** KATIE POV **

January 3, 1944

Hoobler. Dead. Bill and Joe Toye. Wounded. In one day.

I must have looked frightening when George finally found me that afternoon, on my knees by the tree where Bill had propped himself up after those German bastards maimed him and Joe. Sweet, stoic Joe, who had left the aid station and come back to us that morning, was not coming back from this wound. He'd slipped his brass knuckles into my pocket before they took him away.

"Here. You may need these to shut George up once in a while. We'll see you when you get home, kiddo."

Purple Heart number four.

George knelt in front of me, pulling me into his arms and letting me sob for a few minutes.

"Come on. Come back to the foxhole. I don't want you out here if they decide to start up again."

He led me back, ripping a piece of his blanket and using it and some snow to scrub the blood from my hands and face.

"You don't have to baby me, George," I protested, trying to push his hand away from my cheek.

"And you," he answered, tilting my chin up to look at him, "don't have to be so tough all the damn time. I'm not babying you. It won't kill you to let me help."

"It just might," I replied smartly, and he grinned.

"There's my girl. Was worried I'd lost you there for a minute." He was quiet for a second. Then he brushed a frozen tear off my cheek and finished, "They are gonna be okay, sweetheart. Those two are tough as nails."

"Thanks, George."

"Any time… kiddo," he winked.

"Ass. You know, Joe left me his brass knuckles."

"But you love me."


January 9, 1944

The world was exploding around me again. I could see in flashes of orange that someone had been caught in the open. I realized that it was George just as he fell to the ground in a low crawl toward Skip and Penk's foxhole.

A sickening thud. Another flash and explosion.

I covered my face, and when I looked again Skip and Penkala were gone and George was motionless. Why the hell wasn't he moving? I was out of the foxhole before I could think what I was doing.

"George!"

I was beside him when he finally started crawling again, almost dragging him as we tumbled into a foxhole beside Lipton. He landed on top of me, curling his body around mine to protect me from the ongoing barrage. Another shell hit the edge of our foxhole, but it didn't explode. A dud. We stared at it in stunned silence as the world around us finally fell quiet. Then George, still on top of me, looked down. For the first time that I could remember, he looked truly angry.

"Are you out of your mind? What the fuck were you thinking, running out there like that?"

"You're one to talk! What were you doing out in the fucking open?"

Lipton coughed uncomfortably and stood up.

"Um, I'm gonna go check on everybody."

He scrambled hurriedly out of the foxhole, but George barely missed a beat.

"So what? I was already out in the open! I was trying to get to cover! You were in a hole already and you got out! Who the hell does that besides a dumb kid? You could've been killed!"

My eyes were welling a bit at his tone, but I blinked the tears back as best I could.

"You weren't moving, dammit! I saw Skip & Penk get hit, and then you were just lying there, not fucking moving! What the fuck did you expect me to do? I thought you were wounded! Or dead! I ran out there because I was trying to get to you, you asshole! If that makes me a dumb kid, then fine! Now get the fuck off of me."

He didn't move. He just stared at me, mouth open in shock.

"You… ran out in the open… under fire," he said slowly, as if he tasted the words before he said them, "to save me?"

"Yeah. Why the hell else do you think I'd run out there? Although, now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have."

He bit his lip as he tried to hold back a smile, and his eyes lit up with that twinkle that I hated to admit I adored.

"But you love me."

I was suddenly acutely aware of the position we were in, and of George's face inching closer to mine. I couldn't move, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. I knew what was coming, and I drew a deep breath just as his lips brushed mine.

"Man, George, did you hear about Muck and Penka…la… um, sorry," Frank Perconte said, choking back a laugh and shaking his head as he stood over the foxhole. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

"Thanks, Frank. Thanks a lot. And yeah. I heard. I saw 'em."

"Ya know, it's about damn time that you finally told her that you…"

"Okay! I'm going to find some coffee!" George interrupted, scrambling out of the foxhole and giving Frank a shove in the opposite direction. "Want some, kiddo? I'll bring you some. C'mon, Frank. Before I fucking kill you."

As they walked away, my breathing finally returned to normal and I was left to wonder what the hell just happened.