Charmed at Last - Knight Rider x TF Prime, Cliffjumper x Devon
Occupied France, 1942
Devon Miles had grown used to being described as non-descript-blonde hair, kept short, and an unremarkable face… Save for the eyes, a shade of blue that always seemed to catch people's attention.
As non-descript as she was, the eyes were a dead giveaway. Thankfully, officers never looked at their recruits' eyes. Probably a good thing because an officer who looked very closely at Devon's eyes would have noticed right off that the shape was a little too round, a little too soft-too feminine.
It was this oversight (with a dash of sheer dumb luck for good measure) that had gotten her into the military to begin with. At the first recruitment station she'd went to and politely announced her intention to serve on the front lines, she'd been more or less laughed out, but not before someone scrawled the address to the Red Cross on a scrap of paper for her, dropping the none-too-subtle suggestion that she become a nurse, there's a good girl.
She wasn’t Cedric Miles daughter for no good reason; like her father, Devon had a certain stubborn attitude that applied double when she set her mind to a specific task or goal. The British Army was no exception, bringing her about the task of teaching herself the finer art of chest binding and faking her way through a masculine façade. She got quite good at it, and at lying to her parents. On some level she felt guilty betraying their trust by saying she had joined the Red Cross, but really-what sane family would let their only child, their only daughter to boot, cross-dress to join the army?
Devon tried not to lend that too much thought. She was here, now, in occupied France with a knapsack strapped to her back and a rifle in her hands. It was dark, and the moon was her only guide through the fields.
She trod as lightly and quickly as she could, trying to do as little damage as possible to crops underfoot. Granted, a Nazi-occupied homeland was probably of higher rank on a French farmer's list of concerns, but she could see no reason for recklessly damaging the tender shoots under her heel.
Devon paused in a stretch of tress and undergrowth in equal measures of exhaustion, getting her bearings and relieving herself. She would say damn her sergeant for sending her out on a solo reconnaissance, save for one detail: it had been her idea. So far as soldiers in her unit went, "he" was already femininely small and slender, not to mention a loner, thereby earning whispers of "pansy" when mentions of Private Devon Miles came up. This assignment was as good as any to "be a man"-that is, deflect suspicion should anyone start to put two and two together. This of course was well before she leant thought to how much she needed to get the bloody hell away from a platoon full of men.
Devon stood and jerked her pants and uniform trousers into place. She was focusing on her belt when there was a loud pop, and a white-hot pain erupted in her side, and barely managed to bite back a moan as she clamped her hand over her side; her jacket and shirt were quickly becoming warm and sticky. As she started to realize that all available indicators pointed to her having been shot, she heard a pistol being cocked (a cold, ugly sound) and a heavily accented voice saying, "I would not move if I were you."
Devon stiffened, checking her peripheral vision as best she could without turning her head. It was damn near impossible, but she didn’t exactly need her eyes to know that she'd been shot at and captured by a German.
Twigs snapped and grass rustled as the enemy solider approached. "Put the rifle down-slowly," he commanded. Not that Devon had a say in the matter, she complied and laid her rifle down next to her. "Put your hands on your head." Again, she complied, lacing her finger together on the top of her cap.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the soldier pick up the rifle, and she could hear him shouldering it. None of these situations, though, were quite as disquieting as the feel of a pistol being pressed into her back. "Now move."
• • •
The prison camp to which the German herded her was three miles away-a fair distance when one was bleeding from a shot in the side. Given that she hadn’t bled out yet, she could assume it wasn’t a deep injury, but she'd lost far more blood than she cared to consider. By the time she'd arrived in the compound center courtyard, her smooth, confident gait and deteriorated into an almost drunken stagger. Her eyes flicked from German to German (about half a dozen congregated), her chest heaving; with every breath, her jacket and shirt stuck to her skin and irritated the injury.
There was some chatter-likely something to do with her, though Devon couldn’t be bothered to translate, and she caught a name, Clifford Jackson. She barely noticed as one of the soldiers disappeared, returning a few moments later with a bleary eye soldier in tow. This newcomer was in uniform as well, but it was in fairly rough shape. He was a prisoner, too-American, judging by the style of the uniform.
One of the Germans (likely the CO, though Devon couldn’t bring herself to give a damn) pointed to her, ordered the newcomer to "patch him up" and the group dispersed, leaving the two to their own devices. The other prisoner stepped closer. "Lieutenant Clifford Jackson."
She managed a salute. "Private Devon Miles." Given that her teeth were clenched and her voice was thick with pain, she didn’t have to make much effort to disguise her voice.
"I'll call you Dev if you call me Cliff," he said with a thin smile as he wrapped Devon's arm over his shoulders and supported her weight.
Devon pressed her lips into a thin line at the suggestion. "I'd prefer Devon," she bit out.
"Fine," Cliff replied, helping her limp toward the southern end of the compound. "I still want you to call me Cliff, got it?"
Devon nodded stiffly, wanting little more than for the pain to subside, for the dizziness to end. Even the nausea being knocked down a peg or two would have been fabulous. "How does an American soldier get trusted with medical matters in a prison camp?"
"Their doctor died on them," he explained. "They put us to work here and I was his aide, so for now, I'm it." He gave Devon a sidelong glance. "You holding up alright?"
"Well enough," she replied. "I'll soldier on-pardon the pun, of course."
"S'what I like about Brits," Cliff said with a laugh. "Stiff upper lip." He helped Devon into a small wood building (more of a large shed than anything else) that had a sign reading Medizinisch hanging on the door, and onto a narrow wooden table in the center of the main room. "You enlist on your own?"
"Yes," Devon replied, drawing her legs up onto the table (and instantly regretting it for the pain and the feel of more blood seeping out of her wound). "What about you?"
"No, I was drafted," he answered, lighting a gas lamp and washing his hands in a basin by the window. "Had to close up my practice in the Midwest, come serve out here."
"That must be difficult," Devon observed, "especially being… here."
Cliff chuckled as he brought the gas lamp over to the table; in the dim light, Devon could see that he had deep auburn hair and pale blue eyes. "I'm from Iowa-I get used to whatever gets thrown at me."
Devon smiled thinly-while she wasn’t sure what his home state had to do with anything, it was still a sentiment she could appreciate. She vocalized the latter half of these thoughts.
The lieutenant nodded in reply as he worked Devon's jacket off her frame. For a moment, Devon felt her stomach drop as she scrambled to find a way to explain her binding, but he went no further, examining the injury with a practiced gaze and equally practiced fingers through the tear in her shirt. "It's deep, but looks like the bullet missed all the important stuff." He straightened up and turned to a modest supply cabinet. "I can have this bandaged in ten, fifteen minutes."
"No need to worry about me," Devon said, feeling ill at ease as she watched him pull bandages and pins out of the cabinet. "I'll take care of it myself and let you get back to it."
"Thanks for the offer," Cliff replied, depositing the supplies on the table next to his patient, "but I have to personally clear you for the See-Oh's paperwork."
The idea of her dirty little secret being discovered by not only a doctor but also a German commandant made the blood drain from Devon's face faster than she could say Jack Robinson. "On second thought," she said, feigning a casual tone of voice, "I feel fine-no need to worry about bandages."
"The way it'll be scarring and tearing open, it'll never heal right," Cliff said, shaking his head, "and that's on the off chance it doesn’t get infected first." He narrowed his eyes slightly as he considered Devon. "Something wrong with-"
"Of course not," Devon cut off, a shade testily. Knowing little else to really do, she tugged her shirttail out of her trousers and up just enough to expose the wound.
"I'm going to have to wrap all around your stomach," Cliff explained, his good humor falling away and his patience clearly wearing thin. "You need to relax. It's not like you and I have radically different anatomy-no need to be so modest."
Devon resisted the urge to chuckle. If only you knew. "I'd prefer wrapping my own injuries."
"Option's not on the table," he began, taking up the hem of her shirt.
She seized his hand at the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. "I respectfully refuse, sir."
For a moment, Cliff's eyes flashed with irritation, his whole body tense… then he relaxed, offered Devon a casual smile and turned his attention back to the supply cabinet. Devon stared at the opposite wall for several moments before relaxing slightly-but that was before the shiiiiink of steel scissors opening and cloth being sliced apart met her ears.
Cliff worked fast and had cut up to and through her shirt collar before she leapt off the table, wounded side be damned, and whipped around to face him. She kept her shirt pinned to her body, holding it up by the collar and shoulders. "What in bloody hell are you doing?" Her voice was low and flinty.
Initially, Cliff was going to comment on how incredibly stubborn Devon was being, but that was before he'd seen-"Your chest is completely wrapped. You get any chest damage recently?"
"I fail to see how that's any of your business," Devon replied shortly.
"As a doctor, it damn well is," Cliff answered, his tone sharp. "What happened?"
"You'd like to know?" Without waiting for an answer, Devon pulled off the useless shirt. Even with the chest binding, the swell of her chest was clearer now, as was her feminine shape. Her face, however, remained as staunch as before, as if challenging him to say something.
And say something he did. "How does a female-"
Devon gestured to the binding. "Should be obvious."
"Doesn't anyone-" Cliff tried again.
"No one suspects a thing. I keep to myself."
"You've been skating by on pure luck," Cliff translated.
"I've not been taking foolish risks, if that's what you mean," Devon rebutted icily.
"Then how'd you end up here?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.
"You're suggesting it's my fault I got shot?" she asked sharply.
"Calm down," Cliff said, a little testily. "I mean in the army. Last I checked-"
"The army doesn’t allow female soldiers," Devon finished, waving the words aside. "I can’t speak for the state of troops in America, but they were desperate where I was. I was barely looked over."
"That still doesn't explain you… why…" He trailed off, lifting his hands and searching for the right words.
"I wasn’t raised to sit on my hands and do nothing," she answered, guessing where the conversation was going.
"They don't have the Red Cross or nurses' training in England?" Cliff asked, almost in disbelief.
"I didn’t want to comfort the dying," Devon replied, her voice rising slightly. "I had to do something."
"So do I," Cliff replied, turning for the door.
"You're turning me in?" she asked.
He looked over his shoulder at her. "I can't let a woman stay here."
She quickly crossed the room and stood in front of the door. "You'd hand me over to the soldiers keeping us captive?"
"You make it sound like I'm throwing you into a snake pit," Cliff noted, sounding almost defensive.
"How do you know you're not?" she asked coolly.
"They'll drop you off in the next town over," he reasoned.
"How do you know that?" Devon questioned. "I know the location of this camp and can remember the faces of the officers I've seen here-what's to stop me from reporting this place to the authorities? Once I leave this encampment, I'm at the mercy of those who would give me none." She fixed him with a meaningful look. "As a doctor, do you not have a duty to preserve and protect life?" Do you want my blood on your hands?
She had him there-Cliff knew it, and Devon knew it. She easily met his eyes and carried on before he could protest, "I'll do anything you ask of me, so long as you don’t turn me in to the commandant."
Their eyes remained locked for several minutes, as if challenging each other to go against the other's wishes. Finally, Cliff wilted a little, sighed and asked, "Are you married?"
Devon's brow furrowed slightly. "I'm not. Why?"
Cliff went back to the table and starting preparing his supplies once more, commenting, "You sure can twist a man's arm like a married woman."
• • •
Keeping Private Devon Miles isolated from the rest of the prisoner population was easy. All he had to do was casually drop the phrases "susceptible to tuberculosis" and "highly contagious" in his report to the commandant-boom, instant containment orders. Devon had laughed when he described the lie to her, and thanked him again.
In exchange for the housing he ended up providing (and the dubious-looking meals he brought back from the mess), Devon became a second set of hands. He had to give her credit; the sight of blood didn't put her off when prisoners came in to get wounds from the day's work patched up, and she was putting them back together almost as easily as he. The irony of their fellow prisoners knowing "Miles" wasn’t sick with possibly-tuberculosis, but not knowing the true reason this soldier was being kept out of the general populace was far from lost on Cliff.
Truth be told, after the initial snit they'd had and the arm-twisting, she was pleasant to have around. Sharp as a whip, for one thing. Great conversation for another. She listened with interest to his stories of growing up on a corn farm in Iowa; he returned the favor in listening to stories of her father being one of the finest lawyers in southeastern England, and the almost privileged background she held. They were both only children, though with radically different educations-the idea of public versus boarding school seemed somewhat foreign to the other.
In between conversation, work and sleep, Cliff and Devon tag-teamed changing her bandages and tending to her own injury, which was coming along nicely. He also tried to encourage her to remove her binding before she really hurt herself keeping it on 24/7, but she politely declined. Somehow, Cliff suspected she only loosened, rewrapped or removed it when he was in the showers-clear on the other side of the camp.
• • •
Devon had been living the medical cabin for close to three weeks, and hadn’t been active at night at all. At this point, Cliff suspected she didn't piss. Ever-that everything she took in was burned for energy. However, she far and away made up for it tonight for it when she shook his shoulder in the middle of the night, hissing, "Cliff! Wake up!"
He lifted his head, mumbling sleepily. "Hmm? What issit, Devon?" He propped himself up on one elbow and looked her over.
She was fully dressed, and her shoulder bag crossed over her chest, still as flat as he'd ever seen it. "I'm getting out of here," she announced, her voice low and serious.
"Midnight strolls around a prison camp don’t seem like your thing, Devon," Cliff replied with a chuckle, flopping over on his stomach.
"I'm escaping."
This caught Cliff's attention. He pushed himself up and looked her again, stunned, searching her eyes for some sign she was joking. He found none. "You're running off?"
"I'm certainly not going on a walk through my garden," Devon deadpanned. "Remember how I said I wasn’t going to sit on my hands?"
Cliff sat up, swinging his legs down to the rough hewn floorboards. "Yeah, but-"
"I've spent enough time sitting on my hands," Devon dismissed, standing and heading for his desk. "Not that I don't appreciate everything you’ve done for me, you understand." She took up a piece of paper and a pen and started writing before looking over to him, offering him an almost sad smile. "I hope I'm not causing you undue grief, given that I'm under your care."
"You're going to get yourself killed," Cliff protested, standing and crossing the room.
"Not if I don’t get caught," she corrected. She folded the piece of paper on which she'd been writing and held it up. "I'm going to be travelling long and fast to get away from here before daybreak. If anyone asks, you don’t know what happened to me. If they press you for more info, I died in the night."
"That's a shit lie and you know it, Devon," Cliff said, cold but honest.
"It's better than what you have," she replied flippantly. "Unless you want to tell them the fairies took me in my sleep. Listen-"She pressed the paper into his hand-"that's my parent's address. If you make it to the end of this goddamn war, write a letter to tell me that."
Cliff's hand closed around the paper; the sound of it crinkling in his grip was magnified, and it filled the small room. "Why?"
"Because there are only three people in this whole mess that I trust with my dirty little secret-" She pointed to each as she said their names-"myself, God and you."
Cliff felt a little honored by that knowledge, and commented as much.
Devon smiled and wrapped him in a quick hug. She only came up to his chin, and he was no slouch so far as height went. "Thank you again," she said sincerely before breaking away and leave, almost (but not really) as unassumingly as she came.
• • •
England, 1947
The letter arrived on an overcast day and, like the day itself, was very unassuming. The handwriting was unfamiliar to her, and the return address only indicated the house number and the name of village, which she recognized as being a few miles west of her own. She sat down to her tea and paper, leaving her parents (who had been decidedly unhappy with the real reason she'd never written them a single letter upon her return home two years prior, but recovered from the worry and disappointment quickly) to their own post.
Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper printed with the same unfamiliar handwriting on the envelope. The words, however, evoked a decidedly familiar voice.
Devon-
Hey! It only took me a few years, but I finally wrote you. (Here's hoping you're still at the address you gave me.) I'm going to be in town next week, and I'd love to catch up with you. You still need to explain how you got out of camp without getting caught. Fire off a note back with a time and a place-unless a sweetheart of yours says no way.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Cliff Jackson
She couldn’t help but smile. Five years and a few thousand miles clearly hadn’t changed him, though she couldn’t help but wonder what brought him back to Europe. She recalled him mentioning his medical practice in his home state… But why would he leave it again after being gone for who knew how long?
Laying aside the letter, Devon crossed her room to her desk and took up a sheet of paper and a pen to write out her reply-Of course! Below are directions to the local pub; I'll meet you there at three o'clock on the 19. I look forward to meeting you again.
With regards,
Devon Miles
• • •
The street was fairly quiet at three o'clock, but when he saw her, sitting outside the pub on a bench poring over a newspaper, he called out, "Devon!"
Devon lifted her head and smiled when she saw who had addressed her. "Hello, Cliff," she greeted warmly as he joined her. The same deep red hair, the same flashing blue eyes-he looked as though he'd been preserved in time.
Cliff shook her hand warmly before grasping her shoulders and looking her over. "You haven’t changed," he announced after a moment.
Devon smiled slightly and looked down at herself. Following the end of the war, and thus the end of her military career, she had no need to bind her chest or conceal her sex, so her figure was now obvious to the causal observer. Her clothes-a crisp white blouse and deep blue skirt, jacket and hat-certainly helped. "Not even my wardrobe?" she asked teasingly.
Cliff paused thoughtfully before offering her his arm. "Nah."
She called him a god-awful tease as they stepped into the pub and navigated their way to an out of the way booth in the back. The air was thick with the smell of the food being prepared in the back and the tang of beer.
A server appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, as they settled into the booth seats. They ordered a pint and fish and chips each before studying each other in the dim light. Devon spoke first as she removed her hat-"If I may ask, what brings you back? I seem to remember you wanting to go back to your practice in the Midwest."
Somehow, she didn't need to elaborate. "I got a case of the wanderlust," he explained, a wry grin shaping his features. "I picked up the practice and moved it out here. Took me a while-s'why I didn't write to you right away." A glimmer of apology appeared in his eyes.
"I understand," she replied easily as the sever deposit the food and drinks on the table. "I've been busy myself, I admit."
"With what?" Cliff asked, taking a sip of his drink. "Sweetheart? Husband?" He looked at her with mock seriousness. "How many babies?"
"All of them," Devon replied, spreading a napkin on her lap. "They're all named my studies."
"What are you studying?" Cliff asked, taking a bite of his food.
"Following in my father's footsteps, she replied, reaching for a bottle of malt vinegar. "Law."
"Hell of a field for a woman," Cliff replied, sipping his pint. Unlike when most men said that in reply to her intended occupation, it wasn’t as though they were talking down to her.
"I've been a soldier," Devon said, leaning across the table slightly and lowering her voice. "Law is nothing compared to that."
"How were things for you after we last met?" Cliff asked, his tone becoming serious once more.
Devon explained everything-from her escape over a fence to running like all hell to getting caught and captured a second time, to escaping once more before finally falling in with a group of American GIs until she found her and subsequently restored her to the British military. By the time she was done, both had forgotten there was food and drink on the table; there was a pause before she broke the silence with a soft question of her own. "What about you?"
Cliff gave her the same courtesy-remaining in the camp until it was liberated some six months after the fact, then getting shipped back home to Iowa. "They gave me so much hell for losing you," he ended, chuckling slightly as he dragged a chip through a puddle of malt vinegar and salt.
"I felt bad for that, I assure you," Devon said, looking up from her own food. "If I could have brought you along, I would have."
"You do what you have to," Cliff replied, reaching over and laying a hand on hers. "I don’t blame you for trying to get out in one piece."
Devon followed suit, laying her hand on his before offering him a smile that could only be described as downright charming. "I don’t see why we need to think about it now. You did say you wanted to catch up."
The conversation wandered away from the war, and they found themselves enjoying the time and the food and each other's company and conversation. Somewhere along the line, they noted that their hands, fingers loosely intertwined, had yet to separate but neither truly minded.
-.-.-.-
Title: Charmed at Last
Author: TheCrazyAlaskan
Fandom / Setting: Classic Knight Rider x Transformers Prime - human AU, pre-series (France / UK, 1940s)
Characters / Pairings: Cliffjumper x Devon Miles
Rating: T+
Genre: Romance
Word Count: 4,308
Warnings / Notes: Genderswap, humanization.
Commissioned by locoexclaimer.
Oh God, I love the Crack Pairing Game. 8D Let me explain-loco and I invented this game where we pull two characters out of hat and try to make them work in the same setting; any situation is fair game, but pairings are preferred. Thus the name. We pulled Cliffjumper and Devon one night and after a little genderswapping, she ended up making it this amazing thing and then I got commissioned for it.
Oh God, female Devon what is this I don’t even. x3 I admit, I had a little too much fun adapting canon Devon's backstory to a female variant. I couldn’t make the OSS and all that work, so let's upgrade to the army. :la:
Cliffjumper, Transformers Prime © Hasbro
Devon Miles, Knight Rider © Glen A Larson