A/N: Thank you very much! Some more characters are introduced in this chapter, a lot of them from the show. Others will appear throughout the story, although I don't see them playing a huge role. Mother Bates will also feature heavily from the next chapter.

Thy Kingdom Come
Chapter Two

Once he had woken up and recovered enough to think for himself, he heard the nurse - for she was a nurse, that much he could gather from her uniform and their surroundings - calling for the doctor. A Doctor Clarkson or other. Another nurse replied, this time with a much more Southern accent, and said he would be along within the next ten minutes.

"Nothing to worry about, Sergeant Bates. Just to make sure you know what's going on." The nurse turned back around to him and smiled.

It was the sort of smile that could cure thousands.

"I'm Nurse Smith."

John felt himself nodding. As he listened to her talking and explaining things to him, he suddenly started to recall some of his memories of the past week.

The pain in his leg – the biting pain as it had risen up his leg.

What had happened?

"My leg..." He mumbled suddenly in realisation. Using all the strength he could muster John reached down to his leg that was covered with the bed sheets, but found nothing. Confusion turned to panic. "My..."

"Calm down, Sergeant Bates. Doctor will be along soon to explain."

Anna had experienced this with almost all of her patients so far. She could never hope to imagine how they must feel upon the realisation. That they had lost their limbs. That they were amputees.

She reached forward for Sergeant Bates as he started to thrash around in the bed in a blind panic.

John could feel her hands on his arms as she tried to restrain him. Explain. What was there to explain? He was a cripple. Half of his leg was gone. And there was nothing he could do. Nothing needed to be explained.

He felt hot tears gather in his eyes. He shook his head as he continued to thrash about in the thin hospital bed and he could hear himself groaning and calling for her to leave him be. He was vaguely aware of a bandage around his left wrist, and he surmised that it must have been sprained. The pain told him that.

"It'll all be fine. Trust me."

He found himself resenting her for saying it. He was angered at her words. What did she understand? But soon her voice was replaced with another, and this time it was distinctly masculine. There were also a stronger pair of hands holding him down and this time they succeeded.

"Sergeant Barrow, would you help?"

Then he felt two pairs of hands and he gave up the fight completely.

He sensed one of the men walking away after the one who he now recognised to be Doctor Clarkson dismissed him. John turned his head to one side to see an average, dark-haired looking fellow walking away dressed in the usual convalescent blues. He had a bit of a limp and a rather noticeable bandage around his hand.

But John found he had no more time to watch the other men for Doctor Clarkson started to talk.

"Sergeant Bates," the doctor began. "As I'm sure you're aware by now, you have suffered terrible injuries."

John had turned around to face the doctor but was now turning his head once more. It was like being faced with his failings. All of his failings in life.

"You were out of it for quite some time. Although that may be more down to the sedatives they used to calm you down and the journey back. And the fever." The doctor paused. "Do you remember anything, Sergeant?"

John said nothing. Nor did he make any sort of movement. Doctor Clarkson took this as incentive to continue regardless.

"You were hit by an exploding bullet on October 24th, jumping in front of Captain Crawley. The fragments shattered your knee and penetrated some of the key ligaments." John closed his eyes as it was explained to him. All he needed to know was that his leg was gone. He subconsciously began to rub his neck with the palm of his hand. "By the time you were found and taken to the field hospital there was nothing that could be done to save your leg. An infection had spread and you had developed a very high fever. There was nothing the doctors could have done, Sergeant Bates. I am very sorry."

John could bear it no longer and he turned completely away from the doctor. It was the old effect he had undertaken as a child, if he could not see it, it must not exist. In this case it was Doctor Clarkson. His mother had always chastised him for it.

As he turned, however, he caught sight of the nurse from before. Nurse Smith. She was helping another of the soldiers a couple of beds down from him to his feet. This man had lost both legs from below the knee. But John noticed that he had some sort of replacement attached to the remaining tissue. It enabled the man to walk although not completely unaided at the moment. This was where Nurse Smith was helping him. She held out some crutches for him to take and remained at his side should he need to be steadied.

He may have been surrounded by some of the only people that knew how he was feeling, but he had never felt so isolated.

He heard Doctor Clarkson from behind him.

"You may not have realised already, Sergeant Bates, but this is very much a rehabilitation hospital." John closed his eyes and felt his heart shudder. The thought of ever trying to act normally after this terrified him. "This is to try and help you as much as we can to return back to civilian life. You'll be on the waiting list to receive a prosthetic as replacement for your leg. This should help you to be a lot more mobile in time to come."

John found himself hearing the words being spoken but not really listening. He could hear Doctor Clarkson as he continued to regale the process by which he would hope to recover and the programmes that the hospital would provide for him.

But his future was bleak now. The sense of loss was strange. He felt… un-whole. There would be no more chances for him, not now. His career in the army was finished. There was no sort of labour he could do. His mother would be ashamed. Just as he had started to win her approval once more – after the drink and after Vera – she would be ashamed again. She may pity him. He didn't want it.

More than once he had thought about his old life, before Vera had entered into it. His youth. How he longed for it back. The poets always spoke of a desperate longing for youth, but John doubted they had experienced this. He wanted his youth back now that his life was over.

All John could think about was his old life. His leg. His new life; his bleak future. He thought of the challenge that work would pose and he thought about his mother. He longed to see her – longed for a visit. It had been months since he had last seen her. But then he thought back to his regiment. He thought of the gunfire and the spitting mud and he turned away from the doctor and closed his eyes.

Maybe if he shut his eyes he would shut away the world.

He thought of the life he had lost there and would never get back.

Late November, 1916

"They say it was the bloodiest battle so far." Anna remarked as she checked his blood pressure and temperature. The fever had all but disappeared since he had arrived in England but from all that Anna had learnt in her time as a nurse it was never to assume, and that she could never be too careful. So many soldiers had no fever when they left France and had developed one on the voyage back. In the first few weeks she had learnt to check for these symptoms, as she had first been taught.

She also moved back the bed sheets and checked his leg which earned her a scowl. The bandage was still there after the wound had been cauterised over in the field hospital. Doctor Clarkson had checked it a few times and it was her job to check it regularly just in case there were any problems. None at the moment, it would seem.

"What would you know?" John growled bitterly.

Sergeant Bates was not the easiest of patients she had ever come across. Anna just tended to sigh and ignore him when he was like this.

The Battle of the Somme had ended recently, and from what the newspapers reported, it sounded horrific. Anna should have known really because their patients here had almost doubled in the last months. Sergeant Bates had been one of these.

John found himself to be turning into quite a bitter and angry man. He did not like it. It reminded him of his time with Vera. The drink. When he thought of those times and the relief he used to feel at the hands of a bottle of whiskey he almost wished he could go back. It might help him to cope.

But then he remembered his mother. She was the reason he had given up the drink. After he had showed up on her doorstep in the early hours that morning, a bitter and angry drunk with a bottle in his hand and hot tears rolling down his cheeks after another argument with Vera, Maeve Bates had reached the end of her tether. He could still remember that night now. Quite how he did he was unsure. She had taken the bottle from him and made him watch as she poured it down the kitchen sink. And she would do the same every time she found him with another bottle, although those times became considerably less after that night. She had given him a few home truths. It had shaken him to the core. Enough to realise that he needed to change. Enough to realise that he wanted to change. His mother had made him realise that he did not deserve to feel this way, and that a husband and wife should not live like this. The way Vera stalked off and found solace in the company of other men was not normal. And Maeve no longer liked the man her son had become. She was ashamed.

She had been ashamed of him. Ultimately that had been his motive to stop. And that was why turning to the bottle was not an option now.

"As much as any of us know at home," Anna bit back. She could certainly hold her own, John thought. His mind drifted from his mother to Nurse Smith. Anna was used to these kinds of comments from some of her patients.

"As much as the papers want to tell you, you mean."

John couldn't help it. She didn't understand. She could never hope to. She would never have to wake to the sounds of screaming and horror. To the fear of waking up to death. The fear of not waking up at all.

"We're living the war too." Anna threw the duvet covers back over his leg, finished for now with her inspection. She looked him in the eyes. "Everyone knows someone over there. This war leaves no one untouched, Sergeant Bates."

She was resilient, he would give her that. But she was still too young to understand. And her cheery optimism angered him. Almost as though she believed he could walk out of here and live his life again.

John sighed and turned his head, not wanting to face her anymore. She was a lot more tenacious than the other nurses. The others seemed to have given up on him already, although he supposed he gave them nothing really to go on. They wanted him to start using a pair of crutches. To try and start walking again. The stern matron seemed to dislike him too, although he supposed it was just her dedication to work and to the patients she looked after. She was stern, but fair. But he noticed a look of disapproval whenever she came over to see him and he would not respond. He didn't care. He didn't care about the other Sergeant who would make snide remarks here and there. He found it difficult to care about any of it.

"Everyone carries scars, Sergeant Bates." She was talking again. Now she was looking at his charts. "Inside and out."

But this seemed to strike a cord. Because he knew that the physical scars were not always the worst of them. He remembered the Private in his regiment. Frederick. Fred. The war had scarred him more than the eye could see. The fear had sent him mad. He still heard the gun shot in his nightmares.

"Good news anyway," Nurse Smith continued. She had rounded the bed and she was arranging the flowers his mother had brought him now. She visited as often as she could. He enjoyed that. Sometimes in those moments he felt reacquainted with his old life again. He turned his attention back to the nurse. "Lord Grantham has asked for you to be moved up the waiting list, he says you saved his life." For his new leg, of course. "You may have it just after Christmas all being well."

John shrugged and mumbled to himself. He began to rub his neck. "Why should I want one?" But she heard him and turned her head to face him.

"And why wouldn't you?"

Anna heard him mutter another response but a little quieter this time. It was only just loud enough to hear. Something about no dignity and wishing they'd just bloody ended it. She felt a cold shiver run through her body. She watched as he rubbed his neck. She noticed that he did that a lot. Perhaps as a soothing gesture. He only seemed to do it when he appeared to be upset. He continued to mutter something about work and no one willing to take on a cripple.

"Plenty of men find work from here." Anna spoke solidly. "There are all different kinds of work available now. What did you do before the war?"

He didn't answer. He hardly wanted to tell her that before the war he was a drunkard. A divorced man and a drunkard. The occasional bar work when he was sober enough to hold a job, until 1914 when he had heard his calling. The army had straightened the rest of him up. His mother had done a good job beforehand and the army had done the rest. He had worked hard. His hard work, bravery and honour had earned him a promotion to Sergeant fairly soon after he had been sent to France. Captain Crawley had taken a shine to him, it seemed. He had to remind himself to call him Captain Crawley, especially when he seemed to be Lord Grantham here too.

When he did not respond Anna took that as her cue to leave. With a sigh she collected some articles of his clothing for the laundry and made her move, although not before doubly checking his injured wrist. John responded afterwards by picking up his book and starting to read again.

Anna turned to look at him once more before she left the ward. There was something about him. He was a challenge, that much was certain. But she knew that beneath the fear, the desperation and the heartbreak he had been through there must be a brave, kind man. His mother said as much. The events of the last month had stripped away all that he had held dear and he felt as though his life had been snatched away from him. But Anna was strangely drawn to him. The only time she saw his eyes take on any kind of resemblance to content or peace was when his mother visited. But she wanted to do whatever she could to pull him from the shadows. She wanted to help him realise that he could still live a life, his life. She wanted to teach and show him how to live again.

She had never leant so much to faith until the start of the war. In her youth she attended Church every Sunday and would consider herself a firm believer, but now her prayers had never seemed more important. In war one of the only things people could rely on was faith. And Anna knew that God worked in mysterious ways, and that somehow He must have a plan for Sergeant Bates.

She only prayed that he would find it.

December, 1916

The Christmas period soon crept up on them and Anna felt as though she was no closer to Sergeant Bates than she had been since he had woken up. He sat in bed looking as particularly mournful as he had when he had first arrived, and although she would never begrudge or judge him for it - heaven knows after all these men had been through - it was her job to bring him from the darkness. And she knew matron was growing increasingly aware of his unwillingness to cooperate with his recuperation.

As Anna did her rounds that morning she passed his bed. Sergeant Bates had a book in hand but he seemed to have lost interest in it some time ago. His wrist was better now, although she had hoped the same could have been said for him. She watched him for a few moments, his eyes never leaving his spot on the page except for some painful twitch. She assumed he was revisiting some unwanted memories.

She intervened, "Afternoon, Sergeant Bates." She watched as he jumped in shock and briefly chastised herself for being so thoughtless.

He looked up at her with darkened eyes and he muttered, "Nurse."

"Not long now until Christmas," Anna attempted to instil some cheer. Anything. He needed any sort of motivation to move from the bed as she could muster. Most of the other soldiers moved around of their own accord now, even when their classes were not in session. But Sergeant Bates had refused.

Anna noticed that he was still in no mood to converse with her, therefore she continued with the conversation for them both.

"I doubt I'll go home for Christmas this year. It doesn't feel right with my brother over in France." She watched as this seemed to spark the slightest of interest in the Sergeant. Not a lot but more than she was used to. She saw it as a step forward. "James and me always fought when we were younger, but now none of that seems to matter. My sister and her children will probably go to my parents' for a few days but her husband is away too."

'Away' seemed the nicest word to use in this case. It was the word that filled them with most hope. It was better than saying over there with the Germans and the gunfire and the trenches.

John listened carefully to her words, although he tried to show no sign. He might not have wanted to include himself in their recuperation programmes but he never minded this nurse. Nurse Smith. She talked a lot and often tried too much to prise information from him, but he could tell she had a good heart. And a strong one. A strong stomach too. She was never easily bowled over by his snide remarks and could very much hold her own. Clearly this choice in career path was not a decision made lightly. Not like some of the other nurses he had met since the war had started.

"Will your mother be visiting?" She asked. John had seen her talking to his mother on more than one occasion.

"I suspect you know more about that than I do." It was supposed to come out much lighter but he found his voice to be quite cynical. Maybe before it would have been different.

Before.

After.

John closed his eyes at the painful realisation. He hated to think of it even still. He had only looked at it when he had to. He had cast his eyes onto the ugly stump where his leg now ended but only when he was forced to move from his bed.

"She did say she would pop by," Anna conceded with a sigh. "I shall have to bring you a Christmas card to raise your spirits." Anna tried to joke cheerfully. She had already tried unsuccessfully to wrap a piece of tinsel around his bed post.

"Do what you want," John muttered.

Anna sighed and looked at him with exasperation. "Well... is there anything else I can do for you? Is your leg comfortable enough, no irritations?"

The one thing he wanted - needed - she could not give him. No one could.

John shook his head.

"Right, I'll be off then."

John managed the smallest of smiles. A gesture his mother would be proud of. This seemed to please Nurse Smith as she left him and went to one of her other patients.

John suddenly felt exhausted. Probably to do with the little sleep he had managed the night before. Whenever he closed his eyes he remembered. When he closed them this time and felt sleep beginning to take him he hoped he wouldn't remember.

Once more that was one hope too far.

They said it would be over within a few months; that it would have ended by Christmas. And here they still were two years later.