All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

69: Ammunition

"Letter from home?" Posey asked, watching Bill curiously where he was sat by himself in the mess hall. Dinner had ended hours ago but they generally left the building unlocked, she'd discovered so once when seeking out some peace and quiet. She didn't know how Bill had known but didn't mind so much that he'd been the one to crash her secret hideout.

Bill glanced up once and nodded before returning to the letter. Posey smiled to herself to realise she hadn't made him jump, even with how quietly she'd entered, and even more at the fact he didn't try to hide the letter or try to leave now that she was here.

Ambling over to his table in the corner, she tried not to stare too much. Instead, she turned her eyes on the book in her hands, one of the ones she'd bought from George, and considered it a moment. George hadn't said it was sad - in fact, he'd said it was 'a pretty book', which she distinctly remembered liking as a way to describe a novel - but something about the cover and the title made her sceptical. She didn't know that she was much in the mood for sadness just now. She could do with something happier, something lighter.

She came to sit opposite Bill at the table before opening the book all the same. She didn't have much else to do, anyway, and scrutinising Bill as he tried to read didn't seem like it would be very polite. She ended up reading the first line about forty times before his voice drew her attention away.

"What's that?"

Posey grinned as she flashed him the cover. "A book. Ever heard of them?"

"Very funny."

"I'm here all weekend." She smiled at him a moment, watching him grin reluctantly at her joke, before her eyes fell to the paper in his hands. "How are your family?"

Bill shrugged, trying to assume an air of nonchalance. "Good. They're gettin' by."

"Missing you?" she surmised, gazing up at him with something soft in her eyes, something open.

She watched him falter before he replied, his eyes caught on hers for a moment. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure they are."

"You must be missing them lots, too," she added, closing her book to give him her full attention. She lay both hands atop the cover, one on top of the other, and then curled them in on themselves. Even inside, the cold was biting.

"Yeah," Bill replied, somewhat distantly. "What about you? Missin' home?"

Posey knew he regretted the question the moment it processed from the way his face fell. He opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to take it back or perhaps to apologise, before she cut him off. It was an honest mistake to forget, she knew. It wasn't his fault he still had a home to dream of.

"Yeah," she said, fighting to keep her smile from turning sad. "I think I always will. I have a picture of it now, though. John sent me one for my birthday."

"Your birthday?"

Posey laughed. "Yeah. You missed it. Twenty-third of October, the morning we rescued the Brits. We had a party after to celebrate the rescue but it was like a birthday party for me all the same. It was fun. I wish you'd been there."

Bill looked down at the letter in his hands and fought a smile. Posey didn't know that she'd ever seen him look so angelic, smiling softly to himself and blanketed in the dying light of evening as it slipped in through the ajar door.

"Yeah," he said eventually, risking a glance up at her before staring back down at the letter once more. "Wish I'd been there too." After a moment of silence he folded up his letter and pushed it away from him, a little bit to the right of where they were sitting. "You got this picture on you, then? The one your brother sent?"