Slowly her eyelids begun to flicker and her vision steadily became clearer and clearer. Raven shakily lifted her left arm to hold her throbbing shoulder and carefully studied her surroundings. She was in an aid station no doubt about it.

The smell of blood and death hung heavily in the air and if she looked around her eyes fell upon several wounded and some even dying soldiers. There were no screams, they'd probably all been drugged with morphine and were too out of it to feel anything, but looking at their wounds Raven could tell that some didn't't have much further to go.

Ignoring her surroundings Raven's eyes fell upon her own figure. The pain in her shoulder and leg had gone down to a numb throbbing and both were covered in white bandages. She still wore her bloody clothes though and had it not been for the voice next to her she would have been engulfed in the nightmare memories from her time in the German camp.

"I see the bird is up." At the sound of another person's voice Raven's head snapped in the direction it came from. To her left there was a blonde man lying on his belly. He had bandages covering his lower body half and his lips were curved into a rough smile. Raven studied the man confusingly.

"Bird?" she asked as she found her nickname to be rather fitting but still amusing. The man to her left laughed slightly.

"Yeah, that's the name the boys gave you. They think your hair resembles the colour of a Raven's feathers." At this Raven laughed too, it was quite funny how no one knew her name but still had compared her to the very bird she was named after. But then again her mother also thought her hair resembled the colour of the Raven's feathers, hence why she got her name.

"But what's your real name?" The man suddenly asked and Raven couldn't help but notice that he seemed quite eager to talk to her, but as she glanced back at his wound she figured it probably was because talking to someone made him forget about the pain. So with a smile she said.

"Raven, and yours?"

"You can call me Popeye, but no kidding, your name is actually Raven? Hah, imagine that, I guess the boys were closer to knowing your name than they thought"

"I guess so." The last sentence was followed by silence; neither Popeye nor Raven knew how to continue the conversation. They couldn't very well talk about the weather since neither of them had been outside for a while. But to their relief a medic approached Raven's bed which gave her an opportunity to turn her attention elsewhere.

"How are you feeling?" The medic asked as he reached her, he kneeled down by her leg and started unwrapping the bandages to check on the wound.

"Good." Was Raven's simple reply. The medic merely nodded his head.

"Hey Roe, you think I will be sent home for this." Popeye asked from his bed and motioned his head towards his bandages. The medic called Roe momentarily lifted his gaze from Raven's leg to glance at Popeye, then he went back to treating Raven's injury.

"Don't know Popeye, I was not the one who treated that wound, so I don't know how bad it is."

"Hmm, imagine that. Eugene Roe don't know if it's bad or not." Popeye mockingly said just before another man stepped inside the aid station. His eyes scanned the room until they landed on Raven in which moment he immediately advanced towards her. When he got closer Raven recognized him as the man who'd been in charge of the group she'd arrived with.

"You're the one from before." She said as she studied his appearance more thoroughly now that she could actually see what he looked like. Flaming neatly cut red hair covered his head and he had eyes that shimmered between steel grey and ice blue depending on the light; his overall face features were sharp. He was tall and lean and looked like a strong man, and there was something about him Raven noted, that made him look rather respectable and important.

"Yes I am. Now if you don't mind I'd like to ask you some questions." He said but Raven was not listening.

"Where are the others?" She asked, afraid of the answer. She didn't know how long she'd been out but fact was that the people who'd helped her were soldiers and soldier went into combat and in combat you died. No doubt had they all been sent out into combat while she was out, now she needed to know they were ok.

"They're scattered around camp. But they're fine." The man reassured Raven, probably sensing the distress in her voice.

"All of them? Everyone who came here when I did, they're all safe?" At this the man fell silent and Raven knew there had been at least one who'd been lost during her absence.

"We lost one man. John Hall, the one who carried you into camp the day we arrived." He spoke softly, silently, as if the words he spoke would kill another man if spoken too harshly.

Raven fell silent; her eyes had been drained of what little life Popeye had been able to fill them with. Before her inner vision dead bodies and despair flashed while she alone could do nothing but stand by and watch. She'd seen death one too many times and it had scarred her for life. She'd grown to feel like she had to be everywhere all at once; she'd started to feel like if only she had been there then maybe a soldier's life could have been saved. This feeling did more harm than good, she became so focused on making things right that once she made a mistake she froze, her body became unwilling to move and she felt like laying down to die herself.

"Ma'am? Ma'am!" Raven was roughly pulled out of her own thoughts as the man with red hair bent down and grabbed her shoulders, clearly sensing that she'd momentarily slipped away from the present.

"You ok?" He asked once he noticed he'd gotten her attention. Raven only nodded.

"You can call me Raven."

"Ok, then you can call me Dick, or Winters." He replied before sitting down on a nearby chair, clearly realizing that to get anything out of Raven he had to take it slow.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions now Raven?" He asked as he lightly touched the subject that would eventually lead to more difficult questions. Raven nodded in response and so Dick begun his questioning.

"Why were you in that nearly abandoned German camp?"

"I'd been captured." At the first sentence images begun to flash before her inner vision again but Raven roughly pushed them aside and continued.

"I'd been foolish enough to wander around on the street in broad daylight. But I didn't think there'd be anyone there, the town looked so abandoned from a far and I had not eaten in days." Now tears had begun to fill her eyes as Raven found herself unable to keep her emotions bottled up any longer. But none the less she continued.

"They did so many horrible things. The pain was unbearable at first but after some time you grow numb to it, it's like you can't feel it anymore, you can't feel anything, nor pain nor sorrow. They believed I held information from the allied troops, they thought I could give them precious information that would help them win the war. But I didn't say anything, not that I knew anything of value to them, but I knew that the moment I became useless to them I would be killed. For two weeks I endured their torture, two weeks with nothing but a mere sip of water and moulded bread every second day. Then the invasion started, you guys came and the Germans knew that their position in that town was weak. But it was not an important position so they abandoned it, but they couldn't bring me with them to headquarters, I was too much baggage. So they shot me, twice, just to make sure I wouldn't go anywhere, and then they left two small groups to guard the city and me."

When she finished her tears had stained her cheeks and clothes. Her eyes were red and swollen when she looked at Dick who's eyes showed slight pity for the girl who'd gotten caught up in a war that he thought was not hers to fight.

"How'd you end up in France?" He continued, not wanting to endure the heavy silence that had filled the air any longer. Raven swallowed hard before gazing up at the roof, as if searching it for the answers she needed.

"I followed my brothers." She finally said and looked Dick straight in the eyes.

" They were Swedish soldiers who'd come to secretly join the allied forces and help win this war. But one year ago my mother received four telegrams in one day. All of them stating that my brothers were killed by the SS. It was at that time I decided to come here, to be a field nurse or surgeon, whatever they were in need of. I didn't have much money and I couldn't ask my mother for it. She'd never approve of sending me off to war, not after losing four sons in it. But I had to be here, for my brothers. So I scrambled up what money I could find and took the first train out of the country. Now one thing led to another and before I knew it I ended up here. I have been living on my own for the past year trying to figure out a way to get into the army, but then I was captured and voila, here I am."

Raven forced a smile as she finished, she didn't care that she'd just spilled her whole life story to a stranger, he asked so if he didn't like what he heard that's his problem.

"I see." Dick said as he rose up from the chair. "I will go and talk to Major Strayer then. By the way, you said you wanted to be a field surgeon correct?"

"Yes sir"

"If what you say is true and if you're educated then I think that can be arranged. "Dick then gave a quick nod towards Eugene and Popeye who both returned it with a "sir" and then he went to leave the aid station. But Raven stopped him.

"Sir, if possible I'd like to work as a field surgeon in your company." This caused Dick to turn around slightly and give Raven a nod too.

"We will see " He said and Raven watched his back disappear behind the doors before she turned to look at Eugene who'd just finished re-bandaging her shoulder; he'd finished her leg long ago.

"You a real surgeon lady?" Eugene suddenly asked her as he glanced up at her from cleaning his bloody hands.

"Top of the class." She answered with a smile which Eugene was close to returning had it not been for the three loud mouths who just burst through the door to the aid station.

"Popeye!" The one at the front exclaimed happily as he took the chair Dick had used and moved it over to stand beside Popeye's bed.

"You feeling better buddy?" The second man asked and Raven could have sworn she recognized all three of them from somewhere. She squinted her eyes as she tried her best to place where she'd seen them before but found it to be extremely hard. Only when the third person spoke did she recognize the voice and thus could put names on each and every one of their faces.

"You made it back then lucky bastard."

"Bill" Raven whispered which caused the three newly arrived to turn around and look at whoever it was that had spoken. When their eyes fell upon Raven their faces lit up.

"Hey, it's the chick from that German camp." Bill exclaimed as he moved from Popeye's bed to stand next to Raven's bedside.

"Toye, Malarkey, you seeing this? She survived after all." Both Toye and Malarkey grinned like fools as they too moved from Popeye's bedside to approach Raven. They didn't get very far though before Roe stepped between them.

"She ain't gonna live long though unless you give her time to rest. Same goes for Popeye." The three soldiers looked from Roe to Popeye and then to Raven and back again before grumbling and solemnly turning towards the exit. But just as he was about to walk through the door Toye remembered something.

"Hey birdie, what's your name?" He hollered. Raven giggled slightly, not really understanding what she thought was so funny with that question but she answered it none the less.

"Raven." And with that she sunk down on her bed and closed her eyes, ready to let herself be engulfed by the nightmares that haunted her every dream but for the first time feeling like she could handle it, no matter how awful they were, she still had reality to come back to. And this time reality didn't seem so bad.