September 15, 1943

Aldbourne, England

As Alice strolled down the relatively quiet street in the small town of Aldbourne, she shifted her backpack and readjusted the duffle bag in her right hand. In her left, the small slip of paper with the address of her billet became harder and harder to see as the sun sank in the sky. Cloud cover obscured what remained of daylight. Beneath the address, the name Mrs. Milicent Bratt had been scrawled in neat cursive by one of the aids of the officers of the Royal Army Service Corps.

Requesting to stay billeted in a house separate from the lodging being used for Easy's enlisted had come as a surprise to the men. She guessed most of them still didn't know what had happened on the Samaria. By now the bruise on her neck had faded to a light pink.

Her anger had cooled, replaced by a wariness she'd not felt since the early days of Toccoa. Alice still talked to the enlisted, still took her meals with them if invited. But she found herself placing barriers between her emotions and their companionship. Some barriers were on purpose, others she put up without even thinking. On the other hand, Alice did her absolute best to avoid the other officers as much as she could. She'd gone straight to Colonel Sink to request the private housing. Sobel had heard it from him, and she guessed the other officers would hear it from Sobel. Frankly she didn't care.

Her boots hit the pavement methodically. The numbers on the quaint houses started dropping. Before long, she found herself standing in front of the house she'd been assigned. The white brick house had several windows lit, though soft fabric obscured her view inside. The dark door had a bell to the right. Alice looked at the reddish-brown slanted roof. She decided she liked it.

Alice knocked on the brown door three times. She adjusted her stance, waiting. Footsteps pounded down the hall and a voice echoed inside, female. The door swung open. Inside, a teenage young woman with deep brown hair and blue eyes stared at her, light flooding the darkened street. Alice squinted a bit.

"Madeleine Rose, I've told ya' a thousand times not t' open the door without me!"

The girl, Madeleine, just smiled at Alice. Behind her appeared another woman, the one who had spoken. She also had dark hair and blue eyes, and stood several inches taller than Madeleine. In her arms, a young boy of maybe two squirmed.

"Ah! Ya' must be Lieutenant Alice Klein?"

Alice smiled. "Yes. Milicent Bratt?"

"Millie. Nobody calls me Milicent but my gran." She shifted the boy in her arms. "Madeleine, get ya' backside outta the way for her!"

Madeleine rolled her eyes, but moved aside. With a smile, Alice stepped into the house. Floral wallpaper and large plank wood floors greeted her. A few lights lit the hallway and the room to the left, a living room with couches and an oriental rug.

"I must say, when the Yanks said they had a lady for us to quarter I thought them mad," Millie rambled on. "What with all the men queuing up from the docks and not one lady among 'em. But we're happy to house ya'."

"I appreciate it."

The boy in Millie's arms squirmed to be let down. The woman rolled her eyes but set him down. "This is my son Percy. He says no to just about everything these days. And that girl who blocked your path was Madeleine, my younger sister."

Alice smiled as the boy darted down the hall, his light brown hair bouncing behind him. He disappeared around a corner, and soon laughter from both Percy and Madeleine could be heard. Standing next to the door, before a large staircase, Alice shuffled in place.

Millie's smile faded ever so slightly as she gazed down the now empty hallway. With her hands on her hips, she shook her head. Then she turned back. "Now then. How about some tea? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? You really must tell me all about what you do for the Americans. I can tell you aren't one of them; you from France? Your accent's faded but it's still there."

"Originally I'm from Hamburg, actually. My father was German, but my mother was from eastern France. We moved to Paris when I was in school," Alice told her. She laid her bags down next to the door and followed Millie down the hall towards the kitchen and dining room.

"Ah so you are from France!"

Grinning, Millie grabbed a kettle and set water to start boiling on the stove. She took two cups from one of the white cabinets and set them on the countertops. As Alice stood looking around, she found herself smiling. The home reminded her of one of the houses she'd stayed in frequently in Provence on holiday.

"So, spill. Why you with the Yanks? What's a lady doing with those men? Scandalous." Though she seemed to criticize, Millie's grin said otherwise.

"S'long story," Alice admitted. She slipped into one of the wooden dining room chairs.

Millie shrugged. "I'm here all night, love."

With a chuckle, Alice nodded. "Alright. Well, back in France I joined the Maquis in 1941. Acted as a sniper and a runner. Last year the Americans contacted one of the leaders of the French Resistance and they recommended me, since I had contacts in Germany and France, and I'm able to speak French, German, English, and Dutch fluently." She shrugged. "Well, I ended up here for a month or two before they set me over the ocean to help them."

"What are they like? My husband Andrew, God rest his soul, had been to America once. Said they were downright awful."

Alice laughed. "They're interesting. The only word I can use for them is brash."

The kettle whistled, steam rising from the spout rapidly. With practiced ease, Millie lifted it off the stove top and poured the blazing hot water into the two cups.

"Earl Grey good for ya'?"

"Sure."

"I'm afraid I can't waste cream on the tea, with the rationin' and all. Bloody terrible that is." Millie sighed and shook her head. Picking up the two cups, she rounded the counter and set one before Alice. Taking the seat across from her, she leaned over her arms and watched Alice with interest. "What do ya' do with 'em?"

"The Americans?"

"Yeah. Did they train you to fight with 'em?"

Alice smiled. "Yes. I'm a certified paratrooper. When they go to the mainland, I'll go to the mainland."

"You happy to be back here? I know England isn't France, but we're closer neighbors than the New World, that's for sure."

"I won't lie, it does feel good to be here."

They sipped at their tea for awhile. Millie told Alice that Madeleine had gone to put Percy to bed, so they had the rest of the evening to themselves. She explained that her sister had moved in after the deaths of Millie's husband and their parents. Apparently both Andrew, her husband, and William, her father, had been killed in the war. Their mother Miriam had died of a broken heart.

"Why she gets to up and die from a broken heart and I don't, I'll never know," Millie muttered, half joking. "God rest all of them. The world's worse off with their absence. But Maddie and I get along alright, and Percy adores her."

Talk then turned to Alice. Over the course of about an hour and two cups of tea, she gave an overview of the training she'd gone through. Millie had listened intently, finding it all very fascinating, though she insisted she would never want to do anything of the sort. At 2200 hours, Millie showed Alice to what had been Madeleine's room. The teen would be sleeping in Percy's room instead.

"I know ya' said you were gonna smoke before bed, so I'll leave the door unlocked. Just be sure to turn the key when ya' do come in, right?" Millie stood on the third step, Alice by the door. "Breakfast will be at eight o'clock sharp, if you're here and wantin' to enjoy it."

"Thank you."

"Course. Good night."

Alice turned away from Millie as the slightly older woman tiptoed up the stairs. Taking care not to make too much noise, Alice opened the front door and ducked out into the cool September night. At the end of the short lawn and walkway, a street lamp provided some light. She took out her pack of cigarettes and her lighter and stood beneath it.

She'd only gotten half way through her smoke when she heard the front door of the next house over open and shut. Alice turned, and tried to glance past the edge of the light from the lamppost. After a moment she recognized the man who approached. Alice folded her arms over her chest.

"Ron, what are you doing here?"

"Could ask you the same," he replied. Stepping under the light of the street lamp, he pulled out his own cigarette and lighter. After inhaling deeply, he turned back to her. "I don't think I saw you at all between New York and here."

"I'm billeted here," Alice said. She gestured behind herself up the small sidewalk. Ignoring Ron's obvious, though unstated question, she shook her head. "I'm glad to be off that ship."

"I'll bet."

She turned to him. With a deep sigh, she shook her head. "Great, how many in Dog know about it then."

"About the attack on you? Not many. It's been kept pretty hush hush," he said. "Sobel was ranting about it in the officers' mess towards the end of the trip. That's how I found out."

Neither one said anything else for awhile. They smoked in peace and silence, listening to the trees rustling in the gentle but steady breeze, and watching as the clouds faded away and left a million stars behind. Alice frowned around her cigarette.

"Course, then I interrogated Nixon, Winters, and Welsh." He smirked a bit to himself. Taking out his cigarette, he blew a long cloud of smoke. "I don't think I've seen any of them in as rotten a mood as they are since I met them."

"That's nice."

Ron suppressed a wider grin. Leaning against the fence at his back, he crossed his arms. "So then I asked what had them so pissed off. Figured they wanted to beat up How Company or something."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Yeah, what'd they say?"

"I don't think I need to tell you."

With a scoff, she pulled the finished cigarette out of her mouth. Stomping on it under her heel, she didn't respond. Instead, Alice pulled out a second cigarette, lit it, and stuck it in her mouth. Finally she spoke again. "Humor me, Ron."

He let out a tiny, humorless laugh. "Fine. Welsh didn't say much. I don't think he trusts me." Ron smirked as Alice looked at him with a small, knowing smile. "Winters wouldn't say much either, but that's nothing new. Nixon, though, said a lot about you not taking care of yourself and then mentioned something to the effect of being extremely pissed off at you. He ended his rant defending his drinking?"

"Interesting. Nixon's an idiot, so I'm not surprised," Alice snapped back.

Ron just scoffed again. "That's not true. Nixon's a lot of things, not all of them good, but an idiot is not one. He's loud and obnoxious, but at least he's got intelligence to try to balance that."

"So you think it's alright that he went and invaded my files without asking?"

With a shrug, he inhaled his cigarette smoke before replying. "If he'd asked you for the information he'd needed, would you have told him?" When she didn't respond he continued. "Is looking into a classified military file a nice thing to do? No. But we're at war. You know that better than anyone else."

"Oh, so that excuses divulging private information. Extremely private?" She shook her head and scoffed.

But Ron cut her off before she could rant any further. "Yes. It does. From what I can piece together, you weren't being responsible. That puts you in danger, and if you're in danger, that puts your Company in danger. Then you almost get raped and the only way to explain why you didn't defend yourself was for him to tell a select few people the reason. By doing that, he cut off any potential rumors that could undermine the Company's faith in your ability to fight." He sighed. "You know better than anyone else, you being a woman already makes your job harder. People will latch onto any weakness you show and use that to prove you're unfit to serve."

Alice didn't have a response. She just stared at him. Ron didn't look her way at first, but after a few seconds, he turned and looked at her right in the eyes. She felt her anger increasing again, her body trembling. But after a few moments of trying to stare down Ron Speirs, she looked away. He gave her sound logic. But it didn't make her feel any better.

"He crossed a line."

Ron shrugged. "We're at war. A lot of lines are going to be crossed. Is there anything you wouldn't do to free Europe?"

She paused again. Taking her cigarette out, she tried to control her breathing. His words cut deep into her heart. She had done her fair share of questionable things in the Maquis. Anyone not with the liberation movement was an enemy, a collaborator. Framing them for activities the Maquis had engaged in had been just one way she'd crossed a few lines already.

"Don't burn every bridge you've made," Ron said. He threw his cigarette to the ground and smashed it with his heel. "You're too smart to make that mistake. That mistake will get you killed."

He didn't say goodnight before turning away from her and walking back to the house next door. Alice watched his back until he disappeared inside. With a moment to herself, she plopped her cigarette back in her mouth to enjoy the last bit. Her anger still blazed against the betrayal she'd felt at the hands of Easy. But Ron was right, as usual. If she wanted to free Europe, she couldn't afford to cut off all her allies. And deep down, she missed her friends.

But she didn't know if she could consider them friends anymore. Her heart hurt too much, as much as her brain had the sense to know she needed them. With a sigh, Alice turned away from the road. She had way too much to think about to go to bed, but she needed to go inside.