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quill-pen · 1 year ago

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Storm Shelter

I guess this could be considered a sibling to my 'A Good Man' ficlet. Enjoy!

*drags out infamous iron chair again* @rom-e-o , you might want this again....

Summary: A flashback to her past throws Bess into a spiral.

Rating: T

Warnings: Child abuse (past), harsh language, panic attack, angst

Theme:

youtube

"Oh, m'Lady!" Ida squealed. "You look positively radiant!" Seated on the bench of Bess' vanity, the little, blonde lady's maid layered her hands over her heart as she stared at her mistress as she stood in front of the mirror, looking herself over. Her eyes were actually a bit misty.

Bess chuckled. "I don't know about that," she remarked humbly. "But even I have to admit I do look... rather attractive." She twirled just a bit to get a better look at her new dress.

"More than attractive, m'Lady, I assure you," Ida insisted. She and Bess had a very... unusual bond for a Lady and Lady's maid; being comprised almost purely of friendship (even if Ida's training had almost permanently hammered into her the impulse to refer to Bess as "m'Lady"--they were working on that). Ida certainly never would have made such passionate declarations or sat in the presence of her last employer, Mrs. Dickens. She would have been thrown out on her bum. "Mr. Scrooge will certainly be at a loss for words when he sees you in that dress on Saturday." A sly smirk pulled at the woman's thin lips. "Dare I say, you two may not make it to the party at all."

"Oh, hush, you!" Bess laughed, waving her hands dismissively. "I thought lady's maids were supposed to be polite and pure--working too hard to think of such things."

"That's just what we want you to believe."

"Ah-ha! I knew it was all a sham! I'm onto you, Smith."

Ida laughed. Then her face suddenly lit up and she clapped her hands together. "Ooh! I have a brilliant idea to make you look even more beautiful, m'Lady!" She shot to her feet and hastened out of the room and down the hall to her room. She was back a few seconds later, holding a little compact. "I bought this for myself for special occasions-" Bess translated that to mean, "to make Howard the launderer take more notice" and smiled, "-but I'm dying to see what this shade would look like on you, m'Lady." She flipped open the pretty little tin to reveal a slab of rich red coloring.

Bess quickly tried to wave her away. "Oh, Ida, I couldn't possibly--that lipstick is yours! You bought it with your hard-earned money!"

Ida grinned. "Yes, it is," she agreed. "My own to do with and share as I wish, and I want to share it with you. At least this once--just to see how it will look on you. Once we find out, we can go out and buy you your own!"

Bess shook her head. It hardly seemed fair to use someone else's luxury items when she could so easily afford her own. "Oh, Ida, I don't know..."

"Please?" Ida asked, almost beseechingly. She put on her most winning smile and batted her eyes. "Just this once to see if my color theory is correct?"

Bess' lips pulled together in a firm line and twitched as she considered the proposition. "Oh... I suppose just this once wouldn't hurt. Just to see if it's worth running out to buy myself one." She couldn't help but smile when A beaming grin parted her friend's lips.

"I assure you, it will be worth it, m'Lady. I'm never wrong with color."

"Right. So... you just want to paint it on me so I can be your life-sized dress-up doll like always?"

Ida smirked impishly and shrugged. "Perhaps."

Bess snorted. "I knew it." Then with a melodramatic sigh, she walked over and plopped down onto her vanity bench. "Very well," she said, "paint me up like a clown if you wish."

Ida snickered and plucked up the compact's brush. Swirling the soft bristles around in the waxy red paint, she approached her mistress and then brought the brush to Bess' mouth. With a delicate hand, she painted the red coloring onto Bess' full lips, tracing the outline of them expertly. "Oh, m'Lady, this looks wonderful on you. It goes so perfectly with your skin tone."

Bess turned and examined herself in the mirror, pursing her lips to get a good look. Ida was right again; even Bess couldn't deny the shade was very becoming in her lips. Like a beautiful red rose. "It is a rather pretty shade," Bess remarked with a smile. She rubbed her lips together to smooth out the coating. "What's it called?"

"Classic Rose," Ida answered cheerily.

All at once, a horrible sense of dread slammed into Bess like a runaway coach. Her stomach tensed as though she'd been punched in the gut and went sour, nausea washing over her. Her heart began to race like it was trying to beat itself out of a rib cage and escape. And her mind... Her mind began to race with thoughts she'd buried away long ago--memories she tried to forget. And they wouldn't be pushed away or silenced again:

Beatrice Sullivan stood beside the vanity in Bess' bedroom, an open tin compact of rosey red coloring in her hand. Her usually pretty face was twisted in disgust. "Classic Rose?" she read the name inside imprinted inside the lid. The dark-haired woman snorted derisively. "'Classic Whore" is more like it!" She turned cold, steely gray eyes on her daughter and scowled down her nose. "Only prostitutes paint their lips with such a color! And only sluts paint their lips at thirteen! Is that what you want to be, Elizabeth--a slut?!

Curled up as small as possible with her knees tucked to her chest as she sat on the edge of her bed, Bess peeked up from behind her thick curtain of hair. Her lips were as red as the paint in the compact; undeniable proof of her shameful actions. Tears were starting to creep down her freckled cheeks. "N-No, Mama!" she trembled, her body shaking. She was terrified--absolutely terrified of her mother's wrath.

"It appears to me that you do!" Bea snapped back. She was positively livid. "Otherwise I wouldn't be holding a tin of lip-paint, would I?! Where did you even get such a thing? This compact is much too fancy and expensive looking to be something you could afford. I know you're not making that much working at the mercantile or Mr. Dower's farm. And you haven't worked long enough at either place to save enough money." Bea's face hardened her glare narrowing. "Are you a thief, Elizabeth?" she asked, her accusing tone hinting that she'd already made the decision herself. "Are you a thief as well as a slut?!"

Bess gazed desperately up at her mother. "No, Mama!" she wailed again.

"Then where did it come from?" Bea demanded.

Bess opened her mouth and closed it again.

"Elizabeth? Where did you get this paint, Elizabeth Felicity?"

"I-I... um..."

"If you don't answer me, I'm getting the switch. One. ... Two. ... Thr-"

"George gave it to me!"

Bea stopped short, practically freezing. "What?"

Bess cowered further into her protective ball. "G-George gave it to me, for my birthday. I told him I was getting made fun of by all the other girls for not wearing lipstick. He gave it to me for my birthday."

Bea looked more enraged than before. "George?! He knows I don't want you wearing makeup while you live in this house!"

Bess' chin trembled. "But, Mama, all the girls are trying on and wearing lipstick now! And you've already let Josie wear some and she just turned nine! Ack!" The girl's head snapped around from her mother's hard smack and she fell back on the mattress.

"Don't you get smart with me! And don't you bring your sister into this--it is not even remotely the same thing! Your sister is a child playing dress-up with makeup, not painting herself up like a harlot to attract boys and men!"

Bess sobbed uncontrollably. "But, Mama, I'm not doing that! I just like it because it's pretty and fun--I swear to God!"

Looking positively livid, Bea reached out and grabbed the teen by the arm, yanking her onto her feet. She slapped her again, making the girl scream. "You watch your tongue, little hussy!" With that, she dragged Bess out of her room, out of the house, and over to the tank at the barn. Hardly giving the girl a chance to draw breath, Bea grabbed her daughter by the hair, forced the child's face down into the water, and held her there, for a moment, before yanking her back up, gasping and spluttering and crying for her to stop. "No daughter is mine is going to look like a tramp while she's under my roof!" Ripping off her apron, Bea began to scrub with brutal savagery at Bess' lips, trying to wipe off the lipstick. Bess cried and pleaded for her to stop, that she was hurting her, that she promised she wouldn't wear lipstick again, but Bea wasn't listening. Or she didn't care. Successfully smearing the makeup into a big, red blotch around her daughter's lips, Bea dunked the girl again. ""Classic Rose' is not permitted in this house--do you understand, Elizabeth Felicity?!" She scoured Bess' face until the smeared lip paint was not the only reason the girl's face was red and splotchy.

"Y-Yes, Mama! I promise! I promise I'll never wear it again for as long as I live!"

Apparently not satisfied with that, Bea moved to dunk the child again, carelessly knocking Bess' head against the side of the tank as she did so and causing her nose to bleed. Bess cried out in pain. Bea didn't seem concerned and shoved Bess into the water regardless.

Ida watched with some alarm as Bess stared straight into the mirror, dark eyes unfocused and unseeing what was right in front of her. The dark-haired woman had suddenly turned into a statue; the maid wasn't even sure her mistress was breathing! "M-M'Lady?" she gently called. No answer came, and the little woman reached out to put a small hand on a broad shoulder. "M'Lady, are you al-"

"Don't touch me!" Bess screeched. She lurched away from Ida as if she'd scalded her shoulder again; her tone of voice was utterly desperate and terrified. Jumping to her feet, the American knocked the vanity bench over with a clatter and scrambled around the edge of her vanity to crouch down as small as she could behind it so that it formed a barrier between Ida and herself. Tears instantly flooded her eyes and poured down her cheeks. Her heart raced in her chest as Bess struggled to breathe under both the tightening in her chest and the nausea that had dropped into her stomach like a rock; she felt she were about to be sick she was so anxious!

Ida stared in alarm, clutching her lipstick tightly. "M'Lady?!"

"Please, don't touch me!" Bess begged, voice small and frightened and childlike. "Please don't hurt me! I won't wear it again! I won't were it ever again--I promise, Mama! I promise!"

At those words, Ida felt her heart sink as she finally came to understand. Her heart went out to her mistress. "Oh, M'Lady, I'm so sorry."

❥━━━━༺♡༻━━━━❥

It wasn't the most unusual thing, anymore, for Ebenezer Scrooge to enter the door of his home and find no one there to greet him. Ever since Bess had officially become a full-time midwife and gained a notable reputation as one she was being called out more and more often and was gone whenever he returned home for lunch or for the day. If that was the case, Ebenezer usually found a little note for him left on the desk in his office. This time, just like there'd been no Yankee to greet him at the door, there was no note to greet him on his desk.

Ebenezer raised a brow and hummed. Odd. That wasn't like Bess. Even if she hadn't time to scrawl him a letter, she left word with Ida and Ida greeted him at the door with it, but even Ida hadn't been there to meet him either. Had they possibly gone out shopping? No. Bess would definitely have left a note then.

"Mr. Scrooge!" Ida's urgent voice echoed distantly. "Mr. Scrooge!"

Ebenezer spun on his heel and sprinted back to the front hall, a pit forming in his stomach. There was only one reason Ida would sound so upset, and it was that something must have been wrong with his beloved wife. Entering the hall, he looked up to see Ide leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs, panting hard and looking worried. "Ida! What is it?!" He was taking the steps nearly three at a time.

"I-It's... Bess," the woman panted.

"Yes?"

"I... We were... testing a lipstick... shade... and..." Ida trailed off to puff and shake her head as if she were at a loss for words. "Something set her off," she continued. "She started screaming and crying, and she's acting like she's not here. She... She keeps mentioning her mother."

That was all Ebenezer needed to hear before he was sprinting again, barrelling through the halls and up the stairs to the third floor and to the master bedroom. The door was already, mercifully, open and he rushed in, pausing just long enough in the center of the room to scan it and find his wife huddled behind the mirror between the dresser and wardrobe. Ebenezer's heart broke at the sight: Bess curled up as small as possible on the floor, practically swimming in the billowing skirts of her dress, violently trembling as she clamped her hands over her ears, babbling through almost incoherent sobs and cries that she "was sorry" and "would be a good girl from now on". There were smears of red around her mouth and on her wrists and forearms, and for a second, the Englishman feared she might have somehow hurt herself. Then her heard Bess mention "lipstick" and remembered what Ida had told him, and that fear was quickly soothed.

"Oh, Bess." Moving slowly, Ebenezer quietly approached his panic-stricken wife. "Bess, Darling? Sweetness?" He shifted the mirror and knelt down beside the woman. Of its own accord one of his hands lifted to gently brush long fingers over Bess' quivering shoulder and settled steadily and warmly there even as she flinched under the touch. "Bess," Ebenezer murmured again, shifting closer. "Shh. It's okay." He gently grabbed one of her arms and managed to tug it away from her ear. "It's okay. You're all right, Bess--she's not here. Your mother's not here. She's not here, Sweetness, it's all right. You're safe. Shh, you're safe." He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Bess' shoulder before bringing his lips beside her ear and whispering yet again, "You're safe, She-Wolf." He kissed her temple. "I promise, you're safe."

Bess sobbed harshly and shook her head. "No!" she croaked. "No, I can still hear her! I can still hear her calling me a 'slut'! 'Whore'!"

Tears starting to prick his eyes from hearing such harsh words in conjecture with his wife--and coming from her own mouth, no less--Ebenezer slipped an arm around the woman's shoulders and gently pulled her into him. "Shh, I know," he murmured, wrapping both arms about her and snuggling her close against his chest. He tucked her head under his chin and started rocking her. "I know, Bess."

Bess sobbed into his waistcoat, clutching at him desperately. She continued: "'Harlot'! 'Tramp'!"

"Shh, no, Bess. No, none of those words are true. None of them."

"I tried to get it off! I tried to wipe the lipstick off before she saw me, but it wouldn't come off!"

"I know, Darling. It's all right."

"Please don't let her see me like this! She'll hurt me again if she sees me like this! Please don't let her see me like this!"

"No, she won't. She won't ever hurt you again, Bess, I promise you. She's gone, Dear One--forever. And even if she weren't, I would never let her come near you or hurt you again. I'll never let anyone hurt you, She-Wolf, not ever. You're safe. I have you--you're safe. I promise."

For the next several minutes, Bess just wailed her heart out into her husband's chest, holding onto him for dear life. And Ebenezer simply let her, gripping her back just as tightly as he gently swayed her and murmured comfort and reassurance into her ear. He peppered her head with soft kisses. The only thing he could do in these situations, he'd discovered long ago back when he and Bess had been friends, was to let Bess cry her way through it, and simply be there to hold and speak gentle, sweet things to her until she finally came out the other side. He didn't know how long that would take. He didn't know if he would be late back to work. He didn't know if he'd be able to get up from the floor after this or if his knees would lock up, but it didn't matter. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered at that moment was Bess, and she would have his undivided attention until they'd managed to steer her through this storm. And they would. They'd just need some time.

Ebenezer smoothed a hand softly over Bess' hair as he nuzzled into it to kiss her crown. Closing his eyes, he focused on pouring every ounce of love and affection he had for his wife into every kiss, every touch, every caress, and every word he spoke. Bess had questioned her entire life if her mother had ever truly loved her: She would not worry that same question when it came to him. "I love you. I love you, Bess Scrooge--so much. My Sweetness. My sun, moon, and stars. My beautiful and perfect She-Wolf. Let it go, Darling. You're safe--I have you--let it go. Let it all go, I'm right here. I'm here."

Bess' sobs were starting to decrease in ferocity, but she still had a ways to go before she cried herself out. "I'm sorry, Ebenezer!" she gasped.

"Shh," her beloved quieted her. "You need not apologize, Love. I promised you 'for better or worse', remember?"

"I thought I was past this!"

"I know--it's all right."

"I thought I'd moved on from her!"

"I know, Bess. Shh, I know. And you will move on--one day. But for now, let's just focus on right now, hmm? Let's get you through right now together."

That idea--the idea of the man she loved holding her and supporting her through this painful emotional turmoil that she had so often had to fight through herself for years--was enough to draw forth a fresh, painfully hot wave of tears from the woman. Returning to incoherent wails, Bess buried her face into Ebenezer's chest and started up with the crying all over again.

And her husband was more than content to hold her close to his heart so full of her love for her and be her rock in this raging, stormy sea. Through soft kisses and touches, he let her know that she wasn't alone. And she never would be again.

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Imagine your f/o holding you in whatever way they can or just being in the room with you while you cry. Encouraging you to release all those pent up negative emotions. Being your rock for however long it takes for you to feel better.

proship/comship DNI

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therealslimshakespeare · 9 months ago

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Those Who Can || integrated Female Air Force series

Introductory part 1: Flintenweiber, or “Rifle Broads”.

Summary: The American War Effort had conceded to the enlistment and commissioning of women into the Air Force at semi-integrated status. Deemed a more reliable if not safer combat post, the going rank of officer in the Air Force was intended to secure fair treatment and combatant status for these women, as it had for their male counterparts. Like most things in war -or life if one is a woman- such recognition must be fought for.

Authors Note: this is an Au, obviously, and I intend for the de-segregation in the force to not be entirely full, in fact in some ways they would mirror that of the Tuskegee Red Tails where they were held back from many opportunities and placed at a disadvantage, to say the least. However, as this is primarily a POW fic that aspect only effects their reception into the Stalag and the timeline of their crashes.

Inspo: thanks to all of y’all who contributed with suggestions and advice on this fic. I want to say that I based a great deal of the brutal treatment and indignity heaped on these fictional OC’s on the true and horrific treatment of the Soviet Female Soldiers taken as POWs. Taking into consideration that American ties would give these OC’s some leverage, I have moderated these horrors if anything, however as I intend for these girls to be some of the first of their kind, they in many ways endure the brunt of the cruel initiation. If you’ve got any questions or suggestions about this, have at the inbox.

Warnings: 18+ for disturbing content. War, brutality, cruelty, and references to sexual violence. Specifics: a woman’s head is forcefully shaved, a woman is kicked to death, a dog turned loose, concentration camps, brief infighting between Soviet’s and Americans, past tense illusions to rape which are underplayed and may be consequently more disturbing to some. Quite angsty ok?? It’s women at war. Rampant misogyny by Nazis.

Familiar faces: Gale Cleven, Benny Demarco, John Brady, “Hambone” Hamilton

Original Characters: Lt. Maureen Kendeigh (bombardier), Lt. Colonel Ida Brady, Lt. Tallulah Smith

If Maureen Kendeigh heard the word “degenerate” used one more time in regards to her profession, her sacrifice and skill, -she just might do something regrettable.

By this point she was ready to get off this cattle car and go back to talk with Interrogator Glasses about stupid and unnerving shit like why the clock in the mess hall at Thorpe Abbots had a broken arm. Her distressed inner monologue of “how did he know that??” at the time was preferred to this newest method of demoralization: death by aspersion and suspense.

It was nice to be back with the girls, ones she knew and ones from other squadrons. But that held a misfortune too, the fact that it was just the girls, still not a single male crew member in sight. Apparently the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe were having a spat over who got to keep them, these Flintenweiber: “Rifle Broads”.

In the meantime Maureen and her fellows got punted back and forth between the two institutions like unwanted stepchildren. First the horrible isolation but humane treatment of the Air Force interrogation cells. Then back to the prison where all bets were off and the hope of safety came from a herd-like defense of each other against the ever more erratic guards. In these holdings, if one of their members hadn’t been executed by a pistol to the temple by end of day, it was considered a successful defense by the whole. All other atrocity, indignity and assault were unbearable’s that required bearing for the time being until the Luftwaffe took them back.

And then handed them back over.

And on and on it went.

It was effective, Maureen gave them that, after each hosting by the Gestapo, the girls were softer, tenderized and more susceptible to any deal that might procure them a shred of honor and safety. Only Ida Brady, the most senior amongst them at the incomprehensible rank of Lt. Colonel, had held ranks together, spine of steel and bearing more terrifying than most men’s, she’d fought for every grueling respect of rank they had been afforded. Even if it landed them in harsher conditions, worse interrogations -anything to ensure that what happened to her girls were considered as war crimes against lawful combatants when the time came for justice.

But they’d been collecting the downed girls and holding them apart like prized anomalies while conflicting orders came in from Berlin, and while the Red Cross fussed regarding combatant status. Now they had a tidy number collected, well over twenty by the time Maureen saw Ida Brady pushed into the cell, having been downed with a significant portion of them after Munich.

But now they hadn’t seen Brady in over a day. Not since they’d been loaded on this rail car headed to god knows where by soldiers with the dreaded lightning bolts on their collars.

The SS.

With Brady missing, Maureen supposed that made her and Lieutenant Smith a leader of sorts. Most of her “leading” currently took the form of not responding to a single vile threat or taunt by the guards mingling amongst them in the ever rocking car. Ida would be proud of her emotionless detachment at one guard’s suggestion to let the dog loose and see who it chose to maul.

Lieutenant Smith -tender hearted Tallulah with the bronzed skin and knack with animals that rivaled Snow White’s- had made the cryptic observation in Maureen’s ear that she’d never known a dog could be trained away from the throat to go for the breasts instead.

As of last Sunday they now knew, and none of them were likely to forget.

“I’ll be faster next time,” Smith had mumbled in a simmering rage, “I’ll be faster. I’ll have my fist down that cur’s throat before they finish slipping the leash.”

It was a nice sentiment, would’ve been made more so if Maureen wasn’t so sure it would land dear Smith with a bullet in her head. Would be made more so if Sergeant Forsyth had lived from her injuries long enough to benefit from it. Lots of things would be made nicer by heavier coats and the presence of drinking water.

One of the new ones, a terrified little replacement who wore her ordeal on her face, made the rookie mistake of asking for a drink. She’d been given the predictable initiation of being pissed on by a guard in answer and now she bore her thirst as doggedly as the veterans.

When the train cars rolled to a halt, and the great door was hauled back, sprawling out before them appeared the most idyllic scenery one could ever hope for. A crystalline blue lake, dotted on its border with charming structures adorned with red tile roofs, a quaint church of the same, lush fields and sparkling water and deep forest for miles. Maureen did not think they would haul them so near a town only to execute them. But then what did she know?

Nothing, not even where she was.

When they had lined the girls up, some in worse shape than others and a motley collective group from various military branches, they hauled off Ida Brady to the head of the pack, her bruised face considerably more busted than when she’d been loaded on. Maureen could see her craning her neck as she was drug past, counting down her flyer girls, looking for any missing from the trip.

They were marched, four abreast and with guns at their backs, down a wide and well traversed road into town, past cottages on its outskirts with little garden plots and clothes blowing on the line. Maureen was reminded of the idyllic countryside she had landed in with her chute before being seized and hauled off. There were women and children in row boats on the lake and the path they took through the woods was more peaceful than ominous. A traitorous sort of hope began to bloom in Maureen’s heart.

That was dashed when the tree line broke and out before them stretched what seemed to be miles of wire. And beside it a sign, welcoming them to Ravensbrück -a concentration camp. A camp for civilians, a camp to never return from.

Their new guards were ready for them, smiles on their faces and whips in their hands. Among them were a few remarkable for their sex, they were women too -if women who enjoyed such craft could still be called that. And for all the horror inflicted on them by their male captors so far, there seemed to be a general presentment amongst the arriving girls that the finer arts of terror had not yet been endured.

Standing for hours in the infamous square inside the compound, roll call and registration took on a form of torture yet unheard of. Round and round it went, repetitions of ranks and serials over and over and each time they were met with two alternatives. Renounce the ranks and be admitted as civilians with no further targeted harassment. Or-

“If you insist on being special, we will be forced to make you special.” as one officer put it to Brady’s stone cold face. “Ask your Soviet compatriots, the ones who wanted to be special like you. They claimed to be officers too, and now they service officers in Buchenwald. They have not left their beds in months. Special, no?”

“I’m not ‘claiming’ a goddamn thing.” Brady would go round and round with them in turn and up and down the line was the echo of ranks and serials.

Nothing but ranks and serials.

The minute they dropped one or the other, they’d be freed from this standing purgatory, and they’d be as good as dead. They might wish it were so anyway, if the threat was carried out but they’d suffer as officers, with honor. Whatever that meant this far from home and any appreciation of it. A fresh batch of guards relieved the first and the banter continued, even through roll call of the general camp where a mass of the most miserable specters of female kind poured out of the huts and were made to await the call of their one single number.

A serial for a serial. Maureen would keep hers. By dawn she had kept it, as had all but one of her group, a navy nurse with a broken leg who’d succumbed to the allure of a chair.

Civilian status for a seat.

Maureen thought a drop of water might be her own undoing were it offered, but one look at Smith's cracked yet unmoving lips cemented her in her own determination. As did Ida Brady’s talk, straight back in front of her, trousers bloodied on the inseam but not a cringe to be discerned in her stance.

By morning roll call for the entire camp, their guards were tiring of them, or else thought a new method of persuasion more likely to bring success. Off they were marched to their new billet to “meet their Allies” and what Smith wouldn’t give to have her brass knuckles back when met with a hut full of Soviet soldiers. Females, if females could have shoulders like that. They were impressive women with murder on their faces at the intrusion of a new gang of American blowhards.

“Did you give up already?” The one with the most English taunted and for the first time since capture, Maureen saw Ida Brady’s spine bow backwards just a fraction -a pacifying gesture in the face of the Russian’s nose to nose staredown.

“Hey, we’re not here to make trouble.” she insisted, cool and stern. “Did you?”

“We’d rather die.”

Brady gave a sharp nod, “Then we’re Allies in that, too.”

“Your precious Red Cross won’t come for you here.” That likely verdict seemed to bring the woman satisfaction, and Maureen wondered how many months, weeks, hours of this grueling place it would take before she too took savage satisfaction in another’s misfortune. How long before all better impulse to be glad for others was stamped out and all that was left was crowing self preservation. “You are not the firsts. There were others, Americans, like you, they are now wearing the ink of field whores- or they are dead.”

“One might assume the same of your predecessors.” Brady pointed out mildy, and both groups shifted behind their leaders, ready and tense.

“Anyone who accepts-“ the Russian warned, “-we kill.”

With that incentive clear, a tentative peace was made, which included a few trying to fraternize, converse and share news. There was little that aligned to create any cohesive figure, despite their shared experiences and sufferings.

When night fell they were hauled out for roll call amongst the masses, and together after hours of waiting to be called upon, they answered with their ranks and serials, each in their own language. The Russian who had confronted Brady was beaten so badly she did not rise again after it. The guard left her lying there and asked Brady herself what her occupation was.

“Lt. Colonel in the United States Air Force.”

The unfortunate rookie who had so ill advisedly asked for water on the train stood beside Brady; and got a bullet to the head for her superior’s answer. What Colonel Brady thought of her judgment being given to another did not show, her face white and her lips sealed, only the speckle of blood on her profile stood in stark relief in the early morning.

“Kneel.” a very shiny Luger barrel was pressed, still smoking to Brady’s temple.

She did so, braced for the inevitable execution. A soldier's death, it’s what they’d signed up for. The Kommandant waved over one of the female guards and spoke to her in German. She took off at a run to one of the buildings with a bright smile, and Ida Brady stayed kneeling, the splattered brains of the unfortunate dripping out of her hair and into the leather of her jacket, a mockery of her own upcoming fate.

The female guard returned with scissors. “Your poor hair, so pretty. Now it is ruined.” the Kommandant bemoaned, gloved fingers sliding though Brady’s wet tresses, “See what happens to beauty when you pervert the order of things? Now it must be sacrificed. Perhaps then you will see how ugly you are become.”

Maureen felt Smith’s restraining arm before she had even registered her impulse to charge forward, caught about the middle she strained against her friend's surprising strength and in the end was forced thusly to keep ranks and watch with the rest as the Nazis fucks scalped the Colonel of her femininity with a pair of sheep shears.

Dribbling blood down her face and shaking with rage, Ida was in better shape than her Russian counterpart. When her ordeal was over, she rose again, even if she swayed dangerously upon doing so.

And when asked, she had her serial at the ready.

Crowded back into the hut, Maureen and Smith watched the Russians hopelessly fuss over their insensible leader, knowing all too well how likely it might be that they could be found doing the same tomorrow, in a week’s time, who knew. For now, Brady sank down against the wall with the rest of them, the scowl of her formidable brows deflecting any potential commiserations for her battery.

When the navy nurse was pushed into their hut next evening, a dead silence greeted her. One of the Soviets, a sniper by her markings, came up to her and unceremoniously tore open her shirt. If the girls had doubted the Russian’s warning about “wearing the ink of field whores” upon their skin as mere hyperbole, such speculation was removed. It was a dreadful tattoo, large and damning as was the reaction it elicited amongst the servicewomen.

By the end of the night there were two dead bodies on the hut floor. And it didn’t seem to matter who had killed which. One had died for honor, the other for giving it up. And in the end? Where was this ephemeral honor? Ida Brady could only find it in the tense faces of her girls, lining the room from their places along the wall, waiting for another roll call or worse.

But in war, as in peace, sometimes the dead sent favors and in this instance it came to them with screams of:“Amerikaner Soldat!” in the middle of the night. They were marched out to the square and stood to attention once more in the sweep of the spotlight, all the while were shouts of “Amerikaner Soldat!”

All they knew was the bitter waiting in the gray dawn chill and the choking anticipation of some sick, final joke, or some methodical mass execution. Maureen wished she could knock her shoulder into Ida’s one last time and tell her she’d been a rock -she was a rock- but Brady stood there in front alone, as was her privilege and her curse. Talullah Smith would not meet Maureen’s side eyed glance for a farewell. Maureen wished she had less of a roar inside her, wished she could step off calmly into whatever was on the other side but the idea was repulsive, even after all she’d endured, and she looked about in vain for some semblance of the same revolt on her fellow’s faces.

What came instead was the dreaded whistles and the order to march. They were marched right out of the gates and down the idyllic lane they’d been marched up days ago, back through town to the railway station. There the soldiers herded them back up into a cattle car that smelled more of death than livestock, and then the train pulled away, hurtling south -perhaps the only one to do so with living cargo.

There were no guards inside the car, only the cramped space to keep them docile and the lack of promise that the great door would ever grind open again.

“The hell do you think happened?” Maureen hissed to Ida, finding her superior propped up in the corner in a suspiciously casual pose that she suspected hid a limp and unfathomable fatigue.

“Haven’t got a clue, Kendeigh.”

“Maybe someone got word out.” Maureen suggested, thinking of their predecessors, thinking of the useful dead.

“Or we’re headed to a nice rural dumping ground.” was all Ida would speculate. “Or brothels.” she added after a long minute.

Maureen chewed her cheek and kept peering out the slats at the beautiful countryside flashing past. “Well, at least they’ve ensured you’ll be least wanted of the bunch at such an establishment.” she joked and watched with the careful precision of a trained bombardier as her mean joke landed and Ida Brady’s legendary eyebrow ticked up in something that might have been amused disbelief, had she any energy left for such a display.

“Pistol whipped in the mouth and still no respect for rank, Kendeigh.” Brady observed and it was so like her brother John’s flat lined humor that Mauren’s heart throbbed with something alarmingly akin to sentimentally. For John Brady -and all the other lucky souls still at Thorpe Abbots, God willing. “I’m not laying on any damn beds for them.” Brady suddenly broke the silence again in a low voice, one Maureen knew was meant between officers only.

She pitched her head closer in agreement. “Me either.”

“I don’t care if they shoot me first,” Ida went on, as if reciting it to herself, “-and I don’t care if they shoot all of you first. I’m not going to.”

“Wouldn’t want you to.” Maureen agreed again, vacillating briefly in her intent before proceeding to say, “That Sergeant -she wasn’t your fault. The nurse either.”

“I know that Lieutenant.”

“I know you know,” Maureen muttured, “but some stuff bears repeating. Places like these, we’re liable to lose our bearings without a little repetition.”

“Mm.”

Maureen shuffled beside her and wracked her brain for pleasant conversation, something besides the Soviet girls they’d abandoned and the skeletons they’d seen at Ravensbrück. “Ya know,” she remarked tiredly, “if someone in here’s hydrated enough to pee, I might be ready to drink it.”

Brady slowly turned from her view out the slats to give Maureen a blank faced stare. “Should I make an announcement or are you hoping to keep that between us?”

“Oh hell, Colonel,” Maureen grinned, mischief bubbling to the surface at the first chance, “I wouldn’t trust anyone else but you, liable to get stds from this lot.”

“Kendeigh.” Ida hissed warningly but there was that disbelieving wobble to her stern mouth, “That’s not funny -not with where we’ve come from.”

“It kinda is.”

“It’s not.”

“It is- a little. Admit it, a little.”

“It’s not.” And still her cheeks were pink with suppressed amusement, just like John’s got when Maureen pressed him on a dig about basic training.

“You sure you’re ok?” she ventured again, eyeing Brady’s extensive injuries visible above her clothes.

“Yeah?” Ida looked nonplussed, “I mean -what’re you ranking as ok, these days, Lt. Kendeigh?

“It’s just,” Maureen bit her own busted tongue briefly as a spur to get it out,

“-you’re bleeding a lot, Ida. Couldn’t help but notice.”

Ida Brady didn’t even glance down at her trousers or make a motion to feel her lacerated scalp, instead she answered in the same, almost bored way she always did, “Yeah, Candy, it’s called being a good Catholic.”

Maureen blinked. “Oh. Oh Shit.”

“You know, maybe some of you girls had the right of it,” Ida actually winced before staring back out the slats, “go off and do it ahead, in peacetime. But here I am, twenty seven and as sacrosanct as the Virgin Mary, dropping into occupied territory. What could go wrong!” To her credit, her snort was wonderfully genuine.

Maureen kept after her, “You signed up to fight, to get fought against. We all did -never this.”

“Mm, well, couldn’t choose a better gang to get put down with.” Brady smiled, begrudgingly raising an imaginary glass of her own to Maureen’s already raised one.

“To bitches who bite back.” Maureen toasted.

“To bitches who bite back.”

——————————————————-

Two cases of MIA troubled John Brady the most: Egan, who he had seen jump first after their dispute, and Maureen Kendeigh who he had learned from Blakely had jumped over Bremman. That’s two flyers who should’ve been here by now, before him even, in the case of Kendeigh, and yet they weren’t.

He went round and round the argument with Cleven and Crank and Hambone, all three downed from separate missions yet here together - proving his point. Cleven held staunchly to the belief they were being kept segregated, as befitted their ranks and sex. They could be one sector apart and not hear of them. It was the only hopeful response, it was a leader’s response. There had been women downed before Kendeigh, not many but a few of the escort fighters, and none of them had showed either. Brady wasn’t sure that was a good sign at all.

“So where’s Egan then?” he’d always hit back with, “They mistake his shoulders’ for a dame’s?”

“I dunno John.” Cleven would reply with that newly blank gaze of his somehow enhanced by the twin cuts on his cheeks.

Demarco took Brady aside when he arrived to tell him that whatever had happened to Cleven in interrogation wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t ethical. Those cheek scars weren’t both due to flack. Like a dog with a bone, Brady took this already suspected information about his stoic superior and ran with it, pointing out hotly to an uninterested Demarco, “if it’s happened to Cleven, what about them?”

“What can we do about it?” Was Cleven’s demand that always wrapped up the little circular arguments as they sat huddled in their hut. “Red Cross knows they’re not here, no colored flyers either. They know where they are. What can we do besides ask after them?”

He was right, there wasn’t anything, but still, like a presentiment hung over him, Brady found himself leaning on the wire each time a new batch was marched in, counting heads and scanning faces.

“Ida hasn’t even been shot down, John.” Crank kindly reminded again and again.

“As of two weeks ago.” John snapped.

As of two weeks, and then as of three, and then it became four and -where the hell was Kendeigh? Gale had stopped arguing when the subject came up, apparent but impotent fury slowly racking his wiry frame, face gone wane already above his grimey fleece collar. Winter wasn’t even here and they were fading.

And then it happened, what John had been waiting by the fence for, and boy was there a crush at the wire to see them marched in when they came up the muddy enclosure through the gates.

“The fuck are they bringing the women here for?”

“They don’t belong in here, bastards!”

“Ar’those Brady’s Banshees?”

“They’re not gonna hold ‘em here are they?”

Like he’d been reanimated by the presence of a cause, Major Cleven cut his way through the rabble to the front, addressing the German officer escorting them.

“Hey, hey you can’t bring them in here. They’re women, they belong in their own section.”

“If they are women,” the Commandant pointed out, not unkindly, “then perhaps your country should have recognized that before enlisting them? They belong here.”

Cleven shook his head, vehement in his conventions and rules, “It’s not right, you know it’s not.”

“Then tell your Lt. Colonel to stop fighting for combatant status.” he jerked his chin towards Ida Brady and Gale’s eyes widened at her injuries and tufted hair, “The SS had them tucked away at our most prestigious female camp. But they would not accept. They want to be men.”

“Combatants!” Gale argued the point Ida had been making since her feet touched occupied soul.

John Brady yanked his arm, whispering urgently in his ear, “She’s makin’ sign to me, torture, she says. Don’t fight it, Buck.”

Cleven searched the battered faces, some he knew like Ida, T.Smith and Maureen, and some from other squadrons, -ones who must’ve been damned unlucky to get captured considering their safer postings.

“If it can happen to you it c-“ John Brady was a bit of a pain in the ass, Cleven had found, but he had never found him to be wrong.

“Roger, loud and clear, captain.” Cleven warned him his point was made with a bite in his own tone.

“Have we come to an understanding?” The Commandant, amused by the fluster his female charges had caused, it was ample proof that women could never be fully integrated, not even by a society so pervertedly equal as the American’s. “Ja? Sehr gut. It wasn’t like you had a choice anyway, was it?

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Feedback is a writer’s life blood, let me hear your thoughts and screams, they mean so much to me.

We have so many prompts already thrown around for this AU, I can’t wait to explore them, and I welcome any more if you have them.

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