#fireonfire

“Sorry, I’m late, gorgeous," a lowered voice had remarked wryly as soon as the compartment door slid shut once more.

"You wouldn’t believe the traffic.”

The whisper came from a young man in a heavy coat who casually dropped into the seat next to her as though he belonged there. The dark brim of his fedora was pulled low over his eyes, casting his face in shadow, but she didn’t need to see its entirety to know who it was; she would recognize that gravelly voice anywhere. 

“What are you doing here?” she demanded out of the corner of her mouth, making sure to keep her expression neutral as she flipped through her newspaper and fought the urge to smack the newcomer with it. 

“Thought Nix woulda told ya,” Liebgott looked almost amused, a smirk playing on his lips.

He too spoke out of the corner of his mouth; someone had taught him well. 

“Donovan needed an interrogator with an Austrian dialect. Said this one’s gonna be a real doozy. Called me in as a temp.” 

Alix’s dark eyes narrowed, causing her blue contacts to sting.

“You’re the floater? You’re–” 

“Lieutenant Fritz Eberhardt,” he finished with a nod, casually taking his right hand out of his pocket to reveal the worn, silver skull ring of the Werwolf Kommandos, engraved with the tell-tale motto of the SS:

‘Meine Ehre Heisst Treue’. 

My Honor Means Loyalty.

How ironic.

The paratrooper and translator shot her a roguish wink, leaning back with an arm stretched out lazily along the back of his seat like nothing was wrong. 

“I've been assigned to accompany you to your Paris engagement, Fraulein." 

The spy stiffened.

This was the first time that she could recall ever seeing Joe out of uniform and it would be a shame to get blood all over his nice coat but sweet Jesus, Alix was about ready to make that sacrifice.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the auburn-haired girl muttered under her breath. “You’re going to get us both killed.” 

“You don’t gotta worry ‘bout me,” Joe chuckles. “Trust me-”

"Right, because that's gone so well for me before," the spy snapped sharper than intended.

Joe's eyebrows shot to the compartment ceiling, his cocky demeanor gone in a flash, replaced by a sudden scowl.

"The hell's that supposed to mean?" 

Before Alix could find the words to reply, the shrill whistle of the train screamed out, indicating their departure from Liart Station and the spy took a shaky breath, hearing the rumbling of the wheels on the track underneath them.

She was stuck with him now.

Trying to ignore the ache in her chest at Joe's unexpected presence, Alix tried to force her unfocused eyes to stare at the newspaper in her hands but the words only blurred before her.

"Didja do a bug sweep already?" Joe inquired with a casual yawn as he glanced across her to the window, while Alix flipped the page of her newspaper so hard that she nearly tore it. 

"Of course I did," the spy answered indignantly, unable to contain her irritation.

"That's why you were supposed to come early: to help me look. Listening devices could've been anywhere in here." 

“Don’t gimme that shit,” Joe scoffed in an almost dismissive tone as he tapped the filter of his Reemtsma cigarette.

“Since the liberation, the Krauts have lost a lot of resources and stick to their secret little underground social clubs or whatever. I got the whole rundown from HQ.”

Alix huffed.

Joe was right, damn him. 

While on the surface, France had cleaned up its act, the rotten undergrowth of Nazis and their collaborators remained, festering beneath the surface. 

The chances of them taking the time to bug train compartments were miniscule at best.

“Still,” she responded with a petulant roll of her eyes. “You should’ve been here on time. You never know.”

"Yeah, well you ain't the only one with shit to take care of, okay? I got held up." 

Alix's dark eyes flickered up from her newspaper. 

"Define 'held up'," she said coolly, an undeniably bitter edge to her tone. “What, pray tell, was so pressing?”

Joe crossed his arms and took a long drag off his cigarette before replying snippily,

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Tatiana.”

"It's Tanya, Alix snapped before flipping another page on her newspaper as though she were reading it instead of boring holes into Joe’s face.

“And I would like to know, actually. Because I'd like to think you wouldn't be late to your first assignment without a good reason but maybe I don't know you as well as I thought." 

“Fine.”

Joe's warm brown eyes were suddenly as hard as the wood paneling in the compartment they shared but he shifted the side of his coat up nonetheless, just enough to show a huge cherry-red stain that had blossomed across one side of his ribs.

"There, that a good enough reason for ya?" 

“Madonna mia!” Alix exclaimed, all pretense of anger gone in a flash. “What the hell happened?! Are you alright?”

Joe shrugged nonchalantly.

“Somebody did a shit job friskin' the prisoners so ol' Jerry got to bring a fuckin' boot knife with him to interrogation,” he muttered as he readjusted his coat. "'S not as bad as it looks.”

"Did you have Gene take a look at it?" Alix asked, eyeing his red-soaked shirt with concern. "That's a lot of blood…"

"No, I didn't have 'Gene' look at it," Joe shot back, a mocking edge to his voice as he spat the medic's name, biting down on his cigarette.

"’S fine. Barely a scratch." 

The auburn-haired girl snorted, unable to keep the skepticism out of her tone.

"Right, and I'm the Queen of England."

The translator took a long drag, his expression unreadable. 

“Well, I ain’t your problem anymore,Your Majesty,” he remarked sardonically as he let the smoke curl into the air.

"So you can lay off."

  “You’ll always be my problem,” Alix grumbled under her breath and the pair lapsed into a chilly silence, broken only by the occasional rustling of the newspaper under her fingertips and the rumbling of the train on the tracks.

Still keeping her head angled downward to avoid that familiar ache that seemed to rise in her chest whenever she looked him in the face, Alix let herself study the compartment instead.

In truth, their private compartment was borderline ostentatious – plush maroon upholstery upon the seating, rich mahogany paneling upon the walls, thick velvet curtains adorning the windows to keep the outside world at bay– but the spy could barely concentrate on the luxurious decor either.

Instead, she found herself studying Joe's hands. She still had only fleeting memories of him from before her fall but his hands were one of the few things she remembered the most. 

They had been paler back in England, not yet marred by the blood and grime of the battlefield, the blue veins still snaking up the back all the way to his wrist. She remembered tangled sheets and breathless laughter as they each struggled to catch their breath. She remembered her own scarlet-polished nails tracing each vein in the hand resting beside her, feeling the way his pulse would quicken when she smiled at him.

His fingers were still as calloused and long as she remembered, almost graceful in their strength, and she could still feel the ghost of them interlocking with her own like missing puzzle pieces finally finding their way together.

There weren’t any more ink stains on his fingertips, Alix realized, and she was suddenly half-tempted to make a snide remark about chasing two girls and getting neither, but she kept her silence. 

No need to make an already awkward situation worse, she thought as she chewed on her bottom lip.

Like it or not, they had a mission to complete.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

The French countryside seemed to pass by in blurs of green, gold, and blue, like the vibrant swirls of a priceless Van Gogh but Alix hardly noticed. 

The spy had been fiddling with the worn handle of a discarded leather briefcase that had been left behind in the luggage rack under her seat. Beside her, Joe was violently twisting the Werwolf skull ring around and around upon his finger, wrenching it with such ferocity that it looked as though he might tear his finger off in the process.

"I hate this," he muttered bitterly, seemingly more to himself than to Alix as he glared down at his calloused hands. 

"I fuckin' hate this." 

"Hate what?" the spy inquired softly, cocking her head and allowing some of her auburn hair to fall over one shoulder.

Joe glanced up at the sound of her voice, clearly not expecting her to speak to him, but he recovered fast as ever.

"This," he replied simply, gesturing to the Werwolf skull ring. 

"Wearing this. Gevalt, it makes me wanna claw my fuckin' skin off.” 

Alix felt a pang of sympathy. She couldn’t even fathom the excruciating cognitive dissonance Joe must be experiencing right now, playing a role he despised…but why bother playing it in the first place? 

Why put himself through the unnecessary pain? He was only a floater– a consultant– for this one mission. He had the power to back out at any time. It didn’t make sense but then, nothing about Joe seemed to make much sense lately.

Alix watched as he lit up another cigarette, his third in an hour, glaring across her, out the window at something unseen. 

He was chainsmoking again, like he always did when he was agitated, and all she could do was let the silence sit and watch him wrench the skull ring harder and harder around his finger.

It was unsettling when Joe was quiet: his rage she could combat; his brooding she couldn’t.

The auburn-haired spy found herself sneaking quick glances over at him out of the corner of her eye, the tension hanging thick in the air around them like the early morning fog.

Surprisingly, Joe was the first to break.

“Look, you got somethin’ to say, just say it.”

“What is there to say?” Alix retorted, her grip on the briefcase’s handle tightening considerably. 

“I’m perfectly capable of traveling on my own. I don't need a floater and I certainly don't need you.”

Joe crossed his arms and leaned his head back against the seat. 

“Well tell that to Donovan then, ziskeit,” he yawns. 

"'Cause I got orders to watch your six till the job's done." 

Alix opened her mouth to complain but she was interrupted by a light knocking on the compartment door and Joe immediately shoved his right hand deep into his pocket to hide the infamous skull ring. 

A disgruntled train attendant appeared, regarding both Joe and Alix with the same beady, bloodshot stare as he stepped inside, sliding the door shut behind him.

“Papers,” the Frenchman demanded with an outstretched hand.

Alix nodded with a casual “Certainement” and set aside the discarded briefcase, retrieving her false identification from her handbag and passing it to the man with what she hoped was a convincingly haughty eyeroll. 

The attendant--whose yellowed nametag identified him as Guillaume-- wore a peevish expression almost identical to their old CO, Captain Sobel, which brought a smirk to Alix's face.

The thought of the sadistic superior officer who had made their lives hell for so long being reduced to a glorified bellhop punching tickets and checking IDs was enough to bring them both a smidgen of joy.

Her gaze flickered over to Joe, who returned the smirk with one of his own, the inside joke seeming to almost bridge the gap between them.

The attendant skimmed over Alix's paperwork, handing it back to her without issue, and then it was Joe's turn.

“You, identification.”

Compliantly, Joe dug into his jacket pocket for his passport with his left hand but as he passed the small booklet to the attendant, it slipped from his fingers toward the carpet. 

Automatically, the translator’s dominant hand shot out of his right pocket to intercept them but it was too late: the skull ring on his right hand was in full view. 

The attendant swore as he snatched up Joe’s fake Austrian passport, staring down at it and back to the tell-tale ring as his face reddened with rage.

“Y-You-” he snarled, his lip curled in disgust and a gloved finger shaking as he pointed at Joe. “You are-” 

“Wha- No, no!” Joe protested, immediately reaching out for his passport back in a desperate bid to quiet him. 

“I’m not-” 

But the Frenchman shoved him off roughly and spat an anti-German epithet at him as Joe’s back hit the seat.

“Boche!”

Joe’s eyes narrowed instantly at the slur and he came back strong, lunging forward to seize the attendant by the collar but Alix stood up, trying to shove her way between them to keep the scuffle from getting out of hand. 

The auburn-haired spy could smell the heavy stench of cheap wine on the older man's breath as she separated the pair and she knew there was no reasoning with him.

The drunken attendant spun on his heel, immediately heading for the compartment door, his final words slurred as his rage boiled over. 

“Filthy swine! Nazi pig! You-”

Alix felt a block of ice drop into her stomach as the man’s large, gloved hand reached the door handle. 

It was no secret that since the liberation, people of German extraction weren't exactly welcome in most of French polite society. 

The épuration sauvage was in full-swing, thousands of suspected collaborators being beaten, tortured, and executed by incensed crowds of French people.

If this man went and ran his mouth off about a Werwolf Kommando on the train, Joe could be mobbed as soon as he set foot outside their compartment. 

This chilling revelation seemed to flip a switch in Alix’s brain: If the man left their compartment, Joe’s life could be in danger.

She couldn’t take that risk.

Slipping behind the drunken attendant with the silent ease of a tigress, the world seemed to slow around her as her training kicked in. Hopping onto the seat for a better vantage point, Alix reached out and yanked the attendant backwards into the compartment by the collar. 

The man staggered a couple steps back, thrown off-balance in his surprise, just close enough for Alix to deftly slice the small blade of her lipstick knife across his throat.

The weapon reached the targeted arteries with surgical precision, right below the larynx. Now unable to scream, the man could only gasp and gargle as his legs gave out and he sank downwards toward the carpet in a heap. Following him down to the ground, Alix gathered the excess fabric of her dress's skirt and slapped the material over the wound to stifle the bright arcs of blood that were spurting out like a gruesome fountain.

The pale lace was already growing heavy, turning from an icy blue to a deep, blood-soaked maroon, the arterial spray oozing through the delicate material slower and slower as the man’s heart gradually stopped beating. 

Then the attendant went limp, his jaw falling slack as a sickening gurgle emanated from his cut throat, and the auburn-haired spy knew he was gone. 

No loose ends, she told herself inwardly, repeating the instructions of her superiors over and over like a mantra in her head.

He could have gotten Joe killed. You did the right thing.

But did she? 

She didn’t even remember pulling the knife, not really. 

Not that it mattered: a civilian was still dead.

Alix’s hands were shaking as she stared down at the attendant’s lifeless form, too scared to see the shock and revulsion written all over Joe’s handsome face. 

He’d never seen her kill, after all. 

If he didn’t hate her before, he most certainly would now.

But when she finally looked up, there was nothing like that. 

No disgust, no outrage, no fear.

Instead, there was the same old glint to his gaze and an unspoken warmth in his whiskey-brown eyes that filled her with a strange calm.

“Well ya didn’t hafta do all that, Zees,” Joe remarked finally as a small, lopsided smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. 

“But I ‘preciate it. Nice to know you care.”

“I don’t,” the auburn-haired girl muttered as she knelt, quickly rifling through the corpse’s bloodied uniform for anything useful. 

A billfold full of francs and an identification card from the train company.

Alix handed the wallet over to Joe, averting her gaze to ignore the way her pulse quickened at the brush of their fingertips.

“He was putting the mission in jeopardy,” she added lamely and straightened up, shifting the thick curtains to the side so she could undo the window’s latch.

“Yeah?” Joe snorted as he dragged the lifeless body by its outstretched arms to the open window and turned back to shoot her a sly wink over his shoulder.

His usual crooked grin quirked up one corner of his lips wryly, almost flirtatiously, and the knowing expression in his whiskey-colored eyes caused a small flurry of butterflies to appear once more in her stomach.

It was like he could see right through her.

“Well Ziskeit, ‘the mission’ thanks you.” 

With a grunt, the scrappy paratrooper managed to haul the corpse half onto the window’s ledge before turning back to his partner.

“Now let's get this mamzer dealt with, huh?”

Alix hoisted the corpse's legs up, giving it a final, unceremonious shove out the window, sending it rolling down into the snowy French countryside somewhere.

That was one problem taken care of...But unfortunately, there were more where that came from.

"Madonna mia," Alix swore as she frowned down at the blood-spattered blue material of her dress.

“I gotta dump this somewhere.”

Joe took his seat again and shrugged, watching Alix's nimble fingers close the window once more and re-draw the curtains.

“So change then." 

The auburn-haired girl balked, nearly losing her footing in her surprise.

“Right now?"

“Nah, next Tuesday,” the paratrooper deadpanned with a melodramatic roll of his eyes. “Christ, Zees, you're actin' like I ain't ever seen ya undress before. Hey, remember that one night at your billet when-”

“Don’t remind me,” Alix muttered, the infuriatingly obvious blush of her cheeks making her grit her teeth as the night he is referring to comes back in vivid colors.

She shook her head to banish the memories, her straightened auburn hair tumbling down her shoulders.

"Besides, it was a long time ago anyway. It doesn't matter now."

The lie tasted bitter as cyanide.

"Yeah?" Joe took another slow drag off his cigarette, watching the smoke curl up to the ceiling before he spoke again, his raspy tenor flat with thinly-veiled hurt.