When she woke up, a tent hung over her head. Alice scrunched her eyes shut against the lights. A groan escaped her before she had time to react again. As her mind stopped being fuzzy, pain in her left arm began to return and Alice remembered getting shot. She opened her eyes again.

Alice blinked a few times. She could hear voices around her. After a few minutes of listening to the murmur, she heard a voice close by that she recognized. Alice turned left. "Gene?"

The man in question sat on a cot not far away, chatting with a nurse. He and the woman both turned her way. The woman smiled and moved from the medic's side.

"Welcome to the field hospital," she said. The woman had light brown hair tied back under her nursing hat and a kind smile. "Your friend here was telling me about you, Lieutenant."

Alice glanced past her at Gene. She shook her head. "He is quite the gossip when I get injured."

The woman laughed. "I'm Sarah. You're at the Field Hospital that the 506th uses. You and your medic got here a day ago." As Alice started to sit up, Sarah helped her. "Your arm's doing well. The wound was minor, especially compared to a lot of the wounds we see here."

"When can I go back to the front?" 

Sarah frowned. "Give it at least two weeks, my dear. And that's being generous. We did triage, repaired the damage as best we could. But gunshot wounds take time."

Alice scoffed. "Trust me, I know."

With a smile, Sarah nodded. "We noticed the scarring under your left shoulder. It looks to be at least three years old."

"It is."

When Alice didn't say anything else, Sarah just flashed her a sad smile. She turned away. Once the nurse had left the tent, Alice turned to Gene. The other four beds lay empty. Noise from outside made its way in, however, so there wasn't much peace in the hospital tent.

"How's your leg?" Alice asked.

He shrugged. "Two weeks, like you." After a few moments, he continued on. He glanced at her bandages. "How'd you get shot? No one's told me."

Alice sighed. She looked down at the state of herself. She had no shirt, just white bandages that had been wrapped around her breasts and upper chest for modesty. The bandages over her left arm were tight, pristinely white against her reddened skin. Her pants still had soot and blood caked all over them, but someone had removed her boots.

"Alice?"

She glanced up at him. "Hm?"

"How'd you get shot?"

"Oh." Alice shrugged. Pain shot through her and she hissed. "The Germans bombed Eindhoven. I took a group back to help. I got shot in the confusion." Trailing off, Alice bit her lip. It shouldn't have surprised her that they'd shot at her when she'd spoken German, especially in the confusion of the attack. But somehow it still hurt. "They mistook me for a Nazi."

Gene hummed. He looked at her closely, not saying anything more. Before long Gene laid back down. Alice stayed sitting up, unsure of what to do other than sit and think. She didn't like thinking these days, though. Flashes of memory of the broken, burning bodies of Eindhoven played before her like a movie at the cinema. Their screams echoed in her ears. Alice couldn't shake it. 

Voices outside jerked her back to reality. Some time had passed, but Alice didn't know how much. The light seemed lower. Gene still slept to her left. Before long, the voices came closer and she recognized one of them. Lewis Nixon came inside moments later with a nurse. When the woman saw Alice awake she left them to check on her other patients.

"I knew you'd get yourself shot," Nixon said.

"Keep your voice down. Gene's asleep," she muttered. Running her right hand through her hair, she sighed. For a moment, the fact that she didn't have a real shirt on bothered her. Without anything to do about it, though, Alice just turned back to him. "How furious is Dick?"

"He's not. Guarnere's pretty pissed though." He moved further into the room. To his credit, Nixon did lower his voice. Taking up the spot to her other side, he leaned against the cot and shook his head. "How's it feel?"

"Painful." The tiny smirk he flashed her put her more at ease. Alice released the tension in her shoulders as best she could. "How's the fight going?"

"Bull's back."

"You serious?"

"Yep."

Alice could have cried, but she forced herself not to. Even so, a deep breath she'd been holding was released immediately. Suddenly a lot of the stress evaporated. "Thank God." Alice rubbed her face with her hand. "Thank God."

"I had a bet going with Harry that you'd cry over the information. So if you could cry..." Nixon had to quiet his own laugh as she positively glared his way. He shook his head. "I'm kidding."

"You better be."

"Oh yes. You're very scary. Terrifying, really."

Alice scoffed. Silence fell between them again. She looked around, glancing at Gene first. He still slept. It only took a few moments before she turned back to Nixon. He stood watching her, arms crossed.

"So, Market Garden's not going too well," she muttered. 

Nixon sighed. All amusement fell away. "No, it's not." 

He listed the losses and gains for the various divisions, and not much went well. As he listed the estimated casualty figures, Alice sat in silence. The 506th had done better than most, even with failing at Helmond. 

"How many died in Eindhoven?"

Nixon took a deep breath. He watched her carefully. "Over 200."

Her eyes closed in pain. Her chest felt like she'd been punched. The wind was knocked out of her. Two hundred people, killed because the Americans had failed to liberate them. When she opened her eyes, she saw Nixon drinking from his flask. "You have cigarettes?"

Nixon nodded. "Yeah. Here." He dug through his pockets and pulled a pack out. After she took one, he offered her a light. 

They stood in silence for a while. Alice puffed at her cigarette, Nixon drank his Vat 69. Behind them, Gene slept soundly. The pain in her arm started to increase as the painkillers wore off. But she didn't want to go to bed. She didn't want Nixon to leave.

"You should go to sleep," he said. 

Alice would've laughed at his comment, called him a mind reader, if she hadn't been scared of that very prospect. "No! No, I'm fine." Panic started to rise as she thought about being stuck at the hospital. She didn't know these people. She didn't trust them. She'd already been shot once for being German. 

Nixon stopped mid-drink. He watched her carefully. "Are you scared?"

"No!" Alice snapped. As soon as she snapped at him, they both quieted. She knew he knew she lied. Neither quite knew what to do. With a shrug, she eased her legs back onto the bed from where they'd dangled off the edge. "It's fine. I'm sure you need to get back. Tell Dick I'll be back in no time."

Watching her for a bit longer, he finally nodded and pushed away. "I hope Doc doesn't talk your ear off," he joked. Then he looked at her again. "You're safer than us, here."

"Yeah."

"Right. Well, get back to the front soon. Don't leave me with Dick for too long. He gets boring after about twenty-four hours." When he saw her smile, he nodded. "Good luck."

After seeing her nod, he left the tent. Nixon took another drink of his flask as he stood outside the Field Hospital. Nursing staff and surgeons moved around quickly, tending to the new wounded who poured in off and on. Quite a few men from 3rd Battalion were here. 

The sun sank below the horizon as he found a jeep heading back to 2nd Battalion. Strayer and Dick both needed to be updated, the former on casualty rates and the latter on Alice. Despite what he'd said about Dick not being angry, he was worried. Alice had been unconscious when she was transferred to a jeep to head to Battalion Aid.

Ralph Spina had assured them it was from the morphine, not the wound itself. But it hadn't done much to calm anyone's nerves, least of all himself, Dick, Harry, or Buck. It had scared him, seeing her transferred from Johnny Martin and Bill Guarnere's support to a stretcher. She'd been totally peaceful. In fact that alone had been enough to make him worried. Not the peaceful look itself, but the realization that she hadn't looked like that in many, many months. 

Nixon pulled himself into the passenger side of the jeep. The corporal driving left him alone to his own thoughts. He lit a cigarette as they set off towards the front. Letting the nicotine relax him a bit, he took several deep breaths.

That lack of peacefulness combined with the fear he had seen in her face when he'd mentioned leaving had him concerned. As far as he was aware, no one else knew about the letters she'd received from her cousin. Talking about her problems was not a strength that Alice had ever had. Still if she had told anyone else, he narrowed it down to a few names: Harry Welsh, George Luz, Bill Guarnere, Ron Speirs, Doc Roe.

Ron was almost certainly out of the question. Though 2nd Battalion was all near each other in Holland, only he had frequent or even infrequent contact with Dog and Fox. Alice had not. George Luz was a high possibility. They'd been close since the first day at Toccoa two years and a half years prior. Nixon held a lot of respect for George, and had since training. He made a mental note to talk to him when he got a chance.

Bill Guarnere was hit or miss when it came to knowing things about Alice. Of the enlisted, only Doc and George Luz were closer to her. But Nixon knew it had taken months for Alice to get over the events of the Samaria. It had taken quite some time to find out about the fight between Liebgott and Guarnere, but when Nixon did, everything had made so much more sense. It made him wonder if Alice shared information regarding the Jews of Europe with him.

Doc Roe didn't matter. Even if he knew, Nixon had no way of talking to him, as he was holed up next to Alice in the hospital. That left Harry Welsh. He decided to ask Harry when he got back to Easy Company.

He decided to ask Harry and George about anything else they may have found out about her lately. Though Nixon did his best to spend time with Easy when he could, recently and going forward he knew he'd been more and more responsible for the Regiment and Battalion, rather than any individual company. 

When the jeep dropped him off at Easy's new base camp, it was nearly midnight. Still, clouds covered the sky. Nixon thanked the corporal and moved off to find Dick. He found the man talking to Harry, sitting together on the grass.

"You two look so happy," he muttered. "Give me whatever you're drinking."

Harry let out a small laugh and Dick just shook his head. Both knew they looked as far from happy as possible. As Nixon joined them, they passed him a cup of coffee.

"How's Alice?" Harry asked.

Nixon shrugged. "I spoke to the surgeon and a nurse. Both she and Doc will be there at least two weeks."

"Great," muttered Harry.

"Alice is probably the least happy about it," Nixon admitted. He took a drink of the coffee. He scrunched up his face in disgust. "This is horrible." When he realized they were waiting for him to explain, he sighed. "I don't know why, but she looked legitimately afraid to be left at the hospital."

"Scared?" Dick asked, surprised. "Not angry?"

"Right."

After a few minutes of silence, Nixon finally decided to ask what they knew about the letters. Harry knew about them, said he'd been there when she first got them. Dick knew nothing. For about half an hour, they started comparing notes on Alice's recent behavior. All agreed she'd had a much shorter fuse than usual. But then, who hadn't.

"Keep an eye on here," Nixon told them. He stood up to go find Strayer so he could sleep. "When she gets back."

They both agreed. Walking away from them, distant low level artillery sounding in the background, he sighed. Nixon took a drink. His head started to hurt. Then again, when didn't it when he thought about her? She could take care of herself, and yet, it stressed him out every time she did something stupid. Finally it had ended with her in a hospital. He didn't know whether to gloat that he'd been right not to send her, or to go sit by her bed until she got better so she wouldn't do anything else dumb. The stress headache only increased.

But then, there were plenty of times she didn't give him a headache. And frankly, being around her and hearing her laugh, however infrequent that was these days, was worth it. He counted himself lucky that he was one of the people who could get her to laugh.