I just realized that I forgot to post this last week! Oops. Sorry, two chapters this week, then!

Hello, hello! Back for another week. Only six chapters left until I'm done with this monster which is slowly consuming my soul! Yay! No, jk, I've had a great time writing this, but I will be excited to begin thinking about other projects as well.

This chapter gets a bit intense, for those of you with weak constitutions, so watch out! And don't forget to enjoy.

Chapter Thirteen

The Secret Revealed (again)

September 19th, 1777

Thomas had been sitting in a tree all morning. He'd been promoted recently to a "Rifleman", which apparently meant that he could shoot well enough to pick off the Redcoats from a nice quiet hiding place off the ground vs. Twenty feet in front of him like Alfred, who was frankly a sitting duck anyway with that bright blue coat he insisted on wearing. One would think he'd be happy about the decreased mortality rate of the Riflemen, but all Thomas could really think about how stiff his legs were from being wrapped around a tree branch for the last five hours.

When were those damned Redcoats going to show up, anyway? It was far past time to get this show on the road. But still there was silence in the trees where about a dozen or so of the Riflemen had concealed themselves among the leaves. Thomas didn't know how much longer he could last up here. He seriously had to take a piss.

He laughed bitterly then. Three years ago, he would have never imagined using a word so uncouth as "piss" to express his need for the action. Then again, he'd literally been an entirely different person three years ago. Back then he'd thought that he was rebellious, and could do so much more above his station, and he'd thought that becoming a soldier could prove it once and for all. To his father, to his sister, to himself. He'd had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Not that he regretted a minute of it. But three years of being wet and cold and miserable almost constantly, three years of watching his friends and comrades die around him, had given him some much needed perspective. It wasn't just about him, his own personal revolution, about proving himself, it was about all of these soldiers around him, and the freedom they were willing to give their lives to win, and all of the people who couldn't fight, but believed in the cause more desperately than anyone.

Smiling, he wondered just what his father would think of all this. He'd probably have a heart attack. Then again, he hadn't seen the bastard in three years. With any luck he was already dead. But Thomas shook himself. Now was not the time to dwell on such matters. That was distant history now, far behind him, and he had moved on.

Thomas adjusted himself on his branch, trying to get comfortable, a task that was quickly proving impossible. The branch was a thick bough, and it rustled slightly as Thomas moved. The tree was at the edge of a forest overlooking the huge field spread out before it. Somewhere, he knew, Alfred and the rest of them were waiting for the signal to fight, to die. The British were coming soon. Several platoons of Continentals were hopefully still chasing them towards this little ambush. He wondered if something had happened to them. Billy would be right in the thick of it. Would the rest of the men simply retreat if the Redcoats put up a fight, which they would undeniably do? For Billy's sake, Thomas hoped they had more backbone than that.

The cool autumn wind blew through the trees, and Thomas shivered. Fall had come early this year, and he was not happy about it. But still, the field was barren, no bright red coats as far as the eye could see. Thomas sighed, trying to relieve the tension, trying to not think about Billy, and the fact that he could be lying dead in the woods somewhere right now. The waiting was undeniably the hardest part.

Then, he heard it. A whistle echoed through the trees like the call of a whippoorwill. That was the signal. Thomas readied his rifle and glanced across the field. So far there were no Redcoats, but they must be coming. Unless the call he'd heard had actually been a whippoorwill, in which case he was just an idiot holding a gun in a tree.

But there, as he peered through the trees, just a pinprick on the horizon, there was a figure in red coming over the crest of the hill, marching quickly, as if running. Haha! Billy had done it! Then came another, and another, and the army slowly came into view. Thomas' breath caught in his throat. The last time he'd faced the Redcoats had been at Bunker Hill, and then he'd been hiding in a trench, so he'd been spared the sight of the massive army. A sea of British soldiers swarmed over the hill, mounting it like a tidal wave, closer every second.

But he couldn't freeze up now. Thomas breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down. If he continued to shake this badly, then he would never be able to hit a target, let alone hold his gun at all. The Riflemens' job was to take out the commanding officers, while the rest of the Continentals kept the army at bay.

As they came closer a shot rang out from somewhere to Thomas' right, and the Continentals came out to meet the mass of red. Smoke began to rise from the hill, and Thomas tried his best to aim at something, anything red, but in the mass pandemonium down below he could barely see anything. He crept out further on his branch, trying to get a better view of the battlefield.

The almost incessant droning bang of firearms filled his ears, and with all of the haze he couldn't be sure, but it almost seemed as if the Continentals were gaining ground. From the next tree over, the hoo of an owl reached his ears, and Thomas parroted (haha, puns. Thomas loved puns) it to the tree on his other side, passing the signal along. He looked to the crest of the hill and there, riding atop a horse was, well, someone important. He wasn't really aware of all the names and ranks of the British commanding officers, but that really didn't matter. The signal had been correct, here was someone that someone else needed to shoot, and quickly, while they still had good visibility above the battle. So why not him?

The wind kept blowing the leaves of his tree around, which obscured his vision. If he was going to aim and actually land a shot, he was going to have to get closer. Thomas inched further forward on his branch. It shook a little, he was getting pretty far out, but he counted on his light physique to help him now. He shouldered the rifle, glancing down the barrel. The man on the horse was a little bit closer now, but still at the top of the hill, hovering above the carnage below. Under his ostentatious hat was a mess of spiky hair, but even that couldn't obscure the rather large eyebrows that hid under his fringe. This was it, the moment to strike. Thomas held his breath, his finger on the trigger, and then … and then the blasted wind had to change. A cloud of dust blocked the man from Thomas' view. "Dammit", he muttered, creeping even further out on his narrowing branch. The dust cleared after a moment, and Thomas aimed again. He would have to fire soon, his arm was getting sore, but he wanted a clear shot. Then, his mind screamed NOW and he pulled the trigger, the bang reverberating through his skull.

But before he could view his handiwork, there came a crack from under him. He had tempted fate, and she was a right bitch, or maybe he just wasn't as light as he thought he was. "Oh shit", he muttered as his branch broke beneath him. Thomas tumbled to the ground, cutting a swath through the leaves and branches that clawed at his face and arms as if they too were trying to keep him aloft. But after a few seconds he came to rest on the forest floor in a battered heap.

Thomas, though bleeding and in pain, was not one for letting a sarcastic quote go unsaid. "That", he mumbled to the ground, which his face was currently pressed up against, "did not go as planned".

Alfred, meanwhile, was right in the thick of it. Often times, in stories and poetry, people made war out to be some kind of grandeous, strategic game, with the players trying to out fox each other with tiny, inanimate pieces on a board. Alfred, however, knew this to be false. The best the players could do was point their pieces in the right direction and cross their fingers that everything would go according to plan. Except that the pieces were not inanimate at all, the players were playing with real, tangible lives.

Because when a battle started, there was no slow, contemplative pondering, no strategy at all, there was simply kill or be killed, and Alfred felt just as mortal as the rest of them. He felt the fear pound through his chest just as strongly as his fellow soldiers. When you were in a war, a battle, waist-deep in gore and the dead, with their staring eyes, you simply grabbed whatever moved and hoped that the guy whose skull you were beating to a pulp wasn't one of your friends.

It was pandemonium, pure and simple, and Alfred scratched and twisted and clawed, every second a struggle to keep breathing, keep his heart beating in his chest. And so he kept moving. You tempted fate to send a bullet through the air directly into your brain if you stayed in one place for too long, so Alfred shifted from foot to foot, moving every second. Forward, forward, just keep moving forward. Push them back.

Slowly, shockingly, they did. The Redcoats backed up further and further up the hill, but then they would come on with bayonets and drive the Continentals back once again. On and on this went through the chilly autumn day. Alfred couldn't feel the cold. He was too busy staying alive to worry about a little chill. His brain immediately shot those pesky thoughts complaining about the frost with a shotgun while sitting in a rocking chair on its porch.

Eventually, however, Alfred couldn't ignore those nagging signals anymore. So, bleeding and breathing hard, he backed out of the front line, just for a minute. Of course, he was still fighting, always fighting, but it was a lot less intense back here. Even so, he was wrestling with one of the stray Redcoats who had somehow managed to get all of the way to the woods when he heard the crash behind him in the trees.

"That", mumbled a voice from the bushes, "Did not go as planned".

Alfred almost had to laugh. That voice had unmistakably been Thomas, who luckily enough did not sound too injured, especially if he was still able to make self-deprecating comments. "Are you okay, dude?" He asked whilst stabbing the Redcoat in the chest with a bayonet, who fell, moaning, to the ground in a bleeding heap.

"I … I think so", said Thomas. Alfred turned to see the boy trying to get up, but he winced in pain as he put weight on his right arm and collapsed to the ground again. Struggling, he managed to get himself into a sitting position.

"What happened?" Asked Alfred, glancing back to the battlefield every few seconds.

Thomas tried once again, and this time, managed, shakily, to get to his feet. "I was trying to shoot this pansy on a horse", he said, "But I was being an idiot and got too far out on my branch and the recoil snapped it".

"Are you alright, man?" Alfred noticed another Redcoat approaching the trees. They must have discovered the riflemen, because they were coming back here more and more frequently, and seemed to be walking with some sort of purpose.

Shaking his arm, which hung limp, Thomas winced. "Yeah", he said, reaching down to pick up his rifle. As soon as he tried to grip it in his hand he let out a yelp of pain. "Fuck!"

"You should go back to camp and get your arm looked at", Alfred aimed his musket at the oncoming Redcoat and fired, a burst of red showering from the back of his head as he fell to the ground.

"I'm fine", Thomas spat, trying again. The boy certainly was persistent. But he couldn't get a grip on the rifle. "God dammit!"

Alfred shook his head. "If you can't pick up a gun, then you are not fine", Alfred aimed again, the gun kicked in his hands. "I've got you covered".

"Fine", Thomas sighed, "But if you get your asses handed to you while I'm gone, then it's all your fault". He picked up his gun with his other hand, and began to walk back through the woods, looking a little worried as he glanced back once at Alfred.

"I'm willing to take that responsibility", Alfred called to him, grinning. Thomas paused mid-stride, turned back once more, then arranged his fingers into a rather obscene gesture before turning back to camp for good.

Meanwhile, the battle continued to rage around him, and Alfred quickly found himself at the front line again. The Continentals would plow their way up the hill like a wave lapping hungrily at the shore only to be pushed back by the British once again. But Alfred noticed with grim satisfaction that there were far more corpses wearing red than blue.

Alfred shot and stabbed and did everything he could to stay on his feet. But then, out of seemingly nowhere, rising over the noise of the battlefield, someone screamed. He turned, just for a second, and saw a man in blue, a Continental, an American, clutching his stomach as blood ran through his fingers, thick and red, soaking the ground beneath him. That's when the pain hit him. Alfred hadn't gotten shot, or stabbed, or hurt in anyway, he was sure of it, but somehow, he felt as if that bullet had gone through his stomach. And then, all around him, he began to hear the sounds of all of the Continentals being hurt and killed, and he felt it all. Everything, coursing through him as he died a million different ways.

He almost collapsed from the pain of it all. This had never happened to him before, why now? And then, through the cloud of red that was quickly obscuring his vision, he saw it: The men that were fighting today, these people who were fighting, and killing, and dying, for him, they weren't Colonists or British subjects anymore. They were Americans. Reconciliation was no longer possible now. Even he had been hoping that he might be able to talk to Arthur like his brother again, but after this, they were going to become a country, or die trying.

And through all of the pain and death he felt something else: that small, but important, stab of hope that they all felt while they gave their lives for the cause. Alfred closed his eyes, pressing his lids together so tightly that a few tears slipped out of the sides, trying to find where that small bit of hope was floating around his head and grab onto it, let it fill him enough that he could simply block out the pain.

Before he knew what he had done, Alfred had raised his musket and shot three of the men in the Red Coats. They would not hurt his people anymore, not if he could help it. The Americans were strong, stronger than Britain realized. If you kicked them down, they would simply get right back up again. Because if this was what it really meant to be a Nation, to feel all of this hurt and pain, but also this intense hope, then he would just have to use his soldiers' sacrifices to make sure that no one would ever be hurt again. If he had to do it single handedly, if he had to endure hell to save the lives of all of these people, then so be it. He would be the hero.

Then he heard a bang to his right, and Alfred was dimly aware that a small, insignificant piece of metal had lodged itself into his collarbone. He turned slowly, and saw one lone Redcoat standing over the bodies of the soldiers that Alfred had ended. "You … you bastard!" The boy shouted, "That was my brother!" Alfred's breath caught in his throat. The boy shot the gun, reloaded, three more times, and each one hit Alfred square in the chest with a loud, resounding thump.

But Alfred made no motion at all. "How?" The boy asked, "Why … why won't you die?!" He fired again, and again, but Alfred just began to walk slowly towards him. "What are you?" The boy's voice trembled.

Alfred raised the butt of his gun over the boy's head. This one wouldn't die, but Alfred couldn't allow him to hurt anyone. "I am America".

War makes monsters of us all.

Alfred hadn't realized that until now. He stood directly in the middle of the smoldering battlefield, which was strewn calf-deep in bodies. Some were alive, covered in blood and grime and moaning quietly in agony, their voices rising like a chorus, most were dead. The flies buzzed around the lifeless bodies, and maggots squirmed within. The red and blue of the men's coats mingled together. Only equal in death.

A few soldiers, American, British—what did it really matter?—wandered the field, in search of the living intermingled with the dead, bodies with still enough breath left to patch up and send right back into the jaws of death. There was no sound save for the wind blowing forlornly through the trees and the occasional moan of someone stuck between living and not. Alfred shivered, though not because of the cold.

He didn't know what had happened to him on that battlefield. First there'd been that terrible, horrible pain that had coursed through him like lightning, that ached so much he thought his chest would explode. Then that strange feeling of hope had filled him and … nothing. The next thing he remembered was coming to soaked from head to foot in blood, some his, most not, shaken but, of course, very much alive.

He'd killed a lot of them, he knew that much. His knuckles were raw and bleeding from the countless jaws he must have smacked into the ground, and he was almost out of bullets. How many of those had ended someone's life? He couldn't even remember their faces, just a mess of red coats that he had to eliminate, kill, thoroughly and utterly destroy in order to make sure his people were safe. And he had. It scared him. Alfred shook his head, trying to clear it. He couldn't think straight.

Stepping over a few bodies, Alfred continued his search for breathers. He was about to move further up the hill and away from the woods when out of nowhere, something grabbed his ankle. Alfred, already tense, must have jumped a foot in the air. He looked down, and there, attached to the hand that was clamped like a vice around his leg, was a very familiar face.

"Billy?"

The mud-smudged face broke into a grin, revealing dirt lodged in his crooked teeth. He was half-buried under bodies, probably in a lot of pain, but still managed to remain calm and cheerful. Alfred didn't know quite how he did it. "How's it look up there?" He asked, coughing, "Did we win?"

"We fought 'em to a draw", Alfred said, kneeling down and shoving a corpse off of his friend. "But you shouldn't be worried about that dude, your leg's fucked up".

It was true. Though he wasn't vitally wounded in any way that Alfred could see, his leg was bent in an impossible shape that no human leg should ever find itself in. Unless, of course, you were a contortionist, which Billy most certainly wasn't. "Come on", Alfred said, helping Billy to his feet, "Let's get you back to camp".

He didn't quite make it up the first time, and fell back down into the mud. "I guess I don't quite have the constitution you do, Al". He somehow managed to laugh through his pain.

"Trust me, you don't know how good you've got it", Alfred said, trying one more time. They managed it this time. Tottering a bit, Billy threw his weight on Alfred's shoulder, trying to balance on one leg. Sure, he probably could have just carried him, but it would look a little strange to see him carry a full-grown man into camp without breaking a sweat. They weren't going to get anywhere like this, though.

"Hey", he called to another soldier in blue, who looked shell-shocked and very confused, "Could you come here and give me a hand?" The soldier complied, numbly, and together, with Billy smushed between them, they gradually made their way through the woods and back to camp.

Billy was looking exceptionally pale by the time that they pushed past the group of soldiers in various states of coping and into the relative dark of the infirmary. Thinking back on it later, any psychologist would have had a field day examining the different ways that the soldiers were dealing with the intense trauma that they'd just experienced. Some moved, shuffling around to keep themselves busy, some of them just kept talking, babbling on about unrelated things, as if it could stop them from thinking about it all together, and some just sat or stood and stared off into space, probably reliving the battle in their heads.

The infirmary was a large tent with so many injured soldiers packed into it that it resembled a sardine can more than anything else. It was made of canvas, so artificial lights like candles had to be minimized for fear that the fabric would catch fire, so it was pretty dark as Alfred tried to find someone to help Billy.

One of the doctors came over after a minute and helped Billy lay down on one of the cots placed on the floor and told Alfred, given, in much kinder words, that he should go away because he was in the way.

He couldn't quite leave yet, though, because the bullet hole he'd taken through his collarbone was actually beginning to throb now, and he was pretty sure that the others would start soon too. It was probably a good idea to get them checked, because although technically an immortal being, his wounds could still get infected, which was a bitch he'd rather not deal with now on top of everything else. There was only one doctor in the whole Continental army who could understand why he was still standing with a bullet to the collarbone and about five other places as well. Luckily, he happened to be at the camp.

But Benson wasn't in the warm tent, which given, was awfully crowded, so maybe Alfred was just missing him, but after a minute, still hadn't found him. "Excuse me", he asked a rather harried doctor, "Have you seen Dr. Benson around?"

"I think he just walked out a few minutes ago", the doctor mumbled, highly distracted with the bullet wound he was currently surgically removing from a man's shoulder. Alfred thanked him, and got a grunt in response. He walked out of the blistering tent and into the relative quiet of the camp beyond. Benson wasn't around here as far as he could see either. Alfred was getting worried. He was the only one who could help him, and Alfred knew he was here, had seen him just the other day, but where exactly was he?

"I'm fine, doc. Really", came a voice that Alfred initially thought had come from the tent. But no, it was too clear, too loud. Around the back, maybe? He strode around the side of the tent and yes, there was Benson, who was standing besides Thomas. The boy was sitting on a log roughly hued into a bench, and was looking very nervous. He jumped an inch when Alfred came into view.

Benson, seeing Thomas glancing over his shoulder, turned. "Hey, doc", Alfred said, "Can I borrow you for a minute".

"Yes, in a second", the doctor waved him off.

Thomas perked up. "Oh, Alfred, thank god you're here. Can you tell this quack that I'm fine?"

"I don't know, man", Alfred shrugged, "Your arm looked pretty nasty", he sat down on the other side of the bench, impatient to get his own wounds checked.

"Now listen, Carter", said the doctor with a slight hint of condescension, "I think the break is in your shoulder. If you'll just unbutton your shirt then I can examine it".

"I'm fine", Thomas almost squeaked, "See? Look", he tried to stand up, using his injured arm to help him off the bench, but plopped back down with a hiss of pain as soon as any weight was put on it. "God dammit".

Benson rolled his eyes, probably far too used to this crap to find it anything less than merely annoying. "If you don't take off your shirt and let me see, then the bone will heal wrong and you'll never be able to shoot a gun again, or do anything else for that matter". Thomas froze, clearly considering the possibility of being unable to shoot. "Please?"

Thomas sighed. "Fine". He looked as if he was about to go in front of a firing squad as he unbuttoned his, well, used-to-be-white shirt.

Alfred, for one, was confused. He'd assumed that the boy was just self-conscious of his shrimpy physique, but he was actually pretty well-toned. What confused him was the bandage that Thomas had wrapped tightly around his chest, though Alfred was pretty sure he'd never been hit there in the time that he'd known him. So why did he … ? Unless …

It seemed to dawn on Benson at the same time as Alfred. Thomas was blushing furiously now, and sunk down on the bench, wincing slightly, as if he wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come back out while the two men stared at his chest.

"Oh", said Benson.

"Oh", said Alfred.

Thomas didn't say anything.

"I … I can't treat you in the tent", Benson stuttered, "Hold on". A blush practically identical to Thomas' sprung up on his face. "Let me get my things". He quickly fled the scene, practically running back around the side of the tent.

Alfred and Thomas sat in silence, determined not to look at each other. Alfred realized that he was not the only one who had secrets. Finally, he couldn't hold his thoughts in any longer, and burst out: "I didn't know you were a—"

But Thomas had also begun to speak. "I hope this doesn't—" They both chuckled nervously. "You first", said Thomas, his voice higher now, not trying to push itself into lower octaves as Alfred now saw was not natural for it.

"I didn't know you were a girl". He said at last, embarrassed.

Thomas shrugged. "You never asked".

"What's your name?" Alfred asked now, "Your real name, I mean".

Pausing for a moment, almost having to think about it, Thomas sighed, and laughed softly. "Katerina", she said at last, "Katerina Carter".

Alfred did a double take. He knew that name, he'd heard it before. It must have been, oh, five years ago, now. "Katerina … Wait, are you … ?" She nodded a bit. "I, I knew Sam".

She smiled, a little sad. And why shouldn't she be. Because now Alfred remembered her face. She had waved to Samuel Gray from across the street in Boston as Alfred teased him about her. That was a good memory, but it also brought back thoughts of the massacre, which was certainly not a good memory. "Yes", said Katerina, "You're Alfred Jones. He talked about you sometimes. You were a good friend".

"Was that why you—?"

"Cut off my hair and ran away to join the revolution?" She finished for him, "No. His death was the worst thing to ever happen to me, but I'm …" She looked up at the sky, and the sun setting behind the trees, glowing a bright orange, "I'm not fighting for him, I never was. When I started, I was fighting for me. To prove to the world that I wasn't … wasn't useless, I guess".

"And now?"

"Now? I don't really know", she cocked her head to the side, thinking. "I guess maybe, because I can do something for the good of all of the people who can't fight, you know? I'm fighting for all of the people that are like what I was before the war".

Alfred smiled. "Well", he said slowly, "That's one of the best reasons that I've ever heard".

I'm participating in World Building June over on my tumblr, so if you want to hear me ramble on about fictional worlds in my head, feel free to check it out. Also, if anyone else is participating, totally link me over to your blogs as well, I'd love to check them out!