Sometimes, war is the province of women.
An alternate take on the battle for air dominance over the skies of Europe during World War Two, as told through the stories of an American all-female bomber crew and the people around them.
This is a collection of standalone works that all interlock to form one big patchwork quilt of stories. It will see new additions every so often, especially because a lot of it is written to prompts. The collection on AO3 is my best attempt at organizing it in chronological order.
[click here for the WIP story collection!]
Want to know a little more about the OCs featured in this collection?
Please click the readmore below!
Charlotte “Lottie” Rivers-Mayhew
Fighter pilot turned bomber pilot
Can fly anything, will try anything. Big mouth, little heart. Lives in the land of innuendo and crude jokes. Loud about her whole existence. Very smart, but downplays that like whoa.
Julie “Jules” Langdon
Bomber pilot
Runs this gig and everyone else just needs to get with her program. Great at reading people the riot act. Comically unimpressed by everything that lands in her path. Nosewrinkles at any and all delays. Known for slipping people an extra bite to eat.
Christina “Tiny” Heartfield
Bomber co-pilot
Needs five hours to get ready for any kind of social event. Silver spoon baby. Knows all the gossip and all the good songs. Gets a little bit stressed about flying in warzones. Loves a good ghost story.
Eleanor “Nora” Graham
Navigator
The Mom Friend. Prone to giving hugs and peptalks. Bossy and quite rude when things don’t go her way. Cannot flirt her way out of anything. If you see her running, that’s just standard procedure.
Valerie “Val” Hodges
Radio operator
Absolute poker-faced ballsy liar. Most innocent face in the whole crew. Smokes more than her job should allow. Will try to wiggle out of any lectures by offering the most inane excuses. There’s not a puzzle she can’t solve.
Genevieve “Two” Hodgson
Tail gunner
Shows up late to everything except the war. Always chewing gum. Queen of half-hearted salutes and vague politeness. Keeps saying she’s too poor for this level of bullshit. Has a mean right hook.
Madeleine “Push” Perrault
Flight engineer
Making lists calms her down. Can and will call you stupid in four different languages. Thinks planes are better than people. Voice like a foghorn with the attitude to match. Believes she can fix anything.
Evelyn “One-Eye” Carter
Ball turret gunner
Happy-go-lucky baby of the group, rolling with life’s punches. Will talk your ear off. Could probably get away with murder. Best gunner in the crew. Can be painfully naïve.
Dorothy “Dee” Llewellyn
Waist gunner
Born a pessimist. Genuinely thinks no man should ever sport a mustache. Has a limitless supply of stories about her family. Very protective. Would inspire a riot if anyone ever let her talk long enough without interruptions.
Maxine “Max” Morrison
Waist gunner
Bold and brash and crackling with energy. Cracks more bad jokes than anyone alive. Has developed some rather complicated handshakes. Will interrupt any event or conversation. If you see her running, something’s probably chasing her.
Stella “Frosty” Lombardi
Bombardier
Icy calm in any crisis. Can calculate any bomb drop. Complains about the food. Is a true girl’s girl and refuses to so much as speak to most men. Never wants to miss out on the fun.
Lucille Dorrance-Jones, goes by Lucy Jones
Nurse
The singlemost stubborn person on the planet. Thinks some injuries are fascinating. Harbors a healthy distrust of bureaucracy and paperwork. Can probably drink you under the table. Encourages anyone to sing.
Cressida Dorrance-Jones
Interrogator
Sharp as a tack. Does not forgive, does not forget. Secretly more big-hearted than people would give her credit for. Really wants to fly a plane. Has an ongoing one-sided vendetta with Meatball.
Darlene Mayfair
Mechanic
Cheerful and spirited. Very gifted storyteller. Turns shy when complimented. Ride or die for people and sticks with them longer than they might deserve. Marches to the beat of her own drum.
Georgina “George” Campbell
Mechanic
Has a soft spot for strays. Suffers no fools. Is here to win a war, not ogle cute men. Perpetually fighting a losing battle against the grease stains on her uniform. The best co-conspirator you could ask for.
Imogene “Genie” Chapman
Clubmobile girl
Very outgoing people-person. Better at giving advice than at taking it. Designated hair-cutter. Loves movies and dancing. Knows just about anybody by name.
Jack Ellis
OSS
Doesn’t miss a beat. No-nonsense natural leader. Very determined to do what he believes is the right thing. Talks about the war in terms of “the game”. Warm and caring once he lets his guard down.
Thanks for the reminder, I've had the prompt page open since yesterday in a tab. Can I prompt 06. — surface for either Brady and/or an OC of your choice, please?
Love that my little post from a bit ago reminded you that you wanted to send me something! 💙 I had to sit with this one a moment, as I'm still wrangling Brady in my brain, but landed on the following...
surface
He hears her before he sees her.
It’s rather a common occurrence on base these days. Can’t move five feet without hearing a woman’s raised voice carry over the din. Can’t set foot outside a hut without hearing their shouts or their laughter – in worst cases both at once – as if all of Thorpe Abbotts now belongs to them. The woman currently cursing up a storm in the belly of his plane is one of the worst offenders. Voice with the power of a foghorn, voice that only seems to stop when she’s eating or sleeping, voice that has all but elbowed its way into his subconsciousness already.
John Brady heaves a sigh. Takes another sip of his coffee while he leans against the one part of the space that hasn’t been subjected to her rather impressive array of tools. She treats this plane like she owns it, having draped her jacket over the other gun, using her previously pristine white scarf as an extra cloth to wipe the grime off her hands with before unceremoniously flinging it to the floor. He eyes the dirtied scarf a moment. Refocuses on her only when she lets out a rather large snort.
“You on your coffee break, Brady, or are you thinking ’bout helping?”
“Helping with what?”
She wipes at her forehead. Leaves it with streaks of black. “Damn gun keeps jamming on reload. Max complained about it after our last run. She kept having to slam down on it with her fist.” Her dark eyes narrow as she peers at the gun’s slide. “Son of a bitch is gonna cost me more work, think it needs to come apart before we’re wheels up again.”
“Just the one, not the other?” John nods at her jacket. Isn’t surprised when she nods back to indicate that only one of their guns is out for the count. “Sounds like a job for Morrison herself.”
“Max ain’t flying this one next time. Egan said she’s up with him, and Dee’s gonna be wheels up with Crank. Guess we’re getting one of their gunners in return?” She scoffs a moment. Rakes her short hair back best she can, which isn’t well at all. “Don’t you look at me like that, ain’t our fault brass keeps shuffling crews like a deck of cards!”
“Just wondering about the end game,” he says carefully, setting his empty cup down atop her toolbox. “They’ve been moving you around different crews since Trondheim. Filling gaps.”
“Softenin’ y’all up for more female replacements, more like,” she snipes. Her hands deftly pry a part of the gun away from the slide. “C’mere, hold this for me, easier with two”– and his hands are on the panel before he can think twice about following orders –“gonna get this baby up and running for you and me. I don’t wanna get mid-flight only for this to decide it don’t wanna play no more.”
John’s eyebrow raises. “Keeping me company, Perrault?”
Her laugh is throaty but loud. “Sweet baby Jesus, you and Darlene are just about the only ones gettin’ my name right around these parts. Egan keeps callin’ me Perry, for fuck’s sake, and all them rest calls me Push. Stupid nickname.” Her hand covers his a moment, directing him to the edge of the panel. He takes a shallow breath in through his mouth as she leans forward and fills the air with gasoline-and-grease smell. “But yeah, Jules said they were gonna shift me to your crew for the next run. Somethin’ about your engineer getting frostbite up in the turret?”
“Hole in his suit.”
“That’s shit,” she says conversationally, tugging at the gun between them until it clicks apart. “Can ya take me through this baby once we get this gun fixed? I like to know what I’m workin’ with. Know she had a belly landin’ not too long ago, yeah?” She hums as he kicks a wrench over to her. “Ken said she’s all right now, but I want a look at that landing gear before we go.”
“Landing gear should be okay. More worried about the plating around the second engine,” he confesses as he holds two parts of the gun while she’s loosening a third. “It felt like it wasn’t quite feathering the way it should.”
“What, on the surface? Or deeper?”
“Could be deeper. Think it’s surface.”
“You tell Ken that?” She grins at him, unapologetic, as he frowns at her. “Of course ya did. You’re a smart one, John Brady.”
“Perrault,” he says, feeling just a little unmoored about the totally sober way she just called him smart, “just don’t get frostbite up there.”
He flinches a little at her booming laugh. Bites his tongue when her oil-stained hand lands atop his. She pats it reassuringly, as if that’s answer enough in the universe she inhabits. No boundaries between pilot and engineer, or so Bucky would say. The man’s insane.
“Chin up,” she says, then, and her hand squeezes his fingers before letting go. “Your face went all sour lemon. Thinking about repairs?”
“Bucky and his big mouth, actually,” he says, before he can stop himself.
Perrault lets out a groan that practically reverberates off the walls. “Please, say no more.”
“You too?”
He decides he likes Perrault just plenty when she rolls her eyes and slams the wrench down on the gun’s chamber. “Lord, where do we start?”
May I request for the Five Lines "could no more delay" with John and Push?
Yesss, more Maddie/Brady! 😊 I have to admit this stumped me a tiny bit until the groupchat pingponged an idea that honestly carries a lot more meat than five sentences technically allow. Still, I managed to pare it down to these five in the end!
could no more delay
The tears don’t come until he shuts the door behind him – drowning out all of the Brady family’s busy dinner, cutting off the excitement she doesn’t feel – and joins her out on the porch, smoke curling up from his pipe, offering her his jacket like he always does on chilly evenings.
“It’s not you,” she says, blinking furiously to stop her make-up from running, “you have to know that, John, you gotta”– she’s desperate for him to believe that, clutching his hand the moment he touches her arm –“it’s just… I don’t… I can’t have this be a big event, I can’t do…”
Can’t do crowds, can’t school my face and make it through church, can’t squeeze myself into a wedding gown and smile about it, can’t do a whole party full of people I don’t know, can’t be in the centre of attention like that, can’t wrap my head around needing a piece of paper to tell us we’re never to be parted, can’t… can’t… can’t…
“Breathe, Maddie,” he says, hands cupping her face as her breath grows ragged, “I know, I know, come on, take another breath, just like we practiced”– and it’s stupid that she needs practice, dumb that she can’t control this one thing anymore since the day she crashed, but he never sounds put out about it at all –“you don’t have to do this, I’ll tell them all to go to hell, all right?”
But I have to, she inhales, eyes fixed on the little lines around his mouth, because it matters to you – they’ve argued about it, his voice breaking and hers shaking – and I don’t wanna hurt you, John, she exhales, leaning into him at last, so I will say yes and take your name and do so before your family realizes I’m already carrying your baby.
