" Silence if a gift. Learn to value its essence."

- Unknown

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Hazel was quiet, waiting beside a tree, the only sound the crickets, the soft bombing noises in the background, and her quick breathes. Her rifle was clasped tightly in her sweaty grip and her heard had a dull ache in the back of it as she leaned up against the rough bark of the French tree, who was seeing war for a second time most likely.

She had been moving discretely along the path of road nearby, when German voices infiltrated her ears.

Now, she was currently positioned behind a tree, near the road, waiting for them to pass. After her landing, when she'd gone off into the forest, she had started sweating big time, and hadn't managed to come upon any other member of Easy Company or any other member that was associated with the paratroopers.

Hazel reached up to wipe the sweat from her forehead and sighed softly, she was growing dehydrated, that's why she had a headache. Hazel reached for the canteen in her belt and slowly pulled out the canteen to take a sip from it.

The slightly warmed water was a relief on her throat, but it didn't shake the feeling of dehydration from her system. Hazel slowly attached her canteen again to her waist.

But then there was a crack of a branch beside her.

Hazel froze, hand not coming off the canteen on her waist. She was quick to grab her weapon and turn quickly with her rifle, which ended up aimed straight between the eyes of a German.

The German's green eyes were wide, staring at her, breathing heavy.

Neither reacted at first.

They just stared at each other, breathing heavy, terrified.

Then the German jumped at her, knocking the weapon from her hand.

She could've shot him. But she had frozen; you never knew your reaction in war.

The German slammed her back to the ground, as the air escaped her lungs, as he struggled for power over her. Sweat from his face dripped off him, as he cursed angrily in German as both of them struggled to hold dominance over the other.

But then Hazel grew calm, as his hands, twisted her wrists. She moved her free leg up and her knee went straight into his back, causing him to let out a shriek in pain, as his hands went to his back, releasing Hazel from the tight grip he had her in.

This gave Hazel the chance, to wind up a punch and launch it straight into his nose, causing him to fall back from her body, clutching his gushing nose, and struggling to stand from his back.

Hazel watched as he struggled, falling back from her legs, giving her the opportunity to bring her leg up and knock him in the chest, knocking him backwards on the ground. Hazel sat forward, pulling her knife from its sheath and jumping on top of the German, holding a knife to his neck.

Her knees, held down both his arms away from his nose as they bled and his wide frantic eyes looked up at Hazel, terrified. He started speaking in rushed German, over and over.

But the thought running through her brain was that, if she let him go, he'd start spouting off to his buddies.

And she felt she couldn't allow that.

But killing a man?

Right now, with her bare hands?

How would she justify that later?

But it was war. Hazel stared at him, breathing heavy, her face paint seeming to melt off her features. He was staring at her with such fear, his face pale in the moonlight and his green eyes seeming to shake with horror as the knife lay on his neck. Hazel was panting, her eyes watching his, her heart seeming to fall inside her chest.

It was so quiet.

Hazel couldn't help but feel the tears that blurred her vision as she stared at the soldier, a man fighting a war for his own country. He was just another human in this war, but he was also the enemy.

Hazel's heart was torn from right and from good.

Hazel then shut her eyes and brought the knife across the soldier's throat, ending his life.

He stopped breathing and when she opened her eyes, she watched the life that was once in his eyes slowly fade to a blank nothing.

Hazel felt a trembling sob escape past her lips, as the knife clattered out of her hands, and her hands pressed to her mouth, quiet cries of pain and realization hitting her entire body of what she had just done.

She had killed a man.

She scrambled off the body, pressing her back against the tree, heaving big gulps of air to stop the sobs that wanted to escape.

The man was dead, right in front of her.

She had killed her first person in war.

Something deep in her gut settled in like a disease, an overwhelming guilt of what she had just done. This person was dead because of her. Her heart was pounding as she looked up towards the stars, forcing herself to calm down.

" Don't cry." Hazel whispered to herself, " Please," Hazel whispered again, " don't cry." Tears welled in her eyes, " Don't cry, Hazel." Hazel repeated those words softly, in a voice barely above a whisper, convincing herself and forcing herself not to cry over this, to not be vulnerable in any sense to anyone.

Even to a dead man.

Hazel gritted her teeth and forced herself up to her feet, grabbing her weapon, grabbing her knife, and wiping the stray tear from her cheek. She looked back down at the man in front of herself, and noticed a tiny white spec on his coat. She slowly reached forward and plucked the tiny thing from his coat.

It was a flower.

The flower had white petals and a yellow center. She stared at it softly. Hazel shut her eyes, and pushed her lips together, forcing herself not to cry again. She was strong enough not to. Hazel looked at the flower again and gently tucked it into his pocket, where it would be protected with pictures of his family, where someone would find him soon enough. Hazel then slowly moved to her feet and stared at him softly again.

Hazel nodded to him slowly, before turning and hurrying off through the woods again, her heart racing inside of her, her mind a complete and utter mess with the guilt she would have to deal with for the rest of her life.

Hazel continued slowly treading her way through the darkness of the early morning, eyes wide searching and ears listening for sounds of the others. She could hear crickets chirping, as the humidity forced her uniform to stick to her skin. She was sweating nervously, as she held her finger on the trigger of her weapon as she walked, crouched and low to the ground.

Then she heard something crack.

Hazel froze.

She heard silent clicking.

" Flash?" Hazel whispered.

" Thunder." the voice answered. Lip. It was Lipton.

" Lip." Hazel whispered as she turned towards the source of the voice. She watched as Lip and to other men appeared out of the underbrush.

" Hazel." Lip said and a smile fell on his face as he saw the girl standing there.

" How're you doing?" he asked her.

" I'm ok," Hazel answered her heart pounding, " you?" She pushed all thoughts of her previous encounter from her mind; she couldn't think on it any longer.

" Doing well, met up with 2 boys from the 82nd." Lip said and Hazel raised a brow.

" We're surely spread out." Hazel said with a tiny glance up to him.

" Very, all over the peninsula." Lip told her. Hazel let out a sigh. Lip then noticed her hands.

" You ok?" Lip asked, pointing to her hands. Hazel looked in his eyes and then towards her hands as the two 82nd boys appeared. Hazel met his eyes again and seemingly in silent conversation, Lip understood what she had to do before they'd met up, what she had done. Lip gently nodded to her. She bit her lip and nodded back.

He knew.

They moved towards a small stream that ran nearby, and Lip turned to look towards Hazel and the two 82nd boys and nodded to the river. Something cracked loudly, mostly from Lipton's foot on a branch or two as he moved towards the riverbed.

All the sudden, a clicking was heard from a cricket nearby, and Lip stopped Hazel and the other two. Lip quickly pulled out his clicker and clicked back. Lip then stepped forward and slowly moved through the shallow river. Hazel stepped into the water behind him and her feet became soaked immediately as she followed behind Lip.

" Who's that?" the voice asked hurriedly, and Hazel felt her eyebrows raised.

" Lieutenant Winters, is that you?" Lip asked, as he continued through the water to the other side.

Hazel watched with relief as Winters stepped out from behind the bush, another man with him. Lip took off with graceful steps through the water splashing it upwards, and the other 3 followed behind, arriving in front of Winters and beside Lip.

" Get in here, sit down. Any weapon?" Winters asked quickly in a whisper to Lip.

" No, sir." Lip answered pulling his gloves from his hands. " As soon as I hit that prop blast, so long leg-bag. All I got is this knife and some TNT. Then I met up with Hazel, who still has her rifle. These 82nd boys got their M-1s, though."

" Oh, man, 82nd, where the hell are we?" the man next to Winters asked. Hazel glanced towards him and quirked a raised brow at Winters as her rifle hung loosely in her hands, as she crouched beside the man Winters was with.

" Sir, I saw a sign back thataways, said ' Sainte Mere-Eglise'." Lip said as he began to pull off some equipment to situate himself. Hazel watched as Winters then reached down to his belt, more so a little below it and unzipped. Winters pulled out a tiny magnifier.

" Flashlight." Winters said. Lip handed over the flashlight.

" Raincoat." Winters said. LIp didn't have an answer for that.

" You got a raincoat?" Lip asked looking over toward Hazel and the 82nd boys.

" Yeah." one of them answered turning to the other 82nd boy to get it out for him. Winters and Lip worked together to lay out the raincoat so WInters could look at his map underneath. Hazel trusted Winters judgements, and felt she needed to talk to the man they saw him arrive with.

" Who are you?" Hazel asked the man crouched besides Winters.

" Private John Hall, ma'am." he said with a nod to her, noticing the Corporal stripe on her arm. " I'm from Able. Lieutenant Winters was my Basketball Coach on the team they had." Hazel smiled.

" What about you, ma'am?" he asked her.

" Hazel Parker, I'm with Winters in Easy Company." she said with a smile.

" You're one of those women that joined the Airborne, right? A Virago?" a guy from the 82nd asked.

" Yeah, one." she said with a tiny smile. Winters then suddenly made his way back out from under the raincoat and looked towards the group.

" We're about 7 kilometers away from our objective. And four hours away from when we need to have it secured. So, we got a lot of walking ahead of us." Winters said looking at the group and handing the flashlight back to Lip.

" You men stick with us until we find your unit." Winters said to the two 82nd men.

" Let's go." Lip said as Winters quickly stood to his feet, and the others stood as well.

" Hey, sarge, where are we going?" one of the men asked Lip, as Hazel smiled following Winters. He always was a man with a plan.

" Causeway number two, Utah Beach." Lip said, " The Germans flooded the fields inland. We don't clear those routes, our boys ain't going nowhere."

" Six of us ain't gonna secure a road." the 2nd 82nd boy said to his buddy. " That Louie don't even have a weapon." Hazel just caught up with Lip, to follow beside the first person she met up with on the ground. They all kept quiet and alert as they walked nearing a railroad in front of them.

Hazel's exterior was silent and calm and composed, but on the inside, her mind roared with such a fierce fire, like two lions finally fighting and brawling after hours of tension of stalking each other. Her mind was in absolute pieces.

" You ok, Hazel?" Lip asked softly as he walked beside her. Hazel looked up at him, her heart pounding. She trusted Lip, mostly because even back within their first months of knowing each other, Hazel knew he was a man that would lead Easy, even as a senior NCO. He always cared for the 3 women wholeheartedly as well, like Winters did.

" The blood on my hands," Hazel whispered, " it's not mine." Lip watched her as they continued through the dark forest. Lip licked his lips as he softly watched her.

" I killed someone." Hazel whispered, and she said it as if it were a horrid secret, which for Hazel, it was. Lip gently placed a hand on her shoulder as they continued walking and rubbed it gently.

" I know it's war, Lip, but it was the first time...the first time I had to do something like that. To Take a man's life for my own? I feel so guilty, so selfish." she whispered, as Winters glanced back towards them as he led the front of the group.

" It's just something I have to grow used to." Hazel whispered.

" It's okay for that to be scary, Hazel. Killing another for your own safety, but as you've said it, as we all have, that's the true horror of war." Lip whispered and Hazel nodded.

It was a tough pill to swallow, but it was true.

It really was the horror and brutal reality of the modern war they were thrust straight into.

Suddenly, Winters put up a hand to stop them, right beside a nearby railroad, there were footsteps along metal it sounded.

Footsteps along the railroad.

" I don't remember hearing about any railroads near our objective." the group heard a voice say, as they hide in the trees by a railroad.

It sounded as if it were Malarkey's.

" I'm telling ya, this is the spur line that runs parallel to the river." they heard another voice say, clearly Joe Toye's, and Hazel smiled at the sound. " We should be coming up to a road and bridge ahead."

" Yeah? How would you know?" Malarkey said smartly.

" Because I studied sand tables, alright?" Toye bit back. The group quickly stopped talking and Hazel glanced at Winters.

" Flash." Winters called out quickly.

" Thunder!" the group on the railway called out as they turned and watched as the group of 6 emerged from behind the bushes, eyes in awe and wide.

" Lieutenant is that you?" Malarkey asked as the group stepped closer.

" Malarkey?" Winters asked stepping closer as Hazel came into view of the, now visible, 4 men that stood there.

" Sir." Malarkey said and Winters nodded. "

Tiny!" Malarkey said catching sight of the girl with her helmet strap dangling and the rifle tucked into her arms, a small smile on her face.

" Hi," she said coming up as he wrapped her in a quick hug and she turned and watched as the others greeted each other in thanks and relief.

" Joe." Hazel said and he turned, a smile finding its way onto her face when he saw the girl.

" I thought that was you, Tiny." he said as he pulled the girl into a warm hug.

" Hey, kid that you?" Bill asked as Hazel pulled back and smiled seeing Bill.

" He, Bill." she said as she hugged him tightly, and then turned and saw Popeye. Bill had seemed tense, but she didn't push it.

" Hey, Pop." she said as she wrapped him in a warm hug.

" We thought that was you." he told her and she smiled brightly at him.

" I guess I am the only one with a fairly high pitched voice." she said with a smile as the two followed after the rest of the group laughing lightly. Bill Guarnere and the new guy, Hall, took the lead. Guarnere, who seemed angry and upset at the same time, was quieter than usual and a bit snippy.

Hazel kept her senses on alert as she walked down the railway next to Joe. Her eyes flitted back and forth across the entirety of the forest and railway in front of them and her head turned at every move.

Winters was only a bit behind her.

The group kept a fairly loose protective circle around Winters, who was weaponless and their leader right now. Hazel took every step with caution as she continued moving forward, slow but steady, until the point where the entire group halted and she watched Hall hold up a hand and slowly crouch to the ground, the rest of the squad they had following. She heard a horse neigh, from a little down the side of the hill they were on and her heart started racing.

Winters made a move up through the group towards the front and to where the bridge would be. Hazel watched as Winters turned and hurried back towards the rest of the group calling Lip's name.

" Go." Winters said in a quick rushed voice, motioning to the right.

" Guarnere." Winters called, directing the other group down straightforward. Hazel glanced at Winters and he motioned her to follow him and she nodded quickly. Hazel sat slightly behind Winters, watching as each man got into his set position for the ambush that was about to occur. Hazel glanced up at Lip who glanced down towards her and nodded. Hazel slowly glanced towards the rest of the men again as they all waited earnestly.

" Wait for my command." Winters said.

Hazel glanced towards the sound of the upcoming horses. Her heart raced faster as sweat beaded along the line on her forehead and slowly dripped down the side of her grease painted face, making lines in the already messed up paint.

It came closer, with each increasing second that ticked by like a watch in her ear. The shadow made its way across the way, the horses heads bobbing with the shadows until he point where the black wagon was visible.

Winters held his hand up, holding the group in position. He motioned to Hazel, to lie down and set her weapon. And she did, sitting in the cold ground, and setting up her scope and weapon facing forward, clicking her scope into its correct magnification.

Then there was unexpected firing coming from their left. It was loud and quick and filled with undeniable anger. The horses began neighing louder and panicked as screams echoed and shots made impact with bodies.

This caused the others to start shooting, thinking Winters had given his command. It was a chaotic mess as horses ran past with no driver and Germans fell like old rags to the ground, splashing in the mud from the rain that had poured earlier.

Shot after shot rang out and Hazel watched with wide horrified eyes as Guarnere slowly began to obliterate them all.

There were calls for a grenade from someone and an explosion rang out, sending Hazel's ears ringing at the noise.

She could barely even fire her weapon.

She couldn't.

There was the sight of a horse falling to the ground, neighing in complete pain and a German standing for surrender but quickly being shot down. Hazel couldn't stop watching Bill's weapon fire round after round into what seemed like the sky over and over, the horse's panic filling Hazel. Each soldier continued to fire their weapons until it seemed that every last German had fallen.

" That's enough, Guarnere!" Winters suddenly yelled, standing up and pushing the man back from the sight and letting his hands fall from the gun. The two stared intensely at each other as Hazel watched with earnest eyes.

" Everyone ok?" Winters asked holding his gaze with Guarnere as the horse whinnied.

" Yes, sir." came the unified response. The horse continued in pain, but Hazel could only focus on the tension between the two men in front of her.

" Next time I say wait for my command, you wait for my command, Sergeant." Winters said with emphasis.

" Yes, sir." Bill said, holding the gaze. There was a single loud shot that rang out making everyone jump, and turn toward where it had come from. Joe stood above, lowering his pistol with the most un-empathetic face there ever was on a person. Hazel let out a tiny sigh, as she slowly pushed up from the ground with Malarkey's help. Hazel looked towards Bill again, worry filling her system and making her stomach turn sour. It always did that when she was worried. She was really worried for Bill.

" Fine, Quaker." she heard Bill mutter behind her as Hazel slowly walked over to the fuming man.

" What's that guy's problem?" John asked Malarkey as Hazel glanced towards him.

" Gonorrhea." Malarkey muttered stepping over a dead body. Hazel gulped as she glanced at it.

" Really?" John asked.

" His name, dummy, Guarnere, Gonorrhea, get it?" Malarkey said with a bland tone.

" So besides having a shitty name, what's his problem?" John egged on.

" None of you fucking business, cowboy." Guarnere said looking up from the ground toward John.

" Alright, let's move out." Lip called to the group.

" Sir." each member called in agreement.

" Quietly." Lip said again as Winters watched each man and woman go by.

And it remained quiet.

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hey! so this was an important chapter because hazel finally meets up with lip and winters, but it also showcases her first killing in war, which i thought really set something up for hazel about what that meant to her personally as she had done that herself.

thanks for all the support and love! i'll be doing one or two chapters tomorrow as well!