Disclaimer: I do not own recognizable characters. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Most of you have grown used to me by now. I've been known to change my mind..and I've done it once again. This will be RARE, but I have added an Edward POV…don't get too excited…it's not what you think, but hopefully it will lead to what you think in the NEXT chapter!
As always a huge thanks to my beta AgoodWITCH! She's forever catching my errors in POV and tense usage…as well as my occasional goofs in plot! She's awesome!
And Finally, I will end this long A/N with a reminder that teaser chapters are available on my blog acullenwannabe. Blogspot .com I have recently added a new feature so you can add your email address to the subscription on the far right side and get emails when I post, so please take a minute to go check that out. Sneak Peeks for both Chapter 11 of Flyboy and Chapter 5 of Sovereign Fate are already up!
Crucial Correspondence
Aro never returned to the office after he tossed the contents of my desk to the floor and stormed out. I assumed that he must have decided he had taken care of the business he intended while he was here and there was no need to stay. What he hadn't counted on was that not only was I not simply a secretary, ignorant of the actual business taking place at Cullen Steel, but that I also had a very passionate personal stake in the well being of this company. I had spent the previous eighteen hours pouring over the financial reports with Marcus and Alice. I knew exactly what those forms would put into motion, and there was no way in Hades I was going to let that happen. Aro made a lot of assumptions that day, assumptions that would one day come back and bit him in his hind quarters if I had anything to say about it.
When we all returned to work on Monday, poor Marcus looked as though he hadn't gotten any sleep the entire weekend. As soon as I had my purse settled under my desk, he was asking me to join him in his office. He melted into his chair, chugging the first cup of coffee for the day before turning to me with sad eyes.
"I don't have any answers at all, Bella. Without Edward's proxy, we have no leg to stand on. I just can't believe that Edward dot every 'I' and cross every 't' Cullen didn't leave something in place when he left. It was so unlike him. Can you do me a favor? Ask him in your next letter if there was something left in place? I don't want to bother him with the worry, but if we don't do something he will be even more upset that we didn't consult him."
I nodded solemnly with a sigh. I asked if Marcus had anything more for me and he simply shook his head no, telling me to go write a letter and mail it right away. We couldn't risk the loss of another minute. I rushed to my desk, quickly writing a long letter to Edward, telling him all that we had learned over the past week, and asking him if he had left anything in place in regard to a proxy for his votes in the board. I added a quick personal note telling him I prayed for him constantly and missed him more than words could describe before addressing the envelope. I placed the stamp right side up, hoping this would draw his attention to the importance of the letter, and rushed down to reception to ask Angela to get it in the mail sooner rather than later.
She looked down at the envelope and then back up to me with wide blinking eyes. I knew I could trust Angela. The only absolute truth I had learned through the interactions within the office workers was that Angela Webber-Cheney was a true blue to the core good and honest person. Her mouth dropped open as she finally finished processing the info as I smirked at her while lifting my finger to my lips. She closed her mouth slowly, the expression on her face morphing into a wry smile before she nodded, tucking the envelope into her pocket.
"It's urgent, Angela, and business related. I would consider it a personal favor if you could go down to drop it at the post box right now. Then we don't have to worry about anybody else catching wind of anything, okay?"
She nodded emphatically before grabbing her purse and disappearing quickly toward the elevator. I stopped in Mrs. Cope's office informing her that I sent Angela on an errand for Marcus and that she needed to send one of the other girls to reception to fill in until she returned. Mrs. Cope smiled with a nod before looking back to the forms in her hands.
I walked quickly back to my desk, settling into my chair with a sigh. I glanced to see Marcus had left a note on my desk, so I slid a blank piece of letterhead paper into my typewriter and began dictating the letter he requested. I double checked it for accuracy before taking it in for him to sign.
When I walked through the door after knocking softly, I discovered him on the phone, his forehead cradled in his palm as he spoke robotically in response to the person on the other end of the line. It didn't take long before I realized it was Aro, and evidently, my lack of doing as ordered had already become known in Chicago. I could hear the yelling voice across the room emanating from the headset.
Marcus smiled up at me sadly, as I slid the paper under his elbow to sign. He picked up his fountain pen, signing the letter in his precise script so similar to Edward's and yet so different. I smiled comfortingly at him, patting his shoulder in consolation as I picked the paper back up from the desk. He locked eyes with me, a million apologies and pleas conveyed in one lingering look. I let my hand slide down to grasp his hand resting limply on the table, squeezing once in solidarity before turning to leave, only to find Lauren Mallory staring at us with her mouth agape. Her eyes narrowed slightly before she turned without a word and stormed from the room.
I sighed rolling my eyes at what was sure to be the new office gossip, and quite honestly the very least of either of our worries at the moment, before turning to walk back to my desk. I addressed the envelope, placing the letter of inquiry inside and addressing the envelope as instructed to a Mr. Douglas Varner of the US War Production Board. From typing the letter, I knew that he happened to be a school friend of Marcus' who he was looking to for advice. Marcus was attempting to ascertain whether individual board members in power could be brought up on charges for misappropriation of funds and resources provided toward the production materials devoted to the war effort without the company itself coming under pain of sanction. It was a risk to reach out to the man, but we were running out of options with our hands so studiously tied.
By this time, I was approaching my lunch time, so I poked my head in to tell Marcus I was leaving a bit early to mail the letter, stopping to tell Alice and Mrs. Cope the same before walking to reception to ride the elevator down to the ground floor. When the doors opened in the lobby, I found myself face to face with Lauren and Jessica, the two least friendly girls in the office. They both glared at me as I exited the car before they entered. As I walk past they mumbled something about 'chippy getting knocked up by the boss.' My stomach lurched at the fact that within a very short time, the rumor had already morphed into such an atrocious falsehood.
I hurried down the street, managing to catch the elderly postman as he began to empty the box. He smiled sweetly at me as he took my important letter, and tucked it safely in his bag. I sighed in relief that the important letter got out without anyone being the wiser and hoped my other important letter of the day was delivered just as safely.
June 1, 1943, On the USS Ranger, somewhere near the Bearing Strait, Edward POV
Due to the blasted storms that had raged through our area of the ocean for three days last week, the mail plane had been delayed an entire week. It was maddening knowing for the past week that at least one, if not more letters from my Bella were sitting in some storage facility somewhere in Britain, waiting for the next scheduled trip. I was going through withdrawal like an alcoholic shaking his way through early sobriety. I clung to her previous letters, rereading them every night before bed, but nothing compared to reading her new words every week. Ever since the first letters were sent between the two of us, I made sure that I sent a letter out every week, and inevitably I would receive one that very same day.
I waited anxiously on deck, carefully out of the way of the plane prep area, but close enough to be one of the first to get the mail once the plane arrived. Jasper and Emmett were nearby, smoking their bartered cigarettes and tapping their feet, apparently as hard up for word from their girls as I was mine. Being here was definitely misery. Neither the guys, nor myself ever really laid it on the line for our girls how bad it was for us, trying to keep their spirits up and also trying to keep the censors from blacking out most of our letters, but as bad as I thought it would be here, it was far worse.
Pilots around us were dropping like flies. We had gotten into the habit after the last month to not even try to make new friendships, because it seemed like the kiss of death. Every time we made a new friend, they would get shot down on the next go round. Eventually we just slipped into a comfortable companionship of three and steered clear of the rest of the sky jockeys. How do you tell your wife any of this though? I could never burden her with it, so I try to stay as upbeat as I can and focus on the things I know she'd want to hear, like how much I miss her and how important her letters are to me. Even that I downplay, though, because if she knew exactly how much I clung to those three or four pages of words scented by her perfume and oils from her hands, she would probably be unnerved.
Finally, the plane appeared on the horizon, coming in to land with a jerky halt upon the deck of the ship. The bags were unloaded by four men, twice as many left behind this time around as had been the week before. I smiled knowing Bella's words were in there, just waiting for me.
The mess hall was chaos as we all followed the bags below deck like lemmings, running blindly behind the letters, following them wherever they led us. I listened intently as the names were called, smiling as one, two, and then finally a third letter were handed to me over the heads of my shipmates. I glanced at them with a smile as my wife's beautiful, slightly messy scrawl graced the outside of all three. Something struck me as odd though as I stared down at the three enveloped as though they were the finest jewels in all the world.
I glanced through them once more before I noticed that one stamp was turned right side up. Frowning down at the little square, I wondered if she had simply been in too much of a rush to remember our code, or if it meant something more. I examined more closely to notice that the writing of the return address was most notably messier than usual.
I sat down at a table, tucking the other two in my trouser pocket as is sliced open the top flap with my finger and read over the anxious words of my poor wife, left behind to fight the battles of the corporate world without me. Her words both angered me at the misuse of my company in my absence and anger with myself for not making the full complement of my contingency plans for Bella fully known. Obviously, she had not informed my parents, or else they would have told her and three weeks wouldn't have been wasted while the letter made its way to me through army mail.
Running my hand though my short shorn hair, I stood up, pushing my way through the crowd in search of the Admiral. It was imperative not for just my company, but for the war effort at large that I contact my wife as soon as possible and inform her of what was set in place before I left. My stomach felt like it was full of nothing but pure churning acid as I made my way to the bridge, hoping against hope that the Admiral would see things in the same way as me and arrange for me to make a call back to the states.
The two letters full of lovely words from my wife were burning holes in my pocket, but I knew I had to deal with business first before I could worry with pleasure. Besides, with any luck, I might get the chance to hear her voice before it was all said and done, or at the very least send her a telegram.