Part 2: Hogan

Time froze in a blur of images. Rows of crosses stretched beyond the horizon. Pyramids of searchlights hunted over a burning city. Huge eyes stared at him from hollow faces. Machine gun barrels tracked him. A city smoldered in ruins. Puffs like clouds that could shred a plane filled the sky. Barred windows. Skeletons who yet walked. Rolling orange of a firestorm. A glimpse into Hell. B-17 in a death dive. Searchlights. Coils of wire…

None of it was real. Only what he felt was real. Gravel dug into his knees. His breath caught harsh in his lungs. Hard metal bound his wrists. Ice cold of a gun barrel pressed into the back of his head. Helplessness. Then the view shifted and it was he who stared down the gun sights into the eyes filled first with fear, then with contemptuous hatred. A finger tightened on the trigger…

The gunshot always woke him.

Hogan jerked awake from the familiar nightmare.

Familiar though it may be, his reaction was always the same. Heart pounding, breath short, he scrambled upright, trying to figure out where he was.

"I'm sorry," a voice from the shadows said. "Did I wake you?"

Klink. Hogan glanced around again. Klink's quarters. No. Not Stalag 13. Klink's house. In Wisconsin. Over two years and that thought still rang oddly dissonant. Klink's house in Wisconsin. Scrubbing his hands over his face, Hogan steadied his breathing. He pulled himself further upright on the sofa. "No. You didn't." Reflexively, he hunted the room until his eyes landed on the youngster. William slept, undisturbed, in the little nest they'd made up for him on the floor. The deep sleep of the young and untroubled. Hogan watched until he saw the reassuring rise and fall of the boy's chest.

"What are you doing up?" Hogan asked Klink. He winced and bit back a groan as his leg reminded him of its injury.

Peering back from the shadows of the kitchen door, Klink announced, "I could not sleep. I am making cocoa. I will make you some too."

"Rather have brandy," Hogan said, propping his leg on a pillow on the sofa's coffee table.

Klink's stare was measuring as he looked at Hogan. "Your leg woke you?" he asked.

Okay. That's a good answer, Hogan decided. "Yeah. It's throbbing. How about some of that brandy?"

Still staring at him in an evaluating way, Klink told him, "It would be better if you took some of the pain pills and had cocoa instead." He turned abruptly away. A soft clatter of utensils came from the kitchen.

Jawohl, Herr Kommandant, Hogan thought with a scowl. Rather than get into yet another fight with yet another person, Hogan surrendered. What the Nazis hadn't managed to teach him, marriage had. At least sometimes. A little. Probably not nearly often enough, he considered ruefully, remembering whose bed he hadn't woken up in just now. Pulling his duffle bag over, he dug for the bottle of pills. Klink returned, on cue, with a glass of water. "Thanks," Hogan muttered without a trace of gratitude. He gulped down a couple of the pills, chasing them with the water. Klink nodded sharply, with a clear look of satisfaction his orders had been followed, then turned and disappeared back into the kitchen.

While Klink puttered in the kitchen, Hogan watched his sleeping son. So peaceful, he thought wistfully. The boy was a direct product of war, yet radiated such a sense of peace. As he studied the child's features, the dark hair, the dark eyes, Hogan couldn't help—just could not help—thinking about his parentage. William was Hogan's child, his son—no doubt about it. He loved the boy so much sometimes it scared him. Yet the nagging tickle of doubt as to who had actually fathered William rose to pester him again. It usually came on nights like this, when the nightmares woke him, bringing back the flood of memories and feelings held solidly in check during the daytime.

Presenting Hogan with a mug of cocoa he didn't really want, Klink settled down in an easy chair nearby and also studied the sleeping William. Hogan sipped at the cocoa, still struggling to wend his way back to the here-and-now; struggling more to not let it show.

"Am I mistaken," Klink asked, still watching the child, "or did your son call me 'Opa'—" Grandpa "—earlier?"

He wasn't looking at him, so Klink probably couldn't see Hogan blush. "I, uh… I may have told him we were going to see, uh… ahem… 'Opa Wilhelm'."

Klink cast a sharp look at Hogan. "Hmph." Klink snorted softly. "I am not that much older than you," he informed Hogan sternly. But Klink did appear rather pleased, Hogan noted.

"Well," Hogan said dismissively, "he's not going to get to know either of his own grandfathers…" He trailed off.

After a minute, Klink commented thoughtfully. "It would be fine. Having grandchildren without having to endure the burden of a wife and children."

Hogan chuckled. "They're not a burden."

Klink made the derisive snort again. "Of course. That's why you're here, visiting your former jailer instead of home with your lovely wife."

Looking away, Hogan pretended to drink some of the cocoa. Hogan supposed it was odd—visiting the Kommandant of the prison camp in which he'd spent two and a half years of his life. It wasn't like he and Klink were actually friends. No buddy-buddyness. No chummy sense of… heck, gemütlichkeit. Yet… there was. Kind of. In a cautiously not-entirely-hostile sort of way. Hogan let out a small sigh. Maybe it was wrong every which way it could be, but with the one-time Kommandant, ex-Luftwaffe officer, Hogan felt comfortable in a way he just didn't with anyone else. Maybe because there was no need for pretense or pretending—which was funny in itself, Hogan allowed, considering how much pretense and pretending there'd been for so long.

"I… I just needed to get away for a while," Hogan protested, hearing for himself how weak the excuse sounded even as he said it. "This is a nice area for flying and as long as I was in the area, I've got a list of names I wanted to ask you about and… uh…" And that was nothing but pretense and pretending, Hogan realized with an inward sigh.

Klink 'hmphed' again.

"I do have a list of names I want to ask you about," Hogan protested. Only because he'd happened to have it in his pocket when he took off from Patterson. He didn't like to leave that particular list lying around. It was the personal list.

Fixing a sour look at him, Klink said, "I have told you before, I am not going to help you hunt down my comrades."

"The names are all Gestapo and SS," Hogan countered.

Klink shifted in his chair, turning back to watch the child. "Those are not 'my comrades'," Klink murmured softly. Hogan nodded. Klink would help, as far as he could, with the hunt for those.

They fell silent a long time, each studiously avoiding looking at the other by watching little William sleep. He slept so deep. So peacefully. The sleep of innocence. The sleep of a soul free of all care and conscience. Unaccountably, it made Hogan sad. William wriggled, cooing in his sleep.

"Only sweet dreams," Klink murmured, watching the boy. "No nightmares." He cast a sideways glance at Hogan. "Is that what woke you? A nightmare?"

"Mmm," Hogan tried to make the sound come out noncommittally, but it came out sounding like a 'yes'.

"Yes, well, that's to be expected," Klink commented. The way he said it, so light and indifferently, caused Hogan to skewer a questioning look at him. Klink met the look evenly. "Every night, I should imagine."

"Well, it's, uh, a…" Hogan cut off the stutter with a blunt honesty. "Huh?"

"Two wars, remember, Hogan?" Klink put in with a shrug.

Hogan settled back and closed his eyes briefly. Readjusting his leg, he bit back a groan. "Funny thing is, I slept fine at Stalag 13. For the most part. Danger night and day for years, but slept fine. Now…"

"Gestapo?" Klink asked.

Nodding, Hogan said, "Usually." He tilted his head, and gave a small humorless laugh. "They are the stuff of nightmares. Were, that is." He shifted, wincing as his leg stabbed him.

With a frown, Klink asked, "You killed the one you were after?"

"Tried. He damned near got me instead," Hogan said. "Luckily Kinch decided to tag along, otherwise…" He left the obvious conclusion unsaid. "But there's one fewer of the evil bastards in the world tonight." As he raised his mug in a silent toast, Hogan studied his sleeping son as he softly added, "One more down."

Hogan saw a revelation, and not a pleasant one, light Klink's face as he rapidly peered from Hogan to William and back again.

"Donnerwetter!" Klink snapped in a way that reminded Hogan too vividly of some of their less civil encounters at Stalag 13. "You can't still seriously consider that little Willy…"

"William."

"…is anyone's son but yours?"

"Of course he's mine," Hogan grumbled. "Doesn't mean that one of those others… the ones who… with Tiger… Hochstetter's bunch… or Hochstetter himself…"

"Stop that at once!" Klink cut in with an unmistakably commanding tone. Slapping his mug firmly down on the coffee table (which would have come off more fearsome had not the mug been filled with cocoa), Klink glared at Hogan. "You will not finish that sentence," Klink ordered. "I will not have it. Not in my house. Not in front of my grandch… uh, not in front of Willy."

Simmering down a touch, Klink tried to mop up the spilled cocoa with a corner of his bathrobe. Hogan folded his arms across his chest and stared unseeing into space. He considered, and rejected, the idea of just climbing back into the Mustang and heading back to Ohio. At night, with the boy in the plane… Not enough airstrips between here and there with landing lights in case he had trouble, not to mention that huge lake in between. Alone, he'd do it, but not with William along. Hogan took in and let out a long breath.

"Hogan," Klink said in a conciliatory tone after a minute, "Listen to me…" Hogan shifted his attention over to Klink, staring at him darkly. "That boy is everything I disapprove of—he's uncontrollable, and free-spirited, and mischievous, and irreverent, and destructive, and undisciplined… and yet he can twist me around his little finger with just a sly little smile." Klink glanced over at William with an undeniably fond expression. Then he glanced over at Hogan. Curious, Hogan thought, Klink's expression didn't change. "Hogan, take it from someone who tried, unsuccessfully, to keep you contained for over two years—that is your son. A blood test couldn't prove it more. The herald angels couldn't proclaim it more clearly. He's so much like you it… well, it's almost enough to give me nightmares!"

A faint smile twitched at Hogan's lips even as he had to look away, blinking hard. Somehow he couldn't think of anything to say. From the mouth of babes and prison Kommandants…

Hogan's attention moved back to his son as the child whimpered and squirmed. Klink rose, crossing over to him. After a moment's examination, Klink stood up straight and announced, "He's wet again." He turned to Hogan and ordered. "Fix it."

With a flat smile, Hogan asked pleasantly, "Remember how I can get you deported?"

Grumbling, Klink knelt down by William. He began cautiously removing the boy's wet diaper. "For years it was the Russian Front, now it's deportation…" He glared up at Hogan as he jumped back when William almost squirted him in the face. "Sometimes, Hogan, I do not particularly like you."

Hogan quirked a teasing grin at Klink. "That means sometimes you do."

"Hmph!"