"Watching You For Light" by heartequals for _steelphoenix_
title Watching you for light
the prompt you used "Because it's all he can do, because it's all he's ever done."
the name you signed up with heartequals
your recipient's name _steelphoenix_
rating pg13 at best
a summary or list of characters assorted, but mostly Roe/Babe. At Bastogne, Eugene starts to see ghosts.
author's note The bit of the Bible that Roe quotes is from Psalm 121. To _steelphoenix_ -- your prompts were fantastic (I may have another fic coming :| ) and this went places I wasn't expecting it to go. I hope you enjoy it! And thank you to the mods for putting this together!
He’s always been good at faces and names, always. He used to make Grandmere proud when he could name everyone that passed through her door. It was easy to learn the name of every man in the company. He watched them, memorized their faces, names, the shape of their bodies as they move. It didn’t take him long at all to pick out any man by his silhouette, much less his voice. He got to know their ailments too, who had asthma and who’d survived influenza. He’d be fine, he thought. They’d be fine. He’d never seen a tougher, finer group of men.
He should have known better, but he caught up real quick the moment he jumped out of that plane and into the darkness. They weren’t all coming back and he wouldn’t be able to save them. He could try, and would, but they weren’t all gonna come back. When he hit the ground, he was ready.
It starts in Bastogne. It starts their first night in Bastogne, when Eugene is walking around, taking stock of where everyone’s in. It starts when he sees Julian and Heffron sitting on the edge of their foxhole. It starts when he hears them talking about all the movies they’re gonna watch when they get home and he can’t help but smile at that. It starts when Heffron catches him smiling, catches his eye and grins back at him. It starts when Eugene sees 1st Lt. Meehan standing right behind Heffron, watching them with an expressionless face.
It’s the men who died and the men he couldn’t save.
They come and go. Eugene can see them only sometimes. They’re neither devilish specters nor angelic spirits, but something in between. Something calmer, quieter, and altogether sadder. They don’t bother him at all, don’t even try to talk to him. But they’re there, unmistakable for anything but Easy Company men, all cleaned up and in their uniforms. Sometimes they’re there when he kneels at the body of a man. Sometimes they’re there when he wakes up in the middle of the night with dread curling up tight in his stomach. Sometimes they’re there when he takes a moment to breathe, to pray, to remember.
He doesn’t know why they hang around, but he doesn’t ask questions either. Doesn’t seem to be his place. And maybe it should scare him, seeing all these ghosts, but it doesn’t. He doesn’t fear dead men. What’s he got to fear with men who used to brothers?
At first, he tries to count the days. Just wants to know how long they’ve been in Europe. But he starts to forget the days. So he starts to count moments, the important ones, just to keep track of his time. But he starts to forget the important moments too, mixes them up with the unimportant and meaningless.
He counts his men instead. He doesn’t forget them. The ghosts, when they come, become part of his final count. Live men and dead. He tries not to get the two groups messed up. It’s hard though, in Bastogne, to keep the two straight when they’re so much crossover.
The replacements, when they come, are easy enough to know. He doesn’t bother with medical history but he can pick out them out by their gait and he hopes that’ll be enough.
There’s one replacement, a kid named Edward Heffron. Maybe because he looks like he might almost be related to Winters, but learning his name and face comes easier than the others. On one of his first days with them, Eugene hears Heffron say to Luz, “I fell out of a tree and broke my arm in two places.” Eugene pauses, confused, because Heffron isn’t screaming and no one’s calling for a medic. Heffron continues, “When I was sixteen, I was trying to impress a girl. I was dumber then a bag of bricks.”
Luz cackles. Eugene rolls his eyes and moves on, but still hears Heffron say, confidently, “I can still knock your lights out, so don’t worry about me.”
Heffron’s a good man, smiles real wide at Eugene and the world, and is quick on his feet when they get into it. Without every really thinking about it, Eugene finds himself checking Heffron’s arm whenever Heffron passes through his care for cuts or sprains. If Heffron notices Eugene testing Heffron’s arm, he doesn’t mention it, just continues joking around until Eugene’s done patching him up.
He wakes up in a foxhole one night, Spina asleep on his shoulder, the night heavy and silent around them. There’s a man sitting next to him, a dead man, and Eugene is sick with shame over how long it takes him to remember the man’s name. It comes to him eventually. James Miller. A replacement. He died not too long after he joined up with the company.
Miller doesn’t do anything, just sits next to him. He ain’t looking at Eugene, he’s just watching the snow fall. Eugene didn’t even see him die, didn’t even get to his body. He only heard about Miller’s death after the fact.
“I do my best,” Eugene says to him after a time. “That’s all I can do.”
Miller nods without looking at him. Eugene falls back asleep watching Miller watch the snow fall.
He thinks about telling Captain Winters, because he thinks Captain Winters would be the most out of all of them to understand, but still, there’s no order of words to make sir, I see the ghosts of the dead men in our company, but don’t worry, they ain’t haunting me sound safe or sane. Easy can’t afford to have him shipped off the front lines and Eugene doesn’t want to go.
He thinks about telling Babe once, when Babe somehow manages to tip over the side of his foxhole and tumble down into it without spilling a tin mug of coffee. He says, cheeks flushed bright and alive, “Doc, you want some coffee? Nixon stole some from 3rd Battalion. Here.”
Hoobler is sitting there, sitting right there next to Babe, watching them both. Eugene thinks about asking if Babe can see him too, but instead he says, “Yeah?”
Babe hands him the mug and says, “Try it. Not too bad, huh? Those bastards were holding out on us.”
Eugene looks at Hoobler and back at Babe. He tries for his best imitation of a smile. Babe leans back against the space previously occupied by Hoobler and looks satisfied.
He sees Renee the night they pull out of Bastogne. She stands on the side of the road, hands clasped in front of her. He almost calls out to her, relieved to see her alive, but there’s something funny in the way she holds herself, so stiff and cool. He realizes that the snow falls through her, not on her, and he bites his tongue so hard it bleeds trying not to cry out. She looks at him the entire time they pass and doesn’t break eye contact. Spina is asleep on one side and Babe on another and both are collapsed against him, but Eugene still manages a slight wave as they pass. He hopes it’s sufficient enough to convey thank you, even though those are just two weak words that could never begin to cover his gratitude toward her. He’s not sure she sees though - she doesn’t make any motion back, just turns to watch them as they roll away. He cranes his neck over Spina’s head, but they pass out of sight before he can wave again.
Sometimes a man dies so full of fear and sorrow that it seems he dies of fright and that, that Eugene can help. It angers him when he sees them die with fear overwhelming their hearts. Maybe he can’t save them but surely he can make it so they don’t leave at odds with the world. Surely he can do that much for them.
He says as much to Captain Winters one night. Winters just smiles sadly and says “We can try, Doc.”
Penkala and Muck are there when Jackson dies. Eugene thinks that maybe they came to take Jackson away, but no, they hang around after Jackson dies with a gasp.
Then he thinks, maybe it’s their fault that Jackson died writhing in terror. Maybe he saw them too. But no, that don’t make any sense, because what’s Jackson got to fear from Muck and Penkala? They were good, steady men. They would never hurt him. And what’s Jackson got to fear from death anyway? There ain’t nowhere for him to go but up.
He looks up. Babe stares down at him, mouth open in shock. Behind him, Muck and Penkala shake their heads. All of a sudden, something uncontrolled and uncontrollable flames up inside of him and he needs to get out.
So Eugene follows the stretcher and watches Jackson get loaded into the back of a truck. He isn’t panicking. He doesn’t know what the word is for how he feels. He can’t remember. It isn’t panicking though. Panicking - that’s nothing like what’s happening to him now. His legs go numb, his knees give way and he lands on his ass on the cold, hard ground outside the house.
He’s gone medic on himself before any real panic sets in, hands on his knees as he rights himself. Can’t be nerve damage, because he can still feel his legs. Exhaustion? He got almost six hours of uninterrupted sleep last night.
Must be grief. Nothing for it.
He lights a cigarette with shaking hands and takes stock of himself like he would any other wounded man. He’s sprawled out on the dirt and snow, braced up against a wall, alive but a real mess of a soldier. It’s undignified and unpatriotic and Eugene tries pull himself together, tries to organize his limbs so he can stand up. Belatedly he realizes that he’s crying, so he lets himself fall back against house again. He wipes a hand under his eyes and gives himself time to pull it together. He can’t save them all and it ain’t up for him to say who stays and goes anyway, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt. He takes a drag of his cigarette and blows smoke up at the sky. He closes his eyes and thinks, I will life mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth...
“Doc?” says a familiar voice. The door slams. “Hey, Doc, are you-oh Jesus, fuck, no-”
“’m alright,” says Eugene. He opens his eyes and watches Babe stop short and all but fall to his knees in front of him. Babe looks furious, looks scared, looks like he wants to punch Eugene. He grabs Eugene’s knee.“Jesus, Doc, I thought you’d - I thought we’d mighta lost you.”
“Nah,” says Eugene. “Just praying.”
“No shit,” says Babe. His face has softened into worry. “Doc, what happened to your eyes?”
Eugene touches his face. His hands are still carry Jackson’s blood and his cheek must bear streaks of red from when he wiped his eyes. “Nothing to worry about,” he says, holding up his bloody hands.
The relief on Babe’s face is mixed with frustration and he says, digging around in his pockets, “you look like a devil out of hell.”
“Maybe,” says Eugene. He stubs out his cigarette on the ground. Babe pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and grabs some snow, squeezing it against the handkerchief until the handkerchief is wet. He hands it to Eugene. Eugene was wrong; it’s not a handkerchief at all, but the strip of Renee’s headscarf that he used to bind Babe’s hand.
He tries not shiver, but it’s below freezing and they’re all but sitting a snow drift. The memory of Renee watching them leave flares up in the back of his mind, but she doesn’t appear in front of them. “Why’re you carrying this around with you?” he says.
Babe shrugs and sits down close next to Eugene. “Thought it might come in handy.”
Eugene finishes cleaning his face and says, “Let me see your hand.”
Babe holds out his hand dutifully. “It’s not so bad. Doesn’t bleed or anything.”
Eugene looks close. Babe’s been good about keeping it clean and it’s scabbed over well. Shouldn’t leave too deep a scar. He nods, satisfied, and when he looks up to say something to Babe, Babe just quirks the side of his mouth in a half-smile and laces his fingers with Eugene’s.
Eugene hasn’t seen Babe much since they left Bastogne, but he’s glad Babe’s here now. He’s glad Babe’s the one who found him here. He squeezes Babe’s hand. Babe sighs and says, “I think you better check my head too, ‘cause I keep dreaming ghosts.” He laughs, but it sounds more like a cough or a sob. “It’s the fuckin’ strangest thing.”
“Dreaming?” says Eugene, with a start. “Or seeing?”
“Dreaming,” says Babe. “When I sleep. Every night. They don’t scare me or anything, but it’s damn creepy.”
“Who?” says Eugene. His pulse has picked up, heart racing.
“Julian. Skip and Penkala, hell. All of them,” says Babe. He laughs again, nervous. “I think I’m losing it.”
“No,” says Eugene. “Dreams ain’t nothing to worry about.”
“Damn creepy though,” Babe mutters. “I don’t like it.” He looks down at their clasped hands. “Maybe because I miss them, I don’t know. Sometimes I still look around for them, you know? It’s stupid, but I still look around like they’ve got my back or they’re just out of sight.” He snorts. “Pretty dumb of me, huh?”
Eugene leans over and kisses Babe, because he doesn’t know what to say. It’s not dumb. He misses them too. It occurs to him that maybe that’s why he sees them around, but Babe chases that thought away when he bits down on Eugene’s lip.
Babe falls back when Eugene crawls over his legs and pushes him against the wall. Babe doesn’t do a damn thing but pull Eugene closer and Eugene’s so grateful that he could, well. He brushes a hand through his hair and kisses Babe until he thinks he can speak again. When Eugene pulls away, Babe makes a low sound in the back of his throat and opens his eyes.
“Gene,” he says. “Gene, what-”
“I see them too,” says Eugene, without thinking. He sits back. “I see them all the damn time. Ever since we got to Bastogne, they’ve been there-”
“All the time?”
Eugene nods. He feels weary and frantic at once. The mixed feeling tugs at his skin and makes him want to weep. “Day, night, they’re always around. Not all of ‘em, but some. I seen just about everyone we lost since the first day.” He tries to laugh, but the sound catches in his throat. “Every single one of them has come around.”
Babe grabs his shoulders. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell anyone?” he demands. “Doc, why the fuck didn’t you say anything? Doesn’t it scare you?”
“They don’t haunt me,” says Eugene.
“Shit,” says Babe. “Doc, no, we can’t have you fuckin’ hallucinating-”
Eugene frowns. “There’s nothing wrong with me. They don’t trouble me.”
“Eugene,” says Babe, and he looks, for a brief moment, completely destroyed, angry like a foxhole blown to hell. But the expression passes and is replaced with exhaustion. “They don’t haunt you at all?”
Eugene shakes his head. “No. I don’t know what they want either. I just let them be.”
Babe shakes his head. “Gene, how the hell do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Watch us get torn to pieces and try to put us back together.” Babe rests his head against the house, throat exposed. “I wouldn’t last a minute being the one who had to stop us dying.”
“You do it too,” says Eugene.
“Not like you,” says Babe. “How do you do it?”
“I just do,” he says. He frowns. “Nothing else for me to do.”
Babe looks at him, disbelieving. “It’s alright,” Eugene adds. “I’m alright.”
Babe opens his mouth as if to speak, but shakes his head and drags Eugene in for another kiss instead. There’s nothing else for them to do, nothing else they can do. Haguenau is quiet and cold around them. They kiss until they’re almost knotted together from close contact. They kiss and kiss and Eugene feels dizzy to the point of fainting. He pulls away.
“Gene,” says Babe, a bit breathless, “you’re sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah,” says Eugene. He’s alright. He’ll be alright. “Yeah. You?”
Babe looks thoughtful, lips and cheeks pink from kissing, nose pink from the cold. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Alright then,” says Eugene. He rolls off of Babe and stands, offering a hand to Babe. Babe takes it and pulls himself up. “Now what?” he says.
“Nothing,” says Eugene. “What else can we do?” He tries to bite back a smile, but fails when Babe groans. “It’s colder than hell, Heffron. Let’s go back inside.”
If there are are any more ghosts around that night, he doesn’t see them.
the prompt you used "Because it's all he can do, because it's all he's ever done."
the name you signed up with heartequals
your recipient's name _steelphoenix_
rating pg13 at best
a summary or list of characters assorted, but mostly Roe/Babe. At Bastogne, Eugene starts to see ghosts.
author's note The bit of the Bible that Roe quotes is from Psalm 121. To _steelphoenix_ -- your prompts were fantastic (I may have another fic coming :| ) and this went places I wasn't expecting it to go. I hope you enjoy it! And thank you to the mods for putting this together!
He’s always been good at faces and names, always. He used to make Grandmere proud when he could name everyone that passed through her door. It was easy to learn the name of every man in the company. He watched them, memorized their faces, names, the shape of their bodies as they move. It didn’t take him long at all to pick out any man by his silhouette, much less his voice. He got to know their ailments too, who had asthma and who’d survived influenza. He’d be fine, he thought. They’d be fine. He’d never seen a tougher, finer group of men.
He should have known better, but he caught up real quick the moment he jumped out of that plane and into the darkness. They weren’t all coming back and he wouldn’t be able to save them. He could try, and would, but they weren’t all gonna come back. When he hit the ground, he was ready.
It starts in Bastogne. It starts their first night in Bastogne, when Eugene is walking around, taking stock of where everyone’s in. It starts when he sees Julian and Heffron sitting on the edge of their foxhole. It starts when he hears them talking about all the movies they’re gonna watch when they get home and he can’t help but smile at that. It starts when Heffron catches him smiling, catches his eye and grins back at him. It starts when Eugene sees 1st Lt. Meehan standing right behind Heffron, watching them with an expressionless face.
It’s the men who died and the men he couldn’t save.
They come and go. Eugene can see them only sometimes. They’re neither devilish specters nor angelic spirits, but something in between. Something calmer, quieter, and altogether sadder. They don’t bother him at all, don’t even try to talk to him. But they’re there, unmistakable for anything but Easy Company men, all cleaned up and in their uniforms. Sometimes they’re there when he kneels at the body of a man. Sometimes they’re there when he wakes up in the middle of the night with dread curling up tight in his stomach. Sometimes they’re there when he takes a moment to breathe, to pray, to remember.
He doesn’t know why they hang around, but he doesn’t ask questions either. Doesn’t seem to be his place. And maybe it should scare him, seeing all these ghosts, but it doesn’t. He doesn’t fear dead men. What’s he got to fear with men who used to brothers?
At first, he tries to count the days. Just wants to know how long they’ve been in Europe. But he starts to forget the days. So he starts to count moments, the important ones, just to keep track of his time. But he starts to forget the important moments too, mixes them up with the unimportant and meaningless.
He counts his men instead. He doesn’t forget them. The ghosts, when they come, become part of his final count. Live men and dead. He tries not to get the two groups messed up. It’s hard though, in Bastogne, to keep the two straight when they’re so much crossover.
The replacements, when they come, are easy enough to know. He doesn’t bother with medical history but he can pick out them out by their gait and he hopes that’ll be enough.
There’s one replacement, a kid named Edward Heffron. Maybe because he looks like he might almost be related to Winters, but learning his name and face comes easier than the others. On one of his first days with them, Eugene hears Heffron say to Luz, “I fell out of a tree and broke my arm in two places.” Eugene pauses, confused, because Heffron isn’t screaming and no one’s calling for a medic. Heffron continues, “When I was sixteen, I was trying to impress a girl. I was dumber then a bag of bricks.”
Luz cackles. Eugene rolls his eyes and moves on, but still hears Heffron say, confidently, “I can still knock your lights out, so don’t worry about me.”
Heffron’s a good man, smiles real wide at Eugene and the world, and is quick on his feet when they get into it. Without every really thinking about it, Eugene finds himself checking Heffron’s arm whenever Heffron passes through his care for cuts or sprains. If Heffron notices Eugene testing Heffron’s arm, he doesn’t mention it, just continues joking around until Eugene’s done patching him up.
He wakes up in a foxhole one night, Spina asleep on his shoulder, the night heavy and silent around them. There’s a man sitting next to him, a dead man, and Eugene is sick with shame over how long it takes him to remember the man’s name. It comes to him eventually. James Miller. A replacement. He died not too long after he joined up with the company.
Miller doesn’t do anything, just sits next to him. He ain’t looking at Eugene, he’s just watching the snow fall. Eugene didn’t even see him die, didn’t even get to his body. He only heard about Miller’s death after the fact.
“I do my best,” Eugene says to him after a time. “That’s all I can do.”
Miller nods without looking at him. Eugene falls back asleep watching Miller watch the snow fall.
He thinks about telling Captain Winters, because he thinks Captain Winters would be the most out of all of them to understand, but still, there’s no order of words to make sir, I see the ghosts of the dead men in our company, but don’t worry, they ain’t haunting me sound safe or sane. Easy can’t afford to have him shipped off the front lines and Eugene doesn’t want to go.
He thinks about telling Babe once, when Babe somehow manages to tip over the side of his foxhole and tumble down into it without spilling a tin mug of coffee. He says, cheeks flushed bright and alive, “Doc, you want some coffee? Nixon stole some from 3rd Battalion. Here.”
Hoobler is sitting there, sitting right there next to Babe, watching them both. Eugene thinks about asking if Babe can see him too, but instead he says, “Yeah?”
Babe hands him the mug and says, “Try it. Not too bad, huh? Those bastards were holding out on us.”
Eugene looks at Hoobler and back at Babe. He tries for his best imitation of a smile. Babe leans back against the space previously occupied by Hoobler and looks satisfied.
He sees Renee the night they pull out of Bastogne. She stands on the side of the road, hands clasped in front of her. He almost calls out to her, relieved to see her alive, but there’s something funny in the way she holds herself, so stiff and cool. He realizes that the snow falls through her, not on her, and he bites his tongue so hard it bleeds trying not to cry out. She looks at him the entire time they pass and doesn’t break eye contact. Spina is asleep on one side and Babe on another and both are collapsed against him, but Eugene still manages a slight wave as they pass. He hopes it’s sufficient enough to convey thank you, even though those are just two weak words that could never begin to cover his gratitude toward her. He’s not sure she sees though - she doesn’t make any motion back, just turns to watch them as they roll away. He cranes his neck over Spina’s head, but they pass out of sight before he can wave again.
Sometimes a man dies so full of fear and sorrow that it seems he dies of fright and that, that Eugene can help. It angers him when he sees them die with fear overwhelming their hearts. Maybe he can’t save them but surely he can make it so they don’t leave at odds with the world. Surely he can do that much for them.
He says as much to Captain Winters one night. Winters just smiles sadly and says “We can try, Doc.”
Penkala and Muck are there when Jackson dies. Eugene thinks that maybe they came to take Jackson away, but no, they hang around after Jackson dies with a gasp.
Then he thinks, maybe it’s their fault that Jackson died writhing in terror. Maybe he saw them too. But no, that don’t make any sense, because what’s Jackson got to fear from Muck and Penkala? They were good, steady men. They would never hurt him. And what’s Jackson got to fear from death anyway? There ain’t nowhere for him to go but up.
He looks up. Babe stares down at him, mouth open in shock. Behind him, Muck and Penkala shake their heads. All of a sudden, something uncontrolled and uncontrollable flames up inside of him and he needs to get out.
So Eugene follows the stretcher and watches Jackson get loaded into the back of a truck. He isn’t panicking. He doesn’t know what the word is for how he feels. He can’t remember. It isn’t panicking though. Panicking - that’s nothing like what’s happening to him now. His legs go numb, his knees give way and he lands on his ass on the cold, hard ground outside the house.
He’s gone medic on himself before any real panic sets in, hands on his knees as he rights himself. Can’t be nerve damage, because he can still feel his legs. Exhaustion? He got almost six hours of uninterrupted sleep last night.
Must be grief. Nothing for it.
He lights a cigarette with shaking hands and takes stock of himself like he would any other wounded man. He’s sprawled out on the dirt and snow, braced up against a wall, alive but a real mess of a soldier. It’s undignified and unpatriotic and Eugene tries pull himself together, tries to organize his limbs so he can stand up. Belatedly he realizes that he’s crying, so he lets himself fall back against house again. He wipes a hand under his eyes and gives himself time to pull it together. He can’t save them all and it ain’t up for him to say who stays and goes anyway, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt. He takes a drag of his cigarette and blows smoke up at the sky. He closes his eyes and thinks, I will life mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth...
“Doc?” says a familiar voice. The door slams. “Hey, Doc, are you-oh Jesus, fuck, no-”
“’m alright,” says Eugene. He opens his eyes and watches Babe stop short and all but fall to his knees in front of him. Babe looks furious, looks scared, looks like he wants to punch Eugene. He grabs Eugene’s knee.“Jesus, Doc, I thought you’d - I thought we’d mighta lost you.”
“Nah,” says Eugene. “Just praying.”
“No shit,” says Babe. His face has softened into worry. “Doc, what happened to your eyes?”
Eugene touches his face. His hands are still carry Jackson’s blood and his cheek must bear streaks of red from when he wiped his eyes. “Nothing to worry about,” he says, holding up his bloody hands.
The relief on Babe’s face is mixed with frustration and he says, digging around in his pockets, “you look like a devil out of hell.”
“Maybe,” says Eugene. He stubs out his cigarette on the ground. Babe pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and grabs some snow, squeezing it against the handkerchief until the handkerchief is wet. He hands it to Eugene. Eugene was wrong; it’s not a handkerchief at all, but the strip of Renee’s headscarf that he used to bind Babe’s hand.
He tries not shiver, but it’s below freezing and they’re all but sitting a snow drift. The memory of Renee watching them leave flares up in the back of his mind, but she doesn’t appear in front of them. “Why’re you carrying this around with you?” he says.
Babe shrugs and sits down close next to Eugene. “Thought it might come in handy.”
Eugene finishes cleaning his face and says, “Let me see your hand.”
Babe holds out his hand dutifully. “It’s not so bad. Doesn’t bleed or anything.”
Eugene looks close. Babe’s been good about keeping it clean and it’s scabbed over well. Shouldn’t leave too deep a scar. He nods, satisfied, and when he looks up to say something to Babe, Babe just quirks the side of his mouth in a half-smile and laces his fingers with Eugene’s.
Eugene hasn’t seen Babe much since they left Bastogne, but he’s glad Babe’s here now. He’s glad Babe’s the one who found him here. He squeezes Babe’s hand. Babe sighs and says, “I think you better check my head too, ‘cause I keep dreaming ghosts.” He laughs, but it sounds more like a cough or a sob. “It’s the fuckin’ strangest thing.”
“Dreaming?” says Eugene, with a start. “Or seeing?”
“Dreaming,” says Babe. “When I sleep. Every night. They don’t scare me or anything, but it’s damn creepy.”
“Who?” says Eugene. His pulse has picked up, heart racing.
“Julian. Skip and Penkala, hell. All of them,” says Babe. He laughs again, nervous. “I think I’m losing it.”
“No,” says Eugene. “Dreams ain’t nothing to worry about.”
“Damn creepy though,” Babe mutters. “I don’t like it.” He looks down at their clasped hands. “Maybe because I miss them, I don’t know. Sometimes I still look around for them, you know? It’s stupid, but I still look around like they’ve got my back or they’re just out of sight.” He snorts. “Pretty dumb of me, huh?”
Eugene leans over and kisses Babe, because he doesn’t know what to say. It’s not dumb. He misses them too. It occurs to him that maybe that’s why he sees them around, but Babe chases that thought away when he bits down on Eugene’s lip.
Babe falls back when Eugene crawls over his legs and pushes him against the wall. Babe doesn’t do a damn thing but pull Eugene closer and Eugene’s so grateful that he could, well. He brushes a hand through his hair and kisses Babe until he thinks he can speak again. When Eugene pulls away, Babe makes a low sound in the back of his throat and opens his eyes.
“Gene,” he says. “Gene, what-”
“I see them too,” says Eugene, without thinking. He sits back. “I see them all the damn time. Ever since we got to Bastogne, they’ve been there-”
“All the time?”
Eugene nods. He feels weary and frantic at once. The mixed feeling tugs at his skin and makes him want to weep. “Day, night, they’re always around. Not all of ‘em, but some. I seen just about everyone we lost since the first day.” He tries to laugh, but the sound catches in his throat. “Every single one of them has come around.”
Babe grabs his shoulders. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell anyone?” he demands. “Doc, why the fuck didn’t you say anything? Doesn’t it scare you?”
“They don’t haunt me,” says Eugene.
“Shit,” says Babe. “Doc, no, we can’t have you fuckin’ hallucinating-”
Eugene frowns. “There’s nothing wrong with me. They don’t trouble me.”
“Eugene,” says Babe, and he looks, for a brief moment, completely destroyed, angry like a foxhole blown to hell. But the expression passes and is replaced with exhaustion. “They don’t haunt you at all?”
Eugene shakes his head. “No. I don’t know what they want either. I just let them be.”
Babe shakes his head. “Gene, how the hell do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Watch us get torn to pieces and try to put us back together.” Babe rests his head against the house, throat exposed. “I wouldn’t last a minute being the one who had to stop us dying.”
“You do it too,” says Eugene.
“Not like you,” says Babe. “How do you do it?”
“I just do,” he says. He frowns. “Nothing else for me to do.”
Babe looks at him, disbelieving. “It’s alright,” Eugene adds. “I’m alright.”
Babe opens his mouth as if to speak, but shakes his head and drags Eugene in for another kiss instead. There’s nothing else for them to do, nothing else they can do. Haguenau is quiet and cold around them. They kiss until they’re almost knotted together from close contact. They kiss and kiss and Eugene feels dizzy to the point of fainting. He pulls away.
“Gene,” says Babe, a bit breathless, “you’re sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah,” says Eugene. He’s alright. He’ll be alright. “Yeah. You?”
Babe looks thoughtful, lips and cheeks pink from kissing, nose pink from the cold. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Alright then,” says Eugene. He rolls off of Babe and stands, offering a hand to Babe. Babe takes it and pulls himself up. “Now what?” he says.
“Nothing,” says Eugene. “What else can we do?” He tries to bite back a smile, but fails when Babe groans. “It’s colder than hell, Heffron. Let’s go back inside.”
If there are are any more ghosts around that night, he doesn’t see them.