"Castor!"

From his seat at the back of the shelled out building they had taken shelter in, Dust raised his head.

"What?"

The officer's eyes swept around the room, taking in the slumped figures of the men there. Dickon attempted to give him a smile, and the officer looked surprised. He turned back to Dust.

"These the new recruits?"

"Mm-hmm."

"You're on wiring duty tonight."

Dust merely grunted, but some of the other veterans muttered darkly to themselves. Dent spat and shook his head with a disgusted look. "First night back and they give us wiring duty," he grumbled. "How's that for special privilege?"

From Dickon's left, Liam had raised his head, his eyes wide. "W-wiring duty?" he asked, his thumb skimming idly over the photograph of his sweetheart.

The officer drew himself up. "That's right. Wiring duty. The lorry will come at midnight to collect you. And make sure you do it properly this time Castor."

Dust's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'll do it properly if you and your men can keep those fucking flares off our backs."

The officer cleared his throat. "I'll do my best," he said, and left.

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the occasional squeak of a rat and Dent's slow gathering of phlegm. The mood seemed bleaker somehow, though a minute ago Dickon would've sworn it couldn't possibly get any worse. He knew what wiring duty entailed. It seemed a simple enough procedure: sneak out into no-man's land in the dead of night to lay more barbed wire and reconnect any that had come loose in the previous day's fighting. He'd done enough at training; but that didn't make the prospect of doing it for real any less terrifying.

Three of the men had managed to uncover several tins of sardines from somewhere. They opened them greedily, slurping up the oily juices with pleasure. Liam's eyes grew round and hungry at the sound, and he licked his lips.

"C-can I have some?" he asked tentatively, his gaze fixed on the food like a starving man. "I haven't eaten since breakfast."

The men eyed him distrustfully. "Got anything to trade?" asked one of them.

"I – I've got money," said Liam, scrabbling in his pockets.

As one, the men laughed. "Money?" repeated one, holding his side and shaking his head as though the very idea of it was ridiculous. "And what are we going to do with that, eh?"

Liam eyed them in alarm. He glanced at Dickon, who only shrugged helplessly back. "I… uh… "

"Got anythin' useful?"

"L-like what?"

"Cigarettes?" suggested one of them.

Liam's eyes flicked to Dickon again. "I – I don't smoke."

"You will, soon enough." And they laughed again.

"Soap, cognac…

Liam shook his head miserably. "I – I – "

"Here," said Dickon, and he drew out the chunk of bread he had saved from the morning's rations. Liam blinked at him. "S'no much, but tha' can have it." He'd saved it almost by instinct – at home, he had always kept a little of his food for the animals to share. But there were no animals here, besides the rats.

"Are you sure?" Liam hadn't taken the bread, but his eyes were shining with hunger. He obviously wasn't used to going without. Dickon, at least, knew what it was to have an empty stomach, and had always been good at ignoring it.

"Sure. Take it."

Liam snatched the bread and bit into it desperately. "Shanks," he said with his mouth full, cheeks bulging. He closed his eyes as he chewed, and gave a small sound of pleasure. "God, that's good."

"Don't get used to it," said Dent darkly.

Dickon woke up suddenly. For one sudden, horrible moment he was back in that bombed out building, back in the horror and mindless tedium of war. Then his brain registered the overpowering tang of disinfectant, and beneath that, the sickly sweet smell of raw flesh. The coarse bed sheets against his skin, the painfully bright light above him, the click of heels somewhere nearby… He was… he was….

And then he remembered. Anguish and grief stabbed at him with the suddenness of a knife wound, and he curled his hands into fists around the sheets to avoid crying out. He felt pain lance down his left side, physical pain that seemed to reflect the rage inside him. It was a burning and tearing that made him grimace. But it was nothing to the pain within.

Phil. Phil. His brother. Torn to… blown to… Dickon felt the tears streaming down his cheeks, and he groaned in frustration. He made to roll onto his side, wanting to bury his head into the mattress, to block out the world just a little longer; but as soon as he moved the pain in his side struck anew, burning, ripping, and this time he couldn't prevent crying out.

There was the sound of hurried footsteps, and a moment later a curtain was drawn back and a nurse stood before him, her eyes wide with surprise and alarm.

"Stop that," she said abruptly, coming over and placing both hands on his chest to keep him flat on his back, to stop his agonised writhing. "You'll tear your wound right back open, if you're not careful."

Wound? He was wounded, then? Yes, he supposed that made sense. It certainly explained the ripping and burning of his side. Funny, he had just thought that was a consequence of having his soul ripped out by the devil himself.

The nurse threw back his covers, and lifted his shirt with never a by-your-leave. Dickon flinched, and instinctively made to pull it back down, but she swatted his hand away, her brows knitted in a frown.

"You've torn your stitches," she said in a tone of exasperation.

Sudden panic seized Dickon at the thought of being injured. He had so wanted to be dead; being left seriously wounded had never really occurred to him. What if he'd lost a leg? He thought of Dent, and his bloody stumps, and sat up with a wave of nausea to check that all his limbs were still present. But as soon as he tried to sit a hideous pain gripped his chest, as though his insides were being shredded by a rusty saw, and he hissed and fell backwards. His vision blurred, and the lights seemed to spin dizzily. The nurse's face appeared above him, her outline foggy and her expression very serious.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" she asked, putting a hand on his chest again to keep him pinned down. "You've an open wound splitting your side, several broken ribs, severe burns and shrapnel wounds all over you. Now keep still! I've spent too long looking after you to have you throw it all away now."

Her words stunned him into stillness. His catalogue of injuries sounded bad, but at the same time it wasn't bad enough. He needed to be dead, to be dead like his brother was. Like Dent… fear about his legs grabbed him again, irrationally, and he opened his mouth. He wondered how long it had been since he used his voice.

Seeing that he was trying to speak, the nurse lent closer to him.

"What is it?" she asked. She was young, probably not much older than he was. Her eyes were dark and she looked vaguely French, but she didn't speak with an accent.

"Am… " his voice was as hoarse as sand paper. She reached out and offered him a sip of water, using one arm to support his head while the other guided the cup to his lips. He swallowed gratefully, feeling weak as a babe. Then he tried again. "My… my legs… are they… are they… "

Understanding crossed her features, and she gave a sort of laugh. He glowered fiercely at this response. It was a perfectly valid concern, after everything he had seen. That last image of Dent was branded like fire in his mind's eye.

Seeing his angry reaction, the nurse sobered at once. "Your legs are fine," she said seriously. "I'm sorry, I know it's not a laughing matter."

He didn't reply. Instead he looked up at the ceiling, feeling the hollow ache spread through his insides. He never had given Dent that quick shot. He'd failed, even in that.

"I need to get the surgeon," said the nurse briskly. "Your wound needs restitching. And then I'll have to change your bandages."

His vision was darkening again. He could feel oblivion rising to claim him.

"And then we have to ask you some questions." Her voice was distorted, and strangely distant. "When you're feeling better… "

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to slip away.

Life went on, but it wasn't really life. Rather it was a mockery of life. A cheap imitation of it, like being stuck in a parallel universe where everything looked the same, but wasn't quite right. Where every little thing was just a tiny bit wrong, and all those tiny bits of wrongness added up to one great yawning cavern of wrong. That was Mary's life.

She couldn't simply flee back to Yorkshire. Her studies had been paid for, and although Colin insisted that the money was nothing, Mary knew she couldn't just run away. Besides, what was there in Yorkshire for her? Nothing would be the same without him. Being back there would be too painful. To wander their familiar haunts alone, to tend the garden by herself, to roam the moors in silence… she didn't have the strength for it, not yet. Secretly she doubted that she ever would.

So she stayed in London. Though she hated the city, at least its noise and chaos and confusion provided some sort of a distraction, the slightest bit of relief from the constant ache that clutched her heart. And the Williams kept her busy. Sam was a constant presence at her side. They gave her time alone, of course, to grieve and to let fall the tears that never seemed to end. But not too much time; the window of her third story bedroom became just a little too inviting after a while, and they understood the look in her eyes.

The rest of the girls in her school were sympathetic, but in a shallow, superficial sort of way that made Mary want to scream and tear her hair out and scare them all so much that they ran away from her and never came back. They couldn't understand her grief; Dickon wasn't family, after all. He wasn't even a 'friend', by their snobbish standards. She had told them he was a gardener and an animal charmer and to them that made him below notice, not worth all the tears Mary shed for him. They could never understand, and she didn't bother trying to explain. She knew how to act so that no one wanted to know her, and soon enough the girls were avoiding her and whispering 'Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary' behind her back again. She welcomed it. Only Sam stayed by her side, stubbornly.

Colin spent a lot of time at the Williams' home. She knew they asked him to come by, thinking that his presence would comfort her. And it did, in a strange way, because he was the only one who knew, who understood what losing Dickon meant, that it meant the world would never be right again, that something would always be missing no matter what happened next. But at the same time she hated Colin, hated to see his face each day when it wasn't the one she longed for. She found herself thinking awful, horrible things as she looked at him: Why couldn't it have been you? Why couldn't you be dead and Dickon alive? And she hated herself for thinking them, for being such a despicable human being. And Colin would look at her and she fancied that he knew exactly what she was thinking. And she wanted to tell him that she didn't really wish he was dead, that she was glad and thankful he was still alive. But she couldn't say it, and the darkness in his eyes grew.

And so life went on. But it didn't, not really. For Mary, life had stopped that day in early summer. She doubted it would ever start again.