Disclaimer: I don't own War Horse, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to their respective owners. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.

Tied By Blood

A/N: Alternate events in War Horse; follow up to "Disenchanted."

There's something very wrong, and he knows she can feel it. She passes him by, sometimes multiple times a day, her eyes watching him with worry as she crosses the room and Johanna plays. All he does, as Emma points out in tender tones, is sit by the window, staring off in the direction of where the station would be, almost as if he's refusing to accept how blessed he is.

But that's exactly it. James doesn't feel like this spared life of his is a blessing, but a curse. He, leading the cavalry charge with Jamie, should have perished as well. And even after all this time has passed, two long years, he still can't help swearing under his breath and demanding to know why God sought to let him live.

It's wrong, he thinks, and it doesn't make any bloody sense.

Johanna can speak now, talk in broken sentences and laugh and tell her daddy exactly what she wants. When she demands it, James takes her outdoors and lets her lead him through the streets to where the horses and buggies are kept, and she stares at them wide-eyed for minutes at a time before he lifts her to where the creatures hold their heads and watch the people pass them by.

And, each time he does, he feels that he dies a little more inside.

Her favorite horse is one that he has come to dread. A tender beast by the name of Windslow. His big, brown eyes enchant his little girl so, black mane long and smooth to the touch, ever reminding him of the same horse, probably dead now, what carried Jamie through the haze of bullets.

The poor man's mother, the last he heard, has fallen ill in recent weeks, likely having caught the same strain of influenza what took his father two years before. She still holds out hope, as James has been told by the officer's brother. He took some time several months ago to seek them out, explain that Jamie was perhaps the most honorable man he'd ever had the pleasure of serving with. Perhaps the best he's ever known.

Those words seemed to warm the frail woman's heart, her worn eyes having grown warm with a smile to match. She had thanked him for bringing her that bit of news, saying that, perhaps, she could let her darling son's memory rest at last.

Well, James had thought, at least one of them could.

She's started going blind as well, Harry's told him, and it kills the captain to know that, should anyone on the battlefront ever find but a page of one of Jamie's last letters, she will never have the chance to see it with her own eyes.

The anguish he feels makes him think that the pair of them could have, if God had been willing, been tied by blood.

James sighs, Johanna climbing up on his knee to stare out the window as the horses pass by. She's naming them herself now. Calling them things like "Flower" and "Biscuit."

But the only things he sees as the beasts plod past are the young farm boy and his four-legged friend. And then there's Jamie, driving the buggy. Always there, but always gone.