I love Hagman and Harris too much to accept the events of Waterloo! So this modern AU was created, which has spawned into a series of ficlets (the plot bunny hit and did not let go!). This is the first one.

This is medically inaccurate for dramatic effect, and because if I researched everything thoroughly it would never have gotten written. Also I tried to find out how leaving and transferring within the British Army works, or really anything about its internal workings, but I couldn't find anything! So I had to fudge it, it is only fanfic not a pay-to-read novel after all.

The phone rang just before lunch, as Richard and Pat shucked off their muddy boots by the front door after their morning walk across the Irish countryside. Richard was quickest, dashing to the phone before the answering machine kicked in.

"Sparpe speaking."

"Ah, Colonel Sharpe," said the voice down the line, "it's Arthur Wellesley."

"Sir. What can I do for you?"

"I'm sorry to say I'm calling to tell you that two of your men have been grievously injured. Sergeants Harris and Hagman, in an operation a few days ago. The paperwork has just crossed my desk and I thought you should know."

"How bad?" Richard could feel his legs start to shake.

"Bad I'm afraid, they've already been shipped home for treatment. Both in critical condition, Sergeant Hagman in a coma. Sounds like they were shot at the same time, or near enough. When I find out more I'll let you know."

Pat obviously saw his legs start to give out and manhandled him to sit on a nearby chair. He kept the phone clamped to his ear, listening to every word.

"Where are they, sir?"

"They've been flown to St Catharine's, in Middlesex. Will I be correct in assuming that you'll be visiting?"

"Of course. I'll be going as soon as I can."

"As I thought. Let me know when you know when you'll get to the hospital and I'll send you someone to brief you. Will Sergeant Major Harper be joining you?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll make sure the hospital knows you both are coming."

"Thank you, sir. Thank you for letting me know."

"I know how close you are to your men. I hope they recover. Look after yourself, Richard."

Wellesley hung up, Richard was left looking at the phone in his hand.

He felt numb. Hagman and Harris had only been under a new commanding officer for a few months and were supposed to be transferring off the front lines soon; the paperwork had just been confirmed last week. But now here they were, injured and fighting for their lives.

"Richard," asked Pat, "what's happened?"

"Hagman and Harris," he replied past the lump in his throat. "They're at St Catherine's." He didn't need to say anymore, that name was known as the best trauma hospital in the country, where the worst injured soldiers ended up.

"What injuries?"

"He didn't say. Only that they were both shot within seconds of each other and Dan's in a coma."

"Jeezus."

He wiped his face with his hand. He had to approach this like a military operation or he would fall apart.

"We've got to get to them."

"That we do."

"Get your laptop. You look for hotels, I'll find us a flight."

True to his word, Wellesley had a soldier waiting for them when they reached the hospital, leading them into an empty waiting room.

There they'd been given a brief rundown of what had happened to their two friends: their Commanding Officer leading them into an ambush, the enemy using high powered ammunition that punctured through body armour, others dead, the CO getting out without a scratch. Hagman getting hit first, Harris losing his head and breaking cover to reach him, getting hit seconds later.

The soldier left the pair overloaded with information, then admitted the Doctor in charge of their care.

"Sergeant Hagman sustained significant brain trauma through a bullet penetrating his helmet and skull," he had told them. "He's currently in a coma and we're unlikely to be able to predict the range of impairments he might have until if and when he wakes up.

"Sergeant Harris sustained a bullet wound in his back that penetrated his vest that luckily missed his spine and kidneys but caused major damage to his intestines. He's lost a lot of blood and is going to require several more surgeries. They both will. We're doing what we can for the both of them, but they are both still critical."

"Can we see them?" asked Richard. He could hear Pat pacing agitatedly behind him, muttering curses under his breath.

"Normally I would not allow it, but I've been asked to make a special allowance. I'll take you to Sergeant Harris first, he's due in the operating theatre again in an hour."

They were led into the depths of the hospital, through doors marked 'staff only', to a room with a single occupant.

Harris looked pale under the harsh lights, almost sickly green, his ginger curls lying limp beside his face. An oxygen tube ran under his nose and more tubes entered both arms as they lay atop the sheet that covered him. One of them led to a bag of blood hung by the bed.

Behind him he heard Pat mutter

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph…"

"You may go in, one at a time," said the doctor. "He's heavily sedated so don't try and wake him up. Five minutes each, gentlemen." He left them standing in the doorway.

"You go first," said Pat, tears in his eyes.

Harris didn't look any better closer up, the mass of tubes and wires coalescing into a web with the unconscious man the spider in the middle.

Richard carefully took his hand; even here there was a danger of dislodging something vital. It was cold and still. He tried rubbing at the fingers with his thumb in an attempt to warm them but they stayed like ice. It was not right that these fingers that were so quick and nimble at wielding a rifle yet so at home flicking through the pages of a book laid so limp.

One finger twitched.

Richard held his breath. He gave the hand in his a gentle squeeze, torn between wishing Harris would sleep on and desperately wanting for him to open his eyes, to be able to see that he wasn't as close to death's door as he appeared to be.

Harris moaned, head tossing to one side, hands clenching.

"Dan…"

"Harris?" Richard murmured. "Are you with me?"

His eyes slowly opened, scanning across the room, moving past Richard without stopping.

"Dan. Where's Dan?"

"He's safe, Harris, safe just like you are."

Harris' breath sped up and he started struggling to sit up.

"Dan, Dan! No. Don't be dead. Please don't be dead!"

Richard barely heard Pat at the door telling him he was fetching the doctor, focused on his injured and increasingly agitated sergeant.

"Harris, it's Sharpe," Richard held his shoulders. "You know me. Listen to me. Dan's not dead."

"Major…" Harris whimpered, looking somewhere off to the side, still fighting the sheets that covered his lower half. He obviously wasn't thinking clearly, Richard had been made colonel a few months before he retired, but it would seem that in his panic he had forgotten that. Harris surged forwards, shouting. "They killed him! They bloody killed him!"

The doctor dashed back into the room, something held in his hand.

"Keep him still! He shouldn't be moving!"

Richard pressed Harris' shoulders back towards the mattress, but that made him fight harder.

"Harris, calm down," Richard commanded, but it didn't help. He was only half aware of the doctor injecting something into one of the tubes that let into Harris' arm, hopefully something to calm him down. "You need to stop fighting me. You're only hurting yourself."

"I saw Dan, Major," Harris cried, tears starting to flow from his eyes. "I saw Dan die."

He gripped him by the face, careful not to dislodge any of the tubes.

"Look at me, Harris, look at me." For the first time Harris seemed to look in his direction, though his gaze was unfocussed and he didn't stop struggling. "I know what you saw," he lied, "but Dan's alive. In a bad way, but alive." Harris didn't seem to know what was going on, sedated enough that the lucid parts of his mind were asleep, but not enough to calm the animalistic panic flowing through his veins. "Harris, he's ok. Calm down." His eyes slipped somewhere to the side again.

"Dan," he yelled. "Dan!"

"You're being a right bloody pain here, Harris." Richard growled. "You need to stop fighting me."

He saw when the sedation hit: Harris' eyes sagged and on the monitor his heart rate lowered.

"Dan's alive," he soothed as the head in his hands got heavier. "You both are going to be just fine." He settled Harris' head back onto the pillow, stroking back the curls in a paternal way he had almost forgotten about. He swiped away any fallen tears with a thumb. "Go back to sleep and let the doctors do their work. I'm going to visit Dan now but I'll be back. I'll make sure both of you are well looked after."

He continued stroking his hair and face as Harris drifted back into sleep, eyes closing and breaths calming. When he was sure he was once again sleeping, Richard gripped the bed rail and sighed, trying to calm his own racing heart. He heard Pat step towards him and rub his back.

"Sweet Jesus, that was a mess. But he'll be ok. If he can fight like that when heavily sedated he's going to be over his injuries in no time."

"He thought Hagman was dead." Richard replied. "We've seen what he's like when any of the Chosen Men have been seriously injured, Hagman included, and he didn't behave anything like this. And remember we were told that Hagman was shot first. Given how close those two are it's no wonder Harris lost his head on the battlefield if he thought Hagman was dead." He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "It's bloody stupid, I should have made them leave the army months ago. Or transfer. Something."

"Gentlemen," interrupted the doctor, turning away from the monitor that showed Harris' vitals. "You need to leave; his blood pressure is dropping after that episode. One of the nurses will take you to Sergeant Hagman."

"Yessir," Richard said, but didn't move, staring at Harris' sleeping face.

Pat reached over and gave Harris' limp hand a squeeze.

"You keep fighting, you stubborn bugger, you hear me?" He tugged on Richard's arm. "Let's see Hagman."

As they turned the corner, just down the corridor from Harris' room, they heard the doctor announce to one of the lingering nurses:

"Call theatre and let them know we're on the way down. We need to get him in there now."

They looked at each other, Pat patting Richard on the back, chivvying him away from the unwelcome sounds.

If Richard thought seeing Harris was bad, seeing Hagman was another level of awful. He'd much rather be back on the active battlefield than witness this.

The man was ghostly pale, bandages wrapped around his head, thick padding on one side. A tube came out of the mass, splattered on the inside with blood red.

He was surrounded with the same spider web of wires and tubes that had been around Harris, thankfully minus the bag of blood, but with the addition of a tube that went down his throat, connected to a machine that hissed and clicked with every measured rise and fall of Hagman's chest.

He didn't look any better than a corpse.

They had both been allowed by his side this time, for a few minutes, provided they stayed well away from the equipment, an eagle-eyed nurse standing nearby.

Richard could feel his hands shaking. No matter what happened on the battlefield they never shook. He gripped Dan's bed railings, the cold metal soothing in their solidness, willing his hands to stop their juddering.

Dan had been shot in the head. What chance did he have of surviving this?

"He was lucky," said the nurse. Richard suddenly realised he had uttered his last thought out loud. "Had the bullet penetrated any deeper he would almost certainly be dead. Most of the energy of the bullet had been stopped by his helmet, then by his skull. The damage is confined to a relatively small area, but brain injuries are notoriously tricky to predict. It's bad, but there's a chance he'll get to live life relatively normally, but that's still a long, long way off. If he doesn't have any complications. I'm sorry I can't give you better news." Richard nodded, feeling his heart sink lower than he thought it could.

"Thank you."

He felt tears gather in his eyes and blinked them away. He reached over the railing to grab Dan's hand and gave it a squeeze. It was just as cold as Harris' had been.

"You need to get better, you old bastard," he told the unconscious figure. "Harris needs you." He wanted to say more, but the words dried up in his throat.

"Richard," said Pat into the quiet a few minutes later. "We should go, there's no use staying here."

Richard nodded, but didn't let go of Dan's hand. Pat gently untangled Richard's fingers from Dan's and wrapped one of his hands around Richard's, covering Dan's hand with the other as he had with Harris, muttering something in Gaelic. To Richard it sounded like a prayer.

A moment later and Pat was tugging him towards the door.

"Let's go."

The sky was still bright as they left the hospital, the last few rays of sunlight shining across the golden clouds just before they turned pink in the sunset. They paused in an empty area between the buildings, a part thoroughfare and part storage area between the ornate Victorian stone mansion house and the Brutalist glass and concrete edifice they had just exited from.

Richard looked to the sky, sniffing heavily. Pat could see the tears in his eyes.

"Tell me, Pat," he said, still looking upwards. "Do you think we're going to have to bury them too?"

A list of names sprung unbidden in his mind, all the people they had known, both in their regiment and without, who had died in service.

Tongue, Murray, Denny, Matthews, Price.

And so very nearly Perkins.

They had been so close to losing him. Pat was never going to forget holding Ben in his arms as they waited for the medevac, hoping they would get there before he bled out. He had never heard Hagman's voice shake like it had when he sang that day and Harris' hands had never been covered in so much red.

Who had been there when they were shot? Had anyone held Harris' hand as he bled around the bullet in his back? Had anyone talked to Dan in case he had any awareness even with a bullet in his brain?

Were their names going to be added to the list of the dead?

All Pat could say was,

"They're soldiers, they knew what they were getting into." Richard looked at him sharply. He was aware he sounded a bit cold and uncaring. It was either that or go to pieces and he couldn't look after Richard if he did that. "And they're not dead yet. They're soldiers and they will fight to the bitter end." Richard looked away, nodding.

They would survive.

They had a long road ahead of them. But they would survive.

That was the only thing he could believe.