Under The Banner ▪ Band Of Brothers

...the silence between...

Her heart pounded. As the briefing ended, Nixon and Strayer dismissing her, Harry, Dog, and Fox company's officers, she tried to calm her anxiety. Zhanna could take care of herself out in the field. Zhanna was a survivor. But the odds weren't in their favor.

When Winters had called for reinforcements, she had just finished a meeting with Sink. Regular updates from the Eastern Front still came to them while they were in the middle of the Netherlands. By the time she'd returned Easy's CP, Harry had already sent the rest of the troops that Winters had requested.

So she'd joined the rest of the 2nd Battalion officers in Nixon's briefing. With that over, all Sveta had left to do was stress. The dark sky of 0100 hours cleared until stars shined around them as she walked with Harry back to the CP. His shoulders tightened with each step. His stress was palpable.

Sveta took a drink. She didn't have much alcohol left. She'd started rationing it again, unable to get into Nixon's stash, adding in cigarettes instead of sips of whiskey when she could. But she missed the taste of home.

As they approached the barn, Doc Roe's unmistakable voice called her name. Both she and Harry stopped and turned to find him. He made his way over. Sveta saw caked blood on his hands. She supposed he hadn't had time to wash since Alley had been brought in bleeding a couple of hours before.

"Captain, Lieutenant." He paused as they both nodded. "Can I speak to Captain Samsonova for a moment?"

Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise but shrugged. "I'll be inside."

Sveta felt her chest tightened as Harry moved off. When she turned back to Roe, Sveta shuffled. "What do you need?"

"I wanted to check on you," he admitted. Roe sighed, shaking his head. "It would put my mind at ease if I knew you were doing better since that night in August."

They hadn't spoken of it since. Sveta felt her mouth run dry. That day had been a grave mistake, since waking up in the morning all the way to waking up sick the next. Details were still hazy. She knew Zhanna had found her, bringing Compton. At the thought, anger filled her chest. It had to have been Compton. Zhanna knew she didn't trust him. Why couldn't she have gotten Ron? Zhanna knew she liked him.

But after the memories of Zhanna and Compton finding her, it blurred until she'd woken up in a medic station, freezing. She'd been sick for hours. Roe had shoved water down her throat, told her to drink. She couldn't remember if she'd said anything. But when her mind did clear by sunrise, she remembered Roe's careful inspection. Not just with his eyes, but words. She'd begged him through unwanted tears to keep it quiet. Mercifully, he'd agreed to put it down as a stomach illness.

They'd left it at that.

Until now. What had changed?

"Doc, I'm fine," she told him.

He sent her a look she'd never been on the receiving end of. One of abject disappointment. It told her enough; he didn't believe her claim one bit. Sveta cursed herself. She never should've tried to lie to a medic about health.

"Captain, Lieutenant Welsh mentioned you were drunk again the other night," he admitted. When he saw her glare, he added, "He wanted to know if I had anything for a hangover."

Sveta's ears burned. Welsh. Couldn't keep his mouth shut. Or he could, when Nixon poked her with thinly veiled insults. That was entertainment for him. But a slip up in judgement? He couldn't stay silent about that, apparently.

"I misjudged how much I'd had to drink," Sveta tried.

Roe nodded. "Captain, what happened in Aldbourne? Lieutenant Casmirovna wouldn't say more than you'd had a bad day."

At least Zhanna had kept the reasons to herself. But then, what she had said hadn't been false either. A bad day. Sveta wondered how many bad days she had left.

"Look, Doc, I'm fine," she insisted. Again, his frown. She sighed. Looking around, Sveta wondered if she could say more. If she should say more. A fear-induced lapse in judgement in Mackall meant Harry, Nixon, and Winters already knew about her mother and Stalin. If they wanted to spread it, they could. So she turned back to Roe. "Okay, maybe, sometimes I drink too much," Sveta admitted. "Back in Aldbourne, I couldn't stop thinking about something that happened in Russia, back in 1940. So I grabbed the vodka."

Roe watched her carefully. He nodded. "Were you tryin' to kill yourself, Captain?"

She stopped breathing. The question had passed her own mind many times. Sveta still didn't have an answer.

Sveta didn't want to kill herself. She wanted to die in battle, for her people and the Motherland. She wanted the bullet that found her to be from a German rifle or submachine gun, not an American sidearm. Not a Korovin pistol.

She did not want to be the third woman to die because of Stalin. That scared her more than anything. If she did survive the war, she'd go back to Russia. If she went back to Russia, she'd go back to Stalin and Beria and her father. And then there would only be two options for death: the bottle or the pistol. She didn't want to choose either.

She wanted to die in the chaos of battle, not in a quiet bedroom.

"Captain?"

She glanced up at him. Sveta forced away the thoughts. "No. I wasn't." That had to be the answer. It was the answer. Or, she hoped it was the answer. Regardless, she could never say yes to the medic. He might've done something stupid, like pulled her off the line and pushed her right back into Beria's waiting hands. "I just got carried away."

He nodded. "Okay. Well, uh, if you need somethin'. Me and Spina could help," he offered. "Maybe. Even if you just need a break off the line, or somethin'. Long as you don't mind blood, the medics can always use help. You're good with the medic stuff."

She smiled before she knew what she was doing. Roe and Spina really were too kind. If the American army had done one good thing, it was selecting them for the medics. "Thank you. Never underestimate the power that you hold, Roe. There aren't many men or women who can do what you do as a medic." She paused. "You and Spina both are a tribute to your people."

Roe didn't seem to know what to say. "We're just doing our jobs, Captain."

"I know." Sveta smiled again. "Now, how's Alley?"

With a sigh, Roe rubbed his hands on his pants. Sveta wasn't even sure he knew that he'd done so, but the man then shuffled in place and looked at her. "Not great. I took him to the main aid station and had the surgeons take a look. They said he'll be off to a hospital soon as they stabilize him."

She nodded. "Alley's a fighter. He'll be fine."

"Yeah, I know," he agreed. But his face fell. He hunched over, typical she'd noticed of the man when he got stressed.

"I should go see if Lieutenant Welsh needs me," Sveta told him. With a last quick look at the obviously overwhelmed medic, she added, "The CP is a better place to wait than the aid station, Doc."

He nodded. "Right."

Sveta offered him a tight smile. In her opinion, the medics saw worse than any other man on the battlefield. The others just had to take life. They had to save it. And unfortunately for them, bullets and grenades had more power to end life than they did to stop it. Men died in war. Nothing held more true across all nations and times.

Medics could not save everyone. Sveta just hoped whatever bullet found her would come on the battlefield. Then she'd bleed out as a hero, not a victim.