Sorry this is shorter than usual and that it took so long! What are your thoughts on Harry's new single "Sign of the Times?" 

 Gray afternoons have never been so welcome before. The obnoxiously bright lights in the hospital only made the pain in his head worse, and the overwhelming smell of antiseptic was enough to push him to make more conscious decisions. If he can help it, he doesn't want to end up in a hospital ever again.

During his stay, Peggy ended up switching shifts with another nurse. He apologized too much and only managed to push her further away. Allen wasn't kidding when he said a third chance from Peggy is pushing his luck.

The cast on his leg is a nuisance, but he's been through worse. He'd rather lose the damn leg once and for all than feel the dull ache in his chest.

Craig was nice enough to ring Lola and let her know why he's been away for so long. From the message he received in response, she was happy to hear that he's alright.

Harry's grateful for her concern, but the faint pain in his chest intensifies and brings with it a familiar strain that he hasn't felt in years. Maybe it's the distance. The last time he felt this heavy feeling was during the war as he waite anxiously for Eleanor's letters to arrive.

Distance has never been kind to him. Once he's had time to settle his thoughts, he'll ring Lola and ask if he can see her again soon. Maybe then his heart will find rest.

The walk home is long and painful. His decision to walk instead of calling a cab has proven to be ill reasoning. Before he left the hospital, a nurse gave him crutches, but they've already rubbed the underside of his arms raw, and the small clicks they make against the cement have already given him a headache.

By the time he stumbles into the hall, the sun has vanished and the stars have come back to life. Fred's got his music playing again and the lights in the hall emit a soft, yellow glow. Harry shakes his head and smiles.

The pain in his arms is forgotten as he makes his way down the hall. Something is sitting by his door, encouraging him to move a little faster.

Sugar cookies. Someone baked him cookies and left them by his door, with a handwritten note that reads "Feel better".

His crutches make bending down a dangerous and incredibly clumsy activity, but, after about five tries, he manages to pick up the plate and stand up straight again. Across the hall, Peggy's door is cracked open. Soft music escapes and blurs the lines of Fred's record. She's sitting at the dining room table with a book in front of her and a half-eaten sugar cookie in her hand.

A smaller, melancholy smile replaces the earlier joy the familiarity of the building put on his lips as he struggles to find his key and unlock his door. She's clearly still angry with his past behavior, but that third chance might not be impossibly out of reach.

The crutches are more of a nuisance than any sort of help, and it takes him around an hour to shower and clean up his drunken mess. Since he woke up and Peggy told him to remember the other people in his life, he's been thinking about his mum and how long it's been since he's called her. He doesn't want to think about how much time has passed since he's seen her last.

Trivial things that have no relevance in his life have consumed his attention. Too many times he's caught up in what the sky looks like and why the dark of the night paired with the millions of stars is so alluring. Strangers walking by his window or crowding the bar he frequents take hold of his mind and he's constantly wondering what their stories are and if any of them have a past similar to his.

Harry's lost focus in his own life and placed it on other things and other people. Peggy told him her father used to do things like that after he came back from fighting in the Great War. Sometimes he was easily distracted, and other times he was entirely unaware of his surroundings and trapped inside of his self-destructive mind.

A shiver runs down his spine, tapping his bones like he used to tap the fence posts and the spaces between them with a stick as he walked to the schoolhouse. Viridescent eyes drift across the room and stop on the phone just outside the entrance to the kitchen.

It's still form taunts him. All he has to do is call, that's what she said. One phone call and he could start replenishing the pieces of himself that got lost along the way.

But will she welcome him after so long?

Faded yellow light presses against the window and fights to illuminate the room. Crowded sidewalks are thinning, but the streets are still full of life as cars full of the night crowd drive to and fro anywhere and everywhere in the city.

Harry stands and makes his way across the room, hopping along on one foot without the aid of crutches. Thankfully, no one lives below him or he'd be receiving a lot of complaints within the next five minutes.

Hesitantly, he dials the number embedded in his memory and waits for someone to pick up. No one answers on the first try. Maybe he's gotten the numbers mixed up. Or maybe they got a new number during his absence.

A sigh leaks through his slightly parted lips as he tries ringing again. He's seconds away from giving up and returning the phone to it's cradle when someone finally answers.

"Hello?"

Every muscle in his body relaxes. He'd forgotten how comforting his mother's voice is. "Hi, mum. It's..." he feels stupid for saying it because, surely, she knows it's him by the sound of his voice, but he says it anyway, "It's Harry."

Silence. Maybe this isn't his mother and he's remembered her voice all wrong.

"Hi, sweety. It's been a while."

A feeble smile appears on his lips, "I..." His smile fades like the sunset, "Mum, I'm really sorry. For everything."

"Harry, it's alright. We'll always be your family, no matter what happens."

Peggy's music is muffled by the door as it clicks into place. Harry twists the phone's cord between his fingers. "Can I-" He closes his eyes and leans forward, his arm against the wall and his head against his arm, "Can I come home for a few days?"

Anne sighs and he exhales in relief, "Of course you can."

War does not follow him as he falls asleep with the burning yellow glow of the street lamps illuminating the wall behind his head.

When morning comes with muted rays of sunlight, Harry stumbles around his apartment and packs a suitcase for his trip, however long that may be. By nine, he's sitting on a bench in the train station, aimlessly tapping his fingers against his suitcase as he waits for the train to Liverpool.

An endless sea of clouds floods the sky and covers the city in a wave of gray. Faces and landscapes pass by without recognition, their features meaningless and blurred as the train speeds by.

Harry wonders how many faces that he's passed that are haunted by the war like he is. It's a queer thing to think about. War was always the last thing on his mind as a boy. He was the odd one of the bunch, always reading and wanting to explore the woods while in a world of his own choosing.

All the other boys ran around playing war and pretending to fly planes, reenacting the Great War with enthusiasm, making noises with their mouths and running with their arms stretched out to meet the horizon. He wonders how ardent they were in their response to the second war. How fast their pens must have moved against the paper and how uncontrollable their heartbeats as they moved on to training. How sleepless their nights are now.

Those who didn't rush to the war office to sign up were probably drafted later, just like he was. How many familiar faces sank into oblivion in the thick mud?

Sometimes he doesn't think it will ever be possible to look at the world in a similar light to how he did before the war took him as a hostage. Every time of the day still bothers him even though he recognizes that enemy soldiers aren't lurking behind lamp posts and the shadows of buildings.

A darker shadow frightens him more. Until the war ended, he'd never felt what it's like to have a battle within his own mind and he's afraid that he's losing a war he was never meant to win in the first place. Losing the function in his legs used to gnaw at him like his seven-year-old self's bad habit of biting his nails. Gradually, the darkness in his mind has grown tendrils that reach through his veins and pollute everything within him and it feels like a never-ending nightmare.

Writing in a journal and talking to Peggy has helped, but the shadow never leaves. The only thing he can think of is reconnecting with his mother. God knows he's been away for far too long. Maybe going home is what he's needed all along.

Suddenly the train stops, and the suitcase nearly falls from his hands. Four people out of the ten in the cabin stare at him and watch him stumble over his crutches in the small aisle. He's used to the stares, but they still bother him enough to lengthen his stride.

Gemma meets him at the station. The cab ride is smothered in silence and all the words he's not sure are enough to make up for the chasm he's created between them. He focuses his attention to the buttons of his coat and how they turn only slightly between his fingers.

Rather than bringing up his past, Gemma settles on a question that relates to the present, "How have you been?"

Harry looks up, puzzled. She's never been the first one to break the silence, she's always been stubborn and insisted to hold her tongue until he broke first.

He's not sure how to respond. A number of answers come to mind, but all of the immediate answers are lies. He's not been doing well and he certainly isn't fine. Okay really doesn't cut it either.

"I've been...lost." He won't meet her eyes, "I'm sorry for leaving the way I did, didn't really help anything."

Gemma takes his hand. Harry looks over to see her reassuring smile, "It's okay."

He shakes his head, "I don't think it will ever be okay."

Gray consumes him for the remainder of the ride. Gemma still isn't sure how to talk to him and she leaves him alone, which he's grateful for, but he wishes that she would have tried to say something--anything at all.

His mother is quite different in her greeting and she's talking his ear off within three minutes after he's stepped inside. At first, he's hesitant to answer her questions. Being home doesn't feel as safe as he thought it would and he feels more out of place than ever before.

It's only after dinner when everyone besides his mother and him were settling in for the night that he starts to fall back into part of his old self.

Anne smiles as she sets her teacup down and asks the question she's been holding off on all night, "Are you seeing anyone?"

Peggy and Lola come to mind and the curves of his lips tease at a smile, "I am, but I think I may have unintentionally complicated things. There are things that still keep me up at night and sounds that take me back to the battlefield, and I've only recently learned that drinking myself into oblivion isn't the best solution. My neighbor, Peggy, was a nurse while I was active and she's helped a lot. She used to just lend me books when I couldn't sleep, but we're friends now and we sit for tea and talk, and she's even teaching me how to be a nurse if they ever let men be nurses.

"And then there's Lola. Craig and the guys invited me to a show one night for this singer I hadn't heard of before. Fred, one of my other neighbors, had one of her records and lent it to me so I wasn't going in blind. The moment I heard the music...I don't even know how to explain it. Something inside just...settled and I felt oddly relieved for the first time in a long time. After the show, I waited outside to tell her how much I enjoy her music and, somehow, I ended up going to dinner with her. She's my girlfriend now, but lately I feel strange--like I'm doing something wrong.

"Peggy's mad at me because Lola called and I left and stood her up for Christmas, and it's just awful, mum. I hate the way it feels. She won't talk to me so we don't share books, or have tea, or talk, or study and it feels like I've stepped on another landmine. And Lola's away all the time because she's a musician...I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm spiraling again, and I don't think I'll make it back when I reach the bottom."