Haguenau, France
1945
The medical scissors gleamed by the porcelain sink. Standing in front of the cracked medicine cabinet mirror, Cate cagily picked them up. The lightbulb buzzed overheard as she pulled the cord hanging from the ceiling.
Trembling from the chill in her threadbare slip, Cate gathered the brown braid off her shoulder and worked the scissors through the heavy strands. It came off at the base of her neck. Her bare feet growing numb from the bitter tile floor, she let the braid fall from her fingers into the sink.
So it was done.
She exhaled slowly as she finished with the layers grazing her chin. The deadened pieces drifted to the floor. Cate tossed the scissors with a resounding clang into the sink and ran her fingers through her cropped locks. Uneven strands framed her face like the toothed branches outside framed the dove grey sky.
"Cate?"
She shuddered out of her thoughts as Mira appeared in the doorway. She was holding the letter. Mira's pinched face blanched as she surveyed what she had done to herself.
"Why?" The young nurse sighed, folding the paper.
Cate shrugged, swollen eyes blinking back a fresh rush of tears. "You're holding the reason."
***
Author's Note: So this is a HBO Band of Brothers fanfiction I wrote and completed a couple years ago. It is also on fanfiction.net, but I wanted to put it up here since I've been principally using Wattpad. This story means NO DISRESPECT to the veterans portrayed in the miniseries. It is inspired entirely by a TV show that was based on real people, but this imagining has nothing to do with the real people mentioned.
YOU ARE READING
Out of a Vacant Heart: A Band of Brothers Fanfiction
FanfictionAfter a brief romance before D-Day, American Nurse Cate Doyle meets Corporal Don Malarkey once more in the ruins of Haguenau, France. They find that though they have changed drastically since the European invasion began, their feelings have not.
