Hostage

Setting: Nazi Occupied France, April 1944

Disclaimer: Quentin owns it all, except for my original characters. Don't sue me, 'cause I don't have any money.

Author's Note: Hello there. I've spent the last few days reading & falling in love with many of the fanfics posted on and several livejournal communities. Smitty is my favorite basterd (I love Stiglitz & Wicki, too), and this idea has been floating around in my head for a while, so I decided to put it on paper (well...you get it). I hope it's not too horrible. Bear with me - I haven't written in a long time and I've never written Inglourious Basterds. I really love and thrive on comments & constructive criticisms, so please, don't be shy! Hope at least a few people like it.

Oh, and also, I'm not even going to embarrass myself by trying to use a translator to write sentences in German and French, because I know most of those translations end up being inaccurate. So, all of my dialogue will be written in English, with the exception of a few common phrases ("Bonjour," "Tais toi!" "De Rien" etc).

Chapter One;

He doesn't know how it happened, or even when, really (the timeline is…blurry), but it did. It absolutely fucking did. He'd been captured. By those fucking Nazi pigs. He had been sent into town (a short distance, which is why he opted to go alone) for a few supplies, and the next thing he knew he had a black bag over his head before everything faded out. Now, he sits slumped over – god only knows where he is – as the rumbling of the moving vehicle and the loud chatter of unrecognizable voices finally stirs him awake. After a few moments, he recognizes the voices as German – and he thinks he hears the word "American" thrown around a couple of times – and then it really sets in that he probably won't be alive for much longer. He wills back the tears that are fighting to escape because, shit, if he's going to die at the hands of these fucks, he wants to at least retain some dignity.

So he just sits there - because what the hell else can he do? – and fades in and out as the truck bounces along. After a seemingly long amount of time, the car comes to a sudden halt and he hears harsh shouting from outside of the vehicle. Almost immediately, he feels bodies roughly shoving past him, and he hears the heavy thump of boots hitting the gravel outside. The next five minutes are a complete blur: he hears shouting, and then laughing, and a different voice – a woman maybe? Definitely not German.

And then, he hears it. That loud, penetrating sound that he was just starting to get used to. Gunshots. A shit load of gunshots, and his stomach flips in anticipation. Maybe it's the lieutenant and the rest of the men coming to his rescue. He hears a different set of voices outside that he immediately identifies as French, and his mind starts to race. What the fuck is going on? He strains to hear the conversation taking place outside, and he prays that those two years of French he took in school will finally do him some good. He listens and listens, and finally he picks up something, just a small fragment of a sentence, but he pieces it together the best he can and comes to the conclusion that whoever was speaking just said, "check the truck for supplies."

His heart is beating so loud he's sure the strangers outside can hear it. He feels a presence in the truck and desperately tries to look around, even though everything is still cloaked in darkness. He hears a gruff laugh almost directly above him and then another unrecognizable sentence is being shouted to someone. He's yanked to his feet and promptly thrown from the truck onto the rough gravel below. He struggles but he manages to get himself on his knees after a few embarrassing seconds of flopping around. He hears more talking and then that fucking black bag is finally ripped from his head. His eyes automatically snap shut due to the ruthless transition from complete darkness to bright sunlight. Once his eyes adjust to the light, he sees three figures standing above him – two men and a woman. One man is holding a Walther, and it's pointed directly at his face. The other man has some kind of machine gun at his side. The woman has a cigarette resting between her lips, and a small, bloodstained axe in her right hand. She kind of reminds him of Hannah Dusten, that crazy colonist woman who slaughtered something like ten Indians with a similar looking weapon.

"Tu parle Francais?" the woman speaks and he quickly shakes his head no.

"Allemand?" She asks again, her voice dripping with contempt and bitterness, and he shakes his head no, this time much more vigorously.

"Anglais?" She says finally, and this time he nods. She raises an eyebrow and smirks a little bit.

"Who are you? And why were those Hun pigs holding you prisoner?" Her accent is thick, but her English is near perfect.

"I, uh…." He stutters out, his voice raspy and his throat dry. "My name is Smithson Utivich." He pauses for a moment to wonder if it was a good idea to reveal his real name, but quickly continues. "I'm, uh, American, obviously, and I, um…" He just couldn't find the right words to explain himself. What was he supposed to say, "I'm a member of an American secret service organization, and for the past two months we've been sneaking around behind enemy lines killing as many Nazis as possible." Looking around at the dead bodies littering the ground around him, however, actually sort of convinces him that maybe that was exactly what he was supposed to say. So he does.

She raises her eyebrow even higher and a mocking smirk spreads across her face. A dry laugh erupts from her throat and Utivich immediately begins to regret his choice of words.

"You really expect me to believe, that you," she pokes him in the chest with the handle of her axe to emphasize her point, "are a member of a secret service organization, and you go around slaughtering Nazis?"

Utivich nods meekly and the French woman snorts involuntarily before laughter bubbles up from her throat. The men on either side of her just stand there, looking confused by her amusement, and she quickly offers them a rough translation, and what do you know, they start laughing too. What the fuck's so funny? He's telling the truth.

After a few moments, the laughing subsides, and then the woman is just...looking at him. Studying him. He watches her, too, because he knows that looking away would only drive her incorrect suspicions that he's lying further. She raises her arm to pluck the cigarette from her mouth and as she does so, the sleeve of her coat falls slightly, revealing the marking that has been carved into her forearm. His mouth falls open slightly in surprise, in excitement, in this, sudden realization that this woman and himself have more in common than he initially thought.

"You're Jewish?" He asks, before he even considers what her reaction might be.

Any trace of a smile left present on the woman's face is now completely absent, and her eyebrows are furrowed together in a scowl.

"Why?" She asks, stepping forward and lowering her axe slightly so it's lined up directly with his head. His skull. He imagines the awful cracking sound it would make and he sucks in a breath as her eyes burn holes into his face. "Do you have some kind of problem with Jews?" Her knuckles are white from gripping the wooden handle so tightly and he has to fix this.

"No! No, not at all." He pauses and looks up, directly into her eyes for once. "I'm...a Jew." She cocks an eyebrow at him – he's definitely got her attention - but the blade of her axe hasn't moved.

"With a name like Smithson Utivich I kindly doubt that." She responds, her voice conveying a mixture of curiosity, anger, and irritation.

"No, really, I'm Jewish. My uh, my family has always been very..." he pauses for a moment, trying to find the right word. All those years of studying journalism have obviously done nothing. "assimilated...with American society. Never really embraced our Jewish heritage. I hate the name Smithson, personally. I usually go by Smitty, or even just Utivich..." He keeps talking, because he's too nervous to stop now that he's started. "My parents always hated it. They used to always –"

"Tais-toi!" she snaps suddenly, lowering her axe and reaching into her pocket for a cigarette to slip between her lips. He's taken enough French to know that he needs to keep his fucking mouth shut now, so he waits for her indication before he speaks again. "I don't wish to be regaled by the tale of your entire life story." She pauses for a moment to think, still watching him, and he swallows the lump in his throat.

"Sorry." He answers carefully.

He eyes the makeshift tattoo on her arm again, the Magen David carefully carved right into her skin. She watches him for a little while longer before she dismisses the two men on either side of her, and suddenly it's just the two of them. She smokes; he fidgets and glances around uncomfortably before deciding, against his better judgment, to break the silence yet again.

"Who did that to you?" Smitty asks, nodding carefully at her forearm.

He asks because it looks like it was done with a knife of some sort, and not like a traditional tattoo. It reminds him of something that would be found on a man in prison, not a woman. A woman who's currently got you on your knees with a bloody axe about eight inches away from your face, he reminds himself.

"I did. Two years ago, after I joined the resistance." She responds casually as she lowers the axe (finally) and moves behind him. Within seconds, his hands are untied and, fuck, it feels good to have complete control of all of his limbs again.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess you can't walk into a tattoo parlor and ask to get the Star of David tattooed on your arm. Not nowadays anyway." His attempt to make small talk is failing fast – she simply glares at him coldly before walking away – and he sighs, exasperated. "So, what's um, what's going to happen? With me...being here? I mean, should I just...go? Find my way back to my-"

"You're not going anywhere." The still unnamed woman interrupts and Smitty can't help but frown slightly. "Not yet anyways. I don't trust you completely just yet, but it's obvious that you're..." she pauses and looks him up and down briefly. "harmless. At least, when you're right here in front of us. You say you're a Nazi killer, then you're going to have to prove it. You're going to have to prove that you're one of us and not one of them before we let you go." She takes notice of the disappointed look on Smitty's face and shrugs. "Do you even know where you are right now? Where would you even go if we let you leave? It will be in everyone's best interest if you stay with us."

Utivich knows that she's right. It's not exactly smart for an American Jew to be wandering through Nazi-occupied France, looking for the Lieutenant and the rest of the men. He could ruin the whole mission.

"Yeah I guess that makes sense. And yeah, I have no idea where we are right now." He answers, sadly looking around.

She smiles at him, faintly, and gestures to the truck Utivich had been held captive in.

"We'll be leaving soon. You can have some water," she pauses and hands him the canteen from the satchel that is slung around her shoulder. "and use the bathroom if you must. We're taking those assholes' truck. You and I will drive. Have a little chat." Her voice is so cold he can't help the shiver that shoots up his spine.

"Okay..." Smitty speaks quietly, eyes on the ground. While racking his brain for something clever to say, he remembers how dry his throat feels and takes a long swig from the canteen. When he's finished, he hands it back to the woman and she takes it without a word.

"Thanks."

"De rien." She replies coolly and turns to walk away again.

"Hey, um..." Utivich calls after her and she turns around once again, irritated. "What's your name?" He asks despite the scowl etched on her face.

"Jorden Badeau." She replies, and then nods at the axe in her right hand. "And don't fucking do anything that's going to make me have to use this."

Although her voice is stern and her eyes are narrowed at him, there's a sort of playful tone to her voice, and Utivich thinks that maybe this won't be so bad after all.