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A Sister's Love

Chapter 14-No Matter The Costs

Liesl wakes up to a brave new world, Jon goes on the hunt for her wife and her sister and as the fires are put out somebody never sees a world without war. Part One of a Two Part Handler.

When she awoke it was like her head was on fire and her eyes forced themselves open of their own accord. She was tired, bone achingly tired and she felt tears prick at her eyelids but she forced them open anyway. It seemed like a long time since she had woken up and not felt the stab of fear and panic that came with being so far away from anything and everything that she had known. She hated feeling like that. Liesl had never been one to indulge in self pity. She had always pulled her stockings up and got on with the job but then again as the oldest of seven children she had never not been alone long enough to deal with the fact that something had happened.

From mother, to baroness, to step-mother, to occupation, to fleeing, to war, to this.

She sat up and then immediately wished that she hadn't. Almost without thinking her head had started pounding and she knew that the stickiness at her hairline was blood drying into her hair and down her face. It took her eyes a second to adjust and she realised that she was at what must have been a local hospital considering the people that were running around in nurses uniforms. Several other beds were filled with people in various states of injury or illness and she wanted to sit up (and more importantly get up) but even though the bed was as hard as a rock she suddenly felt so tired that it was almost impossible to move.

"Lie down" came a voice and she turned to see a nurse who had to be not much older than her coming over. Her blonde hair was tucked behind her cap and might have this morning been neat but now it was loose and her face was smudged with dirt. Her hands were coated in dirt as well but Liesl was rather gratified to see that they were not covered in blood.

But there was only one thing on her mind.

Brigitta.

Where the hell was her sister?

She knew her sister, she knew Brigitta, since their separation from their family she knew her better than she knew herself and she knew that there was no way in hell that Brigitta was not out there looking for her. They had been separated that much she did remember but if her sister had not come to the hospital then…

Oh God.

"No, no, no please calm down" the blonde nurse said looking frantic. She sat down on the bed as if they were old friends and Liesl was suddenly aware that actually the woman who was saving lives of people all around her was probably the same age as she was.

She felt so young and so old all at the same time.

And so close to tears.

"Sorry" she said wiping her eyes. "Sorry I just—my sister—"

"There are hospitals scattered all around here honey and God only knows how many places of shelter that people have gone too. There's a very good chance that's right as rain hidden away somewhere until the police let people know that it's safe to come out"

There was a very good chance that she wasn't but Liesl wasn't going to argue against hope especially when her head felt like it was going to split into pieces right here and now on the bed. She wasn't going to argue full stop. Right now she was in the company of strangers and dependant on them for charity and kindness.

"Look…give me her name and I'll ask around but don't cry and get back on that bed before sister sees me and gives me a talking too—seriously the world is burning down in front of us and she still wants the ward to be cleaned and the patients happy"

Liesl let out a watery laugh at that. She could not stop herself though there was nothing in this situation that was funny at all. The nurse smiled at her though her eyes were dark with terror too.

"I have a family too you know" she said quietly. "I've got a little brother—god knows what I'd be doing if it was him out there—I just hope he got back to my Dad's alright—he said he was going to the waterfront and—and my older brother is in Burma…we haven't heard from him for a while"

"My sister's all I got." Liesl said honestly. "I was separated from my family when we emigrated"

"Figured you were foreign by your accent—German?"

"Austrian. My father was very anti the Nazi's. He would not serve them"

"That's brave. Is he alive over there then?"

There was something about her honestly that compelled Liesl to be honest with her but at this question—the question that she knew the answer too she couldn't help but crumple. It was her deepest fear personified but it was slowly coming true.

"No" she said ramming her hand over her mouth to keep the sobs down. "No don't think he is alive—I think he's dead"

The nurses face was a picture of sympathy. "I can't imagine it. It's been me, Jack, Eugene and our father for some time now. I don't know how we'd have gotten through it without him. Certainly I don't think that I could take Eugene and do what you did"

Liesl shrugged. She was too tired to go into the details, she was tired of being on the run, constantly wondering when the other shoe was to drop, she was tired of being alone, of being achingly alone. She was tired of playing mother which was all she had done since she was ten, she was achingly sick of the war and she was of all things homesick.

She did not think she could ever forgive her mother and father for the last two years and she hated herself for it because rationally she knew it was not their fault. Her father had never intended them to get separated. Her father had never intended for them to be in any danger at all and Liesl knew that the lack of information was not for a good reason. She did not know the depths of which her father would go looking for her. If he had gone back to Austria…if he had played the part of the broken man but she hoped, he had not. All of this has to be worth something. All of this had to mean something. It had to mean that the Von Trapp family were free.

All of them.

"It's so pointless" the nurse said looking over the sea of beds. "I have watched men that I could have danced with die, I have held their mother's hands as they cried. I have played wife and mother when they were dying and you know what this is not even the worst of it. The real horror is over there and the woman that are over there doing their best to try and stem the blood." She sighed. "I wanted to go you know"

"Over there?"

"Oh yeah. You hear of woman becoming war nurses. Dad hated the idea of it as you can imagine but then a group of Australian nurses got captured when the islands started falling and he put his foot down. In Germany it's the same he says. Besides what I do here isn't much but it's something"

Liesl thought about it. She had been doing fuck all (pardon her crassness—even if it was in her head) since she had got here. The search for her family had done nothing, her marriage had stalled—even if you could call it a marriage and she was not sure that you could—and she had nothing to do.

She was not a woman that could do nothing. She was not a woman that was designed to do nothing. She had ran a family (she did not consider any of the governesses but the last one as anything other than there), she had looked after her sister, she had stared down Nazi's, she had lost the boy she had loved first to the Nazi's and then to death, she escaped her country as if she was a common criminal and she had married a man to escape. No Liesl was not a woman who could sit at home and do nothing. She was not built for it and the more she thought about it the more she wanted to do something.

"Are you alright?"

"Oh yes"

The nurse was looking at her as if she had, had a breakdown.

"My name is Liesl Von Trapp, my sister's name is Brigitta Von Trapp. And…and how did you come to do this?"

"Do what?"

"Nursing?"

"Why?"

"Because you are right. I need to do something, anything, and I want to do what you do"

For a second the girl blinked and then she grinned and stuck out a dirty, bloody hand.

"Susannah Garvey, nice to meet you Liesl Von Trapp. Now let's see what we can do about finding that sister for you"

How long they stayed there watching and listening Brigitta was not sure.

"I do hope your sister is alright" Luke said once. He hadn't said much since then. Eugene rolled his eyes from where he was setting up another card game.

"Course she will be dad. You know Susannah, she's probably waist deep in blood and loving every minute of it. You know if she had her way she'd be in Burma with Jack ladling soup down the throat of some unfortunate and giving comfort to the troops" He winked at Brigitta who nearly choked on her water.

"EUGENE MICHAEL"

"Sorry Dad"

It was such a different dynamic to her own family where everything (until the end) had been so strict and unfriendly that she couldn't help but be jealous of their easy connection.

"So you have other children?"

"Two. My eldest has been in Burma, my youngest at the hospital. If your sister has any sense she'll head there, I imagine once that will be the place where many people will go. We will wait until we get the all clear and then we can go. I want to see Susannah as well"

There was a devotion in his tone that made Brigitta look away—she had heard her father speak like that before when they had been hiding behind those cold gravestones. It hit her like a train all of a sudden—she did not remember the voice of her father. She did not remember his voice.

She did not remember that.

There were things that she did remember, she remembered the cold stone pressed against her back. She remembered the warmth of her old bed in her old house and the way the moon reflected over the lake. She remembered the laughter and the joy and the smell of the fresh air that came with being on the mountains and the singing in the abbey that made them feel like they were safe even though they were anything but.

But she could not remember her father's voice.

She had to swallow down her tears.

"It should be fine now dear" Luke said after a pause. There was a low wailing siren in the air. "I think we should go out and see what's happened. Now listen…" he said suddenly stern looking at them both.

"…We shall see somethings in the open that might shock you both. I have lived through a war, death and decay and destruction follow in it's footsteps regardless of what side you are on. You have to be brave. I cannot deal with fainting, shrieking, screaming or swearing—Eugene on that last one I mean you"

"Yes father"

"I want you to stick together. If at any point we get separated you are to head to the hospital. Brigitta ask for directions Eugene you know the way do you understand"

They both nodded. Despite it all Brigitta could see that Eugene was deeply respectful of his father and had too much respect and love for him to disobey. Luke Garvey seemed to command through respect rather than fear. Brigitta thought that once upon a very long time ago her father might have commanded with that aspect as well—perhaps it was love that could change or break a person.

Perhaps it was always love in the end.

Eugene held out his hand and Brigitta raised an eyebrow suddenly feeling Louisa's sprit channel through her body. Eugene shrugged with that grin that made her heart do…something strange and unusual…and unnerving…she stood up of her own free will.

She always stood up of her own free will.

Jon went out into the streets and breathed in the smell of smoke and dust. It was almost as if he could taste the metallic taste of blood on his tongue. If he was not dubious of such types (poets) he would say that there was blood in the air and that he could taste the rust.

War was hell, hell was war and he was standing right in the middle of it.

He thought of Liesl. Of the girl he had married to secure her safety but of the girl that he had started to care for and had unknowingly, unreasonably grew to love. He did not know when it had started but he knew that he respected her, he knew that he liked her, he knew that there was a reason he was standing here amid chaos and he knew what it was called.

Love.

After all. For what other reason would you throw yourself at the enemy whatever the cost? Whoever the enemy was? Whatever the price would be.

He grinned though this was not a grinning moment. It was however an epiphany and he found that he did not mind events such as these when they provided much needed answers.

He found that he was grinning.

He was almost laughing.

(Then again Jon reasoned. He might also at this point be slightly mad)

And with that he plunged himself into the crowd, towards the hospital and towards where he hoped answers would be.

And there you are, let me know what you think.

Next Chapter-There are reunions, plans for the future and a trip back to a hotel where a shock awaits them. Second Part of the Two Part Handler.