Women of War - A Band of Brothers Story

Returning to the Fold

A/N: Hey folks! Sorry for the long wait but I didn't get around to posting anything last week. I spent several days of mildly panic-fuelled productivity working on the analysis for my bachelor thesis and afterwards, my brain was just mush from juggling all that data.

But as always, thank you so much for your comments and votes, I really appreciate them :)

Dawn turned the sky a faint grey before the sunrise painted it in a glowing palette of colours. Nuenen lay quiet as the sunrays crawled along the roads and up the facades. The Germans were long gone, had moved out hours before. The British tank that had burned throughout the night was still smouldering.

Bull had left the barn he'd sought shelter in and walked down the road, intent on getting back to Easy. Even though he had heard the Krauts head out, he kept his rifle ready, just in case that he ran into stragglers or a rear-guard. His shoulder ached, but the pain was manageable.

The reminders of yesterday's battle were everywhere.

Houses with gaping holes in them.

Deep groves and dents in the road.

Empty cartridges capturing the morning light.

Dried drops and puddles, their colour a rusty brown.

Bull kept walking.

***

Turning the corner, he froze instinctively when he spotted somebody up ahead. He relaxed his stance again when he recognised the American ODs and the brassard with the stupidly large flag was impossible to miss even at the distance.

He couldn't immediately identify the soldier since his back was turned and he was bent over a prone body. He stepped closer.

The figure sat back on their haunches, head coming up and Bull knew who it was.

A flash of white and red on the upper arm. Slight build bordering on skinny with narrow shoulders. Tufts of duck-fluff brown hair that refused to lie flat even after being weighed down by a helmet for hours and days on end.

There was only one person in Easy that fit that description.

After the initial wave of relief, a frown took over Bull's features. What was Doc Arricante doing here? "Doc?", he revealed his presence.

The slim frame stiffened and she turned her head. Blue met blue. Mia's eyebrows drew together briefly, confusion soon giving way to a weak, sincere smile. "Bull. Are you alright?"

"Fine", he offered, more concerned with how she had ended up here, all alone as it seemed. "What happened?"

Her face - or at least the half he could see - was dusty, smudges of dirt on her chin and forehead.

The smile faded and her gaze shifted back to the dead man in front of her. "I was cut off", she replied softly. "They were everywhere. I had to hide."

Bull crouched down beside her, studied the body she was looking at. A young man in a German uniform. Brown eyes staring unseeingly into the sky. The torso splattered with blood, his jacket riddled with bullet holes.

He glanced at Mia and was startled by the intensity of the emotions on her face. He didn't mention the pale streak of cleaner skin on her cheek. A thought popped into his mind.

"Did you know him?"

The young woman's notoriously unreadable expression was painfully easy to read this time. Grief, sadness, pain, thinly veiled by caution. "Yes", she answered, lips twitching from memories of a life past, "he was one of the neighbours' boys. He had a crush on my sister Letizia."