Disclaimer: Band of Brothers belongs to Easy Company, Hanks, Spielberg, and Ambrose. This didn't happen. I am full of bull shit. Don't sue me.
White Solitude
Roe sits alone in the snow.
It's been three days.
She's been dead for three days.
That's all he knows.
He doesn't know how long he's been in war.
Or how long he's been in Bastogne.
Or even how long he's been sitting here.
But he knows how long she's been dead. He's counted.
And he doesn't think anything else. He's numb, just like his fingers. They make him think of her fingers.
He wasn't in love with her. He barely even knew her. But she was someone. She was someone real. She was someone from home, the home he knew in his old heart. It had died a long time ago. It was ashes now, just like that church turned hospital turned graveyard. He just never thought she would be buried in it. Even if he had left Europe one day and never saw her again, at least he would have known she had made it too. She was a nurse, God damn it. She was one of the untouchables. Or so he had thought.
He had fixed Babe's hand. That was three days ago. He had stopped calling the soldier Heffron and started calling him Babe. That was three days ago. He only knew it was three days ago because it was the same day she had died.
He didn't even use soft words to make it sound better. He didn't say she had passed. He didn't say she had fallen. She had died. Simple. True. Almost beautiful.
So many of them were gone now. Most of them dead, some just too wounded to come back. But too many were gone for good – turned to wildflowers all over this damn continent. Sure, the bodies might not all be left in the wilderness, but their souls would remain here. He closed his eyes. He could feel them. He could see them smiling. Even the ones he hadn't known too well.
He didn't know if he was glad he wasn't with them.
It was his fault. It was his fault that so many were dead. Sure, he wasn't God. But he was their medic. He was the only god they had out here. He was their only hope. He was the only relief from the pain when the bullets came and the shrapnel rained. He was the one light when they truly did fall into darkness – Doc Roe, with his morphine and his quick murmurs of reassurance. They were his boys, and he was their medic. And that's the way it worked.
He never did get too close. It was an unspoken rule. He couldn't afford to lose it when one of the men took a hit. He couldn't afford shaking hands or blinding tears or that pounding in his chest that was like no other, the kind that felt like falling backward out of an airplane. Like his whole heart was suddenly being sucked out of his back. That's what would happen if he got too close. That's what would happen if he became their friend. And he couldn't do it. No matter how much he wanted to. No matter how lonely he was.
It wasn't so bad. Most of the time, he didn't think about it. He learned not to think. All soldiers had to. All soldiers had to accept the way things were, who they were, and what could happen. Otherwise, they were dead indefinitely. If they didn't think, at least they had a chance of survival. No one ever mentioned the gore. No one ever mentioned the lost comrades. No one ever mentioned the fear or the loss or the emotion. It was all jokes and cursing and talk of home and girls, bitching about the cold or the food or the Germans. And the more Roe listened, the more he knew that it was real. They weren't faking indifference. They actually were just fine sitting in these frozen foxholes. Yes, they were cold, and yes, they were hungry. But they didn't think about the next time Kraut artillery could come bursting down on them. They never mentioned the men who had died or who had been sent to some distant hospital. If they missed another man, they didn't say so. If they were afraid, they didn't say so. If they were lonely or hurt or depressed, they didn't say so. They might mope silently, but that was all.
Anger was acceptable. They could be pissed to no end and as loud as they wanted. It was always fuck this and fuck that and fuck the war and fuck the cold and fuck the Krauts. And they would laugh about it afterward. Luz still cracked jokes and the others still laughed at them. Nixon still drank as if he were cozy up in Aldbourne. Winters stuck around no matter how bad that cold got. Speirs was still indifferent.
And here he was, sitting in the middle of this silent, white hell. And no one else seemed to notice. No one else seemed to care. They were surviving. They didn't talk about Hoobler. They didn't talk about Guarnere or Toye or Compton. They sure as hell didn't mention Muck and Penkala while Malarkey was still around. They just kept sitting. They just kept fighting.
Roe didn't fight. Roe had never fought. He couldn't remember if he had ever fired his weapon. He couldn't remember a lot of things. Including whether or not an enemy had ever confronted him. Maybe not. After all, he was a medic. He was one of the untouchables.
Just like she had been.
He closed his eyes again. He hadn't even realized they had opened from last time.
She smiled at him. Wisps of her hair fluttered in the sunlight. Her hands were like his – dried blood and five different shades of red and purple. She had been his one companion for that short time. And now he was alone again.
"Doc?" He opened his eyes. It was Heffron. "What are you doing out here?" Roe didn't say anything. He stared up at Babe for a moment, before lowering his eyes again to look ahead at nothing. Babe's hand was in his path – palm wrapped in the purple headscarf.
"Nothin'," he said. His voice was dry and empty. He didn't shake his head. His eyes were blank. "Nothin'." Heffron's initial smile faded. He didn't stop looking at Doc Roe.
"Listen." Roe's eyes flickered into his, startled. Heffron had knelt down before him and taken both his hands in his own. "Why don't you come back to camp? You don't have to be all alone out here." Heffron looked hopeful. Roe stared. The headscarf was touching his hand.
"Doc?" Again, the smile had faded from Babe Heffron's lips. He still held Roe's hands in his. Roe had looked away again, eyes glazed. He wasn't there. He was home. He was under the charred beams of that church. "Doc." Babe shook him a little. Roe looked at him. His eyes were blue – Heffron's, that is. Roe only just now realized it. He couldn't remember his own. Black, brown, or empty.
"It's okay, Doc." Heffron was hugging him. He didn't even feel it. He didn't know what touch was. He knew what blood was. He knew what death was. He knew what war was. He didn't know touch. He didn't know the emotional – the physical was more important than that. Anatomy diagrams were flooding his brain. Liver, heart, intestines, stomach, kidneys, brain. He'd seen them all – still warm. Never whole.
And always the blood. Always the blood. Red – red like the cross on his arm.
It made him an untouchable.
Heffron didn't let go.
Roe felt nothing.