Charlie got a reprimand for her behaviour at the checkpoint. It wasn't formal, which meant there was no real damage done to her rank or potential future career in nursing, but Henry made it clear when she delivered the informal reprimand that this was only because the officers had agreed to go easy on her out of respect not just for her grief but for her work.
"If you weren't as good a nurse as you are," Henry cautioned her, "it could've been much worse."
The only punishment Charlie got was not being allowed to work for three days, which she secretly thought was more out of sympathy than it was out of discipline. She spent those days in Floyd's room, because she didn't much want to see Mabs and face whatever disappointed words she had for Charlie after she'd undoubtedly heard about the entire affair from Speirs.
Floyd found out from both Gene and Winters. It was Gene who got to him first, mercifully, and explained the situation. Later, Winters had apparently informed him that there would be no real repercussions and that he and the other officers who'd been on the receiving end of Charlie's ire were more concerned than angry.
It was perhaps because of this that Floyd was being so supportive about the whole thing. There had been no rant about being irresponsible and no concerned coddling. He'd simply been there for her and let her come to him for whatever she needed (which was mostly just his room and his affection).
Charlie spent her first day of solitude sitting in his bed reading. The book was For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, one of the books being passed around the men in the company, and it had been gifted to her by Frank, who was her primary source of books these days. She hadn't managed to get very far through it, however, for how her mind kept wandering whenever she tried to focus on the words on the page. Pictures of Janovec's face would flash back to her, both pale in death and bright in life, and she'd be stuck in pools of memory for long stretches of time before she came back to herself and had to try to start reading again.
This continued for a long time until she put the book down and decided to try to write to her parents, which also turned out to be a dead end task she couldn't concentrate on either. She tried to sit on the balcony afterwards, but found it wasn't all that fun to sit out there during the day, not when Floyd's room's balcony overlooked the square and thus people could see her.
Charlie returned to her book and tried her hardest to concentrate, then abandoned her efforts to sleep. Just as it had after Holland, sleep came to Charlie easily in spite of her distraction, and though she fought with memories of bombs dropped into icy holes in the ground and the exploding of snowy trees, she whiled away the hours that way until evening.
After she woke, Charlie simply laid in bed for a while. She stared up at the ceiling and flashes of ghosts filled her peripheral vision, and she let them. How many ghosts, she wondered, would join her collection before she went home to her parents? And would she be carrying them around with her for the rest of her life?
The sound of a key in a lock made her sit up. The white comforter pooled in her lap and she curled her fingers into it. Though she knew who would be at the door, she still smiled when he appeared.
"My favourite," Charlie cooed in greeting as Floyd shut the door behind him. She held out both arms for him, like a toddler asking to be picked up, and he grinned as he crossed the room to her.
"You are such an angel," Floyd said as he took hold of her hands and bent to give her a soft kiss.
She hummed her acknowledgement of this statement as he sat on the edge of the bed and made a start on taking off his boots.
"I think all the other people in my life would disagree with you on that front," Charlie said with a small smile.
Floyd looked at her sidelong with a grin. "All the other people in your life don't know you like I do."
"You're a real charmer, you know that?" she teased, leaning over to kiss his cheek.
"I've been told once or twice," he replied with a wink.
She rolled her eyes, smiling. "How did I ever find myself saddled to such a flirt?"
"A question I ask myself hourly," Floyd answered her, finally removing his second boot and turning to her. "Did you eat today?"
"How was your day?"
"Charlie," he said seriously.
"Not yet," she offered with a sheepish smile.
Floyd bent down and picked up one of his boots, preparing to put it back on. "Then let's go -"
"No," Charlie cut him off, falling dramatically back into her pillow and burying the side of her face into it. "I don't want to talk to anyone else," she complained, her voice muffled by the pillow.
"You don't have to talk to anyone else," Floyd reasoned with her.
Charlie huffed. "If we see people they're going to talk to us. Mabs, especially. I'm sure she has a few choice words for me after I went off at her boyfriend."
"If you don't wanna talk to her then we won't talk to her," Floyd replied.
Charlie scoffed and turned her face away from the pillow so she could open her eyes and look at him. "You don't know Mabs at all if you think you're going to be able to stop her."
Floyd gave her a tiny smile. "You're gonna have to talk to her sometime, Freckles," he said quietly. "Maybe she won't even be mad."
"But if she is, we'll argue," Charlie pointed out. "I'm still so mad at Speirs I could gouge his eyes out."
"Okay," Floyd said, dragging out the vowel sound with a short laugh, "since that's not gonna do anyone any good, how about I go down and get you something? How's that sound?"
"Terrible," Charlie complained, reaching her arms out for him again. "I just got you back and now you're going to leave me again?"
"You have to eat, Freckles," he reminded her. He took her hands and turned them over, then dusted a kiss to both over her knuckles.
"Will you be fast?" she asked, quirking a considering eyebrow.
"Back before you know it," he promised with a faux-serious nod.
Reluctantly, Charlie agreed to let him go. True to his word, Floyd was back again in a little over five minutes.
"Food," he declared as he kicked the door closed behind him.
Charlie and Floyd sat on the floor at the end of his bed while they ate, though he only ate scraps here and there to make it seem like they were sharing. Finding it endearing, Charlie pretended not to notice. Once they were finished they scrunched up all of the packaging and squeezed it into the trashcan in the bathroom, then fell back on the bed together.
They lay together for a while, talking quietly and kissing whenever they could stay apart no longer. This was, until a knock at the door interrupted them.
Charlie's eyes went wide, suspicious as to who it was, and she pressed her lips to Floyd's to prevent him from answering.
"Charlie?" called the person behind the door.
Silently, Charlie sighed. It was Mabs.
"No one's home," Charlie whispered to Floyd under her breath.
He grinned. "I think I've corrupted you."
"Charlie!" Mabs called again.
"Is the door locked?" Charlie whispered. She started to pull the comforter they were lying beneath higher up the bed, as though if they hid beneath it Mabs would leave.
"No."
Charlie had just managed to get the blanket up over her shoulders when Mabs turned the doorknob and burst into the room, then yelped, "Oh!" and promptly backed right back out of it.
Floyd's eyes glinted as he realised what Mabs had assumed.
"We're not having sex!" Charlie shouted in a moment of impulse. As much as she didn't want to talk to Mabs right now, she couldn't have her thinking that she'd lied the other day when she'd gone on her rant about her choice not to sleep with Floyd.
Mabs re-entered the room warily. "Ya sure?" she asked. "'Cause it sure looks like you're naked under there."
Floyd smirked. "She didn't say we were wearing clothes -"
Charlie threw the blanket off and sat up, sending Floyd what had been intended as a glare but turned into a laugh, because he looked so pleased with himself.
"We need to talk," Mabs said once she was assured that Charlie and Floyd were not, in fact, either naked or having sex.
Charlie shut her eyes with a grimace. "Right now?"
"Yeah, right now."
"You're mad," Charlie stated, reopening her eyes.
Mabs scoffed. "You're damn right I'm mad."
"Well, I'm mad too," Charlie volleyed back. "Speirs -"
"This ain't about him," Mabs cut her off. "This is about you and the temper tantrums you keep throwin' every time you lose someone."
"Now, wait a second -" Floyd started, sitting up as well as he leaped to Charlie's defence.
"Shut up, Talbert," Mabs snapped. "Just 'cause you're her boyfriend now don't mean she needs you to speak for her." Her eyes swung back to Charlie. "Explain yourself," she demanded. "I've heard all about it from Ron and now I wanna hear about it from you."
Charlie's face soured as she thought about Speirs and how nonchalant he'd been as he stood over Janovec's body. "Oh, I'm sure Speirs had an awful lot to say about the entire affair."
"I'm not talkin' about him, Charlie," Mabs answered her, still hovering in the doorway. "He's a big boy, he can take a little dressin' down." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm talkin' about you."
"What about me?" Charlie hedged. So what if she threw 'temper tantrums' when she lost yet another one of her friends? She figured she was well within her rights to kick up a bit of a stink when the people around her weren't showing the dead their due respect - especially someone like Janovec, who had been nothing if not a beacon of light ever since he'd been assigned to the company.
Charlie had relied on Janovec for his sunshine more than she'd realised when he was still around. As a result, she not only missed him sorely in his absence, she mourned the fact that he would never know how much she'd cared for him. At least James and Skip and Alex had all known. How was Janovec to have realised he'd been a bright spot in the midst of so much darkness? She'd never told him so.
"When it happened in Bastogne," Mabs said, shutting the door behind her but not taking her eyes off of Charlie, "I gave ya the benefit of the doubt. 'Cause we all knew you were struggling in Bastogne, 'specially after what happened on Christmas Eve, and it was Skip and Alex. And they were both taken at the same time."
Charlie couldn't hold Mabs' gaze. Her eyes sank to the comforter in her lap. Memories of Bastogne were still, even all these months later, so sore. Thinking back on that time, without a doubt the darkest in her whole life, still made her feel so hollow it ached.
"But that didn't mean I liked it, Charlie. How you acted up after you lost 'em." Mabs shook her head. "And then there was Haguenau, when we lost Jackson and you disappeared for a whole night. Henry told me about that when I got back but I didn't say nothin', 'cause I figured you were past that." A bitter laugh. "But now this."
"Now what?" Charlie challenged.
"You," Mabs replied harshly. "Goin' off on the officers 'cause Janovec died when it weren't their fault -"
"Speirs was chewing gum!" Charlie argued. "He looked like he thought he had better things to be doing with his time and couldn't be bothered to be there! And Gene had to defend me to the regimental surgeon when he insinuated I didn't do enough, even though Janovec was dead when I got there. And Welsh was talking like he'd never seen nor heard of him in his entire life. It was all so... God!" She pushed her hair back impatiently. "They were standing over his body and talking like it was an annoyance to them, just more paperwork to add onto their pile! So, yeah, I did act out. I chewed them out for it. Because if they were going to act that disinterested then they shouldn't have been there, or they should have at least saved it for when they were alone."
Silence fell on the room.
"I am so sick," Charlie said into the thick tension in the air, "of losing all my friends. I am so sick of it. I didn't get close to any of the replacements out of fear of losing another person I cared about and the one person I let in, the one person I allowed myself to know - he's gone too! So don't try to reprimand me for reacting however I react when I lose yet another friend!"
Floyd laid a hand on her arm but she shrugged it off.
"I'm sorry I'm not the shrinking violet I was when we first met," Charlie said coldly, "but this is what the war has done to me." She gestured down the length of her frame. "And there's nothing you or me or anyone can do about it. So don't try."
With that, Charlie climbed out of the bed and crossed the room to the bathroom, then shut the door and locked herself in. There were no words of protest from the two people who knew her best, shocked into silence in the room she'd left behind.
She re-emerged five minutes later.
"I'm sorry," Charlie said, her eyes flitting between Mabs and Floyd though her words were mainly directed to Mabs. "I shouldn't have shouted and I shouldn't have gone off the rails like that yesterday, either." Then she turned to Floyd. "And, Floyd, I'm sorry for shrugging you off. I didn't mean to - well, I did mean to," she corrected herself. "But I shouldn't have meant to, and I definitely shouldn't have done it, so I'm sorry for that too."
Floyd gave her a small smile. "Come here, Freckles," he said quietly.
She came to sit next to him on the bed and looked back to Mabs to gauge her reaction.
"Why'd you react like that yesterday?" Mabs asked after a beat of silence. "You ain't usually one to flout authority."
Charlie's shoulders hunched in acceptance of this fact. "I think I was in shock," she said, though she didn't mean it as an excuse so much as an explanation. "You should've seen how it was when I got there..." She trailed off as she recalled coming upon the jeep and the troop transport collapsed in the ditch together, and Janovec pinned beneath the driver. "Janovec was already dead when I got to him but I didn't want to believe it. I kept trying to resuscitate him. I must have been at it for ten minutes at least before Gene pulled me off of him. And then I still didn't want to believe it. And then they had him laid out on a stretcher and the officers were there, and they're talking like, 'It was Private Janovec,' as if they wouldn't have recognised him just by his face - which they probably wouldn't have - and they were just talking like... like it was anyone. I don't know. And Speirs was chewing gum and he looked, just, bored, and the surgeon was talking like there was more I could have done and -" Charlie cut herself off and shut her eyes. She let herself draw in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then released it slowly. With it went the tension coiled tight inside of her. For the first time since she'd come upon the scene, she let herself properly breathe.
"So," Charlie said, reopening her eyes and speaking quietly into the silence of the room. She couldn't have said it just then, too wrapped up in her own mind and problems as she was, but she appreciated that Mabs and Floyd were being patient and giving her time to talk. "I shouldn't have done it," she continued. "I know that. Honestly, I can't even remember what I said, I just know it was bad. And I don't have any excuses for myself, but when I go back to work I'll apologise to everyone who deserves one." Her eyes sought out Mabs'. "Including Speirs."
Finally, Mabs let a tiny smile tug up her lips at the edges. "Y'know, I really don't care that you shouted at Ron, Charlie. That's not why I came here." She shook her head. "I was just worried about you." She crossed the room and came to sit beside Charlie on the edge of the bed, and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. "And, for the record, Ron ain't mad at you, either. When he told me about it he just said he thought I should check on you."
That made Charlie a little less mad at Speirs for his actions. But only a little.
"That was good of him," she said.
"Yeah," Mabs agreed with a short laugh.
"I'll still apologise," Charlie offered after a beat.
On either side of her, both Mabs and Floyd laughed.
"I'd be worried you weren't feeling good if you didn't," Mabs replied.
Charlie rested her head on Floyd's shoulder and Mabs gave her own shoulder a squeeze.
"I miss him so much already," Charlie confessed, and felt tears sting in her eyes. So far, she hadn't cried a single tear since losing Janovec. She'd thought she'd cried so much throughout the war that all of her tears had dried up, or else that she'd seen so much death that she'd become desensitised to it. But here the tears were, arriving when she was at her most vulnerable, but also at her most protected. Her safest. With her best friend and her boyfriend each holding her tightly, one of them on either side.