CHAPTER SONG: "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence
April 24th, 1917
Afternoon Express from London to Surrey, England
Lance Corporal William Schofield of the Eighth Devonshire Regiment had fallen into another nightmare and he was immediately aware of doing so by the dread coiling in his stomach and the chill in the air around him.
Only he wasn't alone...
"There's something you need to see, Scho." Tom Blake's soft voice, coated with worry, flowed through Schofield's frenzied subconscious. "It's not about the war, but about our dear Emmy."
"Tom? What is it you mean to show me? And what does this have to with her?" Despite the questions, Schofield knew somewhat about the events about to be shown to him.
"To let you see what you won't be able to protect her from. When she goes back to her own era in 2020. You can't protect her from everything that means her harm." Thomas' usually optimistic cadence was absent as he explained to his comrade.
"Like hell I can't, Blake. I love her more than words can express and if anything happens to her..." He trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence as both men were presented with a bird's eye perspective of a modest apartment, no doubt belonging to the woman he spoke of regarding his romantic devotion.
The woman in question, Emmanuelle Hunterson walked through her living den, clad in loose pajamas that didn't do her lovely figure justice, but Will deduced they were more for her personal comfort with the limited knowledge he possessed about the female mind.
His Emmy did strike him as the type who never really overindulged herself with meaningless things she didn't have a practical use for...
Both men, invisible from their viewpoint of watching her and Schofield couldn't help but feel intrusive at watching her this way, even in his own dream-vision.
"Just watch what happens, Scho. You're about to see the monster she told you about. The threat she'll have to face herself without your help." Blake sadly explained to him as the stunned older man kept vigilant watch over the young American woman as she drank her red wine inside her small modest kitchen.
Then, Schofield realized... This was the night Emmy had confessed to him in tears, the chain of events that had caused him to explode in an uncharacteristic rage in her presence. And now he was powerless even now to prevent it, and the cruel irony wasn't lost on him, this being in his own nightmare at witnessing for himself his beloved Emmy being subdued this way by this villain...
"No...Blake, we must do something. We need to warn her to get out of here. Protect her." Schofield found himself pleading with his late friend, however in vain the effort was...
"We can't change it, Scho. I'm just showing you something that's already happened. You can't keep Emmy safe here, no matter how much you desire to." Blake whispered before not saying anything further, turning his attention to the fair brunette girl who was now beginning to feel the effects of her drink being tampered with...
Schofield had never hated being so helpless before as he watched her place her hand to her forehead and stumbling away from the kitchen toward her living room sofa, no doubt fighting the urge to pass out. The lance corporal felt his eyes water with sadness and fear at seeing her so vulnerable, wanting more than anything to sweep her up in his arms and carry her out of the apartment and get her to somewhere safe, perhaps to a hospital or the authorities...
But then, the monster came to grab his prey and Schofield silently fumed at the sight of Erik Baumer sneaking out of the shadows, from what area of the apartment neither soldier knew, but it mattered little as the wretched man, enfolded his arms around the petite girl before she could collapse to the hardwood floor in an undignified heap. She involuntarily slumped against his broad, muscular body and Schofield could hear him whispering softly to her, but not understand the words he was saying.
"Blake, we can't let this happen! He's broken into her home and drugged her! God knows what he'll do to her if we don't do something!" Schofield found himself shouting to his late battle companion.
The older Lance Corporal had never felt such anger even in his own dreams as he felt himself unable to move from his position above the apartment, witnessing Erik scoop up Emmy in his arms, in a bridal carry similar to how Schofield himself had carried her multiple times before. But the woman was completely limp, her head and swan-like neck dangling over his arm as her eyelids fluttered open and closed. She fought against the concoction threatening to render her into Erik's plaything in her own home...
Schofield felt a lump in his throat at the heartbreaking sight of such a beautiful, kind woman being treated in such a beastly manner, the princess trapped in the dragon's clutches and his yearning to be the knight set out to rescue her, however archaic it sounded with this scenario.
Both men watching from above heard Emmy's voice slur in her words trying to verbally form her protests to Erik, her speech impaired by whatever she had been sedated with. Her bare arms and long brown tresses of hair hung loose toward the floor, ever graceful in her damsel-in-distress position within the brute's arms, limp as a child's rag doll as she was taken against her will out of the living room and toward another door...
And the terror clutched around Schofield's heart as he was ineffective to watch Erik carry her over the threshold of her bedroom...
"Oh, God, no..." Schofield whimpered, glancing to the side as Blake met his eyes in an equally devastated look of livid acceptance. "Emmy..."
He recalled her words in her detailing the story to him, how she had no idea what Erik had done while she was alone and subjected to be at his mercy in her sedated condition.
Then, suddenly the view below Blake and Schofield changed to where instead of the living room, they were perched above the bedroom of the woman they both cared for beyond understanding.
And the sight before them made their soldier's instincts to kill enflame even further...
Erik was holding a rag to Emmy's nose and mouth, his large hand covering her sweet lips and nostrils as he used what was no doubt the chloroform she had mentioned. The narcotic from the wine only prevented her from escaping or causing enough of a fuss to alert the neighbors. Now, he was forcing her into a deep sleep of her nightmares...
The large man loomed over her on the bed as she attempted to fight back, but his other hand gripped her chin to keep her head still. Schofield felt nauseated and the blood boiling in his veins with internal fury at the way Erik watched her with a sickening gleam in his godless eyes as Emmy's own eyelids struggled to stay open until her terrified green orbs were no longer visible and her gasping was slowly ebbing into soft mewling sighs of subduing her into an anesthetic oblivion. And then, she was no longer moving other than the slow rise and fall of her bosom with her breathing...
"Emmy...no..." Schofield was beyond consolation at the sight, fear gripping his heart more so than any instance of going over the trenches or being shot at by the Bosche. He didn't miss the coincidence of Erik being from Germany himself, but that was irrelevant. He ignored the feeling of Blake placing a hand on his shoulder, his jaw clenching in repressed rage, inhaling breaths of adrenaline fueled by the protectiveness toward the sleeping beauty on the bed.
Erik placed his entrapping arm around her slight frame, Emmanuelle now completely motionless in her susceptible state. Not even the lovely vision of her slumbering was enough to tame the savagery Schofield was experiencing, the fire of wanting to murder the monster caressing, stroking, violating the woman he loved while she was unable to consent, nuzzling her delicate pale throat and burying his nose in her glorious hair...
This fiend...this vile criminal didn't deserve to lick the dirt off the ground she walked on, let alone lay a finger on her or breathe in her direction.
"Blake, why are you showing me this? Please, tell me what more I can do to keep this from happening again!" Schofield begged as he turned to his friend for guidance only to find him vanished from his side.
The Lance Corporal gasped in shock and he looked down to find the vision of Emmy's bedroom disappeared...and then he was elsewhere that he was unfamiliar but he recalled similar locations he had been before. The environment around him was similar to a burnt terrain of No Man's Land, except the bare trees were aflame in the manner of a bonfire. The sky above him a hellish red orange, as though he had been thrust into the domain of Hades...
He looked around him for some sign of another source of guidance...
And then he heard her sweet voice, calling for him...
"William! Will...help me!" Her voice floated around him and he listened with high alert, trying to decipher from which direction it came.
Even Will Schofield knew this wasn't real, a dream, he wouldn't deny the sound of her voice begging for him to rescue her from whatever peril she was in...
He ran through the thick choking smoke as her voice grew in volume and clarity, his heart pounding with fearful anticipation as he ran as fast as his normally fast legs would carry him, even rivaling when he ran across the battlefield with bombs exploding around him and the tripwire explosion in the bowels of the German trenches and being nearly crushed by the resulting rubble...
He yelled her name, praying he would find her. "Emmy!"
Schofield's voice cracked with the effort of making himself heard in the smoke saturated atmosphere and he heard no response as he looked around for any sign of his sweetheart...
The thick smoke cleared and Schofield saw before him something he certainly wasn't expecting. A giant hourglass sat in the mud, containing a great amount of blood red sand like something out of an Arabian Nights storybook...
And inside the lower bulb was his beautiful Emmanuelle, clad still in her modern day nighttime attire of a loose shirt and trousers revealing her exposed legs. Her frightened jade eyes met his gaze as he absorbed the sight before him and instantly ran to the glass as she placed her palms on the other side. Schofield shouted her name as he realized that the sand was already beginning to cover his beloved's naked feet, some scarlet grains having caught into her brown hair, sticking to her scalp...
She pounded on the glass as she shouted to him. "Will, I can't break it! We gotta hurry, it's filling up fast!"
Will cursed to himself when he realized he didn't have his rifle to shatter the glass with. Maybe with his helmet...
"Stand back, darling!" He shouted, removing his commissioned metal helmet and bracing himself to crack the glass and free his beloved. He had to be quick, the sand already rising to her ankles, slowly ascending up her legs.
He had no idea how the hell she got trapped in this device...
If he didn't hasten, Emmy would be buried alive in mere minutes if that...
Will could hear the ticking in his head...
He raised his helmet, aiming to save his love like the hero he wanted to be for her... but suddenly a large muscular arm wound around his neck in a strangle hold, causing the soldier to drop his helmet as he was dragged away from the hourglass and from his endangered girl...
Emmy called out his name as she looked back behind her at the sand continuing to pour down, already engulfing her calves and slowly pooling around her thighs, miniscule coarse grains scratching her bare skin and inching up toward her naval...
The death sentence of drowning in the heaviness of sand was over-ridden by her fear for Will as she watched Erik take him down to the muddy ground, entrapping him in a headlock before administering a punch to her soldier's handsome face...
"No!" She screamed, pounding on the glass as she was helpless to make a single crack. And to help the man she loved. "William!"
The sand was now up to her waist, torturously consuming the lower half of her body. She tried to free her legs and crawl on top of the mountainous sand mound, but they were trapped underneath the weighted depths and her struggling only served to submerge Emmy further and drag her down by several inches.
More red grains gathered in great volume around her, the sand up to her breasts... and she released several spine-chilling screams as her situation quickly worsened... the rough crimson pebbles continued to fill up the glass bulb, slowly burying its panicking sole occupant as though she were a desert jewel to be forever hidden under the golden dunes of the Sahara.
William instantly looked to her at the sound of her cries, his heart leaping into his throat at the sight of the sand devouring her even more in such a short amount of time.
The millions of spilling grains weighed Emmy down to where she was hardly able to maneuver her body and her muscles began to ache with the fruitless attempts to stay above the surface and she could feel the lightheadedness already from being in a sealed prison with limited air... trapped against the growing sand mountain and the glass as she could only watch the two men fight each other in an abandoned battlefield for her life. She desperately tried to gain purchase on the glass with her palms to pull herself up, but she was already entombed too deep, more pebbles covering her bosom and up to her collarbone...
Tick...tock...tick...tock...
Every second he wasted was costing an innocent woman her life... She would be crushed and suffocated underneath that sand like he had been nearly killed under the dust and rocks of that damned bunker before being pulled out by Thomas Blake...
"Emmy, hold on! I'm coming!" Will yelled to her, hoping she could hear him. He noticed she didn't take her eyes off him as she kept banging furiously on the glass, no doubt bruising her delicate hands...
Another bout of strength aided him to tackle Erik to the ground and throwing the larger man off the Lance Corporal, the determined soldier rising back to his feet.
Emmy's eyes widened with bloodcurdling fear as the sand ascended with increasing speed up to her shoulders, encircling the base of her neck, creeping up the column of her throat like insects crawling on her flesh...
Will braced himself to race back to the hourglass, but Erik had grabbed his ankle and forced him back down onto the ground, coating his uniform in mud as his obsessed opponent wrapped his hands around the soldier's neck in a choke-hold.
"You think you can save her? You honestly think she would ever want you when she had someone like me?! Emmy is mine! You should've left her to me...and now she'll die a painful, slow death in dark silence because of you!" Erik growled with such spitting venom he reminded Will of a feral wildcat snarling at him. "Human beauty buried like the rare treasure she is."
The lance corporal dared to look up again at the hourglass. Emmy had her head leaned back as the sand edged past her chin and up to her pink lips, the rest of her body vanished and buried within her soon-to-be tomb, more sand drenching her silken hair.
She tried to breathe as much preciously limited oxygen as possible, delaying the inevitable as she stood as far as her height allowed the drowning girl to keep her mouth and nose above the surface before she was completely submerged in her solitary mausoleum...
She tried spitting out the sand attaching to her tongue and ended up swallowing many pebbles that poured down her esophagus, her gag reflex leading her to choke and forcibly cough out a few clumps of hard grains, her throat convulsing and gulping, her lungs burning. Her dried lips clamped shut as tight as she could close them; her terrified whimpers muffled by more sand smothering her mouth.
More grains of sand piled fast into her nostrils, inching up the bridge of her nose and she closed her stinging eyes as they watered with tears and her long lashes powdered with more pebbles, not wanting to see the reaction of Will witnessing her dying before him.
The only thought in her head as her lungs were rattled with the pain of suffocation was what she wanted to tell her soldier one last time... that she loved him more than anything.
One of her hands managed to stay pressed against the glass as the sand continued to shower down in torrents upon her hair and brow... entombing her... Emmy's vision went black and crimson red and the sound of William's screaming her name were silenced as more sand pebbles entered her ears and sealed her eyelids shut. She only felt and heard her heart pounding a frantic pulsating rhythm as her lungs weakened with the amount of sand she inhaled...
Emmy's body was shutting down...succumbing to her fate.
The sight of the woman he loved being closer to drowning before his eyes gave him the strength needed to overpower the monster preventing him from freeing her moments earlier.
"No! You bastard! I won't let her die!" Will managed to kick Erik in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and removing his heavier weight off the leaner man. Erik's dark, soulless eyes shone with pure hatred as he stared up at the younger man, incapable of speaking as he wheezed for breath. William's large hand placed on the man's neck, turning his head at an angle he had learned in previous fights from his youth in his rough n' tumble days...
"You're too late, soldier. By now, her lungs have stopped of breath and her heart ceased beating. You failed..." Erik boasted, but Will didn't want to hear anymore from him. Not when the true enemy was the seconds ticking by with her life...
Tick, tock...
With a guttural yell of released fury, Will turned Erik's head in a motion too fast to see and an appalling crack sounded through the air around him. Emmy's captor and tormentor now deceased in a flash, his neck broken...
Will struggled to catch his own breath, not having time to process his victory over Erik as he looked up again to the hourglass. To his horror, Emmy's head and ribbons of hair had sunk completely into the scarlet sand, disappeared underneath... Her small hand that tried pressing onto the glass for surface purchase went limp in a slumping motion and her elegant arm slowly submerged into the sand too...
Her elbow, then her wrist...her palm, then her scarred fingers twitching as though she were trying to reach out to him...her fingertips and nails...all the tendrils of her hair... every centimeter of Emmanuelle consumed and relished as the hourglass's victim in her gilded crypt...
And then she was gone from sight and the sand from the upper bulb relentlessly rained upon her burial grave more and more...
All Emmy's mind could conjure up before her brain went into shock was one final sentiment:
Goodbye. I love you, William...
Her lungs threatened to burst with the involuntary entry of sand grains into her throat and she began losing the sensation of feeling... numbness enveloping her body whilst battling with the pain of suffocating and the sand's piling weight crushing her.
Will could feel her slowing heartbeat pulsating through his own body and the ticking sound of the invisible clock in his head synchronizing together...
"Emmanuelle! Just hold on!" William screamed at the top of his lungs although he doubted she could hear him. "Hold on, love!"
He raised his helmet and smashed it repeatedly onto the glass, grunting with the effort of breaking it. Will let out a primal yell of frustration as the sound of her heartbeat continued to slow within his head along with the ticking clock taunting him...
Tick...
Tock...
Tick...
Tock...
Tick...
Silence hung heavily in the air, even William found it difficult to breathe.
Her heartbeat stopped...NO... He couldn't be too late...
"Come on!" The rageful lance corporal screamed before finally striking the glass with enough impact to crack its surface. "Emmy!"
He yelled her name...but to no avail at her lack of a response...
Will hit the glass again over and over and over...
At least, the helmet managed to smash a hole, allowing sand to pour out at his feet and he broke more glass to make the hole larger for him to get inside and recover the woman he was desperate to save from her doom of being interred alive...
"Emmanuelle, I'm here!" He yelled for her as he stepped inside the hole he made in the hourglass bulb, pushing through the flooding sand. His eyes vigilantly scanned for any sign of his beloved amidst the millions of scarlet grains that buried her. He failed to care that his hands were cut from the glass shards, all he focused on was the brunette girl he loved more than life itself.
He looked carefully for a small pale hand or maybe a curl of her chocolate hair that would stand out among all the red sand as he waded through the depths of pebbles up to his own waist.
At last, he caught sight of a hand lying on the surface of the sand hill in the center of her prison and he stepped through the coarse thickness almost entrapping his legs to unbury her. Will reached out to her hand, wanting to sob with relief at finding her. He clasped her wrist as gently as he could, carefully pulling Emmy's upper body out of the sand, numerous grains falling off her skin as he tenderly took her into his arms and gathered up her legs from the entrapment of the sand's depths responsible for her sinking.
Her eyes were closed and her head slumping limply on his shoulder as she wilted against his chest. Will carried her with his own legs shaking out of the hourglass, looking down at her lifeless state.
The soldier kneeled down in the mud, holding Emmy in his arms to shield her from the damp ground. Sand red as blood coated her wild tangled hair, her eyelashes, her cracked lips...
Her bosom remained still... her breathing had silenced, like Erik had mocked him about...
The sand in her lungs... numerous grains poured out of her nostrils...
"Emmy...please wake up, love." He whispered to her unconscious face. "You're safe now, Erik can't hurt you anymore..." Will found himself begging like a small child. "I'll take you home, take care of you, keep you from harm..."
The woman didn't stir or flinch at the sound of his voice or the feel of his arms holding her close to his body.
Feeling desperate, he gently turned Emmy onto her side, while still keeping her positioned in his lap and patted her back, hoping she would cough out the sand inhaled into her lungs... Grains and small red pebbles spilled from her nose and open mouth as Will meant for her to expel the sand from her system, but she didn't make a sound or single movement much to the soldier's increasing dismay...
"Emmy, darling..." Will pleaded with her, his voice cracking with an oncoming tidal wave of emotion threatening to overtake him as he tenderly readjusted her in his arms. "Please open your eyes...breathe!"
Will's trembling hands went to his water canteen. He unscrewed the lid and gently allowed droplets of the clear liquid to wash over Emmy's eyelids, her long dark lashes soaking as the sand grains cleared away from her eyes, trails of water flowing down her temples.
Her eyelids remained closed like a sealed vault, no movement beneath them showing they were about to reveal those heart-stopping green irises of hers he fell in love with.
A last resort he had, Will gently lifted up her head with one hand and brought the canteen to her dried lips that were only slightly open to see if the cooling water on her tongue would rouse her awake. Any sign of life she could show him...a sign of hope...
Most of the water dribbled over the corners of her mouth, dripping down her jaw and chin...
Her breaths were nonexistent in her lungs, her chest not moving as if she were inhaling and exhaling oxygen. He took one of her hands in his, Will's fingertips feeling for her pulse under the cooling translucent skin of her wrist...
There was none.
"God, please no!" Will half-whispered, half-sobbed as he looked down at her ashen face, her cheeks colorless; her lovely warm blush replaced with the stark ghostly pale pallor of death. The same as Thomas Blake when he...
The Lance Corporal could no longer contain the flood of guilt, grief and agony battling inside him. The sobs hurt his throat as they racked his entire body, the canteen falling from his hands to the muddy ground as he cradled Emmanuelle Hunterson in his arms, her body temperature decreasing and her once shining mahogany hair dulled to a color brown matching that of the mud beneath the inconsolable soldier.
He had failed her, his cherished Emmy Julia Hunterson of 2020 Richmond, Virginia. She was right in front of him, prayerful that he would save her and he didn't...and now she lay dead in his hold.
He rocked her back and forth ever so tenderly to him, his bruised roughened fingers stroking her hair and his lips pressing light kisses to her forehead and eyelids...and lovingly to her cold frozen mouth.
But this was no fairytale...nothing could bring her back, no power on earth with all his heart and soul...
William felt he would stay in this position for the rest of his body's ability to go without food or drink as he had used the remainder of his water to wash the sand out of Emmy's hair. If it was possible for one to die of a heart shattered permanently to smithereens...
He felt a presence beside him as he clutched Emmy's inert body closer to him, like a parent cradling a child to shield them from danger. Whoever had come for her next would face his wrath...
"How could you, Will?" The deep rumbling brogue of Lieutenant Joseph Blake asked him accusingly as Will looked up at the superior officer, who had his dark blue gaze locked on the deceased woman in his arms. "First you fail my brother, your war comrade, and now you do the same to the woman we both love?"
"I...I tried... I did everything I could." He looked back down to gaze at her emotionless face, and the sight was too much for Will. He would as soon sell his soul to Hell just to see her alive and smiling and laughing... "How could you not think I didn't try for both her and Tom?"
"However we debate this, it won't bring either of them back." Joseph knelt down to William's level on the muddy terrain and he slowly held out his arms. "You need to let me take her home, she needs a proper resting place."
"She was just buried alive, suffocated for God's sake." The corporal's shaking arms held Emmy's frigid body ever possessively to him, her cheek pressed softly against his pectoral above his heartbeat.
"Corporal, I won't put her in the ground. She'll have a special coffin built for her under my family's cherry orchard...where Tom should've been buried. I promise, I'll watch over her, for I loved her as you do, within the first moment I laid eyes on her." Joseph's voice rattled with unbreakable conviction as he held the mourning younger man's gaze.
The lieutenant continued to hold out his arms to take Emmanuelle from Will as the corporal loosened his embrace around her, locking his tearful eyes upon her peaceful features. Joe's dark blue eyes contained a glint of unshed tears as the older man delicately gathered up Emmy's body from Will's lap. Joseph Blake held her close, making sure her precious head was cushioned between his shoulder and neck, his strong arms capably cradling her to his uniformed torso with a surprising amount of gentleness that Will had no idea he had within him.
Lt. Blake turned to Will Schofield and gestured for the corporal to follow him through the scorched No Man's Land. No more words had to be spoken between the two men.
Soldiers on a mission home to give the woman they both loved the vigil and funeral she deserved...
William Schofield and Joseph Blake made their way forward to home as the blood red sun descended into the horizon.
They walked beside each other, Lt. Blake remaining ever steadfast as he carried Emmanuelle with all the outer strength of a virtuous hero despite the tears running down his cheeks and occasionally glancing down at her bloodlessly tranquil face, her features resting as though she were only asleep.
Schofield couldn't stare at the sight for too long without the temptation to break down himself and he stared straight ahead to the endless war-torn landscape illuminated by the hellfire painted sky...
.
.
"William...Will!" An angel's voice...her lovely tone called out to him again. She needed him.
Warm small hands caressed his cheeks as his head lay on a soft surface as Will forced himself to open his eyes, her sweetened lips imprinting an awakening kiss on his own mouth. And he saw his beloved lost Emmy...
She was alive, heavens above!
Her beautiful face hovered over him, her luscious brunette locks of silken hair tickling his face as one of her hands wove through his own dark waves of hair atop his scalp. His head was perched in her lap as he glanced up at his surroundings.
The whistle of a train rang outside as the wheels underneath the floor rumbled on the tracks.
Will Schofield and Emmy Hunterson were in a traveling car on the express to his hometown of Surrey. The hell he had just endured was a nightmare with some chilling remnants of details she had described to him...
His sweet American girl looked down at him with concern and he yearned to take her into his arms and never let go. William caught his breath as he calmed himself down as he looked into her gorgeous open eyes, relaxing his stance resting his head on her.
"Did you have another nightmare, baby?" Her soft voice asked him, her fingers curling in his hair.
He closed his eyes as though to block out the images forever burned and imprinted in his memory.
Erik carrying her helpless incapacitated form in his arms after sedating her... then subduing her with chloroform and putting his hands on her whilst she floated in forced unconsciousness.
Emmy slowly being buried alive by the sand, inch by inch, seeing the terror in her eyes that didn't belong there as she suffocated.
Cradling her cold, lifeless dead body in his arms as he sobbed like a dramatic tragic hero after recovering her from the sand that had already killed her, stopped her beautiful heart that beat compassion and courage and altruism within her veins...
His arms ached as though they were reacting to the recalling of the feeling he experienced holding her after the life had been drained from lovely Emmy. He needed to embrace her now while she was warm and radiant with her mere presence beside him.
Will sat up from her lap and she stared with a questioning look in her green eyes. The tears were already streaming down his cheekbones as she crawled up into his embrace and she immediately enfolded her arms around his neck as they held each other tight.
The soldier didn't need to say any details to make her understand that the nightmare he had experienced was definitely centered on her. Will sobbed brokenly into her shoulder and she held him as though she would never release him.
She was his light shielding Will from the darkness residing inside him as a post traumatic stress enduring soldier as much as he was her protector from her own personal demons.
Emmy's fingers ran though Will's slightly unkempt hair at the back of his cranium, reveling in his soft wavy curls. His own fingers caressed her chocolate locks down the length of her back as though the motions of doing so were working to calm him.
No further words were said as they just held one another. They were equals in this relationship despite the still mainly old-fashioned dynamics expected of a romantic relationship of the era. William and Emmanuelle would belong to each other beyond this war, beyond time between centuries that would inevitably separate them...
Will whispered in her ear as though he were saying the words for the first time in his life. "I love you, Emmanuelle Julia Hunterson. My beloved, my everything..."
The passion and conviction with which he spoke those words that Shakespeare himself couldn't dream of writing almost made the woman in his arms want to beam and giggle and swoon like an infatuated schoolgirl, but she held back as she realized that he wasn't just being sentimental.
He pulled back so he could look into her eyes, still holding her in his arms as he waited to see how she would react. Emmy saw in his face the weariness and truth of his proclamation. She pulled him to her for a kiss, her heart racing with exhilaration as he reciprocated the gesture with as much ardor, dropping all the remaining defenses she possessed. Her scarred fingers absently played with the cracked face surface of his broken watch wrapped around his wrist...
They pulled away to catch their breath and she found her voice again to speak and return his declaration, even though they had already made their love known before. "And I love you, William Schofield. My champion, my heart..."
.
.
At last the train arrived at the station in Surrey and Emmy could tell from Will's body language that he was anxious to finally exit the locomotive and be back on unmoving ground. And if Emmy never heard another train whistle, it'd be too soon.
The couple awaited the train's stop, their luggage in hand. Will held onto Emmy's hand both to keep himself anchored and to make sure she wasn't spirited away from his side. She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek and jaw-line to cease his fidgeting. He looked at her, his gaze softening in tender gratitude, before lifting up her hand and pressing his lips to her knuckles with the reverence of a chivalrous knight courting a lady. In her eyes, all Will needed was a suit of polished armor with a sword at his hip and he would be a vision out of Arthurian legend...
The train came to a complete stop, the conductor's voice announcing their arrival at the Surrey station and cautioning everyone exiting to mind the gap between the train exit door and the platform where the passengers would step off.
Will stepped off ahead of Emmy when it was his turn in line after other passengers. He set down his suitcase and hers by his feet and gently lifted her down from the train, still aiming to be careful with her healing leg. Emmy looked back briefly at the other exiting travelers behind her and saw a few grinning girls around her age smiling both at her and William, giggling amongst themselves about their own beaus.
"Are you alright, my darling?" Will asked her with slight concern as he picked up his suitcase, his free hand reaching up to run his fingertips over her blossom pink cheek.
Emmy found herself looking at the people milling around the station. Her eyes focused on a group of soldiers in similar uniform to William also exiting the train. Most of them appeared to be well and not injured, but a few she could see were definitely wounded and sent home on recovery leave.
One soldier in particular she could see had bloodstained bandages over where one of his eyes were supposed to be, and he struggled to situate himself onto the platform as he had the lower limb of his leg amputated and he was settled with crutches. His mysterious features reminded her of a certain blue-eyed, ebony haired lieutenant with whom she had formed a strong kinship...
Her heart lurched at the sight and she leaned into Will's side as he pulled her protectively close.
His instinct to place himself between her and anything to do with the war however in vain it appeared to be. "It's horrible, love. You don't have to look if you don't want to."
Emmy felt a shiver rack her spine; the pictures and footage from the museum back in her era didn't do it justice compared to seeing such images right before her eyes.
"No. I need to be reminded that we're some of the fortunate ones... do...do you think Joseph is okay?" She found herself asking him before she could stop herself, but the tears stung her eyes much to her embarrassment and internal guilt...
But she had every right to ask about Joseph Blake of the 2nd Devonshire Regiment, her best friend who cared deeply for her... who had laughed and cried and argued with her and would leave her in a passionate temper that awakened an inferno of conflict within her soul...
For all Joseph's faults, he was a man who had admitted his weaknesses to her... and he truly loved her enough to leave his affections unspoken and to still treasure their friendship.
Will found himself struggling to answer her, not wanting to upset her so soon before meeting his family. He had written to Joseph's mother and had addressed the letter to her residence, but if he remembered right, she did reside in Surrey as well...
Before he could specify his thoughts to her, Will was alerted at the sound of another familiar female voice.
"William! Will!" A dark haired, freckle-faced woman who appeared to be around the same age as Joseph with blue eyes identical to William's strode up to them with a dignified grace, two little girls in tow at her side.
Molly Schofield-Satterthwaite, Will's one and only sister...
A bright smile overcame her lovely features as she approached her brother and wrapped her arms around his neck after Emmy stepped aside to give them a moment of privacy.
"Molly, dear sister." His arms enfolded around her waist, allowing him to briefly lift her up off her feet before placing her back down. His own smile was brighter than Emmy had ever seen and she wanted to cry with joy for him. "I've missed you so."
"Uncle Will!" Two little girls with uncanny resemblances to their mother who Emmy deduced appeared to be around five to seven years old in age range spoke at the same time, delighted to see their uncle.
"Elle, Cici!" William happily spoke their names as though they were his own children, his heart bursting with warmth at the innocent sight of them. "My days, you've both grown so big!"
Both of them ran into his arms as he knelt down to their level and embraced them, peppering kisses on their noses and cheeks as they giggled. In a true uncle-like fashion, he lifted both girls in the air and spun them around before setting them back down. Both of them play-acted at being dizzy, before their mother calmly ordered them to behave. His sister was ever formidable and stunning like in the photo of her Will kept in his tobacco tin.
"Giselle, Cecelia, we're not in a schoolyard. Hold yourselves together while we're in public." Molly instructed them and they obeyed right away, going back to her side as the three of them now focused on the mysterious brunette woman whom Will was enfolding his arm around.
"Molly, girls...this lovely lady is Emmanuelle Hunterson. She saved my life...and she stole my heart as well." He spoke with such adoration in his voice, she fought back an oncoming blush as she met Molly's eyes, ever blue and piercing as they looked her up and down.
Emmy was afraid to see Will's surveying his sister silently scrutinizing her and a sense of dread and slight nausea threatened to make her feel faint. Neither woman looked away from each other, waiting for the other to speak first.
Molly bent down and lifted up the youngest girl Elle in her arms as Cici hid behind her mother's dress skirt, wary of strangers.
The American woman decided to brave this new territory set before her and politely held out her hand. "Hello, Molly. Will has told me so much about you and your girls. They're both beautiful...and you are as well."
Emmy wanted to smack herself as she felt she'd come on too strong wanting to gain the sister's favor. She watched Molly's eyes widen as she took in the compliment just paid to her and her small family and after five elongated seconds of staring at the offering of Emmy's hand, she reached out as she kept holding her daughter with one arm. A softness thawed her previously icy stare as both women locked hands.
"I'm happy to meet the woman my brother loves so dearly. I daresay you're prettier than he described in the letter he wrote me." The teasing in her voice was evident as she glanced at her brother who side-eyed her with slight annoyance, her hand releasing Emmy's. "Is it true that you saved him...out there?"
"Yes...we had many close calls. But we saved each other. I...I hope that in the time you get to know me, you will see me as worthy of William's heart." Emmy found herself confessing her insecurities before she could stop herself to a woman she had just met and she bit her tongue.
Will leaned down and kissed her cheek. They would talk later...
"I have no doubt we'll learn more about each other in the coming days. We best get on home before dark. Would you like help with your bags, Miss Hunterson?" Molly gestured to her suitcase while holding onto Giselle.
"No, thank you. I can manage." Emmy leaned down and picked up her luggage, grateful that the pain in her leg had mostly subsided. "And my friends call me Emmy. What little friends I have anyway."
She smiled up at Will and he met her eyes, his heart overwhelmed with happiness at the woman he loved and his much admired sister seeming to become acquainted with little animosity... The green-eyed brunette woman at his side was his lifeline into the future...
And not even his bleakest nightmares would convince him otherwise.