#shifty powers x original female character
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 22: One Tough Broad
Summary: "I just needed to be someone else for a bit."
A/N: I have not spoken French in about three years now, so Gene's dialogue might be completely wrong. But at least I tried 🤷🏻♀️
Also, while I've never seen raspberries growing on Currahee, there are so many plants, who's to say they're not somewhere along the trail?
Warnings: mentions of war, injury, hospitals, language
Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu @hxad-ovxr-hxart
Belgium, 1944
Full of purpose, Gene leads Zenie from the Jeep to the town’s large church. (Perhaps it’s not very big – she’s just used to the small, white, wooden churches of the South where congregations squeeze together in hard pews to sing and renounce.) He hustles her right past the crowds outside, only sparing a glance at the piles of bodies lined up against a low wall. The scene steals the breath from Zenie’s lips, but there’s no time to stop.
“J'ai besoin d'une infirmière,” Gene announces when they enter the church. Some other medics glance up, but none answer. If he had wanted their answer, he would have asked in English.
Instead, it’s a young Frenchman’s voice that replies, “De quoi avez-vous besoin?”
“J'ai besoin de parler à une infirmière. C’est urgent.”
When the young man – Is he a doctor? He doesn’t wear an armband or uniform of any sort. He might be just a young man – rushes off, Gene once again guides Zenie. This time, he starts her toward the back of the church, to a more isolated area.
He finds a small room and leads her into it, shutting the door behind her before rushing back to check on Skinny and his leg. For a few moments, Zenie is alone in the dim room, waiting. Her only companion is the patch of wintery sunlight coming from a small stained-glass window on the wall above her. Some old crates stacked in the back corner provide a place for her to sit. She practically falls onto them she feels so exhausted, though the morning has just begun.
When Gene returns, a young woman follows him into the room. Zenie jumps up as the door quickly opens and shuts. The action makes Gene’s brows furrow.
“Thought you might feel better if you had a, um, a woman to help out with the stitchin’ and all.” When Zenie blanches, he rushes on. “Don’t worry. I trust her.”
The woman is young, maybe the same age as them. Kind eyes survey her as she looks between Gene and Zenie. Though Zenie can’t understand what she says to Gene in French, the question in the woman’s eyes is clear: Who is this soldier, and why are we alone? Whatever Gene tells her, her realization is just as clear.
The woman approaches her the way that one approaches an animal that they are afraid of startling. She motions for Zenie to take a seat and then does the same, settling in on a box across from her. Her hands are folded in her lap when she nods to Zenie’s jacket and asks, “May I . . . ?”
“Yes.”
Zenie assumes that Gene has told this nurse about her situation, but the woman still starts slightly when she pulls back Zenie’s jacket and sees the bandages wrapped around her chest. Her shock is momentary. Her face quickly settles into a mask of concentration as she and Gene inspect Zenie’s arm.
She bites her lip to keep herself from flinching every time they pick a small fragment of shrapnel from her flesh. When she offers her a flask to draw from, she gratefully accepts it and downs the firewater, grimacing at the taste, as the nurse begins stitching up the long gash on her arm.
Before she knows it, it’s all over.
“Très chanceux.” The nurse pats Zenie’s good shoulder and helps her shrug her jacket back on. From the pocket of her apron, she removes a strip of bedsheet that she uses as a sling to secure Zenie’s arm. “Could have been much worse. Could have . . .” She doesn’t have to finish. Her eyes flick upwards, toward the stained-glass window behind Zenie’s head. “Someone is watching over you.”
“You won’t tell?” Zenie blurts out.
The nurse offers her a small smile and shakes her head. It’s all the reassurance that she needs.
“Thank you.”
She nods, then turns her attention to Eugene. “J'enverrai des fournitures avec vous.”
Zenie breathes a sigh of relief when the nurse leads them out of the room, back into the makeshift hospital proper. She hands Gene a small box and begins loading it with what she can. Not able to understand the French words they exchange, Zenie’s eyes wander, taking in the scene around her.
Wounded men are everywhere that she looks, some far worse than others. A feeling that Zenie cannot bring herself to name clings to them, its grip growing stronger with every breath that they take, waiting for its moment to strike. Weary and worn medics weave their way through them. Nurses hold hands and offer solace when and where they can.
Passing through them, she catches a flash – ever so brief – of dark hair rushing by with a man on a stretcher. Zenie pauses for a moment to stare. More nurses and medics follow, and Zenie loses sight of who she thought that she saw.
“How are you feeling, Skinny?”
Her fellow paratrooper looks up at her from the cot they have him situated on as he waits for his turn to be helped. Pain is evident on his face. His eyes are hazy with it, and glassy with that expression that she’s come to know from seeing him in bars and pubs after he’s had a little something to drink.
“They gave me alcohol, but I don’t think it’s doing any good.”
“You’ve built up a tolerance to it with all your partying.”
Skinny grimaces. “I guess. Hey, how about you? They fix up your arm?”
“Yeah. I’m going back with Doc Roe.”
“Oh.” Skinny settles back onto the cot, his body loosening with the action. “You’re getting out of here pretty quick, then.”
“The nurse said I was lucky.”
“You are,” he grumbles. He lifts his head a little, making sure she’s still there. “Hey, Tommy. Do me a favor, yeah? If you see Shifty and the rest of the guys, tell them that I’m gonna be okay.”
“I will.”
“Tommy!” Gene clutches the box of supplies tightly as he rounds the corner. He nods towards the door; time to go.
“Bye, Skinny.”
“Bye, Tommy.” For the sake of her friend, Zenie pretends not to notice the frown that tugs at his lips when she steps away, leaving him alone in a place so full of pain and suffering . . . and death.
Father Maloney is holding mass when they return. A good number of Zenie’s friends are kneeled before him as he speaks Latin. Bill and Babe tried to explain it all to her once, but she can’t figure out if they’re being blessed or reprimanded for their sins.
She thanks Gene for everything and then makes her way towards the group. “Go,” she can hear Father Maloney saying as she approaches. “and fight bravely for your country, and for your God.”
Well, she thinks, that answers that question.
The men stand. There are sighs of relief and a few laughs.
“Well guys,” Skip Muck says with a grin. “If we die now, we’re dying in a state of grace! Isn’t that right, Babe?”
The Philadelphian laughs, starts to say something, then stops short as Zenie and Gene approach. His eyebrows disappear underneath the rim of his helmet.
“You’re back?!”
Zenie can’t help but smirk. She might have a sling on her arm and a nasty looking scar where the nurse – or Renée, as Gene says her name is – stitched her up, but she’s back with Easy Company where she belongs. What was it that Bill had said when he made his glorious return from the hospital?
She claps Babe on the shoulder, smiling when she quips, “Had to come back and keep your ass in line, Heffron.”
Beside him, John Julian laughs. Babe, on the other hand, still looks like he’s seen a ghost.
“Boy, Bill will be glad to see you,” Julian says. “None of us knew what the hell he was gonna do when we heard you got hit.”
Me neither, Zenie thinks, remembering how her friend had reacted upon learning her secret. Not badly, but . . . She wasn’t exactly around long enough to deal with any fallout. Beads of sweat appear under her helmet at the thought of what might have happened after she left – or what might happen now that she’s back. If Babe and Julian are joking around with her, then Bill didn’t announce her secret to the world the second that Gene swept her off to dig the shrapnel out of her arm. She hoped that he wouldn’t. Maybe she won’t be court martialed or sent home – today, anyway.
For a moment she stands frozen. Not for the first time, blood rushes in her ears like roaring ocean waves as she considers her options. Should she return to her foxhole? Or find someone else to share one with? She could always try her luck wandering to the outpost to find Shifty, could hide out there for a while.
Fate decides for her.
If there’s one thing that Zenie has learned in all the time she’s known Bill Guarnere, it’s that his insistence that you should never volunteer for anything is a lifesaver. With a sling on her arm, she shouldn’t be on a patrol. Sergeant Martin’s eyes pass over her, not even considering taking someone who’s injured his dominant arm. She slips away as Gene, Julian, and Babe all gather around for their sudden orders, her heartbeat still echoing in her ears.
Grey clouds and the branches of barren trees block the wintery sun that hangs somewhere overhead, out of reach. Its position is impossible to find, and the time is just as impossible to calculate. But if she had to guess, Zenie would wager that Bill is out doing his rounds right now, making sure that everyone is okay – or as okay as they’re able to be in this place. That will give her a minute to figure out what to say when she sees him. Or at least to give her a moment alone where she can breathe.
Her foxhole comes into sight. At almost the same moment, a helmet appears over its rim, shadowing eyes that latch onto her with suspicion. She stops in her tracks.
“Tommy?” Bill jumps out of the foxhole and stands before her in an instant. Over and over again, he looks her up and down, his mouth agape. “You’re back!”
Slowly, she nods. No one else is around, but she asks in a quiet voice, “Should I have stayed in the town?”
Bill’s eyebrows knit together. “Should you – what?” Understanding dawns on his face. “Oh!” He lowers his own voice. “I didn’t turn you in, if that’s what you mean.”
He didn’t say anything. Zenie’s heart slows a bit. Her secret is out, and so far, he’s kept it.
“Why not?”
“Why not?” Bill repeats. “Jesus, Tommy. You’re my friend, that’s why!” He drops back down into their foxhole. When Zenie doesn’t move, he gestures for her to do the same. They sit for a moment, staring out at the line, neither of them speaking.
When Gene learned her secret, he had called her brave. He wanted nothing in return except for her to take better care of herself so that her secret wouldn’t get out. Shifty had also called her brave, back when he uncovered the truth. He had promised not to turn her in, to be in her corner. So far, Bill has said that he hasn’t turned her in. But what happens now?
She glances at him from the corner of her eye. He’s looking straight ahead, out into the nothingness of the snow.
Ages later, Bill sighs. “So . . . Can we talk about . . . this?”
This. This lie, this charade. This secret.
“Okay.” She didn’t have this conversation with Gene; he hadn’t asked why or how she did any of this. With Shifty, she had made the first move by asking what he wanted to know. But with Bill . . . He’s a wildcard. There’s a reason that wild is part of his nickname.
“Okay,” Bill echoes. Silence, for a moment; not something Zenie is used to experiencing around him. When he finally speaks, his voice is much softer than usual – another change of pace. “So you’ve been pretendin’ to be a man this whole time?”
Zenie’s own voice is nothing but a whisper. “Yes.”
“How much of it all was true, though?”
Most of it, she realizes for the first time. She never lied about where she was from. And other than using a fake name, she’s never lied about who she is. Everything that she’s ever said about her family, her early life, her likes, her dislikes – it was the truth.
“My name isn’t really Thomas Driver, obviously. Other than that . . . Almost everything else has been true.” In all the times that she’s wondered how her friends would react if they learned her secret, she never got as far as imagining how she would explain what she’s done or why she’s doing it. Now she’s grasping at straws. “I just needed to be someone else for a bit.”
Still looking out over the rim of the foxhole, Bill nods. “What is your name, actually? Can I ask?”
“Zena,” she admits. The name feels different in her mouth now and fits strangely in her ears. For years now, the only person who has called her by that name has been Shifty. “Zena B McGlamery. But almost everyone back home calls me Zenie.”
“Zenie.” For the first time, Bill looks at her. Like Shifty before him, he’s looking at her for the first time and seeing Zenie instead of Tommy. He tilts his head. “What does the B stand for?”
“It’ll stand for Beat Your Ass if you tell anyone.”
Laughs burst forth from them both. Good; despite everything, she can still make him do that, at least.
“Beatrice,” she amends. “It was my Granny’s name.”
“Granny. God, if she could see ya now!”
Oh God. Who knows what she would say.
“Is that why you did all this?” Bill asks, his voice quiet again. “After she died – Wait! That letter from your ma, right before the jump. Christ! You really did run away! This is why they didn’t know you joined the army.” Half of his mouth quirks upwards as his eyes flick over her, taking her in in a new light. “You know, for someone so quiet, you really got a rebellious streak, huh?” He punches her playfully on her uninjured arm. “Shoulda known you were one tough son of a bitch that day with the raspberries. Er, one tough broad, I mean.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t remember that?”
He squints at her, like it’s the most unbelievable thing in the world that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “When we first got to Toccoa, when they were makin’ us walk up Currahee to get us used to it, Luz pointed out some berries along the trail. Everyone was worried they were poisonous – wouldn’t take a chance with ‘em, especially since there were briars everywhere. But you said ‘They’re black raspberries!’, shoved your hand through the briars, and picked a handful for all of us. Your hand was covered in juice and blood from where the thorns snagged your skin, and you didn’t even care. It was only the second day I’d known ya, and you’d already stood your ground against me and gotten covered in blood just for a few berries.” Bill makes a noise that’s half laugh, half scoff. “I just remember thinkin’, ‘This goddamn shortie is tougher than he looks.’ And I was right – I just didn’t know the half of it back then.”
Granny had taken her out to pick black raspberries when she was young. Of course she would recognize them, try to pick a few if she had the chance. But try as she might, she can’t place this specific story in her memory. She’ll just have to take Bill’s word for it.
The Italian shrugs. “Anyway. God, I still can’t wrap my mind around the whole thing.”
“Well, now maybe it all makes more sense.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Doc Roe and Shifty. That’s it.”
“Since when?”
“Since Toccoa. But Shifty didn’t confront me about it until England, the night that you tried to give me that pin-up.”
He winces. “Sorry ‘bout that. I probably look real stupid now.”
“No,” Zenie assures him. It just makes her look like more of a liar.
Before she can tell him as much, Bill’s eyebrows knit together. “Your ma,” he says, his mind back on the letter from the day of the jump. “She really has no clue. You gonna go back to her when the war ends?”
Zenie hesitates. Mama promised she would protect her. Yet her father . . .
“Probably.”
Bill tilts his head. “Probably?”
“My father,” Zenie explains. “I don’t know what he would do if I came back. Running away, everything I’ve done . . .” She makes a vague gesture, like that explains everything.
“Ah.” Bill leans back against the packed earth of the foxhole, his gaze once again wandering out to the expanse of snow before them. He shakes his head, the action causing his helmet to make a scraping sound against the dirt behind him. “I said I was gonna get you home to your ma, remember? That still stands. Even if I gotta put your old man in his place.”
The mental image of Bill escorting her back into her home, of such a wild young man getting in her father’s face like some sort of brave prince facing the wrath of a dragon, is enough to make her smile. Something she could never hope to do, but that her friend could do without batting an eye.
“You said that you needed to be someone else for a bit,” Bill notes. He falls silent again.
“Yes.”
“I dunno, Tommy. If anything, maybe this whole thing allowed you to be more yourself.”
More herself? Tommy is a role she plays. Someone who’s brave and who has friends and who does all the things that Zenie herself could never hope to. They’re completely different.
When she doesn’t respond, Bill shrugs again. “Just a thought.”
“Your first one ever?” She teases.
He grins. “You know, kid? I think you’re gonna be okay.”
#band of brothers fanfic#band of brothers#band of brothers x ofc#band of brothers x oc#shifty powers x original female character#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers#bill guarnere#oc zenie mcglamery#eugene roe#my writing#like a girl (like a man)
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Into the Woods (Fairy Tale AU)
Summary: For Malarkey and the rest of the Merry Men, there’s no place other than the forest that they’d rather call home (inspired by the instrumental version of “Arrietty’s Song” which can be found here )
Note: Big shoutout to @stressedinadress and the Disney AU you created, I hope you don’t mind that I’m doing a few stories to go along with it, plus Malarkey as Robin Hood is something I couldn’t resist if I tried.
Pairings: Malarkey x OC
The sun shone brightly through the newly budded spring leaves that covered the whole of the forest in a bright green canopy while the shafts of sunlight penetrated the branches and lit up the forest. Small children played on the embankments near the road or climbed the trees that sheltered them all. Birds sang from their perches while chipmunks skittered through the grass and leaves and rabbits emerged from their warrens to play.
The thunder of hoofbeats along the weathered dirt road suddenly caught the attention of the young boys and girls nearby, their eyes lighting up with excitement as they bound from their spots and followed the band of horses that rode swift and sure through the glade and into the woods.
“They’re home!! They’re home!!” cried the eager, small voices who followed the horses as they thundered along the path.
The riders themselves, wore huge, broad smiles on their faces, their green, brown and blue cloaks whipping in the warm breeze like flags. Some carried bows and arrows, some swords and knives all slung across their shoulders or belted at their waists. The sight of the children running alongside them on the roads was one they had looked forward to seeing every day when they returned, hearing their gleeful shouts and seeing the bright looks in their eyes. None of them would have traded it for all the gold in the world.
Along the path they went, the wind rushing through their hair and their hoods blowing back off of their faces. One by one they jumped from the saddles and turned the horses loose, their feet hitting the ground and running towards the encampment that lay not far off from whence they had returned. Malarkey, Hasser, Luz, Shifty, Ray, Muck and Penkala all bound on feet of fire into the woods, home at last and eager for rest.
The camp was a simple place, not grand by any means with only a few dugout houses and tent pitches, tables and firepits for medicine and cooking, yet this place was home.....a simple life, but a peaceful one.
The children all clamored around Malarkey and the others, rushing to wrap their small arms around them and eager for attention. “Did you all behave while we were gone?” Malarkey chuckled.
“Yes! Yes we did!” they chirped.
Malarkey and the others led them back to the camp, picking the littlest ones up onto their shoulders and carrying them all back to their eagerly awaiting mothers and fathers. Malarkey and the others however, were sure that they got what the band of seven had returned with.....a small sack of gold that would see them through the days ahead.
In the doorway of one of the dugouts there appeared a young lady, a woman who had come back on the Silk Road with one of the men in the camp and had taken in with Malarkey. She was his rock, his anchor and more importantly the love of his life.....Mei.
“You’re late,” she said, pretending to be stern.
“An outlaw is never late Mei,” Malarkey informed her. “He arrives precisely when he means to.”
That short little silence between them was suddenly broken by the laughter that spilled from their throats. Mei rushed into his arms as he picked her up off her feet and spun her around. “Oh Don I’ve missed you,” she said.
“I was only gone for a day but I’ve missed you too,” he said, cradling her head against him.
Mei closed her eyes, reveling in the safety of his arms and the deep scent of earth, cedar and pine that held fast to him like a small child to his mother. If only she could stay there forever.
************
Late that very night when the moon was full and hung in the hazy heavens, the men, women and children of the forest danced in celebration, forgetting the troubles that the king had imposed on them all. The sound of the fiddle, the bodhran, the drums and the pennywhistle put their worries, troubles and cares out of their minds as they danced the night away, laughing, cheering and singing along to the music, proudly declaring “A pox on that phony King of England!!!”
Malarkey and Mei had all eyes on them that night. No one could take their eyes off the pair as they danced. To all who were there, Malarkey and Mei were the real king and queen and the forest their kingdom.
**********
That night when the forest had gone quiet and naught was left but the crackling of the fires and a few scattered chatterings of the forest night owls, Malarkey and Mei lay huddled together in their dugout hut, warm beneath the wool blankets and with their arms around each other.
“You don’t miss living in a castle do you?” Mei asked him.
“Not at all,” Malarkey half laughed. “The woods are a kinder place anyhow. No one to tell you where to go, how to look or who to talk with.”
Mei rested her head against his chest, slipping further into sleep as she listened to the slow and comforting beat of his heart. “You know that when King Richard returns he’ll have an outlaw for an in-law?”
Malarkey laughed before he kissed the crown of her head. “I couldn’t live without you Mei,” he sighed. “Even if the king has an outlaw for an in-law.”
“And I couldn’t live without you Don,” she replied.
They fell asleep that night in each other’s arms, content and at peace with the world. The woods would remain their home forever and for all time.
#band of brothers#donald malarkey#original female character#malarkey x oc#walt hasser#george luz#skip muck#alex penkala#ray person#shifty powers#robin hood au#fairy tale au#malarkey would make an awesome robin hood#easy company#curahee#hbo war#hbo war au#hbo war crossover
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Well, Ex-Aid: True Ending looks amazing, and it's showing a new ninja Rider called Kamen Rider Fuma, and he looks pretty awesome! And since, for better or for worse, Movie Exclusive Riders have been a tradition ever since Agito, I might as well ask: What are your Top 5 Best and Top Five Worst Movie Riders?
Good question! Movie exclusive Riders are always frustrating to me. They are either amazing and I want more of them but they only get that one appearance or I just want them to go away so I can get back to characters I actually give a care about. So, that makes this list pretty fitting for those Riders who only exist on the big screen to either get their day in the sun or return to the end credits where they belong.
Let’s start positive! These are my top 5 favorite Movie-Only Kamen Riders!
5) Kamen Rider Eternal from Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate
Katsumi Daido is a dead man walking, literally. He was returned from the dead by his mother as the first of a group of super soldiers called the Necro-Over. As such, he leads a group of similar revived mercenaries known as NEVER. They once worked for Foundation X but rebelled and stole the T2 Gaia Memories. Katsumi uses the Eternal Memory to become Kamen Rider Eternal and can also use all of the other Gaia Memories thanks to his bandoleers that function as slots for them.
4) Kamen Rider Kabuki from Kamen Rider Hibiki & The Seven Senki
This is one of five movie only Riders to appear in this film but he’s the most memorable. He at first appears to be a hero, joining with the other Seven Oni recruited to save a young woman from being sacrificed but it turns out he’s working for the monsters, as he wants to become one of them. Shifty, treacherous and a trickster of sorts, I just love his outift!
3) Kamen Rider Psyga from Kamen Rider 555: Paradise Lost
Our second evil Rider is one of the enforcers working for Smart Brain. His real name is Leo and he is one of the most powerful of the Riders, using a new Gear that is ‘perfect’ and can only be used by the elite Orphenochs. He is cocky, egotistical and has a superior attitude. He also has a jetpack so he can back u that attitude. Oh and he speaks perfect English!
2) Kamen Rider 3 from Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3
Hey, who’s that guy? That’s Kyoichiro Kuroi a.k.a. Kamen Rider 3, Shocker’s most perfect Rider in the altered timeline where he was completed and defeated Kamen Riders 1 & 2, allowing his evil Masters to take over the world. He has a fantastic design somewhat reminsicent (Thanks to his gold scarf) of Shocker Rider but he has his own motives and eventually, at the cost of his own existence, ends up becoming a hero of Justice.
1) Kamen Rider Femme from Kamen Rider Ryuki: Episode Final
Out first Rider to start out as anything better than a villain on this list, Miho Kirishima is a shadier figure than most riders. She’s a con artist using her looks and wits to lure in rich men and then rob them. She secretly wants to win the Rider War to bring her dead sister back to life and also wants to kill the man who took her life, Asakura a.k.a. Kamen Rider Ouja. She also has the distinction of being the first official female Kamen Rider!
And now for something a little less positive…
Now, some of these are characters I am ok with but I don’t like how they were used in the story or how they interacted with the established characters. Also, this is entirely my own opinion and I know there will be at least one entry on this bottom five that people will disagree with me about.
Let’s get started.
5) Kamen Rider Nadeshiko from Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War Mega Max
Let me start by saying I have no problem with this character in theory and I do find her cute however, I am fundamentally opposed to the idea of Gentarou having a girlfriend. He even stated in the series proper at one point that he is only interested in people as friends. He seems oblivious to romantic gestures and suddenly, in this movie, he’s interested in this new girl. It doesn’t really help that she’s actually sentient space slime capable of copying just about anything, even his powers.
4) Kamen Rider Kivala from Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010
I like this design! That’s the best thing I can say about this movie only Rider. I also like the character who becomes Kamen Rider Kivala. However, what’s the point? She’s a pointless addition to a meandering story that seems to come out of nowhere. Had she been in the actual series, I would have been more ok with it but she was the payoff to a setup I didn’t care about.
3) Kamen Rider Glaive, Kamen Rider Larc and Kamen Rider Lance from Kamen Rider Blade: Missing Ace
I did not like this movie and I did not like these designs. They seems too simple after the elegant and complex designs of the Blade TV suits. They are all equally underwhelming and so they tie for third place.
2) Kamen Rider Sorcerer from Kamen Rider Wizard In Magic Land
I didn’t really care for this movie and I was disappointed that this supposed Sorcerer and evil magic user turned out to just be another Phantom. Also, he came across as a pretty generic ranting villain.
1) These Three from Kamen Rider Kabuto: God Speed Love
Kamen Rider Kabuto had some great, original designs and each new Rider was a surprising interesting and unique character. These three are different colored versions of the same suit with slightly different helmets. They are fairly unmemorable and if Toei couldn’t bother to come up with new suits, I can’t be bothered to remember their names. I don’t hate them, I just feel meh about them and that’s worse than hate in many ways. Hate at least elicits passion, these just make me shrug and want to go back to the TV series, which is something a movie should never do.
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 36: The Thing With Anger (It Begs to Stick Around)
Summary: There’s a moment of silence that feels like all three of them collectively breathing a sigh of relief. Things are still uncertain, but at least now Zenie has some answers, and more importantly, a plan. No more waiting around in this purgatory.
A/N: I promise I did not mean to post that last chapter and then disappear for *checks watch* almost two months 💀 Things just got crazy with the holidays and I didn't have a lot of time to write
Title comes from "Seventeen Going Under" by Sam Fender
Warnings: domestic issues (Zenie's dad), language
Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @dcyllom @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs
North Carolina, 1945
Zenie has only just stepped in the house when it begins.
From the other room, she can hear the frustration in her father’s voice as he rants. “If she’s going to stay here, then she’s going to clean this place top to bottom! Someone’s got to clean this place.”
“She’s not here that often,” Mama replies. “She’s at work, with me.”
So it’s a fight about her, then. Something that she’s done. Or from the sound of it, something that her father thinks she hasn’t done. Something that, it’s worth pointing out, he could very well do if he would ever pull himself up out of that stupid rocking chair, away from his precious radio, and put in the effort. But that would be too much to ask of him.
As quietly as possible, Zenie shuts the backdoor behind her as she slips further into the room. If she hurries, she could shoot for the stairs and sneak to her bedroom before anyone notices that she’s inside. She’s almost made up her mind to do just that when the smell of smoke hits her nostrils.
On cue, Momma’s voice can be heard from the kitchen once again. “You made this mess, anyway. What are you even trying to do with the stove? There are ashes everywhere.”
“None of your business,” her father snaps, followed by an all too confident, “I’m fixing things.”
In her curiosity, Zenie has crept to the doorway of the kitchen. She peers in at the scene before her. Her father standing – for once – in front of the stove, a pile of ashes spilling from one of the eyes and onto the floor. Her mother, looking confused, angered – and then shocked when she looks up and sees Zenie’s questioning face gazing into the room.
Her father turns, too. His eyes go to slits. “Aren’t you supposed to be outside helping your mom with the wash?”
“I took a break,” Zenie replies. It’s sort of true. And with all the lies and half-truths that she’s used to build her life these past few years, what’s one more slight fib? Before he can demand any answers, she steps further into the room. “Do you need help cleaning that up, Mama?”
Her father scoffs. “Now she offers to help.” Then, in what he must think is under his breath, “Lazy fuckin’ bitch.”
“Oh, shut up.” The words escape Zenie’s mouth without her permission. She freezes, absorbing what she’s just said, the shock of the people in front of her.
A beat of silence – the most uncomfortable of her whole life.
“What did you just say to me?” Her father demands.
In for a penny, in for a pound. She thought that once before, back on D-Day. “Just stop,” Zenie says, almost pleading. “Just stop blaming me for everything. Just stop talking to my Mama that way. Just – everything!”
Mama’s eyes are wide. “Zenie – “
“Go to your room,” her father orders. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, like dealing with her physically pains him.
“I’m not a little kid.”
“Go!” He booms.
She will. This one last time, she decides, she will follow his order to the letter.
Despite her insistence that she’s not a kid, she stomps up the stairs to her room and slams the door shut behind her for good measure. She’ll go even further than this. Further than anyone expects.
Loudly and with gusto, Zenie rummages through her dresser, pulling out her favorite clothes, her most precious belongings. She shoves them into a carpet bag that she throws onto her bed. Her uniforms and loot from her time in the army find themselves carefully repacked into the bag she brought them home in. She checks and rechecks to make sure that her shiny jump wings are inside, just to be safe. She cannot leave anything she loves behind this time. Unlike that morning years ago where she assured herself that she would return someday, she makes no such promises now – doesn’t even let the possibility cross her mind.
Angry blood pulses through her ears so loudly that she doesn’t hear the tapping on the glass of her window the first time. Or the second. But she would have to be deaf not to hear the crashing sound behind her, the great tumult of glass shattering and then skittering in shards across her bedroom floor.
With horror, Zenie freezes, surveying the scene. She holds her breath. There is no noise from downstairs. If anyone had heard that, her father would have already started yelling. There is yelling, however – but it’s coming from outside.
“Zenie!”
Careful to avoid the broken glass that litters her floor, Zenie rushes to the broken window and sticks her head out. Down in the yard, a rock in his hand, stands Bobby.
“Bobby?” She calls. “You broke my window!”
Bobby ignores this. Even from up high, Zenie can see that his face is red, and that his chest heaves with his breathlessness. “Do you have a friend with a funny name?”
Zenie blinks. A simple I’m so sorry about your window was what she was expecting, so hearing a sentence that’s nowhere near that gives Zenie so much surprise that it takes her brain a moment to process what her friend has just said. “What?”
“Do you have a friend with a funny name?” Bobby repeats, voice impatient this time. “Starts with a G, I think? It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before. Gonorrhea?”
“Guarnere,” Zenie automatically corrects.
Down in the yard, Bobby nods, relief briefly flickering over him. “Yeah, that’s it! He’s trying to find you!”
“Find me?”
“Get down here!”
Dodging the broken glass again and abandoning her packing, Zenie flees down the stairs and starts through the house.
“Where are you going?” Her father demands as she passes the kitchen. “Zena Beatrice!”
But Zenie is already through the door and out in the yard. A hundred possibilities race through her mind. If Bill is trying to find her, does that mean he’s here? And if he’s trying to find her, then perhaps her friends haven’t forgotten about and abandoned her after all. Which means that maybe one of them knows where Shifty is.
“Find me?” Zenie repeats the second that she sees Bobby, who grabs her hand and begins pulling her up the driveway to where his truck is parked.
“I’ll explain on the way. Just get in!”
“You broke my window,” Zenie says again as she opens the door to the passenger side.
A few steps behind her, Bobby has the decency to cringe as he approaches the truck. “Sorry about that. But your dad wouldn’t let me in to see you and there’s no time – “ He’s already cranked the truck and has the engine roaring to life before he bothers to shut his door. The vehicle lurches on the gravel, and the next thing Zenie knows, they’re flying down the road in the direction of town. To her knowledge, Bobby has never driven this fast before.
After catching his breath and throwing a nervous look in the rearview mirror, her friend finally begins to explain. “I was taking a break at work when the phone in the office rang. When I answered it, there was a guy on the other end who wanted to know if you were working. I mean, it took me a minute to figure out what he was saying at first – I’ve never heard an accent like that before in my life.”
Despite everything, Zenie can’t help but chuckle to herself as she pictures the scene. Yeah, that sounds like Bill, she thinks.
“Anyway, I told him you hadn’t worked there in a while, so he asked if I knew any other way to reach you. I told him that I could have you call him back, but that it might take a while because you don’t live in town and you don’t have a phone at your house. Then some other guy in the background started talking and – I don’t really know because of the accent – but I think they argued for a bit about something. The first guy told me to tell you that it was Guarnere, and that this was urgent.” Bobby pauses, swallows thickly. “He said it was about Shifty.”
It's hard to imagine Guarnere using those words. More accurately, he probably told Bobby to hurry the fuck up and that the fate of the world depended upon whatever he has to say. And Zenie wouldn’t blame him for that. Her heart sinks when she hears Shifty’s name. It’s like an icicle has been driven into her chest. Her body turns so cold and shaky that all she can do is stare out the window for the rest of the drive.
Which doesn’t take long, to Bobby’s credit. They slide into the parking lot of the diner on two wheels, and Zenie has leapt from the truck before Bobby has even parked properly.
He leans out the window as Zenie goes. “There’s a piece of paper on the desk with the number to call! He said they’d be waiting by the phone!”
For the second time within the past thirty minutes, blood rushes so loudly in Zenie’s ears that she barely hears what’s being said to her. Later, she won’t be able to remember the way she ran through the parking lot, how she rushed through the diner so hurriedly that she missed her old manager calling out to her in greeting. All she knows is that suddenly she’s sitting in the rickety old chair behind the desk, phone pressed to her ear with one hand while the other clutches the cord against her chest.
“Hello?” A voice on the other end shatters her thoughts, and for just a second, the iciness and worry festering in her chest dissipate.
“Bill?” Her voice is only a whisper.
“Zenie!” Bill exclaims. It simultaneously sounds like he’s laughing in delight and scolding her all at once. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick about ya, kid!”
A thousand different visits to an empty mailbox flood her mind. “Me? Where the hell have you been? I haven’t heard from you in months!”
From some distance behind him, Zenie can hear another voice crackle through the phone. “Is that her? Lemme talk to her!”
“Hold on a sec, Babe, I’m tryin’ to get this worked out,” Bill says. Then, to her, “We’ve been gettin’ letters from you, but they never answer any of our questions. It’s like you’ve been writin’ into the void or somethin’, never acknowledging anything that we’ve sent you.”
The icy worry washes over her in a wave, making her wish that she had grabbed a sweater on her way out the door. “What do you mean? I haven’t gotten any letters from anybody.”
“You haven’t? Ow! Babe, wait your turn!”
“No.” Though the ice-cold dread in her chest thaws slightly once more. There have been letters. She just hasn’t received them. Why?
“So you don’t know then?” Babe’s voice floods the receiver.
“Know what?”
From the other side, silence. Then, tentatively, Bill clarifies. “About Shifty?”
Zenie sucks in a breath. So something has happened to him. Somewhere deep inside her, down where her worst fears and panics fester while she pretends not to think about them, she’s always known that something had to have happened in order for her husband to not be here with her, to have not written to her. She wants so badly to know, to have answers. And yet, she can’t unstick the words in her throat. If they come out, she will get answers, and then there will be no more pretending that everything is fine. There will only be a real problem that must be faced in order to be moved past.
After a beat of silence, Bill speaks again.
“Zenie,” his voice is soft, like it was all that time ago back in Bastogne, a hundred years ago when he was asking her about her real identity. “Shifty was in a car crash on his way to the ship that was supposed to take you guys back to the States.”
The world stops spinning. Her heart stops beating. She stops breathing. Somehow, she doesn’t drop the phone, but her hand flies up to cover her mouth. It seems like she should be stifling a scream, but instead, she only breathes heavily into it, trying to catch her breath.
When her friends speak again, they sound such a long way off that they might as well be speaking to her from outer space.
“He was taken to the hospital,” Bill is explaining. “And apparently he got shipped to a new one somewhere in the States. No one seems to know which one, though.”
“And since you didn’t say anything in your letters . . .” Babe adds. “And they were all postmarked with North Carolina, we figured you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t,” Zenie whispers. “I don’t. I don’t know where he is.”
Miles and miles away and unseen to her, Zenie can still picture her friends sharing a concerned look.
“You’re with your parents?” Babe presses.
Well, she was, until right before she came here. Now most of her belongings are packed and ready to go.
“I have to leave,” she realizes aloud.
“Where?”
Bags are packed, but Zenie realizes that she never worked out where she was going to go. Her mind has to be made up now, though, and the answer suddenly becomes clear.
“I’ll go up to Virginia,” she decides. “To Shifty’s family. I’ll see if they know anything, and I’ll wait there, if they’ll let me. And if not . . .”
“You’ll come here,” Bill orders. “You’ll stay with one of us. Our families won’t mind.” Then, using his best NCO voice, “Zenie, promise me you’ll come to Philly if they don’t let you stay. We can’t lose ya again.”
Bill has extended this invitation to her once before. And Ma wouldn’t mind at all. Hell, after having her sons leave for the war, she’d probably be glad to have another mouth to feed, he had joked.
Circumstances are different now. Her secret is out. This time, she accepts. “I promise.”
“Good.”
There’s a moment of silence that feels like all three of them collectively breathing a sigh of relief. Things are still uncertain, but at least now Zenie has some answers, and more importantly, a plan. No more waiting around in this purgatory.
“Hey,” Bill says, tone lighter than before. “Congratulations on your wedding, by the way.” A pause. “But what the hell is this that I hear about Babe bein’ the one to give ya away? Ya couldn’t let your best friend do it?”
“I am her best friend,” Babe brags, followed by an “Ow!” as Bill, presumably, smacks him.
Zenie laughs. It’s a wet sound, and she realizes for the first time that there are tears leaking down her cheeks. She attempts to wipe some of them away before she speaks again. “You were my best man in spirit, Bill.”
“Zee, I’m always your best man.”
They talk for a little longer. More tears escape her, and Zenie is thankful that her friends can’t see the state that she’s in. Everything is happening so quickly. Plans must be made. That was what saved her before – having a plan, having a sense of direction, even as she was heading off into the unknown.
“Zenie, don’t forget what we said,” Bill reminds her. “You better come here at the first sign of trouble. Got it?”
“Yes, sir, Staff-Sergeant Guarnere.”
“Don’t worry, Zenie,” Babe offers. “Everything is going to turn out fine.”
He sounds so sure, his voice so kind. It only makes Zenie’s eyes water all the more. What did she do to deserve such good friends? All she can do is echo a sentiment that one of them offered her before. “We’re gonna be fine, boys.”
They fly home in Bobby’s truck, gravel pinging against the red sides and dust churning up behind them. There’s no time to lose – not when she’s lost so much already.
“I’ll wait here,” Bobby assures her at the top of the driveway. “Just holler if you need help.”
Zenie nods. After turning toward her house, she pauses for a moment, steeling herself. Then, she goes.
“Where the hell have you been?” Her father demands the second that she opens the door. But she ignores him, barges past, and flies up to her room.
“Zenie!” Her mama calls after her. “Zenie?”
Unlike her father, her mother follows her up the stairs, pauses in the doorway of her bedroom. She twists her hands together, brow furrowed as she watches Zenie grab her bags. Her breath hitches in her throat.
“You’re leaving again.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“I have to,” Zenie says. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
“Lily!” Her father yells from downstairs. “What’s going on up there?”
In a few quick strides, Zenie crosses the room, grabs Mama’s hand, pulls her into the bedroom, and shuts the door behind her, effectively shutting her father’s prying ears out in case he should hear them.
She left her mother behind last time. Ever since she came home, she’s felt the guilt over that decision festering in her chest. Maybe all her mother needs is a way out, just like her.
“Mama,” Zenie begins, voice pleading as she takes a seat on her bed. Her mother’s hands are warm between hers. She holds onto Mama the way a drowning man in the ocean would hold onto a piece of driftwood. Then, she begs. “Please, come with me.”
Mama frees one of her hands from Zenie’s grip. It comes up to cup her cheek, and Zenie finds herself leaning into the touch the way a small child would. “What’s going on?”
Everything Bill and Babe have just told her flashes through her mind, lightning fast, too quick and too hot to grab onto. “I . . . don’t know.”
Except she does know. She’s leaving. And she’s going to find Shifty, wherever he is. Bobby is going to help her – again. But this time, things should play out differently. No waving to Mama from the top of the driveway and wondering when she will ever see her again. No leaving her behind to worry after all her children are gone. Zenie will make the right choice this time.
“My husband has been in an accident, and none of our friends know where he is,” she begins to explain after faltering a few times. “I’m going to Virginia to see if his family knows anything – and to stay there.”
“What if they won’t have you?”
“Then I’m going to Philadelphia to stay with my friends.” She squeezes Mama’s hand. “Please come with me. I don’t want to leave you here again. Not with him.”
Mama frowns. “Zenie –“
“No one will mind. Shifty’s mama would love you, and after we get our own place, you can come stay with us – “
“Zenie.” Her mother never says the word no, but from her tone, Zenie stops in her tracks, heart sinking as her mother’s answer sinks in.
Why stay here? No one else has. Zenie’s siblings have all moved on. Now she is, too. There’s no reason, as far as she can tell, to hold onto this household with a desperate grip, trying to keep it together, to salvage it. When Zenie leaves, it will be only her father and Mama. And Mama will spend her days working for others and then coming home to work for her father. What kind of life is that?
There’s a beat of silence where Zenie absorbs all of this. Mama watches her closely, waiting.
“Mama,” Zenie finally says again. She looks her mother in the eye when she asks, “Why do you put up with him? You deserve better than this.” She can’t help but tack on the question that’s always lurked in the back of her mind, always in the shadows, but too deep and murky for her to ever fully examine. “Do you love him?”
Instead of answering, her mother pushes a sigh through her nose. After a long pause, she doesn’t meet Zenie’s eye when she says, “Someday, you will understand.”
There is not someday. There is only the here and the now where everything has developed so suddenly and is moving so quickly.
“Go,” Mama tells her. “Go be with your husband. And with your friends. I’ll be fine.”
“But Mama – “
“I’ll be fine,” she repeats, patting Zenie’s hand with each word to drive the point home. “And I will always be here if you need me.”
No one can say that she didn’t try to change things. She doesn’t understand the motive, but she understands that Mama’s mind is made up. Instead of arguing, Zenie asks her, “Write to me?”
A sad smile turns Mama’s lips, a gentle hand sweeps a piece of hair behind Zenie’s ear. “Every day.”
True to her word, Mama does not let Zenie’s father do anything to her. She’s not sure what is said. All she knows is that when she trudges down the stairs with all her earthly possessions, her father is in the back room, stewing in his chair, radio on high. Mama kisses her on the cheek and hugs Bobby, telling him to drive safely.
At the top of the driveway, Zenie watches the reflection of her mother in the mirror. She is sitting on the porch, watching her last child leave. In the reflection, she is framed by mountains that, as Bobby drives them away, appear to hold her, cradling her with care. They have been there since time immemorial, and they will be there long after any of them are gone. Zenie will just have to trust that they will hold her mother and keep her safe within their grasp. They round the bend and Zenie loses sight of her. There is nothing to watch for in the mirror now, so she trains her eyes on the road ahead, trying to forget the past as she readies herself for what comes next.
#this is a chapter I've kept secret for AGES so I am losing my mind sharing it now#band of brothers fanfic#band of brothers#band of brothers oc#band of brothers x ofc#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#like a girl (like a man)#hbo war#hbo war fic#oc zenie mcglamery#my writing
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 21: Datalesvi Anina
Summary: “Bill may be our smartest NCO, but he doesn’t know everything.”
A/N: The moment we've all been waiting for: Bastogne
(Chapter title translates to "they are sitting in holes")
Warnings: improper binding, language, war
Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @mrs-murder-daddy @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @lieutenant-speirs
Belgium, 1944
After a few days, Zenie comes to the conclusion that if she keeps her eyes shut tight, lets her brain remain fuzzy with sleep, and leans into the warmth beside her, she can almost – almost – trick herself into thinking that she is a little girl again, back in North Carolina, curled up under her blankets on a frosty morning while she waits for the smell of Granny’s warm biscuits to draw her downstairs for breakfast. The shaking of the shattered earth, the groans and cries of men, and the heavy cold always shatter the illusion the second that she becomes a little more awake.
Holland’s water-filled foxholes felt like hell. Clearly none of them understood true hell until they walked into Bastogne. No wonder the men who were here before them were retreating so quickly.
There is no room for secrets in a place like this. Where would they put them? You can cling to them in your foxhole, but someone is there with you, and they’re bound to find out at some point, to see the real you, made up of everything you’ve tried to hide. At least in Holland they could get up and move around. Here, in Bastogne, they have to be ready to dive into a foxhole at any second.
They are only safe inside the earth. And that is where their secrets start to become known.
With the line stretched so thin, it’s hard to keep up with friends. Word travels fast, though, in the way that rumors always do. That’s how the rest of the company finds out that Shifty talks in his sleep, that Perconte has practically an entire drugstore in his bag, and that Liebgott and Toye both like to sing to pass the time.
Every day that they spend in this place makes Zenie feel like she’s holding onto her own secret for dear life. Her fingers ache from the effort. Her determination isn’t slipping, exactly, but her frustration is rising.
There is no aide station for Gene to take her back to whenever he insists she loosen or change her bandages. She tries to share a foxhole with him when she can. He’s so busy running around the line, though, that her other friends often fill his place, insisting that she shouldn’t be alone. They all learned in Holland that loneliness is no way to survive. Shifty is further up the line and gets sent on too many patrols for her to share a foxhole with him – the only other person she can trust with this secret of hers. That’s how she usually finds herself sitting beside Bill, or when he’s making his rounds, Babe and his old friend, John Julian.
Babe and Julian went through training together. Even though they go way back, she never feels excluded when she’s with them. They tell her stories of jump school shenanigans that make her feel like she’s part of the joke instead of watching two friends reminisce about the good old days.
“You know he’s a virgin?” It’s one of their first days in Bastogne. Julian hasn’t made it back from the pitiful excuse of a chow-line yet, and Babe’s question comes out of nowhere.
Zenie blinks. “Oh?”
“Yeah.”
Silence washes over them as they watch the line. As she stares ahead, Zenie can feel Babe very pointedly trying to not look at her from the corner of his eye.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Babe shrugs. “Just thought I’d let ya know that it’s okay, I guess. You ain’t the only one. Although I don’t know how you guys do it. I’d be afraid of dying without experiencing true heaven.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me, Babe.” The confession slips out before she really grasps the weight of what she’s just said. Funny, realizing how much things have changed. She bites her bottom lip to keep from giggling at it all.
Her friend balks. “What?! When?”
Well, if she’s already confessed – albeit by accident – there’s no use in lying. “Paris.”
“Out on your pass?”
“Yep.”
“Unbelievable.” Babe shakes his head. “Bill said you were a virgin.”
Why would he need to tell Babe that? Unless, she freezes at the thought, he was telling his fellow Philadelphian about her embarrassment with the pin-up of Beckie.
“Bill may be our smartest NCO, but he doesn’t know everything.”
“He doesn’t know?” When Zenie shakes her head, a small cloud of steam escapes from Babe’s mouth as he huffs a warm laugh into the cold air. “Unbelievable,” he repeats.
Without him, Zenie thinks back to the hotel room in Paris – all the ways that she and Shifty caressed each other and the way that he smiled at her the next morning, beaming, like the sun glittering over the dew-crowned trees on a fresh spring morning.
Yes, she’s inclined to agree. Unbelievable.
Back in Holland the days bled together, each as miserable and wet as the last. At least there she could find apples anywhere she looked. Here, in Bastogne, she’s once again in a hole in the ground, surrounded by trees, but there is nothing to eat, and the endless precipitation is the snow that seems to fall without fail every night.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whack! Whoosh! Bill is brushing the fresh snow from the tarp they’ve been using to cover their foxhole at night. It doesn’t do much in terms of keeping heat in, but at least it keeps the snow off of them while they sleep.
Zenie’s joints pop as she stretches. It draws Bill’s attention, and he stops cleaning off the tarp.
“Mornin’.”
Zenie grunts in response. No “good” before the word. Simply a statement of fact: this is another morning that they have reached.
Bill folds the tarp back and sits back in the foxhole with a sigh. “Why don’t you go check and see if there’s any breakfast?” He suggests.
There won’t be. There hardly ever is. It just gives Zenie something to do other than walking from foxhole to foxhole, visiting with the other men in between the shellings that the Germans send their way. At least Bill has an actual excuse to walk around. Checking the line and checking up on the men might be what got him hurt back in Holland, but he still takes his duties as an NCO seriously.
It almost makes Zenie wish that she would get promoted. Then no one could say anything if she wandered a bit too far in the woods looking for third platoon – (looking for Shifty.) On their second day here, she got lost after trying to find somewhere to loosen her bandages. She stumbled across a frozen pile of German bodies, frost thick on their winter coats. After that, she decided not to stray too far from her foxhole anymore.
With a sigh, she pulls herself out of the hole, the crunch of snow greeting her when she stands and stretches.
“You want anything?”
Bill’s lips are pressed together as he stares at the line. After a moment he breaks his focus, nodding up at her. “If they’ve got it.”
They don’t. Not even the pitiful cup of water with two beans floating in it that they served at midday the day before. (Well, it felt like midday, at least. It could have been any time of day, and only the men with watches would be the wiser.)
She stops to greet Luz and a few other men on her way back. George has a few quips about their situation. Other people have a few choice words about the cold. They all laugh, and it sounds warm and out of place in this frozen land.
“Nothing?” Bill asks when she returns.
“Not a drop.”
He sighs, starts to stand. “Well then. Looks – “
Boom! The ground shakes under Zenie’s feet as the first explosion of the morning signals the start of the day.
“Incoming!” Someone’s voice announces. It sounds like Sergeant Lipton that yells, over the successive series of booming explosions that pierce the air, “Get in your foxholes!”
“Get in!” Bill demands.
The ground still shaking, Zenie lurches forward, trying to dive into the foxhole with her friend. Her feet hit the bottom of the pit and she’s starting to crouch down when she hears a whizzing noise nearby. The air shakes as the Germans fire at them. It feels so close that she freezes, like a deer that’s been stumbled upon in the woods. She feels Bill’s hand clench around her right shoulder and drag her the rest of the way down.
She lands so roughly that for a second, the pain in her side from landing on Bill distracts from the horrible slicing pain that races through her left arm. Foxholes are supposed to keep them safe, but once inside them, it feels like the whole world trembles endlessly. This time it knocks the breath out of her, making her gasp as white-hot electricity races through her arm. Her whole body feels hot – which seems incongruous, considering where they are – and despite all her wishes, she knows the truth: she’s been hit.
Summer heat takes hold of her body. She wished for warmth, and boy, has she got it now. Late July afternoons, full of humidity and sweat, have found her in this frozen place. No ice cream and running through the fields, though. This is the worst parts of summer – the Dog Days, with their high temperatures and mosquitos eating her legs. All that’s missing is the screaming of the cicadas. To prove its presence, a sheen of sweat overtakes her as a side effect of the heat.
The only reason she knows the shelling has stopped is that no more deafening explosions thunder through the sky above them. The world still shakes – except, it’s actually just her shaking. And the echoing in her ears is from the blood pumping through them, fast as a train.
“You alright, Tommy?” Bill asks.
Slowly, she pushes herself up. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut when the movement sends new jolts of pain through her left side. Maybe it’s not actually that bad. Maybe it’s like a bee sting in that it just feels bad, but it actually very small. She just needs a minute before she looks.
It’s a minute that she doesn’t get. Bill curses under his breath beside her. Something is wrong.
Warm blood leeks from gashes in her sleeve. Most of it is coming from her arm, in a steady trickle that begins at her shoulder. But thank God, she realizes, her arm is still attached to her body, like it should be. And, as an added bonus, when she chokes back the bile burning her throat and tries to inspect the damage, she can still move it, as well as her fingers.
“Medic!” Bill hollers.
The word drags her out of her temporary solace. She’s been hit and she needs a medic, to patch her up, to send her to an aide station. Those don’t exist here, though. And they’re running low on medics as well.
“No,” Zenie hisses, despite the pain in her arm. “Don’t!”
Bill’s eyes go wide as his brow furrows. “Are you crazy? You need a – Medic!”
What if Spina is the nearest medic? What if they have to remove her jacket in front of everyone?
“Bill, I’m fine. Stop!”
The Staff Sergeant doesn’t listen. In fact, he outright ignores her as he reaches into his pockets, muttering to himself. “I got some left-over sulfa power in here somewhere. Where the fuck – ? Aha! Tommy, hold still, will ya? Medic!”
He moves towards her then. There’s nowhere for her to go. It would be hard enough to drag herself out of the foxhole with one arm, and even harder when Bill looks like he’s ready to chase her down. She presses herself against the frozen earth behind her, trying to dodge her friend as he comes closer.
“Bill, stop!”
“Tommy, you gotta let me – “ Bill takes hold of her jacket and rips it open. Cold air hits her chest, although it doesn’t stop the heat that’s still coursing through her. A new wave of it rushes over her in both embarrassment and pain as Bill fights to remove her jacket from her shoulder. When it’s free he clenches the packet of sulfa powder between his teeth, ready to tear it open . . . He pauses, his eyes taking in the full extent of the scene before him. “What the fuck?”
Maybe it’s the way that Zenie manages to push him away and tug her jacket up to cover her bandaged chest that gives it away. Or maybe it’s the way her face burns with shame, how she can’t look her best friend in the eye. Besides, Bill is smart, and he knows that she’s never been hit. It doesn’t take him very long to figure out what the bandages are for.
“Oh Christ,” he whispers, his eyes still fixed on her bandages. They’re the size of saucers when he finally manages to move them to her face. “You’re a broad!”
A broad. Huh. So that’s what someone from South Philly would call a girl. Back on the ship that brought them to Europe, she had once wondered about it. She had wondered about the reactions of her friends, too, if they were to learn her secret.
Well, now she knows.
“Sorry,” Zenie whispers, because it’s the only thing she can think to say.
“Since when?!”
“Since birth.”
“Jesus, this whole time? And I never knew!?” His face pales. “Ah, Christ . . . I’ve told ya too much. Shit! I gave you that pin-up and everything!”
The crunch of snow announces a new presence behind them, coming in fast. “Who’s been hit?”
Eugene jumps down into the foxhole, landing so that Zenie is between him and Bill. His medic brain kicks in first as he reaches out to move her jacket so that he can inspect the damage. He freezes, his hands only just grazing her jacket when he glances over at Bill.
“Tommy got hit. I think mostly in the shoulder.”
Gene looks between Zenie and their sergeant. Reluctantly, she nods. He already knows; the damage is done.
She hisses in pain when Gene peels back her jacket to inspect her. He mutters something in French that’s as smooth and slow as molasses. An apology, maybe. How many of those will this foxhole hear? Despite all that’s happened, he’s a soothing presence. Now Zenie knows why he’s Easy’s preferred medic.
“Shrapnel,” Gene announces. “Peppered your arm. Missed the arteries, though. Nothin’ deep, except one cut that’ll need to be stitched up. Maybe get some little pieces removed. I can do it back in the town.”
“Got lucky, huh?” Bill asks. His voice is full of a tone that Zenie has never heard before. He sounds lighthearted and troubled all at once. “Missed your tits, thank God.” A grimace that might be an attempt at a smile appears behind the beard he’s started growing.
“She did,” Gene agrees. Gently, he helps her adjust her jacket, and then both he and Bill help her to her feet and out of the foxhole.
“He – I mean, is she gonna be okay, Doc?”
A pause.
“Yeah,” Gene replies. “Yeah, she should be.”
He escorts her away then, talking about catching the Jeep before it heads back into the town with Skinny Sisk, who’s been hit in the leg. Zenie casts a glance back over her shoulder at Bill, who stands in the foxhole, watching her go. Maybe for the last time, now that he knows her secret. His expression is inscrutable – so unlike him.
She’s come all this way. Starting in her bedroom, ending in Belgium. And now she’s being taken away from the line. Gene will patch her up . . . And then what? Damn!
Gene helps her up into the Jeep, keeps his fingers wrapped loosely on her good shoulder as they ride so that she doesn’t topple off their precarious perch on the back of it. The medic catches her eye and offers her a nod. She can only wonder what it means.
#screaming crying yelling#idk if this one's any good but I've been sitting on it for a while omg#shifty powers x original female character#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers#band of brothers#band of brothers fanfic#band of brothers x ofc#band of brothers x oc#oc zenie mcglamery#like a girl (like a man)#my writing#bill guarnere
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 29: Love and War
Summary: What is there left to take from Zena McGlamery that could possibly hurt her?
Warnings: war, mentions of death, guns
Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @lady-cheeky @mrs-murder-daddy @ithinkabouttzu @lieutenant-speirs
Haguenau, 1945
Laying on her stomach beside Liebgott, the machine gun between them, Zenie can feel her heart trembling in her chest as they wait. The darkness is thick between them. Like a heavy blanket over the river, the night obscures the water that fifteen men are about to cross. Babe, Earl, Popeye, Skinny, and Shifty are among them. Zenie bites the inside of her cheek whenever their faces flash before her mind’s eye. All the laughs they’ve ever shared, all their shared hardship these past few years, everything feels heavy within some deep place in her heart. A lump that makes it hard to swallow gums up her throat whenever she thinks about Shifty especially.
He had managed to whisk her off to the privacy of a back room after he was briefed about the patrol. A thousand different thoughts had tried to tumble out of Zenie’s mouth all at once, only to get stuck there as she let out breathless gasps that she tried to choke by covering her mouth. Shifty had held her close, letting her bury her face in his shoulder. “I know,” he had whispered.
Some part of her understands all of Shifty’s original reluctance about their relationship now. They left Bastogne and the end of the war felt so close at hand. Everyone said that the Krauts were finished. It had seemed, for the blink of an eye, like they could make it. And now they’re being tossed right back into the fray. One more chance for everything to go all to hell.
“Listen,” Shifty had said, pulling away so that they could look at each other. “It’s just a patrol. I’m not leadin’ it, so you don’t have to worry as much.”
“Shifty – “
He had cut her off, rushing to reassure her – though they both know that there is no fairness, no guarantee of any kind in love and war. “You’re stayin’ over here. And as long as you’re here, I have a reason to make it back. That’s my objective: to make it back to where you are.”
But what if you don’t? she can’t bring herself to ask. Bill had once said that they were going to be okay with the upmost confidence, only to then be sent home with a leg missing.
Shifty’s hold is firm when he takes hold of Zenie’s hand and brings it to his lips. He presses a kiss to the back of her hand, pausing there for a moment before he pulls it away. The saddest smile that Zenie has ever seen finds its way to his lips as he looks at her one last time. Then he leaves, off to prepare with the others who are going on the patrol.
So now Zenie waits. For any sort of signal from the men across the river. For any sort of sign. She waits.
Several times, Liebgott draws a breath, like he’s about to say something, only to remain quiet. Finally, he sighs. “You think that West Point replacement will make it back alive?”
What was the new lieutenant’s name? Probably not a promising sign that Zenie can’t remember, but in her defense, there’s been a lot on her mind. From what she does remember about him, he had seemed overeager and reserved.
“He better,” she mutters. “Everyone I care about is crossing that river.”
“We’re lucky it isn’t us,” Liebgott says. He scoffs, shaking his head. “Hell, it almost was. All of second platoon was picked, but we managed to get left behind. Guess they had to have at least a few people left, that way they still have someone to throw to the dogs next time.”
“All of second platoon?”
“Yeah.” Liebgott turns to face her, his brows knitted together beneath the shadow of his helmet. “You didn’t know that?”
Zenie shakes her head. “I was helping Luz all morning.”
“Yeah, all of second was originally picked,” Liebgott explains. “I only got out of it because they decided we didn’t need two translators, so they sent Webster instead.”
Webster. She had forgotten about him. Hadn’t he been the one who took the shot in the leg in Holland? Where has he been all this time?
“I was taken off, too?”
Liebgott nods.
“Why?” Zenie doesn’t speak German. It’s not like the same explanation can be applied to her. She didn’t even know that she had been assigned to the patrol. Until a few seconds ago, it had seemed like a cruel twist of fate that she wasn’t.
“Shifty,” Liebgott says simply, as if that explains everything. When Zenie doesn’t reply, his brows furrow even further together. “Goddamn, Driver, you really haven’t heard anything about any of this, huh? When they picked Second Platoon for the patrol, Shifty pointed out that you and Malarkey are the ones leading the platoon, since we have no officers. He told Captain Speirs he didn’t think it was fair to make you go on this, considering . . .” He doesn’t have to say it – she’s been on the front line since the beginning, and she just lost some of her closest friends. Liebgott tilts his head, and through the night, she can just make out a smile. “Funny, I think it’s the most I’ve ever heard Shifty talk. Didn’t know he had it in him.”
It's disheartening, really, that some of the men in the company will never know the Shifty that Zenie knows. The Shifty whose cheeks tinge the slightest pink when she compliments him, or who looks so handsome and so at home while trekking through the woods. But also the Shifty whose touch is gentle and whose lips are soft and whose voice is raspy and deep first thing in the morning.
Actually, she realizes that she would prefer to keep those last bits for herself.
“He’s a good man,” is all Zenie can say. “A good friend.”
Across the river, an explosion reverberates across the water and a flash of orange stains the inky darkness. The report of gunshots and voices yelling follow. Something has happened. For better or worse. On this side of the river, it’s impossible to tell.
Liebgott grips the machine gun. “Get ready,” he says.
More commotion, which feels like it goes on forever. Everyone on this side of the river waits, waits, waits impatiently as sounds echo through the darkness, punctuated by the occasional flashes of light. Is that her imagination, or in the midst of it all, are those screams?
“Jesus Christ, come on, blow the goddamned whistle!” Joe yells over the noise.
The signal finally sounds, a shrill whistle that shatters the night. Water splashes below them as the patrol hurries back to their side of the river. The machine gun vibrates to life beside her, spitting fire into the night as Liebgott squeezes the trigger and Zenie feeds the hungry weapon the ammunition. Every burst of gunfire punctuates the running please, please, please running through her mind with exclamation points.
For a while, their only existence is for Liebgott to point, shoot, point, shoot, point shoot, and for Zenie to diligently provide ammunition. Even when the bombardment slows, when the patrol are no longer adding their fire to the tumult, they continue, shooting at wherever Liebgott thinks the Germans may be. Gunfire becomes less and less until there’s only the occasional explosion reverberating through the night.
Her own heavy breathing echoes through her ears like storm winds. It takes her a moment to register when it’s over. Liebgott relaxes, his fingers loosening from their tight grip on the machine gun. He slaps her on the shoulder in what’s either meant to be a congratulatory or a comforting gesture. Although he doesn’t speak, she knows exactly what he means – we got through it.
If she could, Zenie would run back inside, down the stairs, and off to wherever the men of the patrol might be. Instead, she and Liebgott quietly lug the machine gun back inside and stow it away before returning to one of the rooms that a few of the men have been occupying. The other men who provided covering fire are starting to converge there as well. Aside from a few nodded greetings or quiet requests to borrow a lighter, no one speaks. They recline on the bunk beds and other furniture, but no one sleeps. Instead, they wait.
Word comes soon enough: a casualty – Jackson, after getting blasted by his own grenade. Everyone else is okay, though, and they managed to bring back some Germans. Despite Jackson’s death, the upper echelon already seem to consider this a success – such a success that they want another patrol.
They all scoff when they hear the news. Of course they want another patrol. Of course they want Easy Company. And of course they want the men who so successfully pulled off the first one.
God, Zenie thinks, taking a seat by the window and staring out the glass as dawn begins to creep in, lighting the dark sky ever so subtly. People keep saying that the war is over, but at this rate, even if that’s true, no one from Easy is going to see it.
When Granny was still alive, she enjoyed going to the sunrise service at church on Easter Morning. Zenie dutifully went with her, even though it was cold and she was tired. And she’s willing to admit that watching that dark horizon fade from inky blackness to a thin strip of deep, rich blue as the pink and gold dawn crept through the fog and bedazzled the dew drops on the trees was beautiful. Even Zenie, with all her contrary religious beliefs, felt that the pastor’s ability to time the He is risen! Bible verse with the ascension of the morning sun was some sort of magic.
Now, watching the crumbling city become stained with the slightest hint of pink as the sun’s first rays sneak in, she waits once again to feel something – something other than frustration and fear, that is. Like the pastor’s dramatic timing, they need a miracle.
The new lieutenant appears, looking grim, and Zenie takes her leave, abandoning the grey clouds gathering in the room in search of sunshine.
She finds Shifty at the table with Popeye and McClung. None of them speak; they all smoke in silence. As for Zenie, her heart hammers in her chest when she sees them, despite the fact that she knew none of them were the ones who died.
“Morning,” Zenie says, her voice feeling like an intrusion on this scene. Her friends glance up at her, looking tired. Whatever adrenaline that fueled them to this point must be wearing off now. “Coffee?”
McClung cracks his neck, sighing in relief. He stands, grinding out his cigarette. “Not for me. Thanks, though, Tommy. I’m going to bed.”
“I don’t know how he can sleep,” Popeye says after McClung is gone and Zenie has poured him and Shifty both a cup of the watery coffee that Haguenau offers. “I’m all rattled. Can’t stop thinkin’. Might just keep drinkin’ this until the next patrol.”
Shifty winces, setting down his cup. “I don’t know how you could. One cup of this stuff is hard to get through.”
“You should sleep, Popeye,” Zenie suggests. After all, if they do well on this second patrol, will there be a third? A fourth? A fifth? When will it ever end? “Gotta stay sharp.” She asks then, because even though no one has said it, the question has weighed heavy on everyone’s minds since they heard about Jackson’s death. “Who’s on the next patrol?”
“Don’t know yet,” Popeye says.
Shifty mutters into his cup, “Take a guess.”
“Probably the same group. If it ain’t broke, and all that.”
“Wonder if they’ll replace him with anyone,” Zenie muses. It was bad enough to watch so many of those she cared about head out on that patrol. It will be worse this time. Yet in the lead up to that, it’s unbearable to look around and wonder who else might join the mix.
Across the table from her, Shifty stiffens as if he’s just reached the same conclusion. Without meeting her eye, he pushes back his cup and stands with a sigh. “This ain’t doin’ it for me. I think I’ll try to sleep.”
Zenie cuts herself off before she can speak. Anything she could say – however she veils her real meanings, even if she tries to say them in Cherokee – would just come out awkwardly with Popeye sitting there as a witness. Don’t go, she doesn’t say. Don’t do this again. Don’t shut me out because you think it’s doing me some sort of good.
“Lucky if you can,” Popeye says.
As Shifty turns to leave, Zenie calls out to him, “Hey, Shifty.” But when he turns and looks back at her, all she can think to say is, “Don’t leave without saying goodbye tonight.”
The slightest frown tugs at Shifty’s lips. Is he facing the same conundrum as her, not being able to say what he wants? He nods. “I will,” he hesitates, then leaves her behind.
She could follow him, she knows, but would Popeye find it suspicious? Does Shifty even want her to try? Or, unlike all that time ago on that night in the brothel, should she just trust him?
“You want to play cards?” Popeye offers.
“No,” Zenie realizes aloud. She winces, sorry to leave her friend like this to chase after someone else. “I think I’m actually going to try and get some sleep, too.”
Maybe it’s not suspicious at all, how Zenie is conveniently leaving after Shifty. Or maybe Popeye is just too tired and too caffeinated to notice. He shrugs, taking a drink of his coffee in the manner that people usually reserve for shots of alcohol.
“Will you be okay?” she asks.
The Virginian nods. He smiles, in that sort of lopsided way that he does when he’s trying not to crack up too hard over one of his own remarks. “Yeah. I’d be better if the coffee tasted like actual coffee instead of water that someone thought real hard about coffee while pourin’, but I’ll be fine.”
“Hey,” Zenie scolds, making a move like she’s going to take the cup from him. “I made that coffee, Wynn. Watch yourself.”
He’s pouring himself another cup of coffee when Zenie leaves, and he’s probably downed half of it by the time that she catches up to Shifty in the stairwell. Surprise raises his eyebrows when he sees her, but not disappointment. He pauses on the landing, and Zenie jogs up the steps to join him.
“Don’t worry about hurting me,” she says when she catches up. Didn’t she get hurt enough in Bastogne? What is there left to take from Zena McGlamery that could possibly hurt her? The only thing she can think of: time that she could be spending with Shifty before he gets sent into the unknown again.
Shifty opens his mouth, shuts his mouth. Finally, his forehead scrunches up like it always does when he considers something. Then he nods. “Esga tsiyelvna.” I’m sorry.
But maybe we – he had said the first time they ever needed to have a serious conversation. I’m hopin’ that maybe after the war we can be together, he had later finished. When I was tryin’ to ask you to wait until after the war, I thought that I was protectin’ you.
She almost lost him once. After everything they’ve been through, she won’t make that mistake again.
She slips her hand into his. “No after the war like last time, okay? Just now.” Because at this rate, we might not get to the end of this thing, she doesn’t say, but he still seems to understand.
“I don’t want to hurt you, if somethin’ happens tonight.” In Bastogne, Bill had told Shifty not to hurt her. He had promised that he wouldn’t. I would never, he had said.
Back when they weren’t speaking, her feelings had been hurt by all their miscommunications – a lot of which had been her own fault.
“The only way you could hurt me is by icing me out,” Zenie admits.
Shifty’s brow furrows. He studies their joined hands. His jaw is set, which makes the gesture look very firm when he finally nods. “Hawa. Let’s enjoy it while we can.”
It’s probably the closest that Shifty can come to making a pessimistic statement. It doesn’t last for long. Once they’re alone together in their usual room, they sit at the window, watching the daylight grow brighter over the sad city while they wait for the night to creep back in and separate them again.
When Zenie said “No after the war,” she meant waiting to be together until after the war. But here, sitting in uncertainty, Shifty’s mind drifts to that time that is simultaneously so tantalizingly close and so infuriatingly far away.
“When we get home,” he says. “I want a window like this where we can sit and watch the sun rise over the mountains.”
Zenie hums in agreement. She hasn’t allowed her mind to wander this far into a future with Shifty, but he’s already there, so it seems safe to meet him in it. “We could get a house way up in the mountains, right on top, like all the rich people have been building lately.”
“But our house will be better, see, because it will always smell like pie.”
She can’t help but laugh. “What kind of pie?”
He leans his head against her shoulder. It’s automatic, the way that Zenie begins to run her fingers through his hair. Even from this angle, she can see the small crease appear between his eyebrows as he considers his answer. “Chocolate, most of the time. Like my mama makes. But sweet potato in the fall.”
“I like pumpkin.”
“We can have both.”
“Maybe blueberry in the spring,” Zenie suggests. “Or cobbler. Can’t forget about that. Raspberry cobbler in July.”
Shifty sighs. “God, I miss real food.”
“We’ll have it soon enough.” There’s no telling where that assurance comes from. The rumors about the war coming to a close, maybe.
A gentle, sleepy mist that Zenie has only ever had the pleasure of hearing a handful of times creeps into Shifty’s voice. “Hmm. What else do we want in our house?”
“A dog,” Zenie suggests. “I’ve always wanted one.”
Against her shoulder, Shifty’s head moves ever so slightly as he tries to nod. “We can do that,” is the last thing he says before he drifts off to sleep with Zenie still running her fingers through his hair.
As promised, Shifty tells her goodbye before the patrol.
“I know what you did,” Zenie admits. “Getting me taken off of the patrol last night.”
Shifty nods, never breaking eye contact. “I had to.” He says it with such conviction that she can’t be upset about it. She never was, to begin with. Not really. Just surprised, like Liebgott was.
“This whole war has just been people protecting me,” she realizes. Gene, Shifty, Bill, and Babe; guarding her secrets, her heart.
“That’s what life is, you know. And when you care about someone enough, protectin’ them just becomes second nature.”
For once, there is nothing to protect each other from today. Shifty returns a few moments later with a wide grin on his face that could re-light all of Haguenau to its former glory. He barely gets the news about the patrol being cancelled out before Zenie grabs him by the webbing, tugs him to her, and kisses him with such force that her teeth accidentally knock into his.
No patrol – and Winters said they’re coming off the line!
Maybe, for once, the rumors have some truth to them; maybe the end of the war is a very near thing after all.
#band of brothers#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#my writing#like a girl (like a man)#oc zenie mcglamery
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x ofc
Chapter 19: A Native American in Paris
Summary: When he returns, he hands Zenie a postcard with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. “It’s not as good as having a picture taken in front of it, but, you know, I thought that it might be somethin’.”
A/N: When I first started writing this fic, I always imagined D-Day as the beginning of a "Part Two" in the story. Regardless of what act we're in, this definitely feels like an intermission point for me. So I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for sticking with me this far, and I hope you'll hang around for the rest of the story <3
Warnings: mentions of war, drinking, implied sex
Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu
France, 1944
Passes all around! It’s so much different from life back at Toccoa. It feels so long ago now that Zenie’s hands would clench into fists at her side when Captain Sobel would make up some excuse to revoke her pass. Maybe this is to make up for the fact that they got so few of these back in Georgia.
Paris is the keyword floating all around the barracks. All Zenie’s friends score passes to the City of Light. After the dreary days of sitting in mud in Holland, the prospect of exploring the city seems like a marvelous makeup for the eighty-something days stuck waiting. Zenie finds herself with a forty-eight hour pass to the famed city in her hands. The idea of someday getting the chance to brag to Marilyn that she visited the Eifel Tower makes her laugh. Then Shifty meets her eye from across the room and announces that he also has a pass to Paris – and on the same day as her. And suddenly the city that Zenie has hardly ever spared a thought for seems brighter and full of more possibilities than anything Marilyn used to describe while fawning over her books.
Especially because they still haven’t been alone.
Having friends is such a change of pace from Zenie’s life before running away. She loves them, and being with them. Lately, however, it seems like she can’t get a second away from them.
Mourmelon-le-Grand for R&R. Except the Rest in “Rest and Relaxation” has somehow turned into preparing for a football game that Zenie cannot seem to come up with a good enough excuse to not play in.
“Look,” she finally tells Babe one day in the barracks when he won’t stop pestering her about it. “I’m no good at football. My older brother played baseball, so that’s what I was taught. It’d be different if you wanted me to be a pitcher.” Or if we were playing any game that wouldn’t get me tackled, crushed, and exposed, she doesn’t add.
Babe swats his hand, pushing away her words. “Well lucky for you, you’ve got me to teach you. And I’m great at football, Tommy. I could have you ready for this game in a matter of days.”
“You tryin’ to get little Tommy a Purple Heart by getting’ all his bones crushed, ya mean?”
Everyone in the barracks jumps at the sound of a familiar voice – one whose absence has been heavily felt.
“Bill!”
The Italian spreads his arms as wide as his smile as he fully enters the room. He’s limping, but it doesn’t damper his smile. “What? Ya think you’d never see me again or somethin’?”
“Didn’t know how long ya were gonna baby that leg,” Babe quips, ducking when the taller man makes a move to affectionately ruffle his hair.
“Baby it? Yeah right. You know who you’re talkin’ to, Heffron? I made ‘em cut the cast off early so I could get back here and keep your ass in line!”
“Yeah, and God knows we needed that, because he keeps trying to get Tommy killed,” Joe says from his place on his bunk.
A cloud of seriousness crosses Bill’s face as he turns to her. “You really that bad at football?”
Well I should be, considering that I’ve never played, Zenie thinks. Instead, she nods. “The worst.”
“Someone could probably fix that. Not right now, though.” His smile returns as he glances over their group, a glint in his eye. “Any of you up for a little trip to Lulu’s?”
In the moment, there’s nothing particularly special about Lulu’s or the night that they spend there. (Besides, maybe, the fact that Bill missed the party with the Red Devils, and they feel the need to make up for all the fun he missed.) They drink too much and dance too fast and sing too loudly. On the way back to barracks, they cling to each other and laugh brightly as they haul each other home – a real team effort. With promising days of R&R ahead of them, they go to bed, already thinking of having this kind of fun night after night.
The place is a frenzy of excitement. The football game creeps ever closer and practices pick up with the mounting tensions. (Personally, Zenie’s not sure why anyone would worry when Joe Toye is playing for their team.) Passes are being taken into the cities, and each time a group of soldiers returns to brag about the fun he had, the harder Zenie’s heart pounds in her chest when she thinks about how she and Shifty both have passes to Paris.
“Two more days,” she notes as casually as she can in line for breakfast one day. “Never heard of half the places people are talking about.”
“Me neither. But a lot of the fellas seem to think it’s mighty fun there. Lots to do.”
Zenie hums in agreement. “Probably a lot of walking around the city.”
“Probably.”
“Lots of time to talk.”
As he scoops eggs onto his plate, Zenie catches him biting his lip. It doesn’t hide his smile. “Definitely.”
Lucky does not even begin to describe how Zenie feels when she learns that she and Shifty seem to be the only ones of their friends to have passes to Paris. After every chance that she might have had to speak with him has been thwarted, part of her is on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting something else to keep them apart.
They leave the barracks amiably enough. They make small talk as they board the train and make their way towards the city.
“This is my third time,” one of the soldiers in their train car brags as they ride. He quirks an eyebrow at them. “You ever been to Paris?”
“Never,” Zenie replies as Shifty shakes his head.
The soldier only nods. “Well, it doesn’t disappoint, I’ll tell you that much. You just have to know all the right places to look if you want to have a good time.”
“I think we’ll manage.”
And they do. Shifty has already seen the city while out on a different pass with Popeye. Once they get off the train, though, he only smiles at Zenie and lets her take the lead, making suggestions about the fastest way to get places as they go.
As they weave their way through the people and the streets, they talk. Not in the way that Zenie has been waiting for them to, but at least they’re talking. More than they have been lately, too, which is enough for her. It’s enough just to see him smile at her as he regales her with stories of what he and Popeye saw and did while using their passes, and she tells him about Marilyn’s travel books that her sister would stare at for hours at night. It’s enough for their fingers to brush when Shifty buys a piece of pain au chocolat, then breaks it down the middle and hands her half. It's enough to watch his eyes light up when she uses a gentle finger to wipe a smudge of chocolate off his upper lip. This is what she imagined when she pictured them having a secret relationship. This is what she’s been missing.
But, she has to remind herself, this is what Shifty was worried would get them caught. The memory of that night at the brothel makes her chest ache. He didn’t think this would be possible until after the war. And maybe he still doesn’t want it until then. She won’t know until they get to talk – really talk.
“It’s big, ain’t it?” Shifty asks when they stop in front of the Eiffel Tower.
The famed tower is impressive. With the elevators not operational, though, there isn’t much to do but stand under it and admire it from different angles. Zenie tries to soak it up in her mind so that she can remember it later.
“Here.” As if he can read her mind, Shifty steps away, heading towards an older woman with a cart. He counts out some money and hands it to her. She smiles as she hands him something. When he returns, he hands Zenie a postcard with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. “It’s not as good as having a picture taken in front of it, but, you know, I thought that it might be somethin’.”
“It’s perfect,” Zenie rushes to assure him. “Thank you, Shifty.”
The Virginian smiles, his cheeks tinged pink.
“You know,” he says. “If you’ve seen everything that you want to, I know somewhere that we can go. Away.”
As if to prove his point, a group of American soldiers walks behind them. Zenie and Shifty might have come here alone, without any of their other friends, but they’re not truly alone. Not yet.
Zenie pockets the postcard. “Lead the way.”
People bustle up and down the streets, laughing as they go. A few little kids point at her when they spot her, yelling in their excitement. It’s a bit like being back in Holland – well, the better part of being in Holland, when all the people had come out to welcome them with open arms. Zenie always makes sure to smile back, and salutes them just for the fun of it. It’s a nice distraction from the clammy feeling in her palms as she waits.
She spins around as the door of the hotel opens. Every time she’s hoped that it’s Shifty returning. This time, it really is him. He nods to her and flashes a key.
Up and up and up. The only sound on the stairwell is that of their boots echoing against the walls as they climb. Zenie glances at Shifty every now and then, feels him doing the same to her, but neither makes a move to speak. Maybe, like her, he’s trying to work out everything that he wants to say.
Peeling paint covers the door to their room. It’s at the end of the hallway, secluded, quiet. Zenie still glances over her shoulder as Shifty opens the door and ushers her inside.
This room is nothing like the one they talked in that night at the brothel. Whereas that room was dark and contained only a bed, this one is full of light and has not only a fluffy looking bed, but a vanity and a small doorway that leads to a bathroom. Something about the place makes it feel warm, and not just in temperature.
Closing the door behind her, Zenie stays in place even as Shifty walks further into the room. He glances back at her and, like that night at the brothel, gestures toward the bed.
“You wanna . . . ?”
The bed is just as fluffy as Zenie suspected it would be. It dips under their weight as they seat themselves. Also like that night, and against her better judgement, they sit close to each other. Really, what reason is there to not? Just like back in the foxholes of Holland, their knees bump into each other. They leave them there, pressing into each other.
This won’t be like last time, Zenie assures her heart as it pounds against her ribcage. Well, last time they had been holding hands when Shifty dropped the news –
No, he didn’t drop the news. He didn’t even get to finish what he wanted to say because Earl had started firing his gun and they had to leave the building. He was going to ask her to wait. And now . . . ?
She tries to find something to say, anything. They both start to speak at the same time. Words overlapping, they pause, each offering the other a small smile.
“Sorry,” Shifty says. “You first.”
Her first, with hardly a word at the ready. She says the first one that comes to mind, which is the only one she can properly associate with the whole situation that’s been playing out these past few months.
“I’m sorry. I wish we could start over.”
Slowly, Shifty nods. “Me, too. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He pauses, pushing a short sigh out through his nose. “When I was tryin’ to ask you to wait until after the war, I thought that I was protectin’ you. From this – “ He gestures around the room. “ – The sneaking around, and all that. But I didn’t consider, see, hurtin’ your feelings indirectly. I wanted to tell you, when I realized what had happened. But I could never seem to find you by yourself . . .”
Zenie cringes at the memory of dodging Shifty’s presence, of not meeting his eyes or looking directly at him until that night at the pub when Skinny asked him what he wanted to do after the war.
“That was my fault, and I’m sorry. I –“ She has to laugh, almost, at how stupid it seems now, to have been avoiding him. “ – I was trying to protect myself, and instead I ended up hurting you. And I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to.”
Silence falls over them. Then, like that night at the brothel, Shifty holds out his hand. There is no hesitation on Zenie’s part; of course she takes it, intwining their fingers together and relishing the feeling it sends down her spine.
“This is what we’ve been missing,” she realizes aloud.
Shifty nods. He lets out an unexpected laugh, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I was gonna put this off until the end of the war. Coulda been doin’ it the whole time.”
“But you were right to be worried. About being caught, I mean.”
“Maybe. After everythin’ we’ve been through, though, is it really worth the wait?”
This time, Zenie tries to take in the full meaning of his words instead of just assuming she knows what he means, or what’s about to happen.
“What do you mean?”
“The end of the war might be a long way off, you know,” Shifty says. “And, I don’t know. After all we’ve been through, I guess I’ve realized that nothin’ is for certain.” He pauses and meets her eye. He stares so deeply into her that it feels like he’s trying to read her mind. “I don’t mind it – the sneakin’ around, I mean – if you don’t. And the end of the war . . . Well, if you want, we can figure it out when we get there. Whenever that may be.”
Her heart lurches, ready to take the plunge with him.
“You want us to court?” She clarifies. Nothing will be left to chance or interpretation this time.
“Yes.”
Going with Shifty Powers. Of course she will, and she tells him as much. She only wishes she could tell her past self, all the way back in Toccoa, that this was coming; that version of Zenie would have never seen this coming.
Her hands shake. She wonders if he can feel them trembling against his. A laugh, a sigh of relief, and a jubilant cry all gather at the back of her throat. When she opens her mouth, she’s not sure which will come out.
“You know,” she says instead. “I think you’ve just made me the happiest girl in Paris.”
Shifty grins. “Zena, when we make it out of this war, I’ll make sure you’re the happiest girl in the whole world.”
The rest of the war, Zenie prays, will be kind to them.
With the forty-eight-hour pass, they don’t have to wait until the end of the war for Shifty to make her the happiest girl in the world. Alone in their hotel room, with nothing but a slant of moonlight that sneaks in through the crack in the curtains, they make up for all their lost time.
The next morning, they discover that the towels in the bathroom are just as fluffy as the bedding. The soft, white fabric leaves little trails of fuzz covering their bodies, and they giggle as they gently swat each other, trying to remove it.
Putting on her uniform after the night they have feels strange. For a day, she’s been Zenie again. Her performance has enjoyed an intermission. Now, as they wander the streets of Paris one last time before boarding the train that will take them back to Mourmelon-le-Grand, she’s stepping back into her role and heading into the second act as a changed woman.
Changed for the better, she hopes.
#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#band of brothers#band of brothers x ofc#oc zenie mcglamery#my writing#like a girl (like a man)
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 35: Alii
Summary: And just as unexpectedly as Shifty has disappeared, someone from her past reappears.
A/N: FINALLY - the Bobby faceclaim reveal!
Whelp, I'm updating late - again 🫠 We've unexpectedly had some family move in, so trust me when I say that it's been a whole ordeal. Also, I may or may not be procrastinating writing these last few chapters, because I'm going to be so sad when this fic ends 💔 However - I'm always up for writing Zenie/Shifty and the gang, so even when this fic ends, we will see them again!
The chapter title is the Cherokee word for "friendship"
Warnings: none
Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @dcyllom @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs
North Carolina, 1945
For people who like to talk so much, Zenie’s friends fall into complete radio silence the second that she returns home.
She doesn’t expect letters to be waiting for her when she arrives. That would be ridiculous. She’s not expecting anything for the time being. But that night before going to bed, she dashes off letters to her friends to let them know that she’s made it home safely.
The next morning is eventful. Mama had her wish the night before; all her children were under the same roof again, safe and sound. And the one night seems to be all they will get – all they can take.
Matthew leaves the next morning for Wilmington. He, Marilyn, and Zenie say their goodbyes in the driveway by his truck, the first slivers of early morning sunlight giving their parting a golden hue.
“I’ll write when I get home,” Matthew tells them. He fixes them with a look that’s supposed to be stern, but he’s too good humored for it to be serious. “And I expect you two to do the same.” Then he hugs them, squeezes them tight, presses a kiss to Mama’s cheek, and is off – to his new, happy life as a husband and a father in the place that he should have grown up in to begin with.
When he’s gone, the women return to the house. No one has seen their father yet, but he has a habit of sleeping most of the day, anyway. Danny hasn’t shown himself yet, but at least they can hear him moving around. Zenie doesn’t understand why he and Marilyn didn’t just spend the night with his family on the farm next door. She would have stayed somewhere else if she could.
“I need to go visit Bobby,” Zenie says. She’ll get herself out of this house one way or another.
Marilyn purses her lips. “Well you can’t go empty handed.”
All throughout the war, Malarkey talked about snagging a lugger to take home to his brother. Though nothing of that caliber, Zenie does have a few treasures from her time abroad stashed away. Probably nothing that Bobby would like, though.
Marilyn tosses Zenie a look over her shoulder as she steps into the kitchen. “Danny once mentioned that Bobby is fond of strawberry pies.”
The implication seems to be that Zenie should bake one for him. It’s been three years since Zenie has seen her sister, but her kitchen mishaps have been so legendary that she would be good and truly shocked if her sister had managed to forget them.
“Are you trying to get me to give him a gift, or to poison him?”
Her sister smiles. “I’ll help you.”
Under her sister’s careful guidance, a soft and supple dough takes shape. Not a bit of it sticks to the rolling pin, or the counter, which seems like a miracle to Zenie. Marilyn even uses scraps of extra dough to make a braided rope to decorate the edges of the crust.
Tossing a quick glance over her shoulder to be sure that they’re alone, Zenie lowers her voice as she watches Marilyn begin creating the pie’s filling. “My husband likes pie.”
Marilyn’s eyebrows raise, but her attention doesn’t waver from the task at hand. “Does he?”
Zenie nods. “I won’t be able to make him any, though. So he’ll do the cooking, and I’ll do the cleaning.”
The wooden spoon makes a soft scraping sound against the side of the bowl as Marilyn begins stirring sugar into the berry slices. “You have a system all worked out.”
We have a system all worked out, Shifty had said before they left Europe – back when he was assuring her that everything would be okay. “Yeah.”
“Well,” Marilyn says. “now you know how to make him a strawberry pie.”
A frown tugs at the corners of Zenie’s mouth without her permission. “It probably won’t be as good as yours.”
For a split second, it looks as if Marilyn freezes, trying to absorb the hidden meaning in her little sister’s somber tone. Does she know that she’s perfect, and that Zenie has never measured up to her in comparison?
She shrugs. “He’ll like it better, though, because you’re the one who made it for him.” Zenie drops her elbows to the counter, cradles her chin in her hands as she watches her sister work. Before she can say anything, Marilyn continues in a quiet voice, “I would teach you how to make others, but Danny and I are leaving tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? To go where?”
Marilyn looks equal parts wistful and bashful when she admits, “Florida.”
“Florida?!”
“The Dills have some family down there. An uncle that was a doctor is leaving his practice and has offered to let Danny take over.”
Zenie isn’t quite sure what to say. She’s happy that her sister and brother-in-law will be going somewhere warm and where they can make a life for themselves, but she’s also struck by the realization that, not for the first time, she’s going to be stranded in this house again.
“Congratulations,” she finally forces herself to say. “That sounds exciting.”
A soft smile spreads across her sister’s lips. “I think it will be. And you can always come visit if it gets too cold in – “ She pauses, raises an eyebrow. “Where does your husband live again?”
“Virginia.”
“If it gets too cold up there, you’re welcome to visit us in Florida,” Marilyn offers. Then, she does something unexpected: she asks Zenie a question and seems genuinely curious as to the answer. “What’s your husband’s name? What’s he like?”
Until the pie is done being cooked, the sisters have the most pleasant and honest conversation that Zenie can ever remember them having. About their childhoods, about the war. And for once, Zenie doesn’t find herself comparing her own experiences, her own words, or even herself, to Marilyn.
The perfect pie finishes cooking all too soon. Zenie hardly waits for it to cool before she whisks it up and transports it over to the Dills’ house, balancing the warm plate on her right hand while knocking on the door with her left.
Shocked eyes greet her, but they’re quickly replaced with the biggest smile Zenie has ever seen. In one swift motion, Bobby manages to set the pie plate aside and wrap his arms around Zenie, picking her up as they embrace.
“You’re back!” He exclaims. He’s taller than he was when she left. From the strength in his hug and in his lifting her, he’s grown stronger, too.
“I am,” Zenie replies. “Mostly in one piece.”
Bobby is still smiling, but his eyes are full of concern. “I was getting worried. Your letters got few and far between, and then the war was just over.”
Zenie winces, explanations already on the tip of her tongue. There’s no good way to articulate the fact that she just started to get overwhelmed – especially after discovering the camp. “Sorry.”
But Bobby is still smiling. He puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezes. “Don’t be.” He chuckles. “I mean, you brought me a pie. How could I be mad?”
Of course, Bobby knows most of the story from the letters that she sent him, but he doesn’t know the secrets that she wasn’t able to slip into her messages. Once he spies the pie in her hands, he grabs two forks and whisks her off to the field that separates their houses, staying close to the shade of the tree line, and closer to his family’s land than hers, just in case. They settle in and she tells all.
“I can’t believe it,” he says when she’s done telling him her trials and tribulations. He shakes his head, his voice soft. “You had all the fun.”
With one line, he confirms what she suspected the last time that she saw him, all those years ago. This was about more than helping her escape from the life that she hated – this was a way for him to be part of something big, too, even if it had to be done through someone else. Looking inward, Zenie realizes that she isn’t even upset about it. Hell, she would have done the same thing.
“What about you?” She nudges his shoulder with hers, trying to keep the mood light. “Been up to anything exciting? Any plans now that the war is over?”
A frown pulls at the edges of Bobby’s lips. He scratches the back of his neck. “That’s the big question, isn’t it? You and my momma both.” He leans his head back against the tree they’re perched under, lets out a laugh. “Oh, I don’t know yet. My parents want me to go to college. My excuse for not going has been the war, since I would feel guilty if I was writing papers in a warm, safe dorm room while every other boy my age was fighting for his life in foxholes. But now it’s over in Europe . . .”
“They’re still fighting in the Pacific.”
He nods. “My folks don’t seem to think it’ll last long, though. I applied, just to get them off my back.”
“And?”
“I got in.” The simple answer lacks all the joy that usually accompanies such news. In fact, it’s grim, and sounds more like a death sentence than the segue into the next chapter of a young man’s life. “I’ve managed to convince them that I shouldn’t start until the spring, though, so you’re stuck with me a little longer.” He offers her a tight smile.
“Don’t worry,” Zenie assures him. “You’re also stuck with me, for a time.”
He uses his fork to procure himself a bite of pie from the plate in his hands. “I won’t be in bad company, then.”
For a man who has spent so many years in the back parlor rotting away in his rocking chair and doing nothing but complain and listen to the radio, Zenie’s father very suddenly develops a keen interest in the window by the front door. No one says anything, though Zenie assumes that it’s so he can make sure she doesn’t slip away again. Apparently he’s forgotten about the backdoor – the door which, ironically enough, she returned through – but no one says anything about that. Either way, it’s obvious that he is sticking to his word about Zenie not leaving.
For lack of anything else to do, she begins accompanying her mother to work. It’s mostly to spend time with her. Although she would be remiss if she didn’t admit that part of her does it just to flaunt the fact that she can and will go wherever she likes.
The two women rise early every morning. They eat a warm breakfast together at the kitchen table before heading out. In the mornings the world is peaceful and awash in a soft glow as they embark on their walk, baskets bouncing against their hips as they walk along. When they cross though town, Zenie deposits letters to her friends at the post office. Then they stop at houses, picking up peoples’ dirty laundry and delivering their clean clothes. At home, they work in the sunlit backyard, scrubbing clothes and enjoying each other’s company.
It starts slowly, like a sprinkling of water before a spring rain. Zenie had allowed her mind to wander as she worked and ended up giggling at the memory of something Bill had once said. When Mama gave her a questioning glance, she couldn’t help but tell her the story. Which gave way to another one, and another, and another, until she was telling her mother everything about her time at war.
Mama, for her part, asks questions about Shifty, smiling the whole time Zenie talks about him. “You look so happy,” she says.
“What?”
“When you talk about him,” her mother clarifies. “If you look that happy just talking about him, I can’t wait to see what you’re like when he’s actually here.” Through the soapy water of the wash bin, she reaches over and takes Zenie’s hand in her own, offering her a smile unlike one that Zenie has ever seen on her before. “I’m happy for you. I’m glad that you found someone to love so much, who makes you happy like this.”
Zenie has questions, too, and her mother has a story of her own.
“The morning I left,” Zenie begins one day, quietly. “When I turned back and saw you, I didn’t know where you thought I was going. And then I got your letter. On D-Day – the big jump. How did you know?”
There is only silence. For a moment, Zenie thinks about repeating herself, unsure if her mother heard her. But after finishing the skirt she’s washing, her mother lets out a sigh through her nose.
“I didn’t know where you were going. I just knew you were gone. And then one Sunday at church, the pastor asked for prayer requests. Bobby asked people to pray for a friend he had who was a paratrooper that had just been shipped to Europe. He doesn’t have many friends. I don’t mean that in a mean way,” she adds when she sees Zenie’s reaction to her last observation. “Besides, no one around here has a son in the Airborne. I had a feeling he knew where you had gone, so I slipped him the letter one day and asked him to make sure that it got to you. When I got a reply, well, I knew I was right.”
They lapse into silence again.
“I’m sorry,” Zenie apologizes. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Or to leave you with him.”
Momma shakes her head. “You did what you had to do.”
The silence is not so loud this time. Her words give Zenie something to think about. Because she did do what she thought that she had to do. But as she watches her mother work, she wonders if it was the right thing to do.
Much like her time back in Toccoa, the days bleed into each other in their similarity. The change of weather and the turning of the leaves marks the passage of time. Not the things that Zenie would like, such as letters from her friends, or Shifty’s glorious appearance. Not even the announcement that the war has ended in early September fixes things.
Every day when she returns home, she inspects that day’s post to find nothing for her, no matter how many letters she sends to her friends. First, her heart grows heavy. Then it grows hard. She’s been down this road before. Last time it was when Beckie moved away to the city, promising to write, and then never doing so. Funny – she wouldn’t have picked any of her fellow paratroopers as the type of people who would leave her hanging like this. Especially not Bill.
And not Shifty, who does not miraculously appear, no matter how often Zenie squints out at the top of the driveway in the distance and wills him to do so. He said he wanted to marry you, Zenie has to remind herself each and every day that passes with no word from her husband. He wouldn’t just abandon you.
He wouldn’t. She knows that. But it makes her wonder what has happened that could have made him disappear like this.
And just as unexpectedly as Shifty has disappeared, someone from her past reappears.
“Well Zena B, as I live and breathe!” The voice is so sudden, so unexpected, that Zenie drops the clothespins in her hand as she turns to face it. She’s alone in the yard, hanging up the wash while Mama makes dinner. As soon as her eyes land on Beckie – of all people – striding towards her, she’s filled with the childlike urge to run for it, though she’s not entirely sure where she would go. And she doesn’t have time to decide, because Beckie is upon her at once, wrapping her slender arms around Zenie in a hug and allowing herself a squeal of delight, as if she’s actually happy to see the friend that she stopped writing to with no explanation. When Beckie pulls back, she holds Zenie at arm’s length, inspecting her. “Your hair!”
It's been growing back quickly. Between not having Liebgott cut her hair near the end of the war and all these months spent at home, it now barely brushes the tops of her shoulders, and she hasn’t been attempting to style it like she once did. It’s not exactly like she’s been expecting anyone to see her, since her only forays into the public have been to help Mama on her rounds to collect laundry. She likes the way it looks, actually. But Beckie’s exclamation insinuates that it’s something that she should be ashamed of.
She shrugs. “I cut it.”
“Why?” Beckie lets out a gasp, her expressions exaggerated when she asks, “When you ran away?”
“How did you know about that?”
“My parents told me. I was so sad to hear that you had disappeared without a trace. But now you’re back!” She raises her eyebrows, leaning forward slightly, like she’s inviting Zenie to spill all the gory and glorious details of her adventures.
There was a time when Zenie would have divulged anything if she thought that it would make her friend happy. Except, Beckie isn’t a friend, is she? Because none of the friends that Zenie made in the army were anything like her. Not Bill, not Babe. Not Gene, who protected her secret to the last and never asked Zenie for any personal information until she offered it herself, freely. They didn’t expect things the way that Beckie does – and currently is.
Zenie shrugs again and says like an echo, “Now I’m back.”
In one swift motion, Beckie hooks her arms through Zenie’s and starts towards the house, abandoning Zenie’s laundry basket under the line, forgotten. They’re halfway there when Zenie realizes that her old friend means to invite herself in. And in the few seconds that they’ve been walking, Beckie has been talking, launching into the story of her life, seemingly picking up from where she last saw Zenie that day at the diner.
She walks a few steps before she registers that Zenie has stopped walking. Their hooked arms hold her in place, forcing her to look over at Zenie. “Aren’t we going inside?”
“No,” Zenie finds herself saying.
Beckie lets out a small laugh, just like she always did in school whenever she found something that Zenie said or did to be strange and took amusement in it. “Why not?”
“I don’t want to,” Zenie replies. Hearing the words aloud, she realizes that they’re true. She doesn’t want Beckie here. She doesn’t want to hear about how well she’s done in her life and her career. Zenie has done pretty well, too. But with the sadness that lurks in her heart and mind while she waits for Shifty and to hear from her friends, she knows that if she hears Beckie brag, she will fall back into the trap of comparing herself to the model and it will make her miserable to feel like she still doesn’t measure up after all this time.
“We can just talk out here,” Beckie improvises. She frowns when Zenie shakes her head and lets out a sigh. “Zena, you sure do make it hard for a friend to catch up with you.”
“That’s not what you want to do.”
Beckie blinks. “Excuse me?”
“This – “ Zenie gestures vaguely, indicating all the words that Beckie had managed to pack into their short walk. “ – isn’t catching up, Beckie. You just want to brag.”
“Well, I never! Brag?! I’m just telling you about what you’ve missed since you’ve been gone.”
The last time that Zenie saw Beckie had been back at the diner, shortly before she had made her decision to run away. Beckie had bragged the entire time then, too. She probably thought she was just catching Zenie up on all the terribly interesting and fabulous things that had been happening in her life since she had moved to New York. Talking a mile a minute and never bothering to actually listen to Zenie’s responses – when she had actually bothered to let Zenie attempt to speak, that is. It had been enough that time to make Zenie realize that her life could not go on as it was. And now it’s making her realize that she’s back at square one.
She needs to get out of here – again. Even if it’s just getting away from Beckie by escaping into the house.
“You never wrote to me,” Zenie says. “after you moved away.”
Beckie scoffs, then lets out a little laugh at this ridiculous joke. “That’s why you’re upset? Zena, that’s so – so childish.”
Maybe it is. But it’s not just about those letters that she never received. It’s about Beckie kissing the boy she knew Zenie had a crush on at that Christmas party in high school. And about how she looks down on Zenie, talking over her and assuming that everything about her own life is more interesting and more important. She’s always gotten her way. Zenie had thought that after Nixon had announced her marriage in one of his current events speeches. That had embittered her, made her jealous . . .
And then she had seen Shifty. Had seen how beautiful he looked in the sunlight that day. She had realized then that she had gotten something that she wanted, too. Jealousy had melted off her, leaving her fresh and free, like new blooms in a flowerbed after a spring rain.
It doesn’t always have to be this way. There is a life out there waiting for her that is so unlike this one. She knows, because she’s been living it for the past three years. And now, her future with Shifty is so close that all she has to do is reach out and take it.
“Beckie,” Zenie starts again, only to stop herself. She doesn’t want to explain herself, and she won’t. She wrenches her arm away from Beckie and takes a step toward her house and says the thing she should have said back when they were just kids, “I think it’s best that you don’t come over anymore.”
They stare at each other for a moment, each waiting to see what the other will do. When no one speaks, Zenie finally turns and starts towards the house again.
“Fine,” Beckie calls from behind her. “You’ve changed, anyway.” From behind her, Zenie can hear Beckie start to walk away, those stomping footsteps she used to use when upset still the same after all these years. “And it’s Rebecca, by the way!”
Zenie shrugs, even though she’s not sure if Beckie can see her or not. “Okay. And my name is Zenie. Only one person gets to call me Zena.” She does turn now, one last time, just to make sure Beckie’s jaw drops when she adds, “And that’s my husband.”
#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#oc zenie mcglamery#like a girl (like a man)#my writing
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Taglist Application | Gallery | AO3
Like A Dream (Like A Plan)
everything until July 1942
The Loneliness of the Letter Z (1937)
Wouldn't Call This Place a Happy End (1942)
Innocence Retained (1938)
Pretty Funny (1939)
How Zenie Met Bobby (1941)
Like A Girl (Like A Man)
July 1942 onward
chapter 1: Nulinigvgv
chapter 2: Like It's Nothing
chapter 3: Brother in Three Languages
chapter 4: A Secret, Shared
chapter 5: What They Call a Family
chapter 6: Nothing to Hide
chapter 7: Nvwatohiyadv & Saoirse
chapter 8: What If You Only Open Up?
chapter 9: An Inconvenience
chapter 10: Someone Who Will Miss You
chapter 11: Gosvnoyi Dvninvi
chapter 12: While We Can
chapter 13: Dear Zena
chapter 14: Part of The Group (All Along)
chapter 15: Something Like That
chapter 16: Adalonige
chapter 17: Forbidden Contact
chapter 18: The Purple Heart Club
chapter 19: A Native American in Paris
chapter 20: Standing Fast
chapter 21: Datalesvi Anina
chapter 22: One Tough Broad
chapter 23: Turkey and Hooch
chapter 24: Good Ol' Bill
chapter 25: Udelida
chapter 26: Out Of The Woods
chapter 27: Worse Things To Be Afraid Of
chapter 28: Ten, Fifteen Hershey Bars
chapter 29: Love and War
chapter 30: She's the Man
chapter 31: The Place Where They Cried
chapter 32: A Very Near Thing
chapter 33: Goodbye, Tommy
chapter 34: Zenie Uwenvsv Dayesi
chapter 35: Alii
chapter 36: The Thing With Anger (It Begs to Stick Around)
chapter 37: Shifty Igaluhga
chapter 38: Falling Into Place
chapter 39 - Epilogue: Donadagohvi
Like An Echo (Like More Than)
AUs and miscellaneous writing - because they would find each other in any universe
Hallmark AU
#finally - it is complete 😌#my writing#Like A Girl (Like A Man)#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#oc zenie mcglamery#band of brothers fanfic#hbo war fanfic#band of brothers
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 33: Goodbye, Tommy
Summary: “And how did you come to find yourself in your, uh – “ The major makes a rolling motion with his hand, as if urging her on. “ – situation?”
She’s beginning to wonder the same thing herself.
A/N: This is either exactly what you expect from me, or the exact opposite - there's no in between. (Either way, I'm so sorry)
Warnings: language
Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @lady-cheeky @mrs-murder-daddy @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @lieutenant-speirs @dcyllom
Austria, 1945
It could be a peaceful setting, under different circumstances.
Major Winters’ room has a balcony with a beautiful view. He sits there now, at a small table, with Captain Nixon beside him. The doorway frames them like a painting. But unlike people in a painting, they turn and look up at her as she slowly emerges from the darkness of the bedroom and steps onto the balcony with them.
Nixon looks her up and down. “Well, well, well. There’s the blushing bride.”
Clad in her wedding dress and feeling utterly exposed by the abrupt end to her charade, Zenie fumbles momentarily. Does she salute? Curtsey, maybe, like the debutante this dress makes her feel like?
In the end, she settles for the salute. She is, after all, a soldier. A Toccoa man, at that. She’s done her part for the war effort. Now she just has to hope that they remember that, too.
Major Winters salutes her, and it’s pleasant enough. There’s a beat of silence when he��s done. He glances to Nixon, who’s staring at Zenie with that inscrutable look of his that’s part knowing smirk and part something else that she doesn’t have time to examine. Winters clears his throat, and then it begins. Zenie’s stomach churns with ice water at the realization that this is a very real thing.
“So, Sergeant Driver.” A gingery eyebrow raises in question. “What’s your real name?”
Zenie has to swallow before speaking, the dryness of her mouth making her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. “Zena McGlamery,” she says. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from adding the amendment that she gave all her friends upon their finding out – but most everyone calls me Zenie.
“And how did you come to find yourself in your, uh – “ The major makes a rolling motion with his hand, as if urging her on. “ – situation?”
She’s beginning to wonder the same thing herself. This whole farce began because she wanted to join the war effort. Maybe she should have rolled bandages or become a secretary after all. Then she could have saved everyone all this trouble.
But then she wouldn’t have met Shifty. Or Bill, or Babe, or McClung. She wouldn’t have her friends, or any of the memories she shares with them. She might never have known that she mattered to anyone. She would have done her work, completed her time with the war effort, then returned home. End of story.
Now she knows that there is so much out there in the world, waiting for her. Good things are possible. People are kind. There is more to the world than a stifling bedroom for the forgotten youngest child. Even they have a place in the world. And Zenie has found hers.
She can’t say all of that to Major Winters, of course. “I just wanted to do my part, sir.”
“Why not the Red Cross?” Nixon asks. “Or the WAC? They do their part.”
“I wanted something more.”
The two officers share a glance. Nixon shrugs. Winters turns back to her.
“Fair enough.” He leans forward in his chair, eyes scanning the paper in front of him briefly before they flick back up to her. “Miss McGlamery – “ Zenie can’t ignore the way it stings her heart to hear the backbone of the company refer to her by her real name and not her rank. “ – I think we’re all in agreement that you cannot join Easy Company in the next jump into the Pacific. For obvious reasons. The most important being your own safety.”
This she suspected. That was why she had planned to get out of here. But the major is watching her, expecting a reaction, so she nods in agreement.
“Everyone would like for this to be solved as quickly and quietly as possible. So after our meeting, you will take your final paycheck, and be escorted to a civilian ship that will carry you back to the States.” One of Winters’ eyebrows quirks as he glances at his notes again. “It would appear that, uh, you and Shifty are married now?”
She swallows. “Yes, sir.”
Winters nods. “Well, I guess that worked out well for the two of you.”
Just an observation, or a joke that fell flat? Either way, a beat of silence passes. When no one speaks, Zenie takes advantage of the silence to ask what’s been bothering her most.
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, how did I get caught?” Both she and the major automatically glance at Nixon. If there was ever a time for the intelligence officer to offer up information, it would be now.
He slides into his role easily. “From what I can piece together, people were looking for Shifty to congratulate him before he took off, but no one could find him. Someone thought that they saw him go off toward the town. But then someone heard a few residents saying something about a GI getting married. And since you’re supposed to get permission from your commanding officer for that, Speirs went to check it out. Somehow or other, he stumbled across the two of you.”
“Oh.” Speirs, who was impressed with her for not being afraid of him when he offered her a cigarette. Speirs, who stuck up for her by transferring a man to another company because of rumors he spread about her. She should apologize, if she gets the chance.
Before her mood can sink any lower, Winters stands and extends his hand to her.
“You were a good soldier, Tommy,” he says.
For a split second, she’s back to being the man she’s pretended to be for years now. “Thank you, sir.”
When she’s dismissed, Winters hands her an envelope with her final pay in it. Probably the last time the Army will ever pay her, if she had to guess. If they’re so keen on getting rid of her without causing a fuss, they probably won’t be doing much to thank her for her service or anything of the sort past this point.
As she nears the door, she hears Winters ask, “Did you know? I mean, would you have guessed?”
Nixon scoffs. “Of course I knew. I’m an intelligence officer, Dick – I know everything.”
The door shuts behind her, and they’re gone.
Shifty jumps as the door closes. He’s by her side in an instant, seemingly appearing from nowhere, although Zenie knew he was waiting somewhere out here for his turn to speak with the officers. She falls into his embrace. “How did it go?”
She knows what he’s really asking. “I don’t think I’m in trouble. I don’t think you are either.”
His forehead is scrunched with worry, making Zenie wish that she could reach out and smooth it, taking all the worries about their current circumstances away, too. “So . . . no court martial?”
“They want me to leave,” she explains, holding up the envelope with her final paycheck and her ticket for the ship. “Quickly and quietly. I guess if I just . . . slide back into my old self, they think we can avoid a lot of trouble.”
“Hmm.” Shifty glances at the door. “I’m guessin’ they’ll tell me the same.”
“So what do we do?”
“Your stuff is packed?” When Zenie nods, he mirrors the motion. “Good. You go ahead and get it. Get to the ship, if you can. I’ll meet you there when they’re done with me.”
“And then what?”
“We can figure it out on the ship, but I was thinkin’ we could go see your Mama, like we talked about. Then we can head up to Virginia, if that’s still what you want.” It all sounds so simple coming from him. Like they can just sail away and start their lives together, like they haven’t caused loads of trouble in one afternoon. He squeezes her hand, but she takes firm hold of it before he can pull away.
She holds Shifty’s hand in both of hers. “You really think that you’ll be let go as easily?”
“I don’t see why not.”
He’s right. Zenie created a fake identity for herself and lied to the military. All Shifty did was keep her secret and marry her. That’s a far less punishable offense. Or it seems like it should be, anyway.
The officers are probably wondering where he is. Zenie frees her husband’s hands but stands on tiptoe and presses a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you at the ship.”
Shifty caresses her cheek, turning her face back towards him and planting a gentle kiss on her lips. “Donadagohvi”
When the door shuts behind him, Zenie goes. Still in her evening gown, lipstick, and too small shoes, she no longer feels like the blushing bride who seemed so elegant making her way into the town and down the aisle. Soldiers turn to look at her as she passes, and she can’t be sure if it’s because she’s a woman, or because they’ve heard about what happened. She holds her chin up all the way back to where she’s billeted. It’s one last show, and she’s going to perform with what’s left of Tommy’s confidence.
Grim faces greet her when she enters the house. Her friends all pause, like they were in the middle of a conversation, only to have her barge in and announce the worst. Gene stands tentatively, biting his lip. The first man in Toccoa who she ever trusted with her secret, worrying for her again. She tries to smile, to assure him that it’s fine.
“Well fellas,” she begins. “I guess I’ve beat y’all back to the States.”
George jumps up from his seat. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! So, no trouble?”
“No trouble. They just want me out of here as quickly and quietly as possible.”
“Damn.” George snaps his fingers, shakes his head. “I guess that ruins the whole party I had planned for you. Probably too late to get a refund for the marching band. I’m crushed.”
“How about you come visit me and Shifty in Virginia, and we’ll have a slice of pie to celebrate instead?”
“That invitation extends to all of us, I hope.” Babe quirks an eyebrow. “Because I’ve heard things about the pies that Shifty’s ma makes, and I don’t wanna be left out.”
Zenie squeezes his hand. “Of course.”
There’s so little time to say all that she wants to say. Gene produces several scraps of paper, and they all write down names and addresses, extending invitations to visit, promising to write. (And Zenie does promise this time. Not like with Bobby, where she only pledged to do her best. She’s not like Beckie; when Zenie promises something to the ones she loves, she will fulfil that duty. No one here will be eagerly checking their mailboxes and find nothing but disappointment the way her old friend did to her.)
Wrapping them all in hugs, Zenie presses a kiss to each of the boys’ cheeks, thanking them, telling them how much she cares about them. Now that she’s about to be apart from them for the first time in three years, whatever it is that exists between them all feels very heavy, very present, very real. This isn’t simple friendship – that’s too light a name to describe this bond. They’ve seen each other wounded, physically and emotionally. They froze together, starved together, and laughed together. These men risked everything for her. What is the proper word to describe how they all fit into each other’s lives now?
With no time to spare, Zenie takes her bag and calls goodbyes over her shoulder all the way down the street as her friends wait on the steps, waving her goodbye. This is what Cinderella must have felt like when she left for the ball, seen off by all her true friends who helped her get there.
A small convoy of trucks and jeeps are waiting when Zenie arrives. She doesn’t get the time to wonder where she’s supposed to go, where she might find Shifty, before one of the Jeep drivers recognizes her. His eyes go wide. He jumps out of his seat and approaches Zenie.
He glances at a slip of paper in his hand. “Sergeant . . . Uh, Miss . . . ?”
“You’re my driver,” Zenie guesses.
He nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her bags stowed in the back of the Jeep, the driver helps Zenie into the passenger seat. As soon as he returns to his seat, the engine roars to life, and they take off down the road.
Zenie starts. She glances behind them, but no one seems to think their quick departure unusual. “Where are we going?”
“The coast,” the driver explains. “so you can board the ship.”
“No, I know that. I mean, you forgot my husband. We’re supposed to leave together.”
The driver at least has the decency to look sheepish. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The orders I received were to take you to the ship immediately.”
As quickly and quietly as possible. She shouldn’t have expected anything less. She leans back in her seat and tries to enjoy the rest of the ride.
Being dropped off at the ship is just as unceremonious. Zenie waits until the Jeep is just a tiny speck in the distance before she boards the boat, trying to draw out the seconds so that she can see Shifty approaching.
She waits on the deck, still looking in the direction that her own ride came from and disappeared to. No one appears.
It’s too late when Zenie realizes that the ship is moving. But really, what should she do? Throw herself into the ocean and swim back to shore, leaving all her belongings behind?
Maybe she missed him, somehow. She did take quite a while telling her friends goodbye. It’s possible that Shifty managed to make it to the ship before she did.
With one last glance at the shore, Zenie steels herself before she leaves the rail, off to look for her husband while she tries to ignore the ice-cold worry churning in her stomach.
#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#hbo war fanfic#my writing#oc zenie mcglamery#like a girl (like a man)
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 20: Standing Fast
Summary: If she really thinks about it, it’s kind of like D-Day – just not in any of the ways that count.
A/N: When I said that the last chapter felt like the beginning of an intermission, I did not intend to disappear for a week - my bad! But now I'm back from a (much needed) vacation, and I'm excited to work on this fic for the rest of the summer :)
Warnings: mentions of war, mentions of alcohol, improper binding
Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @lady-cheeky @latibvles @lieutenant-speirs @mrs-murder-daddy @ithinkabouttzu
France, 1944
A few nights later, a bunch of sergeants get drunk during a poker game and wreck the barracks. Bunks are torn piece from piece. From what she hears of it later, fists and sharp words both fly as they take out their tension on each other. Based on the damage Bill and Shifty (one of Easy Company’s newly appointed sergeants) describe to her later, it’s a night they’ll pay for dearly.
Except there’s no time for that.
The order reaches them first thing the next morning. “After breakfast, stand fast.”
“What’dya reckon they mean by that?” Popeye asks as they make their way from the barracks.
“Nothing good,” McClung sighs.
Zenie is just sitting down with her food at breakfast when a hand on her shoulder practically drags her off the bench. Eugene’s brows are furrowed and his lips are pressed into a severe line. For once, his attitude is as dark as his hair – something Zenie never would have thought possible, even after what she’s overheard about his response to Winters and Welsh when they didn’t know how to help Captain Heyliger after he was shot.
“How many bandages you got?” He asks in a low voice when they’ve stepped out of everyone’s earshot.
Zenie blinks, trying to comprehend the suddenness of his question. “Huh?”
“Bandages. How many you got? And health sponges, too. You been usin’ ‘em?”
“I haven’t needed any in a while. And I think I have one role left. Why?”
“Here, take these.” Angling himself so that no one can see the transaction, he presses a role of bandages into Zenie’s hand. She quickly shoves them into her jacket. As soon as it’s over, Eugene is firing more questions at her. “You gone to the bathroom this mornin’?”
Doc Roe might know quite a bit about Zenie and her situation, but getting so many rapid-fire personal questions at such an early hour still takes her aback. When she doesn’t answer, he repeats the question with more pressure.
“You better go now,” he warns. “While no one’s around.”
“But my breakfast – “
“I’ll guard it for you. Hurry. You ain’t got much time, and you won’t be able to be alone for a while.”
“Why? Gene, what’s going on?”
There’s limited time and Eugene has told her as much. Still, he lets out a short sigh through his nose and leans in further, just in case.
“Don’t tell anyone, comprenez vous?” She doesn’t speak French, but she gets the gist. “They just told the medics that we’re movin’ out after breakfast. Lots of travelin’ ahead.”
“To where?”
Gene’s eyes dance around the room as he replies, “I dunno yet. But they’re talkin’ like it’s pretty far.”
Not willing to waste any more time, Zenie rushes to the latrine and back, ignoring the wondering looks her friends give her when she returns and takes her seat, which Roe has been occupying, as promised, hunched over her plate. Babe frowns as Gene vacates her seat and heads off again, on the move. She brushes off their questions and bolts her breakfast, leaving her coffee untouched and not even daring to think about water as a just in case.
They all finish their meal. Nothing happens. Stand fast. Nothing new. Hurry up and wait.
With nowhere to go, they clean the barracks. Zenie can feel someone’s eyes on her the entire time. Babe throws her a strange look every now and then, his brow furrowed and his expression thoughtful as they waste time. Under her friend’s watchful gaze, she has to be extra careful as she stashes her new roll of bandages in her belongings.
Something pokes her finger as she shoves the roll into the bottom of her bag. Careful to keep the bandages covered, she grabs the sharp edge and tugs it out; her postcard from the Eiffel Tower. She smiles at the memories, smiles at the thought of beating Marilyn to the landmark.
Unless, she realizes, her sister has beat her there. Travelling with the Red Cross, there’s no telling where Marilyn has been. And it’s not like Zenie would know.
It’s a bad idea, she knows as she takes a pen from her bag and scrawls on the card. She shouldn’t do it because it’s risky, she tells herself as she slaps on a stamp. But, she reasons, if she sends the card home, her mother will get it and know that she’s okay – and then her small brag will reach her sister.
When no one is looking, Zenie slips the postcard into a bag of mail that’s due to go out soon. Hopefully no one will read too much into “Dear Marilyn, Think I beat you here. – Z.”
There’s a movie playing. Zenie’s seen it before. She takes a seat toward the back of the room and smiles when Shifty seats himself in the chair beside her. When the lights go down, he moves his hand so that it rests on his leg between their chairs. Zenie does the same and smiles into the darkness when he curls his pinky finger around hers.
This is more than pressing their knees together in foxholes. This is better.
“What do you think is going on?” she whispers as the movie’s score soars over the opening credits.
From the corner of her eye, she can see him bite his bottom lip as he considers the possibilities.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. “But interruptin’ R and R like this?” He shakes his head. “I doubt it’s good.”
“They can’t send us back. We have no gear. What do they want us to do?”
There’s a commotion from the front of the room.
“Shut up!” Joe insists, turning around to face Luz. “I’m trying to watch!”
Other men shush them. Zenie waits for the noise to die down before she whispers again.
“At least we got to go to Paris first. No more wondering and avoiding.”
Shifty tightens his finger around hers. “No more,” he agrees.
“I love this part!” Luz exclaims from the front of the room. Even with his back to her, Zenie can picture the expression he uses for this particular impression – one that he’s very proud of. In a low, sultry voice he begins asking, enunciating a different word every time, “Got a penny? Got a penny? Got a penny?!”
“Got a penny?” The movie asks, making George erupt into laughter. He’s so loud that she thinks Joe might spin around and knock his lights out.
Whatever he’s planning, he doesn’t get the chance. With no warning, the doors at the back of the room fly open. Zenie and Shifty jump apart as if electrocuted while footsteps, hard and fast, march past them and to the front of the room. “Quiet!” A voice booms before anyone has the chance to properly protest.
The lights come up and the movie sputters to a stop. Now the men begin to protest. Booing and cries of “Awe, come on!” join the cacophony of Zenie’s pounding heart. Surely no one saw them, even though they were taken by surprise. She can only hope.
“I said quiet!” The order is repeated. This time, the crowd falls silent. Just in time to hear the announcement of, “Elements of the 1st and the 6th SS Panzer Divisions have broken through in the Ardennes Forest.”
Through the crowd, Zenie can see Luz throw his head back – a telltale sign that he’s giving a dramatic eye roll. Though other men are hanging their heads in disappointment, George’s reaction is what they all surely feel as the realizations set in: no more passes to Paris; no more movies; no more Rest and Relaxation. It’s back to the line for Easy Company.
Mutters break out before the announcement is properly finished as people start speculating about what it all means, how it will all play out. After all, there’s nothing for them to fight with, they’re keen to remind each other. Although the people sending them off should know that.
They file out of the theater, lips pressed into thin lines that are more severe than when the order of the day was simply “stand fast.”
“Favorite movie and I didn’t even get to finish it,” Luz complains.
Joe sighs. “Luz, you weren’t even watching the damn thing.”
“No but I was enjoying it, and that’s what matters.”
“Probably won’t be enjoyin’ anything for a while now,” Popeye muses.
“Yeah,” Zenie agrees. “Not if it’s like Holland – just sitting around in foxholes and waiting.”
Amongst the choir of muttered protests from the clumps of soldiers, one question rings out loud and clear: where the hell is Bastogne?
If she really thinks about it, it’s kind of like D-Day – just not in any of the ways that count.
Like that night in June, they pat their friends on the back and wish each other well. Except this time there’s no ice cream, no specific knowledge of where they’re going, no plan for when they get there. More importantly, they have precious little equipment. And hardly a chance to say goodbye.
Zenie’s fingers tingle with the memory of Shifty quickly intertwining their fingers together before boarding the planes. There’s no chance for anything like that now, with everyone rushing around, trying to figure out what’s going on. Instead, she has to settle for flashing him a smile while Popeye offers her a smack on the shoulder when they go their separate ways.
The effort that it took to help load their fellow soldiers into the C-47s is missing as well. Rumbling engines tear through the velvety black night, the truck’s floors shaking as they jump into the backs with what little gear they have. The planes had been solemn and filled with excitement and prayers. These trucks are packed full of people who huddle for warmth, and air gauzy with cigarette smoke in their pitiful attempts to warm themselves up and pass the time.
For the hundredth time in this war, Zenie thanks God for Gene. If he hadn’t warned her, she would have been crammed into the back of this truck with no warning. And as they rumble along in their endless journey, he begins to feel more and more like some sort of guardian angel.
“I just wanna know where they’re sendin’ us,” Babe says as they bounce along. “What the hell are we gonna do with no ammo?”
Over all the noise, from where she sits, Zenie can hear the drivers of their truck pause their conversation when they hear Babe’s question. Their part of the Red Ball Express. She remembers seeing articles in the papers about them after the jump back in June. If anyone knows anything about where they’re going, surely it will be them. She shifts towards them.
“Have y’all been to where we’re going?” Her question startles them.
The driver and the man in the passenger seat share a weary look. Not a good sign.
“Yes,” the driver finally answers.
“That bad, huh?”
“Oh yeah, you could say that,” the man in the passenger seat agrees. “That’s why you guys have to walk the last leg of the journey.”
“Why?” The words have no sooner left her mouth when the truck shakes, followed by a loud, booming sound that reminds her of summer thunderstorms shaking the house at night.
“That’s why,” the driver says. “Besides, we have more men to move.”
These drivers have a job to do, same as the paratroopers. War is a machine, and every outfit is a small piece that operates in it. That much has become obvious after successful operations, like Overlord, and not so successful ones, like Market Garden.
“You need four pairs of socks, minimum!” Skip Muck calls over the sounds of the truck. He’s lounging on the floor of the truck bed, which is the only place where there was space left for him. In his cramped position, he frees one of his hands to count on his fingers as he lectures one of the replacements traveling with them. “Feet, hands, neck, balls.”
“Extra socks warms ‘em all,” the rest of the men finish in unison.
“Yay, we all remember that one!” Muck exclaims. “But no one remembered the socks.”
The trucks begin growling to a stop as the booming of explosions and the cracking of gunfire draw closer. Men attempt to stand as tail gates are lowered, and then they’re hopping to the ground on numb legs – a jump from nowhere near as spectacular heights as on D-Day. Someone makes a joke about a tailgate jump.
“Thanks, y’all.” Zenie taps the edge of her helmet and nods to her drivers as she moves to leave the truck.
“You’re southern, too,” her driver notes. “Where from?”
Too, he had said. It’s been so rare to find men who aren’t taken aback by y’all.
“North Carolina. The mountains. What about you?”
The driver grins. “North Carolina – the piedmont!” They laugh over their shared geography.
“Seems like everyone else is from Pennsylvania.”
The man in the passenger seat waves. “That would be me.”
It’s Zenie’s turn now to exit the truck. Before she does, she flashes them both a smile. “Well, I’ll see y’all back at home.” She leaves the truck feeling a little better than when she climbed into it.
The biting cold threatens to dispel any warmth that has entered into her heart, though. Around her, men all step around some parked trucks to relieve themselves after the long ride. Others bustle through the crowd with gasoline containers which they dump into pits in the ground. Tall flames blaze to life when a book of matches is tossed onto them, and men eagerly gather around them for warmth, drawn in like moths to a flame.
Footsteps approach. More men coming to get warm –
“Christ,” Babe mutters around his cigarette.
Columns of men appear, but they aren’t heading for the fires. Darkness cannot hide the grim and fearful expressions that haunt their features as they trudge past. Zenie and Babe gawk at them. The passing men won’t meet their eyes.
“Bill! Bill, Joe, look at this!” Babe exclaims.
Their friends appear beside them, adding to the onlookers.
Bill has never looked more confused in his life. “Hey, you’re goin’ the wrong way!”
From the corner of her eye, Zenie catches a flash of familiar movement; McClung and Popeye passing by. She steps away and follows them to one of the fires. Falling into place beside Earl, she stretches her hands towards the open flames, trying to catch the warmth while she can.
“What’s that all about?” Earl asks, nodding towards the lines of men leaving the very place that Easy Company has just been ordered into. No one asks the real question: what they hell are they sending us into now?
They don’t have to wonder for long. The men leaving Bastogne begin handing over any spare gear and ammo that they can. Easy Company men load themselves down until their hands are full, and then try to find someone else to hand off extra supplies to. Zenie finds herself weighed down with three bandoliers and a knife. She hands off some grenades to Joe and pockets half a pack of cigarettes that one retreating man presses into her hands.
The parade has hardly ended when Easy Company receives the word to keep moving. With whatever borrowed weapons and ammunition that they can carry, they start off in the opposite direction of the retreating soldiers. The world shakes with gunfire as they push through the darkness, following the road.
“Huh, would you look at that.” Bill nods up at a sign that stands on the road. It’s got arrows pointing every which way, giving every sprawling road before them a name. “It really is a crossroads.”
Without looking back, they gather their courage and follow the arrow pointing towards a place labeled Bastogne.
#was going through something and felt unable to write anything good because of all the negativity it gave me#my bad though I did not intend to dip like that#band of brothers#band of brothers fanfic#band of brothers x ofc#band of brothers x oc#shifty powers x original female character#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers#my writing#oc zenie mcglamery#like a girl (like a man)
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 34: Zenie Uwenvsv Dayesi
Summary: Hadn’t she thought, back when Gene took her to the church to get the shrapnel out of her arm, that she had seen her sister? And hadn’t Gene, looking at photographs with her in a foxhole, acted strangely upon seeing the one of Marilyn?
A/N: Sorry for missing last week's update! A lot of stuff was going on in my personal life, but I managed to pull through 💪🏽
But honestly, this worked out better anyway. Today marks one year since I posted the first chapter of this fic 🥳 A massive thank you to everyone who has read it, and an even bigger thank you to the friends who encouraged me to share it 🤗 Wado!
The chapter title translates to "Zenie is going home." Which seems appropriate, considering where this fic started last year, and where today's chapter will take her
Warnings: smoking, language, bad father figures
Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @dcyllom @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs
North Carolina, 1945
Dust billows up in clouds along the road every time a vehicle passes, churning it up in their wake as they speed past. Zenie has gotten good about turning her head, holding her breath, covering her mouth, but the combination of dirt and diesel fumes mixing in the heat of the summer day cannot be escaped. Unless she were to accept a ride, that is, and that is not happening.
Zenie had made up her mind on the ship. The plan had been to go visit Mama and let her know that Zenie was okay before heading up to Clinchco. Wherever Shifty is, he can catch up. Zenie will just wait for him in North Carolina, and then he can come and whisk her away to their new life together. (She tells herself that, anyway, because repeating this over and over in her head was better than giving into full-blown panic in the middle of the ocean.)
She donned her uniform as the ship pulled into the harbor up north, and she’s been wearing it the whole journey down south. It just seemed safer. And so far, it has been. Because of it, people enthusiastically shake her hand, thank her for her service, and offer her rides – something they definitely wouldn’t be inclined to do if they knew the truth.
The walk gives her time to think, but that only seems to lead to worry. About Shifty, about what will happen when she gets home, about her friends and the rest of the war.
Distracting herself becomes easier the closer she gets to home. As the landscape begins rolling out in waves of mountains before her, blue and shining in the summer sun, she tries to recall every story that Granny ever told her. The story about the mountains was always one of her favorites; they were formed from the buzzard’s wing touching the first drops of wet mud used in creating the surface of the earth, the indentions left by his feathers making the mountains and valleys. She’ll have to remember that one when her friends come to visit. They know why the mountains are blue – they should know how the mountains got here in the first place.
In the evening, the humidity grows oppressive, and the mountains are stained deep blue and made hazy as the day’s end stretches out. It’s still hot when Zenie reaches her house, though the sun is starting to set already. Sweat trickles down her neck and onto her uniform collar as she makes her way up the hill, finds a hiding place amongst the tree line, and waits.
Heat lightning flashes distant over the western mountain tops. As usual, the heat of the day is forcing the clouds to gather, but no one can ever be sure if a storm will hit or not. Sometimes they just dissipate, fizzle out, with nothing more than some ominous gray streaks in the night sky that obscure the stars.
The lights spilling out the kitchen window illuminate the inside of the house, though it’s not very dark outside. Zenie can make out multiple people milling about the kitchen, though she’s too far away to tell who they are. If Shifty were here, he could probably describe each one of them in perfect detail. After all, he was the one who spotted a tank disguised as a tree from a mile away.
Her heart tightens at the thought of him. They should be doing this together – walking up to the house arm in arm, he in his uniform, and she in her wedding dress to announce the happy news. Instead, she’s back in her own disguise, and just as alone as the day she left this place.
There’s no sense delaying any longer. Zenie straightens her uniform, grabs her bag, and sets off down the road.
She sneaks around the side of the house. She doesn’t know who’s in the kitchen. But they looked busy. Maybe she can just slip in through the back door, up the stairs to her old room, and stay there.
Mercifully, the door does not creak when Zenie twists the knob and slowly, slowly, begins to push it open. She doesn’t open it very far, opting instead to slip through the crack like a mouse stealing away into its hidey hole. It shuts quietly behind her, too. She’s turning back around and is about to take the first step when she’s forced to stop short.
Her mother stands before her, frozen, eyes and mouth wide.
They stare at each other for a minute in disbelief. The only sounds are those coming out of the kitchen, chatter and the clanging of silverware as the table is set.
“Zena?” Mama finally asks.
“Mama!” The word isn’t even fully out of her mouth before she’s rushing forward, into her mother’s arms, which are open and waiting. She buries her face in Mama’s shoulder, like she’s a little girl again. She isn’t sure what to say. “I’m home.”
Mama lets out a wet sounding gasp that could either be a sob or a laugh. She breaks the embrace only to cup Zenie’s cheeks in her palms, holding her face, getting a look at her in her uniform. “Yes, you are.”
“Hey, Mama, do you know where the – “ Footsteps stop abruptly as Matthew and his sentence both come to a halt. Mama steps aside, allowing Zenie to see her brother for the first time in years. Except the version of her brother that stands before her is slack jawed and has eyes as wide as saucers; this isn’t the cool and confident Matthew who never lost his footing. Her brother looks like he’s seen a ghost.
Zenie stands tall in her uniform. Her brother was in the Air Corps; he’ll know the importance of the jump wings proudly displayed on her chest. “Well, are we just going to stand here, or are you going to give me a hug?”
The answer is that they hug. They’re quick to close the distance between them, but Zenie still notices that Matthew limps as he comes towards her – the product of his accident with the plane the year before. Their father also limps. Matthew has always been so determined to be nothing like him, but now there’s something more that links them.
There’s no time to think about that, though, because Marilyn appears from the kitchen to see what all the fuss is about, and Danny follows when he hears her cry out in surprise. In the back room of the house, there are many hugs and exclamations of joy and surprise. For the first time in a very long time, the house is full of a noise that is happy. If they could stay in this moment forever, they could pretend that they’re a normal family living normal lives.
But nothing about their circumstances is normal.
Her family ushers Zenie into the kitchen like a celebrity, like a prince. She takes a seat at the table, and Marilyn – her sister, of all people! – fixes a plate for her. Everyone is smiling, glancing at her expectantly, waiting to hear what she has to say for herself. Everyone, that is, except her father, who looks surprised, but scowls, forgotten as everyone’s attention focuses on the wayward child and her unexpected return.
“I got your postcard when I got back to the states,” Marilyn says as she places a cornbread muffin on the plate she’s fixing for Zenie. “Scared the shit out of me! I was worried that maybe you were one of the soldiers at Bastogne.”
“I was.”
“What?! We must have just missed each other, then, because I left the church the day before it got blown up.”
Blown up? Zenie’s hand stills halfway as she reaches for the jar of apple butter in the center of the table. She retracts it, staring at her sister. Hadn’t she thought, back when Gene took her to the church to get the shrapnel out of her arm, that she had seen her sister? And hadn’t Gene, looking at photographs with her in a foxhole, acted strangely upon seeing the one of Marilyn? He must have assumed that her sister had died. And he didn’t tell her.
Probably for the best, part of Zenie reasons, after realizing that she’s not mad at the medic. She was so bad off after Bill and Joe got hit, that thinking she had lost her sister might have destroyed her. When she writes to her friends to tell them she made it home, she’ll make sure to tell Gene that Marilyn is okay.
Mama passes Zenie a glass of sweet tea. “You were in Bastogne? That was during Christmas, wasn’t it?”
“Say, how’d you get a Purple Heart?” Danny interjects. “And – sorry for asking, but someone’s got to clarify – were you disguised as a man the whole time?”
Considering that he’s Bobby’s brother, something about Danny’s question makes Zenie laugh. She takes a sip of her tea to wet her throat, and then, she tells her family her epic tale. The basics, at least. Where she’s been, what she’s done. No one interrupts her when she talks, except to ask a question or two for clarification whenever she pauses to drink some of her tea. They stare at her in shock and awe while she goes on, for quite some time, about the past three years of her life. She’s never been the subject of such rapt attention. Maybe it’s selfish, but she doesn’t want it to end. Except that she has to, because she leaves out the part about her elopement with Shifty – something about her marriage feels like an ace up her sleeve, a card that she won’t play until she has to, to get out of here, just like they planned all the way back in France.
When she’s done, they all stare at her. It takes a moment for them to realize that she’s not going to continue, or maybe for them to process all that they’ve just heard. It’s Matthew who breaks the silence, leaning back in his chair, running a hand through his hair and sighing.
“Zenie,” he breathes. “Good Lord!” Something tugs at his lips, and the next thing she knows, her older brother is smiling at her. “That’s incredible.”
“What an adventure,” Marilyn adds. “I . . . don’t know what to say, really.”
“Wow,” Danny supplies.
For the first time since her arrival, her father speaks. It startles her to realize that he’s still there, that he’s been a part of this moment, which until now, has been pleasant.
“Well, Zena, I hope it was worth it.” He won’t look at her when he speaks. His voice is hollow and cold. “That’s enough adventure for a lifetime, I think.” His eyes flick from his plate to her, only looking at her for a split second. “You won’t be leaving here again.”
She had a feeling it would come to this, but her stomach still ties itself into a knot the moment that she hears his words. Her mouth goes dry as she tries to figure out her next move.
Matthew intervenes. “The fuck does that mean?”
Their father finally looks up from his plate, for good this time, now that his eyes are wide with shock. His mouth is a hard line. He doesn’t scold Matthew for his language the way he would have when they were teenagers. Something tells Zenie that she’s missed something, that they’ve had that fight before, and that her father isn’t keen on having a rematch.
“There are consequences to actions,” he explains. Now he turns to Zenie. “You’ve seen enough of the world.”
“You can’t keep me here.”
“Well I certainly can’t let you out there! How can I explain it – huh? My daughter up and disappears, then returns with short hair and stories about how she fought in the war. You’d make me look like a fool. You’d make all of us look like fools.”
“And what about me?” Zenie asks. “It’s my life. It’s my reputation.”
Her father jabs the tabletop with his pointer finger, punctuating his point. “It’s the family’s reputation. Clearly you didn’t think about that when you went through all this trouble to run away.”
Mama reaches across the table, placing a gentle hand on her husband’s arm. “She can’t just stay in here. Surely, she’ll want to see her friends, or go back to the diner.”
“Not now. Not until her hair has grown back. Maybe then we can claim she was in the WAC, or a nurse, like her sister.”
“I was a soldier,” Zenie interrupts. She straightens her spine, imagines her jump wings gleaming proudly from her chest.
Her father grimaces, scrubs a hand across his face. “You’re a disappointment, talking like that.”
“Dad!” Marilyn gasps.
It’s all Zenie needs. “You can’t keep me in here. I’m an adult, and I’ll do as I please.”
“That’s some big talk, little girl.”
“I’ll leave again,” Zenie threatens.
“And go where? The war is over.”
She plays her ace – the only chance she has. “I’ll go up north and stay with my husband’s family until he comes back from Europe.”
A stunned silence follows. The only sound in the whole house is music from the radio that floats in from the other room.
“What?”
“You heard me.” She sits up straighter still. “I eloped, back in Europe. I’m waiting for my husband to come collect me, and then I’m gone.” She levels her gaze on her father, a sniper catching him in the crosshairs, about to administer the perfect shot. “For good.”
His lips are pressed so tightly together that the skin around them is a deathly white. The room grows more silent still. Her father cannot seem to process this information, and everyone seems to be waiting to see how he will react before they let their own feelings show.
Zenie doesn’t wait. She’s done waiting for people. A squawking sound echoes through the room as she pushes back her chair and heads for the door.
I could leave right now, she thinks. But she doesn’t. She won’t – not yet. Instead, she heads for the fence at the edge of the field, where she met with Bobby for the last time before running away. She leans against it, watching the last of the evening light fade as the soft glow of the moon and the stars begin to appear, offering the world a different, softer illumination. In her hands, another soft glow appears as Zenie lights a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” A voice behind her makes her jump. But it’s just Matthew, walking over to join her. His new limp slows him down, but it doesn’t make his gait any less confident, his stature any less tall. When he gets to the fence, he leans against it, pulling out his own carton of cigarettes. “Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.”
They stand in silence for a moment, neither sure what to say. Zenie finally breaks it, trying to make a start. “Congratulations on your marriage.”
Matthew smiles around his cigarette. “Shit, kiddo. You, too.” His smile grows, and is it Zenie’s imagination, or does the former high school heartbreaker beside her look almost bashful? “Alice is . . . She’s great. Love of my life, if you can believe that.”
“Where is she?”
Matthew is still looking down at the cigarette between his fingers, and his distant smile tells Zenie that even though his new spouse isn’t here physically, she’s very much present in Matthew’s mind and heart. “Back home, in Wilmington. She, uh, didn’t wanna travel out here, with the new baby, and all.”
“A baby?” Zenie nudges her brother’s shoulder with her own. “Well, congratulations again!”
“Little girl,” Matthew confesses, voice soft with love. He flicks ashes from the end of his cigarette, a darkness passing over his features. Somberness pulls at the corners of his mouth, weighing them down. “We named her Zena. Zena Sophia, after you and my birth mother.” He looks up at her then, for the first time since they began talking. His voice is quiet when he admits, “I thought we lost you, Zee.”
“Oh, Matthew.”
Thank God for the cover of darkness, because even though there’s no one else around, the siblings fall into each other’s arms, and despite Zenie’s best efforts, she feels warmth trickling down her cheeks as her tears escape her. Matthew must be experiencing the same thing, because his shoulders jog as he tries to catch his breath.
He breaks their embrace, running a hand under his eyes to collect his tears. “Sorry. Good God.” He draws a shaky breath.
“It’s okay,” she assures him. Then, trying to lighten the mood, “I bet you’re a great dad.”
Matthew shrugs. “I try to be. I try not to be like . . .” He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. They both automatically glance back at their house.
“He’s not your father, Matthew. You’re nothing like him.”
“Neither are you, Zenie.”
She blinks. Perhaps he’s right; none of them are anything like him. At least, not that they’re aware of. Right then and there, with her brother’s confidence to guide her, Zenie makes a pledge to herself that she will never be the kind of spouse that her father has been to her mother. Like Shifty said, they have a system for shared work. She will not let their marriage fall into disrepair and misery.
Zena Sophia. Herself, the runaway little sister, and Sophia, Matthew’s late biological mother. Two women who he cared about and lost. The baby is like a living memorial, taking on their names and putting life into them once more. It feels silly to admit now, that Zenie would never have guessed before that she meant that much to her brother.
“Are you mad?” Zenie asks suddenly, thinking about the baby’s other namesake.
A steady stream of smoke escapes Matthew’s lips before he answers. “Mad? About what?”
“I’ve always heard Granpa and Granma say that they sent you out West to live with us when your parents died because they felt they were too old to properly raise you . . . Don’t you wish they had, so that he wouldn’t have been your father?”
“No,” Matthew answers immediately. He shakes his head as he repeats it. “No. I’m not mad I was sent here. Grateful for it, actually.” He taps ashes from the end of his cigarette again, then looks her straight in the eye. “Because if I hadn’t been sent here, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to be your brother.” He claps her on the shoulder. And then, without further comment, takes a step back toward the house.
That’s enough emotions for tonight, Zenie supposes. Part of her heart feels light with love, knowing that she’s seen her mother again, her siblings, seeing the proof that they cared for her all along. Heaviness fills the other part of it, guilty for ever thinking that she didn’t matter to anyone, and sad at the thought of leaving them again so soon.
“Matthew,” she says, taking quick steps to catch up with him. “Before we leave, give me your new address. I don’t want to lose touch again.”
Matthew’s smile returns, and he slings an arm around her as they continue their walk back to the house. “Of course, usdi agido’i.”
Of course, little sister.
#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#band of brothers#my writing#oc zenie mcglamery#like a girl (like a man)
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 32: A Very Near Thing
Summary: “For Easy Company, the winner is . . .” Captain Speirs takes the paper from Lieutenant Welsh and begins to read a serial number in a booming voice.
A/N: *drops this chapter and runs away giggling*
Warnings: mentions of war, brief mention of sex, improper binding techniques, language
Taglist: @mads-weasley @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @ithinkabouttzu @lady-cheeky @lieutenant-speirs
Austria, 1945
Having only one Purple Heart doesn’t get you very far. Neither does being a veteran of Normandy, Holland, Bastogne. Some of them have been around since the first day at Toccoa, and the Army seems intent on keeping them around even longer.
Points – how many you have, how many you need to go home – become the main topic of discussion everywhere you turn once they become an occupation force in Austria. How many do you have? Damn, I thought for sure you would have more than that. You know who has enough to go home, though? Yeah. Lucky bastard. Do you know how many I need to go home? Not fair. I thought surely I would have enough . . .
Not enough points means staying in the Army. And staying in the Army means jumping into the Pacific. The Big Jump had once appeared to be Berlin. Now it’s in the war’s other theater. And based on Easy Company’s track record, they’re likely to be placed right back on the front lines, thrust into combat once again. In a place that, according to every newspaper article that Zenie has read, has even less privacy than the Bois Jacques.
Tommy Driver does not have enough points to return home. But Zena McGlamery has an ace up her sleeve. It’s not one that she wants to play. It’s not one that she’s ever planned to use. But jumping into the Pacific would surely expose her. One way or another, she’s bound to be found out soon. The clock is ticking on her charade.
“What are we going to do?” Shifty asks.
We. Zenie and Shifty. He needs even more points than she does.
“I think I have to find a way to turn myself in,” Zenie admits. “One that won’t get me court-martialed or placed in front of a firing squad.”
“You don’t think that would really happen, do you?”
“I don’t know.” She hopes not. But, now that the possibility of revealing herself has been spoken out loud like a real option, the chances that she leaves this place without some sort of punishment seem slim. “I don’t even know where I would go if I got out of here.”
“Well, you can’t go home,” Shifty says. “To your home, I mean. We know that. You can go stay with my family, you know, until I get home.”
How would that even go? Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Powers. Remember me, Shifty’s friend Tommy? Well, I’ve actually been a girl this entire time and have been carrying out a secret relationship with your son. So can I please stay here until the war ends and he gets to home and we can get married? He said that you would be fine with it.
Her only hope now is that she wins the lottery – literally. Back in Bastogne, in the church, Renée had said that someone must be watching over her. Well, now would be the time for a miracle. If she wins the lottery, then she can go home, no questions asked. But that leaves Shifty . . .
“You don’t have to worry about Shifty,” Babe assures her later that day after she confides in him. They’re down by the lake, trying to catch something other than hypothermia from the cold water. “He’s going home.”
Zenie snorts as she casts her line. “He’s an expert marksman, he can handle himself. I know. I’ve been telling myself the same thing.”
“No.” Babe lowers his fishing pole, giving Zenie a sideways look. “You really haven’t heard?”
“About what?”
The Philadelphian almost laughs. Instead, he shakes his head. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
“Babe.”
“Just know that Shifty will be going home. Everything is going to be fine, Zee,” Babe reassures her. Only Marilyn has ever called her Zee before. With no further context, Babe casts his line into the lake. “Hey, did I tell you I got a letter from Joe Toye?” The topic of conversation is firmly shifted.
Though she would never admit it to him, Babe is right.
D-Day’s first anniversary dawns clear and bright. The company assembles, uniforms pressed and neat, looking crisp as they wait for Captain Speirs to finish calling out their commands. Zenie can hardly hear what he says over the beating of her own heart, the humming of energy in her veins. It’s not a particularly warm day, yet her rifle feels slick in her palms because of the thin sheen of sweat that’s gathered there.
“At ease,” the captain finally says. There’s a beat as the company takes on a more relaxed stance, though none of them could be described as being at ease with the anticipation that’s coursing through the crowd. Speirs continues nonetheless, “General Taylor is aware that many veterans – including Normandy veterans – still do not have the eighty-five points required to be discharged. On this, the anniversary of D-Day, he has authorized a lottery to send one man home in each company, effective immediately.”
On cue, Talbert steps forward bearing an upturned helmet. He stops in front of Lieutenant Welsh, who sticks a hand inside and fishes around for a moment. After an eternity, he pulls out a scrap of paper.
“For Easy Company, the winner is . . .” Captain Speirs takes the paper from Lieutenant Welsh and begins to read a serial number in a booming voice. Zenie tries to follow along but trips up when the numbers don’t align with her own. She swallows thickly. Not her number, but it’s familiar, somehow. She’s probably just seen it on someone else’s forms before – “Sergeant Darrel C Pow-ers!”
The crowd cheers, whistles, congratulates the man in question. Shifty! He won! So that’s what Babe meant when he told her not to worry, that Shifty would be going home. He knew something that she didn’t, because there’s no way that he just happened to have a good feeling about this whole thing. She glances at him now. Her friend is smiling just as brightly as everyone else. For a fleeting moment, their eyes meet, and he nods.
A breathy laugh escapes her. Things are going to work out after all. How can they not, at this point?
Captain Speirs quickly kills the mood by announcing that tomorrow they will begin training so that they can redeploy to the Pacific. Well, everyone but Shifty, that is. And Zenie, too, though no one but her knows that yet.
She gets so caught up in plotting her next move that she barely hears anything else that happens. And who cares? It won’t affect her anymore.
There are a few options. She could desert. Stealing women’s clothes wouldn’t be hard to do, but there aren’t many people in Austria who look like her. She would surely be caught because of her brown skin and then have a lot of explaining to do. That won’t do.
Which leaves her with the most obvious choice: she can turn herself in. But to who? Colonel Sink, just so she can get the worst of it over with? Major Winters? She’s never exactly been close with him, but maybe he would be lenient with her since she’s a Toccoa Man. Or Captain Speirs, maybe? Well, he kicked a man out of the company for accusing her of the very thing she’s about to admit to, which isn’t exactly a good look.
Major Winters it is, then.
Zenie returns to her billet to pack up her belongings. If the major decides to court martial her, to send her away, then she can always try to get Babe or someone to send them back to the States for her.
Before she can think too much about it, the door flies open, making her jump. Shifty stands in the doorway, smiling wide, eyes bright. He shuts the door behind him and crosses the room to her in a few quick strides. The next thing that Zenie knows, he’s got her wrapped up in a hug and she can feel the racing of his heart as his chest presses against hers.
“We’re goin’ home,” he laughs. He pulls apart from their embrace, still smiling.
“You are,” Zenie corrects. “I’ll meet you there. After I . . .”
“Oh.” Shifty’s face falls slightly, but not for long. “No, you ain’t got to worry about that. I got it all worked out.” He takes her hands in his, sits down on the bed. They’ve done this twice before. What will he say this time? “There’s a priest in the town. Speaks English pretty well. He said that he can perform a wedding.”
It takes Zenie longer than it should to realize that he means a wedding for them – Zenie and Shifty. Her first instinct is to ask Are you sure?, or to remind him that she doesn’t want him to pity her. But all words die on her tongue. Hadn’t he been the one to reintroduce the idea when they were in Haguenau? And here he is, bringing it up again now. He seems not only ready and willing, but excited. Holding his hand in her own, she can feel the slight tremor of his enthusiasm. His smile is dazzling.
“When?” Zenie manages.
Shifty’s eyes are wide, and his smile even wider when he announces, “Now. Seems like the best time for it, right? I mean, we’ll have to leave right after, anyway, you know.”
Maybe if she takes off directly from the town, she can get some sort of head start. Maybe no one will be looking for her quite yet.
In the meantime, she needs to get out of her uniform. Good Lord, what would the priest think if she showed up looking like this, in her disguise?
As if he can read her mind, Shifty stands. Hands still joined, she follows suit, not willing to be separated from him yet. “I’m sure we can find something around here for you to wear.”
My lipstick, Zenie thinks first, suddenly giddy at the thought of getting to wear that beautiful rouge and to make it count this time. Then she can see a dress in her mind. One that Gene had plucked from a closet, intent on sending it back home to a family member.
“I’ve got it covered. What time should I meet you?”
A small laugh emerges from the man in front of her. It’s more of an excited sounding huff of air. He presses a kiss against her fingers before he finally lets go of her hand, and that’s only so he can practically race to the door. “Ask Babe,” he says, bouncing on his toes. “He’ll know where you should go.” Then he bounds out of the room.
All she can do is stand still for a moment, watching the doorway that Shifty just passed through. That man wants to marry her – right now! There is a person in the world who is in love with her, and it’s real this time, instead of something shallow that she misinterpreted. If only she could travel back to that stifling bedroom of teenage loneliness and tell her younger self to hold on just a little longer. Not only that, but he cares about her, and so do her friends.
Her friends! Shifty had said that Babe would know where to go. Jolted, she flies from the room and up the stairs, bursting into the room that she knows her friend to frequent.
Just as she suspected, he’s sitting at the little table by the window, playing cards with Gene. They both glance up with raised brows when she enters the room, breathless, though not from her run.
“I need a dress!” She exclaims by way of explanation. This makes their eyes widen. She can’t be sure why, seeing as they seem to be involved in this whole affair on a much deeper level than she realized. Then she hears the door behind her squeak on its hinges and snap shut.
“Uh.” Luz takes a step further into the room, clutching a bottle of wine in each hand. Brows raised, eyes wide, he’s befuddled and perplexed in a way that she’s never seen him before. “You desperate to send something to a girl back home, or - ?”
There’s no time to explain. Zenie turns back to the men playing cards. “Gene, can I borrow that dress you were going to send home? The pretty pink one? I’ll give it back as soon as we’re done.”
“Whoa,” George chuckles behind her. “Okay, this – “
“Actually,” Babe interrupts. “We’ve got something better for you.” In a few quick strides, he reaches his bag that waits atop the bed, and in one swift motion, he pulls out a beautiful piece of white cloth that unfurls itself to reveal its true nature as a silky evening gown. It’s like something out of a magazine, or better yet, one of the storybooks from her childhood. With a tiara, Zenie is sure that the dress could look as if it belonged to a princess.
The gasp that escapes her is undeniably girlish, and in her periphery, she vaguely registers Luz’s eyebrows shooting upward, his eyes the size of saucers. “Oh! Where did you find this?”
“Back in Berchtesgaden,” Babe says with a shrug. “Former owner probably won’t be needing it anytime soon.”
“But you do,” Gene adds, sparing a glance at his watch. “Shifty’s probably waitin’ for you.”
“Huh?” George questions.
“Y’all have been in on this whole thing.” In her chest, her heart feels tight with how large it is for her love for these friends. These friends, who have kept her secret and who have protected her, even though they didn’t have to, because it meant putting themselves at risk. These friends, who even now, are helping her slip into yet another new life, another version of herself.
“Except for me,” Luz huffs. He steps between Zenie and the other men then, hands on his hips. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?! Why does Tommy need a dress?” His eyes narrow as he looks toward Zenie. “And why does your voice sound different?”
“Because I’m a girl!” Zenie blurts out, aware that every second of her explanation will cost her the time that she should be using to get ready, to get married, to get out of here before she can get caught. “Collins was right; I’ve been disguising myself as a man this whole time. But we’re kind of low on time, so can I tell you the whole story some other time?”
Luz’s jaw drops. She didn’t mean to snap at him. She’s snapped at one person in all her time here, and that was Bill on D-Day. But Luz nods before she can apologize, still looking a little puzzled, but no longer holding her back from getting ready.
Though she hurries, she’s pleased with the outcome. The sleeveless dress looks utterly elegant, and even though it’s a little too big for her, the gentle swoops of the fabric hide that fact. Free of their bandaging, her breasts feel strange against the fabric, and the suggestive neckline keeps reminding her that they’re there. Her friends open their haul to her, allowing her to select whatever jewelry she wants to compliment the dress. She takes only a bejeweled necklace; the dress needs no help to shimmer. From her own small collection, she takes the lipstick and applies the deep red paint to her lips. A pair of heels they find are a little too small for her, but they’ll have to do.
Parting her hair differently completes the ensemble. Looking at herself in the mirror, Zenie realizes that for the first time in years, she looks like a girl again. No – a woman, now. Someone she only used to dream of being, certainly.
“Goddamn,” Luz whispers. “How did I not realize?”
“Don’t feel bad,” Zenie assures him. “Only Gene did, at first. And Shifty, because I made a translation mistake.”
A small, knowing laugh. “Shifty knew? Well, that certainly explains some things.”
“And Bill,” Babe adds.
“Bill knew? You told Bill and not me?!”
“Yeah, but only because I got shot. Then he told Babe.”
“Am I the only one who didn’t know about all this?”
Zenie winces. “Sorry, Luz.” She pats him on the arm. “Next time I have a secret, you’ll be the first to know.”
Her friend snorts, but there’s no malice behind it – just a hint of the bright grin he used to have, of the old Luz. “Yeah, I better be, Tommy Boy.”
The church is quaint. Nestled in a small pasture of green, a tree in full green right outside the door provides a little shade for the little church. It’s serene looking.
Zenie grabs Babe’s sleeve as they approach the church. “Will you walk with me? Give me away, I mean?”
Babe’s eyes soften. His hand finds hers and he squeezes. “Of course, Zee.”
Inside, Shifty stands at the pulpit with the priest. Behind him are his own closest friends, Skinny, Popeye, and McClung, who start when Zenie and her own entourage enter the church.
It’s quiet. Without a full congregation, it seems like the church should be dark and full of an eerie silence, but soft sunlight filters in through the windows and the quiet has a gentle and welcoming quality to it. Zenie doesn’t have to listen to it for long, anyways, because as soon as Shifty sees her, he smiles, and it sets her heart to racing.
After a pause in the doorway, Zenie draws a deep breath. She wants this. Shifty wants this. He wouldn’t have asked her if he didn’t, she reminds herself. The thought of being wanted makes her heart soar, like a bird, higher than she’s ever flown before.
Careful of the pinching shoes, Zenie floats down the aisle, clutching Babe’s arm more out of nerves than the need for balance. If she fell, surely George and Gene would help catch her.
At the altar, Babe hands her over to Shifty, who, with the sunlight hitting him like this, looks unreal. He’s always been like sunlight, bright and warm and something that Zenie could only risk brief glances at so that she didn’t blind herself. But now she stares at him openly, not hiding her smile, heart fluttering at the thought that soon she’ll be able to look at him like this whenever she pleases, forever and always.
“Tsuwoduhi,” he says. You’re beautiful.
“Can’t believe I didn’t catch this,” she can barely hear Skinny whisper to Popeye.
The priest begins the service, though Zenie is only half aware of what he says – she’s too busy beaming at Shifty, basking in this glow. She must get all the words out, though her hands shake as she recites them, and she worries that the giggle she feels working its way up her throat might trip her up, or worse, convince the priest that she’s not serious enough about this whole affair and end the ceremony, convinced that she’s unfit to be married.
The next thing that she knows, Earl is forking over two beautiful rings that could only have been taken in Germany, and she and Shifty are sliding them onto each other’s ring fingers. Hers is a little loose, although she doesn’t mind. How well can you expect a looted ring to fit, really?
“We’ll have it sized when we get back to Virginia,” Shifty assures her as she admires the silver band, the sparkling jewels that now adorn her finger.
The priest finally says the magic words, and she and Shifty’s lips crash together, and through feel alone Zenie can tell that they’re both smiling into the kiss. It’s a very intimate thing, to kiss someone you love in front of the people you care most about. Though she can hear the boys whooping and hollering, can hear Luz’s whistle, for a second, it feels as if she and Shifty are the only people in the whole world.
And then, they are.
“What? Did you really think we would leave you guys high and dry on your wedding night?” McClung teases when the wedding party escorts the newlyweds to the little cottage near the church whose occupants must have left – willingly or otherwise – when the occupation force arrived.
They’ve done this before, back in Paris, but it’s different now. Now they’re married. Now there’s no hiding. So Zenie doesn’t feel as shy when she removes her evening gown, or when she catches sight of Shifty’s smooth chest, the definition of his muscles. There’s no holding back when she presses kisses down his neck, across his chest, leaving smudges of red lipstick in a trail, or holding in a gasp when he grabs her hips, digging his fingers in tight.
And after, in that hazy glow, there’s no hiding from the future, because it’s a very near thing. Close enough now to touch, unlike in Haguenau, when it was a subject that she only cautiously followed Shifty into.
He traces shapes on her shoulder as they lie facing each other. “You said you wanted a dog. What kind?”
“An Irish Setter,” Zenie replies. “They’re pretty.”
Shifty hums. “First thing when we get home, I’ll get you a puppy.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.” He smiles, his face half buried in the plush pillow. “We can figure it out.”
There will be a lot to figure out, Zenie realizes, starting with how they’re going to get her out of here. Then, smaller problems.
“I can’t cook,” Zenie admits. “You want pies, but I can’t cook to save my life.” Then, remembering his self-assured tone when answering the question about the dog, she adds, “I’ll figure it out, though. Maybe your mama can teach me.”
“She would. In the meantime, I can cook.”
“I can do dishes,” she offers. “I’m good at that. Used to help with it at the diner.”
With his fingertip, Shifty traces a heart on her skin. “Look at that, we already have a system. I cook, you clean. It’s all worked out.” His fingers trail down her arm, to her hand, which he brings up to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “You don’t have to worry, Zena. We’re fine now.”
Zenie is just brushing her lips against his knuckles, returning the kiss, when the bedroom door flies open.
Shifty groans. “Hey now, we told y’all – “ He glances up. Zenie sees his eyes widen, and an expression that she’s never seen him wear before takes over his face. Before she can maneuver herself to see what he’s looking at, he grabs hold of the blankets at the foot of the bed and tosses one over her, covering her torso. Looking back toward the door, he raises his hand in a gesture that Zenie first assumes is to shield his eyes, but that she quickly realizes is a stiff salute.
Holding the blankets against her for decency, she turns to the doorway and sees, for the first time, Captain Speirs staring at them, looking very crisp and very serious in his Ike jacket.
“Sergeant Powers. Sergeant Driver,” he says. “Major Winters would like to speak with you both. Now.”
#>:) hehe#band of brothers#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#hbo war fanfic#oc zenie mcglamery#my writing#like a girl (like a man)
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Like A Dream (Like A Plan)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Five: How Zenie Met Bobby
Summary: Bobby nods quietly. “Don’t worry Zena, I’ll keep your secret.” He offers her a kind smile. “Not like I have anyone to tell, anyway.”
A/N: Finally, the Zenie and Bobby content we've all been craving
Warnings: brief mention of ongoing Indigenous genocide, Zenie's dad cameo
Taglist: @dcyllom @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @mads-weasley @ithinkabouttzu @lady-cheeky @lieutenant-speirs @hxad-ovxr-hxart
North Carolina, 1941
It is the time of year where nature balances on the precipice between winter and spring. Warm afternoons give way to chilly evenings. Mornings begin with frosted grass blades and sweaters but end with romps in the creek to cool off by the time school lets out. The temperature is unpredictable, yet it only lends to the sense that something is happening, that the world is waking up and about to burst into bloom before your very eyes. Possibilities hang in the air like dandelion fluff.
Frost laces the windows of the kitchen, a cloud of condensation separating the warm world in the house from the chill waiting for her outside. She will need a sweater over her uniform, or a light jacket.
From across the table, Mama reaches over and squeezes her hand. The gesture does nothing to block out the tirade from the other room, though. Neither does Zenie’s intense focus on the frosted glass, how she tries to take in every detail of it, tracing it over and over with her eyes and memorizing it for lack of anything else to do – other than scream in frustration.
“Look at him out there,” she says suddenly, making Granny jump where she sits beside her at the table.
Mama leans closer to the window, squinting. “Who?”
Teddy, the old Paint horse, mills about in the pasture, nose creating small clouds as he huffs warm air over the cold grass. Old, stubborn Teddy. He likes to be scratched behind his ears. And he doesn’t mind giving rides, not really, as long as you let him truly open up and run at top speed at least once because he likes to show off his speed.
Teddy, the horse who no one has been allowed to ride since Matthew left for the Air Corps. Not even if they need a way to get to their first day at their new job.
“He’s like some kind of metaphor for all of us,” Zenie mutters into her coffee cup. “Perfectly capable, but useless because of the way he’s treated.”
“Zenie!” From her tone, Mama is either shocked or hurt. Maybe both. But is it because of what Zenie said, or because she knows it’s true? Of course she knows it’s true – they would have to be deaf to not hear Zenie’s father ranting in the next room about how the horse isn’t going to leave the pasture.
Before she can cause any more upset, Zenie stands, pushes in her chair so angrily that it squawks against the floorboards. “I better go. If I’m walking, then I don’t want to be late on my first day.”
The cold morning air does nothing to dampen the white-hot anger that boils in her veins as she takes off towards town, gravel crunching under her shoes. Her shoes, which were so nice. The one’s that Marilyn used to wear when she was a waitress in high school. They’re too small for Zenie, but she forced her feet in anyway, determined to look as nice in the uniform as her sister did. Though at this rate, the shoes will be scuffed and dirty by the end of Zenie’s first week.
Her first day goes well enough. The owner makes it clear that he only hired her on account of being Marilyn’s little sister, so she’ll have to prove herself. As if half her life hasn’t already been an epic struggle to free herself from her older sister’s shadow anyway.
The morning is slow. She doesn’t mind. Old folks come in and chat while she pours them rich coffee so strong that the aroma alone keeps Zenie herself awake. Lunch is about the same, although dread slowly begins to pile itself in her stomach like heavy stones whenever she thinks about the after-school crowd that will trickle in a little before the school day officially ends.
Before all too familiar faces begin flowing through the door, one that Zenie did not expect comes trapsing in – wearing one of the diner’s uniforms.
Bobby Dills from next door nods to her in acknowledgement as he makes his way to the back to deposit his belongings. There is no formal introduction – at least not that either of them will ever remember, anyway. It seems like they just fall in sync, waiting tables, helping each other carry out large orders, and offering each other the occasional encouraging smile.
She knows from living next door to him that Bobby is younger than her, but that’s about all that Zenie knows about Bobby himself. That, and that he has a limp that every now and then a customer will crack a joke about. Although Bobby smiles and laughs along with them, Zenie recognizes the look in his eye whenever he finally escapes their presence, coming back to the counter to wait with Zenie for the next round of guests to whisk one of them away.
Bobby, however, seems to know something about her.
“You walked here,” he says matter-of-factly. The diner has been locked up for the evening, and the two of them stand in the fading light outside, waiting.
Zenie nods. “I did.”
“Why?” It’s not mean or judgmental. Just a genuinely curious question.
Should she tell him? Zenie has never told anyone about the strangeness that exists inside her house in the form of her father.
“Because I don’t have a car,” she finally answers after a moment of hesitation. “And my dad wouldn’t let me ride the horse like I had planned.”
“It’s cold,” Bobby notes. “You shouldn’t have to walk every day.”
“I don’t mind,” Zenie lies. The too-small shoes pinch her feet.
“Well, I do.” Bobby removes a set of keys from his pocket and makes his way over to a red truck parked in the corner of the diner’s parking lot. He looks back at Zenie after a few steps. “Are you coming?”
With you? She stops herself from saying. There’s nothing wrong with Bobby, or any of the Dills, that she’s aware of. But Mama has always made it very clear not to go accepting rides from anyone if she can help it. Too many women get taken right off the street just for being an Indian, and Zenie isn’t eager to become one of them.
Her feet throb, and the steady heartbeat she can feel in her cramped toes drowns out every warning that Mama has ever given her. She climbs into the truck.
It will feel silly one day, to look back and think that she was afraid of Bobby Dills, even for just a second. He’s a sweet kid, if not a little shy, but he makes polite enough conversation, and in a tone that makes you want to keep talking to him. Because unlike most people, Bobby talks to you, not at you. And he seems to want to get to know her, and maybe even enjoys her answers to his questions.
The ride doesn’t feel long enough. Before she knows it, Bobby is idling the truck at the top of the drive, the place where the little gravel roads split off, one leading to the Dills’ house, the other to the McGlamery’s.
“Right here, tomorrow morning,” Bobby says. “I’ll pick you up on my way to school.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I insist.” Bobby smiles. “I want to.”
No one has ever said something like that to her before. Zenie can only nod. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” As Zenie gets out of the truck, Bobby rolls down his window, not yet allowing the conversation to end. “I don’t understand why your dad would make you walk like that. You would think he would have an appreciation for modern transportation, in his condition.”
In his condition. She almost snorts. “Because of his limp?”
Bobby’s brow furrows. “Because he’s missing a leg,” he supplies.
Now it’s Zenie’s turn to be confused. “What?!”
“Your father. He only has one leg, doesn’t he?” When Zenie only gives him an even more befuddled look in response, he rushes to explain. “He lost his leg in the war. That’s what I’ve heard him say around the farm store, when the old men stand around and tell war stories while buying their chicken feed.”
“My father wasn’t in the war. He was never even in the military. He limps because he fell out of a truck when he was eighteen. He’s nothing but a liar and a deadbeat.” The last part escapes her without her permission. She slaps a hand over her own mouth as if to contain the flood of words, but they’ve already escaped her. Bobby looks stunned. “Sorry,” she says when she feels safe enough to lower her hand. “I didn’t mean to say all that. Please don’t tell anyone.”
Bobby nods quietly. “Don’t worry Zena, I’ll keep your secret.” He offers her a kind smile. “Not like I have anyone to tell, anyway.”
There it is again – that same loneliness that Zenie recognizes from seeing it so often in herself. To think, she’s almost always felt so alone, yet there was someone right next door who might feel the exact same way.
“You can call me Zenie,” she offers. “Most everyone does.”
He smiles. “Sure thing. And you can call me Bobby.”
Zenie’s eyebrow quirks. “I was already calling you that.”
“Yeah,” Bobby replies, still smiling. “But you’re the only one I’ve given permission to.” He slaps a hand against the truck door to punctuate his own joke. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Zenie steps away to let him maneuver the truck down his driveway. She waves, then starts down her own.
Granny is waiting in the kitchen when she steps inside. “Who was that?”
“Bobby Dills, from next door. He works at the diner. Gave me a ride home.”
Granny hums. “He seems like a nice boy.”
“He is.” She hasn’t known him that long, but she feels certain in saying it.
And the next morning, when Bobby’s truck is waiting for her at the top of the drive, she knows that her assumption was correct.
#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#my writing#like a girl (like a man)#oc zenie mcglamery
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 26: Out Of The Woods
Summary: Then, amidst all the confusion and chaos, he appears.
A/N: Yes like the Taylor Swift song haha
Warnings: death, grief, guns, war, language
Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @hxad-ovxr-hxart @ithinkabouttzu @lady-cheeky @lieutenant-speirs
Belgium, 1945
Bill always made being a Staff Sergeant look so effortless. He was just the right type of person for the job. Caring about his men and knowing how to cheer them up when he made the rounds was as easy for him as breathing. Despite Zenie’s awkward shoe size, her friend left some big shoes – er, jump boots – to fill. Especially with Compton being taken off the line. That did nothing for the men’s morale. Neither did the horrific deaths of Muck and Penkala . . .
“You’re awful quiet today,” Shifty notes.
To be fair, he’s been quiet, too. It’s early in the morning. Later, they’re supposed to take the town. Foy has been staring up at them for the longest time now, mocking them, so close, yet so far out of their grasp and firmly in that of the Germans. And Dike, of all people, will be leading them into the fray. They’re both well within their rights to be quiet, to worry for the immediate future.
But it’s not that simple. Zenie hasn’t been able to get much shuteye. The shelling a few days before that took Skip and Penkala had started while she was sleeping. Now she can’t close her eyes without feeling like she’s going to be jolted awake to the sight of burning trees and the sound of screams and explosions. Shifty hasn’t admitted anything, but he’s been muttering in his sleep more than before they came to Bastogne. So now they both sit, staring up at the dark winter sky, waiting.
“I don’t like this place,” Shifty whispers.
“I would think you were crazy if you did.”
In the darkness, it’s hard to see Shifty’s expression. If Zenie squints, it looks like he’s biting his lip, deep in thought.
“Things’ll be better when we get out of here,” he says after he’s done analyzing his thoughts. “It’s so . . . strange here.”
“It’s a frozen hell,” Zenie blurts out.
Despite the darkness, Shifty manages to find her hand and gives it a squeeze. “You can feel them, almost. The dead.” He lets out a breath, a short gasp for air. “I had a dream. That boy from Brooklyn that I don’t get on with – the one who died a few days back? I thought that I killed him.” His voice is quiet on the last sentence, reluctant in a way that Zenie has never heard him before.
“You didn’t, though.”
“No. But I thought I did. I really thought I did . . .”
The thought of being able to feel the dead wandering around in this place sends a shiver down Zenie’s spine. Isn’t that what she had been thinking about the day that Bill and Joe got hit? If only it were a nice feeling in the “the people you loved will always be with you” way. With their luck, there are probably angry German spirits lurking everywhere.
Taking Foy could be a complete disaster. Yet for Shifty’s sake, Zenie takes the reigns of the conversation and tries to steer them to something lighter. “When we leave here, maybe they’ll send us somewhere warm.”
“The war wasn’t over by Christmas, you know, but maybe we could make it home for spring.” He nudges Zenie with his elbow. “Just in time to see all the spring flowers for your birthday.”
He must be able to feel the look that Zenie gives him – confused, delighted, and surprised all at once – because Shifty adds by way of explanation, “One time you said that your birthday was May the first.”
“You remembered?”
“Well, yeah. Zena reminds me of Zinnia, the flower. April showers bring May flowers, so your birthday is May the first. What?”
The breathy laugh that escapes Zenie’s lips is not aimed at Shifty. It’s almost a sigh of relief, or of surprise over the fact that someone took the time to make sure that they remembered. Her lips instantly connect with his cheek, though she’s smiling so wide it might not technically count as a kiss.
“You remembered,” she says again.
“Of course I did.”
“March the thirteenth,” Zenie says, proud that she also remembers Shifty’s birthday. She didn’t have a fun way to remember it – the date just stuck with her because it belonged to him.
For a while they sit in warm silence. Overhead, the first rays of sun lighten the horizon to a wintery grey. Nothing like the liquid sunlight that stains the world golden as it leaks over the mountains and through the trees back at home. This is a dull aesthetic for a day that has the potential to live up to it if things don’t go well.
“When we do get out of here, after the war, I mean, what do you want to do?” Shifty asks.
There it is: the question that so often rises to the surface of Zenie’s mind, only for her to push it back down when the cold, hard realization hits her. Almost all of these men will leave the army and go home, go back to their lives. Their families will welcome them with open arms and they will go about their lives as best they can. But Zenie . . . She will go home to what? Her mother said that she would stand up for her. Does she also expect Zenie to have a less than welcoming return?
“Shifty,” Zenie says, the words of hard truth slow to form in her mouth. “I don’t – I don’t think that I can ever go home.”
A pause. “Oh. Because . . . ?”
Zenie nods, only to realize that it’s too dark for him to see the slight motion. “Yes.” Somehow the one word loosens all the fears that have been slowly building up inside of her for all these years. “If I go home, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave. My mom said that she would protect me if I came back, but I – If I go back . . . Shifty, I feel like something horrible will happen and I’ll never get out again. Running away was a one-way ticket.”
Her last sentence fills her heart with dread. The morning that she took off, she had reassured herself that she would be back one day. Now she sees that that might have been wishful thinking. Wishful thinking from a teenager with a half-baked plan.
“Somethin’ horrible. You mean with your father?”
“Yes,” she admits. The word ushers in another terrible thought – the realization that Zenie is afraid of her father and whatever he might be capable of. “I don’t think he would let me leave.”
Back and forth, back and forth, Shifty rubs his thumb over Zenie’s knuckles as he thinks. He shifts his weight so that he’s leaning even closer to her in their shared foxhole, so close that there’s no chance of being overheard when he asks, “What if there was a way to make sure that you wouldn’t have to stay there?”
Is there a way? Besides running away again, that is. Surely Zenie would have found it by now. Any of the McGlamery siblings would have taken their first chance to get out if it were that simple. They’ve all made drastic decisions, though, with Matthew’s joining the Air Corps, Marilyn’s marriage, and Zenie’s disappearance.
“Zena,” Shifty whispers conspiratorially. There’s something of a smile in his voice when he asks, “What if we got married?”
Even sitting so close, it’s hard to see his features in the darkness. Zenie leans back, trying to gauge his expression. “What?”
“See, if we were married, then you would have an excuse not to stay there. When the war’s all done with, we can go visit your mama, see, and then leave. We’ll tell your family that you’re movin’ with me up to Clinchco. Hell, we can go anywhere you want! But you won’t have to stay there.”
“I didn’t tell you that for pity.”
Shifty’s thumb ceases its soothing motions over her knuckles. Without realizing it, he squeezes her hand, like he can transfer everything he means in the contact. “I didn’t mean it like that. Honest. I wouldn’t have said it unless I wanted to – “
The sentence break is so jarring, so un-Shifty-like that Zenie feels her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Shifty, for as long as she’s known him, has not been in the habit of saying things that he doesn’t mean. Zenie doesn’t want to speak for fear of ruining what he’s just said. He doesn’t move to finish the thought. Still, Zenie waits. She learned her lesson about assumptions back in the brothel so many months ago.
When Shifty still doesn’t speak, she finds herself whispering, “You want to marry me?”
“Yes,” Shifty says without hesitation. “If you would let me.”
Of course she would let him. She’s been staring after him and daydreaming about him for years now. And, after their misunderstandings were cleared up, loving him as honestly as she knows how.
After Beckie hit it big in the city, Zenie had once considered how she might get out of their town as well. A handsome man whisking her off to some faraway place out of love had seemed like a childish, unrealistic fairy tale. Yet here is a handsome man who is perfectly willing to do just that. Can it really be that easy?
Yet again Zenie finds herself in a place where Granny would know exactly what to do. Granny, Zenie has often thought, would have loved Shifty. She can’t imagine her grandmother objecting to this. Not if it makes her happy.
Can I say yes? Zenie asks herself.
Suddenly, an understanding hits her. Granny would have wanted to see her happy – Mama said so herself. Thinking about Shifty, how much Granny would have liked him, Zenie knows. She can feel the answer, somewhere deep inside her. Permission seems to be granted from deep in her own heart – that place that everyone says Granny still exists in. If Granny really is so much a part of her, she would not object to this.
“Yes,” Zenie whispers. The smile that spreads across her face could not be contained with any amount of effort. “If you would have me.”
Shifty squeezes her hand again. “Vv. Gvgeyui.” I love you.
“Gvlvgwodi.” I adore you.
Though the sunlight breaking through on the horizon is dull and grey, it’s somehow the most beautiful sunrise that Zenie has ever seen.
Whether fortunately or otherwise, Zenie is right there when it happens.
Rifle at the ready, crouched low, she hustles across the field that waits ahead of her, keeping her eyes open for any imminent threats as she tries to move toward some form of cover. The rest of Second Platoon does the same, encouraged by Lipton’s shouts of “Keep it moving! Keep it moving!”
And then suddenly, they’re all frozen, right there in the open.
Whispers of “What the fuck?!” pass between the men as they stare at Dike ahead of them. Their lieutenant practically collapses behind a hay bale. Some of the NCOs swarm to him as he yells commands for everyone to fall back.
Bullets pepper the air all around her. Wildly, Zenie’s eyes dart around. Men file past her, falling back as ordered, while others propel themselves behind hay bales, squeezing together for cover. Someone grabs her arm and tugs her forward. Gene, dragging her toward the hay bale where so many men are crouched around Dike, almost all of them demanding a plan, an explanation, an order, something.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I DON’T KNOW!” Dike yelps. Over and over again. He doesn’t know. Why are they surprised? His helmet has fallen off and his dark curls tousled the way that they are give him a sort of wild appearance that is not helped by the sheen of sweat that has overtaken him. The lieutenant keeps tugging at his collar, like it’s choking him, as he spits out an order for Foley to attack from the rear.
“How’s that supposed to work?” One of the replacements near Zenie mutters. As if to prove his point, an explosion sounds off by their hay bale, spitting dirt and snow up into the air as the mortar hits.
A few men take off, trying their luck running through the snow. Wherever they’re trying to go, some make it, and some don’t – they collapse onto the ground. Their vacated hiding spots provide a little more room for those who stay behind. Zenie presses in closer to the other men.
It’s as if something in Dike breaks. He stops screaming at them and leans back against the bale of hay, hand in a death grip on his collar. Eyes wide, he stares straight ahead, not speaking, hardly breathing, in his own little existence.
“Je-sus Christ!” A slight pause in the German fire and Zenie takes her chance. She sprints out from behind the hay bale and slides to a stop behind another one that sits a few feet away. The men who are already there are trying to work out when to make their run to a nearby building, hoping that it’s stone walls will afford them better cover.
Then, amidst all the confusion and chaos, he appears.
The lieutenant from Dog Company – Speirs, she remembers – who everyone has been so weary of since D-Day, grabs Dike by the collar. “I’m taking over.”
The next thing that any of them know, Lipton is ordering them all to their feet, yelling for Second Platoon to move out. He grabs men by the webbing and drags them from behind their cover if he has to. For the most part, everyone begins to push forward before he has to order them again.
Mortars split the ground behind them. Several men stagger as they try to regain their balance while the shock waves rattle them and chunks of earth fly up toward the sky like a geyser. But at least they’re on the move.
Out of the field now, they all find cover behind stone walls and the sides of houses, waiting for whatever comes next. Whatever it might be, it doesn’t seem nearly so impossible now that they have Speirs running the show.
“Holy shit!” Malarkey exclaims. When he moves back from where he was peering around the edge of the building that they’re waiting behind, his face has an expression that Zenie has never seen before. After the mask of quietness that has settled over him these past few days, it’s like catching a glimpse of the old Malarkey again, as behind the look of wonder on his face, a ghost of a smile appears in his eyes. “I think Speirs just ran through the German line!”
After everything that has already happened, it almost seems too good to be true. But as Zenie joins the other men in singing for the camera crews after Foy is firmly within their grasp, the story seems less and less fantastical. If Speirs could charge in and take command of their company, of course he could charge through the German line and make it back unscathed. Why not? One more story for the shroud of unbelievable rumors that trail behind him like a cape.
She no sooner reaches this conclusion when the Bang! Bang! Bang! sends all the men scattering. Zenie herself scrambles behind a building with a group of other men.
Lipton motions men forward, “Come on, come on!”
Except for the occasional gun shot, the world has fallen silent as they wait. At least this time they have cover.
“Second floor, building on the right,” Lipton whispers. He turns to the expert marksman beside him, his voice serious when he says, “Don’t miss, Shifty.” A pause. “Now!”
Like Speirs before him, Lipton takes off running, leaving the safety of the building behind as he darts between the buildings. Shifty readies his gun and leans around the corner.
Bang! The report sounds from the sniper’s hiding place. Pressed with her back against the stone wall behind her, crowded amongst so many men, Zenie can’t see where the bullet lands.
Bang! Shifty’s own gun is fired. A beat of silence follows, followed by a cheer from men with a better view. His bullet found the mark, then, just like it always does.
They shouldn’t be surprised, really, when they see the body. For all the distance between them, Shifty managed to put a bullet right between the German sniper’s eyes. Awe sweeps through the small crowd that gathers around the scene. They’ve all seen Shifty shoot before. Zenie herself learned just how good a shot he was the first day that she met him. But this is different. This was achieved in the heat of combat, not firing at targets down a range. This is real.
McClung lets out a low whistle and claps Shifty on the shoulder. “Well, I’ll be!”
“It just don’t pay to be shootin’ at Shifty when he’s got a rifle in his hands!” Popeye exclaims.
Shifty lowers his head, just like he always does when he gets a compliment. It doesn’t hide the slight pink that highlights his cheeks, or the smile that tugs at his lips. “Well now, I just shot as best I could.”
“Shifty, if we could all shoot like you, this war would have been over a lo-ong time ago,” Zenie says.
McClung raises a hand. “Amen!”
The story spreads quickly, finding its way in amongst all the other events of the day. Dike’s hesitance in combat, Speirs’ legendary run, and Shifty’s fateful shot dominate the day. The Virginian takes it in stride, humbly, as always. Hopefully the story attached to him will treat him better than the rumors following the other two men.
#band of brothers#band of brothers fanfic#shifty powers#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers x original female character#my writing#oc zenie mcglamery#like a girl (like a man)#hbo war#hbo war fanfic
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Like A Girl (Like A Man)
Shifty Powers x OFC
Chapter 14: Part of The Group (All Along)
Summary: And then something strange happens – the replacements arrive.
A/N: My wifi has been out and shows no signs of being repaired any time soon. Ergo, I'm posting this in kind of a rush, so any mistakes will be fixed when I have access to a connection for longer. See y'all at the end of the semester 🫡💕🕊️
Warnings: language, smoking
Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu
England, 1944
For once, Zenie finds that she doesn’t want to be alone with Shifty. Zenie isn’t anywhere that Shifty is and is everywhere that he isn’t. She carefully plans and coordinates her movements so that they’re never alone. They’re only together in groups, or with at least one other person, like Earl or Skinny. When she can’t guarantee that they won’t be left alone together, she sticks closer to Bill than ever. Suo fratellino? More like la sua ombra – his shadow.
All the careful planning, the cautiously choreographed movements . . . It makes her feel like she’s back in the mountains, trying to move between home and the diner with the least amount of interaction with the man downstairs in front of the radio. The realization makes her feel icky. One day she will never feel repulsed by interacting with a man again.
And then something strange happens – the replacements arrive.
She hears him before she sees him. Luz must notice it too, because they both pause in their game of cards, their eyes flickering toward the loud laughter coming from a small group of unfamiliars. One loud laugh rings out above them all. And it sounds . . . familiar.
“Ah Christ, don’t tell me there’s two of them,” George mutters.
The laugh sounds a lot like Bill’s. And when the replacement steps into view, he even walks like Bill – that confident swagger that’s hard and breezy all at once. He’s got a bright smile that’s almost as bright as his hair. He and the other replacements offer Zenie and George a respectful nod as they pass, and Zenie finds herself smiling back at him.
“What do you think?” Luz asks.
Zenie shrugs, slapping down her next card to resume their game. “I dunno. They’re paratroopers, same as us.”
“Yeah. Same as us.” The replacements look younger and cheerier than everyone who made it through the jump into France. Neither of them says anything about it. Then, or later when they tell Bill that they think they’ve found one of his own. The news only makes him smile.
“From Philly, huh? Well then, he must be pretty tough. We’re in good hands.” For the first time in a while, his smile actually reaches his eyes.
The papers in her jacket pocket crinkle as she moves. Sitting on the bed, pulling on her boots, she can’t decide if she should put them with the rest of her belongings before she goes. What’s the point of carrying them around? She’s stared at them for the better part of the day and hasn’t gotten anywhere with putting her thoughts onto the page. It’s not like inspiration is suddenly going to strike while she’s at dinner, forcing her to pull out a pencil and jot down her feelings while the rest of the company happily chatters around her.
A letter from Bobby was waiting for her when she got back from France. Somewhere between Dear Tommy and the usual updates on life back home, Bobby had changed his tone. Something has happened with your family, he wrote. I would tell you, but at the same time, I don’t want to hurt your morale. So I’ll leave it up to you – do you want to know?
Dear Bobby, of course I want to know, I left them, but they’re my family and I want them to be okay and please tell me, please tell me, please tell me that my mother is okay and that it’s not her – she doesn’t write. Of course she wants to know. She wants to know that her mother, her brother, her sister, are all okay. She just has to find a way not to pour her desperation onto the page, because she knows Bobby, and the last thing she wants is for him to think that he’s damaged her morale. Any eager words that pour from her heart and her pen are the product of a young girl’s own romantic folly, not the bruised determination of a soldier.
At least the other paper in her pocket has a beginning. Dear Mama. She’s not sure what to say beyond that. Everything felt so certain before coming back to England. Before that night at the brothel. (She’s faced with the uncomfortable realization that if she was mistaken about Shifty, there may be more that she’s gotten very wrong. She tries not to think about it too much.)
Thump! Toye hops off his bunk and straightens his tie. “Ready?”
Zenie finishes lacing up her boots and then shoves the papers under her pillow so she won’t have to think about them until they return to the stables tonight; out of sight, out of mind. She tries for a smile.
“Ready.”
Ten feet tall and bulletproof, Shifty had once said to describe the feeling their uniforms gave them. With her jump wings and her unit citation medal pinned to her jacket, Zenie can’t help but agree. Even the replacements have them, but looking around, anyone can tell who made it through Normandy – they’re all swaggering around like they own the place, looking down their noses at the new guys and shooting each other cocky grins a mile wide. This must have been what Matthew and his friends felt like when they strutted around in their uniforms after baseball games with adoring girls on their arms.
The room is falling quiet for Smokey just as Zenie slides onto the bench at the table that Luz, Bill, Skip Muck, and Jonny Martin are occupying.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Skip chirps. “You busy polishing those jump wings, Tommy?”
“Nah, he was probably busy with his hair.” Zenie manages to duck as Luz tries to ruffle her dark locks. She misses her hair. And, for the record, she does not take as much time on it as Luz has started claiming that she does. There’s just something comforting in knowing that she can take care of it. It reminds her of how Marilyn used to help her pin it up over night so that she could have curls for school the next day.
“You’re just jealous that girls like running their hands through mine more than yours.” He’s so shocked by the comeback that Zenie manages to mess up his hair while he’s frozen.
Laughter breaks out around them at whatever Smokey is saying from the front of the room. She’s missed something.
She’s not the only one, though. From the table behind her, she hears a frustrated voice ask, “Do you guys have any idea what he’s talking about?”
“Hey,” Zenie lowers her voice and uses her lips to point behind Bill’s head. “That’s the guy I was telling you about. With the red hair.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him around,” Skip agrees. “Heffron, I think.”
Bill takes a drag from his cigarette before glancing over his shoulder. He exhales smoke when he asks, “And ya think this kid is from Philly?”
“Positive,” Luz confirms. “There’s no mistaking that laugh.”
“Or that walk,” Zenie adds.
As if on cue, the redhead stands, resting his glass on the table with a thump. “Should be heading back to barracks.”
The second that he starts to turn he finds himself stopped by Bill’s hand on his chest, holding him in place. It’s so sudden that the replacement barely has time to cast an indignant glance down at the hand on his chest – which has sprinkled a few ashes from the cigarette its holding onto his tie – and the rest of their table doesn’t have a chance to register what’s happening. Is this an act of aggression?
“You Heffron?”
“Yeah.”
The pressure in the table’s atmosphere deflates. The fight leaves all the men watching the interaction. No need to jump into a fray tonight.
“Where you from?” Bill wants to know.
“Who’s askin’?”
“From Philadelphia?”
“South Philly, yeah.”
Even facing away from her, Zenie can hear the smirk in Bill’s voice when he removes his hand from Heffron’s chest. “I could tell.”
The replacement stares at him, puzzled. Bill’s friends might have relaxed, knowing that their friend isn’t out for a fight, but this boy hasn’t quite figured it out yet.
Bill gestures towards himself. “Seventeenth street.”
Now the replacement lights up. It’s such a quick change that it’s almost startling, how this boy can go from eyeing someone taller than him as he prepares for a fight to pumping his hand in a firm shake with a smile that’s a mile wide. And it doesn’t seem fake, like some of the men – like it’s for show. He really does seem happy to have found someone like himself when he exclaims, “Front street!”
Zenie knows how he feels because that’s how she felt the first time she noticed Shifty. In an unfamiliar place she had heard him mutter in Cherokee and something about knowing they were the same made her feel at home. Thinking about it now, she feels the hard sourness of unprocessed emotions lodge in her throat, sticking together in a big lump that makes it hard to swallow.
Bill jerks his head toward the table at the place across from him, motioning for the redhead to join them. He doesn’t seem to notice that this displaces Luz, Zenie, and Skip, who all have to scoot down the bench to make room for him. “Here, sit down.”
“You see that?” Skip asks as they move. “Guys been here a couple of seconds, and already he’s got a non-com telling us to make room for him!”
“Hey, Bill!” Zenie leans across Luz and takes a swipe at her friend. “You gonna bother introducing us to your new pal? Or should we just get on with replacing you?”
Bill laughs, stopping halfway through one of his questions about who he and Heffron may or may not both know. He uses his cigarette to point out other people at the table.
“Skip Muck from New York. George Luz from Rhode Island. Tommy Driver from North Carolina. And Joe Toye is around here somewhere. He’s from Pennsylvania, too, but not Philly.”
Heffron nods at them each in turn, smiling. “Hey, how ya doin’?”
A lot of the replacements that she’s seen so far seem . . . unprepared. Woefully so. All bright eyed and big mouthed. Maybe it’s the air of confidence mixed with street smarts that Heffron carries with him, but something about him is decidedly different. He’s more serious, somehow, than most of the others. Everyone else must sense it too, because before long he’s joking around with everyone else at the table and he acclimates so well that he could have been part of the group all along.
Smokey finishes whatever he’s been saying and the room bursts into applause and cheers. Zenie claps along automatically, not really sure what she’s cheering for and not really wanting to stop watching Bill and Heffron toss banter back and forth like a volleyball.
“I could have shot the kid a dozen times!” Talbert announces from somewhere behind her. Oh, so they’re talking about that – the Night of the Bayonet. It makes Zenie wince to think about what happened to him, and how easily it might have been any one of them – could have been her. The cries for a medic had come while Doc Roe was in the foxhole she and Bill were sharing. It feels so long ago now, yet never too distant.
Talbert doesn’t seem all that torn up about it, though. Laughs follow when he proclaims, “I just didn’t think we could spare a man.”
Heffron catches her eye and tilts his head, puzzled. “What is he talkin’ about?”
“The Night of – “
“The Bayonet. Yeah, that’s what everyone keeps sayin’, but what does it mean?”
“Smith stabbed him on accident back in France. Thought he was a Kraut.”
Heffron winces in sympathy. “Ouch.”
“All right, listen up men! A couple of announcements.” Lipton says, ending all the laughter as he steps to the front of the room. “First – listen up! The training exercise scheduled for twenty-two hundred . . . has been cancelled.”
Loud applause breaks out again, and Lipton holds up his hand to quiet them. “Secondly, all passes are hereby revoked.” There’s a brief pause where the mood of the room plummets. He rushes on before it can fall too far. “We’re heading back to France. So pack up all your gear. We will not be returning to England, boys.”
He says more that Zenie doesn’t really hear. Not returning to England. It feels like they just got there!
They all sit, waiting, unsure of what to do. In the end, it’s Bill – ever the leader – who puts out his cigarette and stands with a sigh.
“Well boys, we best get goin’. Looks like it’s up to the Airborne to go fend off the Krauts.”
#wifi company fix my connection in a timely manner challenge#sorry for the late update#like a girl (like a man)#my writing#shifty powers x original female character#shifty powers x ofc#shifty powers#band of brothers#band of brothers fanfic#hbo war#hbo war fanfic#oc zenie mcglamery
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