The sun had risen, basking their positions in watery light. The fighting hadn't stopped with the call for reinforcements. They lost Dukeman in the pandemonium that followed their initial assault, in the moments before the crashing heartbeat of the battle had died down to a nonexistent beat. Winters had ordered the men to stay low, waiting for the rest of First Platoon and the additional machine gunners to arrive at their positions. The sun had made it's weak attempt to break through the heavy bank of clouds but had admitted defeat, the previous night's light drizzle leaving Zhanna's many layers uncomfortably damp. She shivered, though it was more from residual adrenaline than actual fear.

She had followed Winters beyond the line, to peer through scope and binoculars, trying to pinpoint the location of the German forces. In the end, their eyes could give little aid and they had to rely on the small square of printed map that Winters produced from his pocket.

"I never asked," Zhanna murmured, breaching the battle plan with a more innocent question. "How are things with your penpal? Etta, her name was?"

"Estelle. I took your suggestion and responded," Winters breathed. "As of our last letter, we're still on good terms."

"That's encouraging," Zhanna said, rubbing a smudge of dirt off her rifle barrel.

"Lieutenant," Winters said. "I think we should focus on the task at hand,"

"Of course," She said, though she caught the briefest pause in his words, as if he had started to call her "Zhanna" but thought better of it. She would have continued down this path, emboldened by the battle and the rifle in her hands but Talbert's shuffling movements behind them cast any thought of continued conversation out of her mind.

"The balance of First Platoon is here," Talbert said, his breathing heavy. "Gordon and More brough another .30 cal."

"Sir?" Zhanna pressed, when Winters didn't show any signs of hearing Tab, just increased focus on the hidden line of Germans.

"They are behind a solid roadway embankment," He whispered. "And we are in a ditch. They can outflank us on the dike and catch us out here as soon as they figure that out."

"So how many krauts are we talking about?" Talbert asked, as if the number could be easily tallied.

Zhanna winced at the derogatory nickname that the soldiers assigned the Germans. She knew that they were the enemy but she had been given too many names to count. It reminded her that Easy had come to accept her but they could just as easily turn from her again, without Buck's charisma to keep them in line.

"Well there's a ferry crossing," Winters said, jabbing a finger at the map, which Zhanna plucked from his hands to inspect closer. These men would be running through mud and irrigation but Zhanna needed to find a place to perch, to watch and to shoot. "So it could be a whole battalion, as far as I know."

"Okay," Tab said, taking in all he had said and the landscape before him. "What are your orders?"

Orders. That's what had gotten Zhanna into this mess. Winters knew how she felt about orders. She folded up the map, and returned it to him, watching as it was tucked into his front pocket, stashed away with a glitter of silver against the dark cloth. His dog tags, Zhanna suspected, kept close for identification. Buck had said they would make sure you got back to your family in one piece. Zhanna's family didn't know where she was. If she died out here, she would be better off just buried in the battlefield.

"We've got no choice," Winters grimaced, jerking his head to motion them back to the ditch. In hushed tones amongst the other men, he gave the orders. Orders that Zhanna carefully noted, so that she would know when to depart from them. "Talbert, you take ten men along the dike." Tab nodded, taking a swig of his canteen before passing it to Peacock, who was instructed to take ten men along the left flank. "I'll take ten up the middle, so follow me. Casmirovna-"

All eyes turned to Zhanna, where she sat, quietly, watching the dividing of men.

"I'll take the rear," she said. "Watch your back?"

Winters nodded, giving a tightlipped smile. "That'll do fine." Looking around at the men, he asked. "Questions?"

None were offered. No one dared.

"Go," and they broke apart, like a wave upon the shore.

Zhanna fell back to the Mortar position, sliding into place beside Skip and Malarkey, knocking Penkala over.

"Jesus christ," he hissed. "Watch where you're going!"

"Sorry," Zhanna winced but Muck waved away her apology, the pain of a crushed arm not his own.

"What's the plan?"

"Three different positions. Mortar fire to suppress. Wait for the signal," Zhanna said. Her voice was shaking, why did it tremble like she was afraid?

"What's the signal?" Malarkey asked.

"We'll know when we see it," Zhanna said. It was strange to be the lieutenant assigned to the mortar squad. It should have been Buck, who would be joking with the men, setting them at ease. But Zhanna couldn't pretend that she wasn't nervous. It wasn't a crippling fear but the pressure of an impending battle. An anxiety that she might not walk away from this one.

There were several painful breaths between the troops preparing and the lone figure of Winters darting out from the safety of the ditch, dashing across the field with no one by his side.

Why was no one following him? Zhanna looked around frantically, wanting to shout at Talbert to go after him, to run. Their leader was running ahead and they watched, dumbstruck, as he barreled towards the enemy line. She couldn't draw a breath, not until the signal had shown itself. What was the signal anyway?

One, two, three, four, no, five breathless heartbeats later, the field exploded in a cloud of crimson smoke and finally, blessedly, the line advanced. Zhanna could have shouted in jubilation but instead, put the scope of her rifle to her eye, and watched the line push further and further through the smoke.

They ran through the green grass, clouded in the blood red smoke, and dove for cover on the partitioning roadway to begin firing upon their enemies. The machine gunners dug in, the incessant patter of their rounds beat down on Zhanna's already pounding head but she didn't mind the pain, barely noticing it. Her eyes fixed on the ridge of the dike, where more Germans flooded over the crest, like ants emerging from a nest.

"Shit! There's a whole other company," She kicked Muck, shouting. "Mortars! Now! NOW!"

Before they could fire their first round, the ground shook in line of explosions in rapid succession. Zhanna couldn't move, her jaw set tight to keep her teeth from rattling, and buried tight against Skip, trying to stop the shaking. In the field, she could barely hear the soft cries of warning as the rounds began again. Stalingrad had turned to rubble and Zhanna was afraid she would too, if this didn't stop soon.

"Take cover! German artillery!"

"No shit!" Zhanna spat, trying to push herself upright but Malarkey's arm barred her.

"I've never heard you swear before!" Skip shouted back.

Zhanna refused to let this position be her final resting place. They had to keep moving. She had promised Winters that she would watch his back. How could she accomplish that from back here? Zhanna took her promises very seriously, each one was a debt to be repaid. She had let herself slip back, falling into the comfort of the shadows. Winters needed someone to step forward. She had said she would watch his back.

"We have to push forward!" Zhanna said, throwing off Malarkey's arm and grabbing her rifle. "We are no good back here!"

"Go out there? Are you nuts?" He glanced around at the dirt and fragments still spraying hundreds of meters into the air.

"Just do it!" Zhanna shouted. "That's an order, Muck!"

They uprooted their position with some reluctance but Zhanna never gave up on them, pushing ahead through the smoke and dirt before falling to her knees. As the men stamped the baseplate into the ground, the bipode piercing the soft dirt, Zhanna fell onto her stomach, and raised her rifle to her shoulder, resting the familiar weight into place. Her left shoulder, still tender, ached. Whether it was a warning or the strain under the rifle's weight, Zhanna didn't particularly mind it. She let the dull ache ground her, as she watched the men still flood over the side while the Americans cowered in the shadow of the dike.

Zhanna had pushed forward. She was out in the open, blinking in the weak sunlight. THere was nowhere to hide so Zhanna had to make the first attack. Nowhere to step back, not when Winters, Tab, and Luz were out in the open as they were now.

The mortars were deployed before Zhanna even asked and she relaxed, knowing that Muck, Malarkey, and Penkala could see that following these orders were in their best interest. She didn't think beyond the pull of her finger on the trigger, she didn't let her mind wander to the battles she had fought, to the red aura of the Samsonov home that hung around her even now. She didn't allow herself to wander back to that flash of silver among the mud, where she had seen her mother fall.

Barring all these thoughts from her mind, the next few moments flew by. Long after the mortars had stopped firing and the ground had stopped quaking, Zhanna's body continued to tremble. Shaking, she found a place to rest beside a crater of one of the shell blasts, watching medics gather the wounded and Martin round up the prisoners.

"'Scuse us, Casmirovna," Martin said, pushing the eleven remaining SS soldiers into the crater.

Her vacant eyes glanced over the men, their faces smudged and clothes caked with mud. She found herself focused on one, who's blonde hair peaked under his helmet. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the layer of mud to discern a familiar feature that had caught her eye. A sharp nose and round face.

"Casmirovna?" The one she studied, beneath all that dirt and grime, couldn't have been much older than herself.

"Hey, shut up," Talbert knocked the prisoner's helmet off, the shock of blonde hair blinding in the weak light. "These Krauts want us to think they are Polish, Cas, can you believe it? "

"My father's name," Zhanna said, taking a leap of faith and switching to Polish. "Casimir Polyakov."

It could have been nothing. A lie, like Talbert and Martin thought, but Zhanna wanted someone to speak her native tongue, someone who might know who she was or where she came from. The soldier, his face still familiar and his hair just a shade darker than her own, continued.

"Agata? Your mother is Agata?"

"Yes," Zhanna' heart started to pound now. Did this soldier know her family? "Do you know her?"

"She is my aunt," he said. "My god, you look just like her. I- I am your cousin, Janusz Sadlowski. We've heard so much about you, Zhanna!"

"You...You are my mother's family?"

"Yes! They came to shelter with my mother, Francezka, in Vawkarysk, in 1938."

Tears sprang into her eyes. They had made it. Agata and Casimir had made it safely.

"Are they alright?" Zhanna asked. "They never came back for me."

She tried not to sound bitter, when she should be grateful. Her parents had been safe while she had hoped for their safety. Ignoring Martin and Talbert's furrowed brows and visible confusion at this sudden connection between prisoner and sniper, Zhanna turned hopefully to her cousin, who's face she had only ever seen in outdated photographs that had made the journey from Poland to Russia. Perhaps, if she was lucky, that hope would carry them through the war, to be reunited.

"Zhanna," Janusz's voice told her before his words did. "The Germans occupied Vawkavysk in 1941. I was conscripted, so were my brothers. Uncle Jakub and Aunt Agata were trapped in the ghettos."

"Trapped." Her voice was weak and she wasn't sure if it was English or Polish she had spoken. She had been trapped, by guilt and debt. All because she had been left on the threshold of a veritable stranger so her parents could run.

"Zhanna,"

Perelko.

"Zhanna,"

Polyakova.

"Zhanna!"

Her head snapped up. She didn't want him to say it. Janusz, who had been privy to this secret since 1941. Janusz hadn't lived in hope and fear for six years.

"They are dead."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

She didn't want the answer.

The air should have been still, a heavy silence that always perpetuated the moments after a battle but Liebgott still fired his weapon, releasing some of the anger that always burned beneath his skin. Zhanna wished she could do the same but there was no burning, no anger, no temper to lose. Despite her many layers, her fingers started to go numb and her flesh tingled as frost spread across her limbs.

Okay, Zhanna thought. That was the only thing her brain could conjure up, the alchemic formula of nearly two decades of practice and behavior modeled. Okay. She was okay. Things were okay. Even if she couldn't formulate what "things" were. Even if she didn't know what was happening, which she didn't. Agata and Casimir had always told her she was okay, they were okay. So, surely, here Zhanna was okay too.

Hauling herself out of the hole in the ground, she ignored Janusz Polish pleadings and the American's confusion. She marched straight up to Winters, the only thing she could think to do was tell herself everything was alright and to get out of this damn field.

"Sir," she said. Her voice sounded strained, as if a fist was closing tight around it. "Permission to take the prisoners back to Battalion CP?"

He studied her, eyes staring deep into her own but Zhanna had learned to follow Sveta's example and hide it all. She only hoped that her meager amount of practice had paid off and he couldn't see through it.

"Granted." His words were muffled by another round of needless shots fired by Joe Liebgott. "Hold that thought."

Zhanna didn't pay attention to the discourse between Winters and Liebgott; it didn't really matter. She had to get the scrap of family she had back to CP so she could find Sveta and negotiate some kind of arrangement for Janusz's safety.

"I want you to take these prisoners to Battalion CP with Casmirovna, and get yourself cleaned up," Winters instructed.

'Yes sir," Liebgott said. "Come on, Kraut boys,"

Janusz wasn't German, Zhanna thought with a flash of heat slowly beginning to thaw her body. She didn't like his full magazine or the gleam in his eye. Winters caught on before Zhanna had a chance to say a word.

"Joe," He said. "Drop your ammo!"

"What? Are you kidding?"

"Drop your ammo," Winters persisted. "You have one round," he said. "Johnny, how many prisoners do we have?"

"We've got eleven prisoners right now, sir."

Zhanna knew that if Liebgott shot one prisoner, she wouldn't do anything to stop the rest jumping him. She might even encourage it.

Zhanna hung back, offering Janusz a hand as he stumbled. Murmuring a soft word in Polish, she looked up, to meet Liebgott's eyes. Pure flame rivaled only by Sveta. She pushed forward, to lead the group with Liebgott, who hissed low enough for Zhanna to hear.

"You speak German now?" he said.

"What?" Zhanna's confusion was genuine. Did Liebgott not recognize that she wasn't speaking German or did he just not care?

"Flirting with a coupla POWs," Liebgott snorted. "Russian whore."

A flash of heat flushed through her body, thawing her hand in time for her fist to collide with his jaw without shattering. She had been waiting to return the favor for the bruise on the Samaria he'd been a part of and nothing gave her a flush of pride quite like hearing her Polish family laughing at the American who had made her an outcast once again.

"Casmirovna!" Winters shouted, his voice barely raised but his tone was rebuking. "Cool it!"

"Yes sir," Zhanna said, the ice returning to her fingers as Liebgott's hand went to his nose, trying to stem the flow of blood. "Shall I call Doc Roe for you, Liebgott?"

For her moment of payback, she had paid the price. Zhanna watched Liebgott walk away, Janusz in toe, while her orders had changed. Winters hadn't told her she was wrong, nor did he seem to know what had been said. He didn't make a motion for her to follow him but Zhanna did anyway. Letting someone else chart her course was the only thing keeping her mind blank and numb. If she started to wonder where she would go, Zhanna's mind fell onto darker things. She needed to make sure that Janusz was taken care of, maybe arranged to be sent back to England.

While Winters darted back and forth, doing whatever the captains did post battle, Zhanna just wondered what she was supposed to do now. She was okay, that much she knew. But where was she going? No, no, best not think about that now. Staying numb and blank was the only thing keeping the tears firmly behind her eyes.

Transports had arrived to take the soldiers away but Zhanna didn't go. Neither did Winters. They sat, on the embankment, in silence. They didn't look at each other, neither made a move to speak. It was a silent solidarity between them, both working through or covering up that day's tragedy in their own way. Zhanna didn't want to think and it seemed, neither did Winters.

"22 wounded, huh?" Nixon's voice cut through the silence. Zhanna would have grimaced or flinched but she didn't think she could move. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Winters' voice was rough. "One killed."

"Who?"

"Dukeman."

They didn't know that more than one had died that day. Six years of hoping and it had all come crashing down.

"Dukeman," Nixon repeated, crouching beside them. "Well you're looking at two full companies of SS out there. About 50 dead, another hundred wounded. Seven back in the regimental cage. That's not bad for Dukeman."

This man, the one who had tried to shame Zhanna for only praying for Bull's safety, was trying to justify one man's death. Survival was a messy game and life wasn't always fair in it's trades. When Nixon wasn't trying to solve people like puzzles, it seemed Zhanna could understand what he stood by.

"Liebgott's nose is broken but we've got the prisoners in the system. Regimental will figure out what to do with them."

"There is one," Zhanna said, breaking the silence. "Janusz Sadlowski,"

"What about him?" Nixon asked. He wouldn't know names but maybe he would be able to track him down, find a way to keep Janusz in one place until Sveta could throw her Samsonov weight.

"He is a Pole, not a German. My cousin," Zhanna's breath was short and gasping as she allowed a piece of information slip.

"They've likely already been processed and are looking at transfer to a long term camp," Nixon said. "I'm sorry, Zhanna, but there isn't much we can do."

Sorry. He did sound sorry. For that, Zhanna could at least respect him in the moment. He was still an asshole but he at least pretended.

"You got a drink?" Winters asked. Even in her numbness, Zhanna couldn't help but look aghast. "Of water," he amended.

Nixon nodded. "Yeah." He reached for the canteen that hung from his belt, unscrewing the lid to give it a sniff. "Yeah it's water."

"Shame," Zhnana said. "I could have used something stronger."

She accepted it though, when Winters passed it to her, as she did the question that Nixon posed.

"Cousin, huh? Mother or father's side?"

"Mother's,"

"You two were close?" Nixon asked. It was an innocent question this time, no conniving information to be gathered.

"No," Zhanna said. "No, we aren't."

She stood up, followed by Winters and they looked over the field together, as if wishing it farewell. Zhanna said goodbye to her six-year-long dream, the feeling of her parents' hands in her own. Whatever Winters was laying to rest seemed just as painful.

"Okay?" Nixon asked.

To either of them or to one of them. Zhanna didn't answer, and neither did Winters. The only sound between the three of them, as they marched back to the transports, was the scuffing of boots and the rasp of leather. If Zhanna's tears were visible or her gasping breaths heard, neither man paid them any notice and for that she was grateful.