"How are you feeling?"

Zhanna had grown tired of that question but she knew that the speaker wouldn't leave her be until she answered.

"I feel fine," She pulled the pillow over her head, tighter, trying to block out any sound or light from the temporary room.

"I don't believe you," Spina said, ripping back the blanket and trying to prise the pillow from her grip.

Zhanna had never had much of an opinion of Ralph Spina outside of the usual respect for a medic. She didn't know him well and had never cared to know him. He was a medic, he would have her back. What was the point of pursuing an alliance or friendship with the men required to be distant and aloof?

Well, Roe had excelled at maintaining a distance from the men. Spina's personality didn't lend itself to that type of requirement.

"Good morning, sunshine," Spina said, smugly, his face swimming into view in her still blurry vision.

While he was a bit brighter and louder than Roe, she did appreciate his no nonsense approach. There was no coddling, there was no tiptoeing as if she was made of glass. She might have been but if she shattered, Zhanna wouldn't have considered it a great loss of any kind. The officers had avoided her out of pity or fear, she didn't know. She had long since decided that it was fine. She didn't want very many people to see her like this anyway.

Zhanna could have been sent to a field hospital or back to England, to recover. Those were all options that had been tossed around while she sat huddled in that wool blanket. The wool blanket that Spina clutched in his fist, leaving her out in the brisk May morning.

She had refused to be sent off the line and Sink had agreed, with conditions. So as to avoid the contamination of two medics, Zhanna had been quarantined with Spina while Roe still mixed among the men. Though she had passed the time thinking of terrible fates for his cap, Zhanna knew her fate was better than any of the other former prisoners. At least she was free.

"Now, how are you feeling?" Spina asked again.

She didn't have to lie to him. She could be honest with him. There were the usual pains and aches. The dizziness that hadn't subsided even after five days of food and water. The nightmares of darkness, just blank black, didn't help matters.

"Are we being transferred again?" Zhanna asked. The movements outside of her room and under her window had been more frantic, more anticipated.

"And if we were?" Spina said. "Why would I tell you?"

Zhanna had rarely been the patient, she had been the caretaker. The concerned bedside visitor. She didn't like being the one being fretted over. Spina didn't fret but his attention was uncomfortable. Zhanna just wanted to crawl under her blankets or be among the men again. The latter wasn't an option so she reached for the wool blanket in Spina's grasp.

"Because I'm an officer," Zhanna said.

"And I'm your medic," Spina said. Holding the blanket hostage, he pressed a hand on her clammy forehead. "Your fever broke?"

"Last night," Zhanna said, glad to be rid of the shakes and chills that were intermittent with the burning flames scorching her body.

"And how do you feel?" Spina asked again.

Zhanna glared at him.

"You don't have to answer me," Spina said.

"So I won't,"

"But I also don't have to clear you for travel,"

Zhanna had never pictured Spina as the blackmailing type. Interesting.

She did want to be among the men. She did want to be anywhere but this room. Sunlight, fresh air, and familiar faces seemed miles better than her current surroundings. And she wasn't sure how much weight her wish to remain on the line actually had. Zhanna had been using the sympathy of others as her weapon but there was no telling how much longer that would work.

"Tired," She said. That didn't begin to describe how she truly felt but that was the simplest way she could put it. And if it would get her on a jeep with the rest of the men, Zhanna was willing to say it.

"That's a start," Spina said. He wasn't entirely happy with the answer, Zhanna could tell, but he didn't push her.

Spina nodded towards the bedside table where a new uniform was placed and a new pair of American made jump boots. She had lost her uniform, probably in a smoking pile with the rest of her belongings. She had burned her journal with the ties to Svetlana carefully detailed. Zhanna had burned everything.

While Spina left the room to give her privacy, Zhanna stared at the uniform that she had donned for nearly two years. It made her a traitor to the Red Army but it gave her allies in her hour of need. These green fatigues had been full of opportunities. Zhanna didn't want to burn these too.

Swimming in the fabric, she wrapped up her blanket and looked at herself in the cracked mirror on the back of the door. Her hair had started to grow back in tufts, the once shoulder length blonde curtain had fallen to the floor. Another thing cut she had to cut away.

The sun was too bright and the grip of Spina's hand on her arm was tight but at least she was outside. Instead of pushing past the throngs of men, they parted for her, like an ocean of eyes staring in awe, pity, and disbelief. Captain Casmirovna, back from the dead.

She had been announced as MIA when her landing zone had been overrun by Germans. She didn't remember much of that day. Just the moments of disrupted thoughts in the plane and the feeling of air snapping tight against her body. And landing with a thud.

She had hit something, hard. The ground? A rock? A truck? She didn't know but her helmet flew off and her mind went with it.

Zhanna didn't remember anything of her three weeks in captivity, just flashes. And she didn't want to relive those.

Easy Company had thought she was gone. Easy Company had given up on her. But Easy Company had her back now and they looked alright with that, after all.

Wordlessly, Nixon pushed through the crowd, sending a glare that dispersed the watching paratroopers back to their ordered tasks, and passed the rifle to Zhanna.

Her rifle. The wood was still smooth, the metal was gleaming. She hadn't jumped with it. It had been in her room, where Svetlana had been. She had jumped without her rifle, the single bullet still unused.

"You still gonna use that last bullet on me?" Nixon asked, offering her a hand that she refused, even though her knees shook. She could feel the eyes on her still, dark and calculating.

Zhanna smiled, something returning to her as she did so. "Don't tempt me,"

The strap dug into her frail shoulder and Spina took it before she toppled under the weight. Nixon's brow furrowed, stepping forward to help but she waved him away.

"Quarantined, remember?" Zhanna said, her wry laugh turning into a rib-rattling cough.

"Right," Nixon said. "How are you-"

"Where are we going?" She asked, eager to cut off the insenst question. Ready for a change of scenery, she accepted Spina's assistance into the waiting jeep and balanced her rifle on her knees. The wool blanket, her constant companion, was wrapped around her shoulders despite the warm May sunlight.

"Hitler's summer house," Nixon said. "I hear he's got a gold elevator."

Zhanna wasn't paying attention to Nixon's words. The dark hair and dark eyes were on her, from another jeep.

"How practical," Zhanna said. "Let's hope we don't run into him."

"I doubt that," Nixon said. "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what, Nixon?"

"Hitler's dead,"

And just like that, the end of the war didn't seem so far away. Zhanna hadn't scarely dared to dream of the war ending, let alone a world after it. Hitler was dead. And so was the only possibility of Zhanna's home.

"Too late," Zhanna muttered, her fingers curling around the trigger of her gun though no bullet was in it's chambers.