Chapter XXVI

The day after receiving the news of Blythe, Julia took a one day leave, bought a ticket for the train to Paris and went there very early in the morning. She looked pale and tired with shadows of sleepiness under her eyes after the night which she spent on walking around her camp and thinking about what to say and what to do once she will see Blythe in the hospital.

"Wounded in his back." Julia thought that night "And in a critical state. It can mean anything." She felt horrible all night and was furious with herself for not writing Blythe that letter when she should have done. "Such a fool!" she hissed to punish herself "Such a little foolish girl! Who writes a love letter after four years of waiting?!"

But as soon as the dawn came, Julia felt ready to go, enourmously eager to go, and she didn't feel the sleeplessness of the night at all. Her heart was beating fast, her mind was quite blank and her heart filled with love and hope. Although the journey from Rouen to Paris wasn't long at all, to Julia it felt like years had passed until she finally stepped on the platform of Paris. It took her another hour to get to the hospital where Blythe was, but when she did, and she stood in front of the hospital's door, she could swear that her heart stopped beating completely and her skin colour changed to white.

But she came inside, rather hurriedly, and made her way towards the reception, where the middle-aged woman with tender eyes almost seemed like she awaited her. "I came to see Flight Officer Blythe Ford." Julia said almost gravely, breathing heavily.

"Are you a relative?" the nurse asked in a heavy French accent and looked at Julia's uniform curiously.

"Yes, I'm his…" she gulped "-cousin." she said eventually.

The nurse smiled warmly and stood up from her seat "Follow me." she said tenderly and Julia did exactly that.

"Do you know anything about his injuries?" Julia questioned immediately.

"Yes, it happens that I nursed him, when he arrived, two days ago." she replied "He was wounded with a bullet in his back and his legs are paralysed." she said more quietly.

Julia's lip trembled "Do you mean…" she began "-that he won't walk again?" she asked the nurse, looking seriously and fearfully in her eyes.

The nurse shook her head and smiled to Julia sadly "Unfortunately, he won't." she said.

"But he will get better?" Julia asked her quickly when they turned around the corner.

"Yes," the nurse said "-the worst is already over for him." and she smiled and stopped in front of the door to a new ward "Flight Officer Blythe Ford is on the last bed number twenty five at the window." and she opened the door in front of shaking Julia.

She smiled at her weakly, not being able to feel her body at all "Thank you, nurse." she whispered and came inside rather slowly. Julia looked at the bed number twenty five and she felt like her heart is going to pop out of her chest. She gave out a small cry, and tears started flowing down her cheeks like small rivers of unshowed emotions.

It was certainly Blythe, lying there on the bed. Although he was very pale, and his eyes were closed, as he was sleeping. His black curls were still black and his face seemed unchanged, apart from the small scar across his left cheek. And his face was an act of silence and peace.

Julia sat down by him and touched his cold hands which were in contrast with her own boiling hot hands. She never thought that she could feel like that. She felt as if every emotion touched her soul all at once and that she wanted to cry, laugh, shout and sing at the same moment. It was as if her whole world divided into two, into what was before that day, and into what will be after that day.

"Blythe…" she whispered tenderly and patted his hand again to wake him up. Although she felt quite guilty for doing so, she couldn't resist it. Blythe opened his eyes slowly and looked at Julia. His grey-eyes suddenly went wide open and Julia could his his old-self reflected in them.

"Julia!" he gasped and smiled to her in a way she never saw him smiling before. He smiled as if the whole world's mysteries were resolved in those few seconds time since their eyes met. Julia nodded and helplessly threw her arms on him, giving him kisses on his entire face, and hands, sobbing with tears of happiness which were also strimming down Blythe's very own cheeks. "You came." he said and squeezed her hand gently, trying to acknowledge the fact that Julia really was sitting next to him.

"I had to." she replied softly and sat down on her chair, still holding his hand in her own "Blythe, I got a telegram just yesterday. Please tell me how are you feeling and doing, and everything?" she asked him breathlessly.

He chuckled quietly "I'm feeling quite weak, not very tired, not now." he smiled at her knowingly "You are just the person I wanted to see today." he said and dryed off the tears from his pale face.

Julia managed a tiny smile "Blythe, I heard about your legs." she said eventually and looked at his face with a heartbreak reflecting in her eyes.

He sighed and looked at the wall in front of him "I know, Sheba." he replied and looked back at her with a bitter smile "It was a shock at first of course, but…" he looked straight into Julia's eyes "I'm not grieving. It's just the beggining of a diffrent life for me." he said.

Julia smiled at him with relief and tears forming in her eyes again "Yes, that's right, and don't you dare think about it in any other way." she said and squeezed his hand.

"And I'm so happy that I can now go back home." he said and sighed happily "The doctor told me that I can go back in February." small wrinkles appeared under his eyes when he smiled.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Julia gasped and kissed Blythe's hand cheerfully "I'm so greatful." she said and smiled at him.

"How are you, you dear Bathsheba?" he asked her softly.

"I'm fine." she said quickly with a sudden hint of nervousness in her voice "I'm very, very fine."

Blythe smiled at her warmly "That's good." he answered "You can never tell from someone's letters if they're really fine or not."

"That's true, although I always liked writing and receiving letters, you can keep them forever even if, later on, you'll forget about them." she replied.

Blythe's face lightened up "Talking of letters…" he said slowly and looked in Julia's eyes meaningfully "I got your love letter a day before I got wounded."

Julia caught her breath and her hands started shaking. She looked as deep as she could into Blythe's eyes, and she didn't have to go too deep to see something of a gleam she was waiting to see for so long. "You… did?" she breathed out eventually, looking incredibly pale, almost as pale as Blythe.

Blythe took Julia's both hands in his and looked at her seriously "Yes, I did." he said finally "Julia, is it all true what you wrote to me?" he asked her and Julia thought that this gleam from his eyes vanished completely.

"Yes, it is. Every word I wrote in that letter comes from the deepest part of my soul." she whispered lovingly and her eyes were full of tears again "But I suppose that I've been stupid writing it to you. You are engaged to Cornelia! And I said to you five years ago that I can never love you in that way, how could I expect you to love me back once again…" she started her speech in a breaking voice.

Blythe listened to everything she was saying, his breathing was clearly irregular and his hands were getting warmer and warmer. "Sheba," he stopped her and squeezed her hands "Stop talking." he demanded in a voice which seemed oddly nervous.

Julia stopped indeed, rather surprised at the tone of his voice, and looked at Blythe questioningly "What is it?" she asked him.

"You are right," he started "You can't expect me to love you once again after telling me that you can never love me back." Julia let out a small cry but tried very hard to hold it back. Her heart was beating faster and faster and her face got, this time, quite red, the very shade of her hair. "And it's because…" he said again, this time smiling, his eyes twinkling in this weird and unkonwn way for Julia "I never stopped loving you so how can I love you once again when I already do?"

Julia stopped crying instantly and looked up to see Blythe's face radiating with passion, affection and… love, just like it did once on the Christams Day back in 1939. "You…what?" Julia breathed out and she stood up from her chair just to sit down on his bed, by his side.

He chuckled light-heartedly "Julia," he said with a smile "-I broke off the engagement with Cornelia four days before I got shot in the back. I could never marry her because the only person I will ever love enough to marry is you."

"Me?" Julia asked breathlessly with the most radiating smile that had ever appeared on her lips.

"You, Julia Una Blythe." he whispered and put his hand on her cheek tenderly "Please let me hear you saying that you love me."

She leaned towards him gracefully "I love you, Blythe Ford. Very very much." she whispered lovingly and they both laughed together, touching each other's cheeks, swimming in their own small happiness. And then, of course, Blythe kissed her. And it wasn't a kiss Julia had ever experienced before. It was more dear, more intimate, more romantic and much more true than any other kiss she had ever experienced before with Troy. It just felt so right to feel his lips pressed on her own!

The both of them couldn't really believe in what was happening and if someone would ask them about what was coming through their heads in that very moment, they wouldn't be able to answer it. It was a real Book of Revelation opening before them, and they read its first page with hungry eyes, and smiling faces.

"Julia?" Blythe asked when Julia sat down in her chair again, not letting go of Blythe's hand for a second.

"Yes, my dear?" she said, thrilled to bones that she could call Blythe, her 'dear'.

"Will you do me the greatest honour of my life and become my wife?" he asked her in a gentle yet very passionate way.

Julia smiled at him adoringly "I will." she said making the both of them the happiest couple in the whole world.

Blythe kissed Julia's hand again "Would you rather marry me if I could walk again?" he asked her worryingly, while looking at his still legs under the hospital's duvet.

"Blythe, I would marry you if you didn't have any legs or arms at all, as long as your soul remained the same." she said affectionately, and she leaned towards him and kissed his nose tenderly.

He smiled at her and sighed with relief "You know that it will be more difficult for us because of this." he said again.

"I don't mind, as long as I will have you by my side, wherever I go." she whispered to him, as if she was telling him a secret.

"And I always will be by your side, no matter what." he gave the secret back and kissed his bride-to-be once more, this time really believing that it wasn't just a dream, but the most beautiful reality.

Julia spent the whole day talking with Blythe about all the little things they weren't sure if they could talk about with each other during the war, they talked about the past, present and their future together. They cried out all of their tears they had been holding back ever since the beggining of the war. They held hands together, they kissed each other, laughed and joked like never before, not looking at the clock on the wall at all.

They parted with light and faithful hearts, counting minutes to the next time they would see each other again. Blythe gave Julia five poems he had been hiding for five years from everyone. These poems were called the "Bathsheba's Eyes" and inside them, Blythe described how she turned him, so unexpectedly, from a boy into a grown-up man with dreams and hopes for the future. Julia declared to Blythe that she would never show these poems to anyone, becasue in her opinion "they are as sacred as a secret is".

"I caught my train very late in the evening." Julia wrote in her diary the day after "But I didn't mind, I could never mind it, even if I tried. And I didn't feel tired, not a whit. How could I? After a day as wonderful as that one? It seems to me as if that day which Blythe and I spent together, drew us both so close in spirit, that a very special bond between us created. I have never felt anything like this before and so I know that it must be, simply, love. Because after all, love is quite simple. When you first drink from it, you will always remember its taste, and the feeling that overwhelmed you after drinking it.

"I will become Mrs Ford as soon as the war will end and when I'll come back to Glen. Blythe will be already there, waiting for me. Oh, how sweet it sounds! He will wait for me, for me, not for Cornelia or anyone else, just for me.

"Only today I realised that I could never possibly had loved Troy because he didn't see me in the same light as Blythe sees me. Troy has never called me Bathsheba, I realised, he always referred to me as Julia, or my love, never Bathsheba and so who I really am, or rather what my spirit is. But Blythe loves me after all these years, this crazy and wild girl I am. He can see through me and he can hear me through silence and through the greatest noise, and only he can do this.

"And I love him, I understand him and I would do anything for him. I never truly believed that a love like this exists, but it does and it shows itself to me so clearly now.

"Olive and Niall are so happy for me. Olive, before I could say anything, shortly after she saw my face she said: "Well, future-Mrs-Ford, how was Blythe today?", so my face probably changed during that day, for better I'm sure. All I can hope for them now, is to find the love I found that day, the unconditional love which you can beat and shatter, but you can never kill it, for it is only in our souls and can't be seen by a person who never drank from the Fountain of Love which I tasted just yesterday."