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Amy remembers the day they first met as if it was yesterday. She’d been lost and alone, her small village seeming a world away. In a swelling crowd, straining to hear Mrs Pankhurst, to listen to the women she’d come to hear speak of the fight that she had only heard about from afar, but longed to be a part of, she’d found him and he’d found her. They had fought, side by side together and eventually they had become partners in life as well as in politics. In spite of her love of rules and order, she’d fallen for his free spirited nature and they’d started a life together. Eventually, they had two beautiful children and a small but cosy flat. And then, just six years after they’d first met, it had all been taken away.His decision not to join the War, to stay with his family, had stemmed from the deepest roots of his childhood, into his memories of his father leaving when he was just seven. She’d understood when he’d explained and had stood by him, even when they very people they’d battled side by side with in the Suffrage movement now sent them white flowers, even when people on the street shouted, calling him a coward and a traitor. And then, eventually, as the fighting wore on and on, eventually he was forced away from her. In a darker part of her mind, she remembers the day he left so clearly. The unnerving sight of his uniform. The feel of his wedding ring as their hands came together. How he had hugged their children so tightly. How she’s kissed him before he walked away, headed into who knows what. She treasured every letter she got from him, pored over his handwriting, although the sections that were covered by thick black lines them made her sick to her stomach. She heard stories of men returned from hell and every time, she wondered what her Jake could possibly be experiencing. When he eventually returned to her, he was broken in ways she couldn’t imagine. But he was here. And he was still hers. ——————————————————————————————————----------------------------------------------------------------------It’s the same every night. The mud of the trenches seeping into his boots, which never quite left him even when he returned home. The shells, whose noise he will hear for the rest of his life. The men, gunned down like animals, whose faces appear in his dreams every night. Then he wakes. Sometimes he cries out, or even screams. On those nights, the children will sometimes come running to the door and he’ll feel guilt seep into his soul. But Amy’s always there to comfort him, to hold him through the worst times. The war may have left its ugly scars, but he knows that as long as he’s with her, he’ll always be safe. He’ll always be home, his trauma ebbing away until he’s able to sleep once again.