All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

85: Nerve

Before Posey knew it, spring was sprinkled on the world and there were whispers that the war was ending. It was in the newspapers, it was in daily conversation, and it was in the skip people were getting in their step as they wandered past the window Posey gazed out of, her eyes on the world below like Juliet on her balcony.

She wasn't sure whether she believed it. After everything it didn't feel like the war could end, that it had any right to end after all it had done to her. How could the war just go and end and life go back to normal? Posey would have no normal ever again, not normal as she remembered it.

Wars didn't last forever but it had always felt like this one would.

When Hitler shot himself in the head Posey knew it was really true; the war that had stolen so much from her - her mother, her home, her innocence, her youth - was coming to an end. She wondered how many of the boys from Easy were still alive and where they were, whether they were in as many shattered pieces as she was herself.

Would they even recognise her if they saw her now? Now that she was wearing dresses and makeup and styling her hair like a woman - a woman with short hair, yes, but at least it had grown significantly since she'd had to have it in the regulation military crew cut - she thought she looked remarkably different to how she had when she'd been Duckie. She also thought she looked remarkably different to the person she'd been before joining the army, when she'd been Josephine. A different face for a different name, a different identity for a different purpose.

She imagined all of the things she'd do with her hair when it finally grew long again, properly long, like it had been before. Just now it was a little bit below her ears. She wanted to grow it out until it reached down her back.

She marvelled at the nerve she'd had when she'd decided to disguise herself as a boy. She couldn't imagine herself doing something like that now, being as brave as that now. Reckless but also fearless, that version of herself had taken her desperation and turned it into steely determination. How had she ever walked into the barracks at Camp Toccoa calling herself Joseph Wells and carved out a life for herself amongst a bunch of American men, firing bullets and following orders and going to war?

She sighed and fiddled at the skirt of her dress in her chair by the window. She'd lost all of her nerve by now. These days she didn't even dare to so much as leave the safety of the hotel room; she couldn't comprehend being the same person who'd made bait of herself so that Shifty could hit the German sniper who'd wounded Bill. Everything she'd done as a soldier seemed fascinating to her now and so, so long ago. She was that girl no longer. She wasn't sure whether she missed her. Maybe one day she would.

She missed a lot of other things in Duckie Wells' stead. She missed Bill, she missed Johnny, she missed Gene, she missed George. She missed being part of something bigger than herself, missed feeling accepted and secure. She missed that sense she'd had of who she was when she was with Easy, this certainty she'd found somewhere along the line of who she'd become and who she would continue to develop into with them by her side. She missed her rifle, she missed her ODs, she missed her helmet.

She missed Teddy.

How she missed that teddy bear. But she didn't regret leaving him with Bill for even a second; if she'd been carrying him when she'd left, when she'd been hit, he'd be in pieces by now. And, secretly, she liked to think that he'd brought Bill luck. She'd always insisted that Teddy was her good luck charm and at some point she'd started to believe it, though it had only been an excuse for his presence at first. She liked to imagine that, though Bill had lost his leg, perhaps having Teddy with him had saved him from something worse.

It was stupid to believe that, she knew, but it brought her comfort late at night when she missed her faithful companion. Maybe Teddy was with someone who needed him more than she did now, though really she wasn't sure that anyone could ever possibly need Teddy more than she did.