"Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
-
Juliette, Will, and Martin were all lounging in the living room when Tom entered, rather unceremoniously, to tell them they had new orders.
"We're jumping with the paratroopers again," he explained, holding up the envelope which contained their mission details. "Which means yet another wave of secret revealing. We should've just told the replacements from the start."
"What's the job?" Will asked.
"Operation Market Garden," Tom said. He looked down at the pieces of paper he was holding on top of the envelope. "We'll be jumping into Holland. Their job is to liberate Eindhoven and create an invasion route into northern Germany."
"How exciting," Martin commented drily.
"Unlike D-Day, this is a British plan -" Tom was interrupted by cheers, "and Montgomery is leading the Airborne part of it."
"Got to love old Monty," Jules said with a wry grin. "What will we be doing?"
"Well," Tom began, which already didn't bode well, "HQ has received reports from the vast majority of agents operating in the Netherlands that they're in dire need of reinforcements. We'll be jumping with the Americans so that the Germans don't pick up on any new spies entering Holland, and we'll help the yanks until they reach Eindhoven. From then on we have to hook up with another agent who'll give us further orders. It's the nature of the situation in Holland that information being passed via radio is limited. It's safest that it's passed on by word of mouth.
"We are, however," Tom continued, "being told to bring as many weapons as we can manage, so I reckon it'll have a bit to do with weaponising the Dutch resistance."
Jules hummed. "Good for them."
"Will we be sitting in on another yank briefing to break the news?" Will wondered.
"What, the news that we're gatecrashing again?" Tom asked with a laugh. "Probably. I'll have to talk to Nixon about it."
Jules shrugged. "Won't be as good a reaction as last time. We don't really know any of the replacements."
Tom nodded solemnly. "Most unfortunate."
Juliette and Thomas ventured out together a little while later in search of Nixon. They found him, as always, accompanied by Winters. Jules smiled when she saw Harry Welsh with them too. She had become rather fond of him.
"Harry!" she exclaimed as soon as she knew she was close enough for him to hear her.
"Jules!" he called back, mimicking her voice. She rolled her eyes. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" he asked with a grin.
"Do you know about Operation Market Garden yet?"
"Thomas!" Jules exclaimed and thumped him on the arm. "For a spy you're awfully good at being anything but discreet."
Nixon laughed. "Yeah, we just found out. We hear you're jumping with us again. Might as well make you honourary members of the company at this point."
"Thought we already were," Tom replied with a grin.
"We wanted to know whether we need to be there when you brief the enlisted," Jules went on to explain, looking to Nixon expectantly.
Nixon began to smirk. "The replacements don't know about you yet, do they?" Both Tom and Jules shook their heads. "Right, in that case then yes. I'll introduce you just like with D-Day, it'll be a lotta fun." He was wearing that cheeky grin again at the mere thought of eliciting a similar reaction to the one they'd gotten with their first reveal. Jules laughed.
"When's the briefing?" Tom asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Nixon shrugged and looked to Winters, who rolled his eyes. "2000 hours tonight," Winters told them. "Over in one of the tents we're using on the other side of the village."
"It's a date," Tom told him with a rakish grin which made Jules laugh. The pair of them bid the trio of officers goodbye and started back on their way across the village.
On their journey they came across none other than George Luz, who was wearing the same grin as always.
"You'll never guess what happened at the pub last night," he said after he'd approached them.
His smile was infectious, so Jules began smiling too. "What?"
"Buck and I won two packs of smokes off of Babe and Toye by pretending we're bad at darts."
Tom and Jules both let out low whistles. "Maybe you should be the spies, not us," Tom said with a laugh.
George brushed him away, still grinning. "Aw, stop, I'm blushin'." He looked behind him at a few of the other paratroopers before turning back, much less smiley. "We're, uh, movin' out again. Won't be coming back to England this time."
Jules giggled. "Aw, don't be so sad, George. We're coming with you."
"Jules!" Tom exclaimed, turning to her in astonishment. "You just told me off for not being discreet!"
"Well, this is George," she reasoned with a shrug. "Plus, he'll find out in a few hours anyway."
George was back to grinning again. "So you're jumping with us again?"
"Don't tell anyone," Tom told him, but he nodded. "We won't be with you the whole time - for us it's more of a way to get into occupied Holland without the elevated risk of being caught on site."
George nodded his understanding. "So after that that's it then?"
This sudden realisation was jarring and infinitely sadder than Jules had been expecting. She hadn't really put two and two together. "I suppose it is," she said, looking to Tom instinctively.
Tom nodded. They would have no real reason to stick with the company after they'd gotten their orders, and where they would be coming back to Aldbourne afterwards, the Americans wouldn't.
Jules had known there would come an end to their time with the yanks, but she hadn't thought it'd be so soon.
"When's the jump?" she asked, eyebrows furrowing together. She suddenly had the feeling that she was really running out of time.
"Two days' time," Tom replied, "but they're being locked into the airfield again tomorrow for secrecy purposes."
Jules nodded. "Right."
Tom laughed a little bit. "Got someone to see?"
"Always," she replied through a laugh. She turned to George and gave him a quick hug, bidding him goodbye and promising Tom she'd see him back at the house. She then headed back the way she'd just come, in search of a couple of Americans she still had things to say to.
She found one of them relatively quickly. "Floyd!"
The man in question turned immediately at the sound of his name, and smiled when he saw her. "Hey, Jules," he said, nodding to the group he was with before approaching her. "Decided you wanna try again?" If he hadn't been Floyd and if his tone hadn't been so clearly joking she would've really hit him.
"Shut up," she told him, but she was grinning. "Don't tell anyone, but I have foreknowledge of your next jump. We'll be jumping with you again but after that we'll be going our separate ways. I wanted to thank you again before we're back in a war zone."
Floyd brushed her away immediately. "Ah, come on. You don't gotta keep thankin' me."
Jules laughed. "Well, I really am grateful for what you did. So thank you all the same. Plus, I'll miss you a lot when you're gone."
"You mean when you're gone," he corrected, smirking. "Off doing whatever it is spies do these days."
Jules shook her head. "No, I mean when you're gone. We'll be coming back to Aldbourne. You won't." The thought of Aldbourne without the Americans was so suddenly sad she could feel tears spring to her eyes, but she pushed them back immediately; they still had some time left.
Floyd nodded. "True enough. Don't pick up any boys from the pub without me. That's our thing," he said.
Jules hit him lightly on the arm. "Would you sod off?! I'm trying to be nice!"
Floyd was laughing, and he shook his head at her. "If what you're trying to say is you'll miss me then I'll miss you too."
Juliette smiled and pulled him into a hug. Everything felt like it was ending much too fast.
When they pulled back he had his eyebrows furrowed. "Did you ever talk to the doc?"
"Hm," she hummed. "Kind of. I'm off to see him next."
Floyd rolled his eyes. "Tell him."
"I will!"
"I'm serious!"
"And so am I!" she replied, laughing. "Bye, Floyd. I'll see you tonight."
"That sounds much more romantic than you think it does," he commented through a smirk. She laughed but didn't turn around.
Now to find the second American she needed to see, who tended to be harder to find when she was actively seeking him out, but very easy to bump into.
As fate had it, she was wandering around for about fifteen minutes before she found Gene. She came upon him speaking to another medic, and was content to stand a ways away and pretend she wasn't waiting for him whilst he finished his conversation. Gene, however, knew her too well, and as soon as he noticed her leaning against a brick wall he ended his conversation politely and made his way over.
"Gene," she greeted with a smile, standing up straight as he approached her.
"Chérie," he replied, and she laughed.
"Not Juliette anymore?"
"Thought you liked when I call you chérie." He looked amused.
Jules giggled. "No, I do. I do." She shook her head. "I've heard you're moving out again."
He nodded, and his small smile fell. "We won't be comin' back this time." Straightforward, no beating around the bush.
Jules nodded, smiling slightly. "So I've heard. Not to worry, though, because we'll be jumping with you."
His eyebrows shot up comically fast. "You will?"
She was grinning now, purely because of his reaction. "Yeah. Can't tell you why, but you're going to be briefed on it later. We won't be with you for too long because we have our own orders, but it's a bit of extra time, at least."
He nodded, that tiny smile having disappeared again. "So next time you come back to England we won't be here."
Jules laughed a little bit though there was a discernible twinge of melancholy audible in it. "Don't make me cry, please." She shook her head. "Our field won't be the same without you."
"Our field?" he echoed, a smile tugging at his lips.
She laughed and looked away. "Yeah. That's how I think of it. Don't tell me you've been entertaining other girls there, too."
Gene laughed. "No, just you."
"Good." When she looked back at him he was watching her. She looked down at her shoes with a sad little laugh. "When we first came here I actively tried to avoid you lot, you know. I thought you were all just a bunch of rowdy Americans, cocky and loud and overly confident. Who would've thought I'd be so sad to say goodbye?"
Gene chuckled lightly and took ahold of one of her hands, which drew her eyes up to his. "It ain't goodbye yet," he said wisely.
She laughed and looked down. "No, you're right. I seem to have adopted a habit for being sad."
When she looked back up at him he looked sad, too, so she hugged him tightly. "I don't want you to go," she said into his shoulder, eyes filled with tears that she begged not to fall. Suddenly, she realised, it was much too late for them. She had wasted so much time in worrying about the past that she had ruined everything with him. She could kiss him now and tell him everything and it would only be more painful because she'd never get to do it again.
"Chérie," she heard him mutter. He tucked his face into her shoulder, too.
"Don't go," she said quietly, and that made a tear slip out, because of course he had to go. It wasn't up to him. "Gene, don't go."
"Chérie," he said again, and she really willed herself not to cry. He had never seen her properly cry and she didn't want to change that now.
When she sniffled, entirely accidentally, he pulled back only slightly and his expression softened. He tilted his head to the side, a frown on his lips, and gently wiped her tears away. "Don't cry," he said. She laughed sadly, because that was so sweet it really wasn't helping. "Don't cry. We've still got time."
But they didn't. Not really.
When he cupped her face gently in his hands she was silently begging him to kiss her. She wouldn't do it herself, because it would be too painful a memory to look back on; getting to taste the forbidden fruit once, but never again. That would be too hard. But she thought that if he did it then that would be okay. That would be something lovely that she could remember. Still painful, but she could never be disappointed with him, even if he did something that inflicted pain on her.
He leant down, eyes flicking between her eyes and her lips, and she held her breath because finally, finally, this was it. He was going to kiss her and it would never happen again but at least she would know what it was like. And when she was back in occupied Europe she would be able to smile at the memory and say that once upon a time she had been kissed by the most beautiful boy in the world, and how precious that had been.
Juliette was watching his eyes closely, even when they closed. She closed hers, too, and right before their lips were about to meet he pulled back suddenly. She dropped her head and sighed, still holding onto him.
It would never happen for them, but at least she could be content in the knowledge that in some other place and at some other time, it would have. That was more than she deserved, at least.
"Gene," she whispered when he looked away. He removed his hands from her face and took a step back, which hurt more than everything put together.
"We can't," he said simply, staring at a single magpie that was sitting on a rooftop a little ways away. "It'd..." he trailed off.
"Be too painful," she finished for him quietly. She was watching that same magpie now, too.
"But..." he started, and she nodded. But he wants to, and that's enough. It has to be enough.
"Chérie," he said after a short pause, and let his eyes go back to her. "Juliette."
She shook her head, but she was smiling a little bit. "Don't make me cry." Again.
He let out a short laugh. "I..." Then he sighed, and when she looked back at him he was smiling. He took her hand once more. "You're beautiful."
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.
Jules shook her head again. "You have the most beautiful soul of anyone I've ever met," she told him, because it's true. "Will you think of me one day, when you're back home? Just once in a while?"
Gene nodded. "I'll have a hard time thinkin' of anythin' else." This made her giggle. "Will you think of me when you're back home, too?"
There were no traces of a smile now. "I'll think of you until my dying moment," she promised instead, because she knew she'd never go back home. He seemed to understand her meaning anyway.
And that was it. There was nothing else, really, to say, and that seemed to be a good place to leave it.
Juliette got up onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving her lips to linger there for a few moments before she pulled back. When she stood before him once more, holding onto both of his hands tightly, she silently willed him to smile. She wanted so desperately for him to give her that beautiful, earnest smile once more. And he did.
She gave him one back, which she knew wasn't even half as special, but his eyes softened anyway. She squeezed his hands and he squeezed them back and then she turned to walk away, knowing that they still had a bit of time but understanding that that was it for them, really. And she wanted to have their goodbye be in Aldbourne, where it had all started, as opposed to in an airfield surrounded by buzzing nerves and loud soliders, or in Holland where she had no idea what would happen.
Jules had no idea how time had passed her by so quickly. It seemed like just yesterday she was arriving in Aldbourne in the early hours of the morning, so excited to be back on home soil and, above all, trepidatious about the Americans. She thought of the first time she had met Gene, so unaware of all he would come to mean to her, and smiled slightly.
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.