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Schofield finds a brief reprieve from the twelve-hour horror-fest of the past day underneath a surprisingly healthy tree in the middle of an actual warzone. Even through his delirious and concussed state, the irony isn’t lost on him as he gratefully collapses to the soft earth.
He started this thing sitting under a tree, and now he’ll end it that way. A few things are missing though that leave a hole the size of a shell crater in his chest. He’s got nothing with him any longer save for the picture of his sister and nieces; his pack’s been lost along the way and his helmet left in that building in Ecoust. That helmet probably wouldn’t even be worth a penny with the bullet hole that soldier had put in it. His gun remains unaccounted for, but it’s probably been left in that godforsaken town as well.
Also noticeably missing is Blake. Tom Blake, not Lieutenant Joseph Blake of the Second Devs. No, he’s safe. Schofield has been running like mad all across the countryside without time to process much more than what's been happening in the moment. It's not surprising that he's been somewhat forced to compartmentalize that Tom’s most likely dead, but now the whole of it hits him like that bullet in Ecoust.
There is no sleeping boy at his feet with his helmet pulled down to shield his eyes from the unnaturally bright overcast day. There’s no boy to try and cheer him up with stories or pick on him when he makes a stupid mistake like slicing his hand open on a barb. No one to pick him to share leave with. Schofield very well may get some leave after this whole ordeal, but it’s not the same—won’t be. He doesn’t even want the leave if he’s being honest. What he told Tom about having to leave his family each time was true; he can’t stand it. They might as well give the leave to someone else since it’ll be wasted on him.
When the sun starts to set, someone comes to check on Schofield. The day had begun and ended with the sun shining uninterrupted in the sky, and now a body blocks its warm glow on his face. A wave of déjà vu overcomes him, but he has to tell himself that it’s not happening again.
Standing tall in front of Schofield is Lieutenant Blake looking a bit more put together than he had when they first met hours earlier. Schofield takes a moment to just look at the older Blake standing there. He’s got something wrapped in a napkin held in one of his hands that Schofield hopes is food for him.
Beyond that, he notes that Lieutenant Blake appears taller where his brother had been shorter, face more angular where Tom had slightly more filled out cheeks. Their blue eyes are the same though, and it causes the crater in Schofield’s chest to ache.
Lieutenant Blake kneels in front of Schofield and offers a smile and the wrapped bundle. “Figured you might be hungry. When you’re finished with this, Medical wants to see you for your head and hand. You’ll be back off to your own people shortly, I’d imagine."
He doesn’t wait for Schofield to say anything to him in return—not that he was even prepared to. As the Lieutenant stands up and makes to walk back towards the medical tents, he stops to look back at him. “Thank you for telling me about Tom. It’s much better to hear it from a friend of his than from someone who’s just been made to write a letter.”
A friend. That’s what Tom was, after all. He was one of the few people Schofield could occupy silence with and have it not be weird. Except that Tom was more than a friend in the end.
There isn’t much to get away with in a warzone trench with rats and decaying matter in every direction. It happened when Tom got transferred to Schofield’s company after the Somme, after they lost so many men and boys. Quiet places like the back of the line with above ground tents and half-alive trees were hard to come by, and finding the time and seclusion from the other men who also wanted a bit of quiet and shade could get difficult.
But Tom’s gone now, so it doesn’t really matter, does it? Who cares if Schofield can’t find anywhere secluded from the other men? He’ll have seclusion at night when he’s up thinking about how the last time Tom gripped at his hand was when he was dying thanks to that no-good German Tom hadn’t wanted to kill on sight. Kindness gets you nowhere when it comes to the enemy.
Schofield decides to save the rest of the bread for his journey back to the old front. He doesn’t know if they’ll make him walk or offer to drive him, but he hopes against the former. The thought of that journey again is enough to make him nauseous.
At the aid tent, they sit him down and stitch up the gash in his hand before looking at the back of his head. The stitches in his hand hurt but at least it’ll be closed to the world. Maybe he won’t accidentally plunge it into a dead guy this time.
His head wound smarts a bit more than his hand as the medic dabs some water at the hair that’s glued down to his scalp with blood. The wound is still bleeding a bit, so the medic patches him up with a few pads of gauze for now. The bleeding may have mostly stopped, Schofield thinks, but his head feels like it’s been run over by a tank and trampled on by a few dozen horses. All he wants to do is sleep.
When the medic is finished poking and prodding at his head, he lets him lie down on an empty cot on the condition that he cooperate when he wakes him up in a few hours. Schofield’s so desperate to close his eyes that he relents almost immediately.
Asleep, his dreams are haunted by the woman and the baby he met in Ecoust, along with a German that chases after him with a too-long bayonet. It’s the same one that killed Tom, Schofield’s sure of it, but his legs don’t carry him away from the dream apparition fast enough. Just when he thinks that the pilot is going to catch him, Schofield looks over and sees that no, the pilot has skewered Tom again and he’s dying where Schofield can’t reach him because his legs won’t move. He doesn’t even have his rifle to kill the pilot this time, so Tom continues to get stabbed. No sound comes from Schofield’s mouth despite how he tries to scream.
It’s still dark when the medic wakes him. Schofield tumbles back to reality with a hoarse cry stuck in his throat. He doesn’t know if he’s been screaming, but his throat hurts like it has been. Though he thinks that could also be the dust from the mine explosion finally catching up to him as well.
The medic doesn’t offer any condolences or ask if he’s okay—he knows he’s not. None of them are. Instead, the medic gives him a pat on the shoulders as he inspects the back of Schofield’s head. When he’s given the okay to fall back asleep, Schofield finds that he can’t. He doesn’t want to close his eyes and see Tom repeatedly stabbed, see that poor French woman and the baby she found starving and killed over and over, so he looks out towards the hills and where they meet the night sky under the full moon. A full moon and a clear sky sure would’ve helped last night, Schofield thinks, cynically.
Most of the men who were taken to the medic station this morning have either been transported to the hospital or have died. There are a few moans here and there, but Schofield thinks that he likely saved a lot more boys from being here with his message. Still, though, he thinks, it could have been a lot more if Tom had been there with me. He wouldn’t have let me be so stupid and lose so much time by being knocked down the stairs by a bloody poor-aimed German.
If Tom were here, he’d tell Schofield to shut up, that there was no point in ruminating on what-ifs and could-have-beens. But Tom’s not here. Schofield left him six miles outside of Ecoust almost dead with a medic from another division who said he’d do what he could. Schofield only left because Tom told him to, told him to save his brother.
You don’t survive a wound like his though, Schofield knows you don’t. He’s seen people die of a lot less out here. (He’s also seen people survive a lot worse.) Tom had been so pale, his breathing so shallow. Schofield feels it so deeply in his bones that Tom is dead that he told his brother so. Though he can imagine that Tom’s brother would forgive him if the result were the opposite.
Someone coughs from across the tent, drawing Schofield from his thoughts. He tries turning his head to see if he can identify the source, but his head pounds too much. Soon enough it stops, leaving the tent in relative silence once more.
If Schofield looks out to the horizon, he thinks that maybe he can see the lightening sky from the pre-dawn sun, but it’s very possible that he’s begun to hallucinate from his conclusion.
For the next few hours, Schofield drifts in and out of dreamless sleep. The knife-wielding pilot doesn’t bother him or Tom in his dreams again that night, but he has no doubt that the man will be back. His nightmares are never far away as it is during the day let alone at night.
An hour after dawn when Schofield finally managed to fall asleep for around the fifth time, a hand on his shoulder startles him awake. For a moment in the early morning haze and sleep thick eyes, Schofield could swear that it’s Tom knelt over his cot with his dark hair and blue eyes.
“Tom?” Schofield says before he can stop himself. His mind catches up to the present as soon as he hears a low rueful chuckle. Not Tom.
Besides the fact that Tom’s likely dead, the two of them weren’t in the habit of calling each other by their first names out on the line. It’s too conspicuous and most men didn’t do it; to stick out might prove disastrous.
Lieutenant Blake, Tom’s brother who remarkably does look like his younger in some aspects, comes into focus after a few moments of blinking away the sleepy blurriness.
“Sorry,” he mumbles while pushing himself up onto his elbows. His head isn’t much better than when he tried to turn it in the middle of the night, but he has determination on his side this time.
A grimace must still pass over his face though because Blake’s eyebrows draw together. Schofield thinks distantly that if it truly had been Tom standing there, he might have been tempted to reach out a thumb and smooth the wrinkle. There’s no sense in letting age catch up to beauty, is there?
“How’s your head?” Lieutenant Blake asks, though he likely knows the answer already.
“Like a few dozen horses trampled over it. What’s going on, are they transporting me back to my company?” Schofield needs to find out what happened to Tom. He needs to try and confirm his suspicions, but Blake doesn’t need to know because Blake doesn’t need to get his hopes up. Best to keep them low.
Blake doesn’t nod though, instead, he tells Schofield that he’s being transferred to the hospital back behind their line to have an actual doctor take a better look at him and watch him for a few days. “General Mackenzie will let your company leader know. You’ll be on the next transport in an hour or so; they’ll come fetch you. Rest up Schofield, you deserve it for all you’ve done.” The genuineness of what Blake tells Schofield triggers a swell of emotion that he’s too tired to fight off. A few tears slip out, and as quick as he tries to brush them away, Blake must still see them.
In a move that makes his head sufficiently swim, Blake pulls Schofield into a hug, shushing his quiet sobs. “You did everything you could. You did everything right.”
“I turned my back for ten seconds. If he had just listened to me…” Schofield doesn’t know if Blake was initially referring to his brother, but the thought gets voiced regardless. It’s the same thought he’s been ruminating on all night, and it feels freeing to have it out in the open.
He can feel Blake tighten his grip at the details, but he doesn’t ask Schofield anything else about the event. He offers nothing but the same placations of doing everything right. It’s just not enough right now.
When he pulls away, Blake reaches into his breast pocket for a slip of paper. “This is my mother’s address if you still want to write her personally. I’m quite sure she’ll be very pleased by it, hearing from someone who knew Tom so well. I’ve got a meeting, so I have to go, but it was good to meet you, to learn all you did for us. Good luck, Schofield.”
Schofield finds that he can’t do much but nod as an attempt to say, “Nice to mee you. I did what I had to. I’ll write your mother.” Words now would do nothing but catch in his throat.
It seems that it’s enough when Schofield reaches for the strip of paper and stares at it for a long moment. When he looks up, Lieutenant Blake is gone, leaving only a few medical personnel to tend to the wounded men.
The trip to the hospital seems to take too long and not long enough. Too long in the sense that he’s stuck in a transport truck with a killer headache and way too many holes in the roads. Not long enough because it’s possible he may find out whether Tom made it or not to a hospital. Surely if he had made it back to the line, he would have been sent to the hospital by now.
Tom’s almost certain to be dead, but seeing his name written on a deceased casualty list will make it real. It may very well break Schofield after the past two days he’s had.
The hospital Schofield is taken to can hardly be considered one if he’s being honest. It does have doctors and more medical equipment than the tent on the line had, so there’s that at least.
The hospital looks to be a recommissioned chateau from some wealthy family who either left of their own volition or were forced out by the British military. It looks like there are beds covering every conceivable inch of flooring, whether it’s for patients or for operating tables.
Schofield counts his lucky stars that he’s not one of the few individuals being carried in on a stretcher and that he’s walking on his own two legs. He casts a furtive look around at some of the men’s’ faces around him and notes how tired they all look. Odds are that he looks exactly like them, bandaged hand, broken head and bags under his eyes big enough for a month's holiday to the U.S.
The nurse looking everyone over smiles politely at him when she looks at the medic’s note from the front. Directing him off toward the noncritical wing, Schofield goes where he’s told and meets an officer who hands him a fresh pair of hospital clothes and directs him to a bed to wait on someone to look at his head more closely.
In all honesty, he feels a bit silly to be here when so many of the other men here have been shot or shelled. He should have denied Lieutenant Blake’s requests to take a few days, just gone back to his own division and dealt with his stupid brain like any other soldier. Any other soldier would have turned back as soon as he was told what the mission was.
The doctor comes by at some point, Schofield’s not sure how much time passes. His head is poked and prodded some more, and the doctor this time decides that stitches may be in his best interest.
A nurse comes to his aid with scissors to cut back some of his hair, as well as with a needle and thread. The process itself isn’t exactly painless, but Schofield’s so tired that he lets her work, only wincing once or twice while she works.
“This should have been closed up sooner. Why didn’t someone fix this when it happened?”
He almost wants to laugh, but he just grunts as she pulls a thread taut. “Wasn’t exactly in a position to do so. I’ll remember that for next time.” Schofield’s sure that she’s glaring at him where he can’t see, but if he can’t see it, he can’t be sure.
The final scissor snip of the thread signaling her completion comes a few minutes late. “All done. You’ll have a slight bald spot for a little while, but you’ll live. Do you need anything else right now?”
On a whim, he asks, “Would you know who I can ask about whether a certain soldier’s passed through here? I’m looking for a friend, but I’m not sure if he’d be dead or alive.”
She thinks for a moment and gathers her things in her arms. “What’s the name? I’ll check for you.”
Schofield’s heart suddenly starts beating way too fast. He’s about to have all ambiguousness put to rest. Schofield’s going to have to sit here for a few days with the weight of an unwritten letter at the back of his mind.
“It’s Lance Corporal Thomas Blake. He would have come in here the day before last, stab wound.” The nurse nods and walks off, hands sorting her particulars back into the pockets of her apron as she goes.
The wait is absolutely agonizing. He’s dead. He’s dead, Schofield tells himself. There’s no way for Tom to have survived that kind of wound. Schofield saw the knife for God’s sake. There is no way.
A voice from behind spooks him and turning reveals the same nurse as before. She’s got a piece of paper folded in her hands. The color drains from his face and his fingertips feel suddenly cold.
“Lance Corporal Blake is in ward 12, condition stable as of this morning. He’s—” Schofield doesn’t wait for her to finish speaking before he’s up, albeit somewhat wobbly, and walking back towards the main atrium. All he needs is someone to tell him where ward 12 is.
Distantly he thinks he can hear the nurse calling out his name, but Schofield’s got a one-track mind to find ward 12 and to find Tom.
He asks a passing orderly who points him up the stairs and to the right. The stairs must have been the grand statement piece before the war, marble now covered in rugs. He takes them two at a time.
Much like the burst of energy that Schofield had found after being knocked out, he finds just enough energy to push himself up the stairs and through a doorway that has a makeshift ‘12’ written on it.
The ward looks like it runs the length of a ballroom with too many beds to count. A full cacophonous murmur of voices, both patients and staff fill the space just loud enough to not drive one insane from the quiet.
Schofield leans against the doorjamb partly to catch his breath, partly to survey the room to see if he can spot Tom from here. His head pounds at the sudden leave he had taken from his own quarters, but he tries to push past it.
The shouts of “Mr. Schofield!” get louder as the nurse bounds up the stairs behind him. Schofield lets her catch up to him this time, nowhere to go. She does shout one more time at him as she draws closer, which causes a few curious heads to look up in his direction.
“You left before I finished speaking with you. I wanted to say that he may not be up to visitors, he’s been in and out of consciousness and is on quite a bit of morphine for the pain. I remember him coming in now, it was quite a bad wound.” The nurse looks marginally peeved about chasing Schofield the length of the makeshift hospital, and he’ll give her that. The shit she deals with hour by hour would make anyone somewhat short-tempered.
“I’m his best mate, he’ll want to see me,” he insists. The nurse sighs and sweeps her hand forward into the room.
“He’s towards that end if you must. And be mindful of the other patients, please.”
Schofield’s gone before she finishes the end of her sentence again, so the last few words fade away under the din of the room.
Once he’s in the large room, there are a lot more beds than he had initially thought. Schofield walks in the direction that the nurse told him to scan the heads and faces of the numerous soldiers. Once, he wonders if any of these boys are victims of his slowness in delivering the general’s message. Hopefully not.
About a third of the way down into the room, Schofield hears a somewhat confused, “Scho?”
Whipping his head around, Schofield spots a familiar mop of dark hair and a face so familiar he could fall to his knees right there. The head lifted from the pillows to look at him is still pale, no doubt from the blood loss and pain, but the color’s somewhat returned to his cheeks since the last time Schofield saw him.
The choked sob that escapes Schofield’s throat is largely ignored from the surrounding individuals, a fact that Schofield is immensely grateful for. Surely he had gotten all the crying out already; Tom didn’t need to see him like this.
Schofield only stumbles a step or two over to Tom’s bedside and then falls into the chair set up for the nurses and other orderlies. Tom’s gaze follows him the whole time, most likely in awe that Schofield’s there. In truth, Schofield’s doing the same because he really can’t believe that Tom is there and not in some shallow grave outside Ecoust.
There’s a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of Tom’s mouth when Schofield looks up from smoothing out his shirt. “Hi... What are you doing here?”
“Oh you know, just taking some deserved r & r. Yourself?”
Tom snorts and then promptly winces from the pull of his stitches. Schofield can’t see the wound under his hospital shirt and bandages, but he imagines it isn’t pretty. “Yeah same actually,” he answers in pure Tom fashion.
The two of them sit in silence for a few moments just taking each other in. Schofield hadn’t let himself hope for this to be an option. He hadn’t let himself get his hopes up that maybe those medics had been able to save him in time to get Tom to actual surgeons. The odds were just too low.
Against his better judgment, Schofield reaches for Tom’s hand that’s closest and clenches it tightly like he had that afternoon. “How do you feel?”
Tom barely hesitates, eyes flitting back and forth from Schofield to their hands. “I can say I’ve been better. This stab wound hurts like a bitch though, believe it or not.”
Try as he might not to, Schofield feels his throat tighten against the promise of tears. He breathes harshly through his nose for as long as he can, though he has no doubt that Tom’s caught on by now. “What are you in for, Will? Or have they just let you loose to see me?” Tom’s use of Schofield’s first name is still jarring in such a public setting.
The attempt at levity is greatly appreciated on Schofield’s end. “As it happens,“ he clears his throat before continuing, “I’ve got some stitches as well. Got the hand all fixed up and my head put back together.”
The little color in Tom’s cheeks dissipate and Schofield has flashbacks to holding him outside of the barn. “’Put back together’? How did it come apart?”
The event of him being shot has become a little blurry, but he remembers the gist of it well enough to retell. The host of questions that’ll come from it will no doubt cause concern.
“After I made it to Ecoust, I shot at a soldier up in the second story window of some building. When I went up to make sure he was dead, he shot at my helmet and knocked me properly down the stairs. Blacked out for a good bit of time I think, because when I woke up it was dark and the town church was on fire.”
Tom’s eyes grow wider as Schofield’s story progresses and he can’t really blame him. After he left Tom, Schofield fumbled at every step of the way. It probably wouldn’t even be too far from the truth to say that he stumbled the entire way when he was with Tom. The only difference is that no one was there to pick him up after Tom left.
“Will… you’re okay though?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just got a bit knocked around is all; I’ll be fine.” His tone is quieter than before, a change to the playful cadence of a few minutes prior. Schofield squeezes Tom’s hand too to drive his point home.
Tom nods and cracks a hint of a smile that does wonders for that quickly closing crater in Schofield’s chest. “He didn’t come after you with a knife I take it?”
Schofield can’t help the smile that spreads to his own face. Tom’s smiles were always like that, annoyingly contagious. “No, I got him better than he got me, I’d say. I’ll let you have all the glory when it comes to war stories."
“Yeah, you do that.”
A comfortable silence settles over the two of them just like it always has. It’s such a small thing, being able to share silence with someone and have it not feel awkward. The thought of losing it, of missing out on such an important connection is unthinkable.
“So were you able to make it in time though?”
Schofield debates on how much he wants to reveal to Tom right now, how much he wants to retroactively worry him. He decides on a little with a touch of his best attempt at lighthearted humor sprinkled throughout.
“Barely, it feels like. I lost my gun at some point. I think I went over a waterfall in Ecoust? That part’s a bit blurry still. I do think your brother thinks you’re dead though. We might want to get word to him at some point that you’re not.”
“You told Joe I was dead?” Clearly the attempt at humor doesn’t stop Tom from hearing that last part. Schofield winces at the accusation in his voice.
“The medic was helping but there was so much blood, Tom. You passed out and your pulse was so weak. I couldn’t tell him that you might be alive because I couldn’t let myself believe it.”
Just like Tom heard Schofield say that his brother thought he was dead, he also hears his own first name slip out of Schofield’s mouth. They’re both letting their emotions get way too tangled up in this mess, and this isn’t the time or place.
“So, are you going to trade away this medal for a bottle of wine too?” Tom asks instead of following up Schofield’s last statement to try and lighten the mood.
Tom actually manages to drag a disbelieving laugh out of him with that question. “I suppose it’ll depend on if I get thirsty again. What about you?”
“What about me?” he asks, clearly confused.
Schofield wants to shake Tom for being so thick. ‘What about me?’ As if Tom didn’t deserve awards of his own. “Tom, you’ve got at least two awards in it for yourself. You’d have got one for just pulling me out of that mine, not to mention that you’ll get one for being injured in an act of valor. Just don’t trade yours for wine like me.”
“You think?”
“I could just about smack you over the head right now, you know?” Schofield scoffs and sits up in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief.
Tom’s eyes sparkle with mirth at the exasperation that Schofield feels. Good, at least one of them is getting amusement from it. “Do it across the back do we can have matching stitches, yeah?”
He meets Tom’s question with a thoughtful head tilt as if he were pretending to consider the offer. “There’s a thought. Don’t think you’ll get a medal if you’re wounded by one of your own men though.”
“You’ll get leave too though, not just a medal probably. Just think, two things wasted on you.”
On one hand, Tom’s not wrong about that. He’s got nowhere to go for leave so why would he need it? Well, typically he would have nowhere to go. “When do you get out of here?”
The seemingly abrupt change in topics clearly confuses Tom. “I don’t know. I’ve got a nice big hole in my side.”
“Well, then I’ll just spend my leave here. Make myself useful. Make sure you don’t get yourself into too much more trouble.” His statement is met by what Schofield is discovering to be a classic Blake family look of concern.
When a furrow appears between Tom’s eyebrows, Schofield does reach out a hand and smooth out the skin there. It’s a somewhat risky move with this many people around, but at the same time, nearly everyone in the room is doing something different, and they have no time or care for one soldier offering comfort to another more injured soldier.
“You know your brother does that too. Must be a family thing. If you’re not careful, you’ll get permanent frown lines and I’ll be age and beauty.”
Tom smacks Schofield’s hand away like he’s caused him personal offense. “Oi, you dick. Bold of you to think that you’ll ever surpass my looks.”
“Keep scrunching your eyebrows like that and I guess we’ll see, yeah? Get some rest, I’ll be here when you wake up this time, whether you like it or not. I promise.”
“You’re downright crazy, Scho.” Now that he's mentioned it, Tom looks to be fighting a losing battle against his eyelids even as Schofield finishes his promise. An eerie sense of déjà vu settles over him in that moment as he sits next to Tom’s prone body. He calms himself by watching the rise and fall of his chest as it gradually evens out. He watches the warmth of Tom’s cheeks and thinks about how smooth they always feel despite almost never having to shave. He supposes it’s the youth still in him.
The thought of Tom’s youth being snatched away in death, of all the firsts he’d never have because of it makes Schofield almost want to be sick. Granted going to war provides a lot of firsts of another kind entirely, Tom would have missed out on pathetically mundane activities like having a real job or owning a home of his own. He would have missed living with a family he actually got to choose over one he was given through being born; missed living with Schofield by his side. Perhaps most devastatingly, he would have missed the eventuality of world peace that was surely going to come from this war to end all wars. A world peace that he had fought to bring to fruition.
And maybe he still has a chance at that happiness now that he’s laying safe in a hospital bed. He’ll likely be sent back to England once he’s stable enough to be moved to finish out his convalescence in an actual hospital, not some makeshift facility taking advantage of a requisitioned chateau. A hospital that will actually supervise his recovery rather than simply making sure he doesn’t die. With any luck, Tom will be out for the remainder of the war.
Despite what Tom wants and what he thinks is best, Schofield will use whatever leave he accumulates to be with him. They might not have the relative exclusivity of a half-dead tree at the end of the line, but they still have the opportunity for meaningful respite and a quiet escape from the war.
Schofield sits watching Tom for maybe fifteen minutes before he decides he needs to tell Tom’s brother that he isn’t dead. Perhaps with any luck, his brother will be so angry that he’ll never wish to see Schofield again, even when the war’s over.
He also needs to write Tom’s mother, not to tell her that he thought her son was dead a few hours ago, but to tell her what’s happened, how much of a hero he is. It’s the least he can do.
One of the passing nurses has a few sheets that she lets him have along with a pencil. Schofield steals a small book off the windowsill behind him that probably belongs to the soldier in the bed next to Tom. The other guy looks to be sleeping anyway, so it’s not as if he’ll miss it.
Schofield gets to work. The letter to Tom’s brother reads along the lines of ‘I thought Tom was dead, but it turns out I was thankfully wrong and he’s alive and pretty okay’. He doesn’t say sorry for sobbing all over his uniform, though he almost feels like he owes it to the Lieutenant. Schofield will blame it on the concussion if he ever sees him again.
The letter to Tom’s mother takes more thought. He tells her who he is, first off, along with how he knows her son, followed by what happened. Of the utmost importance is to make sure she knows that as of now, her son is okay and stable. Schofield makes sure not to include any key details of the mission or locations that’ll just be censored, and he makes sure that Mrs. Blake knows exactly how much of a hero her son is. When he’s satisfied, he hands them to the mail courier who’s conveniently making the rounds.
Tom sleeps for a good few hours. At one point, Schofield’s doctor comes up the stairs with his nurse in tow, an amused tilt gracing the doctor's mouth. Despite the exasperation of the nurse, the doctor tells him he’s free to camp out here until lights out. He even reaches into his bag to fish out a cheap novel for him to pass the time.
“If your head doesn’t hurt too bad when you try to read, have a go.” Then he checks the stitches, does a few eye tracking and light sensitivity tests, and he’s on his way. The nurse stares at him for a few seconds before she also leaves in a huff. Schofield internally celebrates his small victory.
Schofield must fall asleep at some point with his feet propped up against the edge of Tom’s bed because he startles awake as the sky starts to dim. For a moment, he wonders if it was a nightmare that he was unaware of that woke him. A moment later he realizes that it’s Tom’s arms that are jerking and must have knocked against his legs, a sharp moan cutting through the ambient noise in the room.
Tom startles awake when Schofield lays a hand on his shoulder. He should know better in reality, but he’s never handled Tom in distress very well.
For a few moments, Tom appears to take in his surroundings and get his bearings. He looks genuinely startled when he lays eyes on Schofield. Alright, so not exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for. Tom’s head falls back against the pillows, defeated, and a grimace passes over his face.
“Do you need more morphine?” Schofield asks because he told him he’d be helpful, didn’t he?
Tom grunts out an affirmation, so Schofield goes in search of the nurse who had been around a couple of times throughout the day. She seems a lot more pleasant than his own nurse, but he figures that might be because Tom didn’t run halfway across the hospital from her and set up camp next to another patient.
She only gives Tom a small dose to take the edge off because he’ll have to eat soon, but even then, only some broth. Apparently, Tom is to be on a soft foods diet for the foreseeable future. Tom must see the amused grin on Schofield’s own face, because he groans out an, “Oh shut it.”
“Hey,” Schofield bites back, “I didn’t say anything.”
When the pain’s been dulled, Tom’s eyes find Schofield’s again from where his head lays propped against the pillows.
“What?” Schofield asks, unable to help himself.
“Hmm? Oh nothing. I just didn’t expect you to be here when I woke up, is all.” His words sound wistful, but that may well be the morphine.
“I told you I would be. I wasn’t lying when I say I’d be here until they kicked me out.”
Tom goes silent for a moment, apparently thinking through his next words. When they come out, his tone is significantly more vulnerable than Schofield would have anticipated. “I just thought I’d dreamt you. That there was no way you could have been here.”
Had the two of them been alone in that moment, Schofield might have leaned forward and put all of Tom’s doubts to rest with a sound kiss to everywhere he could reach. Having to settle for the very public area of a hospital, Schofield reaches forward to grip at Tom’s hand tightly, sweeping a thumb across his knuckles to reassure him of his presence.
“Well I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere until they make me. Even then you might not be able to get rid of me.” Tom smiles and lets his eyes drift shut.
Some time after they’ve both been given food, Tom cants his head over to look at Schofield where the latter is lazily scribbling his thoughts onto a spare piece of paper that he hadn’t used in his letter writing. “Where did you get that?”
Schofield looks up once he’s finished with the sentence he was writing. “One of the nurses had a few extra sheets. This is leftover from writing your mother and brother.”
“I’m sorry, you did what?”
Perhaps Schofield should have told him differently. “Well, I told you that I told your brother you were dead. I thought I owed him that apology. I think it’s safe to say I can never see him again because I will never be able to live that down.”
The look of panic still hasn’t left Tom’s face, so Schofield wagers that that’s not what’s of concern to him. “Yeah, and my mother?”
Oh. That. “I told your brother I wanted to write to your mother and tell her what happened personally. He gave me the address.”
“And since I’m not dead, what did you tell her?”
The visceral reaction that Tom seems to have towards the news that his mother’s about to receive a letter from Schofield of all people is a little unexpected, to say the least. Because Schofield is only the best and most supporting brother in arms/friend/whatever they were to each other in a more intimate sense, Schofield takes that moment to mess with him a bit.
“Well, I told her who I was and how I knew you. About how we met and became friends.” He pauses here for dramatic effect and bites down on the inside of his lip to prevent himself from breaking.
“Scho,” Tom gets out half horrified.
Schofield leans in closer so he’s not as limited as to what he can say. “Was I not supposed to give her a rundown of our entire relationship so that she would know why I was writing her? Was I not supposed to tell her about the tree and what we sometimes get up to under it?”
Tom’s eyes meet his where they’re closer and Schofield knows he's been found out now. From this close, they're able to read each other like an open book. “Oh you lying piece of shit.”
Schofield falls back into his chair, properly cackling for the first time in a few days. A nurse quiets him from a few beds over but he ignores it. “God, you should’ve seen the look on your face just now. Do you not have any faith in me?”
A mirrored grin appears on Tom’s face and Schofield thinks not for the first time that he would trek across no-man’s land a hundred times if it meant that Tom would never stop smiling like that. The way that his grin spreads so wide that his eyes crinkle around the edges and his nose scrunches just so. Beauty indeed.
And then something that Schofield hadn’t anticipated comes out of Tom’s mouth. “Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t because that would have made Sunday dinners a bit awkward when we got home.”
“Oh no no no. I will never be able to be at your house for Sunday dinner because I’ll never be able to face your brother again. You have my word on that.”
“Oh, come on, Scho.” They’re back to their more familiar banter, not worrying about whether they’re overheard because their conversation is perfectly amicable now. “I’m sure that Joe will understand and probably won’t be too picky about the change in news.”
Schofield runs his uninjured hand down the length of his face. “I was a mess in front of him and may have sobbed into his uniform a bit. I will never live that down, especially now.”
“Come off it; I’m sure he understands. How could you not be broken up about me anyway?”
Schofield gets that Tom’s trying to lighten the mood, but he doesn’t get it, not entirely. “Tom I’m serious. If he doesn’t already think something is up after the show I gave him, he’ll know for sure if I go over to your house for a bloody family dinner.”
This silences Tom, and he appears to be going over a few thoughts in his head. “If you think he could know then it’s likely he already does.”
Now it’s Schofield’s turn to widen his eyes in horror. Is Tom serious or is he fielding Schofield’s own joke back to him?
“You’re not serious.”
“He caught me with a boy from a village over about five years back in a somewhat compromising position. We don’t talk about it too much, but he never said anything about it to our mother.”
Tom’s statement hangs in the air between them for a few moments while Schofield sits in shock. He wonders how perceptive Lieutenant Blake truly is. “Well, now I most definitely can never see your brother again because that’s too much pressure to see how much it’s possible to get away with.”
It’s Tom who cackles this time and grips at Schofield’s arm where he’s leaned closer to the former on the bed again. “I hate you,” he murmurs, the smile on his face clearly saying otherwise.
A warmth spreads throughout Schofield’s chest, effectively closing the crater there. He changes his mind; he’d trek across no-man’s land two hundred times if it meant this boy could always be this happy.
“No, you don’t.”
A day and a half later, Schofield is sent back to the front with his men-- well, with almost all of his men. Tom stays behind, though his doctor thinks it'll be okay to transport him back to an English hospital in a week or so. That bit of news gives Schofield renewed hope that Tom will outlast the war. He has to outlast it now.
Upon arrival to the line, Schofield's sergeant offers him a pat on the back and a "job well done" before he's off to do the next thing on his list. One thing that Schofield has never seemed to overcome is the feeling that the officers and higher-ups just didn't care about any of them. He had thought their mission to save 1600 men might have meant that that narrative was false, but perhaps not.
A letter from his family is awaiting him back in the makeshift dugout with his fellow enlisted men, but he can't bring himself to read it. Instead, he smooths it out and tucks it into his interior jacket pocket for another time. What exactly would be the point in seeing the words and knowing that it's all so trivial out here? To cheer him up and give him hope? Their words aren't going to do that for him just now.
A few of the men in his company ask how his assignment went, followed by asking where Tom went. With as succinct of answers as he's able to, Schofield tells them with little room to ask follow-up questions. The time passes.
Eight days after his return to the line, Schofield's summoned to the same dugout where he and Tom had been told the particulars of their mission. This time, however, it's only him and his captain who's in the process of filling out paperwork. He hardly even looks up at Schofield.
With little fanfare, Schofield is informed that he's been put on rotation home for the foreseeable future with no return date to service. The news is just surprising enough that Schofield doesn’t have anything to say save for a, "Yes sir. Thank you."
Schofield's informed he'll be on the next transport truck behind their lines and to pack his things. The truth is though, everything that Schofield considers his is on his person or back home where it won't get lost in the trenches of France. The only things here are military issues equipment that he's been given after he lost it all in Ecoust. Nevertheless, Schofield nods and makes his leave.
A few of his company members congratulate him, and a few of them look upon him with disdain. He doesn't know many of them anymore. There was a time, perhaps before the battle of the Somme where he tried to get on with everyone. That time seems to have passed with his friends who died on the banks of that God-forsaken river. When these replacements arrived, he learned their names but stopped there for most, except Tom.
Now Schofield wonders how he'll track down what hospital they'll have transferred Tom to. It probably won't take too much to find out, after all, they are from the same company, and command typically respects that. Distantly, Schofield wonders how long he can hold off going home before his family finds out he's been put on leave. Most likely by the time they send another letter and have it returned to them with his new orders.
With a lighter heart than he has had in a long time, Schofield boards the transport truck and watches as the British trench line disappears from view.
Schofield finds the hospital that Tom now resides in after a few days of being back in England. It's just south of London away from the noise and congestion of the cars and coal-powered chaos, while still being close enough to consider itself a part of the landscape.
Tom continues to do better every day that Schofield sees him, to the point where he's now able to take short walks around the ward. Every day that Schofield sees Tom breathing with color in his cheeks is a good one.
As it turns out, it takes Tom's mother exactly two and a half weeks to figure out that her younger son is back in England, albeit confined to a hospital bed. She comes marching in one day escorted by a nurse-- who quickly disappears-- to Tom's bedside where Schofield still holds his vigil, only this time in civilian clothes.
Schofield's in the middle of reading a book to Tom that he picked up on his way over that morning that's just interesting enough to keep them from spending the day dozing.
The sound of heels echoing down the hallway doesn't alert the two men at first because it's not exactly an uncommon sound between nurses' heels and military officers' shoes. No, what alerts them is the sudden cessation of these echoes in the doorway of Tom's room.
Tom glances up, his eyes growing wide enough that Schofield trails off from the sentence he had been reading. Schofield turns his head, book momentarily forgotten, and sees a shorter woman with a bob of dark curly hair. She's still got her overcoat on, her gloves clutched in one hand, and a look on her face as if she's about to cry. A crease appears in her eyebrows and Schofield instantly realizes that this must be Tom's mother; he should know by that damn Blake expression.
Tom only needs to whisper a simple, "Mum?" before Mrs. Blake is across the room and giving Tom an awkward half-hug where he's sat up against the few pillows he's acquired.
Mrs. Blake lets out a sob, and Schofield watches as Tom's fingers tighten where they clutch at her shoulder blades.
"What are you doing all the way out here? I was told you knew I was okay." Tom's voice has returned to its normal pitch, though he hasn't taken his widened eyes off of her.
"I received that letter from your friend and then nothing from you for weeks. I understand you can't tell your dear mother everything, but a word actually from you, or your brother for that matter, would have been nice. Your brother finally told me who to ask about where you'd likely be once you came home."
Schofield breathes a sigh of relief that his letter clearly made it to Tom's brother alright and that it didn't get lost in the inevitable chaos. For all the knows though, maybe it did get lost, and Mrs. Blake was the one to inform him of the contrary news.
Tom's apologies to his mother don't seem to be doing anything for her agitation, and Schofield gets that. He imagines that'll be how his own mother reacts when he finally sees her again.
In order to abstain from making a conspicuous exit from Tom's bedside to give them a semblance of privacy, Schofield busies himself with flipping through the book they had just been reading. He's not reading too closely as to spoil the plot, but just enough so that he's not listening in on their conversation. He only tunes back in when he hears Tom calling out to him.
"Scho?" Schofield's head jumps up and sees both sets of Blake eyes looking over at him. He notices both mother and son do look similar side by side.
"This is Will Schofield; he's the one who saved my life. He's the one who wrote you about what happened."
Mrs. Blake peers over at Schofield for a few moments before rounding the bed and pulling him into a hug befitting of someone who did a lot more than he can openly claim credit for.
The hug is warm, and when Mrs. Blake releases him from her embrace, his face is warm, and Tom is grinning up at him from his bed.
"Thank you for being there for my Tom. I know most men wouldn't have done what you did and continue to do, so thank you."
Schofield finds that he can't do much more than nod at the commendations, speechless as to what he could say. What did normal people say when this happened? 'You're welcome? It was the least I could do?' No matter what, Tom will be sure to harass him about it later.
Later brings laughter and stern admonitions to be more respectful of their surroundings from the nursing staff. Of course, this only introduces a further onslaught of giggles. It's such a pure feeling that Schofield forgets that he has to leave at the end of the night like always. He has to go back to a flat he's renting with his army pay for the time being.
Every night when he goes home to his too small one-bedroom flat, he sees where he's folded up his uniform and bags, lurking in the corner and patiently waiting for him. The horrors and memories don't wait for him when he sleeps though, leaving Schofield to wake up alone, panting and sweating. He's only alone for the time being; Tom's doctor said that if he can work up the strength to make two consecutive laps around the ward, he'll sign his release papers.
Tom and Schofield have spent time talking about where Tom will go when he's released from the hospital. Will he travel immediately North back to his family's home? Back to his mother? Schofield has floated the idea that he come rest for a little while longer at the flat that he's leasing. They deserve private and quiet time away from ailing people, don't they? Tom had called Schofield a dog for what he had been implying.
Now that Tom's actually seen his mother again though and witnessed the tearful reunion, Schofield's unsure of what Tom will choose. As much as he knows what he wants Tom to pick, he can't force the other boy's hand.
As he finally succumbs to sleep that night, Schofield prays for his mind to grant both him and Tom a small mercy.
With determination on his side, Tom makes the two-lap route by the end of the following week. Schofield is there the entire time as a crutch and motivator, but it's the thought of being autonomous again, Tom tells him, that really drives him.
The day that he makes the two laps, Tom tells Schofield that he wants to go back to his flat before making the journey home. Despite his effort not to, Schofield's face breaks into a wide grin, and it takes all of his willpower not to pull Tom into a hug in the middle of the ward.
It's several things that have been building that makes Schofield fill with pride: it's Tom finally taking charge of his own recovery; it's watching the nurses flirt with Tom and him making polite but pointed indications that he's not interested; it's that Tom and him are going to be alone together for the first time in six months. Truly alone, and not just sitting away under a tree or trekking across seemingly endless miles of open fields. He really does his best to school his emotions while others are around.
Once the doctor makes his rounds, he wants to see Tom complete the laps for himself before he gives the official okay. Schofield thinks it's a clever way to really up the requirement by a few stamina points. Tom does it though, practically vibrating with excitement at both what he's able to do and what this means for his immediate future: freedom.
The stairs to Schofield's flat take them a few minutes because Tom has to stop to catch his breath twice, but then they're up, and Schofield's holding open the door so that Tom can get through. The doctor gave Tom a cane to aid in his walking, but Schofield can see him ditching it in a few days.
Following Tom into the flat, Schofield realizes just how bare it is; how little he had collected from the weeks he'd been here. His uniform still sits in the corner, taunting him.
"I know it's not terribly much," Schofield says when he's shut the door, "But as you know, I--" his words are suddenly cut off when Tom rounds on him a lot quicker than he should have been able to. Tom's up in Schofield's space before the latter even knows what's happening, pressing his chapped lips to Schofield's own.
Schofield sucks in a breath through his nose at the contact that’s embarrassingly unfamiliar for as often as he thinks about Tom. It only takes him a moment to find his bearings though, sliding a hand up Tom’s neck and around to cradle the back of his head.
They haven’t been this close, this tangled up in each other, in months. The absolute need simmering under Schofield’s skin to be close to Tom throughout his whole hospital stay and not being able to do more than offer a few innuendos here, a shoulder or hand squeeze there, has been eating him alive.
Schofield hears the loud clatter of what must be Tom’s cane falling against the wood floors, but he’s too engrossed in the other man to give it much more than a minor jerk. Tom’s hands, including the one that had been holding said cane, reaches out and tugs on the lapels of Schofield’s overcoat, tugging him closer still.
Tom opens his mouth up to Schofield, who’s all too eager to rediscover what he’s missed. The urge to be close, to climb inside and under Tom’s skin and just exist, threatens to overcome him as he runs the thumb of his now scarred hand across Tom’s smooth cheekbones.
He doesn’t know who pulls away first, if the burning in his lungs has made him or if Tom’s exerted himself too much and pulled a stitch. Neither of them does anything to move though, Schofield still clutching Tom’s cheek and back of his head. They breathe for a moment, their breaths falling into synchrony in the weighty silence.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since I woke up to see you next to me in that hospital back in France,” Tom murmurs, eyes still closed and a contented smile on his face.
Schofield hums and smiles when Tom leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth. “As soon as I saw you were alive, I debated if going to jail would be worth it just to show you how relieved I was,” Schofield mumbles in turn, dislodging Tom’s lips only briefly.
“I never would have forgiven you,” he breathes, and then he’s pulling Schofield close again, pushing his jacket off his shoulders and only managing to catch Schofield’s bottom lip in between his own. He smirks briefly and lets his eyes drift shut, reveling in the feeling of Tom’s hands back on his chest.
Without Schofield realizing it, Tom is backing them down the hallway with his unsteady gait, and an almost overwhelming swooping sensation travels through Schofield’s stomach.
“Tom, your side, we can’t.” Schofield turns his head to the side to get the words out, but the loss of his lips doesn’t stop Tom from attaching them to his jaw. The action also does nothing to diminish Schofield’s desire.
“I know,” he says, “I just want to lay down. I just want to be close to you finally.”
And honestly? That suggestion sounds like the best suggestion that Schofield’s heard in weeks. The feeling of finally being able to also lay down next to Tom at night rather than having to sit in some uncomfortable chair next to him sounds too good to be true. Schofield nods and reluctantly pries his hands from Tom’s head and lets himself be dragged down to the threadbare mattress.
For the first time in a long time, Schofield doesn’t dream of the horrors that sit at the edge of his consciousness.