warning; this chapter gets a little gory towards the end

& could be sensitive to some people.

16th October 1943

Saint-Nazaire, France.

"Igot a pretty big project I can send ya on if you want it. I'll give you the rundown." Charlie paused, looking behind his shoulder at Noelle, who rested stomach-first on her little cot reading away at A Farewell To Arms.

"Yeah? Well, go ahead then, don't just wait around for me to answer. 'We're fighting a war here!'" Noelle mimicked the American, speaking with her desperate attempt at an American accent by making her voice sound deeper and scratchier.

Charlie shot her one of those looks, and tucked the yellow folder back under his arm and began to leave his desk, "Fine, be that way. I'll give it to Dominique. I'm sure she'd do a better job, anyway."

"No, no, wait, Charlie, I was kidding!" Noelle laughed, chasing after him, "Give it to me."

"Alright, basically. You've caught wind of all the Hydra bullshit lately?" He asked, making his way back over to the desk and motioning for her to follow.

Noelle shrugged her shoulders as she propped herself against the corner of the desk, "Uh, vaguely, I guess. I couldn't tell you exact details, but I do know bits and pieces."

"Hm. Good enough. That's all you need to know." Charlie passed Noelle various papers before pulling out a map, marked up with what looked like little octopus heads in Nazi hats, "You like Italy? 'Cause you're headed out to Italy as soon as godly possible. We've been asked to send, and I quote, 'an unlikely soldier' to meet up with the 107th. Help infiltrate Hydra bases, slaughter the Nazi's, whatever ya gotta do out there, kid. I want you to be the lil' information retainer, alright? Nothing different than you've been doing. Just, for christsakes, keep yourself alive. I don't want to have to explain to god-knows-who why the hell a malnourished French girl is out there fighting with the boys. Too much damn controversy, I tell you."

There was a few seconds of lingering silence as Noelle scanned the papers. It wasn't long until she'd found herself nodding enthusiastically, "I'll take it."

"I mean it's not like you've got much of a choice. I was going to make you go anyway," He claimed, placing all of the neatly typed papers back into their manila folder, "I'll have you on a train in an hour and a half; I'll call Colonel Phillips and tell him you're on your way. You can hopefully take a train out of France, but once you hit Italy, you'll need to travel via car. Colonel Phillips will be sending someone- I believe a Sargent by the name of James Barnes or something like that- to the train station to pick you up at 0400, and from there, you make the rules, kid." Charlie placed a hand on Noelle's shoulder, a smile coming across his face, "Good luck out there, Noelle. Go rip 'em to shreds."

The train station was just a few blocks away from their safe house. Given the lack of material objects she'd possessed, Noelle had gotten the good majority of her things packed and ready to go with about an hour to spare.

Given the high possibility that she'd never make it back home to France, she had one last important stop to make. One last goodbye.

With an army green messenger bag slung across her shoulder, she walked through what was left of her street. Flashbacks of happier days as a young kid flooded her mind; the smell of her mother's pastries still lingered in her nose and her father's guitar playing still comforted her ears, her older sister's bickering still interrupted and her little brother's soccer ball could still be felt at her feet.

Though, through the happy memories, the memory of the night of the fire still haunted her mind. It had been such a normal night. Almost too normal; they'd eaten dinner together, laughing and bickering just as always.

How the Nazi's had discovered that her family had been communist was beyond her.

The way the fire heated up her skin. The way their eyes lacked empathy as they shot her father. The sound of the soldier's boots chasing after her once they'd realized she'd escaped with only a few cuts and bruises.

Everyday she cursed those damn Nazi's; they left her without a family. They'd taken everything.

Just as everyday she woke up promising to seek vengeance for her family; even if that meant risking her own life.

As she laid the lively and colorful flowers down in the pile of all the dead and wilting flowers she'd left over the course of the year, with tears in her eyes, she softly hummed a sad tune to herself. Taking a deep breath, she turned around and began walking away from the rubble for the last time.

The train ride to Italy was worse than Charlie had made it sound. People stared at her; Noelle felt like the whole world- or at least, the whole train- knew her ambitions. Noelle wore a collared blue dress that had buttons from the top to bottom and a belt that caressed the little curve in her waist. A large tan jacket sat upon her shoulders. She had on black Mary Jane heels and her blonde locks were left straight, hanging under Charlie's brown newsboy cap.

Her looks caused a few of the women on the train to do a double take as their boyfriends whistled softy at the young girl as she walked by.

When she finally got to her seat, she sat her bags down next to her feet and lit a single cigarette. She let it dangle from her lips as she cracked open her book; A Farewell To Arms, by Ernest Hemingway.

Noelle sat, smoking her cigarette and flipping through pages of the novel as she waited patiently for the train to begin rolling. For a few moments, she began to think she'd be the only one in the first class room of seats; until, of course, a young Nazi soldier who was around her age sat down next to her.

The situation quickly grew tense. Noelle, suddenly aware of the guns and knives strapped to her thighs and hidden in her bag, shifted her weight and tugged at the bottom of her dress.

"What's a pretty little German girl reading something like that? The Fuhrer had that banned, you know." The young man, looking over her shoulder at the words, informed her, attempting to have an authoritative tone.

Noelle looked up, taking the cigarette from her lips and flicking a few ashes into the ashtray that sat on the window seal, "Didn't your mother ever teach you to mind your own business?"

The soldier immediately picked up on her heavy French accent, raising a single eyebrow as a smug look fell upon his cheeks, "Ah, a French girl. My mother always told me France possessed the fairest of them all; I'm beginning to believe her, now that I've seen them up close and personal." He spoke in a suggestive tone, inching closer to Noelle.

She tried to ignore him, though her attempts seemed to fail. The Nazi wrapped an arm around her.

"Lighten up, Mein Liebster. It's just a silly war. You look like you could use a good loving up in your life anyway. Pop out a few kids; that's what a woman like you is good for."

"Get off of me, you filthy animal," Noelle took her cigarette out of her mouth yet again, this time placing the lit end on the soldier's arm. He tried to flick it off, but she pushed down with even more force than before. After the cigarette had burned into his flesh, she tossed it into the ashtray and stood up, "My family died because of your kind. I don't want anything to do with you."

The Nazi didn't hesitate to follow. He stood, swinging his hand back and throwing it across Noelle's cheek. She'd seen the golden flash of brass knuckles right as his hand drug across her face, leaving an ugly red gash on her eye and splitting her lip open, "Didn't your mother ever teach you to respect your men? Filthy whore."

The Nazi didn't have second thoughts when he violently pulled her close to him.

Noelle gasped, instinctively grabbing the switch blade from her thigh and switching it open. Pushing him against the wall, she held the cold blade to the Nazi's throat, a mean glare overtaking her soft ocean-colored eyes, "I can promise you she did; but seeing as how you're no man to the eyes of many, including my own, I've no reason to respect you. I'm more of a man than you'd ever be. To Hell with the Nazis, and to Hell with you."

Though Charlie told her the number one rule was to not hesitate, she hesitated. It was the first time, in her year of fighting alongside the resistance, that she'd ever found herself to hesitate. Just as the soldier's hands reached up for her throat, Noelle snapped out of it and swiftly dug the blade across his own throat. She let the body slump to the floor; the sticky crimson fluid continually flowing out of him. Noelle sat back down, tears welling in her eyes as she studied the blood that was coating her hands. For the rest of the train ride, quiet sobs filled the room. It wasn't the first life Noelle had claimed; she'd taken the lives of Nazi's ranked much higher than the man. Officers and generals alike. But never has she looked so deeply into the eyes of her victim that she could feel the same amount of pain; even if they, too, we're trying to kill her.

There was no use in trying to read her book- the blood had stained the pages and the ink had run across the pages, causing the words to run together like they had never even belonged there.

So, there sat the little blonde girl with the bloodied face and the black eye and the busted lip, sobbing for the dead German soldier and the world itself.

She felt the train come to a stop. She checked her watch; 0400.

The little blonde girl quickly gathered her belongings, cleaned off her knife, and packed her bloodstained book. She kept her head down as she quickly got off the train, looking for the man by the name of Sargent James Barnes.