OH MY! I am always anxious when posting "sexy times" chapters and I usually give extra warning before anything happens, but as you read, their first coming together (HA! I crack myself up.) was a surprise, so I didn't want to ruin it.

I'm so pleased that it was well received! I guess that just means that there will have to be more of it. ;-)

OK maybe just a little. They are at Landsberg :(

April 2, 1945

Landsberg, Germany

The trucks came to an abrupt halt when they reached their destination, a small town called Landsberg. Even Winters wasn't sure how long they were going to stay, so he immediately ordered patrols of the buildings and the outskirts of the forest. Most of Easy was sent to the woods. Winters didn't want to chance anything in case of an attack.

With nothing to do except wait for her friends to come back from their patrol, Evelyn stood by a neat row of houses, or they were probably neat at one time. Although Germany wasn't as affected by the war as the countries they conquered, most of the buildings weren't looking too great. Each that the soldiers cleared had been abandoned so far.

Liebgott passed her by, brushing his arm against hers with the faintest touch. Her eyes connected with his a moment before he walked into a small cottage that Dog had just cleared.

Luz watched Liebgott disappear into the decrepit building a moment before Evelyn looked over her shoulder and followed him in. Shaking his head and grinning to himself, he left with his patrol into the forest, unable to wrap his head around what was becoming increasingly clear.

Evelyn silently walked inside and was drawn to the back room, its door open, somehow knowing Liebgott was in there. Her body hummed in anticipation.

As soon as she was past the door frame, it slammed shut and was locked with a loud click! She had a moment to twist around before he picked her up and crashed them both into the small bed.

"I couldn't wait another second before I could shut that sharp mouth of yours," he rasped against her lips.

Quickly, they fumbled through their clothing until they were skin to skin. Evelyn gasped loudly when he entered her hard.

"Don't know what I'm missing, Cassidy?" he growled into her neck. Evelyn couldn't answer, only whimpered as he continued. "You sure seem to miss me enough to tease me into seeking you out."

Her fingers rigged hard in his hair until he raised his face high enough for her to kiss him again. "Shut up and don't stop," she moaned.

Obeying, they finished quickly. Exhausted, he remained on top of her until his heart stopped pounding. Leaning up on his elbows, he brushed his lips against hers softly. When he saw her eyebrows rise at the tender contact, he quickly smirked to replace it. "Don't let me catch you in a lie again, sergeant."

Despite herself, Evelyn giggled. She stopped abruptly when both realized she had never done that solely in his presence before, but Liebgott grinned. "And stop being cute. Get back to work."

They dressed in record time, somehow safe that no one walked in on them. Staggering her exit a few moments after his, she almost ran into his back when he stopped along the walkway.

"Christ, Joe," she began before her eyes caught the commotion in front of them. Perconte was back from his patrol already, but he was alone. He was talking to Winters animatedly; his face lost all of its color. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," he murmured, before moving forward to grab his gear when everyone else did as well. They were heading out immediately.

Winters caught sight of her and waved her over. She ran up to him, Speirs and Perconte. "Cassidy, grab Roe and Spina. Take as much medical supplies as you can carry. Bandages, penicillin, morphine, and water. A lot of water. Tell the men to fill their canteens."

Evelyn nodded, no idea what was happening, but she didn't question it. "Yes, sir." She and Liebgott glanced at one another for a moment before she hustled away to find the other two medics.

They all sprang to action quickly. Winters collected everyone he could from Fox and Dog companies as well, with the remainder of the regiment staying in town. The others were still scattered on patrols. The soldiers that accompanied him to wherever Perconte was leading them towards were able to fill three trucks.

The drive was a short one, weaving through the woods and away from the town. The officers rode in a few jeeps ahead of them. Evelyn tried to catch sight of whatever they were looking for before they got there. There was nothing but trees. The forest was quiet.

And then it was as if they hit the edge, and the cover of leaves and branches stopped abruptly. Nothing was ahead of them. Nothing except a huge double thick fence, roped with barbed wire. The trucks came to a halt outside it.

Evelyn jumped out with the rest of them, but what they saw immediately beyond those gates made them all pause. No one breathed a word as they tried to digest what their eyes were trying to show them.

A line of men, at least Evelyn thought they were men, stared at them curiously. They weren't afraid, they didn't to feel much of anything it seemed; they only stared.

She stared back, her eyes not sure where to focus first. Their concave chests. The ribs sticking out. The dirty rags they wore for clothing. Their sunken cheeks and eyes. It was all too much.

Unable to look a moment longer, Evelyn turned to see Randleman kneeling on the ground, his face turned away. He couldn't look anymore either. Randleman, the bull he was nicknamed after, finally was faced with something too much to bear.

Suddenly, a clack of metal against metal. The sound was deafening. She turned and looked to see Perconte cutting the bolts of a lock at the gate. Her eyes widened in realization. They were locked in.

No one bothered with their rifles. Most of them began taking off their helmets, which Evelyn followed. They didn't want to spook the men inside the fence. They began to move forward as the gates opened.

Evelyn was at Luz's side quickly. His feet dragged on the ground, and she remembered he had been in Perconte's patrol. He had been at this prison for awhile now. Without a word, she laced her fingers through his, pulling him gently to follow her.

The smell hit her all at once. The pungent scent of unclean flesh mixed in with something smokey and sweet. It left a film on her tongue.

Luz broke away, distracted by a prisoner close to him. She watched him go, offering his canteen to the man. Evelyn moved forward.

Catching Roe's eyes, she nodded before finding Spina in the crowd. Together they grouped as one. She took a deep breath. "There seem to be at least a few dozen prisoners here. Ralph, I want you to collect as many rations from the soldiers as possible. These men are starving." Spina nodded back silently before taking off.

Evelyn turned to Roe. "I want us to work together with Dog and Fox medics. If we spread out, we can treat more men faster. Water is the main need. Once hydrated, other issues may arise that are hidden underneath, but we can deal with anything not life threatening later. We need to move fast. I want to touch every man in here, and between all of us, we can do it."

Roe paused a moment before speaking. "Evie, from what I've seen, they all seem to be on death's door."

She swallowed hard. "I know, and I can only hope water and food will give them the strength to keep going."

Nodding to her, they went in search of the other company medics, who gathered nearby, unsure where to start. After debriefing with them, and another few working with Spina to gather food, they stretched out and began to walk into the camp.

Evelyn tried not to focus on the bodies on the ground, their emaciated forms hardly resembling more than skin and bones. She slowly walked up the middle of the lane, stopping to treat those nearby.

At first the prisoners only touched her sleeve, like they did to every soldier they saw. It was becoming clear to them that they weren't there to harm them, but to help.

And then a rush of murmurings began among them in German, and it seemed to spread quickly. One man caressed her hair with gnarled fingers. Another kissed her on the cheek, moaning something in her ear. His pain made her shudder. Another simply held her hand, marveling at the soft skin, at least to him, even after a hard winter in Bastogne. Seeing a woman again was almost took much to take in, and they swarmed her.

Evelyn tried to gently make way, but it was becoming increasingly harder. Suddenly, she caught sight of Adrianna. "Anna," she called quickly; the sound seemed to boom.

Adrianna turned, her usually twinkling eyes dark and dim. "Evie," she murmured and made her way to her.

Before she arrived, Evelyn caught sight of two more figures, huddled together. "Tomson. Garrison." The two women from Fox looked up. They walked towards them.

Together, Evelyn whispered to them, "Our presence is a little overwhelming for them. But if we stand together, spreading them out, we can continue to move forward and help."

Tomson's eyes moved around nervously. "Are we sure they won't hurt us?"

Before Evelyn or Adrianna could respond, Garrison did. "Nancy, look at them. They can hardly stand. Cassidy is right. We need to help them, and we can do that if we stand together." Garrison's eyes didn't meet Evelyn's, but she appreciated the support all the same. Tomson nodded hesitantly.

"Alright. Let's keep going then."

Spreading out into a line, the four women moved forward about an arm's length apart. After giving them some pointers on how to treat the men, they had begun to make progress. That is, until Evelyn looked up and saw the barracks.

The huts there were seemingly endless. Her own words echoed in her head that they needed to move fast to treat the dozens of prisoners inside. More like hundreds, she realized as more spilled from the huts. Maybe even a thousand.

The source of the sickly sweet scent quickly became apparent. Adrianna coughed violently into her sleeve being the first to have seen it. A stack of charred bodies was lying in front of them. Evelyn closed her eyes, trying to find balance as the ground shifted.

"Ev!"

She looked up over the heads of the prisoners, which wasn't hard to do as they were mostly hunched and crooked. She spotted Luz and Randleman.

Turning to the women, she saw a huge crowd near the front gate. More trucks had arrived, and with it, food. She chucked her chin towards it. "Try and bring as many prisoners back towards the front. Food has arrived. I'll be back."

Adrianna nodded, her face still pale, but she squeezed Evelyn's shoulder. Garrison and Tomson gave her a nod silently before following.

Evelyn turned back to Luz and Randleman, slowly pushing through until she reached them. "What is it?"

Randleman was silent, his jaw clenched. Luz grimaced. "We found something you should see."

Evelyn followed them to a barracks hut on the right side. Randleman, still without a word, motioned towards the door. She walked inside, her insides clenched with a mix of fear and worry.

She gasped and then immediately coughed, the stale air causing her lungs to resist the action of breathing. Her eyes widened. "Jesus Christ," she murmured.

Inside the barracks were two long lines of men. Some dead, the rest nearly there. The taste of sickness lingered. They looked at her, croaking, eyes large and milky, but they didn't have the energy to get up.

Luz cleared his throat. "We think this is where the krauts dumped anyone sick. We didn't know what to do."

Evelyn shook her head, her mind blank. "I don't know what to do either. This is...this is beyond me."

Randleman finally broke his silence. "Just do you, Evie."

She caught his eye and nodded after a long moment. "Alright." She took in a deep breath, thinking fast. "Alright. We need to open any windows we can find first and get rid of the sickness in the air." She pointed at them both. "Bull, can you ask Winters to send for the regimental doctor? George, help me move out those that can stand. And Bull, grab more men on your way back. We're going to need them."

The day was spent treating those they could and carrying those away that were already gone, away from those still alive. Evie remained in the sickbed barracks, giving food and water where she could. She looked up at a new voice.

It was an officer that she didn't recognize. Busy with her hands, and the arms of a prisoner around her, she couldn't get up to salute the major. "Sir."

He nodded to her. "You must be Sergeant Cassidy." She nodded back. "I'm Major Kent, the regimental surgeon. You need to stop feeding these men immediately. All the prisoners need to stop eating."

Luz gave him an incredulous look. "But sir! These men are starving."

Kent nodded again. "Exactly, and if they are given too much food too quickly, they could…"

"Die." The men looked at Evelyn, her face white. "They could die. Refeeding syndrome. Christ, I am so stupid."

Kent grimaced. "Don't beat yourself up. You wanted to help them." He sighed. "And until we can find them a better place for treatment, they need to stay in the prison."

Now it was Evelyn's turn to cry out in indignation. "Sir, you can't be serious. This hut alone is teaming with disease. Any more time inside could kill them as well."

Kent wasn't fazed by her speaking out of turn, he only sighed again. "You're right. But we can't risk losing them if they try to scatter, now that they know they're free."

Luz swallowed hard. "Can we at least move these men to another hut? Or can the Army provide some tents, sir?"

Kent thought for a moment. "That's not a bad idea. Go ask Colonel Sink for any spare equipment. Tell him I requested it, he won't deny you." Luz nodded and left at once, jogging away. He turned to Evelyn and gave her a sad smile. "Show me what you've found, sergeant, and how I can help."

Evelyn was past the point of exhaustion. Any men found in a hut they deemed as too ill, was moved to another, cleaner hut or to a peppering of green tents that Sink was able to scrounge up. Easy was headed back to town; the 10th Armored Division was taking over.

Her eyes were on the ground as she began walking towards the trucks, trying to stay as long as possible. Her mind was still trying to comprehend the prison and why the poor people inside were subjected to this cruelty. From what Kent told her, they were there solely for being Jews, Poles and Gypsies, but that didn't make sense. How could someone be imprisoned for their religion or nationality?

Deep in though, at first she didn't hear him.

"Evelyn? Sergeant Cassidy?"

Evelyn turned and had to blink a few times. "Lieutenant Costello?"

Vinny smiled, even through the evident pain on his face. "I think we're long past those formalities, Evelyn. You did sing to me."

She had to smile. "Maybe, sir, but you are still an officer." She paused. "I wasn't sure if you made it out of Bastogne."

Vinny's smile vanished. "I wasn't sure about you either until Colonel Sink contacted my CO. He said you put in a good word for me. I guess I should say thanks, but I still don't feel right accepting any recognition for that terrible night."

She nodded, solemn. "I know what you mean. It's a shame that we had to meet again here."

A shout was heard in the distance for him. "Hopefully we'll meet again when we can see a world without war."

Evelyn snapped to attention and saluted him. With another smile, although sad, he saluted her back, and left.

Turning back towards the entrance of the camp, there was a solitary truck waiting for her. With a helping hand from Martin, she sat down next to him and Lipton.

"Alright, Evie?" asked Lipton.

She tried to give him a smile, but the view behind him proved it to be difficult. The prisoners were still being sheparded back into the barracks. "As well as can be, sir. And you?"

"As well as can be."

"Evie," said Martin before stopping. His usually hard face was somehow softer, but not in the way she sometimes saw it in humor or affection. It was softer in another way, almost delicate. "I think you should check on Liebgott."

Her eyes widened. "Is he hurt?"

Martin shook his hard before sighing. "Nah, he ain't hurt, but…" He sighed again. "You weren't near the trucks when the prisoners were told they had to be locked in again, were you?"

Evelyn shook her head. She only heard about the chaos.

He grimaced. "Joe was the one to tell them. It left him…" He ran a hand through his hair. "I just need ya to check on him, OK?"

She understood at once. "Of course, Johnny. Do you know where he is?"

"I don't. But he was smoking in the south part of town last time I saw him, right before I came back with this truck."

Evelyn nodded. "I'll go as soon as we arrive."

It took her a long time to find him. The sun was almost set, and she was losing light fast. Evelyn tried to think of where he would go, and she came up with nothing. Even after almost three years of knowing one another, she realized she didn't know much about him.

So she turned to where she would go if she needed a moment alone after witnessing what they had just seen. Her mind immediately moved to finding a body of water to swim the feelings away, but seeing that there wasn't one, and for as much as she knew, Liebgott wasn't a swimmer, she began to rack her brain for anything else.

Finally, Evelyn thought of Bastogne. When he wasn't on the front lines, he always placed his foxhole near the back. Not to escape enemy fire, but to escape any company if he needed some time alone. More than once, she remembered his back against a tree, smoking, watching everyone else at a distance.

She began trekking into the forest, and before she knew it, she found him in the south end. Sure enough, Liebgott was leaning against a tree, crouched, a pile of finished cigarettes crushed at his feet.

Evelyn walked over to him. He didn't say anything, didn't even look at her, but she knew he saw her. Luckily, the trunk of the tree was wide. Sitting on the ground, she leaned against it next to him.

Liebgott didn't say anything for a long time. He only smoked in silence. When his cigarette became nothing but ash, he lit another one, repeating until that one was gone.

She stared into the forest with him, not touching, but she could feel the heat of his body next to hers. Time seemingly stood still but fled all at once. It was close to a lifetime before he finally spoke.

His voice was raspy from the pack he just finished. "Got any smokes?"

Evelyn patted her pockets, but there was nothing. "Sorry. I don't."

Liebgott nodded slowly. "No matter. Those things are supposed to kill ya anyway, right?"

"That's what I heard."

He let a long stretch of time go on before continuing. "I mean, if someone like me isn't burned alive or starved to death or left for dead, then I probably shouldn't push fate and kill myself for a damn cigarette, right?"

Evelyn thought a long time before attempting to respond. "Joe -"

He turned to look her in the eyes, his gaze hard. "A Jew like me should consider myself lucky, right Cassidy? I could be in that camp instead, maybe even rotting in a pile of bodies, branded like cattle. I'm so goddamn lucky to not be in there, so I should be fuckin' happy to be alive, right? Why am I not so fuckin' happy to be alive right now?"

She bit the inside of her cheek. She could tell he wasn't finished.

A wave of pain crossed his face. "I should -" His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "I should be thanking God that it wasn't me. Or my parents. Or my sisters." He couldn't clear the wavering in his voice now. His jaw clenched hard as his eyes filled with tears. "My sisters coulda been in that women's camp down the tracks, Cassidy. My baby sisters. But they aren't, and I should be thanking God, but all I can do is curse Him out right now. I fuckin' hate Him."

Evelyn watched as a few tears spilled onto his cheeks. Tentatively reaching towards him, Liebgott flinched at first when she touched him. Realizing he wasn't used to anything but bite and sarcasm and sex from her, the thought made her heart hurt. She slowly wrapped her arms around him.

Tugging softly on him, he finally placed his cheek against her chest. With one hand on the top of his hair and the other rubbing up and down his back, Evelyn waited.

His breath hitched hard in his lungs. "What the fuck world is this, Cass?" he rasped against her, tears getting stuck in his throat. "This fuckin' war. These fuckin' people."

Evelyn brushed her fingers through his hair. "I know, Joe," she murmured. "But it's going to get better. It's going to be OK."

His body shook and she felt wetness against her skin. "How do you know?" he whispered when he found his voice again.

She sighed, leaning her head against the tree. "Because it can only go up from here. We saw hell today, Joe. Only heaven is left."

She held him for a long time, letting him get everything out. Slowly, he quieted against her until he sat up, turning away to wipe his eyes and nose. Suddenly, a white handkerchief was in front of his face. He chuckled. "I've been wonderin' when you were gonna finally give that back."

Evelyn smiled and watched him stand up. "I was hoping you'd forget about it. I can't keep being in debt to you."

Liebgott smirked, even through his red eyes, and held out a hand to help her up. "I'm pretty sure we're even now."

She took his hand and he heaved her to her feet. When he moved to pull his hand away, she tightened her grip, not allowing him to let go, not yet. They began to walk, quiet for a long time. "Hey Joe?" They were almost in the town.

"Yeah, Cass?"

She turned to him and smiled. "Guess you know the feeling of my chest on your cheek after all." She squeezed his fingers before letting go.

Liebgott laughed. It was short and strained, but it was there. "Doll, I know the feel of a lot of ya."