And the Snow Fell

"I love you, Jenny."

"Love you, Jenny," Brad murmured, spooning me in the bed and I closed my eyes, wishing there was no war or that it was over and we could go back to the way we were, just Brad and me and our house and maybe a couple of kids and kissing Brad every afternoon when he got home from work and doing all that family stuff I'd dreamed of when we married.

Instead, here we were with our uniforms thrown over a chair and our rifles leaning against the nightstands on either side of the bed and our handguns sitting there and dunno about Brad's, but my 1911 needed a real good clean because I'd used it a few times over the day and that wasn't something I wanted to think about.

"Where're we going next?" I asked, kissing Brad's fingers sleepily, and I wanted to cry because the two of us and kids and a house was all a fucking dream and what we were doing was a fucking nightmare but it had to be done so maybe our kids could live the life I dreamed of, because I was already starting to realize that after all this, Brad and I never would. Maybe we'd get back home, maybe we'd have those kids, maybe the war'd end and everything but neither of us would ever be the same again.

"Emerald City," Brad said, and suddenly I wasn't too sleepy anymore...

Emerald City, and it was home. Where I'd grown up and my parents still lived there and the fighting had been real intense because the Ratdogs'd put up a hard fight and there'd been a lot of them but we'd taken it after a month and we'd been sent there for the cleanup. That was going fast, because there were some good lists to work from and the Ratdog symps were easy to roundup because there was nowhere for them to run to and we had their names and addresses. A lot of them had tried to fight and the ones that'd surrendered, we dealt with them first.

"Be okay if we look up my folks?" I asked Brad, because all the telcom stuff was down and I hadn't talked to them since just after the shit hit the fan and I'd asked them to keep their heads down. Servers blown by the EMP bombs, fires, fighting, whatever. Coms was crap and mostly we used the old military radios and there hadn't been any way to check on Mom and Dad but the suburb they lived in was more or less out of the direct line of fire. "Want to make sure they're okay."

"Yeah, why not," Brad said, because we had a lotta leeway doing what we did. Crap job, but someone had to do it. "Check if there's anyone else in your company's got family here they want to check on and I'll check with mine."

Turned out to be a few, and we worked our way down the list, moving through, and it was afternoon before we got to my old home. Mom and Dad's house, and it was there alright and it looked fine until we got closer and pulled up outside and our task force trucks lined the street.

"Move out," Brad called. "You guys know the drill."

They did. His company 'd done house to house street clearances for three months straight now and my company was already setting up for processing and triage was straightforward. There was the list, and if we found anyone on the list they went straight into the nearest ditch with a bullet through the back of the neck, and if there wasn't a ditch we dug one.

There were the ones on our side, and they got provisional citizenship and got told to check in to the local in-processing office for assignment and that could be straight back home, or into the army or a work assignment where we needed them or anything in between. Those were the easy ones.

Me, I dealt with the others. The Ratdog symps, the ones where there was a question mark, the doubtful ones and it was my job to sort them. The ones we thought we could salvage went to the re-education camps, the question marks, the ones that hadn't resisted, hadn't tried to fight, looked like they'd acquiesce, they went to the labor camps first. The ones that fought, that argued, that were way too questionable, well, there was the ditch and that's where they went and the hard decisions there were mine and I made 'em. Didn't like it, but someone had to do it and the regs said decisions like that had to be made by an officer and that was me.

Brad's company saved me a lot of work, but anyone they weren't sure of, well, they sent them back to my company and I dealt with 'em and my company did to, but most of them, the guys wanted to be told what to do. Ordered to do it, and as long as they had orders they were fine. But someone had to give the orders and that someone was me and I didn't have to like it. Didn't enjoy it, mostly, but someone had to do it. Someone had to be the one to give the orders and I could live with it because I knew what we were trying to do.

And then there were those moments that turned into a frigging nightmare and there were a few like that in my company. For me, it'd been more or less impersonal. I knew what we had to do and I did it. But everyone has a turning point and for me, well, that turning point was Emerald City.

"Just down the road," I said, pointing, because Riley was driving and I'd seen a couple of the old neighbors already and some of them had headed indoors as soon as they saw the National Liberation Army flags on the sides of the vehicles and some waved and smiled and a few kids ran after us.

"Here," I said, and I was out as soon as Riley'd pulled over and I was just about running up the path to the front door, except I stopped because the front door 'd been smashed in and there was some kinda paper nailed to the wall and I swallowed. Riley went past me, stopped at the paper and I heard him.

Heard the "Bastard ratdogs," and I felt sick and my knees wanted to crumple and Maddock was there beside me as we almost ran inside.

"Shit," I said, kneeling down, turning the body over. "Oh crap. Mom? Moooom?" Because it was. It was my Mom and her eyes were wide and staring and she'd died screaming and I could see why and I couldn't even scream and my Dad? Oh Jesus, my poor Dad and couldn't they have just shot him or something and I threw up on the floor and I couldn't scream. I wanted to, but I couldn't and Maddock and Roskill and Riley stayed with me until Brad got there.

"Okay, burial detail," Brad said, gesturing. "These're our people, we're gonna see them decently interred," and he did, and we placed them in the cemetery beside my grandparents. Me, I stood there and cried while the Chaplain led the service and my guys gave them a salute and after everyone was done, well, what else could I do and I didn't want to sit there and cry.

"Let's get back to work, Jenny. Best thing we can do for them is keep on doing what we're doing and make sure crap like this doesn't happen to other good folks." Brad's arm was around my shoulders and I turned into his arms and cried my eyes out and then I dried them and we got back to work and yeah, after Mom and Dad, it was easier to deal with the irrecoverables and the good thing was, Brad and I were together which was a sight better than almost all of the Liberation Army had, and nobody in either of our units bitched about it.

Not to our faces, anyhow.

"Sir, ma'am. You've got unit twenty three." The hotel manager smiled, and he shoulda been smiling because he wasn't managing it on behalf of some international hotel company anymore. We were making some changes and one of those was, you used to manage it, you owned it now, and he was now the proud owner of a nice little hotel, courtesy of the Second Republic. No mortgage, no down payment and fuck the asshole company based outa some tax haven that used to own it.

They could go screw themselves and odds were, one of the Justice Department special unit's 'd track the former owners down and administer some nine millimeter pills. That was how the Second Republic's Justice Department worked now and every time some well know international financier or Aspenwood movie star took a dive from a twenty fifth story window or shot themselves in the head a dozen times, well, you pretty much knew they'd been assisted.

And, well, it was the Second Republic's Justice Department special units that specialized in that kind of assisted death. Public service, that's what it was and the international news on our public broadcasting system was just pure entertainment these days.

"Here's the keys. It's on the house and I'll see to the rest of your men and women, sir and ma'am."

"Hit the sack, sir, ma'am," Montoya said. "Got it covered, and he was Brad's admin sergeant and he was good. "Wake up call at eight." He winked at me, laughed when I blushed and Brad and I walked hand in hand across the courtyard and yeah, the door was locked but Brad used the key and led me inside and we both just stopped and looked and I swear I gasped.

"Think he was glad to be rescued or something?" Brad asked, because we'd released him and his family and a bunch of others from a Ratdog pen before the Ratdogs shot them. They'd gotten started before the frontline guys arrived, but the Army had been advancing real fast. Faster than the Ratdogs expected and there were piles of bodies in the streets that said yeah, total surprise and I guess tomorrow we'd get round to clearing those away.

"Yeah," I said, looking around, because the place was spotless and there was a lovely bathroom with a Jacuzzi and the water was hot and bubbling and a bedroom with a bed that looked like it was made for honeymoons and a dining table set with real china and cutlery and napkins and crap and a food cart with candles flickering under the warming trays and a bottle of frigging champagne and I hadn't drunk champagne since our wedding and I looked at it and I started to cry because was that only six years ago and I felt old.

Old and tired and exhausted and just sad, because this was what it should've been like when we got married and it hadn't been at all because even my Mom and Dad had been struggling back then and we'd done the wedding on the cheap and our honeymoon 'd been the drive back from Emerald City and a couple of cheap hotel rooms.

"Let's take a quick shower and then have dinner, Jenny," Brad said, taking me in his arms, holding me while I just sobbed into his shoulder because all of a sudden everything just came down on me and it was all too much to deal with. "It's alright, Jenny, love. Everything's gonna work out fine now."

"How can it," I said, tears pouring down my face and I was shaking. "They killed Mom and Dad, and we haven't heard from your parents since the fighting started and your brother... "

"He'll make it," Brad said, holding me, and maybe he would because he'd called before he went underground but we didn't know and we both know we wouldn't, not until the war was over and it's been six months now and there was a long way to go. A long long way and we knew we'd win, but how long would it take and how many of us would make it and would Brad and I even survive, because even units like ours took casualties.

"We'll make it through, Jenny," Brad said, holding me. "You and me, and we'll go back to our house after the war's over and have all the kids we want and grow old and watch the grandkids..."

"Brad," I sobbed, clinging to him, desperate. "Brad, forget the shower, forget dinner, just make love to me, Brad. Right now."

"Jenny?" Brad said, and he was holding me so tight.

"I need you, Brad," I sobbed, and I wanted to forget everything except him and me. Just the two of us and he understood and he just held me while I cried and cried and cried.

"Let's try the Jacuzzi after dinner," I said, standing in the shower and it was so good to stand under that hot hot water and wash the sweat and dirt away and the stress and the fear and the nightmares faded as Brad's hands shampooed my hair.

"It's a date," he grinned, and that grin took me back to before all this and I smiled and after that candlelit dinner and a glass of wine, we smiled at each other and took the bottle and the glasses with us and he watched me as I slipped out of that hotel dressing gown and sank naked into the bubbling water and it was total bliss as we lay there soaking.

"Come," I said, beckoning with one finger, smiling as he stripped and my heart jumped because oh yeah, he was totally excited. Erect, jutting outwards, ready for me and I smiled as he sat on the edge of the tub and now he beckoned to me and I came and knelt and took him in my mouth and when he couldn't take it anymore I straddled him and slid myself down on him and I rode him slowly, hands on his shoulders, smiling.

"I want you to have our baby, Jenny," he groaned, hips jerking, lifting me with the sheer power of that deep hard thrusts and I knew he was close and I wanted his baby and how could we with the war but I did. I wanted his baby so much and when he eased me up and slid out of me and pulled that rubber off because the pills had run out a while ago and I hadn't managed to find more and when he entered me again, I welcomed him inside.

"I love you... I love you... I love you," I moaned as he came inside me, his hands holding me tight and I wasn't riding him anymore. I was sitting on him, impaled, the hot water and the bubbles foaming around us and I was almost there and he pumped himself into me, hot hard jetting spurts and the pills had run out and he hadn't used a rubber and his semen spurted into me and it was totally against regs but I totally didn't care because I loved him so much and he was my husband.

"You two stay in there," Sergeant-Major Maddock said when she gave me and Brad the zero four hundred wake up knock on the door, and Brad's exe, Lieutenant Weston, the young preppy guy, he was right there with Maddock, grinning over her shoulder.

"Got it all under control, Sir," he said. "You and Lieutenant Wong sleep in, Sir. Got the company organized for today's clearance ops. Maddock's looking after the processing, it's all routine today. We'll come get you if there's any issues or anything needs your attention, Sir."

"Back to bed," Maddock pointed, and she was grinning and I shouldn't have, but Brad and I looked at each other and yeah, we went back to bed. We slept too, and I just curled up in Brad's arms the way I used to and closed my eyes and just slept and slept and slept.

Until something woke me up.

Something hard, and I smiled sleepily and turned and "Let's make a baby," I moaned and he eased me onto my back and we made love so gently, so slowly, on and on and on until he couldn't hold back and he climaxed inside me and I knew it was so right, it was almost like I could feel it and I knew we were going to and for a moment, I forgot about the war.

"Love you, Jenny." Brad just stayed there, on me, in me, one arm under me shoulders, the other stroking my hair back from my forehead and kissing my nose, my cheeks, my lips, just brushing me with his lips again and again and again. "I love you so much."

"I love you, Brad," and I squeezed him as hard as I could, arms, legs, everywhere we touched and I wanted to stay like this forever, warm and cocooned away from the world, just him and me and peace and it was bliss and why couldn't it always be like this.

"I love you." Maybe he said that, maybe I said that, maybe we both said that, I could never remember but we smiled at each other and I just lay there hoping we really had made a baby because war or no war, I wanted Brad's baby.

Afterwards, after we'd parted reluctantly and I'd had my shower, I left Brad to take his and headed for the chow line in the motel restaurant myself and it wasn't anything fancy. Cereal, cartons of milk, fresh eggs for once and toast, coffee. There was always coffee and I took my time because Maddock 'd said we didn't have any processing to do today. Finished that yesterday, sent the probationary citizens back to their houses or off to their units, shipped the labor camp detainees out to wherever they needed them and we'd sorted out the bodies. Picked up a backhoe a week ago and we'd put it to good use recently. No bodies.

Not above ground anyhow and with the backhoe, it was real quick.

Brad's company had gone through town over the morning and it wasn't a big town. They had the lists and the addresses that the new Security Service now provided and they'd rounded them up and handed them over. My company handled interrogations and the detainees and the in-processing for probationers and the executions and Maddock said no issues when I wandered over to the head shed before what I guess was brunch so I didn't worry about it.

Wasn't anything much in between release, labor camps or executions. Not now. Not after what the Ratdogs'd started doing. Clearance Task Force, that was us and someone had to do it and they'd started it. We'd finish it and a Bajafornian Territorial Guard unit down the road 'd just come over after barely a shot fired. They'd had a bit of an internal clearance event of their own before they came over and that'd saved us some work and they'd been dug in 'round the local Walmart doing a resup and a few more personnel adjustments but as I ate my chow and looked out the windows, the tail end Charlies were moving out.

Heading back the way they'd come to rejoin the fighting. Only this time on our side. Me, I had a second helping of scrambled puke on toast, because powdered eggs just suck, grabbed another coffee and headed back to the head shed to take over from Brad while he grabbed something and he looked up and smiled when I handed him the coffee and the Sig suddenly jerked upright and adjusted his headset.

"Captain. Brigade Headquarters, sir." The head shed Sig flipped Brad the headset thirty seconds later, and we were a Militia unit, not Reservists, not even Territorial Guard, although there were a quite few of the older guys with military experience so yeah, orders were orders but the formalities were few and far between but it worked because we knew what we were fighting for and why. We all knew why. For most of us, why was lying in the ground or on the street in a pool of red or beaten to a pulp in some Ratdog camp or prison cell.

Yeah, it really was that bad and we weren't too easy-going ourselves these days. That time was long past.

"Yep... yes... gotcha... okay... Roger... Roger, got it...Will do." Brad nodded and he was making notes. Paper and Pen, nothing electronic. The EMP bombs had seen to that weeks ago. Ours and theirs and no-one had much of a communications network or an Air Force anymore.

"Motherfucker," Brad said, carefully taking the headset off. "This is a cluster fuck and a half."

"What is?" I asked, and yeah, heart pounding because I knew that look, and he had the maps out.

"Ratdogs 're counter-attacking," he said. "Coming up this road here and heading for this pass and they're coming with tanks and infantry, bunch of Ratdog militia units stiffened by Territorial Guard units." Brad grinned. "Good news is, that's like stiffening a bucket of snot with shotgun pellets. Bad news is, they're pounding up that backroad there and there's nothing but a few piddley little militia units between them and breaking through this pass here and cutting our supply lines south to the front."

"Good move by someone," I said, eyeing the map. Didn't make much sense to me and I was a mustang First Lieutenant running an improvised company of women, kids and old guys and we tidied up, and yeah, that's a euphemism for what we did ' n that was fine by me too because I didn't exactly enjoy the job although I did like it that we recued people. Rescued the good people. Didn't have the faintest idea about actual combat except what I'd picked up from Brad on the fly. Which was why he was in command of our little task force and me, I did what I was told to do and that was fine by me.