At 0800, after the sun rose brilliantly in the sky, word came by way of Lewis Nixon. Alice and Harry still sat or paced in the CP barn, the former snuggling up with Trigger for emotional and physical support. Her arm had started aching a few hours prior. When Nixon burst into the barn at almost eight on the dot, both of them started up.

"Come on! I'm heading to check out the line," he said.

They got no more information than that until the three had barreled into a jeep. As a corporal drove them, Nixon turned around in his seat and tried to bring them up to speed on what he knew; the Germans and the Americans had clashed at dawn, two companies full of SS versus barely over a platoon of paratroopers, and the paratroopers had won. After about ten minutes, the jeep skidded to a halt on a gravel road. 

All around them, evidence of the battle littered the area. Piles of dead SS soldiers sat around the fields. The stench of death had just begun to permeate the air as the sun rose. Even as Nixon gave orders to send a group of prisoners back to the Allied CP, they came face to face with an exhausted Peacock.

Alice listened to him explain the battle to Nixon and Harry. The biggest thing she got out of it was they'd suffered twenty-two wounded. Peacock called it lucky. Alice called it a shame.

It didn't take long for her to lose track of both Harry and Nixon. The pain in her arm only increased as she stumbled around the battlefield, the ground marred by artillery and grenades. As she stood looking out over the field, bodies of German soldiers lying prostrate on the damp, damaged soil, her heart constricted again. 

Germans. She was German. They were German. If these men held but half the love of the Fatherland that she held, Alice could almost understand their desire to bring it honor. She'd seen the horrible conditions, the shame left on Germany after their defeat in the Great War. World War One, now, she supposed. She understood the frustrations her people felt at their disgrace.

Looking down into the face of a young, dead member of the SS, she once again was hit with a wave of guilt. These were her brethren. They spoke her language, had walked her cities. They knew her music, her art. The brown eyes staring back at her, unseeing, could've easily belonged to her brothers.

As she stood there, overlooking the corpse-riddled field, an image popped into her mind. Caspar David Friedrich's painting "Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer". Here she stood, alone, looking out not over a sea of fog, but a sea of death. 

"Alice."

It took a moment before she turned around. With a small, forced smile, she found Gene and George Luz both making their way to her. The former seemed about as in pain as she felt, no doubt due to the limp he still experienced.

"Good work," she said, working her way back over to them. "Twenty-two wounded. Any deaths?"

George paused for a moment. Pain crossed his expression before he nodded. "Dukeman."

"I'm sorry."

No one said anything else. I'm sorry seemed to be the only good response to the death of the Toccoa man. Together they moved back towards where Easy had gathered. As they did so, they passed a few POWs waiting for instructions. They spoke German in thinly veiled whispers. Two of them looked genuinely concerned about how they were to be treated.

Alice looked at them. They looked back. Upon realizing she was a woman, they all started moving closer, more confused than anything else, she guessed. With a sigh, she went to move on. But then she stopped. She wanted to assure them they'd be treated fairly. Alice moved over, but not too close. "Keine Bange. Sie werden euch nicht töten."

Upon her German, they started in surprise. Christenson and Johnny stood guarding them and looked over in concern. One of the SS, a young man, looked from them to Alice.

"Sie sind Deutsche?"

"Ja. Ich komme aus Hamburg."

The oldest one present scoffed. He stood up and moved towards her. "Und doch trägst du eine amerikanische Uniform." When Johnny stood in his way, rifle to stop him, he just sneered. "Verräterin!"

She didn't allow herself to flinch at his accusation. It was true, after all. She was German. She wore the enemy's uniform. To them, she was a traitor. And to be fair, she had betrayed Hitler's Germany. They weren't wrong. But it still hurt. As Alice stood silent, looking at the prisoners, no one else spoke. After a good half minute of silence, she turned from them and went to find the others.

The man called after her. "Wo warst du, als Hamburg brannte?" 

Alice stopped in her tracks. She heard someone get punched, and the moans of the victim. She remembered exactly where she'd stood when Hamburg had burned: E Company barracks, Camp Mackall, North Carolina, United States. Operation Gomorrah, which brought "brimstone and fire from out of the heavens." Thirty-five thousand civilians killed. Over a hundred thousand wounded and displaced. 

When she managed to keep moving again, Alice rejoined the bulk of the force Easy had arrived with. On a small hill, Skip and Alex sat messing with their gear. The former had somehow acquired a silver spoon and used it to poke his friend behind the ear repeatedly. Alice found herself almost smiling at their antics. Closer to her, More and Smokey worked at a small fire and coffee pot. Their skin looked almost brown from the dirt caked to their faces. Behind them, Malarkey, Skinny, and Gene joined the group.

Dick and Colonel Sink stood off to the side, chatting quietly. As she stood and watched the boys around her, silent, someone came up next to her. She looked left. "Johnny."

"You good?" He asked it quietly, looking between her and the men around them. Shuffling, he gestured back towards where he'd been with the prisoners. "They're off to the CP now."

Alice hummed. "I'm fine. Thanks."

"Right." Then he glanced past her. He nodded back down the road. "I think Captain Nixon needs you."

Alice turned around. Sure enough, Nixon walked towards them, cigarette between his lips. When he reached them, he nodded to both Johnny and Alice. "Helluva fight you guys had."

"Yeah." Johnny nodded. "Sure was, sir."

"Lieutenant, can I borrow you a minute," Nixon said.

She nodded and moved off with him towards Dick and Colonel Sink. They stood waiting. When the four of them stood together, Sink looked at both Nixon and Alice. "Captain Winters is now the Battalion XO. With Major Horton killed, Strayer needs some help. Moose Heyliger will be taking over Easy."

Alice stood, stunned. She liked Moose, but losing Dick to Battalion would be a blow to everyone in the company. She listened as he went on to explain that Harry Welsh would continue as company XO for the foreseeable future, but that there had been talk of him taking over as XO of the Headquarters company. Yet another blow.

Then Sink turned to her, head on. "For now, continue as you've been proceeding, Alice. But we may move you up as well, out of Easy Company, and focus your efforts more on the Battalion and Regiment as a whole. Your assistance in the liberation of Eindhoven has not gone unnoticed. Nixon," he said, turning to the man next to her, "if that's the case, you two will work together at the S-2 position."

Nixon nodded. "Right."

"Then let's clean this puppy up and get back to the CP." Sink looked around at all three of them before moving back towards his Jeep. 

They stood together in silence as he sped off. All of a sudden, Alice wasn't sure what to be more afraid of: losing Dick to Battalion staff, or losing Easy Company. As the sounds of the jeep disappeared, they turned to each other.

"We should get back to the CP," Dick said, a moment later. "Harry's going to stay and organize the prisoners here."

They split up quietly. Nixon and Dick went to a newly arrived Jeep to do exactly that. But Alice lingered on the battlefield. Her thoughts ran a mile a minute. Moving a bit away from the men of Easy Company, Alice tried to calm her racing thoughts and racing heart. In a matter of a single conversation, what she thought she knew had been flipped upside down. It had been hard enough to work without Nixon in Easy, but he'd moved out of the Company long before they'd ever even invaded Europe. She'd been working with Dick and Harry for a long, long time.

The one good thing, she supposed, was if she did get moved out of Easy, at least so would Dick and, probably, Harry, and maybe all four including Nixon would be working together at the Battalion level. But it brought only a little comfort. Easy Company had become her home.

"Hey, cherie. How's the arm?"

Instead of irritated or disappointed, as Gene's tone had sounded with her since she'd left the hospital, his question seemed genuinely concerned. She looked to her left as he came to stand next to her. Alice just shrugged.

"You good?"

Alice shrugged. "Je sais pas."

With a deep breath, and a close look, he nodded. "Allons-y."

Following him back down the road towards the trucks and jeeps, she watched the men around her laughing despite their obvious exhaustion. Skip continued to mess with Malarkey and Alex Penkala. Nearby, George and Perconte talked together. Overall, the platoon looked to be in high spirits. 

And those high spirits continued well into the night, even when they all roamed around the CP yet again. News of Dick's promotion had made the rounds soon after the battle, and for some time, the company moped. But they knew Moose Heyliger, and they liked him, so it softened the blow some. No one knew of the potential future losses of Harry or Alice, though, and neither seemed inclined to share.

For now, they would continue as they had since D-Day. They still had a few days of Dick Winters before Moose would arrive. So First Platoon, once again in reserve, just sat around the CP farmhouse chewing at terrible British rations, sipping at tea, and mourning the loss of the coffee. Apparently the pot brewed after the battle had been the last of the supply. It amused her, and she knew it would change when they actually lost him to Battalion, but the loss of their precious coffee seemed to hurt the company more in morale than the loss of Dick.