Written for the lovely broadwaybaggins in fulfillment of her OQ Civil War AU prompt. I hope you enjoy it. :)
They'd barely gotten him from the barn to the house, her muscles straining to pull him across the ground still muddy from the day's rain, a thick mud that sloshed into her boots and splattered across her worn petticoat, mud that would take more time than she had to scrub from her son's pants, frayed as they were at the hem. But he—this man, this stranger now lying in her spare bed, had been far dirtier than either she or Henry had ever dreamed of being.
And he'd been injured. Badly injured.
He had evidently passed out in her barn while she and Henry had been eating their dinner, his presence terrifying her son when he'd gone to check on the old milk cow they guarded with every means they possessed. The boy had run back to the house screaming for her, making her half-fear a band of deserters had happened upon them, and God knows what could happen if that were the case. Women were raped, boys were conscripted, and she'd die before she let either outcome happen to her or her son. She'd grabbed Daniel's rifle and had torn out into the cold drizzle, only to find a lone soldier lying unconscious, sprawled out awkwardly on the hay.
And a Confederate soldier, at that. What in God's name was she supposed to do with him?
She'd done the only thing she knew to do, dragging him through the muck and into the warmth of their home, heaving him on to the bed, straining her back, muddying sheets, making the room smell of pig shit, unwashed man and the remnants of battle.
"Is he dead?" Henry had asked, and she'd shaken her head, feeling a pulse in his neck, watching his chest rise and fall beneath layers of the enemy's uniform.
"Not yet," Regina had answered, brandishing her best shears to cut away what she couldn't unfasten, stripping him unceremoniously from the waist up, tossing the foul smelling garments into a dark corner of the room. "But there are no guarantees."
She sensed her son holding his breath in expectation.
She'd examined the man as best she could, suspecting blood loss and exhaustion had finally drawn this poor soldier under, praying infection hadn't already begun to set in on a wound that still looked somewhat fresh. Henry had brought her a basin of hot water as instructed, and she'd done her best to clean the man up, scrubbing layers of filth caked on to his skin, cleansing dried blood gently so as to not aggravate the gaping wound on his shoulder.
"I need my kit," she instructed, prying into the torn flesh once his ragged shirt had been removed, eliciting an actual groan from the soldier. That's when she felt it, there, just under her fingers, slippery and cool, immersed in blood and muscle. A bullet. Damn it, she'd have to get that out of him immediately—there was no question. "And your father's whisky, Henry. You know where that is, right?"
Henry nodded, his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets, and he dashed from the dimly lit bedroom towards an underground storage bin, hidden from prying eyes by a hooked rug and solid table. He returned with a bottle and a worn bag, one she guarded with her life, one filled with herbs and tools she had inherited from her father, much to her mother's chagrin.
"It's shameful, a young woman being more interested in practicing medicine than wooing a husband," her mother had chastised repeatedly, doing everything within her power to pry Regina from her father's side and to thrust her into Philadelphia society.
But it hadn't worked. And when Regina had actually eloped with the son of a farmer, her mother had disowned her all together.
"I need the whiskey first," she instructed, unwilling to remove her fingers from the bullet and risk losing its location. Henry carefully opened the bottle, the scent of it hitting her hard, and she had to keep her hands from trembling as thoughts of her late husband wafted over emotions already teetering on the brink.
"Forgive me, Daniel," she whispered, pouring a generous amount directly on to the soldier's wound. "It's for a good cause." She watched the man grimace, his light brown beard twitching as his brow creased in discomfort.
"That should help ward off infection," she breathed as Henry moved to the bedside, staring at the Confederate in overt curiosity. "But he really needs a doctor."
The boy gaped in her direction.
"Won't Doc Hamilton report him?" Henry asked, his tone somewhere between a whisper and a plea. "He's a Rebel, and you know how Doc feels about rebels."
Everyone within a thirty mile radius knew how Doc Hamilton felt about rebels, she mused, but she couldn't judge the man too harshly, not when the Confederate Army had killed the physician's only son.
"He could be put in prison," Henry continued, clearly distressed by the idea. "And I think he'd die there. Don't you. Mama?"
She exhaled loudly, tugging a damp strand of wayward hair behind her ear as she considered the words of her ten year old.
"He could die here," she stated, hating herself the moment the words left her mouth as the child's face crumpled before her eyes. She reached for Henry's hand, holding it firmly within her own, tugging him closer. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I know…"
"Pa died here," Henry cut in, drawing her gaze up quickly. "I know. I saw him."
Her eyes welled up, tears pressing their way through insistently, streaking down her face as she sniffed and blinked.
"I know how hard that was for you," Regina began, her voice splintering into a thousand pieces. "And I don't want you to have to see something like that again."
"There's a war, Mama," Henry returned, and she closed her eyes, trying to press out the horrible reality pressing in closer and closer with each passing moment. "People die all the time, and we can't do anything to stop it. But maybe we can save this one."
Her heart squeezed, her breath catching in her throat. This one. This one man. This one soldier who had managed to make his way to their barn and disrupt their evening, effectively placing his life in their hands.
There was no question of what had to be done.
"I'll need my tweezers," she managed, watching as a smile erupted across Henry's face. "You know how I clean them in the boiling water?"
"Yeah," he gushed. "I've watched you do it lots of times. Don't worry." He then ran from the room, her bag clutched under his arm, the echo of his shoes moving across the wooden floors sounding louder than normal to her ears.
"God help me," she breathed, her heart pounding sporadically, her throat suddenly the texture of saw dust. The man stirred just slightly at her words, and she stared at him, this one her son wanted her to save, this one with a wound she wasn't at all certain she could heal. Her fingers moved of their own accord towards his forehead, touching and feeling, learning the texture of his skin, reminding herself of his humanity, progressing into his wild forest of his hair. It was coarse and uncombed, she noted, not fine like Henry's, but thick and wiry and probably fair in color. Were his eyes blue or brown, she wondered, or green perhaps? Green like Daniel's….
His cheek then pressed into her touch, seeming to find a solace of sorts against the coolness of her palm, and her heart skipped a beat, this sign of life in one she'd been considering lost catching her off guard. God, she couldn't move, and her thumb ghosted a small trail over warm, stubbled flesh, wondering if he had a wife who loved him, perhaps a boy of his own who was waiting and hoping for his father to come home.
She drew her hand back as if she'd been burned when Henry's feet moved steadily back to the bedroom, carrying freshly sterilized tweezers carefully between a large pair of tongs along with a pitcher of fresh water. She took the instrument by its handle with her free hand, feeling the bullet's smooth and deadly surface between her index finger and thumb, rolling it between her digits, visualizing it in her mind.
She could do this. It was time.
"Wish me luck," she breathed, steadying herself as she dipped the instrument into torn flesh, securing and maneuvering with great care and precision, sweat beading across her forehead as she had to remind herself to breathe. It should have been easier than it was, she mused, but bodies followed their own set of rules, rules often blown to hell when ammunition and aggression came together in a lethal combination. She leaned back as she finally withdrew the cold intruder from his body, warmth gushing out from his wound as she laughed in spite of herself at this small victory.
"You did it, Mama!" Henry beamed, and she inhaled deeply for the first time since dinner, washing her hands in the fresh basin of water, digging into her bag for a needle and thread. "You really did it!"
"We did it," she corrected, flashing him a grin. "I couldn't have done it without your help."
He suddenly looked taller, more and more like his father with every passing day, and she swallowed down a lump in her throat, wishing with everything she had that Daniel could have seen him like this.
She poured more of the whiskey on the needle, stopping just before she began to stitch up his wound.
"We're not done yet," she said with a nod to her son. "Get me an empty glass. He may need a drink before I sew him up."
"But he's asleep," Henry noted, his expression scrunched in confusion.
"For now," she stated, arching a brow in his direction. "But he many not like it when I start administering stitches. The whiskey can help him stay asleep, Henry. If we can get it down him, that is." He turned on his heels to leave the room, nearly through the door when she suddenly called him back.
"And get me one of your Pa's shirts," she stated, her chin trembling as the words left her mouth, her chest muscles constricting of their own accord. "We'll need to make him a bandage."
Their eyes locked, a silent understanding bridged in the candlelight, and the boy nodded once, setting out on his mission with a determination that reminded her of his father. The father he'd lost far too soon. The man she still wept over silently into her pillow.
"Forgive me, Daniel," she sighed again as she stared at the nearly empty bottle. "It's been one hell of a night."
Getting whiskey down the soldier's throat proved nearly as difficult as removing the bullet from his shoulder, his dead weight difficult to manage, his refusal to swallow spilling alcohol across sheets that already bore the stench of war. But they finally got several gulps down his throat and reclined him back gently, Regina's arms trembling from the effort as Henry stepped back to survey the sleeping man.
"You may want to scoot back," she warned her son. "In case he moves or jerks when he shouldn't."
"I can help hold him down," Henry argued, moving in closer. "I'm not a child anymore."
She opened her mouth to protest but stopped herself, knowing some children his age served as drummer boys for the army and faced the perils of battle on a regular basis.
"You're right," she agreed. "You're a young man now. But you'll have to be strong to do this."
"I'll always be strong for you, Mama," he answered with a shrug. "You should know that by now."
His smile made her warm, even as her heart ached to the point of pain.
"Alright then," she managed, swallowing back a fresh surge of tears. "Let's get to work."
She stitched and bandaged without incident, the soldier sleeping soundly throughout the procedure, thank God. She was worn and weary from both emotional and physical exertion, her fingers cramping, her neck catching at odd angles, her lids drooping stubbornly just as she completed her task.
"You should go to bed, Henry," she yawned after snipping the thread now binding marked flesh, wondering how in God's name her son was still standing. "I'll stay in here with him."
He began to protest, but she raised a hand, letting him know that further resistance would prove futile. He sighed and kissed her cheek, walking towards his bedroom, stretching his arms as he went, leaving her with the slumbering soldier now wearing a sling fashioned from one of her late husband's shirts.
One hell of a night, indeed.
She sat on the edge of the bed in the silence, hearing the sounds of the night just outside her window, wondering why death was always so ever present in a world brimming with life.
"I hope you appreciate this," she muttered under her breath, intending to move from the bed to the large chair in the corner to pass the night. She couldn't exactly leave the man unattended, both for his own safety as well as hers and Henry's. She knew nothing about him, for God's sake. He could be a thief, a swindler, a murderer, even, and she eyed him warily, wrinkling her nose at him in defiance. "I'm giving up my bed for you, Mr. Confederate, and my back is already unhappy with me for what I've put it through tonight. It will probably hate me come morning because of you."
He turned his head just so, his lips muttering something she couldn't make out, and her heart started pounding in an erratic fashion in time with her head. She leaned in closer, drawn in by a curiosity she couldn't explain, wondering if she'd simply heard the mutterings of a delusional man.
"Did you say something?" she questioned, her breath catching as eyes tried to flutter and his head moved back and forth. "Are you trying to say something to me?"
Then his good hand grabbed her wrist, and she jumped, biting back a scream as weary eyes blinked open, attempting to focus on her face. They were blue, she noted, or as best she could tell in the dim light, and the red whelp on his face somehow stood out all the more as his eyes creased in her direction.
"What is it?" she whispered, leaning down as close as she could, feeling both panic and elation at the strength of his grip. "Do you need something?"
He shook his head slowly and licked his lips, and she reached for a glass of water, pulling her other arm free from his grasp, tipping his head up so he could drink, setting it back down as he eased back on to the pillow. He was fighting to keep his eyes open, she noticed, and she smoothed his hair with her hand, watching the lines of his forehead soften at her touch.
"Thank you," he managed, his voice cracked and hollow, freezing her limbs to their spot and making her insides tremble. Then his face relaxed as his breathing deepened, and her mouth dropped open in silent shock, her tongue suddenly too thick for her mouth.
"You're welcome," she finally breathed, taking his hand within her own, stroking the rough skin with a rhythm that became automatic, sitting with him until her own body gave up, and she collapsed into a slumbering heap beside him.