Love and War [Historical TG/RC]

Tier Reward for Nathan Rancher

A man from the 1990s somehow ends up transported back to 1940 in the body of a black woman. With nothing but the clothes on her back, she learns to make a new life for herself and even manages to find love. 

~

August 5th, 1990

Leonard was not having a good day. The streets were crowded, his bus was late, and by the time he finally made it to the museum, it had started to rain. So he was less than enthused when he pushed open the doors and was greeted by the screech of schoolchildren. Three dozen of them, maybe more, ran circles around the bronze statue out front, shouting and laughing, their teachers distracted, trying to organise tickets at the front desk. He just hoped they weren't here for the same reason he was. 

He’d barely been able to contain his delight when he saw the ad in the paper: a lecture on the lived experience of the Second World War. Ever since he was a child, he’d been obsessed with the world wars. Ever since his teacher in third grade asked them to research what their grandparents did during that period, and he had nothing to show. 

All the other children bought in medals, or stories of brave merchant seamen, his grandfather was a shoemaker who managed to get out of serving. Ever since then, he’d been obsessed with learning about the real heroes, the real patriots, maybe in the vain hope that one of them would turn out to be related to him. Leonard had spent a lifetime trying to understand what they went through, collecting books, attending talks, keeping a mental archive of firsthand stories. That’s why he was here.

Inside, the small lecture hall was filling quickly, mostly with the children and their frazzled teachers. Leonard picked a seat near the back, arms crossed. As long as they stayed quiet during the lecture, he could put up with it. Then the speaker walked out onto the stage, and Leonard’s face fell.

She was small, thin, with dark skin. Her grey hair was neatly pulled back, her back was slightly stooped. She looked to be in her eighties, maybe older, not exactly the proud, aged soldier he’d been expecting. 

“My name is Mrs. Liberty Babin,” she said in a clear, strong voice. “I was a young woman living in this very city during the war. Today, I want to tell you what it was like to live through it from the other side, the side that doesn’t get written up in the textbooks.”

Leonard’s jaw clenched. He shifted in his seat. He hadn't come here today to listen to an old black woman talk about how hard it was back then for her. The civil rights movement had its place, but it wasn't in a war lecture. He wanted battlefields and tactics, courage under fire, not domestic recollections from a woman who had never worn the uniform. He stood up quietly, ignoring a few side glances, and slipped out the back of the hall.

Outside, the rain was pelting down, and Leonard sighed. He might as well make the trip worth it. He headed down the hall toward one of the exhibits, a room full of faded black-and-white images. Men in uniform, planes in flight, the sort of thing he’d come here to hear about. Leonard walked slowly past them, frowning less now, letting himself be drawn into the grainy past. He looked at his reflection in the glass that protected each one; light blonde hair, sharp grey eyes, he’d look at home in one of those uniforms.

“Maybe I was born in the wrong time,” he muttered to himself, “If I’d been around in World War II, I wouldn’t have spent my time making shoes, that’s for certain…”

He kept walking, eyes moving over each image until one photo stopped him. A pilot, young and lean, sat in the cockpit of a fighter plane, helmet pushed back, grinning at the camera. The caption read: Lieutenant David Babin, Jewish-American fighter pilot, 1944.

Something about the image made him frown. He admired the man in the picture, respected what he'd done. Still, the caption annoyed him. Why bring up that he was Jewish? Leonard thought. He was American, wasn’t he? That should’ve been enough; it was all that really mattered.

“I see you found David.”

The voice startled him.

He turned. Mrs. Babin stood a few feet away, hands clasped in front of her.

“You left my talk,” she said with a wry little smile. 

Leonard felt heat rise to his face. 

“I thought it was going to be a lecture by a veteran,” he replied. “A soldier.”

Her head tilted slightly, her eyes had a knowing light to them that made him uncomfortable.  

“And I suppose that means I didn’t see war?”

“You weren’t in it,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “You didn’t fight.”

“I lived through blackouts. Watched neighbours drafted. Fed boys who came through town on trains with rifles and scared eyes. I worked at a sewing plant making uniforms. I was twenty-two. And I was black. That was a kind of war, too.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Leonard said without a single ounce of respect, “That’s not real war, and it’s not what I wanted to hear.”

“Maybe it’s what you needed, though,” she said quietly. “People only want to hear from the ones with medals. They don’t want to hear about ration lines or how the war split families. Or how some of us weren’t treated as Americans, even when we did our part. Don't worry, you’ll understand one day soon.”

Why did old people think they were wise? Leonard gave the woman a tight, polite smile and pushed past her. Only for her to call out after him. 

“I’d take the side door, the one at the back, the children are quite rowdy after the talk.”

Well, at least she said one useful thing. Leonard gave her a half-wave of thanks without looking back and headed in that direction. He could hear the commotion from the lobby, children running and yelling along with a teacher trying to raise her voice. Side door it was. He found the quiet hall and pushed open the door, bracing for rain that didn’t come. 

He blinked in shock and looked up; the sky was clear and blue. Strange. He’d never seen rain clear that fast before. He was about to head down the street to the bus stop, but he only took one step before wobbling, his heel sank into the grass, and before he knew it, he was falling forward onto his hands and knees. 

“Huh?”

He looked down to try and find what tripped him and found a long skirt and a broken high heels. Not only that, but his legs looked totally wrong, long, smooth and dark. Leonard’s mouth opened and closed in shock, trying to make sense of what he was seeing and feeling. He checked over his entire body; he was dressed in a plain blue dress, with a tight belt around his waist, and he could feel something stiff, an underwire, around his middle supporting his new breasts. 

“I’m…a woman?” He blinked in shock, just as a wolf whistle made him flinch.

“Nice legs!”
The call came from a white man walking by as he laughed, not bothering to give Leonard a hand up. 

Leonard felt his cheeks burn with emb harassment and awkwardly got to his feet. The broken heel made things difficult, but he managed to hop over to a bench and fix it as best he could. Looking around, everything seemed wrong; the cars were old, rare too, there were far more people walking. Everybody was dressed like his grandparents, and at the corner was a man waving newspapers, a boy really. Leonard jumped up and grabbed one, staring at the date on the front page in shock: August 5th, 1940. 

“Hey, lady! You gotta pay for that!” The boy snapped, snatching it back. 

“I was just looking, not stealing,” Leonard explained, and the boy scoffed before looking him up and down. 

“Yeah, right, I’m watching ya.”

Leonard resisted the urge to yell back to respect his elders; drawing attention to himself was the last thing he wanted right now. This had to be some sort of dream; he couldn’t actually be in the 40s, let alone as a black woman. It just wasn’t possible. He turned back to the museum, thinking that maybe walking through the door would somehow fix this. It didn’t, all it earned him was a scolding from a furious security officer who was just a little bit too eager to threaten him with a baton for trying to break into the museum. 

He was out on his, now plump and black, ass, within seconds. Judging by the look in the security officer's eye, sticking around wasn't the best idea either. So he walked, hoping in vain that a modern car would drive by and he’d escape from this strange hallucination. But the longer he walked, and the more he looked, the more real things seemed, including his hunger. 

He walked past a grocery store and his eyes almost bulged out of his head; they were so cheap. Sure, it was a lot more limited than what he was used to, but the five bucks he’d had in his pocket just a few minutes ago would have paid for a week's worth of food. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in those jeans anymore. He was in his pretty dress and belt, without a purse in sight. 

“Okay, Leonard.” He whispered, “You don’t know how or why this happened, but you need to be practical. This was the pull yourself up by your bootstraps time. So get pulling.”

Plenty of old people had told him stories growing up about walking into a factory at age fifteen and getting a job for life. So that’s what he needed to do as well. Well, not for life, but at least until he could figure out how to turn back into a man and return to his proper time period. 

Finding work wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped, though. At a millinery store, a pale woman with red lipstick offered a tight smile and said they weren’t hiring, though a HELP WANTED sign still hung crookedly in the window. A laundry shop turned him away before he even finished speaking. And the diner owner didn’t look up from his register as he said, “We don’t need anyone.” The owner of the General Store said the same thing.

“But I saw your hiring sign outside,” Leonard said as politely as possible. 

“You wouldn't be a good fit.”

“I am wonderful with maths and customer service.”

“I’m sure you are, but it’s a lot to add up and we get busy here, you just wouldn;t be a good fit.”

“But-”

“I said no.”

Leonard grit his teeth. It didn’t matter what he said or how smart he was, one look at him in this body and people had already made up their minds. 

As the sun set, Leonard sat on a bench feeling sorry for himself and keenly aware that he had nowhere to go. People looked at him with suspicion, the ladies who walked by held their purse straps a little tighter, and it made his blood boil. This was supposed to be the ‘good old days’, war withstanding. At least if he’d ended up here as a man, he could have enlisted and done something to make his family name more impressive. But of course, he was stuck as a woman, a black one to boot, in a town that clearly wasn't very forward-thinking. 

“This could only be more depressing if it started to rain.”

A rumble of thunder made him groan; apparently, the universe had a sense of humour. The drops were just starting to fall when suddenly a shadow cast itself over him. An umbrella, held by a pale man with kind eyes and an aviator’s uniform.

“You look like you’ve had a bad day.”

“You could say that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, miss…?”
“Liberty.” 

The name slipped out before he could stop it; the first female name he could think of. The man smiled and chuckled, offering Leonard a hand up.

“What a fitting name given the times. I’m David.”

Maybe it was shock after the strange day he’d been having, or maybe it was the fact that this man was the first person to treat him kindly since this all began, but Leonard found himself smiling back. He took his hand and stood under the umbrella, listening to the rain.

“Can I buy you a coffee?” The man asked.

“Absolutely.”

Leonard recognised the spark in the young man’s eyes; he was clearly hoping to make this a date. Normally, he would have hesitated to go on a coffee date with another man, but he was starving and not exactly in a position to turn down a free hot drink. They walked into the diner and were seated at the back, but Leonard didn’t even care. The cup was warm against his soft palms; it was a small, welcome comfort after the strange day he’d had. 

“Thank you for this.” 

“No worries, I hate to see a lady looking so sad.”

Leonard couldn’t help it; he giggled. The sound felt strange in his new chest; it spread a tingling sensation across his skin and sent heat into his cheeks. 

“Smooth talker.”

“Well, I am only stationed here a week, gotta make a good impression, don’t I?”

“You’re a soldier?”

“Pilot.”

“Oh, that’s so brave,” Leonard sighed, “I wish I could fight and serve my country the way you do.”

“You do, people like you, living at home. You’re preserving the American dream!” 

David spoke with such sincerity that it actually made Leonard startle. He’d never thought of it that way before. 

“You know, you’re the first person to be nice to me today.” Leonard laughed, “I’ve been trying to get a job, but even the places that are hiring aren’t interested in…hiring somebody like me. I’m glad you don't seem to share the common sentiment around here.”

David scoffed.

“I know it’s not necessarily the same, but I get it, people aren't always welcoming to me when they find out I’m Jewish.” 

That made something click in Leonard’s mind; David, Jewish, pilot…this was the man from the photograph! A photograph that wouldn’t be taken for at least another four years. David cleared his throat awkwardly, and Leonard realised he’d been silent and wide-eyed for almost a full minute.

“If that’s a problem…” David started.

“No! Not at all! I was just thinking about how…hard that must be. In this war.”

David smiled down into his coffee cup. 

“I like to think if we can win, we can have a world where things like religion and the colour of one's skin won’t matter anymore.”

Leonard thought about his time; it had its issues, sure, but it was nothing compared to the world of the forties.

“I think we can.”

David brightened and grinned.

“You don't think I’m some starry-eyed optimist who needs a reality check?”

“I think you’re the sort of person the country needs right now.”

It was strange how normal the conversation felt, especially considering how abnormal everything surrounding today had been. When they waved goodbye, Leonard felt a pang in his heart, a longing for the security that little diner booth had given him for a few short hours. The sun had set, and he still had nowhere to stay, no money and nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn't know how finding a place in the forties worked; he knew even less about that than he did about getting a job, and clearly he was woefully misinformed. Could single women even rent places on their own right now? Could he have a bank account? Leonard had no idea. 

So he sat on the cold park bench for the night, dozing on and off and hoping that anybody who saw him as dawn approached thought he was an early riser and not homeless. The hope that he would wake up in a hospital somewhere, male and back in his own time period after having some weird mental break, was shattered as a police officer roughly shook him awake the next morning and told him to get going. 

“I guess I just…keep trying.” He muttered, thinking of the useless help wanted posters. 

It felt hard to be all for capitalism now that he was at the bottom of the pecking order. Leonard looked at himself in the diner window, taking in the smooth, dark skin and wrinkled dress. He didn’t look very professional, but under the unkept hair and crinkled fabric…he was very pretty. A pretty face could take a woman far, he knew that. Maybe he just had to own it. 

So he walked, he spoke with confidence, he ignored the sly stares from white folk as he held his head high, and all he had to show for it after several hours was a painfully empty stomach and feet that ached in these damn high heels. Not to mention the irritation from his underwire; how did women stand wearing bras all day? About the only good thing this new body had going for it was the dress; in the summer heat, at least having a pleasant breeze between his legs was welcome. 

Just when he was starting to feel his spirit cracking again, Leonard noticed something. A sign in a language he didn't understand, but letters he recognised. Hebrew. He peered down the street and saw even more: a Jewish community. Remembering what David had said, he took a deep breath and walked down the street; if he was sympathetic to minorities, maybe some of his fellows would be too. 

The first place he found with a hiring sign was a fabric place with the name Miram’s Bobbin painted on the front. It was small, and as soon as Leonard stepped inside, he was greeted by a matronly looking woman with stern eyes and silver-streaked hair tucked under a kerchief. 

“Just… looking for work.”

The older woman gave him a long look, sizing him up, perhaps, but then simply nodded. 

“You sew?”

“I can learn.”

"Good." She said smugly, "I can teach you the right way from the get-go. No need to unlearn bad habits."

Leonard held back a smirk; Miriam was arrogant and yet...it was endearing. It was the first step forward since he'd gotten here. Miriam taught him the trade; how to pin a hem, how to run the Singer sewing machine without chewing up the thread, how to haggle gently but firmly, especially those who thought somebody of his 'background' could be more easily haggled. 

The money wasn't much, but it was enough for a small room at the back of a storehouse a few blocks away. After the park bench, it felt like the Ritz. 

The community around the shop, small but tight-knit, took him in cautiously, and Leonard began to think of himself more and more as Liberty. Learning how to put on a bra took him a week. But fortunately, working in a fabric store gave him a leg up when it came to clothes. Making dresses was much easier than tailoring pants. If it weren't for the ever-present dread in the air thanks to the war, he could almost call the life peaceful, which is why it was so shocking when, after three months, a familiar face walked into the shop. 

“David?”

“Liberty?”

“What are you doing here?” Leonard gaped. 

“What am I? What are you doing here? This is my aunt’s shop.”

Leonard couldn’t help it; he just laughed. 

“I got a job here the day after we met.”

David smiled widely and leaned against the front desk. His eyes were sparkling, and Leonard felt a tingle in the base of his stomach. 

“That’s fate right there, if you don’t mind me saying.” 

“I know what you mean…I feel like I should ask how you’ve been, but…is that rude to ask a man fighting in a war?”

“Not at all,” he winked, “I’ve been off, punching Nazi’s and saving America, of course.”

It was a bad joke, but it made Leonard laugh anyway. They kept talking, right up until Miriam returned and, after giving her nephew a hug, pushed them both out the door. 

“Can't have my assistant making moon eyes at somebody else while trying to sell buttons!” She teased, and Leonard felt his cheeks heat.

“Why don’t we go get some lemonades?” David suggested. 

“That sounds perfect.”

He bought them each a bottle, and they found a quiet bench just as the sun was starting to set. David talked about his plane, and the places he’d flown, but not the details of the war. Once, Leonard would have pushed for them, but now they didn’t seem that interesting, at least not compared to seeing David smile. At all once, Leonard was hit with a sense of injustice. It wasn't fair; so many young men like David wouldn’t see another day because of the war. It didn’t feel glorious anymore, now that she was seeing the news in the papers every day. It felt…wrong. 

“You’re so brave.” She said softly. 

“You know, people are always talking about how brave I am.” David said quietly, “But the truth is, every time I get in that plane…I’m terrified. Terrified I’m going to die and be just another number in the ever-growing list of dead.”

He took another drink and shook his head.

“Sorry, that’s not the sort of thing a lady wants to hear from a soldier, is it?”

“No, I think it’s good.” Leonard cut in. “You can’t be brave without being scared, and the fact that you’re scared makes it all the more courageous that you keep doing it.”

Leonard thought of the photo he’d seen in the future, one that wouldn’t be taken until 1944. 

“And for what it’s worth. I know you won’t die.”

“Oh really?” He raised an eyebrow, “What makes you so sure?”

“I just…am. And a woman is always right, isn't that what they say? So what’s done is done. You’re going to live.”

David laughed, and it made a strange fluttering feeling appear in Leonard’s chest. 

“I guess that’s that.”

He put down his beer and rested his fingers on the bench between them, close enough that Leonard could feel the heat from his skin less than an inch away from his hand. Without thinking, he inched it closer so their fingers were touching. 

“Will you be here next time I come back?” David asked after a moment. 

“Yes,” Leonard replied, somehow knowing it was true and no longer caring so much about the life he’d left behind. 

“Good. I look forward to it.”

~

David returned every few months, only for a week or a few days at a time, but that didn’t matter. Even though part of him knew the pilot would be fine, Leonard still found himself fretting when he was gone. Not only that, but his identity as Leonard slowly faded. It wasn't that he was forgetting his old life, just that his new one was becoming more real. Liberty felt right, as did being a woman. 

So by the time the war ended and David returned home in 1945, this time for good. Liberty knew exactly what she wanted and who she wanted. They couldn’t get married, not right away, but everybody knew what they were. It took time, but with David at her side, Liberty saw the world she’d enter slowly change and transform back into the one she’d left. 

When she saw an ad in the local paper asking for people who survived through the Second World War to give talks at the museum, she smiled, knowing full well what she was going to set in motion.