Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy it. I know it's another short one but this story is slowly drawing to it's a conclusion, there are only eleven chapters left after all.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just the plot.

Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

A Sister's Love

Chapter 19-Never Turn Your Back On Them

Brigitta comes to the hospital and there is a reunion between the three Von Trapps, brother and sisters, information is exchanged and things might be for once getting a bit brighter and a bit better.

Brigitta had only half listened to the phone call once (though that had been hard because Liesl had been screaming the information down the phone at her at an alarming rate) and then she all but threw it on the receiver, had to stop and then place it on the receiver because they were paying their own bills now—or at the very least Jon was and then she had to drag her coat on and started at a run down the street to the hospital. She had to stop several times because she was not what you would call a wonderful runner (indeed she was terrible—if you wanted a Von Trapp that could run you wanted Louisa) and then she was running again all the way down the corridors of the hospital until she found the ward where Liesl had said she was.

It was one of those aching moments where from the very first phone call to the very last moment time seemed to stand still and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

But she got there.

There was really nothing that was not going to stop her from getting to the hospital.

She staggered down the corridor ignoring the scandalous look that she was being given by all of the other nurses. Liesl had told her where she was supposed to go and she staggered past the desk and gripped onto the curtain that separated the beds. She ripped it open and there he was.

Friedrich.

Her brother. Her big brother.

Just like Liesl had told her he was.

And he was there leaning back against the pillows and his face catalogued so many of the changes that had affected them all. He was thin…painfully thin indeed most of his ribs were showing and his hands were like pale spiders on the bed and he was covered in dirt and dust and mud and blood and the Good Lord only knew what else was there as well.

He was stripped to his shirt and most of his arm was wrapped in bandages as well as most of his upper torso. His dog tags were still wrapped around his neck and she saw the baby fat that her brother in her mind, the way she remembered him anyway had gone. She saw the bruises and the darkness that pulled at his eyes like it did for so many a solider but when he looked at her the blue eyes were very bright.

"Brigitta"

"Friedrich"

Liesl got off the bed just as Brigitta launched herself at her brother and he wrapped his one good arm around her and let her bury her head somewhere between his shoulder and his neck and just sob rather undignified for several minutes.

Actually it might have been longer than several minutes. It certainly did feel like several hours.

But the relief…sheer relief. She and Liesl had been on their own for so long…there was no way for her to understand the sacrifices her sister had made in those months in Switzerland, in Australia, in passage, desperately hoping that they were doing the right thing. That they were doing the right thing and that they were not making it one hundred percent harder for their family to find them. She had seen Liesl go through emotions no sixteen year old should have gone through in the last almost four years and she too had gone through them. She knew that there had been nothing from the Red Cross, they had lost Edith, they were entirely dependant on a man, they had been forced to run from bombs, from Nazi's, be treated like criminals in some cases and be forced against their own will to become refugees. In the past four years they had lost their home, their family, their…everything. And now they had managed to get a small piece of it back and she couldn't help but start crying. What she and Liesl had been through would stay with them for the rest of their lives and Brigitta was fourteen now, she knew that the bond that she had with her sister was beyond any other bond that she had with the rest of her family but after so long thinking that she was one of the only two Von Trapp's left in the world had made it so that her brother here, her flesh and blood brother here was enough to make her want to cling to him and never let go.

Friedrich to his credit did not care. His grip around her was tight and Liesl came and sat down at some point and the three of them were intertwined together for a long time. The only thing that would have made this better, any better was if the rest of the family crashed through the doors but she knew that to be a pipe dream. That being said, if Friedrich was here in an American uniform then that meant that they must have escaped and that sent her heart rate rocketing and her blood pressure both soaring and crashing with a skill that she was sure was not good for her heart or her health.

Eventually though they had to pull apart.

"My God" Friedrich said grinning. "I never thought…if I'd have known you were here…my God we've all been going out of our minds back home. When I get some writing paper I have to try and ring father and let him know he's become a shell—"

Brigitta said nothing but she could hide the fact that even as she was wiping her eyes those words struck a cord. Her father had never shown his emotions and even when he had remarried he had been a mixture of both guarded and overly cautious and to think of him struggling with the loss of them was both difficult to comprehend and made her feel oddly relieved. She was so used to her father in his naval persona. He had never tried to be anything else in Brigitta's memory. She did not know why she had expected him to carry on as if nothing had happened but she was relieved that he had not.

"And everyone is alright?" Liesl asked as if she was grasping onto crumbs. Brigitta nodded. She knew what Liesl was thinking. Over the course of the last four years she had learnt things about her sister that she had not known before or had not noticed before. They were closer now, a bond forged out of love and survival and desperation and now they were not alone.

"Oh yes" Friedrich said brightly. "Well…we settled in Wisconsin and Marta and Gretl are at school and Kurt's just finished. He's about a year away from enlisting but he's working at the local factory helping created plane parts until he gets the papers through. Louisa…Louisa enlisted as well. She's working for an officer as his typist and translator and she's advancing quite rapidly for a woman—or so she tells me whenever she can afford to write"

Brigitta noticed that there was a look on his face that she could not understand. There was more to what was going on with Louisa and what she was doing and she was willing to bet that her sister was not doing the nice and easy typist course that many other girls who wore a uniform were doing.

Actually knowing Louisa as she did she was amazed that her sister had not grabbed the nearest gun and gone shooting Nazi's with skill.

"And then…well…we all have a new brother"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Mother and father…they had another baby, she realised that she was pregnant when we arrived. It was not what you would call an easy pregnancy but she gave birth to Alexander. He's four now. Looks a lot like father to tell the truth"

"Poor kid" Brigitta quipped but the truth of the matter was that she could not get her brain past what she was listening to. There was another Von Trapp out there. One that she had not seen or not held or not sang too. One who would never know the Austria that she had known where everything was golden and the hills were filled with lambs and the grass was green and everyone liked everyone and even when the sun was so hot you could barely breathe there was still snow on the tops of the mountains so thick and so high that you could never get near it.

He would never know the sound of the nuns singing in the abbey or Uncle Max laughing with his cigar in his mouth.

And at that there was another thought.

"Did you hear anything from Austria? Anything about anyone we left behind?"

Friedrich watched her with very blue and very sad eyes.

"Not anymore. We heard a little from Uncle Max in the early months of 1939 but nothing since then. He said he was staying in Austria to help people get out while he could but then Vienna fell and that was the end of that. And we did get a letter from the nuns once to say that you had been there for a time but there was nothing else. And…and…"

And here he shot a rather apprehensive look at Liesl and Brigitta just knew what (or more specifically who he was going to mention next)

"They mentioned that Rolfe was dead"

Liesl said nothing so Brigitta thought it was best to fill in this part of the story.

"Yes" she said shortly. "He…he gave us some hiding room. Liesl had hit her head and he hid us from Herr Zeller. I think he got shot because he did not give us up or perhaps he just gave the wrong information. We never did find out. The nuns removed his body. I think they got it back to his parents so that he could have a decent burial"

Friedrich nodded. He did not say much else but he understood she could tell. Looking at him Brigitta thought he knew more about death and destruction and decay than either one of them did and they too had been through hell and back.

"How long are you here?" Liesl asked. Friedrich shrugged. "I'm like everyone else" he said almost apologetically. "Awaiting orders. It's a bit of rest and relaxation for us all but at some point they will want us to go. If I could get an international phone line open I could let father know you're here but…"

But Liesl was shaking her head.

"We do not have that amount of phone use. We just have the standard line. I could ask Jon—"

"Who is Jon?"

"Liesl's husband" Brigitta supplied. Liesl shot her a look but it was worth it just to see Friedrich's reaction. He had just taken a gulp of water in the glass by his nightstand with his one good arm and had promptly spat it out again.

"I'm sorry YOUR WHAT?"

"Husband. And it's…it's a complicated story Friedrich honestly."

Friedrich looked from his eldest sister to his younger sister and put the water down, he would have kept drinking—water was such a precious commodity (he had learned that taking that damn airfield) but he wanted to know everything.

There was so much…so much they had missed, so much he had missed and he was sure as shit going to do his best to get a phone connection between his father and his eldest sister because if he could just give his father a sign that his daughters had survived then…then that was enough. God knows you couldn't trust the mail these days, by the time a letter got from Australia to England assuming it wasn't delayed by enemy action the war would probably be over.

Liesl looked at her watch on her uniform (Jesus she was a nurse!—how had he not noticed that immediately?) and winced.

"I have to do rounds, Brigitta will fill you in. I will come straight back as soon as I am able to"

She kissed him and Friedrich remembered so many times she would tuck him and the other little ones into bed and she would smell of lavender and that face cream she used. It was so achingly comfortable but even though there was no lavender or face cream he thought he could close his eyes and remember and then this would all be a bad dream.

She disappeared then and it was just him and Brigitta on the bed and his sister had become so much taller and prettier than she had been before. She had gone from being a little girl to a woman.

Jesus Christ.

"I've got time" he said gesturing to the arm that was still in a sling and showing no sign of the emotions that were raging within him (nothing tended to get you killed than being emotional when you went into something life changing—again something he had also learnt when it had been his first day)

And he did have time.

He did have time.

They had time.

They had all the time in the world. At least right now…it was all the time in the world.

And nothing else mattered.

And there you go, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and I will see you for the next one.

Next Chapter-As Friedrich recovers at Edith's house, Liesl and Brigitta must learn to live with another family member especially one who has seen the worst humanity can do to each other, and Liesl's sickness is not helping matters much.