Chapter Text
After spending years in France avoiding detection from the SS, avoiding one Norman Dike, newly promoted Easy Company CO, should have been child’s play.
It was with the utmost frustration that Eleanor Deveaux found that he was maddeningly present in all of the worst places: namely, those which she wished to be. Securing herself away from prying eyes in the company of Captains Winters and Nixon? The Lieutenant inevitably required something. Conversing quietly with Lieutenant Shames, sharing information from his erstwhile group at S-2? Dike would appear.
He thwarted her at every turn and left her with no recourse.
If the man wasn’t attempting to wear the rubber off Easy Company’s boots with gratuitous parade marches, he was somehow underfoot.
It made the task of securing herself a quiet corner, absent notice, significantly more challenging than it ought to have been. Compounded by the fact that the man’s discomfort around her was a tangible thing and Ellie was left in increasingly frustrated, foul spirits. She was in from the rain. She wasn’t encased in mud.
For all intents and purposes, it should have been a time to celebrate.
Mourmelon le Grand was a paradise on earth after the Island.
The population of the camp changed by the day. Hell, Ellie thought privately, it practically changed by the hour.
Some of those changes were grievous: replacements shuffled in, taking the places of better men.
Oh, certainly, it wasn’t fair to resent them for their presence. There was no arguing the need. But their fresh faces, their innocent eyes.. Or, their scorn and suspicion.. Whichever they were met with, Eleanor couldn’t help but turn away. The innocence would be stripped away soon enough. And their suspicion would be allayed in time. She had nothing to prove, and would waste neither the time nor the effort to attempt to, not now, not here.
After all, they were surrounded by men who would set the unseasoned youth to rights.
But, not all such changes were the consequences of ill tidings: some were changes for the better. The return of men who had been removed from the line in Holland, much missed, and even more celebrated upon their homecoming. Buck Compton was a frightfully welcomed face, a voice of steadiness, familiar authority laced with reason and good humor. Bill Guarnere was another face returned to Easy Co. whom found himself well received.
And a particular S2 Lieutenant who returned to the line as well.
He, more than Lieutenant Dike, more than an impertinent Guarnere, a Luz seeking a laugh (or ten), a frustrated Toye, caused the most problems for Eleanor Deveaux.
That Lieutenant Speirs caused her the most grief seemed fitting.
It was a familiar predicament. The man was always chief among her irritants.
“Can’ say I thought t’ find you here.”
Panic and relief flooded her veins in equal measure, in the exact same instant. At first it was the shock of fear: had she been found? Was it too late to escape? The administrative office offered only one exit and strategically, was indefensible once broached. Its appeal lay solely in its near total anonymity. Calm settled in the span of the same heartbeat: that was no Scottish edged Boston clip.
No, it was a softer voice, deep and steady, reassuring in its patience.
The look that Ellie gave Denver Randleman was nothing less than absolute bewilderment: “your presence is more of a shock here than mine, I expect.”
Bull’s laugh was low as he settled into the doorframe. His posture relaxed, the military rigidity softening in the absence of underlings who looked up to him (the man’s squad’s hero worship of him was legendary at this point) or superiors to whom he reported in turn. Here, he had no one to adopt the trappings of militaristic formality.
No, Ellie thought introspectively - it was only she. And there was nothing to impress for her, not anymore.
“Got me there.” The look he gave her was thoughtful.
It would be a mistake to write the large man off as an imposing brute and nothing more. There was a sense to him, a savviness of people, of personalities, that made him an incredibly adept leader. It also made him an astute observer.
…It wouldn’t bother her if he were less shrewd. At least, in this moment.
“Don’ think holing up here will hide you f’r long.”
The smile Eleanor gave him was barbed.”I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
“So I shouldn’ invite y’ to the screen? Seven Sinners.”
“Again?”
“Gonna complain? Could always stay here an’ let him find you… should let y’know he was leavin’ the HQ offices when I passed.”
And that building was hardly even a stone’s throw.. Even before Sergeant Randleman had completed his words, Ellie had risen to her feet.
It wasn’t with anything as indecorous as haste. (No one could ever accuse Eleanor of moving in any way that ever would be described as hasty. It lacked the appropriate elegance for the way the young woman typically moved, with a self assuredness and a composure that allowed her a particular grace even in the most economic of moments.)
No, she was expedient. But also, Bull’s comment had been read as the threat it was meant to convey.
Well. Threat to Ellie. An alert from the man.
“A film sounds lovely.”
It was at Randleman’s side that Eleanor emerged from the office, from the building, as they moved in quiet agreement through the camp. His company was comfortable: he didn’t chase words the way so many did, pouring needless commentary into the silence simply to fill it. Moreover, his physical presence, large and overt, offered an excellent shroud for her own.
And if his company wasn’t enough to conceal her own presence, then at least it served as sufficient deterrent.
“‘s not like you can hide forever,” Bull rumbled at last, voice low even amongst the sounds of the camp in the background.
Try me, Ellie’s mind shrieked in immediate rejoinder. She tempered the immediate response, giving the sergeant a lofty look instead. “I haven’t the slightest clue what you could mean.”
The way he rolled his eyes may as well have been a derisive snort, more eloquent than even Nix could have managed in a wordless expression.
“Gonna pretend you don’t know the way he looks at you?”
“I. Don’t. Know. What. You. Could. Mean.”
Bull grinned, head tilting to the side. Following the direction of his gesture, her eyes found the shadow of a building. The architecture, impressive in its utilitarian efficacy as it was, was not the point of the motion: it was the man in the shadow.
Lieutenant Speirs stood still as a statue as he watched them pass.
Ice clicked down Eleanor’s spine one vertebrae at a time.
“No?” Bull teased, ribbing gentle but pointed in a way only a man of his gravity could manage. “Y’sure?”
Ellie’s narrow eyed look was all the response he would get.
“Looks at you like y’hung the stars.”
“That’s his problem. I fail to see why you should try and make it mine.”