Imagines Irish and British people

George Mackay (AU: William from 1917) / Journey / ANGST

Sorry about this one for it gets quite dramatic quite fast. Based on a dream I had last night (I need to see a shrink I think). Also, as it is an AU one shot set in the universe of 1917, there might be some mild spoiler (nothing huge). Alternative ending to the film to include an OFC. ANGST. Sorry.. William being George.

Picture: E. Munch, Towards the Forest II

It was headlong that William had plunged in this adventure. He knew there was little hope to come back alive from it. But fighting in a foreign country for so long and having lost all sense of time, relying only on the rare letters he would receive from behind the lines to tell him what day it was. He had nothing to lose, other than his life and it was not worth a penny any longer. It would happen sometimes that he would stop for a few seconds to look at his face in a pond only to notice just how much dirt had covered his face and how many wounds had covered his limbs.

William had been walking for hours on end and when he had the strength to, he would run through the high trees, wishing to put an end to this tedious journey he had stepped into. He had milked a cow that was grazing in a deserted field and now decided to halt in order to drink it. He sat in the grass, facing a tranquil tributary and started drinking when he heard women voices from afar. As the three women approached his maquis, he stood up to greet them. For so long he had not seen one single woman that he almost forgot the desire that could grow into a man when he looks at a beautiful woman. But as the three women were closer and closer, he recalled the feelings it could provoke. There was one woman in particular who seemed to have seen torture and pain from an early age. She had the lines of an angel and appeared so pure but she looked terribly despondent.

"Morning!", he told them, staring at this angel he thought was only a pipe dream of his.

"Hello", she whispered back, barely audible. She even had the voice of an angel. It is only when the three women were at his level that he spotted a label on their clothes. He understood that they were nurses which reassured him a little for it was a proof that a camp was close.

He offered some milk to them as he had declined theirs to bandage his wounds. William knew that he could not stay much longer for he had a mission to accomplish. But for donkey's years, he had not felt this fulfillment that was now taking over him. When he would get back to desolation, he would identify this glee and link it to a feeling that philosophers had tried so hard to define: happiness. Deep down, he knew that if he felt this passionate feeling, coming back to the battlefield would be even worse that not experimenting it at the first place. He could not possibly let go of these three women who, with a strong French accent were guardian angels to the poor man he had become.

Ten minutes passed as both William and the nurses had no other occupation than to talk about war crimes and how their birthland was now a vague memory. Even to the French women who were soothing soldiers in their birth country, she could not remember a peaceful time and their loved hills not being tinted with scarlet blood. William daydreamed about the nurse he could now feel a strong desire for and wished it was a whole different context. He would have made her dance for hours. They would have drunk until the morning would come. And eventually, after a few weeks, they would have celebrated their wedding in a church bathed in sweet light of a Sunday afternoon.

Fate had decided otherwise for them. Minutes were stretching at a crazy rhythm, endlessly. The halo was disturbed as a loud noise filled the air. William had heard this noise before and soon reckoned it was the noise of an enraged detonator. But as it became louder and louder, he understood that there were several bombs about to explode near them. Frenzied, the two nurses that were accompanying the third one that William had fallen for - that was still a stranger to him for no name was shared between them - thought the would better run for their life. William knew there was no need to for the bombs were too close and no matter how fast they could run, they would still be intoxicated by the vapors. But he let them run any way as he saw the third one remaining still, a tear budding in her eye. Her too knew that it was the end to an odyssey and that no return to Ithaca was possible. She came close to the caporal, putting her hand in William's. If she was to die, she would at least die with a human contact. She was born in the warmth of her mother and felt that dying in the warmth of a man was the only ending.

Fumes were now a few yards from them and soon they would be there. In silence, at the moment where some people would pray or some others would choose final words to mutter, William let go of all the tears he had somehow managed to conceal. 

"If I am to die, let it be with your lips on mine", he murmured to her, walking the walk as well as talking the talk. The exact moment when the opaque swirls were showering them was the one William picked to kiss the French woman.