Both the soldier and the nurse decided they'd rather stay out as late as possible instead of going back to the house with Mary's parents. So, she decided to take him to the one place she knew no one would give him a second look.
"Mary, I may be the only man in there."
"No, you won't be. Half the town's older than my father, you'll be fine."
"I can't go into a pub as a young man during a war, with a crowd of the elderly. The only thing they'll talk about it is how I'm not in France."
"And I'll say you're on leave. Not everyone needs to know your business." William sighed, still not moving closer to the pub. "Please?"
"No."
"Will-"
"Listen, they'll ask me what happened over there, Mary, I can't think about that, especially tonight."
"Why not tonight?" William stayed silent. "William, I need you to-"
"It happened a year ago."
"What did?"
"My friends all died a year ago. At the Somme." Mary's heart dropped. "I didn't want to mention it because I thought you'd never stop worrying about me and I just wanted to forget about it."
"Will, I would have-"
"Taken me somewhere else? Kept me at the house?"
"No, I would've asked if you were up to it today. I feel like I've been the worst-"
"You've been the best at distracting me and you didn't even know. So, keep doing it. I just would prefer if we stayed somewhere there isn't a crowd."
"Alright, there's not really another place to go, but you and I can go to the fields, yes? We can just watch the stars alright?"
"Don't treat me like I'm fragile, it'll make it worse." Mary sighed. She had no idea how to deal with William when he was like this. She knew she wouldn't be able to pretend that William was completely normal, and she knew that it wasn't healthy that William was coping in this way. Mary also knew that if she brought it up to William, that he would completely shut her out, which is something she didn't want. "Come on now, take me to the field." William smiled at her, motioning for her to lead the way to wherever she was taking William.
"You know we'll have to speak about it eventually."
"Not now, though, please." Mary sighed, looking at her soldier, seeing just how vulnerable he seemed. He looked close to breaking.
"Alright, c'mon Lance Corporal, let me show you the stars." She grabbed his hand, leading him away from the pub and the town center, to the fields that she and her brothers used to lay in for hours and look at constellations. "Joe and Tommy used to bring me here during the summers and point out constellations to me. It's far enough away from the town where there's no light." She sat down in the field, pulling William down with her. She lay back, looking up at the sky. It was a good night, not a cloud in the sky, as the moon was full and the stars twinkled above them.
"So the Blakes are astronomers." Mary laughed.
"No, I doubt they ever told me the correct name of the constellations. It was a fun way to get away from it all though. We'd be here for ages, just giving names to constellations. Sometimes we would come in the day to look at clouds, but stars were always my favorite. It's like a whole other life form is above our heads and watching over us. It brings me comfort that Joseph is looking at the same moon and stars just like it brought me comfort when you were in France."
"Hm?"
"I used to come here with your letters at night. I'd read your letter and then I'd lay back and just look at the moon. I'd talk to you sometimes if I really felt like I needed someone to listen. I knew you couldn't hear me, but I felt that if you looked up at the moon, you'd know that I was talking to you. It sounds ridiculous now that I say it out loud-"
