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War haunted Robbie, even after he was freed from the thick of it.
When he eventually was reunited with Cecilia, his love and the only person aside from his mother who still wanted to be around him after Briony's horrible accusation, they were both very different than when they'd last spoken.
Cecilia had long ago left her career of nursing, but the violence she saw there had fundementally changed her. Similarly, Robbie was changed by war. Chronic pain and PTSD plagued both of them, though they didn't dare admit it out loud.
Cecilia had nightmares about the overcrowded emergency rooms she worked in. The countless mutilated, dying, and dead soldiers that came through. Too many to distinguish each one. The constant fear of finding Robbie among them.
On his worst days, Robbie was back in the heat of battle, outnumbered tenfold by the helicopters above dropping down bombs that he so narrowly avoided and the carnage that followed. His feet and back ached and screamed along with the memory.
"It's all for nothing" Cecilia would mutter in her sleep as memories of the countless soldiers assaulted her even in her dreams. The hopeless feeling she felt as more and more soldiers flooded the space.
"It's all for nothing" Robbie would murmer as he sat in the trenches with Mace and Nettle, hiding from yet another bombing as they endlessly wandered to who knows where.
In the morning, though, they would both be reminded of all they fought for- The freedom to see each other again.