#verity/victor rich 122: when trouble comes (and it always will)...

[sergeant-spoons]

122. When Trouble Comes (And It Always Will)...

Verity/Victor Rich

Taglist: @thoughpoppiesblow​ @chaosklutz​ @wexhappyxfew​ @50svibes​ @tvserie-s-world​ @adamantiumdragonfly​ @ask-you-what-sir​ @whovian45810​ @brokennerdalert​ @holdingforgeneralhugs​ @claire-bear-1218​ @heirsoflilith​ @itswormtrain​ @actualtrashpanda​ @wtrpxrks​

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The breeze was fair, the birds were flocking, and the edelweiss was blooming. July had come to pass, and by some forgiving stalemate of bureaucracy, Easy Company had yet to deploy to the Pacific. The beauty—and relative safety—of Zell am See was not to be understated. A month spent training from sunup 'til sundown had seen them venture no farther than the woods and slopes bordering the mountain town. No shoot-outs, no patrols, no military action whatsoever—June was the quietest month Easy had seen since February of last year. Exempting Shifty's accident, that is. Though his buddy was expected to make a full recovery, Popeye still wasn't much himself these days. The Fourth came and went with the usual fanfare, but there was more excitement for the drinking than the holiday, and although many of the more boisterous men complained about the decision not to set off fireworks, the majority of the regiment was relieved. The last time they'd seen a show like that... Well, it wasn't much of a holiday, and the rockets blasted through the earth and trees, not the sky where they belonged.

The evening before last, Verity snuck off with Gene to their secret spot. It was a small cottage so far removed from the epicenter of town, there were no direct roads to access it. You had to hike through the woods, and even if you stumbled upon it by accident (as Verity had when hiking with George and Perry one day), it was so unremarkable there wasn't much to do but pass on. Inside was pleasant enough, but it was clear no one had lived there for several years by the time the Americans came to this ridge of Austria. Verity took Gene there the same night she, George, and Perry had discovered it last week, and since, it had become their go-to for secret rendezvous. They'd brought booze and a blanket and settled in on the steps of the porch, watching the fireflies and listening to the crickets. It was a hot night, so Gene shirked his shirt and Verity stripped down to her undershirt. They sat there, squeezed hip-to-hip onto the steps, flirting up a storm until someone (neither could remember who it was first) said something about 'once we get home' and they both broke down in tears.

In many ways, the waiting was the worst part of Austria. There wasn't much to complain about in the ways of comforts and amenities—Lord knows they were the best off they'd been since Aldbourne, maybe even before that—but the threat of redeployment was a hefty weight. The men kept their chins up and carried on like they always did, like they always had to, but their backs began to hurt and their shoulders to ache, and the tension had nothing to do with the sudden influx of equipment crammed into their packs. All of this—the cool morning swims in the lake (for those who could), the long, uninterrupted card games with friends, the hazy summer nights with a lover—could be upended by a single order. They could talk about home all they liked, but there would be no home, there would only be the Pacific. Not knowing when they would be going but understanding it could be any day now was an uncomfortable feeling that squeezed one's chest. Verity knew she was not the only one who felt it—and here was Gene to prove it to her. Crying (but not seeming to realize he was), he confessed to her that night on the porch how much he hated his station.

"I'm a goddamn medic," he swore. "I don't kill people, I watch 'em die. And sometimes I get the blame."

"But-"

"And sometimes," he said, turning his head away, "I believe it."

At first surprised, Verity felt terrible for not realizing his misery before.

"Gene..."

She took his hand and stroked his arm until he reluctantly looked back at her. She pressed her lips to his forehead, wrapped her arms around him, and didn't let go until his tears had subsided. She wouldn't have cared if it took him twenty minutes or all night, but he wiped his face and sat up much quicker than she would have expected. He gave her a weak smile and she gently drew his head upon her shoulder, running her hands through his hair until he released the shaky sigh he'd been holding in.

"Why can't you go home?"

She kissed his furrowed brow and it eased slightly.

"You know why, Gene."

"But... you're you."

He touched her leg, and she gave a start.

"No! No, I can't. Doesn't matter what I've done, how long I've been here-"

"What?"

"-they'd shoot me, or worse-"

"Oh, God, no," he hurriedly reassured, alarmed by her fear. "I didn't mean- No."

"Oh." An inelegant laugh. "Okay, good."

Silence fell. After a long time (long enough that the old batteries in Verity's flashlight finally died), Gene spoke up.

"Verity," he said, squeezing her leg, "I hope you know how much I care about you."

Her face scrunched up, and when he moved to try and kiss it into a smile, she leaned back.

"You sound like you're about to tell me something I'm not gonna like to hear."

For the first time in the last half-hour, Gene's lips tugged upward.

"No," he replied honestly, "I just really want you to know that- Well, that I love you. So much."

He'd never get tired of seeing her cheeks turn all rosy when he said those three hallowed words.

"I love you, too. A whole frickin' lot."

He tucked her against his side and kissed the top of her head when she leaned it on his shoulder.

"At least when we go to the Pacific," he thanked her and the night, "I'll still have you with me."

Neither of them wanted to consider how fragile that truth could prove.

A beach towel to the face snapped Verity back into the present. She spluttered a curse and swatted away the offending fabric, and Babe Heffron started laughing.

"C'mon, Red, the water's fine!"

She eyed his fully dry self with a skeptical brow and replied, "Tell me again once you're actually in it."

With a shrug, he jogged away to deposit his towel in a haphazard pile by the stone wall bordering the beach. Perry's snickering earned her a smack on the arm, and as she started to complain, Garcia appeared and waved eagerly for Perry to follow him into the water. 

"Not hot enough," she lied, and Garcia made a face.

"Hot enough for him to sunburn," he accused, pointing at Verity, but when she shot him a dirty look, he wisely shut up and retreated.

"'Not hot enough'?"

Perry made a face.

"Oh, shut up."

As the two women watched, Garcia joined Babe, who had rerouted his path, and the pair of them proceeded gaily toward the waves lapping meekly against the shore. Babe was the first in, but that was mostly thanks to Johnny Martin appearing out of nowhere and tackling him into the surf. A football soared past and George, chasing it, almost kicked sand in Perry's face. Apologizing as he jogged backward toward his buddies, he shot them his typical lopsided grin and offered a tease about their presumed laziness. Not a taunt to be taken lightly by a paratrooper of Easy Company, it was met by Perry leaping up and chasing George down to tackle him into the grass. She then stole the football and threw it to Verity, who made a show of using it as a pillow until her friends' fussing and laughter won her over and she tossed it back. Summertime in Austria sure could get hot, but if given the choice between breezy, dry days on the shores of a glistening mountain lake and the blistering tropical storms treating the Equator like Interstate 80, no one was fool enough to pick the latter. They knew they had it good here. And today, on the first afternoon they'd had off in two weeks, they certainly weren't about to let any pesky plans of the Pacific weigh them down.

"You've got a good arm, Red," Perry complimented as she flopped back down on her half of the checkered blanket, and Verity tipped an invisible cap in jesting thanks.

"Hey, lookit that."

Verity saw and smirked. A quartet of sopping paratroopers came marching toward the shore, waving at the pair on the blanket, but only two made it within shouting distance. Before they got very far, Joe Liebgott was tackled by (unsurprisingly) Johnny Martin and Skinny Sisk by Babe (who had evidently switched sides in their whimsical water battle). Floyd Talbert and Allen Vest watched in mirth and made no effort to help their friends.

"Hi, ho, it's the goose brigade."

"Why ‘goose’?"

"'Cause they're gonna honk and flap their arms at us until we come in the water with them."

Verity tried to stifle her giggling into her hand with little success. Perry smirked.

"The way they keep shiverin', they don't make a very compelling argument for this whole swimming business."

"They do look a bit cold," Verity conceded, "but that's sorta how it goes with lakes. You go in, your body adjusts to the temperature, and you're cold when you get out because the air's still warm but now you're the cold one."

"... I think you've been hanging around Webster too much."

As Verity turned aside, coughing against the water she'd just choked on in her laughter, Talbert stopped a few feet from the shore and began waving effusively at her and Perry. He looked a bit cartoonish, windmilling his arms like that, still up to his knees in the lake. Nonetheless, they paid him the heed he desired, and he began to shout.

"Rich! Bloom! Come join us!"

"No, thanks," the invited pair replied, echoing one other, and Talbert frowned, dropping his arms.

"Rude."

Verity almost believed him, if not for the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She considered getting up and conceding to dip her toes in, just to appease him, but instead, she picked up Perry's cap and stuck it at a jaunty angle on her friend's head.

"We're busy, Tab. Got loads of important, timely sergeant stuff to talk about."

He put his fists on his hips, disbelieving.

"Then come talk about it in the water!" A grin. "Maybe I can lend you some advice, being a-" He pretended to polish and blow on his knuckles. "-first sergeant, myself."

Verity laughed, raising her hands in surrender. "Touché. But I'm still not coming in."

"Then what about you, Crow?" Vest chimed in, cupping his hands around his mouth although they could hear him and Talbert just fine. "Flap those wings and fly yourself over here!"

Perry chuckled. "I'd sure like to, Vest, but crows aren't waterfowl."

Talbert put on a show of rolling his eyes—the man could be more of a diva than George Luz sometimes—and turned back to Verity.

"Come on, Red! Wash away that sunburn!"

"Not sure that's how that works, Tab."

"You can swim, can't you?" Vest asked, half-ribbing and half-serious, and Talbert pushed him off-balance, claiming the basis of respect but clearly doing it just because he could.

"Ha!" Verity wheezed as they scuffled. "I grew up on a lake, Vest, I sure hope I can swim."

"Then what're you waitin' for?!" Tab shouted, grinning, gleeful, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and just as Verity opened her mouth to reply with some excuse about "the right time", waving her wrist to show off her watch, a shout of alarm diverted her attention.

There—out past the dock. A hand waving above the surface, a gasping head—and then nothing but ripples.

"Isn't that O'Keefe?" Perry asked, confused, but Verity was already halfway across the lawn, thanking the heavens she'd taken her boots off a few minutes before to let her marching-chafed feet breathe. She sprinted down the dock, shoved past the two men calling out for their friend below the water, and launched herself into a swan dive. It was not graceful by any means, but it pushed her deeper and positioned her to swim down, and that was what she needed. The lake was fairly clear and calm, and O'Keefe never stopped thrashing. She got her hands under his arms in a second or two and nearly tweaked her ankle when she started for the surface only to hit the rocky bottom. They were further down than she'd thought. She got her feet underneath her and kicked off, and with a little upward to-and-fro, she managed to get O'Keefe to the surface, then herself directly after.

People were shouting, but she couldn't tell what they were saying. Someone jumped in too close for comfort and Verity yanked O'Keefe away. The water in her ears and the pressure from the unexpected depth distorted her hearing, and for an instant, she was back in Bastogne and the wetness on her face was not lake water but blood. O'Keefe's sudden coughing saved her; the fluttering of his lungs against her chest returned her enough to the present to keep kicking and start them blindly in the direction of the voices. She couldn't see past the hair sticking to her face and the water running over it and into her eyes, but her hearing was starting to return, and the adrenaline pumping through her veins gave her strength yet to spare. Still, she struggled for breath—propelling two human bodies (one almost limp) toward the shoreline was no easy feat, even for a toughened soldier. In a flash of coherence, she wished for aide and found it in George Luz, who took O'Keefe from her and tugged her by the elbow until she could feel sand beneath her toes.

"Try to breathe," George was saying. "You're one tough cookie, O'Keefe, you'll be fine."

Verity stumbled forward and slapped O'Keefe on the back as hard as she could, and he heaved out the last of the water that had choked him. Following George and O'Keefe, Verity pushed forward, wading with legs that trembled like the river reeds cloistering on the shore. As soon as she made it far enough, she fell to her knees, pushing her hair out of her face, hiding. Her heart and mind were racing—she knew her clothing was sticking to her every jut and curve, there would be little chance of escape with all these eyes on her and O'Keefe. Trying to catch her breath and find a way out, she almost didn't notice Frank and Liebgott until they were at her side. She jumped, but Bull laid his broad hand on her shoulder and turned his back to the others. Her savior, he guided her all the way up to and past the beach, shuffling right alongside her until she made it back onto dry land. 

Perry appeared with the checkered blanket and Verity seized upon it, nearly sobbing her stifled thanks. She knew she didn't really have to say anything. Perry understood. Verity wrapped the blanket around herself as thoroughly as possible, and the safety of the coverage eased her anxious trembling. Now the rest of the world was starting to filter back in—the water dribbling off of her with every minute movement, the burning in the back of her mouth from the unintended intake of lake water, the presence of David Webster at her side. He (along with Perry) was looking at her worriedly, but Verity could only think of O'Keefe. She turned over her shoulder until she found him, sitting on the ground and leaning against a rock with George and some of the more recent replacements huddled around him.

"You just risked your whole secret to save that kid."

Webster's remark was quiet but heavy. Verity coughed into the blanket—raised to her mouth by her elbow—and sighed.

"Yeah, of course," she rasped, still watching O'Keefe, "nobody else is getting hurt on my watch."

Nobody else was a hard thing to promise, but harder still—impossible, in the war—was nobody.

"You alright, Patty?"

Though he was still snorting out water and clearly dazed, O'Keefe managed to meet Verity's query with an embarrassed smile.

"Yeah," he coughed out a bit hoarsely. "Yeah, I'm alright. Uh, thanks, Rich."

"Call me Red," she beseeched him. "We're friends, after all. Right?"

He seemed surprised at her nonchalance, given how she'd just saved him from drowning, but otherwise happy to agree.

"Right."

Gene showed up before long. Someone must have run into town for a medic. He was almost out of breath but his focus never faltered. He only shot Verity a brief nod before getting to work. With Bull's help, he shooed away the crowd around O'Keefe and dropped to his knee before his patient. Once it was evident the replacement was no worse than a little waterlogged, Gene relaxed and sat down on the grass beside him. O'Keefe turned to accept a canteen of (non-lake) water from a buddy and Gene finally looked back at Verity. If he had been any more physical of a man, he would have done a double-take, she had no doubt; instead, his eyes flashed and he set his jaw as he took in her sopping wet hair and the blanket hiding her slight frame. She caught his gaze and shook her head minutely, and for her sake, he forced himself to turn away.

"C'mon, Red," Webster said, tugging Verity lightly by the arm, "you oughta go back to the barracks and change."

"I'll come with," Perry volunteered. "He's right, you wouldn't wanna show up to dinner lookin' like you just went under a waterfall." 

"Then again," George chimed in, "they might like it if you came in so wet you mopped the floors just by walkin' over 'em."

Webster and Perry, she'd seen and spoken to, but Verity wasn't sure when George had come to stand by her. He was wrapped in a towel similarly as concealing as Verity's shroud, and it took her only a moment to realize he was already shirtless underneath and had taken up the towel to make her shyness seem unremarkable.

"You got any fuzzy socks?"

"What for?"

"Well, I sure can't mop the floors in these," she said, wiggling her toes through her holey socks, and George made a face.

"Eugh, Red, put those dogs away! Go on, get changed. Get!"

"Alright, alright," she laughed, pretending to lean in so she could push him and adding in a mutter, "Thank you, George."

He shot her a natural smile as he ran his hand through his dripping hair, flicking droplets of water every which way (including onto Verity's cheek).

"Sure thing, Red. See ya around."

"Yeah, see ya."

Turning the side of her face against a corner of her blanket, she returned his smile, and they parted ways, him following Chuck Grant to rejoin the football game while she departed with Perry in search of dry clothes.

"You'd better hope that blanket dries before tonight, it's the only one you've got."

Verity smirked just a little.

"As much as I appreciate the concern, Perry, I'm not too worried about that."

"No?"

"No, because according to the thermometer on our window, the temperature hasn't dropped below 70 degrees all week, even at night."

"We have a thermometer on the window?"

"Yeah."

"How have I not noticed that before?"

"I dunn- oh."

Verity's cheeks started to pinken.

"Actually, no. The thermometer... is on Gene's—and Babe's—window."

"Ohhhh." Perry wiggled her eyebrows. "Gene's window, I see. And is that window easy to mix up with our window, hmm? Hmm?"

"Remind me which one of us is sopping wet right now?"

Though Perry continued smirking, she deferred to the vague threat and put a little more distance between herself and her drenched friend.

"Point taken."

There was a letter on the desk when they arrived that had not been there this morning. A glance at the postage revealed it was from Sacramento—Perry's family. Perry cheerfully supposed Vest had been so kind as to drop it off earlier before he'd gone down to join the others by (and in) the lake and sat down to open it while Verity changed in the corner, out of view of the unshuttered window.

"Gee, I've been waiting for a letter from home for weeks," Perry said, excitedly tearing through the uppermost fold of the envelope with the edge of her fingernail. "I wonder what's kept my Pops from writing so long."

As she read aloud the first few lines of the letter, Verity listened, glad to hear the joy in Perry's voice and proud to be trusted enough to hear the news ad verbatim. Moments like these were well worth the tedium and training of the past few months. After Toye got hit, Perry shrank into herself and never fully came out again. And yet, there was something about getting a letter from home that sparked that old vitality in her again. Verity almost envied Perry for that, but she knew she'd made her choice long ago—and hell, maybe someday, she wouldn't need to rely on a letter to hear from her Pa again.

Enveloped in thoughts of home, it took Verity a moment to realize Perry had stopped speaking. Adjusting the hem of her shirt, she turned about and mumbled Perry's name. Receiving no response, she looked up and frowned to see her friend steadily blanching.

"What is it?"

Perry's hands started to shake. She nearly dropped the letter, and then she did. Watching it swoop before settling on the floor, Verity felt the pit of her stomach drop.

"Perry."

It took her a moment to look up, but when she did, Perry was white as a sheet. Verity's fingers lost their grip on her shirt.

"It's my brother."

"What about him?"

Verity could almost read the words before they sank off Perry's wobbling lips:

"He's in trouble."

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