Thank you for you continued support and reviews! As I said before, I'm getting back into writing fiction again and I'm still not quite where I want to be with it. I won't lie, I am not the best at editing my own work. I get so excited to get it done and posted that I often breeze through it. I cannot say when the next post will be made. I have the important chapter mostly written, but still need to fill in some of the holes in the story line. I need to go back and really study the previous chapters as well. Well...enough of my musings. Thanks again and enjoy!

The mood of the hospital tent was as depressing as the grungy, olive-green decor. A sorrowful haze of trapped smoke from the kerosene stove mixed the vapor expelling from the occupants' mouths hung in the drab enclosure like a smoggy mist in a ramshackle city. The loose canvass sides of the tent flapped and snapped like a sluggish bull whip in the blustery, January wind. The muffled coughs of congested chests, sniffs of draining sinuses, and the occasional tink of glass bottles or rattle of tin cups interrupted the erratic rhythm of the tent every now and then, but never enough to drown out the noise.

The nurse hunkered on a crate in the corner suddenly convulsed in a bone-jarring shiver when a draft of sharp air stabbed at the back of her exposed neck caused by her down-turned head. An inaudible curse escaped her pursed lips and she clapped a hand over the collar of her coat and squeezed the rough fabric to tighten it around her vulnerable skin. What she wouldn't have given for her fleece-lined, barn jacket hanging on a peg in the enclosed porch back home, manure stench and all. But, she had forgotten to include that in the letter she'd just sent home.

Even if she had, the censors might have taken it out because it implied the Allied troops were cold and desperate, Lt Beyer cynically lamented as she put down her pen and blew into her hands to loosen up her cold stiffened fingers and also warm the frozen tip of her nose.

Hardly two weeks had gone by since the now infamous Christmas Eve air raid. Just two weeks, yet so much had changed. It felt as though it should have been much longer. The entire unit operated under dismal attitude that loomed over their heads like a thick smoke. The bombing had been the closest anyone had ever come to surviving the same horrors that their patients faced and it had sobered them. Besides the change of the atmosphere, the untimely personnel changes hadn't helped and morale was failing fast. Wood's replacement had finally shown up, but Rose wasn't sure if he was much of an improvement.

Lieutenant Eddie Sommers was a brash, chain smoking, Chicagoan with dark, greasy hair that always seemed to be flopped down over his eyes. He wasn't a bad surgeon, but he gave off the impression that he lacked a serious dose of dedication to his work and bedside manner. But unlike Woods, he absolutely adored the nurses…except, in a way that was far from professional. He was an unrelenting flirt who bounced from one ovary owner to the next, seeking a candidate who hadn't heard his indecent pick-up lines. Nonetheless, he was another set of hands that could get patients out the OR in better shape than they arrived. Then there was Lt. Clarke reign…

Rose had been at the Aid Station fifty, rough, freezing cold miles away from Verviers for the last three days. She'd been cleared for light duty only six days ago. Light duty meant desk work, dressing sterilization, inventory, hand holding, and maybe some surgical assistance when extremely busy…yet there she was. The nurses were supposed to be on a rotation and only at the shorthanded aid stations for a day or two at a time. However, for some reason her replacement hadn't made it yet.

Though Rose could guess where she was on the priority list, she also knew it wasn't completely on purpose by their new Executive Officer. A rumor of a nasty flu bug making the rounds to all the field and evacuation hospitals had been running rampant before Christmas Eve, but in all the pandemonium following the destruction, it had been forgotten. Both patients and personal from other units had not been screened, let alone quarantined when they stepped into what was left of their house of healing. The unheeded rumors proved true and hit Verviers hard. The wounded stayed no more than a few days and either moved on uninfected, or if they did contract the bug, they became another nurse's charge somewhere. But the nurses, doctors, and orderlies in Rose's unit had to remain, and remain miserably ill since there were no one else left to care for them. Rose had an immune system that rivaled most due to her years in the classroom and had managed to remain no more under the weather than the Krauts had caused her to be. From what Jacob, her favorite ambulance driver, had told her when he arrived with no one to relieve her, she was better off fifty miles from the fevers and fatigue.

What's the difference, she wondered. Fatigue, muscle aches, chills…already there. The only differentiation was that her symptoms were being caused by conditions rather than a virus.

Rose glanced around the chilly aid tent, suddenly feeling incredibly selfish for internally complaining about her so-called misery. Rows of battered soldiers lay in their cots waiting to be evacuated to field hospitals. Some of the less dire patients were curled into balls on their beds under scratchy wool blankets. The worse lay with IV bottles hanging above them on metal stands that had to be sandbagged around to base to prevent them from falling over in the stiff wind that blew in through the door. The rest who could walk huddled around the tiny stove in the center of the tent. To Rose, it was as useful as a candle in the middle of the arctic. Unless she was sitting on it, which was not advised due to the thinness of the cheap metal, Rose did not soak in the benefit. But for the soldiers, the canvass enclosed area was a welcomed relief from the frozen foxholes out in the forest. The thought of sleeping on the icy ground with no more than a few pine boughs between her and the falling snow and wind made her flesh breakout in goose bumps.

Rose sighed a thick fog from her lips, and rubbed her sore shoulder. It was healing quite well, but would have healed much faster if she'd take the time to rest it and actually followed her light duty orders. However, her sore rib cage and sling, that she had already discarded, was a mere paper cut in contrast to the triage she managed day in and day out. If Rose wasn't assisting in surgery, she trying to find places to put everyone, or she was just sitting there and talking with the men. So many soldiers needed her time to help them heal much more than she did.

Rose's finger absentmindedly played with a loose thread hanging off the ragged edge of her cropped off glove as her thoughts wandered through the last few days, which had been especially hard and maybe why Rose found herself longing for that rough ride back to her near final resting ground. The Germans had been shelling the hell out of the front line, especially that morning, and jeep after jeep brought patient after patient into the OR. Rose didn't even bother with sterile gloves. A quick dip in a bowl of stinging alcohol between patch jobs was all they had time for. Rose had spent 14 hours clamping arteries, irrigating out dirt and pine needles, plucking bits of shrapnel and splinters from skin and exposed, ragged muscles, and checking her watch as she recorded TOD. She was lucky if she got more than four hours of sleep in that twenty four hour period.

The Aid Station situated on a cold, barren field had been mostly treating the infantry and tank units who'd finally reinforced and broke the siege for the paratroopers in Bastogne, but her stomach twisted into an excited knot and butterflies that fluttered madly inside her chest, shortened her breath every time a Screaming Eagle patch caught her eye. From what she'd heard, the 101st had now pushed out from Bastogne and deeper into the Ardennes, fighting brutally for every few feet of dirt and splintered pine tree. If a Captain Winters was somewhere out there, he was probably the one orchestrating the push and hopefully nowhere near the aid station. Even if he needed it, Rose knew him well enough to bet that he'd refuse to leave his post for anything less than a fatal injury. Not that she was in a position herself to judge.

The constant roar of downshifting Jeeps and distant barrage of life-ending tree bursts penetrated what little rest one could get, but for once it seemed as though there was a small window of peace in the early evening. Save for the occasional crackle of the stove and a muffled cough, it was quiet. Rose clutched her good arm as tight as she could bear as a shiver jolted through her body. She took a deep breath as it passed and allowed her eyes to close, savoring the soothing sound of the peace she'd come to know.

"I want a little farm…" a husky voice murmured behind her ear, making little wisps of hair flutter against her cheek.

Rose's lips curved into a smile and squeezed the fingers entwined in her own as they pressed against the concentrated softness of her chest. The warm body she was neatly tucked into shifted ever so slightly, pressing firmer against the roundness of the nurse's backside.

"Oh?" she sleepily tried to encourage more conversation.

She wasn't ready to fall asleep, but could no longer deny the blissful sensation of her eyelids meeting her lower lashes. The soft, steady rhythm Dick's breathing against her body rocked her like a baby in bassinet. Seven more hours were all they had left before they had to leave their oasis of clean, smooth sheets and unabated touches. She didn't want to miss a moment, but grips of slumber were pulling her away from the other desires.

"Some place quiet…in the middle of nowhere." Dick continued the sound of approaching sleep heavy in his voice as well. "I don't even care if it has running water."

"Hmph…" Rose smiled and breathed in deep. Their mingled muskiness mixed with the spiciness of his aftershave filled her senses. It was like an artist adding the final details of a magnificent portrait. The scent filled in the details of the lasting memory…

"Beyer?" a different male's suddenly jerked her from the masterpiece forming behind her closed eyes.

They flew open and where met by the familiar, but haggard looking face of Captain Kent. He had just arrived the day before to the Aid Station with a fresh truck of supplies and the plan of taking Lt. Beyer back with him, kicking and screaming if he had too. With the front now pushing west again, suggestions of relocation were being murmured around their unit and he wanted to make sure she moved with them. The surgeon had needed to be peeled off the ceiling when he returned from the shorthanded aide station and was informed that Rose, barely out of bandages herself, had just left for a shift there. The captain wasn't quite sure who he was more upset with. He had been the one to clear her for restricted duty after all, but Mildred had ignored the parameters of his recommendations and ordered her there anyway. Then again, Rose also knew she was nowhere near ready to be back on duty. An aide station was hard enough on a perfectly healthy medic and Charlie didn't miss a moment to remind the stubborn nurse of that knowledge.

"Does that need to be looked at?" he asked rather curtly, pointing to her hand that still clutched her wounded shoulder.

Rose blinked several times in an effort to adjust her eyes back to the dankness of her surroundings and not the luxurious hotel room she'd been blissfully imagining. She looked down to the spot he was pointing on her body and realized for the first time that she held her gloved hand over the vicinity of her broken clavicle. She quickly removed her hand and waved off Charlie's worries.

"Oh, it's fine." she blatantly lied. It had actually started to ache quite badly. "Just a habit."

"Oh, is it?" He responded suspiciously, giving her a critical look.

Rose attempted her best, doe-eyed, innocent smile to convince him, but without thinking, shrugged. Searing, hot pain shot down her arm before she realized her own stupidity. The surgeon raised an eyebrow at the grimace that crossed the Lieutenant's pale face with a sympathetic, yet smug pull at the corner of his mouth.

"Really, its fine…" he repeated mockingly and shook his head. "Did you misplace that sling I made you again?"

Rose gave him a look, but the doctor seemed to ignore it. He had accepted her belligerence concerning her recovery and though empathized with her drive and dedication to help, he openly mocked the bullheaded woman for her stubbornness whenever he could.

"They say doctors are the biggest pains in the ass to treat..." He grumbled and seated himself heavily onto a crate next to her.

"I'm a nurse" she retorted, not giving the effort to think of a better comeback.

"Yah, I know. That's why they were wrong." he fired back and let out a low grunt as he bent down to loosen the laces of his boot.

She couldn't help but let out a chuckle, which gave her ribs a turn to remind her of their distress. She clutched her side, the various odds and ends of medical instruments in the pockets of her fatigue jacket impeding her grasp. She wasn't at all the exception to the rule and her uncooperativeness was what also gained her the early discharge from the sick bed.

"They are packing up this place tomorrow." his muffled voice rumbled in his bent over chest. "We are heading out before they rope us into moving with them."

"Or helping pack up?" she asked, keeping her voice low so that the nearby medic didn't hear.

"Exactly." Charlie straightened back up and rubbed his forehead, pushing his peaked stocking cap back on his balding hairline. "We'll probably be doing the same thing back at the school and at least there I can put some MP's on you so you don't do something stupid."

Rose shot him a dirty look, picked up her clipboard and began thumbing though the papers in an audacious manner. It was the sort of thing she knew she'd get stuck doing back at the hospital. At least here she could actually do her job, albeit painfully.

Charlie eyed her actions for a moment before rolling them and stood up stiffly from the low seat. There was at least three hours worth of trench foot to examine over in the next tent he had been putting it off as long as professionally and morally acceptable. At the very least, it gave the soldiers a bit more time away from the front and out of the cold.

"0600, sharp." He commanded the lieutenant over his shoulder has he walked away. "I'll commandeer Patten's Jeep if I have to."

Rose smirked, withholding any smart retorts in respect of the senior officer's authority. She instead closed her eyes imagined a place that was indoors and warm. Winter was always a slow time of year back home. After the celebrations and excitement surrounding Christmas and the New Years, there really wasn't anything to look forward to besides snow, frozen water tanks, snowed in doors, calves born on the coldest nights of the year, snow days at school, and more snow. Most days were spent cooped up in the house about at each other's throats in close quarters. Lena tried keeping the boredom down by appeasing the Beyer males' Achilles' heel, their stomachs, and because of that they had some extra pounds to work off in the spring. The hot, humid afternoons that Rose labored over a steaming pot with sweat-drenched clothes and frizzy hair in August all became worth the hard work in mid February when she could go down in the cellar and pick from a wall full of blue and white Ball jars of apple sauce, green beans, tomatoes and blackcap jam. Winter was also the time of year for knitting, quilting, patching up summer's work clothes casualties, and adding up the books.

Rose remembered sitting around the kitchen table on exceptionally boring, cold winter nights after all the chores were done learning to play card games with her brothers and Pops. Her favorite memory was the night Carlyle and Henry were blatantly cheating at Euchre and running the inexperienced Rose and the atypically unlucky Karl into the ground. When she was near tears, Lena finally stepped in and took her place. Lena had always bowed out and feigned a lack of skill. But, when she took her granddaughter's place, those two cheaters didn't know what hit them. Despite stacking the deck, Lena had several loner hands, took nearly every trick, and euchred their sorry behinds into the next week. Those two never bothered cheating again after that. Rose often wondered if Karl played so poorly with her that night just to get his wife to join in.

Suddenly, a blast of bitter wind brought the nurse out of her daydream and back into reality. Rose's eyes snapped open and she looked over at a group of soldiers exiting the tent, letting the cold air intrude what little protection the thin canvass offered. She sighed and stood up. Her daydreams would have to wait and because she had rounds to do. A convoy of ambulances were on their way to take the soldiers that were stable enough to be transported back to the field hospital. Five inches of fresh snow, though transforming the landscape to a beautiful winter wonderland, had also delayed the departure of that morning's run. Several critical cases now lay waiting for more than just a patch and plug job. As she walked around to each of the cot-ridden soldiers and checked their vitals, she spoke a few soothing words and gave a reassuring smile to those who opened their eyes. Most didn't return the gesture, but then some, rather one man in particular, returned much more than she ever asked for.

"Christ Almighty!" a voice with a thick Philly accent said from behind her turned back.

Rose startled slightly at the surprisingly boisterous voice in the near dead silence of the ward, but ignored the adoration as she finished her notes on the morphine-infused infantryman with a broken femur.

"Hey, Joe, boy I tell yah! I woulda' gotten us blown up a lot sooner if I'da known a beauty like her would be takin' care of us lucky sonoffabitches!"

She took a moment and closed her eyes before turning around the face the admiring soldier. There were some days in the classroom when she just didn't have the mental strength to deal with the obnoxious boys and she had to remind herself to remain calm and cool. She took a shallow breath, trying not to let her ribs expand too far, and turned. A scruffy, square jawed sergeant beam up at her with twinkling, dark eyes almost hidden by a mat of shaggy, black hair. A weak, yet flirty smile curved on his lips as he brazenly looked her up and down.

"Open your damn eyes, Joe." the Italian ordered the sleeping man in the cot next to him. "If you're gonna die, have her face be the last thing you see instead of my ugly mug."

"Bill…if I die, it's going to be because I wanted some peace and quiet." the dark haired convalescent in the next bed mumbled weakly through ashen lips without opening his eyes.

"As much as I appreciate the compliment, Sergeant…" Rose said as sweetly as she could while painfully easing down onto the crate that served as her examination stool. "I'd love it even more if you whispered it to me."

His square jaw pulled into to charismatic smile and through his scraggly beard, she could see his gleaming white teeth behind a prominent under bite.

"Oh, I'll do anything you want sweetheart." he replied with a silky, growl and thick eyebrow cocked.

"I apologize for him, ma'am." his partner in crime, eyes still closed, addressed Rose. "You should put him out of his misery."

She smirked and lifted the talkative one's blanket to check his bandage leg.

"Whoa, there darlin'" he jokingly objected. "We just met, I'm not that kinda' fella'" He winked.

"We'll have to go to a movie and get drinks another time because I don't get paid by the hour around here." She smartly retorted and threw back the grungy, wool blanket to expose the linen wrapped limb.

The man let out a boisterous laugh, his eyes twinkling more than ever at the nurse.

She delicately checked his badly wounded leg. He'd been one of the many casualties from the morning barrage in the forest. He was conscious when they brought him in and she could remember his distinctive voice hollering over the commotion. Bill came in with only his boot left on his lower leg and a few shatters of a femur and there was very little chance he'd keep it once he was evacuated and seen by a surgeon. Maybe if he'd been able to be operated on immediately the leg might have had a chance, but the inclement weather had sealed his fate. Alas, it was a million dollar wound and he was a lucky one who would be going home alive, even if one leg short.

"Boy, maybe if the dames would have been more like you the last time, I wouldn't a broken outta' there so soon. That hospital was a resort compared to this place." he lamented, finally in a softer voice.

"Ah, so you are a return customer." She smiled up at him as she checked for the early signs of putrefaction or infection. In the cold conditions they were in, it was never surprising how quickly those things could set in.

"Yah, well…looks like old Wild Bill finally filled up his punch card." He shrugged sullenly. "Besides, at least the Kraut's were kind enough to blow off the leg I'd already busted up in Holland. That fuc…I mean," he coughed " that bugger, was achin' like a son-of-a-bitch."

The doctors much have already told him of his prognosis. Rose shook her head and smiled coyly at him. She wouldn't admit it, but his charm mixed with his unabated brashness could be slightly alluring. He wasn't someone you'd bring home to meet your father, but was the kind of guy you could have a good time with and get your heart broken over.

"You would have been fine if you would have stayed in your god-damned foxhole, you moron." Joe suddenly piped in weakly to her left.

"Jeez, you believe that?" the loud one said and stuck a thump towards the other amputee. "The thanks I get for saving his sorry ass."

Rose looked over at the quieter man. He also had dark hair and big, brown eyes hidden behind heavy, reddened eyelids. His pale face had a strong jaw and defined cheekbones. His mouth hung open as he took slow, deep breaths. Unlike his buddy, his leg had been completely blown off above the knee. He'd already also lost massive quantities of blood by the time they got him there and it had been Rose's job to bribe and seduce the donors who's blood now pulsed weakly through his body. Rose suddenly narrowed her eyes as she studied his face closely for the first time. Even though she'd spent a better part of an hour cleaning and cauterizing blood vessels on what was left of his right thigh, she hadn't recognized him.

"Don't I know you?" she asked the trooper with an air of accusation sharp in her voice.

He peaked open one eye at her right as the light bulb turned on above the nurse's head.

"I do know you…" she answered, pointing a gloved finger at him. "You're that annoying one with the arm."

The paratrooper had shown up at the aid station a few days before with some nasty wood splinters stuck in his arm from driving into a foxhole during a shelling. He also sprained his shoulder and she suspected had damaged his rotator cuff. Rose fixed him up and she thought she was doing him a favor by telling him he needed to stick around and heal up. At the very least, rest until he could lift his rifle. Instead, he pestered and whined anyone who would listen to him. So much so, that Rose finally told him that he could go, even though she didn't even have the authority to do so. She also felt a slightly hypocritical with him since she had sutured his wounds while holding back tears because of the pain of her own unhealed injuries.

The pain of guilt mixed with the physical ache in Rose's insides as she looked at the wounded, weakened body of a man who had been so full of life and passion just day before. If she'd followed protocol and made him stay he wouldn't be one limb short…

He shot her a weak, sheepish grin, as if reading the remorse writing itself on her own pale face.

"Well, I guess should have listened to you, Lieutenant." He sighed and closed his eyes again. "Bill wouldn't be here harassing you if I'd stayed."

She gave them both a sad smile. What was done was done and neither of them could dwell on the choices already made. She reached for the scrap of paper that served as a chart to see how much morphine Bill had already been given before drawing it up.

"Sergeant William Guarnere." She read aloud. She looked up and stuck out her hand "Lt. Rose Beyer. Nice to meet you, Sergeant."

"Call me Bill." He winked and took her hand with surprising strength.

"The one and only Gonorrhea." Joe muttered with a smile on his colorless lips.

"Don't listen to him." Bill waved his hand when he saw Rose pull a face. "Well…I know it ain't proper, but is it alright if I call yah Rosie, Lieutenant?"

Rose paused her writing and looked at him with a slightly raised brow.

"Only if you'd like to be one more appendage short, Bill." She replied and got another chuckled from Joe.

Rose absolutely hated being called Rosie. It wasn't Bill's fault for asking, but she couldn't help the bitter feeling that name stirred in her. Her stepfather used to call her Rosie in front of other people to make him look like a loving, sweet father instead of the abusive bastard he was.

"Oooo…" Bill winced dramatically and placed his hand protectively over his most precious appendage. "Where you call home then…Lt. Beyer?"

"Wisconsin." She answered politely while she filled out her observations on his chart.

"Ah-ha, Midwestern gal. Grow up on a farm der, eh?" he asked, poking fun at her supposed accent.

"That obvious, huh? Lemme guess," she narrowed her eyes and smiled slyly. "Eastside, on something 5th street…in Philly?"

Bill cackled a hearty laugh.

"Yah, that obvious." He stated with a longing sigh.

Rose herself could never live in a big city. The filthy cobblestone and concrete was much too busy and crowded for the farm girl. However, she also understood that her peaceful countryside could be as averse as urban life was to her. The conversations she'd overheard spoke fondly about the little shop on the corner and the crazy old lady in 2B were parallel stories she'd shared about the creamery down the road and that hermit neighbor over the hill.

"Well Sergeant Gonorrhea," she announced as she drew up a syringe full of clear liquid. "Looks like you are due for some morphine."

"If you got a bottle of Jack hidden under your skirt, I'll take that instead." Bill replied and watched her with loving eyes as she smiled and shook her head.

"I hate to break this too you, but the last guy was much more charming than you." she stuck a thumb over her shoulder and shrugged, this time with only her good shoulder.

"Aww, sweetheart…" he clicked his tongue and dropped his shaggy head back onto the folded jacket that served has his pillow. "You stop over on your way home to Wisconsin when you get stateside. Wild Bill will teach you what real charm is."

Rose smirked as she leaned over and injected the painkiller into his IV, but thoughts of both home and another charmer who'd already set the bar so high occupied both her heart and thoughts as she watched the memorizing cloud of morphine swirl into the saline. It didn't take long for the boisterous man to breathe a sigh of relief and close his eyes as he drifted into a state of medicated bliss.

"Rosie, you hidin' your angel wings under that uniform?" he murmured serenely.

She smiled sympathetically like a mother watching her child drift to sleep. It was men like these who offered her little glimmers of hope. The men who didn't let the bleak days dampen their personality. It was easy, much easier, to the let the war swallow up your soul rather than to fight to keep it just the way it was. She turned to Joe and gave him a smile before gently reaching for his wrist to take his pulse. As she switched charts to record the weak number, she noticed it for the first time.

506th, 2nd Battalion…

Rose's heart suddenly stopped and she whispered the last part, not knowing she'd done so out loud. "E Company…"

"Best gawd-damned Company in the entire Army." Bill replied with an opiate induced grin, but lost it when he saw the look of shock pass over the pretty nurse's face. "Somethin' wrong?"

He's here, she thought to herself.

Rose's heart pounded and her fingers gripped the thin masonite board, crinkling the paper. It was the first piece of tangible evidence that corroborated with the story her blue-eyed charmer had told her what seemed years ago in Paris.

"Lieutenant?" Bill asked again, bringing her out of her daze with the inquisitive inflection in that thick brogue.

Rose tore her eyes away from the lettering and looked up at the trooper, one of his troopers. Rose realized why he had seemed so familiar, like they'd already met once before. It was because he was one of the men Dick had talked extensively about. This was the infamous wisecracking Philly native who had returned the afternoon Dick received his pass to Paris. His leg had been broken in an accident with a "borrowed" motorcycle and he'd escaped the recovery hospital, disregarding the impending court-martia, to be back with his unit.

"Oh, no…there's nothing wrong." She snapped her hanging jaw closed. She didn't want to either of them to think there was some sort of death sentence she'd discovered in the scribbles clutched in her hands. She closed her eyes to collect herself before giving him her best reassuring smile. "It's nothing. I just was reminded of something I'd forgotten. How long have you been out on the line?"

"Since the middle of December..." Bill seemingly took the bait of the changed subject and shrugged. However, her sudden change of mood didn't completely escape him. "Where have you been ma'am…hope not in this hell hole for the last month?"

"My unit's based out of Verviers…" She said, her eyes suddenly looking to the door, almost expecting someone to walk right in at that very moment to visit his men.

"Wasn't that blown up?" Joe's weak voice suddenly perked up.

Rose watched the flap flutter limply in the wind intently, trying to persuade a hand to push it back, but let a tiny sigh escape her chest after a few several moments and turned back to the two Easy Company soldiers.

"Yes." She reached up and pushed back her knit hat to reveal her healing gash. The stitches had been removed an hour before she received orders to the aid station. "It was."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…" Bill's brow furrowed in disbelief as he looked her over again. "How dare those Kraut's try depriving you of my company."

Rose smirked as she placed her stethoscope in her ears and turned to Joe. She cupped the cold diaphragm in her shaking hands and blew warm air on it before slipping it under his many layers. She tried listening to his shallow breaths, but could hardly hear anything over her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. She still couldn't believe it. The whole time she'd been there constantly thinking about him, imagining his nearness, his comforting touch, and there he was…so close, yet a million miles away. Then again, maybe he wasn't even in the Ardennes. Maybe he'd been transferred, or wounded and sent back home to Pennsylvania, or maybe…

"Well," Rose cleared her throat, a plan formulating in her racing mind. "Hopefully, your commander is a decent enough guy to let you heal up. Mine put me back to work as soon as the dust had cleared."

A little omission of truth was acceptable under the right circumstances.

"Pfff…he doesn't even know we're gone..." Joe hoarsely mumbled.

"Now to be fair Joe, it's hard to get to know your men when your head's that far up your ass." Bill muttered, with a few more curses under his breath.

A pang of disconcertion traveled from her chest to her core. Had she only met a different side of Dick? The thought was unfounded because she knew that Dick was not their direct superior, but the suggestion caused the fear nonetheless.

"Winters would have been there…" Joe spoke up with a certainly that couldn't be questioned. "The captain woulda' dragged our asses all the way here with both his legs blown off."

Bill pursed his lips and nodded in agreement with his best friend. He looked up to Rose just in time to see an interesting look pass over the beautiful nurse's face. Maybe it had been the morphine, but Bill thought he could see a wave of relief wash a weight off her shoulders and reveal a slight, but fond smile. People often mistook the charming sergeant for a simple tail-chaser, but one did not become great hunter without closely studying and learning the ways of his prey. He could tell, even in his drugged state, that something, or rather someone, was on the nurse's mind. Her demeanor had certainly changed when she discovered that they were Easy Company and her eyes had lit up with the mention of a particular name.

"Sounds like quite the leader." Rose couldn't stop herself commenting, hoping to coax some more information from the troopers, like one of the femme fatale spies the US Government supposedly sent to steal secrets from the Nazi.

"Ah." Bill smiled brightly, taking a stab at his hunch. "You know the good Captain?"

Rose nearly stabbed herself trying to catch the syringe of morphine she about dropped.

"Wha…shit!" she cursed as she juggled the glass vile against her chest. "I mean, I don't…Captain who?"

She would have made a terrible spy, she immediately decided.

"Captain Winters? He used to be the company CO." Bill watched her carefully with a growing smile. "He's actually the Commander of the battalion now, well, acting anyways…but those brass polishin' morons will give him the official nod sooner or later. He's been running the whole shebang pretty much since we got kicked into this nightmare."

"Wish he wasn't so goddamned good at his job and get himself demoted though." Joe mumbled as he watched her inject his dose of morphine into his IV with shaky hands. "Give Foxhole Norman the fuckin' boot."

The men shared a looked, both rolling their eyes at the mere mention of their subpar superior.

"So how do you know the Quaker?" Bill asked Rose again.

A slight smile crossed her lips at the nickname, but a blush creeping up her chest was causing a suffocating heat behind her scarf. She cleared her throat and maintained eye contract with nothing other than the clipboard she was furiously scribbling on.

"I never said I did, sergeant." Rose replied curtly.

"No?" the Philadelphian's tone was far from convinced. "Hey, Joe?" He reached over and smacked his friend lightly on the arm. "Winters ain't never been in no hospital, right?"

Joe grunted, his reply neither here nor there.

"Well," Rose forced a smile through her wince of pain as she stood and pulled down the bottom of her coat. "I have to get going. I'll see you boys later."

Bill watched the brunette nurse quickly weave her way through the maze of occupied cots and bystanders. She clutched her right arm closely against her side as she pushed her way through a curtained off area. Bill was no detective, but he knew what a dame pining for her man looked like. He would be lying if he claimed to have never taken advantage of that loneliness. He could be an excellent fill in for that deployed GI back home on his block before he joined up himself. It was also a good thing he hadn't been home in almost two years because the number of girls who'd taken him up on his offer had began to run into each other and share stories.

So, Winters had a special someone…and she was quite the someone. Bill wasn't sure if he was more surprised, impressed, or jealous of the Captain.

"Hey." He reached over and poked his friend. "Hey, Joe."

"What?" he answered both annoyed and sleepy.

"Did you see that?" Bill asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of their nurse's retreat.

"No, Bill…I didn't see the gorgeous dame sitting right in front of my face…" the Krauts may have taken his leg, but they could never take Joe's sarcasm.

Bill's head flopped back in annoyance.

"No, no…well," Bill backtracked. "yah she's a doll, but did you see her face when I mentioned Winters?"

"Bill, it's probably just the morphine."

Bill shook his head. He knew what he saw and he was even more convinced of it than ever.

"I told you he was like whole a new man after getting' back from ol' Pear-ree." Bill said with a butchered French pronunciation. "Maybe that's where they met. Them nurses were always swarmin' that place. Picked up a few myself." His voice trailed off with a devious smirk.

"Bill, this is Winters we're talkin' about here…" said Joe. "Besides, she doesn't seem his type. You heard her, she dinn'd sound innocent enough."

"I dunno, Joe." Bill looked over at Rose, who emerged from behind the surgery screen with her heavy, winter overcoat. He watched her push open the flap and exit the tent into the dark, cold night. "They say opposites attract. Besides look at Captain Nixon. Him and Winters are best friends and he sure as hell ain't no altar boy. "

Joe grimaced as he shifted in his bed. "I think you're seeing things, Bill."

"Bet yah fifty bucks…"

Rose flipped up the collar of her wool coat against a gust of bitter wind. The entire landscape seemed still and quiet. No trucks or Jeeps in the wrong gear roared up the hillside, nor distant boom of artillery fire shattered the stillness across the clear night. It was getting extremely cold with no cloud cover and the wind blowing across the fresh snow. Her body began to protest in violent shivers that jarred her battered bones. She could go back inside any moment, but she remained, purposely exposing herself to the pain. Feeling it ripple through her limps to remind herself she still had them. Rose's eyes followed the muddy road up the hill above the oasis of tents. Just over that rise was the forest. He was so close, but yet so far away…

She at least learned he was still alive and had survived the siege, but what was the greater misery? Watching his men, men like Bill and Joe, who he'd trained and grown to love like brothers, be ripped apart and buried in frozen, pre-dug, graves while he had to stand back behind the line with no more than a radio? That had to be a far worse fate than death.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed the thick lump forming in the back of her throat. What about his men? She was such an idiot. Why couldn't she control her emotions better? How had that sergeant figured them out so easily? What if Bill shared his discovery with his buddies who came to visit and it got back to the wrong people? What would it do to Dick? She rubbed her hand roughly across her face and let it rest on her chest, trying to slow her racing heart.

She looked back to the horizon. What would she do if he appeared over that hill right that moment? What would she say to him, what would he say to her? Would he even acknowledge, let alone recognize, her? The questions racing frantically through her mind were the very thing they had meant to avoid at their departure. They knew what the tryst had been for and how long it was supposed to last…but why couldn't she let it go? She tipped her head back to tear her eyes away from the hillside and looked up at the starlit sky.

Dick's men were loyal to him, she knew that. He told her about how they'd mutinied in England just before Overlord. Those two men in there had been willing to face a firing squad rather than see their commander disgraced and taken away from them. Rose felt a little weight flake off her shoulders at that notion. They wouldn't do anything to risk the Captain's reputation. Besides, she'd neither confirmed nor denied the trooper's assumptions. The nurse sniffed back a drippy noise and looked back up the stars. She counted the various constellations she recognized and let her mind slow down.

This was ridiculous, she scolded herself. You can't do anything about him anyway.

She imagined herself stalking up the hillside and traipsing through the rows of pines, poking her head into every foxhole looking for a redhead with a crooked nose. She scoffed at her own thought and closed her eyes. She was leaving tomorrow morning anyway. It was million in one chance that they'd run into each other in that short time. This wasn't even the 101st designated aid station, so unless he was severely wounded Dick would have no business near this place. The only reason the two Easy company men were in the tent behind her was because their aid station was over capacity. Rose took a careful breath, the cold air painfully searing the insides of her lungs like antiseptic cleansing a burn.

"Please don't be as miserable as me…" she whispered into the vastness of the lonely field occupied by thousands of Army personal. "Don't do this to yourself like I am."

Three miles away from Lieutenant Beyer's position, a lone man sat in a dilapidated stone building with a tarp as a roof. A hand scrawled map lay weighted down and forgotten on a crumbled wall that served as Battalion CP's war room. Dick Winters stared out into the desolate forest, his lower jaw quivering and hands stuffed under his armpits. However, the Captain wasn't as cold as his outward appearance would have suggested. He was actually quite warm inside as he imagined being back in Paris, in a soft, warm bed with a certain brunette burrowed against his chest.

Until we meet again...thanks!