Summary:
Back home, the officers of Easy and King Company struggle to settle back into normal life. Ron is haunted by his actions. Andy is consumed by guilt. Carwood just can’t get a break. Eddie tries to escape his nightmares. Fate brings them together and they try to cope with the chaos that is now their life.
Characters/Pairings:
Andrew A. “Ack-Ack” Haldane/Edward “Hillbilly” Jones, Carwood Lipton/Ronald Speirs
Possible Tags:
AU, Post-Canon, Post-War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Depression, Survivor Guilt, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Coping, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Canon-Typical Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, easys and kings officers meet, they all try to get their shit together specially Ron and Andy, Lip needs help, everybody needs a hug, Eddie is going to kick everybody’s ass if he has to
Chapter 2 : Carwood
Carwood got down to his knees and heard a crack. He groaned, but it didn’t help. The leaking pipe under the sink continued to drip. He rolled up his sleeves and felt around for the pliers, which had to be somewhere behind him. The damage didn’t seem extensive. Signs of wear and tear, he thought. The complete house needed to be renovated from top to bottom, but with the business as usual, Carwood couldn’t keep up with the work. He repaired everything he could find, but in the end he tried to patch a canyon with band-aids.
After the accident that killed his father and left his mother in a wheelchair, they decided together to run their own house as a guest house. But the old farm, which his father had taken over from his grandparents, had already been more than used up when they moved in. Nothing a nice coat of paint and decent curtains couldn’t fix, his mother used to say. The ravages of time gnawed ceaselessly at the old walls, and it could no longer be denied that the building was on the brink of being ready to be demolished.
The problem was that they still needed the money. Carwood had sent all his pay from the Airborne to his mother, but on his return he’d found that neither his mother nor his younger brother Carl were good with money. Instead of a new porch, one thing that had greeted him in the yard was a brand new truck.
“Carl’s my baby. Times have been hard enough,” his mother had said when he brought it up after a few weeks.
Carl was the baby, and Carwood was the man of the house. As it always had been.
He loved his mother, but it was getting harder to suppress the bitterness, because Carwood was exhausted. He’d been allowed two days to recover; they’d even let him sleep in. But then he’d been gently but firmly pushed toward the work.
A never-ending mountain of work. Little things piled up and as soon as he got one thing done, five other things popped up that needed his attention. That’s not counting the daily chores that had to be done in a guest house.
Carwood had once heard of a story that had a name for it; some ancient myth from the Greeks, perhaps?
‘Ron would know’, he thought.
He pushed the thought away. Carwood tried not to think about it, but that his former company commander had answered none of his letters yet gnawed at him. More than he wanted to admit to himself. He had even contacted the Airborne to make sure the address was correct. That wasn’t the issue.
Of course, maybe Ronald Speirs didn’t want any contact with him. He wouldn’t be the first veteran to want to leave the war behind, and all that went with it. Only he couldn’t bring himself to believe that. It hurt too much.
They’d liked each other, hadn’t they? Ron and he. Carwood would have called them friends without a second’s hesitation, or at least that was what he believed. Speirs had never been much of a talker; he was not one of those people who liked to be the center of attention. But Carwood had found his company pleasant. He had also not minded that he had led their conversations and done most of the talking.
Ron didn’t seem bored with him, either. If so, he would have said. If Ronald Speirs was one thing, he was direct. He wasn’t the type to beat around the bush. If something went against the grain for Speirs, he let you know it and let you know it clearly.
Or had he lied to Carwood? Had he forced himself too much on Ron and Ron hadn’t had the heart to tell him he was getting on his nerves?
He couldn’t believe that. He didn’t want to believe that.
If Ron didn’t want to write him back, so be it.
‘He’ll have his reasons,’ Carwood thought, ignoring the tugging in his chest.
‘He’ll have a good reason.’
With fresh energy and new determination, he placed the pipe wrench on the dripping pipe and pulled. The dripping stopped. One problem solved, a perceived thousand still to do.
*****
“Carwood! What took you so long, we have to go!” His mother sat in her wheelchair in the kitchen and the disapproval in her voice was impossible to miss.
She had put on her best dress and applied makeup to celebrate the occasion, something she had only done on a handful of occasions since the accident.
The party. Carwood had forgotten. Confused, he stood in the back doorway to the kitchen. Soiled from boots to thighs with mud, a good amount of the dirt trickled onto the kitchen floor, which he had mopped that morning. He looked down at himself and smiled sheepishly.
“Of course, I’m sorry, Mother. I’m going to get ready. Give me ten minutes.”
“Five, Carwood, five,” his mother said, turning her chair and rolling out of the kitchen. The tires squealed softly and Carwood remembered he had to go to get fresh oil for it.
Their neighborhood’s big barn party in Huntington had been the talk of the town for weeks, and Carl, as well as his mother, had talked about Carwood attending this time. In his dress uniform, of course.
“My son is a hero, let everyone see that.” The pride in his mother’s voice had been impossible to miss.
But it was not about him. She never admitted it or talked about it, but Mary-Ann Lipton was still struggling with her accident and her limitations. She was a proud, beautiful woman; the accident had not changed that. A woman who, together with her husband, wanted to restore the farmhouse to its former glory, who, despite two small children, wasn’t too shy to work. Until everything had changed.
Mary-Ann was still a beautiful woman, but that her legs were failing her was something she still couldn’t deal with.
Sometimes Carwood felt she blamed him. Which was complete nonsense. But he couldn’t help it to feel that he was not enough. Since childhood he’d had to take on the role of the man, standing up for the family, as the eldest son and their representative.
It was never enough.
He’d agreed to accompany his family to the barn festival, even though he did not feel like it. He was already going over the work that would be left undone, mentally making notes of what he needed to get done in the next few days and what he could put off so as not to lose the upper hand. As if he ever had control since his return.
He’d calculated that he would leave the party by midnight at the latest. So he could still set the tables for breakfast for the guests the next morning. That the guesthouse was only occupied by two permanent guests and a traveling journeyman craftsman was to his advantage.
They made not much money these days, but the work he had to do taking care of the guests was limited.
He carefully slipped off his shoes and trousers, taking care not to splash more mud into the kitchen. Carwood left the clothes outside on the porch; he could take care of that later.
Then he went to fetch his dress uniform.
Carwood had hung it unceremoniously in his closet, well packed to protect it from dust and moths. He’d had no intention of ever wearing it again; the Airborne was behind him. But there you go, never say never. With heavy steps, he climbed the narrow stairs that led to his room.
While his mother lived in a room in the house's part they also rented out to guests, Carwood had moved into one of the upper, smaller rooms that servants had once used.
His own little kingdom. Since his return, he appreciated the privacy of these rooms even more.
He opened the door and squinted against the sunlight. The window faced west and now, in the hours of evening, bathed the room in golden light where dust danced.
The wooden floorboards beneath his feet creaked softly and familiarly. Except for a bed, his closet, a small dresser and a desk, the room was empty, but Carwood liked it that way. He kept the room tidy. It calmed him.
Only the desk was piled high with paper, most of it letters. He couldn’t help but smile.
Easy Company consisted largely of enthusiastic letter writers and his boys never tired of telling him about themselves.
He was incredibly relieved by every letter he received.
They were home. His boys were safe, and every line confirmed that.
The letters were his anchor.
Except for those who did not come.
While he carefully undressed all the way and stacked the dirty laundry neatly in the basket provided, his eyes fell on a letter he had started not too long ago. Three lines in blue ink. Three lines of inanities that he wrote to a man who was not interested in them.
Why didn’t he write back? Carwood stared at the piles of letters, all from Easy Company men. One or two came from Winters, and even Captain Nixon. But none from Ron. The one person he longed for most had forgotten him.
Yet Carwood needed him. On the front lines, back in Europe, it had been Ron Speirs that Carwood had leaned on. He, who tried to be there for everyone, would have torn off an arm and both legs if it would’ve saved one of his boys. It was Ron who had taken him aside at the convent and told him that his efforts were appreciated. Ronald Speirs, who’d saved Easy after Dike had lost it.
Ron had taken the lead that day and never let it go; and finally, finally, Carwood had found someone he could just follow. In the past that had been Winters, but the man transferred to Battalion Command and Carwood didn’t blame him, but it wasn’t the same after that. Until Ron joined Easy, he’d been alone.
Alone, like now.
Home was supposed to be a refuge. Away from the war, away from the chaos. Cozy evenings on the porch, warm food, a soft bed and hot showers. Conversations with friends, clothes you could choose for yourself. All he had was more to worry about, more work, and more people dumping their shit on him.
It wasn’t fair, and Carwood felt bad. Letters were arriving for him every week. His boys hadn’t forgotten him. They told him about their homes, their families, what they were up to, and how they were doing.
They all asked how Carwood was doing.
Good, he wrote back. Always good. Everything was fine.
Nothing was fine, but he couldn’t get out of his skin. His protective instinct was still there, the instinct that he couldn’t burden the boys with his problems. The first sergeant, the Lieutenant, always the officer, who had an answer and a solution for everything. Who had an endless supply of hope and confidence to give was there for everyone; always ready to shoulder an extra burden.
In the darkness of his room, Carwood sank to the floor and heard nothing but his own breathing.
*****
The last of the light crept into the barn and the large double doors let in the smell of the surrounding fields and the great fire outside over which the meat roasted.
The neighbors had dressed up, yet Carwood felt uncomfortable in his uniform. Next to the women in their Sunday best, the children with shined shoes, straight partings and bows in their braids, his dress uniform seemed like a foreign object.
He saw others, soldiers like him, one or two from the Marine Corps and a young sailor who, with his blond hair, blue eyes, looked as if he had stepped out of one of the propaganda posters that were still everywhere. Posters that now were faded, in tatters or half pasted over. Just like the war.
His mother urged moving on, and Carwood followed. Carl had dropped off to a group that had to be his friends. Young people, still almost children, carefree and light, with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. Carwood felt ancient.
He shook hands, nodded, and artfully thanked those who thanked him for his service.
“You’re a hero, son,” he heard so many times during the evening that the words lost their meaning. It was like he was back in Holland, in Germany, and people were talking to him in a language he didn’t understand.
“You look well, a handsome young man!” Old Mrs. Ambrose patted his upper arm. “Doesn’t he look well?” she asked her husband.
Elijah Ambrose, a former Colonel in the Navy by trade, nodded, but his attention was on a group of young girls who were giggling at a photograph that one of the young ladies had apparently brought with her.
“Splendid, splendid,” he murmured around his cigar.
“A handsome young man,” Mrs. Ambrose repeated. Her fingers dug into Carwood’s arm. Sooner than he knew it, he was surrounded by that very group of girls, one of whom was Mrs. Ambrose’s granddaughter.
Young ladies, he should rather say, but Carwood saw only girls. Hardly old enough to have outgrown the bows.
He danced with the granddaughter, feeling like the father leading his daughter across the floor one last time at her wedding before handing her over to her husband.
Out of the corner of his eye, he took in the looks of the young men, Carl’s friends included. He read envy in their eyes and a defiant challenge.
He did not accept it.
*****
The evening passed and turned into night. The campfire outside the barn grew larger and the smell of grilled meat hung over everything. Somewhere above the stars shone in a familiar yet almost forgotten firmament.
Carwood had freed himself from the clutches of the girls and especially their mothers. His uniform attracted the women of Huntington and their unmarried girls like moths to a flame. It took his breath away, but not in a good way. He felt like he was choking.
But now he stood outside beside the great double door, at the edge of the barn, out of the glow of the fire and the feast. So far, no one seemed to miss him. He wished he could disappear altogether. But for now, his only place of retreat was the guest house and the pile of work waiting for him there. At least he would be undisturbed there; he could set the table for the guests’ breakfast. Maybe there would be enough time to sit on the porch and listen to the cicadas.
Music drifted outside from the barn; the band of the local church group didn’t hit every note, but that didn’t bother anyone.
Carwood had slipped back inside and was looking for his mother to say goodbye when he heard a loud, clattering bang.
He froze. One of the dancing couples had run into the band and swept a good amount of the drum set off the makeshift platform that served as a stage. The accident was followed by peals of laughter.
Carwood felt sick.
The sound had made him wince, his heart feeling like it was about to jump out of his chest. The worst part was the fear. That inner feeling of horrible dread that took hold of him.
“Clifford, what are you doing?” his mother’s voice came through to him. Shrill with incredulous indignation.
It was then that Carwood noticed that the whole barn was suddenly silent. Confused, he looked up, and it took him a moment to understand where he was. Everything seemed much bigger all of a sudden.
He was lying on the floor in the middle of the barn.
Without him consciously realizing it, his body had fallen back into old patterns. He was lying on his side, his knees pressed against his torso, his hands placed protectively over his head; his fingernails clawed into his hair. He had fallen into the same position as he had in the Foxholes in the Ardennes. And he hadn’t even noticed.
People were staring at him, his brother Carl and his mother in the front row. Carwood felt hot waves of shame rising. He didn’t know what to do.
Slowly, his stiffness loosened, and he clumsily struggled to his feet, feeling the stares of everyone following his every move. All he wanted to do was leave.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he muttered, over and over.
He practically ran out of the barn, away from the people, away from the fire, away from the light. He didn’t stop running until he was back in their farmhouse and in his room.
His whole body was shaking, and his eyes were burning. Whether from shock or shame, Carwood couldn’t tell. He retched, but nothing came.
He tore off his uniform, crumpled it into the far corner of his room.
Carwood stood in front of his bed, still half beside himself. It didn’t feel safe. His body was still on alert, even if his mind was checking in, asking if he was alright.
You’re home, the war is over, there’s your bed, it’s warm and safe.
It was almost as if he was watching himself from outside and part of him couldn’t comprehend what he was doing. Another part just registered his movements with clinical attention.
Carwood pulled his pillow and blanket off his bed.
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