Collaboration with @silmarilz1701
Svetlana knew how to play the game. She'd been caught in the political drama of Stalin's inner circle since birth. The only child of one of Stalin's closest friends, she grew up in the limelight, scrutinized by frie...
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Sveta paced by the window. November had come and gone, and with it, Heyliger to England and Moe Alley and Ron Speirs to the front. The frosted window mocked her, as out in France people got to go about their lives, free. She wasn't free. She was stuck in a hospital.
"Jesus, could you fucking stop. My leg is hurting just watchin' yah."
Stuck in a hospital with Bill Guarnere.
Sveta turned from the window. Most of the men in their section had left. Empty beds with perfectly tucked hospital corners glared back. Except for the one where Guarnere sat glaring down at a letter. They'd been told that a new round of wounded would be arriving that night and filling their ward.
Sveta didn't want to see that. After a month surrounded by groans and blood and screams from the ill, she wanted nothing more than to leave. Her wound had healed. She wasn't quite as strong as she'd been; the doctors told her the pain could stay for months. They wanted her to do physical therapy, stretches, build up the muscles that had been torn. They wanted her to rest.
She didn't want to stay another night. She didn't want to rest. She wanted to be outside, out where she wasn't near nurses or doctors. She wanted to be free. The sound of a jacket being pulled on tore Sveta's attention away from the window again.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Guarnere froze in his movements for just the briefest moment. He'd pulled his uniform jacket on and laced up his boots. "I'm getting out of here. I ain't rotting in this fucking place." As he covered his wrapped leg with his pants, he added, "You gonna stop me, Captain?"
She didn't respond. As Sveta looked at him there, bent over and trying to make sure no bit of his cast showed, she weighed her options. Guarnere had never done anything to make her think about acting in his favor. Since Alley had left, they'd fallen into a routine. Ignoring each other as long as possible, the occasional trading of quips that were more intended to hurt than to amuse, and silence. Guarnere had never been one for silence, though. When he could, he'd chat with the other men.
Then it had just been them. The past two days were the longest two days of Sveta's life. But she had gained a new appreciation for him. He'd visited Heyliger and Compton multiple times. She'd seen the way he'd gritted his teeth against the pain and made his way through the halls to his comrades. He didn't need to do that.
"May as well shoot me this time, if you're gonna try." Guarnere stood, the same grit and determination against the pain written all over his face as when he'd visited his friends.
Sveta turned to him straight on, away from the window. "You won't get far, Sergeant."
He scoffed. "You're just a fucking ray of sunshine, ain't yah Captain." But he just moved down the cots, leaving her behind to limp away towards freedom.
Freedom.
"I'm coming with you, Guarnere."
At the door, he spun around. Sveta saw the way his eyebrows raised at her declaration. It was the same shock she'd seen from Talbert and Liebgott in Normandy. The same shock from Alley and More in the Netherlands. She wasted no time. Sveta already had her boots on. Throwing her coat over her body, she came to stand beside him.
