Apparently my tags on that WWII post were taken as a challenge by the Muse, who shoved this scene full-formed into my brain. I was supposed to be grading pre-labs while I waited for the lawnmower to recharge, but instead, oops! I vomited several hundred words into Ellipsus. If I didn't really, really have this massive pile of grading, I might do some more research to back up bits of this . . . but instead I'm just going to leave this here so I can get some Actual Work done today. 🤦🏽♀️
(Ball in your court, @kivrin????? 😬😬)
~~~~~
“Hey, Tim. Uh . . . will you hear my confession?”
Tim O’Neill looked up from the impossible task of keeping his rifle clean when surrounded by muck. “I think you might be a little fuzzy on how sacraments work.”
“No, it’s just—” Miguel Ortiz’s grimace was mostly for the distant thud of a mortar round, with an additional hint of embarrassment. “We don’t have a chaplain since we lost Father Robert yesterday, and—” He wouldn’t meet O’Neill’s gaze. “I just, I really need to tell someone about this, in case . . .”
Was that chatter of gunshots moving closer? O’Neill tried not to think about it—sparing a moment to be impressed at how jaded he had become in this hellhole—and stuffed his grimy rag into an already overloaded pocket. The closer their unit got to Paris, the stronger the Krauts seemed to become, and it looked like a big push was coming soon. This wouldn’t be the first time the improbable friends had avoided talking about the fear of not living past tomorrow. “You know I can’t actually grant you absolution.”
Ortiz’s dark eyes lifted to his. “Yeah. But God will hear me anyway, right?”
“I guess.” O’Neill looked around, but the Lieutenant had edged around a bend in the trench, and they were as alone as they were likely to get. Trying to ignore how filthy his collar was, he pulled out the chain that carried his dog tags and the crucifix his mother had sent.
With a small, thankful smile, Ortiz sank to one knee and fumbled off his mud-smeared helmet. The tousled dark hair underneath was starting to curl in the damp, and the absence of regular trimming. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” A tangled rosary had appeared to overflow from one fist. “It has been two weeks since my last confession.”
O’Neill shifted atop the ammo tin he sat on, but remained silent. He hoped that Ortiz wasn’t about to own up to some grisly atrocity—though in time of war, with an enemy like Germany, what did that even mean?
There was a pause just long enough that he was starting to truly feel uncomfortable, until Ortiz finally told him, “Andrea’s pregnant.”
It took a blink for the words to sink in, but then O’Neill had to seize his friend’s hand and pump it in congratulations. “That’s tremendous!” he burst out, returning Ortiz’s sudden grin. “But you realize it’s not a sin when you’re married to the girl.”
Ortiz might have been blushing a bit, but it was hard to tell through dirt smudges and stubbly whiskers. His smile faded slightly to wistfulness as his eyes went unfocused. “Dios, I miss her so much. This last letter . . .”
“Hey, I do not want to hear anything about what you get up to by yourself in your bedroll.”
“Shit, man, that is not what I meant.” Another mortar screamed through the air, but its explosion was still distant enough that Ortiz barely flinched as he rolled his eyes. “She’s going to be let go from the factory once she starts really showing, so she moved back in with her parents, and . . . what’s going to happen when he comes out looking like me?”
“Merde.” The longer they spent in France, the more O’Neill found himself sometimes thinking in French.
“Yeah.” The worry on Ortiz’s face echoed O’Neill’s, and his gaze was distant again. “I can’t stop thinking about leaving, to go back to her,” he finally said softly. The hand with the rosary rose to rest over the breast pocket where he always carried the letters from his wife.
None of us wants to be here, man. I think about leaving at least once an hour. “Still not sure we’re in sin territory, Miguel.”
A tear tracked down the side of Ortiz’s face, though both would endure Nazi torture rather than acknowledging its existence. He fingered the dingy bandage ringing his upper arm while the next words tumbled out, his voice thready. “It’s just— if I’m not there for her, for our baby—”
O’Neill leaned forward to clasp his friend’s uninjured arm. “You will be. C’mon, Westphalen didn’t even curse you out over that wound.”
“Yeah, but she also said that two inches in the other direction—”
“Don’t go there, man.”
Ortiz’s eyelids drifted shut and he grimaced again, but didn’t say anything. They were getting dangerously close to the most forbidden topic in the army.
Brushing fingertips over his crucifix without thinking about it, O’Neill swallowed hard against the knot in his chest. “And you’re not gonna desert. You wanna finish this fight as much as the rest of us—even though Captain Bridger would probably keep the Lieutenant from going after your balls.”
That got a tiny huff of a laugh from Ortiz as they both pictured the inspiring commanding officer they’d follow to Hell and back anytime he asked it of them.
“And if—” O’Neill stopped himself and took a breath before continuing. “I will find Andrea and the baby, and you know the Captain would make sure of it.” Releasing Ortiz before things got any more intense, he leaned back slightly. “That’s all the absolution you’re getting out of me.”
Ortiz was nodding his thanks as he brought his rosary to his lips and then signed himself with it.
Sparing him from any awkward eye contact, O’Neill turned his attention back to his rifle. “Besides,” he teased, eager to change the subject, “I gotta see how you deal when it turns out the baby is a girl. You will be hopeless, amigo.”
Ortiz slugged him in the leg on his way to his feet.
