Hi, all here is another chapter, I am introudcuing a few OCs into this story but as we move onto this bit believe me they become intrical to the plot.

I am not a military expert and therefore any inaccuracies I apologise.

Please Read and Review.

And Disclaimer-Louisa is not mine, everyone else is.

On another note, I will not update between now and Xmas Eve. As some of you know I tend to do a multiple update Xmas Eve and maybe even New Years Eve so while I will carry on this story expect two or three chapters on that day.

Poetic Justice

Chapter 16-Darkness Visible

Louisa is in a foxhole with the man who enlisted her and she is not happy about it. To be fair neither is he. The American forces are just confused and the enemy is shelling the hell out of them. All in all it's a recipe for disaster.

It was him, him from the recruitment centre all those years ago and for a second the eighteen year old girl stared at the man in his early twenties and then another racking shell went through the forest and she was pulled roughly downwards into a very nice expanse of chest (if she did say so herself) she found that she was stunned by the speed of everything.

And there was also another body in the foxhole. Another American was staring at her and Louisa thought they must have been the same age, his eyes were very green and she pushed off…whatever his name had been (nearly hitting him in the face with his leg) and then she was shoving herself over so that she was between the two of them as the trees and the dirt and the snow around them erupted with the force of the shelling.

That was another thing she had never anticipated. The shelling.

When it came it came loud and it came intense, you never got a warning about it and Louisa had been in service out here in the elements long enough to know that they spared nothing, trees that had been in this forest for hundreds of years scattered all around them in pieces, animals long forgotten running for their lives as much as the civilians were. A part of a country destroyed and when the Americans or the Germans or the British or the Italians or the Russians or whoever it was on from this spot or wherever the battles were being fought in the world, they did not think of the land that they had left behind that was battered and torn and scarred beyond repair too.

Why would you?

With the shelling as well came the constant, never ending knowledge that one shell and you were dead and not just dead…well…blown to pieces. Louisa had seen it before and it was a sight she wished she could unsee and yet she knew she never would. That was the brutal truth to shelling. There was nothing that could be done, either a shell got you or a shell didn't. It was like the bullet.

Eventually though the shelling stopped and she looked up from where she had been face down in the ground.

"Shit"

"Little foreigner—"

"Call me that again and I will feed you your own eyeballs"

She pushed herself out of the foxhole as the Private next to her snorted. One look at his officer and he stopped but she sat on the edge of the foxhole her legs dangling over the edge and she lit a cigarette.

"Heya Miss…you don't mind do you?" Private Blue-Eyes asked. She didn't know where he was but his accent was Southern she knew that. "I ain't had a smoke since we got here"

She passed him one and he greedily inhaled. "If I were you Miss I wouldn't advertise you have Lucky Strikes, you'd probably get mobbed. If you want I can see if we can find you some food and—"

"Private she isn't staying that long. And need I remind you that she is a person who has just dropped…literally…into your foxhole? What are you supposed to do?"

"But Sir…she's a girl"

Captain…shit what was his name again? Put his head in his hand and groaned.

"Replacements" he said into his hand.

"What's your name again?"

"Heath, Nicolas Heath. You're the fucking Austrian girl I signed up"

"You remember?"

"Honey with legs like that anyone would remember—"

"PRIVATE!"

But Louisa thought that the private knew what he was talking about because such was the comment that she couldn't help but laugh and laughing stopped the terror that had been gripping her since she had set foot in this country from consuming her. She had almost forgotten how good it was to laugh.

She had missed it.

Blue-eyes had known that.

"Names Louisa" she said sticking out her hand. "Von Trapp, I work for the OSS. Can't say more than that"

"Billy. Billy Shelton. Shall I get another officer Captain? For…for the…ladies…orders? And then if you need help getting back to the main road or something I can show you. Don't want you getting lost and ending up in enemy territory."

And it hit her then. Why she had ran, why he was assuming she had been sent to the line to give a message.

"I need to speak to your commander" she said forcing herself to her feet. She was in trousers and a dark jacket but she heard the whispers from the sea of green, heads poking their way up through the foxhole. She shivered stuffing her hands under her arms and watching and more to the point listening to what felt like a great deal of muttering.

Christ it was like these boys had never seen a woman before.

"Captain?"

"Major Barkley"

"Captain why is there a woman standing in our side of the forest?"

Another officer behind him followed. Oh goodie Louisa thought sarcastically, that was all she fucking needed. An audience.

Suddenly she was achingly aware she had not washed her hair for several days.

"Good God" the other man said. "It's a woman"

Dear Lord what was this?

"What happened here Heath?"

"She fell into my foxhole"

"Like Santa down the chimney" Louisa deadpanned but then she realised that it might have been an exceptionally stupid thing to say considering every man was looking at her as if she was a present under the tree. She was not used to so many eyes on her. To be honest she was not used to so much male attention either. She didn't know weather to be flattered by it or insulted.

She thought she saw the Captain that had enlisted her snigger a little but clearly she had been imagining it. Certainly when she looked at him he was gazing at his rifle with a totally blank expression that she could not all together read.

Which considering what her profession was, was rather worrying.

"Sarcasm young lady is not appreciated"

"It's Corporal Von Trapp, Major"

She couldn't keep the bite out of her voice and the man raised an eyebrow. Looking at him she saw that he had to be about mid-thirties. He assessed her head to toe with blue eyes that seemed to read everything and anything about her and then he sighed.

"Which branch Corporal?"

Louisa told him and then there was a gust of wind that blew a light dusting of snow around them all and she couldn't stop the full body shiver that seemed to rack through her. Now that she was seeing, she could see that they all the soldiers around her were wearing various degrees of uniform. Some had coats, some didn't, some had hat, some didn't, some had winter boots and quite a lot didn't.

She had a leather bomber jacket on and boots that she was sure still belonged to her but what she wouldn't give to swap them out for something warmer. She shivered again and something in the Major's eyes seemed to indicate something that once upon a time might have been compassion. Louisa was not sure.

"Alright, we need to go somewhere a bit more sheltered. Back to the Battalion tent before they take it down. You too Heath, let's hear the Corporal's story and figure out if there's an Aid Station that can take her"

So cold was she that Louisa didn't even mind that he had spoken as if she was not in the bloody conversation at all which would have once a long time ago (when warmth had been a factor) really annoyed her. It was a way of military life she knew but still…All she could think of was that it had taken a long bloody time for him to come to the decision that despite the gun sticking out of her boot (and the other one in her bag as well as the knife for safekeeping strapped down her other leg—Louisa had learnt you could not be too careful, this was a war after all) and despite the rifles that were all around her, they had decided she was clearly not a threat.

Whatever that meant.

Julian Barkley had not signed up for this. He had signed up as cheesy as it sounded because he had wanted to fight for his country. He had been a farm boy from Iowa before all of this had begun and when he was back out of this hell hole (well not hell because it was too damn cold) he wanted to go back to Iowa and stay there.

Lieutenant Thomas Kilmer next to him notwithstanding but they kept their…well…whatever this was between them on the down low at the best of times.

Many a time had Julian wondered just what in the name of the ever loving Lord Almighty the brass were thinking when they sent them on missions but this had to be one of the worse because when he had got in touch with his boss, he had been told unsympathetically that yes the woman in front of him did check out and yes she had survived a traumatic ordeal (here he had seen an eye roll that he was sure meant trouble) and yes she did have valuable information in her brain but there was nothing that they could do about it until they hit France, to get into France they then had to get through Belgium (and he was not entirely sure his men were going to do that) and also that was if the relevant authorities wanted her back and considering his superior couldn't even tell him who that was Julian was not holding out hope they would be there waiting for the young blonde to drop into their laps.

Oh God he was going to have to give the sex talk to his men wasn't he? That was what he had been reduced to. Sitting down with his men and telling them the blonde bombshell over there was off limits even if she was going to be bunking down in a foxhole with them for God only knows how long.

It didn't bother him but he knew a lot of his boys (and yes he did think of them that way because to him they were his boys) had been without the sight of a woman since early 1944 and that was before you got to the Germans should they be overrun.

He put down the phone very carefully and very carefully did not bash his head into the table.

"It seems Corporal that you are going to have to be our guest for a time"

"What does that mean?"

He explained and she listened to her credit. Julian might know nothing about woman in the romantic sense, but he had grown up with three sisters and therefore he knew when emotion was battling military training.

Don't ask him how but he knew.

"Sir?" Heath said looking rather alarmed.

"Fuck" Tom said next to him and the girl turned those blue eyes on him rank be damned and said.

"Charming"

Tom raised an eyebrow but before he could respond (and this thing turn into an incident report that he was betting he would have to fill out regardless of where they were or who they were fighting—nothing kept the American Military going in a war such as paperwork) between his sharp tongued lover and what felt like an incredibly sharp tongued girl he continued.

"Corporal I can assure you, you will be in no danger from my men—"

"Your men try anything and they won't see next Saturday"

He looked at her and she smiled sweetly a smile that wouldn't have gotten past a doe eyed replacement.

"Sir"

Maybe he should walk her over to the Germans himself? He was willing to bet…well…quite a bit of his green paper pay that if he did they'd probably surrender in half an hour.

"Listen up and listen up good kid" he said even though she wasn't a kid and he was not her father. "I have a responsibility to the men out there and you quite frankly are a hand grenade with the pin pulled out and that's before you open your mouth I'm guessing. So you play nice, with any luck we can get out of this forest alive. I mean it. I am not having you run wild through my men. They'll toe the line, I expect you to do the same"

She eyed him for a second and then she nodded her head stiff. She fired off a salute and he returned it.

"Heath find her a foxhole and—"

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"My family will they…" she trailed off and then her jaw worked once. Julian felt something in him unclench because yeah he had not thought of that.

"I assume they will be informed. But if you want to write I letter I can make sure it get sent out"

She paused.

"Names Louisa" she said casually.

He nodded because what was he supposed to say to that one?

Again another nod and then she was gone.

"I have a feeling we are going to rue the day we let this woman over the line boss" Tom said wincing.

"Well we can't leave her" Julian defended.

"Pity" Heath muttered once. "I recruited her Sir she's…well…I better go make sure she's not half the men digging her a foxhole by hand" and with Julian's nod he threw a crisp salute and then went out the tent and another gust of wind hit them all.

"Woman in a war" Tom said shaking his head. "Whatever next"

Julian opened his mouth to say that this was 1944 but then he shut it.

"How much trouble could she really cause?" he asked the empty forest at large.

It was a mark of how much is Intelligence officer loved him that he didn't respond to that one.

And there you go, see you soon for the next multiple chapters.

Next Chapter-Louisa tries to adapt to her new environment, the Airbourne try to adapt to Louisa and the shelling, well, the shelling continues.