Claire|21|♐️ @coco-bean-1218 - Tumblr Blog

Apr 21

Well-Behaved Women Never Make History

Chapter Five: Victory's Within The Mile

Chapter Soundtrack

Summary: Easy Company runs Currahee for the first time.

A/N: Hi everyone! I know it's been a long time since I've updated, but in honor of finishing my third year of college, here is another chapter of Well-Behaved Women Never Make History! This is a decently long chapter, but I figured you all waited long enough! This chapter is based on my own struggle with anxiety disorders and is pretty deep and emotional. I'm pretty proud of it. Also, I changed the chapter soundtrack, and will update the previous chapters, so everything is consistent.

Warnings: Swearing, period-typical behavior, germaphobia, emetophobia, blood, injuries, OCD compulsions, panic attack, outdated psychology terms, outdated medical jargon, self-deprecation

Taglist: @whollyjoly @footprintsinthesxnd @panzershrike-pretz @xxluckystrike @houseofgh0sts @lanadelray1989

June 8, 1942

Camp Toccoa, Georgia

Claire's knees stung like an electric jolt with each step across the dusty parade ground. The gauze Eugene had carefully applied last night was already soaked through with a mix of blood, sweat, and dust. Day Two of basic training, and she already looked like she'd been dragged behind a jeep. Perfect.

Camp Toccoa in June felt like standing in the devil's mouth—hot, sticky, and just miserable; despite Claire usually liking the heat. The men of Easy Company moved around her in a carefully orchestrated dance of avoidance. Not outright shunning, but the kind of distance men kept when they hadn't figured out what box to put her in. The only female paratrooper in the entire 506th, and they were all just waiting for her to wash out.

Claire adjusted her uniform, still stiff from newness, and pulling at the chest. Two days ago, they'd all arrived wide-eyed and bristling with misplaced confidence. Yesterday had been the first blow to that confidence—an obstacle course that had left half the men wheezing and Claire with skinned knees that burned like fire.

She remembered Eugene sprinting back to her when she'd fallen, his dark eyes serious as he helped her up.

"You alright, chère?" he'd asked, the word falling from his lips as naturally as breathing.

That simple word had wrapped around her like a warm blanket. Claire had taken two years of French, knew exactly what it meant—"dear" or "sweetheart"—but coming from Eugene's mouth with that soft Cajun lilt, it had sounded like something else entirely. Something like home.

Today, though, he'd been using "Claire" with a professional distance that stung worse than her scraped knees. One night to think about it, and apparently, he'd built a wall between them.

"Dammit," she muttered to herself, wincing as she adjusted the bandage through her pants leg. She'd find him later, sort this nonsense out.

She tried to push the thought away, focusing instead on the rhythmic thud of her boots against the hard-packed earth. The sun beat down on her neck, a relentless bastard that seemed to have a personal vendetta against her skin. She could feel the sweat trickling down her spine, pooling at the small of her back. Lovely. Just fucking lovely.

Ahead of her, Skip Muck and Don Malarkey stood squinting against the morning sun. Muck lifted his hand, pointing toward the looming mountain that had been dominating the horizon since they'd arrived.

"You think they'll make us run up that?" Muck asked, his voice carrying just enough for Claire to hear as she limped past.

Claire snorted without breaking stride. "God, I hope not."

The men turned, surprised, as if they'd forgotten she existed. Malarkey's face split into a grin while Muck looked back at the mountain with renewed horror.

Around them, the other men of Easy Company milled about the parade ground. Some still looked fresh-faced and eager, while others had the haunted look of men who were already questioning their life choices. The air smelled of boot polish, sweat, and the particular brand of bravado that comes before it's been tested.

Winters stood tall and straight-backed at the edge of the parade ground. Unlike the other officers, he seemed decent enough—stern but fair. Claire respected him highly after he gave the company a warning that any negative behavior towards Claire would end in being kicked out of the Airborne immediately, the day prior. He nodded slightly as she passed. Next to him stood Nixon, perpetually looking like he was in on some private joke that no one else understood.

Claire spotted Eugene across the way, his dark hair and serious expression unmistakable even at a distance. She made a beeline for him, threading through the half-hearted calisthenics and the clouds of dust kicked up by a hundred sets of boots. It was almost impossible to look like anything but a lost child on this godforsaken parade ground, but Claire squared her shoulders and marched up until she could catch the edge of Eugene’s shadow.

She cleared her throat, a small, delicate sound that was lost in the cacophony of the parade ground. Just perfect. She might as well have been a ghost for all the attention he seemed to pay her. It was ridiculous how fast she’d gotten used to him—fast enough that even this felt like losing something

Claire shifted her weight, feeling the sting in her knees intensify. She hissed in a breath, and that finally caught his ear. Eugene turned, his dark blue eyes landing on her with a mix of surprise and something else—something she couldn't quite pin down.

Eugene's eyes flicked down toward her knees, then back up to her face. He had that stillness about him—like if you weren't looking for it, you'd never see the way his concern ratcheted up behind the slow blink and the muscle feathering in his jaw. "You okay?" he asked, voice cracked, soft and low. If he was embarrassed by the way she'd found him out, he didn't show it.

"Yeah," she muttered, already despising how the syllable came out clipped and adolescent. "I'm fine. Just, you know, trying not to bleed through my pants leg." She tried to force a smirk, but it landed somewhere between a wince and a grimace. Why did she always do this—try too hard, make herself heard when no one wanted to listen? She thought of all the times in high school she'd hovered at the margins of friend groups, laughing too loud at jokes she barely got, constantly putting herself in conversations she knew nothing about, and ending up just as alone as before. Even now, standing in front of Eugene, her closest thing to a friend in this circus, she felt like she was one conversation away from being found out and discarded.

A few yards away, Grant was demonstrating proper push-up form to a group of rapt listeners. His light brown hair caught the sunlight, turning it golden. When he straightened, he saw Claire watching and threw her a small, almost bashful smile.

She nodded back, feeling a warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with the Georgia sun. Grant was good people—always quick with a smile but never condescending. One of the few who treated her exactly the same as the other soldiers. Claire liked him instantly after he chased her down on Arrival Day, apologizing for his friends' unique way of welcoming her: yelling "compliments" at her from across the yard.

A sharp whistle cut through the morning chatter, and the parade ground fell into immediate silence. Lieutenant Sobel stalked onto the field, his thin face perpetually set in an expression of disappointment, as if the entire company had personally insulted his mother.

"Oh, brother…" Claire muttered, just loud enough for herself but with that hopeless, flat effect that came from a lifetime of eye-rolling through authority figures. She drew out the syllables with a kind of theatrical despair. She wondered what Sobel would do if he heard her. Probably stage a public execution in the mess hall.

Someone nearby made a choking sound that might have been suppressed laughter.

Sobel's eyes scanned the company like a predator searching for weakness. His gaze lingered on Claire for an uncomfortable moment before moving on. She straightened her spine and stared back, refusing to look away first.

"Easy Company!" Sobel's voice cracked across the parade ground. "You people are at the position of attention!"

Everyone snapped to attention, spines straightening, eyes forward. Claire could feel her heart thumping against her ribs.

"Change into your PT gear," Sobel announced, a hint of sadistic pleasure in his voice. He turned, pointing one long, bony finger at the mountain. "Easy Company is running Currahee."

A collective invisible flinch rippled through the ranks. Claire's stomach dropped to somewhere around her ankles. Those scraped knees were about to become the least of her problems.

"Nice goin', O'Connor," came a snide voice from behind, pitched just loud enough to cut through the quiet horror of Sobel's pronouncement and draw every nearby stare. Claire didn't need to turn around to know it was Guarnere—he'd already made a sport of figuring out why she was here in the first place, as if her mere existence guaranteed him a punchline.

"You have two minutes to change and form up. GO!"

"Maybe if you run fast enough, O'Connor, you'll outpace your mouth for once," Liebgott added. This time, Malarkey barked a laugh, and even Muck grinned with a kind of sympathetic resignation.

Claire swallowed, an involuntary pulse of dread rocketing through her as the full meaning of Sobel's words sank in. Three miles? She'd never run that far in her entire life—hell, she barely survived running a mile in middle school gym class. Wasn't running for any period longer than a minute strictly the domain of gym teachers, serial killers, and Olympic athletes? Apparently not anymore.

She caught herself staring at the looming mountain, its shadow stretching almost to her feet. Three up, three down, someone had whispered. Did that mean six miles? Or was the math just some sick joke to psych out the new recruits? Either way, Claire's legs, already burning from yesterday's obstacle course, were not on board with this latest development.

"I don't think I've ever run three miles in my entire life," she muttered, the words slipping out too honest, too small, and way too close to panic for her liking.

She regretted it instantly. It was a rookie move to admit weakness out loud—especially here, where every word was ammunition. She braced herself for the barrage of chirps and jeers, but to her surprise, none came. The guys around her, even the ones who'd been running their mouths a minute ago, just looked blank and a little green themselves. Maybe they were all too busy doing the same mental math, trying to figure out if they could survive the Currahee run without actually dying.

The parade ground erupted into motion as men sprinted for the barracks. Claire ran too, ignoring the fire in her knees, mentally calculating the quickest way to change in the privacy she'd been allotted—the bathrooms—before anyone else got there.

As she ran, Eugene fell into step beside her, matching her pace—despite clearly being able to run faster.

"Your knees gonna hold up?" he asked, voice low, careful.

"They'll have to," Claire replied, shooting him a sidelong glance.

Right now, facing what was coming, Claire had never felt more alone in her life. For a split second, she wanted to say something real—something about how much it sucked to be here, how she hated that every pair of eyes on base was waiting for her to screw up, how much she wanted to belong and be invisible at the same time. But the words stuck. She just gritted her teeth and kept moving.

Eugene's hand hovered at her upper arm, not quite touching but close enough that she could feel the ghost of his concern. "If you start bleeding again, you stop. Alright? Don't be a hero."

She would've laughed if she wasn't already winded. "If I stop, Sobel will scalp me. You know that, right?"

“Better him than infection,” Eugene replied, his tone all business.

"Believe me," Claire said, her voice trembling at the edge as she forced the words through a cracked half-smile, "I know all about infections." She felt it then—the familiar, microscopic filth that crept in through every scrape, every torn cuticle, every broken barrier. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl, and for a split second, she imagined the bacteria multiplying somewhere under the gauze, plotting her demise with all the patience of a thousand-year war.

The barracks’ door slammed open as men poured out, half-dressed and hauling ass to make Sobel's two-minute deadline. Claire veered off towards the bathroom, already tugging at her buttons.

The bathroom was mercifully empty. She kicked the door shut behind her, hands shaking as she peeled off her sweat-soaked shirt. The cool air of the bathroom raised goosebumps on her skin, a stark contrast to the inferno outside. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror—hair plastered to her forehead, cheeks flushed red, eyes wide with a mix of fear and determination.

"You wanted this, O'Connor," she muttered to herself, stripping off the rest of her uniform. "You wanted to prove you could hack it. Well, here it is."

She yanked on her PT gear, the light fabric a relief against her heated skin. Her knees screamed in protest as she bent to tie her boots, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through. She washed her hands, staring at her reflection in the mirror. There was no time for pain, no time for fear. There was only the mountain and the ticking clock.

Three miles up, three miles down. The words echoed in Claire's head with each pounding step on the dusty trail up Currahee. Already, her lungs were burning, and they'd barely cleared the first quarter mile. This wasn't like running laps around the football field during pom practice. This was going to destroy her.

Her legs felt like they were filled with wet sand, each step requiring more effort than the last. She hadn't done any real exercise since graduating high school last year. Pom squad had kept her in decent shape then, but that routine of high kicks and choreographed jumps had nothing on this grueling uphill battle.

The formation was already beginning to stretch and thin as the naturally athletic pulled ahead and the strugglers fell behind. Claire found herself drifting steadily backward through the ranks, the distance between her and the front runners growing with each labored breath.

She was painfully conscious of every step, every jounce of her frame, and—if there was anyone left behind her, which she doubted—they would have an uninterrupted view of her ass.

Her head spun with each step. Claire recognized the feeling—the same light-headedness that had plagued her throughout high school. The doctor at her enlistment physical had frowned at her blood work, muttering about ferritin levels and iron deficiency anemia. She'd smiled, nodded, and promptly left that information off her official paperwork. A minor detail. Nothing that would keep her from becoming a paratrooper.

Nothing except the fact that her body was currently betraying her in spectacular fashion.

"Come on, ladies! My grandmother moves faster than you! And she's been dead for fifteen years!" Sobel shouted, somehow maintaining both a perfect running form and the energy to berate them.

"Didn't he use that line yesterday?" Claire thought to herself.

Ahead of her, Claire could see Grant's form, his movements efficient and powerful. He wasn't even breathing hard, for Christ's sake. He surged forward, passing man after man until he was running with the front pack. Fourth place. Of course he was fourth. He probably ran up mountains for fun back in California.

She painfully envied him, the way he seemed to bend the laws of physics to his will. Grant ran with a casual, almost effortless stride, barely breaking a sweat, while Claire felt the mountain slowly killing her, and they weren't even at a mile. Everything about him—his posture, the economy of his movements, even the steady swing of his arms—made her feel like a malfunctioning wind-up doll by comparison. She hated that about herself almost as much as she hated how much she noticed him.

Claire cursed him in her mind, in the way you only really curse people you secretly admire—a string of silent, petty insults that felt like tossing handfuls of sand at a moving train. Grant's easy confidence galled her. She wanted to hate him, but the burn in her chest and the rasp in her throat just weren't leaving room for anything but survival. Each time she caught a glimpse of his broad back pulling further away, her thoughts narrowed to a single, ugly question: Why does it look so goddamn easy for him? Did he train for months, or was he just built different, some golden child churned out by the Santa Monica surf and two generations of All-American genes?

Probably.

Her scraped knees throbbed with each impact against the hard-packed dirt. The gauze had come loose, rubbing raw against the wounds with each bend of her leg. The pain was almost a welcome distraction from the growing tightness in her chest and the shakiness in her limbs.

Halfway up, the real trouble started.

It started with her shorts. Men's smalls that were still a little boxy. The elastic started to give, and the waistband inched lower with every stride. She barely had the energy to keep moving, let alone haul up her shorts every five seconds. The chafing between her thighs was a whole subplot of its own, the rough cotton acting as industrial-grade sandpaper, and pretty soon even her skin wasn't sure it wanted to stay attached to her bones.

Claire clamped a hand over her waistband, desperately trying to hitch up her shorts without breaking stride. The mountain didn't care about her wardrobe malfunctions, and neither did Sobel.

The waistband inched lower, a slow but inevitable betrayal. "Jesus," She thought, "Usually I can't get anything over these hips." Her other hand flailed out, grasping for the loose knot, but her fingers were slick with sweat and shaking from the effort of the climb.

"Son of a bitch!" Claire shouted, not caring if the wind snatched her voice and carried it clear down the mountain. The indignity was complete: a pool of sweat under her bosom, knees bleeding and scabs breaking, and now her goddamn shorts were about to make a break for it in front of the entire company. But when she risked a glance over her shoulder, she realized there was no one behind her.

She stopped, yanking her shorts up with both hands, now cursing the shorts instead of an athletic Californian. "Stupid fucking shorts! These hips and ass should be keeping them on!"

Since she was a junior in high school, people had been telling Claire that she was lucky—lucky to have a "nice figure," lucky to "fill out" her pom uniform, lucky to have the kind of body that turned heads even when she wanted to disappear. Right now, she felt like a walking PSA against the dangers of too many root beer floats and adolescent hubris. The shorts had started the run as a minor annoyance but had now escalated into a full-on existential crisis.

It was when the elastic tie of the shorts finally gave that Claire looked up—

And saw Eugene doubling back, the same way he did yesterday at the obstacle course. "Lemme see."

Eugene's fingers were quick and efficient, tying a tight knot in the drawstring of her shorts, barely pausing as he cinched it tight. Claire felt a pang of something—gratitude, or maybe embarrassment of having a boy you've known for two days tying your shorts—as he finished, giving the knot a final tug.

"That should hold," he said, looking up at her with those dark eyes that always seemed to see more than she wanted them to.

"Thanks," she muttered, straightening up as he finished. "You didn't have to do that."

Eugene fell into step beside her as they started moving again, the mountain looming above them like an accusation.

"You don't have to stay with me," she panted, even as a part of her hoped he would. "I can keep up."

Eugene didn't look at her, just kept his eyes on the trail ahead. "I know," he said. But he stayed anyway.

There was something in his voice, a quiet resolve that made Claire want to both kiss him and shove him off the nearest cliff. She didn't want his pity, but she couldn't deny the comfort of having him there. It was infuriating, this push and pull inside her.

The last mile was a parade of human misery. Claire and Eugene eventually managed to claw their way back into the straggling blob of Easy Company, who were now a sweaty, battered mass of bodies scattered unevenly up the switchbacks. There wasn't any talking—just the scraping of boots on gravel, ragged gasping. Even the golden boys at the front were starting to wilt under Sobel's relentless pace, but at least they could still breathe through their noses. Claire's head swam as she kept her eyes glued to Grant's back—still impossibly upright, still moving like he was late for a lunch date rather than climbing an actual geological formation.

Eugene had practically dragged her up the mountain with him and Claire was too exhausted to fight him on it. But that was the least of her worries.

Her stomach lurched, a sickening roll that sent a jolt of pure terror through her system. Not here. Not now. Claire swallowed hard against the choking sensation in her throat, panic blooming in her chest like spilled ink on paper.

Nothing frightened Claire O'Connor like the thought of vomiting. The vulnerability, the sheer disgusting nature of it—she would rather face a firing squad than throw up in front of Easy Company. The mere possibility sent her heart racing even faster than the physical exertion, her breathing shifting from labored to ragged.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," she muttered to herself, trying to focus on the rhythm of her feet instead of the churning in her stomach.

The men around in front of her were struggling too, red-faced and sweat-soaked, but they didn't have the added bonus of feeling like they might pass out or vomit at any moment. Claire dug her fingernails into her chest, using the sharp pain as an anchor.

"Dammit…" she hissed through clenched teeth. "Keep it together, you neurotic idiot."

But her body was operating on fumes. The iron deficiency meant her blood wasn't carrying enough oxygen, and the hysteria building in her chest was consuming what little energy she had left. Eye floaters danced at the edges of her vision. Her throat constricted, tight and almost gag-like.

"Three miles up, three miles down! Do not stop! Do not slow down!" Sobel's voice floated back to her, though he was now far ahead.

The pack had completely broken apart. The fastest were already at the top, while others were strung out along the winding trail. Claire was the last now, even Eugene was further ahead of her again. Her face burned with humiliation as much as exertion.

When the first tear escaped, she was so surprised she nearly stopped running. She'd been at Camp Toccoa for two full days, and this was her second time crying. But here she was, tears mixing with sweat as she struggled up this godforsaken mountain, her body failing her in every possible way.

She brushed them away furiously, hoping no one would notice. The nearest runner was several yards ahead now, too focused on his own misery to pay attention to hers. Claire took advantage of the momentary privacy to gasp for breath, fighting back the sob that threatened to escape.

"You cannot be weak," she told herself, the words coming in ragged bursts between breaths. "You cannot quit. Do not throw up."

The summit seemed to mock her, appearing closer, then receding again with each twist of the trail. Her legs trembled beneath her, threatening to give out entirely. Her scalp prickled with cold sweat despite the heat. The familiar tightness in her throat was building to a crescendo—the unmistakable precursor to a full-blown episode.

Not here. Please, not here.

By the time she reached the top, the first runners were already back down. Grant had long since passed her, going the opposite direction, his face flushed but composed. He gave her a quick nod of encouragement, too winded himself to speak. She couldn't even manage to nod back.

At the summit, Claire barely touched the stone marker before turning to start the descent, her legs wobbly and unreliable beneath her. Going down should have been easier, but momentum threatened to send her tumbling with each step. She silently hoped maybe she would just roll down the mountain, taking a couple of feet off her run. She clenched her jaw so tight her teeth ached, focusing all her energy on not falling, not vomiting, not collapsing into a sobbing heap.

By the time she reached the bottom, Easy Company was scattered across the base of Currahee in various states of exhaustion. Men lay on their backs, gasping for air. Others bent double, hands on knees. A few were still jogging in, just ahead of Claire.

She was the last one down.

Sobel stood with his clipboard, making notes as she stumbled across what served as a finish line. His lip curled slightly as she passed.

"Pathetic, O'Connor," he said, just loud enough for those nearby to hear. "I expected more from someone so determined to prove women belong in the paratroopers."

Claire couldn't speak. She nodded, staring straight ahead, using every ounce of her remaining strength to stay upright and keep her face neutral despite the tears threatening to spill over. Her entire body shook with the effort of containing the storm brewing inside. Around her, the men of Easy Company were too exhausted to notice the lone female paratrooper falling apart at the seams.

Claire's legs carried her away from the camp on autopilot, her vision tunneling to a narrow corridor of trees and dirt. She needed space—needed air—needed someone to just sedate her. The telltale pressure was building in her chest, that familiar monster clawing up her throat. She wouldn't let them see her like this. Not now. Not ever.

She staggered past the last row of tents, past the supply shed, past the boundaries of where most soldiers ventured. Her lips quivered, tears pooling over the edge of her lashes like fragile raindrops about to fall. Her breaths came out forceful, sob-like gasps that seemed louder than the solitude around her. Her legs trembled with each step, residual weakness from the run compounded by the adrenaline now flooding her system.

When she finally reached the tree line at the far edge of camp, Claire collapsed to her knees, her forehead pressing against the rough bark of a pine tree.

And then it hit her full force.

Her chest constricted as if wrapped in barbed wire, each breath a desperate, shallow gasp. Sweat—cold and clammy now, not the honest sweat of exertion—broke out across her skin, making her shiver despite the Georgia heat. Her stomach lurched violently, the nausea rising in waves that made her whimper and press a fist against her mouth.

"No, no, no," she whispered, rocking slightly. "Not here."

But her body had other ideas. Claire's hands shook so badly she couldn't even keep them pressed against her face. Every muscle ached, tensed against an invisible threat. The dizziness came next, the world tilting and spinning around her like she was trapped on some nightmarish carousel.

Tears flowed freely now, hot tracks down her dirt-streaked face. She couldn't stop them any more than she could stop the panic coursing through her veins like poison. A sob tore from her throat, raw and primal.

God, she wanted her mother. At home, these episodes followed a pattern—her mother would sit beside her, stroke her hair, count breaths with her until the worst passed. Her father would bring cool cloths and water. They never made her feel weak for it, never suggested it was anything but a storm to weather together.

Here, kneeling in the Georgia dirt, Claire was utterly alone.

Her throat tightened further, that horrifying gag reflex triggering her deepest fear. The phobia—that monstrous, irrational terror—only amplified the panic. The neuroses made her more nauseous, which increased the fear, trapping her in a vicious cycle that felt like it would never end.

"I can't—I can't—" she gasped, putting one hand on her chest and the other gripping the grass beneath her as if she might physically anchor herself to the ground.

Images of her mother flickered in her mind, a beacon of calm in the storm of her anxiety. She longed for that soothing touch, the reassurance that everything would be okay. But here, in the solitude of the Georgia wilderness, she was adrift, alone with her fears.

Back at the base of Currahee, Easy Company was slowly recovering from their first mountain run. Men were sitting up now, passing canteens and comparing notes on their performance. A few had noticed the absence of their female member.

"Where's O'Connor?" Skinny Sisk asked, scanning the scattered groups of exhausted soldiers.

Skip shrugged. "Probably getting patched up. Her knees looked like raw hamburger by the end."

"She wasn't looking too hot coming down the mountain," Alley said, wiping sweat from his brow. "Never seen someone so pale still walking."

The men exchanged glances but didn't move. None of them knew Claire well enough yet to feel comfortable seeking her out. She was still an unknown quantity—the girl soldier, the oddity, the experiment. Most were still figuring out how to talk to her without tripping over themselves.

Grant had pulled himself to sitting, his breathing almost back to normal. Unlike the others, he scanned the area with growing concern, his eyes lingering on the paths leading away from the gathering. When he spotted movement toward the far tree line, his brow furrowed.

"She shouldn't be alone," he said, more to himself than anyone else. He started to rise, but Lieutenant Winters caught his eye and shook his head slightly.

"Give her space, Grant," Winters said quietly. "Sometimes a soldier needs a moment to themselves."

Grant settled back reluctantly, but his eyes kept drifting toward the distant trees. He looked to Eugene, a silent question in his gaze, a tacit appeal: You're closest. Should we go check on her? Or—does she want us to?

Eugene sat apart from the main group. He'd seen the look on Claire's face as she finished the run. He knew that look wasn't just physical exhaustion. Something else had been happening, something that had nothing to do with scraped knees or burning lungs. He almost followed her. Then didn't. Respecting what seemed to be her choice for solitude.

Under the trees, Claire pressed her forehead harder against the rough bark, using the pain to anchor herself. The world was dissolving around her, reality washing away in waves of panic. Her muscles cramped painfully, cold sweat soaking through her PT shirt. Tears streamed down her face unchecked, mixing with the dirt and sweat on her cheeks. The rawness of her sobs echoed in the stillness of the woods, a symphony of despair she couldn't silence.

"Mom…" She whimpered. Her breath caught on a sob. The feeling of impending doom—that certainty that she was dying, going crazy, losing control completely—overwhelmed her.

"Please," she begged, though to whom or for what, she couldn't say. "Please."

Time lost meaning as the episode held her in its grip. Minutes could have been hours as she knelt there, fighting a battle far more terrifying than any obstacle course or mountain run. A battle against her own mind and body. Claire O'Connor's true enemy wasn't the incline, nor the humiliation of being last, nor the physical wounds—her enemy was herself, a mind so sharp it cut her to ribbons when it turned inward. This was not a skirmish, not some passing discomfort; it was a campaign of attrition, a siege that starved her determination and battered her until she was raw and helpless.

She pictured her mother's living room, the safe cocoon of dim light and floral upholstery, where she could shut down for an hour, and no one would see. Here, she was on display even in hiding, terrified that the next soldier to pass would witness her at her most desperate, sobbing and shaking in the dirt.

Her body went cold, then hot, then cold again. She thought, for one wild second, that she might actually pass out, and feared the relief that would bring. She knew what was happening, could recite the textbook symptoms of hysteria. That was supposed to make it easier, but it didn't. If anything, it made the dread more clinical, more certain. Her thoughts tumbled: You are weak. You're a fraud. You will never be one of them.

Claire remembered what her pediatrician told her parents at the ripe age of eleven. "Anxiety neurosis. Nothing to be alarmed about. She's a nervous child, that's all—these things tend to settle with age. It's possible it was worsened by her menarche."

Gradually, incrementally, Claire sat back on her heels, empty and hollowed out. These episodes always left her feeling like a shell, scraped clean of everything but a bone-deep weariness. Her muscles ached as if she'd run Currahee ten times over. Her throat felt raw from the animalistic sobs.

She stared up through the pine branches at the patches of blue sky beyond. The panic had passed, but the humiliation remained. She was supposed to be a paratrooper, a soldier, a combat medic. Not this trembling, tearful mess hiding in the woods.

She managed, through chattering teeth and a mouthful of spit and snot, to order herself off the forest floor. "Pull yourself together," Claire whimpered, her voice splintering as she dug trembling fingers into the dirt for leverage and forced her knees under her. "You do not get to fall apart." She spat the words at her shadow, as if saying them out loud would make them true, as if the syllables could piece her back together from the inside out.

The effort to stand was like dragging herself through molasses. Every muscle in her body rebelled. Her arms trembled so hard they barely took her weight; her legs felt like limp spaghetti, useless for anything but keeping her upright through sheer force of will. The rawness in her throat made her cough, which sent another dizzying wave through her skull, and for a moment she nearly surrendered to gravity and let herself collapse again.

Claire brushed the dirt from her knees, wincing at the fresh blood that had soaked through the gauze. She readjusted her hair back into its clip, wiped her face with the hem of her shirt, and practiced a neutral expression that wouldn't betray the storm that had just passed through her.

But the shaking wouldn't stop. Her teeth chattered in spite of the humid air, and her eyes kept welling up with fresh tears every time she glanced towards camp.

When Claire emerged from the tree line, she was still trembling all the way down to the marrow. She tried to set her jaw so hard her teeth hurt, willing her lips into a straight line while her lungs hiccuped beneath her ribcage. Every step toward the gathering felt like answering a summons to her own execution. She blinked fast, scrubbing her face with the back of one hand, desperate to erase the evidence—red-rimmed eyes, tear-streaked cheeks, the trembling that started in her knees and radiated upward with each step.

The terrain changed abruptly underfoot, pine needles giving way to trampled clay and patchy grass. The company sprawled across the clearing, a mass of sweat-soaked humanity either too exhausted to move or quietly relishing the misery of the new recruits. Claire could feel every eye land on her as she drew nearer—some curious, some calculating, some openly hostile. She stared straight ahead, refusing to meet any gaze, struggling to keep her spine upright when what she wanted was to sink into the soggy earth and disappear.

She forced her hands to her hips to look casual, but her fingers dug in hard, whitening the knuckles. The effort it took just to walk upright was monumental, as though gravity itself had doubled just for her. Her composure was pure counterfeit, pieced together like shoddy propaganda to fool the enemy. The enemy being everyone.

Eugene spotted her first, his dark eyes taking in her pallor, the slight redness around her eyes, the careful way she held herself. He didn't comment, just walked up to her, closing the gap between them, his presence oddly steadying.

"You good?" Eugene's voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but it cut through the lingering haze of panic that still clung to her like a second skin.

Claire nodded, a quick, jerky movement that felt more like a tic than a genuine response. She cleared her throat, trying to find her voice amidst the chaos swirling inside her. "Yeah, I'm... I'm okay."

Grant appeared on her left, moving with that unhurried, unflappable stride that probably drove his high school teachers nuts. His face—usually wrung-out with sunburn or split in some lopsided grin—was now all concern, the furrow between his brows deep enough to wedge a coin in. He hovered for a second, clearly debating whether to say something, but settled for standing close enough that his shoulder nearly grazed hers, letting his silence speak for him. Claire felt the heat of his presence before she actually saw him, and for a second, the urge to crumple back into the dirt vanished, replaced by a bracing jolt of embarrassment.

Grant's eyes scanned her, not in a predatory way like some of the other men, but with genuine assessment—like he'd been tasked with cataloging every sign of distress for some future report. His hands went to his hips, mirroring her, only his grip was looser, more practiced. He offered an almost imperceptible nod, as if to say, I'm here if you need it, but I'm not about to make a scene. The gesture was so subtle, so practiced, it felt like a private language.

Eugene, for his part, shifted forward a fraction, closing ranks with Grant in a wordless show of solidarity. The two of them flanked her in a V, effectively forming a buffer against the rest of the company—the gawkers, the snickerers, the ones already writing her off as weak. There was no "Are you sure?" or "Do you want to talk about it?" Just the silent fortress of their bodies, shielding her from the worst of the scrutiny.

They could tell something wasn't right—she could feel it in the careful way they flanked her, in the glances they exchanged over her head. But they didn't push, didn't pry. For that small mercy, Claire was pathetically grateful.

She would be stronger tomorrow. No matter how many times she broke, how many times she wound up sobbing in the woods or staring down the barrel of her own runaway thoughts, she'd always told herself this: next time, she'd wobble less. Next time, she'd run faster, breathe easier, fight harder. Next time, she'd get through the obstacle course—or the mountain, or the war, or the sickening carousel of self-doubt—without making a goddamn spectacle of herself. She would learn to choke down the panic before it bloomed, silence the warning sirens screaming inside her skull. She would be as unbreakable as she needed to be, even if the effort left splinters and scars beneath her skin.

She would prove herself worthy of the wings she so desperately wanted.

But for now, she was just tired—a weird, cosmic exhaustion that went deeper than muscle and bone. She felt it in the way her hands still trembled when she wiped her face, in the way her breath caught on the memory of every desperate gasp in the trees. She wanted to say something to Grant and Eugene, something funny or casual or at least convincing, but the words stuck in her throat and refused to budge.

She wanted to be the kind of person who could snap out of it. Who could shake off the bad moments and bounce back with a joke or a clever insult. But that wasn't in her genes, or maybe it got lost somewhere along the way. She envied the way the guys could shrug off pain, could laugh about the misery. She didn't want to be the weird girl who cried in the woods, didn't want to be anyone's problem, didn't want to be a liability. She wanted—needed—to prove that she belonged here.

And she would. Tomorrow, or the day after. She would earn it inch by inch, blunder by blunder, until she was less of a fraud and more of a soldier.

The medic building was quiet, save for the occasional hiss of pain Claire couldn't quite suppress. Evening had settled over Camp Toccoa, casting long shadows through the windows as Eugene carefully peeled away the blood-soaked gauze from her knees. The day's trauma was written in raw skin and rusty stains—Currahee's signature on her body.

"Sorry," Eugene murmured, his fingers gentle despite their clinical efficiency. "These split open pretty bad."

"Yeah…I could feel the blood running down my legs…" Claire replied, but the usual bite in her voice was dulled by exhaustion. She sat on the edge of an examination table, her legs dangling over the side, hands gripping the metal edge hard enough to whiten her knuckles.

Outside, the sounds of camp life continued—distant laughter, someone calling cadence, the clatter of mess kits being gathered for dinner—but in here, it felt like they existed in a world apart.

Eugene worked methodically, cleaning away dirt and dried blood with practiced movements. His hands were steady, as if he'd been born for this work. Claire watched him through wet eyes. Today had hollowed her out, left her raw in ways that had nothing to do with her skinned knees.

His fingers brushed against the edge of her wound, and Claire let out a sharp hiss with the tiniest "ow…" hiding underneath. Eugene noticed anyway, his eyes flicking up to her face briefly before returning to his work. "You're tougher than you give yourself credit for. Running up Currahee ain't no small feat, especially with those knees of yours."

A silence settled between them, not entirely uncomfortable but charged with unspoken thoughts. As Eugene worked meticulously to clean the scraped skin, Claire couldn't help but admire his deft movements. There was an innate grace to his touch, a silent dedication that spoke volumes about his character.

The dim light in the medic building cast a soft glow over Eugene's features, highlighting the concentration etched into his brow. "You disappeared after the run," he said finally, not looking up from cleaning her right knee. It wasn't quite a question, but the implication hung in the air.

After a moment of silence, Claire swallowed hard, her eyes fixed on Eugene's profile as he tended to her wounds. "Needed a moment alone," she murmured, her tone softer than usual.

Eugene glanced up at her again, his usually serious expression softening slightly at the edges. "I get it," he murmured back, a silent understanding passing between them.

"You don't have to stop, you know," Claire said abruptly, the words tumbling out before she could reconsider.

Eugene paused, one hand hovering awkwardly above her knee, cotton ball poised midair. The silence stretched thin for a beat, as if the entire room was trying to figure out whether she was making a joke, issuing a challenge, or just finally losing it. "Stop what?"

"Calling me 'chère,'" she said, then paused to let the word settle in the air. "Yesterday, when I fell. You called me that."

For a split second, Eugene's whole face seemed to freeze, the way a deer does when it hears the click of a hunter's safety. His eyes flitted to hers, searching for the razor's edge between sincerity and mockery, but finding only a weird, cautious vulnerability. He looked away just as fast, the tips of his ears darkening. "Ah," he said, clearing his throat, as if prepping for a courtroom apology. "That just slipped out."

He set the soiled cotton aside with a little too much care, then fussed with the fresh roll of gauze like it was worth more attention than her legs.

"I liked it," Claire admitted, surprising herself with the honesty. "I…know what it means."

Eugene's heart skipped a beat at Claire's admission. The weight of her words hung heavy in the air between them, a fragile tension that threatened to shatter the delicate balance of their friendship. He struggled to maintain his composure, fingers almost fumbling with the gauze as he continued to wrap her knee.

"Chère..." he repeated softly, the word heavy with unspoken emotions. In that moment, surrounded by the quiet intimacy of the medic building, Eugene felt a rush of conflicting feelings swirl within him. He had always been careful, guarded even, with his affections, especially towards Claire. But her vulnerability, her honesty, tugged at something deep within him.

He finally looked up, meeting Claire's gaze with a mix of surprise and something she couldn't quite decipher. "You did?"

She nodded, a small, tentative movement that felt like a confession of its own. "It was nice. Having something that wasn't 'Private' or 'O'Connor' or 'hey you.'"

He didn't say anything right away—just let the smile linger, an unguarded flicker that made his whole face look softer, younger, almost boyish. Claire noticed the subtle change in him, the way his shoulders relaxed, and a faint, conspiratorial light crept into his eyes. It was a smile meant for her alone; not the polite, offhanded kind he gave around the rest of the company, but something smaller, more dangerous. It felt like a secret handshake between them, a whispered joke nobody else was privy to.

"You need a nickname, too," Claire said. The words sounded casual, but the second they escaped her lips, she realized she'd just committed to a social contract she had no idea how to fulfill. "Not Roe. Not Eugene. Something else."

Eugene's voice was soft, the question curling up at the edge, as if he was almost afraid to ask it. "Like what?" he asked, eyes darting from her knee to her face, then back again, as if he could find the answer buried somewhere in her skin.

Claire tilted her head, considering. "Gene," she decided. "Just Gene."

He paused in his ministrations, something shifting in his expression. "Gene," he repeated, as if testing how it sounded.

"If that's okay," Claire added, the words sliding out so quietly that Eugene almost missed them. There was an unfamiliar, unfinished edge to her voice, like she was dangling over the lip of a cliff, waiting to see if he'd pull her up or let her fall. In her head, she was already halfway to regret, bracing for the recoil—a joke, a brush-off, the gentle, practiced deflection she'd come to expect from men who didn't want to get tied up in feelings.

"It's more than okay," he said finally, letting out a low, sheepish laugh. He lingered over the syllable—Gene—like it was a gift nobody had ever handed him before, not quite sure if he should unwrap it in public or savor it in secret. For a split second, he just stared at her, like she'd upended every known law of physics.

Claire felt something loosen in her chest, some tension she hadn't realized she was carrying. It was such a small thing—a nickname, a term of endearment—but it felt like building a bridge between them, a private connection in this strange new world they'd both entered.

"So we're agreed," Claire said, shooting for levity but overshooting into something brittle and raw. "You call me 'chère,' I call you 'Gene.' Deal?" She delivered it with a half-smirk, determined to carve a joke-shaped hole through the ache in her voice.

He nodded, quick and almost sheepish, the motion punctuating the moment. "Deal," he said, the Cajun drawl softening the syllable, and in that single word Claire could hear the honesty she'd been starved for. There was no pretense in his voice, none of the perfunctory politeness or locker-room bravado that saturated the rest of Easy Company. Just a quiet, unvarnished truth.

A laugh escaped Claire, sharp and unplanned. "Well, that makes it official. We're even." She gripped the side of the exam table, steadying herself against the sudden dizziness—equal parts nerves and something else she couldn't pinpoint. Instead of recoiling from the awkwardness, Eugene met her gaze fully, and for the briefest instant, it felt like the whole world—Currahee, the war, the suffocating pressure to measure up—had been reduced to the narrow, sterile beam of light that framed the two of them.

"Thanks for taking care of me, Gene," she said, letting the nickname roll off her tongue again, this time with purpose. It felt strange—disarming, almost—but good, like the moment right before a rollercoaster dips and you're not sure if you'll scream or laugh.

"Anytime, chère," he replied, and there was no apologetic stutter, no wary glance around for eavesdroppers; he just said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world. The accent in his mouth was gentler now, maybe because he wanted her to hear it just for herself. He finished bandaging her knee, fingers lingering for a second longer than necessary, before pulling back with a soft smile.

Their exchange felt like a quiet revolution, a subtle redefining of their new relationship. Claire felt a rush of emotion, a mix of vulnerability and hope fluttering in her chest. She knew that something had changed between them, something that would alter the course of their journey together in Easy Company.