[color=007236]"I will not leave you with that man!"[/color] The voice of a man [i]inside[/i] the cabin startled William. It [i]shouldn't[/i] have, of course: after all, [i]someone[/i] had carried him inside and taken care of his wounds. But at this moment, likely anything would have startled William: the situation was just all to confusing and incredible. Movement caught his eye, and the man who'd apparently spoken moved to and closed the door looking out upon what [i]had[/i] to be an [i]actual[/i] battle. He moved off out of William's view again, and staring at the closed door was suddenly disappointing to William. It separated him from what appeared to be a [i]real[/i] war, which should have been comforting. But this was the [i]Revolutionary[/i] War -- or, at least, it [i]had[/i] to be, didn't it? -- and William wanted to see it with his own eyes. Ever since he'd written a report in 5th grade on America's fight for independence, William had been obsessed with anything [i]Revolutionary[/i]-related. Things had gotten even more involved when he'd learned that he had ancestors who'd originated in Hesse-Kassel -- the source of the term Hessians -- who'd fought as mercenaries for the British. William's twelve-times-great-grandfather had been an infantry man fighting in New York in 1776. Of course, that hadn't occurred until a few months after the end of the siege of British-held Boston by the [i]rebels[/i] who would come to be the first real Americans. (Well, ignoring, of course, that the American continent had had [i]native[/i] inhabitants already for thousands of years, something the part-[i]Indian[/i] William had not!) William's ancestor, Danilo -- who later changed his name to Daniel -- had surrendered with dozens of other reluctantly-fighting Hessians to none other than George Washington. George Washington! [i]General George Frickin' Washington![/I] General George was -- apparently! -- alive and well and fighting for the future of what was going to become the United States of America someday. [i]Two hundred and forty years from now! Two hundred and forty years from now, William would be reenacting the very battle that was taking place outside this very cabin! It was just mind boggling! [color=007236]"Oh. You're awake."[/color] William flinched at the female voice, then grimaced at the pain in his side. He looked to his wound again -- or at least to the bandage hiding it -- and imagined it as a massive hole in his side with his guts threatening to spill out onto the cabin's dusty plank floor. Of course, it was no such wound: the bullet, despite being half again larger than most of the bullets fired in modern warfare, had only grazed across his belly, ripping the outer layers of flesh without ever penetrating his body. But it sure as fuck didn't feel that minor! "Thank you," William told the woman as she held out a cup of water out to him. He lifted it to his mouth, then hesitated. The 18th century was known for a lot of things, and -- at least in some places -- germ-free, pure water hadn't been one of them. Nevertheless, William raised the glass and sucked down the room temperature liquid. He'd just have to hope it came from a well and not one of the streams that fed into the massive [i]bug-infested[/i] Boston-area wetlands that one day would be filled in to create the greater Boston Area in which William had been raised. He handed over the empty cup to the woman... ...then took a moment to look her over. She was beautiful under all that concern and exhaustion. William suspected that she was younger -- maybe far younger -- than his own 26 years, but it was hard to tell. The stress of pre-industrial era living could be hard on people sometimes, so this woman could have been anywhere between 16 and 36 and William probably wouldn't have guessed within half a dozen years if he tried. He sat up on the wood plank table, grimacing as he did. Remembering that he wasn't exactly [i]dressed for company[/i], William tried to pull his torn, bloodied shirt to cover his exposed torso. In addition to being a history freak, William had been a fitness enthusiastic, too. As his hostess may have noticed -- presuming she'd been part of his first aid -- his chest and belly were impressively [i]rock solid[/i]. William was the kind of guy the girls at the beach would have gawked at with hungry smiles [i]if[/i] he'd ever spent time at the more public beaches rather than the more private exercise room of his apartment. William had had a girlfriend once who told he had facial likeness of Keanu Reeves and the body of the younger Mark Wahlberg. He likely would have been flattered by this description had he known either of those two actors as more than just names he often heard in the Entertainment News. (The drawback to being a library loving book worm and of not having had an interest in movies unless they were documentaries.) At 5'10", William was 180 pound of solidness. His hazel-green eyes sparkled, particularly when he was happy. Other than that and the comparisons to Keanu and Mark, there wasn't really much to say about his looks. And few people had ever said much about those looks because William had never been the [i]dating-every-weekend[/i] type, so not many women had ever had the occasion to comment one way or the other on his appearance. "Thank you," he told the woman standing before him, asking if he could have another glass. He was parched, making him wonder how long he'd been laying here unconscious. His empty stomach rolled, and after she'd brought him a second glass, William asked politely if there was anything to eat before he ventured with the question that had been screaming out for asking. He cleared his throat and asked tentatively, "Could you, um ... would you mind, ma'am ... telling me what day this is...?" He waited for her to answer, then -- unsure of whether she would answer, laugh, or cringe, thinking him a nut -- William continued with his question, "And ... the year...?"