Alice knew George would kill her for this. So would Bill and Joe too. George would probably start a search party for her as soon as he read the note after his nap. But she had to do this, and she had to do it alone.

Her pulse quickened as she stood outside the small yet lively nightclub. A sign hung above the heavy, black door with script in red and white: La Maison Rouge. Jean-Luc would probably kill her too, for coming back to the place that started it all, and by herself no less. But she had to.

Light flooded out from the crack under the door and a pair of windows to the left. She could hear music too. With a deep breath, Alice moved her trembling hand to the doorknob. It opened inwards and she was met immediately with the raucous noise of celebrating youths and clinking drinks. She stepped inside.

The room looked different, and yet altogether the same. No more Nazi flags forced to hang from the walls, replaced instead of the red, white, and blue of France. She saw the words 'liberté, égalité, fraternité' painted on a board and nailed above the main bar. 

The jukebox radio still sat in the same place, to the right of the door close to the bar. Instead of the occasional Germans, Americans and British mingled with the Parisian citizens. There was a lot more laughter in the Maison Rouge than she remembered. 

With her fingers, Alice traced a gouged indent in the wooden wallboard to the right of the door. Her hand trembled when she pulled away. The Maison Rouge had always been a small place, intimate. Whenever the Nazis had stopped in, she and the others had been enraged. 

Alice walked further in, past the dozen tables to her left. Her eyes caught the photographs still hanging along the right hand wall. A small smile graced her features. Soon she came to stop by the bar. She went to ask for a glass of wine, but the words stuck. So she ordered whiskey instead. The old man, white haired and wrinkled, smiled and nodded. Soon she held the glass.

Alice continued back further into the bar. The short hallway to the back rooms filled with cigarette smoke, darkened by the lack of light. But it opened again on the left, with another large room with twenty tables and a dance space. Alice stood at the doorway and watched soldiers and civilians fraternizing. They looked so happy, so carefree. 

As she turned from the dance room, Alice looked ahead. The door to the back office store room stood slightly ajar. Her breath caught in her throat. 

"We just need to ask you a few questions, mademoiselle."

She stopped in her tracks, several meters from the door. Her eyes squeezed shut. Giving herself a few moments to breathe, she moved forward.

"You were seen in the company of Herr Shultz just a night before plans went missing from his person. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Miss Klein?"

"No," Alice whispered. 

She stood before the doorway. Her heart pounded in her chest as she moved a hand towards the door and pushed it further open. It did so silently. She reached inside to the right of the door and flipped on the light switch. 

Once inside, Alice looked to her right. Her whole body trembled. Tracks from desperate fingernails still lay in the wooden paneling. Her nails, her struggle, her body. Her stomach churned. Alice placed her fingers on the scratches.

"Do you know what we do to Germans who betray the Fatherland?"

Alice shuddered. Her body felt as though someone had shoved ice down her clothes. She turned away. The window in the back of the room, some ten feet from her, still had no drapes or blinds. The darkness of  night reared up behind the glass. Trying to maintain her breathing, Alice shot one last look at the scratches in the wood paneling before ducking back out.

As she stalked down the hall and past the bar, Alice set her empty whiskey glass down with an extra tip. Her trembling hands grabbed the door and pulled it open. Soon she stood out on the street, freezing in the December air, trying to stop her tears.

She took out a cigarette. With the warmth of the smoke and the nicotine to calm herself, she stood beside the door. Breathe in, breathe out. So focused on her breathing, Alice didn't even see Nixon until he spoke to her.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," he said. Grinning around the cigarette he tried to light, he moved of towards her. "People might start talking."

"What the... what the hell are you doing here?" Alice looked at him in abject confusion. "I thought you were going to Aldbourne with your pass?"

Nixon's smile dropped. He stuck his left hand in his pocket and took out his cigarette with his right. "Yeah, Blanche was going to meet me. But she's not doing well right now so she went back to the States early."

Alice looked at him in concern. This was the first she'd heard of his sister in awhile. "What do you mean? Is she sick?"

He brushed it off with a shrug. "Just isn't doing well. I figured I'd just crash Dick's R&R." His gaze traveled to the door and sign of the Maison Rouge. Then he glanced back at her. "I wanted to check this place out myself. What are you doing here?"

Her whole body tensed. Alice took the cigarette from her mouth and tapped away some ashes. "I just needed to see it again."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I don't know." She sighed. Shivering, she shook her head. Her voice fell. "I don't know."

Nixon looked at her for a while. Then he glanced around. "Where are Guarnere, Toye, and Luz?"

"They don't know I'm here," she admitted.

He laughed less out of amusement and more because he'd suspected as much. With a nod, he gestured down the road. "Come on. Let's go find Dick and annoy him."

"Ok."

Alice wrapped her arms around her body to try and conserve as warmth as possible. A bitter cold breeze bit through their clothes as they walked. Mostly they went along in silence. Trying not to freeze to death, Alice put herself as close to him as possible. 

"I ran into some old friends today." After ten minutes of walking in silence, she spoke up again. When he looked over in surprise, she gave a nod and a smile. "Jean-Luc. I think I told you about him back in New Jersey? Turns out he's alive, and two of our other friends, his fiancee Marie and her cousin, Juliette."

"They're doing well?" he asked.

"Seems so." She paused for a moment. "Honestly I never expected to find people I knew still alive. Leaving is going to be very hard now. They're basically family."

"Yeah."

Alice sighed. "Paris is far from perfect, though. And I'm not sure..."

When she trailed off, Nixon looked over to her. Her face was drawn and she just stared ahead. He frowned. "What?"

"I don't think I could leave you, and Easy Company."

So caught up in her thoughts, was she, that Alice didn't even register Nixon stop in his tracks. She just continued on, arms crossed. Quickly he caught back up.

"Dick's staying up ahead." He said. Lighting a new cigarette, he followed her through the door of the hotel. "Room 312. Go up ahead, I've gotta do one more thing."

She looked at him quizzically but nodded. Alice stepped into the elevator and took it up. Leaving Nixon behind to complete whatever task needed his attention, she disappeared.

When she knocked on Room 312, it took a few minutes before Dick Winters opened the door. Even he couldn't hide his surprise. "Alice!"

"Nixon's here. He sent me up first," she said, smiling at his shock. "He seems intent on bothering you and I happened along for the ride."

Dick scoffed but nodded. Stepping aside, he let her in. He wore a loose shirt and shorts. The room she found herself in stretched on forever, it seemed. A wonderful bed sat on the left, and to the right, a bathroom with a porcelain tub. She looked back at him with a smile.

"Quite a nice place, Captain," she teased.

Dick went to respond, but a knock at the door pulled him away. Soon enough, Nixon stood inside with them, pulling off his coat.

"Couldn't let me have some alone time, could you," Dick asked.

Nixon scoffed. "Please. Your life would be so boring without me." Then he turned to Alice. "I sent a message to the three musketeers who are likely trying to find you."

She at least had the decency to look sheepish. "Thanks."

They settled around the table in the small hotel flat. For a few hours, Alice went on to tell them about Jean-Luc, Marie, and Juliette, and about the days when their only cares had been what to wear to school. So caught up in her stories, Alice didn't notice the way Nixon watched her, but Dick did, and he made a mental note of it.

But after a few hours, as midnight had come and gone, she looked at her watch with a sigh. "If I don't show my face to those three before dawn, they may actually kill me, despite you sending them a heads up, Nixon." With a nod, she stood from the table. "Enjoy tomorrow. It'll be back to Foxhole Norman in no time."

Nixon cracked up, and Dick just shook his head at the slur she used against the Easy Company CO. Before she could head out, Dick told Nixon to go walk her to a cab since he was not dressed for such things.

"Thanks," she said with a smile. 

As they walked to the taxi line, Nixon handed her another cigarette. She grinned and accepted the light he then offered. Before long, they stood before a cab.

"Don't let them beat you up to bad," he said. "At least get a few punches in."

Alice laughed. "Definitely."

They paused for a moment before Alice ducked inside the car. She spoke to the driver, giving her hotel address. With a last wave at Nixon, the car sped off.

When at last she stood outside the hotel room she and George shared, Alice cringed to herself. The key turned quickly. It didn't surprise her in the least to find George, Bill, and Joe all sitting around one of the beds playing cards, cigarettes filling the room with smoke.

"Fucking hell!" Joe shouted as she came in.

At exactly the same time, Bill cursed as well. "Jesus Christ. Where the fuck 'ave you been?"

She flinched back. "Sorry. There was something I had to do."

"And then you went and spent time with Captain Nixon?" George added. He looked at her with a smirk.

"We ran into each other. I went with him to see Captain Winters," she bit back. "Now either deal me in or get the hell out so I can take a bath and go to bed."

"Fine, fine. Jesus," Bill muttered. "Joe, deal her in."

They spent another hour playing poker before Alice did send Bill and Joe back to their own room. After a warm bath, she climbed into her bed. Tomorrow they would go see Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and any other location she could think to bring them.

And that's what they did. After grabbing lunch with Alice's three Parisian friends, they wandered around Paris. It was with a heavy heart that they boarded the train back to Mourmelon-le-Grand that night. None of them wanted to go back to reality, to the war.

As Alice boarded the train car, she waved to her friends on the platform. For a moment she genuinely considered stepping back off. She could make another life, a new life, in liberated Paris. She could start over. She could stay home.

But she couldn't. Only one half of her home was free. Only one half of her heart. No matter how much she enjoyed Free France, she knew she'd never feel whole without setting foot in a Free Germany. And though her friends offered her a solace she knew, as much as she loved Jean-Luc and Juliette and Marie, the men of Easy were not a group she could abandon like that.

Not after years of slaving together to win this war. Alice couldn't leave that, no matter how hard she found it to shoot at her own countrymen or walk into the land that had tried to destroy her people. And beyond that, even if she could leave the cause, Alice knew one thing. She couldn't leave the people. She couldn't leave her family.

The End of Part One

-Up Next-

HUMANITY OF THE BROKEN

Author's Note:

Well, guys. That's it. Part one is done.  I never thought I'd see those words before the end of 2020 haha. But here we are.

Thank you so much for coming along on this crazy ride from Toccoa to Paris.

Next, we have the even crazier ride from Bastogne to Zel Am See. I don't think I'm emotionally prepared to write this next fic.

But here we are. It's time, I guess. Let's go free Germany, friends.

See next few chapters for extras!!