The letters keep coming, even now though it is months since Konstin was wounded, months since he commanded a man, months since he wrote his own letters. Letters from mothers who have lost their sons, from sisters deprived of brothers, from wives bereft of their husbands. Letters from fathers and brothers too, but mostly it is women who are left to write, women who are thanking him for his condolences, for the little things he has to say about the ones they've lost, snatches of memories that are only barely his own.

It was his duty to write to them. But he is still surprised that they write back. And that they do not seem to hate him.

It would be easier if they did.

The letter from Madeline Dupuis comes in mid-April. The flowers are in bloom, a blaze of colour outside his window. It is four days since he last had word from Antoine, and he is just beginning to get nervous at his translation work, asking Corporal Bisset to fortify his tea with whiskey and his words cutting just a little sharper, when an aide brings him the letter.

His first reaction is the sinking disappointment that it is not from Antoine.

His second is clawing nausea at the sight of the name.

His fingers ache for a cigarette, and he clenches them tight, unable to stomach the thought of the smoke, unable to stomach the thought that a letter from Dupuis' mother and no word from Antoine can only be an omen.

He closes his eyes, breathes slowly through his nose, and tries to get a handle on himself. There's no such thing as omens...no such thing as omens...of course there hasn't been word for four days, he's busy...

Slowly the feeling that everything is out of his control subsides, ebbing away with the worst of the nausea. He promises himself, a thousand times he promises himself, that Antoine is well, that Antoine is merely busy, and his eyes flicker open to find Bisset looking at him with concern.

He shakes his head ever so slightly, and with all the control he can muster he lifts the letter and tucks it away in a drawer, out of his sight.

"Pass me the top English document..."

But out of sight is not out of mind, and try as he may all day the memory of that letter comes back to him. Dupuis' mother. A woman who's lost two sons and a son-in-law to this war, and he tries not to entertain hypotheticals, tries not to imagine how things might be if Dupuis had lived because that way lies twisting guilt and makes it so hard to breathe, but Dupuis' mother, in another life, might have become Marguerite's mother-in-law, if things had gone well. And to have a letter from her now—

Konstin calls it an early evening, releases Bisset from his duties when he gets home, and sits in the study with Raoul, trying not to think.

It is two weeks before he can open the letter, two weeks and April has faded into May, and sleep is elusive, drowned out by fresh nightmares that leave him tired and heavy and his mind sluggish looking at words, trying to turn them around. There has been confirmation, several times, that Antoine continues to draw breath, that Guillaume is safe in port, that Marguerite is well in the new hospital they fell back to after the German advance. Confirmation from everyone, that they are all well, or as well as they can be, but still he wakes trembling for the third time in a night, his mind playing tricks on him, showing him his own hands pulling a blood-soaked body out from a shell crater, a body that he only knows is Antoine's because of the notebook inside his coat, the blood soaked through the pages, blurring the words, his face mangled.

He hobbles to the window, throws it open, feels the chill of the morning air on his face.

It is only when he has caught his breath, has washed his hands and proved that there is no blood on them, has lit a candle and found himself definitively in his own room, sought out the letter that arrived from Antoine yesterday, that he swallows, and knows that if he does not read the words of Madeline Dupuis, he will never be able to sleep again.

Sometime in the last two weeks, he can't remember exactly when, he brought the letter home. Stuffed it in his coat and tried to forget about it. Throwing a robe around himself, he seeks out his coat hanging on the back of his door, and searches the pockets for the letter. It falls before he can grasp it, and it hits the floor softly. The pain that throbs in his leg as he stoops to pick it up makes him clench his teeth, but he gets it, and trembles as he straightens, leaning against the wall and kneading his leg to will the pain away.

He could turn on the light, could light the old lamp if he wanted, but it wouldn't feel appropriate to read such a letter in such brightness, so he returns to bed and settles on the edge, his leg stretched out before him, and tilts the envelope to the candle.

There is his name, his full proper name, as if he might try to tell himself that it's all a mistake, and it's almost too much to bear, too much to take in.

He draws a shuddering breath, and opens the letter.

Words leap out at him, phrases.

Please forgive me for taking so long to answer your kind letter. I have sat down to write many times and never been able to find the words...

It is a comfort, to know that Edouard was so highly thought of...

He mentioned you often in his letters and admired you greatly...

I would deeply appreciate it if you would thank the cousin you mentioned who was so kind to him in his last days...

There is more, lines and lines more, but Konstin cannot read it, the pain drilling deep in his heart, his eyes filled with tears, and he slumps over, head falling on his pillow, too tired, too hollow, to fight the tears that come.

That is where Christine finds him, when dawn has broken, lying half on his bed, half off it, deeply asleep, the letter still caught between his fingers. The candle has guttered low, and she blows it out, eases the letter from his hand and sets it aside. Carefully, so as not to wake him, she lifts his legs and sets them down on the bed, draws the blanket over him. In the watery light of morning he is so pale, so frail, his face so young, and her throat is tight, her heart aching, as she kisses his forehead, and smooths back his hair, and slips from the room.

Let him sleep a while longer. His work can wait.

A/N: Up next - Memories and anxieties, August 1918