Title: Resurrection

Summary: Broken and weary WW1 soldier Edward Masen is rapidly losing everything: his friends, his hope, his sanity. But when he meets the beautiful and kind Isabella Swan while on leave, she may just be the key to resurrecting his broken heart and soul...

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

A/N: I changed my mind about five times as to where to start this chapter, but in the end I decided to drop you all right into the action! I apologise in advance for the lack of Bella still, but I assure you she'll make her first appearance sooner rather than later. In the meantime, we get to spend some time with the boys…(A quick aside: The song at the beginning is taken from a book of real ballads written and sung in the trenches by American WW1 troops).


Chapter 1: In The Trenches


5 miles outside Saint-Miheil, France, September 5 1918

"Hi doughboys, it's up! Come and get it!

Oh we kick and we howl and we mumble and growl

At the stuff that we eat, but somehow

We gather in style

With a standing broad smile

When the splinter-lips bugle for chow."

"Emmett, quit that god-awful racket! I'd rather hear the whistle of ashcans overhead than listen to another round of you singing," Samuel said exasperatedly, slamming down his hand of cards on the makeshift poker table, the rickety wooden crate sinking another few inches into the mud.

"You're just unhappy that you've lost the last five hands," Emmett shot back with a grin, laying out his full house and scooping up the tin of homemade biscuits sent from home I'd foolishly bet as I looked down at the pathetic pair of sixes in my hand. Samuel wasn't the only one who kept losing, my father would be ashamed at how easily the big Tennessee native had cleared me out. I seemed to have left my vaunted people-reading skills back in Chicago, along with my rapidly dwindling sanity.

"Are the two of you ever gonna stop sniping at one another?" Jasper asked, shaking his head at our friends' usual antics from his position a few feet down the trench. He'd given up playing seven hands ago, preferring to use our few hours of peace to write home to his sweetheart, Miss Alice. Not that I blamed him, he'd shown off a picture of his dark-haired jane with pride only hours after I had first met him and she was the epitome of one of the beautiful young girls that usually made my tongue all twisted.

"Only when one of them is pushing up daisies," I drawled, re-shuffling the well-worn cards, "Of course, knowing these two, they're going to fight each other all the way to those pearly gates."

"Damn straight," Emmett agreed, taking a drag of the half-burnt fag held between muddy fingers as he studied his newly-dealt hand and I knew from the way his shoulders shifted back that this time I was in with a chance to actually win. Quickly studying my own hand, I was delighted to see a pair of aces staring back at me.

"Pearly gates? We're going straight to hell my friends, remember? Straight to bloody hell," Samuel sighed, folding yet again. A part of me wanted to disagree, we were already there.

Days upon days of waiting around to be shot at, or buried by some shell. Meeting a new john then seeing him being blown clear apart an hour later, pieces scattered across the muddy ground, the stench of decay overpowering in its intensity. The soggy biscuits and bull meat for rations; the constant cold, mud and dirt seeping into every pore and the waiting…God, the waiting. Waiting to be relieved, waiting for some action, waiting for death…it had all become a never-ending torment. The promise of peace, of rest, as unattainable as the water which had lapped at Tantalus' feet, always receding as he tried to quench his unending thirst. The young man who'd stood in line that warm summer's day, dreaming of adventure had drowned in his idealism and I was what was left; a broken shell held together by the strength of his friends and the idea of home. So hell? Definitely already there.

"And you'll be heading there a lot sooner if you boys don't get your asses into gear, you're on sentry duty tonight," interjected a stern voice from behind us, shaking me out of my melancholy musings.

As far as commanding officers go, Sergeant Banner wasn't the worst I had dealt with since arriving in France a month ago. He was a little stiff sure, but at least he treated us privates as more than mere cannon fodder…although, he seemed to have the worst sense of timing. This was the fifth time in a week he'd interrupted us while I was on a winning hand and if I didn't know any better, I'd say he was doing it on purpose. Just another torment to add to the list.

"Aw, just one more hand Sarge, I'm on a streak!" Emmett complained, although he had already started packing up, extinguishing his cigarette in the ankle-deep water which was our constant companion.

"Just be glad I didn't assign you to patrol," Banner said amused, before heading off down the narrow trench to check on the rest of the soldiers.

Dusk was beginning to encroach, though it was hard to tell through the thick cover of cloud which had hung over our position the last week. The accompanying rain was both a blessing and a curse. It chilled you to the bone and made sure you had to slug through waist deep mud but at least it helped wash away the lice that seemed to infest every square inch of my uniform. The guys had started calling them arithmetic bugs…because they added to your troubles, subtracted from your pleasures, divided your attention and multiplied like hell. I preferred to think of them as the devil's children, sent to make our despair multiply as they did.

"Ready for another long night keeping an eye on those Jerries?" Jasper smirked, slinging his rifle across his shoulder as he clapped his hand on my shoulder. Across from us, Emmett was having fun holding Samuel's helmet just out of his reach. One of these days, he was going to hold it too high and Samuel would get shot right between the eyes by some waiting Boche as he jumped to grab it.

"Just let me at them," I replied with a false grin, pushing all of my anxiety into the back of my mind. Sentry duty might be boring as hell, but if you were not paying attention, it would be all too easy to miss a German patrol sneaking towards you under the cover of darkness. As Samuel finally retrieved his helmet and we set off for the foremost trench's fire step, I hung at the back of the group, contemplating my friends new and old.

Jasper was at the front, as usual. He seemed to be born for this and had a better grasp of tactics and leadership than most of the brass around these parts. Conversely, he was also one of the most intelligent and gentle souls I had ever had the fortune of meeting. If not for the hours we had spent discussing literature and philosophy, I believe I may have gone quite mad already. Emmett on the other hand, was the joker of the group. He was able to keep a smile on his face constantly and had become the un-official morale booster of the three divisions stationed here. Underneath the laughter though, I knew he was fiercely loyal and protective of his mates and I felt a true kinship with him. Then of course, there was Samuel. I truly didn't know what I'd do without my best friend. We'd stuck together like glue throughout training and as the reality of war, its contradictory monotony and horror, had settled into my bones, only his friendship had kept me going.

"Eddie, keep up will you!" Emmett bellowed, bemused smile firmly in place as he twisted his head around to make sure I caught up to them. I really needed to learn how to think deeply and walk fast at the same time or I'll find myself left behind before long.

"My name is Edward," I repeated for the millionth time since we'd met and he'd lumped me with that dreaded nickname. Of course, it could have been worse…I could have ended up with a nickname like Samuel's 'Harpy'.

"Give it up my friend, you could correct him till you're blue in the face but he'll still call you Eddie," the man in question smirked.

"Listen to your Uncle Harpy, Eddie, he's right," Emmett agreed, earning him a scowl from both of us.

"Don't call me Harpy, you overgrown Johnny Doughboy," Samuel snapped, poking Emmett in the chest.

Deciding to ignore (for my own safety) the inevitable full-blown argument that was brewing, I pushed past Samuel to fall into step with Jasper.

"Heard from home lately?" I asked quietly, knowing that he had indeed received a letter this morning in the weekly mail delivery but not knowing the contents. That was one small mercy I suppose, the semi-regular contact we managed to keep with the real world. Though I found it more depressing than comforting, my letters from home usually long, rambling diatribes from my mother about how much she missed her baby boy.

"Alice wrote to me," he replied softly and I envied the small twinkle that appeared in his eye when he thought of her. Unlike Samuel, Jasper only had room in his heart for one woman, and that had been his Miss Brandon since the first time they had met as children.

"I bet she misses you," I commented, stumbling slightly over some discarded crates littering the ground.

"Not as much as I miss her," he paused, adjusting his rifle strap, "Do you know the first thing I'm going to do when I get home?"

"Sleep for a month?" I teased quietly.

"Asides from that," he grinned before his smile turned wistful, "I'm going to get down on one knee and ask her to marry me."

"Geez, we leave the two of you alone for two minutes and you turn into sappy sentimentalists on us," Emmett interjected, slapping us both on the shoulder. Apparently he and Samuel had gotten tired of arguing.

"For once I have to agree, marriage is for the poor and destitute who do not know any better the joys of the life of a bachelor," Samuel preached, hand held over his heart as we finally neared the sentry position, "You should never let a woman tie you down my friend, all you'll get out of it is rope burns across you dignity…"

"And bank account!" Emmett chimed in.

"Quiet," Jasper hissed without warning, coming to a sudden halt so quick the rest of us almost plowed into his back, "Do you hear that?"

I strained my ears, automatically filtering out the background noise of the rest of the men going about their assigned tasks, the loading of rifles and the banging of helmets. For a moment I registered nothing unusual, then I heard it. The descending whistle which haunted my nightmares, the seemingly innocuous noise that was the herald call of death itself. The sound, the adrenaline-inducing sound, of an incoming Kraut artillery shell.

"Get down!" Jasper shouted and we all dropped to the floor of the trench, flattening ourselves against its edges as the ashcan dropped, exploding mere feet from our position, throwing up a cloud of mud and smoke with shrapnel raining down on our heads. The shockwave threw me back a few feet, my back making heavy contact with the trench floor enough to momentarily knock the wind from my lungs. The noise was deafening, my ears ringing with a strange buzz as I rubbed the dirt from my eyes.

When the air finally cleared, I looked up to see that the trench had crumbled before us, the next section caved in beyond all hope of passing. The timber support struts had splintered, jagged wooden edges sticking out from the mess of mud and rock. If the shell had dropped only a few seconds later, we'd all have been singing our praises to St Peter right now.

"Are you all ok?" I managed to croak out, dragging myself upright. I was relieved to see that all three were moving, albeit a little gingerly from the places they'd been thrown by the force of the blast.

"I think I may have cracked a rib," Emmett groaned, tentatively pushing against his torso with a slight hiss of pain, "Definitely a rib."

"I'm alright," Jasper confirmed, moving to help Emmett upright to take the pressure off his injury.

"Looks like Lady Luck's on our side tonight," Samuel commented shakily, wiping at a small rivulet of blood seeping down his arm where he'd been grazed by a stray piece of shrapnel. I pulled out the still relatively clean handkerchief I kept hidden in my top pocket; tying it neatly around his arm with a silent thanks to Uncle Carlisle's insistence I learn basic first aid skills as a teenager.

"That wasn't luck, that was my man Jasper's brilliant powers of observation," Emmett boasted, still able to keep his humor even after the close call and injury, "The Jerries aren't ever gonna catch us unawares, not with him around."

"Thanks, it's nice to know I'm appreciated," Jasper replied with a slight smile, "And since you just confirmed that I saved your sorry behind, you owe me your rum ration from tomorrow."

"Luck, it was all luck," Emmett quickly backtracked, "Didn't I say it was luck Eddie?"

"Sorry Emmie, you're on your own for this one," I smirked, before turning to help Samuel to his feet, heading back the way we came to inform an officer about the collapsed trench.

For all of the innocence the last month had stripped from me, the friendship gained seemed worth it for now. And if all four of us made it through this damn war intact, then maybe, just maybe, my sanity would too.