She was in her tent, alone, and it was Christmas Day. Bucky still wasn't back from the front. None of the Howling Commandos were. There had been a couple of personal letters, written while in trucks as they kept going from one trouble-spot to the next, and a lot of much more professional, official reports got sent back. The former all had little bits of them blacked out by the post-masters, and the latter were all written in code and not available for her reading anyway.

Even if the shooting had stopped for the day, the war machine still churned though. Nothing like a ceasefire to allow for troops a bit more freedom of movement.

Injured could finally be safely shipped out. Fresh troops could be safely moved up. Munitions could be taken down and given necessary maintenance without fear.

Evangeline had set up a small (fake) Christmas tree in the corner of the living-space of her tent. It was thick with plastic pine-needles that it shed almost as thickly as if it were a real one, and she'd decorated it with fake birds of all sorts. The single partridge was attached to a ceramic pear, and the turtle doves were a pair, heads bent together. She'd skipped the french hens though, and gone straight onto the 'calling' birds, of which there were a good deal more than four. More than just four different types of songbird too. Anything that she liked the chirp of was sitting in that tree, and yes, the birds all did their part to add music to the tent.

It had been a tricky thing to figure out. Not just because of the charms work involved, but also the matter of composition, harmonisation, timing. Which bird sang what note when. It was worth it though. It had distracted her from the absences, kept her busy and challenged – and not thinking about the trial-and-error testing phase she'd reached with testing the Howlett blood.

Dispersed among the approximate-dozen birds that were 'nesting' in her tree (including a miniaturised swan, just the one though, because pretty as the birds were, they couldn't sing worth a damn; also, like the french hens, the geese had been left out entirely) were two-dozen tea-lights. It would have been a fire-hazard on any other tree, but Evangeline was really just using the tiny candles to secure little bluebell flames, which gave light, but no heat, and couldn't actually burn anything.

The choir of robin-sized birds (which meant that the robin that was on the tree was one of the few that was actual-size) finished Silent Night, and moved on to the next song that Evangeline had charmed them to be able to sing. Professor Flitwick would have been very proud of her, she was sure, but... that didn't matter right now.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light. Next year all our troubles will be out of sight..." Evangeline sang softly along to the accompaniment provided by the charmed birds. The film that made this particular song famous had been released that year. Sheet music wasn't too hard to come by, even out here. The men needed something to be cheerful about, after all, and music cheered like nothing else.

"... Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yule-tide gay. Next year all our troubles will be miles away..."

Well, there were exceptions. Sad songs, of course, and the Hogwarts School Song was pretty horrible, forever being mangled by four-hundred voices singing it to four-hundred different tunes, and only about four percent of those voice singing their choice of song on-key. That was pretty horrific.

"... Once again as in olden days, happy golden days of yore, faithful friends who were dear to us, will be near to us once more..."

When Bucky and Rogers got back, Evangeline decided that she was going to invite the other couple (Peggy and Rogers) to Christmas Dinner in her tent. She didn't care how late they were for it. She had three brightly-wrapped presents under her little tree for them, and there they would stay until all three of them could congregate together again.

"... Some day soon, we all will be together, if the Fates allow..."

God, she felt like crying.

"... Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow..."

She was crying. Hot, fat tears rolled down her face, and she could feel her sinuses beginning to block up.

"So have yourself a... Merry... little... Christmas... now!"

In the privacy of her empty tent, with only the singing of charmed birds for company, Evangeline broke down and cried. Maybe it was the song. It was actually a very sad song. It was forward-looking, but in such a way that subtly admitted to the present not being very joyful. The happy days of times gone were just that: gone. The future might be shining and hopeful, but there was no knowing just yet how far away that bright future was.

And that's not taking into account the emotionally charged little scene it was part of in Meet Me In St Louis that it had starred in, full of quietly breaking hearts and the earnest, sobbing tears of a little girl who didn't want to move away from the only home she'd ever known. Not even to New York, which so many people dreamed of seeing, because there really was no place like home.

Evangeline swiped at her tears as she chuckled wetly at the thought that there's no place like home might possibly be a bit of a theme with Judy Garland, since it slipped into so many of her movies somewhere, sometimes a single song, sometimes the moral of the story... Or maybe it was just a product of the times, with so many people safe in their houses eager to go off and do their parts in the war, and so many men in the trenches desperately wishing they were back home.

A flick of her wand, and Evangeline had a soft linen handkerchief to blow her nose on. She closed her eyes and let her head rest on the back of her couch once she'd vanished the square (and the mess she'd made on it). When had she become so... pathetic? Or was this normal? She wasn't sure that she knew anything at all in that moment.

~oOo~

The tree was still up in her tent, but that was to be expected, really. Evangeline knew that some people had a tradition of keeping their trees until all the needles had fallen off. For those with fake trees, something else had to mark the day it got packed away. Hermione had once said that her parents had used to pack up the tree while the New Years countdown played on their television set, and it was a fun race to get all the decorations from all over the house packed up between dinner and the fireworks.

Evangeline had adopted something like that tradition for herself after the war, but this year... She wasn't taking that tree down until the presents were gone from underneath it.

She just changed the songs that the birds sang for her.

Right now though, Evangeline was sitting in the pub with Peggy, and they each had a small snifter of whiskey in front of them.

"Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?" sang the many soldiers who had leave enough to gather in the pub to celebrate. Perhaps not to celebrate another year at war, but rather, to celebrate having lived through it. To remember those who hadn't.

"Never have I ever," Evangeline said softly as she swirled the amber liquid in her glass. "Kissed a person."

"Really?" Peggy asked, surprised.

Evangeline shook her head, and raised an eyebrow at her friend. Her green gaze flicked pointedly from Peggy's face to her drink.

Peggy huffed, but took a tiny sip. Her having kissed Rogers right before he jumped onto Schmitt's taxiing plane from a moving car was just slightly famous, and they had kissed each other on their dates since. As such, it was a pointless call on Evangeline's part, except that it got the admission out there, and a turn where she didn't have to take a drink.

They weren't aiming to get drunk, that would be completely irresponsible of them, but a silly game and just enough alcohol to chase off the chill made them feel a little better about, well, not quite everything. It helped though.

"Forgive me, but I find it hard to believe," Peggy admitted as she set her glass back on the table.

Evangeline shrugged.

"Believe it or not, it's still true," she stated plainly. "No family I ever kissed on the cheek, no boyfriends while I was at school, none of it."

"What about Lieutenant Barnes?" Peggy pressed curiously.

Evangeline shook her head.

"I've seen him in nothing but his shorts, but that was for medical reasons," she said. "No kisses though. Bucky is being very sweet and gentlemanly and slow, even with the war burning all around us."

"I'm surprised," Peggy admitted, a touch apologetic. "So many people are forgoing proper courtships because of the war, the looming possibility of death... I suppose I didn't expect Barnes to be one of the few who wouldn't..."

"He's a good man," Evangeline stated plainly. "He wants to do right by me," she added, a small, warm smile on her face. "Your turn, Peggy."

"Hmm," Peggy mused thoughtfully. "Never have I ever..." she giggled. "Written lines for punishment at school."

Evangeline winced, but despite the unpleasant memories of that experience, she smoothly lifted the glass to her lips and took her sip.

"I thought as much," Peggy teased. "What was it for?"

"The professor in question had a political agenda that included my annihilation," Evangeline answered in an angry mutter. "I told the truth, which she neither believed or liked, therefore I was punished, and writing lines sounds like an innocuous punishment. Except that I was made to write lines using my own blood."

Peggy blinked at that, shocked.

Evangeline had managed to get the words I Must Not Tell Lies removed from the back of her hand, but it had been a painful process. Two parts magic (the letters were cursed, the curse had to be removed) and one part skin-graft at a non-magical hospital to finish off the healing.

"Happier topics," Evangeline begged. "Never have I ever... had fondue."

Peggy huffed.

"Despite Howard's invitations and suggestions, neither have I," Peggy countered with a wry smile.

Evangeline laughed.

The raucous countdown to New Year began. Another chorus of Auld Lang Sine started up as the clock ticked over. Evangeline and Peggy joined in.