After Easy had settled into their positions, the world and the line had fallen silent. For several days there was little to no movement, the trees swaying and only a few shots fired. The only thing that dared stir was the snow, brushing across the ground in drifts. Zhanna could stare out her foxhole for hours and see nothing but the faint outline of a helmet in the white haze. She didn't leave her foxhole, at first, but once the boredom had set in and there had been no shipments of supplies to the front, she had decided to take matters into her own hand. Three bullets wouldn't see her through the war.

The woods were still around her, the snow only softly crunching under her boots and the whisper of the wind were the only sounds. There hadn't been much movement between CP and the line.

All the jokes from the Airborne about the weather in Russia had been forgotten in the woods of Bastogne, where one could only cower in fear against the frost, praying for mercy against the cold. Zhanna hadn't been ready for the chill. The thin coat she had been given did little to protect her from the frigid air. Easy shivered in their foxholes, like creatures in hibernation.

They didn't see each other often, not daring to leave the safety and the relative shelter that was provided by the dugouts. It wasn't like the streets of Stalingrad that provided alleys and cover for slinking shadows. Zhanna was out in the open in this pale white forest and even the trees seemed to have eyes. CP was a hike from Zhanna and Buck's foxhole but her friend had declined to accompany her, instead curled up in his blankets, trying to get Guarnere or Muck's attention in the neighboring foxhole. Buck, the Buck that Zhanna had known and loved before his stint in the hospital, had been buried in the snow. Once again, he was replaced by a frozen replica of his former self. Shattered like ice, he was restless and frightened. Not the bright and warming sun he had been. Zhanna had pretended as if she didn't notice and so did the other soldiers but they all saw it. There was nothing to be said, however, and nothing to be done. They remained silent, as if they were oblivious to the whole thing.

Stalingrad might have prepared her for the cold, no matter how miserable that past and this present experience was, but that didn't mean Zhanna enjoyed the cold. It turned your body against you, numbing and stiffening muscles and joints. Movement was difficult and that meant that survival was slowed. Cold could mean death and Zhanna had spent so much of her life surviving that it became second nature to fear the cold. Here, in this snowy forest, the shadows of tree limbs stretching their claws over her head, Zhanna couldn't afford to entertain any thought but survival. Not that there was much to keep surviving for.

One danger of Bastogne was the nightly snowfall that covered all tracks with a fresh blanket, removing all traces of familiarity and causing more than a few turned ankles when a foxhole suddenly appeared when you could have sworn it hadn't been there the day before. Zhanna almost tumbled into Winters's foxhole, knocking the tin of ice out of his hand and onto the snow.

"Sorry," Zhanna said, her jaw struggling to unhinge and allow the words to pass through her lips. Frost had coated her joints like rust, scraping and creaking into motion with the hours of disuse.

"Lieutenant Casmirovna," Winters said, his own face covered in a thin white dusting. She glanced at the razor in his hand and the mirror beside him. Was he... was he shaving?

"I seem to have interrupted you," Zhanna said, her lips seemed to burn, the only warmth she had felt in days. They had tried to light little fires in their dugouts to keep warm but the attempts had been met with bullets fired and sharp words. They didn't do anything, those little bundles of flames.

"Not at all," WInters continued, till his pale skin was as dusted as the ground around them. The only sign of the cold he displayed was the occasional sharp intake of breath at the sudden ice that hit his bare face. "We haven't seen you in CP in a while. Everything alright?"

Her lips were dryer than a desert, all this frozen water around her. It was an ironic existence she lived, Zhanna supposed. What little hydration she had hoped to afford her chapped and breaking skin only furthered the pain.

"I'm trying to find more ammo," Zhanna confessed, tucking her hands in their sock mittens into her thin jacket. "I only have three bullets left for my rifle."

Zhanna thought back to the last time she had been alone with Winters. That hotel room in Paris had been a lot warmer than the woods of Bastogne. It had better drink, that was for sure. They had been alone and they had been equals there. The walls were back now, the guards in their eyes setting up sentry. Here, Winters was a captain and Zhanna was just a borrowed sniper. Of all the things she had called herself, the things Zhanna had held tight to her, sniper was always the most useful. The captain and the sniper in these snow burdened trees. Alone.

Not entirely. The snow crunched beneath American made boots somewhere behind Zhanna and Winters's gaze flicked away from her pink face to the newcomer. She turned stiffly and saw one of the only men who dared dart between foxholes; she had seen his face often as he passed between trees in the twilight. Doc Roe's footfalls were heavy on the ground. Zhanna could almost feel the shaking on the ground. A twig snapped and Zhanna looked back over her shoulder, body shuddering.

She didn't say anything. Her words couldn't leave her mouth fast enough. Winters understood the snap of the twig and the panic in her eyes. Doc sank to his knees at the captain's urging. No one moved, even if they could. With a cautioning hand, Winters gestured for Roe and Zhanna to follow, as he picked up his rifle. Staying as low to the ground as her shattering joints could manage, Zhanna crept through the snow and undergrowth. The fog and disturbed snow that hung like a low hanging cloud through the forest made it nearly impossible to see more than a few meters ahead of her.

German encounters had been a common occurrence or so she had heard. Slim shapes of trees and the undernourished soldiers were nearly indistinguishable and no one could be sure of where the line began and where the Germans camped. It was a labyrinth of men, fog, and trees. Foxholes could swallow you, snowdrifts envelop you. Zhanna didn't like leaving her own dugout of safety and relative warmth.

She wasn't surprised when Winters held up a hand for her to stop, and as she knelt, wobbling on her numb feet, she wasn't shocked to see a German soldier, woefully unprepared for two Americans and a Russian. Zhanna would have been shocked or surprised but that required too much effort. As it was, getting her limbs back to Winters's foxhole, following behind the captain, the medic and their new prisoner was difficult enough.

She watched through heavily lidded eyes as Winters went through the soldier's belongings, studying each page of his papers and journal. He pulled out a photograph, this soldier's family. A moment passed, the fear and shock in the soldier's face growing at the stoic expression on Winters's. Zhanna felt sick. Roe stood beside her and she hoped that if she did indeed fall over as her knees were threatening, he would at least soften her fall.

This man's family had stirred up something that Zhanna had tried to bury in the snow and frozen earth of Bastogne. There, as the man was relieved of any useful items and then marched off into the snow, she was back in the field below the dike. In that crater where Janusz had shattered her. But that couldn't be pieced back other there, where the snow and the broken pieces of her mind were indistinguishable. It took a moment but she had at least beat it back, the memories submitting to her sheer willpower. The thin blanket of composure could be so easily disturbed and she didn't have time to be seen without it, not as an engine cut through the fog and silence of the forest.

It was in place again, when the jeep stopped, and Zhanna followed Winters out of habit than necessity, to greet Colonel Sink and this newcomer. Strayer hauled himself out the foxhole for the occasion, Zhanna noted.

"As you know, General MacAuliffe, acting division commander."

A general had left his safe and warm station to descend to their level. Zhanna would have felt honored but she was indifferent to his presence. A general didn't mean that they would get ammunition or supplies. A general, quite frankly, didn't mean anything. They had been the ones sending Zhanna and the Americans all across Europe, with nothing to show. Now that they had been told to tuck into the snowdrifts with no resources the brass decorated men had decided to show their faces.

"Tell it to me straight."

Zhanna would have liked to, very much, but that would require her jaw to unhinge and her tongue to form words. That's too much work. It had been too much work to come here to CP, really. Why had she even come here? The rifle's weight on her shoulder as she adjusted the slipping strap triggered the memory. Ah yes. Ammunition.

"We've been taking ground in one position, General," Strayer said. "And then losing it in another. Now it looks like a standoff and we are digging in on the edge of the forest." The Colonel glanced at Winters, a look that was dimly registered by Zhanna who's mind was still foggy with lead and gunpowder.

Her need for bullets had been forgotten in the dusting of snow and memories but was reaffirmed in Winters's frank but accurate reply.

"We are under sporadic enemy artillery, General." Winters fumbled with his gloves. "We are taking a lot of hits but we don't have an aid station. We've run out of food, we have no winter clothes and we have little or no ammo," with that, he glanced at Zhanna and her nearly empty rifle. She wasn't much good without ammo. What was a sniper without her gun?

"The line is spread so thin the enemy wanders into our CP to use out slit trenches, sir," Winters continued. "We just can't cover the line,"

A presence weighed heavily beside her, the feeling of a familiar body and warm breath against her exposed face. She didn't have to turn to know that it was Sveta. She hadn't seen her since they had dug into Bastogne, their paths rarely crossing.

"Who's this?" Sveta asked, in whispered Russian.

Zhanna opened her mouth with some difficulty and croaked. "General."

They were joined, with a flying cloud of snow and a tossed aside canvas, Nixon. The voices of his commanding officers must have awoken him and his dark head slowly rose from the dugout, his eyes heavy and dark.

While Captain Nixon was bid a good morning by Sink, Zhanna turned to Sveta. She didn't seem as affected by the cold as the others. For all the jokes of Russia being the frigid wasteland, Sveta could at least survive in it. Here Zhanna was, a frozen mess of borrowed socks and scarves. She hadn't asked for the cast-offs but the soldiers had left their offerings outside her and Buck's foxhole. Zhanna was glad to accept their charity, when they needed it just as much as she did.

"Haven't seen much of you," Sveta said, speaking first. "How's the line?"

"Thin," Zhanna said. "I came for..." She gestured at her rifle.

"Bullets?" Sveta supplied.

Zhanna nodded.

"Any luck?"

Zhanna shook her head. She hadn't acquired any more luck than the rest of the Airborne had though news of Sveta's good fortune had made its way along the line. They had all worked for luck, and most definitely earned a day of rest. Not even a full day. Maybe just a few hours. Where it was warm, where they weren't being spattered with splinters and snow. None of that would make sense when hung in the air, spoken aloud. But in her mind, between the frost and the thin blanket of snow, it made perfect sense. That was the safe place she thought of now. No family, just somewhere warm. Strange, Zhanna thought, how her priorities had changed.

"And you?" Zhanna asked, softly. "What have you-"

"I've been working with Dog," Sveta said. "I'll ask Ron if he's got ammo for you. He might."

It was a feeble attempt. Some kind of bridge between them in that offer. It was unlikely that Speirs would have the bullets needed for Zhanna's Mosin-Nagant but it wasn't so much the words as the gesture. And something about how she said, "Ron," sent shivers down Zhanna's back. She never called the Americans by their names. It was always surname or rank.

"I should go," Zhanna said. "Buck will be worried."

There was something in her eyes too. Sveta's dark eyes that had been so watchful. They managed to pick up the smallest detail in someone's face. They would hunt for the truth inside of a movement or a phrase. It hadn't unsettled her before but now Zhanna wondered what Sveta saw in her. What was the truth in Zhanna's face?

"I'll walk you back to the line," Sveta offered.

"No," Zhanna said, maybe too quickly. Maybe too sharply. "No, I'll be okay."

As her joints started to creak into motion and Zhanna began to move away from the person reflected back at her in Sveta's eyes, she muttered, just loud enough for Sveta to hear. "Stay safe."

A useless sentiment in a warzone. But just like the ammunition, it was an offer.

Zhanna's footprints back to the line were smudged by the wind, shifting snow in to fill them up again. Had she waited at CP any longer, the traces of her path would have been lost and Zhanna would have been forced to fumble her way through the woods. All sense of time was irrelevant in the shadows of the forest. You woke up and the woods were brighter. When it got dark, you would crawl back into your foxhole and cower. Structured time was forgotten. Hours were punctuated by bullets, seconds by splinters. Time in Bastogne was different. The Airborne was at the mercy of the forest and Zhanna didn't want to forget it. Like a river, this nature had a way of its own. A will of its own. Nature couldn't be bent to a particular way and it would knock over anything that stood in its way. Zhanna was lucky she passed by a familiar foxhole, with Muck giving her a slight nod. There wasn't much conversation these days. There wasn't much of anything. Food, jokes, or ammunition. They tried their best, gathering for a few short moments but any laughter seemed muted by the snowdrifts. Bastogne had taken away time and it was slowly taking something else from them too.

Buck was in their foxhole when Zhanna returned. He didn't tend to stray too far from the safety of it's frozen earth. They had a thin blanket and a mess kit that hadn't seen a ration in longer than Zhanna would care to admit. It wasn't much for a hole in the ground but the company made it seem a little less coffin-like.

"Where were you?" Buck asked, his blue eyes wild once again. For all his confidence in the first days in Bastogne, he had slowly been drained by Bastogne, just as everyone else had been. Buck was replaced with the man who had returned to Mourmelon. The one whose wounds hadn't healed, despite the fresh scar and the clean bill of health.

"I went to CP," Zhanna said. "I told you before I left."

"Oh," Buck's breath was a cloud before his lips. "I- I didn't remember,"

"It's okay," Zhanna said, perching on the edge of the foxhole, her feet dangling. "I didn't get any ammo."

She wasn't surprised. She wasn't disheartened. It was just a fact of war. Sometimes things were in short supply. Maybe General MacAuliffe's visit would prompt aid. Reinforcements, care packages, bullets. Zhanna wasn't picky. She'd need a better coat before long. Every morning dawned colder and if it continued her thin jacket wouldn't prevent her from frostbite or worse.

She shuddered, in response to the thought or the cold, Zhanna didn't know.

"Shit," Buck cursed and Zhanna watched him stand up, dimly.

Buck's wool jacket, long and much too large, was hung around her shoulders before she could utter a protest. But the weight was almost as comforting as the warmth. It wasn't much but she was, at least, warmer. It wasn't the same as a roaring fire or hot food but it had been a gesture. And it had been from Buck.

"Now you won't have a coat,' Zhanna said.

"I'm fine," Buck said, waving a hand to bat her words from the air. Though he did shudder slightly. "Besides, you look like an icicle with legs. You need it more than I do."

Zhanna moved stiffly, her arms trembling uncontrollably, to rest a hand on Buck's shoulder. He jumped but then relaxed, as if forgetting for a moment that he was beside her. His eyes were so far away, they seemed to stare straight through her.

Maybe it was just her imagination? Maybe the cold had muddled her brain and was making her see Buck for something he wasn't?

Buck had never been a man of trembling hands and frightful jumps. He had never recoiled from her before. He had always been Buck Compton and everything that entailed. Strong, a leader, her ally. A dangerously good marksman with a dart. Someone who could match Zhanna in the bar. He had helped her carry a drunk Sveta when he had barely known her. Buck Compton wasn't the man sitting beside her. Surely she wasn't the only one to see it.

She didn't dare say it out loud. Not yet. Not now. She waited for nightfall, when the forest and it's inhabitants nestled down for the evening. Well, the soldiers never seemed to relax. Zhanna waited for Buck to fall into a half-slumber beside her, skull-capped head resting against his shoulder to ease herself out of the foxhole.

As she had waited for his breath to even out, Zhanna had weighed her options. There were only a few men who knew Buck well. And there were only a few who could help her with this delicate subject. Muck and Penkala were too loud and were too fond of stories, Zhanna didn't think they would retell their lieutenant's struggles but Zhanna didn't want to risk it. There were a few other choices, easily disregarded. George Luz, he wasn't an NCO and she wasn't sure it would be proper. Lipton had too much on his plate already and Zhanna wasn't sure if Randleman or Martin would be bothered or could do anything. That left one choice. One that Zhanna would rather take another bruise than talk to.

She had avoided him successfully since the Samaria, brushing elbows with him only briefly. Guarnere was leaning against the tree beside his foxhole, enjoying a cup of some powdered beverage and retelling the tale of his harrowing escape from the hospital to a captive audience of Christianson, Powers, and Hashey. Zhanna would have crawled under the nearest snowdrift rather than interrupt but this was important. Buck was important and Zhanna had to know if she was just being tricked by her own mind.

"Casmirovna," Guarnere said. "You come to hear the story?"

"Sergeant," Zhanna shook her head. "I need to speak with you."

For a moment, Guarnere looked as if he wanted to say no. But Zhanna was an officer, even if she and half the enlisted forgot. He stood up, dusting the snow from his trousers and told the boys, "I'll be back soon,"

Zhanna allowed Guarnere to lead her a few feet away to a place of relative seclusion before saying, "Alright Lieutenant, what's the deal?"

"I need to talk to you,"

"Yeah I know. I stopped my story for you, short stuff," GUarnere said. "So, spit it out,"

"It's Buck," Zhanna admitted.

"Compton?" His words hung in the air carefully, testing her theory. Zhanna pressed on.

"He's not the same."

"Huh?" It wasn't disbelief which was encouraging, she supposed.

"He's not the same. He's-" Zhanna struggled for a word that fit her friend's behavior. "He's vacant."

Guarnere didn't speak at first. He didn't say anything. Stood there, in frigid silence as he pondered all she had said. Or maybe he was just trying to form the rest of his story for Christianson and Powers.

"Don't you see it too?" Zhanna asked, almost pleaded. "Tell me, you see it too,"

"Damn, I thought I was just thinking too much." He shook his head, as if trying to rid himself of a thought too heavy to house.

"Ain't nothing we can do," Guarnere said, mournfully.

"What do you mean?" Zhanna asked.

"They say he's crazy, he gets sent back to a hospital. That'll break a man."

"So what do we do?" Zhanna was ready to fall on her knees and beg whatever was pulling the strings in her life for a little bit of mercy or a little bit of luck. Buck was more than an ally, he was one of her first real friends.

"The guys can't know," Guarnere cautioned. A platoon leader who was a thousand miles away mentally wouldn't incite much confidence and Bastogne was already taking what little they had.

"They won't," Zhanna said. "You don't say anything. I don't say anything. We saw nothing."

"Right," Guarnere said.

"Right," Zhanna agreed.

"Good."

"Good."

"You're still gonna worry about him, aren't you?" Guarnere asked.

"Yes of course," Zhanna said.

"Well, Lieutenant," Guarnere said, as he turned to leave. "Keep an eye on him for me."

It didn't have to be said or promised but she did anyway. It was a gesture, she supposed, as her feet carried her back over to Guarnere's foxhole. The slim figure of Roe, the faint ghost that would be seen darting between trees through all hours of the night, approached and Guarnere abandoned his story, which was being overpowered by a neighboring foxhole's loud rendition of a rather lively song, to chase down the medic. Zhanna didn't recognize it but it was grating to the ears. That could have just been Liebgott's singing voice.

Roe seemed to be scrounging up syrettes of morphine and medkits. It seemed that not just ammunition was in short supply.

"Shut up! Shut the hell up!" Buck had been awoken by the shrill tones of Liebgott and Alley, appearing in this cluster of foxholes, his rifle at the ready. Zhanna stood, as quickly as she could, to rush to his side.

"What's going on here, Bill?" Buck asked, almost frantic. Zhanna glanced at Roe, who's eyes studied her friend a little too intently. All of Guarnere's words were fresh in her mind and she met his gaze. A silent agreement was made. Diffuse the situation, for Buck's sake.

"Uh, singing, sir,"

"Who's singing?"

"I'll find out, sir," Guarnere promised. "I'll find out and shut them up."

"They've gotta be quiet," Buck muttered under his breath. "Shut up! Shut up!"

Gone was the man who would take control of the situation with some swagger and calm. Zhanna would have to do it. Zhanna could have to take control, in this instance. If she was in control of this, that would allow less time for the peace to be disturbed in her mind. It would be occupied. Zhanna had to take control. For Buck. She would do it for Buck.

Zhanna said, as brightly and as calmly as she could. "Buck, take me back to the foxhole,"

Buck looked at her, as if just realizing she was there. "Zhanna, yeah...yeah, let's go back,"

As if the sudden urge to get Zhanna back to safety had overpowered the racket of the enlisted, a calm spread over Buck's face. He followed her back to the foxhole, as Guarnere succeeded in shutting up Liebgott and Alley's performance. As Buck's breathing evened again and Zhanna's own eyes grew heavy, she tried to force Guarnere's words under the same blanket of calm that masked the rest of her emotions. She wouldn't lose Buck. She wouldn't lose her ally and friend. She couldn't. The river of life had taken everything else from her. Surely her payment had been filled. Surely, this was enough.