A/N: Last few chapters...I'll let you know when it's the last one, though. It's not quite done. But thank you to those of you who have read and reviewed, you keep me going! On to chapter 15!
In the cinema, Donny and Omar sat with the dynamite around their ankles until it was time to head up to the washroom. They were lucky they left when they did, because had they gone three minutes later, they would have been trapped in the theater.
Up in the washroom on the second floor, Donny and Omar ditched their jackets and slipped on gloves that had small, one-shot pistols sewn in.
"Okay. Once I get that guy, you have 30 feet to get to that guard. Can you do it?" Donny asked.
"Of course I can. But, Donny?"
"Yeah?"
"You can take it or leave it, but I'm gonna give you the chance to get outta here. Get back to her."
Donny looked at him, a little shocked. "What?"
"I mean it. Once we take out the guards, you take off. You could start a life. I don't got nothin', so it's okay."
"You better be serious."
"I am. Now are we gonna go or what? I already set the time for this thing."
"Let's go." Donny handed his dynamite, which was also primed, and handed it to Omar. "Make sure you get that cocksucker. Shoot him in the face for me."
"Will do, Sergeant."
Once they shot down the guards, the sound of which was covered up by the gunfire of the movie, Omar saluted his Sergeant.
"Kiss her for me, Sarge."
"You fuckin' bet I will. Get 'em, Omar," Donny said, saluting him back. He took off down the stairs, blood dotting his white tuxedo vest, and ran headlong into the glass doors in the lobby. They didn't budge. For a moment, he was dumbfounded, but then he saw the bar that had been shoved through the handles on the other side.
"Shit," he mumbled, and wrapped the linen cloth he had used to hide the little pistol around his arm. He drove his elbow through the glass and fumbled through to the hallway. The second set of doors, providing they were barred too, were going to be much more difficult - they were solid oak, and if he was going to get out of there before that dynamite went off, he was going to have to work at it. Hard.
He started with kicking the doors, but they didn't budge. At that point, he heard a woman's voice coming from the theater, something about all of the Germans dying and a Jew being the one to do it. He smirked to himself - that woman who owned the theater was definitely not a fan of the Germans, and he knew it. It was in the way she looked at all the Nazis that were gathered in her cinema. Good for her, locking all of those bastards in there so they could blow it to smithereens. Or maybe she had her own plan, burn the place down or something. The problem was that she had locked him in there with them.
He started going at the door with his shoulder, and it started to budge. Maybe if he threw all of his weight at it…
The distinct smell of smoke hit his nostrils. So she was burning the cinema down. He had to get out, and fast. He counted maybe a minute left until the dynamite went off. Keeping the image of Ella's dark hazel eyes in his mind, he backed up and ran at the door, throwing his weight behind his shoulder and barreling into the double doors. They creaked, so that was a good sign. These were probably just deadbolted, not barred. He backed up and did it again. And again. On the fourth try, they splintered around the lock. One more time, he thought, and as he ran at the final set of doors the final time, the dynamite went off.
Donny was thrown into the street as he hit the wood, his back scorched and his ears ringing. The sheer force of the blast knocked him unconscious and sent him into the street, a few bones in his hands breaking as he landed on them. He skidded and rolled, the shoulder of his white shirt tearing and the knees of his dress pants ripping. It was there that he lay, waiting for someone to find him.
Ella, Utivich, and Aldo waited until the truck had come to a full stop before nodding to each other. They were officially past German lines. The truck opened up again, and the three Basterds jumped out. Landa and his radioman, Herrmann, gave them their weapons back and relinquished their own. Ella strapped on both the V-42 knife and Hugo's dagger, leaving her pistol in her hand. Aldo began to cuff Landa.
"I hardly think that's necessary -"
"I'm a slave to appearances. El?" Aldo said, not looking up from his work.
She shot Herrmann in the head. Colonel Landa almost jumped out of his cuffs.
"Are you mad?" he screeched. "I had a deal with your General for that man's life!"
"Yeah, they made that deal, but they don't give a fuck about him. They need you."
"You'll be shot for this!"
"More like chewed out," Ella said, wiping off the pistol and holstering it. "He's been chewed out before. So have I, as a matter of fact."
"We heard the deal you made with the brass. End the war tonight? I'd make that deal. What about you, Utivich? You make that deal?"
"I sure would, sir," Utivich said from over by Herrmann's corpse. He still owed Aldo a few scalps.
"Ella?"
"Me too. Damn good deal, I'd say."
"I don't blame ya. And that pretty little nest you feathered for yourself. Well, if you're willing to barbeque the whole high command, I suppose that's worth certain considerations." Ella handed him the dagger they lifted from Landa's own belt, and Aldo polished it up a little. "Now, I don't care about you gettin' pensions, merit badges, ticker tape parades, who gives a damn. Let's all go home. But I do have one question."
This was Ella's favorite part.
"When you get to your little place on Nantucket Island, I imagine you're gonna take off that handsome lookin' SS uniform of yours, ain't you?"
Landa's eyes grew wide. Ella stepped in front of him.
"Well, Colonel? You gonna frame it? Or burn it? Hang it in your New England closet and hide it forever?"
He didn't respond. For the first time in his life, he didn't have an answer. A slow, lazy smile crossed Ella's face.
"That's what I thought," Aldo said. "Now that, I can't abide. Can you abide it, Utivich?"
"Not one bit, sir," he replied.
"I mean, if I had my way, you'd be wearin' that uniform for the rest of your pecker suckin' life. But I'm aware that ain't practical. At some point, you're gonna have to take it off." He brandished the SS dagger in front of Landa's terrified face. "So we're gonna give you something you can't take off."
Ella stood by smoking a cigarette as Utivich held Landa down and Aldo gave him the mark. Landa's screams were wonderful to hear, but not nearly as wonderful as Donny's arms had been around her waist. She would have to go home never feeling that way again. No Congressional Medal of Honor pinned to her lapel or stripes on her jacket would make up for it. Her fingers touched the golden pendant that fell just above her cleavage and she sighed deeply. At the least, the war was over. They were going home. Some men were being sent to the Far East, to Japan, but the General had decided to send the Basterds home to receive their medals.
"Y'know, this one might just be my masterpiece," Aldo said, standing up. Ella went over to look.
"Bravo, mon frére. I agree." She bent down to the moaning Landa. "I thought you would be less...pathetic than that. Tut, tut."
Donny was out for a long time. For two weeks, he was comatose in a French hospital. He hadn't been wearing his tags - they were with Aldo, since they were going to be blasted to shit anyways. And he had never expected to live in the first place. They didn't know he was American until he woke up, long after Ella, Aldo, and Utivich had landed back in D.C. and even after he had received his posthumous Medal of Honor.
There were third-degree burns on his back, and he had two broken hands, a dislocated shoulder, and a small fracture in his shoulder blade. He would spend another two weeks in the French hospital with a translator because moving him would disrupt the healing of his back. By the time he returned to the United States a month after Operation Kino ended, skinnier than he had been but otherwise the same old Donny Donowitz, Ella was nowhere to be found.
The medal ceremony was boring, just as most military ceremonies were. Ella stood at attention in her dress uniform, her hair in neat curls, as President Truman draped the blue ribbon and bronze, gold-plated star around her neck and awarded her with the rank of Sergeant. Of course, after the awards for her, Aldo, Utivich, and the Swastika-marked Landa, there was a ceremony for Wicki, Hugo, Omar, and Donny for their posthumous awards. Ella blocked out all of the words, remembering the men by their campfire jokes and late-night stories rather than their military accomplishments and remaining family members. She would rather remember them as the men who had her back than plot numbers at Arlington National.
There was a banquet afterwards, and Ella stood with Aldo at the bar, watching everyone else socialize.
"You gonna go back to Maynardville?" Ella asked, a glass of champagne in her hand.
"Yeah, think so. Stay with my brother a while." Aldo, who had been newly anointed Captain, shrugged. "Pension's okay, but I like my moonshine."
"I know you do."
"What do you think? There's always a room where I am for you."
Ella shook her head. "I have to travel for a while. New York, at the least. Boston. Maybe even out West."
"Do what you gotta do. But you have to visit."
"At least every few months, Captain." She smiled and nudged him, motioning to all the officers in their dress uniforms with her glass. "Think they're ever gonna get used to me wearing these stripes and this medal?"
Aldo chuckled, raising his glass of champagne to his lips. "I don't think they ever will."
