A/N: Chapter 11 here - and, you'll probably be pleased to hear, I've found a proper plot for this story, so now it's not just about Nick and Jeff's experiences; the plot starts in this chapter and will be continued throughout, though maybe not every chapter :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.

"Hurry up, Nicky," Jeff whined from his bed, "It's not that difficult." He was lying on top of his blankets, staring at the ceiling, while Nick sat across from him at their shared desk and tried to complete his mathematics homework.

"It is," Nick shot back, "No matter how hard I try, I can't get the answer out of a fraction."

Jeff rolled his eyes as though the question was the picture of utmost simplicity, but finally relented and got up to cross the room to help Nick. He leant over the brunette's shoulder and pointed to a number on the page.

"That's easy," he said, "That five should be a minus number, and then once you use that instead, you won't get a fraction."

Nick sighed at his mistakes and quickly scribbled his workings out and rewrote them using the correct numbers.

"It's not fair," he grumbled, "You're good at maths, and every other subject actually; share some of your cleverness around, won't you?"

Jeff laughed a little.

"You could quite easily have got that answer yourself," he said, "You just have no patience."

"I have plenty of patience."

"No, you don't; you're used to the city, where everything happens at the snap of your fingers, here in the country, you have to wait a little longer."

"I don't think that rule applies to maths, Jeff."

There was short pause.

"Nick, are you finished yet?" Jeff's repeated question broke the silence, and Nick groaned.

"Yes," he said finally, "I was just putting my work away." He turned around in his chair and faced the blonde boy. "Now, what did you want?"

"I want to go exploring," Jeff replied, with the eager enthusiasm of a much younger child, who had just been given permission to play outside without supervision.

Nick looked sceptically at him.

"Exploring where, exactly?" he asked warily.

"Well," Jeff drew out the word as long as he could while his best friend regarded him suspiciously, "There's this big, old house up on the hill behind the farm, you know, the one that you can see if you stand by the barn?"

Nick nodded, he had an inkling of where this conversation was going, and he wasn't entirely sure whether he was completely happy with that.

"No one's lived there for years," the blonde boy continued, "Not since the last war anyway, when it's said that the three sons went off to war, and none of them ever came back; the father had already died, and the mother went mad with grief, she died too, I think. At least, that's what everyone says happened."

"Does nobody really know then?" Nick asked, his interest piqued by a good mystery novel; it sounded a little like one of the new Agatha Christie books that he'd been reading recently.

Jeff shrugged.

"There are plenty of people here who were alive during the last war," he said, "My parents included, but for some reason, no one seems to quite know anything for sure. Wes says that it's because people are trying to forget the atrocity of it all, and that the tragedy of the family who lived there is just another reason to be sad, so they've stopped thinking about it. No one can even remember the name of the family, it's become that bad."

Nick's eyes widened. He had no idea that the legacy of a war could cause an entire village to forget some of its own inhabitants.

"So, do you want to go and explore it?" Jeff finally reached the question that he'd been intending to ask Nick all along.

Nick was silent for a moment, while he was really curious to find out more about the deserted house, he was also rather against breaking and entering a property which no one knew much about.

"Jeff, are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked, "I mean, we don't have permission to go in there, and what if we're caught?"

"We won't be," the blonde was sure.

"How can you be so certain?"

Jeff paused for a moment, before speaking.

"People say that the place is haunted," he explained, his voice dropping to a whisper, as though they were likely to be overheard. "That's why no one will go up there."

An involuntary shiver washed over Nick as he thought about the possible experiences they could have if they went up to the old house.

"Haunted?" he asked, trying to keep the slightly terrified inflection out of his voice.

Jeff, however, still looked just as excited, and his eyes were shining brightly in the anticipation of a great adventure.

"Yeah," he nodded eagerly, "I've even heard some of the children at school say that it wasn't the death of her sons that made the mother go mad, it was the ghosts."

Now, Nick just scoffed in disbelief.

"That's just ridiculous, Jeff," he said, "I might agree to this exploring trip just to prove that the house is not haunted."

The blonde boy clapped his hands together.

"Do it," he said, "Agree to it and then we can go up there straight away."

Nick chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to come to a decision, but one quick look up at the hope in Jeff's eyes was enough to sway him.

"Fine, I'll come with you," he said.

"Yes!" the blonde jumped up and punched the air with his fist. "Come on, let's go immediately." He grabbed the brunette's hand and tried to drag him from the room.

"Wait up, Jeff," Nick laughed, "Let me grab a jumper, and you'd better get one too, it's the middle of November."

He pulled out a thick woollen one from a drawer, while Jeff drew out one of his buttoned ones, and when they went downstairs, Nick made sure that his best friend wore a coat, as well as his cap, despite his protests that it would ruin his hair.

Once they were suitably dressed, they stepped out together into the cold November air, and headed around the edge of the farm so that they could walk straight over hills to the house. It didn't take too long, but the chill was bitter, and the two boys tried to walk as close as possible without tripping over each other in the process of trying to get warm.

"Here we are," Jeff said, as the house suddenly loomed up in front of them, when Nick could have sworn that it had not been there the minute before.

They'd walked over the fields, avoiding the long driveway, which now spread out in front of them, from the grand front steps all the way down the hill; Nick could practically see the carriages of old rolling up the main entrance and dropping off their occupants, who were arriving for some great ball.

He was knocked out of his reverie by Jeff elbowing him in the side.

"Stop gawking," he said, "We've got some exploring to do."

"How are we going to get in?" Nick asked, hurrying after the blonde, who was striding purposefully towards the great oak doors.

"I doubt it'll be this way," Jeff replied, "But it wouldn't hurt to try."

He pushed on the heavy wood, but nothing happened, not even the slightest creak. He turned the large bronze handle, but still nothing.

"We'd never be able to force this," Nick said, "And anyway, you wouldn't want to it would ruin it completely."

Jeff sighed in agreement.

"I guess that we'll just have to find another way of gaining entry," he said, setting off to circle the perimeter of the house.

He, with Nick in tow, walked around the west wing of the house, in the hope that there might be some way of getting inside.

As they went, Nick took a good look at the house. It was big, a small country manor, maybe, but not so excessively large that there would be endless corridors and countless numbers of rooms that were unused. The brickwork was mid-17th century, with the cast iron window frames clearly having been replaced some time in the Victorian age with the iron imported from the vast numbers of ironworks which had sprung up around the country during the Industrial Revolution.

It wasn't the most beautiful building that Nick had ever seen, no, but it had an undeniable charm, and he was immediately smitten with it.

"Nicky, I think I've found something!" Jeff's excited call interrupted him, and he looked over to see the blonde beckoning to him eagerly with one hand as he gestured to a window with the other. "It's open," he continued, "The latch has snapped."

Just as Nick reached his side, he gave the window a firm tug and it opened outwards with a loud creaking sound.

Both boys peered inside with fascinated expressions on their faces. The room that they were looking into was not what they were expecting, it was not dark and gloomy like other abandoned houses, instead, the light filtered in through the un-curtained windows and gave the space a light and airy feel. There was a thick layer of dust covering everything, which could not be avoided, but it would be easily cleaned up.

Jeff turned to Nick.

"So," he said, "Who's going first?"

"I will," Nick decided, "You're taller so you'll have to give me a hand getting in, and then you can climb up after me."

"Alright."

The window was just higher than the average window on a more modern house, and Jeff had to support Nick as he jumped and tried to haul himself over the window ledge. Once the brunette was safely on the floor again, but this time inside, he reached up to take Jeff's hands and pulled him over into the room as well.

Once they'd both righted themselves, they took a good look at their surroundings. The house had clearly been closed up, not so much abandoned in a hurry as the villagers seemed to be claiming, and the furniture had been pushed into the middle of the floor and covered with dustsheets; but not cold and eerie white ones, which always reminded Nick of something ghostly, but bright and colourful ones, some even with patterns on them. There was a door leading out of the room that they were standing in, and further on they could see the grand entrance hall, with the wide, sweeping staircase twisting up to the first floor.

Both boys had the sudden urge to explore the place as thoroughly as they could.

"Can we look at the furniture?" Nick asked, going to remove the dustsheets so that they could clean the dust from everywhere at the same time.

Jeff looked slightly more hesitant, which was a first for him.

"But," he said, "We wouldn't want to disturb the ghosts."

Nick grinned.

"Jeffy," he said, "Haunted houses have that sort of otherworldly feel to them, as though you're sure that there is something else there; and this? Well, there's nothing like that here. It's just rather dusty, and it wouldn't hurt to clean it up a little, would it?"

"I suppose not," Jeff conceded, before joining Nick in lifting the first dustsheet, a spotted blue one, from an old sofa.

They beat the dust from the cushions, coughing as large clouds of it rose up and choked them a bit as they did so. Once they were finishes with that, they placed the cushions as neatly as possible on the sofa, and then sat down together.

"Humbug?" Jeff asked suddenly, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulling out the bag of sweets that they'd bought the day before in Mrs Jones' shop.

"You brought food!" Nick exclaimed, granted, it was only a boiled sweet, but he was rather hungry by now, and the sight of something edible made him very happy.

"Of course, I did," Jeff said, "I'm always prepared."

Nick didn't bother contesting the rather dubious truth behind that statement, but instead took a humbug and popped it into his mouth.

"Nicky," Jeff said suddenly in a small voice, "Do you worry about the future?"

There was a silence as Nick mulled this question over, sucking the humbug thoughtfully.

"Yes," the brunette spoke finally, "I do worry."

"What do you worry about?"

"Lots of things," Nick said, looking over at the blonde, who shuffled closer to him on the sofa as he talked. "I worry about where this war's going; how long it will last, they said the last one would be over by Christmas and it lasted for four years, what will happen with this one? And then I worry about people; I worry about what I'm going to have to do when I turn eighteen, and I worry about the people that will be left behind." He paused. "I worry about you, Jeff."

"Me?" the blonde looked surprised, and came even closer, so that their thighs were pressed together and their arms were touching. "Why me?"

"You're my best friend," Nick said, "That's why I chose you over Thad and Sebastian a few weeks ago, and I don't want to have to leave you behind with the knowledge that I might never see you again."

"Don't talk like that. The war will end and we'll all be fine, you'll see."

Nick shook his head.

"War doesn't work like that," he said, "I've lived with my father for seventeen years, and I've learnt that war breaks people; it injures them mentally and physically." He took a deep breath. "What ever happens to us in the end, Jeff, we won't be the same people we were at the start."

"My dad fought too," Jeff insisted, "And he's fine!"

Nick shook his head.

"My father said that no one came out of the trenches the same man that they went in," he said, "Your dad may have learnt to cope with what he saw, but, I promise you, it will have affected him in some way."

Jeff was silent for a moment, and then his head dropped down onto Nick's shoulder heavily.

"I don't want anything to change, Nicky," he said plaintively. "I want everything to stay as it is now, and then you wouldn't have to go off to war and I wouldn't have to worry about you when you do, and…"

"It's alright, Jeff," the brunette spoke softly, "Whatever happens to us, we'll have to prepare ourselves for it, of course, and we'll deal with it."

"Have you decided what you're going to do yet?" Jeff asked suddenly, surprising Nick, who'd been trying not to bring the subject up, nor did he think that the blonde boy would have even thought about that; but they were discussing it now, weren't they?

Slowly, Nick nodded.

"I have," he said, "I'm going to join the RAF, with Hunter, and fly Spitfires."

"Hunter will look after you."

"I don't need looking after, Jeffy."

"I know, but it makes me feel better to think that you won't be out there alone."

Later that afternoon found the two boys upstairs in one of the old bedrooms, sorting through antiques and various ornaments. They'd finished the room that they'd started in, having removed the dust from several other old armchairs and moved them out into a suitable arrangement. Then, they'd ventured into the next room, the kitchen, but had quickly decided that there was nothing that they could sort out there, and neither had any idea how to check whether they could get the stove to light or not. Heading up the stairs next, they had discovered a long corridor leading off in both directions, with doors placed at regular intervals along it.

"Let's start at one end and work our way along," Jeff had suggested, and Nick had quickly agreed, trailing behind the other boy towards the furthermost door.

Now, they only had a few dustsheet-covered items left to uncover, while the already-identified pile was growing underneath the window, comprising of several figurines, an old clock which had stopped at three minutes past six, and a few books, which Jeff had had to practically pry out of Nick's grip before he delved into them and never came back out.

"Nick, can you help me with this?" Jeff asked suddenly, as he tried to lift a large, rectangular object and uncover it.

"Sure."

Nick moved over and grasped one end tightly with one hand, while supporting the back of the object in the other. Jeff threw back the dustsheet and revealed a beautiful painting of the surrounding countryside.

The rolling hills of the Kent landscape could clearly be seen, and in one portion of the painting was the village, with a few less building than there were now. And there, in the bottom corner was…

"My house!" Jeff exclaimed, pointing to where the little farmhouse sat proudly on its own little hill.

He looked up at Nick from his new position, kneeling on the floor beside the picture, with such a bright and eager expression on his face that something just clicked within the brunette.

The blonde boy in front of him seemed to shine in the afternoon sun, like a beacon that would always call him home whenever he was lost. There was something within the spark that was the essence of Jeff that drew Nick towards him as though they were magnetised; as though Fate had destined them to be together for ever and ever without the chance of separation.

But they were to be separated, weren't they? Yes, in body they would be, but in mind they would always be together, for you cannot split apart the two sides of the same coin, can you?

And there was Jeff, sitting in front of Nick and smiling up at him, he was home; he was the brunette's home no matter what happened, and Nick would always return to him.

This blonde boy; this excitable, energetic, adorable and beautiful boy was Nick's world. He realised that now, even if Jeff did not, and Nick knew that he would not be the same without Jeff, he would still be as he had once been, floating around in life, never knowing exactly where he was heading.

But now, Jeff was his anchor, and the love, yes, love, that Nick felt for the other boy kept him firmly in place, and would continue to do so, for ever and a day.

"Nick, are you alright?" Jeff's voice broke into Nick's thoughts and startled the brunette back into the present.

"Of course," he gave the blonde a dazzling smile.

"Good," Jeff smiled back, oblivious to Nick's inner musings, "I thought I'd lost you then."

"But, Nick, Dad said that we could have Elizabeth all day today," Jeff said.

"Well, maybe, I don't want Elizabeth today," the other boy retorted.

"Why not?"

"Jeff, despite your best efforts, you will not be succeeding in getting me on a horse anytime soon."

"Just sit in the saddle for a moment then," Jeff continued, "I'll be satisfied then."

Nick shook his head.

"If I'd known that we weren't actually here just to take Elizabeth into the paddock, I would have stayed behind," he said.

They were standing in the middle of one of the Sterlings' fields, while Jeff held Elizabeth's reins in one hand, and tried to coax Nick into climbing onto the horse's back.

"I don't know the first thing about riding horses," the brunette insisted, "You can't just expect me to just sit up there and everything will be fine."

"But it will be," Jeff was persistent, "I'm here; I've been riding horses since I was four."

"Jeff, you got me stuck up a tree."

"And we were fine, anyway, it'll be different this time. Elizabeth's very gentle, she won't even move if I tell her not to do so."

Nick bit his lip in indecision.

"Fine," he said, between teeth gritted in determination, "I'll sit up in the saddle, and then I shall get back down."

Jeff grinned.

"Once you get up there," he said, "You won't want to come down."

Nick rolled his eyes at the other boy's confidence.

"Well, we'll see about that."

Jeff motioned for Nick to put his hands on Elizabeth's saddle, and hook one foot into the stirrups first, all while he himself held the reins firmly in his right hand. Nick did as he was instructed and with Jeff's help, he swung himself onto the horse's back.

"Don't kick her as you lift your leg over," Jeff advised as he gave his friend a push upwards.

"I won't," Nick promised, being especially careful when he moved his leg, and using all of his strength, and Jeff's help, to pull himself up high enough into the saddle.

"Right," Jeff said, once Nick was comfortable in the seat, "I'm going to lead Elizabeth over to the other side of the field so that I can get Bella, alright?"

Nick nodded, clinging to the reins with both hands, while Jeff slowly led the horse to the other end of the field, where he quickly mounted Bella without letting go of the rope attached to Elizabeth's bridle.

"When did you saddle Bella?" Nick asked, noticing that the other boy was sitting on the horse's back.

"Earlier," Jeff replied, "You weren't watching and I knew that I'd manage to get you on a horse one way or another."

Nick rolled his eyes yet again.

"So, are you ready to actually do this by yourself?"

"Myself?"

"Of course not, silly, I was joking," Jeff laughed, "I just meant, why don't you try and control Elizabeth yourself a little bit more?"

"Alright, what shall I do?" Nick asked, looking down at the horse beneath him in puzzlement, as though willing her to move forward.

"Staring at her won't help," Jeff chuckled, "Squeeze gently with your legs, gently, mind you, and she'll go."

Nick did so, and Elizabeth set off at a steady pace, while Jeff had Bella walk beside them, still keeping a hold on the leading rope.

They'd got halfway around the field before everything went wrong.

Out of pure confidence that Nick's riding was improving after just a few minutes, Jeff slackened his grip on the leading rope. At the same time, a car exhaust in the valley made a very loud bang, which echoed around the hillside.

In a second, both Bella and Elizabeth had become startled. Bella bolted, taking Jeff with her as he tried his hardest to stay in his seat and pull her back. Elizabeth reared in fright, and Nick in a panic did the worst thing he could have done:

He let go of the reins.

"Nick!" Jeff called back, turning Bella around when he realised that he could not see his friend anywhere. "Nick!"

He forced Bella into a canter and rode back up the hill.

The first thing he saw was Elizabeth, riderless, charging down field towards him.

"Whoa, girl," he said, catching her reins as she slowed, but still almost being flung from the saddle. "Where's Nick, eh? What's happened to Nick?"

The horse, obviously, did not reply, but she whinnied in such an urgent way, that Jeff instantly spurred Bella onwards, dragging Elizabeth after him.

The ride to the top of the hill, where he'd last seen Nick, seemed to take an age, despite the speed of the horses. He kept his eye out though, in no way did he wanted his friend to be trampled.

As they neared the top, Jeff saw him.

Lying in a crumpled heap on the grass was Nick's unmoving form.

A/N: Erm, so, I just hurt Nick a little... :/ And also, I know nothing about horse riding - the most I've ever done like that is ride a donkey, and that was quite a few years ago! - so all of the information came from the internet! :) And don't forget about that house...it's important...very important... :)

Thank you for reading and please a review to tell me what you thought or to ask a question about the history behind it :)

Historical Points (just a little one this time!):

1. The Industrial Revolution during Britain's history that occured between around 1750 to the end of the 1800s - products started to be manufactured in factories, and many new pieces of machinery were invented to speed up production rates, including, as said in here, the production of iron :)