Firstly, I do not at all nor have ever owned "The Patriot," any of its affiliates or copyrighted material, including reserved rights. Amy Card alone is mine drawn from imagination.
Secondly, Thanks to Charlotte Norrington for her kind and helpful review.
Any other nessecaries have at this time escaped me, so on to the main event.
"NOOOOO!" Gabriel screamed, sitting bolt upright on his cot. Surveying his surroundings with unbelief, Gabriel cautiously laid his throbbing head in his hands. The nightmare had been different this time, longer. Every detail of it, every moment had been as real as the day it happened even to the flowered print on Amy's dress.
Cold sweat trickled down his heaving chest as Gabriel rose shakily, letting his thin, gray blanket pool around his bare feet. Thrusting back the flaps of the tent, Gabriel looked anxiously around him, before sauntering, in what he hoped to be a carefree manner, around the dying campfires to the latrine. Ignoring the pitying eyes of friends, and choked laughter of the newest recruits, Gabriel undid the buttons on his breeches to relieve himself.
Sensing someone standing to his right, Gabriel turned and saw John Harding, one of his closest friends. Smiling, John glanced up from refastening his breeches, "Might want to keep the screaming down, there mate." John said quietly, watching the shadows and lines of Gabriel's face. Gabriel looked searchingly into John's eyes, wondering how much he knew. John shrugged. "You know," John continued, "What with them not knowing Amy." Gabriel waited, interested at how much his friend knew. "And?" Gabriel asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. "Well," John continued mockingly, "if they did they'd be screaming too," Gabriel laughed, surprising himself. He hadn't laughed for weeks. Cuffing John lightly, Gabriel put his arm around John's shoulder and pulled him toward the tavern in the rural outpost the army had camped near for the night.
Hours later, John and Gabriel walked unsteadily across the field, back to their tents, both leaning on each other as Gabriel chuckled at John's latest joke. At the end of the row of tents Gabriel stopped to push the intoxicated John into his tent. Turning to leave, he noticed two soldiers staring at him as they hunched before a campfire. "Wwhat," Gabriel slurred as he felt anger rising like boiling water before in his sluggish mind. The two soldiers quickly turned back to their conversation, but not before Gabriel noticed, through his drunken stupor how familiar the blond, lean one looked. Shrugging inwardly, Gabriel plodded on to the tent and collapsed on his cot in complete exhaustion.