This is a bit of a different chapter, it ran away from me...also there is a much more explicit chapter over on A03 if anyone is interested. this has been edited down to a T level.
Hope everyone enjoys it.
Her journey to France starts as she pulls out Tess of the D'Uberville, having picked it up back at the Stonehenge gift shop. She had never read it before, but it seemed promising for an English classic.
Maybe she should have known better, as she finds herself bitterly swept up in a world of Tess and everything she goes through. She throws the book angrily, blushing as a young man picks it up for her: dirty blonde, almost ginger hair with glasses that made him look intelligent.
"Not to your taste? Hardy was known for making people question the standards of his time" He comments looking at the title. His accent was thick and unlike anything, she has heard before.
"It had hit a little too close to home," Una admits sighing.
"From which part?" He asks amused how a 21st-century woman could compare herself to Tess of the 1890s.
"I slept with who I thought was my best friend, got pregnant, didn't tell him when I decided not to keep it. He found out and turned it around to how horrible of a person I was that I left my hometown and now searching for something I can't pinpoint?" Una says to a stranger.
"Well then, luckily for you a modern-day Tess, you no longer live in Victorian England,"
"My name is Una," Una tells him.
"Alec," he said.
They chat for the rest of the train, before going separate ways. She was heading west, while he was heading south they found out as they part ways to switch trains. He shows a picture of a ginger tween who looks like him as he explains that he's coming to pick up his sister from his Aunts.
He's finished uni with a degree in English Lit, she was going to be an elementary school teacher if it all worked out. He's from Ireland, she's from Canada but has Irish heritage in her blood.
They say goodbye to each other switching trains and for the first time, Una finds herself feeling lonely after checking into her hotel.
For a change, she doesn't think of Walter, she thinks of the man on the train. He's the one who stays in her dreams this time around.
She makes peace with the unknown that plays out in her mind because she wasn't here to meet guys. She was here to find herself, or something or another, she still wasn't entirely sure what she is searching for.
Still, she finds that there is something sacred about wandering halls, envisioning the priests, nuns, and monks wandering down old stone walls. How many women prayed for happy marriages, and how many mothers prayed for healthy babies and or their children who were sick.
She herself prayed for own heart, the torture that came with her choices. How could someone not regret but regret at the same time?
Her fingers trace the cold stones of Mont St Michel abbey, the Island Abbey in Normandy.
What is it that she looking for? Forgiveness? Absolution? A firm reminder that she should never doubt the choices she had made?
While the trains, planes and sometimes busses were exhausting. Still, she never felt so alive and comforted under the archways and stainless windows that she travelled to.
She breaks for the lunch she picked up for herself, a demi-baguette, butter, cheese, and grapes sitting on a grassy area that could overlook the sea if you were in the right spot. The tide was slowly going back, revealing the sandy bed that surrounded the island.
She makes the trek through the small village, down stone roads and uneven steps that twist and turn finding herself at an old small chapel. A small one older than she ever imagined, with a small altar and old painting. Still, it calmed her, more than she thought it would, the monastery was breathtaking, but this was something completely different.
She learned to ask locals, was a church, an abbey, ruins even that potentially wasn't known about well on the Internet. More often enough there was always somewhere, a bus, a train away with directions and a smile good look.
With her bag packed with water and snacks, she ventured out for the day, allowing the sunlight, or rainfall to cleanse her soul.
The ruins of Temple de Lanleff, pink sandstone that no one quite knew the why it was there. Either way, Una found herself twirling around slowly with her eyes shut. Letting her imagination run wild with theories and stories in her head.
Every other day or so she found herself closer and closer to Paris, stopping by the Ruins of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, a place to wander and picnic. Or silently pray if you were Una.
She contacts her family at least twice a day, once in the morning, and another text when she is settled into her accommodations for the evening. Small, modest inns and hotels are her pick of choice. Usually with some sort of breakfast included for her to grab before she goes out for the day
Though this time the Inn she was checking into was run by an old friend of her fathers. It was even located in what felt like an old school or monastery? Though lucky the girl who was working the desk didn't seem to know who she was.
"It's you," she hears the familiar voice as she checks into her small inn.
"So it seems," Una says nodding her head. "I thought you were heading south?"
"My sister wanted another few days with our cousin, I enjoy the city so I came back to sight see?" he responds. "You seem oddly refreshed despite all the travelling you had planned."
"I had some good days of recollection," Una finds herself saying.
They eat dinner together because otherwise, it is strange to eat alone next to each other. They discuss poetry, in a way she's not used to. They argue over it, and it is exhilarating as they go back and forth. Reciting, debating the finer points of Keats and how much of a douche Shelley was, and how erotic Donne was. This wasn't Walter preaching poetry at all, telling her what things meant or how she should perceive them.
He walks her to her room, unlocking the door like a gentleman before bidding her goodnight.
She falls onto her bed with a sigh and a giggle.…who was this person?
If she was any other person she might do something completely un-Una-like. Didn't Faith once tell her the easiest way to get over someone is to get under someone? No that was not her at all.
So instead she stays up reading, music playing in her ears as she is transported back to another day and time.
I know heaven's a thing
I go there when you touch me
Honey hell is when I fight with you
She can still feel his touch, as awful as it is for her to remember. All this time and she can still feel the fire he started beneath her skin.
She lets the memory come full forward, wrapping her up in the lust they had felt. She could feel the ache in her lower stomach, the burning coil that taunted her now and then.
But we can patch it up good
Make confessions and we're begging for forgiveness
Got the wine for you
She doesn't know why she does it, as looks in the mirror. Dark hair and blue eyes, a silk nightdress that she had packed for no reason other than pure whimsey.
She knocks on his door, holding a bottle of wine she had bought. His eyes run down the length of her as he lets her into his room.
"I don't know what I'm doing," She tells him honestly. "I've never really done anything this bold before."
"Well, you have a solid beginning," Alec says as she looks up at him. Sealing the deal with a kiss, a kiss she didn't realize existed. Did it feel like this before? She wasn't sure anymore what was even real anymore.
The door closes behind them clumsily, as make tracks towards the bed, his shirt comes off, her palms cold against his warm stomach. He felt so different than her previous encounter with the male body in a way.
But we might just get away with it
Religion's in your lips
Even if it's a false god
We'd still worship
Lips were hot and wet as they made their way over her body which was already warm. Always silently asking with each new spot they found, it was sensory overload.
He's okay taking the reins it seems as her inexperience shows with each moment that passes.
"Tell me to stop anytime," he murmurs. "I mean it, we can always go back to discussing the finer points of Donne Poetry, even if in your words is highly impolite?" he recalls their dinner conversation.
Una shakes her head. "Donne was the foreplay," she tells him, pulling him up to kiss him properly. His hand trailed down the sides of her thighs, underneath the silk of her nightie.
We might just get away with it
The altar is my hips
Even if it's a false god
We'd still worship this love
"Clearly whoever broke your heart never showed you the real stuff," Alec responds as he kisses down her stomach. "Let me guess was obsessed with Byron and Keats, or was it, Shelley?
Her breath catches and she can feel herself grow hot. She can't find the words to answer him, she'll rebuttal Keats later. Right now….
Right now she didn't want to think about him…not with another.
"Condom," her eyes burst open as do her words. "Oh god, we don't have a…I am not trusting the one that is in your wallet either," she tells him.
She doesn't tell him she is on the pill, ever since that day at the hospital she's been on it. Better safer than sorry, but he's a stranger.
"Never keep it in the wallet," he breathes into the hollow of her neck before getting up and rifling through his bag for another bag, pulling out a box.
"I can't read the date, they might be old?" He says tossing her the box to look at. Una grabs it, squinting as she moves towards the light so she was on her stomach. "December 2023," she says grinning, "A full year of goodness."
"Hmmm, I'll fill you with the good?" He says crawling over top of her, kissing her exposed back and Una finds herself snorting. "Too Cheesy?"
"Thou knowest that this cannot be said, A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead," Una recites for him."
"God that is hot," He groans, she twists beneath him so he leans back letting her settle back among the pillows.
She wakes up slightly confused and cold from the cool breeze that is coming through the window of the room. There is a strong arm around her middle, and she is still very much au natural.
It has to be early, she doesn't know how early but suddenly she hears a rooster crowing loudly so it has to be a worry. She groans trying to muffle the sound hiding her head under the pillow and then she hears chuckling.
"Morning sleepy-head," he kisses the back of her shoulder.
"That rooster needs to be shot," Una groans once more.
"Not the cock you were hoping for this morning?" Alec replies grinning against her shoulder, or so it feels like.
"That is…."Una stammers blushing. "I should go call my family before they worry about me."
"Stay, I will show you Paris and then I will put you on your train and watch you leave."
"You make it sound like I am disappearing."
"You will eventually go back to Canada,"
"And you will go back to Ireland," Una reminds him. "I'll download WhatsApp and we'll stay in touch."
"Good, because I don't think I ever want to forget about you," he says kissing the back of her neck.
"We only have one more left," Una tells him.
"Well, you are catching a train later tonight," He responds reminding her.
"You never told me why you are in Paris?" Una turns to ask him.
"I left early to spend some time in the city. I have a few friends here still, plus Deirdre is expecting me until tomorrow evening." He tells her, kissing her nose, pulling her closer. Una sighs catching his lips.
He takes her around Paris when they finally make it out of bed. Leaving her bed in a storage locker at the train station that she would be leaving from later that day. Through Arc to Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower in the morning sun to Notre Dame in the early afternoon where he watches her roam around. Amused and intrigued at her response to being in such a place. Dressed in a sundress and her hair hanging down her back in a loose braid.
Still looking for answers that haven't come to her yet, and at this point was beginning to wonder when they would.
Every once in a while she would find herself smiling and waving at an infant. A pang goes through her heart. She still knows she made the best decision for herself, but even the best decision comes with moments of self-doubt.
She looks over at Alec who has most likely seen it all before just standing back and watching her explore, taking photos for her when she asked, and sometimes when he just wanted to capture a moment.
Their last adventure is the catacombs, where he sees become pensive and withdrawn. Or maybe it was respect for the dead he settles with, as she pulls her cardigan around her shoulders.
Death, bones, of the long lost and dead. A subtle hand on her lower stomach, no regrets but still she wonders sometimes as she calculated the time that had passed. What might have been if things had been different?
She might have a child, she might be stuck in some toxic situation with him. Not browsing Paris with a guy she barely knew yet spent the night with? The shook off the guilt, not wanting to ruin her day as she turns and brightly smile at him.
She grasps the ruby cross that sat in the hollow of her breasts, after what felt like a jolt ran through her body.
Mothers acceptance?
"Should I be afraid of how at peace you look in a tunnel made of human bones?" Alec jests and Una merely shrugs.
"I live with one foot constantly in the realm of darkness and melancholy," Una says simply. "It's always been a cloak that has been draped over me. I have learned to accept it as it is I suppose?"
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," Una says quoting from the top of her read.
"Poe, very classical," Alec agrees. "Cloaked in darkness and melancholy, yet you are the sun of my day?" Alec replies say sweetly
He snaps a photo of her to prove his point.
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.
He whispers in her ear.
"I thought I told you no Byron?" She tells him.
"I thought I would give you something to remind you that you can enjoy Byron if you think of me," he grins catching the edge of her lips. Ignoring the people around them, though to anyone they just seemed like a couple who were in the city of love together.
They part ways at the train station, she was off to Germany and he was going to collect his sister.
"Don't go disappearing on me," he tells me.
"I still have to change your mind about Keats," Una reminds him, holding his hands nervously as the train pulls in.
"I look forward to it." He replies. He kisses her swiftly before he watches her board the train, her bag in tow.
She settles into her seat, pulling out her phone to call her sister.
In order of Italics
False God by Taylor swift.
The Flea by John Donne
The Raven- Edgar Allan Poe
Darkness-Lord Byron.