A/N: I've had about five papers due since the last time I updated this. I blame my English Composition class for not getting this together faster. I don't particularly like this chapter though, so that probably explains something too. Thank you for all of the reviews. Keep 'em coming!
I don't own Band of Brothers. Lyrics by Death Cab for Cutie.
Enjoy!

IV.I Will Follow You Into the Dark

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then'll I'll follow you into the dark

My dear parents,

You probably know by now that I am gone and you can rightly assume that I will not return. Eventually, I'll be shipped off somewhere else: Europe, Africa, the Pacific. God only knows.

You both think I'm insane, and you're probably right, but who are you to judge my decisions? For twenty-two years, I have been defying the rules that I was clearly instructed to follow: having relations with men outside of the faith, before marriage, and even before the promise of love. But what does that make me other than a young women growing up in a world that is rapidly changing? And I ask, Mother, what makes my decision to fight for my nation any different than your decision to contribute to the fight for our rights as women? And Father, did you not always want a son to join the Armed Forces and make something out of the Larson name?

I will write whenever I get a chance.

Yours truly, Captain Cora Leigh Larson

The words often ran on a loop in her head and the way the pen felt in between her fingers was eternally etched into her memory. As she sat on the shaking plane, drumming her fingers on her thigh, memories came rushing back. Things like her mother's shrill voice shouting at her in Yiddish, the smell of her great-grandmother's rugalach drifting through the open window, and ushering in the Sabbath every Friday night. She could remember her eldest sister, Margaret, marrying the skinny son of the butcher who lived three blocks away; the birth of her youngest sister, Augustine; Joshua, the first boy she had ever kissed; Edwin, the boy she had lost her virginity to; her bat mitzvah; her arrival at Camp Toccoa; her last qualifying jump; her first kiss with Sobel… I wonder where he is now.

It had been weeks since she had seen him, but hours since she had thought about him. Her jaw clenched tighter and tighter as his face became a crystal clear image in her mind. Silently, the reminiscences slunk forward from the recesses of her mind and she struggled to keep him away from her thoughts. Cora looked at Dick, who sat nearest to the exit of the plane. She smiled at him, focusing on the smile that he too gave.

"I'm tired of hearing about Sobel. There's nothing you can do about it, Cora. It's too late," he had told her. I hate that you're always right.

Bombs could be heard going off below the plane. Gunfire and warfare. This was what Easy had been training for, what the entire 101st had been training for. Cora's hands began to shake. The red light came on, the hue illuminating her boys' faces. What if, she thought, the plane didn't make it? What if they got shot down? What'll I do without them?

"Stand up!" Dick called over the roar of the plane.

Cora stood, trembling. She felt a sudden urge to hold her best friend, grab his hand and force him to tell her everything was going to be fine. If you say so, Richard. She felt Eugene Roe behind her, checking the equipment.

"Three okay!" he shouted, patting her on the back.

"Two okay." Her voice was one she could barely recognize as her own.

As the plane began to violently shake, Cora gripped tighter to the hook. She swayed brutally back and forth, praying for the green light. She saw nothing, heard nothing, and focused on nothing other than Dick's voice in her head; conversations the two of them had through his window at night.

"Why are you still with him if he drives you crazy?" he asked.

"Because I'm a nut. How do you feel about that? The same person who'll be pulling bullets out of you is a psychopath," she laughed in a whisper, trying not to wake the other members of the house.

"I feel safe."

"Why?"

The question was simple enough, but the answer was complex.

"Because… I believe in you."

The words echoed in the air between them, bouncing from her body to his. The green light came on, and before she knew it, Cora was flying.

&&&&&

"Shit!" Cora landed hard on the French soil, the chute falling around her.

"I don't think that's the correct reply trooper. I say flash, you say thunder," a voice said behind. She knew right away who it was.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, take your flash and your thunder and go to hell!" she snapped, removing her right jump glove to reveal a broken nail. "That's what I get for painting my nails before we jumped."

Another soldier fell from the sky as the two Easy Company paratroopers gathered everything together. Cora's theory was right all along: the leg bag was a joke. Dick's gear was gone entirely, the boy, Hall, had lost his radio and most of his weaponry, and Cora's extra pair of clothes were lying somewhere in the French countryside… much like she was.

"Okay," Winters said, "follow me."

As the three turned, German gunfire was visible not far from them. The sparks from the bullets illuminated Cora's face in the darkness, which, for a fleeting moment, left Dick distracted. I think I'm getting sick. "To hell with that!"

Cora kept close to Dick as they ran in the opposite direction into the trees. Now, it was simply about finding their bearings; looking for farmhouses, buildings, bridges, roads, or anything else that would give some clue as to where they had ended up.

"I wonder if the rest of them are as lost as we are," Hall said despondently.

"We're not lost, Private."

"We're in Normandy," Cora said finally, finishing another one of his sentences.

It felt as if they had wandered around aimlessly for hours, at least that was Cora's opinion. She often stretched her arm outward to hold Dick's hand, much like she with Sobel whenever she felt too frightened, but refrained. If word had gotten back to battalion, they'd have her off the line for sure.

"So you're from Manhattan?" Cora asked Hall, of Able Company, the Brooklyn accent sparking on certain syllables.

"Yeah. West Side. How about you?"

"Brooklyn, Decatur Street."

The two New Yorkers nodded and continued to follow Winters to wherever he decided to lead them. As they approached a stream from a narrow footpath, rustling noises were heard on the other side of the bank and three other figures marched forward raucously. Cora crept closer to him and put her hand on his back to signal she was there.

"Lieutenant Winters? Is that you?" a familiar voice called out.

From the other side of the bank came Lipton, two other soldiers following close behind him. They stomped through the water and over to E company's XO. Lip embraced Cora the moment he reached her.

"You okay?" he asked, his arms still partially around her.

"Better now that I know you're fine."

The men that had been following Lipton watched perplexed by the exchange of words and gestures that occurred between the sergeant and the medic. In the 82nd Division, they had heard very little of the woman who had joined up. Their imaginations often ran wild, picturing a butch woman over six feet in height with arms the size of tree trunks; who could survive the harsh training that the paratroopers went through. Yet, there she was, standing at 5'7" with less muscle than a pre-pubescent boy. They thought she'd be merciless, but her tone seemed genuinely concerned. Who are you?

Dick used all of his brilliant tactics to figure out where they were and where they were to go. Cora knelt close to him and listened intently for anything that might have been moving in the woods around them. He rose up from beneath the raincoat that one of the 82nd boys had let him borrow, a combination of determination and desperation on his face.

"We're about 7 kilometers away from our objective and four hours away from when we need to have it secured. So, we got a lot of walking ahead of us," he said, handing the borrowed flashlight back to Lipton.

Cora nodded and stood. After all of those runs up Currahee, she was more than prepared for it. Dick shot her a look, signaling for her to keep close. His arm reached behind him for a minute, long enough for him to realize what he was doing, but so brief that Cora didn't see it. It wasn't just the two of them there anymore. It wasn't just the two and Hall anymore. Lipton probably would have understood and kept quiet, but Dick didn't know about the two from the other refused to put Cora at risk like that. She came up quickly beside him as they crept through the trees.

Voices came from the clearing where the railroad tracks were. Cora paused, and listened again. She fought internally, unsure if there was one that she recognized, but as if on cue, an accent from South Philly rang in her ears.

"Flash!" she whispered into the darkness.

"Thunder," the group of Easy men said, turning to find three of their own emerge.

Cora flung herself at Bill, hugging him close to her. Joe and 'Popeye' Wynn received hugs as well and numerous "Thank God"s. Richard quickly directed everyone as to where they were to be with Cora in the rear of the formation. Just as she went to question him, Hall stopped suddenly and he rushed forward to peer out onto the road. The Germans were coming.

"Wait for my command," Dick whispered as the boys lined up their shots and Cora leaned far back against the trunk of a tree.

A memory of going hunting with her English father in New Jersey suddenly surrounded her. There she was, a little girl, dressed in flannel and jeans. There was a rifle in her hands and a deer not far from where they were hidden. Her father knew she wouldn't shoot it, but try to patch up the wound with a strip of fabric from her shirt. Her simply willing to be out in the middle of nowhere with him gave him the minimum satisfaction he wanted all along, the kind he always received from having six daughters.

Even at the age of nine, though, Cora played the role of a son. As she grew, the character she was performing became more ambitious: the son got a degree, went into the medical field, joined up with the troops. The son was a fighter, a genius; but the daughter, the actor, only wanted to prove herself as versatile and commanding. If it is usually what most actors wish to achieve, then Cora was the ultimate, deserving of the gold medal in Olympic theater. Papa, I can't imagine you being any prouder of me.

Rapid gunfire awoke Cora from her daydream. She looked to find Bill spraying bullets on the enemy, and Winters fuming. The horses whinnied as they fell to the ground and the Krauts pleaded in a language Cora understood only bits and pieces of. The shots suddenly silenced with Dick shouting at Guarnere in a tone that made the young medic tremble for a moment.

"When I say wait for my command, you wait for my command, Sergeant," he snapped before turning to Cora "Are you okay?"

She nodded, feeling the anger radiating off of him. They reorganized and headed off toward their objective once again, bickering amongst caught up to Dick, who now had a weapon in his hand. The two walked side-by-side (and nearly hand-in-hand) once again. Cora leaned closer toward him.

"'They that have power to hurt and will do none, that do not do the thing they most do show, who, moving others, are themselves as stone, unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow: they rightly do inherit heaven's graces,'" she whispered. "William Shakespeare. Sonnet 94."

A smile crept across his face for only a second, but that brief moment in time stood still for each of them…

&&&&&

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
Sonnet 94