A/N: Huzzah for 300 faves & 600 reviews! Congrats once again to Sadie Kane for scoring the 600th review, that's 5 out of 6 ;) I'm so excited to share the next few chapters with you guys, we've got some big moments coming up.
There's some language switching in this chapter, but to avoid relying too much on Google Translate, I'll mostly just mention that they're speaking another language.
Emily Wilson: "The Sirens in Homer aren't sexy. We learn nothing even about their hair – in contrast to other divine temptresses. The seduction they offer is cognitive: they claim to know everything about the war in Troy, and everything on earth. They tell the names of pain."
Alice didn't see the bombs falling from the planes as the SSR began their bombardment of the HYDRA airfield. She and her team of four Maquisards were on the far side of town, crouched down behind an outcrop of boulders, when they heard the first droning plane engine in the distance.
"Prêt," [Ready], Alice murmured. Her eyes were on the seven HYDRA guards below them guarding a road into the town, hands on their weapons but their body language inattentive. They hadn't heard the planes. Behind them stretched the town; thirty square miles of brown-bricked roofs and white painted walls, centred around a church. Evidence of HYDRA's occupation was everywhere: there were four sturdy watchtowers erected throughout the town, barriers around the outskirts, and the occasional glint of blue glowing light in the streets.
A ricocheting boom cracked through the air, making even Alice flinch, followed by a successive volley of explosions. Alice didn't bother looking up - the airfield was well out of sight from here.
But the HYDRA guards they'd been watching wheeled around, shouting in alarm.
"Allons-y!" whispered Luc, and Alice and her team dove out from behind their boulders and fired down the hill.
The initial burst of violence was over before Alice knew it. They had the element of surprise entirely in their hands, and only one of the HYDRA guards had turned in time to get a shot off before he was struck down. His electric blue projectile sailed well over their heads. Alice's fingers tingled from the recoil of her gun, and her ears rang with the sound.
She didn't have time to think about the shots she'd fired, or the men they'd hit, because her team now raced down the hill toward the town. They clambered over the barbed wire and metal barricades with some difficulty, and then they were on an empty cobblestoned road. The air echoed with continued explosions from the airfield, and when she glanced up Alice saw a pillar of smoke rising into the sky. She heard a closer crash, and guessed that the closest Maquis team had managed to ram their vehicle through the blockades onto a street the next block over.
Alice and her team ran down the street and then turned east, watching the buildings for signs of movement. They had no idea which would be occupied. A minute in, a HYDRA guard burst out of a townhouse to their left, gun raised. The man to Alice's left shot him dead before she could even react. Her breath hitched in her throat.
They forged on, picking off the HYDRA soldiers who burst out of their stolen lodgings.
What seemed like seconds later, her team had pushed their way east onto the main street of town. Alice had already changed her magazine once, and she'd taken more lives than she had ever before. She'd somehow forgotten how it felt, in the heat and noise of the moment.
The main street had devolved into carnage. Vehicles churned up and down it, and HYDRA and Maquis were everywhere. Bullets and blasts of blue light shredded the air. Alice spotted Steve at the far end, crouched on the hood of the HYDRA truck he and his team had ambushed outside of town, using his shield to deflect projectiles as he fired unerringly at the HYDRA soldiers around him. Dugan, at the wheel of the truck, mowed down the HYDRA barricades.
Oh no, Alice thought as she swept a frantic gaze around at the pandemonium, I really shouldn't be here.
Luc shoved her shoulder sideways. "Venez, la tour de guet!" [Come, the watch tower!] he shouted over the noise.
"Oui," Alice breathed, and she and her team dove across the street. Alice lifted her gun, sighted the strange dark uniforms of HYDRA, and fired. Things whistled and blasted around her, and she yelped when she almost tripped over a fallen man - HYDRA or Maquis, she didn't know - but then suddenly she was on the other side, pressing into a narrow alley between buildings.
She glanced around, found her team and the other team which had joined them around her, and then pressed on. Alice's feet pounded across the cobblestones, jarring her joints. She realized her mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a snap.
At the end of the alleyway they sensed movement in a shop building to their right, and everyone in Alice's team swung their weapons up. But then a child's face appeared in the window.
"Sortez!" [Come out!] cried one of the men in Alice's team, his voice cracking with adrenaline. "Nous sommes là pour vous aider!" [We are here to help!]
The door cracked open, and Alice got a general impression of fearful, wide-eyed faces and shabby clothes.
"Dépêchez-vous," [Hurry] Alice urged. Her throat felt so dry. "Vous devez courir vers le sud, tout de suite, et vous cacher dans la forêt." [You have to run south, right away, and hide in the forest].
Far too slowly, the civilians hiding inside crept out of the door, their eyes darting everywhere and flinching at every blast and gunshot. There were seven of them: a family, if Alice had to guess. Her skin itched.
"Dépêchez-vous!" [Hurry up!] shouted another man, and suddenly the whole family took off running, the child in its mother's arms. Alice thought of Tom, bizarrely, and then shook away the thought.
Alice realized that her limbs felt like jelly. Luc gave a command, and they took off running in a different direction to the family: continuing east towards the sturdy metal spire of the watchtower.
Alice had been a part of the war for four years, but she'd never seen battle like this. What had once been lines moving on a map became her breath burning in her lungs as she and her fellow soldiers chased a pair of HYDRA soldiers down a street. She'd seen the aftermath of battle before but it was different to actually see the bullets tearing holes in the walls, to see the blue HYDRA weapons blasting whatever they hit into ashes. Alice wondered if it would hurt.
Alice had been shot at before, but only ever in brief bursts of violence. This was protracted, and the pace of battle seemed to churn slower and slower as HYDRA coordinated themselves against the attack. Every corner she turned led to another volley of bullets. The air was so loud with explosions and bullets for so long, but she never got used to it.
Time seemed to drip sluggishly, like dreams of running with her legs trapped in mud, then raced forward as if someone were spinning a film reel through, trying to get to the end of the movie.
And yet Alice kept her head. She'd known countless instances of cold danger before: a pair of suspicious eyes staring her down; hiding behind a door and holding her breath so the Gestapo couldn't hear her, exchanging a coded message right under the eyes of a watchful general. In each situation, as now, she had been terribly, terribly afraid, so scared that she thought her guts would liquify and tears would spring from her eyes. Bu Alice knew how to use fear to do what she needed to do.
So she knew that even if she ended up blasted into atoms, she wouldn't lose her cool. It was a relief in a way, to know that her own mind and body wouldn't betray her.
She allowed herself to feel fear for Steve, Bucky and the rest of them, somewhere out there in the chaos, but she did not let it distract her.
A HYDRA soldier burst out behind her team with a flamethrower, and Alice squeezed her trigger twice. The soldier fell back in a blast of fire.
"Bien visé!" [Good shot!] cried Luc, and she nodded.
They reached the next intersection, where they were supposed to meet with some of the 107th before they moved on the watchtower. It was relatively quiet here, so they waited nervously for what felt like an eternity as the sounds of gunfire grew closer. Alice wiped her sleeve over her forehead, and it came away drenched.
Finally they heard approaching footsteps, and Falsworth, Gabe, and a handful of maquisards ran up out of a nearby alley. Alice let out a breath and stepped out to face them.
"Alright," Falsworth called slightly breathlessly. "Let's" - Alice saw his eyes widen, focused somewhere behind her, and her heart dropped - "cover!"
Alice dove toward the closest building without looking behind her to see what had filled Falsworth's eyes with so much fear. She skinned her hands as she fell behind the front terrace of a home, and half a second later the brick by her face exploded, sparking hundreds of pinpricks of pain across her cheek.
Then the boom of whatever had shot at her registered in her ears and shuddered in her chest. Alice huddled behind the brick terrace for a moment, breathless, then peeked around the corner.
A whole HYDRA troop had emerged at the other end of the street, marching beside a pair of trucks with complicated-looking cannons mounted atop them. Alice saw the maquisard who'd complimented her aim lying dead in the road, and her stomach heaved.
The HYDRA trucks shot another volley of blue light which seared Alice's retinas before she jerked back behind her cover. She heard an explosion further down the street.
She looked across the cobbled road and spotted Falsworth. He was huddled in the doorway of what looked like an inn, pulling a flare gun out of a sling on his belt as he peered at the oncoming HYDRA troops.
Right. Alice remembered this part of the plan: each of the 107th Tactical Team had a flare gun to alert the others when they found a concentration of HYDRA troops. She wondered where everyone else was. But she knew that either way, she and whoever else was left would have to keep attacking the troops to hold them here. She cradled her gun to her chest and craned her neck, spotting a few of the maquisards hiding in the alleyway further down. She couldn't see Gabe - he must be hiding somewhere ahead of her.
She sensed Falsworth's eyes on her and turned to meet his steady gaze. He tapped his flare gun grimly, then pointed at her, then behind her. She followed his finger to see a shattered window just above her, leading into the dark house. She glanced back at Falsworth. He gestured upwards, then tapped his gun and pointed up the road again.
Alice nodded, breathless. Her neck was starting to ache from her awkward position behind the terrace. She watched Falsworth gesture his plan to whoever else he could see from his position, as a few more blue cannon shots streaked down the road and the sound of rolling tyres crunched closer.
Falsworth aimed his flare gun at the sky, squinting, and then fired. In the same moment Alice clambered to her feet and hurled herself through the window, trying to avoid the broken glass. Gunfire and cannon blasts exploded behind her but she was already running for the set of wooden stairs she could see. She sprinted to the top floor of the third story building, then scurried toward the window facing out on the street.
Even in the bright daylight, the red flare now burning in the sky made the whole top floor of the house glow scarlet. She crawled toward the window, mostly covered by the stone bulk of the wall, then propped her elbow on her knee and peered downward.
The HYDRA troops were almost right below her, firing in every direction in a flurry of electric blue. Alice watched as most of them aimed into the inn which Falsworth now fired from, then stuck her submachine barrel out the window and squeezed the trigger.
Alice sprayed bullets down on the HYDRA soldiers until she saw a gun barrel point her way, and scrambled backwards. Blue light erupted in the window, shattering part of the ceiling and raining down plaster. Alice's heart felt like it was pounding in her throat.
She waited a few moments, then scurried to a different window. She could see dead HYDRA soldiers on the ground. The trucks were still in one piece, though. She fumbled one of the grenades out of the pouch on her belt, pulled the pin and then dropped it limply onto the road.
She leaned back, eyes squeezed shut, and the building shook when the grenade went off. She reappeared in the window to get a look at her handiwork, only to flinch back again as the rear-most truck flipped up onto its front wheels, the back half having just been disintegrated by a massive blue blast. Her mouth dropped, then she looked down the street to see Bucky with a HYDRA cannon propped against his shoulder.
She glanced back down, gasping for breath, just as a red, white, and blue shield suddenly sliced into the other truck's cannon with a shriek of metal. Steve himself appeared a few moments later, running so fast he was hard to keep track of. He leaped up onto the truck, yanked his shield free, then pivoted down to slam the metal disc into one of the HYDRA soldiers.
Emboldened, Alice propped her elbow on the window ledge and sighted the remaining soldiers, picking them off with two shots each to the chest. She could sense the others in their buildings and hiding spots doing the same. At one point she thought Steve was looking up into her window, but when she looked his way again he was sliding between a pair of HYDRA soldiers.
A moment later Steve was gone again, barrelling away with his shield and his athletic flips and devastating blows. Alice got shakily to her feet and ran downstairs and out onto the street, almost colliding with Bucky. He was sprinting after Steve, but stopped in his tracks at the sight of her.
"You're not hurt?" he panted.
She shook her head, unable to speak.
He jerked his head after Steve. "There's another flare, we've gotta-"
"Go," Alice breathed. "Take these." She ducked down, grabbed a few HYDRA grenades, and handed them to him. She could see the blackened scorch mark between the trucks where her own grenade had detonated.
"Thanks," Bucky said, then took off after Steve.
Alice regrouped her team - they'd lost two members, but now they had Falsworth and Gabe's team for backup. Gabe gave her a shaky smile.
"Continuons vers la tour!" [Let's continue to the tower!] she called, her throat aching from smoke.
With a rustle of readjusted weapons, they set off at a run.
The fight for the town continued through the rest of the day. HYDRA had well and truly entrenched themselves in this town, with all kinds of weapons and vehicles. They had to painstakingly clear each street and block, ushering the civilian prisoners to safety wherever they could.
Alice's team brought down the watchtower at noon with a combination of SSR and HYDRA explosives.
They got a moment's reprieve at midafternoon when they paused to drink from the town well, which the Maquis had secured a few hours earlier. Alice's fingers shook as she drank from the bucket, and she ended up sloshing most of the water down her front.
She saw flashes of Steve and his team throughout the day - Steve was a blur of color and power wherever he went, slamming past obstacles that took the rest of them half a dozen men and half an hour to overcome. Bucky was never far, sniping from the rooftops or plunging headfirst into the action wherever he was needed. The others were a riotous mess of bullets and battlecries, spurring on the Maquis and engaging in feats of foolhardy bravery that made Alice's heart skip.
At dusk, Alice and a few Maquisards were clearing the surrounds of the church when an ominous mechanical whirring sound filled the air. Alice paused, swivelling to locate the noise, and her gaze landed on a warehouse a few streets away. HYDRA's forces had been retreating to that warehouse for some time, and the 107th Tactical Team had been planning to hit it soon. Were its walls vibrating?
The whirring grew to a new pitch, and with a sudden crash the whole front of the warehouse splintered to pieces. Alice spotted a glint of metal and the whirring noise registered in her brain as a massive engine, and-
Alice's mouth fell open and she staggered back as sunlight hit the thing that had burst out of the town warehouse. It was a tank: an enormous one, as large as the warehouse it had just rolled out of and taller than the surrounding houses. Its cannon was the size of a tree trunk and its treads could have easily mown down four men standing abreast. With an awful metallic creaking it rolled out onto the street and directly toward the houses standing before it, gun turrets swivelling.
With a deep whine that sounded bizarrely like an orchestra of out-of-key violins the cannon shot a blindingly bright blast of blue light, which blasted apart the building in front of the tank. The tank rolled straight into the debris, crunching roof beams and foundation stones beneath its massive treads.
"Run!" someone shouted, and Alice's legs unstuck themselves. She started sprinting just as the tank started firing. The ground shuddered and spewed upwards in a fount of brick and dirt a few feet beside her, sending her stumbling, but she didn't stop. She ran as fast and as far from the Uber tank as she could, her fear reaching a level that she hadn't thought possible.
The tank turned and rolled down the main street, firing massive blue blasts that demolished everything before it. People screamed and scattered before it.
Alice paused now that she was no longer in the firing line, her gun limp in her fingers, and peered through the rising smoke after the tank. How are we supposed to stop something like that?
The answer came in a flash of movement on the rooftops. Alice looked up to Steve sprinting along the tiled rooves of the main street, leaping from one to another as he chased the tank. On the ground, Falsworth ducked out of a side alley behind the tank and began running toward it.
Alice took stumbling steps toward them.
Steve came level with the tank and leaped deftly onto it, his shield flashing in the setting sun. Alice started running. Steve swung his shield down at the hatch on top of the tank, yanked it open, then seized the HYDRA soldier who sprang out of it and tossed him aside. The man crumpled to the ground below. At that moment Falsworth tossed an explosives package upwards in an impressive underarm swing. Steve plucked the package out of the air and swung it into the open hatch at the top of the tank.
Alice's heart stopped.
But in the same lightning-fast rhythm as he'd appeared, Steve took a running start and leaped off the massive tank, legs windmilling in the air. The moment his boots left the metal a concussive roar erupted into the air and flame burst from every seam and crevice of the tank.
Alice had to stop and shield her eyes from the searing blast, and a moment later the force of it knocked her backwards. She tumbled head over heels, overwhelmed by heat and noise, and came to a skidding halt on her knees. She blinked away the afterimage of the explosion and looked up in desperate search of Steve.
She couldn't see anything - bright flames licked up the buildings around the rent-open carcass of the tank, but a moment later even that awe-inspiring image was blocked out by the thick smoke that billowed out across the town.
Alice scrambled to her feet and ran into the lung-tarring smoke. "Steve!" she called. She knew that he was made of stronger stuff these days, but he'd just fallen almost four stories with flames right at his heels… "Steve!" she coughed.
She skirted around a burning, melted chunk of metal, and then tripped. On her hands and knees she glanced over her shoulder to see what she'd tripped on - a pair of blue-clad legs in brown boots. For a moment her heart stopped, but then the legs moved as their owner got to his feet, his shield still fastened to his arm.
Alice looked up at Steve as he stood with the smoke billowing around him, ash on his face and a wild grin on his mouth. And she saw, finally, the man who made HYDRA so afraid.
Steve looked down, spotted Alice, and his eyes widened. He started forward to help her to her feet.
"Are you okay?" he asked. Besides the billowing flames and groaning metal of the destroyed tank, it was relatively quiet.
"I'm not the one who just jumped off a tank," she laughed, coughing as she did so.
Steve reeled her in then, a quick one-armed squeeze, and pressed his lips to her forehead. A strangely soft gesture for the middle of a battlefield.
"C'mon," he said. "I reckon that was the last of them. Now we've just got to clean up."
Facebook Post dated 22 April 2011, on page Battle Tactics of History:
Day 22 of Analyzing Howling Commandos tactical campaigns: the Siege of Soives
And today we're discussing one of the soundest and cleanest victories for the 107th Tactical Team. It took them less than 12 hours to surround, assault, and completely occupy an entire town, miles and miles behind enemy lines. This was achieved mostly with backup from the SSR Air Division, who destroyed HYDRA's main airfield, and through seamless integration with the local (notoriously difficult-to-work-with) Maquis group.
The members of the Maquis later said that a local Résistance agent put them in touch with the Howling Commandos for this mission, which makes sense since the SSR was closely allied with the Résistance.
In Soives, Captain Rogers took down an Uber tank with assistance from his men - this was not Rogers' first time facing the monster tanks, and doubtless he knew the best way to stop them in their tracks.
This is another excellent example of how in the French campaign, the Howling Commandos had really honed their style - surprise attacks backed up with sound intelligence, fire power, and expertise, completely overwhelming HYDRA's forces.
Cleaning up, apparently, meant looting the HYDRA facilities for all they were worth, and convincing the scattered prisoners that it was safe to return. The surviving fighters congregated in the town square by the half-destroyed church, clapping each other on the shoulders and allowing themselves to grieve for the friends they'd lost.
It was chaos: everyone scrambled over shattered buildings and tried to find each other in the smoke. Bodies were strewn amongst the wreckage. The remaining dredges of HYDRA had fled into the forest.
They knew they had at least a few hours before the Germans came looking since they avoided HYDRA territory mostly, and they had enough problems elsewhere to worry about this town.
Gradually, all the prisoners who'd fled returned to the town square. Some were civilians who'd lived in the town before HYDRA came, and they wanted to stay, but had to be convinced to leave. The likelihood that HYDRA or the Nazis might retaliate against civilians left behind was too great. Others had family elsewhere they could go to. There were also a handful of POWs and other prisoners with nowhere to go, who needed extraction.
Alice made these huddled, scared people her focus. She helped Gabe translate, confirmed people's stories, and tried to figure out the logistics of transport for the evacuees to the makeshift airfield the Maquis were clearing to the east. The SSR were sending in a few extraction planes at staggered times throughout the night, but they couldn't hold this position for long.
She made her way through the huddled civilians, keeping warmth and reassurance in her voice despite the exhaustion settling in her bones. She'd bound up a wound in her forearm from clambering over jagged glass, and taped gauze over another embarrassing gash right on her behind. She was pretty sure from the stinging on her left cheek and the alarmed looks that Steve had been shooting her that she had dozens of tiny cuts on the side of her face from shrapnel, too (luckily, she thought distantly, she didn't have any performances booked for over a week).
But she'd made it through alive. She could hardly believe it.
She finished confirming with a small family that they could make their own way east to Moulins, when a young woman who'd just staggered into the square seized her arm.
Alice tensed, her nerves shot from the battle, but then she saw the desperate look in the woman's eye.
"Please," the woman said in hurried French, "My sister and her family, they're hiding in the small village ten miles from here. You have to help them-"
Alice frowned. "If they're safe where they are, they should stay. This land will be freed soon enough."
"No, you don't understand." The young woman lowered her voice. "We are Jewish. My sister, her husband, and their children have been hiding in the local parish church for a year, but the Milice found out about them three days ago and they've been trying to extort them for money but they have nothing. I'm sure the Milice will send the Gestapo after them. I haven't been able to help them, please-"
"Okay, okay," Alice said, gripping the woman's arm to calm her. Dugan, who was taking names a few yards away, looked up with a frown. "I understand. Let me…" she thought furiously for a moment, her thoughts like frayed and tangled wool in her mind. "Where exactly is this village?"
~ I cannot recreate your life, no matter how I try,
but I hope that you like the fruit I have sown.
They are mine, for no other could have plucked such bright seeds. ~
When Alice appeared at Steve's elbow a minute later, he gave her a relieved smile. Night had well and truly fallen, so the still-burning fires and a few gas lamps the Maquis had brought were the only light available to see by.
"Hi," Steve smiled. "So the first plane's due in forty minutes, we're going to get the families with children on that one. Also the Maquis say they won't evacuate, I've tried to convince them it's too dangerous but-"
"We won't convince them to leave," Alice said. She'd realized that before they'd even begun the battle. "But Steve, there's something else." She quickly relayed what the young woman in the square had told her, and produced the map of the area where the young woman had pointed out the tiny, unnamed village.
Steve's mouth turned down as he looked at the map. "The last plane's leaving here at dawn, and there's German roadblocks all along the way."
Alice bit her lip. "The Maquis could draw away the roadblocks? Cause a distraction?" Even as she said it, she knew that they were far too busy here to start more trouble elsewhere.
Steve looked doubtful. "For how long?"
But Alice was determined now. "No, we can do it. Hell, I'll do it - it'll be easier that way. I can travel through the woods on foot here" - she pointed at the map - "and avoid the roadblocks that way. It'll shorten the journey too. I'll get to the village, get the family, and…" she thought. "I'll wait for the Maquis to be ready to divert the roadblocks, say an hour or so before dawn, then take a vehicle and drive the family back. Then my way will be clear back here, and the family can get on the last plane."
Steve looked steadily more frantic as she spoke, but she could also see his gaze drawn back to that little pencil-circled dot on the map. He ran a hand over his face. "Fine." He looked up. "But I'm coming with you."
Alice's mouth dropped open. "They need you here, Steve-"
"HYDRA's been taken out, Dum-Dum and Bucky can handle the extraction procedures. I'm coming with you."
"But-"
"Alice," he said. "Please."
They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Alice nodded.
No one seemed very happy about the plan Alice and Steve had cooked up. Bucky ground his jaw as they explained, but he could see that they were set on it. He and Dugan agreed to run the cleanup and extraction procedures, and Alice got Orane the Maquis leader to agree to set up a distraction to draw away the roadblocks a few hours before dawn (he seemed very eager to inconvenience not just HYDRA, but the Nazis too).
As they arranged all this Alice found Lisette, the young woman who'd pulled her aside in the first place, and gave her a nod. Lisette's eyes welled with tears.
With a few parting instructions, Alice and Steve set off into the woods north of the still-smoking town. As they left the warm chaos of the town for the cool, dark forest, Alice's aches and pains made themselves known. She'd left her submachine gun behind but still carried a handgun on her belt, and her usual field knife.
Night had stolen over the countryside, startlingly quiet after the ear-splitting chaos of the day. Alice focused on her own steady breaths, and Steve's footsteps in the underbrush.
A few minutes into their walk they heard the buzz of a plane overhead. Alice and Steve froze, listening. Alice knew the sounds of the different planes in the French skies by now, and she knew this was no Allied engine.
"Too light to be bombers," Steve murmured, his head cocked. "Too few to be an attack. Must be reconnaissance."
Alice nodded silently. The Germans probably wanted to work out what the hell had happened at the HYDRA camp. She knew for a fact their troops were too far to do anything about it for now though.
They walked on through the forest. It grew harder to see as the darkness grew thicker, and Alice stumbled a few times.
"Are you alright?" Steve asked, knowing full well that she wasn't.
"My legs aren't as committed as I am," Alice sighed. She was bone tired, but still managed to summon a smile. "How do you feel about carrying me on your back like a koala?"
"Okay," Steve said seriously.
For half a second Alice seriously considered it, but then she shook her head, laughing. "No," she chuckled, "No, I don't think my dignity is quite ready for that."
Steve shrugged, smiling. "I wouldn't tell anyone."
Alice eyed him. "But aren't you tired? You… I've never seen you fight before, really, and today was... You must be exhausted."
He let out a breath and held back a branch that Alice hadn't seen. "I am tired, but it… doesn't affect me the way it used to. I used to get so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open, but after the serum, if I want to keep going, I just… I can."
"I don't know if it's all serum," Alice said. "You've always been so…" He glanced over at her as she searched for the words, and something about the light in his eyes made her say: "stubborn."
He laughed. "Maybe so. But now my body lets me be stubborn."
Each word and each laugh had something in Alice's chest easing - the heavy dread and trauma of the battle still clung to her like a shroud, but it felt easier to carry now.
"You fought well today," Steve said in a quieter voice.
Alice hunched her shoulders. "I got through it. And how do you know anyway? You didn't see me. I could've been hiding in the corner the whole time."
"I saw you." The heaviness in his voice reflected the echoes of his fear, and Alice leaned closer so that her arm brushed his in the darkness.
They followed Steve's compass north through the forest, crossing a narrow stream, until they came to the village.
Alice didn't even know if the collection of buildings before them could really call itself a village: there were ten small cottages, a garage, and a tiny church, with a stream bubbling through the middle of it all. It'd be charming, Alice imagined, if she didn't feel like she had to keep one eye on the starry sky on the lookout for fighter planes.
Alice and Steve waited in the forest for a few moments, watching the village. All the windows were dark, and there was no sign of movement.
"This could be a trap," Alice murmured. She had trusted the look of desperation in Lisette's eyes, but anything was possible.
"Why do you think I came?" Steve murmured back.
Alice sighed. "One way to find out."
They crept out of the forest, skirting past quiet cottages until they came to the little stone dwelling built into the side of the church.
Steve reached out to knock softly on the door.
At first Alice thought that their knock had gone unheard, but after a minute went by she heard a snatch of whispered voices. She and Steve shared a glance. Then she heard footsteps creaking on wood, and a moment later the wooden door inched open to reveal a man in his mid-fifties, with a receding hairline and crooked glasses. He peered through the cracked door at the strangers on his doorstep and his eyes widened.
Alice felt a sudden burst of empathy for him: he couldn't have missed hearing the ongoing explosions in the distance throughout the day, and now he'd been roused out of his sleep by strangers.
"What do you want?" the man asked in nervous French.
Alice met his eyes. "We were sent by Lisette."
His eyes widened further and the door creaked open a little more.
"We can help, but it has to be tonight," Steve said, and Alice blinked. She'd almost forgotten that he spoke some French. "Will you let us in?"
The man - the pastor of this small church, Alice guessed - ran an assessing gaze over the two of them. They must have looked a sight, soot-covered and bandaged. But after a moment he nodded decisively. "Come in." He stepped back and held the door wide.
Alice followed Steve in, and couldn't see much of the dwelling from behind him as it was that small. They'd found themselves in a kitchen/dining room, the walls plastered over and with a small window looking in the direction of the small stream. The only light inside was the pastor's single candle and the faint moonlight through the window.
Alice's attention snagged on movement at the other end of the dwelling, and her gaze locked on a woman: the same age as the pastor, probably his wife. She wore a nightdress and a terrified expression.
In pieced-together French, Alice and Steve explained the situation, and the pastor's wife's terror simmered into something like fearful excitement. She and her husband exchanged a glance, then nodded.
The pastor, who introduced himself as Jean, lead Alice and Steve through a side door into the nave of the church. Alice imagined it would be quite charming during the day, but with no light aside from the candle it seemed cold and eerie.
As the pastor and his wife strode up the aisle, Alice peered around. She spotted the dull glimmer of a single stained glass window at the far end, two rows of narrow pews crammed around the aisle, and engravings of scripture on the walls. A large board hung by the entrance, with what Alice thought must be a register of the congregation. The church was no larger than Matthias's tailor shop back in Brooklyn. Alice and Steve's arms brushed as they walked up the aisle.
They reached the pulpit, where a single wooden cross stood on the fabric-draped altar beside a vase of field flowers. A baptism basin was pushed into the corner.
Then the pastor started pushing the altar, so Steve stepped forward to add his muscle. The altar slid away to reveal a wooden trap door. Alice's eyebrows rose. The pastor knocked on the door five times, and a second later it pushed up from below.
A man in his thirties rose out of the dark hole in the floor. He wore a heavy woolen coat, and under his unkempt hair his eyes were wide and fearful. His gaze wheeled around, taking in the strangers, and Alice could practically smell his fear spike.
"It's alright," said the pastor gently. "They're here to get you to safety."
"Safety?" echoed the man. He had hungry eyes.
"England." Alice's voice echoed in the church, and the man turned to her. "Lisette sent us to get you."
The other half of the trapdoor burst up, and Alice was met with an echo of the women she'd met in the burning town. This woman was a little older and her hair a little darker, but she had the same glimmering eyes and pointed nose. "Lisette?" she exclaimed. "Is she alright?"
Alice nodded. With both doors open she could see into the basement below the altar; it was no wider than the church, and too shallow to properly stand up in. It was lined with bedding. She could see the children now: a boy of around ten, eyes bleary with sleep, a toddler clutching his mother's knee, and an infant sleeping in a wooden box lined with empty produce sacks. Beside Alice, Steve shifted.
"She's safe," Alice reassured Lisette's sister. "Listen, we can get you on a plane at dawn, but we can't leave here until four AM. You have some time to prepare your things."
The husband and wife shared a glance. "Okay," said Lisette's sister. "Okay, we… we'll get the children ready, pack our things." She climbed out of the basement with the ease of practice.
Her husband still seemed wild-eyed. "We can really leave?" he looked to the pastor.
The pastor nodded. His eyes gleamed with tears. "Yes. You're going to be safe, Georg."
Georg fell back against the edge of the basement, letting out a breath. His hand settled on the back of his toddler's head, who looked up at her father with sleepy, trusting eyes. "My god."
Excerpt from article 'Secret Defiance: The French Civilians Who Hid their Jewish Friends and Neighbours' by Basil Holloway (1994)
... from the very beginning of the invasion in 1940, written record and local memory in France tells us of hundreds of individual cases of communities coming together to protect their Jewish members. From the beginning the Nazi occupiers made their intent to remove all Jews very clear, and in response civilians opened their homes, attics, barns, and basements to Jewish friends, neighbours, and acquaintances. This protective spirit could be seen all over Europe during the war.
In the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, under the direction of the local Protestant minister, hundreds of villagers hid Jews in their homes and farms in direct defiance of the Nazi occupiers. When Gestapo came to the town, the Jewish fugitives hid in the mountainside. It's estimated that in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, over three thousand Jews were saved from death.
In 1990, the entire town was recognized with the "Righteous Among the Nations" award at the Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust in Israel. Many other rescuers who risked their lives to protect Jews in the Holocaust have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. The award comes with an honorary Israel citizenship, and a plaque on the Wall of Honor in Israel.
Alice and Steve found themselves getting in the way of the rapidly-preparing family, so with a few words to the pastor and his wife they stepped out the back door and sat down in the grass.
Alice let out a heavy breath, thinking of Jilí and Franz and how they'd hid themselves away like that family, but it hadn't been enough.
"They've been living in that hole a year," she breathed. She glanced down and found herself tearing up stalks of grass.
Steve nodded slowly as he set his shield down beside him, his eyes heavy. "C'mere."
She scooted across to where he'd sat against the back of the church, and let him drape an arm around her. They leaned together, warm in the night.
Alice sighed. The air was dark, wind rustled through the trees in the forest behind the church, and the grass under her fingers glistened with dew. This place felt so calm and strange after the violence of the day.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked.
She listened to Steve's breath rise and fall in his chest. "I was thinking about how I used to get so angry at people for not… caring enough, or doing enough, in this war. That's why I wanted to get over here so bad. But now I'm here, all I see is people trying to do the right thing. Like that pastor and his wife." He nodded back at the church. "They must have Nazis driving past their church every day, and they've kept that family safe all this time."
Alice let out a long breath. "They're not the only ones."
He held her tighter. "That's what I think about when I see how bad things can get out here. When I see what HYDRA's willing to do to people."
A long silence passed. There were slight sounds of movement from the church behind them.
"I'm worried I won't know who I am," Alice said out of the blue. She swallowed at the sudden strike of honesty that had hit her. "Without the war."
Steve drew her closer. "You and me both." He dropped a kiss into her hair. "Promise we'll figure it out together?"
A few moments of silence passed. Then Alice's stomach growled, and they both laughed. Their conversation turned to lighter things after that. After a few minutes they heard the front door of the pastor's house swing open, and peeked around the corner to see the little family bustling across the grass to the nearby house. The pastor stepped out after them, looked back to see Steve and Alice watching, and strode up the length of the church towards them.
"They have spent their lives in this village," he said softly. "They wish to say goodbye to their friends."
Alice nodded. If the village had kept their secret for this long, she wasn't worried about them saying goodbye.
The pastor pulled his woolen nightgown around himself tighter and frowned down at them. He'd straightened his glasses but his hair was still slightly unkempt from being roused so late. Alice had never known her grandparents, but this is what she'd always pictured: a kindly old face with concern and care in his eyes.
"Are you two alright?" he asked. "You mentioned the battle in town, do you have any injuries?"
"We're okay," Alice said with a tired smile. Steve nodded, but then Alice's stomach growled.
The pastor's lips quirked. "I'll get you something to eat."
"Oh, we couldn't-"
"Stay," he said, holding out a quelling hand. "I'll bring you some food."
As the pastor strode back to his dwelling, Steve glanced at Alice. "So I'm getting the feeling that this isn't a trap."
She smiled, then prodded his shoulder. "I'm still glad you came."
The pastor's wife soon returned with two bowls of steaming porridge and half a loaf of bread.
"Let us know if you need anything else, alright?" she pressed. "You look like you've had a hard day. And there's still six hours before you'll have to leave, by my count - if you'd like a sleep, you can use our bed."
Alice and Steve thanked the woman, then tucked in hungrily to the food. Steve wolfed his down before Alice had got through half of hers, and she glanced up to see him looking contemplatively back at the church.
"What?" she mumbled through her porridge.
He glanced back and shrugged one shoulder, half-smiling. "Good people."
"Good people," Alice agreed. She swallowed. "Not as rare as you might think, these days."
"They oughta be the ones getting the medals."
Alice nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe one day, they will be."
As they ate, their moods lifted and their conversation expanded beyond the war. Steve told Alice everything he'd heard from Tom since he left Brooklyn, and the news of other people they'd known in school.
Steve had taken off his cowl and gloves, and Alice found herself pointing at various parts of his uniform (the strap over his chest, the individual compartments on his belt) and asking what's that? He had an answer for all of it, but seemed to grow steadily more amused so she kept asking.
"I have to admit it took me aback when I first saw it," Alice laughed as she tapped her knuckles against the cowl in her hands. Steve rolled his eyes. "But it does grow on you. Stars and all."
"Well I'm very glad to hear it's earned the Alice seal of approval."
Alice made a gesture of stamping a seal on the forehead of the cowl. "What made you decide to go with this design?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. I'd been marching across stages in something kinda similar, I guess I wanted to show that it could be… more than that."
"A symbol," Alice said with her chin in her hand.
"I suppose." He shrugged. "And I also feel like the uniform, when I was wearing it in that base in Austria, it got those men to listen to me. Felt like I could use some of that."
Alice smiled. "I don't think it was the uniform that did it."
Steve scratched the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable. "I wonder how the guys are doing back at the town," he changed the subject. "The first plane should've left by now."
"It should have," Alice agreed. "I think they'll be fine, the Wehrmacht won't want to go near the area until they're sure no HYDRA weapons will be used against them, and the Maquis are friendly enough at least with Dernier. No doubt they'll be cooking up some larger-than-necessary distraction to clear the road blocks."
Steve smiled at the thought. "Did I ever tell you about the time with the goat?"
"I… no?"
Steve then went on to regale Alice with some of the more bizarre missions he and his team had pulled off, and in return she told him some of the sillier things that had happened in her work with the Resistance; as serious and deadly as it all was, there was always something to laugh at.
As Steve doubled over laughing at her story about how Vano, Jilí's cousin, had got a German general to leave Vienna early by leaving rotten fish in his office drawers for a week, Alice leaned back on her hands.
"I've missed this," she smiled. "We haven't had time in a while."
"Who knew all it would take would be a few German roadblocks and a rescue mission?" Steve quipped. He leaned forward, hand outstretched, and Alice took it. "I've missed this too."
"I feel like this war has been my whole life," Alice sighed. "But everything seems to move so quickly - time, people, life."
"Life does move quickly," he agreed. "People doing wild things because they don't want to waste any time. I reckon there'll be loads of babies born during this war."
Alice laughed. "And people get married based on nothing! Heidi, my stylist, she married this Polish Resistance fellow after they went on one date. They're not even in the same country most of the time." She held up her porridge spoon. "And one of my backup singers quit after marrying a man she'd met the week before. She's pregnant now."
"Same on our side," Steve chuckled. "There've been half a dozen soldiers who've married French women they barely know. Even people back in Brooklyn were doing it too. Buck's sister Ruth wants to get engaged to this kid who works at her office, and they've only known each other for four months. Whereas you and I have known each other what, fifteen years?"
Alice chuckled softly and opened her mouth to reply, but like a slowly breaking wave, they both subsided into silence. It was as if their voices had been stolen. She and Steve stared at each other, eyes wide.
In the darkness, Alice felt a smile pulling at her lips. And then, slowly, she watched a glint flicker to life in Steve's eyes.
Reviews:
GuestPrime: I think I mentioned a few drawings of Alice in amongst his childhood drawings, but no one knew who the girl he'd drawn was. And yes, even if he can't draw her, Steve's memory is perfect. I can't wait to show you what happens next!
Crackers: All of the above! I've always loved Marvel (if you haven't, go check out my other story The Wyvern!), and I graduated with a History degree (and I'm studying to become a History teacher), so bringing my interest in WWII into writing a Captain America fanfic was kind of a dream come true. I did spend a lot of time on research before I even started writing this fic, and I do lots of ongoing research into specific events and times. But I have the background basis of my pre-existing knowledge which helps me know where to look :)
Guest: I'm so glad you're enjoying it, thanks for the review! As for if Alice is being watched more closely, we'll have to wait and see ;) Until next time!
CaptainLoki: Thanks so much lovely! We're coming up to some big moments ;) And thank you for the French correction, I do apologise for all my mistakes!