.Part Six.

Glasgow

The train rattles into the station in a clanking of wheels on rails and shrill bursts of white steam, like fire from a dragon's nostrils. The doors open, and people flood out onto the platform like a river. Carried in their wake, Kitty holds onto Thomas' arm tightly, her carpet bag that she insisted on carrying swinging from her hand. After four years of the ordered chaos of the war, this feels so strange – a crowd working as separate people, rather than as the limbs of one large, united body.

Ropes of light twist their way through the high-arched windows, shattering into thousands of shards on the paved floor, and they duck out into the bright winter sunlight, huddled into coats. "We can get a taxi, if you like," Thomas says. "Or we can walk. It's only about twenty minutes to my family's flat."

"I don't mind walking," Kitty says.

He smiles slightly, and they begin to walk down the street, weaving in and out of people hurrying in the opposite direction and beggars sitting on the corners. They cross a wide river, grey and blue and churning towards the sea. "We used to swim in that as children when it was hot enough," Thomas tells her. "Or try and catch fish, though we were never very successful."

Kitty laughs. "I can imagine it."

After another five minutes, he stops her for a second, turns her to face him. "Kitty…"

"Yes?"

"I'm just going to warn you now – my family's flat is very different from anything you've ever known. Even the hospital is a palace compared to where I grew up. They've managed to keep it clean and buy a second room with some of my earnings, but it's…"

"Tom," Kitty says gently, squeezing his hand. "It doesn't matter. You know I don't care about appearances, not after all we've been through with the war and everything."

He nods. "Alright, then."

Commercial Road is a dingy affair lined with dirty Victorian tenement blocks. Children with no shoes or socks run around after a faded ball, laughing and shrieking like crows. Washing flaps forlornly out of windows. Thomas leads her expertly down the street, ignoring the people that stare as they pass. Kitty's only wearing a simple wool dress that she bought when she went shopping with Elizabeth, but passers-by look as though they would rip it from her back without a second thought.

They stop outside a block halfway down the street, and Thomas pushes the door open; the hinges protest loudly like the voices of little old women. Then they step inside, over someone's clothes and into a muddied corridor with endless stairs leading up and up and up.

"Well, this is it," Thomas says quietly, an unidentifiable emotion burning behind the façade. Kitty smiles at him, trying to be reassuring.

The Gillan family live on the fifth floor, and she holds Thomas' hand tightly as they manoeuvre their way up the rickety steps. From one of the rooms on a floor they pass, there is the sound of someone shouting, and a loud crack. Kitty flinches at the noise – she's heard far too many of those, felt the stinging pain racing across her cheek too many times…

They've stopped outside a door that doesn't quite seem to fit in its frame, the paint peeling back like the skin of a burn victim. Thomas knocks once. There is murmuring from behind the door, and then it is flung open and a lanky girl barrels into Thomas, almost pushing him over.

"Ma! It's Tommy! He's home!"

"Hello, Catriona," Thomas says, disentangling himself from the girl and holding her at arms' length, smiling like the sun. "Look at you – you're all grown up now."

"Oh, don't say that. Everyone says that. Who's this? Oh, is this your fiancée? Hello, I'm Catriona Gillan, Tommy's youngest sister. It's so lovely to have you here – Tommy hasn't told us that much in his letters, and I've been dying to meet you forever!"

"It's lovely to meet you too," Kitty manages, surprise overwhelming her like a wave. She didn't realise that Thomas' family would be so…well, friendly. The way her family did it was an introduction, a shaking of hands, perhaps kisses on the cheek and politely inquiring about the other person, but nothing like this complete exuberance that radiates off Catriona as though she's a star shining in the sky.

"Calm down, Cat," Thomas says, pushing his little sister gently aside and looping an arm around Kitty's waist.

"Well, you'd better come in. Ma's just cooking. We've been saving up all our ration points and money for ages…"

Catriona holds the door open, and ushers them through into a room with several, battered chairs, a table, and a doorway leading to another room where Kitty can see several mattresses pushed together on the floor. At the dirt-encrusted window that looks over the street, a small, stout woman is busily stirring a huge black pot that bubbles away to itself softly.

"Ma!" Catriona says. "Ma, look who it is!"

The woman turns around, and smiles. "Tommy, I've been expecting you for days now. Where've you been?"

"Sorry, Ma," Thomas says, and Kitty almost laughs because he's almost thirty and still looks like a chastened child when his mother tells him off. "The train took a long time, and we had to see a friend of ours into his new flat."

"Well, you're here now," she says, bustling over to pull Thomas into a hug. "My boy, I missed you very much."

"I missed you too, Ma."

There's a moment, then, when Kitty suddenly wishes that her parents hadn't been so inadequate, that they had loved her and Alistair like they should have instead of handing them over to nurses the second they were born. She wishes her mother had looked at her like Thomas' is at him now, with unconditional love beaming out of her like sunbeams.

"And this must be Miss Trevelyan," Mrs Gillan says. "It's so good to have you here."

"Please, call me Kitty," Kitty says quickly.

"Kitty, then." Mrs Gillan wags a finger in Thomas' direction. "You never said how beautiful she is in your letters."

A blush burns in Kitty's cheeks, and Thomas throws a look at her. "Because I wanted you to see for yourself."

Dinner with the Gillans is unlike anything Kitty has ever experienced in her life. After they arrived, Catriona was sent off for various other relatives who live nearby, returning breathless and bright-eyed with the promise that they were all on their way. And now, Kitty is sitting on the bench along the back wall, sandwiched between two of Thomas' older sisters, Bridget and Lorna, who listen eagerly as she talks about her time as a nurse. Their various children who range from ages three to six run around out in the corridor, their shrieking loud above the chatter of the adults.

When dinnertime eventually comes, Mrs Gillan somehow manages to fit almost twenty people into the tiny room, and feed them with the help of Lorna and Bridget who go home to make food in their flats and bring it over. It's cramped and loud, with people shouting to be heard, and the food is so different from even the fare they received at the hospital, but there's something comforting about it, like a warm blanket draped around her.

Thomas has been dragged away by his brothers – Arthur, who sends her a smile and a 'Tommy, you never said the girl you're marrying was the girl who nursed me during the war' and Rodric, a shy boy of around seventeen.

"Where will you stay whilst you're up here?" Lorna asks.

"I'm staying here with your mother, Catriona and Rodric," Kitty says. "I think Tom's going to live with Arthur."

"And where are you going to get married? Here, or in London?"

Surprised by the bluntness of the question, Kitty pauses for a second before managing to collect her thoughts. "I believe in London – so all our other friends don't have to travel up here."

"Ah, I was hoping you'd say that. I've always wanted to see London, and now we have an excuse!" Bridget exclaims happily.

"Do you have a date in mind?"

"We haven't really discussed it yet," Kitty says cautiously. "Several of our friends will be getting married soon, too, so we're not sure when our turn will be."

"Ach, well. As long as you tell us all in good time," Lorna relaxes back against the wall. "I'm already looking forward to it."

That evening, when the last dregs of the family have been cleared from the little two-room flat, Thomas and Kitty go for a walk along the river. The few stars that are not obscured by the clouds are reflected dejectedly in the river's black surface, and the city is quiet, slumbering like a giant beast.

"Arthur says there's unrest here at the moment," Thomas says after a while. "Lots of people are going on strike – that's why my brothers and brothers-in-law weren't at work today."

"Do you think they'll resolve it all?"

"I've no idea. There's going to be a rally in George Square tomorrow – my brothers are going and there's nothing I can do to talk them out of it."

"Might it become violent?"

"There's a high chance…look, Kitty, they've asked me to go with them and I've said yes."

"Why? Why do you have to go?" Kitty can't quite believe what she's hearing.

"They're my brothers…"

"They're both grown men – they're perfectly capable of looking after themselves!"

"Rodric is only seventeen. I'm not letting him walk out there on his own."

"He'll have Arthur – I can't bear the thought of you getting hurt. Any of you," Kitty's voice gets louder, she can't help herself.

"We won't, Kitty, we won't. I'll keep them out of the worst of it – but I'm a doctor. I can be on the edges looking after people if it does start to escalate."

"And I suppose I'm to stay at home with your mother and Catriona, just waiting and praying for your safety? I did enough of that when you went missing, Thomas Gillan, I'm not doing it again!"

"I have to go," he says, and there is a note of finality in his voice. She subsides into silence, anger coiling at the base of her chest.

As they reach Mrs Gillan's door, he turns to her. "Goodnight – I'll see you tomorrow evening. Don't even think about following me to the rally."

He kisses her cheek, then is gone, and she's turning back into the falling down flat. She's always hated leaving – but it's one thing to leave for a Casualty Clearing Station, quite another to leave for a rally that is poised on the edge of becoming a riot.

Damn his stubbornness.

The next morning, it only takes a few whispered words in Catriona's ear when Mrs Gillan isn't looking for a plan to form. She's a willing co-conspirator, and as the day draws on, she asks, "Ma, can we go to see Lorna's neighbour? Lorna said that she's just had a baby, and I'd like to introduce Kitty to people around here."

Mrs Gillan smiles. "Yes, of course, dear. But mind you stay out of the streets as much as possible – there's a rally on and it could get ugly."

"Yes, Mrs Gillan," Kitty says, taking her warm coat and scarf from her carpet bag, and putting them on. Last night it was strange, sleeping top-to-tail with Catriona and Mrs Gillan – Rodric slept in the main room – as she's always, always had her own bed, but with the coldness creeping stealthily in under the door, the warmth of two other people pressed against her was very welcome.

The stairs creak as they make their way down to street level. "Lorna lives a few streets away," Catriona explains. "We've got to make it look like we're heading there, but when we get out of sight we'll head into the centre. We don't have any money for the underground, I'm afraid."

"It's alright. Walking's fine."

As the two make their way across the dull, grey streets of Gorbals, Catriona calling out greetings to almost everyone they meet, Kitty gets to know a little more about Thomas' youngest sister. That she went to school up until last year, but they need more money than the bit Thomas can send them from his salary, and so she's working afternoons in a factory near the railway line, carding wool until her fingers are raw. That she loves singing. That she goes to church, even though only the Irish Catholics do that, because she likes listening to the choir and the battered piano that serves as their organ.

Towards the centre, the houses become nicer, more widely spaced and then give way into shops with pretty displays in their neat glass windows, flowers, dresses, hats. In the window of one – a smart, bowed, green-painted affair, Catriona looks longingly at the beautiful cream and purple spring dress on display, with lace at the hem and little buttons on the shoulders.

"I wish I could afford something as beautiful as that," she sighs. "But I'd have nowhere to wear it, would I?"

Kitty reaches out to take her hand. "One day, when Tom and I are settled, I'll buy you a dress like that," she says.

"Really?"

"Yes, of course," Kitty can't help but smile at the look on Catriona's face, as though she's a child on Christmas morning. "If he forgives me after this little adventure."

"Oh, he will," Catriona vows confidently. "He loves you so much – it's clear to see. I remember when I was a little girl and he'd take me places after school to get me out from under Ma's feet, and girls would sometimes come up to us and giggle and twist their hair around their fingers. He was never interested, at all, until out of the blue, a letter from France comes with the announcement that he's walking out with someone. I figured that whoever she was, she must be pretty special, and here you are."

"I never knew that," Kitty says. "We don't particularly talk about the past. I mean, we know a bit, but after the war and everything, we're looking more to the future than dwelling on what's gone before."

"Sensible, I guess. Come on, we'd better go before the rally's over."

As they approach George Square, there is the sound of windows smashing, of a crowd roaring like a mighty dragon breathing fire from its nostrils. People run towards them, mothers with their children clutched close.

"Are we really going to do this?" Catriona asks suddenly, fear setting her blue eyes alight.

"You can go home, if you want," Kitty says, the sounds making her all the more determined to find Thomas.

"No, I'm staying with you," Catriona reaches out and grasps her hand. "Let's go, and get it done quickly."

The riot is worse than Kitty ever imagined. Police bearing truncheons are trying to hold back a seething crowd, fighting with men carrying what look to be iron railings. Bottles from the back of a lorry that is stranded in the centre of the square like a beached whale are being thrown, flying shards of glass that glitter like knives in the air.

Catriona's hand is squeezing Kitty's in a death grip as burly dock-workers push roughly past them, but Kitty ploughs onwards, her heart racing with adrenaline and pure, outright fear. As a nurse in the war, she only dealt with the end product, the wounded, the sick, she's never experienced the terror of being caught in the heat of a battle with no way to protect herself against people who seem intent on trampling them or crushing them against a wall in their attempts to get to the police, to keep on fighting.

A glass shard from one of the bottles comes flying overhead, so close to her head that she closes her eyes and holds her breath for a second, before continuing to push against the tide of the crowd.

"Please, Kitty, let's just go home!" Catriona sobs over the noise. "We'll never find them!"

Kitty turns to her, desperate, terrified. "How do we get out, though?"

"I don't know!"

After that, it turns into a nightmare. People cram into them, robbing them of their breath, huge men who give no thought for the two frightened women in their midst. At one point, something sharp scrapes past Kitty's face and she screams but no-one cares, and they keep pushing and pushing and it feels like hours later when the people slowly begin to thin out and then they're out of it into the entrance of one of the side streets.

Catriona sinks to the floor in a crying heap, and Kitty feels her own legs buckle underneath her, feels the cold cobbles scratch through her skirt. The freezing winter air is a blessing, and she gulps it down as though it is a precious wine, taking deep breaths that make her head spin. They're alive, they've alive. But where's Thomas?

After a while, Kitty finds the strength to pull a still-sobbing Catriona into her arms, to comfort her like she used to comfort Sylvie during thunderstorms, rocking her back and forth and murmuring soothing nonsense.

They stay there for an age, the sound of violence washing over them until Kitty finally finds the willpower to get to her feet. "Come on, Cat," she says, gently. "Your mother will be wondering where we are."

Catriona stumbles upright, and Kitty wraps an arm around her waist. They have barely gotten three steps when a figure disentangles itself from the fringes of the crowd, a figure that Kitty would know anywhere. Not caring that he'll be angry, she lets go of Catriona and runs to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly.

"Thank God we've found you," she says into the material of his shirt, holding tightly onto the last shreds of her sanity.

"Kitty? What are you doing here? I told you to stay at home!"

"Catriona and I…"

"Catriona's here too?"

"She showed me how to get here," Kitty whispers, letting go of him and taking a step backwards. She knows that Thomas is nothing like Elliott, but their arguments have only ever been petty and small before, and she doesn't know what he'll do.

He stares at her for a second, rakes a hand through his hair. "That was a very foolish thing to do," he says, eventually, anger simmering in every word. "You could have been killed, Kitty! You're not strong enough to defend yourself against men like these, and neither is Catriona, however tough she thinks she is!"

"I'm sorry," she says, so quietly and dejectedly. All of his anger evaporates into steam as he breathes out, slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It's alright. Just never do anything like that again." And then she's in his arms, and he's holding her close and she can almost feel him trembling. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you," he says, so quietly it is like a breath of fresh air.

"I'm sorry," she whispers again. "I'm sorry."

He presses his lips to the top of her head, and she takes in a deep breath. "My mother is going to be furious with both of you."

Kitty winds her fingers through his, and steps out of his embrace. "I deserve it. Catriona not so much – it wasn't her idea."

"Try telling that to Ma when she's in a rage. Come on, let's go and find Catriona."

"You made me lose ten years of my life in one second when I went around to Lorna's neighbour and she said you hadn't been!" Mrs Gillan shouts, waving her wooden spoon threateningly. "Catriona Gillan, you were deliberately deceitful, and you weren't much better! Imagine if some man had stopped rioting long enough to have taken a fancy to you! You wouldn't have got out of that square alive!"

Then, to Kitty's utter surprise and shame, Mrs Gillan bursts into tears and pulls them both into a tight embrace. "Don't either of you ever do anything like it again!"

When they're finally released from the prison of her arms, Kitty sits back down at the table, guilt tugging away at her insides.

"Now, Catriona get on with dinner. Kitty, come with me."

Mrs Gillan leads her into the bedroom, and shuts the door. "I'm really sorry," Kitty begins, but Mrs Gillan holds up a hand.

"My dear, it's alright. I just wanted you to know that it shows you love my Tommy very much if you'd walk right into a riot for him. I couldn't say it out there, as Catriona is still in trouble…"

"I should be as well," Kitty says, quickly. "It was my idea."

"But you are a guest."

"I can help Catriona with her punishment, please, let me. It's not fair that she should take all of the blame."

"Very well, you may go and help her with dinner. You will be my daughter too, therefore I suppose it is only fair that you take on half the punishment. Go on, then, to work."

"Thank you, Mrs Gillan," Kitty says, getting to her feet and opening the door. "Thank you."

That evening, after everything from their meagre dinner is cleared away, Kitty and Thomas go outside to be alone. The street is deserted, although there is cacophony of screams and smashes drifting over from neighbouring areas. They sit against the damp wall of the tenement, and she rests her head against his shoulder, marvelling in their little bubble of peace.

"I really am sorry," she says, after a while.

"Don't," he replies, absently playing with her fingers. "Don't apologise. Just thank God that you got out of it alive, and we'll leave it all behind."

"Tom…"

"Yes?"

"Catriona said something today, that I…I feel so bad about…"

"She didn't say anything nasty did she? She's not cruel by nature, but she can be a bit unthinking at times."

"No, she didn't…she said that you'd never been interested in any woman before, and that when you told them about me, she thought that I must be pretty special. But I'm not, Tom, I'm not special and…"

"You're talking nonsense, Kitty," he shifts so he can touch her cheek.

"Tom, I had an affair. That's why I came to France all that time ago. I had an affair."

Tears filter through her lashes, and she can't look at his expression, she can't see the disgust, the pity, the…

"Kitty, look at me."

"I can't."

"Kitty, please."

Slowly, reluctantly, she turns her face back, and he kisses her, softly, carefully, taking her utterly by surprise. "From what I know of your ex-husband, I'd guessed something like this," he says. "And frankly, I don't blame you at all. It's that bastard who's to blame, and I swear to God if I ever get my hands on him…"

"No, don't be violent. Not that he doesn't deserve it, but I've seen so much violence I just want it to end."

"I know, sweetheart."

She loves the way the endearment falls so naturally from his lips, so unlike the way everyone in her old life always pretended to care about her.

"Thank you," she whispers. "For understanding."

A/N Hello there, again. This is a bit of monster chapter, I'm afraid, but everything that went into it had to be there, so yeah. The riots are based on the real 'Battle of George Square' in Glasgow, that started on the 31st of January 1919 over the length of the working week. I'd love to hear what you all think of Tom's family! :) Needle xxx