Denial

This was NOT happening.

Helene held the letter written in Theodore Dolokhov's hand – [i]My dear Helene, today I write to you with a heavy heart…[/i] – in a crushing grip, crinkling the paper and sending creases through the sheet. This was not happening. She was dreaming or Theodore was wrong. But her baby brother was NOT dead. She attempted to pull herself together. Helene took a deep breath and began to re-read the letter but the words blurred in front of her eyes and they still didn't make any sense. Borodino, casualties, Anatole wounded… dead.

It HAD to be a mistake.

Sadness

"Helene…I'm so sorry."

Theodore takes her into his arms as she meets him at the gate, already in mourning. He can't look at her. She looks too much like her brother. The memory of Anatole's face haunts him The boy looked almost like he had simply fallen asleep. Almost. Disregarding the creases at the corners of his mouth that spoke of the excruciating pain he'd suffered.

Helene pulls back and looks into his eyes with such a heartbroken expression that Theodore begins to lose the fight against tears. "Why him?"

He shakes his head and whispers brokenly, "I don't know."

Anger

God, he just wanted to forget. Why wasn't getting drunk working?

Theodore stared into the half empty bottle of Vodka, swirling the clear liquid around gloomily. As though he could actually glare a solution out of it. They had been so happy. Him, Helen, Anatole… Everything was just starting to work itself out. Then the war came and took… What? His youth, firstly. What sentiments he'd had left had been destroyed. Now Anatole was gone and so was Helene.

"Damn it! Why us?" He picked up an empty wine bottle and chucked it against the wall. The bottle hit. Shattered.

Guilt

Since the war, Hippolyte couldn't get rid of the same horrible, nagging feeling. He knew what it was – guilt – but he could admit it to himself. Admit that all the excuses he had made to himself and to others were all false and fake. Cardboard walls that couldn't keep him warm in the cold winter. He, as the older brother, should have been the one to fight. Not Anatole. Never that foolish, young boy who had no clue of anything beyond his socialite activities and parties. It was too late now. Anatole was gone and Hippolyte could never forgive himself.

Acceptance

At some point, Anatole accepted that he was going to die. The pain was eating him alive, burning like fire through his vanes. He didn't want to die but he thought it might be better than the agony he was suffering. He thought of home and all the friends he would never see. He thought of Helene. Where was Theodore? Would they see each other again? Anatole tried to accept that they wouldn't. He could still hear the canonfire in the distance and Theodore was probably still out there. He would have to accept that dying alone was his fate.