The night settled over Manila like a weary sigh, blanketing the war-torn city in darkness. No stars dared pierce the heavy clouds overhead, and the moon had vanished behind thick curtains of smoke.
Somewhere in the distance, gunfire cracked sporadically, a grim lullaby that had become all too familiar.
But inside the makeshift hospital, for the first time in days, there was a hush.
The wounded lay still—some unconscious from morphine, others simply too exhausted to moan.
Lamps burned low, their light flickering like fragile candle flames against the battered walls. The nurses had retreated to corners to rest their feet. Volunteers whispered quietly or cleaned quietly around the slumbering patients.
Clara Hernandez sat at a narrow wooden table near the back of the room, gently wrapping fresh bandages around her hands, calloused and red from hours of work.
Her hair was undone, the pins long since surrendered to gravity. A small kerosene lamp sat beside her, casting a halo of soft yellow light on the table’s surface, where an open notebook and a half-used pencil lay.
She hadn’t written in weeks. Not since the bombing of Sampaloc.
But tonight, something stirred inside her. A tug. A whisper.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Clara looked up.
Alistair stood like a shadow at the edge of the lamplight, his uniform rumpled, eyes sunken, and voice quieter than the silence itself.
Captain Alistair Beaumont stood nearby, his frame silhouetted in the doorway. He’d shed the outer layers of his uniform, revealing a linen undershirt stained at the collar.
A half-healed gash ran along his left bicep, the bandage beneath it slightly soaked. He looked as if sleep hadn’t found him in days, and yet his eyes, those deep storm-colored eyes, held a softness tonight.
“I never sleep well on quiet nights,” Clara replied, turning back to her notebook. “They feel like lies.”
Alistair walked over, pulling up a crate to sit beside her.
“A quiet night doesn’t mean the world’s stopped burning,” he said, his voice low. “It just means it’s catching its breath.”
She looked at him. “Poetic.”
He offered a faint smile. “Maybe I’ve been around you too long.”
Clara chuckled softly, surprised at how warm it sounded in her own ears. “I doubt a British soldier learns poetry from a Filipino field medic.”
“I had tutors. Governesses. Latin at eight. Shakespeare by ten.” He leaned back, sighing. “My mother insisted. Said a man should know how to speak gently, even if he lives in a brutal world.”
“And your father?”
“Preferred I speak with action. Guns. Orders. Obedience.” He paused. “He would’ve hated that I’m here.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
“I defied protocol. Chose people over orders. He would’ve called it soft.”
“And yet, here you are.” She tapped her pencil lightly on the notebook. “Soft, maybe. But not weak.”
A long silence stretched between them.
The kind that wasn’t uncomfortable, just… deep. Filled with unsaid things.
Outside, the wind whistled through broken glass.
“What about you?” he asked finally. “What did your parents want for you?”
Clara’s smile faded, not in sadness, but nostalgia.
“My father wanted me to be a teacher. My mother just wanted me safe. Neither of them expected a war to crash into our living room.” She looked down, her fingers absently tracing the edge of the notebook. “I used to write poems. About love. About revolution. Once, even about mangoes.”
“Mangoes?”
“It was a dare.” She laughed gently. “I made it into a metaphor about temptation. My professor called it ‘cheeky but vivid.’”
“I’d like to read that,” Alistair said.
Clara turned to him, skeptical. “You read Tagalog?”
“I’m a fast learner,” he said with a shrug. “Besides… maybe you could translate for me.”
Something in her chest fluttered. It wasn’t love, not yet, but something just as dangerous, possibility.
“You’re not like the others,” she murmured. “The soldiers.”
“I’ve never really been one of them,” Alistair admitted. “Not truly. I follow orders, yes. But I don’t believe all wars are just. I believe people get caught in the middle—good people.” His eyes found hers. “People like you.”
Clara looked away. Her throat felt tight.
“You don’t know me.”
“I want to.”
The silence after that wasn’t empty. It was full of heartbeats.
She stood, brushing off her skirt. “You should let me look at your wound.”
He blinked. “It’s fine—”
“No, it’s not.” Her voice was firm but kind.
“You’re still bleeding through your bandage. Come.”
He hesitated only a second before following her into the small infirmary section behind a torn curtain.
The lamp in this corner glowed faintly.
Clara gestured for him to sit on the cot, then gathered clean gauze and alcohol.
“Take off your shirt.”
Alistair raised an eyebrow. “You know, under different circumstances, that might sound scandalous.”
She rolled her eyes but smirked. “Don’t flatter yourself, Captain. I’ve seen worse.”
Still, as he peeled the shirt off, the air shifted between them, warm from the lamp and the nearness of skin. Clara caught the faint scent of smoke and sweat—real, human, grounding.
Her fingers brushed his arm, and for a moment, the pulse at his wrist beat against hers. Clara’s breath caught slightly.
His chest was lean but scarred, evidence of other battles. A long diagonal mark ran from his rib cage to his hip, faded but unmistakable.
Clara cleaned the fresh wound in silence. Her fingers lingered slightly as she secured the bandage, not by choice, but by accident or something dangerously close to it.
He winced only once.
“You’ve done this before,” he said softly.
“Too many times.”
“And yet you’re still here.”
She met his gaze. “So are you.”
Their closeness was magnetic. For a fleeting second, she imagined leaning forward, resting her forehead against his. She didn’t.
But he must have sensed it too, because his hand gently touched hers as she secured the final wrap.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Clara nodded. “I wish I could do more.”
“You already have.”
Outside, a baby cried softly. One of the refugees had brought in her daughter earlier that week.
Life, it seemed, insisted on continuing.
“You said your poems were about revolution,” Alistair said as she sat back down. “Do you still believe in it?”
She thought for a moment.
“I believe in change,” she said. “Even if it comes slowly. Even if it’s just… one act of kindness in a broken city.”
He nodded, considering that.
“Would you believe… meeting you was a kind of revolution for me?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Clara looked at him—really looked. And then she smiled.
“Maybe.”
And maybe that was enough.
The next morning…
The illusion of peace didn’t last.
Shortly after dawn, gunfire erupted near the northern quarter of the city. Smoke began rising again, and the familiar rhythm of boots and orders returned to the hospital.
Clara stood at the entrance, watching as soldiers rushed past. Alistair came to her side, already dressed for duty again, the fatigue returning to his face like a mask.
“They’re pushing into Santa Cruz,” he told her. “American units are preparing to retake the district.”
She nodded. “I know what that means.”
More wounded. More death.
He turned to her. “When this is over… if we survive it… I’d like to take you somewhere quiet. Somewhere without guns or sirens.”
She laughed, a little sadly. “Is there such a place?”
“I’ll find one.”
She looked up at him, hope flickering despite the smoke in the sky. “I’d like that.”
He leaned in, not quite a kiss, but close. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
And just like that, he was gone—swallowed by the marching tide.
Clara remained at the entrance for a long moment, hand still lingering where his hand touched hers.
Then she turned, picked up her medical bag, and walked back into the room of the dying and the healing.
Because even in war, there were whispers of hope.
And sometimes, that was enough to carry you through the fire.
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