By the time Mary and Robert had seen the footage from Italy, Nick was already out of the hospital and back on the front lines. The ringing in his ears left nothing to be desired but the doctor had told him it was only temporary, and shouldn’t throw off his balance too much. But he suggested he definitely try to steer clear of .50 calibre machine guns for a while. When he finally caught up with his unit he found out that the initial fighting had died down and they were now going to set up a camp near one of the towns and spend time flushing out the nearby villages for enemy stragglers, and Stalin supporters just as they’d done to Vichy France in Africa.

He was pleasantly surprised to find a pile of clothes for him to work on sitting outside his tent when he woke up first thing in the morning. He chuckled and made sure there was nowhere he needed to be (the higher ranking officers were developing their game plan) before getting to work. While in the hospital he’d made dozens of patches, all of them shoved into his rucksack. He worked quietly, feeling as though something was missing. It was a lax day; normally the other guys would be playing football or checkers, singing, just about anything to remind them of home. This day was silent though, and it wasn’t too long before Nick realized why. It was hard to play football when your usual quarterback was dead, the checkerboard was lost on the beach somewhere, and singing would not only attract the enemy but also remind you that you probably weren’t going home until you, too, were dead. All the spunk they originally had was dwindling the longer they were away from everything they loved, and seeing your new friend lying in pieces twenty feet away was not a morale booster. 

Nick reached over and picked up Mary’s photo from his bag. He ran his fingers over it, wishing it hadn’t gotten so damaged from being folded and shoved in his bag every time he had to pack in a hurry. 

“Is that your girl?” 

Nick glanced up at the voice, taking in the young man in front of him. Tim Shepherd was new to his unit, having been transferred with a few others when they got low on soldiers. He looked at the photo again and nodded his head while handing it to Tim. 

“Wow,” Tim grinned, “She’s a beauty, looks sort of like – “

“Greta Garbo, I know,” Nick smiled then put the photo back into his rucksack. 

“Well, a few of us got permission to go explore the town a bit and wondered if you might join us?”

Nick pondered momentarily what could possibly be special about a town blown to bits by shelling and gunfire. Regardless, he agreed then got his rifle and headed out with the rest. Just as he had expected, the town was nothing special but they still had fun exploring the buildings and trying to read the Italian signs. They found a coffee shop where they procured some cookies from a jar on the floor, then relaxed and pretended to be on exotic holiday. 

“Hey Nick, you have to come see this!” Tim was grinning from ear to ear as he lead the other men across the street into what turned out to be a tailor shop. 

Suits on hangers lined the walls and even dusty, Nick could tell they were very well made. A few of the guys started trying on suit jackets while Nick moved debris in search of a sewing machine. They had been invented in Italy after all so he hoped this tailor had a good one. He finally found it after some digging and tested it out, happy to see that not only did it work, but also it was top of the line. Someone offered to go get the things he’d been working on back at camp and he agreed. The sewing machine would shed hours from his work. While he waited he joined Tim in checking out the tailor’s work. Tim had removed his helmet and coat, modeling a jacket. The two of them were laughing but in the back of his mind Nick’s inner voice was telling him he should be more aware of his surroundings. They’d been gone for hours and were now completely alone, with no communication back to camp. He pushed his worries aside and started looking in drawers for things he could use. The tailor would obviously have no use for these things right now, and he did. A better pair of scissors, some spools of thread, and a package of stronger needles found their way into his pack. 

“Do you hear that?” Tim’s voice broke through the silence of the room. 

Nick paused to listen, having to strain to hear over the buzzing in his ears. He faintly heard in the background the all too familiar and frightening chink of a tank rolling closer, “Tim,” he said in a panicked voice, “Move away from the window!” 

His instructions came too late, as a loud whistle could be heard seconds before the building exploded around them. Tim’s body was blown back, hitting Nick and sending him sprawling headfirst into the wall. Debris fell down around them, covering them in pieces of brick and glass. Nick could see nothing around him, and soon after fell into unconsciousness. 

~*~

It was days before he woke up, finding himself in the same military hospital he’d left just before the explosion. 

Nick knew there was no way Tim survived; he had taken the full force of the blast with nothing on to protect him. Tim’s welfare became the least of his worries as he fully awoke and was hit by a wave of extreme pain and discomfort. A nurse was immediately at his side telling him he was ok, making sure he knew where he was. Just in case it was possible for him to forget this nightmare. 

The pain was so intense, Nick cried out just trying to breathe through it. The worst if it seemed to be in his arm, he felt like it was literally on fire. Upon looking down to the source of the pain he made the brutal discovery that the pain could not be from his arm, because it was no longer there. His left arm ended just below the elbow, all that remained was his bicep and some bandages. 

“Calm down,” the nurse instructed, watching his breathing increase to a panic. 

“What happened to my arm? Who told you it was alright to take my arm? What the hell is going on?” He yelled in an unreasonably loud tone, refusing to look at the stumpy end to his former limb. 

“The Doctor will explain everything,” the nurse rubbed his shoulder, trying to calm him so she wouldn’t have to sedate him. 

“No explanation could possibly make this better!” he screamed, thrashing in his bed. Tears were rolling down his face, as a Doctor finally appeared to tell him about his condition. In the blast his arm had been shattered, had become infected, and gangrenous, and had to be amputated. It was either his arm or his life. 

“It’s my fault Tim is dead,” he whispered, “You should have let me die.” Nick cried for hours, and by the end of it he wasn’t sure what he’d been crying for. Had it been because he blamed his own negligence for Tim’s death, or maybe he cried for his lost limb, or maybe they were really tears of happiness because above all the rest Nick knew that one thing was undeniably true... 

An injury was a one-way ticket home.