She wasn't ever supposed to make it this long. Annaliese sat with her elbows on the table by the window. The rest of Easy was off showering and catching some hot chow, she decided to hang around on her own for a minute. In her hands she held seven thick strips of red ribbon, gingerly passing them from one hand to the other, stroking them tentatively in passing.

Seven friends had died; Hans, Victor, Marguerite, Jetta, Henri, Nina and Line. She had known them all intimately; they had been partners in crime. Some went as far back as Stuttgart, some came in Berlin and Marguerite and Henri joined their cause in Paris. Where they came from didn't matter, neither did when they joined the group. What matters was that they believed and they fought for it. Anna's eyes filled up with nostalgic memories from late nights that passed to new mornings when the group of ever-optimistic friends would share bread and wine to see the spectacle that is the birth of a new day.

Nina and Line were sisters, born barley nine months apart they lived their lives beside one and another. Both were beautiful girls who grew up to be beautiful women, with lemon zest hair and the midday sky in their eyes. Anna met them when life was easy and innocent, and they followed her to war against the Third Reich in the name of friendship. Nina and Line died on separate sides of the French cost, both in their final moments praying for the life of the other.

Jetta, Victor and Hans were a trio who knew each other down to the others first thought in the morning to the last second of a dream. They would read each other like books, without ever uttering a word. They were an entity, a whole and they loved each other fiercely like no one ever will again. They were the once who swept die Mairosen under the streets of Berlin. Jetta was found by the side a French field with her company, her back a starry red sky of bullets. Victor and Hans died in the cold of Bastogne, tightly holding on to each other as the man in black uniform worked his way down the line, pressing the Luger to each forehead.

Marguerite and Henri were strangers until they joined forces to help the Mairosen for the sake of their country. They seemed to fit each other like pieces of a puzzle. Within a year they were family, not in blood but in bond. Marguerite was outspoken and rash and when the end came in the form of a collapsing building struck by own artillery, she only cursed and sneered, death was no match for a fire like Marguerite. Henri died as he had lived, silently and peacefully next to the only family he ever knew, picking up a few traits from her he cursed under his breath with a smile of blood on his lips.

Anna was wandering deep in her own mind, misty memories of rain, bombs, Nazis and blood clouding her way. She didn't hear the door open and close behind the group of easy men, returning to their bunks neatly shaven and clean. Malarkey came up to her and stood by the side of her chair, looking down at her hands. On the table was an abandoned telegram, by the notion of quick looks all Malarkey could determine was that said telegram was probably written in German.

George Luz caught Malarkey's worried eye and swooped down in the chair opposite Anna's. "Heya there, Leuter" he said with a sultry smirk, dipping is head down to try and catch her lowered gaze. "How you doing?" he said, almost a whisper as a question only for her ears. Anna snapped out of her trance, tilting up her face to meet George's brown eyes looking like he's walking on thawing ice. The thought of shrugging everything off, laugh it away and make a smart comment was tempting and it had almost slipped of her tongue before she railed it back in; her voice wouldn't carry it. Instead she chose to look to the rest of the collection of men in the small bunkroom. Besides Don and George there were also Joe, Webster, Bull and Babe Heffron who all had nudged closer to the table, only Doc Roe remained looming by the door still. Her mouth was dry and it felt like the dryness only crept further and further down until her entire soul felt dried up. She wanted to speak. The words clawed at her teeth to break free, to toss and tumble out in the air until the easy men picked them up.

Bombs
Death
Home
Gone
Her

The words consumed every piece of her as she choked on them. There was a sudden feeling of fingers against fingers, skin against skin; the reassuring feeling of George Luz tentatively squeezing his hand over hers and his voice catching her attention, bringing her back to reality. "Why are you bringing those things out again?" Bull asked in a hesitant voice, straining not to rush over and tear them out of her sight.

"It's gone for good"

The men stilled. Confusion, curiosity and worry fused in the men's eyes as they watched her breathe in a shallow breath. She let the breath go, raised her gaze and looked in to dark brown shelter. "They bombed Stuttgart last night. My entire neighborhood is gone and by the looks of it, so are the people" don't stop "a volunteer found a letter addressed to me in her pocket" if you stop you'll choke "they sent me the telegram saying what has happened"

Say it.

Make it real.

Speak.

"To say she's dead"

Anna was breathing heavily, eyes dimmed and cheeks burning with still tears. The world around her was blurred but she could see Luz raising his hand and a second later she could feel the trembling fingertips stroking her temples and his thumb caressing her cheek. Anna had feared what the tension would be after the words would be out. Would they be uncomfortable? Would they shift their weight from one foot to the other, staring down at the ground to avoid the face of loss, or would they see her as a little child in need of comfort and lose all respect for her? Ultimately, Anna knew she should have realized that neither would have happened. The room was silent, but not tense, not pitying, not suffocating, but understanding. They all knew what death was, they all knew what it was to lose people. They all understood.

Malarkey's hands hugged her shoulders and stroked her hair absentmindedly as silent tears rolled down her pale cheeks, before getting caught up buy Luz' thumb that had not yet left the side of her face. She had told them all about her sister, her family and her friends. They had seen her find the bodies of her comrades in cause, and they had seen her break a little every time. As if her cause was dying with them and with it a piece of her, in every death. The streets that lived in her head, the air she used to breathe, the people she used to see, the walls she'd run her fingertips along when she sat on the back of her mother's bike as a child where all gone. So was her mother, her sister and the people who used to be the center of her life. The people she fought for.

She looked up at Luz, after searching his face she scanned the room, examining each soldier. She will never have her old life back. All of which was Annaliese Leuter was gone for good. This is what was still here, scattered along the battlefields of Europe, and here right in this room.

For the rest of the night the men stayed up small talking in the dark. They spoke of nothing and everything, and Anna fell asleep to the reassuring sound of proof that they were still there.