I would like to state that I do not own HBO's Band of Brothers nor do I intend any disrespect. I am basing this story on the HBO mini TV series.

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Previously on 'Angels with Dirty Faces

Rose could start to see the spot in which she was going to land. It was in a clearing surrounded by a wooded area. This was good, as it would be able to provide ample cover until she was able to move out. She was close to the ground, maybe 10 metres above when a stray bullet pierced her parachute. Rose dropped like a stone, hitting the ground hard. She tried to roll as she made contact, but it didn't prevent her from hitting the ground with her right knee and smacking her head against a rock.

She had survived the jump. Lying there burned, injured, concussed and in shock, all Rose wanted to do was lie there and cry.

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Titanium by David Guetta

Chapter Eight

Rose groaned and opened her eyes. She knew that she had to move, having landed in the middle of a war zone she needed to secure her position. Blinking furiously to clear the stars that were dancing in front of her eyes, Rose tried to suppress another groan that was trying to escape and tentatively rolled over feeling the pain in her knee increase tenfold. She shut her eyes and swallowed thickly, willing herself not to be sick. Crouching in the long grass of the dark clearing, she could hear machine gun fire in the distance to the left of her. Other than that, the area was silent. The noise of the C-47's had faded into silence as they passed overhead.

Taking a moment to remove her chute, Rose got to her feet slowly, extremely thankful that she had chosen to wear a sidearm because her rifle and leg bag were long gone now. Cocking her .45 pistol in her uninjured hand, she scanned her surroundings, her eyes darting from side to side, looking for any sign of life...friendly or German.

Seeing a cluster of trees to her right, she made her way to find some cover. She knew that standing in the middle of an open field was not a good idea. Rose let out a small sigh of relief when she reached the security of the trees and leaned into one of the dark, silent trunks. The horrors that she had just seen, the screams..she could still smell the burning flesh...no...she couldn't think about it. There would be a time and place later to process how she had survived when the other men on her plane hadn't.

Right now, she needed to stay alive but she was in pain. Grimacing slightly, she touched her left cheek and hissed as her unburnt fingers grazed the blistering broken skin. The flames from the explosion in the plane had burnt the skin above her left eye brow, and the damaged stretched down to the corner of her mouth. Her left arm had been scorched and her army jacket had disintegrated from her left elbow to wrist.

All of Rose's training was screaming at her, telling her that she had to move. She needed to find out where the hell she was and somehow try to reconnect with Easy. 'They had obviously missed the DZ,' she thought wryly, and if that was the case, the men would be spread among the Nazi occupied France countryside.

'Well, as George would say, "lets get this party on the move."' Rose muttered.

She wasn't allowed to think about him either, or the possibility that he would never say that god-awful phrase to her again. Shaking her head and pushing thoughts of her friends to the back of the mind, she shoved off of the tree and started forward, heading in the opposite direction to the machine gun fire.


France, Rose had decided, was definitely not her cup of tea. She would have preferred to have run up Currahee backwards with full pack on and Sobel yelling in her ear than be walking around in the dark, every shadow looking like a Nazi soldier and with only a pistol to protect her. Holding the .45 tightly like a lifeline, she thanked her lucky stars that Guarnere had convinced her to jump with a sidearm strapped to her body.

Eventually Rose figured that she was heading north, figuring that if they hadn't reached the drop zone and jumped early, it would be a good thing to get as close as she could to the objective. So far, she hadn't come upon a single living soul. However, a few miles back, she made the grisly discovery of a paratrooper who had hit the trees and hit them hard. He had no chance in hell and Rose couldn't even reach his dog tags to send home. She sadly wondered how many dog tags would be going home after the day was through. But she couldn't think about that now. She wouldn't think about that now. Maybe later, when this..this bloodbath was finished, she would wail, scream and lash out. But not now. She would go crazy if she allowed it to get to her. So she just kept walking.

She felt like she had been walking for hours. Her face and arm were in agony as her sweat dripped into the open wounds. Fortunately her knee seemed to be coping okay after the heavy fall but Rose was a little concerned about the bump above her ear and the pain that was radiating outwards from the site. She had to be close to something...anything. But she kept walking, the forest around her seeming to be never ending.

'Beautiful streamer, open for me. Blue skies above me and no canopy.' Rose mumbled the popular paratrooper song under her breath 'Beautiful streamer, why must it be? White silk above me is what I should see, Just like my mother that looks over me; To hell with the rip cord, 'twas not made for me.'

The silence was oppressive as she walked through the dark forest. She swore softly seeing that a thick white fog was starting to roll in. It was going to make finding her way to the assembly area near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont very difficult. Suddenly the ground shook and huge explosions behind her tore through the air, sending her stumbling forwards. Clutching a tree for balance, Rose stood for a moment with her head turned towards the sound. It sounded like the naval landings that were scheduled but that couldn't be right. She hadn't been in France that long had she? As another explosion sent the ground rumbling under her feet, Rose blinked and cursed...it had to be the beach landings and she knew that time was running out. Rose pushed away from the tree and began to run swiftly, her head continually turning, looking for any sign of movement. She needed to find Easy before she was cut off by the Germans rushing to mobilize. The 101st Airborne were going to be making a simultaneous assault from behind the lines as the beach landings and that was where she needed to be.

As she ran, Rose tried to step lightly, her head moving back and forth looking for any sign of life. Hearing a branch behind her snap, she tried to spin on the spot but found herself tripping and landing in a shallow ditch. The ground underneath her groaned and started to move. Realising that she had landed on a person and not knowing whether it was a friend or enemy, Rose started to lunge backwards but was stopped when two hands shot out and grasped her wrists. Shrieking, she ripped her hands free and turned to reach for her revolver where she had dropped it before she fell.

'Rose?' she froze...she knew that soft dreamy voice.

'Blithe?'


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