OMFG, I am SO BEHIND it's not even funny. We're no longer even in May! :C
However, there is so little of this fic left, it's just taken me a while to get the time to scrape this chapter together... My apologies! I really hope we'll be done soon!
Thanks to: Iggy Butt, Spica-san Dee, Icarus Wing, AEngland, Guest, i Mel-chan i, Lamashtar Two, jagaimo-chan, anotheranon and Child of the Fay!
Tuesday 11th May, 1915
"That's all I have so far." Alfred craned his head back against the porcelain tub. "What do you think?"
"Hmm." Arthur was reclining in the bathtub, relaxing after scrubbing away the salt and blood; he sighed deeply, turning his face towards Alfred, who sat cross-legged on the bathmat. "Perhaps add a few more choice expletives."
Alfred pulled a face.
"I don't know how well that would go over with Wilson," he said. "I want him on my side, remember."
"Well, I don't know any other way of getting it through to him." Arthur closed his eyes. "Germany attacked a passenger ship carrying neutral American travellers. If that doesn't provoke your president, what will?"
Alfred gave a frustrated sigh, tossing his notebook - with his half-composed letter - aside.
"I don't know," he muttered. "Maybe I should just join up without his permission. You reckon I could pass for a Canadian?"
"I don't know that Matthew would want to have you, love."
Alfred snapped his fingers.
"Hey, I got it! Mattie and I are twins, right? We have the same face. So I'll just kidnap him, tie him up somewhere and pretend to be him!"
"I think you might be getting somewhat farfetched." Arthur patted his head fondly.
"It's no more farfetched than trying to convince Wilson to declare war," Alfred groaned. "Old man's really against it. I guess I agreed with him first off but now... well, how many Lusitanias is it going to take?"
"Do you have a final number yet?"
"Of what?"
Arthur paused.
"...Well, American victims," he said quietly.
"Oh." Alfred unfolded his long legs, stretching them out. "I got a telegram from Wesley Frost this morning. The count's currently at one hundred and thirteen but he says it's probably going to be higher. They still haven't found Vanderbilt, for one thing."
"It's unlikely that they will now," Arthur said flatly. "Don't forget that a great many of the victims will still have been inside the ship when she foundered."
"I wish I could forget," Alfred replied bitterly.
Arthur gave him another gentle, affectionate pet to his hair and then put his hands to the side of the bath, pushing himself up. He stepped out, passing Alfred, and went to get his towel from the rack. He was the sort to fiercely guard his privacy at times like these but he had always been comfortable with Alfred, whom he had known since he was very tiny, and didn't seem to mind that Alfred was more or less watching him (albeit somewhat absently) as he dried himself off.
"Are you just going to sit there?" he asked archly, wrapping the towel around his waist; he pushed open the door to the bedroom adjacent and vanished. "It's bad for your neck!" he called from within.
"Ugh, you're such a nag," Alfred moaned, getting up; he snatched up his notebook and shuffled to the door. "Don't you get sick of it?"
"What, of nagging you?"
"Yeah." Alfred came to the bed and flopped onto it face-down.
"Of course - you and Francis both." Arthur gave an audible, impatient sigh as he rifled through the wardrobe. "That beardy idiot, between his bright-target uniform and his general apathy towards getting shot in the head, he's a nightmare in the trenches... At least I can rely on Belle."
"You can rely on me, too," Alfred said, turning his face towards him. "When I get there, anyway."
"Lusitania really ought to do the trick if you sell the disaster to Wilson properly," Arthur pointed out.
"...Sell it?" Bewildered, Alfred propped himself up on his elbows.
"Of course." Arthur shrugged on his shirt, white cotton sliding over half-healed wounds. "War is a business, first and foremost. It creates jobs, it pays wages, it reaps benefits if you're on the winning side-"
"And it wrecks land and kills thousands," Alfred added coolly. "N-not that I'm innocent but-"
"Those things are collateral damage," Arthur said, buttoning his shirt. "Besides, humans die anyway. What difference does it make in the end?"
Alfred frowned, lowering himself back to the bed.
"You're so cold," he murmured unhappily; indeed, Arthur's callous words had left an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his belly.
"Cold?" Arthur snorted. "Perhaps in human terms- but I'm not human and neither are you."
"I know." Alfred exhaled. "...B-but even so, you weren't like this when I left you at New York Harbor last July."
"I expect I was, you know - just with no outlet." Arthur looked at him, holding his gaze. "Sometimes, Alfred, I fear that there's still a lot about me that you don't know; but all that leads me to conclude is that the word you're looking for isn't 'cold' at all."
"Oh?" Alfred bristled. "Then what was it?"
"Old," Arthur sighed. "I have watched humans for a very long time. I don't pretend to understand them, as such, but I assure you that they haven't changed much in a thousand years. At this point I am quite convinced that they exist only to inflict misery on one another."
"And where does that leave us?" Alfred challenged.
"At the mercy of their whims," Arthur replied carelessly. "And bound by duty to invisible borders created by humans. But nations come and go just as humans do - that's something to remember, too. When you think of it like that, what does it matter? Humans have slaughtered in each in the names of nations and gods that no longer exist."
He was getting somewhat conversational now; which Alfred didn't much like, given the topic.
"Rome is a fine example," he went on. "In fact, here's something interesting: the Lusitania took her name from a Roman province."
"Great," Alfred said, rolling over. "So that's two Lusitanias that don't exist anymore - and I expect you don't give a damn about either one of them."
"You're twisting my words," Arthur said impatiently. "Look, all I meant was that you shouldn't take it so much on the chin. Lusitania wasn't the first ship to be sunk in this war and I assure you that she won't be the last; to that end, her sinking should be used to our advantage. Business is business. If you can use Lusitania to bully Wilson into the war, then do it, by all means. War might be commonplace in the grand scale of things - and pointless in most instances - but this one is particularly nasty and I'd like to get it over with as quickly as possible." He was dressed now and stood at the mirror with a comb, trying to tame his damp hair. "There's simply no point in getting upset about it, is all. We're not human and so we don't pay the human price -I think you'd do yourself a service to remember that. After all, it's happened before and it'll happen again because humans are fucking halfwits who won't rest, it seems, until they've wiped themselves off the face of the earth. They're calling this the Great War, the war to end all wars - but I don't believe that for a moment, do you?"
"No," Alfred agreed icily, "especially not if you've got anything to do with it."
Arthur lowered his comb, glancing at Alfred frustratedly.
"Alfred, for what it's worth, I do feel rotten about this Lusitania thing," he said. "I assured you and assured you that she was perfectly safe and then she sank anyway. I could bite my tongue, really I could."
Alfred sighed, closing his eyes.
"It's not your fault," he mumbled grudgingly.
"Well, of course not." Arthur sounded a bit incredulous. "But all the same, it was awfully bad luck - and she'd gotten through the warzone so many times before, you know. She was a speedy little devil." He came to the bed, patting Alfred's shoulder. "Anyway, come along. It won't do to mope up here. Let's go and have some lunch before the afternoon has quite gotten away from us."
Alfred opened his eyes, looking up at him.
"You know, I think it's your insistence that everything is back to normal that makes you seem so callous," he said frostily.
Arthur simply raised his eyebrows.
"This is normal, sinking ships, massive body counts and all," he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Welcome to Europe, Mr Jones."
"Forgive me," Alfred snapped tiredly. "It's been a while."
Arthur snorted.
"Indeed," he said. "I can tell."
He didn't recall the nightmare when he awoke but the sensation was the same; the crawling in his spine, the shortness of breath, the damp prickling on his skin. He did not need memory to tell him he what he had dreamt of.
He drew up his knees and got his breath back, looking around the room; it was getting towards dawn, with a greyish light pervading the blackness and making hulking shapes of the desk and chair. He could hear Arthur asleep next to him, that gentle and familiar in-and-out of breath, the sound that had soothed away his nightmares since he was small.
He flipped on the bedside lamp and got out of bed, shuffling to the jug of water sitting on the desk. Pouring himself a glass, he took a gulp as he sank into the chair; he wasn't really thirsty but it was a small distraction, something to do - as was absently looking down at his half-written letter to Wilson, squinting at it to pick out the odd word. He'd have to finish it tomorrow, he reasoned (although whether he had the balls to actually send it was another matter entirely - Arthur had inserted a few helpful additions that weren't likely to go over too well in the White House).
Still, perhaps bluntness was the only way to get through to Wilson now; Alfred didn't think he could be reasoned with, he was too good with words to be won over in the ways that other men were, and if the Lusitania was not reason enough, then what was? As for Alfred himself, he was ready for war, straining at the sidelines more so than ever; he wanted vengeance for the Lusitania and he wanted to help Arthur and Francis, who both badly needed the back-up. If he was ready, as it were, then perhaps so were his people - and then Wilson would be forced to act.
He picked up a pencil and started to write:
Mr Wilson, I'm afraid to say that I am not, nor will I ever be, too proud to fight. You cannot be fond of Liberty if you will not shed blood for it; and if even neutrality offers us no freedom - for our lost men, women and children on board the RMS Lusitania should have been free to make the Atlantic crossing unhindered - then we must be prepared to take up arms. You know of Mssrs Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin only from books and propose their ideas of liberty incorrectly; you surmise that our staying out of Europe's war would be their wish but sir, with respect, this is no longer the post-Revolution world. We now have a stake and a responsibility and I assure you, having known these men, that they would be in the business of protecting our liberty throughout the globe, wherever that fight may take us.
"What on earth are you doing?"
Alfred started, turning towards the bed; Arthur was sitting up, wild-haired, watching him.
"It's half-four in the morning," Arthur went on, yawning as he looked at the tin clock at the bedside.
"The muses took me," Alfred said dryly.
Arthur simply raised his eyebrows.
"If you had a nightmare," he said, "you should have woken me. I don't mind."
"I said the muses took me," Alfred repeated defensively.
Arthur patted the mattress.
"Come back to bed, you silly boy. You'll ruin your eyes, writing in that light."
"They're already ruined," Alfred muttered; but he set down the pencil and heaved himself up, going back to the bed. Arthur had his arms outstretched and Alfred clambered aboard and straight into them, settling with a breathy sigh against Arthur's chest.
"There now," Arthur said softly, stroking his hair; he sank back against the headboard, Alfred snuggled against him like a child. "You know I don't mind you waking me, love."
"I was adding to our Wilson letter."
"I told you, send him a severed foot or something." Arthur hummed thoughtfully. "Or a trench rat, if you'd like. Big as bloody dogs, some of them."
"You're fibbing," Alfred mumbled.
"Only a little bit."
Alfred sighed, falling quiet; he listened to Arthur's heart for a long moment, steady beneath his silk pyjama shirt, domestic in its memory. Arthur's thumb rubbed soothingly at the nape of his neck, his motions so drowsy that Alfred knew that he was falling asleep again.
"Arty?" he asked softly.
"Mm?"
"I-I was thinking." Alfred paused. "...You know, about what we were talking about earlier; that we don't pay the human price."
"What about it?"
"Well, I..." Alfred closed his eyes. "...Where do you think the line is?"
"What line?"
"Between nationhood and humanity, of course."
Arthur groaned.
"Alfred, it's half four in the sodding morning - don't go getting philosophical on me."
"I'm being serious." Alfred shifted against him. "Because I guess we're meant to be able to distance ourselves from things like this... a-and, well, you seem better at it than me-"
"I'm much older than you, love," Arthur sighed tiredly. "It's just practice."
"What I'm saying," Alfred insisted, determined to be heard out, "is that when you consider all the awful things we've been through, something like a goddamn ship sinking... I shouldn't bat an eyelid." He shivered miserably. "And yet... I-I have the most terrible nightmares and I just can't get the image of it out of my head, Lusitania and Titanic both, and you'd think it's that I'd never seen a man die before, you know, I saw some horrific things during the Civil War and the Revolution, even, and yet I just-"
"You're babbling," Arthur interrupted gently.
"Don't you think it's... very human of me?" Alfred breathed, his voice very small. "To have nightmares and panic attacks...?"
"You forget," Arthur replied calmly. "We may not be human - but the concepts of nations, countries, these are things which exist because of humanity. We are, in many ways, their creations - and so we mirror them in looks, in language, even emotions to some extent - even those that ought to be foreign to our immortal natures, like fear and grief. I think it's fair to say that, to our peril, we copy even their flaws, just as I did some years back. To have fallen into a fit of boredom and despair - and, indeed, to have grown fat in its interim - is so obscenely human that it repulses me, frankly." He shook his head. "Nightmares, I think, are nothing compared to the brink I was on."
"You're so hard on yourself," Alfred muttered.
"With good reason - what a miserable wretch I was."
"I still loved you."
"I know," Arthur said sleepily. "Rather more blindly than you do now, I think."
Alfred opened his eyes again, taken aback.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You can't pretend you haven't been somewhat wary of me," Arthur sighed. "Not that I blame you. I'm at war, after all, and besides... wariness should always exist in the bonds between nations. It's in our natures to be self-serving; you ought never to wear your heart on your sleeve."
"It's not you I'm wary of," Alfred replied softly. "It's your government, your army-"
"I said I don't blame you." Arthur yawned. "I actually think it rather sensible of you."
"...I trust you, Arty."
"Oh, don't make me miserable, my love." Arthur exhaled through his nose, patting Alfred's hair. "Will you sleep?"
"Mm." Alfred was quiet for a while, playing with Arthur's hand, his fingertips easing over slender bone and knotted joints. Arthur didn't respond but for a slight curl of his fingers, half-asleep. "...Art?"
"Yes?"
Alfred fell quiet again for a moment, looking up at Arthur, who seemed content to fall asleep again; the bruising to his face was almost gone, just a few brownish-purple stains to his eye socket left behind. He had a natural frown when he slept, making his brow crease, and Alfred pushed up to lean in and kiss the tiny line in his skin.
"Goodness," Arthur sighed at his cheek, "you're affectionate..."
"Yeah." Shimmying down, Alfred pressed his mouth against Arthur's, determined, kissing him until he parted his lips; and Arthur languidly returned it for a moment before suddenly scrunching his brow and pulling away.
"No, love," he muttered. "You don't want this."
"I do." Alfred was annoyed. "I'm sick of you telling me what I want."
"I can't help thinking you're a little bit... vulnerable, as it were."
"You say that but...!" Alfred sat up frustratedly. "We haven't... I mean, at all, you've been like this since New York!"
"Like what, exactly?"
"Like you don't want to... to touch me or-!"
"Perhaps I'm afraid of tainting you."
"I'd have thought you'd want that," Alfred said icily.
"You'd think." Arthur opened one eye. "Don't sulk. I'm just trying to think of you."
"Liar." Alfred flopped against him again. "At best I reckon you just can't be bothered."
"My dear," Arthur sighed, "I suspect you just want to be held - and I can do that well enough clothed."
"I just want..." Alfred exhaled angrily. "I don't know. I just... feel so empty, you know, I-I just want to not have to think for five minutes...!"
Arthur opened both eyes, looking up at Alfred curiously.
"And am I a fine distraction?" he asked softly. "One of her victims? You'd make love to Ophelia resurrected?"
"Don't talk like that," Alfred said bitterly. "All moony and poetic. I just want to fuck you. It's been, what, eight months? What's so wrong with that?"
Arthur snorted, settling back.
"Fine," he said. "Do what you want."
Of course, that time on the Titanic - the first time in so many years - had been begged on Arthur's part, a distraction of his own, because he had wanted to forget about 1912; and so it was that Alfred didn't really fuck him, no, it was much too gentle for that even though they had nothing but spit. Arthur lay patiently on his back, holding Alfred close, fingers ghosting over his spine, the curve of his back, the swell of his backside, as he fumbled and slithered between his thighs. This was not their domestic flesh-coloured world of hideaways - where they had poured up their days with passion to keep in the heat, to curb the boredom, whole days spent in bed by the feeble fire. Alfred was weak-kneed about it now; his heart wasn't in it, just as Arthur had expected. Still he sat on the edge of the world, Arthur long since gone from his grasp.
"Oh, hush," Arthur whispered, wiping at Alfred's face as he snuffled miserably at his shoulder. "Don't cry, love. I can't bear it."
"Oh, god," Alfred sobbed, clutching at him, "I can't bear it either."
Wednesday 12th May, 1915
The day was bright and warm, the afternoon a languid one with the sun cool and white in the sky. After lunch and a long cigarette in the drawing room of Number 10, they went, at Arthur's suggestion, for a walk through the winding well-kept gardens, crunching over the gravel beneath the dapple of the trees. The air was perfumed with the honeyed scent of sweet-peas and heady musks of roses and hydrangaeas. They were not dressed to ceremony, Arthur in a powder blue waistcoat and grey silk necktie; Alfred in just his shirt and braces, so warm was the day.
It was a kindly distraction; and pleasant enough, Alfred with his arm linked rather covetously through Arthur's. He was parted from him only by a harried-looking official from the American Embassy, who quite insisted that he speak with him alone. Arthur had amusedly waved him away and gone to look at the roses, a personal favourite.
"Look," Alfred groaned, "I know I didn't come back to the Embassy last night - o-or the night before - but I-"
"Mr Page knows that your interests presently lie elsewhere," the official interrupted coolly. "However, he requests a meeting with you tomorrow morning. You will be back at the American Embassy at ten o' clock sharp, Mr Jones."
"Page wants to see me?" Alfred actually breathed a sigh of relief; Walter Page, US Ambassador to Great Britain, was notoriously pro-British as far as the war was concerned. "That's alright, then. I thought it was going to be Wesley Frost with an updated body count..."
"I can get that for you, sir, if you require."
"No, no." Alfred shivered. "That's fine, I... uh, yeah, tell Page I'll be there. Ten o' clock."
"Very good, sir." The official nodded briskly. "I'll have a cab sent over at half past nine. Good day."
He scurried off; and Alfred put his hands in his pockets for a moment, letting out a breath. Up until now, Walter Hines Page had been something of a thorn in his and Wilson's sides regarding the war, since the man seemed determined in the rightness of Britain's cause and made no secret of it. Alfred often suspected that Wilson regretted appointing him ambassador, in fact, and indeed he himself had been getting sick of Page's letters urging US intervention; but now, with his own mind changed, he saw Page as an asset, an ally against Wilson, and wondered why he hadn't considered it before. Neither alone could coerce Wilson, it was true, but perhaps together they could-
"Alfred!" Arthur was calling him; and he beckoned when Alfred looked towards him. "Come here. I want to introduce you to someone."
Hands still in his pockets, Alfred padded over the grass towards him; Arthur was no longer alone, having been joined by another man who looked to be in his late thirties, square-faced and broad.
"Mr Churchill," Arthur said warmly, "I don't think you've ever met Alfred before, have you?"
"No indeed," Churchill said gruffly, putting out his hand towards Alfred, "but it is an honour." He shook with Alfred firmly, smiling at him. "My mother was American, Mr Jones."
"She had great taste, clearly," Alfred replied with a grin; he glanced at Arthur, who rolled his eyes at him.
"Alfred, this is Winston Churchill," he said dryly, "the First Lord of the Admiralty - though I suspect him of having political ambitions."
"Arthur, you do make me sound like a scoundrel."
"You are a scoundrel."
Alfred was perplexed at this; it was unusual for humans in the know to be on first-name terms with their nation, with the exception of those in the very highest of positions (presidents in Alfred's case, monarchs in Arthur's - for even Asquith, Alfred had noticed, had addressed Arthur by his military rank and not by name). That this Winston Churchill seemed confortable in calling Arthur by his given human name was unusual, to say the least, and seemed to imply a friendship of the sort that was exceedingly rare between nation and citizen. Arthur often talked about being on a first-name-basis with Shakespeare and Drake but this was the first time Alfred had ever witnessed it, with the other two having lived long before Alfred's existence.
He glanced at Arthur, who cleared his throat and looked askance to Churchill.
"Alfred, Mr Churchill here was just telling me that the official inquest into the Lusitania's sinking is due to begin in a few days," he said. "I expect the Board of Trade will want to be involved."
"I should imagine so," Churchill agreed, look to Alfred. "Frost will keep you informed, I'm sure."
Alfred nodded; not that he wanted to hear every last gritty detail of the sinking, it had to be said. He had always been glad of their absence from the Titanic inquiry.
Churchill looked at his pocket watch.
"Well, then, I'll be off," he said airily; though he looked meaningfully at Arthur. "I will keep you updated on the Gallipoli Campaign, of course, Arthur."
"I'll be in the War Office tomorrow if you want to come by," Arthur replied. "I'll get the maps out and you can talk me through the thing properly."
Churchill grunted his affirmation and tipped his hat first to Arthur and then to Alfred.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen."
Off he went, ambling over the neat grass; and Arthur looked at Alfred in a slightly world-weary manner, offering him his arm.
"Where were we?"
Alfred simply sighed, linking his arm through again, settling his weight on Arthur's elbow.
"It has a habit of interrupting us," he grumbled. "The war, I mean."
"It tends to be a common trait of any war," Arthur agreed; he reached out to run his fingertips over the firm swell of a rose. "Aren't they just heavenly? I must ask the gardener to cut me a few for my desk."
Alfred raised his eyebrows.
"Your desk at the War Office?"
"Where else?"
"Don't you think that's a bit strange?"
"Fitting, actually, in my opinion." Arthur smirked. "It says a lot about war in general."
"Why?" Alfred rolled his eyes, expecting poetry. "Because that's what war is? Beauty amongst the carnage-"
"Goodness, no," Arthur interrupted. "That it's bloody absurd."
The heat of the day was heightening; and, rather than turn in, they took shade beneath a rowan tree towards the end of the grounds, Arthur settled back against the knot of roots and Alfred sprawled with his head in his lap. He could smell the grass and the dryness of the earth, his eyes closed as Arthur laguidly ran his fingers through his hair. This was how they had spent afternoons during those two years; and many decades before, too, when Alfred had been small and full of questions.
His questions were not about flower names and beetle wings now.
"Do you know what would set this off just nicely?" Arthur murmured. "Cold lemonade and scones with fresh cream and strawberry jam."
"And ice cream," Alfred agreed. "It's a hot day, after all."
"Absolutely - vanilla and chocolate, of course, I know you like them both."
"Ughhh, stop it, Arty - you're making my mouth water." Alfred squirmed crossly.
"It was just a thought," Arthur said blithely.
Alfred shifted.
"I don't know how happy I am that you still think about scones and cakes a lot," he admitted.
"Only with longing," Arthur assured him dryly. "You've a fat chance of anything of the sort at the Front."
Alfred was quiet for a moment, exhaling deeply. Arthur raked fondly, gently, at his hair, following his parting like a well-trodden path.
"...Arthur?"
"Mm?"
"I... I've been thinking. Page wants to see me tomorrow morning."
"Walter Page?" Arthur hummed thoughtfully. "I rather like him, as I recall."
"I bet you do," Alfred muttered.
"What about him?"
"Well, he... he's for the war, as you know, and I think he might be an asset to me regarding Wilson but... well, see, there's still the matter of persuading Wilson to engage the whole country in war and I just don't think the old man is going to play ball."
"And...?"
"And, well..." Alfred sat up; Arthur opened his green eyes to look at him curiously. "I've, uh, made my decision. When you go back to the trenches, I'm going to come with you. I'll... I don't know, wear a British uniform, fake the accent-"
"I'd pay to see that," Arthur said amusedly.
"Don't you see!" Alfred took Arthur by the shoulders. "Wilson will have to come and get me himself! It'll make him so mad and he'll come stomping over to bring me home and he'll see the war and then he'll have to act...!"
"I don't know how much stock I'd put in him coming here himself," Arthur said doubtfully.
"He will," Alfred insisted. "He'll be angry enough. I know how to push his buttons by now."
Arthur shook his head at him.
"Foolish boy," he said softly, smiling. "Thank you, my dear."
Alfred shrugged, leaning in, pressing his forehead against Arthur's.
"Maybe Wilson wants to sit on the damned fence, even after the Lusitania," he said against Arthur's mouth, "but I know whose side I'm on."
Oh, look, it's everybody's favourite USUK fangirl, Winston Churchill! He was indeed the First Lord of the Admiralty during the early years of WWI - a position he was forced to step down from after the distrastrous Galipolli Campaign between 1915-1916. It is widely supposed that Churchill knew of U-20's presence in the same waters as the Lusitania; Churchill was also to partly oversee admiralty proceedings into the sinking's inquest and he, alongside First Sea Lord Fisher, tried to pin the blame for the sinking onto Lusitania's captain, William Turner! Fisher even went so far as to call Turner "not a fool but a knave"; however, both he and Churchill we replaced in their positions due to the failure of Galipolli and Turner was found to not be responsible for the sinking.
Soldiers did actually wander around with linked arms many years ago - so Alfred and Arthur doing so in public is not unusual or suspect, particularly.
One chapter and an epilogue to go! Hoepfully they'll be done within the week! Sorry for the delay with this chapter!
