Alice had woken up almost at sunrise, just a bit after. Nixon had still slept like a rock to her right across the room, and Buck seemed to be asleep too. When she'd changed and walked out of the room, she found Dick Winters right outside the door at the street level. The hustle and bustle had only increased from the night before.

Dick turned to her. He nodded, forcing a small smile on his face. "Morning."

"Good morning to you," she agreed. Alice put her hands on her hips. "Any more of Easy show up?"

He nodded. "Yeah, Doc Roe, Skip Muck, and Alex Penkala came in a few hours ago. Spina, Dukeman, Tipper, and Perconte wandered in a few minutes ago too."

Alice sighed. "Still no sign of Harry?"

"No, nor anyone from Meehan's plane."

Her heart clenched again. If, to allow Sergeant Evans a spot on the HQ plane, she hadn't been switched, chances were she'd have been missing too. But she just nodded. "They'll turn up."

A tiny smile spread across Dick's face. He shook his head. "Since when are you the optimistic one?"

She let out a small laugh. As they stood beside the door to their temporary house, they watched men wandering up the road. A few got ushered towards the aid station, bleeding and bruised. But most just looked around for familiar faces. Just as Alice pulled out and lit a cigarette, she heard familiar voices. Her grin only grew as she saw them.

"Speak of the devil," Alice said, laughing. She poked Dick and then pointed down the road. George and Harry strolled side by side, both smoking cigarettes. With a grin, she pushed off the brick wall and wandered over. "Took you long enough to show up!"

Both Harry and George grinned as they caught sight of her. They broke off from the line of paratroopers dribbling in. Both joined Alice and Dick.

George did a quick salute. "How late are we?"

Dick cracked a smile. He looked from George to Harry. "Late, but not that late."

"How many people have shown up?" Harry asked.

"We're at about forty percent." Looking between them, Dick nodded. "Either of you run into Meehan, or anyone from his plane?"

George shook his head, and Harry said no. Both Alice and Dick sighed. While the other two officers started chatting about D-Day, she offered to show George to where the enlisted had set up. Easy had claimed a small house not too far away.

"Jesus Christ, what happened to your face?" George pointed at her, holding his finger mere inches from the cut.

Alice scoffed. Walking beside him, she turned to look him in the eyes. "How bad does it look?"

"Looks like it hurt."

She laughed. "Yeah, it did. But not until I realized it was there."

"Run into many Germans, then?"

"No, I got that on the plane. We killed more bugs than Nazis on the way in here. You?"

George shrugged. While they waited for a caravan of jeeps and a tank to roll through, he gestured back to where Harry and Dick had been. "Well, I met up with Lieutenant Welsh an hour or so after we jumped. A few boys of the 82nd joined us before we found their unit."

"Did you grab some sleep?"

"Yeah." George nodded, taking his cigarette out for a moment to blow some smoke. "Then we started this way."

The line of vehicles ended. Alice and George crossed together, followed by a handful of other enlisted men from various companies. They caught sight of Malarkey and Skip Muck chatting while sitting on some crates, smoking.

"Are your jump wings crooked, privates?" George called, impersonating Sobel as best he could. "How do you expect to win the war with crooked jump wings!"

"Ah, shut up, George," Skip called back. His smile widened though. "You know you've done one good thing in your life, George."

"Yeah, what's that Skip?"

He winked. "You brought Alice over here."

She laughed at him, feeling a bit happier seeing more of Easy's men. When she and George joined him and Malarkey, she just shrugged. "How do you know George brought me over here? Don't think I'd come visit you on my own?"

"Clearly Skip doesn't think too highly of you," Malarkey chipped in. He accepted a cigarette that Skip offered him.

"Hey!"

"Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste," George teased.

"Could you guys keep it down!" From behind them, Alex Penkala wandered out of the door, hair disheveled and eyes blinking in the sun.

Alice looked at him in amusement. Her eyebrows shot up. "Good morning, Alex."

"Alice!" He rubbed his eyes. "Jesus, you're a sight for sore eyes. Thought I'd get stuck staring at these ugly grouchos for the rest of this war."

"Thanks, Penk. Nice to see you, too," George said, snorting. "Who else is here?"

Alex leaned in the doorway. He rested his head against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. "Guarnere and Toye are inside. Lipton's wandering around somewhere with Ranney. I don't know where Lieb went." He went on to list the soldiers he'd seen show up thus far. "And of course Lieutenants Compton, Nixon, and Winters. Anyone seen Welsh, yet?"

"We came in together," said George.

"That's good."

"Anyone got food?"

Alice laughed. Trust George to think with his stomach. But Alex just nodded, and she and George followed him into the house. Guarnere and Toye had splayed out across a couch and large chair, the former smoking and complaining about something.

"Hey, Alice, any word on when we're moving out?" Toye looked up at her, straightening in his chair. He took his cigarette out and gestured towards the door with it. "Krauts won't kill themselves."

Guarnere snorted with laughter. He sat up too from laying on his back. "I don't know Joe. Them Krauts are pretty stupid." He laughed again. "Or did ya not see 'em firing on their own guns on D-Day?"

"Course I did, jackass. I was right next to you."

"All I remember is you on your back from them grenades."

George snorted in amusement, and laughter sounded from behind as Alex, Skip, and Malarkey came inside. It seemed to have been Malarkey who had laughed. They looked at him.

"Hey, Malark, I wouldn't laugh if I was you. I seem to remember you being too busy cryin' over a Luger," Bill added with a smirk. "Stupid Mick."

"Just wait 'till I do get one," he muttered.

Alice smiled and shook her head. "Hoobler's dying for one, too."

The door opened behind them. In walked Johnny Martin and Bull Randleman. The former smirked. "Look who wandered in."

"Hey! Bull!" Bill stood up and took his hand. They shook. "Glad you're alive."

Bull snorted in amusement. "So am I." He looked around and shook hands. Then he turned to Alice. "Glad to be home, Lieutenant?"

She'd known the question would come eventually. But she paused. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment. Flashes of crumbled buildings, Nazi uniforms, and flames filled her mind. France, broken, dying.

"Alice?"

She glanced at George. They had all started watching her closely. Alice forced a smile. "Yeah, yeah, it's good. Nice to be back."

"I could do without the bugs," Bill muttered.

Her fake smile became genuine. She shook her head. The others broke off into smaller conversations, George and Bull following Joe Toye to get food. Alice took up a spot by a window, sitting on a wooden chair. She watched the trucks and men going to and fro in the sunshine.

A few minutes later, George came back over. He pulled a coffee table towards the window and sat on the wood. A bar of some sort stuck out of his mouth until he had his hands free again. After a moment of watching her, he spoke up when she turned to him. "You okay?"

"What do you mean?"

George scoffed. "You're doing the thing where you think too much." He gestured back through the house where the men had disappeared into a kitchen. "You know, Bill's problem with you."

"I'll be fine." She shrugged. With a sigh, Alice looked back out the window and then to him. "Two years I dreamed about coming back here, back to France. Now I'm here and it's so much worse than when I left it. I guess I had prepared myself for that."

With a nod, he took another bite. They turned to the window again. Together, they watched the bustle outside. More and more men filtered into the town. Suddenly, Alice straightened up. She saw Gene.

"I'll be right back," she told George. Darting up from her spot, she hurried out the door. "Gene!"

The man turned to look. He looked tired, with bloody clothes and sweat cutting through the grime on his skin. As he caught sight of her, Gene offered a small smile. He waited.

Alice grabbed him in a hug. "Thank God you're alright. I couldn't find you before the jump."

He nodded. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I got stuck at Second Platoon and had too much to do."

"No, I'm sorry. I should've found time," she insisted. "Hopefully the blood on your clothes isn't yours?"

He shook his head. With a gesture back down a road, he sighed. "Nah, I've been workin' at the aid station. They need all the help they can get right now. Half the men pourin' in here are wounded."

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

Gene looked at her. "Don't lecture me, Alice. I'll get sleep when I can get sleep." With another sigh, he shook his head. "We're moving out at noon, by the way. I overheard a couple 'a officers talking about it."

"Noon? Where to?"

He shook his head. "I dunno. Some town further in. Didn't catch a name."

"Right." Alice released a deep breath. "Okay. Well, try to sleep, okay? Please?"

Gene frowned but nodded. He looked around. Then he turned back to her. "How's your face? Charlie's medic said it looked pretty painful." He leaned in to inspect her cheek as he turned it towards him. "Eh, ain't too bad. Probably hurt, though."

"To be honest, I didn't feel it till Johnny pointed it out. Must've been too anxious to care," she muttered. "But once I knew it was there, it stung like crazy."

"Well keep it clean," said Gene. "Don't be puttin' anything like your gloves or unwashed hands near that thing. Let it heal on its own."

"Whatever you say."

"And don't you ignore me, neither. I'm serious, Cherie. Watch what goes near that cut."

Alice smiled. "I will. I promise."

Gene nodded. "Good."

"Now, go get some sleep. Noon's in a few hours. I want to hear you slept before we get moving again, okay?"

"Deal."

She nodded to him again. While Gene went back across the road into the house Easy had claimed, Alice just looked around. Once she saw him disappear inside, she turned away. Her mind drifted to thoughts of France as she made her way deeper into the town. Before long she caught sight of Dick talking to Buck and Harry. She made her way to them.

"Heard we're moving out in a few hours," she said, joining them.

Dick nodded. "Yeah, we have orders inland. Eventually we'll be making an assault on Carentan."

"They do know we have maybe forty percent strength, right?" Buck muttered.

Dick nodded. "Yeah, but the way Strayer and Sink see it, at least we have forty percent which is better than the less than twenty men we had on day one."

Buck scoffed, but Harry just shrugged. He took a swig of his canteen and looked around. Then he turned to Alice. "You were talking to the men?"

"Yeah."

"How are they doing?"

Alice shrugged. "Better than I expected, to be honest. I, uh, expected at least one in particular to be more than a little upset."

"Guarnere?" ventured Dick.

"He told you?"

Dick shrugged. "I overheard."

Buck and Harry both looked between them in confusion. For a moment they both hesitated. But Alice decided to tell them. If anyone could handle being yelled at by Guarnere, she could, because she had a feeling he wouldn't take it out on her given the events on the Samaria.

"Guarnere found out his brother Henry was killed in Monte Casino before we jumped." She let out a long breath. "Frankly he's doing better than I expected."

"Shit," Buck muttered. "No wonder he wanted to shoot everything in sight."

Dick didn't say anything at first. But then he nodded, and looked down the road. "Well. Let's just hope more of Easy show up before we move. We can use all the help we can get."

"That's for sure," Buck added.

For the next several hours, Alice wandered around the town, trying to find all the men of Easy that she could. She checked her equipment too. After making sure each man of Easy had been checked in with, Alice found the officers again. When noon came, quite a few members of Easy Company had shown up, so they would be moving at about seventy percent strength. Alice thanked God that not a single person she had felt particularly close to had been declared dead. While quite a bit of Third Platoon hadn't shown up, no one could confirm their demise, so she decided not to think the worst.

Together with Harry to her left and Dick to her right, they started off. France looked marginally better in the daytime. It restored a bit of her hope. Maybe France wasn't dead, just broken.