Hey guys! I'm gonna make this intro short and sweet. New chapter! Enjoy! Reviews are much appreciated. Thanks for reading! Love all of you guys!

"Bruder, wake up."

Ludwig groaned and rolled over in his bed. His words were slurred together from sleep. "Go away.

Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Seriously, get up."

"Gil, go away. It's got to be…" He pulled his arm out from under the blanket and looked at his watch through one half closed eye. "...three in the morning. Tonight was a rough night. Leave me alone." He slammed his head back down onto the pillow.

"Ludwig, I know you're probably exhausted, but you need to know this. It's important."

"What on God's green earth could possibly be-"

"Diekmann is dead."

Ludwig frowned and sat up in his bed. The cold early morning air sent a chill through his body. He pushed his messy hair out of his eyes. "What?"

"He took half the division to Normandy. Nearly all of them are either dead or captured, but it's been confirmed that Diekmann is dead."

Ludwig eyed Gilbert. He was still in his uniform. "You had better give me a good reason why this couldn't have waited until the morning."

Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Your brain always took longer to wake up than the rest of you." Ludwig crossed his arms over his bare chest and raised an eyebrow, but Gilbert continued. "Half of our division is wiped out. We're losing Normandy. Our armies are being pushed back away from the coast. Which means…"

Ludwig thought for a second, then finally understood. "They're going to be sending us as reinforcements. To secure the areas surrounding Normandy."

"Ding! We have a winner!" Gilbert was less than thrilled, despite the sarcastic dips and flips of his voice. His lips were drawn across his face in a thin, pale line. "Which leaves one final dilemma."

Ludwig sighed. "The girls."

"Yes." Gilbert sat on the edge of Ludwig's bed. "What happens when we get shipped off? They've got no one to care for them, no where to go. No place is safe."

Ludwig's head fell into his hands. Their system had been working flawlessly for nearly three weeks now. At least one of them would visit the girls after dark had fallen. They would bring food, extra clothing, anything that they could need or had asked for. Usually whoever was bringing the supplies would stay for up to an hour talking, playing quiet games, or relaxing together. Recently however, within the last week or so, Miriam had started to have nightmares. She would wake up screaming and crying for her mother, and it had gotten to the point that Monika couldn't make her settle down and be quiet. There was very nearly a dangerous situation where they could have been discovered, but nothing ever came of it. Since Monika had told Ludwig and Gilbert what was going on and because Miriam seemed to take a special liking toward him, Ludwig had taken it upon himself to stay with the girls until Miriam fell asleep. He would not leave until the usual time for Miriam's nightmare came. When she awoke, he would quickly take her up into his arms and calm her down. Some nights were harder than others, but he would do everything in his power to get her back to sleep. Some nights, all it took was a simple reassurance that he was here, and her eyes would flutter closed almost as quickly as they had flown open. Some nights he would sing, and his smooth baritone voice would rumble deep in his chest as loud as he dared, and she would rest her head against his heart and not stir again. Monika usually would stay up to listen to Ludwig sing, and she would fall asleep with a smile on her face that was matched only when she saw Gilbert. She was very fond of him, just as Miriam was fond of Ludwig. It had grown apparent that the girls were growing to love Ludwig and Gilbert, their unforeseen saviors. That love was returned in abundance. On nights like tonight, when getting Miriam asleep took forever, that love was made apparent in action. For hours, Ludwig had paced the space of the tiny upstairs room, humming every tune he could possibly remember or recall, rocking her slowly in his arms until he very nearly fell asleep on his feet. At about two in the morning, after rocking her for nearly four hours, Ludwig realized that he had been standing in the exact same spot for the past fifteen minutes. That's when he decided that it was probably a good time to go to bed. Thankfully, Miriam was finally asleep. So, like every night, he eased her under the covers of the tiny bed beside her sister, drew the covers up to her chin, kissed both girls gingerly on the foreheads, and slipped out of the hiding place out into the night. He crashed into his bed at two-thirty, and was shaken awake by his brother a quick half hour later.

With them gone, who was going to quiet Miriam when her nightmares plagued her? Who would quiet her? Who would feed them? Who would protect them?

No one would, because no one knew of their existence besides them.

Being shipped off would be a death sentence for their beloved girls.

Ludwig was not about to accept this, and neither was Gilbert.

The familiar question was raised once again: What are we going to do?

-x-x-x-

Once Gilbert had left, Ludwig lay awake deep in thought. Different random memories jumped into his head, keeping sleep far from him despite his exhaustion.

"What's that?" Monika asked, pointing to the paper in Ludwig's hand.

"It's a letter from my fianc-well, she was my fiancee. She sent this back to me." Ludwig held up the ring that he had drawn from his pocket and handed it to her to inspect. "She said that I didn't love her enough, and that she wasn't going to wait for me to realize that anymore."

"But do you still love her?"

Ludwig laced his fingers together and took a deep breath. "Yes, I do."

Monika ran her finger over the smooth gold band and over the crystal clear diamond in its setting, then slipped it on her own finger. It was enormous for her, and both she and Ludwig laughed. "What's her name?" she asked as she handed the ring back to Ludwig. "Her name is Eva," Ludwig replied.

"Have you tried writing to her? I read that in a book once. The man wrote to his girl every day, and he won her back. You should do that!"

Ludwig smiled. "I've tried, but I never knew what to write, so I could never send anything to her."

Monika frowned and crossed her slender arms. "That's not a good excuse!" She then yanked Ludwig's notepad and pen from his jacket pocket, flipped to a blank page, and shoved the notepad into Ludwig's chest. "Now. Write. I'll help you. After all, I'm a girl. I know what girls like."

Ludwig raised and eyebrow, then spread his arms and dipped his head in a bow. "Yes ma'am!"

Every night, they wrote a new letter together. Every morning, Ludwig would send the letter to Eva in Berlin. Every night, he would have to report the news to Monika that there was no reply.

Ludwig felt inside his trouser pocket, and the newest letter's paper crinkled at his touch. He wished that Eva would write back at least once. It would make Monika so happy. But of course, he wanted to hear from her. He still loved her, but after her letter and the time away, he was starting to drift away. Someone new was slowly but surely filling her place in his heart. Well, more accurately, two someones.

They were both snuggled up against him, Monika on his left, Miriam on his right. He was halfway through a story that he was making up for their amusement. The prince, in search of the lost princess, had gotten himself lost in the forest and managed to fall into an abandoned well. Ludwig's high-voiced impression of the prince sent the girls into a fit of smothered giggles.

Ludwig smiled at the memory. That story had turned out to be the girls' favorite. He ended up telling it every night for a week.

Gilbert had taken the night once, and when Ludwig didn't see his brother in his room, Ludwig rushed over to the house. He climbed the stairs as quickly as he could, and when he opened the door, he found Gilbert, Miriam, and Monika asleep together in a pile, Monika snuggled up under the crook of Gilbert's arm. Miriam's head was resting on Gilbert's stomach, and Gilbert's mouth hung open in mid snore. My idiot brother is going to get us all found out, Ludwig had thought, but do the girls love him or what?

Ludwig gave Gilbert a sound tongue lashing for falling asleep and taking the risk of not only the girls being exposed, but himself as well. Gilbert apologized and promised that it would never happen again.

Ludwig's mind wandered in the dark, dredging up memories from every part of his mind. He thought about what he was doing now for Miriam and Monika, and what he had done before.

He was a Nazi. That's how everyone saw him, that's what his uniform said. His actions had fit the bill, that is until June tenth. That's when he saw what countless crimes he had committed against hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocents, all in the name of the Führer. That's when he saw the blood on his hands that he could never hope to remove. The very least he could do would be to save these two.

Sometime before the sun rose, Ludwig drifted off to sleep. He didn't dream, and the sleep felt as if a blanket was laid overtop of him. His limbs melted into the mattress under him. His eyelids slid down heavily. He couldn't remember ever being so tired…

-x-x-x-

"Ludwig! Get up!"

Ludwig opened one eye. Bright sunlight from the window was eclipsed by the distinctive shape of a man.

"Gilbert, I have threatened to kill you many times, but this time I mean it."

"No really, get up. The brass called a meeting, it starts in five minutes. I suggest you get yourself out of this bed right now."

Ludwig checked his watch, and his eyes sprang open. He launched out of bed, grabbed his shoes, and started hopping around the room on one leg while he pulled a boot onto the other leg. "Gil!"

"I've got you!" Gilbert flung a shirt to his brother, who caught it and yanked it over his head. "Boot coming your way!" Gilbert tossed Ludwig's other boot to him, and he slipped it onto his foot. Gilbert picked up the uniform jacket, rubbed the shiny buttons with his sleeve, and grabbed Ludwig's cap, shined the silver totenkopf, and handed both to his brother. Ludwig had just finished running a comb through his bedhead, and once he slipped his jacket on his shoulders and adjusted his cap on his head, he looked as perfectly put together as anyone.

"Alright prettyboy, get out of here before someone finds out you've been sleeping in."

"As if you have room to talk, you dummkopf!"

The two men's laughter rang through the hall as they made their way to the meeting.

-x-x-x-

"You have all probably heard the news by now," announced Otto Kahn, Diekmann's second in command, clearly from where he stood at the head of the table once all of the officers in the room had made themselves comfortable and were settled, "Adolf Diekmann is dead. The half of the division that he took with him to Normandy is nearly all either dead or captured."

The room was silent. No one wanted to breathe. No one could.

Khan cleared his throat, then took a sip of water from a glass by his hand. He straightened his jacket with a quick tug and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He swallowed, breathed, and spoke.

"The fighting with the Allied forces is brutal at this point in the war, especially in the areas surrounding Normandy. Half of our division was wiped out in a matter of weeks. We are next in line to be called up as reinforcements. What this means for you, as officers, is that you need to prepare your men to march at any time. As soon as the order comes down, we march out of here." He took a moment to gather his words.

"No one-" The words caught in his throat. He paused, then started to speak again. His voice was lowered, and it was soft and emotional. "No one has come back from that front. I would suggest..." He took a breath. "I would suggest getting your affairs in order. Be prepared for the worst."

The room took a collective breath. Every heart dropped. All thoughts went to the most important person in every soldier's mind.

Ludwig's mind jumped straight to the man sitting beside him. His brother. It then flew to a small upstairs room about fifteen minutes' drive from here, and to the two young invisible occupants.

-x-x-x-

Afterwards, as Ludwig and Gilbert made their way back from the meeting, there was no laughter on either of their lips. Gilbert's suspicions had been confirmed. The rest of Ludwig and Gilbert's division would be sent to the front sometime within the next month, most likely very soon. They were all to be ready to move out at any time. Everyone in the meeting was somber, but none more so than the Beilschmidt brothers. Their fears were slowly becoming reality, and the risk of exposure of their two little secrets was growing every day.

The fact was that they were going to leave their girls. The question was when, and what their precious girls were to do when they were gone.

And what was going to happen if they never came back.