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You and Bill were polar opposites. He was outgoing, brash and loud, and you were quiet and sensitive. Your differences meant that you fit perfectly together: he drew you out somewhat and you were always there to calm him down. Your relationship moved fairly slowly; dating was certainly not something new to Bill, but being in love was and it scared the hell out of him. In fact, in the entire year you were dating, he could never once bring himself to tell you he was in love with you, too fearful of your reaction. To him, going to fight the Nazis was less terrifying.
And that’s just what he did.
On a hot summer day, Bill took you on what was meant to be the most romantic date you’d ever been on, complete with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and soft kisses. Despite the trouble he’d gone to in order to make the date perfect, it was far from enjoyable: Bill was soft around you, but never this soft. The pit of anxiety in your tummy only grew as he continued acting so out of character.
Then he told you.
He was enlisting in the paratroopers. He’d be leaving Philadelphia, and you, behind. You tried to tell him you didn’t mind waiting for him, but he was determined to, in his words, set you free.
You never saw him again, and you did your best to forget about him, although you found yourself listening eagerly to any news of him that his family passed on to yours.
///
“What’s this, huh, Bill?” Joe studied the well-thumbed photograph he’d just discovered among his friend’s belongings.
“Nothin’,” Bill lunged for the photo, but given that he was still bed bound, he found himself unsuccessful.
“How come I’ve known you for two years and I ain’t never seen a picture of this dame before? Why you been holding out on me?” Joe raised his eyebrow teasingly, but his questions came from a source of genuine curiosity.
“It ain’t none of your fucking business, Toye,” Bill again made an unsuccessful play for the photograph.
“Come on, Bill, you can tell me,” Joe carefully tossed the photo over to his friend, who snatched it up and didn’t let it out of his grasp.
“’Cause I know what the guys are like. You show ‘em a picture of your broad and they ain’t gonna drop it.” Bill’s voice was quiet now, and in that moment he was more serious than Joe had ever seen him.
“You can’t seriously be expecting me to believe that you’ve had a girl waiting for you all this time?”
“That ain’t funny, Joe, I already know that I ain’t no fucking catch,” Bill was starting to sulk a little now, and his friend knew him well enough to tell.
“No, I mean, the way ya carry on. Bill, you’ve done almost as much fucking in the past two years as Tab, and that sure as shit is saying something,” Joe chuckled.
“She ain’t my girl no more,” Bill finally confessed.
“She send you one of them letters?”
“Nah, she didn’t send no Dear Bill letter,” Joe grinned at his friend’s remark. “I chucked her before I left home.”
“What ya do that for? Bill, if I had a girl at home who looked like that, I wouldn’t throw her over for nothing,” Joe leaned over to nudge his friend, although he nearly fell out of bed in the process. Bill just shrugged, using it to signal his refusal to elaborate.
///
Two days later, Joe was sitting in the hospital cafeteria for the first time in his wheelchair, relishing in finally being well enough to leave his bed. The slop he was served with had never tasted so good to him, and it was whilst he was enjoying his normally inedible meal that he noticed you.
You could feel a pair of eyes burning into you as you helped a recovering soldier to eat his meal. It was a common occurrence given that most of the men here had gone a while without even seeing a woman, so you just ignored it. Once you’d taken your charge back to his bed, the matron came up to you.
“Nurse Y/L/N, please escort Sergeant Toye back to his bed?” The matron always had a habit of phrasing her orders as questions, but all those under her command knew better than to refuse her directives.
“Are you finished here, Sergeant Toye?” you asked, smiling down on the cheery soldier sitting in front of you. It was a rare but wonderful sight to see any soldier wounded as seriously as he was looking so happy.
“Yes, thank you, ma’am,” he replied as you began to wheel him away. “Sorry I was staring at you before, you see, I was trying to recognise you,” you quirked an eyebrow. The only time that soldiers admitted to staring at you was when they were trying to make a sleazy proposition, but it sounded like this particular soldier was going somewhere a little different with his confession.
“I don’t recall meeting you before.”
“No, we haven’t, but I’ve seen your photograph. You know my friend, Bill? Bill Guarnere.” At Joe’s response, you drew in a sharp intake of breath. After all you’d done in the past two years to forget Bill, even throwing yourself into nursing in a desperate attempt to rid him from your mind, here was his friend.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know Bill,” you couldn’t really think of anything else to say, and carried on wheeling Joe in silence.
“He’s in the bed next to me,” Joe decided to tell you just at the moment you reached his ward. You wondered for a moment whether you could get away with abandoning the wheelchair and its occupant in the corridor, perhaps pleading sickness, but you knew that the matron would see right through you and would be sure to give you a harsh punishment. Reluctantly, you wheeled Joe over to his bed, your gaze fixed upon the sheets, hoping that Bill wouldn’t pay any attention to you.
It wasn’t to be.
You heard a gasp and couldn’t stop yourself from looking up, seeing Bill for the first time in two and a half years. He still looked exactly the same, you noticed, although minus a leg. You tore your gaze away, and helped Joe onto his bed, before taking a few steps towards Bill.
“Hi.” Despite the shortness of your greeting, your voice trembled.
“Hi,” he returned, gazing at you like you were some kind of angel sent from heaven. “I missed you,” he admitted.
“Why’d you chuck me then?” You asked, and immediately mentally slapped yourself. You wanted answers but what difference would they make now, and you regretted your harsh tone.
“In case I didn’t make it home. So it would be easier for you,” Bill looked at you with a kind of sincerity that he’d never displayed before, even in his most tender moments.
“Oh, Bill,” you sighed, reaching forward to hold his hand. It was warm and calloused, and felt just the same as you remembered. “That’s so stupid,” you grinned. “You’re coming home anyway.”
“Yeah.” The two of you lapsed into silence, the air thick with the things that you both wanted to say, but neither of you having the courage to do so. Eventually Bill broke the silence.
“You met anyone else?”
“No,” you chuckled. “I’ve not even been on a date, I signed up to train as a nurse just after you left and ever since I’ve been too busy to think about that sort of thing. Besides… I guess I was still stuck on you,” you admitted, and Bill couldn’t stop a goofy grin from covering his face. “What about you?” Your nerves caused your voice to shake slightly as you asked the dreaded question.
“No one in particular,” he said, and you both knew what he meant. You nodded, trying not to get upset. “It was supposed to be you! I mean, I could pretend I was back in Philly in your arms and I didn’t have to worry about nothing no more. It was the closest I could get to you,” he confessed.
“I see,” your voice quivered a little.
“Can I tell you about my buddies I made?” Bill was just as desperate as you were to change the subject. “You already met Joe over there, but there’s a lot of real good guys in Easy Company, huh, Joe?” Bill called across to his friend.
“Tell her about Luz,” was the response. And Bill did. He told you about his friends, and it was like old times, seeing him laughing and joking.
It came to an end all too soon, when the matron found you and gave you a stern dressing down for neglecting your duties. Bill’s face fell when he realised that you would have to leave his bedside, but you promised to return just as soon as you could. You let the man you love go once, but you weren’t going to make the same mistake again.