Hi so here is another chapter and we are into our final stretch! This chapter was just to tie together this story with the previous one A Sister's Love before certain characters appear. Next chapter will be fully on Louisa's side as we head into the ending.

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And let me know what you think.


Poetic Justice

Chapter 22-Persuit Of Peace.

Back in the United States, there has been no word from Louisa, Friedrich has been wounded and the family are on the verge of breaking apart. And then Friedrich wakes up and Georg get's two valuable pieces of information that might lead to the return of his sanity...and his daughters. All three of them. Slight side shot to a chapter in A Sister's Love.


Georg Von Trapp had thought he knew about war. You didn't serve in one for four long years and then rise through the bureaucracy that was the Navy in the aftermath without knowing a little bit about war. He had seen war…he had thought he had seen and heard and felt it all.

But then three of his children had skipped off to war and he was finding out that in reality he knew nothing about any of it.

It was not Liesl and Brigitta…he had managed to put that in a box in the back of his mind to be opened only when he had gotten through this hardship and he could start looking again. It was not Marta and Gretl settled down somewhat into this new world and this new life or little Alexander who didn't know anything different. It was his three children out there in the war and the cold hand of fear around his heart that he would come home to a telegram waiting for him to tell him that one of them or indeed all of them were dead.

Okay so perhaps not three of them. Kurt was at an air base in California training to be a pilot. He was not actually flying missions right now but Georg knew enough about the Air Force (and he would be the first to admit that, that was not much) but he knew enough to know that accidents happened on the ground as well as in the air. And so that was another thing to worry about.

Then there was Friedrich, island hopping somewhere in the South Pacific. Everyday the newspapers and the radio were talking about some island in the Pacific with a name that was unpronounceable and with a death toll that was so much higher than anywhere else. He knew that his son had hit leave in Australia like everyone else (he knew from the letters that were appearing about a month and a half late) and he knew that as soon as he had hit leave he was back out again but there had been nothing. There had been something that might have been an urgent postscript by Friedrich and Georg had replied to the letters—all of the family could as diligently as they could but the truth was they were running catch up on what was happening.

And that was before you got to Louisa.

He had not heard from Louisa in months.

If truth be told he was not surprised. On two accounts really. One. Her work (if that was what you could call it) would undoubtably have her on the move, and really what could she say in a letter that was not intercepted and two, his relationship with Louisa was so complicated now he was not surprised that she had not gotten a letter from her because really what was there left to say?

It was not that he didn't hold out hope for it. Georg was a father, he would never stop hoping for a relationship with his daughter, he would always keep the latch on the door loose just in case she was going to come home one day, there was never going to be a moment where Louisa wouldn't be welcome to come home. Some people might call him a soft touch but Georg wondered sometimes if even his children fully appreciated the damage his actions had caused to them more than he did.

Georg was not an idiot. He could see it even on the children that he had left. He could see it on Marta's face whenever he got quiet, he could see it on Kurt's face whenever he went for long walks and the small looks between them as if they were surprised he had come back. If this was something that his smaller children were picking up on (though heaven help him, they were not small anymore) then he dreaded to think what it really must have been like for his older children who had knew had shielded their younger brother and sisters from the worst of his temper.

But he was not going to be the punching bag anymore. He had decided that the day that Louisa had come home and told them that despite her belief that she would not be posted overseas she was being posted overseas.

And that had been the end of that.

He had suspected she had been posted into London because the letters to Kurt were regular up until that point (not that he was checking or anything like that) and then they had dropped off the face of the earth.

What that meant for his daughter he really, really couldn't think.

He really, really couldn't.

Thank God for Maria. Maria who was the rock in all of this. Maria who had taken on so many roles since she had first come to him.

And then one day after the invasion of Europe, somewhere between February and March where everyone seemed to be holding their breath and decide that they were going to be cautiously optimistic it happened.

Reality came crashing down.

And it came crashing down hard.

He got the news that his son had been wounded at Iwo Jima in March just as American forces crossed from France into Germany. It came as he had expected it via telegram and he had sat there as Maria had read the words that were crafted for a hundred men a day no doubt trying to see through the paper to see what was being hidden.

That was Maria. Georg was too busy relearning how to breathe.

When he had gone to the hospital, waited patiently for the frazzled looking young woman to find out where his son was and had been forced to listen to the groaning and the shouting and the crying of all the other men who had been brought in with him he had been sure that he was going to see his baby boy dead on the bed in front of him.

What he saw was not much better.

The nurse had tried to explain that the reason he was so pale was the constant being moved from land to boat to land again and then from room to room while they tried to assess who needed their help the most and who didn't and Georg who remembered his own time in the hospital thought that his eldest boy looked grey without being moved around. Friedrich was naked from the waist up and was connected to tubes that Georg didn't know where they started or where they ended. His oxygen mask was in place and he could see the thin rise and fall of his even thinner chest (and the newspapers had not been exaggerating the thinness of the American Marines—everything about his boy was thin), and he had to remind himself time any time again that his son was alive.

And then one day eyelashes had fluttered, eyelids had trembled. Friedrich had woken up and then before Georg could say anything the blue eyes had alighted on him and he had said the one thing that Georg had never expected him to say in a million years.

"Liesl and Brigitta are alive. They are in Australia"

Admittedly it had all really spiralled from there.

The second Friedrich had told him his blue eyes cloudy with both pain and morphine he had felt his entire body lock down as if bracing for a mortal blow and hope that dull, dead flower in his heart had begun to grow. Maria next to him had wrapped her fingers so hard around his forearm that he had thought circulation was about to be cut off but then his son…no longer the boy he had once been but a man changed and scarred and manipulated by war had looked at him and Georg had looked into the blue eyes of his wife and had known…he had known…that he was telling the truth.

And then it was a rush to get all the intelligence that they could.

It had never occurred to him to slow down and stop when Brigitta and Liesl were alive. It was almost like he was sleeping and then he had been rudely awakened. He was shaking off parts of him that had been buried for so long…

Brigitta and Liesl were alive.

The rest had been a scramble for intelligence.

So much so he had missed Marta when he had come home holding out a letter like it was a bomb.

"Father?"

"Hmm?"

"Louisa"

And then he had gone cold.

Louisa…

It was not a war telegram. To be honest with whatever Louisa was doing he was not sure that a war telegram would be posted back to him. Instead it was a letter in her own handwriting, scrawled in ink and in an envelope that literally looked like it had been to hell and back. Indeed the letter, much like him, looked as if it was hanging on by sheer force of will.

"Thank you Marta" he said taking it and holding it in his hand. There was still so much to do but he still could not get over the fact that after such a divide between them for so long Louisa had done the simplest thing in the world and wrote him a letter.

If that was not the very definition of pathetic then he didn't know what was.

"Darling?"

That was Maria, his darling wife, who had stuck with him through thick and thin and who deserved so much more than what she had gotten, since they had been married she had lost her home, her friends, her name almost. She had been the buffer between him and his children for a long time and everything she had said about them that day on the docks dripping wet had become true.

"What did you say that day at the docks. About Louisa?"

"Georg—"

"Humour me please"

Maria sighed. "I said I didn't know. Back then I didn't. Even now I don't. I did not think she was this…difficult"

"You ever met a thirteen year old who wasn't?"

"Back then I could understand it."

Georg paused, he knew Maria, he knew that Maria was on his side on this, that in being on his side her relationship with Louisa was deteriorating. He wondered if maybe Louisa had noticed that too.

"Don't blame her" he said quietly. "It's what I did. With my father. When I came back from the war we just…we just couldn't connect, I couldn't understand why he couldn't see things my way and he couldn't understand…well…I never had the best relationship with the man. Sometimes I wonder…what would have happened if I'd have pushed it"

Maria rubbed his arm in comfort. There was nothing she could say. They never talked about her parents and Georg got the impression that there was a reason for that and he was not one to prod and poke at a wound unwarranted.

"You want me to read that with you?" she asked looking at the letter.

"No" he said staring down at the first bit of tangible proof that at least (if the postmark was to be believed) his daughter was alive at some point in January.

"No…I need to read this one on my own."

Maria nodded. Maybe she did know what he was thinking, maybe she did know that his heart was considerably all over the place in a way that his doctor would wince at. Maybe her smile was her way of telling her all of this.

But Georg didn't see all of that.

Instead he just saw the letter.

And once he was alone he flipped open the envelope and gently peeled the battered, slightly wet but no less clear letter that his daughter had sent him home from the war.

Her handwriting was much the same.

Georg didn't know what that meant or even if it meant something. He was a complete and utter slave to his emotions in this moment and he couldn't even name what kind of emotions those were.

Parenthood.

It had sounded like such a good idea at the time.

Dear Father,

I cannot tell you where I am for fear that the letter will fall into enemy hands which where I am is more than likely. Be assured I am with the Allies and safe…mostly…well…I am with nice men anyway.

—Well that was something Georg supposed. He was not sure what to make of it, he was certainly not sure of what she meant when she said she was with 'nice men' and he was also not sure what she meant when she said she was mostly safe but to be honest he was also not sure after the day that he had, had his heart was going to take finding out. Looking down he noticed that the next part of the letter had been crossed out several times and he felt his heart warm at this…this tangible proof that his daughter had sat there and wrote to him and struggled over what to say.

But then he carried on.

I suppose…I suppose I am writing to let you and the family know I am alright. But more than that. I wanted to tell you that you were right, and before you fall off your armchair in shock let me elaborate.

Georg's smile got, if possible even bigger.

"Elaborate away sweetheart" he muttered to himself.

I didn't fully apricate the cost of war. Having been on the line more than once, having seen the price that men and to some extent woman in this freak show I fully understand why you were unhappy with my actions. Looking back, I did jump in without thinking of the consequences and I did think I was invincible. If there is one thing I can say about this war it's that I am not invincible anymore.

I also wanted to say that I was sorry. I said things and did things that looking back were unfair. Someone here bluntly put things in your perspective and I suppose seeing what I am seeing and doing what I am doing I can understand your actions better. I cannot forgive you yet…I am not ready to forgive you yet, you see a part of me is still that thirteen year old girl that hated herself because you hated us. I guess that's the best way I can describe it even to myself, but I can see grief and I can see loss and I can see all the blood and pain and I can understand why you shut yourself off from us.

I don't know if there is a door open for us after the war. I don't know if I you will want to see me. Hell at this point I don't even know if I will make it through in one piece and there have been far to many close calls and moments where hand to God I genuinely thought that I was a dead woman walking. I suppose the point of this is that I want to try.

I find that I understand things so much better now and I want to try and make things right. I can accept that things happened on my end that worsened our relationship and I can own my part in them.

I guess the question is do you still want to try?

If you don't then I suppose I cannot blame you.

I don't know if this will reach you or if you will even want to reply. I don't know when I can next send a letter out. I don't even know if I will be with the same unit then but If you address anything and everything to Captain Nicholas Heath 101st Airborne, D Company then I imagine it will find me, one way or the other.

When all of this is over…well…hopefully I will see you all again.

With Love, your daughter,

Louisa Von Trapp.

Corporal. United States Army.

Office of Strategic Services.

He held the letter in trembling fingers and when he looked up he knew his face was wet and his brain registered several facts at once some too quick to handle and some that they grasped onto like old friends and it was those facts that he clung to even as he trembled with emotion their on his armchair in his sitting room.

Brigitta was alive.

Liesl was alive.

Friedrich was alive.

Louisa was alive.

And that was enough. That was more, more than enough.

And Louisa was…she was…she was writing to him. She was openly reaching out for him and there was never going to be a moment where he didn't openly reach back.

He needed a pen, some paper and then whatever cash he had left. And a newspaper that showed him where the nearest steamers were going.

One way or another through hell or high water, with the same determination that he had possessed when he had been getting them out of Austria, Georg Von Trapp was going to get his children back.

And God help anyone who stood in his way.


And yeah, I hope this was okay, God knows it was certainly emotional to write.

Next Chapter-Back in Germany, Louisa and the men stumble across something so horrific there are no words to even describe it. And a man from Australia arrives as a translator and Nick can only watch as the woman who he loves has her life blown apart for the second time in five years.