Torrential rain was never a problem to Jane. He was a man who survived four years of the War—there was no weather he hadn't gone through in the time he was deployed to the front lines, fighting for America with all that he could the very moment his beloved country entered the fight between the Allies and the Axis.

There was water running over his head, fat globules of water catching on his eyelashes, weighing his eyelids down, but he had gone through that in the War already.

The world around him was washed over with grey and brown, dirtied and wet and sticky with saturated earth as he struggled out of the ditch he had found himself in, dragging his heavy body, weighed down by fatigue and sleeplessness and wet clothes, towards the two dead police officers a little closer to the wreckage.

There was a reason why he refused to put those faulty seatbelts on.

Smirking, he dug through their pockets, fishing out their wallets and stuffing them in his own, before finding the keys to his handcuffs. His hands shaking from the cold, he did his best to quickly free his hands. It was difficult; his vision wasn't very clear, and his hands were unsteady and clumsy, stiff with cold and shaking with haste, but he managed to slip the tiny metal key into the lock and turn it, hearing the latch unclasp with great satisfaction.

Hurriedly he tossed the cuffs aside and rummaged through their pockets some more to find the car keys. He trudged to the car and saw the back was still intact. Grateful he had thought of picking up the keys first, he made his way to the back and unlocked it, throwing it open to see his things still there in the back.

Quickly he pulled up the duffel bag up on his shoulder and picked up a pistol he pilfered from one of the dead wardens, slipping three magazines of ammunition into his coat before heading away from the crash site and onto the muddy road.

There wasn't much light in the area; only moonlight lit his way, but he could see a light in the distance. It wasn't more than a kilometre away, and it was only a singular, lonely orange light in the midst of the cold darkness around him, like a beacon—the sun, warm and orange, calling out to him from all the way out there.

Resolute, Jane made his way towards the light—he felt like a little bug, heading to some light he had no idea what was lying beyond it, or what would become of him, but that was a risk he was willing to take.

He was hungry—but he had always been, in the front lines, in the line of fire, bullets flying past his arms, his legs, his ears; it was something he had been living with for a long time anyway.

He was cold—but so were hundreds of other soldiers like him in this weather. September was halfway done, a fortnight in, a fortnight after the war had been declared an end.

He was sleepless—night after night, battalion after battalion he and his team took down; many a man had died by his hands and his guns, and he had seen them all on the throes of death, blood caking their faces, their eyes full of regret and bitterness and dismay. They haunted his dreams every night—calling for him to join them, where he rightfully belonged; he wasn't supposed to have survived those four years. He was supposed to be sleeping with the maggots feasting on his flesh, his bones resting into the soil where his fellow soldiers lay—

Yet here was still here, above the earth, breathing, feeling, fighting—alive.

Yes, there was something more important he had to do, anyway: hunger, hypothermia and insomnia were only secondary to what he had on his mind that night.

Retired Sergeant Jane Doe was on the run from a conviction that stemmed from a false accusation.

He lived through the war so he could run.

Death would have to wait.

As he trudged off the road and into the thick forest that led to the village, he wrapped his arms around himself to keep in warmth as much as he could. He was shivering beyond his control, but years in waterlogged trenches and snowy hills had taught him to fight against coldness's sharp teeth. It had tried so many times to take him and now was not different—but that also meant that now he was to escape from its bite again.

Thunder rumbled above him, and lightning bathed his world in a flash of light, highlighting his silhouette in the ground before him as he walked past evergreens and oaks, chestnuts rustled around him as the wild trees gave away to clearings and a cobblestone road met his sights as he trudged on through the wet soil.

The rain grew heavier. His vision worsened and everything felt heavier—much heavier than it had ever felt before.

He realised, then, that his body was catching up with him. It was tired, out of energy, weak—and refusing any prison food was taking its toll on him.

Damn it, he thought, not now, not when he was this close—

Blind now from water running down his closed eyes, he stumbled over steps clumsily as he made his way to the light, landing against a pole to see that the light he had wandered over to was a lone light bulb, flickering every once in a while, dusted with greying cobwebs. There were dead flying termites on the ground next to it, but there was a lone bug still flying to the bulb.

Much like he was.

And unlike its fellowmen, it looked like it was going to stay there for a while.

The thought put a tired, lopsided grin on his face, and he turned his head to see a door. He looked around to see he was standing on a porch. He had somehow stumbled to a house. He didn't even know there was a village out here where it was so remote.

Life was on his side tonight, it would seem.

He dragged himself to the door, weariness hurriedly seeping into his bones at the thought of imminent rest—

He slammed his fist against the surface. It was smooth enough, there were small splinters that stabbed gently into his hand, softened by the rain. It was warm—it was nice and toasty inside.

"Someone in there?" he yelled over the rain. His voice was hoarse from dehydration, but he was used to yelling. Talking normally wasn't something helpful over the deafening sounds of explosions, and gunshots, and people dying.

He banged his fist against the door repeatedly—twice, thrice, four times.

"Is someone in there?" he punctuated each word with a slam of his fist on the door, until at one point he swung at air.

Relief flooded his senses and his mind blanked out. He fell forward into a pair of arms, completely ignoring the surprised yell from the person he had just crashed into.

It was the last thing he heard before he blacked out.

The rain was loud; thunderous, littered with lightning flashing across darkness all around the town. There was no light around—a blackout had swept through town. Only hearths burned in houses that had them, as sources of heat in the incoming cold weather of the oncoming winter season.

The autumn rain was heavy, hard and unforgiving, but it somehow lulled the people of Teufort to sleep with its cold winds kissing heated skin from the heat of the day. The trees dripped with its heavy load of water, leaves lolling up and down softly and gently with drops of sky-tears rolling all over their shiny leaf blades and midrib.

It was as it had always been, and for Dell Conagher, tonight was a night like any other. His self-built generator whirred loudly in the garage behind him, and he knew he couldn't sleep with that racket on, with or without those earmuffs Maggie had made him long ago.

He thought his night would go on the way it usually would, after seeing Patricia off. Sitting curled up on the couch with a book tucked between his chest and knees as he read with his cane propped up by his side, he thought that things would still go on as they would—Patricia would still refuse to live with him, Elise would berate him on it, and he would still be alone and loveless.

The hurried knocks and yelling at his door changed all that, though.

The first set of knocks sounded more like the pounding of a fist against the wood of his door. His eyes widened and his book dropped to the floor, landing on the ground with a thump that Dell didn't hear.

The banging was still ringing in his ears, as worry crept into his head.

Was it Elise again, with Patricia in her arms, struggling again because of his inability to protect her?

Not again, he thought, he couldn't bear the thought of losing someone like that again.

But then, there came a voice he had never heard:

"Someone in there?" a man yelled over the rain, and for a moment Dell thought he was under attack by some bandits of some sort—his house was the last one this side of the little village, after all, but then he heard the wet thump of a body solidly landing against the door as the pounding persisted.

"Is someone in there?" each word was punctuated with a punch, and at once Dell knew that this was a man in need of help, rather than someone who wanted to attack him.

After all, who would want to attack a simple, lonely toymaker with a nasty limp?

As fast as he could, he scrambled off the couch and stumbled clumsily to the door, flinging it open to see a man standing at the door, dressed in military attire. His dark coat was dripping wet, saturated with rainwater, and sullied with mud. Leaves and twigs stuck to him. It was clear he had somehow walked through the forest next to Teufort to land where he was now. His face was pale, his eyes half-lidded and delirious with exhaustion, and suddenly, without warning, he fell forward right against Dell, unconscious.

"Hey! Wait!" Dell managed to yell before the larger, taller man landed on top of him, and the both of them crumpled to the ground. Spluttering, Dell scrambled to pull himself out from beneath the man, and frowned down upon the unconscious soldier on his porch.

It was strange for a soldier to turn up around these parts, he thought to himself, as he struggled to get up, picking up his cane and leaning heavily against it before he hooked his arms under the man's armpits and hauled the man upright to lean against the door. Teufort was a tiny village so remote no armies thought of coming by their peaceful little home. It was hardly scathed in the War because of its remoteness, so the sight of a soldier here was rather strange, especially two weeks after the War ended. Didn't this man have a home to return to?

Enough of the questions for now, though, Dell told himself, as he hauled the man upstairs to the spare room next to his. It was the guestroom he and Maggie had made themselves, a little cramped and tiny, but it was something they were both proud of, and it was enough for at least one grown person. Elise was a testament to that.

Grunting with exertion, Dell peeled the man's clothes off and propped him up against the bed, stumbling away to the bathroom to pick up a spare towel. Grumbling down at his bad leg, he smacked at it lightly and cursed it quietly; there were so much more things he could do with ease if he didn't have the damn thing.

No use getting angry over spilled milk, though, he sighed, as he made his way back to the man and wiped him dry, running his hands over short, thin blonde hair, and rough, war-toughened skin. Looking down at the man's large, muscular body, he silently wondered what he had gone through in the war.

"Wonder who you are, slim." Dell told him, aware the man wasn't listening, but he shrugged it off. "Don't you have a family to go back to or something?"

He looked at the man's sleeping face, and sighed, shaking his head. He remembered seeing dogtags in the piled of clothes he took off, but he decided against reading them. He would allow the man to explain himself: after all, after the war, he'd imagine all would want new lives, no exceptions.

He heaved the man up onto the bed (not an easy feat, Dell realised, seeing as the man was much bigger than he was) and tucked him in as best as he could. Standing back, he studied the man's face again, and he could see the dark lines under his eyes. He was just like he was, he thought. Tired.

A sad smile crossed his face, and Dell shook his head.

"I'll see you in the mornin', Slim," he smiled at the sleeping man. "Let's talk then."

He limped away to the door, looking over his shoulder at the man and turned the light off, smiling tiredly at him one last time before turning around and closing the door behind him.

The man turned in his sleep in the bed, mumbling, before falling still once more.