"I need a tub, mon Colonel. Towels, a brush, ribbons, and new clothes for petit bebe ours." Louie announced at breakfast the next morning.

"Excuse me?" Newkirk demanded from where he was reclining on Carter's bunk in the main room. "Did you just call her a horse?"

LeBeau rolled his eyes and muttered a string of frustrated Parisian before he said, "Non, Newkirk. An ours is a bear in French."

"Doesn't sound right. Your French pronunciation is terrible, you should stick to English like the rest of us." Newkirk pontificated, giving the girl seated on the bunk next to him a conspiratorial grin. "Isn't that right, love? No, no, jack on the queen, there you are."

The Frenchman shook his head and returned his attention to the colonel who had been awake before any of the rest of them that morning, mostly lost in thought. The fact that he had also been the one to stay up the latest, going out to get the medicine drop, then watching over Carter, Newkirk and the little girl in his quarters, gave Louie the impression that he hadn't slept at all the night before.

"The tubs we use for washing the clothes will not work, Colonel. I have to have a new tub and soap."

"Did you have a particular place in mind for this bath?" Newkirk asked.

"I was going take her down in the tunnels." LeBeau said. He'd been carefully avoiding the fact that he wasn't yet in "the club", even if Baby Bear had happily eaten his soup and croissants the night before, and was just as willing to devour the breakfast he'd made.

"It's drafty down there, she'll catch her death."

"She won't be bathing for long, Newkirk. Only a few minutes will not make her sick."

"Sure but the minute she gets the sniffles guess who'll be elected to wipe 'er nose."

"I didn't elect me to be the nanny, Colonel Hogan did. If you have a problem with the way I take care of her, take it up with him."

"Hey guys! What are you fightin' about? Both of you can give her a bath, and both of you can wipe her nose. What'ya think, she's only ever gonna need cleaned once?" Kinch interrupted, giving the colonel a quick glance, surprised the man hadn't yet responded to the bickering.

"You'll have to wait until I can whip up some clothin' anyway, LeBeau." Newkirk said, "Shouldn't take more than a few hours, sir."

Hogan didn't respond, still frozen in thought, the cup of coffee in his hand gone cold.

"Colonel Hogan?" LeBeau said, finally tapping the man on the shoulder. The move got his attention and the officer focused his eyes, looking askance at the Frenchman.

"We were talking about the bath for Baby Bear." LeBeau said.

"Oh…oh, that's probably a good idea, LeBeau." Hogan said, his head gravitating back towards the position it had been in for the past hour.

"But sir, I will need some supplies. And so will Newkirk, to make the girl some new clothing." LeBeau waited, concern in his eyes, chewing on a corner of his lips until Hogan finally blinked and looked at the barracks full of men staring at him.

"I'm sorry, LeBeau. What do you need?" Hogan asked finally putting the cup of coffee down and turning as much of his attention as he could to the little Frenchman. While Louie repeated his list, Newkirk shifted on the bed, then started making the tedious effort to stand.

Baby Bear, proving to be the helpful sort, got behind Newkirk once his hind-end had left the mattress, and pushed until Newkirk was standing. She got off the bed and stood next to him, just close enough to brush against his pant legs. Firmly planted in her 'spot', the girl went back to observing the world, waiting to see what would happen next.

Knowing what he thought he knew Hogan wondered if she had always been that way, or if it had just been since the war that she watched everything so closely.

"Uh…uh…" Hogan began, not realizing right away that he had cut LeBeau off mid-sentence. The colonel met Newkirk's eyes, then the Frenchman's and said, "Can I talk to you fellas? Privately?"

The request brought a concerned look from Newkirk and petulant look from LeBeau but both men agreed and followed the colonel as the ducked into his private quarters. Dutifully Baby Bear followed along, her puff of hair bouncing as she trailed after Newkirk.

Hogan eyed the girl, wanting to protest to her presence there, but couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Sit down, fellas." Hogan said quietly, and seated himself on the bunk Newkirk had occupied the prior evening. "Newkirk…what happened at the train yard?"

The Englishman had stayed on his feet, despite the colonel's invitation. Sitting and standing were painful processes that he'd just as soon avoid at the moment. Baby Bear had gone to sit on the bottom of the second bunk in the room where Carter still slept, careful not to bump the sleeping man, and waited patiently while the adults talked. After glancing back to make sure that she was set, Newkirk faced the colonel and said,

"We were running sir, trying to escape those junior goosesteppers and they started shootin at us. At our feet rather. A bullet must have bounced off the rails or something and Carter went down. He passed out on me and I knew I had to get rid of the goods, so I jumped onto a passing train car and tucked the maps and film into a cranny, then jumped off."

"Did the Hitler Youth see you jumping off the train?"

"No, sir. They were focused on Andrew at first."

"Do you remember which car you put it on?"

Newkirk was already shaking his head. The train had been long, the situation hostile and ever changing. "One of the cattle cars, sir. It was a long train of boxcars, and they must have been transporting dead cows, because..."

Newkirk trailed off when he saw the look that had settled on his CO's face.

"Was there a bucket in the corner of the car?" Hogan asked quietly.

Newkirk's brow furrowed as he thought back to those frantic moments, surprised at how many details he could recall. "There was sir, I think. Kicked into the corner."

Hogan sighed and stood. "Those trains weren't transporting cattle."

"What?" LeBeau asked, shooting a look to the Englander as he straightened in his chair.

"Last night before I went to sleep I watched Baby Bear climb out of her bed and grab the fire bucket. She was so…focused on what she was doing, I decided not to stop her, and just watched. She used the bucket to relieve herself."

The topic was delicate, the behavior strange and heartbreaking.

"It's not like she could have used anything else, mon Colonel." LeBeau said softly and Hogan nodded.

"I know that, and I'm proud of her. But she didn't try to wake anybody. She climbed down on her own and used the bucket like there was no question as to why it was there."

Instantly Newkirk was able to conjure the memory of that smell that had filled the boxcars. It was, after all, one of the last things that he'd been able to smell before his nose had been broken. Death, urine, human excrement and vomit. It was the stench of misery and human suffering and he'd grown to recognize it over the years of war. When his eyes went from Hogan's face to Baby Bear's, he finally put the two things together.

He suddenly understood how Baby Bear had come to be a scraped up, dirty mess in a train yard. Why she had been abandoned and probably how. Why she was content to just sit in silence most of the time, and judged the trustworthiness of a person by their smile. How she could be so small, and yet so intelligent.

Hogan could see that LeBeau got it too, and the Frenchman's face was flushing purple rapidly, the turmoil building up until he stormed out of the room with a barely audible apology.

Pain worse than any broken rib could cause, filled the Englander and after a few minutes he lowered himself carefully to the bunk beside her and scooped her into his arms.

"You're thinking she was…on that train, the first time it came through town?" Newkirk said softly.

Hogan nodded. "It's possible somebody thought she'd have a better chance on her own, than where the train was headed. Rail traffic always has to slow down going through Hammelburg. It may have been the first chance they had to get her out."

The room was silent for a few minutes before a quiet knock on the door drew Hogan's attention. Olsen stood in the doorway, confused by the heavy silence in the barracks, but not willing to disrupt it either.

"Wilson with you?" Hogan asked quietly, watching Olsen nod. "I'll be right out."

The door closed again and Hogan stood grabbing his hat and coat, taking his time putting them on. He stood with his hand on the doorknob for a long time, wishing there was something he could say. After a few minutes he left quietly, heading out into the compound.

For a long while Newkirk felt like weeping. What the girl had gone through. What it had taken for someone to willingly push her out of a moving train…her mother? Her father? Knowing that abandoning her gave her a better chance than she had in the train car.

He played the past twenty-four hours over and over in his mind, finally understanding why she had latched herself onto him and Carter. Why she had stayed so close, and yet desperately needed to explore. Why a simple flower was so important a gift in return for the food and water. Why smiles meant so much to her.

When he finally loosened his hold, realizing that he might just have been suffocating her with his own need to be a comfort, he realized that she was asleep. He wondered how much she had heard in her short time. How much she had seen. How much of it she actually understood, perhaps even better than any of the adults now in her life.

"I'm sorry, darlin'." He whispered, brushing at the fuzz on her head. "I'm so, so sorry."