A/N: I… am writing a canon series that is giving me trouble, so… I'm writing obscure AUs instead. This is… obscure as heck. If you read it, thank you. The following information is probably not vital so you can skip it if you like. Warnings for drunk sex and smoking.
1) It's the middle of the 1940s, WWII is in full swing, and we are in Ajax, Ontario, Canada, the home of the largest allied munitions factory. Most of the men are overseas fighting, and the factory is almost entirely composed of women building bombs. Soldiers train nearby and come to Ajax on Saturday nights for dances, flirting with ladies, everybody smokes and drinks and has a good time.
2) If you've seen Bomb Girls, it's that general era/setting but based on actual history—the show was close but not exact. They moved the factory to Toronto, which is the large urban centre forty minutes away from Ajax, so picture a much, much smaller town.
3) Sex ed is really bad and condoms are only standard issue for military men because they were contracting too many STIs and the military was like "guys, come on, at least cover up." True story. Rachel's ignorance is typical of the period.
I think that's it. Also, title and lyrics from Brother by X Ambassadors.
When it's all said and done, you're a little the worse for wear,
and it hurts having someone take care of you.
Never let you go, never let you go,
even when the madness has broken you apart.
The door to the rec centre swung shut behind him, cutting off the hubbub of the Saturday night dance, and Chandler sighed, staring through the night's darkness at the lit buildings on the other side of the field. Though he'd left the majority of the factory girls and enlisted boys inside, there were more than enough stragglers loitering around the entrance to negate the tranquility he'd hoped to find.
Turning right, he walked down the side of the building, all light receding behind him. As he came around the back corner, he kept one hand on the brick wall, stepping carefully in the near-pitch dark. His eyes were wide open, but still he was almost on top of her before he saw the tip of her cigarette glowing orange.
He stopped short. "Evening, ma'am."
"You found me," she said dryly, taking a long drag that briefly lit up her face.
He still couldn't get much of an impression, other than that she was clearly beautiful. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… Was that an accent I heard?"
"Mm." She took another drag, and he could see that her piercing gaze was locked on him, though she couldn't possibly see much.
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, pulling out his own pack of cigs and a box of matches. Lighting a match, he held it in one hand and offered her the pack with the other. She eyed him, finishing her cig and dropping it to grind into the dirt beneath her shoe before accepting a new one. Chandler shook out the flame that was almost at his fingers and dropped it, pulling out a new match and lighting her cig with it.
When he'd lit his own, he puffed briefly and exhaled, leaning back against the wall. "Doesn't seem safe for a lady such as yourself to be out back here all by your lonesome."
"Have you ever been burnt by the end of a lit cigarette?"
He raised his eyebrows, looking over at her to find her facing the dark blankness of the open field behind the rec centre and smoking. "Can't say that I have," he replied, and she nodded.
"That or a knee to the testicles. I'm quite safe."
He was impressed—he didn't want to say despite himself, but the girls who filled up the rec centre and the boys who danced with them were all so young, flirty, without a care in the world despite the reminders of war all around them. The girls worked the factory, the boys hadn't yet crossed the seas, and they only saw war through the lens of a newsreel. It wasn't real to them yet. They would learn.
"You work the floor?" he asked, and she tilted her chin up, blowing a stream of smoke toward the sky.
"Matron, actually. Couldn't you tell?" Everything she said carried the same dry tone, and he could very easily picture her marshalling her girls, no nonsense when it came to safety. He thought she might smile when they began to sing to pass time, but he might just have been thinking too much about a beautiful woman he'd met five minutes ago.
"Babysitter," he said, and she glanced sharply at him, so he pointed his thumb back at his chest. Their eyes had adjusted just enough to make out movements and silhouettes now. "Training the new kids. Carting them overseas."
"Just what you signed up for, right?" and now there was a wry smile in her voice.
He'd been barely puffing on his cig, trying to make it last—trying to make this conversation last, but it was burning down to the filter now, so he dragged what he could out of it and dropped it to grind under his shoe. Exhaling to the side, he turned to her and asked, "Could I buy you a drink?"
Finishing her own cig, she looked sideways at him, before dropping it so that they were in the unbroken dark again. "You don't really want to go back in there, do you?"
Well. No. "Don't you have to…" He waved his hand in a vague circle. "…chaperone, or something?"
She cleared her throat and planted her hands on her hips, still facing the empty field as she said, "I'm good in the factory. Not so good at parties. They're probably glad I've disappeared."
"I'm sure that isn't true," he murmured, watching her profile, or what little of it he could see in the dark. "But if you have a better option, I'm listening."
To his surprise, she pivoted on her heel to face him and held her hand out to shake. "Rachel Scott."
He took her hand, not ready for the vice-like grip she exerted with it. "Tom Chandler."
"Rank?"
"Captain, Royal Canadian Navy. Do you want to see my stripes? I can light another match."
She stepped closer, still holding onto his hand, until he could just see the glint of light off the whites of her eyes. "I'm trusting my gut here, Captain Chandler," she said, "but I want to reinforce something I implied earlier, which is that I can and will do physical harm to you if you threaten me in any way. Do we have an understanding?"
He couldn't help smiling, even though he thought he should be at least moderately offended by some part of that. He took the hand she'd given him and moved it to the crook of his elbow, gesturing for her to lead the way. "This may surprise you, but gentlemen still exist. I have no intention of being physically harmed by you tonight—or ever, come to that."
"I wasn't trying to insult you."
"I'm not insulted." They had turned hard right and were walking away from the rec centre. "Where are we going?"
There was a pause, her hand tensing on his arm, and then she said tightly, "To my quarters."
"Ah, for that drink I offered you."
"Yes." She relaxed again, leading him across the grass and through a stand of trees to the street behind the rec centre.
They came out on the back side of a rectangular white building, and she walked confidently up to the back door before turning to him and holding a finger in front of her lips. Opening the door, she poked her head inside, then ushered him in and up the back stairs, unlocking a door at the end of the upper hall and waving him inside before closing and locking the door behind her. She began to move around the room, lighting lamps, and he watched her as she was finally revealed to him in proper lighting.
"Are you allowed to have boys in here?" he asked absently as she fetched a bottle of scotch and two glasses, placing them on the table and motioning for him to sit down. She poured out two drinks and took hers with her to the record player, where she put a song on low.
"Technically, yes," she said, and took a gulp from her glass at the same time as she moved the needle to a different song.
He was still watching her. She was beautiful, despite doing nearly nothing to encourage that impression. Her dress was plain, her hairstyle simple, a wave or two at the side of her face and the rest pulled back into a twist. She didn't move gracefully, either, had clearly never gone to finishing school, and, in fact—he noticed only now—she'd kicked off her low heels at the door and was walking about in stockinged feet.
These were observations only, as he had no opinion on women's fashion or mannerisms. It simply surprised him, a little, that she could care so little for these feminine wiles and yet strike him as so beautiful, so magnetic.
She'd come back to the table, topping up her glass, and he took the cue to pick up his own. "Do you mind if I let down my hair?" she asked, and he smiled, shaking his head.
He drank from his glass as he turned in his chair to watch her walk over to her vanity, standing in front of the mirror and pulling pin after pin out of her updo, before brushing out her hair and tying just the top half back in a single clip. Loose pieces fell down to frame her face, and it must have had a natural wave that showed up now as the length of her hair sat on her shoulders.
That done, she came back for another top-up and finally sat down, staring across the table at him without a smile.
He smiled, instead, and asked, "Technically?"
"Oh, yes." She looked down into her glass, before taking another drink and reaching for the bottle, saying, "Well, I'm in the supervisors' housing, not the girls' dorms, so I don't have a house mother and I'm not barred from male visitors—and thank god. I am an adult. But I'm an adult woman, unmarried, even if widowed, so—" She tapped a finger to the corner of her eye. "They're always watching."
Chandler topped up his own glass, trying to keep up despite already being far in the rear, and said, "What brought you to Canada?"
"My husband was working in London when we met. We were married there, and then he needed to come home. I married young, and I think part of me wanted to just get out of London after living through the first war. I'm glad I did, now, though that strikes me as rather selfish." She stopped, cleared her throat, and poured another drink. "I'm talking too much. Tell me something about you."
"My father fought in the first war, and came back with a leg wound. He idolized the men he'd served with, said the noblest death was that serving king and country. Somehow that doesn't sound appealing when I say it now, but to a teenage boy it was spellbinding. Here we are thirty years later…" He drank, and Rachel waved her glass in a vague gesture.
"And I'm building the bombs that will do to Berlin what they've done to London, what I lived through. What use is empathy in a war? What use is any of it?"
He watched her across the table, filling his glass and drinking again. "You get maudlin when you drink."
"That's charming," she said, almost smiling. "You think I'm not always maudlin."
"You must be beautiful when you smile, though." Oops. He might have had a bit too much to drink. Or maybe not quite enough. "You're beautiful when you don't smile, too."
She did smile, then, even if it was the barest curving of her lips, and she stood up and walked around the table, sitting herself down on his lap and curling one arm around behind his neck. "You say that to all the girls?" she asked softly, but his mouth had gone dry and he seemed to have lost the ability to swallow, so he just shook his head. Her other hand moved from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, her fingers rubbing at the short hairs there, and she said in the same tone, "You make a habit of drinking in strange girls' rooms?"
He shook his head again and her gaze dropped to his lips, her thumb coming up to smooth over the corner of his jaw. One hand on her waist, he reached blindly with the other for his drink, tossing it back to wet his mouth and then dropping his glass back on the table with a clatter and reaching for her face.
Looking up at her, he traced his fingertips along the side of her face and said, "Can I ask you the same question?"
She bent her elbow behind his neck, pulling her body closer to his, pressing against him as he stared up at her, and she shook her head. He didn't know whether that was no, you can't, or no, I don't, but he was willing to make the generous assumption as he slid his hand through her hair and around the back of her neck, tugging her down and tipping his chin up.
This was not a sweet introduction, a gentle greeting—maybe they were both getting too old for all of that. Rachel's mouth was hot and demanding, asking what he was only too happy to give, and she was already moving against him with a certain rhythm, shifting to change the angle and then pressing back against him, like she couldn't get enough contact.
The chair was wood, though, and his neck was bent awkwardly, so he nudged her to her feet and stood up, saying, "May I?" and gesturing to the back of her dress. She turned and held her hair to the side, and he undid the button at her nape before slowly sliding the zipper down, his other hand trailing behind, brushing the back of his hand down her spine to its base. With the dress still on, he slipped both of his hands through the gap, to smooth over the curve of her waist as he bent to kiss the length of neck exposed to him. She sighed, leaning back into his arms so that his hands were moving over her belly and his lips were tracing the line of her collar bone.
When his hands travelled high enough to brush against the bottom edge of her bra, she stepped forward and turned, shucking the dress and letting it pool at her feet before kicking it off to the side. She backed toward the bed, sitting down and pushing herself back across it, until she was lying in its centre, watching him.
Chandler stared for longer than was probably noble; the fact he was wishing away her undergarments crossed that line altogether. She stared back for a minute, then made a hurry up gesture with her hand, and he got out of his dress blues as quickly as possible.
As he folded his jacket to drape it over the chair back, he pulled a square packet from its breast pocket and tossed it on the bed next to Rachel. "Ever seen one of these before?"
She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. "No. What is it?"
"Called a condom. Standard issue to all military personnel." Still puzzled, she looked up at him as he finished unbuttoning his shirt, and he smirked. "I'll have to show you."
When he was down to his skivvies, he joined her on the bed, and she turned to him automatically, kissing him and pressing the length of her body against his, making a satisfied noise in her throat when she felt him hard against her thigh. Her mouth was still hot, open and responsive, and even as his head swam he couldn't help but wonder if this was an instinct she was born with or if someone had taught her.
One of his hands was pressed flat to the small of her back, keeping her body tight to his, and he let it slip past the waistband of her underwear, smoothing down and squeezing before moving around to the front and stroking her. She jerked at the touch, just slightly, and broke the kiss, and when he pulled back to look at her she had her eyes squeezed shut and her eyebrows furrowed.
He kept his hand where it was but stopped moving and said, "This okay?"
She nodded, shifting her hips toward him, and sought his kiss blindly, even as she whimpered when he started stroking her again, slow and gentle. He didn't expect that to last long and he was right; once she'd adjusted to his touch, she lifted her leg to hook over his hip and he groaned as she opened beneath his hand, kissing her sloppily before moving to tug at the waistband of her underwear.
Bringing her leg back down, she squeezed her thighs together and then let him tug her underwear off. He rolled onto his back and shoved his own skivvies down his legs, kicking them off and finding the condom again. She watched as he put it on, fascinated by technology she'd never seen before—almost too fascinated, as the heat in her eyes started to shift into something clinical, and he tilted her face back up toward his.
"You need a minute?" he asked, amused, and she stared at his mouth, licking her lips and then reaching a hand across his chest and pulling him to turn back onto his side.
She hooked her leg over his hip again and he eased himself inside her, rolling her onto her back and sinking down on top of her. He held himself there, staring at her face until her eyes opened and met his. Her hair was spread out around her, her chest rising and falling on careful breaths, her lips rubbed pink and slightly parted, and he'd never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
Her eyes were softer now, somehow, and he felt like he was almost seeing her exposed—almost, because before he could look too long, she pulled him down into another kiss. She scratched her nails through his hair and he kept his eyes tightly shut, one hand braced on the bed as he slid the other to press against her lower back, slightly arched already.
He tried to keep his focus on the physical, building a rhythm and making sure she got everything she needed, and even as he did that, he knew that this thing had changed. Somewhere in the middle, or maybe right from the start, but when she tensed around him, muffled a cry with her own arm, and he eased her through it before finding his own release—when she melted into the bed after, and curled onto her side, and he pulled the blanket up over her shoulder before going to use the washroom—god, his heart was already crying foul.
He wasn't sure whether to hope Rachel had come to the same realization, or hope that she hadn't.
xxx
Rachel woke up to a sunlit room, lying on her belly with one arm under her pillow and the other flat on the bed in front of her chest. The bed was otherwise empty, but when she closed her eyes and inhaled she smelled sex and the male body, so it hadn't been a dream. Her stomach was just starting to twist when she heard a small, snuffly sound on the other side of her bed.
Turning her head, she looked at the other side of the room and listened hard, hearing the same noise again and reaching for the edge of the bed, pulling herself toward it and peering over the edge.
There he was, flat on his back on the rug with his hands folded over his abdomen, and seemingly fast asleep, making the occasional odd sleeping noise. She sighed, resting her chin on her hands where they still gripped the edge of the mattress, and watched him for a moment.
It was only a second or two before he inhaled sharply, his eyes opening wide, and took stock of the room. When he saw her, he closed his eyes again and took a slower, deeper breath, before sitting up and facing her. "Good morning," he said neutrally.
"Morning," she said back. "What are you doing on the floor?"
Bowing his head, he craned it from side to side until it quite audibly cracked multiple times, and then pressed his shoulders back, straightening out his spine and producing more cracking noises. "Sorry," he said when she cringed.
"No, I'm just sorry you had to do that."
"Well, my options were leaving in the middle of the night, which I thought might not be wise, or…" He eyed her twin bed, which she very well knew she took up entirely. "I thought the floor would be best."
"It was a kind gesture. I've—" She hesitated, torn between an early-morning, post-coital youthfulness that would have her speaking without a filter, and her usual reticence. "I've never actually… had a man here." She let her eyes drop shut, feeling a blush threaten.
"Are you sorry?"
She could have made a joke—About last night, or about not doing it sooner?—but instead she opened her eyes, her chin still resting on her hands, and stared at him. Sitting on the floor, where he'd slept to protect her honour against the off-chance that someone would have heard or seen him leave in the wee hours. She shook her head, more in wonder than in answer, and reached one hand out for his face, leaning past the edge of the bed as he pushed up onto his knees to meet her. Curling her hand around behind his neck, she pressed soft kisses to his lips, sweet kisses, and she didn't…
She sat up on the bed, holding the blanket to her chest with one arm and pulling him up to sit beside her, and took his hand in hers, linking her fingers with his. "I'm not sorry," she said, staring at their hands. "I don't really… Why are you different?"
"I'm magnificent," he said, and she was surprised into a genuine smile, looking up at him. He smiled back and tried again. "Exceptional?" She squinted a little, and he finished with, "Maybe I just have something you need."
Her smile dropped away, her eyes searching. "And it's just that simple?"
"Why not?"
Looking back down at their hands, she murmured, "It never has been before."
"Maybe I'm the one you've been waiting for." He said it gently, and she knew he was teasing, but still she had to force herself not to flinch, tense up, squeeze the life out of his hand. "I'm only joking," he added, and she knew without looking that he was watching her carefully—how could you possibly know that, you don't know this man, but she glanced up and he was, just like she knew he would be—and then he said, "Why don't you spend the day with me? See how you like it."
"I'm sure you have better things to do," she said with a fake little half-laugh, letting go of his hand on the pretense of straightening her blanket, and looking away from him altogether. "I'm sure you would find me rather boring."
He was silent a moment, and then said, "Even if that were true, I'm willing to sacrifice one Sunday out of my life. Unless you have vitally important plans?"
It was clear he knew she didn't, and she rolled her eyes even though she was facing away from him. Rachel's plans of a Sunday usually (always) consisted of tea, a book, and perhaps washing her hair. Not that she didn't love her Sundays, yearn for them during the week, but…
"It's just one day," he said softly. "If it's terrible, we'll forget it. Do you think you can give me one day?"
She felt ridiculous fighting this, but all the nerves were stirring in her stomach. What if the previous night could be a good memory, and spending today together would just ruin that? Why should it ruin it? It's far more likely you'll have an OK time than an absolutely wretched time. But it was possibility on one side and reality on the other, and Rachel almost always preferred to stay safely in the hypothetical realm. She dreamed, fantasized, and when it came to taking action, chose not to.
This was ridiculous. It was one day.
"Of course," she said, turning back and keeping her eyeline strictly below his chin. "You must know there's not much to do around here."
"I don't need to do anything," he murmured, his hand coming to tip her chin up as he leaned in to kiss her. She shut her eyes, leaning into the kiss in response, and her tongue was meeting his before she could even remember that it was morning and she hadn't brushed her teeth the night before. When he pulled away a moment later, he rested his forehead against hers, his thumb stroking over her cheek, and said, "I do need to eat, though."
She smiled, her eyes still closed, and stayed there a moment before kissing him once more and straightening up to meet his eyes seriously. "Why don't you make some sandwiches while I freshen up, and then…" She cut herself off, pressing her lips together, and he furrowed his brows in question. "I was going to say we could eat them on the lawn, but that's…"
"What? Romantic?"
"People will see," she said disapprovingly, but rolled her eyes a second later. "Perhaps I shouldn't assume anyone cares."
"There you go," he said, wrapping his arm around her back and bending to press a kiss to her collar bone. "Just assume no one cares and we're good."
Relaxing against him briefly, she sighed and then pushed off the bed, wrapping the blanket around to cover herself and pointing him to the kitchenette. After washing up, she put on a simple sundress, striped pale blue, gray, and white. She went back over to her vanity to apply a little makeup while Tom took the washroom, and brushed her hair, twisting and pinning the front part of her hair into something that looked vaguely stylish.
When Tom came back out, she had her feet planted in front of the vanity mirror, fruitlessly attempting to finger-curl her ends. "I never could get my hair to hold a curl," she said, glancing at him and back to the mirror. "Figures you can't go anywhere without at least a dozen glossy curls these days."
"But no one cares, right?"
"Ha!" She shook her head at the mirror, giving up and combing her fingers through the ends, then glanced at Tom. "You're a man. If there's one thing everyone in this place cares about, it's ladies' hair. At least I only have to deal with the bandanas at work."
He came up behind her, smelling of toothpaste and soap, and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder and looking at her in the mirror. "I think you look ready for a picnic," he said, and turned his face to kiss her cheek, adding, "and beautiful."
She tried not to sigh again—sighing every time she was in his arms, like a weak-minded girl in the pictures, or more like she hadn't been able to take a full breath in years—and turned around, finding him in his slacks and dress shirt, with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, somehow managing to look dapper in yesterday's clothes.
The day-old stubble, on the other hand—she smiled and kissed his cheek, accepting the prickles as her due, and said, "Not so bad yourself."
"If we're being honest, I should never be seen in public with this—" He gestured to his face. "—happening, so at best we're even, and at worst you're a beautiful angel letting herself be seen with a derelict vagabond."
"I think my girls would be more apt to believe the derelict vagabond story anyhow."
Tipping his head to the side, he gave her a sardonic look. "I may have just met you, but somehow I imagine your girls have loftier dreams for you. Do you really give them the impression you'd settle for a vagabond type?"
She narrowed her eyes, trying to think of a way to outsmart him. "It wouldn't be settling if I loved him."
"Now—" He put a hand on her arm, tilted his head further, and furrowed his brow over a sympathetic expression. "I mean this as kindly as is possible, but do you think… just based on what little I saw of you last night… I'm wondering if maybe…"
"What, they don't think I'm capable of love? I'll have you know—" She stopped, firming her jaw and staring into the middle distance. "That's not an impression I'm keen on changing."
"Okay." He crossed his arms, watching her, and she waved a hand vaguely between them.
"So no… any of that, when we're in public."
"I get the picture, darling."
He said that to get under her skin. She knew he did, so she glared at him and stalked over to the closet for the extra blanket. This picnic felt like a challenge now, and she would conquer it. Go spend time amongst her fellow humans, with a man, and give no one the wrong impression. Perfectly feasible.
She stalked back with blanket in hand and didn't stop until they were chest-to-chest, pushing up on her toes and kissing him, her free hand wrapping around the back of his neck as she pressed her lips hard against his, slipping her tongue into and then out of his mouth and turning around and walking to the door.
She looked back at him slightly flustered and smiled, tipping her head toward the door and saying, "Ready to go?"
He glanced around for the bag he'd packed, holding it up and giving her a look. "Lead the way."
They went out the back door again and Rachel put her head down and walked all the way to the front lawn of the rec centre, stubbornly shaking out her blanket in the most traffic-heavy area of the community on a Sunday. She knelt on the blanket, letting her skirt spread out around her, and Tom set the bag down between them, sitting down with his legs crossed opposite her.
Almost instantly, she heard someone call out, "Miss Scott!" and looked to the right to see a handful of her girls with the same idea.
She made eye contact and nodded in recognition, and Tom leaned forward and said quietly, "Can't you give them a smile?"
She pressed her lips together hard, staring at the grass and trying not to smile at his mere suggestion. When she felt safe to look up, she glared at him and said, "You'll not destroy my reputation. Stop trying."
"Okay," he said in a neutral tone, reaching into the bag and pulling out sandwiches and bottles of drink—two of the six-pack of Coca Cola she had been keeping untouched in her fridge for months, just in case she ever had to offer someone a beverage or a mixer. She never did.
He handed her one of each and she thanked him, then thanked heaven when he turned to look out over the lawn as he ate. Despite being forced to eat in a cafeteria six days of the week, she never had gotten used to eating in front of people. Well, she ate alone in the cafeteria, so that helped.
God, she was a pathetic case.
She followed his gaze. It was a pleasant, sunny day, the sky pure blue, and the lawn was filled with people picnicking and enjoying themselves, mostly girls but a few other soldiers and sailors here and there. Everyone else was smiling and laughing, and after a moment Rachel looked back down at the grass, preferring not to be reminded of her own deficiencies.
With a few bites left of her sandwich, she heard again, "Miss Scott!" and two of the girls who'd noticed her earlier were dropping to their knees on her blanket. These young ones had absolutely no shame.
"Judith," she said, nodding. "Angela."
"We've never seen you on the lawn of a Sunday, Miss Scott," Judith said eagerly. "And who's this you've got with you? A handsome soldier?" She smiled at Tom with a little flutter of her eyelashes and held out her hand, which he took graciously.
"Sailor, actually," he said. "Tom. Pleasure to meet you." He turned to shake the other girl's hand as well, and Judith looked to Rachel again.
"Where'd you find this one, Miss Scott?"
"He's my brother," she said quickly, before shutting her eyes and inhaling slowly through her nose. "In-law," she added after a moment. "My late husband's brother." She glanced over at Tom, who was looking back at her despite the fact that Angela still seemed to have ahold of his hand.
"He's fair game, then, is he?" Angela said coyly, and Rachel didn't think she'd hated something as much as she hated this exact moment in a very long time.
"Unfortunately not," Tom said, still eyeing Rachel. There was a moment's awkward pause as the girls seemingly waited for more of an explanation, but he didn't say anything else.
"Pity," Angela said eventually, releasing his hand and sitting back on her heels.
Rachel brought her sandwich up closer to her face, studying it as if it were a fascinating specimen, and the girls traded a look across the blanket.
"Well, it was lovely to see you, Miss Scott," Judith said, standing up and dusting off her skirt. "I hope you'll show your face more often."
Frowning, Rachel said, "Enjoy your day, girls," and they were off. She finished her sandwich in the next moment, then polished off her Coke and put the trash back in the bag.
Tom shifted around, leaning back on his elbows beside her with his legs stretched out in front of him, and between the bag blocking sight from one angle and a corner of the blanket folded over, he managed to take Rachel's hand and hold it in concealment.
She huffed a bit, for show, but didn't put up any resistance.
"I hope that wasn't a reflection of your true feelings for me," he murmured, tipping his head back to face the sky.
"Mm." It took a moment for her to catch on to what he meant. "Like a brother? That's up on the list of worst things I've ever said."
His lips turned up a little, not that she was watching, and he gave her hand a squeeze. She looked away (not that she was looking), scanning the lawn.
"Wouldn't you rather be with a girl like that?"
He straightened up a little, looking at her as if she'd sprouted a second head, and then followed her gaze to nowhere in specific, just a lawn full of smiling, laughing girls who still had their youth and their innocence and some life left in them.
"You can't honestly think that. None of those girls appeal to me in the least. I'm slightly appalled that you'd think they would."
She frowned in his direction. "Young, beautiful girls who like to have fun? Next to an aging, bitter spinster who called you her brother? Doesn't seem like much of a competition."
He sat up fully, crossing his legs and leaning his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together. "You've got that last part right, at least. Silly young girls I can't relate to on any level, versus a woman with the wisdom and maturity to take things seriously, gee, can't imagine why that's an easy choice."
Staring down at her hands, Rachel picked at a chip in the polish on her thumb and said, "I'm frustrating you."
Tom stared down at his own hands and sighed. "Maybe so, but it only makes me want to kiss you. If we were alone, I would show you exactly how…" He glanced around, giving up on the end of that sentence, and Rachel watched him from the corner of her eye, gnawing on her bottom lip.
Finally, she raised her gaze back over the lawn and unfolded her legs, her feet flat on the blanket and her knees propped up in front of her. Wrapping her arms around her thighs, she said softly, "Summertime and the living is easy."
He laughed a little, looking over at her, and when she let herself look back, with her cheek pressed to her knee, she felt her heart climb into her throat, staring at him in broad daylight, surrounded by a hundred people, and feeling like they were in their own little world. She blinked, slowly, and then turned away again, eyes on the horizon as she reminded herself to breathe.
"Care for a stroll?" she asked a little while later, since this picnic seemed to be a bust.
"Hmm," he said back, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "That depends. Are we still pretending any form of physical contact will immediately communicate to everyone within sight that we're sleeping together?"
She choked on an inhale, spluttering for a moment and cutting off with a hacking cough. After taking a deep, calming breath, she said very quietly, "One, we are not sleeping together. We slept together once."
He grinned, giving a not-at-all convincing, "Mmhmm."
"Two, I never said all physical contact was off-limits. Just… most of it."
"So you'll take my arm as we stroll." She opened her mouth to reply, and he held up one finger. "That's my stipulation. Arm or nothing."
He was being ridiculous and she couldn't help but smile, though she sucked her lips into her mouth and bit down, shaking her head. "Yes, okay. With an appropriate amount of distance between our bodies, I will take your arm."
"Hallelujah," he said teasingly, and they walked back to her building, where she ran upstairs to drop off their things and grab her handbag, insisting he wait outside. It was faster that way, especially if her suspicions were correct that the both of them being in her room alone would lead to a cancelled stroll.
After meeting him in the back, she took his arm and they walked around to the street, starting their stroll up the sidewalk that would eventually lead them back around to the stores across from the rec centre.
"Had you visited Ajax before last night?" Rachel asked.
"Once a year or so, though I'd never made it past the rec centre. I almost managed to beg off last night, but my men insisted."
"You'll have to thank them," she murmured, her eyes on the sidewalk, trying to ignore the way he turned to study her for that comment.
"Yes, I do believe I will."
She smiled, just a little, now that there were fewer potential eyes on them. They'd turned the corner and were walking up toward the main road, passing the hospital and administrative buildings, and Rachel waited until they were approaching the post office and marketeria before saying, "It's a nice little bit of town, isn't it?"
"How long have you been at the plant?"
"Forever," she said, "or at least since the first wave of recruitment. I was a typist in Toronto, and they came to us first, you know."
"How was the transition?"
"Just fine," she said, a little shortly, though she regretted the tone as soon as it left her mouth.
He fell silent for a moment and she was kicking herself for shutting down his respectful curiosity. They were strolling along in silence when he said thoughtfully, "You must have had to make yourself very small."
She stopped walking abruptly, without meaning to, and he stepped around in front of her so they weren't blocking the whole sidewalk. He was looking at her, and she said flatly, "What."
He glanced around, tugging her down a laneway between two buildings, and when they had a little more privacy and she was facing him again he said, "To go from being a typist to being floor matron. It's a big job, a lot of responsibility, a lot on your shoulders. Being a typist must have been… stifling."
She just stared at him. No one had ever bothered to look that closely, look past the strict, serious matron to see the woman who was just learning how to stand up straight, without hunching over. Of course, she'd never let someone that close, but still. Being seen—it was intoxicating.
Taking half a step forward, she looked up at him and said softly, "Who are you?"
He tilted toward her, and—his back was to the sidewalk, she was almost entirely hidden from sight—took her hand, holding it gently in his. "Just a man."
She shook her head. "I've never met a man like you before."
"Did your father—" She winced, and he stopped instantly. "I'm sorry."
Waving her free hand, she wrapped the one he was holding more securely around his. "Never mind. Actually…" She tipped her head to the side, squinting a little, staring at him. "He was a moral man, but you're good."
"I'm not that good."
She inched forward again, bringing their joined hands to her hip, pressing the back of his hand to her dress, to her flesh under that. "Aren't you?"
He raised his free hand to her face and kissed her, his fingers driving through her hair and around the back of her neck, leaning down to her as she pushed up to meet him, her hand flat against his stomach and her body settling against his. He was solid, steady, as she balanced on her toes and let him support her weight, her focus on the kiss, in the kiss, the only relevant thing at this moment.
When he pulled back a little, his hand still curved behind her neck, the other one separating from hers to press against the small of her back, he said, "I can be selfish."
"How?" she asked, her hands going up to link at the nape of his neck, keeping her on her toes, their faces still close enough to touch.
"I could…" He sighed, turning his face against hers, his hand on her back pressing her closer as their cheeks brushed together and he sought out the skin below her ear, his nose brushing her lobe as he kissed there gently. "…never let you go. Keep you for myself."
"You couldn't," she said, all breath as she held tightly to his neck, one hand smoothing over his hair. "You have to cross the seas."
He grumbled softly into her skin.
"You couldn't really," she said again. "I don't think it counts if it's only in your head."
"Sure it does. I'm selfish inside. I'm selfish today, aren't I, keeping you to myself."
She pulled her arms as tight as she could, squeezing him, then dropped back onto her heels, looking up at him. She was smiling, bright and unfettered, and he smiled back, leaning down to kiss her again. She patted her hand on his cheek and said, "Selfishly giving me the best Sunday I've had in years, whatever you say."
He gave up on arguing, taking her hand and turning to leave the laneway, but she tugged on him and repositioned her hand to the crook of his elbow, a discreet amount of distance between them. He shook his head, but kept his smile, and they returned to the sidewalk.
Stopping in at the marketeria, Rachel bought an apple, which Tom took from her as they started walking back down the next street, using his pocketknife to slice off small chunks and hand them back to Rachel.
As they passed the rec centre again, Rachel said, "There's card games going on if you'd—"
He laughed, and she gave him a sideways glance. "No."
"Do you want—"
"No," he said again, wiping his knife off on his pants and putting it back in his pocket, holding the apple core in one hand and offering his other arm for her to take.
"If you—"
"Rachel," he said, and she stopped, pursing her lips. "Can we go back to your room, please."
She didn't respond, just walking along beside him as they completed the square and went in the front door of her building. Once her door was closed and locked behind them, she turned to find Tom standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets. She took several halting steps forward and reached for his hands, her fingers sliding against his palms before he caught them, bringing their hands together in front of him.
She looked up at him, her head tipped to the side, and he just watched her until she leaned on his hands and pushed up on her toes and kissed him. He kept both of her hands in one of his, pressed to his belly, and wrapped his other arm around her waist, his hand flattening against the small of her back and then reaching for the zipper on her dress. He freed his other hand, her fingers curling in the material of his shirt, and unzipped her dress, and when his hands moved up to slip the dress off her shoulders, she dropped back to her heels and let him slide it down over her hands, leaving her in her undergarments.
"Do you remember," he said quietly, running his palms back up over her arms, to her shoulders and then down again, "what I said I would do when we were alone?"
"Mm…" She had her eyes closed, her fingers curled in his shirt. "Show me something?"
"That's right." He took one of her hands, leading her over to the bed, and she lay back on it, watching him. He reached for her underwear and tugged it off, still fully clothed, and she furrowed her brow until he tugged her further down the bed and knelt on the floor between her thighs.
"What are you doing," she said, slightly panicked, reaching for his shoulder.
He looked up calmly. "Do you trust me?"
"Of course." She said it instantly, without thinking, and her stomach sank a little as she realized it was true.
"Relax," he said, his arms wrapping around her thighs, his hands stroking over her skin. She jerked slightly, and he said, "Will you relax?"
"Um." She stared up at the ceiling, her hands clenching into fists around the sheets at her sides, and said, "Maybe?"
He laughed slightly—she could feel his breath on her, good god—and his hands stroked up her thighs, over her pelvis, his hands coming to rest on her lower belly as he leaned forward and—her hips jerked again, his hands pressing down to keep her still, and she reached for the pillow, crushing it over her mouth as she whimpered deep in her throat. Her thoughts blanked out, white-hot jolts of pleasure all she could concentrate on as he did things she didn't even know were possible.
It felt like an earthquake when she came, like the whole world shook around her, everything except him, stable there between her legs as he carried her through it and then kissed her gently, kissed a slow path back up her body until he was lying beside her.
When she could think again, when her mouth agreed to communicate with her brain, she said, "What point were you making, again?"
"Hmm." He had one arm across her waist, his forehead against her cheek, and he said, "Does it matter?"
"No." She laughed and turned to face him, kissing him and smoothing her hand down his neck and under his collar. "Take your clothes off."
"I don't—" he said, and then, sheepishly, "I only had one condom."
She pulled back, her eyebrows drawing together as she shook her head at him. "One what?"
"Con—you remember last night, right?"
"Of course I do," she said, slightly offended. "Oh, the—thing?"
"Yeah." He laughed. "The thing."
"I don't care."
"Okay. You're going to care if you get pregnant."
"What?"
"That's—what it's for."
"The thing," she said again. "It—oh. Mm. Okay." She stared at him for a moment. "I probably won't get pregnant."
"Probably."
"I usually don't."
"Hmm."
She shifted forward, just slightly, just enough to feel him hard against her hip, and slid her hand back up to his cheek, staring at him with her brow low. "Are you sure? You're going away."
"I would never forgive myself if I left you pregnant."
Not to mention she'd lose her job, her home, her reputation. Sighing, she leaned her forehead against his and said, "Can I… do something?"
He grunted, and she tapped her index finger against his cheek until he said, "Your hand… if you don't mind."
She thought about that for a second. "Will you take your clothes off?"
"You want me to take my clothes off?"
"Is that too much to ask?" she said back, mock huffy, and he laughed, rolling away and off the bed to stand and undress.
"For you, darling, never."
She sat up, watching him and pulling the pins out of her hair, dropping them on the nightstand and then combing it out with her fingers. When he came back to the bed, she lay down and opened her mouth against his, tracing her hand over his bare chest and down over the grooves of his abdomen, down further and stroking him as her tongue stroked deep into his mouth.
He moaned, his hands sliding up her back and into her hair, cupping the back of her head even as his mouth grew clumsy, his core muscles tight as he kept himself from moving, until he was spilling over and spilling out and finally going limp against the mattress.
She smiled then, dialing back the kiss to something sweeter, gentle pecks against the corner of his mouth as he panted lightly. "Okay?" she asked, and he caught the next peck, his tongue just gliding over her bottom lip.
"You're an angel," he said, getting up to head into the bathroom and picking the blanket up off the floor to drape over her. When he came back out, he was wearing his skivvies and holding a damp washcloth, which he handed to her before lying down beside her again, wrapping his arm around her.
She rested her cheek on his chest, curling into his side, and said, "How long have you got?"
He checked his ever-present wristwatch, then wrapped his arm tighter. "I should get back before dark. An hour, give or take." They lay in silence for a while, and then he said, "Will you write me?"
Her hand, which had been tracing patterns on his skin, stilled, and she held her breath.
"You can say no," he added gently.
Silent a moment longer, then she said, "I just don't want to disappoint you."
"How would you do that?"
"By being terribly boring, I think."
"Just for the record, did we do anything today?"
She snorted, almost, catching it halfway and turning it into a breathless laugh. "No. We did not."
"I can only speak for myself, but I wasn't bored at all. I say you write me and if I'm so terribly bored that I fall asleep on top of your letter, you will know not to write again."
She laughed again, poking gently at one of the many muscles on his chest, and said, "All right. A trial period."
His body shook slightly with his own laugh and he said, "Sure. Trial period. And then…"
She held her breath again.
"…when I come back. Will you see me again?"
She smiled. Couldn't help it. Closed her eyes and inhaled, then snuggled a little closer. "If I write to you, and you don't fall asleep on my letter, I will expect to see you again."
"Okay." He sighed. "There's a plan, then."
"I'll miss you," she said impulsively, and stopped breathing altogether, her whole body locking up.
He turned onto his side, wrapping his other arm around her too, one hand running up and down her arm as he held her close to his chest and said quietly, "Relax."
She laughed, a desperate sound, but she couldn't keep up the tension when he was holding her like that, so she wrapped her own arms around his back and pressed her cheek to his chest, clinging to him like that would make anything better.
"I'm gonna miss you, believe me. I'll look forward to seeing you again." He was speaking so gently, his hand still stroking her arm, that she sighed, relaxing the rest of the way. "Even if our timing was wrong, I'm so glad to have met you. Are you glad to have met me?"
"Of course."
"I'll be back soon. It's better, though, isn't it? Now that we've met?"
She hummed her assent, her eyes closing, her alarms silenced, and they stayed there in a moment of peace that stretched out over the rest of his precious hour. Later, she would wonder how he'd managed that, how he had calmed the parts of her that went on high alert at the mere suggestion of vulnerability with just a few words, (when just thinking about it brought on panic, a dichotomy where the thing that calmed her was the thing that terrified her), but for the moment nothing broke through.
When he checked his watch again and gently untangled their bodies, slipping out from under her to get dressed, she let herself go limp, her cheek against the sheet as she watched him move about the room. He picked up his jacket and she sighed quietly, shifting to the edge of the bed and setting her feet on the floor, standing up and finding her dress on the floor where she'd left it.
At the door, he reached for her and she stepped into his arms, setting her hands on his chest as she leaned up to kiss him and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She tried not to think, tried not to notice the ways the kiss was different now, how it made her heart squeeze in her chest—tried just to make the most of this final moment, a goodbye.
They didn't say anything as Rachel stepped around him to open the door, slipped her shoes on to walk him down to the front door. She stepped out onto the stoop and he walked down the steps and away along the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets and his head ducked low, and she watched him until he was out of sight before going back up to her room.
Locking the door behind her, she leaned back against it, taking in the state of her room. Her sheets were mussed, her blanket back on the floor, and the whole room smelled of sex. She walked across to the window, pushing the curtains to the ends of their rods and sliding the pane up, then set her hip on the sill and stared blankly out at the falling dusk.
She hadn't even known the man twenty-four hours, and she tried to tell herself it wasn't a situation, nothing had changed, but even she couldn't believe a lie that absurd. She'd let it happen, let him in, when she could have stopped it, and her heart was rebuking her now, but—she remembered what he'd said less than an hour ago.
It's better, though, isn't it? Now that we've met?
It was. Even now that he'd gone, knowing that she'd be without him, it was better. Even with the fear that accompanied opening her heart, even as she wondered whether she'd made a drastic error.
Somehow, it was still better. Perhaps… just possibly… she didn't know as much about life as she'd thought. Perhaps… just possibly… she didn't have to be alone to be safe. Strange.
It might take her time to adjust.
I'll wait for the day you come home,
and it hurts to see you all over again.
Never ever let you go, never let you go,
even when the madness has broken you apart.