I awoke to the rumbling of train wheels, opening my eyes slowly to the scene of a train car. Specifically, the train car on it's way to Stuttgart—the same train I had boarded all those months ago.
It was filled with people, haggard and lying on top of each other.
They were all people I had met;
all people that had died.
I forced myself forward, mumbling words even I didn't know.
Many of them had gory wounds all over them, and they were all strangely familiar. I looked down and found my blood seeping through my clothing, running down my calves, dripping from my neck.
All the wounds and scars I had ever received were brought to life again—aching and stinging like never before.
The train door flew open suddenly, and I saw the empty field I had once jumped into.
"Let's go," someone said. It was Herr Ziegler, the man who owned the safehouse where I was found by the spy hunter. He still had the gunshot wound in his abdomen.
"You go first, Anne." It was young Lucas, still barely able to stand from the drugs the men gave to him at Compiègne.
I jumped. Landing on the ground as though it were a cloud, I turned to look back at the train.
"Come on!" I exclaimed, "You guys can jump now! It's safe!"
Lucas jumped first. He jumped into the arms of a Nazi soldier who shot him in the face. I screamed, falling over myself to try to reach him. The field just kept growing between us.
Elizabeth jumped next. She was still dripping wet, shivering and gasping for air to recover from our experiment in Compiègne. An SS guard lunged from the grass and stabbed her.
Herr Ziegler, wearing his oversized nightshirt, fell into a pit, smothered by dirt.
One by one, everyone I had lost jumped blindly to a gruesome death, the sound of my voice echoing over the field. "It's safe!"
I kept running to help them, but I couldn't move. Their blood began to flood the ground, coming to my ankles as I tripped frantically towards nothingness.
"Kill me too," I screamed, "Please, just kill me!"
Suddenly, I found myself turned around, standing in our dining room in Washington, D.C..
Benjamin sat at the table with a small smile on his face, getting ready to dig into a giant piece of turkey by himself. He didn't see me.
He looked up, caught my eye, and jumped from the table, backing away with terror in his eyes.
With his back against a bookcase filled with identical copies of the Compiègne prisoner records, he held out a single copy in front of him as his only defense.
As though my mind and my body were suddenly completely separate, I watched myself lunge for him, clawing at his innocent, young face.
My hair fell from my head in painful pieces, reminiscent of the brutal attack by the Nazi guard.
"Louisa!" Benjamin screamed as I forced him to the ground, "It's me! It's your husband! Please, don't hurt me!"
I tore into his green sweater—the very same one he was wearing when we first met—and began attacking his heart.
He cried out in pain, unwilling to lay a hand on me in defense.
Water dripped from the ceiling. Drip. Drip. Drip. It became a stream.
Benjamin fell limp. Drip. Drip. Down my cheeks, the water fell.
I screamed as it enveloped me.

"Louisa!" I heard, pulling me from my sleep.
My hand and knees knocked into something, and I fought desperately to release the hands that seemed to be strangling me.
     "I'm sorry!" I shrieked, unable to see anything, "I didn't mean it!"
     My stomach dropped.
"Louisa!"

A deafening background noise awakened me once again. I was so confused.
Benjamin's hands touched my face gently, but I jerked away in terror.
     "It's okay, dear. It's okay. Look at me; open your eyes."
I did, and it suddenly all made sense. We were in a cockpit—the two of us—and Benjamin had both of my wrists held tightly in his hand, as though I would hurt someone.
"Are you okay? What happened, darling?"
I could barely breathe.
Sobbing, I looked at him earnestly. "I don't know. I thought that I—"
"You had a dream, I think," he said, releasing my hands once he was confident I was in my right mind again, "and I tried to wake you up and you hit the control stick. We lost a thousand feet in seconds, but you passed out right after."
     "I'm sorry."
     "It's alright, love."
      He hesitated for a moment. "Do you want to talk about it?"
     I shook my head, feeling numb. We were on our way to Marseille. In a Bristol Blenheim night fighter. Louisa and Benjamin Tallmadge. Just keep telling yourself the facts, I thought to myself, and you'll snap out of it.
     We were silent for a moment.
"Remind me to bandage your hands when we get to Marseille."
"They're fine."
"They're not," he said gently, eyeing the desperate cuts I made while trying to free Elizabeth from drowning and hypothermia.
     "Here," he added, reaching behind my seat and pulling a wrapped package of American crackers from his bag, "you gotta eat something."
     We had stopped at a small food cart in Paris on our way to the Army Air Force base in Normandy, but that was hours and hours ago.
     "I'm not hungry."
     He sighed and looked at his watch. "It's 3 AM, darling. We haven't eaten since dinner time."
I shrugged. "I'm just not hungry."
"We have to get your body re-accustomed to eating frequently—otherwise you still might starve because your body can't process the food."
     I blinked back tears, unable to speak what I was thinking. Starvation didn't seem like such a bad fate.
     "What's wrong?"
     "I don't know," I cried, looking outside of the plane and down at the burning craters that were once beautiful French neighborhoods.
I'm a violent, dangerous monster. I've hurt you and everyone else I know in everything I do. I'm no fun to be around, I'm ugly, covered in lice, and I'll never get rid of all my nasty scars. I don't have any shape anymore—I'll probably be skinny for the rest of my life. Who knows if my hair will ever grow back to the way it used to be?
     I should have taken Lucas home with us; maybe he could have been adopted by someone instead of trying to find a home in Europe. Maybe he's already dead—he was in my dream, after all.
     I'll be damaged goods as a wife for the rest of my life. You may say you don't mind now, Benjamin, but what man could ever love a woman who can't have children? If only you knew the things that happened to me in there—the things that I'll never tell you. I know you'd never look at me the same.
     I couldn't stop the tears from rolling as I processed all the thoughts I hadn't realized I was carrying.
     Benjamin didn't know what to do, so he took his hand in mine and we sat silently. He covered my lap with one of his leather jackets and set the package of crackers on top of the cramped control panel in front of him.
     "I don't know how to help you, Lou."
     "You don't have to," I sniffed, pulling the leather jacket to my chin as though it were a plush blanket.
     "I love you, dear Louisa. I—"
     A sudden explosion jolted the two of us against our seats, a blazing inferno shining through the window beside Benjamin.
"Oh bloody Nora," I yelled, wiping tears from my eyes and motioning for Ben and I to switch seats. He took my seat as the navigator and bombardier, and I squeezed into the tiny cockpit area beside him.
"Do you want me to try to shoot?" he called over our headsets, the sounds of explosions rocking all around us.
"I don't think it's another plane," I said, "I think it's from the ground."
"No, Lou, I can see the plane!"
My eyes widened. "Then shoot, I guess! But hold on tightly."
I plunged the yoke down, causing my stomach to drop in a sickening way as we screamed towards the French countryside. I always hated that part.
Pulling it back into my gut, we began our ascent once more, the whole plane shaking under the pressure.
"I think I hit him!" Benjamin yelled, standing to look at his target.
A volley of shots pinged against my side of the aircraft, and another fighter screamed by, just barely missing our wing.
"There's another one!"
"Turn the plane so I can get him, Lou!"
I began the sharp turn and searched the control panel for the propeller pitch adjustment. I couldn't find it; I had never flown this plane before.
"Ben," I cried, "this plane doesn't have propeller pitch control!"
"It does," he replied, grunting as he prepared the gun for another round of shots, "it's behind you to your left. You have to just feel around for it."
I rolled my eyes as I familiarized myself with the blind controls. "What kind of idiotic system is that?" I exclaimed, "To have hidden controls!"
We both groaned as the steep turn applied miserable pressure to our heads, and Benjamin began shooting rapidly.
"Follow them!" Ben cried, "I think I got their fuel tank."
I did as he said, and he added, "They're coming around again, Lou! Get ready!"
Just as he predicted, violent shots began to reverberate through the plane, and I covered my head with my hands.
Benjamin gasped loud enough that I could hear him over the bullets. In the dim light of the moon, his face was illuminated with agony. He'd been hit.
"What happened?" I called, unable to think straight.
"I'm fine; get us out of here!"
"You're hurt, aren't you?"
"I said I'm fine! I think he's down—let's get back on our heading before we get attacked again."
I sighed, guiding the fighter onto the southwestern navigation heading once more. I knew he was hurt, but I also knew he wouldn't rest until we were away from here.
We had lost over six thousand feet in altitude during the fight, and my head was pounding from the changes in pressure and excruciatingly loud gunshots.
I leveled off a few minutes later, reaching back to adjust the trim so I could take my hands off the controls.
"I can't stand this plane," I muttered, "It's so bizarre and cramped."
Benjamin chuckled tightly.
"Now," I said turning to him and wiping the hair from my face, "show me."
He was holding his left arm against his chest, and hesitated before putting it gingerly into my outstretched hands.
"It's not that bad," he said, "It's not even a bullet."
There were small pieces of black metal lodged into his skin, blood encircling each wound but not flowing. I knew that as soon as the pieces of metal were removed, he'd need something to stop the bleeding or he would have a serious problem.
"You're right," I sighed, "You'll be fine. And I don't think I should take anything out right here, especially because my hands are shaking something terrible. But let me—"
He cried out in agony as I gently moved one of his fingers to further inspect a wound.
"What happened?"
"I don't know," he gasped, "but that hurt bad."
I simply moved my hand and he winced in expectation, as though bracing himself for more pain.
"It's okay, it's okay!" I exclaimed compassionately, "I'm not going to do it again."
"It's probably broken."
"How did this happen?"
He shrugged. "I heard the noise of the shots and ducked down; a bullet must have shattered part of the plane or the gun and flown into my hand. I think my hand is broken because I slammed my whole body against the wall when we took a nosedive. I don't really know."
"Well it's a good thing you covered your head, darling, because otherwise we'd be talking about your throat or your jaw."
He looked at me slyly. "You amaze me."
"What do you mean?"
"You're just—" he laughed sheepishly, "You're so strong."
I scoffed. "Strong. I'm not—"
He held up a hand. "You don't have to argue. Just take it."
I couldn't understand how he could see me as strong. Before all of this, perhaps I may have considered myself strong. Confident, at least.
But if anything I was weak now. I couldn't do anything for myself, and it seemed every thought I had was selfish or miserable.
My throat felt thick as I tried to focus on flying the plane. An uncontrollable sob escaped my feeble attempts to calm myself, and I put my head in my hands, unable to look at Benjamin.
He put a gentle hand on my shoulder and sighed softly. "You're overwhelmed, darling. You're overwhelmed."
Ben was right, and it felt nice to hear him understand at least part of my emotions. I didn't understand how minutes before I had been dodging bullets and yelling about the pitch controls, but now I could barely speak.
I could tell that Benjamin was in a lot of pain, but he sat unmoved beside me—ignoring his discomfort just to be there for me. I loved him for it.
"I just wish this all hadn't happened," I breathed, resting my head on Benjamin's chest. His leather jacket smelled of home.
"I know," he kissed my forehead compassionately, "Me too."
     I reached up and put a still-trembling hand to his face, running my thumb across his jaw.
     He leaned down to kiss me but hesitated, breathing, "Can I kiss you, Louisa?"
     Grinning slyly, I whispered, "As long as you can stand my nasty breath."
     He chuckled. "Oh, how I've missed you, my love."

What's up guys sorry it took so long! Hurricane Florence! Stinking! Ruined! My! City! but it's okay my house survived and I won't have school for a while so I had lots of time to write when I got home;) but yeah this is emo and shoutout to DeathbyDeathAKAMe AGAIN for killing the editing game AND eradicating my ghastly case of passive voice I somehow accumulated this chapter yee yee