PANIC ROOM ➵ Band of Brothers ✓

Twenty Eight.

Riley's slumber body sat down on a crate in the corner of Joseph's room. Her arms hung over her knees, head fallen down against her, in uniform dressed, chest. The long brown locks draped in front of her face, completely hiding the young girl behind the curtain. Sunrays were falling inside the room through the small glass window, landing on Riley's posture. This time it didn't radiate her positivity, but instead hugged her while she waiting for answers, his answers.

"Riley?" Joseph whispered softly as he closed the door behind him. The darkness of the room made him frown his eyebrows, the posture of Riley slouching in the corner making him worried. He shuffled closer and closer and stopped right in front of her, kneeling so that he could see those beautiful eyes. His fingers pushed the locks out of her sight, tucking them behind her small ears. 

"Did something happ-"

"Please, tell me I am wrong," she begged, interrupting his sentence.

"Wrong about what, Riles?"

"About you, about your little trip of today." Her eyes locked with his, Joe's confusion contrasting with her disappointment. "Irene and I were driving around the town today, there was a false alarm for a serious wound. When we came back, shouting was heard inside a small cottage. We went to take a look, making sure that the fight wasn't too bad and that we couldn't help. Until I saw Webster exiting through the back door, Sisk following him and then there came you."

"I –"

"You told me it was an order," she stopped him.

"But it was," he answered.

"Don't lie, not to me. Speirs wouldn't have ordered you to kill a man that you speculated to be a Nazi. Even for him, that is too cruel." Riley's voice was so breakable, so silent and low. If he wouldn't understand her words, Joe wouldn't know that she was angry.

"He was more than a Nazi, Riley."

"So you killed him?"

"No, I didn't."

"You ordered someone else to do it?" Joseph nodded, not wanting to keep this from her.

"Why, Lieb ?"

"Because of you, Riles. Because of what they've done to you."

"They haven't done anything to me."

"What about your friends, all these people killed in the camps? What about Harold, who will never be the same again?" He jumped back on his feet, turning himself away from her so that he could inhale deeply before continuing. "What about the lists with your name on it ?"

"Joe-"

"I had found them when they were asking if anyone knew any of the people on the lists. And I did, I knew someone on it, you."

"Those lists don't matter anymore, the war is over," Riley stated, trying to calm him down with the ideas that always helped her.

"No, Riley, it does matter. They wanted you in those camps, fuck, they were so close to getting you. It does matter a lot."

"But they didn't find me, all thanks to you, Joe." She also raised from the crate and walked over to Joseph, pressing her hand on his shoulders as he stood right in front of him.

"What if I wasn't there on time, what if I would've been just too late? They would've done so many things to you, just like they did to all the people in the camps. If would've lost you. Damn, I wouldn't even have known you."

"But you were there, you were on time." Her fingers brushed over his cheeks as she spoke to him with her warm words.

"I would've lost you."

"But I'm here. Right now, I am here. Joe, listen to me. You saved me and you always have. It's thanks to you that I am alive," she whispered.

Joseph broke down in soft sobs, falling on his knees with Riley still holding him in her arms. He cried loudly in her neck, finally letting out what he had been hiding in his heart. His hands grabbed the fabric of her shirt and he grabbed it so tightly, afraid to let go of her, afraid that she would disappear out of the embrace.

"Fuck ! I don't want you to die, Riley," he cried.

"And I won't. The danger is over, there is no more reason to be afraid. I'm alive and so are you, we're together." She brushed through his growing hairs, placing the softest kiss on his cheek that he had ever gotten. "You're scared and that's okay. It is completely normal that you're scared."

"Seeing those men in the camps, men just like me, like my family. I was angry, no pain brought to them would make them pay enough. But when I found out that they wanted you, that's when I lost it. Only the idea of losing you to them, Riles, I couldn't handle it." Riley shushed his cries, rocking the soldier from side to side, allowing him to show his emotions that he finally let out. She kept on repeating that she wasn't going to leave, that she was there with him, like a comfortable echo roaring in the small bedroom.

"I'm sorry that I lied about today. "

"It is okay, I am not mad. I just don't understand why you've done it?"

"Why I wanted to kill the man?"

"No, why you didn't tell me," she explained, both still sitting down on the ground, embrace as gentle as the kisses.

"You wouldn't be able to look at me the same way anymore and I couldn't live with that. I hate to see you sad, but hell, it is so much worse when I am the reason why you're sad."

"Joe, I would never look at you differently since I understand why you wanted to do it. I understand, I do and that is not what I'm upset about," she stated. "It is just that I got the idea that you didn't trust me, at least not enough. I love you, a whole damn lot, that will never change."