#level 7 course london

[sbusinesstechnologylondon]

What are the Most Demanded cmi level 7 courses in London?

Advanced training and strategic thinking help today's leaders stand out in the competitive business world. If you are a leader aiming for top leadership and management roles, the CMI Level 7 course in London is the perfect choice. These internationally recognised certifications provide the essential skills needed to excel as a manager or leader.

In London, the demand for CMI Level 7 courses is exceptionally high. Because London is the hub of business schools, offering world-class education and resources.

How do CMI Level 7 Courses in London help Leaders and Managers?

CMI Level 7 Courses in London are made for experienced leaders and managers to improve their skills and advance in their careers.

- Build Strategic Thinking

Develops the ability to create and implement long-term business strategies that align with organisational goals.

- Improve Leadership Skills

Helps managers become better leaders by motivating their teams and creating a positive work environment.

- Facilitates Change Management

Provide leaders with the tools to manage and implement change effectively, making sure transitions are smooth during growth or restructuring.

- Supports Career growth

Prepares leaders for higher-level roles like Director, CEO, or COO by developing their strategic and leadership expertise.

How to Choose the Right CMI Level 7 Course?

Think About Your Career Goals and Aspirations

Before you choose a CMI Level 7 course, take a moment to think about your career. Ask yourself where you see yourself in the next 3 to 5 years. Do you want a senior management role, or are you looking to improve your strategic skills to help your company grow?

Pick a course that fits your goals. For example, if you want to become a CEO or Director, a CMI Level 7 Diploma In Strategic Management And Leadership might be the best choice for you.

Check for Accreditation and Recognition

Make sure the CMI Level 7 course is accredited by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). The CMI qualification is highly respected, but you should also check if the provider is well-known and has good connections with business schools and companies.

Look for accredited qualifications UK to ensure the course meets high standards.

Consider How You Want to Learn

CMI Level 7 courses are offered both online and in-person in the UK. If a leader has a busy work schedule, the CMI Level 7 course UK online learning option could be a good choice. Online learning allows leaders to study at their own pace while managing work and other commitments. Make sure the online course includes interactive sessions, assignments, and assessments.

If you are planning to improve your leadership and management skills, the CMI Level 7 Qualification in Strategic Management and Leadership, one of the most in-demand CMI Level 7 courses in London.

What is CMI Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership?

In today’s competitive business environment, having the right leadership and management qualifications uk is essential for career advancement.

This is one of the most sought-after cmi qualifications for senior managers and aspiring leaders to help professionals sharpen their strategic thinking and develop the leadership skills needed to drive organisational success.

Who Is It For?

This level 7 diploma in strategic management and leadership is ideal for senior managers, directors, or those looking to step into high-level leadership roles. Whether you are already in a leadership position or aiming to progress into one, the course is tailored to help you develop the advanced skills needed for roles such as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Director, or Operations Manager.

Level 7 diploma in strategic management and leadership is equivalent to a master’s degree or an MBA in the UK.   

This course is designed for professionals to lead organisations, develop corporate strategies, and inspire high-performing teams. As the demand for cmi level 7 courses UK grows, this cmi leadership and management qualifications in the uk stands out by offering robust career development pathways and giving professionals a competitive edge in the job market.

How is this cmi level 7 strategic management and leadership delivered?

The CMI Level 7 Strategic Management and Leadership course is delivered through online learning, making it easy for busy professionals to study from anywhere. This course is popular in the UK and is perfect for those who want to improve their leadership skills while managing work and personal commitments.

Many online courses providers offer the cmi level 7 courses with flexible schedules, recorded classes, and easy access to study materials. This helps students learn at their own pace. By choosing this course, you can gain a valuable cmi qualification through uk online courses with certificates without needing to attend in-person classes.

CMI also provides level 5 courses in leadership and management. The CMI Level 5 qualifications in Leadership and Management are offered as a Diploma, Certificate, or Award. It provides flexible online learning options in the UK to help managers develop key leadership skills and advance their careers.

Find the Right Online Course Provider in UK for CMI Qualification

Choosing the right online course provider in the UK is crucial if you’re looking to advance your career with a CMI Level 7 Strategic Management and Leadership course.

The School of Business & Technology London (SBTL), a best business school in London, offers flexible online courses with certificates in London, making it easier for professionals to study without leaving their  job.

Read more: https://sbusinesslondon.ac.uk/what-are-the-most-demanded-cmi-level-7-courses-in-london

[watkinsglen]

Review: “My Investing Journey and Learning” by Carmen Mundt

Qualifications: I’m a journalist reporting on business, economics, and defense who’s been in the industry for 7 years — the last 3 have been at, debatably, the #1 business publication in the world.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Thoughts: I cannot believe I spent 39 euros on this.

This 39 page ebook provides incredibly basic information that can all be found in this article.

First: while the ebook is about 40 pages, it probably has about 10 pages of actual information in it, interspersed with inspirational quotes from Sheryl Sandberg and Warren Buffet, with some pictures of Carmen in Monaco.

There’s about 1 page of “introduction” from Carmen that talks about her upbringing and journey to university in London. I won’t comment too much on her personal story, but an important thing to note is that she says she came from a “traditional Spanish household” where her father was the breadwinner and her mother had no access to family finances. After the 2008 crash, her family couldn’t afford to send her to college. She moved to London, applied for a student loan, and began studying finance at a university while working part time.

Carmen very, very briefly mentioned her regrets as to her mother’s inability to access higher education, work, and family financial planning; she says she’d never want to be in that position. While literally only one sentence, I think it makes it clear who the audience for this ebook is: someone who has absolutely, positively, no idea about money.

(She also very, very briefly mentions “big changes in her personal life” that made a full-time job in finance “not sustainable,” leading to her move to Monaco. This is her only reference to George.)

The rest of the book very simply explains how to make a budget, set financial goals, invest in the stock market, and mitigate risk. The information was kinda factually correct, and was written in a coherent manner. I think that’s the highest praise I can give it.

Here’s the thing: like other reviewers have called out, I am pretty certain that Carmen didn’t write anything besides the introduction. Whole sections (and indeed the entire format of the ebook) were clearly ripped from the Female Invest introductory courses. (I spent 3 hours clicking through each course so I could find direct wording comparisons to make this claim. I really wouldn’t recommend it.) I do think she edited these sections, and she interjected a few personal sentences; but I believe that’s where her involvement ended.

From an expert perspective, a lot of the information is so simplistic as to be almost incorrect. This isn’t a “first day of Econ 101” ebook — this is a “freshman year of high school home ec class” ebook. (Did anyone else’s home ec classes teach budgeting, or just me?)

Here’s an example. In a section on stocks, Carmen/Female Invest writes: “Investing in stocks allows you to support companies and causes you care about while still making a profit.”

On a basic level, this is correct. Purchasing a stock technically means you’re buying a little bit of a company, and I guess therefore supporting it. But unless a company is IPOing, you’re buying those stocks from another investor — which means your purchase has no effect on the company. So it’s a little disingenuous to claim you’re somehow helping the company. The ebook is rife with this kind of thing.

Carmen pushed in her advertising posts that the Female Invest courses were a key supplement to her book. So obviously, I had to do those too. And holy shit, they were so much worse than the ebook. Some parts were blatantly incorrect on basic information (they claim markets are open 24/7, when most are only open 9am-4:30pm on weekdays) and have some of the most patronizing metaphors I have ever read. (One of the most egregious was comparing your investment portfolio to a pizza because “stocks, bonds, and ETFs” make up different “sizes of slices to make a whole pie”. This isn’t even an accurate equivalent — maybe a calzone, pasta, and pizza make up a whole meal? I don’t even know.)

I would not recommend buying this ebook unless you, too, were barred from even thinking about a stock by your traditional father. Even then, consider free sources.

A Disclaimer on disclosures: So, after @ohblimeygeorge sent me a reddit post also reviewing Carmen’s book that mentioned ad disclosures, I decided to dive into the regulations. In the U.S., influential advertising is regulated by the FTC — in the EU, it’s regulated by the EU Commission, which I believe Carmen would qualify under since she is a Spanish citizen who lives in Monaco. First, I looked at this legal brief on content monetization business models, and concluded that that the ebook likely falls under “affiliate marketing” as Carmen likely receives a percentage of each ebook sold through her link.

(An additional disclaimer: obviously, I don’t know the details of the deal Carmen has with Female Invest, but I’d think it unlikely that she isn’t getting paid for their collaboration. She mentioned in an Instagram story under her Female Invest highlight that she “tried purchasing equity but they were already too big for what I could afford” but “did buy a bit of their crowdfunding.” Since she doesn’t have equity, i.e. doesn’t own a piece of the company, it’d be weird if she was doing this for free.)

Back on topic. I next looked at this legal brief on advertising disclosures. It states that affiliate marketing must be disclosed: “you need to make sure your audiences understand that it’s advertising.” Disclosures can include hashtags and “mentioning” advertising in the caption. Carmen has not disclosed advertising in any of her Female Invest posts, and appears to be violating this regulation. (Interestingly, her only posts that follow disclosure requirements are her Tommy posts.)

It’s apparently not uncommon. An EU Commission study showed 80% of influencers in the EU do not properly disclose ads.

So, there’s that too.

[youryurigoddess]

After a brief but necessary interlude, we’re back to clowning about the ongoing Good Omens production, this time in a slightly more analytic fashion. Appropriate level of discretion is even more advisable — due to the obvious sensitivity of this material, please tag it accordingly and share only with the fans consenting to know potential spoilers.

The Teal Bookshop (and yes, I’m trying to be clever here — the walls of Till’s Bookshop in Edinburgh are painted in a dangerously similar shade to Teal We Meet Again) is not a modernised or parallel-dimension iteration of the A. Z. Fell and Co. Building, but an entirely separate establishment located in a short distance from it.

How do we know it? The sheer fact that the crew decided to film it on location instead of redressing the Soho set is certainly a clue, but it’s not all. The street signs used for the filming on Monday were labelled as Nannette Street and Oldburgh Street, belonging to the City of Westminster Borough (W1) in London. Of course, neither actually exists on the map, but just like Whickber Street is an in-universe equivalent of real-life Berwick Street, these two must also have their respective identities.

Option one: Nannette Street is an in-universe equivalent of Winnett Street.

In this scenario, the Teal Bookshop’s suggested location in real-life London could become 77 Wardour Street (remember how God likes Her sevens!), which happens to be the address of the Duke of Wellington, a similarly painted, spacious, two-storey Soho gay bar.

Photos courtesy of @rhosmeinir (left) and Nadia M via Google Maps (right).

This would make some sense orientation-wise: across the street from the bookshop set we could spot an entrance to the local park and a small park booth marked as “Soho Coffee”, whereas a London passersby would face St Anne's Churchyard, also known as St Anne's Gardens, a public park on Wardour Street.

Everyone focused on Aziraphale and his hair, but the coffee stand behind him clearly shows where we are in this scene! Courtesy of alphaleym on Twitter.

The whole original church was left burned out on the night of 24 September 1940 during the Blitz, apart from the tower, which was left derelict. The remains of the eastern wall, the only significant parts left standing, were demolished thirteen years later, the site deconsecrated and prepared for sale, and the parish amalgamated with its neighbours. The religious complex standing in the same place nowadays was opened only in 1991.

Option two: Nannette Street is an in-universe equivalent of Manette Street in Soho, named after a character from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. You know, the book that Aziraphale was actively selling in the 1859 scene cut from S1 and known nowadays as the “street urchin scene”.

Manette Street is a small thoroughfare that connects Charing Cross Road to Greek Street. Established in the 1690s, a bit after Aziraphale bought land in the area, it was originally called Rose Street before being renamed after Dr Manette, a character from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities who is described in the novel as living on a quiet street corner “not far from Soho Square” and spent eighteen years in secret as a prisoner in the Bastille prior to the French Revolution.

The Hercules Pillars, bar mentioned by Dickens in his 1859 novel, and a façade of the temporarily closed Simmons bar at 7 Greek Street with a visible entrance to Manette Street as the covered walkway on the left. (Photos via MyLondon and Campaign for Real Ale.)

Now, this street has some historical significance concerning anarchist movements in the 19th century. The Rose Street Club, which once occupied premises here, was renowned as a gathering place for radicals from various nations. And these crumbs of context seemingly strengthening my old theories about Aziraphale eventually considering revolution instead of reform in Heaven are not even the most interesting here.

Remember that time when I hyperfixated on Aziraphale’s desk contents enough to decipher a random historical document and proceed to research it further on location in London? And then found an unexpected connection between said document and another one in the bookshop, discovering a possible Aziraphale’s secret investigation?

A historic plate on Greek Street marking the buildings owned by Josiah Wedgwood and his company.

Manette Street branches off Greek Street, Soho, exactly between houses numbered respectively 6 and 7, right next to the epicentre of these theories — Wedgwood’s showrooms located at 12-13 Greek Street with the adjacent area formerly known as Wedgwood Mews, currently James Court. Conveniently, there’s also a public park in the area, Soho Square.

The wind of change for this neighbourhood came with the arrival of Foyles bookstore in 1904. Its owners, brothers William and Gilbert Foyle, rebuilt the southside of Manette Street to expand the bookstore in 1916 and again in 1929. In the result, it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and of the number of titles on display.

Foyles Bookshop, corner of Manette Street and Charing Cross Road as seen from the latter, London, 5 November 1955.

Foyles moved out the shop to its new home further down the road in June 2014, and the family company itself was soon sold to Waterstones. As part of a large redevelopment, the whole site was cleared, and a new and quite distinctive office block was created — and in doing so, also the new courtyard and alleyway, which design are somewhat reminiscent of the yet undiscovered parts of the S2 Soho set behind the Dirty Donkey.

Assuming that we know where we are at this point, let’s move on to the next question: what can Aziraphale and Crowley be doing here? Looking for a specific book, perhaps? Like the one Crowley appears to be transporting in some of the BTS shots? Let me know what you think, just remember to hide your spoilers!

[ladykailitha]

Of Butterflies and Backstrokes Part 14

Here were at the penultimate chapter. Just one more chapter to go and I am so proud of this little story. I know I said that yesterday but it is just such a good story.

The final chapter will be up on Friday!

In this we a misunderstanding, Eddie gets advice from his new roommate, Dr. Hughes is a saint.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13

*throws cliffhanger at you and runs!*

~

Steve had been to a lot of places when he competed but nothing was quite like London, England.

The city was massive for a start. And ancient in ways America just isn’t. Steve, Wayne, and Robin had book their flight through Gatwick instead of Heathrow to save on money and so they arrived ahead of the athletes. Which game them time to see a bit of the city.

Robin squealed with delight when she got to ride on the top of a double-decker bus.

“The only thing that would make this better is if it was purple and had a third level!” she said excitedly.

Max had introduced Robin to Harry Potter and there was no going back. She was a Ravenclaw of course. And a good portion of her clothes were in blue or silver. There was no way to get the original blue and bronze from the book for love or money, much to her dismay.

Wayne just shook his head. He didn’t veer far from his sports and shows, but he did enjoy a good British mystery. Him and Eddie watched Sherlock. Though, everyone watched Doctor Who religiously every Saturday on Steve’s big screen TV.

They traveled over the London Bridge, the real one and not the Tower Bridge that everyone confuses it to be. It’s a regular suspension bridge. Which Robin thought was lame.

They arrived at their hotel and Steve and Robin went into one room and Wayne went into the other. Once they were showered and changed, they went to go meet Eddie at the airport. They waited by the baggage claim for him to arrive.

They saw a bunch of athletes pile out of security and they jumped up and down trying to find in the crowd.

Wayne spotted him first. He waved his arm in the air. “Eddie!”

Those chocolate button eyes lit up as Eddie heard his name being called. Suddenly Steve and Robin were joining in and calling his name too.

He patted someone on the shoulder and trotted over to the three of them. He gave them all hugs.

“Can you believe it?” Eddie squealed. “The actual fucking Olympics. And all thanks to Stevie here, seeing my potential.”

Steve ducked his head to hide his blush. “I may have recognized your talent, but you’re the one who got you here.”

Eddie looked over his shoulder. “Look, guys. I’d love to stay and chat, but they want us to jump through hoops and shit, so I’ve got to go. But I’ll message you once I get the chance, okay?”

They all nodded and once Eddie got his luggage he was sprinting back to the other athletes.

“Well that was certainly something,” Robin said dryly, pursing her lips together. “I realize that he probably has to check in and stuff, but who was that guy he was chatting with before he noticed us?”

Steve’s stomach twisted as he tried to tell himself he had no claim to Eddie. Eddie was only twenty to his own twenty-six. It was good Eddie was meeting people his own age. Maybe... he gulped hard. Maybe find someone to have a fling with or even...He closed his eyes. He shook his head.

“Steve?” Robin asked breaking into his revery with a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, I’ve been calling your name for a bit there. You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said with a blinding, and blindingly false smile. “Just hard to be here and not be competing, you know?”

Robin and Wayne shared a glance. They really hadn’t thought about that aspect of this trip. They had been so excited to see Eddie in the Olympics that they forgot that had Steve not been hurt last time, he would be with Eddie, getting his badge and room sorted. Instead of here with the family members.

“Sorry, Steve,” Robin murmured. “I feel like such a bad friend now.”

Steve shrugged her off. He looked at his watch. “I think I’m going to call Dr. Hughes.” He walked off in the direction of the exit, leaving behind a hurt Robin and a solemn Wayne.

Once he was out in open air, Steve felt like he could breathe again. The feelings for Eddie plus the weight of not being one of the athletes was just suddenly too much.

He chew on his thumbnail as he dialed Dr. Hughes. “Please pick up. Please pick up.”

“Hello, Steve,” Dr. Hughes said warmly. “I was expecting you to call today for I took the day off to be available to you.”

Steve slumped against the building wall and huffed out a watery laugh. “Am I really that predictable?”

“No, Steve,” Dr. Hughes assured him. “Trauma is that predictable. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, seeing Eddie standing where you stood four years ago. All hopes and dreams and to have them taken away from you so quickly. You’re allowed to grieve that. I’m proud of you for reaching out.”

“It’s just so heartbreaking,” Steve said, fighting back tears. “I thought I could be happy enough for Eddie. But I just want to shake him.” He cocked his head to the side. “Or, you know, kiss him.”

Dr. Hughes chuckled. “I was wondering when you were going to admit to that one. You’ve been pining after that boy for so long, Steve.”

“It’s unethical,” Steve huffed, tilting his head back until it hit the wall behind him. “I’m his coach and I’m six years older. I can’t be lusting over a twenty year old that I have authority over. I don’t want to lose him by being removed as his coach. I think that would devastate us both.”

“That’s certainly true,” he murmured. “But you aren’t his coach right now and it might be a good idea to at least confront those feelings and see where it takes you. You can always find someone else to coach him. Promote Robin. I’m sure she’d love that.”

Steve chuckle was a little watery this time. “Yeah, I don’t doubt it. She’d throw me under a bus if meant getting a fancy coaching jacket.”

Dr. Hughes chuckled back. “Well maybe toss in a bag of corn chips and then she’ll throw you under the bus.”

“Thanks Dr. Hughes,” Steve said, smiling now. “Will it be okay if I call you more during the next two weeks?”

“Fortnight,” Dr. Hughes said in amusement, “the British call two weeks a fortnight. But yes Steve you can call me at any time. Doesn’t matter the time, all right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve said breathing a sigh of relief. “Thanks again. And hopefully it won’t be too soon.”

“It wouldn’t matter if it was,” Dr. Hughes said gently. “Trauma is like a box with a button in it and a ball rotating around. At first the ball, life if you will, will keeping hitting the button. Over and over again. Then with time, therapy, and good support system the ball gets smaller and starts to ping off the sides and at odd times, often when you least expect it, the ball will hit the button.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Steve whined, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s like in ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’,” Dr. Hughes explained with a chuckle, “when the squirrel pops the balloon and nothing happens but when Kuzco yells Ha! it wakes the panthers. It’s a bit like that.”

“Oh okay,” he said. “I think I get it. Something bad will happen and you think it will trigger it but it doesn’t. Then something you thought you’d be fine with suddenly awakens the sleeping panthers?”

“That’s it exactly,” Dr. Hughes said approvingly. “You get some sleep and maybe a small snack, both will help with the feelings you have.”

“Thanks again,” Steve said and hung up. He looked up to see Wayne and Robin standing a respectful distance away. “Sorry about that, guys.”

“Don’t you be apologizing for being overwhelmed, you hear?” Wayne said dryly. “It’s not your fault we’re a pair of idiots.”

Robin came up and gave him a big hug. “Yeah. We’re really sorry. But you’ve got to tell us when you get these feelings, we can’t read your mind, okay?”

Steve nodded into her arms. “I’ll try to but sometimes it just hits me out of nowhere and I can’t control that.”

“Roger that!” she said with a sniffle. “I’m guessing just now was one of those moments where it just hit you?”

“Yeah,” he said letting out a shuddering breath. “I was watching Eddie laughing with his teammates and it just suddenly became too much.”

“You always were wet, Harrington,” a sneering voice said from behind them. “I just didn’t realize it was that bad.”

Steve turned around slowly. “Billy Hargrove. I was ultimately surprised Jason made it through the trials. Who did you pay off to take the hit in his heat?”

Billy’s sneer grew to a snarl. “You always thought you were better than everyone else, Harrington but look at you now. Crying in an airport.”

“You always were a better liar than you were a swimmer,” Steve scoffed. “Maybe you should run along and leave the winning to the people who know what that looks like.”

“Bitch,” he snapped and stormed off to a rental Jag that was waiting for him on the curb.

~

Eddie would have flopped face first into the mattress but he was pretty sure that if he did, it would collapse under him. His roommate was a guy named Trent York, who also had been his seat partner on the flight over. They had a lot in common. They liked D&D, fantasy movies, and

they both grew up poor.

Alas, Trent not only as straight as an arrow, but was planning on proposing to his girlfriend if he got on the podium for any of his events.

God, he wished he had been able to stick around with Steve and Wayne and Robin. But Steve had been there before and knew how hectic it was when they first landed, right?

Right?

But when he turned around to wave goodbye, Steve had this look. Like Eddie had done something wrong. And as much as he hated to admit it, it took him awhile to figure out why. From Wayne and his friends’ point of view, it looked like he had been flirting with Trent and then hurried to get back to him.

Which had not been the case and he really didn’t want to have have to overexplain to Steve that it wasn’t what it looked like. Eddie already felt like he was pressuring Steve into something he didn’t want to do.

Which he was absolutely not about, at all.

He laid gently on the bed and flopped awkwardly around so that he was face down into the pillow.

Trent, who had gone to the bathroom huff out a startled laugh. “I really don’t want to know, man. Just don’t bring anyone back to the room and I won’t either.”

Eddie mumbled something in reply.

“Sorry I didn’t catch that,” Trent said sitting down on his bed.

Eddie turned his head so that it was no longer smashed into the pillow. “I’m in love with my swimming coach from back home.”

“Ah.”

Trent looked around for a moment and then spotted a folding chair nearby. He grabbed it and set it up next to Eddie. Then sat on it backwards.

“That’s rough shit, Ed,” he said gently. “I can’t imagine what I would do if Lucy was my coach instead of the one of the girls in the club I swim with. Does he know how you feel?”

Eddie sat up and pulled his knees to his chest. “Yeah. And he feels the same. He’s just worried that swimming commission will remove him as my coach and as all the other coaches where I swim are stuck up snobs, they wouldn’t take me on and I’d have to quit again.”

“Ah ha.”

Trent thought for a moment. “There are a couple other options.”

Eddie scoffed. “Like what?”

“Tell them to fuck off?” Trent suggested. “It’s discouraged not forbidden.”

“That’s what I keep telling him,” Eddie said rolling his eyes. “But he’s got some serious trauma and has anxiety.”

“Who did you say your coach was?”

“Steve Harrington.”

“Okay,” Trent said, his eyes wide in shock. “I’ll admit that even I would tap that if I was gay. Holy shit. Plus like God tier level skill in the water, too. Yeah. Okay. That certainly makes things harder.”

“Tell me about it,” Eddie huffed. “So what were your other suggestions for wooing said God?”

Trent pursed his lips together. “Find a coach willing to teach you? Like maybe go to a different pool. Just don’t give up, okay? You really don’t need this right now when you’re about to compete on the world level.”

Eddie let out a shuddering breath. “Thanks, Trent.”

“Any time.”

~

Eddie made a huge show of apologizing to Steve about how he flounced off when he should have been more attentive.

Steve laughed. “Eddie, I’m a neurotic mess and you’re human. I’ll okay. I promise.”

The smile that he got in return was blinding. Yeah, okay. He really wanted to kiss those lips. But he was going to wait until after his first meet.

Which was in only twenty minutes.

“Go on!” Steve huffed, shooing the menace away. “You’ll be late and I will not have that over my head.”

Eddie raced off as he shook his head fondly.

“You always did have terrible taste,” Robin said dryly.

Steve pushed her playfully. “Yeah, sure. This coming from Miss ‘Tammy Thompson Doesn’t Sing That Bad’, I don’t believe my taste is any worse than yours.”

Robin cocked her head to the side and then shrugged. “Yeah all right, that’s fair.”

Steve started tapping Robin’s arm. She turned to growl at him, but he pointed at the doors that would lead to the pool.

“What’s Chrissy Cunningham doing lurking outside the pool?” she asked with a frown.

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Steve growled, stalking over to her.

When she saw him coming she let out a startled yelp. That brought Steve up short. She turned to them slowly, like a deer in the headlights.

He leveled Chrissy with his best stern authority glare that he patented with his youth swimming classes. She wilted.

“I need to tell you something,” she said, nervously twisting her fingers together. She looked over at Robin and then blushed. “We’ll need to hurry though.”

She turned on her heel and dashed in the direction of the judges.

“Wait!” Robin cried out as Steve and she hurried after her. “Where are we going?”

Chrissy whirled around and still walking backward said, “The judges need to know that Jason is planting more drugs in Eddie’s locker right now.”

Robin and Steve looked at each other in shock.

“Shit!” they said together and hurried to catch up.

~

Part 15

Tag List: CLOSED

1- @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog @gloomysoup

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @cryptid-system

3- @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

4- @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @forgottenkanji @eriquin

5- @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon

6- @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman

7- @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95 @ravenfrog @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lingeringmirth

8- @gutterflower77 @a-lovely-craziness @just-a-tiny-void @w1ll0wtr33 @beelze-the-bubkiss

9- @chameleonhair @sadisticaltarts @dreamercec @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @mac-attack19

10- @aol19 @tartarusknight @morallyundefined

[magics-neptunes-things]

Collide (5)

Hi guys!

The last one was a little more dark and this one is a little (a lot maybe) angsty too... Please meet jealous R and Leah 😅

I will start to work again from tomorrow so maybe I will write a little more slowly, it depends of my tiredness x)

Enjoy :)

TW : Jealousy, Angst, Swearing, Nightmare.

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3 I PART 4 I PART 6 | PART 7

______________________________________________________________

It’s a few days after Valentine’s Day that you find yourself alone at home, which is relatively rare. Like every Tuesday night, Leah is at her mother’s house with other people to have a family evening. You haven’t been officially introduced to the Williamsons yet, even though it would have been hard to escape Amanda. Leah’s mom comes to see almost every match of Arsenal, especially since Leah has started playing again. You don’t know what Leah told her about you, but the look she gave you when she first saw you made you blush from head to toe.

When Leah isn’t around, you can usually count on Alessia to be by your side. To chat, laugh at a bad show or simply scroll next to each other on your mobile phones. Generally one cook for the other, having established for a while a turn without really consulting yourself. But tonight Alessia is busy too and you find your apartment very empty. After calling your parents, then Leila, then Ingrid, you notice that it’s still very early but you still decide to go to bed.

You haven’t decided with Leah if she’ll join you at home when her evening is over, but she has your keys and you know she feels comfortable enough at your home to join you at any time.

After a long hot shower, you settle down with your cup of tea and a book in your bed, welcoming with pleasure the warmth of the sheets. It’s only a few tens of minutes later that you hear an awful screech on the window of your bedroom, making you jump.

Standing still for a few moments, you listen, trying to persuade yourself that it’s only your imagination. You’re in the middle of London, there can’t be someone hanging from your window, right? But as you stress level down, you hear the noise again.

Even stronger than before, causing you chills. It sounds like nails on a blackboard and you are now certain that it can only be nails against the window of your room.

With your hand shaking, you grab your phone and write to Leah. You could have called her, but if Thérèse really someone behind your curtains, you don’t want him to hear you.

From You Baby where are you?

From Leebaby 🌹✨ Crushing Grandma at Bingo 😈 Why?

From You I think there is someone behind my bedroom’s window

From Leebaby 🌹✨ What? Is it a joke?

From You No Babe, I swear. Someone’s scratching my window, I just heard it again

Your phone vibrates again in your hands signaling a response from Leah, but it’s another sound that caught your ear this time. Much less disturbing than the idea of a psychopath scratching at your window’s bedroom, you seem to have heard a meow.

Jumping on your legs, it’s with a rest of apprehension that you open the curtain a few centimeters. Two green round eyes look at you, surrounded by a total black fur. When the cat opens his mouth, you hear the same meow again and you decide to open the window to let him in. You’re on the high floors of your building and if that cat falls, you’re not sure if it survives.

Jumping in your bedroom, the cat looks calmly around him.

"Uh. Hey, man?"

You look at each other silently for several moments, before he starts to wash his paws. You blink several times because of the absurdity of the situation.

"Where are you coming from?" you ask with a frown.

You don’t know your neighbors very well, other than Alessia of course, so you wouldn’t be able to tell who in this building has a cat. That cat doesn’t look very old to you, like he hasn’t finished growing yet. And he even looks rather thin. In any case, he ignores you superbly, licking his pads with application.

As you close the window still looking at the black cat, your eyes are drawn to your phone whose screen turns on and off repeatedly. You take it, opening the messages from Leah. Leebaby 🌹✨ Go to your living room and call the police Isn’t Alessia with you? Honey? Why aren’t you answering my calls? ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE You have with that five missed calls from Leah and you hurry up to call her back hoping she hasn’t contacted Scotland Yard yet. The first ring didn’t even have time to sound in full that she has already picked up. "Y/N is that you?" "Yes. Are you in the car?" you ask with a frown, hearing cars sounds in the background. "Yes? You write to me to tell me that there is someone at your window and then I have no answer, obviously I am in my car!" Leah seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown and you feel terrible about it. It will now be necessary that you explain to her that your possible assailant was in truth only a ball of black fur which seems to have confused your bedroom with a grooming salon. "Oh Babe, I’m sorry. But everything is fine, you can go back to your Mom. I’m sorry I worried you for nothing" "Accept the video call" "What?" "Accept the video call!" Leah repeats abruptly and you hurry to do it. Leah’s face appears on the screen, her eyebrows frown. She’s still in her car and you look at her with a stern look. "Leah Williamson you better be parked on the side of the road" You roll your eyes when she snorts with a scornful face. "Why did you want to switch to video mode?" "To see that you are alone and that you haven’t be forced to make the call so that someone can murder you in peace" You can’t help but laugh softly when you hear her, but on the other hand the degree of worry she has for you touches you. "I told you to stop with Criminal Minds Babe" you tease her tenderly. "Show me your room"

You willingly accept, even walking around your apartment to reassure her completely. She seems to relax noticing that you are really alone and you go back to your room to sit on your bed.

"What was that noise then?"

You smile again before turning the camera of your smartphone to show her the cat, still installed on the carpet of your bedroom.

"A cat? Where the hell does he come from?" said Leah in a skeptical tone.

"I don’t know. I asked him and he didn’t answer me"

"Haha. Very funny."

You turn the camera in your direction to continue your conversation with Leah, wondering mentally if the store open 24/24 of your neighborhood has any animal food in stock.

"See? I’m fine. You can go back to your Mom and kick more ass"

********

You posted posters with the cat’s photo all over your neighborhood, without anyone contacting you to retrieve the cat. After a visit to the vet, you learn that he’s actually a female and that she’s probably not even a year old. You called him Rasmus first, so you changed her name to Raven. And you bought her a kibble dispenser, a water bowl, a litter box, some toys and a sweet confortable basket that she ignores superbly to sleep on the sofa in the living room or on the bed in the guest room.

Leah was distant in the first place towards Raven, officially because it was because of her that she believed for a few minutes that she would find you slit in the middle of your bedroom. And it’s also true that Leah grew up with dogs rather than cats. She talks about herself as a dog person.

But you caught her recently sitting on your couch scratching Raven behind her ears while watching television. You took care to immortalize the scene with your phone before going to tease her.

Raven is therefore officially a resident of your apartment and this is only a problem when you have a match elsewhere than in London. Leah’s cousin has kindly offered to come and look after Raven in your absence.

The match you are preparing for today however is at home and is a bit special for you since you are playing against Manchester City. Your old club. But it’s especially the idea of seeing your former teammates that fills you with joy, it has been far too long since you could see Leila or Laia.

They arrived a few hours before the match with their bus, so you didn’t have the opportunité to see them before going to the stadium. But it’s without masking your big smile that you find them on the field while they are in full warm-up, arriving with Arsenal’s players.

"I’ll be back!" you scream to your teammates before joining your opponents of the day.

Laia Aleixandri is the first to see you arrive and it’s her who squeezes you against her first. You give her back her hug for a few seconds, before pushing her away with a playful smile when she starts to ruffle your hair.

"It’s good to see you again!" she says happily.

You don’t have time to tell her that you feel the same before you hear Leila call your name. You don’t have time to react either before you find yourself trapped in her embrace and that she make you spin in the air.

"I forgot how extravagant you are" you joke, making them laugh.

You greet your other former teammates with a smile when Leila releases you and exchanges a few words with them. You kept in touch via messages with some, but not everyone. That said, you are sincerely pleased to see them again. You’ve been playing with them for several years, even if you’re no longer part of the same club as them.

"Don’t" you smile to Leila by pushing her hand away when she try to pinch your cheek, at the same time that you hear your name being called.

You turn around to see that it’s Katie who beckons you to join them, training apparently about to begin. With an excuse smile, you say goodbye for the moment to the others before running to your teammates.

"Are you making a deal with the enemy now?" teases Katie while putting an arm around your shoulders to train you towards the others.

"Don’t be so dramatic" you joke in return before going to position yourself naturally near Alessia and Leah.

You notice as soon as your look at her that Leah has her jaw contracted, but when you address a questioning look to her, she just shake her head and look away. Alessia shrug her shoulders when you look at her. But you don’t have time to investigate any longer, Jonas coming to give you the start for the usual pre-game exercises.

Jonas always arranges to give you a time off between the start of the match and his pre-game speech, so you join Leah at her cubby. Unusually quiet, she has her headphones in her ears and her gaze fixed on an imaginary spot on the floor. Sitting next to her, you gently lean on her to get her attention.

If her eyes turn to you, she doesn’t take off her headphones.

"Are you okay?" You ask her with curiosity, in a voice low enough not to be heard by others. "Leah?" you add when she doesn’t answer you.

You wonder for a few seconds if she hears you, but Leah finally nods.

"Sure?"

"Can we talk about this later?"

"Of course"

The smile she gives you looks more like a grimace and is far from reassuring you. But you’d rather not insist, deciding to listen to music too. Leaning against the wall, you watch Leah from the corner of your eye and smile softly when you feel her looking for your hand to interlace your fingers.

You gently squeeze her hand in yours and the smile that she addresses you is more sincere than earlier. You lean to kiss her shoulder, both of you deciding against PDA at work.

The game is pretty tight and you play the 90 minutes that the game lasts. Finding yourself marked by Laia amuses you a lot, even if she has the advantage of knowing your qualities and your defects, you manage several times to pass her to put their guardian in danger. The final result was 3-2, with Caitlin and Alessia scoring the first two goals.

It’s only in the 86th minute that you find your way to the net, allowing your team to win.

"That’s my girl!" Leah happily exclaims, pinching both your cheeks before kissing it, making you laugh.

A few minutes later the end of the match is whistled, allowing Arsenal to win three important points in the battle at the top of the ranking. As at the end of each match, you follow your teammates around the stadium, thanking the spectators for coming.

Scoring the winning goal against your old club is a strange feeling, but you are relieved to see that the different members of the team and even the staff don’t seem to hold you against it when you come to greet them. While you are in the middle of a discussion with your former coach, you feel two arms grabbing you by the waist and it doesn’t take you long to understand that it’s Leila.

"I have the same feeling of a proud mother who has just seen her child do his first mistake" Leila jokes, making you smile. "You’re still progressing, I’m sure than in less than 2 years you will have your Ballon d’or. Maybe I’ll forget you for the goal that day"

You laugh, not answering anyway. Other players from City are joining you, from Arsenal too, as Laia Codina. She also knows Laia and Leila well, having played with them for the same national team. Leila doesn’t let go of you for a single second, but you pay no more attention than that. You know perfectly well the touchy nature of Leila and you know very well that there is nothing more behind.

"Stop" you warn her by clapping her hand when she tries again to pinch your cheek.

"Why? Is it reserved for Williamson now?" she asks with a mischievous smile

"Leah" you frowns, not really liking the way Leila refers to Leah.

"I saw her more cheerful after a win actually" Chloe said, with whom you also played last season.

Surprised by her remark, you turn to look for Leah. You find her in conversation with Lia and Beth, a visibly upset look on her face. You can see that Lia is talking to her while Beth seems to agree to what she is saying, but from where you are, it’s obviously impossible to understand what they are saying.

When you go back to the locker room, not without having promised to visit them in Manchester soon, you aren’t surprised to see that some of your teammates have already left. What you didn’t expect was to see no trace of your captain girlfriend in it.

"She already went home, she said she had something to do" Alessia informs you with a sorry smile.

"Oh."

You’re having a hard time hiding your disappointment. Since she started playing again, you’ve got into the habit of going home together. Either your home or her home. Sometimes parties are organized to celebrate your victories and you go there together. When it’s not the case, you sometimes invite Lia or Katie and Caitlin to join you with Alessia for a rather quiet evening. Or you’re just the two of you. Either way, you’re always together. But once again, you’re not really together so she didn’t have anything to say to you, right?

Since you have time, you decide to shower here, trying to digest the strange sensation in the pit of your stomach. Leah didn’t write to you before she left either, you took the time to check your phone before going in the shower.

Between her behavior before the game, the surge of affection she had during your goal and her hasty departure from today, you have trouble understanding what is happening. The locker room is almost empty when you come out from your long shower, in truth there is only Alessia left.

"You, you idiot. You wanted to go back home with the subway?" replies the blonde with amusement when you ask her what she’s waiting.

It’s true that you came with Leah by car, which adds to your misunderstanding. The blonde would never left you there without bringing you back if everything was okay.

"Did she tell you what she had to do?" you ask quietly Alessia later, while you’re in her car.

After glancing at you, Alessia responds negatively shaking her head. Taking your phone out of your pocket, you send a message to Leah to ask if she’ll join you tonight. You hate this feeling in the pit of your stomach and you focus on Alessia’s breathing to discreetly layer yours on hers.

It’s only when you arrive home that you receive the answer from Leah, informing you that she will join you later. You don’t know when, but at least you know she’s coming. You’re greatfull to Alessia who choose to stay with you for diner while you both watch TV.

It’s actually much later that Leah finally joined you, Alessia has already returned to her apartment after falling asleep two times in your lap. And it has been a long time since Raven rolled herself in ball in the armchair under the window to begin her night. Leah seems to have a hard time opening the door to your apartment and when you see her coming in you quickly understand why.

"Are you drunk?" you ask when you look at her, frowning.

"No" laughs Leah before getting rid of her shoes and her bag that she leaves at the entrance.

She is definitely drunk.

"Where were you?" you ask without getting off of the couch.

It’s not like her to go out alone for a drink and you wonder what happened. Apparently she left on her own after the game, at least that’s what Alessia told you and you trust her completely on the subject.

"Oh, we’re getting inquisitive now, aren’t we?"

Leah’s tone is light, but you only have to cross her eyes to understand that something is wrong. But you still don’t understand what and it annoys you, usually you get to understand her quickly.

"I don’t understand"

You follow Leah with your eyes when she drops on the couch next to you, sighing for a long time before pinching her nose.

"Leah, what’s going on?" You ask when you turn in her direction.

"I’m Leah again now? Better and better"

You’re starting to lose patience with her behavior, but you know it’s probably not the things to show her. You feel like you’re dealing with an annoying, sulky teenager. So you take a deep breath and let a few seconds pass to allow you to relax a little before resuming the speech.

"Can you answer my questions please? Where did you went at the end of the game?"

"Home"

You honestly didn’t expect that answer given her intoxication, but you decided to believe her. Leah never lied to you in her life.

"Why didn’t you wait for me?" you ask softly.

Your disappointment is probably a little childish, so you try to hide it from Leah. She already looks weird, no need to push her to the limit with this kind of behavior.

"Dunno. You seemed busy with your friends."

"I hadn’t seen them for a long time, but you could have waved at me or come to me. I would have go with you, I didn’t realize we’d been talking for this long."

"You didn’t present me to them, I didn’t want to interrupt anything"

"I would have if you came"

Leah snorts for any answer, merely crossing her arms on her chest and staring at the television screen in front of her. You gently put your hand on her knee, always trying to figure out what’s going on in her head.

"What did you want to talk to me about later in the locker room?"

"Nothing important."

"Leah" you sigh softly, starting to be annoyed by her behavior.

"Stop calling me that!"

You’re surprised when you hear the annoyed tone she uses, watching her get up nervously to go around the couch and search something in the fridge. She also seems to be angry and you are even more frustrated not to understand why. So you get up to follow her, determined to get information that will allows you to understand.

"So stop running away from the conversation and tell me what’s going on, gosh!"

The tone of your voice would allow anyone to understand your annoyance and when Leah comes out of the fridge with a bottle of water, you can read the anger on her face.

"What do you want me to tell you? That I can’t stand a fucking poor girl touching my girlfriend in front of everyone?"

Your face becomes perfectly smooth under the surprise and that’s probably what makes Leah realize that she literally just yelled at you. It’s her who talks first, apparently completely de-alcoholized in a split second.

"Babe, I’m sorry" she makes in a softer voice, gently taking your arm in her hand, scaring by your emotionless face.

Leah imagines that your sudden muteness is related to the way she spoke to you and she fears terribly that her behavior may have reminded you in some way all that you have lived with your ex-girlfriend. She has no idea that your mind is completely elsewhere.

"What did you just say?" you ask in a low voice, looking carefully at her.

"I know, I should never have talked to you like this, I’m sorry Honey…"

While continuing to talk, Leah gently takes your face in her hands, looking at your eyes.

"No. You said girlfriend."

"Yes?"

It’s Leah’s turn to be a little lost in your conversation. She sees you looking for something in her eyes that she doesn’t understand, but you fortunately quickly resume the conversation.

"Do you consider me as your girlfriend?"

"Y/N what the hell? Yes?"

"You never asked me officially" you point out at her

"I thought it made sense given the relationship we have. We sleep together, almost live at eachother’s and I told you I’m in love with you"

It’s true that seen like this… You find yourself a little silly and even blushing. You turn away your eyes to shake your head gently. But when you turn your attention to Leah, she looks at you with a slight smile.

"Do you want me to ask you officially?" she teases.

"Stop making fun of me" you mumble, sticking yourself against her to hide your face in the hollow of her neck.

Leah puts her arms around your waist to tighten you against her, but it doesn’t prevent her from speaking again.

"Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?"

You don’t answer, but you can’t help but smile against her skin. You hear her smile when she talks and she gently pinches your ribs when you don’t answer.

"I’m waiting for an answer" Leah sings mischievously.

"Yes" you just answer, taking your face off her to look at her.

"I’m sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn’t have let my frustration take over, I swear it won’t happen again."

You acquiesce gently, preferring not to point out to her that the broken promises were a large part of your relationship with Helena precisely. Instead, you’d rather answer her something else.

"I know the difference between that and the abusive behavior she had. Don’t worry" you smile tenderly.

Leah responds to your smile with an uncertain look and you lean over her to kiss her tenderly. You feel like you’re relaxing in your exchange and you feel like Leah is, too.

"Can I take you to bed then, Girlfriend?"

You laugh when you hear her talk but you accept willingly.

********

Leah’s jealousy is something that made you happy, a kind of mark of attention and affection you never expected. This has nothing to do with your ex’s need for unhealthy control and even though you tried to explain to Leah the differences you made between your argument and your past, The amount of attention and flowers you received after that was nevertheless very impressive.

Leah stopped bringing you flowers every day but it finally became a habit for her to bring some back every Tuesday night when she meets you after her family nights. Now that Raven understands that this is not a snack for her, you sincerely appreciate having flowers that decorate your apartment.

And you appreciate more to see that this dispute hasn’t changed anything between you, on the contrary. You now know that you can designate her as your girlfriend to your loved ones and the change was not missed by anyone.

"When are you gonna introduce her to us?" your mom asked you the last time you had them on the phone.

You never officially introduced one of your girlfriends to them, and for good reason. They only needed to see Helena once to understand her and Alina was never so motivated to go up to Norway during her holidays.

"I’ll talk to her" you just said.

You haven't yet talked about your summer vacation, whether you would spend it together or whether you would spend it alone. Usually you will spend some time in Norway before flying a little further south. Last year you only had little time given the World Cup, even if you got out quite quickly.

That was the subject you wanted to discuss with Leah tonight. You’re at her home for once, usually you tend to choose your apartment to be with Raven. But you decided to cook together and her kitchen is definitely bigger than yours and more convenient for that.

You chose something simple, after looking at Norwegian recipes to please you, Leah found that most were made with fish, which she hates. So you kindly offered her homemade pizzas, which she accepted.

You were doing the dishes when Leah gets a message on her phone as you pass by. It’s only mechanically that you look at the screen, your eyes attracted by the light it projects. And you feel your stomach writhing violently when you see who just wrote to her.

Jordan Nobbs.

The name and surname are entered in the contact, leaving no doubt about the person. Although you suddenly stop in your movements, Leah doesn’t notice anything, thrown into her conversation and happily spraying her kitchen with frothy water while doing the dishes.

"Are you okay?" asks Leah curiously, realizing that you haven’t answered her for two minutes.

Her gaze becomes anxious when she turns to you and you briefly wonder what face you are making.

"Are you still talking to Jordan?" you ask, frowning.

The question seems to surprise Leah, who looks at you while frowning in turn.

"From time to time, why?" she finally answers you.

"You told me she left you down. Why would you talk to her again?" you answered with a slightly accusing tone.

"She started writing to me again after the game against Aston Villa" Leah explains, resting her sponge and a pan next to the sink.

"You no longer follow each other on social networks but you write messages to each other? It doesn't make any sense"

You have a hard time understanding the logic behind it and, as you try not to get carried away by emotions that you can’t even figure out, at the same time try to keep a normal conversation tone.

"Why do you take it like that? We’re not doing anything wrong"

Frowning, Leah also seems to have trouble understanding what’s going on in your head and it’s probably even more frustrating. Sometimes you feel like she understands you better than you. But not tonight.

"I don’t know, how would you take it if you found out I was talking to my exes without telling you?"

"Jordan has nothing to do with your ex" sighs Leah skilfully dodging your question.

Do you feel frustration mingling with jealousy and a form of… betrayal? The term may be a bit strong. Your hands shake when you put down the laundry you used to wipe the dishes.

"Of course, the perfect little Jordan is surely coming back only for a friendship." you mumble, loud enough for Leah to hear.

"Don’t talk about her like that"

"Why are you defending her?" you almost shout while crossing your arms on your chest.

Instead of answering you, Leah rolls her eyes before sighing and turning her back on you. A gesture that means that she prefers not to answer to avoid continuing the dispute that is announced, but in your mind it means that she doesn’t want to answer because she suspects that you will not like her answer.

"You know what? Go talk to your dear sweet Jordan, I’m out of here."

"What?!"

That’s how you find yourself going home with a heavy heart. Leah tried to hold you back, obviously, but you managed to leave. Maybe yelling at her at her front door that she has to leaving you alone with a bad word or two helped. Certainly.

You have to take three times to park your car on your parking space because of your shaking hands and your incapacity to stay focused. When you enter your apartment, you are surprised to see Alessia sitting on your sofa, Raven on her knees.

"Leah called"

You growl for any answer and enter your bathroom to take a long hot shower, which you do every time you feel overwhelmed by your emotions. It’s impossible for you that Jordan come back just to have a friendly conversation with Leah and you’re sure she came back to talk to her only because she saw the connection you had with the blonde. You can’t believe Leah would betray you like that. And worse, not understanding why it bother you that way.

You realize when you get out of the shower that you left your phone in your car, but you decide that you will look for it tomorrow. The parking is secure and you don’t want to go out, anyway you doubt you need it tonight. Leah won’t write to you after you yelled at her the way you did. At least that’s what you say to yourself. In reality, you have some missed call and messages from her already.

It's lying on your bed that you find Alessia when returning to your room.

"What happened?" asks the blonde after you lie under the covers and turn your back to her.

"Leah probably told you, no?"

"No. She just asked me to let her know when you got home. She seemed worried."

You snorts for any answer and let go a few seconds before answering, turning to lay on your back. Alessia doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, leaving you time. She has gotten to know you over time too.

"She's talking to Jordan again" you end up mumbling.

"How do you know?" Alessia asks softly.

"I saw when she got a message earlier. She didn’t even tell me, I have to found out myself Less"

"You asked her why she didn’t tell you?"

Alessia, always good advice, calm and thoughtful. You sincerely admire her ability to see things and her sincere way of believing that everyone is kind. She’s too precious for this world.

"… No"

"Why?"

You shrug your shoulders for any answer. You were probably too busy feeling jealous and betrayed to show common sense. Alessia quickly seems to understand what happened and passes a hand in your hair.

"Sleep and you can talk about it together tomorrow, yeah?"

You answer silently once again, nodding. You doubt you can fall asleep without Leah wrapped around you to be completely honest.

"Do you want me to stay?" proposes Alessia and you mentally note to have her build a gold statue in your future house.

"Please"

********

Despite your doubts about your ability to fall asleep, you end up sinking, exhausted by all the emotions of the evening. Your sleep is far from restorative and relaxing that said, nightmares haunting you since you fall asleep.

Until you were startled awake, Alessia shaking you like a plum tree. The last images of your dream evaporate while your eyes focus on her face and the darkness of your bedroom.

"God are you okay?" stutters Alessia and you can see the fear on her face. "You were screaming, I was trying to wake you up but…"

Fast breathing, you look around, trying to chase away the sensations and images of your dream. You sit on your bed and press your palms over your eyes with enough force to make stars appear. Only then do you realize your cheeks are wet with tears.

"What can I do? What do you need?"

It was a nightmare like you haven’t had in a long time. Since the night you confided in Leah.

"Y/N? Please talk to me" Alessia kindly said.

"Leah... I want Leah" you whisper

You don’t know if Leah was sleeping when Alessia called her, but you’re already feeling a little relieved to learn she’s on her way. You didn’t really understand the words they exchanged, focused on your nightmare. After hanging up, Alessia offered you to freshen up, which turned out to be a good idea. When you return to your room, you see that she took out clean clothes that she put on your bed.

You move Raven who had settled on your fresh clothes before putting them on. The images of your dream quickly come back to mind and it’s shivering that you go back under your sheets. Alessia not knowing if you are comfortable enough for her to see you like this, she appears just to give you a hot tea she prepared for you before informing you that she will wait for Leah in the living room. But that you can call her if you need anything, of course.

You lose track of time, your mind shaken by your emotions and memories of your dream and your past like a small wooden boat in an ocean of waves.

When you feel the bed moving next to you, it only takes a few seconds to recognize Leah’s smell. Without a word, she slips under the sheets with you, passing her arms around your waist and sticking herself against your back.

"Leah?" You mutter though, your voice barely recognizable.

"I’m here" she whispers in a reassuring tone. "What happened?"

"Nightmare"

"You wanna talk about it?"

You shake your head negatively, rather focused on your attempts to stabilize your breathing and heart rate. You’re well helped by Leah’s presence, like every time. She’s like your dream catcher. Patiently waiting for you to calm down enough to speak, she gently caresses your arm with her fingertips, whispering comforting words to your ear.

Your breathing gets slower and slower and after a while Leah must think you’re asleep. She slowly detaches from you to avoid waking you, but jumps when you turn around suddenly and grabs her arm.

"Don’t leave" you beg her as she regains her inital position.

"I’m not leaving. I just wanted to take your cup back to the kitchen. It’s okay."

If it had been someone else, or even if it had been at another time in your life, you would probably have been uncomfortable feeling so dependent on someone. But it seems to you sometimes that the universe made you wait for the right time to meet Leah and get closer. Even if you struggled the first weeks and even if you have some topics to discuss soon, starting with Jordan.

But you don’t want to think about it right now. Leah passes her hands around your waist, squeezing you against her again except this time you’re face to face. It doesn’t bother you, you take advantage of your proximity to bury your face in the hollow of her neck. It has become your thing. Leah does it every morning when you wake up and you do it when you’re tired or when you need comfort.

"Were you sleeping?" you ask after a few seconds.

"No" simply answers Leah, playing with your hair.

"Why?"

"I couldn’t"

You feel her shrug slightly and you step back a little to put your face on your cushion and be able to look at her. She does look tired, but given the face you must have, you prefer not to comment.

"Why?" you ask instead.

"I hate when we fight"

You remain silent to this answer, not knowing what to say. Her eyes are always plunged into yours when you sigh gently before looking away.

"Me too" you end up answering

The reason for your argument tonight were chased by your bad dream, but the insecurities that you may have felt at that time quickly come back to your mind. You don’t know how to approach the subject with Leah and you secretly hope that her magical power to read your thoughts will start working again quickly.

"I’ve been thinking about what you told me" said Leah, her face still a few inches from yours.

"Which part of the discussion?"

You retain a grimace, remembering very well the not necessarily very nice words you said when you left her on the doormat of her house.

"When you asked me how I would react if I heard you were still in contact with Alina or the other psycho."

"The Other Psycho" became your ex-girlfriend’s official nickname when Leah talked about her.

"I don’t think I could handle it, to be honest. And not just because they shared your life at a time, but because they hurt you and they don’t deserve any attention."

You bite your lip, looking for the best words to try to share your point of view.

"Jordan made you suffer too"

By leaving and probably without being as present as Leah could be for her when it was Jordan who was injured. You’re kind of sorry you weren’t there for Leah from the start of her injury, but at least you were there for her big comeback.

"I know" said Leah gently "I didn’t wanted to hide from you that we talk from time to time, but after the match against Aston Villa we had all this shit up and really these are only messages from time to time. The last time she wrote to me before today was for Christmas."

You only have to look into her eyes to know that she is telling you the pure and simple truth.

"It’s just… it’s Jordan, you know? People loved you together and there’s a lot of people who keep hoping that you’ll be a couple again. And she was a part of your life for a long time"

"I’m not going to lie to you" Leah begins softly, sighing before rolling on her back. "Jordan is my first love and it won’t change, but things ended between us for a reason."

The silence settles for a few seconds, during which your gaze is lost on the wall in front of you. The ease of getting lost in your thoughts makes you jump when Leah turns to you again.

"Jordan was my first love, but if I can choose I would like you to be the last. I know th… Why are you crying?"

It’s stronger than you and to admit it all, you’re probably a sentimental mess right now. You manage to tell her that you don’t know between two sobs, which makes her laugh gently before drawing you against her. You obviously let yourself be, finding with pleasure the reassurance of her arms.

"You have nothing to worry about with Jordan or anyone else, I promise" Leah adds after a few seconds.

You nod, starting to talk again once your sobs have subsided.

"We’ve been fighting a lot the last few days, already the other time with Leila and today. I don’t understand what’s happening to us. It's scare me" you mumble.

"It happens and it’s even normal when we share so much time together. I mean I love being with you, but we’re almost every minute of the day together. We can’t never fight. It doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. We just need to keep communicating as well as possible."

She's right and you know it, you don't hesitate to tell her. You feel your body finally relaxing, for the first time since you saw Jordan’s name on her phone.

"Talking to your ex too?" Leah asks after a few moments.

"No"

"Great."

You smile softly and lift your head off her chest to look at her.

"I’m sorry I yelled at you" you say, slightly frowned.

"You’re forgiven" Leah replies before stealing a kiss "What you went through with Alina is not right either, you know. She shouldn’t have done that to you."

You shrug your shoulders, not really knowing what to say. But it's true that infidelity destroys much of the self-confidence and confidence you can have in others. The beginning of your relationship with Leah can prove it.

"I don’t want to talk about her anymore" you end up mumbling

"It suits me very well. Like that I maybe won’t want to break her two legs at the next game"

You laugh softly when Leah takes you back against her, crashing your lips against hers. The weight you felt on your chest flew away and you can finally breathe properly again. You even smile, pressing your face against her jaw after the kiss.

"Maybe I’ll ask Katie to do it" Leah jokes with a dreamy look.

"Stop" you answer while rolling your eyes.

"Speaking of our teammates, I think you really scared Less" Leah continues caressing your back.

You grimace this time, feeling guilty thinking about the look and face she had when you woke up.

"I’ll apologize tomorrow"

Leah answers you with a grunt before yawning. It’s been a long night for both of you, even though you’ve got a few more hours of sleep than Leah has. You notice that she's falling asleep when you put a kiss on her cheek.

"Thanks for asking me to come" Leah mumbles without opening her eyes.

"Thank you for coming"

Leah has a new smile and opens an eye to look at you when you put a new kiss on her jaw this time.

"Go to sleep Honey. I love you."

"I love you more" you answer.

"Nope, it's me"

"It's obviously me"

"Can't hear you, I'm sleeping."

"God, you're so annoying" you laugh, watching her faking a peaceful sleep.

You kiss her again, on her lips this time. And because she's asleep and you can, you let your eyes gently slide her face.

You admire each of her features. The way her lashes draw shadows on her relaxed face, her jaw perfectly drawn. If you could draw yourself a girlfriend, she would be perfectly similar to Leah.

"Stop staring you creep"

Even if you thought she was perfectly asleep, Leah grabs your pillow and crushes it on your face, triggering your laughters. It seems to annoy Raven who leaves the room not without throwing you a look of reproaches, certainly to go settle peacefully on "her" armchair.

[girlactionfigure]

I want to do a thread on this.

I understand why the Mail are going after the BBC on this issue - their lack of due diligence was deeply problematic. But this goes far, far deeper than one documentary. 

🧵

2) Hamas is far more than a terrorist organisation - having won an election in Gaza some 19 years ago, they subsequently murdered a bunch of their political opponents and since then have run Gaza as a dictatorship.

And they've controlled *everything* in the Gaza Strip. 

3) People who have understood what a dictatorship is when it comes to Assad's Syria, or Kim's North Korea, seem to have no grasp of this very simple fact.

Every single level of society there has been under Hamas's control. It is impossible to operate there without their consent. 

4) All the Ministries in Gaza (Health etc.) are run by Hamas, in the same way that every Government Ministry in Syria was controlled by Assad. Any information they have ever provided has been either directed or approved by Hamas.

Western media has struggled to comprehend this. 

5) People talk about the Gaza Strip as small, and it is - here it is, transposed over London. 

This has made it far easier for Hamas to maintain an iron grip over every single facet of society.

6) Take journalism.

There is no such thing as independent journalism in Gaza. Every journalist operating there is either under Hamas's direct control or knows that the slightest criticism of Hamas will lead to dire consequences for them & their families.

Like any dictatorship. 

7) It is no secret that Hamas and Al Jazeera in Gaza are joined at the hip, for example. 

But likewise, all influencers there - YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter - are either under Hamas's direct control, actively support them or know that criticising them is a death sentence. 

8) The question is not "how did the BBC let this happen". It's "how do the BBC - and Sky, Channel 4 etc, not understand that every single stringer that they rely on in Gaza operates under the conditions of a dictatorship. That all the media they get is regime-controlled." 

9) Likewise UNRWA. I'd respect UNRWA far more if they came out and admitted that yes, they're totally reliant on Hamas's consent to operate in Gaza, & that this has meant that Hamas has been able to suborn UNRWA in Gaza at all levels. Instead of pathetic denials of the obvious. 

10) Going back to point 8, let's give a clear example of how this can work.

- Israel strikes a building. The footage from Gaza stringers shows - accurately - awful suffering, maiming and death. What it won't show - obviously - are the Hamas fighters operating in the vicinity. 

11) The far-left talk about "Manufacturing Consent". They *never* understand that their responses are being manipulated - by Hamas, which has had years to perfect its techniques - in a similar way.

You think only Western Governments are clever or sophisticated enough to do that?

12) In fact, thinking that only Western governments are able to manipulate people into supporting a course of action is a rather stunning example of the bigotry of low expectations.

And, like I said at the start, Hamas *is* a Government - or has been, for almost 2 decades now. 

13) I'll leave it there. But I'll leave it on the same note I started.

*Why do so many organisations fail to grasp that in Hamas they are dealing with a dictatorship similar to many others that exist in the world? Why do they seem to believe Hamas is different?*

Thread Ends. 

Daniel Sugarman

[truly-sincerely]

Alex Rider S3 timeline

Season 1 Timeline | Misc Timeline Notes

Some facts:

For time of year we know s3 takes place in the winter, based on dialogue from Blunt and Smithers

The trees in the background during establishing shots are just as unreliable as in s2 but during actor shots they're a mix of green and barren (most notably the cherry tree in front of the Rider house), implying late winter, probably February.

I don't know anything about the British school system, but Tom mentions having taken his GCSEs in ep1 so they're presumably on holiday from whatever comes after that (sixth form? A levels? it's Maltese to me).

Now we look at the elephant in the room. John Rider:

There are two different timestamps on the recording of the bridge exchange. 06/01/2005 and 2005-05-21. Not sure what the discrepancy means but since the latter has to be May we can assume that the former is formatted for June (as opposed to January). Also, Alex wasn't born yet in January 2005.

Alex's birthday is 13 Feb, 2005 (according to a prop from s2ep8)

Julia says that Alex was six months old, but based on the time stamp he was closer to three months old (easy mistake)

John and Helen Rider's gravestone puts their deaths in 2006 and Julia says it took her six months to track them down after the bridge exchange, so that checks out

Now in the present Mrs Jones says that it's been 17 years since Scorpia was destroyed, which would make s3 take place in early 2023

Alex is about to or just turned 17 years old

And therefore he was 15 in s1 and s2

S3 takes place over the course of nine days, which I think we can all agree is absolutely ridiculous, but that's how it works out.

Day 1: Boat ride; find Julia Rothman's house; Kyra's soup accident

Day 2: Identify and research Julia; Museum art showing

Day 3: Scorpia sends threat to Kellner; Tom and Alex go to Julia's villa; Pritchard gets blown up; Alex sneaks into Consanto and it blows up too; Alex goes to Malagosto

Day 4: Scorpia kills the footballers; Tom and Kyra get arrested; Julia tells Alex about his dad getting killed on the bridge; and Yassen! Is here!

Day 5: The assault course and the water bottle; shooting challenge; getting beat up by the other trainees; Pritchard's funeral; Tom and Kyra trace the call to Malagosto and Nile tries to send them home; the incursion assessment

Day 6: Shinai (Bokken) 5 on 1; Department calls Scorpia back and Scorpia gives them three days; Kyra and Tom find Malagosto; Smithers and Crawley find Julia's litter; Syl graduates; Jack gets a delivery from Tom; Max Grendel gets Yassassinated

Day 7: Everyone gets back to London; Blunt asks the CIA for help; Alex and Yassen surveil Jones' flat; Jack, Kyra, and Tom go to the Department; Navy Seals raid Malagosto; Alex doesn't kill Jones and gets sent back to the Department

Day 8: Nile sets up in the big church; Crawley takes Alex home; Blunt and Julia do storytime for Alex and Yassen

Day 9: Alex goes back into the Department; MI5 try to take Alex; Alex calls Julia for a pickup; a bunch of people in Bath don't die; Blunt retires; Alex comes in and gets John's medals; Nile gets Yassassinated

[jgroffdaily]

Sitting down ahead of A Nice Indian Boy’s London Film Festival premiere on 15 October, the all-gay team of 7 Days director Roshan Sethi, Deadpool’s Karan Soni and Looking’s Jonathan Groff reflect on what this South Asian, queer rom-com means to them.

Soni: For [7 Days], we were like: “Let’s test our relationship in this very stressful way.” It ended up being good couple’s therapy. Then, for [A Nice Indian Boy] we were so giddy we got to make this together because it was such a personal subject matter. If either of us made this individually, we would’ve been jealous of the other person. But we got to do it together so this one is very special.

Sethi: I don’t think I experience pure creative joy without him – it’s a deeper level of creative joy than I experienced with projects away from him. It’s a very special thing.

Groff: Oh my God, that’s so sweet. Is the joy happening when you’re actually on the set, or is it when you’re editing it?

Sethi: Both. The purest joy is watching him act. I feel like he’s acting for me when he’s being really funny.

Soni: For me, the joy is this part of it: putting the [film] out in the world. I feel so happy that we can share it because people feel moved by it. It’s so exciting to be engaged with that together.

Jonathan, your character has an interesting perspective, on paper he’s the outlier but his open-hearted nature is infectious. How was it for you to arrive with the character of Jay?

Groff: I’d never read anybody like Jay. It’s interesting to have adopted parents and grow up in a religion that you wouldn’t otherwise grow up in. I knew nothing about Indian culture, so it was a crash course. I watched the movie for the first time on Saturday, it was educational for me. I tend to be a very full-on person and I felt exposed, not in a bad way. That openness you’re talking about is part of the character but from the outside, I was like: “Oh God, Groff!” I could hold my cards a little bit closer, it was confronting to watch him be so open.

I especially loved the scene where you burst into song on the street. That set the tone.

Groff: I just did a full lip-sync to “Livin’ La Vida Loca” in the cafe at lunch with my friend today. So I am like Jay in that way, for worse or better.

Groff: It feels like a door has opened. For [Sethi, Soni] and the producers it was like pushing a rock up a hill to get this movie made, it’s the definition of a passion project. In addition, I would have never imagined in 2008, when I came out, being out would be an asset in my career. I always thought it would be a hindrance. Even though there is still so much work to do, the fact I have the opportunity to be who I am, at least my sexual identity on screen, still feels like a total shock and gift.

Also, to play romance scenes with Karan was magic; getting to be romantic as two men still feels like an incredible gift. I got to experience it on the TV show Looking, which was therapeutically transformational for me. Representation continues to be such a gift as an actor.

[Favourite film with a moment of revelation for the characters]

Groff: Mine is Grease, I love it so much!

Thank you for your thoughtful gay rom-com. I need a lesbian one next, please.

Groff: Oh! Yes!

Sethi: It’s on the list!

Soni: We need lesbian doctors.

Sethi: Yes! That’s what we need: two lesbian doctors fall in love!

[sgiandubh]

Mordor says He returned only for Visa reasons. They did some math and understood that Sam had been there for almost 90 days, só It was time for a quick walk home.

Dear Visa Anon,

Which Mordor luminary came with this idea? The MENSA-level CRT Clique or Miss Marple, who thinks I know nothing (the Dimwit from Madrid is still learning how to spell, so I can't believe it's her)?

Regardless. These people should immediately stop watching Ninety-Day Fiancé on their cable network, following a severe overdose on Uzbek midgets and Egyptian gigolos 'looking for true love' stories.

Maybe they could also have checked their facts before solemnly stating bullshit, since they clearly think all the visitors to the wonderful U S of A are tourists and as such, entitled to a maximum 90-day stay at a time (and then a short hike to Tijuana or Canada and back on tracks: not EDI/GLA, FFS!).

Incidentally, may I remind these geniuses that S has been spotted only near EDI, which of course would mean for them he'd be getting his visa there. Unless...

Unless you know the US General Consulate in EDI does not issue any type of visas - LOL, idiots. And unless he'd need to be in LHR for the pre-appointed interview and then another 7 working days delay for processing and 1-3 working days for passport delivery by mail only (never in person, chickadees). Doesn't really click with timelines, Madam Expert.

Because they are all very intelligent, they also forgot everything about/never bothered to look for the new-ish ESTA system (https://www.handyvisas.com/esta-us-visa/british/), especially designed for Visa Waiver countries' citizens. So I insist: if traveling as a tourist, S does not need a visa to enter the US for up to 90 days - that is correct, but by no means applicable to S's reality. And if he knew he'd need to stay more than 90 days, he would have applied for a visa - mandatory - in London before the Summer of Sassenach tour.

But he is not traveling as a tourist and very probably not under another type of non-immigrant visa, simply because he has businesses there and he is also involved in the OL project with *** (d'oh!).

Let's unpack:

As per US current regulations, S cannot apply for a B-1 (business non immigrant visa). To understand why, kindly refer to the US Customs and Border Protection FAQ (https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/B-1%20permissible%20activities.pdf). I already munched it up for you:

He could only apply for a O-1 B immigration visa, for which his agent or employer should mandatorily petition the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. These are special visas designed for the individual who (...) has a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements. This is very subjective and a contract with * should be enough - I was in a taxi when I received your ask and immediately checked with a friend from the US Consulate, to indulge you. And all this hassle just because a Tumblr Nobody has flatulent opinions, huh?

According to the USCIS's own regulations, not Dutch fantasy or Belfast sagas, the authorized period of stay and possibility of extension are as follows (https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement):

The good thing about getting this visa (and I think * sorted it out a long time ago for both of them) is that it helps tremendously with the Green Card procedures, something I bet the farm both S & C already have, by now.

So doing the maths was perfectly inane and useless.

Does that answer your question, clever Anon? Can I go back to the Quaich post I must finish (it will be VERY long, beware) today?

Thanks for asking and I am sorry for the length: this fandom being paranoid, I had to include all the tedious details. I hope we can put this idiocy to rest, now. Parochial twits.

[formulalfc]

Oh im so glad you write for levi! could you please do reader and him have been talking for a while and now going on their first date x

you guys had met and an england team event, you were doing some of the social media side of the evening while of course, he was there as part of the team. but he had seen you across the room and thought you were one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen and he had to come over and talk to you. you guys got on really well and had exchanged numbers, weeks of texting each other 24/7 about anything you guys could think of until levi asked you if you would go on a date with him. of course you said yes and soon enough he was outside your door ready to pick you up for your date. you opened the door to him and smiled shyly down at him from your doorstep before locking up your house. he gave you a kiss on the cheek and told you how beautiful you looked tonight as he helped you into the passenger side of the car. he drove you guys to a small restaurant just down the road from where you lived, it was one of your favourites which he had remembered from a conversation you had weeks ago. when you guys got there he helped you out of the car and brought you to your table with a hand placed at the small of your back. you guys sat and spoke through all three meals, laughing and chatting about your shared interests and stories of your teenage years. when you guys finished the meal, he walked you past the car into the park across the road, where there was a bench looking out over london. he sat down and patted the seat next to him where he had taken his jacket off to put on the seat so your legs weren't cold. you sat next to him and shuffled into him, blushing when his arm draped itself over your shoulder. you guys spoke a bit more, your conversation is quieter now and on a deeper level than in the restaurant. you were looking up at the stars when you felt levi's gaze on the side of your face and so you turned to face him. he smiled at you before he cupped your cheek in his hand, thumb stroking the side of your face before he leaned in to press your lips together. the kiss didn't last long just a few seconds but when levi pulled away you couldn't help but quickly press them together again before you both giggled. you leaned your head against his shoulder, now more comfortable showing him affection when he asked you "so when's the next date?"

inbox is open send me some ramble requests <3

[ask-de-writer]

SUBMARINE! 1812 an Alternate History

Chapter 7, part 3 of 6

Winter in England

by

De Writer

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to Science Fiction

We forged on, guided by compass alone for most of the time. The storm finally failed and we rose to periscope depth. Looking about I saw no ships in sight but there were welcome breaks in the cloud wrack above us, letting me get a navigation sight. That sighting combined with our chronometer reading and some figuring showed that we were over half way to our destination but had been carried further north than I would have liked.

Laying in our corrected course we proceeded to stalk the Beast of Britain.

~ ~ ~

The Gazelle pulled out of the rough waters of the sea and into the calmer waters of the Thames estuary. Carefully picking her way westward up the river, she passed the London Bridge and pulled up to a river dock close by to the Houses of Parliament, where she discharged her diplomatic pouch and returned down river to the sea, turning south and into the English Channel. Her weather was, for a wonder, clear as she made her way to the crowded Harbor of Portsmouth to resupply and give her crew a well earned shore liberty. This last crossing had been a rough one.

In London, the Foreign Office disclosed Sir Lional's Note to the Prime Minister who erupted in rage! “This is an outrage! Sir Lional proposes that we seek to have peace with the Continental Congress over this? Mere Congreves?”

The Foreign Officer nodded, “We feel the same. It is true that their battle group did us great harm this summer and autumn past but they have withdrawn and we are even now working to equip two Ships of the Line with our best Congreves. We have already consulted with Whitehall and we all agree with you. We need to recall Sir Lional at the least.”

The Prime Minister leaned back in his thickly upholstered chair and took a long pull at his pipe. He let out a cloud of smoke before replying, “There is but one possible difficulty with replacing Sir Lional. His Majesty King George III. He has the Right of Review and can simply say No to anything that we or Parliment propose.” He held up a hand and went on, “Therefore, let us repair to Buckingham Palace and get His Royal approval first. With that in hand, we and Parliment can proceed without issue.”

They had to delay some at the Great Gate of Buckingham while the Guards verified that the King was willing to see them at this late hour of the day. They were ushered to a modest room deep in the Palace, where His Royal Majesty was having a quiet supper.

He gestured hospitably to chairs at the end of his table, but they knew that it was a blunt command. “Gentlemen, I do hope that your business is urgent. My audiences for the day are closed. So, what is it that demands such a violation of Protocol?”

“It is, Your Majesty. This very day, the message Packet, Gazelle left a diplomatic pouch from Sir Lional Humphries, Ambassador to the Continental Congress. In it, besides his usual reports and the like was a Note filled with outrageous claims and recommending that we conclude a treaty of peace with the Continental Congress, lest we feel their wrath on our Home Island.”

“Indeed, Gentlemen, that does not sound like the Sir Lional that I know. He is normally very level headed. I would expect that he has some sound reason to write such a thing. Have you the Note itself?”

The Prime Minister nodded, “We have, Your Majesty. Here it is.” He passed the Note to a servant who carried it to the King.

He spent some time examining what was written there. Tapping his finger upon the calculations concerning the Continental Congress' new missiles, he inquired, “Have you considered, Gentlemen, that these might be correct and the ranges publicly announced are far short of the reality? We have very direct evidence that they do possess some quite good Congreves. We have lost a good many ships to them.”

“We have, Your Majesty. We have spent the afternoon consulting many experts, including Sir Congreve himself. Besides not having enough ships to mount a serious invasion, we feel that the missile demonstration that he recounts had to be some sort of hoax.

“We wish to at the least, recall Sir Lional to be interrogated by Parliament. This call for an end to a war that we did not declare may be treason. Therefore, Your Majesty, we seek your approval before hand so that Parliament can handle the details of his recall without fear of a Royal Review.”

“I see.” He signaled a courtier and scribbled a note. “Have this prepared for my signature at once. One original and three file copies.”

For once, the nearly always obstreperous Parliament was in agreement. Doing it's business still took long into the night simply because every MP and every one of the Lords wanted to weigh in and have their speech in the record.

The actual vote to replace Sir Lional Humphries as Ambassador and recall him to be questioned before Parliament was a formality and quickly done. Choosing a properly hard line man as Ambassador to the Continental Congress took longer.

Speeches were still going on and general indignation about Sir Lional's cowardly advocating of Peace terms, when Sir Cootinar took horse and set out across the London Bridge and raced through the streets of London on his errand. By midnight, he was well out of the city, on his way to Portsmouth Harbor.

In spite of some rough weather in the English Channel, the Kraken proceeded silently and stealthily to round the eastern end of the English Isle. Entering the Thames Estuary, guided by periscope alone, we made for a particular and exacting location, actually well into London town as evening was falling.

I called cheerfully, “Set both fore and after hooks! The bottom here should be sound enough for our needs! Gentlemen of the Kraken, you wondered why we bypassed so many fine targets on our way here!? This is the answer. We are going to strike at the very heart of the British Empire.

“The tide is rising. When it is near full, and well after dark, we shall surface, held firmly by boyancy and our anchors. That will give us the stable platform to deliver our message to the Beast of Britain. They are Not Safe even in their most secure places!”

It took several hours for the tide and time to be right. Rising up until our decks were only a foot above the river, hatches opened. Lifting equipment was set up and pulled up launchers that were placed along the length of the deck.

The lean and deadly rockets that Sir Lional so rightly feared, were hoisted up and set into their launchers. Careful bearings and angles were passed down the line.

<- PREVIOUS ~~ NEXT->

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to Science Fiction

[sbusinesstechnologylondon]

Unlock Your Potential : Master diverse skills in each career path!

Elevate Your Career with a Qualified Accredited Program: Your Path to Excellence!

Website: https://sbusinesslondon.ac.uk/

[freshfraise]

ALL OR NOTHING - ONE

pairing: kylian mbappé x reader

summary: Childhood sweethearts. After a tearful, transformative departure at just 19, four years pass by. And now, at 23, you are being forced to awkwardly reunite with your ex-boyfriend to fulfill your dreaded journalistic duties.

authors note: this chapter is essentially the build up to when they meet again next chapter, so bear with me :)) thank you for all the love and comment if you want to be in the tag list!

previous chapter here

2022 | LONDON, SOHO

You shake off your nerves as you enter your boss's office. You were specifically called over, which was extremely rare for a journalist of your level. Sympathetic glances are shot over from your colleagues, having you anticipate the worst. You wrap your trembling digits around the frigid doorknob and heave deeply. 

“I’m removing you from Educational Journalism and switching you to a different sector.” Your boss declares bluntly, barely leaving any time for your feet to be firmly planted on the floor.

“Wh-”

“I believe your writing is better fit for a more riveting sector than Education. Something along the lines of Entertainment and Sports.” He continues, blocking out any sort of inquiry you may have. The word Sports rings in your head. It was only just four years ago. Four years ago since you last saw him. Of course, you saw the odd headline of him or a trending hashtag/tweet debating just how good of a player he is, but you made it your (extremely difficult) mission to ignore and block out as much as possible of your ridiculously illustrious ex-boyfriend. You prayed that your boss would lean more into the entertainment sector, as you definitely wouldn’t mind interviewing and writing about celebrities and media around the world.

“Okay well, is there any sort of training I need to take before I start?” You question quickly, wary that you would be cut off again.

“Your writing is just what we need, so no, none at all. In fact, you have a train to Paris booked for 7:45 am tomorrow, as you’ll be interviewing a popular football team at their stadium. I’ll confirm more details in the morning.” The ringing in your ears grows louder, almost deafening. Suddenly, your trembling fingers become slick with perspiration and your tongue abnormally scratchy. There’s no way, what are the odds? you think to yourself. Your breathing becomes more hollow and rapid, now audible.

“Ms. Y/L/N? Are-” 

You interrupt this time, (unintentionally, but nonetheless it felt good). “Is this confirmed? Is there any way to deny this? I have a lot of things going on-”

“Y/N, this job is highly sought after, so the fact you’re even considering denying this job is very telling of your dedication to your role.” Your boss reprimands, making you purse your lips in shame. “And, yes it is very much confirmed, both the train ticket and the interviews. I get it, it’s normal to get scared and anxious when meeting celebrities of such calibre, but, you’re a journalist and this is a part of your job. Paris Saint Germain is one of-” Your boss’s voice fades out in the abundance of thoughts swirling around in your throbbing head. Now, you’re regretting a lot of things. You’re regretting not keeping in touch, which would probably drastically reduce the levels of anxiety you’re feeling but also your insistence on keeping your relationship with him private, because if it wasn’t, maybe your boss would understand how uncomfortable this situation is. Although, it did save you a swarm of hate comments and death threats.

You tune back into your boss’s ongoing rant, “-I, myself, am a fan of PSG, so if you could maybe get a signature or two from a couple players, that would be great.” He suggests, voice evident of enthusiasm. You roll your eyes subtly before heading your way out of the office. 

“Oh, Y/N?” He calls out, making you turn back promptly. “A signature from Mbappé in particular.” He comments, a small smile on his face. You pinch your eyelids shut and nod, already embarrassed at the thought of asking your Ex best friend/boy friend for a signature. 

---

On the tiresome commute home, you take advantage of the empty bus and call your best friend to communicate your uneasy thoughts.

“Imani, should I quit?” You ask, slouched in your seat, head facing the bus ceiling. One of the first and only friends you made in London, Imani is the only person outside of your immediate family that knows of your past relations with the footballer. Initially, she thought that it was a very well thought out prank, before realising that it was, in fact real and ended up screaming down the phone at you in bewilderment, leaving you to explain the extensive history of Y/N and the Mbappé.

“Girl, you have bills to pay. So delete that from your options,” She states bluntly, earning a hearty chuckle from you. “Unless,” She says, dragging out the ‘S’.

“Unless what?”

“Unless you get back together with him, that financial burden is lifted off your shoulders, and I can become WAG adjacent again! Win win for all of us!” 

“Imani.” You say exasperated.

“I’m kidding. Kinda. If I’m being honest, I still don’t understand why you broke up with him. You guys were so cute.”

“First of all, It was mutual. Kinda.” You recall the series of events, remembering your desolation and ache. You bite your lower lip, not liking to think too much about the feelings that day.

“Yeah mutual, yet he was begging for you not to leave him.” Imani responds, making you giggle quietly at her cut throat attitude.

“That wasn’t funny.” You say blankly, not giving her the satisfaction of making you laugh. “Plus, that was years ago, he probably has a girlfriend now.” The thought scans your mind briefly, leaving you to ponder.

“I love you, and I don’t want to be with anyone else but you, Y/N."

“You know what that means.” Imani declares, interrupting your train of thought.

“Late night stalking session?” “Late night stalking sesh.” Imani affirms. A late night stalking session, consists of one dedicated hour to finding out everything, ever imaginable about a possible romantic interest. In this case, a past romantic interest. This should be easy, you think to yourself, due to his famed status.

After a long journey home and sixty fatiguing, extensive minutes of harassing online search engines, you and Imani concluded two things:

Ethan has grown a lot since you last saw him.

Kylian, as a matter of fact, does have a girlfriend, who apparently, he’s engaged to.

---

taglist: @aechii

[takeariskao3]

Day 7: Lover written for #SeveralSunlitDaylights & @corneliaavenue-ao3

a version of this has existed since may of 2020 and it feels so good to finally put it into the universe after sitting on it for three (THREE!) years... i have a feeling i will continue this at some point and hopefully turn it into a full blow fic, but until then, enjoy some non-traditional, pandemic themed, sex pollen, a/b/o dynamics <33

They said it started in China. At the annual festival in Shanghai. 

Some experts claimed the mutation originated because of an uncharacteristically dry winter. Some blamed climate change. Others said it was all part of the cyclical nature of the earth. A purification process. Nature taking its course. 

The more hysterically minded said it was the end of the fucking world. 

Either way, Ginny watched in horror with the rest of Edinburgh as more and more reports flooded the news.

All across the northern hemisphere, the cherry trees were blossoming, and people were going mad.

~~~

The thing about fear was that it spread like wildfire. 

Grocery stores emptied of necessities overnight. The Prime Minister issued stay at home orders, some of the more populated areas even attempted a voluntary curfew. Borders were closed, air traffic came to a grinding halt, restaurants were instructed to only offer takeout, and any non-essential businesses were told to close their doors entirely. 

For a while, it all felt over-cautious. 

At least until the first case hit Cardiff. 

They said the little omega lasted three days in a severe heat until the pain and the dehydration finally rendered her unconscious. Her family rushed her to the emergency room and it was another two days before the hospital identified what was happening to her. They said before she was quarantined, she infected almost thirty people, nine of them hospital staff. 

It spread from twenty-nine confirmed cases to over three-hundred within a week, three-hundred became eight-thousand within the month.

And that was just Wales.

~~~

Birmingham was the third city to reach critical levels of contamination, after Liverpool and Manchester. 

They projected a global spread, the more densely populated areas being hit first. Each day the estimates increased, predicting numbers so catastrophic, there hadn’t been anything like it in over five-hundred years.

The real test, however, was London. 

There were reports that all the major cabinet members had been moved to separate and secure locations. That way if any of them contracted the sickness, at the very least, they wouldn’t infect the rest of the country's leaders. 

The worst part was nobody seemed to know anything. Records of the last pandemic were inconclusive or didn’t exist. No one knew how long the sickness lasted or how debilitating it really was. Less reliable news sources even reported deaths when the first wave hit eastern China, rumours spreading of alphas ripping each other apart over the chance to mate an omega.

But that’s all they were. 

Rumours. 

~~~

Designation had never mattered much to Ginny. It was just something stamped on her birth certificate next to seven pounds two ounces, eighteen inches long. Her ruts weren’t dramatic events, they were hardly even a disruption. Four times a year, she’d get the urge, use her fingers on herself three nights in a row and wait out the subsequent five days of bleeding.

Designation also hasn’t mattered to the world in decades. Suppressants went out of fashion after the turn of the century, the human race’s more animalistic instincts fading with each generation until the ruts and heats became nothing more than quarterly nuisances. Only a very small percentage of the population still needed herbs and homoeopathic blockers to get by, the rest went about their lives business as usual.

Humanity had evolved past such trivial things as Alpha, Beta, and Omega. 

But now, it was all anyone could talk about.

~~~

Dawdling around the townhouse, Ginny took her frustrations out in the form of kneading a lumpy, soon to be loaf of bread while half listening to the news. Her television emitted a scratchy noise every few seconds, but for a dumpster dive, it worked fine enough. Especially since for the six weeks she’d been stuck at home, she’d hardly turned the damn thing off. 

It wasn’t so much that she was dedicated to being informed, she just couldn’t bear the silence.

No honking cars, no nosy tourists, no shouting street vendors.

It was quiet in an uncomfortable way, in an unnatural way. In a way that left Ginny too much alone with her own thoughts. 

As she punched the dough down as hard as she could, her telly warbled out an odd static followed by the evening news anchor chatting animatedly with a couple who supposedly recovered from the sickness.

“And you think having each other,” the journalist asked in disbelief, “helped speed up your recovery?” 

“We realise it sounds a bit crazy, we aren’t even sure if there is science to support it–” a male voice responded. He sounded rational enough even though what he was saying went against every directive of social distancing. “But I’m an alpha, and my wife is an omega. When we both came down with it, we decided to stay home and wait it out together. Within a week or so we felt completely back to normal...”

Ginny snorted. The hospitals reported the illness lasting between twelve to fifteen days, not seven. And what were their credentials besides claiming to have been infected? The news station could interview anyone off the street. They’d probably interview her if she claimed she danced naked, covered in chicken’s blood beneath the full moon and it spared her. If anything, the segment was irresponsible. Now people were going to go out looking for a sex partner for the week.

Sighing at the downturn in journalistic integrity, she tuned out the rest of the interview, content to bask in the early May breeze wafting through the open windows.

Until she heard the squeak of brakes slow to a stop out front. 

And muffled voices. 

Followed by a car door slamming shut. 

She’d just begun to wonder which bluenose neighbour had arrived to hole up in a holiday house when footsteps scuffed up the stone walk, her stone walk, and a key slid into the lock of her front door.

The knob turned, the door clicked open, and Ginny stood rooted to the spot, covered in flour as her landlord (slash older brother’s best mate) appeared framed on the stoop. 

At first, Harry didn’t notice her. He stepped inside, careful to scrub his shoes on the mat before closing the door behind him and dropping his duffle unceremoniously in the foyer. He looked the same as he had nearly a year ago. He scratched a hand through the disaster hair piled atop his head then patted it all down again. His glasses were the same, and he still had the same little divot permanently etching his brow into a scowl. Beneath his anorak she could tell his lean frame still gave way to lanky limbs that shifted into slender fingers. 

Then the telly switched programs, the News giving way to some crime documentary, or something. Ginny wasn’t actually paying attention. At the change in music, Harry froze with his back halfway to her and his shoulders went tight. 

Then he turned on the spot, and he finally registered Ginny’s presence tucked away in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Their gazes held for several beats too long, both of them wide-eyed and startled by the existence of the other in such close proximity. 

Ginny’s heart thundered inside her chest, in a way that was achingly familiar and entirely unwelcome. 

“What are you– I didn’t think–” Harry stammered quickly. “Ron said he was meeting you back home?”

“He was,” Ginny answered, just as flustered. “I’d planned on it but– I couldn’t– I mean, I…changed my mind.”

Harry dug his fingers into his eyes behind his glasses and swore softly. He looked a bit peaky.  

“Christ, I’m an idiot,” He croaked. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve called.”

“No, it’s fine,” she reassured, not quite sure why she was pardoning his intrusion. “It’s still your house.”

They stared at each other in the silence for several beats too long, both of them seemingly at a loss for what to do next. 

“Er–” Harry finally stammered, a grin taking over his face. “Hi, by the way.”

Ginny laughed. “Yeah... long time, no see.”

They went in for a hug at the same time, but it was too light and too quick to feel natural. As he pulled away, Harry averted his gaze and let his eyes wander around the hall and the front two rooms. 

“Is Luna…” he trailed off, as if those two words were question enough. 

Ginny realised she was still covered in baking powder and half finished dough. She grabbed a tea towel from the hook and wiped her hands just for something to look at besides him. “She and her Dad were visiting family in Hamburg when the stay at home orders hit. She’s been stuck there for over a month. They can’t get a flight home.”

Harry nodded and let out a deep exhale of sympathy. “Fuck, yeah, that’d be awful.” He paused, shooting her a furtive glance. “And you? How–how are you?”

“Yeah, fine,” One half of her mouth tipped into a smile. “You?”

Shaking his head as if in thought, his hands fidgeted slightly in front of him. “Well, London is a disaster. They aren’t letting anyone leave their homes, or letting anyone into town. They’re letting people leave, but it took me ten days just to get approval to hop a train. I figured it couldn’t be so bad up here, you know? That’s why I…”

He trailed off again and Ginny wondered if he’d become incapable of finishing a coherent sentence in the time since she’d seen him last. 

“Makes sense,” she nodded generously. 

Harry remained exactly where he was, awkwardly perched on the welcome mat. 

“You can come in,” Ginny asserted and he flinched a bit like he hadn’t expected to actually be allowed to stay. 

“Right,” he cleared his throat and stepped forward like a man walking the plank. 

Busying herself with the kettle, she tried not to be too aware of his progress through the sitting room. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him wave to the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Ginny grinned. The house held tell-tale signs of being solely occupied by her for the last month and a half. Stray jumpers, and rumpled throw pillows, and forgotten cups of tea sat scattered all around. The dishes in the sink were piled several days too high and the bananas on her countertop were just a shade too brown. 

“It’s a disaster,” she corrected, pulling her last two bags of tea out of the cupboard. 

Harry flashed her a smile, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. “I mean the furniture and things. The colours.”

“The colours?” she repeated incredulously. 

“Yeah,” he hummed, finally inching his way fully into the kitchen. He swallowed as his eyes settled on her once more. “It looks nice. Cosy.”

Snorting, she pulled her nearly empty carton of milk out of the refrigerator. “A sight better than when you and Ron lived here, you mean?”

That fleeting smirk again, there and then gone. “Do you know our sofa broke in two when we tried to move it out?”

“That does not surprise me in the slightest.”

Ginny poured and they both chuckled. She passed him one of the mugs and the milk, remembering how he took it. She reckoned it was one of those things she’d never forget. Like the opening to her favourite Spice Girls’ song, or her childhood phone number, or the rhymes to bonfire night. Two plus two equals four and Harry took his tea with milk, no sugar.

He tipped a splash into his cup, seemed to hesitate for a second, and then burst, “I can get a room. There’s got to be a hotel open in Old Town–”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ginny cut across him, spooning a heap of sugar into her own tea. Again, she wasn’t quite sure why she was contradicting him, but she refused to chase the thought down, because then she’d have to acknowledge that somewhere deep down she wanted him to stay. 

“Ginny,” he croaked. “I can’t intrude like this. I’ll figure something out. I’ll go stay at Sirius’ place in the country, or–”

“Harry,” she interrupted him again. “It’s your house.”

He seemed determined to put himself out. “But I can’t just show up out of the blue and–”

“Luna took your old room–” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“I mean, you pay rent!” Now he was just talking to himself. “I had no right–”

“And she’s obviously not using it–” Ginny reasoned, though the ramifications of what she was suggesting crept up on her in a gradual recognition of awareness. 

“I bet the Chisholm Hunter has rooms–”

“Harry!” she cut across him in humoured agitation. “It’s fine. Stay tonight, or the next few days, or a week, until you figure it out. It’s fine.”

He blinked, the furrow between his brows deepening in thought. “You’re sure it’s okay?”

“Yes,” she lied, like a liar. “It’s not a big deal.”

It was kind of a big deal, but she could handle it. 

“You said they aren’t letting people into London, right?” Ginny continued. “What are you going to do? Rent a room until they let you go back home? That could be months!”

He opened his mouth as if to argue, then shut it again and exhaled sharply through his nose. 

“Yeah, alright,” He conceded. “But only until I can get ahold of Sirius. Then, I swear, I’ll get out of your hair.”

The statement stung, just a little. As if getting out of her sight was vastly preferable than remaining in it. 

“Where is he?” Ginny asked instead, lifting her mug to her mouth as if completely unaffected. 

Harry pulled out his mobile and punched in his passcode. “Australia. Apparently their cherry trees don’t bloom until September.”

A scoff bubbled up in the back of her throat. “Lucky Australia.”

He muttered something that sounded like agreement and pressed the phone to his ear. As he meandered back into the sitting room, Ginny turned her cupboards in search of biscuits. Surely, she still had a package left somewhere. 

Harry returned within moments. “Didn’t answer.”

“Well,” she shrugged, “Isn’t it like three in the morning?”

Harry gave her a flat look. “It’s Sirius.”

She laughed. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

Something in his expression sparked at her reaction and it made the breath in her lungs go shallow. 

Just like his smiles, the flare of something was there and then gone in an instant. She tried not to feel the familiarity of it, really she did, but something hollowed out spread through her middle at the reminder of her nearly debilitating infatuation, and then its eventual collapse. 

Ginny cleared her throat, coming back to her senses. “So, you said it took you forever to get a train ticket. Have they decreased the routes?”

“Oh, erm–” Harry took a sip of tea that was clearly too hot for his mouth and he winced. “Yeah, and they’re checking into everyone who books.”

Understanding washed over her. “Right, so they make sure people aren’t…”

Great, now she was incapable of finishing her sentences. 

He looked to her uncomfortably. “I hadn’t actually ever seen my birth certificate, I just always figured I was a Beta. Had to have a Doctor check me over once to make sure I wasn’t — you know — that I hadn’t gone unidentified.” 

“Right, good. Nice.”

Why exactly was it nice? She should really stop talking. 

“Is that why you…” He gestured vaguely south with one hand. “Couldn’t…go home?”

“Oh, er-” Ginny resisted the urge to cringe. “No.”

In reality, she’d had plenty of time to book a train to Devon before they started restricting the passengers who were designated one way or the other, but she hadn’t had the funds.

Harry’s gaze sharpened in curiosity. 

“Do you want to put your stuff upstairs?” she asked brightly. “You must be knackered after travelling all day.”

~~~

Ginny retreated to the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her and leaning back against the sink. Shortly after Harry had settled into Luna’s room, his old room, she’d heard his mobile ring. His muffled voice through the mostly closed door had been maddening, and nearly too tempting to eavesdrop on, so she’d escaped. 

She was half-torn. One part of her wished Sirius was offering up his country house to his godson immediately, and the other part hoped there was some flood, or fire, or other natural disaster that made it inhabitable. 

Because the prospect of spending time with someone, but especially him; to not be alone hour after hour and day after day, was almost too exquisite to contemplate. 

Christ, she was hopeless. 

With nothing better to do than simmer in her own thoughts, Ginny turned the taps to the bath and adjusted the temperature until the shower spray was borderline scorching. She spent an excessive amount of time washing her hair and scrubbing her skin. She didn’t bother trying to figure out if she was doing it consciously or subconsciously, but she did know she was avoiding the end of her shower. Because as soon as she left the bath, she’d find out if he was staying or going. 

Both scenarios felt too formidable to contemplate. 

Eventually, though, the water ran cold, and Ginny couldn’t hide any longer. 

After brushing her teeth, applying night cream, and wrapping herself up in her dressing gown, Ginny yanked open the bathroom door to find Harry standing directly in the doorway, with his fist raised as if to knock. 

“Oh, sorry–” He muttered, his gaze flitting down her body and back up again. His face flushed just enough to notice. “That was Sirius,” he continued. “I can stay at his place, so I’ll be out of here as soon as I can book a train.” 

Ginny pulled in a breath and did her best to keep it even. “Right. Good.”

She felt anything but good. 

Squeezing past him and into the hallway, she kept her expression bright and open until she was safe inside her bedroom. 

In her haste, she missed the way his eyes fluttered shut as she passed. 

~~~

That night was unseasonably hot. The forecast had called for it to be a mild week, balmy and temperate, so Ginny wasn’t sure why the air wafting in through her open window felt so stifling. As she tossed and turned, a light sheen of sweat clung to her skin, and she contemplated the merits of another shower. This time a cold one. 

She settled for a glass of water instead. 

Padding down the hall toward the stairs, Ginny skirted past Luna’s room as quickly and quietly as she could. However, in the end, stealth didn’t matter.  

Harry was already in the kitchen, propped up against the sink and looking pale. 

“You okay?” Ginny muttered, taking a tentative step forward. 

Clenching his eyes shut, Harry kept his head down and nodded. “I don’t know what’s happened to my stomach. Food poisoning or something–”

“I may have some Pepti upstairs?”

Harry nodded again. 

She took a step closer, reaching for a glass from the shelf when the scent hit her. It smelled like fresh spring mornings, and the citrus of Earl Grey tea, and the warmth of never being alone. It smelled like home. 

Every instinct she had screamed at her to take in more of it, to surround herself in it. Harry’s eyes met hers through the dim light and she saw him pull in a deep inhale through flared nostrils. 

In an instant, her mind was restless and her body uncomfortably warm. Parts of her she didn’t know could ache, gnawed and cramped in time with her too loud pulse.

She dropped the glass she’d been holding at the same time Harry lept backwards. 

In some corner of her mind, she knew what was happening. All of the doctors listed the same symptoms over and over; heightened senses, irregular body temperature, lower-abdominal cramps, increased libido. However, she was firmly ignoring the signs… especially the last one. It was much easier to dismiss her body’s immediate urges as coincidence. Otherwise, she would also have to admit what triggered it. 

For fuck’s sake, Harry triggered it. 

But that would mean he–

Fucking fuck, fuck, fuck.

[born-to-lose-writing]

No Road Romance – Chapter 7

Pairing: Roger Daltrey x reader

Summary: When you start going to The Who's shows, you regularly hook up with Roger, but after a while of being his groupie and a friend, you're beginning to think you like him more than that.

Tags: angst, implied smut

Words: 1,208

A/N: New chapter today in honor of Roger's birthday! 🥰 Unfortunately something more angsty but an update is an update. P.S. I hope you guys like the moodboard for this series because I've run out of matching gifs

Tag list: @slit-skirts

You were very well aware that Roger had sex with other girls in about every place he visited on tour, whether it was in America, continental Europe or Oceania – where he was at the moment. Hell, in your early days with him you often left the dressing room to find the next groupie casually waiting outside.

Besides the fact that it was normal rockstar behavior and it would have been naive to think he would be celibate while playing shows away from home with a wide selection of girls who wanted him, he had told you openly once the two of you had become closer.

Of course, your relationship was in no way serious or exclusive, you had simply gotten to know each other better on a friendly and deeper level, but that didn't change the originally and still fairly sexual nature of your relationship. Still, he wanted to make sure you knew that you were not the only one in order to avoid misunderstandings, even if you had expressed not wanting a romantic relationship before.

Obviously, you were alright with that because you didn't sit at home waiting for him to return like a puppy either. You had better things to do than mourn your friend with benefits like a housewife who had lost her husband at war.

One of those things was going to other concerts. The Who had started your passion for live music and luckily, there were many rock bands who played in and around London, so you took any chance you got. Thanks to your experience with sneaking backstage and having met a few people in the scene on those occasions, it wasn't too difficult for you to meet some lesser-known musicians.

You had to admit a lot of them were attractive and very friendly, so you slept with a few as well. However, you seemingly had a type as you usually went for singers. There was just something about a man with a microphone, a nice voice and charisma.

Some didn't remain a one night stand, yet none evolved into what Roger and you had. You only met at the shows of theirs you attended occasionally, but you didn't travel after them because you had a job and if any had ended up being interested in regular hookups, you would have had no spare time at all. They were certainly good lays, some more than others, but you still preferred Roger in many ways.

You could tell Roger was a jealous person, but you didn't let yourself be bothered by that in those times. When he wasn't available and sleeping with women in different countries, you were going to have some fun too. After all, you belonged to the same type as them, though with the exception that you had become friends over the two years you had known him.

Either way, he didn't need to know about what was happening in England. Not that you were scared of his reaction – he was always respectful and didn't let his jealousy out on you in case he saw you talking to other men who were trying to flirt with you – you just didn't think it was any of his business as you never asked about his other girls either. You knew they existed, but you had no interest in knowing more. Why would you?

You thoroughly enjoyed the groupie life, with or without Roger, albeit more with him. You got to the backstage area where barely anyone had access to, even after some of those bands had reached more popularity, you were added to guest lists if your flings wanted to make sure you would turn up again, you got to know them more personally than they revealed in teen magazines, you were shown demos of yet to be released songs, you took candid photos of them, you had records signed for your growing collection, you found friends in the musicians as well as in other fans who shared your love for music and the people who made it. Overall, it was an amazing experience and you felt lucky to have ended up here simply because you had decided to go near the backstage door back in February 1966.

However, at some point you stopped seeking sex with them as much as you used to. If the chemistry was there and you were attracted to someone, you didn't exclude the possibility, but the stranger and fonder your feelings for Roger became, the less interested you were in hooking up with other people. That didn't mean you stopped going backstage because you very much loved that, even if only for a friendly chat and to have a good time with people Roger didn't necessarily know. You had to keep your social circle aside from him and his bandmates before you would end up accidentally isolating yourself and pushing your friends away. After all, this man wasn't your whole life.

Admittedly, you started to get a little jealous at the thought of him with other groupies – not because he had sex with them, but because you feared if he developed a stronger connection with one of them or he considered you too boring, he would find another favourite and you would be on the back burner at best. You were afraid of being replaced and not being able to spend as much time with him as you did now that you had grown to enjoy his company so much – afraid of a good friendship fizzling out.

When he was at home, your life went back to normal and he was as familiar and sweet as usual, as were you. You did what you were always doing off tour as if nothing had happened. Actually, nothing really had happened, and you didn't even think about that matter until he was back on the road again.

Only shortly after he had left did the anxiety and melancholy set in. Further into his absence, you got mad every now and then. Both, mad at him and mad at yourself. He had done nothing specifically to piss you off – you were not in contact while he was touring abroad – so your only reason was the thought of him getting closer to someone else and slowly neglecting you.

Sometimes when you were upset about this, you fell back into your old scheme, which usually resulted in a one night stand. Either you were anxious about the future of your friendship and were in need of comfort, or you wanted to scream at Roger in frustration and needed someone to prove that you didn't depend on him and he wasn't your only option, simply out of spite.

In both cases, your musician friends and friends-to-be were happy to help and you felt better afterwards, even if that didn't always last long-term.

Some of the closer friends asked you about the almost fortnightly change of heart and while you did touch upon the topic, you never elaborated because you didn't fully understand your thoughts and feelings either and you didn't want to tell them all you were in love with Roger when it was actually only a phase of attachment that was similar to a short-lived borderline obsessive and idolizing teenage crush.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

remember it once - final chapter

Fandom: The Artful Dodger Pairing: Jack x Belle Rating: E Chapter: 7 / 7 Word Count: 4812

For today's @dodgerfoxweek prompt: happy endings/escape

read on tumblr: one | two | three | four | five | six

Belle’s free to be with him at the hospital as much as she likes now, and Jack’s free to feel all the strong emotions resulting from her being there. Never did he imagine that he would share his profession with his wife (never did he imagine marriage). He loves that he need only turn his head to find her elsewhere in the ward or to spot her through the windows in the doors. He worries, constantly, that she is at risk. He swallows the more uncomfortable fear that she is putting others at risk by being here.

She will be different from the others, those people he treated but could not save. Jack won’t allow it to be otherwise. In the days after Belle was bitten, he monitored the site of her injury. It could be that her diet is what keeps her well—the Governor’s daughter eats better and more often than a child like Alexander did—or that previous exposure, either in London or on the ship back, protects her. Jack doesn’t know whether the disease can be passed through the air. There isn’t time to study factors surrounding transmission, only to manage the effects on the people who come into the hospital. Unlike Prof, at least he orders the windows open to promote circulation of the air.

The possibility that Belle simply doesn’t share the affliction that brings most of Jack’s patients to his ward grows less likely. It’s been six weeks since Al’s death, two since the wedding, when Jack’s denial finally parts like curtains to show him a view of his wife that he’s stubbornly refused to see.

She’s working in the morgue. Once they discovered that the death of people with this particular illness wasn’t exactly binding, they stopped keeping the bodies at the hospital before burial. The room is now a place where Belle likes to conduct her research. Previously, Jack has entered to find her pacing the floor while she mutters to herself, or mixing solutions as she glances rapidly at an open volume on the table where they used to perform autopsies. Today, she sits beneath the window, gaze unfocused.

“Belle?”

“Hmm?”

Jack frowns and moves closer. Confused. It’s the word Charlie used to describe Al, the word Belle used in her story of the man on the ship. There’s some kind of mental decline that accompanies the decay of flesh, and it doesn’t begin with the aggression and physical violence that come immediately before an attack. If a patient can be watched closely, Jack believes, the signs of confusion can possibly be detected at an earlier stage. When one is willing to recognize them.

“Are you alright?” he asks his wife.

He crouches before her and quietly sighs in relief when her gaze sharpens and lifts to his face.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, of course. I was only thinking.”

“What were you thinking?”

“The child, Anthony—”

“The one who keeps escaping the ward?”

It’s a serious issue, but Jack can’t help his smile. Anthony was bitten by his father and has run to Sneed’s ward in search of him, dodging hospital staff three times. Where the father’s condition is such that a visit with his son would be extremely unwise, Anthony’s is significantly milder; his injury has visibly neither improved nor worsened under Jack’s care. Jack has fledgling ideas as to why this might be—could their biological connection be sparing the child more severe effects? Could the bite be shallower because the father was able to recognize, on some level, the identity of his victim even in the midst of the aggressive haze?

“Exactly.” Belle smiles too. Jack catches the way her hands smooth over her stomach before she folds them in her lap. “Physical activity. Perhaps all Anthony’s escaping is inhibiting the necrosis.”

“It has developed faster in our bedridden patients,” Jack notes thoughtfully.

“If we could have them move around more…”

“How though? That won’t exactly work in concert with our current protocol of strapping them to their beds.”

“Which is rather inhumane. Necessary,” she asserts when Jack opens his mouth to speak. “I know. But inhumane.”

At what point though, Jack wonders, do they acknowledge that these people—these strangers and neighbours, fathers and sons, wives—are suffering from something that is making them inhuman? When they turn on their fellow man? When they rise from the dead? Since meeting Belle, Jack has been locked in a negotiation of how much weight to give life and death. He insists on the harshest realities while she persists in an optimism he’s found more natural to give in to, though which is still not his first impulse.

“It’s a good thought,” he says. “The activity. I don’t know how it will work, yet, but I agree with your thought.”

And he does, and he’s grateful to her for continuing to devise theories when he feels stuck on facts. He smiles at her. She’s done this from the beginning, hasn’t she? Reminded him again and again that there is always another way, that new ways are constantly being discovered, that they can themselves be the innovators by counterintuitively accepting that they don’t yet have the answer to a problem. That’s all this is: a problem. A terrifying, horrific one, but as long as they remain focused…

“What is it?” Jack asks, because Belle’s returned to staring at nothing in particular.

“A thought.”

“Have you already solved it? More fair if you’d at least let me try before you just came up with the answer.”

Belle frowns.

“The answer to what?” she wonders.

“How to allow our patients more physical ac—”

“Physical activity!” she bursts out, brightening. “Exactly! Jack, you know the child, Anthony…”

He nods, but his heart isn’t in it; it’s a function of his body alone. Yes, he knows the child, Anthony. The one Belle mentioned just a minute ago. The one she mentions now as though she didn’t then, presenting him with the same idea he’s just heard.

“I’ll… I’ll leave you to your thoughts,” Jack offers, rising.

Numbly, he exits the morgue. If she were anyone but his wife, anyone he knew had been attacked and personally witnessed them displaying memory troubles, he would go straight to the ward for reinforcements, find her a bed, continue to treat her wound while privately accepting that he was watching a decline from which he’d yet to see a patient recover. But he can only step into the hallway and bury his face in his hands.

He’s been a fool, thinking it could last.

—

The next blow doesn’t so much nudge them—the hospital, the colony, Jack’s stoic equilibrium—gently across a delicate tipping point as shove them out a second-storey window.

Sneed is bitten.

He does something Jack wouldn’t have anticipated: he begs for amputation. The only bright side is that Jack gets to slap him across the face to stop him panicking in front of the patients. After that, he drags the man out of the ward and stares at him with exasperation.

“Are you mad?” Jack demands. “I need you here, damn you!”

It’s worrying that Sneed doesn’t preen at the words, or seem to hardly notice them.

“Only my foot, Dawkins,” Sneed insists with wide eyes, both frightened and frightening.

“Well, yes, if we’re ranking the extremities it would be least inconvenient, as a surgeon, to lose, the foot’s not bad. It’s not a hand. But I do not have time to wait for you to recover from an amputation!”

“If we do it quickly though—immediately—now—before the disease can spread… I know you won’t make a pig’s ear of it, Dawkins.” Sneed swallows. “I trust you.”

“You certainly weren’t in favour of amputation when Fagin shot you in the leg. Have you forgotten the bit where I would be putting a large blade to your skin and sawing like the dickens?” Jack mimes the operation.

This, at last, appears to penetrate Sneed’s skull.

“I… can bear it. I am the finest surgeon in the—” Jack gives him a look and Sneed amends, “I am the second-finest surgeon in the colony. I will endure the pain.”

“Are you certain? Because you did yelp rather loudly when I slapped you in the ward.”

Sneed doesn’t grace this remark with a response. Jack sighs.

“If it’s what you want, I’ll do it. You know I can’t promise it’ll save you, and that I must impress upon you that you are here to heal others. This hospital cannot afford to lose a surgeon. Not now. The wards are full, as are the graveyards. We’re exhausted, and one less surgeon would increase the strain. But I’ll do it,” he repeats.

Jack watches Sneed’s jaw clench before he nods, making up his mind.

“I’ll clean the wound and get back to work.”

Jack deflates, relieved, not having realized how tensely he was holding himself at the thought of carrying on with Belle already inhibited, and then without Sneed. They’ve been losing nurses as well—the staff who interact with the patients most. Jack is endlessly thankful that Hetty has never once walked into a ward without her wits about her.

He claps Sneed on the shoulder in thanks and they exchange a look. How much is Jack asking him to give up by talking him out of the surgery? His health? His life? Likely both, if Jack examines it too closely, but he sees the weary comprehension in Sneed’s eyes and believes he would have stopped the surgery as he did the last time, when a drunken Prof stuffed a wooden rod between his teeth and told him to bite down.

Sneed glances down and Jack follows his gaze as he lifts his foot.

“Bloody woman bit straight through my boot.”

“Wound shouldn’t be too deep,” Jack reasons. “It’s given you some protection.”

“Sod protection. I brought these from Oxfordshire.”

“Sneed, you make it very hard to tell how quickly your disease is progressing.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sneed retorts.

“It’s just that so much of what you say smacks of severe cognitive damage.”

This time, it’s Sneed who slaps Jack. He’s rubbing at the sting, disgruntled but willing to admit the justice of the act, when Hetty comes marching towards them.

“Whenever you’re both ready to be doctors again, gentlemen, the rest of us would appreciate your assistance.”

“It’s Sneed’s fault,” Jack feels compelled to say, even if it does come out sounding petulant. “Values his boots above his life.”

“Remind me, what is your position at this hospital?” Hetty asks archly.

“Head Surgeon.”

“Then I would suggest acting like it.” She turns and heads back into the ward, calling over her shoulder, “Or I’m telling your wife!”

Jack looks to Sneed—wrongly, but it’s an impulse—for commiseration, only to find the prat smirking at him.

“Tattled on to your wife,” he taunts.

“At least I’ve got a wife,” Jack snips back. “Back to work before I put you out on your ear.”

“You wouldn’t. You need me.”

Damn. So he did register that after all.

—

The day Belle tells him she’s carrying his child is the same day Jack meets with Governor Fox and the new Gaines to discuss barricading the hospital. To keep them out or us in? he doesn’t ask, because it doesn’t matter, because the danger is within and without, because Jack has Fagin watching Belle to make sure she doesn’t wander into a ward during one of her distracted periods. There’s far too much on his mind and he finds himself agreeing with the proposal.

“Perhaps if I had rerouted the drainage when Jane suggested… noxious vapours…” the Governor says vaguely. Jack pats his arm.

There isn’t much use in thinking backwards. He nods, knowing his approval isn’t really needed, that his disapproval wouldn’t have stopped the military doing as they please. He nods because it feels like control, even as he’s agreeing to a decision that Belle, in a healthier state, would berate him for, reminding him of the inhumanity already inflicted upon their patients by tethering them down where they lie. What’s another barrier between these people and their freedom when the worse barrier is the one the disease has been erecting in their minds, dividing men, women, and children from themselves?

It’s as if Jack sleepwalks to tell Hetty the news. He knows he can count on her to be measured in her response, outraged yet taking it in stride, because it’s what must be done. There are too many cases of the disease. Barring the hospital’s doors means some people who seek treatment will go without, but it will protect the safety of those inside—patients and staff. Jack’s heard terrible things; in a combined effort, Flashbang and Aputi have taken to blasting to bits any corpse that begins to reanimate. It’s horrendous—both physically and morally disgusting—but Aputi told Jack he saw one of them in the graveyard, saw from a distance as it found… well, a piece of what remained after you threw explosives into a shallow pit of dead bodies. They aren’t just biting anymore. At least not with their fellow dead. They’re consuming.

He's preparing himself to let Hetty know they’re about to cross an invisible boundary, beyond which he won’t blame her if she leaves. Unlike Sneed, Hetty’s always been important to him. Unlike Sneed, Hetty hasn’t been bitten.

Jack makes sure she sees him coming when he approaches her in the ward. They go to the office that became his when Prof retired.

“I’m going to be a father,” is what comes out of his mouth.

“Oh,” Hetty says.

It’s a kinder response than it might’ve been, considering even Jack finds it difficult not to immediately add, Of course, I know we’re doomed, or to defend himself, swear that it didn’t just happen, because sex has hardly been a priority, and since Belle was attacked, she’s slept in a different bedroom, locked herself in. The way he looks at Hetty begs, Help me.

Gently, she says, “You’d better hurry up and find a cure then.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“That’s because you’re exhausted. We all are.”

Jack shakes his head.

“It’s because concocting solutions is very much my wife’s forte. Whereas mine is…”

When nothing comes to him, Hetty supplies, “Keeping this hospital running. Barely,” she adds with a smile, “but running. Thank goodness we don’t have Prof underfoot.”

“He’d have been bitten the first day,” Jack has to agree. “Definitely for the best that he decided to wait it all out from the comfort of his libations cabinet. I mean, his home. Speaking of… you could as well.”

“Join Prof in a tipple?”

He knows she’s joking, and he humours her with a slight smile.

“Leave,” he says. “While you can. The military are going to barricade the hospital. Soon.”

And then Jack explains all the reasons why he went along with it while Hetty, rightfully, looks at him furiously.

Finally, she says, “I suppose you didn’t have a choice.”

“No.”

“And you want me to leave? Your best nurse? The most competent person in this hospital?”

“I don’t want you to leave, I want you to live,” Jack clarifies desperately. “Like Tim. He and Red—”

“No one’s heard from Red and Tim in days,” Hetty reminds him.

“They were smart. I’m sure they went to the bush, away from town. But you could leave another way. This is a port. Get aboard a ship!”

“And you?”

He hangs his head, avoiding Hetty’s gaze.

“Belle couldn’t go. When she worsens, she’ll be a danger to others.”

Hetty doesn’t argue.

—

They have dinner at Jack and Belle’s house, as a family. He still finds it incredibly strange to be hosting the Governor, to see Lady Fox and Fagin seated at the same table—a table that belongs to Jack, of all people. Sturdy and unscuffed. Never been anyone’s but his.

After Jack made the announcement to the rest of his staff, Sneed practically forced him and Belle out, stating that they needed a normal night. Possibly their last for quite a while.

His wife is at the table too, and he watches her parents and sister look at her in a way he knows she probably notices, even if she’s not saying anything about it. They know about her condition—both of her conditions—and regard her with expressions of mixed wariness and concern.

“How does Dr. Sneed fare?” Fanny pipes up during a lull in conversation.

“Well,” Jack is able to tell her honestly. “He was very fortunate to have had a barrier between the patient and his skin—”

“He was bitten through his clothes?” she asks, eyes lit up and speech a bit breathless. Jack stomachs the reaction with difficulty.

“Through his boot.”

“The bite was very nearly just a graze,” Belle contributes, “except that the woman who bit him had rather sharply tapered incisors, which were able to—”

“Yes!” Fanny says shrilly, smiling too hard. “Enough!” She dismisses the topic with an anxious flutter of her hands before apparently remembering some of her manners. More composed, she adds, “Please tell Dr. Sneed I wish him a swift recovery.”

Jack and Belle share an unsettled look.

“I am certain they will, darling,” Lady Fox assures her daughter.

Jack cares for his new sister, but he doesn’t believe in diminishing the severity of the outbreak in order to soothe her nerves. Spending so much time in the hospital, he’s forgotten to account for the fact that those who haven’t don’t know what he, Belle, Hetty, Sneed, and the others in the wards do. They might know people are dying, but not how many. They might understand that the hospital is attempting to treat people, but not that they don’t have a single recovered patient to show for their efforts. He’s trying to think of a tactful way to explain this when his wife jumps in.

“Actually, that isn’t likely, Fanny,” Belle says. “Dr. Sneed may not be seriously hampered by the disease for some time, but he will sicken, and he will die, like all the rest.”

“Belle,” Jack says, terribly soft.

“Like me,” she continues.

Total silence follows her words, until Fanny bursts into tears.

“That’s not very helpful,” Belle comments.

“Forgive my wife,” Jack says, hating to treat her as someone for whom he must take responsibility, but feeling compelled in the wake of her sister’s distraught response. “She’s not herself.”

“My husband is correct,” Belle tells their assembled family. “And I will be even less myself as the disease progresses. Without a cure, I doubt…”

Her bravado fails her. Jack sees her slip a hand off the table to touch her stomach. With her dressed, the curve is imperceptible, but he’s seen it uncovered. He’s sure she was about to say she doubts she’ll live long enough for the baby to be born. His throat tightens.

“We need to redirect our efforts, that’s all,” Jack says, fighting back tears. “Devote all our energy to finding a cure, as you say.”

“How?” Belle’s eyes are desperate, locked on his as they ignore the rest of the room. “You hardly leave the ward, and I need help. I don’t… trust myself. In the meantime, more people are contracting this disease.”

“I’ve heard rumours,” Fagin says, and they turn to stare at him. “Someone’s hired a ship. Standin’ in the ’arbour even now, she is.”

“How is this relevant?” Jack demands.

“Because it’s them who did it.” He’s carried on eating during the conversation, the picture of ease, and now he gestures to Governor and Lady Fox with his fork. “Getaway ship, I heard.”

“Getaway ship?” Belle echoes, turning on her parents.

The Governor starts to babble, but Lady Fox gets right to the point: “Yes. Our family is leaving the colony.”

“You can’t put Belle on a ship,” Jack says. “She has the disease.”

“Yes, and she’ll have you there to treat her.”

His mind stumbles over the fact that Lady Fox apparently includes him in her notion of family. He recovers.

“What, both of us leave?” he checks, baffled.

“I am sure Dr. Sneed is perfectly capable of taking care of things at the hospital.”

“No, he’s not,” Jack says. His voice is rising without his permission. “I don’t even mean to deride Sneed, but if there’s one thing he isn’t, it’s capable. And it’s not his bloody fault! The man’s injured, soon to fall ill, and it’s becoming mad out there.”

“Which is why,” Lady Fox says measuredly, “we will not remain here.”

Jack can feel it—he’s about to shove his chair back, jump to his feet, and start yelling.

But Belle says, “You’re quite right, Mother. You shouldn’t stay, it isn’t safe.” She looks to Jack as she continues to address her words to her mother. “You should take as many healthy people with you as you can.”

“There must be room for us to travel comfortably,” Lady Fox replies.

“Well, I’m not going, so that’s one space to fill.”

“Neither am I,” Jack says, feeling relief in his chest as it suddenly becomes easy. He smiles at Belle, but she doesn’t smile back.

“You are,” she says.

“No, Belle, I’m staying with you, wherever you are.” He thinks she might be edging into confusion, too much distress. He recalls the way their patients will become more aggressive with too much commotion.

Her eyes are perfectly lucid.

“I know that’s what you want,” she says, “but what you need is an opportunity to work on a cure. Somewhere you’re not exhausted and constantly interrupted and in danger.”

“I’d have no idea what I was doing!”

“You’ll take my notes. And Hetty. Hetty deserves a place on that ship if anyone does.”

“Yes, but—”

“Why don’t we all retire to the parlour?” Fagin suggests to the others. He throws a wink Jack’s way and Jack nods back distractedly.

“There are people who need you,” Belle says when they’re alone. She’s sitting sideways on her chair and Jack has drawn out the one beside hers. He clutches her hands between his.

“You’re not one of them?” he asks, hurt beyond words or measure.

“I need you to live. That is what I need. Let me save you this time. You will board that ship in the harbour. You will—yes, Jack,” she says when he opens his mouth to argue. “You will take as many healthy people aboard as you possibly can. Take the contents of the laboratory. Take my notes. Work on finding a cure and I promise you that I will do the same. This is not giving up.”

Belle smiles though tears roll down her cheeks.

“Keep my family safe,” she requests.

Jack takes her face in his hands.

“You are my family.”

They leave it there for now.

They leave it there for two days, and on the third day, a man with necrotic skin extending from raw wounds on his neck and chest gets past the preliminary guard the military have set up and comes barrelling into the hospital.

It’s chaos as Jack instructs Hetty to barricade their ward from the inside. He sprints to Sneed’s domain, but Sneed’s heard the intruder and already shut himself inside. He gives Jack a grim nod through the window, and then Jack is running, flying, to the morgue. To Belle. He can hear thudding, uneven steps behind him, like those of a drunken man.

Belle meets him coming up the stairs, and when she thrusts him aside, he isn’t expecting it and is tossed back. He sees the man—dull-eyed and intent on the pair of them—and then he sees him knocked off his feet, an arrow protruding from his chest. Jack stares at his wife in awe as she lowers her bow.

“That will’ve been enough to kill him,” he says dazedly.

“Unless he’s not the sort to stay killed,” she says. “Come on. Fagin’s been keeping my sword in your old room for me.”

All Jack can do is scramble after her, really feeling that he should be the one protecting her—except that he’s shit with a bow and arrow, and he doesn’t relish being reminded.

They retrieve Belle’s sword and go back to the man, who’s begun to stir.

“Very not-dead,” Jack diagnoses.

He stands aside and waits. When Belle doesn’t act immediately, he studies her face. It goes against their very purpose of doing no harm to intentionally kill the man before them. She shot an arrow into him in defence of Jack though, and he doesn’t think it would be possible to corral someone already so far advanced into the disease, to subdue him and take him to a ward, to strap him to a bed. It’s too great a risk. He’ll have to die (again?).

“Give me the sword,” he says to Belle.

Just then, the man lurches upright and his wife draws back her arm, slashing into his neck. It won’t be enough, and Belle’s breathing is quick and shallow.

“I can finish it,” she tells him before he says anything.

“I know you can.” They look at each other. He sticks out his hand and she thrusts the sword’s handle into his palm. “Don’t watch.”

—

At daybreak, the hospital will be under full military guard, no one in or out, food and bodies passed through a designated door—the one near the pit they used to dump amputated limbs into, where a strong solution of carbolic acid used to be enough to dissolve the dead without them reinvigorating and attempting to spread the disease they’re still trying to understand.

Behind him is the ship. Ladies Jane and Fanny Fox are already aboard. Hetty and Flashbang. Charlie and other children whose bitten parents cannot make the journey. Others, advocated for by Belle, who stood up to her mother to do so, who broke her mother’s heart by refusing to change her mind about coming with them.

Jack stands on the dock, knowing what they’ve promised one another, he and Belle. You told me once you would get on a ship for me, she reminded him moments ago. She’s more beautiful than he’s ever seen her, cast in the fleeting grey light before dawn. They hold hands. He can feel her ring.

I won’t be alone, she said.

Sneed will continue to work alongside her, of course. As will Aputi and Prof, who’s emerged from his stupor to recognize the severity of the situation and returned to the hospital in the position of Temporary Head Surgeon (Sneed is fuming, Jack knows).

The Governor has elected to stay behind as well, blustering about “going down with the ship, so to speak.” Noble, Jack thinks, if mostly a lie. He stays for his child. Jack longs to do the same, sliding his hand over Belle’s stomach as they embrace, but they’ve had this conversation. They’re doctors, formal credentials or not, both deeply loyal to the ideal of serving the people of Port Victory. Through separation, they double their chances of coming up with a cure. This is what they tell themselves. Jack holds Belle and never wants to pull away. He presses his lips to her temple.

When they draw apart at last, Belle rushes to her father, falling into his arms. Jack’s own father approaches him with his loping, unhurried walk. His eyes speak before his mouth opens.

“You’re still me number one, Dodge. Fancy Skirt’s just borrowin’ me for a little while.”

“Thank you. Fagin.” Jack chops up his gratitude, uncertain of his voice, which threatens to rend wetly.

“Just so you’re prepared, my dear, I will be suggestin’ your missus name the baby after Granddad”—he taps his own chest—“should you not scurry back in time to name ’im yourself.”

“Could be a girl,” Jack points out.

“Norberta, then.”

“That’s dreadful.”

“Piss off,” Fagin says, reaching out and giving Jack’s shoulders a fond squeeze.

There’s no finer farewell, as far as Jack’s concerned.

He sniffs and gives them another look: Belle bracketed by Governor Fox and Fagin, whose arm she slips her hand through when he joins them. Jack stretches out the moment, eyes on his wife’s face.

What if I don’t remember? Belle asked him.

I’ll remember it twice, he said. Once for me and once for you.

Remember it once, she requested, because love has bound us so tightly there is hardly a distinction.

Once then. I think I put my heart into your chest that day.

She took his hand and placed it to feel the beat.

And I have kept it. Jack turns and strides up the gangplank. The blazing sun appears, standing on tiptoe to kiss the horizon.