Hi, so here is another chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later. I hope that you all enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

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

And there will be one more chapter after this before a big time jump.

Poetic Justice

Chapter 6-Deadly Harvest.

As the ship docks in America and the Von Trapps finally arrive at their new home, Louisa has a terrible revelation about what the loss of Brigitta and more specifically the lost of Liesl means for her and her place within the family.

America.

Didn't look like much if Louisa was being honest with herself watching with everyone else over the rail.

They'd all come out for this, all of them. Mother, father, brothers, sisters all of them watching as the mass of land became more and more easier to see on the horizon. This was home. Or at the very least this was her new home. This was the land of hope and opportunity and this was the place where everyone wanted to be because they believed that America would stand up to the forces of Hitler and the Nazi's. Always defending democracy.

Jesus that was such a Brigitta thing to say.

The thought of her sister made the brief smile on her face drop. It seemed that every moment of happiness that she could gain was diluted somewhat by thoughts of her sisters. The two missing and the two youngest who for some reason had started looking at her in ways that she had seen them look to Liesl. For comfort, for mothering and while that had been all very well and good when there had been no mother around the house there was one now and Louisa found it all highly disconcerting.

She wasn't a big sister. She wasn't the one that people were supposed to go to for comfort. She wasn't the mother of the house. She was just…Louisa…just Louisa and right now that was all she wanted to be. So much was changing in this world that she didn't want her own self to change with it.

Christ when they had been writing the book on teenagers they hadn't been very good at it had they? Because this feeling of constant wrong footedness, of constantly feeling like she was on either the edge of tears or snapping had not been in anything that she had read in any forbidden magazines or newspapers suggesting what would happen when she turned thirteen.

"Where are we going within America?" she heard her brother ask their father.

"Wisconsin. Before we left Switzerland I had a friend over there find us a house. Granted it won't be anything like the last one and you children will have to share rooms again but it should be modestly comfortable. There is a small school that can help with your English and then we can look at starting our lives over. While the events in Europe are significantly troubling it is not a full-scale war. And while there is no full-scale war I can continue my search for your sisters"

Louisa snorted. She really couldn't stop herself. She saw her father look at her with a look that once would have made her stomach drop to her shoes but now she didn't care. She was itching for the fight she realised. The grief and the numbness that had carried her through Austria when losing her sisters to the unknowns of the world they lived in was wearing off and she wanted…she needed to do something. To hit something, to scream and shout and shake and fight.

"Louisa" her mother said as an admonishment but she couldn't stop herself. Instead she looked out over to the shoreline away from her parents questioning gaze and the expectation that she should apologise for her rudeness.

A clue. She wasn't.

Friedrich chimed in with what they were supposed to do about immigration and that was the end of that. Gretl found her hand and Louisa wanted to push away. She didn't want to be the big sister in this. She wanted to be where she had always been comfortably in the middle trusting Liesl and eating cake with Brigitta. She wanted things she couldn't have now, like peace and an end to growing danger. Stuff that she had never before considered, taking them for granted, not realising that man could take away peace and security. One man for millions of people.

She looked back out over the shorelines of America and found that she was itching for a cigarette just for something to do. She needed to get her hands on them as soon as she could, there was something about watching the smoke billowing in the air that made her calm down.

Besides…it was September 1938. Everybody smoked.

They disembarked in silence. Well Louisa did. She had left her golden hair loose and not tied back and she could see her mother frown but she was too tired for pleasantries. The steamer had been hot and airless and stuffy and she for one was not sad to see the back of it.

Gretl looked at her hand already outstretched as if she was Liesl. Louisa ignored it though she knew it was childish and she watched as her sister had her hand taken by her mother instead. She was not fucking Liesl. She was never going to be Liesl. Again the thought that she could just so easily step into Liesl's shoes and be the one that held the family together as all was falling apart made a hot swoop of anger hit her. She was discovering how rapidly easy it was to be angry. Anger was easy compared to everything else.

"Louisa?" she heard her mother say to her softly as she waiting in the que.

Oh shit here it came.

"Yes mother?"

"I am going to need your help quite a bit with the little ones as time goes on. I know that you don't want to be Liesl—"

"I don't" she said flatly cutting across her. "I don't mother. I watched my sister do it, play mother, I know it's not for me. Children…none of it"

Her mother eyed her for a second as their father got to the front of the que.

"Your young" she said quietly. "Your so, so young Louisa"

And there it was. The talking down to her (or so she felt), but before she could snap back her mother had said something.

"You should be nicer to your father. This whole thing has been a terrible strain on him"

"This whole thing has been a terrible strain on all of us" she said quietly. "All of us. Not just him"

"I know that darling, but he feels—"

"Please"

"Louisa"

She swallowed bitterly at the rebuke and it was with increased difficulty that she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew it was disrespectful, knew that she should be the mature one and behave better but for right now she wanted to be the bad one. She wanted to run and scream and rip her hair out and scratch her eyes out and just…breathe.

"Mother" she said finally. "I will try. But I am not Liesl. I do not think or feel or act like Liesl. I am Louisa. I am not a mother. I do not think I will ever want to be a mother. And my feelings for my father are complicated and private."

It was the closest she could get to telling her mother to stay out and mind her own business. The box of feelings towards her father, that tied into her birth mother and the complicated and sudden nature of her passing was as such that she couldn't see a way around them. She didn't know how to tell the woman standing in front of her that the man she had met even before she had charmed him back to life had not been the worst version. That they had lived with a coldness in their lives that was hard to warm too.

Basically, for her at least, it might be too late to care now.

"If that's what you want then darling" her mother said softly as if she was seeing something that Louisa could not. "But I wish that you could talk to me about what is going on in that head of yours. And I do wish you would be nicer to your father. The man is trying and neither he nor your siblings deserve to hear you make such cracks at his desire to protect us all"

Louisa didn't care that much if she was being honest. There was something here that was changing between them but she didn't care. She wanted to throw herself into her mother's arms and cry away all her insecurities but she had been raised to never cry, never show weakness because there had been nobody there to wipe her tears and hold her hand. When Liesl had been forced to take on her duel role of sister and mother it had been to Kurt, Brigitta to some extent and especially Marta and Gretl. For Friedrich and Louisa they'd had to drag themselves to where they were now. Liesl too. Wherever she was if she was with Brigitta then Louisa knew that Brigitta would be well looked after. Liesl was too much a mother to allow anything else.

The line moved up then and her mother went to place her bag on the table and then it was Louisa's turn. She looked the man dead in the eye like she had been told to do. It wasn't like there was much there. She had grabbed handfuls of what she could from her old room. Most of the jewels that she had (and granted that was not much) she had on her. The rest had all been memories of a time and a world and a place where she had and so many others had thought their futures secure.

Clearly he didn't find anything to worry about and Louisa was allowed to snap up her suitcase with fingers that were trembling from what she hoped was cold (even though it was a warm day) and not from anything else and so once her passport was stamped she was able to take a step through that big door onto the streets of the United States of America and the Louisa Von Trapp that had been Austrian, that had been thirteen and adventurous, that had been the big sister to Brigitta and the youngest sister to Liesl was left behind.

Someone else came through that door.

And it was up to her to find that person out.

Wisconsin was lovely there was no debate about that. When they eventually got to the small house it was to see that there was a community there. Granted it wasn't all Austrian but there were enough of them around for it to feel like something that might resemble a community. Louisa didn't know.

Her mother was getting big now and she had been right in thinking it was her job to take care of the house. Granted her mother tried to help but as the pregnancy developed Louisa thought that the strain of trying to keep the family together was getting to her. Admittedly this was her fault as well. Louisa could accept that and so in those months she tried her best to keep her head down and do what was asked of her but she was feeling the impatience running through her. Indeed it was running through the whole country. Everyone was waiting to see who would blink first the Germans or the rest of Europe.

Friedrich was desperate to go to war that much was obvious and when he voiced the opinion that night over dinner of chicken stew that he would sign up if he were old enough and America went to war she noticed in a moment of hyper interest that her father's hands had gone still on his glass of water.

"Do not talk of such things Friedrich" he said quietly. It was an end to the conversation but then again Louisa was never the kind of woman who could end a conversation and move on and when she saw the opportunity she forged onwards. Perhaps that was the trouble. She could see a chink in the armour and she could just put her boot through it and see how much she could crush beneath her heel.

"I hope they allow for woman to be more in this war" she said spooning some stew into her mouth. "We can fight just as well as the men can. More so. In fact I think we will be the deciding force in this war"

"What comfort for the troops?"

"FRIEDRICH!"

"Sorry mother" Friedrich said with a grin.

Louisa resisted the urge to make a rude hand gesture. That was the most obvious thing that she could do but for the reminder of this pregnancy she had told herself she could be good. When the war broke out (and it wouldn't be long) as soon as America entered it (again it wouldn't be long) she would get involved as soon as she could. She wanted out of this sleepy life she had been living in since leaving Austria. In three months she was fifteen. Surely there was still time?

"Christ save us" her father muttered. "Friedrich if there is a war I would hope that we are not dragged into it. Louisa please…wars are no place for woman. I am sure if needs be there is a knitting circle you can join"

A KNITTING CIRCLE? Had he finally cracked?

Perhaps it had shown on her face because he looked at her and then flashed her a smile. A small smile but a smile nonetheless and for a second she smiled back and it was like things were normal between them.

But then the moment was gone. Louisa didn't know what had ruined it but she knew the warm fuzzy moment was gone and so she turned back to her stew and felt like a cold wind the absence of both of her sisters both of whom would have absolutely had an opinion on the good that a woman could do when the world inevitably went to war.

And there you go, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter.

Next Chapter-The world goes to War though America tries to stay neutral. Louisa looks for change but what she get's is not necessarily what she wants.