The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

63: The Unspoken Third Option

Getting to share a room with not only Mabs, who Charlie had frequently both roomed and foxhole'd with, but with Autumn and Boo, too, was both wonderful and terrible. It was wonderful because waking up into another bleak day was made so much easier when Boo was already chirping a 'good morning' and Autumn was groaning into her pillow and Mabs was dribbling over the side of the bed, still sound asleep. But it was terrible because, at night, the others never wanted to sleep.

They had let Charlie sleep to her heart's content before they'd been reassigned to work everyday, but now that they were back on frequent shifts she had no such luck. With the men of the company still only doing light training, the room they had set up as a field hospital was constantly empty, save for the nurses waiting around inside it. As such, all of them had way too much surplus energy by the time they were back in the room.

Well, all of them except for Charlie.

She didn't know what was wrong with her, why she was so constantly fatigued. Not simply tired but exhausted, when the end of the workday rolled around she barely had enough energy to go down to the mess hall for dinner, let alone to stay up all night talking and doing puzzles and taking pictures just for something to do.

Mabs and Boo and Autumn's solution to this problem had arisen entirely by accident when Charlie had fallen asleep on shift. From that day on, they were constantly encouraging her to sleep the day away. After all, it wasn't as though much was happening during the day anyway.

And, eventually, Charlie found some of her energy coming back. Only at night time, which would have to change when they next went back out into combat, she knew, but night times were more fun than daytimes these days. Much, much more worth being awake for.

On this particular evening, all of them were sitting on the floor between Mabs and Autumn's bunks, putting together one of the puzzles Autumn had bought in Paris after she'd been carting around the same old ones for months on end. Charlie was lying on her front, her chin resting on her crossed arms as she stared at the pieces and attempted to find the one shaped the way she needed it to be amongst the many scattered across the floorboards. To her left, Boo was sitting cross-legged, leaning about as far over her legs as she could without falling over herself, trying the same puzzle piece in every vacant spot around the edges they'd filled. To Charlie's right was Mabs, rifling through a pile of pieces she'd gathered when they'd started and claimed as her own. And opposite Charlie was Autumn, putting pieces down lightning fast, as though it was her job.

"You wanna hear something funny?" Boo asked all of a sudden, completely out of the blue.

All of them glanced up at her. Mabs answered, "Sure, Boo. Tell us somethin' funny."

Boo continued to attempt to place that one particular puzzle piece in various different spots as she said, "I haven't gotten my monthly since we first got to Holland."

"What?!"

All eyes were now on Boo, the puzzle completely forgotten as they stared at her wide-eyed.

When Boo glanced up to find the eyes of the room upon her she simply laughed, as if what she'd said was the funniest thing in the world. "Calm down," she said, grinning, "I'm not pregnant."

"No," Autumn said, flabbergasted, "because that would be a silly assumption. It's not like you have a boyfriend who you regularly -"

"It's because of the stress, I think," Boo cut her off before she could say anything more. "Probably the lack of sleep and the lack of food." A beat, and then: "Wait. Have you guys still got yours?"

Mabs and Autumn both replied in the affirmative, and only then did Boo's smile start to drop.

Taking pity on her, Charlie finally confessed, "I've lost mine, too."