Author's Note: I've almost finished this story, only one chapter left to write and two left to edit, so I figured I'd just go ahead and post this, a taste of what's to come, and start the editing process. This is not meant, in any way, as a reflection on the real Eugene Roe. This is a piece of fiction. It is therefore based on the fictional portrayal of the medic.
Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers.
Prologue;;
It wasn't the first time I'd seen death.
My hands were the color of life.
"Thomas, you've gotta hear me! C'mon, don't black out on me now!"
Or was it the color of death?
It wasn't the first time I wore the mark of loss.
His heart wasn't moving. It wouldn't beat. Bathed in his blood that had stopped flowing through the pathway of his veins and escaped a dying body.
His eyes flickered.
"Thomas!
Was it a trick of the light?
I had felt the descent of the removing angel before.
The engine still sputtered behind me. Drowning in the rain that battered me, that pushed me further into the ground.
"Thomas, you'll be all right. You'll be fine."
My hands wouldn't still. Like machines, they worked tirelessly, furiously, through the motions. I watched the still face.
"God damn it!"
Somewhere, I heard myself screaming.
"Don't do this to me."
He slithered over my hunched shoulders, my blood-soaked hands, and I felt the cold sweep of his fingers.
"Thomas, please. You...you can't go. You can't leave."
As he bent to lift my brother's soul.
"Thomas…please. Please…don't-"
And left without a word to spare.
"Don't go."
But I still couldn't bear the feeling of him, as he bowed his black head over me.
My hands broke at last.
His shadow staining my every wish, my every endeavor.
I lifted my eyes to the heavens.
As he came to steal away, put to rest.
But still the rain droned on.
The lives I had sworn to save.
copyright of Harlequin Sequins, 2010.