This chapter is set in my Sunshine 2.0 universe (brief intro on profile). Some details were chosen specifically for this fic and may or may not end up as an official part of the AU. I have no idea whether Harvard has ever had summer lecture series, but shhhhh artistic license.
8-3-22 I've decided I want this chapter as its own fic, so I've removed most of it here.
Prompt: Rainbow. Something has unexpectedly changed color. What and why?
Chapter 3: A Tale of Two Cambridges (1942)
Lucy sends him a short letter that July, asking him to visit. Ed sends one back, saying he will come as soon as he can. On the first day of August, he meets her under the willow in front of her aunt's house.
"They wouldn't have allowed a stranger inside. They're quite strict, you see," she says with a toss of her golden curls. "No meat, no wine (not they would offer it to us if they did have any), too few blankets on the beds. And since they enforce those rules on their son, they naturally expect their niece and nephew to adhere to them as well, so long as we're here." Her nose wrinkles. "You know the Shavians. Thank the Lion we're only here for summer hols, and they're already near two weeks gone."
"I've always found your system baffling, you know. To be at school for close to eleven months out of twelve?" Ed assumes a pensive expression and shakes his head piously. "This is why we Yankees rebelled."
One corner of her mouth turns up. "Our holidays are longer than yours."
"But we have more."
"You have more because they are shorter."
"Except in the summer."
Lucy sticks her tongue out, and they grin at each other. It's an old, comfortable argument, and one they revisit every time a visit must be planned around English half-term breaks.
The full oneshot may now be found in its individual posting, A Tale of Two Cambridges.