Hello Again! I am so glad you liked the EPOV! It was totally off the outline, so I am doing this sort of on the fly (exciting, but maddening too!) So it is nice to see that you have enjoyed it!

Let's see how Edward's situation pans out. :)

~~oo~~

I felt my jacket rip as the branches grabbed at me, slowing my fall only enough so that when my chute snagged on the upper branches. If I hadn't already lost my breath from the beating coming in, I would have lost it for sure as my body was yanked to a sudden stop.

I suppose it was good the wind was knocked out of me.

The words I wanted to let loose would have alerted my position to the gunner several yards away from me.

A miracle he didn't hear me coming in.

I struggled not to gasp when my lungs refilled suddenly and the colors shifting in my field of vision cleared so that I could see what I could in the darkness.

I hung perhaps ten or so feet in the air and already my legs felt like they were losing all feeling. I had to get myself down quietly. One arm was twisted up in my lines on the ride down, I used my good arm to slide my knife out of its sheath slowly. The gunner off to my left continued his barrage and I could hear him yelling at his comrades.

I glanced at the gear on my body and sawed off the reserve pack at my chest, lowering it slowly to my feet before dropping at as the gunner let of another round.

My musette was next with another round and then I was set to cutting my lines.

Adrenaline coursed through me as I slowly worked on my tangled lines, breathing slowly even though my lungs burned and desperately wanted me to breathe more heavily to fill them correctly.

One line through and my body jerked slightly.

I almost lost my knife from the jostling.

A slow breath out and then another line, freeing my twisted arm. Another jerk rattled me but this time I grabbed a hold of the fourth line at my front. The chute was still too taut to let me loosen my harness to get out. With the third line gone I was left gripping the last as my body started to slip through the harness. I held my breath and unhooked the buckles to my legs and felt the rush of blood work through them as I held fast to the last line. As soon as I let go of the chest buckle I dropped, just as the gunner stopped his volley.

The ground was soft when I landed; my body sprawled close to the leaves and dirt to remain hidden. I listened around me, trying to gain my bearings. Glancing up, my chute fluttered in the breeze. Nothing to do about it, but I had to move before it was found.

They'd come looking for the man missing from the chute.

I crawled to my musette and tied it around my back, the fastenings ruined from the knife. Pulling my M-1 out of its sleeve I slid along the dirt silently, away from the gunner and towards what I presumed was a field ahead.

I had landed not too far from the field I had seen from the sky and as soon as I could get under the cover of the tall grasses, I'd be safer than I was currently. The gunner continued behind me and while I knew I should take him out, but I had no idea how many there were.

Call it a cowardly moment.

Hiding in the grass.

But the training kicked in. Judging scenarios and accommodating them for the mission was our strong points as Paratroopers. We had little control over anything else.

Like wind and landing in a tree. You accommodated.

With my heart pumping hard so that it was difficult to hear anything over it, I crawled to the safety of the grass and paused.

Breathed slow.

Listened.

Gunfire to my left.

Guns to my right.

I could hear everything once I was still.

I checked the sky above me and could see the planes had long departed.

The sky was clear.

We were down in one way or another and our mission was at hand.

My heart slowed infinitesimally, but the adrenaline waned and the fatigue crashed through me. My entire body ached from my fall but I had no time for that. I had no concept of time as I lay there. It could have been minutes, or hours.

Gunfire moved away from me and as it did I slowly rolled up to a squat and to recon my position. I had no bearings on my position or where the hell our assembly area was in relation to where I had been dropped.

All I knew was that I was alone.

I continued away from the distant gunfire, towards what looked like an abandoned barn near the edge of the field.

Quietly, and slowly so as not to alert anyone of my presence.

A fluttering noise to my right had me on my haunches, heart pounding again. Peering in to the dark, I noticed the flutter of a chute about thirty feet away. I closed in cautiously, knowing that if a man had been able, he would have stowed his chute. It was suicide to leave it out. It announced your presence like a beacon.

But perhaps he was hit.

Wounded.

I made my way closer and when I knew I was within several feet I paused and listened.

"Flash," I whispered, waiting for an answer.

Nothing.

I crept a couple of feet down low, gun at the ready.

"Flash."

Nothing.

Just the fluttering of the chute. I could see it was shot up.

I don't think my heart ever had a chance to really slow, so I crept towards the chute, following the lines to where I saw him.

The man who had almost hit me coming down.

I drew a little closer and quickly pulled his chute in, so as not to draw attention to us. As soon as I had it bundled I took a look at him a little more closely. I didn't recognize him, he wasn't from my stick, but he was still one of us. I quickly pulled at his tags and retrieved one, to report to an officer in charge as soon as I made it to the assembly area. I didn't look at the name- knowing it would only make it harder to forget when I had nightmares of seeing his face as he fell from the sky.

I worked with purpose, clearing his ammunition into my pack, pulling his musette off of him and transferring my items into his. Food stores, compass, any intel went into my pockets. Personal items into my pack. Weapons strapped to me.

I was methodical in my work.

I felt numb.

But alert.

I'm not sure what to call it.

Working on instinct?

Whatever, I was pulling his rifle bag from his shoulder when I heard the rustling ahead of me.

I dropped down low, rifle at the ready.

"Flash," I heard from several feet away.

"Thunder," I replied, relief coursing through me at the idea of a friendly nearby.

It didn't mean I put my rifle down. It was dark. The enemy could have learned the code by now.

"502nd- state your name," I whispered.

"McCarty, 502nd."

"Emmett?" I whispered, shocked.

"Masen?"

Through the grass, McCarty's lumbering frame slunk through, the whites of his eyes the only thing truly vibrant in the dark.

"Thank god for a friendly face," he whispered and then frowned when he saw the body.

"Not in our stick," I confirmed and nodded where he had come. "Have you met up with anyone?"

He shook his head and nodded behind me.

"Nothing but Krauts and this guy," I confirmed.

"Know where we are?" he asked in barely a whisper.

I shook my head and slipped my map out of my pocket.

"Haven't even looked at the map yet. Don't even know where to start," I murmured and unfolded it, squinting to see in the dark.

We had memorized the maps in our head, but with being turned around, working in the dark with little to know landmarks, it was impossible to go off memory.

I struggled to find any relevant landmarks in relation to our location.

"Were you hit?"

I glanced up to see his eyes were staring at my shoulder. I looked at it through the dark and noticed the darkening wet patch there. I had no idea I had been hit. I touched the area and noticed it was a little tender, but shook it off. It'd hurt like hell once I thought about it.

"I'm fine, you good?" I said concentrating on the map again.

"Yeah, landed a little rough in a gulley, skinned my knee," he said and then covered his mouth over a snicker.

I looked at him in confusion.

"Sorry, it's just," he whispered and clamped his mouth shut, looking around. "I'm whining about a skinned knee and you have a real battle wound."

I pursed my lips at him and concentrated on the map again. The more he talked about the wound, the more it throbbed. I needed to ignore it until we got to safer ground.

"Sun will be up in a few hours, we should find a safe place until we can get our bearings," I continued.

"Thunder."

We both jerked towards the sound of the voice to my right and repeated the response word. Through the grass came four more men, none of which were from our stick.

"501st," one man said and glanced at the dead guy beside us. "That was our lieutenant."

"Where was your assembly point?" I asked, confused why 501st would be so close to us.

"South side of Sainte Mère- Église. You?" he asked.

I grimaced and shook my head.

"West side."

"So which side are we on?" another of the men asked.

"Hell if I know," I muttered and motioned towards the barn. "Let's recon over to the barn, hold tight for an hour or so and try and get our bearings."

"Who put you in charge?" one of the men asked.

McCarty shot him that menacing look I knew was a few seconds from becoming a brawl.

"The Germans when they took out your lieutenant. Corporal Masen holds rank," he shot back.

The idea of that staggered me.

Me? In charge?

Of what?

A small unit of Privates?

This was insane.

But then again we were still alive.

The men eyed me for a moment and then nodded, agreeing silently to take flank as we made our way towards the barn. Once inside and having done a cursory perimeter, we hunkered down, switching our packs to better positions on our bodies and taking vigil while I scoured the map with one of the 501st.

"I think we're here," he said and pointed at a mark on the map. "I saw the roads as I came in, and the woods there are here. Looks like we're a few miles from the west and south sides."

I nodded and calculated our path.

Probably plenty of Germans between us and our assembly.

Mission impossible.

In the best of situations, we were maybe an hour's march off mark. With Germans, and unknown terrain, it could be hours.

"So what do we do?" McCarty asked as he squatted beside us.

"Hold up here or go, those are the only two options," I said.

As much as I wanted to hide and wait until sunrise, I knew staying so close to known enemy placement was risking it.

"So we go?" the private asked.

I nodded.

It was the only thing to do. I wanted to be relieved of my leadership duty as soon as possible. The only way to do that was get to an assembly area. Find a CO and get on with our task.

"All right," McCarty said, grinning. "Maybe I'll get to shoot some Germans after all."

I swallowed the lump in my throat at his enthusiasm. Killing had never been my reason for joining. An unavoidable task, but I had hoped I would never get the chance to see them.

"You want to dress your wound first?" the private asked.

We worked at getting my jacket and gear off, the private looking at me funny when I shrugged off my t shirt underneath. He looked at the binding, holding my package at my chest. I looked down, having forgotten it was even there.

Strange.

I hadn't even thought of Bella since jumping out of that plane.

Now, seeing her letters protected against me, she flooded my mind in a torrent.

Her words. Her worries. Her requests for me to be safe.

Would I ever see her? Meet her?

Would she wait for me? Or would she move along?

Was she writing me right this instant?

I wondered if perhaps she was praying for me. When would she discover I had gone to this place?

For just a moment, I wondered. For just a moment, I was allowed to dream of stepping off the ship in New York and seeing her there, waiting for me.

"Corporal Masen? I'm done."

I blinked and looked up into the man's eyes. Just like that, I was back in the present.

No time to dream.

Not anymore.

He was eyeing the bindings and letters once more. I simply nodded and pulled my shirt back on, feeling a little stiffness in my shoulder from the bandage.

"It wasn't too deep. Looked like a puncture," he said.

"Probably from the tree branches," I murmured and continued getting dressed. Now that I had been sitting for a while, I could feel my body rebelling.

"We should head out," I said and strapped on my belt and ammo case, on task once more.

The men made no objection, falling in behind McCarty and me as we took point. One look at my compass and we were on our way. I hoped we would find little offensive on the march. We had over three miles to march, in a strange land in the dark of night.

Anything could happen.

And the way these men looked at me made me uneasy.

I was no leader.

I followed.

But now, five men looked to me for orders.

Not time for dreaming.

No time for Bella.

No time to regret that thought.

I needed to concentrate now, for my patched up unit.

I just needed to get us to Sainte Mère Église soon.

So I could transfer this sudden duty from my shoulders that felt very heavy now.

No time to do anything but get through this.

~~oo~~

AN: I blame Band of Brothers for this chapter... was watching it while writing... (which may be why Edward is so damn wordy!) If you haven't watched BoB, you should. AWESOME miniseries from HBO!

History!

So what the hell is Flash/Thunder and Sticks and all that Malarcky (heehee, there's a soldier in BoB named Malarky- what an unfortunate name growing up!) sorry I digress.

OK- when troops entered Normandy, they had challenge and response code words to identify friendly troops the they encountered (either hiding in the bush, or that they came upon) In this time, it was "Flash/Thunder". It would change as missions changed, but it would not be so common that the enemy could decipher it. so you wouldn't hear them with a "Apples/Oranges" challenge response, or "Peanut Butter/Jelly" response. ( I must be hungry!)

If the friendly responded, all was good. If not... well that meant you were free to open fire. You didn't have to always start with "flash" you could also say "thunder" first, and the other party would need to respond with it's counterpart.

Paratroopers dropped in groups of roughly 20 men, called sticks. I'm still working on the reason why its called a stick(although it is also used for a term of a cluster of bombs dropped in quick succession so they drop in a tight area- so this sounds very similar) ... but a group of soldiers in general loaded into a transport is called a "chalk", which came from the white chalk lines on the sides of planes and vehicles to mark and update the number of personnel and equipment in the vehicle.

OK, I think I have one more EPOV in me coming up... in a couple days. Then back to Bella (and a time jump- you all are dying for those letters from Edward... hehehehehehehe- they're coming)

Thanks so much for the great reviews/pimps/discussions! You guys are great!

MWAH!

steph