Chapter Text
Bastogne, December 1944
Roe works by feel. He has to. It’s too dark in the foxhole, and light just makes you a target. He’s elbow-deep in Toye’s leg, soaked through with blood that’s already freezing.
He’s not thinking. Not really. Thinking would mean remembering whose leg this is. Thinking would mean hearing Toye scream when the morphine wore off.
He doesn’t look up until someone presses a hand to his shoulder.
“Doc,” Babe says. Quiet. Like it’s just them here, not hell.
Roe doesn’t flinch. He just breathes.
“He’s gonna pass out,” Babe says. “You want me to hold him down?”
Roe nods. Babe slides in beside him, close, too close. Warmth radiates off him like a living thing. Roe pretends he doesn’t notice.
Later, after Toye’s stable—or as stable as he’ll get—Roe finds himself sitting in the frozen dark, hands stiff and useless in his lap. He meant to go back to check on the others, but he can’t move.
Babe drops into the foxhole beside him. Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t speak.
He just takes Roe’s hands, slowly, and starts rubbing warmth back into them.
“You’re freezing,” Babe says.
Roe doesn’t say anything, but so was Babe. He doesn’t say the other man shouldn’t be here. He just closes his eyes.
And lets someone touch him for the first time in weeks.
There’s always blood under Roe’s fingernails. It doesn’t come out. Not even when Babe brings back water from the creek and makes him wash up.
"Let me," Babe says, already crouching with the mess tin.
Roe starts to protest—he always starts—but Babe dips the rag in the water and catches his wrist before he can pull away.
Roe goes still.
Babe cleans his hands, quiet and careful, like he’s handling something breakable. Roe watches him, mouth dry. The way Babe’s brows knit together. The way his thumb brushes along Roe’s knuckles, not like a nurse—not like a buddy either.
“Don’t know how you do it,” Babe mutters. “You hold all that in. Day after day.”
Roe doesn’t answer. Not because he doesn’t want to—but because the answer’s too big. Too heavy. He’s afraid it’ll crack open if he speaks.
Babe keeps cleaning. His hands are shaking.
“You ever talk to anyone?” Babe asks. “About… y’know.”
Roe looks at him. Babe doesn’t meet his eyes.
“You mean about watchin’ my friends bleed out in the dirt?” Roe says. Flat. Soft.
Babe flinches, but he nods.
“No,” Roe says. “Ain’t got time for talkin’.”
Babe swallows, wipes Roe’s hands dry. “You could talk to me.”
It slips out, like it wasn’t meant to be said at all. And then it hangs in the air, so loud that Roe almost can’t breathe.
He pulls his hands back. Not rough—but enough to say don’t. Just don’t.
Babe nods again. Like he expected that answer. But the way his mouth presses tight says he didn’t like it.
That night, they sleep back-to-back in a hole barely big enough for one. The snow is still falling. The trees are groaning. Someone’s coughing down the line. It never stops.
And Roe doesn’t sleep.
Not because of the cold. Not even because of the war.
Because Babe said you could talk to me.
And for the first time in months, Roe wanted to.
In the morning, Roe finds frost on his boots and Babe’s shoulder pressed against his side. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to.
The rest of Easy Company wake up to a fresh inch of snow and a dead man three foxholes down.
No one talks about it.
Luz cracks a joke. Perconte swears. Roe kneels in the slush and closes the man’s eyes with two fingers and a quiet prayer.
A prayer that doesn’t work anymore.
By the time he gets back to his hole, Babe’s there. Sitting with his coat half-open, like he was waiting for Roe to come back just so he could breathe again.
“You eat yet?” Babe asks.
Roe shakes his head.
Babe reaches into his pack, pulls out a scrap of hard biscuit and breaks it in half without thinking. He hands Roe the bigger piece.
Their fingers brush.
It’s not much. But Roe holds onto that warmth like it’s the last thing in the world.
That night, they don’t sleep back-to-back.
Babe shifts, just a little, and Roe lets it happen.
Lets Babe curl into him, lets the weight settle. Lets his arm fall across Babe’s waist, fingers twitching against the wool of his coat.
“Doc?” Babe whispers.
Roe hums in acknowledgement, welcoming the question.
There’s a pause before Babe speaks again.
“If this shit kills us, I hope we don’t come back.”
Roe doesn’t answer.