Absent Without Leave

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Violet Evergarden

Copyright: Netflix

"Can I see you in my office?"

President Hodgkins is heavy-eyed and unshaven. Both his hands are in his pockets, which is always a warning sign. Violet follows him down the hall without a word, ignoring the worried glances of her colleagues, still carrying the luggage she hasn't had a chance to take up to her room.

He holds the door open for her with automatic courtesy, gestures for her to leave her bag on the floor, and drops into his chair with the sigh of a man who hasn't slept properly for days. He rakes his hand through his fuchsia hair and shakes his head.

"You do realize that if we were still in the army, I could have you court-martialed?"

He looks and sounds uncannily like the Major sometimes. Even his office looks similar to the Major's study in his family manor – the wood paneling on the walls, the expensive leather chairs, the smell of old books and cigars. But most of all, it's the kindness in his eyes, even when he's at the end of his tether, that reminds Violet of her former commanding officer.

"My absence was necessary, sir."

"Oh, I know why you did it. I knew the moment the girls told me you were missing. Parachuting into a war zone to write letters for a dying Ctrigallian soldier is exactly the kind of thing you'd do." A wry smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. "I may be your boss, but even I feel that's taking your sense of duty too far."

Put that way, her actions do sound rather absurd. But he wasn't there in that cabin, watching a man bleed into the handkerchief his beloved gave him, clutching her photograph and dictating a letter to her in a barely audible whisper.

Violet lifts her chin and stands at attention. "I'm sorry to cause you trouble, sir, but I repeat, taking the assignment was necessary. Those letters were Lieutenant Field's last words to his parents and the girl he loved. They were … important."

She thinks of Mrs. Field hugging her, Maria thanking her, and resolutely swallows the tears that threaten to fall.

"And what about your life?" Hodgkins demands, raising his voice for the first time. "Isn't your life important too? Why would you throw it away for a perfect stranger?"

He picks up the letter she sent him, still lying on his desk, and waves it at her in accusation. It's the same letter in which she reported her hours in the cabin with the dying Aidan Field, although there are certain details she has omitted. She did not write about the kiss, finding it too sacred – and too painful – to share even with Hodgkins.

The memory of Field's desperate eyes and bloodstained uniform blurs into an older memory in her head: blue hair instead of blond, green eyes instead of hazel. Live and be free, Violet. I love you.

She never kissed the Major, just as Field never kissed his Maria. It seems bitterly appropriate, somehow, that the first time she kissed a man, he would be dying, and they would each be thinking of someone else.

Ever since the Major's death, she has been living two lives: her real life, and an imaginary life with him. Sometimes it's surprisingly easy to picture him alive: Hodgkins' business partner perhaps, having friendly arguments with him in this very office. Putting obnoxious clients in their place with a few pointed words. Flirting harmlessly with Cattleya, soothing Iris' temper, encouraging Erica to speak up for herself and teaching Benedict some manners. Smiling at Violet when she comes back from an assignment and saying Well done, like he always used to do.

She's never pictured him kissing her, until now. What would it have felt like? She has observed so many forms of love during her work; is it even that kind of love the Major had spoken of? She will never know.

It hurts, not knowing.

"Because … because she wasn't there," was all Violet could say, in answer to Hodgkins' question.

"What are you talking about?"

"Miss Maria. She wasn't there when – when Lieutenant Field was dying. If she'd been there, she would have helped him, carried him if she had to … she would have known what to do, what to say. She was a nice, normal woman, not like me … She deserved to know how much he loved her."

Her tears spill over despite her best efforts. She fumbles for a clean handkerchief inside her reticule, pulls it out and buries her face in it, thinking of the bloodstains drowning out Maria's embroidered initials.

"Violet-chan … "

Hodgkins' voice is sandpaper-rough with the kind of compassion she'd never endure from anyone else. He's the only one who calls her that, the only one who isn't in awe of her as some kind of savior or monster, even though he knows exactly what she's capable of.

"Violet-chan," he says, rising from his chair and holding out his arms. "May I?" Clearly he remembers how she gets when someone touches her without warning.

She nods. Instead of hugging her, he puts both hands firmly on her shoulders, looking down at her with the fiercest eyes she's ever seen.

"You asked me once," he says, "Whether you still deserve to live after the things you did during the war. I wasn't sure how to answer you, but I've thought about it – and, you know what? I believe it's because of your war record that you became the person you are. The one I – the one all of us here at CH hold dear."

She opens her mouth to argue, but he squeezes her shoulders for emphasis, right where the stumps end under her blouse and the prostheses begin.

"A 'nice, normal woman', as you put it, wouldn't know how to deal with veterans or the bereaved," Hodgkins continues. "She wouldn't have gone near an alcoholic like Oscar Webster, or someone dying of consumption like Mrs. Magnolia. And she'd certainly never have set foot onto that airplane, let alone survived the trip and brought the Field family the closure they so desperately needed.

"The point, my dear, is that you're like these … " He takes one of her hands, slips off the glove, and holds the cold metal fingers as tenderly as if they were flesh and blood. "You were forged in fire, and it's made you strong."

"Forged in fire … ?" She looks down at their linked hands, wishing incongruously that she could feel his touch. They're standing close enough that she can feel his breath against her cheek; perhaps that is why her face feels warmer than it should. Hodgkins told her once that she had "many burns" on her soul. It reminds her of how, after a bombing, some of the men's bodies looked like raw meat and were impossible to identify except by their dog tags. She does not like to think of her soul – if souls exist - as something like that. But if she is steel that can be forged …

"Don't forget, though – even steel can break." He lets go of her hand and gives back her glove with a sad, mysterious smile. "If you must defy company policy, hostile armies and the laws of nature to help others, please don't forget to take care of yourself too."

She slides the glove back on, steps back, and brushes a nonexistent wrinkle out of her skirt. "I will try … if that is your order."

It seems that Hodgkins' peace of mind is more important to her than she thought.

"And if you ever – ever – go AWOL like this again," he says, with a scowl that's only half exaggerated, "I swear I'll send you to my solicitors and have you transcribing legal documents for a year."

"Please, anything but that," she says, deadpan, and the novice attempt at humor actually makes him grin.

He takes hold of her shoulders again, gives her a little shake, and – to her complete surprise – kisses her on the forehead. His touch his warm and steady and confident, the touch of a living man, and the chill she hasn't been able to shake since Ctrigall recedes a little.

"Now get out of here," he grumbles, "I've got paperwork to deal with."

"Yes, sir."

Halfway out the door, picking up the carpetbag she dropped on the floor earlier, she turns and looks over her shoulder. She wonders if she should save her thoughts for later, write them down, compose a proper letter as she would for one of her clients. But this feels like something that should be said out loud – before she loses her nerve.

"Mr. President? Thank you. After the Major … after everything … I believe you saved my life. I'm glad it was you who found me."

The last she sees before closing the door is his face turning as pink as his hair.