„She became even worse." Luz muttered as they continued running up Currahee. 1st Lieutenant Bennett had just past him and Liebgott, shouting some very 'motivating' things about them being lazy girls which should have staid at home marrying Prince Charming. "I didn't think that this was possible, but yes, she did." Joe answered, starring angrily at the back of the head of the soldier running in front of him. Luz nodded in approval and finally asked loudly what everybody was thinking: "Do you think we could just kill her? I mean, it's not that hard to kill someone by accident."

They could see how 1st Lieutenant Bennett was now running in front of the group, still yelling things about them being little princesses. "God, I hate her." The soldier behind them muttered, and Liebgott and Luz, both surprised about this female voice, turned their heads to check whether this had been really 2nd Lieutenant Coleman or not. And indeed it was her running behind them. When she realized that they must have heard what she said she shrugged her shoulders and hissed "Don't look at me like that, just because she is the only female in this 'club' besides me, doesn't mean that I have to like her."

"But I wouldn't confess this that loud 2nd Lieutenant Coleman." 1st Lieutenant Bennett was now running next to them, smiling this horrible smile they had all felt on themselves, which makes your heart slow its beating and your soul feel like it has been put into the refrigerator. It was the kind of smile the archenemy of the hero would have, when the final game had started, when it seemed like the hero was lost and had to die. "We'll talk about this later." And then the 1st Lieutenant dropped back to Webster and Penkala to complain about their physical state.

"This will cause you much trouble." Liebgott remarked and earned a hit on the back of his head. "I'm only telling the truth." Another hit. "You're really aggressive, aren't you." The same answer. "Okay, okay, I see you have serious violence problem." But before he got get hit another time, 1st Lieutenant Bennett interrupted them. "2nd Lieutenant Coleman, hitting your fellow soldiers is no solution. This will have consequences." Liebgott was mentally already cheering about not getting into trouble, when the 1st Lieutenant "For both of you." added. "I hate her." He muttered in response, but luckily this time she didn't hear the insult.

"I really thought she'd be more careful after what happened on Currahee." Nixon muttered as he looked at Donna who sat on the other side of the mess. Jo snorted slightly and laughed. "Oh come on Nix, you 'hoped' she'd be more careful but you knew she wouldn't." The other Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and looked back at his food. "Anyway, I hope nobody tells her what happened because I really don't want Dick to have trouble with her just because he was who he was." Jo nodded but had doubt in her eyes. "He's a lucky bastard nobody told her till now. Because as soon as somebody will he's a dead man. Or at least he'll suffer a lot more than he deserves. But if you ask me, somebody will tell her sooner or later. And if nobody does it freely she'll force someone to, and you know she can be pretty persuasive." Nix who had been watching her hand the whole time nodded and stood up. "You're probably right, but let me tell you something, killing your food with a fork won't make it taste better." And with those words he disappeared. "Yeah, thank you for that magnificent advice, Mr. Pointy-head." Jo muttered to herself and continued picking at her food. "I should have stopped this the last time we met, my friend. I should have stopped you. I should have stopped both of you." "2nd Lieutenant Coleman are you alright?" A voice interrupted her muttered monologue. Slowly, Jo raised her eyes to tell who took the liberty of talking to her in such a worried voice. To her surprise it was no other than Eugene Roe, that little medic who had taken care of Donna. "I'm fine, thank you soldier." He nodded and left her but couldn't help it and turned his head a last time just to see her picking her food again. Suddenly Roe bumped into someone. "I would watch out where you're going soldier. It seems like you still aren't able to walk properly. Maybe, running a bit would help you. Or I'll just let you clean some latrines. Or maybe..." Before 1st Lieutenant Bennett could make any further proposals she was interrupted by Nixon. "Or maybe you just leave him Sink wants to talk to you." Donna nodded and followed Nix to the barricade where Sink was waiting for them.

"Ahhh... 1st Lieutenant Bennett. You've done an extremely satisfying job with Easy company so far."

"They promoted her to CAPTAIN?" Luz asked with a mixture of despair and wonder. "You gotta be kidding me. What exactly did she do to get promoted? I mean besides from making the whole company hate her, and nearly killing some of us." Bill asked with less despair and more anger. "I don't know but I heard how Nixon told it Coleman and he was there so I'm quite sure there's no misunderstanding. But he also said that Winters was promoted to 1st Lieutenant. Plus, it's not like she's working against the company on purpose. She would treat anybody in this way, and you can't deny that without her we wouldn't be that fit." Malark tried to calm the waves but doing this made the ocean look even worse. "Are you defending her? Are you seriously defending her, Malark? What the fuck is wrong in your stupid Irish head? She, is most definitely the worst that could have happened to us. She, has done nothing good to Easy company. She, should have died up there on Currahee. Winters decisions may be right most of the time but when he carried her down here, he made a big mistake." Bill responded looking furiously at his fellow soldier. They looked at each other in anger and seemed very willingly to bandy right away. And they would have done it if the soft voice of discussed Captain wouldn't have interrupted them.

"What a pleasure to see that the bush telegraph is working so well. Malarkey, although I'm very flattered by your opinion of me, you should get in your PT gear as fast as possible because I want you to do 50 sit ups in 40 seconds. Which basically means that you've got 0,8 seconds per sit up which indicates that I'm in a very good mood. And by the way, the clock is ticking." With fear in his eyes Malarkey turned away and started running towards the barracks. Now the captain eyed Luz. "Luz, I'm deeply disappointed about your reaction towards my promotion but also very happy that this gives me the opportunity to see somebody run Currahee again. You know what you have to do." Luz left them at a smart pace as well. "Guarnere, we've got to talk. I'm sure you'll answer all of my question the best you can and won't lie to me, since this will have horrible consequences not only for you but for the whole company." "Of course, Ma'am." Donna nodded slightly and actually seemed like there was, for the first time, no need to worry when talking to her. "What exactly happened on Currahee?" "I'm sorry, Ma'am I don't understand the question." Guarnere responded with the most composure he could bring up. "Of course, I'll rephrase my question. When exactly should I have died on Currahee and what in God's name has Winters to do with it?" Bills eyes widened in shock before he got himself act together again. "Ma'am I'm quite sorry but there are authorities which don't allow me to tell you this." "Authorities which don't allow you to tell me this?" Donna asked and raised a eyebrow. "I'm quite sure those authorities won't mind if you tell me. And also, my dear Guarnere, you should think about the consequences your heroical talking might have. I could easily say that you didn't act for the purpose of the company , I could say even worse things, so, why don't you just tell me?" Guarnere who was rightfully considered as one of the toughest man of all those though man was clearly torn apart. "Ma'am, you may remember that day you ran Currahee three times in a row. Or, actually, you may not remember. But I can assure you you did, and it started to rain. And you wanted it to be even more difficulty, at least that's what everybody assumes, and didn't take the path which is already quite hard but you ran through the trees. And it was raining, as I said, and it seems like you slipped on some grass, and you fell down, but your head hit a stone and you were unconscious. And in this condition 1st Lieutenant Winters found you, and the rumor says that he carried you back to Doc Roe. That's all I know, ma'am." Donna nodded and smiled slightly. "And that's what you were afraid to tell me of? Well, whatever soldier, you can go now." Happy, and confused about the fact that nothing worse happened to him Bill turned around and left the captain stand there in silence.

Sometimes, it seems like the tense in a room is visible. The air seems to crackle, the looks the people give each other are full of emotions. Those emotions depend on the situation but they are nearly always extremely visible. Such a tense arises when a big event is going to happen, or has already happened. And it's hard to break. Jo and Nix were looking at each other with fear, regret and pity. The thing that wasn't supposed to happen, had happened. Donna, knew what had happened.

"Do you think we should warn Dick?" Nixon broke the silence, which often comes with such an among of tense. Jo opened her mouth to say the word she knew Lew wouldn't like but before any sound could escape it they were interrupted by the person they were trying to help. "Warn of what?" The new promoted 1st Lieutenant asked and sat down on a chair. "I suppose there is no point in lying so, Donna knows what you did that day on Currahee, Guarnere told her." Winters nodded, waiting for further explanation. But there was none. "And why exactly did you want to warn me? I mean, what is she going to do about it, and why should she do something anyway?" Jo and Nix looked at each other till the former gave a slight nod. "Well, Dick, Donna is, how shall I put it, very hard with herself and is vigilant about her reputation. And this incident up there won't be what she wants to be known for. And the point is" Suddenly, he was interrupted by the door which crashed into the wall with a sound of exploding trees. "The point is that my dear friends are worried about the fact that I might focus all my hate on you because you are one of the main reasons that my reputation isn't as pleasing as it was before. But, you know what, I won't. It's true that I'm not happy about the situation but I won't project my feelings on you. It wasn't your fault and I'm actually very thankful for what you did." Donna finished the sentence Nixon had started with words neither him nor Jo had ever heard before out of her mouth. Words as gentle as thankful usually didn't belong to her thesaurus. But before either of them could say anything captain had already left them again and Winters looked at them smiling. "You see, no need to worry. She's really not as bad as you two always make her seem to be." "You've got no idea how bad she actually is." Jo responded and left the room slowly, deep in thoughts.

"We're getting a new officer." Winters said after the two men had been sitting there in silence for a while. "Uh-huh." Was the only reaction he got from his best friend. "Is there anything else you want to say about this?" The red-haired man asked slightly annoyed. "No, not really. New officer. Okay. Noted." The black-haired answered, staring at the floor. "What has happened between you and those women, Nix?" The 1st Lieutenant now asked directly since it seemed like the other man would never talk about it if not forced to do so. "We lived next to each other in Montecito. Donna and I attended the Santa Barbara school together. We, well, we were dating. Jo always wanted to be with us. She considered us as the 'cool' ones. It was actually a bit annoying. We broke up, I went to Yale. End of the story." Nix answered still staring at the floor. Winters had listened to this short but interesting story with a expression constantly changing between surprise and relief. He had expected much worse than this little story. "So, you and Captain Bennett were dating? That was not what I expected to hear. And you three were all living next to each other?" Nixon nodded but at the same time shook his head. "Well, Donna and Jo lived together. They are sisters." And with those words he was the last one of the Montecito-trio to leave the room with a sentence made to destroy every logic someone could have seen in this whole affair. Winters watched his friend leave before he took his turn in staring at the floor.

The silence that follows the tense is probably even worse. Because the silence that follows is always made of pain, the silence is the result of a parting. After a tense like this, a tense made to destroy something, someone is left behind. If not everybody.

The train to nowhere was quite a nice place if you ignored the fact that some people only wanted to kill each other. It seemed indeed like although Donna didn't show any negative feelings towards Winters as everyone expected she wanted to see the rest of the company suffer as hell. Joanne gave her looks that if looks could kill would have killed her, and Nix just seemed completely torn between giving both of them angry looks or trying to calm at least one of them down. But both things were pretty hard to accomplish since Jo was sitting next to him, so that he couldn't look at her all of the time in an angry way, and moreover was Harry Welsh sitting opposite to him sleeping which limited his possibilities of just shouting at them angrily.

"I suppose you know where we're going, Nix?" Donna asked in an attempt to break this uncomfortable silence. "Yeah, I actually do. But you know that I can't tell ya." Donna nodded and gave Harry a jealous look. "I wish I could sleep like this. But unfortunately I'm afraid someones going to kill me if I do so." With a small smile towards Jo she closed her eyes anyway. "Oh come one Donna, I would never kill you in front of dear Lewis. Or slit your throat while Dick is watching since it seems like you see something in him you didn't see in anybody else. And risking to wake up Harry just to hear you scream in pain, I beg your pardon." Jo snapped back which had as only result that Donna opened her eyes again and looked at her angrily. "Since when do you care about the feelings of others? As far as I can remember you never cared about what anybody else felt." Jo slowly stood up and snorted. "Why should I have cared about you. You and your stupid boyfriend never cared about me either, so why should I care?" The last word wasn't spoken but screamed and before one of the male officers could have done anything the two women were lying on the floor of the train beating each other.

After they had finally separated the two, Winters and Nixon looked at them even angrier than the women had looked at each other. "Do you two really think this is the way the commander and a platoon leader of the company should behave? Have you even thought about the consequences this will have? You two, are supposed to lead those men into war, and all you can think about is fighting with each other. If they ever respected you they clearly stopped now. Or would you trust people that they'll lead you properly if they don't even trust each other?" The 2nd Lieutenant asked with his face close to Donna's. In this moment, with his face so close to hers, he recognized two things he never saw before: the broken expression in her eyes, and the glance of a tear right below her left eye. But this moment of recognition was as short as the time a tear needs to dry.

"I don't see the point of your worry. It's not your problem that they won't trust us. Because you two are the perfect leaders, aren't you?" She hissed in response, spitting on Nixon's face. With sadness in his eyes he turned away, and looked questioningly at the 1st Lieutenant. Winters shrugged with his shoulders before he, with visible efforts, explained: "We won't tell anybody about this incident as long as you can promise us to not get into a fight again. If that's to much to ask for we, or at least I, will tell your superiors what has happened." The women glanced at each other quickly before nodding slightly in agreement. Winters turned around and left the room, they had dragged Donna and Jo in, muttering: "I'm only doing this for you, Lew."

For a moment, the three remaining officers looked at each other bewildered. It wasn't even the near past that confused them so much, it was the time since then. It was what had happened after there last goodbyes that confused, and moreover, scared them. Slowly, Nixon sat down on the floor and started shacking his head. "What has happened between you two? What has happened that makes you hate each other so much?"