Work Text:
Despite the cheerful voices ringing out around him, there was no cheerfulness in his eyes as he watched the explosions of joy occurring along the street. It was as if all of a sudden, the war that had brought them there had never existed, and had it not been for the fact that they were all celebrating the end of said war, Malarkey would have almost believed it had never occurred.
Still, there was that throbbing ache that had been in his chest for months now constantly reminding him of all the people that had been lost, and as long as it was there, there was no chance of him ever forgetting the war.
With his pre-occupied mind and wandering eyes, it was a wonder that he even noticed as someone joined him where he sat on the steps of a house, and he was almost surprised over it himself as his head whipped around to spot Easy's transfer medic.
She had arrived in the company only a few months prior, right at the end of their time in the Ardennes, and despite their clashing personalities, there had soon been a friendship forming. There was not only their shared experiences, of the 502nd having gone through almost as much of a hell as the 506th had, but also the way she had seemingly slotted into a place that Skip had previously inhabited. While she hadn't been a replacement for his old best friend, she had become someone to lean on when times had been rough, and she had been there for him when the news had come of the shell that had blown his best friends to smithereens.
And hell, had those months since Skip and Penkala's deaths been rough...
After the Ardennes, there had been the hell of Germany, of patrols in the nighttime and the endless dirt of being on the road without much more than the clothes on their backs. There had been the findings of Landsberg, a time where he had thought he would see Claire cry as she had listened to Liebgott's translations of a prisoner's words, a hand clutching a battered knitted hat that he knew she constantly kept in her pocket. While there had been no tears – hell, he doubted he had ever seen her shed a tear, despite the shit the world had put her through – there had been an inexplicable sadness in her eyes, and it would be only a few days later that she would tell him everything about the little hat and the man it had once belonged to.
But despite it all, they were now there, in Berchtesgaden, watching as their fellow Airborne were celebrating the end of the war in Europe, and it was something that was slowly filling him with a feeling of disbelief.
“Want a smoke?” A packet of Lucky Strikes was waved before him, the lid half-open to show off the three cigarettes that was still left. It wasn't rare to see the medic with such a low supply, but he had long since stopped asking after that he had realised she wasn't going to answer. For all he knew, she could just be someone who went through packets of cigarettes quicker than anyone else he had ever met, and that was just all there was too it. Except that was not the case, and he knew it.
“Thanks.” Grabbing a cigarette, he slotted it in between his teeth before digging out his lighter to set the tip ablaze. Soon, the two of them were leaning back, smoke rising from their lips as they listened to a group of soldiers singing a slurred rendition of Blood On The Risers.
“So it's really over, huh?” Claire's words were so low that he almost didn't pick them up, and he didn't really expect that he needed to say anything in response until she continued, blue eyes flickering to his face. “The war? Can barely believe it.”
“I'm still expecting Winters to jump out and tell us it's all a joke. Don't feel real.” A grim smile flickered across his lips as he turned to face her, a frown creasing his brow almost as if he was trying to find the catch of the whole ordeal.
“I get that. I've been waitin' for someone to get shot all day, expectin' there to be some rogue Kraut in a bush somewhere.” Narrowed blue eyes swept down the street as if searching for the spoken of German, and Malarkey felt the smile on his lips grow a little bit brighter, if so only for a moment.
“Don't think Sink would allow that. He'd probably tell that bastard to take his bullet and go home, if so only because he would be interrupting Sink's dinner of Hitler's finest steak and wine.” He wasn't sure where the jokes were coming from, but it felt liberating to speak of something that was not all pain and suffering. After Landsberg, there had been too many reports rolling in of camps just like it – and worse – being discovered all over Europe, and it was obvious that would create discussions. Because with the way the war had panned out, it had generated more questions than there had been to start with, as well as uncovered things that no one ever thought human beings would be capable of.
“I'd be surprised if he even took the time to tell the guy off, because I feel as if he'd be too invested in his dinner.” A low chuckle slipped from Claire's lips together with a puff of smoke, her eyes flickering to a group of soldiers that was passing by with a crate filled to the brim with bottles. Before Malarkey even had the time to react – or think up a response to what she had said – she was on her feet, crossing the space between the steps they had been sat on and the group of soldiers.
There was a brief exchange, the soldiers looking more surprised than anything over the female medic's sudden appearance, before the blonde snatched up two bottles from the crate and set off back towards the waiting ginger.
“Unless you want a punch to the face, I suggest you follow me.” Her words were brief as she nodded down the street, but the message became properly clear as Malarkey noticed the slightly annoyed looks on the faces of the soldiers she had just stolen from. It was clear they hadn't been willing to share their prized alcohol with anyone, and while Malarkey doubted they'd go as far as to get into a fight over it, he wasn't about to stick around to risk it.
Flicking his cigarette onto the street, he was soon setting off after Claire, for the first time that day walking with a spring in his step as he hurried to catch up with Claire and the bottles of alcohol that he was suddenly eager to consume. If so only in a try to quell the aching feeling in his chest.
–
The night was starlit, with points of light dotting the sky wherever she looked, creating a patchwork of constellations. While there was a faint light coming from the small town below, the stars were still their main source of light where they were sat, balanced at the side of the road leading up the side of the mountain. It had been their refuge for most of the day, one of the few places that had lacked celebrating soldiers, and this had been where they had consumed their first two bottles of alcohol. There had been trips back down to the town to find more as they had worked their way towards a freeing drunkenness, but the road had continuously been returned to each time without fail.
Now, with alcohol coursing through their blood, cigarettes dangling between their fingers and the stars lighting up their little hideout, there came the first mention of the subjects they had been avoiding all day. It had been subjects that neither had wished to touch upon, but now, their drunken state was making it all a little more bearable.
“Did ya ever get time to watch the stars in the Ardennes?” The question came from Claire where she sat, her knitted kippah in one hand and lit cigarette in the other. “We did, Mick 'n I, once. Laid on our backs in the snow and watched the stars until an officer came along and told us to get back to our foxholes.” Her eyes flickered to the hat in her hand, thumb rubbing over it as if it would give her some kind of courage. “Mick was killed the day after, and I ended up in an aid station before I was transferred to the 506th the following week.” There was a nod from Malarkey, him already well acquainted with the rest of the story. While Claire had always been brief on the subject of her old best friend, Malarkey was one of the few who knew what had happened to him.
The story had been told to him in pieces after the deaths of his own friends, while Malarkey in return had shared his emotions about his own experiences, as well as the aching loneliness that had set in after they had come to a standstill in Hagenau.
“I can't remember watching the stars deliberately while over there. Usually, the lingering smoke from the guns would keep them hidden from view, and so I stopped looking. Perhaps there was also something in me that didn't want to see them up there while we were suffering through that frozen hell.” Taking a drag from his cigarette, Malarkey's eyes shifted to the lights of the town below as he continued speaking. “They were so unchanging up there, and I suppose it would almost feel as they were mocking the deaths of those we had lost if I looked up and saw them looking the same as always.” He wanted to believe that it was the alcohol doing the talking for him, but he knew it was not the case. It was mainly just helping him get things out that he would otherwise not have said. “I only looked once, by mistake, a few nights after Skip and Penkala died, and they looked so cold and unyielding. They didn't feel mocking at all at that point, but instead more like they didn't care what happened to anyone on Earth.”
“I doubt they care for anything that happens here, with how far away they are.” Smoke slipped from Claire's lips as she spoke, rising towards the pinpoints of light above like the souls of their friends once had, somewhere in a frozen forest in Belgium. “Ain't got no time for our wars and our deaths.” Flicking her cigarette away, the medic instead turned her attention to their remaining bottle of alcohol. “We should make a toast to them.”
It took Malarkey a minute to realise what she was talking about, his eyes first flickering towards the stars in confusion, his mind wondering why she would want to toast to the stars they both seemed to despise.
“To Mick, Skip and Penkala, I mean. 'Cause they, if anyone, deserved to be here now, celebratin' the end of this hell.” A grim smile flickered across her lips as she held the bottle out for him to take.
Taking a tight grip around the bottle, he nodded in her direction, thinking for a moment before he spoke.
“To our friends where they now rest in Belgium, and to anyone else who now rests on European soil. To those who died and who never saw the end of this war. May they rest in peace.” He would later almost regret what he said at that moment, wishing he would have said something different, but at that time, it felt right. Perhaps it was only because his words was rewarded with a mouthful of alcohol, before he passed the bottle back to Claire.
“Rest nicely, boys, because when we come to join you, there won't be time for any of that.” Raising the bottle towards the stars above, Claire allowed a small smile to slip across her lips before she took her own swig to silence herself.
For the first time in months, the silence that came to rest over their secluded place like a blanket, didn't feel suffocating. Instead, it was almost liberating, because, for the first time since they had jumped into Europe all those months ago, the world felt at peace, if so only for one night.