Prior to jump off time, Claire went and found Lieutenant Heylinger. They knew each other from Toccoa, though not well. He wasn't opposed to her being there, in fact he was relieved that there was another officer who knew the men since that first day in Georgia. She'd also bumped into Harry, who was happy she was back.

Operation Pegasus went off without a hitch. There was one Brit who'd been wounded before the rescue, so they fixed him up. There was a party going on in the mess hall. Claire thought about joining but ultimately decided not to. She wasn't exactly in the 'party' mood. She went to her bunk in the Officers barracks.

Easy Company didn't stay long in Schoonderloght after that. They moved to another small town named Driel on the line. Things were a lot calmer here. Claire found herself falling into the same routine she had before being wounded. They set up the aid station in an old school building. She also wrote letters to Buck and Bill who were still at the hospital. She couldn't write the exact name of the town they were at, just in case, but she told him they were still in Holland. She knew Bill would be back soon.

Moose was a good leader, not as good as Dick, but up there. He went on patrols with the men, he commanded well. Still, there were times where he seemed a little intimidated. She could understand that it was tough coming and leading a company, who for the most part had trained together and fought for almost three years. Most of the replacements blended together for Claire. The strangest thing happened, she could hear whispers among the replacements. They weren't like the ones from before, spiteful and hateful, this was different.

There were rumours going around about her, not like the last time though. These ones were about how she got wounded, what she did in Normandy. She overheard one story about how she single handedly carried six soldiers to safety in Carentan. Another about how she defended a wounded soldier from a German patrol. All of them were greatly exaggerated.

"What did y'all do?" Claire asked Muck one day when she sat with them while they had their few moments of down time.

"Do what, Russ?" Muck replied innocently.

"You're tellin' me you had nothin' to do with those replacements lookin' at me like I'm some sort of mythical creature?" Claire retorted.

"Well, you do sort of have that Medusa stare," Luz teased. Claire glared. "Yeah, that's the one."

"Maybe if I stare long enough at the Krauts they'll turn to stone," she offered jokingly. "But seriously, what did y'all tell 'em?"

"The truth, Russ," Muck fessed up. "That's it. They asked about Normandy so we told 'em some stuff. That included some stuff about you."

"How much did you exaggerate?" She asked.

"Not much," Muck replied.

"Anything else?" Claire pressed.

"Oh, we did forget to tell 'em one thing," Luz remembered. She gave him a pointed look.

"You didn't tell 'em I was a woman, did you?" Luz grinned coyly at her. "You are a bad man."

"But you gotta admit, the look on their faces when they figured out you were Russ… priceless."

Claire smirked. "Yeah, was kinda funny."

The replacements continued to look at her like they were waiting to see if she was who the men told them about. Claire wasn't sure if she was that person anymore. The hospital changed her in some ways. She could still do her job, that much was certain. It was her duty, her responsibility, to look after these guys, and she'd be damned if she'd let them down again.


It was Halloween, a relatively quiet night. Claire and Gene were playing cards in the hospital. She was winning.

"Thought you said you weren't any good?" Gene asked in a light tone as Claire beat him again.

"To be fair, I said it's been awhile since I played, which it has… Just so happens last time I won 400$ off Speirs, Welsh, and Nixon," she explained.

"You hustled me," he deduced.

"Ain't like we're gamblin'," she told him. "I don't gamble with enlisted men."

"That why you gave the money back from the pool?" He asked.

"Yep. I'm still an officer, didn't feel right takin' from you."

"I didn't put any money in," he told her. Claire looked up from her hand and gave him an odd look.

"Really? Not even a nickel?" She asked.

"Nope."

"I woulda bet against me," she admitted.

"Nah, I knew you were too damn stubborn to quit," he reminded. "I saw it when Sobel made you walk to the back. You kept your head held high like nothing could touch you."

If only he knew that she kept her head up to keep from looking at the men so she wouldn't see the looks on their faces.

"Stubbornness, bitterness, and spite fueled me through those first weeks at Toccoa," she recalled.

"Bitterness?"

"I was alone. No one wanted me there. No one would talk to me," she reminded.

"You didn't talk to anyone either," he countered. "I tried."

"You did?" Claire questioned.

"Mhm, but when we weren't trainin', you would kind of just… shut off," he explained.

"I didn't know. I thought everyone was against me."

"Makes sense why ya did," he told her.

"Medic!" Someone yelled. Both Claire and Gene got up from their chair and ran up to the entrance. They got in the ambulance and it drove off.

Neither of them spoke but the trip wasn't long. They stopped not far from one of the OPs and met up with a jeep. Claire opened the ambulance door and both of them stepped out with a stretcher.

Here we go. Claire saw Dick and Harry, along with a young replacement getting out. Moose was slumped over in one of the seats.

"What happened?" Claire asked.

"Shot," was all Dick said.

"Gene, gotta get him on the stretcher," she instructed. They laid the stretcher down and then moved on to lifting Moose gently out of the jeep and lying him down. He was calm but Claire couldn't see any syrettes pinned to his jacket.

"Did you give him morphine?" Claire asked. "How much?"

"Two maybe three syrettes," Harry said uncertainly. Claire looked at him in disbelief.

"Two maybe three?" Gene replied flabbergasted. "Are you tryin' to kill him?!"

"He was in a lot of pain, Doc," he defended.

"I think it was two," Dick spoke. Claire blazed in fury. Gene and the ambulance driver were lifting Moose into back of the ambulance.

"You think?! Jesus Christ!" Claire yelled. "Don't you think it woulda been important to know how much medication he's had?! There is not one syrette pinned to his jacket! You're lucky that he's big enough that he might still stand a chance!"

"We didn't know," Harry replied.

"Yeah well you oughta!" Gene snapped. "You are officers. You are grown ups. You oughta know!"

Claire climbed in the ambulance after Gene and barked at the driver to go. Dick shut the door behind them and they drove off.

On the ride back, Claire was taking note of Moose's wounds and keeping an eye on his pulse.

"Gene, keep pressure on the shot to his side," Claire ordered. She quickly wrote up the tag for Moose, indicating not to give him any more morphine, seeing as they didn't know how much he'd had.

When they arrived back at the field hospital, Claire went and performed as a surgical nurse. She sent Gene off to bed. Moose's leg was broken; he'd been shot twice in the chest. He would be fine, but his war was over.


The next morning, Claire went over to CP to inform Dick that Moose was being evacuated. She was still furious about the whole incident. Eugene was also still pissed, however, he thought maybe he should go apologize since he mouthed off to two superiors. Claire told him not to worry about it, that they wouldn't try to do anything. She walked up to Dick's office and knocked on the door.

"Enter," Dick said through the closed door. He looked up from his paperwork. "Claire."

"Sir, I came to inform you that Lieutenant Heylinger is being evacuated to England," she said formally. "He'll be fine, but he's not comin' back to the line."

"Ok," he said.

"Sir, about last night…"

"Claire, you don't have to apologize, you and Doc were right," Dick told her.

"I was not gonna apologize. I know I was right," she countered. "What I was gonna tell you is that we oughta give a refresher to the officers about first aid."

Dick nodded. "I think that's a good idea."

"Ok," she said.

"I'm sorry about what happened," he told her.

"Moose's alive, that's what matters."

She did end up giving a brush up lecture to the officers about first aid in the field. She had to wait until they were moved out of Driel and off the line at a camp in Mourmelon-le-Grand. Her anger and frustration towards Harry and Dick had dissipated.

Easy Company now had yet another new CO, Lieutenant Norman Dike. He'd arrived as Easy was still in Holland, fighting and living in foxholes. Originally, he presented himself with gusto and made a good impression, that is until he hid out in his hole. The few times he was out of the foxhole, he would often give Claire shit.

Oh great. Just what I need, another Sobel.

However, unlike Sobel, Dike was incapable of making any choices out in the field. It was frustrating as hell working with 'Foxhole Norman' as the men had dubbed him. With Dick gone to Battalion XO, Claire was technically the longest serving officer in Easy Company. Buck came back to the company, having fully recovered from his wounds in Holland. New replacements came in as well. They looked at the battle hardened veterans with awe.

They did marches, close order drills, and prepared. Easy Company only had about sixty-five percent strength in the enlisted men and one hundred and twelve percent strength for the officers. There were enough for two officers per platoon, plus Dike, plus Claire, and a spare.

The transition from the front line to garrison life had happened relatively quick. The first day involved getting a shower and a freshly laundered uniform. Men received weekend passes to Reims, though those were quickly revoked after the 101st kept getting into fights with the 82nd Airborne. Dick had gotten a forty-eight hour pass to Paris. Claire had gone to Reims one weekend alone. She saw some show and liked it, but she found that going on furlough alone now wasn't as enjoyable. She'd spent enough time alone in the hospital.

By end of November, mail had caught up with the men, improving moral. Her mail, on the other hand, did the opposite. Claire received a letter from Alice. She knew it what kind of a letter it was based on the tear stains on the paper. Claire read the letter four times before firmly grasping what had happened. There had been an accident in the factory where Olivia worked and she had died. Alice was now being sent to live with her Aunt in Scotland. Her brother, David, was wounded and would be in the hospital for a while.

After two months of silence from Eleanor, Claire finally got something back. It wasn't from her friend, but from a man in Eleanor's unit, Wilbur Conley, also known as Runner, who told her that Eleanor had been killed in action on some small island named Pelelieu.

The two letters back to back deeply affected Claire. It was a constant stream of bad news and she didn't know how much more she could take. She'd hoped that Eleanor would've made it through the war. She hoped that Olivia and Alice would be safe, but it didn't work like that. Hope did nothing but lead to disappointment.

"Hey Russ, c'mon, let's get a drink," Muck told her one night. She'd been quiet, her mind still dwelling on the letters. "You look like you need it. 'Sides, got something you'll wanna see."

She did need a drink. She let herself be dragged along to the bar.


The bar was crowded with the men from the base. She saw the table with her friends. It was nice seeing Buck out of the hospital. Since she was in the officers' barracks again, Buck was in the cot next to her. She looked further down the table and broke out into a wide smile.

"The Hell you doin' here?" Claire asked amicably while looking at Bill Guarnere sitting there with a shit eating grin and a large beer in hand.

"Took a page outta your book, Russ. Went AWOL," he told her. "Someone get the Lieutenant here a drink!"

Claire saw that even Eugene was out and sitting at table. She took a spot next to him and Liebgott brought her a drink.

"Welcome back, Bill," she said as the table clanged their glasses together.

She only had the one drink, she knew not to do more. They told stories about their time, only the light times of course.

"That was one time!" Claire laughed as she heard the story, one she'd heard before but it was never less funny, of when Bill nearly bayoneted Malarkey on D-Day.

"'Who's side are you on?'"

"But look, you're fine, ain't you Malark?" Bill countered.

"Still get nervous when you come near me with a bayonet," he joked.

"What about the time Russ here went through the pig guts back in basic?" Muck remembered.

"Pig guts?" Heffron questioned in disgust.

"Courtesy of our old CO, Captain Sobel," Toye answered. Claire merely shook her head and took a drink from her glass.

"So we're running through the obstacle course and crawling under the barbed wire. Look up, and there's blood and guts covering the trench," Muck recounted. "I look to the right and all I see is Russ smile then roll in the trench face first and come out covered head to toe in blood."

"It really wasn't that bad," she said. "Dive in fish guts, then you'll be throwing up. Shit stays in your clothes for weeks."

They gave her weird looks.

"What? My brother liked to hide my doll in the barrels of fish guts," she explained nonchalantly. "Ma was pissed when I'd come back stinkin'. Made us sleep outside on a very hot day."

The only people in Easy who knew anything about her family were Bill and Gene. She never openly gave anecdotes about her family because it hurt too much.

They kept telling stories, some from home, some from the war, and told jokes causing everyone to laugh. She was gladly letting herself be distracted from the letters she'd received. Claire bought a round for the guys, Muck and Malarkey came up with her to help carry the drinks back. She walked up to the bar and felt eyes on her. She was used to it by this point. Still, there was something about it this time that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. The bartender gave them four each to carry. Claire looked up from the bar and nearly dropped the drinks.

No.

She froze in place. Her eyes wide in shock.

Not now.

"Russ?" Muck's voice brought her back. "Hey, Russ, you okay?"

"Looks like you saw a ghost… or Muck's ass," Malarkey joked.

They had no idea.

"Y-Yeah… I'm fine," she stuttered. "Just tired, I guess. I'm gonna bring these then head back to barracks."

"You sure?" Muck asked.

"Yeah… I just need some sleep."

Claire followed them back to the table, knowing those eyes were still on her. She distributed the drinks and then told the guys she was calling it a night.

"What? It's barely eleven," Bill said.

"I'm tired, Bill," Claire said firmly. "I'll see y'all in the morning for PT."

Claire walked out of the bar. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her hands shaking. She couldn't breathe. He couldn't be here. He couldn't. She felt dizzy, her tongue like sandpaper.

"Claire?"

She stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around to see the one person in the world she never wanted to see again.

"You gotta be kidding me."

You are one cruel son of a bitch. She mentally cursed out God.

"Nice to see you too."

"What're you doin' here, Henry?" Claire asked harshly.

"I'm an officer for the 12th Division Infantry. I got here yesterday," he explained.

"This is a dream. This has gotta be a horrible, terrible, dream," she muttered.

"You cut your hair."

There was no way this could be real. Claire turned away from Henry and started running back down the road. He was yelling after her.


I'm sorry for killing off Eleanor. It makes sense for something that happens much later in the story. I am still writing her war story. Even though you know the end result, I can guarantee that her story will be worth reading (which makes it all the more difficult for me to write because I'm developing her character).

Who's Henry? I can assure you that you'll find out next chapter. I've briefly hinted at his identity in previous chapters. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please let me know.