**BULL POV**

I'd catch him watching us sometimes. Captain Winters, I mean. We'd marched off into the Bois Jacques that night with nothing but his leadership to guide us, and we'd found ourselves surrounded by Germans in a frozen Hell. I kept Rose by my side as we dug into foxholes. One of the benefits of being a man my size is that, in situations like Bastogne, I am equipped with plenty of body heat to share with a slip of a woman like Rose. I also felt better knowing that I could completely shield her from the raining shells. I'm sure that the Captain saw my logic, but I could see in his eyes that it bothered him. I assumed it was common jealousy until he sat down next to me the day we lost Julian. He checked on Babe, who was taking the loss incredibly hard, and then turned to look at me.

"How are you doing, Bull?"

"I'm doing alright, all things considered. How are you holding up, sir?"

"I'll live," he answered with a sardonic smile. Then, his face growing serious and his voice quiet, he added, "I'm glad she has you, Randleman. You're one of the best men I know. With you, at least I know she will always be taken care of."

"Sir," I started, wanting to prevent any jealousy or misunderstanding, but when he met my eyes, I stopped. It wasn't jealousy that I saw, but sadness. Suddenly, I understood. He couldn't be with her, but he still wanted to know that she would be okay. He might indeed be envious of our closeness, but he was giving me his blessing. If he couldn't have her, he wanted to know that she was safe with me. Honored as I was, I felt bad for the man. I thought about reassuring him that they could be together after the war, but Captain Winters was such a reserved man and, since he hadn't directly acknowledged his feelings for her, it would have felt like an invasion. I didn't get a chance to come up with anything else. He stood up beside me, looking down one last time before disappearing back toward his makeshift headquarters.

"Please keep her safe."

**ROSE POV**

I couldn't hear what Winters said when he stood up, but Bull's face as he watched the Captain walk away was a mixture of confusion and sadness. From what I could see, they had been in the midst of a conversation, but he made his hasty retreat as soon as he saw me approaching the group. When Bull finally turned and saw me, he gave an almost imperceptible nod as if to confirm my thought. He motioned me over and pulled me down into his lap so that he could wrap his arms around me. My body began to warm and I buried my face in his neck, inhaling the sweet scent of his cigar.

"He told me to take care of you. He's just worried. That's all," he told me quietly, keeping the conversation private from the oblivious group around us.

"You're not a good liar."

He made a sound that was half-chuckle and half-sigh and muttered, "Yeah, I know." I looked up at him expectantly and he finally continued, "I got the feeling that he's been keeping an eye on you. On us. That he'd trade places with me if he could. But he can't. He can't protect you, and he can't be with you, so he told me to keep you safe."

"You're leaving something out, Bull. He thinks we're together, doesn't he?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. I… he probably assumes something is going on. He just told me that at least he knew that you would be safe if you were with me. I don't know. He looked really sad, but like he was accepting that y'all couldn't be together. It was kinda like he was giving me his blessing, ya know? Like he wanted me to know that he wasn't angry with me for being with you. I started to say something, but that's when he saw you and walked away. I'm sorry sweetheart. I don't know what to tell you."

So he had given up. Bull had mentioned several times that he noticed Winters watching us whenever he passed. Now he was letting go because he saw my relationship with Bull, and assumed that I already had. Or maybe this was his way of making sure that I knew that we could never be together. He had to have known Bull would tell me everything. As painful as it was, I had to admire his grace. His first thought was to reassure Bull that he bore him no ill will for what he perceived happening between us.

I couldn't bring myself to be angry at him for his surrender. After all, Dick Winters was a man who played by the rules and those rules said that we could not be together. Even more so, he was a man ruled by rationality and logic, and being involved with someone he was in command of in the middle of a war zone would certainly erode a person's ability to be rational. Bull said that he wanted to reassure him that we could maybe be together when we got out, but I knew that it wouldn't have mattered. Right now, it simply wasn't within the scope of Dick Winters' reality to think about a life after the war.

I rested my head back in the crook of Bull's neck, willing my tears back until I drifted to sleep.

** WINTERS POV **

Logic told me that the only thing to do was to let go of these feelings I had for Rose. I had to turn them off and move on. There was an entire battalion depending on me to be focused and prepared, and I simply couldn't do that unless I found a way to get her out of my head. I'd noticed her growing closeness with Randleman and, although the thought nearly choked me at first, eventually I reached the decision that the best way to remove her from my reality as anything but just another paratrooper would be to push her into the arms of someone else.

Maybe if she was with him, I wouldn't catch her watching me with those sad eyes anymore. Maybe it would reinforce the idea in my mind that I could not have her, and my subconscious would release her once and for all. Sure, it might be painful at first, like now, as I watched her snuggle into his arms from across the frozen ground. But eventually, somehow, my disciplined mind would revert back to combat mode and she would just be another person under my command.

Randleman would care for her and keep her safe. She obviously trusted him implicitly which was important, considering her painful past. If I were going to be able to get over her, I needed to know that she had a man like him to depend on. I stared across my coffee and out of the makeshift structure, watching as he carried her apparently sleeping form back to their foxhole. For a split second, I saw myself in his place. Then Nixon cleared his throat next to me.

"How is that whole 'ignore your feelings and they'll disappear' thing going for you anyway, Dick?"

I sent a hard stare in his direction, only to be met with his signature smirk.

"I'm doing what I have to do, Lew."

"No, you aren't, Dick. You're pushing her into another man's arms and hoping that will make you forget about her. She's a smart girl. She knows that nothing can happen in the middle of a damn war. She's trying to survive here too. But instead of having an honest conversation and deciding mutually that these feelings will have to wait until the war is over, you have just gone ahead and made the decision for her. You're going to erase your heart and start over, and she is going to be with Bull because that's what you think is best for everybody."

I sighed and started to voice some weak argument, but he held up a hand to stop me and leaned forward, as serious as I had ever seen him.

"Listen to me, Dick. You're going to do whatever you think you have to do, but I really don't think that handing her off to Bull and trying to forget about her is the answer. In fact, I think it might be just about the biggest mistake that you can make, because the truth is that it would be all too easy for her to fall in love with him. Then, when the war is finally over and you look up from being the amazing leader that you are, instead of starting a life with the woman you love, you'll be staring at her and Bull's wedding invitation."