An Expensive Solitude: A Band of Brothers Fanfiction

The Unnecessary Risk

Edith twirled the pencil stub around her fingers as she ran the numbers through her head. They needed one more shipment of mortars to make up for the shortage the 101st had seen during the siege. Other than that, the men's desperate need for winter clothes had been met.

She tapped the end of her pencil on the clipboard where it lay on a tower of boxes. The early afternoon had been quiet in town. Biting her lip, she fought back the thought of the boys near the German line.

Does the colonel know you are here?

With a sigh, Edith rested on a nearby crate and surveyed the large room they used as a supply dump. She hadn't lied to Dick. She only hadn't answered the question. Her father was too occupied to notice her absence when she made her trips down to the line. He had told her to stay in Bastogne and leave the supply runs to her men. But she was reluctant to do so.

It was her job and she didn't trust anyone to do it other than herself. Handing the reins over to a runny nosed private was out of the question. If she had been male, it wouldn't have been an issue.

Still, she wasn't stupid.

Edith eyed the armor enforced field jacket folded on a collapsible table. It hadn't been issued yet. Edith wondered if it would be missed if she borrowed it. It couldn't hurt to have around just in case. She picked it up and held it to her torso. It would swallow her even in all the layers she already wore.

The men must have been miserable for all those weeks without their winter issue of clothes. The cold was penetrating, filling the bones like marrow. Edith wore woolen underwear, a woolen uniform, a thick sweater, two pairs of socks and a thick lined trench coat. But the deadly chill plagued her all the same.

Another layer would be nice for when she made her way to the front. Picking up the jacket, she slung her arms into the oversized sleeves.

"Edie."

Edith glanced at the door as her father entered, rubbing his gloved hands in the relative warmth of the indoors. She nodded congenially, knowing he wouldn't mind if she borrowed the coat. In fact, he'd have encouraged her to take it and given her the armor enforced overalls that went with it.

"Sir." She rose to her feet.

"I have a favor to ask. Could one of your boys bring some photographers and cameramen down to the line?" The colonel wiped his brow of the fast melting snowflakes.

"Of course, we're delivering another shipment of k-rations down to Item's position in about an hour. Is that soon enough?"

"Should be, I don't really care when they get down there. They are filming some things to help with morale back home." Colonel Sink waved a hand with a smirk and then paused. "Did you say we are delivering to Item's position?"

Edith checked herself with a relaxed smile and amused eye roll. "Yes, colonel. We as in my little troop, not me... specifically."

She dug her thumbnail into her palm. Edith had never outright lied to her father, especially in a professional environment.

"Good." Colonel Sink took it hook, line and sinker. It made her tense even more. "Apart from the fact that my superiors forbid it in the terms of allowing you this deep into Europe, your mother would skin me alive."

Edith gave a brief, forced chuckle as one of the privates working under her appeared at the door. She let out her breath, relieved to have an interruption.

"Come in, Grable." She waved to the young man. "It's all ready to be packed."

"I'll leave you to it." Colonel Sink held his daughter's eyes. "I'm trusting you to take care of yourself, remember."