A/N: This one's one I've been waiting to write for some 50 chapters now. Hope it lives up to expectations. it's a bit on the shorter side, but then, so was the last time we saw Alice's favorite 'Broad Street Bully' if you'll let me use a hockey reference.

January 26, 1946

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Hugging Bill Guarnere felt like returning home. She felt the sweet sense of security, the familiarity. But she also felt the melancholy of knowing there were moments Alice could never return to in that embrace. Even as tears stained her cheeks, Bill didn't say anything, and somehow that only made it harder.

When she'd seen Buck, it'd been hard to forget Bastogne. When she saw Bill, it became impossible. She could see the pain, feel his hand in hers as he was carted off, mangled limb covered in bloody bandages. She could see the way his face scrunched against the agony and fought the morphine's sweet release so she could selfishly have a few minutes to say goodbye.

Alice had thought a lot about what to say when she saw him again. She'd planned a quippy smartass remark, or a way to make him joke about hopping about on one limb. But in the moment, she had no words, nothing but a horrible mix of emotions she couldn't process beyond seeking a hug.

"You're gettin' my shirt wet," Bill said.

With half a laugh, half a sob, she let him go. He looked good. Clean-shaven, but a bit more serious than she remembered. Still, he looked like Bill Guarnere, and that was enough for her. "Scheisse!" Alice stammered, turning to where Babe and now Spina stood watching them. "Goddamnit! You two!" But seeing Spina made her let out another choked sob. "Spina."

She moved over to the former medic and gave him a hug as well. All of them together, it brought back so many memories. She couldn't process them. Tears became her only release, and she figured it wouldn't hurt. They'd seen her through worse than a few sobs.

"Good to see ya," Spina said. He returned her hug eagerly and then turned behind him. "Carol?"

Alice's eyes widened as a young girl, dark hair bouncing to her shoulders, peered from around the doorway. She looked about three, eyes brown and cheeks rosy. Her sobs subsided as she looked at the little miracle.

"Carol, this is Alice. She's a friend of daddy's," Spina said. He crouched down. "Remember I told you she helped daddy while he was gone?"

She nodded. Sticking a finger in her mouth, she looked Alice up and down. "She daddy's friend?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she's daddy's friend."

"Daddy I want ice cream," Carol said. She turned from Alice, moving a few feet into the room to tug on Spina's pant leg. "Mommy said ice cream."

Alice couldn't help but laugh. But Spina just shot them all a smirk and a shrug and picked his daughter up. "Ice cream it is."

As they disappeared into the kitchen, Alice turned back. Bill had sat back down and Babe was smirking in the same place he'd been standing. He watched her closely.

"You three," Alice started again. But she had to catch her breath. "You three are horrible, horrible people."

"Ah come on Sweetheart," Bill teased, "You survived a fuckin' war. I think you can handle a bit of a surprise."

Spina shouted from the other room. "Bill! Watch the language. Carol's a kid!"

Babe and Alice both broke out laughing. Bill on the other hand looked peeved. "Ralph, she lives in Philly. She ain't gonna have a pure mouth." When they got no response, he just snorted and looked back at them. "He better not turn into a quaker."

"Never seen you speechless, Alice," Babe teased.

And she was. Alice stood watching them, eyes as wide as Carol's had been when she'd seen them. But it was like seeing a ghost, looking at Bill there, healthy and seemingly happy. And Babe too. Babe who had been there through Germany, had seen the things they'd seen.

"It's a lot," Alice admitted. "It's a lot."

Babe grinned. "You owe me twenty bucks, Bill."

Alice looked at them in surprise. She sighed. "Oh fuck, not again."

"Alice, language!"

"Sorry!"

Bill just started laughing at Spina's scolding from the other room. Then he turned back. "Babe and me figured you'd either be struck dumb, or start cussin' me out. I think I won." He turned to Babe. "She cursed up a fuckin' storm, Babe."

"But she said nothin' at first!"

"How about neither of you won," Alice argued. She couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Bill's propensity for betting on her actions really couldn't be reprimanded. He had been through too much for her to take issue with that. "What'd you put the forty from George towards, Bill? He said it was a surprise."

Babe and Bill grew a bit more serious. Slipping into a comfortable chair across from Bill and Babe on the couch, she just waited for the prank to be revealed. But instead, Bill just smiled.

"I figured the boys would wanna get together maybe, after the war," Bill said. "Some sorta, what's a good word for it, Babe? Fucking hell-"

"Reunion."

"Yeah like a reunion." Bill nodded, as much to himself as to them. "Figured we could get all of 'em to meet up. Or some. Whoever wanted to."

Alice could've cried if she'd had more tears left. Instead, she just looked at him, and then started smiling, and finally let out a small laugh. "That, Bill, may be the best idea you've ever had."

"Jesus Christ, Sweetheart, I've had some pretty good ones before this," he argued.

Spina rejoined them. He had a smile on his face and shook his head at Bill's antics. "Carol's in bed. She likes to put herself to bed these days. Says she's a grown-up." Taking a seat on the chair next to Alice's own, he took a deep breath. "So, what've you been doing with Cap'n Nixon?"

"We all know what they've been up to, Ralph," Bill teased. While they snickered, she just sighed and hid her face for a moment. But Bill had the decency to move on. "How was Welsh's wedding?"

"It was fantastic!" Alice grinned. "Kitty is everything. I'm not surprised Harry was smitten. She's smart and funny and kind."

"Ain't no way she's as good as Frannie," Bill added. He took a sip of the beer that he'd been nursing.

"Or Agnes," Spina said.

"Anyone you want to add, Babe?" Alice turned to him and smiled. "A girl of your own since getting back?"

Babe shook his head. He looked down at the floor for a moment before turning back to her. "Nah, not yet."

"There's no rush," Alice assured him.

"Ah, you're a US Army paratrooper Babe. The broads are gonna throw 'em selves atcha."

With a cackling laugh, Alice graciously took the glass of wine Spina had gotten for her. It tasted good, maybe a Merlot? Sipping it, she just looked at the three men she'd missed so much. It was so odd to see them in civilian clothes, but not unwelcome.

"Still drinking everything but the regular people's swill," Babe teased her. "Only the best for the best?"

"You're too nice, Babe," Alice argued. But she couldn't help her growing smile. "I just happen to have class."

Babe, Bill, and Spina all roared with laughter at her thinly veiled insult. Content to smirk into her glass of wine, Alice stayed quiet. They jabbed at each other with insults of their own. For a moment, Alice just let her mind wander. But the more it wandered, the darker her thoughts became.

She remembered the last time she'd seen Bill. She'd teased Joe about his arm. Little had she known his arm would be the least of his worries. And earlier, earlier Bill had verbally thrashed Webb, yet another casualty.

"Yeah, she's fuckin' crazy, Webb. Comes up here when she could be hidin' at the Battalion CP."

Webb had been so young. It hadn't been his fault that he'd not known how to act around her. But Bill had done her a service. But Bill's next words, those had meant even more.

"You think it's funny? She ain't hidin' at the CP cause she ain't afraid peanut. Alice is out here like the rest of us, fightin' off the goddamn Germans. Her own fuckin' people."

Germans. Not Krauts. The Germans. For once in his life, Bill had chosen to purposefully acknowledge her request not to use the slur. And then an hour later, he'd been carted away to a hospital to lose his leg. He'd left. He'd gotten out while she'd suffered in Haguenau, and then in Germany when she'd had to see what her people had suffered.

Her own fuckin' people? Her people had slaughtered millions. Alice shivered. She took another drink of the wine, let it go down her throat, the bitterness comforting. It matched her mood.

"Alice." Babe broke in. "Are you okay?"

She looked up at them. It took her a moment to realize they'd been watching her. Even with all her willpower, she couldn't completely stop her right leg from shaking. "I think I need a smoke." She shot them all a small smile, setting her wine glass on the wooden side table, and hurried out the door.

When it shut behind her, she winced. The cold hit her. It surprised her, but she scolded herself. It was January. She needed to stop being surprised by the cold. It wasn't anywhere near what Bastogne had been, either. She lit a cigarette and took a drag.

Alice shivered. She'd forgotten her coat. With a gasp, memories of Fort Benning rushed in, of forgetting her coat on another morning in another state in another year. Joe Toye had been there, then. Alice choked on a sob. She had to remove the cigarette.

"Sweetheart-"

Spinning around, she saw Bill standing in the doorway, light flooding past him. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. It just reminded me of…" She choked back another sob. "How much do you know of what happened after you left?"

"About Germany?" When she nodded, he sighed. "Babe told me all about it. Fucking insane."

Alice nodded. She turned back to her cigarette, away from him even as he maneuvered out the door. "It was a lot." It took all her willpower to keep from sobbing. "It was just a lot."

"Yeah, so you been sayin'."

She turned to him. He didn't deserve this. The resentment that he'd not been there, the tears she shed for her own family and people, the anger and the sadness. That wasn't what he needed.

"Quit thinkin' so hard." He stopped her, laying a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry."

Sobs erupted from her before she could stop them. Bill grabbed her in a hug as she cried. Of all the time for Bill to say sorry, he chose the moment he'd done nothing wrong, and she couldn't control the emotions it caused. They stood there, Alice trying and failing to collect herself. So they just stood there. They stood in the cold, and Alice cried.