Sorry for any potential medical inaccuracies/other types of inaccuracies. I'm doing my best here, people.

General Burkhalter was not pleased.

Considering that he'd been pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by Major Hochstetter with another wild story about the POWs in Stalag 13, I can't honestly say that I blame him.

And now he was in a cramped staff car racing toward his least favorite camp, next to that loathsome weasel of a man.

The aforementioned weasel was practically jittery with excitement, eyes glinting with a kind of savage triumph. He hadn't even explained what exactly he'd found on Colonel Hogan, merely that they had to go to the camp first.

This had better be good, Burkhalter grumbled internally.

So when the car suddenly came to a halt and tilted on its right side, sending the two officers slamming into each other, you can probably understand why his mood became even darker.

"What is going on?! What happened?!" he demanded, shoving Hochstetter away from him with more force than was truly necessary.

The driver got out, and a few seconds later peered sheepishly through the window.

"It appears that the right front wheel is in a pothole, Herr General."

"Then get it out, you idiot!" Hochstetter snarled, shoving his door open and practically tumbling out onto the ground.

Burkhalter sighed, and rubbed his aching head with one gloved hand.

In his eagerness to get going, Hochstetter actually removed his coat and hat and helped the driver.

Even so, it took them a good ten minutes to get the car free-and they actually had the audacity to ask Burkhalter to get out of the car in hopes of "lightening the load."

He had only done so when it became apparent that they could not budge the car, bristling with indignation at their implications all the while.

Thankfully, though, now they were on the way again.

Hochstetter, his coat and hat back in place, was jittery (again).

"This is part of Colonel Hogan's plan to keep us from getting to camp, I just know it!" he exclaimed, glaring out the window into the darkness.

Burkhalter gave him a look.

"You think that Colonel Hogan, the prisoner of war, put a pothole in the road. To keep you from reaching camp."

Hochstetter jerked his head around and trained his scowl on him.

"You'll see!" he snapped. "You'll see just how much he's been capable of all this time-G_ in Himmel!"

There was a loud cracking noise, and an enormous tree fell with a crash into the road just in front of them.

If you were in the nearby vicinity, you could just barely hear the sound of two voices yelling from the car for at least a minute.

Eventually, though, it backed up, painstakingly turned around, and began making its way towards the other road to Hammelburg, barely skirting around the pothole this time.

From the shelter of the trees, Schopenhauer gave a sigh of disappointment.

"They didn't even reach the line of nails."

Reinigen patted his shoulder half sarcastically.

"There, there."

Then he shoved him.

"Now hurry-we have to get it moved before the other car gets back."

Voices…

There were voices-

No.

One voice.

It was echoing around his head, calling out to him, but it sounded really far away…

"Carter. Sergeant Andrew Carter. Can you 'ear me?"

It was the voice of someone he knew-he thought.

But not what he expected.

The voice of someone he knew and liked and trusted-kind, worried-sounding.

British.

Hesitantly, Carter opened his eyes all the way.

And he found himself looking at Newkirk-

Only Newkirk wasn't wearing blue like he was supposed to, his clothes were black and all wrong.

He frowned dazedly.

"Carter. Can you 'ear me?" Newkirk repeated.

Wait.

Newkirk was here.

Were they both in the cellar?

He jerked, looking around a little frantically-

No, no, they were in a car-he could feel the movement now.

Then he turned his head, and saw Major Hochstetter sitting next to him.

"Carter! Carter! No! It's okay!"

Newkirk wrapped his arms more firmly around Carter, trying to keep him from writhing and hurting himself more.

"It's not really Major 'ochstetter, it's okay, calm down!"

Carter was still twisting like a trapped animal, uttering little frightened gasps (because apparently he was experiencing too much pain in his chest to scream) and alternating between trying to get away and practically burrowing into Newkirk's side, either way trying to get as far away from the other man as possible.

Finally, in desperation Newkirk grabbed his friend's face in his hands, and turned him around to face him.

"Carter! Listen to me. That's not 'ochstetter. It's just someone 'ho looks like 'im. Don't worry. You're safe."

Carter blinked slowly, his pulse still jumping in his throat, pupils dilated practically to the whites. But eventually, he relaxed somewhat-and promptly moaned with pain, clutching at his chest.

"I think they either broke or cracked his ribs," Morris said softly. "Possibly both."

Newkirk muttered something questioning the parentage and legitimacy of Hochstetter and all his ilk, and set about trying to get Carter in a more comfortable position, so he could also go back to tending his tortured fingers.

"It's okay, Carter, we've got you back now."

He nodded slowly, eyes starting to droop-

And they snapped open again, and he turned to Newkirk urgently.

"Newkirk! We have to go back! There's other people trapped back there, I saw them! We need to-"

"Andrew, Andrew, ANDREW!" Newkirk interrupted, looking bewildered. "I can't understand a word you're saying, mate."

It took Carter a confused moment to realize that in all the excitement, he had forgotten how to speak English.

He swallowed, and after an awkward moment of thought reset his brain.

"We have to go back. There's other people being held prisoner in that house-two men in pilot's uniforms, and a family. Man and woman, and three children. They must have been trying to escape Germany or something and gotten caught."

Newkirk glanced at this man who was apparently not Hochstetter, and then back at him.

"We didn't see them when we came in."

"Then they're probably upstairs or something! Please, you need to help them before he-he-he-"

Carter gestured to himself, indicating the sort of thing he was afraid would happen to those people. As he did, he realized that he was starting to shake all of a sudden. It was like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over him-really like it, because now there was water running down his face, except it was warm water, and he was having even more trouble getting his breath now because his chest was heaving, and weird sounds were coming out of his mouth-

Warm arms were suddenly around him, and his face was being pressed into a shoulder, and Newkirk was whispering, "Ssh, it's okay, Andrew. You're safe now. They won't 'urt you again."

Even though they both knew it wasn't okay, and he couldn't make any guarantees about Carter's safety; it was just what you told people in this kind of situation.

Carter sobbed again, and then looked up urgently.

"I didn't talk. I didn't tell them anything, I swear. Except that I had nothing to say to them, and that Lakhota is a real language-"

"Ssh…" Newkirk cradled him as gently as possible; Carter's left fingers found his sleeve, and held on for dear life.

Finally, Newkirk spoke again, as his friend's breathing calmed and the shaking lessened.

"You were very brave, Andrew. The colonel's going to be so proud."

Carter just closed his eyes, and tried to focus on the feeling of safety surrounding him now instead of the dark memories infiltrating his brain.