Nixon's foxhole was on the border of Easy's staked-out positions and the dug-in platoons of Fox Company on the left flank, towards the rear. His figure, hunched and still, appeared to be sleeping. Around him, the other officers were snoring softly, buried into their pits of mud with the tops of their heads visible.

The sky had lightened, the gray overcast clouds had remained, casting the field and the damp grass with a lavender hue that provided ample shadows for skulking and silent movement. Or so I had thought.

My plan had been formed in the black of the night, between the chorus of Germans and the snores of Bull rumbling beside me. I hadn't slept a wink but there wasn't room for a tired bone in my body.

"You're up early," Nixon's voice, though whispered, sounded deafening in the hours before dawn.

Shit.

I froze, like a panicked animal in the beam of a headlight but the damage was done.

"Shh," I hissed. I could handle Nixon's presence but if the redhead beside him awoke, I wouldn't be able to convince him that I was following orders.

"Leaving without saying goodbye?" Nixon said, putting on a face of mock sadness. If only I would leave him. He'd likely prefer it.

"I can't leave, can I?" I said. I was stuck with Easy Company, tied to their platoons until the invasion had seen its course. That could be days or weeks. Maybe even months. For the foreseeable future, I'd be an honorary member of the Airborne without any jump experience.

"I'm afraid deserters are still shot," Nixon ran a hand through his dark hair before replacing his helmet on his head. "I'm not much of a rifleman but I can do my part."

"You're joking," I said, though I wasn't entirely sure.

"I wish I was," Nixon said. "You are too valuable to left wandering around France, or were you lying to me this whole time?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," I lied.

He waved me to his foxhole and my feet did as they were told. Betrayal.

I knelt beside him, lowering my voice to keep from waking his companion.

"You know," Nixon said, conversationally. "You can follow orders. It won't make you any less of a spy."

I scoffed, out of annoyance that he was right rather than any disbelief.

"I'm serious," Nixon said. "See this as an opportunity to save lives from within the group. Not everything has to be done ten steps ahead and two years before."

"That's not-"

"What? That's not how spies work?" Nixon said. "What do you know about espionage but what's been taught to you? They don't have to know who you are but they can know that you will fight with them, for them. The men need that. You need that."

"I didn't realize I needed to work on my public image," I quipped.

Nixon ignored my joke, remaining serious.

"You can have a few NCOs on your side but the enlisted can still make your life a living hell," He said. "Not to mention, Strayer is ready to have you court-martialed just because you are a pain in his side."

"He can't do that," I said, firmly but there was no weight in my words. I didn't know if he could or not.

Maybe this wasn't a joke.

I wanted Easy Company to trust me. I was jealous of their closeness, their bond, and here was my chance to get just a taste of it. Following orders didn't mean totally erasing my power and my ability as a human, as whatever lay beneath the title of agent. Virginia Carroll knew more than I had given her credit for.

As much as I wanted to test the waters and see how far I could go as a guest in the company and not a soldier Strayer could command, I knew that I was only good to the OSS alive. Who knew what that man could be capable of.

Though everything in me, the lessons of Miriam, Camp X, and most of all my pride, screamed in me not to surrender, I lay down my weapon.

"Fine," I said and found myself only a few hours later, wedged between Guarnere and Bull as we waited for Welsh's word to start firing. The orders were given to begin the assault at 0530 and now it was only a waiting game.

Not sure of my place or position, I lurked at the corner, listening to the men prepare and cigarettes being shared before the bullets began to rain.

"Shouldn't you be up with Strayer?" Winters asked as he passed me, checking the line.

"I've been assigned to the platoons, sir," I said. "To be kept out of trouble."

"We're babysitters now," Guarnere said. "Hey, what the fuck-"

I snatched my hand back, meeting Lieutenant Winters's puzzled gaze with my own steady one.

"I was given orders to keep you from the front line," He said.

"By whom?" I asked.

"Sink,"

"Sounds like they aren't communicating," I said, sagely. "That's an Army's greatest weakness."

"Huh," Winters said, not sounding completely convinced that I was where I was supposed to be. Miscommunication cost lives and I wouldn't allow myself to be sidelined after I had allowed myself to be chained to the men in the first place. Winters had clearly missed my conversation with Nixon, nay his pleading intervention.

"Where do you need me, sir?" I asked, eagerly.

He didn't have a chance to answer as the clock turned to 0530 and, before the platoon leaders gave the call for fire, the Germans began their assault. Bullets flew, leaves shredded, the shouts of pain and surprise started to ring.

'Sir! The weakest point?" I shouted as Winters ordered his radioman to pass along a hold message and he took off down the line. I followed him, our bodies dangerously exposed. We were drawing fire and I couldn't help but wonder if that was his plan.

He ran down the line, shouting encouragement and orders to his men not hesitating to fire his own weapon too. We slid back beside the radioman, Luz, his radio buzzing with the chatter of every platoon down the line.

"Sir! Send me!" I said above the artillery and the mortars that soared above my head.

Winters shook his head, pausing in his charge to turn and face me. "Sink told me that you are too valuable to the OSS. I have been ordered not to send you into the field!"

I threw my rifle off my shoulder, catching it in my hands, allowing the cool metal to grow warm beneath my skin. I had already shown what I could do in Carentan. This wasn't about being a woman, this was about being an agent. They didn't know what to do with me. I knew that I was either of no importance or too dangerous for the Airborne to use me to my full potential. I could try to listen to Nixon. I could try to listen to Sink. but would that really change the fact that they would never know what to do with me?

"Very well," I said. Winters's eyes flashed in surprise that I had agreed with him. Turning to my foxhole mate, I said. "Luz, if anyone asks, Lieutenant Winters tried to stop me."

Luz turned to face me, his hair spiked up, and eyes wild with the adrenaline and fear that coursed through every one of us. "What?"

I didn't repeat myself, just flung myself into the embankment, and raised the butt of my rifle to my shoulder. The M1 had been a standard-issue and was just like the ones I had been trained with.

Just like back at Camp-X, I could feel the bullets fly by me, so close I could almost smell the gunpowder and feel the heat. There was so much going on, people shouting in English and German, some just in unintelligible shrieks of pain. I took a deep steadying breath and looked through the sight.

There were breaks in the treeline where the Germans lay, and I could see shadows and glimpses of figures darting to and fro. There was a rhythm to their movements, I realized and waited for the beat to reach a consistent pace. Within seconds, I knew the pace they were moving.

Curling my finger around the trigger, I hummed the rhythm, tapping it out on the ground with my foot before taking my first shot.

One. Two. Three.

The rhythm was punctuated by the percussion of three bodies hitting the dirt. Tapping the beat again, I waited for the next three. This all took less than ten seconds but felt like an eternity. All noise seemed far away, as if at the end of a long tunnel. In the silence, I let my prayer take precedence. The words echoed in the emptiness of my mind.

"...Defend us against enemies, illness, war, famine, and sorrow..For You, God, watch over us and deliver us."

That's when my rhythm was interrupted by something that could only be an earthquake. Looking up, I felt a bullet ping! Off my helmet, slamming my head back down. In the fuzzy moments that followed, I heard someone shout at the end of that long tunnel. "TANK!"

A tank.

Oh, good.

That's just what we needed.

I pried my head off the soft dirt and spat out the dust from my mouth, looking around. The tank was nowhere to be seen. I must have hit my head very hard. But there was still the rumbling, the shaking of the very ground that seemed to grow closer and closer. I shuffled back from the line as, like a great creature of some mythology, the panzer burst through the treeline, snapping the saplings like they were toothpicks.

"Tank!"

The word was shouted down the line in varying degrees of anger, frustration, fear, and, in Guarnere's case, absolute rage.

Withdrawing from the ditch bank, I let a machine gunner take my place as I patted down my webbing and pockets, trying to find something that would do. I had about three more grenades and one cocktail that I had mixed in Saint-Marie-Du-Mont.

That would have to work, I decided. I had to get close enough to throw it under the chassis for maximum effect.

I sat back up, like an animal waiting to dart across a road, surveying the field. I would have to be stupid, all safety tossed to the wind.

I could manage that, I decided and ran into the meadow.

Time slowed down, much like it had as I counted the rhythms of the German movements. I felt like I was running through maple syrup, though I knew I was racing faster than I ever had before. All those foot races as a kid and the miles and miles of PT were paying off, I realized as my feet carried me past our line and into the open. Bullets flew around me, a swarm of metal and gunpowder.

I could hear Winters and Bull shouting at me, Luz was screaming and in front of me, the Germans were pointing, crying. "Ist dieser Soldat verrückt?"

I was insane, very insane, I realized as I threw a grenade into the nearest German foxhole to buy myself some time as my fingers fumbled for my lighter.

The prayer was on my lips as the silver was cool under my trembling fingertips. Engraved upon it was, "For Allen, Love, Miriam."

"Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings..."

My parents would help me light this bomb and possibly get myself killed. The dirt flew through the air, set in flight by my grenade's explosion as I tried once, no, twice to light the fuse. I could hear Guarnere shouting, Toye bellowing something unintelligible, all the while, my target barrelled closer.

Welsh shouted at a man named McGrath as a second burst through the trees. On the third try, the lighter flickered into life. I could have collapsed with relief. With shaking fingers and the prayer of thanks on my lips, I lit the fuse. It burned, reeking of the chemicals that made up my cocktail.

Standing, I ran alongside the tank that barreled toward Easy's hedgerow, unseen by the tank's occupants. I had never chased a tank in all my time in Normandy and I wasn't too keen to make it a regular occurrence. My breath coming in fast gasps, I threw the cocktail with all my might and took off like a shot, not waiting to see if it landed its mark. The memory of being blown forward into the flooded field was still fresh in my mind and it must have been in Guarnere's, shouting at me to hurry. From the wave of heat that burst into life behind me, I think it worked.

I slid into the embankment again, several hundred feet from where I had left, right next to Liebgott and Welsh

"Well if it isn't our guardian angel herself?" Liebgott shouted above the gunfire. I turned and looked at my handiwork, a smoldering shell of metal that had once been a tank was all that remained. A flash of pride and relief warmed my belly and I scanned the meadow for anything else I could do. Maybe Nixon had been right, I thought. Maybe I didn't have to be in front of the men but shoulder to shoulder to do good. My eyes picked apart the field, settling on Bull's stumbling form as he fell to the ground under heavy fire.

"BULL!" I shrieked, my voice shrill above the artillery and mortars that soared above us. Liebgott's rifle was loud in my ear.

I slithered out of the bunker halfway and reached my hands out to him. The Arkansan grasped my hands in his own and I pulled him into the safety of Liebgott's foxhole.

Now crushed between Bull and Liebgott in a foxhole made for only two, I wrestled my rifle off my shoulder and shoved Liebgott over for some space. I began firing rapidly, just to keep fire superiority. I made my shots count though, ticking them off in my head as the flow of the gun returned to me, all the while muttering.

"Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings..."

"Tank!" Someone down the line shouted and I turned to Liebgott. "Another?"

Liebgott shook his head. "Shermans!"

My prayers had been met with reinforcements from the east. Friendly fire was now raining on the Germans and along the line of the 101st, paratroopers cheered.

Welsh laughed maniacally, grabbing Liebgott's arm and shouting. "Oh you, beautiful babies, you!"

The German line disintegrated, all falling back in mass droves. The tanks were following them, like dogs on the hunt. We continued to fire on the Germans retreating backs shouting in relief and joy. As their backs disappeared into the trees, I wiped my hands off on my jacket and offered Liebgott my pack of smokes, lighting it with the same lighter I had blown up a tank.

Boots approached, thumping like a drumbeat in the chorus of celebration. Winters tapped my shoulder, his radioman Luz behind him the noise chattering. His brow was furrowed and he looked apologetic as he said. "Sink's requested your presence in HQ,"

"Of course," I said.

Annoyance, disappointment, any number of words could have been assigned to Colonel Sink's expression but I thought exhausted fit the bill. His weary eyes met mine, studying my still-smoking uniform and the mud smudging my face. Lieutenant Colonel Strayer was furious, that much I knew. I had no hesitation in assigning that emotion to his tightened lips and furrowed brow. Two soldiers who had been given charge of a spy and they were at their wit's end.

"Don't blame Lieutenant Winters, sir," I said, before either had a chance to speak.

"I wouldn't dream of it, agent," Strayer said. "This falls to you."

"Just what the hell did you think would happen?" Sink asked. "You are a guest in my company,"

"You are right, sir," I said. "I am a guest."

Sink's exhaustion could spark into a fury if I wasn't careful but I didn't want to be careful anymore. I had been invited into the company under the agreement that I would help. My intuition didn't always line up with their plans and it was a price I was willing to pay.

"I think you've overstayed your welcome," Strayer said.

"I couldn't agree more," I said, straightening my shoulders. "Though I'm not sure I would consider the intelligence and the assistance I provided as 'overstaying',"

"Agent, you cannot-"

"What?" I asked. "I can't speak like that? I'm not a member of this company or this army am I?"

"And thank god for that," Sink sighed.

I recoiled. I didn't expect that from Sink. I would have thought Strayer, hell, even Nixon would have said that. Never Sink. He could have shouted, spat in my face. But those words stung, striking my heart with the speed of a viper. the venom sank deep as Strayer took command, saying. "Agent, we are being pulled back to a bivouac south of Cherbourg,"

I could have tried to wrestle that command from him, said something smart that would have made my father shake his head in disgrace. I could have tried to humiliate, lash out. but what would that do? The final blow had landed and I hadn't been the one to strike.

"You will find passage back to England there," Strayer said. He looked proud like he had ended the war right then and there. Maybe he had ended his own personal war. Why I was a worthy enemy, I still didn't know.

"Yes sir," I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. To maintain some kind of decorum. I had done that for them but it didn't seem to be enough. The words had been said, the line in the sand had been drawn and my sentence had been served. That would have been enough. It would have been enough but I was told who had truly won this power struggle in no uncertain terms.

"Your time with Easy Company is over." Colonel Sink said.

I snapped to attention, giving the officers a sharp salute dripping with my contempt as I muttered, under my breath, "And thank God for that,"

Author's Note: 

DUH DUH DUNNNNN. For those who have been following since the A Little Discord era, you may remember that this isn't AT ALL how this happened last time. Well, surprise bitch! We are in new territory now, just like I promised. Thanks for reading!

Song for the chapter: Cringe by Matt Maeson