The weeks go by

When he had got the letter that said he would have to give up William soon, for him to go back to his mum for a while, Tom Oakley for the first time realized how much the boy meant to him.

It had been three days now since he had been alone again and he hated it. Before he had known of William it hadn't been so bad. He had gotten used to it.

But now…a sharp breath was pulled in by Tom of country air. He wanted the boy back and even if he tried to deny that fact to himself he knew he would be unable too.

He wanted everything about William and every little thing about him back.

He most of all missed the way that will looked at him. Sometimes with admiration, sometimes need but always love, add never fear.

When he had got back from school that day he had been so excited. He had been working for that goal for so long and all by one letter was it taken from him again. But in that moment he had been afraid, he had been scared. He remembered the way the boy had looked at him with desperation in his eyes as if begging him to do or to say something that meant he didn't have to go.

But what Tom could do was just about nothing at that moment for the first time ever Tom, to Will, seemed powerless.

Packing had been done quickly. He would be leaving there home that after noon.

Just as they were finishing William had looked up at him and gone to hug him which awkwardly Tom had returned. He hadn't wanted to let him go.

Four days passed and that night Tom found himself sitting in his chair Sam at is feet drinking tea. He had got the wireless on and was listening in hard. The bombing was getting worse each day now. Any one could kill William and he wouldn't know about it.

Every day a train passed through the village from London even though the only ones that went were on Fridays.

Tom and Sammy changed the route on the walk they took each day so that when the train passed he could check just in case the boy came back by himself.

Tom would be so mad at him if he did, the dangers William would have put him self in….then why was it he hoped he would? Tom wondered to himself and him and Sam went back to the village.

There had been a change even in old Samuel. He had gone off his food a bit and ever time the door opened he'd look for William but he never came.

The time went on and in what seemed no time at all, a week, an entire week with out William had passed. He begun asking the post man Matthew for post, but in return just a got a sad shake of the head which he would in turn pass to young Zach, who was also missing William.

Two weeks passed. Still nothing. Except loneliness.

The cottage seemed empty and dull. So tom put all Williams paintings he had down up. They were so full of life. Just like in the end, the boy himself.

But he couldn't help but think dark thoughts sometimes.

The scaring and the bruising William had when he had first come to tom had been painful for the lad and tom knew the cause of them. His mother. The one tom felt he had abandoned the boy to by this time. What if she was bringing harm too the lad again. No, Tom tried to think, he couldn't bear to think of the boy he loved as a son in pain. It hurt him, and there was a rage for that woman in his soul.

No longer did he imagine that he heard a voice call out Mister tom for him like he had done at first. He knew William was gone.

Mister Tom… he shook his head, such a polite boy was his William. But he ain't yours is he, he tried to remind himself.

Three weeks, just gone. Every one saw tom change again he had momentarily came back to life this summer when he had had the boy with him but now.

He looked himself away it seemed to the village though those he did talk to got more than the traditional grunt they had used to received from the used to be bitter old man.

But he wasn't bitter. He just missed his friends.

Rachel. He felt a hot anger in himself for him self. God damn it he should have been there for her and John. And now he should be there for William, yet again he couldn't be.

The third day of the third week was worse than all the others so far as it also marked the Oakley's anniversary of marriage. It would have been forty five years now he thought to himself bitterly.

John would have been thirty four.

He would have had a family by now his father thought. He would have been a grandfather.. The thought cut him like a knife. His poor lad…

He wanted his lad back. He wanted them both. That week news spread round the village Annie Hartridge had had her baby; they were both fine and well.

Still no word had come at four weeks. Tom was at breaking point. He had to do something.

He went to the office of the billeting office and she said that it was natural for William to want to be with his own. But Tom that was who Williams own was. Or at least that was how it felt to the old man now.

No post again.

Enough was enough. Trying to calm hi m self he went to do some gardening. Little did he know that would be the decision that saved the life of his son.

Digging, get absorbed in it, trying to forget just for a moment that he was hurting, then he came across something that scared the very soul of him.

The belt.

This was fate. William needed him and he wasn't going to be denied of him any longer.

Stopping it back in to the ground Tom ran back inside, to pack. He was going to London. To the side of his son.