Disclaimer: I don't own War Horse, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to their respective owners. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.

Like Ink

A/N: Follow up to "God Help Us."

He's been shuffled into the deck and moved about so many damn times that Jamie isn't even sure where the hell he is. They sky looks the same each time he looks up, doesn't matter if it's cold and gray or filled with birds flying into the sun, so it's no wonder the major can't quite place himself. He could be Berlin for all he knows, Posen, Stuttgart, or any one of a dozen other cities in the middle of this goddamned war. All Jamie knows is that it's hell, that he's living in little more than a pit.

Men die every day, though he doesn't bother to pay attention to the causes. It's all the same, really. Takes them all to the same place, or, at least, he likes to think so. Men like him, missing family and friends, the warm and gentle comforts of home, dragged through the slush and mud until they fall flat on their faces because, perhaps, the poor fellow's heart has finally given out.

Hell, he's beginning to think that the damned German horses are treated better than war prisoners like himself.

But it doesn't matter, he tells himself. One way or another he'll get out of here. If Jamie's not walking, limping home, then they'll just carry him out in a body bag, assuming his people's allies come before he's left to decay. He thinks of his poor mother, what with her own fragile state of health, sitting at home by the fireplace and wondering where in the hell her big boy is now. She's like to be shaking, staring each day out the window in hopes that it will be him, dressed to the nines in his now shoddy uniform, on the doorstep rather than the postman with a letter detailing his death. The poor dear, he remembers, hasn't received a proper letter in some months.

He's held to the leather book all this time, has refused to let it go. Can't keep it on his person day and night, and so Jamie's kept it hidden in the dirt, dug himself a little hole on the side of one of the buildings, stuffed the book inside and buried it all over again. He's been doing it for weeks, pulling the bloodied thing out only when he needs to think, to forget all this misery and remember the times where they had all used to sit around and laugh. It's strange that Jamie's come to rely on it so; come to believe that he can't so much as smile without flipping through the damaged pages.

The boy who gave it to him, he remembers, is here, has been from the first day the major had arrived. A strange kindness the German had shown to an enemy soldier, taking the book from him before admittance, keeping it until the sun hung low in the sky before walking swiftly past, acting as though he'd accidentally dropped it at Jamie's feet. Maybe he'd seen the photograph, he thinks; seen how bloody pleased James had looked in his first and only family portrait, that beautiful baby girl held in his and Emma's arms.

It's the first act of humanity any one of these people has turned the major's way.

But James is dead, has been for months, maybe even years now, as Jamie keeps reminding himself. Likely shot through the chest as the book had been kept on the inside of his coat, within his left breast pocket. That's why the holes, he thinks, the substantial amount of the man's blood caked to the pages and, after it had dried, had made them warp and stick. It's turned brown now, Jamie notes, as though it's only ever been a deep shade of ink for James to draw with.

He can't quite remember the baby's name, even as he stares at her confused little face in the picture. It was beautiful, this much Jamie knows, and James was so damned proud that he'd given her that name. The fool had bragged about it at every chance he had.

The men begin to shuffle as it rains, some bemoaning their poor fortune while the others just lay down and revel in it. One man drops to his knees, cries "Josephine!" and falls forward, perhaps in death.

It hits him then as he tucks the photo away, buries the book again before it can get wet. Her name sinks into his mind like ink upon parchment, and he whispers it to himself over and over.

"Johanna. Johanna."