Forget insomnia. Summer is what's going to slowly kill me. Every year I suffer for five months of "ick", and every year I manage to forget how awful it is, and every year I'm shocked to discover again that summer sucks. It's like when people's subconsciouses alter or all together obliterate memories of traumatic experiences. Or else my brain has been cooked by the heat like an overdone egg and is just a withered gray husk inside my skull. Both of these are equally plausible.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Robin Hood. Still breaking copyright laws. Still not any closer to tracking down Harry Lloyd and seducing him…
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o…o
May, 1941
"And then you just divide here—like this—and then isolate it here," she worked out the problem quickly across the table, writing the steps down as she did them. "That is all there is to it. It is quite easy, really, if you do it in small parts instead of trying to do everything at once. Use that pattern for every equation like this—if you do it out of order, it will not work. And even if it does work out, the answer will be wrong."
The twelve-year-old sighed an enormously relieved sigh. "It's always so much easier when you explain it to me. You should be my teacher—and then nobody'll have to go back to Ms Pembroke's class again."
Djaq laughed. "I do not think I could make a room full of twelve-year-olds pay attention to me. I have not got the patience."
Luke screwed up his face. "Well that's shit, isn't it?"
"Mind your language! Your father and your brother will throw fits if they hear you swearing like that!"
"Think they'll be afraid I'm teaching you bad words?"
A laugh burst from her before she roughly mussed the boy's hair with both hands. He could be so very different from his brother sometimes. "You are a cheeky one. Where do you get it from?"
"I think God forgot to give Will his share of cheek, and didn't realize it until I came along. So he gave me both shares."
She folded her arms on the low table and laughed into them. Sometimes she really loved Luke, even thought of him as a sort of foster little brother. That wasn't so strange, though—after all, she had been the older twin…
She was still laughing when she heard another person walk into the room.
"What did you do to her?"
"I didn't do anything. Maybe she just finds your presence funny."
She sat back up and smiled up at Will standing over them.
"Look, we're all done here, now, so can I please go out?" The boy pleaded.
"All right, fine—go. Be back before seven," he ordered, standing to the side as his little brother streaked past him. The door slammed and he was off.
"He is certainly happy to be out of here," she remarked as she stretched her arms over her head.
He smiled slightly and sat down next to her. "I can't imagine why."
With him so close, her cheeks heated up and she felt the sudden urge to try and keep her hands busy—so she occupied herself stacking and sorting Luke's school papers. She still felt bashful around Will sometimes. There was simply no way they could have gone back to the status quo after the Christmas party. So they didn't. He certainly wasn't her boyfriend—at least, she didn't think he was. Actually, she wasn't sure how to classify it. A year ago, they were just "mates", like any other two boys; even after he found out her true sex, nothing really changed and they didn't stop being friends. She supposed that these days, they were still mates. Just… friends who happened to fancy one another and snuck off into dark corners where nobody could see them for a quick kiss.
To say that they were just friends, though, was a gross understatement. To say that she was "just" friends with any of them—with Will, or Luke, Allan, Robin, or Marian—was a gross understatement. She'd never felt this close to any people before in her entire life. There was something special about their little group—something close-knit and very strong.
Most of the time, anyway.
It still puzzled her. Allan and Will were the closest of friends—like brothers—and yet something had happened between them that they weren't telling her about. They weren't letting it get in the way of their friendship, though; boys, she'd learned early in her life, did not let silly things get in the way of a life-long friendship. But there was something of a tentative and uneasy peace between them. Once again, the answer was tantalizingly just out of reach.
She'd often wondered if it was because she and Allan were constantly flirting, passing winks and silly grins and innuendo back and forth as a way of communicating. She never meant anything by it, and she'd laughed off the suggestion that Allan did mean something by it; they were friends, and, anyway, it was all in good fun and Will couldn't really toss innuendo around without stuttering. He'd even told her that it didn't bother him, because Allan flirted with absolutely everybody, including his Auntie Annie when she came to visit some years ago.
Still, she knew it probably made him feel awkward, so she'd toned it down quite a bit.
And she still had no idea what was going on between them. Eventually, she just consoled herself with the knowledge that if it were anything serious, they would tell her about it. Until then, it was their business and not hers.
"D'you have work this afternoon?" He asked her.
"Not today—it is my day off. Finally."
"Much works you pretty hard, doesn't he?"
She nodded. "I am his human adding machine—only he does not have to memorize some silly code to get an answer out of me."
In the year since she'd been working at Much's Place, she'd gone from being a part-time waitress to the unofficial bookkeeper. She was in charge of everybody's receipts and billpads and double-checked every paper that came through the place. She found the work much easier than waiting tables.
"But then," she sighed, leaning forward and hugging her knees. "I suppose it is all for the best. There is not a great deal of work for me to do at Robin's anymore."
"I guess it's hard to be the stablehand when there's so few horses left," he said quietly.
"It is, though I am doing my part by tending the garden and raising animals. He bought a cow last month." She frowned. "I hate cows."
She stood and pulled at her overalls to even them out—she rarely wore anything else unless she was at the restaurant—then reached her hand down to Will. He took it and let her pull him up, unfolding his long legs until he stood upright. He was tall these days—a full head taller than his father, and most of it was leg. He stood nearly a head and shoulders above her, still holding her hand.
Instinctively, they both looked about to make completely sure that they were alone. He bent and gave her a quick peck on the lips; as he pulled away, Djaq shook her head, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him properly, sliding her tongue against his, one hand hooked through his t-shirt collar and the other on the back of his neck. He whimpered and scratched at the denim covering her back.
A sound in the front hall was all it took to remind them where they were, and they leaped apart as if someone placed a tightly wound spring in between them; when Dan Scarlett walked into the room, he found his son thumbing through a newspaper and his friend tucking a stack of school papers into a knapsack. If he noticed that his son's whole face was bright red and that he was holding the newspaper upside-down, he didn't say anything about it.
"William."
He looked up and tried to appear as casual as possible.
"I need an extra set of hands—you can come, too, Djaq," he added, waving the girl over. He also knew that she was a she, but he still treated her exactly the same, including asking for her hands when he needed it.
"What with, Dad?"
"I finished the desk, but I need a few extra hands to help me load it onto the truck."
"Truck?" Djaq asked, walking over and being careful to leave at least an arm's length between herself and Will.
"I borrowed John Little's truck to make the delivery," he explained as he held the door open for them with one hand and ushering them outside with the other.
It took both father and son to carry the enormous and beautifully constructed desk from the shop next to the house; while they did this, Djaq took all of the drawers and wrapped them in brown paper to protect them on the drive, then loaded them into the truck's cab. As Will and Dan carried the desk up an improvised wooden ramp, Djaq stood on the bed of the truck and helped them centre it. She covered it with an old canvas tarpaulin, and the three of them tied the desk and tarp down to the truck for the journey.
"That wasn't so hard, lad, was it?" Dan asked. "Thank you both for your help."
"It was no trouble," Djaq replied.
Will just grunted.
"I shouldn't hold you up any longer, Djaq. I'm afraid…" he patted his clothes. "I'm afraid I haven't got any change on me at the moment—would it be all right if I paid you later?"
"That is all right," she said.
He nodded. "I've got to take this lovely piece of furniture to the University. I'm not sure how long I'll be gone."
"That's fine, Dad."
"I'll leave, now, so you can walk the lady home," he teased as he climbed into the truck.
"Dad!"
Dan laughed as the truck roared to life and took off.
Will put his face in his hands and grumbled to himself. "Why did he say that?"
"He is only teasing you," she said, nudging him with her shoulder.
"I could walk you home, you know," he offered.
She smiled. "That would be nice."
He ruffled her hair; she gave him a playful shove. She loved how they sometimes behaved like children. It was refreshing, in a world at war where they were both forced to be adults most of the time. Then the silliness subsided, replaced by a comfortable quiet. He took her hand and their pace slowed.
They were both quietly in their own thoughts. She looked at their linked hands, sighing ever so quietly; he was eighteen, now. His last year at school was drawing to a close, and then he would be able to…
She couldn't stand to think of it. Allan still seemed set on joining the army to fight for his country, and he probably expected Will to go along with it like he'd said he would two years ago. He would be finished with school in July, as well, making it possible for him to enlist. That thought filled her with dread. She didn't want either of them going to war—but they were big boys, she reminded herself, and they could do as they liked.
Her thoughts continued to turn darker. Her job basically didn't exist anymore—all she was now was a farmhand, raising a garden and animals for her employer to supplement rations. She knew that she was costing Robin money. What she paid for rent and utilities in the little stablemaster's house didn't nearly cover what he paid her to do her work. There were people, too, coming into and out of Robin's house all the time. They were always temporary residents, people who stayed with him for a few weeks at most, and they were never seen again. Obviously, something was going on—they weren't British and had no ration books, so most of what she grew or raised or collected on the farm was used to feed these people. She was told not to talk about them to anybody else, and she obeyed, though it seemed an odd request from Robin. But she'd learned years ago not to question a great deal of what he did—he always had his reasons.
They were a drain on his financial and other resources, moreso than she was. She knew, no matter how much she wanted not to think about it, that her time here was running short. She looked again at their joined hands, her dark fingers laced in his pale ones, and felt an enormous pang in her chest. She refused to think about it. Not now.
The wind blew fiercely at their backs, whipping her hair around. She still kept it short, even though she didn't need to anymore, but it was still too long to be a boy's haircut. Leaves and bits of paper blew up the streets and floated in the air around them. A woman walking on the other side of the road squealed as she tried to control her flyaway skirt.
"Your father seemed very anxious about his desk," she remarked as they side-walked down the hill into the barnyard.
"Yeah—he's been working on it for weeks. It's for one of the English Literature professors at Nottingham Trent."
"He is proud of this?"
"Well… he never had the chance to go to university, did he? I s'pose he thinks that if he can do something that the professors will be impressed by, that maybe it'll mean his work means something. Maybe."
Her head boggled in disbelief. "Dan is one of the most talented artisans I have ever met! He can hardly believe his work is less simply because of that."
"He doesn't, not always. Sometimes he has his moments." He smiled at her. "But he'll be happy, knowing you think so highly of him."
"I should tell him, then."
Instead of taking his hand again at the bottom of the hill, she jammed hers into her pockets as they walked the aisles in the barn. Only four horses remained, those that Robin loved the best; the rest had been sold to people who could better care for them. The sounds of the remaining horses mixed with the braying of a lone cow, the two goats, and the chickens and ducks, who had had a population explosion. Robin was starting to give away pairs of birds to people who needed the eggs.
The paddock was divided into sections for the various animals, with fences that Will had built himself. A flock of little white ducks in a large shed paddled around in a huge, shallow metal tub full of water. Will easily scaled the fence.
"It's a little farm, isn't it?" He asked as he knelt to pick up one of the ducks, cradling the bundle of white feathers in his arms. "Kinda cute. Quaint."
"Smelly," she supplied, kneeling next to him. "But, it is either this or go hungry. I can put up with the stink for food." She stroked the little duck with two fingers before taking it from him and putting it back in the pen.
"I thought Robin let you keep what you needed from the garden and eggs."
She shrugged. "With all of those mouths to feed…" she began, without thinking. Then her eyes went wide and she cleared her throat.
"'Mouths'?"
"Nothing."
He frowned, but didn't push it.
Djaq picked up a canvas bag from the fence post outside the duck's pen. Will followed her into the shed where the ducks roosted, and watched her gather eggs.
"Hush, little one," she crooned softly at an angrily squabbling duck as she reached into her nest and took her eggs. "I know you do not like it, and I am sorry." She switched back and forth between English and Arabic, talking in hushed, lilting tones in an attempt to soothe the birds as she gathered eggs.
"They don't like that, do they?"
She walked out of the shed and came to perch on the fence next to where he stood. "No, they don't," she said. "I feel a little sorry for taking them."
"But you've got to eat."
"There is that."
They stood and sat in silence, looking around the farmyard at the animals and the green-brown paddocks, and at the houses and patchwork of green beyond. Will closed his eyes and lolled his head back, letting the sunshine warm his face; she held the egg bag in one hand and kept the other on the fence to keep herself balanced, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. The wind picked up, tossing his dark hair from side to side.
The sky was a clear, striking blue, streaked with long spotty clouds. It was warm and cozy out here in the sun, but the wind cooled what the sun baked. Apart from the animals and the wind, there were no sounds. Only quiet. At times like this, it seemed like their little slice of England was isolated—that the whole world, and everything wrong with it, the war and everything were all a million miles away from them.
"This place is not always loveable, but it is beautiful sometimes," she breathed. "I should hate to leave it."
His eyes snapped open and he straightened, looking at her with a very confused expression on his face. She immediately wished she hadn't said anything; it'd just slipped out.
"Leaving? Where are you going?"
She hung her head. "You already know that Robin no longer needs me—I do not provide any money for him paying for my room, and he is losing money paying me to tend his little farm. I am a burden."
"Robin wouldn't care—"
"I care."
"But you don't have to leave Nottingham," he protested, turning to face her, tilting her head up so he could look into her eyes, shining like black gems. "You could even stay here—he'd let you."
"It does not make sense to stay in the stable-master's house when I am no longer working here. And—" she cut herself off before saying that her employer could use the space for all of the people he kept taking into his house. She couldn't stay here, not when she was of no use and her little baby house could have been useful. "I could not stay here," she reiterated.
Panic played clearly on his face. "But… you could find another place to stay! I'm sure that—"
"It is still expensive."
He gripped the fence slat until his knuckles ran white. He didn't want her to leave—she couldn't leave. What would he do without her? After getting used to having her about, he was terrified how he'd cope. It'd be just him and Allan again…
He felt her hand on his cheek, small and warm; he put his own over it, noting how perfectly it seemed their hands fit together. She simply could not leave. What he felt for her was not simply teenage puppy love, no. The words began to burble to his lips.
"Djaq, I—"
A terrible scream interrupted him, the sound of dozens of angry wailing sirens cutting through the calm of the afternoon. The animals spooked, running or flying around in circles as they panicked at the noise. Djaq and Will looked at one another with wide eyes and terrified expressions; both of them knew those sirens.
"Air raid!" She yelled, trying to make herself heard over the noise. She leaped off the fence, and he followed her, starting to make a run for the house on the other side of the stables.
"Djaq, come on!" He bellowed when he noticed she wasn't following him.
"I have to get the animals inside! Help me, it will go quicker—"
"No! There's no time!"
"I can't—"
"Djaq!" He grabbed her hand roughly and pulled her away from the terrified animals as he ran.
"You stupid German pig-dogs!" She screamed, looking up and tearing her hand away from his to shake her fist into the air as if the planes, little black spots in the distance, could hear her. "You cowards! If you have something to say, grow some bollocks and come down here and say it to my face!"
He didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or yell at her. He settled for yelling.
"Now is not the time! C'mon, hurry!" He grabbed her hand again and pulled her along.
She followed as closely behind him as she could, struggling to keep up as his long legs carried him easily over the ground. The sirens were deafening, her lungs burned, her heart pounded, and her mind raced frantically. The combination of everything made her dizzy and oddly giddy with nerves from the rush of adrenaline. She kept a hold of him all the way up the shallow slope and across the garden to the big house's back garden and the trapdoors leading to the old cellar.
Will dropped her hand and wrenched the wooden doors open.
"Get in!" He commanded. Instead of waiting for her to do as he told, he grabbed her arm and threw her into the cellar. He followed quickly, pulling the doors closed behind him and landing with a graceless crash in a heap next to her as she was just getting to her feet. Even down here, the sound of the blaring sirens was easily heard.
She reached down and helped him up. "Are you all right?" She panted.
He nodded. "Fine. Nothing broken. You?"
"I am fine," she assured.
"I didn't mean to be so rough…"
"Who's there?" A man's voice asked from somewhere deeper in the cellar. A figure approached them, carrying an old lantern. It was Robin.
"It's just us—Will, and Djaq. We heard the sirens…"
"You were the nearest shelter," Djaq explained.
Robin nodded, gesturing for them to follow him. "Come on, this way."
He led them into the large chamber in the middle of the cellar. It was well-stocked, with tins and boxes of food on shelves lining the walls, along with dozens of bottles of water; blankets and pillows were piled in another corner; there were lanterns, too, lining a shelf. Another area was dedicated to things that would keep the occupants busy during their stay in the bunker, with things like board games and books. They could probably have lived comfortably down here for two weeks.
Another shelf looked back at them, staring—a row of civilian-grade gas masks were lined up on top of a cabinet, watching their every move. She felt the littlest shiver course through her as she caught sight of them. She hated the way gas masks looked; they were hideous and made everybody wearing one sound like some kind of alien-robot monster.
It seemed there were several people who were closest to Robin's air raid shelter: Marian was there, and so was Much, and two people that she recognized as housekeepers, and—
"Allan?" Will asked, trying to get a better look at his friend.
"Hey there," he said with his trademark smirk. "I was in the area and I thought I'd come and see our Djaq. Then those bloody fucking sirens went off, so I ran in here." He folded his hands behind his neck and looked around the place. "Not too bad, is it?"
"It beats being dead," Will grunted. He was trembling something awful, panting, his heart pounding. The fear and fatigue, banished temporarily as they ran for their lives across the property, caught up to him and fell on him all at once. He leaned back against the wall behind him.
Above them, the familiar sound of aeroplane engines descended on them, like a nightmarish swarm of bees. Three heads turned up to look at the ceiling, waiting. They didn't expect they were in much great danger where they were—the German air force wasn't going to waste time or bombs on a rural residential area when there were heavily populated urban ones elsewhere—but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"What've you got there, Djaq?" Robin asked. None of them had heard him walk up.
"Huh?" She looked around and then realized that she was still clutching the bag of eggs she'd collected just a few minutes earlier. She hadn't even realized she still had it. A quick inspection revealed that, somehow, none of them were broken. "Duck eggs," she said. "Eight of them."
"Determined to pay me back for holding you in my shelter, are you?" The man teased. Then he got serious again. "We can eat these first before we have to switch to egg powder."
Djaq made a face. Egg powder was vile—yellowish "dehydrated egg" that was supposed to be indiscernible from fresh eggs but that tasted not unlike damp cardboard. She handed the bag over to him.
"Let's just hope we are not stuck down here long enough for us to go through all of these eggs, then."
"You three might want to get comfortable," he suggested as he took the bag. "It'll be a while before we get the all-clear."
There was a loud shriek outside, and then an explosion. The ground above their heads rumbled from the impact of the bomb. Will, Allan, and Djaq all clutched at each other in fear. Then there was another explosion, and another. With every BANG! that rang from the outside, they closed the distance between them until they were just one big lump, desperately clinging to one another. They stayed in that huddle as they shuffled, careful not to step on each other's feet, over to where Marian was setting up mattresses for people to sit on.
"I take it you're a little bit scared?" She asked redundantly when she saw them.
"Naw—I'm not scared of nothin'," Allan said nonchalantly, though his voice was muffled because he had his face buried in Will's shoulder. "But these two, now, they're shaking in their boots, they are!"
"Uh-huh," she said slowly, not believing him for a second. "Is Djaq in there with you? She must be—I can see red trainers."
She wriggled a bit and poked her head out between her friend's shoulders. "I am right here."
"Can you breathe all right in there, or do I need to get you an air hose?"
"I think I am all right," she said before disappeared back between Will and Allan.
The trio pushed two mattresses together and tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible and ignore the explosions aboveground. The bombings had never been this close before; it was shocking how quickly they'd gone from the blissful feeling of being far away from the war, to being right in the middle of it.
Robin and Marian were off in another corner of the cellar, standing close and talking to one another in hushed tones. Much was playing chess with one of the housekeepers. The other housekeeper, a middle-aged woman, sat quietly in her chair and knitted. She was the only person there who wasn't completely terrified of what was occurring just over their heads; she must have gone through something like this before.
Allan broke away from them briefly and found a pack of cards on the shelf where the "entertainments" were stashed. He demanded that they try and do something to keep their minds off of their situation, told jokes and ridiculous stories, tried everything he could to distract them all so his friends would laugh.
It had the desired effect, at least—after a time, they settled down and got into a lively game of Snap, laughing and talking about being outright silly, like they usually were.
That was the wonderful thing about Allan, though. He was good at making people forget, and laugh, even just for a little while.
"Snap!" Djaq yelled, slapping both hands down on the pile of cards. Her friends followed suit, all of them trying to get their hands on the cards. It quickly degenerated into a play-fight, and then just a pile.
"Only the three of you could turn a simple card game into a contact sport," Marian remarked as she came by, shaking her head.
"Makes it more interesting!" Allan said, grinning, from the top of the heap.
"My hand is squashed," Will whimpered. "I think somebody's sitting on it."
"I do not feel anything," Djaq said, the poor soul at the bottom of the pile. "Try moving it."
A second later, the girl squeaked and jumped as much as her position would allow.
"Sorry!"
"Can we please get up now?" She begged. "The two of you are crushing me."
"I can't get up until Allan does."
"Allan, get up—I am losing all of the feeling in my backside!"
"Well, I'm perfectly comfortable up here."
"Let them up!" Marian commanded, in that stern I-am-not-taking-shit-from-anybody voice that was known to send even Robin scurrying off in the other direction. Allan promptly rolled off of them; Will got up next, helping Djaq to sit up.
She squeaked, rubbing her ribs as each one popped back out from the release of pressure. Then she looked at the pile of playing cards. "I think I won that round, as I was the only person in actual physical contact with the cards."
"I was second—that means Allan has to take 'em all."
"So I cracked a rib, but I do not have to take all of the cards!"
"You two are crap!" He said as he gathered them up and shuffled them into his own pile.
The mood was light and cheerful, despite being several feet underground in a cellar while the Luftwaffe was above them, possibly reducing all of Nottingham to a little pile of rocks.
CRASH!
Another bomb; they immediately forgot about their card came and latched onto each other again, eyes wide and terrified. The elderly housekeeper barely looked up from her knitting. Marian startled, dropping her book on the floor. Robin sat in a corner, quietly chain-smoking, an activity he did only under severe stress. Much had completely lost interest in his chess game and sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, whimpering like a little girl.
"It's getting closer," the cook squeaked. "They're going to start dropping bombs on our houses next!"
"Much, be quiet," Robin growled. "We don't need this right now."
"But what it something happens? What if—" his face paled and he turned around. "What if they bomb the house and something lands on the doors outside? We'll be trapped down here! We'll just be trapped and go through all the food, and then we'll have to start deciding who's going to die first and be reduced to cannibalism and—"
"Shut up, Much!" His chess partner shouted.
"But it's possible!" He whimpered.
"Please, just shut up!" Robin hissed again, putting his cigarette out and promptly lighting another. "We're already scared enough, we don't need you here making it worse."
He obeyed—if only partially. He just sat on the floor, rocking back and forth in a fetal position, hyperventilating. They could vaguely hear him reciting the Lord's Prayer. This was overdramatic, even for Much.
Marian apparently had enough of this and stormed over to him. She hit him on the head with her book and picked him up by his shirt collar.
"Act like a MAN you snivelling NINNY!" She screamed, rattling him around.
Much's eyes went wide and his mouth hung open in shock; he maintained this expression even after she dropped him back on the floor and went back to the mattress on the floor where she was sitting before.
But at least he was quiet.
"Thank you," Robin sighed, leaning towards her.
"Don't you dare kiss me after you've been smoking. You taste like a badly tuned automobile."
The bombs were going off again, although not as close this time. Will, Djaq, and Allan were still in their tight little huddle.
"I wonder if my Dad and Lukey are all right," Will mused quietly.
"They're probably fine," Allan assured. "University's got loads of shelters and those buildings are built to last."
"And people are always making sure that young children are safe during air raids," Djaq piped up. "Luke is safe."
There was quiet above ground for several minutes before they all felt safe enough to let each other go. They'd been assured that they would eventually grow used to the bombs and they wouldn't notice it anymore, but none of them liked the idea that they would actually get used to this. She sincerely hoped that it would all be over before that time came.
The all-clear didn't sound; they all kept themselves busy and tried not to think about what could possibly be going on above them. Much made everybody some food on a hot plate—scrambled eggs and potatoes and toast.
Eventually, it dawned on everybody that they were going to have to spend the night down here, and one by one they began to drop off to sleep.
"Look at 'em," Robin whispered, looking down at the pile of teenagers. They were fast asleep, snuggled up close together in a tangle of arms and legs—Will on the right, Allan on the left, and Djaq sandwiched in between them like a shared cuddly toy.
"What about it?" Marian asked back.
"I've seen litters of kittens that don't share this kind of bodily contact."
She draped a blanket over them. "I think it's sweet."
"Of course you do, my love." He looped an arm around her shoulders from behind her and kissed her cheek.
"Robin…"
"Mm?"
"You smell like an ashtray."
o…o
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So… what was the point of this chapter? You'll see. I'd already planned to make this particular part of the story two chapters, because it's going to take a bit of telling. Before you all get cross with me for showing Robin as a smoker—everybody up until about the 1960s smoked. Absolutely everybody. I imagine that WWII Robin would just do it socially, or when he was seriously stressed out. Like now.
I'm officially giving up on controlling my chapter lengths. THIS MISSION IS FUTILE. Long-windedness is my curse. Ugh…
I love you guys for reviewing—but more than that, I love that you're reading!
