The second time Alice woke up, a gentle light filtered in through the semi-sheer white curtains. Instead of panic, a deep sense of peace filled her entire body. She faced the wall. Directly in front of her sat her dark wood dresser with nothing but jump wings and Lieutenant's bar on the surface. To the right, the window that let in the morning sunlight. She could hear Nixon's slow breathing behind her.

As gently as she could, Alice shifted on the mattress to look at him. His chest rose and fell with each breath. She couldn't help but smile. The light from the window cascaded around them, shadowing her face but making his glow. His brown hair, sometimes so dark it looked black, had a warm reddish glow. It was nice, seeing him calm and peaceful. 

After over a year of everything but calm and peaceful, Alice treasured those moments. The warmth and pressure of the comforter over her body gave her even more reason to relax. The room was chilly, but the bed felt wonderful. Alice let out a slow, deep breath.

Bed. She had a bed. She had a blanket and a pillow. She had dresses and makeup and a hairbrush and a house. And she had Nix. As much as the ache of everyone she had lost still weighed on her, she reminded herself how lucky she was. A few tears stung at her eyes unbidden. Alice released the tension in her body and let herself relax.

"What time is it?" Nix slurred. 

Alice half-suppressed a chuckle. Peering over him, she looked at the clock sitting on his dresser. It surprised her. "Nine."

"Jesus, that's still early," he muttered. His eyes were still closed. But when she didn't say anything in response, he opened them. It took a moment of blinking against the sunlight to focus. "Why'd you go downstairs earlier?"

Alice frowned. For a moment she just looked at him. But they'd promised not to fall back into the bad habits of shutting everything down and drinking away their problems. She sighed and sat up, propping her arm and head on her knee. "I woke up and in the cold," she tried to explain, "I guess... I don't know. I thought I was getting pneumonia again. It was pretty silly."

But Nix didn't laugh or smile. Instead, he forced himself to wake up more. Blinking away the sleep and sunlight, he too sat up. "You're not going to get pneumonia again."

He spoke the words so firmly that Alice actually believed it, as though Nix saying so made it irrevocably true. All the fake humor she'd put up as a show collapsed along with her shoulders. "I spent a year in a combat zone, Nix, and I'm terrified of getting ill." She shook her head a bit and looked away. The desk at the wall across from them became increasingly more fascinating. Her face scrunched against unbidden tears. "It doesn't make sense!"

"Nothing makes sense," Nix muttered bitterly. But then he took a deep breath. "You're not going to get sick."

She sighed. With a small nod, Alice turned back to him. His frown spread all the way to his brown eyes. They were the same dark shade as Marc's had been. Alice didn't know if there was a color more beautiful than that.

"Now who's staring," Nix teased. He ran a hand through his hair and yawned. Looking over at his clock, he tried to convince himself to get up.

Alice let out a tiny laugh. "Sorry. I just... your eyes are the same color as Marc's." She'd never mentioned it, never told him. It had felt too personal, almost. A hidden secret she kept for herself.

He didn't say anything in response. But he smiled. Rolling out of bed, Nixon stretched, yawned, and sorted through his dresser for clothes. Staying where she was, Alice closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, the way Gene had suggested she do it in the last weeks of Austria. The sounds of wooden drawers opening and closing, rustling cloth, and Nix's bare feet against the floorboards surrounded her. 

"So, do you want a cat?"

Alice opened her eyes. As Nix finished getting ready, pulling his brown wool suit jacket on, she narrowed her eyes. "What are you up to?"

"Me?"

"Don't play dumb," she scolded. But Alice couldn't suppress the grin at his teasing. Pushing the heavy comforter off herself she put her bare feet on the floor and sighed. The cold wood reminded her ever so briefly of snow again. But she hid her discomfort and got up to rifle through her own dresser. "So, do you want a cat?" she echoed.

"I'd tolerate it," he added.

She scoffed. Even facing away from him she knew he was teasing. Alice looked over her shoulder. He leaned in the doorway watching her, smirk on his face as she expected. "Well, clearly you have an idea. You're much too excited for nine o'clock in the morning."

Nixon let out a laugh. "Meet me downstairs when you're put together."

Just like that, he turned and headed off. Alice rolled her eyes. Laughing under her breath, she finished pulling on her dress and shoes and started on her hair. Twenty minutes later, she hurried down into the kitchen. Nix had grabbed a box of Cheerios from the pantry.

"So, what's your plan?" Alice asked. She took the bowl of cereal and sat down at their dining table. "Do your connections in the business world give you a go-to 'cat guy'?"

He started chuckling as he took a bite of his own breakfast. "I have my sources."

With a half-hearted glare, Alice just worked at her cereal. She knew some battles were worth fighting, and some weren't. With Nix, if he got it in his mind to keep something a surprise, she couldn't change that. By the time they finished, it was already a quarter past ten. She smiled when Nix told her to get her coat, and smiled as she sat in the drivers' seat. As much as she was glad she'd learned to drive years ago, Alice was more than happy to let Nix do it.

Despite the inch of snow on the ground, the drive past pleasantly. The sun pushed out from behind the clouds. As much as Bastogne had made her truly hate snow, the blanket of white on the ground looked less forbidding than she expected. Soon enough, they pulled up outside a large house. Not quite as massive as the Nixon estate, it still stood older and taller than most homes Alice had gotten used to seeing in New Jersey. Nix told her they'd driven about halfway to Princeton.

"I've got a friend here. Will. He graduated from Princeton when I graduated from Yale," Nix explained. He opened the door of the car and hopped out. As Alice did the same, he continued, "Will joined the Marines."

Alice wrapped her coat tighter. "And this has to do with a cat?"

He chuckled. "While Will was gone, his wife Peg started rescuing cats. I ran into him the other day when I was in Princeton for work. Apparently, one of them had kittens."

As they moved up the driveway to the door, Alice turned to him. "What do they know about me?"

Nix shrugged. "They know we met during the war. That's about it. They know you're from France, nothing else though."

They waited by the door. Five, ten seconds passed. The clouds started to cover the sun again and Alice shivered where she stood. Out of the city limits, there were acres of open, snow-covered land near each house. Just like the Nixon estate. Too much snow.

The brass doorknob turned. A woman, slim and shorter than Alice with light brown curls, grinned at them. "Lewis!" She turned back. "Will! Lewis is here!" Then she stood back and ushered them in. "It's freezing out there! Come in, come in!"

"Hey Peg," Nix said. 

They both stepped into the hall. The wallpaper, minty teal background with gold and white flowers, gleamed in the lights. They could hear a radio from further in. As a blond young man turned a corner, dressed in slacks and a button-down and sweater vest combination, Nix visibly brightened. 

"Lew!" The man grinned and hurried down the hall. "And you must be Alice?"

With a nod small smile, she accepted the hand he extended. "You must be Will. And Peg?"

Peg nodded. "That's me! Will said you two were looking to get a cat?"

"Yes," Alice said, grinning. "You've got one?"

Peg laughed and shook her head. "One? We've got five right now. Come on." Then she turned around. "Will, could you go check on Tommy? He was napping on the couch."

With a smile and nod, Will left his wife to show them the kittens. Peg ushered them up the stairs. She explained they'd set aside a bedroom when Miss Marmalade, the mother cat, had shown signs of pregnancy. 

"The poor darling was wandering around Princeton. When Will and I saw her, I picked her up and brought her home." Peg led the way down the hall. She stopped at the second door on the left. "She gave birth to six healthy kittens about seven weeks ago now."

The door opened to the sounds of kittens. Alice's heart melted. Her first thoughts at the glimpse of two kittens, one white with a black nose and the other a calico, was the white kitten in Haguenau. She stopped at the door. A gentle hand on her back from Nix gave her the push she needed to move further in.

Peg had moved off to check on the others. They took in the room. The orange and white Marmalade, Miss Marmalade as Peg had insisted was her name, sat sprawled out on a pile of blankets in the corner. The two kittens who had stormed the door were joined by two more, two blank ones with some white markings. Alice picked her way around the screaming bundles of fluff over to a couch. 

By the time she'd sat down, Nix had been mobbed by the kittens. Alice found the sixth one, an orange tabby kitten who had quite a voice. Not satisfied with sharing Nixon, the kitten turned towards Alice. Peg laughed. 

"That's Spot," she told Alice. "He's quite a handful."

The kitten leapt up on the couch and pushed his head against Alice's arm. With a grin, she let Spot smell her hand. Spot. What a funny name. He had beautiful stripes. As he clambered onto her and pushed his head up against her face, purring and letting out high pitched whines for attention, Alice couldn't stop grinning.

"Hello there," she cooed. Alice ran a hand over his fur. The touch made Spot even more excited, and his meows were drowning out by his motor-like purring. "Aren't you sweet."

"He's a bit of a crazy cat," Peg told her, but she smiled as she said it. "He loves people. Absolutely adores them. Honestly, sometimes I think he likes people more than cats!"

Alice looked at her and laughed. As Spot headbutted her again, she turned back to them. "Now that is rather silly, Spot. People are much worse than cats."

"You said his name is Spot?" Nixon laughed as he moved over to where Peg stood with Alice. The kittens had left him alone, starting their own chaos with their mother. "He's got stripes though."

"I love it," Alice said. "It's hilarious."

Nix chuckled again. "Why am I not surprised."

"If you want him, he's yours! They're already eating cat food. We've got some extra cans you can take with you if you want him today," Peg told them. "Secretly I think Will is tired of having to share his house with a whole clan of kittens."

Alice only spared Nix half a glance before nodding to Peg. "We'll take him."

By the time Peg had gathered up what supplies she could part with, Alice had spent a good ten minutes holding Spot to her chest. They stood in the kitchen, Nix chatting with Will about nothing of any particular importance. Peg soon reappeared, handing Nix a small basket of what Alice thought looked suspiciously like K-Rations.

"Take good care of him," Peg said, frowning. She ran a hand between Spot's ears. "Bye, baby."

With a smile, she thanked Will and Peg. Nix opened the door for them and soon they'd bundled into the car out of the cold. Alice couldn't stop smiling at the furry little orange kitten that jumped from her lap down to the floor in front of her.

"A striped cat named Spot," Nix said. He started snickering under his breath. "Perfect."

Alice looked at him and couldn't help but laugh about it too. It did seem pretty perfect, a tiny representation of the fact that nothing really made sense anymore. But even when nothing made sense, it still worked out. And that, Alice decided, that was just fine.