A/N: Almost two thousand words, not bad huh? This chapter does have some graphic scenes of injuries. I specifically talk about the effects of Mustard Gas which was a chemical weapon commonly used during WWI. A lot of the scene about the gassed soldiers comes from the painting Gassed by John Singer.

I hope you enjoy the chapter and thank you for reading.

She knew this was a war, that there was going to be fighting. Annabeth also knew she was a nurse. That meant she would be around the flesh and bone manifestations of the ravages of war. She had signed up knowing this would not be easy, it would not be pretty, it would not spare her feelings.

The first ship loads had made it in the day before. They carried the worst of the wounded. Those who simply would not fight again. Some had lost hands or legs, the lucky only a few fingers or part of a hand or foot, while others were so torn apart the fact that they had made it across the sea was a feat.

Annabeth saw every injury and wound that could be inflicted by every weapon carried into war. There were men who had be caught in explosions, shot, stabbed, cut on barbed wire, burned, hit by shrapnel, kicked by horses, and the gassed.

They by far were the worst.

The walking dead is what a few other soldiers had called them. The gas was a German weapon. They loaded it into canisters and fired them from their artillery to fall in a fog that billowed from the Grim Reaper himself. The doctors had told her how it worked.

It attacked the flesh. It tore at your lungs and nose, stripped away the skin and felt like you were breathing in fire. Any skin exposed blistered and formed boils as if you were being submerged in boiling water. It got into your lungs and tore apart the tissue. A long enough exposure and you became violently ill, but not from the gas. The soldiers would get pneumonia and had to be quarantined. That was the best they could do for the worst of cases. Seal you away so you wouldn't take others.

Blisters and boils could be given treatment with creams and salves. These injuries were little to be concerned about and most medical staff saw such little ailments as a waste of time and effort. There were so many worse wounds the living needed to be treated for. Especially if you were the living gassed.

If it didn't get your lungs then it took your eyes. Lines of men would be marched in, sometime holding a rope and others tied together, with bandages wrapped around hollow and scarred sockets that gaped emptily at nothing.

Annabeth only felt guilt when she saw them. Guilt that somewhere deep inside her a small voice said it was better their eyes had been taken, that eyes that had seen that type of violence did not belong in a civilized world. She would draw back from that voice.

Percy was there, he would see such things and that opinion would damn him. She prayed every time that voice spoke that it would not come to haunt her, come to haunt Percy.

She also knew it was her 'civilized world' that had started the war. That had sent millions of men off to fight. It was 'civilization' that had developed the gas and the machine gun and the bayonet. Civilization was beyond flawed.

These were the thoughts that filled her nights rest. The ideas that shifted into ideas of what the world could be. If the war tore apart everything and leveled all of Europe it would be an opportunity. Civilization could be rebuilt. All of it could be redone and remade. A new world could be built after the ashes had finished burning.

Annabeth would wake with these thoughts in her mind and force them away. Too much would have to burn for that to happen. Too much would have to be lost and there was enough death.

And one of those deaths could be Percy's. Annabeth did the best she could not to dwell on it, not to give into the morbid self pity of wallowing in his loss when he was still here but it was difficult. Days spent around young men in uniform changed every silhouette, every covered figure, every head of black hair into her boy. When she closed her eyes their soft cries, the voices pleading, the out cries, and rambling speech all became his.

She would hover every dying soldier, dote on the most helpless, perform every menial task all in a misguided idea that what she did for these men would be repaid to Percy.

The time between the letters was difficult enough but now that it was because he was fighting she felt as if the weight of worry had shifted from her shoulders and taken place in her lungs.

A letter had come this morning and she had realized its arrival and the arrival of these new wounded men were not coincidence. She had asked one of the wounded who could speak where he had been. He had spoken a name as if it were a beast, one that could reach a long taloned arm across the sea and grasp him once again. French was the language of love, a soft and beautiful sound between lovers. There is no beauty in the words spoken by a man torn from life and pitched into the rolling hellfire of war, no matter what the language is.

Belleau Wood.

She had cringed at the name, with one hand she had gripped at the man's uniform and with the other pressed the letter, so delicately tucked away, against herself. Before that name had been spoken the letter had held hope and promise. Now Annabeth tasted the bile of fear.

When he break came she ran to the nurses lounge and tore at the envelope. Panic nearly took her but she held firm enough to keep from shredding the precious contents. If she could see his writing, read his ramblings, be forced to suffer through a poor excuse of a joke that was his sense of humor she could manage.

Three papers was what she withdrew from that tattered envelope. And never had she felt so relieved and dreadful at the same time.

This was too much. Too much for what he normally wrote, too many words from too many thoughts. And those thoughts were what gave her worry.

She unfolded the sheets of paper and devoured the pencil marks so carelessly scrawled across them.

June 7th, 1918

Dear Annabeth,

We launched our first attack yesterday. The French and several American companies attacked a hill on our left. Only two of our companies were in position and they had to take the hill by themselves. They managed to capture it but the Battalion was nearly wiped out.

Nine officers and almost all 325 men in the first attack. All for a single hill. I know it's importance, but that is still so many men to lose in a single day. That's not including the French losses.

Nico was one of them. I found out just before our own attack. It's hard to understand, I had just met him. Just befriended him and he is already gone. He gave me a letter to send to his sister. One I was supposed to send if anything happened, I honestly never thought he would need it. I didn't think I'd actually have to send it but now I'm sitting in my fox hole holding it and wondering how many of these letters are out there? How many other women will receive similar death letters? I pray you never will.

Our attack didn't fare much better. Both the 5th and 6th Marines were sent straight at the forests of Belleau Wood. They ordered us to march across a wheat field with bayonets fixed.

We advanced straight into German machine guns. They had set up fields of fire and we were torn apart. Being the Marine Corps we kept our lines, we stayed disciplined and it nearly got us killed. They mowed us down Annabeth. Entire squads are gone.

A Gunny Sergeant from one of our machine gun companies order his men forward with the words 'Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?'

I just want to live.

We ended up in hand to hand combat by the end. For all the practice and competitions it's not the same. Not even close. They aren't wooden blades, they aren't still in their sheathes. Another man has ten plus inches of steel and he is intent on ending your life with it. You have to do the same and do it first. This wont be a heroes war, it's going to be a mad-man's war.

I know now what this war will truly be made of and it will not be pretty.

The battalion commander was wounded during our attack and he was replaced this morning. Jason made it through and I'm glad of that. He kept us alive during the attack. Our company was a lot luckier than most. It seems officers are getting hit left and right. One company only has one officer left, most others have lost nearly half. In all we lost over thirty officers and a thousand men yesterday, either wounded or killed.

Now we are dug in at the edge of the forest. Yesterday's grand achievement was capturing a foot hold. A few yards of ground past the German lines. The officers think of it as a game of football. As long as we move forward everything is acceptable. Even the loss of so many men.

We can tell we're deadlocked. One side has to give. Lieutenant Grace came by and told every sergeant to keep their eyes open and expect a counter attack tonight. The Germans have had time to recover and will be coming to take their ground back.

They wont get it. Every Marine knows how many men we lost to take it. We all know someone who was hit, who isn't here any more. If the Germans think they can push us off they are going to be disappointed. Good men gave their lives to get us here, Nico gave his life to get us here. I won't forget that. We'll fight. As hellish as this place is and as much as I'd rather be back in New York I'm here to fight. And I know I will. I'll fight for the man next to me or in the next fox hole over. I'll fight for Lieutenant Grace and I'll fight for the Marine Corps. Hell I'll fight for you.

The light is fading and I won't be able to see soon. They won't even let us light cooking fires. I'm sorry I wrote so much about the fighting. I know you don't want to hear bad news but I won't hide things from you. You're too important for me to do that. I need to you too much to do that.

Thank you for writing me. I don't get the letters every day, they can only get mail to us ever few days. I read one a day and hope I can make it until the next mail call before I run out of letters. It makes waking up every morning that much easier knowing I have more to read from you. I'm glad you are writing with your father more often. I'm also glad you decided to be a nurse. It would make getting hit a lot nicer to see you in that uniform. I know I shouldn't joke like that but can you blame me?

Tell our mothers I say hello. Send my regards to your father in your next letter. Tell him I'd like to meet him some day. Any man with such an amazing daughter needs his hand shaken.

I'll write you again soon. I promise. I hope you think of me often, at least then I wouldn't be the only one constantly thinking bout the other.

Goodnight Annabeth, have sweet dreams.

Love,

Percy

A/N: As always please leave a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks!