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Here's where we meet the boys. :-) Enjoy!

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The identical, grey, rectangular buildings passed him by in a slow-moving blur of steel and brick. Dimitri adjusted the stiff collar of his new uniform and continued looking for barrack fourteen. Six, eight, ten....

The ship, he'd found out later, after some asking around, had deposited the recruits on the coast of Middelburg, in the Netherlands. They were closer to Germany than most of them cared to be.

Fourteen. Dimitri approached the building, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.

"Well, blimey, men! No one told me we 'ad another bloke sent up!" was the first thing he heard upon entry. The voice was decidedly British, and was followed by a loose streak of laughter. Dimitri guessed this was Bagwell.

"Aw, go back to your tea and crumpets, ya monarchist." More laughter.

"Daft twit."

"Easy, Limey. Save it for the Browncoats." The second voice in the banter session belonged to a man in the center of the room. He was thin, and about Dimitri's height, with one foot up on the table. The flecks of grey in his thin moustache and short, tousled black hair made him look to be about forty. He turned his attention from Bagwell to Dimitri, abandoning the table and offering a hand. "Solodov, Mikhail Alexandrovich. General."

He shook it, noticing the two medals already on the man's uniform. "Dimitri."

"Dimitri, eh? So there's another Russian among us. They promise us benefits after that blasted revolution, and yet they send us to France to fight---how's that for the Motherland? Anyway. Don't bother with any of that 'sir' business around me; makes me feel like my fourth-term professor. Call me Mikhail." Mikhail pointed to each of the men around the room. "That's our resident Brit, Percy Bagwell, never his first name, always Limey, or you'll regret it. Trust me, comerade, the jokes aren't worth it," Mikhail advised, and moved on. "That's Peter Belikov, Andre 'Bullet' Kravnova---he loads a weapon almost as fast as he runs away---Jurek Udovin---raised in Finland, we call him Fin---and Yuri Kulik, the straightest shot in the company."

Mikhail, Limey, Peter, Bullet, Fin, Yuri. "I think I got it."

"Good. You're one step closer to understanding this nut house. No worries, we're quite an accepting democracy, but of course you'll never truly be one of us 'till your blood's on the field and your liquor's on the table." Mikhail pointed to the only two empty bunks in the eight-bunk room; one in the back corner, and one near the center, both on the bottom. "Take your pick."

Dimitri dropped his stuff onto the one toward the center, if only because it was the closest. He sat down on the edge of the bunk, already tired, and somehow it was harder than he'd expected.

"Where ya from, Hotshot?" Mikhail asked.

Okay, I guess he's talking to me. "I was raised in St. Petersburg."

"Ah." Mikhail shut his eyes as if re-living some priceless experience. "Sankt-Peterbourg, The Tsar's Capital. No place like it in the world."

"It's a dump now," Peter interjected.

"Oh, but my fatally flawed friend, the same could be said about you." That got a chuckle from the group. "No, she's got her problems, but the best places, like the best people, often do. That's what makes them interesting."

Dimitri couldn't help but be drawn in by Mikhail's easy nature. He was curious. "What about you? Where're you from?"

"I wish I could say a gem like St. Petesburg. I come from Belgorod, slightly east of the middle of nowhere." Mikhail climbed onto his bunk---he had a top one, naturally---and rolled over. "It's almost curfew, boys, so in the nature of moving this along, fill the boy in, would you?"

"I'm from Odessa," Yuri volunteered helpfully.

Peter and Bullet both followed Mikhail's lead and got into their bunks.

"Moscow."

"Lodz."

Limey was about to open his mouth, but Dimitri beat him to it. "West Bromwich, right?" he said with a grin.

"I don't even want to know how you bloody knew that," Limey muttered, crawling into his bunk.

Suddenly the lights slammed out, and darkness overtook the cabin. Dimitri assumed the power had gone out or something, and was about to speak up, when Mikhail's voice reached him from out of the black air.

"It's nine. The electricity's on a timer," he explained.

"Ah." And all the voices in the room fell silent.

Dimitri managed to make it into his bunk without bashing his head on anything, which he considered a win in the dark, unfamiliar surroundings.

All around him was as quiet as anything he'd ever heard. Or not heard. He lay there, hands folded behind his head, staring at the back of the bunk above him. This was so different from everything he'd been used to for so long. For starters, there was a notable abscence to his left.

And then it all came back to him. Everything about home, all the things he'd been trying so hard to ignore. He couldn't help it---there was nothing else to preoccupy him.

Dimitri reached into the pocket on the front of his shirt and felt the thin edge of paper, just to double-check that it was still there. He didn't mean to pull it out, focused on it in the dull moonlight---it just happened.

Anya didn't know he'd taken it. Or at least, she didn't when he left.

It was a photograph, one that usually lived in the bottom of a drawer, under his shirts. Technically, Anya wasn't even supposed to know he had it, but she'd caught him last year. Its was pressed flat, in perfect condition, as if the day it had been taken was playing out in front of him.

In black and white, Anya sat in the big chair in Sophie's sitting room. A radiant smile was spread across her face, and her arms were around their daughter from behind, who was sitting on Anya's lap. Tasha had been two, and Anya had just turned thirty.

He'd snuck the photo into his suitcase for one basic reason.

His girls had never looked so beautiful.

"Hey! Whatcha up to?"

"Jeez!" Dimitri sat up with a start and whacked his head on the top bunk. So much for the lucky streak.

Fin had been asleep above him---or so he thought---and now his head had appeared upside-down at his side. "Thought I'd drop in," he laughed. "You're certainly jumpy."

Dimitri stuck the picture back into his pocket. "I don't usually get woken up by floating heads," he countered.

"Funny. Didn't look asleep." Fin pointed at the photograph. "Who was that?"

"Nobody."

"Yes it was."

"Must be mistaken."

"The Great Fin is never mistaken."

"Well then get a career evaluation, 'cause you're wrong."

Mikhail's voice spoke up from the opposite wall. "Boys, don't make me come back there."

Fin retreated to bed, and, with a relieved sigh, Dimitri, too, tried to get some sleep.