Alice jolted awake to the sound of a footstep near her head. Her eyes snapped open to darkness and her breath froze in her chest for a moment as she tried to recall where she was.
Someone cleared their throat. "Uh, miss…?" She recognized Falsworth's voice.
"I'm awake," she said scratchily, rubbing at her eyes. "We're moving?"
"Yes, it's time."
Alice scrambled out of the makeshift tent, already twisting her hair away and reaching for her cap. She'd slept in her clothes. She noted that Steve had not returned to his own tent after his watch, probably more out of wariness that his men would tease him into oblivion than the idea that Alice would be against it.
Alice's eyes itched with sleep as she emerged from the tent. The forest outside was still dark, and the coals in the firepit had gone out. She stretched, aching with cold. She had only the voices of the men around her to give her an idea of where they all were.
"We've got a straight shot north if we keep to the mountains," murmured Morita, and she followed the sound of his voice to see the thin beam of a flashlight pointed down at a map. She saw a shift of movement and spotted Steve's large bulk.
"Alright," Steve murmured. She heard his cowl creak as he looked around. "Alice?"
"I'm here." She finished with her cap and began disassembling the tent. It was really just a canvas and a rope, so it didn't take her long to roll it up and hoist it onto her shoulder.
Steve's fingers brushed against hers in the darkness as he walked past her, and she wondered abruptly if he had better night vision now. He used to be practically blind in the dark.
Alice listened to the mutters and rustles as Steve and his men finished their preparations.
Finally Steve murmured: "Let's go."
In a pack, they moved off into the dark forest. Alice was concentrating too hard on trying not to fall over on the uneven ground and to not bump into any of the men around her (who seemed accustomed to walking in the darkness) to concentrate on their direction. None of them spoke much. Dugan yawned from time to time.
After an hour of walking, as her muscles had begun to warm up and her eyes stopped drooping with tiredness, Alice skirted around a rock on the ground and then realized that she had enough light to see by.
She glanced up to her right, and sure enough through the gaps in the trees she saw the dim, hazy light of the sunrise. She realized that birds had begun to sing, chirps and trills echoing across the mountains. The air shivered with the cold rawness of dawn.
The small troop walking through the forest broke out onto a mountain trail overlooking a craggy valley, and Alice looked around at them all in the light of day. They stuck close together, with Steve and Morita in the lead and Bucky in the rear, cradling his submachine gun. His eyes were watchful, and Alice noticed he had another guncase slung over his back.
The whole team were armed to the teeth, by the looks of things, and each of them carried a heavy-looking pack. Alice only carried Steve's rolled-up tent, and instantly felt guilty. Plus, she only had a small utility knife to defend herself with. Steve and his men had prepared for a days-long slog through enemy territory. She'd barely prepared herself for a stroll through the woods.
The emergence of the sun had made the men more talkative, though no less wary, and Alice listened to Dugan, Gabe, and Dernier argue good-naturedly about which of their ration packs tasted best. Alice stole glances at them all as she picked her way across the mountain path behind Falsworth, noticing details which she'd missed during the night. None of them wore standard military uniforms, not even Major Falsworth; the usual uniforms had clearly been modified with extra armor and flourishes, and their weapons weren't standard issue either. Hell, Bucky had a completely unique uniform.
Alice suspected that the SSR had been generous with them. Likely Stark had designed their weapons and uniforms himself.
As they moved off the narrow mountain trail and onto a broader path just inside the treeline beside a glittering lake, Alice finally got a clear look at Steve. His uniform was the strangest of the lot: a visual representation of the American flag, hardly good for stealth, with painted wings on the side of his cowl, sturdy brown gloves and boots, and-
"What's on your back?" she asked. They no longer walked in rigid formation, so she was able to angle towards Steve, staring at him.
Steve looked over his shoulder with a frown, half turned, and then let out a noise of realization. "Oh, you mean the shield." He reached over his shoulder and slid the red, silver, and blue painted metal circle out of the holster on his shoulder blades. He flipped the disc once and then handed it toward her. "Vibranium. Strongest metal on earth."
He handed it to a doubtful Alice, who smoothed her fingers around the edges and then wrapped her knuckles against the star in the center. It echoed strangely, not loud and brassy like she'd been expecting but muted, smooth. The metal was cool, but not painfully cold from the frosty air, and the shield itself seemed large enough to cover Steve's whole torso easily.
"Peggy shot it a few times," Steve said, watching her. "It's very resistant."
Alice nodded, as if that were a perfectly reasonable way to test metal shields. She slid her arm through the straps (which hung loosely around her much smaller arm) and hoisted the shield, protecting herself. It seemed to block out all the noise ahead, dousing her in sudden muted silence.
"Why a shield?" she asked.
Steve watched her with the shield with a funny look on his face. The other men were throwing glances her way as well. "What do you mean?"
She swiped her arm through the air, and the shield whistled. "I know the SSR, and I know Stark will have been cooking up all kinds of interesting weapons." She jerked her head at the modified guns around her. "What made you choose a shield?"
Steve's eyes softened. "It's like I told Erskine. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't like bullies." Alice's mouth ticked up and she turned the shield to eye the painted front. Steve watched her. "A shield felt like the right tool to bring with me."
"D'ailleurs, il est une arme avec ses deux mains," [Besides, he's a weapon with his own two hands] Dernier added. Alice laughed, and most of the other men had understood enough to laugh as well. Steve went pink.
"And that shield can be plenty deadly," Bucky added lowly.
Alice smoothed her palm over it once more, thinking.
"You haven't said what you think," Steve noted. His tone was aiming for casual, but she sensed that her thoughts on this meant more to him than a casual observer's.
She tapped the shield with a fingernail and then handed it back to him. "I just thought it was funny that a man with zero sense of self preservation went and got himself a shield." She smiled to soften the joke, and Steve's men roared with laughter.
"Fair enough," he said, smiling and pleased as he reholstered it.
"I'm not even going to ask about the outfit," she added.
Excerpt from Operation Discus: Progress Report December 18 1943 (Agent Margaret Carter to Colonel Phillips). Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist:
Colonel,
All seems to be going to plan. There's been no word of unrest in the area, which is a good sign. Homer's allies have been notified and are making cover plans - they seem confident Homer's absence will not be noticed. Extraction Plan B remains in place.
All that's left is to monitor the situation, and wait.
- Agent MC
The wide, glittering lake emptied out into a river that carved along the mountainside, which the 107th Tactical Team and Alice walked beside on their way north. They were yet to see a single sign of civilization since they followed the wilderness as much as possible, avoiding going anywhere near the main roads and train lines. A few different murmured conversations cropped up.
Alice and Steve ended up side by side. She had to take two steps for every one of his, now, and she felt almost shy from the bulk of him; she was used to a slight, skinny boy at her side, not this massive uniformed soldier. But his eyes were the same, as was his careful awareness of her at all times. When she stumbled on the uneven ground he shifted closer, as if to catch her, and when she fell behind he unconsciously slowed his steps.
The sun had well and truly come out now, just warm enough to make Alice sweat under her cap and tight bandages. Not warm enough to ease the numb feeling in her fingers, though. Alice squinted as she walked and tried to ignore her complaining body.
She and Steve didn't talk about the earthshattering revelations they'd both had last night. They teased each other, and Alice asked about his art, and he asked about her music. He told her about how he'd had to get used to his new body, and Alice complained that Al's posture made her back ache. Not that she bothered with the posture now – she was dressed as Al, for safety's sake, but in her voice and actions she was all Alice.
They came to a short waterfall and had to scale a rocky slope to keep following the river. When Alice reached the top she dusted off her gritty hands and rolled her feet, wincing at the ache, as she watched the rest of the men climb over the top. Steve gave Bucky a hand up.
"So we should be able to continue north from here, now the terrain's not so restrictive," Morita muttered.
Steve unclipped a compass from his belt and flipped it open, frowning down at the readings.
Alice's eyes snagged on the compass. "Is that…?"
Steve glanced up, followed her gaze back to the compass, and then his ears went red. He nodded.
Alice's heart pounded. The compass she'd given him for Christmas the year before she left Brooklyn. He'd kept it, brought it over with him… "Even though…?"
Steve nodded again. "I… I had to bring it," he said lowly. "Now I'm very glad I did."
Alice wanted to cry.
Morita cleared this throat. "So…?"
Steve blinked, then looked back down at the compass. "That way," he said, pointing. "We should, uh, keep following the river."
Morita nodded, his eyebrows raised, and they all kept walking.
Alice kept to herself for a few minutes, prodding at the glow of pleasure that had bloomed in her chest. But then she forced herself to shake off the useless thoughts, and looked up.
"So what do you all do?" she asked as she fell into step beside Bucky. "Peggy told me that the SSR had a new 'heavy hitter', but what does that mean?"
"Oh, we're just getting started," Bucky said with relish.
Steve had taken the lead again. "We're going after HYDRA. All of 'em. And we won't stop until we put a stop to them."
"And," added Dugan cheerfully, "we help out elsewhere, where we can. HYDRA, the Nazis, they've all gotta go."
"I couldn't agree more," Alice sighed. "Though I can hardly imagine a world without them now, it's been so long."
"I can," Morita replied. "We'll all get to go home and do what we want to do again, instead of dealing with their bullshit."
Alice smiled and found herself glancing at Steve and Bucky. What would their lives be like, if they succeeded in defeating HYDRA? It felt strange picturing it. "And what would that look like for you, Morita?" she asked.
"Get back to Fresno, get my parents back."
She opened her mouth to ask a bewildered question, but then figured out the answer a second later. Steve had told her about the internment camps months ago. Her face shadowed.
Morita stepped over a fallen log. "Then… I don't know." He shrugged. "Thought about maybe running for government. Helping people."
That got a few raised eyebrows, but Alice nodded slowly. It made sense to her.
"I'm going to go back to New York and marry the hell outta my girl," Dugan added. The rest of them all groaned, as if this were not the first time they'd heard about this, and Alice smiled.
The rest of them chimed in with what they wanted to do after the war: Dernier told them in a lot of detail about his plan to help put Marseilles back together and then have ten children, Gabe shyly admitted he wanted to go back to college, and Falsworth said that he wanted a 'quiet life' but the rest of them all started crowing that he'd likely be knighted by the king and they'd have to start calling him Sir Falsworth.
Bucky had strategically dropped back to retie his bootlaces when his turn came around, and then to Alice's surprise, instead of asking Steve, Gabe turned to her.
"How about you, Ms, er-"
"Alice is fine," she allowed. "Al, if you're not sure about our company."
"Alice," he said, flashing a small smile. "Will you keep singing, after the war? You're from Vienna, right?"
She felt a few eyes on her as they all strode over a small stream and wound back into the forest. "I'm from a few places," she said consideringly. "I love a lot of things about Vienna. I have friends there, people I trust with my life. I went to university there, and I own a house." She paused. "But I already know where I'm going after the war. Brooklyn." She glanced over at Steve and Bucky, who walked beside each other now. "You're both going back to Brooklyn, right?" They nodded. "Then yes, Brooklyn."
A few of the others raised their eyebrows. Steve beamed.
Dugan cocked an eyebrow. "So I got the impression that you guys knew each other well, but all you've said is that you met in Brooklyn. And these two," he jerked his head at Steve and Bucky, "have never mentioned you to us before, and seem to have thought you were a Nazi. But now it's like nothing happened. I feel like there's a story there."
Steve met Alice's eyes, pink-cheeked.
Bucky snorted under his breath. "There's a few stories there, yeah." He took mercy on his nosy men. "We all met at school."
"That long ago, huh?" mused Morita.
Alice grinned. "The first time I ever saw Steve he was twelve years old and the smallest kid in our class, but he was standing up and telling off our teacher for bullying one of our classmates."
"Got five strikes on the back of the knuckles with a ruler for that," Steve muttered, eyeing the back of his hand. The men laughed.
"Sounds like you, Cap," snorted Dugan.
"Maybe so, but the same week Alice got that teacher fired."
"What? How?" came the exclamations. Alice glared at Steve.
"I still don't really know," Steve said, shaking his head as he held back a branch for Falsworth. "But she slipped out, and then minutes later the principal came to our class, saw our teacher bullying that same student, and he was gone the next day. And no one else noticed that Alice had done it."
"It was all just… careful timing," Alice winked. The same answer she'd always given Steve.
"And then," Bucky added, "the first time I met Alice she was crying her eyes out after a school bully tossed her new book in a puddle-"
"I was not crying my eyes out-"
"Then the very next day we came up to find the bully doing the same thing, tried to stop him, and then-"
"Got yourself punched in the nose," Alice cut in, eyebrows raised.
"Yes," Bucky acknowledged with a ghost of his old grin on his face, "and after that we realized she'd put itching powder on the book and the whole lot of those bullies were itching themselves raw." He laughed along with everyone else. "That Russel boy had a swollen face for a week."
"Yes," Alice added with a note of triumph, "but how does that compare with smuggling three teenagers into a speakeasy during prohibition?"
They shared stories from their childhood for the next hour as they all hiked along the river edge, laughing as the rest of the men chimed in with some stories of their own. Bucky had already told them stories about Steve's smaller days, but Alice added color to them, describing the boy she'd known from memory. Steve seemed a little startled to hear her fond, extremely detailed descriptions.
When they paused at a bend in the river to scarf down some rations for lunch (they all shared generously with Alice, to her relief), Alice found her good mood turning sallow. All the talk of their childhoods had reminded her of how simple things used to be.
Steve sensed her mood change. He approached and leaned on a wide, flat rock next to her, chewing jerky, but didn't ask her what was wrong. He knew that would never work.
After a few moments of silent eating as the rest of the men needled Falsworth with embarrassing questions about his childhood, Alice let out a sigh.
"I've told you so many lies," she murmured to Steve. "I broke promises I made to you."
"What promises?" he asked softly.
"I remembered just now – at school, I promised I'd always tell you my plans."
Steve nodded slowly. "I remember."
For a few long moments they sat in silence.
"I never wanted to be a liar with you," Alice said, her eyes on the cold rushing water of the river.
If she'd been looking at Steve's face, she would have seen the complicated twist of emotions that wracked his expression. Finally, he said: "You aren't. You don't have to be, anyway. Neither of us could have expected what the world would become and what we'd need to do. So how about instead of telling me your plans…" he cast around, thinking. "Tell me what matters. How you feel and what you want. Because you might be good at lying, Alice, but I know you're always honest."
Alice glanced over at him, eyebrow quirked.
He shrugged. "You've never lied to me to benefit yourself, only to protect other people, and I know you've avoided lying at all where you can. So you don't have to tell me everything, because I know you can't. But just…"
"Be honest," she finished. It didn't make the most sense in the world, but she understood. Because mostly when she spun a lie, it didn't feel like a lie – because she did it to twist Nazis into believing her so she could bring them down from within, or to protect someone who couldn't protect themselves. It felt right, no matter how terrifying. Steve wanted her honesty, and she knew she could do that without a second's hesitation.
"I'll promise you the same," Steve said with his usual brand of earnest seriousness.
Alice held out her hand, and they shook on it.
"Very normal. Very professional," Bucky said as he walked past them with a hard crust of bread hanging from his mouth, and for a moment Alice could pretend that everything was the way it used to be.
After lunch they had to cross a lower, flatter region dotted with farms to get across to the wilderness of the next mountain range. A few roads criss-crossed through the farmland. At the edge of each road they hunkered in the trees, sitting in silence for a few minutes to listen for engines before darting across the road.
As they neared the mountain range they came to an olive grove, the trees stark and bare given the season and neatly spaced along the grassy slope.
"Tricky for cover, but I think we can manage it," muttered Bucky to Steve.
"Wait," Alice said. They all naturally encircled her when they walked through exposed areas, so they all turned in to look at her. "I… it could be nothing, but I've heard of the Wehrmacht leaving mines in olive groves in this area." Her brow furrowed at the memory. "We're not very close to the front lines, but-"
Steve nodded. "We'll go around."
The men instantly turned and began skirting the edge of the olive grove, darting from tree to tree and blurring their silhouettes in the hazy afternoon shadows. Bucky walked backwards, his eyes on the seemingly-abandoned church a few miles away. Alice kept pace with them, contemplating the surprise she felt. They'd trusted her so instantly and so completely based on nothing but a rumor she'd heard. She sensed a few of the men glancing at her, but realized after a second of worry that they didn't eye her with suspicion – there was something like reappraisal in their eyes.
The looks were explained once they'd all disappeared into the thick treeline of the mountains again. They'd paused for a moment to catch their breath after the stressful dash across exposed ground. Falsworth wiped his sleeve over his sweaty brow, then turned to Alice.
"I don't get it," he said in a considering voice. "How do you go from a music student in Vienna to…" he gestured at her. "You know, what you're doing now?"
Alice opened her mouth, then closed it. "It didn't happen overnight," she said a little self-consciously. "I guess I've just been doing what I can. Back when I was a kid, that extended to pranking people. But… I can do a whole lot more than pranks, now."
"What sort of stuff do you do?" asked Morita. Alice shot him a sideways glance, and he held up his hands. "Classified, I know. But I don't get how you know what you do - how'd you find out about the spy? How'd you know about the mined olive groves?" His tone wasn't accusatory, just curious. The other men seemed equally curious. "Up until he showed up" – Morita gestured to Steve – "our jobs in the war were to go where we were told and shoot stuff until the other guys backed off. We get a bit more creative these days, but I guess I don't know where a singer comes in, in a war."
Steve let out a sigh, ready to step in to protect Alice's promises of confidentiality, but she cleared her throat.
"The singing is my weapon, in a way," she said softly. "It doesn't kill or wound, but it makes people let down their guard. They think because I make them feel things with my voice that they understand me, and that they can trust me. And the job itself is very mobile. I can go from Himmler's dining room to a makeshift stage at the Italian front, and no one bats an eye. Everyone's so busy listening to me that they don't notice me listening to them."
"Like a Siren," said Gabe contemplatively. Everyone turned to him and he looked faintly embarrassed. "I just mean… sirens in the stories are hunters, right? They use their voices to lure their prey to their deaths."
Alice laughed humorlessly. "I've thought about that a lot," she murmured. "That's the name they gave me, and I know they meant it as some kind of praise for my voice, but… it feels appropriate."
"She's good with codes, too," Steve said with a note of pride. Alice smiled at him.
"Tu en parles comme si c'était facile," [You talk about it like it's easy], Dernier added in rapid French, "Mais vous voyagez sur des terres ravagées par la guerre et parlez à certaines des personnes les plus dangereuses d'Europe." [But you travel war-torn land and talk with some of the most dangerous people in Europe.]
"J'ai eu ma part d'éraflures," [I've had my share of scrapes] she replied. Her throat tightened and she turned back to Morita. "War is about guns, and soldiers pushing back and forth across land, but it's also about… resources, and politics, and most of all information."
Morita still looked dubious.
Alice sighed and thought. "Well… hang on, you're the ones who liberated that village on the west coast from HYDRA, right?"
Morita and the others paused, then nodded.
Alice spread her arms meaningfully. "How'd you know they were there in the first place?"
Gabe responded: "The SSR's got a map with all the HYDRA pins…" he trailed off, eyes widening.
Steve shook his head, thinking of all the pins on that map. He wondered how many were there thanks to Alice.
"You're not supposed to meet me," Alice told Morita. "I'm meant to be the nameless, faceless voice who points the way for you." She shook her head. "Though I can't say I'm sorry to have met you all."
"You ain't scared?" asked Dugan. They were all tightening their straps and relacing their boots again, preparing to leave.
"Aren't you?" Alice asked softly. They all went quiet.
Steve made a silent gesture, and they began heading north through the forest.
Bucky broke the silence. "I hate the idea of you doing all this alone," he muttered, shifting his weapon.
"If I'd been alone I never would have got here," she said in surprise. "It's not just me, Bucky. It's… there's whole groups, whole networks of people who know this isn't right. I didn't just do it all myself. I'm part of something a whole lot bigger."
"But that doesn't make you safe," Bucky insisted.
"Nobody's safe anymore."
Excerpt from 'Italy: The Rise and Fall of Tyrants' by Amber Bates (2003), p. 382:
Come 1943, what had been a nation strongly in support of the Nazi regime became a messy battlefield of ideologies. After the Allied invasion of Sicily in July of 1943, and the subsequent shift in power (Mussolini was deposed, imprisoned, freed by the Germans, and then set up a pro-Nazi puppet government in the north), the Germans had total control over all non-Allied regions of Italy. They and their Italian allies committed atrocities against the civilian population, prompting resistance movements to spring up against them.
This period became known as the Italian Civil War - the Kingdom of Italy in the south and the Italian Resistance, versus Mussolini's 'Italian Social Republic'. And on either side were the Allied and Axis powers, struggling over every inch of land, as well as the independent and sinister HYDRA division complicating matters. The Civil War did not come to an end until the last Wehrmacht force in Italy surrendered at the end of the World War.
After another long slog through the mountainside which left Alice with swollen feet and aching legs, they settled down to make camp long after night had fallen. The others had kept chatting as they walked, but as the day dragged on Alice fell further and further into silence. After so many months of covertness, talking outright about what she did and how she felt had drained her.
They stopped on a hill overlooking a low valley. The wind howled through, icy and cutting, and after fighting with the canvas sheets for a while they all agreed that there was no point setting up the tents – though it was windy, the night sky didn't threaten rain. Alice chewed and swallowed her share of the rations, shivering, and feebly tried to resist when each of Steve's men found another layer for her to wear; Dugan had an extra coat rolled up at the bottom of his pack, and the others offered their tent canvases for her to wrap herself in.
Morita, Dugan, and Gabe were taking shifts at watch that night, so when Alice lay down on the grassy, windy hill to sleep, she rolled over to see Steve lying beside her. Not so close to be considered indecent, but close enough that she could see his eyes.
Swaddled like a baby, exhausted from a day of walking and emotional conversations, Alice smiled tiredly at him. Steve smiled back.
"We're going to be okay," he murmured. She didn't know whether he meant sleeping without tents, or hiking through Nazi-occupied Italy, or the entire war, but the assurance in his voice made her feel slightly warmer.
"I know," she whispered back. She burrowed her chin further into her layers to hide from the cold. She wanted to curl into him, to wrap her arms around him and pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist, but they had company and she wasn't sure she had enough energy to move. "Sleep well, Steve." Her eyes drifted shut. She felt him still watching her.
"Sleep well, Alice."
They set off before dawn again the next day. Alice felt fit to growl when she woke up to stiff limbs and aching muscles, but then Steve helped unwrap the layers of canvas swaddling her and gave her half his rations (which made Bucky tut and force Steve to eat some of his), and she found herself in a suddenly very good mood.
They'd made good progress yesterday, even with Alice slowing them down, and after a glance at the map Morita estimated they'd be at their extraction point in two more days. The terrain would get trickier with less thick wilderness to hide in, but they had enough rations to last and they'd made it through incident free so far.
Alice stood with her hands stuffed in her armpits, breathing puffs of condensation in the dim grey dawn light as Steve and Bucky fixed on a heading. Alice watched Steve turning with the compass in his palm and smiled to herself.
"Alright, let's move," Bucky eventually called in a low voice, and they all trudged off once more.
Alice, who had two tent rolls over her shoulder now (if Bucky had noticed her carrying his tent, he hadn't mentioned it), winced at her stiff, swollen feet as she drew level with Steve. She could barely see a thing, but she sensed Steve smiling down at her. She turned her face up to where she thought his was and smiled back.
"Hi," she whispered. The dawn air was quiet save for the sounds of feet crunching over gravel and birds calling.
"Hi," he whispered back. "Sleep okay?"
"I slept very well."
They smiled at each other in the darkness.
Someone cleared their throat behind them, and after jumping slightly Alice peered back to make out the bulky shape of Dum-Dum. Forcibly resisting the blush that threatened to rise to her cheeks, she turned back around and silently followed Falsworth. She stayed by Steve's side, though.
Occasionally their hands brushed together, and as dawn light crept across the sky she found she had the perfect position to sneak glances across at him. I'm just trying to get used to the new shape of him, she told herself. But more often than not she found herself looking at the part of him that had changed the least: his face.
More often than not, she found him looking back at her.
When the sun well and truly hung in the sky, and after what had to be the hundredth darting glance between Steve and Alice, Dugan cleared his throat again. He'd been walking behind them through the thick, craggy forest.
"So," he said loudly, glancing between them. Behind him, Bucky looked up. "I'm trying to figure out the dynamic here. I know you've all been separate a while, but… Cap, did you two used to be sweethearts or something?"
Steve went violently red as the other men snorted or laughed behind their hands, as if they'd been wanting to ask the same thing. Alice managed to hide her embarrassment and keep her face calm, but then she caught a glimpse of Bucky's grin and she scowled.
"Leave them alone, Dugan," Falsworth sighed wearily from the front of the pack. "You well know that it's none of your business."
"Maybe not, but there's no harm in questions," Dugan replied innocently. "Go on, Cap, Ms Moser-"
"Alice," she interrupted.
"Alice. Is that what's had you all up in knots since you saw each other? You used to be sweet on each other?"
Alice's gaze bored into Dugan's, and after a few moments he actually looked down, seeming a little embarrassed.
Silence rang out. Steve had ducked his head, shooting quick glances at Alice to gauge her reaction, and the other men watched them with blatant amusement on their faces.
"You can see why they'd be confused, Steve," Bucky said purposefully, even as he swung around to cast an eye over the forest. "Y'know, seeing as how you and I told them about those double dates we went on back home-"
Steve cast a guilty glance at Alice – as if he ever needed to feel guilty. She shot him a quick smile.
Bucky wasn't done, though. "And you did agree to go dancing with Agent Carter-"
"It's not what you think," Steve said quickly, eyes on Alice. The other men chortled again, and Steve shot a glare at Bucky (as he did, he thought back to when they'd been sixteen and Bucky had convinced Steve to ask out Holly Barker for the entire purpose of making Alice jealous). His head whipped back to Alice. "I-"
"I don't think anything," she replied smoothly, features suddenly careful, and the memory of Peggy saying almost exactly that when she'd caught him with Phillips' secretary made him shift uneasily.
The laughter around them had quietened some, and after another few moments of awkward silence between Steve and Alice, Bucky cleared his throat. "Hey Falsworth, I'll take the lead for a while, we're coming up on another valley here. The rest of you lot, keep close." He strode forward, shifting his weapon in his hands, and as he passed Steve he clapped him on the shoulder. "You take the rear, pal. Watch our backs." He slipped past with a quick glance at Alice. "You can help him, troublemaker."
He'd made it painfully obvious, but Alice had to admit his reshuffling had worked: suddenly she and Steve were left at the back of the pack, a few feet behind everyone else. They all crested a ridge, wary for a moment as they surveyed the valley below, then began working down a slope slippery with shale.
Steve's boots were sure on the rock. "Alice, what Bucky was saying, I-"
"Steve, it's really-"
"No, I…" he huffed a breath, reaching up to scratch a finger under his cowl. He looked sweaty. "I want to set the record straight. After I read that New York Times article, I…" he shook his head. "Well, after a while Bucky said I needed to get out there and meet new people. And I did try, but what with the war and… and you, it just didn't feel right."
Alice listened silently, her eyes on her boots.
"Then…" Steve sounded hesitant. "There might've been something with Peggy."
Alice's gaze lifted, but not to Steve. She looked straight ahead, her face rigid.
Steve sighed. "Nothing happened," he murmured. "She's great, you know that, and Bucky'd been filling my head with-"
The shale under her feet slipped a little, and Alice set a hand on Steve's arm. "Steve, you don't need to explain yourself to me." She didn't want to be jealous, these feelings were ridiculous. And yet she couldn't help the slight twinge of hurt hearing him talk about Peggy like that.
He let out a frustrated sigh, even as he paused to make sure she was steady on her feet. "What I want to say is that… I know this is all complicated, and crazy, but all the things I said back in Brooklyn… I still mean them."
Alice swallowed tightly. She still couldn't look at him. "Me too," she murmured. She pondered her traitorous feelings. "But really, if anyone should be explaining themselves, it's me."
He frowned at her. "What do you mean?"
Up ahead, Dugan nearly pitched headlong down the slope and just managed to steady himself, swearing loudly and profusely until Dernier hit his arm.
Alice couldn't even smile at the sight. "In the article, you must have seen… there was…"
Steve's eyes widened with comprehension. "The officer."
Alice's jaw clenched. "Kurt. I dated him for a few months because he's Reinhard Heydrich's nephew, and through him I was able to get access to the Reich Main Security Office and Heinrich Himmler's house. But I… it's not an excuse, but I hope you know that I was never… it wasn't about romance-"
She almost flinched when she felt Steve take her hand, and they both stopped walking. She glanced over at him to see him watching her with an emotion so strong that it made her breath catch. "I get it now," he said roughly. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her where they stood on the rocky hillside.
Alice closed her eyes, melting in the warmth he exuded. Embracing him like this felt supremely bizarre – he was so much taller than her, her head now able to rest easily on his shoulder and his arms wrapping comfortingly around her. She couldn't wrap her arms completely around him in return because of the shield, so had to settle for resting her palms on the strange metal.
She felt a pang of loss for the small, thin-limbed boy she was used to hugging, but she couldn't deny that this was extremely comfortable.
She didn't realize she'd forgotten what they'd even been talking about until Steve pulled her tighter and murmured: "You don't have to explain yourself to me either, Alice."
Reluctantly, she pulled away. "But you deserve more than silence from me. I should have known my secrets would hurt the people I love."
"Like we said," Steve said with a small smile. "We'll be honest with each other from here on out." A chill wind blew up the hillside, catching stray strands of hair poking out from under Alice's cap. Steve still held her hands, and his eyes were flicking over her face. Alice glanced down the hill at the other men – they were nearly at the base of the hill, about to curve around the mountainside out of sight. Surely they wouldn't notice if Alice and Steve-
But Steve wasn't thinking along the same lines as her, clearly. When she glanced back, he looked conflicted.
"Uh, in the interests of total honesty, I'd better tell you… in London I might've…" he scowled, but seemed to be directing the expression at himself. "I might've kissed a woman working for Colonel Phillips."
Alice eyed him narrowly. "You have been busy." He looked suddenly alarmed, and Alice laughed at the expression. "It's fine," she reassured him. "Things get complicated when one of us thinks the other is a Nazi, I understand." His hands tightened on hers. "Just don't kiss her again."
"No fear of that," said Steve quickly, his eyes fixed on her face.
Alice's teasing smile softened, became more genuine. If it weren't for the funny cowl on his head and the men at the bottom of the hill whose noise drifted up on the breeze, Alice could have pretended that this scene held some semblance of normality: she and Steve standing on a hillside in the fresh breeze, hand in hand, looking into each other's eyes and daring the other to be brave.
Steve's eyes were bright in the sunshine as he looked down at her, as if he couldn't believe she was standing in front of him, and he had a smile growing on his face.
Alice decided that she was plenty brave enough, and stretched up on her toes-
A low whistle pierced the air, and she thudded back onto her heels so suddenly that Steve had to grip her elbow to steady her. They both looked down the hill to see Bucky waving from the edge of where the mountain curved away out of sight. He made a very pointed gesture. Come here.
Without another word Alice and Steve jogged and slid down the rest of the hill, only releasing each other's hands once they reached the bottom. Only Bucky waited for them – Alice could just see the other men around the rockface, hunkering down low.
"What is it?" Steve asked urgently. His whole body language had changed: tense, his center of gravity centered, eyes sharp. Alice felt his alertness spark hers.
Bucky jerked his head. "That village you and Morita flagged on the map for us to avoid. It's just round there in the other valley, like you said, but…" his brow furrowed. "You'll see."
Steve took the lead, crouching as he rounded the bend of the steep rockface. Alice made to follow him, but Bucky put a hand on her arm and shook his head. She couldn't see anything from here, just Dugan's leg and Gabe's back.
After a few moments Steve called in a low voice: "Let's check it out."
After a moment of hesitation, Bucky let go of Alice's arm. "Stay close to me."
She touched the knife at her belt for courage.
The instant they rounded the rockface, Alice saw the problem. They'd anticipated passing by this village, intending to slip through the forest around it unseen. But this wasn't simple, quietly bustling small civilization Alice had imagined.
Even from the top of the rise, Alice could see that the village had been utterly abandoned. A large portion of it had been burned, leaving blackened and crumbling walls, and even from afar it was plain no one had lived here in a while. She spotted a fox slinking along one of the streets.
Alice stared as she followed Steve and his men down toward the village, creeping through the trees beside the cart path. When they approached, Bucky and Steve made Alice hang back with Gabe for company as they rest of them infiltrated the burned and abandoned buildings. Finally, though, they allowed Alice and Gabe to join them.
"No one here," Dugan muttered grimly, though he still looked around warily.
Instead of taking the long way around the village they instead walked through it on their way, closely packed together and their eyes sharp. Alice stared around. She knew that the fighting hadn't come to this area yet – it couldn't have – and yet it was clear there'd been violence here. Things were left scattered as if the inhabitants had left in a hurry: carts lying abandoned, doors half open, a dropped book. As they strode in deeper, Alice started noticing the bullet holes in the buildings.
She could see how this would have been a quiet, supportive place to live: the village was bordered on three sides by high, climbing mountains, and on the other side the landscape tapered down a valley, leading toward further civilization. There couldn't have been more than two hundred inhabitants, going off the number of houses. They probably lived off the land, farmed the surrounding area and sold their excess produce in larger towns.
But it was clear nobody had lived here in months.
"You didn't hear anything about this place?" Bucky asked Alice when they reached the main square. There were a few cars here, covered in twigs and leaves and looking rusty.
Alice shook her head. "No." Her eyes snagged on a child's bike lying on its side. Weeds had grown through the spokes. "But… it's not unheard of for small settlements like these to be attacked by the army as they make their way through, or… it could be this was a mostly Jewish village." She left the result of that scenario unsaid. She'd never seen a place like this before, but the rumors in France and Poland had described such things happening.
Steve's men were so close around Alice that their uniforms brushed against her arms. She peered out between the gaps, shuddering at the eerie emptiness of the village around them.
"Let's not stay long," Steve murmured, sounding disturbed. Alice could just see the back of his uniform – and she noted that he'd taken his shield off and had it mounted on his forearm, leading the way.
They filed together out of the village. Alice looked back just once, to see the abandoned buildings get swallowed up by the trees. She wondered how long it would be until another person set foot there.
They walked another hour in relative silence, following the jagged ridge of the mountains ever north. They'd decided to travel at a lower altitude, to avoid the perils of the steep slopes and sudden cliffs, and thought they were very clever indeed until they stumbled onto yet another olive grove.
"Let's circle around," Steve decided, his eyes flicking over the neatly-curated rows of olive trees, and they obeyed silently. They no longer walked in such a tight pack, so Alice could roam freely as long as she didn't walk ahead of Steve or behind Bucky.
They'd made it halfway along the length of the grove, just inside the treeline, when a rustle of movement ahead drew everyone's attention.
Instantly, they all stopped dead.
Ahead of them, the old man wearing dark slacks and a dirt-stained shirt rolled up to his elbows stopped dead as well.
The man looked weather-beaten and sunburned, his skin a dark, leathery brown with deep wrinkles creasing his face and a faded hat perched on his head. From his general dirtiness and the two large bags of what looked like mulch that he'd dropped on the ground, Alice supposed he was a farmer.
For almost a minute, the farmer and the 107th Tactical Team stared at each other. Alice saw the farmer's eyes flicking over them all, taking in the half-raised weapons, Alice's slight, unarmed frame (thank goodness she was still dressed as Al), before coming to rest on Steve's uniform and shield.
Birds whistled in the olive grove. The men around Alice were waiting for Steve's lead, but he did not move or speak.
Slowly, the farmer ahead of them reached up to scratch his head. "I miei occhi sono così cattivi in questi giorni," he muttered. With that, he picked up his mulch bags, turned, and walked off into the olive grove.
A second later, everyone turned to Alice.
She opened her mouth. "I think he said… he said he has bad eyes."
Everyone turned to Steve. He seemed to be weighing Alice's words. He turned, watching the retreating back of the farmer, and then let out a breath. "Let's go."
Dugan shifted his feet. "But-"
"We're not murdering civilians," Steve said firmly, putting words to what each of them had, if only briefly, considered. "Especially not ones with bad eyes." With a lighter glance at Alice, Steve turned again and marched off into the treeline. He didn't have to glance back to make sure they were following.
Relieved, the whole lot of them disappeared into the forest once more.
Excerpt from article 'Memories of a German Italy', a memoir by Luca Ricci, 12 September 1992:
I was only a boy during the war, but it was clear to even me that the world had descended into madness. Those were hard years. We were luckier than most, as we had food and a roof over our heads. But we had a front row seat as the war progressed: the increasing rise of fascism, the influx of German troops, and the chaos during and after 1943. I had never seen such violence before those years, and nor have I seen its like since.
The Allies swept past our olive farm in May of 1944, and though after that we were still afraid for our country, we no longer feared for our lives. We saw armies and generals march past under half a dozen different flags.
...
My father used to tell us that he'd once seen Captain America and the Howling Commandos in his olive grove. That's the kind of reputation they had: they could be anywhere and everywhere, miles into Nazi territory and out before you knew they were there. I was always doubtful of this story, but I never knew my father to lie to anyone. Well, aside from the Nazis.
They stopped to eat lunch at the top of a rocky incline, where the ice wind whistled through the air and they had a view of the white snow clinging to the mountain peaks further up. This place felt desolate and far removed from the rest of the world, even though they could see the greener landscape below.
Bucky told Steve he was going to get a look at their route down and walked away from the group, and Alice took her chance. She slipped away and stole after him.
She found Bucky lying on a rocky outcrop, peering through his rifle scope at the terrain below. He didn't appear to have noticed Alice approaching, but when she sat down beside him as she spooned cold, pre-packaged meat and vegetables into her mouth from a tin, he did not react.
For a few moments, Alice watched him. He lay prostrate and utterly still, his eyes focused as he peered through the scope. He hadn't reacted to her presence but he'd clearly been aware of her as soon as she came near. There was tension between his shoulders, and his face was shadowed, hard.
"So when are you going to tell someone what happened in that HYDRA base?" she asked.
He slid her a sideways look, then returned to his scope. "I submitted my report to the SSR right after Steve got us out."
Alice didn't blink. "Right. So when are you going to tell someone what really happened?" She cocked her head. "You're different. Something happened."
"There's a war on, you know," he muttered.
"I noticed. And I know war affects everyone differently, but Bucky… I know something happened."
He gave up on the scope and sat up, holding her gaze for a long moment before he let out an annoyed sigh. "You are… very irritating. You know that?"
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. But then she scooted closer, dragging her tin across the rock until she and Bucky sat side-by-side, knees touching, the valley below them. She didn't speak again. She could sense Bucky thinking.
The wind whistled over them, making Alice's eyes water.
Bucky sighed. "I ain't ready, Al."
She nodded. "That's okay."
"And Steve'd just… worry." He chewed the inside of his cheek, eyes darting.
"He worries anyway," Alice said softly. "You don't have to tell him first, if there's someone else you'd be more comfortable with. One of your men, maybe, or Agent Carter, or-"
"Or you?"
Alice turned and met his eyes. "I might not be here when you're ready."
"You'd be good, though. You wouldn't…" he shook his head.
"Steve might surprise you," she said gently. "I know you don't want to worry him, but he's stronger than either of us give him credit for."
"I'm not talking about the kind of strength that comes out of a bottle."
"Neither am I."
More silence passed. Bucky seemed to be considering Alice's words, turning his rifle scope over in his hands.
She was admiring the way the forest clung to the ridges of the mountainside when Bucky spoke again.
"I'm worried about you two."
"Why?"
"'M worried you're not going to make things right. I know how you both feel, I think, and I know you must've made up, but I'm worried-"
"We'll be okay," Alice smiled, thinking of how the Bucky she'd known would never have spoken so earnestly about this. "We've talked. Sort of."
"I'm also worried it's not going to matter," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. His eyes were dark. "Steve might be living in denial but I know what's going to happen when we get to the end here; you're going to go right back into the lion's den, and we're going to right back into pitching ourselves headfirst into danger. We might never see you again."
Alice listened quietly, her hands resting in her lap. She knew Bucky was right, but it was still disturbing to hear it.
"I want you both gone," Bucky said, his eyes hard. "Far away from here. But somehow the two of you have become… so important. To the war."
Alice reached over and took his hand. It was cold. "You're right. We don't know what's going to happen next. But we're together now, and we know where we stand. And knowing us, we're going to do everything we can to end the war and make our way back to each other. Steve and I are going to be okay. We're used to loving from a distance, not that we like it, and we…" her mind boggled at the thought of it. "We're going to end up together. I think."
"That's a scary thought," Bucky said, though he was smiling.
"Things will change," she said. "But you'll still be there, annoying us no doubt."
"And you'll still be a troublemaker." He kissed the top of her head, and she smiled at the memory of him kissing his sister's heads every time he left the house. "And if I don't make it-"
"I don't suffer that kind of talk, Sergeant," she murmured, and he cut himself off with a twisted smile.
They sat for a few more moments, hand in hand, watching the valley below. Alice could see the route they'd take down the mountain, and how the forest stretched north toward their goal.
When Bucky spoke next, his voice was amused and pitched a little louder. "Don't worry, Steve, I ain't stealing your girl."
Alice blinked and looked around. Steve stood behind them, one hand on a bare tree trunk as if he'd just come up to check on them. She saw a flash of remaining hesitation on his face as he watched them before it became a genuine smile.
Alice couldn't help but smile back at him, then turned to glare at Bucky. "I'm not capable of being stolen."
"Steve managed," he replied as they climbed off the rock to walk over to Steve.
Steve laughed. "If anything, she stole me."
"That's right," Alice said, leaning up to accept a quick peck on the lips from him – it sent a thrill right down to her toes, and Bucky snorted. They'd silently agreed not to acknowledge what was between them in front of the rest of the men, but Bucky was safe. "I hoodwinked you into caring about me, and I'm going to abduct you from everything and everyone you've ever known. Just pluck you off the face of the earth."
"Sounds alright by me," Steve replied with a dorky grin. He took her hand. Together, they walked back to the rest of the men, and Alice and Steve didn't release each other's hands until the last possible moment.
"Wait," Bucky said abruptly an hour later as they all walked in file down the mountainside. He wheeled to shoot Alice a round-eyed glance. "You were in a movie!"
"Must we keep talking about me?" Alice asked in a long-suffering tone.
"You were," Steve chimed in, looking over his shoulder with a smile. "An actual movie?"
"You're a movie star?" exclaimed Dugan.
"It was a Nazi movie," Alice corrected. "It was terrible. At the end of the movie the Germans won the Battle of Stalingrad. Utter rubbish. I wouldn't have done it if Otto hadn't insisted." She shook her head forcefully, almost dislodging the tents she carried. "If all goes to plan, that movie will be condemned to the trashheap of history where it belongs."
She felt the men around her raise their eyebrows.
"Steve's been in movies too," Bucky said unhelpfully.
Alice's eyes widened and she stared at Steve. She could only see a sliver of his face, since he walked in front of her, but it was clear his cheeks were glowing.
"Not long ones," he protested. "Just the little ones they play before an actual feature film. They… were not particularly good either. Mostly because of me."
"I saw one of 'em on furlough!" Gabe piped up. "It wasn't half bad, but the part at the end where you stopped mid-fight to talk about how you couldn't win without people back home buying war bonds was a little unrealistic."
Surprisingly, Alice found herself joining the others in their peals of laughter. Steve shot them all an annoyed, embarrassed look, but eventually he smiled too.
"One day," Alice promised, "we'll watch those movies."
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Later that afternoon, Steve found an excuse to walk beside Alice and murmured: "You've mentioned the name Otto a few times. Is… is he another…?'
"No," Alice said, reaching for Steve's hand. "Otto is… my manager, and my handler. And you needn't worry about him, he's in love with someone else."
"Oh? Is she-"
"He." She allowed Steve a moment to adjust, and then he simply nodded. "He's… gone."
That night they made camp deep in the dense forest. Alice battled with setting up Bucky and Steve's tents, and returned to the new firepit to find them all sitting around it, urging Gabe on in cajoling voices.
"I can't!" Gabe said, waving them off in embarrassment. "Not in front of the Siren!"
Alice took a seat on the log they'd dragged into their cramped clearing. She scratched a finger under her cap, wincing at her greasy hair, and eyed the men as they all peppered Gabe with some version of oh, go on! "What's going on?"
"Gabe chante parfois pour nous. Mais il est un lâche," [Gabe usually sings for us. But he is being a coward] explained Dernier, scowling at his friend.
Gabe covered his face with his hands, shaking his head.
"Oh, go on," Alice said with a smile. "You saw me slip in the mud today, that can't have been less embarrassing than singing a song. And there's no one around for miles." The forest was so dense that even if there was, they'd likely never notice the eight people camped around the glowing coals.
"Imagine if we never sang in front of you, growing up," Bucky said as he handed Alice her share of the rations for the night. "You'd never have gotten to hear my dulcet tones."
Steve snorted, but when Bucky arched his eyebrows he just tucked back into his food innocently.
Gabe let out a sigh and pulled his hands away from his face. "Alright, alright. What d'you want to hear, then?" he scowled around at his fellow soldiers.
"Something English," Falsworth said, "enough of your American garbling."
"Hear, hear," toasted Dernier, grinning as he used a phrase he'd learned from his friends.
Gabe sat, his hands pressed between his knees as he thought, before blowing out a breath and clearing his throat. "Alright. This is your fault for not packing the radio," he said to Dugan, then rolled his neck as if preparing for battle.
"There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover," he began, nervously, in a lovely baritone. He tapped the slow rhythm on the side of his leg. "Tomorrow, just you wait and see."
Alice knew this song: she'd heard it in Switzerland last year, since British victory songs weren't exactly popular in the Reich. She'd heard a woman singing it on the radio, and hearing it in Gabe's low, youthful voice was a pleasant difference.
"I'll never forget the people I met, braving those angry skies," Gabe sang, a little surer now, and around the fire pit men settled back, tucking into their food and watching Gabe approvingly. "I remember well, as the shadows fell," Alice smiled at the way he brought down the key, "the light of hope in their eyes."
Steve watched Alice across the firepit, noticing that she'd forgotten her dinner and was rapidly growing absorbed by the song. She always did this – her life might have become one of secrets and violence, but it made his heart warm to see that she was still utterly head over heels for music.
"And though I'm far away, I still can hear them say: thumbs up!" Gabe held his thumb up the way the RAF commanders did to signal permission to take off, and a few of the men chuckled. "But when the dawn comes out…"
Steve had glanced down to take another spoonful of his tasteless rations, so when he heard Alice's unmistakable, lilting voice weave into the next line he nearly jumped out of his skin.
"There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, tomorrow, just you wait and see."
Alice sang softly, not drowning Gabe out even when he faltered at hearing her voice, adding a high harmony to deepen the song. "There'll be love and laughter, and peace ever after, tomorrow, when the world is free."
As Alice and Gabe sang their way through the next verse, Steve sensed that all the men around him had gone very still, listening. Steve himself couldn't take his eyes off Alice. It had been so long since he'd heard her sing. It still blew him away just as much as it had when she'd performed for the first time at his church.
Alice and Gabe launched back into the chorus, their voices weaving high and low to make the air vibrate with song. The cold breeze shifting through the forest seemed to grow warm, and the faint glint of stars grew brighter. But then the song faded, and so did the sudden clarity and brightness, and Steve let out the breath he'd been holding.
Alice and Gabe grinned at each other. "Another?" Gabe asked.
Alice nodded.
Throughout the rest of dinner, Gabe and Alice entertained the rest of the 107th Tactical Team with songs set to no music other than the rustling of branches in the night and the pops of the fire. Gabe's voice was untrained and yet eager, capable of wringing startling emotion out of the low notes he hit.
They sang through a few Allied victory songs Alice knew, which felt vaguely haunting and yet unbearably hopeful in the midst of occupied territory, then moved on to their favorite songs, with the occasional request from the men around them. The others joined in a few times, but seemed to prefer to listen. Alice finished her dinner as Gabe cheerfully sang Stardust, and he seemed content to let her handle It's Only A Paper Moon and A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Self consciously, she even sang a couple of her original songs, especially the ones she'd written for Steve.
Alice had sung for thousands of soldiers, but nothing had ever felt quite as important as this. She couldn't remember the last time she sang for free, for fun.
And she couldn't help but cast glances at Steve as she sang. She could feel the pride and pleasure rolling off him, but what really made her stomach flutter was the knowledge that he'd be looking at her like that just the same as if she were reading out a book of instructions for an engine part, or sitting in silence.
She liked that about Steve, she always had: her singing didn't seem to enchant him the way it did others. He enjoyed it, and he made sure to tell her so, but it was as if he didn't see the Siren that everyone else did. Just Alice.
Alice sang Le chant des partisans, making Dernier jerk with surprise before he launched into exuberantly singing the Resistance song alongside her with a brilliant grin on his face. It was an angry, violent song, very French in its call for resistance, and Dernier finished with his fist raised in the air.
"Chantez, compagnons!" [Sing, companions!] he roared.
Alice smiled, and then, at a gesture from Gabe for another song, she cast around before thinking of one she'd heard just after the war began, which had made her think of Steve. Shooting him a quick glance, she took a breath that smelled of smoke and soil, then began to sing.
"I'll be seeing you," she began, "in all the old familiar places…"
It was a nostalgic, hopeful song which lent itself well to a single voice pouring out into the night air. She couldn't bear to look at anyone, let alone Steve, as she sang it. She felt as if the whole world were staring at her, as if she had a giant eye looking down at her. As she drew to toward the end her skin prickled.
"I'll be looking at the moon," she sang, almost hoarsely, "but I'll be seeing you."
Her last note faded off into silence. Alice knew, abruptly, that she was finished for the night. She'd delved a little too deeply for that song, given away things she hadn't meant to.
She looked up, her breath a little unsteady in her chest, and found them all staring at her.
Gabe sat with his head in his hand, contemplating her, Bucky had a soft, sad smile playing at his mouth, and Steve – Steve's eyes blazed, so intense that she had to look away for fear she'd be blinded. Tears glistened on Dugan's cheeks and mustache, and when she met his eyes he reached into his pocket for a ratty handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.
The noise broke the frozen silence a little.
Morita let out a breath and said wonderingly: "I can't believe I thought you were a fella."
Alice laughed, surprised, and Falsworth and Dugan joined in.
Gabe shook his head. "I can't believe I used to listen to you on the radio and now you're singing in the same shitty campsite as me." That earned more laughter, and Gabe blushed. "Er, sorry ma'am."
Steve and Bucky laughed behind their hands.
Alice nodded thoughtfully before replying: "Don't be sorry, this camp is a shithole."
That set them all laughing uproariously. Bucky overset his ration tin, and Alice rolled her eyes even as she smiled at them. Swearing never failed to get any soldier on her side, be they Allied or Axis. Though this time it didn't feel like a tactic. It felt like a joke among friends.
Fun fact: Billie Holiday's recording of I'll Be Seeing You was the last transmission sent to the Opportunity rover on Mars before its mission ended. And if any of you happen to be music historians, I know I'm a ~little~ early for I'll Be Seeing You in 1943 – the song was around, but didn't become hugely popular until 1944. Alice is a music nerd, though, she probably would've heard of it.
Congratulations to the ever-wonderful Sadie Kane for snagging the 500th review! And a big hurry for this story hitting 300 followers and (nearly) 300 faves. I couldn't ask for more wonderful readers x
Reviews
Guest: That's wonderful to hear. I've said it before, but speechlessness is often my favorite sound! Without giving away any spoilers, this story will be going into the "future" but won't dwell on it as long as it does on the war.
Guest: I'm glad you enjoyed the reunion, and that Alice isn't quite so depressed any more now that she's got her boys back. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
QueenBookDragon03: I'm so glad you liked the reunion! And I hope you can remember your password soon haha. You clearly know me well, though, to be wary about what the future holds ;)
Guest: More interactions with the Howling Commandos, you ask? Hopefully this chapter was satisfying, and there'll be more interactions to come :) I really love that crazy bunch.
The1975Love: I'm so glad you liked it! Peggy will find out soon but you'll have to wait a couple chapters for that, and other than that I will give you no spoilers ;) Stay safe!
CaptainLoki: I'm really glad you're enjoying it, thanks for the review!
(from chapter 25): I love when people make connections in the story to what they've learned at school/read about! The White Rose were so brave and interesting, I'm glad you picked up on the reference to them :)
Jul: What an interesting paper! Sounds right up my alley haha. I'm so glad you liked last chapter! You know I had to show how much of a badass Alice has become ;) I am indeed out of quarantine, thanks for asking! In Sydney at the moment, but heading home soon.
Interesting theory about the future of this story ;) ;)