I'm here again

A thousand miles away from you

A broken mess

Just scattered pieces of who I am

I tried so hard

Thought I could do on this my own

I've lost so much along the way

"Pieces" by Red

Ron's POV

I ran my hand through my hair, every nerve in my body screaming at me to follow her out that door and make this right. But I knew that wasn't possible. I'd seen the amount of suffering she'd gone through because of me. I could see it right to the bottoms of her deep blue eyes. Her soul was screaming in agony when I'd been so cold and distant with her. I didn't know how else to be. Not now. It wouldn't do either of us any good anyway. I was trapped by Britney and my unborn child. She knew it and I knew it. I could still see the unshed tears in Rebecca's eyes as she stared up at me with that defiant expression on her face.

It would have been endearing had that anger not been pointed at me. My chest began to ache at the reality of our situation. I'd pushed her one too many times and it was clear to me that she didn't remember any of what had happened while she was in that hospital in Bastogne. I closed my eyes, leaning heavily against the door frame. I knew that I was beginning to break under the effort I was putting in to staying away from her. Every cell in my body was screaming for release. Any kind of release. I wanted her so badly but I couldn't have her. Sighing, I opened the door and left the silence of that room. I had paperwork to do before the patrol started tonight. At least I'd have something to do to keep my mind off things at least.

Becca's POV

Sitting in a chair in second platoon's OP, I couldn't help but listen to the sound of the bullets being shot at the men from the Germans. I could almost feel the vibrations from our own machine guns as we gave them covering fire. I closed my eyes, feeling in my bones that something was going to go wrong tonight. Someone was going to get hurt and it would be all my fault. For not trying harder to challenge Ron. For not trying hard enough to get myself on that patrol with the rest of them. I shook my head, knowing that wondering about the past would not fix anything.

One moment was all it took to turn my world on its axis. One second I was sitting there in the silence of the room and in the next it was filled with absolute chaos. The doors to the OP swung open with a loud crack. The men moved inside. All of them were yelling. I jumped to my feet, my canteen falling to the floor, unnoticed and forgotten. Between them they carried one of their own. His face was a bloodied ruin and I couldn't tell with all the chaos surrounding me who it was.

"Who is that?" I demanded of them, not wanting to believe that this was really happening. Babe had said...No, I couldn't think like that right now. I'd known not to believe something so naïve. That we might actually all go home to our families and friends. We were close but this was not the end, not yet.

"It's Jackson. He threw a grenade and ran in right after it," Babe said, inching closer to me as he and the others put Jackson on the table in the back of the room. I scooted out of the way, my hands already itching to help him. I would not see another man die before me. I refused to go through that again.

"Alright," I said, sidling forward and immediately taking the reins, "Someone, go get Roe. He needs to be here." I didn't even notice as someone left the room to go and get Gene. He would know what to do and at the moment my mouth had gone dry and my hands were shaking like leaves in a strong wind. I could see death in Jackson's eyes. His body was jerking slightly under the pressure that death was trying to force on him. In a moment of clarity, I realized what he needed. There was so much fear and pain in his eyes. I couldn't stand to look at it. But I knew I had to. Pushing the guys out of the way, I took Jackson's face between my own.

"Jackson, you're gonna be okay," I told him. My voice was quiet and reassuring. I felt, somehow, that he was not going to make it through this. But I had to try to help. Tears were forming at the corners of my eyes as I thought about what that would mean for him. He would never see his family again, his friends or any of us ever again. I held onto him more tightly for a moment before my hands dropped into my bag. Pulling out sulfa and morphine, I set to work. A line formed between my eyebrows as I worked. My hands seemed to take on a mind of their own. I poured the sulfa on his wounds and then stuck the morphine into his shoulder. I watched his face, waiting for him to relax. Gentle hands landed on my shoulder and I glanced up at Roe to see him looking at me.

"Let me get to him, Becca. Get over on his other side and tell him he'll be alright," Gene whispered against the side of my face. I could see in his eyes that he knew what was going to happen too. I did what he said, taking Jackson's hands in my own. I could feel the rushing of my blood in my ears and my chest ached with the pain of his loss already. I'd had enough of death. I was sick and tired of it. Men shouldn't be out here dying.

"I don't wanna die!" he said, blood billowing out in a steady stream from the corner of his mouth. It brought my attention back to his pale and bloodied face. I wiped it away absently, willing him to look at me and only me.

"You're not gonna die. Look at me!" I said, raising my voice to get his attention. His brown eyes snapped back to my own and I watched the fear and the sorrow flee from his expression for a moment, "Don't look at them. Don't listen to them." I faintly became aware of the yelling and screaming going on behind us. But I knew that to help him through this, I had to be strong. To do that, I couldn't focus on the other people in the room. No one except him mattered in that moment. I watched Gene's hands move silently and quickly over Jackson's body. Trying and failing to save his life.

"Becca, I'm gonna die," he whispered, his eyelids closing over his eyes and blocking me out. I gripped him tighter, my fingers flexing over the pale expanse of his face. I looked down at him, watching the life and the light disappear from his body. I couldn't describe the way I felt then. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. My chest grew taut with it and my hands began to shake as I felt the first trickle of fear into my veins that night.

"Jackson, don't..." I muttered, wishing with all my heart that things could be different. That I could change the course of history just this once. He was so young and he didn't deserve this. In that moment, I hated how things had turned out for me. I hated that I was allowed to live while he had to give his life. For God, for his family, for his country. Instead of the tears I expected, all I felt was a dark and cold entity fill my soul. It chilled me to the bone and made shudders race up and down the length of my body. I stepped away from Jackson's lifeless body, knowing that there was nothing I, nor anyone else, could do for him now. Suddenly, I was swept up into the strong embrace of a man that I'd come to love and to cherish as much as my own life. Without him, I didn't know what I would have done. About Ron, about Bill, about any of it. Babe's arms wrapped around me in a tight hug that left no space between our bodies and which made it impossible to breathe. But it made me flounder for a moment, made clarity light the edges of darkness within my own mind.

I let Babe hold me, let him squeeze away the remnants of my despair. I couldn't focus on the deaths of those around me. Now was not the time nor the place. Later when there were no more wars to be fought and I was sitting in a comfortable chair surrounded by silence-then would be the time to mourn those lost souls. Then would be the time that I would cry for all the men I'd been unable to save and unable to help. My chest burned with the knowledge of the pain I would have to endure for years to come. But I knew that it was nothing compared to what their loved ones would feel. It was not even a sliver of their grief and their pain.

I pressed my face to Babe's shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent before pulling away again. I turned around, my eyes taking in the somber procession of faces of the men all around us. They only had eyes for Jackson's body and I knew that if we didn't get him out of here soon, someone would break. It was too soon after all that had happened in Bastogne. I took one look behind me at the German prisoners who were staring at all of us with heavily-lidded eyes and small smiles. As if they were enjoying our pain and our despair. I couldn't help but feel my anger spark at them. We had wasted a perfectly healthy man in getting them. And they probably had less value to us than a rock. I couldn't believe that after all this, we had wasted a life to save the men in front of us and they dared to laugh at us. It sickened me and it filled me with an anger the likes of which I had never known. I knew that I couldn't do anything to them. That, out of anything else, was what hurt the most. Not being able to inflict the same amount of pain on them as they were doing to us.

The urge to attack them became so strong that I tightened my hands around Babe's waist.

"Get me out of here, Babe," I muttered, hoping that over all the noise he could hear me. When he moved us toward the open doors, I knew that he had. I pressed my face tighter into his shoulder.

"Why does this keep happening, Babe?" I asked him, wanting and not wanting to know the answer. War was an ugly place. If my father had taught me anything, he'd made sure I knew that. I was only now beginning to realize just how ugly. In that moment, I missed Bill so much it brought tears to my eyes. I missed his unwavering strength and determination. I missed the way his arms would wrap around me and I would believe that nothing could possibly hurt me while he held me so close. I needed him so much. I needed my best friend back. But I knew that I had ruined everything between us. Now I was here in Europe without either him or Ron to settle the despair filling my soul so completely.

Babe's lips on my forehead startled me out of my own thoughts. I pulled away from him, wiping away the tears that had dropped onto my cheeks.

"You miss him don't you?" Babe asked me, threading his fingers through mine and drawing me close again. I could feel the love and affection for me in his touch. It was so gentle, so soft. And just what I needed right now.

"Yes. And I feel like I don't really deserve to feel like that, Babe. After what I did to him..." I let my voice trail away. I could see him nod out of the corner of my eye. I felt some of the burden lift away from my shoulders. At least I wasn't the only one missing Bill. At least I had Babe. I raised myself onto the tips of my toes to lay a kiss on his cheek. He turned to me, surprise evident on his face.

"What was that for?" he asked, a smile curling his lips.

"For being here for me. It's nice knowing that I've got someone who understands what I'm going through."

"Well who else is going to take care of you? You're crazier than old Crazy Joe," Babe said, laughing and throwing his arm around me in a small hug. I leaned back to look at his face.

"Who in the hell is Crazy Joe?" Babe chuckled, twisting a lock of my hair around his finger. It had grown out a lot since September. It was three inches past my shoulders, almost to the middle of my back.

"Bill never told you who Crazy Joe was?"

"No," I said, giggling.

"Well them I'm gonna educate ya," Babe said, using one of Bill's sayings. Whenever someone didn't know something, he always told them he was gonna educate them. I giggled, getting swept up in the happiness that had replaced the sorrow. I could get used to feeling this way again.

Babe had left a little over an hour ago. He'd walked me back to the room I was staying in and then he'd headed back to second's OP. I couldn't blame him for leaving so soon. He must have been exhausted. But, the sorrow took me again with a ruthless savagery that left me feeling hopeless and used up. I gripped the sheets beneath my hands, trying to push the thoughts away from my mind. Memories of Jackson's face as the life left his body flashed before my eyes and I pushed myself into a sitting position with a sigh of frustration.

I jumped out of bed, putting my uniform back on and heading toward the door. I snuck past Dick's room, avoiding the squeaky floorboard that was right in front of the main door to the house. And then I was out in the swirling cold of the town. The silence that had taken the town in its unwavering grasp was so profound. For a moment, I let myself be swept up in it. It wiped my thoughts clean as if the very air could steal them away.

Passing through the streets of Haguenau, I felt like a ghost. A shadow of myself that could not speak or feel anything but the death that still rode the air. It filled my lungs in wave upon wave of sorrow and doubt. For all that we had lost as a company and all that we had lost as people. I thought of Bill and Joe Toye. Hoobler and Buck. Skip Muck and Alex Penkala. So many names and so many faces flashed before my eyes and I felt my knees growing weak with the emotions coursing through me. Sometimes I wished for the numbness that had overtaken me in Bastogne. At least then I could walk around without remorse and without feeling anything at all. It had been heaven. But I knew now that being numb was not always good. It had made me miss the bigger picture. With both Ron and Bill. And now I'd lost them both. Because of my stupidity and my selfishness.

In that moment, I knew I deserved every horror and every stab of pain that God could ram through my heart. I deserved it all and even though it hurt, I knew it was nothing to what the men must be feeling. Somehow being accepted as one of them had never been enough. I would have to be a man to accomplish that. I was anything but a man. I was not even close and no matter how much I tried to fit in, I knew I never would in that respect.

Sighing, I tried to push my thoughts beyond the border of my own suffering. I wasn't allowed to be selfish. I'd done enough of that already to last me an entire lifetime. That's when I heard it. The sound that would change my life forever. It was a moan so soft that I almost didn't catch it. If I hadn't chosen to focus on what was going on around me, I would never have heard it. My fear caught in a firm lump in my throat and I had to swallow it down as I inched toward the source of the noise. It was muffled, almost as if the person the moan belonged to was behind a closed door. I inched forward, the noise growing louder and louder until it was a constant hum inside my ears. Out of the shadows of darkness, a door appeared in front of my eyes. I rushed toward it, knowing now that there was someone behind those doors. Someone who needed help. My own thoughts and sorrows forgotten, I grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open. My pupils dilated painfully at the sudden onslaught of light that greeted my eyes. I blinked frantically, the sounds of pain louder than before and ringing in my ears with a stricken finality.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, not you," said the strained voice.

"Britney?" I asked, sidling cautiously into the room and looking down on the woman lying in bed. It was her. Her blond hair was splayed like a flaxen sheet across her pillows. Her hands were balled around the white sheets beneath her body. Searching lower, I saw the source of the problem. The pants covering her thighs were soaked with blood, and the pool was widening with every minute I simply stared at her. I moved forward, my hands hesitating over her body for a moment before I moved to unbutton her pants. She knocked my hands away weakly.

"I don't fucking want you in here. Go get Ron!" she screamed as another wave of pain shot through her. Her back arched and her face became a contorted mask of misery and anger.

"There's no time for all that," I said impatiently, moving again to take her pants off. There was only one explanation for this. She was going into early labor and if I didn't get the baby out soon, she would die. I grabbed for my bag, then realized it wasn't there. For a moment, I allowed myself to panic. How had fate brought me to this moment without making me grab my medical bag first?

"I need him, Becca!" Britney shouted, her voice ringing with anxiety and fear. I shook my head, taking the length of her hand in mine and making her look at me. Her eyes met mine and for the first time since I'd met her, I saw her as a real person. With desires and aspirations. With fears and doubts. I let go of my hesitation, of my animosity. I had to save her. I had to save Ron's fiancee. No matter how much she had already hurt me.

"Britney, you have to listen to me," I said, fighting to keep my voice level, "I don't have time to save you if I have to go get him. I won't lie to you and tell you that I will save this baby, but I can save you. I will save you." There was such conviction in my voice that I left no room for argument or doubts. We couldn't afford them and I knew that she needed all the reassurance she could get.

I didn't hear her reply. Her back bowed suddenly with a scream that ripped apart her throat with a sound so terrifying that it sent goosebumps skittering across my entire body. I grabbed for her legs, spreading them apart and forcing myself to be calm through this. I took a deep breath, the air flowing through my lungs and dispersing into the thick air in this room.

"Okay, Britney, deep breaths for me okay? Can you do that?" I asked her, urging my voice higher and higher so she could hear me over the echos of her own screams.

"I think so!" she gasped, her chest heaving with exertion. I could see the sweat covering her brow. I noticed the sickening pale yellow color her skin had taken on. And I knew that I didn't have long to help her. After a few moments, her breathing slowed to a much less alarming level. I realized that I'd never taken her pants off. I'd gotten distracted and that wasn't good. Not when I didn't really know how much time I had.

"Good," I said, moving around the side of the bed she was on to grab the tops of her pants. For a moment, I saw the uncertainty in her eyes. I had to motion towards her legs, "How am I going to see with your pants in the way?"

"Sorry, yeah, go ahead," she muttered, leaning back against the pillows and shutting her eyes. I could almost feel the draining energy flowing around her and through her body. I tried to push it aside as I shifted her pants and underwear from her legs. Tossing them to the side, I moved back between her legs and pushed her knees apart. Her thighs were soaked with blood and the white sheets beneath her body had been stained red.

"Alright," I said, lifting my eyes to meet her horrified gaze, "Now when the contractions start again, I need you to push. As hard as you can. It's going to hurt like a bitch, but I don't have time to go get my medical bag." I crossed the line from the woman she'd wronged. The woman that she had forced away from the love of her life time and time again. I had become the person who would save her life at almost any cost. I bit my lip, feeling the tip of the iceberg residing within me. I knew that as unselfish as I was trying to be right now, some part of me couldn't help but wonder why I was doing this. Why was I saving the woman who'd hurt me so much?

The answer was so simple. And it left me feeling weak and so alone just to hear the echo of his name in my mind.

Ron.

I was doing it for him. So that he could be happy. So that he wouldn't have to spend the rest of this life as completely alone as I expected I would be. Without him and without Bill, I knew that I was ruined for all other men. I would always compare them to the two men who had stolen my heart. And for a moment, I let myself feel the hatred for Britney run through my veins. It might have been wrong but I thought I was entitled to hate her a little bit. Even when she was about to lose her baby. It was sadistic but I couldn't find enough empathy inside me to really care.

As if she could read my thoughts, Britney cleared her throat. I turned my gaze to her face. She was smiling at me. It was malicious and not at all friendly, "You know even if I die, he won't want you. He'll think that you killed us. Me and his baby." I stared at her, as if for the first time really seeing her. I had a moment to wonder if she'd always been this way before she screamed when the force of her next contraction hit her.

"Push, Britney!" I shouted, feeling the intensity of her pain in the tightened muscles in her legs. I looked up the line of her body, watching her strain against the baby inside her. She groaned, falling among the stack of pillows once again. I watched her, knowing as I counted the seconds between her contractions that this would be a long night indeed.

I slumped to the floor, blood covering me from head to toe and my mind filled with a loud humming sound. Disbelief etched through my veins and I tightened my grip on my thighs. The pain brought a part of myself back from the edge of numb despair that had descended upon me. I stood up, silence the only thing to greet me as I looked over the bloodied sheets that had become Britney's death bed. I grabbed for the edge of the bed, feeling my legs beginning to give away beneath me again.

I felt sick with shame and with disappointment in myself. Even more than that, I knew what would happen if I told Ron. I knew that what Britney had said was true. He would hate me forever now. I looked down at their child. It was so small and so silent, laying in a pool of its own blood. More than anything else, that lifeless child filled my eyes with tears. My vision blurred and all I could see was a watery film of the world around me. Choking down on my sobs, I turned and fled the room. It all became too much for me. I could never undo what I had done. I could never truly clean their blood from my hands. Ron's fiancee and his unborn child. I closed my eyes, willing the images of her pain and the sounds of their screams to leave me. When I plowed into the hard expanse of someone else's warm body, fear entered my heart at the thought that it might be Ron. I struggled against them, needing and wanting to get away so badly. I could not face him. Not after all that I'd done to ruin his life. Tears ran thick and unrelenting down my face.

"Becca, it's me. It's Babe!" Babe's voice filled my ears and my entire world seemed to come undone as relief swept through me. I threw my arms around his neck, clinging to him desperately.

"Babe," I whispered, pressing my face into the warmth and comfort of his shoulder. I breathed him in, trying to slow my pulse and remember hot to breathe. His arms came around my waist, holding me tightly to his body.

"Tell me this isn't your blood, Becca," Babe muttered, his hot breath caressing the side of my face and making me lean away from him so I could look up into his face. I shook my head, tears preventing me from seeing his reaction, "Whose?" That one word was whispered in fear. As if he expected me to tell him that yet another friend, another brother in arms, had been killed.

"I-I tried to save them, Babe. There was so much blood and I didn't have any of my supplied..."

"Who, Becca? Who were you trying to save?"

"Britney," I whispered, relaxing into his embrace again so that I did not have to see the condemnation in his eyes. His hands came up to cradle my head against his chest.

"Okay, Becca, I'm gonna take care of you. Don't worry," Babe said, kissing the side of my face and swinging my legs up into his arms. I pressed myself closer to him, crying my eyes out and putting my faith in him that he really would take care of me. In that moment, I didn't feel so alone. I knew that even if I'd pushed Bill and Ron away from me forever, at least I had Babe.

Ron's POV

I listened to the silence filling the room and the street outside. I could see the first beginnings of the dawn light peering in through the slivers of cloth missing from the curtains hanging in the window opposite the bed I was laying on. I slipped my arms around the back of my head, closing my eyes so that I could get a few more minutes of sleep before I had to wake up.

Last night had been a disaster. The men had caught two German soldiers and Jackson had been killed from his own grenade. Martin had told me last night that Becca had been there with them. And I knew I had to go see her today so that I could see if she was alright. Despite what she thought of me, I had to see if she was okay. She'd already been through enough and I was worried about her. My thoughts had me so deep inside my own mind that I nearly fell out of bed when someone pounded on my door. My heart leaped into my throat and my hands balled around the sheets covering my body from the cold seeping into the room.

"What is it?" I called, aggravated that they had managed to catch me so off guard.

"Sorry to disturb you, Captain, but it's your fiancee, sir," a voice said through the thick slab of wood separating us. I rolled my eyes, sliding out of bed and throwing on my pants before crossing the room to answer the door. When I opened it, I glared down at Lipton. I should have known they'd send him here to tell me something that would piss me off. For some reason or another, I liked Lipton. He was a good man and a good leader. I respected him for all that he'd done for Easy during Bastogne.

"What's the problem?" I demanded, slipping my jacket on over my white t-shirt. I wasn't really paying attention to what Lipton was saying. I'd had so much of Britney's crap over the last few months that I was almost to my snapping point with her.

"Sir," Lipton said, trying to get me to focus on him. I finally did with a sigh of frustration.

"God damnit, what is it?" I shouted. Then I saw the way he was looking at me. There was hesitation in his eyes as well as fear and sympathy. What the hell could she have done to make him look at me like that?

"Sir, your fiancee died this morning. About a half hour ago," he admitted to me. I slumped against the door frame, wondering if it was really possible. A part of me, no matter how much I wanted to deny it, was saddened by the news that she was dead. My thoughts seemed to catch up with me and I looked at him, not knowing if I wanted to find out the answer.

"And...the baby?" I asked, my voice suddenly very quiet and very solemn.

"He's gone too," Lipton said, his face telling me that he was unsure as to how I would react to this news. I hadn't even really given enough thought to the baby to have it really affect me. But suddenly, I was filled with the intensity of the loss of that life. How was it possible to miss something that I'd never truly had to begin with? I hung my head, waving him off and turning back to the silence and emptiness of my room.

"Thanks for telling me, Lip," I said, shutting the door and leaning up against it before he could say anything else. I hadn't realized until now just how much I'd been looking forward to being a father. Despair filled me to the brim and all I could do was lean against the door and ride the waves of pain rolling through me.

EEP! So I have to say that even though this chapter was filled with TONS of despair and self-hatred, it was one of my most favorites from this story. It was just so deep and I think that Becca and Ron(especially at the end) had a lot of revelations about themselves and about what they want in life. I'm really hoping I haven't lost anyone since I neglected to update(again) for a ridiculous amount of time. I'm really sorry that I didn't reply to anyone's reviews. I did read them and believe me, I appreciated them even more than you could ever know. They are what remind me that I still have readers out there and I still need to provide them with timely updates. Hopefully that won't be too difficult because me exams are over as of tomorrow morning.

I hope you enjoy this update and I hope that you can find this chapter as my little token of remembrance for the men and women who give their lives on this day at Pearl Harbor 69 years ago.

Disclaimer: No disrespect is meant toward the real men of Easy Company. I only own my OCs and the original plot for this story which you do not recognize.