Genesis: the Beginning and the End | Band of Brothers

【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ １０１ － Ｎｏｉｓｅ】

Chapter 101 - Noise

Painfully hungover, but dreamless, Peggy rose before 0600. She was going to train with her brothers. No one was going to tell her otherwise. Maybe she could just...stowaway and head off to the Pacific Theatre. She'd never been there before. Yeah. That was a plan.

It really really wasn't.

Today was just PT.

But Ron pulled her aside at 0900 when everyone was sent off for breakfast.

"You shouldn't be training with the men."

He hadn't pulled her side gently really. Not called her over. No. He grabbed her arm as she was headed into the mess and yanked her to the side to make sure others behind her could get in.

Peggy frowned, but didn't turn her head.

"And why's that?"

"They need to be used to you not being around."

Then she turned to look at him, moving so fast it surprised him. Just not enough for Ron's grip to loosen.

"Horseshit. That makes no sense."

"You're not going over my head."

She rolled her eyes.

"I get it, you never liked me that much, did you? All that bullshit about me belonging here? Don't worry, I'll be out of your hair soon enough, held up against a wall and bang, I won't bother you ever again. And of course I won't go over your head, sir. I don't need to."

Wrenching her arm from his grip she stalked into the mess.

That...

That wasn't what he was expecting.

Of course he was expecting push back, but her tone and the look in her eye was all off.

She was unstable.

And whilst he did care about her, and he did like her and did believe she belonged, believed she was a part of the company, she would be detrimental if she continued to get worse.

When Peggy sat down, she let the cacophony block out all the noise in her own head. Here she couldn't think.

Her address book made its way round the table, each person scribbling down their home address.

It was like this any free time she had, collecting addresses like they were going out of fashion.

Of course she didn't listen.

Peggy met Ron's eye once, and then didn't look at him for the rest of the day.

At 0600 she went out on a run just like everyone else. She ran drills, training exercises, sentry duty just the same as every other man. She was cunning and could be sly and was not adverse to dirty tricks to get the job done. And she excelled.

You'd think she craved validation.

...

Yeah.

She was exhausted all the time.

But apparently that wasn't enough to keep the ghosts away at night so she drank to get some semblance of a regular night.

God and then the news of Shifty's accident. That killed her even more on the inside. So of course to numb it she opened the champers. Well actually it was the prosecco, but the only difference was where they were bottled. The bubbles helped her feel lighter.

When she wasn't training, she was in the lake floating floating floating.

Anything to make the noise stop.

Smoking made it all lighter too.

One night, she was out on her balcony and laughed out loud into the silence.

And to think she refused smokes a year ago because they were like poison.

Yeah, good one.

So what if they were poison? Some poisons feel good. And if they felt good, she wasn't so opposed to it anymore.

How the fuck did she lose herself so badly?

_

Okay but why is this one so short? I don't wanna combine it with another chapter as it will mess up the number, but I feel like I should've tried harder last year.