Zhanna thought she knew what to expect from the Americans now.

After their return from leave, the men of Easy Company were not welcoming by any means but they did tolerate her existence. Her place among their ranks was not publicly humiliated, instead only through whispers.

Zhanna didn't mind. Agata had taught her how to walk under the fiery glares of men and Casimir had never let her be ashamed of her heritage. She could work with whispers and a few jokes.

She knew Winters had something to do with it. He was kind and had stood beside her during training when he could, a tall ginger guardian. His shadow might not have been as familiar as Sveta's but Zhanna knew that it was a safe place. He had encouraged her to take her rifle to the shooting range, in an attempt to prove that she was just as much a soldier to his platoon, but Zhanna had refused. She didn't need them to believe in her.

The men had stopped their outward humiliation and jabs directed at her but Sobel had continued to berate her every chance he got. He was strategic about his confrontation, pulling weekend passes and throwing underlying insults whenever Sveta wasn't around. He knew he couldn't say anything in front of their linchpin to America and the Soviet Union's diplomacy but her little blonde friend wasn't anyone important. He thought Zhanna was the weak link.

He couldn't take away the rifle and he soon realized that the weekend passes meant nothing to a Russian soldier who would rather stay in camp. Sobel did the only thing he could do.

"Kitchen duty?" Sveta snapped.

"Yes." Zhanna sat on her bunk in that tiny little shack, the only housing provided for the two, and laced her boots. She had been given the worst punishment Sobel could hope to offer, working in a camp kitchen. Like that was punishment. Like she hadn't been working since she was six years old.

"You aren't here to wash dishes. You're here to train." Sveta didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She was valuable to Easy company but Zhanna knew she had to be careful. She couldn't explain to her friend why she was taking the punishment.

"I know," Zhanna grunted in the effort of tightening the still stiff laces of her boots. She missed her Russian made leather boots, abandoned in their escape. "But I can't say no."

"Yes you can. I'll talk to Sink about this. He can't make you-"

"If you tell Sink, he will reprimand Sobel. And Sobel will never give me a moment's rest." Zhanna said. "You can't solve everything with your name, Sveta." She didn't mean to sound almost bitter. Standing, she softened her words and looked up at her friend, pleading. "Just let me do this and we can get those wings and go home, yes?"

The kitchen wasn't a horrible place but it did give the men a new set of insults and made her exhausted. She started to lag behind in the training, working early in the morning and late into the evening in the kitchens, scrubbing pots bigger than she was. It was a punishment and she knew Sobel was waiting for a reason to have Sink pull her from the Paratrooper program.

Maybe it was because she was a girl? Or maybe it was the Russian rifle she was still permitted to carry? Or maybe it was in Sobel's nature to find the one in the group who was smaller than the rest and break them down slowly.

Zhanna couldn't allow him to make her his next victim. So she woke up before the sun and before the other men, she worked, elbow deep in boiling hot water and she made it to formation on time. Zhanna had spent most of her life doing more so she could be equal, working harder and longer. This was just a different military and a different country.

As training continued and she pushed herself harder than she ever had before, Zhanna started to falter. She had been so confident in her ability to go home, to see her family again and to make sure Sveta arrived in Russia safely. She hadn't cared if the men teased or the insults that Sobel threw. She had Sveta and that was enough. But the tiniest seed started to sprout in the darkness of her gut. It grew as the weeks continued, through the training and the heat of the day. The night wind rushing through the belly of the plane only fed it's growth as she watched the men check equipment and pass jokes before they jumped from the plane, assured that their fellow soldiers would be on the ground waiting.

She didn't have anyone on the planes who would be waiting for her on the ground, not at the beginning of training and not now, on their final jump. Zhanna's boots hit the ground and she rolled, the soft darkness and the hard dirt sending her skidding. The wind couldn't pick up her chute or she would be sent flying, her weight not enough to hold it down. This was their final jump and she couldn't mess it up. She was so close to having those little wings in her hand.

Zhanna fought with the release, her fingers pulling at the strap that was taut against her pounding heart. She cursed under her breath, the Polish word that her father had taught her and swore her to secrecy. The buckle finally gave way, perhaps frightened by her hiss of "Kurwa," and she rolled onto her knees to drag the parachute towards her in the dark grass.

Around her she could hear the men dropping, the whisper of the wind through the silk and their boots thumping to the ground but she didn't have time to call out to them. Not that they would have answered. Zhanna packed up the parachute like she had been taught and at which she excelled and stood, watching the silhouettes rise out of the shadows, their packs full and their eyes bright.

They were paratroopers now.

She walked to the pickup point alone. The men had used the word "Currahee" as a kind of mantra throughout training and slowly, Zhanna had picked up the meaning. "Stand alone together."

Zhanna was in the crowd of men who walked, laden with gear and relief, as they swapped jokes and laughed their way back to the pickup, where the busses would carry them back to Fort Benning. She walked alone. Zhanna was in a crowd of men but was invisible to some and unwelcome to most. She was lonely but not alone and the word started to sting when it was tossed into the air like a victory cry. She had thought the men's anger at her presence and the whispers wouldn't have hurt, that Zhanna had been used to worse, but she was wrong.

That little seed in her stomach had blossomed into a flower, that brought the truth rising in her chest. It stuck in her throat as she watched Liebgott and Grant shout in jubilation at their achievement.

"Are you excited?" Winters had appeared behind her, looming out of the darkness. Zhanna didn't say anything at first, just watched the men pass her, filling in spaces in that place beside the road. The energy was electric, warm and almost heavy. They were excited and she should be too. As Guarnere put it. "Even the little Ruski made it."

But Zhanna didn't feel excited. She felt unsettled. "Where is Sveta? I mean, Lieutenant Samsonova?"

Her voice was rough from disuse. She didn't speak often. Everytime Zhanna did, there was a flicker of surprise in the men's eyes, even in Winters's.

"She'll be with her platoon." Winters said.

Of course. They were always separated. But Zhanna had hoped that she would be able to find her friend and celebrate like the men around her. To find that one ally she had on American soil and to share in the excitement. Those little wings were theirs and they would be taking flight. Going home.

"Yes, I am excited." Zhanna said, though it was a lie. She had the potential to be happy but right now, she could feel the glares of the men still on her back and the dark eyes of Nixon were sure to be watching.

"I'm sure Lieutenant Samsonova is happy," Winters said, trying to make conversation with the sniper, as if they were friends. "You'll be able to go home."

Turning her gaze back to the ginger Lieutenant, Zhanna studied him. They were close, Nixon and Winters. Was this all a tactic to get her to open up? To spill the secrets? There was so much more to be done before they could go home. Those wings just gave them a place on a boat back across the Atlantic. They still had to get home.

Months were passing and Zhanna's parents could be waiting for her. Or..

No, don't say it. They are alive. They are alive and they are waiting for you.

"Yes," Zhanna said. He wouldn't get any information from her. She might not have been as important as Sveta but she still knew enough. She knew that Stalin would trade the world away for Sveta, because of the allegiance between her father and himself. Zhanna knew that Veronika's death had been enough to thoroughly change Sveta, solidifying her fury and passion. But Winters didn't want to know any political secrets that Zhanna might have overheard or anything about Sveta.

"You have come a long way together. You're very close." He asked her a question that Zhanna had burned into her mind and flesh, scarring every inch of her skin. "Why?"

Why? Why did she follow Sveta to the ends of the earth? Why had she, a scared little Polish girl, been welcomed into the great household of the Samsonovs?

"We can't keep you."

"You are putting us in danger."

"Zhanna, this is your new home."

"They are doing this for you. Out of kindness."

Kindness. Zhanna was indebted to kindness. The Samsanovs had been Zhanna's only hope. Because of them, she was alive and had a rifle in her hand. But those hands were bound to Veronika and chained to Sveta. Because she was alive she had to earn their grace and hospitality. Their pity.

"Because our paths are intertwined." Zhanna knew that no one understood Sveta. Her fire and her fury. Zhanna didn't always understand the mind of her friend but she didn't have to. Zhanna knew she would fight for Sveta until her dying breath. She didn't have to understand her to owe her.

"I see," Winters said, though Zhanna wasn't sure he did. They couldn't possibly understand what she had been through. No one could. So she didn't bother to share. Sveta knew enough but most of Zhanna's past was kept to herself. It was better that way.