"I can certainly see where you grew into the commander you became," Jack observed, turning his head to stare over the edge of the rowboat. It had been a while since he'd been in a boat. It had been even longer since he'd been in a boat for the innocence of fishing, and the enormous pond on the ranch was the perfect place to spend an afternoon drifting and nominally fishing.

"Huh," Sam was holding his fishing rod in a lazy hand and continually scanned the horizon. He hadn't been away from the front long enough for any of his habits to die away.

"We are formed by the world we live in," Jack continued, "And enough land for you to cause trouble in, and no authority to face genuine consequences." That got Sam's attention; he sat upright and frowned.

"What?"

"Come off it, old man," Jack eyed the tackle box. "You regularly committed crimes and hardly got a slap on the wrist for it."

"I got court-martialed!"

"Which was overturned," grinning at the squinting indignation on his friend's face, he continued. "I wonder if Ma knew who she was unleashing on the Germans when you enlisted."

"She had an idea," Sam groused, slumping back against the boards of the boat. "I don't remember this boat being so sturdy."

"It has been a while since you've been home."

"What the fuck do I do about Dietrich?" He demanded, and Jack pursed his lips. "I get off the bus, and in seconds there she is." He waved a hand irritably. "Standing there in my shirt and."

"Your shirt?"

"From when I was younger," he grumbled, "and Ms. Richards was there, and I was….there was Dietrich ! Fine as you please, standing in the middle of Buck, Wyoming as if it was normal!"

"If it was difficult for you," Jack mused, "I came to visit my friend only to see that Dietrich was there, standing on his front porch as if it was normal."

"God," Sam leaned against the side of the boat. "Jack, she lives in my house!"

"She's sleeping in your bed," he reminded Sam, only to observe the slow blush that crawled up his neck.

"I know," he growled, doubtlessly tamping down on whatever emotion was trying to make itself known. "It's not my bed anymore."

"No, I believe a claim has been staked."

"How does Ma even…" Sam rubbed his face again, "she knows who Dietrich is, so how did she."

"She is a forgiving woman," the Englishman watched as the fishing line bobbed in the water. "And I recall you wrote letters that mentioned the good captain more than once."

"She was a pain in our ass." Sam bolted upright as the fishing rod was nearly tugged out of his hand. "Damn!" He began to reel in the fish, and Jack scrambled to keep the water off the sandwiches that they had packed that morning. "I can't believe that I caught something!"

After a brief tussle with the fishing line, the ex-commando dragged a decently sized fish into the boat and grinned. "Well, I'll be damned."

"Certainly enough to eat for all four of us," Jack observed, "do you have any idea how to prepare it?"

"I can clean it," he paused, "not sure about cooking it."

"We'll see what," Jack's eyes drifted over, and he caught sight of a man standing on the dock. He was tall, lean, and wearing a prisoner's armband but was waving cheerfully. A package of some kind tucked under his arm. "Ah, who is this?"

"No idea," Sam dumped the fish in the bucket. "Let's find out."

A short row back to shore, the younger man came even more fully into view. He was as advertised, tall and lean, and much younger than either of them had expected. "Welcome back, Sergeant Troy!" His English was heavily accented, and his smile was unwavering as Sam and Jack joined him on the small dock. "Sergeant Moffit!"

"Captain Troy," he corrected, "Captain Moffit."

"Oh," the boy covered his smile with his free hand. "I am sorry."

"Who are you?" Sam asked, not at all wanting to discuss the finger points of rank.

"Oh, I am Shultz! Volker Shultz," he held out a hand, seemingly unconcerned by the slime still coating Sam's hand.

"How old are you, Shultz?" Sam asked; the boy was too soft to be anything but eighteen or even seventeen.

"I am 17!" He replied proudly, "Ma sent me to get you. She wants you back at the house."

"You were one of the young ones who was captured then, weren't you." Jack asked, "from the units of younger soldiers."

"Ah," Volker hesitated, "yes. The war is over...I suppose It doesn't matter."

"How old were you?" Sam asked, remember trying to staunch the bleeding of a fourteen-year-old sergeant who had been screaming insults until he couldn't scream anymore. He had to pause to shake the image from his mind. He hadn't wanted to be saved. Hysterical with pain and hate until it killed him.

"Fifteen."

"I see." He and Jack exchanged a glance. Trudging through the grass as they crested the hill and came into view of the main house.

"You live out with the others?"

"No, sir. I live with Frau Kettle, down the road." Volker's cheer was fading somewhat. "Until I go home, the MP's said that she is in charge."

"I guess they didn't want to send a child to prison, then."

"I was in prison," Volker corrected, "and then I wasn't!"

How could a fifteen-year-old cope with being a soldier and then a prisoner? Far from home and years away from legal drafting age, and in the middle of his enemies country. From what Sam remembered, Mrs. Kettle had at least five children, and when Sam had left, they had all been pretty young. Mrs. Kettle and Mr. Kettle were a bizarre pair, friendly and cheerful, and far more open with their affection than Sam was used to seeing.

"I am helping Alfred with his route today," Volker said, and Sam caught sight of another figure on the front porch, someone wearing the uniform of the postal service.

"Ah, Alfred Kettle was the one who gave me the ride," Jack remembered, "wonderful young lad."

"Yes, he said that you had come to town." Volker was obviously a bit of a gossip, which amused Sam a lot more than it probably should. "He said that an Englishman had come to town by the name of Moffit. I thought I know a Moffit! I knew that you were an enemy soldier, but you were also the Moffit that Hauptman Dietrich sometimes mentions! She does not like babies. It is very funny. During the last barn raising, Mrs. Kettle handed her Tom-Tom, and she held him like this." Volker held the package in front of him, gripping it with a few fingers, and adopted an exaggerated look of horror. He laughed and tucked it back under his arm. "Then she handed me Tom-Tom, and I would not say that an officer would run away, but she ran away."

"Really?" Sam and Jack exchanged a look. They'd have to track Volker down later for more information. "That so?"

"Yes! I was very worried when she came here. She was very sick and tired, and Mrs. Kettle asked me to stay with Mrs. Troy to see if I could help. I did; I don't know if it helped."

"She was sick?" Sam and Jack stopped, and Volker stopped too.

"Stabbed," Volker tilted her head to the side, "and she was very tired. I remember being that tired when I first came to America. See, you can't sleep when you're captured because you're worried. Then you can't sleep because you're scared. When the kommandant sent me to the Kettle's, then I couldn't sleep for several weeks."

"Huh," they exchanged another look. The Afrika Korps had surrendered just a few months after Dietrich's capture, and they could both well imagine her reaction to that.

"Mr. Kettle was always kinder than I thought he would be," Volker continued, "I was an enemy soldier, and he was very grumpy when I came. He was nice because he hadn't lost any of his children to the war. It is easy to be kind to the enemy when they haven't taken anything from you."

How astute and utterly true.

Volker turned and walked ahead, and from what Sam remembered, Alfred Kettle had been wanting to enlist as long as someone could enlist. When he'd left for war, the kid had promised Sam that he'd join him one day...so something had changed his mind, and he'd ended up in the postal service instead. Something to ask the kid later.

"Sam!" His mother waved from beside Alfred Kettle.

"Ma." Dropping his fishing equipment and handing her the single fish they'd caught, he settled for placing his hands on his hips. "What's the occasion?"

"A party," Alfred Kettle said quickly, staring at Sam with an open admiration that made him uncomfortable.

"But it's not for you," his mother corrected, visibly lying. No one else would have been able to tell, but Sam had been around professional liars for years now, and she was out of practice. "The Kettle's are throwing it."

"I think this should be interesting," muttered Moffit, offering the polite smile that had fooled people into thinking that it was Sam who had impulse control issues.

"It's just a party," Volker said quietly, and Sam tilted his head as he surveyed the young man. He was...familiar. Sam felt as if he'd seen him before.

"Right," his mother cleared her throat. "We'll see you on Saturday night, no fireworks."

"No fireworks," Kettle replied, and he caught sight of someone behind them. Emerging from the house was Dietrich, against wearing one of Sam's older shirts. The soft green shirt opened at the top, and Troy swallowed. "Morning, Captain Dietrich."

"Good morning, Postman Kettle," she sipped from her teacup.

"Package for you," the young man squeezed past Sam, handing her a brown paper-wrapped package, and he handed her the receipt. Signing for it, she passed the pen and paperback and tucked the narrow bundle under her arm.

"What are we all doing on the porch," she asked, not inclined to open her mystery package, and her eyes fell on the bucket. While she didn't comment on the fish, he could see the surprise in her eyes. Clearly, she'd been here too long if she knew that the pond wasn't for fishing but for a break from the farm. He wondered if she'd been the one responsible for the patch job on the boat.

"There's going to be a party in a few days," Alfred Kettle said, "no fireworks. It's going to be a hog roast!"

"A hog roast?" That piqued her interest.

"It's for a midsummer party...everyone is invited."

"What should we bring?" Sam asked; it had been a long time since he'd been to a proper hog-roast, and if the Kettle's were providing the hog, then everyone else was going to bring everything else.

"Here's Mom's list," Alfred passed him a slip of paper, and he handed it to his mother. "What do you want to put yourselves down as?"

"Melopita," she said, scribbling their name down beside the dessert. "We'll bring two."

She cheerfully ignored the look of confusion on everyone but Sam's face and passed the paperback to the young man. "We'll be there with bells on."

"Mom'll be glad to meet you," Alfred told Jack, surprising the Englishman. "It's been a while since she met anyone new."

"Hm?" Volker crossed his arms, affecting hurt and looking into the distance.

"She feeds you, Volker," Alfred laughed, "the shine has worn off."

"Bah," the young man climbed back into the mail truck, and they waved as it trundled off a moment later.

"What did you order, Captain?" Jack asked as soon as the truck was passing through the gates in the distance.

"I am certain that it does not concern you," Dietrich replied, taking another drink of tea. "Phyrne, what is melopita?" Her accent curled around the unfamiliar word, and Sam shook his head when Helen's eyes fell on him.

"I suppose you'll find out," Helen said, eyeing her son for a moment. "There's plenty to do before the hog roast. Sam, take Jack out and check the fencing on the north side of the L pasture. We had heavy wind a few times in the last few days. Hannelore, we're going to have to check on the beehives." The disgust that crawled over her face was enough to give Helen pause. "Unless one of the boys wants to trade bee-keeping duty."

"I'll do it," Jack offered, more gracious than Sam was willing to be. "I am curious about beekeeping; it isn't done in London."

"Alright, Hannelore, you and Sam can check out the fencing. Sam, we didn't move any of the fencing tools, so they'll be out in the barn."

"Quite a change of pace," Jack observed, and Helen Troy nodded.

"We're going to the first hog roast since Pearl Harbor got bombed. We're going to take the day off properly, and we're going to enjoy it, so we're getting the chores done early. Alright, GIT!" She waved her hands, "Hans, I'll put that in your room. Go, go; we're losing daylight!" Dietrich handed her the teacup and the package and hopped down the porch steps, and Sam sighed and followed.

It was quiet between them until they reached the barn, where Private Muller was playing with a litter of kittens, and he shot to his feet as they entered. Sam chuckled but otherwise made no comment. Dietrich looked like she couldn't decide if she should scold him or not until a kitten popped out of the front of his overalls, hissing furiously. Considering he'd already embarrassed himself, any scolding she could give would be pointless. With a snap of her fingers, she set him back to work, and Sam was partway through saddling an unfamiliar horse when a knock came at the stall door.

"Jeep," Dietrich told him, eyes on the horse and then on Sam.

"Jeep?" He patted the horse's nose and didn't like the grin directed his way.

"The horse's name is Jeep," her smile ticked up on one side.

"Did you...name the horse Jeep ?"

"I did not; Phyrne considered it quite hilarious."

"And you're riding Trojan?" The older horse, not nearly as handsome as some of the Arabian horses he'd seen in the desert, and certainly not as big as some of the horses he'd seen in Germany, but twice as spirited and grumpy, didn't like many people. He'd barely tolerated Sam before he'd left for war, and since he didn't see Bandit, he had to assume his old horse was either pushing up daisies or eaten.

"Of course," Dietrich tilted her head to the side, smug in a way he wasn't used to seeing. "He prefers my company."

"Huh," cinching the last strap, he led Jeep from his stall, not sure if he should comment on his mother's sense of humor or not. He didn't need to because Dietrich did it for him.

"Given her name and the name she married into," Dietrich looked as...well, she looked noble and dignified, even as much as she looked like a rancher. It was a contradiction of what he saw and who he knew Dietrich to be, so much so that he had to look away and fight down something that felt like a smirk. "Her fondness of the Odyssey only highlights her peculiar sense of humor."

"Does this make me Odysseus?" He asked, opening the gate and letting the woman lead the horse through.

"You did return home to find enemies in your house."

And my bed , he thought but didn't say. His bed was too big to just be carried out, it had to be disassembled, and the woman who had sentenced him to death by hanging was sleeping in it. "Does this make me Telemachus?"

"I am certainly not Penelope," she sniffed, and he climbed onto Jeep.

"Pretty sure you would have shot the suitors on the first day and spent the next twenty years in conquest until you came across Odysseus while at the head of an army." He glanced to the side as Dietrich barked out a short laugh. "And a navy."

"True," she agreed, "I would not have allowed them to gather."

"You do know how to use a bow and arrow," he cast her a glance, remembering the afternoon in the supply depot, Hitch's inexplicable arrow wound, and the death of the man who had lost everything to the invaders and then his life. She pursed her lips and turned away. If she was guilty, angry, or bitter, he wasn't sure.

"It was his choice," she said finally as they rode down the path.

"I know." He cursed himself for bringing it up, but the more he was home, the more he remembered North Africa. The frantic years in Germany, France, and Belgium as a commando running around occupied territory had flushed a number of memories away. He pushed them to the back of his mind until he could almost fondly remember Dietrich and her attempts to kill him. She was the standard to which he held every officer he'd encountered against. They came up short, never truly growing past the shadow she'd cast.

They rode in silence for a while, and he wondered if this was covered in an army manual.

"Why'd they try to kill you?" He asked and watched Dietrich brush a hand over her side.

"I offended them."

"How?" He clicked at Jeep, who sped up until he was level with Dietrich. She was an officer through and through, German through and through, and unless you were a fanatic she… "They were fanatics?"

"Captain Wasnee would have found many friends among them."

"Damn," he sighed, "you lasted a week?"

"No," she scoffed, "they needed a week to contrive a murder."

"A week? Taking the long way 'round?"

"Most certainly," she replied and nodded to herself. "Most certainly. Not everyone is as clever as we are."