A/N: The final chapter. I'm a little sad, as I've enjoyed writing this story. Thanks to everyone who's left reviews and everyone whose read the story and enjoyed it. Let me know if you think the ending's a little corny. Grazie, Vintagepop.

23 March 1919

I stayed in the trench that night, I couldn't move. I'd realised something after staring at the lifeless face. I knew the dead man.

It was William, from Downton Abbey. William, who I'd teased, tormented and made miserable. William whose sweetheart I'd stolen, though I didn't want her for myself. Who I'd mocked and predicted would end up as "cannon fodder" during the war. Here he was, dead, as though by my own prediction. I felt as though I'd shot him myself.

I was numb and I think I entered a half waking, half dreaming state. The first thing I was able to feel was the dull pain in my upper arm. I un-wrapped the bandage and began removing the shrapnel myself, in the dark. After years of constant work in the worst conditions I was able to keep my hands steady in spite of poor light and fatigue. It wasn't a good job, (you picked parts I'd missed out of my arm later, yourself), but it was done.

By the time morning came I'd long since drank the last drop of water from my canteen and couldn't remember when I'd last had a meal. My mind was fuzzy and I was weak from blood loss, but part of me felt as though I ought to stay with William's body. The idea of it rotting in the trench and becoming the same unrecognisable bloated mass as the other corpses I had seen was unbearable. The idea of him being unceremoniously buried in a mass grave was almost as terrible. I thought of Daisy, the daft kitchen maid. I wondered whether she'd ever know what had happened to the boy who'd loved her so unconditionally. Whether she'd hold out hope, expecting a letter, expecting him home or whether she'd frantically search the lists in the newspapers of those who had died and find...nothing. After all who would bother identifying the body of a dead footman? But my will to live was stronger than my sentiments and I knew I would die if I stayed here much longer.

To this day I don't remember how I managed to return to the camp hospital. I have vague images in my mind of blurry figures which are accompanied by the sounds of shouting, explosions and bullets firing that are a constant background to any war memory. The strongest impression I have of that day is of marching through the camp hospital with my fellow doctors looking at me as though they'd seen a ghost, before collapsing in front of you. You were white in the face and gripping your clipboard hard. Your expression was one of fierce relief. Or at least that was my impression of it. I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time and I fainted a few seconds after seeing you.

I came to while you were personally picking the shrapnel I'd missed out of my arm. You were wiping the corner of your eye on your sleeve every so often and I realised you were crying for me. I reached out and touched the hem of your doctor's jacket (your hands were busy), with my uninjured arm. You started, not having realised I'd woken up. Once again there was that look of fierce relief; I was able to observe it more clearly this time. You spoke to me, I've forgotten what you said, and I tried to answer but I couldn't. The worry lines that were already too prominent on your forehead deepened as you realised my inability to form words.

It became clearer over the next few days that I had lost the ability to function correctly. I started at loud noises, awoke screaming in the middle of the night and was unable to speak. Before the end of the week I was shipped off to the sad mental hospital I spent the remaining eight months of the war in, before you came home. During that time I seldom left my bed, let alone my room, received no visitors and spoke to no one. It was an unbelievably bleak place and it did nothing to lift the despair that had enveloped me. I was haunted through dreams by William's corpse and the living body of the screaming man, which occasionally became your body as I began to fear you would never come back. But you did come back.

At the end of the war, as soon as you were discharged you came and got me and took me home. To your home, this little cottage that I love dearly now for the many associations I have of it and even just because you live here, as sappy as that is. I know you sometimes think I'm not making any progress and sometimes I feel the same, but I do feel better. Not because the war's over, not because I feel safer and more secure, not because this cottage is more stimulating than my bleak hospital bed, but because you're here.

1 April 1919

I can't believe I've survived the ordeal of meeting your son, Jeremiah. You must think me completely ridiculous. I haven't been able to write for a week I've been so nervous. But you mustn't think I don't like your son. He's very kind. Like you. I feel like a sap for telling you that, but it's true.

There's something I've wanted to say to you for a long time and I'd like to say it, not write it down. It seems too important to write down the way I've written every tragic thing that ever happened to me down in this book (along with some of the best things that have ever happened to me). I want to say it aloud. I'm going to try, tonight. I've been scared of trying because I'm afraid I'll find that my muteness wasn't a mental issue after all, that it was physical and I'll never be able to say anything again. But for this, trying is worth the risk. In case I'm right after all though and I never get to say it to you aloud, I'll write it here regardless.

I love you John Clarkson.