This is a blurb/ oneshot of a character idea I had. It would be a Nicholls/OC story should I expand upon it, but for now I just had to get the feels out. As of right now, this is an established relationship, but the story would start at square one with these two :D. I own nothing but my OC.

Katherine looked down at the letter in her small hand. The parchment trembled with the white gloved fingers that held it in front of her, and she silently willed herself not to cry.

"How long?" she whispered, handing the call to duty back to the man she had come to know quite well in the past few months. When he didn't answer, she pressed the issue. "Jim, how long?"

James looked away from her momentarily, inhaling as he thought through what he wanted to say. "I leave in a month's time," he said finally. "The Germans have gained an immense amount of ground in France already and the Allies have been called to aid them."

Katherine bit down on her lower lip, brown eyes peering back at him. "But… They had claimed that the fighting would not be that bad, that everything would be settled before Christmas. Jim, you can't go. I won't let you."

James pressed his lips together in a fine line, clenching his hand in his lap to stop himself from taking Katherine's hand. The pair were under the shade of a great oak tree on Katherine's family's country manor, the hot afternoon of the London sun radiating and pressing into them from all angles. Katherine shifted awkwardly in the white silk of her gown. They had known each other for a little over four months. Theirs had been a relationship of ease, of friendship… or so she had thought. As she continued to look back at him, she realized all too quickly that she felt something more for him… and now he was going to be yanked right from her grasp.

"I wanted to let you know," he murmured finally.

Katherine looked back at him. She felt as though everything around her had frozen, that someone had knocked the breath right out of her. She was looking into the brink of a future that was as uncertain as the end of this war. She was frozen, her thoughts swirling in her mind as she thought of all the stories that her brother's friends had come back with of the war in the trenches.

"I shan't be on the frontlines except every now and then," Jim said soothingly, looking back out at the fields and shielding the bright sun from his eyes. "Even the charges will be few. They need me to help train the new horsemen. I've been told I will remain in England."

Katherine nodded. She would have run a hand through her bright red hair if she hadn't been wearing such an insufferable cap. "I'm sure you'll train those new recruits up right," she said in an attempt at being playful. She hoped he only heard the shakiness in her voice as laughter.

James tilted his head, gazing back at her with a smile that reached his bright blue eyes… blue like the sky… Katherine cleared her throat, looking away from him quickly as the two finished laughing. They sat in silence for a time… until she felt his warm hand take hers.

"Kate," he said quietly, running his thumb over the back of her white gloved hand. Katherine cut her eyes back to him, gazing at him from under the small rim of her hat. He had only just started calling her by the nickname her family did a few weeks ago… and yet she could not deny the warmth that spread through her to hear him refer to her on such a personal note. His hand felt quite good holding hers, she had to admit. "I needed to tell you something."

Katherine peered back at him, her tongue suddenly a lead weight in her mouth. She could not speak, she could not move. She was peering back at the eyes that reminded her of the sky, that reminded her that there was good in a world gone so terribly wrong.

She cleared her throat, willing something, a word, a syllable, anything to come out. Finally, she spoke. "Yes?"

James turned a bit more towards her. He wasn't in his uniform at that moment, just the expected coat and tie of a gentleman. "If I don't make it ba-"

"Jim-"

"Please, Katherine, I need to say this." He looked back at her for another moment until he was convinced she would let him finish. "I want you to know that these past four months have been some of the best of my life." Katherine watched him, struck dumb by what was happening. Instead of saying anything though, she just let it unfold around her. "I have grown to care for you very much, Katherine."

Katherine looked back at him, brown eyes wide and pale complexion flushing from something other than the heat. "I could say the same," she whispered, her voice caught in her throat. She would not cry. She could not cry. Not in front of him. She had always taken pride in her strength. It was something that her mother had taught her to cultivate all her life.

James smiled, his long-fingered hand slipping up tentatively to cup the delicate porcelain of her cheek. Katherine closed her eyes at the touch of his hand, amazed that something so tender could ignite such passion within her. To think that these same hands would be wielding a sword against an unknown enemy, to think that same enemy might harm the owner of these hands… She squeezed her eyes shut, and a single traitorous tear snuck its way from the corner of her right eye.

The day went on around them, and she could hear the distant whinny of one of her father's horses in the nearby field. "I would ask that you wait for me," he whispered, letting his hand fall back to his lap as he shifted in his seat on the blanket. Katherine's brown eyes snapped back open. There was something in his gaze that Katherine had not seen before, something that was the complete opposite of the playful banter that had been their usual form of communication.

If she had been more experienced in her knowledge in the affairs of something so tender, Katherine may have realized that she was most ardently in love with him. As it was, all she knew was that she was willing to wait to heaven and back for him to return.

Another tear fell from her eyes and she wiped it away quickly. "Yes," she replied evenly. And before she knew it she had flung her arms about his shoulders from her place in the grass, and a thrill shot through her to feel his own arms wrap gently around her as well.

Like I said, complete and total fluff of a one-shot. This may turn into a full story, but I'm not sure yet. It would be very, very different from my usual writing style though and I think it would be kind of fun. xD

-Sirius