To be very, very clear, this story is written with the utmost respect to the actual men portrayed in Band of Brothers. To maintain both this and my own personal rule of never writing stories about real people, this is entirely based on the show and not the men themselves, the same way I would write fanfic about any other show. If it isn't mentioned in the show, I may make up details about people or events and I'm sorry in advance if this offends anyone. But, honestly, this is FanFiction and you should honestly be expecting this. This is a heads-up and I will not be apologizing again. If you're still with me, go ahead and enjoy the first chapter. I hope you like it, I tried my best.

April, 1945, Germany

Aishe's PoV:

Gebt jede Hoffnung auch die...

Abandon all hope, ye who. That was all it said. The rest had been scraped away by boots and artillery, smudged into nonexistence by jeep tires and dragged corpses. But, it was enough. Enough for anyone to recognize what the words were and what they meant. My knees throbbed from when I had collapsed onto them to the hard earth, but I couldn't bring myself to care or even stand back up.

I don't know how long I spent staring at those words scratched into the dirt, but it was too long. I couldn't find it in myself to pull away. What was this place? How could someone do this to other human beings?

"Will you ask them... Will you ask them what kind of camp this is? What, uh, why are they here?" I heard Winters ask from nearby behind me, followed by Liebgott's familiar voice speaking clear German. Usually hearing him speak the language I'd learned as a child was comforting, but there was nothing to do about the coldness that was growing in my soul and I sat there in the dirt.

"Was ist das hier?" I heard him ask, presumably to one of the prisoners, as I slowly traced by fingers over the words carved into the mud. The response the prisoner gave was small, rushed, and not loud enough for me to hear, but Lieb's translation for the officers seemed almost too loud.

"He says it's a work camp for... unerwuenschter. I'm not sure what the word means. Unwanted, disliked, maybe?" He said uncertainly.

"Undesirables," I mumbled.

"What was that, Ricci?" I heard Winters ask.

"Undesirables. That's what unerwuenschter means," I said, trying to speak up. I only succeeded for a moment before my voice broke.

"Like criminals?" Nixon asked, but I shook my head slowly, not looking away from the words, as Liebgott replied, "I don't think criminals, sir," before asking the prisoner, who immediately replied in the negative.

"No." Liebgott confirmed. "Doctors, musicians, tailors, clerks, farmers, intellectuals. I mean, normal people." He rattled off, translating the stuttering man. Finally, I was able to make out what the prisoner was mumbling, and I didn't like it one bit.

"Juden. Juden. Juden." He just kept repeating that word. I would have stood up and made sure that Lieb was okay after finding out this information, but I was still enraptured by the letters in the dirt and I didn't have the strength in me.

"They're Jews," Lieb choked out, only for the man to continue. "Poles and Gypsies." That last word. That was it. My vision clouded red. My head snapped up and I snatched my rifle off the ground, standing up so forcefully that my helmet slid off and hit the ground, releasing my hair from where I'd crammed it in in my rush earlier. One of the nearby prisoners caught sight of the gold beads I had woven into my matted hair and began to cry, rushing over and wrapping his arms around me. I stiffened, worried, before the words pouring out of his mouth finally clicked and my anger drained away to be once again replaced by cold despair.

"Rosie, my poor Rosie. They took my daughter away. They cut off her beautiful beads. You look just like her." He sobbed into my chest, Slowly, I wrapped my arms around him, patting his back lightly, horrified to find that I could feel each of his individual vertebrae and ribs.

Looking up, I saw Lieb quietly translating what the man was saying to Winters and Nixon as all three of them looked at me with wide eyes. For a moment, I thought Winters was going to say something about the beads, which were completely against regulation and not allowed but a needed sense of comfort to me, but he didn't seem to care. The small group just looked at me, almost sympathetically, or maybe with pity. Lieb was proud of his Jewish heritage, everyone knew that. But Roma didn't just run through my blood, it was in my soul. The only thing I was more proud of was the hot Italian blood I'd gotten from my papa.

Suddenly, the man Lieb had been talking to before spoke up again, even faster than before.

"Wie bitte? Was sagen sie?" Liebgott asked the man, but I knew exactly what the man had said. Gently, I pulled away from the man who had clinging to me and scooped my helmet off of the ground before marching straight towards the entrance of the camp.

"Liebgott?" I heard Winters ask.

"The women's camp is at the next railroad stop." I heard Lieb tell him, but I was already on a warpath for that camp.

March, 1942, San Francisco

The bus station was always buzzing with activity, but now it was full of prospective young men getting ready to go off to wherever they'd be going through basic training. And me. Without any hesitation and the practiced ease of having lived in a big city all my life, I elbowed my way through the crowd to my bus and climbed aboard. I flashed my papers to the driver and moved to take a seat near the front before he could ask any questions, dropping my bag on the seat beside me in hopes it would provide a barrier between myself and any prospective future soldiers.

I wasn't the first one aboard, but the skinny kid who had arrived before me sat in the far back behind me and I didn't bother giving him a second glance.

Joe's PoV:

The hell is a broad doing on the bus? Especially one like that. She wasn't facing me anymore, but I'd gotten a clear look at the gold ring hanging from her nose and heavy earrings that matched the gold beads I could see braided into her hair. This gypsy couldn't have been a nurse, could she? No, if she was she'd be on a different bus. What the hell?

I frowned at the back of her head as I watched her begin to move her fingers through her hair, gliding over the small gold beads, one by one, in her ratty black hair, slowly like she was grounding herself. My sister did that with the buttons on her dress when she as nervous. As she turned her head to reach for one of the braids farther back, I caught another glimpse of her face and the small gold ring she had through the . A part of me was a little disappointed. The little piece of metal was actually really pretty on her, although it was kinda weird.

I watched her fiddle with a tangle in her hair for a moment before looking back out the window of the bus, discreetly double-checking that I knew where my wallet was. I've been around the block enough to know a gypsy'll rob you six ways to Sunday if you weren't careful.

The bus ride to the train station was painfully boring, but thankfully not that long. When we parked, I tried to catch another glimpse of the gypsy girl, but she was off the bus in a flash and disappeared into the crowd. Oh well. Hopefully that would be the last I saw of her. Don't know a time when a gypsy wasn't bad news.

I eventually shuffled my way off the bus and figured out which train to get on to get to Georgia since that's where the draft office had told me my basic training would start and where all my things had already been sent. Hopefully this overnight train ride wasn't gonna feel as long as it actually was. 32 hours, Jesus Christ. Couldn't the paratrooper camp be somewhere closer?

Aishe's PoV:

32 hours, Jesus Christ. For fifty lousy extra dollars this was a haul. Especially with the way everyone sees to look at me and immediately check to make sure they still had their wallet. I'm not my damn cousin Ferka. Okay, I might help with my mom's fortune telling and other scams, but petty theft was stupid and not worth the time in the clink. I liked to stick to my tarot cards and palm readings. They might not be real magic like we sold them to be, but the cards gave advice that could be used in any situation, just like other forms of future predictions. Keep it vague and anything you say could be applied to anything. And, all kinds of readings were really only observing details about people and making educated guesses. It was less lying and more false advertising to people who payed to be fooled. No one really believes in Romani magic. Except maybe my little sister, but she already knows how to read people, so she's half way there.

But the fact that no one trusted me actually hurt a little. It happened all the time, but that didn't mean it didn't sting. I managed to find my designated bunk without any scuffle and threw my bag up into the bunk I would be crammed in for the trip. The majority of my things had already been sent to Camp Toccoa, but I had with me a few things I wanted to keep on me, including my tarot deck and a short note from my family wishing me luck. I also had a small drawstring bag, about the size of my palm, which I took out after situating myself on my bunk. Delicately, I removed the small gold nose ring I'd worn ever since I could remember and put it in the bag. It felt strange without it, and the empty feeling drove me to keep my hair woven with beads at least until I was further along in the trip. I knew I would have to remove them by the time we arrives in Georgia, but I didn't think I would be able to deal with the absence of everything that reminded me of home all at once. I was already dressed in the clothes I had been given at the draft office. A plain white t-shirt and a pair of olive drab pants that barely fit to replace the colorful blouses and skirts my mama would sew for me. It took me two months and an appeal to General Patton himself, but eventually I was given permission to join the US Army. Of course, they saw it as an opportunity to see if integrating women into the armed forces would work well or not, but they also made it difficult for me. I was assigned to the newly introduced Airborne Infantry and told that I would either succeed and be a hero to my country or drop out and be sent to prison for twelve years or until the war ends, whichever is longer. Lovely, right? Men who drop out just get sent to regular infantry. Me? I get a cozy little concrete cell.

I slipped my family ring off my finger and put it in the bag before drawing it closed tightly and tying it securely. I put the small bag back in my duffel and dragged my hand up and down my forearms. I didn't like the light feeling of my heavy bracelets being missing. I felt like my hands moved too quickly without the familiar weight of the gold bangles, and the absence of their loud, obnoxious jingling left me anxious.

Serving my country was important. I knew I would never make it as a nurse and giving up the comforts of home was completely worth it in my mind, but that didn't mean I had to like it. I took a deep breath and reached up to pull my father's gold cross necklace out from my shirt. I was allowed to keep that, thank god. I clenched my hands around it tightly and pressed them to my forehead as I squeezed my eyes shut and mumbled a prayer my grandmother had taught me as a child. When I finished, I kissed my knuckles and pried my fingers away from the small golden trinket, letting it fall on its long chain to hit my stomach. I had a long journey ahead of me that wasn't ending when I got off this train.

The train lurched to a start, sending me back to hit my head against the window. I groaned but shook it off, going back to digging through my bag. I had two books to read to occupy myself, a gift from my older brother Davide, but I set those aside for later. First, I had to scribble down something in my journal about the beginning of my journey like I'd promised my kid sister Teresa I would. She wanted to know everything. She seemed more excited about me joining the army than I was.

Looking out the window at San Francisco fading in the distance, I quickly began to sketch the receding skyline with my charcoal pencil. I've never been very eloquent, so Teresa and I eventually came to the compromise that I could draw instead - which I was much better at - as long as I wrote something short to explain the drawing and tell her anything she wanted to know when I came back.

I managed to keep myself occupied with the sketch for a good thirty minutes, long after the actual view of the city had vanished, before I finally decided I was satisfied with it. I scrawled a quick two sentences about it being the view from the train window before tucking the leather journal and pencil away safely in my bag. Then, tugging my tangle of dark hair back into a braid, I looked over at the two books my brother had given me. I couldn't help but grin widely when I realized that one of them had been from Davide, but the other was obviously from Nicolai, my second older brother. Davide was the mature one who was studying to be a doctor at Yale with a full scholarship, so obviously the thick copy of The Divine Comedy was from him. He was always trying to give me complicated things like that because he knew I loved working them out like puzzles. Nicolai is much less mature. He's been in and out of the holding cells at the police station so many times that he knows all the officers by name and practically has his own cell, but its never for anything awful. Usually just bar fights about our heritage or getting caught conning some poor sap on the street. He had a sense of humor and always hated taking things seriously, much to my papa's chagrin, but he also had the passion for literature Mama has that I never inherited, and he was always trying to get me to see it. The copy of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was obviously from him. He'd been trying to get me to read it for months and he'd obviously found the opportune moment to force it on me. When I'll be on a train for 32 hours with nothing better to do. That fucker.

I laughed to myself a little before sighing quietly and picking up the book. I rubbed my thumb over the wrinkled cover. This was his personal copy. God, I already missed him. All of them, really. Mama and Papa, Davide and Nicolai, all the little shits I called my younger siblings, my cousins, my aunt, Oma and Opa. It had only been maybe two hours since I'd left them and I missed them. This is gonna be hell.

Pushing that from my mind, I situated myself on the bunk and opened the Lovecraft story to the first page. With any luck, this train ride wasn't going to feel as long as it really was.