Women of War - A Band of Brothers Story

Louise's Lament

A/N: Hello everybody, I hope you are all doing well! It's flu and cold season, after all... I was sick the entire week before last, but since I didn't feel that ill, I still went to work. Even though I had a cough that I was told was 'bad enough to raise the dead'. Looking back, I probably should have stayed home on Tuesday because I had a fever that day.

But hey, I survived and I got my voice back on Sunday afternoon, so it's all good :)

Okay, I'll stop rambling now. I hope you enjoy the new chapter. The next one will be published on October 20, but probably rather late in the evening as I'll be flying back home from Dublin that day.

On December 16, 1944, Louise woke up with a nagging feeling that something was wrong. Looking around, she couldn't see anything amiss.

As she got dressed, she mentally checked whether she had forgotten something important. That didn't seem to be the case either.

The strange feeling persisted.

The Brit spent all morning trying to either ignore the unsettling sense of foreboding or figure out where it came from.

Since neither approach worked in the slightest, her mood worsened progressively. Irritated, ill at easy and frustrated, she had to grit her teeth to keep herself in check.

***

It didn't help that her distraction made her performance at the shooting range that day nothing short of lousy. At least for her standard. Her usually tight groupings were scattered at almost double their normal radius. Her accuracy almost shoddy in comparison to her regular precision.

Liebgott, who had come over to shoot the breeze, took a look at her shredded paper target and whistled lowly.

"Jeez", he commented, "somebody got up on the wrong side of bed this morning."

Louise glared at him and told him to buzz off, adjusting her stance and taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to regain some semblance of focus.

The first shot was off-centre by maybe half an inch. The next a fraction too high. Three more shots followed, scattered all over the centre of the target.

A string of creative invective burst past Louise's lips.

Liebgott smirked – which only served to infuriate her further – and mused: "Damn, you really have a bad day. Is it that time of the month?"

It was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

The suppressed rage, born from the unease and frustration that had built up over the course of the day, flared and Louise snapped: "Oh piss off, would you?!"

His smirk widened, taking her reaction as confirmation. "It is!"

"No, it bloody isn't!", the blonde hissed back, pewter eyes boring into him. "And even if it were, it would be utterly beside the point because everything you can do, I can do bleeding!"

Their verbal sparring eventually descended into a real dispute, snark spiralling towards anger. 

Ultimately, the argument was broken up by Lipton, who stepped in before either of them said or did anything they might regret.

"Alright, you two, that's enough", he said, voice firm but not unkind. "Take a walk."

Louise blew out a harsh breath and shoved a hand through her blonde hair. "Yes sir", she mumbled and walked away.

The sharp scowl faded off Liebgott's features at the sniper's uncharacteristic lack of defiance and her immediate, quiet compliance.