I've been looking forward to writing the attack on Foy for a hundred years now, and I put my heart and soul into it. Just a heads up that this chapter gets a little gritty in terms of violence.

And finally (FINALLY), our favorite Dog Company boy joins Easy! Fun times are ahead.

Chapter Sixteen

One thing the woods were teaching Nora - she didn't need a reason to have the nerves. If she got into the wrong state of mind, the nerves would come on their own, and the reasons were just justifications that came after the fact. She hadn't noticed it before, because she'd always been moving - always focused on something. In the Ardennes, there was too much time to think, to stew, to turn things over in your head again and again. First she had feared getting wet, getting trenchfoot - now that she'd (somewhat) conquered that fear, she found herself progressively more worried about losing Lipton or Luz before the war's end. She was eager to get out of these woods, and the end appeared to be in sight as murmurs circulated about their impending assault of Foy - E Company would be leading the attack. They had managed to keep the frontline, at great cost, and it was time for them to push forward.

She snuck a sideways glance at Luz, who was sitting in the foxhole with her, changing out his socks and hanging the wet ones around his neck to dry. They'd been shelled a few nights back and lost Muck and Penkala. Luz had witnessed it, and was very nearly killed as well. Nora had been sitting in a foxhole with Lipton when the shelling began, and when Luz didn't immediately make it to the hole, her chest tightened so badly she couldn't breathe. Luz had finally crawled close enough to the hole for them to drag him in. Neither Lipton nor Luz noticed her gasping breaths or stricken expression as the chaos continued, and Nora was glad - Muck and Penkala had been hit. Men were getting wounded and losing their friends left and right; she couldn't be seen breaking down at the mere thought of these things. She'd nearly lost her senses as her worst nightmare came true and a mortar shell had landed directly in their foxhole - it had been a dud. They wouldn't get that lucky again.

She glanced at Luz once more.

"I got something on my face?" He asked without looking up from his work. She wanted to ask him again if he was okay, but she'd already driven him half-crazy by checking in so often. Luz wasn't easily ruffled by things, but she knew that seeing Muck and Penkala get hit was affecting him. Malarkey was taking it the hardest, as they'd been his best friends, and Winters and Lipton had been looking for any reason to send him off the line for a break, even if it was just a few hours.

"Just wondering when you're gonna shave off that scruff," Nora said finally. Luz scoffed.

"It keeps me warm."

"Oh? It's too bad I can't grow one."

"That's why they don't want women in the army." Luz continued with a half-shrug.

"Cold faces." Nora said, imitating a thoughtful nod. "That is compelling reasoning." She took two sections of her long dark hair (which she'd long ago stopped pulling back), and tied it under her chin. "Then again, I can just do this."

"Nora," Lipton called from over her shoulder as he approached the hole. Nora turned to face him, all business, and Lipton's eyebrows furrowed when he saw her. He knelt next to the hole.

"I'm gonna talk try and talk to Winters about…" he lowered his voice, "The Dike situation. You wanna come with?"

"Yes, of course," Nora said, glad to be included. She and Luz had been trying to talk Lipton into saying something for a while now, but it was difficult for Lipton to step out of line.

"Great," He said, then added, "Maybe lose the beard first."

Nothing had been done about Lt. Dike, of course, but Lipton had felt better knowing that he'd said his piece. The mood was generally uneasy as everyone stood at the edge of the woods, preparing themselves for the assault. Nora had heard Winters going over the plan with Dike three times now. Someone was going to get killed - it was inevitable with Dike taking the lead. Nora was learning that the hardest part of being a soldier was having to act based on someone else's judgement. It hadn't been a problem when it was Winters' judgement. She tried to calm herself by remembering how good the men of Easy Company were. Even if she couldn't trust Dike, she could trust them.

"Nora, try and stick with Luz and Dike when you're not attending to wounded, alright?" Winters said when he was done drilling their C.O. This wasn't a surprising request - Luz had become like a teacher-mandated field trip buddy for her. She nodded, liking this arrangement a little more than usual. If she stuck with Luz, she could watch his six. She liked the idea of being able to keep an eye on Dike as well, though for different reasons. They were ordered to get into position, and Nora knelt down next to Luz.

"Remember, whatever you do, to keep moving!" Lipton was telling everyone. Even with Lt. Dike sitting right there, Lipton had to step up and give orders for him. Waiting for the order to go was like waiting for the gun to go off at a track meet race - every moment you anticipated it, your adrenaline rose to an unbearable level. When the order finally went out, the machine-gunners began laying down suppressing fire, and Nora was off.

"Let's go, keep it moving! Keep moving!" Lipton was shouting as they ran across the open field. The Germans began shooting back almost immediately. Two men in front of Nora dropped during the run, but she didn't have to slow down for more than a moment to know that they were both dead, so she stuck with Dike and Luz, as she'd been told. As long as they made it into the city before the Germans could get their artillery organized, they would be okay. The run felt eternal - Nora didn't understand how battles could move so quickly and so slowly at the same time.

"Keep 'em tight, Shames!" Dike yelled. Nora was relieved that he was giving some direction. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as she'd anticipated. As soon as the relief entered her mind, it was taken away. Dike stopped, holding up a hand to signal that she and Luz should do the same. "Wait a minute," he said, looking around, "Wait a minute. Where's Foley? Where the hell is first platoon?"

Nora and Luz shared a wary look, kneeling to the ground with him. They were still out in the open.

"Easy Company!" Dike shouted, "Hold up! First platoon, hold up!"

Lipton and 2nd platoon did as commanded.

"Get me Foley on the radio!" Dike told Luz. Luz pulled out his phone, glancing around nervously.

"We have to keep moving, Lieutenant." Nora told Dike, who didn't even seem to register that she was speaking.

"Find some cover!" Lipton was yelling to his men in 2nd platoon, who began to crawl behind anything they could find.

"Sir, I think we should take cover," Luz tried to tell Dike.

"We can't st-" Nora began, but was cut off as something knocked her flat on her back.

Winters and Sink watched from the treeline as Nora's shoulder whipped back, and she fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Winters, who had been yelling frantically for them to keep moving, stopped short, and everyone watched with bated breath as Luz attempted to drag her limp body to cover.

"Is that Price?" Sink asked solemnly.

"Get me Dike on the phone!" Winters erupted, ignoring his superior officer. The staff sergeant nearby unsuccessfully attempted to get through to Dike, who was already on the phone with someone else. They had managed to take cover for the moment behind a haystack. Luz propped Nora against the haystack, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when they saw her legs shifting and moving. She was alive, at least.

The pain was white-hot and throbbing, as if Nora's muscles were being slowly torn apart like pulled pork, and it was enough to make her gag a couple of times. For a strange few moments, she lay on the ground and stared at the sky, unable to put together what had happened.

"They shot me," she said in disbelief, as if she had never considered that the Germans would do such a thing. Luz was kneeling over her, his face frantic, and she could see that he was shouting, but she couldn't make any sense of it. In fact, he wasn't kneeling over her, he was dragging her by her good arm. After he managed to get her behind a haystack, he propped her up against it, putting a hand on her face and forcing her to look at him.

"Nora, do you hear me?" He was asking. He had gotten through to Foley right before Nora had been hit, so Lt. Dike was at his back, screaming into the receiver. "Nora, look at me. You're alright. You're alright."

Nora managed to focus on him, and everything else began to come back into focus as well. Suddenly the chaos was back at full volume. Her shoulder pain had radiated into her entire arm, and she felt hot tears running down her face, though she wasn't sobbing. She glanced down at the wound. It was her right shoulder. She'd told many soldiers since this war began that a bullet to their right shoulder wasn't a big deal - that they'd gotten lucky. While that was still true, it certainly felt like a big deal now that she was the one feeling it.

She'd been shot. She'd actually taken a bullet. She'd had a bad feeling for so long now. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop - for Luz or Lipton to get hurt. It had felt so inevitable.

And it had been her. A strange relief blossomed in her chest, and she laughed weakly.

"Are you laughing?" Luz asked. When she didn't answer, he reached for her medical kit. "What do I do? Tell me what to do." He asked. Suddenly, there were many men crouching behind the haystack, all shouting. Lipton and a few men from second platoon, as well as Foley and a couple of men from first platoon, had all converged on their location to yell at Dike.

"Hang in there, Nora. You'll be alright. Hang in there." Lipton had said to her before turning to address Dike. Their C.O. was pulling at his collar, as if he was having trouble breathing, and judging by his expression, he was far, far away from this moment.

"Call Winters." Nora gasped as a new wave of pain hit her, shaking her head and pushing Luz's hands away. Things had devolved into chaos, and they had to get moving. Mortars would begin falling on them any minute now. "Call Winters."

Luz looked conflicted, but eventually nodded, turning his attention back to his phone duties. Once he'd connected with Winters, he couldn't get Dike to take the call. Nora sat there watching, attempting to focus on her breathing, though every other inhale turned into a hiss. The men continued to yell, and Lt. Dike wasn't hearing a single word. In this chaos, there was no way Luz was going to get him to have a conversation with Winters.

"Give me the phone," She grunted, reaching for it. He didn't hear her at first. "Luz, give me the phone."

Luz hesitated, but handed it to her anyway. She put the receiver to her ear and told the sergeant on the other end, who'd been holding for Dike, to put Winters on. The sergeant exchanged words briefly with someone, and then Winters' alarmed voice came through.

"Dike?" He asked, his tone sharp.

"Dike can't come to the phone right now," Nora replied through gritted teeth as her shoulder gave an extra painful throb. "We don't have a C.O. out here, Dick. What do you want us to do?"

The phone was quiet for a moment except for the muffled sounds of shouting in the background. While it was hard to tell over the sound of the yelling around her, she thought she heard the familiar bark of an angry Colonel Sink on the other end.

"Speirs is coming." Winters finally told her fiercely. "You listen to Speirs."

"Copy that." Nora replied, dropping the phone and attempting to push herself up straighter. The relief that washed over her at the news was short-lived as the pain in her shoulder screamed from the movement. She cried out, cradling her shoulder with her good arm. Her pained cry managed to get some of the men's attention where her words hadn't.

"What'd Winters say?" Lipton asked her, eyeing her shoulder with concern. Nora nodded out toward the field as Speirs leaped through the debris of a mortar round and sprinted toward them.

"Say hello to the new C.O." She announced. They turned to look just as Speirs skidded to a stop on his knees and grabbed a fistful of Dike's coat.

"I'm taking over," He said simply. Dike barely nodded and Speirs turned to Lipton. "First Sergeant Lipton, what do we got?"

"Sir, most of the company is spread out here. 1st platoon tried an end around, but they're stretched out, and they're pinned down by a sniper. I believe he's in the building with the caved in roof." Lipton reported, gesturing toward the building to show Speirs. Nora wondered briefly how he had managed to keep track of all of that information while also dealing with Dike.

"Alright, I want mortars and grenade launchers on that building 'til it's gone," Speirs jumped right in, "When it's gone, I want 1st to go straight in - forget going around. Everybody else is gonna follow me." He said. Lipton and Luz turned to each other and shared a relieved smile. The confidence in Speirs' demeanor alone was enough to dispel the chaos. Speirs turned to look at Nora.

"Think you can run?" He asked, eyeing her shoulder. The subtext of the question was clear - you sure as hell can't stay here. The enemy was going to zero in on this haystack any second with their artillery. It was miraculous that they hadn't already. Nora nodded, her face still screwed up into a pained expression.

"I think so," She said.

"Alright, let's go," He said, grabbing her good arm and pulling her up.

"I got her," Luz insisted, dismissing Speirs so that he could take the lead. "We'll be behind you."

Speirs nodded, "Everyone follow me," He said, pulling his rifle off and holding it in front of him as he ran out from behind the haystack. Nora ran alongside Luz. The pain from her shoulder didn't prevent her from running, but her balance wasn't great, and she was overcome with nausea that she tried to force back down. Luz ran alongside her, keeping a supporting hand on her so that he was ready to grab her if she fell. She stumbled a couple of times, but managed to stay on her feet by herself. Speirs came to a stop behind the corner of a building and they all fell to the ground next to him, pushing their backs against the wall. Nora cried out as the jarring stop irritated her bullet wound, and before she could even take in another breath, vomit followed. She leaned over, emptying her stomach into the snow.

"It's okay, Nora," Luz said, running a hand over her back to try and provide some assurance, "You're okay. Let it out. There you go. You're okay."

Lipton and Speirs watched around the corner and tried to formulate a plan while Luz attended to Nora. Every time her stomach heaved, her muscles convulsed, irritating the wound further - in addition, gasping from the pain caused her to suck some of the bile back into her windpipe. She choked and sputtered for a minute or two, fighting to return to some kind of equilibrium. When she did, she wiped off her mouth with her sleeve and looked up to see the three men watching her.

"Where to next?" She asked, her voice rasping.

"We have to get to I-Company before they slip away." Lipton said, glancing at Speirs. Speirs looked at Nora for another moment, thinking.

"That's right," He said finally, patting Lipton's knee. "Wait here."

Before any of them could respond, Speirs got up and disappeared around the corner. The three of them, including Nora (with some difficulty), crowded to the edge of the building to watch.

"What the hell?" Luz said, voicing everyone's thoughts. This entire operation was a fiasco that just kept getting crazier - Speirs was going to get shot. Nora's stomach was churning again, and she couldn't tell if it was from the pain or from the thought of watching him die. She considered not watching, but it was like a trainwreck that she couldn't look away from. To her dismay, the Germans weren't shooting at him. They shouted and scrambled, completely unprepared and probably shocked at Speirs' gall.

He's gonna make it. Nora thought, though she didn't dare say it aloud for fear of jinxing him. She breathed a sigh of relief as he climbed over a wall on the other side of the square. Luz sat with phone in hand, and they all waited for Speirs to radio further instructions to them.

"What's he doing?" Lipton said, causing the other two to turn their attention back to the square. Nora stopped breathing completely as she watched Speirs climb back over the wall and start running back to them.

"No way," She whispered. The Germans shouted and fired at him as he sprinted down the street, not even hesitating for a second. Lipton turned to share a disbelieving smile with the two of them.

"So long, Dike. Hello, Speirs." Luz murmured, watching in awe. Moments later, Speirs was dropping back onto his knees next to them, out of breath but completely unscathed.

"Alright, I-Company is on track. Once our artillery takes a few of these guys out, we're gonna make our way in that direction." He announced, though his voice seemed far off to Nora. She shook her head a little bit, trying to focus. She shifted to slump back against the wall and reached up to touch the area around her wound. She looked down to see that the front of her uniform was becoming soaked with blood. It hadn't been bleeding too badly at first, but the running and constant jarring had made it worse.

"Nora, you with us?" Lipton asked, noticing the daze she was slipping into.

"I'm...losing too much blood…" Nora breathed, resting her head against the wall. Black edges were starting to close in on her vision.

"Get her bandaged," Speirs commanded. Luz pulled off the medic kit he'd been carrying for her and pulled out a bandage, pressing it against her wound. The pain and pressure brought her crashing back to reality for a moment, and she gasped. Bandaged. Right. They should have done that first. Why hadn't she told them to do that first?

"Just tie it." She told Luz, knowing that she wasn't going to be able to keep good enough pressure on it herself. "Tie it tight, and go ahead. I'll wait for a medic."

The three men exchanged anxious looks.

"Honestly," She murmured, "I'll be fine. I just need to sit for a while."

After a long moment of studying her face, Speirs nodded.

"We'll send Doc Roe this way if we see him," He said. "If all goes to plan, the assault should be over quickly now." He pulled a pistol out of a holster on his belt and handed it to her, holding it by the barrel so she could take the handle. "In case anyone comes too close."

She grabbed the gun with her good hand, but he didn't let go at first, holding her attention by hanging on. "Only if you need to. Don't draw attention to yourself."

"I'll be fine," Nora insisted, meeting his eyes steadily. "Go finish it."

"Shit," Nora murmured when a man in a white snow-camo suit finally noticed her sitting there. She was too out of touch to keep track of which side was coming out on top, so she'd sat there with her head against the wall, singing softly to herself to keep awake while she waited for a medic to find her. She considered yelling for one, but she hadn't wanted to draw attention to herself. Now it didn't matter - she'd been spotted. As the man approached her, holding his rifle high, Nora considered whether or not to use the pistol she'd been given. Speirs had said not to let anyone get close. After a moment of hesitation, she let go of the pistol, letting it fall off her lap. He would shoot her before she could even raise her arm to take aim, and even if she could manage to do it in time, her vision was still affected by the blood loss. The man was shouting at her as he approached, and she didn't need to speak German to know that she was being told to get on her feet.

"Medic," She murmured, gesturing weakly to the badge on her arm. "Medic."

The man didn't seem to care, jabbing his rifle toward her threateningly as she shouted. She attempted to climb to her feet, wincing as he continued to scream. When her knees buckled for the third time, the man grew impatient and grabbed her by the collar, half-dragging her along with him. Nora's natural instinct was to struggle, but she tried to fight it - if she strained herself too hard, she was going to lose too much blood. She hoped that one of the men would see her and be able to take him out with a rifle, but it seemed the assault had already moved further into town, because she they didn't encounter any other Americans as he dragged her through the grassy alleyways between the buildings. Nora's heart pumped hard at the pain his rough treatment was causing and at the thought of becoming a P.O.W. - she tried to calm it, knowing that it would only make her more likely to pass out. The man brought her to the door of a building and shoved her in, shouting orders to the other Germans inside who were scurrying around in a panic. She cried out as she hit the wooden floor on her bad shoulder, her eyes blacking out as white-hot pain spread through her. The men checked her over for weapons before dragging her over to a far corner and throwing her back down. Nora watched their boots walking back and forth across the floor, her cheek pressed to the hardwood as her eyes drifted closed. The thought briefly crossed her mind that if she fell asleep now, she might not wake up again, but she didn't have the fortitude to care as she slipped away.

Lipton, Luz, and Speirs had, in fact, never seen Roe or Spina during the assault. There were a number of injuries that had required the other medics' attention, including Frank Perconte's new million-dollar-wound, and they'd assumed, of course, that Nora was covering the ground that they couldn't. When the fighting finally stopped, Luz and Speirs approached Roe.

"You get Nora taken care of?" Luz asked.

"Nora?" Roe asked, his brow creasing with concern.

"Damn it," Luz hissed, and the two of them ran back to where they'd left her, Roe following behind. "Shit!" Luz shouted, kicking a loose chunk of cement and pushing his hands into his hair. "Shit! Where is she?"

"Martin!" Speirs shouted to Johnny, who was standing nearby.

"Yes, sir."

"We need a couple teams of men to start sweeping these buildings. Price is unaccounted for, and she's wounded. Go get some more hands." Speirs ordered breathlessly, running toward the nearest building to start looking himself. Luz disappeared into an alley as well, shouting for his lost friend. Martin nodded, running off to tell the other men the news.

"Anything?" Lipton asked, his brow creased with worry as his team met back with Speirs' team at the town square. The men of Easy, particularly the Toccoa men, had been searching frantically for 45 minutes now without any sign of Nora. Speirs noticed that she'd left his pistol lying on the ground, and it hadn't been discharged. He figured she'd probably fallen unconscious. He shouldn't have left her there. Even if he couldn't send Roe, he could have sent someone - anyone - to sit with her.

"No," He answered, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he continually turned the problem over in his head. "We've got to be missing something."

The Germans had surrendered - if they had taken her, it should've been apparent by now. Nobody wanted to voice the fear they all had - that she wasn't turning up and wasn't responding to their shouts because she was lying dead somewhere, and it was a matter of finding the body. Speirs turned his attention on the men at the center of the square, his eyes narrowing. A few of the replacements were singing and carrying on, still celebrating the victory they'd managed to pull from the clutches of defeat.

"Why aren't they helping?" He asked between gritted teeth, making his way toward them determinedly. Just as he was about to lay into them, a shot rang out, and then another, and another. Two of the shots had met their targets, and the rest of the men scrambled to find cover. Speirs and Lipton ran behind the corner of a building with Shifty Powers and a few others, and Lipton peeked around the edge carefully, trying to pinpoint the sniper.

"Second floor, building on the right," Lipton told Powers. "Don't miss, Shifty."

When Nora's eyes fluttered open, it was, unsurprisingly, to the sound of gunshots. She immediately knew something wasn't right - that something was different about them - but her consciousness was returning so slowly that she couldn't at first pinpoint what it was. She was staring up at wood rafters - she tried to remember where she'd been when she passed out. They had dragged her into a building. Was this the same one? She turned her head to look at the door. She had definitely been moved again, but perhaps not far. Another gunshot went off, and she winced, realizing just how close it was. She rolled her head to the other side and lifted it slightly, screwing up her face as she tried to force her vision to focus. Someone was sitting on the far side of the room - a silhouette in the window. As her senses continued to come back to her, she heard shouting from somewhere below. She was on the second floor now.

It hit her why the gunshots weren't right. When she'd passed out, there'd been artillery and gunfire noises coming from all directions. Everything was quiet now, except for these solitary shots. Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. Bang.

Nora's awareness flared as the adrenaline kicked in. She was watching a sniper. Presumably, that was Easy Company down below. She quietly rolled onto her side, looking around for anything nearby that she could use. Her hand grasped at a discarded rifle magazine. She took a deep breath, thinking about the risk of drawing the man's attention. She reared her arm back as much as she could in her weakened state and chucked the heavy piece of metal across the room. She didn't hit him, but it didn't matter. He tensed as the magazine clanked against the desk near him and turned to look over his shoulder. Nora watched his rifle swing around and screwed her eyes shut, throwing her arms over her head. When the gunshot rang out, the pain didn't come with it. Nora jumped as a heavy thud jarred the floor, and she uncurled to see that the man was lying dead in front of the window. The bullet wound in his head blossomed red.

"God bless you, Shifty Powers." She breathed, groaning.

As Lipton ran out into the open, the sniper's eyes followed him. Shifty whipped his rifle around the corner and took aim. The sniper got off one shot, barely missing Lipton, who was running for his life and attempting to keep low. Shifty focused in on the sniper through the sight of his rifle. There was a slab of wood cutting through the center of the window that obscured his view. He wasn't positive he had a killshot, but he had no choice but to take it, for Lipton's sake. Just as Shifty's finger began to squeeze the trigger, the sniper's head whipped to the left, looking behind him. As his head leaned to the side and became clear of the wooden obstruction, Shifty pulled the trigger. The sniper fell.

Cheers erupted as the men began to climb out of their cover.

"Stay covered!" Shifty shouted. "Stay down!" The men all hunched back into their hiding places, glancing around in confusion. Speirs looked over Shifty's shoulder.

"What is it?" He asked.

"He was distracted," Shifty said, keeping his rifle sights on the window. "Someone else is in there."

The square was dead silent, and everyone waited with bated breath, watching the window that Shifty was still monitoring. After what felt like an eternity, someone pulled themselves up into the window. Shifty squinted to get a better look and then sighed in relief, lowering his rifle.

"God bless you, Nora Price." He breathed, laughing.

"Roe, wait a minute. Hold on. Gene, stop. Hold on." Nora begged as Lipton and Heffron carried her out of the building on a stretcher. Roe was trying to inspect her wound while they walked. He had told Luz to call for a jeep to take her to the hospital, but Luz had yet to do it, as he was also busy hovering anxiously around her.

"Nora, you've been walking around with a damn bullet in your body for hours now," Roe said sternly, "We need to get you out of here."

"No, no hospitals -" She began, attempting to sit up.

"Woah, easy, Nora. It's okay." Lipton said as Luz laid a hand on her good shoulder and tried to keep her steady on the stretcher. She swatted his hand away.

"Nora, enough. If you don't calm down, I'm gonna give you morphine." Roe told her, never one to mess around.

"I am not hysterical," Nora insisted fiercely, "you're just not listening to me."

That caught Roe's attention, and he signaled for the men to stop for a moment. "What do you want from me, Nora?" He asked.

"Look at me, Gene," She demanded. He did. "If I get sent to a hospital, I'm never going to come back." The men were all silent as they considered this. It seemed like some of the brass had been waiting for a reason to pull her off the lines this entire time so that they could say they tried putting women in combat, and it didn't work. News of her combat wound was going to be controversial.

"You know I'm right." She said, glaring at Roe. She was not going to back down on this one. "Just tell them it's superficial. Tell them I can heal on site." She continued, lowering her voice.

"That'd be fine if you didn't have a bullet in your shoulder." Roe said.

"Just take it out," She replied, as if it were the simplest solution in the world. Roe's nostrils flared, and she could tell he was about to argue. "Just take a look. Please."

Roe sighed, ordering for the men to take her aside into a secluded alleyway so they could get some privacy. They placed her on the ground and kneeled around her, leaving room for Roe to sit near her wounded shoulder. Nora wasted no time, unzipping her uniform coat with her good arm and attempting to shrug it off.

"Woah, slow down there, Nora," Luz said, laughing nervously as she struggled to untuck her shirt. Lipton gave him a wry look.

"Are you going to sit there and fidget, or are you going to help?" Nora shot back, not in the mood for games. Luz's mouth snapped shut, and he helped pull the shirt over her head, mindful of her wound, which Roe was trying to keep pressure on during the transition.

"The bullet didn't exit, because it stopped at my shoulder blade" Nora reported to Roe, all business even as she sat there shivering in her bra. How many of the men's ass wounds had she attended to without making it awkward? Surely the men could handle seeing her in her bra once - she had no sympathy for their discomfort. "You can fish it out."

"Not a chance," Roe argued, the only one who didn't seem fazed by her. "It's too deep, and I'm not a surgeon. It's not life threatening, so it doesn't need to come out this second, which means you go to a surgeon. It's standard procedure."

"Look," Nora continued, opening and closing the fist on her injured arm. "No tendon damage. No organs nicked. If the bullet comes out, I can heal quickly. I don't need a hospital."

"Unless I do more damage rooting around in there." Roe replied.

"Gene, please. Just try. If it gets worse, I'll go," She promised, her eyes pleading. Roe stared at her for a long moment, warring with himself.

"Hold her down." He told Lipton and Heffron. Nora allowed Lipton to lay her down on the blanket they'd spread out under her, taking a deep breath to try and relax. Heffron gently grabbed her shins, preparing to hold them when the time came.

"Luz you got a light?" Roe asked. Luz produced a flame, and Roe used it to sterilize a long pair of forceps from his medical bag.

"Here, pour some of this on the wound," He instructed Lipton, handing him the peroxide. Lipton did as instructed, apologizing when Nora sucked in a sharp breath. Roe pulled a syrette out of his pocket, and Nora caught his wrist with her good hand, stopping him.

"No morphine," She said firmly.

"Nora, you need -" Roe argued, but she cut him off.

"No. Morphine." She repeated. She trusted them, but she wasn't going to take any chances. She didn't want to pass out and conveniently wake up in a hospital. Roe sighed and put the syrette away, instead preparing a length of bandage to wrap the wound with afterward. When he finished, Nora grabbed it from him.

"Wad that up for me, please." She told Lipton, who did so with furrowed eyebrows. Nora took the wad from him and shoved it into her mouth so that she would have something to bite down on, and then tried to relax again, laying her head back. Roe kneeled over her wounded shoulder and took a deep breath.

"You're sure?" He asked, looking at her with apologetic eyes for the pain he was about to inflict. This wasn't the kind of thing that they did without first administering morphine. Nora nodded. Roe went digging, and Nora threw her head back with a muffled cry. Heffron held her legs and Lipton restrained her upper half, though it was difficult to do without pressing on her injured shoulder. Against her volition, Nora's back arched and her hips and stomach rose off the ground, making Roe's search more difficult. Luz reacted quickly, straddling her hips to keep her still and leaning forward to look full into her face.

"You're going great, Nora," He assured her. "Just look at me. Keep looking at me."

Nora did just that, continuing to cry through the bandage-gag, until her eyes rolled back into her head and then closed completely.

"Doc, she's out," Luz reported, panic seeping into his voice. "Hurry up."

"Almost got it," Roe murmured, all his concentration on the bullet wound that was seeping dark blood. Nora's body had relaxed, but none of the men moved, waiting anxiously while they held her.

"Got it," Roe announced, holding the bullet up for a moment before dropping it on the ground. "Now we pack it and bandage it," He explained, pulling the wad of bandaging out of Nora's mouth. Her jaw closed, and her head rolled to the side as she groaned. Luz and Lipton exhaled in relief. Luz climbed off of her but stayed close, helping put pressure on the wound while Roe bandaged it.

"Do we need to call her a jeep?" A new voice asked from the mouth of the alley. The men tensed as they realized their new commanding officer had been watching the procedure. Luz looked over his shoulder and shook his head at Speirs.

"No, sir. But she could use a new shirt and a sling." He said. Speirs nodded but didn't move to leave, watching her face.

"Winters and Sink saw her get hit. They're gonna want her off the line." He said as if he were thinking out loud. "What's your assessment, Doc?"

"I'll want to keep an eye on her, but it's nothing that can't heal up if she takes it easy for a couple of weeks," Roe replied, softening the report the way he knew Nora would want him to. Lipton shot him a wary look, not feeling great about the watered-down report. If Nora's shoulder got worse, Lip sure as hell was going to make sure she went off the line, no matter what she had to say about it. Speirs also looked doubtful, but eventually nodded.

"I'll talk to Winters," He said, turning to leave. He paused before walking away. "She's not to be left unsupervised while she's out cold. And Heffron, you'd better clip that morphine cap to her uniform." He advised. Roe, Lipton, and Luz all turned to look at Babe, confused. Babe shrugged sheepishly, glancing down at the syrette still sticking out of Nora's leg. They turned back to look at Nora's relaxed face, putting two and two together.

"She's going to kill you when she wakes up," Luz said, finally. "You know that, right?"

The men had been hoping, especially for Nora's sake, that after Foy they would be taken off the line for a bit - shipped back to Mourmelon for a breather. Instead, they were sent almost immediately to take the town of Noville, and then Rachamps. Nora, of course, sat these out, trying to rest as much as possible to make up for the amount of blood she'd lost and to give her shoulder's healing process a running start. They spent their night in Rachamps at a convent, relieved to be sleeping indoors for the first time in a month. The sisters brought in a girls choir to sing for them, and the young women looked and sounded like angels. The men of Easy sat in the pews, watching silently and savoring the moment. Nora sat in the first pew between Lipton and Luz, her arm cradled in a makeshift sling. Lipton sat with his feet up, working on an updated roster to keep track of who was left in Easy Company. Luz watched the choir sing, his gaze far off, as if he was in his own personal heaven.

"That good, huh?" She asked softly, her lips quirking in a teasing smile. Babe, who'd been sitting behind them, leaned forward, his arms propped on the back of her pew.

"Maybe he's just happy to see some broads who can actually carry a tune." Babe chimed in, earning a chuckle from Luz and a glare from Nora. The men had asked her to sing for them exactly once in the duration of the war and had never made that mistake again. Nora chose to ignore him, instead closing her eyes and settling further into the pew to try and relax. She didn't realize she was nodding off until she felt the bench creak next to her and opened her eyes. At some point, Lipton had left, and Speirs had sat down to replace him.

"How's the shoulder?" He asked.

"Doing just fine." She replied quietly, lifting the arm in the sling just a bit to prove her point. A jolt of pain shot through her shoulder and into her neck, and she did her best to resist wincing. It really was doing alright, all things considered. It didn't appear that Roe had done any extra damage digging around in there. "Thank you for convincing Winters to leave me on the line." She added knowingly. He didn't acknowledge it.

"Speaking of Winters, battalion wanted me to give you this." He said, handing her a small velvet box. She hesitated before taking it with her good arm and flicking it open. Two silver bars were nestled inside. "Congratulations, Captain."

Nora stared at the insignia, chewing the inside of her cheek. The moment clearly wasn't enough to satisfy Speirs' expectations, because he frowned.

"What, you don't want it?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. He watched her expression as she thought about how to respond. It didn't cost battalion anything to give her this (and yet they'd still chosen to withhold it this long). They weren't giving her any more responsibility - weren't making any bets on her. It changed nothing. It was the equivalent of getting a gold star on a spelling test.

"I'm sorry, it's not you," She said quietly after a moment. "I just learned a long time ago that the ranks don't mean anything when they're applied to me."

With a small, close-lipped smile, she excused herself and went to find Lipton to ask about where she should settle in for the night. Speirs watched her go, clearly troubled by her response.

"Is she supposed to thank you?" Luz asked pointedly. "To battalion, that's a piece of jewelry for her to wear."

"Noted, Sergeant." Speirs said curtly. "You're dismissed."

Luz took the hint, excusing himself as well and heading off in the same direction as Nora, leaving the new C.O. to his thoughts.