Joe's in such a good mood. Outside, the sun's shining and the birds, they're singin', the way they never did in Bastogne or Landsberg. He ain't even gonna ruin a beautiful day by thinking about it. He can't believe he ever wanted to be a paratrooper. There's all these beautiful things to do instead ( Read more... )

Some days, baking turns into a full body experience. The flour gets everywhere. Joe's humming to himself as he wanders from the kitchen to Web's bedroom, stripping off his shirt as he goes. Middle of the day, there's not many people about in the cool of the house and, even if there is, it's only flour-dusted skin. He drops his shirt on the ( Read more... )

Something's definitely up. Something's been up for a while; Joe knows Trisha well enough by now to know that she's keeping something from him, and he's going to find out what it is. He's been baking already this morning, and there's a fresh batch of cookies (chocolate chip, of course) on a plate on the dresser and Joe's laid out everything he's ( Read more... )

It's pretty late for them to both be up, but when Sophie decides she's up, she's up and there's not a thing that either of them can do to convince her other wise. She's got Web's fierce blue eyes but maybe she looks a little bit more like Joe in her face, the older she gets ( Read more... )

With one arm looped around Chuck's back, Joe walks him slowly up the long path towards the compound. The lights have just this minute come into view but they're still too far away for Joe's liking. He sighs and huffs his too long hair out of his eyes ( Read more... )

What you get when you spend most of an afternoon in bed is debris, clothes discarded, coffee cups and used plates, half eaten sandwiches. Without the army to keep him in check, Web's a fuckin' chaos storm, piles of papers, pencils, mess. Joe, well trained by an Austrian Ma picks up after himself, and he's started picking up after Webster too ( Read more... )

Joe's pretty used to people having a problem with him. He's a fuckin' Jew who went to a fuckin' Catholic school, he's about the skinniest guy in the whole damn Paratroops and, Jesus Christ, people have a real problem forgetting that Hitler's from Austria too. Still, the last thing that Joe expected to ever have to get pissed off about is who he ( Read more... )

Every night, it happens the same way. He snaps awake, dripping in cold sweat despite the heat, and he can't exactly remember what he was dreaming, but he knows it's got to do with Maggie, or his Ma, or the little ones. He just knows it ( Read more... )

The dreams don't stop. What it seems like is this: that the last couple of days, he's been keeping them at bay with a warm body in the bed, and before that he just too pissed off to feel anything that deeply ( Read more... )

He just don't know what he's supposed to think. He just spent...what? Three days in the arms of a woman who's back to being a guy now, back to being his buddy now (if Buck back to normal is anything to go by) and, yeah, he don't know what to think about that at all ( Read more... )