Merry Christmas to all you in FF world!

(and this German could probably use some work, but it's not needed to follow the story) updated: thank you, Mini13 and darkenedruby for your translation help!

They had moved out of the woods by the morning. Too many hiding places, Jackson had said quietly. The team had nodded. Katniss could tell Mitchell was watching her but she refused to look at him. She'd gotten what she needed and didn't need him anymore.

Jackson had guessed it was a scouting crew, just as they had been. Boggs said he recognized one of the soldiers they buried as one who had attacked them and Pollux thought that would have made sense; they'd be the last to retreat as a team sent to hamper the Allied advance north would linger.

The group found the edge of the forest within ten minutes and clung to the border between the woods and the meadow beyond. It was vast but trees were on the other side.

"I think we're north of Lyon," Boggs said after an hour of painful quiet. He was examining a map. "Based on the terrain we've been passing on the past few days I think we're about a week out from Strasbourg. I think."

They eyed each other. They should have met up with more units by now. They shouldn't be alone. Katniss wondered if they'd ended up in Switzerland by how bitter the nights were growing. She couldn't imagine they were heading the right direction but the sun rose to her right and set to her left so they must be headed north.

"What is that?" Odair broke her daydream.

Katniss looked up ahead. There was something ahead in the distance. It was moving.

They all peered ahead.

"What is it, Odair?" Jackson murmured, tense. She saw his hand move to his sidearm.

Finnick had his binoculars out and was squinting through the cracked lenses. He lowered them slowly.

"It's a Kraut."

"Just the one?" Jackson asked. "Scan the woods."

"Would've fired on us by now," Gale called up.

"He's dragging something...I think it's a body," Odair said. "Can't tell if the second one's alive or not."

Jackson nodded. "Go get him."

Katniss watched Odair and Pollux take off immediately, jogging lightly. Her chest tightened as they started yelling at the soldier to Stop and Einhalt zu gebieten. She could hear the figure calling something back. There was something about the German soldier's voice that made her fearful. It was desperate and sad. She waited for gunshots and held her breath.

When they didn't come she knew something was wrong. Jackson called forward, asking what was happening.

"Sir, he's unarmed!" Odair called back. His voice sounded odd. "Aurelius. Katniss. He's wounded!"

Katniss glanced at Jackson. "Go. Careful," he added, eyeing the trees. "Could be a trap."

She jogged forward. When she reached them, she gagged.

The young soldier was dragging a corpse of a dead soldier using his coat as a sled. The skin of the corpse was scattered with green and purple patches; blood pooling irregularly as he was dragged. Katniss could see he'd been an older man, maybe forties. He'd been dead at least two days and the open air was affecting him severely. She looked up at the distraught young man, begging and pleading with Pollux.

He was fair with ashy blond hair but his skin was filthy and bruised. His eyes were unfocused, swollen and red. His uniform had small holes that looked scorched over the torn shirt and left leg. His left hand was heavily bandaged but yellow pus was seeping through with the bloody patches. His right hand was raw from dragging the heavy body.

"Ich muss ihn nach Hause nehmen. Meinen Vater," he gasped. He looked at Katniss in despair. "Wir gehen nach Hause. Home. We have to go home."

Odair looked and Katniss. "He's delirious or something. He keeps saying he's taking his father home."

She looked back at the body. "He's been dead for days," she whispered. She looked at Pollux. "Doesn't he see that?"

Pollux looked at the soldier. "Er ist tot, Junge," he said softly. "Er wird nicht nach Hause gehen."

The young man suddenly fell to his knees. Katniss jumped and Odair grabbed his rifle. "Don't do that," Odair breathed. "No sudden moves."

"Ich kann ihn nich verlassen," the German soldier sobbed. "I cannot leave him. Sie töteten ihn, weil wir wegliefen. Er hat mich raus muss ihn nach Hause nehmen."

"What is he saying?" Katniss whispered to Pollux.

"They kill him-" the boy choked off, drawing gasping breaths. "Sie töteten ihn, weil wir wegliefen. Er hat mich raus geholt. Ich muss ihn nach Hause bringen." He doubled over and rested his forehead against the disfigured corpse. Katniss swallowed back the bile.

Pollux shook his head. "He's saying something…that they killed his dad because he got him out," he shrugged. "Think they were POWs?"

"By us?" Aurelius scoffed. "Look at that dressing, that's not trained work."

Pollux looked at the sobbing figure. "Wer hat ihn getötet?"

The young man looked up through his tears. "Schnee."

Pollux blinked. "Snow?"

"What's that?" Katniss asked.

"Not snow. Schnee," the soldier tried.

"General Schnee?" Odair asked. "He's commanding the offense against Dragoon. Why?" he looked at Pollux.

"What's going – Jesus!" Jackson was behind Katniss now. "What the hell?"

"It's his father," Katniss murmured. "He's trying to take his body home."

Gale whispered loudly. "He'll never make it without that body falling apart." The young soldier was trying to struggle to his feet, but now that he was down he couldn't get back up.

"Katniss, fix that hand of his," Jackson said. "He's going to get gangrene. You," he pointed to Gale and Mitchell, "dig a hole."

"With what?" Gale asked, looking around. "We ditched all our gear."

"It doesn't have to be too deep," Jackson said. "Just a layer. Try the woods over there."

Odair and Pollux pulled the soldier away from his father's corpse. When Gale and Mitchell moved to the body, the German soldier struggled uselessly and called for his father. It was agonized and painful to hear. Katniss waited until he was too exhausted to fight anymore and knelt in front of where he'd collapsed.

"I'm a nurse. A medic," she said gently, pointing to the red cross painted on her uniform. "Can I see?" She pointed at the wounded hand. He made no effort to lift it as he stared after the soldier dragging the body into the woods off the dusty road. She took his hand carefully and unwound the dirty bandage.

He was missing the last two joints of his left pinky and the first knuckle of his ring finger. The small finger looked cauterised, but she could see the infection had set in around the ring finger. Scratches ran up his arm. She pulled the torn sleeve back easily and saw a sliver of metal sticking out of an infected wound on his forearm. She breathed hard through her nose.

"It looks like shrapnel," Aurelius muttered over her shoulder, pulling a syringe from his field kit. "Pollux, ask him what caused this." Pollux did.

The boy answered Pollux. He sounded exhausted. Pollux gritted his teeth.

"Says they had him bury landmines after they retreated. One went off. He was behind someone else; that kid died, but it took his fingers."

The boy said something more.

Pollux frowned. "Was meinst du damit, entkommen?"

The young soldier looked to the woods. "Es war laut und die Wachen dachten das wir tot wären. Vater rannte zurück zu mir und sah das ich noch lebendig war, also zog er mich hoch und wir rannten los. Sie schossen auf ihn." He looked to Katniss. She knew what he was going to say before she heard the words in English. "They kill him. Wir entkamen in den Wald, aber," the boy shuddered, "er starb."

Katniss looked to Pollux. He was confused. "He says they were trying to get away – his father was trying to get him away." He turned to Jackson. "They were running after the blast and the father got shot. Must have died in the woods. The kid's been dragging him."

Katniss stared at the boy. She stepped to Aurelius' side and steadied the wounded arm as Aurelius drew the scraps of metal from the flesh. She reached into her pocket and found her own tube of disinfectant. He looked at her fingers spreading antiseptic on the stumps of his fingers. He looked far too young to wear a uniform.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He looked into her eyes. She saw his eyes were blue.

"Peeta."

"I'm Katniss." She offered a gentle smile.

He looked down at his hand again.

Jackson looked at the wound Katniss was gingerly cleaning. "He going to lose that hand?"

"I don't think so. Looks like he at least cleaned it before he bandaged it," Aurelius called back to him. "And most of it's cauterized."

Odair shuddered involuntarily. "What do we do with him?"

Boggs sauntered back. "We can't take him with us. Look at him, he'll slow us down."

Katniss gripped Peeta's wounded forearm inadvertently. He winced. She turned. "You're not going to shoot an unarmed kid!"

"No, he's not," Jackson said quickly. "We'll take him with us to the next camp and leave him with another group of prisoners."

"No!" Peeta tried to stand and unraveled the fresh bandage Katniss had begun to wind around his hand. "I have to go home."

"You're not going anywhere," Pollux said, aiming his rifle at Peeta quickly. "Now settle down."

"I have to go home! Ich muss nach Hause gehen!" He grabbed Katniss's wrist. "My mother and brothers. My sister. I have to go home," he begged.

Gale was at her side and used his boot to shove the boy called Peeta away from her.

"Stop it!" she cried out. "He's wounded!"

Peeta had fallen backwards onto his side and was grimacing. He curled into a ball on the dirt road. Katniss crawled over him and looked at the bruised and scraped ribs visible through the shredded shirt.

"Are your ribs all right? Are they broken?" she felt along the ribcage. He winced.

"Sorry, I just…" Gale trailed off.

Katniss shook her head. "I know," she muttered. "It's fine. They're not broken. It just looks like he fell against this side when the landmine went off."

Peeta started to cry again. "Vater."

"Water?" Katniss asked.

"No, that means Father," Pollux murmured.

Katniss looked over to the wood where Gale and Mitchell had covered the body. She could still feel where the boy's fingers had gripped her wrist. She reached down and pulled Peeta to his feet. "You need to say goodbye to him. Your father." She leaned closer. "He's not going home."

Peeta crumpled. She caught him around his waist. Odair darted forward and hauled the boy's uninjured arm over his shoulders.

"Help him to the woods," Katniss said.

"Everdeen, we're on a schedule," Jackson warned.

"It's five minutes!" She rounded on him, eyes blazing."It's his father. Give him five minutes!"

She looked at Jackson until he was obligated to look away. "Fine. Five minutes. Longer than that we shoot him."

Katniss and Odair moved to him. "We're going to take you to say goodbye," she whispered to him. He nodded, his eyes towards the woods.

She held the German soldier's upper arm to lead him to the makeshift burial site. She could feel his bicep tense as they got closer. She could see the thin layer of disturbed earth just within the edge of the trees.

At the foot of his father's grave Peeta collapsed again.

Katniss stared. She knew this pain.

Odair coughed. "Give him some privacy," she muttered. "Back off a little."

"He could run."

She looked at Peeta crawl to the side of the mound. His unbandaged fingers searched through the loose earth and he found the stiff, bloated hand. He held it and wept. "He's not going to run."

She watched him say goodbye enviously.

Gale came into the woods exactly five minutes later to retrieve them and helped the boy to his feet. They tripped over roots and fallen branches until they were back to the dusty road.

"I have to go home," Peeta pleaded again, this time to Jackson. "My family is alone now." He looked at Pollux. "Sie brauchen mich jetzt."

Jackson shook his head. "I can't let you just go off, kid. Sorry. You have to come north with us."

Pollux began to translate Billing's words, but Peeta shook his head, already understanding. "Bitte! Snow will go by!"

"You're coming with us," Jackson told him with finality.

Peeta tried to pull away from Odair and Gale. Boggs caught him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle.

"Stop it!" Katniss shoved Boggs away from him. "He's a kid!"

"He's a Nazi!"

"He's about as Nazi as you," Odair muttered. "You think an SS drags a dead body across France?"

Boggs eyed the wheezing youth hunched over in front of him. "He'll run right to Hitler with the rest of 'em."

"He'd run home," Katniss snarled.

Boggs rolled his eyes and turned away. Katniss helped Peeta back up to his feet. He was still pleading to Jackson. "I must go."

Jackson ignored him. "Let's get moving. Gale, Odair, you're watching the Kraut this shift. Move out."


He stumbled along with them unwilling. When he fell too far behind, Gale gently tapped him to move faster. Katniss walked between Peeta and Boggs. She couldn't stop looking at him.

It was the closest she'd been to a German soldier since she landed. Looking closely, she realized if he'd been in an Allied uniform she might not be able to tell him from the other men in her outfit. Except that he looked younger.

"How old are you?" she blurted out.

Peeta glanced over. Gale did as well.

"Uh, wie viele Jahre?" she struggled. "Du?"

"Seventeen," he answered in English.

"They let you sign up at seventeen?" Odair asked.

"I did not 'sign up'," the boy said, watching the dust kicking up from the soldier's boots walking in front of him.

Katniss wanted to ask what he meant, but he did not offer any more information. She looked at Odair and he shrugged.

When they stopped for the night, she was ready to collapse. Jackson had insisted they make up the time they'd stopped to bury Peeta's father and she was sure they'd walked farther than anyone had planned to.

"Boggs, you're on guard. Watch the kid," Jackson ordered as they unloaded backpacks into the dense cluster of brush off the road. "Everyone remember, stay low and cover yourself thoroughly. Hawthorne, you're up next on watch."

Katniss watched the men drop one by one. She eyed Boggs, checking his weapon. His eyes trained on Peeta, who had slumped against a tree and was staring at his boot laces.

She walked across their clearing to him.

"What are you doing?" Boggs asked.

"Checking his bandages. That all right with you?" she snapped. She didn't wait for a response and yanked her flashlight from her pack.

The boy watched her kneel in front of him. She pulled on the bandages and shone the light on the wounds.

"They're looking better," she told him, trying to smile. He glanced at her before his eyes found his toes again. It was so familiar. Her stomach twisted and she felt dizzy. She staggered to her feet and clambered across the clearing. She dropped into a pile by Gale.

"You all right?" he whispered.

"Yeah," she shook her head. "Just. Yes."

"What was all that about?" He thrust his chin to where Peeta stared.

She watched the blond boy heave a sigh and close his eyes.

"I've been there."