It smelled like death.

Everything around him smelled like death, honestly, death and blood and the stench had been overwhelming at one point but he'd gotten used to it by now. The thought was somewhat disturbing.

Men were still screaming as the soldiers retreated, too many were left dead and dying underfoot and he had to walk over their still-warm corpses to get back to the Lacy House. The makeshift hospital the general had so graciously provided, it wasn't that far, was it? It couldn't be that far, he had already passed the creek, he had to be close, he had to be.

Patrick was bleeding heavily, but it didn't matter. His people, far north, far away from everything, they were still fine, these wounds would hear with little more than a scar and even that would fade by the coming new year. He wasn't Sergeant Plunkett, who'd had both his arms blown off yet still managed to hold up their flag until another soldier could carry it forward. The man had been dragged back across the creek back to the hospital.

He was lucky. He still had both his arms, this was nothing, it didn't matter, he was lucky.

And in his arms, he lugged along the deadweight through the trees and the bushes and the brush. It was Tim's blood that was staining the blue uniform crimson, staining the gray uniform, not his own. There was blood on his face and blood on his hair and his body and that gray uniform was red like the Brits they'd kicked out so long ago oh God Timothy.

"Come on, little brother," he gasped, heaving his unconscious sibling forwards, hoping against desperate hope that the makeshift bandage he'd wrapped around the gushing wound across his abdomen would staunch the blood for just a little while longer. "Come on, stay with me. Stay with me."

He could see it, yes, he could see it, there it was, the massive house (twelve thousand square feet, did they say it was?) rising up in the distance, where they could help his brother, Tim hang on we're almost there we're almost there don't let me down now.

Hell, he'd been there when Dad had found Timothy wandering in the fields, just like he'd found the rest of them. They'd taken the kid inside and gave him clothes and introduced him to the other kids and that had been that. But he'd always had a soft spot for Timothy (and he wouldn't admit that it hurt when the kid had left him to go with the damn Confederates, along with Carol and Caroline and Austin and Alexis and Louis, Miranda, Alexandra, Anjelita, of all people, and he had been screaming when his two sisters who'd been there with him since birth had left without a single goodbye, but Timothy.

Dammit, he loved his brother and he was not going to tell Dad that another one of his kids was gone, this time for good. Timothy was gonna come back alive.

He was almost at the door of the house, his legs were going to give out soon, dammit Patrick keep walking do this for Timothy.

He shifted his burden to free one of his hands and opened the door, staggering inside. The stench of death was stronger here.

"Jones! What the hell do you think you're doing with that Confederate bastard?"

He ignored the voice of once of his many superior officers, instead half-walking, half-falling towards the overworked surgeons. There were men lying less than an inch apart everywhere on the floor, on the stairs, on the tables and on chairs and underneath chairs...

"Please," he choked out, only just realizing that there were tears on his dirt-smeared face and the room was swaying slightly in front of his foggy vision. Or maybe he was the one swaying? "Please, he... his name's Timothy... he's my brother... please..."

The doctors didn't respond, the other officer that had yelled at him seemed to need a few moments to digest the new information, and he jumped when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"We've just cleared off some space in the cabinets," she said gently. "You can put your brother there. Use your jacket as a pillow, his too, if you can get it off him, someone should be by with blankets and some bricks to keep him warm..."

He vaguely recognized the woman as someone his father had written about in his letters, which were few and far between, but he had all of them folded neatly away in a small metal box of his far back at their camp, the so-called angel of the battlefield.

"Thank you... Miss Barton..."

He set Timothy down on shelf he was directed to, shrugged out of his jacket before tearing it to pieces and using it as bandages, dipped the rest in his into his nearly empty canteen and set the cool cloth on his brother's forehead before pouring the last trickle into the Confederate's mouth. Timothy's head was resting on his lap instead of a bloodstained jacket-pillow, partly for Tim's benefit and partly for his own. Maybe if he held him through the night he wouldn't leave.

Blue eyes weakly fluttered open. They were near a fire, the warmth seemed to bring just the faintest bit of life back into his face.

"D-"

Whatever Timothy had been about to say was cut off by a harsh coughing fit, and frothy blood bubbled from his lips.

"Hey, take it easy, Ten," he said quickly, wiping the blood away with an already bloody sleeve. It left a thick red smear across his brother's too-pale skin. "Take it easy now, I got ya."

"Da... Dad?"

The single word was more painful then any bullet ripping through his heart.

"It's me, little brother, it's Massachusetts."

The clamor and the moans of the dying were so loud that no one would have heard him, but Patrick didn't think he'd care either way.

But Timothy was smiling dazedly, a feverish light in his eyes and his teeth stained red like his clothes.

"Dad... you came... I... Gin's so sorry... she cries over her letters, the ink's all smudged..." The Tennessee accent was slurred and punctuated by more coughing fits and more blood dribbling onto his chin. "'m sorry too, Dad... I'm sorry..."

He was crying again, he could hardly see his brother's face through fog clouding his vision and the burning that accompanied it, and he did his best to speak around the lump in his throat.

"It's all right, Tim. I'm here for you. It's all right..."

Confederate soldiers brought to the Lacy House were taken captive, but two days later Patrick had woken up on the floor of the emergency hospital to find his jacket draped back over his own shoulders and the place where his brother had been lying cold and empty, save a gray cap belonging to the Confederate uniform.

The army was sent back to recuperate from the devastating loss, more battles continued to rage in the meanwhile, and Patrick took a brief leave to get back to DC and talk to his father.

"Timothy's alright," he told the exhausted, broken man, lying pale and drawn as though he was on his deathbed. Patrick refused to believe that was a possibility. "He was at Fredericksburg, but he's alright."

In haunting irony, his father tried to smile and ended up coughing, specks of blood appearing on his too-pale skin.

So.

That turned out more depressing then I had originally intended, but considering that it's the Civil War I suppose it's justified? Now, historical notes:

Clara Barton was a very important woman (go look her up online or find a book she's brilliant), having founded the American branch of the International Red Cross, pushing for women's rights, and gaining the title of "angel of the battlefield" due to the fact that she worked as a nurse on the front lines of nearly all the major battles in the bordering Union/Confederate states during the Civil War.

The Battle of Fredericksburg was a crushing loss for the Union soldiers, casualties over 12000. The closest hospital was the Lacy House, or Chatham, the house of a former Confederate supporter who had been kicked out when the Union troops came. They turned it into a makeshift hospital (which Clara Barton was working in at the time) and managed to squeeze most of the wounded soldiers inside. The men were lying mere inches apart, on the floors, on top of and under tables, on shelves and stairs and on top of cabinets. Fireplaces were blazing and chimneys were dismantled in order to heat the bricks for soldiers that were forced to wait outside or were too far away from the fireplaces to feel the heat. Confederate soldiers were brought in, much to some's dismay, but Barton insisted that they be treated just like the rest of them.

Moving on to the states, they're my idea. Countries personified is interesting, certainly, but I like the ideas of states having their own thing going as well. America had human form back when he was still owned by England so it makes sense that the states would too, at least in my mind. I've got a couple other stories planned for them, but I figure I might as well start with this.

Patrick Kirkland-Jones - Massachusetts
Timothy Jones - Tennessee

The other names mentioned belong to North and South Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia, in that order.

If you see any typing mistakes, please let me know! Constructive criticism is always welcomed.

Now, on that incredibly long author's note I'm going to go and worry about my Physics homework. Although I don't see how they'd expect me to have time to get my books from my locker on the third floor when my last class is in the basement and the bus leaves in five minutes...