Women of War - A Band of Brothers Story

VE-Day at Home: Frances

A/N: ... aaand it's been another two months since my last upload. I have lost all sense of time at this point, to be honest. This chapter has been sitting around mostly finished on my laptop for a good three weeks, but I couldn't get around to posting it. But now I'm bunkered down in the coolest room in the house to try and avoid melting in this heat wave (38 °C in the shade today...) and I'm too sleep-deprived to do anything else, so here we are.

I hope you like this chapter, writing it has been challenging but also fun and I'm looking forward to further exploring Frances' journey after the war. One thing's for certain: it won't all be smooth sailing for her...

Before we get back to the story, I'd just like to thank you all for reading this fic and sharing your thoughts and comments. Your reviews and reactions mean the world to me. I'm still so excited to see how much you folks like the story and the characters.

Frances had been home for a full week when the news broke. She was setting the table for breakfast, the radio playing in the background, when the partial phrases "Germany has surrendered" and "victory in Europe" caught her attention.

Her brain stalled for a moment as it parsed the meaning of those words.

Germany surrendered.

Victory in Europe.

The glass she'd been holding slipped from her suddenly numb fingers and shattered on the floor. The rolling tinkle of shards set her teeth on edge. "Ah shit."

"Frances? Is everything okay?", Aunt Lola called from the kitchen. "Did I hear something smash?"

She flexed her fingers. They tingled. "Uh, I dropped a glass", she replied, awkwardly bending down to begin picking up the broken pieces.

Her father came rushing in from the living room, eyes wide with alarm. "What happened? I heard a crash."

"Careful, there's glass everywhere."

"Oh! Are you alright, sweetheart? Did you trip? Is it your leg?"

Frances sighed. She'd expected some fussing and hovering, had known her family would worry and fret the minute she had written them that she'd been wounded bad enough to be shipped home. But she really hoped they'd soon stop treating her like she was fragile.

"It's fine", she began, hoping her voice didn't sound as tight to him as it did to her own ears. He meant well, after all.

She was saved from saying more by her twin brother bursting through the front door, brandishing the newspaper and hollering at the top of his lungs about the war in Europe being over.

Halfway through Andrew reading the front-page article out loud, she went back to gathering the shards. The article's talk about glory reminded her of another time she'd listened to a speech about gallantry and the privilege of fighting, and it left a curdled taste in her mouth. Limping to the kitchen to fetch dustpan and brush, she made quick work of sweeping the floor.

"Isn't that wonderful, sweetheart?", her father asked.

She looked up, jarred out of her thoughts. "Huh? What is?" Dustpan full of shards in hand, she straightened.

"The soldiers that have been in action longest are gonna be sent home first", Andrew supplied. His beaming grin turns even wider when he adds: "Your friends are coming home soon!"

His sincere enthusiasm pulled a laugh out of her. Hope stirred inside her, but she was hesitant to give in to it. "That's great news", she said, going back to the kitchen to throw the debris away. "I wou– I'm glad."