Bitter Pill to Swallow

Chapter 4

Dick couldn't concentrate on his newspaper. He couldn't put his finger on the why, but he found himself constantly glancing down the carriage at Lieutenant Landry. He always managed to look back down just before she caught him, but somehow his eyes kept being drawn to her.

She was a problem he couldn't find an answer to, and that's probably what bothered him the most about her. That, and the fact that he seemed to be the only one of her fellow officers that she was openly hostile towards. After the night of their graduation, she'd gotten more friendly with Nixon and Welsh, but she steadfastly refused to have anything to do with him. And that, despite his best efforts to ignore her, irritated him. He couldn't figure out why she disliked him so much, or why she got under his skin the way she did.

He glanced back at her again and froze when he was met with her blazing green eyes glaring at him over the top of her book. He held her gaze for a moment before huffing out a breath and went back to his paper.

Nixon had been watching the entire exchange unbeknownst to Dick, and he smirked when he noticed Dick's furrowed brow and his tightly clenched fists holding the paper.

"Say, Dick," he started nonchalantly, fighting a smile when his friend glanced up at him cautiously. "What's with you and Landry giving each other eyes, huh?"

Dick scoffed and rolled his eyes, flipping to the next page of the paper a little too vigorously. "I don't know what you're talking about, Nix."

Nixon looked between the two of them and when he noticed Valerie glaring down at her book, his grin widened. He turned back to Dick and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"You wanna know what I think?" He asked, ignoring Dick's shaking head and ploughing on. "I think there's a certain kind of tension between you two, if you know what I mean."

"It's just plain tense, Nix. You know I don't lose my temper easily, but she just gets on my nerves like nobody else. She's so argumentative, and prickly. She takes everything I do as some sort of personal attack and it irritates me beyond belief because, if she bothered to get to know me, she'd know that it never is."

"Well, you two could probably work it out if you actually sat down and had a proper adult conversation," Nixon pointed out sagely, taking a sip from his flask.

"Good luck organising that, Nix," said Dick. "I think you'd have better luck jumping straight onto Hitler's doorstep."

"Wouldn't that be something," chuckled Nixon. "You know, you two could just shack up in a hotel room for the night and get it all out of your systems. A good roll in the sheets is bound to wring out all of that underlying tension you won't admit to yourselves is so obviously there."

"Don't be so crass, Nix," Dick grumbled, blushing crimson, "I'm not at all interested in her that way. In fact, I'm not interested in her at all and even if she is a good officer, my life would be a lot quieter if she were part of some other company."

"Aw c'mon, Dick, you'd miss her if she were gone. And who would keep you on your toes then?"

"I have enough to keep me on my toes with the war, Nix," sighed Dick, pointedly looking down at his paper to signal that he was done with this particular conversation. Pity, however, that Nixon was not.

"You may lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me, Dick," Nixon continued, ignoring Dick's sigh. "The sooner you admit to yourself that you think she's attractive, the less tense you'll be."

Dick put his paper down and stared across at his friend incredulously, determinedly ignoring the flush in his cheeks. "I'm worried about your future as an intelligence officer if you think I'm attracted to Lieutenant Landry. We can't even have a civil conversation outside of the necessary."

"You don't need to be friends to be attracted to her. She's a pretty looking dame, you're just lying to yourself," smirked Nixon. "C'mon, Harry, back me up here, will ya?"

Welsh shifted in his seat and glanced between the two blearily. "What's the matter?" He slurred.

"Nothing, Harry, don't worry about it," interjected Dick, giving Nixon a pointed stare. Nixon passed over his flask to Welsh and continued on.

"Tell me I'm not the only one who thinks there's some underlying tension of a certain type between Dick and Valerie."

Welsh chuckled as he took a swig from Nixon's flask. "Oh yeah, there's definitely something unresolved there. Remember a few weeks ago when Sobel put them on KP after that disaster of a field exercise?"

"Oh yeah," laughed Nixon, "I wasn't sure if they were gonna kill each other or make out there and then with the eyes they were giving each other."

"If you two are quite done making up tall tales," Dick grumbled, "we're pulling in. And it would be best if all these ridiculous ideas of yours went back to Georgia along with the train."

Nixon exchanged a laugh with Welsh as they stood up and grabbed their gear. He grinned when Valerie stepped up beside him.

"Are you ready for Fortress Europa, Val?" He asked, stepping aside slightly so they had more space.

"I think the real question here is whether Fortress Europa is ready for us, Nix?" Valerie smirked. He threw back his head and laughed at her boldness.

"Hitler and his lackeys won't know what hit 'em."

"Damn straight, Nix," she chuckled. The aisle began to clear and he gestured for her to head on before him. He rolled his eyes and huffed a laugh as she passed Dick and made a point to brush past him, and he laughed harder when he saw Dick's narrowed eyes glaring at her back as she walked out of the carriage. Those two were something else.