Chapter 12 GIDEON
The memory of her apartment wouldn't leave me alone. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it: three half-walls, a roof patched with scraps, cardboard where glass should've been. A mattress that had no business being called a bed. Bare beams that would lose an argument with the next strong wind.
Nobody should live like that. Certainly not a woman like her. And sure as hell not kids.
For days afterward, I flew my routes and tried to shake it.
Tempelhof to Fassberg, Fassberg back to Tempelhof, flour in, mail out.
Engines, checklists, the endless rhythm of the airlift.
I told myself I was doing enough. I helped drop hundreds of tons of food on this city every week.
That was my job. That was my responsibility.
But the image of Klaus's too-thin arms and Axel's limp kept crawling back into my head like smoke.
I'd come from a tiny town in Montana. My little sister, Molly, used to complain if we didn't have second helpings of pie.
I'd give anything to hear her whine about dessert now.
I should write. I should call. Every night I thought it. Every morning I didn't.
Instead, I found myself standing in front of the PX—Post Exchange, a store for the soldiers and dependents .
It was ridiculous. I knew that. The PX was meant for us, American personnel, dependents, people with ID cards and paperwork.
It was supposed to be a bubble of home in the middle of wreckage.
Fluorescent lights, shelves, neat rows of goods that made no sense in a starving city: canned fruit, new socks, shaving cream, magazines, stacks of Hershey bars, nylons in crisp packets.
I walked in and felt the wrongness of it like a punch. Out there, kids were chewing on stale bread and boiling potatoes down to glue. In here, some lieutenant's wife was complaining that they were out of her favorite brand of lipstick.
It wasn't fair.
But I wasn't here for fair.
I picked up what I could carry without getting questions I didn't want to answer: two blankets, two pillows and cases—I thought a second, then added one of each for good measure—socks in a child's size and a size up, a couple of plain dresses that might fit Inga—serviceable, nothing fancy— undershirts and shorts for boys, a hammer and a box of nails, and lastly, some essentials, like soap.
Real, good-smelling soap. Then I doubled back for whatever food I could smuggle out of the mess.
Hamburger patties wrapped in paper, a few bread rolls, an apple or two pilfered from a crate, some boiled potatoes that wouldn't be missed.
Every piece I picked up, my dragon stirred. He liked this. Providing. Hoarding for someone other than me. It was an instinct older than war: bring back meat to the den, keep the young alive.
The soldier in me muttered about regulations.
About boundaries. The man in me didn't care.
At least not about that. What I did worry about was Inga.
She'd be angry if I just turned up and dumped charity on her doorstep.
I knew that in my bones. She was a proud woman.
She wore her dignity like armor, because it was the one thing nobody could take from her.
If I showed up while she was home, she'd probably throw half of it back in my face.
So I didn't show up when she was home.
I waited.
I knew roughly when she left for Die Ecke, late afternoon, coat pulled tight, hair pinned back, shoulders squared like she was going into battle.
I watched from a distance once, just to be sure.
Then, when the shadows stretched long and the city started lighting its candles and coal stoves, I made my move.
Klaus answered my knock. His eyes went round.
"Hallo," I said, feeling stupid. "Klaus. Hi."
He didn't understand the words, but he understood me. His whole face lit up.
"Flieger!" he chirped—pilot—and stepped aside to let me in.
Axel was there too, sitting on a crate, one leg stretched out, hands folded like he was afraid to touch anything. He stared at the bundle in my arms as if it might explode.
"Hey," I murmured, lowering my voice like I was in a church. "I brought you something."
Klaus bounced. "Was ist das?"
I didn't have the words, so I let the action speak. Blankets first. Spread over the mattress that was nothing but sad springs and thin cloth. The pillows next. I shoved it under the sheet and patted it, then mimed sleeping. Klaus laughed.
Then the food. I unwrapped the hamburgers, and the smell hit the room like a bomb, a good one, for once. Meat, fat, salt. Their eyes went comically wide.
"Holy hell," I whispered. "You really haven't eaten anything like this in a while, have you?"
They didn't need translation. They needed permission. I nodded. "Go on."
They descended like wolf pups, small, polite wolf pups who still looked at me every three seconds to make sure it was really okay.
Watching them devour those burgers did something to me. It wasn't just hunger; it was the disbelief in their eyes, their expressions that got to me. It was the joy and confusion and this fragile, wild hope that maybe the world hadn't forgotten them entirely.
My throat burned again.
When they were done, Klaus leaned back, rubbing his stomach like an old man after Sunday dinner. "So gut," he sighed reverently.
"Tomorrow," I said, tapping his chest lightly, then my own, "we do this again, okay?"
He bobbed his head like one of those toy dogs people stick in car windows. Axel watched me differently. Not with hero worship. With wary curiosity. He understood more English than he let on.
I pointed at the blankets, then mimed cold, shivering, then warm. "Better?" I asked.
He nodded. "Better," he echoed carefully, pronouncing the ts hard.
I didn't stay long. Staying felt careless. Inga could come back without warning, or someone could see me arrive loaded down with gifts and leave empty-handed. That kind of thing didn't go unnoticed.
Berlin lived on rumor now. And the wrong story could cost someone everything.
'Still, the next night, I did it again.
Inga went to work. I waited a while, then went back to the ruin with another armful: clothes this time.
Socks, shirts, and a sweater that might fit Klaus if he rolled the sleeves.
A dress for Inga, blue, simple, with a little pattern.
I folded it carefully and tucked it under the blanket where she slept.
It felt like crossing a line I couldn't name.
Handing them more food, I asked, "Klaus—what did Inga say?"
He frowned, thinking, then rattled off a stream of German. I caught about every tenth word.
"Zornig…"—angry.
"Dankbar…"—grateful.
"Nicht brauchen…" —doesn't need.
"Gut."—good.
I understood enough to smirk and feel some guilt, then Axel jumped in; his English was halting, but purposeful. "She… not happy. But… happy," he said. "She… eh…" He spun a finger beside his head. "She say you are…" He frowned. "Stur. Ah… stubborn."
I huffed out a laugh. Yeah. That tracked.
Klaus tried to give me back one of the blankets. He pressed it into my hand and shook his head vigorously.
"Inga says…" Axel struggled, then settled on, "Too much."
I put the blanket back into Klaus's arms and closed his fingers around it. "Tell her," I said slowly, "that it makes me feel better. Me. Not her."
Axel translated. Klaus considered that with grave seriousness, then nodded once, as if he was willing to allow me this one strange American need.
We kept it up for a week.
I fixed what I could in the ruin—reinforced a leaning beam with a stray board, nailed a few planks over a dangerous gap, and more by the side of the bed. I couldn't make it safe, not really. But I could make it less lethal.
Twice, I ran into Bastian and his pack at the edge of the courtyard. The second time, he squared his shoulders like he wanted to prove something.
"Leave them alone," I warned in English, stepping in close enough that he had to tilt his head back to meet my eyes.
He didn't understand the words, but he understood the intent. And if he didn't at first, the dragon rumbling in my chest translated well enough. His bravado wilted. He muttered something under his breath and pulled his boys away.
The whole time, I avoided Die Ecke as if it were enemy territory.
I didn't trust myself not to walk in and stare at her like a fool.
I told myself it was better this way. Let her be angry.
Let her be grateful. Let her never know how close I was to losing control of the careful distance I'd built for myself.
At night, I lay on my cot in McNair and stared at the ceiling.
I thought about home. About my parents and Molly sitting at a table that probably felt too big without me there. About my father pretending not to worry. About my mother sighing into space.
I thought about Molly, probably herding cows, or maybe riding in a rodeo by now, just to show off and protest the fact that she was a girl. I should write. I should call. Tell them I was still breathing. Tell them about a city that refused to die and a girl who refused to bend.
Instead, I thought about her.
About the way she'd looked at me in that alley, terror and trust mixed together. About the glimpse of her soul I'd seen when Axel and Klaus shared their chocolate. About the way saying her name in my head made something in me settle and light up all at once.
It wasn't smart.
It wasn't safe.
It wasn't anything I needed.
But wanting had never cared about need.
One afternoon, after a long, rough shift in low cloud cover, I came off duty and crossed the yard outside the billets.
The sun was already slanting low, turning the broken edges of the city into sharp silhouettes.
The lantern by the main gate flickered on early, casting a warm circle of light on the cobblestones outside the fence.
There were people drifting past, German couples walking arm in arm, a few GIs heading toward the tram, a girl laughing as a soldier spun her in a clumsy swing step. They kissed openly. Hugged. Like the war hadn't happened. Like the world wasn't balanced on the edge of another one.
I was still half in my head when I saw her. She stood just beyond the lantern light, hands knotted in front of her, looking… uncomfortable. Like she didn't know what she was doing there. Like she might bolt any second.
For a moment, I thought I was imagining her. I'd done it often enough. Then she turned her head, saw me, and something flared in her eyes.
She moved. Not just walked, she lunged.
"You!" she snapped, her voice cut through the clatter and chatter like a shot.
My heart stuttered.
I stopped just inside the gate—like the barrier would keep me safe from her wrath—fingers curling around the strap of my flight bag, the dragon lifting its head in my chest, alert.
This was it.
The week of sneaking, of bringing food and blankets and clothes, of patching her walls in secret, it had come due.
And I had no idea if she was about to thank me…or tear me apart.