Hello and thank you for taking a peek at this story. I am new to this fandom but not new to this fabulous, fun film, which has for over a decade now been my go-to pick me up – and the film that received quite a lot of repeat viewings last year during the world's Year of Lockdown. I hope you are well, wherever in the world you are, and feeling more hopeful as we all try to move forward.

I can usually be found in the Anne of Green Gables book fandom, but after much procrastination, am indulging some of my other loves, because firstly life's too short, and secondly to help get my creative juices flowing on my other stories. I look forward to getting to know the writers and readers here, and the other great offerings. If you are an Anne-girl who has followed me over out of sheer curiosity (or you are shaking your head at my insanity, and wondering when on earth I might update for you rather than start yet another story) thank you, and please know I haven't forgotten you!

This story will take place both in the film-present (with a few diversions set prior to the start of the film) and 18 months into the future. All quotes from the film are in italics.

With best wishes

MrsVonTrapp x

IT TAKES TWO TO MAKE A THING GO RIGHT

Chapter One

Swallows' Song

NEW YORK

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO

Margaret

The tattoo had obviously been a terrible idea; borne of youth, anger and grief, and a rashness she subsequently never revisited. It had hurt in a way that made her feel real and potent and alive; the pain was so much more preferable to the numbness that permeated her, though she could have done without the itchiness, most certainly, and the dressings had been a nightmare.

Andrew later jokingly wondered had she gotten a tattoo of barbed wire; and it was true that her life had become an exclusive, luxurious, regimented prison. But the swallows represented freedom, and flight, and she had loved the legend that swallows return to the same location every year to mate and nest, as her parents did… or had.

For the girl who was terrified of the water and never learned to swim, it was ironic that swallows were historically the prime choice of body art for British sailors, to denote their experience and nautical miles travelled, and that they acted as a talisman; a tattoo of them supposedly guaranteeing the sailor would return home safely. But mostly, she had chosen the swallows because she had read that if a sailor drowns, the swallows would carry their soul to heaven. It felt, for her parents, like an additional guarantee.

A few years previously she had toyed with the idea of laser removal; trying to explain her swallows to the rare man who crossed her path (or, more specifically, her bed) had been tedious and tiresome, and exposed a great, gaping vulnerability she would rather not share. She had thought maybe it was time; that she should release herself from the shackles of the past; that the bewildered, bereft teenager she had been was no more, merely a speck in the rear-view mirror; that she could remember her parents, and honour them as a daughter, in other ways.

But she found she could not do it. It would be like divorcing something precious from herself. There were so few things she now had in common with the girl she had once been that if she erased this thing, would anything remain?

Andrew

Q-Switched Laser Treatment. Andrew had asked the Google gods this as he asked much of them throughout his regular day, which was not essentially a regular day but more a series of chaotic and increasingly dangerous episodes whereby he flung himself into traffic, pushed past innocent people in queues, bulldozed through colleagues waiting for lifts, and otherwise acted as if attempting desperate escape from the authorities.

His life hadn't always been so frantic; infact back home the pace was decidedly slower and gentler, if often idling in neutral. As he had found his life was, after a time. It had seemed to him a natural progression rather than an incomprehensible leap; he and Gert would graduate, elope and strike out together, biting their chunk out of the Big Apple, and savoring the tartness as well as the sweetness of the juices.

When Gert had said, regrettably, no to his proposal, he knew on a cellular level she was not refusing him at all, but rather acknowledging that there had been a shift; that their dreams were different; that she could not follow where he needed to go, and that if he didn't go he would forever lose an essential facet of himself. Gertrude wanted to solidify her roots, but Andrew yearned to test his wings. She had understood this dichotomy and the impasse it rendered far better than he.

He hadn't spent much time musing over Margaret's possible hidden tattoo, tantalizing (and strangely unlikely) as the idea was; as they flew later that day towards his family – and their newly entwined fates – he had unleashed his sarcasm as a genie uncorked; So what is it? Tribal ink? Japanese calligraphy? Barbed wire? It would later surprise and shame him to learn how different the truth really was.

Truth. He had scrambled out of bed that morning, late and lunging past people with his lattes, knowing at least some essential truths about himself and Margaret Tate. That she was both an editorial inspiration and evil incarnate. That navigating her ridiculous requests and cutting comments and snide surliness was still his best pathway to an unequalled professional experience and his long-held authorial and editorial dreams. That the sacrifice of his free time and freedom, relationships, his family – and possibly his sanity - would be worth it in the end when weighed in the balance.

He still might sing his victory song. He hoped it wouldn't become a warbling lament.

Notes

My story title is of course referencing a line from the song It Takes Two – naturally the Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock version!

Apologies for a very short first chapter! Believe me, this is not typical of me at all! Brevity may be the soul of wit, but I can assure you future chapters will have a lot more meat to them.