[The name of my OC is Lydia Romanoff and is made up by me.]


Someone was knocking on the door. Whoever this person was made me wake up from my sleep. "Stay here." Someone told me. It was Pip's voice. I remained like he said, but I was wide awake so I sat up in the warm bed and watched Pip put on his trousers. His long braid swung behind him as he marshed towards the door.

I wanted to hide away, but I also wanted to know what was going on. It sounded urgent. I saw Pip open the door, but I couldn't see who was on the other side of it. "Hello! Hello! Good morning, captain!" The voice said. It was a strangely familiar voice. A voice that belonged to someone who just had said 'hello' twice in a greeting.

"Is there something important?" Pip asked after letting out a sight. He sounded revealed somehow, yet he seemed a bit annoyed by this person.

"Y-yes! It's about the pictures." the voice on the other side said. He sounded very familiar. Stupid familiar. "Pictures?" Pip asked. I never thought Pip had a morning voice, but there it was, sleepy, raspy and passive aggressive. "Yes! I didn't get any copies." the person said. "You do realize that it's seven in the morning though?" Pip asked with another sigh, but to my surprise, he opened the door and stepped aside, revealing Leif standing out there in the hallway, looking terrified and extremely merry at the same time. Like a fan meeting their hero for the first time.

"You find them in the drawer over there." Pip said and mentioned to his desk. Leif gladly stepped in and Pip lazily shut the door, like he was aware this man wouldn't be here for long. He didn't know how wrong he was. As soon as Leif's eyes found me on the bed, his body freezed and he looked like a deer caught in spotlight. "You." he says, even pointing a finger at me. "You're here." he said with a grin. He was thinking for a moment.

"Lydia." he said my name. "Lydia's here." he said, being proud about remembering my name. I didn't know what to feel about him remembering me, but I remembered him too alright.

"Apple juice Lydia." he called me, still standing in the same place. Pip walked out of the bathroom with his face covered in shaving foam. He shot me a questioning look whilst Leif continued his way to the desk. I shrugged my shoulders and made a grimace, pretending not to know either.

Leif stopped again, only halfway to the desk. "Excuse me." he said and looked at the two of us. "I wasn't interrupting something, was I?" he asked, eyes scanning the bed and landed on Pip. I was amazed at how someone could be so gutless and brave at the same time. But of course he was curious. Anyone in Pip's group would be curious walking into this. I admired Leif somehow, so I wanted to spare him from what might express itself from Pip, so I said: "No, Leif." and his confuzzled eyes darted to me.

I smiled at him. "We didn't make love." I said, and after those words left my lips, I hear something slam, like something just had been thrown inside the room. When I turned to Pip where the noise had come from, it seemed that the captain just had walked into the open bathroom door and almost knocked over a little drawer. His eye looked at me briefly, giving me a wary look before he cleared his throat and returned into the bathroom.

When I looked back at Leif, I wanted to give him a confused look at his captains behaviour or a little shrug, but Leif had finally managed all the way to the desk and picked out the photos he needed. He turned back to me when he was done and I noticed that his face was redder than it previously was.

"You look pretty in the morning Lydia." he blurted out and wanted to leap out of the room, but he struggled with the door and made a clumsy exit, forgetting to close the door behind him properly. In the same moment, Pip walked out newly shaved and sighed, approaching the door when he saw it on ajar.

"Leif is a handful alright." he muttered and closed the door and locked it quickly. He walked back to me and stood at the edge of the bed, holding onto the bedframe with a delighted glimmer in his eye. His mouth was in a side smirk. "We didn't make love." he said. He didn't speak to me directly, he only repeated what I said to Leif earlier. "That's right." I said, bit my lips and looked down at my feet that perked up from underneath the covers.

Pip laughed and pulled away from the bed that shook a little when he did so. He rounded the corner of it and sat down just beside me feet. "Ever heard of the word sex?" he asked me playfully, mocking my choice in words. "Ever heard of the word fuck?" he asked with a false expression of insult and scandal and lowered his body over mine like a haunting animal in the savannah. He urged his body closer to me until he was leaning over my face, making me watch out for his sharp chin.

"I can't believe you decided to call it that out of everything. Always so formal, little Lydia." he said with an adoring shimmer in both his eye and voice. "So exquisite." he said and reached out to stroke the side of my face. I thought he was making a joke out of me, but he was just trying to make sure that he was gratified by my reply. He was an odd man, Pip. I never knew what to expect of him.

I didn't have to do much. Just lay there and leave Pip with his own opinions about me and let him decide what to do with his hands. It was alright for me. It felt good to not force anything. I just had to be myself to make him stay.

Imagine if I could have been stuck in that moment. With a wall around us. Then I would have wanted to be buried there. For all eternity.


I was aware of my own sins that I made; sneaking away from the girl's dormitory to the afternoon tea and later on spending the night with Pip. When he was off to his duties, I managed all the way to the breakfast without turning a single head. The dining hall was empty of Wild Geese soldiers, so they all must've followed orders by Pip.

Something felt wrong. When I sat at one of the smaller tables with Dorothy and Felicia, something felt extremely off. But it wasn't about me. It was about Felicia. She was more quiet than usual, and she didn't even mind her posture. At first I thought she was sulking because the men had gone away, but deeper thoughts than that hit me with the horrific idea that she was upset with me for leaving her yesterday. She hadn't spoken a word to me ever since I had been seated.

Did she know about me and Pip? But why would that matter to her? She was over him.

"Felicia." I said and her blue eyes looked at me. Her cheeks were red. They were somewhat always red. "He's married." she mumbled quietly. "What?" I said, but not because I didn't hear her. "Javier got a wife." Dorothy said strictly, poking her eggs with irritation like she was blaming Javier for that matter.

"Oh." I said, and I felt a bit selfish, because the only thing I started to think about was Pip, and like Felicia had been reading my mind (or seeing my face) she managed to give me a weak smile. "Don't worry, I won't go back to Pip because of these news. I'll give it a rest for now." she said and took a sip of her water. Dorothy couldn't rest about it.

"He's a swine!" she said, a bit too loud. Miss Hepburn a few tables away gave her a warning glare, but Dorothy didn't seem to notice. "If he got a wife, he shouldn't provoke emotions in other women. My, he shouldn't be in an army at all." she proclaimed, stabbing her bacon. "Everything is allowed in war and love, but there are some exceptions."

"What about you and Jerry then?" Felicia asked her, seeming to be in a better mood. Her smile seemed less forced than previously. Dorothy looked at the two of us with a dumb expression, like she knew something we didn't. She was blushing. "Well… What about it..." she started, hiding a laugh inside her. "We sort of… you know…" she said and Felicia and I exchanged looks of shock. Dorothy put down her cutlery. "Oh, come on!" she shouted with a huge grin. All of her attention turned to me then, she looked smug.

"I didn't see you in your room this morning either, so don't tell me you didn't do anything." she whispered to me and Felicia leaned towards us in curiosity.

"Oh, come on!" I shouted in a similar manner Dorothy did. Then Miss Hepburn stood up from her table and was on her way and it was time for us to put our masks back on.


I was a bit upset with Pip for giving me lack of information about Javier. In fact, my emotions sort of took over when I saw him during dinner with a few other of his soldiers. The thing that sadly touched my heart the most was that Felicia was too embarrassed to even eat in the same room as Javier, so she stayed in her room. She didn't want to talk about how it all happened, but I assumed that it got very awkward for her, and it was my fault for leaving her alone with him.

I blamed myself for all of this, but Pip was involved too.

I formed a plan. The men used to slack around after dinner was over, sitting and sucking their cigarettes and ordering more coffee and cognac. So I had decided that I should stay too, and when the time was right, I should approach Pip and confront him. I thought about Dorothy the entire time. I needed to be her for a moment. I needed to pull off a Dorothy.

I had been completely determined to put this plan in action. But it wasn't until I was the only girl in the room (minus the maid who cleaned the empty tables and took orders) that I considered backing down. But I didn't have to do anything. Because he was actually approaching me.

I looked around for something on the table to be occupied with so it wouldn't look like I had been planning this the entire time. But the table was empty and Pip was near. I wished I had ordered coffee.

"Good evening love." he greeted me. "Don't call me that." I said, looking another way. Pip chuckled, untouched by my blunt greeting and sat down in the chair beside me, not in front of me.

"Regretting making love with me already?" he joked and I glared at him. There were only a few of his men left in the dining room anyway, so he could say what he wanted. That also applied to me. "Why didn't you tell me that Javier had a wife?" I asked him, and Pip looked at me with a scowl. "That's not my course, darling. Not my thing to tell." he said. "To be honest, I don't know why that information even bothers you."

"It doesn't bother me." I answered. "But it bothers Felicia. The information left her devastated. If you just had told me this when I mentioned him, the plaster would already have been removed and she might be smiling now instead of starving herself just to avoid him." I said, and I felt that every word I said was so true and accurate, but Pip was completely unaffected by them.

"Left her devastated…" he mumbled and pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "It's not like a bullet have collided with his skull." he said and my eyes darted away. I didn't like when he spoke about these things so lightly. "You know… I'm so fed up with all these ideas that you girls form in your heads. You got your eyes on someone, and from that moment you decide that you own that person, and who he is and what he have done is his past doesn't matter. You love this stranger unconditionally and expect him to do the same." he said, and I took every word to my heart, because it felt like he was talking about me and not Felicia.

"Besides" he said and blew out a portion of smoke "You asked me about his name. Not if he had a woman.".

I didn't know what to do. My eyes darted around in the dining hall, like they were looking after a wasp. I must've looked scared.

What did he mean with it all?

Stranger? Was Pip a stranger? Did he think that I owned him? That I loved him?

I turned to Pip, he had been looking at me this entire time, pondering. Perhaps he felt like he was right and enjoyed me being speechless.

No. I wouldn't let him believe that. Not yet.

So help me God. So help my Dorothy.

My hand reached up to his face and I stole the cigarette from his mouth and took it down on the table where I crushed it with my fingers. I smiled at him and his half-surprised expression.

"Time for me to move on too then. Don't worry, Pip. I'll stop dreaming soon." I said and stood up from the table. Some men in the background were watching the situation. I began walking towards the exit, minding my posture. But with every step, I feel more and more hesitant.

What was I doing? This wasn't about me. Should I make this get over me and Pip, just because Javier was married to a woman and my friend happened to have a silly crush on him? And then what? What would happen later on? The day after that? The next week? Should I avoid Pip forever? All while we lived in the same house.

Most importantly; I didn't own Pip but I acted like I did. I got upset with him for absolutely nothing.

I stopped at the exit. Then I got over myself. I took a deep breath. Sometimes you need to loose parts of yourself to gain new ones.

I turned around, and I walked back to the table where Pip was still sitting with the crushed cigarette before him. It was strange, like he had been waiting for me. I had walked into the scurf's of my previous fit. I felt oddly nostalgic, even though it was too soon. Pip looked up at me, without mocking or judging me.

"I wanted to apologize." I said to him. "Not only for ruining your cigarette but for my behaviour in general. I'm a child. It felt awkward when you said all those things." I said, and even though that felt like the most embarrassing thing, it also felt good. I sat down again, and poked the tobacco corpse, like I was able to fix it.

"How much is it? I can give you money back for it." I said, remembering what we went through a time ago when we got them for him at the drugstore.

When I looked at Pip again, I almost got annoyed with him again for not reacting or saying anything. He opened the pocket of his jacket and took out a new cigarette. When it was lit, and he put it in his mouth and blew out a set of smoke, he was ready for me again. He looked down at me with an expression I couldn't understand. He looked grateful, sympathetic and considerate and cocky at the same time. Almost flattered. Almost fascinated. Almost in love.

"You owe me nothing." he said. "Remember that Lydia. You owe me nothing."

I swallowed something in my throat and nodded a little, more to myself. It felt impossible to argue with him about this. If Pip told me that I did not owe him anything, I didn't. It was as simple as that. I turned to him with a smile.

"Good evening, Pip." I greeted him. Pip let out a laugh that one would know came out straight from within. "Oh Lydia..." he said and swallowed. He sniffed and looked at his cigarette. "What you just did earlier... made me think back to when my mother caught me on my first cigarette." he told me. "And all the other things were just magnificent. Your words, your poise, good grief, you even sacrificed a smile to me before you left." For the first time, I might've seen the captain a little bit embarrassed. He chuckled at himself and pinched the bridge of his nose.

I sat still and just looked at him. I had no idea that I had managed to affect him this way. It was hard to believe. When Pip turned to look at me again, he looked a little bit more serious. "You told me that you should move on and stop dreaming." he said then. "I need you to explain. What did you mean?" he asked, and I felt my throat dry up, and I almost regretted my decision to return to him and apologize.

"Um…"

"Would you like to order something?" the maid interrupted us gently, sparing me the embarrassment to confess to Pip this way.

No more hesitation. No more holding back.

"One cognac please."


Before falling asleep the following night, I was glad to feel a bit dignified. If I hadn't turned around and walked back to Pip, I would've felt completely different. Another thing that I was glad and grateful for was that Pip did not ask any more about my dreams.

But I simply could not find the courage to tell him that I had fallen for him. I didn't want him to think that I was like the rest of the girls, although what I had said to him gave him quite a big hint, I like to believe that it went in one of his ears and out the other.

The only thing that concerned me deeply was that he brought it up and questioned it, so he must've thought about it.

It was time for breakfast again. After preparing myself for the day, I met up with Dorothy outside of Felicia's room. She refused to come with us again.

"You're being completely ridiculous." Dorothy told her through her door. "First you cry over stupid braid, now you're depressed over that married maracas. Get yourself together or we'll leave you to start hanging out with old mean Minnie again!" she threated.

Married maracas.

"Maybe we should leave her be." I said to Dorothy quietly. It would be rude to force Felicia to do this. If she wasn't ready, she wasn't. She needed time.

Dorothy looked at me and back to the door.

"Even Lydia wanna ditch you!" she yelled to Felicia and I sighed.

"No I don't!" I yelled.


"It's just the two of us." Dorothy noticed. We sat by a corner table, and the random girls we usually found ourselves with were here and there across the room. "So it appears." I answered, cutting my pancake, actually not minding the peace. Pip was leaning against the wall further away with a cigarette in his hand. Dorothy noticed. "What's the matter with stupid braid? He's not sitting down. Did he fall on his bum or something?"

I almost spit out my orange juice all over the table.

"Hello. Hello ladies. Good morning Lydia." someone said in the middle of all this. It was Leif again. His round brown eyes looked at me in recognition, but landed uncertainly on Dorothy who looked up at him like she saw something floating above him.

There was that Leif-awkwardness again.

It felt like we had all eyes upon us, even though everyone was busy with their food.

"Hello." I said at last. It sounded like a question and I sounded nonchalant and sarcastic, but at least I greeted him. That was enough for a person like Leif, who looked head over hills over my unkind hello. His smile goes all the way to his ears. He was holding a tray with a cup of tea and a big sandwich layered with cheese and sausage.

I realized that Leif knew me pretty well. He knew about me sharing bed with Pip. It got a bit too much for me. Dorothy looked at me with questioning eyes.

"Um." I said, suddenly finding myself searching after Pip. He stood at the same place as earlier, watching us from a distance, almost as in inspecting what was going on. "Hi. I'm Dorothy." Dorothy suddenly said, breaking the ice.

When Leif turned his attention to her, I breathed out and took the opportunity to take my half-filled glass of juice and make it full again. My flight instinct had kicked in, and it was working well. The two of them didn't seem to mind this though. When I glanced over my shoulder, Leif had already been seated and the two of them had already started to chit chat.

I stood by the juice machine and filled my glass again. It almost overflowed so I had to sip it so I wouldn't spill anything on my way back. But I didn't feel like going back at all to be honest.

"You're afraid of him." The sudden voice made me jump and dive my nose into the drink. I snorted and coughed and placed the glass on the desk the machine stood on. I would recognize that chuckle anywhere.

"No I'm not." I said to Pip, reaching out for a napkin, but he was quicker than I and handed me a few. I wiped my face. It smelt like juice everywhere.

"I just saw it. He made you uncomfortable." Pip said, stepping closer to me whilst leaning against the desk. He took my glass of juice and crossed his arms over his chest whilst holding it. I got closer to him too, in case someone was eavesdropping. But so far so good. There was a little wall that separated us from the dining room.

"Maybe uncomfortable, but I'm not afraid of him." I said. "Uncomfortableness equal distress and distress equal alarm, and fright. With other words, it's the same thing." he said and took a mouth full of my juice.

"I just had my nose in that." I said with a sniff. It still smelt like orange juice. Pip shrugged and lifted the glass as in proposing a toast. "Unwasted." he said and grinned, and I shook my head at him with a smile. I felt both disgusted and flattered at the same time.

"Now why are you afraid?" he asked, attention back on Leif. Even though I still wasn't convinced that I was afraid of him, I still thought about it, and why he made me uncomfortable.

"He's kind of unpredictable I think." I said. I looked up at Pip with a light frown. "Well you're unpredictable too, but in a different way." I told him and he smirked at once, bringing the glass to his mouth again. "It's like he doesn't know what he's doing at times. It's like he's in his own world." I explained after thinking more and more about it.

Pip finished my orange juice and put the glass on the little platform attached to the machine. "Well you're right about one thing." he said, filling the glass again. "He's not really conscious in our reality. He joined us after his mother died because he thought he'd find connections with the others side if he experienced a close to death experience." Pip left the glass filled with juice in the machine.

I found myself staring into space. Fine. I was a bit scared.

"Don't worry about it." Pip said, grabbing my arm. His sudden touch sent a bolt of shivers down my spine. "I'll keep an eye on you Lydia." he promised, later on laughing at his own joke. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to his eye then, but I simply laughed with him, not wanting to be a bore.

I looked at the glass field with juice then, the bright yellow colour distracting me. "I should probably..." I said.

"Yes, yes. You get back there and act like normal. I was on my way out." Pip said and released my arm. I didn't know why he should go but my first instinct was to go with him. "You'll find me on the lounge balcony if you need me." he said, and I nodded, finding it difficult to manage a smile. I grabbed my juice and walked past him.

"Lydia?" Pip called my name and when I turned around he was even closer than what he was before. But this time I didn't spill a drop even though I had bumped into his chest softly, and now I looked up at him curiously, even laughing slightly at this little incident.

He spoke in a low, almost grouchy voice, like he was telling me a secret he didn't want anyone else to hear. "I haven't let them wash the sheets in my room ever since you spent the night with me, so don't think for a second that I would be disgusted by drinking that juice of yours." he said and stroked me underneath the chin, like he was petting a kitten, and then he turned around and left after having a glance down at my lips.

I stood there, glaring after him. Then with a smile, I brought the glass to my mouth.


A few days later, Felicia had gotten over Javier to the point that she could finally eat with us like normal. If I had known that she liked pudding so much, then I would've tempted her sooner. But then, there was another problem. Where was Dorothy? She had been absent a whole day. I thought she was sick, but I knew otherwise when even Miss Hepburn asked for her during our verse reading. At dinner time, I decided to go and look for her.

I was on my way to her room, but I found her before that; sitting alone at the little cigar lounge that currently was as closed as it could be, considering every single couch were empty and the cigar bar was barred. She wanted to be by herself, that's why she sat here.

"Dorothy?" I asked and approached her. She was sitting still in the old leather chair and she barely reacted when she saw me. Her eyes were blank and emotionless, like she had been staring into space this entire time. I sat down on the sofa across from her.

"Where have you been? Have you been sitting here all day?" I asked her, noticing her handbag dropped on the table in front of her. She had a bottle of water with her that she barely had touched and a crystal bowl with salted cashew nuts.

The ribbon was tied tightly around her dark hair which was done more tidily than normally. She usually had a few hair strands loose around her face and ears as a protest against the dress code. But this evening, everything was in order. She wore stockings underneath her uniform and the apron was spotless and weared as it should, and not a single wild hair could be spotted on her clean face that was emptied of make-up. She usually wore some lip gloss and filled in her brows; some other small protests than couldn't be judged or pointed out because of their minority, but she had dusted off everything, like she was expecting a visit from a strict old woman from the aristocracy.

I was about to ask her if her parents were on their way here, but then she let out a sight and looked at me whole heartedly. She frowned in a way that she would soon burst into tears.

"He's ignoring me." she said and that was the only words I needed to hear to understand her state and why she was here and why she was avoiding the world around her. Everything made sense. She had cleaned herself up in order to get rid of the dirt Jerry had left on her. But to me, she would always be angelic. She sniffed and frowned deeper, swallowing her tears. She looked more angry than sad.

"So it really is true then? What mama and papa says in all households to their daughters?" she asks me with a tone of tremulousness. "They have their way with you and then they just-" she stopped herself and grabbed the bottle of water, tearing off the lid. She gulped in as much water as she could, as in turning off the thirst of her emotions.

"Bloody mercenaries. You do know they kill for money, right?" she asked me. "And fuck for fun."

When I heard her voice crack, it got too much for me. I stood up from the sofa and walked up to her and pulled the ribbon out of her hair so the dark locks fell around her. I kneeled down before her, the blue piece of fabric dancing down in my lap. I stared at her.

"Don't ever let anyone make you less than what you are." I said, end everything felt so corny and dramatic, but Dorothy seemed moved by it so I continued with my intentions and pulled out a coloured lip balm from my pocket and put it in her hand.

"Never retreat Dory! We must rise above it all." I said and smiled.

"Oh, Lydia!" Dorothy sniffed again.

She looked at me with her glossy green eyes and I finally see a true smile on her face.

"Yes ma'am."