Zell am See, Austria
VJ Day, 1945

As fate would have it, the weather had not held on the day of their wedding.

Edith woke to a rosy dawn blooming outside the open balcony doors. From the nest of sheets and pillows, she could see it was going to be a much lovelier day than they had seen while taking their vows.

Though several weeks had passed, the dress she had worn still hung in the bureau in need of a professional cleaning. The red dye had bled into her slip and underclothes. When Dick had peeled it from her body later that evening, she found it had stained her skin pink. Perhaps it was her own fault.

A bride wearing red? Not that she'd had much of a choice. When she had left for the war in Europe, her mother's wedding dress had been the last thing she would have thought necessary in her trunk.

With Samantha and Lewis as witnesses, the Austrian priest had pronounced them man and wife in broken English. Her father had scrounged up the band that had played at the previous party. Just as the dancing had begun and beer was passed out, the sky was overcome by thunderheads. The party headed inside to play in an alpine banquet hall.

Dick had grasped Edith by the hand. The two of them slipped away, running through the downpour to the hotel where they were quartered.

Edith was certain they didn't step foot from his rooms for at least four days. Perhaps it had been five. The whole time period was a blur.

She blinked, her husband's hand coming into focus. It lay palm up, his wedding band glinting in the weak light. The underside of his elbow was propped beneath her neck, close to her ear. She could almost hear the blood rush in his veins glowing violet beneath his freckled skin. Edith stretched out her left arm, mating the back of her hand to his and locking their fingers together.

She closed her eyes.

Somewhere in the dewy hours of early morning, she could hear a dog kick up a chorus of barks with its neighbors. Dick groaned, waking with the commotion.

"Can't you do anything about that mutt?" he murmured roughly.

"Got a gun?"

Dick snorted. Snaking his free arm up from her hip, he braced it between her breasts, grasping her shoulder as he buried his face in the nape of her neck. Edith's quiet musings came to a tearing halt as his lips found the sensitive space between the back of her ear and hairline.

"I thought you were going swimming?" she breathed, fighting for a last shred of focus.

"Later."

***

"You're glowing." Samantha cocked an eyebrow at her from across the way, her arms folded on the desk.

"I went swimming and got a sunburn."

"You're pregnant." She pressed again with a grin. "I bet you all the chips. You are pregnant."

"Samantha." Edith's brow flattened as she stared at her. "Would you please get back to your work?"

"You know, there's only one surefire way to keep from getting pregnant and I bet that you aren't doing it."

Edith couldn't help herself. "And what method is that?"

"Hold an aspirin between your knees."

Edith threw a piece of crumpled paper at Samantha's head. The girl ducked with a bark of a laugh.

"See! Your hormones are already spiking! You are carrying Winters Junior, aren't you?"

Before Edith could reply, another secretary from across the hall burst into the room. They looked over in surprise as the girl gasped with a smile full of crooked teeth.

"It's over!" she screeched. "Japan surrendered. The war is over!"

With that, she cut back down the hall to find more people to tell. Edith slowly digested the announcement. There had been rumors of a coming surrender following the execution of a new weapon on the remaining Axis power. However, as when Germany had thrown in the towel, Edith was left feeling hollow.

They had won. Life could go on.

Everything she and Dick had finally had the courage to discuss in the wee hours about their future could come to pass. The skulking fear that she would lose him to a Japanese bomb, bullet, or blade wasn't relevant anymore. They could go home.

Samantha jumped from her seat and raced to the window. In the streets below, the announcement spread like the plague.

"Come on!" Samantha hollered and grabbed her hand.

They raced out into the village. Grown men were crying, Austrian women kissing soldiers half their age on the mouth, children being swung into the air towards the immense mountain sky.

"I can see him again. I can go home and see him." Samantha grasped Edith by her arms. "Walter."

It had been a week since a letter had arrived from the recovering paratrooper. Samantha hadn't even sent her own note telling him of her feelings. However, Smokey had confessed that he didn't know what he had been thinking. He told her he was well on his way to a full recovery and couldn't imagine going on without her. Edith hadn't been the only one glowing around the office lately.

As they raced through the streets, Edith caught sight of her father. Colonel Sink strode across the street and crushed her in his arms. Much to her surprise, he did the same thing to Samantha.

"It's finished. For good this time." He grasped Edith's hand.

Edith stared into his face, realizing it was the first time in her life that she had seen tears in her father's eyes.

"Have you seen your husband yet?" he asked, wiping his glistening forehead with a handkerchief her mother had monogrammed for him.

"I don't know- I don't know where he is-" Edith numbly stammered.

"I saw him at an official surrender not long ago, but I believe he mentioned going down to the baseball field by the bivouac to tell Easy Company the news." The colonel glanced down the street. "Here, let me get you girls a ride."

The colonel waved down a jeep moving slowly down the crowded street. Edith was quietly surprised to see Captain Sobel in the passenger seat. She hadn't seen him since her last day before her attempted leaving.

"Corporal." The colonel addressed the young man in the driver's seat. "Can you give these young women a lift?"

"Yes, sir," the young man barked as Captain Sobel leaped from the passenger's side.

"Lieutenant Sink." He nodded brightly, his eyes grazing over her in admiration. "Happy VJ Day."

"Winters," she murmured, her mind registering the moment.

"Excuse me?"

She grinned with a lifted brow. "It's actually Lieutenant Edith Winters now."

As she lifted her hand and wiggled her ring finger, the Captain's face pinched.

"Winters. As in-"

"The Major." Edith kissed her father on his temple and jumped into the passenger side. "Happy VJ Day!"

As Edith directed the young man to the baseball field, she peered past the windshield trying to spot him. Dick's neatly combed auburn mop caught the sheen of the summer sun.

"There!" Edith pointed towards the jeep where her husband rested on the trunk, Nixon standing next to him.

The jeep hadn't come to a full stop and Edith was bounding from it. The men had their backs to her. They stood and started across the field.

"Major!" she shouted.

Dick turned abruptly as she reached him. Though he was never one for public displays of affection, he made an exception that day as he caught her in his arms and swung her around, giving her a chaste kiss on the forehead. There were a couple hoots from the men nearby, but the action had been brief enough to not draw much attention. Edith noted that a blush shaded his cheeks anyway.

Edith nodded a greeting to Nixon as Dick lightly held her fingers at waist height.

"Mrs. Winters." He grinned, removing his aviators with a wink.

"So you heard the news?"

"Yes. We can go home, Dick."

"New Jersey."

"What?"

"Ask me later." Squeezing her fingers, his face relaxed into a smile.

Edith narrowed her eyes in a silent question as Samantha came alongside her. Dick and Nixon continued towards Captain Speirs.

"Get em' round," Major Winters directed the CO, gazing over the field.

The men dropped their sports equipment and crowded in. Edith felt it a privilege to watch her husband give them the news. It was over, they had won. They would go home.

Dick's gaze drifted towards her on the sideline as the men whooped and hollered. Looking back at him, Edith Winters knew whether in Zell am See or New Jersey, she was already home.