Humanity of the Broken [ Band of Brothers ] 2

FORTY-FOUR

June 10, 1945

Four days. It had been four days since the anniversary of the jump into Normandy, four days since Shifty had been given discharge, and four days since Sink had confirmed the 506th and the 101st Airborne would definitely be redeployed to the Pacific. Shifty hadn't left yet; his paperwork still needed to go through. But as Alice sat barely dressed in bed, hair a disaster, all she could think of was how it was ending. Everything was ending.

Her mind raced. As much as she tried to focus on the warm light cascading through the sheer curtains, Alice couldn't. There was too much stress, too much anger, too much uncertainty. She pulled the comforter closer to her chest. 

Dick planned to apply for a transfer. She'd heard him talking to Nixon the previous night. They'd been outside when she'd walked by. Alice had meant to go up to them, but hearing Dick say those words had frozen her on the spot.

A part of her understood his perspective. The waiting game they had to play now, of when would they be sent East, it was enough to drive anyone crazy. The enlisted had been getting more and more antsy. Ron tried to keep them active with training, to get their minds off the unknown. But the officers didn't have that comfort, not really.

As if Dick leaving wasn't hard enough, Alice had seen the look on Nix's face when he'd been told that. Her heart had broken in two. Without a shadow of a doubt, Alice knew that Nix would go with Dick, or would've, if she hadn't been in the picture. They had a bond that she couldn't compare to anything really. A love that came only from relying on each other for everything. Not unlike how she loved Nixon. Different, and yet the same. And they'd known each other twice as long as she'd known them.

Alice had fled to her room. Panic had seized her body. She saw no right answer. A terror filled her even thinking of Dick and Nixon jumping into the Pacific and leaving her behind. But equally as scary was imagining either of them jumping alone. And she knew, the only reason they'd not jump together would be her.

The sunlight reached her bed. Alice closed her eyes. She let the light fall on her bare arms, on her face. A pleasant warmth spread over her body. She could feel it through the dark green comforter. Her breathing slowed. She tried to calm down.

A gentle knock at the door pulled her back to reality a several minutes later. Alice released a breath. It took a second knock for her to crawl out of the blankets. She glanced down. Figuring the only people to be knocking on her door would be people she didn't mind being seen in PT shorts and a loose shirt, Alice went and opened it up.

Nixon leaned against the door frame. With a small smile and shake of her head, she moved to let him in. For the first time in days he wore clean ODs instead of the dress uniform that had become commonplace for staff officers. While he sat down at the desk chair across from her bed, Alice just padded back to her pile of blankets.

"I was surprised you didn't see Second Platoon off," he said.

Alice shrugged. Her smile faltered a bit. She'd been trying not to spend as much time with the enlisted in preparation for her or their inevitable departure. "I'm sure they were excited."

He snorted. "That's an understatement. I think I overheard Malarkey say something about wanting to try the ski class?"

That made her grin. Dick had organized a rotation of one platoon from the 2nd Battalion for a break at a resort up in the mountains every few days. It offered a distraction from the monotony, and now that training had resumed, a reason to run up a mountain. Hi-yo silver.

At the memory, Alice couldn't help but smile a bit. As she looked from the blankets to the mountains through the window, she felt her heart beating rapidly again. Light bounced off the lake. She turned back to him. He sat watching her.