*happy dance*
So, for those of you whom I haven't flailpanicked, bitched, or gloated to about this yet, I signed up at getyourwordsout to write 300,000 words this year. It's my third year doing the yearly challenge thingy, but the first time for 300k, which is a number that is big enough that i sort of signed up for it because I have no real concept of how big it is
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Gwen shows up without notice outside Uther's door. Morgana opens the door herself when the bell rings, that big huge door because Gwen isn't feeling up to climbing over the back fence and coming in through the kitchen like she'd always used to. The front door had always looked cold and imposing; it's no different now, but Gwen's harder around the edges now and she minds less.
Gwen's more ragged around the edges as well, but the whole country is. No one will notice hers.
Morgana opens the door herself, and she looks harder than she had when Gwen had left her as well. "Yes, can I help-" and then Morgana breaks off, mid-sentence, when she sees who's standing on her doorstep and goes so pale she's nearly translucent, the colour of a ghost walking over their own grave.
"Gwen," she says then, and her voice is small, small, smaller than it's ever been. As small again in her mouth as Morgana's frame in the too-big, too-cold doorway, and twice as lost. "Gwen," she says, and then she falls, straight down, when her knees refuse to hold her.
Gwen is too surprised to try to catch her, so she goes down too, unable to stand looking down at her friend. "Morgana, she says, reaching halfway across the threshold and pausing, unable to go the rest of the way on her own, "I'm home."
Morgana just drags Gwen to her, and they sit on the doorstep clutching each other and crying tears of disbelief and relief and pain and joy.
Gwen isn't sure how much later it is when they finally get up. Her bad leg's stiffened up from sitting on the stone, and Morgana ends up having to physically lift Gwen so she can get her feet back under herself.
"What?" Morgana asks then, demands really, "What's the matter? What's happened?" And Gwen's a little bitter when she tries to smile reassuringly. She hadn't wanted to explain like this.
"Medical discharge," she said. "I, something exploded. I caught some shrapnel in my leg," and here she can't help but laugh, a little, at the whole situation. "I passed out, the pain, I guess. The soldier I'd gone into the trench to help, he'd had some basic medical training. He's the reason they didn't have to amputate later." Get everything out at once, and you don't have to go in again. Gwen had learned that in the field.
"Don't look at me like that," Gwen says at last, because she can't take that. Morgana looking at her with horror, with guilt--it'll break her heart. "It brought me back to you, didn't it?" And Morgana, bless her, firms her chin and nods and helps Gwen back into the kitchen where it's warm and cozy and makes Gwen her favourite tea.
Later that night, they fall into bed and curl in close under the covers, like children, just touching to prove they can, that they're warm and alive and together. Promises they can't make that they'll never leave each other again in the curve of tangled limbs.
"I've been saving it," Morgana confides then. "The tea. You can't get it any more, with the rations. I was keeping that for when you got back. The news didn't say anything, of course, but Merlin, sometimes he'd complain in his letters about how there was never any bloody tea, that even if you managed to get your hands on some, you never got the chance to boil a good pot. Or if you did get the chance to make some, then you never had any tea. I thought it would be too awful for you to finally come home and still not have any, so I kept it for you."
Gwen presses a kiss to Morgana's shoulder, and lets Morgana clutch her as close as she wants.
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Funny, somewhat related story: on D-Day, the British only pushed as far as it took to get off the beach, but then all of their forces stopped. It turns out that after they had gotten that far, they all stopped for a tea break. It happened at least one other time (in the Pacific theater, I think), and the American unit under the British command got so pissed, they risked being court-martialed by advancing themselves against the British orders. If I remember correctly, one of the soldiers threatened to shoot the British commander.
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i really really enjoyed this WWII anecdote.
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WWII has to be one of the most ironically amusing wars, simply because of all the crazy/ stupid crap both sides pulled. I mean, the U.S. tried to develop a weapon that would make the enemy soldiers fall in love with each other and spend too much time sexin' it up to fight. Really.
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