Note: I do not own the characters of Downton Abbey, this is purely for fun. Matthew and Thomas are my favourite paring that not many write about. Some events will be slightly altered, some timelines as well, but I try to keep most events there - even if they are cheekily redone. I am also not a WW1 expert (more of a WW2 studier) so I apologise if some things are a bit out of touch and not 100% historically correct, it's all in good fun. English is not my first language but I do try my hardest with grammar and words, I hope you will excuse any mistakes. Thanks for listening, now enjoy!

The Great War
April 1915

Whistles were blown and screams could be heard. Shots fired and blood splattered. In the midst of a rare battle Thomas carried wounded after wounded from the battlefield.

"Run Corporal!" Albridge shouted from the other end of the stretcher as bullets went flying around them. Thomas didn't need to be told to run but there was no sarcasm left within him to answer back. His nerves and dispersed of his cheek responses. It felt pointless, this attack like the sparse ones before, because it all led to the same thing — soldiers dead and no new land taken back. It was the same. A body crashed against Thomas and he stumbled in his step; his foot sinking into mud caused by the constant rain. He was cold, but at least he was alive.

They reached their trench and slid down it, falling into the mud and the stretcher broke in half. The soldier upon it groaned in pain and Thomas pulled his body from the mud he had fallen into that now covered his face and uniform. Albridge shouted at him for help but Thomas Barrow could not hear him, he heard nothing, all he saw was death and despair around him. He was pulled to his feet by Albridge who shook him and screamed in his face before he was silenced — by a bullet straight through the back of his neck, and the blood spewed out, covering Barrow who stood there paralysed. Albridge fell down, his body slipped down Thomas' and covered him in even more of the red fluid.

The Corporal was frozen in his spot as men ran around him, shouting, firing their rifles, being thrown around and then eventually silence fell upon the camp, upon the battlefield. The entire front went back to dead silence. Thomas had not moved an inch and before his feet laid the two men dead, next to the broken stretcher. The attack had ended and men were crawling back to take cover.

"Thomas! Thomas!" The only voice that could draw the Corporal back to attention came soaring through the air and he thanked the heavens that Matthew was still alive.

"My dear friend, are you wounded?" Matthew said concerned as he took a hold of Thomas' shoulders but he got no response and Thomas stood there with the blood drawn from his face and trembling cold from the wet uniform he wore.

He was pulled by the Lieutenant's soft hands towards the medic tent that was packed to the brim and a field medic examined the former footman who had not changed facial expression in hours. It was frozen like his body and heart.

"He is not wounded, not physically at least, Lieutenant Crawley" The medic said and then turned his attention to a soldier screaming in agony.

Matthew nodded and took Thomas by his arm to lead him out from the tent when the medic spoke again, while cleaning and sewing up a wound "Don't let the crestfallen take him, the shell shock, he and Albridge rescued the soldiers with a fierce determination, and many at that."

Matthew gave the medic another nod in reply and led Thomas out from the dugout and towards his own. Shell shock could take the best of men, and Thomas surely had shown him that he was — so different from the footman he had frowned upon at Downton Abbey, a snarky man feeling self-righteous. Though, the months of friendship had taught Matthew that first impressions were not always to be trusted. They had shared many cups of tea, cheap whiskey when someone, and stories of Downton in Matthew's dugout. Stories of the servants, stories from upstairs. War truly broke barriers and Matthew now held a great affection, greater than he could admit, towards the most unlikely of characters — Thomas Barrow.

"Corporal, return to reality" Matthew muttered before he shut the makeshift door of the dugout and forced the man onto the chair. He lit the ends of what candles he had left and the fire inside the rock formation. Yet the heat did not seem to have any effect on Thomas who sat there shivering while covered in mud and blood.

"Thomas...Thomas, look at me" Matthew said and placed a hand on the scarred Corporal and forced him to face him. But the stare was blank, almost as blank as it had been in Downton when he stood holding trays for Lord Grantham and his guests. "We need to get you out of your wet uniform, or illness will take you."

Matthew Crawley began unbuttoning Thomas' uniform but a cold hand clasped around his wrist to stop him. "It's alright Thomas" Matthew said softly and the hand fell to allow him to continue.

He removed the uniform jacket, unfastened the braces, followed by the undershirt, boots, socks and eventually his hand came down to Thomas' trousers and undid them carefully, to not invade any dignity of Thomas'. He did not instantly remove his long johns, not until he had draped the Corporal in his woolly blanket. Only then he reached underneath it and tried to remove them with as much care as he could, he jumped a little as his hand brushed over a long piece of flesh and muttered a blushed "Sorry".

Though Thomas tried to pay it no mind, it brought him slightly back to where he was, for Matthew Crawley had, though accidentally, brushed against his cock. For the first time his eyes broke the stare straight ahead and he followed Matthew's movement with them. He was hanging the wet clothes wherever he could and then put a tin of water upon the fire to heat it. Thomas' watched in silence as he was being cared for by someone else, even though he had weakened on the battlefield and frozen; most likely causing death of many for his moment of paralysation brought on by fear. Yet here was; an heir to a grand estate and title caring for him as an equal. In his life he had not had such care and it was dangerous, it was dangerous for Thomas to have let a friendship bloom and laughter to be shared with Matthew Crawley — for nothing but a broken heart could come of it.

With a rag and heated water Matthew stood on his knees before Thomas and noticed the shift in his gaze. It surely brought warmness to Matthew's heart to know his friend was not completely lost to the shock he had endured. With that smile he dipped the rag into the hot water and began cleaning the mud and blood from Thomas' face; bringing back his handsome features that were hidden behind the dirt of war. Then he wiped his neck and Thomas' let out a shudder. The cloth moved to finally clean what dirt had made its way underneath the jacket and shirt but that's when Thomas' hand gripped Matthew's again; softer this time.

"I'm fine, Matthew" He whispered and locked eyes with the Lieutenant.

"Don't worry Thomas, it is no trouble." Matthew reassured him again but the man did not let go of his hand, instead his thumb came to graze softly over Matthew's fingers, causing a slight chill to be sent down Matthew's spine.

"Trouble can come with it" Thomas said in reply and a silence fell between them when Matthew couldn't comprehend what his friend was saying. What trouble could come with a friend giving aid to another friend? But the answer peeked at him from underneath the blanket, a pink head greeting him as it stood tall between Thomas' legs.

Matthew pulled back in shock and knocked the water over. His eyes stared for a bit longer at the surprise and then they darted up to see Thomas' ashamed eyes looking anywhere but his friend as they glossed over with tears. Matthew's heart was pounding out of his chest and he felt flustered, flustered and bothered — yet not disgusted as most would feel. He tried to explain it away again, like he had done before.

Thomas rose from the chair and wrapped the blanket tightly around him to hide. "I shall take my leave, Lieutenant" His words were as stiff as the first day they met in the trenches. He reached for the door to brace himself for the reality out there but he was stopped. Matthew Crawley held a hand to his shoulder and kept him from moving further.

Thomas was confused and uncertain if he spun around he would meet a fist to his face, like many times before. Of course he had no wish to truly leave, even if all that was offered in here was the same friendship they had shared for these months. To have someone who cared if he saw another day or not — everyone in Downton prayed for Matthew's safe return while Thomas felt that perhaps only O'Brien would briefly grieve him, but no one else.

"Is it wrong?" Matthew asked Thomas.

"What is wrong?" He replied in confusion with his back still turned to Lieutenant Crawley.

"The law says it's wrong, the priest, God himself — they all say it's wrong" Matthew spoke softly "Is it wrong, Thomas?"

Clarity came to Thomas' mind and his hand tightened around the blanket while the other fell from the thin door. It still confused him why Matthew asked this but was it wrong? According to everyone else, yes, it was wrong but nothing felt so right in the moment when he was with a man, did he feel wrong? No, but it was not easy and it never had been; nor would it. Thomas turned around and saw the desperation for a yes or no in Matthew's eyes — like he had had thoughts before, thoughts Thomas had struggled with since he was but a lad. "Isn't all fair, in love and war?" Thomas finally said, not a yes but not a no, for he did not know what else to say.

All is fair in love and war Matthew repeated to himself and they surely were in a war, just past the door of the dugout it was raging, even if their part of the trench was currently silent. Yes, that was it, war so everything was fair in it, that's why he had stared between Thomas' legs, that's why the graze to his hand had sent a chill down his spine.

"You should not be alone on a night like this, I do not wish for the shock to remerge in the dead of night." Matthew said and led a confused Thomas back but not onto the chair, but to the cot and set him down upon it before turning away; finding his spare long johns and undershirt to offer to his friend who sat there looking bewildered. When Matthew offered them to Thomas he saw tears fresh as day. It saddened him, even though he knew Thomas had a vile tongue he now understood why he so determinedly pushed everyone away. He had a secret, a secret that would cause him great pain if it were exposed — and he was not alone in having a secret that would cause people to turn away in disgust.

Matthew did the gentlemen thing and turned away while Thomas dressed himself and then the former footman stood on his feet. "I'll take the chair then."

"Bloody hell you will, I came out of this battle safe, you deserve the cot more than I do" Matthew argued and pushed Thomas down before setting himself down upon the sparse wood that laid across the dugout as a sorrowful excuse for floorboards. "I shall sit here and guard the cot, to ensure you don't defy my orders, Corporal" Matthew said firmly but the smile on his face caused Thomas to smile as well and laid upon the bed. He moved the blanket, so just enough covered his body and the rest fell off the side of the cot for Matthew to keep himself warm.

And so, strangely enough, came the best night of sleep Thomas has had since the war, and even before, and Matthew shared this sentiment. Though both of them were sound asleep Thomas' arm fell from the cot and draped Matthew who turned his head to rest it upon the forearm of the former footman.