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Tommy

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Tommy

His eye lids felt too heavy for his face. He could feel his eyelashes flutter against his skin as he attempted to pull his eyes open, battling against an intense gravity and blinding lights. The brightness that Tommy saw was surprising, considering that the room was dimly lit and what little light came from the lamp on the bedside table, was blocked by a figure.

Tommy gazed up, his glossy eyes searching above as he blinked back the blur in his vision.

The figure above him was at first just a soft shape. It was her hair that first came into existence, solidifying from a misty outline. It was golden, but not like the sun, as it normally would go, but like fields of wheat, glittering in the light. Her eyes blinkered down at him next, wide and innocent, a gentle mix of browns and greens. The girl had a beautiful face, even with the red in her eyes, blue on her skin and blood on her cheek. Her delicate features smiled down at him as she registered his awakening.

He tried to sit up as he coughed slightly, but she pushed him down with a tender hand. She brushed his forehead with a wet cloth, soothing him with incoherent whispers.

He continued to look up at her as she moved the cloth over his head, the cool drips of water sliding down his cheek like tears. In that moment, the unknown woman looked angelic, the blurred light of the background gathering around her like a halo.

"You are safe now." She whispered. Tommy was surprised by her voice. He had expected it to be as soft as he features, delicate like glass. But it was neither high nor low pitched, and held a sureness that immediately put him at ease.

"Where am I?" He asked, and he cringed internally at the lack of strength in his voice.

"You are in my home. Still in France, unfortunately." She said, as she placed the cloth into a dish and turned to brush the sticky hair from his face.

"What happened?" He asked, and she shook her head.

"There is plenty time for questions later." She said, before standing up and moving to the opposite side of the small bed that he lay on. "But you must help me first. We need to get you upstairs, can you do that?"

"Must I move now?"

"Yes, it's urgent." She but her lip, before speaking again. "There are Germans, coming to live in this house. We must hide you."

Tommy nodded and allowed her to loop herself under his arm, pulling him to his feet. He groaned slightly at first, but managed to lift his wait from her shoulders, walking mostly by himself toward the stairs in the hall.

Using the wooden railing to pull himself up gradually, step by step the stairs creaked beneath his concentrated weight, until he reached the top. Tommy stepped out onto the small landing, coming face to face with a feeble set of wooden ladders, leading straight to a hole in the ceiling.

Tommy glanced back to the girl that stood behind him on the last step. She smiled lightly nodding her head as she wrapped an arm around his waist steadying him as he stepped forward.

"Up there?" He asked, uneasy. But the anxiousness was washed away with a single glance to her kind face.

"You can trust me." She whispered. "You're friend is up there and well fed and rested."

Tommy looked at the girl, confused, earning a small laugh. But then he remembered the blond haired Englishman that he'd carried around the streets of the foreign city.

"Dawson?" He asked, earning another twinkling laugh.

"I'm assuming so. He never told me his name."

He smiled. "And yours? If I'm going to trust you I need a name for the pretty face."

The compliment seemed to breeze passed her ears, as she responded politely, "Lucille."

"Tommy." He nodded his head toward her, before turning back to the ladder, and beginning to slowly climb up it.

Lucille. Even her name was pretty. Perhaps his injuries had sent him into a state of constant delirium- as he found himself becoming dizzy at the thought of the girl, who helped his beaten form ascend the ladders. But as his head reached over the hole in the ceiling, Tommy was surprised by the feeling of relief that flooded through him, as his eyes landed of the figure of Dawson, scruffy and snoring.

The clatter of wood against wood must have disturbed him, as when he rolled over in his sleep, his eyes shot wide open. It took him a few seconds to register the fact that Tommy had finally made it to the loft and he sat up stiffly beaming toward the Englishman with pride.

"Shelby, lad, took your time." He exclaimed, adding a pat to his back as Tommy sat down beside him, with a bewildered look.

"Last time I saw you, you were passed out." He stated, looking across him. He was injured badly, but had obviously been taken care of by expert hands, as he was in the highest of spirits, all the same.

"Well same with you." He replied. He couldn't help but add another clap to the back, shaking his good shoulder, which happened to be in his side.

"All thanks to this angel." Dawson called out with a smile, and Tommy watched as Lucille turned back to them, walking over with another damp cloth.

"He was awake the whole time that I cleaned his wounds." She explained. "And in that whole time, I never heard a peep of silence."

Dawson laughed, leaning back into the hard cushion that was placed against the wall behind him. He folded his arms behind his head playfully.

"Well it was good for me, after that I had the best sleep I've had in my entire life!" He said.

Lucille shook her head as she sat down beside Tommy. As she did so, he tilted his head slightly, watching as she brought a hand to his chin, tilting it so she could reach the cut in his face with a cloth. Lightly, she dabbed at the blood that he hadn't realised was dripping down his cheek in light trickles.

"You were both very brave." She whispered, almost absentmindedly, as she worked in cleaning his face once again.

Tommy could feel the hot breath in his skin. It sent shivers down his arms, warming his body as his eyes trailed over her face, which was no more that an inch away from his.

"Where are the others?" Tommy asked her, watching for her rose-bus lips to move as she spoke.

"You were left behind, so we got back to the village later than the rest. There was no time to move you with them, since they had already gone. You had to stay here." Lucille said.

"Well I'm not complaining." Dawson said, as he pulled a chunk of bread from the loaf that day in his lap, and shoved it into his mouth. Lucille laughed, before placing the cloth to the floor beside her and turning to listen to the tales that Dawson told.

Tommy couldn't help but agree with Dawson. He couldn't complain that they were there- wherever there was. Though it was most likely for much different reasons. Reasons that Tommy had never expected to find. At least not in war, anyway.

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