A/N: Snarglefargen.

Sorry about the wait. Christmas and finals and skiing and all that. But it's nice and long, so there. I wrote the whole thing in less than a week. Go me!

BUT. I come bearing gifts. If you want some great info on the Lockheed P-38 and want to watch the videos that make me love Osprey even more, go to YouTube and search that ho.

Good Videos: "P-38 Tribute" by funtimesteve2, "P-38 training video (in color)" by XP55, and "DOGFIGHTS, P38 LIGHTNING VS ME 109" by colacas. You'll be seeing a lot of stuff in this fic influenced by these videos as far as technical things, so watch them and be awed.

And, for your convenience, I am going to tell you what Obergruppenführer is. It's a high rank in the SA. Remember that.

Two days later and there was no sign of the Axis powers. Not one to lag behind, though, Deidara suggested they begin heavy work on the plane immediately, as it was their only way to escape alive.

Sakura, not one to be slothful, insisted on helping Deidara in every way possible, even if it was only to fetch things and make him food while he worked on the plane, stopping every now and then to give him little physicals. As she soon found out, though, there was no glory in being a gofer.

She shrieked and ducked under the wing of the plane to crouch there, sullen, narrowly missing yet another finely packed ball of snow. Here she was trying to help the man, and this was her acquittal? The bastard.

Still, Sakura thought, he was only a man all the same, and she did get a lot of treatment like this from the men on quiet days, when there were no enemies to fight, no last-minute summons to—well, that was neither here nor there. She didn't know how she knew, exactly, but she didn't think her regiment was going to make it out of this fight.

On the other hand, at least there was a small beacon of hope for her, though it wasn't exactly according to plan. Deidara woke her up shortly after sunrise—no sign in his demeanor of his feverish hallucinations of the night before—and thrust the map he filched into her face as she yawned and gathered her wits about her.

Blinking the nasty, unnamed crusty things out of her eyes, she looked down at the diagram of the French and German military terrain and zones, squinting at the lines and symbols Deidara had drawn and his neat, pristine rows of immaculate German.

Feeling quite bitchy at being woken up at that ungodly hour, she blinked up at him, emotionless, trying very hard to figure out what the hell it was she was supposed to be looking at, or saying to him, for that matter. Nice penmanship you have there, Skippy? You draw very straight lines? Stop digging in people's stuff around here or I will drown you in the river? Let's just screw each other and get the whole mutual attraction thing out of the way before it even happens?

Lucky for her exhausted brain, Sakura didn't need to say anything at all—or evaluate that last, horrid image that crossed her mind's eye. Deidara plopped down on the covers next to her and explained in his very best English that they were going to fix the plane and gloriously fly away from the forest, and do some other stuff that Sakura couldn't remember.

After realizing that escape was possible for her and Deidara both as of those two days ago, she perceived that something would change, an atmosphere would settle over the near-deserted camp, one of hard determination and the will to survive.

Well, so much for that. Her supposed savior apparently felt perfectly content to cast lecherous glances her way as he straddled the left tail section of the plane, at ease with tossing deadly accurate balls of slush her way every time she turned around to cater to his every desire. The wrench, Frau! Get me the damn wrench! No, that is the wrong one, ja! Turn around and get me this time the right one!

And then came the snowball as soon as she turned around. Where did he even get all that snow, anyway? Oh, right. The entire forest was swamped with the stuff.

She sighed and closed her eyes, placing hands and feet firmly into the snow, and raised her backside up, attempting to get up without slipping and falling again. Then maybe she would retain some of her precious dignity.

A second snowball hit her square in her raised backside, causing her to lose her balance once again and topple forward into the snow. Gritting her teeth at Deidara's uproarious laughter coupled with the metallic emissions of his damn wrench, she refused to react. Ignore, ignore, ignore it, and then maybe he'd stop.

Maybe.

"Frau," he singsonged. "I need another wrench! Move quicker! My hair is turning gray!"

He laughed again, and Sakura gave up all hopes of maturity right then and there. Revenge refused to wait. She grabbed the other wrench and, making sure he returned his attentions (for the moment) to the P-38 once more, a handful of snow. This was a long time coming, anyway. He deserved it.

He accepted the wrench without comment, and Sakura smiled, feeling giddy that he had absolutely no idea what was coming to him. She heaved herself up on the tail section behind him with relative ease and balanced there on her knees, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence.

She was certain he knew she was there, and was just ignoring her, for he was silent in the span of the next ten minutes. When Deidara was quiet, she knew something was up. Eventually, he sighed gustily and turned around to look at her, blinking in surprise at just how close she was, nearly pressed right up against him, and grinning with hidden malice at that.

For once, he seemed at a total loss of words. A small rush of adrenaline pulsed through her body, giving her courage for what came next. Slowly, she positioned herself directly behind him, chest flush with his back, and brought her hands around to rest them against the front of his pants, teasing the material with a fingertip for effect. She could feel his heart flutter, and almost felt bad for him.

When she unzipped his pants and held the flaps open, he stopped breathing entirely. Feeling the water run down her hands, Sakura decided it was now or never. Thrusting the half-melted ball of slush down his pants, she rolled off the plane and landed ungracefully on the tarp-covered ground, where a cursing Deidara joined her seconds later.

She was really glad she didn't know German that well.

He liberated all the snow from his pants and zipped them back up, still swearing (she assumed) terribly. Sakura giggled lightly. It was almost like a game, and she felt giddy for some reason, wanted to push her limits.

The minute he propped himself up on his elbows and let his head drop back into the snow, she crawled over to look him in the face, where he gave her an upside-down glare.

"No fair," he mumbled. She smiled and put her lips to his forehead; Deidara closed his eyes and allowed her without a complaint. "What are you doing?"

Sakura breathed out slowly, relishing in the human contact. Was this what prisoners felt like, led to their execution? Perhaps they even appreciated that small connection with the one who led them to their death, after being alone in the dark for so many days. And she did feel alone.

"Checking your temperature. My hands and arms are cold from the snow. This is another way, but it's not used very much."

"I also think that."

She smiled again, this time against his skin. "I feel like we're the last people on earth. Listen." They stilled, the silence reaching out into the repressing nothingness. Not even a bird or a fox, only the endless white. "It's so quiet. Not even gunshots. Maybe we're the only ones left."

He grinned and flipped himself over so he was facing her upright.

"Then we should start working to save the human race. Which cot, baby?"

There was nothing she could do but stare for several seconds before giving his chest a sharp thump with his fist. The nerve of that man!

"What," she gasped, "do you think you're doing?" She sputtered and he just kept grinning in that infuriating way of his, a hand inching towards her sneakily. "And where the hell did you learn to talk like that? Casablanca? You sure have a lot of nerve, don't you?"

She ended her tirade with a great heave of breath and prepared to storm off when Deidara's hand caught her arm and yanked her backwards.

She fell indignantly on his chest and squirmed around mightily trying to free herself, but he released her arm only to put both hands on her waist, trapping her upper torso while her legs flailed about in the snow beyond the tarp. He laughed again, and Sakura tried to reach her mouth somewhere, anywhere, to give him a sound bite.

His hands tightened. "No biting. That's not how I like it." Sakura choked. Where did he learn all of this crap? "At the barracks, sometimes we watch the stupid American movies, ja? The SS Officers, they like the Western movies, okay. With the boycows and the banging Indians. Not this Casablanca." He paused for a moment, musing.

"They did not like the way that—how do you say it?—the Nazi was shown badly in this movie, yes. So no watching." He closed his eyes and sighed. "No Humphrey Bogart for us."

Humphrey Bogart, Sakura wondered, quieted. How does he know him?

Deidara continued. "We hear about that man, how good he was. I did not go to see for myself because of the banning. So when I leave this country, the first thing I will do is go find a place to see that movie, yes."

For a long while, all they did was lay there in the snow over the tarp, Sakura staring wistfully into his face while he stared up at the desolate sky, so covered with clouds that not a speck of blue poked through its cover.

"Here's lookin' at you, kid," Sakura finally whispered. An Osprey yewked from somewhere above the treeline and landed on a high branch, peering down at the pair curiously.

"What?" Deidara whispered back.

"Casablanca. Bogart."

"…Okay."

The Osprey continued to look down at the pair, captivating them into a relative peace with a lopsided, one-eyed gaze. Sakura had never seen one before, despite their large population, and had never seen anything so startling before. The pure white of its underbelly sharply contrasted with glossy brown top-feathers, and its piercing amber eyes seemed to glance right through her.

This large bird seemed taken as well by the two strange interlopers on her forest floor, and glided halfway down the tree to arch its neck out and get in for a closer study. The three regarded one another with something not less than wonder for a long while, and finally the Osprey had landed on the ground ten feet away from the tarp, wary despite her unsatisfied concern.

Deidara and Sakura remained frozen, disregarding everything except to keep the raptor from starting and flying away. Chilling wind swept through the forest, and the bird ruffled up her feathers, chortling indignantly. She flapped her wings and tiptoed across the top layer of snow, brushing so close to the awestruck pair that they could feel the buffets spiraling from her form.

Sakura wrinkled her forehead in bewilderment. "What is it—?"

The Osprey turned back to face the two, clutching a hoard of dried fish leather from Sakura's tin box in her beak before giving a final cheep-cheep and flying off to the southern horizon. Sakura gasped and scrambled to a crouch before Deidara throttled her waist to bring her back to her former position: sprawled undignified on the man's chest. She began to squirm again as she watched the thieving bird fly off with the last of the fish.

"Do not chase it," Deidara warned. "It was starving. We can break the ice and find more fish to dry later, okay."

Sakura gave up once more—he had a very strong grip, darn him—and beat her head against his torso twice before laying her forehead down between his pectorals in defeat. Again.

"How do you know it was starving, nature man?" She huffed into his shirt. Deidara gave her a wry look that she felt in his tone.

"It was too thin, yes. I have seen them many times, but never now. It should be in Africa with its family for the wintertime." He looked out at the rapidly ascending bird. "Das Osprey does not dwell in Deutschland but for the warm season, ja? As I would like to."

Sakura blinked, tickling her eyelashes against his heavy coat. "Where is your family?"

Silence.

Her heart jumped, and she feared for a moment that she had offended him. Perhaps they were dead. The war had broken and split many families in Europe. But Deidara had only laid back against the tarp again and closed his eyes. Maybe he just didn't hear me. I'll ask him later.

All of a sudden, he stood up—Sakura slid down his front to sit sprawled on the rough covering—and walked back over to the plane, hopping deftly on the wing and strolling its length to the cockpit.

He put his hands in the coat pockets and stared inside before looking back at Sakura, now picking herself off the ground and brushing stray snow aside, and motioning for her to come.

The wings were a bit dangerous to maneuver on, covered with snow from the branches above, but a hop, a skip, and a suspenseful jump got her shivering to Deidara's side, clutching his clothes for dear life.

"What is it?"

Deidara said nothing and leaned over to open the cockpit windows, top and side. "The past two days I have made adjustments to the Lockheed." He paused to step inside and sit down, looking back up at Sakura, who still stood on the wing with her hands clenching the rim of the open window. "I put the seat a more back and took things out from behind it that can be saved."

He gestured to the space in front of him, the controls and upper windows. "There is not much room, ja, but now that I have finished this part I remember that I want you to help me check to make sure it is okay. For enough room." He clenched the sides of the cockpit seat and waited.

His vapid stare unnerved Sakura for a beat before she realized that he wanted her to climb in. But why the look? Is he testing me? Doesn't think I'll climb in? She took a deep breath and gingerly stooped down, sliding her right leg in sideways through the opposing side of the open cockpit, slipping it past his own right leg.

Quite innocently, he put his hand on her thigh and she stiffened for a moment before he reached out his other hand to help her maneuver the rest of the way inside. As soon as she was in, his hands went back to the seat edges again.

Oh, so he was just helping me in. I think… Trying to be as still as possible, difficult when she automatically wanted to squirm around to find a comfortable position, Sakura waited on bated breath. Squeaking leather alerted her to Deidara's hands, unclenching from the seams in the chair again.

Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw his arms raise up to completely trap her in, and for a moment, she couldn't breathe, feeling almost claustrophobic. He reached further and grabbed hold of the P-38's main control, moving it this way and that, probably testing the mobility level coupled with the disability of having a smallish 17-year-old in one's lap.

Everything seems like it's in slow-motion, Sakura thought, grumbling to herself. Wish he'd hurry up. I'm getting really anxious here.

Wing flaps he tested by reaching somewhere to a switch on the right, tail flaps by another switch somewhere, the—Wait, what's he doing now? This is so confusing! Too many stupid buttons! Each time he tested every different button, he rose out of the seat a bit to look either side to side or behind him until he fell back into the seat with a huff, satisfied at his completed intentions, arms placed quite accidentally around Sakura's waist.

Consequently, his hands rested dangerously close to a place they had no business being at this point in their coexistence together. They seemed to simultaneously recognize the precariousness of the situation, and awkwardness fell into the cockpit like a heavy fog. A freezing gust blew into the confined space and Sakura jerked hard, a shiver hitting her unexpectedly.

One of Deidara's arms left her waistband to reach up and slam the cockpit closed, which retained the plane's icy atmosphere, but thankfully eradicated the malevolent northern winds. His hand then went right back to her waist where it was before. Crap.

Shifting minutely behind her, she almost knew what was coming next. His forehead came down to rest on the beginning of her spine through her coat and stayed there. Sakura stayed put. "There is one more thing to test," he murmured, barely even speaking aloud.

"What is it?" Could he hear the shaking in her voice? He probably felt the tremors in her body.

"The space behind the chair. I must see if there is enough room for small things for an emergency." He went silent again, too fast. Sakura bit her lip. He was acting exceedingly peculiar, and not in a manner which she wanted to explore.

She took a deep breath. "What will you have me do, then? Do you want me to get out and get a hammer or some—?"

"Take off your coat."

Something seized up in Sakura's chest and she began to tremble. She knew what he was trying to do; didn't he see that? Didn't he care?

Deidara, likely more than aware of her paralysis, reached up for the zipper at her throat, and pulled it slowly down, face buried in the side of her neck, breaths calm and even. He separated the halves of her coat and moved to slip the coat arms off for her, slip the entire coat from her body and move it behind him.

Breathing she regarded as unimportant when she heard the sounds of his own zipper being pulled, the American uniform being discarded behind the seat as well. His hands came back around to her lap once more, his face pressed into her back again. She could feel a slight hitch to his breathing now, barely noticeable, but there.

All too soon she felt Deidara's hands slowly run up her torso, touching briefly across her breasts before he slid them back down again, past her thighs to her knees where he caressed them softly. Sakura gasped silently, trying hard not to cry, the sick feeling in her stomach compressing and releasing all at once, creating a tangible fear in her throat.

"Look at me," he rasped. She flinched at the sound of his voice, something present in its tone that had never been there before. Whatever it was, it sent chills throughout her whole body; they rested somewhere just below her waist against her will.

She opened her mouth to refuse, only to clench it shut again in an effort not to cry out in surprise. His hands definitely didn't have any business going there, not now.

He gripped her waist and roughly forced her to turn around to face him, straddling his thighs precariously, but she quickly slid down to his lap from lack of balance. Quite incidentally, she also threw out her hands to grab his shoulders, the nearest support available that wasn't made of metal and freezing cold besides.

Blue met green for one electric moment before he slid fingers through the hair on the back of her head and drew her forward slowly. Her eyelids shut slowly as she braced for the inevitable.

But as his lips met her own, moving in agonizingly slow torture, God would decide to deal her a rather different hand: a shotgun fired inches from the plane's left wing, shocking them both to freeze against one another.

Harsh German commands issued from outside and Sakura released the tears she'd been holding in but didn't make a sound, the dreading look on Deidara's face alerting her to the terrible danger at hand. Moving as little as possible, he quickly managed to reverse positions with her and pushed her down as far as she could fit under the controls, grabbing his stolen coat and throwing hers over her nearly prone form.

"Don't move," he whispered. "I will do this alone."

The cockpit opened and Deidara climbed out to a chorus of more German; he answered back with the same, and the last of him disappeared from Sakura's line of view along with most of her hope.

A childish motion, she pulled the coat over her head and crouched stock-still where he had instructed her to stay, muscles too tense to allow even the tiniest of trembles.

She prayed.

Luck never was a lady when it came to seducing men in fateful times, but for once she seemed to play in Deidara's favor.

The minute his feet hit the tarp as he went over their chances of living, a loud chorus of whoops and pleased greetings met his ears, and he looked around, bemused, at the faces of the men stationed from his own base camp. For a while, all he could do was stare.

Silver hair caught his eye, and a large form barreled into him at high speed, dropping a gun to capture him in a headlock and noogie the hell out of his shoulder-length mess of blond tangles.

"Deidara, you girly little shit," the man jovially shouted in his ear. "Where the fuck have you been, man? Or, should I say, ma'am? Looks like you've been neglecting fucking protocol with your damn hair again. I can't believe you just up and left me all alone! I thought what we had was special!" He released Deidara to clutch his chest in mock consternation and stagger around dejectedly. Deidara smirked and rolled his eyes. How could he have forgotten about these nutjobs?

"Hey, Hidan. I've been…here, I guess." He shrugged.

"Doing what? Wasting your time, no doubt," a low voice rumbled. Deidara inclined his head and peered over Hidan's shoulders.

"Hello, Colonel Kakuzu," he saluted the weathered soldier cautiously. That man was hell on earth with a Maschinengewehr 08, and even the higher ups avoided ruffling his patched-up fur the wrong way.

"Actually, I was sent out to scout ahead and found this camp, yeah. I sniped what officials were here and managed to find some interesting information." Oh, God in heaven. I hope Sakura has all the important papers on her. This'll be hard as fuck to pull off.

Kakuzu's eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Apparently their nurse had no qualms about giving out the goods. And I mean that in more than one way."

The combined laughter and backslapping gave Deidara some hope, though he felt minutely bad about making Sakura an example like that.

"Come on, then, shitface," Hidan barked, retrieving his gun from the tarp. "Let's head back to the camp for some beer and some naptime, and then Little Birdie here'll maybe tell us the whole story." The men cheered loudly with the exception of Kakuzu, who stared at the Lockheed relentlessly. Deidara slipped his coat back on and walked over to the man while the rest of the troops filed out of the clearing towards the tent at Hidan's barking instructions.

"Nice, isn't it? The American Air Force's favorite weapon, right here for me to find." He looked over at the patchwork soldier, who continued to look at the plane, seemingly concerned with the cockpit area.

"Sir?" Surely he doesn't know…

"Is your whore of a nurse learning to fly, or did you have her hide there from us? What are you trying to do, make a fool of me? Does an ambush wait at the camp?" Kakuzu's hand tightened around his gun, fingers twitching in anticipation.

Blanching, Deidara put placating hands before him. "Oh, no, Colonel. Nothing like that, yeah. I heard shots and thought the Americans might have discovered this. If something happened to me, I didn't want anything bad to happen to the girl. She helped me, and therefore the Reich itself, you know."

The older man snorted and relaxed his weapon. "Don't play that with me. You never did support the government. Why now? Why this? Hmm? Going to tell us it's your little secret mission?" Deidara fell silent, heart beating like a drum. "Tell you what, boy. Call out your little woman and I'll decide for myself what I want to be done with her. She'd make a lovely bed-warmer. Although…" He paused, thinking.

"Listen," he finally continued. "I hate the blasted man just as much as you, but, at this point, resisting him would mean death at the hands of his precious SS." He spat on the ground. "For a price, I may be able to work out a situation for you and the girl to get away, buy you some time to fix the plane a little more and fly away with her. Then you two can get married in a bombed-up Paris and have a bouncing little baby named Henri. Does that sound good to you, you little rat? I ought to have you detained just for thinking what you are."

Lips pursed, Deidara waited.

"But maybe I won't, just for old time's sake. Little shit. Hey," he called out to the P-38 in British English, "Get out of there, you."

Pink hair breached the windowsill from the inside and a pair of terrified eyes peered out at the motley soldiers standing there, one pale and nervous, the other weathered and impatient. Sakura glanced at Deidara for some sort of confirmation, and he turned to Kakuzu, who jerked his head towards the plane.

Great. First plan fails before it even happens, and now we're at the mercy of this guy, Deidara brooded bitterly as he opened the hatches for Sakura and pulled her out. Kakuzu eyeballed her as the two passed him, a sneer on his face.

"Skimpy little thing, isn't she? Your taste isn't the best, kid. And that hair. Fucking hell." He waved towards the camp as he took out a pack of cigarettes with his other hand. He lit one and stuck it in his mouth where it hung limply. "You get on ahead. I'm not letting either of you out of my sight."

Deidara spoke softly to Sakura, trying to tell her as much as possible with little words. He hoped that she got the gist of it, and at least she understood that for now they were out of danger. He assumed, anyways. Kakuzu was a very cunning man with enough gall to survive both the First World War and the Nazi Regime's takeover, and was certainly more intelligent than Deidara. This deal that he talked about…what did it mean?

"If you're wondering what exactly I want you to do," Kakuzu drawled as he herded them back along the forest trail, "then I'll tell you part of it here. I'll tell you more after the men are asleep." He took a long drag from the cigarette, and Deidara caught Sakura wrinkling her nose in his field vision.

"Keep in mind that this won't be a choice for you, and you're lucky that I trust you enough to let you in on it. If you refuse or fail to follow orders correctly, I will report you to the Office as dead and line the both of you up against a wall myself. Huh." As if for extra measure, his hand visibly passed over the stock of his gun. Fear glimmered in Sakura's eyes. While she definitely had no idea what was exchanging between the two men—Kakuzu insisted on speaking in his native tongue—Deidara could sympathize with her intuition.

Jaw clenched, Deidara looked back and muttered, "So what is it we do, sir?"

Kakuzu smiled wickedly. "Nice to see you're cooperating for once, you little ingrate. You see, I've been involved with the Nazi resistance and the Allies for some time now, and I know you're more than glad to pay them back for what they did to you, and to them. Oh, yes, I know about that, yes I do. I admire your guts, though, as you were obviously prepared to launch a full-scale betrayal of your Lord and Leader himself by trying to leave with the American."

He paused to let his words sink in, and Deidara fisted his hands at his sides. How did the bastard know all this stuff?

"Well," the Colonel continued, "there's a letter I want to be given to one of the officers at a Concentration Camp to the far west, Auschwitz-Birkenau. It's very far from here, to the southern end of what was Poland, but the letter is very important. The man you will give it to, Mendelssohn, will pass on the letter to the Allies and, in turn, make sure you are taken to a safe place."

Then he repeated the same to Sakura in his articulate British.

She frowned at him. "Why are you risking telling us this? The SS could hunt you down if that is true."

Another drag on the cigarette. "Das geht dich einen Scheißdreck an, blöde amerikanische Fotze," he chided her in German, and Deidara turned away. Kakuzu continued to speak to her in English. "You nagging little wretch. It's not even any of your fucking business." Sakura had the grace to blush, and he grinned at her snidely.

"I suppose I'll humor you for now, anyways. Who knows? You could be dead in a week, shot down by anti-aircraft. Moving on, then. Most of the army is tired of this war. Hitler's initial motives are blurred. Now all there exists is his hatred and the passion of a lunatic.

"He was never a brilliant man to begin with, little girl. He only has the uncanny ability to capture a crowd with his voice, stop them in their tracks for the span of an hour while he entrances them with his lies. I, too, was captured by his resonance."

Sakura slowed her steps and looked into his odd green eyes. "So what made you come to your senses, then, if that's what happened?"

The cigarette flew into the snow, its heat making a tiny depression of transient water.

"Treblinka."

Invariably intrigued, she drew breath for another question, silenced by Deidara's hand on her wrist. He gazed at her with understanding, and silently promised to explain later. The truth was, Treblinka held a special kind of significance for Deidara also, a significance he prayed everyday to forget and never did.

Raucous yelling alerted them they were nearing the camp, and several uniformed German soldiers swamped the trio upon their entering the campground. Deidara could see that they had already invaded the main tent where he and Sakura stayed, and hoped that they hadn't screwed around with his things in there. Well, they weren't exactly his, but they would still be screwed.

Kakuzu shouted out orders left and right for about ten minutes, and eventually had everyone in an amorphous circle-like mass around a bonfire. One of the men expressed concern with the smoke, but the colonel scoffed at this. The whole Ardennes would be on fire in a week, he said. What's a little bonfire going to signal anyone?

Food was in order, and Deidara whispered to Sakura about the issue. He knew personally the German offensive was low on food, and anything they could give the weary and cranky soldiers would be just as good. They had more to worry about than bringing a whole refrigerator's worth of food on the plane.

The men ate several days' worth of cans and potatoes, and Sakura's shoulders ached from carrying bucket after bucket of water to the pot she placed in a smaller fire. A healthy round of alcohol then sent them—Deidara nearly included—into a swaying, groping haze. When she finally retired to the tent, Sakura had kneed approximately twelve drunken, horny men, Hidan being the most persistent of the lot.

Deidara rolled his eyes. Only a barrelful of liquor would make a righteous German attracted to an American girl. All the same, he remained on guard to make sure the teasing didn't escalate to a more touchy level.

Finally, she ducked into the tent, sending Deidara and Kakuzu a backwards glance. The former immediately got up and walked briskly towards the tent flap, but the latter got up slowly, glancing about him suspiciously. Snores from the ground provoked an audible sigh and a disgusted scrunching in his face, but the colonel digressed and followed Deidara.

Inside the tent, Sakura stood up from lighting a lamp and scrutinized the two men, folding her arms in front of her modestly. She bit her lip, most likely unsure of what to do. Deidara was somewhat pleased to see that she had obtained some wariness for the old soldier; her tenseness was evident in every fiber of her being. Better freaked out now than after an unfortunate future episode to think about.

Kakuzu moved towards the light and sat down on the cot next to it with his elbows on his knees, a relaxed posture grossly contradicting the situation. He pointed a finger at Sakura and then motioned to the floor in front of his feet, and she scurried to it and situated herself there against the opposite cot with her knees drawn up, shooting frightened glances at the colonel while staring at Deidara nervously. Deidara followed suit, sitting a little calmer and straighter; he still needed to keep some appearance in front of his superior.

"Well," Kakuzu rumbled to Deidara. "I suppose you'll have to translate for the little girl, there. Say what you want to her; I don't care either way what happens to her, but keep in mind who she is."

"I will, sir." Deidara glanced at Sakura. Her eyes were glued on Kakuzu.

"Good, then. That means this will take twice as long, but I suppose that doesn't matter in the long run." He took out another cigarette and lit it, smiling. "Beauty, isn't it? That's one of the perks of being a senior officer. You still have shit like this while every other simpleton is on his knees with nicotine headaches. So, you'll deliver the letter, which I have in a certain place. It will be given to you in due time. Mendelssohn is one of the senior officers at Auschwitz, which means that you'll have no trouble finding him once you get there. No one will question your arrival."

Blue eyes met lurid green.

"I'm giving you a field promotion. To Obergruppenführer."

Deidara's eyes widened. "Ober—how can you do that? Sir."

A cigarette end flew through the air and landed near Sakura's foot, where she glared at it reproachfully.

"I can't. Technically, I don't have the authority. But as a matter of fact, we came across a dying German of the same rank, and when he kicked it I took his uniform with me. Useful. As for me, however, the point remains that I am too well known to ever pull off an impersonation of the sort. You, however, are unpopular enough to the point where I think you could pull off being a Sturmabteilung Officer without detection. Mendelssohn will know why you came the moment you mention my letter, so you have nothing to worry about there."

He gave the cigarette another drag. "Well, go on. Explain that to your little hooker, there."

While Deidara took the time to rapidly explain—as best as he could, anyway—Kakuzu got up to peer outside, looking right and left before coming back in again and producing a map from the pocket on his jacket liner. He opened the map, sat on the floor next to the two, and unfolded it, waiting in an uncharacteristically patient manner for Deidara to finish his quick diagnostic to a doe-eyed Sakura.

The rest of the night passed in a frostbitten blur. Kakuzu pinpointed several places on the map where they could stop and refuel and get food, and even went as far as letting them in on secret storages for the Nazi-supportive military officers and where this and that clump of trees or abandoned factory was located to hide the Lockheed in an emergency.

Mendelssohn's photo presented to Deidara gave the blond no inkling of who the man truly was; he looked like any other ordinary man, with medium-colored hair and light eyes. As far as could be assumed, the man didn't look any older than forty years old.

Moreover, as far as Sakura's opinions—meek as they were with Kakuzu present—any influence from the girl in the conversation ceased after two in the morning; a pressure on his shoulder and a leering stare from the colonel alerted him to her exhausted state.

Pardoned by the old soldier, Deidara stood—picking Sakura up carefully—and deposited her drowsy form on the cot directly behind where he sat, and she immediately fell asleep. Later, after Kakuzu went to bed—holding a knife and gun and threatening a bloody fate to anyone and everyone who dared to pass out of the tent without express permission—Deidara sighed alone, too weary even to try to comprehend the quandary he and the girl had got into.

Sleep wouldn't come and sex was out of the question, so there was nothing else to do, in his humble opinion, than to sit on the edge of Sakura's bed and make sure that no groping hands made their way to her listless silhouette under the cover of night. None at all, but maybe it would be all right if he alone ran a hand through her hair on several occasions, skimmed his lips over her cheek just a few times, and wished just once that he could lie beside her through the endless night, his hope, his Vögelchen.