Charlie woke up wrapped in Floyd's arms, to the sound of his alarm, and for a moment she forgot what was happening. In her head, for one magical split second, they woke up like this everyday - had always woken up like this, in fact - and the alarm was only to remind them that they had cookies in the oven.
When Floyd groaned, shifted, and made to get out of bed, reality came rushing back in.
"No," Charlie complained, reaching for him and catching his wrist in her blind searching. Her eyes were still shut, as though keeping them closed would make Floyd remain where he was. "Come back."
"I gotta go to work, Freckles," Floyd replied, and his voice was delightful in the morning. Low and gravelly and groggy with sleep, it only served to work against him and make her want him to stay even more.
"Stay," she pleaded, peeling her eyes open.
His hair was messy and rumpled, his eyes only just beginning to open fully after being shut for so long, and there was a fond smile playing at his lips. His shirt was a little wonky, so that one side of the neckline drooped lower than the other and revealed a hint of golden skin, and with the light of sunrise creeping in through the gap in the curtains he was surrounded by a halo of light.
"Beautiful," Charlie mumbled. His smile grew. She shifted to lean up on her elbows then insisted, "Stay," once more.
"I can't," Floyd replied, but contrary to his words he leaned in and gave her a very soft kiss. It was nothing more than the delicate press of his lips to hers and yet butterflies erupted in her stomach. She lifted a hand to cup his cheek and pressed an identical kiss to his lips when he pulled away.
He smiled once she was finished. "You're an angel," he told her quietly, his eyes full of affection.
She nuzzled her nose against his. "This angel needs company," she replied. "And to go back to sleep."
"You can sleep in here as long as you want," came his soft reply. "As for the company, you'll have to recruit Mabs."
"Not the same," Charlie insisted. Her hand on his cheek moved to the back of his neck and her other hand joined it, and she pulled him into a hug which was more awkward than it was warm because of the way he was kneeling on the bed with his arms propped up on either side of her. But she sighed into it all the same, as though relieved to finally be close to him again, as though inhaling her first gust of fresh air after a lifetime indoors.
"Freckles, I gotta go," Floyd pressed after a while. "I can't be late."
Charlie sighed and withdrew. Now that she was more awake she knew that he was right.
"When do you finish?" she asked, twisting the bedsheets between her fingers as she watched him pull on his ODs.
"We got more weapons training after dinner. Supposed to be done at 2000 hours." He looked over at her through the low light of the room and whatever he saw on her face softened him.
"Come see me when you're finished," she implored quietly. She was sure her hair was a mess and that she had sleep crusting in the corners of her eyes. Belatedly, she worried that she had drool in the corners of her mouth. But Floyd didn't seem to either notice or mind; he was still looking at her like she was the brightest star in the sky.
"I will," he promised, finishing doing up his ODs. "Of course I will."
"Can I stay the night again?"
He grinned. "You're always welcome. What's mine is yours."
She smiled softly back at him. "I love you."
Floyd paused where he'd been lacing up one of his boots and came back over to the bed. He braced his hands on the mattress again and leaned in to kiss her, taking his time, making sure she knew how loved she was, before finally pulling away but remaining close enough that their lips brushed when he spoke. "And I love you."
Floyd left with just as much reluctance as Charlie let him go with, and she nestled back beneath the covers, trying to get more sleep. It was impossible, however, to fall back asleep without Floyd there, so after a while of trying she dragged herself out of bed and back into her fatigues, and made her way to her room on the floor below.
Mabs wasn't in there - she was with Speirs, of course - so Charlie had the shower all to herself for as long as she liked. When she emerged she got into a fresh set of fatigues and placed the old ones in a pile ready to take down to the laundry room later. Then she made a start on pulling up her hair.
The day passed her by at much the same idle pace, filled with not very much work to do and thus nothing much to occupy her mind. Shifty stopped by at one point and spoke with Charlie and Mabs for a while, just as bored as them now that all of the men were training and he wasn't. He told them that his paperwork was currently being filled out and he was due to leave them the following day, which was much sooner than Charlie had anticipated, but he assured her he still remembered his promise to let her know when he was leaving and say goodbye.
Shifty left them to go and have dinner with the rest of the men, his last meal as a member of Easy Company, and Charlie and Mabs made plans with Boo, Autumn, and Henry to go down to the lake while the men were doing weapons training later. They still had swimsuits, after all, and hadn't gotten all that much use out of them. And it was still summer, and they didn't know how long they would be staying here, where they could act like they were only on vacation and not awaiting imminent redeployment. They all agreed they should be making the most of it.
So, after their own dinner, which they took after Easy had finished these days on account of how crowded the mess hall got, they all went up to their rooms to change, then made the trek down to the lake with their towels.
The water was freezing cold at first but warm once they were in, and Charlie and Boo laughed loudly together as they found themselves in a water fight. Mabs watched on, laughing, from the dock, while Autumn swam out further into the lake and Henry paddled on her back, staring up into the sky.
"Austria is my favourite place we've been by far," Boo declared once she and Charlie had called for an armistice in their water fight. "I don't ever wanna leave."
"Even to go home?" Henry asked with a smile. By now she had her eyes closed but she was still floating on her back, her hands gliding gently at her sides.
"Even to go home," Boo confirmed.
Charlie wasn't at all surprised to hear this answer. She didn't know exactly what Boo's life had been like before she'd become a nurse, but everything she did know pointed to it not being very nice. Indeed, Boo and George had already agreed that they'd both go to his family home in Rhode Island when the war in the Pacific ended. If the war in the Pacific wasn't still a factor, or if George had enough points to go home, the two of them would be engaged by now, Charlie thought. Maybe even married.
"This is my favourite, too," Charlie added before Henry could ask Boo why she wasn't so eager to go home. "I love Paris but I'm happiest here." She was, she realised, even happier now than she had been in Aldbourne. While she was sure she would always look back on the period of her life she'd spent in England, however brief, with indescribable fondness, there had been so much uncertainty back then. Now, she had Floyd and she knew who she was a little better, knew what she was made of. Though the Pacific was the lingering dark cloud, as was whatever Charlie and Floyd would do when the time eventually came for them to go back home, those two things were just distant enough to forget about during her happier moments.
Boo smirked at Charlie's words, the innuendo clear in the wiggling of her eyebrows. "I bet."
Charlie pointed a finger at her. "I know what you're insinuating and I don't like it!"
From the dock, Mabs snorted. "She ain't wrong, though."
Charlie blushed up to her ears. "Yes, she is."
"What?!" Henry pushed herself upright from her reclined position, her eyes wide as she looked at Charlie in surprise. "You mean you haven't..?"
"You and Tab," Mabs said, as though uncertain they were talking about the same thing. "Charlie, you and Tab ain't..."
It was Boo who was brave enough to ask the question outright. "You haven't had sex yet?!"
Charlie's eyes darted between the three faces gathered around her, each of them wearing a varying expression all portraying their surprise, and then over to Autumn who was so far out in the lake she wouldn't be able to hear the conversation. In a moment of impulse, Charlie ducked under the water and tried to swim away, but Boo caught her and pulled her back out again.
"Charlie!" Boo exclaimed as Charlie pushed her hair out of her face and laughed awkwardly. "You and Tab haven't slept together yet?"
"No."
"Are we talking about the same Tab?" Henry asked with a small laugh. "Floyd Talbert. Different woman every night until he fell in love with our dearest Charlie. Lover of dogs, wearer of smirks. Company first sergeant. That Tab?"
"The very same," Charlie confirmed.
Mabs let out a whistle. "Well I never," she said, shaking her head with a laugh. "Charlie's gone and tamed the beast."
"He's an angel, really," Charlie protested, feeling herself bristle at how everyone was so shocked. Did they think he was going to force her? Coerce her? He'd been nothing if not the most attentive, caring, and respectful boyfriend on the face of the Earth. How could they ever think anything different?
"With you, maybe," Mabs joked.
Boo giggled. "You're forgetting they've slept together," she told Charlie, inclining her head towards Mabs. "Was he an angel when you were with him, Mabs?"
"A devil, more like," replied Mabs with a smirk.
Charlie frowned but didn't say anything. She didn't want to hear about the time her boyfriend and her best friend had slept together. True, she'd been the driving force behind getting them together, and she'd known about it for a long time - since before D-Day, even - but that didn't mean she wanted to know the details.
"What's he like when you two are together, Charlie?" Boo wondered, watching her hands move through the water. "When you're alone, I mean."
Charlie shrugged one shoulder and turned her eyes on the mountains on the other side of the lake. "I don't know. He's just... himself."
"Ah, come on, Charlie," Henry encouraged her. "We need more details than that. If you're not having sex then what are you doing with all that time you spend together?"
Charlie was seriously regretting saying anything now. She should have just kept her mouth shut.
"We talk and stuff," she hedged, squinting into the sunlight and keeping her eyes focused on the majesty of the mountains.
"What else?" Boo asked.
"We go on walks. Sometimes we go on little dates. I don't know, we just spend time together. We enjoy each other's company."
She turned back to Mabs, Boo, and Henry and found them exchanging glances, a mixture of raised eyebrows and poorly concealed amused smirks.
Charlie huffed. "You think he's unhappy with me because we don't have sex."
"No, Charlie -" Mabs said. Her smirk fell. "That's not it at all."
"What, then?"
"It's just a little hard to believe, that's all," added Boo.
Charlie's eyebrows hopped up. "You think I'm lying?"
"No, darlin'," Mabs cut in. "Not at all. We just... well, I just don't get why you haven't done it yet."
Charlie sighed and dipped her head back into the water, wetting her hair. She was buying time, trying to decide whether to explain or not and, if so, how. Finally, she turned back to them. "I have a lot of expectations on my shoulders from my family. They expect me to marry someone rich. And Floyd isn't rich. If he asks me to marry him then I'll say yes, but we're still so new, and I can't ask that of him yet. I'm not going to trap him in a relationship and it's definitely not up to him to save me - I can't ask him to sign his life away to me before he's ready just so I don't have to marry someone else. I won't. But when we go home, if I'm not certain I'll marry Floyd, then my parents are going to push a rich man in front of me and expect me to marry him. And if I'm not a virgin when that happens... well, I'm sure you understand that that would be bad."
"Does Tab know all this?" Henry asked quietly.
Charlie nodded.
"What'd he say?" Mabs inquired next.
Charlie sighed and looked at the water. "He said he'd ask me to marry him if he thought I'd say yes." She shook her head with a bitter smile. "And I told him I'd say yes if I thought he meant it. But we've only been together a month - how can I ask him to commit his entire life to me this soon?"
"Your parents wouldn't wait?" Boo asked quietly. "If you went home with Floyd and you weren't ready to get married yet but you were still together, wouldn't they wait?"
"No," Charlie replied with a short, rueful laugh. "It'd be hard enough to convince them to let me marry him at all, let alone to convince them to wait around and see if we're in love for long enough to warrant getting married. They just wouldn't do it." She shook her head. "Besides, if I went home and I had a boyfriend that wouldn't do my chances of marrying any good. Potential suitors and their influential families wouldn't like it. The only two choices are marry Floyd or marry someone else. I know which one I'd prefer but I can't ask him to propose yet."
"So what'll you do?" Henry asked.
Charlie shrugged. "We've only talked about it once and we couldn't reach a compromise."
"Maybe by the time we eventually go home you'll both be ready for marriage," Boo suggested hopefully.
"Maybe." But Charlie didn't want to talk about it anymore. "When will you and George get married, anyway?" she asked.
Boo's face lit up. "Well," she began, and explained to them different conversations she'd had with George about the idea of getting married. They'd discussed doing it before the Pacific but didn't know if they wanted to risk Boo being sent home, and they'd discussed getting engaged and waiting to get home before they actually got married. They'd discussed not getting engaged at all until they were both back on home soil and had also discussed the idea of getting married in secret. They hadn't yet come to a decision.
"... so, we're just waiting to see what happens," she finished her explanation. "But I'm kind of hoping he's going to propose soon. Even if we don't get married for years yet."
Outwardly, Charlie was all smiles and support, gushing about how exciting it all was. Inwardly, she was so envious it almost hurt. To be able to marry whoever you wanted - what a dream that would be. Boo and George could go home as a married couple without having to worry what their families would think of their spouse because, ultimately, it didn't matter; they loved each other and that was the only thing they needed to consider.
It was a dream that shouldn't have to be a dream, Charlie thought. To marry the person you loved should have been a human right. But it wasn't. And she honestly had no idea whose surname she would end up bearing.