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liebgotts-lovergirl · 1 year

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Fire On Fire: Chapter 20

(Ch. 19) ... (Ch. 1)

II Gallery II Symbol Guide II

Summary: Being a spy, Alix is accustomed to lies. But then, maybe the lies that hurt the most are the ones we tell ourselves.

WARNINGS: Angst!!!! Heartbreak!!! Mixed Signals!!! (w/ a side of worried Skip & Don)

A/N: Normally I would wait longer to post this but alas, I have no self-control lol 🤭

Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @lieutenant-speirs @emmythespacecowgirl @holdingforgeneralhugs @parajumpboots @hxad-ovxr-hxart @sleepisforcowards @indigo-luvers @ax-elcfucker-blog @chaosklutz @mads-weasley @vibing-away @wwhatev3r

Contemporary: October 24th, 1944. Driel, Netherlands.

Being that Easy Company had settled for the day, mail call was a great opportunity to put names to faces and Alix was taking full advantage of it.

"Lipton!" A particularly pompous PFC barked as he read off the envelope in-hand. "First Sergeant Lipton!"

A seated trooper with downturned eyes and a weary smile raised a hand from his spot about a yard away, sending the orderly scurrying over to him with his delivery in-hand.

Seconds later, another announcement and another package:

“Welsh! Lieutenant Welsh!”

“Right here!” a voice shouted and Alix saw a curly-haired trooper with a wry, gap-toothed grin jog from his foxhole to retrieve the parcel, too impatient to wait.

"Next is… Talbert! Sergeant Talbert!"

This time, the private was waving a fistful of envelopes about 2 inches thick, each a different shade of pastel.

“Over here, Vest!” a pleasant-sounding voice rang out from another foxhole nearby and Alix heard the footfalls of the messenger scrambling his way to him as well.

“That’s Bunny for ya,” Skip chortled from beside her, nodding to the speaker, a young man with a square jaw and ash-brown hair who was collecting his letters with a satisfied smile.

“Fastest guy in the company and I don’t mean with a gun. Gets around like you wouldn’t believe.”

Alix couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows.

Talbert was alright-looking, she supposed, but particularly special. He was no Gene Kelly and he was certainly no Joe–

“Liebgott!” The orderly’s voice rang out, cutting through the spy's ruminations like a knife.

"Corporal Liebgott! Anybody seen Corporal Liebgott?"

Alix's head shot up but he was nowhere to be found.

Moments later, the spy's head whipped around at the sound of leaves rustling and Skip snickered because it wasn't Joe she spotted coming through nearby foliage, it was just Nixon, tramping through the leaves with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.

"On his way back from an interrogation," her handler informed the orderly before taking a seat in the dirt by Lipton’s foot.

"Just got the radio transmission. He should be here in maybe half an hour."

"Well I'm not waiting till then," Vest replied snippily before removing the giant bag of mail he had been carrying and unceremoniously dropping it to the ground.

"I gotta take a leak."

Turning to his left, he half-tossed the letter in Alix's direction, letting it flutter to the ground carelessly near her instead.

"Give that to Lieb will ya?" he instructed brusquely over his shoulder.

"You'll prolly see him before I do."

Before Alix could protest, the imperious orderly had stalked off into the brush, leaving a bewildered Alix behind with a letter that did not belong to her sitting just an arms-length away.

It had fallen mere inches from her, the words “T/5 Joseph D. Liebgott” written in looping script on its face.

The handwriting was unmistakably female and in the upper left-hand corner, she vaguely spotted the name Millicent along with a return address somewhere in Oakland, wherever that was.

As the pungent scent of perfume wafted from the paper, curiosity began gnawing away at Alix’s stomach like a rapidly-fraying rope.

Who was Millicent?

So when Skip too vacated his spot beside her to heed nature’s call, Alix scooted to the foxhole's edge and strained an arm out to retrieve the envelope.

Upon inspection, Alix noted quickly that surname was different-- Burke, not Liebgott-- so whoever she was, Millicent was clearly of no relation to Joe.

She was probably just a family friend or the like, writing to check up on an old acquaintance while he was at war.

But still…Alix chewed on her bottom lip as the rumbles of jealousy stirred within her like distant thunder.

What if it was something more?

It doesn't matter, she scolded herself. When it comes down to it, you barely know him. And wasn't it you who said this was no time for romance?

Nonetheless, she supposed, it couldn't hurt to just take a glance at the letter's contents. Perhaps it could help to jog her memory. The censors had already opened it anyway, after all, so it wasn't like she was tearing it open herself.

But when she turned the envelope over, her heart sank like a stone.

There, painstakingly inscribed on the flap in flowery script, was "To My Love", sealed with a berry-red lipstick print.

Alix felt her stomach lurch as she traced the lipstick and the words over and over again with her eyes, unable to believe it.

He was already spoken for.

She didn't bother to read any further.

She didn't have to.

No wonder he hadn’t written while she was at the aid station, Alix thought grimly. He probably felt too guilty.

He had been toying with her all that time, pretending that they had been a couple, fooling her and everyone else, while all along, he had “Millicent” waiting at home for him.

And she had almost believed him.

Alix felt sick to her stomach.

Had she learned nothing from her training?

╔══ •🖤🖤•🖤🖤•🖤🖤•══╗

1 Year Earlier: October 1943. Special Operations Executive (SOE) Compound, United Kingdom.

"Lies--" Instructor Flynn began with a crack of the yardstick on the board for emphasis.

“We tell them to each other and most importantly–” the seasoned instructor paused two desks down in front of Agent Perrault, who shrank under his scrutinizing stare.

“– We tell them to ourselves."

Clasping his hands behind his back, Flynn resumed his methodical march across the classroom floor, the rhythmic stomps of his footfalls sounding almost like drum beats.

"Save for your handler, take no one at their word: not assets, not acquaintances, no one."

The instructor stopped again, this time in front of Alix’s seat. His eyes seemed to bore into her but the spy lifted her chin, meeting his gaze without flinching.

“Trust your instincts, operatives, but always verify them with facts. Self-delusion is a spy's worst enemy. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Instructor!"

╚══•🖤🖤•🖤🖤•🖤🖤•══╝

Contemporary: October 24th, 1944. Driel, Netherlands.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder, Alix jumped and turned to see Don's worried face just behind her.

"You okay, Pyro?"

No, she wanted to say. Do I look okay to you?

But she forced a smile instead, internally seizing her heartbreak by the collar and stamping it viciously down into the dirt beneath her boots so her friend wouldn't worry.

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah and I’m the president,” the freckle-faced paratrooper quipped, plopping down in Skip's vacant spot with a slight grunt.

"So what's really going on?"

"God, is that obvious?" Alix winced and a warm voice from behind her replied, "To us? Definitely."

With that, Skip clambered back into the foxhole.

"Other people? Probably not."

With that, the blond poked his head over the spy's shoulder like an inquisitive child.

"So Pyro, what's the dope?"

Alix opened her mouth to make a denial but was cut off by a frowning Don.

"And it's not nothing so you can axe that excuse."

But the sound of a twig snapping in the shadows behind them instantly took precedence and the three instinctively shifted into a defensive position with Skip taking the center-right and Don angling to center-left with Alix dead-center.

Instinctively, the spy had already dropped the letter into her bag and retrieved her gun, cocking it with her good hand. She was still undercover as a combat nurse but according to new regulations, medics were now allowed small arms in the field.

“Flash!”

She could shoot to kill if she needed to.

But luckily, this time, she didn’t need to.

“Thunder!”

Alix felt her chest constrict.

She knew that voice.

“Whoa there,” Joe remarked as he entered the clearing, his sparkling eyes firmly fixed on Alix as he held up his hands in mock-surrender.

“You really gonna shoot me, gorgeous?”

“I just might,” the heartbroken spy muttered bitterly as she lowered her gun, tucking it back into its proper place.

The flirtatious smirk playing on Joe’s face faded, replaced by a look of wounded concern that made Alix almost regret speaking to him sharply…Almost.

“Hey," he said, softening his tone as he approached the foxhole's edge. “What’s eatin’ you, Ziskeit?”

Her stomach twisted with a mixture of grief and rage.

How dare he pretend to care about her. She didn't need his fucking pity.

“Nothing,” she returned coldly, avoiding his gaze as she boosted herself out of the foxhole.

"And don’t call me that.”

Pushing past him, the agent began to limp away but Joe wouldn’t be deterred.

“Hey, s'cuse me,” he interjected as he caught up to her, lightly catching her arm.

“D’you at least mind tellin’ me where we’re going?”

“WE’ aren’t going anywhere,” Alix snapped, pulling out of his grasp. “And where I’M going is none of your business."

She had hoped blatant hostility might chase him off but it didn't.

Even as she hobbled away, she could hear his footsteps crunching in the leaves behind her.

"You ain't gettin' rid of me that easy, Ziskeit," he called but Alix ignored him, gritting her teeth and continuing to trudge onward.

Truthfully, she wasn't sure where she was going; as long as it was away from him, it didn't matter.

She wouldn't let him see her cry.

But her injured ankle slowed her down considerably and he caught up to her a second time without much difficulty.

“Zees c’mere, lemme hel–” Joe began, starting to put an arm around her, presumably to help her balance, but Alix pushed his arm away.

“I don’t need your help,” she lied, trying to muster a scathing glare despite the tears pricking her eyes and the fire that seemed to engulf her swollen ankle with every excruciating step.

The sensation was nearly unbearable but she forced herself past one more foxhole when suddenly, her ankle gave out and her legs buckled beneath her.

“Cazzo!”

But to her surprise, Joe stepped in and deftly snaked an arm about her waist to steady her in one fluid motion, their faces so tantalizingly close now that she could see every shade of honey in his mesmerizing brown eyes, his lips so near that her breath caught in her throat.

His gaze flickered down to her lips which instinctively parted like flower petals and for a second, the world around them seemed to slow as all her righteous fury melted away like snow in Springtime.

Joe's hypnotic brown eyes drank her in with tender admiration and Alix could've sworn her heart skipped a beat at the warmth within them, like hot chocolate on a winter’s day.

When he drew her closer in his deceptively strong arms, she offered no resistance, sparks seeming to dance across her skin at his touch.

"You didn’t think I’d let you fall, did you?” he asked with a cocky smirk and Alix could feel a reluctant heat rising to her cheeks.

But before she could get any words out, a nasal voice from nearby cut through the tension, causing the pair to jump apart.

"Hey, Liebgott!"

It was the orderly from earlier, Vest.

"What?" Joe snapped rather sharply and the PFC visibly withered under his glare.

"Just-Just wanted to make sure you got your letter alright," the younger man stammered but Joe looked perplexed.

"What letter?"

Alix came back to her senses with a jolt.

Suddenly, the forgotten letter felt like it weighed a hundred pounds and she took a heavy step back, guilt flooding her senses.

She had been about to kiss someone else's beau.

"This one," she said curtly, digging into her bag and handing the perfume-soaked envelope over to Joe with a weak smile.

"Sorry, I forgot."

Eyebrows raised, he turned the envelope over in his hands and a wallet-sized photograph dropped from it onto the ground, landing face-up to reveal a young woman, maybe a year or two older than Alix, with pale green eyes and mousy brown hair falling in gentle waves over her shoulder.

Joe snatched the photo off the ground but the damage had already been done. By the time he looked up again, Alix was gone.

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