Evelyn's Tale

-Thirty Eight-

Evelyn woke up with a jolt. Her heart was pounding and her breath came out in short, sharp gasps. She choked slightly as she tried to breath in air and beside her, she felt Joe stir. When his hand reached for hers, she squeezed it tightly and he could feel it trembling.

"You ok?" he murmured sleepily.

She nodded. She didn't trust herself to open her mouth and speak. She wasn't the only one who suffered nightmares in the weeks and months that followed that awful winter in the Bois Jacques. A great number of them did; their subconscious torturing them relentlessly with memories and the pain of those weeks and months watching their friends die one by one. For Evelyn, her nightmares were more than just the horrors of Bastogne, and the agony of watching her brother lose his leg and being unable to save so many of her friends. They were also dreams where she and Liebgott were back home in America. They were happy and her stomach was always heavy and big with the baby she was carrying, but then the blood would come again. There would be so much of it and it wouldn't stop. Liebgott would look at her with such hurt in his eyes, and he would tell Evelyn that it was her fault. He would tell her she was the reason their baby was dead, just like it was her fault that their friends were all dead too. And that was when she would always wake up; tears pouring down her face and her entire body trembling.

"I'm sorry," Evelyn whispered, turning onto her side to face Joe, who had opened his eyes and was watching her with concern.

"It's fine," he kissed her forehead and wiped away her tears. "I need to get up soon for guard duty anyway."

"I don't just mean for waking you up, Joe."

"Ev," Liebgott sighed, sitting up and running a hand through his hair wearily. "How many times are you gonna apologise for what happened? No matter what you think and no matter what your stupid nightmares try to tell you, you're not to blame for losing our baby. I don't know how many times I have to tell you, but I'll say it every goddamn day if I have to."

"I just..." Evelyn's voice caught in her throat. "It just still hurts."

"I know," he reached for her hand and brought it to his mouth. "And maybe it always will, Ev, but one day when we get back home and we have our own little family it'll hurt a little less."

"Little family, did you just say? You're such a liar. If you have your way, we'll have hundreds of kids," she tried to joke, but she couldn't stop another tear that rolled down her cheek.

"Guilty," Liebgott grinned, lying down again and wrapping an arm around Ev so he could pull her against him. "And you're my wife now so there's legally nothing you can do to get out of it."

Evelyn's heart quickened excitedly when she heard him refer to her as his wife. It had been two weeks since they were married and it still hadn't sunk in properly. Perhaps it was because the wedding had been nothing like she had ever envisaged.

In order to keep Colonel Sink happy and to keep Evelyn's place in the airborne, the two had been required to marry. After all, a husband and wife being together couldn't be considered fraternising, and as long as they tried to keep their activities quiet and ensured there would be no more chance of pregnancy, Sink was content enough to let them remain together.

The look in Liebgott's eyes matched Evelyn's and she knew that he was thinking about the moment they had been declared husband and wife in front of the military priest and with Sink, Winters and Speirs as witnesses. There had been no rings, no guests, no reception, yet somehow none of it had mattered. All that mattered was that they were together and they couldn't be separated.

Evelyn had donned her dress uniform, just like Joe had and the twinkle in his eyes as he recited his vows choked her up. They were words spoken by thousands of people around the world every year, but they sounded so special coming from him. The sincerity and the emotion in his voice was almost her undoing and when it came to reciting her own vows, she struggled not to cry.