For my own reference: 90th fanfiction, 2nd story for The Sound of Music.

She was saying her goodbyes — to her papa, to Elias, to the beautiful, bustling streets of Salzburg, to life as she knew it — and so she wore her favorite dress, the turquoise dress that had belonged to her mother. Astrid's mother had died of scarlet fever when she was only a year old, but Papa had kept the dress safely away for years and given it to her on her sixteenth birthday, when it finally fit her.

Astrid was seventeen now, and not as petite as her mother had been, for the turquoise dress was a bit tight on her, but it was still her favorite. She loved to wear it to the synagogue, on the occasional Friday evenings when she and Papa attended, and on special occasions. She was wearing it today because it was the last day that she and Elias would see each other for a very long time — perhaps forever.

Elias was eighteen. They'd never done more than kiss and hold hands, but Astrid knew in her heart that she loved him. There were times when they would look at each other and she could hardly breathe. Now that she was about to go live in an old abbey full of old nuns who'd all taken vows of chastity, she wished that she had done more with Elias. Now they would never have a chance to know each other more intimately.

They were both young Jews, both trusting in what their parents said would be safest, both escaping from the Nazis in different ways. Elias and his family had managed to secure passage to Palestine, where the war wouldn't spread; they were scheduled to leave next week. Astrid's father had spoken to the Mother Abbess and arranged for her to become a postulate at Nonnberg Abbey, where the Nazis would never look for her; she was supposed to go there tomorrow.

But today, Astrid was wearing the turquoise dress and trying not to think about any of that. Today was her last day of freedom — and perhaps her last day with Elias, who had promised to make it a happy one for her. He bought her strudels and pink lemonade and took her to cinema. He rode her through the streets of Salzburg on his bicycle handles, and she laughed with the wind blowing through her hair, on this last golden day.

In Residenz Square, as they tossed coins into the fountain, Elias said abruptly, "I'm going to join a kibbutz in Palestine."

Astrid blinked, caught off-guard — they'd avoided talking about their very separate, uncertain futures all afternoon — and he explained, "I read about them. They're farming communities where all the Jews can live and work the land together. You said there was a big garden in the abbey."

Astrid nodded. She still could not bear the idea of entering an abbey, and the garden there was perhaps the only thing that she was looking forward to. She liked the idea of working outdoors and growing things.

Elias sat on the edge of the fountain. A few drops from the nearest horse sculpture splashed onto his hair. "You'll be gardening in a convent, and I'll be farming on a kibbutz. We'll both be doing the same things, you see? Even when we're far apart. We'll both be sweating under the same sun."

Astrid managed a small smile. "I do like that idea."

Elias smiled back at her. "And after the..." He stopped abruptly and faltered, not wanting to say after the war, even though they both felt sure that one was coming. He started over, "And once it's safe again, I'll write to you, and you can come to Palestine, or I'll come back here to Austria, and we can be together again, Astrid." He took her hand in his, and said lowly, "I'll wait for you, I promise. I want to marry you someday."

Astrid's heart skipped a beat. She suddenly remembered what her papa had said on her sixteenth birthday, when he'd given her the turquoise dress that she was wearing now: her mother had been wearing this same dress when her father proposed. "I don't know what it was, but as soon as I saw her in that dress, I knew I wanted to be with her forever," he'd told Astrid.

Astrid's parents had been young and in love too, and they hadn't known what their futures held any more than she and Elias did now. They thought they knew, but they didn't. Her mother had been Catholic, and they'd planned to raise Astrid in both faiths. That was why she'd been baptized as a baby. But then her mother had died of scarlet fever, and she'd never really known any faith besides her father's, Judaism. But Papa had kept her baptism certificate, and it was her golden ticket now, allowing her to enter the abbey to hide from the Nazis.

Astrid swallowed hard. She loved Elias. She wanted to marry him someday too, but the future seemed so dark to her that she couldn't bring herself to share this hope. Papa had made sure that she would be safe from the Nazis, but he had no way to protect himself. When the Nazis took over Austria, there was a chance that he might not survive, and it hurt her to even think about that.

"But there's going to be a war," Astrid said, choking up with fear and struggling to talk. Her legs felt weak, and she sat down on the edge of the fountain beside Elias. "A war against the Nazis. Lots of people are going to die. Everybody says—"

"You won't die, Astrid," he interrupted. "You'll be fine. You'll be tucked away safe in a convent with a bunch of nuns, reading the Bible and gardening. If you do die, it'll be from boredom." He kissed her then, and she hoped that the water splashing her face from the fountain masked her tears.

::

She was grateful that her face was dry again when Elias brought her home. She was trying to be brave for Papa, but it was hard. What if... it was almost too horrible for Astrid to contemplate, but what if she had to stay in this abbey forever?

"You won't," Papa answered, when Astrid put the question to him that evening. "The Nazis won't be in power forever. Hitler is the worst sort of madman. People will realize that, sooner or later, and then they'll put a stop to him."

He had served in the Great War, and Astrid always believed him and felt a little better about things when he said that people would rise up against Hitler, eventually. But he was equally certain that life in Austria, especially for Jews, would get much, much worse before it got better again. That was why he insisted that Astrid had to enter the abbey. The gothic old building had always looked so gloomy and foreboding to Astrid, sitting high on its hill above Salzburg. She'd never wanted to get any closer to it, and now she was going to live there.

She still had not actually set foot inside the miserable old place — she was determined to put that off for as long as she could — but she had gotten quite close to it. On that awful day when he first dropped the whole idea on her like a bomb ("Papa, are you mad? I can't be a nun! How could you even think such a thing?" she'd shouted at him), she had bicycled up the hill to the abbey, climbed a tree, and looked over the wall into their garden. From inside, she'd heard the nuns singing... but not in German. She'd listened for some time, blinking and confused, before she realized that they were singing in Latin. Latin! She didn't go to the synagogue often, but when she did, she sang in Hebrew. How could she ever be expected to sing in Latin? How would she ever possibly know what to do in an abbey?

"You'll ask the nuns," Papa said. "You'll just tell them that you want to learn what to do, and they'll fall all over themselves to help you." Papa said that the Mother Abbess was very kind and understanding, but Astrid didn't know if he'd told even her the whole truth. He'd rehearsed what she would tell the nuns over and over with her: she'd been baptized Catholic but not raised in the faith, but God had called her back to her roots recently, and now she wanted to learn more about the Benedictine order and how they lived. It was close enough to the truth, Papa said. It was nobody's business that she'd actually been raised Jewish, and besides, she didn't look Jewish at all. Astrid took after her mother, or so she'd always been told, with her pixie face and fair eyes and hair.

Astrid was still wearing the turquoise dress the next day, when Papa brought her to the front gate of the abbey. She tried to be brave, and so did he, but when they had to say goodbye, he cried, and so did she. He kissed her brow and her cheeks and hugged her tightly for a long time, and then a kind-looking nun smiled, though there was such pity in her eyes, and swung the gate open for the abbey's newest postulate.

Later, in the robing room, another nun, Sister Augusta, explained to her that she had to give up her "worldly clothes," whatever that meant. They would be given to the poor, she said. That included the turquoise dress, her mother's dress, but Astrid didn't mind this. The turquoise dress didn't belong here, trapped in this dusty old convent. It belonged out in the world, in the free, fresh air, seeing all the sights that Astrid couldn't see anymore.

It isn't really turquoise, Astrid reflected, as she took the dress off for the last time. She had always called it that because it was so special to her, but it was really just an ordinary shade of green, with a pattern of darker green vines and leaves. Her mother had been wearing this dress when her father proposed years ago, and she had been wearing it yesterday, when Elias said that he wanted to marry her. She had to give it up now, and some other woman, some stranger, would put on her mother's dress next, but Astrid hoped that whoever that woman might be, a man she loved might see her in that dress and realize that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

::

The Mother Abbess did a double-take when she saw the green dress laid out across the pile of clothes to be given to the poor. She hadn't really noticed the dress when Fräulein Astrid had arrived at the abbey wearing it, but now, something made her pause and look at it more closely. Vanity was a sin, of course, but she couldn't deny that it was a rather pretty dress, with its different shades of green — certainly far prettier and more eye-catching than the drab, dark dress that Maria had worn when she first left the abbey for the von Trapp home at the beginning of the summer. She was about to go back to their villa now, at the Mother Abbess's urging, to find out whether Captain von Trapp had feelings for her. And although Maria put on a confident front, the Mother Abbess knew that she was full of nerves and uncertainty at the thought of seeing him again.

A strange thought suddenly occurred to her: perhaps if Captain von Trapp saw Maria in something new, something eye-catching...

She quickly pulled the green dress off the pile and hurried down the hall to Maria's room.

::

His children all shouted and called to him when he stepped outside. "Father, look! Fräulein Maria's come back from the abbey!" — as if he couldn't see her standing right there. As suddenly as she'd disappeared from their lives, she had now returned again. Georg was so caught off-guard that he didn't say a word as he stared at her. Maria was back — and in a new dress, too. That struck him as odd. It wasn't the ugly old dress that she'd been wearing when they first met, the one that even the poor hadn't wanted. It wasn't one of the new dresses that she'd sewed herself with the material Georg bought her. It was some new, pretty green dress that he'd never seen her in before. From this distance, it almost looked like... turquoise.

Georg didn't know, then, why Maria had suddenly returned from the abbey, or if she intended to stay. He was still engaged to Baroness Shraeder, who was standing beside him now. It would still be several hours before he told the Baroness that they could never make it work, before he found Maria in the gazebo and confessed his love. But looking at her in that turquoise dress, Georg knew in his heart that Maria was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

FIN