Shadows of the World » Band of Brothers

24: Unable are the Loved

Thomas rushed into the kitchen with a very confused American medic right on his tail. Eugene had a hastily scrounged-together med kit in his hand and his perplexity at the entire situation written clearly on his face. When he saw Juliette lying on the kitchen table in a pool of her own blood his jaw fell open in shock.

"What the hell happened?"

"Can you help her?" Alex demanded. He looked to Thomas who shook his head to let him know that he'd told the American nothing.

"What's goin' on?"

"Can you help her?!" Alexis bellowed. Eugene decided to stop asking questions and start trying to work out for himself what had happened to get Juliette into such a state.

"Has she had any medication?" he asked, looking her over and peering hesitantly under the neckline of her shirt.

"Morphine. A couple of hours ago though. Think it's worn off," Thomas replied. Eugene nodded.

"Just her stomach?" he asked. William rolled up the hem of her shirt to show him the full extent of the damage.

"Yeah, just across the stomach," Thomas confirmed.

Juliette was groaning louder now. Eugene opened his bag and quickly injected morphine into her hip. She quietened almost immediately. Her eyes cracked open as he began to scan the various holes and gashes across her abdomen.

"Gene?" she asked. Her voice was hoarse but gentle as she looked at the medic with glazed-over eyes. In her bleary state she didn't even question for a second what he was doing there, just accepted it as though there was nowhere else she'd expect him to be at that moment.

"Hey, Penny," he told her. He offered a quick, small smile, before turning to Thomas. "I need to get it out. Hold her down." Then he turned back to Juliette. "This is gonna hurt, okay, chérie?"

Juliette nodded absentmindedly. "You speak French?"

Eugene didn't answer and instead focused on pulling out the largest piece of metal stuck in her side as carefully as he was able, all the while Juliette was fighting against all of the arms holding her down. Even with the morphine it was pure agony. He removed it and got to work on the smaller pieces immediately.

"You're doin' real good, chérie, just keep holdin' on," he murmured. He was now using his tweezers to remove some of the smaller bits of metal.

Juliette smiled slightly. "My papa used to call me 'bijou' when I was little," she recalled quietly, barely feeling anything by now. "My mum was the only one who spoke to me in English." She gasped when he pulled out another large piece of shrapnel. "I can't breathe, Gene."

"Hey, you're gonna be just fine," he assured her, shooting her one worried glance before getting back to work. He looked up at the others. "I need to know what this is. There's so much of it I need to know what the internal damage might be."

The men all shared a look before Alexis nodded once at Thomas.

"Grenade," Tom said simply. If Eugene was shocked by the answer it didn't show on his face. He turned back to her quickly and began working with more haste than before.

"If there's internal bleedin' there ain't much I can do," he said. "You should take 'er to -"

"We can't," Alexis told him sternly, almost coldly. "No one else can know. Do everything you can."

"Please help her," William whimpered. It was only then that any of them noticed the tears that were streaming down his face as he held on to her hand.

"Keep her talkin'," Gene directed. He began pouring sulfa on the wounds he'd already checked and moving on to the ones he hadn't.

"Hey, Penny, how're you doing?" William began tentatively, still using her fake name even though it was largely redundant at this point.

"Really, mate?" Martin asked at the triviality of his question. Juliette laughed softly.

"I'm okay. It hurts."

"You're almost done," Gene told her, glancing up at her once before continuing to pour sulfa anywhere he could. "You're doin' great."

"Talk to me in French," she muttered sleepily, her eyes beginning to close. "Feels like home."

"Hey, hey, hey, eyes open," he told her. Martin shook her shoulders to make her eyes open again.

"I'm sorry."

Martin laughed lightly, but there was a discernible melancholy to it. "Don't be sorry, just do as you're told, okay?

Juliette laughed and then gasped again. "Doing as I'm told is not one of my virtues." Her words emerged choked.

When she drew in another shaky breath Gene looked up at the others sharply. "Sit her up. I think she's chokin' on her own blood."

When they sat her upright her head lolled forwards momentarily before she forced it back up, but had to settle for it tilting towards her left shoulder. She felt so tired. Exhausted, really.

"Wounds are clean. I got everythin' out and I bandaged her up," Eugene told the men. They all watched cautiously as Juliette fought to keep her eyes open.

"What's wrong with her then?" Martin demanded, looking to the younger man urgently.

Eugene huffed out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I don't know. Could be the morphine makin' her drowsy." When his eyes fell to his med bag once more, hanging off of the back of one of the dining chairs, he sucked in a harsh breath. "Unless she's goin' into shock."

"Is that bad?" Will asked. No one replied as they watched the medic rifle hurriedly through his bag before pulling out a syrette.

He readied it in record time before injecting it into her chest, right over where her heart would be, and all of a sudden her eyes shot open. She gasped once more, however this time it wasn't out of pain but instead a need for air. She kept on gasping until eventually her breathing slowed into a natural rhythm.

Eventually, her breathing went back to normal, and she didn't feel so tired anymore. She looked up at all of the men around her with a small laugh.

"One down, eight more to go."

Thomas laughed, more out of relief than amusement, and shook his head. "That's not funny."

She laughed. "Tough crowd."

An inaudible sigh of relief seemed to travel through the room, everyone's shoulders falling at the exact same moment. The men all looked between each other and, in spite of themselves, began to laugh - even Will, who still had tear tracks drying on his face. Eugene took a step back from the table and watched Juliette with a calculated gaze. Her eyes fell on him and she offered a sheepish smile.

"Don't suppose you're willing to just forget this ever happened?"

He rolled his eyes but was smiling slightly. "Not a chance."