Genesis: the Beginning and the End | Band of Brothers

【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ７７ － Ａｎｎｉｖｅｒｓａｒｙ】

Chapter 77 - Anniversary

In the space between Christmas and New Year, they saw few casualties. Injuries were only really minor. Shellings were less frequent. It was a nice break.

Heaven knew Peggy needed it.

It was coming up to half her life without him, without her dad to guide her. Sometimes it was easy. Not when the anniversary came around.

The guys noticed.

Luz had the guts to ask her about it.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Luz sat down next to her, offering a cigarette, even lighting it for her. The pair sat together, feet in a foxhole, and Peggy took in the world around her.

She hated the bleak whiteness of it all.

Why was it so calm?

Luz was still waiting for an answer.

Peggy did something no one could have expected her to do, well someone might've expected it to happen with Bill. She rested her head on Luz's shoulder.

"My dad...I...He...12 years ago. I've lived half my life without him. Pneumonia got him. We all knew it was only a matter of time before something got him." Luz nodded, and didn't press for more. He didn't realise that she wasn't done. Peggy was just willing the tears to stay. "I miss him, so much. Sometimes it's okay, but when it comes up to the 29th, it's hard. Y'know, the last thing he said was that he'd see me bright and early in the morning. I knew that he was just saying that because he'd been ill for ages...but he didn't get up. That's why I don't want you guys getting sick. It's why I made as many scarves as I could."

He nodded along slowly, it making sense of so many things now. And then the pair sat in silence for a while, just glad to be close to someone. She didn't think she'd ever told anyone about her dad. If she had, she didn't remember. Too much had happened and was continuing to happen for her brain to even try to root around in the back of her head. Peggy thought she'd need a holiday after all this, and she accidentally thought out loud. But it made Luz laugh, and he agreed with her.

"We'll go somewhere, when this is over. I'll take you."

After a while, a group came over, and when asked what was up, Luz replied with,

"Peggy's sad."

"Well we can't have that."

Hands scooped under her arms and pulled her to her feet. She had to bite her lip to not cry out too loud. The next thing she knew, she was being lifted off her feet and spun round.

"Tab! What the hell are you doing! Put me down!" But he didn't, then he started running around with her until she was smiling and laughing again, "You're going to get us killed!"

"I am not, and hey, it's working, you're fighting a laugh. I know you are."

Gently she was put back on the ground. Tab was right. For a minute he'd distracted her so completely. And so for the rest of the day, he made it his mission, along with everyone else's, to cheer her up, keep her distracted. It could be with anything, so said the rules set out by Floyd Talbert, so long as it wasn't dangerous and didn't involve death. Which seemed fair enough.

E Company made sure that Peggy Watkins was never on her own, always had someone to talk to. In the last few days of 1944, she was: taught how to play the spoons by Skip, thoroughly confused by multiple people trying to explain baseball over the top of eachother, schooled on American history (something she didn't much care for), promised by multiple members of the company that they would be the ones to teach her to drive, and regaled with stories from Camp Toccoa and one Herbert Sobel.

However, having the Luftwaffe send Joe Toye to the aid station soured her mood. She wasn't massively responsive to jokes after that. She worried about him. And she knew he'd be fine, he was Joe Toye, one of the toughest bastards in all of Easy. But Peggy couldn't help it. She cared. So much.

Too much.

No. Just enough. They were her family and she cared for them; nothing could change that now. She'd found her heart again with them, her soul, her spirit.

_

Yeah updating schedule has gone to pot, but the sequel will hopefully be much more regular xx