Contemporary: October 25th, 1944. Driel, Netherlands.
After she finished her story, Alix hung her head, unwilling or unable to glance up, afraid of what she’d see reflected back at her in those pools of honey-brown...
Disgust. Shock. Pity.
Or worse: Admiration. Affection. Kindness.
Things she didn’t deserve, especially not from Joe.
She hadn’t even realized she'd reached for his hand until he gave it a light, reassuring squeeze. But she didn’t pull away, instead letting their fingers rest together, lightly intertwined.
In another life, she thought to herself. Maybe if things were different...
For a brief second, the spy allowed her mind to meander, imagining what it might be like to live in a world with no war, no Millicent, no familial pressure, a world where they could love each other out loud with nothing standing in their way.
But as Alix studied the subtle burgundy of her chipped nail polish, the ink blotches on Joe's fingertips brought her crashing back to earth.
That wasn't the world they lived in.
That wasn't a world she'd ever see.
The soft rasp of gravel in Joe’s voice brought her focus back.
"That Larsson guy really threatened to kick you out 'cause you didn’t wanna kill a fuckin' kid?"
Alix nodded and she could hear a dangerous, razor-sharp edge enter his tone but it wasn't directed at her.
"I'd like to meet the guy."
It was a simple statement but the way Joe had said "meet" sounded an awful lot like "murder".
"You wouldn't like him," Alix replied with a rueful grimace and Joe chuckled darkly and moved to crack his knuckles.
"Yeah well, after me and him go a few rounds in the ring, I bet he wouldn't like me too much either."
Alix turned her head away to hide her smile and there was another beat of silence between the pair before Joe spoke again.
“Y'know that’s not all you are, right?”
Alix's head jerked up in surprise before she could stop it.
"What?"
"A killer," the technician clarified and she could feel the physical shift of him rubbing the back of his neck, scruffing up his light brown hair.
"I don't give a shit what he…what they told you. You're so much fuckin' more than that."
Alix pressed her lips into a grimace.
She wanted to believe him, she really did. But after a month of silence and then that letter…everything he said just rang hollow.
“You don’t know me," the spy mumbled defensively. “Not really.”
If you did, you wouldn’t want me.
But Joe gently leaned his shoulder against hers again.
"I do though," he replied, the light rasp in his voice contrasting with the softness of his tone. "Better than ya think."
"Prove it then," Alix challenged as she crossed her arms and Joe tilted his head in thought, clearly pondering an opener.
“'Kay, well, your favorite color is red–”
Alix opened her mouth to correct him but Joe was quicker.
“I know, I know, 'scarlet'…” He commented with exaggerated air quotes before adding wryly, “But it's the same thing, which is fuckin’ red.”
“Is that all you’ve got?” the spy inquired cynically as she bit back a giggle at his dramatics.
“And you got a smart-ass comment for everything,” Joe teased before deftly tugging a pack of Chesterfields from his pocket.
“Want one?”
Alix nodded eagerly, thanking him as she plucked one from the packaging but when the technician retrieved his Zippo, Alix hesitated.
She knew better than to bring her face closer so he could give her a light.
She would have to lean in close to his lips, almost as if… she shook her head, trying to banish the thought.
His heart belongs to someone else, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t be right.
Noticing her reluctance, Joe’s face seemed to fall, but he handed her the lighter anyway, his fingertips brushing ever so slightly against hers as he pressed the smooth metal into her grasp.
Alix tried to ignore the giddy sensation and focused on lighting her cigarette while he resumed his Herculean task.
"You never take your rosary off," he pointed out after a slow drag. “And you say you don’t believe it does anything but when you get nervous, you still bite your lip and reach for it anyway.”
Did she really? The spy was impressed and a little intrigued but still tried her hardest to feign nonchalance for pride’s sake.
“Congratulations,” Alix remarked dryly. “You have eyes.”
Joe cocked an eyebrow.
“Shit, alright, tough crowd,” he quipped with a smirk.
“Lemme think… You only drink Gin & Tonics now ‘cause ya went a little too hard on the vodka at some party once and spent the rest of the night upchucking into the bushes.”
Alix felt her cheeks beginning to flush, now wishing distinctly that she would evaporate on the spot.
Had she really done that? She only hoped to God it hadn’t been in front of him.
But Joe seemed to take her silent mortification as skepticism because he added, “Muck told me."
"That bastard," Alix muttered but there was no venom behind her words and Joe chuckled, running a hand through his hair.
“Go easy on the guy,” the Californian joked with a sheepish grin. “It was a while back. I just got a good memory, ‘specially when it comes to you, I guess.”
Alix took a quick drag and wound a strand of her hair around finger absentmindedly, unsure of quite how to respond to his kindness.
“Well thank you… I think?”
“Don’t thank me yet, Ziskeit,” Joe shrugged with an easy smile.
“‘Cause I ain’t done."
He took a short drag, watching the smoke rise in spiraling plumes before giving her a sly look out of the corner of his sparkling brown eyes.
“You left your window unlocked fer me when we were back in Aldbourne so I could get into your room without anybody seein' me–”
He chuckled and teasingly gave her a light nudge.
"--Not that it mattered anyway ‘cause you left me with so many fuckin' hickeys and scratches that our old CO said it looked like I’d been mauled by a fuckin’ bear.”
Alix drew her bottom lip between her teeth and dropped her gaze to the ground, certain now that she was a brilliant shade of crimson.
Joe haphazardly tossed his cigarette away before continuing,
“You been trained in deception or whatever but when it comes to people close to ya, y'can’t lie for shit. Like right now–"
He gently slid a finger under the spy’s chin and gently turned her to face him.
“– Tell me you ain’t got feelings for me.”
Her eyes must’ve looked like saucers.
“W-What?” she choked out, blinking in confusion as her heartbeat stuttering to a near-stop at his sudden proximity.
“Tell me you don't want me, Zees,” he insisted, the huskiness of his voice seeming to slow time and his gaze seemed to flit down to her lips before returning to her eyes.
"'Cause I think you do."
It was a dare but behind his trademark cockiness was a current of desperation, his warm whiskey eyes pleading with her for the truth, whatever it might be.
“Look, you want me outta your life for good, all you gotta do is say it: say you don’t want me and mean it. Yeah, ‘s gonna hurt like a bitch, I'm not gonna bullshit ya, but I gotta know, Zees. 'Cause right now...Me and you and Doc, I-"
His voice broke and he took a second before running his thumb lightly across her cheek, brushing away a tear.
She hadn't even realized she'd been crying.
The paratrooper set his jaw and when he spoke again, there was a quiet determination in his voice, as though he was forcing it under control.
"Zees, if I gotta love you from a distance, then that's just what I gotta do.”
Alix faltered, momentarily lost for words, her stunned expression mirrored in the glossy reflection of Joe’s dark eyes.
The words were on the tip of her tongue:
I love you. I want you, only you. Always you.
But she knew she couldn’t say them, no matter how badly she wanted to.
It wouldn’t be fair–
Not to Millicent, who was counting on her sweetheart to be faithful from an ocean away.
Not to Gene, whose schoolboy crush seemed to be the only thing keeping him from crumbling to pieces some days.
And most importantly, not to Joe who deserved far better than a damaged girl who could never give him the peace his turbulent soul so desperately longed for.
Her chest ached helplessly, her pulse seeming to radiate through her upper body as though her heart was trying to force its way to him.
“Joey, I-”
The thunderous roar of her name being called cut her off before she could get any further and her head swiveled immediately toward the sound.
It was her case officer who burst into the clearing with a radio in one hand and a bag in the other, its red stripes designating it as an OSS burn bag.
“Martinelli, grab your shit,” Nixon commanded, looking more alert than she'd seen him since Survival drills. “We’ve got to move now!”
With a last apologetic glance in Joe’s direction, Alix sprang to her feet and hurriedly began stuffing her stack of comic books into her canvas bag before bolting off after her handler, who was already several strides ahead of her and showing no signs of stopping.
“Hey! Hey Nix!” she called after him, trying to provoke some sort of response but instead of his usual dramatics over her neglecting to address him properly, he ordered her to hand over her bag.
Once she had, he began tearing through it like a madman, rifling through her comics and the letter from her aunt, pushing past her knives, garrote wire, and the vials of Prussic Acid neatly rolled into bandages.
“What the hell– ?” Alix demanded just as he swiped her false documents from the side pocket and shoved them into his burn bag.
“Have you lost your mind?!" she hissed, trying to grab his arm to stop him. "I fucking need those!”
"Not anymore you don't," Nixon reported, shrugging her off and lighting the Zippo. “You've been compromised.”
"What, how?!"
Alix felt her stomach lurch and she searched her handler’s face for the slightest trace of deception but found none.
"Madonna mia," she breathed as they both watched the burn bag begin to crackle, the terrifying reality sinking in.
"How bad was the leak?"
"Bad," Nixon uttered, shaking his head.
"Payce and De Luca were executed yesterday. Bouchard's been captured. Perrault's MIA. God only knows about the rest. I haven't heard."
They might've captured Jennie?!
Alix took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm her racing thoughts and keep a cool head.
"You'll have to lay low for awhile," Nixon stated, sounding almost apologetic as they watched her identity papers begin to disintegrate in the blaze.
"Donovan's got a place you can go, an agency safehouse. I'll bring you updates when I can."
"How many?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"How many of my covers have been compromised…?"
The captain swallowed hard before responding, his voice coming out as brittle as broken bone.
Summary: In following her out into the night after her hasty exit, Joseph Liebgott has flipped Alix's entire world on its head. But maybe, just maybe, she doesn't mind.
A/N: THERE'S A PLOT, I PROMISE, THERE'S A PLOT!!!!
Dedication: To my dear friend @brassknucklespeirs who encourages my bad behavior. Consider this your payback for hurting my heart & calling me out with "No Shame"🤭💖
WARNINGS: SMUT (18+), Hurt/Comfort, Unsafe sex (WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT, Y'ALL, OR I'M COMING FOR YOUR KNEECAPS 🤬🤬🤬), Trust issues, Implied abuse (nothing graphic), everybody cusses like a sailor but y'all knew that
Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @holdingforgeneralhugs
8 Months Earlier: January 8th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.
It wasn’t until Alix made it outside of the lobby and into the icy chill of the English winter that she realized she’d forgotten her coat.
The wind was harsh, stinging her bare skin, and she rubbed her arms in a vain attempt to ward off its bite as she began the long walk home.
“Kinda hard to 'go for a smoke' without your cigs, ain’t it?” a familiar voice called into the night as the door squeaked shut behind him, forcing Alix to stop in her tracks.
Goddamn it.
The agent huffed, gathering her courage before turning to face Joe, the small cloud of her breath still hanging in the frosty air behind her.
She'd intended to speak but no sound came out.
After all, what was there to say?
“I lied and ran off because I’m scared to get involved with you, in case you’re already involved with someone else?"
Yeah, that would go over like a ton of bricks.
A Martinelli doesn’t show weakness, Alix remembered her father scolding her when she’d dissolved into tears after Clay’s numerous, public infidelities. Not now, not ever.
So she said nothing, arms crossed, her ruby-red lips pressed into a tense line as she studied the paratrooper who'd come out after her.
Joe was standing just outside the building's overhang, hands shoved deeply into his pockets as he leaned against the building's outer wall, Alix's navy-blue coat draped over one shoulder.
His deep brown puppy eyes traced over her features so softly, as though there was something worth seeing in them…in her…
Alix crossed her arms even tighter around herself, dropping her gaze to the cobblestones. Anything to avoid those sweet, puppy-dog eyes.
She hated the way he looked at her, like she was the sun: something brilliant, worthy of kindness and reverence, and a million other sweet sentiments she didn't feel she deserved.
How could anyone look at her like that after the things she'd done?
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
4 Years Earlier: August 18th, 1940. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
With a shout of obscenities in Italian, her father Emilio, had burst into their parlor, slamming a stack of men’s magazines and pinup calendars down onto the mahogany coffee table in front of her with such force that the whole table shook.
“What in God’s name is this?” he demanded, stabbing an accusatory finger at a Beauty Parade drawing of her in a slinky evening gown cut practically down to her navel, her cleavage nearly spilling out as she leaned on a piano.
“And this!” A page torn from the Esquire calendar depicting a provocatively-posed Alix as Miss July, lounging on a beach towel in an impossibly tiny two-piece.
“And this!” A Titter centerfold featuring a blushing Alix with the skirt of her sundress snagged in a door, revealing her garters and a tantalizing flash of white lace panties.
“Is this what you've been doing while you're away?” her father bellowed, his voice echoing off the walls. “We send you to Richmond for finishing school and you become a prostitute?!"
"No, Pa, I-"
"Basta! Non dire cazzate, you got that? Don't fucking bullshit me!"
"They're just pin-up drawings! It's not like I'm naked-"
"You think that makes it better?!"
Her father grabbed one of the calendars off the table and waved it in front of her face.
"Do you see this shit? This is the shit roughnecks carry with them out to the oil fields every day! Is that who you want to be, Alix, some workmen’s tart for them to gawk at, like a piece of meat?! You want your name– OUR name– associated with the likes of them?!"
"I didn't even use my real name for those!” Alix shot back, her temper flaring.
Her parents were strict but even still: she’d had a taste of freedom and she’d be damned if she’d be caged ever again.
“Pa, I’m careful, I swear! I give false names every time! Hell, I’ve even worn wigs!"
"And what, you think that's going to keep people from recognizing you?! Ci fai o ci sei?!"
"No, I'm not stupid, Pa! Look, I-"
"Zitta! We did not name you after royalty so that you could parade around like a whore and humiliate this family! We’ve got a reputation to uphold and I am not about to have it ruined because of you! Capisce?"
Without waiting for an answer, he threw the calendar down onto the ground and began to pace across the floor, muttering and massaging his temple with his hand.
“Santa Maria,” he all but spat, shaking his head at his prodigal daughter with disgust.
“We can only pray the Hearsts don’t hear of this. Because who in God’s name would want to marry you now, knowing the…the filth you’ve involved yourself in?!”
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
8 Months Earlier: January 8th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.
Joe broke the tension first, clearing his throat uncomfortably, and Alix jumped at the sound.
Tentatively, he draped her coat around her shoulders, as though she were a bomb set to detonate any second.
Just like everybody else in the company.
Alix drew the dark material tightly around her for protection from the elements.
“How’d you know?” she asked softly, glancing up to him nervously before her eyes darted away again.
How did you know that was my coat?
How did you know where I’d be?
How do you know me so well without ever having known me?
Joe rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.
“I ain’t a spy or anythin’ but I ain't fuckin’ blind either,” he remarked, attempting a smile but it came off more as a grimace of self-loathing.
“I noticed you when I came in. I remembered the coat you wore. It…”
He huffed for a second, his breath clouding the frosty air, before finishing simply, “It looked good on you.”
“Thanks,” Alix murmured before retrieving her cigarettes and glancing back up to Joe, extending an olive branch.
"You want one?"
He cocked an eyebrow and hesitated for a moment, before asking, "What kind?"
"Chesterfields," Alix replied with a half-smile, passing the white and gold carton over to him. "I'm under contract."
Was it just the dim lighting of the street lamps or did she see the ghost of a smile cross his face?
"Ya got good taste," he remarked simply before plucking a cigarette from the carton and retrieving a lighter from his pocket.
He leaned over to give hers a light first, the both of them painfully aware of how close their faces were once again.
The unacknowledged memory of the almost-kiss from earlier lingered between them like the rolling fog over the crop fields and Alix wondered if he could hear the thump-thump-thumping of her heart at the thought, even now.
“You coulda just told me, y’know," he mumbled after the first drag, sounding so unusually quiet and hesitant, so unlike the brash, cocky front he tried to keep up, that for a second, his words didn't even register.
"Told you what, Joey?"
The agent flinched at the way her voice sounded. Brittle, like broken glass.
But she couldn't help it. Her resolve was waning.
As she took a drag to steady herself, Joe's head jerked up in surprise at her words, brown eyes wide.
"Joey, huh?" he repeated, ignoring her question as the corner of his mouth starting to quirk up in his trademark goofy grin. "Nobody's ever called me that before."
Alix started to apologize automatically but Joe shook his head.
"Don't," he chided gently. "I like it. But-"
He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Think I'd like anything that comes outta that pretty mouth of yours."
"Awful quick with the lines tonight, aren't we?" Alix tried to sound nonchalant but there was a notable edge to her voice that caused Joe's brows to knit with concern.
"That a problem?"
"Of course not," Alix replied coolly, the smoke from her last drag curling into the air between them like a momentary barrier.
"I just know your type is all."
Joe gritted his teeth at her insinuation.
"Yeah?” he asked tersely. “And what type's that?"
“The type that gives their girl back home the runaround while they're off chasing tail and chasing glory."
A vein popped in his jaw at the insinuation.
"You think you got me all figured out, huh?” he snapped tersely. "Well you don't. I've never gone steady with anybody, okay? I don't have the fuckin' time!"
He shook his head in frustration.
"I been workin' two jobs, helpin' out my folks and lookin' out for my siblings since I was a fuckin' teenager. Yeah I slept around a little bit here and there, I'm not gonna bullshit you, but I never gave anybody the fuckin' runaround, okay? I'm not Skinny and I sure as fuck ain't Tab."
Alix blinked in shock at his outburst as she absorbed his words, but Joe wasn't done.
"And y'wanna know why I joined the Airborne?" he demanded.
He took a quick drag, the exhale coming just as fast.
"Wasn't for shits and giggles, lemme tell ya. It was so I could save enough money to put a fuckin' down payment on a house for my folks. That's why. Not glory, not girls, okay? My fuckin' family.
He took another puff of his cigarette, golden-brown eyes now studying the darkened landscape behind her before discarding it under his heel.
Alix tensed. Taking a slow drag off her own cig, she hoped quietly that the slightly bitter, hazy taste would clear her racing thoughts. But it didn't.
Boy, did she feel stupid.
"Look, Joe, I-I'm sorry," she mumbled, staring at the ground and tossing her cigarette away, her muscles taut as she braced for some sort of fight.
Conflict was a regular feature of her life growing up. Her father was a wild and wealthy womanizer and her melancholic mother socially prominent and heavily religious. When they clashed, which was often, the walls of their estate shook with the bellowing, doors slamming, and glass breaking.
A marriage of convenience, yes, but a match made in hell.
Her first real boyfriend…her former fiancé…had been much the same. Alix had learned very quickly that Clayton Hearst did not tolerate mouthiness.
That was probably why her father had chosen him for a match— to keep his wayward daughter in line. It hadn't stopped Alix from fighting back but it made for some very rough arguments.
Fortunately, Clay had left for the Marines while she was still in school, allowing Alix a small reprieve from their near-constant fighting.
The Dear Jane letter she'd gotten in the mail a month later had only proven to her what she'd already known deep-down:
Clay had never loved her. Hell, he'd never even liked her. The still-healing bruises from their parting arguments were proof enough of that. And just like her father, he'd rather spend his leave time cavorting with other women instead of remaining faithful to the one he was supposed to love.
The soft percussion of boots on pavement shook Alix out of her reverie and she jumped. But to her surprise, Joe's approach wasn't angry. Not at all.
Instead, she felt calloused fingers gently tilting her chin up to look him in the eyes and she flinched. But instead of the fury she'd come to expect, she saw only concern reflected back at her.
“I don’t know what asshole taught you that that’s how men are,” he said softly. “But I can fuckin’ promise you, that ain't how I am. You'll see."
Alix knew she shouldn't but the sincerity in Joe’s tone tugged at her heartstrings in a way she hadn’t expected and even with all her reservations, she couldn't help but believe him.
She was suddenly, painfully aware of his proximity, his face so tantalizingly near that she could smell the dizzying sweetness of the alcohol on his breath mingling with the faint smoke of his last cigarette.
Alix's eyes raked across his features: the intensity of his warm caramel gaze, his finely-drawn cheekbones, his strong aquiline nose, and she couldn't help but linger on the smile tugging at his lips, each thud of her heartbeat chanting the same thing like a mantra:
Kiss him. Kiss him. Kiss him.
"You gonna kiss me or what?" Joe teased softly, as if he could read her mind.
The slight gravel of his voice sent a tingle of pleasure down her spine and Alix knew then, as surely as she knew her own name, that kissing Joe Liebgott would be sealing her own fate, allowing herself to need him in a way she hadn’t wanted to need anyone ever again.
But in that moment, a decision was made:
It would be worth it.
So in response, Alix gave in to her impulses and pressed her lips earnestly to his with all of the sweet desperation that had been building up inside her since their eyes had first met days earlier.
Before she’d even known his name, a part of her had wanted to do this and the fact that it was actually happening had her head spinning in the best way.
Joe’s lips were soft, far softer than she’d expected them to be and they moved instinctively against hers in perfect synchronicity, anticipating her needs as naturally as he had on the dancefloor.
Alix reached up and ran her fingers through his thick copper hair, the intoxicating musk of his cologne and the feel of his arms sliding around her waist sending warmth blossoming through her like a blazing hearth in the winter chill.
Deepening the kiss, her tongue tentatively prodded his half-parted lips and he tangled a hand in her hair, intensifying their embrace.
Kissing Joe was like a drug, the syrupy-sweetness of the alcohol on his tongue and the searing heat of his mouth on hers stirred something in her she'd never before experienced.
The warmth between them was slowly building, spreading like a wildfire, and even the sudden, frigid downpouring of sleet couldn't sour the elation they felt in each other's arms.
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Joe chuckled in between kisses, deftly flipping the collar up on his jacket with his free hand.
“What’s wrong, flyboy?” Alix quipped, her hair now coated in the frozen slush. “Afraid of a little winter weather?”
“Nah," he scoffed with a teasing nip at her bottom lip. "But if I catch a fuckin' cold ‘cause of it, I’m makin’ you take care of me.”
"Yeah?" the agent joked, returning the nip playfully. "Why me?"
"'Cause I ain't foolin' around with Roe."
Alix couldn't even respond, reluctantly having to tear herself away due to her uncontrollable shivering.
"I should p-probably get g-going," Alix managed from between chattering teeth.
Both her coat and dress had already been soaked through with the freezing water and the harsh wind was biting at her through the trees.
"B-Before it g-gets worse."
"Not like this we're fuckin' not," Joe declared, gently guiding Alix under the overhang. "We'll catch our deaths."
"You-You don't have to come," Alix replied, wrapping her arms around herself in a vague attempt to conserve whatever body heat hadn't already fled.
"Like hell I don't," Joe responded stubbornly, crossing his arms to keep himself warm as well.
"If you think I'm gonna let you walk home alone in the middle of the night, and in this weather on top of it, you're outta your fuckin' mind."
He was shivering too but he still took off his half-soaked coat and wrapped it around Alix's already-soaked coat anyway.
"What...What do you recommend then?"
Instead of answering, Joe opened the door to the White Rose again.
"Lemme take care of it, dollface." he called over his shoulder as he slipped inside. "Don't miss me too much."
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
About five minutes later, Joe reappeared, dangling a room key with a triumphant grin on his face.
"C'mon Ziskeit," he urged, wrapping an arm around her and guiding her inside where it was warmer. "I told ya I'd take care of it!"
"How did you manage that?" Alix asked incredulously, once she'd stopped shivering so violently. "They don't rent to unmarried couples, do they? It'd be improper!"
As if to answer her question, when they passed the concierge desk, the clerk gave them an enthusiastic parting wave.
"Enjoy your Honeymoon, Corporal and Mrs. Liebgott!"
Alix turned to Joe, wide-eyed.
"Joey, you didn't-!"
But Joe shot her a wink.
"What can I say? I got creative."
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Their room at the White Rose was a bit on the smaller side, right next to the first floor stairwell, and most importantly, it was warm but Alix wouldn't have noticed the difference if it had been a suite at the Waldorf.
Joe's lips pressed urgently against hers and together, they stumbled as one through the doorway in a frenzy of desire, each kissing the other as though their lives depended on it.
"You been drivin' me crazy all night, y'know that?" Joe mumbled haltingly against her lips as he fumbled blindly for the door knob.
"Have I?" Alix asked innocently, lightly nipping at his bottom lip before peeling off her coat and tossing it to the ground.
“Don’t fuckin’ play with me, Zees," he cautioned, pressing her back up against the closed door, which rattled its complaint.
"But why, Joey?" Alix purred seductively, reeling him in by his tie just to brush her lips tantalizingly against his and slip away before he could kiss her.
"It's so much fun to tease you."
"Yeah?" She could hear the smirk in his rough voice but what she hadn’t expected was to feel him behind her.
Catching her hand as he spoke, Joe deftly tugged her back to him and she yielded, allowing him to pin her against the opposite wall instead with a dull thump, caging her between his arms.
"’Cause I bet it's gonna be a whole lot more fun to tease you.”
He started with her jawline, his kisses torturously gradual as he made his way down her arching neck, the heat of his breath sending goosebumps prickling down her limbs.
Locating her sweet spots with relative ease, he latched on, sucking a small trail of love bites into the delicate skin, pulling a breathy moan from Alix’s throat before she could stop it.
He was smirking against the blossoming bruises, she could feel it, and she eagerly nipped a row of matching marks into his neck in return, around the chain of his dog tags, the resulting guttural groan from him making her a little weak in the knees.
His kisses traveled further down at a maddening crawl, making Alix squirm with impatience.
He was keeping her caged against the wall on purpose, forcing her to allow him to take the lead and for an agent so used to being the pursuer, the honeytrap, in-command at all times, she could’ve screamed in frustration.
Sensing her impatience, he captured her mouth in another desperate, heated kiss and she pressed her whole body flush against him with an almost-feline grace.
Slow as pouring honey, she dragged herself agonizingly against him, making sure he felt every inch of her from her breasts to her hips and ass up against him.
She could feel the curve of his hard cock straining through his trousers as it lightly prodded her thigh–– and the sensation inflamed her like a cat in heat.
Tugging him nearer by his tie a second time, Alix leaned just close enough for her warm breath to ghost along the shell of his ear.
“Fuck, I need you, Joey,” she moaned breathily, running a teasing hand over the bulge in his pants and making him shudder from the contact. “I need you so bad.”
“Okay now that,” Joe groaned at her touch. “That’s just fuckin’ cruel.”
“Then do something about it,” Alix purred and that was all the paratrooper needed to hear.
Joe could be a very petty and proud man, but even so: he wasn’t superhuman.
Scooping her up in his deceptively-strong arms, Alix let out a small yelp of surprise as Joe moved her away from the wall and began backing her towards the bed, their lips crashing against each other’s again and again as they stumbled to it, throwing off their clothes as they went.
Joe’s tie, her dress, his shirt, her heels, they all were strewn somewhere on the way but neither of them noticed where.
The backs of Alix’s knees hit the bed and Joe gave her a gentle push, easing her onto it, the mattress springs creaking softly.
But for all his earlier cockiness, the paratrooper was rendered completely awestruck by her nearly-naked form, and he took a step back for a moment, simply standing there in his skivvies, gazing at her in pure disbelief.
“Fuckin’ Christ,” he whispered finally, his eyes roving down her lounging body on the mattress, absorbing the image as though he couldn’t quite believe she was real.
Alix propped herself up on her elbows to give him a better view. Her bra was long gone– tossed to the floor nearby– and all that remained on her were her black garter belt, and matching stockings.
Suddenly, Alix found herself feeling more nervous than she ever had before. Modeling was impersonal. This wasn’t like that at all.
None of the artists had ever looked at her the way Joe was looking at her now, so…so reverently and yet so ravenously at the same time.
Come to think of it, no man she’d ever met had looked at her like that before, with such a mixture of carnal desire and awestruck admiration, and it was driving her wild in the best way.
She needed him. In whatever way he wanted, Alix knew she needed him.
As if he could read her thoughts, he walked to the edge of the bed and gently nudged her legs apart with his hand.
Alix must’ve looked surprised because he gave her a playful wink and settled between her thighs as though he'd always been, the look of pure desire in his eyes sending a tingling sensation to her most sensitive parts.
Shifting the pillows so she could have a better vantage point, Alix could see even from there that Joe’s pupils were blown with lust and she could feel herself reddening under his gaze.
“You just sit back and relax up there, Ziskeit,” he entreated her, the old cocky, flirtatious Liebgott grin she’d seen earlier in the evening returning once again.
“This is gonna be fun.”
“Joey, you don’t have to…” Alix began softly but the feeling of his lips nipping and kissing the inside of her thighs killed the rest of the words in her throat.
God, he was good.
He left a burning path of love bites from her hip bones down her inner thighs, causing her to whine impatiently at the dull ache blooming between her legs.
He was driving her crazy and he knew it too, damn him.
Alix’s breath hitched as Joe eased her panties to the side with a finger.
"God, you're fuckin' soaked," he breathed and Alix felt her heartbeat quickening at the lewdness dripping from his words.
But even underneath the obscenity and voraciousness of his tone, there was an underlying sweetness too.
“You sure you wanna do this, Ziskeit?” he asked tentatively, meeting her eyes and suddenly seeming almost nervous.
“We don’t have to, y’know…I’ll understand, if you don’t…”
Alix frowned.
Had she misread his signals the whole night? Was he just here because he was mollifying her?
“Do you not want to?”
His eyebrows shot up immediately and he sat back on his knees.
“You kiddin’ me? Of course I want to! I just didn’t want you to think-”
“I don’t,” Alix interrupted, knowing instinctively what he was going to say. “I don’t think that, not at all.”
He nodded his acknowledgement and returned to his prone position between her legs.
"Oh, by the way," he remarked nonchalantly, looking up with a positively sinful grin.
"You're gonna be cumming at least twice before we do anythin’ else."
Alix’s eyes must’ve looked like saucers.
“U-Uh,” she stammered, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt now that her face was a deep crimson.
“One thing, before you start. Um…I’ve never…y’know…Not from this…or anything, really. I don’t even know if I can…”
Joe’s eyes were as round as hers as understanding set in.
“Wait, never?” he asked incredulously and Alix shook her head with a nervous titter, suddenly feeling extremely shy.
“Nope.”
Clayton had never been the type to care about her pleasure and the others had been similarly apathetic.
Truthfully, she hadn’t even known sex was supposed to be enjoyable until Lavinia from St. Mary’s had shared stories of her romps in the woods with one of the boys from St. Ignatius.
“I, uh, I hope that’s not a problem, Joey.”
Recovering from his momentary trance, Alix saw something flicker in the golden flecks of his eyes, like 24Karat gold dust…was it affection?
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, dollface,” he reassured her with an easy smile as he nudged her panties to the side once more.
“Just lay back and lemme make you feel good.”
Alix obeyed eagerly and he hooked his arms under her thighs, draping her legs over his shoulders before descending on her heat like some kind of starving animal.
“Oh fuck,” she whimpered, feeling a bit pathetic at the way a few well-placed laps of Joe’s tongue already had her head feeling light.
Tangling her fingers reflexively in his thick, lush brown hair, Alix swore she could feel him smiling as he devoured her, reveling in the way he was making her come undone in a way no one else had.
Minutes later, she was trembling. The assassin everyone was so in awe of was quivering like a leaf in the breeze at every broad stripe of Joe’s well-practiced tongue.
He knew what he was doing, that was for sure.
Her free hand gripping the sheets, she could feel the muscles in her stomach clenching, bracing for each wave of pleasure that Joe’s tongue sent rushing through her.
“Shit, you taste good,” Joe mumbled, greedily lapping at her core like a man starved, burying his tongue so deeply within her that Alix had to scrunch her eyes shut to keep from falling to pieces right then and there.
“So fuckin’ sweet for me, aren’t ya, Zees?”
“O-Oh God,” Alix gasped out, tugging at Joe's hair desperately.
The pooling warmth in her stomach was getting stronger, deeper, her legs trembling as the waves of pleasure began to build, filling up like a balloon seconds from bursting. “Joey, I-I think-"
Joe groaned in excitement, lapping steadily at her core, before beginning to suckle on her clit, causing her vision to flash momentarily white.
Alix let out a strangled cry, her back arching clear off the mattress and involuntarily thrusting her breasts into the air.
“Oh-Oh fuck, Joey,” she mewled, her voice carrying clear across the room as the dam broke. She tried to press her quivering thighs together, the overwhelming sensitivity like a tsunami of bliss completely flooding her senses, but Joe wasn’t done with her.
Not even close.
“Louder,” he urged as he coaxed her through her first orgasm, giving quick kitten licks to her most sensitive spot and teasing her slick entrance with a finger.
“C’mon, Zees, I wanna hear you.”
“Joey, if you keep this up, the whole hall is gonna hear me,” Alix half-sobbed, the pleasure so overwhelming that she could feel her vision swimming.
Joe pressed a soft kiss to her knee before slipping a second finger inside her, sending her keening his name so loudly that she was sure even the clerks at the concierge desk could hear.
“Good,” he affirmed, beginning to scissor his fingers inside her core as her breathing quickened to ragged, blissful gasps.
“Besides, we’re newlyweds, remember?”
He shot her a wink.
“We’re ‘sposed to be at it like rabbits.”
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Alix had always thought the phrase “seeing stars” was just an expression but after the third or fourth orgasm Joe had ripped out of her, she was pretty sure there were lights dancing before her eyes after all.
“You doin’ okay, Zees?” The paratrooper perked his head up from between her legs, the evidence of her arousal glistening on his chin.
His bangs were stuck to his forehead, the both of them covered in a sheen of sweat, but he looked as satisfied as she felt.
“You need a break or somethin’?”
Alix gave him a reassuring smile and shifted her still-trembling legs off of Joe’s shoulders.
“I’m good, Joey.”
He cocked his head and sat back on his heels, eyeing her inquisitively, a note of concern in his husky voice.
“You sure?”
Alix nodded.
“I promise.” She let out a shaky laugh. “I’m just taking a quick second to recover, that’s all.”
Satisfied with her answer, the paratrooper crawled up beside her, back against the headboard, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he searched the face beside him intently for a reaction.
“Pretty fuckin’ good, huh?”
Alix giggled.
“If you couldn’t tell from me screaming your name for however long it’s been, yes, it was ‘pretty fucking good’.”
Joe gave her a playful nudge with his shoulder.
“Just checkin’. Can’t leave Mrs. Liebgott unsatisfied on our honeymoon, y’know. What kinda husband would I be?”
Alix knew he was just joking but the reference still made something in her flutter with delight.
This paratrooper…This technician with the warm smile and the quick wit, who seemed to read her better than anyone else, he intrigued her like no one ever had.
He was an adventure, a revelation, an epiphany, everything she hadn’t known she’d been missing, all wrapped up into one charismatic person.
Feeling something stirring deep inside her again, Alix found herself gripped by a primal urge she couldn’t shake.
She needed him, all of him. Now.
Rolling over onto her side so that she was facing him completely, she could see the taut muscles of his thin, wiry frame, tensing like a panther as he looked at her.
How could he always read her mind?
Giving him a once-over, the spy glimpsed the same salacious shape straining against his underwear.
Leaning over, she began to toy with the waistband of his skivvies, causing Joe's hips to buck up involuntarily as her smooth fingertips dipped below.
“C’mon, Ziskeit,” Joe cajoled, those deep brown eyes full of unspoken pleas for release as Alix resumed kissing down his neck. “Don’t be a fuckin’ tease.”
“If I recall,” Alix murmured against his skin as she grazed her nails down his abs, making him inhale sharply.
“A certain person made me beg for a full five minutes…”
“Well that person's a fuckin’ idiot," Joe grunted desperately.
As he was speaking, Alix slid his skivvies off and took him into her mouth, delicately tracing the head with her tongue.
"And I'm sure he – Oh fuckin’ Christ!” Joe hissed, tangling a hand in her hair desperately to keep some self-control as she went about her work, taking him deeper into her throat.
“Fuck, I’m sure he knows better now."
Alix smirked, hollowing her cheeks and taking him still deeper, pushing him further down, savoring the taste of him, and she could feel his hips starting to buck.
“God, you’re fuckin’ perfect,” he growled but as she deep-throated him again and again, he released her hair, his hands hurriedly finding their way to her shoulders.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Zees,” he choked out, pushing her away gently and it only took that warning tone for her to release him at once with a lewd pop.
“You okay, Joey?” she asked, her turn to be concerned, and he laughed nervously.
“Uh…” he chuckled, sheepishly running a hand through his hair.
“I…I wasn’t gonna last too much longer, if you kept that up. That was… Christ, that was somethin’ fuckin’ else.”
Alix hummed appreciatively before swinging a leg over and straddling his lap.
“Can we try this then?” she murmured, ghosting her fingers up and down his strong arms.
"Jesus Christ," Joe whispered almost reverently from his half-propped position against the headboard, his heavily-lidded eyes roaming every inch of her nude form, still admiring her as though she was a priceless Caravaggio.
"You sure you're not a fuckin' dream or somethin'?"
He slowly reached out, his fingertips ghosting across the valley of her breasts in mesmerized disbelief, as though he was afraid she might disappear at any moment if he was too rough with her.
"I'm real, tesoro," Alix assured him, guiding his hand to squeeze the supple flesh, sending a flood of warmth through her and she could feel him twitch beneath her, prodding her inner thigh with his arousal.
“I promise, I’m real.”
Carding a hand through his hair, she captured him in a long, passionate kiss which he returned just as fervently, the pair moaning deeply into each other’s mouths as she sank down on his cock.
She gasped as he bottomed out, the slight burn filling her with ecstasy, and he groaned deeply.
“Oh fuck, you feel so good.”
Alix didn’t even have the words to reply. The feeling of fullness Joe supplied was unimaginably euphoric, blanking out her mind completely.
Relying on animal instinct alone, she began to roll her hips, rutting against him as desperate keens and gasped curses fell from both their lips like prayers.
Joe wrapped both arms around her waist, burying his face in her breasts with a deep, rumbling groan of ecstasy, gripping her to him as though she was a lifeline, the lifesaving driftwood to a drowning man.
“Madonna mia,” Alix breathed, the fervent motion of her hips stuttering momentarily at the feeling of him latching onto the sensitive skin of her nipple.
She rutted against him desperately, needing more and more of him, tugging on his hair in a silent plea for everything that only he could give her.
“Hey Ziskeit,” he murmurs seconds later, his voice husky with arousal, and she could feel her walls constricting around him tighter and tighter. “Goddammit, I think I’m gonna cum soon...”
Her pace twice as insistent now, Alix bore down on him, Joe’s dog tags jingling musically against her chest as she rode him into oblivion.
“Fuck, Joey, I need you," she murmured, chanting the last three words like a prayer as she felt herself teetering on a precipice for another time.
“Don’t say that," Joe gasped out, his grip around her hips so insistent that she was sure bruises would form later. "Don't fuckin' say that unless you mean it."
He was bucking up against her too, matching her rhythm, every stroke so intense in her core that she was left a whimpering mess.
“I mean it, Joey,” Alix moaned as she pressed his face to her chest, "God, I fucking mean it."
“Oh shit, Jesus Christ!” Panic and pleasure twisted Joe’s handsome features, his voice raising frantically. “Uh, Zees, I- FUCK!”
His warning tone reached a fever pitch just as his orgasm jolted through him, ripping a guttural sound from his throat and leaving him slack-jawed and panting as his cock pulsed.
Alix was seconds behind him, burying her face into his shoulder with a broken sob as another orgasm overwhelmed her, plunging her instantly into white-hot bliss as he held her, murmuring praises in English and what she assumed to be German.
Joe lolled his head back against the headboard, his murmuring voice farther and farther away now. Alix was too fucked out to think anymore and she found herself slumping over on top of his chest like a ragdoll as she drifted off.
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Surfacing from sleep around 1am to find Joe still buried comfortably inside her, the pair of them still tangled in each other’s arms, Alix gently eased herself upright, wanting to take in the scene for a moment, not knowing if she’d ever have the chance to again.
Was this a one-night stand? God, she hoped not. Was it her imagination or was there something more between them?
A spark? No…a flame. More than a flame. An inferno.
In one night, Joe had shown her an entirely different world, an entirely different life than the one she’d been trapped in before.
How could she just go back to normal now, as if she hadn’t been completely and totally changed? As if her entire world hadn’t been rocked by one cocky paratrooper with puppy-dog eyes?
Their clothes, still damp from the sleet, lay discarded in messy bunches along the carpet like autumn leaves.
Thinking back on it, Alix couldn't remember how long it had been since they'd begun but the chill of the remaining frost that had coated them both at the start was long gone by now, replaced with the sticky-sweetness and feverish heat of sweat and sex.
Joe wasn't like Clay or any of the handful of guys she'd been with before, she mused.
They'd all been selfish lovers, entirely focused on chasing their own wants while denying her hers. She was merely a vessel for them to get off, nothing more than a doll to be used and discarded once her purpose had been fulfilled.
In one night, Joe had treated her like the complete opposite.
He was still as full of fire in the bedroom as he was out of it, but for once, it was only for Alix to see. He had been chasing her all night but not in the way the others were. For the first time in her life, someone seemed hungry to please her. The thought was so foreign that it sent another shiver of pleasure through her.
Even in his sleep, Joe’s breathing hitched at the sensation of her walls contracting around him and she couldn’t help but giggle into her hand.
“Whassofunny?” Joe mumbled, cracking an eye open.
“Nothing, cucciolo,” Alix assured him, running a hand through his sex-tousled hair. “Go back to sleep. You need it.”
“I fuckin’ don’t,” Joe insisted doggedly, starting to sit up, but when Alix started to lift herself off of him, he hissed and shook his head.
“Not yet, Ziskeit,” he pleaded, his words still running together a bit in his after-sex haze. “A little bit longer.”
“Then go back to sleep and I'll stay put,” Alix countered.
“Can’t,” Joe yawned. “Can’t sleep much normally, ‘cept after…y’know.”
He made a vague gesture to their situation and Alix cocked an eyebrow, dark eyes sparkling with mirth.
“If that was your way of trying to come onto me again,” she commented drolly. “I appreciate the creativity. I don’t think ‘Fuck me to sleep’ is a line I’ve heard before.”
“Wasn’t a line,” Joe responded with a shrug. “I really can’t sleep for shit."
His warm brown eyes were boring into hers again and she could feel the playful chuckle he was trying to suppress in his voice when he added slyly,
“But y’know, just outta curiosity… if it had been a line, would it’ve worked…?”
She was now hyper-aware of his hands resting gently on her bare back as he held her, the roughness of his calloused fingertips sending sparks dancing deliciously across her soft skin.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, flyboy,” she teased with a soft roll of her hips, but the slight catch of desire in her voice when she felt him stiffen betrayed her.
"Shit," Joe grunted at the sudden movement, pupils blown with desire. "You're such a fuckin' minx, y'know that?"
"Am I?" Alix blinked innocently before clenching the muscles in her core around his cock in a vise grip, making him hiss. "I hadn't noticed."
"Okay that's it," Joe hissed, the rasp in his slightly nasal-tenor coming out as almost a primal growl. Keeping one hand steady on her back, he pulled out and flipped her over, pinning her firmly underneath him.
Alix sunk her nails into his back to keep herself from moaning needily as he buried himself within her once again, rougher this time, the heavenly ache between her legs as he bottomed out causing a small whimper to escape.
“Gotta be quiet now, dollface,” he mumbled, crashing his lips to hers to keep himself from groaning out loud.
“People’re probably sleeping. Like we would be if you weren’t so goddamn gorgeous.”
“Such a charmer, cucciolo, I- Oh fuck!”
Working up speed, Joe began pounding into her mercilessly, seemingly determined to make her pay for teasing him so cruelly earlier, and Alix wrapped her legs around him, craving him impossibly closer to her.
“Tesoro, fuck, I think–” she whimpered from beneath him. “I think I might-”
“Yeah?” he grunted, the vigor of his pace only increasing.
Thinking back on it, his dog tags had been clinking so loudly against his Star of David pendant that Alix hadn’t even heard the door open.
“Real sorry I took so long, Pops,” a soft-spoken but familiar voice rang from the entrance. “But Doc said-”
Shifty Powers, the sweet-faced trooper who’d waved to Joe in the lobby earlier, was now frozen dead in his tracks, his eyes dinner-plate wide as the tall glass of water he’d been carrying slid from his hands, shattering into several glistening chunks on the floor with a CRACK!
He was beet-red but rooted to the spot, his horrified gaze dropping down to the shattered glass at his feet and then back up to the still-intertwined Alix and Joe like he was tied to the tracks of an oncoming train.
“Shit,” he mumbled, stammering out excuses and apologies, half to himself and half to the couple as he immediately dropped to his knees and began busying himself with trying to collect the glass shards. “I- This-this isn’t…and y’all aren’t…But I thought-”
Alix lunged for the comforter, which she hurriedly wrapped around herself like an oversized towel.
“Don’t worry about the glass,” she reassured him kindly, his eyes glued firmly to the ground. “We’ll take care of it. You just get where you need to go.”
“A-Are y’all sure?" He was speaking entirely to the carpet, head dipped to avoid any more accidental views.
If it hadn't been such a humiliating situation, Alix might've giggled.
"I wouldn’t wanna cause y’all any trouble.”
“It isn’t any trouble,” Alix insisted. “Isn’t that right, Joe?”
Joe made a skeptical noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a cough and a grunt, but the glare she shot him could’ve wilted even fake flowers and he finally relented.
“Yeah sure,” Liebgott replied, dulling the sharpness of the irritation in his tone. “No trouble at all.”
“Well alright, if y’all are sure…” Shifty mumbled, his face still a bright cherry red. “I’ll, uh, I guess I’ll just see y’all around. I'm just gonna-"
With that, he fled the room like a bat out of hell, leaving a disgruntled Joe and a mortified Alix in his wake.
"God, I cannot believe that just happened." Alix squeaked into her palms, wishing that the Earth would just swallow her whole.
Even the exquisite soreness between her thighs wasn't worth that.
Joe meanwhile, was muttering to himself as he stepped over the glass shards strewn along a small patch of carpet.
"Going somewhere?" Alix asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“Yeah," Joe grumbled. "To latch and lock that goddamn door.”
Contemporary: November 20th, 1944. Resistance Safehouse, Signy-l’Abbaye, France.
She had been told that her confinement in the dilapidated cabin was for her own protection but Alix was almost certain that the real purpose was to drive her mad enough that even if she were to be captured, she’d have nothing useful to say.
And it was working, the agent thought as she flipped aimlessly through Wuthering Heights for the umpteenth time.
She was going to go out of her mind.
No one in the OSS knew where the leak had come from meaning that everyone was now under suspicion, so the only conceivable solution had been to tuck Alix away somewhere verifiably secure until the source was discovered.
Her sole contact with the outside world came in the form of visits from Captain Nixon, who was the very picture of maladaptive coping mechanisms as he collapsed into a beaten-in armchair by the fireplace with a drink in-hand.
"Any word on Jen– I mean, Agent Perrault?" Alix inquired hopefully but her handler shook his head.
"Not since the last time you asked. Sorry to say but I wouldn't get your hopes up."
He gave a sympathetic grimace before reminding her gently,
"MIA usually means captured or dead."
"'Usually'," Alix insisted doggedly.
"But not always. There's still a chance she's alive somewhere, waiting it out."
Her case officer's expression was strained but he said nothing, opting to take a swig of his drink instead of discouraging her any further.
There was a beat of comfortable silence between the pair and Alix picked at the shoddy couch-cushions beneath her leg with a chipped nail.
She desperately wanted to ask about Joe but she knew better.
She would play it cool.
"So what'd I miss? How is everyone?" she inquired casually but her handler let out a snort.
"You mean, how's 'Joey' ?"
One of the many downsides of being friendly with an intelligence officer, Alix thought ruefully: They Know Too Much.
"A loose cannon, that's how he is," Nixon answered himself before taking a gulp of what was undoubtedly whiskey in his flask.
"He's worried as Hell about you and he's taking it out on anybody within arm's reach. Not to mention, he keeps trying to weasel SITREPs out of me like your status and location aren't strictly Classified."
The captain shook his head with a grudging, mirthless smirk.
"Have to say, I admire his tenacity but I swear to Christ, I'm half-tempted to put a rush on your paperwork just so I can get some goddamn sleep and Dick can have his best interrogator back. Liebgott's no good to anybody like this and don't we all know it."
Joe was worried about her?
Alix didn't know what to say.
Why should he be?
Shouldn't he be relieved that he didn't have to tie up their inconvenient affair with a neat little bow?
But her conflicted musings were interrupted by the crinkling of cardboard.
Nonchalantly fishing a small, rectangular snack box out of his pocket, Nixon tossed it over to her with an exaggerated sigh of reluctance.
“From Muck again,” he elaborated as she caught it, as if she didn’t already know.
Skip had made it a habit of saving his fruit bars for her. He had told her case officer that it was because he was bored of apricot but Alix knew for a fact that was a lie.
It had started long before that.
╔══ •🖤🖤•🖤🖤•🖤🖤• ══╗
9 Months Ago: February 5th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.
“Hey Doc, is it normal to lose feeling in your legs?" Alix wheezed as she and the rest of the company made the final trudge up the hill to their makeshift campsite.
"Because I think mine have died."
“Lucky you,” Don groaned from behind her as he plopped down onto the dirt.
“Mine feel like they're on fire.”
"Mais ya, Pyro," Roe answered as he settled across from her on the ground, swiping some sweat off his forward with his sleeve.
"We jus' did an all-night hike an' on empty stomachs, no less. Perfectly normal to feel numb, I reckon."
"Enjoy it," Penkala advised as he took a seat on the empty patch of grass next to Eugene.
"After the Charley horse I got in Mile 9, I'd welcome some numbness right about now."
From a little ways away, Alix saw Skip Muck– their other best friend– shifting from foot to foot anxiously as he waited in line to speak to Captain Sobel.
As the only NCO in their friend group, it was Skip's job to report their times on each excursion.
Alix was reasonably confident in their speed– especially on nighttime hikes which were a lot less grueling than in the blistering heat of the day– but Muck always did his best to pad their times anyway to avoid anyone getting in trouble.
That was just the sort of person he was and Alix was eternally grateful.
The blond mimed dramatically shooting himself with his finger-gun as he waited for the unfortunately long-winded Mike Ranney to finish handing in his group's times and she let out a small giggle behind her hand.
"Wonder if he'll be done by noon," Don snickered, voicing her own thoughts and Alix shrugged.
"We can dream," she joked as she began to unbox her breakfast unit. "But I'm too famished to wait any longer."
"Agreed," Alex Penkala chimed in and the usual bartering began.
"Hey Penk, I'll trade you my Pork & Eggs for your cereal bar," Alix piped up hopefully but the brown-haired trooper sat forward and squinted, his green eyes skeptically taking in Alix's offering.
"That's what that's s'posed to be?" he asked, seeming genuinely horrified. "Are you sure?"
The Italian's weak nod was the only confirmation he needed to cement his decision.
"Nie, sorry," Penkala answered, partially in Polish and partially in English.
Alix sighed but at least he had the decency to look somewhat apologetic.
"Maybe another day?" he added as the spy turned to the friend seated on her left side.
"What about you, Mal? Pork and eggs for half your biscuits?" she offered but Don jokingly shielded his crackers in response.
"Fat chance," the redhead quipped. "These are getting drenched in coffee, soon as it's done."
"I'll remember this the next time you ask me for a Wrigley's," Alix teased before turning to the medic across the way, whose dark blue eyes were already fixed on her.
"How about you, Gene? Up for a trade?"
She held up the tin with a hopeful smile so the medic could view the breakfast ration within but he shook his head apologetically.
"Uh…'fraid I gotta pass on that," he responded, shooting her a sympathetic grimace as he eyed the tin.
"It don' look fit for human consumption."
Roe wasn't wrong.
The medic's prepackaged block of oatmeal had to be soaked in water from his canteen until it was an almost slop-like consistency the color of wet cement but it still looked better than the culinary monstrosity sitting before her in her own tin.
Using her fork as a poking stick, Alix lightly prodded the chalky egg yolk, hoping to find an angle at which it might at least look a little bit appetizing but found none.
The blocks of pork were so solid that she could hardly get her fork through them and she found herself thinking wistfully of home.
When she was home for breaks in Chestnut Hill, Penny would make the most incredible Irish breakfast known to man every morning – the fluffiest golden eggs, the most mouthwatering sausage accompanied by the scent of sizzling bacon and bread so fresh that you could hear the melodious crackle of the crust.
Just the thought of it was making her stomach growl but her musings were interrupted when Doc Roe reached out from across the way and plunked 4 of his 8 biscuits onto her tray with a shy smile.
"Ya can have 'em for free though, if ya want 'em, che– er, Pyro," he corrected quickly with an awkward cough before adding, "Hope they help."
Alix beamed back at him.
"Gene, you're a real peach, do you know that?"
The tips of the medic's ears turned bright pink and he replied with a "De Rien" so soft that she barely heard it.
Taking a bite of one of the biscuits, Alix let out a sudden yelp of pain as one of her molars connected with the rock-solid bread.
"Cazzo! I think it chipped my tooth!"
"That's why you soak 'em first, genius," a familiar voice bubbled from behind her and Alix turned to greet her other best friend.
"Well well, look what the cat finally dragged in," she remarked playfully as she scooted to make room for Skip in their little circle.
"Christ, Skipper, did you get lost?" Don piped up in-between mouthfuls of soggy cracker.
"Nope, can't afford to," the blond replied with his trademark glowing grin and unflagging positivity, even as he settled cross-legged into the dirt.
"Somebody's gotta keep you two outta the nuthouse."
Eagerly pulling his breakfast unit onto his lap, Skip began sorting through the goods and Alix peeked over his shoulder.
It seemed like that day, only Skip had anything actually worth eating: a Dromedary Bar.
As he slowly peeled back the cellophane, the blond took a second to admire the tropical fruit concoction in his hands and Alix's stomach rumbled enviously.
"Hungry?" he inquired as he began to worm the bar out of its packaging and Alix sighed wistfully.
"Starving."
Flicking out his pocketknife, the blond sawed the bar into two neat halves before scarfing his portion down and gallantly offering the second to his friend.
"You're a saint, Skipper," she proclaimed with a grateful grin as she eagerly wolfed down her half of the sweet treat.
"Nah," he chuckled modestly, wiping his juice-stained hands off on his ODs. "Just looking out for family."
“Bon Dieu,” Eugene had marveled from his seat across from them, shaking his head in quiet bemusement at the pair who had both already finished their sections of the bar.
“Remind me not to let y’all near my mama’s beignets when she send 'em!”
That had been the moment when Joe passed by.
It had started off innocuous enough, just another paratrooper admiring the scenery with his friends, those beautiful russet eyes roving the English landscape around them when they met hers and Alix’s heart thudded in her chest.
The electricity of the unspoken seemed to crackle in the air between them like a lightning storm, so much heat in one glance that it made her cheeks flush like a wild rose.
For a brief second, a conflicted expression flashed across his face and Alix remembered the thought in her mind clear as day:
Two months.
It had been two months.
Joe looked as if he wanted to say something but before he could get it out, one of his best friends– Popeye, she remembered– had distracted him, babbling on and on about their future return to civilization in the coming days.
Alix had never seen Joe appear less enthused. As he was being led away to where the rest of his friends were sitting, he took one last look over his shoulder at her, as if trying to commit her features to memory, as if gathering strength to stay away.
But why?
Two months, Alix remembered thinking sadly as she had watched the handsome paratrooper disappear. It had been two months since-
╚══ •🖤🖤•🖤🖤•🖤🖤• ══╝
The sound of snapping fingers dragged Alix from her memories like a vaudeville cane and when she looked up, she glimpsed a half-concerned, half-amused Lewis Nixon staring back at her from his spot in the armchair.
"Welcome back," he remarked and Alix let out a snort of derision, shrugging off his bemusement as she silently grappled with her thoughts.
Why did the memory of seeing Joe all those months ago make her brain burn? Why did that cryptic phrase echo in her mind: Two months. Two months since what?!
Shaking her head to clear it, the spy focused instead on lifting the ration box's lid and delicately unwrapping the cellophane in her lap.
“Jesus Christ, Nix, nice of you to save me some," she commented dryly, inspecting the remains of a crumbled chocolate bar with a cocked eyebrow.
“Consider it repayment for making me your goddamn mailman,” Nixon deadpanned and Alix rolled her eyes.
“Well if I was allowed outside, I wouldn’t have to have a mailman, now would I?”
“Not this again,” the intelligence officer groaned, holding up his hands in an exaggerated display of helplessness.
"I'm sorry I said anything!"
But it was too late; the floodgates had opened and Alix was already launching into her spiel.
“Nix, it’s been weeks,” she griped, slamming a free hand onto the moth-eaten sofa cushion beside her for emphasis.
“I can’t take much more of this shit! I’m tired of twiddling my fucking thumbs while there’s a war going on out there!”
“You’re preaching to the choir," her case officer said dryly, picking at a twig stuck to his fatigues.
"As soon as your new cover's been backstopped, you'll be the second to know, I swear. So give it a rest, okay?"
A beat of silence ensued and Alix wished fervently that she'd been allowed a radio so she could listen to music.
But alas, a radio signal was too dangerous.
There was no swing jazz on Earth that was worth being found by the Gestapo.
"Have you heard anything about my next assignment?" she probed curiously and the flicker of recognition in his eyes told her he had.
"That's 'Need To Know'," he replied evasively, casting a glance onto the worn-in floorboards. "And you don't, not yet."
Alix huffed impatiently and strained to reach the knife set by her shoulder on the side-table.
Flexing her fingers around the grip, she gave it a leisurely throw just behind Nixon's shoulder at the faded red target on the wall with a THWACK causing him to duck in alarm.
"God, Runt, could you not do that please?" her handler snapped as Alix sent another sailing over his shoulder, the blade whizzing through the air and sinking into the target with another THWACK!
"It's unsettling."
"Is it?" Alix cocked an eyebrow with a smirk, flinging her last knife at the target, the sharp metal sinking into the center with one final, satisfying THWACK!
"My apologies."
"You don't sound very sorry," Captain Nixon grumbled. "But you're going to be in a minute."
Digging into the canvas rucksack he'd placed on the floor earlier, the officer retrieved a hefty stack of paperwork and handed them over the coffee table to her.
"More notes, to be typed into complete reports by 8:00 tomorrow morning. And that's an order."
"Enjoy it while it lasts, Nix," Alix commented sardonically over her shoulder, as she rose from the sofa and crossed to the faded black typewriter resting on the kitchen table.
"They can't keep me cooped up here forever. Soon, you'll have to type up your own fucking notes when I'm in the field again."
"Well you're not there yet, hotshot," Nixon snorted derisively, the corners of his lips quirking up into a grudging smirk.
Summary: "It's born from just one single glance but it dies and it dies and it dies a million little times."
A/N: Bit of a long one tonight, y'all, but I PROMISE it's worth it, even if for no other reason than to twist the knife in your heart lol because this one hURTED
Contemporary: October 25th, 1944. Driel, Netherlands.
Chewing absentmindedly on her thumbnail as she read, Alix tried to ignore the all-too-familiar feeling of eyes boring into the side of her head.
She didn't even have to turn to look; she knew instinctively who it was.
It was Joe.
It was always Joe.
He had been casting wounded glances in her direction like a kicked puppy ever since she'd stormed off the day prior.
Ever since the letter.
Her chest still ached at the memory.
Every time she closed her eyes, she could see “To My Love” inscribed on the letter’s flap like an epitaph.
Like her epitaph.
He wasn’t yours to lose in the first place, Alix chided herself, trying to force herself to stare at the novel she’d gotten in the mail days earlier. Let him be.
But her eyes wouldn’t focus and the deep, icy pain in her chest just wouldn’t leave her alone.
There was no denying it: he hadn't left her mind.
He had been there for her when she needed him most and then…then nothing.
Had it just been pity for her distraught state that kept him there that night?
All signs pointed to Yes.
A month of silence, empty gestures that clearly meant nothing to him, and then a letter from a sweetheart he had apparently been writing to the whole time... Frankly, Alix wasn’t sure whether she wanted to cry or slap him.
Perhaps both; perhaps neither.
Deep down, under all of the hurt and confusion and betrayal she felt, all she wanted to do was run to him for a hug and for answers, for the truth:
Was any of it real or was it all just an act?
Was she just a passing amusement for him?
Was trying to woo her some sort of sick joke?
Had it just been to prove that he could?
Regardless, she’d rather take a nosedive off the Strawberry Mansion Bridge in midwinter than ask.
No man was worth that kind of humiliation, not even Joe.
With a sigh of annoyance, Alix tried to turn back to her worn copy of Wuthering Heights but found herself staring emptily at the pages again.
Skip and Don had been in and out for most of the morning, on some patrol or other, leaving the more or less immobilized spy to her own devices as she waited for the patrol to return, hopefully with a medic so her ankle could be fixed and she could finally get back to work.
She could feel Joe’s eyes on her again, could feel the mournful puppy-dog stare she would encounter were she to look over, and it took all her self-control not to limp over there and tell him to go make eyes at his darling Millicent but fortunately, she didn’t think she’d be able to hop down off the fallen oak by herself.
Just then, a thickly-accented voice interrupted her ruminations.
"’Scuse-moi but uh, Nixon said you were lookin' for me…?"
Lifting her head from her reading, Alix saw a medic standing a bit away, hands in his pockets and shifting from foot to foot as though nervous to approach her.
He was taller than she’d expected him to be, pale and square-jawed with close-cropped black hair and tired eyes so dark a blue that it took her a second to register their color.
“Did he?” she inquired, her brows knitting slightly.
It wasn’t like her case officer to go out of his way to be nice.
The man inclined his head, the ghost of a small smile gracing his face like moonlight over frost.
"Mais ya. Said you banged up your ankle real bad an' that I oughta have a look at it before you make it worse."
There it is, Alix thought with an inward chuckle. There’s the Blackbeard I know.
“Fair enough,” she replied with a simple shrug. "C'mon then."
The man's eyes were alight with quiet mirth, but Alix could see the worry lines etched into his forehead, his thin lips pressed together pensively.
He seemed almost afraid to smile, the spy noted, taking a peek at him overtop of her book as he got himself situated.
Like any moment it could be taken from him.
He was watching her too but Alix pretended not to notice, leaning down and focusing her energy instead on gingerly untying her shoelaces.
Her ankle had been numb most of the day but as soon as she attempted to shift the tongue of her boot even slightly, an agonizing bolt of lightning shot up her leg and she let out an involuntary yelp of pain.
Both the medic and Joe’s heads whipped around at the sound of her cry but before the latter could put down the letter he was writing and get to his feet, the former was already at her side.
“You wan’ some help with that?” the dark-haired medic inquired, concern written all over his features but at first, Alix tensed out of sheer habit.
There was nothing she hated more than asking for help.
But there wasn’t a trace of pity or contempt in the medic’s voice, only kindness, and she slowly allowed herself to relax.
“Maybe,” she answered apprehensively. “If you can keep it from hurting like that again.”
“I can try but it’s gonna start out painful. You gonna hafta trust me."
"Not exactly my strong suit.”
“Gotta start somewhere,” the medic replied, extending a hand with a shy smile.
“I’m Eugene, by the way…Eugene Roe. But you can jus’ call me Gene, if you wanna, like y–”
A loud cough of irritation interrupted their conversation and Alix discreetly peeked over her shoulder to see that Joe had paused yet again from his scribbling to light up his third cigarette of the hour with a scowl as dark as a storm cloud.
Alix shot him a death glare which he pretended not to see.
The sheer audacity of Joe Liebgott to be acting jealous when he had been leading her on for so long, when he’d abandoned her for a month, all while writing home to his real sweetheart, when he was writing to her even now with Alix sitting feet away…
How dare he.
With a toss of her hair, Alix turned her attention back to the medic in front of her, who seemed a bit taken aback by the intensity of her expression.
“Pleasure to meet you, Gene,” she replied with a bright smile. “I’m Alix.”
"I know," he admitted sheepishly. "We met before, used ta work together actually. Was gonna tell ya earlier but…"
He trailed off, neither of them wanting to acknowledge the abrupt interruption.
"Sorry,” Alix said, wincing at her own impaired memory. “My recall's still shit."
But Eugene seemed to take it in stride.
"C'est bon," he responded with a shrug and an understanding smile. "Was a long time ago anyway."
"Still," the spy confided with a frustrated grimace. "I hate not being able to remember things…people..."
"It'll come back, cher," he assured her with a comforting hand on her cheek and her eyes went wide but she didn't pull away.
"Jus' gotta give it some time. For now–"
He gave her a sweet smile that made her feel warm inside.
"Think of it like a fresh start."
From several feet away, Joe cleared his throat again, a raucous sound, and the medic seemed to instantly come back to himself.
Losing his nerve, he quickly pulled his hand away, focusing all his energy on positioning them lightly on her boot instead.
"Now, uh, you ready to get this thing off?"
Alix nodded with gritted teeth and Eugene began to count down.
“Une…Deux…Trois!”
One sudden flash of pain and both her sock and boot were off.
“Merci beaucoup,” she exhaled, her whole body seeming to sag with released tension.
Thank you so much.
The medic’s face lit up with delight like a kid on Christmas.
“Your French don' sound half bad, cher!"
"After 12 years of it in school, I sure hope not," Alix joked and the medic visibly brightened at the sound of her laughter.
"Mais ya, it sounds real good. Y'ain't Cajun but then, there isn't nobody outside the bayou that talk like us."
Suddenly seeming to remember what he'd come for, he busied himself with rolling up her pants leg and examining her swollen ankle, which was now a mottled black and blue.
True to his word, he was careful to touch it as little as possible.
"You been walkin' on it a lot, eh?"
"A fair bit," she conceded. "Just when necessary."
The medic shook his head, clucking his tongue in disapproval.
"C'est pas drole que's all fucked up then. You got a dislocated ankle, cher, an' you been overworkin' it."
No wonder, huh?
Alix could've laughed. She'd spent her whole life chafing against life's constraints. She couldn't stay off her feet for too long even if she tried; she'd go crazy.
"What do you want me to do, Gene, quit my job?"
It had been a joke but the medic wasn't laughing.
"If that's what it takes," he intoned as he began to rifle through his bag in search of a splint set, scolding her affectionately all the while.
"You're lucky you ain't got a fractured foot! Once I do the reduction, you gotta be gentle while it's healin'. That means you gotta stay off it, you got that, pichouette?"
Pichouette.
Mischievous girl.
A term of endearment but a playful one.
“From cher to pichouette that quick, huh?” she teased and he shook his head at the ground to hide his shy grin.
"You really shoulda been more careful, y'know," he chided gently, ignoring her teasing as he began busying himself with his bag.
"You got me… an' Joe an' uh, other people real worried about you."
“It’s sweet of you to worry but I’m not your problem, Gene,” Alix mumbled but he paused his search to glance up at her.
“If you were a problem, I wouldn’ta been worried at all, cher,” he said kindly and Alix could feel the warmth of his tone like a hug.
“Now, I’m gonna need you to hop down an' lay flat on your back for me, ya?”
But the spy shook her head, suddenly self-conscious.
“Um Gene…One problem.”
Eugene cocked his head, brows knit in silent confusion.
“I can’t.” Alix mumbled, inwardly berating herself for forgetting.
“Not without landing on my bad foot. Skip helped me up here but I’d need help getting down.”
The medic immediately rose from his kneeling position, arms extended.
“Jump.”
The spy shook her head emphatically.
“That’s a negative, Gene. I don't do heights, especially not after my last jump."
Eugene cocked his head.
He didn’t seem angry, just confused.
“You don’ trust me?”
“Don’t take it personally,” the spy grimaced. “I’m just not in the habit of trusting people too easily.”
The sweet-faced Eugene took a timid step closer to the trunk of the oak, his voice soft and reassuring.
“Mais, lemme change that then.”
Alix could feel her resolve waning bit by bit but she still had some lingering doubts.
“What if you drop me?” she asked, noting the man’s almost fragile-looking frame
but he chuckled, a sound as warm as the sun rays dappling nearby leaves.
“Cher, I been carryin’ 200 pound wounded troopers back an' forth for Lord knows how long now. I ain’t gonna drop you.”
There was such an earnestness about the medic’s face that she didn’t have the heart to refuse any longer.
“Fine,” she grumbled, trying to keep from looking down. “But you’d better not drop me.”
Even a minor jump felt major since her previous but she resolved to trust him anyway.
After taking one last breath to calm her nerves, Alix leapt into the medic’s waiting arms.
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Despite his slight build, Eugene was a great deal stronger than she’d expected and when he scooped her out of the air, Alix couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up from her chest, even as their noses nearly brushed.
“Okay, okay, you proved your point,” she giggled as he gave her a boost, wrapping his arms tighter around her waist for security, but Eugene wasn’t done.
“Told you I wasn’t gonna drop you, cher,” he remarked with a rare, playful grin, those entrancing eyes of his sparkling in the sunlight.
“Gonna hafta eat crow now, eh?”
Alix swatted at his shoulder jokingly and was it her imagination or were the tips of his ears turning bright pink?
“You, Eugene Roe, are ridiculous,” she mumbled as she wrapped her arms around his neck to steady herself.
Roe licked his lips nervously, his gaze seeming to linger on her mouth for a second as though he were pondering something he shouldn't.
For a brief second, she was somewhere else as an image of herself and Joe flashed before her, the two of them kissing in the moonlight...
But Alix's mind brought her crashing back down to Earth as the memory of the letter, of Millicent's smiling face, of the words "My Love" sealed with a kiss swam before her...
Feeling her stomach drop, Alix turned her head away suddenly, and Roe got the message, his gaze returned to her eyes immediately.
“I'm sorry, I-I uh…” he stammered and Alix gave him an understanding smile.
“Don’t worry about it."
The medic swallowed anxiously, his heartbeat thundering stronger and stronger against her chest like a caged animal.
Keeping his hands securely wrapped around her, he gently guided her down onto her back in the grass, his body just grazing over hers and Alix felt something strange stir within her.
There was a delicacy about his features, even in shadow, that Alix hadn't noticed before his face was hovering inches from her own.
Joe was a blazing wildfire, as passionate and intense as the sunlight beating down on Gene's back, and she was a moth, ever attracted to his flame.
But Eugene... He was different, more aloof, almost serene, but with a gentle magnetism as well that drew her curiosity like the moon and tides.
Even hovering just above her, with his arms lightly caging her against the ground, there was still an unfathomable distance in the medic's eyes, as though he was searching for something in her eyes that he couldn't quite reach.
He radiated a more subdued light but it was still present, and there was a gravitas that grounded him in even his lightest moments.
He wasn't Joe. But maybe that was okay. Maybe he didn't have to be.
The tension between them was as thick as a morning haze and Alix found her own pulse racing as she looked up at him, the flurry of butterflies in her stomach battling the confusion in her mind and the heartache in her chest.
An unspoken fondness seemed to radiate from within Gene’s night-blue eyes as he gazed at her and she couldn’t help but wonder if it had been lingering under the surface all along.
He had said they’d worked together in the past… If that was true, then perhaps he’d kept that fondness hidden for a reason.
Just another "impossibility", Alix thought sadly. Another "almost".
Still, she couldn't deny that there was something about him, a warmth, a comfort that she hadn't noticed before that seemed to pull her to him.
Perhaps it was his gentleness that both drew her and repelled her at the same time.
After all, he had been trained to save lives; she had been trained to take them.
Life and Death.
An impossibility.
She saw his gaze drift down to her lips again, but this time, she didn’t turn away, even as she heard the angry clatter of Joe dropping his canteen to the ground.
Eugene leaned down, his eyes timidly asking a question she already knew her answer to, when a piercing wolf-whistle rang out, startling the medic so much that he rolled off her immediately with a muttered “Merde” just as a cluster of paratroopers emerged from the brush.
"Way to go, Doc!" someone jeered and there were snickers and scattered applause throughout the remainder of the group as the medic sat up and began feverishly rifling through his canvas bag instead, sorting bandages and the like as he avoided the stares.
“You guys are a real riot,” Alix commented sarcastically, propping herself up on her elbows and making a face at the gawking newcomers.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than gape like goldfish?”
A man near the front of the group who Alix recognized as Joe's friend, Sergeant Talbert hooted,
"Damn, we go on patrol and miss all the fun! Wonder if they–"
"Tab, shut your goddamn mouth before I shut it for you!" Joe snarled uncharacteristically from his spot in the clearing and Tab held his hands up, wisely choosing not to continue his statement.
The spy glanced nervously over at Joe who set his jaw and turned away, glaring daggers at the grass instead as though daring it to wilt under his stare.
"All y'all can get a move on already," Bull commanded with the exasperated sigh of an elementary school teacher attempting to control an unruly class.
"Ain't nothin' to see."
Once the returning group had begun to disperse, the medic ceased his search and turned to look at her, seeming almost helpless, like a rabbit caught in a snare.
"I'm sorry… I mean, I shouldn'tve… Mais, you an' Joe… Did I–"
"NO," she stated sharply– more like a punch to the gut than a reassurance– before shaking her head and correcting herself.
"No," she repeated, gentler this time. "You're fine, Gene."
"But I thought y'all–" Roe began, casting a worried look over his shoulder at Joe but this time it was Alix who reached out with a wan smile and a reassuring hand on his cheek, turning him back to her.
Contemporary: October 25th, 1944. Driel, Netherlands.
“Genie, how long do I have to stay like this?” Alix groaned as she stared up at the sky with her knee bent while the meticulous medic inspected her ankle yet again.
“My leg’s starting to cramp.”
"Jus’ hang in there, cher,” he soothed as he cautiously applied a bit of light pressure to the area once again, causing her to hiss in pain as he examined her range of motion.
“You don’ want me rushing this.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Alix caught a glimpse of Joe nearby, pacing back and forth like an anxious guard-dog, his forehead creased with worry lines as he took a hasty drag of his cigarette.
"Whaddya need, Doc?" he asked as Roe assessed her ankle one final time. “What can I do?”
“Well ‘scuse me for being fuckin' worried about you,” Joe shot back.
The heartbroken spy was about to tell him exactly where he could shove his false “worry” when Eugene's slightly modulated voice cut her off, giving Joe an instruction seemingly from the depths of Alix’s own heart.
"Hold her hand."
Alix practically choked on air.
"What?!"
The spy began struggling to get up but the medic stopped her with a gentle touch to her shoulder and lowered his voice so only she could hear.
"I ain't exactly jazzed about it either, cher," he said softly and with the mournful look in his beautiful blue eyes, she didn't doubt it.
"But puttin' personal feelings aside, you gonna need somebody to grab onto so you don' pass out."
Alix scoffed inwardly.
"Putting personal feelings aside," he'd said.
As if there had ever been a time when Gene put his feelings anything but dead last.
"I'd rather be unconscious than touch him," she muttered bitterly and perhaps it was his guilty conscience or perhaps it was genuine concern for her well-being, but either way, Gene wouldn't hear any more of her protestations.
“Jus' till the reduction's done,” he pleaded as he helped Alix out of her jump jacket, which she would need to bite on for the pain.
“Mais, if I could find Spina, I'd hold your hand myself an' let him do it, but he ain't close."
Alix chewed on her bottom lip, glancing around the clearing as she weighed her options.
Don had gone in search of a German Luger for his nephew and Skip had gone with him to ensure he wouldn’t die.
The pair had offered to carry her but she didn’t want to encumber them.
The woods were dangerous enough as it was without adding another load to their packs.
So, they had gone, leaving Alix with Gene, Joe, and her own thoughts, surrounded by a group of relative strangers.
As much as she hated to admit it, Joe was looking like the only option so reluctantly, she relented.
“Fine, whatever, let’s get it over with.”
With a satisfied nod, Roe began assembling the necessary components of the splint set and Joe knelt beside her.
Shivering slightly in her camisole, she tried to pretend he wasn't there, staring straight ahead into the tangle of branches and shadows that comprised the surrounding forest.
“Hey, you okay, Ziskeit?" Joe inquired, the familiar gravel of his voice softening around the foreign word.
Zees.
Zee-skite.
There was something comforting about the way it seemed to roll so easily off his tongue like a reflex, like a prayer.
Alix shook her head to clear it.
Remember who he is, she told herself, noting the ink-stains that seemed to mar his fingertips.
Ink stains from the letter he had been writing earlier, no doubt a reply to the one that haunted her memory.
Remember all the lies.
She wondered vaguely if he called Millicent that word back in California.
Zeeskite.
Probably just another recycled line.
But even still, when he slowly reached for her hand, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away and as he laced their fingers together, a flurry of butterflies erupted in her stomach.
Their fingers interlocked perfectly, like they were made for each other.
"You can squeeze too, y'know," Joe added, giving her shoulder an affectionate brush with his own. "If ya need to, that is."
Alix fought to keep her face neutral and inwardly cursed the stubborn heat creeping up her neck and cheeks anyway.
"I don't wanna hurt you though," she squeaked but Joe just chuckled.
"Break my fuckin' hand for all I care, Zees," he joked with an easy shrug and his laugh felt almost… familiar, as if she’d heard it a million times before.
But he sobered quickly, using his thumb to lightly caress the back of her hand.
The blinding sunlight light up each ray of honey-gold in his hypnotic brown eyes, creating a dazzling shimmer almost like the flicker of a flame.
"Seriously though, this ain't about me." His forehead was etched with worry lines.
"You're the one who's gonna be in pain so you fuckin' squeeze as tight as you need to, okay? Don't worry 'bout me; I can take it."
He was being so considerate that it actually hurt and she found herself wishing he would've just been an asshole. It was easier to remember to hate him that way.
"Don't," Alix mumbled, the frigid ache in her chest returning as she noticed the ink-stains on his skin for a second time and she very nearly pulled her hand away.
"Don't do that."
Joe's brows scrunched in confusion.
"Do what?"
There was no malice in his voice anymore when he spoke, the sharp edge from earlier seemed to have evaporated with the morning mist.
It was an honest question that deserved an honest answer.
Could she give him that?
Alix dropped her gaze, unable to look him in the eye as she answered, studying each blade of grass they were seated on instead like a coward.
Her voice sounded hollow, the words burning in her throat like sawdust as she spoke:
"Don't pretend to care about me."
She would've rather endured a hundred interrogations than take comfort in his lies, especially now.
There was a heavy silence for a moment as Joe registered her comment, followed by a small sigh as his chest seemed to deflate.
"Christ, Zees, you think I'm pretending?"
He wasn't angry, although she wished he would be.
If he just shouted at her then she could return fire and the dislike wouldn't feel so goddamn one-sided.
But he didn't treat her like he did the men of the company. He might bristle at her accusations, might even snap as he rose to her bait, but she had never once heard him truly yell in anger, not at her.
For a man with such a reputed temper that prisoners would slouch to avoid his gaze, it was almost unfathomable.
An unexpectedly soft hand on her arm roused her from her thoughts.
It was Eugene, who gave her a wan smile.
“You ready, cher?”
"You're gonna be okay, Zees," Joe murmured with one last encouraging squeeze of her hand and Alix took a shaky breath before confirming her assent.
"I'm ready."
"Une…"
The medic tensed as he positioned one hand on her hind foot and the other on the lower part of her shin. Alix bit down on the sleeve of her jump jacket.
"Deux…"
There came a slight pressure to her ankle like a warning and she braced herself, leaning subconsciously against Joe's shoulder for comfort.
"Trois!”
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Nothing could have prepared her for the pain.
Feeling the pop of bones slamming back into place was like a thousand kitchen knives stabbing her nerves, like a roaring fire engulfing her ankle, needle-sharp sensation so intense that it was momentarily blinding.
Alix gripped Joe's hand so tightly that she lost feeling in her own as a strangled cry was ripped from her throat, fortunately muffled by the thick material of her jacket.
“Jesus Christ, Doc!” Joe snapped and Alix could feel the instinctive coil of his muscles, like a wildcat set to pounce as he rounded on Gene.
“Give her a second, will ya, you’re fuckin’ hurting her!"
The medic ignored him for a moment, focusing his energy instead on the first internal rotation of her ankle, causing Alix to groan in misery and squeeze Joe’s hand still tighter.
"Don' got no choice," the medic grunted apologetically, not even looking up from his work.
"Can’t stop now. Shoulda stayed at the aid station where they got anesthetic. But she almost done; Jus' got one more part of the reduc an' one more rotation."
"One more, Zees," Joe mumbled, releasing her hand and wrapping his arms around her like a protective blanket.
"Just one more. You’re doing real good."
“Une…"
Through the red fog of her misery, Alix could vaguely feel Gene readjusting his grip on her heel as he counted down and she sank back into Joe as she fought to remain conscious.
"Deux…"
The medic was beginning to apply pressure and feeling her tense in preparation, Joe pressed a kiss to the top of her head and began to gently smooth her hair in an attempt to offer comfort.
"Trois!”
"Dio Santo!" Alix swore, bolting upright as the final bone slid back into place with a pop, causing involuntary tears to slide down her blanched cheeks like rain.
"C’est tout," the medic announced a moment later, sitting back on his heels.
"The hard part's done. Now we jus' gotta keep it all in place."
As the medic positioned the wire splint against her foot, Alix managed to summon enough strength to slide herself out from under Joe’s arms.
She wanted nothing more than to lean back into him again, to let him hold her close, but she couldn’t…Not when she knew he would only be thinking of Millicent.
“It went good, cher,” Eugene praised as he began to wrap her ankle in protective bandages, oblivious to her conflicted thoughts.
"But don’ let me catch you walkin’ on this thing till it’s good an’ set, you got that? You need somethin’, you better be askin’ somebody to go get it.”
Great, Alix thought, watching forlornly as Eugene finished and began packing his remaining supplies into his bag.
She’d be stuck for at least an hour and she doubted Joe would miraculously decide to leave her alone.
“I gotta go make my rounds, cher, but I’ll be back, alright? Soon as I can.”
“Can I at least sit back on the log then, Genie?” she bargained and the medic nodded grudgingly as he stood up, thin lips twitching into a smile.
"Mais ya, as long as you're careful."
Scooping her up like he had before, Gene plopped her comfortably onto the fallen oak before giving her a lightning-quick peck on the cheek.
Alix had always imagined that the first kiss between two people would be magical like the ones in the novels she read.
When Heathcliff burst into Catherine’s room in Wuthering Heights and swept her up into his strong arms, planting a whirlwind of passionate kisses upon her, their love was like a force of nature.
But when Gene had kissed her cheek… No lightning strike, no giddy sparks like fireworks going off in her head.
Nothing at all except for a tiny twinge of guilt serving to only make her more confused.
This was what she had wanted, wasn’t it, what all her curiosity about the medic had led to?
Then why wasn’t she satisfied?
Why was she always searching for something she couldn’t find, something she wasn’t even sure existed?
But clearly Gene had been satisfied because when he stepped back, the tips of his ears were scarlet again and his half-mumbled "I'll see you around, cher” came out almost dazed.
He had just turned to leave when Joe jumped to his feet, stopping the medic by his elbow as he passed, and Alix held her breath as she awaited the seemingly inevitable conflict.
The medic froze in his tracks, the two men standing face to face.
Eugene was taller by a good 5 inches but even so, Alix had no doubt that Joe would gain the upper hand in a heartbeat.
But to her surprise, no conflict ensued.
"I- uh– just wanted to say thanks, Doc,” Joe said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Y'know, for takin' good care of my... of Alix."
Even so, Eugene eyed him warily.
"Lieb," he began, his tone cautious. "Jus' so you know, I'm not tryna-"
"Doesn't matter."
The medic raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"What?"
Joe exhaled slowly and he tried to muster up a smile but there was a flicker of pain just behind it.
When he spoke, there was a catch in his gravelly voice and the words were so quiet that Alix had to strain to hear them.
"If she's happy, I'm happy."
The spy distinctly saw Eugene's shoulders relax at his fellow trooper’s words and the Southerner gave him a polite nod before walking off, leaving Alix alone with the one person she had been trying to avoid.
Summary: Years of preparation have led up to this moment: D-Day is here.
Contemporary: June 4th, 1944. Upottery Airfield, England.
Waking up next to Joe was heaven but the day itself was far from it.
Alix's assumption had been correct: the original plan was to jump on the 4th but the powers that be (also known as General Eisenhower) deemed the heavy cloud cover, fog, and strong winds too risky so at the very last minute, a 24-hour stand-down was ordered.
Everyone was understandably peeved: all that preparation and psyching yourself up mentally, just to have the metaphorical brakes slammed on right before takeoff.
But although she’d never admit it out loud, Alix was honestly relieved. As much as part of her wanted to just get the damn drop over with, another part was grateful for the small delay.
She’d take as much time as she could get without people trying to kill her and her friends.
As she settled in between Joe and Malarkey to watch Mr. Lucky for what felt like the millionth time, Alix couldn’t help but feel a twinge of grief: Gio would’ve loved this film.
Her older brother, Giovanni, had been the world’s biggest Cary Grant fan and every time he had shore leave, he'd drag Alix to the movies with him to see the latest picture starring his favorite actor.
She'd seen Suspicion and His Girl Friday so many times when she'd visited that she swore she could recite them backwards, line by line.
But Gio would just roll his eyes at her half-hearted complaints.
“Mom made me sit through years of your God-awful piano recitals,” he'd remind her as they stood in line at the box office. “You owe me."
"That's not fair," Alix would protest as they collected their tickets and made their way into the lobby. "I quit piano like ten years ago!"
"And thank God for that," he would joke, earning him a smack on the arm from his younger sister.
"What you did to Moonlight Sonata should be considered a crime!"
Now 23, Alix's heart sank at the faint echoes of Gio's breezy laugh in her mind.
She could feel it slowly slipping from her memory, every day a little more. She was forgetting him slowly and she hated herself for it.
Gio hadn't been seen for 3 years, not since the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ship he'd been serving on, the Arizona, had been completely destroyed in the bombing and Giovanni had been one of many classified as MIA.
For the first year or so, Alix and her family held out hope that perhaps he'd survived somehow. But eventually, her mother told Penny to stop setting an extra place at the table and Alix knew.
No one spoke about it. Her father found refuge in women and booze. Her mother found refuge at mass and in her garden.
And Alix…Alix was the same age as Gio had been when he disappeared, and she was over three thousand miles away just like him, about to throw herself into a fucking war zone.
Sensing something was wrong, Joe leaned his shoulder slightly against her own like a worried puppy, just enough to say “I’m here if you need me” without actually saying a word.
She didn't say anything but aimed a small, grateful smile in his direction anyway so he knew she understood.
After checking around them to be sure no one was paying attention, Alix reached over and slipped her hand into Joe's, giving it a quick squeeze.
I love you.
His lips curved into a warm smile and he squeezed her hand back, eyes still trained on the film.
I love you too.
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━━━∆∆━━━━∆∆
Contemporary: June 5th, 1944. Upottery Airfield, England.
The following day seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace and having Lewis Nixon breathing down her neck wasn’t helping.
Alix had already spent her morning poring over her forged passports and IDs for any possible mistakes. One wrong letter, one misplaced stamp, and she could be found out. She was nervous enough as it was without Lieutenant Nixon pacing behind her like a mother hen, peppering her with questions she'd already answered.
“What about your radio?”
Even with the cam cream smeared strategically on his face, Alix could still see the frown lines creasing his brow.
“You do have your radio, right?”
“Yes sir,” the young agent reminded him, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.
He'd already asked that twice.
“Everything’s either in here tucked under the First Aid supplies—"
She patted the worn canvas messenger bag hanging off her shoulder, the red cross emblazoned on it falsely identifying her as a combat nurse.
"— or here," she gestured to her shirt.
Everyone knew that the Nazis found it morally degenerate to strip-search women, a fact which Swallows and now Sparrows relied on to carry out their missions.
Important documents and her L-Pill, also known as the lethal cyanide pill, were pinned to the underside of her bra for safe-keeping.
“Good,” Nixon affirmed gruffly and Alix was suddenly reminded why people below him called him Blackbeard behind his back. “And you know your orders, correct, Agent?”
“Yes sir,” Alix replied, repeating them back to him in a voice much more confident than she felt:
“Get to the nearest available shelter, radio in, if possible. Rendezvous with our French assets, gather intel, sniff out the mole. Then once he or she is taken care of, we move to phase 2: Bang & Burn. I radio in and we go from there.”
More formally known as a demolition and sabotage operation, the Bang & Burn would be the easy part. Now finding the mole…that could be troublesome.
Alix knew her instincts were good but still, she worried:
Were they good enough? What if she killed the wrong person?
As if he could hear her thoughts, Lieutenant Nixon gave her a grudging nod, the first sign of approval she’d ever gotten from him.
He hesitated and for a split second, she thought her case officer might actually say something nice for a change but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he just gave her another, more final nod before stalking off, most likely to find Colonel Strayer to compare notes.
Taking a deep breath as she tried to calm her nerves, Alix felt around her bulky uniform for the fiftieth time, double-checking every piece of equipment, no matter how small. Everything from her leg bag to her pistol would be vital in the coming hours.
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Alix had always hated flying and this time was no different. The cacophonous rattling of the metal, the roaring of the engines, the howling wind just outside, she could barely hear herself think and knowing how dangerously high up they were did nothing for her nerves.
The air sickness pills were starting to make her woozy and she almost cracked a smile at the memory of what Skip– who was now snoring soundly to her left– had said hours earlier when they were first given the pills.
"Can't be airsick if we're not awake, can we?" he'd piped up with his trademark grin as he popped a pill in his mouth.
Now, leaning forward a bit, Alix peered around the sleeping Skip to check on Don. He was just barely awake, staring blankly in front of him into the darkness with his lips pressed together in a thin line. Hands clasped in front of him, he looked about as anxious as she felt.
Feeling her eyes on him, Don glanced over to her and Alix mustered up a shaky half-smile.
We're gonna be okay.
Her best friend tried to return the expression but only succeeded in a small grimace, his apprehensive-looking brown eyes silently voicing her own fears:
Are we?
Alix squeezed her eyes shut so he wouldn't be able to see the rising panic she knew was there.
She couldn't afford to show her fear, not now, not even to her best friends.
But even still, she was terrified.
Sandwiched between her two best friends and her boyfriend, she took a couple deep breaths before slouching down in her seat, her head dropping as she allowed the drowsiness from the pills to take over.
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━━━∆∆━━━━∆∆
Alix surfaced from sleep hours later to find she’d spent most of her night accidentally slumped over onto Joe’s shoulder.
Lifting her head, the young spy forced herself to sit up groggily, hoping no one had noticed.
Luckily, everyone else seemed to still be asleep, except Lieutenant Winters who was gazing out the door into the night and her boyfriend Joe, who gave her an encouraging wink that somehow made her cheeks turn pink even in the near-darkness.
Despite the bags under his eyes, he already looked pretty awake and knowing him, he probably had been for some time.
Joe Liebgott was a notorious insomniac and it would take more than a couple air sickness pills to cure him of that.
Still a bit drowsy, the young OSS agent was in the process of stretching out her cramped legs to wake herself up when she received an elbow to her left side.
Her head whipped around and there was Skip, holding a pack of cigarettes and grinning at the couple like the Cheshire Cat.
“G’morning,” he chortled, waving the pack in front of them. “Either of you lovebirds care for a smoke?”
“Sure thing,” Joe replied eagerly, never one to turn down a cigarette, especially under stress. “Thanks!”
"Anytime, Lieb!"
Skip dutifully extended the pack across Alix’s lap so Joe could grab one before offering it to his best friend, his amber eyes twinkling knowingly.
“What about you, Pyro? You want one?”
Removing her thick gloves, Alix gave him a wry look.
“Depends. Does it come with an I-Told-You-So?”
“You know it does,” was the smug reply.
“Fine, fine,” she relented, plucking a cigarette from the pack with an exaggerated air of defeat “Go ahead, Skipper, let me have it.”
Ever the gentleman, her best friend at least had the decency to give all three of their cigarettes a light before settling back into his seat triumphantly like a king returned to his throne.
“I’m just saying, Pyro,” he yelled over the clamor of the engines, an all-too-satisfied expression painted across his face. “I fucking called it!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alix responded, rolling her eyes amiably as she took a drag. “Rub it in more, why don’t you?”
“Nah,” Skip remarked cheerfully. “I figure I oughta leave some jokes for Don whenever he wakes up!”
Joe cocked his head to look at her, his brows knit quizzically, but Alix shook her head, still laughing.
Don’t ask.
For a brief moment, it was like she was back in Aldbourne again. No stakes, no fear, just joking around with the friends who had become like family to her with the man she loved by her side.
But as quickly as her laughter came, it disappeared.
The order was given, they stood, the light was green, Joe squeezed her hand quickly and then before she knew it, Alix was leaping out into the dark abyss below.
"Ghost" by Halsey
You say that you're no good for me / 'cause I'm always tugging at your sleeve / And I swear I hate you when you leave / but I like it anyway
Summary: Alix tries to come to terms with what she's done as she endeavors to reunite with the people who mean the most to her.
A/N: Long, action-packed chapter? Long, action-packed chapter. 👍🏽
WARNINGS: War things, death (obviously), mentions of corporal punishment, Night of the Bayonet Mention.
Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @wwhatev3r
Contemporary: June 12th, 1944. Carentan, France.
She didn't remember firing the shots. Subconsciously, Alix knew it had to have been her: she was the only other person in the room but she couldn't remember pulling the trigger. It was like her brain just wouldn't go there.
She stood there for a second, frozen and numb, as her former friend’s blood dripped down her cheeks like a light rain.
You completed your mission, she told herself like a mantra.
You killed an enemy spy.
But a part of her that sounded suspiciously like JP whispered, “You killed your friends too.”
In our business, caring for people is their death sentence.
Jean-Pierre’s words rang in her ears worse than the gunshots.
He was right. Everybody she cared about ended up dead: Giovanni, Toulouse, Henri, Camille, JP.
Who would she get killed next? Joe? Skip? Don? Nixon?
Suddenly realizing she was trembling, Alix felt like she might pass out.
Was it a sin to faint in church? She sure hoped not. But she’d also just killed someone in a church and she felt like somehow, that was probably worse.
Trying to remember what Doc Roe had taught her during her First Aid instruction months earlier, she managed to stumble into a pew and doubled over, putting her head between her knees as she tried to calm herself down.
Deep breath in…Deep breath out…Deep breath in…
After a minute or two, Alix was already feeling a little better when the sound of shattering glass from the entrance jolted her to her feet as her training kicked in.
Immediately, she moved forward a pew, where Jean-Pierre's body had fallen sideways. He was completely limp, gray eyes still staring blankly, the ghost of his last smirk still on his face.
The blood from the two bullet wounds was starting to pool behind his head onto the pew, matting his light brown hair.
She was startled by how much younger he looked now.
He looked like his age for the first time...the age he should have gotten to be. Not an enemy agent, just a kid.
Warily, Alix reached out and checked for a pulse but there was none.
With a small grimace, she dug into her bag for her radio & set up camp for a single message:
"Édouard, this is Juliette. Target eliminated. Out."
After hurriedly packing her radio gear back into her bag, she began patting down JP's coat and pockets, searching for any documentation or weapons he might've been carrying.
She hated this part– it made her feel like a scavenger picking over a dead deer in the woods– but it had to be done. If a target had information or supplies, she needed to know.
Jean-Pierre had been traveling light, which didn't surprise Alix at all. He was an intelligence agent like herself; he needed to be able to disappear as quickly as he appeared.
In one of his pants pockets, she found two different sets of forged identification papers which she deftly dropped into her aid bag, along with his revolver, and the small black notebook he'd been scribbling in, with more documents shoved haphazardly inside.
As much as her curiosity was killing her, the thunderous shouting from just outside the front entrance was more pressing and Alix had to remind herself that if she survived whatever fresh hell came next, she could examine the documents afterwards.
Keeping her gun loaded, she silently crept toward the doors, blending with the shadows along the ground.
As she pressed her back against the wall, just out of sight, she braced herself to hear the guttural tones of spoken German but she was pleasantly surprised to hear familiar voices on the other side instead.
“Crazy fools, the Irish!”
It was Don and Skip.
“You should know!”
“Awful rich coming from you, Skipper,” Alix quipped as she emerged from the church’s doors and slipped behind the giant stone column next to Don. “Aren’t you the nutcase who swam the Niagara?”
Skip shot off a quick round, a grin immediately spreading across his face at the sound of her voice in his periphery. He didn’t even have to look back to recognize her.
“Hey Mal," he exclaimed to Don before hustling over to another column next to their previous one. "Look who decided to join the party!”
Malarkey, positioned just next to Alix, took a shot before turning to greet her with a grin but as soon as he did, it vanished, immediately replaced by a look of concern.
“Jesus Christ!" he yelped, nearly dropping his rifle. "Pyro, are you okay?!”
Alix’s brows knit in confusion before she remembered: she must look like hell. Her uniform was soaked in mud and gore, her once-lustrous curls now hanging limp and matted down her back, her face striped with blood that wasn’t her own.
“I’m good, I swear” she reassured her friend as she shuffled toward the edge of the column so she could peek out. “Bit of a rough start but it’s done now. Anyway, has anybody seen-”
“Romeo went that way,” Skip answered before she could finish, a knowing look on his face as he nodded across the way to the ruins of what had once been a pharmacy. “Place got hit with German arty earlier. Joe was fine but Tipper…”
He shook his head grimly before stepping out from behind his section of wall to take another shot, yelling over his shoulder,
“Tip wasn’t!”
“Last I saw, Joe, Welsh, and Penk were taking Tip to the aid station,” Don chimed in helpfully before stepping out from their shared column and sending a spray of bullets toward a small cluster of approaching German soldiers. “'Bout half an hour ago!”
Alix had her orders but she figured a five minute detour wouldn’t hurt. They would be moving out soon anyways, she'd made contact with her handler, and she'd completed her mission.
She could afford five minutes to find her boyfriend.
She peeked out from behind the column but before she could even prepare to cross, who should come striding over the hill not 10 feet away from them but Joe, her Joe.
He was with a group of four or five other guys but even so, Alix recognized him right away. He was the shorter one toward the front with the wiry frame and the confident swagger of a warrior.
Bullets whizzing over his head, explosions going off mere feet away from him, but he was the only one who didn't look afraid.
He was in his element.
As if he could hear her admiration, he glanced up for a moment, just across the way to where she, Skip, and Don were positioned. Joe's eyes met hers and the recognition that lit them up was like a lighting strike.
His loping gait quickened and the grip he had on his weapon tightened as Joe fixed his gaze back on the approaching enemy seeking to cut his little band off from reaching the front entrance of the church.
The expression on his face was positively dangerous and he glanced back once more to Alix before setting his jaw with a seething determination.
Even from the distance, she could read his expression loud and clear:
"I'm coming for you, Ziskeit," it said. "And I'll be damned if anybody gets in my way."
Seeing her boyfriend cut through a squad of German soldiers on the battlefield with terrifying ease, Alix was reminded of a line from The Iliad she'd read in school, an epithet for the ferocity of Achilles:
"the lionheart who mauls battalions wholesale".
That was her Joe, she mused as she watched him fight the rapidly-scattering remainder. The lionheart.
Despite the overwhelming urge to rush to him on the battlefield, she, Skip, and Don backed around the corner instead, situating themselves behind the wall of the cathedral for more cover.
Each of them had to step over dead bodies and blood pooling down the cobblestones on their way but the vantage point was much better since now they could shoot without being as exposed.
Alix rooted herself to her position and forced herself to wait, hoping Joe would make it to their side of the church wall uninjured.
After what seemed like an eternity, the gunfire died down, the smoke and dust beginning to clear, and Don scooted from his spot beside her to peek around the corner.
"Looks like we did it," he reported with a grin. "Got 'em on the run!"
Alix laughed, relief washing over her, and a minute later, Joe came dashing around the corner, his helmet haphazardly falling to the ground as he ran. Alix caught her breath as he made an instant beeline for her, his brown eyes wide and fear-filled as they roved her blood-spattered face.
All of the gunfire and explosions that had gone off around him on his way to her but now he looked afraid.
"Oy Gevalt," he breathed, dropping his rifle so his hands were free. "How bad are you hurt? Can you walk? C'mon Zees, we gotta getcha to-"
He began to move toward her, ready to scoop her up and run the five miles to the aid station by himself if need be, but Alix launched herself into his arms, cutting him off with a searing kiss instead.
But Joe froze, momentarily stunned, and Alix pulled away immediately, her elation turning to sudden dread. Fearing she'd unknowingly crossed some line and ruined everything, she took a small step away.
"I-I'm sorry," she stammered, searching in vain for an explanation but before she could get another word out, Joe caught her arm and yanked her back to him, crashing his lips against hers with such passionate fervor that it made Alix's head spin.
Carding her hands through his hair, the sweet electricity of his lips on hers sending shivers of pleasure down her spine.
No doubt thinking she was cold, Joe wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest, and she could feel heat creeping up her cheeks as he deepened the kiss still more, eliciting a soft moan from her throat before she could stop it.
"Oh wouldja look at the time!" Skip declared from behind them, his sunny-sounding laughter bubbling into his words. "C'mon Mal, let's leave the lovebirds alone, huh? We got places to be!"
Alix didn't even have to open her eyes to know he was dragging Don away with him by the collar. She knew her friends like the back of her hand.
She felt Joe smiling just a bit too smugly against her lips.
"See," he teased gently, punctuating his words with shorter kisses. "They know…about us… and…they don't care."
Alix dropped her gaze to the ground, suddenly remembering what JP had said.
Caring about people is their death sentence.
"I know they don't care," she replied quietly. "But I do."
Joe's brow knit in confusion and he frowned, letting her go.
"Why?" he asked, leaning back against the church's wall and crossing his arms to keep from reaching for her again. "You embarrassed of me or somethin'?"
He was trying to come off tough, uncaring, but Alix could see the wounded look in his eyes.
"It's not that at all, Joey," she reassured him, caressing his dirt-streaked cheek with her thumb.
"Then what is it?" he asked hoarsely, turning his face from her. "And don't say Fraternization 'cause we’re in combat now. They need all the soldiers they can get; I’d have to drop-kick an officer from here to Anaheim to get a reprimand. Holding your hand ain't a problem.”
Alix looked at him sadly as JP's words haunted her thoughts yet again.
Caring about people is their death sentence…This is your fault…
“They’re going to use the people I love against me, Joey," she whispered and his eyes widened with concern.
"Who, Zees?" he asked, immediately taking both of her hands in his own. "Who's got you so scared?"
Alix screwed her eyes shut but the gunshots and the thud and the image of JP's corpse lying in blood swam before her and she forced her eyes back open with a shudder.
"Talk to me, Ziskeit," Joe begged, "Please."
"There was a double-agent among my contacts," she confided, her voice quivering slightly. "I took care of him but it was too late…I've been compromised."
Joe took a minute to process her statement as Alix tried in vain to find words that could properly articulate how violated she felt.
A spy's biggest advantage was their invisibility. The ability to shed one skin for another was her only saving grace when behind enemy lines…to have that taken away was beyond terrifying.
She took a shaky breath, her words coming out on the exhale.
"There's no telling how many of my identities are on Gestapo radar now. As it is, most spies with a radio only last six weeks in the field and I'm looking at FAR less than that now. It's just a matter of time before the Gestapo tracks me down and when they do–"
"When they do, I'll be waiting." Joe finished firmly, giving her hands a soothing squeeze. "I won't let 'em get to you, Zees, I swear."
Alix's eyes began to brim with tears.
"Joey, you don't get it," she insisted. "It’s not me I’m afraid for. They'll go after you too, to get to me and I can't lose you, not like that.”
The memory of Camille’s boyfriend Toulouse’s fate sprang to her mind.
He had been like her Joe…He had been Jewish too and full of fire, with a girlfriend who loved him more than life.
And what had become of him?
Three days of continuous torture and a fourth ending in a bullet to the head.
And from what she’d heard from her handler, for the Nazis, that was merciful.
She shuddered again but this time, Joe was there, enveloping her in his strong arms.
"Hey, hey,” he murmured comfortingly, giving her a gentle kiss on her forehead as he pulled her close.
"Listen to me: You’re not gonna lose me, okay? Not ever. I'll take on a whole fuckin' battalion of Krauts by myself if I have to. They're not gonna keep me away from you and they sure as hell aren't gonna take you away from me. You got that?”
Alix nodded, a faint pink beginning to flush her cheeks.
“What did I do to deserve you?” she marveled with a sniffle. “I must’ve been an angel in my past life.”
“You’re an angel in this one too,” Joe added smoothly and Alix grinned, swatting at him playfully.
“What a line!” she teased. “I bet you say that to all the pretty girls you meet, huh, flyboy?”
“Nah, just my girl,” he replied with a breezy chuckle. “And just when I wanna see that gorgeous smile of hers.”
Alix had just leaned in to kiss him again when Don Malarkey peeked his freckled face around the corner.
“Hate to interrupt, guys,” he disclosed with an apologetic grin. “But it looks like we’re moving out so–”
“So tell Pyro to get her rear in gear unless her and her boyfriend wanna get left behind!" Skip crowed from somewhere up ahead of them.
"Jesus Christ, her boyfriend has a name, y'know!" Joe called back but Skip was already too far ahead of them – chuckling to himself, no doubt– to respond.
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Contemporary: June 13th, 1944. Somewhere in France.
Alix's fears were partially correct: after radioing in to Nixon, their sources in Paris confirmed that Jean-Pierre had in fact given her name to the Gestapo, meaning that "Juliette Fournier" needed to disappear and fast.
As instructed, Alix got busy shredding and burning her identification papers on the way out of town. She would have to assume one of her new identities later, once the company got wherever they were going.
She had no idea how long they'd been trudging across the grassy fields or how far they'd gotten, but she knew her feet hurt like hell. The blisters on her heels were raw, open sores now, and every step had a slight burn to it.
Skip had jokingly offered her a piggyback ride about three miles back but now she was seriously considering taking him up on it.
"Anybody know if we're getting close?" Don asked, wincing as he soaked his boots in yet another muddy rain puddle. "Because realistically, how long can we stay in the open until–"
As if on cue, the familiar bang-bang-bang of German gunfire broke through the air and everyone dropped to the ground, except for Alix, who was practically tackled onto it.
“Santa Maria,” she coughed out as her chest slammed the dirt with a force previously unknown to man, momentarily knocking the breath out of her. “Jesus Joey, I think you broke my fucking ribs!”
“An’ you can thank me for it later!” Joe yelled over the din, rolling off of her back and sending some shots over at the enemy as he crawled his way toward the treeline ahead of them.
All around her, the company seemed to be scattering like mice as the hail of German bullets and artillery rained down on them.
Through the panicked stampede, she could hear Welsh and Winters bellowing at everyone to stay low and get to the hedgerows, doing their best to be heard over the cacophony of the assault.
As she reached the edge of the field, she and the paratroopers near her scrambled to their feet as they made a mad dash for the relative safety of the hedgerows.
All around her, troopers were dropping like flies and Alix took a desperate dive into the vegetation, landing in a bramble bush with an unceremonious crash.
Whirling around, she saw Skip barreling towards her and she reached out an arm, yanking him next to her into the safety of the thicket.
“Where’s Don and Joe?!” she shouted over the roar of explosives and Skip’s amber eyes filled with concern.
“I thought they were ahead of us!”
Getting to their feet, the pair both cast a last, worried glance back at the open field– at the stragglers behind them still fighting their way across and the corpses lying in the grass– before setting off to find the others.
Skip, being the more heavily-armed of the two, took the lead with Alix covering his back, keeping her eyes peeled for any would-be attackers who could be hiding in the thick brush.
“Of all the safe places you coulda dragged me to,” Skip laughed, shaking his head good-naturedly as he examined the scratches marring his bleeding forearms.
“You just had to pick a thornbush, didn’t you?”
“Naturally,” Alix quipped from behind him. “Can’t send you back to Faye after all this–" she gestured vaguely around them, "–without any cool battle scars, can we?”
"Y'know Skipper, you should be thanking her," a voice from behind a nearby tree deadpanned. "Your one-on-one battle with that thornbush could get ya a Purple Heart."
"You're a riot, Mal," Skip replied dryly, gold eyes glittering with laughter as Don's grinning face appeared from behind the tree before joining his friend up front. "A regular Bob Hope."
"So I've been told."
∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆
Nightfall brought an unexpected chill to the already brisk French air and it reminded Alix a bit of Aldbourne…except for the fact that she was sitting in what was basically a giant ditch.
"Just think of it like camping," Skip had piped up cheerily from his spot with Don a few feet away. "Except there's no tent, the food is shit, and there's people trying to kill us!"
How he managed to be so chipper despite their circumstances, Alix would never understand, because she was exhausted but Skip's positivity never seemed to flag.
Joe, on the other hand, was burning through his cigarettes like a madman at the edge of their medium-sized ravine. Sitting on his knees and glaring daggers out into the darkness, Alix was certain that if looks could kill, the entire German army would have evaporated on the spot.
“Tesoro, you know they can’t see us, right?” she asked, following his gaze out into the nothingness from her place behind him.
“Yeah, I know.” He took another drag of his cigarette, his breath mixing with the little puffs of smoke in the cold air. “But they’re gonna attack the second we let our guards down. We gotta be ready.”
“Joey, there’s being ready and then there’s obsessing,” Alix cautioned gently, propping herself up on her elbows. “You need a break.”
Joe turned his head back sharply to look at her, mouth already open to argue, but as soon as their eyes met, Alix stuck out her bottom lip and blinked her big doe eyes at him pleadingly, patting the empty spot next to her.
With a groan of defeat, her boyfriend’s gaze immediately softened– Warrior Joe had vacated the premises and only Puppy Joe remained.
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, sitting back on his heels for a moment before crawling back to lay down with her, setting his rifle down beside them.
“Dammit Ziskeit, you know I can’t say no to you.”
“I know,” Alix replied smugly, shifting their makeshift comforter to make room for him underneath it.
It was just their two woolen blankets tied together with her hair ribbon, but it made for a nice comforter under the circumstances, even if it was a bit scratchy. “And I’m gonna take full advantage.”
“C’mere, smartass,” he mumbled affectionately, putting his arm around her and guiding her over to his chest. “You’re really somethin’, y’know that?”
Alix hummed an agreement, enjoying the chorus of crickets and the steady drumming of Joe’s heartbeat. He was like a furnace, warm and comforting, and for a second, she let herself imagine they were somewhere else:
A spring meadow out in the American countryside maybe, where life was slower. They could look up at the stars together in a field of wildflowers without the ever-present fear of death looming over their heads like a thundercloud threatening rain. Perhaps there would be cows in the pasture nearby, lowing quietly as they chewed on their evening meals, oblivious to the young lovers laying only steps away.
Joe’s chest rumbled as he spoke, interrupting her daydream.
“Hey Zees?”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me somethin’ about you.”
Alix was slightly taken aback and she lifted her head slightly, tipping it back to look up at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, tell me somethin’ about you,” he repeated gently, his brown eyes shining in the little moonlight there was.
“Anything you wanna tell me, I'm game. When you're on the job, your whole shtick is bein' everybody but yourself; when you're with me, I want you to be you, the real you.”
For a moment, there was a silence between them as Alix searched for what to say, the raucous singing of German troops far across the field blending with the crickets in the background.
“Hm…Well, I used to sneak out of my room at Saint Mary's to go to the dance halls in town on the weekends," she let out a small giggle.
"Never got caught by the sisters, thank God, or I'dve been skinned alive, but I came pretty close once."
"Yeah?" Joe asked wryly. "How close is 'pretty close'?"
"Too close," Alix bubbled, dark eyes sparkling with mischief.
"My roommate wasn't feeling well and it was a drafty night so she shut the window without thinking and went straight to bed, which fucking locked me out as there was only one key. I had pretty much resigned myself to sleeping in the courtyard and just taking the punishment in the morning, but luckily, Lavinia across the hall had also come back late except her roommate came with her so they let me crash for the night on their floor."
Her boyfriend wrapped his other arm around her to hold her better and she snuggled into his chest.
"Jesus, fuck, you did get lucky," he marveled with a rueful laugh.
"You probably woulda got the strap for that, ya little troublemaker, and I should know 'cause I spent most of my two years getting belted pretty good."
"Wait really?" Alix blinked up at him in disbelief.
"In my first year, a girl on my hall snuck her boyfriend over for a weekend and we all knew but nobody said anything so we all got three lashes when they got caught, but that was the only time. What on Earth did you do to get the strap so much?"
Joe shrugged.
"Fightin', mostly," he admitted. "Really couldn't catch a break at that place. I was either getting shit from the kids or getting shit from the nuns. Finally figured maybe it just wasn't for me an' left. Still glad I did too 'cause money was tight and my little sisters and brother needed an education more than me anyway. My Pops needed me to help him out at the barbershop for awhile so that's what I did instead, till I started driving full-time."
"Did you like driving?" Alix asked, snuggling in still closer under the blankets for both warmth and comfort. "I've always wondered what that's like. You must meet a whole lot of different people!"
Joe's face seemed to light up at her interest.
"Oh yeah, all kinds!" he replied enthusiastically.
"Bein' a cabbie doesn't pay too hot but it's what I like the best. I know everywhere there is to know, in the city and out, and I get to meet all types of people. My favorites are the tourists 'cause they don't know shit about anythin' so I get to give 'em the VIP tour and they always got somethin' new to talk about. I could drive 'em wherever when it's quiet too but it's nice to talk about stuff, y'know? Beats the radio any day."
He gave her a kiss on the top of her head, making her blush and added quickly,
"Now, tell me to shut up, will ya, so you can get some sleep. You need it."
Alix was about to reply when a whimpering noise from beyond their section of hedge interrupted. It sounded like the yelps of a wounded animal, hissing, and pained swearing.
Joe's whole body tensed.
"That's Tab," he whispered, brow creased with worry. "I'd know that voice anywhere."
Alix shifted so he could get up and before she could blink, he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and was on his feet and ready to investigate, rifle in hand.
"I'll be back in 5."
But Alix was already on her feet too, fully awake with her handgun loaded.
"You're not going alone, Joey."
He rolled his eyes but she could see the grin on his face even in the near-darkness.
"Yeah, I figured. You stayin' on my six then, killer?"
It was Alix's turn to grin and she positioned herself behind him, ready to lay into any attacker stupid enough to try to approach them from the back.
