gradually stopped beating.

Then the attendant went limp, his jaw falling slack as a sickening gurgle emanated from his cut throat, and the auburn-haired spy knew he was gone.

No loose ends, she told herself inwardly, repeating the instructions of her superiors over and over like a mantra in her head.

He could have gotten Joe killed. You did the right thing.

But did she?

She didn’t even remember pulling the knife, not really.

Not that it mattered: a civilian was still dead.

Alix’s hands were shaking as she stared down at the attendant’s lifeless form, too scared to see the shock and revulsion written all over Joe’s handsome face.

He’d never seen her kill, after all.

If he didn’t hate her before, he most certainly would now.

But when she finally looked up, there was nothing like that.

No disgust, no outrage, no fear.

Instead, there was the same old glint to his gaze and an unspoken warmth in his whiskey-brown eyes that filled her with a strange calm.

“Well ya didn’t hafta do all that, Zees,” Joe remarked finally as a small, lopsided smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

“But I ‘preciate it. Nice to know you care.”

“I don’t,” the auburn-haired girl muttered as she knelt, quickly rifling through the corpse’s bloodied uniform for anything useful.

A billfold full of francs and an identification card from the train company.

Alix handed the wallet over to Joe, averting her gaze to ignore the way her pulse quickened at the brush of their fingertips.

“He was putting the mission in jeopardy,” she added lamely and straightened up, shifting the thick curtains to the side so she could undo the window’s latch.

“Yeah?” Joe snorted as he dragged the lifeless body by its outstretched arms to the open window and turned back to shoot her a sly wink over his shoulder.

His usual crooked grin quirked up one corner of his lips wryly, almost flirtatiously, and the knowing expression in his whiskey-colored eyes caused a small flurry of butterflies to appear once more in her stomach.

It was like he could see right through her.

“Well Ziskeit, ‘the mission’ thanks you.”

With a grunt, the scrappy paratrooper managed to haul the corpse half onto the window’s ledge before turning back to his partner.

“Now let's get this mamzer dealt with, huh?”

Alix hoisted the corpse's legs up, giving it a final, unceremonious shove out the window, sending it rolling down into the snowy French countryside somewhere.

That was one problem taken care of...But unfortunately, there were more where that came from.

"Madonna mia," Alix swore as she frowned down at the blood-spattered blue material of her dress.

“I gotta dump this somewhere.”

Joe took his seat again and shrugged, watching Alix's nimble fingers close the window once more and re-draw the curtains.

“So change then."

The auburn-haired girl balked, nearly losing her footing in her surprise.

“Right now?"

“Nah, next Tuesday,” the paratrooper deadpanned with a melodramatic roll of his eyes. “Christ, Zees, you're actin' like I ain't ever seen ya undress before. Hey, remember that one night at your billet when-”

“Don’t remind me,” Alix muttered, the infuriatingly obvious blush of her cheeks making her grit her teeth as the night he is referring to comes back in vivid colors.

She shook her head to banish the memories, her straightened auburn hair tumbling down her shoulders.

"Besides, it was a long time ago anyway. It doesn't matter now."

The lie tasted bitter as cyanide.

"Yeah?" Joe took another slow drag off his cigarette, watching the smoke curl up to the ceiling before he spoke again, his raspy tenor flat with thinly-veiled hurt.

"Guess that's the difference between you an' me. 'Cause to me, it matters a fuckin' lot."

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