Posey woke up with a banging headache and almost no recollection of the night before. It was a Saturday, thank God, which meant she didn't need to be up at the crack of dawn ready for a day full of training manoeuvres, shooting practise, and PT drills - things, incidentally, which they were all much past and only had to do for the sake of the undertrained replacements anyway. Still, even without a fully-packed schedule, she woke up whilst it was still dark. A pounding head would do that to a person, it seemed.
Posey groaned, still clinging to sleep just enough that she forgot where she was for a moment, before burying her face into her pillow. Her hands came to press down on the back of her head, pushing her face further towards the mattress. The world seemed to swing around her even when she worked to lay completely still.
She listened to the small sounds in the barracks - men rolling over, sighing in their sleep, and sometimes snoring - and tried desperately to recall what had happened the previous night to land her in such a state this morning. She remembered going to the pub but not at what point she'd ended up getting absolutely slaughtered, as she knew she must have from the monster hangover she was suffering.
She didn't know how much time had passed before the others began waking, some of them nearly as hungover as she was herself.
"Fuck," was the first word out of Skinny's mouth. It figured that he was suffering too - however it had come about, the pair of them seemed to have developed a penchant for getting absolutely wasted together.
A few men groaned and complained of a hangover before sitting up, which told Posey all she needed to know about their conditions. She herself felt like she'd run head first into a brick wall and the absolute last thing on her current to-do list was sitting up. If she'd learned anything from spending so much time with men since joining the paratroopers, however, it was that they loved melodrama.
"How you feelin', Wells?" Roe asked. She heard him get to his feet and assumed he'd kneeled down by her bunk from how his breathing had become louder. "Doin' okay?"
"If I'd slammed a door on my head a billion times last night I think I'd be in less pain," was her mumbled reply, emerging muffled through her pillow. "Does that answer the question for you?"
Roe breathed a laugh. She could imagine him shaking his head at her antics. "Fresh air'll help," he said. When he got no reply, he laughed once more. "You gotta get up some time, Wells."
"I'll get up when I don't feel like I've been dragged feet-first through the pits of hell."
"Come on," he persisted. She could hear the smile in his voice. "The fresh air'll make you feel better."
Posey considered his words a moment before shifting just enough that she could peek one eye up at him. "Promise?" she asked quietly.
"Promise," he confirmed. He nodded once encouragingly before stepping back towards his bunk to give her the space to stand. When she did, she swayed in place for a moment.
"I'm never drinking again," she vowed, not speaking to anyone in particular.
"That's bullshit and you know it," Lieb retorted from the other side of the room. By the looks of him, he'd had a little bit too much to drink the previous night, too.
"Never again," Posey insisted, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead. "It's not worth it."
She made quick work - or as quick work as she was able - of pulling her ODs on over the top of her PT gear, trying not to wonder about just how she'd managed to get changed out of her dress uniform last night without anyone realising. At this point, how her secret was still intact was as much a mystery to her as it likely was to everyone else who knew. When that was finished, she slipped her jump boots on, tucking in the laces instead of tying them, and huffed when she realised she'd have to make her bed. Weekend or otherwise, the army was the army and unmade beds just didn't do.
Making her bed had never been such a painful experience.
It took a lot longer than was likely strictly necessary but a pounding head did tend to make life more difficult. As soon as she'd finished, she collapsed back down on top of it and sighed. "I hate alcohol."
"Fresh air," Roe reminded her, rising from his place on his bunk.
"Right." Posey nodded and steeled herself to get up before George's voice cut into the conversation - thus far today, she realised, he'd been suspiciously quiet.
"Hey, Duckie, you mind if I come with ya?" He sounded somewhat apprehensive, which was entirely uncharacteristic. Posey's heart dropped, searching her mind for what she might have said to him last night. With how rocky their relationship was at the moment, the absolute last thing she needed to add to the mix was a stupid drunken ramble that had rubbed him the wrong way.
"Sure," she replied, trying her best to keep her voice even. She hobbled back to her feet and looked to Roe expectantly, who nodded and led the way outside. For the first time she found herself grateful for double daylight savings. Even relatively late into the morning as it was, by military standards at least, it was still dark outside.
The door to the barracks closed behind George and Posey waited for either him or Roe to lead the way. Roe, however, seemed to have other things on his mind.
"I'm gonna head to the med tent. Gotta set up before the replacement medic comes in for trainin'."
"Sure thing, doc," George replied immediately, sounding relieved. "We'll go on without ya."
"We will?" Posey asked without entirely meaning to, bewildered.
"Sure," George replied.
"Bye, Gene," she said, forcing a smile. Roe offered her a nod before turning and heading the opposite way. Her eyes watched him retreat with thinly veiled panic, for now she was going into this blind and alone. Her mind raced trying to figure out just what she might have done last night.
George mustered a small smile before he set off walking. Posey fell into step beside him. She turned her eyes on the field to her left, desperate to make her uncertainty inconspicuous.
In the darkness it was exceedingly difficult to see anything except an abyss, the field becoming a chasm which seemed to stretch out endlessly. The silence of the morning settled upon them like a new blanket, not entirely uncomfortable but certainly not familiar. Posey had never known George to be so quiet and had never known herself to feel so unsettled around him.
When she felt she couldn't take feeling so unnerved anymore, she rushed out, "If I said something to upset you last night then I'm really sorry." The words all blended together, riding one hasty exhale, though George seemed to understand them well enough. Though out of all possible reactions that he could've given, he laughed. Laughed!
Well, that was closer to the George she knew, at least.
"You didn't say anythin' to upset me," he assured her, his tiny smile turning his words up at the edges and lightening the oppressive darkness around them.
Posey took a gamble and asked, "You're not angry at me anymore?" Her voice emerged quieter than she'd intended, perhaps the influence of the last lingering traces of wariness or perhaps because her head was still pounding. Either way, her voice sounded small and feminine. It sounded more hers than she could remember hearing it, even though she'd been speaking in her normal voice for quite a while around the lucky few who knew.
George shook his head in reply to her statement. She wasn't looking at him, instead keeping her eyes on the pavement ahead of her, but she could feel his gaze watching her in profile. "You kinda said some stuff last night -" he began.
Posey cut him off. "Oh no."
George laughed, which made her smile. "Yeah," he agreed. "The stuff you said," he went on, "it was kinda... ah, I don't know... kinda just..."
Posey decided to offer him some help to get him back on track, despite how she dreaded to find out what he was trying to say. "What was it about? What I said?"
"Your family, mostly." She looked up at him at this, her eyebrows lifting and her bottom lip immediately finding itself trapped between her teeth. Her hands fiddled at her pockets. "The Blitz and stuff..." he trailed off.
Posey didn't reply for a while, trying to let his words sink in. She had no idea how much she could have told him but tried to reassure herself that, regardless of how much it was, it couldn't have been that bad. A little soul-baring never did anyone much harm - unless, of course, you were a British girl pretending to be a boy in the American military, but that was besides the point.
Forcing a smile, Posey attempted a joke to clear the air of tension. "It must've been some sob story to make you reconsider your anger."
"I wasn't angry," George replied, shaking his head. "Well, maybe I was a little. But not really. I just -" He ran a hand down his face before digging into his pocket and drawing out a pack of cigarettes. He didn't bother to offer her one - he already knew she'd say no - and pulled one out for himself before lighting it and stuffing the pack back in his pocket. He puffed on his cigarette a few times before lowering it again, his breath lightening the air in front of him temporarily. "We're friends, right?" he asked eventually, glancing at her once before looking straight ahead again.
"I think so," Posey replied, her eyebrows furrowing as she watched him, now. "Don't you?"
"It's just - I've told you everythin', right? About my life and my family and every other damn thing I could think of. And I thought you'd told me everything about you. But then you tell me that you're a girl and you're British and you've got this brother and -" He cut himself off. Posey surmised this was more for her sake than his. Perhaps he was worried about resurfacing past trauma. The thought made her want to laugh. "I didn't know how to deal with all this stuff. What to do with it, you know?"
"I'm sorry," Posey told him softly.
George shook his head. "No, I ain't mad. I just - I didn't understand, I guess. Why you did it or why you had to or any of it. It's easy to hear someone say that all this shit's happened to them and not take it all in, but the way you talked last night..."
"George, you don't need to feel sorry for me," Posey said, her sigh making the words more breathy than they were solid. "I don't know what I said but I'm okay. Really, I am. I'm dealing with it all and I'll be okay. You're allowed to be hurt that I didn't tell you."
"All I'm sayin' is," George began, stopping in place and turning to face her entirely, "I guess I get it. Well, I don't get it. But I get why you had to lie and why you didn't tell me. And I wanted to say that I'm sorry for how I acted when I didn't get it."
Slowly, gradually, Posey began to smile. Just like that the air around them seemed to brighten, even though the sun hadn't woken up just yet. "It's okay," she told him softly. "Are we friends again?"
George grinned. "What's your real name?"
Posey laughed, shaking her head. "What, just because I'm a woman that means you can't call me Duckie anymore?"
"I'll still call you Duckie, I just wanna know."
"My name is ultra top secret," Posey replied, lowering her voice to a whisper and leaning in close as if sharing a secret. "None of the others know, either."
"Why not?"
"Plausible deniability, mostly." She shrugged. "In case anyone ever found out, the agreement is that I wouldn't incriminate anyone. If I'm going down I'm going down alone. But also so that you can't slip up."
"You really think the army'll shoot ya if they find out?" George didn't look convinced but he must have seen Posey pale even through the darkness, for his face hardened minutely.
She mustered a stiff nod. "They've shot people for less," she offered, then brushed the thought aside. "Well, right now it doesn't make much difference. No one can find out regardless, and it's easiest just to work as if they will shoot me. That way no one takes it too lightly."
George nodded and considered her words, all the while Posey did the same. They walked on in companionable silence, thinking. It was so easy to forget what the consequences of being found out might be when the same end might find her regardless. She could die with her secret intact on the battlefields of Europe or she could die because she'd dared to set foot on them in the first place. She could die trying to protect her home or because she'd tried so hard to return to it. But then again, what was home for her now?
The war, whilst declared in order to defend the concept of home, had already destroyed hers. So just what on earth was she fighting for?