My thanks to my beta, Marilyn: Polisher of rough edges and voice of logic and encouragement.

Chapter Twenty-two

Hogan gazed out over Stalag 13 with hooded eyes, body at a comfortable lean against the barracks' wall, shoulders relaxed and hands curled loose in his jacket pockets. The sun shone down on him, washing the compound in brilliant afternoon light and painting sharp-edged shadows on the ground. Beyond the perimeter fence, the trees swayed in the gentle wind, leaves flickering in the sunlight.

He concentrated, trying to imagine himself outside the fences, beyond the guards, the guns and the dogs. After several minutes of fighting to block out his surroundings, he gave up and rested his head back on the wall. As if to comfort him, a breeze danced over his cheeks like a lover's caress, stirring a sigh that seemed to come from his toes.

He was ready to be out there. After a month, the wounds were nothing more now than scar tissue and deep muscle aches when he pushed too hard. He'd bulked up to his prior weight and then some, eating everything LeBeau put before him without complaint. Walks around the camp, light weight lifting and time in the ring with Kinch had given him back muscle tone and stamina.

And yet his men still treated him like he was made of bone china. Fearful that the wrong word - the wrong name - might cause him to shatter before their eyes.

The concerned looks, the careful way his men acted and talked around him, the nightmares, the hours of staring at the walls and walking around the same places – the routine – was driving him toward the edge. He'd have bolted out of camp at the first opportunity if not for the one reason more powerful than any fence or shackle. His men. After all they'd done to get him back to health, slipping out in the dark of the night and leaving them to worry was no way to repay them.

He contemplated the ground at his feet. Tonight's mission could barely be classified as a mission; a simple drop that the greenest recruit could handle. One by one, his men had volunteered to take it. And one by one, he'd turned them down. He needed to get out. Away from everything. Even them. If only for a few hours.

Once the mission was behind him, he hoped their anxiety would disappear and the well-meaning questions and not-so-covert surveillance would stop.

He lifted his head again and stared across the compound at the wooded hills, mentally tracing his route. Three clicks to the drop coordinates, taking a path so familiar he could travel it in his sleep. Pick up the package and return to camp.

To quote Newkirk: 'Piece of cake'.

He blinked, emerging from his thoughts when he heard the barracks door open. There was a pause, and then quiet footsteps approached, their familiar cadence proclaiming their owner's identity. The footsteps stopped at his side and over the quiet brush of wind by his ears, came the rustle of cloth.

"Beautiful day." Kinch's voice was soft, wistful. "Days like this, Mama would pack a lunch of hushpuppies, chicken, and cream pie and we'd all go the park for a picnic. I 'd have glass after glass of ice cold tea in between stuffing my face and pestering my sister."

"Good days," Hogan responded, voice as distant as the horizon.

Kinch glanced at him, opened his mouth and then decided to drop any further attempts at small talk. The tense line of Hogan's profile didn't invite it.

"Baker just took a message from Kurt," Kinch said, putting his eyes front again. "He's coming tonight. Should be here around 2100."

Hogan's hands clenched under cover of his jacket. Kurt had been coming at least twice a week, ostensibly to monitor his progress. Hogan knew better and didn't walk to talk anymore than he did the first time.

"He knows I'm going out?" Hogan's voice stayed cool, his hands clenched.

Kinch flicked another glance at him. "Baker gave him the code phrase. Kurt either chose to ignore it or decided it didn't matter because he repeated he was coming."

Hogan's jaw twitched. Twenty-one hundred. If Kurt was on time and if he didn't insist on any lengthy discussions and if there wasn't a problem . . . Ice flashed through Hogan's blood. His head whipped toward Kinch.

"Is there a problem at the farm?"

"He didn't say there was."

"Did he give any reason why he was coming?"

Kinch shook his head. "No, sir." A slight smile crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes. "Social call, maybe?"

Hogan huffed under his breath and looked back toward the hills, squinting in the sun. "Still nothing from Tiger or DuBois?"

"No." The answer was heavy with regret.

The lack of information was maddening. Two weeks before, Hochstetter had nearly caught both operatives in an ambush. DuBois had been wounded in a prolonged shoot-out, and three of his men killed. Tiger had gotten away unscathed, but not before she'd had the satisfaction of cutting Hochstetter down.

Klink had visited Hogan the next morning. At the end of a rambling conversation covering everything from the weather to Berlin Betty's latest radio broadcast, he had suddenly fallen silent, his expression as neutral as Hogan had ever seen it. Quietly, his face still studiously blank, Klink had shared the news of the shooting. His terse statement that Hochstetter was not expected to live gave Hogan little comfort. Hochstetter was done hunting for the foreseeable future if not eternity, but Tiger, DuBois and his men had already paid the price for it.

"I'm sure they're fine," Kinch said with confidence, alluding to DuBois, Tiger and their men having gone to ground. "We'd have heard if it were otherwise."

"Maybe."

"It could have been worse," Kinch continued in a near whisper.

Hogan merely nodded, trying not to envision 'worse'. He'd seen it enough in his nightmares.

Sounds floated around them on the breeze. Carter and Newkirk running back and forth, Carter yelling to Newkirk to pass the basketball, Benson and Tivoli hooting and hollering, feet dancing and arms waving, guarding the basket, trying to distract the rival team. Schultz, from around the corner of Barracks Four, laughing at something. The dogs' barks and yips from the kennels as Langenscheidt filled their water dishes.

Hogan watched Kinch carefully out of the corner of his eye. Kinch looked calm, even serene. Yet beneath that glassy-smooth façade, a nimble mind hummed, hard at work. Apparently realizing he was being watched, Kinch's dark eyes swung toward him.

"You know, I was just thinking that it's been a long time since I was --"

"Kinch." Hogan's voice was soft and even, yet edged with warning.

One of Kinch's eyebrows rose and fell, his expression going flat with concern. "Colonel, I may be out of line, but I really think one of us should go with you tonight."

"Look," Hogan sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "I'm just going to come right out and say this and you can pass it along to the rest of the guys. No one's going along tonight to watch my back, hold my hand, or talk me through whatever it is you all think is going to happen to me out there. I'm grateful for everything everyone's done for me, but I want some time alone." He paused, then added, "Really alone." A pang went through him as he heard the sharpness in his tone, but the words were said. He couldn't take them back.

Kinch, on the other hand, didn't say a word in response, though it looked like he had plenty on the tip of his tongue. Hogan deliberately went back to looking beyond the fences.

He heard Kinch's feet shuffle, could practically feel the frustration pouring off him. But the silence held. Finally, he heard footsteps walk away and the barracks door open and close.

Hogan pinched the bridge of his nose. The night couldn't come fast enough.

HH HH HH HH HH HH

Kinch was lying in his bunk, mulling over his conversation with Hogan when the door to the barracks opened. Newkirk and Carter walked in, smiling and sweating from their basketball game.

"Whoo," Carter breathed, wiping at his face with his forearm. "That was fun." LeBeau scooped an old towel off the table and tossed it to him. Carter dabbed at his face. Newkirk brushed by, shirt stained with damp and hair clinging to his forehead.

Olsen rolled over in his bunk and onto his side, propping his head on one hand. "Who won the game?"

Newkirk turned, brushing his chest with curled fingers. "Brains against brawn, mate. Brains against brawn."

Olsen smirked. "Brawn triumphed again, huh?"

"Just setting them up is all," Newkirk protested, bracing hands on hips. "For next time. Letting them get all full of themselves and get overconfident. They won't know what hit them."

Olsen leaned out over the edge of his bed to make eye contact with Paxton on the lower bunk. "Ten to one in favor of brawn taking the next one, too."

"Twenty to one," Paxton swiftly countered.

Braveheart looked up from the carving he was whittling from a piece of firewood. Shavings lay scattered upon his crossed legs. Kinch had been concerned about those shavings – concerned the guards would see them and search for the knife that had made them. But Braveheart was always careful to brush them into a pile that he tossed into the woodstove for burning. "I'll take those odds."

Newkirk glared from one to the other. "So good to know we've got the support of our mates."

Olsen chortled. "I've seen Benson's hook shot."

"And I've seen your defense," Paxton drawled.

"There's not a ruddy thing wrong with my defense."

"Nothing except it's got as many holes as one of my momma's lace doilies," Carter chuckled. Ignoring Newkirk's muttering about betrayal and 'Benedict Arnolds', he balled the towel up and took aim at the communal laundry basket. A lift of his arm and hand, a flick of his wrist with a good follow-through, and the towel made a clean landing in the basket. LeBeau let out a muted cheer and Carter took a bow.

Kinch rose to put some coffee on to heat. He set the dented metal pot on the woodstove, glanced back at Carter and Newkirk. "Was the colonel still outside the barracks when you came in?"

Carter's expression fell, the disappointment in his eyes easy to read. "He was just walking away."

"Didn't say much," Newkirk said, sliding onto one of the benches and wincing as a muscle pulled. "But then, that's the case most days now, isn't it?"

Carter studied the floor, shoulders slumping from more than weariness. "He looks like the colonel and he sounds like the colonel when he does talk. But he's not the colonel. He's been different ever since . . . He hardly smiles . . . or laughs anymore."

LeBeau thought a moment. "He smiled yesterday after roll call."

Paxton nodded. "Yeah, he did."

"Doesn't count." Newkirk slowly drummed his fingertips on the table.

Kinch turned from the woodstove, coffee forgotten. "Why not?"

Newkirk's eyes flicked up to him, then back down again. "He was talking with Klink." Taking out his cards, Newkirk idly shuffled them with one hand, fingers easily manipulating the cards into doing his bidding. "Smiling because he had to." He lifted his head, bared his teeth to show them what he meant.

Olsen grimaced. "Fake."

O'Malley sat up on his bunk where he'd been listening, an out-dated, dog-eared magazine lying face down on his stomach. He tossed it aside, the pages fluttering. "Even good actors can't hide everything from people who know them well."

Carter glanced up sharply, certain no one present could claim to truly know Hogan.

"He's been acting with us for quite awhile now." Kinch said quietly. Behind him, the pot rattled as the coffee came to a boil. "Smiling when we expect him to—"

"Laughing in all the right places," LeBeau murmured, brow furrowed with sadness.

The memory of strained laughter sent Kinch's spirits even lower. He took the pot off the stove and set it and some cups on the table, then dropped onto one of the benches. He stared at the pot for a moment, but found he wasn't as thirsty for coffee as he'd thought.

Newkirk tsked under his breath, slowly shook his head as he stared down at his cards. "All of that. Except for the talking. He's not doing much of that, remember."

Kinch couldn't argue that observation. The frequency of Hogan's silences had increased over the past weeks, and with each one, it felt like his distance had, too.

The look LeBeau turned upon Kinch was almost accusing. "He is worse, not better."

"Leaving him be isn't working this time," Carter's voice was low and sad, echoing the melancholy that had fallen over them.

Braveheart's whittling paused, curiosity lighting his ruddy features. "This time?"

O'Malley twisted to look back at him. "It happened before you came. His brother was killed in the Pacific theatre." He paused, eyes gone distant with memory. "He holed up in his quarters. We left him alone and after a few days, he pulled out of it."

"Seemed to, anyroad," Newkirk muttered, expression dark.

Braveheart grunted, laid the carving upon his bunk and sheathed his knife in the scabbard hidden in his boot. So far, the carving was just sharp angles and scratches that didn't look much of anything. Kinch had looked at it one day, but hadn't been able to picture the end result. Carter, on the other hand, had examined the piece of wood with great interest, turning it over and over for several minutes. After exchanging soft words with Braveheart, he had slapped one of the thick shoulders and walked away, wearing a grin that had stuck around for some time.

"Apples and oranges. That was the pure grief of a brother losing a brother. This is grief twisted with the guilt and pain of killing a child. A poisonous mixture." Braveheart picked the carving up again and cradled it in his hand, slowly rubbed his calloused thumb against its side.

"Something's sure eating Colonel Hogan alive," Olsen muttered, his devil-may-care attitude dampened by concern. "His nightmares aren't going away."

Newkirk thumped the deck of cards face down on the table. "All this time and space has done fat lot of good at helping the guv'nor. The rest of you lot can set around on your duffs and hope it'll all blow over and be sun and roses for him again. But I'm going to do something."

"What're you going to do, Newkirk?" Carter's steady gaze bore into him, his tone half-daring. "Corner him and demand he talk about what he's feeling?"

Newkirk stared back, too surprised by his friend's challenge to snap off a reply.

"Yeah, 'cause that would work really well," Paxton scoffed sarcastically, folding his arms.

"How about tying him down and threatening him with one my sister's cookies?" A smile teased at Olsen's mouth, his playful nature making a minor comeback.

Braveheart quirked an eyebrow, solemnly waggled his head. "That would do it for me."

LeBeau made a noise of disgust, apparently fed up with their attempts at lightening the dark mood. Kinch stood, sensing they were headed toward a heated argument rather than a solution.

"Okay, fellas." At his soft warning, everyone fell silent and every eye turned to him. "We can't force him to talk to us. It'd just chase him further away."

"So . . ." O'Malley took a gulping breath, obviously fighting down emotion. "What do we do, Kinch?"

Kinch hitched one shoulder in an abbreviated shrug and said the only thing he could.

"Don't give up on him."

Thank you for reading and for staying with the story to this point!