A/N: Hello all! Sorry for delays, setting up this chapter and next were tougher than I originally thought and I needed to take a step back and really evaluate how to handle them. I thoroughly research nearly aspect of this story as I write –so for those wondering, field and evacuation hospitals were indeed attacked during the war – bombed by planes, long-range artillery, and targeted by snipers. Some of the events in this chapter are inspired by real-life accounts from hospital personnel and I hope that I did them justice.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the love! Last chapter got the most reviews I've had so far! Special thanks to Mopargirl1 for all the advice and to Anastacia Lynn who helped motivate me to get writing!

This chapter merits warning – it contains some graphic violence, language, and death. I've decided not to pull the punches after getting such a wonderful response from the past couple of chapters. That being said – you've been forewarned.

Disclaimer – I don't own Captain America!

Chapter 9 – Flashlights and Foreboding

During her first days in Italy, Peggy Carter had rapidly learned to read by flashlight. Almost every night she settled into her tent with intelligence reports, translated code, troop movement reports, combat summaries, and the dozens of other pieces of paper she saw in a day. Peggy felt like a child reading late at night beneath her bedcovers, afraid of being caught by her parents. Only in this case she wasn't hiding beneath her bed sheets and she was far more afraid of Nazi counterattacks than she was of her parents.

It was somewhere past two in the morning according to her watch and Peggy had read the same paragraph three times in a row. At some point in the last hour her vision had become fuzzy and her bloodshot eyes burned as she tried to force herself to focus. Making sense of military intelligence reports typically didn't vex her too much, unless the author in question couldn't string together a sentence even with a gun to his head. As Peggy tried to process the information laid out before her, she was starting to think that the particular author of these reports couldn't even read, much less write coherently. Then again, she thought as she rubbed her eyes, smearing her eyeliner, it could be that she'd lost the ability to read.

If someone had told Peggy from the outset how much reading was involved in being an SSR agent, she might have thought twice about joining up. Pushing the offending report aside, she looked down at the map of Italy stretched across the small rickety table in her tent. The flashlight she used to read hung suspended from the support pole in her tent, tied up with a length of string. It cast a circle of light over the map, which she'd marked up with several of her own notations. Most recently, she'd used a red colored pencil to draw a circle around the municipality of Azzano Decimo, a small town less than one hundred and fifty kilometers from the Austrian border. She'd put another large circle around a chunk of nothing but Austrian forest just over the border, with a question mark in the center.

"Why southern Austria?" Peggy asked herself, rubbing the back of her stiff neck. At first blush there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to a HYRDA base in southern Austria. It was Nazi-occupied territory and far away from the action. Nothing but dense wood and miniscule villages dotted the countryside. There was very little about Azzano Decimo that should have been attractive to HYRDA. It was hundreds of kilometers from the front lines. And yet, the Special Operations Executive intelligence reports on HYDRA all said the same thing: the Nazis and a small contingent of HYRDA soldiers had occupied the woods outside of Azzano and were launching small attacks on the town which had held its own thus far.

The Special Operations Executive, or SOE, was a top-secret British organization devoted to covert intelligence-gathering. Peggy had left her job as a code-breaker to join the SOE before moving on to the SSR. Familiar with its internal structure and workings, she often reviewed the SOE intelligence packets to summarize for Colonel Phillips. Already she'd passed on a copy and summary of the packet she was currently reviewing, but Peggy couldn't help but feel like she'd missed something.

"Agent Carter?" Colonel Phillips' voice drifted through the tent flaps.

"Come in, Colonel," said Peggy as she stood. He ducked inside, a thick folder in one hand and his flashlight in the other.

"At ease, Carter," he said dismissively and she sat back down. "Reading by flashlight," he grumbled under his breath. "Millions of dollars in the war chest, but the army can't spare a few damn lanterns."

Peggy's lips twitched, but she held back her smile. "What can I do for you, Sir?" She asked, diverting the subject.

Phillips held up the SOE packet. "You read all of this?"

It was a particularly stupid question, thought Peggy. Of course she'd read the report, she'd summarized it for him, hadn't she? Wisely, she kept her thoughts to herself and leaned back as well as she could in her camp chair. "Yes, Sir," she said.

Colonel Phillips' eyes darted to the map she'd spread over her table and began to peruse the notes she'd scribbled in the margins of her copy of the report. In Peggy's opinion, the intelligence was shoddy at best.

"So, the SOE is finally setting up camp in Italy," said Phillips slowly, with a mild air of distrust. Peggy knew the only reason he was discussing the report with her at all was because none of the other SSR staff had clearance to review SOE intelligence.

"Yes, Sir," she said. The report had been fairly clear in its background. The SOE had sent operatives into northern Italian towns to try and bolster support for an anti-fascist resistance in hopes of slowing down the German advance north towards Austria. Part of establishing the resistance required slow, meticulous work, sending covert operatives into smaller villages and making contacts that eventually turned into a larger web. It was a second attempt on the SOE's part after an earlier failed try at recruiting Italian prisoners of war in Africa. So far, this fresh attempt seemed to be working.

"So, the SOE thinks it can fight Mussolini with a bunch of angry civilians and a few pitchforks?" Phillips enquired, less-than-convinced.

Peggy fought a scowl. "It's more complicated than that," she murmured. Colonel Phillips' confidence in British espionage and intelligence ranked somewhere below his opinion of the United States Congress, much to Peggy's dismay. "If Mussolini's regime falls it will be beneficial to have a large resistance in the north to help choke off the Nazi advance or retreat out of Italy."

Phillips wiped a hand over his tired face. "And one of these operatives intercepted the code?" He continued, moving down the bullet points of Peggy's summary.

"My understanding is our operative intercepted the code while making contact with a small group of anti-fascist leaders in Azzano," said Peggy. She began to shuffle through her scattered papers until she produced the pages detailing the full story. During the meeting in a small Italian pub, an SOE operative was passed a single piece of paper by her contact bearing a single phrase. Two heads are better than one. "The SOE believes the code is related to HYDRA. Cut off one head," she started to say but was cut off.

"Two more grow in its place," said Phillips unhappily. "And the keyhole photographs were taken after this supposed meeting?"

Peggy nodded and spread out her pictures. The resolution of the pictures was particularly low quality, telling Peggy the reconnaissance plane couldn't fly low. But the grainy photographs still showed what appeared to be a massive complex in the Austrian forest, just north of the border. "The intelligence packet also includes reports from SOE contacts that a Nazi division has been attacking with HYRDA-made weapons. They're older models, but those weapons haven't been seen anywhere else in Italy."

"So HYRDA is in Austria," said Colonel Phillips with a sense of finality.

"It appears so," Peggy replied cagily.

Her tone betrayed her uncertainty. Colonel Phillips' scowl deepened. "Do you disagree?" There was a challenge in his voice, daring her to stand up to him.

Peggy never shied away from the bait when it was so willingly thrown to her. "I believe HYRDA has an operation there," she said. "But the pieces fit together too easily," she said. "The code should be more difficult to break and our SOE operative just happens to intercept it from the first contact made in Azzano? HYRDA weaponry popping up in the north after weeks and not so much as a single sign of its presence anywhere in the Mediterranean?"

"You think it's a setup."

"Yes, sir," said Peggy firmly. "Up until now, HYRDA has covered its tracks remarkably well until the bombing incident in Sicily which brought us to Italy and now a single code is going to take us off the front lines to go north? None of it makes sense."

A light of grudging respect flashed in Colonel Phillips' dark eyes. For a while he read and re-read certain parts of the report, reviewed the map and then sighed. Pinching the bridge of his nose he seemed to age ten years right before Peggy's eyes. "You know, you might be right, Agent Carter," he agreed, surprising her.

"I feel like there's a rather large 'but' coming on," she said.

"Battalion HQ and General Clark think the intel is sound, he's ordered the 107th off the front line and given the SSR permission to direct its movements north."

"To Azzano," said Peggy faintly.

"Yeah," said Phillips. "The 107th has been ordered to take back Azzano and defend against the Nazi division while we figure out what the hell HYRDA is doing all the way up in Austria."

Peggy nodded slowly, wishing she could ignore the dread that compressed her lungs. "When?"

"The 107th comes off the front line at dawn," but a distant rumbling cut off Colonel Phillips. Peggy's heart skipped a beat. The troop movement reports she read hadn't said anything about an allied air strike or movement set for tonight. Phillips' frown deepened. "Those aren't our planes," he muttered.

Peggy's hands moved before her brain caught up. Hastily she began to gather her papers, maps, and photographs. Phillips lurched to his feet as the ground trembled. "Carter, get your reports together and then get in a foxhole!" He ordered and then dashed out of his tent.

Peggy ducked again as another bomb went off some distance away, and her tent shook. Overhead her flashlight swung on its string, and she tugged it down with a sharp pull. She grappled for her helmet and turned the flashlight off, leaping into her foxhole as the bombs fell closer and closer to their camp. A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach. Was the hospital under attack, too?

X X X

In nursing school, Sadie and her friends all took a psychology seminar where they learned about the acute stress response. Also known as the fight of flight response, Sadie's professor had explained that it was deeply engrained, a survival tactic present throughout the ages. When up against the wall with the clock running out, a person's sense of self preservation would kick in and it was anybody's guess as to what it would do. Fight or flee?

Sadie had often thought about this since joining the Army Nursing Corps. What would she do when put to the real test? It was one thing to handle wave upon wave of wounded men when the threat level was minimal and she knew her own life wasn't at risk. But when given the option between running for cover and running directly into danger, Sadie always figured the decision would require some thoughtful consideration.

As it turned out, it didn't.

Hauling her body out of her foxhole and dashing towards the first ward tent was just second nature. Maybe it was devotion to her job or perhaps she had no sense of self-preservation, but Sadie didn't even think twice about sprinting to the first ward tent while planes roared overhead. She couldn't see the insignia on the wings, but it wasn't hard to figure they were enemy planes. Nobody else would drop their payload on the massive field hospital tents, each painted with the red cross. As she ran at break-neck speed, Sadie held her steel helmet atop her head with one hand. She knew that Evelyn, Betty, and Ruthie were all behind her, she'd caught a glimpse of them emerging from the nurse's camp along with everyone else.

They'd been trained for this. But the reality was something different altogether as the ground quaked beneath her boots and the air was thick with sound. The planes flew low overhead, their engines roaring and each time a bomb slammed into the earth the resulting 'boom' carried the ear-splitting sound of a hundred thunder claps at once. Sadie's heart pounded so hard against her breastbone she thought it might come out as she burst into the first ward tent to find it in chaos. She was the first nurse to arrive and wasted no time finding her technicians running with supplies in their arms and helmets jammed on their heads.

Rolling her eyes, Sadie stopped the first few she ran into. "Get helmets on every patient, those who can move themselves are to get beneath their cots and await evacuation, we help the rest onto the ground. Begin tagging priority patients for evacuation and pass the word along!" She ordered.

A bomb hit too close for Sadie's comfort, the entire tent shook and the cots rattled. Sadie struggled to keep her balance and she stayed low, beginning at one end of the tent as her fellow nurses streamed in, following her lead.

Sadie helped the men she could on her own, ignoring their protests that it didn't matter if they were on the ground or not when the bombs hit. She didn't have time for their banter and promptly ignored each and every one while she checked bandages and tagged her priority patients. "Nurse Reid!"

Doctor Holmes had come in, looking harried and wearing his operating smock over his full uniform. He looked an odd sight, ready for surgery while wearing his helmet. "We've only got one man in surgery from the last wave, the operating tables are open. What can I do to help?"

Sadie jerked her head towards a large soldier with a broken leg she'd been treating. "Help me with him," she said, but her voice was drowned out by more planes speeding through the skies. Instead she jerked her head towards the behemoth of a man, well over six feet tall and two hundred pounds at the lightest. Doctor Holmes's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he pushed his sleeves up and followed her to the patient and together the two of them managed to heave the kid onto the ground, moving his cot over him and ensuring his helmet was on tight.

The bombs fell, shaking the ground and at one point another close hit caused Sadie to lose her balance and she fell into Doctor Holmes. It was slow work but the first wave of ambulances arrived and the first patients were evacuated in the break between bombings. Evacuating wounded men on to every available jeep and waiting ambulance was difficult; there were so many moving bodies and under the cover of darkness it was nearly impossible to see much of anything. Vehicles left, driving blind to the evacuation hospital and each patient that got out of the 80th was one less that Sadie had to worry about. Sadie kept her helmet jammed on top of her head and using nothing more than flashlights, the hospital staff held their breath as they worked, praying the planes would continue to miss their mark. Forcing the morbid thought out of her mind, Sadie threw herself into her work.

After all, Sadie figured if she was going to die she'd rather do it doing her job instead of sitting in a hole in the ground.

She kept a flashlight pressed between her shoulder and cheek as she tightly wrapped another bandage around a wounded man's thigh. He was groaning in pain as she tied the bandage off, but she was too focused to notice or care. Whole sections of soldiers were ready to go, just waiting for the vehicles to return in the blessed silence after the wave of airplanes left. Once he was safely on the ground, Sadie turned to find another patient but her blood turned to ice as the deafening roar started up again.

For a few heart-stopping seconds, Sadie stood rooted to the ground, looking up to the roof of the tent. The engines, louder than she'd ever heard were directly overhead. The first blast whipped outside edges of the first ward tent and several members of the staff and patients all screamed and yelled. Sadie's feet seemed cemented into the dirt, her entire body incapable of any movement. Her brain was yelling at her to move, to duck for cover but there was disconnect somewhere along the line as she remained frozen, a statue in the face of the unbelievable danger.

A hand closed over her wrist and jerked her to the side and onto her knees, hard. "For God's sake Sadie, are you trying to get killed?" A voice yelled in her ear.

Doctor Holmes pulled Sadie to the ground, dragging her beneath an examination table. He threw his arm over her shoulder to help keep her down, using his other hand to keep his steel helmet on his head. Sadie pressed her palms flat against the helmet as the planes roared overhead. The noise was deafening, setting her teeth rattling and eardrums throbbing. Doctor Holmes held onto her tighter and she gritted her teeth to swallow her scream as the first impact blew somewhere nearby. Sadie thought the ground might split open and drag them both straight to hell, a safer alternative to where they were.

In the few flashes of light Sadie could see the face of a soldier directly across from her. He lay on his side, helmet strapped to his head. His arm was in a cast, pressed tight to his chest, pain written all over his young face. Wide-eyed, Sadie stared at the soldier and he stared right back, just as terrified as she was.

And then the world really did split open. The side of the tent blew apart and the examination table above Sadie and Doctor Holmes went with it. A raw scream ripped from her throat as the force of the explosion blew her into the air. Thrown away from the blast radius, Sadie and Doctor Holmes flew through the smoky air like ragdolls until she felt her back slam into the edge of a cot before she fell down to the hard earth Another strangled yell escaped her throat as the exam flat top of the light examination table smashed into her side before bouncing off, coming to rest a few feet away.

Gasping for air, Sadie's eyes felt as though they would explode from the pressure and . "Oh God, Oh God," she kept repeating to herself between her struggle for air. Each inhalation hurt worse than the last as fresh smoke streamed into her lungs.

"Sadie!" Doctor Holmes' strangled yell. "SADIE!"

Groaning, Sadie rolled onto her side and then stomach. Her fingers and hands were bloody from scratches and shrapnel. Still, she clawed at the ground to force herself to her knees and for one sickening moment, she couldn't feel her legs. Vomit rose up from her stomach as she thought about the harsh impact of her back against the cot, had she broken it? Had she severed her spinal cord? Was she paralyzed?

Doctor Holmes crawled through a haze of smoke and he grasped her hands. "Doc," she moaned, her throat raw and aching.

"Come on, Sadie," he said and got to his feet, holding her beneath her arms. "Up we go."

"Doc, my back," she moaned but then her feet touched the earth and she found she could stand. Her entire body was bruised, bleeding, and she realized she couldn't feel her legs because the rest of her hurt so badly it was nearly impossible to feel anything.

"Thank God." Doctor Holmes, her mentor and friend swept her into a fierce hug, which she returned.

"What happened?" She yelled, her ears beginning to ring.

But Sadie turned around and didn't need an explanation. Half the tent was gone, nothing more than a smoldering wreck of charred canvas, metal, and flesh. The smell overpowered the smoke and she held her bloodied hand to her nose and mouth, hoping to quell her rebellious stomach. The portion of the tent that still miraculously stood was strewn with the damage and debris. Sadie looked down at the upturned cot nearest to her and found a severed arm hanging over the edge. A few feet away an unharmed patient was dragging another man away from the blast zone who sobbed as he stared down at the bleeding, pulsing stumps where his legs had been a mere minute ago.

Doctor Holmes let go of Sadie. "Can you work?" He asked.

She didn't even dignify his answer and she climbed over the cot to reach the two men, reaching for the cleanest blanket she could see as she went. Sadie dropped to her screaming knees and pulled her blunt tip scissors from one of pockets and cut into the blanket before ripping it in half.

"Help me," she said to the unharmed patient. Together, they began to wrap the stumps, while the poor victim howled. A wave of personnel came crawling out of the woodwork trying to help as best as they could. Sadie let two stricken technicians help the amputee away and she started picking through the wreckage, upending a cot to find two men.

She knelt down once more, checking the pulse of the first man, until his head lolled to the side. Sadie turned away, pinching her eyes shut at the sight of his skull, completely caved in on one side. Shaking fingers touched her face and she started, turning to see the other man reaching for her. He smeared blood across her cheek and she rotated her body to him.

"I need a doctor," he rasped returning his hand to his abdomen. Sadie swallowed her tears and reached out to help him as his hands slipped over his slick skin, torn open by the blast to reveal his internal organs. "I need, I need," he tried to say and Sadie shook her head.

Unbidden to her, tears sprang at the corners of her eyes. "Don't talk," she said softly. "You're going to be fine," she lied. "You're going to be just fine."

But he wasn't going to be fine, Sadie knew this as she helped him try to keep his intestines from spilling onto the ground. Though his whole body trembled, the soldier didn't appear to be in pain, a sign that his body was shutting down. "I don't wanna die," he said, his own tears sliding from the corners of his eyes. "Mama, I don't wanna die."

Sadie choked on a sob and she nodded, grasping one of his hands and squeezing it tight. "I'm here," she promised. "I'm not leaving you."

The soldier trembled only seconds longer before he stilled and Sadie watched the light leave his eyes. His hand slipped out of hers, falling limp to the ground. Raising her arm, she stifled her cries into the inside of her elbow before a familiar voice shrieked her name.

"SADIE!" Evelyn, perfectly undamaged was barreling towards her. Sadie rose to her feet, hands covered in blood but Evelyn didn't care in the least as she flung her arms around Sadie.

Sadie's entire body protested, but she hugged Evelyn back, too relieved to see her best friend alive to care about the pain. "I thought, the blast and you and Doc Holmes," she babbled and grabbed a shred of pillow case and handed it to Sadie so she could wipe of her hands. Tracks from Evelyn's tears cut through the dirt on her face and she clutched Sadie's hands, visibly shaking. "I don't know where Betty is, everyone's scattered and I don't know what to do!"

Evelyn's knees trembled and Sadie tightened her hold, hoping to keep her friend upright. Before Sadie's eyes, Evelyn threatened to fall to pieces and it was the last thing either of them needed. All around them, Sadie could see similar breakdowns, a technician she didn't know was curled up on the ground hands over his head, rocking compulsively. Evelyn continued to babble and the final threads of Sadie's patients snapped.

"Evelyn, get yourself together!" She roared. Evelyn started, as though remembering they were in the middle of a warzone. "Where are we needed?" Sadie shouted over the din.

"Everywhere," she shouted, wide-eyed at Sadie's sudden authoritative turn.

"Where are the ambulances and runners?" By now two or three other staff members straggled towards her, including Ruthie who was sporting a nasty cut on her forehead.

"Coming in now!" One of their radiomen said from Sadie's side.

Slowly Sadie looked at the handful of her friends and co-workers and drew in a deep breath and then four more, remembering everything her father ever taught her. She was in control or her body and she could control this situation. "Alright, well we're not changing how we handle things now! Begin triaging the wounded! Get every able-bodied patient to help as much as they can. Get critical patients on the ambulances first and treat as quickly as you can. Someone check in on the surgeons, move any patient requiring emergency surgery to the surgical tent and triage based on need!" Her orders rang over the din, but the planes had gone for now.

"What if the planes come back?" Ruthie asked, naked terror in her eyes.

Drawing in a deep breath, Sadie fought back against the screaming pain in her back. "Let's pray they don't," said Evelyn, her confidence restored. The group dispersed, running into the action just as they'd been trained. Evelyn gave Sadie a meaningful look. "Thanks for the pep talk," she said.

Sadie case one pitiful glance back at the dead soldier before yelling for nearby technicians to take care of him and his companion. Together, Sadie and Evelyn began moving from patient to patient, tagging dead soldiers and doing what they could for injured men before helping move them to ambulances. As the minutes wore on, Sadie's body eventually became numb as did her senses every time she encountered fresh carnage from the blast.

X X X

Bucky felt restless. He'd been this way since he returned to the front line several days earlier. An ache persisted in his side, even though he was healing quite nicely. In addition to the constant, mild pain, Bucky hadn't been able to sit still. Fidgety and anxious, Bucky couldn't quite put his finger on why he'd been so unsettled. Sure, he'd experienced his fair share of small annoyances in the past week. Bucky couldn't get comfortable with his wound still hurting, he resented Lieutenant McAllister pulling him back onto the line so quickly, and he was especially annoyed that he hadn't even been able to say goodbye to Sadie, but even all of this together wasn't enough to explain his anxiety.

The mere fact that he was anxious made things immensely worse. Bucky was not an uptight man. Throughout his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood he'd been the picture of relaxation compared to Steve's uptight and morally rigid demeanor. Bucky did not enjoy being on edge, jumping at the smallest of sounds and imagining threats that weren't there. He particularly hated the constant fear that something much worse was going to happen, something devastating and out of his control. The sense of foreboding was unbearable, grating at his every last nerve.

Even now, as he rest his back against the large trunk of a felled tree, he tapped one of his booted feet against the air. Frank O'Connell sat on his left while Dum Dum Dugan reclined on his right. F Company was holding their part of the line just outside a small town that Bucky couldn't have named if his life depended on it. There had been too many small towns and villages already.

Doug Lovitz was basking in his shallow foxhole, cigarette dangling from his lips. "Jesus, Bucky would you hold still? Seven fucking days I've had to put up with you bouncing around like a damn yo-yo."

Bucky frowned, but stopped moving his foot. Immediately his fingers twitched, begging to drum against his stomach where they lay. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"What's gotten into you?" Dum Dum asked, casting a sideways glance to Bucky.

Bucky rubbed a hand over his face, his skin scratching over the coat of stubble he'd been sporting for days now. The words wouldn't come to him. There was no way for him to explain that he felt anxious and restless without sounding like a wimp. The truth was, all of the men were anxious, all of them were restless, all of them felt the same fear. Bucky was no different, he just felt more than he usually did. "I'm fine," he lied.

Dum Dum snorted in unattractive laughter. "Yeah, sure you are," he said sarcastically. "That explains why you've been all sunshine and daisies leaving the hospital."

Bucky threw a warning glare towards Dum Dum, who remained entirely unruffled. "Maybe all that rest and relaxation got to your head, Buck," said O'Connell innocently.

"Or the nurses," said John Nixon as he trudged back from the makeshift latrine, shoving his shirt back into his trousers. He flopped down into Lovitz's foxhole and held out a hand, wiggling his fingers for a smoke which Lovitz begrudgingly gave up.

"Army nurses," said Lovitz fondly. "Did you get lucky and get a pretty one?"

Bucky and Dum Dum rolled their eyes. "Are looks all you ever think about?" Dum Dum asked, kicking a small cloud of dirt and dust over to Lovitz who held up his arm to block it.

"Well what's the point of getting wounded if the nurses aren't lookers?" Lovitz argued from around his cigarette.

John Nixon nodded in agreement. "Like the nurse on the Victoria that treated my ankle. Talk about good-looking, I could have listened to that southern accent all day and night," he said and let out a low whistle. Bucky's hackles rose at the very mere insinuation. Dum Dum coughed hard, covering what Bucky suspected was laughter.

"She was brunette, right?" Dum Dum asked far too innocently.

Nixon snapped his fingers before pointing to Dum Dum with a stupid grin plastered across his face. "Yeah, legs for days, too. Isn't that right, Bucky? You helped carry me up there!"

Both O'Connell and Lovitz listened raptly and turned to stare at Bucky who would rather have run into enemy fire than answer the question. God, where was Steve when Bucky needed him? "Yeah," he said painfully. Dum Dum dug a not-so-discreet elbow into Bucky's side and for a second, Bucky contemplated punching his friend in the jaw.

"What was her name? Started with an R, I thought," mused Nixon.

"Yeah, Bucky," said Dum Dum, thoroughly enjoying his friend's mortification. "You're good with names, aren't you?"

"It's Nurse Reid," answered Bucky through gritted teeth, though none of his friends save Dum Dum noticed.

"Ah, yes, lovely Nurse Reid. You happen to bump into her at the hospital?"

"As a matter of fact, he did," said Dum Dum, jumping in to further along Bucky's misery. Bucky started to look around desperate for a fast exist. For the first time ever he actively wished a mortar would go off, just close enough to put them on alert and force the end of this painful exercise in his humiliation. "Nurse Reid stitched you up, didn't she?"

"She did," said Bucky slowly. Unbidden to him, Bucky's mind drifted to those few minutes alone he'd shared with Sadie. For several nights in a row he'd fallen asleep with the memory of her hands ghosting over his bare skin, touching him clinically and carefully. Bucky still felt the gentle press of her fingertips and the calluses she'd picked up from her job. Each time she'd touched him, his nerves went haywire, practically crying out for more. Even now, his skin felt cold in the absence of her touch, warm and healing. "She did an excellent job, too," he added as an afterthought.

Lovitz let out a low whistle. "What I wouldn't give to have some gorgeous nurse's hands all over me," he muttered.

A growl rose up into Bucky's throat. "It wasn't like that," he said in a tired voice, hoping to throw his friends off the subject by expressing his boredom with the subject.

"I'm sure it wasn't," said Lovitz with a roguish wink.

"All right, all right, leave it alone Dougie," said Nixon, who finally read Bucky's face and mood.

Lovitz wasn't what Bucky would describe as a smart guy, but even he read the signs and the words tumbled out of his mouth before he thought better of it. "What, are you sweet on her or something?"

Bucky's frustrated silence was answer enough. Lovitz, O'Connell, and Nixon all started laughing and with no regard to Bucky's evident displeasure, began poking fun at him. Dum Dum thankfully stayed out of the fray and had the good grace to look mildly guilty. "Sorry," he said sheepishly through his grin.

"You just had to egg them on, didn't you?" Bucky snapped.

Dum Dum made up for his transgression by telling the rest of them to shut up and the group had only been in awkward silence for a moment before Lieutenant McAllister appeared. "Sergeant Barnes, there you are," he said crouching down. Turning his gaze to Dum Dum he nodded. "Sergeant Dugan, you should check in with Lieutenant Forrester. We're moving out in the morning."

Everyone sat up higher at the news. "Where to, Sir?" Bucky asked.

A grin lit up McAllister's face. "We're being taken off the front line."

No sentence was ever sweeter to Bucky and his men. "That's great news," said Bucky, whole body slumping in relief.

"Where're we headed Lieutenant?" Lovitz asked.

"Base camp on the beachhead to resupply and then on a transport. Apparently the 107th is going north above the main lines of resistance to take out a German division just south of the Austrian border." Dum Dum let out a low whistle.

"Must be some division if the army's moving the whole 107th."

McAllister nodded in agreement. "But we'll get a few days' rest anyway," he said. "Get your rifle squads together and spread the word. We move out at first light."

McAllister got up to leave but was sharply cut off when his radio man came dashing through the small clearing. He crouched low, panting. "Hanover, what is it?" Lieutenant McAllister asked.

Hanover stumbled over his words at first. "We just got word, German planes coming from the north."

"Coming here?" Asked McAllister, whole body becoming alert.

Hanover shook his head breathless. "They're already moving out. We've been ordered to keep all wounded at the aid stations."

McAllister's brow furrowed. "What? Why?"

"Sir, they bombed the 80th Field Hospital."

Bucky's lungs nearly imploded as all the air rushed out of his chest. Next to him Dum Dum lurched forward as well as O'Connell and Lovitz. "Then we've got to go give them support. Take our mortars and anti-tank guns and help!" Dum Dum urged.

"Orders are to hold the line," said Hanover, looking positively sick.

The other shoe had dropped. Bucky remained perfectly still while a succession of horrific images and scenarios whizzed through his brain, each one worse than the last. How bad was the damage? Had anyone been hurt? Were there casualties? Was Sadie alright?

Lieutenant McAllister gripped Hanover's shoulder, looking grave. "How bad is the damage?" He asked, voicing the question everyone else was thinking.

Hanover swallowed hard. "Nobody knows yet, sir."

Dum Dum leaned over. "I'm sure everyone's okay," he said in a voice so low only Bucky could her him.

Bucky sat in stunned silence, no longer restless. The foreboding in the pit of his stomach faded into outright dread. All of his anxiety was replaced by outrage. Outrage that anyone would bomb a hospital. Outrage that Sadie was caught in the crosshairs of a war that nobody asked for. Outrage that there was nothing he could to but sit and endure the long night ahead.

X X X

The first rays of the dawn broke as Sadie shut the doors of an ambulance, banging on the back window to send it off. Blinking into the distance, Sadie relished in the cool breeze that blew across her face, unsettling a few few tendrils of her dark hair. The skin of her knuckles cracked and stung as she hastily brushed them away behind her ears. She'd lost her helmet during the initial bombing and hadn't bothered to find another in the blast's chaotic wake. Not that she'd have much luck, one of the hospital's main supply tents took a direct hit, wasting their extra supply of uniforms, bed sheets, cots, and killing three staff members.

"Nurse Reid?" Sadie turned her head to see Peggy approaching her. For once, Peggy looked exactly like all the other women at camp. Makeup free and covered in dirt and dust, Peggy could have passed for a nurse considering the blood splatters on her uniform. As soon as the SSR had sorted away their small camp, Peggy and the small handful of other members came to the hospital's aid, working right next to the nurses, doctors, and technicians. "Are you alright?"

Peggy's question forced a humorless laugh from Sadie's dry lips. "Considering the circumstances," she answered. There was no part of her body that didn't ache, sting, or burn. Each breath she took irritated her smoke-filled lungs, the dry air burning her raw throat. Muscles in Sadie's body that she was previously unaware of fought back with a vengeance every time she so much as lifted her arms. Worst of all was her back and ribs. Searing pain on her left side accompanied each breath she took and Sadie was sure she'd at the very least bruised a few ribs, if not broken them.

Peggy's brown eyes darted all over the visible places of Sadie's body. Absently, Sadie wondered how bad she looked. "Maybe you should rest for a while," said Peggy. "The 107th is coming off the front line and Colonel Phillips has already ordered two companies to assist with cleanup."

Cleanup. Sadie stared wordlessly at the 80th field hospital. The wreckage was spread across the entire encampment. In the growing light, Sadie could see the first ward tent, split wide open. The support poles that remained upright were beginning to teeter precariously, pulled down by the weight of the heavy canvas. Several of the tent's surviving patients were sheltered in the second ward tent and the overflow sat beneath a grove of trees and an emergency open-sided tent, erected hurriedly by Peggy's fellow SSR companions to provide some protection from the elements.

From a distance, Sadie could see Betty, two technicians and another nurse, Laurel, milling through the rows of men. Without the second supply tent there were no additional cots and while some men were fortunate enough to lay on blankets or jackets, most of them lay directly on the ground. Betty knelt over one of her patients, peeling back thick bandages to check a non-serious wound. All of the remaining patients were on the lower tier of critical.

"Betty and the others need extra hands," said Sadie. "The ambulances will be back and half the men still aren't ready to go."

Peggy's hand curled around Sadie's wrist, irritating the a bruise that was already forming on the topside. "Sadie, you need to see a doctor. Evelyn told me you were in the first ward tent."

Sadie recoiled at the thought. She could still feel the heat of the fire on her face and smell the smoke and burning flesh. "All of the doctors are in surgery," she said, her voice monotonous. "I'll be fine."

Evelyn jogged over from where she'd finished sending off the last ambulance. Her red hair was an absolute mess of frizz and she looked like death warmed over. Exhaustion seemed to weigh down her steps, mirroring how Sadie felt inside. "I can't believe you're still upright," said Evelyn, taking one look at Sadie.

Sadie shrugged, wishing her friends would stop treating her like a porcelain doll. "I'll rest when the patients are gone and when the doctors rest," she answered.

Her words echoed the sentiment of all the nurses in the 80th. Before leaving for war, Sadie heard all kinds of criticisms of bringing nurses to the front lines. Women weren't made for war, the blood and gore would offend their feminine sensibilities. Many men and women believed that nurses were too delicate for the hard lifestyle, sleeping in foxholes, dealing with limited resources, and tramping through warzones with nothing more than what they could carry on their backs. But Sadie found in her fellow nurses a resilience that couldn't be manufactured. In their first weeks in Sicily everyone who met the nurses of the 80th marveled at their unending patience, resourcefulness, and determination. They handled the realities of war better than many of the technicians and Sadie had yet to see a nurse sit down and give up during their long night of terror.

"Alright, just be careful," said Evelyn gently. "It doesn't take a genius to see you're favoring your right side and you can't breathe without wincing."

Sadie scowled. "I'm fine," she persisted. "You try having an exam table fall on your left side and see if it doesn't hurt."

Evelyn sighed but chose not to argue with Sadie. "We should go help Betty get the men ready for evacuation. They're next in line."

"Peggy, do you need to return to your CO? Or do you have time to help?" Asked Sadie. "I could use an extra pair of hands," she added relenting to Evelyn's warning.

"I'm all yours," said Peggy bracingly and together the three women started towards the open tent and trees. The daylight spilled through the trees and Betty straightened to listen as a single plane rumbled through the sky. Time slowed to a crawl. Sadie, Peggy, and Evelyn all stopped and ducked as the plane came screaming over the hospital.

Sadie never saw the bomb drop. Everything happened in a split second and in slow motion at once. The impact hit so hard that flecks of branches peppered the top of Sadie's head just as flames shot up through the tree and the open canvas tent blew apart. It was a direct hit, so powerful it blew a nearby jeep onto its side and decimated everything in its wake.

A scream ripped out of Sadie's throat. "BETTY!"

Evelyn drug Sadie to the ground as she collapsed. "NO!" Evelyn shrieked hysterically. She clawed and struggled against Sadie's hold, fighting her with everything she had.

Sadie held on, too stunned to react. Peggy had her arm around Sadie, gripping the shoulder of her torn uniform with an iron grip. The smoke and dust began to clear from the bomb and a sickening truth settled into the pit of Sadie's stomach. Pieces of metal, fabric, tree, flesh, and bone were strewn as close as a few feet away from her. A high pitched ringing blocked out the hearing in both of her ears as she fell back onto her ankles, arms clamped around Evelyn who had started to sob uncontrollably, still screaming Betty's name.

Evelyn screamed but Sadie heard nothing, she felt nothing. She just sat in shock and disbelief, though there was no circumventing the truth. One second Betty Carnahan, beautiful, brazen and altogether perfect Betty had been there, leaning over a patient. The next she was gone, vaporized by the force of the blast that left nothing more than a smoldering, charred hole in the ground.

A/N: So…I'm just going to leave this here and maybe hide…

Next chapter picks up where we leave off-ish.

Let me know what you think! What things you want to throw at me through your computer screens, predictions, questions etc…I'm sorry I didn't PM reviewers after last chapter, the last few weeks have been utter insanity! Anyway leave some love! – Much love, Kappa.