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LET'S DO THIS. Beware the exposition aspects of the first part of a big-ass fic!
TITLE: The Only Son (One)
FANDOM: Inglourious Basterds (Wilhelm Wicki/Helga Zoller) (AU, pre-film)
RATING: Mature
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. These characters belong to Quentin Tarantino, that crazy bastard.
SUMMARY:1938 - after the Nazi invasion of Salzburg, Pvt Wilhelm Wicki is found, injured, behind a Munich cinema by one of it's owners, Helga Zoller. Surprised but not one to turn away someone in need, she takes him in to her home to heal despite the political repercussions under a Jew-hating Third Reich. As he integrates into her family, bonds are formed and Germany becomes a virtual prison - leading men and boys into war and, eventually, the Basterds to work.
Reference post, with author's notes.
The Only Son
One.
--
Munich, Germany. 1938.
--
It was a Friday night.
She found him leaning against the back door of the cinema, his mouth bloodied and clothes torn.
A bunch of kids – locals, bored with the curfew – had thrown Lord-knows-what at the cinema's marquee, forcing Helga outside to wash the letters down, despite wanting to get home and get a decent night's sleep in before opening again the next day.
If she'd not needed to change her water – no doubt, the young solider would probably been lost to the dogs and she'd have been none the wiser. But she had walked down the back of Das Kino Haus, regardless of the circumstances, her hair pushed back and one of her brother's old work singlets in her hand to use as a rag – the rag she pushed against his collarbones that were bleeding like a river, showing the wounds of someone who hadn't just walked a hundred miles, but had run them.
Run them, as if for his life.
"Come," was all she could think to say, putting her bucket down and letting him brace against her. His mouth, trying to form words but failing because his brain was so obviously drained, leaving him to make nothing but noises against her hair.
Later, Helga would wonder about what ifs and if onlys, as the stranger slept off whatever he'd been through in one of her father's never-worn shirts.
---
"Fredrick!" Helga yelled, clanging the spoon against the pot of watery porridge her siblings and her would have to call breakfast.
As the oldest, it was her duty to keep six siblings in check - Elsa, her hair hanging over her pretty face as she poured water for the table; Gerda, with darker hair, preening into a shard of mirror; Annaleisa, who Helga could hear prattling about the book she'd borrowed from one of the cinema's older patrons (no doubt driving her brother insane); Elke, who was now scribbling down what Helga knew was the homework she'd claimed to complete the night before; Liese, currently sowing in the early light and Fredrick - the only boy, and, even at thirteen years old, the only one of them perpetually late to the table, despite being the earliest to rise.
"Coming. Coming, I'm coming. Elke stole my soap, so I had to make-do."
Elke made no response and continued scribbling, even when her brother flicked at her hair with his fingers. Helga cracked the spoon against the side of the pot again, ignoring the face Fredrick made at her as he sat down.
"Papa's not up?" came the question from Liese, her eyes never leaving her embroidery.
Helga placed the spoon on its holder, her stomach sinking as she turned away to take another bowl from the stack. "No."
"He came in late," continued Liese, her tongue now sticking out in concentration. "No doubt drunk on Farmer Tomas' wine -"
"Liese." The entire house stopped at Helga's tone, strong enough to pull Liese's attention from her work. "He has not risen yet. Come to the table and eat your breakfast."
The air was tense, broken only by Fredrick's sardonic snort and Liese pulling her chair out, as the family began eating again.
Later, Helga would wonder, if the stranger who was now standing in their kitchen doorway had planned his sudden entry into her family's lives to defuse the situation at hand - and whether she should have thanked him for saving them all from another morning of bottomless anger towards a parent who wasn't even there.
---
Paris, France. August, 1944.
She was tired. So tired, her hands shaking as she stood in front of the charred remains of a theatre lost to the ravages of war - or, like the rumours she'd come across in her search for her missing brother, a theatre that was burnt to the ground by a young girl who decided to sacrifice everything to end an entire world's suffering.
A girl, with blonde hair and a thin smile, who'd had two names but seemed to hold the heart of her baby brother firmly, infinitely; his last note to her mentioning Emmanuelle and his boyish plans for them, together.
The postcard, filled with promise and excitement, burnt to her heart through her coat's chest pocket.
Oh, Fredrick, she thought, as her knees fell to the cinders of a life left wanting and she let herself cry, finally.
Infinitely.
---
He wasn't aware of where he was, his accent and speech muddled by weariness and his injuries. She directed him into the tiny sitting room off the kitchen and, as he began to sway dangerously, to an armchair by the window. Without a word, she walked back and closed the door to the kitchen - six sets of eyes watching in silence until, naturally, the door clicked shut and the speculation began.
"Fraulein," he began, before closing his eyes in pain. Sitting across from him, she watched as he tried to find the strength to continue. His shirt lay open, slightly, from where she'd placed his limp, injured arm into a make-shift sling, the dirty bruises on his chest showing the ugly wounds of a man who was, obviously, running from something.
After she'd put him up on the couch in her mother's study and heard the heavy breathing of a man asleep, she'd done the only thing she though she could do - she'd searched the man's pockets for a clue, for any indication of who he was or why he had been in her back alley in the middle of the night.
He was Austrian Army, she learnt, his uniform scrappy and without insignia, but still smacking of military-issue nevertheless. Not surprising, considering the recent Nazi invasion, and confirmed by the identification papers she had found in his top pocket.
Wilhelm Wicki, was his name, and that was all she could find out before the light had broken through the cracks of the curtains and she'd headed back into hers and Else's bedroom for a fitful hour's sleep.
Helga didn't wish to tell him of how she'd gathered her information about him, deciding to wait until he volunteered the facts on his own. It had been stupid to bring him into her home, putting her siblings potentially in danger, and she wasn't about to anger him by explaining how she had pawed through his things whilst undressing his unconscious body. It was, frankly, not a situation Helga had ever expected to find herself in - but despite all her doubts, she could only think of how their mother had taught them the value of the kindness of strangers.
"You're in Munich," she swallowed hard, as his eyes flew open. "My name is Helga Zoller, you're in my family's home -"
"Munich." Less of a question, Helga nodded.
"Yes."
Helga watched as the solider's eyes again grew heavy, his shoulders seemingly pushed down under some sort of weight as he processed the information she had given him. His situation, she gathered, was one of dire circumstances, and by surveying his injuries, she knew it had come at some sort of cost - she could feel him thinking, strategising, putting the room into a thick silence - so much so, she jumped slightly when he finally spoke.
"You are very kind, Fraulein, and I thank you and your family for your hospitality, but I shall now be on my way."
With that, he pulled himself onto his feet with his good arm, and, promptly, swayed so much that Helga almost didn't stand in time to catch him before he fell back into the armchair.
"With all respect, sir, you simply are not going anywhere in the state you are in."
Pulling her face up defiantly, she kept his gaze until he closed his eyes in obvious agony and motioned to the armchair. Slowly, she helped him sit, watching him try without much luck to get comfortable, the obvious pain from his upper body injuries evident from the small expressions of pain he allowed to pass his lips every now and again.
She moved to stand next to the door, wiping her hands nervously on her dress and watching to make sure he wasn't about to stand again.
"Now, I am going to fix you something to eat. It's only porridge, and some water, but later I'll go and get some milk from the farmers and some bread -"
"Fraulein."
His eyes were closed, and his face, despite the wounds, looked soft in the morning light. He was, she supposed, handsome - rugged, would be the word Gerda would use, Cary Grant-like, with height and a broadness most boys Helga had met didn't have. Despite his pain, he carried himself with an air of confidence and old-worldliness, like her father before he began to drink and Helga felt like the air suddenly left the room as she waited for him to continue.
"Wilhelm Wicki."
"Herr Wicki, it is a pleasure to meet you. I will be back in a moment with some food, and it's best you don't move suddenly."
Eyes still closed, his brow furrowed slightly making his wounds look angry. Slowly, he breathed out, but still didn't open his eyes as she turned away and twisted the knob.
"I am a Jew."
"I know," she answered, and pushed into the kitchen without turning back around.
---
"But who is he?"
"Maybe Helga's holding out on us," Anna smirked, her mouth full. Else frowned.
"Holding out on who, you dumbhead? I share a room with her, remember?"
Sending the entire table into a frenzy of fighting and gossip, no-one noticed their sister's return into the kitchen, until she cleared her throat by the window. The Zoller siblings stopped violently, six sets of eyes burning into Helga's back with curiosity. It was Liese - always Liese - who broke the silence.
"And?"
One word, but it spoke volumes - enough for Helga to sigh and turn back to her family and manage a thin smile.
"I found him injured, last night. After the late show, some kids had thrown something onto the marquee and I needed to clean it down, change the letters. He was in the alley when I went to gather more water, and - well, I'm not the one to leave people obviously on death's door at the back of a filmhouse."
"He's a solider," Fredrick said, flicking his perpetually loose cowlick of hair out of his eyes. "The clothes in the study, the pants -"
Helga crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
"You went into the study? When."
"Just now. He could be a murderer! Or, or a highwayman or a missing duke or -"
"That's enough, Fred."
She couldn't help but smile at her brother's overactive imagination, an imagination that was obviously fuelling the speculation between their siblings about their houseguest. "I know nothing about him, but he's injured and it's best we keep him here until such time he can move on.
"So," she continued, taking a bowl from the open cupboard and moving to the almost empty porridge pot and scooping some into the bowl, "you are all to stay out of his way until such time as we can assure he's well enough to take the questioning of six rather nosy Zollers." She filled a teacup with warm water, placing it along side the porridge on a rickety looking wooden tray.
"And." Picking up the tray, she looked at her family with utmost seriousness. "You are all to keep the fact he is here a secret - from your school chums, from the patrons at the cinema, from boyfriends -" Gerda pulled a face at this - "from everyone."
A welcome silence fell over the table, as one by one they nodded solemnly.
"And especially from Papa."
Liese didn't look up from where she had begun to embroider again to see if her comment elicited a reaction – because she knew that each and every single on of her brother and sisters understood exactly.
---
He was asleep when she came back into the sitting room, one arm wrapped around his middle like a child. The sun was fully up now, hitting the centre of the room and bathing everything in a soft enough hue to ensure he'd not be woken by an unwelcome blast of sunlight onto his face.
There was blood beginning to seep through the bandages she had made out an old sheet she'd managed to steal out from under Else's sleeping nose; the red hue looking ugly against the stark white of the worker's shirt Helga had taken from their father's empty room.
It had been difficult to even get him into the house – easily over six foot and heavier than their father, his weight dead due to him being in and out of consciousness during the short walk from their cinema to their home. But she'd gotten there, and, without waking a single one of her siblings – not an easy feat – she'd installed the broken man on the couch in her mother's study.
Despite being twenty-five, Helga still found herself blushing at the thought of how she'd had to undress him – pulling his wool jacket from his shoulders, then his shirt, both of which were marked with foreign insignia and blood. As he fell against her, half-naked, the smell of sweat and the metallic tang of his wounds hitting her with force, Helga kept herself together despite exactly what the scene would have looked like if Fredrick or Else had of walked in.
If their father had of walked in – it was irrelevant, she knew, considering the fact he'd only been home one night that week for dinner, and that was only to take a significant amount of their cured meat and a hunk of bread.
Still, the small amount of first aid she'd learnt from her mother helped as she bathed the stranger's wounds with a mixture of lavender and warm water, washing his face and neck clean of the grit of a long and violent break across the border, her mind firmly distancing herself from the fact she was bathing a man she knew nothing about at all, except he needed her help.
He'd tried to talk, several times – a mixture of words, in German and English, strangely, and all ending with him looking her solidly in the eyes with a ferocity that scared her to death.
Finally, he'd slept. Like he was doing now, and, leaving behind the teacup of water, Helga left him to sleep the sleep of someone who knew they were, at the very least, safe for the moment.
---
To be continued.
What is this. I don't even. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, GUYS.
TITLE: The Only Son (One)
FANDOM: Inglourious Basterds (Wilhelm Wicki/Helga Zoller) (AU, pre-film)
RATING: Mature
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. These characters belong to Quentin Tarantino, that crazy bastard.
SUMMARY:1938 - after the Nazi invasion of Salzburg, Pvt Wilhelm Wicki is found, injured, behind a Munich cinema by one of it's owners, Helga Zoller. Surprised but not one to turn away someone in need, she takes him in to her home to heal despite the political repercussions under a Jew-hating Third Reich. As he integrates into her family, bonds are formed and Germany becomes a virtual prison - leading men and boys into war and, eventually, the Basterds to work.
Reference post, with author's notes.
One.
--
Munich, Germany. 1938.
--
It was a Friday night.
She found him leaning against the back door of the cinema, his mouth bloodied and clothes torn.
A bunch of kids – locals, bored with the curfew – had thrown Lord-knows-what at the cinema's marquee, forcing Helga outside to wash the letters down, despite wanting to get home and get a decent night's sleep in before opening again the next day.
If she'd not needed to change her water – no doubt, the young solider would probably been lost to the dogs and she'd have been none the wiser. But she had walked down the back of Das Kino Haus, regardless of the circumstances, her hair pushed back and one of her brother's old work singlets in her hand to use as a rag – the rag she pushed against his collarbones that were bleeding like a river, showing the wounds of someone who hadn't just walked a hundred miles, but had run them.
Run them, as if for his life.
"Come," was all she could think to say, putting her bucket down and letting him brace against her. His mouth, trying to form words but failing because his brain was so obviously drained, leaving him to make nothing but noises against her hair.
Later, Helga would wonder about what ifs and if onlys, as the stranger slept off whatever he'd been through in one of her father's never-worn shirts.
"Fredrick!" Helga yelled, clanging the spoon against the pot of watery porridge her siblings and her would have to call breakfast.
As the oldest, it was her duty to keep six siblings in check - Elsa, her hair hanging over her pretty face as she poured water for the table; Gerda, with darker hair, preening into a shard of mirror; Annaleisa, who Helga could hear prattling about the book she'd borrowed from one of the cinema's older patrons (no doubt driving her brother insane); Elke, who was now scribbling down what Helga knew was the homework she'd claimed to complete the night before; Liese, currently sowing in the early light and Fredrick - the only boy, and, even at thirteen years old, the only one of them perpetually late to the table, despite being the earliest to rise.
"Coming. Coming, I'm coming. Elke stole my soap, so I had to make-do."
Elke made no response and continued scribbling, even when her brother flicked at her hair with his fingers. Helga cracked the spoon against the side of the pot again, ignoring the face Fredrick made at her as he sat down.
"Papa's not up?" came the question from Liese, her eyes never leaving her embroidery.
Helga placed the spoon on its holder, her stomach sinking as she turned away to take another bowl from the stack. "No."
"He came in late," continued Liese, her tongue now sticking out in concentration. "No doubt drunk on Farmer Tomas' wine -"
"Liese." The entire house stopped at Helga's tone, strong enough to pull Liese's attention from her work. "He has not risen yet. Come to the table and eat your breakfast."
The air was tense, broken only by Fredrick's sardonic snort and Liese pulling her chair out, as the family began eating again.
Later, Helga would wonder, if the stranger who was now standing in their kitchen doorway had planned his sudden entry into her family's lives to defuse the situation at hand - and whether she should have thanked him for saving them all from another morning of bottomless anger towards a parent who wasn't even there.
Paris, France. August, 1944.
She was tired. So tired, her hands shaking as she stood in front of the charred remains of a theatre lost to the ravages of war - or, like the rumours she'd come across in her search for her missing brother, a theatre that was burnt to the ground by a young girl who decided to sacrifice everything to end an entire world's suffering.
A girl, with blonde hair and a thin smile, who'd had two names but seemed to hold the heart of her baby brother firmly, infinitely; his last note to her mentioning Emmanuelle and his boyish plans for them, together.
The postcard, filled with promise and excitement, burnt to her heart through her coat's chest pocket.
Oh, Fredrick, she thought, as her knees fell to the cinders of a life left wanting and she let herself cry, finally.
Infinitely.
He wasn't aware of where he was, his accent and speech muddled by weariness and his injuries. She directed him into the tiny sitting room off the kitchen and, as he began to sway dangerously, to an armchair by the window. Without a word, she walked back and closed the door to the kitchen - six sets of eyes watching in silence until, naturally, the door clicked shut and the speculation began.
"Fraulein," he began, before closing his eyes in pain. Sitting across from him, she watched as he tried to find the strength to continue. His shirt lay open, slightly, from where she'd placed his limp, injured arm into a make-shift sling, the dirty bruises on his chest showing the ugly wounds of a man who was, obviously, running from something.
After she'd put him up on the couch in her mother's study and heard the heavy breathing of a man asleep, she'd done the only thing she though she could do - she'd searched the man's pockets for a clue, for any indication of who he was or why he had been in her back alley in the middle of the night.
He was Austrian Army, she learnt, his uniform scrappy and without insignia, but still smacking of military-issue nevertheless. Not surprising, considering the recent Nazi invasion, and confirmed by the identification papers she had found in his top pocket.
Wilhelm Wicki, was his name, and that was all she could find out before the light had broken through the cracks of the curtains and she'd headed back into hers and Else's bedroom for a fitful hour's sleep.
Helga didn't wish to tell him of how she'd gathered her information about him, deciding to wait until he volunteered the facts on his own. It had been stupid to bring him into her home, putting her siblings potentially in danger, and she wasn't about to anger him by explaining how she had pawed through his things whilst undressing his unconscious body. It was, frankly, not a situation Helga had ever expected to find herself in - but despite all her doubts, she could only think of how their mother had taught them the value of the kindness of strangers.
"You're in Munich," she swallowed hard, as his eyes flew open. "My name is Helga Zoller, you're in my family's home -"
"Munich." Less of a question, Helga nodded.
"Yes."
Helga watched as the solider's eyes again grew heavy, his shoulders seemingly pushed down under some sort of weight as he processed the information she had given him. His situation, she gathered, was one of dire circumstances, and by surveying his injuries, she knew it had come at some sort of cost - she could feel him thinking, strategising, putting the room into a thick silence - so much so, she jumped slightly when he finally spoke.
"You are very kind, Fraulein, and I thank you and your family for your hospitality, but I shall now be on my way."
With that, he pulled himself onto his feet with his good arm, and, promptly, swayed so much that Helga almost didn't stand in time to catch him before he fell back into the armchair.
"With all respect, sir, you simply are not going anywhere in the state you are in."
Pulling her face up defiantly, she kept his gaze until he closed his eyes in obvious agony and motioned to the armchair. Slowly, she helped him sit, watching him try without much luck to get comfortable, the obvious pain from his upper body injuries evident from the small expressions of pain he allowed to pass his lips every now and again.
She moved to stand next to the door, wiping her hands nervously on her dress and watching to make sure he wasn't about to stand again.
"Now, I am going to fix you something to eat. It's only porridge, and some water, but later I'll go and get some milk from the farmers and some bread -"
"Fraulein."
His eyes were closed, and his face, despite the wounds, looked soft in the morning light. He was, she supposed, handsome - rugged, would be the word Gerda would use, Cary Grant-like, with height and a broadness most boys Helga had met didn't have. Despite his pain, he carried himself with an air of confidence and old-worldliness, like her father before he began to drink and Helga felt like the air suddenly left the room as she waited for him to continue.
"Wilhelm Wicki."
"Herr Wicki, it is a pleasure to meet you. I will be back in a moment with some food, and it's best you don't move suddenly."
Eyes still closed, his brow furrowed slightly making his wounds look angry. Slowly, he breathed out, but still didn't open his eyes as she turned away and twisted the knob.
"I am a Jew."
"I know," she answered, and pushed into the kitchen without turning back around.
"But who is he?"
"Maybe Helga's holding out on us," Anna smirked, her mouth full. Else frowned.
"Holding out on who, you dumbhead? I share a room with her, remember?"
Sending the entire table into a frenzy of fighting and gossip, no-one noticed their sister's return into the kitchen, until she cleared her throat by the window. The Zoller siblings stopped violently, six sets of eyes burning into Helga's back with curiosity. It was Liese - always Liese - who broke the silence.
"And?"
One word, but it spoke volumes - enough for Helga to sigh and turn back to her family and manage a thin smile.
"I found him injured, last night. After the late show, some kids had thrown something onto the marquee and I needed to clean it down, change the letters. He was in the alley when I went to gather more water, and - well, I'm not the one to leave people obviously on death's door at the back of a filmhouse."
"He's a solider," Fredrick said, flicking his perpetually loose cowlick of hair out of his eyes. "The clothes in the study, the pants -"
Helga crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
"You went into the study? When."
"Just now. He could be a murderer! Or, or a highwayman or a missing duke or -"
"That's enough, Fred."
She couldn't help but smile at her brother's overactive imagination, an imagination that was obviously fuelling the speculation between their siblings about their houseguest. "I know nothing about him, but he's injured and it's best we keep him here until such time he can move on.
"So," she continued, taking a bowl from the open cupboard and moving to the almost empty porridge pot and scooping some into the bowl, "you are all to stay out of his way until such time as we can assure he's well enough to take the questioning of six rather nosy Zollers." She filled a teacup with warm water, placing it along side the porridge on a rickety looking wooden tray.
"And." Picking up the tray, she looked at her family with utmost seriousness. "You are all to keep the fact he is here a secret - from your school chums, from the patrons at the cinema, from boyfriends -" Gerda pulled a face at this - "from everyone."
A welcome silence fell over the table, as one by one they nodded solemnly.
"And especially from Papa."
Liese didn't look up from where she had begun to embroider again to see if her comment elicited a reaction – because she knew that each and every single on of her brother and sisters understood exactly.
He was asleep when she came back into the sitting room, one arm wrapped around his middle like a child. The sun was fully up now, hitting the centre of the room and bathing everything in a soft enough hue to ensure he'd not be woken by an unwelcome blast of sunlight onto his face.
There was blood beginning to seep through the bandages she had made out an old sheet she'd managed to steal out from under Else's sleeping nose; the red hue looking ugly against the stark white of the worker's shirt Helga had taken from their father's empty room.
It had been difficult to even get him into the house – easily over six foot and heavier than their father, his weight dead due to him being in and out of consciousness during the short walk from their cinema to their home. But she'd gotten there, and, without waking a single one of her siblings – not an easy feat – she'd installed the broken man on the couch in her mother's study.
Despite being twenty-five, Helga still found herself blushing at the thought of how she'd had to undress him – pulling his wool jacket from his shoulders, then his shirt, both of which were marked with foreign insignia and blood. As he fell against her, half-naked, the smell of sweat and the metallic tang of his wounds hitting her with force, Helga kept herself together despite exactly what the scene would have looked like if Fredrick or Else had of walked in.
If their father had of walked in – it was irrelevant, she knew, considering the fact he'd only been home one night that week for dinner, and that was only to take a significant amount of their cured meat and a hunk of bread.
Still, the small amount of first aid she'd learnt from her mother helped as she bathed the stranger's wounds with a mixture of lavender and warm water, washing his face and neck clean of the grit of a long and violent break across the border, her mind firmly distancing herself from the fact she was bathing a man she knew nothing about at all, except he needed her help.
He'd tried to talk, several times – a mixture of words, in German and English, strangely, and all ending with him looking her solidly in the eyes with a ferocity that scared her to death.
Finally, he'd slept. Like he was doing now, and, leaving behind the teacup of water, Helga left him to sleep the sleep of someone who knew they were, at the very least, safe for the moment.
To be continued.
What is this. I don't even. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, GUYS.
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From:
no subject
I already love Helga, she's HBIC like Shosanna (minus the I'll burn down the cinema on Nazi night, you know) and Wicki! He was, she supposed, handsome - rugged, would be the word Gerda would use, Cary Grant-like, with height and a broadness most boys Helga had met didn't have. I LOVE YOU FOR THE CARY GRANT REFERENCE.
BUT I THINK THIS MAY BE MY FAVORITE BIT- He'd tried to talk, several times – a mixture of words, in German and English, strangely, and all ending with him looking her solidly in the eyes with a ferocity that scared her to death. THAT'S THE LOOK OF ~LAHV LAHV LAHV~
From:
no subject
I LOVE YOU FOR GETTING THE CARY GRANT REFERENCE. I suppose I could have used a European actor, but Gerda as a character seems boy crazy and American-obsessed, so thus. Plus Helga runs a bloody cinema, of course she'd know all the American actors!
Thank you - this is all encouraging and you're a sweetheart. <3333
From:
no subject
Aww you're welcome hun! *hugs*