"There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'." - Virginia Woolf, The Waves
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Juliette awoke disoriented, to the best sound in the world; her friends.
"Who the bloody hell did the laundry?!"
She didn't hear what the reply was, but Martin's enraged voice soon erupted up through the floorboards once again.
"My shirt is pink, William. My white shirt. Is pink. William."
"How's it white if it's pink?" she heard Thomas call down from what sounded like the stairs. She stifled a laugh. Those were her boys alright.
After waiting a few more minutes to blink away the bleariness Juliette carefully rolled onto her side to push herself up into a seated position, and waited until her side wasn't burning anymore. It was frustrating how long it took her to hobble her way to the door, but thankfully the bathroom was the room next to hers. If it had taken her much longer to get there she wasn't sure she'd have made it; sleeping for what she assumed was a full day meant that her bladder felt full-to-bursting.
When she was finished she opened the bathroom door again to find all four men gathered in the hallway outside, waiting for her. She paused in her step and quirked an eyebrow at them. "Am I supposed to take a bow or..?"
"You shouldn't be out of bed," Alexis told her sternly.
"I needed the toilet!" she protested, throwing her arms up in her exasperation.
"Then call one of us to help you," Martin told her.
"No offence, lads, but I'd rather die."
"I don't mean in the actual toilet!" Martin exclaimed. A horrified expression appeared on his face as realisation of her assumption dawned on him. "Jesus!"
Martin guided her back to her room and helped her lay down again, making sure she was comfortable before sitting back and looking down at her.
She fidgeted slightly under his gaze. "What?"
"I'm trying to decide whether you can be trusted to be left on your own," he told her, eyebrows furrowing in concentration as he contemplated it.
She sighed. "I can. I'll get bored really quickly though," she admitted with a half-shrug. He laughed.
"Well, there's not much I can do in the way of visitors. I'll see what I can do about some books though."
She beamed. "Really?! Thank you!"
"Yeah, yeah." He brushed her away. "The yanks were looking for us whilst we were in Bordeaux, apparently," he then told her. He glanced up at the window for a moment before rising to his feet and crossing the room to open the curtains. Light came flooding in immediately and Juliette had to squint against it for a few moments whilst her eyes adjusted. Martin gazed down at the street below before coming to sit back on the bed again. "They wanted to know why we dropped off the face of the planet for a couple of days."
Juliette laughed. "I suppose they were looking to go to the pub again?"
Martin smiled and nodded. "They want us to go again tonight but Tom's declined on our behalf, for obvious reasons."
Jules frowned. "Don't miss out on my account. I'll be fine." Martin raised his eyebrows at her and she smiled, amused. "Plus, I wouldn't put it past Alex to not be wanting to go. He'll be around if I need him."
"Even so, we're not gonna go out without you, are we?"
"Why not?" she challenged, crossing her arms.
Martin laughed. "What, we're all gonna go out on the piss while you're sat in bed at home reading books with about fifty holes in your stomach? Fat chance."
Juliette rolled her eyes but she was smiling. "As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I don't see why my condition is any reason for everyone to be on house arrest. I reckon if anything you'd better go otherwise we'll arise suspicion."
There was a knock at the bedroom door and Martin shot her a look. "This conversation isn't over," he promised.
Juliette laughed and watched him leave, Tom leading Gene in in his place.
"Gene!" she exclaimed upon his entering, not having expected the American medic to be her next visitor.
"Hey, chérie," he smiled. He lingered by the door as Tom shut it behind him.
"What am I? The poor orphan boy you've taken into your home as a servant?" Tom asked. Juliette rolled her eyes at his dramatics.
"How you feelin'?" Eugene inquired. He approached the bed tentatively and scanned all of the visible parts of her for ailment. She smiled.
"Better. Hurts to move but other than that it's not giving me any grief."
"Good. That's good. Can I take a look?" He gestured to her stomach and she nodded, sitting up with Tom's help and lifting up the hem of her shirt.
Gene gingerly peeled back the bandages and nodded to himself, murmuring things Juliette couldn't make out as he made his way from left to right across the wounds to check the healing.
"Looks good," he told her. Relief was evident in his face, and he nodded once to Tom who stood on the other side of the bed. "No signs of infection and they're healin' well."
As he began to change her bandages a thought dawned on Jules. "Hey, Gene?"
"Hm?"
"Am I your first patient?"
He rolled his eyes and didn't look up from his work, but a small smile tugged at his lips. "Yeah. Y'are. But don't be proud of it."
"Oh, I'm very proud of it," she retorted with a triumphant smile. "I'm like work experience for you, no?"
Gene shook his head but he was chuckling to himself as he continued to bandage up her wounds. Juliette saw this as a complete win.
"So, you speak French?" she spoke up into the silence that followed. She felt slightly awkward with both Gene and Tom staring down at her.
Gene nodded and glanced up at her face briefly before continuing his work. "Yeah. Half-Cajun." He paused, seeming to contemplate whether or not he should say what he was going to say next. Finally, he cleared his throat and studiously avoided her eyes whilst paying particularly close attention to the bandages. "You're French, huh?"
Juliette looked to Thomas, who shrugged. There was no point in trying to deny it now, not after what she'd said whilst on the morphine.
"Yeah," she admitted, looking to the window and closing her eyes against the sunlight. "Born in Bordeaux, moved to England when I was eleven. Though for all intents and purposes I was born and bred in Aldbourne, okay?"
Gene laughed quietly. "Yeah, I gotcha. No one on the planet or I'm executed and all that."
This earned a laugh out of both Tom and Jules, and Gene smiled to himself as he carried on working.
"Do you miss France?" he wondered, watching her in his periphery.
Juliette shrugged. "Difficult to miss it when I'm there so often."
Realisation dawned on his face. "That's where you got these, huh?" He gestured to the wounds.
She nodded and shrugged. "Occupational hazard." Thomas snorted.
A short silence fell over the trio as Eugene finished bandaging her up. When he was finished he sat back on the bed and Juliette pulled her shirt back down again. Gene's eyebrows were furrowed, as they so often were, and Juliette could see the conflict in his expression. He wanted to ask her something, she realised.
"What is it?" she asked him. She ducked her head in an attempt to meet his eyes, which were locked firmly on the bedsheets.
He looked up at her and pursed his lips, exhaling loudly before finally resolving to just ask. "Is Penny your real name?"
Juliette sucked in a breath and looked to Thomas, who was already looking at her. Jules looked hesitantly back at Gene, lips puckered in a physical display of her discomfort at the question. But there was no point lying. He already knew she was a spy.
"No," she finally told him through a quick exhale, the word emerging breathy and short. "Standard precaution," she explained. He nodded.
"We can't tell you our real names in case you slip up in front of the others," Thomas added, and Gene nodded again.
"Sure. I was just wonderin'." Then he sent Juliette a small smile. "Anyway, everythin's lookin' good, but you gotta stay still, alright? Consider it formal bedrest."
"How long?" she inquired. He shrugged once more.
"Seven days minimum, I'd say. Depends on how fast it all heals. I'll keep checkin' up on ya and I'll let you know as soon as I do."
Juliette smiled. "Thank you, Gene. Really. You didn't have to help but you did. I hope you know how much I appreciate it."
He shrugged once more, ducking away from her gaze and watching his shoes as if they were suddenly very interesting. Both Juliette and Thomas were amused by how bashful he had become.
"'S'alright," he told her, nodding to the both of them before seeing himself out.
Once the front door had closed Juliette turned to Thomas with a smile. "So, I hear you're going out tonight."
"What? No, I told Martin that -"
Jules laughed. "No, I know. I think you should go, though. They'll get suspicious if you don't. And Alex will be here if I need him."
Tom shook his head. "It wouldn't feel right for us to go out when you're stuck here like this."
Juliette sighed. "It's fine! I'm telling you I don't mind. After the colossal hangover I got last time I probably wouldn't have gone anyway." This wasn't true and they both knew it, but Tom appreciated her attempts to diminish his guilt. "Send the yanks my love and tell them I'm sick."
"Of what?"
"To the back teeth of you. I don't know, make it up. Garner as much sympathy for my case as you can so that next time I'm out I'll get loads of free drinks. Think of it as seeking donations for charity."
"You're awful," Thomas accused, but he was laughing at her.
Jules grinned. "But..?"
He shook his head. "But I am nothing if not a good citizen willing to encourage others to donate to charity."
Juliette cheered at her success and Tom laughed once more. "How do you always manage to get your way?" he wondered.
Jules shrugged. "Because I'm so bloody cute?" Tom laughed and she grinned. "Make sure you get Will to go with you. I'm quite sure Martin can be swayed but Will felt so guilty about what happened, I just want him to forget about it for a bit."
Thomas nodded. "I told him that it wasn't his fault but I don't think it convinced him much. He still feels so bad." He sent her a reassuring smile. "I'll get him to come," he resolved, confident. "And if he refuses I'll just send him in here - you always seem to get your way one way or another."
Jules grinned. "Looks like Alex and I are having a sleepover tonight!"
Thomas laughed loudly. "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he set up camp on your floor just to make sure you're alright. I think he'll have a stroke if he sees you out of bed again."
Juliette fiddled with the bedsheets for a moment, suddenly more sombre at the mention of Alexis' worry. "Is he angry with me, do you think?" she asked quietly, looking up at Thomas with knitted eyebrows.
Tom's expression softened and he looked away for a moment, taking in the light from the window as he seemed to fight against saying something. Juliette wondered briefly on what he would have to hide but Thomas' reply cut off that particular train of thought. "I don't think he's angry. I think he's just..." He cut himself off, deciding against admitting what he was about to say. "I don't know, really," he said instead. "He doesn't like it when you try to play the hero."
Jules stared down at the blanket looking very much like a child that had just been reprimanded by its parents for some wrongdoing or other. "I don't mean to irritate him -" she began.
Thomas sighed, cutting her off. "No, Jules, you don't irritate him. He just worries about you a lot."
She shrugged, not really understanding it. Thomas didn't even worry about her to the extent that Alexis did, and her and Thomas had been through everything together.
She decided that she would never understand Alexis and his actions. He was the hardest on her out of all of them, constantly berating her for this mistake or that, and he was always reminding her the rules of being undercover as though he knew better than she did, even though she was the specialist. But he also always made sure that she knew that he had formulated the plans in the way that would keep her the safest, and always made sure she had back up, never sending her in alone.
She would never understand him, and perhaps forever be slightly intimidated by him, though she'd never admit it. But she was glad to have him as her commanding officer; there was no one better for the job. That she was certain of.