Warzone {Dunkirk H.S.}

6: Finding You

TOMMY 

Tommy Pierce could not believe what he was seeing. Were his eyes deceiving him? Maybe he was so shaken and sleep deprived that he was hallucinating, imagining the most unrealistic, maddening thing. Yes. That had to be it.

No. That was not it. Because all the other men around him seemed to be witnessing the same thing. It was like something out of his worst nightmares – in fact, he had already been living in a nightmare throughout all his months in the war, so it was just some sort of twisted continuation. For the first time since he thought Harry had died, days ago, he did not even know, since passing time meant nothing to him anymore, he felt a rush of emotion. He had shut himself up, closed off, lost all hope and all meaning – until that one moment.

He felt so lightheaded he thought he was going to collapse in a heap. He tasted the metal of his blood rush on his tongue. His throat was even drier than it had been before, every breath he took felt like sandpaper against it. And he felt like he could not breathe. He did not even know what he was feeling, as she stared down at the shivering forms in front of him – shock, confusion, fear, anger, sadness, joy – everything. His head and heart throbbed wildly and violently.

"Gwen?" He finally choked out, unaware that there were tears forming in his eyes. She was right there, right in front of him. He had not seen her in so long, too long, forever, and he thought he never would again. He did not know which of his emotions to give in to. All he knew was that his relief at seeing her suffocated him, and he had to act on it.

She suddenly looked up, her soft eyes widening when she saw his face. Her lip quivered and tears formed in her eyes – there he was, her Tommy, her best friend, her brother. It was unreal. He was much thinner than he had been when he left – his cheeks and eyes hollow, dirty, beat. He looked so lifeless and so afraid that she wondered how she had the power to not fall apart right then at the sight of him. It broke her heart, shattered it into a million tiny shards. Her poor brother.

"Tommy," She stumbled to sit up and looked at him, taking in every feature and every freckle on his face. She never thought she would be lucky enough to see them again. He was alive. He was there. She had made it; she had found him. Nothing else mattered.

Tommy was overcome with so many emotions. He did not have time to rake over all of them, though, as he saw the familiar spark in her eye and fell to his knees in front of her, ignoring how they hurt from whatever injuries he had sustained. She leapt up and hugged him tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks. So tight that both of them were being crushed, but she did not care. He could not even close his eyes, revel in the moment, as she held him tight and shook against his shoulder, because everything started to fall out of place. Yes, she was there, she was with him and for the first time in the terrible months he had endured he felt loved and safe – yet, there was a problem. Why the hell was she there? What was she thinking, what was she doing, spontaneously washing up onto the shores of the beach? It was one thing that he had been in danger of dying, and now her? How did she even get there? Why the hell was Harry with her, why was Vivian with her? Was she trying to get herself killed?

Tommy's sudden anger was clearer than anything else at that point. His heart swelled and rejoiced inside of him, cheering and crying happily because he was reunited with his darling sister, and clearly, she had come after him somehow, she had been brave enough to risk her life to try and save his – and his heart was proud, but his mind and soul was raging. How stupid could she be? Coming after him the way he was, endangering herself and Vivian? And he hardly had time to focus on the Harry side of things. It was all unbearable, all too much.