The Bois Jacques had been a blur in Zhanna's mind. More snow, more foxholes, and more wakeful nights. There had been marches through the woods where Zhanna had neglected to fire a shot. There had been days spent huddled together, cursing God and man for the bad luck of the 101st Airborne.

Bastogne had no real concept of time and they could have been inhabiting it's shadows for months or years, instead of the weeks that the men insisted had passed. Zhanna wasn't convinced. She had begun to mark days only by nightfalls and empty foxholes. Hoobler was gone, in a shot from his own prized Luger. Peacock had been sent from the front, home to America with the purpose of spreading patriotism and enthusiasm for the war effort.

They would need as much support as they could get. Those people on the homefront, who sent letters and bundles of lumpy socks and ragged scarves, were thousands of miles from any real danger. They were safe. Zhanna tried to not to hate the idea of them, safe in their homes and away from the splinters and the shells that rained on her head. The men would write home, tell their mothers, wives, and sisters of the war and what they were fighting for.

Zhanna hadn't written a letter in more sunsets than she could remember. She hadn't opened her journal in longer. She didn't know what she was fighting for but fighting left very little time to think. Thinking was Zhanna's enemy so fighting was her savior. There wasn't much to rely on, these days.

Whispers of dissatisfaction with Lieutenant Dike's lead continued to spread, from even the other officers themselves.The company wide opinion was that Buck Compton should have lead Easy but only two knew the danger behind that. Guarnere had said nothing, and Zhanna had kept her promise of keeping an eye on him. But watchful eyes did little to help him. What good was it to stand and watch where they were going?

So Dike stayed and Zhanna knew that Winters's hands were tied, even if she wished he would still lead Easy. If they had wanted a leader they had been given someone who would rather warm a foxhole than rally the troops. Where had the blind trust in the brass and bedecked officers gotten them?

It hadn't gotten Zhanna closer to Russia. It hadn't brought her debt off her shoulder, loosening the load. The relief of the silver in the mud was long ago and she had shouldered more since. Zhanna wasn't sure how she could walk, with her joints cold as they were. Zhanna wasn't sure how she was breathing, not when she was so deep underwater. Something wouldn't let her die.

All her trust in the brass, no matter what she said about orders, had led her right back to where she had started. Back to the same woods she had watched splinter in the night. Back to the woods that she had first buried her loss under the snow. Zhanna was back where she had started and she wasn't sure she was any better off. Three bullets still rattled in her pocket and her journal still pressed like a heavy weight against her chest. Was she any better off?

Their position certainly wasn't. The trees were shattered, shards of wood buried deep into the frozen ground, allowing for a clear sightline into the town of Foy. Their next target. The carcasses of the buildings, the shattered windows and fluttering curtains. Zhanna didn't have to imagine them, they were before her. Empty houses before her, and empty foxholes all around her. Empty dreams rattled around in her head. She didn't need to be in Russia. Russia was all around her.

Russia had taken from her. And Bastgone was in the habit of taking.

Zhanna wasn't paying attention to where her feet fell, following the subtle approach of men as they sought out their old foxholes and found less than desirable conditions.

"Someone's gonna die, someone's gonna fucking die," Toye's voice split through the forest, ignoring the noise discipline that had been ordered. His threat was obvious and Zhanna only hoped it would be a German and not a comrade who would face his wrath.

Zhanna didn't stop to see the state of Toye's foxhole, just followed the heavy boot imprints of Buck as he pushed forward. When he stopped, she did too, hanging back as he huddled with the other platoon leaders. Hushed tones were out of habit than necessity and Zhanna tried not to listen. She forgot, often, that she was a lieutenant, though no platoon was in her care.

"Looks like the Krauts have been pounding this area with pretty big stuff, maybe 88s," Lipton said, his breath in clouds against the now falling snow. "I'd say they got this whole stretch of line targeted."

"Well they're not shelling now," Foley said, almost hopefully. "Maybe they've got a new target-"

The lieutenants with any sense exchanged looks, Zhanna among them. There wasn't a new target. They were the target. The Airborne was always the target, it seemed.

"Nah, they are just waiting," Lipton said, crossing his arms tighter against his chest. He was gentler than Zhanna would have liked. The cold was making her irritable. She would have spoken, maybe said some words she would later regret to another officer, but her lips didn't want to part so why should she make them?

"For what?" Foley asked.

"For us to reoccupy the position," Buck said. His paranoia and his fear, Zhanna had spent the past few days masking it but it was warranted here. And his prediction wasn't a theory, it was true. They were visible, even now standing and talking. If they could see the Germans, they were most definitely being watched.

"Maybe we should fall back to a different position, dig in," It was a desperate attempt, one that Zhanna was ashamed to admit was tempting.

"No, it's our job to hold the line here." Lipton said.

Follow orders until you can't anymore. Zhanna really wished she could not follow these orders. Not see the enemy from across the field, knowing that shelling and splintered rain would come. It was a doomed game, waiting and hoping. Hope hadn't been a thought in her mind in so long. It wasn't easy to entertain amid snowdrifts and chapped lips, with a rumbling belly and an empty gun.

"We've got pretty good foxholes, we just need to fortify the covers," Lipton continued.

"If they've got us targeted, maybe-" Shames started to say, ready to slither out of the orders, like Zhanna wanted to. Zhanna wanted to be at the back of the company, where Sveta and Nixon stood, away from any real harm. Something didn't want to let her die but Zhanna didn't want to try her luck. Luck, Zhanna thought bitterly. Sveta had the luck, it seemed.

"We hold the line here." Buck said, cutting off Shames with his firm tone but Zhanna detected a slight tremor. "Sergeant Lipton's right. We are gonna strengthen our covers and we are gonna hang in. We are not gonna fall back."

Buck wouldn't meet Zhanna's eye. She couldn't be sure if this was a front of strength, the word that needed to be said, or if he really believed it. Did he really have the confidence in their foxholes and cover?

"Right, Lieutenant?" Buck called over his shoulder, to where Lieutenant Dike leaned against a tree.

He hadn't been listening, he hadn't been doing anything. Zhanna wasn't sure what she was expecting.

"Right, Lieutenant?" Buck repeated, a grin splitting his face, as if everything was fine, not a care in the world.

"Fine. You all take care of it." Dike checked his watch, as if Bastogne hadn't scrambled everyone's sense of time, as if he had somewhere more important to be than with his troops. "I gotta go talk to Regiment."

A look passed between the group, one that Zhanna was privy to. They weren't sure what they had been expecting from their CO. He was, at least, predictable. Dike's retreating figure sped away, leaving the company, as always, in their care. Well, in Foley, Lipton, Buck and Shames's care. Zhanna just watched.

"We should get moving," Lipton said, breaking the silence and the heavy dread that Zhanna felt pooling in her stomach, weighing her down further. The group murmured in agreement before parting ways. Zhanna told Buck she would find their foxhole, which she was sure was just a few craters over, and he nodded.

"Be careful," It was a caution. Zhanna just wished it hadn't been necessary.

Men had started to pull the debris around their foxholes, leaving deep trails in the snow as they gathered splintered saplings and fallen branches in the attempt to build up their defenses. In all of the movement around her, Zhanna didn't recognize a foxhole.

"Cas, you found your foxhole?" It was Malarkey. She hadn't seen him since the Bois Jacques and even then, she couldn't quite place when. His face was pale and there was snow caught in the scruff of his beard.

Zhanna shook her head.

"I think it's gone," she said, her voice croaking with unuse. "Buried or something,"

Malarkey didn't laugh. Zhanna had almost expected him to. "Need a place to bunk?"

Zhanna nodded, more enthusiastically than her joints had been prepared for. She could feel the frost crumbling from her spine. Buck wouldn't mind if they bunkered with Malarkey, would he? After Zhanna had reaffirmed that he wouldn't and thanked Malarkey with a dip of her head, she set off away from the bunker, amid the fallen trees. Her feet carried her without a command from her mind. She didn't know where they were taking her and Zhanna couldn't muster up enough strength to care.

The men felt the same sense of dread that she did, plainly etched on all of their faces. Dike had let them down and any luck had since been drained from them, feeding the hungry beast of Bastogne. Her feet couldn't carry her away from that truth or from the weight in her pocket. Three bullets shouldn't have weighed so heavily on her. But the pressure of their chosen target was almost more than she could bear. Could she afford to waste a shot?

Her feet didn't carry her much farther. The ground shook as a shell made impact, shattering the quiet doom with the presence of all Zhanna had expected. The men ran for cover, their mouths moving but she didn't hear them or pay any heed. She stood for just a moment, watching the dirt and snow fly. It was remarkable in the silence, the bursts of red and white. Her feet didn't carry her anywhere for a moment, until Lipton's shouts split through the ringing silence that had enveloped her mind.

Her feet didn't move of their own accord, dragged onward by a hand on her arm, leaving small craters in the dirt that were, only seconds later, filled by larger, smoking depths. She didn't know who was pulling her along at first, and half expected it to be some force of nature, the same being that wouldn't allow her to die. As she was pulled along, caught in the spray of explosion, the dirt and snow coated her lungs, slowly suffocating her. She really was underwater this time.

Thrown into a foxhole and colliding with her savior midair, Zhanna's breath escaped her. She caught sight of her savior, George Luz, briefly before the cracking, splintering of wood cut through her hearing. The tree above them broke in half, tumbling down to trap them in their foxhole. The sudden darkness that enveloped her was enough to shatter what little she had left.

Breathe. Breathe. When had she last taken a breath that wasn't coated with dirt and snow?

The ground shook, Zhanna trapped in this coffin in the ground. Down, down. She was underground or underwater? Could she breathe?

Her fingers shook, her body was too cold, too numb. Was she really here, in the foxhole, huddled against George Luz's overcoat as the world fell down around them? Or was this all a dream? Like her vision of a safe place, with a garden and with her family. That was a dream. This was a dream too.

She was drowning, really. Drowning somewhere in Russia and above her, dark eyes watched her sink to the bottom. The water obscured her vision and she couldn't tell who those dark eyes belonged to. Her body didn't stop shaking even when she reached the bottom, relaxing along the river floor. Most assuredly drowned. It was still shaking, trembling long after the joints had succumbed to the frost and the rattling sounds of artillery had faded.

Eyes squeezed tight against the world, she didn't move. Curled up at the bottom of a foxhole or a river, it didn't matter. George wasn't beside her and the shelling had stopped, leaving the air and the space beside her empty and silent. No steadying heartbeat or drumming of shells. Nothing but the voices of her friends.

"Stay in your foxholes!" Lipton shouted.

Buck repeated the call. "Stay down,"

The water left her lungs, giving back a small portion of her life. Her chest ached for a gulp of air, a steadying breath.

"Maybe we should see if anybody is hit?" Malarkey suggested.

"Nah, Malark, that's what they want," Guarnere's voice cut through the fog in her mind, reaching through the river and parting it with his words. "The Krauts are trying to draw us out in the open."

Buck. Where was Buck? As the sergeant reached down and pulled her free of her mind, Buck was her first coherent thought. Buck's voice had been close. She needed to find Buck.

Breathe. Just breathe.

A sound like the keening of an animal, wounded and stranded, filled the silence left behind by the shelling. The groans formed words and Zhanna wasn't sure if her mind was playing tricks.

"Do you hear that?"

"Is that Joe?"

"Yeah, I think that's Joe." Guarnere said. "Stay here."

"Stay down!" Buck shouted again, the desperation clawing in his throat.

The moments of silence that followed were filled with hammered heartbeats and spots bursting to life against Zhanna's eyelids. She flinched, as the artillery began again. Shouts to take cover were drowned in the deafening sound. She tried to squeeze her eyes further shut. To hide her head under a pillow like she did as a child, in Maria's attic. Hiding from the world and the eyes that watched her. If she didn't open her eyes she wouldn't have to admit that any of this was real.

"Guarno! Come on! You're gonna get bombed!" Buck, again.

Damnit, Zhanna, breathe. Breathe!

Cowering in a foxhole, listening to those around her scream for cover and shout in pain, Zhanna trembled. All she could do was tremble and try to breathe with her head underwater.

Buck's scream cut through the water in her mind. Her eyes snapped open and her limbs moved before she could recognize what she was doing. Real or not, underwater or not. Buck needed her. She needed him.

Zhanna met the second barrage on her feet, lungs full of the freezing air, and prevented from jumping from her foxhole by Luz's arms that pulled her back down from the edge. He dragged her down to the floor of the foxhole, the bottom of the river, and held her as she struggled. She fought hard, heart beating to the drum of the artillery.

Breathe, Zhanna.

They were ordered to stay down but Zhanna couldn't follow that order. She fought it, kicking and thrashing against the restraints. Zhanna couldn't follow that order when medics were being called and Buck's scream still echoed in her mind.

Breathe, Zhanna.

"Lip!" George's shout was so close to her head that Zhanna didn't register the end of the barrage, not until the sergeant had responded after a brief moment of silence. Silence.

"Are you okay?"

George gave him a thumbs up though Zhanna fought hard against his grasp.

"Stay down!"

Zhanna had followed orders in Benning, MacKall, and in Aldbourne. She had followed them in Normandy and in Holland, through the success of D-Day and the failure of Market Garden. Zhanna had let her fate be decided by the Generals of the American army, sentencing her to weeks in a frozen foxhole. Zhanna had followed orders. She would always follow orders, until she couldn't. Until the survival of herself and those she loved wasn't in those orders. She wasn't ready to give her life for the American army, even if she had nothing to live for, but she would give it to her friend.

She couldn't follow this order to stay down and she wouldn't allow herself to be restrained. In the first clear thought since their boots had touched belgian soil, Zhanna wouldn't allow herself to be contained any longer.

"First Sergeant Lipton," Dike said, her attention caught by the sudden appearance of their CO. "You get things organized here, I'll go for help."

All orders left her mind, ignored or followed, as Dike turned and disappeared into the still settling dirt and snow. In her ear, Zhanna heard through faint hearing, Luz's utterance of disbelief. She would have taken advantage of his distraction if he hadn't let her go of his own accord.

"Lip, where the fuck's he going?" he asked, as Lipton hauled himself out of the foxhole.

"I don't know," Lipton admitted. "Get battalion on the line, tell them to notify B.A.S."

He ran towards the cries of Joe Toye, which had long been silenced. Zhanna pushed herself free of the foxhole and ran after him with stumbling feet and cracking joints. She couldn't keep up, no matter how she tried. She passed Malarkey and he called after her but she kept pushing.

Buck. She had to find Buck. Every foxhole looked the same and every tree was overturned and uprooted. Nothing looked the same. Nothing ever did. For all her determination, she was lost in these woods, stumbling after her friend. Was he dead? Would she find him bloody on the forest floor?

She had never seen her parents deaths but she could see Buck in them. The blue eyes that were only filled with concern. The closely cropped hair that met a furrowed brow. Her family and Buck were so similar, blending together. The blanket that had obscured these thoughts had been blown away and now that she couldn't find Buck, they resurfaced to feed off her desperation.

Buck. She had to find Buck.

Breathe, Perelko. Breathe.

"Medic!" The shout was familiar, the broken rasp was not. Buck. He was close. Zhanna turned, stumbling at what fast pace she could manage without her body shattering into a thousand pieces on the floor.

"Casmirovna," Luz, behind her again. He pulled her again, toward the only safety she had known in the Airborne.

The medics were already bringing stretchers and hoisting the wounded up on them. Zhanna glanced over them quickly, Toye and Guarnere. Not Buck. Buck wasn't covered in blood. Buck wasn't dead. Relief washed over her but was replaced by the cool tide of guilt. Toye and Guarnere were good soldiers. The forest had claimed another. There would be another empty foxhole.

Zhanna's eyes caught Buck's figure, sat on a downed tree, his head in his hands. She felt George advance towards his friend but Zhanna held him back. She didn't speak, but George nodded.

He didn't look up when she approached. Buck didn't make any indication that he knew she was there until she had knelt before him and placed her numb hands over his own, bringing them away from his face. Any piece of the Buck that she had met in the days before the Normandy jump had cracked away and fell to a powder around him. She squeezed his hands in her own, and smiled. A thin line of blood trickled from her dry lips but she forced her mouth open.

"I'm okay, Buck," She said. And it wasn't till the words had hung in the air for a heartbeat that Zhanna realized they weren't in English or Russian. Buck, her ally and privy to all her secrets, accepted the Polish words. He didn't meet her eyes, casting them up to the sky, where the splinters and the shells had rained down on them and Zhanna knew she wouldn't see him again. Not as he had been.

The remains of Buck Compton had fallen into the snow, dusting her knees, as she knelt before him, trying to imbue some warmth between their clasped hands. That snow still clung to her, when they were taken away. When Buck was carted off and Zhanna left, in the fallen oaks and pines of Bastogne. She wasn't sure how long she had been there. She wasn't sure where Buck was going. He was just gone.

The blanket had been overturned and now Zhanna felt everything as raw and fresh as if her parents had been laying in the snow, not her comrades. She had seen the pallor of death now. It was pearl white.

Zhanna was okay. She had told Buck so. "Nic mnie nie jest, Buck." She repeated it in her head so it must have been true.

"Zhanna," That was English but the voice wasn't familiar, not outside of Russian.

"Nic mnie nie jest," It passed through her lips in a soft whisper. Sveta made no indication that she had heard it. If she had, she didn't understand. Did Sveta ever understand?

She appeared after a blow with her good fortune and her quiet rebellions. Zhanna scuffed a lump of snow. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there. Had the sun risen? Or had it ever set?

"Nixon knows where Buck is going," Sveta said. "Do you want to say goodbye?"

The snow on her knees was damp, melting away. The last piece of Buck was parting from her. But if she never said goodbye, she didn't have to admit that it was real. Like her family running away. Zhanna could run away too. Away from Buck and that good bye.

"Yes," Her answer, in English, was a surprise. The state Buck was in wasn't. The jeep ride to the aid station had been a quiet one, Zhanna's hearing still ringing and occasionally useless.

She didn't try to make conversation with Sveta. Her dark haired companion didn't look as if she had seen the barrage, much less taken part in it. She looked fine, like the CP didn't see shelling as regularly as Zhanna did.

Lucky Sveta.

What little was spoken was the word about Buck. He was being removed from the line. The official report was a bad case of trench foot but Zhanna knew it was the broken man that had been left behind. Winters had come to the decision and Nixon had told Sveta so that Zhanna would be warned.

The aid station was nothing more than a canvas tent but Zhanna didn't care what it looked like. She didn't know how many hours had passed, as she had sat on the log. Malarkey was waiting outside the entrance flaps, he had been with Compton when he left. Zhanna hadn't gone. Her legs couldn't seem to move. Even now they had a little trouble, but the promise of Buck was enough for her to rally her energy and take the first step.

"Wait here," Zhanna told Sveta, in Russian. As she passed, Malarkey gave her a tight lipped smile. The stench of blood and iodine was heavy in the air as she pushed her head in the tent, and croaked. "Lieutenant Compton."

She was pointed in the direction of one of the last cots in the tent, tight against the canvas wall. It's occupant wasn't moving. Zhanna could have run. Zhanna wanted to.

The broken man on the cot didn't turn towards her as she approached. He didn't move when she sat in the chair set beside his cot. She didn't say anything. Zhanna couldn't muster up the words. What could be said?

Breathe, Zhanna.

His skin was pearl white and Zhanna's fingertips were a frigid blue. He didn't move towards her, his back turned. Zhanna didn't breathe a word. Could he even hear her, as lost as he was in his own mind? Did he even hear her words, her reassurances?

Zhanna knew that Sveta and Malarkey would be waiting. She knew that sitting here in silence was pointless. She didn't want words or confessions or anything really. She just wanted Buck to know that she would be alright, really. And that he could rest.

"Nic mnie nie jest," he muttered, in halting words.

The salty taste of blood flooded into her mouth as she bit down hard on her cheek to stop from crying. They would freeze, in little crystal teardrops on her face and nose.

He had heard. He knew she was fine.

"Buck," She choked, and rested a hand on his shoulder for the briefest touch. She recoiled at how icy cold he was and he flinched at the contact. "Nic mnie nie jest."

Sveta didn't say anything as Zhanna pushed her way out of the tent. The jeep rattled in waiting, Malarkey already perched on one of its seats. Back to the forest, to the empty foxholes and the view of empty houses with fluttering curtains and broken windows. Haunted faces, bleeding lips, and pearl skin.

Beside her, as the jeep jostled them back toward Foy, Sveta nudged Zhanna with an elbow. When she had her attention, she reached into her coat and procured a pack of Lucky Strikes.

"From Ron," she said.

Ammunition was still in short supply and so were rations of cigarettes. Zhanna had almost forgotten about Sveta's offer to find bullets for her rifle and her own request for cigarettes from Speirs. It had been a joke of another time, when Zhanna wouldn't have to face an empty foxhole. When Zhanna hadn't seen her friend crack and her parents in place of her comrades.

Zhanna looked at the pack of cigarettes, the only luck that life had seen fit to grant it. Sveta had offered, as a gesture. A gesture that had come too late. Cigarettes didn't replace her ally. Buck had been more than an ally. He was the first friend that Zhanna could remember. One that she didn't owe anything to. One that she didn't feel chains rasp around her wrists at their presence. She had worked for luck and like always, Sveta was here to hand Zhanna what she had in plenty.

"No," Zhanna said, turning back to face the now small aid station in the distance."I don't feel like a smoke."