Author's Note:

I was re-reading the story "All's Fair" by peaxhtree on Ao3 for about the eighteenth time, and thought What If This But Other Way Around, and this popped out. I was also recently discussing Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel "Monstrous Regiment" with some folks recently, which I heartily recommend reading as it's excellent, as well as mentioning here for the purposes of owning up to the fact that I stole the whole idea of the socks trick straight from Sir Pterry. I figure if you're going to rip people off, you might as well rip off the really talented ones.

Just to prevent confusion - Klink in this story is a bisexual, cis woman who presents as a man for largely social/being-an-awkward-potato reasons. Her experiences are partially (but not entirely) based on my own somewhat conflicted relationship with the whole gender thing, but if you see other stuff in here, knock yourself out, it won't hurt my feelings a bit. That said, I'm not interested in getting into any debates over a story I largely wrote for myself.


A tall, thin teenage girl pulled her dress up as she ran down the street, heedless of the puddles and mud from the day's earlier rain staining her shoes and stockings, two long black braids bouncing wildly behind her. Her mother caught her by the arm just outside of her front door, squeezing hard, stopping the girl before she could enter.

"Don't you even think about setting foot in my home like that! Take those shoes off now!"

The girl knelt down and slipped one shoe off, hopping from one foot to the other on the landing until she had them both dangling from one hand, dripping mud. She looked up at her mother with a brittle smile, only to find the woman looking even more incensed.

"Drop them and go inside. Change out of those muddy clothes before your father gets home. You'll be washing them yourself tomorrow! Honestly, Minna, can't you act your age? You are not six years old! You'll be married next year- don't give me that face! It's a good match and your father worked hard to find someone suitable."

"But mama, he's got such a temper, he's horrible..." Something shifted subtly in her mother's expression, but her hopes were swiftly dashed.

"You'll just have to mind yourself, child. The Klink family doesn't have quite the standing it once did, and frankly you are still too thin and homely to catch anyone's eye. Your father's done the best he can to secure your future, you should be grateful he was able to find someone at all!"

Wilhemina Klink bit back the retort begging to escape and ducked around her mother after leaving her shoes beside the door. I'm not marrying that Erik if I have to go to a convent, she thought, cringing at a recent memory of the man, twelve years her senior, beating a dog senseless for some minor disobedience. Then she cringed again, at the thought of a convent. School had been both difficult and boring for her, and nuns frankly terrified her. Although not as much as the thought of marrying Erik did. Sure, he had money, but a fat lot of good that would do her if she spent her days being the man's punching bag.

Her brother, Wolfgang, would be home soon. At least he seemed to care about his sister's continued ability to not be dead. Maybe he'd have some ideas. She had a few of her own already, but none that would be easy to pull off without help.


My name is Wilhelm Klink, she thought. Better start thinking this way or you will slip up, and they will throw you out! Worse, they might throw you in jail, or an insane asylum! She ran a hand over her head, the short-cropped hair feeling strange under her fingers. Wolfgang had cut most of it off days ago (badly), but soldiers apparently were not allowed even what little her brother had left behind. She'd managed not to cry when he'd hacked off her long hair, which when unbound had reached her waist in gentle black waves. A necessary sacrifice, though.

Wolfgang was mad at her, she knew, and thought the whole idea was rotten from the start, but he knew Erik even better than she did and he'd agreed that her chances in Erik's paws were probably less than in the damned trenches. Erik had finally killed his poor terrified dog outright a month ago, then given his own mother a split lip a week later. Most men at least had the sense not to hit a woman where it would show in public.

She coughed violently after dragging on the cigarette. She'd always found smoking a nasty habit, but it roughened her voice enough to pass for a young man. She hadn't exactly been a soprano anyway, not since she was very young. Too thin, her mother had said, more times that she wanted to recall, and utterly graceless. She tripped over her own feet, had spent her childhood tearing dresses at a rate her mother's sewing basket could barely keep up with, and never quite knew when to shut up. To top it all off, she had a big nose, which was apparently an unforgivable sin.

Wilhelmina Klink had known she was no great beauty for most of her life, but for the first time, that was working to her advantage as Wilhelm Klink. She'd padded out the shoulders of her new uniform jacket, squeezed into a too-tight undershirt (not that she had a whole lot to squeeze down in the first place), and stuffed a rolled-up pair of socks down her trousers. Combined with a bit choreographed belching and shameless scratching, so far no one had bothered to pay any more attention to her than to any of the other teenage boys lining up for inspection. They were desperate for recruits with the war heating up and hardly cared; the army physician had done little more than weigh her, take her pulse, glance at her eyes and ears, inquire as to whether she had any injuries to her back or feet, and ask her to cough a few times. If anything, he'd seemed bored, not suspicious.


When they began seeking for recruits to train for flying, Wilhelmina had jumped at the chance. She'd barely escaped the trenches with her skin intact, terrified at the knowledge that any injury could expose her for what she was, if the medics got too close. Even when her back and legs had been cut up with a spray of shrapnel, she'd hidden the injury. It had taken weeks to heal, and the scars would likely be with her for the rest of her life.

Her brother had been able to return home for a short time, a few months ago. He'd written to her. Erik had married someone else, then beaten her to death not three months later. A bit of shrapnel was nothing to cry about, she supposed.

She'd been given a short leave as well earlier in the year, but knew better than to go anywhere near her father's house. Wolfgang had agreed to deny any knowledge of her whereabouts. With her wretched former fiance in prison, she supposed she might be able to risk it, but feared their reaction to what she'd done, that they'd prevent her from returning to duty. I'm not your little girl anymore, papa, she thought as she shouldered her rifle. You can't just sell me off to the highest bidder now.

She'd be in the skies, soon.


The defeat of Germany at the end of the Great War was embarrassing, she supposed, but mostly she was just glad it was over. She'd been given her discharge papers. Well, Wilhelm Klink had been given discharge papers, anyway.

Her first mistake had been trying to return home. Her second mistake had been trying to return home still in uniform. She'd grown accustomed to it, and it no longer felt strange to her, so it had just somehow slipped her mind that it would it would seem strange to anyone else. Her father hadn't recognized her, but her mother certainly did.

Mama had rushed out of the house and grabbed her daughter by her shoulders, gripping to the point of pain. "Minna? What in God's name have you done to yourself!?"

She'd been sent to her old bedroom to go digging through a dusty wardrobe that had not been touched in years. A distant part of her was shocked her parents hadn't sold everything during the deprivations of the war, or simply thrown it out in anger at her for disappearing.

She sighed, throwing dress after dress onto the equally dusty bedspread. Nothing fit her well anymore. The dresses were too tight across the shoulders and around her arms. Military service had put muscle on her in places few women of her family's social class were expected to have any, clearly. She'd managed to find one dress she could squeeze into, barely. She stared at herself in the dirty mirror, the reflection looking back at her even thinner and older and far more tired looking than the last time she'd looked in this mirror. There was nothing to be done about her hair. She could grow it back out in time, but wasn't sure she even wanted to. Do you even have a choice, really?

The question rolled around in the pit of her stomach once she thought it. Do you have a choice? Did Wilhelm Klink have to disappear now, or could Wilhemina Klink disappear once again? Well, time would tell, she supposed.

She left the bedroom of her childhood behind and went downstairs to find her brother setting out the dishes for dinner. Her father was already seated at the head of the table, arms crossed over his chest, and glaring at her with a hard expression that made her shudder involuntarily. You've literally been shot at and shelled and had men die in your arms, are you going to cower in front of him?

The answer, apparently, was very much "yes" as they sat and ate dinner in silence, the tension in the room so thick she could have cut it with her dinner knife.


She stood in the parlor under her father's harsh gaze. He'd crossed his arms again and paced back and forth in front of her for several long, silent minutes. She stood ram-rod straight, at attention as though for a general, without even meaning too. Her training had been too thorough.

"Why, Minna? Why would you do this to us? Do you have any idea what people will say when they find out what you've done?"

She swallowed thickly. "You know why, papa. I just couldn't marry him. You know what he did to-"

"Brigitte would have been fine if she'd just remembered her place and been obedient to her-"

"You don't know that, papa!"

Wilhelmina Klink managed not to fall when he slapped her, to her surprise. It was hardly the first time she'd been struck by her father, but a slap to the face as a grown woman wasn't the same as being spanked as a child, not by a long shot.

"If you could learn to take orders as a damned soldier, you could have obeyed a husband! You certainly should have obeyed your own father! You'll burn that uniform tomorrow, young woman. And keep your head well covered, I don't want the neighbors knowing how you've mutilated yourself."

She felt like a coward the next morning, before dawn, dressed again in her very much unburned uniform, slipping out of the door. Her brother, Wolfgang, was sitting outside, waiting for her. "I figured you'd be leaving, Minna."

"You don't want me to." It wasn't a question.

"I don't like it, but I can't really blame you. Mama will forgive you, I think, eventually."

"Papa?"

"I wouldn't count on it. Send me an address when you get settled somewhere. I'll try to keep in touch, Minna."

Her eyes stung with tears. She gave her big brother a tight hug, and left just as the sun crested the eastern horizon.


It was supposed to be a relatively easy job, or so Wilhelm Klink was told when she was given her new posting as the kommandant of a camp for prisoners of war. Cushy, even. Safe . Still she felt like she'd been insulted – just packed up and shipped off to be mothballed in a box somewhere out of the way. It wasn't her fault her left eye had gone funny on her just before the war had started, something called astigmatism that had probably always been there and suddenly become worse. She was officially grounded by the Luftwaffe, despite her protests. She could see well enough, she thought, at least with the monocle, but they wouldn't let her fly with it and her depth perception without it was admittedly a bit wonky.

Life is unfair, her father had told her, decades ago, when she'd been a child. He'd told her repeatedly, in fact, just about any time she was told she couldn't do something and complained, especially when it was something Wolfgang was allowed to do. She had always hated it when he told her things like that. If it's so unfair, why not make it fair ?, she'd argued as a child. Things had seemed so simple then – if you didn't like something, if you didn't think it was right, then just change it. Her father had called her foolish.

Maybe he hadn't been so wrong. Wilhelmina Klink had changed a lot in her 48 years of living, mostly herself. It hadn't been easy, though. She'd spent so many years living as Wilhelm Klink, it was hard at this point to think of herself as anything or anyone else. Her military career was a joke to the likes of Burkhalter, but she'd had to avoid too much attention, or so she'd told herself. Better to fly (hah!) under the radar, not stick her neck out too much. She didn't want to make enemies, didn't want to make anyone envious or angry enough to care about her in the least. The end result was ending up the oldest colonel in the Luftwaffe, which ironically attracted its own attention. Maybe she'd tried a little too hard to be mediocre.

Things had only gotten more difficult in recent years, even before the war started. The gestapo were both devious and paranoid, as dangerous to their supposed allies as their enemies. Everyone was an enemy, or a potential one, to those lunatics. She'd heard the rumors, of course. There were places for people like her in the third reich, prisons which it was rumored bore little resemblance to her relatively sedate Stalag XIII. Her reasons for doing so may be different than others doing similarly, but living for decades as a man would still result in being branded by the authorities as some sort of sexual deviant and the punishment would certainly be fatal, one way or another. She may be as foolish as her father had said, but she wasn't completely stupid after all.

A POW camp for enemies shot down over German territory, mostly American and British, but with a smattering of Russians and Frenchmen. It wasn't a prestigious posting, but at least nothing too exciting ever seemed happen here. It was mostly a lot of paperwork, even with her secretary doing a lot of it, but a short stint as an accountant between the wars had inured her to the tedium of sitting behind a desk for hours.

Klink pulled a cigar from the humidor on her desk, lighting it. She still hated cigarettes, but had come to appreciate the cigars, to her own surprise. She puffed at it idly and thought of her mother, who had contacted her a week ago, after her father's death.

She hadn't wanted to go to the funeral, given the circumstance under which she and her father had parted ways, but Wolfgang had twisted her arm until she gave in. So, she'd gone to the funeral, but she'd gone as her parents' second son, not as a daughter. She couldn't risk revealing herself, not with the threat of the gestapo sniffing around. Too many of them knew Wilhelm Klink. Wolfgang had warned their mother in advance, at least, and instructed her not to react badly. She'd not been too surprised when her mother had called her Wilhelm. She'd frozen in absolute shock when her mother embraced her, long and hard, the first time they'd crossed paths in over two decades.


"You have another prisoner scheduled to transfer in, he will arrive this afternoon, Kommandant."

Klink looked up to see her secretary, Helga, standing next to her desk with a stack of papers in hand. "Oh, thank you, Fraulein." She took the papers, and her eyes fell on a new piece of jewelry, a rather expensive-looking necklace. The younger woman noticed her boss noticing, as it were, and smiled coyly, stalling her exit, but said nothing. Klink spoke, mostly to fill in a silence that felt increasingly awkward; obviously Helga expected some sort of reaction. "A recent gift, Fraulein?"

"Yes, from my fiance."

Klink mustered up a smile for her, pushing down an odd wistfulness that washed over her. The young woman, half her age and reminding her painfully of herself at an even younger age, was clearly happy enough with her future plans. "Congratulations, Fraulein. Have you set a date?"

"Oh, not yet. With the war, it's hard to... well, you know." Helga shifted slightly, as if to leave, but stopped. "You don't have a wife, do you Kommandant?"

Klink was momentarily taken aback by the personal question. "Oh, uh, no, I never married. There, ah, never seemed a right time for it. Married to the job, as the saying goes." She laughed nervously, smiling tensely at Helga, wishing the secretary would just leave and go about her business. She couldn't bring herself to order the woman out, though. Helga had been kind enough to Klink since she'd come to Stalag XIII, after all.

"Oh, well. I'd had a question but, never mind then, Kommandant. It's no great matter, I'm sure things will get easier soon. Once the war is over, of course."

Klink cleared her throat noisily and nodded at Helga as she turned and went back to her desk. Once Helga was gone and had closed the door behind her, Klink rose and went to her bottle of schnapps, pouring a bit for herself. It was far too early to be drinking, but she felt tense. She hadn't been lying to Helga, really. There hadn't been a right time for any such thing, ever, not since she was a young teenager hiding behind trees to steal kisses from the boys at school.

There had been a few rare occasions in later years that other women had paid her some attention, not knowing, of course, what she was hiding. The kisses and caresses hadn't exactly been objectionable, either, but she couldn't risk letting it go much further than that. And men, well, that was even more dangerous for several reasons. It simply would have been too dangerous to pursue a romance, however she went about it.

And if she were honest with herself, she had to admit she'd have been bored miserable as a housewife, even if her intended so many decades ago hadn't been an absolute monster. She didn't regret escaping the marriage her father had planned for her, not by a long shot. But occasionally she did wonder what might have been. Her brother had married, at least, and she had a niece and nephew to dote on when the opportunity arose. It was enough. It would have to be enough.


"Colonel Robert E. Hogan, United States Air Force, serial number 0876707."

The man stood between two guards, staring down at her with a crooked smile. A smirk, really, with just the slightest hint of teeth showing. This one will be nothing but trouble, she thought. Cocky.

"Fine, fine, put him in Barracks 2, I believe there is still some room."

"His date of rank predates your current senior POW, Kommandant."

Klink paused, looking the American prisoner over once again. This one is definitely going to be trouble.


Klink knew she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and never had been. She'd managed to finish school as a child, but only by the skin of her teeth. Still, even she had noticed things had changed with the arrival of Hogan. The man was an absolute pain in her ass, constantly swanning in and out of her office, stealing her cigars, lodging frivolous complaints as a pretext for something she hadn't quite figured out, but definitely knew was happening. Things went missing in the region, other things exploded, and the local gestapo representative, a thoroughly distasteful toad of a man named Major Hochstetter, showed up regularly to breathe down her neck and make her blood pressure rise.

Hogan was up to something. He was definitely, absolutely, up to something. It set her teeth on edge. A small, paranoid voice in the back of her mind was screaming in alarm, that he'd blow her whole act out of spite, sooner or later. He seemed to know everything, after all. He had to know who – what – she was, didn't he? Did he?

The months wore on and she lost sleep, and she lost weight. She stood before the mirror one morning a few months after his arrival, dragging a comb over her head, staring at it and trying to remember if this much usually came loose. Was her hair starting to fall out from the stress? It was certainly starting to go gray. And the war showed no signs of stopping. She'd be lucky not to have a heart attack, never mind evade detection.

Hochestetter and Burkhalter seemed to spend ever more of their time chewing on her as the sabotage in the surrounding countryside continued, and she just wanted the war to end. At this point, she'd even celebrate an Allied victory. Hell, they couldn't possibly be any worse than her supposed countrymen, not with the sort of things she'd been hearing whispers about lately.


[A/N: This takes place immediately after the events of the episode "Hogan's Hofbrau"]

Klink didn't need to wonder whether Hogan was up to something anymore; seeing the man drinking beer with those two con artists, and wearing a very German uniform at Hilda's Hofbrau was the last nail in the coffin. She didn't buy the story about Schultz using Hogan and his men to raise money for her for one second. That might have excused the prisoners serving as kitchen and waitstaff, but it didn't get anywhere near explaining Hogan's Luftwaffe uniform, for starters. Furthermore, Schultz did not particularly like Klink, and Klink knew it. To think the old man would stick his neck out in such a fashion for a C.O. he routinely scoffed at when he thought her back was turned was laughable.

No, Hogan had scrummed up that Luftwaffe officer's uniform from somewhere, and escaped, taking several other POWs with him. His appearance the previous evening had saved her skin, though she somehow doubted it had been his primary aim. She wasn't worth much to Schultz; she was worth less than nothing to Colonel Robert E. Hogan, a literal enemy.

The galling thing was that she now owed the man. There's no telling what Captain Milheiser and Lieutenant Durnitz might have done to her had the five thousand marks not materialized out of Hogan's pocket like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. If that money were legitimate, she'd eat her own hat, not that she cared in the least what happened to her erstwhile extortionists if they were caught with counterfeit bills.

Hogan was a spy. Hochstetter had accused him of it on a multitude of occasions, usually when something in the area exploded. He and his men could enter and exit the camp at will, it seemed, although how they managed it she had no clue. The fences were sturdy enough and the guard rotation was as efficient as anything the German military did. They couldn't go over, they couldn't go through, that left only under. They had tunnels, somewhere, clearly.

The question was, what was she going to do about it? She thought about Hogan and his obnoxious smirking face. She'd threatened as much, but did she really want put him in the hands of an executioner? It seemed so easy – just call up Burkhalter – hell, call up Hochstetter - and tell them to arrest the man. He'd be dead before the week was out. Klink downed another shot of schnapps and ran a hand through her hair. She hated Hogan, but not that much. She wasn't sure she really hated anyone quite that much.

What am I doing?

She put the bottle away and crossed the room to stand in front of the window, looking out over the prison camp. What a stupid war, she thought. What a waste of time, a waste of resources, a waste of lives. People like Milheiser and Durnitz held positions of honor and people like her were thrown away in a box like this, if they were lucky. If they were unlucky, they ended up in a very different sort of prison camp, if rumors were true. Somehow she didn't doubt they were.

The nazis had seemed so clownish when they first appeared, too ridiculous to take seriously. Then the clowns took over, and grew teeth and claws. And the people, being people, did what people always seem to do when a bigger bully shows up in the schoolyard – they either joined in or they kept shut up about it if they didn't like it.

Life isn't fair, her father had told her.

She'd never joined the party, even though it would have been a great advantage to her career. There had always been something about them that utterly repulsed her, reminding her far too much of men like her would-have-been fiance Erik, to the point that the instinctive disgust they triggered in her had managed to override her rather overdeveloped natural cowardice. And she was a coward, she knew, a coward who had been running away from her problems since she was a teenager, hiding behind a false identity. She had learned how to suck up to her superiors, how to please those around her, how to make herself small enough not to be overly noticed. She'd left home to escape a servitude under a man who would have reduced her to little more than an object to kick against his own ego, and discard when he was bored of it. What was she now, though? The oldest colonel in the service, a pilot who wasn't allowed to fly, the kommandant of a camp that was treated like a hotel by its prisoners.

If it's so unfair, why not make it fair?, she'd argued as a child.

Wilhelmina Klink had been shoved into a box for storage a long time ago, far longer than Wilhelm Klink had been. Minna was starting to feel cramped.


Klink found herself crossing the yard toward Barracks 2. She passed Schultz, ignoring his lazy salute and walking straight into the building. Several heads swiveled to stare at her nearly in unison. Well, at least I can still surprise somebody occasionally, she thought. Clearly she'd made herself far too predictable. Well, that was about to change. She was quite sure what she was about to do would knock a few socks off, and may well end up with her dead and tossed down an underground tunnel somewhere. But, as the saying goes, any dead fish can float downstream. She was tired of being a dead fish.

"Kommandant?"

Newkirk, she recognized. He was sitting at the table with the cockroach and Carter over a card game. She glanced around the room and saw a few more prisoners napping in bunks, but not the man she wanted.

"I need to speak with Colonel Hogan. In private."

Newkirk and LeBeau exchanged a look. Carter just stared at her over the cards in his hand, mouth slightly open like a confused dog. After completing some sort of silent debate with the cockroach, Newkirk put his cards face down on the table and went to Hogan's door, knocking on it. "Colonel, the Kommandant's out here. Says he wants to speak to you."

A pause, then a muffled voice through the door. "Fine, send him in."

Newkirk went back to his seat, picking up his cards again and the group resumed their game. They'd no doubt be at the door listening to every word, but Klink hardly cared at this point.


"I'd wondered if you'd have something else to say about this."

Hogan had given up his desk chair to Klink and was perched on the lower bunk bed, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The room was small, of course – the prisoners' accommodations were adequate but hardly generous, even for senior officers. They weren't meant to be comfortable after all, it was a prison, but now Klink was wishing the architects had designed something a bit more spacious. She was suddenly feeling rather claustrophobic.

"That said, I assumed you'd be calling me to your office. Not that I don't try to keep things cozy and inviting in here, so it's no surprise you'd want to drop in for a visit."

Klink scowled. The man couldn't have a serious discussion to save his life. Everything had to be a joke with him, and she had to fight down the urge to slap his face. He couldn't even allow her to defect with dignity.

"I don't know what Hochstetter might have left in my office, Hogan, that's why I'm here. Although now that I think about it, he might have—"

"It's not bugged, Kommandant. My office, I mean. I have no idea about yours. We keep a close eye on things here. In fact, we've gotten quite good at finding the little additions you've made over the years."

Klink sighed heavily. "Yes, yes.. But never mind that, I came here for a reason, Hogan, if you'd actually let me get to it?"

Hogan's piercing black eyes narrowed in her direction and she felt the hair stand on the back of her neck. Hogan was a very dangerous man and this could end very badly, she reminded herself. She wondered what would happen if she just stood up and walked out of the door, and never came back. She wondered what would happen if she just left, got into a car, and started driving and didn't stop, for that matter.

"I know you're a spy, Hogan-"

"What makes you think that, Kommandant? I would never-"

Klink grit her teeth, and stomped a boot on the wood floor in frustration. "Let me finish! I know you're a spy, Hogan, and that you can get your hands on German uniforms and leave this camp whenever you damned well please, and blow up bridges and God-knows-what-else you're doing!" Hogan opened his mouth to speak, but Klink pressed on, letting the words spill out rapidly before she could lose her nerve completely. "I am here to offer you whatever assistance I can give!"

Hogan's mouth opened again, then closed. He repeated the movement a few more times, blinking at her stupidly.

"Well, Kommandant... that is certainly not what I expected to hear. But what makes you think I'll ever believe I can trust you?"

"The same thing that makes me think I can trust you. Absolutely nothing at all but a hope and a prayer. I might be tied up and on my way to London tomorrow after this; I might be dead tomorrow, rotting away in a corner of one of your tunnels, and don't think I haven't contemplated that eventuality in great detail!"

"One question, Klink – why?"

Klink slumped in the chair, shrugging, now that it came down to it. Why was she doing this? She knew, on a certain level, but it wasn't so easy to put into words, now that it was being demanded of her. "I... I don't think I like how things are anymore, Hogan. I haven't for a long time. My father used to tell me that life isn't fair when I was a child and I always hated it. I always asked him why people couldn't just make it fair. He'd called me a fool, and he was probably right. So... I suppose this is me, being a fool, trying to make it fair."

Hogan turned away from her, and she could practically hear gears turning in his head. She swallowed thickly and wiped her sweating palms on her legs. After several long minutes, he finally turned back to her.

"I'll have to talk this over with a few other interested parties, Klink. In the meantime, the best thing you can do if you genuinely want to help us is simply keeping your mouth shut. If I need anything more from you, we'll speak about it later."

Not the warm welcome she'd been hoping for, but not an immediate bullet between her eyes either, although that could always come later. All in all, it could have gone worse, she thought. She nodded once, and left the barracks swiftly, ignoring the multiple pairs of eyes boring into her back as she retreated.


On the surface of it, little had changed. She still got up in the morning, dressed in a Luftwaffe uniform, ran through roll call with Schultz, then filed reams of paperwork with Berlin. Had she really betrayed her own country? It appeared she had. But the nazis had betrayed her country first, she thought. She didn't think she could survive much longer either way, as everything and everyone seemed to close in around her, a wolf at every door, usually in a German military uniform.

So she was, at least nominally, working with Hogan now. Mostly that consisted of ignoring him, subtly altering a guard rotation, or occasionally dropping off a message in town with one of the underground's contacts under the pretext of a night off. It had surprised Klink to find out how many Germans were involved. Maybe it shouldn't have. If she hadn't spent the last thirty years so focused on preserving her own skin, her secret, maybe she'd have paid enough attention to join them sooner.

Well, too late to do anything about that.

Today was different, however. She'd been pressed into a more active role in Hogan's latest scheme. She hadn't been given much detail – for her own safety, Hogan had insisted – but here she was, now, after sunset, driving a staff car with Hogan wearing a borrowed guard's uniform in the front passenger seat, Carter laying sideways in the floorboard of the back seat, and Newkirk and LeBeau crammed into the trunk, driving down a dirt road several miles outside of Hammelburg.

To start with, it had taken too long to get out of camp. She'd been stopped by Schultz over some trivial issue, and while she normally didn't mind the old man, she'd resorted to snapping at him and sending him on his way, feeling a twinge of guilt at his injured expression. But the whole thing was making her skin crawl, for reasons she couldn't quite pinpoint. It all just felt wrong, somehow. It didn't help that Hogan himself seemed unusually tense.

She stopped when Hogan indicated, coming to a halt outside of an old cottage that looked like nobody had lived in it for years. Hogan and his men piled out of the car. Klink moved to cut the engine and get out but Hogan held up a hand, stopping her. Nothing but a chauffeur, she thought glumly. He still didn't trust her to participate fully. He must suspect something was wrong with her. How much did he know? How much did he know? Klink's stomach was perpetually in knots these days, she barely ate at all anymore, but it did a veritable flip at the moment. It'll be a miracle if I don't die of an ulcer before this war ends, she thought.

She turned to stare out of the window. The nearly full moon lit up the surrounding trees eerily, painting long shadows across the road. Hogan and the others entered the cottage. Klink waited, silently, with only the thrum of the car's engine to keep her company, growing more anxious by the minute.


Klink generally was good at following orders, she'd made an entire career out of shutting up and doing what she was told, but when two gunshots rang out, she cut the car's engine, yanked the key out and shoved it in a pocket. Her hand palmed at her standard issue sidearm, confirming the pistol was in its usual location. She slid out of the car and tried to keep to the shadows as she rushed toward the cottage. She burst through the door just in time to hear another two gunshots. The man facing Hogan brandishing a luger dropped to the ground with a trickle of red running from a hole in his forehead and more spreading rapidly from underneath his skull.

Klink smiled at the apparently unharmed Hogan in relief. Pain blossomed in her shoulder and Klink instinctively slipped a hand under her coat to press into it. A wet warmth spread underneath her palm and the pain flared sharply. She promptly fainted.


"I mean it's a good thing he distracted that gestapo goon, but dang, Klink really needs to learn when to duck."

"Knock it off, Carter, and help us get him back to the car."

"We can't go back to camp with him like this, can we? I mean, someone's bound to wonder how the Kommandant got shot, and that gestapo agent can't have been working all alone. Gosh, I'm real glad you decided not to come here alone after all, Colonel."

"We can't go in the front gate, obviously, but if we take him down into the tunnels, we can at least have Wilson look at him, hopefully patch him up enough to get him on his feet. Peter, put more pressure on that bullet wound, I'm seeing blood again. Damn, I knew this whole set-up stank..."

Klink groaned as the weight on her shoulder increased and her pain also, and blacked out again, descending once more into unconsciousness.


Klink returned to consciousness slowly this time, sounds and sensations filtering in as through a thick fog. She was lying on the floor, but something soft and giving was underneath her, and a rough, scratchy blanket was over her. Something about her state of being set off little alarm bells in the back of her mind, but a heavy lassitude dampened what a detached part of her mind was telling her ought to be a right panic. She tried to open her eyes, but found it difficult.

Now, at least, she could hear voices clearly.

"Well Colonel, I don't quite know what to say? Tonight has been full of surprises."

"That's an understatement, Louis. Blimey, who would have guessed? Ain't exactly a beauty, but I guess at that age, few women are. Still, I like to think I generally know a bird when I see one, even if she is a tough old hen."

"Shut it, boys, I need to think. This could really jam up our operation if anyone finds out. There's no way in hell her superiors know, can you imagine Burkhalter allowing a woman in his ranks? No, we're going to have to keep this well under wraps."

"Might not be too hard, Colonel, she's clearly done so, probably for years. We just need to keep people from getting too suspicious about her shoulder. You think Andrew will be back soon?"

"Yeah, once he's got the car sorted and that gestapo stiff disposed of. With Klink's hat and coat, I don't think anyone will notice him when it's still this dark out. Listen – grab a few chocolate bars from the stash, all of you get back upstairs, bribe Schultz on the roll call count, and run some kind of interference if anyone questions why Klink isn't present. Tell Schultz to say he's sick or hurt himself or something, I don't really care. And for the love of God, don't let slip that he's a she, think before you open your mouths! Damn, what a mess..."

The sound of feet, and then the return of quiet. Klink slept, again.


"Wilson! How much longer, you think, until the morphine wears off?"

"Not too long. She should wake up soon although I doubt she'll be entirely lucid for a while."

A nervous laugh, from Hogan. A strange sound, she thought, coming from him. When was Hogan ever afraid of anything?

"Don't suppose you'd consider another dose? Buy me some time before I have to deal with this?"

"No, Colonel. I'm not going to overdose a patient, not even that one. It's hard enough to figure out the right dosage as it is, I don't deal with women that often and she's underweight, I don't want to risk giving her more. Thought the krauts at least fed their own officers, but... Well, she's on our side, now, right? I'd rather not kill her if it's all the same."

"Right, right. I keep having to remind myself of that. Too easy to slip into old habits. He... Ugh, she.. wouldn't have even been out there if - well, it's too late for regrets. What's done is done. Someone betrayed us, and I'll have to find out who, but let's put out one fire at a time, huh?"

"Some of our medical supplies are running low as it is anyway - waste not, want not, right? I can give her a bit more in a few hours, but I still don't want to overdo it." The voice, Wilson, paused and chuckled to himself. "The old rolled-up socks trick, I haven't seen that in a long time. Tried that once when I was ten, trying to impress this sixteen year old girl up the street I had a massive puppy crush on."

"Did it work?"

"Nah, apparently it's obvious when you're a head shorter and still singing soprano. Thankfully, puberty was kind to me, on all accounts."

More laughter, and it was hard not to feel it was largely at her expense, even if it really wasn't, and she didn't like the implications of just how nosy the medic must have been in his examination of her while she was unconscious. Klink tried to lift her left hand and found that it was held fast in a sling, so she lifted her right hand instead, pushing sweat-damp hair off her forehead. I'm overdue for a haircut, she thought somewhat giddily. Klink was more aware of her surroundings than she'd been when she last awoke, but her head still felt stuffed with straw. Oh, right - the man Hogan was talking to mentioned morphine, and she could tell it was making her loopy. Her left shoulder, despite the morphine, still ached enough to make itself known. She managed, finally, to open her eyes. She was down in some sort of tunnel, underground, illuminated only by dim lights strung up along the walls. Hogan's tunnels, her brain offered up. She'd been told about them, but hadn't been in any of them.

Greater awareness poured back into her like molten lead. She took stock of herself after confirming her surroundings. She was on a makeshift pallet, under a blanket. She still had her uniform trousers on, customary socks intact, but her coat, uniform jacket and shirt were gone. Her undershirt, too, was gone, replaced only by bandages wound around her left shoulder and were secured across her ribcage, between and just under her very much now bared breasts.

The previous conversation of the two men in the room finally landed home and panic broke over her like a sudden tsunami. "N-n-no... no, this can't be happening. Nobody knows, nobody can know!" It took several frantic tries to roll over onto her side, and a few more to get her feet even somewhat under her. She stumbled as she stood, the blanket falling from her shoulders.

"Calm down, Klink!" A hand landed on her uninjured shoulder from behind and she lashed out blindly with her elbow as she teetered unsteadily on her feet. Far too much morphine still swam in her blood, clearly. Pushing herself away from Hogan, she stumbled blindly in the opposite direction, her heart hammering away painfully in her chest. She tripped over her own feet and landed roughly against the wall, shrieking as the pain in her left shoulder flared from a dull ache into white-hot agony. She slumped to the floor, doubled over, still keening as her head came to rest against the dirt floor.

"I told you not to startle her, Colonel. Jeez, if I have to re-do that bandaging already..."

"Yes, Wilson, you told me so, now drop it! Help me get her back on the pallet, I can't have her caterwauling like that again, or half of Germany is bound to hear it."

The scratchy blanket was draped over her shoulders and she grasped at it, wrapping it around herself like armor as Hogan hooked an arm under her back and knees, lifting her. Her head dropped heavily against the cocky, annoying American's shoulder as exhaustion and pain sapped her of the strength necessary to hold it up. The damning reality of her situation breached through the thick opium haze, and to her shame, she wept openly in a fashion she'd not done since she was a child.

Hogan sighed heavily over her as he sat down with her still in his grasp. "Oh, c'mon, Kommandant, don't start that. Big girls don't cry!"


Klink sat on the pallet, staring at a patch of floor between her boots. Hogan had acted annoyed with her but nonetheless had held her in his lap like a toddler with a skinned knee for an embarrassing amount of time until her ugly sobbing had dissolved into mere hiccups. He'd fished a worn but clean handkerchief out of a pocket somewhere and left her with it before heading back up. It would have been too conspicuous for him to go unseen for long.

The POWs' field medic, Wilson, had left her on her own just briefly as well before returning. He spent the rest of the morning busying himself nearby going through stocks of supplies. He glanced at her occasionally. He'd pressed her into drinking several glasses of water earlier along with a handful of sulfonamide tablets to stave off infection. She'd felt parched at the time, but her bladder was now protesting and she didn't trust herself to move on her own. She'd need to ask him for help and was dreading the whole thing.

"What is it, Kommandant? You're fidgeting an awful lot over there."

Klink was startled out of her contemplation of her boots. "Ah, ahem, uh..." She felt her face growing hotter by the second.

Wilson merely rolled his eyes at her hesitation and obvious blushing. "C'mon, then, I'll help you up. There's no W.C. down here but I'll find you a bucket and a private corner." He hooked a hand under her good arm and hauled her upward without ceremony. "If you can't manage on your own, say something. You've jostled that bullet wound enough already flailing around. I managed to dig the slug out of your shoulder, but it's going to take a while to heal as it is."

"Can't I just go back to my quarters already?"

"You really shouldn't be left alone yet, and I can't risk being caught up there hanging around too long."

"What if someone comes looking for me? Hilda or Schultz or.."

"Hogan's dealing with that, it's not something for you to worry about. Now, come on."

The medic dragged her to a corner in between tall stacks of crates and propped her up before ducking out of sight to grab the promised bucket and dropping it in front of her. He left again to let her deal with nature's business. It took a bit of awkward stretching, but she managed to get her belt undone, and trousers and underpants down with one hand. She braced herself on a crate with her right arm just well enough to squat over the bucket. It took what felt like an eternity empty her very full bladder. The handkerchief Hogan had left with her was all she had available to clean herself with, unfortunately, something Wilson clearly had not even considered. Men, tch. Her humiliation had just begun, clearly. Hell, she probably deserved it anyway. Papa had called her a fool often enough, and was swiftly being proved correct, to her endless chagrin.

The rolled up socks ended up rolling off into a corner somewhere when she dropped them and she just shrugged and let them go. What was the point, anyway? She had plenty more of them upstairs. Klink pulled the blanket back around her shoulders well enough to cover her tits, and yanked the rest of her clothing back into place. After a few tries, she had to concede that the belt was a lost cause with only one functioning hand, and stumbled back toward Wilson with her one good hand holding her trousers up by the waistband. Wilson's eyes immediately raked over her, assessing her condition with the swiftness of long experience. He came over and crouched slightly in front of her. She stumbled backward, not knowing what he was doing, but he simply caught her by the loose ends of her belt and buckled it for her, letting her go immediately afterward. Her trousers were still hanging relatively loosely from her hipbones, she really had been losing weight recently, but at least they weren't in danger of sliding to the floor now.

"No need to be so jumpy, ma'am. I don't intend to harm you, I promise. There's that whole Hippocratic oath thing, you know. I may not technically be a doctor but I do take my work seriously. Also, you need to eat more. One of the boys should be down with something soon, and unless you genuinely think you're about to throw up, I want you to eat all of it."

Klink rolled her eyes, feeling like she was being lectured by her mother, and flopped back onto the pallet, determined not to give him the satisfaction of an argument. Despite spending hours passed out, she felt like she'd not slept at all. She was exhausted, yet somehow still too wired to actually sleep. Her head was aching now, too, competing with her shoulder for dominance. She startled when Wilson reappeared at her side with a syringe. He pulled the blanket aside from her good shoulder and wiped her arm with wad of cotton soaked in what smelled like vodka before jabbing her with the needle unceremoniously. The whole thing made her feel terribly cross. "What the hell was that?"

"Morphine. It's not enough to knock you out, but you looked like you could use a little top-up. I don't want you on the stuff for more than a few days, no more than necessary. I'll swap you to aspirin once I'm certain there's not a risk of serious bleeding."

Klink wasn't sure what to say about that, so went back to staring at the floor. She expected Wilson to go back to whatever he'd been doing before, but he simply sat back, crossing his legs, looking at her with a peculiar expression. She felt a bit like an exotic moth pinned to a board. "What is it now?"

Wilson tilted his head, giving her a crooked half-smile. "Nothing in particular. It just strikes me that you're not as dumb as Hogan always claimed, that's for damn sure. I don't know many girls who could pull such an act off for long."

Klink grimaced. She knew her own reputation, and her abilities, well enough. "It's not so much that I'm clever as it is that most men are equally as dumb, as you put it, as I am. Military men, anyway. Not a jot of imagination in any of you."

"I won't ask for details about the last war, but I know what those scars on your back are from. Did you get any sort of medical treatment for them at all, back then?"

"I managed to get my hands on a few bandages and wrap them up."

Wilson cringed. "You're lucky you didn't die of an infection."

"I also stole a bottle of liquor from an officer's tent. Stung like hell, but I suppose it did the job."

Wilson gave her that wan, quizzical smile again as he stood up. He paused in passing to give her good shoulder an awkward squeeze. "I think you don't give yourself enough credit, Kommandant."


Wilson had told her the morphine wasn't enough to knock her out, but combined with the exhaustion, she'd nodded off anyway. When she woke, a plate was on the floor next to her pallet. The food had long gone cold and she had no idea what time it was, and the disorientation was making her short-tempered.

She forced another bite of the stone-cold beans down her throat, staring daggers at Hogan, who had been left to watch her in Wilson's absence with strict orders to make sure she eat. He was sitting on a stack of crates filing his nails idly, one restless heel beating an even rhythm against wood. Ugh, why did he have to leave Hogan here. Wilson wasn't exactly charming, but compared to Hogan he was downright pleasant, or at least far less relentlessly annoying.

She wanted to go back to her quarters. She wanted a damned shirt already, tired of trying to keep her tits covered with a blanket that she was pretty sure had been made out of actual nettles. The last thing she wanted was Hogan looking at them, even if the man didn't seem particularly interested in leering at her at the moment, which was a relief to her, but strangely also an irritant to her ego for some reason she couldn't quite explain. It's not as though she liked him. At all. Damn, he was annoying even when he wasn't actually doing anything. Ugh, why can't he just go away? Finishing the last bite of the utterly tasteless meal, she shoved the empty plate away from herself, tossing the fork to clatter against it afterward.

Hogan glanced toward her at the noise, then went back to paring his nails. "You slipped in the bathtub and tore your shoulder, by the way, if anyone asks. That sling stays on for at least a month, according to Wilson. Schultz is easy enough to bribe if he bothers to notice anything, but I don't want any of the other guards getting nosy."

"Fine, Hogan, whatever."

"No need to get cranky, Kommandant. We're on the same side now, remember? Because if you don't remember, things are going to get very complicated for both of us."

Klink shrank in on herself, hearing the latent threat in that statement loud and clear, and which she was sure was entirely intentional. "I never said I didn't remember!" Sweat beaded up on her forehead as images of Hochstetter, leering and gleeful and surrounded by his faceless, heartless goons crowded her mind. Distantly she felt her breath coming quickly in short, harsh gasps and pulled the blanket around herself more tightly. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Hogan was suddenly in front of her, pushing her back by her good shoulder, her blue eyes nearly bugging out of her head as they locked with Hogan's narrowed black ones.

"Jeez, Klink, I didn't mean- Breathe already! In through the nose, hold a count of four, out through the mouth... C'mon, now. Another count of four, now try another breath... there you go, keep that up for a while, at least until you stop hyperventilating."

Hogan let go of her and stood up to pace the tunnel a few times, jamming his hands in his pockets. Klink tried to continue the pattern of breaths. As stupid as it had sounded, it did seem to be helping. Her heart was still hammering away but at least it no longer felt like it was jammed up in her throat.

"You..y-you're not going to hand me over to the gestapo now, are-are-are you?"

Hogan turned around, his mouth agape as he stared down at her. "Why the hell would I do that? All other considerations aside, you know far too much about our operation here."

"Th-they'd kill me, Hogan, if they knew. They'd kill me, and I don't think they'd bother with qu-qu-questions first."

Hogan crossed his arms and dropped back to lean against the wall. "That's what this is about? You think we're gonna sell you out for concealing your sex? We're not the nazis here, Klink. I'm not gonna pretend to understand what you're doing, it's weird , alright? But frankly it's none of my business, and there's also absolutely nothing to be gained by throwing you to the wolves. In fact there's a whole lot to be lost by having you removed from your position. Put bluntly, we need you right where you are and I plan to do what I can to keep you there. So stop having a fit over it, alright? I can't deal with crying women. Or crying men, for that matter, if that's what you want to be at the moment. It's just... awkward."

"Well excuse me for being awkward, I'm sure it's a terrible imposition! It's only my life on the line here, after all." Klink laid herself down on the pallet again, positioning herself so she could lay on her good side away from Hogan. She didn't want to look at him anymore.

"We're all putting our lives on the line here, Klink, one way or another. And don't act like this is my fault, you're the one who cut her hair, stuffed socks down her pants, and ran off to war. I've heard of girls disguising themselves to go chasing their men all the way to the front lines, but most of them don't make a lifelong career out of it, I can't imagine anyone forced you to do it!"

Klink glanced back over her shoulder, then laid down again when the twisting aggravating her injury. "I don't expect you to understand, Hogan. I had plenty of good reason for it at the time, and it wasn't chasing after any man."

"What, then? Parents beating you at home?"

Klink could hear him kicking his heels against the crates again. He really was maddening. "No more so than any other parents were beating their children at the time." She hesitated, but was too tired to dissemble. "The man my father intended to marry me off to would have though. Erik killed that other poor girl he ended up marrying later on, the bastard-"

"Huh. Well, I guess your original decision was reasonable, in light of things. That was the last war, though, doesn't explain why you're still here."

Klink shrugged slightly, then cringed at the pain it produced. Stupid. "My father was very angry when he found out what I'd done, I couldn't go back home."

"You could have found someone else to marry, who wasn't a maniac."

Klink sighed. "I don't think I would have been very good at it. Marriage, I mean. Children. All of... that. Besides, I liked flying. When I was still allowed to do it, anyway..."

Hogan was silent for a long moment, the sound of his heels beating a tattoo on the crate filling the tunnel. The whole place was beginning to feel unbearably oppressive and as soon as Wilson returned, she intended on informing him she was returning to her quarters, whatever he thought. She'd hidden herself down here too long already. Knowing her luck, Burkhalter would soon roll up on Stalag XIII at the most inconvenient moment possible.

"Fine, so you're not the happy homemaker sort. But you really were never tempted? Never met some fella who caught your fancy at all, even just for a bit of fun?"

Klink swallowed heavily, pulling her knees up to her chest, determined not to let this absolute bastard of a man make her cry again. "Shut up, Hogan."

"Come to think of it, I do seem to remember a few girls who you-"

"I said shut up, Hogan, it's none of your damned business. I didn't mind the girls, and I didn't mind the boys either, but both were far too risky to pursue anything with, given my situation, and that's the end of it! So just drop the subject already, please."

Hogan huffed behind her and for a moment she feared he would open his fat mouth again, but for once he remained blessedly silent.


Klink hunched over her desk, working around her lack of a fully functioning left arm. Getting dressed in the morning was an absolute bitch, and she had to put up with Wilson literally crawling up from underneath her heating stove to check her wound and change bandages on the daily, but it still beat being stuck down in those damned tunnels by a long shot. She'd quit the morphine already, despite Wilson's wheedling. She'd take the pain and a clear head over the muddiness the morphine produced. She didn't like having her senses dulled, it made her feel too vulnerable by half.

She'd figured out how to pin the left corners of paper down with whatever reasonably heavy object was handy, so she could write with her right hand without it slipping around under her. Her secretary Hilda, bless her, had taken to bringing her a few extra snacks and checking up on her periodically throughout the day. The young woman was fussing needlessly, but Klink decided she didn't mind the extra attention. Hilda had only been at Stalag XIII for a few months, arriving after Helga resigned her post, having finally married her fiance, but Hilda had been a quick study and the transition had been smooth.

Things had settled down, at least. Hogan did not seem keen to get up to anything too risky for the time being; everyone seemed to have had the wind knocked out of their sails. She'd asked him, once, if he'd found out who had sold them out to the gestapo, and all he'd told her was that she didn't need to know. It had made her cross to think he still didn't trust her. Maybe he thought that a woman was simply too stupid to understand spy work. Or maybe he just thought she, in particular, was simply too stupid. Both possibilities annoyed her.

There was a knock at her office door, followed by Hilda's head peering around it nervously. Her expression did not bode well at all, Klink thought.

"Kommandant... Major Hochstetter has arrived. Should I send him in?

And to think the day had been going almost pleasantly.


"I am tired of your excuses, Klink! There is very definitely an underground cell operating out of this supposedly escape-proof camp of yours, and I have my suspicious about just how and also just who! One of my agents was killed not three weeks ago, mere miles from here, so quit making excuses and bring Colonel Hogan in here now! I have questions for him... and maybe for a few others too!"

Hochstetter's teeth showed as he spoke entirely too much, Klink thought. The constant spray of saliva he produced when ranting disgusted her, as well. He was shorter than her, and she outranked him, and she shouldn't let him get under her skin so easily, but somehow everything about him got her back up the second he waltzed into her camp like he owned the damned place. Burkhalter had once told her the only way to handle a nasty little bully like Hochstetter barking up her tree was to bark back even louder, but somehow her legs always turned into jelly as soon as Hochstetter and his lackeys arrived.

Like most bullies, of course, he never travelled alone. The two standing behind him on this particular visit were, unlike their C.O., rather tall and definitely imposing, with bull-like necks and biceps that barely squeezed into a uniform. All muscle and no brains; she knew the type. They liked to attach themselves to power and detach themselves from their own brains. All they needed was a finger to point in whatever direction they could unleash themselves.

Klink tried to remember Burkhalter's advice and steel herself. She was tired of being pushed around and bullied. She didn't want to be that fish floating downstream anymore, at least that's what she'd told herself earlier. She forced herself to stand up and tried to look intimidating as well, despite the hair standing on the back of her neck and sweat gathering under her collar.

"Get out of my camp, Major Hochstetter! I don't answer to you, and unless you have some proof of these accusations, I have no intention of wasting any more time with this nonsense! All of my prisoners are regularly accounted for and none have gone missing, not three weeks ago or now!"

Hochstetter's face turned red as he let out an incoherent growl in her direction. "Hah! I knew you were hiding something, Klink! I'll bet you're just as involved as Hogan, aren't you, you nasty little traitor! Why is your arm in that sling, anyway? Go on any little field trips lately?

Klink felt her blood run cold, but tried not to react. "I have no idea what you are-"

Hochstetter laughed nastily and gestured to the two goons behind her, who grinned sadistically as they stepped around their diminutive boss and took hold of Klink by both arms. "Don't you worry, Klink, I'll get to the bottom of this soon!"


Klink nearly bit through her tongue trying not to scream as the gestapo goon yanked her up off the floor sharply by her left arm, pulling at the wound in her shoulder. The sling was long since history at this point. A low groan escaped regardless. Hochstetter's nasty little rodent face was suddenly the only thing she could see as he crowded her. "I always knew you were spineless, Klink, can't handle even a little rough-and-tumble? Well, there's plenty more where that came from!"

Klink saw stars when Hochstetter clocked her in the side of the skull. She kicked outward blindly, her boot connecting with something solid, although the angry shout sounded more like one of Hochstetter's enormous goons than Hochstetter himself. Hands yanked and pulled at her, dragging her across the room. Distantly she heard the door opening and more shouting ensued, but she was too dazed and pained to really pay attention. She was suddenly caught in a violent tug-of-war between multiple pairs of hands, and could only kick and scream incoherently as she felt and heard layers of cloth ripping. God in heaven, not again! She'd survived Hogan discovering what she was, but the gestapo were another story entirely.

The multitude of hands let go of her quite suddenly, leaving her held up only by a single bulky figure now pressing her heavily against the wall. She could hear another scuffle going on in the room and cracked one eye open, peering over a horribly familiar-looking shoulder in time to see Hochstetter and his two large goons being dragged out by four equally large guards in Luftwaffe uniforms. General Burkhalter turned, reaching back with one pivoting arm to hold her up. He practically growled at her as he glared into her frozen, terrified eyes. Her stomach turned a loop in her belly while her heart tried to escape through her throat. Without taking his eyes off hers, he held out his unoccupied hand towards a returning guard coming up behind him. "Give me your jacket, soldier, then get out!"

Taking the garment, he shoved it at her. "Put this on, dummkopf."

Still frozen in terror, she couldn't force her leaden limbs to move. He was pressing into her injured shoulder, only partially healed and still extremely tender. "Now, Klink!"

Growling again, he yanked at her until he had removed the tattered remnants of her own torn jacket and had both of her arms in the sleeves of the too-large borrowed one, and buttoned it up roughly. Now dressed, he grabbed her by the collar of the jacket and dragged her across the room, while cursing her and all of her ancestors back to the tenth generation.

"Sit, Klink!"

Burkhalter pointed sharply at the guest chair. Klink stumbled as she attempted to move, and stopped after two steps to press a hand against her rebellious stomach. Burkhalter kicked a garbage can in her direction just barely in time and she doubled over as her stomach emptied itself. She willed herself to stop shaking, but couldn't. To her horror, a firm hand grabbed her good arm just below the shoulder, hauling her back to her feet and practically dragging her the last few feet to the chair, depositing her there without ceremony and shoving a handkerchief in her lap. She barely had the sense left to clean her face with it.

Burkhalter sat down behind her desk and appeared to take great interest in some of the papers there while Klink continued to hyperventilate. The general pulled open several drawers, making sounds of frustration as he slammed them shut again, before rising again and heading back out toward her secretary. Klink distantly heard Burkhalter exchanging words with Hilda, but couldn't make out what was being said. Blackness had just begun eating away at the edges of her vision when Burkhalter returned, shoving a brown paper sack into her hands, momentarily jolting her mind up out of her panic attack with sheer confusion.

"Breathe into that for a while, dummkopf. I need you present for this conversation."

Klink obediently jammed her nose into the bag, wondering what the point of it was. It didn't seem to make much difference, so she tried to recall the pattern Hogan had taught her down in the tunnel several weeks ago. In through the nose, hold for four, out through the mouth, slowly... Burkhalter leaning back in her desk chair and glaring at her wasn't helping, but she knew better than to say anything. If she were going to be put before a firing squad in the morning, she wanted to at least die with some shred of dignity left. If she were dragged off to one of those camps... a more intense shudder travelled down her already-shaking spine. Why is it like this? Just what in seven hells happened to this country? Pushing the dark thoughts aside, she tried to focus on the here-and-now, and more importantly, on her breathing. She had to pull herself together. She hadn't gotten this far in life by going to pieces over every stressful situation, although recent years had badly taxed her nerves and it was beginning to show, clearly. Her breathing finally slowed to something like a normal rate, although her chest still felt tight and ached behind her breastbone. The partially healed bullet wound in her shoulder was also complaining again, probably from her tensing up for so long. She felt tears threatening and blinked rapidly, trying desperately not to cry in front of this horrible man. Sobbing all over Hogan a few weeks ago had been humiliating enough; her pride might not survive another breakdown in front of Burkhalter.

"Are you finished, Klink?"

She dropped the useless paper bag and nodded, not daring to look up at him.

"Hmph. Clearly not much improvement, but it will have to do."

Klink wrung the handkerchief in her lap. "Please, General, don't drag this out... Just send me to the firing squad, or whatever death you deem fit, and get it over wi-"

"Shut up, Klink! Do not interrupt me again! Do you want to die, is that it? You really are a complete idiot as well as a terrible liar, although until today you've done a fairly admirable job of covering up. Stress is clearly getting to you, and it's making you terribly sloppy, Klink. That simply is not acceptable!"

Klink froze, beating down the impulse to glance at the bug in the picture on the wall. She knew Hogan, or one of his men, probably Kinch, would be on that modified coffee pot of theirs, listening to this entire ordeal. She was both mortified at knowing they were listening as well as strangely comforted. Maybe Hogan can get me out of the country before Burkhalter kills me. Or maybe I'm simply not worth the trouble and risk. I should ask him to have a decent funeral for me though, it would be nice to be remembered in some fashion at least. Maybe they can send my things to Wolfgang. My nephew would enjoy the violin... Klink tittered nervously at her own thoughts, which suddenly struck her as terribly funny for no rational reason.

"You find this situation amusing, Klink!?"

She shook her head dramatically in the negative, then regretted it when it made her nausea return briefly.

"Stop doing that, you're turning green and I don't care to see you puke again, it's rather disgusting. But you've put me in a bad position, and now I have to figure out what to do about it. Perhaps nothing, as I do not think Hochstetter and his cronies actually saw anything, and he is nearly as stupid as you are, but if you cannot be trusted any longer to conceal your condition, it is going to be a serious problem. I could end up compromised myself as your superior officer, and that I will not tolerate!"

"Y-y-you aren't going to have me executed?"

"I didn't bother with it during the last war, so what use would it be now? You seem to forget I knew your father, I went into his store on occasion. He stocked good cloth and needles, and my wife sews. But I knew even then that there was only one Klink family in the area, that Herr Klink had only two children, and that you are most certainly not Wolfgang Klink."

Klink looked up, staring at Burkhalter in shock. When was he ever in papa's store? She wracked her memory, trying to bring up the faces of the regulars, coming up empty. But she hadn't paid a great deal of attention to most of them, even when she grew old enough to stand behind the counter and mind the till for her parents after school. The shop might have put food on the table but she'd never been interested in it herself. It had seemed terribly boring to her as a child. That, and she'd never been especially fast at doing sums in her head and could never count change quickly enough to satisfy the more impatient customers. Burkhalter's expression grew even more cross and Klink remembered herself in time to shut her gaping mouth and stop openly staring.

"Hmph. Better. I was afraid for a moment you would start catching flies. Ahem. Well, I'll grant you this, Klink – it took me a while to recognize you, as you had grown considerably since I'd last seen you, and had that badly cropped head. As a child you tore around that shop like a wild animal with a pair of long braids flying behind you as I recall, no matter how often your mother strapped you for it."

"Wh-wh-why didn't you say anything?"

Burkhalter pulled Klink's humidor toward himself, taking a couple of cigars out of the box. He lit one for himself and held the other out to Klink, who was still too shocked to particularly notice. Burkhalter sneered at her momentarily and set it down on the desk, before leaning back and puffing at his own a bit, as though there were nothing unusual going on.

"I may have only been a lowly sergeant back then, but it occurred to me at the time that we needed as many pilots as we could get our hands on. I wasn't inclined to be picky about it, as long you could fly adequately and had enough sense to not tip your hand, so to speak, about what wasn't in your trousers. You were an idiot then and you're even more of an idiot now, but you always seemed to have a decent enough sense of self-preservation to at least protect your own worthless hide. It's a shame you know, you actually had a bit of fire your belly back then, reminded me of my own sister in that regard. It seems to have quite thoroughly died out in the past few years, and those self-preservation instincts with it, but you'd better find them again, sooner rather than later!"

Klink grimaced at the reference to Frau Linkmeyer, and bridled at the suggestion she had no "fire" left, given that her hamfisted attempt to follow Burkhalter's earlier suggestion to stand up to Hochstetter was what got her into this mess in the first place. Wait a minute, if he knew why did he-

"Klink, I do want you to understand one thing - grounding you was a necessity, due to your deteriorating vision. It would have been dangerous to allow you to continue flying, not only for you, but for whatever poor bastard you inevitably crashed into in the process. I know you may not believe it, but the posting at Stalag XIII was meant as a kindness, of sorts. I could have had you discharged on medical grounds, but I did not think you would reintegrate well into civilian life, given..."

Burhkhalter trailed off, and just swept a hand up and down indicating her physical presence in general. Klink got the point well enough and instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, feeling naked yet again in front of a man who had intimidated and even terrified her for years, but apparently not nearly enough. Klink chewed at her bottom lip, trying to stamp down the impulse to ask an irrelevant and stupid question, but she suddenly just had to know, it was just too damned incongruent to let pass.

"Why did you try to set me up with your sister if you knew-"

Burkhalter laughed, a harsh barking sound that made Klink flinch and sink down even lower in her seat.

"Why not? I wasn't lying when I said the two of you have a lot in common. She's too old for certain, ah, activities, anyway, and wouldn't have cared, as long as you had enough sense to shut up and do as you were told. Altogether a rather practical match, for the both of you. I wasn't lying when I said you needed a wife, you clearly can't take care of yourself at all, and are getting even worse at it if recent events indicate anything. I've certainly seen you messing about with other women often enough, so that can't have been an issue. You were stupid not to cooperate, but I already knew you were stupid. Gertrude seemed keen enough on the idea, at the time..."

"You told her-"

"Tch. Not precisely, although I made it clear you would not be suitable for certain purposes. I'd have told her the full story prior to the wedding if you had agreed to the match, but I doubt it would have made any difference. She already has enough children anyway, and if she decided she didn't, it's rather too late for her to be getting any more in the usual fashion. A triviality, really..."

Klink felt her face turning redder by the minute, ever more certain that avoiding that match had, in fact, been very good judgment on her part. Not that she minded kissing girls, but being bullied by Gertrude Linkmeyer (and her brother) still wasn't her idea of a pleasant date, much less a... spouse, of any sort.

Burkhalter pulled on the cigar and blew smoke through his nostrils, looking momentarily like a squat, beady-eyed dragon, and stood up to lean across the desk. "Enough of this, we are getting too far off subject. My point is this, Klink, so listen carefully for once! I absolutely cannot – cannot! - have a repeat of today's incident. Hochstetter is stupid, but he also very stubborn, and could cause me far more trouble than you are worth. Take this warning for what it is, and clean up your act. I have more important work to do than cleaning up your messes for you, Klink."

Burkhalter gave Klink another piercing look, then walked out of her office, cigar smoke trailing behind him. Klink picked up the other cigar that Burkhalter had left on the desk, contemplated it for a moment, and put it back in the humidor, opting instead for the bottle of schnapps in the cabinet. Her hands were still shaking slightly but she managed not to spill any, at least. After a few sips, it occurred to her that Burkhalter hadn't bothered to ask how she'd gotten a bullet wound in her shoulder, or even said why he'd come to Stalag XIII in the first place, but that was a mystery she'd deal with later, or hopefully never. Perhaps he hadn't noticed the bullet wound, having been distracted by a modest but very obviously female breast suddenly revealed in front of him. At least they're useful for something, she thought morosely.

Glancing at her pocket watch, it was nearly time for the evening roll call anyway. She downed the schnapps in a quick gulp and ducked into her quarters to change into a proper uniform. She had only one uniform jacket left, now, losing the first to a bullet hole and a prodigious bloodstain, and now a second to Hochstetter's temper tantrum. She sighed and headed outside to her customary perch on the steps of the Kommandantur. She could already hear Schultz shouting at prisoners to line up, and counting heads. It was almost comforting in its banal familiarity. She let Schultz tell her everyone was accounted for and returned his salute, then gazed over the lines of men across the prison yard. Her eyes locked with Hogan's for only a moment before she turned around and went back inside, but he'd still managed to smirk and wink at her. Annoying man.


Klink finished up a few more reports in her office, leaving them stacked in the outbox for Hilda to put in the mail in the morning. She knew she should send a guard off to get her something from the mess for dinner, but after dealing with Hochstetter and Burkhalter, her stomach was still in knots, so she just went back to her quarters.

Klink flipped the light on as she went through the door, and began peeling layers of uniform off as she went. She pulled her boots off before throwing her last uniform jacket over the back of the sofa, the tie over a chair, and had just managed to work off the dress shirt over her still-tender shoulder when she heard something move. She froze and listened intently, fearing that Hochstetter had somehow returned. Waiting for over a minute, she heard nothing again except her overworked heart hammering in her throat for the umpteenth time that day. I really am going to die of a heart attack from stress soon, at this rate. She was about to move again when she heard an all-too-familiar laugh.

"Hogan!"

The man in question slipped out of her bedroom, propping himself in the doorway.

"Wondered when you'd notice."

"Before or after I'd finished undressing myself for your amusement?"

He grinned at her and she just barely resisted the impulse to slap him across the face, although he certainly deserved it, she thought. She was glad she still had the undershirt on she'd replaced after Hochstetter had torn the other one, although it was tight enough to leave little to the imagination.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, I'd have stopped you before you peeled that last layer off. I mean, it's not like I haven't already seen what's under it anyway-"

His eyes wandered downward for just a brief moment before his grin slipped slightly and he apparently had just enough shame to look a bit sheepish. Klink pushed past him roughly, shoving him aside with an elbow to get through the door. She yanked a bathrobe off the hook on the door to the bathroom and pulled it on as quickly as her bad arm would allow.

"Go away, Hogan, or I'll stuff your head down that tunnel myself. In case you haven't noticed, I've had a terrible day and I don't need your nonsense to cap it off."

"How about dinner, instead? I know you haven't sent for any. I've had LeBeau whip something up, he assures me it's quite good."

Klink paused for a moment, considering the offer. The cockroach was a very good cook. But her stomach was also very good at misbehaving quite recently. "I'm not hungry, eat it yourself if you want."

"No, I don't think so. Wilson said you were underweight, and you are. You haven't gained an ounce since the gunshot wound, and I know I could still count your ribs if you took that robe off. Hell, I could play a tune on them if I had a pair of drumsticks."

Klink grit her teeth. She just wanted him gone so she could collapse somewhere in peace, throw a record on, maybe cry a bit, and pass out. Anything to get the day over with as quickly as possible. "I don't see how that's any of your business, Hogan. I didn't invite you here. Last time I checked, I am still kommandant of this camp."

"Yeah, you're kommandant of this camp. And I'm in charge of the underground operations staged out of this little holiday resort of yours, which as I recall you agreed to become part of. All of which officially makes you one of Papa Bear's cubs. So quit arguing and eat before I do some shoving of my own. It's already set out on your dining room table, going cold. Now, chop, chop! Before I have to drag you in there and feed you like the obstinate baby you are."

Klink narrowed her eyes at him, affronted that he'd think for one second she'd obey him without question. Her diet wasn't part of one of his Allied schemes, and none of his business. "Let's get one thing clear, Hogan. I am only one of your 'cubs' where your little sabotage schemes are concerned. If we aren't actually doing anything toward that end, we are the same relative rank, and you have no authority over me whatsoever, particularly where it comes to the daily activities of this camp and those prisoners who are not participants. I still have my own job to do here and intend to do it, without your input!"

A hard crease appeared between Hogan's eyes, which would normally worry Klink, but she was so exhausted at this point she couldn't muster up anything but further annoyance.

"Fine, Klink. I know where to draw the line. But if you let your health deteriorate to the point that it's a threat to my job, I absolutely will intervene. Oh, yes, I listened to your conversation with Burkhalter. He's an issue we'll have to deal with, and Hochstetter as well, but we've tangled with them before and come out on top. But if even Burkhalter is noticing how stressed out and ill you are, we need to do something about it, before he re-thinks his decision to leave you in your post. The last thing we need is for you to be invalided out and replaced with someone we'll have to fight against. So get in there, cub, and fucking eat something!"

Hogan jabbed a finger toward her dinner table, his ranting growing in volume and cresting at the end. Klink flinched at the shouting, feeling something in her crumbling under Hogan's angry glare. She had no energy left to even bother arguing, and no appetite either, but unwilling to expend any more of her dwindling reserves on Hogan, she slinked past him to slump into her dining room chair, propping herself up on her on her one good elbow. An empty plate sat in front of her. Hogan stomped in behind her and grabbed it out from beneath her nose before pulling the cover off a serving dish in the middle of the table to fill it. He slid it back under her before dishing up another serving for himself.

Hogan didn't hesitate to dig into his own portion and ate without conversation while Klink silently contemplated hers. It was some sort of stewed chicken and vegetables and even she had to admit it smelled heavenly, but she could barely contemplate actually eating any of it. Hogan was already going back for seconds by the time she'd taken three bites that settled in her stomach like cement.

"I'll wait all night if I have to, Klink. You're going to finish what's on that plate."

She took a couple more bites and sat back, the first hints of nausea hitting her. "I don't know if my stomach will allow it, Hogan." She closed her eyes and waited for the next lecture to start, or maybe for the floor to open up and swallow her, which would be vastly preferable.

"Would waiting another hour or two help? I can have LeBeau heat it back up later."

Klink cracked her one good eye open, then closed it again, finding the odd look on Hogan's face that might have been actual concern more disturbing than his earlier anger. "I..I don't know. Maybe? Today has just been... Hogan, sometimes my stomach won't settle for hours. It might not even be worth trying until tomorrow."

Klink heard Hogan stand and move, then the sound of metal against china as he scraped the contents of her plate back into the serving dish, and the clang of the cover going back over it. She flinched as his hand settled on her good shoulder, pulling at her gently.

"C'mon, you clearly need to relax a little."

Klink pulled away from him sharply, her eyes snapping open again. "I don't even want to know what you mean by-"

Hogan laughed, the sound oddly brittle and not like his usual. "I promise I'm not playing any games here, I really do just want you to unwind a bit. Nausea's one thing but you're going to give yourself an actual ulcer soon if you don't let go of... whatever this is."

Klink slumped over the table. "You really think I don't know that, Hogan? I'm not as stupid as you think, I know precisely what my situation is, there's just not a single damned thing I can do about it!"

Hogan laughed again, lighter this time. "That's the spirit! A good start, anyway - you're right, you can't do a damned thing about a lot of damned things, so you might as well stop trying to do any damned thing, at least for tonight. Now come over her and sit your ass down on this couch before I have to pick you up and toss you there."

Klink shot him a look over her shoulder but slid out of her chair and threw herself on her couch, not even bothering to sit like a human being. Hogan flopped on the opposite end, stretching his feet out to prop his boots on her table.

"Get those dirty things off my furniture, Hogan, or I will remove them myself, and you with them."

Hogan grinned again. "Whatever the kommandant orders!" He dropped his boots to the floor and proceeded to pull his feet out of them before propping them up again on her table.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Hogan merely shrugged and sat back. A moment later, he moved again, swiftly enough to take her by surprise. He grabbed Klink before she knew what had happened, and performed some sort of contortionist maneuver that ended with him stretched out sideways with one foot propped on the backrest of the couch and Klink draped over him. She began pulling away from him, swearing at him vociferously, only to be pulled back. "Oh, c'mon, Klink, I promise I won't do anything to abuse your precious honor."

Klink briefly contemplated biting him as his arms wrapped around her, one hand lightly rubbing at the gap between her bony shoulder blades, fingertips catching slightly on the somewhat too-prominent crest of her spine. He began searching her back in earnest with probing fingertips, stopping to press at the hard knots he found around the base of her neck and across her shoulders, careful to steer clear of the injury. After a moment he began humming some tune she didn't recognize. She still hated his guts, but had to admit, as she finally allowed the full weight of her head to drop onto his chest, it did feel sort of nice.

"That's better, old girl. Papa Bear'll sort you out soon enough, then things can get back to normal, eh? Well, as normal as things ever are around here."


"...awfully cozy, colonel."

The cockroach... what was he doing here? A response came as much from under her head as over it

"It's not like that, LeBeau. She's not exactly my type, anyway."

"If you say so. What are you doing, then, if you're not trying to woo her?"

"Nothing! Well... something. My kid sister had a spell where she'd have a conniption during thunderstorms when she was small, maybe three or four. My mother was too busy with our baby brother to notice she'd crawl up under the bed and cry herself sick. Figured out if I wrapped her up in a blanket and held her awhile, she'd knock off the waterworks and fall asleep. Seemed worth a shot..."

Klink thought distantly that she should probably get up and move off of Hogan and go to her bed (after throwing him out, naturally). But then again, she was warm and, for once, her stomach didn't hurt and she couldn't feel her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest anymore. She should probably resent Hogan comparing her to a toddler, but found it difficult to give a damn. It wasn't like she had a shred of dignity left at this point, anyway.

"...the food, colonel?"

"I'd rather not wake her. I know how you feel about reheating things but just wrap it up and put it in the icebox, we can try again tomorrow. She managed a few bites before her stomach threatened mutiny, that's some progress I suppose."

"Hmph. Even a dirty bosche should be able to appreciate good cooking."

"She's our dirty bosche now, okay? And I don't think she objected to the taste. Don't take it so personally. Figure out something easy for breakfast. Poached eggs, maybe. Should go down easy enough."

She shifted slightly, finding a more comfortable position. A hand moved from the middle of her back to her neck. Fingertips found a soft spot just under her ear, and began rubbing gently.

"Fine, colonel, you owe me a..."

Whatever Hogan owed the cockroach, Klink was no longer awake to hear it.


She was being shaken, gently but persistently.

"C'mon, wake up, Klink! I need to get back before roll call, you know how upset Schultz gets if his sums don't work out right."

She groaned and shifted, her limbs getting tangled awkwardly with Hogan's as she slowly remembered exactly where she was. She slid off of him, puddling in a heap on the floor between her couch and coffee table, and rubbed at the grit in her eyes. Hogan sat up nearby and pulled his boots on with the speed of a seasoned soldier before standing and pulling her upright as well.

"You'd better get dressed quickly. I'll have LeBeau bring you breakfast afterward, there's no time for that now."

Still half-asleep, Klink stumbled around grabbing the same rumpled clothing she'd shedded the evening before, heading toward the bathroom. After pissing and scrubbing her hands and face in the sink, she stood in front of the mirror, trying to comb out the stubborn cowlicks her odd sleeping arrangement had left in her hair. She had no time to shower or bother with the pomade, and resorted to splashing water from the sink tap over the mess on her head to try and tame it quickly, to no avail. Well, the hat would cover the worst of it, at least. At least a quick brushing of her teeth got rid of the feeling that she'd been chewing cotton all night.

She stepped back out to find Hogan already gone, the heating stove over the tunnel entrance in its usual place as though he'd never been there at all. She wondered why she was suddenly so disappointed that the obnoxious man was gone when she'd never wanted him there in the first place. Stress is definitely driving me completely batty.


Klink stood on the crate feeling, frankly, like a complete jackass. "This is hopeless-OW, watch what you are doing, dummkopf!"

"If you'd just hold still like I asked ya to, Kommandant, you wouldn't get pricked!"

"Maybe you should pay more attention to where you stick those pins, speaking of little pricks!"

"If the guv'nor hadn't asked me to do this, believe me, I wouldn't bother, ya fill out a dress even less than I do!"

"At least I don't have to stuff wads of tissue paper in a brassiere to get a pair of tits!"

"No, you just stuff a pair of socks down yer trousers every day to get a pair of b-"

"Alright, both of you can stuff a damn sock in it, right now! Newkirk, be more careful, and Klink, quit squirming around so damned much, he doesn't need a moving target."

"How the hell did I let you talk me into this, Hogan? Do you have any idea how many decades it's been since I've worn a dress!?"

"We need two women for tomorrow night, and Newkirk is the only other one here who can really pull off the dress and wig routine for close contact work. And he's right, you're still too damned skinny, because you still aren't eating more like I've been fucking telling you to do for weeks, but you'll look good enough with a bit of proper tailoring, so shut up and let Newkirk do his damned job already!"

"Don't you have other underground agents, actual women, who can help you with this? Why do I have to be involved at all?"

"Oh, c'mon Klink, you were just complaining to me the other day that I never let you do anything interesting. Well, here's your chance! Go be that 'actual woman,' flirt with a few of your fellow krauts, get us some juicy gossip, and be that big damn hero you clearly want to be so badly!"

Klink bit her lip. Was he really starting to trust her, maybe?

"Anyway, I asked our regulars, and none of them are available at the moment. You'll just have to do."

Definitely not, then. Not his first choice, or even second or third probably. "Ow! Dammit, Newkirk!"

"Sorry! I swear I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Why don't I believe you?"

Newkirk sighed, standing up and walking around her like a sculptor inspecting a deeply flawed marble. "It'll do well enough for tomorrow tonight. A bit of extra padding should round out her figure a bit, I know there's a war on but jutting bones ain't attractive on anyone."

Hogan shrugged at his tailor. "Fine, get busy sewing then, the sooner she can try the finished product on the sooner she can stop bitching about it."

Klink shot Hogan a poisonous look and stepped off the crate, before ducking into his private room to strip off the monstrosity of midnight blue cloth and straight pins and change back into her uniform. Re-emerging, she dropped herself into one of the chairs at the table next to where Hogan was sitting. She picked up the box of wigs again, digging through them and wishing they didn't all make her feel weird just looking at them. She pulled one out that was long and crow's-wing black with just a bit of wave to it, nearly identical to her own hair in her youth. Even if she let her hair grow long again, she knew the black would now be shot through with streaks of steel gray. She'd never have hair like this again, whatever she did in the future. Why did she suddenly even care? It had never particularly bothered her before.

Sighing, she looked up and caught Newkirk staring at her with a peculiar expression from across the table, having paused where he'd already begun sewing the dress she'd be wearing. He seemed to remember himself after another moment and dropped his gaze back to his work, his hands beginning to move needle and thread again.

"If that's the one you want just set it to the side, I'll shape it up for you later. We can work on planning your makeup later as well, unless you'd prefer to just do it yourself tomorrow."

Klink dropped the wig on the table near him and put the rest of them back into the box. She ought to get up and leave, she thought. The barracks was always cramped, but she'd never found it so claustrophobic before she'd begun working with Hogan and his men. She glanced around the rest of the room. Carter and Kinch had started a card game between them, LeBeau was up on one of the bunks napping, and Hogan was going through a stack of intelligence reports one of his contacts had dropped the day before, probably wanting to memorize the description of the army brass that they would be spying on the next day.

The pair were planning on meeting in town at a crowded beer hall, and so Hogan, herself, and Newkirk would be dropping in. Hogan would be in a Luftwaffe sergeant's uniform (a real one, this time, that Klink had simply waltzed in and taken from the clean laundry that morning) to run interference if needed, while she & Newkirk would be cozying up to them once they'd been in their cups deep enough to be reliably pliable. Both men were in their mid sixties and Hogan was probably hoping they wouldn't be too picky. The underground was primarily interested in knowing where they were going next, which shouldn't be too hard to pull out of at least one of them.

Klink had hit her fiftieth birthday quite recently. She'd inherited her mother's good skin and could easily pass for quite a bit younger, but that didn't give her much confidence. Newkirk had assured her that he was a miracle worker with makeup, which she was inclined to believe, as it seemed like he genuinely expected his own disguise to pass muster, and he looked nothing remotely like anything feminine.

Still, Klink had never made a habit of flirting with men as an adult. Those few that were interested in other men might not have been terribly pleased at finding out all she had to offer was a pair of socks, and that was before the nazis had pushed such individuals into hiding or far worse, and the majority who were interested in women wouldn't have appreciated her attention in the first place given that she presented herself as one of them and couldn't risk disabusing them of the misconception. Sure, she'd liked some of the boys in her neighborhood and her classes at school, and had kissed and fumbled around a bit with a few of them in what felt like someone else's lifetime, but what worked well enough for a pair of inexperienced fifteen year old adolescents couldn't possibly work between an inexperienced fifty year old and likely rather more experienced sixty-five year old, could it?

Hogan had simply laughed at her objections and insecurities about the whole idea, and told her the difference between a fifteen year old boy and a sixty five year old man, insofar as their attention to the opposite sex went, was basically nothing. If all else fails, just grab him by the collar and kiss him, he'd said, as if that were so easy for her to do! The idea of kissing some nazi general, even to pry vital information out of him, made her skin crawl.

Picking up the shoes she'd been given, she sighed in relief. At least rationing of materials had largely put high heeled shoes out of fashion. Thank God for small mercies, she thought.


Klink sat stiffly on the chair genuinely trying not to fidget. The dress did, indeed, fit her well. It was form-fitting without being uncomfortably tight, flattering what little figure she possessed while leaving her enough room to move freely. She still felt deeply uncomfortable in it. Newkirk, already in a dress as well, had pulled up another chair immediately across from her after chasing the rest of the men out of the barracks to keep them from distracting him from his work. And Klink had to admit, he took his work seriously, giving her all the attention a professional artist would to an important commission.

Her own knees, held firmly together as her mother's voice rose from the deepest reaches of her memory to lecture her on proper posture for a young lady again, were more or less wedged in between Newkirk's knees as he leaned over to dab this and that bit of makeup on her. The whole thing was weirdly intimate and while it seemed like he was trying to be more gentle with her today than he had been yesterday, she just wanted it over with.

It was definitely a new experience, to say the least. Her own mother had never allowed her to wear makeup of any sort, considering it a sign of loose morals and low class, but rather had pinched her hopelessly fair-skinned daughter's cheeks, sometimes quite hard, to try and get a bit of color in them.

Newkirk pulled one eye closed gently with the pad of a thumb to swipe something over the eyelid, then the other, The whole process tickled badly and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to not twitch or flinch.

"Alright, one more thing here and we'll be finished." He leaned over, grabbed a box of lipsticks and dug through them until he found a shade of pink he seemed to like. He grabbed her by the chin, pulling her mouth open slightly, coating her bottom lip and telling her to press her lips together. He dabbed at her mouth with a piece of tissue paper until he was satisfied with the result, then pushed his chair back and stood. "Well, come on and take a look in the mirror, might as well see if you like it."

She hesitated. "Does it matter whether I like it or not?"

Newkirk's face scrunched up slightly. "Er, I suppose it doesn't, but I don't want you to, uh-"

"I'm already uncomfortable with this whole thing. Just get the wig and finish this."

Newkirk stared at her for another moment before doing as she asked, settling the wig on her head and adjusting it until it sat correctly before securing it. He'd already brushed it out and styled it on the dummy form earlier, but pulled a few strands into different positions here and there, until it satisfied him. As a last touch, he swept a few locks behind her left ear. "Not bad, actually." Standing back, he motioned for her to stand up and turn around, which she did, rather timidly.

"What's wrong, love? You look good, I promise."

Love? Oh, brother. Now Newkirk was getting all chummy, too. She'd never survive the night. "I'm fine, let's just go grab Hogan out of his office, get down into the tunnels and out, and get this disaster over with."

She turned toward Hogan's door but Newkirk's hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned around and gave him a baleful stare. He tilted his head at her, his expression something uncomfortably like pity.

"Listen, I don't know why this is such a big deal for you, I mean you're actually a woman, unlike me, so it's not like-"

"Yes it is 'like,' if you want honesty here, Newkirk, it's nearly as much a-a-a drag act for me as it is for you! I wasn't lying – I haven't worn a dress since I was seventeen, I haven't kissed any boys since about the same age, my mother would have put me in an early grave before she'd have ever allowed me to wear makeup, and this whole thing is going to end in complete humiliation! We'll be lucky if I don't end up getting us all arrested by the gestapo stumbling around in this get-up like some clumsy animal!"

Newkirk's red-painted lips pressed into a thin line as he looked at her. Clearly she'd said too much, been far too honest, over-shared as her mother had always called it, and made him uncomfortable.

Before the Englishman could respond, however, another pair of hands took hold of her shoulder and hip from behind, twirling her around before she could get her footing. Before she knew what was happening, she was bent over backwards with Hogan's arms around her and his lips on her own. She froze in shock for several long moments, and although the kiss was brief, mostly closed-lipped and fairly chaste, it still left her head swimming when he set her back upright.

"Well, there you go, Klink, now you've kissed a boy recently. Easy, right? I keep telling you we're really quite simple creatures."

Newkirk had ducked his head, laughing into his fist. "Dammit, Colonel, I'll have to redo her lipstick!"

Klink placed her hand in the middle of Hogan's chest, and gave him a hard shove away from herself and was well satisfied when he practically bounced against the door frame of his office. He just laughed and winked at her while readjusting his stolen Luftwaffe uniform. She contemplated the odds of being able to shove the sharp end of a makeup brush into his guts through both the jacket and the shirt underneath it.

"What are we going to call you tonight, anyway? 'Klink' won't cut it, and neither will 'Wilhelm,' obviously. What was your name before all this, anyway?"

Klink rolled her eyes at Hogan, and sat down heavily, which earned her a look from Newkirk, no doubt worried about the state of his handiwork that she was currently dressed in. "Wilhelmina, or just Minna for short. I'm not too creative, I'll admit."

Hogan rubbed at his chin. "Minna? Miinnnaaahh... I like that. Rolls off the tongue. Or how about Minnie? Little Minnie Mouse Klink."

Now she knew he was just winding her up on purpose. "Call me 'Minnie' and I'll murder you in your sleep, Bobby."


This particular establishment was one she'd been in before, but not in recent years. It didn't differ much from any of the others in Hammelburg, they were all pretty much the same mediocre beer, the same war-rationing-limited food selections, same mix of drunk townspeople and off-duty military still in uniform half of the time. Hogan had perched himself at a table in a corner that gave him a good view of the entire establishment.

Klink had followed Newkirk, who was going by the name of Patricia for the evening, to a small table to await the arrival (and sufficient inebriation) of their targets. So far, they hadn't showed up. It was pushing deeper into the evening and Klink's anxiety was similarly deepening. Newkirk had ordered something for them to sip and nibble at to pass the time, but Klink's stomach was issuing threats again and none of the overly-greasy food interested her. Newkirk kept glancing at her in between keeping an eye on the front door, and on one occasion, nudged their shared plate toward her. She barely managed not to jump out of her skin when he briefly put his hand on her shoulder in what he no doubt intended to be a friendly gesture. She hadn't thought he even liked her but he was now hovering almost as badly as Hogan. It all just made her cross on top of everything else. For a bunch of men, they sure could mother her relentlessly. I'm not some lost child!

Finally, the two aging generals came ambling through the door and plopped themselves down in seats next to one another in the middle of an empty table large enough to seat a dozen, claiming it for themselves. A pair of waitresses immediately went to them, wiping the table down and getting their drink orders. Only minutes later they swept back with beer in hand.

Klink shifted in her seat, contemplating whether it was worth approaching them yet. Newkirk's hand returned to her shoulder, firmly this time, pushing her back down as he leaned in to whisper to her.

"They're in a good mood but they're still both stone-sober. Let them get through the first few beers, at least. I know you're new to this, so a bit o' friendly advice – it's almost never worth it to get impatient in these things."

"Fine. But I'm not kissing the ugly one. You can have him."

"Which one are you talkin' about, love? They're both ugly as sin, far as I can tell. Not that I'm an expert, mind you."

Klink bristled slightly at the presumptuous familiarity of "love" showing up as an epithet again, but said nothing. She peered across the room at the pair and had to concede his point – neither of them possessed any visible features that enticed her in the least. "I suppose you're right. But I don't want that mustache the one on the left has anywhere near me."

"Fine, I'll deal with The Walrus. And, remember - you let me do all the real talking, and just keep Doorknob Nose there sufficiently distracted. When in doubt, smile and say nothing. Half the time they'll spill the beans on their own just running their damn fool mouths in front of an audience they don't take seriously."

Klink nodded and tried to steel herself a little as the waitress brought a third round of beer out to the generals.

"Soon, Minna. Don't worry, alright? Promise I'm not gonna run off and leave ya or nothing."


How the hell he managed it, she didn't know. She was already getting tenser by the minute as Doorknob Nose's wandering hands got bolder and bolder. The one had spent the last half hour slipping down her back first to her hip, and was now unashamedly connected to her ass, idly kneading at it like some kind of perverted baker. The other paw, mercifully, was wrapped around his beer and not around any other bits of her anatomy.

Newkirk was busy chatting up Walrus Mustache but Klink had lost the thread of the conversation some time ago. She'd been instructed to keep her own general distracted, but so far the general himself had been doing most of the distracting. He gulped down more beer, belched without reserve, and laughed at something Newkirk had just said. Klink bit down a shout, reducing it to a mere squeak as the general wedged his entire hand underneath her ass and deposited her into his lap. She lost her balance and was forced to grasp the general's shoulder to steady herself, which the general seemed to take as further invitation to grope at her.

The general turned, clearly aiming for a kiss. She was unable to stop herself from turning her head at the last moment, briefly panicking, thinking that she'd blown the whole thing. General Doorknob Nose didn't seem to notice or care, however, kissing and sucking at her neck instead, leaving a trail of sticky, beer-tinged saliva in his wake. She shot a glance at Newkirk, hoping he'd take a hint and hurry this damned operation up, his earlier advice about not getting impatient notwithstanding. He locked eyes with her for a moment, but whatever he was thinking was lost to her as he was pulled back into conversation again immediately.

The waitress arrived with more beer, which distracted the general and allowed Klink to breathe for a moment, at least, but unfortunately it wasn't long before the wandering hand began working its way up under her dress. She tried to subtly squirm her way off his lap, but it wasn't working very well.

"...going East in the morning, I'm afraid. We'll be passing through again in three months, if you and your lovely little friend there are still in town."

Klink looked back to Newkirk. This time her companion wasn't paying attention to her, but was subtly trading looks with Hogan across the room. She could only hope this meant the night was coming to an end.

"Minna, sister dear! Fancy meeting you, here!"

Klink's head jerked up at the sound of Hogan's voice. "Oh, ah..." Hogan narrowed his eyes at her, clearly willing her to pick up the game. "Yes, brother, darling. Patricia and I were just having a chat with these two, ah, fascinating army generals we just met." She stared into Hogan's eyes intently, begging silently as the general's groping pushed the hem of her dress up even further underneath the table. She was glad she'd put on the underwear Newkirk had given her, at least.

"Well it's a good thing I caught you, I have something important to discuss about dear old mama."

General Doorknob Nose's brain finally seemed to catch up with the conversation. "Er, you're uh, her brother you say? Well, little sister here is busy, go away and come back later."

Hogan reached out and grabbed Klink's hand, yanking her forcefully from the general's grasp. Thankfully he was quite drunk at this point and his reaction was delayed. Hogan already had Klink halfway across the room before the general shouted his protest. Klink could hear Newkirk catching up behind them as Hogan pulled her through a curtain into the kitchen and toward the back door.

"You got what you needed from them, Newkirk?"

"Yeah, Colonel, they're both heading to the Russian front for the next three months."

"Good, let's get out of here."

Hogan kept a firm grasp on Klink's hand, dragging her through the outskirts of Hammelburg in the dark. By the time they passed into the trees to take a shortcut to the appointed pick-up point on a back road, Klink was completely disoriented and had no clue where they were. Hogan led them across the road until they stopped at a large fallen tree. The spot was obscured enough by the vegetation that no one who didn't already know they were there would find them, but still with a fairly clear view of the road. Hogan sat down on the fallen tree and Newkirk joined him. Klink stood and paced a bit until Hogan grabbed the skirt of her dress as she passed and pulled her toward the log, whispering angrily at her.

"Knock it off, you'll attract attention."

She sat, but could not manage to be still. She could still feel all the adrenaline the evening had flooded her with and fidgeted continuously. Hogan's hand landed on the back of her neck to press at the tenseness there, but she threw him off and scooted away from him.

"What's wrong, Minna?"

"Don't call me that!"

She could feel two pairs of eyes peering at her in the gloom, but the sound of an engine approaching and a car coming to a stop prevented further conversation. Hogan stood and put up a hand to stop them from following before he walked off through the trees to confirm their ride had arrived. Moments later, he trotted back to wave them forward.


The ride back to the area with the tunnel entrance had been tense and mostly silent. Newkirk had asked if she were okay and she'd said she was fine, and that was the end of it as far as she was concerned. She climbed the ladder back up into Barracks 2 after the two men. She yanked the wig off and dropped it onto the table, then bent down to remove the shoes and do the same. She went into Hogan's room, shutting the door behind her so she could get out of the damned dress and get her uniform and her life back on. Just as she'd managed to get the buttons at the back of the dress undone, she could hear Hogan & Newkirk talking outside. She'd always been told not to eavesdrop as a child, but of course she'd been told a lot of things as a child.

"..sure nothing serious happened, Peter? I know she's generally kind of anxious, but frankly she seems more pissed off than frightened."

"Probably a bit of both. That drunk general got a bit handsy with her. Kept expecting her to slap him or at least tell him not to get so fresh, or something, but I think maybe she were afraid it would blow the operation, or just didn't know what to do, so she just... sort of sat there with that hand goin' further an' further up her dress. I'm glad I got what we needed out of the other one, cos I don't think she'd have lasted much longer. Hell, I wouldn't have, even if I didn't have to worry about being caught out, and I've been doing this sort of work a lot longer."

"Maybe I should talk to her?"

"I dunno, Colonel. It's kind of women's business, if you know what I mean. Don't know who she can talk to, though, given the circumstances, other than maybe her own mum if she's the sympathetic sort. She doesn't have a sister, does she?"

"No, just a brother I think."

Tired of listening to her personal life being discussed, she quickly peeled the dress off and pulled her own clothes back on before throwing the door open and emerging. She glanced at Newkirk and Hogan, who were clearly trying to act like they hadn't just been talking about her. She tossed the dress at Newkirk and headed to the tunnel entrance. She opened it herself, smirking slightly as she didn't think Hogan knew she'd seen him open it before or had any clue she knew how to operate it, and dropped down onto the ladder.

"Don't want to stick around a bit, Klink?"

She paused halfway down the ladder, shouting up at him rather than returning. "No, I'm going back to my rooms. I need a damned shower, I'll speak to you tomorrow."

The mechanism closing the tunnel entrance had just enough of a delay for her to hear Newkirk's last comment.

"Oh, right, that general slobbered all over her neck, too. Can't blame her for wanting a wash..."


Klink emerged from the tunnel under her heating stove and closed it shut behind her. She stripped off everything she was wearing and made a bee-line for the shower. She normally took very short showers, no longer than absolutely necessary. Her hot water wasn't rationed as sharply as the guards' was but she never liked to run out. Tonight, however, she turned it up full blast and let it beat down on her neck and back for several long minutes before she even reached for the soap and washcloth. She scrubbed hard at her neck where that disgusting man had put his mouth on her, and scrubbed even harder over her ass and thighs where his hand had been. She didn't want even of a hint anything left of him on her, visible or not.

She'd tell Hogan tomorrow she wouldn't be doing this again She wanted to help the underground, but there were limits to what she was willing to put up with, and tonight had hit that limit, hard. Hogan would probably argue with her – she'd agreed to follow his orders, after all, and if he told her to straight up to go to bed with some disgusting general, he probably expected her to do it. She didn't care, though. This femme fatale act wasn't in her wheelhouse, anyway, and while she was a lot of things, a prostitute wasn't one of them. Newkirk had been the one to butter up that other general and lever the information out of him. She'd barely been able to keep her head well enough to just sit there like a bump on a log while she got felt up. She was less of a woman than an Englishman in a bad wig, and that was plain facts.

Getting out from under the hot water reluctantly, she toweled off and barely had the energy to brush her teeth and throw on a nightgown before crawling into bed. Maybe things would make more sense in the morning.


Klink had expected a visit from Hogan, but he didn't show the next day, other than standing in usual his spot at roll call. Klink drank an extra cup of tea and buried herself in paperwork for the rest of the day. She had plenty to catch up on, as usual. Hilda poked her head through the door occasionally to ask if she needed anything, but otherwise the day passed in a monotonous and solitary manner. Frankly, she didn't mind it.

After a second day passed without Hogan obnoxiously inserting himself into her life, she began to worry a little. He normally refused to keep his nose out of her business for long no matter how much she tried to shoo him off. For once, the contents of her humidor only diminished when she dipped into it herself.

The third day came by and went and she was certain at this point that he was maliciously ignoring her, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of giving in and going to him first. He'd told her from the beginning that he'd let her know if the underground needed her help, after all, so she'd just wait like a good little soldier until her orders came. Retreating to her quarters after final roll call, she shouldn't really have been surprised to find him already lounging on her couch.

"Well, what do you need this time, Hogan? A burlesque dancer, perhaps? Although I must warn you, I've been told I have two left feet on more than one occasion."

"As much fun as that sounds, no actually. I don't have any particular demands at the moment. I did want to check up on you, though."

Klink rolled her eyes and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. She picked up the newspaper she hadn't had time to read earlier in the day and opened it, a clear signal to her unwanted companion. He stubbornly remained where he was, however. "Go away, Hogan."

Hogan made a show of checking his watch. "Nah, I'd have to come right back. It's nearly supper time, and LeBeau should be here soon. Bœuf bourguignon, I believe. Not easy to get the ingredients for lately, but one of my contacts managed to perform a small miracle. I thought I'd share my good fortune."

Klink turned over the page of her newspaper, refusing to give the man her full attention. "So go eat with your men, then, I wouldn't want to make them jealous, after all."

"Oh, LeBeau's making enough for everyone, they won't be left out. Even made enough to account for Schultz turning up with his begging bowl. Just wanted to make sure all of my cubs got a taste, you know LeBeau's cooking is very good."

Well, he wasn't wrong. But despite the passage of several days, she was still kind of pissed off at him, at the underground, at the entire concept of German generals, at herself, at the universe itself for that matter. "I thought we had established that I am only one of your 'cubs' when working for you, and at the moment I am very much not on the clock."

"You know, Klink, a guy could almost get the feeling he's not welcome here."

"Good! Because he's not. Now go back down your little tunnel and have your fun with your boys, and leave me in peace. I've had enough of your shenanigans this week to last me through til spring."

"So that's what this is about, huh? Still annoyed I let that general paw at you? I honestly – honestly – couldn't see what he was doing from where I was sitting, clear on the other side of the room, or I would have interfered earlier. I mean, it's literally why I came with the two of you in the first place. Why didn't you just slap him a little? Even drunk, he might've gotten the message to slow down a bit."

Klink gripped the paper so tightly, the page ripped. "Because, Hogan, I didn't want to endanger your precious operation, because I didn't know just how nastily a man very used to getting his own way in all things might've reacted, even in the middle of a public place, because I was stuck there, on your behalf, because I- Oh, it doesn't even matter, Hogan, because it isn't going to happen again! I'm not going to play one of your floozies a second time, so don't even ask!"

"Alright, alright, Klink! Message received! I didn't think it would rattle you so badly, honestly! Hell, I'll throw LeBeau in a dress next time if I have to, he's seriously not that good at it, but at least he's done it before. For the record, I really am sorry it turned so nasty for you. He didn't hurt you, did he? I really couldn't exactly see what he was doing, I hope he didn't bruise you up..."

Klink sighed heavily, folding the paper back up, and set it on her lap, momentarily mollified by his apparent contrition, even if it was in all probability just an act to get back on her good side. "I don't think so, although I can't bend quite far enough to check every place he was squeezing at."

"Want me to have a look for you?" He grinned broadly, his eye teeth showing.

Klink grit her teeth, rolled up the newspaper, and smacked him on the nose with it before standing. "Fine, I'll let you bribe me with the cockroach's cooking. Even I can't deny the quality of it. But you're still on my shit list!"

Hogan rubbed at his nose dramatically, feigning hurt, then stood as well. "Good! Marvelous, even. How's your stomach behaving lately?"

"Better. Paperwork might be tedious, but at least it's predictable and keeps its hands to itself."


Dinner this time went much more smoothly. There wasn't much conversation between them, as the food was too good to let go cold and even the wine was decent, if common (and very obviously snatched directly from her own cellar). Klink's stomach was, blessedly, behaving itself for once. Klink's appetite had actually returned in full force in the last couple of days in the absence of Hogan's nonsense. She even helped herself to a few extra bites after finishing her initial portion, and hated the oddly warm feeling it gave her when Hogan smiled at her for it. LeBeau's head popped up from the tunnel long enough to announce dessert, some sort of pastry and cream concoction whose name Klink couldn't remember two seconds after the cockroach had said, and probably couldn't pronounce anyway, but which went down well enough with the coffee (ersatz, of course, but what can you do when there's a war on).

Afterward, table cleared and alone with Hogan again, Klink let her eyes wander around her quarters, wondering what Hogan was plotting. Part of her wanted to tell him to leave. Part of her wanted him to stay. Most of her was tired of feeling so conflicted about him. Everything had been easier when she could simply hate him, unvarnished. She stood from the table, leaving most of her cup of not-quite-coffee behind, and wandered toward the couch, pausing slightly to see if Hogan would follow her. Hearing no movement from where Hogan sat at the table finishing the last of the wine straight from the bottle, which LeBeau had left behind with a suggestive wink that had made her want to throw something at him, she flopped onto her couch alone.

Hogan arrived after another minute, having run out of her wine apparently, and sat on the opposite end of the couch. Klink let herself sink into the cushions. Silence filled the space between them, but Klink couldn't think of anything to say. Several thoughts and feelings crowded into her all at once, and she wasn't sure where to even begin to sort them out.

"If you want it, just ask, Klink."

Pulled out of her woolgathering by the nonsensical statement, Klink turned to stare at Hogan, lifting one eyebrow. "Want what?"

Hogan kicked his shoes off and flipped sideways, startling Klink as he stretched one leg over the back of the couch behind her head and let the other dangle over the side, then held his arms open toward her, looking a bit like an unusually irritating octopus draped over her furniture. "Well, you coming over here or not, Klink?"

She curled a corner of her lip up at him, trying to think of something cutting to say, then gave up and sighed heavily. She was a sucker, and she knew it, but why fight it? She pulled her own boots off, and made quick work of her jacket, tie, and dress shirt, throwing them onto the coffee table. She rolled her eyes heavenward one more time, then laid herself down into his waiting octopus embrace. Hogan immediately went to work on all the tense knots in her shoulders and neck again, and she felt herself practically melting, her own four limbs going slack to round out the eight limbs of the octopus. It was foolish to indulge him like this. She felt like some sort of ridiculous toy to him, or a pet. She didn't even know why he was doing it or why she allowed it. He certainly couldn't be getting anything out of it himself; given their proximity, she'd know immediately if he was. She might not have bothered with much romance in her life, but she was too old and treacherous not to know a few basic facts. Rather more than a few, frankly, given that she'd been moving in military circles her entire adult life where men spoke freely and rather crudely at times. Hogan himself had said that grown men weren't that different from the fifteen year old variety, and her memory wasn't so bad yet, either. She also didn't know why she suddenly gave a damn that he definitely wasn't getting anything out of it and that also irked her, greatly.

Drifting along a thin line somewhere between fully awake and dozing, she shifted, turning her head from one side to the other, letting her left arm slide bonelessly from the edge of the cushion beside him to let the weight of it rest on curled knuckles on the carpeted floor. "Hogan?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you doing this?"

She felt him shrug. "Seemed like a good idea at the time? You seem happy enough with the arrangement at the moment." He ran a hand over her back a few times in long firm strokes, like one might pet a friendly cat. Maybe he did expect her to eventually lift her tail for him, but she thought it was a funny way of going about it if he was.

"But, what do you want from me?"

He hummed to himself a bit. "What makes you so sure I want anything? Maybe I just like to take care of my cubs."

Klink frowned, and pulled her dangling arm back up before thinking better of using it the way she'd been planning to and let it drop back down. Her shoulder had improved much, but trying to brace herself up on that arm alone still wasn't a great idea and the other one was pinned at the moment. No matter, really. Her drowsiness had mostly dissipated, though. "You always want something, Hogan, and don't try to tell me you do this with any of your men. Hmph. I might be helping your underground now, but I'm still not giving you that bowling alley."

He laughed at her admittedly stupid joke and the sound reverberated within his chest underneath her ear. It was an odd sensation, but not unpleasant. She tried to remember the last time she'd been this close to another human being, and could not come up with anything after about the age of perhaps five or six. Her parents had not been the physically affectionate sort, and as an adult... well, the less said, the better.

"If you're worried I'm trying to seduce you, Klink, don't. Anyway, those barracks aren't heated well and if you think we don't occasionally double or even triple up in the middle of winter, you're just not being practical. Hell, I've walked in there to find everyone all piled up in a heap under as many blankets as they could find. I generally join them, too. Bowling alleys are one thing, but the requests for more blankets were never flippant."

Hogan paused to rub at her back bit more, letting his fingertips trail over her spine in a ticklish way that made her squirm uncomfortably. "Fine, fine, I'll try to find you some more blankets. The quartermaster is extremely stingy with them, though, I'm warning you. They don't like diverting textiles from... other uses."

"I appreciate the effort. And don't forget you have other resources outside of the official channels these days." Hogan shrugged underneath her. "Believe it or don't, it's your choice - but I'm not actually interested in watching you suffer. Well, not too much. You've been worrying yourself to pieces lately and it's not doing you any favors, so I thought I'd help you out, it's that simple. Besides, you already know I can come and go as I want, and I have plenty of girlfriends back in Hammelburg who are happy to scratch that itch for me, I don't need to go sniffing around where I'm not welcome. You're not exactly my usual type anyway, no offense."

"Hmph. Of course you'd brag. And what's so wrong with- Oh, never mind, I really don't want to know."

Hogan's arms wrapped more closely around her, pulling her more firmly to him, and laughed again. "You know, I'd been wondering when she'd make a reappearance."

Klink lifted her head slightly, her nose scrunching up in confusion. "She, who? Are we still talking about your girlfriends?"

Hogan laughed even harder, his fingers momentarily bunching in her undershirt. "No, you blockhead, that massive streak of vanity of yours! She seemed to disappear the second our medic found your goodies, and I kept wondering when she'd come back out of hiding. Maybe I should have played hard-to-get sooner!"

"Hogan, you ass!" Klink began pulling away, but Hogan only gripped her harder, even folding one leg over her own to keep her gently but inescapably pinned. Narrowing her eyes at him, she turned her head slightly, pressing her teeth just ever-so-lightly into his collarbone, not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to threaten it. All it got her was more laughter as he doubled up, wrapping himself around her like some kind of demented boa constrictor. She could feel his cheek pressed against her hair as he laughed himself stupid.

"Oh, Klink, you moron. Don't ever change, please, I don't think my heart could take it."

"Ugh, why me? What terrible sin did I commit to deserve you-"

Hogan pressed a quick kiss against the side of her forehead and somehow it just made her feel even stupider than before.


For the second time, Klink woke up in the arms of Colonel Robert E. Hogan and wondered just when and how she'd completely lost control of her life. Oh, right. When he showed up. It was still dark outside of the window, not dawn yet, but she was habitually an early riser anyway. The sound of rain pattering on the roof outside made her disinclined to move, so she adjusted her position slightly for comfort and decided to let herself doze off again. Fingers worked their way into the short strands of hair at the back of her head, pressing through the mix of black and gray to massage at her scalp.

"I'm not moving yet, Hogan. It's still too damned early and the weather is shit."

He yawned loudly just over her ear. "Didn't ask you to move. Don't recommend it myself. …Listen, about last night-"

"Forget it, Hogan. I don't care, about any of it."

"Yeah you do, or you wouldn't be protesting before even hearing what I have to say. I just... realize something I said might have come off like... well, wasn't trying to insult you, okay? It's not like I've never slept with an older woman before, but it's not a habit, right? There's nothing wrong with you, it's just me who-"

Klink shut him up with a sharp pinch to his flank, seriously tired of the subject already and finding his hamfisted babbling more annoying than the original insult itself. "Older woman? Hogan, six and half years is not a long time; you're hardly a spring chicken yourself, old man. Just admit you enjoy robbing the cradle, I do always appreciate an honest pervert."

For once, Hogan was speechless. Momentarily at least. "Touche. Fine, I like 'em young. Not too young, I'm not as much of a pervert as you think, but young enough."

"Hmph. That's better."

"What do you care, anyway? Satisfying your impressive vanity aside, I never got the impression you were terribly interested. Half the time you act like you want to crawl out of a window the second someone points out that you're not actually a man. Don't think I couldn't tell how uncomfortable you were in that dress the other night, even if it did look damn good on you. Hell, you were more bothered about it than any of my boys have ever been in that situation. You really do wish hadn't been born a girl, then?"

Are we really having this conversation? Now? "No, that's... No, Hogan, I don't. I never set out to actually... become a man, I just never wanted... It was always just a-a-a tool, I guess, it's... Look, don't ask me about this, please. It's complicated, and I don't want to discuss it."

Hogan shifted beneath her, resettling himself. "Fine. I think I sort of get it now, maybe a little bit. You don't like how people treat you when you aren't Wilhelm. But not everyone is out to hurt you, Minna, I think you can afford to ditch the socks occasionally."

Klink huffed, rolling her eyes. "Shut up, Hogan. I'm going back to sleep. Wake me before roll call."

She was already halfway out again when soft lips pressed to her forehead, chasing her into strange, fitful dreams.


It was still raining when she woke to the customary sound of her alarm clock, tucked into her own bed, and wondering if the previous night had even happened. A pot of tea and covered dish on her dining table with a slip of folded paper tucked under it at least confirmed she hadn't dreamed up the entire, cringe-inducing conversation she'd had with her most irritating POW. She sat down and pulled the lid off to find french toast swimming in butter and honey, still hot. The thought that she'd slept so heavily that Hogan, and possibly the cockroach, had managed to not only move her, but come and go, making all kinds of noise, without her even waking, was disturbing. She normally shot awake at the slightest noise. Of course, she also normally slept very much alone and with no expectation of company.

God in heaven, why do I let him get under my skin like that? She'd never spoken about such things with another living soul in her life, having kept it all shoved down so far she practically walked on those feelings on the daily, and had thought she'd thoroughly trodden them flat after thirty years. Leave it to her own personal devil to dredge them out of the murky depths. Since joining his side, Klink sometimes forgot how dangerous Hogan was. The man was a predator, all sharp teeth and sharper eyes, and he'd clearly gotten his claws firmly into her.

Her papa had called her a little fool so often it had practically become a second name. Maybe he really had known her better than she'd known herself. What use was it, though? She couldn't change what she was, not on the inside, and Lord knew she'd tried.

Klink sighed and ate her breakfast, lingering longer than usual. Finally awake enough to deal with whatever bullshit Hogan had left her, she pulled out the slip of paper. At the top was written "Blankets" followed by a list of names and addresses. Black market contacts, she surmised. Why Hogan couldn't just get them himself, she didn't know, but clearly he'd assigned her the task, for whatever incomprehensible reason. Clearly he had no issues doing business with them himself, if her dinner the previous night indicated anything. She also wasn't sure what he expected her to do about it, as the camp's petty cash was perpetually running short these days and there was precious little to spare to even barter with. The top brass were always proclaiming the impending glorious victory of the third reich any day now, despite the Allies' invasion of Normandy a couple of months ago ending in humiliation for the German military. The actual conditions on the ground, though, told a rather different story. She'd been desperate for the war to end since the day it began, whichever way it went, but found herself firmly on one desired outcome in recent months, even if its approach was making life materially worse for her and for Stalag XIII as whole. Not that she'd ever say so, even if her sergeant-of-the-guard occasionally let slip a similar damning opinion, at least obliquely. She wished she could take such a sanguine whatever-happens-happens attitude about it all, but her position was too tenuous, at least compared to Schultz's.

Pulling out her pocket watch, she sighed heavily and pushed herself up, wishing she had more time to sit and drink tea, but if she didn't get up and get dressed, she'd be late for roll call. It wouldn't do to get "sloppy" again, the last thing she needed was to do anything to get more of Burkhalter's attention.


In the end, Klink had scraped some of her own paltry savings out of the bank in Hammelburg, sold a few pieces of jewelry her mother had given her as a teenager that she'd never wear again, and about half of what was in the petty cash drawer.

Hogan wanted blankets, so he'd get his damned blankets. The drop-off point had been given to her by a woman working as a barmaid at the Hofbrau in town, after Klink had given her a glance at the envelope of cash. The woman had been ready to take the lot off her immediately, but Klink had shoved it back in her pocket before the darting fingers could get hold of it. "You'll get paid when the goods are delivered," she'd told the other woman. She'd been briefly afraid there would be an argument, but her contact had just shrugged and nodded.

During her lunch break, Klink returned to her quarters and dropped into the tunnels to visit Barracks 2, not wanting to draw attention from her own guards by going in the front door, even though it was unlikely anyone would take special notice of it. She felt far more exposed than the situation actually warranted, and knew it was somewhat irrational, but didn't care. Climbing up through the modified bunk, she found Kinch at the table, but no one else present. There was a volleyball game going on out in the yard and she cursed herself for not realizing Hogan and his men would probably be participating. They did occasionally do things that weren't sabotage, she had to remind herself.

Kinch greeted her blandly enough from where he was seated. She hadn't spoken as much to Kinch as to Hogan's other men, given that he was usually fully occupied with their surveillance and communications, but she had no reason to believe he wouldn't help her. Still feeling jumpy and not wanting to linger over-much, Klink immediately pulled out the paper her underground contact had given her with the time and location of the supply drop-off and the envelope stuffed with cash and handed them to Kinch. "Give these to Hogan, please. He'll get what he asked for if he takes the money to the location indicated."

"Sure thing, Kommandant. I'll see the Colonel gets it as soon as he returns." Kinch stuffed the paper and envelope both into a pocket and gave her a quick salute and half a smile as she all but ran back to the tunnel entrance like her hair was on fire.


Things were eerily calm over the following weeks, despite a steady influx of new prisoners. The war wasn't going spectacularly for Germany but they still managed to shoot some of their enemies out of the skies and she did her best to squeeze them into the barracks. Things were getting a bit crowded, though, and there was little she could do about it. She'd managed to get hold of some timber and nails after selling off the last few remaining pieces of jewelry she'd had hidden away, and had put the more trustworthy prisoners to the task of building another barracks entirely.

Standing on the steps of the Kommandantur, she stared idly at the group of prisoners working away. She'd left Schultz and a few other guards to breathe down their necks and keep them from getting up to too much horseplay, but she'd struggled to focus on her paperwork this morning and had needed a break. Germany was unequivocally losing ground in this war, but somehow the paperwork still arrived on her desk, unfettered in the least. Bureaucracy pressed on, come hell or high water or an Allied invasion. She had half a mind to corner Hogan and tell him to get in touch with his own generals and order the bastards to hurry up already.

Hogan, brandishing a hammer, looked up at her, waving exaggeratedly and smiling around a mouthful of nails sticking out between his lips. She rolled her eyes at him, wondering what he expected her to do out here in full view of everyone. She turned and went back inside, determined to hammer away at the massive mountain of paperwork still sitting on her desk.


Since their last awkward personal encounter, Hogan had mostly left her alone, appearing only to pass on the occasional message for her to take into Hammelburg or fill her in on some scheme they needed her to ignore or keep the guards away from. Hogan and his men had their own hands full at the moment, moving around allied pilots who hadn't been picked up after being shot down, trying to get them, if not out of Germany, at least hidden away somewhere safe.

Klink had mostly stayed away from it, not wanting her own behavior to draw any attention to them, and that had resulted in much less contact between herself and Hogan. She was, she hated to admit, feeling a bit... neglected? Lonely. She hated that word and tried to keep it well banished from her vocabulary, and had done so for most of her life, filling her hours and days with as much busyness, necessary or otherwise, as it took to keep the wolves at bay. She chatted with Hilda occasionally, but they rarely strayed from the most superficial topics imaginable – weather, how's-your-mother, etc. It was nice to hear another woman's voice, and they were friendly enough with one another, but they were hardly genuine friends.

Schultz was no better a conversation partner, given his thinly-veiled dislike of her, and an even worse chess player. Klink thought back to all those chess games with Hogan, before he'd uncovered her secret. They hadn't started playing again and now she wondered why. Back then, he'd let her win most of the time, unless he was trying to get her attention or annoy her. She wasn't as abysmal as Schultz but she also wasn't a good player and knew it. Maybe that's why Hogan never dropped in for a game anymore, he no longer had any use for manipulating her indirectly with flattery when he could just ask her for whatever he wanted.

Klink returned to her quarters at the end of the day, having eaten her dinner at her desk, sitting there long into the evening trying to finish her work. She found Hogan lounging on her couch, his sock feet up on her coffee table, which she promptly kicked to the floor without ceremony. "Need something else, Hogan? I have to warn you, the coffers are getting extremely bare, that wood wasn't cheap or easy to get."

"Yeah, I know. I also know the petty cash drawer has been empty for a while. Honestly I was curious where you'd scraped the funds from, there are a few small items I could make use of."

"Oh, is that why you're here? Looking for a personal loan? Don't bother, Hogan, I've just sold the last of the jewelry I had put up, and I can't afford to let go of any more of my savings, so if you want anything else, you'll have to get it on your own. The First Bank of Klink is officially out of business."

Hogan sat beside her for a long while, saying nothing. Eventually he scooted over, threw an arm around her and pulled her into his side. "Sorry, I didn't realize-"

"Don't, Hogan. I made the decision on my own, I don't need you making a big deal out of it."

"What, a guy can't show a little appreciation?"

"I feel stupid enough already and my father is probably doing cartwheels in his grave knowing what his mother's jewelry was sold for, and if mama ever finds out where hers went, I'll be disowned. Leave me in peace."

Hogan leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek, dangerously close to her mouth. He pulled back immediately and Klink sat as still as a rabbit under the gaze of a fox, not even wanting to breathe. What's he after , she thought. Another moment passed and Hogan dipped his head again, hesitating only momentarily before catching her lower lip between his own. The kiss was gentle and hesitant, eventually she felt just the slightest swipe of tongue, asking for permission. Klink warred within her own head between pushing him off and pulling him closer, not knowing in the slightest which terrified her more. Damn you, Hogan! Why now?I can't deal with this right now! She'd dithered too long, apparently, because he made the decision for her. He pulled back and released her, retreating to the other side of the couch.

"Sorry, I probably shouldn't have done that."

She stared blankly at the middle distance, gripping and releasing the hem of her uniform jacket. She could practically feel his eyes pressing into her. "N-no, it's fine. I'm not upset."

"You look upset."

"It's been a long day. Long week. Months. I'm tired of this whole damned war, Hogan. Can't your side just hurry up and destroy us already? Burn it all to the ground, I don't even care anymore, at least a graveyard is peaceful-" Tears threatened and she had no will left to fight them, and let them spill, silently, her shoulders beginning to shake slightly. After a few minutes, Hogan scooped her up into his lap, as he'd done so many months ago down in the tunnels. She buried her face in his neck and let herself cry, not caring in the least anymore whether he thought her weak for it or not.

"I won't let anyone bury, you, Minna. I can promise you that. Papa Bear doesn't throw his cubs to the wolves."


The war came to an end more swiftly than she'd anticipated. Hitler, even more of a craven coward than she was, had put a bullet in his useless head, unable to stand and face his own failures like even the facsimile of a man. The Allied cavalry, so to speak, came galloping in soon after, crowing their triumph. It took only a week for the top brass to crumble and surrender. The stories pouring out about the conditions found by the Allies in Germany and German-held territories were horrifying on a host of levels. She'd heard rumors about the camps for "undesirables" literally for years, but to have them confirmed with physical and photographic evidence turned her stomach far worse than any anxiety attack she'd had in her life.

It was all over now, anyway. The tanks finally rolled up to the gates of Stalag XIII one sunny morning, blocking out the blue skies behind them. Hogan had prepared her for this moment as well as he could, and had assured her that London knew about her aid and cooperation and would assure her safety. That didn't entirely allay her fears, as she knew a thing or two about spite for even a defeated enemy, her mind straying back to the interwar period and endless reparations and punishments. "They won't do that again," Hogan had told her, over and over again. "I'm sure they've learned better this time." She wanted to believe it, but memory and experience wouldn't allow his reassurances to reach her heart.

She'd already ordered her guards to throw their weapons into an obvious heap in the middle of the camp and roll open the gates without hesitation. They were lined up in an orderly fashion, but the fear on their faces exceeded even her own in many cases. She'd kept her uniform on, to avoid confusion about her identity and position, but part of her wanted nothing less than to throw it all into a fire and run in the opposite direction as far as her legs would carry her. As the commanding officer of the liberation marched toward her, Hogan's hand landed on her shoulder, holding her firmly in place. She forced herself to stand up straighter and look forward, pushing her rising panic down into her boots as well as she could.

This is what she had asked for, after all, wasn't it?

The war was finally over.


The interrogation had taken what felt like an ice age, being continually asked the same questions over and over again. She'd drawn considerable attention from multiple corners once the fact that she was a woman was spread around, and she was pretty sure a few of them were only questioning her at all because they wanted a closer look at the female cross-dressed German officer, like some sort of zoo animal or circus sideshow exhibit. She had briefly hoped that little detail would be kept firmly silent, but Hogan's interference only ran so deep, and London had a file on her as an operative. She'd also literally been dragged off and strip-searched if any doubt had been left, over Hogan's shouted protests, after handing over all of the keys to the camp. Hogan had promised her she wouldn't be hurt, but Hogan wasn't there at the moment, and supposed victorious heroes or not, she trusted none of these men in the least. She wanted Hogan back by her side, desperately, but he'd been pulled off for his own debriefing.

She'd offered no resistance, not caring in the least anymore, spilling her guts and telling the same stories over and over. It wasn't hard to keep your stories straight when you didn't bother to lie, at least. Eventually they accepted that she was telling the ungarnished truth. A few of them had gotten a bit rough with her, shouting frequently and on a couple of occasions, dragging her closer by the collar to get up in her face, and slamming a fist on the table. Well, I'll take it over the gestapo's methods any day. At least they hadn't hit her outright.

After a couple of harrowing days, they finally released her, bringing her directly to Colonel Hogan, putting her into his "custody," which galled her. Technically, he'd been her prisoner for a handful of years, even if she had also been under his command in certain respects for most of it. The tables were turned and she probably deserved no less, but she didn't have to like it.

The camp was eventually left in Hogan's control, with Allied soldiers to stand in as guards. It had been under Hogan's control, in truth, for years, but now everyone knew it, officially. Most of her German guards were now sequestered in the barracks, and the various POWs were being swiftly being sorted and shipped off in various directions according to nationality. Hogan had put in a good word for Schultz, Hilda, and Langenscheidt, and the three of them had been taken somewhere else. Hogan assured him they would be treated well enough and eventually released as civilians, but it still worried her, particularly for Hilda, who actually was a civilian in every practical aspect.

They'd thrown her in a cell in the cooler for a while before they'd turned things over to Hogan, but he'd fished her out almost immediately. She was now in her own quarters, which were technically Hogan's, laid out on the bed, face-down, letting her exhausted tears soak quietly into the quilt. Hogan was busy on the telephone in the other room, trading shouts with some big shot or other, but it was no longer her problem, and thank God for that.

She heard him put the phone down after a while and rolled slightly to the side to see him enter her bedroom. "If you don't want to stay in Germany, Minna, I can get you out."

"Hmm."

"Hmm? Is that all?" The mattress dipped down as he sat, stripping his boots and jacket off. He had to be nearly as exhausted as she was, so she wasn't surprised when stretched out beside her, draping himself around her back and curling into her. Within minutes, he was snoring lightly.

He could get her out of Germany, he'd said. Probably to America. She had to admit, the idea had its appeal. Her homeland would be a wreck for decades after this, whether the Allies meted out their punishment again or simply left them to their own devices. A graveyard might be more peaceful than a battlefield, but it wasn't actually much use for the living.


When she awoke from her nap, it was already mid-afternoon. Hogan was still wrapped around her, but stirred soon after. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at her, still bleary-eyed from sleeping in the middle of the day. "Any thoughts about what I said earlier?"

"I don't want to stay here, but I can't just leave mama, and my brother and his family-"

"I can probably get them out as well, if that's what you want. It'll take a little longer to finagle, but if you can sit tight for a while, I'll see to it."

She breathed a sigh of relief. It would be nice to see Wolfgang again, at least, and her niece and nephew. She hadn't set eyes on either since the war broke out.

Hogan was still staring down at her. She peered up at him from an angle, not quite meeting his eyes directly, wondering what he was thinking.

"Can I kiss you, Minna?"

She blinked a few times, taken off-guard by the sudden question. "Thought I wasn't your type?"

"I'm branching out."

She thought about it, then nodded. He wrapped around her, capturing her lips. He was still gentle about it, but far less hesitant than the last time. He kept at it for what felt like hour but was probably more like five minutes, before coming up for air. Before she could think of any response, he was at her neck and throat, and slowly working his way down toward her collarbone, while his hand wandered up under her shirt.

Well, then. It's not like she hadn't gotten this far as a foolish teenager, but it had... been a while. Not counting that idiot general, which she refused to. She tried not to squirm too much or breathe too hard, but he made it extremely difficult. When his hand got to her waistband, he paused.

"Just how far are you gonna let me go with this, Minna? I, uh, don't want to presume..."

She took too long to answer, again, and he began pulling away from her. She grabbed the undershirt he'd slept in just in time to prevent a full retreat, holding him there, but still couldn't find the right words to respond to him. Why does everything have to be awkward and annoying with this man?

He came back to her, leaning over her on his elbows, letting just a bit of his weight rest against her. He peered down at her, those black eyes narrowing slightly. He'd look almost sinister if she didn't know better.

"You know, sometimes everything you are thinking is written all over your face, and then there are other times you're damned hard to read. You're not giving me anything to work with here, Minna. What's going on?"

She ran a hand over his chest, the fabric of his t-shirt catching on his nipples in a way that suddenly fascinated her. Why hadn't she ever noticed that men's nipples also did that? Oh, right. Because I never do this sort of thing.

Hogan's kiss-swollen lips pursed in some internal debate as he continued to look down at her. "Have you ever actually-"

"Shut up, Hogan, and don't ask me that. You know you won't like the answer either way. I'll let you know if I don't like what you're doing, is that enough?"

He paused for a moment, then nodded once, before diving back in for another kiss.


Cleveland, Ohio wasn't a place she had ever contemplated visiting, much less moving to. She'd only been vaguely aware of its existence before the plane had landed and decanted her and her family onto the tarmac. Hogan had been good to his word. He'd managed to get the papers together to get the entire surviving Klink family out of the burning wreckage that was left of Europe. Her elderly mother was hanging off of Wolfgang's arm, looking more fragile than she'd ever seen her, but alive and well enough. A host family had been found to put them up a while until Wolfgang could find work and get them established, and he had promised her he'd keep in touch, wherever he ended up. Hogan had already lined up a job for her, something in accounting that sounded dreadfully boring, but would keep her fed well enough. She wanted nothing to do with war ever again, and frankly thought 'boring' might be nice, at least for a while.

Hogan had finished his assignment at Stalag XIII and been sent home earlier, leaving Klink to sit out her last week and a half in the country of her birth locked up in the cooler by herself, "safely" away from the prying eyes of the men in the camp, other than the daily delivery of food and a fresh bucket.

After seeing her family into a taxicab, she sat on a bench and waited, trying to ignore the prying eyes that occasionally landed on her. She knew she looked odd, sitting there in a borrowed woman's blouse and pair of men's slacks, her boots being the only piece of her old Luftwaffe uniform she hadn't discarded, and carrying nothing more than a violin case, a passport, and a few critical identity papers. The strangeness also wasn't helped any by her short salt-and-pepper hair sticking out at odd angles after napping in a cramped airplane seat for hours, not to mention the old-fashioned monocle, but she didn't really give a damn. Let them gawp, as long as they left her alone. If they didn't, well she could always pretend she didn't speak English. More than enough refugees were passing through at the moment. It wouldn't do her any favors to be caught out as a German, but maybe she could pass for Polish if she just stayed silent and stared stupidly (she'd noticed many Americans seemed to have the opinion that Poles were unintelligent, for whatever reason).

The plane ride had been uncomfortable, having spent about half of it trying to explain to her brother's children that their Onkel was actually their Tante and just how that came about, on top of having to explain how she'd befriended an American colonel well enough to get them all on that plane. Her mother and brother, of course, already knew she was a woman, but they hadn't known she'd been part of the resistance. And the children, as well as her sister-in-law... well, she'd expected them to react badly on both accounts, but they'd actually taken it fairly in stride, although her nephew had asked a few impertinent questions she'd flatly refused to answer and which had earned him a cuff over the head from his mother. She'd see them all again, hopefully soon.

Hogan had promised to pick her up, and, after everything, she actually trusted him. True to his word, the freshly-discharged, former Colonel Robert E. Hogan pulled up in an expensive-looking convertible and smirked up at her, flashing just a hint of teeth.


Author's note: General Burkhalter is, in my opinion, the agent known as Nimrod. That is, of course, highly classified information, so don't tell anyone.

(Also, yes, the title is taken from the Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons song. I was subject to literal hours upon hours of oldies radio as a kid. Shoot me.)