This chapter was probably my favorite to write out of all of them. I do hope you read it to the end, and enjoy!

For a long moment, it was dead silent in Barracks Two. Several stood up in shock as the seconds ticked by, the heavy news slowly sinking in. Hogan felt his stomach drop; that rumble from earlier hadn't been thunder, it had been bombs. How did we not know about this? How did London not know about this?

Newkirk finally broke the silence, his face written with disbelief. "Bloody Hell- You're kidding, right Kinch?"

"I wish I was," Kinch said quietly.

"Well what about Carter? He was meeting with them, he was supposed to be there right now!" Lebeau cried, his accent thick with emotion as he gestured his arms wide while he spoke. He then broke out into a rush of distraught French.

"And how he's dead." With a shake of his head and a humorless dry laugh, Newkirk banged his fist against his bunk post. "Fucking unbelievable."

A quiet murmur broke out amidst a few of the men who knew little of the night's mission and had not yet made the horrific connection until now.

Hogan kept his voice low when Kinch moved to stand next to him, who was trying to avoid the broken shards of the mug. He had forgotten it had slipped from his hands until he heard the crunch of a piece under the heavy boot. "Are they sure?"

When the Sergeant sighed and then nodded, Hogan felt his stomach twist even more. "I even asked them to repeat it just to make sure. Happened just after 0030 hours, the news came from our agent Little Bo Peep who was in contact with the resistance group. It's already been confirmed, took out the whole camp and then some." Kinch paused, running a hand down his face as he blinked several times. "It was too late, they didn't have a chance."

Hogan spared a quick glance at Carter's neatly made bunk, spotting an overturned book and a half written letter, and immediately regretted it. "And neither did Carter," he finished, bringing a hand to his forehead as he pinched his brow. "Damn it."

He had intended for his low tone to only be heard by his second in command, but Newkirk, who was pacing the floor while Lebeau hopelessly tried to talk to him, had instantly picked up on his words. "I told you I should have gone!" he yelled, rounding on Kinch and the Colonel. His eyes were glittering and fierce.

For a moment Hogan did not speak, his eyes not breaking contact as Newkirk stared him down with unspoken accusation. How dare you send Carter off alone. Send him off to die. If anything, Hogan felt it should have been himself to accompany Carter on the mission; it had been his own orders to send him out there by himself.

"And now look what happened!" Newkirk continued when he didn't get a response, breathing heavy as his expression twisted in a snarl and his hands balled into fists. Hogan had seen him angry before, but never with this much raw anguish at the surface. "Did no good to him, did it? Now he's fucking dead!" By then a few of the men took a few cautious steps towards the Brit in case they needed to intervene, glancing anxiously between him and the Colonel.

"We knew nothing about that air raid. London knew nothing about it," Hogan finally said, crossing his arms in an attempt to hold onto his own resolve that was quickly starting to slip away. "Do you think if I knew about it, I would have sent Carter out there? And if I sent you out with him, you would have gotten killed too."

Newkirk opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by Lebeau who had been unusually quiet after his initial outburst. "Pierre stop, the Colonel is right." His voice was thick and wobbly, his eyes red with unshed tears. "We didn't know this was going to happen, it's no one's fault. Don't feel bad, Andre wouldn't want that."

At the mention of Carter's name, Newkirk heaved a cry of bitter frustration and stormed towards the false bunk, slamming his hand against the bunk frame before disappearing down the ladder.

"Newkirk-"

Lebeau moved to follow Newkirk, but Kinch held him back with an arm to his chest. "Let him go," he said quietly. "He's grieving and just wants to be alone for a while. He won't do anything stupid."

Hogan stared at the bunk when it closed behind him, almost half expecting the Brit to climb back out any second to yell at him some more.

"I can't believe he's actually gone..." Lebeau said as he sat back down. "Poor Carter."

"I know Louis, I can't believe it either," Kinch agreed, joining him with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

By then the low murmur returned, the rest of the barracks exchanging similar sentiments of disbelief and pity. Only Hogan remained in the middle of the room, still in shock.

What the Hell did I just do?

With a shaky hand, Newkirk lit up his third cigarette in a row, unable to sit still as he paced the tunnel. If the Colonel was there he would surely tell him to put it out, but he didn't give a damn what he would say at the moment. He had wanted to get away from everyone and be alone, but he quickly found it only made him even more anxious. The narrow earthy walls and dim flames, snuffed out to the bare minimum they kept at night, were almost claustrophobic. And the tunnels dampened almost all the noise except for the occasional fall of dirt, leaving an almost eerie silence.

Newkirk grabbed an empty beaker Carter had left near the radio, the front of which had a scribbled formula known only to the chemist. Juggling it in his hand for a moment, he hurled it against the wall, cracking the top of the glass before it fell to the dirt ground with a muffled thump.

Carter was dead.

The combination of too many cigarettes too quickly on an empty stomach and the stress of the night was making him feel sick. But he didn't care. In a twisted way Newkirk almost wanted it, if only because the physical pain was a distraction that took away from the gaping raw hole in his chest and the gnawing at his throat. The grief, of course, still outweighed everything.

It always did.

Newkirk was at least glad no one was around when the gnawing pain became too much and the first ugly sob tore through him.

"I should have known something was off."

Hogan didn't bother to look when he heard the door open as someone shuffled inside and then quietly close behind him, a candle casting deep shadows across the previously dark room. He sat at his desk as he nursed the glass of schnapps that Newkirk had smuggled in from town several weeks ago. It was watered down to almost nothing so they could share with the whole barracks and was now room temperature, but the burn going down was just satisfying enough.

"Off? What do you mean?" Kinch asked. He had forgone the alcohol and went with a rare indulgence of a pack of cigarettes, lighting one up as he took a seat on the edge of the desk.

Hogan was glad it was Kinch who joined him after mulling in silence for the past few hours; his composed second in command was one of the few men he felt comfortable confiding to. "Half of Hammelburg pulled away German troops for almost an entire night at the last minute. They never pull troops, the whole area always has krauts passing through," he said, shaking his head.

"You said it yourself Colonel, we didn't know about the air raid," Kinch said. "How were we supposed to know something was up?"

"Maybe not." Hogan downed the rest of his drink in one shot. It was one thing to reassure someone else, but something else entirely to convince himself. "I still should have never sent Carter out on that mission. Hell, I risked Newkirk, Lebeau, and our two agents' lives without even realizing it."

"Colonel..."

"And I didn't think a damn thing about it. Even planned the whole assignment around it, thought we just had a lucky break. Should've known they were pulled because they were going to bomb the whole damn place."

Hogan's own thoughts were turbulent, the guilt eating him alive. It was always known, in the back of all of their minds, that there was always the risk of one of them not coming back from an assignment. That thought especially lingered in his own mind when he sent his men out alone, but... To send Carter out on a hastily planned mission without seeing the red flags that it was going to be a disaster? The signs were practically right in front of him.

"How's Newkirk doing?" Hogan finally said, switching the subject.

"He's calmed down some, I checked on him a little while ago. Lebeau's with him now," Kinch said. "You know he doesn't blame you, but... He's taking it pretty rough."

Hogan had figured as much. Newkirk was as loyal as he was fierce, and the pair, despite their sometimes strange friendship, were close. He'd have to sit down and talk with him tomorrow when hopefully everything settled down a bit.

Checking the time, he winced when he saw how close it was to roll call. They didn't have much time. "If they trace Carter back to the air raid on that resistance group and then to the Underground, it could be the end of the whole operation," Hogan said. "Hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives could be at risk."

"So what do we do now? Carter's dead, and now Klink's no escape record is blown."

Hogan rubbed at his eyes, his headache still lingering despite the aspirin he took hours ago. The fate of the entire Underground network was a burden he never liked having to take on, and losing Carter on top of it made the weight on his shoulders almost unbearable.

"Kinch... Go get Newkirk and Lebeau, and tell them to go out the emergency tunnel. Use escape points A and C, and tell them to wait there until I come and get them. If we can make it look like an escape, then we might have a chance of getting away with it. And keep radio contact open until roll call in case anyone contacts us."

"Yes sir."

Hogan didn't meet Kinch's eyes when the Sergeant gave him one last concerned look before leaving his office, the door closing as he was left in the darkness once again. He had a lot to think about.

He woke up to a hot feeling of nausea and a spinning head as a faint light shone on his closed eyelids. It was already morning, hadn't he left sometime after evening roll call? He frowned when he tried to remember, his memory of the last few hours fuzzy. Great, what did he mess up this time? He felt groggy, had he fallen asleep outside while on a mission again? Man, he was really going to hear it from the guys when he finally got back to camp.

Swallowing down the need to throw up, Carter managed to crack open his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he was just able to make out a faint orange glow on the horizon. But something was off. The air was heavy and tasted funny, almost like the times when his explosions went a little awry in the tunnel and blew up on him. He couldn't hear right. And he hurt, and it hurt to breathe...

Blinking several times to clear his vision, his eyes widened when he realized, with mounting dread, that the light wasn't actually the sunrise he was looking at, but instead was the nearby glow of a still smoldering forest fire-

He was running late. It was already thirty minutes past midnight and when he was supposed to meet with the contact, but he was still several minutes away. He had accidentally grabbed Newkirk's phony compass they sometimes used to fool the guards, and had to waste a good chunk of time digging for his real one.

Finally, he had to strain his eyes but he could barely make out what looked like a very simple and primitive camp hidden in the thickest part of the woods, which almost reminded him of back home-

Carter heard the frighteningly familiar whistle only seconds before the resonating BOOM echoed through the woods. Bombing, from somewhere up above, he realized with horror; he was in such a rush he hadn't even paid attention enough to hear the plane. He backed away from where the blast had hit, straining up to see if he could see anything.

BOOM!

The force and surprise of the closer second blast knocked him off his feet as he watched the shadow of smoke rise and trees fall in the growing flame of the fire.

BOOM!

Another one from behind him, even closer than the first two. It was too dark to see anything incoming and he couldn't hear the high pitched whistle of them falling anymore, so Carter stayed low to ground, curling up and covering his head to make himself as small of a target as possible.

The rest of the night was fuzzy, with only a few vague memories of getting back up and trying to run when the bombs hit too close, and then pain. The last thing he remembered before a worryingly blank space of nothing was the thought of this is it. But he had survived, either by miracle or dump luck he wasn't sure (nor did he want to jinx it). As for the resistance group... Closing his eyes, he let out a slow and shaky breath. They surely did not survive.

"Holy cow..." Carter whispered, wincing when the movement of his jaw stabbed at his head, which was already throbbing in time with his racing pulse. Out of instinct he raised his hand to put pressure on it, but immediately stopped when a stinging pain shot up his arm. Looking down, it was too dark to see any kind of injury, but the dim light reflected shiny liquid that ran down his sleeve.

Swallowing, he had to look away as the lightheadedness started to return. It was one thing if it was someone else's blood, that he could deal with although he didn't like it, but this was his own, and he couldn't see where it came from. Now I see why Lebeau gets so queasy. I'll never make fun of him for fainting again.

Once the throbbing settled down into a dull ache, Carter assessed his current situation. He was laying on his side, with outlines of several broken trees and limbs scattered nearby. It was a miracle none of them had fallen on him, although he felt the weight of smaller branches that had. The fire seemed to have run its course enough that it would not cause any danger, and luckily the wind was calm so it wouldn't pick back up. Unfortunately his watch was cracked and probably broken, so he didn't even know how long he had been out for.

Moving more careful this time, he started to look over himself, straining to see any other injuries. He grimaced when he saw more dark stains splattered across his clothes; part of him was worried about what he would find underneath, the other part glad he couldn't see. Shifting to try and sit up, he immediately gasped and gritted his teeth when he jostled his arm and hot searing pain shot up it.

Gritting his teeth, Carter took a deep breath to ease the pain and keep himself calm. Oh boy, how am I going to get out of this one? Deep down he knew it wasn't his fault and more of a case of wrong place at the wrong time, but he couldn't help but think that of course this would happen when he was out on a mission.

Whatever it was that happened, he wasn't sure, but Carter did know he had to get out of the area and back to camp, and fast. It wouldn't be long before the area would be loaded with Krauts, and he wanted to put as much distance as he could between them and himself. He was sure the guys were worried about him by now, and the last thing he wanted to do was have them search for him out in this mess. But how? He could barely even move, and he was miles away from Hammelburg and even further from camp-

"Halt! Wer ist da!"

The voice was muffled, but Carter could barely make out the angry German command. He froze, trying to make himself as small and quiet as possible to avoid detection, but they already found him. The sudden shine of a flashlight blinded him seconds before he felt himself being roughly pulled up.

"You!" His hearing was partially gone, but the voice was still loud as it hissed in his face. "Who are you? You're not from here!"

Carter kicked out blindly towards where he thought his assailant was, ignoring the pain that flared up his body, before his world went dark.