We Were Soldiers

66. A Close Call

Steve couldn't help but see shapes in the clouds as the plane cut its way through the azure sky. On his lap, the latest page of his sketch book was blank, the pencil untouched. Normally, he broke the ennui of travel by sketching anything and everything that came to mind, but this was only his second time flying, and the novelty had not yet worn off.

When he'd been a kid, before meeting Bucky, he'd often sit by his bedroom window watching the groups of children at play on the streets outside. Sometimes, when there were no kids to watch, he'd watch the clouds instead—he liked to pretend they were putting on a show just for him. Now, he felt like his eight year old self again. He was lonelier than he'd been in a long time. Had foolishly believed that when he made it to Europe, everything would finally be right.

He should'a known life was rarely so easy.

Footsteps caught his attention, and he glanced back to the plane's interior. Kevin was making his way back from the cockpit, and he offered an update as he strapped himself into the seat opposite Steve.

"Pilot says we'll only be another hour or so," he shouted over the droning sound of the twin engine. "When we touch down, we'll have a short drive to the camp, and you'll have plenty of time to freshen up before your first show."

Steve nodded. All he knew of the place they were landing was that it was some sort of impromptu airstrip made to allow damaged bombers a place to make emergency landings if their pilots thought they couldn't make it back to Palermo. Kevin said a few Army companies had set up camp on the periphery of the airstrip, and it was they who the USO would be entertaining this afternoon. Maybe he'd finally find Bucky there.

"I just hope it's warmer in the camp than it is up here!" Betty yelled. Her arms were hugged around her chest, to emphasis just how cold she felt. In fact, all of the girls looked pale and pinch-faced. Even Kevin was wearing a fur-trimmed jacket. Steve, in his regular olive drab, thought the temperature was quite pleasant after Palermo's heat. But then, not everybody had his enhanced metabolism. He was just glad Kevin had made Freddie stay behind; the kid would be travelling to London by boat, where he'd meet them for the final leg of the show's tour.

"I think there are some blankets in the overhead compartment," Steve said. He unbuckled himself and stood up, reaching for the small cabin door above his head.

At that moment, the world spun upside down. The engines wailed as something outside went BANG BANG BANG. Everything that wasn't lashed down went flying down the length of the plane—Steve included. He was thrown against the cockpit door to the sound of the girls screaming loudly. His ribs took the blow of the impact; they creaked in complaint, squeezing his lungs so hard that he struggled to draw breath. Winded, he managed to push himself upright just the plane rolled the other way, to the sound of more explosions.

He felt gravity let go of him, and for one brief moment he was back on the cyclone at Coney Island, unable to figure out which way was up and which was down, stomach heaving unpleasantly. Then the plane levelled out, the screaming stopped, and he hit the deck face-first. He lay there dazed and bruised, until the cockpit door open and a pilot—still wearing his headphones—asked, "Everyone alright back here?"

"What the Hell was that?" Steve demanded, pushing himself to his feet. He offered a silent apology for his bad language.

"Flak," the pilot said. And, for the sake of the civilians present, "Somebody was shooting at us."

"Somebody?!"

"Probably the Krauts."

"Probably the Krauts?"

The pilot shrugged. "To the guys on the ground, all planes look the same. Sometimes flight plans get overlooked. Don't worry, we didn't take any direct hits, though we do recommend that, for your own safety, you remain buckled in for the rest of the ride. ETA's a little over forty minutes."

As the pilot disappeared back into the cockpit, the war suddenly became real in a way it hadn't before. It wasn't a HYDRA spy shooting at him in New York. It wasn't a group of soldiers celebrating because they'd taken Sicily. It was somebody on the ground firing AA rounds at a plane full of civilians, doing their very best to knock Steve Rogers and the USO out of the sky.

"Steve, are you okay?" Betty asked, concern etched all over her face.

"Yeah. Believe it or not, I've been knocked around worse than this." Nazi guns had nothing on New York's bullies.

He quickly grabbed the blankets from the cabin and handed them out to the girls. Kevin eyed one longingly when offered, but finally declined. Steve buckled himself back in and fastened the restraints so tight that they damn near stopped him from breathing. Fool me once…

Fate threw one final piece of unpleasantness their way. Just a few minutes after the whole flak incident, the bearer of bad news poked his head into the back of the plane in the form of the co-pilot.

"Sky's looking a little rough up ahead," the man said. "Seems it's raining at the landing site."

"Is that a problem?" Kevin asked. His face still hadn't resumed its normal colour after their near-flak experience.

"Well, it's harder to stop on wet ground. Wouldn't be too much of a problem if we were landing on tarmac or concrete, but we're landing in a field, on a strip that's probably already been churned to mud by planes landing and taking off. And the strip here terminates in a narrow belt of trees which screen a near-vertical drop. So, it could get a little hairy."

A little hairy? The girls were already sobbing again, and Kevin was gripping his restraints so tight that his knuckles had turned white—as if that might somehow help the plane to stop.

"I don't care how long it takes to get back to America by boat," Steve told him, as he began to regret the generous breakfast, and seconds, he'd eaten before leaving Palermo. "After today, I'm never getting in a plane again."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

"The doctor will be back in three days, and he will take your bandages off," said Rosa. "Until then, you must stop trying to peek beneath them. It will do your injury no good to be uncovered."

"But it itches," Danny complained, as he attempted one-handed mushroom chopping. It also ached, and burned. Rosa had rigged up a sling for him, so that his arm didn't move too much, but that didn't stop it from hurting.

"You will just have to tolerate the itching until the doctor can take a look. If your wound is still infected it may worsen if we take the bandage off."

He sighed. Sometimes, he felt like Rosa's third kid. Grateful as he was for her care, he wished she wasn't always so damn… well… mothering. It was something new, and uncomfortable. The Italian woman seemed to care in a way that his own mother never had. The woman who's given birth to him functioned more as a servant than a mom. She cooked, she cleaned, she did laundry. Growing up, he'd been vaguely aware that something was missing. It might have involved bedtime stories, and freshly baked cookies, and reassuring hugs when he scraped his knees. As a child, he would've loved having Rosa as a mother. Now, he was constantly frustrated by her need to treat him like her offspring.

"Do you think—"

The kitchen door flew open. Paolo raced in, his face pale, brown eyes wide, dark hair wind-swept. Behind him, the grey sky threatened… something. Snow was coming. Rosa said she could smell it in the air. At lower elevations it fell as rain, but up here, on high ground, it would be snow. Not exactly what Danny was hoping for right now. When the snow began, it wouldn't stop until spring, and he wouldn't be able to get back to camp to right all the wrongs that had happened in his absence.

"Mama, i tedeschi stanno arrivando qui! Li ho visti dal paese, sulla strada principale della casa! Saranno qui da un momento all'altro!" Paolo said, gasping for breath. It was the most Danny had heard him say so far.

Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Rose dropped her knife, ran upstairs, and came down mere seconds later carrying the bag Danny was keeping his army uniform in. Apart from his boots, everything he wore had been scrounged up by Rosa, to replace the too-big clothes of her husband.

She thrust the bag into Paolo's arms before Danny could open his mouth, and said, "Portatelo in fretta. Andare! Portatelo alla capanna del collier. Sarete al sicuro."

The boy shouldered the bag, grabbed Danny's left hand, and tugged him toward the door.

"Rosa, what's going on?"

"Germans." There was tension in her voice, and in her eyes. She tried to hide it, but not well enough. For the first time in over two weeks, Danny felt true panic. "They are coming here. Now. Go with Paolo," she said, before he could ask any further questions. "I will send for you when it's safe."

He wanted to object. To tell her that he couldn't just leave her alone if Nazis were on their way. He still had two fully-loaded pistols in his bag; he could stay. They could fight. Sure, he'd never shot a gun left-handed before, but it was better than leaving her to the mercy of the Krauts.

He didn't get time to voice his objections; Paolo, in a surprising show of strength, pulled him through the open door, and Rosa slammed it closed. He was left with no choice; he followed after the boy, and hoped that Rosa knew what she was doing.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

When the airplane door opened, and the rough steel steps were lowered, Steve stepped out on legs which were unashamedly shaky. The chill breeze tugged at his hair and sent rain battering against the side of his face. When he squinted at the nose of the plane, he saw that it was pointing at a right angle to the muddy landing strip behind them. He thought he'd felt the plane slide out of control as it touched down. He was just glad the pilots had been able to stop it before that narrow belt of trees; they were tall, thin things that didn't look like they were strong enough to stop a plane going over the edge.

A mud-spattered jeep—thankfully a covered one, and not one of those open-air affairs—skidded to a halt at the bottom of the ramp, and a uniformed soldier jumped out. For one split second, Steve's heart stopped and his breath caught in his throat at the sight of the man. But when the soldier tilted back his hat to look up at the cabin door, Steve saw that it wasn't Bucky. Idiot, he told himself. Why would it be Bucky, of all people, who'd be driving us to camp? It's not like he knows I'm coming.

"You the USO folks?" the soldier called.

"Yeah, that's us," Steve called back.

"Well, hop on in. We got folks waiting for you back at camp."

Steve stayed at the top of the steps and offered his hand to the girls as they departed one by one. "Watch your step, the stairs are a little slippy," he told them. Unlike his sensible boots, they wore shoes with a small heel. Not exactly great for wet fields. The soldier must've seen that, too, because when they reached the bottom of the steps, he offered his hand to help them keep their balance as they took a stride through the mud to reach the jeep. The dancers giggled their thanks, and the soldier flashed each of them a winning smile. Steve tried not to roll his eyes. The man might not be Bucky, but he was sure making a good attempt at behaving exactly like Steve's best friend around dames.

Finally there was only Kevin left, and Steve let him climb aboard the front passenger position of the vehicle before squeezing himself onto the back seat.

"What about our gear?" Kevin asked.

The soldier slid back into the driver's seat and pointed at a second jeep that was slipping and sliding its way across what could only loosely be called an airstrip.

"Don't worry, our guys will make sure your stuff gets to camp." The man peered over his shoulder, eyes scanning the faces of the dancers. "This all of you?"

"Yeah," said Steve. "Why? Were you expecting something else?"

The question was met with a dissatisfied grunt. "Was kinda hoping for Rita Hayworth. Heard she toured Palermo last month."

"She's back home, now," Kevin said. "You'll just have to settle for Captain America."

"Huh. And which one of you lovely ladies is Captain America?"

"That would be me," Steve told him.

"Oh. Sorry. Thought you were the teamster or something." The engine chugged to life at the turn of a key, and the soldier slipped the vehicle into first gear before powering off across the churned-up field. Steve managed to combine holding on to the vehicle's inside hand-hold, with using his free arm to keep Kathy and Betty from sliding all over the seat beside him. The soldier seemed to have little regard for the state of the field as the vehicle slipped and slid across it; he was obviously crazy.

The patter of rain became more audible as the jeep left the field and came to some sort of rough-hewn road. Steve and the girls were bounced around in the back, and he swiftly began to re-evaluate that whole never flying again sentiment. At least the plane was mostly smooth, give or take an occasional barrel-roll.

"How far's the camp?" Steve asked, after a few minutes of being rudely jostled. He'd already given up trying to keep the girls in place; he simply uprighted them with they were bounced into him.

"Couple of miles," the soldier said, shouting over his shoulder without taking his gaze from the rocky path. "Can't camp too close to the airfields, y'know?"

"Because of all the mud?"

"Because those fly-boys can't aim for shit. They're always missing their drop zones for re-supplies, and I hear they hit more civilian targets than they do military. Picture them trying to land in fog, or high wind. They'd kill us all. And they'd probably get away with it, too. Can you imagine the fallout if us infantry started wiping civilian villages off the map? We'd be looking at two to ten on top of a dishonourable. But stick some guy in a flight suit and pin a pair of wings to his collar? It's like he's God's damn gift to the world, pardon my French, ladies. It ain't right, I tell ya."

Maybe they miss their targets because they're too busy dodging the flak from you guys accidentally shooting at them, Steve thought, but didn't say. Bucky had always told him that his mouth got him into trouble; he was trying to learn from past mistakes. He couldn't afford to let his mouth get him into trouble now, because he might accidentally hurt somebody.

When they finally pulled up at the camp, Steve's heart sank. In fact, it floundered. The area on which multiple tents were erected, on which sat three tanks and, under a tarp, another small airplane, was no less muddy than the airstrip. It seemed even muddier, if such a thing was possible—a veritable quagmire into which it appeared everything was slowly sucked down.

"Stage is over there," their driver said, gesturing at the stage that had been set up on the edge of the camp. "We put a couple of tents up around the back. Separate one for the ladies, of course."

"Thanks, we'll head there right away to prep for the afternoon show," Kevin said. His eyes fell down to the muddy ground outside the jeep. "Err, I don't suppose you have any spare galoshes lying around..?"

"'Fraid not."

Kevin did not look pleased. His shiny black leather shoes were brand new, acquired in Palermo at an inflated cost. A treat for myself, he'd called them, never suspecting he'd have to wade through a swamp of mud. Steve felt pity stir within his breast.

"Is there any chance of you dropping us off at the stage?" he asked the driver.

"Sorry, but I gotta get this car back to the motor pool."

Help came from an unexpected source.

"Oh, but we really would be ever so grateful if you could drive us just a tiny little bit further," said Betty, leaning forward to bat her eyelashes coyly at the driver.

"Why, that's right," Kathy added. "We really would appreciate it, Sergeant—?"

The man cleared his throat. "Corporal. Corporal Lance. And it would be my pleasure to drive you to the stage, ma'am."

In the back of the jeep, the other two dancers smiled at Lance too, and Steve once again felt a moment of awe. The dames on the tour sure did know how to get their way with things. Agent Carter would've just ordered him to drive her there, a tiny voice in his head pointed out.

Yes, but Agent Carter isn't here, so be quiet, he told the voice.

"Who's the CO here?" Steve asked.

"Depends," Corporal Lance replied. "At last count, we had four—no wait, five, now—colonels, each in charge of their own little area of the camp. But if you're looking for authority, you should probably look for Colonel Hawkswell. He's in charge of camp operations, and generally co-ordinates all missions."

"Thanks." After the USO show, he'd find Hawkswell and ask if he could take a look at the list of camp personnel. If Bucky was here, Steve wasn't gonna waste time trawling through the muddy masses looking for him; he'd go straight to the brass.

When they reached the stage, the girls thanked Lance again while Kevin hopped out of the jeep and straight into one of the tents. Steve suspected he'd be trading something for real boots as soon as his bag arrived from the plane. Poor Kevin wasn't cut out for literal fieldwork. He was a true urbanite.

Enhanced senses were sometimes a blessing, and sometimes a curse. Right now, he counted them a blessing, but he didn't like what they were picking up: the stares of soldiers near the stage as they watched the girls climb out of the jeep; the casual interest in some eyes, and intense hunger in others. Quiet mumbles of, "Finally, a bit of skirt to chase," and, "I wonder if they charge." The leers and whistles of men who'd been gone from civilisation so long that they were starting to forget what it was to be civilised.

He positioned himself outside the entrance to the girls' tent and issued a few glares until the loitering soldiers got the message and moved on. He would, if necessary, knock some civilisation back into anybody who thought they could take advantage of Captain America's dancers. He'd remind the men that the girls weren't just some 'skirt' to be chased; they were sisters, daughters, granddaughters and nieces. Just because they were in the middle of a war zone didn't mean dames were any less deserving of being treated with respect.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Danny's lungs burned as he jogged after Paolo. Once fit enough to run for miles, he now struggled to keep up with the boy who ran through the forest as if the devil's hounds were chasing him. "Fretta!" Paolo kept calling over his shoulder. "Fretta!"

Fretta yourself, Danny grumbled inside his head.

Running was hard with one arm bound to his body. He couldn't keep a natural rhythm. Each time he stepped on some hidden stone or stick, he wobbled and had to slow to keep his balance. To make matters worse, less than ten minutes into their flight, snow began to fall. The first few white flakes were charming. When they began to fly into Danny's eyes, blinding him, they became more and more of an annoyance.

"Paolo, wait!" he called, stopping at the request of his dying lungs. "Aspetta!"

The boy stopped at the command, turning and hopping on the spot as he waited for Danny to catch up in a walk. Infectious as his impatience was, Danny knew he couldn't keep up such a fast pace. He'd been too sick for too long. His legs already felt close to collapse.

"Where are we going?" he asked. "Dove andare?"

"Per un posto sicuro. Dovrebbe ... che dovrebbe essere occupato ora."

Danny shook his head. Rosa had been teaching him Italian, and at the same time, teaching her kids English. At some point they'd be able to meet in the middle, but whilst Adalina was picking up English very quickly, Paolo just didn't have the same flair. His head was made for numbers, Rosa said.

After too short a rest period, Paolo began jogging again. Danny increased his pace as the falling snow did its best to obscure all obstacles on the ground. It didn't take long for his boot to find the surface of a rock made slippery with snow; he tumbled to the ground, letting out a pained cry as he rolled over his damaged shoulder.

Paolo dashed back and helped him back up, his dark hair peppered with white flakes. "Mi dispiace, non avrei dovuto fatto che si esegue così in fretta."

"I swear," Danny grumbled as he rearranged the sling holding his injured arm still, "if you just told me to be more careful, I'm not gonna be happy."

The boy merely gestured for him to follow, and this time, he went no faster than a rapid walk. At fifteen, Paolo was short for his age, and one of those gangly kids who'd yet to really grow into his own body. And judging by the size of his father, he probably had quite a bit of growing left to do.

"Eccoci qui," Paolo said, gesturing at something ahead through the forest.

Peering around the straight trunks of pines, Danny spotted something odd. There was a clearing, into which vegetation was slowly encroaching, and within the clearing were several large, dome-shaped mounds. He shivered, though not because of the cold air. When he'd been a kid, his Grandma Wells had told him stories that her mother had told her, stories of mischievous fae-folk of Ireland. In the stories she told, faeries made their homes in ancient mounds, and often carried off naughty children into their ancestral raths. He'd always thought Grandma Wells was bullshitting, but seeing the earth mounds here, he began to have doubts.

"Err, we're not going into those, are we?" he asked.

Paolo clearly didn't understand. He gestured for Danny to follow, and led the way around the edge of the clearing. Not far from the mounds, and heavily screened by the wild-growing underbrush, there was a building. It was a small, single-storey stone house. It looked old, and draughty, and when they got closer, he saw lichen and moss had taken root in the gaps between the stone walls. The roof was dirty thatch, but here and there it seemed to have been patched over with newer thatch, and even with what may have been mud or clay.

The whole thing did not appeal, but Danny had no choice. The snow was falling faster now, and, with his jacket still in the bag, he wasn't wearing anything heavier than a shirt. Paolo pushed open the creaky wooden door and took the bag into the house without looking back to check whether Danny was following.

Inside, the house was more like a cabin than a proper home. There was only one room to it, and the room contained everything except a toilet. In one corner was a dilapidated bed with a musty-smelling mattress. A small wood-burning stove was the centrepiece in the ash-laden fireplace, a convection ring in the centre of it the only way to heat water or food. What passed for a kitchen was a large slab of slate spanning wooden posts that had been sunk into the floor, but there were no knives, and no sink for washing dishes.

"What now?" Danny asked.

Paolo either ignored him, or didn't understand, but he set to work immediately. After handing the bag of clothes to Danny, he pulled a few pieces of dry wood and paper kindling from a nook built into the chimney breast, then placed them atop the pile of ashes in the stove. A packet of matches was dug out too, most of them damp. It took several tries for the boy to strike one, and when he did, the damp paper burned so slowly that Danny feared the flames would never take hold properly.

But the flames eventually won the battle, and after a few minutes the fire was burning nicely. Danny pulled his jacket from his bag and settled it around his shoulders as best he could, before sinking down beside the stove and holding his left hand out to the flames.

"Kinda cold, huh?" he asked with another shiver, this one actually caused by the chill in the air. "Freddo."

Paolo nodded. "Sì." He stood and made his way to the bed—no, to a wooden chest at the foot of the bed. It opened with a squeal, and he reached in to pull something out. After shaking off the dust, he handed it to Danny. It was a blanket. A musty-smelling, itchy woollen blanket that the army would've been thrilled to hand out to its recruits, but it was better than nothing. He added it to the jacket around his shoulders, and clasped it closed at his chest with his good hand.

"So," he said, when Paolo brought out a second blanket and joined him staring at the fire, "I guess we wait, huh?"

There was no response, but he hadn't been expecting one. As he stared into the flames, he thought back to Rosa. He still felt like a coward for leaving her, even though she hadn't really given him a choice in the matter. What was happening back there? Was she being questioned? Interrogated? If anything happened to her, he'd never forgive himself.

Don't be an idiot, he told himself. Do you think Paolo would be sitting here like this if his mom was in trouble? Of course not. He'd be panicking. Or running to fetch his dad. Everything will be fine. Just keep your head.

Keeping his head when he was in the dark about Nazis was easier said than done. To occupy his thoughts, he explored the inside of the house. The walls were the same unfurnished rough stone as the outside of the building, and apart from the blankets and small supply of wood, there was little indication that anybody had been here recently. Did that mean it really was some sort of fairy home?

No. That's just stupid. There's no such thing as faeries no matter what Grandma Wells used to say.

Thoughts of fairies brought back a conversation he'd had with some of the guys from the 107th, about that kid's fairy-book Barnes had talked about… The Hobbit? He regretted, now, not reading it. Not because he particularly cared about stories about fairies, but because it would'a been nice to have something else to talk with Barnes about during that night on guard duty in the mine. Maybe if he'd had the book to talk about, he wouldn't have given in to the urge to confess how terrified he was of the confining darkness. And then he wouldn't have let Barnes talk him into writing that damn letter.

For the first time since waking up in Rosa's house, he let his mind truly dwell on what he'd done. And not for the first time since deciding to write the letter, he felt deeply conflicted about its existence. He hated the idea that his inappropriate confession may possibly have ruined a good friendship, but at the same time, he couldn't bear the thought of keeping his feelings to himself any longer.

Why hadn't somebody warned him that something like this could happen to regular guys like him? He'd never been interested in men before, and he could'a been quite happy living his life never being interested in men. He knew, deep down, that this was mostly his own fault. But maybe Barnes was also just a little bit to blame. Where there was smoke, there was fire, after all. If Barnes hadn't been such a nice guy, and a good friend, maybe Danny wouldn't have started to care about him. And maybe he wouldn't have gone on to have that dream—a dream that should'a disgusted him, as it would disgust anybody in his right mind, but instead just made him long for some lingering touch of the hand, or the smallest brush of the lips. Something, anything, to tell him he wasn't alone in feeling like this.

Everything had gotten so much harder, after that damn dream. The constant fear that Barnes would look at him and somehow just know that his feelings had changed, had been a monkey on his shoulder that he just couldn't ignore. Their fight after Franklin and Davies died had helped… until Danny saw the turmoil in his friend's eyes, and wanted nothing more than to pull him close and try some of those things he'd been largely ignorant of as a child. Things such as comforting hugs and reassuring words. He'd had the vague notion that things would be just a little bit more right if he could hold Barnes like that, and be held in turn.

It was probably his parents' fault. They'd obviously screwed up badly during the whole parenting process. Tim had bastards scattered across the world, and Danny had inappropriate feelings for a man. That was definitely messed up.

A knock on the only door in the room made him spring guiltily to his feet, heart pounding in his chest. For the briefest of moments he'd seen, in his mind's eye, Barnes knocking on the door, and it brought a flush of guilt to his face over the thought of being caught daydreaming about his friend.

It wasn't Barnes who entered the house; it was Adalina. She was wearing a long brown coat with a wide hood that hadn't quite managed to keep the snowflakes from clinging to her hair. She smiled when she saw Danny and her brother in front of the gently burning fire; a smile of reassurance.

"Is safe now," she said. "Germans gone."

Danny tugged the blanket from his shoulders, and let Paolo take it and fold it up again. "And your mom? Is she okay."

"Mama fine," she nodded. "We go."

"What is this place?" Danny asked, as Paolo doused the fire with water from the kettle he'd put beside the stove.

Adalina screwed up her face in thought. "Ritirata di Lover."

"You love it? I can't see why, it's kind of a dump."

She shook her head. "No. I do not know words. Mama will tell."

With the hut once more in order, Adalina led the way back through the forest. There was no mad hurry, this time. The snow was over an inch deep, and Adalina picked her way carefully through the trees, the crunch of fresh snow issuing from beneath the soles of her sturdy boots.

"What did the Germans want?" he asked. She gave him a quizzical glance over her shoulder. "Nazis. Cosa vuoi?"

"Ah." She grinned. "Formaggio."

Cheese.

That's what the panic had been about? The Krauts had come to pick up a bit of cheese to go with their sausage? His mind went giddy with relief—his foot took advantage of the momentary lapse in concentration, betraying him so that he slipped on a pile of snow-covered pine needles. For the second time that day, his arm was painfully jarred.

"Attenzione!" Adalina instructed, sounding for all the world like her mother. She and Paolo helped him back to his feet, and he brushed at the snow that had clung to his pants.

"I'm getting too old for this," he grumbled. When they both looked at him blankly, he pointed to himself and said, "Vecchio."

Adalina laughed, and he managed to wrestle a small smile out of Paolo. Then, Adalina gestured straight up at the sky, making a movement with her arm that was surprisingly reminiscent of the setting sun. "Si sta facendo buio. Ci dobbiamo sbrigare."

By the time they reached the house, it was almost dark. Rosa was standing by the back door, her face a mask of worry, arms hugging her chest against the cold and snow. As soon as she saw them she bundled them into the house and sat them in front of the fire. Danny swiftly found himself the recipient of a cup of warm milk.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as she fussed over the state of the sling around his shoulder. "The Nazis—"

"I can handle the Nazis," she said, though the tight pinch of her lips suggested she didn't particularly like handling the Nazis. "They came for cheese. That is all. Word has not yet spread that you are here, but we can't keep it quiet forever. Sooner or later, someone from the village will see you, and gossip will spread. We must come up with a cover for you. Something believable. A pity you do not speak Italian better; we could have passed you off as some distant relative of Matteo." She grasped his chin in her hand, turning his face this way and that as she studied him. "Your hair is the right colour, and blue eyes are quite common in this area of Italy."

"If it helps, I speak French."

Doubt flitted across her face. "How well?"

"Bien assez que je pourrais probablement passer pour Français à un Allemand qui n'est pas trop familier avec la langue," he shrugged.

"Better than Italian, whatever you said." She nodded, as if they'd managed to negotiate an agreement. "Very well. You will be the son of Matteo's first cousin, come to stay with us after his family was killed in the fighting. What is a suitably French name?"

"Hard to go wrong with 'Pierre.'" Something plain and simple.

"Then, if the Germans surprise us again, or we have to introduce you to anybody from the village, you will be Pierre."

He sincerely hoped she would have to introduce him to people from the village. If the snow outside truly was winter's herald, that meant very little movement would be happening. The Allies wouldn't come rolling in, and Danny wouldn't be able to go very far to find an Allied camp. He liked Rosa's family just fine—or would, if Matteo would stop giving him dark scowls—but he thought he might go crazy if he had to spend the next three months talking to the same four people. Three people, if you didn't count Matteo. Technically two, since he couldn't really converse with Paolo yet, and the boy was pretty damn withdrawn anyway.

"What was that place Paolo took me to?" he remembered to ask at last. "And those strange mounds? Were they burial mounds? Somewhere you bury your dead?"

Rosa snorted loudly. "Of course not! The house once belonged to a man who was… I am unsure of the exact term in English. It was his job. He made charcoal. That is what the mounds are. Wood piles, covered with earth. But it was a dying trade, and when the man passed away several years ago, there was nobody to carry on. Now, the house is known as Lovers Retreat—it is a place young couples go for romantic trysts when they wish to be away from the eyes of their disapproving relatives. It is the most widely known secret in the village, but clearly not something discussed openly, and certainly not around Germans."

"Oh." That certainly explained the blankets, and the small supply of firewood.

"Nobody goes there in winter," Rosa elaborated. "It is too remote, too cold and bare inside. But in summer, when passions flare with the heat, it is very popular."

"Well, hopefully I won't have to go there again," he offered. "Maybe the snow will keep the Germans away."

"We'll see." She didn't sound convinced. "But for now, go and wash up. Dinner will be ready soon."

Danny followed Adalina and Paolo up the stairs, then peeled off into the bedroom that was swiftly becoming like a second home. He sat on the edge of the bed, shrugged his jacket from his shoulders, and reached for the washbowl and cloth by the side of the bed. The snow falling outside the window caught his eye once more, and he felt a twinge of guilt in his stomach. If it was snowing like this wherever the brass had set up camp, the guys of the 107th would be in for a rough time out there.

Author's Note: Sorry I didn't get around to responding to reviews of the last chapter, I've had a hectic week. So, belated thanks to everyone. Glad to hear Bucky's plight is tugging on more than a few heart-strings.