Eugene sees her again when he comes to pick up supplies. He watches her through a window as she holds the hand of a dying man and talks to him softly. The wounded men who have been treated by her call her an angel, and as she sits there with light from the window streaming over her, watching the man with impossibly gentle eyes, Eugene can almost believe it.

Renée leaves the man when a fresh batch of the wounded are brought in, directing where they should go. Eugene puts down his box and goes to help Renée, who has immediately started to tend to the worst of them. The man is peppered with bullet holes, blood drenching his front when Renée pull his shirt and jacket open.

"The artery...gotta...find the artery," says Eugene, smearing the blood away until he can find the largest hole. Without hesitation he thrusts his hand inside the man's body, groping for the artery while Renée tries to mop up the blood. He lost his squeamishness long ago, and the sticky touch of blood on his hands is all too familiar. Dull gasps and jerks are the patient's only reaction to the intrusion.

Renée calls for Anna, twice, her voice echoing in the high ceiling. The man's movements are growing weaker and weaker, and blood runs down the side of his face from his mouth. Anna runs in and begins to help, but Renée happens to catch a glimpse of the man's face and stops suddenly. Eugene doesn't notice and is still looking for that damn artery.

She has to put her hand on his and look at him before he looks up at her and stops. Very slowly, his eyes move towards the man's face. He straightens up and pulls his bloody hand out. He throws a bandage to the floor in frustration and anger.

When he looks at Renée again he isn't sure what he is seeing in her eyes. Grief, but something else as well. Few people have ever seen Eugene truly angry. He has only met Renée once before, but she has seen more of him now than the men of Easy Company.

Perhaps it is the realization of this fact that leads him to agree to sit outside with her. Just for a few minutes.

When they first met in the dim light of the church she thought his eyes were brown, but in the pale winter sunlight, close up, she sees that they are more like her own. Clear gray-blue, set in a pensive expression. His hair is dark and spiky, so black it's almost blue. His face, pale in the cold, makes it seem even darker.

They sit together outside the church, against a backdrop of snow and rubble and bodies. Jeeps rumble by and men are running about, shouting to each other, but for a few minutes, Renée and Eugene are at peace. She reaches into her pocket and offers him a paper wrapped rectangle.

"Chocolat?" The corners of his mouth twitch in a brief smile and she begins to tear the wrapper.

She keeps her eyes downcast but she can feel his gaze on her as she busies herself with the chocolate, fumbling with the paper and foil. Chocolate was never so hard to open before. She has to look up when she hears him chuckle slightly, though.

"What?"

He isn't looking at her. Instead his gaze is fixed on her hands. "Your hands..." he says. Renée stops unwrapping the chocolate and looks at her hands, a bit self-consciously. They are dirty, with blood in the creases of her nails and stains on the skin. Her fingers are callused and rough to the touch.

"My hands?" she asks.

Eugene doesn't answer, just smiles slightly. "You're a good nurse." His voice is deep, slow and soothing. He speaks French and English with accents unfamiliar to her, but they have a richness that manages to be full without being heavy. She likes listening to it.

Renée lays the chocolate down on her lap and stops. She reaches up and pulls off her headscarf, looking into the distance as she balls it up. "No. I never want to treat another wounded man again. I'd rather work in a butcher's shop."

Eugene seems genuinely puzzled at this. His eyebrows crease faintly and there is confusion in his voice as he says slowly, "But your touch...calms people. That's a gift from God."

"It's not a gift," she retorts. "God would never give such a painful thing."

She resumes opening the chocolate and offers it to him silently. He shakes his head, so she brings it to her own mouth and bites off a small piece. The chocolate is not even that good; it's ration chocolate she's saved, stiff with cold and not very sweet, but she finds comfort in it anyways. Eugene is watching her face now, disbelief on his own face. As if he's trying to decide whether she really meant what she said or not.

Such a painful thing. It's true, isn't it? If God had to give her a gift, He should have given her the power to save men, instead of a soothing touch that was of no use to one leaving the mortal coil.

Thankfully, she is saved from saying anything more when a jeep rolls up. And ironically she can put her conflict about her "gift" behind her by leaping into action. After watching her help walk a wounded man inside, Eugene stands up and follows.

By the time they bring in Gordon, Eugene is starting to crack with the strain.

He watches the aid station medics take care of Gordon for a while. He knows he needs to get back to the line fast, but his body is numb and unwilling to move. He doesn't want to go back to that bloodbath, watching his friends die when there is nothing he can do. Sure, maybe he can save some of them, but there's some things that are beyond the power of any medic. Being blasted to pieces by a mortar, having limbs blown off, maybe it's something as simple as a well-aimed bullet to the heart. There's nothing he can do against something like that.

Renée is bringing a wad of bandages out when she sees Eugene and stops. He is staring straight ahead, at nothing, really.

"Eugene?"

He turns to look at her, and the look in his eyes frightens her. It has only been a day since she's last seen him. How could he have changed so much so quickly? The young determined medic she knew is looking at her with haunted eyes. They are the heavy eyes of someone who has seen too much.

"Are you...are you all right?"

He doesn't answer, and Renée can hear somebody calling her. She raises her hand in a partial motion to tell him to stay, and hurries towards the caller.

He watches her go, her blue headscarf disappearing into the sea of the wounded.

If Harry Welsh hadn't been shot Eugene might not have found out what happened in town until the next day. As it happened, he arrived right on time and got a front row seat.

It is a long, cold walk back to the line.

Eugene can see the O.P. ahead of him. He stops before anybody sees him. He needs to be the stoic, steadfast Doc Roe they know. But right now his head is spinning, and he needs a moment to clear his head before he rejoins the others.

The memory is fresh, running through his head over and over again as he waits among the trees. Bombs falling on the town, the undersides of German planes overhead lit up briefly as the incendiaries did their work. Throughout the town men ran about, debris was falling, flames were bursting to life, but in the church the windows were blackened with ash, and the shadowy shapes of rubble were the only things that rose to greet him. He stayed just long enough to pull a blue triangle of fabric from the wreckage.

There's no more putting it off. Eugene steels himself, then walks out. He passes several officers and Winters, cocooned in his foxhole, without looking or speaking to them. He slides into the first open foxhole he sees and takes a look at the occupant. Heffron.

"Everything ok?" Eugene's voice is remarkably steady. "Babe?"

Heffron doesn't answer, just nods and wipes his nose with his hand. There's a crust of dried blood and an open wound on it. Eugene takes Heffron's hand and looks at it. "How'd you do that?"

Heffron looks at him. "You did that." His voice is flat but not accusatory.

Eugene doesn't remember doing it, but doesn't argue. "I'll fix it up."

He reaches into his pocket for a bandage and feels a piece of cloth. Thinking it's one of the sheet strips, he pulls it out. But he's wrong. It's Renée's headscarf. He'd almost forgotten it was there.

The first time he saw it the blue had been soothing. Now it hurts his eyes. He turns the kerchief over in his hands and presses his lips together tightly because the emotions he thought he had carefully put away are threatening to spill over. He balls it up and goes to stuff it back in his pocket. Then he stops, pulls it back out, and shakes it open.

It rips cleanly down the middle, and Eugene sets half aside as he reaches into his bag for sulfa. Babe doesn't take any notice of the unusual bandage, instead saying, "Hey Gene. You called me Babe."

"I did?" Yet another thing he can't remember. "When?"

"Just now."

"Babe..." Eugene says the name slowly, tasting it. It feels good. It rolls off his tongue easily, as if he's been dying to say it. "I guess I did." He tears open the sulfa package and starts sprinkling it on Babe's hand.

"Babe." Heffron imitates Eugene's deep Louisiana drawl with exaggerated widened eyes and pursed lips. Eugene just gives him a look.

"Heffron, watch the goddamn line."

Babe laughs and Eugene finishes tying on the bandage.

The other half of the headscarf is still in Eugene's pocket. The night after he found it, alone in his foxhole, he winds it around his hand as he recites the line from St. Francis' prayer. Eugene doesn't carry a rosary with him anymore; last time he prayed he used a length of string that he has been carrying around for that express purpose. He figures the scarf will do just as well.

Oh Lord, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, or to be loved as to love, with all my heart.

He says it again, slowly, winding the scarf around his hand so tightly he can feel himself cutting off his circulation. He needs to feel the calming effect of prayer, needs it now more than ever.

"...to be loved as to love, with all my heart. With all my heart."

Slowly he unwinds the blue cloth and folds it up, putting it back carefully in his jacket pocket. The rest of the chocolate bar is still in there; he'd given it to Babe, but Babe only took a small bite before giving it back. Eugene takes it out now and breaks off a piece, putting it in his mouth. It is hard as a rock and takes a moment before it is soft enough to chew.

He takes off his helmet and runs a hand through his spiky dark hair. He doesn't cry, but in the cold and the darkness he gives himself a minute to think not only of Renée, but of everybody else lost to the war. A minute to let all his emotions cross his face, where heretofore they have been forbidden. Even though nobody can see him, he still covers his face with his hand.