Discovery of His Heartbreak
Note and Disclaimer: I'll be saying this every time. I don't own the characters to Hogan's Heroes. I would like to thank those who have created this series. However, the character I have created in this series, Colonel Michalovich, belongs to me, so if you want to use her in any story you wish to write, please email me with permission first. Thank you!
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It was the season of Christmastime already at Stalag 13, and Colonel Robert Hogan knew, as every commanding officer does, that the men were more excited over these holidays than the uptight missions that London had been assigning them. But in this cold German winter, nothing could be better for these special prisoners of war, who had been working secretly against the Germans in their elaborate underground tunnel system, than a day off from the war. A holiday bonded these men further, most from different Allied armies and traditions.
These men must be tired of all of this already, Hogan thought to himself as he sat around in his quarters, doodling inanely on paper as he sat at his desk. These missions drain all of us, and especially the Underground, but just when this war is over matters, and who wins. All the work cannot be for nothing. Hogan knew that this great sacrifice his men were doing (indeed, all were volunteers, but handpicked for Stalag 13), for the good of the Allied Forces, would surely pay off sooner, if not later. He also knew, as every other man there, that they missed being within their comforts of home every time they went outside the camp. This season, much like the last one and the one before and even in 1939, was grim and less hopeful than before without family and friends about.
Hogan sat up from his desk in his private quarters and stared out of his window, fogged up from the cold. Already it was evening and through the searchlights that always hunt, like predators for its prey, for missing prisoners, he saw the beginnings of a snow storm, snowflakes floating through the penetrating beams. The snowflakes were even daring themselves to softly fall to the barren ground. It caused a pit in his stomach and he just as suddenly remembered something in his life that he missed most just at that moment, an aching feeling he always felt as he thought of what he wanted equally as much as his family: love.
Sure, Hogan had enough of that around. With all the women he worked with and all the flirtation he loved, there was always one woman that set him off, and they promised each other…at least he thought they were to be married after the war. He thought of her often enough, and when he missed her the most, he always knew where the pictures of her were; Hogan had carried them in the cockpit of his airplane when he was hunting for German places of security and their efforts of war; carried them as he crash-landed; he even carried them to this cold prison camp they placed him in where he put them deep into his footlocker.
Today, even in the middle of this first lonely Christmas season away from home, Hogan knew that, despite that argument that they had in London before he left her for good, so that seemed, he loved her, no matter what he said about her. He remembered so well that last night in her quarters and how she argued against what she believed in: that she needed him and everyone she loved because of the past; she wanted them home and safe from what she considered being a storm, a survival of the fittest game. Her selfishness was duly noted and appreciated in this luck-of-the-draw game for life, even now.
"What danger Rob? What does the Allied Underground want you to do this time?" she screamed in frustration as he tried to hold her down and get her to calm down. Her temper was well-known but her anxiety, plainly showing through her anger, was going to be harder to control.
He had tried to cover her mouth and she almost bit his hand because of the restraint he placed on her. It was plain enough that she was selfishly trying to protect him, as his mother did, because he was the last person she held in her heart that was with her. Hogan was one of the last people she held near and dear and her love blinded her to the truth. "Nikki, Desertstar, we have to follow –"
"Those damned careless voices! The same voices that I have! I know dammed good and well what! What dangers? I can't follow you, and why?"
Hogan could only smile at her temper, as he dimly recalled all the times that she threw her temper out, so much like her mother. She's more like her stubborn mother than she realizes, Hogan mused as he hopped down from his bunk and started for his footlocker, ignoring the cold view outside, opening it and rummaging through his codebooks, clothes and other things. He wasn't aware that he was throwing things behind him as he searched for those pictures.
I wonder what she is doing right now. I know she followed me. Who else would be in Paris at that nightclub as Desertstar? What dangers has she placed herself in? Did she willingly follow me, or was she ordered to follow me? What happened to that medical unit she was working at? Hogan kept posing questions to himself and always pictured her happier than most times wherever she was, working her way through Paris for information and having better luck than he was right now. Hogan and his men were grounded for now, because of the Nazi's Christmas Offensive, and this pushed them back for about three weeks, at least; whatever she was doing was for the betterment of the Allied Forces. What does she do in that place? Hogan thought as he pictured the woman he loved, savoring that moment as he pictured her in a time so long ago, as he found what he was searching for.
