Chapter Text
Sam had a gut feeling about bombs, rifles, snakes, and bad dates. The moment he’d ducked into the Haggered Swan and met Lt. Moore’s eyes, that gut feeling had started yelling in his ear. Slipping past the crowds of GI’s, nurses, pilots, and everyone in between; Sam slid into the chair opposite.
“Sorry, I’m late. I’ve been a bit tied up.” He assured her. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No, oh no. Look,” she gestured at the crowd. “Why don’t we go get a quiet drink, hmm? It’s rather crowded here.”
His alarm pinged again. Not bothering to argue, he stood and the moment both had stepped away their table had been claimed by a half-dozen nurses with various pints in their hands. Noise, laughter, and smoke trailed onto the streets as they ventured out. Couples and groups making use of the shockingly quiet evening.
For once, Victoria didn’t wind her arms around his and instead surveyed the bombed ruins of nearby buildings and piles of sandbags laid about. It was a beautiful city bearing under the weight of a seemingly endless war and senseless brutality.
“I’ve always loved London,” She said suddenly, pausing to peer into the shattered windows of someplace that advertised a Fish and Chips shop, now vanished. “Even when I was a little girl I hated it and loved it in turn. When I went to Africa…I thought for sure I wouldn’t miss it.” Winding her arms around herself; she offered a slight smile. “I did…every day.”
Sam nodded, “It’s a nice place.”
“I’m not sure you understand, Captain….you’re from the wide open west. A cowboy….and very little experience in the city. I’ve…it breaks my heart to see London so…beaten, broken.”
“Broken….not beaten.” He promised, and she flickered a slight smile.
“Well…for everything it is, London is my home.”
Sam’s bad feelings only increased. “Yes.”
“You see…I’ve.” In a few starts and spurts, she paced along the sidewalk. “You have a sister.”
“I do.”
“And she’s very far away from the war. She’s off to the ranch and cowboys and managing the homefront.” Again, Sam nodded when she glanced for confirmation. “I’d rather like to meet this sister but there are…expectations.”
“What expectations?” He didn’t have any. Surviving each day was already surpassing his usual expectations on a regular basis. Tilting his head back, he waited for Victoria to stop dithering.
“ Well …when a lady marries there are expectations…for her life, her future, and where…and everything. I, well. Captain, you’re a wonderful man.”
Oh . Hardly surprised by this point and without the energy to applaud his assumptions; Sam sighed a hollow gust of air.
“Please!” She seized his arms, pulling in close. “I adore you, Sam. You’ve been such a…you’re truly wonderful.” Peering into the bright blue eyes, desperate and earnest he found himself wishing to be anywhere else. Wishing to fling off the tearful woman as she handed his heart back on a shattered plate. “I can’t be a….I can’t be an American wife. I can’t leave my home, my city, or my family to go halfway across the world; even for love. And I love you, I do! I truly do, but I am too selfish to marry, Sam. I am too selfish. I can’t leave London even after the war ends.”
And Sam’s stomach turned to lead as she blinked tears from her eyes. They slide down narrow cheeks, marking where she’d put on face powder and discoloring her mascara. This close, her eyes shimmered.
Wyoming was too far away from her home. Too far from her friends everyone she loved and everything she knew. America would be an alien landscape to a London nurse.
Sam wondered where his anger was; and why he was resigned instead. He had wanted to take her to the ranch. Introduce his mother, his sister, and maybe the friends he’d left behind in Buck. They might have moved into the carriage house after marriage, and then….what? There, the fantasy dried up as every scenario of a wife and marriage before the war shrivled under the realization that it wouldn’t even suit him anymore. How could he cram someone like Vicky Moore into it?
“Sam! Sam! Please, please say something!”
With a sigh, squeezing her shoulders; he managed a faint nod. “I suppose….if you were really selfish you might not have gotten around to telling me. Might have dragged me around a little longer.” Every word a weight against his pride. “Suppose I can’t blame you.”
“Sam?” She swallowed, the motion violent enough to trail through her limbs.
“It’s….alright. Alright.” She loved him. She couldn’t see herself marrying him, making a family, making a home with him. Love paled in comparison to the weight of logistics.
Despite his words, or even because of them; pain tugged through him. A hurt he hadn’t felt even when getting a Dear John from his girlfriend. Someone from his hometown couldn’t see a future with him…someone from his new life couldn’t see it either. “You’ll take care…won’t you?”
Tears slipped down her face as she nodded. “I’m sorry, Sam. I truly am.”
What could he even say to that? “I know….will you be alright getting back?” As he asked, a few nurses peered from the bar, watching. “Got an escort?”
“They’ll walk me back,” Vicky managed through her tears, squeezing his hands. She pulled away, either from reluctance or worry; and Sam watched her go. Maybe she was taking some of his happiness with her, but it was the faded dream that hurt the most.
Only once the gaggle of nurses vanished around the corner, did Sam let out a heavy groan. Tilting his head back to look at the searchlights and balloons. Had it been a pipe dream to bother stepping out with an English nurse? He knew GIs who married local girls and they seemed to work out alright.
Well, pretty sure he didn’t want to go slinking back to their billet this late at night; Sam forced himself across a few streets to an officers club. It was quieter than the bar he’d just left and the bartender didn’t question his foul mood when he ordered. Half a pint down, a new voice joined from his right.
“Well, someone looks unhappy.”
“David!” His brother beamed, gleaming in his uniform and with cheerful abandon as Sam leaped up. Embracing, David thumped his back. “I thought you were on duty tonight?”
“No such luck. One of my mates managed to piss up the base commander's trousers. We got swapped out.” David laughed. “I promised to bring him something back to shut that fat mouth of his. What are you doing here? You usually stick to the muddier waters.”
“Escaping,” Sam admitted as they sat down. The bartender approached with David’s drink and a plate of chips. “There aren’t a lot of women at officer’s clubs.”
Shrugging, his brother pulled on his drink. “I wouldn’t say that. My buddy tells me that he’s seen a lady officer hereabouts. Some legion dame. What?”
Dietrich, it could only be Dietrich. Was she here? She’d vanished a few days ago with Palmer, so maybe she was still on her mission. “I was just….she doesn’t seem here right now.”
“She’s not,” David tilted his head, curious. “Anyone you know?”
“I hope not.” Dietrich would wring his most embarrassing stories from David just by asking. Or kill him…or kill both of them.
Shrugging, his brother sipped his beer. “So, escaping? Anyone I know?”
“Vicky.”
“Oh! I like her!....what happened?”
“Dumped,” Sam admitted, grimacing into his beer.
“No! Don’t tell me she was making eyes at a colonel or something?”
Sam shook his head, plucking some of the chips off the plate. David might not understand what the deal was or why Vicky had cut him loose. Unwilling to blame her too much, Sam wallowed with his food and drink as David kept up an amusing commentary of his recent days and promised to introduce Sam to a few new girlfriends.
“Don’t bother.”
“Aw, come on! You hardly ever date anyway! Just Eliza, and Vicky!” Sam didn’t feel like correcting him about his various flings.
“I don’t need distractions right now.” He corrected, and David rolled his eyes.
“This does clarify this thing with your nosy bitch neighbor. She keeps telling me you’re married.” Sam choked, sputting past the salty beer. “See! I knew she was nuts. You’d tell me if you got married. What does she think you’re married?”
Kit…Dietrich. Normally, a woman wouldn’t be billeted with men unless she were married to one of them. Of course…. everyone on their street thought they were married. “Oh God!”
“Sam, don’t tell me you’re taking girls back to your billet.”
“No, holy….no. I…” Scrubbing at his forehead he tried to wrestle away the image of a married Dietrich. A nameless emotion washed over him, and he sighed. “An officer. That’s all. I’m not married.”
“Can you imagine getting married without telling Mom or Helen? You’d be mincemeat. What?”
Helen’s name reminded him why Vicky had left him standing in the middle of a rubbled street holding the tattered pieces of his dreams and heart. Letting his head fall back, Sam groaned. “Don’t tell me Helen intimidated her?”
That was exactly what happened. Sam shrugged. “She didn’t want to leave London.”
“Ahh…that….Mom’s an awfully long way away.” David conceded. “What, I’ve had the same thing. You start talking about the ranch and then it hits ‘em. One had a mother who wouldn’t let her entertain dating an American. Couldn’t blame her, she was the only girl who survived when a bomb fell on their house.” Which only depressed Sam further. “Do you want me to find you a date?’
“No.” They lapsed into silence.
David was almost done with his drink, raising his arm to wave at a new figure appearing at the door.
“Oi! You’ll like him, Sam,” he said as an aside as a figure shifted through the crowd. “He’s a fun guy, but busy as hell. I owe him my life a few times over. Say, Lieutenant, how are you?”
The tall, narrow figure paused as Sam’s chair, an arm on the backrest. A familiar voice floated down. “Very well, sir.”
“Hey, you remember my brother? Captain Troy?” Sam looked up just in time to see the thunder of shock cross Craig Garrison’s face. He’d been a young officer when they’d met, not long from West Point and vibrating with nerves and the need to prove himself.
“Captain?” Garrison just managed to control himself, but the hand closed over his shoulder. “You’re…. alive ?”
Sam had forgotten that most people in the desert thought he was dead. It sometimes leads to awkward encounters like this.
“Lt. Garrison,” setting his beer aside, Sam stood. Adjusting the nerveless hands to shake. “You look well.”
“And you look…. alive ?” Garrison sputtered, letting himself be pulled into the third and final seat. “And a captain? Sir? I?”
“Extenuating circumstances, and…well. Not dead.”
Garrison’s thunderstruck expression hadn’t faded. He was rapidly glancing between the two men and then down to his glass before staring up at the ceiling for a long minute. “The desert was a long time ago.” He turned to David. “He saved my patrol from turning into mincemeat.”
“And Craig saved me,” David cheered, saluting with his glass. “Looks like one good turn, eh?”
“I know David can be a handful,” Sam relayed to Craig. “Shouldn’t bother you too much.”
“A handful,” incredulous, the officer laughed. As much as both wanted to ask questions, and specifics of what they were up to, there was a limit. Even in an officers club, they had to be discreet. “Say, it wasn’t just you that?”
“We’re all fine,” Sam assured him. Craig sighed in relief and David almost laughed.
“Must have been a bit of a shock,” he admitted. “Didn’t realize most people thought my brother was dead.”
“Well, he was up against a pretty nasty kraut.” The taller man muttered into his drink. Sam winced. What would Garrison think if he shared his breakfast table with Dietrich? If he knew a general and his men had walked in on their kiss…if he knew Dietrich had defected.
People from the desert boasted about cutting their teeth on her. Surviving an encounter with Dietrich or even just besting her. If Garrison thought he was dead this whole time then there was no telling just how bitter he might be about Kit.
“The lady officer, right?” David straightened. “I heard about her. Everyone says you two danced the same dances. Sam never talks about her.”
Craig snorted. Same was grateful David had never been over while Dietrich had been in the house. They’d either end up brawling or as best friends. “She was a….she….well.” He waved a hand. “You had to meet her.”
“I’m sure you did.” David rolled his eyes. “One of these days I’m going to get the whole story out of you.”
Which story, Sam wondered. Where she’d tricked him while she was blind? Stolen his hat and disguised herself as him to infiltrate his base? Signed his death certificate? Stolen a spy right from under his nose, been a captive of slavers. There were dozens and hardly any of them believable.
“Most of it’s classified,” he told his brother, who whined a great deal but relented. They needed to talk about something other than Dietrich right now. The conversation shifted, and the shadow of Dietrich lingered over the table.
#$#$#
Troy was at breakfast, pouring over the newspapers while Htich distributed coffee. Tully slid the last of the real eggs onto his plate just as Dietrich came down the stairs in her sweater and a pair of slacks. If or where she did calisthenics, he wasn’t sure. When she’d returned from whatever missions she’d been on; he also wasn’t sure.
Not that she would care where he’d been. She was probably happy that there were less Rats in the house. Jack was still visiting his father, and due back at any moment.
Something was bothering her. Her brow was furrowed, and she hardly nodded when Hitch handed her a cup of coffee. Instead, taking the cup to the window and peering into the back garden and drinking in silence. She hadn’t looked at him.
He wondered if she could sense the gossip from last night.
He peeked from behind the paper to meet her searching gaze in the window's reflection. Would she say anything?
She was a lady, an officer, a defector, and had been a well-trained cog in the German war machine.
“Where is your little thief?” She asked.
“Felix?” He hadn’t seen him since the bombing was over. The boy had vanished in the middle of the day and into the wide city beyond. “Not sure.”
“Are you not concerned?” She turned, sipping her coffee.
“What can we do? He knows the city better than we do. He was doing alright before we came.” Not that every practical explanation didn’t make Sam worry. He wanted the kid to be alright, and hoped he was.
“I see.” The door opened, and Jack appeared through with the usual frown which graced his face every time he had to speak to his parents.
“Breakfast,” Hitch said, glancing worriedly at Dietrich and then Troy. She eventually detached from the window and sat, her frown not lifting at all.
They’d only just cleared their plates when the phone rang. Dietrich was still staring into the depths of an empty coffee cup as their new orders came down the line.
Setting the phone into the receiver, Sam turned to his men. “Mount up, we’re needed.”
Tully, Hitch, and Jack were off in an instant, and Sam hesitated as he met Dietrich’s dark eyes. Hundreds of words and ideas passed through his mind, and he finally nodded.
“Captain.” She said, pausing him at the bottom of the stairs, her words hesitating to leap over the chasm of war and history between them. The silence stretched, compressing as Sam wondered what she might say. What he wanted her to say. “Be well.”
Sam nodded. “You too.”
An hour later, he was on a plane to the war front.