The hours melted away, as the sun retreated behind the clouds as night bleed into the sky consuming the day once more. Lila soon enough found her way back home, thoughts of the morning had long since passed out of her mind. She forced herself to forget the bizarre encounter.

For a moment, she had been dragged backwards through time, into the archive of memory that she kept under lock and key in the deepest depths of her subconscious. Into the memories of warfare. Into the memories of strings of chaotic decisions and terrifying realisations that had shaken her resolve, and had driven her down this lonely road. She had never considered that she might change, evolve and adapt, that she could take away another's pain. Yet she had.

Lila stood for a moment, holding back the tears as the images rolled by. She would easily imagine time around her melting away. Finding herself back there, back in those horrific conditions fighting to save those men from certain death. She had enlisted as a nurse, followed Alexander to the front lines or as close as she, as a woman could get.

The initial reasoning behind her own application had been completely selfish, that she would never deny. Alexander, the man who broke through her barriers, made her feel alive and loved. She had to protect him, pay his kindness and affection back ten fold. Afterall she couldn't be harmed. She could keep him safe from a storm of incoming bullets, right?

'How wrong was I" She muttered to herself, her words drowning with a wave of guilt and grief. As she climbed the stairs, one step at a time.


Lila pushed aside the tent door, entering the makeshift infirmary. Beds lined the walls, almost all of them with a man lying in them. Each one with a different degree of injury to the next one. The Doctor rushing between them whenever he could spare a moment. Her fellow nurses were just as rushed off their feet as they tried to keep the latest casualty from losing his life in the furthest corner of the tent.

However that wasn't what had caught her attention. No, it had been the looks that had been thrown in her direction from the second that she entered. The Doctor had signalled to the soldier positioned by the entrance. Private Jack Danielson beckoning him over. This wasn't unusual. This usually only meant one thing, the soldier in the bed in the doctor's professional option wasn't going to last the night. Private Danielson would be the one to inform the colonel, who would then write to the soldier's loved ones back home.

Lila had seen this done countless times but yet this felt different. None of the other nurses would dare to meet her gaze. Not Sally, not Vivienne and certainly not Elizabeth. She started to make her way over to them. Her lips pursed with questions ready to fall and be asked but a gentle hand upon her shoulder stopped her. She turned her head, to find herself staring into the dull green eyes of the Private. Confusion washed over her, as she tried to quickly interpret the mix of emotions held within his gaze/

"Nurse Wright, it might be best if you come with me" He said, his tone wavered for a moment but steadied as he continued to speak. "He doesn't have long left" As the last word fell from his lips, the hand upon her shoulder moved to begin guiding her towards the furthest corner of the tent. In the opposite direction, away from the nurses. Lila had remained silent, listening to the Private as he spoken but soon enough the penny dropped. Her world was spun upon its axis, rushing straight past her.

Horror set in hard and fast, her veins froze shut as her blood chilled by the very thought of who lay in that bed. This couldn't be her new reality, her face shakily turned, taking in the sight of pure white cotton sheets stained with fresh blood. The color drained from her skin, darting away, retreating into the depths. It was too much for her to take. It couldn't be him. It couldn't be her Alexander.

The loud, thumping her heart echoed in her ears, louder and louder with each step inching closer. Private Danielson remained behind her, just in case. He had to make sure that if she fainted that her head wouldn't collide with the ground below. Her eyes remained fixed on the end of bed, for if she didn't look then it wasn't him. The sound of Doctor Jameson was dulled out, merging into the background as she drew closer. She could hear singular words being shouted out but found it difficult to focus.

Her feet stopped mere inches away from the end of the cot. Her body shook as she stood there. "L...ila? Is that y...ou" A weak familiar voice called out, it sounded as if he was struggling to get the word out. His voice reminded her of a child calling out in the dark for their mother for comfort.

She forced herself to raise her gaze, trying not to linger upon his terrible, bloody wounds for longer than a second. His eyes, the window to his soul was all she longed to look with but instead her eyes fell upon his face. Layers of now off white fabric bandages were tightly wrapped around his eyes protecting them for further damage. Her hands moved from her side, gripping at the end of the makeshift bed. It's metal frame felt cold beneath her grip but it didn't matter in that moment. She needed something to hold onto, to hold herself up.

"Alexander, I'm here" She proclaimed, knowing that her words were rushed. Lila wanted him to know that she was there with him. Tears had already begun to well up in the very corner of eyes. She held the flood back for as long as she could. He needed her to be strong for him. She was there for him in his hour of need, much like he had been all those years prior but only difference? There was nothing she could do to save him.

She had seen the bullet holes that littered his torso, they had easily pierced through his flesh as if he had been made of butter. Likely tearing holes out as they exited through his back. She could heal, this was true but only her own body. Her own injuries, not his. The guilt racked through her like a freight train. No longer could she hold back the tears, they without hesitation broke free, rushing down her cheeks like a river burst its banks. She sobbed her heart out, moving around the bed to stand at the head of bed taking at seat beside him.

She hadn't noticed that Doctor Jameson and Private Danielson slink away, giving her space and time. They both knew that he wouldn't last the night. They left the heartbroken nurse at her dying sweetheart's bedside. Not knowing how this would change her by the time the morning sun rose in the sky.


It was a moment that she would never forget. The day that Alexander slipped through her fingers. Passing into the waiting embrace of death, a bittersweet soothing sensation that had ended his suffering. The weight of his hand held within her own loosened, as he lost the battle and drifted away from her. The image of his hand slipping out of her own and dangling down at the side of the bed had been too much for her to bear. As a scream ripped from her lips, as she shoots up out of her seat towards his lifeless body.

Clinging to his shirt as she screeched "Don't leave me, Don't you dare leave me" Agony drenched her cries as her tears ran wild down her already reddened cheeks.

Losing Alexander had been a defining turning point in her life. It had shaped the path that she had walked from that moment onwards.


She lifted her head, as the sound of nearby patient's hissing in pain brought back for an instance. It sounded unlike the normal groans and moans that she had come accustomed to hearing on a daily basis. These were ones of momentary discomfort, mixed with that of surprise that lessened as the moment passed them by. She turned her head briefly away from the body of beloved. Her eyes widened at the sight of the man in the next bed, sitting up when the day before, he found it near impossible to move without pain.

Pain enveloped her, rushing hard into her chest. Crashing through her, forcing the air out of her lungs as it continued it's assault. Lila was battered with wave after wave of short, quick blasts peppering her arms, legs and chest. No part of her was spared. Her eyes turned downwards, widening in shock and fear at the sight of blood seeping through her uniform. Turning the once white garment, a terrifying shade of reddish pink. If anyone saw her, they would have thought that she had walked head first into enemy fire.

Blood dripped from her fingertips, coating the ground beneath where she sat. Her gaze began to waver, darkness crept in as her head flopped back. She too gave into sweet embrace as she fell into unconsciousness.

A slight smile across her lips, as she turned the corner. Her healing had changed that day too. She had drawn the wounds of the nearby soldiers into her, making them her own. Absorbing the damage, the pain before making it her own which she could heal. The first instance had taken all out of her. Lila had woken with a raging headache, her body ached something rotten. Wrapping herself up in Alexander's overcoat that had been left hanging on the chair.

The experience had left her numb, dazed and confused. She remembered very little of the weeks that followed. Each day blurred into the next. Lila had been left alone, grief her consistent companion. She couldn't stay at the encampment, Alex had died there, a piece of her as died with him.

BANG

BANG

BANG

The series of loud, popping noises brought of her thoughts, her memories. Lila stopped in the middle of the hallway. She paused, considering what it might. Maybe children setting off firecrackers in an apartment at the end of the corridor. It could also be someone getting shot. She froze to the spot, unsure of what to do. She could help but yet at the same time, it might be all for nothing.

"Wright!" She lifted her head, finding Agent Carter a few feet away from where she stood, gun in hand in the doorway of apartment that was neither of theirs. "I need your help" Sharon quivered, the tremble in her voice lingered through the words. Fear and worry resonated across the empty hall. It was the latter, someone had been shot.