A/N: So I foolishly tried to edit a chapter, and ended up with lines of code a mile long, everything out of order, and the whole story back to front. I think it's fixed now, but if anyone clicked on it and was confused in the interim - suffice to say I and technology, we no mix good XD. So, um, sorry about that.

Posting this chapter feels a bit like tearing off an old scab. It hurts like hell but has to be done. Not ashamed to say I had tears in my eyes as I wrote this.

London, 1918.

.

Dear Dickon…

Mary crinkled her nose and scrunched the piece of paper into a ball, before throwing it atop the ever growing pile next to her desk. Then she picked up her pen and tried again.

My dear Dickon…

No, that wouldn't do at all. Mary sighed and put her head in her hands. She had been trying to write this letter for hours now, and she hadn't even decided on a first line.

Dickon…

No, too formal. Too impersonal. Mary tossed her pen aside in frustration. There was so much she wanted to say, but she had no idea how to put her feelings into words.

A knock on the door interrupted her anguish, and Sam popped her head into the room.

"What on earth have you been doing in here all morning?" she exclaimed, her eyes taking in Mary's slumped shoulders and the mound of crumpled paper next to her, before widening in understanding. "Oh… I see."

"It's hopeless," moaned Mary. She hadn't told Sam everything about Dickon, but she had confided enough that the younger girl knew the basics. "I've no idea at all of how to start this wretched letter!"

"Why not just tell the truth?" offered Sam, inviting herself in and shutting the door behind her. She clasped her hands to her heart and gushed in a mock romantic voice, "My dearest, loveliest Dickon, whom I long for every day and especially… " she wiggled her eyebrows. "Every night."

"This isn't funny!"

Sam laughed and threw herself down upon Mary's bed. "You're right," she smirked. "It's utterly, tragically romantic."

Mary scowled at her friend. "If you cannot be serious, you may as well leave."

Sam instantly sobered. "Sorry, love. I just… what's stopping you from telling the truth? The real truth, I mean. You are hopelessly in love with the man. And I've no doubt he's in love with you."

"How can you know that? You've never even met him."

"I just know," said Sam with confidence. "Besides, Colin told me."

"Colin?" Mary flushed. She had developed something of an uneasy truce with her cousin over the past year. He had been the one who got a contact point for Dickon, after all. And she didn't have the energy to be mad at him anymore. But that didn't mean things were back to how they used to be. She didn't know how she felt about him saying such things to Samantha. "What would he know?"

Sam seemed surprised by her bitter tone. "He loves you, you know," she said matter-of-factly. "I hear the other girls at school complaining all the time, because he doesn't pay them any attention. They say it's cause he's pining after you."

Mary's blush deepened, and she turned away from the other girl. "That's nonsense," she muttered, even though she knew it wasn't. She had overheard similar gossip, and she hated it. Colin was like her brother; she didn't know why he couldn't feel the same way.

Sam sighed. "I wish I had two young men fighting for my affection," she declared longingly. "It's hopelessly roma – "

"Don't say it!" snarled Mary, spinning back around. "It's nowt o' th' sort, an tha's th' plain truth!"

Her friend's eyes lit up with glee at the sudden onslaught of Yorkshire, before she burst out laughing. "If the Mistress heard you speaking like that!" she giggled, hopping off Mary's bed and running to give Mary a quick hug. "Tha's a right Yorkshire lass, isn't thee?" she attempted awkwardly, and even Mary had to smile at her attempt. "Well, I'll leave you alone with your man, then. Oh, Dickon… " she leapt out of the way of Mary's slap, before running out of the room in peals of laughter.

Mary shook her head with a sad smile. Sam was a sweet girl, even if she was young and slightly naïve. She was Mary's favourite of all the young ladies in her finishing school, the only one whose company she didn't find instantly tiresome. But even she couldn't understand how hard it was to write to Dickon. It had been so long; she didn't even know whether he would want to hear from her.

Well, too bad if he didn't, she thought with grim determination. She was going to write this letter, even if it killed her. Never mind if he didn't reply, if he'd all but forgotten her in the turmoil and excitement of France. She hadn't forgotten him, and she intended to remind him of that fact.

My dearest Dickon,…

She paused, her hands itching to tear the page to shreds, before ploughing on grimly.

I miss you.

.

France.

It was chaos, as it always was. Dickon grimaced as another shell whined over them, before it exploded some way behind their line. He felt the heat of it hit his back, the force propelling him forward like some monstrous wave of energy. He struggled not to trip on his own feet, not to snag his trousers on the barbed wire that was strewn everywhere, to watch out for artillery fire, to find the next mound of dirt or crater to crouch in, to breathe. In, out, ragged and harsh and desperate.

The air was thick with smoke and gun powder and the dewy wetness of dawn. Dickon could feel his heart hammering in his chest, as though it would never slow down again. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to keep moving, to find some better shelter; but he couldn't go on, not without Phil.

He threw himself into a bombed out crater, his boots splashing in the quagmire of rain, mud, and blood at the bottom of it, and dragged himself over to one side. His brother was still some way behind him, moving through the nightmarish haze of no-man's land as though in some kind of dream. The end of his bayonet glinted in the eerie half-light; fresh, unused.

"Phil!" he roared, and his brother looked up and saw him. Dickon waved him over, his own breath rasping harsh in his chest. Gas? Gas? No, it wasn't. Not yet, at least. But he put his hands to his neck to make sure his mask was still there, just in case.

A moment later and Phil had scrambled down to join him, wading through the sludge unsteadily. His face was bathed in sweat, and his eyes were wide and staring.

"Alrigh'?" asked Dickon, trying to think straight above the gunshots and explosions and screams all around them. It was impossible. "Alrigh', here's wha' we're goin' t' – "

But Phil was gaping, his gaze fixed on something over Dickon's shoulder. Dickon turned, and saw the prone figure of a man on the ground some ten paces from them, both his legs blown off.

And then he was staring too. Because it was Dent.

And that was how he came to leave his brother alone in that crater. Because he could not allow Dent, Dent who had been his steadfast companion in this godforsaken nightmare for so long, to be torn to bits in no-man's land. He couldn't, he just couldn't.

Without thinking, heedless of his own safety, he gave a roar and scrambled out of the crater, racing through the mud and the tangles of wire until he was by his friend's side. The older man's face was beyond pale; it held the grey pallor of death. But his mouth was a thin, determined line, and when Dickon crouched over him there was a flash of recognition in his dark eyes.

"Flower-boy," he coughed, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Dickon wiped it away with his sleeve. "No need for those boots now, eh?" his voice was pitifully weak, a mere thread of sound.

"I'll call th' stretchers," said Dickon, his own voice harsh, choked. 'I'll – "

Dent made a sound of disgust, and Dickon thought he would have spat, had he had the strength.

"Don'," Dent wheezed, lifting his head just enough to gaze down at the oozing, fleshy stumps where his two legs had been just moments before. "Quick shot, lad. End it…"

Dickon could feel the wetness of his cheeks. He shook his head, wondering if he might physically break apart from the pain within him. There seemed too much of it to be contained in a single body. "No, no… I – "

Dent's hand reached out to grip his sleeve, the fingers trembling. "Do it… " he breathed, and his voice was laced with the pain he was holding back. "Quick, lad."

"I – I – "

"Please."

Blinded by tears, Dickon scrabbled in his coat for his handgun, his hands shaking so badly it was a wonder he could grasp it at all. He pulled it out, swallowed his own nausea, and…

And this time, the whining of the shell was too near, too accurate. Dickon spun around, his eyes flying to the crater where Phil was, where Phil had crouched for far too long, making himself an easy target for an observant German bomber. He saw Phil look up, saw the blank terror on his face as he realised that this time, he was the target.

"Phil!" he screamed, and lurched forward, desperate to stop this, to prevent this awful, unjust thing from happening. And he fancied he saw the exact moment it happened, as though the scene played out in slow motion before his eyes. The exact moment the shell impacted, and his brother was torn to shreds in front of him.

But he couldn't have seen it, not really. For at the same moment, Dickon understood with a blinding clarity that he was too close, far too close and unprotected to come out of this unscathed. If such a thing was even possible. And sure enough, he saw the large chunk of shrapnel fly towards him, and the heat of the fire sweep across his face, and he sank gratefully to his knees in the mud, and whispered a silent prayer of thanks that it was finally, finally over.

.

*sobs and ducks behind pillow*