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sergeant-spoons · 2 years

Text

And Know That Only I ~ Pt II

Perrine Blomme (Perry Bloom)

Taglist: @thoughpoppiesblow @chaosklutz @wexhappyxfew @50svibes @tvserie-s-world @adamantiumdragonfly @ask-you-what-sir @whovian45810 @brokennerdalert @holdingforgeneralhugs @claire-bear-1218 @heirsoflilith @itswormtrain @actualtrashpanda @wtrpxrks

Part 2 of Follow Me, My Dear, And Know That Only I Will Follow You.

Title comes from the song “Long Way Around” by The Sweeplings.

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The Airfield was as busy as a beehive on the morning of the big jump. It was to be Perry's first, and she considered herself rather fortunate that her luck had landed her with (supposedly) sleepy Holland. Every soldier from Private to Colonel bustled about, every minute demanding something new. The Toccoa men prepped themselves and the replacements tried to keep up; if they were lucky, they (like Perry or the newly-christened Babe) had an in with a Normandy veteran. Perry had just parted from Miller and Garcia, having been summoned by Sergeant Randleman for one last check-up. She could only suppose someone had let slip at her tiredness last night, and as she approached the sergeant, she found the culprit standing right at his side.

"Joe," she greeted him, then the others, "Sergeant. Doc."

"You feelin' alright, Bloom?" Doc Roe asked, studying her eyes and cheeks for signs of fever or delirium.

"Just peachy, Doc," she said. "No, wait, you're from the bayou, right?"

At his puzzled nod, she grinned.

"Then I'm fit as a croc, Doc."

Joe audibly groaned, but Randleman snorted, and Perry, pleased, prepared to convey her good nights' sleep and readiness for the jump. Before she could, however, something behind her caught the sergeant's eye and his smile dropped like a boulder off a cliff. Joe grabbed Perry by the shoulders and manhandled her behind Randleman and Roe, who'd stepped forward to conceal her.

"What the hell, guys?!" she yelped, trying to get around them, but they wouldn't let her. She had to grab Joe's shoulder and balance on her toes to see what was going on.

There was a transport going by with two men perched on the sides of the jeep, practically boot-to-shoulder with the driver. One of them sat with his chin up, bouncing merrily along with the rumbling of the jeep and waving to a few men he seemed to recognize, including Doc Roe. The other fellow—an officer, by the looks of his uniform—sat stiff as a gravestone, scanning the crowd with a thick glower.

"Who's that?" Perry asked, eyeing the second man. "He looks pissed."

"That there is Captain Sobel," Bull said, and she could tell without looking that something in his expression had soured.

"Oh, right." Perry gave a start. "Oh, shit. What's he doing here?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to find out."

"You sure? Something could be up."

Before she could try and slip around him, Joe grabbed Perry's arm and tugged her after him.

"Not for you to find out, either. Come on."

"Hey!" She pulled her arm back, ignoring the twinge it gave at the twisting motion. "For the last time, Joe I'm not a kid, so you can stop yanking me around, alright?"

His frown eased a bit, and when he nodded in the direction he wanted to take her, he seemed relieved when she continued to follow him. They skirted around the back of one tent and ducked into its neighbor, and Perry realized only once she was inside that it must be Joe's own. Well, it was the one he shared with Malarkey, but still—she felt suddenly bashful, put on the spot as if she was intruding on his childhood bedroom. There wasn't much left to witness, seeing as everyone had packed up that morning, but she could still smell his aftershave lingering in the closed air. It was the same used by all the men, but he added something to it that made the scent stand out—at least, to Perry it did. Maybe it was a spritz of cologne? She felt his hand on her arm and jumped, realizing too late that he'd asked her something she hadn't heard at all.

"Hey," he prodded. "You alright?"

Shaking off the strange urge to get up close to his face—to see if she was right about the cologne, of course—she had to ask him to repeat himself. Patient, he did, and she shrugged.

"Yeah, yeah, I, uh... I guess I got a bit spooked."

Starting with a truth seemed the way to go, and when he glanced out the open tarp flap toward the road where the transport had gone by, Perry jumped on the assumption.

"The way everybody talks about Sobel, it's like- like he's the monster under the bed, y'know? I never really expected to actually see him. And especially not here."

Joe sighed as he slung his pack onto the ground and knelt, shaking his head.

"You think he's jumping with us?"

He glanced up at her and she saw his frown had turned a bit stormy.

"Might be. If he is, chances are we'll leave him behind. He's too stubborn to listen to anybody out in the field, least of all his own sense—that's why we couldn't jump with him before. He'd get us all killed."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Shit."

He rose and stretched out his hands, and she saw he'd wrapped them as if the bandages were boxing tape.

"But enough about Sobel. If he jumps, he jumps."

He passed her a few strips for her own hands, and she couldn't keep a smile off her lips for long.

"Come on. One more time before we get on the planes."

As soon as she'd finished prepping her fists, she took up the stance he'd taught her and took a few quick practice swings. They mock-sparred for a bit until she managed to land a good one on his shoulder. He stumbled back and wobbled like he was about to fall, and Perry only understood he'd been messing around after she'd jumped forward and grabbed his shirt to steady him. He laughed, his hands coming to rest on her arms, and she squeezed his shirt as if displeased at his trickery when in reality she was just trying to keep her own balance.

"Thanks," he said, almost smirking, and Perry felt the fluttering in her chest maximize.

That was the first time he'd said just 'thanks' instead of 'thanks, kid'.

She stepped back, tugging at her hair, and Joe released her arms, nodding to her hands.

"You got 'em with you?"

She rifled through the inside pocket of her pack and showed him her brass knuckles. That gleam in his eyes from last night was back when he ruffled her hair and told her she'd done well. Leaning aside to peek out the tent flap, he missed the way her hand rose as if wanting to graze his chin and then fell just as quickly.

"Looks like Sobel's moved along," he reported. "You ready?"

She shrugged, starting to remove the wrappings.

"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

No glance or smile could have prepared her for the feeling of him taking her hands and unwrapping the rest of the bandages for her. It was such a tender and unexpected thing that she stood there and let him.

"No 'I guess'," he refuted, looking at her hands as he unwound the last strip. "You're gonna be fine."

"Right."

"Right?"

"I'm gonna be fine."

He stepped back, hesitated, and then held out the bandages to her.

"You'd better not need these out there."

Shaking her head, she pushed them back toward him, and he quirked a brow.

"No?"

"From what I've heard about your luck on D-Day," she replied, smiling faintly, "chances are, you'll need 'em."

He snorted and shook his head, but as he returned the bandages to his pack, she caught the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, betraying a kind of fondness that made her a little lightheaded.

"Yeah," he said, the gravel of his voice softening into sand, "you're probably right."

That day was a tumultuous one. The tall grass of Holland would have concealed one man, but a hundred helmets gleaming in the sun did little to disguise the advance. An orange flag welcomed them into Eindhoven, and by the time the better part of the company had entered the town, orange pennants had been strung from here to Kalamazoo. As men fell over themselves to flaunt their stations for the sake of a kiss (or a dozen), Perry searched for a way out of the crowd. Too many people meant too many close encounters and too high a chance of something going awry. She found Victor before long, but they'd only gone a few yards before they heard a kind of chanting from across the street. Perry, wan, hardly realized she'd jumped into the fray until four Dutchwoman were turning her away, their eyes downcast toward the blood and hair matting the cobblestones.

As soon as he caught up with her, Victor drew her aside, turmoil darkening his kind hazel eyes. Perry began to pace, the ugly scene just a few yards away filling her with a kind of rage she'd only felt once before in her life, on the day her mother abandoned the family. Stumbling her way out the door, a vodka bottle in hand, she'd turned to Clyde with venom in her eyes and spat that he was worthless. Perry—seeing red—nearly ran after her and gave her what for, but then Clyde began to cry and the brain fog lifted just enough for her to concede that violence wouldn't do any good. Seeing orange but feeling red this time, Perry was raring to start a fight. Victor agreed to back her up and they started back toward the abhorrent display, detouring only slightly to grab ahold of Joe and Doc Roe. The four Americans converged on the scene together, a spiteful Perry leading the charge, and started to chase off the spectators and perpetrators alike. In what seemed to be only a second, Perry found herself toe-to-toe with three scowling Dutchmen but would not back down, not for the sake of the first word and especially not the last. Victor came up to hover beside her as the argument boiled and bubbled until Perry came close to screaming at the inhumanity of it all.

“You do not know what we have lived-”

“No," she snapped, rage vibrating throughout her entire body, "I don’t. But I sure do know what it’s like to ruin yourself for the rights no person should have to beg for."

The ringleader of the three finally gave up and started to walk away, and Perry almost went after him, but again, somebody she cared about far more stopped her. Victor's hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality, and as a wave of unforgiving nausea swept over her, Perry turned and bent over her knees. Victor urged her over to a spot further away from judgmental eyes and Joe tried to give her his canteen to drink from, but she was too restless to stay still for long or even swallow. Victor went back over to one of the women still on the ground and sat beside her, and Perry was quick to follow. She crouched down beside her friend and gently introduced herself in Dutch as Doc Roe tended to the woman's bloodied scalp. After the woman had dried most of her blinding tears, she seemed to recognize Perry and threw herself into the soldier's arms with a wail. She kept repeating heroine over and over as she sobbed against Perry's shoulder, and they all just sat there, the Dutchwoman and the four soldiers, until the last of the crowd had dispersed.

“That coulda been my mother.”

Victor gave her a puzzled look, but the lump in her throat kept Perry from elaborating, and she stayed silent as she watched Lieutenant Lipton kindly lead the woman away, having offered to walk her home. Perry grabbed Victor's arm and used it as a crutch to bring herself to her wobbly feet, missing how Joe had offered her his on her other side. He dropped his arm, stuffed his brass knuckles in his pocket, and ran his hand through his hair.

"Your mother?" he asked, careful as could be, careful like he knew how Perry felt. Like he knew what it was like to want to punch the whole world. And that's what made her tell him (and Victor and Doc, of course) about Groningen and what leaving did to her family, about her mother and all the bottles in the cupboards, about how nothing could change what she'd done and why she'd thought she'd had to do it, and—most of all—about what little difference there was between the vultures of Sacramento and the wolves of Eindhoven. Joe looked awfully sorry to hear it all, and Perry itched to hug him but knew she might as well give herself up should she make the attempt. Just as she'd crossed the threshold of staring too long, Lieutenant Welsh popped up and dragged her and Victor away to find them lodgings for the night. His attempt was short-lived, however, and Victor ended up drifting off with Donald Hoobler and another trooper Perry didn't know well enough to name while Perry herself turned to Heffron and Guarnere for direction.

"Why don't ya go with Vest?" the sergeant of the pair suggested, pointing the butt of his pistol over her shoulder before nestling it back into its holster. "He said there's a bed or two to spare where he's goin'. Bet he wouldn't mind the comp'ny."

Unfortunately, Perry didn't know who this 'Vest' character was and ended up wandering on her own for a time. She'd just stopped to peer over a low fence into a stranger's fragrant garden when Joe Liebgott surfaced from the dwindling throng and all but dragged her down the street toward a boarding house with all its windows thrown open. As they walked, he informed her that Guarnere, having realized too late that she wouldn't know Vest if he was two feet in front of her, had sent Liebgott to find her. Lieb, in turn, had secured a room at the boarding house on his way and was certain there'd still be room for Perry. He was immediately contradicted by the frazzled landlady guarding the front door, but what she didn't know was that once Joe Liebgott set his mind to something, that something was going to get done. Then Joe Toye came down the stairs for the sole purpose of joining the persuasion and the landlady gave in, but only on the condition that Perry would share a room with one of the pair. To Perry's astonishment, Toye hooked his arm around hers—seemingly without a second thought—and began to lead her back up the stairs.

"He snores like a train engine," he elucidated, shooting her a smirk as Liebgott began to protest, and Perry could do little but laugh and turn her head toward the window in an attempt to hide her pinkening cheeks.

A few hours passed as they dropped their packs and went to find some dinner, then played poker with some of the other fellas in the boarding house until they got sick of losing to stony-faced Toye and hauled themselves off to bed. Perry suggested they do the same and Joe assented, and as the first stars came out, they kicked off their boots, took one last look out the window at the sunset, and readied for bed. Jostling for a spot in the cramped bathroom down the corridor for tooth-brushing and face-washing purposes left them more tired than before, and they rolled into bed almost as soon as they'd gotten back to the room. The mattress creaked a bit but was comfortable enough, and the pillow was one of the nicest they'd maintained since joining the Airborne. The only issue was the singularity of it:

It was the pillow because it was the only one.

Their lighthearted bickering over who would get it devolved into sleepy grabbing and poorly-suppressed snickering that they tried to bite back for the sake of those trying to sleep in the adjoining rooms. Equally persistent, neither would relent, but then Perry stuffed the pillow under Joe's head and plopped hers down on his chest, tossing both arms over his torso to keep him still. She expected him to squirm a bit, but he didn't, just laughed and laughed until she had to threaten to use the pillow to smother him to get him to stop. A peaceful kind of quiet descended upon the room, and as the darkness become total, neither moved an inch, thoroughly comfortable as they lay and daring to assume the other felt the same.

Twenty minutes later, Perry had drifted off into the land of slumber and Joe Toye didn't know what to do with himself.

He knew he'd landed himself in a sort of predicament as soon as they came into the room and saw there was only one bed. It was big enough for the both of them and Perry didn't seem bothered, but what she didn't know was that something had been nagging at Joe ever since he saw her jump into the fray that afternoon, a kind of fire in her eyes that ignited his own. The day turned to night and all of a sudden, they were sharing the bed and he had no idea how to proceed. Now, this was long before he knew who Perry really was—that 'he' was actually a 'she'—but what he did know was that he'd let her stay there, cuddled up to him like a lover, because every time he looked at her she lit a flame inside his chest. And that flame, stubborn as he was, wouldn't go out no matter how hard he willed it to. But here, in the dark, in the night... it was enough for him to pretend. They didn't have to be who they were, they could be someone else, in the dark.

He could pretend that maybe, just maybe, if he was braver than he was, if things were different in so many ways, if this Private Bloom dozing on his chest was a Miss Bloom instead...

"Get some sleep, Lovely Summer," he mumbled against her hair where it tickled his chin, his heart pounding like the dickens. He hadn't expected any sort of acknowledgment, assuming she was fast asleep, so when he felt her nuzzle her lips against his chest in a half-asleep kiss, he felt a thrill and a chill—and it was all too much. Uncertainty flashed into fear, and he froze where he was, one arm draped loosely over Perry while the other hand gripped the sheets, seeking solace. When at last he tried to get up, Perry made a muffled noise of displeasure against his shirt. The vibrations of her voice shot a shiver up his stiff arms, and he hesitated.

"No," he thought he heard her say in a voice that seemed higher than it should have been. "Sleep. Here."

"Right here?"

"Right here."

And then she was asleep, really asleep. He felt the rise and fall of her chest beside him and wondered at the strange way she curved the top half of her torso away from his almost subconsciously. It was as he lay there that he felt his arms relax, and then his hands, his shoulders, and finally, his heart. It became clear even to his sleepy mind that he wouldn't have gotten up after all, even without her protest. He was just too darn comfortable like this, too darn safe, too darn... happy. So Joe laid back down, closed his eyes, and decided to stay happy—at least until the morning twilight gave way to the dawn.

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Although the first light of day was only just poking through the window, Joe was gone by the time Perry awoke. She sat up, rubbed at her eyes, and felt poorly about herself until the door creaked open and a pair of hands offered two cups of coffee. Joe's gentle smile danced above them, tugging up at the corners when he started to move the cups in a song and dance as Perry tried to take one. She laughed and he relented, handing her a cup, then fumbling in his pocket for one solitary packet of sugar. They split it and pretended it made all the difference in their bitter morning beverages, sitting on the floor and eyeing the world outside the window. Perry kept an eye on her watch and when Joe asked her if she had a hot date, she snorted and told him she didn't want to be late for whatever came next.

"We don't even know what that's gonna be," he said, then, after a beat: "Perry."

"What?"

Joe nodded toward the floor, indicating the bedroom beneath theirs.

"Your foot's tappin' so much you've woken 'em up."

Perry jumped to her feet, flustered, and took a long, hard look at the sunny day while Joe took a long, hard, unnoticed look at her.

"Here's an idea," she said, turning to rifle through her pack and emerging with a block of rations. "C'mon."

Joe didn't get up, just watched her go.

"Where you goin'?"

"It's beautiful out," she said from the doorway. "Don't you wanna eat outside?"

He hesitated, and that was all she needed to know he wouldn't be joining her. Her spirits fell, and her expression must have shown it, for he started to rise, but she waved him back down.

"I'll just go and find Victor or somebody. You- you go back to sleep. Or something."

That was the last time they'd see each other for quite some time. Perry had only just located Victor and Donald Hoobler—dining upon a whole breakfast spread on the upwind side of a haybale—when a runner came past, informing everyone he saw of their proceeding orders. They hopped aboard the tanks of their sister regiment within the hour and started to roll out for Nuenen, receiving a most boisterous farewell from the locals of Eindhoven. At times, Perry was able to glimpse Joe's helmet moving on a tank up ahead and knew it was him from the way his shoulders moved as he talked or listened to a friend. She itched to go see him, maybe make sure they were on good terms, but doubt crept in and held her nerve like a vice. She didn't know who they were anymore, and he didn't know who she was, and all the not-knowing made her dizzy enough that when Lieutenant Brewer crumpled like a sandcastle right in front of her, she didn't even flinch.

The battle didn't last long and ended up a resounding failure on the Americans' part. Things went blurry for Perry after a time and all she could really do was stick to her rifle and her buddies and try not to get shot like Brewer. Her senses only started to clear around the time they made it far enough down the road to safely stop for the night, and panic started to set in as she took stock of who'd kept up with the gloomy crowd and who hadn't. Sergeant Martin spread the word that Sergeant Randleman was missing and—worse—that Victor Rich had vanished with him. Martin was the last to have seen them, which didn't seem to be sitting well with his nerves. With Victor and her squadron leader gone, Perry was already close to her wits' end; the final blow came when an emotionally- and physically-drained Doc Roe informed her that Joe Toye had been sent off the line not ten minutes ago, having been hit badly in the leg during the battle.

Turns out Joe had needed those bandages after all.

"How's your squadron?" Doc Roe asked, and it hurt them both to think it was a question he was asking in Rich's stead. "Everybody accounted for?"

"Everybody 'cept..." Perry looked down, squashing her grief like it was the beetle crawling over her boot. "Well. Might as well say it. Miller's dead."

Roe just shook his head, discontent, and went back to his work. For a moment, Perry envied him, that he had something to occupy his mind with, then felt guilty for those who'd been wounded or killed at Nuenen. Buck Compton went by on a stretcher and tapped her leg, telling her to keep her chin up, and when she told him blank-faced that Randleman and Red were missing, his pained smile fell. She watched him go and kicked at the earth, the voices in her head getting louder and louder. Fortunately, Sergeant Lipton turned up in the right place at the right time. He drew Perry aside in an attempt to assess her clearly-fragile mental state only for her to startle him by letting loose a secret she'd kept for months upon months. Three of the most important people to her had gone MIA or WIA, and now Perry, mocked by a starless sky, let it all spill out. She told Lipton who she was and why and how she'd gotten there, and despite his initial amazement, he got over his shock marvelously quickly. A bit of anger flashed through his expression, then pity, then uncertainty, but by the time he realized her panic, he'd managed to square it all with himself just enough to prevent her from completely losing her shit. Unfortunately, there wasn't a thing he could do to fix the situation other than try and calm her down. Once he'd managed to settle her just enough to think clearly, he sent her to refill her canteen and went off by himself to think things over.

Perry returned to the spot she'd left Lipton and found no trace. At a bit of a loss, she stood and chugged all of the water she'd just retrieved until she felt sick. She sat down until she felt less nauseous, but by that time, the gloaming was turning to twilight and she realized a whole night had passed. In the absence of a sane mind, she hadn't noticed. Still, there wasn't much for an enlisted man to see or do at that encampment other than pace and stew, and so pace and stew, Perry did. Eventually, Sergeant Martin marched over, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her over to Skip Muck in the hopes that he could:

"-calm down the anxious rabbit whose makin' everybody else anxious—oh, for fuck’s sake, would you stop that shaking-"

Perry managed to force her limbs to go still, but in doing so, sent her heart speeding and thumping all throughout her chest. Though she barely knew him and he, her, Skip frowned with concern. He squinted at her face and blinked for a moment, then turned back to Martin.

"Uh, Johnny, you seen Liebgott anywhere?"

She might have winced to think he'd pawn her off on another so quickly if she hadn't been used to such treatment of replacements, but instead, she just sagged and resumed tapping her foot. Skip's look turned sympathetic and he looked close to apologizing before Martin turned over his shoulder and lit up, drawing Skip's and Perry's attention.

"Bull!" the sergeant exclaimed. "Red!"

Reunions were swift and clamorous. Perry was the first to make it to Victor, jumping right on his back and nearly knocking him over. Victor just laughed and asked if she was alright, and she retorted that if anyone should be asking such a thing, it should be her. A crowd started to gather and Perry hopped down, adjusting her shirt and sleeves from where they'd ridden up. She kept looking right at Victor, then at Randleman, then back to Victor as if this was some kind of illusion conjured up by her sleepless, heartsick mind. Fortunately, they were real flesh and blood and had come back to the company after all. For a second or two as she watched Skip walk Victor up toward the medic's station while Doc Spina came down the hill to greet Randleman, she wondered if maybe, just maybe, Joe Toye would pop up from behind one of the trucks and come over just to ruffle her hair and tell her everybody was mistaken, he hadn't been hit this time around.

Alas, Joe was fated to stay gone—and for several months at that.

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Read Pt III here.

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sergeant-spoons · 2 years

Text

I Will Follow You ~ Pt III

Perrine Blomme (Perry Bloom)

Taglist: @thoughpoppiesblow @chaosklutz @wexhappyxfew @50svibes @tvserie-s-world @ask-you-what-sir @whovian45810 @brokennerdalert @holdingforgeneralhugs @claire-bear-1218 @heirsoflilith @itswormtrain @actualtrashpanda @wtrpxrks

Part 3/Finale of Follow Me, My Dear, And Know That Only I Will Follow You.

Plus a bonus epilogue!

Title comes from the song “Long Way Around” by The Sweeplings.

Apologies for the delayed update - this final part (+ the epilogue) clocks in at over 10k words.

Read it on AO3!

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Easy Company departed Nuenen shortly after Bull and Victor's return. Rumbling away on their fewer transports and tanks, watching the smoke rising from a burning Eindhoven on the horizon, they sat and nibbled at rations or smoked, all in silence. By the time the sun found her midday perch, the mood of the company had lifted slightly. A few conversations had started up, though only among only the closest of friends, and Perry turned to try and find somebody to talk to. Garcia sat closest to her and proved her immediate choice, but he was staring up at the sky, a kind of hollowness in his eyes that made her wary to interrupt his thinking. She looked to Babe Heffron next, and he looked in turn to Bill Guarnere, who seemed pleased at the singling out. He started up a barebones game of craps just to pass the time, rolling the dice inside his upturned helmet so they wouldn't go flying off the transport with every bump in the road. The participants got a few ugly looks and a few kinder ones, too, but none seemed worth the bother. They just kept on playing.

Days passed, then weeks. It was in France, at that place known simply as 'the Island', that Perry found out she wasn't alone in her secret after all. 'Victor' Rich turned into Verity, and Perry clung to their sameness like it was the last chance she had of making it through the war alive. For the first time, she told someone what she thought she might be feeling for Joe Toye. Saying it aloud made it real, in a way. And in Perry's situation, truth was scary—truth made her vulnerable. Truth nipped at her heels as Easy paddled across the Rhine to rescue stranded British paratroopers and lost Lieutenant Heyliger to friendly fire and finally returned to Mourmelon-le-Grand for a bit of a breather with the rest of the 101st. As October turned to November, Perry (recently twenty-three) was getting antsier by the day. Verity was the first to notice, then Babe Heffron, and even Donald Malarkey, who she knew even less well than Skip Muck. By then, she knew the time had come for her to do something about her anxious heart before it got her killed.

A week into their stay at Mourmelon, Perry resolved to go to England and see Joe Toye face to face.

By the end of the month, she'd managed to secure for herself a four-day furlough, during which she intended to travel back across the English Channel and pay a visit to the hospital where Joe—restless, no doubt—was still recuperating. The little tugboat she took across the Channel puffed along slowly but surely, and she watched as the French coast diminished behind her, too nervous to look ahead to England. The seawater splashed up over the deck and Perry winced as it lashed, cold, against her ankles. She stopped on the docks and changed her socks before she went any further, but any sort of practicality was overshadowed by her guilt of stalling. She was finally here, wasn't she? Then why wasn't she getting a move on?

A kind of uncanny guilt kept her feet firmly affixed to the pier until a dockworker took her by the shoulders and moved her out of everybody's way. Embarrassed into making an exit, she kept her head down and moved quickly, skirting feet and crates and a few seagulls as she went. As her chin bowed further and further, her cap started to slip off her head, and when it finally fell, she fumbled to catch it. Her clumsy hot-potato-esque grabbing drew a few amused looks from English passersby, but this time, she didn't notice whatsoever. Standing there under a bulbless lamppost, her chin tilted steadily upwards as she took in the building at the end of the street. It was pale and broad and adorned with the largest stitched red cross Perry had ever laid eyes on. More jarring was that the place was twice as big as she'd expected, and then some. As she came closer, she saw there was a garden to the eastward side of the building, and that allowed her a bit of a smile.

Greenery was always good for healing the soul.

Little did she know that when she came around the side of the hospital and went into the gardens, Joseph Toye would be thinking the same thing, but for an entirely different reason. She came around a hedge and stopped in her tracks at once. It was hard to tell who saw who first, but Joe went as stiff as a statue and Perry had to look at his eyes in order to see him blink and reassure herself she wasn't imagining him standing not two yards away from her. He looked well. He was leaning on a statue as if he'd taken a moment to catch his breath, but he jumped up just as soon as he saw her as if she'd caught him in a state of leisure he shouldn't have dared enjoy.

Without knowing any better, she smiled.

"Joe."

Saying his name seemed to snap him out of whatever trance her sudden arrival had put him in. He balked and grabbed onto the statue to steady himself, and she started forward, concerned at his state of balance. But he shook his head and she stopped, easily understanding that he didn't want her to come any closer. She tilted her head, curious and a little hurt, but he just stared as if he didn't know what to say.

He stared because as soon as she'd turned that corner, her green eyes caught on his and his heart skipped a beat he could no longer ignore.

What she couldn't have possibly known was that ever since that night in Eindhoven, he'd been falling to pieces inside, thinking about Perry night and day, even at the times he shouldn't have. The hospital was boring to the point of annoyance, and his recovery was taking long enough that he'd started to snap at the nurses, who were still too nice to him even when he didn't deserve it. He'd started thinking about going AWOL these last few days just to get back to Easy, but he hadn't a clue how he'd manage it with his leg still stiff and achy as it was. The one main reason for him wanting to leave the hospital before he was ready was yet the same for him wanting to stay. And now that reason had appeared like a ghost summoned by the silent misery of his heart, come to England where she wasn't supposed to be, and when he looked into her green eyes, Joe panicked.

He panicked because they were a green he knew too well, a green he wasn't sure he could live without.

"Perry?" he asked, and she nodded, her faint smile growing a bit stronger.

"Yeah. Yeah, Joe, it's me." She laughed softly, a nervous thing, and it made him want to run away. "How're you doing?"

How was he doing? He wanted to tell her he was good—great, even—because it was her, but that's exactly why he couldn't. This was Perry Bloom, a man, who was making him feel all sorts of things he'd only ever felt with women, and now twice as strong. So forgive him for panicking a little—he felt as though he'd lost sight of himself, and fear like that is a bitter vice.

"Go away, Perry," he said, forcing himself to stand on his own although his leg trembled under the strain.

Watching that pretty face fall almost broke his shaken heart.

"What?"

"Leave me alone. Please."

"I-" She looked around as if she thought she might be dreaming. "I- I don't understand."

"I don't either."

It was the only honest thing he could really say to her at that moment, and it brought green eyes back upon him without any sort of warning or mercy. When he flinched, she saw it as clear as day.

"I thought we were friends."

He wanted to say so much but he didn't know how to make the words fit right, so he just turned and started to limp away. She hiccuped and he stalled.

He'd made her cry, hadn't he?

Shaken to the core, he left her there in the garden without looking back. She ran away crying and didn't stop for some time. Even as she wandered blindly around the streets of London, she cried, swiping at her cheeks with her sleeves until they were positively waterlogged. Eventually, she happened upon the inn where she'd meant to stay for the night. To her utmost thanks, the secretary at the front desk was sympathetic and didn't ask any questions about the tears still making tracks down the young soldier's face. She went upstairs to the room, turned the key in the lock, and shut herself away from the world. When she tried to look around inside but found everything was still wet and blurry, she gave up and sat down on the floor right there where she'd stood.

Leaning back against the bedframe, weepy and forlorn, she went over every second of that awful rejection in her mind, trying almost desperately to pinpoint her fatal mistake. Though she tried not to let it, every minute more thinking about Joe was tearing her up inside. What could she have possibly done so wrong? It had been nearly two months since they'd seen one another. Should she not have smiled? What didn't he understand? Had someone somewhere somehow found out about her by some cosmic stroke of wretched luck and let it slip to Joe? Every possibility seemed more outlandish than the last. She wished she could have called Victor or Babe or, hell, even Captain Winters, but she felt so low that she doubted anyone would have picked up, had they had a phone to answer at all.

At the hospital, a nurse came and found Joe a few minutes after Perry had left. She scolded him a bit, saying he shouldn't have gone out into the garden like that without somebody to make sure he got back alright. He almost told her that there had been somebody, but chances were that somebody would never walk at his side again. But he didn't tell her that. He couldn't. Instead, he limped along to the lunchroom, ate alone, and limped back to his sterile white bunk, and there he sat, silent, as the afternoon wore on and on. Just as he was readying to go to bed, having skipped supper, a different nurse tracked him down, and when he saw the bewilderment on her face, he knew Perry had been back. Indeed, the nurse passed him a note and told him it was from a soldier who said he was a friend of Joe's, a friend who would be heading back to his company much sooner than planned.

Joe's heart wrenched. He wasn't sure he could call Perry his friend any longer. The scary part was, he didn't want to—he wanted to drop the 'friend' and just call Perry 'his'.

Even scarier was the creeping suspicion that Perry just might feel the same.

He nearly crumpled up the note but stopped himself at the last second. Almost rebelliously, he unfolded the wrinkled paper and gave it a read.

Joe ~

I don't know what I did, but if you hate me for whatever it is, that's up to you. Maybe I deserve it. Either way, I've been keeping one hell of a secret from everybody and it's something you should really know about. Even if you never want to speak to me again, if we were ever friends, even for a minute, please let me tell you this one thing.

Find me once you're back with the company. I hope it isn't too long—

(For your leg's sake, not mine.)

P.B.

Joe ran his thumb across the paper and discovered that the spots that he'd first assumed to be natural blemishes were, in fact, damp to the touch. She'd been crying when she wrote this, and she didn't care if he knew it. Maybe she'd done it purposefully. He doubted it. There wasn't a vindictive bone in her body.

Or maybe there was, and he'd done enough harm to discover it.

Perry tried not to think of Joe on the boat back to France. The waves splashed and a few seagulls cried out to one another, and Perry watched the English coast grow smaller and smaller until her boots were back on solid ground and the little tugboat was long gone.

Twilight had fallen by the time she made it back to the Company the next day. Verity was puzzled by her early return and asked plenty of questions, but Perry wouldn't say a word about what had happened in England until Verity threatened to write to Joe herself. All Perry could think to say was that Joe hadn't wanted to see her. That quieted her friend into a kind of melancholic pity, and Perry shied away, escaping into the night. Babe found her before long and dragged her over to a makeshift firepit he and some of the other fellas had started up, and she stood there with them, warming her hands and wondering in silent grief:

How had it come to this?

Several weeks later brought a small high point in the matter of Verity's birthday, an event which culminated most unwelcomingly in the 101st's abrupt deployment to Belgium. The next day passed in a blur until Perry once again stood warming her hands at a firepit, now eyeing the woods ahead as her friends predicted what they'd find in there. Some joked, others were more serious, but all seemed a bit antsy to figure out exactly what they were doing here. Then the rows of battered soldiers began to march by, and they kept going for ages. The men began to speculate more darkly and Verity inched closer to Perry, protective. It didn't do much good. With every fallen face that passed her, Perry lost a little more hope.

Sergeant Lipton (who'd lit the fire this time around) tried to make small talk with the soldiers clustered within earshot, but few paid him any mind. Because Verity did, Perry did, too. Lip mentioned something about the forest and Perry mentioned that she knew the place. She'd never been, but her father had, long ago, and she was just about to tell him and Verity all about that 1912 camping trip when she heard singing and whipped about like her name had been called by the angels.

“I’ll be seeing you, in every lovely summer’s day…”

Verity immediately urged Perry to go to Joe, but she just couldn't seem to make her feet move. As her thoughts whirled and her heart thundered in her chest, all she could picture was the look of stunned distaste she feared she would find on Joe's face when she told him what she could no longer hide.

"I dunno if he’d be happy to see me," she told Verity (the understatement of the century), but her friend, opposed to her meekness, took her by the elbows and marched her all the way to the source of the singing.

There he was, gazing up at the night sky, his hands tucked nonchalantly in his pockets. He was standing in the shadows behind a truck, the shadows in which no one would find him unless they knew to come looking. As Perry inched toward him, he looked down and faltered, and she knew in a heartbeat that he'd picked the song because it would bring her to him. In that same heartbeat, all the resolve she'd had to tell him her secret came rushing back, and her steps became more assured, her strides steadier. She opened her mouth to try and speak, but before she could even start, he launched into a flurry of apology and uncertainty, disallowing her to get a word in edgewise. He was saying something about how he felt for her but she was so bewildered by the intensity and rambling nature of his speech that she couldn't make sense of it. His whole body was taut with emotional tension and fear, and Perry, blanking on what else she could possibly do, decided her best chance to get his attention was to grab his hand and place it palm-down upon her chest.

Doing so had her whole face aflame and her heart pounding so loud she was sure he could feel it against her ribcage, but watching the wheels turn in his head and the weight visibly lifting off his shoulders as it all clicked was worth it.

"Did you read my note?" she asked a bit lamely, letting go of his hand.

"I didn't get it," he breathed, and at her look of alarm, he shook his head. "Didn't understand it, I mean." He knocked on his head with a loose fist. "Not much up there, y'see?"

Perry, her eyes watering, threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Don't you talk like that," she grumbled into his chest. "You just got back, for Pete's sake. Have a little more faith in yourself or you'll be gone again in a week."

He softened, knowing she was probably right. Embracing her, he gave her a squeeze, a silent reassurance. After a quick glance around to check they weren't being watched, he dared to rest his chin on the top of her head. She sighed against his chest and it was heavenly, and for the first time, he wasn't afraid to believe in the way she made him feel.

"So you've prob'ly figured it out by now," she said once they stepped apart, "but I'm not a man."

"Yeah," he chuckled, running his hand through his dark hair. "Yeah, I get it now."

"Okay." She stuffed her hands into her pockets and pinched the inside corners, fidgety. "So?"

He blinked at her for a moment.

"... So?"

"So are you gonna... report me, or...?"

Before she'd even finished the flimsy question, he was shaking his head.

"Not my business to tell," he said, and her heart, already so full of love for him, made room for just a little more.

"Thank you," she said, and there was something in her quiet voice that hinted at what she really felt, but Joe blinked it away, labeling it wishful dreaming.

"C'mere, Lovely Summer."

He drew her back into a hug, and she settled into his arms as easily as if it were home. She felt a little thrill, relishing in the nickname, not knowing that it had never really been a tease, not really. It was a little funny at first, but as the days went on, the association of the pet name with Perry made it sweeter and truer. Since that night in Eindhoven when she fell asleep on him and he'd started to realize just how much he cared about her, he'd meant it in earnest.

"You sang because you knew I'd come," she murmured, smoothing her thumb over a wrinkle in his uniform, "didn't you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"Keep doing that," she said, straightening up and fixing her cap. She sounded so even-keeled, but even in the shadows, he could tell she was blushing something awful. But he understood, and if he'd been a man to blush, he might have been a little pink himself.

"When I want to see you as you," he agreed, "I'll sing."

"Not just any song," she pointed out. "Just 'I'll Be Seeing You'."

"Of course."

She giggled—actually giggled—and it made Joe happier than he'd been in months.

"Of course," she repeated. "Of course."

They didn't get a chance to talk like that for nearly a week. The entire Company was up to its knees in patrols and skirmishes—not to mention the snow. Foxholes were dug and campfires were banned and everyone got colder by the day until you couldn't shake a man's hand without the both of you trembling like a leaf. Perry and Joe had taken up residence in a foxhole for three, joined most nights by Johnny Martin. On the seventh night, Joe and Perry got back late from a patrol and found Martin fast asleep. They slipped into the hole as quietly as they could and settled in, side-by-side. Perry's jaw was so shaky from the cold that when she mumbled Joe's name, she stuttered on the 'J'. He frowned, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and tugged her against his side.

"I should try to find us a blanket," he mumbled against the side of her head, pressing his lips there in what she hoped was a smile but could never be sure. "How're you holdin' up?"

"Well, it's cold." She snuggled a little closer to him. "I'm better now."

"Aww. Cute. Thanks."

"Oh, shush, you."

He smiled and closed his eyes. Perry looked at him for a moment, then tilted her head onto his shoulder and joined him, seeking rest.

"Perry?"

"Hmm?"

Joe cracked one eye to check that Martin was still asleep. He appeared to be, so Joe went on.

"What's it like, for you?"

"You mean as a...?"

"Yeah. That."

"Oh." Perry considered, lifting her head off his shoulder. "Well, gee, I dunno... Pretty much the same as anybody, I guess."

"But you're hiding all the time."

"Yeah. I guess that's the big difference, huh?" A weak chuckle. "It's not all that bad. Some things are harder than others. I can't shower with the group, of course. There's never any piece of the uniform that fits the way it's s'posed to, but then again, it doesn't fit half the men, either. And if people start noticing bloodstains on the sheets—when we had sheets, that is—they're gonna start asking questions, so that's always a bit... perilous, each month."

"'Perilous', huh?" Joe smirked. "I think you've been hangin' out with Rich too much."

Perry snorted. "What're you, jealous?"

He was quiet for a moment, then turned and nuzzled his face against her shoulder. Her face felt warm and for a moment, she feared frostbite only to realize she was blushing instead.

"A little."

"Well, don't be."

He looked at her, seeming a bit puzzled, and Perry couldn't help a giggle. She leaned in toward his ear and he shifted a bit closer to hear her whisper:

"You know Victor Rich?"

"'Course, I do. He's a Toccoa man."

"You mean a Toccoa woman."

Joe pulled back and gaped at Perry, and she shrugged, her smile fading a bit.

"What?"

"Jesus fucking Christ. I never would’ve-" He took his helmet off just to run his hand through his messy hair. "Well, shit."

"You can't say anything, though. Not a word."

"'Course not." He thought for a moment, then smirked. "So it's Rich and Roe, then, huh?"

Perry gasped and swatted his arm. "Shh! What'd I just say 'bout 'not a word'?"

"I won't, I won't," he reassured, smirking a little. "But hey, I gotta know..."

"Yeah," Perry sighed, unable to help a small smile. "You're spot on."

"Yesss," he hissed in victory, cuddling her a little closer, and Perry gave in to his embrace at once. Shivering in a cramped foxhole in the dead of night, what she felt for him was all-consuming. She'd known it forever but she just couldn't find it in her to tell him. She opened her mouth to ask if she was wrong, then, to feel so strongly yet unable to find the words, but Joe beat her to it.

"You got somethin' on your mind?"

"Maybe." She shrugged, just a little, so he would feel it against his cheek. "Nothing that important, though."

He kissed her shoulder and lifted his head, eyeing her with a small smile.

"C'mon. You can tell me."

"Ah, well..."

"Come on." He jostled her a bit and she giggled into her fist. "Tell me."

"Alright, alright. It's just..."

She took a deep breath and poorly stifled a wince to feel the frigid air pricking her lungs. Joe waited beside her, and Perry hoped he didn't realize she was looking anywhere but at him.

The last time I came close to telling you how I feel, you panicked and sent me away. I cried all day. I thought you hated me. I'm still afraid you DO hate me, just a little.

I can't face that rejection again, Joe. I can't. I'd fall to pieces, and then who knows what would happen to me out here in the woods?

So yeah. I can't tell you how I feel. And it's eating at me, day by day, but I just have to ignore it.

"Hey-" He bumped his shoulder against hers. "-what's going on in that head of yours? Let me in."

He asked too much of her, though he couldn't possibly know it.

"It's my family," she admitted in a rushed sigh. "I miss them. A lot."

Joe was quiet for a moment and she started to think he didn't believe her, but then he nudged at her arm until she laid her head on his shoulder again and settled his own head against hers.

"Yeah," he murmured, "I miss mine, too."

That was the end of that discussion. A few days passed. Perry hardly ever saw Joe, but no one would ever get her to admit it was by design. He was right, she did have something on her mind, but that something was entirely about him. He couldn't know. So she stayed away as she tried to come up with an excuse or a way to suppress her feelings even more than she already did. She wasn't having much luck. On the third day, Bill Guarnere tracked her down and told her to stop ghosting around like she was before she started looking like Lt. Dike. He didn't have to give a name for her to know Joe was looking for her. She capitulated, but before she could take a single step in the direction of their foxhole, the first shells started to hit and she had to run instead. A blast hit a tree not far behind her, and when she turned to look, her fear started to grow to realize Guarnere was no longer at her side.

"Crow! Hey! Hey!" She followed the call, a lifeline thrown by Babe Heffron from his foxhole. "Come on, get your ass down here!"

She sprinted for the pit of safety and threw herself in headfirst. Babe grabbed and righted her, and they huddled together, keeping their heads down until the barrage stopped. In the stillness that followed, Perry poked her head up above the rim of the foxhole despite Babe's protests and peered across the forest until she saw Bill's unmistakable limping form crossing the snow toward them.

"You alright, Sarge?"

"Fuckin' fantastic," he called back, grimacing; when Babe popped his head up next to Perry's, he grunted. "Watch it, Babe. This ain't over with."

"Yeah? You think?"

"Yeah."

"Alright."

Perry hauled herself out of the foxhole and let Bill take her place. He grabbed her sleeve and made her stop so he could ask:

"Where the fuck are you goin'?"

"To find Joe. I'll see you in a bit."

"Be careful," Babe said at the same time as Bill warned, "Don't stop movin', kid, that's how they getcha."

"I will. I won't."

She was a bit shaken, her heart still pounding away in her chest from the adrenaline of having been caught out in the open. It was a terrifying business, shellings. It all came down to mad luck, in the end, who got hit and who didn't. As she wandered, she looked for Joe and felt better as soon as she found him singing their song, looking for her.

"Jesus," he swore, "the hell are you doin' out here?"

"It's my hands, Joe," she mumbled lamely, showing him. "They're so cold."

He brought her away from the line and led the way to their foxhole, worriedly eyeing her hands as they walked. They arrived and Perry slipped into the foxhole without question, nodding as Joe instructed her to get down and stay down. When he got up to leave, however, she impulsively grabbed his sleeve, and he paused.

"What?"

He had the stars in his eyes and she didn't think she could bear it if he left her now.

"Stay with me a little longer?"

He did. Night fell quickly but Sergeant Martin did not appear. The longer they were alone, the shorter Perry's resolve became. Joe had tucked her against him just as soon as he'd sat down beside her, but then they blinked and it was truly dark out, and something shifted. They crowded one another like never before. Joe snuck his hands into Perry's pockets and wrapped his fingers around hers. She gasped, feeling the usual butterflies in her stomach kick it up into high gear. Joe just smiled.

"For warmth," he said, and she wouldn't argue with that.

Still, it wasn't enough, and they kept on snuggling closer and closer until Perry dared to turn and straddle his lap. He drew in a deep breath and she had to duck her head to hide her smile.

"For warmth," she mumbled, pressing her face against his scarved neck.

Thankfully, reassuringly, Joe hummed his approval against her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. She nestled into his embrace, tucking her hands between their bodies to try and warm them up. They kept on shaking and shaking, and when Joe let go of Perry, she thought she might have gotten too close and panicked. She started to move off of him, but he grabbed her hands and kept her close, and as she watched, he lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed each one before taking her hands and rubbing them between his own to stimulate heat.

"For warmth," he repeated, and she nodded.

"Thanks."

It was only a whisper, but he'd heard it nevertheless, and he slowed, then stopped. He let her hands fall back between them, but this time, she placed her palms flat against his chest. He sucked in a breath and when she exhaled, it came out all shaky. They inched closer, bit by bit, and there came a point where they could either let go or take the leap. Perry could feel Joe's breath on her upper lip the moment before he kissed her, slow and syrupy and everything she'd been waiting for.

"For warmth," he whispered when he drew back, but he was staring at her lips, and before she could lose the nerve, she leaned back in. In one fluid motion, she stuffed her fingers into the loose folds of Joe's scarf, cupped his face in her hands, and brought his lips back to hers. He hummed happily into her mouth and she kissed him like they might never have tomorrow. He wrapped his arms around her tight and reciprocated before deepening the kiss, his tongue grazing her bottom lip. She let him in with a whimpering sigh, and he held her even closer. His lips found their way down the side of her neck, and she gripped his scarf, tilting her head to give him better access.

"Warmer?" he mumbled as he nipped at her skin.

"Much."

They fell asleep like that, with Perry on Joe's lap, their lips a little raw and their arms squeezing each other tight to keep ahold of the dream. Warm and content, they dozed, but it wasn't to last. When Perry awoke the next morning, her hands had gone stiff and hot, and Joe dragged her over to Sergeant Lipton before she could even say "good morning". Lip scolded her for how she'd caught the frostbite ("You should have known better than to shovel snow with your bare hand") and sent her to Doc Roe without delay. Joe walked her there, holding her arm instead of her hands so she could keep them in her pockets. He kissed the top of her head when Roe's back was turned and whispered in her ear that he'd see her soon, and though it hurt, she made sure to wave as the truck drove away.

The day Joe Toye lost his leg was the day Perry hated the war the most.

In retrospect, she couldn't remember much of that time, just snippets of misery and terror and grief—kneeling in the blood-soaked snow, staring at Joe's twitching stump of a leg, pleading with God to let this all be a nightmare until Joe grabbed her hand and she knew it was real. She could, however, remember what he'd said to her before he went. For the rest of her life, that conversation would sound through her head, as clear as any tolling bell.

“You gotta hold your- Gotta hold your head up, okay?”

“Joe- God, I don’t know if I can-”

“I’ll be seeing you."

“You promise?”

“In- in every lovely summer’s day.”

The rest of the war was a messy blur of Foy and Haguenau and Mourmelon-le-Grand—then a brief spot of clarity at Landsberg—and Thalem and Berchtesgaden and, finally, Austria. Perry missed Joe every minute of every day, and every day, her heart broke anew to know she'd never told him what she should have before he went. It nearly ruined her, once, thinking about him off in that English hospital with the garden outside his window in full bloom as Spring turned into Summer. He wouldn't be able to go out walking there for a long time, if ever. Verity found her drunk and sobbing far away from the others the night they found out the Germans had surrendered. She took her up to the party and made her dance to the music from the radio until she was delirious with laughter and fell asleep on one of Verity's shoulders while Doc Roe took to the other.

She couldn't have known that while she was missing Joe all across Europe, he was trying his hardest not to think about her through weeks and weeks in a hospital bed. What could have been haunted his every waking moment, and he hated himself for having hoped. When Perry missed him in Haguenau, he hated himself in the hospital in England with the garden still dreary and devoid of green after the harsh winter. When she missed him in Berchtesgaden, crying in the corner, he hated himself on the hospital ship back to the States. When she missed him in Austria, he hated himself, sitting in the living room of his parents' house, back home in Pennsylvania before she could even imagine returning to California. He hated himself because he'd convinced himself he'd lost everything that day—his leg, his dignity, his girl. He'd never even told her he loved her, for God's sake, and now she was off in Europe with the rest of them, kissing somebody with both their legs and a chest full of medals to boot. These were the visions he tortured himself with in the dead of night, sleepless and in more pain than from just his leg. He'd become a bitter man and he hated himself even more for it.

And then a letter came—a letter from Eugene Roe, of all people. Joe didn't know what to make of it and so left it sitting on his bedside table for almost a week. When he finally worked up the nerve to open it and saw Perry's name in the first sentence, he put it down and didn't pick it back up until his mother told him he was being stupid. As he'd expected, Roe had news, but to Joe's surprise (and relief), the news wasn't about somebody dying. Perry was alive. Perry was doing fine. Perry had earned enough points to go back to California and was already on her way. Roe, God bless him, had found out Perry's mailing address from Verity Rich and enclosed it at the bottom of the letter. Joe stared at it for what felt like an hour though he'd memorized the number for the P.O. box within the first minute. Little by little, the shell of bitterness and grief he'd been carrying around for so long started to wear away. He knew what it meant, that address, and why Roe had enclosed it. It meant Perry hadn't forgotten about him. It meant Perry still talked about him.

It meant Perry was within reach.

Joe spent the rest of the morning writing back, and by the time he was done, there were pages and pages to be stuffed into one small envelope. He wanted to know everything—how was everybody? What had gone down in his absence? Most of all, how had Perry been getting along? All of a sudden, he was back to loving and thinking things through and wondering how his buddies were getting along without him. The resentment was gone. He still felt a sting when he thought about Perry, but the hate was gone, hope taking its place. Roe's reply took some time to arrive, but when it did, it was even longer than Joe's, and he knew the medic had taken the time necessary to find the answer to every single one of Joe's questions. He spent days pouring over the contents, reading the letter over and over until it started to wear and tear at the creases. He learned all about Rachamps and Haguenau and Berchtesgaden and Austria. He found out that Perry had been promoted to sergeant and felt the flame of pride spark inside his chest. He wished he could have been there to take the Eagle's Nest but was pleased to hear a toast had been made in his and Bill's honor with the finest of Hitler's champagne.

And all the while, he wondered what he would say when he finally sat down and wrote that letter to Perry.

It was inevitable. He'd have to write to her. Even if she told him she'd gotten married to God-knows-who in Austria and they'd honeymooned in Paris and now they were both back in California making babies, he needed to know. He couldn't live his life without knowing her. He wouldn't.

Still, he put it off. He was scared. He didn't think his writing was all that good, didn't think it would be enough to convey all he needed it to. What if he said something that dissuaded her from writing back? What if he implied something too quickly and made her balk away from his too-obvious, too-gripping love? What if she really had found somebody else?

Another letter came before he'd made up his mind, posted from Victor Rich (now also sergeant) but signed simply 'V'. It was brief but invaluable to Joe. Verity, of course, had been writing back and forth with Perry since the minute she left Austria. Joe trusted that Verity knew Perry almost as well as she knew herself, which was why he believed her when Verity said Perry had never stopped loving Joe. She was leaving Austria now, too, now that the war was fully over and no one would be going to the Pacific unless it was on vacation. Verity warned Joe he'd better not write back to her until he'd written to Perry. Though he usually wouldn't like being told what to do like that, he appreciated it this time around. She was pushing him to do the right thing. Still, he couldn't help but wonder why Perry herself hadn't written, but Verity answered that question too:

She's dealing with a court case right now, trying to keep her family together. It's a nightmare, Joe, and she's been so busy I only hear from her every other week. She told me she wants to write to you, but she's scared you won't want to hear from her. I told her that's bullshit but I don't know if she'll listen to me. You will. You know better than to let her slip away like that. Don't you?

He did.

Perry got the letter three days after Halloween. The verdict had come back that same morning: Clyde was a free man. Free from his mother, anyhow. Sacramento was looking ready for a nice, balmy Autumn, with the breeze sweeping inland from the ocean down by San Fransisco. Forks, Washington was behind them; a Californian future ahead. The court case was over, and the cherry on top was the letter sitting nice and neat in her P.O. box, the name scribbled in the upper lefthand corner already enough to make her heart go all-pitter-patter with anticipation. She tore it open as soon as she got back inside but had hardly started to read when her brother asked who it was from. She paused and looked up, and it was the not knowing what to say that gave her an answer.

"Well, Clyde," she admitted, "I'm not entirely sure."

He rolled around the side of the breakfast table, munching on a muffin from the Blomme's favorite bakery in town, and picked up the envelope.

"'Joseph Toye'," he read aloud. "Oh, it's him."

Perry was so astounded that she stopped where she stood. Clyde gave her a knowing look, and she folded the letter up and sat down in the chair beside him.

"What? How did you...?"

"You say his name in your sleep, sometimes," he told her. "It's only ever him. I mean, you talk about your friends to me, like Verity and Babe Heffron and George Luz, but whenever you get to thinking about this one guy, you go quiet." He shrugged. "It didn't take all that long for me to put the pieces together."

"Huh." She patted the letter on the table, a bit embarrassed. "Well, if you're so smart, what do you think he's got to say to me?"

Clyde raised his hand and started to tick off on his fingers.

"That he misses you. That he's meant to write but it's been hard since he got hit. That he loves you-"

"Woah, woah, woah." Perry went pink. "Why would he-"

"Because you love him, don't you?" Clyde smiled as he broke off a piece of his muffin and offered it to her. "He did write to you, after all, Nell. Hard to imagine he doesn't feel the same."

After a moment's hesitation, she took the gift and wrapped her arms around her brother in a hug.

"You're right," she said, giving him a grateful squeeze. "I do love him. Maybe he does love me, too."

She read the letter. It was exactly what she'd hoped for, but it still managed to fill her with such anxious energy that once she started pacing, it took her ages to stop. Eventually, she picked up the phone and called Verity over on the East Coast. Her friend reiterated what Clyde had said almost word-for-word. She was right, of course—Joe had called her 'Lovely Summer' in the letter. Five times. She’d counted. When they hung up, Perry looked at the phone in its receiver, took a deep breath, and turned around to start that letter. Clyde was already there behind her, holding out a pen and a few sheets of lined paper.

"If you start pacing again instead of writing him back," he said, a smirk playing on the edge of his mouth, "I will put you on a train to Pennsylvania this very minute, so-help-me-God."

Perry took the pen and the paper, eyeing him in awe for the second time that morning.

"How did you...?"

"His address is on the outside of the envelope, silly. Speaking of-" He produced it from the pocket of his jacket, the letter tucked inside. "-I checked out the San Fransisco timetables while you were on the phone, and it looks like there's a three-day overnight that ends up in Wilkes-Barre, so-"

"Point taken. I'll go write him now."

Her brother shrugged, following her down the hall.

"Hey, I'm just saying—you could be there by Saturday if you wanted."

In the doorway to her bedroom, Perry hesitated, then turned back over her shoulder to face her helpful, meddlesome brother.

"When did you say that train leaves again?"

"I didn't." He grinned. "3:10 in the afternoon on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays."

"Right." Perry swallowed thickly against her nerves. "Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah, anytime." He patted the doorframe. "And Nellie-"

"Yeah?"

"Good luck."

She'd expected the letter to be a challenge, but once she got started (just like with her pacing), she couldn't stop. She had to get up twice to get more paper, she just had so much to say. She wasn't sure how much he knew about what had happened with the Company since his departure, so she wanted to tell him everything—well, everything that wouldn't break his heart. She told him all about the trial and how glad she was for it to be over and that she was sorry she hadn't written sooner. She told him how much she'd missed him these last nine months and that she hoped he wouldn't mind her telling him something she should have told him years ago. When she finally penned those three words and all the reasons for them afterward, it felt as if a heavy fur coat she'd worn since January 3rd had finally slipped off her shoulders. She felt freer as she slipped the thick envelope into the P.O. box and walked home with a slight spring in her step. Clyde met her outside with a basketball in his lap, and they tossed it back and forth, talking about nothing in particular and feeling twice as good because of it.

Perry was going to get on the train. She really was. She just needed to hear back from Joe first. If he didn't want her the way she wanted him, well, then, she wouldn't go, simple as that. She'd just stay at home and let her heart break and wonder how she could have thought those kisses in a bleak winter could mean something beyond the war. The days passed, and the longer she waited, the antsier she became. Clyde did his best to keep her occupied, having her take him to the pictures and help build his model boats and read through pamphlets for California State at Sacramento, his dream school. Perry didn't mind. She loved her brother and wanted nothing but to make him happy. He was a good kid getting close to becoming a good man. Where had the years gone? The war had taken her away for just one, but just one was still one too much. She'd been away from Joe for almost a year now, too. She wasn't sure which was worse. But she was going to get on the train, she really was.

In the end, Joe—marvelous, unconquerable, would-go-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-for-the-people-he-loved Joe—beat her to it.

He showed up on her doorstep two weeks and a day after Clyde rolled out of court for the last time, his sister on one side and his father on the other. He was the one to open the door. Joe hadn't been expecting a kid with sandy blonde hair and a basketball in his lap. He cleared his throat and offered an awkward, brief smile. Just as Joe was starting to think he'd knocked on the wrong door, the kid stopped studying his face and offered up the basketball.

"D'you play?"

Joe glanced down at his leg.

"Not anymore, I reckon."

The boy shrugged. "I play, and I haven't got either leg."

A smile crept onto Joe's face, and the kid broke out in a grin. He rolled himself into the house backward and waved for Joe to come in, but the unexpected visitor hesitated on the threshold. Instead, he leaned on the doorframe and listened as a conversation took place down the hall of the single-story home.

"Hey, Nell."

"Hey, what's up? You wanna play?"

"Maybe later."

Joe heard a chair scrape back and a person stand. With his heart in his throat, he tried to make himself appear relaxed as he leaned on the doorframe. At the last second, he changed his mind and went back to his crutch, wobbling a little at the abrupt shift in balance.

"Something wrong?"

"Nah. You should probably go check the door, though."

"Mail's here? Already?"

"Eh..."

The young man in the wheelchair rolled back a few feet and nodded toward the end of the hall.

"Not exactly."

She appeared in the hallway, then, looking curiously at her brother, and Joe felt it all come rushing back, everything he'd missed about her. She looked good. She was wearing a green wraparound dress with white polka dots, and he could tell she'd been growing her hair out. When she looked up, she tucked a few locks behind her ear to see him better before she even realized who he was. It didn't take her long—no more than a second, really. She visibly jolted where she stood. Her brother couldn't stop grinning behind her. It was almost enough to make Joe laugh. He started to smile, and just as he crutched that first step over the threshold, Perry lurched into motion. She practically dove down the hallway, racing to meet him there, but when she collided with him in a hug, she was careful to lean back the way she'd come so she didn't knock him off-balance. It was that one little thoughtful thing that gave him the confidence to kiss her neck.

"Hey, Lovely Summer," he murmured against her skin. "Hey. Good to see you, too."

"Joe," she gasped, "oh, Joe."

Perry started to shake. He lifted his head and looked her in the eye. Balancing on his crutch, he reached up and cupped her cheek in his free hand.

"You never wrote me back," she whimpered, starting to cry, and he shook his head, smiling despite it all.

"Oh, I did." He chuckled. "I just got here first."

She threw herself back into his embrace and held him tight.

"God, I love you."

She went still, then, as she realized what she'd said. She started to pull back, but Joe didn't let her go far. He could see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes and knew it was high time he remedied that.

"No more waiting," he swore, tenderly smoothing his thumb over her cheek. "I'm here, now."

"Joe?"

He pressed his lips to hers, keeping to his promise. She stumbled and almost fell over, and in doing so, nearly took him with her. They broke apart in laughter, but it felt out of place and so petered out too soon. Joe kissed her again, firmer this time, and it was when she eagerly reciprocated that he knew he was home.

"Hey," he said once they broke apart, kissing her nose just to see her smile, "guess what?"

"What?"

"I love you, too."

Her eyes were all watery again, and when the tears began to fall, Joe was there to wipe them away. Perry clung to him and wept, touching his arms and his chest and his waist as if making sure he was really here, really alive, really come back to her. Clyde rolled up behind her and bumped the wheel of his chair against her foot. She turned over her shoulder without letting go of Joe, and when he saw her all weepy-like, he patted the back of her knee.

"There, there," he said. "He's not going anywhere. Right, Joseph?"

Joe gave a start. "How'd you...?"

Perry gave a teary, hiccuping laugh.

"Apparently, I talk about you in my sleep," she admitted, and Joe positively melted.

"Cute," he said as he smoothed his hand up and down her arm. "Can't wait to hear all that."

As Perry went red, her brother laughed. He inched to the side and offered his hand for Joe to shake.

"I'm Clyde," he introduced himself, "Perrine's brother."

"Joe." He smirked. "Though I guess you knew that already."

"Yeah." Clyde gave a small smile. "Hey, Nell?"

She turned around to face him, evidently very pleased at how Joe tucked her against his side with his arm around her back, his hand resting familiarly on her hip. Perry smiled and reached down to ruffle her brother's hair.

"Yeah, Clyde?"

He swatted her hand away, still grinning. "Think I could be the ringbearer?"

Perry laughed. Joe went still, his hand freezing in his pocket where he'd been fingering a very particular box. Clyde pouted until Perry took his hand, squeezed it, and told him:

"Not the ringbearer," she informed him. "You'll be my man of honor."

Clyde brightened up significantly, hitting his fisted hand with his other open palm to emphasize his victory. Perry grinned and turned back to Joe but faltered, catching his hand in his pocket.

"Joe?"

"I'll do you one better, kid," he rasped, looking at Clyde. "You can be both. Catch."

He withdrew and tossed the little box in one motion. Clyde, star basketball player that he was, had no problem snatching it out of the air. He took one look at it and started to laugh in awe. Perry just gaped. After a moment, she turned back to look at Joe, who shrugged, unable to keep a nervous smile off his face.

"I was kinda hoping my letter would make it here 'fore I did."

"Why's that?" she breathed, glancing between an anxious Joe and her gleeful brother. "Joe, tell me why."

"Because," he breathed, watching her lips move, entranced, "I said I had a very important question to ask you once I got here."

"Ask it," she pleaded, and Clyde held up the box, nodding right along with his sister. "Ask it, please."

He took the box from Clyde, who then backed up several feet and swung halfway into the kitchen but kept watching around the corner, leaning so far forward he came close to falling out of his chair altogether. Joe crutched a step back from Perry, making sure he could see her whole face clearly before he began, and his smile turned a bit apologetic.

"I can't kneel-"

"Then don't." She rubbed her hands together and he realized she was just as apprehensive as he was. "Just look me in the eye and tell me you love me one more time."

That eased his nerves a bit. She wasn't asking anything of him he wouldn't have already done. Of course, she wasn't. She knew him, and he knew her, and that's why this didn't have to wait.

"Perry," he said, his voice low but plenty loud enough for her to hear, "I love you. I've loved you for more than a year, and I know I'll love you for a lifetime. And so I'm hoping, maybe you'll let me."

Even though she knew it was coming, she still squeaked when he opened the little box and showed her the ring he'd picked to promise her forever.

"I love you," he vowed, his voice dropping nearly to a whisper as a single tear crept down his cheek. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she wept, giving him her left hand as the other came up to cover her mouth. "Yes, yes, yes."

Clyde whooped. Joe wanted to pick Perry up and twirl her around, he felt so high, but he knew he couldn't, so he settled for slipping the ring onto her finger and drawing her into his arms. They shared a kiss or two and started laughing all over again, and this time, they didn't stop, knowing they had all the time in the world to make up for the war.

This seemed like a good start.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April 4th, 1954

This wing of the hospital was blessedly quiet. The sunshine of early afternoon slipped through the windows and gleamed in thin lines across the painted floor tiles of the recovery room. Joe sat on a stool at Perry's bedside, his hands clasped together as if in prayer. The door clicked shut as the nurse left to give the couple some time alone. Perry raised her chin up off her pillow and pouted at Joe, wanting a kiss. He complied, then sat back, stroking her tangled hair. His gaze slipped toward the bundle resting upon her chest, and she smiled.

"About time we got to meet her, huh?"

Joe nodded, his brow creased in wonder.

"She's beautiful," he breathed, the tears in his eyes choking up his voice. "She's ours."

Perry reached out and took his hand. She looked down at the little bundle of joy sleeping on her chest, her tiny little cheek pressed to her mother's skin, and sighed fondly.

"She is," she agreed. "She's got your nose, see? And she smiles when she sleeps the same way you do."

When Joe didn't respond, she looked up and discovered he'd started to cry.

"Oh, honey..." She squeezed his hand. "Everything's okay. I'm okay. She's okay. You're okay. We're all okay."

"I love you," he wept, bringing her hand up to his mouth to kiss it over and over. "You're incredible."

He looked at the babe and carefully leaned down to kiss her on the top of her little head.

"I love you, too," he told her, whispering so as not to wake her. "I love you, little Mabel."

They sat in a comfortable, loving silence for a time, a family of three, at peace at last. Eventually, Perry squeezed Joe's hand and gave a slow nod.

"I'm ready," she told him. "Would you go get them?"

"Sure." He pecked her cheek and stood, tucking his crutch under his arm. "Be right back."

Clyde rolled in first. He was already smiling, but when he saw his sister and newborn niece, he completely lit up.

"Wow, Nell," he said softly, reverently admiring the sleeping babe. "You've really done it all now."

"Isn't she just perfect?"

"She is." His smile grew the longer he looked. "Oh, I'm going to spoil her rotten."

"As am I," Verity chimed in, smiling fondly at her friends as she followed Joe into the room, shutting the door behind her. "How are you holding up, Perry?"

"Better than ever, Red. How're the kids?"

"Gene's keepin' 'em busy in the lobby. Maddie's infatuated with her princess coloring book and Nicky's got his letter blocks." Verity rubbed her visibly-pregnant stomach. "Number three figured out recently how much fun it is to kick me right in the bladder."

Perry laughed gently, her eyes twinkling with some warm hidden knowledge. After a beat, she turned to her husband.

"Should we tell her now?"

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He nodded, and his wife waved for Verity to come closer.

"We've named her Mabel Rodezus Blomme-Toye."

Verity beamed and put her hands together, none the wiser. Clyde, however, went still and looked at his sister, wide-eyed.

"I love it. A beautiful name for a beautiful baby."

Clyde gave a soft whistle, recovering from his initial shock. He reached over to Verity and tugged on her sleeve. She quirked her head at him and dropped her hands, her smile fading.

"What?"

"'Rodezus'," he translated for her. "It's Dutch. Means 'red sister'."

Slowly at first and then far quicker, Verity's expression began to transform. She took a deep, shaky breath and started to cry. Joe came over, gently took her hand, and guided her over to Perry's bedside, allowing her to clasp his wife's hand between her trembling fingers.

"You're as good as my sister," Perry reminded her, tearing up just the same, "and I love you." She brushed her thumb over her daughter's swaddled body. "She will, too."

"I love you, too," Verity wept. "You're an angel, you are."

Perry just smiled, tired but happy as could be. Her friend turned to look at the rise and fall of the newborn's chest, smiling through her tears.

"Hello, little Mabel," she whispered. "You're gonna be so happy, you know that? You're gonna be such a happy little girl, with parents like these."

She looked at Perry and then Joe, wiping the tears from her eyes though they just kept on coming.

"You've got two of the best people in the world looking out for you." She bumped her hip against Clyde's wheelchair. "Make that three."

"Make that four," he corrected, rolling up beside Joe's chair. The two men shared a warm smile. Verity's cheeks pinkened a little, and though her laugh was weak, it was full of gratitude and devotion. The four of them—mother, father, uncle, and namesake—sat around that hospital bed and breathed in life, holding hands and smiling a thousand blessings upon little Mabel, who slept and slept and knew she was loved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read Pt I here. Read Pt II here.

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