A/N: Thank you to my lovely reviewers. I'd almost given up on this story, but you really encouraged me to continue it, so thank you very much. I dedicate this chapter to you! :D

19 March 1919

The beginning of our personal emotional relationship ended our storeroom quickies and began my visits to your rooms at night. We talked considerably more than we ever had before and I remember you telling me about the fifteen years of passionless marriage you'd endured before your wife had the good grace to die and about your four children while you massaged my feet. The way you treated me, I really can't describe what it meant to me, but for the first time in my life I felt respected and loved. I had no idea how to show that I returned your feelings and I was still afraid of getting into a real relationship, so I know at times I must have acted ungrateful and disinterested. But I didn't mean anything by it and you seemed to understand. You always do.

I wasn't very open to you in return. It's ironic that I've only been able to tell you all the things I wanted to now, when I'm unable to talk. I shared my body with you and that was about it. You seemed satisfied with the sex though.

I remember the first time you asked me if you could enter me in that way. I agreed readily and found I was surprisingly nervous. I'd only really done it that way once before and though it had been painful I'd enjoyed it a lot. I knew you'd be gentle with me and I was more worried about whether you'd enjoy it or not and whether I'd say something stupid about it hurting, like I did my last time and you'd pull out all together.

We didn't have any oil (that's war time rationing for you), so you put my fingers in my mouth first and I sucked on them, without really thinking about it. You'd taken up much the same position James had my first time, without my noticing and it became clearer as to why you put your finger in my mouth when you moved them towards my entrance. You looked up at me before you proceeded as though asking permission and I nodded vigorously. Without further hesitation you put the first finger in, at the same time leaning forward to kiss me in order to distract me from the foreign sensation. I think I gasped into your mouth at the feel of your cold finger inside me. It hurt just as much as it had last time, but I knew the feeling would go away soon. You moved down to kiss my neck as you slipped a second finger inside and I gasped again, partially because of the pain and partially because of the delicious sensation of you sucking on my neck. While continuing your kissing, you slipped your third finger in and I groaned with pleasure as you heat that special place inside me.

After allowing me time to adjust, you slid your fingers out and rubbed your cock with the pre-cum that was leaking out of the tip of your penis. You did this before putting my legs over your shoulder and sliding in. I gripped the end of your iron bed post hard; you were a lot bigger than the Duke and it felt just as it had when I was a virgin. You paused halfway in, panting, your eyes glazed over and said, "You're so tight Thomas, have you...have you done this before?"

"Once," I gasped out, hoping you'd continue. You seemed surprised. I think you thought I'd done everything under the sun and was excellent at all of it. That was certainly the impression I'd tried to give you when we first started fooling around in the storeroom cupboard.

You kissed me gently on the inner thigh and continued pushing in. When you were all the way in, you gave me time to adjust before moving slowly. You were very precise when it came to hitting the mark and I remember muttering and moaning and groaning until you were confidently pumping away inside me. I've always been a very vocal partner though that hasn't always been the best thing as I always seem to be trying not to let anyone hear me. After a while you took my cock in your hand and began to pump it up and down in time to your thrusts.

I think the thing I liked best about our first time was the eye contact. You never once looked away from me. I also liked the way you teased it out, pulling back and not letting me come, making it last longer. When we were done, I felt as though I wanted you to stay there forever, but of course you had to pull out. I remember giving you a long slow kiss, afterward. I was trying to show you how I felt, as I couldn't think of how to tell you. I had to return to the dormitories of course, but I'd never wanted to stay anywhere as much as I wanted to stay with you that night and I think you felt the same way.

20 March 1919

It seems we've gotten to the part of the story where all of us trainees graduated and you led us off to a war which had not in fact, ended that Christmas. It's funny, but I hardly remember the years we spent at the camp hospital. I remember being constantly exhausted; fatigued to the point where my hands shook so much I couldn't inject painkillers into the wounded without injuring them further. I remember the smell of blood and other fluids, the sounds of pain and the sight of the wounded laid out in rows on their stretchers and sometimes on the floor if need be. I'd trained as a doctor to avoid injury and death, but now I was surrounded by it, directly involved although an outsider.

What I remember with perfect, horrendous clarity are the six months I spent as a medic on the battlefield. I'm not patriotic and I frankly do not understand the reasons of the war beyond that a wealthy upper class man was assassinated and the lower classes were dragged into the shit storm, as usual. To see men dying around you for a cause very few of them properly understand makes you question the point of living in the first place, if you can be so easily killed for so vague a reason. But aside from the shit and the mud and the death I was surrounded with, I think of two men I found...

One of them had his legs blown off and was lying there, screaming. The other one was unconscious and there didn't seem to be much wrong with him. I couldn't carry them both back to the camp, so I had to choose one of them.

I'd heard of cripples trying to kill themselves in the sad military hospitals they were discharged to back home. How much would the screaming man thank me for saving him, when he couldn't work? When he'd lost his job, his livelihood? When he felt he was a burden to his family? Of course, he may have been more thankful for what he had then angry for what he'd lost, and be grateful that he was alive. I had no right to make the decision for him as to whether he lived or dies, but it was a decision I had to make. I chose the man who had the better chance of survival.

I hoisted the unconscious man onto my shoulder and carried him out of the line of fire. Although my medic flag was firmly attached to my pack and sticking upright, a bullet must have ricochet off its original target, for my upper arm was shot as I lowered my patient into a nearby trench. I jumped down after him, gripping my shoulder and wincing in pain. I bound my own arm hurriedly to stop the flow of blood before examining the patient. He was dead.

What's more he was cold. He'd been dead for hours. I'd left a live man writhing out on the battlefield in order to rescue a corpse. In my mind, the legless man is still out there, screaming. I dream about him most night, about digging my way through a pile of corpses to find the last man left alive and when I carry him away he's dead and I hear the screams of the living and can't get back to them.