AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please note that this chapter is definitely rated M, both for a sex scene and for suicidal thoughts. We are taking a dive into Matthew's head and this is not a nice place to be at the moment – and neither are his current circumstances. I will only say that this is the lowest point of the story and it won't get worse than that.

Matthew covers his eyes with his hand and curses silently.

Why couldn't he keep his bloody mouth shut? Did he really have to upset Mary like that? As if he wasn't giving her enough reasons to be unhappy already!

He sighs, removing his hand and blinking at the golden light of late August afternoon falling from the window behind him. He knows very well why. It's Mary. He's always been all too willing to tell her anything passing through his mind. Keeping his feelings for her secret throughout those years took an enormous effort, confessions dancing at the tip of his tongue half of the time he spent in her company. When it was all finally out in the open, when they became engaged, the relief of being able to tell her honestly everything he thought or felt was amazing. It's hard to remember now that he really should censor himself again. He doesn't want to cause her pain, even if he meant every word he's said.

It doesn't take Mother long to approach him. She carries fresh bandages and a bottle of antiseptic, seemingly just to clean and redress the wounds on his back, but he knows that look she is giving him. She either has seen Mary's exit or somebody told her of it; she is on a fact-finding mission.

Her very first words confirm his suspicions immediately.

"Have you and Mary quarrelled?" she asks bluntly after she helped him to move to his side so she could access his back. It is an arduous process, demanding lifting and moving his leg first, a dead and heavy thing, not at all easy to handle, and then pulling his arm until his body rolls over. Matthew has been worried that Mother is going to throw her own back one day while doing this, but she dismisses his concerns; he is not sure if it is because there is no reason for them or she is just too stubborn to admit they might be valid.

"Not really," he says after she is working on his wounds and can't see his face so well. "I've just said something insensitive and upset her. I will apologise when she comes back."

If she comes back, his mind traitorously suggests, but he dismisses it. He knows she will. As much as it pains him now when he believes this love will bring her nothing but misery, he has no doubts that she truly loves him.

"What have you said?" pries Mother and he gives her a look over his shoulder.

"Why on Earth would I tell you?" he asks. "You would just scold me and believe me, even if I haven't already realised I put my foot in it, Mary is perfectly capable of pointing it out herself."

"That's certainly true," admits Mother and he thinks she sounds relieved.

It takes him a moment to puzzle it out and he sighs when he does.

"Are you more afraid that I will push her away or that she wants to wash her hands off me anyway under the circumstances?"

Mother pauses in her ministrations to his wounds for a moment.

"At first, I was worried about her," she says finally. "You know I had my doubts whether her feelings for you were equal to yours. But I'm not anymore."

"Why?" he asks, truly curious what has changed her mind about Mary.

"Because I see her with you every day," she answers simply. "I see how she looks at you, how she takes care of you when I haven't seen her lift a finger to do that for anybody else. It's as plain as the nose on your face that she truly loves you. No, I don't have doubts about that anymore."

Matthew laughs quietly despite himself.

"All it took was for me to get crippled and useless," he says sardonically. "You could have believed me from the beginning."

"You were not the most reliable person when it came to discussing your own feelings, never mind hers," she quarrels, and he has to concede the point, if only a little.

"You are worried that I will succeed in pushing her away though?" he asks, going back to his original question.

Mother lays her hand on his side for a moment and sighs audibly.

"Yes. I hope she won't let you, but a girl can only do so much if a man refuses to marry her," she gives him an unexpectedly stern look. "Even if he really ought to."

Matthew feels himself blush at the unsubtle hint. If he has had any doubt if Mother suspected anything amiss about his excursion to Wimereux with Mary, he doesn't any more, because it's clear that she does.

"Don't worry about that, Mother," he mutters, hiding his red face in the pillow. "I know my duty to Mary."

"Humph," she scoffs, clearly displeased with him on that score. "I should hope so!"

"Well, there is not much use she will have of me otherwise," he notes bitterly, earning himself another stern look from her.

"I would prefer if you were not speaking of yourself like that, Matthew," she says, finishing binding his bandages and getting up to move him back as he was. "You're much more than your ability to walk."

"You know very well that this is the least of it," he says accusingly, but she hardly flinches at his tone, her stern gaze unwavering.

"And you know very well, even if you're being deliberately obtuse, that you're much more than that either."

"Yes, because a life with a husband who can't give his wife children, nor anything else expected in a normal marriage, is any woman's dream," he says sarcastically.

"No, it isn't. But life is not always fair or easy and we have to deal with it best we can," says his damnably unflappable Mother. "I've spent years thinking motherhood was not going to be in the cards for me and while I mourned it, it did not stop me from loving your father or enjoying my life. It is a difficult path to tread, extremely difficult at times, but one which can be worth treading with the right person."

He doesn't have an answer to that, but not because he agrees. He just can't find the energy to debate it further.

"I should check your catheter" says Mother matter-of-factly and everything in him recoils at the prospect.

"Send somebody else," he says curtly.

"Matthew," she chides, but if she thinks she is going to get his consent to this she is delusional.

"Send somebody else, Mother. I mean it."

For a long while they have a staring contest until Mother gives up with a bad grace and a huff.

"Very well. Have it your way. I will go and fetch another nurse."

A small victory at last. He tries to savour it, but it tastes as bitter as nearly everything else nowadays.

xxx

In his dream, he is making love to Mary on a cot in an officers' dugout.

It doesn't seem strange or inappropriate somehow – hasn't he imagined making love to her hundreds of times while lying on this very cot? – and besides he sees his ring glittering on her finger. She is his wife and it's right to make love to one's wife, even here, in the midst of this hell. In the dream he knows that they won't be disturbed (an impossibility if that was real, he knows), but there is a sense of urgency, of a lurking danger; they need to hurry. Mary is still wearing most of her clothes and so is he, but he unbuttons her uniform and pushes her chemise aside to take the tip of her breast into his mouth as he slides blissfully into her. He hears her moan in response to his actions, feels her fingers dig into his back through his uniform, then one of her hands move upwards to clutch desperately at his hair as he kisses and licks and nibbles, his body moving faster and more urgently within hers, and he relishes every second of it. This is perfect, she is perfect, they are perfect together, like this, joined in the kind of passion he knows, he just knows, he would never be able to experience with anybody else, because he would never be able to love anybody else as terribly as he loves Mary.

Then a shell falls and everything is noise and pain and collapsing ground, and by some miracle he manages to roll off her and push her to safety, away from the mass of soil and support beams falling down on him. She must not be buried by it, not again, never again, she must be alright, it's better if it's him, it's alright if it is him, just as long as she is safe.

He opens his eyes and sees the sky above him. He is lying in a crater created by the shell, his legs completely buried by hardened mud; he cant feel them at all, never mind move. The shells are falling all around him and he knows that one is going to land on him soon and obliterate him, and he doesn't even mind, because it could be worse, he doesn't want to think about it, but he knows it could be worse. Death is scary, but not as scary as living.

But then Mary is there, her uniform still unbuttoned, although she must have pulled her chemise up because her breasts are covered, her face dirty and determined as she starts digging to free his legs. But the shells! They are still falling, they are all around them, Mary can't be here, it's too dangerous! He tries to push her away, but he can't move, the earth and mud are trapping him too well.

"Mary, you must run!" he urges her, completely frantic, but she just shakes her head, her expression stubborn, and she keeps digging.

"You are my husband," she says against his continued pleading for her to go, to save herself. "We are married. I'm not going to leave you."

And then a shell does fall next to her and she is gone, dead, and he is covered in her blood while still unable to move his legs, to get away, to do anything but —

But scream and puke his guts out, apparently, which he does all over himself as a nurse on night duty rushes to his bed.

Of course it's Sybil. Of course. But right now Matthew doesn't care about it, he's glad even, because she's Mary's sister, she must know, she must tell him as he grasps her hand, hoping vaguely that his own is not covered in his sick as well but too distressed to care about it either.

"Is Mary alright?" he demands urgently, the echo of his screams still in his voice. "Please tell me if she's alright!"

"She's perfectly alright and hopefully asleep right now in her own bed," Sybil assures him and he can allow himself to drop his head back against the pillow, relief coursing through every part of his body he can still feel.

Mary is alright. She is safe. It was all just a dream.

He nearly laughs at the ridiculousness of his mind. Of course it was a dream. It's not like he will ever be able to make love to Mary like that ever again, after all, whether in the trenches or anywhere else. In all justice to his brain, it did try to give him a hint, didn't it, with his legs getting buried. A very unsubtle hint, even. But it all felt so real! It still feels so real, so terribly real, down to the wet stuff on his clothes, except instead of Mary's blood (oh God) he is covered in his own sick. Which, come to think of it, really stinks.

He is equally relieved and embarrassed when Sybil starts working on removing it.

"Of course it has to be you," he mutters, averting his sight from her, but still terribly aware that it is Sybil cleaning him up and unbuttoning his shirt.

She winks at him.

"I've already seen you naked, remember?"

He snorts.

"As if I could ever forget that particular humiliation. It's awfully inconvenient to have so many relatives among the nursing staff."

"Just your mother and me," she says, working efficiently to get his arm out of the sleeve, with Matthew trying to help as much as he is able, which at least is more than he was able last week in similar circumstances. Small victories, right?

"See? Plenty," he grunts as Sybil helps him raise a bit to get the shirt from under him.

"Not long ago all nursing was done by female family members. Still often is, for many people," she points out after she fetches a basin with warm water and a sponge. She does not bother with privacy screens, since everyone else seems to be asleep, even those patients who were woken up by Matthew's screams. All the men here are well too used to being woken up like that to let it disturb their sleep for too long. Most of them have nightmares of their own.

Matthew sighs when she starts to wash his chest. It does feel good and he is awfully glad not to smell like sick anymore, but it still bothers him that he can't bloody do it for himself.

"Awful times. Some things never should be done or witnessed by people I can one day face over the dinner table. If I ever sit at a table again, that's it."

"You will," says Sybil with confidence. "Major Clarkson is the least optimistic doctor I know and he has already given Papa permission to order your chair."

"Why should Robert do it?" asks Matthew in puzzlement. "Doesn't the Army provide this kind of things for all patients?"

"It does, but Papa wants you to have the best there is."

"I wish he didn't brother."

"Is it so bad that your family wants to take care of you in any way they can?"

"Yes," answers Matthew tiredly. "Because it just reminds me that I am now someone in need of care. That I am always going to be a helpless invalid and a burden to you all."

"I don't believe you would be so cruel to anybody other than yourself," chides Sybil with a frown. "Would you call other officers here a burden? Would you call me or Mary so, if it was one of us in that bed? Or would you be trying your very best to help us any way you can, just like I, Mary, Papa or your mother try to take care of you?"

Matthew shakes his head in frustration.

"You don't understand. I can agree with every word you say and it still won't make being on the receiving side of such help one jot easier. I know you all care about me and it is wonderful, yes, and I'm very grateful. I know I'm not showing it very much, but I am, truly. It's just… Seriously, Sybil, would you want to live like that? To know that this is how your whole life is going to look like?"

Sybil pauses in her effort to put a fresh pyjama shirt on him and looks at him seriously in the dim light of the night lamps.

"It won't be quite like this, Matthew. I promise you that. I meant what I said about the chair. You will be able to get out of this bed, possibly within days. You will most likely be able to move your chair yourself, maybe even within weeks if you apply yourself in therapy. You will be able to get around with minimal help from other people, to work, to have a life. And," she adds with a mischievous smile. "You will be able to marry my sister officially."

He feels a surge of anger so strong that if she was a man he could have hit her.

"How can you joke about it?" he chokes out, wiping the smile off her face.

"Why shouldn't I?" she asks right back, a challenge clear in her eyes. "I joked about it since you two told me you were going to marry."

"You know very well while you shouldn't," he tells her through clenched teeth. "I was a man then, Sybil, and could laugh right there with you. It's only cruel now."

She locks her eyes with him.

"You are still a man, Matthew. You are the man my sister loves and you need to be this man for her. She needs you."

Matthew scoffs, barely holding in tears.

"She needs the man I was," he says with conviction. "And I am not and can never be that man anymore. There is nothing I can do for her now except ruin her life by dragging her down with me."

Sybil throws her hands in exasperation but he doesn't care. He doesn't say another word to her until she is done and leaves him be in his new, clean pyjamas.

xxx

What remains of his night is hardly restful. No more dreams like the last one, thank God, but he drifts between dozing off and staring at the ceiling in despair. He has all the cracks on it long memorised by now. He could map them in his sleep, if he could sleep, that is.

Sybil's words ring in his mind in a never ending loop. You are still a man, Matthew. You are the man my sister loves and you need to be this man for her. She needs you.

He snorts.

He's not a man at all, not anymore. Not in any way that matters.

He is nothing but a burden.

His mind drifts back to their hotel room at Wimereux, to the moment he was confessing his dearest dreams for their future to Mary. A home of their own. Kissing her on his return from work. Making love to her in the middle of an afternoon. Feeling their child moving in her belly.

All pipe dreams now.

He tries to tell himself that, much as he mourns those simple dreams so much, there might be some kind of future for them. That Mary, Sybil and Mother may be right and it is not all hopeless. But however hard he tries, he just can't see any happiness in it. So, best case scenario, he might be able to move himself from room to room, as long as no stairs are involved. Great. What a freedom and independence to have! He still would need people to hoist him up to his own bed. To dress him like a doll. To wipe his bloody arse for him. If he ever found somebody willing to employ a crippled lawyer, he would need people to transport him to work like a piece of luggage. That is, if this potential employer didn't have any stairs leading to their office.

He mourns the loss of any future children even more.

He has always wanted to be a father. Well, first he wanted to have siblings, but when he understood this was not going to happen, he soon changed this wish into hoping for children of his own one day. He loves children and most children love him. He loves playing with them, making them laugh, talking with them about every subject under the sun. He knows that parenthood must be challenging sometimes, but he has always hoped it was going to be tremendous fun as well. And when he got engaged to Mary and could reasonably look forward to having children with her… To imagine her as the mother of his children… It was the most precious dream he has ever had.

All gone now, along with his ability to perform the act leading to that dream.

He thinks of the passionate lovemaking from the beginning of his nightmare and clenches his fists so hard his nails nearly break the skin.

He will never be able to touch Mary like that again.

He will never be able to make love to her, to lose himself in her as he did in Amiens and Wimereux, to show her how absolutely he adores and worships her, to give her pleasure she deserves and delight in his power to do so. It's all gone forever, leaving him with a broken, useless body and a mind full of taunting visions of utter happiness.

And the worst, the absolute worst thing is that his mind is so good at recalling those feelings he had when he was watching his wife undress in front of him, when he was reaching to touch her breasts, caressing her soft, smooth skin… that he feels himself get aroused, just as he did then, he is convinced, absolutely convinced that he is, he wants nothing more than to bury himself inside her body as he did then… only to look at his dead lap and be reminded all over again that it is all just in his head. He is not aroused, not physically at least, and he will never be. It is just his mind taunting him with a phantom of a feeling, a memory of being whole, of being a man.

Instead, he has strangers touching him all the time: cleaning him, dressing him, putting his legs this way or that way, propping him up with pillows like this or like that. There's no privacy, no dignity, no independence in any of it, and he just can't imagine living like that. He can't imagine depriving Mary of all those things she deserves either: children, passion, a husband who can walk with her, dance with her, take her for adventures, take care of her, protect her. It's travesty that a woman as brilliant, as wonderful as her must be forever sentenced to living like a nun and a nurse to her useless husk of a husband.

The thought that he doesn't have to continue living like that – or to force Mary to live like that – is so terribly tempting that he manages to scare himself.

He shies away from that thought, exactly because of how very tempting it is. He doesn't want to die, not really. Everything in him is shrinking away from the prospect of death, especially such a death – cowardly and self-inflicted, not to fulfil a duty, but to avoid it. An ultimate sin.

But he dreads living like that more, years stretching hopelessly and joylessly ahead of him.

He tries very hard not to think of Mother's or Mary's reactions if they knew his thoughts. His guilt for contemplating it is drowning him as it is. He thinks of Mary again and his heart clenches in protest at the idea of leaving her. This is the last thing he wants, the last thing he has ever wanted. He promised her that he won't do it.

This is when the stench reaches his nostrils and he curses.

He fucking soiled himself again. Well, of course he did – this is what 'no bowel control' means after all – but it seems such an insult to injury that he doesn't even know that he is lying in his own shit until he smells it. That he will be forced to continue lying in his own shit until he can alert a passing orderly or a nurse that he needs to get cleaned and changed like a bloody baby, because there is no bloody thing he can do about it himself.

No. No fucking way this is going to be his life. No fucking way is he going to watch Mary consigned to such a life, forever tied to what's become of him. He is not going to live like this and neither will she.

He will have to find a way to release them both from it.

xxx

Matthew looks at his wife coming into the ward and frowns.

Whenever she visits – and she visits every day, like a clockwork – she has a cheery smile plastered on her face. She is determined not to give in to despair she must feel at being tied to a crippled, impotent, nappy-wearing husband and even more determined not to let him succumb to it either. In his case, she is unsuccessful. In his current state he isn't sure if he ever will be able to forgive her for dragging him out of that godforsaken battlefield. Not if he has to endure living like this.

But today her smile, false as it is, is missing completely and he feels a stirring of concern looking at her grim, serious face. His first assumption is that she is still angry about yesterday, but no, it doesn't look like she is angry. She looks like she did many times in France, when she was desperately scared and even more desperate to hide it, and he feels dread filling him when he realises that.

"I need your help," she says plainly before he even has time to ask.

"With what?" he enquires, quite baffled what kind of matter he could possibly assist her with from this blasted hospital bed.

"With that," she says briskly and hands him a telegram.

Its text is plain enough.

I HAVE ACQUIRED CAPTIVATING STORY ABOUT A TRAGIC DEATH OF A TURKISH DIPLOMAT STOP AWAITING YOUR COMMENT EAGERLY BY THE END OF THE WEEK STOP R. CARLISLE

Well, he thinks as his mind starts working in a way he hasn't had to use for years, maybe this is indeed something he can help her with. Even from this blasted bed.