Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

20: Full of A Hundred Things

"I scarce know what I shall say though I am full of a hundred things." - John Keats, from a letter to Fanny Brawne

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As soon as she came downstairs the next morning Juliette knew she was in for it.

"Did you sleep with Tab?"

She all but collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands. "No."

"I saw you leave with him," Will said.

"Everyone saw you leave with him," Martin added.

Jules sighed loudly. "Bloody hell." Then she looked up at them all. "If you all saw then why didn't you stop me?"

"I, for one, didn't see," Tom told her. She huffed out a laugh.

Martin shrugged from where he sat opposite her. "You looked like you were having fun and I thought you could probably use a good sh-"

"Do not use that word!" she cut him off, horrified.

"So you didn't sleep with him, then?" Tom pressed. She put her head back in her hands, laughing to herself because she had been right last night when she said she'd hate herself if she remembered what happened.

"No. I kissed him - or he kissed me, don't remember and it doesn't matter - and then I panicked and started bloody crying. Oh my God, that's so embarrassing. That's so embarrassing. Oh my God."

"Why were you crying?" Tom asked, his concern clear in his voice.

She shrugged. "It was nothing, really."

"Jules."

She sighed. "I was sad about Alex. He was the last person I kissed before Floyd."

"You kissed Alex?!" Will exclaimed.

None of them had known, but Tom, at least, didn't look very surprised. But Jules had, after all, already told him about how her and Alex's relationship had shifted right at the end.

She nodded languidly. "Yeah. Only once. And, for the record, he kissed me."

"When?"

She smiled a little bit. "You remember that day in the safe house in Paris? After the posters of Tom had been put up and I asked where everyone would want to go in the world? He was acting strangely afterwards so I went to find him. He kissed me then."

Will looked really sad all of a sudden. "That was the day before."

Jules nodded. That had been the day before he'd died.

"What did Tab say?" Tom asked, watching her curiously. "When you started crying, I mean."

Juliette shook her head and hugged her arms around herself. "He was really, really sweet about it. A lot kinder than he had to be. He gave me a hug and then walked me home, gave me his jacket and everything. He was really, really lovely about the whole thing. I'll have to thank him next time I see him."

"He's a good guy," Tom commented. Jules nodded her agreement but didn't say anything more.

Will and Martin were sharing a look, and both of them looked like they really wanted to say something. When their eyes started to dart between Jules and the other, the girl in question sighed out a laugh. "What is it?"

Both of their heads whipped around to face her, wide eyed as they realised they'd been caught in their silent plotting. Will eventually spoke. "Don't you have a thing with Gene?"