All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

91: Spring

Bill Guarnere certainly didn't have a way with words but somehow he always knew just what to say.

"I'm really sorry," Posey repeated, too overwhelmed to recognise what she really needed to confess. "I shouldn't have left you at all, ever, and I think it's going to haunt me for the rest of my life."

"Why didn't ya write to me? Why'd I have to find out from the doc that you're alive?"

Posey sighed. "So many reasons," she admitted, and rested her head on his shoulder, "and none of them are your fault."

"What are they?"

"I was afraid of what you'd think of me now that I'm so nervous all the time. I was afraid you wouldn't believe me if I just wrote you a letter but I couldn't come and see you myself. I was afraid you would've moved on and married someone else, a nurse who cared for you in the hospital or something. I was just afraid, full stop. Of every conceivable outcome." Except, she added mentally, this one. There was nothing to be afraid of with this one.

"Ya really thought I'd move on so fast?" Bill asked, disbelieving and defensive.

"If you thought I was dead then yes," Posey replied, laughing a little bit deliriously herself. "And it's been quite a while, too. A year and just over four months is enough time to move on, I think."

"And have you?"

The question made her sputter out a laugh. "Of course not," she answered instantly. "How could I?"

"You tell me."

She knew what he was after and it made her grin; she hadn't even realised she hadn't said it back. Actually, she realised, she'd never told him ever, even though she'd known for a long time by now. "I love you," she told him, and turned her head to press a kiss to his shoulder before resting her temple back down on it. "That's why I couldn't."

"Now ya see where I'm comin' from," Bill said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

"But I knew that you weren't dead," she pointed out, lifting her head to watch him laugh. "You didn't know that I wasn't." She'd missed that sound. She'd missed that face.

"But ya still avoided me for over a year," he argued.

She wrapped both of her arms around his bicep and hugged it to her, smiling brightly into his sleeve. "Because, secretly, I always thought it'd be us in the end. Somehow or other."

"Ya did?"

She shrugged one shoulder and let it fall easily. "I hoped, at least."

"How long?" Bill asked suddenly, squinting through the sunlight as he smiled down at her where she was still clutching at his arm.

Posey shook her head once, confused. "How long what?"

"How long have ya loved me?" he asked, something smug lurking in his smile.

She rolled her eyes but she was laughing, and she rested her temple back down on his arm so she could gaze out across the garden again, infinitely more beautiful now than it had been before. "Forever."

Bill scoffed. "That ain't true."

She laughed. "No, you're right, it's not." She couldn't help but grin. "You were a bastard when I first met you."

"Shut up," he retorted, chuckling under his breath. "How long?"

Posey hummed, mulling the question over. It was difficult to say. She'd first realised in Bastogne after he'd almost gotten the pair of them killed, but even then she'd known she'd already loved him for a while. The honest answer was that she didn't know how long she'd been in love with him - it felt like a lifetime by now. "Remember when you brought me my bear when I was crying?" she said, smiling at the memory. "I think I fell a little bit in love with you then."