No-one here can love

How she came to be here, Faith isn't sure.

After she upset Ken by comparing his daughter to his wife, she thought he wouldn't want to be in her presence for longer than necessary, but she turned out to be wrong about that. Mere minutes after marching off, he returned, back to his charming, affable self, and announced that he'd rented the house.

The children were pleased and so was Faith, inexplicably enough. Ken seemed pleased, too, and suggested they celebrate by going out for dinner. Faith tried to beg off, but they wouldn't let her, so to the restaurant she went with them. With dinner over, Ken sent the children to bed and invited Faith for a drink in the downstairs bar in their hotel.

Not seeing how to decline, she didn't – and this, she assumes, is how she came to be here

The bartender places two glasses in front of them, each filled with an inch of amber liquid.

"Cheers." Ken picks up one glass and clinks it against the other one still standing on the counter.

"To your new home." Raising the other glass, Faith takes a sip. The alcohol burns down her throat.

"To your help in securing it." Ken takes a longer sip from his own glass.

As Faith swirls the amber liquid within the confines of her glass, she wonders what Ken thinks of her ordering a strong spirit like this. When she's out with her friend, they're more likely to drink beer or wine, but Ken ordered Cognac and when he looked at her questioningly, so did she. Then, she takes another sip and wonders why she even cares what he thinks.

"It's been a long time since I drank brandy in a bar like this," Ken observes as he looks down at his drink. "Not since the war."

No, Faith reflects, he wouldn't have. When he returned in 1919, as she didn't, he came back to a country where alcohol was mostly outlawed, certainly spirits like the one they're drinking now.

"Cheers to that." She clinks her glass against the one he's holding and is rewarded with a grin.

There's a moment of surprisingly companionable silence as they drink their brandy. Faith notices absent-mindedly that Ken's glass empties faster than her own, which she presumes to mean that he found a way to circumvent prohibition laws in the past eight years.

"So," he begins when placing his empty glass back on the counter, "you never told me why you became a doctor."

"I wasn't under the impression that I had to tell you," Faith replies dryly.

Ken grins again. The attentive bartender places another Cognac-filled glass in front of him.

"You might have missed it, but over the past two weeks, you've made me lay out more than one of the most difficult periods of my life in all detail for you to study," Ken points out to her, but as he does, he sounds amused more than anything.

"I didn't make you," Faith demurs. "You told me."

"I had my reasons," he informs her and she thinks that he enjoys being mysterious for once.

Placing her empty glass on the counter, Faith shakes her head at the hovering bartender. Pearl always does tease her about not being able to hold her liquor and she doesn't quite want to lose her good sense this early in the evening. She has a feeling she might need it yet.

Ken proves her feeling to be accurate when he reiterates, "So, why did you become a doctor?"

It's a simple question with an answer that is anything but, and for all she compared Ava to Rilla earlier in the day, Faith reflects that she must have gotten her talent for asking deceptive questions from her father.

"That's a long story," she tells Ken, hoping it will make him drop the question.

She should have known better.

"I've got all night." He raises his half-filled glass to her.

"I don't," Faith replies, because she really doesn't. After a night shift and a day spent with the family Ford, she's already exhausted. Back during the war, she used to have to cover shifts of 24 hours or more, but that was a long time ago and she certainly didn't get any younger in the meantime.

Ken, alas, is unimpressed. "In that case, I suggest you just tell me instead of delaying it further."

She doesn't have to tell him anything, Faith knows, no matter what he already told her about himself. He also knows he's persistent though, or rather, she remembers that he is.

"I wanted to carry his dream forward," she thus answers and there's no need to define who 'he' is.

Instead of replying right away, Ken takes another sip of Cognac and studies Faith over the rim of his glass.

"See, and I think that's not the whole story," he remarks after a moment, sounding maddeningly calm.

He's not wrong and Faith knows he isn't. She tried giving him the easy answer, the one that everyone expects to hear from her, but of course he's right to say that there's more to it than she's saying, maybe more than she can say.

"It's not a lie," she replies, because it isn't.

"I didn't think it was," assures Ken comfortably.

It truly isn't a lie. The answer is more complex than simply wanting to live the dream Jem never got to fulfil, but that doesn't mean she didn't honestly choose his dream in the absence of him.

Absent-mindedly, Faith pushes her empty glass over the counter and this time, when the bartender places a new glass in front of her, she doesn't wave him away.

"He was always so passionate about medicine," she muses, staring down at the amber liquid so as not to look at the man next to her. "He never baulked or shied away from the difficult or painful aspects. The only thing he cared about was helping others. I loved that about him. I admired it as well."

"It's what made him a good officer, too," Ken adds pensively.

Faith takes a deep breath and decides not to react to that. She has memories of Jem as a soldier, of course, from 1914 and later, from 1917, too, and she didn't miss the changes in him. Still, she rather remembers him as the aspiring doctor full of excitement than as the seasoned soldier with the nervous, dulled eyes.

"I realised during the war that in caring for others, I felt closer to him," she continues, as if Ken had never said a word, and is herself surprised by how calm her voice sounds. "When he went missing, it was a way to retain that feeling, and more so when he didn't come back."

There's still more to the answer to his question. Some parts are pragmatic, like needing to earn a living and choosing what she already knew about. Some parts are stupid, like wanting to stay in England in case Jem came back after all. Some parts are difficult, like not wanting to return home when there wasn't much left to come home to after the flu swept through her family. Some parts are more difficult still, like having too many people die on her and being unable to do anything about it.

"He was MIA for such a long time," Ken muses. "When did the Blythe learn about his fate? Two years ago?"

"Three." Without thinking, Faith takes a long sip of Cognac. "It was almost three years ago."

They knew before, of course. Not during the war and not immediately after it, when there was a glimmer of hope that dimmed and died as the months passed and more and more POWs returned home without a trace of Jem. For so many families, the end of the war brought certainty, in whichever way, but they were left with a curt 'wounded and missing' for weeks and months and years.

"Three years," repeats Ken, frowning in thought. "Yes, I remember. Di told me once about how her parents got the letter."

"I wrote it," blurts out Faith, without realising that she meant to. "I wrote that letter to Ingleside."

For everything he otherwise thinks he knows, Ken is clearly surprised by this bit of information. Having just raised his glass for another drink, he hesitates, before placing it back on the counter. "I always thought that the authorities finally found out what happened to him."

Faith shakes her head and swallows, suddenly not trusting her voice for a moment. She wishes Esther were here to take the task of explaining from her, but Esther is probably already in bed and the only thing Faith can cling to for comfort is the glass of Cognac. She closes both hands around it and concentrates on the feeling of the cool, smooth surface beneath her fingers.

She feels Ken's eyes on her but takes a long moment to compose herself before she speaks again. "My friend, Esther, works for the Ypres League and meets a lot of veterans. Whenever she talked to someone who'd been taken prisoner, she asked whether they knew him and – "

"And one day, she found one?" Ken finishes for her when she can't, his voice surprisingly gentle.

"Yes," Faith manages, "one day, she did."

There are other words to explain what happened, very many of them. She could talk about how she met with the former POW despite Esther's caution. She could tell him about what she learned from the man. She could try and form into words what it did to her what she heard that day.

There was certainty, for one. There was the closure of a festering wound, the final demise of what had become a poisoned sort of hope. She appreciated it, the sureness that stopped her wondering and doubting. For that, she was grateful.

On the other hand, certainty came with truth and truth meant she would never again be able to tell herself the lie of the quick, painless death.

When Jem arrived at the POW camp in Germany, his leg wound had already become badly infected. With medical care of the prisoners mainly left to one of their own, a Russian doctor equipped with no supplies to speak of, there was little anyone could do for him. As the infection spread uncontrolled, his physical state deteriorated and so did his mental condition. Fever, pain, fear and confusion mixed together to mark his final days. By the end, he knew neither his own name nor the names of the people he loved. He was dead within a week of arriving at the camp.

"When they sent the telegram about him being captured, he wasn't even alive anymore," Faith settles on finally and even those words are painful enough because of everything hidden behind them.

She raises her head to look at Ken and, to her surprise, finds understanding reflected on his face. Perhaps, she thinks, he'd already guessed what he told her, because he was a soldier, too, and he knows how quickly a wound got infected in the mud of France and how quickly an infection led to gangrene and how quickly gangrene was followed by death. Perhaps he realised what 'wounded and missing' meant long before Faith allowed herself to face the truth of it.

"I'd feared as much." Ken sighs as he confirms her suspicions. Briefly, he reaches out to cover her hand with his, giving it a light squeeze. Oddly, Faith finds she doesn't mind the gesture of comfort, even if she's unsure of how much it really helps.

"There's…" She pauses and sips her drink. "There's a certain irony to the fact that he, who was so passionate about medicine, died because medical help wasn't available to him."

Ken hums in thought and Faith assumes he's trying to decide whether to share with her what's going through his mind. A part of her is wary of his truth, but another part wishes he wouldn't hold back.

"He might not have made it anyway. Even if he hadn't been captured and had gotten proper medical care immediately, he might not have made it," Ken finally offers and Faith thinks that this isn't him holding back. "I've seen infected leg wounds and… most men afflicted by them were eventually declared DOW."

DOW. Died of wounds.

Briefly, Faith wonders if this is what they changed Jem's status to. From MIA to DOW. She supposes it must be.

"I know that," she replies and means that she knows Jem might never have stood a chance. "There are kinder ways to go though."

"Undoubtedly, there are," agrees Ken.

This time, when they clink glasses, it's in a sort of silent tribute to the dead.

There's a long moment of silence afterwards, only broken by the bartender bringing another Cognac-filled glass for Ken.

"It did make it a little easier," Ken finally remarks and now it's him swirling his drink in his glass. "I saw so many people die, but none of them were as peaceful as Rilla. She just fell asleep and never woke up. I raged at whatever power took her from me, but I took comfort in the fact that she was at peace."

"Was she? At peace?" Faith finds herself asking, because she knows that being a peace is not the same as being peaceful.

Ken takes a long sip of Cognac, before looking at her. "I think so. I didn't realise it then, but she knew she was going to die. She might have known from the moment she became aware of her pregnancy. Gilbert always warned us to give it time, that she was too weakened from the flu. When it did happen, I hoped she'd be strong enough, but I think in some way, Rilla knew that she wasn't."

"Wasn't she…" Faith hesitates, searching for the right word, "sad?"

"She regretted leaving us so soon," Ken answers, now back to staring down at his glass. "That's what she told me in those last moments. She said she was already missing us, but that she was grateful for the time she and I had together, grateful for having had Jims with her, grateful to have met Ava. I never asked her whether she would have done something different, given the chance, but I don't think she would have."

"Would you?" Once more, the words leave Faith's mouth before she decided to say them, but this time, she doesn't curse herself for it. Whatever strange friendship it is she's struck up with Ken Ford, theirs is one of total honesty, it appears.

There's a moment of hesitation before Ken looks up again and meets her eye. "Do you mean whether I'd sacrifice the happiness to spare myself the pain?"

These aren't the words Faith would have chosen, but they come close enough to expressing her thoughts, so she nods.

"I've thought about that, actually," Ken admits, his voice pensive. "During the war, what connected Rilla and me was in some ways oblique and hard to grasp at. It could have petered out, but after I came back, I decided to go to her and see whether the connection was real. I wanted to know whether we could reawaken those brief moments of feelings from before the war and whether we could build on them."

"Did you?" asks Faith, even as she knows that it's a stupid question.

Ken nods and raises his glass to drink. "We could and we did, I think. Still, if I hadn't gone to the island that spring in 1919, everything would have turned out very differently. I don't regret how my life turned out, but I'm aware that it could have been different, too."

Faith finds herself nodding. If he hadn't gone back to Rilla all those years ago, he certainly wouldn't be here today, a widower with two children, getting drunk in a hotel bar with a woman to whom he's only connected to by ghosts and grief.

"What about you?" Ken wants to know. "If you could do it over again, would you do it differently?"

"Would I do what differently?" Faith finds herself asking, despite having a decently good idea of what he means.

Vaguely, Ken waves his hand around. His eyes have become less focused and Faith thinks he might be feeling the effects of the Cognac. She knows she certainly is.

"You asked if I would choose not to have gotten married if I could," Ken elaborates. "Returning the question, I'm asking if you'd choose to go back and do, if you had the chance."

Faith feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Whether in warning or fear, she doesn't know.

"We never got the chance," she replies, her voice suddenly tight.

Either Ken doesn't notice though or he doesn't care. "Oh, but you did. You met up in late 1917 in England, didn't you? I was honestly surprised that you didn't elope right then."

Before speaking, Faith takes a deep breath and downs the remaining Cognac. "We considered it. In fact, we almost decided to go through with it and then… then we thought of our families and realised we wanted them there with us. Eloping sounds so romantic, but it also means not having your loved ones there to celebrate with us. We wanted to be married, but we thought that since we made it this far, we'd make it to the end as well. We planned to go home after the war and get married surrounded by everyone we love. We just never got the chance."

She laughs a dark, cynical laugh that, at the same time, sounds like her and not like her at all.

"Do you regret it?" asks Ken, his voice low, and when Faith lets her eye flicker towards him, she sees him empty his glass of Cognac.

Once again, it's a question that's simple on the outside but far too complex within. She made a decision, then, and she knows that if she hadn't, her life might have turned out differently, too. The sadness might have been deeper for having lost a husband instead of a fiancé, or it might not have been as deep, because of the days of married life they could have had. She's thought about it so often in the past decade, far too often, but it's remained a riddle she's never been able to solve.

So, she gives the only answer she can. "I don't know."

To DogMonday:
I dare say Ava hasn't considered the gorier sides to medicine yet (and porcelain dolls don't bleed), but she definitely admires that Faith is independent and self-assured and does what she wants. Ava aspires to do what she wants when she's grown up! Faith also intrigues her because she's the first grown up to not put up with Ava's brattish tendencies, so that makes her an excellent adult to emulate in Ava's eyes. It makes some sense, too, because as Faith herself is increasingly starting to notice, Ava has distinct similarities to Faith at that age, so there's a common ground alright.
Faith isn't inclined to give Ken the benefit of the doubt - and she was quite critical of him in the beginning - but even she has to admit that he's trying his best to do right by those children. Society wouldn't have blamed him for passing Jims on to someone else, but he continued to take care of him and he tried to overcome his own grief to support Jims in remembering Rilla. That shows him to be more aware and more sensitive than Faith would initially have thought. I think that's mostly what he means when he compared the lot of widows and widowers. You're certainly correct that not every widow received support, so he's oversimplificating that particular point, but I think he's correct in that society didn't doubt a widow's ability to raise her children, while he experienced a lot of doubt when he decided to raise his children on his own. Faith, in his stead, would have been trusted to raise children well because she's a woman, whereas he would have been trusted to be a good professional in the job world because he's a man. Some of their problems in society arise because their roles are reversed and that's what Ken is trying to say here.
Now, as for why Ken leaves Faith standing there, it's got nothing at all to do with him and everything with her saying that Ava takes after Rilla. We'll get into that a bit more later on (in chapter 9, to be precise), but it was that comparison that pained him. He's really doing well holding everything together, but he's also just human and yes, Faith (and we) saw a crack in him in that moment. This chapter showed us some more of his struggles and we'll learn more about his demons before the story is done. He's found a healthier way to deal with his grief and he's got himself under good control, but he's been through a lot as well and it left its marks.