A/N: let's try and pretend that it hasn't been four and a half years?

long story short, I found this chapter mostly finished, and decided to finish it off and post it... but I haven't fully committed to writing more of it right now. It won't take another four years tho... probably :'''D

anyway, thanks so much to those who have stuck around! I appreciate u greatly.

In other news: I've been MOSTLY posting on AO3 these days. same username. i have two multichaps going there that I didn't post over here because I just find the interface better... I'll try to keep at least posting this one here :)...

Enjoy!

The skin of his forehead twitched as a droplet of water landed above his brow. His nose scrunched as another hit. His eyes remained shut as his mind became vaguely aware of the sounds surrounding him - the light trickle of water on concrete, the scraping of chain against stone...

Kristoff came to with a gasp for air when a door slammed beyond his sight. As he adjusted to the dim lighting around him, he struggled to move; he felt weighed down both by the searing pain echoing throughout his body and the separate heaviness on his arms. Biting at his lip to distract from the ache that begged him to stay still, Kristoff pressed his palms down beside him, sitting his body up and scooting his legs underneath his hips to support his own weight.

He could barely remember what had happened up to this point.

Where was he?

He remembered looking into the river.

He remembered Evan.

An explosion.

Darkness mixed with glimpses of men, wood, bumpy roads...

He could recall a high pitched ringing in his ears.

Looking to his feet, he noticed the faint glint of metal wrapped around his ankle connecting to a thick bolt on the floor, and panic started to take hold as he was starting to put together the pieces of just what exactly had taken place. He examined the chains, noting that they seemed to give him at least a fair amount of room to move - and that they continued up to cuffs on his wrists.

Kristoff looked over his arms, bared to the open air as his jacket and anything else that could have held anything useful was stripped from him, and noted bruises under his arms. His mind flashed back, felt rough hands grabbing him and pulling him away from the fires that roared over the battlefield. He recalled someone barking orders in a language he didn't understand, but recognized…

Adjusting how he was seated, he lifted his knees from the ground and pressed his forehead against the torn fabric of his pants, pushing his hands to the back of his head through matted, knotty hair.

He heard a muffled cry for help when a barred door screeched as it opened, and he knew.

He'd rather be dead.

The sergeant looked over the smokey remains of the battle with dismay and began doing the worst part of his job. It took almost all of his remaining strength to search through the field for any survivors, while making a list of who was still intact enough to bring home for their families. The others he was only able to grab the dog tags off of, and he had to hope that was enough for the grieving families.

Kristoff didn't even remember falling asleep (or maybe passing out… he did notice a new pounding in his head), but when he woke again he felt another presence in his cell, along with way more aches and pain than he recalled from the first time he was conscious. Sitting up to see who was with him, Kristoff cringed as all of the lacerations across his torso stretched and twisted with his movements and he grasped desperately at his side hoping to ease the pain even just a little bit.

When his eyes landed on the other men in the cell, they widened with shock as he recognized two of the boys. They were beaten and bruised, but they were undoubtedly Craig and Dustin.

"Hey," he whispered, leaning over as much as he could with his chain bound legs to tap one of them anywhere he could reach. "Man, wake up."

Dustin woke with a gasp, throwing punches as quickly as he could until Kristoff grabbed his hands and muttered "hey, hey, it's me, it's Bjorgman."

He calmed down and leaned his head back against the stone wall, his breathing ragged before words started spilling out of his mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Did you see anyone? Do you know where we are? Do you know what's going on? I haven't seen Evan. I know Peter and Craig are here somewhere. Where is this? What happened to me? Am I going to die?"

"No," Kristoff stated with a firm hand on the young man's shoulder. "No, you're not going to die. I promise. Craig is right next to you. I haven't seen Peter. And Evan…" He paused as Dustin's eyes glazed over, not wanting to upset him more than necessary. "Last I saw him he was on the battlefield. I don't think he's here."

"Where is here?"

Sighing and running a cuffed hand through matted hair, Kristoff shook his head. "I… I'm not totally sure. I… I think we might have been taken."

Dustin lifted his head and looked towards Kristoff with wide eyes. "...What?"

"... I think we might be prisoners."

After a while of talking, Dustin finally calmed down enough to sleep again and Kristoff decided to stay awake in case anyone else woke up in a panic. He heard footsteps every hour or so, as well as the pleading of a few men that had woken up to find themselves in this hell.

He lasted until the cellar was pitch black.

Loud banging, screaming, a language he couldn't understand was all Kristoff could barely comprehend as he was awoken, being dragged to the ground by the chains around his wrists. There were some clicks and in the blink of an eye he was free from the wall, but attached to other men who were chained up in a line. Scrambling to his feet, Kristoff struggled to keep up with everything that was happening around him - Pure exhaustion still overwhelmed his senses.

He tried to see if any of his other comrades were there, to see if any of them had definitely made it off the battlefield even in this terrible way, but everyone had cloth thrown over their heads, and soon enough he did too.

Kristoff closed his eyes. Listened harder. Tried his absolute best to make some sense of where they were being taken through sound alone, but he couldn't make out anything definitive. He heard chains clanging together, footsteps on stone, and the occasional gunshot in the distance, but there were no other hints of where they might have been.

They walked for about two miles before they were pushed down to their knees and finally had the cloth bags ripped off from over their heads.

The sunlight was intense, and as his eyes adjusted all that Kristoff could see over the horizon was a seemingly endless field. Some smoke billowed from far away - towards the gunshots he assumed - but there wasn't much else around them.

Tension built in his shoulders when he felt the tip of a rifle press into his back… And he did his best to block out the rest.

Bracing himself for impact as he was thrown back into his cell, Kristoff watched closely as the soldiers who constantly hid their faces in shadow reattached the chains on his feet to the wall before moving onto the next. He could taste blood and feel the stickiness of it on his hands, but he only vaguely remembered what had happened.

They had forced them to do work while chained together, cleaning the field of all of the mess of their last group of prisoners who hadn't provided them with any benefits. (Kristoff had found out quickly that the smoke had been coming up from a mass grave, and not just from firearms as he had hoped).

He remembered that one of the others had fallen and pulled him with them, forcing him onto a large piece of debris which left a massive gash in his side. He remembered being handed a rifle and forced to shoot - but he didn't remember if he hit the target or not. He remembered being tested physically and mentally while they wore him down bit by bit. He knew he wasn't the only one hurt out there.

There was more blood than just his on the ground and he knew he had to do something .

He waited patiently for the silence that came when the soldiers left.

It took about an hour of trying his best not to pass out before the coast was clear, and Kristoff could finally get to what he needed.

He sat up, struggling to not make his wounds worse, and pulled off his right boot. Praying that they hadn't examined his clothing more closely than the knives and small gun hidden in his jacket, Kristoff started tearing at the loose seam he had customized on the way over. A sigh of relief crossed his lips when he found his small lighter still stitched into the side of his shoe, knowing that he'd be able to at least stop himself and others from bleeding to death.

Wincing at the pain that tore through his torso as he moved around, Kristoff pulled his shirt over his head to examine the damage done. There were a number of cuts and scars he couldn't remember getting, but there were only three deep enough to cause a serious problem. He pushed the sleeves around over the metal chains as well as he could, shoving all of the fabric up and over one shoulder.

And he took in a deep breath before stuffing as much of the shirt into his mouth as possible.

He let out a sigh through his nose and flipped his lighter open, brows knitting together at just the thought of what he was about to do.

Pulling the chain between his wrists taut with one hand Kristoff ran the lighter across the metal and made sure that it was all getting hot enough - he didn't want to have to do this more than necessary - before dropping his lighter into his lap. One more deep breath through the nose as he used his other hand to properly angle the metal from his left shoulder to the right of his waist before he pressed the searing hot metal against the worst of his wounds.

The shirt stuffed in between his teeth helped keep his scream muffled enough that the soldiers outside of the walls wouldn't hear him, but a few of the men jumped up and stared at him, wide eyed.

When the metal cooled, he pulled it away from his skin before yanking the shirt out of his mouth and taking a few deep breaths. He knew he had two more to go, and hesitantly repeated the process, ignoring the countless eyes that watched every move he made.

Only Craig followed his actions. The other men thought he was insane and Dustin couldn't find anything bad enough to make the pain of cauterization worth it.

When he got his lighter back and secured it in the seam of his boot, Kristoff finally let himself rest for the night.

It had been far too long since she had visited the Bjorgmans home, but she had been practicing for a couple months and had practically perfected Bulda's signature meatloaf, the top of it perfectly caramelized while still remaining juicy and moist inside, and Anna couldn't wait to bring it to them.

Waving to their neighbors as she skipped up the steps, Anna gave a couple sharp knocks before swinging open the door. "Hello!" she hollered, pushing it shut with her foot before kicking off her shoes. "Hellooo?" With a scrunch of her mouth, she hummed in confusion to the lack of response before moving quickly to the kitchen, figuring worst case she could leave it with a note for them, even if it was a rarity for no one to be home.

But she stopped short when she heard a small, hiccuping sob followed by a soft and warm "it'll be okay, Bulda… It'll…"

Peeking around the corner, she saw Cliff hunched over his wife, their bodies wrapped up and seeking comfort in one another. She stepped forward slowly, holding herself back from just bursting in. Eyes tracing from the couple to the table, she noticed the tear stained letter, and …

She lost her composure and stepped forward with haste, dropping the plate on the table before grabbing for the note.

"Anna!" Bulda gasped, pulling away from Cliff and scrambling to steal the paper out from Anna's slim fingers. "Hello, darling!" She clenched the note closer to her chest, forgetting the silver on the table until Anna picked it up, clenching it in her fist.

"What's going on?"

"It's… baby, it's…"

Anna looked down to her hand and turned the smooth metal over, eyes scanning over the embossed lettering.

Kristoff H Bjorgman

33642981 T39 T40 O

Clifford Bjorgman

Anna fell backwards into the closest chair she could find, the tags falling from her fingers and hitting the floor with a soft metallic ringing.

"What…" She swallowed her breath, raising glassy eyes up to the faces of his parents. "What does this mean?" Her hands were shaking as she reached forward, letting Bulda clasp Anna's fingers between her own, kneeling in front of her.

"Anna, baby…" Bulda reached over to push the letter a little closer. "They don't know … not for sure…" She wiped at her own eyes, before patting a warm palm against the back of Anna's hand. "All they found were his tags. He could still be alive."

She shook her head in disbelief, her curls falling down around her shoulders as tears slid down her cheeks. " Could be?"

"Well," Bulda started, tucking Anna's hair back behind her ear. "They didn't find him . Just his tags. There's…" She paused, eyes faltering. "There's hope, baby." Her warm hands enclosed around Anna's as she took the tags and chain from her fingers, before sliding them over her head. "He'd want you to have them."

Anna hiccuped and felt fresh, hot tears slipping down her cheeks again. She nodded, letting Bulda's warmth surround her as she wrapped her up in a hug and held her close.

"Just have faith in him, Anna. He's coming home. I can feel it."

Anna let her hands fall off her knees as she nodded, not sure she had as much hope as Bulda did.

The chores continued the next day. And the next. For weeks. For months? He couldn't tell anymore.

There was fighting. And smoke. And many men didn't make it back to the prison blocks.

But they were quickly replaced.

And so it went.

Every night Kristoff sighed with relief when he saw his two young comrades returning to their shared cell. He felt responsible for them, and did everything he could to keep their spirits high. But he was running out of steam. He could feel despair taking over his bones, wearing him thinner and thinner each day.

He had to get out. He had to figure it out. He had to had to had to , and soon . He wasn't sure he could survive this much longer.

Anna was making her way home after about an hour of conversation and comfort from Bulda and many sad kisses from Sven. It had been harder than she thought to say goodbye, but she knew she needed to leave them alone to grieve, and she needed to clear her own head. Anna flipped the tags over and over in her hands before tucking them beneath her collar, cold metal pressing against her skin.

She wasn't sure what to do now.

She was waiting for him. She would have waited forever.

But if he was gone, what was she waiting for now?

Anna knew she wasn't doing enough, and she wanted to help. She wanted to be there, on the front lines, helping as much as she could. She didn't want anyone else to feel the way she did in this moment. She wanted to prevent anyone else from being lost to all of this violence.

She stepped through the door of her home, clenching her fists and walked right into her fathers' study.

"I'm going to join the nursing corps."

Three pairs of eyes turned up to look at her, and Anna felt her face flushing red.

"I'm sorry," her father started, scrunching his brows together. "You're… doing what?"

Anna took a step back, losing a bit of confidence as Hans and her father stared her down. "I… I'm not doing enough to help," she said, voice raising. "I want to go over there and really help." Her eyes moved across the room to catch her mother's, who was smiling proudly up at her. "I'm going to enroll …"

Hans stood abruptly, his chair scraping backwards on the floor. "Is this because of what happened to your friend?"

Her eyebrows furrowing together, Anna turned her head up to face him. Voice slow and calm, Anna stepped forward. "What do you know about that?"

Ignoring her, Hans poked an accusatory finger towards her nose. "If you leave, we're done. This is over."

Anna took in a sharp breath before glancing towards her father. "I… That's not fair."

"I am serious, Anna." Hans stepped forward, his hand moving to cup her jaw. "I can't stand to watch you leave. And I can, and will ," he paused, pressing a kiss to her forehead. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Ruin you and your family."

"I just want to help !" she startled, shoving away from him. "Can't you see that they need help ?"

Hans opened his mouth to retaliate when they were interrupted by a stern "Enough."

Both of their heads whipped back to face her father, who was standing behind his desk. "That's enough. Hans, I've had it with this. If all you're after is a deal, then leave." He turned to his wife with a sad smile. "We can continue on without you, if we must."

Anna felt her heart racing beneath her ribs. She couldn't actually believe her father was finally, finally more concerned about her than their business. "Papa…"

"Anna." He came forward, reaching for her hands. "I am so proud of you."

She threw her arms around his neck, returning his tight squeeze.