Hello! This is a story based on BOB and uses ideas from the show, but is otherwise AU. My inspiration was elements of "Replacements," "Why We Fight," and the characters themselves, of course. Historically, the timeline of the war has be slightly modified to fit the plot. But that is why this is fiction, right? :)

I don't own anything pulled from the book or show.

Please enjoy!

You will become one of us, whether you like it or not.

Waiting. My life has become an exercise of waiting. For what, I don't know. I count the days, wondering how long this game will last. Two thousand, two hundred and ninety days since I last slept in my own bed. Four hundred and twenty three days since I was dropped off at this farm and told that it was my new home. In between consists for two hundred and seven days of punishment, one thousand days of re-education lessons, and five hundred and seventy six nights of crying myself to sleep before they deemed me cured. Before I am a good little Nazi. Then I was placed on this farm and told to live the rest of my life how the Fuhrer wanted.

I can guess what the Fuhrer wants, but I know they won't let me go so easily. So waiting becomes my pastime. Staring out the window, numbly doing my chores, existing but always waiting. To be taken away again. To finally disappear forever. It will be coming any day now. People avoid me, like they know I am a marked woman. When I go into the village they clear my way like I am a leper who ventured too far from the colony. I go so long without speaking to anyone I hold conversations with myself just to make sure my voice works. I'm sure it doesn't help my reputation when I am caught muttering to myself in my garden. It doesn't matter; my scarlet A is more than just a patch on a dress. It is permanently marked on my soul.

My isolation ends on day one hundred and twenty eight on the farm. I am staring at the dying fire in my living room when I hear the gate outside creak. A little old woman totters up the path towards my door. I watch her through the window, not quite sure if the Nazi's final hammer can be swung by such a diminutive creature.

She smiles at me through the glass and holds up a jar. It is full of jam.

"I just made it," she says as I open up the door. She shoves into my hands. "It's a gift."

I serve us both the jam and watch her slather some bread and take a bite. Maybe it isn't poisoned.

"Such a pretty, sweet girl," she coos at me. "The people here are just awful. They are afraid of outsiders."

They have every reason to be afraid. I am an outsider who could bring ruin upon their whole village. She acts like she doesn't care.

"We shall be the best of friends. My name is Greta."

In the silence as we chew I feel myself smile.

"I'm Caroline."

The war comes to my doorstep on day five hundred and sixty four of my stay in the village. Seven days are spent in my cellar, coughing on dirt shaking from the floorboards above me and eating cold pickled carrots.

Time slows in that dark hole in the ground and it feels like ages between the tick marks I scratch on the wall. Sometimes I feel like the prisoners I saw in the movies at the nickelodeon. Scratch. Day One. Scratch. Day Two.

Should people feel this numb in a bomb shelter? My limbs move robotically, shoving food into my mouth or pulling a comb through my increasingly dirty hair. If a bomb hits my house I will die. If the Nazis stay in my village I will die. If the Americans win they will execute us all and I will die. What does it matter? I am a dead woman. A ghost living in a world of shadows, making the motions of existing but living remains an elusive concept.

So I sit. And I wait.