Disclaimer: I own nothing. This story is based on the characters of the Band of Brother series and not on the real men portrayed. I apologize for any offence.
Characters: Chuck Grant/OFC, David Webster/OFC, Joe Liebgott/OFC
Rating: M
Author note: Please read and review. I don't really know if I should finish this, but if you like it, let me know and I'll give it try. The story concept has slightly changed since the first draft...
CHAPTER 1
When her world exploded, he was already miles away.
He could not sleep that night; he lied underneath the sparse covering with his eyes closed. He could just hear the terror of it in the distance: The Germans were bombing Eindhoven.
When her world exploded, she had been walking walking from the kitchen, through the hallway to her room – small and cosy 10 by 7 feet – with a cup of tea in hand.
The roof caved in, bringing all four outer walls with it and she was trapped between a wall and the blackest of black darkness.
Chaos.
O, what chaos.
A white flower fluttered to the ground.
People call it the country of dreams.
She sighed.
Europe was one awful grey mess: the stench of it still in her nose, the fine dust of collapsed buildings still on her skin. She had no home there.
She had no home here either. She sighed, once more.
Propaganda. That is all it basically was.
But when she was there on the blue water of the Atlantic it seemed like such a perfect plan. Europe was already far behind her. And since people called it the country of dreams...
It wasn't, but it was better than Eindhoven where she had lost everything. Where she had lost even despite the chaos of exploding bricks and raining fire, her heart to a man in a few brief seconds.
So was war – it waited for nothing and no one.
And when it was over…
...
O, what a golden boy: He was perfectly lovely. With a perfect tan, perfect gleaming white teeth, perfect hair. The perfect son. The perfect soldier. The American Dream.
And he was a paratrooper none the less.
...
She is standing by a newspaper stand, glancing over headlines and she looks up catching the glint of copper in a man's hair.
It would be impossible.
A week later she is standing at the same newspaper stand. Then she sees him; four years after that day that the American troops marched into Eindhoven. She recognizes him coming out of the general shop across the road, with groceries dangerously unbalanced in his arms. Not dressed in a uniform. How strange to see American soldiers – men - in everyday trousers and shirts.
She wants to reach out.
To touch him briefly; just as briefly as that day in the street in Eindhoven.
But it would be humiliating having him look up and not recognize her. How could he?
...
Young women were skipping and dancing from soldier to soldier and she got lost in the crowd of orange flags and khaki shirts. Young women with smiles as bright and wide as a clear sky, bashful and unashamedly planting kisses from one soldier's cheek to another. She got lost in the crowd, got pushed towards the edge of the street where all she could do was stare.
Young women, all pretty and all blonde. She hated herself for shrinking into a corner.
She considered herself rather ordinary: Neither pretty nor blonde, with a mouth too small for her face and eyes too big, too grey.
Young women, all of them eager. She hated herself for not throwing herself into the arms of the nearest soldier. An old ache was suddenly there. O, how the Americans must love Eindhoven, she thought to herself cynically, with so many eager young women in the street.
It was impossible for her though to share the joy – she was more sensible than to think that it was all over. How could it ever be really over?
But at heart she had always been conflicted - cynical and hopeful and romantic all at the same time.
Eindhoven however made her foremost a cynic.
It felt to her that it would never be over.
That she would never be able to forget what happened to her.
...
She frowns. She had never been one to believe in fate, but maybe a chance meeting between two strangers was all it took to change a life. The frown turns into a smile. She still has a white flower, hidden between two pages of a book.
...
A white flower behind her ear was sent fluttering to the ground, as small and delicate as a single snowflake.
It was something she did each morning: pick three white flowers, one for behind her ear, one for a delicate vase next to her bedside table and one for a grave.
She hung onto this small ritual, because somehow it brought her a little peace each day.
Maybe he had not noticed knocking her into the wall?
It took him an entire minute to realize that she was there; crushed between the wall and himself, because he had his back to her and her eighteen year old neighbour was yanking at his arm. How could he have noticed her with Elsa on his arm: pretty as a picture?
She hated the sudden self-pity that choked in her chest.
She had put her hand on his shoulder then. "Sir, could you maybe move just a fraction?" Her English was faultless, but an almost pathetic whisper in a crowd of voices.
He turned towards her.
And apologized, with a clear and calm voice and an infectious grin; she found herself momentarily holding her breath.
Clear.
Calm.
Calculating.
"Sorry, Miss," he said, "And may I add that your English is a welcome change from this young girl's gibberish. I can't make out a word of what she's saying." He looked over his shoulder, but Elsa had moved away. Was already lost to the crowd.
She started to smile.
His grin was infectious beyond reasonable explanation.
She could not help but think that moments ago she was alone and lost at the edge of a busy street in the Netherlands and someone – not just anyone – a hero of sorts had found her.
She found it all utterly silly and romantic. This had to be the beginning of the end?
"Well do you see she's already gone? Goodness, you girls show a lot of enthusiasm. I've never been kissed so many times in my life." He looked at her then – waiting...? No, obviously not. Utterly silly…
"Miss, I would just love to kiss you right now." A whisper in a busy street.
He pulled her closer then and kissed her and it was the most romantic moment of her sad existence.
...
She frowns again. She had been a brief distraction for a soldier in a street, in a town, in a country crippled by war.
How could he remember her?
He is walking down the street now, the left side of his body slightly slumped. She knows that he is different. Even more than any of the other men that has returned.
The sure and easy walk is gone.
Very much gone.
Slumped over slightly to one side. Undoubtedly injured during the course of the war after Eindhoven.
She feels compelled to run after him. She does, not really thinking it through. Of course she shouldn't.
When she reaches him and puts her hand on his shoulder she realizes that she was so very wrong about Eindhoven being the beginning of the end. She should have known not to be so naïve as to think it.
Touching his shoulder is the beginning of the end.
How silly of her to think it, but it must be.
He is the beginning of the end.
Because he had had his hands all over her. In Eindhoven. Where he had saved her in mere moments from being alone on the side of a street.
He is her end.
He smiles when he sees her, but the look in his eyes scares her. It turns her entire body into a lump of stone and she has to keep herself from crumbling to the ground.
It is almost as if she's back in the burning Eindhoven and the world is burning to the ground.
He does not know her.
But apart from that, he does not even seem to know himself. His mouth is turned at the corners as if he's in pain, his eyes deathly dark under a frowning brow. His entire face is a grimace.
She knows instinctively that he is only a shadow.
Only a memory.
The man from Eindhoven is dead.
"Chuck Grant…?" She had only whispered his name that once in Eindhoven, but doing it now makes her sad that she knows it. She wants to turn around and walk away.
He had been shot through the head; the scar is a deep groove on the side of his head.
"Do I know you, Miss?" Mumbled, slurry words; and her hurt is already leaking from her eyes and dotting the pavement: she had loved his clear and calm voice.
O, Chuck.
You are my beginning and my end and now look at you.
She already hates herself for it, but she turns away and walks away.
There is nothing else to do.
He had had his hands all over her. In Eindhoven. But all she has left of it now is a single photo in a drawer.
In Eindhoven he had kissed her until all she could do was stand there breathlessly and gone were the dull grey in her eyes: they had become alive like an ocean full of silver fish.
A group of soldiers standing near them was taking a picture and Grant had pulled her with him, kissing her again and when the flash went off she had thought that her life had somehow changed.
"My name is Grant. Remember it. I'll be back."
Afterwards she found the white flower in the street and kept it with the newspaper article that had the photo in it.
Chuck Grant… You are my beginning and my end and now look at you.