We Were Soldiers
121. Heart to Heart
The April sun bathed London in glorious golden light, offering an unusual warm spell so early in the season. It hadn't rained in over a week, which had to be some sort of record, and it seemed everybody was in a better mood for it. The fine weather had brought laughter back to children's play and smiles back to the faces of women as they waited in line for their weekly rations. Peggy smiled too as she watched them from the car window, glad that her people could find even a moment of respite from the trials of war.
The car made its way down familiar roads on a journey she had taken countless times over the past few years—though with less frequency now that she'd moved most of her belongings to be nearer to Whitehall. The driveway of the Carter family residence was wide and sweeping, lined with ash and birch trees that threatened to burst into brilliant green at any moment. Nesting birds raced across the car's path, their beaks stuffed with twigs, and a family of young rabbits took advantage of the sunshine to feast on the rapid growth of grass.
At the side of the house was a lone car, its silver bodywork polished until it dazzled like a star. "How odd," she mumbled to herself.
"Ma'am?" the driver asked, peering back at her through the rear view mirror.
She shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking out loud. You can drop me right here if you like. No need to wait, I'll call HQ when I'm ready to return."
The SSR car pulled up just outside the front door, and the driver unbuckled his belt ready to jump out and open the door for her. Peggy beat him, slamming the door shut before he'd even had time to slide from his seat. Neither ill nor infirm, she did not need anybody—man or woman—to hold a door open for her. Of course, if Steve Rogers wanted to hold a door open for her, she would graciously allow it. One did have to make such allowances and consider others' feelings when they were in a… what were they in? A relationship? Some odd sort of mutually respectful friendship that might one day soon tip over into a real romance? He hadn't kissed her yet. She hadn't asked him to. The memory of Private Lorraine with her lips on his was still too raw.
Shaking her head, she cleared away thoughts of Steve. He wasn't why she'd come here today. In fact, he wasn't even in London. Things at HQ had been oddly quiet, of late. Major Falsworth had taken the opportunity to visit his family for a few days, whilst Dernier had agreed to provide a little insight into French Resistance activities for MI5. Howard had taken the remainder of the team on what he claimed was a field test for some of his new prototype weapons, but in actual fact just sounded like an excuse for a camping trip.
The silver car on the driveway was the Bentley. Father always took one car for work, but where was the third car, the lovely green Rolls Royce? Had they all taken advantage of the fine weather and gone out for the day? It would be a considerable annoyance if they had!
"God damn it!"
A familiar voice. Peggy followed it around the side of the house, to the place where the garden and the orchard met the pond. There, Michael was dressed in his least finest clothes, attempting—and failing badly at—repairing a fence that had collapsed over the winter.
"Need a hand?" she called out.
He peered over his shoulder, causing his grip on two fence planks to loosen. They came crashing down around him, and he spat out the two nails he was holding between his teeth. "Ten hands, ideally. All of them skilled at manual labour. But I suppose you'll do in a pinch. Come and hold these in place while I try not to hit my thumb with the hammer."
She obliged, leaning her weight against the planks as Michael lined up the nails. He was finally looking a little more like his old self. The shadows of imprisonment were almost entirely gone from his face, and he'd put on weight. In another few months, perhaps he'd be well enough to return to work, albeit working at a desk with Father. Of course, he'd need a proper haircut well before that. It was a wonder Mother had let him grow it so long. She'd always been a stickler for appearances.
"There," he said, as he hammered the nails into place and tested the strength of his handiwork by pulling on the panels a little. They stood firm. "Good as new."
"Surely Jacobs could've handled this, the next time he's here?" Jacobs had been their family gardener for years.
"He's not well. Gout, or so I've heard." Michael wiped his forearm across his sweaty brow. "Luckily, I have a wealth of free time. I've already pruned some of the bushes and re-potted those speckly-green plants Mother likes so much." He reached down to brush his hand against his left trouser pocket, which bulged slightly. "But what brings you out here, Peg? I wasn't expecting a visit from my little sister any time soon."
She gave him a tight smile. "Things are… quiet. Suspiciously so. I think something is afoot. Has Father mentioned anything?"
Michael shook his head. "You know he never talks about work. Come on, let's go inside and have some lemonade, and you can tell me what's on your mind."
It was to the kitchen that he led her, where a tall beaker of freshly-made lemonade stood cooling in a sink full of water. Father had promised to buy a modern refrigerator for the kitchen, but all construction materials now went directly to the war effort. Nobody was making refrigerators at the moment.
"What does your gut tell you?" Michael asked, setting a glass of lemonade on the table in front of her as she sidled onto a chair.
She took a sip of the cool liquid and pulled her face. "That you should've used more sugar."
"Very funny. You know sugar is rationed. Now pretend that you're enjoying your freshly-squeezed lemon juice, and tell me what's on your mind."
"Phillips has gone very… shifty," she began. "There are meetings. Meetings that I'm not involved in. Even Howard is only allowed to attend one in every half-dozen. I've asked Francis, but he doesn't know anything; or claims not to." There were potentially other contacts she could reach out to, but the more questions she asked, the riskier it became. And while she understood the value of total secrecy, she absolutely hated being on the wrong side of it. Normally, when people were whispering behind her back, it usually meant they were trying to exclude her from something. Of course, it was very peevish and self-centred to even contemplate the idea that this might be about her… a lifetime of having doors closed in her face did not encourage trust from those above her. "I think something big is happening," she finished. "Something that involves more than the SSR."
"And what does Captain America think?"
She scoffed quietly at the name Steve really didn't enjoy hearing. "He's not invited to the meetings, but he also doesn't seem worried about it. He says that when it's time for us to be sent into action, Phillips will tell us what we need to know. I really do think he's a little oblivious to it, as well. The political undercurrents are not always easy to navigate. Sometimes you don't even realise you're caught in them until it's too late to do anything about it."
"Hmm." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I agree… with Captain Rogers. Peg, you're going to drive yourself crazy trying to imagine what might be going on out there. Is that why you came today? To ask if I'd heard anything from Father? Surely you knew that you'd leave disappointed; you know Father's love for secrecy and security as much as I do."
"Actually, I came to see Antje," she admitted. Michael's fingers brushed his pocket again. He seemed not to realise he was doing it. "The Commandos are all away doing some field training with Howard, Phillips barely has time to say two words to me, and with the weather being fine, I thought it might be nice to spend a little time with Antje. Make sure she's settling in and such."
"Well, you're a couple of hours too late. Mother took Antje and Ruben into the city for some shopping and afternoon tea." A smile suddenly blossomed across his face, a rare occurrence since his capture. "Mother said she's seen the perfect little shop available for rent. Providing is doesn't get Blitzed, it would be an idea place for Antje to set up her dress-making business."
Peggy blinked in surprise. This was new. "So… she doesn't plan to return to her home, after the war?"
Michael's fingers brushed his pocket once more. "I think she'd like to visit, one day. But she knows that even if she goes back, it's going to be a long time before her country is self-sufficient again. Ruben will need ongoing medical care, possibly for the rest of his life. He's been teaching me a little of clock-repair; says I have good hands for it. Wouldn't it be funny if after all I've done serving my country, I ended up as a clockmaker?"
"For heaven's sake, what have you got in your pocket?" she asked, as his fingers danced there again. "I swear if you don't tell me, I'll tickle it out of you."
With a very sheepish look, he ducked his hand into his pocket and withdrew a small box. When he opened it and placed it on the table before Peggy, its contents gleamed in the sunlight.
A grin spread across her face. "Grandmother's ring? You really intend to ask Antje to marry you?"
"Maybe I'm being foolish," he admitted. "She's young. Almost too young. I'm nearly ten years her senior! But what are the chances of me meeting two strong, intelligent, resourceful women in my life? One for my sister, and one for my wife. Imagine, I'd be unstoppable. I could probably take over the entire world, with two such women by my side."
"Does she make you happy?"
"Yes." There was no hesitation in his voice, and only plain earnestness written on his face. "God help me, she does. For all her strength and intelligence, she has a wonderful, innocent way of looking at the world. And she has a sense of humour! Granted, she's still coming to grips with the English language, but she can crack a joke that would go right over your head if you weren't quick on the uptake. I think… I want to make her as happy as she makes me. I want to show her the world, and make sure she sees all the good it has to offer after the terrible events she's endured. I want to see her dreams come true, and spend every day with her."
It really was a beautiful ring. Peggy closed the box and handed it back to her brother.
"Then ask her to marry you. You have my blessing. And you must have Mother and Father's, too, or she wouldn't have given you that."
"You're right. Mother gave it to me last week, and I've been trying to find just the right moment to propose. Every time I think I'm going to do it, Antje smiles at me and I get all tongue-tied. I find myself unable to say anything at all."
"You will never know how glad I am that you've finally found a woman who can shut you up," she laughed. "But all joking aside, I think you should seize the moment. Carpe Diem. Life is too short and precious to spend even a moment missing out. Live your life as if there is no tomorrow, and have no regrets."
Michael smiled as he slipped the box back into hit pocket and sipped his lemonade. He quickly spat the contents back into his glass. Really, it was absolutely awful stuff.
"What about you?" he asked. "When are you and Captain Rogers going to Carpe Diem?"
"Right now we have to focus on the war," she said. And those blasted secret meetings she was kept out of! "I feel that I've started something. Put something in motion. If I stop now, if I let myself get distracted, I'll lose momentum and falter."
He reached out to squeeze her hand. "I'm so proud of you, Peg. Just don't let your job stand in the way of happiness."
"That's what nobody seems to understand," she sighed. "My job is my happiness. I love doing it. I see women looking at me and pitying me for being out in the field instead of being at home happily married and tending to her husband, but love is not the only source of happiness this world has to offer. Not that I love Steve! I mean, I enjoy his company, certainly. He's a wonderful man, and perhaps if things were different… but they're not. My job, Steve… they can exist together. I'd like to think that I can have them both, one day."
"One day? You mean after the war?"
"Well, at the very least, I need to give Mother time to wrap her head around the idea of me being courted by an American. Besides, she can only plan one wedding at a time, and I want you to promise me that you'll make her plan yours for years. That way I might get a little breathing room."
Michael laughed. "I'll see what I can do, Peg, but no promises. Antje hasn't even agreed to marry me, yet."
"But she will," she said, confidence burning within her. "If you make her even half as happy as she makes you… she will."
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"Are you planning to help me with this?" asked Steve. He stood shirtless on the narrow shelf of the lake, trouser legs rolled up to his knees, water lapping at his muscular calves. He looked like the kinda guy the ancient Greeks might base statues on. And he also looked absolutely ridiculous as he tried to grasp the fast-darting fish between his hands.
Bucky waved a dismissive hand. "Nah. I'm enjoying the view."
Steve scowled and went back to fishing. Bucky ignored him. It really was lovely, here. Stark had brought them north, out of the busy streets of London, past the drab middle part of the country, and up to this place of beautiful hills and lakes. The blue sky was mirrored in the lake's surface, unmarred by even a single cloud. Though he'd never been a country boy, he could appreciate the peace and quiet of the countryside, especially after the past few months of non-stop fighting. Simple pleasures and all that.
"Confounded fish!" Steve cursed, as yet another slipped through his fingers. Poor Steve. He hadn't learnt how to do fishing properly yet.
"Tell you what," Bucky said, propping himself up. "I'll help you catch some fish if you tell me when you're going to make a move on Peggy. And I don't just mean dinner," he said, when his friend opened his mouth to object. "I mean a real move. Music and dancing and kissing and all those other things you're supposed to when you find the woman of your dreams."
"I will. In my own time."
"Pft! C'mon Steve, I've seen you stand up to bullies three times your own size, but now you're scared to stand up to one tiny woman? You just gotta pretend love is a bully and stand up to it like you used to back home."
"That is the worst analogy I've ever heard," Steve shot back. But it did bring him over to the bank where Bucky lay looking out at the scenery. He sank down and peered out at the same hills.
"Seriously pal, what's stopping you?"
"Stopping me?" There was genuine confusion in his blue eyes. "I'm not you, Buck. I don't see a pretty dame and fall head over heels and immediately make a move. That's not my style. Heh. I guess I do have a style, now, so that's something. See, I don't want to rush anything with Peggy. I want to be one-hundred percent sure that I'm what she wants, and right now, she's gotta focus on the bigger picture stuff. You know, war, keeping her home safe, earning the respect of her peers. I want people to know she succeeded on her own merits; not because she's my girl. Or woman. Dame. Whatever." He reached up to run a hand through his hair, the same old awkward Steve he'd always been. "Besides, I like watching her work. She's mesmerising. I could watch her all day. No wait, that makes me sound like a stalker. What I mean is—"
"I know what you mean." Better interrupt his friend now before he crossed over into waffling territory.
"What about you?" Steve asked. "You have a little more spare time than I do, between missions. Seen any dames that've caught your eye?"
Hmm. Dames? Well, there had been that Coffee-Angel Nurse, back in Plymouth, but that was long ago and far away. Nurse Green had been nice, until she'd turned into a murderous Nazi. Lizzie wasn't bad on the eyes, but she seemed overly fond of Dugan. A real pity, that.
"Well," he mused, "there was this one girl I liked, and I asked her out on a date. But then I got the flu and missed our date and she ended up falling for somebody else."
Steve cringed a little. "Sorry pal, guess that was a little insensitive of me. I'm just a bit worried about you. At the very least I expected you to capitalise on having a cute dame-attracting puppy, like Falsworth and Dernier did. It feels like… well, like you're not quite the Bucky who told me not to do anything stupid last year."
What could he say to that? He wasn't the same person. Hadn't been for a long time. And as much as he wanted to blame Schmidt and Zola for what they'd done to him on that table, it wasn't entirely on them. He hadn't been the same since… since Tipper. Since he'd been powerless to stop Tipper's death. Powerless to stop that death from breaking Gusty. Powerless to stop himself swinging for Weiss. He'd been a different Bucky ever since that day. An angrier Bucky, who wasn't always able to smile as easily. It was as if… as if the spectre of death was haunting him.
"I can understand you not wanting to talk about Krausberg," Steve pushed. "But why do you never talk about your time with the 107th?"
Because they were my family and I let them down. I watched them die, one by one, and was powerless to stop it. My friends were shot, stabbed, blown to pieces and buried in rubble. There is nothing I can say, no story I can tell, no memory I can share, that does not involve somebody I couldn't save.
But more than that, how could he make Steve understand that he could never do his friends justice? Sure he could describe Carrot. He could talk about his foibles, and his love for Samantha. He could share some of his memories, such as the time they'd all baked a cake for the guy's birthday. But the Carrot he recounted to Steve would be nothing more than a pale reflection of his own memories. A fraction of the man he'd truly been. Carrot deserved more than that. They all did. Telling their stories would never bring them back to life, and it only hurt to think that they might still be alive if he'd done things differently.
"I will," he said. "In my own time."
Steve sighed and shook his head as his words were returned to him. "Alright. Then would you at least help me catch some fish? I don't know why you volunteered for this; we could've picked firewood duty, or even tent duty."
"Catching fish is easier than setting up tents. Even easier than collecting firewood."
"I beg to differ. I—Buck, what are you doing?!"
A look of genuine horror crossed Steve's face as Bucky pulled a grenade from his belt, tugged out the pin, and threw it as far into the lake as he could manage. Two seconds later there was a boom and a high plume of water, followed shortly after by the floating of a few dozen dead and stunned fish.
"Just something I learned in the 107th," he said, flicking the pin at his friend's head. "Since you asked, and all. We'll eat well tonight!"
"I don't think you're supposed to use them for that."
"Needs must, pal. Now, I caught 'em, so you can collect 'em. No point both of us getting wet, eh?"
It didn't take Steve long to swim out and bring a bunch of them back to shore. Even before he'd finished his second trip, a number of gulls and other fish-eating birds had started to descend and fight for scraps. Soon it was bedlam over the water. The birds would be eating well, too.
Time to offer an olive-branch. Frustrating as Steve could be at times, he didn't want his friend pissed at him for the remainder of the trip. Not when they were sharing a tent together. "I promise I won't pester you any more about Carter," he said. "However, I do reserve the right to tease you until you marry her. And I expect to be best man at your wedding. I also want your first son named after me."
"Done. All of it," Steve said, a happy smile spreading across his face. "Just promise me something; that you'll talk to someone, if anything is weighing you down. Even if it's not me. Even if it's just some impartial shrink. Even if it's just some stranger on a bar stool."
"Agreed." In his own time, of course. "Now, let's get these fish back to camp before they think we've gone AWOL. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."
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Dust seemed to bypass Danny's crude mask and did its best to work itself into his lungs, where it irritated and made him cough incessantly. It got into his eyes, too, so that at one point he couldn't even see the rugs that he was beating. The day was hot, and it wasn't long before he was coated in a sheen of sweat. Peeling off his shirt, he lay it a short distance away to dry in a place where it wouldn't be coated with dust and lint from the carpets. His right shoulder twinged unpleasantly on each stroke, but he couldn't give up using it forever. The sooner he got full use of it back, the sooner he'd be more useful around here. Spring-cleaning wasn't a new concept to him, but Rosa wanted the house scrubbed from top to bottom, and there were more floor rugs waiting their turn for beating.
At midday he stopped, damp and exhausted, and sank wearily onto the stump of some long-felled tree. From the house, Rosa appeared, carrying a pitcher of water and two cups. He drank deeply when she offered him one, and tasted refreshing bitter lemon in the water.
"Thanks. I needed that."
"How is your arm?"
"It aches," he admitted. "But exercise will probably do it good."
"You should take it easy for the next couple of days. Give your muscles a chance to adapt to what you've just put them through."
He nodded. Until now, he'd taken his health for granted. He'd never had broken bones as a kid, never given himself more than a grazed knee, and never had more than a bust lip given to him. Though he'd suffered all the common childhood ailments, he'd always shook them off pretty quickly, and been cursed with a near-perfect attendance record at school because of his hale constitution. His sense of invulnerability had stuck with him into adulthood, and despite a few upset stomaches which accompanied hang-over, he'd never missed a day of work through sickness. Even in war, when those around him had started to die, he hadn't felt afraid for his own life. Death would come when it came, and dwelling on it would help no-one.
Getting shot had taught him a valuable lesson.
"Adalina wonders when you're going to ask her to marry you," Rosa said in a conversational tone. It took a moment for her words to register, and when they did, he almost fell off his stump.
"Jeez, is there anything dames don't talk about with their mothers?!" he asked, running a hand through his hair.
She looked him square in the eyes. "Nothing."
Damn. He knew he should've tried harder to knock thoughts of marriage out of the girl's head. It wasn't fair to string her along. But… he wasn't really stringing her along, as such. He liked her and respected her, and she knew how to make him smile. She was funny and caring and would make an attentive, affectionate wife. Probably make a good mother, too, and there would have to be kids, because all dames wanted kids. There were worse fates than marrying a beautiful girl and living in a beautiful country.
But… when he thought of her, he didn't feel that twisting, wrenching feeling inside his chest, like his heart was being slowly removed with a corkscrew. It was a horrible, painful, frightening, wonderful, intoxicating feeling. He wanted to run far, far away from it, and throw himself into it to drown in it. He thought that feeling was love, and he was both amazed and terrified by it.
"Adalina is a wonderful girl," he said. "A credit to your whole family. One day, she will make some man very happy as his wife. I can't lie; I've thought about asking her to marry me several times. I've even pictured the house where we'd live." The image of the rustic house flew across his mind, pulling a smile behind it. "It has a green front door. Don't ask me why, it just does. But each time I think of asking, something holds me back. Some small voice says, wait or tomorrow. I wish I could ask her to marry me… but tomorrow always seems to come too quickly."
Her dark eyes assessed him thoughtfully. "Is it because you are in love with a man?"
For the second time in five minutes, he almost fell off the stump. "What?! Of course not. I mean, why would you even think that?" Oh god, he'd made some stupid off-hand comment that she'd read too much into. Or he'd done something wrong. What could he have done wrong? He was pretty sure his gaze had never lingered over any young man in the town. Young women, maybe—guilty pleasures and all—but he'd never even looked at a man twice. Or could she just tell? Didn't they say some people just knew when other people were… different?
"When you were first brought here, you were very sick," Rosa said. "The fever made you delirious. Several times you cried out for someone named 'Barnes.'"
"That might be my brother," he offered, knowing how lame it sounded even as the words left his mouth.
"Not with the things you were saying."
Shit.
"What… what kinda things was I saying?" He didn't wanna know. But at the same time, he had to know. So far, he'd kept his thoughts about his friend very tightly leashed. There'd been that one dream when his thoughts had slipped the leash and run amok through his head and made him do all sorts of horrible, wonderful things. But dreams didn't count for anything. They were just the machinations of crazy minds.
Rosa shrugged. "I don't remember your exact wording, but the general theme was that you were sorry, that you wished you'd said goodbye properly, that you didn't want him to leave you, that you'd never felt that way about anybody before… and then there was a lot more being sorry for things, but at that point you'd become incoherent even to me."
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. Shit. Had he really said those things? Was that why his insides got all twisted up whenever he thought of Barnes? If this was love, why did it have to be so awkward and messy and painful? Why couldn't it just be straightforward?
"You must think I'm pretty messed up, huh?" he said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because I… I love a man." Saying it made his head spin. Until now, it hadn't been real. It had been a thought. A dream. A letter. A stabbing pain through the heart. Now, it was real. It was out there, in the world, and he was very much afraid the world would find a way to break this awkward, messy, amazing thing that he had. To break him.
"And this troubles you?"
"Of course it troubles me!" he said, sitting up to look at her. Was she mad? Did she not understand how wrong it was for one man to love another man in the way he loved his friend? Didn't she realise it wasn't right for a man to want to touch another man, to be near him and to just hold him? "It's… it's wrong!"
"Says who?"
"Everybody. Men are supposed to fall in love with women, and women are supposed to fall in love with men. That's the way the world works."
"The world you come from, maybe. But there is more to the world than where you come from. And it seems that isn't your world anymore."
"Are you saying that there's nothing here stopping men from being… in love with each other?" he asked incredulously.
"It is not approved of," Rosa said. "But it is done. Everybody knows it. In my experience, young men are all too quick to give their hearts away. If every Italian man who'd had some adolescent tryst with a friend or a neighbour was lined up and shot, Italy would have far fewer men. There are many reasons why a young man might take up with another young man… frustration over the fickle nature of girls, youthful exuberance, curiosity, experimentation, physical attraction… most grow out of it before they're ready to settle down with a wife."
"I'm twenty-six, Rosa, I'm not an adolescent," he scowled. "And this isn't frustration, or exuberance, or curiosity. I don't think this is something I can grow out of. I wish I could. But at the same time, I'm terrified that I'll stop feeling like this. I'm not attracted to men, I just love one man. I've dated a lot of dames, and none of them has ever made me feel like this."
"And does this man return your feelings?"
"I don't know. Probably not. I never told him. But I left him a letter. He's probably read it. Probably burned it and got on with his life. Probably married to Rita Hayworth already," he said bitterly, no longer certain which of that pair he envied more. If they'd gotten married, he would hate them both forever. "I feel like a piece of me is missing."
"Love," said Rosa, with a sad smile, "is both a great gift, and a terrible burden."
"It's horrible," he agreed glumly. "How do I get more of it?"
"It sounds like you already have more than you know how to handle."
"Yeah." He sighed, and offered her the best grateful smile he could muster. Before now, he'd never really thought of dames—of women—as people he could talk to about this sort of stuff, and in many ways, Rosa didn't seem like a woman at all. She was more like some battle-hardened army general, full of strategy and wisdom. One who could very easily court-martial him, if he put a foot wrong. "What do you think I should do?"
"That is your choice. You love somebody, but your love may be unrequited, and forever unsatisfied. Here, you have somebody who would love you easily, but if you can never love her, you may spend the rest of your life feeling only half complete."
"So, my choice is to build a relationship based on a lie and hope that I can learn to love over time, or to risk everything in the hope that the only person I've ever loved can overcome decades of stigma and taboo to possibly feel even a small portion of what I feel for him? Y'know, I like gambling better when it's only chips at stake."
"I don't envy your position." She stood, and reached out to brush some of his damp hair back from his forehead. He'd seen her do the same to Paolo, when his hair got too long. "Adalina is young, and young women fall in love as easily as young men. Her heart will mend. Don't make that the only reason to stay."
Rosa took their empty glasses and disappeared back towards the house. Danny sighed and lay on his back, watching as fluffy white clouds drifted across the deep blue sky. The first time Adalina had mentioned marriage, it had been in a passing comment, and she'd moved the conversation along too fast for him to go back and object to it. The next couple of times… it seemed easier just to go along with the things she said. No point rocking the boat. But now that she'd talked about it with Rosa… well, that was real, too. He needed to stop any talk of marriage right away, before Matteo caught wind of it.
Or… did he? Maybe he wasn't in love with Adalina, but perhaps he could grow to love her in time. He could have a life, here. A family. Kids of his own, that he would definitely not lock in any closets. If she loved him, wasn't it enough that he was here?
He rolled onto his stomach and watched the wind tug at the carpets strung up between the trees. That was his life. Caught between one thing and another. Battered this way and that by forces he could not control. Why couldn't life just be easy for once?
Author's note: It was chapter 24, in case you want to refresh your memory. Don't let yourself get stuck in the past, though; everything will be changing in the next chapter.