May came and went, June ended, and Alice had stayed true to her promise to herself. She hadn't even approached the level of intoxication she'd reached the night Lipton had to help her. Somehow, she wasn't exactly sure, word never seemed to get around to either the officers or Gene. Alice certainly didn't complain.

By the time July started passing by, she figured they must've done fifty jumps. The 506th had recently become an official part of the 101st Airborne Division in June, and since then, jump practice had somehow managed to only increase. Between jumps and maneuvers, the men and officers increased time in tactical lectures and lessons too. Usually they didn't have time for partying as they got up so early and off so late that thoughts of alcohol vanished from their minds.

Her fondest moments during the brutally packed days were usually at the very end of the night. Alice had started making it a habit to smoke a cigarette on the steps of their barracks. Nearly every night, someone joined her. More often than not, it included some combination of George, Lieb, Bill, Talbert, or Toye. Sometimes it was more than one, sometimes it was none of them. Alice noticed that Gene only joined her when the others didn't. Some days, people she rarely expected ended up next to her on the grass outside their barracks. Skinny and Shifty started joining her some days. Hoobs and Blithe did so on occasion.

Depending on who joined her, she approached it differently. The talkative ones like George or Bill could go on and on without any sort of prompting. She didn't mind at all. But she almost enjoyed nights with the quieter ones more. 

Skinny and Shifty would sometimes talk to her about their homes in Virginia. Apparently, they came from opposite ends of the state. Skinny came from a town called Herndon, up in the northern part of Virginia. Shifty grew up in the south western end of the state, though he also liked to talk about the area of Norfolk where he and Popeye had both met and worked before joining the war effort. According to him, the Tidewater area of Virginia, where Norfolk lay, had beautiful beaches and good places to go boating.

The discussion would usually turn to her at some point. Shifty especially always made sure to ask her about her home, too. What had she loved about France the most, or Germany? Alice liked to talk about the area of Provence, or the Côte d'Azur. Thinking of Paris had become too painful in the months she'd been with Easy, but her family had traveled often during their first years after moving to France.

Some days, if none of the enlisted made to join her, Alice would find the other Lieutenants. Harry Welsh, often the easiest to locate, joined her more often than not. Over the course of the two months he'd been with Easy, they'd shared smokes before bed semi frequently. Alice ended up opening up about Toccoa, and her time training there. She even told Harry about her family after a while, deciding he'd hear about it from somewhere eventually. For his part, Harry talked about home too. Most frequently, he brought up his sweetheart and fiancée, Kitty Grogan. Alice couldn't help but smile when he talked about her. With Harry present, Skip Muck no longer was the only man of Easy completely smitten by a dame back home. He also told her about his time with the 82nd, where he'd been demoted and promoted more times than he could count for fighting. 

Sometimes, Dick would join them just for the company. Both Nixon and Ron were hard to track down, as they both ran on different schedules than Easy Company. But when she could, Alice sought them both out. The stress levels in Camp Mackall steadily increased the whole summer. Any idiot could see that the inevitable invasion inched closer and closer each day. She tried to use her evening smoking break as a way to calm not only herself, but the men around her.

Avoiding Captain Sobel actually became easier by the day, when it came to time not spent in maneuvers. Even then, it seemed that Sobel preferred to work with Second Platoon, so she hopped over to First with Harry whenever possible. Alice guessed Sobel enjoyed making Dick Winters as miserable as possible; even Sobel must've been able to see how much more fit for command Dick was compared to him. By hooking up with his platoon, Sobel made sure Dick couldn't flourish in command. Alice watched him grow more and more frustrated with their Commanding Officer by the day.

Still, after each day's maneuvers or lessons ended, she loved just sitting outside in an army issue tank top and paratrooper pants, letting her hair dry from her shower while she smoked a cigarette or two. The darkness of the summer night offered cool relief from the high temperatures of the day time. Georgia had been worse, but North Carolina still had humidity and heat every single day. But the evening, it became barrable. 

As she settled down for her nightly cigarette on a Thursday at the very end of July, Alice cleared her head. A light shined above the barracks door she sat under. She closed her eyes. Crickets chorused all around her.  She could make out several voices around her, none from Easy. At 2230 hours, a good number of paratroopers still roamed about.

Fox and Dog Companies largely ignored Alice's presence. They'd gotten used to her. In Camp Mackall, though, so many different regiments, not just companies, trained together. As such, Alice did her best to stay near the 506th and specifically the trio of companies she hung around with most, whenever night fell. 

The sound of nearby footsteps made her open her eyes. As she did so, a slightly stronger breeze than she'd been expecting blew from the south, sending her still-damp hair into her face. She'd gotten it cut just a few days ago. It brought great relief to have it back to the proper length, just above her shoulders.

Floyd Talbert approached her. He wore only a tan 506th Paratroopers tee shirt, tight around his body, and paratrooper pants. With a grin, he lit a cigarette and settled down with a huff in the grass just adjacent and in front of her.

"Thought I'd find you here."

Alice smiled and looked down at him. He had settled into his back, smoke puffing with each breath. She just chuckled. "I'm here every night, Tab."

"Except when you ditch us for the Lieutenants."

"I'm allowed to have more friends than just you people," she replied. A smirk tugged at her lips. She stopped resisting. "I know it's hard for you to accept you aren't my entire life, Tab."

He laughed. "Ouch."

"Besides," she said, "George would outrank you anyways."

Talbert choked on his cigarette. Laughing again, he shook his head as best he could in the grass. "What did that jokester do that I didn't?"

Alice just hummed to herself in contemplation. She shook her own head with a small smile. Not responding, she found herself yawning. 

"Who's better company, us or the officers?"

"Depends what I'm looking for," she answered immediately. Alice wasn't sure why she decided to play along with Talbert's poking and prodding. But she did. "You're all good for different things."

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

Talbert didn't say anything more for several long moments. He just drew in the smoke of his cigarette, held it, and released. Alice did the same. The crickets and cicadas continued to serenade them in the background.

Newly approaching footsteps caused Talbert to sit up, and both of them to glance forward. To their surprise, Dick, Nixon, and Harry all strolled over. Nixon drank from his flask. Talbert hauled himself to his feet and saluted.

"Evening, sirs," he said with a nod. 

"At ease, Tab." Dick nodded to him with a small smile. Then he turned to Alice. "Lieutenant, can we borrow you for a minute?"

She nodded. Standing from the pale wooden step of the barracks, she tossed her nearly finished cigarette and stomped it out. Alice followed them a little ways away, leaving Talbert sitting on the ground.

"Not often I see all three of you at once," she half joked. Alice folded her bare arms across her chest. "What's wrong?"

Nixon took a deep breath. "Thought you'd want to know; Operation Gomorrah was confirmed about an hour ago."

A deep sigh betrayed all her emotions. "The outcome?"

"Intelligence estimates between thirty and forty thousand dead. Maybe another hundred thousand wounded."

Alice swayed ever so slightly as she stood, shocked. That meant the Allies had successfully bombed nearly the entire city of Hamburg. Her city. Her home. The air raids had begun seven nights ago, but the Allied intelligence had maintained strict silence.

"Most of the city burned to the ground from a firestorm on the fourth night ," Nixon added. "There's not much left. But it did heavy damage to the arms production in the city. Intelligence thinks this could help turn the war."

"Sodom and Gomorrah," she muttered. Alice shook her head. "Hamburg had more innocents than Sodom and Gomorrah."

"An unfortunate reality of war," Harry agreed.

She nodded. Alice fell quiet for a moment. "If you'll excuse me."

Both Dick and Harry moved away quietly. But Nixon stayed behind for a moment. He watched her carefully. "Don't do anything stupid."

Alice huffed. But she nodded. Glancing back at where Talbert had laid down again, she shrugged. Her shoulders sagged in defeat.

"You know where to find me if you want good drinks," he said after a moment. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. "I'm serious."

"Yeah, yeah I know." Alice forced a small smile at him. "I'll be ok."

"If you're going to get drunk, don't do it alone."

Alice glanced up at him in surprise. He smirked back at her and took another drink from his silver flask. She narrowed her eyes.

"I know things, remember? That's my job. Lipton didn't tell me." 

She rolled her eyes. Then she eyed him closer. He had deep rings under his eyes and looked a lot more tense than usual. "Go to bed. You look exhausted, Nix."

He laughed. "I will. I will. Same goes for you though, too."

"I will." Then she looked back at Talbert. "In a bit."

They both said goodnight, and Nixon went in the direction of Battalion's officer barracks. With a deep breath to calm her nerves, Alice returned to the step into the barracks. She pulled out a second Lucky Strike.

"Two tonight, Lieutenant?" asked Talbert with a grin. But his expression dropped when he noticed her stress. "What did they want?" He pushed himself up to sit facing her, one leg propped out.

She frowned. "War news."

"Nothing good, I take it?"

"Depends on what you think good is." Alice sighed, shrugging. She took the cigarette out of her mouth and turned to Talbert. "Definitely a good outcome for the Allies. But it involved a lot of civilian casualties."

"Ah."

"Don't worry about it too much," she assured him. 

"Are you worried?"

Alice didn't respond immediately. With a deep breath of the tobacco smoke, she closed her eyes. Hamburg filled her mind. Finally she spoke again, releasing both the images of her birth city and the smoke. "Worried? No. Sad? Yeah. Yeah I am." A long pause followed. Then she looked over at him. They met each other's gaze. "I'm just eager to get back to Europe."

"What happens if the 101st doesn't get sent to Europe?" Tab asked a minute later.

"Then I jump with another company." Alice frowned to herself. "I'm no use to the army in the Pacific Theater."

They fell into silence after that. Both Paratroopers spent time finishing up their cigarettes. Afterwards, Alice glanced at her watch and saw it was just past 2300. With a sad smile, she stood up and said goodnight. When she climbed up into the bunk above Gene, relief flooded over her. Even the scratchy blanket felt good after a long day.