.Part Four.

Influenza

November draws on again in a wave of influenza patients and newspaper headlines, and the sick and wounded keep on pouring into the overstretched hospital. All the nurses are busier than ever, running to and fro from the wards, bathing foreheads, holding buckets for the worst of the flu cases to be sick into, and yet more and more still arrive.

One morning, at the beginning of November when the promise of peace is hanging over their heads like Tantalus' fruit-tree, Kitty comes across Elizabeth, leaning against the side of the pharmacy, her whole body shaking as she coughs into her handkerchief.

"Elizabeth?"

"I-I'm fine…got to get to the ward…"

"That doesn't look fine to me," Kitty says, wrapping an arm around Elizabeth's trembling shoulders. She is radiating heat through her uniform like the glowing embers of a furnace. "Come on."

"Wh-where are we going? I said, I've got to go to the wards."

"Matron would have an apoplectic fit if I allowed you to go onto the wards in this condition. Come on, Elizabeth, you're only going to get worse if you refuse to go to bed."

"Alright," Elizabeth whispers slowly, straightening up.

The Sick Sisters' Quarters, thankfully, has several empty beds. Kitty, like a few of the other nurses, caught the influenza early in October when the vibrant reds and golds were decorating the tops of the hospital tents in the dying breath of summer. It was a horrific three days – all she can remember is throwing up, and being so hot, then so cold, over and over again until she felt like screaming, but it's in the past and now, apparently, she's immune to it. The Sister in Charge takes one look at Elizabeth and frowns. "Another one? They're all dropping like flies. Into bed, then, nurse."

"It's alright," Kitty whispers to Elizabeth as the Sister takes her other arm. "You'll be better soon, I promise."

"Tell…tell Miles." Elizabeth's voice is like a breath of wind, so weak that it makes Kitty hurt somewhere deep inside. "Please, Kitty, tell him."

"I will," Kitty squeezes her hand gently. "Go to bed. Rest. I'll come and see you after my shift."

It takes her until lunchtime to find Miles, between constantly being ordered around the wards, sent for more cold water and bandages to use as compresses, but when she manages to snatch a few minutes to eat, he's there, talking worriedly with one of the other surgeons. Most of the surgeons have been transferred from the surgical side of operations to the medical side to cope with the sheer volume of patients admitted for influenza – the wretched disease is sapping the life from the hospital with more vigour than the war ever did like some kind of leech. Kitty can only hope that Thomas is alright in Germany, that he hasn't caught it because if he dies, she's not sure if she could cope.

"Captain Hesketh-Thorne?" she breaks into his conversation, and he looks up.

"Yes, Nurse Trevelyan?"

"Could I have a word?"

He nods, saying something in low tones to his companion, and letting Kitty lead him to a quiet corner of the mess. "What's happened, Kitty?"

"It's Elizabeth," Kitty says quietly. His face slowly turns white, then grey. She reaches out to touch his hand.

"Oh God…no,"

"I've taken her to the Sick Sisters' Quarters, and I'll go round when my shift finishes…I hate to tell you this, but she's not in a good way, Miles. You'd better go see her, soon as you can."

He blinks hard for a second, turns his face away to the canvas wall as he tries to steady his breathing. "Alright."

Kitty nods. "I promise, I'll look after her all night if that's what it takes."

"Don't let yourself get too run down," he manages.

"I won't. It'll be alright, she'll pull through." Even to her own ears, Kitty doesn't sound convinced.

Miles nods again, and walks away.

She wishes she could help him – bring back the beautiful optimism he wore like a lone flower in a field of death in the earlier years of the war, but she can't. There's no way of knowing if you'll survive or die with this disease, and she knows that the not-knowing will drive him mad.

When she goes back to the Sick Sisters' Quarters as the pale day dissolves into a violet twilight, there's another familiar face lying in the bed two down from Elizabeth.

"Gladys?" Kitty asks, one hand going to her mouth. Gladys had seemed fine up until now, she'd brushed the threat of contagion off her like water sliding off a duck's back, but now she's here, pale with two spots of colour burning in her cheeks.

"Yes, me," Gladys says dolefully. "I got it too."

"Do you want anything?"

"No, it's alright. I'm a mild case. Flora's coming to sit with me later."

"Fine," Kitty says, going over to Elizabeth. Sister is sitting by her bed, wiping her brow tenderly. She looks up as Kitty approaches, a strained smile pulling at the edges of her mouth.

"She went to sleep as soon as we got her into bed, and now when she's awake, she's completely delirious."

"Do you want me to take over with that?" Kitty offers.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course. Is there anything else that needs doing?"

The Sister thinks for a second. "You'd better write to her family."

Kitty stays there all night, gently sponging the sweat off Elizabeth's face, holding her hand when she starts to mumble in her sleep, something that sounds a lot like ballet steps. As dawn chases the darkness away in a triumph of gold, she retrieves a pad from the Sister's desk and begins to write, the pen bleeding tears of black ink into the paper as though it is already mourning.

Miles comes in at about seven o'clock, sleepless circles deep under his eyes. He stands at the end of the bed, his hands fisted around the metal bars, watching Elizabeth's laboured breathing. "How is she doing?" he asks, eventually, in a voice cracked by the nightmares that dance defiance behind his eyes.

"I've written to her family," Kitty says, simply.

"God." He bows his head for a silent second. "I'll be back, soon. Get someone else to take over, Kitty, you look exhausted."

"No," Kitty says, simply. "I'm staying with her. If you don't mind telling Matron…"

"Alright," he says, and with one last look at Elizabeth, turns and walks away.

By that evening, she's even worse, trembling and shaking with blood running from her nose in a stream of scarlet, vomiting over and over again into a bucket. Kitty holds her hair back, cleans her up every time it misses, and a doctor is sent over from the hospital main. Miles abandons his rounds to come and help look after her, holding her hand and whispering things Kitty doesn't hear into Elizabeth's ear.

After a long while of this, the other doctor exchanges a look with Miles. "What's happening?" Kitty asks, tiredness making her vision blurry.

"If she survives through the night, she'll live," he says gravely. "Keep doing as you're doing – I've got to go around the others."

It goes on, and on, and Kitty daren't look away from her for fear that a single moment of not being watched could send her spirit fleeing to death's open arms.

At some point during the night, Rosalie comes in, her red hair falling out of her headdress. "Is there anything I can do?" she asks, softly, resting a comforting hand on Kitty's shoulder.

"No, thank you," Kitty says, lunging with the bowl as Elizabeth is sick again. How much longer will this go on for?

"Do you want something to eat, something to drink?"

Kitty risks as glance at Rosalie. "A cup of tea would be wonderful, Rosalie."

"Alright. Captain, would you like one too?"

"Thank you," he says, rubbing his thumb across the back of Elizabeth's knuckles.

Rosalie disappears to the end of the ward, and Miles looks across at Kitty, slowly, painfully. "I never realised how different it is when it's your loved one battling for life," he says, as though it's just dawning on him.

Kitty reaches across to take his free hand. There are no words.

Rosalie returns with their tea, and goes around the other patients. Her footsteps stop for a second, and there is a moment of slow, deathly silence. "Captain, Gladys isn't breathing!"

Miles swears and leaps to his feet. "Stay with Elizabeth," he orders Kitty, before going across the ward as quickly as he can. There are panicked whispers as other stricken nurses are jolted out of sleep, looking around to see what is going on. Miles is bent over Gladys' bed. "Go and get Matron," he says to Rosalie, who begins to run, opening and shutting the door behind her in a draught of icy air.

Elizabeth has subsided against the pillows, still, quiet. Kitty puts a finger on Elizabeth's pulse, desperation pounding through her veins in the place of blood. Elizabeth can't die, not if Gladys is…oh, God, when will this night ever end?

There is the sound of quick footsteps, and then Matron is there, a coat wrapped tightly over her nightdress and plaited hair swinging across her shoulder. She joins Miles at Gladys' bed. Kitty can't see what's happening, and it terrifies her.

The two step back. Rosalie is by the door, tears dribbling from her eyes.

No, it can't be…it can't…Gladys, bright, cheerful, irritating Gladys can't be dead…no, no…

When Kitty looks back on this moment in years to come, she always remembers it as the worst night of the war, when a young nurse's life was snuffed out like a candle.

A/N Sorry for the wait, and for pulling a Downton Abbey on you! This chapter and the next one are a little shorter than the others, because I felt they had come to their natural end. Reviews will make Elizabeth feel better! N xx