ALRIGHT MY AMAZING READERS... LAST CHAPTER FOR THIS STORY. DON'T WORRY! THERE ARE MORE COMING, AND I'M STILL OPEN TO REQUESTS AND IDEAS! I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS ONE!

** BUCK POV **

I'd been travelling for days by the time I reached Zell am See, finally receiving permission to reunite with Easy Company. The jeep dropped me off in front of a lakefront hotel, but I had only a second to take in the view before Nixon, who had been outside for a smoke, appeared beside me.

"Well, fancy meeting you here," he grinned, shaking my hand. "Let's get you in to see the Major. He'll be happy to see you. Then you can settle in. I already found a room for you."

Dick Winters, oak leaves and all, smiled warmly when I followed Nixon into the building, standing to greet me and shake my hand. Welsh, Speirs, and Carwood Lipton stood by to welcome me back as well, and I couldn't help but think that Easy had finally found the right combination of officers. It was good to be home. At last, Nixon led me to a room where I could drop my bag and pointed me in the direction of the showers, shooting me a sly grin.

"Of course, you'll want to be all freshened up when you see a certain someone."

I took my time showering, picturing her face and trying to decide how I was going to react when I first saw her. I'd spent months thinking she was dead, and then more months knowing that she was alive but just beyond my reach. I was tempted to ask Nixon if he could summon her to the officers' quarters, for fear that if I sought her out among the men, one of two things would happen. Either I'd get swept up in the tide of my friends welcoming me back, and therefore ruin that first moment, or I'd simply walk up and sweep her off her feet for all the world to see, which might prove to be a bit embarrassing for her if I were to get carried away.

As it so happened, though, I never had the chance. As I left the shower and walked back toward my room, I saw Nixon shutting the door behind him. Before I could say anything, he passed me with a half-smile and a brief nod. He was up to something, but I didn't really know what it was until opened the door and saw her laying across the bed, wrapped up in a familiar old college sweatshirt. I sat down next to her, but I'm not sure how long I watched her sleep before I finally worked up the nerve to run my fingers across her tear-stained cheek. I brushed a strand of hair away from her face and her eyes fluttered open. Then, despite all my worrying in the shower, without my even trying, the words I'd been looking for found me.

"You know, that shirt always did look better on you."

** ROXANNA POV **

It took me a moment to focus on what I was seeing, and I wasn't sure he was real at first. He sat next to me on the bed, still running his fingers across my cheek and wearing the same soft smile he'd had on the night he first kissed me. It felt a bit like a dream. Then I got a better look at him, my eyes drinking in the details, trying to determine if I was still asleep. He wore only trousers, and he had clearly just come from taking a shower. I could smell the faint trace of the soap on his skin, and his hair was still damp. I sat up quickly, but his eyes caught me and refused to allow me to move any further.

"Buck? What are you…? How are you…?"

My brain and my mouth refused to work together. I managed to lift my hand to his bare bicep, clutching it to be sure that he was real, flesh and blood, and not some cruel figment of my imagination. He felt real enough, and the rumbling chuckle that emitted from his chest at my stuttering certainly sounded real enough.

"Hi Roxanna."

Relief washed over me. Two little words. I threw my arms around his neck and he reacted immediately, wrapping me up and pulling me into him. He was here. He was real. He was… half-naked. The rippling of his broad shoulders under my fingers as he hugged me made me suddenly, and intensely, aware of this detail. I sat back a bit to meet those eyes, now attuned to the goosebumps that had risen on his skin along the path my fingertips had taken.

"Buck, I…"

I don't know what I intended to say, and it didn't much matter anyway because I'd scarcely started to speak when his mouth met mine. It was a long, languid kiss that carried me back to college on a cloud. I felt my arms raise above my head, and the cool rush of air as the sweatshirt and my white t-shirt were stripped away. Then I was warm again, almost on fire, as Buck's mouth moved along my jaw, down my neck, and across the skin he had just bared, the pressure of his body returning my back to the surface of the bed as he settled across me.

His lips grazed my earlobe as he returned his attention to my neck, whispering, "I've missed you so much, Roxie."

The friction of our lower bodies, at first almost imperceptible, began to build as kisses became deeper and movements more deliberate. He found a sensitive spot on my collarbone and my teeth grazed his shoulder as I fought the urge to cry out from the pleasure. My mind clouded over. I was aware of belts and buckles being undone. None of it was frantic. It was a slow, deliberate exploration of skin, so that by the time we were both naked, neither of us were exactly sure when it had happened.

Buck hovered over me now, propped up on one arm as his other hand ran possessively over my body. His eyes, blue as glacial ice, glowed as they surveyed my bare skin before finally reaching my eyes. He swallowed hard, at first seeming indecisive about something, and then took a deep breath as though he'd made up his mind.

"I've gotta tell you something, Rox," he said quietly, his eyes now burning a hole in the pillow beside my head. "Something about what really happened in college."

"Buck," I protested, "please, don't do this now. Let's not ruin…"

"No," he insisted. "It has to be now. Before this… before we… look, it's just something I've needed you to know for a long time, and I won't feel right about this if I don't tell you first."

Seeing that he was determined, I sighed and braced myself for the coming flood of old, painful memories to wash away my happy reunion.

"Okay," I agreed finally. "Go ahead."

All at once, the confidant, sure-handed Buck Compton looked like a schoolboy at confession after a particularly naughty week. His cheeks tinged a bit pink. His eyes were downcast. His thumb brushed nervously across my cheek, seeming almost afraid that I would try to move, maybe to get away. He seemed to have trouble finding the words to start, but I had no idea where this was going, so I had no choice but to wait until he did.

"It sounds so stupid to me now," he finally admitted as a beginning. "The reasons that I let things get so out of hand and made such a stupid mistake sound so immature and full of that machismo and ego that I used to hate in some of the guys I played ball with. As it turns out, I guess I wasn't all that different from them."

"That's not true, Buck," I protested immediately. "You were a good guy then. You were just young. A different person. We all were different people a few years ago."

He smiled at my defense of his college character, finally looking me in the eye again as he continued.

"The night I kissed you, Rox, I walked back to my place on top of the world. There was nothing I said to you that night that I didn't mean from the bottom of my heart. My stunning stroke of idiocy came the next day, listening to all those sex-starved, testosterone-fueled teammates of mine talking about the life I could have now that I was single. All the normal stuff. Too young to be tied down to one girl. The whole campus was open to me, especially as a well-known athlete. All the things the male ego likes to hear."

"Of course," I muttered, rolling my eyes and wondering why he felt the need to confess this to me, as it was something I'd pretty well known since I'd walked in on him and the blonde devil that morning. That had actually been far less of a surprise than the idea that he'd have been interested in me in the first place. "I had that much figured out."

Sensing my irritation, he responded with a small chuckle and turned my cheek back to face him.

"I figured that you'd figure that. That's not the end of the story though, and it's time you finally heard the rest."

"Enlighten me," was my mildly sarcastic response which, of course, drew a brilliant smile from him because this had often been our communication style in college when we were annoyed with each other but too intrigued with the conversation or the company to walk away.

"Well," he replied dramatically, shifting so that he could cuddle in close to me, "if you must know, I had great plans for us, Miss Roxanna Sharp. I had it all figured out. See, you know I was a bit of a playboy in college. Never really one for a serious, full-time kind of relationship."

He looked to me, waiting for my acknowledgement, and I agreed that I remembered clearly how he had enjoyed himself in college.

"Right. So, when I left your apartment that night, I knew without a doubt that I could never treat a relationship with you as casually as I had with other girls in the past. So, when the guys started talking the next day, I got in my mind that I wasn't ready for a relationship that serious. I figured that I could have fun for a little while longer. You and me, we would still be friends, and then I could keep dating and not worry about breaking anybody's heart."

"But why didn't you just come talk to me? I didn't deserve to find you like that."

The question bubbled up before I could restrain myself, and I could tell it struck him like an arrow to the heart. He paused for a second before answering me, but despite the stricken tone in his voice, his eyes did not leave mine.

"I have no excuse, Rox. I was selfish. See," he started to explain, then stopped to choose his words and steady his shaking voice. "When I left your apartment that night, I knew in my heart that you were the one I wanted to be with. You wouldn't just be a serious relationship. You would be the serious relationship. The last relationship that I would have. It scared me, because I worried that I hadn't really outgrown playing the field yet and I knew that I couldn't do that with you. So, I rationalized that we could stay friends while I sowed the rest of my wild oats. Then, you'd be there waiting for me, just like you always had been. I'd sweep you off your feet and marry you, and we'd live happily ever after… and it didn't really occur to me how selfish that sounded until it was too late to apologize. I fell in love with this amazing woman, and then I let her get away because I was too busy 'having fun' with girls who didn't even come close."

For a second, I wasn't sure exactly how to respond. I stared at the ceiling, trying to process all that I'd just heard. Then, a hot tear hit my shoulder and I looked up to see Buck's eyes downcast again, another tear sliding down his cheek. That's when everything he'd said came together in my mind. In some confused, misguided, admittedly selfish way, Buck had thought he was protecting me from getting hurt. He thought that he was preserving our relationship for a time when he was ready and, in a way, I guess he had been. After all, the two people laying in a bed in the middle of Austria were, in many ways, a far cry from the idealistic young friends who'd shared a few tender moments in that college apartment. I was in the middle of this revelation when he spoke again, his voice now a broken whisper that would have let me know he was crying even if I hadn't seen it.

"I'm so sorry, Rox. I didn't want to bring back hurtful memories for you. I just…" his voice trailed off and he reached for the sweatshirt, averting his eyes as he handed it back to me. "Here. Um, I should probably let you get dressed. I'm sorry about getting so carried away earlier. It just felt so good to hug you, and…"

He was edging away from me and off the bed as he spoke, clearly convinced that his soul-cleansing confession had shredded the strands of hope that had been pulling us back together. The reality hit me like a Kraut shell. None of it mattered anymore. Buck had said that I was the woman he'd wanted to spend his life with. He loved me, and what's more, I loved him back. There had really never been anybody else who came close for me either. So what were we dwelling on? The reality of this war had shot holes through our naïve world view just as cleanly as the bullets had ripped through our parachutes on D-Day. If we wanted to be together, there was no perfect moment. No fairytale. No. If we wanted to be together, we'd just have to make it happen, and then keep fighting for it every day, for better or worse.

I sat up and put one hand on Buck's bicep, arresting his movement. He still stared down at the bed, a child waiting for a scolding. Pulling him toward me and leaning into him at the same time, I caught his lips with mine and I could taste the salty tears. Caught off guard, he was still for a moment, unsure how to react, and then, slowly, his arms wrapped around me waist and he began to kiss me back. This time, there was no interruption or last-minute confession. His mouth didn't leave mine as he laid us back across the bed. Only a gasp at my fingernails against his shoulder blades as he joined our bodies broke the kiss, and all at once, we were swept up in the tide of that first real love-making experience.

It was too much and not enough all at once, and despite my grudge against fairytales, it really did feel like we'd been made for each other. Every touch and kiss and movement seemed to be exactly what the other needed, and I found myself unable to keep from crying out at the pleasure any longer. If anyone were listening, they would just have to cope.

** BUCK POV **

Right then, I'd have given anything to bottle that moment and keep it in my pocket. We were still in a very uncertain world. The reality of the Pacific, of more danger and more death, loomed large. But there, in that room, in that moment, everything was perfect.

That tiny, college playboy voice in the back of my mind reminded me that it had done me a favor by ensuring that I was well-practiced and prepared so as not to embarrass myself in this moment. It was a humorous, if somewhat inappropriate thought, but I was a bit relieved that the excitement and long buildup had not resulted in an unfortunate moment for me. Still, being with Roxanna was unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life. Her body curled into mine as we lay there in the afterglow, still enjoying soft touches and kisses, and I felt like I'd come home.

At last, reluctantly, we left my room and went out to enjoy a game of baseball in the beautiful Austrian sunshine. There, surrounded by our closest friends, is where Major Winters told us that the war was over. There, surrounded by our closest friends, is where I finally asked my beautiful Roxanna to spend the rest of her life with me. There, in spite of all that we'd already been through, is where we finally started to live.