If Zhanna truly made her own luck, Lewis Nixon wouldn't have been assigned to Easy Company in the first place. Or, perhaps, she would have managed to avoid him. That would have been true luck. Everywhere she went, it seemed, he wasn't far behind. Sinister or the simple explanation of a small village?

Zhanna's back against the stonewall that surrounded her and Sveta's billet, she slid two fingers between the three layers she wore, trying to bring some air to the suffocating skin underneath. She had been left alone for the afternoon, no one needing her from officer duties or any drill. Sveta's past of diplomacy seemed to be in high demand but Zhanna wasn't requested. She would have brought out her rifle and gone to shoot at the range but thought of leaving this little garden was frightening.

Sobel had decided to blame Zhanna for the cows that had run loose through Aldbourne, since her hands had held the wire cutters, nevermind who gave the orders. If she ventured from the oasis of shrubs and flowers, Zhanna would risk seeing their CO and being tasked with a less than desirable job.

Agata had talked about her family's garden in Poland: vegetables, flowers and herbs that were as beautiful as they were sustaining. In Russia, she hadn't been able to tend a plot of land. Agata had always spoken of the rewards that dirty hands and hours in the sun yielded. Maybe they would have a garden once this was all over? When they found that safe place.

Maybe that safe place wouldn't be so hot. Zhanna pulled the hair off her neck, and sighed. The long sleeve undershirt from her own Russian uniform remained a staple, keeping her warm even in the depths of winter. But here in England, she didn't need three layers. But she wanted them.

"Are you warm enough?" Nixon asked. Unlucky again. He stood at the gate to the Connors'.

"Can I help you?"

"Colonel Sink wants to speak to you."

"I didn't receive summons," Zhanna said, her heart pounding.

"It's strictly off the books."

Zhanna had heard from Sveta that Nixon was writing about them to Sink. What had he found out that required an off the record meeting? Her body began to chill. Her fingers tingled as frost spread across her palms and up her arms, under the tight layers.

"Why?"

"I have no idea," Nixon said, his eyes heavy on her now numbing face. Her lips must have been blue, as they started towards HQ. She couldn't ignore summons from Sink, no matter what he knew. If Zhanna was to be court-martialed, she would rather just get it over with. "To be perfectly honest, Sink doesn't tell me much."

And here she was, thinking Nixon knew every dark secret she had locked away. Maybe he wasn't as good at hiding in the shadows as she had thought.

"It must be hard," Zhanna said, her legs working hard to keep up with Nixon's pace. "To be an intelligence officer with no information."

"It must be hard being a Russian in the American Army," Nixon said. "I hear Private Muck has taken you under his wing."

Zhanna nodded, giving the lieutenant the barest scraps of contribution to the conversation. If she was quiet, he wouldn't learn anymore than he already knew. And, if she was quiet, maybe she could figure out just how much he had typed up in those reports.

"Did you enjoy your time at the pub?" Nixon stepped to the side of the road, out of the path of a jeep and pulling Zhanna with him by her sleeve. "I heard you really let down your hair."

So he did know about her relapse into Polish. Of course, he did. How could one man fluctuate between discernment and stupidity?

"I don't want to talk about it with you," Zhanna said. She didn't want to talk about it with anyone. But especially not with Nixon. Not when she walked closer to her impending summons, that could end in the death of her dream and destruction of what little safety she had mustered.

"It seems Samsonova needs to teach you some of her tact."

Zhanna didn't need tact. And while she didn't have a temper to lose, she didn't mind leveling a rifle to Nixon's head. But it would be better to respond in kind. Something she very rarely did.

"Is Lieutenant Winters ill?" Zhanna asked.

"No," Nixon's brow furrowed. "Why do you ask?'

"I just wondered why Sink would send you," She said, fingers reaching instinctively for her rifle strap but it was not in its usual place on her shoulder. Zhanna had left it on the grease-stained cloth upstairs, disassembled. She hadn't thought that her moment of peace in the garden would have been interrupted by Nixon.

"Dick is currently in Sobel's doghouse," Nixon explained, holding open the door to HQ for her. Chivalry wasn't something she expected from him but Zhanna accepted it, the temperature shifting when she had stepped inside. "After a poorly articulated court martial, he will be doing more menial tasks. I'm sure you know the kind."

"I am familiar," Zhanna said, pausing in the hallway. Nixon stopped a few feet away from her. There was a divide that hadn't been there before. She had feared him, seeing in him the men who stalked her family and had been the reason for their untimely departure. She wasn't sure she feared him anymore. But there was a layer of unease, like thick ice. Distrust that couldn't be easily thawed.

"Does Sobel hate you for any particular reason?" Nixon asked. "I mean, apart from the obvious."

Did he hate her because she was Russian? Or maybe it was an underlying hatred for the female kind? Either was plausible but Zhanna didn't think that was what Nixon was asking about.

"Do you require meeting with me, Lieutenant Nixon?" Zhanna asked. "Am I under interrogation?"

"No, just a few questions," Nixon said simply. It wasn't simple though. He looked at her with those eyes and she didn't fear him but she didn't trust his reasoning. Nixon knew about her slipup after the bar. Nixon knew more about Sveta than Zhanna had seen her share. "Lieutenant Casmirovna, is that right?"

Is that right? Did he know that it wasn't her real last name, as the Americans would know and understand? That it was her father's name? Her Polish and Jewish father who she had last seen disappearing into the Stalingrad shadows when she was fourteen. A man who's name she bore with pride and in disguise.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," Zhanna said, turning to leave. "I have a meeting with Colonel Sink."

She started down the hallway that led to Sink's office, the door opening before she could reach for the handle and she came face to face with Guarnere, Lipton, and the other NCOs. The ones she had been met with after their maneuver, eager to talk to her. Well, Lipton had been. Guarnere was more bregurding in his conversation.

"What did you-" Zhanna said, as the sergeants passed her in the hallway, their faces grim, leaving the door open wide enough for her to see inside. Sink, at his desk, looking particularly stony-faced. What could he possibly want from her?

The NCOs had only asked her what she had meant by following orders until she couldn't. It seemed they were now realizing who was signing their death sentences but what could they have done?

"Lieutenant Casmirovna, sit down."

Zhanna did, shaken by the walk over with Nixon and the look of uncertainty that Lipton had flashed her as he passed. Had they told Sink of her methods of civil disobedience? Was this cause for treason?

"Casmirovna, you've been with us a while."

A while. That was a bit of an understatement. A year or two felt more accurate. Zhanna's hands were still frozen, the numbness now spreading like frost up her arms into onto her shoulders. She didn't have her rifle to fiddle with today so her trembling fingers toyed with her jacket.

"I have, sir."

"You have had some difficulty with some of the men and with some of the officers," Sink said. "Lieutenant Nixon has been keeping me informed."

Of course he had been. She almost sighed. "It is nothing, sir."

"Casmirovna, my NCOs just mutinied," Sink said.

"That is unfortunate. My condolences, sir."

"You didn't have anything to do with it?" He asked, his tone not entirely convinced that it wasn't a possibility.

"Sir?" Her head tilted to one side.

"You were on the maneuver with them. You have already buttted heads with Sobel more than once. He can be stubborn but it's more than that." Sink studied her with a different intensity than Nixon's eyes usually possessed. "You are a soldier. You've seen battle. Be frank with me, Casmirovna,"

"Frank, sir?" She asked.

"Tell me if these men are really ready for war?" His question seemed genuine and Zhanna was speechless for a few moments.

Zhanna had many opinions. Sharp ones, indifferent ones. The nice thing about such opinions was that she could keep them to herself. She wasn't used to someone asking what she thought. And she had thought about this.

The men of Easy Company still possessed the blind faith drilled into them in boot camp and training. They still believed in their superior officers, most of them. If Sink had asked her back in Benning or MacKall if Easy was ready for war, she would have been most ardent in her response. No. They were too busy with infighting and worrying about nationality rather than loyalty.

But the Samaria had changed things and so had Aldbourne. And the NCOs had mutinied, for what, Zhanna wasn't sure but it couldn't be a coincidence that Sobel had been their topic of conversation. Maybe they were ready?

"Sir, we will never know until they are fighting," Zhanna said. "But they will never have the chance to fight if a commanding officer will lead them astray."

Sink didn't answer, just nodding for her to continue. She didn't have very many complete sentences to say, just a jumble of words but somehow managed to string them together into a comprehensible point.

"Captain Sobel could be a great man but he is not a commanding officer." Zhanna could see that potential in many others. Winters's steady presence and unwavering calm was more prolific in leadership qualities. "He will get a lot of men killed."

She wondered if she had said too much but Zhanna had fought the Germans before. Sink had not. He didn't know what should be expected, not in these battlefields that couldn't be recreated in the English countryside. This was very real and the lives of men were real too. Sobel didn't see that.

Colonel Sink dismissed her without a word, just a nod towards the door that could have meant anything. She stood, fingers trembling and the sweat still beading on her skin, despite the ice that was cooling her veins. Zhanna didn't thaw until she had slipped back out of Command, not finding Nixon in the place she had left him. She let the sun hit her face and scurried down the road, back to the safety of the garden and to the comforting feeling of her rifle in her hands.

"Lieutenant Casmirovna," It was a familiar voice, just as she passed a truck being unloaded with supplies for the kitchen. A job she had done in Benning and MacKall more than once.

"Lieutenant Winters," She said. Her throat was dry but she stopped beside the red-haired man. "I'm sorry to hear about your-"

The man waved away her concern. He didn't say anything but his feelings were clear. THere wasn't anything anyone could do with Sobel. They were all just victims to his games.

"You requested a trial?" She asked. He could have just accepted the punishment. Something she had done many times. It was easier that way. Say it was fine, that it didn't matter, and to keep pushing.

"I did." Winters nodded, fiddling with the clipboard in his hands, marked with the inventory for Command and the kitchens. "I figured, we don't need to just survive in this war. We need to win it, yes?"

Survival was all they could do. All they could hope for. Life would keep pushing them along, bending them to its will but war wasn't like the river. War could be fought. War could be won.

"Yes," She said, a little breathlessly that someone understood. Finally understood what it was like.

"The men seemed to take your speech about orders to heart," Winters glanced back and forth between Zhanna and the Battalion command. "Are you alright?"

She nodded, her voice not cooperating. She wasn't court martialed. She wasn't tossed back to Russia. And the men of Easy had listened to her. They had actually listened. Winters seemed satisfied with her silent response and made a few notes on his clipboard. They stood together in comfortable silence, watching the base's tide of daily operations ebb and flow past them.

"Do you think the men are ready for war, Lieutenant?" Zhanna asked, suddenly.

Winters looked at her curiously. "I think I should be asking you that question."

"Sink already did." Zhanna admitted. "But what do you think?"

"I'm not sure. Is anyone ready for war?" Winters asked. "Were you?"

No. She hadn't been. Zhanna had been fighting her whole life, surviving. But survival in dark alleys and inside the walls of your own home was very different from that of a battlefield. Zhanna had adapted. Zhanna had overcome. She followed orders until she couldn't and it had served her well.

"No," Zhanna said, leaning against the truck. Her body was slowly starting to thaw, something about Winters just set everything at ease. He was the commander Easy needed. If Sink could see that. If he listened to the NCOs and to Zhanna and removed Sobel, he would have the best company in the whole Airborne. If he listened, his men would be ready for war. Easy Company would die for each other but they didn't need to die in vain.

Zhanna did something very unlike her, something she had failed to do, out of habit and out of necessity for years. She looked up, meeting Winters's pale blue eyes with a steady gaze. "But I think they will be."