There was a chill in the air, even as she worked; it had to be the ongoing threat of violence, her hopes of being the part of a new nation, and the blood that drenched the soil, even just outside her home. Amelia sighed, letting the feeling run through her being, before she jumped straight into taking care of the soldiers that were on her doorstep, men that had been shot, or stabbed or wounded in some other way that sought refuge here.
Everyday, it felt like she would witness her brother or her father show up on her doorstep with breath rapidly leaving their lungs as their bodies began to shut down. It wasn't an easy thought, not when they were the last of her family left, after her mother died when Amelia was three years old.
Right now, she had to focus on plucking bullets out of arms and knees, out of unlucky hands and battered stomaches. It wasn't easy work, but it could be mind numbing. Out here, there were limited nurses and limited doctors, so militiamen and sometimes soldiers relied on kindhearted civilians. Amelia was just grateful that they knew how to find her, that they came here rather than to a neighbor with packed snow for a heart.
She heard the sound of heavy boots on the ground and rushed out the door, to witness a man leaning wearily against her doorframe. His brown hair seemed to be a mix of blood and mud as he barely held himself up; blood seeped down once pale arms, and she didn't see the color of his uniform, not with the tattered parts of his shirt and coat, nor with how her heart nearly choked her.
"Come in, come in." She led him in, carefully wrapped her arms around his waist to help him step into her house without falling straight to the ground. It would kill her to see someone abandoned and left broken on her doorstep. She helped him to sit down to begin the tiring art of peeling fabric out of wounds in order to eventually pour a small amount of water to clean the wounds.
"You're pretty strong." He mumbled, and he had a thick accent that immediately made her wonder where he came from before he moved to this British colony that hopefully will be free one day.
"I grew up around my dad and my brother. I had to get strong." She shrugged as she carefully peeled fabric off of him in order to eventually throw it away, wondering if after he was bandaged up, her brother's clothes would fit on him. They'd probably be too big on this man, with how broad Alfred's shoulders were.
"Thank you." His green eyes shone with gratitude, even though a moment later, exhaustion seemed to pull them shut.
Amelia went to get herself the remains of her bucket full of water, that she had filled up this morning just for the soldiers that would come through the door. She poured the water carefully down his wounds, glad to have already removed the fabric from his injuries.
"How did they get you so bad?" Amelia murmured as she gingerly bandaged him up, very few of the bullets were still inside his skin, and of the three that were, she'd carefully pulled out all of them.
"I'm just unlucky, I guess." He chuckled, but it was soft and sad.
"How about you lay down and get some rest, unless you're hungry?" Amelia murmured; war made men and often boys into shooting ranges rather than the unique individuals they were made to be. Amelia was already tired of all the violence, though she was a patriot. She wanted America, not just a British colony to be her home. She longed for victory and a quick end to all of this violence.
The months had left her bones weary with the pain and the witnessed pain of it all. The sounds of gunfire and bullets rarely let her sleep at night, but the wearied militia and soldiers slept through it all. They were too tired to get up at every sound of potential danger. Her home seemed to melt their nerves into calm.
"I'm not really hungry." He hadn't eaten a bite today, but his stomach still seemed to be rolling away from him. The battle today had left him sicker than any of the other ones ever had, and very few of his newfound friends were alive the last time that he saw them. He suddenly realized that not only was Britain outnumbered, but they were losing fast. That hung like a weight around his neck, and he could barely breathe, yet trusting in a civilian was a chance that he felt he had to take, even if it left him surrounded by a bunch of his enemies, who still had their muskets on them.
His, he had lost, a few miles or so back, back before his legs seemed to lose all feeling as he slowly came into sight of this beautiful house, filled to the brim with all of the suffering and the wounded that she could find to care for. Sometimes, civilians were the most warm hearted people within a war torn country, though Toris didn't think war made any of the soldiers or militia unhuman, just violence could rush over and numb someone. Toris seemed to sway between numb and eager to serve his leaders, to sick and unable to stomach the idea any longer of hurting another living, breathing person.
Toris took a deep breath as he wondered if sleeping would serve his end to him, prim and proper, quick and not so docile. Each breath rattled his worn out lungs, and Toris was already picturing just what peace might look like. It might just look like this however, one lone woman caring for all the injured that came to her, tirelessly working where many would just give up.
The next morning, Amelia was quick to make breakfast for the men under her roof, carefully feeding them mainly soft foods, food that just may stay in their stomachs. She wondered if Alfred or her father were okay as she served these men, treating them as kindly as if they were her father or her brother, because that is the way that she would want anyone else to care for them, if they got injured.
The newest soldier had survived the night, but she needed to make sure he washed the blood and the mud and whatever else out of his long hair. After she sat him up and encouraged the stubborn man to eat, despite how sickly and pale he looked this morning or perhaps because of it. She had no idea the last time he had eaten, and the gunshots were fainter lately. He could have walked a whole day to get here, and it left her stomach in wiry knots, because she hadn't insisted he eat the night before.
When his legs seemed to give out underneath him, she had to drag him to the bathroom, realizing that her job as a nurse lately would have to come in handy yet again. The man collapsed in the tub with only a weary grunt. Amelia sighed as she left to get some water and to return, just to carefully make him stand to shed his bloody and muddy uniform, with what little remained of it.
She looked away as he got out of it, and kept her eyes away from the bottom of the tub once he was sitting, and she carefully dumped the water in with him, stomach rolling for him, just knowing how awful he had to feel, when his legs could scarcely move, and he was stuck hurting as bad as he had to.
He was not the first man that she had to bathe, since soldiers and militimen turned up at her door, but thankfully most had not needed the assistance. Once she had the clothe soaked and ready to go, she carefully ran it along the blood trails, recleaning his wounds, as she would have to bandage them up again later. Amelia worked slow and gently, eager to not cause much pain, aware that he would probably hurt regardless.
She also took the time, leaning over the tub to wash his hair out, letting it fall against his shoulders, black as dusk, as she cleaned it carefully. Amelia bit her lip as she took to cleaning the rest of his body, quiet as a mouse and nearly timid as one too. Once, she figured he was sufficiently clean, she helped him climb out of the tub, hating the dark color of the water, reddish brown, the way the fields probably looked nowadays.
She helped him into some of Alfred's clothes, and knew that she would have to clean this man's pants off later. "Are you feeling any better?" She asked as she helped the now fully dressed man sit back down.
"Yeah." He sighed, and she pondered again where his thick accent came from, as pretty as it was. He could not have been living here long, unlike her family that was slowly washing out British accents everyday, it seemed. Her grandparents had spoken with such thick British accents that everything seemed different now. She, like the rest, was slowly picking up a sound that sounded a bit more 'American,' though that was only if they could get a flag for their country and a chance to officially be one. Otherwise, she imagined they would get used to the British accent and come to speak English the way generationally, they used to.
"What's your name? I forgot to ask before." Amelia asked, easily enough, though by the skittish look that returned to his eyes, she wondered if she would get the truth.
"It's Toris." He finally sighed, letting it rest between them, and she realized the sincerity in his eyes. That must be his name regardless of what made him not want to tell her.
"You must have recently moved here, Toris." She wanted to at least try to remember it, regardless of how long he ended up staying here. People left as soon as they recovered, though ocassionally, they did not recover, and she had to carefully bury them at a loss as to how to contact their families and just how to reach out that connection. She hoped independence and peace would ease that problem. "Where were you from?"
"Lithuania." He answered, much more relaxed.
"Ahh..." Amelia smiled, "I haven't heard of it before, but that's cool." Her smile was crystalline and clear; she held no doubt that this man was a fairly new immigrant, though of course, he had moved to Britain not America recently.
Months carried with them many men away from here, as she told them rather hopeful goodbyes. Some, though recovered from their wounds, could no longer fight, and were making the long walk home. Others were heading straight for battle, looking for their men to head back and fight alongside yet again.
As for Toris, he'd regained the ability to walk again. She wasn't entirely sure that he couldn't walk before because of hunger, as three meals a day and frequent care had him moving on his own again, and though most of his wounds had patched up and healed over, he didn't seem to want to leave just yet.
He had started helping her carefully care for the other men under her care, and his accent was slowly starting to pick up her accent, and part of her worried that he was trying so hard, because people might mistake his Lithuanian accent for a British one.
He couldn't return back to his troops; he had lost all will to fight as he watched friends die beside him and saw the "Americans" begin to win. They had more troops and knew the land better. Besides, he felt like a betrayer standing here in an American woman's kitchen, currently doing her dishes as she made her loops rebandaging his enemies and cleaning their wounds.
Perhaps, it was okay to lend a helping hand here. She clearly needed it; men didn't stop showing up at her door, and she had even hired Toris to dig a few graves for the wounded that slowly died in her care. He had come to know just the look in her eyes when she felt tired and hopeless, the kind of feeling that she pretended around the other men to not feel, the feeling that she probably didn't think Toris had noticed. But, she was worn out from this work, and he wondered just how long she had been needed here, just how many men she cared for and just how many died.
Her heart was kinder than anyone's he'd ever met and so trustworthy, that she still didn't realize that he fought for the British. Perhaps his uniform as torn to pieces as it had been wasn't a dead giveaway. He wondered if she would still treat him okay, if she knew that it had been her enemy that she had bathed and patched up, her enemy that by caring for, helped to fight for his life. He wondered if she would discard him as he feared. He just wanted the war to end, eager even if this country became its own country. He was tired of the political heaving back and forth.
At least, this woman deserved peace, the very peace that she carefully fought for by aiding the men that were outside dying for it.
"Are you hungry?" Amelia slipped back into the kitchen, and Toris turned towards her, dishes done. "It's the quietest it's been in a while." She told him at the look that he gave her.
"Sure, is it that time already?" He found himself asking, always paranoid that he would say something that would give it all away.
"Yeah, it's lunchtime." She sighed, "Thankfully, we still have enough food. Hopefully, I'll still be able to treat my father and Alfred to a feast when they come home. It doesn't look like it though." She shrugged.
"Are you married?" Toris immediately regretted the question; it wasn't like he was married, but it wasn't the right kind of question to ask the woman that you lived in the same roof as.
"No." She laughed, "Not at all. My brother, Alfred, joined my father to fight for our freedom."
"They'll come back." Toris wasn't sure that they would when the words left his mouth, just he hoped they would for this woman's sake. She had protected every soldier and militiaman that entered under her roof as if they were her family, and he honestly hoped that they would return to her. She deserved the good comfort of having her family by her side.
"You think so?" She asked, but there was that delicate twinkle in her eye that relaxed the anxiety pooling in his heart.
"Yeah." He smiled back at her, "America will be independent; we'll win." He allied himself in that moment with the infant country, even though he knew that he hadn't really been on her side when he was out fighting against men that could be her brother and her father. He just hoped that he hadn't fought them, and that he hadn't killed them, most of all. That guilt would stay with him for life, if he had.
It's months later that the news gets to Amelia, "The war's over." She collapses against a chair as she looks on the soldiers that Toris is quietly looking after. They are down to fifteen men in her living room; three had died over the last two weeks, and the other two had rejoined the army. She just had fifteen rapidly recovering men in her house, if she didn't count Toris, who had seemed more like a permanent housemate now than a patient. She was vaguely sure he had recovered, but even her encouragement didn't make him leave.
"Did we win?" She asked her neighbor, timidly.
"I think so." The older woman sighed, "I don't know if it's much winning. My son just came home to his wife and told us that his father died out there."
"Oh." Amelia sighed, feeling small at the face of her neighbor's tragedy, wishing suddenly that people would come home and let them know what's going on.
"Did you hear from your family yet?"
"No, Alfred promised to write, but probably hasn't had time." Amelia wondered if it wasn't a lack of time, but something much more hopeless that kept him from writing to her. She had been unable to write to him, without an address to send it to.
"Hopefully, they don't come back in a casket." She sighed, before she stood up again, "But my only son's alive, and he and his wife will give us grandkids. Tell me, if Alfred comes back, and he'd like to marry one of my daughters. I imagine that the death will make it hard for them to find husbands."
"Okay, I will." Amelia shook her head, "He might have already found his future wife, out there somewhere."
"There's not a whole lot of time for love in a war, honey." She responded to the younger woman.
"I know, but it finds a way." She shrugged, "Maybe he met a pretty nurse."
"Don't tell me you fell in love." She retorted.
"No, I didn't." Amelia let out a breath, she wasn't even sure she was holding as her eyes flickered to Toris as he checked on the last soldier, redoing his bandages, extra careful as if he had been trained for this.
You couldn't fall for a man that likely had a family to return to, though he made no move to go find them again.
It was about a week later with only eight men still left being cared for under her roof, as the others had recovered enough to follow the good news and received packed meals and head back home to their wives and children, to their parents and sisters, and Amelia had relaxed. Her house was becoming less crowded, and she knew more joy was out there in the world.
Her door opened with the loud thud that announced her brother's return. His uniform was a bit tarnished but not by much, and his blue eyes had lost their pre-war excitement, but he was back. She dove into his arms and clutched him back, feeling only slight wounds during their embrace, just as her father carefully entered the house, looking older than when he had left.
"Dad, you're back! Come sit down! Don't mind the soldiers, I wanted to support you guys somehow, and soon, they'll be able to go home." She was beaming, even as she let go of her older brother and shown them to the living room. "I'll cook dinner!" She was breathless with her excitement, all of the restless hope had returned as pure joy. No longer could worry clog her veins up any longer.
"Who's that?" Alfred asked as he set down what little he had on him and turned towards Toris who had sat down in the kitchen before they got there after bandaging some soldiers' wounds.
"Just a soldier, I patched up. He wanted to stay back and patch up the remaining soldiers and help me out." Amelia was quick to answer, not expecting her brother's somewhat chaotic anger to come right back out of him.
"He's not American!" Alfred boomed, practically shaking the room with the force of his shout as he dove into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Toris's throat.
"He is, he is, he is!" She shouted as she tried to pull Alfred off of him, "He just recently became American."
"What kind of lies has he been feeding you?" Alfred snarled as he threw Toris against the cabinet, and the brunette had not fought back as he landed on the ground.
"He's been caring for our soldiers and militia, he can't be part of the British forces, besides he's not even British. He's from Lithuania."
"You sure, he hasn't been killing them, Amelia? You can't trust strange men to help out." Alfred turned on her to level a glare at his baby sister.
"He hasn't killed them. They survive, and he only treats them the way that I taught him too. He feeds them the food I cook and rebandages their wounds. No more men have died since he started helping out than is usual." Amelia felt breathless, like there was a rock caught down in her throat and it was slowly sinking into the pit of her stomach. It demanded action, but she contained no ability to react to the stone. It was against her will and against her power.
"Amelia, look up. He is not American, never was, and he does not deserve your sympathy. You don't bring foreign men underneath our roof, Amelia. It's us versus them, and they clearly lost, Sis." He sounded tired as he grabbed his weapon and meager supplies and stormed towards his bedroom. "And put him back in his military uniform, he won't wear any clothes of mine!"
Amelia collapsed, too tired to reach for Toris and make sure he was okay, and too worn down to know just what to think.
"Are you okay?" Amelia's dad lifted her up off the ground, "It will be okay."
The softness in her father's eyes relieved her, even as she slowly got up to make a feast out of much of what she still had left. She'd need to go to the store or ask around for the next few days, but it would be okay, she just had to believe that.
Dinner was awkward, Alfred and Toris refused to look at each other, one blindingly angry and the other a little scared. Amelia had gotten up a few time to feed the soldiers in the living room that could not get up to join them at the table. Those that could also sat around the table.
Amelia felt tired as she tried to smile and to be brave, because if Toris was an enemy like Alfred had told her, that meant he had never done her any harm here or the other soldiers and yet, she had chosen to defend and protect someone that could have hurt her family. Her belly was stuck in knots, and it was difficult to even eat a bite as she looked back and forth between her brother and the man that she neglected to tell anyone that she had started to fall for.
It couldn't be right to fall in love with your enemy, let alone one that had came to live under your roof.
"Toris, why didn't you go home?" She asked, finally, quietly yet done with all of the untruth that seemed to permeate the air.
"I didn't rejoin the army that I knew would lose, nor did I feel it right to return back after being here, especially since my friends had died. I don't have much of a home in Britain, and I doubt I could have gotten back to Lithuania all that easily during the war." Toris sighed, "I can leave in the morning."
"Good." Alfred grumbled, "I wish you'd leave tonight though."
Amelia felt sick with worry, "Why didn't you correct me when I thought that you were on our side?"
"I didn't want kicked out or left to die." Toris answered easily enough, brutally honest, since he figured this would be the last time he talked to them anyway.
"I couldn't leave someone to die." Amelia muttered, "That goes against so much that I believe in entirely." She muttered, eyeing her friend that she suddenly felt like she didn't know.
"Thank you for caring for me." Toris sighed, "I'm sorry that you found out this way, but I'm glad that your family is okay."
"I fought you," Alfred grumbled, "You didn't care whether I lived or died. You fought viciously. I thought I killed you, after you left."
Toris frowned, but stayed silent.
"You fought my brother?" Amelia felt like crying. It registered finally that Toris was the enemy, and that if she let him die, her brother would have been the one to kill him, that it would have retained some peace. Yet, he had been gentle with the other soldiers and quick and eager to learn to care for them, and Toris had not shown any anger or violence under her roof.
Amelia felt torn, but she knew that she'd support her brother and her father through all of this.
"I did." Toris sighed, "I had watched my friends die and thought I had to, thought that it was the last struggle, and that I better try to win." His green eyes looked tired, "I decided to give up fighting when I ended up on your doorstep. I hated the idea of killing or hurting anyone you loved after you took me in and cared for me as if I was someone you cared about." Toris shrugged, hating the raw honesty that he poured forth, but knowing that he had to tell the full truth now at least.
It broke his heart when Amelia started to cry, though she looked down at her plate and finished her meal, looking as uninterested to eat as he did the first two or so days that he stayed here. She got up to treat the soldiers in the living room before she claimed the empty and used dishes and started cleaning them out. Tired yet determined.
Toris wasn't sure what to do but help her out, even though he knew better. She gave him the silent treatment, and he regretted moving to England immensely, even though in a roundabout way it had led him to her and given him a chance to meet a woman so compassionate and hardworking that she easily won his heart.
It ached though as he worked beside her, and it especially ached when her brother marched up to his room, and Toris was left alone in the quiet, helping out a woman that likely hated him now. Her father quietly helped the patients out and retreated up to his room, as Toris was further left alone with Amelia.
"I'm sorry." He finally said. Toris wasn't sure how else to say it, but he regretted becoming a soldier in the British army, regretted not being honest with Amelia right away, and regretted feeling this burden that lay between them.
"I'm sorry too," Amelia murmured.
"You don't have to be." Toris told her, "You are the most loving person, I've ever met, you couldn't have done anything wrong to me to apologize for."
"Don't." She met his green eyes with her sad blue ones.
"Okay." Toris worked quietly along her side until they had finished all of the dishes, and then he retreated to change into his wartorn pants and out of her brother's clothes. He intended to leave bright and early in the morning before anyone else was up.
"Don't go yet, please." She murmured a few moments later. "Give me a chance to say goodbye. Alfred might forgive you after he sleeps."
"I don't want to get in the way of your family." He only answered her with.
"You won't." Amelia sighed, "I don't think I've forgiven you yet, but I have only seen kindness and gentleness from you, all of these months."
"I-I can't, stay and hurt your family." Toris paused as he met her eyes, "I love you too much to leave your family hurt, because of me."
"I-," Amelia sighed, looking at the stairs before meeting his eyes too, "I love you too much to see you walk out that door yet. I know it's selfish, but at least stay until I can tell you goodbye, properly."
Toris paused, and while he didn't respond to her with words, the tears in his eyes shone with his honesty. He loved her, and despite not wanting to get in the way of her family, he would stay long enough that she could tell him goodbye.
It hurt Amelia that he couldn't just stay, and that he'd hurt her brother and that her brother had hurt him too. Just, she couldn't reconcile the images of war with two out of three of the most important men in her life. Toris had over the past several months come to mean more than she had ever expected him to. She loved him more than she felt like she should, and yet, it didn't stop her from trusting her father or her brother, nor did it stop her from loving them desperately as well.
"I-I love you." Amelia sighed, ignoring her brother's present anger, "Once you get settled down back in Lithuania, please write me. You have our address. And, um, I'll let you know if you can visit again." Just, that morning, another soldier had left, finally well enough to meet his fiance and marry her soon. He said that he would push the wedding to be within a few days of him coming home, it had been too long of a wait already.
Now, Toris was leaving, and Amelia already would miss him, desperately. Yet, he couldn't stay here. Hopefully, time could bring forgiveness with it, too, even though she logically knew that since Toris had tried to kill her brother, he wasn't required by law to forgive Toris. Just, she hoped that they could be reconciled.
"I love you too." Toris looked away from her eyes after the words left his lips to look and see if her brother still wanted to kill him, but Alfred was looking at the wall.
"I'm sorry." Amelia muttered, "For falling in love with our enemy."
"It's okay." Her father likely had a heart of gold, Amelia had always thought so, but today, he definitely had to have one as he had still treated Toris with nothing less than respect. She wondered how he could forgive someone so easily that had tried to kill his only son out of desperation.
"Goodbye." Toris sighed, and Amelia reacted on absolute impulse, she dove forward to kiss his lips, even if this would be the only time that she would get to.
"Goodbye, I hope you can visit again." She tried to smile, but it was laced with sadness and embedded hurt.
He waved anyway, and told her family goodbye as well before he slowly left to find a way back to his original home, perhaps lonelier after falling in love and having to leave her side.
"How did you forgive him so easily?" Amelia asked her father shortly after.
"I didn't, but I don't expect the daughter I raised to fall in love with someone with evil intentions." Her father shrugged, "He had to be good to you and the men that by law should have been his enemies."
"I don't think I'll forgive him." Alfred murmured in response as he went to the kitchen, "I can't believe you fell for a man that tried to kill me."
"I'm sorry," Amelia murmured, feeling guilty that she really hoped Toris will write to her, regardless of how tangled up and mixed up, their love had become.