"Corporal Barrow, read it back to me." his voice whispered, barely audible.
Thomas Barrow, though the soldier's voice was small, cherished whatever small sound he managed to make. Thomas knew that Edward could barely bring himself to sit up in the morning let alone speak to another living person. Smiling to himself, Thomas shook his inky black hair out of his eyes and smirked.
"You really haven't told me anything yet." Thomas replied gently. Edward was prone to irritability and his sense of humour, though greatly revitalized under Thomas' care, was virtually non-existant.
"Well, you've got 'Dear Alec', right?" Edward shot back, running a hand over his forehead. Thomas had learned to back off when Edward got like this. It was late and Edward had taken to refusing to get out of bed in the morning.
"Okay. Here's what we have:
'Dear Alec,
I regret to inform you that I will be missing-'
That's it, Edward. How about a walk?" Thomas read, glancing up playfully at Edward.
Edward turned to face the direction of the door. "Well..."
"Come on, Edward, I've been dying for a cigarette all day and we haven't gotten anywhere." Thomas interrupted. He knew that throwing in a bit of guilt would get Edward up and on his feet. A bit of tough love couldn't hurt.
"Alright." Edward replied, reaching out to find Thomas' knee. Squeezing it gently, Thomas' breath caught in his throat.
Thomas raised an eyebrow. Cheeky.
"Come on, help me up then." Edward said, reaching out with his other hand for Thomas's shoulder. Thomas couldn't stand seeing Edward grope around so helplessly, so, clasping his right hand in Edward's left, he helped Edward stand up. For a perfect moment, the two men's shoulders pressed together. Thomas looked up to meet Edward's eye, but found that Edward's expression was somewhere much more distant than Thomas' silly hopes.
The courtyard was a marvelous, lush green, but Thomas didn't comment. It was cruel to comment on things with senses Edward couldn't use. Instead, Thomas mentioned the warmth.
"Summer's coming on us now, Lieutenant Courtenay." Thomas said, feeling the tiniest hint of sun on his face. His favourite time of the year, though he was not wont to comment on such things, was when the sun just began to feel warm once it came out from behind the English cloud.
"Is it." Edward responded dryly, his expression perfectly vacant as he clung to Thomas's forearm. "And it's Edward outside, Thomas. Inside you can be as fancy as you damn well plesae."
"It most certainly is." Thomas replied, ignoring Edward's last words and allowing a small smile to reach his lips as he traversed the yard.
A comfortable silence spread over the two soldiers, arm-in-arm on the first warm day of Spring; Edward was not a man of many words and Lord knows Thomas had fewer. The two men spent their afternoons in largely the same way - Thomas eschewing his duties and Edward being reluctantly walked throughout the yards. It was nice, but Thomas knew it wouldn't be long before Edward was moved to a new establishment where his long-term recovery would be undertaken.
"You know, Edward," Thomas smiled, sitting the two of them down on a marble bench out of sight of the prying hospital windows, "You still haven't told me who Alec is exactly."
Thomas had been dying to know who this Alec was to whom Edward had been narrating letters ever since their particular ritual had begun. The question burned every so often in the back of Thomas' mind, especially when Edward had asked Thomas to re-word the same letter nearly ten times since they had sat down to right it. Thomas was petrified with curiosity, held in limbo by the thought that this man could be a brother, uncle, cousin, friend... lover.
Thomas saw this Alec as the key to Edward's innermost secrets. Thomas had been able to build some kind of friendship based in camaraderie and care but really, he knew he was only scraping the surface of who Edward was. Ever since the bandages had come off and it had been obvious that Edward was both blind and scarred for life, Edward hadn't let anybody in. Not even Thomas.
Edward rolled his eyes and turned to face Thomas, his familiar rakish grin coupled with a raised brow. Thomas had always imagined that Edward would have been more comfortable at sea than on land with that rougeish look about him. "Look, it's not important."
Thomas felt his face growing red and was, for the first time, glad that Edward couldn't see him. Not important?
"If he's important to you, then..." Thomas trailed off. He had been careful before in his diction, but somehow the way he had phrased that seemed improper.
"He isn't." Edward said finally, as if this were the end of the conversation.
"Oh, well," Thomas said, his voice loaded with sarcasm, "I guess that explains why you've narrated the same sentence to me for the past two weeks."
"Thomas, if I wanted to explain to you my life story I would. Does my life before this," he motioned moodily to his eyes, "even matter? Why does it matter so much to you?"
Thomas immediately felt icy cold, regretting his sarcasm instantly. Edward's words cut through him and he found he was at a complete loss for words. He had been so dedicated to Edward's recovery, been his only friend and this is the treatment he gets?
His hands immediately began fumbling in his jacket looking for a cigarette without his permission.
"It matters, Edward. It just does." Thomas said quietly feigning nonchalance as he brought the cigarette to his mouth, eyebrows raised.
The silence that fell was decidedly awkward and, thankfully, Thomas spotted Nurse Crawley walking with another patient.
"Nurse Crawley will take you back to your room when you're ready, Lieutenant Courtenay." Thomas told the man coldly, barely even looking at the soldier before walking back towards the hospital.