When Shifty finally got to her station, Charlie had to act like she hadn't been anticipating his arrival ever since she'd seen him come through the door. She'd been desperate to interact with a familiar face and had, in fact, been watching him inch closer through the queue. But when he got to the front she busied herself with preparing the needle for him, her hands clumsy as she wondered whether he was watching her, and felt herself beginning to blush already. He hadn't even said a single word to her and she was blushing! She was more of a lost cause than she'd originally thought, and, somehow, asking Sergeant Talbert for help didn't seem like it had been such a terrible idea anymore.
"Hi, Charlie," he greeted cheerily when she eventually looked up. He'd already rolled his sleeve up, bless him, and was sitting on the bed, as he must have seen the men before him do. She hadn't even had to ask him. She knew there was a good reason she'd been inclined to like him.
"Shifty," she said, feigning surprise, letting her smile stretch wide. "Is this your non-dominant arm?" she asked, gesturing to the arm with the sleeve rolled up.
"Yes, ma'am," he confirmed, smiling in that soft way of his.
Charlie nodded, beginning to wipe his bicep clean. "How have you been?" she asked.
"Been good, thank you," he answered promptly and politely. "Ain't seen ya since the other night. They been keepin' ya busy down here?"
Charlie smiled to herself to think he'd noticed her absence. "Yes," she confirmed. She nodded, keeping her eyes on his arm and purposely taking a little bit more time than was strictly necessary to wipe his arm down so they'd have more time to converse. His presence was certainly a welcome reprieve from the mindless conversations she'd been having with the others. "I've been in everyday, but today's my last day on shift for a while."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it," Shifty replied as she finally stopped wiping at his bicep and prepared to inject him.
"Have you been busy?" she asked next. Charlie wished she had more interesting things to say, to ask, but all that came to her head was boring small talk. She'd have to ask Sergeant Talbert for conversation starters when she saw him next - hopefully soon, so that she could up her game before she next ran into Shifty. Or Gene, the medic, for that matter; the memory of her first meeting with him haunted her and she was desperate to change his first impression of her.
"Well, I guess so," he answered, then held his breath as she pressed the needle into his skin.
"Sorry," Charlie breathed, injecting the liquid as fast as she could before removing the needle. She quickly applied pressure to the site and offered him a smile she hoped was reassuring when he looked up at her.
"Now, it's alright, Charlie," he assured her.
She smiled in return. Couldn't help it.
"Our officers have been keepin' us busy with field exercises and weapons trainin'," he continued his earlier answer, oblivious to her thoughts. "They're long days but at least we get to rest at night now."
"You didn't before?" she wondered, wrapping up the injection site.
"Not most nights back at boot camp." He shook his head and smiled at her again. "But, well, I'm sure I'm boring you."
"Not at all," Charlie raced to reassure him, but he was already on his feet and pulling his sleeve back down.
"It was nice seein' you again, Charlie. I hope I'll see you again soon."
Charlie smiled, powerless to stop the blush racing through her cheeks. "I hope I'll see you again soon, too."
And with that, he was gone, and Charlie was onto the next.
The boys passed by in a blur after that until finally, finally, Mabel appeared out of nowhere.
"Aw, damn," Mabel began the moment she saw the dwindling queue, "you started pokin' 'em without me?"
"Mabel!" Charlie exclaimed, almost dropping the needle she was preparing in her surprise. "Where's Lieutenant Maddox?"
Mabel laughed. "Who knows? She all but foamed at the mouth when she realised her little exam overran and the inoculations had already started. If she found out that you guys are almost done then she's probably passed out somewhere."
Charlie laughed and made quick work of finishing what she was doing. She injected the paratrooper currently sitting on the bed and wrapped his arm up before sending him off.
"Aw, Charlie," Mabel complained as he went, eyeing the remaining soldiers in line, "you already did all the good ones! I'd offer to help but I don't see much point."
Charlie rolled her eyes with good humour. "I would have so loved if you'd come in earlier. Sergeant Talbert is such a nuisance. I honestly don't know what you see in him." After she'd spoken she immediately recalled how her side of her bargain with the boy in question was to help him attract Mabel, not repel her, and rushed to add, "I'm sure he's a charmer with you, though."
Mabel grinned. "Oh, he's a real charmer. Handsome, too, don't ya think?"
Mabel was heedless of the boy currently being injected by Charlie and the fact he was overhearing everything they were saying, but Charlie couldn't have been more aware of the fact he was eavesdropping - if it could even be called that, since they were having the conversation right in front of him. Reluctant to give a reply in the affirmative or negative in case either answer be reported back to Sergeant Talbert (as much as she wasn't his biggest fan, she didn't want to hurt his feelings), Charlie shrugged one shoulder and hurried to finish wrapping up her patient.
"Aw, come on, Charlie, there's gotta be one of 'em you find attractive!"
Charlie wanted the ground to swallow her whole just then.
"See, this is what I've been saying," chimed in a new voice, a familiar voice.
Charlie stiffened. "Not you again."
"Hi, Freckles. Miss me?"
Charlie shot him an exasperated look as she gestured for her next patient to sit on the bed. "Like diarrhoea."
"Charming."
"You two," Mabel said, shaking her head fondly as she looked between them. "Like siblings!"
Charlie didn't know what it was like to have siblings, but if it was anything like this then she was glad she'd never had any.
"Which is your dominant arm?" she asked the soldier sitting down, effectively cutting herself out of the conversation. After he replied she set about completing the routine she must have done two hundred times already that day.
"So," Sergeant Talbert began, addressing Mabel in a noticeably different - and lower - voice to the one he used with Charlie, "are you guys going out tonight?"
"We might," Mabel answered as Charlie injected her patient. "I'm workin' tomorrow, so we also might not."
Charlie wasn't working tomorrow - in fact, tomorrow would be her first day off since arriving in Aldbourne - but she couldn't say she'd have minded skipping a night in the pub with the paratroopers in favour of staying in. The only ones of them she'd spoken to beyond asking them which their dominant arm was were Sergeant Talbert, Shifty, and Gene, and she wasn't having much success with any of them; her and Sergeant Talbert only occasionally got on, and that was when they were doing business, she was was increasingly awkward around Shifty, and she'd only met Gene once and made an utter idiot of herself. She'd probably vaccinate him at some point, sure, but she couldn't see that going much better than their first interaction. Yes, a night at home with a good book avoiding all of these unfamiliar boys seemed like a much better idea than the alternative, and Charlie could only pray that Mabel would agree with her.
"Well," Sergeant Talbert answered Mabel, "you should come."
"Why's that?"
"I'll be there," was his simple response.
Charlie cringed for him out of second-hand embarrassment. He really did need her help, by the sounds of it, though she'd been sceptical about how much use she could realistically be to him at first.
Mabel seemed to share Charlie's opinion on this and laughed, which only made Charlie cringe harder as she prepared to inject her next patient.
"Is that so?" Mabel asked, laughter lingering around the edges of her voice.
Charlie wasn't sure whether Sergeant Talbert was oblivious to Mabel's amusement at his expense or whether he just didn't care, because he was completely unabashed in his reply. "Sure is."
"So why should I come, then?"
Charlie hid her smile by tilting her head down and towards her work, but she was almost certain Sergeant Talbert had seen it because she heard him scoff and knew that he wouldn't have been scoffing at Mabel.
"I'll buy you a drink," Sergeant Talbert replied.
Charlie pulled a face and cringed so much at how clearly he needed help that she had to step in; she couldn't take it any longer.
"You were talking about how much you wanted to learn to play darts the other day, Mabs," she said, though her eyes were on Sergeant Talbert, widening in the hopes he'd grab onto the rope she was throwing him.
"I could teach you," he offered to Mabel.
When Mabel looked over at Charlie, Sergeant Talbert sent her a self-satisfied nod over her shoulder which made Charlie want to groan. She'd come to know that Talbert was a renowned ladies' man but had absolutely no idea how, since he seemed to be failing spectacularly here. She could only guess that he either wasn't used to trying to charm girls like Mabel or that he simply didn't usually have to try so hard, that he often got by on his good looks and easy confidence alone. Charlie could only think it was lucky he'd deduced so quickly that Mabel would require a bit of effort to woo and gone to Charlie for help, because without her he was sure to embarrass himself spectacularly.
Really, it was a miracle any girl ever gave him the time of day, though she knew they did; she'd seen him talking to enough of them when coming home from work in the evenings and heard him talking about his past conquests loud enough as she walked past him and his friends.
Mabel gave Charlie a questioning look, clearly wondering why she was helping Sergeant Talbert when she didn't even like him very much, before turning back to him.
"You could teach me," she acknowledged with a considering nod. "Are you good?"
"The best."
Charlie snorted and turned away. Somehow she found that difficult to believe.
"You'll come too, won't you, Charlie?" Mabel said suddenly.
Charlie stiffened before busying herself with preparing a fresh needle for the next boy. "Um..."
"You're not workin' tomorrow," Mabel went on, and Charlie knew she was trapped.
"I'm working today, though," Charlie countered redundantly. If Mabel wanted her to go then she knew she'd go, but that didn't mean she had to like it. "And hard. Long hours. Lots of work. I might be tired by the time we get back."
"Aw, come on, Freckles," Talbert all but crooned from behind Mabel. "I can teach you to play darts too, if you want."
She knew he was only joking but the offer rubbed her the wrong way. "If I want to learn darts I'll go to Shifty, not you." She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. The only way she could think to cover her tracks and prevent either of them from getting any ideas about the nature of her relationship to Shifty, which was purely platonic, was by tacking on, "And don't call me that," sternly.
"Well, Shifty'll be there, too," Talbert said. She could hear the smirk in his voice but refused to turn around.
"Which is your dominant arm?" she asked her patient, and asked him to roll up the opposite sleeve after he'd replied.
"Shifty can definitely teach you darts," he went on.
Charlie resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she wiped down the soldier's arm.
"I can teach you darts," the soldier offered, shooting Charlie a wink.
"See!" Talbert exclaimed. "A personal offer. Now you can't say no."
"Thank you for the offer," Charlie said to the soldier right before injecting him. To Talbert, she said over her shoulder, "Mind your own business. I don't want to learn darts."
"Come on, Charlie, darlin', it'll be fun," Mabel said, swishing her uniform skirt around her legs and smiling. "We won't stay out late."
Charlie glanced at her in the changeover between one soldier and the next and sighed when she met Mabel's eyes. She'd known from the start she'd give in eventually, but it was still with great reluctance that she replied, "Okay. I'll come for a little while."
She desperately hoped she wouldn't do anything to embarrass herself in that 'little while', and hoped even more that Autumn and Violet would agree to come too. She really didn't want to be a third wheel to Mabel and Talbert.