In Arms

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading and a special thank you to JM Ramos, Cookiecoolcat, cchickki, bbella13, Rita, Kurochan12, valix22 and SiriusDancer for taking the time to let me know what you think. It is very appreciated and helps make me write faster! I hope you enjoy the second chapter!

a short prayer for the sick, part II

Harrison had given what he could, which wasn't much – a single IV and a fever reducer – but it had cleared the dullness in the man's eyes and had put him back on his feet.

Cleared for duty, Harrison had said, his voice morose and sounding more appropriate for the delivery of terrible news.

They both knew it was a generous assessment.

After that Harrison had hung his head in that way they all do and wished them luck.

Don nodded because there wasn't much for it and it was better than nothing. They were on the move and they couldn't break ranks. They couldn't turn back and there was nowhere to send the sick or injured.

It was just the nature of war and his men were the instruments. They, like hundreds before them, would succumb – during or after, it never mattered when - and war would push their bodies aside, uncaring and faceless.

Still, even as Boyd came back to himself, even as he pushed that haunted look away, even as Don tried to convince himself that they were indeed just tools of destruction, the man's fevered words echoed in Don's head like gunfire.

He held tight to the comm. and scanned the trampled vineyard to his left and the woods to his right and pushed it away for later, just as he did with anything that made him feel human.

Fear, regret, worry, those had no place in war.

He ordered the tank forward and tried to forget that it was in these moments that he hated himself the most.

Grady watched Bible and the way his foot bounced up and down; shoot, if they hadn't been riding together for the past two years it would make him nervous. It looked like his foot would just jump right up and tap that petal, sending one of those heavy ass shells towards nothing.

They were a team, he figured, him and Bible. He loaded the gun and Bible pulled the trigger. Yes sir, a team; because of that they knew each other's habits, and he knew that Bible did that when he was stressed and when the odds were against them.

Usually the man sat there and read, or smoked and most often did his best to ignore him. It had started out annoying, being ignored, but had quickly turned into a way to pass time; Grady had very early on learned the small joy of provoking him into what was some stimulating conversation.

Hell, the man thought Hitler was saved and that he and Jesus were just as good of buddies as he and Bible. Grady knew it weren't true but he wasn't one to turn down entertainment.

But he wasn't doing any of those things now, save for the ignoring him. He was leaned over, one eye closed, as he peered down the periscope. Every so often he'd reach up and wipe sweat from his temples and forehead, looking positively green.

"Bible –" He hissed at the man; when they were on the move it was just the two of them, with Wardaddy up top and Gordo and Red's heads poked out of their hatches like prairie dogs. If they whispered, they'd found, the others couldn't hear them all that well over Fury's constant noise-making.

It sounded juvenile, probably was, but they'd found that out in the beginning, back when they'd been relatively fresh. They'd spent the first month of deployment together … riling each other up; he figured that was the best word for it.

He couldn't say a damn word about nothing - killing, fucking, drinking – not a word because his gunner just had to be the most uppity, God-lovin' son of a bitch in the whole army. He couldn't go a sentence without the man calling him depraved, and likewise, he couldn't stop touching the gunner, poking him, trying to get a physical rise.

Needless to say, Collier hadn't taken kindly to it, had kicked at him, telling him to shut his mouth while scuffing the back of Bible's helmet; a fluid all at once movement that had left them feeling like stupid kids.

"Bible –" He threw a spent shell at the man and hell, he flinched something fierce.

Images swam through the periscope - lines, dots, starbursts – all things he knew to be in his probably fevered head, but at least he was feeling significantly less nauseous and significantly less confused.

He'd been out of it that morning, apparently, and honestly didn't remember much. He didn't even really remember really climbing into Fury. Though that wasn't right. Harrison had stopped by, that he knew. He remembered a pinch in the crook of his arm and the bitter taste of medicine. God awful stuff, really.

From the way his bones ached he could tell it was like putting a piece of gauze on a bullet wound.

"Bible –" Grady hissed from his left side but he didn't turn. He had just gotten used to looking through the scope. Changing scenery would surely set him back.

"Bible –" Grady threw something at him and he flinched; the movement sending waves of discomfort through him.

"What, Coon-Ass?" He said, sounding about as short as he could.

"Jus' makin' sure you weren't asleep." He knew full well when the man was trying to get a rise out of him and this wasn't it; his voice sounded genuine, despite the fact that he clearly hadn't been sleeping.

He ventured a look back at the man and he wasn't smiling. He looked worried.

"How many fingers 'm I holdin' up." He was holding up three fingers and he looked dead serious, as though it were a reliable diagnostic tool for whatever he was looking for.

"Three, Grady." He said it as though it was the most tiring thing he's ever done. He could see fine, in a way; he wasn't seeing double, not anymore. He just couldn't clear, his eyes tracing shadows and flecks that were a precursor to unconsciousness. It felt a lot like falling asleep.

"Just checkin'." He said looking only slightly less upset and it was a strange thing to see; but then again, it had been a while – if you could count two months a while – since one of them had been laid out or in a bad way.

And he was, he supposed; was willing to admit it now that he could really feel the pull of exhaustion and was bordering on being out of commission. A liability.

"Ok, boys, look alive." Grady moved back into position, strong hands ready to load and Bible peered back into the periscope.

It brought forth a small rush, focusing his vision and steeling his will; he needed to perform for his team. He said a brief internal prayer, asking for strength and the protection of his team.

Falaise was no more than half a mile away; he just had to hold out for a little while longer.

There were a few unknowns on the way but he responded to Don's requests, turning the turret right, left and center.

Remarkably they made it to Falaise without an issue and were just now entering the surprisingly intact village. It was very quiet and that never settled well with any of them; there were nights where they were all kept up by silence and would only fall asleep when they could hear the rattling of gunfire in the distance. It was the same in battle – silence put them on edge more than anything else could.

And then there it was – the sound of an explosion, a detonated grenade. He could hear the men outside yelling, from behind.

"Bible, 180 –" His hands landed on the power traverse and hell, if it weren't slow. They spun at what felt like an agonizing pace and finally they were facing a clock tower.

He didn't take as much time as he should because if he had the image never would have stopped its strange sloping movement.

"On one!" Bible yelled into the comm, his head pounding in response and his vision wavering; he blinked multiple times as he peered down the periscope.

When he was sure the shot was lined up, he tapped the pedal – Fury did as expected, rocketing the shell towards the target with painfully loud machinations and Grady too did as he was expected, grabbing another shell and hastily preparing it, last round sent and forgotten.

They did as expected but he did not.

The round flew off into the distance and disappeared; there was not telling where it would go.

He blinked, looking again, hoping, but the tower was still in tact.

He could see the flash of a scope catching the sun, a crack of gunfire and then Don's knees planting themselves in his back.

"Don!" He called out, sending panic throughout the tank; his stomach dropped and it was pure miserable desperation, a need to know he man was okay that had him pulling his attention from the periscope.

He turned right into Don's unhappy – albeit slightly stunned - gaze; there was a tuff of cottony material poking out from his helmet and the goggles had fallen off. The relief over his realization that his mistake hadn't cost the man his life was immense.

"A graze, keep your head, Bible!" The man grabbed at the back of his helmet, forcing him to turn his attention back towards his job.

The whole thing cost them no more than two seconds but he knew how long that translated to in war. The man could have destroyed a tank in that time, could have called in information to his battalion.

Fury's hull sounded with gunfire and the whistle of a rocket came and went, surely a near hit.

"Damnit, Bible, I need you to perform. Again!" Don smacked the back of his helmet. He changed his aim, lowering the turret, his foot bouncing in anticipation, sweat dripping down his back and he called out to Grady who had already been in motion.

"Grady!" His heart was hammering uncomfortably in his chest; he missed, sometimes, when tanks were moving, but he usually didn't miss by this large of a margin and not when it was a building.

"Loaded!" As soon as he heard the man's voice he tapped his foot against the pedal and this time, thank God, he hit his target. The once beautiful tower exploded, sending rubble to the street.

He didn't have anytime to spare a word of thanks to anyone – Don for getting his head on straight, the good Lord for not calling Don at that particular moment, whatever power was keeping him conscious - as Don was in his ear again; he was shouting at Red and Gordo to get them moving and Fury lurched with a miserable heave.

"Bible, 50 degrees right –" It was luck that had him moving the turret just before the man spoke; his instincts and muscle memory were kicking in, responding to Fury's movements.

"I see it, I see it –" It was a two men team attempting, with haste, to reload a rocket launcher; they had managed to hunker down behind a massive slab of upturned brick and soil, their heads bobbing up and down as they worked.

Red and Gordo couldn't hit them, despite their best efforts, and Fury would ground out in the massive pit that separated them should they attempt to just try and run them over.

As he lowered the turret, an uneven spray of gunfire hit the thick glass of his periscope with loud, resonating thunks; he flinched back as his vision once again swam.

"Come on man, get 'em!" Grady hit his shoulder, hard; he did that sometimes, when he was stressed, when he could sense that whatever was going on outside wasn't good.

A moment later he was lined up – just as the man with the launcher was moving into firing position - and his foot hit the pedal.

The round didn't have far to travel and it was only a millisecond after discharge that the damn thing exploded, filling his periscopic view with bright white light.

"They're down." Don said, voice weary, into the comm.; it had been a close call. They wouldn't have been the first tank taken down by a rocket launcher. At that range luck wouldn't have had any bearing on the outcome. They would've popped open, flames and all, just like that.

There was no sound through the comm. and Boyd realized that Don must have been communicating with the rest of the platoon; he had no doubt that the previously innocuous looking town had been razed to the ground in those past minutes.

He took a deep, ragged breath in a vain attempt to stop the irritating quake in his hands. His heart was beating erratically in his chest and the terrible lightheaded feeling from before was back, quickly robbing him of his senses.

He was pretty sure Gordo was looking at him. He knew Grady was looking at him because the man was sat only a foot from him, close enough that he could feel him breathing; Red was the only one who knew when best to mind his own and a glance confirmed he was staring straight ahead at nothing, cigarette dangling between two fingers.

"Okay, boys; park her next to Murder Inc." The engine revved and Boyd kept his gaze on his feet. He wasn't ready, at that particular moment, to face what was understandably written across their features.

He'd nearly gotten them killed, after all.

The adrenaline that had assisted him through the battle – the same that had in all its divinity kept him from getting his team killed – left as soon as they rolled to a stop.

"Bible –" It was Gordo who was speaking to him. Though, through the warbling in his ears he couldn't really tell. It could've been Grady, though the man, historically, was louder than that.

He moved to stand but didn't get far because Fury was cramped and it took some finesse to navigate her. Instead he found himself tipping sideways as he reached out for a beam he had been certain was there.

It wasn't – it was a good foot to his left – and his hand met empty air. The rest of him was quick to follow.

Hands grabbed at him, but the angle was awkward; Fury's dirty iron deck came up fast to meet him and was unforgivingly hard.

Gordo had never seen Bible miss that badly; claro, he missed on occasion, when Fury and everything else was moving something fast, but a building? No, nunca.

It made him angry, the kind of angry that made you see red and made your heart race. The kind that made him get in fights and throw sloppy shit punches. But he wasn't angry at Bible. No, he was angry at Don and Harrison, at war, too, he guessed.

He had sat with the man while Don had run off to get him sorted; he had sat there and listened to him talk about the evil in him while he tried to make the man drink those terrible hydration salts, helped him poner parches. He had been half delirious himself, with drink, and he couldn't deal with that.

Bible knew him, knew his own faith wavered on occasion; knew that with each bullet, each drink, each day he lost a bit of himself. The man knew he had gone into battle sober once and then, after that, never again, despite his earnest attempts to keep him from the bottle.

But in that moment, Bible hadn't been himself; he hadn't been, because Bible knew that his own faith was what supported Gordo's and – chingados, if he weren't a selfish asshole – Bible wouldn't have confided in him, not about this.

Gordo had sat, had listened, because Bible was as good as a brother to him, but it had hurt him deep. Bible was as good as his spiritual foundation, his spiritual cement, in a way; all he had been able to do was throw an arm around him, toe at the mud and tell him to hush.

Now they sat in silence as they waited for Don's orders; the sounds of battle were farther away and he figured they were setting to regroup. Red lit a cigarette beside him, minding his own, staring at that picture of his girl, while he turned around to look at their gunner.

The man's hands were shaking and he was in the middle of a staring match with the floor. He looked worse than he had that morning and he had no doubt that the battle hadn't done him any favors.

"Okay, boys; park her next to Murder Inc." Don brought his attention back to Fury and he got her going again; the trip was short and he was glad for it. They all needed to get their heads back on straight.

He took a deep breath, hand gravitating towards the near empty bottle at his feet; he stopped, however, an inch short, and instead turned around. The bottle could wait.

"Bible –" Gordo said, intending to check in; the man hadn't said a damn word in a while and neither had Don or Grady.

Grady, too, was looking at the man but in the way someone looked at something they were unsure of. Finally the man moved, pushing himself off the gunner's chair in a way that looked pained and uncomfortable.

The motion paled him considerably and Gordo watched as he tried, and failed to steady himself; Gordo called out to Grady just as Bible passed out.

Grady responded, grabbing at his jacket awkwardly, but was unable to catch him fully; they both went down with a loud thump. The turret basket was suddenly crowded as Don dropped down – he'd been on the radio and now the thing was dangling by its wire into the tank, moving back and forth, completely forgotten.

"Puta madre –" Gordo grunted as Red moved beside him, accidentally kicked him square in the jaw, as he popped his hatch and leapt out, calling for a medic.

The medic arrived just as they managed to manhandle Boyd out of the tank and onto the ground. Grady was patting the man's cheek, coaxing him to wake up – "come on, man, wake up, come on you Bible-thumpin' sonnuva-bitch–" – but wasn't getting anywhere.

The man was out.

"He hit?" The medic fell to his knees, his pack already open and ready to be used, gauze poking out, some of it stained with small spots of red. The man hesitated, unable to find a wound and Don spoke up from where he was kneeled, opposite of Grady.

"No, ain't hit. Been sick." The man looked up at Don but the tank commander's gaze was fixed on the gunner's face; the medic put his hand on the gunner's neck feeling for his pulse, pulled a lid back and checked his pupil.

"How long?" The medic glanced behind him, Gordo paced back and forth, watching. The medic took Boyd's hand, pinched the skin on the back.

"Two days, about." Don said, though he couldn't know when he'd started feeling unwell; the man never would have said anything. None of them would have, "Took in an IV this morning, hydrating salts, too."

"Nah, he threw those up on the way here –" Grady said; Don frowned. It was news to him.

"Well, he's dehydrated, no doubt about that. Malnourished," he said it as though it were a given because, well, it was; they were all malnourished, "got a good fever."

"His pulse is thready, erratic, probably from dehydration and a little bit of heat stroke." As he said it he wiped sweat from his own brow, as though his words only just reminded him of the horrific heat.

Don looked over at the Sherman and cursed himself. The thing was a fucking oven. He should have made him ride up top, should have dragged his ass up there instead of allowing him to wallow in the hellish, metallic heat.

The man then put his hand on Bible's chest, waited for a moment, and sighed.

"Breathings shallow." Dehydration, again, Don knew. It was a really sneaky killer; he remembered, back in basic, how they tried to drill that into them. Keep hydrated. Take in more than you lost. It was rule number one of basic human survival.

"Ok, so? What the hell we do?" Grady spat, impatient and not liking the man's assessment. Don didn't blame him. He didn't like it much either. He'd pushed the man – hadn't much choice, sure – and now here before him were the consequences. He'd thoroughly run the man into the ground.

"He needs more fluids. A lot of more." As he said it he pulled a glass jar of saline solution from his bag, along with a yellow tube and a mean looking needle. He rolled up Boyd's sleeve, revealing a bruise from that morning's IV in the crook of his elbow; it didn't stop him. He slid the needle in, taped it down and handed Grady the bottle and then looked to Don.

"He needs to stay off his feet. You don't want this getting worse." He said it flat and monotone, his voice dropping because they all knew that wasn't an easy thing to do.

"They're setting up triage in the church," the man turned and pointed down the street, from where he had come. "Bring him there; I'll check in. Sargent."

He gave Don a nod and supervised as Don and Grady lifted the limp man upwards, to his feet though he was incapable of supporting himself, before turning back towards the church.

"Gordo, Red, check and repair. Took some dings back there. Meet us at the church when you're done." Don said as he shifted his weight; he could feel the heat of Boyd's fever through his clothes. It made him nervous.

"Hell, Top –" The man didn't get to finish.

"Come on, Gordo." Red said, pulling at Gordo; Don was grateful for that, the man rarely argued and had much cooler head than their driver.

The two men turned away, Gordo reluctantly, and Don and Grady turned, stumbling a little as they tried to find an even pace and steady footing.

"Fuck." Grady spat as they dragged the man between them, his left hand clenching the glass bottle the medic had handed him. "Shoulda been watchin' him better."

"Quiet, Grady." Don hissed over Boyd's bowed head; he wasn't in the mood. Not even a little.

"You was ridin' him too hard." Grady's voice picked up, the man near shouting into Boyd's ear, but the man was well and truly out and didn't so much as stir.

"Goddamnit, I'm not going to do this with you right now." This was Grady's way he got overwhelmed. In battle he could be counted on, was reliable as hell, but before and after saw him changed and full of fear; full of anger. They were all used to his outbursts by now but damn if they didn't annoy the fuck out of him.

The man huffed, disgust catching in his throat; Don knew if they hadn't been carrying Boyd he probably would have lashed out.

He would've welcomed it, probably; their spirits were as low as could be and he was done with this fucking day.

"Bible is gonna love wakin' up to this –" Grady said as they laid Bible down in a pew, his feet hanging into the aisle. In the pew across from them was a dying boy – bullet to his femoral, or so the man standing over him said.

The church wasn't anything special. Most of the stained glass had been blown out and the pulpit had been torn to the ground; the sounds of the wounded echoed off its high ceilings and it was dark.

Still, Boyd would appreciate it, would find beauty in it. He squeezed the man's hand, looked around, and tried to understand.

Red and Gordo joined them a few hours later, reporting the damage and repairs before take a seat in the pew in front of the one Bible and Don were occupying; Grady was seated in the pew behind them, slouched over, arms dangling between Boyd and Don.

They stayed like that for a long while.

Boyd came to slowly as each muscle awoke one by one; each one felt sore, sticky, even. His head ached terribly but he was thinking clearly, even with the slight ring in his ears.

He tried his best to open his eyes but it was a slow battle; after what seemed like a good and long while, he managed to pry his heavy lids open.

Don was leaned over him; the corner of his lips lifted very slightly, though you could hardly call it a smile.

"Damn. I owe Grady twenty." Don sighed; the man seemed to owe everyone in the army twenty. "Though you wouldn't be up 'till morning."

"'M sorry –" Don frowned, misunderstood.

It was the first thing that came to Boyd's mind because if he remembered anything with frightening clarity it was missing that sniper's perch and Don getting shot right in the helmet.

"Messed up." Don gave him a hard look and shook his head.

"No. you got 'em. Did just fine." Don said, all matter of fact-like; he supposed it should have bee comforting but he remembered the way Don had looked at him, remembered the silence after.

"You know how this speech goes, Boyd." Don's voice was calm, subdued; Boyd hadn't been expecting that. He'd been expecting an earful. "You wrote it."

Boyd let out an airy breath, something akin to a laugh. He knew what he meant; he couldn't count the times he had to drag Don down from his tower of needless guilt. He was too tired, too exhausted, to drag Don and himself through that process, for for now he let it go. It would come back later, sure enough, but for now …

Boyd blinked owlishly, fatigue pulling at him, and glanced around. He couldn't see much but what he could see was interesting.

"Where are we?"

Don smiled for real this time, an honest smile.

"Looks like the good Lord watches over his own." Boyd's brow furrowed briefly.

"A church?" He realized that must be it; he was laid out in a pew. Imagine that.

"Yep. A nice one."Don said without any commitment; Bible couldn't help a small smile. He had no doubt the man felt no more interest in it than he would a barn.

"Well, I'll be." Don nodded and gave his shoulder a pat before reaching over towards a pot of coffee he hadn't known was brewing. Don poured him a cup and told him to drink.

They don't talk about him being sick. They don't need to.

The company stayed in Falaise for two days and it was just enough to get Boyd back on his feet, even with Grady poking at him when he was trying to rest and with Gordo trying to get him to eat some god-awful mix of rice and canned meat he'd cooked up in an empty ammo tin.

The exhaustion would take some time to ebb away and leave him for good, but when they roll out and do their comm. check, and he hears their voices, all of them alive, Boyd feels his hear lift a little. It feels a little bit like going home.

Thank you for reading, as always!