For King And Country (not mine)

Belgium

1941 - Belgium
Belgium summers were uncomfortably sticky, to say the least. Beautiful, and something the Captain was sure he would enjoy on holiday, but certainly not for military service.
He spent three months in the trenches, getting up close and personal with the action.
It was all a blur of blisteringly hot days, stifling nights where his ears rang constantly, and thoughts crammed his brain, making it impossible for him to sleep.
He slept in a communal bunk, just like everyone else. But due to his rank, it wasn't as cramped as other places. With him were mostly other captains and the odd First Lieutenant. 
But then, of course, there had been the bullet wound.
A shot in the centre of his thigh.
It had taken another three weeks for him to heal enough to walk well enough with a crutch. He'd done laps up and down the aisle of a pop up medical tent somewhere the Captain couldn't remember. He'd been too delirious with pain to pay attention.
Away from the trenches, though. That, he knew. Maybe that had been due to his rank as well.
Maybe, it had been the severity of the wound. He wasn't sure. 
When he'd been back on his own two feet, he'd been plagued with nightmares, and the Captain had to have a few days of evaluations to make sure he was fit to serve.
And then, out of nowhere, he was transferred to a rural base, tasked with training recruits.
The time flew by so fast the Captain couldn't differentiate the date anymore. Just the changing of the seasons and the way the sunset dipped below the clouds in the evenings.
Three months in the trenches.
A few weeks in a medical tent.
At least two months here in rural Belgium.
Good Lord, it was well into autumn now.
The Captain yearned for last year's autumn when everything had been so happy.
He saw and heard the Button Eleven everywhere.
From hundreds and thousands of miles away, he was still as haunted in Belgium as in England.
Every time he saw a flash of green, the Captain thought it was someone he knew. He would look up and see a stranger or a tree's leaves blowing in the wind.
When he heard a group laughing, he remembered the evenings of hearing his unit telling jokes in the kitchen.
He heard Havers' voice, advising him at every moment. The best drills to run, who needed a little more guidance and who needed a small break from the yelling and harshness of the military.
He wondered if they'd all stayed or if their work had been seen as unimportant now. After all, there had been a disaster on base. The unit had not been operating properly since Havers' death.
The Captain missed England.
He missed the quiet and the quaintness of the countryside.
When he thought of home, his mind conjured up the image of a familiar lake, and his ears heard the echoes of a ball connecting with a cricket bat.
He saw sprawling land and a village pub filled with the sound of children's laughter coming from the beer garden.
Air raid sirens and the panting of his breath, the feeling of his feet connecting with the ground as he ran. Icy cold winds that stung and nipped at the skin like pinpricks.
He often had flashes of dim Anderson shelter on New Years' Eve and the dilated pupils of someone the Captain loved dearly. He could smell the alcohol on their breaths as if they'd never left that moment and the fluttering in his stomach as their lips met for the first time.
Those memories were the ones the Captain kept at bay while he was awake.
He could handle remembering the landscape of home and his unit.
But he could not handle the knowledge that he'd left Havers behind.
It was a difficult burden to bear, and the Captain wished his days away, hoping for a chance to return home again.
~
October 1941
"Birthdays aren't that important in the grand scheme of things."
"I'll endeavour to make it up to you next year. I promise."
A sad smile crossed that hauntingly familiar face, and even in sleep, the Captain's heart splintered a little more.
"The war might be over by then, sir. What then?"
"Then we shall have to keep in contact. If that's appropriate and ... agreeable for you?"
~
"We should make a toast!"
"To what?"
"You make one. You're good at toasts."
"It's your birthday. Shouldn't you make one?"
"Oh yes! It's my birthday! Um ... to making it to thirty-six! May I make it to thirty-seven." The Captain woke up, sitting bolt upright in a cold sweat.
He was trembling violently, teeth chattering despite the heat.
The dream, the  memory, haunted him, making him remember.
May I make it to thirty-seven!
The Captain clutched at his chest as it constricted, the heartbreak almost too much to bear.
Havers had died two months before his birthday.
The Captain's birthday was coming up, too, he knew. The changing of the seasons was a little more obvious now as the weather started to cool slightly.
He was almost grateful for the work to do. This year, he really would get the chance to avoid it.
Oh, how things could change so quickly.
The Captain muffled his shaky breath as much as he could.
Silently, he thanked the Lord for the unspoken rule that no one mentioned hearing crying at night.
~
"Oi, I need to talk to you." A voice came from behind the Captain.
"I'm busy right now, Alistair."
"I'm not asking. I'm telling."
"And I'm telling you I'm busy." The Captain snapped.
"You were crying again last night," Alistair said. The Captain sighed, dragging a hand over his face. He turned. "I think you forget I'm in the next bed over."
Alistair, the remaining twin, had changed since the last time the Captain had seen him before the war.
None of the copper colour in his hair remained, and there was a darker, sterner tint to his grey eyes now. He had more lines around his eyes and on his forehead.
Still frustratingly an inch taller than the Captain, though.
The Captain was still convinced he'd catch up one day.
"Well, I shall do better to quieten it next time. I apologise if I woke you." "You didn't. I was already awake." Alistair said.
"Then why are you bringing it up?" The Captain asked.
"You said a name in your sleep."
The Captain schooled his face into a neutral facade, waiting for the words to come.
"Oh?"
"Havers."
Not William.
Not Will.
"He was my-"
"I know." Alistair interrupted. "His name is in your notes from your last posting. Havers is listed as your second. He died before his transfer was complete, right?"
"He was on his way off base when someone shot him." The Captain said. "Tricky situation with a Private. He snuck around against my orders when everyone's backs were turned. He got ahold of the munitions we hid under a floorboard. He got the wrong end of the stick and thought Havers was a spy. He was quite shaken up by it, as were we all."
"I did some digging. Havers was found with a letter."
"Yes, Private Hughes mentioned something about it. I didn't know until after Havers had been shot, and he was taken away before I had a chance to retrieve it to send to its intended recipient."
"Did you know the letter was for you?"
Alistair's gaze was stiff and deadly, and the Captain knew what his answer must be. Though he loathed lying, this wasn't England. This place wasn't Button House. He had to be ten times more careful here than before.
If people began digging, they would soon find the Captain's file, as Alistair had done. The last thing he needed was questions.
"No, I didn't." The Captain lied. "How did you?"
"My rank gives me certain insights," Alistair answered. "I did the check on your file when you asked for a position over here."
"Did you read the letter?"
Alistair paused for a moment. "No, I did not." He said. "But I did manage to get ahold of it. You don't know its contents at all?"
The Captain shook his head. A half truth. There was enough to know Havers was a homosexual.
"The coroner and Havers’ sister gave me permission to have it for inspection in case I could help.
They had no idea who it was addressed to."
"Did it not say Captain on the front?" The Captain asked. "That was how he addressed letters informing me on when he'd be returning to base after Christmas."
"No," Alistair answered. "It had 'Teddy' on the envelope. That’s how I knew it was you."
The Captain felt his facade crack just a little under the pressure and desperately held the rest together as much as he could.
"You always hated being called Teddy." Alistair continued. "Why did he get a pass?"
"I told him my name is Theodore. He started calling me Teddy out of nowhere. It didn't feel like mocking with him. He told me he thought I was a little soft once you got past the exterior. He saw it as a positive. When you called me Teddy as children, you always thought being soft was a bad thing."
Alistair considered the thought for a few moments before turning to leave.
Just before he reached the exit of the barracks in which the higher-ranking officers stayed, the Captain asked out another question.
"What did you do with it, Alistair?" Alistair stopped.
"I burnt it shortly after I received it, not long after you got here. Then sent a letter to the coroner and his sister that I had given it to its intended owner."
"You burnt it?! You had no right! That letter was for me! That was the last thing I had of a dear friend that I am still mourning-"
"I think we can agree, Theodore," Alistair started, turning to face the Captain once more. "That lies are sometimes better than the truth."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"You know what," Alistair said. "I will not question your reasons for lying about your knowledge of the letter, its contents, and it being addressed to you. And you shouldn't question my reasons for keeping its contents hidden from you. It's better that you don't know."
"Why?"
"I have kept your secret longer than you have known it. All of us knew. Even Father, and he was oblivious about everything. Michael and I promised we would protect you when they died. But I will turn you in should you start acting out of sorts again. I will not risk my career for you. If anyone else were to put their brain cells together and dig as I have, they would have both of our necks. I should've handed you in long ago. But like it not, we are the only family the other has left anymore. Hide it better, or I'll make sure they fix you."
Alistair walked out, and the Captain slumped onto his bed, fear settling into every bone.
~
The rest of 1941 passed by in much of the same blur that the Captain had experienced after Havers' death.
New Year was difficult. It had become synonymous with the love he had had and lost.
The Captain was sent back out to the trenches in 1942 for another few weeks as a temporary replacement until a more experienced commander arrived, then taken to another battlefield a few miles away. That was where most of his time was spent.
On some occasions, he was dragged to a rural base for some reason or another.
He ran on autopilot, going through the motions of what was needed and never questioning anything else.
There was no room for anything else after all. Sentiment and grief only got in the way, and the Captain fully intended to fulfil his promise to Havers and himself.
He would fight for both of them. Because only he could.
He had to do Havers proud.
~
1943 was much of the same. The Captain would often spend a few months between each set oftrenches, returning after a while wherever he was needed when numbers began to dwindle.
The faces began changing a lot more rapidly.
People were tiring, getting clumsy, getting sick. They were dying even faster.
The Captain found himself getting so lost in the madness of war that he forgot he was even human most of the time.
And then the forced reminder came.
No.
He was a soldier first. Then human.
~
1944 was mostly medical rest. The Captain had gotten an infection from so long in the trenches,and it had taken far too long to recover.
He'd received another bullet wound, too, shortly after returning to fight on the front. It had barely scraped his arm. It was the infection that followed that wound that had sent him back to medical rest for even longer.
The Captain lost himself a lot during those weeks and months fighting just to open his eyes.
In those years, it was hard to remember Button House anymore. He hardly had the time.
Slowly, green became an unrecognisable colour under grime and dirt.
Laughter was not as frequent. And when it showed itself, it was often drowned out by the sound of gunfire. It was hard to differentiate the two anymore.
The Captain didn't have time to remember anything anymore, and he could see why men came back so different from war.
He could understand his father's frequent mood changes now.
After recovering from his infection, the Captain had been sent to work as an assistant in a field hospital.
His superiors insisted it was because medical experts were in dire need of steady hands wherever they could get them.
It was only to ensure there were clean bandages and equipment, suitable conditions for those on bed rest and such.
But the Captain largely expected it was in case of reinfection. An infection would be caught quickly in a medical environment.
The sight of bandages, however, always made the Captain remember.
Long slender fingers delicately wrapped a bandage around the Captain's thumb, a gash that had long since turned into a scar that the Captain often found himself tracing.
There was a flash of brown eyes, a dimple and a story about the man opposite him and Mount Snowdon.
The Captain knew him and his name. He knew what the man meant to him, but he had long since learnt to bury that all away. His brother had reminded him of that.
His other brother, who had also passed away now. Three shots in the chest, and the Captain was the last left alive.
~
In early 1945, after almost three long years of endless travelling and even more battlefields around Belgium, the Captain was sent back to London.
Most of the time, he was in the barracks. He was filing paperwork now, sending off letters and making sure that everything was in its correct place. He wasn't helping to train anyone up anymore.
Not since his last medical check-up.
"You've got some irregularities with your heart. Arrhythmia seems to be the most likely issue. Your heart is beating a little too slow. I'd like to do some more checks if that's okay?" The Captain had known then, that his time was running out.
His father had died of a heart attack. His mother had had a stroke.
It seemed fitting that the stress of war would bring out some dormant heart problems.
But then again, the Captain supposed he had always had issues when it came to his heart.
When the surrender came, the Captain felt very little. He knew it was short-lived for him.
Another April passed, another birthday he silently celebrated for a man who was long dead and buried.
A man who had died believing that the one person he was desperate to be loved by no longer felt
it.
With the surrender, the Captain knew it was time for him to return to the only base that he hadn't done multiple trips to over the last few years.
There were still old documents there he would have to collect, things he'd not stamped and sent off before he'd left.
The war might've been over, but they couldn't be abandoned in the house to rot. There were still things to be done.
So the Captain got a train.
And a bus.
And a taxi.
The house's owner, Lady Heather, had been more than happy to let him tidy everything up. She'd even offered him a room. She seemed to know it would take a few days to organise everything.
The Captain breathed in his old room and smiled at the sight of everything that had not changed.
He'd been at the house for a few hours, and it had taken a long time for him to even consider coming up here, let alone actually mounting the stairs and opening the door.
He winced a little as his chest began to ache. He'd begun to feel the irregularities more and more often these days, often breathless and dizzy now.
The Captain ignored it and went over to the small desk crammed by the window and immediately found the key on the shelf above him.
The drawer unlocked, and he found a familiar journal staring up at him.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you." He murmured to himself, gently tracing the leather with his fingers.
He opened the front cover and found a yellowed envelope hidden inside where he'd left it, bulking up the journal.
It had been reckless leaving it here. But if someone opened it, there was no one who knew his name, and part of him had been so heartsick and naive that he'd stopped caring about getting caught.
The Captain took the journal and put it in one of the nearby cardboard boxes that Lady Heather had given him.
That one would be for his personal belongings to take away with him and keep. It would never see the light of day again, he knew.
Always tucked away, always hidden, just like the Captain.
He winced as his chest started aching again. The Captain sat down on the chair in the hopes that some rest would help to relieve it.
The pain only got more intense, however. The dizziness and fatigue became stronger until the Captain found himself struggling to breathe.
He leaned back in his chair and looked over to his old bed.
In his mind's boggled state, he saw himself as he had been five years previously.
Almost like a ghost, he saw himself and another man laughing together in bed. He saw the wordless affections in their eyes and finally allowed himself to remember the man's name.
Will.
My Will. 
The Captain's chest stopped aching, and he let out a shuddering breath, a final smile tugging at the corners of his lips, accepting what was coming.
It had been a long five years, but the Captain was home now. He was tired, and he didn't want to fight any longer.
He just wanted to rest, as he had allowed himself to with Will so many years previously.
He had never slept quite as well since.
He hoped that wherever Havers had gone after death, he had been watching over the Captain, keeping him safe until the right moment to be reunited.
He hoped that Havers wanted to be there when he passed, waiting for him on the other side.
The Captain had long since given up any religion or belief in divine intervention. But deep down, he knew that Havers had to be waiting for him, waiting for their chance to be free.
The time had come for the Captain to join him.
So closed his eyes, letting the imprint of how young and happy he and Havers had seemed all those years ago remain in his mind as his heart finally slowed to a stop.