The sun hitting her face woke Alice up the next morning. It took several minutes before she willingly blinked open her eyes, and another minute before she moved any other part of her body. A fresh dusting of snow had settled everywhere, on the ground, in the foxhole, even over her fatigues. As she moved to sit up straighter, the snow fell from her olive drab.

"Hey cherie," Gene said with a nod. He cracked a small smile at her surprise. "Spina and I switched a couple hours ago."

"What's the time?" she muttered. The scratchiness in her voice surprised her. As she readjusted, Alice pulled out her canteen. The freezing cold water made her shiver.

Gene looked at his watch. "0920. You slept like the dead."

"If only," she muttered. 

Alice maneuvered herself to look out over the Ardennes. The medics' foxhole sat a little ways back from the front of the line. Peering through the trees, even in the sunlight, Alice couldn't see anyone else. She groaned and closed her eyes, sinking further into herself.

"You good, Alice?"

She sighed. "It's just been a helluva few days, Gene. As you know. I even forgot about my own damn birthday."

A pause followed. But then Gene spoke up again. "Guess we all kinda forgot, did'n we."

"It's fine. Nix remembered," she said. A tiny smile broke through her pouting. "How could I get mad at anyone forgetting when I forgot about it myself."

Gene just nodded. After watching her for a moment, he pushed himself out of the foxhole. "I have t' go check for more morphine."

"Right. Be safe," she added.

After watching him disappear through the trees, Alice sighed. The beating of her heart calmed as she focused on her breathing. Each breath hurt a bit more than the one before. The cold air had gone from a wet cold to an extremely dry cold. Somehow that was worse.

Finally, after counting back from ten, Alice pushed herself to her feet. The regret was instantaneous. A groan escaped her before she could react any other way. Pain shot through her legs. Alice stumbled a bit. Fuck foxholes.

Muttering curses under her breath, Alice stalked forward through the snow. She buried her hands beneath her arms across her chest. With each step, the snow crunched louder. 

"Hey, Lieutenant, you're gonna walk by without even sayin' good morning?" Talbert said. He winked at her when she turned to look at him. He and Shifty sat in a foxhole, the latter yawning between looking at a letter. "I don't know what your muttering in German, but my guess is it isn't pretty."

Alice sighed but flashed them both a quick smile. Squatting next to their foxhole she laughed. "Didn't realize I was muttering in German, to be honest."

"You were," Talbert said.

"I believe it. Hey Shifty, doesn't it get annoying, having to sleep with this guy?"

Shifty cracked a smile and laughed under his breath. Even as Talbert protested, Shifty just shook his head. "He ain't too bad, Lieutenant."

"Well good. You two watch yourselves, ok?" 

When they had both nodded at her, Shifty much more seriously than Floyd Talbert, Alice left them. Her feet kept going even when Alice lost track of what exactly she wanted to do on the line. She said hello to Perconte and Christenson, then ran into Mampre and McClung as they came back to their foxhole from a late breakfast. When she finally reached the Easy CP around lunch.

"There she is." Buck Compton stood with Bill Guarnere, George Luz, and Joe Toye around a coffee pot. As they all turned to look, he waved her over. "Come here."

Alice narrowed her eyes. But she did as asked. George Luz handed her a cup and she accepted it gratefully. "You needed me?"

"It came to our attention," Buck started, "that your birthday just passed."

The noise that escaped her was half a laugh and half a scoff. Gene Roe. No doubt he'd decided to take matters into his own hands. "It really doesn't matter. There are much more important things to think about than me getting a year older."

"Not true," George argued. "This is the perfect opportunity for a birthday to remember."

"But-"

"Fucking hell," Joe muttered.

At the same moment, Bill scoffed. "Jesus Christ, sweetheart. If we want to celebrate, let us fuckin' celebrate."

The unhappy stare she sent them all made all four of them laugh. But she knew she was beaten. One of them she could've handled. Maybe even two, unless it was a combination of Bill and George. Those two were unappeasable. The four of them together? Trying to get through them would be like trying to dig through a brick wall with a straw.

Finally she turned her sarcastic glare on George Luz. "A birthday to remember?"

His grin stretched all the way across his face. He pointed around them. "Yeah, what other birthday are you gonna be in foxholes in a frozen forest getting shot at?"

"Hm. Exciting. Tell me more," she muttered at him around her cup of lukewarm, watered down coffee. 

"Ok, so, it's not ideal," Buck admitted.

"What d'ya want us to do," muttered Bill. "Throw some fucking snowballs? Bake ya' a cake?"

The change in Alice was instantaneous. Her smile widened so far she tried to hide it with her cup but she couldn't. After a moment she resorted to just covering her face with her hand, desperately trying to stave off the ridiculous grin and giggling at the thought. And also at the memories the mention of snowball fighting brought up.

"You alright?" Joe looked at her in concern.

But she couldn't stop the laughter, no matter how hard she tried. Even as Alice clasped a hand over her mouth and shut her eyes, trying so desperately to control herself, the memory of having a snowball fight with Dick, Nix, and Ron in New Jersey in the States had her in stitches. She sank down into a crouch, still trying to stop herself around these men. That attempt failed, miserably.

"Holy shit, are you ok? Are you crying?" George looked at her in concern.

She was, in fact, crying. Except her tears were from suppressed laughter. She tried to explain through her tears and laughter, but she couldn't.

"What the fuck did you do, Gonorrhea?" Joe turned to Bill furiously. 

Bill threw his hands in the air. "I've no fucking clue! I didn't do anything! Jesus!"

"It's not him!" Alice gasped, getting a hold of herself a bit. She fell onto the ground, sitting, grabbing her face. "Holy shit. I don't know-"

"Wait, are you laughing?" Buck asked. When he realized she was dying of laughter, not sadness, he started grinning. 

"Jesus Christ. Gave us a fuckin' heart attack," Bill snapped.

"I know! I know! I'm sorry," she said. 

As Alice tried to calm her breathing and went to stand back up, her cough ripped through her body again. Immediately their mirth turned to concern. But she waved them away. "I'm fine! Goddamnit." Another cough, and another groaned. "I'm fine. Spina knows about this, before you start yelling at me."

Joe reached down. He hoisted her up a moment later. Stumbling a moment, she spent a few seconds getting control of her breathing again. Then she shook her head. "I shouldn't laugh. It makes me cough." She rounded on Bill. "Damn you."

"I still don't know what the fuck I said!"

Despite her best effort, Alice started grinning again. "Snowballs."

"Come again?" Buck said after they paused in confusion.

Between small giggles that she tried desperately to suppress, she attempted to explain. "Back at Benning, when I went to New York with the officers?" The three enlisted nodded, but Buck looked confused, so she continued on, "Oh Buck. This was before you."

"She was a fuckin' traitor and skipped out on Joe and Me going to Philly to hang with the officers," Bill summed up."

George scoffed. "Please, she would've come to Rhode Island instead."

"Would you two let her fuckin' talk," Joe interrupted.

"Thanks, Joe. Nixon, Winters, Speirs, and I went to New Jersey where Nix's family owns a summer home. Walked around New York City for a few days," she explained. As she suppressed another laugh, Alice shook her head. Finally she had control again. "I started throwing snowballs at a tree, ranting about Shifty's perfect aim. And uh, I hadn't realized Nixon had walked in front of me."

"You hit Cap'n Nixon with a snowball?" George asked, shocked.

"Yeah. And then he hit me," she said, smirking. "And then, uh, I hit him again and then somehow or other, Dick got involved, so I made Ron join my team." Tears spilled from her eyes, freezing her cheeks. She tried to stop laughing. "Ron's really competitive, so needless to say we won."

"You had a snowball fight with Lieutenant Speirs?" Buck said, incredulous.

"Hey, listen, I won a snowball fight with Lieutenant Speirs. We won, together, as a team." She smirked again and looked at them. "Ron took out Dick, and I took out Nixon. With a bit of his help," she admitted. "But only a little help."

They stared at her in silence. But as soon as George started snickering, the others joined in. I took several minutes of Alice insisting they keep the story to themselves before they calmed down. Alice meant it.

"I swear, if you breathe a word of this to Ron especially, I will murder you all," said Alice. Then she turned directly to Bill. "Got it, Guarnere?"

"I ain't that stupid, sweetheart."

George snorted. "Yeah, Speirs would murder him before you got your chance."

"Fucking right," Joe snickered. "Like D-Day."

Buck shook his head. "Right, that's enough. Keep it down."

"Shutting up," George quipped.

They spent another ten minutes or so chatting, enjoying each other's company. Before long though, Buck told Bill and Joe to head back to Second Platoon and see to their men. He went along with them. As they trudged away, she turned to George.

"Gene told you?" she asked quietly.

He smirked. "Yeah." It only took a moment before he tried to replicate Roe's accent.

"Not great, but better than I could do," she teased. For a few moments she just looked at him. He fumbled with his pocket, trying to get a cigarette out. Alice smiled at him. "George?"

"Yeah?" He looked up at her.

"Thanks."

He smirked. Popping the cigarette in his mouth, George just shrugged. "Eh, I forgot, remember. Thank Doc Roe."

With a tiny laugh, she nodded. "Ok. I will." All around them, she heard murmurs of conversations from various foxholes, and the scratching of branches against each other. When she turned back to George, she smiled again. "Birthday to remember, huh?"

"Damn right."

"Keep out of trouble," she ordered. "I mean it. Don't piss Dike off more than you have too, and watch for snipers."

George snorted. "Go. I'm sure your snowball buddies want you back at Battalion. And quit worrying. This'll be over soon."

"Right."

At the smirk that grew on George Luz's face, she narrowed her eyes. But he just laughed. "When in doubt, 'we'll always have Paris'," he said.

"Anything but that movie," she moaned. Throwing her hands in the air, she started hurrying back to the CP.

George started snickering. Taking his cigarette out, he called after her with another quote. "Here's looking at you, kid!"

"I'm older than you, George!" she called back, not turning around.

If he made any response, it got blown away with the wind. When she reached the Battalion CP, her mood was a lot better than it had been before. Trust them to be able to do that. With lunch waiting, she dug into her pathetically meager meal without protest. Time to get busy.