Among the garbage&the flowers

Masters of the Air:

Here comes the sun: Ken Lemmons/Elizabeth Forrester (ofc)

Masterpost

Witness for the prosecution: Robert Rosenthal/Ida Maria Ernst (ofc)

Masterpost

James and the Cold gun: James Douglass/Genie Ridgeway (ofc)

Masterpost

Band of Brothers:

Petronella van der Heide intro post

Friedrich held out the cigarette to her, a small spark of light between them, but Ida shook her head and didn’t take it. It felt almost like rejecting an olive branch, like not accepting a wordless apology. An apology for what? There were many rifts between them, gaps which would not be bridged by a cigarette, the thin, white stick not strong enough to walk across the divide between them on. Instead, it became yet another small rejection, another hurt and she felt further away from him, shoulder against shoulder, than she had done an ocean away.

“I stopped. It’s not good for the children,” she explained.

“The children,” Friedrich hummed. He had his forearms braced against the balustrade of his small, bare balcony. “They’re cute. They look like him.”

“He’s their father. I didn’t clone myself.” And besides, Betty looks just like me. Same hair colour, same eyes.

It was dark outside, as dark as it could get with the lit street light right beneath the balcony and she could see a handful of stars in the black sky above them. Friedrich didn’t reply and Ida regretted not accepting the cigarette from him; taking a drag would have calmed her, would fill the silence between them, heavy as the smoke curling out of Friedrich’s mouth.

“And mother didn’t say anything about the house?” She asked after a moment. “About why she left it to me?” That had been the only thing in her mother’s will; that the house by the woods was to go to Ida; everything else would be shared equally between the siblings. Not that there was a lot to share or many siblings left to share with.

“She said that she wanted to show you something there. She said it a couple of times, actually, those last few weeks. You should have been there,” he accused.

This time Ida was the one who didn’t answer him, instead leaned against the rail so that they were facing each other; or rather looking past each other. Friedrich, down into the street and Ida through the glass of the balcony door into the dark flat behind it. What could she tell him? I live halfway across the planet. The children. Work. It all sounded like excuses, even to her, cheap and lacking.

“You don’t remember it either, do you? None of it.” Friedrich stubbed out the cigarette against a flower pot, the plant inside withered and dead.

Ida shook her head. “I can’t remember anything. Not a single summer. I don’t know what it looks like, what we did there… nothing.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Isn’t that weird? How is it possible that it’s all just… gone?”

“I don’t know." Friedrich answered curtly, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

Ida pushed off the banister. “I should go check in on the girls.”

"It's not big," James said, "but it's definitely enough for now. My darling wife, shall I show you around our humble abode?"

Hearing him call her wife, which sounded as much like a term of endearment as his darling had, made Genie giddy with happiness, torn between giggling and kissing him madly right there in the hallway. She wanted to do both of it, wanted to do everything that there was to do for newlyweds but she reminded herself that she had all the time in the world for that; that this was not for a day, or a week but for forever. And now, Genie truly did believe in forever. So she just answered; "I already saw all the rooms, we picked this place out together, don't you remember?"

James had had the romantic notion of surprising her with the perfect place for the two of them, but Genie had been firmly against the idea. She couldn't fathom not making sure that their apartment was truly right. Not because she didn't trust him (okay, maybe because she didn't trust his taste entirely and because he might have gotten them an apartment above a Jazz club just because he found it funny), but because she still didn't like the idea of throwing herself into her future blindfolded and unaware of what was coming to her.

If she hadn't been there to settle on a place with him, she would have been too worried about something having gone wrong to really enjoy their wedding and their short honeymoon at Lake Michigan.

"Humor me, Genie," James pleaded, his eyes wide and round, like a dog begging for scraps at the table and really, it was impossible to say no to him

"Alright, of course. Show me across this completely foreign terrain. But first, let me just..." Genie took off her shoes and then bent down to tug off her socks as well. The hallway was already littered with boxes full of their belongings which their friends had carried over for them during their honeymoon (and what better gift was there than gestures such as these that helped them ease into all the chores having to get done by a freshly married couple?).

"Um... what are you doing?"

"Taking off my socks."

"Correction; why are you doing that?"

Genie flexed her toes against the hardwood floors; James had paid to get them waxed just before their wedding and it was smooth and cold beneath the bare soles of her feet.

"I just want to feel it, you know. Our new home. All of it," she explained.

James gave her a bemused look; the left corner of his mouth tugging up, his eyebrows raised; and then shrugged and took his shoes and socks off as well. "I guess I can't let my wife do crazy things all by herself."

Barefoot, James opened the door to the first room on their left with a flourish gesture she imagined a drunken doorman at the Ritz-Carlton might make and then placed a hand on the small of her back, leading her inside.

"This, m'lady - since you spent so much time with snobbish British people-" he explained after she gave him a semi-annoyed, semi-amused look "-is the bathroom. You will notice that toilet, the bath tub and the sink and you will be aware that this bathroom is excellently furnished. It has everything your heart could possibly desire."

Next came their bedroom, right next to the bathroom and across from that a smaller one; a children's bedroom. James gave Genie's hip a playful squeeze as they looked into the still empty room. "Ah. We will start working on that tonight," he said with a wink.

They were lucky enough to have a living room as well and then, lastly, the two of them stepped into the kitchen. The family realm; as long as Genie had lived, her family life always took place in the kitchen (that was, as long as Milly didn't decide to occupy Genie's bedroom). It was the place where they cooked and baked together, ate at the small table, played car games, went over their homework with their mother and chatted until late in the night.

"Now, what do you think?" James asked.

"I think we'll be very happy here."

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear."

-

Genie had opted for a box labelled 'Kitchen' in Judith's best, swooping handwriting, a little heart in place of the dot above the 'i', which spoke volumes about how much her best friend had been gripped by Genie's wedding fever. James was putting up a shelf in the living room as she carefully lifted out plates, mugs and cups, until she reached the china set which her mother had gotten them for the wedding.

The china set... God bless her mother but there was no other word for it but ugly. So ugly, in fact, that James and her had exchanged a grimacing look over it after unpacking. Milly had outright laughed and still sometimes burst into giggles at unfitting moments, citing 'that horrible china set' as the reason. She picked up one of the cups and turned it over in her hand

"Genie?" James shouted across the hall, startling her so hard that she dropped the cup. "Will you divorce me if that shelf is kinda crooked? Like, maybe even more than kinda? More like, really crooked?"

The cup had shattered on the floor and Genie swore under her breath. "Shit."

"What was that?" James asked. "It's not bad enough for you to throw stuff at me, you know."

"No, no, that's no it. I dropped something," she explained, took a step back and felt a sharp sting in her left foot. "Ah, fuck!"

Genie hobbled into the hallway (she wasn't going to take any risks in the kitchen anymore) and sat down, then inspected her foot. The shard that had cut her hadn't gotten stuck, luckily, but she was bleeding a little.

Hearing her swear had brought James into the hallway and he crouched down next to her, taking her foot into his hand. "Damn soldier, I think we need to amputate." Then he rummaged around in one of the bathroom (the o's overlapping like two rings) boxes and got out a bandaid. "Need me to blow on it first?"

"Please do not."

James stuck on the bandaid and patted the top of her foot. "There you go. Does it hurt?"

"Not really."

"What was it, anyway, the thing that you dropped?"

"Part of my mother's china set," she explained.

"You live like a male," Harriet complained and infused the word with more disgust than Magdalena had previously thought possible.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, from where she was lounging on her bed, feet still in her boots, dangling off the side so that she didn't get dirt on her sheets. Instead, flakes of dried mud were tinkeling down onto the ground in front of her bed.

Harriet crowded in on her, looming over her with playful strictness, arms crossed and then uncrossed so that she could point at Magda's boots. "This, for one."

"I'll take 'em off. That 'feminine' enough for you?"

From her own bed, Samantha snorted loudly. "It's not just that. You have no pictures. Only boring clothes. No make up. Your bed-making barely meets regulation standards."

"I didn't know you've got a whole list. This feels like a dressing down."

Samantha and Harriet exchanged a look and a nod. "It is."

Magdalena toed off her boots, which hit the ground with a thud and a small explosion of mud on the ground. She straightened up and crossed her legs, watching the two other women fully now; alright you've got my attention.

"This is not like a prelude to a formal complaint or something? You're not trying to get rid of me? My masculine way of living?" There was a laugh in her voice that masked something she didn't want to think about; some age-old insecurity she had convinced herself she had left behind in the sky, escaped from it like she had escaped from the bounds of the earth.

"Nah," Harriet responded and grinned, revealing perfect pearls-on-a-string teeth.

"Not yet," Samantha said, darkly and then winked, a quick flash like  that of a rugged-charming male lead in a Hollywood movie and who's masculine now?

"Alright? So what is the reason for this?"

"Bullying, mostly," Samantha replied.

"Aw, Shortcut! Don't say this about me. I'm mostly confused and bullying only comes second," Harriet explained and then she nudged Magdalena's leg to the side and dropped down onto her bed.

"Aren't you worried about your virtues if you sit on my masculine bed?" Magdalena drawled but enjoyed the warm press of their knees against each other, something which felt suspiciously like the ever illustrious 'female friendship'.

"Not currently. Just stop living like some monk who relinquished all her possessions to the church."

"Or the United States Army Air Force, in this case," Samantha corrected.

"Fine... I'll try my best to show some personality with my commodities."

Samantha wrinkled her nose like she did over the mess hall food every evening. "You sound like a damn commie."

--

"Looks like it's going to be a wet walk back home," a lawyer from the floor above them said, after they had both come to a halt in front of the door when they noticed the rain outside of it.

Ida had seen the tiny droplets on the window already as she had made her way down the stairs and cursed whoever had moved her umbrella the night before, so that it hadn't stood leaned against the doorframe, perfect for her to tug under her arm when she headed out. Of course, there had been no time to search for it and in the minute or so it took her to walk all the way down into the entrance hall, the rain had gotten heavier.

Not really heavy yet, still only thin drops; but more frequently and in a way which promised more soon.

"It seems so," she agreed, "let us hope it won't get any worse."

"Cheers to that," he said and held the door open for her.

"Thank you," Ida said and stepped out into the rain.

As it seemed to be the norm in New York, it was miserably cold, the raindrops like tiny pebbles, hard and pointy, on her freshly cut, now shoulder lengthed hair.

Just like she had predicted, the rain picked up quickly, the drops growing bigger and the frequency higher; all around her umbrellas were opened and steps quickened, suede shoes and heels hurrying across the pavement that was, now wet, a shade darker than it had been this morning. Her own shoes joined them as she picked up her pace.

No use - she was going to be drenched by the time she reached the subway station; it was better to find some shelter and try to wait it out, hoping that the rain would calm down as quickly as it had started up. There was a library close by, just a few of those massive houses away from her and she broke into a near sprint until she could push open the door and step into the warm space.

Dropping down into the first available chair, Ida set about catching her breath; really for someone who had won the Reichsjugendspiele three years in a row, this was an embarrassing performance. She probed her purse up on the table in front of her and opened it.

Rolled up on top of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks lay a two month old edition of Down Beat which she had gotten for two cents after fighting with the owner of the Jazz store until he lowered the price from five cents - used and old and you want five cents for it? you are a thief, she had accused and he had told her to take the damn thing and never ever visit his shop again. Her hand hovered over it for a second, as it had done during her lunch break for the last three days and then nudged it aside and picked up the Mann book. She leaned back in her chair, wet clothing shifting on top of her skin uncomfortably and opened the book where she had left off.

For some reason, might it be having been caught in the rain, the long day at work, the ever present headache, the flourished Fraktur letters got on her nerves at that moment. It was ridiculous - she had read her first book in this script and she had never consciously chosen publications in a different font - but right now Ida had a few choice words for whoever had designed it.

She closed the book again.

Thomas Mann was certainly having a fabulous time somewhere in Princeton or whatever elite university he was currently at, the high life of rich German immigrants while she, like Ernst Toller, would have to stay in New York until she'd hang herself in the nice little new apartment they now lived in. Naja. She was being entirely overdramatic and besides, Toller had killed himself in a hotel so she was already past that.

The book landed on the table in front of her with a soft thud and she pulled her pack of Lucky Strikes out of the pocket of her coat, just to make sure that none of the cigarettes had gotten wet. The package was the slightest bit damp, the logo a little smudge as if a few black-ink tears had rolled down the front and yes, she too might cry if her cigarettes were ruined. Not real, visible tears, of course, but she’d get close.

"You're not going to smoke in here, right?" A voice interrupted her musing, a voice that belonged to a young woman sitting opposite to her at the table; despite probably being a little younger than Ida, both the cadence of her voice and the look she gave Ida reminded her of a disappointed school teacher scolding a student who had passed on a note during lessons. It was the kind of look that should be thrown over the top of thinly-rimmed glasses and accompanied by a tight hair knot, not the fashionable dark cut the woman in front of her was sporting.

What was it with those damn Amis and not wanting her to smoke? If that was such an issue there, they shouldn't be selling such delicious tobacco.

"No," she said slowly and closed the pack again (everything had stayed dry, thank the Lord), "I was just looking for water damage."

"You seem to have a bit of water damage yourself," the woman said and then covered her mouth with her hand, as if to stifle a giggle and simultaneously push the word back inside. "I'm so sorry, that was rude."

"It was... accurate," Ida said and pushed a hand through her hair, assessing the damage; definitely wet, definitely not a respectable state for her hair to be in.

The woman winced in sympathy. "I'm sorry. You must have been caught in the rain outside."

"It was really unexpected," Ida confirmed. She balled her hand into a fist and held it up. "One minute, it's drizzling lightly and then next-" she opened her fist, imagery more appropriate for a bomb exploding than rain "-it's pouring.”

"And now you're seeking shelter here?"

"Yes, I'm hoping that it will stop raining soon and I can get on the subway."

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you," the woman said and turned back to her studies. The table in front of her was clustered, to say the least, two books open in front of her, a stack towering next to her elbow, pencils and paper strewn across the surface. It was the opposite of how Ida had studied as a child, with one of everything neatly lined up and she suddenly felt a pang of longing for Willi's teeth marks on her pencils and her father's four-fingered hand as he flipped through her exams.

Ida looked through the window, but the rain still fell tightly. She decided to give the Buddenbrooks another try and flipped it back open, this time on the very first page and discovered her brother's hand writing there, underneath the title. Theodor Ernst, Grübelstraße 12, Nürnberg, his ex-libris in faded blue ink. When she had packed the book, she hadn't been aware that it was his, that he must have purchased it with his own money and now she felt bad for taking it. Would he ever get it back?

She sighed and returned to the page she had previously been on, shifting in the chair to try and get more comfortable. An impossible task, since the issue at hand was not the chair but her wet clothing. She gave a little shiver, more to disperse the clammy feeling than to shake off the cold. The downfall of the family Buddenbrooks accompanied her rather bleak mood perfectly but Ida made only slow progress, her eyes dragging lazily across the letters, the words, across Mann's literary effusion on individuality, a passage she might have enjoyed greatly at some other point but now just served to annoy her.

"Are you reading one of Thomas Mann's books?" The woman asked her, looking up at Ida from across her studies. "I heard about him at Cornell."

Ida had never heard the name Cornell before, but if she put two (the woman's studies, her knowledge of Mann) and two (the intonation with which she had said 'Cornell', her age) she would guess that it was some kind of school. "Yes, he won the Nobel prize for this one."

"Do you think the book deserves it?"

Ida shrugged. "I guess you can read it. It's not bad but also not my favorite."

"I'm sorry for being so nosy," the woman said, "I just love books. I want to become a teacher! Oh, and I'm Juliet, Jules for short."

"Ida," she introduced herself, fighting the urge to give her full name, surname first as she might have done back in Germany. Even her boss called her by her first name, which at first had seemed to her a gesture so unprofessional that it made her recoil. "The book is interesting, I suppose, a bit long winded. I usually prefer plays."

"Really? Me too! I just love Shakespeare," she gushed. "I've read every play multiple times."

Ida had never once even picked up a Shakespear play, but there was really no reason to bring that up with someone who was clearly a big fan. "You must be quite the expert," Ida said.

"Oh, I can't claim that just yet. It would take me years more of studying his works to say that."

Ida nodded along; that seemed reasonable. She had hardly ever thought about this: literature and studying and expertise in a subject. She was good at typing and filing and drafting letters and handling documents, that was all she needed. The question of whether she would study had never even been raised and university had seemed to her a place about as far out of reach as mars, which was to say that she didn't even particularly desire to go there.

Although this wasn't entirely true - in her last year of Gymnasium, her German teacher had told her she should try to go to evening courses, make something of herself. Ida had told her she would think about it and never thought about it again.

"Who's your favorite author then?" Juliet, or Jules for short, asked.

Ida blinked and shrugged. "I suppose Goethe? Is it stupid to say Goethe and Schiller when they are just the two most famous German playwrights?"

"Oh no, not at all. I said Shakespear, after all, which is hardly more original."

A bit of rain dropped from Ida's hair onto her neck, sliding, cold and wet, down her neck, underneath the collar of her blouse and rolled down her spine. She shivered again and for a moment considered wringing out her hair right there.

"Oh, you poor thing," Jules said, "here, take my scarf." She had already unwrapped the garment from around her chair and halfway handed it over when she stopped. "No, that just won't do. The bathroom is just over there. Let's try and get you dry, alright?"

The idea of rubbing off at least a bit of the moisture clinging to her sounded heavenly to Ida, like the first note of Oh Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf echoing through church around Christmas time. They grabbed their purses with their valuables inside, and left Jules' books and study notes scattered across the table.

The two young women hurried over to the lady's room, a giggle in their step, the giddiness that came with doing something that was not illegal but certainly unusual.

Jules held Ida to wrap the scarf around her head, keeping her dripping hair contained. "You have such nice hair," she complimented as she tied the ends of the scarf into a bow on Ida's forehead.

"Thank you. I cut it only recently."

For a moment they work in silence, wringing out Ida's sleeves over the skin and using the provided towels to try and soak up some of the rain.

"So, you're from Germany...?" Jules asked carefully. "Because of the authors you like and you have a little bit of an accent, that's all," she added quickly.

"I am," Ida confirmed; there really was no use denying that, "moved here at the beginning of the year."

"With your family?"

"Not really," was all she had to say to that.

Jules seemed like she wanted to pry, find out more but was probably too well-raised to do so. "There you go," she said and gave Ida an approving once-over, satisfied with her work, "now you look presentable again."

"And isn't that just what we all strive towards? Presentability?"

-

"Now," Jules said, when the rain had stopped and they had both left the library, "you have to let me get you a coffee or something like that, to truly warm you up."

Goldie snuck into her room like a thief in the night, unusually quiet and unsure, as if she were threading on thin ice across the half-frozen Pegnitz and not visiting her sister like she did daily. And if even Goldie were to skate across lumpy ice, she'd do circles around the holes in it, spin in front of the dark water, nothing like this.

Nothing like the smaller version of herself she had become, with the rounded shoulders, curled in on herself in a way that was so different from her usual straight, dancers-back. In a way that was typical of Rosalie, because Rosalie was older, because Rosalie understood, had somehow always understood. But now Goldie did too, even since that night, fire light and breaking glass and fists hammering against their doorway and Rosalie wondered if she would ever get her little sister back.

Her suitcase lay open on the floor, her most precious items folded neatly inside. Her chair was long gone, so Goldie sat down on the floor, with her knees drawn to her chin and her back leaned against Rosalie's bed frame.

"You can sit on the bed, Goldie, it's cold on the floor," Rosalie offered.

"You don't like it when I do that," Goldie said, "you always get that look."

"I only get that look when you're wearing your street clothes and get dirt on my blanket. Please, sit on the bed. I don't want you to get sick. You wouldn't want to be sick on the ship, would you?"

"No," she agreed and made herself comfortable on Rosalie's bed. "So, we're really leaving?"

"We have to, Goldie. You know what they did to us."

"Yes, I know. Can't you all just stop treating me like a toddler? I didn't learn about antisemitism a week ago! I'm just trying to talk to you," Goldie complained, her brows furrowed. Rosalie felt as if she had been given the task of garding a delicate bubble with her hands and it had burst violently. This, she had failed at.

Rosalie sat down on the edge of her bed and reached out to take one of Goldie's hands into hers, stroking her thumbs over her sister's smooth knuckles. "I know, I'm sorry. I just wish you didn't have to deal with all of this."

"You mean we. You shouldn't have to either."

"Yes," Rosalie replied with a soft smile, "we. Nobody should. But this is how it is and we'll go before it gets any worse, alright? Things will be good in America."

"Oh, I'm sure. I am going to meet a dashing Hollywood actor and have lots of babies with him. Like that one guy. Something with Gabel*?"

Oh Goldie. Always so ready to entertain. What about the boy you were talking about a month ago? What about your friends?

"So you're trying to get married to a kitchen utensil? I think you mean Clark Gable."

"That's exactly what I said."

Rosalie gave her hand another pat, so small and delicate, as vulnerable as the person it belonged to, no matter what Goldie might think. Still, cracks had formed in Goldie's illusion of invincibility, the childlike idea which she had carried into her teens, that very little could ever happen to her. If only it were so; all the things she would give to make it true.

Goldie's eyelids fluttered, brushing against her cheeks in a gentle sweep, as if her body were trying to caress her to sleep and she yawned.

"Do you want to sleep here tonight?" She offered.

"If it makes you feel better," Goldie replied, as if she were doing Rosalie a great favour, already curling in on herself; and despite her insistence she looked so, so young.

"Yes, it would make me feel better."

Petronella strongly doubted that the boy who was driving the truck had many experiences in that field because no road could be so full of potholes as to justify just how much they were being shaken around. Trying to avoid being stuck between two soldiers, Nellie had picked the seat on the very edge of the truck - a choice she now regretted because at least the two soldiers would have kept her from slipping down.

"Oh, be careful, or you'll fall off," Flimsy warned. The boy sat across from her, cradling his camera tightly to his chest, which made him look a little like a mother nursing her child.

"Please," she said and rolled her eyes, "I'm not going to fall off, I'm not an idiot."

"I know you're not, I just wanted to warn you."

The soldier next to her, the one who could have been a barrier between her and the road, let out a groan and dropped his head onto Nellie's shoulder, the thud of his helmet against her bones almost painful. Her first instinct was to shove him off. But there was a smarter choice, something that would look good in an article, or a potential biography (auto- or not), or even just the picture books her family might fawn over year later, so she relaxed slightly and put on a smile; not too brightly but bright enough to transfer well on camera.

"Flimsy, take a picture," she instructed and didn't need to add of what. He understood.

"On it, boss," Flimsy said.

He lifted his camera up, played with whatever buttons had to be played with in order to take a good photo, and then the flash that no longer bothered her came and the picture was taken.

"You know..." Petronella said after a moment, watching him fiddle with his camera. She didn't have to wait for the picture to be developed to know that it would be fantastic. "I'm not actually your boss."

"Of course not," Flimsy said with one of his kind, almost apologetic smiles, "but you like to think so."

Nellie snorted, a sound that startled the soldier on her shoulder. Not enough to wake him up, but enough to make him let out a rattling snore, and wasn't that just the cherry on top? If anyone else had made that observation about her, or if he had made it a year ago, Nellie would have felt caught, even humiliated and she would have gotten angry at him for pointing it out, but now? He was right after all. It did make her feel better to fancy herself the boss of a man, when men were always put above her, no matter how incompetent. Not that Flimsy was incompetent; quite the opposite.

"I guess you're right." Nellie turned her head to the side, looked back out of the truck at the landscape they were leaving behind. "You're a good photographer," she added, "I enjoy working with you."

Flimsy looked up at her, another smile spreading across his face, bigger and brighter than the one before. "Thank you. You're a great boss."

"Alright, alright. Don't test your luck. You're like a little brother to me. Annoying."

"But dear?"

"But dear, I guess," she confirmed, "now shut it. I'm going to take a leaf out of this guy's book and try to sleep."

"Well," Judith whispered, "they said we're far enough away from the center that they probably won't hit us."

Somewhere outside a rapid succession of explosions sounded, like a long drawn out thunder, the storms she had been so afraid of as a child, and it was too close, not in the oh so far away distance that they had been promised. Genie's hand tightened in her standard-issue bed-sheets, still crisp and stiff in the grip she had on it. By morning, they would be crinkled like a shirt hat had gone too long without being ironed.

"You'll get used to it."

"It's-" terrifying. Horrible. Too close. "-louder than I expected."

"Will I?" Genie wasn't one to get used to fear; she only forgot it for stretches of time, days, weeks, sometimes even months - until it came washing over her again, a tidal wave strong enough to knock her off her feet, back on the sandy bottom of reality.

"Of course," Judith reassured, "give it a few nights and you'll be bored by it."

Bored of having bombs dropped if not on, then at least close to, her - only Judith could lose her 'interest' in that.

They weren't the only two awake; Genie was certain that nobody in their Nissan hut was still asleep. In the silence after the next salve wreaked havoc on London, a silence which rang in her ears, she could hear hushed conversations, the rustling of fabric, something which sounded like a sob escaping into a pillow, muffled and vulnerable. It didn't last long, this silence like a fragile sheet above them, torn apart by the next round of bombs, closer this time, close enough to shake the ground, make the corrugated iron walls shiver. A collective groan went through the room, cries and shrieks mixed into one noise of terror not even the bombs could drown out. Genie let out something close to a moan that sounded haunting, inhumane to her own ears, like a wounded animal.

For a second, she felt smug satisfaction, an I told you so, I knew it was dangerous, I was right to be afraid. It didn't last long, turned into the horrifying realization that her doom and gloom outlook had been correct all along and that, secretly, she had hoped that she was just overly anxious.

She felt a hand on her arm, warm and familiar, reassuring and safe, admits the foreign and threatening noises outside.

"Genie? Are you alright?"

"Peachy," she replied, with a small laugh that sounded like a sob, "Judy... hold me."

The mattress below her shifted and she pushed back the blanket so that Judith could curl closer to her. Like they had done countless times as children, they wrapped their arms around each other, tightly, suffocating, protective. Judith's arms were on top, as always, and Genie held her friend's waist.

Thus, they stayed, until the last bombs had dropped and then a little longer, just to be sure that it was really over and then Judith loosened her grip first.