Hochstetter finally left the bunker, shooting all of them (even Carter, who he normally wouldn't have given the time of day) a look best described as "abject hatred," before slamming the door so hard the windows rattled. Once he was gone, Hogan and Newkirk wasted no time in helping Carter out of bed.

He had a doctor's appointment.

"Two ribs broken, three cracked, all the fingers broken on your right hand, a black eye, abrasions and hematomas everywhere-you are giving me gray hairs, young man!" Wilson scolded as he placed a layer of bandages around Carter's chest, with the purpose of making sure he could breathe without expanding his ribs too much and causing himself further pain.

"Sorry I got caught," Carter murmured. The morphine was already starting to affect him; his head lolled sleepily, and he kept fidgeting his newly-splinted fingers, wishing he could bend them normally.

Wilson sighed, and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, it's not your fault."

"No, it's the fault of those boche-" Lebeau said a few French insults that made Carter blush around the ears.

Hogan came over to get Wilson's damage report once he was finished and Lebeau was helping Carter put his shirt back on.

"He's going to need six to eight weeks to heal," the medic said. "Which means no taking him out on missions-" he glared at Hogan as if he made a routine of exacerbating the injuries of his men- "and no strenuous physical exercise. Is that clear?"

Hogan nodded meekly.

"I can still make bombs, right?" Carter asked in a slurred tone.

The medic and the colonel looked at each other, before Hogan said, "We'll talk about that later. Right now we need to get you to bed."

"I wanna help," Carter murmured. Then he looked up right into Hogan's eyes. "They'll save them, right?"

He was referring to Jager and the other Undergrounders, who had headed back to Hammelburg to see if they could find those other people who had been in the house.

"They'll try," Hogan reassured him. "Come on, time to stand up."

"You've certainly been through the wringer tonight," Hogan said as he and Newkirk finally got Carter laid down and tucked in.

"'S not so bad," he murmured with a sunny smile. "Not everything hurts. My legs are fine."

He pulled up the blankets so he could lift one and show them his foot.

"I can still wiggle my toes and it doesn't hurt, see?"

He demonstrated.

Hogan gave him a slightly watery smile, and tucked him back in again. "Way to look on the bright side, Andrew."

Carter ended up sleeping through most of the rest of the day, aided by the morphine; Fischer had to fill in for him a few times, and Schultz accepted the excuse that he was wearing his cap pulled down because he didn't want everyone looking at his injured face. The other men took turns watching over him, and making sure he kept hydrated and occasionally got a little nourishment.

Late that evening, Jager came up the tunnel, looking grim.

"We managed to save the children and their father," Jager told Hogan in his personal quarters. "They had been trying to make him talk."

Hogan closed his eyes for a moment. "I see."

"Are they okay?" asked Carter.

They jumped, and realized that at some point he had gotten up and was now standing in the doorway, a blanket halfway draped over his shoulders, eyes big and mournful.

"Are you gonna bring them here so we can get them passports and stuff?" he persisted.

Jager nodded. "They're down in the tunnels right now."

"Good. At least we can do something to help them."

And he shuffled back to bed.

The man and his children were all in various stages of shock as they went through the process of being fitted into new civilian clothes, having fake passports created, etc.

They didn't talk much.

Nobody blamed them.

Carter insisted on coming down into the tunnel during the processing (despite Wilson's adamant protests), and sat on a bench, watching them, quietly stewing in guilt.

Objectively, he knew that it wasn't really his fault.

It was the fault of the men who had killed them to try to get information out of Mr. Braun, the father (no relation to Eva).

But his stomach still twisted and throbbed because these children were now half-orphans, and might even have been forced to watch-

"What happened to your hand?"

During his miserable musings, Carter had missed the fact that one of the children, a tousle-haired little girl who couldn't have been more than five, had wandered over.

"Gretchen!" her father scolded, "Don't be rude!"

"Oh, it's-it's okay," he stammered, letting her have a look at his bandaged fingers. "I got hurt really bad, so these are getting fixed up."

She tilted her head and stared up at him. "I remember you. The bad men brought you into the house while we were there."

It felt like a punch in the gut (and he really knew what that felt like now), but Carter nodded.

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

Gretchen just climbed onto the bench so she was at his side.

"Does it hurt?"

She pointed to the bandages.

"All the time."

She gave a sympathetic grimace.

"Peter-" she pointed to her brother- "broke his leg once when his sled crashed into a tree, and when the doctor fixed it up it looked a lot like that."

"That must have been horrible."

"Ja, he was in a lot of pain, but it's better now…"

He didn't think Gretchen had really forgotten about her mother's death. But perhaps her youth made it easier for it not to prey on her mind.

It was the least he could do to just sit and listen to her chatter away until it was time for her to go.

I know the last two chapters were kind of short; does this make up for it?