Author's Note: An introspection into the way thunder affects different people. This isn't entirely an original idea; I know several soldiers and veterans (some peacetime, some wartime), and the basic idea is from an actual experience as was related to me by a soldier who experienced combat during a war.

~BD

Thunder

Spring, 1912

He could well remember the first time a real storm had caught them in the garden, instead of just a mere shower.

She had been but eleven years old, and the transformation from sour to sweet had already occurred in its entirety – much to his delight. That second year, there was absolutely nothing sullen about the little girl who had come from India; rather, she was pleasant and bright and had such a lovely smile, like a tiny pink rosebud. It made his heart swell to think he had two friends, and especially one that was a pretty little girl who adored him.

But the storm had been a surprise, in more ways than one, and taught him something he'd never expected.

They were in the garden alone together, for Colin had gone to Leeds with his father to be fitted for new clothes that would better suit his quickly growing frame. But she had begged to remain behind, and all morning she had been working diligently, weeding about a bed of newly planted bluebells while humming a Yorkshire folk song under her breath that he had taught her the week before. Her voice was so childlike, so elfin, that he had ceased to work on the roses several times, always watching her for longer than was strictly necessary, utterly mesmerized.

In fact, he had been so mesmerized that he hadn't paid the slightest attention to the sky, or the dark, rolling clouds that were bubbling menacingly over the horizon of the moor.

It was only when she sat back on the heels of her button-up black shoes and shaded her eyes against the dull glare seeping strangely from the expanse of grayness above them, that he realized what a fool he had been to not notice what was happening – due entirely to his obvious infatuation with the young girl of the manor.

A low rumble of thunder hummed from the darkest clouds coming towards them, and he saw her eyes widen in a surge of fear.

"Tha mun get t' th' house," he urged, quickly hurrying over to help her gather her tools. "Tis comin' quick. I didn' realize it was so close, or I'd 'ave sent thee back afore now. Eh, tha'll forgive me, I hope."

But she remained frozen, as though she had not heard him, her face still tilted upwards and her blue-gray eyes following the darkness as it swept closer.

He touched her shoulder, feeling awkward for the first time in his life – for though he had touched her before, it had never been in a gesture of protection. "Miss Mary, tha mun get back t' th' house! Come on, then!"

A sudden clap of thunder made the leaves about them shiver, and she cried out and pressed her hands to her ears.

So he didn't bother with the tools. Dropping them in the grass, he grasped her arm and pulled her swiftly to her feet. As the first few drops of rain blew in on a sharp upswing of breeze, dotting her buttery-yellow dress and crisp white pinafore, he hurried her towards the oak tree, going so far as to push her beneath a stone bench that was situated beneath the tree. The bench was well shielded by the hanging branches and the massive trunk, and despite her weak protest, he lay down beside her, not concerned with the fact that he would be soaked through himself. Just so long as she was safe.

She curled up against the trunk of the tree and pressed her hands fervently over her ears, and a couple of tears slid down her pretty, soft cheeks.

"I'm sorry! But it's so loud! Oh, Dickon, I'm so afraid! I hate thunder!"

"Tha munna be afraid, Miss," he encouraged, curling up as close to her as he could, to keep the rain from reaching her. He was at least grateful there were no large spider webs beneath the bench; that may have likely scared her even more. "Tis only thunder."

Another clap, infinitely louder, cracked above them, and she tightened into a ball against him, sending a strange feeling through his body that he didn't understand at all. It started in his hands and skated to his toes, and he wondered what on earth it could have been.

"I don't like it! I don't like it at all! The thunder scares me, and the lightening is so wicked and bright! And you could be hurt because of me!" she added, turning her face to his, her lower lip trembling at the realization that her delay earlier had cost them both.

He rubbed her arm reassuringly, amazed at how soft her skin was beneath his coarse hand. "Eh! Would take more than a bad storm t' hurt me, Miss Mary. Think o' it this way. Tha garden needs th' rain, doesn' it? And th' thunder is jus' th' clouds bumpin' into each other, or so mother says."

"Does she?" She looked at him wonderingly. Then, her eyes widened. "You're already soaked!"

"I've been soaked through many a time. I'm always on th' moor when it rains. But th' branches are shieldin' me a bit, so it won' be so bad."

A look of dawning crossed her features. "Dickon? Once, you told me you see things when it rains that you would never see when it doesn't. Didn't you?"

"Aye, lass. There are many a thing when it rains as what doesn' show in th' sun. But tha's stayin' where tha is, so tha doesn' catch cold. Tha can see such things later."

"But you're already wet, and I want to see such things, too!"

"I'm used t' being wet." He'd grinned cheekily at her. "Tha isn', though. And tha's afraid o' th' thunder. So tha'll stay 'neath th' bench 'til it slacks off some, an' I'll hurry thee back t' th' house then."

She scowled at him. It would have been as fierce as a kitten and nearly made him laugh aloud, but then another boom of thunder made her jump, and she hid her face in her hands against the earth once more. He resorted to rubbing her back, hoping the fine material of her dress wouldn't catch on the rough calluses of his palm.

Two hours later, Archibald Craven discovered them in the garden – Dickon soaked to the skin despite the thick branches above him, and Mary relatively dry (though a bit smudged up with dirt), huddled beneath the stone bench with a moor lad as an additional shield from the wild elements. With the aid of two umbrellas, he'd quickly escorted the two children back to the manor in a state of fuss and bustle, insisting that Medlock locate some dry clothes for both of them, while thanking Dickon for his kindness to Mary and the rest of the family.

After that first incident, he was acutely aware that she remained frightened of storms for some time, and he made sure to get her into the house whenever a bad one was coming. But as the years slipped by, he also noticed that her fears slowly dissipated. And by the time she was fifteen, she loved working in the garden in the rain. She particularly loved to stand beneath the oak tree and listen to the low rumbles of thunder when a storm passed through. Or perhaps she actually loved to listen to his heartbeat – for whenever they stood beneath the oak in a storm, she'd always lean her head against his chest, pressing her ear against the skin showing where he never buttoned his shirt all the way up. The nearness made him quickly forget the dampness or the chill, or the loud booming sounds and flashes of lightening, and instead reminded him of what he had learned the first time, when she had been eleven and he thirteen.

During that first thunderstorm, he had learned he loved her.

Summer, 1919

The sudden, cracking boom brought him to his knees. He never even heard the shovels fall beside him, having slipped out of his grasp. He forgot he was in Mary's garden, safe between the four walls that hid the most perfect paradise from the rest of the world. He forgot he was in England, forgot he was a gardener, forgot he had been back for nearly six months.

On the other hand, he remembered quite vividly that he did not have a gun on him to protect himself from the advancing Germans.

Another horrible explosion in the skies shook the trees and the flowers, and he pressed his hands over his ears and his forehead to the grass. Curling into a tight ball, suddenly ashamed and horrified of how he was reacting to a bit of thunder, he choked back dry gasps of breath, certain he would suffocate at any moment.

He could hear someone shouting up the line, ordering an attack. Someone else yelling for a medic. Several soldiers screaming in pain. There was no garden, no moor. Nothing was wick. Nothing was beautiful or right. Everything was muddy and gray and wrong.

He crumpled, desperate for unconsciousness to overtake him, as a flash of lightening lit the secret garden and another beat of thunder echoed above his head, out of sync with his heart.

He had no idea how long he had stayed there, huddled on the soaked grass wishing for it to end, but he did know when the rain stopped pelting him. A dim shadow had fallen about him, and he glanced up, wide-eyed and shocked – especially when he saw her. The last he'd heard, she had graduated from school in London, but he'd never expected her to return to Misselthwaite. She was too beautiful, to perfect; surely some wealthy beau had swept her off of her dainty feet and whisked her away to be a pretty trophy bride, forever kept in the social circles of the rich and powerful. She must be part of his imagination. He had often dreamed of her when the mortar rounds went off. He must be dreaming now, too.

So he watched, transfixed, as she knelt, heedless that her pretty, cream-colored gown would be ruined in the wet grass, and touched his damp face with her soft fingers.

And yet, when her warm hand touched him, he knew instantly she was no dream, and he started to shiver again. Why was she here, all of a sudden? Why would she come back to Yorkshire when she had London at her fingertips?

Her voice, barely a whisper, was soft and low and gentle, washing over him like balm.

"Martha told me that you had come out to work in the garden this morning, and that you didn't come in when the storm hit." She continued to shield him with the umbrella she was carrying. "That was an hour ago. Let's get you inside before you catch your death of cold."

"Is thee real? When did thee get back?" he whispered, refusing to sit up. "I thought thee would be engaged by now…in London…"

She smiled, her lips fuller than when she'd been a child, and he couldn't take his eyes off of them. He was even more mesmerized by her now than he'd been back then. What would it be like, to capture her mouth with his? To taste the sweetness of her tongue, to trace feather-light patterns over the porcelain skin?

She didn't seem to notice the heat in his cheeks as she grasped his arm to help him up, and she said in broad dialect, "Engaged t' some rich man in London, when tha knows perfectly well I love thee, and always have? Nowt o' th' soart, Dickon Sowerby. I would have been home afore now, but I had several engagements to attend that I couldn't possibly escape. Society is so dull and rigid and has far too many rules. I arrived but two hours ago. Just before the storm, actually. It was only a stroke of luck that Martha told me where tha was. Medlock didn't want me to come out to find thee at all, o' course. Well, she shan't tell me what to do now that I'm grown."

He daren't believe her. He was dreaming, for certain. "Tha still loves me?"

He felt his body tremble at the very thought.

"Aye, I still love thee," she murmured, leaning down to nuzzle her nose against his. "Now, get thee inside."

He staggered to his feet, but when he reached for the shovels, she stopped him.

"You can come back for those later. God, you're absolutely soaked! I'll have to find some clean clothes in Colin's room… you're much taller than I remember." She smiled up at him warmly, appreciatively, and he remembered all the hours they had spent together while Colin had been in school, but before she had left. His skin shivered once more, but now it was not from cold or fear, but from desire. Mary must have seen it in his eyes, because she wrapped her arm around him and pressed herself to his side, and begin to guide him back. But just as they reached the garden door, another boom of thunder made him stumble and duck. She pulled him beneath the ivy and hugged him tightly.

"I'm ashamed o' mesel', Mary." He held her close, still hardly daring to believe she was here, and bowed his head. "T' be frightened o' a bit o' thunder! Tha doesn' deserve a coward. Tha'd do better wit' a man from London, tha would."

She leaned back and gazed up at him thoughtfully, lifting her hand to brush a soaked lock of curl off of his forehead. Then, in a soft voice, she said, "Once, I was afraid of thunder, too. And a wonderful Yorkshire angel protected me from it. I'm afraid I'm not sure how to protect you, though. You're much too tall and broad for me to push you under a bench! But I can tell you this." She stroked her fingers down his cheek to his lips, and he shuddered beneath her heavenly touch. "If I had seen what you had seen," she went on, quite softly, "I imagine I would be terrified of thunder, too. That doesn't make you a coward, and I'm not ashamed of you in the least."

It was too much. She was here again, understanding and gentle, refined and elegant, too good for a moor boy. But she was here, nevertheless. She was here because she loved him. He buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes, willing the tears not to fall. And she wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly, despite the fact that it soaked her dress through and through.

Perhaps, just as her fear had slowly faded… perhaps his would fade, as well.

Now that she was back, and still his… perhaps he could start living again.

~FIN~