Okay - heads up, so this is a bit different - this is a World War II AU, so there are some more serious and some OOC moments. Also this is split into two chapters because I can't figure out how to end it but I wanna put it out there... ALso I know very little about Japanese hospitals during the war soo... LOL

But don't worry, this is still a CUTE SERIOUS ABOUT TAKATETSU so all ends well! Just a little angst to spice it all up.

...

Summary: After being attacked by enemy forces, Tetsu is forced to return home from war. However, he can't exactly return to the normalcy he longs for when there's an infection in his leg and is forced to take refugee in a hospital. Whilst recovering, Tetsu can't help but to notice a certain nurse with a major attitude and hair that would look so much prettier if it were longer.

Warnings: War, amputation, ptsd, hospitals

Enjoy~

If it had been up to Tetsu, he'd still be in the countryside, enjoying the slow bud of spring, working in the fields with his friends, brother and many cousins. Mom's home cooked meals would be waiting for him and Masashi whenever they returned home while dad would be sitting out back, watching as the stars began to peak out from under the thick rolling clouds that often plagued the night sky this time of year. His bed, although, yes, it was shared with his brother, would be comfortable, smelling sweet of the home his mother had built all for them. It would give him warmth, like a cozy hug, and it would forever be one of the things he'd miss most of his home so far away, mostly due to the fact that the beds in the make shift hospital felt like a gravel road.

True, it was more comfortable than sleeping in that hot crowded ship he was subject to not just a week before. But, still, it was still pretty horrible, because not only was his neck always in a state of perpetual soreness, but his leg was constantly giving him excruciating pains that shot up and down his entire body – making it that much harder to find any ounce of comfort at all.

"You need to sleep." She always seemed to be annoyed with him. Ever since he got here five days ago, she's had nothing but curt words to offer him. He thought that since he was back home, people would at least treat him with a little bit more respect than a lowly, faceless soldier but this nurse was crushing his expectations day by day. "It isn't healthy to stay up all night."

As Tetsu watched her make sure the curtain was pulled tight, making sure that the other soldiers that actually slept at night wouldn't be disturbed by his soft bedside light, he couldn't help but to notice for the nth time how beautiful his nurse was. You couldn't blame him, either, for making that observation, considering he's been looking at nothing but large, smelly men for the past few years. Maybe it was the fact that she was the first female he's seen for awhile or maybe it was just that he enjoyed everything little thing about her, that made him watch her as he laid there. Although she worked twelve to fourteen hour shifts, her skin still glowed brightly, always bringing his eye to her. She had intense (yes, often annoyed whenever she was assigned to him) dark eyes that worked fast whenever doctors or other nurses barked orders out for her to follow. Her hands were delicate but firm, capable and strong in everything she did, whether it was replacing bandages, draw blood, clean up messes or even when moving patients to a more comfortable position.

The only thing that Tetsu didn't necessarily like about his nurse was her hair. It was too short for her – to clean cut, raw, foreign. If he could dream, he'd dream about her, out in the country somewhere, maybe on his family's farm or in town at the market, hair long, curled around her neck or loose in the twilight whenever he came home from the fields. But since he could no long close his eyes long enough to dream up such fantasies, all he saw was that stark short cut.

"Do you need stronger pain medicine?" She was standing next to his bed now, flipping through his clipboard. "I could talk to the doctor when he gets in –"

"My bed is really uncomfortable." Tetsu said quietly, folding his arms across his chest. "My neck is always sore."

She looked at him, her face calm – too calm, like the calm of the green sky right before a really bad storm: "Yuuki-san, this is not something I can help you with. Every patient gets the same mattress."

"Mine is really uncomfortable."

"Yuuki-san."

Her name was Fujiwara Takako; she had been the first face he saw when he woke up. One moment he was being blown out of the water and the next he was staring up a face that he had never expected to see. She had stayed by his side, silent, but her hand grasping his as he was brought into the recovery ward after his surgery. It had only been on that first night back in Japan, with her by his side, hand in hand, that he was able to fall asleep without dreaming of the past two year he'd spent in overseas, fighting as soldier for a cause he'd been asked to take upon himself.

It had been five nights since then and for every one of them, Fujiwara Takako has come to scold him about the importance of actually sleeping at night.

"I can't fall asleep."

She shook her head and let out an annoyed sigh: "You don't even try."

"Maybe if I had another pillow…" He couldn't help himself mumble, his arms still tightly folded across his chest like a pouting child.

Fujiwara glared at him, snapping the clipboard shut and smacking it against his – rock hard – mattress.

"Go to sleep Yuuki."

…

The infection had been bad, extremely bad. Already, his foot and shin had been all but shattered due to the explosion that had occurred while on a recon mission in enemy waters but as he was being brought back to his homeland, something had gone wrong – something hadn't been handled right and by the time he had arrived to port, he could barely breath at the pain that was shooting up through his leg – not to forget to mention the coursing pain all along the left side of his head and neck where shards of glass had lodged themselves into his skin.

They had stitched him up (Fujiwara did those honors after removing the makeshift stitches performed during his transfer) but there was nothing to save his infected leg.

Tetsu could still feel where the rest of his leg was supposed to be. He wondered how he was going to ever work in the fields again. Or face his mother, or joke around with his friends, or play pickup in the field outside his house.

"You aren't asleep again."

It was well past nightfall and Tetsu had been waiting for Fujiwara to show up. For the past two weeks, he had probably slept a total of eight hours – short twenty minute naps was all he could handle before being thrown awake in a cold sweat and a spinning room, void of all the loud, piercing noises that were running through his head. So for the past two weeks, Fujiwara had spent half of her shift by Tetsu's bed, either arranging documents for her boss or speaking softly with Tetsu about trivial matters such as the weather or the colorful patients she dealt with on the daily.

Tonight, was no different.

"I am uncomfortable."

"Poor baby," she shot back quickly, checking his bandages to make sure there was no bleeding. "Want a glass of warm milk."

Tetsu would have pouted if he were younger or if the teasing had been committed by his brother – so instead he just huffed once and waited for Fujiwara to stop performing her routine checks on him. He had quickly realized that she liked teasing him about his gravel-like mattress, often challenging him by saying that she had to sleep on a straw-pile only covered with a sheet.

"Did you at least take a nap today?" Fujiwara sighed, as if she already knew the answer. She sat on the little bench that the doctor often sat at when he examined the tender stitching of what was left of his leg.

Tetsu just shook his head.

For the first time, Fujiwara gave him a look that, yeah, was still skeptical but had something hidden underneath it, something Tetsu would have missed if he wasn't stuck in bed, watching nothing but the wall all day. Finally, Fujiwara sighed, rubbing her hands together, and pulling herself closer, "I can't either."

Tetsu was never good at talking; back home, his brother was the one that talked for both of them, he'd just sit there, content and happy with going along with Jun, Masashi, or Miyuki's schemes, even though he knew form the start that it was him that would be appointment as leader. But although he was never much of a talker, Jun, his brother, or even that demonic four eyes weren't here and there was something about Fujiwara Takako, this war, his missing leg, that made him want to know.

"Why not?"

She shrugged her lean frame: "I see a lot, you know? I don't see what happens out there but I see what it does to all of you." Fujiwara paused, as if still battling whether or not to go on. She looked up to see if Tetsu was getting angry or something with her for comparing what she in here to what he did out there, but when she was met with just a quietly blank stare, she found herself continuing: "I've seen more brain than I've ever wanted to. It's gross and scary and I can't eat. I've seen people cry for their mothers or their wives but what's worse is when they cry for their daughters. I've seen infected legs get, well, I've seen your leg."

Her eyes lowered and her hands twisted the thin blanket that barely kept him warm at night. And they sat like that, Tetsu watching her quietly, Fujiwara breathing deep as if she really was asleep, for what seemed like hours. After a while, Tetsu was unaware of it all – the coughs, the groans, the soft click of other nurses' heels, and all he could hear was Fujiwara's breathing. After a while, he wondered if he too was asleep. Their little bubble, however, was broken when the patient next to him cried out so loud, Fujiwara jumped up so quickly, her stool was kicked over.

Later that night, when it was more morning than night, after Fujiwara had taken care of the patient, often walking by with bloody bandages and all the clean towels she could muster, Tetsu had stopped her before she ended her shift:

"I'm sorry my leg kept you up at night."

She had stared at him for a minute, in complete shock, before a smile that Tetsu had never seen before spread across her face – an unexpected laugh bubbled from mouth. She turned on her heel, still laughing, and Tetsu sat back and smiled.

…

"Thank you, Takako-chan." He heard a patient with an eye patch and missing hand mumbled after Fujiwara had helped change him into a fresh set of clothes.

"It was no problem at all, Matsumoto-san," Fujiwara bowed, "Just let me know if you need anything else."

Tetsu watched as she moved on to the next bed – two more to go until she came to his – and again, the man called her by her first name. She just smiled and continued on, stopping to speak with one of the other nurses for a moment before running to grab a fresh blanket for the patient next to him.

"Can I call you Takako?"

She stopped halfway through mid-wrapping his leg to look at him.

"Absolutely not."

Tetsu sat straight in bed, making Fujiwara Takako groan in frustration as some of his wrappings came unraveled.

"Why do they get to call you Takako and I can't?"

Fujiwara glared up at him as she tried to salvage her work.

"It's a different situation."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"If you don't know, don't ask."

"But –"

"Stop moving."

"I'm not –"

"Stop."

He watched as finished wrapping his leg and began scribbling in his clipboard. Before she left, Tetsu looked up at her and said simply: "You can call me Tetsu. Everybody does."

She stared at him like he noticed she did a lot, like he was weird or something, but she didn't burst out in that secret smile or a cute laugh. She just stared at him and he thought that it was going to be the end of that when she turned to leave without evening blinking. But as she set the clipboard back down on the bedside table, she sighed out silently:

"Fine."

End of Part 1 (of 2).

Please let me know whatcha think and thanks for reading!