6. Intoxicated

"Emie, put a cloth in front of your face! Now!"

Emie barely registered where Henry's voice was coming from before grabbing the low of her dress and placing it on her face. Her eyes still cried from the gas, but at least it was better.

With her other hand, she started heading for outside of the medical tent.

Suddenly, her wrist was caught by a strong and long fingered hand, which retreated her backwards.

"No, Miss Tate. Don't go outside just now. There still are Germans out there."

She turned to the Captain Nicholls' voice. "Why are you in here?"

"I wanted to make sure you were alright, of course!" He said that with such facility, she could have died of happiness.

They remained silent, his grip loosening but never fading away, and then the familiar sound of a pistol cracked not far from them, on their left.

Emie understood she had already gone out of the tent, but had been held, in the mist of the toxic fog, under the entrance.

Nicholls drew out his sword and leaned to her ear. She could feel his breath tickling her cheek. "Do not move."

And he left her. She tried to hear where he was going, and then the same pistol, closer to her than the previous time, and the unmistakable growl of agony of a man who had his chest sliced in two.

Emie bowed and rendered her small breakfast.

Nicholls was at her side at once, coughing. "Miss Tate!"

She collapsed, but his strong arms caught her, and she felt herself being lifted five feet above the ground, held by no one else that the man she kept dreaming about.

She felt herself being lowered on the operating table, and someone withdrew her cloth from her face.

The air was still toxic, but she could at least see.

The Captain Nicholls' face was above hers, eyeing her, concern written on his features.

She threw herself towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He hugged her very tightly until she stopped crying.

Emie had never been so scared of her life.

"Where's Henry?"

The Lieutenant Charlie shrugged. Emie ran to the Major. "Major Stewart, have you seen Dr Lennings?"

He looked down at her, a look of superiority, the one she couldn't stand, in his blue eyes. "No, I haven't, Miss Tate."

Nicholls ran after her. "Miss Tate! I think I've seen him! He was close to the horses' paddock when the grenade hit!"

Emie forgot everything about the increasing amount of patients she received in less than an hour, thanks to an ambush which, fortunately for her, had ended well for the British.

Many men were on the ground, some coughing thanks to the smoke, some moaning, bullet holes on their bodies.

She ignored them.

One body was lying next to Topthorn's paddock.

It was Henry.

In a blur, Emie saw Nicholls take the man in his arms and run with her towards the tent.

She didn't even remember him helping her with Henry's wounds.

"Oh, dear, I feel like I've been walked on by a thousand of horses."

Henry sat up, his gaze still blurred, his chest aching as he acknowledged the presence of tape around his ribs.

"Well, in fact, that's close to what happened."

Emie got back from the sink, where she had been cleaning his trashed clothes. Her eyes were red from the gas, and she wore chock on her figure.

"Emie? What happened to you?"

She tried to smile but grimaced instead. She straightened herself using a stool, and looked back at him. "If it hadn't been for the Captain, you wouldn't still have an assistant. I was enough stupid to go and look out for you, and got caught in the smoke, and a German was close, with his pistol." She started sobbing.

Henry got up. It ached in every corner of his body, it was almost as if death itself was spitting him out, but he got up and came to Emie.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. His ribs yelled, but he ignored the pain.

Very slowly, Emie stopped sobbing and wrapped her own arms around Henry's neck. They were almost the same height. Henry was inches taller than Emie.

She could gaze in his grey eyes without lifting her head.

They stared at each other for what seemed like hours.

And then pain made itself known again.

Someone yelled outside of the tent.

Henry let Emie go. She wiped her cheeks and grabbed her satchel.

"Stay here. I'm going to do what I can to save as many as possible. You rest."

But of course, after ten minutes, Henry was kneeling next to her, sewing chests, taping heads, and tearing bullets out of people's flesh.

I really can't come to the moment something will actually happen between Emie and...one of them.

Who do you prefer, by the way?

I have a huuuuge soft spot for Nicholls, of course, but that's my romantic side.

Anyway, as Henry's my character, and based on Jeremy Renner's badassery, I might like him as equally. Which doesn't help you... ^^

Review please! :)