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There was no such thing as vacation during war times; if you managed to get more than three days of leave at any given point, you were either incredibly lucky or had some serious connections at the HQ in Berlin. The same thing applied to Beatrice and Eleonore; no matter the fact they once worked under Lord Heydrich, they still had to cross their fingers and pray they’d get time off and that those times off would overlap.
This time, thankfully they got lucky, and Beatrice wasted absolutely no time in dragging Eleonore off into the mountains of Austria for a vacation, despite Eleonore’s stringent protests and snarled threats of imminent death.
“Come on, Major!” Beatrice was hammering at the door of the room Eleonore had barricaded herself in. “It’s such a pretty day, let’s go swimming!”
“Are you mad, Kircheisen,” Eleonore hissed in the direction of the door, eyeing the swimsuit her subordinate had sneakily packed into her bag and dearly wishing she could burn it without getting an additional headache from Beatrice’s whining. “I’m not going out in… in that!”
“But why not? I found it just for you!” Beatrice said, more than stubborn enough to bother her superior until she caved and agreed into coming with her to Worthersee, the lake on which shores the small town of Klagenfurt was built. “Do you know how hard it was to find a swimsuit that wasn’t two-piece and had no flowing skirt? A right pain, Major!”
Eleonore grimaced, but had to concede the point there. Apart from the fact Eleonore did not want to swim at all in Worthersee, the swimsuit had basically been tailored to Eleonore’s tastes. Plain dark blue and with the tightly-fitted skirt that more resembled a pair of shorts sewn onto the top with straps, Eleonore of before the war would have had no issue with wearing it.
Now, though…
The skin around the edges of her burns pulled uncomfortably as Eleonore grimaced and moved around, every moment of life a painful reminder that she was not a flawless beauty like Brenner or Beatrice anymore. Once, she may have been confident enough to wear all but nothing outside, but now, she preferred hiding the extent of the scars she had.
“Major… is this about the scars?”
And of course her subordinate didn’t know when to leave things alone - or when to look away from the truth. As proud as Eleonore was of the fact Beatrice was shedding the rosy lens she viewed the world with, it also pissed her off to no end when her scars were concerned.
“Fuck off, Kircheisen!” Eleonore snarled and threw a hard-cover book at the door. “I’m not going to the Worthersee, and that’s it!”
“... then I’m not going either,” Beatrice said quietly, and Eleonore had to pick up her jaw from the floor at the declaration.
“You’re on fucking leave , Kircheisen - I won’t have you bitching to me about missing out on things -!”
“How am I missing out if you’re not there with me?” Beatrice cut in, still speaking so quietly and softly, Eleonore had to strain her ears to hear. “Major… I chose this place for a reason, you know.”
“Why is that?”
“No one cares here,” Beatrice explained. “This is a town of foreigners - as long as you can speak German, no one will bother you about anything, including your looks.”
Beatrice sounded so sure, Eleonore wanted to believe her, but…
“Besides,” and now Beatrice was back to sounding eager and somewhat mischievous, “I may or may have not talked the Mayor into sectioning off part of the lakeside just for us.”
“... what exactly did you do, Kircheisen?” Eleonore asked, raising an eyebrow at the tone that promised nothing good but quietly thrilled at Beatrice going so far to accommodate her.
“Oh, nothing much,” the reply was suspiciously nonchalant and airy. “Just convinced him it was in his best interests to allow us some privacy for the weekend.”
A startled guffwaff escaped Eleonore’s lips as she connected the dots, cheeks flushing at the implications. This girl… she really went to the Mayor of the city and threatened him with an investigation by the secret police just so that the two of them could have some privacy while on leave? Really, what had Eleonore done in her past life to earn herself such a devoted subordinate?
“You’re such a badly behaved puppy, aren’t you? Can’t take you anywhere you biting people’s ankles.”
“ Woof! ” Beatrice replied, and Eleonore wrenched open the door to slam her fist on the top of Beatrice’s head.
Correction - she wasn’t a puppy, she was a plain old dumbass. Honestly, which deity had Eleonore offended to have this girl thrust upon her to take care of?