#trenchfirefic

The noise in the bar crashed onto Poe’s ears in cacophonous waves, pressing into his mind and driving out the ghosts, at least for a little while. They seemed to occupy his thoughts more than they ever had and he wondered, briefly, if the long days of autumn had brought them back. He had dreamed in his trench, of course, they all had. Even Bertie had woken screaming in the night, only calming when Poe placed a bayonet in his hand and sat beside his bed, the lantern light deepening the shadows under their eyes. He had expected the terrors to fade when the war was over and they had, for a time. He gave the scarred and pitted wood of the bar a rueful grin. The endless worry about the treaty-about Herr Skywalker-had taken up all the space his thoughts had to give in those few awful months, but now the nightmares were back, and not even his endless hours at the steel mill could keep them at bay. He tumbled into his bed exhausted and slept poorly,  chased in his dreams by pale, insubstantial figures that spoke with the voice of machine gun fire and took the shapes of faces long dead. He had heard somewhere that it was impossible to dream a face you had never seen, and he shivered, wondering where his mind had pulled the hollow-eyed figures that stalked him through the French mud every night.

The whiskey burned in his throat, easing the chill that had crept into his shoulders. He had shunned the Jolie Rose, opting instead for a soldier’s bar on the outskirts of the red light district. The whiskey was cheaper, the music racier, and the company more sparse. Best of all, what company there was was inclined to violent outbursts over the barest whiff of an insult. Fights were common, injuries even more so, and every regular in the place was just as keen as he was to break bones and skin to escape the demons on their heels. A conversation with rich potential was brewing to his left, where a grizzled old man sat nursing a pint of awful beer. Everything about him screamed navy, and he was bearing the endless chatter of the three young pilots beside him with the patience of ages. The boys looked like Poe felt, lost in the aftermath of the war and knowing that raining death from the skies was the only thing that made them feel really alive. They were new at the bar, and Poe guessed by their manner they he travelled around a fair bit. The blonde fellow doing the most of the talking didn’t have the kind of personality that lets a person be a regular anywhere for very long. The old navy dog just sat there and took it while the pilots waxed on and on about the war, pushing, and pushing. It couldn’t last, Poe knew, and as he reached this conclusion, the blonde kid said the unforgivable.

“Well, I heard the crew on the Gallia were spotting for the Jerries anyway. Probably manned the signal light, didn’t you?”

Silence fell instantly. The old man took a sip of his beer and set it gently on the bar.Such care, Poe thought distantly, for a man about to start something. “You want to say that again, monsieur?” His cracked voice was low, and far too polite to be safe, “So everyone can hear you?”

“You heard what I said,” the pilot sneered, “You’re probably one of those dirty swabs who could ride a torpedo from here to Calcutta.”

“At least I have a torpedo,” the old man said flatly, and caught the kid a square hit on the jaw. The darkened room was mostly chaos after that. The pilot contingency put up a fairly decent showing for their fallen comrade, but soon the table of navy regulars in the corner had emptied, coming to the aid of the old man and, within moments, the whole bar was involved in something or other.

Poe caught a wicked upper cut on his jaw that sent him reeling away from the bar, stumbling into the unsympathetic arms of an burly man with a beard that looked like it was ready to grow a life of its own somewhere away from his face. He growled wordlessly, shoving Poe away and following up with a wide, sweeping roundhouse, which he dodged easily. Now that his head had stopped ringing a bit, he could feel his blood singing with the joy of the fight, the heady rush of adrenaline that drove away the dark and sharpened the world into a narrow space of blood, flesh, and bone. As he sank a fist into the burly man’s ribs, a part of him protested that this wasn’t what might be called a respectable way to spend his evening, but he was long past caring, throwing himself into the fight with reckless abandon.

*

Something cold tickled his face. Blackness began to let him go slowly, with regret. He groaned as feeling came back to various pieces of his body and they began to scream at him, reminding him that whatever he had been drinking last night had probably been an awful idea. “E-excusez-moi, monsieur,” said a small voice somewhere above him, “Are you alright?” Poe blinked muzzily, raising a protesting arm to shade his eyes from the bright point of light above him.

“Whatssit?”he mumbled, tongue thick and heavy in his mouth.

“Papa!” He registered a lace petticoat and small leather shoes which scurried away as he attempted to sit up. He was nearly successful, but his head began to spin sickeningly, so he decided it was probably best to just leave it resting on the rough wood below him and let the waves of nausea wash over him.

Where was he? What the hell had happened last night? He could remember fragments; they exploded behind his eyes in horrible bursts of colour. The bottle smashing on his head. Several pints of...something with the navy lads. Rain? Possibly? He couldn’t tell. It might have been sweat that had made his hair stick to his scalp like that. Waving away the offer of a hand home. Stupid. He obviously hadn’t made it.

He started as he heard a new voice approaching him from what seemed like a long way off.

“Oui, Madeleine, I heard you.”

“But Papa, he fell out of the cabbages!” Oh. Cabbage. That was the cool tickly thing resting against his hand.

"Oui, Madeleine."

A shadow blocked out the searing light above him. Poe was grateful for the respite and inclined to say so, but his face was very heavy. In fact, now that it had come to his attention, his lips felt cracked and almost certainly swollen. More and more of the night before was coming back to him. Oh yes, it had been chalked full of terrible choices. It had probably been the fist connecting with his jaw that made his neck and face feel like they were made of wood instead of flesh.

"'M sorry about your cabbages, monsieur," he murmured, trying to lift at least half of his face off of what he now realized was a floor.

"They've seen worse, I'm quite sure," Someone knelt down beside him. Strong hands helped pull him up onto his hands and knees, "Though I'm less sure about you. Frankly, it looks as though you may have seen better days."

"And worse," Poe assured him, though he was less and less sure of that as feeling came back to more of his body. Knees were alright. He didn't think he was ready for feet yet, but the hands switched to grab him under the arms and pull him to his feet with surprising ease.

"You'll have to tell me of it sometime," There was a soft grunt from beside him as his arm was looped over a pair of bony shoulders, "but for now, monsieur, I expect you need some care and a place to sleep that is softer than my cabbage bin."

Poe was about to protest that if this person could just get him back to the apartment, he had a perfectly serviceable bed, but his rescuer led him out into bright early morning sun and it was all he could manage to stay mostly upright as his head pounded under the onslaught. Mercifully, the walk in the sun was not a long one and he soon found himself under the comforting shade of a roof. The smell of frying bacon wafted through the air and Poe could hear the chatter of several female voices as he was led to a back stairway.

"Long night, was it, monsieur?" asked his host.

Poe nodded. "Longest I've had in a long time," he admitted as they reached the top of the stairs. New tender places were opening up on his body the more he moved it and he was beginning to fear that he had seriously injured himself in that fight last night. It had gone on longer than usual, but he couldn't remember anything more serious than a couple of hits to the ribs. Nothing that would warrant him feeling like he had been trampled by the entire French cavalry. Twice. He wasn't sure he would have made it home. Actually, come to think of it, he wasn't even sure he knew where home was from here.

"Then some rest will do you good," the man said firmly as he opened the door to a sparsely furnished bedroom. The sheets were a clean crisp white and possibly the best thing Poe had seen in the last week. The bed was soft and he sighed in appreciation as the old man helped him into it. "Sleep," the man said, though the order was completely unnecessary. He was asleep before his head hit the lace edged pillowcase.

Poe woke thick tongued and sore some hours later, after sunset by the low light that greeted him when he chanced opening his eyes. The bed creaked beneath him as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. His head had stopped spinning and the pain in his face had faded to a dull ache.

"Pardon me for saying so, monsieur," said a voice from his right, "but you look thoroughly dreadful.

Poe sat up, looking toward the dim outline of a figure seated on a three-legged stool by the door. There was a suggestion of a beard and his fogged memory provided a picture of sharp blue eyes. "There is water on the table beside you, if you want it."

"I do, thank you," Poe croaked. His lip was still tender and the water stung the cracked flesh, but it was cool on his throat. He gulped at it, unaccountably thirsty, and coughed as his abused body rejected his overzealous attempt to make amends.

"Slowly does it," chuckled the voice in the corner. It was a smooth voice and cultured, with the barest hint of an accent Poe didn't recognize. "You've had a difficult day."

"Yeah," Poe agreed, eyes watering. He set the water down, studying the man on the stool. Now that he was no longer thinking through a fog of drink and pain, he had questions. "I don't wish to seem ungrateful, monsieur,” he began, “but why am I here? And where is here, exactly?”

“I am told that in the great and infinite space of our universe, there is a reason for our mortal existence,” the man said, sounding amused, “but in regards to your immediate situation, I am Monsieur Kenobi and you are sitting in my guest bed, in large part due to your good fortune in my granddaughter finding you out in my cabbage bin. You look as though you’ve been in a fight. A losing one, I might add.”

“Yes,” Poe’s mind raced to keep up with the man’s reasoning. It was difficult, considering the many gaps in his memory of the past forty-eight hours. “That doesn’t bother you?”

Monsieur Kenobi laughed, a rich, genuine sound, “My dear boy, why would that bother me?”

Poe flushed, “I don’t think I gave you an entirely respectable first impression.” He thought back to his blurred trip up the stairs, the chatter of female voices. “And this seems a respectable house. I…” he hesitated, “well, in your shoes, sir, I would have called the gendarmes and left it at that.”  

“Tell me, Monsieur...”

“Dameron,” Poe supplied, “Poe Dameron.”

“Are you familiar with the teachings of Christ, Monsieur Dameron? With his life as it has been told to us?”

“Vaguely,” Poe allowed, thinking of his mother’s secret piety and his father’s steadfast atheism. Sunday school had not been a part of his childhood.

“Well, suffice to say that he did not spend much of his time with respectable citizens.” There was a rustling sound as Monsieur Kenobi shifted on his stool. “You were in need. I have been called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. It was not a matter of respectability.”

“I...see.”

“You think me mad, no doubt.” Poe could hear the smile in the man’s voice and wondered how obvious his disbelief had been. “Let me put it a different way, monsieur. If you wanted to do me or my granddaughters harm, run off with our possessions, say, how well do you think you would manage?”

“Poorly.”

“At best,” the man said bluntly. “I appreciate your concern on my behalf, monsieur, but you look about able to tackle a bowl of cereal. Regardless of my reasons, you are in no place to do me harm. If it gives you any comfort,” he added kindly, “your second impression has been more than respectable.”

“I…” Poe felt overwhelmed by this stranger’s kindness and found himself unable to speak past the lump in his throat. He wanted to protest that he was the last person to be deserving of such charity, that in fact what he deserved for his recent conduct was a firm dressing down and probably a slap to round things out. It hadn’t been a rough night so much as a rough several months and he felt a prickling of shame at how far he had slipped. “Thank you, monsieur,” he said at last. “I’m not sure what you see that is worthy of respect and I don’t know how I can repay you, but thank you in any case.”

“I have no need of repayment,” Monsieur Kenobi said, raising himself slowly to his feet, “though if you are feeling well in the morning, I am quite sure that an extra pair of hands would not go amiss.” He paused at the door, as though he had forgotten something in the room. “Do you have anyone waiting for you at home, Monsieur Dameron?” he asked.

Poe felt a cold wash of guilt as he thought of Bertie worrying, wondering where he was. “Yes. Mr. Brown. May I give you his address.”

“Certainly.” The main listened patiently and repeated the numbers back to him. “I will see that he knows you are safe and relatively well.”

“Again, thank you, monsieur.”

“It is no trouble at all,” Monsieur Kenobi assured him. “Now rest. I will wake you for breakfast.”

Poe stared up at the dark ceiling for a long time, listening to the quiet sounds of life in the house around him. When he finally drifted into sleep, he did not dream.

Outside Berlin, Germany.

"You did what?" Luke looked up from the evening paper at the sound of his sister's raised voice floating down the hall. He heard a corresponding sniff from across the room and looked over the edge of the paper. A small girl sat as close to the edge of the sofa as she could without falling right off of it, arms wrapped tight about her body. He might have described her as pitiful, hunched in the rich room with her ragged clothing, hair drawn back into matted buns, shrinking from the sound of Leia's ire, if it hadn't been for the look of pure venom she shot him the moment she noticed his eyes upon her.

They had been sitting in the hall for nearly twenty minutes in stubborn silence since Han had returned from his orphanage tour. He had ushered the little one into the house like an errant schoolchild, giving Luke an embarrassed shrug. “I couldn’t leave her there, Luke.” Luke had rustled his newspaper and said nothing. The girl had hidden behind Han’s back, glaring suspiciously at everyone and everything. “I just couldn’t.” “I understand,” Luke had said. And he did. The poor girl looked like a skeleton, the bones of her face standing out stark and terrible under the ground in grime that covered her face. Her long hair hung in lanky strings from the structurally compromised buns and her eyes had the wide, blank look of the perpetually hopeless and very hungry. The question in Luke’s mind wasn’t why Han had brought an orphan home; it was why he had only brought one. Leia, of course, had had a very different reaction. He was fairly certain it was mostly the regular shock that resulted from her unstoppable force once again meeting Han’s moveable conscience. It bit him at odd times, and Luke suspected there was a part of Leia that rebelled at the  change in plans more than anything else.

"Don't let it bother you," he said quietly, gesturing toward the stairs.

"It doesn't." The little chin lifted defiantly and Luke struggled to keep the smile from his face.

"Of course." He rose from his chair, taking good note of the way the girl's arms dropped immediately to her side, every muscle tensed as she watched him walk to the sidecart. "Would you care for a drink of water?"

She eyed him suspiciously as he poured a glass for himself. He waited expectantly, holding the pitcher over a cup until she nodded once, the buns bouncing on her head. The trickle of the water into the crystal glass echoed in the silence. "May I join you on the sofa?" Luke asked as he returned, careful to hold the glass out where she could see his hand. She glared stubbornly up at him for a long moment before sliding over the barest inch. "Thank you." He passed her the glass of water and she took it with exaggerated care, sipping at the water as though she was afraid it wasn't quite real. He collected his own cup and perched carefully beside her.

"What's your name, child?"

"Rey." Her voice was so quiet he could hardly hear her.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Rey. My name is Luke." Rey said nothing, but she tucked her knees up to her chest, scooting the barest inch further into the comfort of the sofa as she clutched the glass of water tight in her bony fingers, as though she didn’t trust the luxurious fabric. They sat quiet, listening to the growing unrest from the floor above as Han's voice rose to contend with Leia's.

"Do you live here?" Rey's eyes were wide as she looked around the sitting room.

"Yes."

"In this whole room?" Something tightened in Luke's throat.

"Well...yes, sort of."

“And you don’t share it with anyone at all?” She demanded, her tight look of suspicion melting into one of frank disbelief.

“I...not really…”

He was spared the need to elaborate as Han came down the stairs wearing the rueful smile he reserved for arguments with his wife.

"Welcome home," Luke said, raising the crystal glass in salute, "Did you enjoy the festivities?" Han pulled a face.

"It was mostly awful."

"Shocking."

Han knelt in front of the sofa "So, liebchen," he put a hand on Rey's shoulder, "Do you still want to stay?" Rey was quiet, studying the room carefully.

"Will I have to sleep in here?"

"I'm sure we can find you your own space," Luke said as Han’s mouth fell open at the question.

The wide eyes held him under long, serious scrutiny. “Will there be things to fix?”

“If you want them, then yes, I think we can manage that as well.” Her study surprised him, in large part because he found himself hoping that he wasn’t found somehow wanting.

“Do you have a switch?” Luke forced his face to remain calm, gripping the water glass tightly.

“There hasn’t been a switching in this house for thirty years,” he said quietly, “nor will there ever be.”

“Alright then.” Rey sank back further into the sofa, as though she could make herself disappear. Then she stuck out one filthy hand toward Han. Han’s eyes flicked back and forth between the girl and Luke’s set face, searching for something, possibly direction.

“Alright,” he said finally, taking her hand and shaking it gently.

“But I want a blanket,” she added in a rush as she snatched her hand back.

“Um…” Han floundered, at a loss.

“You’d better find her a place to sleep and some decent clothes!” Leia’s shout echoed down the long staircase.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Han returned, spinning to make a face at the stairs.

“And a bath!”

Han growled in frustration and, seeing the direction the conversation was headed, Luke set his glass on the side table and held out a hand to Rey. “Why don’t you and I go find you a blanket?”

She gave him one more long look, from the tips of his polished shoes to the top of his head. Then she nodded, getting up to follow him across the hall. She didn’t take his hand.

*

The next morning, Luke’s breakfast was interrupted by a bloodcurdling shriek that shook the house. It was followed moments later by Herr Ripiau, cheeks flushed and tie askew. “Oh, Master Luke,” the butler cried, “You must come at once, the young fraulein is tearing the bathroom to pieces!”

Leaving his boiled eggs to cool, Luke followed the butler up the stairs to the guest bathroom. A flung towel greeted him as he opened the door, followed closely by a soapdish that smashed on the wall beside his head. Frau Gaarten, the housekeeper, cowered behind the linen closet and, in the middle of the soaking wet floor stood Rey, a scrubbing brush held in her upraised hand, her eye wild. Upon seeing him, the scrubbing brush wavered uncertainly, then began to lower. “You promised,” she spat, “You promised they wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Yes, I did,” Luke replied calmly, noticing the bent comb protruding from the child’s hair. “That rule applies to everyone in this house. We do not throw things here,” he added, pulling the towel from his shoulder as he entered the room.  

Rey shot a contemptuous look at Frau Gaarten. “I didn’t hurt her,” she said, voice dripping with scorn.

“Did you throw something at her?” Luke asked, righting a stool and perching on it. The scrubbing brush wobbled.

“Yes.”

“We do not throw things here,” Luke repeated, “And when we make mistakes, we apologize.”

Rey’s shoulders tightened and she glared at the housekeeper. “You can say ‘I’m sorry I threw something at you, Frau Gaarten’,” Luke supplied.

“I’m...sorry I threw the stool at you.” The words came out in a jerky rush and were certainly not heartfelt, but Luke decided to count it as progress. He raised his eyebrows pointedly at the housekeeper.

“Apology...accepted,” she said, still wary.

“I expect Herr Ripiau could do with some assistance at the breakfast table, Frau Gaarten,” Luke told her gently.

“Of course, Master Luke.” She curtsied and fairly ran from the room, no doubt grateful for the escape.

With the immediate threat removed, the scrubbing brush fell to the floor and Rey began to tremble, tears gathering in her eyes. “Are you going to send me away?” she whispered.

“No.” Luke struggled to keep the hitch from his voice as she began to cry, shoulders shaking with the effort of holding in her tears. “No, I’m not going to send you anywhere.” Tantrums he knew how to handle - he had grown up with Leia, after all- but he felt completely helpless in the face of Rey’s obvious distress.

“Would it...would you like a hug?” he asked over her sobs. Arms wrapped tight around her shoulders, she stepped forward, crumpling into his chest. He held her gingerly while she cried, wondering how on earth he was going to talk himself out of this. Gradually, the sobs became hiccoughs, which became sniffs.

“It hurts,” she said at last, voice muffled by his damp shirt. The tail of the comb prodded him in the shoulder as she looked up at him.

“The comb?” She nodded.

“May I try?” he asked, “ If I promise to be very careful?” She studied him for a long while before nodding again.

“Sit here.” He pulled up a second stool and patted the worn seat. “If it hurts,” he added, studying the hopeless mess of tangles on her head, “you just touch my knee, right here,” he tapped his leg, “and I’ll stop. Alright?” The whole matted mass shook as she nodded.

It was painfully slow. The poor child’s hair looked as though it hadn’t been combed since she came into the world, and he only had one hand, but he also had soapy water and a good deal of patience. He should probably have cut it off and saved them both the struggle, but after what seemed like several hours of delicate work and constant breaks, Rey’s hair hung wet and straight down her back. His neck and shoulder screamed at him, unused to such effort, but he smiled as she turned to face him. “Thank you for sitting so patiently,” he told her, “that took a long time and I know it was hard for you.”

“Was it hard for you?” she asked, frowning up at him.

“A little,” he admitted, feeling the sweat trickle down his back. She nodded to herself, looking down at her dirty feet.

“Now,” he said, wincing as he stood from the stool, “do you think that if I ask Frau Gaarten to come back that you can get through a bath?”

“Will it hurt?”

“I don’t think so,” Luke said, “but if it does, you can tap her on the hand and I promise that she will stop and let you take breaks. Will that be alright?” Her face was solemn as she considered his question.

“Where will you be?”

“I,” Luke replied, rolling some of the stiffness out of his shoulder, “will be sitting in that chair right there,” he pointed to the armchair that stood by the bannister in the hall, “reading my paper.”

The heat rolled off the pavement in waves so thick Poe could almost taste them. High summer had finally broken over the city, and brought with it the joyous hope for the greatest peace the world had ever known. Never mind that many of the member states at the conference had still refused to sign the bloody treaty. Colonel Groves had sat him down earlier that morning, stared at him for fully five minutes before he said a word. Not that Poe had been counting.

 "Dameron, you've been a good help here," he said finally, stroking pensively at his dark mustache.

 "Thank you sir." The Colonel frowned. Poe sat very still and wracked his mind for something that he might have done wrong. Pushing out of the treaty reading might have done it, but that was months ago. Sitting up nights with the German division probably wasn't strictly kosher either, but it wasn't as though he'd been doing that recently either…

 "We're packing up," Groves said brusquely. He sat up straighter in his worn leather desk chair, stolen at the point of a daggered stare from the hotel clerk. "We've signed, they've signed, and it'll take the Yanks months to sort their business out. I want you on my staff back home."

 "Am I being reassigned, sir?"

 "Did that sound like an order?" Groves growled, brows knitting even closer together.

 "Yes, sir, it rather did."

 "Well, it wasn't." Groves' voice was still gruff, but Poe could have sworn he saw a softness come into the older man's face.  "It was an offer."

In the end, Poe had counted slowly to eleven in his head before turning the Colonel down. Groves hadn't asked any questions, merely nodded as though he had expected the answer and told Poe to enjoy his stay. It wasn't until Poe had left the office that he realized that he hadn't told the Colonel that he was going to resign his commission.

Even now, the scorching heat of the Parisian streets sinking into his bones, he still couldn't say why. The personnel lady he had spoken to had been more than helpful, walking him through the process, flirting outrageously the whole while, but it hadn't kept his attention. He was still rolling the decision over and over in his mind, seeking in vain for a way to explain himself to himself. All that had surfaced was the look of utter hopelessness on Luke's face. Poe didn't figure that counted much in the way of explanations.

Blessedly, the close crowded streets of Montmartre had begun to cast their long evening shadows, sheltering him from the heat of the sun as he drew close to the apartment. To his surprise, Bertie was seated outside on the street, in one of the rickety contraptions that counted for deck chairs. The gigantic brick he'd been working his way through sat open on his knee (something 'miserables') and he was engaged in conversation with a small, wizened old woman standing on the steps.

Their landlady, Madame Maz, was so old, Poe was sure she'd seen the French Revolution from both sides. The broomstick she carried -and frequently employed to sweep errant teenagers off of her steps- looked like an extension of her arm as she swept it up, pointing accusingly at Poe.

"Where have you been, young monsieur?" she demanded, fixing him with her large, luminous eyes. "And what," she looked scandalized as she took in his civilian wear, "has happened to your uniform?"

"Never mind that young monsieur Brown has been waiting for you for hours!" she continued, before he could even take a breath to respond, "but here you are gallivanting about the city, coming home late to him. Making him worry! After he cooks for you such a lovely dinner!" She glared at him from behind the thickest spectacles Poe had ever seen.

"Now, you apologize. Go on!" she added, prodding him with the broom when he hesitated, casting Bertie a bewildered look. "Allez! Faites vos excuses!" With a great deal of struggle, Poe composed his face into a look of heartfelt contrition.

"Bertie, my dear man," he said, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, "Please accept my deepest apologies for keeping you waiting. It was in intolerable insult." Bertie's shoulders had begun to shake with suppressed laughter. "I can only hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me." The broom prodded him painfully in the back, urging him to greater efforts. "And my sincere thanks for all of the excellent work you do, keeping our house in order and preparing such fine meals."

Madame Maz snorted in derision, though she looked vaguely mollified. "C'est bien," she said grudgingly, "Now, go, go upstairs and eat, before all that food will be cold!" she shooed at them with her broom and they moved to obey, Bertie pausing to give the old woman a peck on both cheeks.

"Bonsoir, madame," he said with a smile, and the old lady grinned in pleasure. Then she glared at Poe. "Allez, allez, vite!" she snapped.

Once they had reached the safety of the stairwell, they two of them collapsed on the stairs in fits of paroxysmal laughter. Gasping, wiping the tears from his eyes, Poe asked, "Oh my good God, Bertie, is she still convinced?"

Bertie grinned, his own laughter subsiding as he tucked his book under his arm. "She was only just telling me this morning how a nice young man like myself could find any number of willing ladies, and she couldn't imagine why on earth I saddled myself with such an ungrateful ne'er do well vagabond like you."

Poe smirked, "Well, it's because I'm so damn beautiful, that's what it is."

"She seems to think exactly the same," Bertie said with a chuckle.

"And you were cheerfully smearing my good name, I take it?" Bertie held up his hands in a helpless gesture.

"I swear, all I said was that I had come down to read while I waited for you to get home! I don't have any idea where she got this ridiculous fantasy that you're somehow forcing me to keep house for you while you ignore my affections."

"Especially," Poe agreed with a grin, "considering that you don't even have affections." Bertie sighed and rolled his eyes as they made their way up the stairs to their flat.

"Poe, I've told you, having affections doesn't necessarily mean I want to sleep with everyone." he said, unlocking the door.

"What the hell are affections for, then?" Poe teased.

"Shut up and open your post," Bertie said good-naturedly, heading for their little stove.

"Post? What post?"

"On the table," Bertie said over his shoulder, "it was addressed to you, anyway."

"Let's eat first," Poe said, busying himself with collecting plates and cutlery.

"I can manage that, you'll only break the cups again," Bertie said peevishly, swooping the plates out of Poe's hands, "just go and open the damned letter."

"Fine, fine," Poe muttered, flicking through the pile of papers and envelopes on the table. Bertie had set one aside, a heavy, cream-coloured envelope that looked as though it had cost more than his meals for the last month. He flipped it over, and felt the bottom drop out of the world.

"M. P. Dameron," the envelope read, in a sharp, precise script. In the top corner, above the return address, was written "Ct. L. Skywalker," followed by more letters than Poe cared to examine too carefully.

"What?" Poe said in disbelief, sinking into a chair. He felt the excitement rush into his body as he slit the belly of the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of obscenely expensive note paper. He had be so certain that Luke had left his life for good. Giving his address had felt like a last hope, a wild shot in the dark, and he had never expected a response. Yet, here was this small scrap of paper, filled with Luke's jagged handwriting. He read greedily, drinking the words in, Luke's words, here, written just for him.

 Herr Dameron,

 I hope this letter finds you in good health, and in a position to enjoy the fine July weather that I understand has blessed France. It occurred to me that you may be interested to know that I arrived safely in Berlin, and from there to my family's estate in the country. The weather here has been unseasonably hot, a temperature that is well-matched to the chaos forming a new Republic. Mercifully, my dear sister handles the family's politics  at home, and I find myself free to care for the estate and our family business. Germany is still a tender thing, yet, her wounds still very fresh, and I am more than happy to give over her arduous care to those better suited to the task. In the meantime, there are many other tasks with which am able to occupy my time. Do give my best to Colonel Groves, and to Mr. Brown. And thank you for sharing your address. I look forward to a pleasant correspondence with you.

 Yours very sincerely,

 L. Skywalker

Poe let the paper fall to the table, his mind a mad whirl. As far as letters went, it was underwhelming at best, but it was a letter, and he wasn't going to be ungrateful. It was so very characteristic of the Luke to use so many fancy words to say so very little, to wax eloquent about Germany when what Poe really wanted to know about was him. Still, the tone of the letter frightened him more than a little. So formal, so…detached….

"Bertie, I need you to read this." His friend looked up, brows drawn together in concern and the urgency in his tone.

"Poe, what is it?"

"It's a letter from Herr Skywalker," Poe said in a rush, "just read it, will you?"

Agreeably, Bertie took the letter, glancing over it quickly. A wide grin split his face. "He must really like you."

"Are you sure?" Poe cringed to hear the worry in his voice. Bertie shrugged.

"Well, no, I'm not in his head. But isn't that generally what nervously affectionate letters look like?"

"I wouldn't know," Poe said distractedly, "I don't usually write."

"Sounds like he doesn't either," Bertie quipped, laying the table for dinner. Poe found that he had quite lost his appetite. Now that he had received a letter…

"Oh God, Bertie, I have to write back!" he exclaimed, all thoughts of dinner forgotten.

"That is usually how it works, or so I understand."

"But…" Poe floundered, "what do I say?"

*

  A Week Later, Near Berlin, Germany.

Luke gazed at his face in the mirror, studying the new lines that the strain of the last few months had left there. He was looking older, but he consoled himself that he wasn't looking nearly as old as Han. Not quite, he thought ruefully, but nearly. He frowned, carefully threading his last button through its hole with his single hand. The task took all his concentration, and he felt, as he always did, a bloom of pleasure at the accomplished task. The medical officers had told him it would get easier, and they had mostly been right, but the year since the crash had been a long adventure of discovering new and less efficient ways of doing things that had once been easy. There was a part of him that wanted to resent the difficulty, but there had been so much loss in the last few years that he found he lacked the energy for genuine long-term resentment. The best he managed was the occasional melancholy sulk, and even those did not bring much satisfaction.

There was a knock at the door, and Herr Ripiau's fussy, precise voice came floating through the heavy oak. "Shall I set out your breakfast, Master Luke?"

"Please do," Luke called, shrugging on his jacket, "I'll be right down."

The long, paneled halls of Skywalker Manor were silent as he made his way down to breakfast. Leia was away, called to Berlin for what would undoubtedly be another urgent yet ultimately useless political consultation. She did love those intricate dances and subtle games, and Luke was happy to let her manage them. With his wife out of the house, Han would almost certainly sleep as late as his body would let him; if he woke before midday, it would be a miracle. With Ben still away at school, Luke was pleasantly surprised to remember that he had the house to himself.

Early mornings had ever been one of his greatest pleasures, when the sun streamed through the summer mist that was still rising from the valley to coat the rolling hills of the estate in a gentle white. It had been a time he had once shared with Ben, and he found himself missing his nephew's presence more than usual as he entered the empty dining room. The large space seemed emptier than usual, and his lone place at the table looked somewhat forlorn. Herr Ripiau had left the post beside his plate, and Luke flicked idly through it as he ate, his eyes running over the many envelopes addressed to his sister.

Leia always liked to tell him that, while it may have been the business side of their father's massive estate that had built the family fortunes up in the first place, it was their political connections that ensured their social standing for the future, garnering them precious business connections that would keep Skywalker enamelware on the tables of the people. He had been more than content to let her shoulder the title of Countess, and with it the responsibility for that particular aspect of their lives, and she had been elated to take it on.

She was better suited to the task, in any case, Luke reflected as he sorted Leia's massive pile of mail and laid it on the table beside her usual place. He had never understood the allure of politics. If he wanted to spend his days in a room with liars, cutthroats, and thieves, he could take his leisure in any one of a dozen establishments in Berlin that provided infinitely more entertaining company and far superior food than did the Reichstag.

There was little enough mail for Han and none for Ben, so Luke carried his perusal on to his own modest pile. There were two letters from Berlin, almost surely requesting his presence at some ghastly gala or other, and he laid them aside. The third was from Liesl, and the last, addressed to him in a cramped but legible script, was from an address in Paris, and marked P.D.

He laid the fourth letter aside, studiously ignoring the giddy excitement that had flooded his body at the recognition of the letter. Opting for safer ground, he began to tackle his egg and toast. The letter could wait a while longer.

It sat on the table, burning into his mind as he ate. Frightened at the depth of his own anticipation, Luke left the breakfast table, taking the other three letter with him to the terrace. Seated in the fine morning sunshine, he read slowly and carefully over the two letters from Berlin. One, from the Gestdorffs, was indeed an invitation to a summer gala. The other, to his surprise, was from Professor Kalrissian, requesting his application for a sectional lecturing position in German and English Literature of the early 18th century. This he read with interest, allowing it to encompass the whole of his attention for several blessedly long moments. Lando must have been in desperate straits indeed, Luke reflected, if he was forced to scrape the bottom of his barrel of acquaintances so completely as to reach him. He would submit his application, he decided, sucking leisurely at the pipe he had lit for the morning. It would be a welcome distraction.

The letter from Liesl was more of a hurdle, and he had deliberately left it to last,  suspecting its contents. She seldom wrote, and when she did it was usually painful, but he slit the envelope open with his penknife, and unfolded the rich lavender paper within. It was, predictably, filled from edge to edge with Liesl's elegant, flowing handwriting, and described each of her latest adventures in excruciating detail. And, as always, it ended with a fervent plea that he would either find himself a sensible wife, return to her silk-draped bed, or at the very least have the decency to retire into eccentric bachelorhood and cease causing her such acute public embarrassment, and closed with an invitation to visit her in Munich, which they both knew he would not accept. He laid the scented paper aside with a deep sigh. He liked Liesl, he really did, but he found her random incursions into his life increasingly difficult to bear.

Collecting the letters from the arm of his chair, Luke made his way slowly indoors again. To his mingled relief and disappointment, Herr Ripiau had cleared the breakfast table, taking the post to the bedroom of each recipient. He noted the sudden tension in his chest at the thought of the unread letter, and sternly reminded himself that he had plenty of things to be getting on with, and the post could wait until the evening, as it always did when he had work to do.

For the remainder of the day, Luke addressed himself with what he viewed as singular care and attention to the alarming stack of papers, bills, and professional correspondence that had collected in his study during his stay in Paris. He plunged headlong into problems of shipping, warehouse management, and production details, and the letter faded to the back of his mind for several hours.

It was quite late- well past dinner, he guessed- when a knock at the study door broke his spell of concentration. He looked up, an annoyed dismissal on his lips, which died as he saw the tall, lanky figure waiting nervously in his doorway.

"Herr Ripiau said I would find you here, Onkel," Ben said. Luke beamed at his nephew, leaving the desk as rising to greet Ben with an enthusiastic embrace.

"How are you keeping, my dear boy?" he inquired warmly. Ben smiled and shrugged.

"Keeping up with my studies, mostly," he said, taking his customary seat in the corner of the study. "I have been learning a great deal, and my head is nearly full to the brim with poetry." He spoke the last word with undisguised distaste, and Luke wisely left the subject alone

"When did you arrive home?" he asked instead. There had been a time, not so very long ago, when he and Ben could have spoken about poetry for hours, or history, or even politics, but that time seemed to have passed. Luke struggled to explain to himself why exactly he had found himself becoming more hesitant with the boy, but he supposed that the war and the long time away had pulled them apart.

They spoke instead of physics, trains, evening adventures and, increasingly, of women. Well, girls, more appropriately, as Ben had only just passed his fourteenth birthday, but the sudden growth in years had opened up a somewhat alarming pit of questions and observations that Han did not seem willing -or able- to address. And so they talked of other things, and Luke tried not to resent the Gymnasium for its teaching.

"Oh, I had forgotten, Onkel," Ben said suddenly, after he had finished telling Luke about the latest work in the study of light's movement in space, "Herr Ripiau also gave me this for you, he said you forgot it on the table at breakfast this morning.

Luke's heart leapt at the sight of the plain brown envelope in his nephew's hand. "Yes, thank you," he spoke slowly, carefully, striving to keep the energetic excitement from his voice as he took the letter.

"I brought my book, if you want to read it," Ben offered, resuming his seat in the armchair and opening a large volume.

"Mm," Luke acknowledged absently, his attention already on the smooth paper in his hands. He resisted the urge to tear the envelope, reaching instead for the ornate pewter letter knife that had been a gift from Han. Making a precise incision along the top fold of the envelope, he drew out two sheets of folded notepaper. He unfolded them, noting the salutation with delight:

Dear Luke,

The warmth of Poe's casual tone seemed to fill his ears as he read.

 I am so glad to hear that you made it back to Berlin safely. I have been following politics in the French press, but they are damnably suspect, and I am anxious to hear anything that you can tell me. Paris is still a lively place to be, and I have been keeping myself as busy as I can. I don't have much news to share about the good Colonel, as he has returned to England without me. I'm sure it's been a challenge for him to find someone else to carry his hat at all of his meetings, but I'm equally sure that he'll manage it alright. Bertie is well, and has managed to charm our downstairs neighbour, Madame Maz, into believing that he is an upstanding citizen, which is a dubious claim at best, but it has given us a reduced rent, so it cannot be all bad. How is the economy in Germany? How has your family's business been managing? You must tell me everything, as I know next to nothing about enamel work (that is your trade, am I right?) and would be glad to learn.

 It has been difficult for me to find a trade here, as all the planes belong to the French army (which I am less than keen to join), and I must say that I don't really much care for the office I'm in now. The secretary, Ms. Pava, is a delightfully clever lady, but the rest of the crew are decidedly a bunch of gits, and the work is boring enough to rot the strongest of minds. I'm hoping to change positions as soon as I can find a field that is better suited to me.

 Do you travel for your business interest? If so, you must look me up if you are ever in Paris! Until then, keep well, and do give my best to your family.

 -Poe

Luke read and reread the small folded sheets, drawing every ounce of Poe's evident excitement and affection from the pages, trying to fill the small empty space that had grown in his heart since that awful evening in Paris. He could hardly believe the chance that Poe was offering to him, that he was willing to carry on as friends as though nothing had ever come between them. He read the salutation again and again, feeling the gratitude well up inside him. Not Herr Oberst. Not Herr Skywalker. Luke.

He pulled a few sheets of notepaper from the top drawer of the desk and, completely unaware that Ben had fallen asleep in his book, he cleared a space amongst the mountains of paper, wet his fountain pen, and began to write.

He paused, the tip of the pen hovering over the page. The morning had gone by in a mad whirl, some kind of horrible waking nightmare that he had hoped belonged to someone else. It was only now, as he tried to put words to his thoughts, that it had suddenly begun to seem very terrible and very real.

 The treaty has been signed.

He took comfort in the passive voice. Vain comfort, but comfort nonetheless. The pen blotted a large drop of ink onto the pristine paper, and he swore softly, cursing his lack of dexterity. It would probably have been simpler to dictate a telegram, faster too, but he needed this. Needed the time it took to add each word painstakingly to the page.

I am sure that you will have heard the news long before this reaches you, but I felt it was best for you to hear it from me in any case.

He sounded pompous and he knew it, but did not know any way to communicate an embrace through a pen and ink.

 I know that you have put forward many long hours on behalf of Germany, trying to see us to a clear end of this murky path, and I am sure that for you, as for me, this can only taste of bitter defeat.

Bitter did not begin to describe that awful empty feeling, the leaden weight of his hand as it had guided the plumed pen across the parchment of the treaty.

 I find myself unable to communicate the depth of all this may mean for our beloved home, and frustrated beyond belief at the uncomprehending callousness of my companions here. Even Herr Dameron, for whom I have nothing but the highest respect, does not seem to understand the gravity of this defeat.

He stared at the words on the page. 'Highest respect'. He was certain, with a distant part of himself, that those were not the words one used to describe the taste of someone's lips against yours in the soft glow of a Parisian streetlamp, but they were the only words he could find that were not too close, too tender.

 I am sorry that matters have come to this. Give my love to Han and to Ben. I will be boarding the 14:00 train from Paris this afternoon and hope to be safe home with you all very soon.

 All my love,

 Luke.

It was said. He folded the note crisply in half and slid it into a cream envelope. Awkwardly, still cursing his wrist, he sealed it and slid it into his pocket to leave with the concierge on his way out. Rising from the small desk, he caught sight of himself in the large mirror by the door. He took a moment for a critical appraisal:  pale complexion, sunken eyes, and…well he supposed a poet would call it a 'defeated air'. He sighed, running his hand over his freshly shaved jaw. Many men looked worse at his age but, after the ravages of the past month, he was sure there were many who looked better as well.

It had been a hard fight, and he knew they had fought it well. The flurry of papers back and forth with the allies, the slight of not being permitted the decency of face to face negotiations, the late nights sitting up, waiting from the latest telegram from Berlin, waiting for something, for anything, for some way clear of the whole desperate mess. And yet, he felt he had always known it would come to this. All of the grand ideas, the big speeches, Wilson's infamous fourteen points…it had all been for nothing. A charade. A thin cloak to hide the reality of a mob of greedy men squabbling in the muck for any bit of sparkle that could be seized from the rubble of his home.  

The worst of it, he reflected as he collected his case from the narrow bed, was that none of them could see it. They all, every one of the delegates, felt that they were in Paris to fight for a great cause. To settle the greatest peace the world had ever known, or something equally inane. Not even Herr Dameron had seen it.

He shivered slightly as he walked down the stairs. Something in him shrank away from the memory of their last conversation. He had heard the harshness in his own voice, had seen the fear and hurt leap into Poe's eyes, but the words had been said and they were true. He couldn't have taken them back, even had he wanted to. But of the many things lost in recent days, the loss of Herr Dameron's company had been the most difficult to bear. Luke had come to rely on him. His patient voice, the calm, steady feel of him in the room when so much was spiraling out of control. His unconditional positive regard. It had hurt, seeing him in the weeks that followed, feeling his caution and his apprehension in every one of the few words they had spoken. The distance still gnawed at him, a dull ache between his shoulder blades that he couldn't shake.

It had been too much to hope that he might see the man again before he left for home, but Luke still felt a pang in his chest as he saw the sea of unfamiliar faces in the hotel lobby. He stepped out of the door, the hot air hitting him like a wall. The rest of the delegation was probably already in a plane on their way to Berlin, but he had wanted time. Time to process, time to mourn, time to put his mind back together before he saw home again. He trailed down the street, letting his eyes slide slowly over his surroundings, attention on the sidewalk, mind wandering. Across the Place de la Concorde. Along the Champs-Elysée. Shoulders jostled his on occasion, but they did not seem to really touch him. Faces, colours, sounds. A wash of noise and haze. He stood finally in front of the Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon's great monument to himself, and, in the mad rush of the streets, felt completely and utterly alone.

"Herr Skywalker! Luke!" Jerked suddenly from his listless contemplation, Luke's head snapped up and he turned to see Poe, only a few feet behind him, face flushed and eyes bright.

"God, I thought you'd gone deaf, I've only been shouting at you for half a block or so,"  Poe panted, pausing to rest his hands on his knees for a moment before looking back up at Luke, a frown on his face, "What the hell was that all about, leaving without saying goodbye to me?"

It was half joking, but Luke could see in Poe's eyes that he was deadly serious. "I-…well, I thought that you were…I mean," Luke faltered, seeing Poe's resolute expression crumble ever so slightly.

"I understand," he said with a tight smile, fighting to hold back…what? Luke didn't know, but he knew it wasn't right.

Poe seemed to hesitate, as though weighing his next words carefully, testing their merit. Then he held out his hand. A slip of paper waved in the breeze.

"Do write to me, won't you, Herr Skywalker?" Poe said quietly. The earnest hope in his voice unraveled something in Luke's heart. Wordlessly, he reached out and took the paper, an address in Montmartre scrawled hastily across the back of a hotel card.

"And, for what it's worth…" Poe hesitated, his eyes slid to the cobbles, then back up to hold Luke fast in their gaze, "I am so very sorry for all of this." He stood quietly for a moment, waiting for a response, a confirmation…something. Luke felt the rush of words in his head, felt them stick in his throat. A sick, helpless feeling crept through him as Poe, a slight flush rising to his already ruddy cheeks, dropped his eyes back to the cobbles and turned, walking back up the street.

The rain pelted down from the grey sky as it had done all day. The damp streets swam in Poe's tired vision, slipping and dancing in the flicker of the streetlights. Every muscle in his body ached, and he could feel the same bone-deep weariness that had plagued him since the beginning of the month. He should have taken a taxi home, he knew that, but he had needed the space, needed the life of the streets, and couldn't care less about getting soaked. Anything to get away from the closeness, the tension, the terrible waiting of the last four weeks.

The treaty had thrown Germany into an uproar.  The Count was calling it a diktat, the rest of the delegation calling it a fucking disaster, and all of Germany agreeing that it was an affront to German honour and could not be signed by any man of conscience.

Poe hadn't understood, not really. He had watched Luke try desperately to work with the delegation and assemble a list of proposed changes. Seen the stress and anxious waiting for word from Berlin etch deep lines in his friend's face, watched as that same face, usually so fastidiously shaven, had begun to grow a beard, a tangled disarray that marred the man's usually ordered face. Even today, when Count Brockdorff-Rantzau had stood up from his tiny desk in the hotel and slammed his hand down on the surface, declaring that he could not, would not, sign this treaty, Poe hadn't understood.

It had only been today, sitting in the silence that grew in the wake of Brockdorff-Rantzau's departure, seeing the beaten, defeated look on Luke's face, that he had dared to ask why. A trickle of rain ran down his neck and he shivered, thinking of Luke's response.

"Why what?" came Luke's weary voice. They communicated uniquely in German now. English had become too much, the weight of its tones too heavy a burden for so burdened a mind.

"I don't…I don't understand." Poe's voice was hesitant to his own ears. He knew, somehow, that it would hurt Luke to hear his question, but he wanted, needed, to know. "You didn't support Germany joining the war. We spoke so often about how futile and ridiculous it was. I know you hated every minute of it. So why all of this…all of this anger?" He had tried to speak softly, tried to help Luke know that all he wanted was to understand.

The man's weary eyes had turned to hold him in their gaze. "This isn't about the war, Herr Dameron." Luke's voice had had the helpless tones of one at the end of hope. "This is about what will happen next."

"Can you not see it?" he had continued, and Poe shivered to hear the tremor of emotion in his voice. "Can you not see that this will utterly break my country? That this will be the end of Germany?"

"I don't-"

"These terms, Herr Dameron, are completely impossible. There is no way on God's earth that we can do what is asked of us here. I know," he had continued, the intensity growing in his voice, "I know that German soldiers sacked Belgium. I know that. And it was wrong. But did millions of men not also die at Gallipoli at the hands of the Turkish? Did not hundreds -thousands even- of German boys die in agony, their last breaths filling their lungs with gas? Was it not your countrymen, the British, who did this to them? "

Poe had not known what to say. He knew that his silence was agreement enough.

"And yet it is Germany, Germany alone that must bear the brunt of this cost? We must surrender all that we have worked for, all that we have fought, bled and died for, we must give it to France and to Britain because they are the ones who have suffered?"

Luke's voice had raised near to yelling and, for the first time, Poe felt almost afraid, afraid to see the anger in a face that had always been so kind.

"You were there, Herr Dameron," Luke had continued, his voice cutting into Poe like a knife, "you saw our soldiers. You saw them starve, you saw them die. Who are these important men to say that their sacrifice was worth any less, merely because we have lost?"

 Poe felt now the same helplessness he had felt then, the same small, hopeless terror of knowing that the world was careening towards a terrible wrongness, and there was nothing he could do to stop its descent.

He hadn't known what to say. Hadn't known how to tell Luke that all he wanted in the whole world was to make things alright. Make the world a safe place for them. Be there to help. He hadn't been able to apologize, hadn't been able to respond to the awful truth in Luke's face. And so he had left, needing the escape, needing the rain, needing the loneliness of this solitary walk across the city.

By the time he dragged his weary body across the threshold of their small apartment, he was soaked through to the skin, water dripping from the corners of his coat, the tips of his hair. Bertie looked up as he entered, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he regarded Poe critically over the cover of his Turgenev novel.

"How was your day?" he asked mildly.

"Fucking awful." Poe peeled his coat away from his slick shirt, draping it over the kitchen chair in the hopes that it might end up drying out somewhat by morning. He collapsed into the chair after the jacket, letting his body melt into the support it provided.

"And Herr Skywalker, is he alright?"

"He hasn't shaved yet, if that's what you mean."

"Ah."

"It looks horrendous."

"Well, you don’t look all that peachy yourself."

Poe sighed, running a hand through his wet hair. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"I was thinking more of the black circles under your eyes and the fact that you've lost about ten pounds in the last month, but you're right, the hair is a fresh new descent for you." Bertie's crisp voice snapped Poe out of his mope. He spluttered slightly.

"Ten pounds?" he managed to get out.

"At least that, by my estimation." Bertie placed the Turgenev on the side table and hauled himself laboriously out of the armchair. He strode purposefully over to Poe and looped one arm under his.

"Come on, get up."

"I can get up by myself."

"Yeah, like hell you can. You've been wandering out in the rain. Like to give yourself pneumonia, is what you are." Poe let Bertie half carry him over to his bed. "Sit down."

Poe obeyed, settling his weight heavily on the bed, letting Bertie extricate him from his soaking shirt. He sat unresisting as he was then attacked with a coarse towel.

"My hair is going to fluff up," he protested mildly.

"It'll do it some good," Bertie responded gruffly. It felt good, Poe reflected, letting someone else make the decisions. Once he was dried, Bertie pulled a chair up to the side of the bed.

"Talk to me," he ordered.

Poe lowered his head to his hands. "I don’t  know what to do," he said after a moment. "I just don't know, Bertie. He's hurting, I can see it. Everything is just so…wrong. Everything is crashing down, and I don't know how to help him."

"Have you kissed him again?" Bertie asked, pulling him to his feet and gesturing to his water-logged trousers.

"No," Poe said hollowly, slowly stripping them off. He hadn't dared. Something about the desperate hopelessness in Luke had kept him from even touching him, let alone kissing him. He wasn't sure how he knew, but Poe knew somehow that to reach out for Luke while he was so far away would be to break something between them, and he feared that more than anything.

"Good." Bertie said, taking the towel to his legs.

"I don't know why."

Bertie studied him carefully. "You don't?"

"No." There was a long silence. "I just…I just want him," Poe said, very quietly. "And I want him- I want us- to be alright."

Bertie put a hand beneath Poe's chin, raising his head until their eyes met. Poe was surprised by the intensity he saw there.

"I know you do," he said gently, "I know you want to make it alright, but, Poe…this isn’t something you can make right, certainly not with sex. That will only make it worse, I promise you."

Poe felt that same helpless feeling welling up inside him, threatening to burst out. "I know," he whispered, lowering his head to his hands once more. He could feel the tears, the stress, behind his eyes, begging for a release. Then Bertie's arms were around him, safe, comforting, and he could finally let them go. The tears leaked down his cheeks, mingling with all that was left of the rain. " I just want to help him," he whispered into his friend's shoulder.

"I know you do," Bertie said softly as he rocked them slowly back and forth. "I know. And I know that you know this isn't the way."

Poe nodded, unable to speak. "You're doing the right thing, Poe," Bertie said, pulling back and tipping Poe's face up to look him in the eye. "I know it's hard. I know it hurts you to watch this. But you're doing the right thing, and he will thank you for it later."

"I hope so."

"He will." Bertie set the towel aside and pulled the blankets back from Poe's bed. "Now you need to get yourself some rest. You're no good to anyone if you catch a chill and die on us." Poe could feel the curling tendrils of sleep at the corners of his mind, pulling him down into dark waters as Bertie laid him down and tucked the coarse blanket over his shoulders.

"Go to sleep," he heard his friend murmur as he closed his eyes. "It will look better in the morning."

"So, how did the Treaty turn out?" Bertie asked, not turning from his work at the stove.

"Fucking awful," Poe let his head drop to his hands. He glared at the floor.

"There are some tomatoes on the board there that need cutting," Bertie said by way of response.

"I mean it, Bertie, it was a complete and total bloody trainwreck," Poe said hollowly.

"So, get up and slice the tomatoes," Bertie's voice, low and calm as always, soothed his jangled nerves.

"Yeah, alright."

For several long moments, Poe devoted his complete and total concentration to the snick-chunk of the knife on the board as he sliced the fresh tomatoes Bertie had brought home from the market. He never could manage to get the damned things into decent slices without getting tomato juice everywhere. Perhaps the knife needed sharpening. He had finished the tomatoes and moved on to slicing up the crusty baguette that Bertie passed him before his friend spoke.

"Tell me about it."  Poe did. He related, with increasing ire, the terms of the ridiculous treaty. He knew they had won. It was understandable that Germany would have to make some restitution, but this…this was highway robbery, and he felt stained in some way to have been a part of it.

"They even made them admit guilt for the whole war. And you can't tell me that makes any sense, because there sure as hell weren't any Germans at Gallipoli. And what about Austria?" He subsided into frustrated silence.

"Herr Skywalker was upset?"

"Yes."

"Hm." The smell of cooking beef joined the onions and mushrooms. "Well, I don't suppose you'll be staying for supper."

The knife hovered over the baguette. "What?"

Bertie appeared to be ignoring him as he bustled about the kitchen, pulling food from various places and packing it into the paper bag that had carried their evening meal home from the market. Cheese from the cupboard, a roll of something that looked like salami. Several slices of the baguette. A bottle of claret. A bunch of ripe grapes. After the napkins and tin mugs went into the bag, Poe felt he really ought to ask what the hell was going on.

"Bertie, what are you doing?" he asked incredulously, "Why am I not staying to supper?"

Bertie looked up at him, a patient expression on his broad, rough-hewn features. "Poe, Herr Skywalker is penned up with a room full of angry Germans a long way from home. He's frustrated and angry himself, and I'm sure that what he needs more than anything is a friendly ear and a good long walk." He placed the bag in Poe's hands and pushed him gently toward the door.

"Bertie, you didn't see his face,"  Poe protested. "He wasn't just angry, he was…" he shivered, "I-I don't think he really wants to talk to me right now."

"The worst he can do is send you away," Bertie said. Poe knew from that matter-of fact tone that it would do him very little good at all to argue, though he felt very keenly that, in the kind of mood he had seen this afternoon, Herr Skywalker could do a hell of a lot worse to him than send him away.

Nevertheless, he knew that Bertie had been mostly right. What kind of man would he be if he let his friend deal with such a horrendous disappointment all alone? If he didn't at least try to apologize?

Which was how he found himself standing outside the back entrance of the Hotel Lotti in the cool evening breeze, striking up a conversation with the concierge.

"Short angry fellow, very blue eyes?" The concierge inquired, holding a hand out in the air about where Luke's head might have been.

"Oui," Poe said enthusiastically. The concierge sucked his teeth and shook his head apologetically.  

"Ah, je suis desolé monsieur, the gentleman left in a…état de désordre a few moments before you arrived."

"Of course he did," Poe sighed.

"If you want to follow him, I think he mentioned something to the lobby boy about taking a walk along the Seine, monsieur," the concierge added helpfully, "something about clearing his head, I think."

"Thank you, monsieur, you've been very helpful," Poe said hurriedly, passing the man a few francs as he stepped back out into the alley. If he cut through the Tuileries, he could be on the banks of the Seine in a few moments. Not that the banks of the entire river were a small area to search, but it would at least be a place to start.

The weather was beautiful, and the promise of spring had drawn half of Paris outdoors, despite the hint of frost still clinging to the air, and Poe gained several disdainful looks from richly dressed ladies as he strode along the Seine in the gathering dark, paper bag tucked under his arm, tie loose, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow.  He didn't really care. He marveled, as he walked, that Bertie had had the foresight to pack food that would not mind getting a bit cold. In fact, the cheese might even taste a bit better for having been carted around in the chilly May evening for a few hours.

As the first stars began to settle in the sky, Poe felt his sense of urgency start to ebb. The clever thing to have done would have been to wait at the hotel until Luke came back and catch him then, but he knew that the restlessness of waiting would have driven him mad. Not that wandering around the streets of Paris looking for an angry German was a great deal better, but at least it kept him moving. On an whim, he decided to retrace his steps back down the bank. Crossing the Place de la Concorde, he meandered into the cool darkness of the Tuileries.

Almost immediately, the noise and bustle of the streets faded. He could hear the soft trickle of water from a fountain somewhere off to his left, and he made toward it. He had given up on finding Luke before the evening was quite over, but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy some wine before he made his way home.

He turned off of the Allée Centrale and found himself in a sheltered area overlooking a small burbling fountain, which looked like it had seen better days. The cupid at its crown, somewhat bedraggled, pointed a bent arrow toward the gravel and the long exposure to water had begun to cause bits of green to propagate on the bronze of his face. Several benches were arrayed beneath the arms of the trees, facing the crumbling marble of the fountain's stand.

Poe approached the closest bench, but paused when he saw that it was already occupied. A shadowed figure sat in its centre, elbows on knees and head in hands, a poignant picture of dejection. Poe drew closer and felt his heart sink as the dappled moonlight played over the figure's fair hair and vacant right wrist.

The gravel crunched under Poe's feet as he came to stand beside the bench. After a brief moment's consideration, he sat down on the ground, shoulders turned to face Luke. Somehow, sitting on the bench would have felt like an intrusion, a violation of the empty space Luke had drawn around himself.

Poe rummaged in the paper bag for a few moments, drawing out the bottle of claret and the two tin cups. Wordlessly, he poured the first cup and placed it on the gravel at Luke's feet. He left his own glass to air at his side.

"Haben Sie gewusst?" Luke's voice sounded hollow and alone in the cool darkness. He put the question in an exhausted German, as though English were too heavy, too much for him. Poe's heart sank as he heard the formal pronouns. It might not have bothered him, but over the past week Luke seemed to have thawed, softened, and his language had slipped into a comfortable, personal place. They had found a closeness that he hadn't really noticed until now, now that the gulf between them had suddenly become a gaping hole.  

"I-what?" Was all he could force out past the tightness in his throat. Luke raised his head slightly, and the look of hurt and betrayal in his eyes nearly broke Poe's heart.

"Did you know? When you…that night, at the hotel…Did you know that it was going to be this way?" The answer seemed to matter to him very much.

Poe wanted to tell him everything. How he had spent most of the meetings holding the Colonel's hat. How he had taken as many smoke breaks on the balcony in the warm Parisian sunshine as he could possibly manage. How he had buried his misgivings about the treaty process under as thick a layer of wine and beautiful things as he could manage. How he had hoped so hard that this treaty would be something bigger, something better than the petty squabbling and infighting that had given birth to it. How much he had dreaded being wrong.

"No."

Luke seemed to deflate, the tension seeping out of him as he sighed, dropping his head back to his hand.  Hesitantly, Poe reached out a hand and laid it gently on Luke's knee. He half expected the man to pull away, but the contact seemed to smooth away some of the tension in Luke's shoulders.

"I'm sorry," Poe said softly, his voice barely above a whisper. Luke let out a slow breath as his hand fell to cover Poe's.

"I know." They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the distant chatter and bustle of the city. Poe felt a strange kind of helplessness as he watched Luke's face in the soft light. He decided to follow Bertie's example, hoping that doing something, anything, would take that blank look out of Luke's eyes. He gave Luke's leg a gentle squeeze and slid his hand away, reaching over to rustle in the paper bag. He nearly laughed when he saw that Bertie had added a small cloth to the top of the bag. He really did think of everything.

"What are you doing?" The hollow edge to Luke's voice had been replaced by curiosity, and Poe felt a small flush of pride.

"Bertie sent this along with his compliments," Poe said, laying the food out on the cloth.

"You mean you haven't eaten yet?"

"You don't need to worry about me, Herr Skywalker," Poe said with a soft laugh, "Bertie is as fine a mother as anyone could hope for." He looked up and saw Luke staring down at him, a small frown creasing his brow.

"You didn't have to do this." Poe shrugged and passed Luke the cup of wine that still lay untouched at his feet.

"Well, I mean, I was coming looking for you, so it made sense to bring enough to share." Luke looked at the wine for a long time before he finally took a sip.

"Thank you for coming," he said after he had taken the time to roll the wine around, giving the taste his full attention.

Poe didn't know what to say. He could still see that terrible emptiness, even fear, in Luke's face, and he felt the shadow of that treaty fall over his heart like a shroud. He wanted more than anything to tell Luke that it would be okay, that he would be there, that this whole mess would turn out alright. But with some deep part of him, he knew that it wasn't alright.

"It'll be bad, won’t it?" He spoke quietly, keeping his eyes on the bread and cheese, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to look up and see Luke's face.

Anyone who thought that holding a highly important meeting in a cramped, overheated room packed with puffed up peacocks on an unseasonably warm spring day like this was an idiot. Poe wasn’t sure who had organized this stage of the conference, but they certainly weren’t going to be winning any awards for clever planning. His uniform stuck to his back, and he felt a small trickle of sweat run down his back. The atmosphere didn’t help either, you could have sliced through the tension in the room with a knife, it was so palpable.

Several sheaves of paper were spread across the desk, and several stiff-backed men arrayed around it. Poe could see Luke, his face a mask of nervous apprehension as the Allied delegates prepared to read the terms of the freshly prepared Treaty of Versailles aloud to the assembled crowd.

David Lloyd-George cleared his throat. He looked nervous. Poe noticed that little twitch of the Prime Minister’s left eye, as he began to speak. “Gentlemen,” he began, addressing the German delegation, “thank you for coming. This conference has been a long labour for all of us, and we look forward to bringing it to a successful conclusion as swiftly as possible.” His words, as always, sounded smooth and well-polished, though somewhat undermined by the tremor in his voice.

The German Count, still as impressively dour looking as the evening Poe had first seen him, nodded stiffly. Combined with the dark look in the man’s small, watery eyes, it seemed a perfect way of saying ‘get on with it, you bastard’.

Drawing a deep breath as though summoning himself to face a firing squad, Lloyd-George began to read. “The terms of the Treaty are as follows: First, the covenant of the League of Nations…” This part didn’t sound so bad. A waste of time, perhaps, but not all that terrible. Poe watched as Luke’s shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit. The air of tension in the room eased slightly. But the treaty hadn’t gotten into its full stride yet.

Poe listened in shocked silence as the Prime Minister continued. It was only the deeply ingrained rule that one always stood to attention in official circumstances that kept his jaw from dropping. A 25,000 square mile reduction in German territory. The loss of Alsace-Lorraine to France. Production of the Saar coal mines to France, and control of the territory to the League of Nations. Polish independence. The establishment of the Free City of Danzig. Plebiscites to be held in Belgium and Schleswig-Holstein. Every inch of tension that had dropped from Luke’s shoulders had returned with redoubled vigour.

By the end of the third clause, the room had begun to rustle. Military restrictions. Prohibition of an air force, as well as participation in arms development and manufacturing. Reduction of the infantry and navy. When Lloyd-George began to read article 231, Poe honestly thought for a moment that Luke was going to lose his composure. His jaw clenched tight, and Poe could feel that same ice-cold wave of rage rolling off of the man, that same electric dread that he had felt on that cold April morning when he had thought he was going to die. Only this was a thousand times worse, because this was now.

“The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.”  Luke’s mouth was a thin, hard line, and Poe could tell that he was struggling to keep a hold on his emotions.

The Prime Minister read for another hour. As each blow fell, Poe watched the rising heat of German anger from the other side of the table. When Lloyd-George had finally finished, the room sat in agonized silence. After several heartbeats, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau rose to his feet, followed by the rest of his delegation. His voice was flat and hard.

“We now know the full brunt of hate that confronts us here.” Lloyd-George looked about to speak, perhaps to utter some platitude, but the Count’s voice cut straight across him. “You demand from us to confess we were the only guilty party of war; such a confession in my mouth would be a lie. Gentlemen,” he wrung the last word from his mouth with obvious distaste, “I must bid you farewell. I cannot, will not, put my name to such a disgraceful document.” That said, the Count swept from the room, Luke and the other German delegates at his heels.

The door had barely closed behind them when the tide of angry voices rose in the small room. “Excuse me, sir,” Poe said hurriedly to the Colonel, and began to shoulder his way through the crowd of irate diplomats, his eyes fixed on the door. He wasn’t sure he could have said why, but he knew that it was very important for him to speak to Luke.

He won free of the press of people and raced through the hallway and down the stairs, taking them two at a time, heart pounding in his ears. He caught up with the German delegation just as the Count was stepping into a taxi.

“Herr Skywalker!” he called, skidding onto the sidewalk. Luke turned, one hand slightly raised as if to ward off Poe’s words, and the look on his face hit Poe like a slap. He stopped abruptly, frozen in place by the terrible look of anger in those cold blue eyes. All thoughts of apologies and condolences fled from his mind as he and Luke stood staring at one another in the sunshine. There were, he realized, no words that could make this better. All he could do was stand there, helpless, and watch as Luke turned his back on him and stepped into the taxi.

1. Overture from Mozart’s Don Giovanni

2. Christmas 1915 by Celtic Thunder

3. The Green Fields of France by John McDermott

4. Operation Valkyrie from Valkyrie soundtrack by John Ottman

5. Honor from The Pacific soundtrack by Hans Zimmer

6. They Will Remember You from Valkyrie soundtrack by John Ottman

7. Ellens gesang III, D. 839 (Ave Maria) comp. Schubert, perf. Brabara Bonney

8. Heidenroslein comp. Schubert, perf. Barbara Bonney

9. Heiss mich nicht reden Schubert, perf. Barbara Bonney

10. An die musik comp. Schubert, perf. Kathleen Ferrier

11. Standchen comp. Schubert, perf. Barbara Hendricks

12. Erlkonig comp. Schubert, perf. Oxford Lieder

13. 1900′s Madness #1 from The Legend of 1900 by Ennio Morricone

14. The Crave same soundtrack

15. 1900′s Madness #2 from the same soundtrack