My Only Darling

"I should have known I'd find you in the library. Some things never change," said a familiar male voice from the doorway.

Henry looked up from his wheelchair, closing the book he'd picked up off the closest shelf just to have something to hold. He winced when the pages snapped together. He hadn't looked at the title but, knowing his wife's family, it was a rare first edition he shouldn't even have been handling without gloves.

"Yes," Henry said with what he hoped was a smile, "some things."

"What are you reading? It must be fascinating to keep you from your own party." Edward walked toward him and collapsed onto a nearby armchair in a tangle of limbs.

Some things never change.

"I suppose it is. It's about..."

Henry looked down at the book still in his hands. The Care and Keeping of Bees. Damn.

"...bees," he finished lamely.

"Bees. I see you've broadened your horizons since we last spoke, Henry. And your definition of 'fascinating'."

"I've certainly had the time."

"And this is how you've been spending it? You lost your legs, not your faculties."

"I didn't lose them."

Edward's bemused smile didn't waver. "Oh, you know what I meant. You and your semantics."

Henry grinned.

People had treated him differently since the war. They chose their words with painstaking care, and the effort of it showed on their faces. If a fragment of a mortar shell had been enough to paralyze him physically, it apparently stood to reason that a misplaced word could do the same emotionally. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a conversation with a person who didn't look at him like some cross between a child and a wounded animal. Earlier that night, someone his own age had called him 'champ’--that had been when he'd decided to hide out in the library for as long as he could get away with. So it was a relief to know there was still one person on the planet who could speak to Henry as he always had.

It was an even greater relief to know that person was Edward.

Inviting Edward had been Henry's wife's idea--she'd wanted to meet the lead player in all of Henry's Oxford stories. Henry had tried to put her off, making excuses about how they'd fallen out of touch and how awkward it would be to rekindle the friendship now. Really, he'd been afraid that even Edward, with all his sharp wit and disregard for social niceties, would look at him with that nervous solicitude that had become so familiar. And who would have been left to him then?

When they had exchanged pleasantries in the hall earlier that night, Henry's attention had been called in too many directions to say anything for sure. But now, watching Edward smile easily after speaking without an ounce of sensitivity, Henry knew he shouldn't have worried.

"It was good of you to come," Henry said. "Tonight, I mean. Anne wanted so desperately to meet you."

"Oh. Yes, we spoke a bit—she's a lovely woman. And obscenely wealthy if this house is any indication. My congratulations.”

"She is. Lovely, I mean. And her family is quite...prominent."

"How did you meet a woman like that?"

"She was my nurse, actually. After Normandy.”

"Really. Well. I wondered if you’d gotten engaged…before.”

“No. She knew what she was taking on. When we met, I was in about the worst state a living person can be in.”

Edward’s expression softened slightly. “I'm glad you weren't alone, then."

Henry looked down at his lap. Perhaps it was the brandy from earlier--he didn't usually drink--but he felt an alarming warmth building behind his eyes. He'd thought that, once his concerns about Edward treating him like a sick puppy had been allayed, they would have some easy conversation and part as friends. One of those tidy, unsentimental friendships that were so common among Englishmen. So much had passed since Oxford. Why did it need to be more complicated than that? But shallowly buried truths were rising in him faster than he could push them back down.

Edward was right that Henry hadn't been alone in that wretched military hospital, but he might as well have been for all the comfort Anne had given him. And in the year that followed, through the endless stops and starts of what passed for his recovery... Anne had been faultless. An angel come down to Earth. Henry knew he didn't deserve such a woman. And yet...

Why didn't you come sooner?

Henry shook his head. It was just the brandy. He ran his hands along the spokes of his wheelchair and waited for the tightness in his throat to pass.

"Yes," Henry said as if Edward had only just spoken, "I've been lucky."

Edward's smile returned, but it was tinged with something that hadn’t been there before. "I wouldn't go that far."

"I don't know. The doctor said I wouldn't have survived a hit even an inch to the left."

"Well, then." Edward paused, picking a piece of lint off the upholstery of his chair. "It was a mortar shell, yes?"

"A piece of one. They were flying so fast we couldn't see them until they were already on us."

"So, you remember it happening? Did it hurt? Were you very afraid?

Before Henry could respond, Edward cut back in, waving his hands in the air. "No, don't answer that. Even I know that was insensitive. I just...have a morbid fascination, is all. I can't imagine what it must have been like."

In theory, Henry knew little of what Edward had done during the war. He'd only said something vague about the Foreign Office, and he'd seemed eager to change the subject. But when Henry combined that with the fact that Edward had been something of a mathematics prodigy in their school days, all the secrecy started to make sense--not that his suspicions could ever be confirmed.

Still, though Edward had likely seen plenty of intrigue (so much so that he could never speak of it), Henry wasn't surprised he was restless for battle stories. For all his academic prowess, Edward didn't have the constitution for a quiet life behind a desk. His gifts were at odds with his person. Even now, he tapped his feet on the floor and twisted the ends of his jacket in his hands.

"No, I don't mind," Henry said. "I do remember. Parts of it, at least. It was so loud I couldn't tell one sound from another, and all that flying sand just about blinded me...I felt something prick my back, and then a sort of spreading warmth. I was down before I knew what had happened. And if I was afraid, it was only in a faraway sense. I knew it was wrong that I wasn't in any pain, but I couldn't bring myself to care all that much."

"You weren't afraid you would die?"

"Later, yes, but not then. I was delirious--I didn't know what I was dreaming and what was real."

"Did you...I mean, what did you see? You hear stories, you know--a bright light beckoning, a man's whole life flashing before his eyes."

Henry gave a short laugh. "No, nothing so dramatic as that."

"What, then? Indulge me--consider it my recompense for driving all the way out here for such a boring party."

You.

"Just...memories, I suppose."

"Of what?"

First year. We were the last two in the library at night. I was annotating Shakespeare; you were bored and annoyed with me. You knocked my books off the table. And even though we were next to a window, you reached across the desk and...

Henry shook his head. "I don't know. Happier times."

"Childhood?"

Second year. We both lied to our parents--we told them finals went late. It was the middle of the night, the other students had gone, the cold bit at our faces...your college was deserted. For once, you were quiet. Just us two and the fast-falling snow, your gloved hand in mine.

"Oh, you know. School. The good old days."

"Oxford?"

Third year. I was low on funds. I rented a terrible flat in a dodgy neighborhood that you were strangely enamored of. You said it was bohemian. We were huddled by the fire that night, my head on your lap, your hands idly running through my hair. You thought I was asleep; you were murmuring nonsense under your breath. My only darling, you said. My only darling. My only darling. Three times, like an incantation.

"Yes, I suppose." Henry looked down at the rug.

Edward was silent for a few moments before speaking.

"Ah. Happier times indeed."

They met each other's eyes--one corner of Edward's mouth turned up.