Beta's: FandomlyCroft, Laura001, and Atman whipped this chapter into shape. They're all just amazing people who come through every week and help me get this out to you. Big thanks to them.

Last Time: Robert Flack interviewed Eugene Roe and survived the Cajun's temper.

"We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us." – Winston Churchill

"A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together." —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe"

Now: Flack finally interviews Sergeant Buchanan.

-Chapter 37-

Eve figured out what Malark was probably trying to hide from her pretty quickly after they hit the main camp.

Easy Company was playing host to a TV camera crew.

Lip passed the word around: they had to all smile and act merry for the newsreels. Winters's orders.

So the guys put on a show, smiling and laughing like they were having a grand old time freezing to death in Belgium.

Actually, most of the guys were excited by the prospect of being filmed. The film would play before the picture shows back home.

Eve was not. While she'd been in the spotlight her entire life thanks to her father's political career, and had never seen the appeal of it; she hadn't been morally against it until after the disastrously bad press she'd gotten for joining the Army.

She avoided the camera crew to the best of her ability, ducking around the CP and taking the long way to get in line for chow. She kept her head down and tried to blend in. She was just another soldier. She didn't want any additional attention just because she was a woman, which would certainly happen if they spotted her.

She slipped into line behind Guarnere, who grinned at her. She scowled in reply, sensing that he was laughing at her, not glad to see her.

Gene would skin her if she skipped a meal, so she meekly accepted the brown soup in her canteen and tried to ignore her rolling stomach. She did appreciate the bread slices though. It wasn't decent bread by any stretch of the imagination, bleached white bread that was popular in grocery stores now rather than a proper loaf. She might actually kill someone for a real piece of bread, hot from a baker's oven, and some genuine gravy to mop up with it.

At least my appetite's come back, she thought, finding herself a seat next to Liebgott on a log. He and Popeye – who was sitting on Lieb's other side – smiled and quickly spooned their servings into their mouths. Hot food didn't stay hot for long.

Eve swallowed the bile and made a valiant effort, but after only a few bites mostly pushed the food around and ignored Liebgott's pointed glances.

She guessed she wasn't hungry after all. Damn.

Lieb finished leagues ahead of her, but she kept sullenly stirring her food around to keep it liquid at least. He finally took pity on her and stole half of her bread, dipping it in her soup to give it some flavor and demolishing it in two bites.

Disgusting, she thought, glaring at him as he smiled at her, teeth brown from the slop and covered in mauled bread. Now I really am going to puke.

She had to look away, and thus missed the glances exchanged between Lieb and Malarkey, who'd come to lean against a tree in front of them.

Eve steeled herself and took the smallest bite of stew she could manage on her overlarge spoon. Thankfully, it didn't have much flavor, more water than anything else, but the vegetables required some chewing, and the texture alone was so much like what she imagined slime to feel like that she had to swallow them whole.

Muck's voice rang out, drawing Eve's attention away from her bowl. "Flack! Welcome back, get what you need?"

The man, whom she'd never seen before, gave Skip a tentative smile, a good approach when dealing with the indelible enthusiasm that was Skip Muck. She hadn't missed new replacements, they didn't get resupplied with guys when they were on the line. If the guy was a soldier and not a part of that blasted camera crew, he had to be from another platoon.

A slightly closer inspection revealed that he wasn't carrying a weapon. Civilian then. She lowered her head deeper into her bowl to avoid attention. Just because she couldn't see the camera, didn't mean there wasn't one.

"I think so," said the foreign voice.

"You sticking around for chow?"

"I suppose so," said Flack, though he obviously wasn't looking forward to it.

"Good," crowed Skip, grabbing the man by the arm and towing him along. "Line's this way."

Eve looked at Liebgott, who hid a smile in his bowl. She realized that she was missing something, but she knew better than trying and get it from Liebgott. The man could be as tightlipped as a steel trap when he wanted to be, and from the smirk he was failing to hide, he wasn't planning on sharing any time soon.

With a resigned sigh – she hated being in the dark – she took another stab at finishing her food.

XxX

Flack watched with interest as an incoming soldier drew Muck's attention. "Joe Toye! Back for more!"

He allowed himself to fade into the background and observe the interaction. Apparently, Toye was a wounded soldier back on the line. Flack wondered if it was stubbornness on behalf of the patient or a lack of beds in the hospital that had the wounded man back on the front. If the reactions he received were any indication, he wasn't expected.

And then Muck started narrating wounds that the various guys had gotten in combat throughout their soldiering careers, showboating for a younger soldier – probably a replacement. Flack eagerly wrote down the particulars of the various injuries, moving along with Muck so that he was never out of earshot from the man as he took copious notes. He could get back in line for food later. This was too good an opportunity to miss on account of food.

He hadn't realized that this particular group of soldiers was involved in Normandy, Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge. It was something he should have realized – what with Holland having been mentioned – but it was very easy to get confused with the obscure numbering system the Army utilized to confuse the enemy.

He tuned back in as Muck made his way towards the soldiers who were still eating, sitting clustered together for companionship, though no one was saying much.

"Now, Bull, he got a piece of exploding tank in Holland," Muck continued, pointing downwards to where a large man was sitting on the ground, miserably staring off into space as he chewed on a cigar butt. Flack made note of him. He still wanted to talk to "Bull" about Holland before he left. Lipton's story had intrigued him.

"And George Luz here has never been hit." Muck tapped a finger on George's arm a few times as though marveling at the sheer number of lucky misses the man had had. "You're one lucky bastard, George," he declared.

"Takes one to know one, Skip." George retorted around a mouth full of bread.

"Eh, consider us blessed. Now Liebgott, that skinny little guy?" Muck pointed, starting in on the guys who'd been fast enough to appropriate a log to sit on. Oddly enough though, he started in the middle of the log. Liebgott grinned meanly at Flack, who tried not to flinch back from the savage gaze. "He got pinged in the neck in Holland. And right next to him, that other skinny little guy, that's Popeye. He got shot in his scrawny little butt on Normandy."

"And uh," said Malarkey, weighing in, and trying to distract Skip before he gave up the game. "Buck got shot in his rather large butt in Holland."

XxX

Eve bit down a laugh before it could turn into a cough. And then choked and coughed anyway as Buck, ever the showman, turned and lifted his coat to expose his ass, prodding one of his wounds.

Liebgott pounded her on the back, which helped not at all, but she managed to get herself under control after a few painful hacks.

"Yeah," said Penkala, catching on. "Kind of an Easy Company tradition: being shot in the ass."

"Hey, even First Sergeant Lipton over there," said Muck, spying Lip. Muck had always had an undeniable urge to tease the First Sergeant whenever possible. Lip always indulged him, even when it strayed into insubordination. Muck was too good-natured to mean anything by it; he was just out looking for a laugh to cheer his buddies up. Lip understood that and encouraged it when he could, the whole dynamic was always fun to watch. "He got a couple pieces of a tank shell burst in Carentan. One chunk in the face, another chunk nearly took out his nuts."

"How are those nuts, Sergeant?" Bill asked coyly.

Eve snorted and had to fight her body to keep the coughing light instead of the deep hacking coughs that she'd become used to.

"Doing fine, Bill," said Lip, stirring his food nonchalantly. "Nice of you to ask."

Eve couldn't help but smile. Suddenly the food in her bowl seemed a little more appetizing. She took a couple bites before the feeling deserted her again. With a sigh, she forced herself to finish it off. When she'd swallowed the last bite, now stone cold, she got up to go wash it out.

XxX

"Who's that?" asked the replacement. Flack had all but forgotten about the kid while he quickly recorded everything he could about Easy Company. Flack looked up, spying immediately why they were talking about.

"That's Ev. She took a piece of a building to her arm in Carentan," said Muck, not noticing the way Flack's head shot up from his notes to stare at the woman who'd been right under his nose this whole time.

But Liebgott and Popeye did, and they cracked up.

Flack scowled. Suddenly, their laughter as Muck illustrated their injuries made sense. Those rat bastards had her there the whole time and hadn't said a word! He took a deep breath and calmed down from his indignation only to have bewilderment replace it. How the hell had she blended in so well? She was a woman for Christ's sake, and he'd missed her completely!

And suddenly the answer struck him, in a way that the men he'd talked to had tried to explain, but he hadn't really understood properly.

Buchanan was one of them, indistinguishable from any of the other soldiers, blending in with the rest of them seamlessly.

"She?" the replacement asked quietly.

"Yeah, she," said Malarkey, suddenly dead serious, the levity of the moment vanishing. "If you know what's good for you, you won't have a problem with that," he said quietly.

"Yes, sir," said Webb, meekly.

Flack took note of the quiet threat and the meek acceptance. Was that all it took? A couple words from the veterans and the new guys were fine with the woman in their Company? He might not have believed it if he hadn't seen it firsthand.

What an amazing bond combat created. The necessity to rely on each other was so strong that it broke social norms. Amazing. He wondered if anyone had studied it before and then decided that this was a special case anyway, so it might not matter if they had. Whatever you call it, Buchanan was irrevocably one of the soldiers out here, and nothing, not even her gender, blocked that.

He was also a little stunned that it had taken this long for the replacement to encounter her, but he supposed it could be explained by different platoons and such. This group was a good amalgamation of platoons, if Flacks few hours with the company was any indication. He'd met most of the people from Second Platoon already – or so he thought – and he couldn't remember a couple of these gentlemen being among those he'd been introduced to.

Or maybe the replacement just hadn't noticed that she was the woman? Maybe they weren't making special exceptions for having a woman in the field?

Was that even possible?

XxX

Eve didn't even look up from her scrubbing to acknowledge the exchange behind her, too busy trying to get the food out of her bowl before it froze in there and she'd never get it out. She'd deal with the replacement if he became a problem, just like she had all the others.

"Hey, Ev, how's it going?" said a very familiar voice.

She whirled, grinning. "Joe Toye," she said, thrilled to see him. "Back from the hospital already? What? Not enough pretty nurses to keep you?"

"None as pretty as you," he flirted.

She snorted indelicately and punched him in the arm.

"Hey!" he barked, dodging. "Walking wounded here."

"That'll teach you to flirt with strange women."

"You are a very strange woman," he agreed.

She slung an arm over his shoulder to give him a hug. "I'm glad you're back," she said. "You won't believe these replacements. Some of them are fresh out of high school. Did you hear what they were told in boot camp? 'You're not going to survive anyway so get used to the idea.' Of all the idiotic things to tell a guy going into combat," she groused, reminded of the issues by Webb's scolding.

"Geeze," he said, agreeing. "Good thing you're here to straighten 'em out."

"I'm counting on your help too, Joe Toye, so no more of this getting wounded business, all right?"

"You got it, Ev," he said. "You eaten?"

"Just finished," she said, showing him the half-scrubbed bowl.

"All right," he said. "See you later?"

"I'll be here," she said and resumed scrubbing as he ambled away to get back in the chow line.

XxX

Flack approached the soldier scrubbing out their canteen with trepidation, hoping he wasn't mistaken and that this was in fact, finally, Sergeant Buchanan.

He was suddenly, irrationally nervous. After hearing so much about her, he had built her up as this larger than life figure. It was nearly as nerve-wracking as meeting Colonel Sink for the first time.

"Excuse me?" he asked before he could talk himself out of it.

The soldier turned around and Flack was struck speechless for an entirely different reason. He had no idea how he'd managed to miss her before. It was beyond obvious that this soldier was not only a woman, but an incredibly beautiful one. A film of dirt covered her pale skin and made her pale blue eyes almost luminescent. Her short, tousled dark hair highlighted her cheekbones and delicate features. Somehow, he doubted she would ever be as beautiful as she was right now, in filthy ODs with a politely puzzled look.

She does not belong in combat, he thought fiercely, the stray notion snagged before he could start composing lyrical prose to her beauty in his head.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

Jesus, even her voice was low and husky, like liquid honey soothing his frayed nerves. He suddenly understood the rumors about her. She was way too pretty to be a soldier. She looked like a wife some husband should tuck away in his mansion to keep her safe.

He coughed, realizing that he'd been staring. "I'm looking for Sergeant Buchanan," he said trying to keep his eyes from searching for a hint of her small bosom and slight hourglass figure under the shapeless ODs.

She gave him a smile that stole his breath away. "You found her. What can I do for you?"

He finally remembered himself and started scrambling for his notebook. "Um," said he, still flustered but the return of his self-control seemed imminent. "I'm Robert Flack," he said thrusting out a hand for her to shake only realizing when she grasped it that his pen was threaded through his fingers. "Correspondent for the New York Times. Pleasure to finally meet you, ma'am."

"Likewise," said she, smile a touch deeper as though charmed – or perhaps amused – by his awkward manner.

"I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"

"Of course," she said. "Do you mind if I finish this?" She indicated her half-washed canteen. "It'll freeze this way if I don't."

"Not at all," said Flack moving so he was standing next to her.

She let the silence linger for a while before asking, "Is there anything in particular you want to know?"

Flack studied her face. There was a polite smile lingering on her lips, but no warmth in her eyes. It was a practiced expression. The woman had probably dealt with reporters before. Despite having little practice while she was in the army, she'd remembered the lessons she must've been taught early for them to stick so well. There was a cardinal rule for being interviewed: if the reporter was hunting for a story, it was generally best to make sure they liked you. It seemed like Miss Buchanan was old hat with reporter's tricks.

He consulted his notes before making a point to look her in the eyes. "How did you get in the Army?"

Her smile was soft. "My father, Senator Buchanan from New York, got me in."

"How'd you convince him?" he asked, approaching the question in the way she'd presented it to him. Like her father hadn't heaved around some very serious political weight to get her into a combat unit. It was as though she'd merely convinced her father to do a favor for his little girl, not defy centuries of social convention.

She gave him a sidelong glance. "I can be very convincing. And I guess he knew that if he didn't get me in the Army, I'd have come over by myself and joined the fight without the proper training." She gave a self-depreciating laugh that might've been false. "I can be pretty stubborn that way."

Flack found himself laughing with her anyway.

"He figured if I was going to go to war, he wanted me with the best men possible." She shrugged. "The rest is history."

"So you became a soldier just like that?"

Buchanan laughed again but this time it turned into a ragged cough. He waited for her to finish, growing more concerned with every heaving gag and hoarse chocking sound that clawed from her throat. She waved away the hand that he reached out, desperate to help her in some way, but not knowing how. He didn't know what he'd intended to do, but she looked so helpless gagging away that it was impossible for him not to reach out to try and help.

"Sorry," she croaked when she'd finally stopped.

Well that explains her voice, Flack thought and then immediately wondered what she'd sounded like before her illness.

"How long have you been sick?" he asked.

She gave him a sad smile, tears spiking her eyelashes and a hand on her chest as though she could control her heaving lungs with it. "Long enough. It's the middle of winter. Everyone's sick. It's not a big deal."

Flack understood that this was her asking him not to write about it. He gave her a nod. An illness that every soldier has is hardly news anyway, he thought to absolve himself of the lie.

"What was the question again?" she asked, clearing her throat.

Flack took a moment to remember as she spit out the gunk that she'd coughed up. "I asked, if you became a soldier once your father got you into the Army?"

"Oh, right," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "No, I wasn't. Like every volunteer for the Airborne, I had to pass basic training and earn my jump wings before I was considered a paratrooper."

There was iron in her tone, a strength he hadn't expected based on her appearance. He could see it: she'd earned those jump wings through blood, sweat, tears, and stubbornness.

Buchanan finished her washing by shaking the lingering water loose and sliding the mug to fit at the base of her canteen and latching it snug. She slid the whole thing into a canvas carrying pouch at the small of her back and latched the fabric closed before she answered. "I trained with some of these guys for over two years before seeing combat."

She turned around, leaning against the wash station and wedged her fingers deep into her armpits like Lip had.

That lined up with everything Flack had heard so far. It was always good to have the same information from multiple sources. "I've heard that you also had to undergo a probation period in addition to basic training."

"That was a triviality, designed to prove that I was as physically capable as the rest of the men in my unit before I joined them." She gave him another smile worthy of its own PR campaign. "It culminated in a fitness test observed by Colonel Sink and General Taylor."

"I see. So this fitness test, what did it entail?"

She shrugged. "Nothing much, basic drills and the like. Timed obstacle courses, a run up Mt. Currahee, orienteering on a compass course, there were probably a few things I'm forgetting, but it's been a while."

"I'm sorry, what's that last one?"

"Orienteering? It's where you have to find several points on a map and try to get to your destination under a time limit," she explained and then shivered. "Do you mind if we go on a walk? Standing still out here's not a good idea."

"Of course," said Flack, only now realizing that his feet were numb again with a tiny pins and needles feeling that let him know they were extremely cold.

"So, Muck?" he asked, looking to see her nod that he'd got the name right. "Back at dinner, he said you were wounded in Carentan? Where was that?" he asked as they got under way.

Buchanan didn't seem to have a particular destination in mind, but regardless navigated them away from the foxholes where the rest of Easy was settling down for the night.

"Carentan's in Normandy," she said. "It was one of our primary objectives when we regrouped after the drop on D-Day. It was the town needed to link Omaha and Utah beach. Overall, we seized the town with minimal difficulty," she said.

Flack jotted down some quick notes, trying to write out what she was saying and avoid falling on his face at the same time. He'd already learned that the fresh snow was treacherous because it evenly covered all the inconsistencies in the ground underneath. It made his writing an unholy mess he'd have to decipher later.

"I was leading a squad searching the residential buildings, and an 88 round hit the building next to me," Buchanan continued, shooting him a wry glance. "Truthfully, I went ass over teakettle, but if you could find a way to rephrase that, my mother would thank you."

He smiled and made a note.

"When I reoriented myself, I noticed that I'd got a bit of the shrapnel in my arm from the building. About the size of a golf ball." She pulled one pale hand free to show him the rough circumference.

"Did you get pulled from the line?" he asked, horrified.

She huffed a laugh. "I did have to go to the aid station. Doc Roe gave me a few stitches and sent me back to the line. It was nothing serious."

"I see," said Flack making a note of it anyway before finally turning the interview to the story that had been nagging at him since Lip mentioned it hours ago. "Can you tell me about what happened in Holland?"

She stumbled with a quiet curse, before regaining her footing and trudging along.

Flack waited for her to right herself, patiently waiting for her to organize her thoughts.

"How'd you hear about that?" she asked, meeting his eyes.

"First Sergeant Lipton mentioned it."

"Oh, well if he told you, then I'm sure it's all right for me to tell you too." She paused, heaving in a rattling breath of icy air. "That whole town was an ambush and we walked right into it."

"I'm sorry, which town was this?"

"Neunen," she answered, and then smiled and said in an insinuating lilt, "Vincent Van Gogh was born in Neunen." Only Flack didn't get the joke. She scanned his face for a second, her own falling after a second. Flack felt like he'd missed out on a joke of some kind when Buchanan plastered on a smile Flack was slowly realizing was fake.

She started walking once more, her gaze going distant. "Honestly, that was me being an idiot," she admitted with a self-depreciating smile. "Sergeant Randleman's cover had been blown to hell by an approaching Panzer and the next thing I know, I'm out in the middle of the road with him, running under MG fire."

Flack watched her, noticing the way her eyes flinched minutely as though she was vividly remembering the shattering of bullets as they hit dirt and buildings only a hair shy of her body.

She heaved a trembling breath and let it go, blinking away the memory. "To avoid the machine gun, we ended up in the roadside ditch. One of the Sherman tanks, and these were British tanks," she said, seeming to think it was important enough for Flack to note, so he did. "The tank had already taken a hit. It was engulfed with fire as it came right for us. It didn't seem to matter whenever we tried to get out of the way, I swear to God the tank was tracking us down. A few seconds later, the thing exploded into chunks of scrap.

"Sergeant Randleman caught a chunk of it in his back. My helmet protected me from most of the damage, but the piece that hit me knocked me out cold. After that, there's not much that I can tell you. Sergeant Randleman towed me to safety. We hid in a storm drain under the main street until nightfall when we moved into a barn. We stayed there overnight. A patrol from some other company – I forget which – of the 506 found us the next morning.

"They went looking for you?"

"The 506 has never lost a man. People are killed, but you keep track so you know who they are and where it happened so you can tell the families. We've never had anyone go missing. Apparently, the entire division volunteered to go out looking for us."

Flack looked at her. "They didn't do it because you're a woman?"

Buchanan shrugged. "They might've," she admitted. "But I'd like to think they'd've done it for anyone who went missing."

She turned thoughtful again, her voice down to a vague rasp now, after speaking for so long. "I was really lucky Bull was with me. I would've been dead or worse if he'd left me behind in that ditch. He saved my life."

"That's quite a story," said Flack. "Is there more to it that you can tell me?"

Buchanan furrowed her brow in thought. "I don't remember much about it, sorry. You'll have to talk to Bull – Sergeant Randleman – for more."

"I'll do that," said Flack, more resolved than ever to find a spare moment to talk to the man before Colonel Sink took him back to Mourmelon and Paris.

She nodded. "Do you have any other questions? I think my voice is about to give out."

Her voice was already barely a whisper.

Flack chose to ask the question everyone wanted him to. "Why'd you do it? Why didn't you want to go home?"

Eve coughed and her voice disappeared. "While I'm very grateful for the opportunity to go home, there was no way I could accept it. It's hard for anyone not out here to imagine, but we need every spare man on the line that we can get; so I'll stay as long as they'll have me.

"A better question is why they offered me the chance to go home when each and every one of these guys out here is as deserving of a pass as I am. There are thousands of stories out here to pick from for you to write your article about, Mr. Flack, and yet you picked me."

Well, thought Flack, remembering his reluctance to write the column at all. I didn't get to pick.

"Could I ask you for a favor?"

"Sure," agreed Flack, amiable despite feeling like he'd just been scolded, congenially, but told off nonetheless.

"When you write your article, don't write it all about me? Write it about all those guys who aren't getting to come home any more. There are thousands to pick from. Thousands. I'm just one soldier out on the line, with only God and luck between me and a bullet. I don't know why I'm still here," she admitted, "but I'll stay here as long as I can. I won't be pulled off the line for anything in the world if I have any say in it. You'll have to drag me kicking and screaming if you want me to leave." Her voice was a mere whispering rasp but the statement hung in the air, screaming its truth out to the universe for all to hear and take note.

Flack's hand was starting to hurt. He wanted to record everything she was saying as his nib of graphite flew across the page, trying to get as much word for word as he remembered.

When he finished taking everything he remembered down, his hand was fully cramped. He flexed the appendage, the numbing cold not helping his circulation in the slightest.

He looked up finally to find her watching him, a small but perhaps genuine smile on her face as she realized that he'd taken her words to heart. He tucked away the small booklet with care not to smudge the pages. He couldn't even recall flipping the pages, but he must have because there were several filled.

His supplies carefully stowed away, he held out a hand for the remarkable woman to shake. "Thank you, Sergeant. It was a pleasure and an honor talking to you."

"The pleasure's mine," she insisted softly, shaking his hand in a firm grip that solidified his impression of her. This was no meek wife to be tucked away, but a warrior woman able to go out and seize what she wanted, society be damned, and that was impressive all on its own.

"You wouldn't happen to know where I can find Sergeant Randleman?"

Eve smiled at him. "Still on that story, huh?"

He nodded with a sheepish shrug.

"I think First Platoon's foxholes are that way," said she pointing to the left a ways. "He's a nice guy," she reassured him.

"Thanks. I appreciate it." Flack was about to leave when he realized there was something he wanted to do.

He pulled his notepad back out and turned to a new page. Flack had a gut feeling that Buchanan wasn't going to be able to stay out of the spotlight for long, particularly once the war died down and her real accomplishments came to light. Flack predicted that she would surpass her father's considerable political accomplishments if she put even the slightest of effort to it. Despite his still cramped hand, he scribbled out his name and address on the precious clean sheet and tore out the page, handing it to the woman. "If you ever need anything, and I mean anything, don't hesitate to ask."

Buchanan took the page with a guarded smile and after staring at the information for a minute, folded the paper into squares and tucked it into one of her pockets. "I will," she assured him with a smile.

He hoped she would. In the meantime, he gave the remarkable woman a nod and left her alone.

That was one hell of an interview, Flack thought.

XxX

Flack found Sergeant Randleman easily with Buchanan's directions, to his considerable relief.

Randleman seemed indifferent towards Flack, which was a marked difference from everyone else.

"What can I do for you?" the man asked around the butt of a cigar.

Flack appreciated this straight forward attitude. "I was wondering if you could tell me about what happened in Holland? When you and Sergeant Buchanan were stranded in enemy territory?"

Bull's deep voice and Arkansas twang painted a vivid picture of the scene, the too easy approach to the town and the mad scramble away from the burning tank.

"What happened in the barn?" asked Flack.

"Sergeant Buchanan saved us. We were stranded with two civilians, an old man and his daughter, around Buchanan's age I'd guess. Anyways, she used the old man's liquor to sterilize my wound. Dug the shrapnel out of my shoulder and bandaged it. Wasn't too long after that that the Krauts decided to do a sweep of the barn on their way out of town.

"One of 'em stayed behind to take a leak. The civilians made a bit of racket and spooked him, but by God or luck, a bunch of C-47s started flying overhead to bomb some other town. I ended up fighting with this German fellow. Next thing I know, he goes down, Buchanan's bayonet in his back."

"Jesus," said Flack, stunned. Buchanan hadn't mentioned anything like that, implying the opposite. After interviewing the both of them, he was more inclined to believe Randleman's view of events. Buchanan had even said that she wanted to downplay her own involvement.

Randleman nodded solemnly. "She's a hero. You wanna tell people something about her, tell 'em that."

"I will," promised Flack. "Thank you for sharing that with me," he said. "I'd better go make sure Colonel Sink hasn't left without me. It was nice meeting you."

And then the reporter left, just as easily as he'd come in.

XxX

The reporter walked into the CP just as the sun was touching the horizon.

"Ready to go, son?" Colonel Sink asked.

"Yes, sir," said Flack with a distracted nod.

Sink took a moment to make sure he had all the papers he needed, and said goodbye to Bob Strayer and Dick Winters, a temporary plan of attack on the town of Foy in place.

The reporter waited patiently on the outskirts, looking lost in thought.

"Did you get what you needed?" Sink asked as they climbed into the waiting jeep to wait for the loitering camera crew.

"I think so," said Flack, settling into the back. "I do have one more question for you, sir, if you don't mind?"

"Not at all," assured Sink, interested.

"Why'd you let her stay?" Flack asked.

Sink paused and actually gave the question some thought, though the answer had come immediately to his mind. After a long moment, where he couldn't decide a better way to say it than to just come out with it, he said, "Because she deserved to stay it. She'd passed the test and earned her spot. I haven't regretted letting her stay since. She's earned her place with those boys over and over again, and she earned it again by telling those jumped up housewives to stuff it."

Flack laughed. "I guess she did."

"Now let me ask you a question, son," said Sink.

"Shoot."

"Did you learn anything?"

Flack took a moment to remember everything he'd learned and absorbed today. There had been several different and interesting characters. He'd had some harrowing experiences between Liebgott and Jackson, and then there was the fierce loyalty shown by Roe and even Malarkey and Muck. The almost devotion that Randleman, and the quiet competence of Buchanan had all effectively changed his perspective.

Flack gave Sink a nod that rocked his whole body. "I did, sir. I learned a lot."

"Did it change your opinion of Sergeant Buchanan?"

Flack met Sink's eyes. "Yes, it did."

"Good. I trust you found something worth writing about?"

"I think I did, sir," said Flack.

There was this feeling in his gut, the feeling that he was on the cusp of writing a piece that would define his career. There was undoubtedly a story here, one of true and selfless heroism in the face of almost insurmountable odds. Now all he had to do was write the damn thing.

The two camera men finally arrived and the jeep took off. Flack spent the ride back to civilization in a comfortable silence, reading over his notes and starting to compose the opening prose for his article in his head.

-End Chapter-

Thank you all for reading. The response to these last few chapters has just been overwhelming. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who reviewed. You guys are all amazing.

Updates are still every Thursday, so I'll see you all on New Years Eve. Happy Holidays to each and every one of you.