The Way Back

- 25 -

Well, safe to say i'm the worst. I don't know what happened but I lost sight of this story and left it here to rot. I'm still holding onto that pinky promise that this story will be completed but the timing of it all I can't promise. I'm trying, and hoping to get these chapters written as soon as I am capable. In the meantime this is kind of depressing i'm sorry but the next chapter I think you'll love :)

In the following weeks, Lia found her time being spent with the men of Easy Company. They were an easy source to hang around and have a reason to drink without anyone being too concerned. The men welcomed her with open arms, but didn't miss the change in her demeanor. She laughed and smiled with them, but it seemed sightly forced and was always while she had a drink in her hands.

Lia wanted nothing more than to chuck the glasses of beer and bottles of whiskey away, but it was the only thing that was getting her through each day. She never went too far. Not like she had done two weeks ago. But the buzz she was gaining helped immensely with the pain bubbling beneath her skin.

The dart held in her hand sailed directly through the bullseye on the board. Cheers rang up from the small group of men around her and George Luz tossed an arm over her shoulder with a smile.

"This is why I love you, Lieutenant."

Lia shoved his arm off with a smile plastered on her face. "Yeah, yeah." She laughed and turned to their opponents, Christenson and Liebgott, with her empty glass held high. "Pay up."

Liebgott returned with another beer for the lieutenant and her partner. 

"Always a pleasure doing business with you, Lieb." She smirked and snatched the glass out of his hands and took a drink as Joe shook his head.

"You are absolutely terrible, Lieutenant. Can't you ever let us win?" Christenson spoke up with a laugh edged into his voice.

Lia tilted her head to the side, bringing her gaze to Luz beside her. "You hear what he's saying?"

"Yeah, a whole lot a bullshit. I mean, come on, we're doing our worst and they're still losing."

A round of laughs pulled up from the small group as Christenson rolled his eyes with a grin still on his face. Lia slammed the last of her drink, feeling the effects of the alcohol taking over her body. "Alright, I'm calling it a night. Why don't you boys play Perconte over there. Should be an easy win."

Frank Perconte heard the comment and turned to face the liuetenant as she paced out of the small pub with a grin on her lips. "Hey! The hell was that for?"

The night sky met her on the walk back to the officers billet. Lia frowned as she stared up at the blinking stars. They mocked her again. Called her a coward. They didn't look at her like that night in Hagenau and she knew why.

Lia Creed wasn't brave enough to face her pain head on anymore.

The days she spent away from any patrols were spent with alcohol. It was becoming an issue she didn't want to face; couldn't face. Not yet.

Being away from any actual fighting was messing with her head on top of everything else. Lia was used to the gunfire and being able to take away the pain with a rifle dancing between her hands, but here in this godforsaken country, she didn't have that. As unfortunate as it was, killing was the only thing Lia knew. The only way to dull the ache in her heart was to inflict the horrors the Germans had done to her right back at them.

It was a truly horrific thing. Using killing as an escape only to replace it with alcohol.

Lia stared up at those stars so far in the distance. Even with the vast space that lay between them, she could still hear their rejections.