All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

30: Irises

It took a while for Posey to find her footing again after all that coming back to England had changed. She felt lost for a while, a passenger seat spectator in her own life. She found herself floating through weeks on end, retreating into herself whenever she wasn't training and having to be coaxed into social interaction otherwise.

Her only respite, ironically, came when she went to visit her brother. Despite his lack of enthusiasm at her first visit, Posey found her way back to the RAF General Hospital on her next available weekend pass and let out a long breath when she found him exactly where she'd left him - not, of course, that she'd really expected him to move, but she could never be too careful with how volatile life was at the present.

"Posey," John greeted when he saw her, once again reading a folded newspaper.

"John," she replied, and, unlike last time, dragged a chair over to sit at his bedside.

"I can't say I was expecting you," he admitted, though without any hints of regret or disdain in his voice. Instead he sounded curious, as though wondering why on earth she'd want to visit her last living family member.

Posey ducked her head and shrugged bashfully at her lap. "I missed you."

John didn't reply, but when she risked a glance up he was gazing straight forwards and smiling just slightly. In response, she smiled to herself too - she sensed that he reciprocated the sentiment but just couldn't show it. She didn't hold that against him.

"How have you been?" she ventured tentatively, unable to keep her eyes from darting down to where his right hand had once been. Though the blanket hid the damage, much like it had last time, she still felt her heart drop looking at where his hand ought to be. She couldn't even imagine how much it had hurt - how much it likely still hurt.

John shrugged, staring straight ahead still. "Fine," he replied. "Recovering, albeit slowly."

Posey nodded and twiddled her thumbs, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip. "Are any of your crew here, too?" she wondered. Not thinking, she glanced behind her to scan the other beds in the ward as though she'd recognise any of the members of his crew even if she saw them. She'd never met them - and, come to think of it, didn't even know their names.

"No," John snapped, his voice hard. She turned back to face him immediately but he said nothing more.

Posey glanced at him once before turning her eyes to the blanket he sat under, which she found she longed to reach out and touch just as much as she had last time, but she still refused to satisfy the itch. Eventually, John's sigh broke through her idle thoughts. "Well," he amended, "one of them is." He cleared his throat. "Daniel. My wireless operator."

"Daniel," she repeated under her breath. Louder, she said, "I wanted to be a wireless operator, when you first left for training."

"I know," John said. A ghost of a smile flitted over his lips and disappeared just as quickly as it came. "You wanted to be my wireless operator, if I remember correctly."

"No," Posey protested, though it was perfectly true. But she'd never told him that and had no intentions of admitting it now. "I just wanted to be a wireless operator." She sighed, somewhere between a longing exhale and an indignant huff. "Anyway, they don't let women out on combat flights."

John laughed. The sound was abrupt in the wake of his monotone. "They don't let women be paratroopers either."

Posey rolled her eyes. "I did that out of desperation, not because I wanted to. I don't think I would have stayed otherwise." She shook her head. "It was hard. Is hard. Harder than I could have imagined. Harder than you're imagining, too, no doubt."