Genesis: the Beginning and the End | Band of Brothers

【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ８５ － Ｔｏｕｃｈｙ】

Chapter 85 - Touchy

After the shower, Peggy went to go find Luz. She wanted to be close to him.

George Luz was found sorting through the PX rations, whilst trying to avoid getting mobbed.

"Hey Beautiful, feelin' better after the shower?"

"Mhm, sleepy though."

She shuffled in past those crowing for chocolate and hugged Luz's side. He gave her a quick squeeze. Peggy thought he looked overwhelmed so offered to help, but Luz denied her offer and instead gave her a Hershey bar.

"Hey! How come she gets a Hershey bar, she didn't even ask, I've been-"

"Lieb, it's okay. You can share it with me."

He quietened down and sent her a brilliant smile before assuring her he'd get one for himself.

"There's not enough to go around!"

"Is Captain Winters here?"

Oh. Great. Jones.

"Uh, he's down by the river, sir."

She'd have to go find him later then.

There was quite an array of, well, stuff. She apologised for getting in Vest's way, and he smiled at her. She offered to take the boxes from him and he instructed her to pop them by the door.

"Hey, big mouth, give the kid a Hershey bar!"

Peggy looked up and turned around at the voice. A bright broad smile spread across her face.

"You gotta be shittin' me!"

"What's up guys? I like what you did with the place George."

"Yeah. I did good."

In a flash, Peggy was barrelling into Frank Perconte with a cry of joy. To say she was happy to see him would be an understatement. He had to take a step back to steady himself.

"When'd you get so touchy, Peggy? I'm not complainin', this is nice."

"She's been doing it a lot lately, but anyway, how're you feelin'?"

She slowly let Frank go as he explained that he was fine, as long as no one touched his arse. She smiled to herself as Luz threw him a bar of chocolate and Lieb complained loudly. Very loudly.

"He got shot in the ass!"

It was all getting a bit loud so Peggy tuned out and focused on feeling the squares of her own bar through the wrapper to see where half way was. The plan was to attempt to score the wrapper at halfway and then cleanly snap it. But it didn't go to plan. It didn't break evenly, or even cleanly along the squares and the wrapper tore messily. Still, she toddled over to Lieb, tapped his arm and silently offered him the bigger half. His eyes softened more than she'd ever seen, and he wordlessly took the smaller half from her side.

"Welcome back Frank."

The mood had turned sombre whilst she'd focused on the chocolate. Oh, they were talking about the patrol.

"Yeah, Jesus, that reminds me. Web, I need you to run these to OP-2 for me. Grenade launchers for the night patrol." Luz held out the crate, and Web needed prompting before he took it. "Any day now Web. There you go, oh you know what? Send these too."

Lieb squeezed her shoulder in thanks, and then she went back over Luz. She knew he was busy and overwhelmed but she was selfish...and maybe a little anxious. Vest told a story about a replacement Looie blowing his foot off on patrol last night, whilst Luz let Peggy fiddle with his sleeves. She was quite childlike.