Matthew goes back to the Army camp feeling dizzy with the sudden turn his life took in the last two weeks and nearly drunk on happiness.

Two weeks ago, he has been engaged to Lavinia and fighting guilt for his inability to give up his stubborn thoughts of Mary.

Now he is free of guilt - well, mostly, he still feels guilty for breaking up Lavinia's heart - and he is engaged to the love of his life.

He is engaged to Mary.

Mary loves him. She has loved him for years.

He is the happiest man on the planet.

xxx
William joins him the next day, well informed of the recent developments and grinning while offering his congratulations.

Matthew gives him a rueful glance.

"You look like you're trying to stop yourself very hard from saying I told you so, sir."

"I would never have presumed to tell you who to marry, sir," answers William solemnly, but then adds with a cheeky smile. "But I have served you two through enough dinners to know that you made the right choice."

Matthew can only smile in agreement. He has never felt something to be more right in his life that being engaged to Mary.

"Do you think Carson will let me back into his somehow good graces now or is he going to hold the grudge forever?" he asks with interest.

William grins again.

"He is not using Captain Crawley in the same tone of voice he says Sergeant Barrow anymore, so I think you have some chance, sir."

Matthew throws his head back and laughs.

xxx

He's not laughing so much through the rest of January though, mostly because he has barely any opportunity to see Mary. If he's not on a stint in the trenches, he's being sent further down the line with his men to work on construction of defences against the expected German offensive or on officer training of some kind. It's February already and he misses her something fierce. He cannot stand the injustice of the fact that they are so geographically near and yet unable to meet for weeks at the time, especially after seeing each other so often in the autumn.

He is back in the front trenches now, sharing duty with Summers and his men. It is cold, but nowhere near as much as it was in the last days of December and in the beginning of January, and quiet, so far at least. Summers should really go to his dugout on the other side of the trench, but he takes to hanging out with Matthew and Lieutenant Anderson, claiming they are better company.

"You mean we don't chide you like Lieutenant Williams does."

"The man is a bloody puritan with his speeches of hellfire and doom. I made it an order to shut up about adultery, so he now took to looking at me significantly as he reads his Bible. I cannot punish the man for looking, but I am not going to suffer from it either."

To be honest, Matthew highly disapproves of Summers' flagrant disregard for his marital vows, but he is not going to preach to the man. He's perceptive enough to recognise despair when he sees it. Even if he finds his friend's coping mechanisms both unhealthy and immoral, he is determined not to judge. To be frank, he has sadly seen much worse.

They leave the stuffy dugout for a breath of fresh morning air and a cigarette, the darkness outside slowly lessening by the oncoming dawn, when Anderson points something out to them.

"Look there, by the ambulance post dugout. Is that a woman?"

Matthew narrows his eyes to see better in the dim light and then widens them in shock.

It's Mary.

xxx

Mary looks around the field ambulance dugout curiously, valiantly stopping herself from wrinkling her nose at the smell inside. With two four-man stretcher squads and two ambulance drivers squeezed into it, it is cramped and extremely stuffy behind the heavy gas-curtains at the top of the entrance stairs, and only Captain Duncan, the medical officer, has some degree of privacy in his tiny cubbyhole at the end of a timbered passage.

The atmosphere has been getting thicker by the minute and Mary is extremely glad when her fellow driver, Andy Chapman, proposes to get outside for a breath of air. The night is dark and misty, with the merest crescent of the moon in the sky, and it is almost eerily quiet.

Andy lights a cigarette and offers her one with a cheeky smile, but she refuses.

"Haven't we come here for fresh air?" she complains, but without rancour. Even though she doesn't smoke herself, unlike some of the other drivers and nurses, she got well used to the smell. One doesn't have a choice and, frankly, cigarettes were hardly the most disgusting smell she has had the misfortune to encounter since she came to the front.

Andy chuckles.

Mary looks around and sees a group of soldiers leaving another dugout a dozen yards or so from them, apparently as eager to escape its musty safety as she and Andy have been. They notice the skirts of her uniform and do a double take, but she scarcely pays any mind to their surprise, her own eyes focusing on the glimpse of blond hair in the murky light of a storm lantern.

Matthew!

One of his fellow officers points her to Matthew and she sees his head jerk up in surprise. It takes but a moment until he is by her side.

"Mary! What in the world are you doing here?"

She shrugs.

"With all the reorganisation of battalions you lot got so short-staffed that you ran out of male drivers," she explains matter-of-factly. "Weren't you notified that you will be getting the FANY volunteers as support until this is sorted out?"

Matthew shakes his head angrily.

"No," he says curtly. "Apparently getting advance notice that we will have women in the front trenches to worry about was not deemed important enough by the higher ups."

"Hey, Miss Crawley is alright," protests Andy loyally. "She's made of strong stuff, this one."

Matthew gives him a caustic eye.

"I'm aware of it, Private. I think I am allowed to worry about my fiancée though."

Andy chokes on his cigarette and starts coughing as he drops it hastily on the ground. Mary rolls her eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir," rasps Andy after he gets his breath back. "I've had no idea."

"It's alright, Andy," Mary says. "Now, can you give us a moment? We haven't seen each other in weeks."

Andy scuttles away, grateful for the escape she has provided him, and leaves Mary with very unhappy Matthew.

"I hate seeing you here," he says plainly. "Even though I missed you like crazy."

"It's not the best place to meet," admits Mary. "But I am glad we've ran into each other again."

"How are the chaps there with you?" asks Matthew with a concerned frown. "Are they behaving themselves?"

"They are perfect gentlemen, don't worry," says Mary with exasperation. "Captain Duncan already offered me his cubbyhole to sleep in and Andy is sticking to my side as glue. I half expect him to growl at the others like a guard dog if one of them looks at me wrong."

"Andy, huh? How jealous should I be?"

Mary snorts.

"Not very. Unless you suspect me of secret fondness for scrappy runts."

"You do seem fond of Wakefield," points out Matthew and damn, Mary cannot deny it. She is not going to explain to Matthew though that what she finds most endearing about Corporal Wakefield is the clear hero worship he openly carries for his captain.

"Anyway, I am only here for three days, until the new men will come over to join the unit here," she explains instead. "Hopefully we won't encounter anything worse than boredom and rats until then. Well, and the appalling smell inside."

"Don't forget lice," comments Matthew lightly. "You might need a bath after you're done here. And the delousing powder and tight-teethed comb."

Mary shudders in revulsion.

"Duly noted," she acknowledges gloomily. "Won't be the first time, worse luck."

She sends him a flirtatious look.

"Any chance you will help me with the brushing? I do so hate doing it alone."

"My spoilt princess," he says fondly, but then smirks in a way that never fails to make Mary's blood hot and her cheeks flush. "But you might be lucky. I finish here in three days too and may have an opportunity to steal an hour or two after I deliver this sorry lot to the barracks in the rest camp."

And this is the moment when the Germans start shelling.

Matthew's eyes grow wide as he immediately pushes Mary towards the entrance of her dugout.

"Get inside!" he snaps. "And stay there!"

She nods, terrified, but cannot resist grasping his hand briefly as she's passing him. He hugs her fiercely for a moment.

"Be safe, Mary. Please God, be safe."

Then he's running towards the officers' dugout, yelling orders to his sergeant.

Mary stumbles into her own, followed moments later by Andy. The doors are closed, the candles lit, and the eleven people there all sit in tight silence, eyeing the trembling roof over their heads with apprehension. The earth over them and under them trembles, the noise numbs the senses. Even the air shakes somehow.

"Bloody Jerry," mutters Captain Duncan. "Couldn't they wait three days for another shift? I have a leave owed to me and I would like to use it."

"How long does it last, usually?" asks Mary with bloodless lips. She's thought she was used to the pounding of the shells which has been her constant companion for months now, but she has never experienced them like this.

The captain shrugs.

"Depends on what they want. If it's just a trench raid, it should be quick. If it's a big attack, we're in for it for hours. But big or small, it means they're coming," he finishes ominously, then looks at her with concern. "As soon as they will stop shelling, the Jerry will be jumping into our trench. So you need to get the hell out of here, miss, do you understand? The moment things go quiet, you're running out of here and to your ambulance, and drive as fast as you can to the reserve lines. You can come to pick up what's left of us afterwards, when it's all over."

Mary wants to quarrel with him. She wants to be contrary, and brave, and in control, but a shell falls so close to them that they are all covered in dirt falling from the ceiling and she finds herself nodding quietly in assent instead. She wants to get out of here, desperately. Anything better than to be trapped here in dread.

She squeezes her eyes shut briefly and prays that both she and Matthew get through it somehow.

Andy bumps her shoulder with his.

"We're going to be alright," he says and his voice sounds sure, even if his eyes aren't. "You need some serious bad luck to be hit directly."

Before Mary can answer him, a shell blows one door in and then the other near her. The candles go out as Captain Duncan yells at them to grasp their gas helmets. Splinters of metal are making spark as they fall through just above them, and the din is quite indescribable. Mary barely has time to put her gas mask on when the whole roof starts collapsing all around them.

She cannot help it, she screams.

xxx

Matthew doesn't remember the last time he was so utterly terrified.

Four years in, this is hardly his first rodeo. He has survived hundreds of shellings, some much worse than this one, without the protection of a sturdy dugout. As much as he fears one landing directly on it and burying them all alive, they are in the safest spot in the trench, sheltered from shrapnel and rock-hard pieces of soil which the shells disrupt and send flying with deadly speed. Having to wait through it all, knowing that the enemy is coming, that as soon as the guns stop he will encounter them just outside, ready to kill him, is nerve wrecking, but familiar. He feels adrenaline coursing through him, his body getting ready for the fight ahead, and as much as he's scared, he can keep his fear under control usually.

But he has never faced it all with Mary bare yards from him.

He regrets bitterly than he hasn't dragged her to his own dugout instead of following the procedure and sending her to the field ambulance one. To know that she is out there, but unable to see her, to check if she's alright, to comfort her in her undoubtedly mind shattering terror – it's torture.

The crash of an exploding shell is so loud that for a moment he hears only its aftereffects in his ears. It must have hit nearby.

"Sir!" William falls into the dugout and Matthew has never seen his brave face so white. "Field ambulance dugout collapsed!"

Matthew barely has time to feel all air seemingly leaving his lungs before he is barrelling out of his dugout and racing towards the mound of soil and rubble which entombs the woman he loves and ten other souls. The shells are falling all around him, but he pays them no attention as he starts digging desperately with his bare hands.

"Mason! Get the shovels!" he yells over the deafening whiz and explosions.

He does not turn to look whether William obeys his order, he's too busy digging, his nails torn and bleeding until he reaches a piece of a broken plank and starts using this instead. He barely notices Summers and Anderson joining him in his task, but he approves of the increased efficiency. They get to the first body in bare minutes.

It is immediately clear that it doesn't matter to this particular stretcher bearer anymore though. His head is half bashed in by a collapsed support beam.

They keep digging. William joins them, bringing shovels with him, so they're digging faster, more efficiently. They pull out three more dead from the wreckage and Matthew can't breathe, he just can't breathe when he realises that with every moment it's becoming more and more likely that the next body is going to be hers.

But then they uncover a sort of natural cave, where the collapse was only partial, and the mass of bodies squeezed together is moving, their gas masks providing them with air when all of the outside supply got cut off. They start to reach for them when another damn shell falls just yards behind and covers them with debris, collapsing further part of the dugout roof on the people below.

Matthew howls, hardly sure if it's due to sudden pain in the back of his head and neck or the frustration and terror for the people below.

"Sir!" yells William, reaching for him as he sways on his knees. "You're hit!"

"Keep digging, Mason!" he roars, pulling himself away from him. "We need to get them out!"

So they dig and dig and pull one person after another from the earth, and Matthew's heart is pounding in time with the throbbing pain in his head, because the people they are dragging out now are alive, hurt but alive, and then he finally spots Andy with a metal rod sticking out of his back, Andy, dead, but protecting with his body a woman who is not. At least Matthew refuses to believe that she is, as he gasps loudly and pulls her from under Andy's corpse.

Most of the light is provided by exploding shells, but there are hints of dawn on the horizon as he anxiously inspects her with his heart in his throat. She's covered in dirt and blood, but he quickly ascertains that it must be Andy's, because it's only on the outside of her coat. Her mask is properly on and his hands tremble so wildly that he has trouble to take it off. His curses are mixed with prayers as he finally succeeds and looks at her properly.

Her lashes flutter slightly – please, please, oh God, please! – and then she opens her eyes and Matthew doesn't think he has ever seen anything so beautiful in his life as Mary's brown eyes staring at him from her dirty face.

His heart shatters when they close again and it's only the faint but undeniable breath he feels on his shaking fingers when he touches her mouth which stops him from howling in despair.

The bloody Huns are still shelling them into stone age, but they need help, Mary needs help, and he'll be damned if he doesn't get her one. The closest dressing station is nearly a thousand yards away and they would be in the range of fire for more than half of it, but they have to make it, he refuses to consider any other outcome.

Since most of the stretcher bearers are either lying dead or wounded, he calls for men from his unit and helps them to load the ones who still can be saved. Mary, he carefully picks up himself, laying her on the stretcher as delicately as he can. His head pounds at both the effort and the bending, but he ignores it completely, as he does nausea which is bringing bile to his throat. He is not the priority right now. He can always collapse when he knows she's safe.

There are five wounded soldiers in addition to Mary. He thinks fast. The trek to the dressing station under shell fire like that is near suicide, but the trench itself won't stay relatively safe for much longer; shelling like that is always a prelude to an attack. The Germans will come to pick out whoever survived the barrage. Figuring out that he cannot easily predict which course is going to be more dangerous for his men – to make them stay or go – he chooses several of his men to help him with transporting the wounded. William volunteers himself, silently and steadfastly settling himself by the other end of Mary's stretcher, and Matthew loves him so much in this moment for his loyalty to them both and his general decency. He is going to apply for a medal for him when this is all over.

Summers approaches them as they ready themselves to go and looks Matthew over sceptically.

"Are you sure you shouldn't be on one of those stretchers, Crawley? You look about ready to collapse yourself."

"I'll manage," grunts Matthew, picking up Mary's stretcher with William, and forcing himself to steady his hands. Suddenly, a horrible thought occurs to him, something which he should have considered earlier if he was thinking at all straight. He looks at Summers desperately. "But can I go? The Huns will be here in minutes."

Even as he says it, his brain is screaming at him that he cannot leave Mary now, that he has to go with her, has to make sure she's going to be alright, but his men, his duty... But he has duty to her too!

Summers rolls his eyes despite the tension radiating from him at the prospect of the soon-to-be attack on their positions.

"You're wounded, you fucking idiot. Get yourself and those people the hell out of here, God knows we will have many more casualties soon. And tell them to send us some new stretcher bearers!"

Matthew nods at Summers, then at his group and off they go.

They keep to the trenches for as long as possible, using the communication route to get to the second line of defence, but then they have to get out into the open and they are still in range of the shells which are falling left and right. They start running, swerving when they spot one coming in their direction. Matthew sees a pair of stretcher bearers and their cargo thrown into the air ahead of him by one, but he cannot stop right now, not when he needs to get Mary out of danger. He barely can look down on her face, not without risking tripping or dropping her in that mad dash among explosions. His head keeps pounding, the back of it and his neck sticky with blood, but he sees the line of trees ahead and knows that the dressing station is just behind.

They will make it.

xxx

Somehow, they indeed do. Matthew is not sure if it was God's hand, the devil or just sheer dumb luck, but they make it out of the range of the shells and into the field dressing station, and he and Mason put down Mary's stretcher delicately on the ground, and then they both collapse panting next to it. Before he knows it, people are taking her away as he struggles to explain the nature of her ordeal in between desperate gasps for air. A nurse checks him over and forces him off the ground and on a chair in the examination area, speaking something disapproving about him running and exerting himself like that with wounds like his. He hardly listens, looking instead at the medics working on Mary, but is forced to pay attention when the nurse starts to clean his head and neck with burning antiseptic. He rather thinks Mother would have disapproved of the words which escape his mouth then.

"Yes, I know, but believe me, you wouldn't want me to leave all that dirt in," says the nurse matter-of-factly and continues to torture him for some more time until she deems him ready for the doctor to take over and stitch the worst of it. At least he is given something for the pain, the wounds small and shallow enough that they don't need to put him under anaesthesia to deal with them.

"You have gashes as if a giant animal tried to squeeze your head with its claws," says the medic. "And the size of the bump on it is one of the most impressive I've seen so far. How are you even conscious?"

"Never mind me," snaps Matthew impatiently, his heart still in his throat and his head so far down on his list of priorities he barely cares if it's still on his shoulders, because he doesn't know if Mary is going to be alright. "How is she?"

The medic clucks in disapproval.

"To think we got so desperate that we need to send women under fire..." he shakes his head. "But she's lucky. She's bruised all over and needs oxygen treatment, but the gas mask provided her with enough air that hopefully she didn't suffer brain damage. We will know more when she wakes up, but she has been briefly conscious and she knew her name."

He chuckles gruffly.

"She knew your name too. She asked how you are."

"She did?" asks Matthew, so bloody relieved he feels himself swaying in his seat.

"Quite adamantly," confirms the medic with obvious amusement. "And a right pair of fools you are. She's a Crawley as well. A relation?"

"A distant one," answers Matthew, his own voice sounding odd and alien to his ears. "But she's my fiancée."

"Ah," says he. "That explains a lot, I guess. Well, in my expert opinion, you're both going to live. Here, all done with sewing your head together. Come, lay down before you keel over. Wanna a cot next to her?"

Matthew hopes that he managed to thank him, but he's not sure about it as he gratefully collapses on the provided cot and even more gratefully accepts another morphine tablet, his eyes trained on Mary the whole time.

As he feels the morphine working and his eyes closing, he stubbornly forces them open and focused on Mary again. Mary, laying there so still and pale, the oxygen mask over her beautiful face, but alive, preciously, wonderfully alive, and he needs to see it for a few seconds longer so he can fall asleep believing it, knowing that he did it, he got her out, he saved her.

Knowing that he was not going to lose her.

Before the unconsciousness catches him for good, he reaches over the narrow gap between their cots and grasps Mary's hand in his.