Hi everyone! So sorry for the late update, I had planned on posting a new chapter last week, but the ending refused to cooperate... I hope you're all doing okay, or as okay as can be. Things have been incredibly hectic - it's starting to become the norm, which I don't like - and I'm just hanging in there until my 2-week holiday.
Apologies for the rather short chapter, I hope you still like it. As always, ideas are welcome, don't hesitate to leave a review or send me a PM.
It was their fourth day in Berchtesgaden and Easy had, for lack of a better word, been given the day off. No sentry duty, no patrols, no nothing. Everyone was free to do whatever they pleased – so long as nobody got hurt or court-martialled or both.
"This is weird", Ana María said as she rinsed soap out of her hair. "All the Nazi big shots came here to hold meetings and relax after planning to destroy the world, and now we're here and..." She trailed off with a fumbling gesture.
"...and have been told to take a holiday from the war", Catherine finished, sending a spray of water into the air as she spoke.
"Exactly."
The sentiment was shared by many of the troopers, but they didn't let it stop them from enjoying themselves. They explored, soaked in the sun and enjoyed the beautiful, peaceful landscape, went hiking, napped, took some of the Nazi cars they'd found out for a spin, read, wrote letters, played cards, smoked and relished having some time to themselves.
Until mid-afternoon, when Major Winters and Lieutenant Lipton delivered the news they had all been longing to hear for almost a year:
"The German Army surrendered."
The initial reaction, after a collective sharp intake of breath, was stunned silence as everybody seemed to process those four words, parsing their meaning.
"Really?", somebody asked, fragile hope trembling in their voice.
Lip smiled, kind and warm as always, but wide and giddy with excitement. And Winters, their stoic, composed leader and former CO, grinned and nodded. "Really."
The rubber band of tension snapped.
Deafening noise roared through the crowd as the soldiers cheered, whooped and hollered. Shouts of "We made it!" and "We did it!" rang out amidst cries of "Oh my God!" and "Somebody fucking pinch me, I think I'm dreaming". Laughter and tears blended into one. Everyone grabbed onto the person next to them, drew them into rib-bruising hugs. Some screamed their elation to the skies. Some were still in shock, dumb-struck amidst the pandemonium around them.
.
With the obscene amount of alcohol provided by Goehring's private wine cellar, Easy Company celebrated VE Day in style. Their memories of 8 May 1945 would forever be a kaleidoscope of laughter, banter, dancing and drinking. They played cards and silly drinking games, Luz roped a good dozen people into a game that was an insane hybrid of Spin the Bottle and Charades that had everyone in stitches.
Playing poker with Malarkey, Spina, Perconte, Hashey and Lesniewski, Theresa giggled into her glass of wine as Lesniewski failed to call Hashey's obvious bluff and promptly lost a handful of cigarettes.
"Jesus, Lesniewski, a blind man could've spotted that bluff", Malarkey teased.
"Fuck off, I'm drunk."
Spina snorted as he shuffled the cards. "Stop the presses." He got a glancing kick to the shin.
"Are you gonna deal or what?", Lesniewski grumbled. "Gotta win those smokes back."
"Yeah good luck with that." Malarkey chortled unrepentantly when Lesniewski aimed a hazy scowl at him.
Theresa laughed. "Alright boys, no fighting at the table."
"Yes mother."
Elbowing Perconte in the ribs for his cheeky comment, she grinned at his startled yelp and picked up her cards.
.
Louise couldn't remember the last time she'd had such a blast at a party. Along with swapping hunting stories with Shifty, she told Grant about skiing, promising the California-born Sergeant from 3rd platoon that it wasn't that hard. Between her and Shifty's persuasive efforts, he soon agreed to tag along if they went skiing on the slopes of the surrounding mountains, which were still snow-capped even in early May.
She let herself be pulled into dancing and when she took a break, she ended up joking around over drinks with Liebgott, Welsh, Bull and Martin. Nearly choking on her wine with laughter, she shook her head at Liebgott's silly joke and called him "Trottel".
Liebgott's eyebrows jumped up, mouth opening and closing in surprise.
"Mia teach you that one?", Bull guessed.
"Yeah."
Recovered from his momentary shock, Liebgott huffed a laugh, looking oddly delighted by this revelation. His smirk was borderline wicked as he asked: "She teach you anything else?"
Welsh cut in to ask if "Trottel" was a curse or an insult, was informed by Bull that it was a way of saying "idiot" or "dummy".
Johnny promptly teased Bull for knowing the answer to that question.
"Am I the only one here who's never heard Doc Arricante curse?", Welsh questioned. "How have I never heard her curse?"
Ignoring the byplay, Louise said: "Joe, she's been my friend since Toccoa. I'd like to think I have picked up a few of her curse words and insults."
"As if you didn't know enough on your own."
She shrugged and grinned unrepentantly.
.
Animatedly recounting a story that involved an alligator, her younger sister and a broken fence, Ana María made Alley laugh so hard that he almost fell out of his chair. Christenson would swear up and down that his sides still hurt two days later from the fits of laughter and Catherine half-jokingly vowed to never set foot in Florida without being properly armed against the local wildlife.
As she let her gaze roam across the happy troopers, Catherine took note of their relaxed, slouched stances, easy smiles and the way their hands didn't stay close to their weapons all the time. A tendril of tension, of constant alertness, loosened in her chest, leaving behind a warm lightness.
Her eyes caught on two figures a little off to the side, by one of the jeeps.
Speirs was leaning against the side, Mia sitting on the hood, swinging her right leg. They were talking while smoking together, a little tradition that had started back in Aldbourne, if not earlier. Something Mia said made them both laugh.
Looking at the pair, both relaxed and at ease in each other's presence, Catherine breathed a sigh of bone-deep relief.
.
Already in the Bois Jacques, she had been concerned that Mia might be afflicted with battle fatigue. The younger woman had been even more withdrawn than usual, run ragged and yet seemingly always in motion, almost as if she was afraid to stop. Then Maxine and Frances had been badly injured a few weeks after Catherine was shot. By that time, from what the guys had mentioned, Mia had apparently been so exhausted that she might as well have been sleepwalking when they spent the night in a convent.
Fast forward to when the company was relocated to the Alsace and Mia learned from her cousins that her uncle had been killed in a battle that Easy had been a part of. Along with looking after a whole company with limited supplies and treating a pneumonia-struck First Sergeant came a raging fever on top of the sleep deprivation, hunger, cold and general misery.
Once back at Mourmelon, she had slept for 32 hours straight and then become a ghost – intangible, withdrawn, quiet. It had taken over two weeks before anyone had gotten more than the merest hint of a real smile out of her. She had bounced back, slower than she led everyone to believe because behind that thin face, those deep blue eyes, there was a fount of hidden thoughts and emotions. At first, she'd made only a minimal effort to participate in the conversation, but she'd made an effort all the same, and eventually, thanks to the combined relentlessness of Luz, Louise, Chuck and several other veterans, she had been coaxed back out of her shell.
.
Now, the tousle-haired medic finally seemed to be completely herself again. She looked happy, carefree and unbelievably young sitting on that hood, grinning as she scootched aside to make room for Lipton, who settled next to her and passed Speirs the bottle of wine he'd brought over.
"Hey."
A light kick to her chair jerked Catherine out of her thoughts. "Did you fall asleep there, Mom?", Christenson asked.
"Too much to drink?", Ana María added her two bits, teasing mirth dancing in her eyes.
She huffed a laugh and took a deliberate, demonstrative sip of wine.
.
The celebrations didn't slow down until the faint morning hours. By then, the alcohol had lulled in even the hardiest drinkers, and the high of victory and relief had faded, the drop in tension letting fatigue set in. The troopers staggered their way to the next available billets, nobody really caring where they ended up so long as they weren't alone. Beds, bunks, couches, the floor... they fell asleep without bothering to look for a more comfortable option.
Speirs woke up with a diffuse headache, a fuzzy feeling in his mouth and an elbow digging into his side. He shifted, slowly becoming aware of the fact that there was a body beside him. As the cobwebs of sleep lifted, memories trickled to the forefront of his mind.
Mia had fallen asleep on him and, drunk enough not to care, he'd simply resumed his conversation with Lipton. When they decided to call it a night, he'd roused her and the three of them had found themselves a place to lie down. There were only two bunks, so Mia had said she'd take the floor because they were officers.
He remembered picking her up and depositing her on the bunk they now shared. She'd stared at him for a moment, an adorably scrunched-up look of bewilderment on her face. Then she'd shrugged, toed off her boots and gone to sleep.
Opening his eyes, he squinted against the unusually sharp glare of the sun and came up onto an elbow.
Mia was indeed next to him, face half-buried in the pillow, hair pointing every which way. Her stomach and chest moved in a steady rhythm with her slow, even breaths. Her dark lashes fluttered, her eyes moving rapidly behind closed lids.
His eyes softened as he looked at her sleeping form.
.
He'd noticed her in Toccoa, the way she met every obstacle with blank-faced determination, countered jeers, heckles and insults with ephemeral smiles, matched hot tempers with soft-spoken words in an accent he hadn't been able to place. She'd stood out even more – at least to him – once all the women had cut their hair. Her head of chaotic tufts and curls that only a heavy downpour could tame gave her a livelier appearance and countered her initial reputation of being timid or dull.
They'd become friends somewhere along the line, somewhere between the march to Atlanta and Aldbourne. And over time, through countless moments and conversations shared over cigarettes, they had grown close. He liked her, her mellow personality, her hidden streak of mischief, her unflappable nature, her wit. She was unfazed by his bluntness, seemed to appreciate it even.
On the eve of D-Day, she had sought him out to wish him a safe jump. He'd responded that survival would mainly be down to luck, that they might as well accept they were already dead. She'd looked at him, gaze direct and open and lined with soft melancholy. "I know", she'd said. "But I can still wish and hope."
When he'd heard confirmation that she'd survived the drop and made it back to Easy, he'd gone to find her as soon as he could, just to see for himself that she was alive and unharmed. ODs splattered with grime and blood that wasn't hers, shadows in and under her eyes that told a story of their own, she had smiled at him and reached out to touch his forearm.
"I'm happy to see you", had been her first words to him, too much meaning and soul-deep relief in her tone for three days of tromping across half of Normandy in search of familiar faces. Something or several things had happened during those three days, bad enough to put that gravitas, that little quiver into her voice. But she hadn't said anything and he hadn't pushed, only returned the sentiment in kind.
.
Mia fidgeted, fingers twitching against the edge of the pillow, and made a faint noise of protest.
He waited, bright eyes scanning her for signs of discomfort. But she soon settled again, hand now limp next to her face. With small palms and slim fingers, her hands looked like a child's. But he knew they were more than capable of packing a punch or keeping a man's insides where they belonged.
Waking up to a feeling of hazy contentment, Lip slowly pried open sleep-crusted eyes and took in his surroundings. Smiling to himself as he remembered the previous day's events, the joyful celebration and happy faces, he sat up and stretched, feeling his spine pop.
Looking over to the second bunk, he opened his mouth to say "Good morning" to Speirs, who was already awake, only to stall when he was suddenly hit by an image from a forgotten memory. He'd dismissed it at a fever dream at the time, but now he realised that it had been real.
Back in Haguenau, he'd woken in the middle of the night and had rolled over to see Mia lying on the other side of the bed. She'd been curled up, facing away from him, while Speirs had sat on the edge of the mattress, rubbing her back in slow, soothing circles.
With all the rumours painting Speirs as a ruthless killer, and the man himself letting people believe it, it was understandably hard to imagine him offering comfort like that and just as startling to actually witness this gentler, caring side of him. Even though it was an open secret that Speirs and Mia shared a connection. As different as they appeared, they also had their similarities. They were both guarded, strong-willed and didn't believe in talking for the sake of talking.
Shaking himself out of his musings, Lipton felt Speirs' gaze on him, quizzical and assessing in equal measure. He smiled as he looked at the still sleeping medic. "She never cared about the stories", he said quietly. She was never scared of you.
The CO glanced down. "No", he agreed, affection seeping into his features. "She always takes my smokes."
"Hm." Lip swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, spent a moment looking for his boots. "Some of the guys thought she had a death wish to do that."
Vaguely pleased, Speirs shook his head with a slight shrug, the tilt of his lips betraying his amusement. "She knows I'd never hurt a friend." He yawned and scrubbed a hand down his face and up through his hair, messing up the dark strands. "Guess we should go find out what our orders are now."
"Yeah."
.
Getting to his feet, Speirs gave Mia's shoulder a shake. "Mia. Time to get up."
Blue eyes blinked open and she sat up with a small groan, mumbling an indistinct "Morning" to the two officers. She pulled a face, nose crinkling, and blindly reached for her boots, tugging them on one after the other.
"How are you feeling?", she asked, voice gravelly and thick with the remnants of sleep, making quick work of her laces.
"Hung over", Speirs replied bluntly, picking up her discarded OD shirt and handing it to her.
"Just a slight headache", Lipton said with a rueful smile. "What about you?"
Mia shrugged as she rose from the bunk and slipped into her shirt, not bothering with buttoning it up. "About the same. Food, coffee and a lot of water will help. And aspirin, if the headache stays."
"Right. Food and coffee, then", Speirs declared. "Now."
She muttered something under her breath in German, corners of her mouth quirking up and an impish glint dancing in her eyes, but fell into step with them easily.
By mid-afternoon, the battalion was moving out towards Austria to begin occupation duties. It was a bunch of groggy, hungover and dishevelled paratroopers that clambered onto the transport convoy, but despite the misery some of them experienced due to the sunlight aggravating their headaches and the jostling of the trucks agitating their stomachs, the mood was still undeniably cheerful and jubilant.
Germany had surrendered. They had won.
The war in Europe was over.