Out of a Vacant Heart: A Band of Brothers Fanfiction

VE Day

The Eagle's Nest, Germany
VE Day, May 1945

Don took a deep swig from the bottle. He laid his hand on the fine, mahogany desk in Adolf's front parlor. The rich wooden surface was dulled by a gauzy layer of dust.

Glancing down at the blank sheet of stationary that he had found in one of the drawers, he drank again. He couldn't remember the last time he had tasted champagne, much less gotten drunk off of it. Halfway through the bottle, his senses were humming. Even without the alcohol, he would have felt woozy.

The complete surrender of the German army. It didn't seem possible.

Events had been winding down in their part of the world for some time, but the end of the war in Europe had come as a shock. He had made it to the end, just as he never thought he would.

He shifted, his hand going deep into his pocket as it had many times in the past months. The smudged, jagged corner of paper that he had hung onto like a touch stone was soft from age. It was a miracle the words written on it were legible.

He didn't take it out, write the address down on the rich, cream-laid envelope, and tuck it back into his jacket to post in Berchtesgaden. Nor did he put pen to paper and write to tell her...

What exactly would he tell her?

He took another, longer drink when he was stabbed with the sudden impulse to hunt down Skip and ask his opinion. Months later and the abrupt viciousness of his best friend's death had yet to sink into his psyche.

What right did he have to seek something that made him happy? He couldn't understand why he was still standing on two feet while countless others were far from that fortunate.

He slapped the bottle down on the table and paced towards the window. The voices of the men out on the balcony and exploring the rooms upstairs were as distant as the far off roofs of Berchtesgaden below.

Don had done his best not to think about the time they had spent together in Haguenau. It would probably have just jinxed their chances of survival. He'd certainly never spoken of it to any of the other men, even the ones who had met Cate in England.

Dwelling on that night, the sound of the fire burning in the hearth as she had run her thin fingers through his hair, it had been as painful to recall as when their medic had handed him the bloodied remains of Skip's rosary. He had felt as though he had been stealing something, a glimmer of peace that wasn't truly yet their own.

Catie Doyle.

In all honesty, he barely knew her. However, the moment he had happened upon her in those city ruins, his need for her had been as intense and unforeseen as friendly fire.

He remembered how she had carefully turned to face him on that door step, her wide blue eyes alarming in their gravity. Her thin mouth and chin were firmly set, then she had retreated from him, subtly but enough for him to notice.

That was always how she appeared when he dreamed of her, falling away and dissolving like mist. During the war, it had made him need her even more, the elusiveness of her presence. It had made the kiss they had shared even more intoxicating.

His thoughts came to a shuddering halt as he finished off the bottle in a single swallow. There was no way he could venture on that memory of their night in Haguenau. It was too treacherous, making him think that she was his when that was far from the truth.

"Malark!" Chuck trotted into the parlor, a bottle in his hand. "Come on, Talbert said there is a horde of liquor at one of houses in town."

"Sounds good to me," Don muttered, glancing back at the lonely piece of paper on the table.

He couldn't shake the nagging thought that there was a chance she never could be his, that their meeting wasn't fate, but rather a jarring coincidence brought on by war. He didn't believe in chance, but after months of senseless deaths, he was left with doubts.

He dropped the bottle into a waste basket and followed Chuck out the door.