All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

83: Displaced

More people than Posey could have expected had been bombed out of their homes in London. After the what was being called the 'little Blitz' of the previous year, the city's tube stations were full of mattresses and belongings and people milling about to protect them from theft during the day.

Posey pitied them, which she felt was strange because, really, she was one of them - she'd simply found herself in luck that her brother was being put up in a hotel for the time being. Still, it was difficult to look in on a scene that should have been so personal made so public. These people had no privacy at all.

London was a shell of what it had once been, but then again so was she, so Posey tried her best not to mind as she made her way to the hotel John was staying in. She kept her head down and her eyes on the pavement, mentally repeating the directions she'd asked the ticket-collector for at the train station over and over again in her head until she reached the double doors leading into the lobby.

The hotel was run down from the war and the hell London had been put through over the years, but it had clearly once been beautiful. The lobby's interior shone with muted grandeur, a hint of what must once have been incredibly opulent; Posey thought there was still something rather charming about it, elegant in the way that women sometimes were when they aged and you could tell they'd once been stunning, but the bustling activity made it difficult to get a proper read. It was coming up for late evening and people were moving in a restless tide in and out of the hotel bar and vying for whichever rooms were left; hotels were popular these days for romantic trysts and business meetings, among other things. Posey had been informed so when she'd asked for directions.

Posey queued up at the front desk and waited her turn impatiently, tapping her foot whilst her eyes swept the room on the lookout for John. She didn't want their reunion to be here, under the watchful gaze of so many prying eyes and in a room so loud they'd have to shout at each other to be heard, but she was anxious to see him. She wondered whether he was likely to be in the hotel restaurant or whether he got room service - maybe he was dining somewhere else altogether? There was no real use in hypothesising for she was at the front of the queue a moment later.

"Can I help you, miss?"

Being a woman again still hadn't lost its appeal. Posey was happier than ever to be back on home soil as herself this time, no fake accent or fake deep voice necessary.

"Hi, yes, I'm here to visit my brother. I'm not sure which room he's in."

"What's the name?"

"Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Wells. He's being put up here by the RAF."

The woman behind the desk nodded as she scanned the list in front of her. "Yes, I see. Room 231, second floor, miss."

Posey thanked the woman and was on her way to the stairs, weaving in and out of elderly couples and women with babies, children and businessmen. At the foot of the stairs she came upon a girl, likely around the same age as her, holding onto the arm of a soldier on leave and smiling warmly up at him. The soldier was American but the girl was British, and Posey paused a little ways away from them, struck by the thought that that could have been her; she might have stayed in London instead of ever going to America and come across the boys of Easy during one of their many weekend passes to the capital. She might have met Bill that way. How much simpler everything would have been if she had. But would they still have fallen in love if they'd done it like that? They hadn't even liked each other at first, after all.

Posey shook her head and ducked as she slipped past the couple. They'd still have fallen in love, she was sure of it. In a million different lifetimes in a million different universes she was certain that her and Bill Guarnere would still have met, war or no war, and fallen hopelessly in love. Her heart sighed for the universe where they were never torn apart, where they got to find each other and stay together, sighed for the happiness that that version of herself must have had.