Well I finally got around to cranking out another chapter! Woo! And not only that I went away from the plot of the movie and did my own thing, which was a very fun endeavor. Small disclaimer, this one is a bit more intense than previous chapters! Don't forget to leave a review if you want, thanks!

Mud and Cotton

Tramp scraped his hand across his grimy cheek, his olive uniform sleeve like steel wool against his skin. He ran his tongue over his teeth as they still ached from the last blast. They were getting hit hard today. He pushed a frustrated curse to the back of his throat and looked above him. The sky was dull and heavy like soggy cotton, its gray expanse stretching over his head. If it were quiet, Tramp would say it was depressing as hell. The air was saturated with a booming, thrumming chaos that made his ears throb and his head ache. Blasts of earth sprayed into the sky like party poppers and invaded his eyes in stinging granules. What he would give for some quiet. He shook his head through a bitter chuckle, what he would give for a lot of things right now.

"Incoming!"

Tramp gripped his gun to his chest, his knuckles going white, and braced himself. A jarring explosion rocked the ground beneath his feet as more earth blasted into the sky. He ducked and trained his eyes to the ground, feeling the vibrations through his teeth once again. His eyes fell to his boots, which sat in wet muddy sludge almost to his ankles. Could he even remember the last time his feet weren't soaked? A smell rose to his nose as he stared, of rot and excrement, and made Tramp want to retch. He lifted his head upwards, too exhausted to be disgusted. This was his home now and had been for months. He couldn't help but chuckle again and lay his helmeted head against the trench wall behind him. Home. What a wonderful, torturous thought. Freedom from bombs and gunfire, the shining sun and his two capable feet. And her.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. He paused for a moment, swallowing a hard lump of emotion, damn I miss her, and opened it with his thumb. A girl, beautiful and bright eyed, sat alone with her long hair curling over her shoulders. If the photo weren't black and white, it would blaze auburn. Her back was stiff, like she was uncomfortable but her smile was cherubic. He remembered how she hadn't wanted it taken by her insistent father one sunny Sunday afternoon. But with a few goofy faces from him behind her father's form, she had given the camera a genuine smile. The one where her freckled nose creased up like she was much younger. Tramp sighed and rubbed the worn smudge on her cheek, the spot he always caressed. He hoped she was well. She had been so cry ravaged at the station when he'd left, her eyes raw and red as a wine stain. It had killed him to step onto the train coach and break their entwined hands.

Another cannon's blast erupted behind him and his company, this one more distant and less head jarring. But screams answered in morbid response like something from a nightmare. Tramp folded the photo again and rammed it back in his pocket. He ground his jaw as he forced himself not to think of the horrors that were playing out behind them. The men began to ease down the trench, away from the sounds of the earlier blast. He adjusted his gun and slogged through the sucking mud with his eyes on his fellow man's back. As they progressed, Tramp had to make himself drill a hole into the man's dirty uniform jacket. He used his peripheral vision to pick his way through the narrow path as bigger and more frequent obstacles began to pile around his feet. The stench worsened and his boot heel stepped on something which was distinctly not mud.

Popping gunfire filled the air above him, like muffled firecrackers. Tramp looked up to see war planes, small and frantic as bees, flying about in battle. He watched them briefly to keep his mind distracted from the ground beneath him. He had his limits. Ceaseless battle had chipped away at his iron stomach and grit throughout this whole endeavor. He just couldn't look anymore. Tramp looked away from the sky and continued on, his gun heavy in his leaden fingers. Ordinarily he'd be trying to crack a joke or talk to the man in front of him but that was something else which had gotten harder to do. Some men's last acts on Earth had been conversing with him, a thought which kept him up at night. Many things kept him awake now. Besides the constant fear of night raids, his survivor's guilt and homesickness made him a bonafide insomniac.

A whistling projectile screamed over Tramp's head causing him to duck and lean against the trench wall. The men in front of him followed suit like olive jacketed dominos, more bullets flying overhead. These were different, larger and more precise as they ricocheted off the mud walls and sandbags in pockets of flying dust. A sniper. Tramp cursed colorfully and bent down till he was resting on his heels. The smell grew even more rank than before, and a gag began fighting its way up his throat. He refused to look and instead focused on the mucky trench wall like his life depended on it. The men ahead were furiously talking amongst themselves but he couldn't make out their words over the bullet's cries. The boy in front of him, a jittery blonde of eighteen, popped up from his crouch with his gun in hand and forced Tramp's eye. Knowing what he was going to do, Tramp made a grab at the boy's pack but he missed it by inches. "No wait!" He hissed. "Kid, don't!"

The boy shot up the highest level of the trench, ducking under the gnarled barbed wire fence on the ledge. He placed his gun on the layered sand bags and began to peer into his sights with a set jaw. Not wanting to look but too afraid not to Tramp let another warning die on his tongue. The boy aimed and fired, his shoulders jarring from the blowback. He licked his lips after a moment and prepared for another, his finger hot on the trigger. Tramp watched with a sickened stomach. The boy went to squeeze the trigger, his finger going pink. And his head sprayed red. Tramp flinched and looked away. His heart pounded like a hammer against his rib cage. Damn it.

He made himself turn and look after a sickened moment, his chest a few pounds heavier. Scarlet spattered the opposite trench wall, and the boy was still as stone. He hadn't fallen into a heap or smacked into the mud but lay splayed on the wall like a taxidermy carcass. His head had turned from the force of the bullet so Tramp could see his frozen, death stare. He shook his head. Gone. It was like magic. Here one moment and gone the next. Poof! He shuddered as the thought of his own face frozen in death. Lady would be heartbroken. She'd be inconsolable. She'd be about the only one to mourn him too.

More bullets began to strike around them again, taking him out of his head, and forced the men in front to trudge on. Only a handful glanced back at the boy. Tramp shook himself. He could think on his own death later in greater detail, something he always came back to each day. He followed the procession and ignored the urge to grab his photograph once again. He said a prayer for the boy's family as he passed the fresh body, his knuckles bloodless as he squeezed his gun barrel. It was the only thing he could do. The rats would get to him soon enough, and they would not give him the same courtesy.

He continued to fall in line for a mile or so and it was hard to ignore how the war sounds grew louder and louder. Cannon blasts and singing gunfire crashed around them without a single lapse. His head felt it would split. He also had a difficult time trying not to look where he was stepping, obstacles becoming so frequent his stomach turned whenever he took a step. The smell was unbearable. Tramp could hear the other men gagging and gasping up the line. He tried his best not to, but it took all he had. Steadying himself, he dug into his precious memories which he had stored away for emergencies. He was using them more and more frequently it seemed. Lady's smell was what he chose this time; of faint scented soap and baked lemon pie. It soothed and hurt him to imagine it, but it was enough.

The smell in Tramp's head distracted him so he didn't look where he was going and bumped into the man before him with a small huff. But the dark haired man didn't notice even as he mumbled an apology. Tramp peered over his shoulder and saw the procession had come to a halt. A cannon blast ripped into the earth just a few feet away from them, earth spewing. Tramp ducked and steadied the helmet to his head with another colorful curse. Why the hell had they stopped? He blinked the dust out of his eyes and licked his teeth for what felt like the hundredth time. Anxious at not moving, and trying his damndest not to look down, he leaned forward and tapped the man in front of him. "Hey, what's going on?"

He glanced back over his shoulder and shook his head. "Word is they're gonna give the order to go over the top."

"Shit." Tramp breathed.

Hot, wrenching dread tangled itself into his stomach. The bile which he had been working so hard to suppress burned into his throat and he nearly retched for real. Both soldiers went into a taut silence. They knew what it meant. The dread curled around the center of his chest like black fingers and squeezed. His panic flared as he swallowed the bile back down again. Bullets zinged and cannon fire raged but it was dull and inconsequential to Tramp's ears as if in a distant dream. He thought of the things he had been dreaming of, everything he had planned when he got home and realized it was all fantasy. He spit the excess saliva in his mouth onto the ground angrily. He'd put on a good show for her at the station too, all confidence and comforting words.

"Just watch them try to put me in a grave. Not when I got you waiting for me. And besides, have I ever let you down before?" He'd consoled.

This damn war was going to make a liar out of him. He cursed again with frustration and sadness bursting in him in fits. Tramp hated to do it but he pictured how she'd cry when the sergeant knocked on her door and gave her the news. Just damn it. The shakes tried to work their way into his hands, but he squeezed them tight in stubborn refusal. This was no time to turn chicken shit. It wasn't what he wanted but if it was meant to be then he'd be damned if he spent his last moments panicking and wallowing in self pity. He'd go out from this world like he came into it, with guns blazing. Lady would move on and find a respectable man worthy of her beautiful soul. It was for the best.

A stray tear slid down his cheek and he blinked in confusion. He wiped it onto his fingers and stared at the moisture against his skin."This sucks." He chuckled under his breath.

He looked ahead and saw the other men grimly turning to face the enemy line, forgetting their trek forwards. Rigid silence extended to them too. This was the order they dreaded above all others. To leave the shallow safety of the trench's belly and charge into no-man's-land to rush the enemy. Tramp turned and slid down the wall till he was crouching with his back propped up against the mud. He looked up at the muted sky and wished it were blue and sunny. But for his wishing he was only gifted with blast after blast of flying earth. He sighed. The shrill order of a whistle was all that stood between him and oblivion. What was Lady doing right now? At that thought, Tramp's dread morphed into something worse. Fear. Strong, throbbing, primal terror at the base of his throat.

His adrenaline spiked heart started beating so hot and fast within him Tramp had to lower his head and breath through his nose to calm himself. He looked down to his feet in his panic and saw what he'd been trying so hard to avoid. Corpses. Tramp saw bodies piled around him in dirty, discarded death. Like a child had gotten bored with her house of dolls and left them in careless disarray. Limbs frozen ramrod straight pointed up to the sky, glazed eyes stared and discarded guns lay useless and filthy. Blood and mud mixed in a dark muck which looked like oil. Tramp covered his mouth and gagged. He wouldn't look much different from them soon enough. It was only a matter of minutes. Poof!

And then the whistle blew. Tramp's chest rose and fell in quick heaves and he pressed his forehead to his gun through closed eyes. "Come you bastard, get up and fight." He muttered through his teeth. Another shriek of the whistle fell over him and he opened his eyes. He rose from the ground with the other men and ran towards the trench wall with every inch of his body screaming in protest. His feet dug into the earth as he hoisted himself up with a heave, gunfire sounding closer than ever. As his hand grappled onto the edge of the trench, Lady sliced into his skull with bright ferocity. The first coy smile she had given him on the lawn, her eyes crystalline and lips soft like petals, took the battlefield away from his eyes. For a moment, Tramp felt a warm sense of tranquility. He smiled.

The battle returned and Tramp pulled himself up to standing on the ledge behind the barbed wire. He surveyed no-man's-land, a dead, empty expanse of gray much like the sky. There could be worse graves, he supposed. The enemy's line could be seen, a dark recess against the battleground, like a deep scar of hatred and cannon smoke. It was so far. Like hell we're reaching them. He thought furiously.

Men began to drop like flies in the face of the heavy gunfire that greeted them. Shouts and screams joined the horrendous din of those dying or injured. He stepped over the barbed wire and moved with the throng of soldiers his gun in hand. It felt wrong to be out in the open, fresh air feeling like toxic gas instead of the cool reprieve it should have been. Another whistle blow came, and they all began to rush forward in a mad dash. Let's see who can make it to their death first. Your it. Things began to blur around Tramp as he ran with his legs burning in protest. A great battle cry rose from the ranks, a final outpouring of spirited rebellion. He fixed his eyes on the enemy's line and joined in. His voice rose to a ragged roar which tore his throat to shreds. The man he had just spoken to fell flat in the dirt as they ran onward. Something warm dripped down Tramp's face but he ignored it.

Still roaring and running like a madman, images assaulted him one more time. Lady laughing, blissful and radiant, and garbed in a white dress. A house with a wreath on the door. Her stomach swollen and round. A beautiful child with gray hair. The three of them sleeping together in bed in the bright morning sunshine. It would have been such a nice life too —

Tramp cocked his gun, the metal cool against his skin. He prepared to fire but a terrible scream sounded from behind him. His finger slipped off the trigger and he turned his head in response. He blinked.

And black silence greeted him.

Lady's eyes burst open terrified, and bulging. A tremulous breath tore from her throat and fell against her pillow. She blinked in the darkness several times, her heart a great thumping spasm of distress. Probing the blackness before her, puffs of air left her nose in a frantic rhythm. She screwed her eyes closed again and pressed the side of her face into the pillow. Horrors of gunfire and blood danced under her eyelids like a cruel zoetrope. Lady's face constricted in terror and a breathless whimper died into the fabric of the pillowcase. Oh, my god.

Terror worked its way through her, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Nighttime quiet and her wild heartbeat clung to her like the terrible gray sky she'd seen above the battlefield. A shudder claimed her and she forced her eyes open in fear of seeing more horrors. Lady squeezed the material of the bed under her finger pads for reassurance. It was soft cotton, not mucky, stinking earth. That small affirmation was enough to calm her breath to a steadier rhythm. She was home in bed. She turned her face free of the pillow and began to see snatches of the bedroom. Her vanity, like glossy ink in the moonless gloom, stood where it always had. The curtains were still drawn over the two large windows, tree limbs twisted behind them in black fingers. Not a thing stood out of place.

Lady swallowed dryly. A fear, poisonous and thick, began to settle inside her chest like a smog. Another whimper escaped and forced her eyes shut again. As soon as the bedroom vanished, the deafening crack and its residual silence played over and over in her mind. She knew what it meant. "God, please, no." Lady whispered, a prick coming to her eyes. Corpses scattered in the mud came back under her lids, their death glazed eyes staring up at her.

A sudden jolt of unbearable sorrow had her eyes open wide and her head off the pillow. Had it been real? Oh god, had it been real? Was he…? Lady turned over onto her opposite side on the bed. She forced her eyes through thicker blackness with her throat cramping up like a vise. The other side of the mattress was hard to make out, crumpled blankets sprawling before her in lumps and masses. Blood muck oozed into the edges of her vision and Lady's chest burst with a searing sob. She extended her hand out into the murk unable to handle her uncertainty.

And touched skin.

Lady's anxiety was pierced with a jolt of relief. Another cry filled the air around her and her eyes fully adjusted to see the sleeping male form beside her. A tear or two slipped down her cheeks as she stared at him in frozen wonderment. Tramp lay on his stomach with his long arms folded into his pillow and his head facing away from her. His back rose and fell against the fabric of his sleeveless undershirt. Inhale... Exhale… Slow and steady his breath came and with each sound Lady rejoiced. She pushed herself closer to him with tears dripping to her chin. He was all right. He was breathing. Lady pressed herself against his form, her arm curving around his torso. She nuzzled her face into his shoulder and inhaled the smell of his sweat and aftershave.

"Thank god. Thank god." She mumbled, easing her hand up and down his side, shirt ridges gliding over her palm. Quiet slipped over the bed like a blanket, and Lady surrendered a few chokes of relief into its gentle embrace. His heat was a soothing balm to her raw, shaking body, and she kissed his shoulder. He was all right. He really was all right. After a while of listening to his breathing and mumbling words of gladness her husband stirred at her touch. The sheets rustled under him like shifting grass and a soft, groggy whisper met her ears.

"Hey."

"Hey." She replied unsteadily.

"Everything alright?" Tramp mumbled. He turned his head to face her his eyes still closed in drowsiness. Lady sniffed and nodded, her throat still cramped. He stayed quiet for a few moments and Lady eased into a calm state where her earlier dread couldn't reach. Eventually Tramp sleepily squinted up at her through one eye, his hair tousled and flopping over his forehead in sweat moistened strands. He always got so hot at night.

"You cryin'?" He asked.

"Just a little. I had a god awful nightmare." She whispered.

"Oh." Tramp blinked and yawned. He turned over and faced her, scrubbing his hand over his face. "C'mere." He said, reaching his arms out to her.

Lady moved even closer to him and put her head between his neck and shoulder. Tramp's arms wrapped around her and his sweltering heat enveloped her. To be sure nothing was amiss Lady did another probing squeeze, this time on his chest. It was clean without a scratch or wound to be found.

Tramp pressed his nose into her cheek. "Must've been some dream. You're shaking like a leaf. Well, it's over now." He said, his arms tightening around her. "What was it about?"

Lady went quiet as the image of scarlet splattering on a muddy wall appeared, even with her eyes open. She shivered. It took some effort to swallow the sight of the poor boy's lifeless eyes down her throat and make room for a reply. "You...you dying. In the war." She ground out.

"Damn." Tramp nestled his face into her deeper. "Did I go out in style?"

"Honey, stop it's not funny. I thought you were gone!"

"Woah easy now, it's okay. I'm all right, see?" Tramp said, taking her hand on his chest and placing it on his cheek. "I'm right here."

Lady felt fresh, stray tears run down her old ones, and she placed a tender kiss on his lips. "Never die on me. You can't. Never. Please."

"I haven't made any plans to. Honest. I'm not going anywhere." Tramp said. Lady heard something that sounded suspiciously like a smile in his voice. "Gee, this one really got to you, huh?"

Lady nodded and pressed closer to him. "Yeah, it did. It was so real I couldn't stand it."

"I don't have a scratch on me, I promise. You can check all over if you want." There was definitely a smirk on his face.

Lady paused. His humor eased over her nerves like a swath of silk and though it didn't take her horror away, it felt right to hear him happy. She mustered the strength to brush her tears away. Lady swatted at her husband and shook her head with a sigh. "Big oaf."

"Only for you, sweetheart ." He chuckled softly, his smile brilliant even in the dark of the night. "Now, you still convinced I'm dead? I can safely say I'm not, Pigeon."

Lady closed her eyes in gratitude and stroked his cheek with her thumb. "I know it's you here next to me. Thank goodness."

"You think you'll be able to go back to sleep now?"

"Yes, I think so. But could you stay up until I fall asleep, just in case?"

"Sure thing, Pidge."

"Thank you, you're the best." Lady said and kissed his nose gratefully

She turned over, leaving his furnace of a chest, and laid on her opposite side. As she situated herself in the pillow Tramp placed himself so their bodies pressed against each other. Lady's back touched his chest and their legs intertwined in a warm mash up of appendages. He situated her chin on her shoulder and yawned. "I'll be here in the morning when you wake up. Night."

She reached back and grabbed his hand, placing it on her waist. "Night." She breathed. "I love you."

"Love you."

Lady traced his hand, brushing his knuckles, calluses and warm wedding band. She closed her eyes as it helped chase away any more visions of war. Her eyes settled into the dark and sleep wasn't as distant as before. But one last image, stubborn yet subtle, slid under her eyelids. Their hands torn apart at a phantom train station, fingers slipping away from each other into the cool air. Lady tightened her grip on his hot hand and smiled. She was never letting go.