Red & White

forty two.

It had been too long.

After four hours of war sounds erupting from the halls and outside the monumental castle, the noises began to fade. Fewer and fewer gun shots went off, followed by lesser and lesser shouts and cries from men.

Leah's tears were stained dry on her cheeks. Her heart no longer beat rapidly, she was simply numb. The pictures painted inside her head of the fallen soldiers right at her doorstep caused her to space out. She didn't want to leave the bedroom anymore, like she had before when the Prince locked her inside. The girl couldn't bear to see the sight she imagined.

But now everything was silent.

The bed she lay upon had a sunken image of her body engraved in the duvet from being there for so long. Her stomach rumbled, but she paid no mind. Her eyes stayed glued to the ceiling, engrossed in following every detail of the crown molding and every curve of the masterpiece painted on the ceiling.

She thought of Harry as she laid in the bed he'd had for twenty-two years.

What if he joined the fallen soldiers outside this very room? she wondered in horror.  Will he ever come back to me, to his family?

There wasn't much more time to think because just then there was a knock at the door. It sounded so loud, despite the knock being rather more like a tap. She let out a sniff and hesitantly stood to walk to the door.

Her fingers gripped the handle, giving it a tug, but then remembered Harry and the key.

"Leah," Louis surprised her by calling from behind the door after hearing her struggle. "Can you let me in?"

"Harry locked me in," she responded, her voice low and tired. The valet was incredibly relieved to see she answered. He had presumed she would be too frightened to come to the door, regardless of who it was.

"It's alright, Leah. I have a set of keys to his room, I'll get you out in a minute."

The girl let out a sigh, happy to hear she would be freed. But with that came the scary thoughts of what her eyes would discover when the door would open.

The sound of jingling keys sounded after a moment of rustling, and finally, a creak of the door sounded and Louis pushed through.

The four hours of emotions bottling up began to tip like a tall wine glass holding too much liquid, and Leah fell into his arms.

"Louis," she wheezed out. "Oh God, what happened? He just...h-he left and I haven't seen him since, and he locked me in h-here-"

"Shh, calm down. It's okay. He's fine, Harry's fine," Louis interrupted her, reaching out to reassuringly squeeze her shoulders.

Her eyes bulged. "What? He's okay? But..but he never came back to me! Why didn't he come back? Where is he?" she wondered aloud, asking questions left and right.

"The only question I can answer is that he's back in the infirmary for his arm. You'll have to ask him yourself as to why he never came back, but I think we can presume it's because he injured it again somehow."

She nodded at that, evening out her breaths to calm down. He wasn't dead. That was good. But his arm! He can't keep injuring it, there could only be severe consequences in the future.

"I want to go see him."

The corridor looked like a battlefield, which it undoubtedly was only a few short hours ago. British military teams that were too late to help the castle soldiers had dragged away the dead bodies so that they could be returned to their families for proper burials. But the stench of rotting flesh and blood filled the halls and almost painted a picture of a brutal death for anyone who encountered the smell. 

Louis ushered Leah toward the hospital ward on the bottom floor as fast as possible. He could see how upset she got the more her mind wandered. Having Harry safely back in her presence should distract her from the devastating blow the palace underwent. The fatal attack from Wales captured the lives of over two hundred men. Britain was slowly losing their strong lead..

Thinking back to when Prince Harry was last in the infirmary to now, there was a rather obvious difference. The room was now packed full of groaning, pained soldiers that had just barely survived the fight. Stained red bandages and gauze littered their hands, head, and face. There wasn't a single person that didn't look like they could pass away at any given second. Leah felt nauseous.

The sight stunned the valet as well, but he quickly snapped out of it and rushed the girl into the section blocked off for the royal. She prepped herself to encounter the worst of the worst, what with how everyone else appeared, but Leah instead walked in to see Harry propped up on the cot, looking relatively healthy. She couldn't locate any major burns or scrapes, just a small cut on his forehead. Her eyes scanned down to his arm and only found a pack of cold ice strapped to the wound area.

To see him not unconscious and ripped apart at the limbs was such a big relief.

He saw her come through, and his eyes turned from alive and happy to worry and stress. He could tell she held a grudge for keeping her locked in their bedroom.

Leah knelt down at his bedside, shaking her head at his offer to sit on the edge.

"I need to stop seeing you here," her soft voice resonated smoothly in the closed-off quarters.

Harry nodded with a sigh, reaching down to grasp her hands. "I know, baby."

"I'm mad at you," Leah was quick to respond, and he nodded again, already figuring this talk would arise soon. "You locked me in the bedroom for so long, I wanted to help."

"I know you did, and I'm sorry, but it's better that you didn't. They hurt a lot of our men." He squeezed her hands as the moans of the soldiers just beyond the curtain grew increasingly louder. They were crying out to nurses for more medicine or a new bandage, but the women could only help so many people at a time.

She then dared to ask, "Is the probability of England winning low now?"

"Now, yes. But we have an attack planned that's going to sweep all of their men. We could win this war."

Harry seemed confident in what he preached, so Leah felt a bit better. She timidly touched the slash on his forehead that had dried blood sticking to the wound. She kissed his face multiple times to earn a smile.

He leaned forward on the cot with a smile and whispered in her ear, "And when this war does end, I'm going to make you the happiest woman alive."

Her lips parted at that and her mind begged for a further explanation of what he meant, but Harry just grinned and silenced his lips.

The head doctor walked in just then to check up on his arm. He told Harry to rest the arm, which meant to not lift anything heavy, and that the stitches from the surgery had not been torn. His arm was healing fine.

Now all Prince Harry had to worry about was the upcoming attack that quite literally meant life or death for his soldiers.

Hi guys! Sorry this was such a short, shitty chapter but some more exciting ones will be coming up! And sorry about the update being a few days late, I tried so hard to update but with preseason with sports starting it's been hard. Sooo tired ://

Anyway, hope you enjoy! Please vote!!

Also, what do you think Harry meant by that last comment?