"Let's make this more interesting."

As soon as Alice heard Lewis Nixon utter those five simple words, she bit her cheek. Nixon sat across from her, Harry to her left and Ron to her right. The small wooden table they were using for card games sat in the middle of Nixon's room in the Camp de Châlons. No one knew where Dick had gone off to; since being officially given the Battalion Commander position, he'd been thoroughly occupied. But he was getting paid as a Major, so Nixon never let him complain.

"What'd you have in mind, Lewis?" Harry drawled. He rearranged the cards in his hand, leaned back against his chair.

It made Alice smirk every time Harry used Lewis instead of Nixon. The sass practically dripped from his voice each time. With her only cheeky grin, she leaned forward. Putting her elbows on the table, Alice took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew a cloud of smoke. "Yeah, Lewis. What'd you have in mind?"

He smirked. "Up the stakes. For every fold, you have to take a shot. And add one each consecutive time," he added. Turning to his left, he gestured to Ron. "You in?"

Ron scoffed. "Well, since you're about to lose, Nixon, I'm definitely in." After placing another ten dollars in the center of the poker table, he put his cards down. "Call."

The almost imperceptible groan from Harry made Alice chuckle. She'd already folded for that round. She'd won three out of the last ten rounds, her winnings coming to a total of 132 dollars thus far. But that round, she'd had zero luck.

"Jesus Christ, how'd you get a straight flush," Nixon muttered. He slammed his own cards onto the table with a grunt. He poured what was left of the communal bottle of Vat 69 into his glass. "Alice, you're dealing."

"Pass them over."

While Nixon pushed his chair out to get another bottle of whiskey, Ron and Harry passed over their cards. For a moment Alice just shuffled. The cards snapped into place as she did a bridge. Twice more, and then she began to pass them out.

"Deuces are wild," Alice decided. "Let's make it even more interesting."

After their initial ante, Harry started the betting at five dollars. Alice almost dropped out right there, as all she had to her name was an ace as her high card. But when the bets got around to her and she stared down her competition, she decided to hold on. Alice took a long breath of her cigarette before adding the fifteen that she owed and raising it three.

She turned to her left. "Right, Harry?"

"Gimme two," he decided. The cards he handed her started a discard pile. When he took the two new ones, a tiny bit of a smile crept into his expression. "Thank you."

"Nix?"

"Three."

She almost caught the three he tossed over. After placing them in the discards, she handed three more back to him. He grinned as well. Alice scoffed. "Tu as l'air heureux." He did, in fact, look quite pleased with himself.

He shrugged and lit a cigarette. At the flick of his lighter closing, he smirked her way. "Tu m'as donné de bonnes cartes."

With half a snort, half a laugh, Alice shook her head. Good cards? She'd have to wait and see. Part of her bet he was bluffing. With a quick glance to either side of her, she started chuckling. "Parlent-ils français?"

"Non, je ne le pense pas," he said, suppressing his own laugh.

"If you two could stick to English," Harry muttered.

Ron scoffed. "Let 'em cheat if they want, Welsh. Just means more alcohol for us."

Cracking up, Alice shook her head and took the two cards that he handed her. She shook her head. Quick as a flash, she handed him two more. Then she looked her own over. "Dealer takes four."

"Four? Jesus, how bad is your hand?" Nixon heckled. "Just fold, take the shot."

"As much as I would love to drink your entire stash of whiskey, Nix, I'm fully capable of keeping up with the three of you in this game, and I intend to." Alice looked at the four cards she'd drawn. Three of Clubs, Three of Spades, Two of Spades, Three of Hearts, Ace of Clubs. Three of a kind. Then she remembered she'd called twos wild. Four of a kind. "In fact," Alice said, grinning. "I'm quite ready to keep betting. Harry, you're up."

"Four dollars," he said.

Nixon matched his four and raised two, and Ron matched the six and raised another five. With eleven to her name, Alice tossed the money into the pot and grinned. "Alright, my bet. I raise fifteen."

"Jesus Christ!" Nixon muttered.

Harry sat up straighter in his chair and turned to her. Pointing at her, he shook his head. "I think you're bluffing, Klein."

With a small laugh, she turned from them to Ron. He'd not said anything. After taking a long breath, he blew a cloud of smoke out and turned to her. "You're either bluffing, or cheating."

"I resent that."

"Good."

In the end, they all agreed to match the fifteen dollar raise. Alice guessed it was mostly out of pride. None of them wanted to fold while the other two stayed in. So when they called, she just smiled.

"Four threes," she said.

All three of them groaned and cursed. Slaps of cards on the table just added to the angry grunts of the men who'd given her over one hundred and fifty dollars in a single round. She tried her very hardest not to laugh.

"Merci, mes amis." She grabbed the crumpled bills from the center of the table, straightening them in her hands. "Thank you." She began to hum Le Chant des Partisans, grin refusing to fade.

"I'm done," Harry muttered. "I'm not losing any more money to your unbelievable luck tonight." He pushed himself back in the chair, trying to relax. With another sigh, he turned his head to Nixon. "Any word as to our next move?"

"The Airborne?" When Harry nodded, Nixon shrugged. "Soon, I'd think. Could be in the next week. Hitler's boys don't have any fight left in them after Bastogne."

Ron nodded. "It's about time we got into Germany."

With the card game forgotten, Alice let them chat about the war. She herself had all sorts of mixed feelings about the inevitable return to Germany. They'd only been off the line for a little while, and she had an urge to stay. Part of her feared what returning to Germany would bring.

She'd drifted off into her own musings, sipping at a glass of Vat 69 and silently shuffling the deck of cards, when a knock on the door interrupted them. When Nixon called for whoever it was to enter, it surprised her to see George standing in the door, hands in his pockets.

"What d'you want, Luz," Harry heckled him.

He laughed under his breath and shook his head. "Sorry to interrupt, sirs. Major Winters sent me. Got a note for ya'." Walking in, he handed over a slip of paper to Nixon. Then he smirked at them. "Off the record, of course, but how bad she beat you?"

Alice burst out laughing. Before she or any of the officers could respond, though, George followed up. "I only ask, 'cause she beat Malark and Babe pretty good and now I'm curious."

"I beat you and Malark and Babe, thank you very much," Alice said.

Nix scoffed as he finished the note from Dick. But he shook his head. "She got very lucky."

"Yeah, sounds about right." He smirked at her before heading out the door. "Night, sirs."

As the door shut behind him, Nixon pushed himself away from the table. He shook his head. "Gonna need to kick you all out. Dick says Sink and Strayer need me."

"Now? It's close to midnight!" But Harry didn't argue, just pushed his chair in as he stood away from the table. The others followed, and he down the last bit of his drink. "He say why?"

"Nope. But there've been rumors of a drop for the boys in the 17th. Could be about that."

"They better not get to jump into Berlin," Harry muttered.

As Alice shifted her coat back on. Soon they'd left the housing given to the Battalion officers and walked out into the night. Ron and Nixon both split off towards the left, but Alice trailed slowly in the dark just behind Harry. Now that the fun of the poker had ended, a deep emptiness hit her like a train. She couldn't explain it really. A deep, visceral pang of grief and nostalgia filled her entire body.

"You look pale even in the dark," Harry commented. He'd turned around and stood in front of her.

Alice realized she must've stopped walking. With a shrug, she folded her arms across her chest. "It's fine."

"Really? Could've fooled me," he scoffed.

She glared and snapped at him. "What do you want, Harry?"

He started smirking. Taking his canteen out and downing a drink, he then pointed her way. "That's the easiest way to tell when you're not fine."

"What?"

"You get snippy and defensive every single time. You're really predictable."

Alice didn't move. She just stared at him, no words. It didn't take long for him to smirk at her and take another drink. Water or whiskey, she had no idea. Both equally likely. Another few beats passed before Harry just laughed.

"I actually made you speechless. Wow."

"What do you want, Harry?" she finally muttered.

He shrugged. "You tell me."

Alice stayed put. She stood in the center of the walkway back towards their lodging. Her room was in one of the other officer buildings, same as his. A gentle wind blew around them, rustling the trees that had just started getting some leaves back. She didn't answer. The ground became incredibly fascinating.

"Is it Germany?"

She frowned even deeper. Meeting his gaze, she shrugged. "It's just... it's a lot. To be honest, I've not been sleeping as well as I could," she admitted. "If Guarnere were here, he'd get all mad about me thinking too much."

Harry laughed for a moment before his own smile faded. "Yeah, he would. But I think your problem isn't too much thinking."

She sighed. "Oh?"

"It's that you never talk about what you're thinking." He passed her his canteen. As Alice sniffed it and confirmed that it was, in fact, whiskey, he smiled. "Do you trust us?"

"What?"

"Do you trust us?"

She stared at him before handing back his canteen. Did she trust them? "Why?"

He hummed. "You know, you're an absolute expert at non-answer answers, Alice. You've been an expert at it since I met you in Mackall. And you still do it, almost two years later." Harry shook his head. He sighed.

For a few moments, Alice hovered in a limbo between furious, touched, and defeated. She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her chest at his directness. But she didn't have the words. How was she supposed to explain that some nights she woke up with the sight of a mangled Bill Guarnere before her eyes? Other nights, it was cold hands trailing up her thighs and between her legs. Still others, the sharp crack of a luger and the bloody mess of her brother's body on the ground before her. Some nights she could hear the screams of dying women and children in Eindhoven. And some, she woke up unable to breathe.

Her shoulders sagged. Alice felt herself physically deflating at the way Harry refused to leave her alone. She looked away again, biting at her lip. It took several moments for her to turn back. "What do you want from me, Harry?"

"Do you trust us?"

"Yes."

He nodded. One more drink. Then he looked at her closer. "You know it's been over nine months of combat, nine months of sharing foxholes and CPs, and I don't think I know a single story about you as a kid. I wouldn't even have known Alice wasn't your real name if not for Nixon," he pointed out.

"What's your point?"

Harry shrugged. "If you trust us, why is that? You know all about me and Kitty, and you know all about Nixon's family and their empire, you know about Dick's wrestling escapades. I hear you talk about Luz's sisters, and I find it hard to believe he's the only one of the enlisted who you know intimate details about." He paused, and she didn't respond. "What do we know about you? You're a damn good linguist. You can play piano and you can sing. You had siblings, and I found out a couple months ago you had cousins. I don't even know what University you attended. Friends' names? Any pets? Favorite color? It took Nixon snooping around the enlisted to learn about your damn birthday."

Alice winced. "Your point?"

"You are an absolutely essential part of this group of guys, Alice," he insisted. "It blows me away, honestly. You somehow manage to balance being at ease with everyone, regardless of rank. You're almost universally respected by the men who actually know you, which, by the way, isn't easy considering you're a woman, and German." He paused and shook his head. "So, why are you still hiding?"

Her breathing stopped. After a moment, she covered her mouth out of stress, trying to think of what to say. Everything he said was true. Finally she pulled her hand away and nodded. "I do trust you, Harry. I trust Easy. I do." She took a shuddering breath. "There's just a lot. A lot that you and Easy can't understand."

"Why not?"

Why not? Such a simple question for such an ugly, complicated answer. She shuddered again. But Alice had meant it. She trusted him. She trusted Easy.

"Because when the chips fall, Harry, you and the other men in this Company don't understand what it's like to get pinned against a wall and attacked by someone you can't resist. And whether I like it or not, or, or understand it or not, everything about who I was before 'Alice' is tied that moment, and the moment in the days before that where I made the decision to use my body against the Nazis." She took a deep breath. "I do trust you. I just trust Alice more than I trust Adélaïde."

He didn't respond. They stood in silence for a while, the wind moving through the street around them. She didn't look at him. Finally he gave a small laugh under his breath and shook his head.

"I can't wait for you to meet Kitty. She's gonna love you." Then he smirked. "Alice, and Adélaïde."

She gave a small laugh. After another few beats of silence, Harry handed her his canteen back. She took it gratefully and downed the whiskey.

"Not too much, don't want you turning into Nixon," he warned.

Alice snorted. "Yeah, he has been drinking a lot recently, hasn't he?"

"Too much."

It didn't take long to reach their housing after that. She said good night to Harry in the hallway. After a brief hesitation, Alice headed into her room in silence. Her bed awaited her, another sleep that would end any number of ways, and probably none of them well. Germany lay ahead. And Germany meant memories.