𝐋𝐚 𝐕𝐢𝐞 𝐄𝐧 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞🌹𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬

Chapter 11: Letting Go (Part 2)

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Band of Brothers and the images I used, just my characters and story. In addition, I meant no disrespect to the real soldiers of Easy Company and I apologize for any mistakes whether it be historical inaccuracies or punctuation/grammar.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Carentan, France: 1944

Without hesitation, Eliza left the ditch she was sharing with Blithe and ran towards Third Platoon as someone was shouting for a medic. As she ran, Eliza became worried since the voice of whoever shouted sounded like Liebgott. When she arrived, Eliza saw Liebgott tending to Talbert, who laid against the trunk of a tree, who was immensely in pain.

"What happened?" Eliza questioned, as she quickly went to tend Talbert's wound.

"Smith thought Talbert was a Kraut, so he stabbed him with his bayonet," Liebgott answered, clearing the way as Roe quickly went to Talbert's side.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't know it was him," Smith plead as he stared worryingly at Talbert.

"C' mon Smith, Talbert's gonna be okay, he's in good hands," Liebgott stated to reassure Smith, who was hyperventilating as he was nearing a breakdown.

Meanwhile, Eliza carefully ripped away Talbert's clothing to find the wound, which was difficult given their circumstances. When she did, Eliza used the gauze to wipe away the blood and clean the wound while Roe grabbed some sulpha.

"I'll put some sulpha on the wound, Floyd. You're gonna be fine," Roe stated as Talbert moaned in pain. Knowing that contact of the powder with the wound would be tremendously painful, Eliza tried her best to comfort Talbert.

When Roe applied sulpha to his injury, Talbert's moans became louder, gaining the attention of more soldiers. After disinfecting the wound, Eliza used more gauze to control the bleeding as she applied pressure. As he became stabilized, Roe and another paratrooper prepared to evacuate Talbert, since Roe prompted Eliza to stay for her safety. Eliza complied without hesitation since she understood that it wouldn't be best to argue with Roe. As they left, Eliza decided to check on Smith to make sure he was okay. However, she stopped when Lieutenant Speirs walked towards her.

"Lieutenant Speirs," Eliza stated as she nodded to greet him.

"Can you report on what happened?" Speirs started after reciprocating Eliza's greeting.

"Of course sir, Private Smith thought Private Talbert was a German and accidentally stabbed him with his bayonet. Fortunately, Doc Roe and I were able to stabilize him. He was just evacuated."

"The men are getting uneasy, how are you holding up Corporal?" Speirs asked, particularly pointing out her wounds.

"Both my wounds are healing up nicely, but they're sore. Thank you for asking, sir."

"That's good, would you like a cigarette?" Speirs asked as he handed her a box of his Lucky Strikes.

"No, thank you, sir. I don't smoke."

"Huh, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what's your poison?"

At Speir's question, Eliza couldn't help but smile sadly as she knew due to their circumstances, many relied on something to get through, such as Nixon with his Vat 69 and the men with their lucky strikes. However, Eliza had a peculiar vice.

"Chocolate."

When Speirs heard Eliza's answer, he couldn't help but smile as it made sense to him. Speirs always saw Eliza eating a piece of chocolate, but he also knew that she wasn't selfish as most people were with their own vices. If Eliza knew a piece of chocolate was going to help someone in any way, she wasn't reluctant to give it away. He saw it first-hand when Eliza was giving out chocolate to the men after capturing Carentan. It was endearing to know that there were hopeful people, even when the world gave nothing to be optimistic about. However, Speirs knew that these people would be the first to be killed. Because for a soldier to survive in a war, one must strip themselves of what makes them human: their mercy, compassion, and contrition. And so as they departed to their separate ways, Speirs couldn't help but feel that if Eliza were to be killed, it would be a damn shame.