Zhanna was fifteen when she first saw the Bolshoi Ballet, only five seats away from Josef Stalin himself. The Samsonovs, in all their love of performance and smiles, had been avid observers of the arts. The Samsonovs and the Stalins, along with the rest of the inner circle, would attend the ballet in Moscow, their bloody hands staining the velvet. Zhanna had been lucky enough to go. She sat beside Svetlana, praying that her Polish blood wouldn't taint the air the purest Russians breathed, as she watched the pinks and reds dance upon the stage.

They were like swans, floating across the dark wood of their lake. Smiles painted serene on their faces, joined by the hand as they stepped and bowed. They performed with grace but the stretch of their muscles sent aches and strains of sympathy through Zhanna's own. Awestruck, Zhanna hadn't stood for the final applause, as the dancers bowed. She had sat, their glistening faces and pearly smiles seared into her mind.

They smiled through it all but underneath they were all muscle, sinew, and shattering bones. No matter how they slipped, snapped, or fell, the smile never dropped and their heads never lowered. They were porcelain puppets suspended in the air, pawns to the music and subject to the strings that tugged them along.

Easy Company weren't swans or graceful but Zhanna saw in them the same tension and suspension as those dancers on the stage. Now given the nickname of the "battered bastards of Bastogne," Easy and it's men had the appearance of slipping one too many times. Dirty, battered, and exhausted, Zhanna was relieved to know that her darkened eyes fit perfectly among the faces that surrounded her in the transport truck that rumbled them into their next stop.

The truck, like the ones they had taken into Bastogne, that could fit a whole squad of men jammed tightly together, were nearly empty. Second Platoon was a husk of its former strength, faces missing and still missed.

"Why aren't we fucking moving?" Liebgott groaned, as snow began to fall harder around them. Zhanna looked up from her worn boots, not exactly ballet slippers, and saw that the trucks were idling, lining the sides of the streets.

"Is this it?" Heffron didn't sound enthused at the sight of their new position. Perched on the banks of a river where the enemy was firmly planted, Haguenau was as battered as Easy Company. Shells of houses and pockmarked sidewalks could have been foxholes and snow-covered craters.

Malarkey stood, holding onto the bar for support. He was as exhausted as Zhanna felt but his face showed it quite plainly. His eyes were dark as he studied the town, not saying a word no matter what storm brewed across his brow. It wasn't Bastogne but it wasn't exactly paradise, either.

"Hey guys. Some lieutenant told me to report to Second."

Zhanna didn't recall the owner of the voice and face before her right away. It belonged to someone she hadn't seen in months, before she had shivered in a foxhole. Webster. He had left them in Holland. He smiled, clean shaven and face free of grime, as if he had been gone four minutes, not four months.

She couldn't look at him so Zhanna looked down instead. Her boots were caked with mud and the hem of Winters's coat was soaked, creating a wave around her feet. The coat was really too long for her, enormously so, but Zhanna didn't want to part with it yet.

"Who's leading the platoon?"

"Sergeant Malarkey is," Liebgott said, taking a similar approach as Zhanna had, averting his gaze from the fresh-faced private before them. He might as well have been a replacement, for what good he did them now.

"No officer?" Webster sounded confused.

Zhanna had given herself to Second Platoon during Bastogne by association with Buck. With her ally gone, Zhanna had kept the dedication to his platoon. She couldn't leave Malarkey alone with the sole responsibility. Between the two of them, they had an American and a lieutenant, not to mention the shared bond of Bastogne.

"Casmirovna's hanging around for now," Grant said.

Zhanna glared harder at the mud on her boots. Maybe if she stared long enough the dirt would crack, shattering away in flakes.

"For now?"

"Guess you didn't hear, Malarkey's on the fast track now. Gonna make lieutenant," Liebgott said.

"Really? That's great," Webster said. "Jackson, help me up."

Webster threw his kitbag into the truck, narrowly avoiding Zhanna's face. She flinched into Liebgott who cursed, the sudden movement, combined with the jolting start of the truck's forward motion sending him off balance. He righted himself before he fell into the frozen mud below, glaring first at Zhanna then Webster.

"Must've liked that hospital," Liebgott said. "We left Holland four months ago."

Holland couldn't have been four months ago, Zhanna thought. So much had happened since then. She had jumped into Market Garden with so much still intact and four months seemed too short of time to have passed.

"Well I wasn't there the whole time, rehabilitation and then the replacement depot," Webster said, with visible uncertainty.

"You coulda broken out, like Samsonova and Guarnere." Liebgott pressed.

Zhanna had been annoyed with Joseph Liebgott when she first met him, and frustrated with him every moment after that but she couldn't deny he had an uncanny ability to say what everyone else was thinking. Zhanna couldn't make the mistake of speaking her mind this late into the war so she let others speak up for her.

"Yeah, where is Guarnere?" Webster said. "Is he still your platoon sergeant?"

"He got hit." Heffron stood, as the truck lurched to a stop within city limits. The wreckage was worse up close, the destruction evident in the rubble of the streets and the teetering remains of houses.

"Casmirovna finally put a bullet in him for that mouth?" Webster joked, his laugh trailing away when Zhanna's boots hit the ground beside him. Adjusting her rifle on her shoulder, she looked up at him through the narrowed slit of her eyes. She couldn't speak up or step up but she had plenty of practice glaring.

Zhanna's cheek smarted in pain, her teeth digging into the flesh until she tasted salty sweet blood. She tried not to smile at Webster's discomfort under her gaze.

"His leg was blown off," Heffron said.

Webster didn't have a chance to say another word in Zhanna's earshot. She pushed away, towards the front of the group, Liebgott following her.

"Hold this line until I figure out where we're going!" Malarkey called, stepping into the street and towards Captain Spiers's approaching figure.

The almost sweetly familiar sound of a shell whistling overhead cut through any conversation or action. Some ducked for cover, some threw themselves into the snow, curling up to protect themselves and others watched the shell sail through the air, landing behind a stonewall only a few meters away. Zhanna stood among the hunched forms of her platoonmates, watching the dust and rubble fly like the trail of a comet.

"Could you put a bullet in Webster?" Liebgott muttered, as Webster, one of the divers, struggled to his feet.

"He doesn't need me," Zhanna said, watching Malarkey pawn Webster off onto Speirs. "He could get himself killed all on his own."

When it came to their shared leadership roles, Zhanna was willing to let Malarkey take most of the speaking, including the ordering. She preferred to start walking and see who followed. As she pushed through the rubble, the loyal few followed her towards the distant corner, where there looked to be a burn barrel roaring with flames.

"What makes you say that?" Grant asked, his feet scuffing in time to her own boots.

"Someone who knows nothing of loss trying to sympathize," Zhanna said, blowing on her fingers to try and bring some warmth back to them. She hadn't been warm since Holland, or it was starting to seem that way. "Most dangerous thing to be."

Inside the house they were assigned, their puppet strings were allowed to sag, hanging loose but still present. The soldiers removed their helmets and let the painted determination peel from their faces, resting their aching joints on any available surfaces.

Zhanna's head rested on the lumpy mattress cast onto the floor, not caring how many heads rested there before her, and not caring about the sounds of the shells around her. She didn't sleep so much as she lost consciousness, drawn from the darkness when the prospect of a moment's peace was quickly squashed.

"Don't wake Cas," Malarkey's voice cut through the slumber better than any shellblast. Naturally, her head rose from the pillow, chest aching from where the leatherbound journal pressed against her skin.

It wasn't just the showers and winter shoe packs that knit his brow together. Malarkey tried to not worry her, told her that it was nothing. Zhanna pressed him further until at last, he ripped the bandage away. The orders for a patrol were voiced and before anyone could reconcile with the idea, a roster of soldiers were selected. Jackson, Liebgott, Grant, Malarkey, and Heffron were among the chosen. Webster wasn't missed, nor was the new Lieutenant who had joined them from West Point while she had been out.

"Is there anyone from Second they don't want?" Liebgott had cursed, scuffing his boot against the pools of water that flooded from the showers.

There was, in fact, someone who had been left behind. Zhanna's name wasn't on that list but Svetlana's was. The platoon dispersed, shedding their uniforms to the piles of worn cloth, reckoning their bad luck with the worn boots and battered men.

"It's always Second Platoon, I swear to God if we were down to three guys, they'd still want us for it." Liebgott groaned, tossing his overshirt to the side.

"Can't believe they are gonna make Malarkey lead it," Grant shook his head.

"He only lost his five best friends, what the fuck he got to live for?"

"It was either him or Casmirovna, and she's off her fucking rocker,"

Zhanna's feet were frozen to the ground. They didn't want her to lead them on a patrol. After everything she had been through with them, they were turning away from her. Pins of frost pricked their way up her forearms as she watched the men leave her in that place of rubble.

They hadn't said anything against Sveta's presence on the patrol. Their silence to her cut deeper than their displeasure at Zhanna.

"Where is Captain Winters?" Zhanna reached out for the nearest private, who startled at her sudden movement and her harsh tone.

"On the riverbank, ma'am," He squeaked and she released him.

What was the point of being a fucking officer if they didn't let her go on a patrol? Winters had wrestled that promotion onto her uniform, insisting she take it, and yet he didn't acknowledge it. Her loss didn't affect her ability to fight. She had lost before but it didn't make her weaker. Zhanna wasn't dead yet and she would keep fighting. Sveta's luck hadn't run out yet. Sveta, who had less combat experience and more political importance, was chosen and yet, Zhanna wasn't included. She was expendable, the perfect fodder for the German guns.

Winters and Speirs stood, just where the private had said they would. Their backs turned away from Zhanna's approaching figure, heads low as they studied the gray water. Dick's red hair, dampened by dirt and grime, was still vibrant against the collar of his new coat. He had finally found a replacement for the overcoat that flapped behind Zhanna as she marched with more purpose than she had ever imagined she possessed.

Zhanna wasn't powerful by any means, she didn't command the same respect that Speirs and Sveta could by just existing but Zhanna wasn't powerless. This was an instance that Zhanna couldn't afford to step back from.

"Captain Winters, sir," Zhanna's voice was soft but it carried in the alleyway, echoing off the water.

"Lieutenant Casmirovna," Winters turned, a smile ready for her but it quickly faded when he saw that this was not a social call.

"Captain Winters," Zhanna said. "My platoon is going on a patrol without me. Why?"

"It's not your platoon, Casmirovna," Speirs said, sounding annoyed that she was questioning his roster rather than her claim on the platoon.

"Lieutenant Casmirovna, you were not chosen for the patrol," Winters said. "Powers was been selected."

"We don't need two sharpshooters on one patrol." Speirs said.

"Powers is a good shot but not better than me." Zhanna said, adjusting her rifle. They couldn't deny that no matter how good the Virginian rifleman was, she was better. Her thirty field kills weren't nothing, she refused to believe that.

"Casmironva-" Speirs started to protest, his voice rising in volume but Winters cut him off.

"Do you want to be on this patrol, Casmirovna?" Dick asked, though his eyes studied her more carefully than a superior officer should have.

Zhanna looked down at her worn boots. She hadn't gotten her new pair yet, or her turn in the showers. She didn't look the part of a capable leader. She wasn't trying to lead anything. She just wanted to be given an explanation that had nothing to do with hardship, or loss. A tangible reason for her denial.

"I want to know why you picked apart Second Platoon but didn't take me."

Before Winters could give his subpar reasoning, the voice of Lieutenant Jones echoed off the shells of buildings. Dick's face hardened, his eyes no longer soft and studying but filled with a deeply rooted annoyance at the sudden presence of their latest officer.

"Captain Winters," Jones stood starched and perfect, not a wrinkle in his pristine persona. "About the patrol. I feel that I should go on the patrol, sir,"

Get in line, Zhanna thought, her jaw tightening at the growing frustration on Dick's face.

While Jones needed experience, Zhanna had it. More than enough of it.

"Denied," Dick said, easily. "Anything else?"

"You're not going to lead that patrol, Lieutenant Jones," Speirs said, sealing Jones's less than satisfactory fate. If he wouldn't lead, that meant Zhanna would fill his place, surely?

Did she really want to go on this patrol or was it the principle of the matter? Winters had denied her a place with the men that she had worked so hard to gain trust with. Did he not believe in her? Did he, like the enlisted, think she was too weak, in both mind and body, to fight in this war?

"Permission to speak, sir," Jones pressed.

"Go on, Lieutenant."

"It looks like Sergeant Malarkey could use a break, sir," Jones said. "I discussed it with him and he said that he did not mind if I took his place."

Malarkey had offered his place to Jones and not her? Zhanna shook her head. She would have to have words with that sergeant. She had given him cigarettes and shared a foxhole with him and he'd gone to the West Point graduate?

"That was nice of him," Dick said wryly.

With the arrival of Vest, a runner for most of the war, and his desire to be on the patrol, Zhanna thought for sure her chances to cross that river and to put her final bullets to good use were over. Winters gave Vest his approval and begrudgingly told Jones, "There's a briefing, CP, 1700."

As the triumphant victors departed, Winters looked back to Zhanna. "Is that all, Casmirovna?"

"Yes, sir," She said, through gritted teeth.

"You are excused. Oh, and Casmirovna?"

Zhanna turned back, her face pinched as the frost creeped over her joints, searing her skin with it's frigid heat. Her journal and pen still ached against her chest, weighing her down, making every step a sluggish screech of pain. "Sir?"

"I don't want to see you at that briefing," Winters said.

"Captain Speirs," Zhanna said, turning to the man, breath taut in her chest. "Do you have a lighter?"

The metallic box filled with the fire and vengeance she had not let herself feel pressed deep into her palm, Zhanna let the puppeteer's strings pull her away from the officers and towards an abandoned corner of Haguenau, silent and secluded. She sat on a pile of rubble, looking at the circle of stones before her, almost perfectly arranged for one purpose. Zhanna could stew in the feeling, the anger and the disappointment that she was widely regarded as too unstable to handle this mission, or she could do something about it.

Stripping herself of the heavy overcoat, Zhanna got to work. Beams from the crumbling buildings were in ample supply and her borrowed lighter, taken from the man who had indirectly given her the first ounces of respect among the men, would catch quickly.

Nixon was drawn by the intensity of emotion and the need for liquor, the recipe was perfect to summon him to her side, unshaved and rumpled. He had tried to be smart, saying. "Never pictured you as the fire and fury type." But Zhanna wasn't in a gaming mood.

He settled into the role she had intended for him to fill: firewood collector and booze supplier. When Winters breached their circle of firelight, sparks flew into the clouds, pricking against the full moon. The fire was roaring, far hotter than anything needed for Zhanna's intended purpose.

The sounds of the gathering patrol were growing in the twilight, boats gliding through the river like swans upon a lake. Like those perfectly suspended dancers on the smooth stage. Svetlana was on one of those boats or on the bank, chosen for the mission.

Sveta had been hurt that Zhanna didn't share her losses with her. Sveta had pitied her for having hope when Sveta had never thought her mother would return.

Zhanna didn't know what was worse: having hope for so many years only to find it was void or to never have the spark of warmth?

Was it a loss when there was never an ounce of faith in one's chest? Or was it more painful to lie to one's self for years?

"I didn't go to the briefing," Zhanna said, tossing another sliver of wood into the fire. He hadn't spoken, just stood as a silent observer as Captain Winters was wont to do. He didn't speak very often, something that had drawn her to his company, but now this silence was suffocating.

"I know," Dick said, lowering himself to the ground beside her, Nixon on the other side. They stared deep into the growing flames, the heat making it's searing mark on their wind-burned cheeks.

"I didn't sneak onto a boat," Zhanna pointed out, nudging a rock beside her foot.

"I know."

"What did you do to her, Dick?" Nixon asked. He hadn't been a part of the decision so Zhanna didn't hold it against him. Maybe it was wishful thinking but she thought Nixon preferred Zhanna over Sveta.

"He didn't let me go on a patrol," Zhanna threw a sliver of wood into the fire, ducking to avoid the pop of the flames.

"Casmirovna," Dick sighed, heavily. He looked tired, in only the light of the fire. He managed to keep a brave face and a hopeful one, at that. The guard was very rarely dropped but Zhanna and Nixon were among the lucky few who saw the Great Captain Winters with his doubts.

"I just want to know why," Zhanna flipped the lighter over in her hand. "I want to know why you didn't let me go."

"We are too far along for stupid decisions, Casmirovna,"

"It's not about stupidity, is it? It's about Bastogne and before that, it's about Holland." Zhanna said. "You don't think I can handle any more of this."

Though Zhanna gestured at Haguenau, she would have rather wildly pointed at the war as a whole. She didn't know how much more she could take but she wasn't done yet. Zhanna had started fighting for other people, fighting to get others home. She had fought for Sveta and her parents but now, she was fighting for herself.

"What did you do to her?" Nixon asked, again.

Dick didn't say anything. He looked almost sheepish at his denial of the change in roster but didn't look sorry about it. She had spent the weeks following Bastogne regretting the honesty that had taken over her in that foxhole. She regretted how weak it made her seem and how much he pitied her in the following days, weeks, and missions. If she was being held back from the war because of her past, Zhanna wouldn't watch another patrol pull away from shore without her. Zhanna knew how to follow orders and she knew how to disobey them. Winters knew that.

"If there is another patrol, I want to be on it." She said, with as much finality as she could muster, as dirty and battered as she was.

"Zhanna-" Dick tried to protest, tried to defend his decision but she didn't care if he was a superior officer.

"No, I want to be on it." Zhanna said. "There will always be another patrol, always another Bastogne. I can't avoid it. "

"We made it this far," He said, pleadingly.

"And what did we lose?" Her voice broke, falling into the rubble around her and taking any dignity with it.

She couldn't forget the nights spent in foxholes, shivering as she mourned family and friends. Zhanna didn't forget the screams of Buck or the final face seared in her mind. Zhanna didn't forget her frantic breaths, staring at that shell, praying that it would just kill her. She wasn't dead yet, so she wouldn't forget.

She wouldn't forget but Zhanna had to lighten the load. Just as she had done in England, silver star in mud, she would rip away a part of her burden. She needed to take a little shred of the weight off. Zhanna couldn't forget what she had lost but she didn't let it hold her back. Zhanna had kept fighting, kept swimming, kept running. Zhanna had to keep surviving. She didn't have someone to get her home, she had to get Sveta home. Zhanna had to keep going so she could be there to catch Sveta when she fell, be there to take the bottle, take the gun, and take the load.

Reaching into her jacket, Zhanna took out the journal, its pages wrinkled with the pressure of her pen. She had written hard and prayed harder that someone would read those letters someday but even the largest stones were no match for the river's flow.

Speirs's lighter danced along the bent pages, licking the paper eagerly. The flame caught before Winters could try and snatch the lighter from her hand or Nixon's hastily assembled curse leave his mouth. She tossed the journal, etched with years of hope, into the flames.

"Jesus," Nixon cursed, releasing a sharp exhale. "What was that?"

"My father's," Zhanna said.

"Dick, tell her before she throws one of us in," Nixon urged. Zhanna would have smiled if her lips didn't feel like they were about to crack. The painted-on smile was starting to melt in the heat of this fire.

"Sink wants you promoted to Captain," Winters said.

Sink wanted her promoted. But what did Winters want?

Zhanna had denied a promotion before. She had to be twisted and wheedled into accepting it. She had denied it to step back from Sveta, to step back from who had been her friend. Zhanna didn't want to step back anymore. This wasn't a part of their agreement or their unspoken transaction. This would tug at the chains, pull at the shackles. But those days were nearing an end. With the end of this war, which everyone said was soon, soon, soon, wouldn't that mean her chains would be broken?

After this war, where would she go?

After this war, what would Sveta be to her if not a reminder of everything she had sacrificed?

"Not yet," Zhanna said.

"Zhanna you can't keep denying promotions," Nixon said. "You've done as much as Svetlana. You deserve this."

"It's not about Captain Samsonova," Zhanna said. "It's about the timing."

"The timing," Nixon scoffed.

"Captain Winters," Zhanna said, looking over at the red-headed companion. "I accept the promotion but on one condition,"

The timing had to be right. She wouldn't just accept the promotion in the rubble of Haguenau. She would accept this order, because she could, but when it was right. She refused to see a promotion and then meet her demise the very same day. If she was to be granted power, she wanted a chance to use it.

"And what is that?"

"We have to wait for the right timing," Zhanna said.

"You might as well refuse the promotion, Cas," Nixon said, shaking his head, as the machine guns roared to life. The patrol was underway and with any luck, Zhanna would be on the next one.

"What's the right time?" Winters asked.

"I don't know yet," Zhanna said. She had held out hope for so many years, waiting for her time, the arrival of her parents and the keeping of their promise. She was convinced her time would come and she'd be going home. Maybe the time for her promotion would never come or maybe she would have to toss another piece of herself to the flames.

Those dancers had been slung to the beat of the music, meeting every timing with impeccable accuracy and deftness. She had been behind the scope of a rifle long enough to know the importance of timing. Zhanna wasn't dead yet so she had some time left.

"Tell Sink that I accept," Zhanna said. "But let him know there is no rush. I'm not going anywhere."