Project 43

We believe you

Charlie placed his hand back on Elias' shoulder this time much gentler as if wordlessly asking for permission. Elias stopped clawing at his throat as he felt the chokehold easing and tried to breathe as deep as he could. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on just breathing and where he was. 

"Do you need to get to the infirmary?" Charlie asked very confused as Elias started to gather himself.

"No, no... I'm fine," Elias said as everything started coming back to him. Under the panic grew anger and embarrassment that his friend had seen him in such a state.

"Are you sure?" Charlie asked once more to which Elias just nodded and the two stayed silent for a while. Charlie sat up on the couch and just stared ahead clearly not knowing what to do.

"What happened?" he finally asked the question Elias was dreading. Elias trusted Charlie with his life but maybe not with his past. Only Marcus had known about it and he found out by accident. 

"I used to get these kinds of... things a lot before I enlisted and for a while after..." Elias started explaining while he nervously fiddled with his fingers.

"They haven't been that bad for a while, but... I saw someone who reminded me of... someone and it just got worse," Elias said as vaguely as possible. Elias had seen soldiers getting seizures like his in the trenches, but they were about the war, not about life before it.

"Who was it?" Charlie asked obviously ready to punch someone's teeth into their throat.

"It's really nothing. That Captain America character just reminded me of this bastard I used to know," Elias quickly explained.

"You knew a buff clown dancing around in tights?" Charlie asked with a chuckle. Elias couldn't help but laugh along.

"As some of you know, another French regiment is coming to hold up the fortress. Because of that, we going to be moving forward towards the Maginot line and regrouping with the 114th and the 2nd in a few days," Colonel Brown explained. Elias once again fell into his thoughts while listening to the man. If they were moving forward, having someone walking with a cane would only create more problems. He knew that most likely in the days that followed Colonel Brown would pull Elias aside and tell him he was being sent back. 

Elias made a point to start walking without his cane and try to hide his limp. It was painful and hard but Elias wanted to show that he could go with everyone else. Elias had his stitches taken off a couple of days earlier and the doctor had said that the man was healing at a regular, healthy pace. He still had hope of going into battle with his brothers.

After a week had passed, no one told Elias to stand behind so as the French allies arrived in town, Elias, along with everyone else, was already packed and ready to move.

The regiments packed neatly into the trucks and soon the familiar sound of the engines humming filled the air as the soldiers waved goodbye to the town that took many lives of their friends. 

Elias sat once against with his rifle leaning against his left knee feeling the air getting colder. He watched the forests and fields pass by as they were once again carried away. 

A flask was making its way around the small circle as they somehow managed to play whiskey poker in the moving truck. To an outsider, it might have seemed like nothing had changed. The men were still in the back of a truck knocking and exchanging cards like they had been many months before but to them, everything had changed. They had lost so many friends and parts of themselves. They weren't the same men that got on that boat from New York City harbor.