Apologies for the lateness of the update. This is going to become a running theme as I've finally got a real world job! Sorry, but I'll try my best.

Chapter 25

Stupid, was what she felt mostly. Just a stupid little girl swept away by a man who should know better. Because he should know better.

Grace didn't sleep that day. She couldn't, not when there was some woman named Kathy all the way across an ocean holding a baby that looked like Lewis, a baby that had the same dark eyes. Was she waiting patiently for her husband to come home? Was she telling that baby all about his brave daddy away at war? Was she completely oblivious or did this woman know her husband well enough not to expect him to be faithful?

The more she thought about it the more that shady, unknown figure began to resemble her sister, Lillian. Lillian as she was when her first husband went away to Africa, when she grew pale and thin for missing him. As Grace swam in that hazy place that lies on the edge of utter exhaustion but won't become sleep, Kathy became Lillian, waiting patiently by the door for news, making plans for the day her husband would come back and they could resume their lives together. The thought of it made Grace feel sick, dirty, guilty. It felt like there was something crawling in her stomach.

And the worst of it was that she had been warned. If they hadn't come right out and said it like Dick had, there had been those wary glances, just little frowns saying "he's not for you". But she was Grace and she always thought she was right. They had to be wrong or jealous or uninformed. She was in love. Or at least she thought she was.

But she must have fallen asleep just for a few minutes because it was Maggie barging through the door that woke her up with a sudden electric jolt. And she must have been crying too because her eyes felt raw and welded shut, she could barely open them.

'You're going to be late,' commented Maggie, pulling off her uniform and chucking it into an untidy pile on the floor. She was right, it was dark outside. 'What's wrong with your face? You look dreadful.'

Grace crawled off the bed and stumbled towards the little mirror. Yes, she looked a fright; pink around the eyes and smudged mascara on her upper lids. She filled the basin with cold water from the jug on the dresser and preceded to wash her face. It didn't do much to improve the overall effect but it made her feel better, more together. Like she could put Lewis Nixon in a box, just for now and get on with her job. She would unpack him and all their tiring issues later when a little distance and a little time would help her to think sensibly.

'Are you alright?' asked Maggie watching as Grace hurriedly tried to make herself presentable.

She probably did genuinely want to help but Grace didn't feel like talk about it, and besides Maggie's wasn't the kind of advice she needed right now. She was the one who practiced the "out of sight out of mind" rule when it came to men's wives and the last thing Grace needed was another person trying to convince her that she was over-reacting.

'Well, I'd rather this shift was already over and done with,' she answered. 'I have to run.'

The act of working, doing what she loved was exactly what Grace needed to freeze her thoughts about Nixon. It reminded her that she had aspects of her life that were more important than him and the problems he brought her.

Lights were out at eight thirty and most of the men fell asleep quickly if not naturally. Grace moved up and down her ward like a ghost, checking charts to make sure that medicine was correctly administered, fixing saline lines dislodged by sleepy movements and generally straightening the room and its occupants to ordered perfection.

The movements she flowed through were clean and familiar, done almost subconsciously and soothing to her racing mind. This morning the news of her new-born nephew made her consider the possibility of children. It would be very easy after the war to find someone (not Nixon) get married and settle down to the role of a wife and mother. It would be equally simple to stay as she was. In a few years' time she could be a matron in a civilian hospital, reigning over her own kingdom, seeing that everything was to her satisfaction. The idea was more than a little appealing but it would never happen with a man slowing her down.

The unearthly silence of the dark ward was broken by a hacking cough. It was a sound Grace had grown familiar with over the past couple of nights on the late shift and she knew exactly where it came from.

Corporal Perez had been in the hospital for three days now after getting in the way of a grenade blast whilst on a patrol. He was an unusual case in that he had very few secondary injuries, the external ones caused by fragmentation, but his internal organs had been churned by the shock waves. When he came in he had been ignoring the symptoms of a collapsed lung and had been getting slowly worse despite emergency surgery which had saved his life.

A few of the men had complained about the sound of his breathing in the night. It wasn't that loud but in the silence of the ward the grating in and out of air pushing through a caved in chest sounded like a death rattle.

Grace walked over and checked his chest drain for any signs of infection as was required repeatedly throughout the day. 'Can't sleep, Corporal?'

He shook his head. 'Call me Tony.' His voice came out a low wheeze but was reasonably strong.

'I'm not supposed to call patients by their first names. It encourages familiarity.'

'I wouldn't mind getting familiar with you, Sister.' Grace heard lines like this about ten times a day and while sometimes it could be offensive or irritating, in cases like Corporal Perez's it was just sad. Men like him tried so hard to cling onto pieces of their identity despite having so much stripped away from them; their dignity, their independence, their own bodies. By flirting with a pretty nurse they were making a statement – I am who I was, just a twenty-one year old man with my whole life ahead of me. Whether that was true or not varied from patient to patient.

'Oh, yes?' she teased with a raised eyebrow, keeping up the pretence. 'And how are you going to do that? You don't my name.'

'What is it?'

She leaned in close to whisper in his ear. 'Grace. Shhh, don't tell anyone.'

He grinned and then fell into another violent coughing feet. It was so bad it was as if his body was rejecting the healing lung by coughing it straight out of his mouth, but there was no blood so Grace was reassured that it was nothing to serious. She helped him to a sip of water.

'When am I going to get out of here, Grace?' he asked when he had recovered.

'We can't evacuate you until you're stable. Maybe the end of the week.'

'And then I'll go back to England?' She nodded. 'Hey, maybe when we're both back in England I could take you out sometime? I know a swell dance hall in Piccadilly. That's in London.'

She smiled. 'I know. And I'm sorry but I can't.'

'Already spoken for?'

'Afraid so.' It slipped out naturally.

'I bet he doesn't treat you half as good as I would.'

'You're probably right but that's just the way things are. Will you try and get some sleep?' She could see Mary by the door trying to get her attention by waving frantically.

'If you'll kiss me goodnight.'

'Now you're pushing your luck.'

Quietly, the merest pressure of her boots on the floor, Grace scurried across the ward towards Mary. 'What is it?' she whispered furiously.

'Maggie wants to see you.' Mary's face was agitated; she was hopping from one foot to another in a move which would usually suggest she badly needed the toilet but which Grace sensed might be more than that.

'I'm on shift.' And Maggie wasn't so Grace knew that whatever had sent Mary running to her wasn't work related.

'Yes, I know. I can see that. But she really was very insistent. She made it sound as if it were terrible important.'

'Not as important as the weekend pass I'll lose if the Matron finds me off the ward.'

'She also told me that I would be happy to cover for you.' Mary looked far from happy and Grace couldn't help wondering what Maggie had used to bribe or more likely threaten her with in order to get her to agree to this.

Grace rolled her eyes. 'Alright. Where is she?'

Grace climbed the steps up to her bedroom heavily. If this was some kind practical joke or a question about how best to achieve the Lana Turner look with rollers, then she would not be pleased. She really wasn't in the mood for small things tonight.

But the closer she got to the room the more she felt that something serious was wrong. There were gasps and whispered voices which got louder and more insistent the closer she got until her hand was on the doorknob and she could make out Maggie's angry tones.

'Put your fingers down your throat.' Grace heard muted behind the door of the bedroom. 'Put your fingers down there or I'll fucking do it myself.'

A retching noise and Grace opened the door.

'What's going on?'

Ally, red, blotchy and tear-streaked was kneeling on the floor, a kidney dish resting in her lap while Maggie held back her hair in a gesture that was more vicious than caring. Ally had vomited in the dish, there were ghoulish flecks around her mouth.

Maggie looked up.

'Come in and shut the door!'

Grace did as she was told and repeated her question. 'What's going on?'

'She's torturing me!' spluttered Ally.

'Only because she just took a handful of bloody pills. How stupid do you have to be?'

Grace groaned and knelt down beside them. 'Oh, Ally! You stole some more?'

She reached out to pull her into a hug but Ally pushed her away with uncharacteristic malice. 'Why can't you two just leave me alone? You think I can go back home to my Dad knocked up? There aren't really a tonne of options!'

'Do you think this is an option?' Maggie demanded. 'You've left it too late. And I'll tell you something else, gin and a hot bath won't do it either. You're past the point for quick fixes.'

Ally fixed her sharp and malevolent eye on Grace. 'Tell her to let me go.'

But Grace was out of her element. Yesterday she had made a promise to Ally that things would be fixed, as breezily as if she were comforting her over a broken vase, spilt milk. Now that she saw Ally like this red and wild-eyed with desperation, Grace realised that her assurances had been empty. She had no solutions. She could not magically put things right. She couldn't even offer advice because really what the hell did she know?

She looked to Maggie helplessly because she seemed to have a better handle on this situation than she did. 'I think you should listen to Maggie.'

'And all Maggie is saying is that I'm screwed!'

'Well yes, that's generally how you get in situations like this,' snapped Maggie before sensing that she might have gone just that little bit too far and moderating her tone slightly. 'All I meant was that you have to options; either you go home and have the baby, or you go home and have a proper abortion. All this cowering in the supply cupboard isn't going to help you.'

'Oh, what do you even care!' snapped Ally. 'You're not my friends.'

She pulled herself up clumsily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and stumbled out of the room. But not before Maggie grabbed her wrist tightly enough for her clenched fist to open revealing one last packet of painkillers which Maggie silently pocketed.

The room rattled as the door slammed behind Ally and Grace worried that the noise would cause people to investigate the commotion. She turned to Maggie, completely bewildered. 'How did she get more pills? I thought I took them all.'

'We work in a hospital,' said Maggie. 'It's not hard.'

'I'll talk to the Major about locking the medicine supplies or, I don't know… more frequent inventories.' She paused before asking the question she really wanted answered. 'What's going to happen to her.'

Maggie shrugged. 'I don't know. But she's left it too late to just take a pill and expect it all to go away. She's risking hurting the baby by taking those painkillers.' She looked serious. That was unsurprising, it was a serious occasion, Ally's whole future was in tatters. But she also looked sad, deeply, personally sad. 'It depends what her parents are like. Mine weren't best pleased.'

'What?' Rather than spelling it out Maggie pointedly waited for Grace to come to her own conclusions. 'Did you…? No. You don't have a baby, that's ridiculous.'

'No, I don't have a baby. I decided to go for option two.'

Several times over the course of their friendship Grace had been struck by the thought that she really knew very little about Maggie Harris. While other people shared their pain, Maggie kept hers very tightly looked up. If you looked at her in the right light or at the right hours of the day you could sometimes see a flicker of what she was feeling but it was always kept just out of reach. Grace couldn't imagine what it was like to live like that, wrapped so tightly in secrets.

'Do you wish you'd had the baby?'

'No, of course not,' Maggie said scornfully. 'What kind of mother do you think I'd make?'

'What about your… the baby's father?'

'Oh, he was decent enough. Decent as in he gave me the money for the abortion. Not decent enough to propose marriage on the spot.'

'Was he already married?'

Maggie looked at her very pointedly and Grace, as she often was around her more experienced friend, felt as if she were drowning in her inexperience. 'Married or not, there are plenty of men out there who'll treat you badly, you just have to be able to spot them.' She checked her watch, it was a quarter past midnight, the dead hour so hopefully no one had noticed that she had been gone. 'You'd better get back. I'll keep an eye on Alison.'

When Grace caught back to the ward less than half an hour later something was missing. 'What happened to Corporal Perez?' she asked Mary.

'He was having breathing trouble,' she answered. 'I called Major Phillips and he took him to resus.'

The Resuscitation Ward was the one closest to the operating theatres and where the sickest men went. Grace knew that in Normandy some of the orderlies had nicknamed it "The Morgue" because so few men ever came back from it. She had tried so hard to keep him from it and it hurt that he had needed her just at the moment when she hadn't been there.

The 101st were clearing out. The heavy wheels of the trucks laden down with men and all the accompanying paraphernalia of war, churned the grey snow into muddy mountains of sludge. They were leaving the land drained. Like vultures they had stripped the houses bare, fought over the scraps the pushed back Germans had left them and now, with no sustenance left for them to steal, they were moving on to the next empty corner of Europe.

Several trucks had passed Grace by driven by men who would have happily given her a lift is she'd thought to raise her thumb, but more than warmth and dry shoes, Grace needed the walk. The fresh February air was like a knife through her thoughts, freezing a whirl into confusion down to the simple certainty of action.

She stormed her way into E Company HQ without preamble and stomped up the stairs to Dick's room. She knocked but as an answer to didn't come within two seconds she considered herself completely justified in walking straight in.

Dick looked up from his desk as she entered. He looked surprised to see her but stood and smiled all the same.

'Grace, how are you doing? You know, Lew isn't here at the moment…'

'I don't want to talk to him, I want to talk to you.'

'Okay,' he said slowly sitting back down. 'Do you want to sit down?' He gestured vaguely at the footstool in front of his desk.

'No. I wanted to congratulate you on your promotion. Well done Major.'

He frowned because even he could tell that it wasn't congratulations she was offering. 'Um… Thank you.'

'But as Major can you exercise just a little bit of control of your men's behaviour?' She continued her voice was getting louder.

'Is this about Nixon?'

Grace could have screamed in frustration. 'Not everything is about him! I'm talking about the way your men are allowed to sidle up to my girls, flatter them, make promises and then destroy their lives like it's nothing.' She was definitely shouting now but there was very little she could do to stop herself.

'Sounds like we're talking about Nixon.' His mouth was twitching at the corners like this was a joke. Like her anger and Ally's pain was something to laugh over.

'There's a boy in one of your Companies, F Company I think. He seduced one of my nurses now she's pregnant. He's responsible for this but he intends to do nothing about it.'

Dick's smile faltered before it was even properly born. 'I'm very sorry to hear that but I don't know what you expect me to do about it.'

'Her whole life is going to be ruined, doesn't that mean anything?'

'Grace, sit down.' When she looked to refuse again he stood and literally steered her to the seat and pushed her down. She was shaking with the injustice of it all. 'Now, there are a lot of things I can order my men to do but I can't morally order them to marry people they don't want to.'

'It doesn't sound very moral,' Grace argued but her voice was quiet. By sitting her down he had somehow drained the anger out of her, not completely but the most violent of her tendencies were gone. She knew she was being unreasonable and unrealistic, knew he could do nothing to fix the situation but the just hurt all the more.

'I know. Just the way things are. Can I get you a cup of coffee?'

'No, thank you. I should be going and you have packing to do. Have a good trip back to Mourmelon. Do make sure to write.'

'Wait, Grace.' She turned back to face him when all she really wanted to do was crawl home and to bed. 'About Lewis…'

'I told you, we're not talking about him.'

'It's just…' he shifted awkwardly in his seat. 'You know I don't want to get involved, but there's something you should know about his wife. I've met her, Kathy and it's not how you think.'

'They're not married with a child together?'

'No but if were to get divorced it wouldn't be your fault. They were never going to last. She doesn't love him and she's not the type to sit at home waiting patiently, if you know what I mean.'

Grace didn't know what to say to that. He had concisely cut through her own thoughts and was she right in thinking he was condoning the relationship?

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. 'I thought you were supposed to be warning me off.'

He shrugged awkwardly. 'I guess I'm changing my position. He really does care about you.'

She was tempted to ask whether Nixon had coerced his best friend into speaking on his behalf but thought it might ruin the moment. Instead she nodded and said, 'Thank you.' And left the room.

Dizziness struck her at the top of the stairs and she clutched onto the banister for support. She had a bastard of a headache pounding behind the eyes and all she wanted to do was sleep for a day or two.

'You know if you want to yell at someone I'm right here.'

Her eyes flung open and she saw that he was. Nixon, the person that she really wanted to be screaming at was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, dark eyes all big and round like a kicked puppy. He had lost the beard since yesterday reverting back to his usual state of mildly unkempt rather than plain out scruffy as he had been since Bastogne. Grace tried to fold her headache away and fix him with a piercing gaze she really didn't have the energy to maintain.

'You heard that?'

'I think they probably heard that across the river. I'm surprised they're not flinging an .88 this way.'

'Yeah, well, I've just had conclusive proof that all men are bastards.'

'Dick isn't.'

Grace felt guilty because he was right. Dick Winters was the decent one, the one who'd always pick you up on time and never cheat and never lie, he'd probably never given any woman reason to yell at him in his life. She deflated even further, today was a day when she was feeling the life sucking out of her. 'I should apologise to him.'

'Do that later. I was just heading up to the hospital to come and see you but then I heard you up there laying into Dick. I know you said you didn't think we should see each other anymore, but we're leaving today and I couldn't without talking to you.'

She waited expectantly but he said nothing.

'Go on. Permission to speak, soldier.'

'I'm sorry.'

Again she waited but that seemed all that was to be forthcoming. 'Wow, I've had more perfusive apologies from people who have knocked into me on the Tube. Do you even know what you're sorry for?'

'Oh, tonnes of stuff. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about my family. I'm sorry that I married and that makes things difficult for you. I'm sorry that we didn't meet five years in a bar somewhere or on the street and that I didn't get the chance to ask you out properly, dinner and a movie and a kiss goodnight, like Private Webster did.'

She pressed her lips together in mock disapproval. 'That's not helping your case.'

'You're right. Sorry, your honour.' He took a deep breath before continuing. He was nervous actually nervous, it was clear in the way his Adam's apple was bobbing erratically and in the tap of his fingers against the top of his thigh. She was making him nervous and that gave her power. 'I was thinking of pulling the trump card.'

'What's that?'

'You know, the "L" word. But I decided against it. I need to save it for a time when we're happy and you're not pissed at me. I'm kind of beginning to wonder whether that's ever going to happen.'

He didn't know that she had already heard it. Those whispered words that she wasn't supposed to hear had weaved themselves into a safety net. She knew how he felt but she was still holding onto her trump card, nurturing it close to her chest for when the time was right.

She paused for a moment long enough to cause him to sweat properly. Eventually she nodded as she knew she always would even if he didn't. 'Alright. Save it. But don't be so sure I'm going to say it back.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means I'm going to miss you so you'd better write.'

'Uh… I don't know,' he teased. 'I'm not that great at letter writing, my wife could tell you that.' She pulled a face that told him exactly what she thought of his jokes. He quickly amended. 'I will write you every day. Or at least every week. Now how about I drive you back up and we can say a proper goodbye?'

Grace woke up curled into the passenger door of the jeep, head rested uncomfortably on her arm. It was the sudden pressure of the brakes as they had pulled up outside of the hospital which had woken her and for a moment she was disorientated. She must have fallen asleep the minute they had started driving.

'Did I fall asleep?' she asked blurrily as she wrenched herself into consciousness.

Nixon smiled fondly down at her. 'No, just rested your eyes for a minute.' His eyes darkened in concern as he took in the whole of her; the pale, almost paper-white skin, the tired bruised eyes. 'You look terrible.'

'Oh, thanks.'

'I'm serious. You been getting any sleep?'

It was true she had had no more than a couple of hours in the last few days which technically was no less than the scraps she had been surviving on during the very darkest moments of the Normandy invasion or the hell of Bastogne. But her exhaustion in Haguenau was different, deeper somehow, emotional. It wasn't just physical tiredness it was being constantly being raised up and then brought down by the people around her. It wasn't just Nixon, he wasn't entirely to blame, it was as if everyone around her was laying their problems on her… or she was taking them on. Would she never learn?

She shrugged off his concern. 'Enough. I'm fine. Some things have been keeping me up.'

'Me?'

That necessitated a roll of the eyes. 'Don't flatter yourself.'

'Well, that's me told. Do you want me to walk you in?'

'No, no. It's really best if I don't flaunt you.' The idea of kissing her boyfriend goodbye on the steps of the hospital in front of the Major's disapproval was so ridiculous it was almost worth doing, but her sensible side said no. 'Say goodbye now.'

Dutifully he leant across the gear box and tangled her lips into a lingering kiss. They were both painfully aware that they probably weren't going to see each other for a while and Grace was struck by the realisation that it wasn't just flirtatious banter, she was going to miss him and all his drama and all the grief he laid upon her. She just hoped she wasn't going to become one of those girls who took to sighing a lot and staring out windows.

He pulled back reluctantly. 'Okay, goodbye. I will write.'

'Not if it's too much bother,' she joked, getting out of the car.

'And try and get some rest!' he called after her.

And she suspected with him gone she probably would.

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