Hi, so here is another chapter and with this one there is ten chapters left. I hope that you enjoy this chapter because I really enjoyed writing it. The Pacific was one of the most brutal conflicts for soldiers on both sides of the war and the ramifications that were felt emotionally, mentally and physically were massive and impact the soldiers in hundreds of different ways and I wanted to show that through Friedrich and I hope that I did it justice.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just the characters that I have created along the way.

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

And I will bring the next chapter to you sooner rather than later.

This chapter also does contain some mentions of outdated wartime language. If this triggers you then please be aware.

The Thunder/Lightening code was based of an episode in the TV show The Pacific where soldiers who left their foxholes at night had to give a code before they returned otherwise they were considered the enemy and fired upon.

There are a few more notes down below so please keep that in mind when you get to the end reading this chapter.

And there are only ten more chapters left!

Also please be aware like many other people within fanfiction I am having issues with receiving notifications of PMs/Reviews therefore if I don't reply to something immediately then that is it.

A Sister's Love

Chapter 20-Beautiful Dreamer

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 much. This chapter does contain some outdated, wartime language.

They took Friedrich home with them when they could at the end of the week.

Technically all the American soldiers were staying in the cricket pavilion but the general mood was so lax that many an MP didn't bother trying to find out where most of them were and many a soldier got rooms where they could weather it be in someone's house or most specifically someone's bed.

Friedrich had told them this as they had helped him over the threshold. Brigitta had made up one of the spare bedrooms in the house on the first floor and Friedrich managed to get up to bed his arm still wrapped tight in a sleeve and had gone the colour of milk by the time that he had gotten there.

They had gotten to bed and then Liesl had gone too. She had been running on shifts the whole week and she was utterly exhausted. She had tumbled into bed and slept most of the day, the night and early into the morning and then had scoffed down some eggs still hot from the pan and had gone back to bed again. Brigitta had been the one who had made breakfast and then lunch. Friedrich needed help to eat with his arm in a sling and he was week enough where there was no protest when she went to help him. It was nice to be the big sibling for once but Brigitta knew after that first day that while nursing might be Liesl's calling in this life it most certainly was not hers.

But she slept that night well. It had rained, a cold rain that shattered against the windows and she thought that though she knew the next day was going to be hot she rather liked it. It was nice to listen to the pitter patter of the raindrops on her windowsill and know that Friedrich was sleeping in the next room. It was nice to know that they had him for some time (Liesl thought it would be at least another week before his arm was out of the sling even if he did want to get back to the front as soon as) and it was nice hearing about all the little things that they had missed.

That first night was perfect, the next couple of days were perfect. And it was only after that, that she began to realise the problem.

That was when the nightmares began.

Brigitta was not stupid. She was aware that the fighting that dominated the Pacific (and by association the newspapers back home due to their close proximity) was some of the fiercest that the war was seeing. It was brutal and more often that not it was to the death because the Japanese soldiers were trained not to consider surrender as anything other than a disgrace. And though supplies were often sent out of Australia, America and other places one only had to look at the starkness of Friedrich's ribs, his cheekbones and his hands to know that it was a struggle to get it there.

But she had not expected it to be as bad as it had done. Perhaps it was because she had no real experience with war—like her brother did. Or perhaps it was because Friedrich was her big brother. He was always the one who was the most put together. He was the one who had helped Liesl through thick and thin, he was the one who had been there, strong even at fourteen and when she was awoken in the night to hear him screaming as if his lungs were being torn out she found that that ideal had changed as rapidly as the weather had.

She had raced into his room closely followed by Liesl to see him crawling at his skin as it he was trying to push someone off him. He jerked awake before they even touched him as if his body was instinctually attuned to when someone was coming close to him.

"Thunder" he hissed in the darkness and Brigitta instinctually answered with the only thing she knew which was—

"Lightening"

Then Liesl found the light switch and that was the end of that.

Her brother was drenched in sweat and was shaking like a hedgehog that had just come into close contact with a motorcar and had escaped with his life by sheer luck. There was something wrong here, something terribly, terribly wrong.

Friedrich made a noise that was almost like a sob and forced himself upwards swinging his legs over the side and running his good arm over his face wiping away the mingled mess that was on his face.

"Sorry" he said finally into the crook of his arm. "Nightmares"

"It's alright" Liesl said gently.

"No it's bloody well not alright" he snapped. Through the muscled skin and the hard words and the muffling sound his accent which was like theirs half Austrian, half somewhere else sounded even more American than it did usually.

"It is not bloody well alright" he repeated wincing. "I just…it's a side effect."

That was all he would say on the matter but it was not just a side effect. It carried on into the nights that followed. It was never as loud as it was since the first night but it was glaringly obvious that something was wrong because Friedrich was the first up in the morning and the last to bed at night. You could not mention the war or the Pacific or the Japanese and when the radio did he either left the room or slammed it off with such finality they never wanted to turn it on again. When the reports broke of the Japanese getting into their plans and ramming them without thought or consequence of their own lives into other planes, ships and military targets he had laughed.

"You should ask some of the men I served with" he said by way of an explanation one breakfast. "Trust me, the only good Jap solider is a dead Jap soldier and I could say a lot worse. I've known men who have said and done a hell of a lot worse"

He seemed to get this look on his face whenever he mentioned the war, the half bitter, half angry look that was out of place on her big brother's face. Brigitta didn't know if he wanted to go back or not but she found that she was getting increasingly worried about what kind of mind set he would be in when he did and even more worrying what kind of mind set the rest of them would be in. American soldiers were littering Australia as if it was a holiday resort, always cheeky, always flirting, always with their uniforms torn and their ribs on show. Even when they did manage to get new gear when she hugged her brother she could feel all the weight he had lost and though he ate each meal as if it was expected to be snatched away from him it didn't do much good. He was still as thin and bony as before. Even the smoking was new though not out of place. Jon had been a horrendous smoker easily clearing a pack a day and nearly every soldier she had seen had taken up the habit regardless of weather or not he'd had it before. The smell was something she had grown up with. Even her father had smoked occasionally though it was always tabaco smoke and done in the gentlemanly fashion. Now it was just constant cigarette smoke that filled the house as Friedrich would light one and go and sit in front of the sunlit window for hours upon hours on end.

"It's hard" he said one day as Brigitta was tiding the living room. His sling had come off the day before and he was getting use to two arms again.

"To talk about it"

"The war?"

He cracked one eye open and nodded.

"You wouldn't understand. Not unless you've seen it. It's not all heroic or glorious. To think I used to play stupid little games about being a war hero. No wonder father was the way he was"

"You mean a cold hearted bastard"

Friedrich rolled his cigarette in his fingers for a second put it to his lips and flipped his lighter on. He took a drag and Brigitta sighed. She had just gotten the smell out of the curtains and all. At this rate he was liable to set the place on fire.

"You don't like him" he said slowly.

"I love him"

"But you don't like him"

"Is there a difference?"

Friedrich shrugged. "You love your parents, it's ingrained in you at birth. Liking them is a bit different"

"Friedrich the last memory I have of him he was yelling at me. It was too quick a turn around. Mother was there, she was the governess, then she was gone, then she was back, then she was his wife, then we were criminals overnight. The memories I have are the ones where he was gone half the time and we would have done anything…anything to get him back even for one quick minute."

He nodded.

"I get it" he said. "It's a hard thing to get over. Kurt's, Kurt, he's always been able to roll with the punches and Marta and Gretl are too young to understand I think, you, me, Louisa and Liesl…we are the four that kept it all together I think"

"Kurt did too"

"I know. But we all lived it. You wouldn't think him cold now if you could see him Brigitta. You and Liesl nearly finished him. Louisa did a damn good job too—"

"Friedrich just what the hell is Louisa doing?"

"I don't know" he said slowly and upon seeing her reaction he grinned. "Honestly I don't. She tells me what she tells everyone else. That she is a secretary for an officer and that involves travelling to take the minutes."

"Yes but what do you think she does?"

"I think she's a spy"

Brigitta sucked in a mouthful of air.

"Oh God"

"Yeah, father thinks so too he just doesn't say anything. You can imagine what happens if he actually has to think about what she's doing. It's his own fault really, he had to have a child whose so like him he doesn't know how to handle it. She looks like Mama as well which doesn't help matters"

Brigitta paused looking at him slowly.

"Do you remember her?"

"Sometimes" he said lingering on the word. "I've thought about her more in the last four years than I did in the last eight since she's died. You always think about the dead when you are going to die. And I've thought a lot about dying"

"I'm sorry"

"Don't be" Friedrich said with a smile that didn't quite meet his eyes.

"I fucking volunteered didn't I?"

"Did you not have a choice?"

"Not really but I volunteered to come here. I chose the Pacific. I chose the Marines. I knew I wasn't signing up for a cushy little war. Besides If I hadn't then I wouldn't have been here with the two of you. I wouldn't have found you. You have no idea how glad I am that you two are safe. How glad they will all be"

"When this is over do we come back to America?" she asked.

"When what is all over—the war?"

"If it ends"

"Oh it will end" Friedrich said confidently. "It will end soon. It's nearing the end of 1944 Brigitta. Both sides are exhausted the difference is we've cut of Japan and Germany so tightly and the Russian's are slaughtering anything that comes even near their lines that I'm amazed it's not over sooner. No…I think once we get over Christmas…when we get into 1945…then we shall see. But the war will end and we will win. It's just a matter of when and how many of us are left standing at the end of it"

"And when it does?"

"Well. What do you want to do?"

She opened her mouth to answer him and then shut it again. The reality was she had no fucking clue. They'd been in Australia for nearly four full years. She had an Australian identity card, Liesl had an Australian husband, she had friends and neighbours that were Australian and there was a plan in her future that declared she was Australian and…she did not even want to think about it least her brother pick up on it but there was the gentle correspondence that had picked up between her and Eugene and he was Australian too.

"I don't know. I've been in Australia for so long I don't know any other life. I don't even know if they will let us immigrate to America"

Friedrich said nothing for a while.

"Perhaps you should both start giving it some thought" he said seeing the expression on her face. She didn't understand that he had seen more to her than she had meant to give.

She said nothing and neither did he and they carried on in silence in the sunlit room for some time.

She got the letter with trembling hands.

It was the reason why Liesl had come in today to get the results of her blood test and she knew without even looking what it was going to tell her. She had known when she had ordered the test. She had known when she had been throwing her guts up this morning and the morning before that and the morning before that. For the last six weeks since Friedrich had been home. She had known what it had been when she had missed last week her monthly bleed and so she was rather annoyed that her hands trembled when she opened the letter.

She had to be calm about this. She had to, because if she wasn't one hundred percent calm then she was going to have a complete breakdown and that was the last thing that anyone needed.

The Sister who gave her, her results gave her a small smile and muttered something about a nice cup of tea before bustling off somewhere—well—if that wasn't a giveaway then Liesl didn't know what was. She had only just turned twenty and though she knew there were girls younger than her (and without the luxuries that she had) in this situation she couldn't help but feel that she was not ready for all this.

But she took the paper and read it anyway. She flipped open the test results and stared down at the words and she brushed away the water that had come to her eyes almost instantly with impatience.

It told her what she already knew anyway.

She was pregnant.

She Liesl Von Trapp, now technically Liesl Van Braun was pregnant.

She was pregnant.

Unbidden another thought came to the forefront of her mind and it was so bizarre that despite the terrible circumstances she thought she was going to laugh.

Her brother and sister were going to have a field day with this one.

And there you go, I hope you liked it. It was nice to explore the relationship that Georg's children usually had with him before Maria arrived as well as the rest of this chapter.

And I will bring you the next chapter sooner rather than later.

And there is a time jump here but just of a few weeks, this story is now around November 1944 which makes Liesl about two months gone.

Next Chapter-Liesl reals from the news of her pregnancy and confides in her brother and her sister. Eugene writes a letter and Friedrich gets some news.