Oops, sorry I'm such a flop at updating. I actually don't think I replied to signed reviews this time either, so - I'm really sorry; to everyone who reviewed, thank you for reviewing, and thank you for sticking with this universe and story :)
Also, re: Stripey - you know, I have no idea. I'm torn between having Bruce actually deal with the consequences of drowning his cat (instead of everyone just being like, "How noble of him to drown his pet to bring Jem back!" - no one thought it was weird that Bruce was willing to sacrifice his pet for Jem, and not one of his own brothers? Man), and just keeping Stripey alive because God in heaven, that chapter was horrifying. We'll see! If anyone wants to chip in, feel free.
Written for the prompt "a succession of ordinary days." Title from "Goodnight New York" by (who else?) Vienna Teng.
somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings
Summer passes warm and hazy, and they find their own rhythm, atypical as it may be - it had been simple, Walter guesses, for Jem and Faith, and Nan and Jerry; they never had to fear casualty lists or nighttime terrors. There are times when their happiness feels wrong, in the midst of all this worry and death, or when things should be perfectly wonderful but Jerry hasn't written in weeks and no sweet words or kisses can unfurrow Una's brow.
They figure it out, somehow.
They have so much to learn about each other, still, and the first few weeks are full of discovery. Walter doesn't know how he has gone for ten years without knowing of the softness of her hair between his fingers, of the way she sighs into his mouth, of the two freckles over her collarbone.
"You can't kiss me there," she says with a laugh, the day he finds them, tugging her collar away just enough to reach the sharp curve of bone.
"Too late," he says, smiling against her skin for a moment before letting her go, and she traces the scars on his neck with her hands and her mouth, the promise of soon, soon thrumming between them.
"Oh," Una says one day, when he leans into her and she falls back against the White Lady, their bodies pressed together. In the summer they don't wear quite as many layers, and he can feel her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest against his own.
He pulls back, just a bit, to restore some semblance of propriety between them - he supposes it doesn't really matter, not in the valley far from the road - but then, he has spent so long fighting and surviving that perhaps he wants to feel proper, like a man, even where no one can see.
They simply sit, for a while, leaning against each other, Una's fingers carding through his hair.
"Where did you get this?" she asks gently, her fingers brushing against a scar at his temple.
Walter smiles against her neck. "Fell out of the apple tree at Green Gables when I was nine."
"Oh," she says again.
"Dad was furious," he says, the memory resurfacing. "I think, later, he was just scared. But he yelled for what seemed like hours."
Una gives a little laugh; he feels it more than hears it. Then she sighs, and he feels that, too.
"I don't think I've ever done such a thing," she says. "Jerry and Faith and Carl, though…"
"You're so different from them," Walter muses. He knows, of course, that not all siblings are the same - his own family is proof of that - but the other three Meredith siblings are so similar in their energy, their frankness. Una, by contrast, is remarkably quiet and soft. "I think you would've liked climbing trees, though."
"I was always afraid I was going to fall," she says.
"That part is frightening," he admits. "But when you don't - when you sit at the top and see the world below you - I think you would've liked that. And," he adds, finding her hand and lacing his fingers through hers, "I would have climbed with you."
He feels her turn and press her mouth against his hair for a moment, before she shifts back and leans on him. It can only be a passing fancy, bound as they are these days to the earth and green grass.
"I like it here, though," Una says. "Where we are now."
Walter does, too.
The second Tuesday in July, Rilla and Miss Oliver end up only somewhat rudely inserting themselves into one of their trysts, but Walter cannot bring himself to mind much. It's true that he and Una have a tendency to disappear, lately, in a way that makes Miss Cornelia raise her eyebrows at Mother when she thinks Walter isn't looking.
Rilla is talking animatedly about Jims, while Miss Oliver groans and sighs over another of her premonitions. The Russians have or have not done something or another, and it will all end quite badly, in Miss Oliver's opinion. Rilla frowns at the dark cloud overhanging her nineteenth birthday.
Poor kid, Walter thinks. He remembers nineteen - carefree, wonderful nineteen, with a whole life ahead of him, a world he had wanted to run towards with his arms wide. Never thinking, never expecting, that things would turn out like this.
The war can't last forever. He tells himself this, every day. And no matter what comes, he has survived - can continue to survive. And he is not alone, not anymore.
He feels Una rest her head on his shoulder, and when he turns to look, he finds her making a face at him, in response to Rilla and Miss Oliver's dramatics. Walter laughs, a little surprised - Una has never been one to make faces. He is glad to see it though, glad that she trusts him with this part of her. He laughs and so does she.
They figure it out, somehow, and it is all right.