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Chapter Text

July 1, 1863

“Hey, Mattie, thanks...and...happy birthday.”

I don’t expect him to remember, and for a moment, I must look like a fool. I’m smiling broadly, despite the sobering task of packing up our camp and preparing to cover the last few miles between us and the Southern army. A comfortable silence settles between us as we work in the pre-dawn glow alongside the soldiers of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

It isn’t just today, of course. Lately, Alfred is just quieter than usual. 

And he’s a bit stiff climbing onto his horse. Major General Reynolds reaches out a hand to steady him, but he waves it off. “Let’s go,” is all he says, and we all comply, riding out together at the front of the corps. 

I can’t help but wonder if Alfred’s covering up the extent of his wounds. Civil war is…tricky for our kind, as any injury dealt to the “enemy” is inevitably dealt to oneself, and Alfred isn’t the type to hold back. He’s brutal—but he has to be—and I admire that. (I tuck that admiration away in my chest to nurture it there, perhaps saving it for a rainy day. I don’t yet realize that in less than sixty years, I’ll retrieve it with trembling fingers, clutch it tightly, and lead the charge through a valley in France). 

We arrive at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania by mid-morning. Alfred’s blue-sky eyes are cold and devoid of any sort of emotion. I guess I understand that, too. He knows he’ll lose even more of the men riding out with us today. 

In fact, within half an hour, Reynolds is dead, shot through the back of the skull, and when Alfred turns to look for his replacement, his lips and cheek are spattered with bits of flesh. 

I look away, and I feel like a coward for doing it, but there are some things I won’t accept—can’t accept—and no matter our differences, Alfred is still my brother. 

The new Major General is sworn in and more shots are fired. The descent into chaos begins. The fabled thrill of battle is something only brought to life by tales regaled from the comfort of memory. The reality is the sound of gunfire in all directions, the ringing of the canons like a death knell echoing off the hills around us, and the beat of the drums that atune us all together—one heartbeat, one surge toward the enemy lines, one long fall into oblivion. 

My eyes meet Alfred’s rebel doppelganger fighting his way across the field of battle, seeking us out, and my last thought before losing myself to the fray is simply that we cannot and must not fail.

July 4, 1863

The cloth on his forehead is getting warmer, so I peel it off and hobble over to the half-full basin of water the limping drummer boy brought in a few hours ago. My leg is only wrenched; I’m told I’ll make a full recovery in a matter of days. But Alfred hasn’t awoken since I found him lying unconscious under the body of a horse. He’s fighting off a fever and the wounds, of which there are too many to recount, are festering and angry and weeping pus already. 

Rain is pattering on the canvas roof. We’ve been given a private medical tent under orders of the corps surgeon Wafer; he’s one of mine--a proud volunteer from Kingston, Ontario--and I’m sure he suspects what and who we are because he hasn’t been back to check on Alfred yet.

Or perhaps he thinks it’s a lost cause.

But I know better. 

“Alfred?” I whisper it close to his ear, not really trying to wake him, but becoming desperate for some sign of life. It’s been more than a day, and the Confederate hospital caravan had moved out by mid-morning. The soldiers wanted to give chase, but Major General Meade had thought better of following them and instead insisted they, themselves, needed rest and time to recover. I know it was a hard decision, but I’m glad. 

I replace the cloth on his forehead and smooth his blanket. There’s nothing I can do for his injuries; they’ll heal on their own, and some will scar while others disappear, and it will become another memory borne by his body for the rest of his existence. 

Some scars are easier to live with than others, and if Alfred survives the war intact, they’ll be a real reminder of the terrible price he had to pay. I don’t envy him that.

The rain outside continues, and Alfred sleeps for another few hours. Not surprisingly, it’s the smell of stew being warmed on the cookfires that finally rouses him--or, rather, his growling stomach wakes him up where I’ve been failing all day. 

“Hey...Mattie…”

I look up from the book I’ve been reading by candlelight to find his eyes open and watching me, and my cheeks burn at the intensity I find there. He’s awake, and for the first time in months--no, years--his eyes are full to the brim with emotion: with pain and fear and hurt, but with other things, as well. He’s really, trulythere behind his crooked spare pair of glasses, and I can’t stop myself. 

I hobble straight across the tent and I hug him; I can’t help it. There’s just something about a war in which brother must fight against brother...I’m reminded of Alfred’s revolution and the look in his eyes when we stood toe-to-toe on the battlefield, and I just can’t help but hold him a little closer and be thankful that he’s still with me after all we’ve been through.

With France long gone and England barely remembering I exist most of the time unless the taxes are late, well, I guess we’re really all we have, right?

So I hug him, and I cry, just a little--I’ll admit it--and I whisper into his wheatfield hair, “Happy birthday, Alfred.” 

..

Chapter Text

Epilogue, November 19, 1863
Dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation…” 

I’m standing on the stage beside Alfred as President Lincoln begins to speak. 

“...conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Alfred laces his fingers in mine where no one else can see it, and he squeezes my hand a bit. I expect him to let go, but he doesn’t. Neither do I.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Alfred’s balancing with a crutch under his opposite arm, and he grunts softly as he shifts to take the pressure off his foot. I glance at him, and there’s a tear beading at the corner of his eye. It slips over the brim and slides down his cheek.

“We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

Alfred must feel my eyes on him because he smiles faintly without looking and tilts his head a little closer. 

The tears are flowing steadily now, and I’m sure he’s remembering Major General Reynolds and all the others who were lost on both sides of the field. 

Alfred’s bottom lip is trembling, and I squeeze his hand tighter because...well, because that’s what brothers do. 

The President clears his throat and begins again: “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The crowd erupts in a spattering of chatter and polite clapping as the President steps back. Many of them haven’t understood the enormity of what has been said and won’t for years, but we do. In the time it takes to climb down from the platform and circle around the back, Alfred’s tears have transformed into sobs and he’s clutching my coat in his fist as he cries into my shoulder where no one can see. 

Alfred’s only here because he insisted, despite orders to remain in bed and take his rest as he could. We both know that tomorrow we’ll take up the fight once more. So for now, we pause in the shadows of the stage, and I hold Alfred’s shaking shoulders. 

I kiss his head and whisper soothing nothings beside his ear. 

And I promise that I’ll always, always remain by his side. 

..