Hi, so here is another chapter, we are slowly making our way through this story so I thank all of you who have stuck with it for this long. Please let me know what you think of this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.
Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.
As always my apologies for any historical inaccuracies.
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A Sister's Love
Chapter 13-Such Sweet Sorrow.
Liesl and Brigitta, separated from each other do their best to survive in very different circumstances. Jon and Edith share a moment before the inevitable happens.
Brigitta didn't even feel it happen. One moment her sister was clutching her hand and the next minute she was gone. She opened her mouth to shout but she was dragged backwards as there was another explosion.
"Hey" said a voice next to her and she turned to see the boy who had said the planes were Japanese staring at her. "You lost?"
"My sister…she was here and then she wasn't"
There was a pause and then another explosion people buffeted them both and then he grabbed her by the shoulders pushing her down an ally to avoid them.
"You got a place to go?"
"I don't…I need to find Liesl"
She did, Brigitta knew her sister, they had been together through thick and thin and through hell and back and they were all they had right now—she was still holding out hope after all—when—
"Whose Liesl?"
"My sister. She…she's all I've got"
The boy nodded as though he understood and Liesl wondered how on earth could he understand?
"Listen…right now we are in the middle of war—no listen—we are…it's just hit us and it's hit us hard and we need to get to safety, I don't think anyone would want you dead. Look…it's just me and my Dad but…come back to our house, there's an air raid shelter, cause he's paranoid and he reads about the stuff happening in London and…we can find your sister afterwards"
She didn't want to do it. She really did not want to do it but she could see that there were merits to his decisions, the idea of leaving Liesl…after everything…regardless…
"Look…we need to get out here…come on"
She allowed herself to be dragged down another street as the screaming carried on. She had no idea what she was running from only that she had to be running from it. And she did. Common sense and a sense of fight kicked in and before she could stop herself she was running after this boy as if he was the saviour to her problems. Perhaps he was, perhaps this was the only thing that she had or needed…perhaps this was how she stayed alive.
Or perhaps Brigitta was having a mental breakdown—it had been three years since she had seen her father, almost four years and she had become a different person than who she had been when all she had wanted was his approval. Now she was her own woman and be damned the consequences.
What Georg Von Trapp would make of his thirteen year old daughter running hand in hand with a boy she had just met to a place she didn't know about as bombs were dropping all around her, she simply could not think.
Actually come to think of it she could think it and she found herself grinning despite it all.
Because she knew.
The boy took her to a house that was a little bit run down but still neat. He threw Brigitta threw the door and then slammed it shut.
"DAD?!"
There was nothing and then there was a man there. He had greying brown hair and brown eyes and a goatee that was neatly trimmed. He was wearing an apron though it was heavily stained and his eyes were brown and Brigitta could read the relief in them when he saw the boy that was still holding her hand. She had to look away because something in her stomach wrenched and she didn't know why. It was just all of a sudden she was so desperate for her own father that she didn't know what to do with this father and son duo and the concern for each other that they so clearly had.
"So the bombs are dropping?" said the boy and Brigitta shivered. There was another crashing sound and everything seemed to rattle and she thought that between the noise of what was going on outside and that damn siren that seemed to keep going and going and going she thought that it was like the earth had split in two and had turned to hell. Like it was the end times that she had heard about in the bible and it never, never stopped. Oh God could it not stop?
"So the bombs are—get down the air raid shelter boy before my boot goes up your arse so hard that you'll feel the imprint for the next week. Take your friend with you and so help me Eugene you had better have a bloody good reason for being out this morning when I told you not to—"
"Yes Dad"
The boy—Eugene grinned at her. "Don't worry…Dad's harmless. It's just me and him you see so he worries. Plus he's been expecting this for months, why he insisted we dig up the garden and put a bomb shelter in like they do in England"
Brigitta followed this rapid speech not comprehending anything. He took her into a garden and then stopped dead.
"Jesus it's like the fires of Rome" he breathed.
And it was. All around them seemed to be on fire, the sky which had been a perfect cloudless blue this morning had become a red, ashy kind of colour as smoke and ash and dust seemed to mingle with the flames. They watched still clutching hands when a shout made them both jump.
"EUGENE GET IN THE DAMN SHELTER!"
Eugene jumped about a foot in the air and then dragged her down some stone steps into what felt like a cold basement, he flicked on a light and it came to life.
Brigitta shivered.
"Sit down" he said motioning to a box and she did.
"So…I guess this is a dead awkward first meet. I didn't even get your name"
"Brigitta" she said. Now the adrenaline was wearing off she was shivering violent and very, very thirsty.
"My name is Brigitta"
"Well that's something" said a voice and she turned to see Eugene's father come into the shelter slamming the door shut. It didn't help the coldness or the dankness or the fact that she was shivering violently. She wasn't sure what it was, a combination of shock at what had happened, the cold and the reality of where she was. And fear over what happened to Liesl…god she was riddled with fear over what had happened to Liesl who she knew would either be trapped somewhere or out looking for her.
To think of her sister out in this was enough to make her head spin.
Actually come to think of it the whole room was now spinning. And not in a good way.
"Now, now enough of that" said a stern voice and she found that she was on the floor her head being pushed between her knees until she could breathe again. "There you go, there's a good girl. Eugene get some water from the tap for me"
The next thing she knew there was a glass in her hand and she was drinking. It was cold and clean and it helped her breathing and the shaking in her hands somewhat.
"There we go. No need to faint, this was always going to happen, were a navel town for…anyway the best thing to do is to wait until it's all over. Eugene…explain yourself."
Eugene launched into an explanation about docks, ducks, something about sailor's and then about Brigitta. She only half listened to it but his father's eyebrows were drawn together when he was done.
"Aha. Well…nothing we can do about anything now, chances are your sister's in one of the local, public shelters, nasty things if you ask me. You'd catch something just by standing but…my name is Luke Garvey this is my son Eugene, and you are?"
"Brigitta Von Trapp"
"German?"
"Austrian. But my sister and I have been living here for two years, we are soon to be naturalised citizens and my sister is married to a serving Australian man and my father was hunted down by the Nazi's—"
"Easy Brigitta, I figured as much. I don't need to know the whole history."
"Besides if you were a spy you'd have tried to kill us by now surely"
That was Eugene and both his father and Brigitta stared at him, he shrugged.
"Thank you for that son"
She smiled over her glass of water.
It felt almost natural watching the two of them together. In another life this might have been their father and Friedrich. Who knew? Perhaps somewhere over the ocean this was her father and Friedrich—but suddenly with a sickening purpose she realised that it had been nearly three years since she had seen her brother and that he would be eighteen soon and Friedrich would be in uniform soon fighting for his country. Whatever country that was.
And Kurt would follow. Because of course he would. God knows neither one of her brothers would shy away from the fight ahead of them. They would go regardless of the fact that there was a very good chance they might not come back.
The thought of both of her brothers facing down German or Japanese machine guns was enough to make her want to faint again and she had to breathe in and out through her nose least her hands start shaking uncontrollably.
"So what do we do now?" she asked.
"We wait. And we pray that it will be over soon" Luke said smiling. "And then we will go and see if we can find your sister"
Brigitta nodded and tried to relax. They were after all kind to welcome her into their home. Eugene found a pack of cards and she sat down on the floor next to him and they played games for a while. She was still sick with worry but she found that it distracted her. And their kindness was a soothing balm that despite it all she was still not used to.
He knew the second he walked into the room.
Ironic really. He was one of the few soldiers in uniform that had not been constantly surrounded by death and destruction and yet he could see death and destruction all around him. He could see it in his countrymen, in his files that he got from men and woman who would remain forever unknown throughout history and who were braver than most of the governments of the world put together, who were taking a stand against the enemy and using whatever they could at their disposal.
And he knew death.
He knew it when he saw his grandmother.
She did not have to tell him.
He knew.
"It's all taken care off" she said from her place on the bed. "I have made preparations, provisions, all of it. I just…I just wanted to see you before the inevitable"
He nodded though he could barely understand what was going on. Throughout his childhood Jon had grown up on the constant, indomitable support of his grandmother, perhaps she was strict, perhaps she had been bowed down by grief and perhaps since the war had broken out she had been getting frailer but she had always been there, a solid presence and though he was holding her hand and she was talking he could not switch his brain on for long enough to realise what she was saying or thinking or…or just being…
"I should have taken Helena" he said suddenly.
"No"
"Yes, I should have just taken her, fuck the consequences—"
"That would have been you dying"
"I could have fought my way out. I know how to fight my way out—"
"Jon you would have died. And you didn't. And you did get two girls out and that made all the difference."
"No it didn't"
"Yes it did understand me—" here she grabbed his face forcing him to look at her.
"It made all the difference. Because you saved two girls and it is flawed men who do that that triumph over better men who do nothing"
He opened his mouth to say something—anything but then he saw it. The planes…all of it…
"Go. The girls are at the docks. Go and get them and bring them back"
He looked at her.
"I will see you when I return"
It wasn't phrased as a question and her smile told him there and then that she would not see him again in this life but Jon was not to know that until much, much later. He went in search of his wife and her sister as the world crumbled down around them, his grandmother, his country, and himself.
All of them burning.
He did not know much but he knew enough to know that whatever happened today would change the course of his life, Liesl's life, Brigitta's life forever. Perhaps it would even change the country's life? Perhaps it would change history. Who knew, in this world of woe and this time of war, who knew?
But he knew something…something that was an absolute certainty.
Nothing, nothing was ever going to be the same, ever again.
And there you go, the next chapter should hopefully be up soon.
Next Chapter-Liesl wakes up to a brave new world, Jon goes on the hunt for his wife and her sister and as the fires are put out someone never sees a world without war.