Sorry this took a while! Busy, etc. I'm putting this up a little earlier than I usually do (it's 4 in the morning rn), so maybe that makes up for it a little? Yes? :D?

Marz: You'll se~e! Haha. By the way, you were right about "The Piper," I feel v. irritated that I didn't catch that. (I've read RoI so many times, how did I not notice.) Anyway, "The Piper" was printed in the London Spectator, and last chapter has been updated to reflect that. Thank you for the heads up and for the review!

Guest: Thank you for the review! Ahaha, Walter is supposed to be the most Anne-like of the kids, after all. Re: the poem, you'll see what I have in mind for that! I will say I don't intend for Walter to suddenly turn into Whiskers-on-the-moon. :)

Anon: Ahaha, thank you :) I have to admit, I fully intended on just keeping this story to myself until I realized how little Walter/Una fic there is. A true tragedy tbh!

Also, an "I am not making this up" disclaimer: the biting-nose-thing actually happened to me in real life. Children! *shakes fist*

Title is from "The Tower" by Vienna Teng.


a love with intuition

"Tell me something nice," Una suggests, one day.

Walter blinks at her, and for a moment she thinks she's said it quite wrongly. She decides to rephrase: "Try to think of something nice. And then tell me." She bites her lip, decides to offer him one of her secrets in trade. "My mother used to do this with me, on days when I was upset."

Walter's face softens. "Were you upset often?"

"Oh," Una sighs. "I suppose. It wasn't that so many terrible things happened, it was just so easy to make me - well." She turns to him. "You know."

"I do," Walter says. "Jem used to become quite defensive when Mary Vance made you and Faith upset."

"I think that was more for Faith's benefit than mine," Una says, laughing a little. It is easy to laugh when they reminisce. Not so much when they think about the future.

Walter does not smile, and Una feels an old, familiar pang. While gossip has only ever linked Walter to Alice Parker in Lowbridge, Una has occasionally caught Walter looking at her sister as if - as if - well. It is not something Una likes to dwell on.

"Maybe so," Walter admits. "But I did think she was unnecessarily cruel, sometimes."

"Oh, don't talk about Mary Vance that way," Una says. "She was my first real friend, you know. And she's never meant to be unkind."

Walter ducks his head. "I won't speak ill of her anymore," he promises, though Una notices he doesn't change his opinion. But she knows well that the Blythes don't get along with Mary - for the Blythes are sweet, the Blythes are kind, but the Blythes are also just a little bit snobbish, in their well-meaning way. She doesn't say anything.

"Something nice," Walter repeats. He cracks half a smile. "I won't be sarcastic, for your sake." He pauses, then sighs. "I never was sarcastic. A bad habit I picked up from some of my comrades, I suppose. But - they were good men. Are good men. Even the Germans, maybe," he adds.

"Do you mean that?" Una asks.

"Sometimes…we could hear the other side, waiting with us. Singing or talking or praying."

"It's hard to think of them doing things like that," Una says softly. "But then - I suppose it's hard for them to imagine us - you - in the same way."

"When I first arrived," Walter says, "they hadn't figured out how to move us around very well. We sat and waited, for so - so long. We'd get bored. And it seemed - pointless, to fight, when all of us were so d - so tired." Una wonders why he bothers to censor himself - there is no word the Meredith children didn't learn from Mary Vance.

"Sometimes they'd let us run out - quickly - to recover our casualties," Walter says. "And we'd do the same for them. The officers would look the other way, and I think - I think that was quite nice. A nice thing."

He is speaking faster now, the memories coming to the surface. Una touches his hand to let him know that she is still listening.

"We were all strangers, you know. Just - thrown together. We owed each other nothing. But still we worked together. We protected each other."

"Jerry wrote that you should have gotten a V.C. for saving that man, that time," Una murmurs. She remembers reading his letter and thrilling - quietly - at the image of Walter, noble and brave, as gallant as a hero in the old stories. That is who I love, she had thought, letting herself get caught up in her girlish fantasy for a moment. It's odd - but no, she thinks she can understand a little more, now - that he takes no pride in it.

Walter, to her surprise, flushes slightly. He shakes his head. "It was nothing that other men weren't doing, every day. For both sides."

Una tilts her head at him. "It's funny," she says slowly, thinking of the letters from her brothers and Shirley. "None of you seem to - hate - the Germans very much. We all thought you did, somehow."

Una supposes she never really had. Sometimes she pictures them as they are in the posters and silent pictures, all beastly and ready to drag her away to some horrid fate, and true, it sends terrible shivers down her spine, and she stitches and bakes with the conviction that they cannot, must not, win.

They frighten her and they worry her, but still she feels an odd sort of guilt every time she tries to hate them, tries to pretend that they aren't writing home and receiving socks from their families in Berlin or Munich or one of those strange European cities, that they don't have anyone waiting for them - Una has always had a soft heart.

Walter turns to look at her, and she feels a shiver go down her spine at the look in his eyes. "How could we?" he asks quietly. "When they're not so different from us at all. It's - ironic, I suppose," he says, some of his old literary studies vocabulary slipping through, as though he's discussing a particularly fascinating novel. "We were supposed to be fighting against them - but Una - honestly - I think we hated them the least."


Dear Una,

Thanks for all your letters. Sorry I haven't written as often as I should, and if I made you worry. I'm all right, I guess. As Susan said (and is probably still saying), flying is clean work - in its own way. Not much like being a bird, I'm afraid. There's something rather - lonely about being up here. Maybe after the war, we can go up in groups, and that will make it better. But I guess it's exciting to think that we've made it up here at all. Sorry, you know I've never been good with words.

I'm always glad to hear from you, and I hope all is well. I used to say that it's hardest for the mothers and daughters and sisters, but now, I'm not sure. I can't tell you everything I've seen, Una. I don't know if Walter's told you, either. I'll be blunt and say it's harder for us. But that doesn't make the waiting any easier, I know.

I hope you'll keep writing.

Shirley


Dear Una,

Things are still the same 'round here. I'm all nice and settled in, and there are times when I don't miss home so much - or at least, I'm so busy I don't have time to miss home. And there are nice things about being over here, too. Some of the soldiers recuperating here are very kind and funny - you wouldn't think they were in a war at all. But then sometimes, when they go to sleep - it's a rather different story. But they keep going, somehow, and I think - how wonderful humans can be, sometimes. It's all that keeps me going some days.

Jem came back on leave and I saw him for a while. We walked around and it was quite nice. I always thought we'd see England together, although - not like this, I suppose. He's not quite the same, and it's frightening - is that the word I want to use? No, not frightening. But sometimes I think - well, never mind. He hadn't heard that Walter was injured and sent back - I had to tell him. He's glad, though, that Walter is safe now.

How is everything at home? Rosemary writes often, but Father never as much as he should - absentminded as ever, I suppose. Walter's letters are so horribly short, too. I wonder if he'll go back to Redmond, now that he's home. It will be easier for him to get into classes, at any rate! See, I can still be jolly, on occasion.

Where was I? What I meant to write was that it's up to you, my dear, to tell me all the goings-on, if you can. How tall Bruce must be now! It's hard to think that life is going on there without me. Ah, but now I sound like some of my patients.

I have to go now - this is the only spare moment I've had all week. By the time I send this, it'll probably be ages later. But please give all my love to Father and Rosemary and Bruce as always, and say hello to Ingleside for me.

Love,
Faith


May fades into June, the almost overwhelming lush of hazy, warm days. Walter's birthday is at the very end of May, on the edge of summer. They spend it quietly; Susan makes as rich a cake as she can with her ration supply. Una agonizes over a gift, spending several sleepless nights on it, working by moonlight and the occasional lamp (one of Una's secret fears is that she will leave a lamp burning and wake up with the house on fire). Still, by Walter's birthday, Una has put together a pamphlet of pressed flowers and poems she'd copied from her father's books, and - with the panicked thought that she should have a contingency plan - knitted a perfectly respectable scarf. His mouth quirks when he sees them and for a second Una thinks she can see - something. Perhaps.

Walter is to leave for Redmond, to visit Nan and Di, he says. Just for the weekend - they're staying on throughout the summer to help with the Red Cross, tacking on a few classes to make up for those they had to give up during the school year.

It takes all of Una's energy not to ask if he's looking forward to seeing Alice Parker, as well.

"Why didn't you ever go to Redmond?" he asks one day, in the parlor at Ingleside. Rilla is playing with Jims, trying to provoke a smile from him. She looks up when Walter asks the question.

"Not all of us want to spend our days with 'ologies and 'isms," she scolds gently.

Una is grateful for the excuse. She doesn't wish to admit the real reason to Walter. It seems foolish and silly, when presented to someone like him.

Walter gives a slight smile. "You can't tell us you still think of nothing but having fun, Rilla-my-Rilla."

"No," Rilla admits. "But my goals still don't involve having a degree." She blushes as she says this, for a reason Una cannot quite figure. Walter seems to be in on the secret, however - he smiles at Rilla as she goes back to fussing over Jims. The smile is fondly amused, but there's something else - a sadness. It is a look that is becoming familiar on his face.

Then he turns to her, and Una wishes she had brought her knitting, for she needs something to watch, to help her avoid eye contact. She feels very vulnerable without any distractions.

"I don't suppose there was anything I liked doing enough," she says. She doesn't add that, like Rilla, she doesn't quite aspire to anything that requires a degree, either.

"You like teaching piano," Rilla says, not taking her eyes off Jims.

Una shrugs. She does, but not in the manner of grand passion that drives Jem to medicine or Walter to poetry. She likes to play the piano, and she likes children, and she likes to help people - it's more the combination of those things than the occupation itself, she supposes.

She does not say any of those things and lets the topic slip her by. "Are you going to return to Redmond, Walter?"

Walter, who has been letting Jims pull at his hair, frowns. "Why?"

Una shifts, feeling awkward at his own discomfort. "I had a letter from Faith, and she was just wondering. That's all," she tries to reassure him.

He looks down at his hands, empty now that Jims has crawled back to Rilla. "I don't know. Not yet."

"I think you'd still be a good English professor," Rilla offers. "Ow! Jims!"

Walter looks alarmed. "Rilla?"

"He bit my nose!" Rilla gasps, a hand over the injured body part.

Walter chuckles - a real chuckle, and it is perhaps because of this that Rilla does not take offense to his amusement. "I'll go hand him off to Susan." He scoops up Jims and carries him off while the child makes sounds that sound suspiciously like laughter.

"He's good with Jims," Una notes. A brief thought comes to her mind, he would be a good father, and then she stamps it out.

Rilla props her hand on her chin. "Better than I am - sometimes," she says. "I've become much better with children. Do you think I'd be a good mother?"

It's not quite a non-sequitur, but it's enough out of the blue that Una blinks. "You?"

She doesn't mean it the way it sounds, but Rilla looks hurt. "Yes, me. I'm much less - silly, aren't I? Don't you think?"

There's something strangely serious in her eyes, and Una doesn't have the heart to tease, or be anything but honest. "Of course."

Rilla hugs her arms to herself for a moment. "Jem and Shirley still write to me like I'm a baby," she sighs. "Sometimes I think maybe I've fooled myself into thinking I'm more grown-up."

"Just think," Una says. "Before the war, we never spoke. Now - I think we're friends."

Rilla looks almost offended. "Of course we're friends, you - you goose."

Una's mouth opens. No one has ever called her a goose before. And then she has to laugh, and then the two of them are laughing together, and it feels like breathing out after holding it in for so long.

"How am I the goose?" she finally asks, when they both calm down. "You know you'd be a fine mother, Rilla."

Rilla looks embarrassed. "It's just - something - I've been thinking about, lately. Don't you wonder, sometimes?"

No, Una does not wonder. Somehow - deep within her bones - she knows she would be a good mother, if only somebody would want her. She would love her children as well as her own mother did, in Una's almost-faded memories. It is perhaps one of the only things she had never questioned.

Until, of course, the war.

"A little," she murmurs. "It's a while off yet, though, isn't it?"

Rilla hums a bit. "You're already twenty."

This stings, a bit. Yes, she is twenty. Twenty years old, and no boy has ever looked twice at her. "Ah, not all of us are as pretty as you, Rilla."

Rilla flushes delicately, as she is wont to do. "Yes, but - Walter!"

"Jims is taking a nap," he tells Rilla, and then he sits back down and they continue as normal.

Only - perhaps it is her imagination, wishful thinking, a seed of hope planted by Rilla's talk of children and marriage - but she thinks Walter glances at her every so often, a look on his face that she cannot pinpoint.