A/N: Sorry. It's graphic. But I promise it won't be wall-to-wall unremitting angst. Really. And there will be smut. Just not yet. :)
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CHAPTER TWO
She followed the sound of the wounded man's moans down the corridor as it opened onto another room. It had probably been a formal dining room in another, more peaceful time, but now it was lined with metal-framed beds, filled with men in various states of consciousness.
The smell of the antiseptic barely covered the odor of burnt flesh, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as she stumbled into the room. They had laid the soldier out on an examination table, and a doctor now hovered over him. There were voices, sharp movement, all in a kind of ordered chaos, and she was lost in it.
Landmine…morphine…amputation…ether…
Gene stood at the end of the table with the two men who had carried the litter in. It was Chris and Ray, of course, and the three of them looked on with expressions of weariness and resignation.
As she inched closer, she could see that the man's left leg was gone. Shaz was removing the sodden bandages from his middle, and Alex fought against the waves of nausea. There was nothing there. A black and purple mass of blood and flesh.
The man began to struggle against them, his remaining limbs twisting in pain, and the doctor turned to her as she stood there dumbly.
"You, girl! Don't just stand there!"
She staggered forward to the side of the table. The soldier looked up at her with terrified eyes, only half-seeing, and grabbed her forearm with a bloodied hand.
"You're going to be all right," she choked helplessly. He wouldn't be, and even she knew that. The doctor called out orders in his clipped voice. They passed instruments, gauze and syringes, all in vain. His grip on her wrist began to weaken, and Alex watched as a froth of dark blood bubbled from his mouth, and the life in his eyes flickered out.
"Damn." It was all the doctor said. He pulled off his gown, and glanced down at his pocket watch. "Time of death 1830." Then he was gone, rubbing with fatigue at his neck and shoulders.
The others drifted away. Matron, Chris and Ray. Alex stood there, unable to move, as Shaz returned instruments to trays and threw bloodied bandages into a bag to be washed and reused. Finally she closed the young man's lifeless eyes and pulled a sheet over his body.
"You'll need to change your clothes, miss," Shaz said softly. "There's a uniform in the wardrobe. Our room is at the very top of the stairs on the left."
She was gone then, and only she and Gene were there, looking down on the still body of the soldier. She could sense him looking at her, and she glanced up at him through tear-filled eyes.
"It gets easier," he said.
She bit at her lip for a moment. "I hope not."
And then he was gone, too, his boots falling gently against the hardwood floor. She finally found her feet and dragged herself up two flights of stairs to the little room she apparently was to share with Shaz. There were two narrow beds there and a shared wardrobe and a writing desk.
She sat there on thin mattress of the bed for a long moment, too numb to move, before rising to the wardrobe. Her nurse's uniform, identical to the one Shaz wore, was hanging there. Blue dress, apron, nurse's kerchief that tied at the back of the neck. The ridiculous pink frock she'd arrived in was covered in blood, and there was the imprint of the soldier's hand on her sleeve. She pulled the thing off and balled it up on the floor of the wardrobe.
She could see them out the tiny window as she dressed. Chris and Ray digging a fresh grave in the little cemetery with even lines of white crosses. Gene was there, too, standing at a distance with his head down, hands in his pockets.
She had seen death before. She had watched her parents die, twice. Worked the most gruesome crime scenes. But she couldn't shake the image of the life draining out of the young man's eyes as she held his hand.
The familiar faces of the others were some comfort, but she was a stranger to them. She was alone here, wherever here was. It didn't matter. This was real now. The stench, the fear.
She splashed tepid water from the basin on her face and headed back down the stairs. There was movement, a shapeless form in the corner by the door, and then the sound of a woman's muffled laughter.
"Who is it? Is someone there?"
Shaz stepped out of the dark corner, followed by Chris. They both looked up at her, startled and sheepish. "Please don't tell Matron, miss. She says we're not to fraternise."
"It's all right, miss." Chris offered. "We're engaged and all."
"Don't worry. I won't tell, Shaz." She gave them a small smile.
Shaz smiled in relief. "Thanks, miss."
"Why's she calling you Shaz?" Chris whispered. Shaz elbowed him in the ribs.
"I think that's the way smart people talk."
"Sorry. Sharon. And please. Call me Alex."
"Oh, but you're…and I'm… I couldn't," she said uneasily.
"I insist. We're equals here. I'm not your superior."
"Well, all right. If that's what you'd like, miss."
Alex sighed and headed down the stairs and outside. The late spring air was cool as she crossed the lawn and tried to get her bearings. It was 1917, she knew that, and she tried desperately to search through the dim corners of her mind for the significance of the date. She couldn't remember anymore when the war had even started. Was it 1914 or 1915? It had always seemed sort of silly and remote to her. Another place and time altogether when men still foolishly rode into battle on horseback.
She was in some kind of chateau near the French-Belgian border. There was a village in the distance, and from it, a country road rose and passed in front of the house. Signposts at the crossroad there gave the distance to Ypres and Verdun and farther on to Calais.
The light was fading, and the sun seemed to be suspended there, a red and orange glow just over the horizon. She found a bench under a tree and watched it as it hung there.
She was aware that Gene was with her then, crossing the lawn towards the tree. He stood next to her, and they watched the glow in the distance.
"You all right?"
She nodded up and down vigorously as if to convince herself. He reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a flask. He unscrewed the top and took a sip before passing it to her. She raised it to her mouth with a shaking hand and took in a mouthful, feeling the welcome burn on the back of her throat.
"Who was he? The young man?"
"Manchester lad. Nineteen. I knew his dad," he said evenly. "I'll have to write him. Tell him his son died a hero's death for King and Country." He pulled a cigarette case and lighter from the pocket of his tunic.
"Do you really believe that?"
"I have to. Don't you?"
They stood in the silence before he turned to her, looking her over as if he were trying to work something out. "Have we met before?"
She smiled softly. "In another life, maybe."
He shrugged and lit the cigarette. "Didn't think so. Can't imagine a bloke like me crossing paths with someone like you."
"You'd be surprised, Captain Hunt." She could feel her eyes well up again at the familiar teasing in his voice. "It is Captain Hunt, isn't it?"
"Captain Gene Hunt. Third Manchesters." He crossed and sat next to her on the bench. She passed him back his flask, and he drank again.
"Alex Drake."
"Alex. Like in Alexandra. Like the queen."
"Yes, I imagine so."
"Queen Alexandra." He looked her up and down with a smile curling on his lips. "Suits you."
She held his eyes for a moment. It really was him. She could see him now that he'd washed the blood and dirt from his face. Thinner, battle-weary. His hair was shorter than before. But it was him, dressed in the uniform of an infantry officer. "You're an officer. I wouldn't have thought…I mean you're not…" She stopped herself.
"Not what? Not a gentleman? Battlefield commission. They were running out of warm bodies." He took a long sip from the flask. "That's what happens when you send public schoolboys to do a man's job." There was no bravado in his voice, only sadness.
"What are we doing here?" she asked almost dreamily as she looked at him through narrowed eyes.
"I'm keeping the world safe from the Boche, me," he said with an ironic snort. "More like what're you doing here? Nice girl like you. You're all Port Out, Starboard Home, you are. How'd you end up here?"
"That's what I'm trying to work out, Captain Hunt."
They sat there for a time, sipping and smoking. She looked out at the lingering sunset. "It's beautiful."
"What is?"
"The sunset."
He took a long drag from the cigarette and stubbed the end out on the ground. "That's east," he said heavily. "The sun doesn't set in the east."
It wasn't the sunset at all, but the war, raging just over the horizon. Men were dying there in filth and terror for no good reason she could remember. She looked away.
He rose to his feet and turned back toward the house. "Where are you going? You're not leaving are you?" she asked. She winced at the thin, panicky pitch to her voice.
"Well, I was going for a bit of a jimmy riddle," he said with a smirk. He leaned down close to her ear. "But you're welcome to come'n give me a hand, Your Majesty."
She rolled her eyes and rose from the bench. "It's getting cold anyway." They walked together back toward the house and in through the kitchen. Chris and Ray were sitting there with cups of tea on their knees, and Shaz was doling out biscuits from a tin.
They jumped up and saluted when Gene entered, sending Chris' cup onto the floor. He bounced from foot to foot in mild pain as the liquid seeped through the leg of his trousers.
Gene returned with a lazy salute, and the men sunk back into their chairs with exhaustion.
"We were wondering, sir," started Chris, looking back and forth between Ray and Shaz, "If we could billet here for the night."
"Only, I've had a look at Corporal Skelton's feet, sir" Shaz said with hesitation. "For medical purposes only, mind you. And I think he's got the early signs of trench foot. He really should stay here for the night, sir, so's his feet can dry out."
"I told you to change your socks at least twice a day, corporal," Gene barked.
"Sorry, sir."
"Sgt Carling…"
"Sir?"
"You're now responsible for the state of Corporal Skelton's feet. Whale-oil rub every night. Under your loving and delicate touch."
"But, sir!"
"That's an order, sergeant. His feet fall off, it's a firing squad for you."
"Yes, sir," Ray grumbled. Chris and Ray looked at each other distastefully, and the three of them shuffled off.
"You'll leave tomorrow. Won't you?" she asked him when the others had gone.
"Reckon so. Back to the trenches. Duty calls."
She blinked back tears. "Will you be back?"
"You never know." He rocked back on his heels and stood looking at her, searching her face in the half-light. "You sure we haven't met before?"
"You never know."
He smiled, and they stood there wordlessly for a moment. "'Night, Your Majesty."
"Good night, Captain Hunt."
She turned and headed up to her room, barely able to lift her feet from one stair to another. She slipped into a nightgown and slid under the thin covers with the moonlight drifting in through the small window.
There were no radios or monitors here for communication from another time. At least in 1982, there had been familiar points of reference. She had lived it all before. Here, everything was alien, and men by the thousands were dying only miles away.
It was like some surreal nightmare. Somewhere in two different times she was lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life, and somehow, she had ended up here, far from home.
But there was Gene. Summers was right. He was her rock, her constant. Gene. And he was leaving tomorrow.
She closed her eyes tight and willed herself to sleep.
END CHAPTER TWO
