For the first morning in almost as long as Nixon could recall, he woke up along side the sun. It took a moment for him to realize where he was. Warmth against his back and the scent of roses pulled him to reality. Two desires pulled him in different directions. The feeling of Alice being so close and so calm begged him to stay in bed as long as he could. But he ached for a drink. His mind reeled from all the pain he'd seen in the past week, a sort of anguish he hadn't even realized existed until they'd reached Germany. Senseless, really. At least in Bastogne, the suffering had had a purpose.

He closed his eyes again. The moment ended all too soon, though, as he heard Harry shuffling in the bed over and remembered how early they needed to get moving. With an internal sigh, Nixon pushed the covers back and forced himself out of bed. The sudden lack of warmth made him shiver. With his bare feet against the wood floor, Nixon moved back into the hall. The study on the second floor had quite a few bottles of scotch, if he remembered correctly.

The door to the study opened with a small squeak of the hinges. Nixon could feel the sag in his shoulders as he wandered to the liquor cabinet. Someone, probably Harry, had left the key in the lock. When the glass door swung open, Nixon immediately began rummaging through the bottles. Grabbing an open one from the middle, he pulled it out and took down a shot glass from the top of the cabinet.

Thoughts of King Midas filled Nixon's head as he poured the scotch into the glass. With a huff, he placed the bottle on a nearby desk and downed half the glass. It burned his throat. Nixon all but gasped for breath. Closing his eyes, he let the drink settle.

"You're up early," Dick said.

Nixon turned his way. Dick stood in the doorway, already dressed. "Yeah, a goddamn miracle," Nixon joked. After topping off his shot glass, he moved over to Dick. "What time are we out of here?"

"No later than 0800 hours."

"Right."

Nixon downed the whole shot glass in one go. After placing it firmly on a table, he moved past Dick into the hallway. He stopped in the doorway to his room. Alice had gotten up, sitting on the side of the bed, head in her bandaged hands and elbows on her knees. Her hair fell into her face as she sat in silence and stared at the ground.. Across from her, Harry sat lacing up his boots.

"What time are we moving out," Harry asked him.

"By 0800," Nix said.

Alice took a deep breath. Straightening up, she pulled her hands away from her face. Nixon wished it would have surprised him to see tears on her face, but it didn't. She cleaned her face as best she could with the bottom of her shirt. Fixating on the bandages around her hands, Nixon didn't know what to do or say. The familiar ache for another drink crashed into him again. But he took a deep breath and willed it away. Getting drunk wouldn't help Alice one bit.

"I'll meet you all downstairs," she said.

Her voice sounded a bit harsh at first, and as she pushed past Nixon into the hallway he could see how red her eyes were. In a moment of impulse, Nixon laid a hand on her arm. At the touch, he felt her shudder. When she looked at him, she offered a small smile. They exchanged no words. He let her go a moment later. Her door clicked closed behind her.

"Come on, you need to change too," Harry reminded him. Standing from his bed, Harry grabbed his helmet from the desk nearby and moved out. "She'll be fine."

"Yeah," Nixon huffed, "Yeah."

Left to himself, Nixon headed back inside his room. With sluggish movements, he pulled his pants and fatigues on over his undershirt and shorts. He could just feel the alcohol take the edge off. A bit of the warmth he'd lost leaving Alice's bed came back from the scotch. But the heat from the drink paled in comparison, a sort of cheap counterfeit of the reality he experienced in her presence. He groaned.

Nixon blamed the rose-scented soap. He'd been able to force down any feelings for over two years. Now it felt like he'd been hit by a tidal wave. The fact that her presence had made drowning himself in alcohol much less effective pissed him off, too. But his thoughts the previous night, that maybe, just maybe, this would give him something out of the war better than he'd ever expected, made him pause.

"Nix, you ready?" Dick's voice echoed through the door before he knocked. "We're getting ready to move out."

"Yeah, I'm coming."

With a sigh, he grabbed his helmet off the desk where it had sat next to Harry's. He found Dick standing outside. Together they descended the stairs into the entrance hall of the mansion. Harry, Ron, Lipton, and Alice stood waiting for them. Her gaze seemed distant, distracted. Her arms crossed over her chest, a tell that Nixon knew immediately meant she was thinking about something upsetting. He'd picked that up years ago.

"Speirs, is Easy ready?" Dick asked.

He nodded. "Yes, sir," he assured him.

"Harry, HQ?"

"Ready as we can be," he said.

Dick nodded. "Good. We should be in Thalem by the end of the day. We're supervising clean up, acting as an occupation force."

He had them move out and join the men. Foley and Shames were getting Easy Company settled. At the appearance of the other officers, they climbed into a jeep. Just as they split to their own rides, Nixon noticed Dick pull Alice aside. He joined them.

"Please," she muttered. "I'm fine. Just tired. And it's easier to sleep in the troop trucks than a jeep," she pointed out.

Dick watched her for a moment. When she didn't look away from his gaze, he just nodded, releasing a small sigh. "Fine."

"Thank you." When she turned to leave, Alice noticed Nixon. She flashed him another smile, a small one, but a smile nonetheless. It was all she could muster. "I'll see you boys in Thalem."

Alice heard Nixon talking to Dick as she moved away from the jeeps. Glancing around, she did her best to locate any of the men of Easy that she trusted most. She saw Janovec and several of the other most recent replacements talking to Grant and Talbert. As much as she liked Janovec, he was not in her list of trusted companions. So she kept looking. After getting jostled by a few men of Fox Company, Alice paused and took a few deep breaths.

"Hey. Alice!"

At Johnny's call, she looked up. It took a moment, but she finally located him one truck over. He stood with George and Bull, the latter two smoking in silence. She pushed her way over. Using her elbows to break through the crowd, she resumed folding her arms when she reached them.

"Got space?" she asked them.

"We'll just kick Tony and Les off," George attempted to joke.

Alice knew by the look on their faces that they'd heard what happened. The rumor mill of Easy Company never ceased. She glanced from them to the tailgate of the truck. Liebgott sent her a nod and offered his hand up.

His grip was firm as he hauled her into the truck. She stumbled slightly at the top, but when he scooted down to make room for her on the end, she nodded her thanks. Johnny, George, and Bull followed suit. Orders from Talbert, Lipton, and the other officers echoed through the area. They would be moving off momentarily.

Across from her, Bull settled down between Alley and Heffron. Johnny filled in the gap on her left followed by George on her right. The truck filled to capacity. With a last few shouts from what sounded like Foley or Peacock, the engines soon roared to life. The caravan left the town.

Alice let her head fall back against the side of the truck, eyes closed. The late April breeze ruffled her hair. The close presence on either side of her of her friends managed to make her feel a bit better, but if she was honest with herself, all she really felt was exhaustion. No tears, no angry outbursts, no curses, just silent numbness filled her body.

No way to thank Nixon for his help crossed her mind. She'd spent the whole time since waking up trying to find the words to express it, but there were none. In fact, the only thing that even came close to bringing her to tears had been his willingness to just be there. He'd done it in Bastogne, and in the hospital in Holland. He'd just been there, whenever she needed it.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to stay with him, just be in his presence. But the other part of her, it just wanted to be alone. Sit in the quiet, in the silence, isolated. As the German countryside passed by, she focused on her breathing. No one bothered her. All around, the conversations continued as usual.

After lunch, she'd gone through three cigarettes in an hour. When she pulled out a forth, George nudged her. She looked at him. He watched her closely, almost hesitating, which was enough to concern her.

"Come on, three's enough, ok?" he murmured. "You know Doc would be on you about that."

Alice didn't respond. She stared at him, unblinking. Her body deflated as he didn't back down, and she nodded, putting cigarette number four back in the pack of smokes. It caught her off guard when George put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug, but she didn't protest. And, based on George's frown, maybe that said enough.

Most of the day was spent drifting in and out of sleep. George never pushed her away, just let her rest even when it occasionally meant her using him as a pillow. So when they finally pulled into the town of Thalem right at sunset, she had to force herself to focus. Staying focused had been the biggest issue by far all day.

The tailgate dropped and the men exited in pairs. Thalem looked much worse than Landsberg am Lech. Instead of proudly standing mansions, most of the town of Thalem had crumbled to the ground. Mountains of bricks and debris lined the streets. It became apparent quite quickly that most of the men would be sleeping in tents, not houses.

It took several moments of standing in half a daze before Alice reminded herself she had work to do. She'd need to be a translator for Dick at the very least. So with a final look back at the gathering enlisted men, she moved her way through the crumbling streets until she found the other officers.

The next hour passed by in a blur. She didn't recall much after the fact, just a few snippets of conversation in German with some of the elders of the town. Dick had dismissed her to a house where Harry, Ron, and Lipton would also be staying. By some grace of God, the house she'd found herself in had a working shower, and for almost ten minutes she'd stood beneath the water drowning herself as best she could.

When she got out and dried off, Alice slipped into her pajamas. The sound of her bare feet padding against the wooden floors made the only sound in the room she'd gotten. She knew Harry would be back soon to take up his spot on the floor, but for now, she had it to herself.

Alice massaged her forehead for a moment, sitting on the mattress cross-legged. Only a bit of light illuminated the room, coming from a single albeit large lamp on the table to the right of the bed. When a knock on the door sounded a few minutes later, she opened her eyes and told them they could enter.

Nixon, not Harry, stood in the doorway. He had his flask in one hand, and his right on the door handle. She flashed him a small smile. Taking it as permission to enter, he closed the door behind himself.

"Does your house have running water?" Alice asked. "Because this one does. Which makes me feel much better."

He chuckled under his breath. "I don't know. Dick was checking it out."

"Any idea where Harry is?"

"He was wandering around outside, trying to track down some decent food, I think," Nixon said. Raising his flask, he shook it a bit. "Thought I'd bring you a drink."

"Always a gentleman," Alice teased.

Nixon let out a sarcastic laugh. "Right. Gentleman."

Wasting no time, he pulled the desk chair from nearby and pulled it a bit closer, adjacent to the bed. He handed her the flask. Alice downed a large drink. It wasn't Vat 69, but it was still decent scotch whisky.

"Would you rather own a dog, or a cat?" Nixon asked.

Alice paused, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "What?"

"Dog or cat."

Alice laughed. "I've answered this one before, Nix. Both. I would want both."

"Oh right," he said, clearly well aware of this fact. "You're turn."

Her already tiny smile fell. She tried to think up a good question. "Would you rather live in New York or San Francisco?"

"New York." He wasted no time in answer. "Right, my turn." A long pause followed as he hesitated. But at last he spoke up again. "Would you rather go back to 1942, where it all started, and change what happened? Or stay here."

As soon as he started the question, she understood his reason for the game. It was that, right there. For a moment her heart ached at the choices before her. Grief, anger, fear clenched her chest and suffocated her lungs.

She looked down at her hands in her lap. Biting her cheek, she shook her head. "I would go back, because it's my fault I wasn't there for her," she whispered. Her eyes squeezed shut.

Nixon didn't respond. She didn't know what she'd expected, but she'd never lied to him before and she had no intention of starting then. The admission must've hurt him. But if she had had the option, she would've given everything, anything in her power to save her sister at least. Even her own life.

So it surprised her when she felt the bed shift. But in a matter of moments Nixon had pulled her closer, let her all but collapse into his side. Again, exhaustion took over. The warmth of his chest made her heart beat a bit slower, calming her breathing.

She couldn't cry. Not any more. Her body had no more tears left to shed for anyone or anything. But suddenly, with Nixon offering a sense of security, the pain rushed back in and manifested in tears. Silent ones, they stained her cheeks. But he didn't say anything, so she didn't move.

When Harry came in half an hour later, Alice had fallen asleep. Nixon had managed to maneuver her into the bed without waking her, and he was just putting the chair back against the wall. He downed a long drink as Harry looked at him.

"Harry," he muttered, "You wouldn't happen to know why she says it was her fault for not being there? Getting attacked in a bar was hardly under her control."

Harry paused. He glanced from her to Nixon and back, hands on his hips. "No. But she mentioned off hand something about using her body against the Nazis. I was pushing her about trust back in France."

Nixon frowned. He looked back at her. After a long pause he turned to Harry who had set his cot up on the floor. "Right."

The realization that maybe he didn't know the whole story about her past caused him to pause. Harry was right; they'd talked about it before. They knew very little about pre-war Alice. Maybe it was time they found out.