A/N: I finally watched that Mata Hari movie I mentioned back in chapter eighteen and Ramon Novarro was like an adorable Mexican, er, "Russian" puppy in it and I love it. The movie itself though is so bad it's good.
Chapter Fifty-Six: June 1948
Stretching, John made his way back from the loo to his bedroom. It was dark and quiet in the house, as it was still early in the morning, and it made the sounds of the floorboards and doors creak something fierce. He climbed back into bed and wrapped his arms around Clara, pressing his nose into her hair and letting his hands settle on her stomach. Closing his eyes and sighing, he allowed himself to melt in the warmth of the bedding and synch to his wife's slow and steady breathing.
He only had his eyes closed for about five minutes when he heard a tiny voice ask "Are you up yet?" It was high-pitched and sounded almost an imitation of his own.
"No, I just got back in," he grumbled. John rolled over and pulled the blanket closer.
"But the sun is up!" The tiny voice had moved to the other side of the bed in reply, hitting the edge of the mattress. "Come on Daddy! It's time to get up!"
John's eyes snapped open and he sat upright in bed. He looked down to see a little girl standing at his bedside, still in her pajamas and hair a tangled mess. Looking to Clara's side of the bed, he found that there was none—he was alone in a single bed. It was their room, but it was not their bed and whoever the child was, she certainly was no one he'd ever met.
"Good, you are up," the little girl said. She climbed into the bed and sat down on the blankets in John's lap, shoving a brush and hair tie in his hands. "Can you do the braid Miss Jenny showed us yesterday at my party?"
"Um… which one was that?" he asked.
"The one that starts up here!" she said, pointing to the top of her head. The little girl turned around and sat very still, waiting for him to start. Carefully, John started to brush her wild brown hair, unsure of what else to do other than run his fingers through it.
'What's going on?' he thought. 'Where's Clara? Who's this girl and why does she think I'm her dad?' John looked away from the girl and back, only to see that her hair was now done in a French plait.
"Is it done? Thanks Daddy!" the little girl said. She kissed him on the cheek and took her brush back, rolling off the bed. "Auntie Collie's gonna be surprised that you can braid fancy now!"
"…Auntie Collie?" John paused for a moment, thinking. "Collette…?"
"Yeah! Don't tell me you forgot again, Daddy," the girl sighed in exasperation. "Auntie Collie and Uncle Duncan and Donny are coming for the week and it's going to be so much fun. You remember, don't you?"
"Of… of course I remember," John lied. "They come in on the one o'clock, right?"
"Yup! This is going to be the best birthday ever!" the girl squealed before running out of the room.
Cautiously, John swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there, confused. A photo of Clara was on the nightstand, smiling at him in silence. He picked it up and examined it carefully—it was a photo from their first Christmas, one of his favorites. She was putting up tinsel on the brush-bristle tree, looking at him over her shoulder with a giggle on her lips. It had been the first time she had set up an artificial tree, he remembered, and she could not stop laughing that entire day at it, finding the dyed bristles ridiculous.
He wordlessly put the frame down and went over to the wardrobe—only his clothes were there. It felt warm enough in the room, so a shirt and trousers was all he fished out. John dressed and went down the stairs; the walls were covered in drawings taped only a few feet high, but other than that most everything else was the same. Going into the kitchen, he found the girl kicking her feet and humming happily as she sat at the table with a bowl of cereal. She was dressed now, with a red and grey tartan dress and white tights. Looking up at him with her large, brown eyes and wide face, she giggled.
'No… it can't be…' he thought, staring at her dimples. John sat down at the table and swallowed before choking out "Victoria?"
"Yes, Daddy?" she wondered. He froze, a chill running down his spine.
"It's… it's nothing," John lied. He reached forward and carefully wiped a spot of milk from her cheek as his heart began to shatter. "Just, you did a good job getting ready by yourself. You look very pretty today—very grown-up."
"I hope so!" she replied. "I have to be if I start school soon! You said yourself only big girls get to go to school!"
"…I did say that, didn't I?"
"Uh-huh!" Victoria then paused, her eyes growing even wider. "Oh no! I forgot to put away my crayons from last night!" She slid off the chair and ran out of the room, a blur of red and brown.
John sat back in his chair and breathed deeply; he had to be dreaming. He was dreaming, yeah, and everything was going to go back to normal as soon as he woke up. The alarm clock was going to ring any moment now, jarring him and his wife awake so he could hold her tight and kiss her until she pushed him away.
Minutes passed, and the alarm clock never rang.
Shakily, John went and made himself some toast and marmalade. It tasted real enough, which was less a comfort than it ought to have been. By the time he was done, Victoria had made her way back down the stairs and into the sitting room, where she was climbing up onto the couch with a bulky photo album. She laid down on her stomach as she browsed through it, not bothered by her father standing in the doorway staring.
"Let me know when we have to go to the station," she said as she turned a page. John felt a stinging in his eyes as he watched her, unsure of what to say.
"What do you have there?" he finally asked. The little girl shrugged.
"Mam."
"Then… may I look too…?"
Victoria sat up and nodded, dragging the book into her lap. John sat down next to her on the couch and wrapped one arm around her, taking the album in both his hands and allowing the girl to curl up into his side. The pages were filled with nothing but Clara—her laughing, her joking, and her with students at the school in Clydebank.
"Do you think she would have been my teacher?" Victoria asked quietly.
"Maybe, if she could," John replied. He turned the page and found other photos, though some had him in them. "Look—this is from when we lived in her office." He pointed at a picture Clara took of herself, with him scrunched up the best he could manage on the old couch in the background.
"It looks really small," she observed.
"That's right; it's a good thing we didn't have you then, or else you wouldn't've had a big enough place to take your first steps unless it was in the classroom." A turn of the page brought more photos, as well as a thought. "And this was in the flat. You remember the flat, don't you?"
"Kinda…" Victoria said. She leaned forward and nearly pressed her face to the laminate in her study of an image of Clara. "Mam was really pretty. Do I look like her?"
"Yes, you look a lot like her," he said. He gently kissed the top of her head and exhaled sadly. "Not all like her—you got some of my side in you too. A bit of your auntie, if I had to venture a guess."
Grabbing hold of the album, Victoria flipped to the very back, which was empty, and worked her way forwards until she found the last photo: Clara in the hospital holding an infant in her arms. She looked weak and exhausted, but so happy and full of joy that nothing in the world could bother her. The little girl stared critically at the photograph, trying to place it. "Why don't I remember this? This is me and Mam, right?"
"You weren't even half an hour old," John chuckled. "Babies don't know how to remember when they're just born. Sometimes people wish they did, but nothing can really change that. You know, not long after this I took you to see your granddad."
Victoria squeaked as she buried her face in her father's chest. He patted her on the back, wondering what was wrong, until a flash of memory hit him.
He was standing with Dave in the hospital corridor, watching the new grandfather as he held the squirming bundle called Victoria. He was on leave from the military long enough to meet her, with a stunned grin on his face and a toy in his hand that in another life went to another child. Bopping the plush tiger's nose with hers, he agreed that her name, just decided on the week before by Mam and Dad, was perfect. She was going to be perfect. Everything was going to be just as it should.
Then, something caught John's eye and his vision turned—people were running into the maternity ward. The corridor became blurred and silent as he tried to enter, curious at first but with a growing sense of panic. He wasn't allowed in, not while there was an emergency. Victoria cried hungrily, ignoring the fact the only two people with her were men with no milk. A nurse finally came with a bottle of infant formula, taking the baby as the extra people filed out of the ward. One solemnly called for John; he and Dave were finally allowed in to visit a lifeless husk with eyes already closed and limbs rigid from violently seizing up.
They were allowed in to say goodbye.
Tears streamed down John's face as he sniffled in a failed attempt to keep them in. This was not fair—dreams never should hurt so much. His heart began to race as a harsh question settled over him: Was this the dream? He couldn't say he hated this, because he had a child at his side and no child of his sufficed as a nightmare, but with this pain attached… had he been dreaming this entire time? Had the alarm clock not rang because this was the reality he lived in? Time worked differently in dreams, allowing an entire lifetime to occur within a nighttime… but was that what had happened?
He put down the album and drew his daughter in close, stroking her back as she curled into his embrace. It was faint, but John could remember picking her up from Collette's as a newborn after work. He could see as the girl toddled through an art museum in Glasgow, the one where he and Clara had spent the better part of her twenty-first birthday, and even recalled holding her still as the English countryside sped past their window on the train while they headed towards a new life in London. The memory of the birthday party they had the day before washed over him too, with a few of the neighborhood kids celebrating a day early in lieu of that morning, her birthday proper, being a Sunday. The entire time his daughter was there, but at the same time he was very alone.
"You're hugging too tight," Victoria mumbled. John shook his head and stroked her braid.
"No, I'm not letting you go Victoria Claire, not ever," he said, voice rough from tears. He bent down, pressing his face into her shoulder. "I can't lose anyone else."
"Why are you crying?" the girl asked, sounding more English than before. Fluid accents, great.
"I can't bring her back, but I can still be there for you," he said, the pause long enough to hold back a sob. In his arms, Victoria pushed against his chest, trying to escape his grasp.
"John, let go of me! Wake up!"
Gasping for breath, John shuddered awake in his dark bedroom. Clara was there, sitting up and looking rather shocked as she too had to breathe deeply. She glanced down at him, her eyes wide in confusion.
"What was that…?" she asked. Without a word John pulled her down and climbed on top of her. Round face, protruding stomach, curves that fit in his hands as if one had been made for the other… yes, it was his Clara. He leaned down and kissed his wife, taking her by surprise at the sudden intense affection. When they parted she shimmied away and out of bed, staring at him and breathing heavily.
"No, no, no, please don't go," he said, reaching out to grab her arm. "Please… I've had a fright."
"What sort of fright?"
"Victoria," he gulped. His eyes were large and sad and his eyebrows were raised in horror. "She was there… but you weren't. I'm sorry Clara, just…"
"Oh, John…" she sighed. Sitting back down on the bed, she let her husband latch on tightly, burying his face in her chest as he shuddered against the morning chill. She hugged him gently, scratching his scalp through his thick hair. "I'm here, no worries."
"I'm so sorry…"
"Shh… there's nothing to be sorry about…"
"…but it was so real…"
"…and dreams often are," she said. Craning her neck, she looked over at the alarm clock and frowned. "It's half past five—what do you say we get an early start, hmm? Have a nice breakfast and take a walk before the rest of the world wakes up?"
John nodded against her chest, making a sort of strained, croaking noise that Clara took as agreement. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and rubbed his back before getting up again, careful to make sure he did not blindly reach for her as she stood. They both began to dress for the day, with John stealing glances from across the room. Once his clothes were on, he went over to Clara and gave her a kiss, kneeling down and pressing his forehead to her stomach afterwards.
"Learn from your sister, please," he told the baby, voice raspy and low. "No one can truly replace anyone, and the only thing that's worse is even needing the thought." He kissed his wife's stomach and stood upright, forcing a smile to his lips. "How about if I make breakfast today?
"Sounds like a plan I can live with," Clara nodded. She cradled John's cheek with a hand before leading him out of the bedroom and towards the stairs. Although it was important to remember, staying too focused on the past would only get in the way of the future.
