Author's Note: Hello all! Please forgive me for this very overdue update, but here it is! I hope it is up to par with the last chapter, written nearly a year ago (wow, has it been so long?). However, I do promise to go through and edit it as soon as I can, but I'm being rushed at the moment and mus go. Enjoy! Let me know what you think as always. :)

Disclaimer - I do not own Band of Brothers. This story is based on the mini-series, not real events.

Late December

It is alarming how quickly the state of Joe's temper may change.

At one moment, it may simmer gently, a small burning flame too near the brink of inferno if you will, and I might only know of his tireless campaign against the world and everyone in it by a mere look into the shifting, brooding eyes. Beneath a pale furrowed brow, the dissenting eyes watch him, my father, as he would discuss with no one at all the war and the demmed Nazis who have no right to go marching about, crushing the lot of us beneath their black tyrant boots with that bloody devil of a leader. Often, his discussions were tainted with the drink, the clear notes of sobriety nearly always missing from his disjointed speeches. The rum in the cabinet has long since disappeared, the bottle long missing from its contents, and yet father always returns slobbering drunk. I do not have to wonder how this is possible. And it seems Joe is no simpleton in these matters either.

As of late, the flames of his discontent have reached deeper, searing the contented soul cocooned there. It writhes and thrash beneath the weight of the restless burning. This strange unspoken stalemate between old English nomad and fiery American soldier will not last long – soon, it will explode into conflict, and I will fall prey to the role of helpless civilian in the midst of a heated struggle for power.

For the most part, he does not act on his growing agitation in front of my tactless and oblivious father. I like to think it is for the sake of my sanity that he remains at least genteel with him, though it is a hollow and pale civility at best. There are always secret little commentaries that he makes when my father is not within earshot, when there is a liquid pallor in the elder man's eyes that tells me he is far away from us, wandering in some distant unseen land of his imagining. These remarks are in abundance, it seems, as Joe already has a large collection of them ready for his use by supper, when both guest and father are home. I have come to dread the evening meal for this reason.

Meals have become a strangely oppressive affair, occurring mostly in utter silence. The bulk of conversation, if there is any at all, comes from my talkative father. Details of his wanderings, his philosophies and the poor shape of the house are mostly his choice of discussion, but sometimes he will mention the weather, as any well-brought up gentleman has been taught to do. His world-wearied murmur causes some measure of sorrow when hearing it, as it has been whittled down to but a thin spectral imitation of the rich, full-bodied voice it had once been. It is a sign that the great Alfred Gray has been dismantled by fate, by loss and by the war itself. There is now no hope of restoration for him.

The end of supper is arguably the most lively part of the evening, when Joe's cleverly shielded insult toward my father is delivered for the night; in turn, he offers a thinly veiled look of contempt for me and my cowardice, as he terms it. He would take his leave by throwing back his chair, the legs skidding noisily across the scarred floorboards, and his stomping up the stairs could be heard from our place at the table. A slammed door would serve as the finale for his reprehensible and juvenile display.

Often, father would turn to me, sunken eyes lit up softly with the borrowed fervor of alcohol. "Such an offensive young beast! It is a wonder you've not been defiled in your bed, dear Alice."

It is no secret, even to my father, that Joe hates him. I see it harden the sweeping angles of his face, hide within the vicious curl of his features. Every empty place within him harbors that hate as if it were fuel for the inner fire, an aching need that must be satisfied. It is the only way Joe knows to react to the menace of my father's presence, as I know he perceives the arrival of the true master of this house as such. Hate, for Joe, always masks an underlying fear – but what fear, I do not know.

Early on it became apparent to me that there is no warmth or hope for even the most basic human affection between them. Always their interaction was carried on in with a cold and ill-borne discretion, one that seems to overthrow the frigid reign of winter and invite into the house a nearly insufferable chill that the weather cannot be altogether blamed for.

In confidence, Joe told me of his worries, his contempt. It was often when my father had been out, the tea cups grown cold within the crescent shelter of our half-frozen hands, and the candlelight brushing soft trails of gold across our careworn faces. During these secret conferences, I would watch the storm from afar as it lurked in the recesses of shadows in Joe's dark eyes. I knew he would not remain subordinate for long.

As I continued my refusal of his claims, marked by my silence on the matter, his rage rose steadily into a mutinous crescendo.

"He's playin' you like a goddamn violin, Alice!" He'd chastise me, the heavenly face contorting into that unnerving feral snarl. "And you're just lettin' him too! What the hell is wrong with you? You got daddyissues or something? For a smart girl, you're sure acting so goddamn stupid…"

These undermining remarks were always the climax of his argument, the last he would leave me with. And often, as he trailed up the stairs, leaving me alone in the dreadfully cold kitchen, my mind would drift away from our recurring argument. It would instead remember the mistreated scuffed floorboards and how, I knew, they would not last long if Joe's tantrums were permitted to continue.

For now, he is caught in a dozing silence. There is a cigarette hiding in the full velvet of his lips, unlit and awaiting its purpose. Precursors to well-meaning conversation linger there, ghosts of intention, and in the dark, outlined graveness of the room I wait quite patiently for them to take possession of their forms and find me here, here in this present darkness. But never do they come to rest in the full, pulsing bodies of words, of the ones he means to tell me – the words that matter.

At last there is a rustling, and with no leaves pawing at the outside of my barren, white-buried door I know it must be him beside me. I have drifted outward, into wayward dreams, into a sea that bears me into a world of thought that I may only see and touch and decipher. The rasp of his voice tickles my ears. It carries me back to the old, rickety table and the watery cold breakfast tea (those little definitions of our intertwined lives).

He lights his dormant cigarette. At once, the air filled with the sound of his breath and the air crackling with smoke. I can feel it, the intimations of its shadow pressing upon me; he is gloating. "Goddamn, I must be a genius or somethin'."

"You give yourself too much credit," I reply, unfolding the hands in my lap to take a sip of the tepid drink before me.

Those eyes and the entirety of their suffocating force turn upon me. The narrowing of them speaks volumes, and he never had to utter a sound for me to know what thoughts he harbors in that obstinate head of his. He is angry – and I know what it is that has provoked his riotous temper.

"Then why didn't you see it comin'?" He bellows, the house shaking tentatively around the threat of his rising voice. "Why do I gotta be the sensible one? That's your goddamn job."

"He is my father, Joe." It is the only account for my sins that I might offer. "I had no choice but to take him in."

"God, Allie, do you really think I believe that?" He scoffs, smoke slithering out of the frame of his flared nostrils. "You made your choice the second that piece of shit walked through that door."

"You will restrain your inflammatory remarks and respect my family, sir," I warn him gently, casting him a look of placid caution.

He stares after me, while I gather myself inward, as if I were the conundrum again, the unpleasant mystery that shackles him to sleeplessness and leaves him groping through the dark ceiling for answers. It is as though I have insulted him. But I know better – Joe is the instigator, the walking tempest, the destroyer of what little self-assembled peace and contentment that one has with their place in life. And as I sit there, shifting and burning beneath his merciless scrutiny, I cannot help but mourn the loss of the equilibrium we had found in one another, the comfort I had once found in knowing I discovered the softer places in his heart and had kindled a…fondness for me. Perhaps it had all been imagined. A fool's dream. And that is what I am…I had been a fool for thinking the pest could have any such feelings for a lowly urchin such as me.

The sound of footsteps gently pulls me back into my own body. I find myself alone, the candlelight shifting beneath a draft that filters through the rotting door frame. Joe has gone. Not even a note of his cool, spicy cologne remains to comfort me in my disillusionment. I have come to a new threshold of discovery; my father is a liar and a thief. And it is not his fault. It is my mother's…for leaving him alone in this cold, unfeeling world.

I stare after the slinking figure of my houseguest. "Goodnight, Joseph…" I call weakly after him. He cannot hear me, tucked deep into the alcoves of his attic sanctuary.

My hands tighten around the wrinkled letter caged within their slightly trembling grasp. The words as smeared slightly, as if tears had graced the surface of them, imbued them with the soulful grief that I can feel radiating off the page. My daughter, it begins…and the story is one of sorrow, the lost narrator uncertain and clumsy in offering his words of apology. He has had no practice in the matters of human sensation. The blood-wrought gears and emotive cadence which move a beating heart are intangible mechanisms to him, a thing he once knew but has forgotten in his long, wasted years. All he knows, his most intimate friends, are the cold stars above him and the moon hidden from him behind her sheet of black frozen heaven. How does a man learn feeling from a reticent and heartless sky?

With a sigh, I sink against the unsound structure of the table, folding my arms and leaning my cheek against the sharp angle of my protruding wrist. The letter flutters away, escaping as if a bird from its nest of flesh and bone, and settles upon the drafty floorboards. Before me, the flame begins to struggle to stay alight, clinging harder to the charred wick. I watch its struggle for a long moment, wondering, idly, what I must do to mend the damage that this devastating visit has left in its wake…

Alfred Gray has returned to his life of the faceless nomad – and the rest of my savings, what little I had left, have gone with him.

Earlier this morning, I had made an attempt to salvage my livelihood, and that of my guest, in first deciding sulking is of no use to me. After breakfast, and Joseph's departure, I commenced writing a series of letters to distant relatives in the north who, in the past, I remember to have been better off than the Gray family. Father had told me, in passing before the war, of their considerable property in Yorkshire. It is a desperate last attempt and perhaps too late but, if I should fail in my endeavors, at the very least I will have tried. It is all I can do.

The letters are costly to send out, but I deliver them into Earl's hands all the same without a word. As of late, the postman has arrived on my doorstep always with his air of contrition, his burdensome garment of regret wrapped around the thin, weary shoulders. I offer him an appeasing smile and a pleasant enough good morning to ease his guilt, but behind the guise of impassiveness there lies the stain of deep, scarlet resentment that will never come out. I can only hope Earl may not see it – as swollen as the wounding bitterness has become in the aftermath of my exile, my secret anger grows each time I see the man on my doorstep. I cannot help it. Even my manners cannot allay such a terribly strong emotion.

After the postman's departure, I set out to a certain Mrs. Lamb's place of business, where she runs a quite comfortable laundering operation on the outskirts of the town. Her choice of location is either a stroke of brilliance or that of luck, but either way her way of life is kept comfortable by the consistent flow of soldiers which come to her for their laundering needs. Mostly it is washing and starching, as, to my knowledge, she is no seamstress – but it is a healthy business, and I must commend her hard work in managing it.

At the door of the small storage shed which serves as her workplace, I give a small knock and find the interior alive with steam and an effective bustle. Both Mrs. Lamb and her apprentice look up from their work, with a soft, startled sound escaping absently from the elder woman's thin mouth. The younger woman struggles internally – no doubt the harsh words of her mother and the nature of her upbringing causing conflict to arise upon my arrival.

Anticipating this reaction from her young apprentice, Mrs. Lamb turns to her and allows her to slip outside for a bit of fresh air. The girl nods, curtsying slightly, and slips past me, a disapproving scowl stealing the light from her eyes and the softness from her features. I attempt to ignore the burning in my cheeks.

Stay strong, Alice. Their disapproval is of no consequence to you. You must stay strong.

"Good morning, Miss Gray." Mrs. Lamb presses her chapped hands into her apron, smearing starch over the white cloth. "Please come in, dear…how might I be of service?"

Upon receiving an invitation, I no longer feel like a trespasser, and move a little closer to her work station. She instead motions toward a small table where a pile of uniforms lie rumpled in wait to be starched and pressed. The room begins to clear, steam slipped out of the open door and into the inviting shell of the glassy, ice-encrusted air.

"Would you care for tea, dear?" She inquires, her voice dulcet and warm in contrast to the unyielding sheath of cold covering the outside world.

"No, thank you," I reply, and she settles more comfortably into her chair. "I will be forward with you, Mrs. Lamb, as I see that you are quite busy. I only wish to inquire after a position here, if you have any to offer."

The woman looks on me as if with pity, and this had been the very last sentiment I hoped to find in her countenance. She has always been a gentle spirit, a woman renowned for her impartial kindness and calm sincerity. In such an anxious little town as Aldbourne, she is undoubtedly a force of reassurance and an object of the townspeople's fragile admiration. In secret, a knot begins to form within the empty places in my stomach; it is useless to wish for things, but nonetheless I envy her security, her status. It keeps her well-fed and supplies her with a contentment that now I cannot easily acquire.

"Oh, Alice-" She starts, interrupted by the wispy breath of a sigh as she steels herself for her own reply. Inside, all semblance of composure begins to crumble, falling into a deep and unnerving state of madness which manifests in the shaking of my hands. I hidethem beneath my moth-eaten shawl; it will not do well for her to witness my fear of her rejection.

"You see dear, it is not you I am against…please, do not take my actions as such. But I must refuse…" She continues on, bending forward to take my hand. My first instinct is to shrink away from her touch, though my heart twists at the thought of snubbing her kindness so openly. It is only that I must not allow her to feel the desperation crawling like little creatures of anxiety through my veins…I must remain strong. I can only hope she will understand.

Sniffling slightly, I straighten my posture and look her in the eye. "I understand, Mrs. Lamb."

"My dear, I don't think you do-"

I interrupt her readily, "I am no simpleton."

She pauses, peering through the fractured, see-through lines of my ailing composure. "I think you mistake me, Alice."

"I know defensive tactics when I see them." I nod slightly to myself, as if trying to reassure my own conscience that I am justified in my answer. "I would not wish to harm your success with my own failures, as I am certain you have heard the rumors. But please, if I might redeem myself in your eyes – none of them are true. I have simply taken in a soldier, quartering him until he leaves, and the town has mistaken my intentions as mischievous and impure designs - "

"Alice, hush." She reprimands me as carefully as she can, taking my hand this time without my permission. Inwardly, the coldness that has overwhelmed my senses begins to give way to the gentleness of the lady before me. It requires all the strength left in me to restrain the white hot tears from slipping out of their hidden places, burning dark trails into my white cheeks.

"I do not believe such gossip…I never have," she tells me, her hand soft and pliant against the cold, hard husk mine has become. "You have always been such a good girl. It seems unlikely you would rebel against your modest upbringing, your own strong, gentle nature. I will help you in any way I can but I cannot offer you a position here."

I cannot bring myself to resent her in the same manner that I have come to resent Earl. But it is different for her, the circumstances unlike those with the tactless postman. He is the cause of my helplessness, my inability to provide for myself and the guest who lives under my care. And she – though she must refuse my supplication, it is out of necessity, not the same malice born of misunderstanding like the rest of them. I look up into her eyes, framed in crow's feet and the brushstrokes of age, and find there the empathy that I have not seen in the face of any such person here in Aldbourne. It is enough for me to regain my lost poise, to salvage what little pride there might be left to the soiled name of Gray.

Mrs. Lamb reaches into the pocket of her starch-stained apron and I can hear the musical chafing of coins brushing up against one another. She removes a handful of them, counts them to herself and proceeds to release them into my palm. A certain sickness grips me then…I cannot take her money, not without earning it.

"You may repay me when you can…" She assures me.

I swallow harder against the encroaching mist of tears pressing behind my eyes. "I will. I promise I will."

The creases around her eyes grow deeper and it's as if, for a moment, they are smiling back at me. "I believe you, Alice."

My pocket seems to sing with each movement of my half-frozen legs on the way home. The refrain is one of a defeated pride and the reluctant victory stemming from Mrs. Lamb's contribution. Part of me is still too sickened by the guilt money to use it. But my rumbling stomach, and the emptiness that lies there (deserted, shrunken), insists that I must.

I purchase only enough food for supper at the market – a loaf of bread and a head of cabbage for soup. On the way home, I fix my eyes on the snowy walks, the white banks soiled and scattered underneath the footsteps of the lively town. People pass me, silently and often gravely in manner, but I pay them no mind. We are not on good terms, me and Aldbourne. We have fallen out – estranged companions who live as if separated by partitions of glass.

It is nearing dusk when I reach home, my limbs filled with an ache as thick and heavy as the very bones which it inhabits. Already, in my head, I am beginning to devise ways to repay Mrs. Lamb, mostly halting at dead ends and impossibilities which are more than a little disheartening.

Pluck up, Alice.

No use dreading the inevitable.

At once, when I halt before the dilapidated fence surrounding the Gray household, I find myself facing a small crowd that has gathered around the perimeter of my yard. And these are no ordinary guests – from their dress, I can only assume they are members of the yank Army stationed nearby.

"Excuse me there miss, but are you Alice Gray?" One of them asks graciously, his most practiced manners on display. There's no hiding his American accent, however, and I cannot help but smile at the odd contrast of the man's rough-looking appearance and his imitation of stiff-lipped English conduct.

"Yes, sir – I am her. How might I be of service?"

Footsteps draw the attention of the group to a figure approaching behind me. In unison, we all turn and watch a quite familiar and lovely face (as beautiful and white as the snow which surrounds it) saunter gracefully into view.

"Good evening, Miss Gray." The words dance upon the sensual refrain of his melodic accent, a voice that slithers in and out of focus, as if caught in a dream. Dreams of a place that knows nothing of snow, of cold, of the grey English sky.

A smile breaks the mask of rigid concern I had worn throughout the day. "Oh, Eugene…I have never been happier to see a man in my life."

He chuckles softly to himself, burying his face into his collar in that bashful sort of way that has endeared me to him so permanently. "We were all just hoping you would you be kind enough to patch up our uniforms, ma'am."

Surprise clutches my throat, nearly stifling the words that follow. "All of you?"

Eugene smiles a little wild, looking like a mischievous, pale pumpkin gleaming in the afterglow of the setting sun. "Yes ma'am…all of us."

I look back at the flock of soldiers standing in front of my house. Dear God above…there must be twenty of them!

That night, I do not see Joe. He had been asleep when I arrived in the small foyer, a bundle of twenty uniforms under my arm and icy tears adhering to my cheeks. It is just as well…it would not do for him to see me crying, even if it is out of the overwhelming feeling of liberation that has come over me in finding myself with work to be done (at last!). That night, as I nibble on the edge of the fresh bread I purchased earlier that evening, I write to a certain charitable Mrs. Lamb in gratitude for sending over so many of her customers, and all for my benefit (as if I deserved such unprecedented kindness from her, a perfect stranger).

And yet upon the advent of the post this next morning, Mrs. Lamb seems wholly innocent of the entire situation.

Dear Alice, I did not know these men came to you for their mending. But what a miraculous stroke of good fortune!

It is an entirely strange affair, but I have never had so much business in my life…I simply cannot complain.

I only wish I could thank this otherworldly agent who has guided so many prospects to me.

copyright of Harlequin Sequins, 2011.