Stalag 13, 1941

The first blow hurt more than anything he'd ever experienced or imagined. Nothing could possibly have been worse than that.

Until the second one fell, and gave him something to compare it to. And the third.

But after a while—a few minutes, a few millennia, something like that—he almost stopped noticing the pain, because the world was no longer anything but pain. He forgot to hope for the whipping to end, forgot that it could end, forgot that there had ever been a time before it had started. He forgot everything he'd ever known, and then he forgot that there had been anything to forget in the first place. There had never been anything but this, this red-washed eternal now, and the regular strokes of the lash biting into him were as familiar, and as inevitable, as his own heartbeat.

The only thing he knew for certain was that he had to stay completely silent. He didn't know why that was important, but somewhere deep in his mind, where the last few stubborn flickers of Newkirk were struggling to stay intact, came the steel-edged determination that he would not make a sound.

And he didn't.

He didn't. Later, when he regained the ability to form a coherent thought, he would take a bitter sort of pride in that. And even years later, he clung to that pride, when, for the thousandth time, he was pretending not to notice the horrified fascination—or worse, the horrified pity—that always appeared in people's eyes the first time they saw his scars.

*.*.*.*.*

The prisoners stood in their assigned places, and they did nothing. They watched, because there was nothing else they could do, because any sort of resistance would have only extended the punishment. They watched. And they each hated themselves for their helplessness, almost as much as they each hated themselves for being secretly, shamefully, bone-deep grateful that it wasn't them tied to the post.

"He will live," LeBeau said under his breath. "He must live. He is too stubborn to die." He'd been repeating some variation of that, at irregular intervals, since the moment the guards had dragged Newkirk away. He'd been trying to make himself believe it.

"He'll live, all right," Forrest muttered. "Lange will make sure of it."

"You think so?" Richmond said, a flicker of hope in his eyes.

"I'm certain," Forrest murmured. "Lange doesn't want him dead; he wants him suffering. You can't hurt a dead man."

"I wouldn't put it past him to try," Richmond said.

Newkirk's knees gave way, and he hung limply by his wrists. The smirking guard delivered another stripe.

Forrest made a little noise deep in the back of his throat. "Animals. Can't they see he's had enough?"

"He has. Lange hasn't," Richmond gritted out. "Look at the bastard. Have you ever seen him look happier?"

"Yes. The day they shot Corrigan," Foxton muttered.

"He will live," LeBeau insisted.

Forrest closed his eyes.

*.*.*.*

"Enough," Lange finally said. "Cut him down."

The guard did just that, and Newkirk collapsed, crumpled bonelessly to his hands and knees.

Lange walked over, a faint, vicious smile on his face. With his shiny, shiny jackboot, he kicked him over, pinned him flat on his back in the mud, and looked down at him.

"No escapes," he said, softly, mockingly, then raised his voice to carry across the entire compound. "Consider this your last warning, prisoners. No one escapes Stalag 13. And the next time someone tries… I will not be nearly as lenient. Do we understand one another?"

No one said anything.

Lange's voice sharpened. "I said, do you understand?"

"Yes, Kommandant," said the senior POW officer, one Captain Weston, sparing any of the other men the need to respond.

"Good," Lange said, turning to go. "Dismissed."

"Come on," Forrest said after a long moment. "Let's get him back to the barracks and see what… what can be done for him."

LeBeau was already halfway there; Richmond and Forrest hurried to catch up. Newkirk was a rack of bones; picking him up and getting him back to the barracks was no great feat of strength.

Call it pride, call it stubbornness, call it years of practice, but Newkirk hadn't made a sound. He hadn't screamed. He certainly hadn't begged for mercy. If he'd cried, it was too softly for the other prisoners to hear. No, he hadn't screamed, and he didn't scream now. It was worse than that. As they carried him back to the barracks, semiconscious and disoriented, he just mumbled, over and over, "No more, Dad… no more. I'll be good, I promise. Please, Dad. I'm sorry. Please… no more…"

The kriegies didn't dare look at one another. They just quickened their pace, trying to get him indoors before anyone, particularly anyone German, could hear him. He'd lost enough of his dignity already.

Forrest kicked the barracks door open, and they got him inside. "On the table," he said. "It's cleaner than the mattresses."

With one sweep of his arm, LeBeau sent everything to the floor, then snatched a blanket off of the nearest bunk. He snapped it out like a tablecloth, and in one practiced motion flung it neatly over the rough boards of the table. Carefully, Forrest and Richmond lay him on it, face down. The oozing lacerations on his back were obscene. LeBeau, who had not really gotten a good look at the damage until then, went pale.

"LeBeau… go to Barracks Eight. If Jensen's still is still operational, get a bottle. More than one, if he has them. As much as he'll give you. We need it," Forrest said. They did, too. Newkirk needed the alcohol, and LeBeau needed the distraction. "It's the closest thing to a disinfectant we've got. Or an anesthetic."

"Oui," LeBeau said, and hurried away. Any errand, no matter how futile, was better than standing there, helpless.

Foxton looked dubious. "Jensen's home brew is all but lethal at the best of times. You can't seriously be considering letting him drink that rotgut. And cleaning the wounds with it will probably hurt more than getting them in the first place. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"If you have a better one, now's the time," said Forrest, rummaging in his locker for a clean cloth. "Any help is better than none."

"This isn't help, though. The shock is liable to kill him outright," said Foxton.

"I almost hope it does," said Forrest. He settled for a somewhat ragged undershirt as the best he was going to find. It was clean, at least by stalag standards. It would have to do. "God forgive me for saying it. But there's far too much filth in those cuts, and he was in a bad way before this. Infection is damned near certain, and blood poisoning isn't a good way to go."

"Krauts are one thing, but if he dies from what we do to him, it'll likely kill LeBeau as well," Foxton said stubbornly.

Forrest's hands tightened on the shirt until his knuckles were white. "Don't you think I know that? Either way, LeBeau's likely to try settling scores with the first Kraut he sees, and then we'll have two graves to dig! What in hell do you—"

Richmond caught his breath, and gave Forrest a quick head-shake. Forrest, startled, looked down. Newkirk had lifted his head a fraction and was looking at him. His eyes were glassy with pain, but lucid; he'd obviously heard every word they'd said.

Forrest swallowed. "Right. Newkirk, it's up to you. LeBeau's gone for some alcohol. We can try using it to disinfect these cuts. It'll hurt like hell and I can't guarantee it'll do any good. Or you can drink it to dull the pain until… until you don't need it anymore. It's your choice."

Newkirk closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded wearily. His choice. Sure. It was no choice at all. So what else was new.

"Half a chance… better than none," he murmured. "Do it."

They did.

He hadn't made a sound during the actual beating. Lange wanted him to, therefore he wouldn't; it was just that simple. He didn't cry out until his friends poured that first splash of raw alcohol onto his lacerated back and begun cleaning the wounds. And he didn't pass out until well after they'd emptied the second bottle.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

East Germany, 1969

Newkirk came awake with a start, drenched with sweat and his heart pounding so loudly that it was a miracle the guards hadn't heard it. That damned dream…

No prizes for guessing why he was having it now, of course. He took a deep breath, and then another. Come on, then, Mister Corporal Agent Jack Peter Pierre Rhys Penny Newkirk Selden, Esquire. Get a hold of yourself, you bleeding idiot. You've been in worse situations than this…well, probably. Just as bad, anyhow. Not good, in any case. Just keep calm.

There was a gunshot somewhere down the corridor. Newkirk did not find it particularly helpful with regards to maintaining a state of calm.

A moment after the gunshot, the cell door opened. Lange, a wild, feral look on his face, burst in. "Come on," he said.

Newkirk blinked. "Come on where?"

"Out," said Lange shortly.

"Out? How?"

"As quickly as possible," Lange snapped, and used his drawn—and smoking—gun to motion Newkirk towards the door. He had to step over the body of a guard to leave the cell, which at least explained the gunshot. And Lange's hurry.

Lange stooped to salvage the dead guard's gun, shoving it into his own pocket. "Move, Englander. Move! Get me to safety!"

"Dream on," Newkirk said. "You're done for, Lange."

Lange leveled the gun at him. "For your own sake, if not mine. Get. Me. Out."

"You'll kill me anyway," Newkirk snapped. And the chances that Lange would actually keep his word about letting him warn the others about the mole had just gone from 'slim' to 'none.' He had no more incentive to do anything but watch Lange get his just deserts. "Said so yourself."

"Yes," said Lange. "As soon as I don't need you anymore, I will shoot you. It will be quick. My colleagues, on the other hand, will keep you alive for months. Well, technically alive, at least."

Someday, Newkirk mused, it would be very interesting to be given a choice where even one of the alternatives wasn't appalling. On the off chance he survived the next twenty-four hours, he made a mental note to try to arrange for a decision that didn't involve trying to decide which worst-case scenario was preferable. Just to see what it was like.

He sighed. Half a chance was better than none. "Frontal assault, then? Try to make it to the gates before your chums notice that you've tendered your resignation?"

Lange nodded grimly, and the two of them took off down the corridor.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Washington DC, 1946

Hogan sat at his desk in his shiny new office in the Pentagon and did his job. There was paperwork to do. Lots and lots of paperwork. So far as he could tell, it spontaneously regenerated in his inbox, because no matter how much of it he did, there was never any less of it waiting to be done. The level just never seemed to go down. There was a fairly good chance, he thought, that he'd died and gone to Hell, and simply hadn't noticed.

But then again, it was crazy to feel homesick for a prison camp, so there was an equally good chance that he'd gone insane and just hadn't noticed that, either. Every once in a while he caught himself wishing that he'd wake up some morning and find himself back in that rickety, splintery orange-crate bunk with the lumpy straw mattress and the inadequate blanket and the wind whistling through the knotholes in the wall. With something real, something important to do that day. And with his whole team, ready and waiting and indomitable, just on the other side of the plank door.

Of course, he reminded himself bitterly, if he ever had suddenly found himself back in prison, he'd probably have remembered pretty damned quickly why he'd wanted to badly to get out of it in the first place. Newkirk remembered, he was sure of that much.

The office door opened, and his adjutant stepped inside. Justifiably nervous, he cleared his throat. "Sir… General Barton is here to see you."

Great, great; this was just what he needed to really cap off the day. He stood up as Barton strode inside, looking even more irritated than usual.

"What the hell is going on, Hogan?" he asked, without bothering with pleasantries. "I thought you were trying to do something about that corporal of yours."

"Didn't work out," Hogan said shortly. "He's back in jail. Got caught robbing a pub or something. Once a crook, always a crook, I guess. Some guys you just can't save."

Barton looked piercingly at him, then closed the office door. "Huh. That explains why every phone call I made ended with me being told to mind my own damn business," he said, much more gently. "One thing I have to say about the Brits; they've got the politest, and most unmistakable, way of telling a man to go to Hell that I've ever heard. Would I be right in assuming that every word you just said to me is either a cover story or an outright lie?"

Hogan's shoulders slumped. "Yeah. Well, most of it's a cover story. He really is in jail; that part's true. And I guess it's also true that there are some people you can't save. I couldn't, anyway."

Barton nodded. "Siddown, Hogan," he said, taking his own advice.

Hogan obeyed.

"I really thought I'd tied up all the loose ends," Hogan said after a long moment. "I mean, my God, I even put in a good word for the less obnoxious Germans at the camp. I thought I had everything under control."

"And?"

"And I was wrong. Worse than that; I was careless. I never gave so much as a thought to any consequences. I'd forgotten about that damned broadcast almost before he'd finished recording it; there were just too many other fires to put out and only so many hours in the day. It just never occurred to me to do anything about it."

Barton shrugged. "What could you have done about it? Once that crap hit the airwaves, there was no taking it back."

"I should never have ordered him to do it in the first place. I should have realized what I was setting him up for. Hell—I did realize it; she wasn't the only propagandist who visited the camp! Every other time, I made sure that nothing I said could come back to bite me later, and I left him to twist. Some commander I am."

"Everything's clearer in hindsight," Barton said.

"Yeah, well. In hindsight, I did exactly the same thing to him that you were going to do to me. Except that I didn't have the excuse of not having all the facts."

"No, you didn't. From the sounds of it, you didn't have the luxury of other options, either. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you made the same calculation I made every day; you spent one life to save others. It just took a little longer for the bill to come due."

"I'm the one who should have had to pay that bill. Not him."

Barton looked him straight in the eyes, and he suddenly looked old. "Do you think I wasn't saying the same thing every time I read the casualty reports from bombing runs?"

Hogan looked away.

"Some of the missions I ordered were successes. Some of them weren't. The casualty reports didn't get easier to read either way."

"I know. I know," Hogan said. "I sent a lot of good men to their deaths when I commanded the 504th. But this feels different. Maybe it's just that they died at the hands of their enemies, and for a reason. Everything he's gone through was at the hands of his own people, and for a mistake. My mistake."

"I'm not saying you didn't foul up, Hogan. You did. Maybe there was some other way you could have handled things; maybe there wasn't. You'll never know for sure. And you're never going to know how things might have turned out if you'd done differently."

"I'll never stop wondering about it, either."

"No. You won't. That's command. When things go well, you get half the credit; when they go wrong, you get double the guilt. And whether they go right or wrong, you get to lie awake at night trying to make a whole lot of ghosts understand why they had to die." He stood up, straightened his already ramrod-straight tunic and walked to the door. "Hogan. Your corporal's still alive, at least. Count yourself lucky. There are nights I'd give damn near anything to have even that much to hold on to."