With the moving of the front line came the moving of the aid station, and Posey's aid station was moved away from the 506th altogether. She supposed it was for the best, really, but that didn't make it any easier to leave the men behind. Now they were attached to a different regiment in need of medical support whilst Easy moved into a town with supposedly less military pressure.
Each day blended into the next when working as a nurse. There was no need to hide anymore, not now that all of the men from Easy had long since been sent off to evacuation hospitals or back up to the line and no more were being sent in, and Posey found herself being trusted with more and more responsibility. She'd seen a lot of what Gene had done out on the line which made her reasonably handy in a crisis, but she wasn't trained, and the job of a nurse at an aid station was, naturally, quite different to the job of a combat medic. Still, she was allowed to clean wounds as well, now, as opposed to just clean floors and take inventory and comfort the traumatised.
Her thousand yard stare was becoming a problem. She couldn't seem to get out of her own head. She'd be given a task and set to completing it but if she wasn't sufficiently occupied she'd find herself drowning, worrying and wondering and staring straight into the abyss.
She caught herself thinking about Bill often - and Toye and the others, of course, but Bill most of all. He'd lost a leg whilst out on the line. She wondered how he was doing. Was it getting him down, having to be cared for so rigorously in recovery? Did he miss the men like she did? Did he worry about the future like she did, now that it didn't look the way he'd expected it to?
"What are you thinking about?" asked the soldier she was supposed to be reading to. Posey's head shot up from where she'd zoned out staring at the pages, a guilty expression passing over her face before the soldier laughed. "It's alright," he assured her. "I don't really care for Dickens anyway."
Posey laughed softly under her breath and closed the book, setting it in her lap and folding her hands over it. "Sorry," she said, offering the hint of a smile. "I'm a million miles away most days."
"Aren't we all?" answered the soldier, a man she remembered was named Harry. "So what were you thinking about?"
Posey shrugged, watching her fingers trace over the lettering on the cover of Great Expectations. "I'm not sure, really," she confessed, though that was a lie; she'd been thinking about Bill, just like she always did, but Harry didn't need to know as much.
"You got a fella?" he asked, as though reading her mind.
Posey smiled and nodded. "Yeah." Was Bill her 'fella'? He might have been, once. Either way, the way to prevent the soldiers from flirting was to tell them you were already spoken for, so that was what she did.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Harry asked, shifting over in his bed to get closer to the edge she was sitting beside. "You look like you're good with secrets."
Posey couldn't help but laugh. "I know a thing or two about secrets," she replied.
"I thought so," said Harry knowingly. He shot a glance at the other side of the room, checking for potential eavesdroppers, and Posey did the same for her side, and when she turned back to him he was leaning in close. "Are you ready?"
"Absolutely."
"I do too," he confided, the words seeming to both thrill him and terrify him at the same time.
"You do what?" Posey asked, her eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.
"Have a fella," he elaborated, watching her expression closely.
Posey smiled softly and his shoulders relaxed, his face warming and opening up again. "Is he a soldier?" she wondered. She rested her elbow on the book's front cover and her chin in her hand, watching as Harry's face lit up at the thought of the man who had his heart.
"Yes," he confessed, all but grinning. "In my company."
"There must be lots of that going around," she murmured under her breath, and though Harry had clearly heard her he didn't ask her to explain. "What's his name?" she asked, speaking louder again now, though still quietly enough that they wouldn't be overheard.
"James," came the giddy answer.
"James," she repeated. "I like that name."
"Me too."
Was this what a person in love looked like? Had she once looked the same when talking about Bill, before every memory of him came chained to heartbreak?
"What's your fella's name?" Harry asked.
"Bill," she replied, and started to smile. For once she didn't want to think about him in a way that made her heart ache. Right now, for a little while, she would think of him and smile. She thought he deserved that much for all the smiles he'd given her, for giving her that one particular smile she'd never quite had until she met him. "He's a paratrooper, like you."
"Brave, then," Harry acknowledged with a cheeky grin.
Posey laughed. "Very." She shook her head, still giggling quietly. "Is James still up on the line?"
"He is," Harry confirmed. "That's why I need to recover quick. I can't leave him by himself for too long, see."
"Separation anxiety?" she joked.
"Stupid decision-making," Harry said. "I love that man dearly but my God can he make a terrible decision when he's left unsupervised."
Posey laughed loudly. To an onlooker she must have looked insane, laughing like that in a place like this. "James and I must be the same person," she said, her shoulders shaking with the impact of her laughter. "I bet you Bill said the exact same thing when he had to be taken off the line in Holland."
"What do you mean?"
Posey's jaw fell open. "Whoops." Maybe she wasn't so good at keeping secrets after all.
"A secret for a secret," Harry said, leaning in again and smiling wide. "Tell me what you mean."
Posey's eyes did another sweep of the room, making sure no one was listening, before she sighed and appeased her patient. "I disguised myself as a boy and joined the paratroopers. I'm here because I got found out and had to fake my own death in case the army tried to shoot me for it."
Harry stared at her blankly for a moment before laughing suddenly, abruptly, and patting her on the head. "You do know a thing or two about secrets."
"I'll keep yours better than I kept mine," Posey said. "Promise."
She sat with Harry as often as she could after that, a friend she'd found out of pure chance but valued no less highly for it. And every time she did they would talk in hushed whispers about their respective 'fellas' like a pair of school children discovering what love was for the first time, giggling together and sharing memories and passing the time in borrowed happiness.
Posey was sorry to see him go but glad that he, at least, was getting to return to the one he loved. She'd never know why he'd trusted her with his secret, but whatever the reason was she was grateful for it now; he was perhaps the only reason she'd managed to fight her way out of the grips of the thousand yard stare.
With Harry gone Posey was left mostly to herself again, and she found her thoughts wandering to a time beyond the war, where she'd have to make a new life for herself and pretend that none of this had ever happened. The war had taken her to so many places she had no idea where life might take her without it.
For now, she let it take her wherever it needed to. And, eventually, she ended up on a ship bound for England.
The ship reminded her quite suddenly of the Samaria, the ship she'd come to England on from America with the rest of Easy, and the thought made her want to weep. How full of hope she'd been back then, how full of light. The war hadn't yet beaten her down into a shell of herself, but it had now, and as she stood on the deck, feeling the cold sting of saltwater spraying onto her face, she felt hollow. She recalled standing on the deck of the Samaria with Gene and Johnny and how bittersweet it had been, for she'd become rather fond of them but was still so desperate to go home. She'd do anything to be back there now, with all that was in her past still ahead of her. But would she really want to go through all of that again?
Yes, she decided firmly. Yes, she'd go through it all again a billion times over if it meant she got more time with the men she loved so dearly. Her family. She wouldn't change a thing.
"You'll freeze to death out here," said Viv, coming to lean against the railing beside her. She had a habit of sneaking up on people, which, in a way, Posey supposed was a skill they shared.
"I'll be in in a minute," Posey assured her, sparing Viv a quick glance to flash a smile before turning back to the water. It wouldn't be long until she was back in England and then what would she do? She'd have to find a way to escape her nursing duties with the American Red Cross and navigate across England to get back to London. This, she supposed, was infinitely preferable to having to navigate across Nazi-occupied territory to get back to England. She had to be grateful for the leg-up she'd been given.
"How soon will we lose you?" Viv asked quietly. Posey could feel her eyes on the side of her face.
"When we get to England?"
"Yeah."
Posey ducked her head to hide a sad smile in her scarf. She was always having to leave people behind. "As soon as I find the means to get to London."
"You can't stay with us?" Viv wondered, a note of hope to her tone that wasn't quite certain the optimism was well-founded.
Posey looked up and met her eye, and the expression on her face must have been enough of an answer. Viv sighed and looked away, gazing down into the water just the same as Posey had been a moment ago. "I'm glad you're going home," she confessed, smiling sadly to herself. "It's been a long war for you."
"Not as long as for others," Posey replied, then shook her head with a regretful laugh. "But, yes, it has been."
"You'll be ready to sleep for centuries when you get back."
"When I find somewhere I can stay I will," she agreed. She sighed. "I have to find my brother first. I've been cut off from his correspondence for so long I don't know that he'll be at the same hospital anymore. Then we'll find somewhere together, and then I'll sleep for centuries."
"Well, write me a letter when you wake up," Viv replied, giggling quietly. "To let us know you're alright, me and Ellie."
"Of course." Posey grinned. "Maybe I'll come visit you in New York. A friend of mine is from Rhode Island so I'll be in the area at some point or other."
"Please do!"
"You want me to?"
"Absolutely!" Viv looked positively giddy just at the idea of it. "You'll just adore the city!"
"I've been once, briefly," Posey admitted. "That's where our troopship left from to go to England. I didn't get to see any of it, really, but we did go past the Statue of Liberty on the way out."
"Statue of Liberty be damned, I'll show you all the best locals' spots to visit," Viv dismissed, laughing. "You'll love it, I promise!"
Posey was inclined to believe her.
The journey back to England was short, much shorter than the last time Posey had travelled by boat, and stepping back on home soil was relief like she'd never felt it. It was different to before, though; the relief felt heavy, not light. She was missing too much of herself to feel truly happy about coming home. She still felt too numb, too exhausted, to feel much of anything.
She had to stay a nurse for a while, for finding out where her brother was and forging a plan to get to him was a lot easier said than done and was, in fact, like finding a needle in a field full of haystacks and then having to retrieve it. Still, eventually she found him, found that he was staying at a hotel in London, and she knew her time with the Americans had finally come to an end.
"Thank you," Posey told Viv and Ellie sincerely before she was set to leave, still in her uniform but leaving behind an excuse as to why she was leaving; referrals weren't hard to forge, as it turned out. "I could never begin to repay you, either of you, for what you've done for me, but know that I owe you both my life."
"Nonsense," Ellie dismissed, smiling. "You'd have gotten on just fine on your own, we just helped y'out a little."
"Remember to come visit," Viv said, a little bit teary. "Once you're settled and the war's over."
"I will," Posey promised. She took one of each of their hands and gave them a squeeze. "Thank you so much. For everything."
"If you say thank you one more time I'll smack you silly, honey," Ellie drawled with a shake of her head. "Come here." She pulled her into a hug and, a moment later, Posey reached out an arm and drew Viv in, too, and the three of them stood there for far longer than they strictly had to spare but not nearly long enough.
When they drew back Ellie grinned suddenly. "Don't say it again," she insisted, pointing an accusing finger at Posey.
Posey laughed. "I won't!" She shook her head, her grin fading into a small, soft smile. "I'll miss you both. A whole lot."
"We'll miss you too," the pair of them chorused, and that was that. They exchanged their goodbyes and then Posey was off, heading out into the world by herself again, alone, always alone.
She'd developed a penchant, it seemed, for finding people only to lose them, to have to leave them behind. It never got easier and her heart never shed the weight it had taken on in the process, only got exponentially heavier as she found herself alone once more.
But she was out of the war now. Finally, actually, out of the war - or as out of the war as one could get when they lived in a country that was in it. But she wasn't a soldier anymore, and she wasn't a nurse, and she wasn't an evacuee. She was back to being what she had been before any of this, back to being a girl.
Just a girl, and nothing more.
Or perhaps, rather, a woman. A shell of the girl she'd once been but also someone different entirely.
***
A/N: icymi: i finished writing today!!! our story will end with a grand total of 91 chapters + an epilogue and i can't wait for you all to read them <3 and thank you for all your continued love!!! every comment makes me smile bigger than you can imagine <3