"O that 'twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!"
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Maud
-
It's daylight by the time we get back and our welcome is rather unceremonious because the Americans are all training. This was to be expected, however, so I take the time to shower and reflect. And then I write. For hours. Because now that we've burned that God forsaken place to the ground I want to finish writing everything that happened to me there. And I also want to write about the fact that we burned it. I want to document the fact that it's gone and that the world is an infinitely better place because of it and that even through that treacherous mission all of us are still alive. I honestly can't believe it.
In my writing marathon I end up making it all the way to my rescue - which is incredibly blurry, so I have to get Tom to help me remember what happened. He also gives me a play-by-play of how he got me out, and I write that too, because even though I was unconscious for it it deserves a place in my story, perhaps more so than anything else.
At some point when I'm writing I decide that I'm going to document everything; instead of finishing with my rescue I'm going to finish with my formal discharge, because it's coming. I know it is. It won't be like this forever and we will be let go. At some point they'll decide we've done enough, given enough, lost enough. And I'm waiting for it. I know it's coming.
Tom pulls me away from writing after a few hours, concerned that I've not slept a wink, and, admittedly, I crash the moment my head hits the pillow. All that adrenaline has caught up with me and I'm out like a light.
I'm not sure how much later it is when I'm shaken gently awake but I still feel like I haven't slept in weeks.
Someone's speaking to me but they may as well be speaking Russian for all I can comprehend what they're saying.
They persevere with, "Jules, wake up," and it's Thomas. Should've guessed.
I take my chances with still pretending to be asleep but he just shakes me again. "Jules, you have to wake up."
"I don't," I reply, burying my face into the pillow.
I can imagine the eye roll he must give me but I'm still yet to open my eyes. "Jules. Open your eyes."
"I'm tired."
"You need to be checked for concussion."
"Go away."
"Regretting your decision yet, Gene? She can be awfully grouchy when she's woken up."
I hear Gene laugh and then feel the mattress dip where he's obviously sat on it. "C'mon, chérie, I just need to check you over."
"I'm tired."
"That's the head trauma talking," Tom puts in helpfully. If my eyes weren't closed I would roll them.
"No, it's the staying up all night running through hallways and trying to get us all out of a shootout talking."
He huffs and plays his ace. "Juliette Chevalier, open your eyes right now or I'll march you to the hospital and you can explain to them what happened."
This has my eyes shooting open. "Fine! They're open."
"Good," he drawls with a smirk. "Over to you, Gene. Godspeed."
As soon as his back is turned I mutter, "Tosser," and he laughs before leaving.
When the door shuts behind him my eyes fall on Gene, who's looking down at me with the softest of smiles. "Ready?"
"So excited."
He laughs and shakes his head. "Follow my finger with your eyes, alright?" So I do, and it takes maybe a minute before he nods to himself. "Should be alright. Your reactions are fine." All that fuss for a minute's examination? Well, now I feel rather silly. "Let me check over that rib."
This earns a nervous round of giggles from me which has him furrowing his eyebrows. Regardless, just like I always do when he asks to check it, I lay back on the bed and lift up the hem of my top. "Trying to undress me, Gene?" I tease, trying to distract him from what is likely the most broken rib ever.
He grins, laying a hand across the bruised skin first to get me used to the touch. "What if I was?"
I giggle which makes him smile and then he carefully checks everything over. And it hurts so much. As soon as he prods at it I wince - it can't be helped. It felt like I'd shattered it when it happened.
"It's gotten worse," he informs me with eyebrows drawn together. "Somethin' happen?"
There's no skirting around it. "Bit of a fight with one guard and then I had to throw myself into concrete to get us out of a shootout with the Gestapo. It couldn't be helped."
"Juliette..." He's wearing that look of disapproval he likes to make when I get myself hurt.
"Gene," I begin levelly, "if I could've avoided it, I would have. Will needed help the first time and the second they had Martin as a prisoner. I wasn't just going to let them go through what happened to me. I couldn't -" A deep breath and let's calm down, shall we? Jesus. I'm an emotional wreck. "I couldn't just not do anything."
Gene sighs but his eyes have softened and he's looking at my face, now, as opposed to my bruises. "Just be careful, alright? It's set the recovery back about six weeks."
"A small price to pay, really," I supply mindlessly. This makes him breathe out a small laugh which, in turn, makes me grin. He can never stay angry at me anyway.
"Any other injuries I should know about?" he wonders, looking almost as though he's afraid to hear the answer.
A hand instinctively comes up to rest against my neck but there's not much he can do about that anyway, especially as the inevitable bruising likely hasn't shown up yet anyway. So I shake my head and hold that same hand out to him, which he takes, and pull him down to lay beside me.
"Are you free for the rest of the day?" I inquire as I bury my face in his neck. When Gene replies in the affirmative, I feign shock. "What? No inventory?"
He chuckles. "Spina drew the short straw today."
I laugh a little bit as he brushes a hand through my hair. "How was training?"
"Intense," he replies with a shrug. "It's like we're back to the beginnin' all over again." He shifts to look down at me and I can hear the small smile in his voice. "I got your note."
I return his smile, even though he can't see it. "You did?" He hums his affirmative. "I'm glad," I add, "I would've wasted my fancy hotel paper otherwise."
"Where'd you get it from?"
"Front desk," I reply nonchalantly, moving my head to rest on his chest so I can listen to his heartbeat. "I'm continuing my confessions. I thought that maybe writing about my interrogations in the third person and the past tense might help me to separate my past from my present. I'll still have the memories and it'll still be difficult but I think it's helping me to move on."
"Yeah?" he asks, and when I look up at him he's smiling in earnest.
I sit up to glance over at the desk and the stack of paper I've already filled that resides there. "Yeah," I affirm with a smile of my own.
"Would you -" he begins, sitting up himself, and then clears his throat. I already know what's coming. "Would you let me read 'em?"
I've thought about this already but never really drawn a conclusion. That's why I surprise myself when I reply without a second thought, "Yeah." I nod as though to reassure myself that I've made the right decision. "I'll give you the first half to read - the real confessions that I wrote when I was there - and you can read the second when they're finished."
His smile falters a little bit as his eyes follow my gaze, looking at the papers as well. I can tell what he's thinking just from looking at his face but I have a helping hand because I'm thinking it, too. What if he's gone by the time I'm finished?
The thought is a punch to the gut. It's a recurring one, of course, but every time I think it is seemingly more painful than the last. This time especially so because I know he's thinking it too. How do we always manage to find ourselves so terribly doomed?
When he glances down at me I lean up to kiss him and he accepts me with a hand cupping my cheek and the other hugging the small of my back close to him. It's sweet and innocent, like most of our kisses, until he deepens it and suddenly it's desperate.
We're running out of time. I know it and he knows it, so what's holding us back?
When he has me pressed into the mattress, lips exploring my neck whilst my hands slowly trace a map over his back, I decide that I want this with him. But not here.
"Gene," I whisper, hands pausing on his shoulders.
"Hm?" he hums but doesn't stop.
"Gene, we should go to your room."
He hums his assent but still doesn't stop. My head is spinning but I have enough good sense in me to know that if Tom walked in I would absolutely die, so I push Gene back gently by the shoulders. "Your room."
He kisses me quickly and all of a sudden jumps to his feet and picks me up in a bridal carry. All the way to his room I'm giggling, full of love and just genuinely happy. He kisses me after every few steps and from his smile I know that he feels the exact same way. So for the moment we don't have to worry about the Pacific. For the moment it's just us.