Arthur opened his eyes and all he could see was the back of her head. He was in his flat, laying on his stomach in the soft bed. Everything hurt. The muscles in his arms pleaded with pain. There was no warm light streaming through the window anymore and there was very little bustle sounding on the road below. It must have been late. Very late. The coals in the stove had gone cold without kindling.

"What time is it?"

Sorcha didn't turn back to look at him but replied flatly. "I don't know." She was still in shock from Garrison's. It was a miracle she'd been able to get him back to the flat at all.

Arthur reached out to put his hand on her neck, guiding her head back so he could get a look at her. Her throat was damp and so was her face. He could feel the hard lump in her throat. She'd been crying. All night, it seemed.

"Come here, my bright little bird. Get off that cold ground."

Twisting her body to face him, Sorcha complied. Her feet were cold, her hands were cold, her nose was cold. And her eyes were empty. It felt like she was back in the war again. Arthur lifted the sheets and made room on the bed. With her head resting on his shoulder, he draped her arm across his chest.

"Your hands are cold."

"Aye, and my nose, but I'll manage." Sorcha, who had dared herself not to cry again, managed to whisper into the crook of his neck.

As if on cue, Arthur leaned down to place kisses on the end of her nose. It had warmed her up during the war and it warmed her up now. It was a moment of peace and clarity for the both of them - a strange bit of nostalgia. She could feel his heart thumping fast in his chest. After a minute, Arthur extended his free arm so he could blindly rummage in the bedside table drawer.

"Your cigarettes are in your coat."

"Not looking for cigarettes," he continued to fish through the drawer trying to feel for what he was looking for. He didn't need cigarettes - she kept him warm enough. "Look at this," Arthur finally held out a dog-eared picture which had Sorcha throw her head back in laughter.

It was a photograph of her in the scratchy VAD uniform - the starched dress, the oversleeves, the apron. The Sister Dora cap was perched precariously on her thick black curls. It had blown clean off several times and Sorcha had been a sight to behold chasing after it down a laneway. Her eyes were bright and lively and there was an innocent calm on her face. A minute smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

That smile was Arthur's favorite part.

"Ack," Sorcha bashfully pushed the photograph away from her sight much to Arthur's delight.

"You were a handsome little thing," he declared, proudly holding the picture up to admire with a large grin spread across his face. A long moment of silence passed before Arthur's face became solemn in realization. "It was a horrible time. The war."

"It was."

His eyes glazed over at his bank of memories. "We'd go underground...dig the tunnels with explosives strapped to our back. Just us and our shovels and what little air we had." Sorcha could feel his body tense. He still held her picture up, absently rubbing the image between his fingers. The arm he had over her shoulder absently fell with a soft thud. "It was so hard to breathe in that small space. When we did come in contact with German trenches…We heard the shovels first. And then their voices." Arthur's breath hitched sharply, "you couldn't see the bastards. You had to fumble in the blackness until you felt a warm body - hoping to hell it wasn't your tommy you were strangling with your bare hands. Had to get close enough to feel the epaulettes. All them jerries wore epaulettes on their shoulders. Had to get close enough."

Arthur's hands shook uncontrollably, tears pouring down his face, and Sorcha had never felt more helpless. Could she say "it is okay"? No. No, because it wasn't. He was in turmoil. No matter how sanguinely he strut around the cobblestone walkways of Birmingham, that pain would never go away. It dwelled and it festered like a disease. Sorcha felt tainted by her time in the war. How much more so Arthur? He was trapped in a four-feet by three-feet tunnel that could collapse over you at any moment with the slightest provocation - leaving only the carbon monoxide to lull you into death. His soul was rotting away from the inside out.

Sorcha knew words were of no comfort to him. Words were of no comfort to her either. Instead, she climbed on top of him and laid flush against his body, curling herself into the contours of his skin. Arthur's labored breathing heaved against her chest. She hoped her even breaths would steady his. She breathed in...then out. In and out. Slowly. Steadily. Anchoring him down to this time and to this place. Into the Birmingham flat. With her.

"Hold me," she murmured against his ear.

He enveloped her in between his arms, holding on tight as if they would both float away into the nothingness forever if he let her go for even a second. With her weighed on top of him, Arthur closed his dark green eyes and focused his thoughts on the warmth of her skin, out to the wagon wheels out on the street, but back to the curve of her body… he held on tight, deeply breathing in the fresh, cool air. The scent of her skin was better than the richest perfume.

He wasn't in the tunnels.

He wasn't in the trenches.

He wasn't in France.

He was safe. In his flat. In Birmingham. With the woman he loved.