Collaboration with @silmarilz1701
Svetlana knew how to play the game. She'd been caught in the political drama of Stalin's inner circle since birth. The only child of one of Stalin's closest friends, she grew up in the limelight, scrutinized by frie...
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The Bois Jacques had been a blur in Zhanna's mind. More snow, more foxholes, and more wakeful nights. There had been marches through the woods where Zhanna had neglected to fire a shot. There had been days spent huddled together, cursing God and man for the bad luck of the 101st Airborne.
Bastogne had no real concept of time and they could have been inhabiting it's shadows for months or years, instead of the weeks that the men insisted had passed. Zhanna wasn't convinced. She had begun to mark days only by nightfalls and empty foxholes. Hoobler was gone, in a shot from his own prized Luger. Peacock had been sent from the front, home to America with the purpose of spreading patriotism and enthusiasm for the war effort.
They would need as much support as they could get. Those people on the homefront, who sent letters and bundles of lumpy socks and ragged scarves, were thousands of miles from any real danger. They were safe. Zhanna tried to not to hate the idea of them, safe in their homes and away from the splinters and the shells that rained on her head. The men would write home, tell their mothers, wives, and sisters of the war and what they were fighting for.
Zhanna hadn't written a letter in more sunsets than she could remember. She hadn't opened her journal in longer. She didn't know what she was fighting for but fighting left very little time to think. Thinking was Zhanna's enemy so fighting was her savior. There wasn't much to rely on, these days.
Whispers of dissatisfaction with Lieutenant Dike's lead continued to spread, from even the other officers themselves.The company wide opinion was that Buck Compton should have lead Easy but only two knew the danger behind that. Guarnere had said nothing, and Zhanna had kept her promise of keeping an eye on him. But watchful eyes did little to help him. What good was it to stand and watch where they were going?
So Dike stayed and Zhanna knew that Winters's hands were tied, even if she wished he would still lead Easy. If they had wanted a leader they had been given someone who would rather warm a foxhole than rally the troops. Where had the blind trust in the brass and bedecked officers gotten them?
It hadn't gotten Zhanna closer to Russia. It hadn't brought her debt off her shoulder, loosening the load. The relief of the silver in the mud was long ago and she had shouldered more since. Zhanna wasn't sure how she could walk, with her joints cold as they were. Zhanna wasn't sure how she was breathing, not when she was so deep underwater. Something wouldn't let her die.
All her trust in the brass, no matter what she said about orders, had led her right back to where she had started. Back to the same woods she had watched splinter in the night. Back to the woods that she had first buried her loss under the snow. Zhanna was back where she had started and she wasn't sure she was any better off. Three bullets still rattled in her pocket and her journal still pressed like a heavy weight against her chest. Was she any better off?
Their position certainly wasn't. The trees were shattered, shards of wood buried deep into the frozen ground, allowing for a clear sightline into the town of Foy. Their next target. The carcasses of the buildings, the shattered windows and fluttering curtains. Zhanna didn't have to imagine them, they were before her. Empty houses before her, and empty foxholes all around her. Empty dreams rattled around in her head. She didn't need to be in Russia. Russia was all around her.
