A/N: This is the final (and my favourite) part of a festive fanfiction challenge that I set myself: '5 Gold Rings' – 5 Christmas proposals in different fandoms.
Trigger Warnings: Implied references to torture
Mentions of war and the brief references to the Nazis
5 Gold Rings
Part 5 – A Sensational Team
'It's like being in love, discovering your best friend.'
27thDecember, 1943
Fly the plane Maddie…But my God! I can't believe it. Truly can't believe it happened.
I was so excited to be up at Craig Castle– giddy with the relief of finally having a few days (whole days – the luxury!) leave and half out of my mind with the desperate joy of seeing Julie again. I flew myself to my grandparents first and spent Christmas Day with them (because, well, I had to really didn't I?) – and it was lovely. We celebrated quietly but very pleasantly, simply happy to see each other and be together even though they don't really properly do Christmas as they're Jewish. I went for a long ride on the bike in the afternoon and it gave me back the incredible sense of freedom and release that flying use to bring, before every plane was laden with the memories of being stuck in the climb and insisting that she bail out; or the journey back with her hand clutching my shoulder the whole way – grip surprisingly tenacious for someone so physically wrecked – shaking in Jamie's arms as he clung to her like he would never let go and I flew with tears blurring my vision (not like my fear of gunfire blubbing [messy and ugly] - silent crystalline tears like the ones I would have imagined Julie would cry if I hadn't known better, hadn't held her in my arms while she sobbed into my shoulder – all running nose and blotchy face in the smothering darkness) – tears of sheer emotional exhaustion, and tears on Julie's behalf that, so far, she had resolutely refused to cry: all gritty Scottish bravado, and most of all tears of overwhelming relief that the hand on my shoulder was still there. Was still hers.
I thought about nothing but her every second of the ride and my grandparents were ever so understanding when I explained that I simply had to go to Scotland that night, not the next morning as planned. I wanted to fly but I couldn't get a lift from anyone – apparently people don't fly on Christmas night, not even in wartime – so I had to catch the hours of delayed trains to Castle Craig and by the time I got there it was nearly the next morning anyway. Dratted wartime public transport…still, I suppose I was lucky the trains were running to an obscure, deserted Scottish country station at all – what with it being Christmas. I made my own way to the castle from the little village, through the deep drifts of snow (which is different in Scotland, somehow. I know it's all the same water but it seems at once more barren and more beautiful than in England…less like a tame Christmas card more like a force of nature), more grateful than ever for my cosy RAF boots – standard issue for us all (well, there have to be some perks don't there?).
I was faced with rather a predicament once I arrived at my beloved destination though – it was 4 in the morning, I wasn't expected until at least noon. I couldn't very well wake everyone up at that hour – especially not when Julie was still recuperating…and the hell to pay from 8 over-excited, overtired Glaswegian evacuees didn't bear thinking about. But nor could I stand outside in the veritably Arctic conditions and freeze solid – or I'd end up as fingerless as Jamie. I stood there for ages, pondering what to do and berating myself for not thinking my mad scheme through – but unable to repress the elation I felt looking up at the frosted castle, feeling like I'd fallen into a deliciously unfamiliar fairy-tale.
Climbed in a window in the end. Sounds crazy when I say it like that but it made sense at the time – seemed like the only way to avoid waking everyone up but retain all my digits and I knew Esme wouldn't mind – it's her who leaves them open after all. As it was my hands were numb and I was drenched to the bone by the time I tumbled through the (mercifully first-floor) window that had been left open, onto someone's bed. Julie's, to be exact. Never occurred to me it might be her bedroom – or anyone's at all, really. I always envisaged her sleeping in some tower like a gothic princess – but I suppose the first-floor better facilitates the clandestine madcap escapades I'm sure she frequently engaged in as a little girl.
She jerked awake immediately of course – she's a light sleeper, after everything - and bolted upright, wild eyes and rumpled blonde hair making her look quite deranged. When she saw who it was she burst out laughing and hurled herself into my arms with all the force of a doodlebug exploding. Hugging me fiercely, though not as fiercely as I was squeezing her – desperate to feel her in my arms, until she realised I was wet through. I protested at her getting out of bed and hurrying around in the cold, looking for dry clothes for me to put on, when she was probably still supposed to be resting, but she quelled me with that look she has, objecting ferociously to being treated like an invalid when there was absolutely-nothing-wrong-with-her-and-she-was-going-stir-crazy-with-boredom. She'd been waiting to see me – she wouldn't have me trying to coddle her too.
I didn't raise any more concerns after that, although I did force her into the jumper she had attempted to offer me, to cover the men's pyjamas that she unbelievably can pull off glamour and sophistication while wearing (just like the night of that first air-raid, although she's somewhat more dishevelled than she was then – and all the more beautiful for it), before we crept downstairs to the library – or one of the libraries, at any rate. She was in search of a drink to warm me up – or so she claimed. I had assumed she had tea, or something of the sort, in mind – but of course not. That would have been far too English a solution, and if I have learnt anything from the past few months it is that Julie Beaufort-Stuart is NOT English. No. Instead she produced a bottle of whisky and poured me a generous measure with a wicked grin and the insistence that I had earned it. It was rather thrilling to indulge in alcohol (a rare treat I am obviously not permitted when at the airfield) in the dark, cold, impressive, but somehow friendly, library of Castle Craig. It did its job too, burning away my shivers.
When she was well and truly tipsy, Julie went over to a gramophone she must have found by memory, lurking in the corner – I was certainly unable to see more than the shadows of imposing bookshelves – and put on an unfamiliar record.
"I once promised you that I would teach you the Foxtrot."
I was not convinced it was possible to teach me such a thing – sure I would seem clumsy and ungainly next to petite, elegant, effortlessly graceful Julie. She was as good as her word though and, although I know the sun rises earlier in Scotland, it was not even close to doing such a thing by the time I had mastered the dance – she is a persistent but surprisingly patient teacher. By the time she changed the record for a slower one, we both had bruised bare toes (from where I had trodden on her feet and she had stumbled over mine because I didn't move them in the right direction or fast enough) and smiles. She snuggled her blonde head in the crevice of my shoulder and I wrapped my arms more firmly around her waist: relishing the sensation of dancing in the dark with my favourite person in the world in my arms. She has still not regained all of the weight she lost in Ormaie, her frame startling slight – I easily encircled her pyjama-clad waist with my hands – but she does not feel fragile and brittle like the semi-conscious, feverish Julie I dragged in my shaking arms through the gunfire to the boat that horrible, ghastly night.
She was humming in my ear – Auld Lang Syne, I think…trust Julie – as I inhaled the scent of Chanel No. 5 (which she must somehow have hung onto ever since that day when they gave it to every woman at the airfield). Suddenly she spoke.
"I left the window open on purpose you know." She whispered "I knew you'd come home."
"Bet you didn't expect me to actually come in the window."
She laughed lightly – the sound mellifluous in my ear – her face still pressed against my neck, as though reassuring herself that I was still there, wasn't going anywhere. "Nothing about you could surprise me anymore Maddie. I think you'd fly everywhere if you could."
"But always back to you." I said, without thinking. Then blushed beet red. Not that it mattered since she couldn't see anything in the dark, but still…
She replied sounding quite un-Julie-like in her vulnerability – reminding me of those awful beastly days after the rescue when she tossed about, trapped in delirium-induced hallucinations, calling for her mother and Jamie, but mostly for me. "Do you mean that?"
I remembered what I saw written at the end of her devastating testimony, written on all those recipe cards, over and over until they took the pen away. "I have told the truth." I replied softly, "I only ever want to come back to you."
I felt the way her muscles tensed and knew a sickening moment of panic when I wondered whether I'd said the wrong thing – if it had been a mistake to quote her own words back at her without warning. I needn't have worried, but nothing could have prepared me for what was coming next. The only way I can think to describe it is that feeling when an engine stalls and it's like your stomach has dropped through the bomb-hatch.
"Maddie," she breathed "We make a sensational team. I want to keep being that team."
I nodded, somewhat perplexed. Of course, I wanted that too – I just assumed it was a given.
"I told you once that I was afraid of getting old. I was wrong. At least, that's not what I'm afraid of anymore. I'm only afraid of getting old without you by my side."
Abruptly, she pulled away from me and extracted a box from her pyjama pocket – in hindsight she must have planned the whole thing, but at that moment it was like a miraculous magic trick and I could scarcely breathe from the awe of it. Without preamble she opened it to reveal a beautiful rose-gold ring that looked antique – a small, square-cut ruby flanked with little triangles of tiny pearls. "Maddie Brodatt, will you grow old with me?"
Perhaps it wasn't technically a proposal – a legal marriage is impossible, in the eyes of the law our love is sinful – but the intention was clear. And Esme has insisted we shall have a ceremony –secretly, right here. I cannot contain my joy while writing this. My answer was obvious – the question didn't even need asking, not really; but after everything we have been through, after coming so close to losing my best friend – my love – I want as much as she does for what we feel to be concrete and treasured every second that it lasts and told, if not to the world, at least to our little world, here at Craig Castle (a Neverland where what we feel is not shameful and, once it's not so raw, we can laugh about the fact that she wrote all about us right under the noses of the Gestapo and they never figured it out…).
"Yes."
She put the ring on my finger then and we both stared at it for a moment, in the pre-dawn light, just as the wintry sun began to rise over the snow blanketed horizon, its light streaming into the dusty library so that the jewels caught the sun and winked and sparkled wildly.
"What do we do now?" I whispered – scared to break the spell.
She didn't even have to think about it – she fearlessly pressed her lips against mine, putting everything behind them that had been waiting and aching and fighting for this moment and spoke against my mouth.
"Kiss me, Hardy. Kiss me, quick."