Shadows of the World » Band of Brothers

40: So Much to Tell

"Dear March - Come in -
How glad I am -
I hoped for you before -
Put down your Hat -
You must have walked -
How out of Breath you are -
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest -
Did you leave Nature well -
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me -
I have so much to tell -"
- Emily Dickinson, To March

-

"Jules?" Thomas called, knocking on her open bedroom door.

Juliette closed her book and looked up at him in the doorway, tilting her head to the side as she waited for him to speak.

Tom had his arms crossed loosely over his chest, one shoulder elevated from where he was leaning on the door frame. He wore a half smile. "Today's the day, Jules."

Jules laughed once, placing her book on her bedside table and leaving her hand resting there for a moment. "Did you manage to work out when he's most likely to be there?" she inquired, looking back to Tom curiously.

He nodded. "From what I can gather from the medic rotation they'll have him on inventory from 1700 to estimated 1830. Will you be alright sneaking in?"

"I'll just go through the fields. I'll have to leave early to make sure I'm there in time but the supply tent is on the edge of everything so it shouldn't be too hard. What are the yanks up to today?"

"Lectures, I think," Tom told her, smiling reassuringly. "The fields'll be empty, at any rate. They're beginning to train them in tactics on the ground - crickets, code words, things like that. My guess is it won't be long before they find out about the Normandy Invasion."

Jules smiled ruefully. "I feel sorry for them, really. They have no idea what's coming."

Tom laughed a little bit. "That was us, once."

"Excited and naïve," she agreed with a small giggle.

"And scared," Tom added.

"Terrified. But still so enthusiastic."

Tom laughed, in earnest this time. "We truly did have a death wish back then."

Jules shook her head, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. She shrugged one shoulder. "We had no idea what we were getting into, really."

Sighing out his nostalgia, Tom crossed the room to the window. "God, how things have changed since then." He paused, fiddling with the sheer curtain covering the window before looking back at Juliette over his shoulder. "Do you remember our first mission?"

"Vividly," she told him. They'd never spoken of it, but she knew it still haunted him, too. "Baptism of fire, that one."

"Oh, yeah," Tom laughed, looking back outside. More to himself than her, he muttered, "God, we had no idea."

A silence fell upon them, and Juliette merely watched him for a while as he gazed out across the fields of Aldbourne. Eventually, she asked, "Would you still say yes? If you were back in that moment, when they pulled you aside and asked you if you wanted to train for a promotion, and you'd experienced everything you've experienced now. Would you still agree?"

Tom hesitated, and Jules realised that she felt conflicted about her answer, too; it had been an awfully long war for them, and an awfully tough one too. But would she take it back?