Hello everybody, I hope you are all doing well! It's flu and cold season, after all...
I was sick the entire week before last, but since I didn't feel that ill, I still went to work. Even though I had a cough that I was told was 'bad enough to raise the dead'. Looking back, I probably should have stayed home on Tuesday because I had a fever that day. But hey, I survived and I got my voice back on Sunday afternoon, so it's all good :)
Okay, I'll stop rambling now. I hope you enjoy the new chapter. The next one will be published on October 20, but probably rather late in the evening as I'll be flying back home from Dublin that day.
On December 16, 1944, Louise woke up with a nagging feeling that something was wrong. Looking around, she couldn't see anything amiss. As she got dressed, she mentally checked whether she had forgotten something important. That didn't seem to be the case either.
The strange feeling persisted.
The Brit spent all morning trying to either ignore the unsettling sense of foreboding or figure out where it came from. Since neither approach worked in the slightest, her mood worsened progressively. Irritated, ill at easy and frustrated, she had to grit her teeth to keep herself in check.
It didn't help that her distraction made her performance at the shooting range that day nothing short of lousy. At least for her standard. Her usually tight groupings were scattered at almost double their normal radius. Her accuracy almost shoddy in comparison to her regular precision.
.
Liebgott, who had come over to shoot the breeze, took a look at her shredded paper target and whistled lowly. "Jeez", he commented, "somebody got up on the wrong side of bed this morning."
Louise glared at him and told him to buzz off, adjusting her stance and taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to regain some semblance of focus.
The first shot was off-centre by maybe half an inch. The next a fraction too high. Three more shots followed, scattered all over the centre of the target.
A string of creative invective burst past Louise's lips.
Liebgott smirked – which only served to infuriate her further – and mused: "Damn, you really have a bad day. Is it that time of the month?"
It was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. The suppressed rage, born from the unease and frustration that had built up over the course of the day, flared and Louise snapped: "Oh piss off, would you?!"
His smirk widened, taking her reaction as confirmation. "It is!"
"No, it bloody isn't!", the blonde hissed back, pewter eyes boring into him. "And even if it were, it would be utterly beside the point because everything you can do, I can do bleeding!"
Their verbal sparring eventually descended into a real dispute, snark spiralling towards anger.
.
Ultimately, the argument was broken up by Lipton, who stepped in before either of them said or did anything they might regret. "Alright, you two, that's enough", he said, voice firm but not unkind. "Take a walk."
Louise blew out a harsh breath and shoved a hand through her blonde hair. "Yes sir", she mumbled and walked away.
The sharp scowl faded off Liebgott's features at the sniper's uncharacteristic lack of defiance and her immediate, quiet compliance.
Lip shot him a glance, worry in the undercurrents of his expression.
"What the fuck?", Liebgott muttered, frowning at Louise's retreating form.
The First Sergeant offered him a small smile and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Back to your squad, boy", he instructed. "You can talk to Louise when you've both had a chance to cool off."
"Yeah. Thanks, Lip."
Liebgott's consternation – because his friend was acting weird, had been the whole day – grew even more over dinner when Louise breezed out of the mess hall approximately two minutes after Vest had handed her a small stack of letters.
"Christ, Joe, will you stop?"
Jolted out of his thoughts by Perconte's exclamation, he looked at the men sitting next to and across from him in puzzlement. "Stop what?"
"Your damn fidgeting is drivin' me nuts. You got ants in your pants or what?"
Liebgott glowered at him, but shook his head. "Any of you know what's up with Louise today?", he wondered, fielding the question to the table as a whole.
Several heads shook 'no', but Johnny mentioned that the Brit had seemed tense, after which Shifty volunteered that she'd had trouble focusing at the shooting range.
"Something must've been bothering her", the soft-spoken sharpshooter shrugged.
Grant turned to ask Theresa a few seats up from him whether she knew anything about the issue.
"No idea. I figured she was having an off day."
Toye spoke up, his gravelly voice carrying across the table as he leant forward: "She told Mia this morning that she had this feeling that something was wrong."
Intent on getting to the bottom of the mystery that was Louise's atypical behaviour today, Liebgott's head swivelled around as he tried to spot their youngest medic's shock of messy hair in the crowd. Finding her sitting with the rest of Easy's medics, he got up.
.
Dropping into the empty seat next to Doc Arricante, Liebgott asked her point blank: "Weisst du, was mit Louise heute los ist?"
She blinked at his sudden appearance, but didn't hesitate for longer than a split second before asking back: "Was meinst du?"
He had a feeling that she knew exactly what he meant, but wasn't willing to discuss her friend's private matters without good reason. A decision he respected. "Sie benimmt sich heute so komisch", he elaborated, detailing all the ways Louise had been acting off today.
.
Spina, having only managed to pick out their sniper's name from the exchange, leaned over to Gene and Catherine. "What are they talking about?", he wanted to know.
They could only shrug, their command of the German language not sufficient to really follow the conversation.
.
Mia nodded as Liebgott talked, confirming his hunch that Louise's unease hadn't escaped the enigmatic girl's notice. "Sie hat heute morgen erwähnt, dass sie das Gefühlt hat, dass etwas nicht stimmt", she said after he had finished, repeating what Toye had mentioned before. "Das wird sie wohl beschäftigen."
Her finger tips tapped against the side of her coffee mug. "Und die Briefe, die haben sie ziemlich mitgenommen."
Of course, the letters. "Hast du eine Ahnung, warum?", he questioned.
She shook her head, blue eyes briefly flickering to him. "Zwei der Briefe sind von ihren Eltern, mehr weiss ich nicht."
Liebgott pursed his lips in thought. Two letters from her parents. Louise had told him once that her parents didn't write often since they were extremely busy with their jobs and travelled a lot.
Seeing her own concern mirrored in Joe's pensive expression, Mia told him where he'd likely find Louise. She would have gone after the blonde herself if she didn't have to be back at the infirmary in 5 minutes.
Liebgott nodded and thanked her, getting to his feet. He had a sniper to find.
When he found Louise – exactly where Mia had suggested he look – Liebgott froze for a second while he processed the sight in front of him.
He was having trouble reconciling this dejected young woman with the fierce spitfire of a sniper who, among many other things, had called him a "belligerent hamster", the "human embodiment of a cactus" and a "man-shaped harbinger of chaos and doom" in a tone of voice that managed to be both annoyed and amused at the same time.
He had simply never in over two years of knowing her seen Louise, sharp-tongued, smart, self-assured Louise, cry.
She looked up as soon as she registered another presence in the room. "Leave me alone", she said, eyes falling to the letter in her hands again. Her voice was scratchy and lacking most of its usual intensity.
Liebgott shook his head and stepped closer. "What's going on?", he wanted to know. "You've been acting weird all day."
"None of your business."
He watched a tear roll down her cheek and drip onto her OD-clad thigh. It left a small, dark circle. "C'mon", he pressed, inching another step forward, "what is it?"
Louise shifted her gaze to him again, familiar fire stirring in it. "I told you to go away."
"Not until you tell me what's going on." He crossed his arms, held his ground.
Another pair of teardrops fell as she huffed an aggravated breath, brows scrunched, but her eyes were too wide for anger. "Joe, just- I am not in the mood to argue with you", she said.
It sounded almost like a plea in his ears. And God, that waver in her tone, it made him want to punch whoever had upset her. "Then tell me what's going on with you", he urged, sitting himself down next to her. "Is it about the letters from your parents? Did something happen?"
He honestly didn't know what he expected her reaction to be. Bursting into a fresh flood of tears, however, certainly hadn't been one of them. After a moment of shock, he reached out and pulled the sobbing blonde into an embrace, holding her until she had gotten the worst of it out of her system.
.
Louise pulled back eventually, swiping at her eyes as she picked up the letters that had dropped to the ground. "My parents have gotten a divorce", she revealed with a sniffle.
Liebgott hissed in a sympathetic breath. "Aw, shit, I'm sorry."
She shook her head, a sad chuckle escaping her. "Don't be", she said. "Honestly, I don't even know why I'm so upset. After all, they haven't been happily married in quite a while."
He frowned, but stayed quiet, letting her talk.
"You know, they're away on business a lot. Sometimes together, sometimes separately. Dad has had – or still has – at least 4 affairs that I know of" – Liebgott's eyebrows jumped up at this – "and Mum has had her own share of secret lovers that I shouldn't know about." She scoffed, a bitter, disappointed sound. "How they thought I didn't notice is beyond me. 'I'm so sorry to tell you this, darling, but your father has slept with another woman'", she quoted from the letters, "'Your mother is a shameless scarlet woman.'"
He grimaced. "That's terrible."
Louise laughed, though it sounded more like a hysterical sob bubbling up her throat. "And you know what the most ridiculous thing about this whole mess is?", she asked, tears choking her vocal cords. "They are leaving me the house. Me!" She shook her head with another laugh/sob.
"Why on Earth would they leave me the bloody house?" She gesticulated, the letters rustling as her hands cut through the air. "I clearly have no use for it now and what's more, I never even considered that place home. I practically lived my Gramps anyways since they were away so much."
Liebgott reached out to wrap an arm around her.
.
After a short period of silence, punctuated by Louise's sniffles as she tried to pull herself together, he offered: "I'm sorry about your parents. And for riling you up. Mia said you've had a feeling that something's wrong all day."
Her mouth twitched into a dim half-smile as she nodded. "It's alright", she acquiesced. Wiping her eyes, she gave a small, wet laugh. "I don't even know what we were fighting about."
He shrugged. "Me neither. I guess we're both idiots, huh?"
Over-bright grey eyes flickered to him. "I guess."
They sat together in peaceable quiet for a while, Louise resting her head on Liebgott's shoulder. Running a hand over her hair, he absently played with the thick strands.
"What're you doing?", Louise mumbled, sounding drowsy.
"Braiding your hair." His fingers carded through her hair, unravelling the tiny braid he had woven with one hand.
She hummed. "'s nice."
He encouraged her to sit on the floor in front of him. The sniper slid down and settled with her back against his shins. Combing through the tresses that brushed just past her shoulders now, Liebgott separated her hair into three parts before deciding that a French braid would suit her better.
.
Louise was still wearing the braid the next day when news reached Camp Mourmelon of a German offense launched in the Ardennes.