"How many casualties?"

Sveta stood in the entrance of one of the Battalion CP's tents, listening as Dick got a report from Luz. The men had fended off a full attack on the line that morning just as the sun had risen. The heat of the cup of coffee in her hands faded quickly. They hadn't gotten a full report yet; too many unknowns that Lipton and Compton were still gathering. She forced away the fear of not knowing who had lived and who had died.

It amazed her really, how it had only taken a few days of the playing field being leveled for her to truly start worrying about the safety of the men around her. Watching as Dick nodded into the headset, her heart rate accelerated. Who lived? Who died? Who lay in their blood at the makeshift aid station?

She saw in them the fear she knew so intimately. At first it had provided selfish relief, that they knew how to suffer as she had. But each time she looked at them and saw their eyes filled with despair, she remembered the cold slap in the face that 16 April 1935 had been. They were experiencing that terror now. Or something akin to it.

"Keep me informed, Sergeant. Have Dike send Lipton to me for a full report later." Dick frowned as he slipped the headset back on the radio. In the cold, he couldn't hide his emotions as well. Stress etched into every inch of his face.

Sveta moved in from the doorway. "News?"

He glanced over. "Not much. Doc Roe took Sisk into Bastogne, but that's the only official casualty Luz had for me."

"He'll be fine."

Dick looked at her and after a moment, let out a small scoff. "Not sure how I feel knowing you're the most optimistic one around here, Svetlana."

She couldn't help her smile. He wasn't wrong. But somehow, knowing that the playing field had leveled, that the Americans, the Germans, and the Russians in this siege all had to contend with fear and nature the same, it allowed her to relax a bit more. "As long as your people can learn to adapt, they'll be fine. The Krauts already failed in the snow once."

"Knock, knock." They both turned to find Nixon, hands shoved under his armpits for warmth, moving through the doorway. He looked at them. "This a closed conversation, or can a lowly intelligence officer get in on it?"

"You have news?" Dick asked.

Nixon snorted. "None. Nothing new, at least." With a bit of bounce in his step, Nixon moved through the tent and past Sveta to plop down in a chair. "Jesus Christ, I swear it's getting colder."

"It is," Sveta told him.

Nixon sighed. "Comforting."

She smirked. "Don't tell me you're ready to give up, Nixon? While I'm still waltzing around just fine?"

"Never," he assured her. "I wouldn't be able to live it down. By the way, Doc Spina was looking for you. Said he had something to give you."

"Interesting," she said. "I'll go find him, then. Unless you need me to tell warm stories?"

Nixon scoffed at her, still trying to warm up by leaning over the chair. But Dick just shot her a small smile. "Go. Check on Dike while you're up there. And Peacock."

"Always," she said. "They need constant watching."

"Careful, all this talk of watching people, someone might think you're a spy," Nixon added.

She just rolled her eyes. "If I am a spy, and you've gone this many years without being able to prove it, not for lack of trying might I add, then you've got issues, Nixon." She pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth before ducking out the door.

The frigid air bit at her exposed eyes. Tears formed, and she tried to wipe them away before they would start to freeze. The last thing she needed was ice caked around her eyes. Sveta grabbed her rifle from her foxhole and moved off towards the line. Though they'd repelled the Nazis not too long before, she never went anywhere without both her sidearm and rifle.

Her boots crunched against the fresh layer of frost and snow that had fallen overnight. Bleak, but beautiful in a way. She couldn't help smiling behind the scarf as she thought about her training near the Valdai Hills. She loved the silence.

Leaving Russia would be painful, if she did decide to ask Sink for asylum. As much as she hated the cities, she loved the land itself. The Motherland. She didn't want to say goodbye. She didn't want to be severed from her music, her dance, her language.

Her mind wandered briefly to the unfinished note in Mourmelon. She couldn't explain the fear from looking at the way those Cyrillic letters had trailed across paper. She supposed being away from her country for so long had her associating everything with the NKVD. That had to be it.

Sveta forced it away. She had work to do. With each step in the snow, she came closer to the front. Dwelling on fear could mean life or death.

She came across a group of men in a religious service. A Catholic Mass, maybe? Leaving them to their God, she tried to find Spina. As it turned out, he was walking towards her. "Spina, you needed me?"

He grinned. "Yeah, yeah. Found this extra." Wrestling through his pocket, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tossed it to her as he came over. "Figured you could use another one, since you seem to enjoy scaring the guys with them."

Her laugh cut through the air louder than she meant it to. With a bit of a shrug, she just pocketed the pack. "Thanks."

Spina nodded, moving to join the kneeling men. As she moved off, Peacock came hurrying over, a bit flustered. He fidgeted with one of the pockets of his jacket.

"Lieutenant," Sveta said, stopping him. "Report."

He struggled to catch his breath. Gesturing to the men, he tried to explain. "We're going on patrol."

"You're leading?" Sveta asked.

He nodded. Her heart sank. Her opinion of Peacock was only slighter higher than her opinion of Dike. He had no right to be leading the men, none at all. For the briefest moment, she considered replacing him. The last thing the patrol needed was an incompetent man in charge.

But as she opened her mouth, a jeep rolled up. She turned. As the service ended and Peacock joined the enlisted, Doc Roe jumped out with a crate. Spina walked over. She watched them for a moment. She'd become concerned for both the medics. The frozen hell they endured now was hard on all of them, and she figured the men unfortunate enough to be tasked with saving lives instead of taking them would be doing even worse than the others.

She couldn't hear what the other men said as they got their gear together, but it couldn't have been nice. Luz and Randleman both glared off into the trees, and even Hoobler seemed about ready to commit murder. Poor Johnny Martin stood speaking with Peacock. Before she could step in, Roe moved past her.

"Where are you going?" Sveta asked him.

He turned briefly. "They need a medic."

She frowned. But he was right. Her hands opened and closed into tight fists, itching to join him. But she couldn't. Peacock knew the mission. She just had to trust Martin to counteract any stupidity that the officer would bring.

"I gotta take these to the CP," Spina said.

Sveta turned his way. The retreating forms of the patrol faded into the white mists, leaving just her and Spina standing near the priest and his jeep. She nodded. "Go. I'll stay here."

"You worried?" he asked.

She shook her head. The look on his face told her enough; she had to keep the mask up. No matter how concerned she felt for the fact that Thomas Peacock would be leading the patrol to find the German lines, she couldn't tell him. "No. But I have other things to do than find Easy's CP," she lied.

He just shrugged. Soon Spina disappeared, and she moved off in the direction the patrol had gone. To her surprise, after about a two minute walk, she found Roe crouching at a tree. He didn't move, didn't make any sign he'd heard her approach. She joined him, taking a knee at his side.

"They send you back?" Sveta asked.

Roe glanced her way and nodded. "Yeah. Sergeant Martin told me to wait back here."

"It is a combat patrol," she reasoned. But she didn't agree with Martin's decision. The medics put themselves at risk all the time; that was part of their job. Not a good thing, but a necessary part of war.

"Why are you here, Captain?"

"Would you believe it if I said I was bored?" She flashed a small smile when he just scoffed. Roe knew enough of their current situation that Sveta figured nothing she told him would be a surprise. "Peacock's an idiot. I'm here to make sure he doesn't get everybody killed."

Roe nodded. "Think you'd lead the patrol better than him?"

"Yes."

"Why don't yah?"

Sveta frowned. A good question. She outranked him by more than one promotion. She had more combat experience. She knew how to fight in the snow, as she'd trained in it. But she sighed. "No matter how much I'd love to kick him back to the CP, Easy is not about to follow the orders of a Russian woman."

When he didn't correct her, she just stood up. They both knew it was true. She'd improved her relationship with Easy quite a bit since Holland, and she was leagues ahead of their opinions during training, but that didn't mean they were ready to take orders from her. Still, she didn't move. She stayed there, staring out into the hazy white mist, waiting for the heartbeat of battle to ring through the trees.

It took about five minutes. The rapid pop of a machine gun started first, and then chaos. Her hair stood on end. Roe tensed where he still crouched against the tree. Neither spoke. They had nothing to say.

The gunshots continued. It sounded like a lot of suppressing fire, bullets not intended for killing but for crowd control. Her boots sank further into the snow as she dug her heels in. Sveta held her breath.

Roe shot up from his spot by the tree as a shadow in the mist moved towards them. Sveta lost no time and raised her rifle. Peacock. Alone?

"Report, Lieutenant!" she demanded.

His glassy eyes looked like they held little more life than the dead bodies she'd left in her wake. Sveta cursed as he rambled about hitting their line and pulling back. He had pulled back, but the others had not.

"Get the fuck back to the CP," she snapped. "Roe?"

"Captain?"

"Stay here, wait for me."

She didn't give him a chance to protest. If they'd hit the German line, they would need help, but they would have to retreat to give a medic even a chance at reaching casualties. Sveta wasted no time.

As the machine guns grew closer, Sveta slowed down. She could see the patrol, hunkered down behind some log piles. Good cover, but not good enough. She paused. Deep breaths. Find cover, find height.

Sveta looked to the left. A bit further back from the line, another pile of logs sat in the open. Cover. Height. She took off. The dark logs would help conceal her dark uniform better than snowy earth. Reaching it, Sveta didn't even wait to see if the logs would hold.

Her hands slipped. Sveta cursed as the bark slit her palm. Burning like hot coals shot up her hand and arm. She could taste blood. After realizing she'd bit her cheek so hard it had started bleeding, Sveta focused on the world around her. She situated herself half way up the pile so she could look out over it without being a target.

Breathe. Sveta angled the gun towards the German line. She looked down the sights. There were half a dozen within easy range. Elevated, she could hit them even in their trenches. She took a deep breath.

Start with the machine gunner.

Sveta pulled the trigger. One dropped to the ground, slumped over the gun. Chaos erupted in the trenches as they began searching for her. She took another breath.

Sveta compressed the trigger again. The second man died as he tried to get his comrade off the gun. Then she killed a third. Just as her sights found another target, she cursed. An explosion of bark sent splinters near her face. She ducked down.

They'd found her. Sveta wrenched her gun off the top of the pile and crouched behind the trees. If they had a mortar, she'd be dead in seconds. Sveta just had to trust that the patrol had gotten away. Based on the German shouts and bullets pummeling her cover, she figured they had.

Sveta took a deep breath. She unhooked a grenade from her belt, counted to three, pulled the pin, and lobbed it over the top. She didn't even wait to see what it hit. She just tore off back in the direction of the Americans, begging the universe to let her live.

The first voice she heard came from Lewis Nixon. For a moment, Sveta wondered what god she'd pissed off to have that be what greeted her at safety, but she didn't have time to think. Instead she found a gun pointed at her chest.

"Ally!" she screamed.

Hoobler stumbled back. Four of the men in the area spun to stare at her, including Nixon and Martin. She pushed past Hoobler and joined them.

"What are you doing out here?" Nixon demanded.

She pointed off in the direction she guessed Easy's CP to be. "My job! Since Peacock can't be fucking bothered to do his!"

Martin nodded once. But before they could say more, a fresh round of machine gun fire cut their conversation. Sveta tried to catch her breath.

"We gotta go back for Julian," Heffron begged.

As she saw Nixon and Martin exchange a glance, Sveta shook her head. Julian must've been the lifeless body she'd seen through her gun. "He's dead, Heffron. We need to retreat. Now."

Nixon agreed. "Pull them back, Martin."

"Yes sirs."

The next few minutes passed in a blur. Sveta grabbed onto the collar of a man who stumbled, pushing him forward. They had to fight the fear. They had to fight the urge to hide.

Sveta had no interest in being found by the Germans. They massacred her people. She'd heard many tales of torture and execution of female soldiers and medics on the Eastern Front. She'd rather stick her own gun in her mouth than let them near her. Hiding was not an option.

Her ears rang with gunfire even as she stumbled against a tree near the CP. They continued on, but Sveta couldn't. She sunk down, laying her head against the tree. She needed to breathe. Her heart pounded in her chest. Fire flowed in her veins, warming her whole body, and she could feel the sweat pooling under her helmet. She tore it off.

The cut across her palm still bled. She looked at, frowning at the way her pale skin turned red. It stained the white cloth she had stuck in her sleeves. Just like the bed sheets in Stalingrad.

She tried to swallow. Sveta couldn't, finding that her throat would not relax. She ripped the cloth out of her sleeve and stared at it, the smoothness in her hands an odd mix of comforting and disturbing.

It kept staining, even as she let it soak up the blood.

She didn't want to see a pistol pointed at her temple.

She didn't want to see her blood on bedsheets.

She didn't want to die in Russia.

She didn't want to die.

"Captain?"

Sveta glanced right, looking up to find Spina watching her. He frowned. She just closed her eyes, the mask breaking as she felt exhaustion wash over her. She didn't want to die. She wanted to live, and be human, and never see another rose ever again.

"Your hand looks pretty bad, Captain," he told her. "Let me see it."

Sveta held it out to him, letting her hair hit the tree trunk behind her. He took it and turned it over, removing the white cloth that reminded her more of death than the fact that it only bled because she still lived. He tossed it aside and pulled out a sulfa pack.

She didn't watch him do his job. She trusted Spina. She trusted him to make sure the blood pouring from her palm would only pour from her palm, and not her head.

"Svetlana?"

She opened her eyes again. Dick stood by her, crouching when she opened her eyes. As Spina tended to her hand, he just took a look at her. It felt almost like an interrogation. "What?"

"Report?"

She sighed, sitting up straighter as Spina finished bandaging her hand. Using the tree to stand, she forced her legs to work again. "Peacock left the men. I took some high ground about thirty meters back, provided some sniper fire so they could pull away."

He nodded. "Good work."

Sveta didn't have a good response. She just shrugged, and turned to look at the CP. Most of the patrol sat around eating. Briefly, Sveta wondered how long she'd been sitting against the tree trying to catch her breath. But it seemed Roe had done much the same, staring off into the distance from his own little tree. Sveta wondered how many had died.

"Casualties?" Sveta asked.

Dick frowned. As they walked closer to the CP, he lowered his voice. "One dead, Private Julian." She nodded, as she'd known that one. He added, "Three wounded."

"Could've been worse."

He just nodded. Sveta watched them as Dick moved to join Nixon away from the men. She could see Nixon tearing into Peacock, dressing him down no doubt for his conduct. Sveta just huffed.

First Platoon looked like a mess. Martin stood watching them, and caught her eye. He moved over to her.

"Captain."

"Martin."

"I take it you were those sniper shots?" He looked her over. "We thought it was them at first."

Sveta shook her head. "I found high ground not far back. Took out three before they located me."

Silence fell between them. She watched the group, as they tried to put the pieces of their masks back together. Some wore them better than others. Heffron she could always read. Randleman and Martin did admiral jobs of restraining their emotions. Luz varied. Some days, when dealing with Dike or Peacock particularly got to him, all hope of keeping his face from giving himself away faded. Other days, he looked fine. He did not look fine now.

"Did you see Private Julian?"

She nodded.

"Was he dead, Captain?"

She nodded again. Sveta look at him, saw the way his brow furrowed in anger. But she shook her head. "Better for him to be dead than captured, Johnny."

"Right."

But Sveta doubted he believed her. She watched Martin wander off, moving to join Randleman in the circle. She believed it though. Even though Sveta had no intention of dying, she knew she'd rather die than be a prisoner.

And in that moment, Sveta knew she couldn't go home. To go home to Russia meant to forfeit all rights. It meant to be a prisoner. If she didn't die in Bastogne, Sveta decided she would rather die as an American citizen than live as a puppet on Russian soil.