Alright - I'm not sure if this chapter warrants a warning or possibly a rating change for the fic, but - it definitely deviates from the "feel good" vibes from the last few chapters. There be stronger language here, and violence that some readers may find disturbing. Please be advised.
The events herein are based around the episode The Hessians Are Coming. This chappie is centered entirely around the events of the episode, so I recommend a watch if it's been awhile since you've seen it.
October 7, 1777
The air smelled of gunpowder.
The stench of it clung to the back of her throat as she hitched her skirts and ran through a sea of sun-bleached army tents. Golden leaves scattered at her feet, moved aside by the gusts of an eastern wind; winter is coming, it promised, yet still within it held the lingering warmth of the summer. In another time she may have allowed herself to bask in it, to appreciate the kiss of the late afternoon sun upon her face or the satisfying crunch beneath her feet. But as it was, her single focus was the mantra spinning endlessly through her mind as she burst into the hospital tent.
Bandages, water, splints. Bandages, water, splints. Bandages -
"Make way for a hero!" The holler registered somewhere in her mental periphery as she fetched the needed items, with a few to spare. Injured men were starting to pour in from the battlefield and the compulsion to make herself useful rattled alongside a nervously thumping heart. She couldn't much bear the sight of gore, but she'd spent enough time in army camps to know that an extra set of hands made you valuable. As long as you didn't ask too many questions. As long as you didn't faint at the sight of blood. As long as you did something besides stand and watch.
"His bravery won the day! Burgoyne has retreated to Saratoga!" A different voice this time, exuberant in its pitch, followed by a cacophony of cheers. This time, she took note of it. This time, her feet carried her back to the entrance of the tent, heart in her throat. If Burgoyne had retreated, that could only mean -
"We won! We won!" She squinted against the sunlight, raising a hand over her eyes to better sort out the commotion amongst a small crowd of soldiers making their way back to the camp at Bemis Heights. Amidst the clamor of whooping and hollering men, her eyes landed on the stretcher they were holding - and the most familiar figure upon it. A startled cry escaped her lips.
"General Arnold!" Thrusting her supplies into the hands of the nearest soldier, she rushed over with a rapidly-tightening chest just as they set him down on the ground. A cursory glance hinted at injury; a closer look confirmed it. Arnold was lying in a pool of blood - so much blood - still spurting from a gruesome wound mere inches above his left knee. Her stomach rolled as her eyes found his; masked with pain but cognizant, arrogant, proud. "You're hurt!" she blurted.
"Can you believe it, Sarah?" he rasped. "I was wounded in the same leg as the last time."
"I cannot believe you disobeyed General Gates' orders to stay in your tent." She knelt down quickly to assess how bad the damage was, quietly reminding herself to breathe, trying desperately to still the voice in the back of her head that whispered fatal, fatal, this could be fatal. "And...and then you led the Americans to victory?" He grabbed hold of her arm, squeezing tight enough to bruise. She swallowed down a wince.
"You're damned right I did." Shouting sounded from somewhere behind them as he pulled her closer. "Sarah," he wheezed. "Sarah, don't let them kill me."
"Kill you?" she whispered. "What -"
"Arnold!" A furious voice cut through the throng, followed by the steady thud of rapidly-approaching footsteps. "What the devil were you -" Sarah's head snapped up, quickly spotting the purpled face of General Gates as he shoved his way through. "Christ's blood," he spat, taking no notice of her; his gaze was fixed solely on the ruined flesh of Arnold's leg. "Get this man back to his quarters immediately, lest he do something rash. I'll not have him attempting escape when he's due a bloody court martial."
"Court martial?" The words left her mouth before she thought to stop them as Gates turned back 'round to face them. "This man just won you the battle. How could you possibly -"
"Sarah," Arnold cut in, his grip tightening around her wrist.
"Get him out of here," Gates ordered, still ignoring her entirely. "Insolent bastard." The men around them hurried to obey, bodily lifting the stretcher up from the ground - and she with it, with Arnold's hand still clamped around hers.
"Do not leave me alone with them," Arnold suddenly said, his eyes flashing a wild panic. "Sarah -"
"Someone must fetch the doctor," she blubbered, crying out softly as the soldiers yanked him from her grasp. "He needs help, for God's sake -"
"That's where they're taking him, girl." Gates' focused gaze moved to her, his rage still terribly evident as he leaned toward her. "And I'll not have any hysterics in my camp. Make yourself useful or stay out of my sight. This is war, girl, not a bloody tea room." Tears threatened for a moment - but only a moment. Gritting her teeth, she sidestepped the General to fix her gaze on Arnold, who was still looking at her as they ushered him away.
"I will find you," she called out, breath hitching. "I promise." Gates muttered another string of profanities before storming off after them, but it was only once she was certain he was gone that she hastily wiped the tears from her eyes. What to do now? She spun in a slow half-circle, mind spinning, painfully eyeing the shuffle of wounded men still making their way into camp. Should she follow after Arnold? Stay here to help? In the insanity of it all, she had lost track of Henri - should she try and find him first? Go and find more supplies? What to do? What to do?
Caught between the unease still threading through her body and a desire to be helpful, indecision rooted her to the spot. Across the way, a slew of red-coated men were stumbling through the gate; and despite their grim faces and arms bent up by their ears in a quiet surrender, it took her a moment to realize the truth of what she was seeing. British soldiers, her mind supplied; then tumbled headlong into reality once she spotted the bayonets still aimed at their backsides. Prisoners. A lump affixed itself into her throat, still tinged with the stink of smoke as her fingers absently curled around the pencil in her pocket. She ought to be writing some of this down. Sketching the scene, talking to someone, doing her job at the very least, and yet, she couldn't seem to muster the will to detach herself from the pallid faces of her countrymen. This was war, she knew and not a bloody tea room, but the day seemed adamant on sending her these inescapable reminders.
The thought had only just settled somewhere in the pit of her belly when a lone man limping his way into camp caught her eye. Squinting once more into the sunlight, she raised a hand to shield her gaze - and froze. The man was not quite twenty paces off but still she recognized the pace of his gait. Those familiar locks of golden hair, the piercing blue eyes that rose to meet hers the moment she started running toward him.
Towards the man who, for the last two months, had never been far from her mind.
"James!" His name was a hoarse cry from her lips as she slowed to a stop in front of him. For the second time in the last few moments, her heart leapt straight into her throat - for the James who stood before her was not the one she'd bade farewell to earlier that summer. He's thin, her mind rattled. Too thin. But no - it was more than that. It wasn't just the bloodied wound on his left arm, upon which his right hand was firmly pressed; nor was it the filth of his clothing, the weariness etched into his features, the weeks' worth of stubble lining a now very-noticeable jaw. It was his face.
His bruised, battered, very-clearly-beaten face.
"Oh, my God," she choked out. "What - what's happened to you?"
"Hello Sarah." His scabbed lip pulled into a smile as he beheld her though his voice was gruff - strained. "Long time no see."
Alarm coursed through her, fierce enough to stun her into silence as she made a quick assessment of his injuries. Bruises around and below each eye. An angry welt alongside his temple, still healing. A wound across the bridge of his nose - possible break? Her eyes moved downward to the fabric of his shirt, stained burgundy with long-dried blood. It became apparent far too quickly that this was not the result of ill-fated dealings during the battle; someone had done this to him. Confusion moved alongside her fear, squeezing out a shaking, "I thought you were with General Schuyler."
"I was." A wet cough rattled through his lungs, the sound of which made her belly clench. He winced as he straightened, swaying slightly as another group of soldiers entered the gates behind him. "I'm fine," he rasped as she moved to steady him. "It's alright and I'm...fine."
"You do not look fine." Her hands moved to his shoulders, holding him firm; it suddenly looked as if might keel over. "What happened, James?"
"We were captured." A new voice sounded from behind him and, looking over James' shoulder, she spotted a stranger approaching. She stiffened as he removed his helmet but James turned to eye the man with a knowing smile.
"To say the very least." Sarah tried and failed to quell the panic rising within her at how unlike himself he sounded - how utterly exhausted. "Sarah, meet my fellow prisoner - Gunter."
"A pleasure, Ms. Phillips." Confusion flared once more as the man bowed toward her, but it paled in comparison to the word prisoner still shadowing James' weary expression.
"Assuredly," she murmured. Her eyes moved back to James. "But what -"
"Oi! You there!" All three of them turned to spot a young soldier, beckoning anxiously toward Gunter. "You come 'ere!"
"Duty calls," Gunter grinned. It was only then she noticed that he too was sporting various injuries - none of which looked as bad as James', but there nonetheless. She watched him move back toward the larger group before pressing her hands, still upon her friend's shoulders, just a bit more firmly down.
"James," she said softly. Instinctively she pressed a hand to his cheek, heart wrenching as he winced at her touch. "I must get you to a doctor."
"I'm alright," he said again, though with decidedly less conviction this time. She moved the hair from his face, quietly grimacing as his gaze moved behind her. "We just needed to get to camp. And we did. We...did."
"You're shaking." Something shifted in his eyes; they grew cloudy, unfocused, before settling back on her.
"I think I'm..." His body lurched toward her before he abruptly pulled himself away and out of her touch. "I don't...ugh..." He staggered away from her a few steps. Pressed the back of his wrist to his mouth.
Then promptly turned, bent over, and vomited all over the ground.
She had only moved a few steps toward him when his hand shot out, halting her where she stood. "It's alright," he said hoarsely, bracing himself on one knee. He spit on the ground, eyes briefly slipping shut before he stood back up to his full height, pressing a hand to his belly. "Hard bread's no good on...on an empty stomach." Still, his attempt at levity fell abysmally short as his eyes dulled again and he pitched forward. "Sarah..."
It was the last she could make out before his legs gave way beneath him and he collapsed into her arms.
All means for peace we've tried, But found those measures vain,
North's ministerial pride, Thought fear made us complain;
But in the end convinc'd he'll see, We dread not death, but slavery.
Tho' fatal lust of power, Has steel'd the tyrant's soul,
Tho' in an ill-timed hour, He bid his thunders roll,
Great Liberty, inspir'd by thee, We fly to death or victory!
Choking on a gasp, James awoke.
Against his ribs, his heart pounded a mad, defiant rhythm that both soothed and startled him. You're alive, it coaxed; but the understanding was soon clouded by confusion as he blinked into darkness, his senses soaked in the absolute totality of it. I'm dead, was the next coherent thought, but no - no.
Death, he was certain, wouldn't hurt this much.
The pain was at first slow and scarcely felt until his awaking mind took notice of it. Remembered terrors and the lingering haunt of a nightmare propelled him to awareness of its renewed trek throughout his limbs, his spine, his head and he swallowed a moan, teeth grinding. He did not know where he was. He could ascertain nothing, see nothing, hear nothing but that of his own labored breathing and the rapid thrum of his heart. Head throbbing, he slowly twisted his neck, squinting into darkness. Think, he commanded of himself. He had dreamed of Sarah again - that much he knew. But that was far and long ago because all that arose now was the assail of cold remembrance - or had these been the nightmare? The burn of rope around his wrists. The frantic sting of the breath in his lungs as he ran in some desperate bid for his own life, the overbearing darkness of the woods, the distant gurgle of the Hudson. A friend. A battle. And then - what?
I am James, his muddied mind prodded. I am not a spy.
"James?"
He jumped at the sound of his own name being whispered behind him. He turned his head the other direction, limbs tensing; only to meet the eyes of a friend, bright and beautiful and glowing in the rising light of her lantern. His heart spoke her name before he did.
"Sarah," he choked out. She nodded slowly, as if he'd asked a question, before reaching out to dab at his forehead with a shockingly cold compress. He gasped at the contact - she was here. She was real. "You're...you're not a dream."
"No," she said softly. The familiar ease with which her eyes met his again made him want to weep. "Not a dream. I'm here."
"Where..." His voice faltered before giving up entirely and he winced as he swallowed, throat aching with thirst. "Where am I?"
"Camp hospital tent," she said. She paused in her administrations to look down at him with searching eyes. "Alongside a few of our wounded soldiers." He blinked, shifting his gaze beyond her, trying to make out shapes in the dark. She moved to pull her lantern closer beside her - that would explain the glowing - to cast its light upon the row of sleeping or moaning men to his immediate right. An immediate fear struck cold in his chest.
"Our soldiers?" he croaked. "As in...British...?"
"Sorry. I..." She shook her head, blinking rapidly. "I don't know why I said that. We are in the camp at Bemis Heights, James. Under the command of General Horatio Gates." Relief draped over him like a balm.
"I'm...I'm back with my countrymen." She nodded again, moving to dab the compress in cold water. He coughed, eyes briefly slipping shut. "I'm back..."
"Back from where, remains the question." He allowed himself to relish the feel of her fingers upon his skin, dabbing at his face and neck with careful, even swipes. Her voice took on a gentler tone when she spoke again. "You've a fever."
"Fortunate for me to have a doting caretaker," he wheezed. She offered him a careful smile.
"Can you sit up?" He jerked out a nod, watching as she turned to fetch something. "I've got some water for you. And a warm broth, if you think you can stomach it." His belly leapt at the prospect of sustenance - then quickly plummeted at the remembrance of how it had so angrily discarded the hard bread he'd consumed earlier. Even so. It had been a long time since he'd partaken of any sort of nourishment and he'd not deny what she'd brought him.
It was only as he strained to sit up that he took notice of the state he was in. The sleeve had been torn from his shirt and used as a bandage to dress the wound on his arm, and his shoes and stockings were missing. Panic flaring, he cast his gaze to his right arm to find it fully covered; but further assessment revealed an awkward tilt of his shirt slid down a too-thin shoulder, leaving his battered chest on full display for her or anyone else to see. Embarrassment flamed hot and he anxiously tugged the collar to hide away what he could as she turned back around. She probably hadn't been able to make out much in this dim light, but - still. He looked a fright. He knew he did.
She eyed him carefully as she brought the foodstuffs over. "I've sent Henri to fetch a change of clothes for you, if he can find it. Perhaps amongst the belongings you left with us before departing with General Schuyler." Oh yes - to travel light, he had said. The memory felt little more than a dream now.
"That is..." His voice died out so he cleared his throat and tried again. "...kind of you. Thank you." She nodded slowly, humming a quiet hmm from her throat.
"What happened to your arm?" She held out a ladle, filled to its brim with water. He took it with shaking fingers, and though he was keen to answer her question, it was forgotten entirely the moment the first sip passed his lips. Good God - he nearly made a fool of himself in his haste, spilling small dribbles down his neck as he swallowed it in one thirsty gulp. Never, never in his life had he ever tasted anything so sweet, so satisfyingly divine. Sarah took notice of his desperation and wordlessly refilled the ladle several times over until he'd had his fill.
"We - Gunter and I - took cover during the battle inside of a barn." He head tipped backward in quiet relief, gladdened that he'd regained most of his voice back. "Which thereafter collapsed on top of us when it was struck by cannon fire. All considered, it could have been a lot worse." Her eyes dimmed with worry as she picked up the bowl that held the broth. For a moment it looked as if she were about to pepper him with questions; but instead she only nodded again, giving the broth a quick stir.
"You were spared," she said quietly. "And I am thankful." His gaze moved to the contents of the bowl, hunger stirring, before settling back on her. Understanding filled her eyes as she drew closer, holding the bowl toward him.
"Can you..." He moved himself into a more upright position and paid dearly for it, hissing in pain as fire ricocheted down his spine.
"Sorry. I..." He held out a trembling hand. "I can...take it." She eyed the tremor with a hushed inhale before resolve set itself into her features.
"Let me help you. Here now..." She moved closer still, settling herself on her knees just at his bedside. She held the spoon close to his lips. "Have a sip." He obliged her, the hot flame of his embarrassment momentarily forgotten as the broth settled briefly on his tongue before sliding down his throat. Forget the water - this was the most succulent indulgence he'd ever partaken of in all his life. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it to be a tepid, watered down version of something that may once have been a stew, but to him it may as well have been the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. Spoonfuls simply would not do and he reached out again without thinking, taking hold of the bowl and drinking hungrily right from the source until he'd emptied it. Even then he was not satisfied and took to licking the edges until truly, he had consumed every last drop. But it was not until Sarah softly cleared her throat that his haze was broken - and he realized how lowly, how animalistic he must look to her, licking from the sides of the bowl like a wild dog. He hastily wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist before handing the bowl back over, grinning sheepishly.
"Sorry." She laughed softly, shaking her head as she folded her skirts around her. "I was just...it's been a...long time."
"You do not need to apologize, James." The mirth soon faded from her features as she watched him. The food had revived him enough to comprehend the pity in her gaze but he couldn't muster the energy to feel reviled by it; indeed it felt almost a welcome change, given the hateful company he'd been in the last few months. Her gaze dropped back to his wounded arm when she spoke again. "The doctor told me that starving men will often vomit upon eating because the body is so accustomed to limited sustenance. That it cannot handle the sudden allowance to indulge." Tears filled her eyes as she beheld him. "James, what...what happened to you?"
If it were anyone but her asking, he would allege exhaustion, severity of illness, lack of memory - anything to avoid detailing the nightmare of what had been the last two months of his life. But it was Sarah. And he had missed her - God, had he missed her - and simply being near her felt near enough to make him whole again. He had spent the last few weeks consumed with the grief of never seeing her again and he wanted - needed - to tell her.
"I was accompanying General Schuyler's company along the Adirondack Mountains, reporting on their halting tactics. As planned," he began softly. "Until early August, it was. But one day, somehow, I was...separated from the rest of the company. Somewhere in the woods. And I stumbled right into a Hessian outpost."
This boy surprised us. He appeared out of nowhere!
"They took me to Burgoyne's camp," he continued. Her eyes met his, dim with fear. "As their prisoner."
"On what charge?" she whispered. He inhaled slowly.
"Spying." Her face paled as he attempted a noncommittal shrug. "They found my reports for the Gazette and assumed the worst. A perfect storm, it was, as I'd been writing on scraps torn from desertion papers. So they..." His voice faltered despite his best efforts to sound strong. "They thought I'd been sent to induce desertion as...as well."
"Did they - did they not attempt a correspondence with the Gazette? Did they..." Her voice trailed as he offered a slow shake of his head. She wiped hastily at her eyes, now brimming with tears. "I don't...I do not understand. To arrest you is one thing but to hold you for...for that long, is just - it's illegal. And on a charge that warrants -"
"Execution," he said softly. "But only if proven." Sudden understanding dawned in her gaze.
"And without proof," she said slowly. "They must coerce you into a confession." Her eyes moved down his body again and some tender part of his heart broke as she stifled a sob. "Oh, James...they tortured you?"
"Aye." His eyes slipped shut as memory, swift and vicious, tore through his mind. "They did."
September 14, 1777
"Oi! Shag-Bag!"
James' eyes peeled open, torn from some frenzied dream in which he'd been aimlessly drifting down a river. Or perhaps it had been this river - the one bubbling past his face as it had been yesterday, and the day before that. He forced himself into an upright position, wincing as the rope that tethered him to his fellow prisoner pulled taut. He had no recollection of falling asleep. Indeed all he could remember was the chilling ordeal of the previous night, in which a small band of soldiers had taken to holding his head underwater in the hopes it would drive him to confession. The same group who had beat him nearly senseless the week before.
The same group now shouting at him as they made their way across the camp.
A familiar trepidation crept up his spine at their approach. Still though; he kept his tone light as he greeted them with a, "Morning, gents." The salutation earned him a swift blow to the face, knocking him down hard to the dew-soaked grass at the water's edge.
"You say sirs," one of the men spat, leaning down towards him. Fletcher, James thought as he pushed himself back up to his knees. A low-ranking foot soldier as mean as he was stupid, who along with his cronies, had taken to ensuring each day of his imprisonment was more miserable than the one before.
How long had he been here anyway? Weeks? Months?
"You damned yankees," the man continued. "Never showin' no respect for your superiors." At this, James couldn't help himself; he chuckled, spitting onto the ground beside him.
"Never showing any respect," he countered cheekily. He dared a look at Fletcher. "Superior my arse." The henchmen behind him guffawed and James allowed himself to enjoy the fleeting victory before he struck him again, sending him back down to the ground. Pain flared hot up the side of his face but he barely noticed it as the bottom of Fletcher's boot pressed down on his head, pinning him to the ground.
"How about now, you piece of shite?" he taunted. James squirmed but clamped his mouth shut, biting down a cry as Fletcher shifted his weight forward. "Not so high and mighty with yer face in the mud, are ya?"
"Leave him be," a quiet voice sounded - a voice he knew. Fletcher responded with a laugh, scornful in its tenor.
"As if yer one to speak, you desertin' German scum."
"You've no right to do this," Gunter held. The man he was bound to could offer little in the way of help save this quiet interjection, but he appreciated it just the same. "Only your commanding officer is permitted to interrogate. Not you."
"Well, well," Fletcher scoffed. "Ain't you a smart mouth." But still - he lifted his foot from James' head, allowing him to awkwardly push himself back to his knees. Gunter was right, of course, but it had made no difference in this camp; with food running low and tensions sky high, these men did what they wanted whether their superiors ordered them to or not.
Up to and including the unlawful torment of their prisoners.
"But my commandin' officer ain't here," Fletcher continued, voice suddenly gleeful. "Huntin', he is. Tryin' to scrounge up what all he can from these woods." He reached out suddenly and grabbed James by the front of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. "But I'll make sure you don't get a single morsel. We'll starve a confession out of ya if we have to."
As if you haven't already been trying, James almost countered. He hadn't eaten a thing in two days thanks to halved rations, but all they'd been permitted before that had been a scrap of bread or a watery broth if they were lucky. Still the gnawing hunger pains had long given way to a dull ache in the pit of his stomach that left the rest of him hollow and exhausted. Still - defiance remained his only possible recourse and so he flashed his tormenter a wide grin and cheekily inquired, "What sort of confession?"
"That you're a bleedin' spy." The accusation was not new, but he could not shake the dread that crawled down his spine at the mention of that cursed word - spy. It brought with it recollection of a young man not much older than himself, a failed mission, and the empty, bulge-eyed stare as he'd swung from the end of a rope.
"As I've told your commander many times," he said, keeping his voice level. "Along with Burgoyne, a slew of British officers and half your bloody army, I am a journalist. Not a spy."
"Right," he laughed, sneering at him. "And I'm a horse's arse."
"No need to state the obvious."
"James," Gunter warned from behind him but it came too late. Fletcher slapped him hard across the mouth, then grabbed ahold of his shirt collar again, pulling him toward him.
"Go on then," he spat. "Keep going. You'll see what happens if you keep givin' me lip." James remained silent, jaw working as his head pounded in protest.
Damn them. Damn them all to hell.
"Leave him be, for God's sake," Gunter interjected again. "He's only a boy."
"Just what I thought," Fletcher jeered, ignoring him. "All bark n' no bite. Typical yankee shite." James held his gaze as he leaned in close, voice dropping to a whisper. "I ought to shoot ya where ya stand. But then I'd miss the pleasure of watchin' ya hang. Of watchin' yer dainty little complexion go purple as a plum as the rope strangles the life from ya." His lips pulled into a wide, eerie smile. "A mighty fittin' end for a gutless spy."
"I am not," he spat, "a spy." Fletcher burst out laughing again, tipping his head backward in feigned glee.
"Not a spy," he chortled. "Not a spy. What with you and yer delicate condition." He released his grip on his shirt, only to grab hold of his bound hands and yank them upward, stepping aside to showcase them to his snickering comrades, three in total. "Look at these soft little hands, lads," he bellowed. "Not a day's hard work in all his life." James made to yank his hands away but Fletcher held tight, waving them about with an absurdly strong grasp. "Smooth as tulip petals!" The men all began laughing uproariously, all but Gunter, as blood pooled in James' cheeks. Fletcher fixed him with a hateful stare, shaking his head in disgust. "Not a spy my arse."
"I am a journalist," he pressed, though the insistence sounded pathetic even to his own ears. "A journalist, God damn you -"
"I'd sooner believe you to be a lady than a journalist, Shag-Bag." The man chuckled and released his hands, eyeing him strangely. "Bein' so soft and frail. Maybe you are a lady after all." James' heart quickened as he took a step back. Fletcher took a step forward.
"Piss off," James snapped, though a tremor had found its way into his voice. He didn't like the way he was leering at him. Didn't like the strange darkness that had suddenly filled his gaze.
"What have you got beneath your britches, mm? If I were to yank 'em off, would I find quim there instead of cock?" Fletcher reached out toward him, laughing, as James stumbled clumsily backwards, nearly falling in his haste.
"Get - get away from me." Fletcher advanced anyway, a vile grin slowly pulling at his lips. James moved back until the rope that bound him to Gunter pulled taut, halting him at the water's edge. Trapped, his mind screamed. Trapped -
"Maybe we ought to go elsewhere. Interrogate you privately." Fletcher angled his head toward his fellow soldiers but never took his eyes off of him. "Hand me a knife, would ya lads?"
Panic surged, soaking his body in a cold sweat. "You touch me," James bit out, "and I'll kill you."
"Sure ya will." One of his men placed a dagger in his waiting hand and he advanced slowly, idly sliding the handle between his fingers. "Least you'll try." He leaned down and with a quick flick of his wrist, cut clean through the rope that bound him to Gunter, quickly snatching the freed end of it. "Come now," he grinned. "You come with me."
Panic drew a pathetic "No" from his lips as Fletcher yanked on the rope, pulling him forward. It was as if he weighed nothing with how effortlessly he coerced him to movement, how helpless he was to his strength. Cold terror flared at all that meant. "No," he said again. "Damn it, no -"
"It's only to see I were right, little one." Fletcher's voice had dropped to a sickening softness, but still within it he could hear the threat, the mocking. At James' refusal to move, he began twisting the rope around his hand, edging closer. "And if I am right," he said softly, "you'd finally serve some purpose here in camp." Fletcher's gaze traveled jarringly down his body, sending his pulse into a frenzy. His voice dropped lower then, so only he could hear. "And even if I'm wrong, I could still find similar use for ya, boy."
He did not knowingly lunge forward. Nor was he aware that he had swung his bound hands upward to crack against Fletcher's nose, not until the bastard's piercing shriek briefly shattered the haze of his fear. The sound of it awakened him; and from it emerged a desperation, a frantic rage that ate away all remnants of passivity, all hopes that they would listen to him. For weeks he'd known only his will to survive. To try and stay alive no matter the cost, to insist upon his innocence no matter how much they beat him or taunted or threatened him. But he was now as a powder keg, set to explode beneath the pressure of all the sleepless nights on the bank of this river, crying out to God and begging Him that he should live to see the next sunrise - only to then face each new day like a chained animal, beaten and starved and tortured for a crime he did not even commit. No more, his mind screamed as Fletcher fell, as his fists slammed into his face, over and over and over again. No more, no more, no more.
"You depraved fuck!" some voice screamed, desperate and hateful in its pitch - only for him to realize that the voice was his own, tearing from his throat enraged and terrified. "Fucker! You goddamned - fucking - fucker! I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill -"
Something struck him in the head, violently knocking him off of Fletcher's cowering form. Wrists still bound, the right side of his face caught the brunt of the fall, smacking to the earth with a dull thud; and for a few, blissful seconds, he felt nothing. Knew nothing, save that steady gurgle of the water by his ears and a smear of purple fogging through his line of sight. Forget me nots, his mind supplied. Sarah's favorite. She'd told him that, once.
It was the last coherent thought he had before they attacked him.
Somewhere in the ensuing clamor he could make out a voice screaming at them to stop - stop, stop, please stop - but it was soon drowned out into a quiet nothing as fists and boots pummeled his body into oblivion. Up soon became indistinguishable from down. Light filtered through the uneven tilt of a world spotted black; he tasted blood and couldn't breathe and bore each blow with a spiraling understanding that they were going to beat him to death.
To death -
Only for the barrage to stop as suddenly as it had begun, with his face packed to dirt and a slow moan slipping through bloodied lips. Could it be? he wondered. Was it over? Only then he felt the ropes around his wrists tighten and the sudden, horrible skid of the ground below his body. They were dragging him - away from the river, away from Gunter, away from any semblance of safety. Gravel chewed the skin on his chest and belly and he bit down a scream, his legs jerking in a feeble attempt at protest. Some baser instinct nudged him to fight, stand, do something - but then they dropped him again. Dim voices warbled through the fog of his slowly-alerting mind as he rolled over onto his side, wheezing. A half-uttered prayer was on his lips when someone grabbed him and bodily hauled him to his knees. Squinting into the sunlight, ferociously blinking the blood and sweat from his eyes, he tried at once to get his bearings though it took a few moments for his vision to clear; to finally spot the towering shape of a tree before them and two of Fletcher's men running toward it.
And then to watch, in muted horror, as they swung a hastily crafted noose around one of the branches.
"No," he whispered, terror mounting tenfold as they forced him to his feet. "Wait, wait...no...!" A foot slammed into his backside, hard enough to send him back to his knees. He cried out as Fletcher grabbed the loose tendrils of his hair and yanked his head back.
"Walk," he hissed in his ear, "Or I'll shoot your legs out from under ya."
"I'm not a spy," he sputtered, pushing uselessly against his captors as they hauled him back up. Panicked, he dove into a verbal arsenal gone dry, stammering an oft-repeated defense that meant nothing, absolutely nothing to them. "I am not a spy! You cannot - no! NO! For God's sake, I am not -"
Fletcher's fist slammed into his belly, quieting his harried cries into a gargled whimper. "Yer a spy if I say yer a spy," he hissed. The earth dipped and shifted as they dragged him the rest of the way, unceremoniously throwing him to his knees before shoving the rope over his head.
"Wait," James pleaded, his voice little more than a rasped whimper. This wasn't happening. Not like this, not like this, not like - "Please -"
Fletcher, face still bloodied, bent down to behold him with a wicked leer. "Where's yer cheek now, ya cocky shite?" He stood straight and swung his arm up. "Pull him up, lads!" he bellowed. "Now!"
A final no had just barely made it past his lips when the rope went taut around his throat and he was violently wrenched him from the ground.
Terror, then.
And pain.
Pain that drowned out all reason, all coherent thought, boring deep into muscle, bone, and sinew. An animalistic agony that fired every nerve in his body, demanding he fight, move, do something, anything, to keep from dying this violent, violent death. His legs swung out of their own accord, desperately seeking purchase; his fingers clawed at the noose in an instinctive need to free his airway.
But each plead of his desperate body resulted in a bitter nothing. He was as a fish caught on a line, captured and helpless against a stronger foe who alone determined whether he should live or die. Tears burned the dancing haze of his vision; the pressure in his skull mounted to something unbearable, hammering a horrible rhythm in his ears until he thought his head would burst.
But if you should go and die, James Hiller, some distant memory echoed, I will never forgive you.
"Drop him!"
The firm command sent him careening downward, crashing to his knees on hardpacked earth. Sputtering, gasping, choking, his fingers scrabbled at his neck again as he greedily sucked air into flaming lungs. Help me, he tried to scream. They are going to kill me. Help me. But the words crumbled in the folds of his ruined throat, lodging there as the peal of laughter - laughter - echoed all around him. "What's wrong, Shag-Bag?" someone tittered, as if from far, far away. "Cat got your tongue?"
Back up they pulled him, this time with no forewarning. The agony from only seconds before was reduced to mere pittance in comparison; now, the crushing weight around his neck was an eruption, what felt fierce enough to snap his head clean off. Body spasming, legs jerking, a guttural cry was pushed from his lungs that drowned in the spittle frothing the corners of his mouth. Watery vision popped, then began to darken, sinking him to the depths of a blackness that beckoned the end.
Only for light to come roaring back once they dropped him again.
And after several, terrifying seconds - back up.
Then back down.
And back up.
Over and over and over again, gleefully ensuring he would not die quickly, no, but slowly, painfully, allowing him just time enough to catch his breath before violently stealing it back again.
You are going to die here, someone said.
Sarah's face, suddenly. Eyes aglow in candlelight below the deck of a ship, the warmth of her fingers upon his own, the way she had trembled in his arms on the bank of a frozen river. Visions of fire; the titter of Henri's gleeful taunting. Then himself - and Moses, lifting him off the ground from where he'd collapsed at the print shop door, begging for a job, for a chance.
For life.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't -
Please, please, I don't want to die
But this wasn't death, no.
This was dying.
And then all at once, he was falling. Falling for ages in the span of a single moment, until his face smacked dirt, jostling a brain turned to mud. Dead? some inner voice queried but no - no. For above and around him he could hear shouting, a cacophony of rumbled commands and horses' hooves that drew him back to wakefulness, garbled as it was. He could not move. Couldn't think beyond the torments of his ruined body, of the agony now twining through every part of him. His lips parted to draw breath, for what felt the first time ever.
Then instantly wished he hadn't.
"Bleeding Christ!" a voice screamed. "He's still alive!" Light swam across his line of vision, blurring before haphazardly clearing to reveal a world of threes: three suns. Three horses. Three soldiers approaching him quickly, only to morph into a single man upon skittering to a stop in front of him. Terrible pain ruptured at the base of his neck as the man grabbed and hauled him upright, bracing him against the tree-turned-gallows. "Ho there! Can you hear me?" The face in front of him bobbed and weaved, a smear of lopsided features that kept speaking as he struggled to stay upright. The rope, he tried to say around a tongue ten times too big for his mouth. Get the rope off of me. But he couldn't. Not even once the man yanked it up and over his head, lightly slapping his face a few times, still rapid firing questions he couldn't answer.
Oh God - Oh God, why couldn't he answer?
"Who authorized this?" a different voice bellowed as firm hands grabbed him underneath the arms and pulled him to his feet. His limbs were as jelly, legs bowing awkwardly as they forced him to walk. He made it but a few step before he collapsed, numb fingers digging into the cold earth, half expecting and almost hoping they would put a bullet in his brain for how badly he hurt. Oh, God. Oh Christ in heaven, how badly he hurt -
"There will be order here!" that same, commanding voice thundered from somewhere behind him. "Away! All of you! No prisoner is to be executed until a confession is had and a proper sentence administered! Are you mad? Are you -"
A cold darkness beckoned, offering respite. Head spinning like a top, he tried refusing it, dimly aware that someone somewhere was commanding him to get up. But he couldn't - physically could not muster the strength to even raise his head from the dirt, much less stand. Rest, his body insisted. Just rest a moment. Some other force, stronger than threat of death, draped over his senses.
The last he saw before it pulled him under was Gunter, not ten paces off, watching him with wide, fearful eyes.
"I awoke back by the river."
A pervasive quiet had fallen, as thick as the shadows pressing in on him from all sides. Odd, he thought, for the terror to still be so raw, so visceral when only called to recollection. "Bound once more to Gunter. He had saved my life, running to get help as he had. But I couldn't - I couldn't speak for a week, afterward." He stared hard into the darkness around and in front of him, unable to meet her gaze. "They were to take me back to Albany. For trial or execution, I could not say. Perhaps...perhaps both. But it was after their victory at Freedman's Farm but a few days later I knew I had to leave. I had to...run. I'd rather hoped Fletcher had been killed in the fight but he returned as a madman, drunk with victory. Either I ran or he would kill me before we ever reached Albany. There was no other course." Bitterness spilled from his throat into darkness. "I hope one of ours blew his head from his shoulders today."
The silence lingered, stretching long into something decidedly uncomfortable. It prompted him to weary thoughtfulness, wondering what she now thought of him. Weak? Foolish? Immoral for saying such a thing aloud?
"James." The sound of her voice filled his lungs with relief. "I cannot...I cannot imagine what you have -"
"Do you remember Nathan Hale?" He swallowed against a tightening throat, voice trembling. "In his final moments. When the...when they put the rope around his..."
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I remember."
"I thought of him when I - as I - as the -" He gestured toward his throat and wished, desperately, that he could not feel the immensity of her gaze boring into the side of his face. That he could bear to look into her eyes. "Of how he shed no tears. How he did not fight, nor scream nor -"
"James." She spoke his name again as an entreaty, as if she knew what he was about to say.
"And all I could think of was my - myself. How I -" He shook his head, lungs filling with remembered terror. "And how you were right. How I could be so brash as to think I would, I could willingly give my life for liberty and when the time came I was...I was so..." He curled his tongue around the word, tears pricking at his eyes. "...cowardly."
"No." Sarah's soft insistence was enough to send him spiraling, or at least it would have if she hadn't taken hold of his hand, gripping tight enough to anchor him back to himself. "Look at me. James please...please look at me." He turned his head slowly, wincing beneath the sorrow in her gaze. She beheld him as one would a dying man and oh - oh - wouldn't that be easier if he were. Her head shook slowly, eyes filling with tears. "You are not...a coward."
"When I came to and realized I was back in that Godforsaken camp -"
"You are not," she said again, voice firm with conviction, "a coward."
"Then what am I?" The brief flame of his anger cooled beneath the softness of her voice and the way she was looking at him but still - still. He could not voice the terror that had so consumed him that day. The weighted burden of his convictions falling like chaff the moment that noose had been tied around his neck. The shame of all his prior certainties regarding liberty's violent pursuit, turned to dust once it had been his own life on the line. He had been afraid to die. Afraid to surrender. Afraid to survive it all. He knew not what else to call it. Bitterness turned his voice hollow. "Not a soldier, surely. Just as you once said."
"No," she murmured, and the single utterance was like a shot to the lungs. Her gaze moved down his face. "Not a soldier."
"Nor a strongarm," he spat. "Nor a journalist, or printer, or man, for all it's - it's worth. I am whatever I am deemed to be. Orphan, urchin, outcast, prisoner, goddamned bloody...bloody spy." A pain, long dormant, threatened to come tumbling out where it did not belong as his fingers curled more tightly around hers, desperate for her understanding. "So what am I? What am I?"
She did not speak again for a few, long seconds. She did not realize, he didn't think, how badly he needed her to tell him. Just once, he thought. Just one time from the one person in this world who knew him best, who never failed to speak the truth whenever it was necessary and right here, right now, it was necessary. He felt half mad from it. Half mad from the unspoken confession of I did not want to die, not after everything, when all I could truly think of was you -
"You are James," she finally said, voice hushed. "A writer. A friend. A brother, to little Henri. A son, to Moses." The mention of those he loved wrenched a sob that lodged halfway up his throat but he spoke around it, refusing to let it free.
"And a coward."
Something moved in her expression. Something calm and unknown, like the night in the study when she had begged him not to enlist. His chest heaved as she reached out and pushed the hair from his eyes, gently running her nails across his scalp; and unbidden, a strained whimper was pulled from his throat. How long had it been since such kind hands had been laid upon him? "If you insist it cowardice," she spoke softly, "I know I cannot persuade you otherwise. But James..." Here, she faltered. Here, she slowly lifted his hand and pressed it to her chest, right over her heart, splaying her hand over his to keep it there. "You are my dearest friend. And I cannot...I cannot imagine a world without you in it. So I must insist it grace - a grace most providential, for how it has brought you back to me alive. You must see that. You must know it to be true, for how - for how gravely, how thoroughly, your end would have ruined me."
He wanted to deny it. Wanted to assuage the weight of his own fear and shame by insisting she would have been just fine, that his death would have been little more than a footnote in the annals of their shared history. But it seemed cruel to speak such a thing aloud with his hand still resting so carefully over her heart, as she gazed upon him with such pain, such sorrow over what could have been. There had been many moments in the course of the last several weeks that he had truly believed he would never lay eyes on her again; would never feel her touch nor hear her voice outside of memory as he clung to life on the bank of a flowing river. Being here with her now was nothing short of a miracle and he was ruining it like he always did. Had he not prayed for this? Begged God to bestow upon him a second chance, if only to right the many wrongs he'd committed in the course of his eighteen years?
To be offered the chance to tell her how he truly felt?
I love you, he nearly said. His heart clamored for it, yearning for the release of those affections that had kept him sane in the shadow of his tormentors. Before this, the notion that he could ever have more than the tease of their flirtatious banter had seemed an illusory whim, an ache carved into bone; but now, now, with her imploring gaze and gentle grief, he felt as a blind man to which sight had made a stunning return. Could she want him, despite it all? Could this be the fulfillment of his quiet longing, wherein Sarah Phillips would...love him in return?
It was at once exhilarating and all too much to bear as he slowly moved his hand from beneath her touch to gently cup her cheek in the palm of his hand. "Sarah," he murmured. What to say? And how to say it, surrounded by so much pain? "Sarah, you must know that I thought of you. Always."
"And I, you." Tears pooled, then fell, as she leaned into his touch. His heart began to race. "God help me, James. If I had known..."
"Then you would have suffered for it." He carefully brushed his thumb over the swell of her cheek, hand shaking. "For you to have been spared any anguish is my sole comfort in the whole affair."
Her eyes moved down his face, features drawn. For a moment she only looked at him, and he at her; and some dim, distant part of him wondered if she was about to make a confession of her own. But she only swallowed thickly, voice barely above a whisper. "How scared you must have been."
"I was," he murmured, some silent thrill coursing through him at how she had not pulled away from his touch. "Mostly that I would not...see you again." A sad smile pulled at her lips.
"Well now that I have you back, you are not to leave me again, James Hiller. Not ever...ever again." Her voice broke as she spoke. "Are we in agreement?"
I love you. His tongue was heavy with the unspoken confession. I'm in love with you. I would never be parted from you, had I the choice. "Aye," he whispered. His fingers danced lightly over the freckles along her cheek, wishing with ferocity that he could press his lips there instead. "We are. Never again, Sarah." It was a promise the both of them were powerless to keep, but still it felt good - relieving even - to regain some semblance of control in the heart of so much uncertainty. Her gaze softened as she beheld him and the quiet voice within his mind grew that much louder. Say it. Tell her now. His entire body felt aglow with these strange, exhilarating sensations now coercing him into confession. "Sarah," he murmured. Her hand moved over his, still holding her face. "There is so much that I...that I need to tell you -"
"James?" Sarah's body jerked at the sound of Henri's voice, and James followed her gaze to spot him slipping quickly down the makeshift aisle of beds. As if struck, she pulled quickly from his touch and busied herself with gathering up the empty broth bowl; gaze averted, she looked almost ashamed and the oddity of her stilted movements sent an unpleasant lurch through his chest. "James," Henri said again, his voice a hissed whisper in the dark. "Mon dieu, my friend. You look awful." A strained laugh slipped from his throat as the boy approached his bedside.
"Nice to see you too, Henri." He offered a warm smile, then dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around him in an awkward hug. As James moved a hand to slowly pat him on the back with his good arm, movement in his periphery caught his eye; only to realize that it was Sarah, and that she was moving past them, heading toward the exit. "Sarah?" he called out softly. "Are you leaving?" Don't leave me. Please, don't leave me.
"I just need to, ehm..." She spun her finger around in a bizarre gesture, voice hoarse. "I just need some...air. Some water. I will return." And with a harried hitch of her skirts she left, soon swallowed by the press of the darkness that suddenly felt that much heavier. Swallowing down his disappointment, he looked to Henri, who had raised his head from his chest.
"And what have you been up to, hm?" The boy's smile only widened as he tousled his hair and he hoped, at least for the moment, that he couldn't make out the stubborn wash of tears still pricking his eyes.
"A little bit of this and a little bit of that," he replied cryptically, which prompted another tickling laugh in his chest. Henri leaned back to settle at his bedside, plopping something on his chest. "And I found this for you, James!" James' fingers ran slowly over the fabric, his mind a sudden blur. A clean shirt. Good God, it felt ages since...
"Thank you, Henri." The mere thought of changing felt entirely too difficult, so he simply curled the linen against his chest, offering the boy a nod. "You are a saint amongst men."
"James, what has 'appened to you? Why do you look as if you 'ave been run over by three carts and at least four horses?" His eyes darted up and down his body once, twice, three times, growing more alarmed with each onceover. James forced a smile to his face.
"It was five carts, actually." A cough rattled through his body as Henri's eyes widened. "And an entire herd of horses."
His young friend's playful lilt disappeared behind the concern overwhelming his features. "You mustn't joke about such things, mon ami."
"You may be right." Eager to change the subject, James made himself sit up, hissing in pain as his ribs smarted. Henri moved to steady him but he shook his head no. "It's alright," he lied for what felt the thousandth time that day. "I'm alright. Just a bit of bruising."
"At least you were not shot, like General Arnold." James motioned with his finger for the lad to keep his voice down, to which he instinctively obeyed. "They do not know if he will survive the night," he whispered loudly. "Sarah told me the doctor wants to amp...eh, what is the word - cut his leg off."
Well. Therein lied a most sordid reminder that things could always be worse. But he only nodded at this bit of intel, curiosity piqued. "The doctor told Sarah that?" Why?
"Oui. It was a terrible, bloody mess James. I 'ave never seen Sarah look so scared." An unwelcome numbness pressed into his lungs as Henri leaned forward, voice pitched with conspiracy. "Sarah made me leave his tent. And I was glad to. It took hours for Arnold to calm down after they pulled the musket ball from his leg."
Hours, his mind rattled.
Sarah looked so scared.
General Arnold.
Hours.
"How did I...ehm..." He cleared his throat, schooling his expression towards indifference lest Henri become alarmed. "If Sarah was with Arnold, how did I come to be...here?"
"Me, of course." Henri flashed a grin, completely unaware as to the gaping chasm now clawing its way through his belly. "I 'elped her get you back here. Then she left to attend to Arnold, and..." He shrugged. "I did not see her again until she came to see you."
"And when was that?" he rasped. Why does it matter? But even as his mind formed the question, he already knew the answer. He had assumed, for whatever reason, that Sarah had been...by his side. Had been tending to him. To envision her doing the same with fucking Arnold made his blood run hot, to an intensity that surprised even himself. Though he was dimly aware that he was exhausted, and sick, and in horrendous pain - and the combination of all three was certainly enough to drive good sense from any man's mind - he couldn't stop the swell of jealousy that prickled in his chest, in what felt his very blood, quickly blazing to inferno.
"About an 'our ago." Henri frowned. "Why?"
All at once the noose was gathered back 'round his throat, yanking firm as it drove any coherent response right out of his lungs. "Hm," he managed to grit out, shaking his head as if to say no bother. Henri didn't seem to notice and began to regale him with all that had transpired in Bemis Heights since they'd parted ways at the start of the summer, but his focus had shifted, blurring into the hum of suspicion in every limb, every labored breath.
Arnold?
Benedict fucking Arnold?
That's why she ran off so suddenly, his heart reasoned. She wanted to be with him.
Not you.
And why wouldn't she? Why wouldn't she run to him first - the glorious, renowned war hero who had so captured her attention after her prolonged stay with him earlier that spring? A man who had taken a bullet for the second time in service to his country while he had - what? Gotten lost in the woods like a bloody idiot and been held captive for the last two months? Had longed for her as some lovesick schoolboy, spoke of her, dreamed of her, all while she had been here, in the company of her celebrated general, growing closer to him with each passing day? To the victor went the spoils, as the adage went; and to the hero, Ms. Phillips. Not the coward.
Not the stupid, impoverished -
His head swam with memory; of his own frantic desperation after the fall of Fort Tryon, how nothing and no one could have stopped him from finding her. How it ran in such sickening opposition to Sarah and her choices, how the moment they had been reunited today she had chosen to abandon him, to rush to be at Arnold's side for hours before deigning to grace his bedside in what now seemed little more than a passing obligation. Silently tolerating his pathetic tale of woe, no doubt counting down the minutes until she could be with Arnold again.
To think that he had almost - that he had nearly told her, had come so close to laying his heart bare after -
Get ahold of yourself, you fool. This time apart hasn't changed a thing. She doesn't love you.
She doesn't love you.
Sarah stumbled outside, eagerly drinking cool night air into aching lungs. She needed a moment; only a moment, to compose herself and calm this sickening churn of dread in her belly, intent on an outburst. She felt dizzy; she needed some water. Or no, just a moment was all she needed to gather the scream of her thoughts into a neat bundle and cast it aside for another time, another day. Far be it from her to lose her composure. Not here in this camp. Not when James, and Benedict, and so many others needed her so.
Or so you tell yourself, some shamed part of her mind taunted. If only to justify your being here.
The pressure behind her ribs mounted, threatening a scene. Pressing a wrist to her mouth, she slipped into shadow and slammed her hands onto the steady rim of a nearby water barrel. Breathe, she countered. Just breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Still it did little to waylay the pounding tensions of her heart. She felt surreal; not a part of herself. Dim echoes of camp life - a distant cheer, the clang of pewter tankards, the thump of logs thrown onto a fire blazing hot - swam through her ears but still she wondered if this was a dream. A sickening consequence of her own imagination as she tried to make sense of how a civilian, how a journalist could have been held captive by British soldiers and nearly killed for a crime he did not even commit. But no, her own mind countered. Not just a journalist. Not just a civilian. James.
Her James.
A sob shuddered through her before she could stop it, then another, and another. She sank to her knees and clamped a hand over her mouth; better to get this out now in the dark, where James could neither see or hear her. He would hate to see her cry. Would hate to know he was the cause of it, that he and he alone could drive out what little pretenses of strength she had left in her. That the sight of his bruised and broken body was like a knife to her own throat, that the haunted shadow in his once-vibrant eyes held the power to kill her. Or so it felt.
Seeing him in such pain hurt. Hurt more badly than anything she had ever known.
What kind of pity was this? Surely not the same that had plagued her an hour previous when she had run from Arnold's tent, her skirts stained with his blood, her fingers still numb for how he'd nearly crushed them. Having denied the comforts of laudanum or rum, the good General had been in hysterics, frantic screams rising into a fever pitch of paranoia as the camp doctor had agonizingly pulled the musket ball from his leg and righted his shattered bones.
It's Gates, that bloody bastard! He'd sooner have me killed than court martialed!
She closed her eyes, near to reeling from the haunting recollection of his pain and terror.
Do not leave me, Sarah - for God's sake, do not leave...!
But James, her mind had insisted, then just as now. James.
The evening's events were a blur as she pondered them, head pounding, standing back up on shaking legs to splash water on her face and take a drink - the first since this morning, if memory served. Her body felt rent from her spirit for how exhausted she was, but somehow also awake, alert - restless. To have finally found James still asleep had been a mercy, a kindness even; but also dealt from the same fates which had delivered him such devastating abuses, then imparted to her from shaking lips. They had almost killed him. The countrymen she had mourned but a few hours previous had almost killed her dearest friend -
And what if? she asked of her own reflection, smeared and distorted across the water's moving mirror. What if they had? Would she have ever found out what had happened to him? Or would James' fate have forever remained a mystery to her, his body thrown in some shallow grave, nameless and forgotten alongside the other countless casualties in this war for independence? Victory or death! resounded the Patriots' battle cry - but whose death, she now wondered? Everyone? All of them? Even those who did not fight on the frontlines, did not seek to kill on behalf of king, coin, or country?
Had it really taken her this long to understand what all was truly at stake?
Silly, selfish girl!
To report on the war was one thing. To see its effects so personally, so intimately, was quite another. She'd always known this but now it was like a dredge upon her soul, an anchor drawing her downward to startlingly icy depths. She had thought he was in Stillwater. She had assumed he was safe, far away from bloody battlefields and hateful foot soldiers when all the while he was - he'd been -
"Eh - Ms. Phillips? Pardon..."
A voice emerged from the darkness, one she recognized immediately. She turned quickly, heart in her throat - the darkness had not hidden her as well as she had thought, apparently. "Gunter," she spoke softly as he approached. Her throat swelled as she beheld him, struck with the weight of all that he was to her now.
The man who had saved James' life.
"My intrusion, you must pardon," he said kindly. His eyes shifted toward the tent. "I have come to see James. Is he...is he well?"
"As well as can be." She studied the man a moment, heart ramming an insistent rhythm against her ribs. Nothing and everything mattered right here in this moment and though the inquiry was stupid - irrelevant even - she asked it anyway. "How do you know my name?" He paused at the tent's entrance, turning to eye her quizzically.
"Beg pardon?"
"My name. I never told it to you, sir. How do you know it?" The corner of his mouth tilted into a smile as he stood upright to face her.
"James, of course." The way he said it felt like a revelation and she had to bite down hard on her tongue to stop another barrage of tears. Something in his gaze moved as he looked at her. "He spoke of you very often, Ms. Phillips."
"Did he?" Of course he did. Of course he did.
"He did. I feel as if I know you, for how often he spoke of you." His fingers twitched by his side as he stared at her a moment. Just - stared at her. "We were bound to each other, you know."
"I know," she began to say but his eyes had shifted, moving to the darkness beyond the edge of camp.
"Our lives and our fates, I mean. Not only by virtue of the rope that tethered us." His gaze shifted back toward her. "We thought we were going to die."
His visage momentarily blurred before her as tears sprang anew, despite all concerted efforts to keep them at bay. "How dreadful," she whispered. "How terrible, it must have been."
"He asked me to deliver a message to you." The man's voice had grown solemn as he studied her. "Should he perish. Should I survive. In the worst of it, his thoughts were with you."
Fingernails cutting into her palms, she tried to brace herself for how badly the earth was suddenly swaying beneath her feet. "What was...what was the message?"
But Gunter shook his head no, his chest rising in an unsteady inhale. "It is no longer my message to deliver," he returned quietly. "The sentiments are his and he should speak them, now that God has granted him a safe return. But..." Here he faltered, eyes fluttering in a nervous blink. Far away, another hearty cheer slid eerily through the darkness and the cold of the night's hard-won victory. Gunter cleared his throat. "But this is war, Ms. Phillips. My fate therein is yet unknown, as is yours, and James', and all others who choose to fight another day. There is no guarantee of a tomorrow. The difference of knowing this and believing it often lies somewhere in the space between them."
"Sir," she murmured, head spinning with how this tangent so closely mirrored her own thoughts; but he pressed on, adamant, it seemed, to finish.
"I came to know James in that space between. Where death was certain, but life and hope remained ever within the ether. He cares for you, you know. And I saw your face when first you laid eyes on him today. You should...tell him." She knew exactly what he was saying to her; could hear beyond the covert means of his message, could feel it warming her blood and body despite all the pain and suffering and loss the day and this war had brought them.
Still, she asked the question. Still, she felt the sudden need for someone, anyone, besides her to speak it aloud. "Tell him what?"
He studied her again, brows creasing. "You should tell him." And then he was gone, disappearing inside the tent just as quickly as he'd appeared.
You should tell him.
In a matter of hours, the sun would slip over the horizon and cast its light over a new day. Just as it had always done. Just as it would continue to do. Certainties, she knew, were few and far between in the course of any given life and it was why she clung to the few that she still had. She was here now, in the cold of an American camp, and James was alive. She was dizzy. She had breath in her lungs.
And James loved her.
Her fingers moved to clutch the gold around her throat as she turned inward, settling into the turn of every memory, every fight, every toss and turn of two lives that had unknowingly intertwined the moment that young journalist had stepped foot below the deck of the Dartmouth. Could it be, that in the balance between what was and all that could have been, she could finally admit to herself her own truth? That something as immovable as the rising of the sun could have been with her all along, settling so deeply into bone and blood that she had not known its depth until it had become so much a part of her? That after every flutter of her heart, every thrill at the sound of James' laughter, every time she had gazed into those wild, beautiful eyes she had found a way to reason away what her heart already knew?
Until this day. Until the moment that brought the jarring realization that it could be taken from her - just like that.
Hope, she thought, felt a bitter thing to arise out of so much loss and heartache and pain. Her eyes moved to the tent flaps, behind which laid the light of her heart. James was in there. The ground was firm beneath her feet. And this wasn't pity, no.
This was love.
So we've got a little bit of everything: wingman Gunter, Henri being the unknowing catalyst for a misunderstanding trope, and #realizations. I think of Sarah as the type to intellectualize her own feelings and she needed to be whacked with the metaphorical 2x4 to FINALLY come around.
I did NOT want to take this long to update, so a huge thank you to those still reading/enjoying. The Liberty's Kids fandom is the absolute best and no, I won't be taking any counterarguments at this time. Now a few notes:
Shag-Bag, in this era/context: a poor sneaking fellow, a man of no spirit.
The song James recalls when he wakes is an untitled ballad from 1776, set to the tune of Rule Britannia! Did he sing this to himself during his captivity? Is he feeling haunted by its lyrics? I'll leave you all to your headcanons.
I feel like this episode really underplayed the traumas of being held prisoner for "weeks" (which James himself even mentions in the show) while being accused of spying and YES I know it's a kids show and the message was really "don't be racist, Hessians were people too" but COME ON. For those inclined toward historical accuracy, I trust you'll forgive my liberties; there are definitely more coming in the next chapter what with the timeline and all.
Much, much love to all of you.