Bloodlines, Chapter Four - Tests
Chapter One is here: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/918594.html#cutid1
Chapter Two is here: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/932770.html#cutid1
Chapter Three is here: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/956734.html#cutid1
TITLE: Bloodlines
AUTHOR: maddoggirl
PAIRING: H/W gen
RATING: PG-13 for 19th century cussin’ and a bit o’ Wilson suffering. Oh, and laudanum use *grin*
SUMMARY: Civil War AU. Even on opposite sides of a war, Fate has a way of bringing them together...
A/N: Thanks agin to my wonderful beta, maineac, who patiently corrects my obscenely bad speech punctuation and who said 'technically, you can't laugh something'.
Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee - April 11th, 1862
And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. Acts 28:16
James Wilson sat atop a sorrel mule, wrapped in a dark blue blanket and shivering. The sun would soon be starting to rise - he could tell by the gradual paling of the slate grey sky - but the clouds were too thick to let any rays become visible. A brisk wind whistled all around, and a light drizzle licked at his face and made his nose run. His stomach had the sick liquid emptiness that comes with early mornings and the prospect of a long journey ahead. On his back, under the cover of the blanket, was a canvas satchel containing the few necessities the sergeant had given him. A bedroll was strapped behind the saddle. Wilson checked the straps for the last time with chilly, damp hands that fumbled painfully with the cold metal, trying to distract himself from the growing fear that he was going to vomit. He felt unutterably miserable as another draft of cold air lashed the rain on his face and he felt its sting. He looked up, wiping the water from his lashes. It was still too dark to see further than the nearest hills.
About ten feet away, on the other side of the farmhouse yard, House’s voice rose and fell with the wind. He, the sergeant and Hector were still attaching and adjusting House’s mule’s load. Twenty minutes before, House had stalked out of the farmhouse with Wilson at his back and stared in disbelief at the rides that had arrived for them in the night.
“This is a joke, isn’t it?”
“Sir?” the sergeant had ventured tentatively. House slowly turned from the tied-up mules to face the men.
“These are mules.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant answered. Hector began snickering quietly at the man’s obvious discomfort. House smiled dangerously.
“Can’t be expected to ride on mules, sergeant. We will be requiring horses if we are to reach Chicago before the war’s over.”
The sergeant had made excuses, and eventually House tired of pursuing the point and silently began to load up the mounts. Hector and the sergeant helped fix the bags and pouches to the bay mule, much to the captain’s disapprobation. Everything they attached was swiftly detached by House and placed elsewhere on the animal, usually accompanied by House’s muttered curses.
And now the final items were being fixed into place. Wilson watched the sergeant approach him followed by House, who sternly avoided looking at his charge and stared at the ground, stamping his cane down onto the soft ground.
“How’re you feeling, Jim?” the sergeant said warmly, leaning his arm against the neck of Wilson’s mule.
“All right,” Wilson lied. “Are we ready to leave now?”
“Almost. Just a few things to settle. Captain,” he turned and waited for House to honour him with his attention, which he did grudgingly, “here’s your passport. It’s been signed by the colonel, and it gives you permission to roam about and such.”
House took the proffered document and stowed it inside his blue jacket. “And money?”
“Sir?”
“Last time I tried travelling five hundred miles without money, I had a rough time of it.”
The sergeant reached into his coat and extracted a grubby, much-handled bill. “This here’s ten dollars to start you off. That passport entitles you to collect up to ten dollars from Union headquarters in any town from here to Chicago. There should be a Union post in most towns, so just present yourself there and display the pass-card.”
“Don’t trust me with hard currency, sergeant?”
“It’s dangerous country out there, sir - in some places it’s good as lawless. On’y a blessed fool would walk around with a fair pile on them.”
“Right,” House took the ten-dollar bill and shoved it deep into his pocket. A sudden shudder passed over him as another gust of wind whipped up. The captain took a familiar brown bottle from the inside of his jacket and uncapped it. He grabbed a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and stuffed it over the end of the laudanum bottle, briefly upended it, and restored the bottle to its place. With a look of barely-disguised relief, he pressed the wetted handkerchief to his lower face and took a few deep breaths. He eyes seemed to Wilson to be somewhat misted when he returned the cloth to his pocket.
Hector, who had disappeared several moments before, now emerged from the farmhouse. Hearing the man’s footsteps behind him, Wilson craned his head around to see, and his heart sank. The Negro held in his arms heavy wrist shackles. He passed them to the sergeant and retreated, smiling apologetically at the horrified prisoner.
“No,” Wilson muttered, “no. My wrist is broken. You can’t…”
“Boy,” the sergeant interrupted, in a far worse mood than previously, “don’t bother squallin’. Captain House’s safety is the main thing here, not your blasted Reb discomfort. Y’ought to be grateful of anything you get short of a noose. Hold out them hands.”
Wilson slowly extended his arms from the blanket around his shoulders and bit back tears as the weighty manacles were tightened around his wrists. The broken bone seemed to twist under the iron, sending bolts of pain through his arm. House finally looked up from the ground.
“Stop it. They don’t need to be that tight.”
Wilson looked at his guard gratefully, but House’s eyes had already moved to the distant horizon. The sergeant let go of Wilson’s hands, and they fell heavily down onto the mule’s back, causing the creature to whinny and stamp a hoof.
“Here’s the key, sir.”
House took it silently, then crossed back to his mule. He had placed an empty wooden crate by its flank, and now used this to mount. As he swung himself up, a flicker of pain passed over his face, but it was quickly suppressed.
“All right. Let’s go,” he muttered. “Wilson!”
“Sir?”
“Let’s go.”
Wilson shook the reins of his mule and followed House’s to where the yard disintegrated into rough grass, which led to a distant track. He twisted in the saddle and looked at the washed-out faces of Hector and the sergeant. Hector nodded and Wilson nodded back, then turned back to face the ground ahead.
The surroundings were hilly and scattered with dark trees from which clouds of birds erupted as their mules passed. The rain pattered down, splashing up mud from the dirt track and soaking the blanket around Wilson’s shoulders. He wiped his nose and coughed wetly, his head buzzing painfully.
After ten minutes of riding, Wilson gasped in pain as his shackles began to chafe the skin of his swollen wrist.
After thirty minutes, both wrists were scraped and bleeding.
After an hour, he wanted to die.
He let out a muffled cry as the blood ran over his hands and the metal fetters ground into his flesh again. House, who had remained silent and kept his mount at least ten feet ahead of Wilson’s at all times, looked back for the first time. Something flashed in his eyes, and he faced forward again, calling gruffly, “We’re stopping after this hill. I want breakfast.”
On the other side of the hill was a stream. The two men halted their mounts by the bank and Wilson waited for some instruction. He had noticed the pistol House wore at his hip, and a certain fear that he was going to be murdered and thrown in the river overwhelmed the young prisoner. House slowly dismounted and turned to Wilson.
“Get down,” he instructed. It took Wilson several minutes to do this, maneuvering his chains carefully and hissing in pain as they cut into his wrists. When he was finally standing on the wet grass, his weighted arms hanging heavily in front of him, he saw that House had constructed a small fire under a large tree near the edge of the riverbank.
“Give me that,” he ordered, gesturing to the sodden blanket Wilson still clutched around him. Wilson shed it, and watched House spread it over some of the tree’s lower boughs, a few feet above the fire, where it would dry out. He extracted from his jacket the key he had received earlier and hobbled towards Wilson. Wordlessly, he unshackled his captive and slid the chains from his wrists.
“Throw ‘em in the river,” he muttered brusquely.
“I will, by thunder,” Wilson mumbled wearily, holding the irons in his hands. He stood on the bank and hurled the heavy chains into the bubbling water, where they plunged into the deep with a satisfying noise. House looked at his charge, shivering in his ragged grey trousers and grimy white shirt, and frowned.
“Go sit over there,” he said, jerking a thumb at the fire. Wilson gratefully half-stumbled forward and seemed to almost collapse by the fireside. Pulling himself up, he leaned his back against the tree trunk and extended his hands towards the small blaze before him. House unpacked a saucepan, two tin cups and a small package from the saddlebags and sat down heavily on the opposite side of the fire with them. He emptied his water bottle into the saucepan, which Wilson noted had a wire handle with a frayed length of rope tied to it. House attached this rope to a branch, so that the saucepan was suspended just over the fire. House unwrapped the package and shook some brown powder into the pan. He then proceeded to watch the muddy-coloured water come to boil, poking it occasionally with his cane.
Wilson brushed his hair from his eyes sleepily, and basked in the warmth of the flames. His wrists felt as though they were burning, but at least he was warm and rapidly drying, as was the blanket stretched over their heads.
“The skin’s broken,” House observed, nodding at Wilson’s wrists, “you should be careful you don’t catch something.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” House questioned, irritably.
Wilson nodded. “I was in medical school when I joined up.”
House snorted, “How old are you?”
“Nine and twenty. Why?” Wilson answered. House leaned forward and sniffed the boiling coffee, then stood up and loosed the rope suspending the pan and set it on the grass. As he measured out the steaming liquid into the cups, House replied, “When I was your age, I had my own practice.”
Wilson leaned forward to take his cup. “Thank you. Well, my father owns a dry goods store in Courtland, Alabama. The year I left school, the year I was supposed to go away to college, his business partner disappeared. He took nearly five thousand dollars with him, all my father’s savings. My brothers and I had to stay home and help him build up the business again.” He sipped the coffee and closed his eyes. “This is first rate.”
“You can go clean up in a minute. You look…” House paused, “Can’t think of a word. What might a Jew say?”
“I think,” Wilson smiled, “he might say I looked fershlugina. Mussed-up, like.”
“Fershlugina,” House repeated. “How far did you get in medical school?”
“I was three weeks off graduation when I joined up,” he said, laughing. “My father said I had to come right away. Folks were getting to saying that Jim Wilson wasn’t going to fight, so he ordered me to come right back home and sign up.”
“Sounds like a fine feller,” House remarked sarcastically, taking a mouthful of his drink.
“He’s okay. He’s just…Southern.”
“And you’re not?”
“People say I got my mother’s temperament. They’re right - I always seem to get along with her considerably better. Say,” he added, looking to the sky, “the sun’s coming up.”
“Why yes, Jimmy,” House replied, “You’ll observe that it happens every day.”
Wilson paused in surprise for a moment and then laughed, at first nervously, but eventually with heart. Both men drained their cups and slowly got to their feet. Wilson picked up the saucepan, filled it with river water and quenched the fire.
Two hours later, the sun was rising in the sky, rain was a distant memory and two men rode side by side along a Tennessee dirt track.
“Are we going to hit on a town anytime soon?” Wilson asked, pulling down the visor of his forage cap and squinting in the sunlight.
“Soon. Two or three miles. You want to stop?”
“I’d like to buy some paper to write my mother. And the mules could do with a rest, right?”
House nodded, and flicked the reins up, driving his mount on a little faster. They reached a sleepy little town in just under half an hour, a tired Southern town stifling under its captivity, Wilson thought. They tied their mules to a hitching post, where they lapped at the water-trough eagerly, and looked up and down the dusty main street. It was almost completely deserted. There was a saloon about halfway up it, a general store and a tobacconist further down.
“I’m going for a drink. Meet me in there when you’re done.” House paused, then added, “Want any money?”
Wilson shook his head absent-mindedly. “No, thankee. I got forty-eight cents in my pants.”
“Bully for you,” House muttered, and stumped away in the direction of the saloon.
Wilson stretched his sore arms, bracing them tightly behind him and leaning back his head, his face turned up towards the blue, cloud-scraped sky. The sun beat down on the orange dust of the road and seemed to melt into the skyline, like a...he was too tired to think of a suitable analogy, so headed for the general store. It was a strange feeling, he reflected, to be a prisoner in the South, in his homeland. It was, in fact, somewhat ridiculous. He sighed, stamped his foot to get rid of the pins and needles the long ride had put into it, and headed into the general store. Behind the counter, a short, white-haired man in a brown waistcoat was counting out coins. He looked up, and whipped out a pair of spectacles from the waistcoat pocket. He squinted through them, then reached slowly under the counter. When his hand appeared again, a rickety-looking firearm was clasped in it.
“Hell!” Wilson exclaimed, leaping backwards. There was an odd pause, before he thought to speak. “What is this?”
“Deserter, ain’t ya? I see them grey pants!” snapped the old man, cocking the weapon.
“No…no,” Wilson replied, edging backwards very slowly, “I’m a prisoner - my guard’s just across the way. You want to put that thing down? Look, these are the marks of the chains!” he pushed back his sleeves and exhibited the garish rings of dried blood and torn skin.
“Well,” the old man chewed the inside of his cheek with an attitude of deep consideration, “g’wan, then. What can I do for you?”
Wilson gaped. The man’s tone was as polite as if the whole incident had never occurred. “Just a few sheets of paper and an envelope, please.”
“There you are, young man. You can have ‘em for free, and I wish you well.”
“Uh…thanks,” Wilson said uncertainly, heading for the door as fast as he thought polite.
He tucked his purchases in the waistband of his trousers and headed up the street. As he stepped onto the saloon’s porch and stretched out a hand to push open the door, he felt something poke him in the centre of the back. He flinched, wondering if it was the gun-barrel another perturbed resident, but upon turning around, he saw that it was House’s cane, with House on the end of it.
“I thought you were in there,” Wilson said stiltedly, tilting his head back to indicate the barroom behind.
“Just went to fill up,” House patted the hip flask at his belt. “It was a test, to see if you were going to run. Don’t look so fearful, Jimmy, you passed. Or failed,” he added, brightly. “Guess it depends how you look at it. Come on.”
About halfway back to the mules, House looked impatiently over his shoulder at Wilson. “What happened to you? You look bewildered like you seen a Reb victory.”
“Feller in the store, took me for a deserter, jabbed a gun in my face. I liked to drop dead.”
House snorted in amusement.
“Well, I’m glad you think it so blamed amusing,” Wilson said, but he was smiling as he swung himself up onto his mule and leaned down to untie it.
They continued along the rough country road, occasionally veering off into woodland at House’s whim. Wilson had no choice but to follow him, as he jerked his mount towards any piece of land that caught his attention. On one such event they were trotting through a dark patch of forest, House looking quickly about him like a curious animal, when Wilson voiced his unease.
“Do you reckon we oughta be out here? Seems to me like we’re bound to lose ourselves sooner or later.”
“Later’s fine with me,” House replied, leaning down from the slow-moving mule to poke a fat frog with his cane. He smiled almost childishly to see it leap away. “Anyway,” he added, “what do you care? Longer we take, more Union currency you’ll be costing. Bringing down the army from the inside.”
“I guess,” Wilson said, unconvinced. “But I’ll tell you that bringing down the Union army is only my secondary concern, my primary one being not dying.”
House grinned broadly, and somewhat alarmingly. Then, his amusement seemed to fade, and he answered sullenly, “If I was you, I’d try and enjoy myself, because you won’t once we get to Chicago.”
They emerged from the trees, and both men scanned the ground ahead to pick up the track they had abandoned half an hour ago.
“It’s hot,” House stated, as they trotted towards the track once more.
“Powerful,” Wilson agreed. He was already hot and tired enough to sleep, but his pocket watch only showed three o’clock.
“We’re stopping over yonder. There’s a creek on the other side of that farmhouse.”
Wilson swallowed the hardtack he had been chewing on. “How’d you know that?”
“When they aren’t pointing guns at strangers, the residents of Suspiciousville, Tennessee like to talk.”
Wilson shook his head in mild awe, and resumed gnawing on the rock-hard biscuit.
They came to a halt by a small creek of clear water tumbling steeply over rounded brown rocks, and climbed down from their rides. Wilson noted House’s gritted teeth and snort of frustration as he slowly lowered himself to the ground, as though he were angry with himself for having to move so awkwardly. Wilson thoughtfully looked away, turning appreciatively to the lush shrubbery along the riverbanks and listening to the gurgling of the crystal waters.
“I’m gonna sit down and write that letter, if I may.”
House shrugged. “Do what you want. I’m washing.”
When Wilson had seated himself against a tree trunk, he saw that House was heading past him.
“Where you going?”
“I said I was going to wash.”
“You…” Wilson said, then broke off hesitantly. House continued along the riverside, getting a good distance away before Wilson looked over his shoulder towards him and blurted out, “I was in medical school for two years, sir. I seen plenty worse.”
He stopped speaking as suddenly as he had started. House froze for a moment, letting the sound of chirping birds fill the silence, then continued as though he hadn’t heard. Wilson leaned his head back against the tree meditatively for a few moments, wishing he had not spoken, then proceeded to draw up his knees, spread his paper across them and begin writing. As the pencil stub moved over the thin sheet, Wilson listened to the soft sounds of House getting into the water and swimming a little. Something in him wanted to turn and look upstream, a ghoulish curiosity, but he kept his eyes firmly on the page in front of him. Time passed quietly, with only the gurgling stream and the faint scratching of his pencil to remind him that he was actually there. He finished off the note somewhat absently, then tilted back his head against the solid tree trunk and felt the dappled sunlight on his face. A great weariness washed over him, one that he had been holding off since getting up that morning.
He must have dozed off, for he woke to find House’s shadow fallen over him and his voice resonating through Wilson’s ears.
“‘Dearest Mother,’” House was saying, loudly, the freshly-written letter held at arm’s length. Wilson scrambled to his feet, and House retreated a few steps. His hair was wet, and he wore only an undershirt over his blue trousers.
“That’s mine, House!” Wilson yelped, forgetting his previous manners.
House staunchly ignored him, continuing in a heavy Southern drawl, “‘I hope that this letter finds you well as it finds me.’ That’s not very nice, Jimmy - you’re a mess.”
“Give it back! And I don’t talk like that!” Wilson leapt forward, but House thrust out his cane and kept him at the end of it, still reading.
“‘I am sorry to report that I was not able to attend the Shavuot…’”
“That’s a Jewish holiday,” Wilson reluctantly annotated, resigning himself to his fate.
“Know what it is, Wilson. ‘…the Shavuot service organised by Corporal Solomons as I had hoped, on account of I have been taken prisoner. I should have wished you to know this earlier, but I injured my wrist in battle and have been unable to hold a pencil until now. But I am much improved now, and am being sent to a prison camp in the North, though I think it best that I do not say where precisely. The weather is exceeding hot…’”
“That does not say ‘exceeding’! It’s ‘exceedingly’! I don’t talk like that!”
“Hush when I’m reading, Wilson, or I’ll get confused. ‘…but I hope it will cool off by the by. My only companion on this…’ Aha! Here’s the good stuff!” House exclaimed, “‘My only companion on this journey is a Yankee surgeon who is being discharged because of his injuries, most recently a punctured abdomen, but he also lost part of his thigh at Manassas last year and as a result cannot walk in the normal fashion. He gets along with a stick, and I fancy that the injury gives him a great deal of trouble, for he often seems terribly pained, and takes more laudanum than you would approve of, Mother.’”
Wilson had one hand covering his eyes, and the other one curled into a fist at his side. “Are you done?” he asked, colouring up.
House scanned the remainder of the letter briefly. “Ye-es,” he said, at length, tossing it onto Wilson’s lap, for the prisoner had now sunk to the ground in an attitude of despair.
“Go, wash,” House commanded. “I’ll make us something to eat. Bacon?”
“No bacon,” Wilson answered, firmly, getting up and beginning to unbutton his shirt. House nodded, biting his lower lip gently in apparent thought. Soon, chicken and potatoes were boiling in a metal pot over another small blaze and when Wilson emerged from the creek and dressed, feeling airy and at peace, a plate of them was waiting for him by the warm embers of the dying fire.
He smiled as he rubbed his shirt through his wet hair and took his place opposite the surgeon. Maybe it would be all right after all.