Lilly Sat with her arms and leg wrapped around Edmund's legs, giggling like a lunatic.
Edmund smiled and shook his leg a little, making her jiggle back and forth.
"Lilly, I have to pee, so could you let go, just for a minute?"
Lilly considered it for a moment, and nodded dramatically.
"Yes, but you have to come back fast." She declared in her infantile voice.
She untangled herself from his leg and watched him leave the room.
The memories still make me smile, and cry, sometimes. The captain loved that little girl, and was so sad when the illness finally took her.
That was the reason he never talked about his late wife and daughter.
Edmund's wife Amelia died from flu during the war, they prayed that Lilly would be safe, and not catch it while Edmund was away. . . But she did, and she passed away when we were on leave 3 years into the war.
The captain was never the same after that. The fun loving Captain the no one ever saw outside of the bunks and at home died quickly, and was replaced by the cold hearted bastard everyone else always saw.
I have a reputation for being particularly stupid, it was an act for the benefit of Lilly, my god daughter, and just stuck. I wasn't really that thick; I just thought it might help Edmund get over it all.
He knew damn well that it was an act, but refused to take any interest in my efforts.
Maybe one day he will stop brooding over her portrait and be the way he used to be, but i won't hold my breath.
That was why I didn't go with Melchett when he offered me a seat back at head quarters, I wanted to make sure Edmund got out alive, so he could realise that he was lucky enough to be living out a life his daughter and wife would have wanted.
But I failed, and now in my old age I look at his name carved in war hero memorial in his home town and on his grave in France, that I visit every day from my home nearby.
I suppose on the bright side of things, he can finally spend all the time he wants with Lilly and Amelia in a place that doesn't have the ever looming evidence of war.
And I, Lieutenant George, will always remember my Captain and best friend, Captain Edmund Blackadder.