Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

06: An Invention of Darkness

Eventually, he finished his monologue. "What about you?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. "Any boys I should know about? Anyone I need to fight? Anyone I need to compete with?"

Juliette laughed. "My heart belongs to you, George," she told him with a dramatised whimsical sigh. "No competition."

"None at all?" he asked, narrow-eyed and suspicious. "I don't believe you."

There had, she supposed, been one. Just one. And she remembered the feeling of his lips vividly, even though the kiss had lasted mere seconds. But that was a painful memory, and a personal one, too. She hadn't even told Thomas what happened between her and Alex, and she didn't know if she ever would. Really, she thought, there wasn't so much to tell.

"One boy," she told him finally, and surprised herself with the confession. "But he's..." She couldn't even say it.

"What? He's a bastard?"

"No!" she exclaimed, perhaps rather a bit too passionately. "He was a dear friend of mine. He's gone now, is all."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," George offered quietly. He clearly didn't quite know what to do with himself, or what to make of the statement. 'Gone' could mean a great many things, but she'd left it ambiguous intentionally.

Juliette shrugged. "It's okay. He was too good for me anyway."

Jules caught sight of Gene, who she hadn't seen at all the previous day, a little while later. She watched him from afar for a few moments, trying to gauge his countenance. Eventually she decided that he could use some cheering up. She left George and approached the medic from behind, tapping him on the shoulder and laughing when he jumped.

"Gene," she greeted, as had become tradition for her to do.

He gave her a small smile, and even in that she could see his nerves. Still, she chose not to mention it - each of the Americans were buzzing with anxiety, and in her experience the best way to handle it was to forget it even existed.

"Tom'll no doubt come looking for me in a bit to do his paint. You don't mind if I hide with you, do you?"

He chuckled lightly and shook his head. "Uh, no, you're fine."

Jules grinned and settled herself on the floor cross-legged, watching as he paused a moment before doing the same.

"What's your favourite colour?" she asked him, watching his face carefully as he formulated his response.

"Blue," he replied simply.

"What shade of blue?"

"Light blue. Like the sky."

Jules looked up and smiled into the sunlight. She realised then that she'd been wrong yesterday; the weather had indeed cleared. And just in time for D-Day (mark two). "Sky blue," she commented, nodding. "I saw a painting that colour once. In Paris. Well, I saw a few, really, but there was one that was really special. And the room wasn't very well lit, either, so everything glowed in the way where you kind of feel special for being able to look at it - like you're being let in on a secret or something." She glanced at him once when she spoke, though her mind was back in the Dancers' Foyer of the Paris Opera House. "Ever since, I've liked that colour a lot, too."

"What's your favourite?" he asked.

She didn't even hesitate. "Yellow." She smiled as she watched his eyebrows quirk a little bit. "It was my mum's favourite colour," she explained, letting the nostalgia wash over her. "And once upon a time I used to think that nothing could ever go too badly wrong if there was a little bit of yellow about, because it's such a happy colour."