All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

43: Replacements

Being back in Aldbourne brought with it more comfort than Posey thought she'd felt throughout the entire war. Staying with Mrs. Daniels had been more physically comfortable, certainly, but being back on home soil with her life and her secret both still largely intact was a unique kind of exhilaration. Posey took care to be consciously grateful for her life as much as possible; she knew better than to take it for granted by now.

She dreaded visiting John, so she put it off for a few days. At one point she decided she wasn't going to visit him at all - not until the war was over and she was safely out of harm's way. But she wanted to prove him wrong more than she wanted to avoid him. She'd experienced combat now - she'd experienced D-Day, one of the biggest invasions in military history, and even he couldn't say that. And, really, she knew he'd been right before when he'd called her green and naïve. She had been. But now she knew better; she knew how precious life was and how easily it could be taken away. And if she was going to kick the bucket anytime soon, she was going to do it without any regrets. So she needed to pay a visit to her brother.

When she went to visit John she found him asleep, a nurse at his bedside. The nurse offered Posey a smile. "I can wake him for you, if you like," she said kindly. "But he should be awake soon."

Posey nodded back to the nurse and offered a smile of her own. "I'll just wait, no need to wake him."

The nurse pulled up a chair for Posey and situated it at John's bedside, on the right-hand side of his bed, where she always sat. "Thank you," Posey said softly. The nurse nodded and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder before leaving them in peace. Posey wondered what had prompted the nurse to do so, whether she'd looked particularly sad or maybe just tired. Maybe she had the same look in her eyes now that she'd first been shocked to find in her brother's. Or maybe the nurse was just kind.

When John began to stir Posey fixed a smile onto her face. She sat up straighter in her chair and crossed her hands in her lap. She wanted him to be able to take one look at her and know, instinctively, that she'd been changed - that she'd seen combat and not frozen. That she'd done him proud.

When he looked at her his eyebrows furrowed. "What are you doing back so soon?"

Posey's face fell. "Why are you never happy to see me?" she demanded. She was fed up of his holier-than-thou attitude. She was a combat veteran now; she had hauled her arse across Normandy by herself on D-Day, unarmed and disorientated, had had a knife pressed to her throat, cleared houses in a battle, been shot, and held her own in a shootout. If he wouldn't give her respect willingly then she'd demand it.

"I thought you went off to war. I read about the invasion in the paper," John said.

Posey tilted her chin up as she met his gaze brazenly. "Yes," she replied. "I did. And now I'm back until my unit gets redeployed. Is that alright with you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

After a beat, John ventured, "So, you've experienced combat, now, I suppose."

Posey rolled her eyes. "Yes. I have." Even though he wasn't looking at her, John's eyebrows lifted in what was perhaps a prompt for her to go on. Posey tried to remind herself that she didn't have anything to prove to him but she found herself elaborating before she could decide against it. "I jumped into Normandy on D-Day. If you read about it then I suppose you know about the triple A on the planes. And about how many men didn't even make it to the ground. In which case I suppose you also know that we were dropped all over the place." She squared her shoulders as she watched her brother's side profile closely. "I navigated Normandy alone. I took part in the Battle of Carentan and the Battle of Bloody Gulch. I shot down more Germans than I can count and only sustained a single bullet wound in the process. So you can relinquish your superiority complex now, John. I think it's about time, don't you?"