A/N: This two-part story was written for katie k., who gave me the idea after having seen Derek and Shawn dance to "Angel" for their Viennese Waltz. I must say I have never before written an AU, but I found this very interesting and challenging to write, because there were so many back stories I needed to build! I hope you guys find it as interesting to read. :-) Feedback more than appreciated!

PART 1.

The night was cold and quiet, the kind of night that everyone called a hard-on: so cold everything was hard, including everything you had on. Frost covered the ground, turning everything grey, and if you squinted, you could try to imagine that the sparkling lights in the distance were those on a Christmas tree, except, of course, no tree lights ever made that rat-tat-tat sound.

Christmas in no man's land, Derek thought, sighing. Nights like this, sitting in the trenches, waiting for the next artillery attack, he wished he never quit smoking; smoking would have given his hands something to do other than rub them together to keep warm. Better yet, he wished he were back home, back where ...

"Hey," a voice came from his right, "Budge up there."

Despite his being half-frozen, Derek smiled as he inched slightly to his right to make space for Mark, his best friend and practically his brother. That the younger man was assigned to his platoon both pleased and worried him; he was glad that there was at least one person he could count on to watch his back when the fighting got tough, but being a lieutenant and Mark's commanding officer, Derek sometimes worried for his friend's safety. Mark tended to be over enthusiastic on the field, often volunteering for the most dangerous of missions, and Derek couldn't always stop him.

One day, he feared, Mark would take it one step too far ...

"Always thinking too hard," Mark said, pushing the butt of his rifle into Derek's side playfully. "Lighten up. Can't you see? It's Christmas."

Derek sighed. "Christmas doesn't come here, bro," he replied, nodding towards the enemy lines. "Or there."

"Ah, that's bull, but meaning no disrespect, Lieutenant," said another voice to his left, a slight Australian twang to his words. "Christmas isn't a place or a time. It's where your heart is."

"Spoken like a true romantic, MacManus," Derek smiled, addressing the sandy-haired speaker. "But if we all thought like you, no one will be waiting in these damned trenches. We'd all be daydreaming of our little ladies back home."

Mark chuckled. "Little lady, huh? I didn't know you had one, bro."

The men in the trenches joined in the laughter, enjoying the sight of their commanding officer blushing, obvious even in the dark. Derek good-naturedly caught Mark in a headlock, rapping him once on his helmet, then letting him go. "I was speaking generally, bro," he said. "Isn't a crime, is it?"

"No, it isn't," said another voice, this time coming from above. The men stilled immediately, looking upwards at the dark figure that loomed atop them, blocking the faint moonlight. "Although this isn't the best time to be rough housing, Lieutenant Hough, Private Ballas."

Derek, as well as everyone else, snapped to attention, saluting. "Sir. No, sir."

"At ease, men," the figure continued. "Lieutenant, I would have expected better behavior from you."

"Yes, sir." Derek answered, feeling Mark laughing quietly beside him, and inwardly wishing he could do something about it.

"And you, Private Ballas. Quit trying to provoke Hough. It's enough that he has to put up with your antics."

"Yes, sir," Mark responded, then muttered under his breath, "Cranky Goodman."

"Shut up," Derek said through gritted teeth.

General Goodman surveyed his men quietly, then turned away. "A word with you, Ballas," he said. "Everyone else, as you were."

Derek watched Mark turn toward him, frowning slightly. Then he moved off, making his way towards the sandbags piled high against the sides of the trench, scrambling up and over, and following General Goodman in the direction of the officers' tents.

A dark-haired older man went to stand nearer to Derek, watching Mark's retreating figure. "What did he do this time, sir?"

"I don't know, Dovolani," Derek said, shaking his head. "I can honestly say I don't know."

Sergeant Dovolani shook his head as well. "Well, if you don't know, I have a feeling he doesn't, either." He clapped Derek on the shoulder. "But if I were you, I wouldn't worry. Ballas gets himself in all sorts of scrapes, and he always manages to get out."

Derek nodded his thanks, and automatically his sergeant moved off to tell the rest of the men off and have them go back to their posts. A bit of grumbling, a bit of shuffling, and soon, everything was back to the silence that Derek had been contemplating a few minutes earlier.

There was nothing to be done but to wait.

Mark hadn't returned within the hour, and many of Derek's men had already found various positions to rest and feign wakefulness at the same time. MacManus remained standing, but his eyes were hooded; Derek couldn't tell whether he was awake or not. Sergeant Dovolani was perched beside their artillery stack, but had apparently fallen asleep, if one were to judge by the snores coming from his direction. Their medic, Van Amstel, had rested his head against the sides of the trench; the Chmerkovskiy brothers, Val and Maks, leant on their rifles and on each other.

Derek smiled ruefully, stamping his feet in an effort to stay warm. Would that he could rest so easily, he thought. But while Mark was out, he couldn't; right now, where he was, Mark was his only family, and he had to take care of him. What on earth could General Goodman be talking to him about that took this long?

He leaned against the side of a sandbag, popping his neck and looking up, trying to distract himself from morbid thoughts. The stars grew brighter in the distance as the night deepened, the moon shone full and bright, broken only by the mist that came from his breath. The golden moon and the stars up above, he mused. Thank God for the constant things in this world, untouched by time or chaos or conflict.

And his mind drew back, back to a similar night, under the same moon ...

"I'm off tomorrow," Derek said, looking down at his shoes, scuffing the ground, trying to sound braver than he felt. "The army says they need every able-bodied man for the final push. The Allies may have taken several territories back, but this offensive will be critical."

She said nothing, merely watching him with those hazel-green eyes of hers.

"Anyway. I just wanted to tell you."

Silence.

Derek stood up, brushing his pants and jacket off to buy time, holding a hand out to steady the wooden swing upon which they had sat, side by side. He did not want to leave, no, but duty called and, more than anything, he knew how important it was to answer. But there were so many things that he hadn't done, hadn't seen, hadn't experienced. So many things - so many! - that he hadn't said ...

"Derek?" she asked suddenly.

He looked down at her. "Shawn?"

"When ... when do you come back, then?" Her voice trembled slightly, but her face was perfectly calm. "Is there a time table?"

Derek sighed, looking away into the distance before turning back to look at her. "I don't know."

She nodded. "I understand." Patting the seat beside her, she smiled at him: a forced smile, but a smile nevertheless. "Do you remember how our moms used to make us both sit here while they played bridge? Do you remember what we used to do?"

He smiled, and sat back down beside her. "You mean from the time you were about seven? I used to pull your hair, for fun."

She laughed, genuinely now. "Not that! I meant when I had grown up a bit ..."

"You haven't," Derek countered.

"Oh, shut up! All right. Fine. Do you remember, then, when I was about fourteen and you had just turned twenty-one, and you had decided to enlist ..."

Sobering, Derek ran his fingers through his hair. "Yes." He sighed. "We talked. For hours."

Shawn nudged his leg. "Well then. It might be a while before we get to talk like that again, so we may as well make full use of this time that we do have."

Derek looked at her then, at her eyes that held unshed tears, at her lips that held unspoken words, and saw that she, too, felt the sorrow of parting. And like him, she, too, knew of no way to speak what they both knew but could not yet say aloud.

So that night, knowing no other recourse, they talked, like the old days. They talked, and they talked - until the moon rose and the stars came out and the air turned nippy. Somehow during the conversation they had inched closer to each other, their bodies keeping each other warm. Feeling bold, Derek put an arm around Shawn, and was gratified to note that she neither pulled away nor commented on it. Instead, she merely snuggled closer, eventually laying her head on his chest.

After a while, they fell silent, Derek now putting both arms around Shawn without even thinking about it. She shifted slightly, allowing him to do so even more comfortably. Together, they watched the moon and the stars, the eternal heavens where nothing changed, untouched by time or chaos or conflict ...

Rat tat tat!

Derek snapped back to attention, his senses suddenly on full alert. All around him, his men had already begun jumping into action, MacManus crawling over to the higher part of the trenches to peek out.

"Enemy forces at twelve o'clock!" he shouted before crawling quickly back down.

Derek cursed. They were coming at them from their most vulnerable side. His trench only had about ten men, and although there were also other trenches around them, he didn't know what their situation was. And - damn it - he didn't know where Mark was, either.

Shaking his head to force himself to focus, he began firing orders. "Chmerkovskiy, give the sergeant the tent's twenty," he barked, and the tall man nodded in response before running to the end of the trench where he could train his binoculars on the officers' tents and later report what he observed.

"Castroneves, Amstel, Farber," he continued, "Man the guns, and cover us. Amstel, you make sure you're within earshot. Might need you in a bit."

"Dovolani, you head up the other side, bring Fatone, Ohno, and Smith with you. If anyone comes, don't let them catch us unprepared." Sergeant Dovolani nodded, then swiftly turned away along with his assigned men.

"MacManus, Chmerkovskiy, you come with me." Derek ran over to the piled sandbags, waiting for his cohorts to join him before speaking again. "We need to get out there, find out where they're coming from. If we can find a way to sneak from behind, we might be able to survive this."

The two men nodded briefly, gripping their rifles tighter. "On my count," Derek said. "One, two ..."

On three, Derek vaulted over the trench as bullets whizzed by. From the corner of his eye he saw both his men jump and crouch, gauging the distance between themselves and the nearest cover, then breaking into an all-out sprint. He saw muzzles flash, heard the sharp report of rifles, felt the hard ground as he moved, feet pounding on gravel. MacManus had reached safety, but he saw the younger Chmerkovskiy stop in mid-lope, going down hard.

Derek swiftly changed course, hugging the ground, making himself as small a target as possible; finally, he had to drop completely and crawl. Blinking his eyes free of dirt and ricocheting pebbles, he managed to reach Chmerkovskiy, putting a finger onto his neck. The younger man groaned, making Derek heave a sigh of relief. Now it was a question of getting him back to the trench, where Amstel was, for patching up.

Holding onto his helmet, Derek raised his eyes to get his bearings. He could see a fierce fight going on, but it seemed to be directed more towards the east side than theirs. Hooking an arm under the injured man, Derek pulled him, an inch at a time, back towards friendly lines. His arms and lungs burned with the effort, sweat stinging his eyes, but he kept his eyes trained towards the trench, developing an odd sort of rhythm: crawl, crawl, stop; crawl, crawl, stop. A few yards away from it, Derek saw a tall man suddenly pop out, dropping quickly to the ground, and crawling towards them.

"Sir," the older Chmerkovskiy said, to which Derek could only nod wearily.

Between the two of them, they finally managed to reach the relative safety of their trench, and lowered the wounded man in. Amstel ran to him immediately, tending to the welling blood on his right thigh. Derek sat for a moment, catching his breath, then looked around. Everyone was still there, save for MacManus; he had completely forgotten about him in his single-minded desire to get Chmerkovskiy back for medical attention. And Mark – Mark still was nowhere to be seen.

"Sergeant!" he shouted, "I need a report!"

Sergeant Dovolani crouched beside him. "It's strange, sir," he began, "We thought they're coming in to ambush. From the looks of it, though, it looks like … like they're actually running towards us. Being driven, or running away. I don't know how, but they didn't even seem to know we were here, until we started firing."

Derek frowned. "Where's that radio? Have we gotten touch with the General?"

"No sir," he said, brandishing the radio. "They seem to be out of range. Nothing but static."

"And MacManus? I lost sight of him."

"Still out there, sir. Last I saw he had taken cover, so most likely he's still alright." Sergeant Dovolani paused. "Ballas, though, sir … I don't know. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Derek said gruffly, gripping the older man's shoulder. "Take over while I head out."

"Where to, sir?" Dovolani asked as Derek walked away.

"I'm gonna find out where that asshole has gone." Forestalling what he perceived was protest, he added, "No complaints, sergeant. It's my duty to make sure all my men are accounted for. If it were you, I still would have gone anyway. Ballas is my friend, but on top of that, he's one of us."

Dovolani grinned. "I wasn't going to stop you, sir. I was just gonna say – good luck. And kick him in the pants for me."

Derek smiled back, then, without another word, clambered up and over, once again aiming and running for the nearest cover as he timed the lull in gunfire. He reached it this time without incident, almost running headlong into MacManus, who was still crouched there.

"Sir," he said. "Chmerkovskiy alright?"

"Yes," Derek said shortly. "What's our status?"

MacManus nodded towards the farther end of the field, where most of the gunfire appeared to come. "Looks like they had come from nor-nor-east, sir. The damnedest thing is that they seem to be running away, not toward. They don't seem to know where we are, or how many there are of us. They're just reacting; I'm betting the gunfire started because our troops spotted them, not the other way around."

"That tallies with Dovolani's observation," Derek said. "Anything about the tents? General Goodman?"

"No sir, nothing. Lights went out about twenty minutes before the shooting started."

Derek looked at the younger man in surprise. "You were awake, then."

"I never sleep on duty, sir."

"Good to know."

MacManus grinned briefly. "What now, sir?"

"We find out what's really going on. Come with me." Derek moved to the left side of their cover, peering out quickly, gauging distance. "Let's go."

Together, they ran-crawled towards the source of the gunfire, taking advantage of the bushes clumped around their camp, covering themselves both with brush and darkness. Soon they could see the enemy forces popping out every so often behind large outcroppings of rock to deliver a short burst before disappearing again. Derek immediately noticed that they had taken odd positions, some facing their direction and some facing the opposite, and quickly concluded that both Dovolani's and MacManus' readings were correct. They were running from something.

Suddenly, gunfire erupted from both sides of the enemies, cutting many down where they crouched, prompting a fresh wave of furious shooting. Derek squinted, trying hard to see; it appeared to be no more than ten or twelve men, appearing then disappearing into cover. One, popping out a few yards away from where he and MacManus hid, moved in such a familiar manner that Derek's eyes widened: Mark!

Mark stood from his cover, aiming his rifle. Intent on his target and not having Derek's vantage point, he never saw another soldier whip around, spot him and aim his own rifle at him.

Breaking cover, Derek ran towards the enemy without conscious thought, fear adding speed to his steps, and saw that he would be too late anyway. Desperate, he waved his arms and shouted a warning: "Mark! Behind you!"

As if in slow motion, with painful clarity, Derek saw the shooter swing towards him instead, and pull the trigger. Vaguely he heard MacManus shout out, Mark scream, but everything else was white noise, everything a blur of color.

In that moment, Derek closed his eyes, braced himself for the shot, and knew nothing more.