8th December 1943

Elizabeth sat on the train, staring out the window with her blue eyes and gently running her fingers over her right hand. A dark shadow crept upon over her face as she thought about a moment that happened a few days ago:

"What?" Liz asked incredulously, sitting up, "t' London!?"

"Yeah, it is best for you if you're treated in a civilian 'ospital far away from 'ere."

She looked at Bert for a moment.

„Yer jokin' aren't you?"

"No," Bert lit a cigarette, "I'm serious."

Liz's disbelieving gaze remained glued to Bert as the smoke rose towards the sky; His eyes followed the small cloud.

"Don't look at me like that, you know as well as I do that it's for the best," he said without looking at her.

She tried to persuade him, she actually begged him to let her stay with him.
But it shouldn't be like that. Only Basil was allowed - or better: had - to stay with Bert.
And as if he had known, on the evening of the conversation she had this strange gut feeling that told her to move on.

And now she was sitting on the train to London with this feeling.
But there was another feeling. One she couldn't interpret. And this feeling was directed at a little boy - about 12 years old - who was sitting diagonally across from her and kept looking at her with amusement.

The boy had blue eyes, a pleasant paleness and his hair was auburn.
He reminded her of herself when she was that age.

She tried to concentrate on the upcoming stop in London and heaved her heavy backpack onto her shoulders. But the boy continued to look at her so intently.
Maybe he was making fun of her because she stood there awkwardly with her crutches or because of the countless plasters on her face.

"What's 'is freakin' problem with me?" she thought as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Well… find out," a young voice echoed in her head and the moment the train doors opened, the boy ran out of the carriage onto the large platform.

Elizabeth's eyes widened and she froze for a moment before pushing through the crowd and hobbling after the boy as fast she could with her injuries and crutches.

"Stop!" she shouted over and over in her mind, hoping he would hear her.

She hobbled a few more meters before she stopped, completely exhausted and hunched over, gasping for air. She clung to her crutches and her knuckles turned white. She was breathing so heavily that even her clavicles were showing up.

"I don't think Bert would like it if he saw you running around the station like a crazy person."

Liz' head snapped up and in front of her stood Mary Poppins alongside the boy and another young man she never saw before.

"I doubt she cares what anyone thinks," the boy said sarcastically, leaning against a post with his arms crossed.

Her astonished face was covered by dark clouds and she built up in front of the boy: "If I were you, I wouldn't be so cheeky, young man!"

"Elizabeth!" Mary admonishes, "I would say that we move our little meeting home."

—

While Mary and Paul (as the young man was called) prepared dinner, Liz sat slumped in the armchair and watched the boy, whose name was Sam.

The two strangers hadn't introduced themselves more than their names. Mary wanted to do this in peace after dinner and Sam didn't said a word since then. But he provoked Liz immensely because she finally wanted to know what was going on with him and his blonde friend.

But despite everything, she somehow trusted them both.
Especially Paul.
He was wearing a uniform because he was also sent back to England on that day.

She was torn from her thoughts when Paul came around the corner with the roast: "Dinner!"

Mary came with a gravy boat and sat down at the table where the other two had already taken their seats.
Elizabeth remained in the armchair for a moment and watched the three as they prepared their dinner on their plates.

"Wouldn't you like to join your step-cousins and me?" Mary asked and Liz could hear a smile.

The young woman opened her eyes and spun around like lightning. But this was a mistake: everything hurt and she moaned painfully.

"What!?"

She heaved herself onto the crutches and hobbled over to the others.

"Cousins?"

"Just sit down and we'll explain everything to you," interjected Paul, who was giving her a plate.

Elizabeth was confused. How could they be her cousins? She didn't even know what her relationship with Mary was.
Her eyes wandered to Sam, who was sitting there amused, enjoying his roast. She was sure that the annoying little dwarf knew more than she did.

"Paul and Sam are my brother's sons. That means, they're also part of the Poppins family. So… They are basically your cousins in a certain way."

Liz' jaw dropped slightly. Did she just hear that right? She sat across from her cousin for half the train ride and didn't notice?
On the other hand, that would explain the visual similarity.
Only Paul looked different: he was blonde, stocky and slightly shorter than Elizabeth.

She wondered if she had often crossed paths with other family members without knowing.
Maybe she already met her parents but no one knew?

A strange feeling spread in her head and she felt like she was being watched.
Sam started giggling and she immediately dismissed her thoughts. She glared at him: "Can you please stop rummaging through my thoughts? Thanks!"

Mary paused and looked back and forth between Sam and Elizabeth a few times before stopping at the latter: "You notice when Sam is reading your mind?"

"Yeah?" Elizabeth asked in surprise.

"She can even talk to me in her mind."

The nanny lowered her fork and had to process this information for a moment. Elizabeth's magical abilities went far beyond what the rest of the Poppins family could do.
This could only mean one thing: that the other parent also came from a magical family.

The young woman noticed that Mary was thinking about something serious. She briefly considered whether she should try to read her own thoughts, but immediately rejected the idea - it wasn't appropriate to snoop into other people's most private thoughts.

Sam didn't care though; he looked into Mary's head: "Aunt Mary is thinking about the fact that both of your parents must be magical and that's why you have so many magical abilities."

"Sam!" Mary and Liz admonished in unison.

The two women looked at each other again before returning to their dinner, remaining silent for the time being before moving on to more trivial topics.
Elizabeth's health, for example.
Mary and Paul encouraged her to continue receiving treatment in the hospital, just as Bert wanted.
Liz -stubborn as she was- didn't want this. She didn't want to take away valuable space from someone with serious injuries.
So she decided to stay in the apartment and take care of herself. With the help of others, of course.

—

In the evening, Elizabeth sat at the open window and looked at the stars.
She was thinking about so many things at the same time and couldn't organize her thoughts.

She thought about Bert, Peter and Johnny, who were still at the front.
She thought about Basil having to cope without her.
She thought about Hans, fighting somewhere and wearing a uniform with emblems that he hated and despised.

But then there were other thoughts too; The thoughts that revolved around Mary and her two new family members, Sam and Paul.

As luck would have it, the latter's voice pulled her out of her thoughts: "It's certainly strange for you to see something other than battlefields and uniforms, am I right?"

Elizabeth lowered her gaze a little and kneaded her hands: "Yeah..." she looked up again, "for you too, right?"

Paul adjusted his uniform jacket before he also sat down on the windowsill: "Yes."

The young woman looked him up and down and saw that his ice blue eyes were fixed somewhere in the distance on the horizon. She wondered where he had fought and what he had experienced.

"Italy."

Her eyes widened: could they both read minds?

"No, I can't read minds," he now looked directly at her and smiled sadly, "but I've been watching you looking at my uniform all evening. And honestly, I get it. On the one hand you want to leave all this behind you, but on the other hand you also want to talk to someone about it."

"Exactly."

Silence.

They both looked out the window for a while before the young woman spoke up again: "What was the worst thing for you at the front?"

Paul stiffened and furrowed his eyebrows. He didn't look at her and Elizabeth could hear the grinding of his teeth as he clenched his jaw.
Her gaze slid down to his hands and she saw his fingers digging into the wood of the windowsill.
All Paul showed in that moment was disgust and pure hatred.

"The killing."

His voice was now completely different than it had been all evening. The warm, soft tone was now ice cold and harsh. A shiver ran down Elizabeth's spine and she subconsciously shifted a few centimeters away from him.

"Shattering of dreams. Wiping out lives."

Liz looked at his profile: she could see that it was extremely stressful for him in many ways.

"I understand," she said hoarsely, "luckily I was spared that…"

With her thin fingers she pulled her little book out of the breast pocket of her jacket and showed Paul the last page with the countless lines.

"Every line represents a person I couldn't save."

Paul looked at the page and was silent for a moment before looking at her with ice-cold eyes: "If I kept a list like that with people I have killed, the list would be at least twice as long."

Without taking her eyes off him, she put the book away again.
Thoughts came into her head that she didn't want to have.
Thoughts that she wanted to push away but couldn't.

How many lives did Bert have on his conscience?

Long time no see

I hope you forgive me for not uploading a chapter in ALMOST A YEAR...

I actually wanted to have something new uploaded by May 30, 2023 at the latest because that would have been Liz's 100th birthday.

And I actually wanted to finish the story completely on December 3rd because that was the day I published the first chapter 5 years ago.
But we're only in 1943 and the story ends in 1946. So: It doesn't work.

But I have motivation to write more often again ;)

And as always, I would be VERY happy about your feedback :-)