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Chapter Text

They have shorn him like a lamb and dressed him in hospital linens. For some time they keep him attached to strange machines by flexible tubes and needles they push through his skin. They tell him the tubes are simply administering fluids to him for ‘hydration’, but how can he trust them? They appeared out of nowhere in a burst of blue light and took him. Separated him from his crew. He was outnumbered. He couldn’t fight them off. Do they somehow know the Esquimaux woman that he made a widow?

They make tutting sounds around him, discussing him as though he can’t understand their language.

“Need about two stones on this one,” says one bureaucratic sod with a curling lisp, clammy hand circling around his emaciated wrist.

“Frostbite injuries on all ten digits.” 

As if he is their specimen. 

He feels like he could eat and eat and he would never be filled. The first time he tries to gobble down their food, he vomits it back up. They tell him it’s because when they found him he was in the throes of starvation—he must be careful not to overextend his stomach. There will be an ‘adjustment period’, to get used to the differences in their food, their water. In essence, everything is something that must be ‘adjusted to’. 

Everywhere in their ward is white. The walls in his bed chamber, the privies and corridors. Waking up every day in its vacant brightness makes him feel like he is snowblind in the Arctic again, or even that he has crossed over into Heaven Almighty, until his reality comes sharply back into focus.

They tell him no man survived his expedition. Not Fitzjames or Goodsir. Not even Crozier.

The next day he wakes again in a panic. Where is he? He has no sense of time; cannot orient himself in this sea of white. He cases the room, searching for escape routes. When an orderly comes in to bring him breakfast, he makes a break for it before he is promptly manhandled back into the room—his prison cell.

They tell him what year it is and it feels like a cruel joke. They tell him that his crew is gone: no man survived Sir John’s expedition. He cannot comprehend it. He knows that the game was scarce and the conditions less than ideal, but he simply never made it? None of them did? He doesn’t want to believe it because it terrifies him, the bleakness of their fate. 

After his second attempt at escape, the white fades into black.

They have sedated him.

He eventually comes to. He attends their ‘orientation’. They tell him the Empire has fallen. In response, he is sarcastic and combative. What else is a man to do when the world he knows has been flipped upside down?

He tries to make another break for the door, but two large men pull out guns. They tell him he mustn't try to escape again—he will not recognise the world outside this ward, won’t know how to survive it on his own. It is better this way, they tell him. He must acclimate slowly.

But Graham Gore, not survive? So long as he has his gun and a compass in hand, he can survive whatever they should throw at him! Don’t they know what he’s been through?

They tell him he is to meet his ‘bridge’. This ‘bridge’ will help to acclimatise him. Acclimatise him to what he is still not sure, but he supposes now he has no choice but to find out. He is used to rooming with other men, but is not certain how he will fare with one of this century.

In a room at the end of a long corridor where his captors bring him, stands the ghost.

Brown skin and long lashes. Her mouth a colour he can hardly begin to describe. She looks at him and he hurriedly looks away. It is no easy feat pulling away his gaze from her—he is immediately captivated. He can barely tear his eyes away from her mouth. 

“Commander Gore?”  When the little ghost speaks his name, he is, quite literally, stunned.

It is she that is to be his bridge! 

No, she is not the woman he left a widow, though for a moment perhaps he’d thought she was. She is smaller, paler. Her features more feline. Even so, he knows his whole world is about to change, even more so than it has already. But this time, it will be his redemption.

He is in equal measures horrified and awed by the changes around him. It is like not being able to rouse himself from a nightmare. 

London is crowded and bustling. The women wear very little and even so do some of the men. There are men holding hands with men, women holding hands with other women. People kiss each other in public. There are machines on wheels—‘cars’—honking and screeching about. He can hardly fathom any of it and he has a pounding headache. Is he still under the effects of sedation? 

The redbrick ‘Victorian’ they are taken to is to be their home. This bridge his ‘housemate’. What an expression! They are forcing him to live with an unmarried woman and no chaperone. By the by, she is his chaperone! An entirely inappropriate arrangement. Not only that, but they do not have maids. The women are now in the workforce, rather than being the ones at home to do the housework.

She seems awkward and apprehensive around him, like she isn’t quite sure that he’s real.

“…I think electricity has been explained to you—” 

“Yes. I am also aware that the earth revolves around the sun. To save you a little time.”

He cannot help but act bitingly towards her. It is the only thing tethering him to his new reality. Otherwise, he feels he may scream.

The bedroom he has been assigned while they play 'house' is much bigger than the quarters he’s used to, but he likes that now at least he has a place to call his own.

He plays a mournful arrangement on a flute they’ve left him. He journals. It makes him feel slightly better to write down his thoughts where he can leave them, but the reprieve doesn’t last for long. He can hear his bridge puttering around downstairs and it distracts him.

He meanders outside to find her lounged on the porch. Her long black hair is tucked over one shoulder, revealing the soft white stem of her throat.

He swallows. He wants to ask her what happened to his men, but doesn’t feel ready for the answer.

He needs to understand everything so that he can try to make sense of his new surroundings. He works quickly to take things apart, to study them.

Like their miraculous plumbing system, for one.

With a gentle suggestion that they call for a ‘plumber’ once he has dismantled their toilet, for the first time he really notices the bright brown eyes of his bridge.

She is pretty. Very pretty. If only there was a way he could study her, learn her like he can the ins and outs of their plumbing and electrical grid.

At night, he closes his eyes but can scarcely sleep. His insomnia wears on him.

On a languid walk near a children’s park, his bridge breaks the news to him over tea and croissants: he never made it home from the expedition.

“No one survived. I’m sorry. I thought you’d been told at the Ministry.”

All one hundred and twenty-eight of his men, dead by 1850. One hundred and twenty-nine, if he includes himself. He feels hot under the skin, disorientated, and he responds in kind. 

“Did your people kill everyone?”

Surely someone must have survived. And why are they only telling him this now?

It is a most peculiar feeling to know that in another timeline you died but that no one knows how you died. This will now forever be his conundrum, his Achilles' heel. To know there is an alternate course of reality, one in which he is not stolen by Ministry agents from the future, but perishes in the Arctic wilderness. No one ever found his body. His family must have died not knowing what happened to him. They could only have assumed the worst.

It is believed he expired not long after Crozier ordered them to abandon the ships, but it haunts him that he shall never really know. One is not supposed to know even this much about their death.

He is still Graham Gore, he supposes, but a different one. As long as he shall live in this era, he will never be connected to the Graham Gore of 1847.

"The Admiralty sent no rescue parties?” 

"The Admiralty sent several. Lady Franklin financed a number of them as well. But they all went in the wrong directions.”

He shuts his eyes, blows his smoke to the skies above them.

"The greatest expedition of our time,” he laments.

Their hubris. Men thinking they are God. How could it have gone so wrong?

Later, he apologises to his bridge for his behaviour at the park. He is struggling to adjust to the news of the expedition’s fate, but ashamed of the emotion he directed at her, of failing to maintain his stoicism. He still doesn’t understand why she was chosen to be his bridge, but it seems this may just be the way of it now. Always more questions than answers. 

They listen to his bridge’s portable machine play music whilst sitting together on the settee. He sits very stiffly on those cushions. He is overwhelmed by her presence next to him, but blathers on idly instead of his amazement of the machine’s ability to endlessly play and repeat music. While the furnishings here are a softer comfort than he’s used to, he simply cannot get comfortable being so close to her. 

She puts on a violin piece that reminds him, poignantly, of his sister Anne. Under the mournful rise and fall of the violin notes, it strikes him that he may never see his family again. True, if it really is as his bridge tells him and he never made it back from the Arctic, then he would never have seen them again in any event. 

Thinking of his family proves to be too much for him. He needs space. A break from the haunting music. He goes for a long walk alone around a frantic, metallic city—not the London he knows—and mulls over it.

He has great respect for his parents—refuses to acknowledge them yet in the past tense—but such familial matters are complicated.

When his older brother drowned at sea, his father expected even greater things from him. His mother looked at him and saw the ghost of his dead brother. This may well be what spurred him on towards Sir John’s quest for the Northwest Passage, at least in part. Another promotion. Another accolade. Charting the Northwest Passage, why, that would have secured his future. A wife. Glory. Maybe even at long last, contentment. 

Now, he supposes, the Gore line disappeared into the annals of history. With only his sisters there would have been no male heir left to carry on their name. Anne, his other sisters left behind, no longer had their older brother to look up to. 

The little cat has a foul mouth but is quite jovial and even-tempered. She answers his questions patiently. She gives him space to explore. She never makes him feel stupid. They engage in difficult discussions about the Aden expedition. Her forestry commission. She never seems to judge him. He doesn’t necessarily agree with all her points, but she does make him think about things in a new light.

He is, he might say, impressed by her. Intrigued by her work. Her university degree. He worries she feels unsettled by his vulgar masculine presence, but she seems not to notice it either way. She is simply indifferent, and to him this is somehow worse.

He has dubbed her 'little cat' though she doesn’t know it yet. It is in her feline qualities: her narrow face and almond eyes, and the way that she loves to nap. But also because he feels like he is her prey; that she will bat him around in her paws to her heart’s content. The sight of her bare calves is enough to make him want to kneel before God, asking for His forgiveness. How do the men of this era ever get anything done? He is relieved when she begins wearing longer skirts, but if he is being truthful, also a little disappointed.

He is not used to being idle.

Idle hands are the devil's playthings. 

In his time, there was always something to be done, somewhere he was needed. He has worked since he was a boy. But all there seems to be in this new world is leisure, things built now for ease and convenience over effort. There is to be no hunting for him. No work. Just the dioramas called ‘television’ and smoking endless cigarettes. 

One day though, another one gone by in a rash of boredom, his bridge introduces him to a book: Rogue Male, a novel by Geoffrey Household. He races through it, voraciously reading from cover to cover before starting it over again from page one.

The book will not be his salvation, but it is a start. 

Chapter Text

Graham is finally to meet the other ‘expats’, stolen from various other points in time.

They take the underground railway, the ‘tube’, together to the Ministry offices. It is a relief to finally have a change of scenery, even if this one is loud and subterranean, crowded with surplus bodies.

He gestures to a poster near the roof of the train car. “And that is…?”

“Oh, that’s an advert,” his bridge explains, voice rising to be heard over the clatter. “A company enticing others to buy their…mattresses, it seems.”

“‘You’ll want to ‘swipe right’ on our mattresses’,” he reads aloud. It might as well be in another language for all the sense it makes. 

“Oh. It’s, um, a play on a ‘dating app’. A little program for your phone where you can connect to other—eligible men and women. Singles. It’s how a lot of people date these days. You swipe ‘right’ on a person’s photo when you want to meet them, left when you don’t. So the advert is basically saying you would ‘swipe right’ to ‘choose’ their mattress.”

There is a long, awkward silence in which he wishes that he never asked. His bridge also looks as if she wishes she never had to tell him. 

The Ministry headquarters are located in a large and somewhat foreboding building, anonymous in its lack of detail. He bids goodbye to his bridge and is led away by a team of suited men not shy about the fact they wear guns.

They are seated in a long rectangular room which contains a full length table with several wheeled chairs around it. There are four others seated around the table in various states of curiosity and distress, with a young woman from the Ministry who unironically calls herself ‘the Moderator’.

“Welcome, expats, welcome! We are going to have a little what we call, 'ice breaker', to get us started. An activity designed to get to know one another and ease the tension in the room,” the Moderator explains. In the circumstances, she is nauseatingly cheerful. “Please introduce yourselves—provide a brief summary of where you came from and, a fun fact about yourself!”

A ‘fun fact’? A series of cringes travel around the room. A man of about thirty, with a trim beard and long, flowing golden hair snorts loudly to the right of Graham.

“Sixteen-forty-five. Lieutenant Thomas Cardingham. Why don’t you start us off?”

“In the presence of impressionable young ladies?” Lieutenant Cardingham scoffs. “Why, with their feeble little ears, they could not take it in hand!”

“Pray pardon me?” a tiny young woman snaps, also with very long hair but of a fiery red-blond that cascades down her shoulders. She looks to be in her twenties, though with a naïveté and earnestness that makes her seem somehow younger. “Spare us your poxy ‘chivalry’!” 

A young man of good breeding with close-cropped hair and a strong jawline to the left of Graham leans in toward him and mutters, “I think those two are going to get along well...” 

Instantly, Graham likes him.

Thomas Cardingham is a pompous lieutenant straight from the Battle of Naseby. Fun fact: he had the highest body count in his regiment. The spastic redhead, Margaret Kemble, aka Sixteen-sixty five, an unfortunate victim of the mid-seventeenth century London plague. Fun fact: her favourite ‘cinematic piece’ of this century is Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Already it is patently clear the two 1600s loathe each other. 

The humorous young man sitting next to Graham is Nineteen-sixteen, Captain Arthur Reginald-Smyth from the Battle of the Somme. The ‘First’ World War, as his bridge explained it. Presumably then, it was followed by others.

The Captain is a kindly, soft spoken man with a heavy sadness about him who clearly lost a piece of his soul in the battle that would have claimed him. Fun fact: he enjoys a good ‘word-cross’ puzzle. He reminds Graham fondly of his own Lieutenant Irving. 

It is Graham’s turn to introduce himself. He explains with as few words as possible his lost expedition. It is still too painful to dwell on it, to speak of it out loud.

Lieutenant Cardingham noticeably grimaces when Graham tells them he is a commander of the Royal Navy, thus outranking all of them. Fun fact: he has quite the affinity for the flute. 

The last expat is a troubled woman with haunted eyes, plucked from the French Revolution. Seventeen-ninety-three, name Anne Spencer. Fun fact: she refuses to answer. 

“Now that we are all acquainted, why don’t we go around the room and talk about what we have really enjoyed about our time so far in the twenty-first-century?” the Moderator says, like a governess patiently minding young children. 

“The cinema!” The one called Margaret pipes up. “‘Tis the greatest of modern inventions!”

“Benson & Hedges,” Graham remarks dryly. “Speaking of which, would you mind terribly if I lit one?”

The captain sniggers next to him. The Moderator shakes her head at him and mouths a vehement “No!”

“And what do you find you might still need perhaps a little more time to get used to, in this century?” the Moderator asks, speaking very slowly. 

“These heathen ‘garments’ thine women wear,” Cardingham growls, looking pointedly at Margaret Kemble, whose ample bosom is very much on display with a neckline that leaves precious little to the imagination. “Or lack thereof. Common harlots!” 

“The misogynist swine!” Margaret fumes, glowering at Cardingham. “I shall never become ‘used to’ them!”

“Oh dear,” Reginald-Smyth mutters beside Graham, bemusedly shaking his head.

Graham decides he would very much like to be the captain’s friend. 

“You can’t do that in here!”

A man with a nasal hitch in his voice hisses at Graham as he attempts to light a cigarette after the meeting. He gestures madly to a nearby sign on the wall, illustrating a lit cigarette crossed out in an angry red, which Graham had willfully chosen not to see. Sheepishly, he throws the cigarette away.

While he waits for his bridge, he is awed into silence in admiration of the vast steel and glass ceiling of the atrium overhead. Quite an architectural feat, he decides.

He hears the tiny pitter patter of her heels across the tiles before he sees her. He knows it is her without having to look—he is always hyperaware of her presence, of wherever she is in the room in relation to him.

He glances down at her, in demonstration of polite indifference. “Someone told me off for trying to smoke indoors.”

“Yeah, you can’t do that in this era.”

"Send me back to the Arctic.”

He likes when he makes her laugh.

They lunch in a small bistro. He is very aware of the insinuation of their dining alone, a man and a woman together in public. His bridge begins to explain the concept of ‘dining’ to him and he cuts her off. He is not a complete simpleton, after all.

He pulls out her chair for her. She looks surprised, then pleased. Perhaps men of this era no longer do chivalrous things like this.

They order ‘falafel’, which isn’t half bad. Certainly better than rotting provisions from tins. 

"What are the other expats like?” she asks.

He shares with her his first impressions.

In a way, he is pleased to have something that his bridge doesn’t. To know something she isn’t already privy to. It is tiring, always being the one fumbling blind in the dark.

He is mortified when she pays the bill.

“This one’s on the Ministry,” she quickly explains.

But still. He’s never felt more emasculated. Thank goodness for the cigarettes she’d thought to fetch for him. At least this era seems to have got something right. The tobacco immediately steadies him.

He has never been easily fazed. It made him a good officer and it often endeared him to the people—usually men—around him. But he is very much unsteadied by her presence, by this foreign new world and his precarious place in it. Now to quell his nerves, he smokes.

Problem is these days, it seems he is always nervous.

He invites his bridge to ‘come for a drink’ with the captain and his bridge at a public house.

It feels like a scandalous, audacious move. But in the end, his bridge decides it may be too much for the nervous captain to be faced with another new bridge in his first social outing, so Graham goes on without her. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed, but it’s also exciting to be out and about on his own as though he really is just a man about, living in this era.

But at first the captain seems nervous to meet with Graham, even without his bridge. The captain’s own is a distinguished Negress woman called Simellia. Later, his bridge will correct him. She is a Black woman. It is offensive now to say ‘Negress’. These days, ‘minority groups’ have much more rights, more say in how they self-identify, she will explain, and he thinks this indeed is probably a good thing. 

The public house is noisy and dark, but it's the first time something here actually reminds him of something of his London, gathering with men for drinks at port between voyages. 

“And how are you settling into this er—century?” he asks the captain, who insists that Graham call him Arthur.

“All right, I suppose,” says Arthur. “A lot of…loud, sudden noises. Takes me back to…to the trenches,” he gulps. 

“I can’t imagine that was a very pleasant time,” Graham says smoothly. Though in truth he has no idea.

Arthur smiles shyly, shaking his head. “Not at all.”

“Commander Gore,” Simellia drawls. “How is your bridge treating you?”

At the mention of his bridge, he is flustered. He wonders why she would even ask.

“She’s very pleasant to be around,” he says carefully, taking a long swig of his drink. He feels Simellia still watching him. “Very enlightening.” 

“How long do you reckon before Sixteen-forty-five and Sixteen-sixty-five murder each other then?” asks Arthur, deftly changing the subject. 

Graham grins. “Worse than two drunkards brawling after a lost wager in an unsavoury betting house, those two.”

Arthur laughs.

“I expect another ‘World War’ to ensue, though the Britain of this era seems to have traded war for a sense of rather complacent peace...” 

“Indeed,” Arthur says. “For myself though, it is a welcome change, unlike so many of the other changes this strange period has wrought…” 

Graham leans forward and with a confiding voice says, “Oh, let me tell you all about ‘changes’ in this godforsaken century!” 

As the drinks keep pouring, Graham begins to feel light and airy. It is satisfying to be able to drink to his heart’s content. It hadn’t been long on Erebus before Sir John prohibited both drunkenness and cursing on his ship.

Arthur too seems to be warming up with drink. They share a similar sense of dry, subtle humour, and joke heartily amongst themselves. Occasionally, even Simellia joins in.

He goes back to the home he shares with his bridge feeling pleasantly drunk.

She is still awake, smoking one of his cigarettes at the dining table. He does feel a little guilty about getting her back in the habit, but does so enjoy watching her mouth as she draws on them.

He is good at masking his drunkenness, he thinks. It is the proper thing to do in the presence of a lady. But it is making him more bold, as evidenced by when he asks her to join him for a drink. 

He pours a glass for her, finds he is rambling. A discussion about Simellia and racism, her ‘Kooks and Killers’ squadron, takes him back to his experience rescuing African slaves from Rosa. He tells her, not so much reminiscing as reflecting.

It was the first time he felt any real power, commanding a docked ship as acting lieutenant; the broken faces of the unfortunate captives staring back at him from the hold. If Simellia knew his part in it, would she be disgusted? Little Cat assures him Simellia is familiar with the era, but is he the first person she knows who actually had a part in it firsthand?

He peers at her then over his glass. Now seems as good a time as any to bring this up.

“I hope you do not mind me making this observation, but I think I am right in saying, you are not yourself, wholly an Englishwoman.”

He sees her slightly stiffen but try to keep her face neutral. She seems not to want to discuss with him anything about her race nor her personal life. Only to observe and scrutinize him under her microscope.

She bites her lip. “What gave it away? Shape of my eyes?”

It is the first time they have really acknowledged at all their 'differences'. 

“The colour of your mouth,” he says. The words are out before he can take them back. 

The said mouth falls open. The ice in her glass clinks loudly to the bottom. It seems he may have rendered her speechless, but she doesn’t seem necessarily displeased by his observation.

He finds he likes it when instead she is the one flummoxed. 

He soon wants to know everything about his bridge and her culture.

She is half-caste. British-Cambodian, and this fascinates him. A Cambodian mother, her father an Englishman. What was it like for her growing up? What must it be like for her now?

Eventually, she gently tells him they now call it being ‘mixed race’, and sometimes even that may be deemed ‘politically incorrect’, in certain contexts.

He asks if he will ever get to meet her family and senses her hesitation. It's not just that he wants to be a spectator to her curiously ‘mixed’ family, he wants to meet her family because it is hers. He can hardly contain his delight when she reluctantly shows him a picture of her family—a sister who looks just like her!

They are becoming less uncomfortable around each other, he thinks. Their daily interactions in and around the house have become more natural, though occasionally still peppered with others that leave him wishing he could be whisked away on the nearest passing ship. 

For instance, out on the heath near their house one day, a gaggle of giggling young ladies call out to him that he is a ‘dilf’. Little Cat reddens when he asks her afterward what this means.

“Oh. Um, it’s a term for a very attractive ‘older’ man.”

“Oh.” So he passes as pleasing to the women of this era. “But ‘dilf’? What a peculiar word.”

"Well, it’s an acronym, actually…it stands for—for a ‘Dad I’d like to fu…” she flushes, and then so does he as it dawns on him.

“Please,” he says quickly, not wanting her to say it. “I understand now.”

The Ministry subjects the expats to language experiments which begin for Graham as an earnest exercise in trying to train his mind to ‘adapt’ certain terms to their wretched twenty-first century language. At least it is not as much of a leap for him as say, the old English of Miss Kemble or Lieutenant Cardingham. Eventually, the sessions just become tedious. 

One day, he decides to be cheeky. He remembers his bridge said the mirrors were ‘two way’ and that she would be sitting on the other side of it. She can see him but he cannot see her.

They show him an image of a blonde woman wearing combat fatigues. She holds what can only be a very large, very futuristic looking gun and is crouched down low in a bush. They ask him what he sees in this picture. He calmly sips his tea as he contemplates it. The Wellness team operator calls his name for an answer.

“A woman in the workplace,” he responds at last, entirely straight faced. This makes the operator laugh and he can feel his bridge’s eyes on him, even if he cannot actually see her.

He knows the little cat will appreciate that one.

He begins to attend church again. It soothes him that the services are so much like the ones he attended in his era. God withstands the test of time, it seems.

He knows it makes his bridge feel strange that he attends when she doesn’t, but he understands this is just the way of it now, in this ungodly era. He doesn’t begrudge her for it. 

He takes up ‘boxing’ with Lieutenant Cardingham. It is a good physical release and he can feel himself becoming stronger.

He tries to make himself useful for Little Cat in their home, shooting down with his new air rifle the garden squirrels she seems to find so bothersome. But instead she is horrified and curses at him. So there are some creatures you do not touch in this era—and not the pigeons, either.

One day it occurs to him how nice it would be to have a pet. Specifically, a dog. He misses his loyal canine companion Neptune, who died quite early on in their expedition.

She suggests they get a cat instead. 

“We do not need a cat,” he tells her. “A little creature who sleeps for hours and plays with her prey? We already have you.” 

This is one of the boldest things he’s said to her. It’s also one of the truest. Somehow, in a way he does not fully understand yet, she has ensnared him in her claws.

He waits for her to react. Her face flushes in understanding, further endearing her to him. She begins to choke on her legumes, and still he watches before carefully pouring her a glass of water. 

An enthralling reaction to see, from the little feline herself. 

There are many pleasures to indulge in this era, but in truth, Graham is becoming restless. He paints and he sketches. He composes new music for his flute. He goes with his bridge to see the London symphony and films that make him almost instantly want to fall asleep. 

As May draws to an end, he is summoned by the Ministry for an ‘MRI scan’. They want him to slide into this noisy tube and expect him to then lie still. But he does it, as he must do everything that they ask of him. His title and rank mean nothing to these heathens.

He remarks aloud that lying in their machine is like being inside the barrel of a gun. What will it reveal of him? His scattered thoughts? His body, broken and battered from years of battles and archaic ailments, and now time-travel through centuries?

Once they are finished with him, he is taken back to the observation room where his bridge waits.

There is with her a tall, very tanned man with grey hair, dressed in formal uniform. At the sight of him, Graham stands at attention. It is the Brigadier, he later learns. He has no idea of how exactly this man ranks or what his role is in their hierarchy, but assumes he must be their superior given the effect he seems to have on all the others. 

“At ease, Commander. I am just on my way out,” the man says coolly. 

“Sir," Graham retorts.

The Brigadier gives him a cold smile showing too many teeth. He is relieved the man is leaving. Collectively, the room seems to let out its breath when he takes his leave.

Arthur comes in next for his scan. His hands shake and he's very jumpy. He is clearly distraught at the idea of laying belly-up and vulnerable in the tight space. God only knows what he is imagining in there. With the loud thuds of the machine as it processes them, the captain is probably envisioning gunshots.

So Graham tries to work his magic on Arthur, to make him feel at ease in the infernal medical machine. He makes light, silly jokes of it and it seems to work. Arthur’s hands start to relax, naked without the signet ring they made him take off.

He is somewhat glad when his bridge leaves him there alone with Arthur and the scanning machine operator—‘radiographer’, he corrects himself. Not because he doesn’t enjoy her company, but because it is a relief to be able to let his guard down again around men. He is never not on his guard around her. It will also give him a better sense of independence in this era, finding his own way back to their house. 

“Thank you,” Arthur tells him shyly afterwards.

Graham arches an eyebrow. “For what? Why, you did that all yourself.”

Arthur’s cheeks pinken. Graham winks at him. 

The Brigadier returns not long after. He and Arthur chat good-naturedly about a seemingly mutual ‘Auntie’. Graham tries to approach the Brigadier this time with less judgment. He makes a mental note to ask his bridge later who ‘Auntie’ is.

“Enjoying yourself, Commander?” the Brigadier asks Graham suddenly.

“Enthralled,” he retorts. 

“Quite a sensation, I imagine—travelling through time?” 

“The steel net that captured me was not very pleasant. I’ve no memory of the rest.”

The Brigadier simpers. “No, can’t imagine it was...”

Next, it is the turn of Sixteen-sixty-five, Miss Margaret Kemble, to lay in the machine. 

Together, Arthur and Graham talk her through it. They are practically veterans by now. She curses at them from inside the machine with her preposterous seventeenth-century slang and they laugh merrily along with her.

She is a very peculiar young woman he learns is seven and twenty. She reminds him of his bridge: full of pluck and an open mind. He expects the two will get along.

The expats make promises to meet again in a less sterile setting. Graham takes the tube by himself that afternoon, feeling content after the company of his fellow expats. It is nice, he realises, to be around others who feel as displaced as he does. It is a ground, he thinks, that he and his bridge will never have in common. 

He finds her on the back porch smoking what looks like a slightly lumpy cigarette but smells like nothing he has ever smelled before. It is strange, but not altogether unpleasant. Whatever it is, it is making the little cat quite full of mirth. Her language is less pronounced, her edges a little softer. 

He tells her about Miss Kemble’s time in the machine. “She’s very unusual,” he remarks. “She reminds me of you.”

“Is that good?” her voice sounds hesitant. Earnest. She looks at him shyly beneath her lashes. 

He just smiles, touched by her concern of what he might think of her. “What is the matter with that cigarette?”

“Cannabis,” she tells him.

Forbidden tobacco. He is not to mention it to the Ministry. It is to be their 'little secret'. She invites him to try it. Naturally, he is dubious, but more curious of such a substance that can make his bridge act so languid. He sits down reluctantly beside her.

“What we’re smoking here is called a ‘joint’," she explains.

He is very conscious of her mouth as she pouts on that ‘joint’, and that his is now to take the place where hers just was.

She passes it to him and he takes a drag. It fills his lungs and he begins to cough. But immediately he begins to feel at peace. The world seems to slow down all around him, tingles rippling throughout his body. He feels sluggish but jolly, and suddenly very hungry. 

He points out a lilac coloured pigeon stirring in the garden, but the little cat has no idea what he’s talking about.

“What?”

“What?”

“What?”

They stare at each other. A long stretch of eye contact they don’t usually dare to make. Then they begin to giggle, leaning in towards one another with their bodies close, and he doesn’t feel disorientated by her physicality like he normally would.

He feels like he is floating. Soon he doesn’t remember what they ever thought was so funny to begin with, but still he can't stop laughing. 

Very good-humoured, this cat. It strikes him that he genuinely enjoys her company, has come to look forward to it even. This is dangerous, he realises, and not the kind of danger he likes. But that danger feels far away right now, crossing his mind only as a mild and passing thought.

They munch contentedly on chocolate biscuits he finds for them in the larder.

“You’ve got the munchies,” she says with a giggle. 

How nice it would have been to have had such a thing to their avail in the Navy, this ‘cannabis’. It certainly would have eased their hardships and helped pass the time. Although, if it whets one’s appetite in such a way, perhaps it would not have been such a good thing to have had while starving in the Arctic. 

“Well I’m glad you’ve found something about the twenty-first century that you approve of, Commander,” she says, a winsome little smile on her face.

He smiles back at her. "I think, as we are 'housemates', and also, I hope, friends, that you should call me Graham."

It is daring to tell her this. To move their relations beyond the realm of conduct befitting for a lady and gentleman of their standing. He doesn’t know if she even registers its significance for him. In his time, the use of one’s Christian name between man and woman was restricted to only the most intimate.

For a moment, she flushes. “Friends. Yes,” she echoes finally, her glassy eyed gaze holding his. 

Not just his bridge—friends. 

The next afternoon, he shows his bridge a sketch.

It is of a strange handheld device he saw in a man’s hands outside the Ministry. Though Graham had tried to keep a low profile, he could feel the man watching.

Not able to get the contraption off his mind, he could only think to try and draw it.

The odd little machine had projected a filmy grid with information written on it that the user could read right in front of them, not so unlike the television Miss Kemble and Arthur seem so fond of.

He shows her; asks what it is. Her being accustomed to such modern-day inventions, she will surely enlighten him. But she doesn’t seem to recognise it, though hardly seems bewildered by whatever it is, and he lets her keep it. 

When she leans over the table to study his drawing, he can smell the clean, feminine scent of her skin. It takes everything in him to maintain his focus.

Chapter Text

He is becoming more a man of this era, as much as he might resent it.

The men of this one do not wear their sideburns long, and Graham finds he longs to blend in. He begins to shave his face clean to his cheekbones leaving him soft and bald as a baby. How curious to see his face so naked. He trades his waistcoats and vests for button-ups. His hair has grown out again in its eruption of unruly curls. He thinks he catches Little Cat admiring him one day. His assimilation must be working.

Every morning he wakes early and goes for long runs that set his mind free. He has learned to appreciate the simple pleasure of freshly laundered clothes after a cycle in the wash. He sleeps through the night now, though he never dreams. He’s putting on weight from nutritious foods and exercise.

The Ministry archivists and ‘Victorianists’, as they call themselves, have been consulting him for their records. They get many things right from his time, but also get much of it wrong. Much of what they do know is from the time they insist is ‘Victorian’, which was mostly after his time. 

Little Cat continues to diligently monitor him: his daily heart rate and temperature…he wonders when it will ever end. Even she seems to be leaning on the side of questioning the experiment’s continued futility.

She plays him a lot of wretched music in an attempt to broaden his tastes. But their ‘pop’ music is frustratingly mind-numbing. The ballads from the 1980s make him cringe—half of them sound like the men have their ballocks caught in a vise.

But one day, his 'Spotify' generates him a calm, soulful playlist that makes itself at home in his heart. This genre of music is called ‘Motown’. 

Al Green croons leisurely as he journals.

My Dear Diary,

informational sound missive = podcast

carriage house = garage 

invisible transmitter of instantaneous information ?? = wifi 

A pleasant afternoon spent lunching with the Expats on the day prior. All from very wide range of periods in time. We spend much time finding common ground while marvelling at our differences. For instance, Arthur is the only one in his time who had 'radio'. I do anticipate with eagerness introducing LC to them. I think she will be quite delighted by Sixteen-sixty-five.

Ventured downstairs in the home with hair still damp and nary a shoe or sock today. Did not consider how this may have impressed upon LC until afterward. Mustn’t allow to happen again.

All well.

G.G

PS: Will bring up LC less, in further entries. 

There are more tests for the Ministry. More assessments imposed on the expats in the name of what he supposes is more ammunition for their 'project'—one that unwittingly involves him. The latest? To show him imagery of various different scenarios and gauge his reactions.

They place him in a laboratory booth, attach him to wires which stick by suction cups to his chest, and he promptly panics, inasmuch as he ever panics. This roughly translates into his eyes rapidly shifting back and forth, his heart racing and an inability to concentrate on their tests. The booth strikes a terrible resemblance to those awful white wards he found himself in after his capture.

“May I be excused for a smoke?” he manages to croak. 

“Just this once,” the operator sighs, through a device attached to the wall. 

He stalks through the building until he finds an abandoned balcony on the fifth floor covered in pigeon excrement. He smokes until he feels reasonably human again. 

“Graham?”

He looks over at the sound of her voice, still moving nothing but his fingers. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here on this balcony now, shredding parts of this cigarette.

“Oh, hullo."

“Are you okay?” 

He shoves the dismantled cigarette into his trouser pocket. “Yes, yes of course. Just taking a quick ‘smoke break’. You came to fetch me?”

“Yes. It took a little while to find you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He nods. “As I will ever be.”

He follows her inside to return to his torture chamber.

The Ministry must soon realise the barbarism of their actions. They relocate the testing to a wood panelled library stocked with leather-bound tomes, in an attempt to make the expats feel more ‘at home’.

And it seems to be working, until one day, when they show him pictures of World War I—Arthur’s war, as Graham colloquially calls it. They are testing his empathy, but instead he feels himself shutting down.

“What does this image make you feel?” they ask.

He barely breathes at the imagery of razed battlefields of mud and explosives; barbed wire and sickly, battle worn men, huddled together in dugout trenches clutching their guns. Faces disfigured by poisonous gases. The impersonal mass scale of the destruction. When he thinks of his own days in battle, it was not like this—a man would have to look you in the eyes as he went to kill you. That or face down the barrel of a lit cannon. Far less cruel, in his mind. 

He simply shakes his head. “No.” 

He refuses to answer any more of their questions, until finally they give up and shut it off. He learns that poor Arthur had to be sedated. 

How dare they. 

His bridge is always in then she’s out. He doesn’t always know where she goes, but she usually explains it as being ‘work’. Rather than the Lord, she is a devotee to her career. She stares into her machine—‘laptop’—for long stretches of time, typing frenetically. He is lucky if he can type with one finger. 

“What are you working on?” he asks lightly one day. It intrigues him to see her so focused, but also expounds on him the fact of his own uselessness. “It looks…complicated.”

“Oh. Pfft.” Unconsciously, she touches the back of her neck. “Just, boring work stuff.”

He thinks she looks somewhat guilty. 

“Ah.”

So she will be reporting on him. He wonders what there is to possibly say about him: cannot stop washing off his 'germs', offended by the futility of electric 'scooters'…

For lack of anything else to offer her, he relays his own work stories.

“When I was sailing with Captain Stokes on Beagle, we often had to gather reports on any natural resources we might be able to utilise back home.” Perhaps she will see he was not always as redundant as he is now. 

But she seems slightly perturbed by the stories. He isn’t sure exactly what he said, but it must have been the wrong thing. Perhaps it is her distaste for his part in the plundering of another country’s resources for the gain of his own.

One day though, she comes home in a flurry as he is finishing his eighth re-read of Rogue Male. Each read through brings new revelations, for in the novel, all is not what it seems.

The unnamed sportsman fails in his attempt to assassinate an unnamed dictator, whom he swears to the reader he never really intended to shoot. He endures torture at the hands of the secret police, then goes on to survive the elements with only his wits about him, in a way that ‘1847 Graham Gore’ could not. The sportsman spends days in hiding underground—a prisoner of his own making. He tries to maintain his sanity, bearing it all with a dutiful sense of stoicism that Graham can only admire.

But the sportsman is not as reliable a narrator as the reader has been led to believe. In fact, he did intend to shoot. To avenge the woman he loved for her violent execution at the hands of the dictator. The sportsman struggles to accept his feelings for her and for what he’s done—his denial for self-preservation coming at the cost of his truth. 

His bridge is striding over to him. She holds out a bag hanging over her shoulder, now veering directly into his line of sight: an absurdly avian sack she wields proudly. The bag is a bird. Specifically, a hen. 

He sets the book down. 

“Chicken bag,” she says, by way of explanation.

The little cat caught a bird. 

He gently chastises her for its impracticality until she shows him the tiny change pouch that hides inside, shaped like a little chick. He can’t help but smile. 

“I’ve changed my mind. I think chicken bag is very good.”

What is the word they use now—ah, yes. 

Adorable. 

It is Miss Spencer’s bridge who suggests the expats dine together in the canteen once or twice a week to foster a sense of camaraderie between them.

Graham very much comes to enjoy these soirees, not just because the other expats and he have something so crucial in common, but because he has come to truly relish them as individuals in their own right. Amidst the good-spirited jesting in the room, one might almost forget the armed guards standing around the perimeter of the kitchen. 

Margaret is the only expat willing to take the reins on the cooking. Arthur assists her with their first supper. Despite his lack of experience in the kitchen, he makes a surprisingly delectable chocolate pudding.

“Suppose I’m a natural,” Arthur says bashfully.

“Thou art e'en better than a woman in the kitchen!” Cardingham raves.

It is the best compliment he will probably ever get from the lieutenant. But Arthur is embarrassed by the comparison, and refuses to take any further part in the cooking duties. 

So how unfortunate it is for all that for the following week, it is Graham ‘helping’ Margaret cook their dinner. He burns the roast she asks him to look after for just five minutes as he adjusts to learning how to use the gas range. Margaret relentlessly teases him. “‘Tis not a pyre, Forty-Seven. We are meant to partake of it, not consign it to the flames!”

They bicker and banter back and forth like this as Graham might have done with his sisters.

“Quiet, you,” he says, as he takes the smoking meat out of the oven, nearly asphyxiating himself in the process. 

At one of these very suppers, he is preoccupied in the kitchen with lighting his cigarette on a gas ring. 

“Forty-Seven!” Margaret calls out to him. “Mark your thatch! Or are you that frantic for martyrdom at the pyre?"

Tonight she is wearing a preposterous apron that reads KISS THE COOK, and has been trying to force upon them all evening her ludicrously garnished beverages. 

He grins and stands up to greet her, cigarette successfully alight. Then lo and behold, but who should come in right behind her.

“Oh! A little cat has come in for her supper,” he says, brightening immediately at the sight of her. “Have you met Margaret Kemble? Sixty-Five, this is my bridge.” The expats have taken to fondly referring to one another by the short form of their ‘captive’ year. 

Little Cat stands armed with chicken bag. Her hair falls in loose curls around her shoulders. The spot of gloss on her mouth makes him pull harder on his cigarette.

The two women begin chatting amongst themselves. He is pleased seeing them get along. Margaret prepares his bridge one of her infamous waters. 

“She’ll get excitable about the garnish,” Graham warns her. “It will be like drinking a salad.”

Margaret sasses him and orders him to fetch her some parsley.

He feels himself flush with fondness for his new friend. It tickles him that Margaret reminds him so very much of his dear little sister Eliza. How mercilessly she used to tease him, even though she was so much younger. Like Margaret, Eliza—before she married—was prettier than she realised, and often it got her into trouble.

Margaret hands Little Cat the garnished drink—at least from what he can see, for the frisky little cat has nearly blocked him out from their conversation. 

“Drink your tap juice,” Margaret says sweetly to Little Cat.

Graham laughs from behind her. He takes another drag of his cigarette. 

“You’ll make the dinner smell of cigarettes,” his bridge snaps.

Then Margaret squawks at him again to get her the parsley—she too orders him about, like the strong-willed Eliza would have done. He supposes this is his cue to allow the women to converse amongst themselves over their decorated drinks, before he gets shouted at again.

His bridge is acting a bit funny this evening. Sometimes he finds her almost impossible to read. Musing on this, he takes another long pull of his cigarette and wanders off to fetch Margaret her parsley.

On his return, having procured said herb, he is intercepted by Lieutenant Cardingham, who greets him with a brash clank of their drinks. 

“Hail, Commander!” Cardingham roars. Today the lieutenant wears his tawny locks in an untidy chignon of sorts. “How dost thou fare this fine evening?”

“Quite well now that you’re here, Lieutenant,” Graham says good naturedly. “Why, today I struck up a conversation with a man on Oxford I thought may have been an unfortunately misguided preacher availing passersby of the word of Christ. My bridge had the misfortune of having to tell me it was not in fact a preacher, but a 'mentally ill' individual we would have referred to in my time as ‘insane’.” 

Cardingham throws his head back, laughing boisterously in a way that fills the entire room.

“Thou art a funny man, Commander Gore.” He strokes his beard. “Is that thy bridge thitherward? The one of oriental descent?” 

“Biracial,” Graham corrects him. “She is half Cambodian.”

“A fair beauty, verily, I should say anyway,” Cardingham says, still thumbing at his beard in thought. “A small but shapely rump…scant means remain these days to tell the womenfolk apart from a common stale. Hast thou cast yet a gander at the bosom of Missus Kemble?” 

Graham feels himself stiffen automatically at the mention of his bridge but smooths it over quickly with an easy smile. He has always excelled at defusing situations with an unassuming charm.

“I dare say gentlemen like us don’t speak of the ladies in such an unbecoming manner, do we, Lieutenant?”

He doesn’t offer Cardingham his own rather shameful penchant for a more ‘modest’ set of breasts.

“Touché, Commander.” 

He looks over suddenly, distracted by the sight of a tall, rakish man who has entered the canteen looking terribly out of place.

He stiffens again when he realises it is the Brigadier, out of uniform now but no less formal. The man has managed to weasel his bridge into a corner. She looks uncomfortable, nervously fiddling with chicken bag and chewing at her thumb as she converses with him. 

Graham eventually sidles over to the pair. Little Cat lights up when she sees it’s him.

“Evening, sir,” he drawls.

The Brigadier tries to smile, but it comes off as more of a grimace. “Commander Gore.”

Little Cat shoots Graham a grateful smile. 'Thank you', she mouths. 

The heatwave consumes London like a cholera epidemic. They are made to ration their water and air conditioning. The water level of his daily baths shrinks, as does his patience in the sweltering heat.  

“I do not understand. What is the good of an invention such as air-conditioning if we cannot use it?” he complains, though his bridge has already tediously explained the rationale behind the mandated limits. He is complaining simply for the sake of it at this point. 

“Because climate change!” She says exasperatedly, from her now permanent perch in her bedroom. 

For several days he does not see her. They stay mostly in their respective rooms with the doors open, willing the heat to release the city from its iron grip. He is forced to resort to shamefully lying around in his underclothes, taking quick showers now instead of baths. His bouts of insomnia have returned. Sometimes he sleeps on the floor because the heat there is less likely to entomb him. Some nights he prays. Others, it surprises him to learn his bridge is still awake at odd hours of the morning.

“Perhaps if I picture myself on a tropical beach in a swimsuit with a fruity drink, it won’t be so bad...” she muses aloud from her room one sticky weekday night. It is three o’clock in the morning and she barely sounds lucid. 

He tries not to imagine her in whatever ‘swimsuits’ have devolved to, in her era. It is bad enough that she is this close to him with their bedroom doors open, picturing what she’s wearing—or not wearing—and he immediately banishes the thought. 

“There were times on King William Land—er ‘Island', that I longed for something akin to this.” He sighs, mopping his sweat-soaked brow with a towel. “Such conditions seem almost pleasant right about now.”

In fact, the memory of a damp cold so profound you could feel it seep into your very bones is not at all pleasant, even now, but it is enough to steer his vessel away from his wayward thoughts. 

Soon (though not soon enough), the heat breaks, and the first breeze rustles through the windows.

He almost falls to his knees to thank the Lord for finally taking heed of his desperate prayers. But the rapid changes in temperature have given him whiplash. 

“This is not my England,” he tells his bridge ominously one day.

She stares at him mutely, pursing her lips, but says nothing. He doesn’t know what she makes of this, but figures it will go into her next report.

She looks perturbed whenever he says things like this but it’s true. His England was not this fiery hellscape of oppressive humidity and overpopulation. But mostly he feels he simply doesn’t belong in this England. That his country has moved on without him. The empire, fallen. He doesn’t know where he fits in or how he fits into her life. When their bridge year ends, he doesn’t know what will become of them. If there is even a 'them' to speak of.

The melancholia is sinister when it finds him. 

He continues to go about his daily routine, the morning runs and suppers with the expats; the boxing meets with Cardingham, when he feels it slip its hooks in him and take purchase. 

Graham had never been one to find himself in the pit so many of his comrades had on their more difficult expeditions, burying their hardships and sorrows with women and drink. There was too much to be done and men to be led. He found that with such adversities, he naturally gravitated towards being the rock that kept up their spirits.

But now, even with his bridge to keep up his, he feels himself giving over the reins to his despondency. He has too much time not to think, about all the ways in which he is failing. Even more so in this infernal heat dome they still call a planet, where all they can do is languish. It has been five months since he’s been here. Is this all there will ever be? It’s an existential crisis if he’s ever had one.

His bridge comes home one day with a glimmer in her eye and a horrific looking contraption she wheels into the kitchen that is almost as tall as she is. He had been trying to finish the Ministry’s spatial reasoning test but got distracted part way through. 

“Bicycle,” she explains with a grand gesture. It looks and sounds very dangerous to whiz around the chaotic city on one.

His legs are too long for the one she purchased, so she goes out and buys a second.

She takes him out to the heath so he can practice. He thinks learning to ride cannot be harder than anything he’s had to master in the Navy, but it turns out to be even worse.

He falls off once, twice…

He finally asks her to demonstrate for him, gesturing gallantly to the bike. 

“Certainly.” She hitches up her skirt and swings a leg over the frame.

“Very unladylike,” he can’t help but remark. In his time, women usually rode sidesaddle. 

“Don’t worry, my womb is firmly strapped in.”

She says this with an entirely straight face but he is mortified, flushing. For her to acknowledge her sex and so…brazenly. 

Keep your composure, Commander, he reminds himself.

“And would Artemis be so kind as to demonstrate the driving of her team?” he continues, glossing neatly over his discomfort.

She soars down the hill, hair flying out behind her, and in that moment she is almost goddess-like.

He tries to mimic her and falls again. This time he has to catch himself from swearing. Staring up at the sky from horizontal on the ground, he covers his eyes with his arm. A most disgraceful position to be in. 

She cycles over so that she is standing over him.

"Hello." Her voice is cheerful.

“I would like to remind you that I am an officer of the Royal Navy."

“You’re on the floor is what you are.”

Now he understands why the British learn to do this when they are children. He has never felt more ancient. She continues to show off her skill, flying down the hill with her feet hovering off the pedals.

How smug! 

He props himself up on his elbows. At least nothing seems to be broken.

"You are a little annoying, aren’t you?”

She grins. "I think you mean I am, a lot annoying." 

He is determined to best her. To best this…Goliath. He has taken down alligators! There is nothing he can’t do.

He finally seems to get the hang of it—careening down the hill on the bike behind her. “Ha!” He shouts up to the heavens, and it really does feel like he’s flying, until she screams for him to man the brakes. 

He crashes to the ground, with only a few scrapes and bruises.

A few days later, they cycle to Westminster together. He has now mastered the art of the bicycle. Captain Little Cat commends him.

But Westminster has changed a bit since 1845.

“What have you done to the Thames?” he demands, aghast at the state of it.

She tells him that actually, the ‘Victorians’ did it. He reminds her that Queen Victoria was on the throne for less than a third of his life. How can she speak for a generation?

“Pretty significant third, though. Got your commission. Got that very foxy daguerreotype taken.”

He is embarrassed and it goes without saying, profoundly self-conscious. It takes everything in him not to reflexively reach for his nose.

“I assume by foxy, you are referring to the size of my snout in that portrait," he says evenly.

“‘Foxy’ in this context means—eh—‘alluring’”

His image, alluring? She is obviously mocking him.

He asks her if it will be murder, should he push her in the river. 

She takes what she calls a ‘selfie’ of them, holding her personal device out in front of them. She keeps her cheek several inches away from his, but he is all too aware of her presence. He doesn’t know if he should smile or frown, and the photograph captures a glimpse of him trying to do both. 

“Now your daguerreotype won’t be the only proof you existed,” she says, showing him the photo—the result a little more instantaneous than posing for a daguerreotype. 

He rolls his eyes. He hates that his old daguerreotype lives on. When he’d posed for it on the docks of Greenhithe, three young ladies watching nearby had giggled as he'd madly blushed. When he tells his bridge this, she laughs.

“Oh, Graham. You are a handsome man. That navy tailcoat with the cravat and epaulettes? They were clearly smitten.”

He frowns. He had never thought of it that way. But wait—did she just call him handsome? This time it doesn’t seem as if she’s just having a laugh.

At his silence, she waffles.

“Well, I mean, objectively speaking—it’s what they would have been thinking. The three girls.” She sighs. “Just…never mind.”

They both go terribly quiet.

They lunch together at a public house established in 1616. He smiles mischievously at her, delighted to be in on this daring mission together—man and woman having drinks unattended at a public house! One that in his time, was frequented by smugglers. Now, she explains, it is overrun by tourists.

"Am I a tourist?" he asks.

She cocks her head, considering. “I suppose you are, in a way.”

Another reminder that he doesn’t belong.

They order battered ‘fish ‘n’ chips’: a present-day British staple, his ‘tour guide’ tells him. In a rare moment of sharing with him her personal life, she offers, “My mum was shocked to arrive in England and be fed this lump of oily white cod served deep-fried. She’d been expecting a nice pan-fried mudfish.”

He feels a curious likening to her Cambodian mother, her realisation that everything she knows is now different. Of feeling ‘othered’, although of course, he is white. 

She begins typing something into her device. 

“Put the machine away,” he instructs her. “We are lunching.”

Always distracted by those little machines, in this era. They interrupt the user at any given moment of the day, no matter the occasion. Slaves to their ‘digital’ masters. 

She sets the machine on the table with its face down. "I was looking up the White Hart in Greenhithe,” she explains. “It’s called the Sir John Franklin now.” 

Graham doesn’t realise he’s dropped them until he hears the loud clatter of his knife and fork on the plate. For a moment he feels like he might lose the mass of deep fried slop he just now ate.

She winces and apologises. 

“There’s no need to apologise,” he says tightly, trying to control the waver in his voice. He knows she doesn’t mean to upset him. To her this is a curious footnote in history. But to him it was just yesterday. How they memorialise his dead captain, his failed expedition…

He asks if there is some way they can bring his men here as they did with him. There must be some way they can save them.

She tells him again, gently, that it is not possible. “I know you feel…sorry for them."

But that’s not quite it. So he tells her the truth.

“I feel responsible for them.” 

They looked to him as their officer for guidance and he let them down. He left them out there to die, and only he gets a second chance to live. Did they wonder where he went—think he’d got lost and died alone out there? Or that he simply…abandoned them? 

“I cannot imagine—what you say happened,” he blurts out in an anxious rush. “That they walked, and starved. Left the bodies where they fell. I knew those men. They had good souls.”

And in this alternate timeline where he dies, did they leave his body too where it fell, to be subsumed by the elements? 

She doesn’t say anything. Just listens and lets him speak.

He bows his head. Shyly, he tells her that whenever something in this century particularly strikes him, he imagines explaining it to the men in the wardroom. Their reactions. Their wonder and laughter. It is a way of carrying their memories with him, of assuaging his guilt. But also, he misses them.

Graham spends a pleasant day with the expats at the Tate Modern art gallery.

He has the day off from consulting with the archivists. One less day he has to tell them, "No, we did not put trousers on our piano legs to cover their ‘indecency’.” 

He is getting to know the other expats well. The only one he does not seem to connect with is Ninety-three. As much as she may attend their events out of some duty and obligation, it is clear she wants to be here even less than the rest of them. She remains tortured by whatever scene she left behind in her century. 

There is a very large, very lifelike sculpture of a naked man with his pubic hair on full display and a Mona Lisa-esque smile on his face.

Margaret finds this blatant display of eroticism hilarious and thrilling. Arthur is red faced and hardly able to look. Graham just rolls his eyes at it. They crowd around the various art displays, puzzling through the meanings of different legends. Margaret becomes very vocal and excited about a series of photographs from the 1970s titled ‘Disco Dancing Queens’. 

When he goes home that day full of questions to ask his bridge, she tells him she now has some questions of her own. He is immediately anxious, his mind calculating what he may have done. Did she find more of the cigarettes he stored in unexpected places, in an attempt to stave himself off before dinner?

“About Miss Kemble,” she clarifies. She has been to a meeting of sorts, with the other bridges.

He sets his face. What on earth is she going to ask him? Surely she doesn’t think—

“Well, did you know she’s a lesbian?” Her face is completely placid when she asks this. 

Another unfortunate term of this century he is apparently supposed to just know and understand.

He putters around nervously, making them both tea; stashing a renegade pack of cigarettes that falls from their cupboard into the bread bin. He will feel better once armed with a steaming cup of Earl Grey. 

“A lesbian, is a woman who is only attracted to other women,” she explains. 

He sits down. “Attracted to…?”

She rolls her eyes. “You were in the navy, I’m sure you’ve come across the concept of—I’m not even sure what word you were using—‘homosexuality’?”

“No…?”

He truly has no idea what she speaks of. 

“Carnal and romantic desires for members of your own sex."

His face flames uncomfortably now with understanding. He sets down his mug. They have never addressed the concept of ‘romance’ and certainly never anything ‘carnal'.  

“I think this era ascribes too much importance to what people consider of themselves in private…” he says, voice now suddenly cold.

He doesn't understand why anyone would label and give their desires a name, and he tells her so. They are just that: desires, and why should one’s define them as a person?

She tells him they think about it differently these days.

”Evidently,” he retorts, voice dripping with disdain.

The conversation is over but he knows once again he has acted poorly.

But her revelation has knocked him off kilter.

He paces around the house, running his fingers along the many books while contemplating, as though he may absorb their contents with mere touch.

Yes, there were men who bedded other men in the Navy. Most times their captains and officers looked the other way. On the wrong ship, you could wind up in jail or worse. But he is unsettled mostly because what she’s told him has brought to mind Robbie McClure.

For dinner they share a tasty meal his bridge prepares for them. ‘Mapo tofu’, she calls it. It is spicy and tangy, and though it burns his lips he devours it. Still, they hardly speak. She looks down expressionless at her leftovers. Once again, he has no idea what she's thinking.

After they finish, he retrieves his cigarettes from his stash in the bread bin. He takes one for himself and slides the rest of the pack towards her. A peace offering.

He takes a long and pointed drag. Feels ready to speak now. So he tells her about Robert McClure—Robbie—who would apparently go on to discover what Graham’s crew could not: the Northwest Passage.

They had shared a room at port in Lough Swilly in 1836, returning from Terror’s tumultuous voyage on Sir George’s Frozen Strait expedition. A treacherous time, the ice-wracked Terror had barely made it. Neither had Robbie’s sanity. 

“He was a very lonely person,” Graham explains. “Romantic, too, which made his loneliness worse.”

She nods her head slowly in understanding. “He went searching for you twice...he must have been lonely...”

“He said he’d never go back.” He closes his eyes. After a moment, he opens them. “I think he really believed we’d die out there, which I never did, and—well. He clung to me. Every night. And wept.”

She doesn’t seem to judge him. Just gently nods as he grapples out loud with his feelings. 

Robbie had been terrified of his own mortality. Back then Graham had believed himself invincible—at least enough so that he would later throw himself back into the Arctic's icy clutches via Erebus. Robbie could hardly understand it, but it had always awed him how unmoved by disaster Graham always seemed to be. Maybe that arrogance was what had so captivated his fellow Mate in the first place.

He recalls smelling the earthy musk of another man in his bunk. Robbie tucked into Graham’s body, sleeves wet with the man's tears. The urgent swell of his manhood, pressed against Graham’s leg. Robbie was always one to hold fast to his grudges; preferred flogging as his chosen form of discipline. But on those nights in Lough Swilly…

But of course he doesn’t tell Little Cat the rest. How breathlessly, panting against Graham’s ear, Robbie’s hand, weathered from hard years on the sea, had slipped inside his trousers. The next morning, both men acting as though it had never happened, returning to their authoritative brethren, of ‘men being men’, until again the next night…

If one identifies themselves by the carnal relations they have with others, then what does any of this say about him? 

He finally realises the cigarette he's been smoking has long been out. He grinds out the last of it. “I was posted to the Modeste two months later and I never saw him again. So when you say that he came out after me—”

He feels momentarily faint by the realisation, his face drained of its colour. 

Had it been more for Robbie than carnal desires acted out on a whim between lonely and desperate men? Had Robbie been in love with him?

He never saw Robbie again due to their respective posts. Now, he will truly never see the man again—for Robbie has been dead now for nearly two centuries.

He supposes it is another element of his past he may never know. 

Chapter Text

Graham and Little Cat bike everywhere together now. He is a regular London commuter. It gives him a sense of independence and makes his legs stronger. It also keeps him from smoking the extra cigarettes which have, as it turns out, given him a wheezing cough (making him unfortunately understand now the garish warnings emblazoned on their packages). As an added bonus, it helps him from slipping back into melancholy.

Often their jaunts around the city lead to thought-provoking discussions with two very differing viewpoints. 

“But according to Genesis, man—homo sapiens—is not related at all to these other species. We have a mind. A soul. How can there be no divine authority?” he says. 

They are debating the theory of evolution,  of which Darwin posited after Graham’s original death by about eleven years.

“Darwin didn’t get it totally right, but his theories propelled evolution as we know it today,” she says. “All things in life evolved from their past forms. Science.” 

“You might as well be talking magic." 

His thoughts are interrupted by a flash of blue metal that whizzes by quick and dangerous. Similar to a bicycle but gas-powered. A feat of internal combustion. A helmeted man huddles over the steerage. It is so loud and flashy, Graham feels it must be illegal.

Magic.

“A motorbike,” she explains. 

“How fast can it go?” he asks, mouth slightly ajar. He needs this. “And it uses petrol to run?” 

She promises she will see to procuring him one. 

The Ministry decides they will lift the expats’ movement restrictions—at least, conditionally. But first they must pass an examination demonstrating familiarity with the twenty-first century. Assuming they pass, they will then have leave to go where they please—or at least, within the boundaries of mainland Britain.

When it is announced to the expats, they rejoice. Margaret leaps into Arthur’s arms. When she goes to do the same to Graham, he stops her with a raised hand. He does not hug. She instead punches him on the arm. “Churlish curmudgeon!”

Once the Ministry representative takes his leave, the expats talk excitedly amongst themselves: what they might be able to expect on the exam. Where they will go first when they are finally allowed to leave London.

“I shall have to share the good news with my bridge!” He tells Margaret and Arthur happily. “She will be partly thrilled, but also partly hesitant of what mischief I plan to get up to!” 

“Your bridge? Perchance she already knows,” Margaret says warily. “They bloody well know all concerning us.” She wrinkles her nose. “To wit, my own bridge shall be the very last to know, from I.” 

“Yes, that is probably true. By the by, my bridge is…not yours.” He grimaces thinking of the slimy cad that is Margaret’s bridge. Incidentally, Margaret does not very much enjoy her bridge’s company either. “She will be quite tickled when she learns of our tail wagging at the news.” He smiles fondly at the thought of her. 

Margaret’s face flickers suddenly, with something like recognition.

“Ah.” She gives him a knowing smile, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

He raises an eyebrow. “What?”

She smiles innocently. “Oh, 'tis naught.”

He rolls his eyes. Women sometimes. From any century, he doesn’t understand them.

He uses the little cat's 'home office' for studying. He throws all his focus into doing so with the cocky air of already knowing he will pass. After all, he passed his lieutenant’s exam at nineteen, after a night of overindulgence on rum libations, though he is certainly not now so spry.

He discusses the impending examination with his bridge. The office at the back of the house is so stuffy he is forced to roll up his shirt sleeves, exposing his forearms. For a moment Little Cat looks faint and he worries she might collapse in the oppressive heat. Do women still carry smelling salts? he wonders.

At the same time he studies the Highway Code for his driving test, determined as he is to get behind the wheel of a motorbike. He fantasizes of where the powerful engine will take him. The freedom that will ensue.

He begins trying to dig his way deeper into this life and the Ministry. He asks questions. He goes to the shooting range, befriending all the range and quartermasters, delighting in the shock of the young field agents when they watch him take aim, sometimes even giving them pointers. The first time he fires a handgun, he is amazed that so much raw power can be contained in such small arms. 

“And what exactly do you do as a field agent?”

“Do they issue you a gun in this role?”

He gives them all a breezy smile, follows this show of curiosity with an expression of interest in their personal lives. In every century, people like to talk about themselves. If he is to live here forever now, he is determined to make things work.

But not all the expats are as confident as Graham is for the next chapter. In fact, the other expats, particularly Margaret and Arthur, are nervous they will not pass. 

“I speak not as you and Arthur do,” Margaret laments sadly. “I tremble to think I mun ne'er depart from the bounds of London.”

“Speak for yourself,” says Arthur miserably. “The other day a stranger told me I was a ‘fucking nutter’. I had just seen a man bloody well floating down the sidewalk and tried to make a run for cover. My bridge later told me the man had been using a ‘hoverboard'. I thought it was some sort of horrid new wartime invention!” He shivers at the mere memory of this.

Graham cannot have the morale of his crew so low. So he leaps into action. For what is the joy of passing the examination if his comrades should not?

With the help of the Ministry, he coordinates a series of evenings of short lectures on contemporary British culture to help them adapt. On Tuesdays, a member of the Ministry will give a presentation. On Thursdays, the expats will take turns presenting on something modern of interest to them. 

His bridge is one of the first from the Ministry to present—a canned diatribe on ‘multiculturalism’ and what it means for her personally, as a person of 'multicultural origins'. She reads from the page in a monotone, her face carefully blank. A poor, miserable little cat with her hair standing all on end. He can hardly take his eyes off her. 

As soon as she finishes she makes a beeline for the refreshment table and pours herself a large cup of wine. Graham knows how much she resents being forced to speak on her experiences of being ‘different’. He wishes he could be of some comfort to her, but she hardly seems to need anyone, much less him.

But the expats take the assignment and run with it. Graham is thrilled by their enthusiasm—but poor Arthur is still quite nervous. 

“I’ve never been one for public speaking,” he confesses to Graham one day.

Graham contemplates this. “You said you played the piano before, did you not?”

“Still do from time to time. I've got myself a keyboard at home.”

“A duet then. You on keyboard, myself on flute.”

Arthur brightens, but still he hesitates. “May we present together? Is that...allowed?”

Graham grins. “Who said there were any rules, and even then, that we have to follow them?”

He meets with Arthur for practice three times a week. They decide on a musical number from the disco era: a lighthearted Jackson 5 number simply titled, ‘ABC’. They play well together and so do they bond. He truly feels like he has found a friend in Sixteen—and he is hardly a bad keyboard player either.

He decides not to tell Little Cat about the upcoming performance hoping to surprise her. That and she already has enough on her plate.

Her Ministry handler, Quentin, has seemingly vanished without a trace. She makes light of it, but Graham knows she worries. He makes his practice sessions known well enough anyway when he begins practice at nine in the morning, hoping to alert her to the fact that it is long past the time to get out of bed.

In the meantime, the Ministry still sees fit to squeezing all they can out of him. They don’t always tell him the purpose of their questions, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they want from him.

He sits in front of a man wearing far too formal of a suit for this supposedly ‘informal’ meeting. He is a psychoanalyst, the man says, from the dratted 'Wellness' team. They sit across from each other in overstuffed armchairs, the psychoanalyst's legs neatly crossed. Graham sits with his legs spread apart, arms resting languorously on either armrest. 

“Tell me what your childhood was like, Mr. Gore.”

“It was…fine. My parents provided me with all my needs. Disciplined as they saw fit. I was on a ship by the time I was eleven. I was expected to model the ideal behaviour for my younger sisters.”

"That must have been a lot of pressure on you."

He shrugs. "That was just the way of it, back then."

“And what was your relationship with your father like?”

Graham sighs. “Well, we were quite close. He could be strict, but fair. No stricter than any other patriarch of his time, mind you. He had, understandably high expectations for both my brother and I. At that time we came from fairly modest means, and he believed enlisting me in shipwork at an early age would help to secure my future.”

“Would you say that the experience of working at such a young age has shaped your formative years?”

He thinks for a moment. “It was not so out of the ordinary in my time, you see. We did not have the ‘child labour’ laws that you do now. But of course it shaped the course of my life. One can hardly expect it would not.”

“What about your relationship with your mother? Her name was Sarah, yes?”

Ah, his mother. It always comes back to the mother. 

“It was…complicated,” he allows. 

“Complicated. How so?”

“She was…an emotionally reserved woman.”

“Do you mean to say that...she was not very affectionate with you?”

“I suppose you could say that, yes.”

After that he clams up. The psychoanalyst is unable to get anything further out of him on the subject.

“What was your relationship to masturbation, that is, self pleasure, or what they may have referred to in your era as, ‘self-abuse’?”

“I hardly think this is appropriate conversation. Do you?”

“Mr. Gore…”

Again, he sighs. “It was largely forbidden in my era. But I expect you already knew that when you asked the question. It was considered a sin and strongly discouraged. We believed it has detrimental effects on the body and mind. Of course, try telling that to a boy of fourteen…”

“What would you say if I suggested to you that masturbation could be a rather healthy, quite normal outlet for a man your age? Of any age, really.”

He simply stares at the analyst, dead-eyed. 

“Have you had a chance to explore any internet pornography since your time here?”

“What? No!” He has heard Thomas speak of it—that and his proclivities with ‘sex workers’ as they call them now, and as much as he doesn’t mind Thomas, he does find him to be rather depraved...  

“Tell me about your past experiences. Before you departed on Erebus, did you have a romantic relationship with someone? A woman or...otherwise?”

“And I suppose I must answer this?”

“No one is making you answer, but it would certainly help our purposes if you were forthcoming and cooperative with us. After all, you are coming quite close to your acclimatisation exam…”

He sighs. “There was a woman, of sorts…”

“What was her name?”

“Sarah.”

He shifts uncomfortably, wishing the chair would open up and swallow him in it. Or better yet, swallow the psychoanalyst.

He does not want to think about Sarah, let alone speak of her, or what she must have thought and felt when he did that come back. He imagines she must have gone on to marry someone else. Perhaps that is a good thing. The best thing that could have happened.

“Have you met anyone in the present day you might like to…form an intimate relationship with?”

He feels his face warm, but on the outside displays only a mild expression of stoic disinterest. “Cannot say that I have.”

“Do you still believe that you will go back to your own era? Is that why you shun forming such attachments in this one?”

“I am aware that my returning to 1847 is not possible,” he answers coolly. “That this is now to be my—home. I…have not thought about having a…romantic relationship. Here.”

“What are your thoughts on sexual expression in the twenty-first century?”

“Terribly eighteenth,” he answers. “Brash and in your face. Lewd. It seems there is little appreciation for ‘privacy’ in the bedroom. It is quite simply…everywhere.”

The psychoanalyst finishes the session showing him a series of photographs of ‘innocuous’ objects and asking him to describe what they make him think of. The first one is of a large glistening purple vegetable with a hearty green stem.

“What do you see here, Mr. Gore?”

He knows what the psychoanalyst wants him to say about the phallic-looking food, and he refuses to give him that.

“That is a vegetable we would have called an ‘aubergine’.”

Afterward his bridge tells him this ‘meeting’ was in fact a comparative 'boisterousness and acquisitiveness of twenty-first century sex' assessment, and he is quite rightfully, appalled. 

It is Arthur’s evening to present. He is so overcome with stage fright, Graham must give him numerous pep talks to ensure he makes it to the stage.

The preceding presentation having been Thomas’ rather chilling overture on a mass murdering 'cult'-leader by the name of Charles Manson (which leaves everyone in the room feeling rather unsettled), Graham assures him they do not have very big shoes to fill. In any event, Arthur is sick to his stomach with nerves.

The audience thinks Arthur is going to flub this. He is being rather awkward and drawing out their opening. There is a light murmuring across the audience. After what feels like a small eternity, he calls Graham up to the stage.

Graham sidles up and into position on stage beside him. Arthur readies himself behind the keyboard Simellia helped them drag up.

“Godspeed to you all,” Graham tells the audience gravely, by way of introduction.

They launch into their practiced arrangement, starting with a jolly hornpipe before morphing into their fluid Jackson 5 number. The presentation is a resounding hit. Smiles light up the audience’s faces. Several of them even start dancing—Little Cat included. She is right in his line of sight, dancing freely with her coworkers. Though his mouth is still over the lip plate of his flute, inside he is smiling. He tries not to watch her the whole time. 

There are only two members in the room who appear to have no interest in dancing or enjoying the music.

One is the Brigadier. He stands with a much shorter man with a miserable expression and hair the colour of moist dirt. They linger at the far end of the auditorium away from all the others, murmuring amongst themselves. Graham eyes them with suspicion, but the music never wavers. 

His acclimatisation examination falls on an egregiously hot day in August. Instead of their usual cycling commute, they decide to take the tube.

This proves to be his first mistake. He is soggier than a wet dog on an upper deck. Wetter than he has ever been, even in a storm at sea. The underground railway is sweltering. 

He had selected a spiffy new suit to ensure he looked his best that day, relieved to find that many London gentlemen’s shops still practiced the art of good tailoring. It is slim cut and it fits him well. He has even learned to master the modern tie. But now in this suffocating coffin he is seriously second guessing his decision to wear it. The armpits are soaked with his sweat.

“Nervous yet?” she asks with a raised brow, referring to their earlier talks of his lieutenant’s exam, taken at the fearless age of nineteen.

She is wearing a women’s suit jacket with three-quarter inch sleeves, but on the sweating tube ride she has taken it off and let it settle down around her waist. The neckline of her chemise is daringly lower than usual, her arms casually bare. He carefully averts his eyes.

He smiles. “Not at all. Cocky, remember?” 

But he is this time, at least a little bit so, and he’s not exactly sure why he lies to her. He is not nearly as confident about today’s day and age as he is about naval exploration and warfare.

And the subtle curve of her breasts in that chemise is certainly not helping matters any. 

At the staff entrance of the Ministry, they part ways. She hopes to run into Quentin, who remains largely unresponsive to her many attempts at contacting him. 

“Good luck!” She calls, smiling warmly at him. 

That smile carries him through his exam, and all through the rest of his day.

The members of his examination panel take their job very seriously but tell him to treat it as though they are simply having a casual conversation among ‘mates’.

It is anything but casual. He sits in front of them alone in a chair, as they face him side by side at a long table. He very much doubts there is a sense of humour to be had by any one of them.

They ask him to introduce himself, and to tell them a bit about himself, pretending as though he is out on a winsome 'pub' night.

He tells them he is Graham Gore (leaving out the Commander), with hobbies of hunting, flute and sketching largely landscapes. He delivers the sham navy background he has been primed to give whenever he is asked by civilians, including a fictional stint in the Horn of Africa trying to tackle Somalian piracy. 

“What does it mean to grab an ‘Uber’?” One of them asks him. 

“To order a vehicle to pick oneself up and take you to some chosen destination.”

They write down notes on their pads of paper.

“What is an example of a fast food chain?”

“McDonald’s? Though I dare say calling it ‘food’ requires somewhat of a stretch of the imagination.”

“What do we call a person of a racialised minority group generally?”

“A 'person of colour'.”

“What is it called if I want to send a message instantaneously to someone else using my mobile phone?”

“Oh, this is a dreadful one. To ‘text’ someone.”

At the end, the panelists confer quietly amongst themselves. He sits motionlessly waiting, but inside he is impatiently tapping his foot and longing for a cigarette. 

The only woman on the panel beams at him. “We think you would pass here as an eccentric, but a pass nonetheless.” 

He flashes them his most winning smile. "You know, in somewhere like Scotland, Captain Reginald-Smyth and I might simply pass as Englishmen.”

The sole Scotsman on the panel seemingly can’t help himself and grins.

“So I have passed then?”

“You have. Congratulations, Commander Gore.”

He goes home by himself that day, a new man. An acclimatised man.

His bridge isn’t home yet, so he arms himself with several stacks of ice cubes from the freezer. It is still blistering hot and he runs himself a very cold bath.

When she arrives home, she congratulates him before he even gets a chance to tell her. But of course she already knows. She seems to know all concerning him. She has purchased a celebratory bottle of champagne. He is flattered. She promises to bring him a glass and leave it outside the bathroom—how she spoils him!

He empties the ice cube trays into the tub, then lights himself a cigarette as he submerges himself in the freezing water. He is in a grand mood, and very much looking forward to a nicely chilled glass of champagne while he bathes. 

“‘I love to steal a while away, from ev'ry cumb'ring care, and spend the hours of setting day in humble, grateful prayer’,” he sings, joyfully soaping himself. His cigarettes have never tasted better.

He hears the gentle clink of Little Cat setting down the champagne glass on the parquet flooring outside the door.

How excited he is to celebrate with her, for the places they will go together.

His bridge thinks it is a most excellent idea when he suggests inviting Margaret and Arthur over for a dinner party. He even suggests she let him do the cooking. He still has very little experience (and already butchered the roast Margaret asked him to watch—once), but he finds there is a real art to the craft, and is beginning to actually enjoy it.

Little Cat lets him cook a few meals for practice and when he doesn't burn down the house or make them both sick, he began to feel more confident in his abilities.

But cooking for several people as a host, well, he is understandably (he thinks) nervous.

From the outset, everything for the dinner seems to go wrong. First he burns the fried onions. Then his bridge snatches away his cigarettes before he can reflexively smoke one. ”Nanny-stating me now, are you?”

She looks horrified at this and visibly recoils from him. “No ‘nanny-stating', Graham! I just don’t want our guests dining on ashy Bolognese…”

When Arthur and Margaret arrive, he bustles off to greet them. Margaret is dressed like one of those Swedish women of that awful disco group he wishes he had never learned about called ABBA.

His bridge mixes them all very strong ‘martinis’ and the conversation flows easily between them. He forgets to put on the spaghetti noodles and the sauce is already done, but he manages to pull it all together at the last moment. He and Arthur chain-smoke cigarettes together in the kitchen. Despite this, he thinks the Bolognese turned out rather good.

“Let’s make a toast,” he suggests as they sit down together to eat.

“To music played on demand—the only thing we can all agree that twenty-first century Britain got right,” Little Cat says, and they merrily clink their glasses.

Margaret and Arthur bond over their shared dislike of Lieutenant Cardingham. Graham doesn’t think Thomas is so bad, but understands he is not overly respectful to women, and will probably never fit into their little quartet. Unfortunately, he knew many men of Thomas' ilk in his time, and has grown somewhat used to dealing with them. Thomas is a man of his era as much as Graham is a man of his. He doubts that Thomas ever had sisters, though he speaks very little of his past. 

Little Cat encourages Arthur to tell them more about his life growing up: his path into first medical school and doctoring, then a job at the ‘Raj’, which Graham learns was a period of time in which the British Crown ruled India, before being blindly ushered into the ‘Great War’. Arthur becomes visibly unsettled by the discussion of his quick promotion to captain during wartime, and hastily changes the subject. 

“If I could have had it my way, I would have taught children, or been a vicar, even. But my mother and father never would have allowed it. ‘Better things’ were expected of the Reginald-Smyth line. They were already disappointed I was in my mid-thirties and not yet married.”

“Ah, I think I may know a little about that one,” Graham supplies, and he and Arthur exchange a knowing look. “Filial duties and all that. Mine was to enlist in the Royal Navy or risk betraying not only my father, but his.”

They discuss their respective careers. Little Cat too chimes in on her own parents' expectations, her mother’s dream that one day she would ascend the ranks to Prime Minister. This would have been unthinkable in his time, but in hers it does not seem so farfetched, though she seems to think it is.

The subject of cannabis somehow comes up. He insists Margaret and Arthur have to try it.

Little Cat hands him over the equipment. They have come to an understood arrangement that he does the rolling, since he is much better at it, she the supplying and consuming. Thus, he quickly gets to work.

The cannabis hits them quickly. Little Cat and Margaret excitedly discuss going out ‘clubbing’ together, which sounds to Graham about as fun as recovering from a bad case of dysentery. The little cat is becoming quite drunk. The girls are not a good influence on one another.

Little Cat volunteers him to teach Margaret dancing, and even with the wine and joint hitting him as thoroughly as it is now, he is still not pissed enough to show anyone his dance moves.

“I don’t dance,” he says. “I took up the flute especially, in order that no one would ask me.”

But when Margaret threatens to stamp on his toes should he not teach her the polka, he caves.

She is an even worse dancer than he is, and that’s saying something. He holds her arms out in midair, and they traipse clumsily across the kitchen.

He can handle these brief physical interactions with Margaret. His bridge on the other hand, he doesn’t dare make contact with in any meaningful sort of way. He continues to avoid even the slightest touch, not even so much as a handshake. 

“Your other left!” He tries to instruct his intrepid dance partner, but she is bullheaded and uncoordinated, and keeps trying to take the lead.

Across the room, Arthur has taken Little Cat’s hand and pulled her into a jaunty type of dance with a lot of exuberant arm and hip movement.

It feels odd seeing her be maneuvered by another man. It occurs to him then how handsome Arthur really is, and how much taller. 

But then, seemingly out of nowhere mid-dance, Arthur becomes panicked. His face is pale and drawn, and he perspires profusely. He must be having one of his fits of nostalgia.

Graham rushes immediately to his aid.

“It’s too warm in here,” he announces calmly, guiding Arthur away from his bridge and leading him towards the door to outside. He gives Little Cat a meaningful look and she seems to register its meaning, nodding in understanding.

Arthur is weak-limbed and twitching in his arms. Finally, his body slumps against him, his face turned into Graham’s ear.

“I’m s-so s-s-sorry, Gray,” he stammers. “I am simply m-mortified.”

“Stop apologising. Please,” Graham reassures him, propping Arthur up in a chair on the back porch. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

For a time, Arthur buries his face in his hands, body draped over his knees as he weaves back and forth, but at least he is safely seated. The fresh air seems to return him to his senses. Graham is silent, waiting for him to feel ready to speak again.

“I…think I’m better now,” Arthur murmurs, letting out a lengthy breath.

“Did you have an episode of your nostalgia?” Graham asks him softly.

Arthur sighs. “In my time, it was called ‘shellshock’. I was never formally diagnosed but…from what my bridge and the Wellness team have told me, yes. I experience...periodic 'flashbacks'—moments where I feel as though I have vacated my body...”

Even in the humid night air, Arthur shivers.

“I can’t imagine what you must have went through, Arthur.”

“Thank you, Gray. For saying that.”

They are silent for a moment. He passes Arthur a cigarette.

“This wasn’t exactly a flashback from the war, that I had…just now,” Arthur says once he has lit the cigarette and drawn on it. “Just, remembering...someone I knew back then. A memory before I was drafted. There was this…dance…” he trails off, leaving his thought unfinished and slowly shaking his head.

He doesn’t pressure Arthur to finish it.

When they head back inside, the girls have already vanished. They venture quietly upstairs and open the door to Little Cat’s bedroom to check on them. 

“Your bridge is very kind,” Arthur remarks quietly. “Strange, though, for a bridge.”

Strange, to say the very least...

“She’s a strange woman. Ah.”

The women are in bed together.

For a very brief but alarming moment, he wonders about carnal relations between members of the same sex.

But no, this looks fairly innocent. They are sound asleep on separate sides of the bed. His guard cat is curled into a fetal position. She looks cold and exposed, and she hasn’t let down her hair.

They shut the door quietly behind them.

Minutes later—and later he will swear to himself he was drunk—he enters her bedroom by himself. He gently places the blanket over her and Margaret, careful not to touch the former. It is the first time he has been inside her bedroom. It smells like her.

After, he and Arthur sit at the dining table. Graham pours them both whiskies and they light their cigarettes in unison.

“I didn’t mean anything grim about your bridge just now. It’s just, my bridge Simellia. She is very…formal,” explains Arthur.

Graham recalls her friendly but impersonal nature at the public house. She had been difficult to get a read on.

“She takes me through all my questions, but we don’t really have…'fun'. I’m not even quite sure that she likes me.”

“I did notice a certain formality about your bridge,” Graham agrees. “A formality that I do not seem to have with…mine.”

“Are you lovers?” Arthur blurts, the question staining his cheeks crimson. He stares into Graham’s eyes, and for a moment Graham wonders at the fact that his friend looks almost…mournful. “You and—and your bridge?”

“No!” Graham blinks. “Are—are you?”

Now it is Arthur’s turn to look gob-smacked. “Heavens no! I mean, she is a very nubile young lady but—no.” He blushes again, staring down mutedly into his drink. 

“Ah.” Graham takes a thoughtful drag. He finds he is rather relieved by this answer. 

“Truth be told, Gray, I’ve been lonely.”

Graham reaches out to rest a hand over Arthur’s. He knows all about the loneliness of men, knows all too well his own. How it sneaks up on you most often in the night. The men at sea who longed for their wives and mothers. The Robbie McClure's of the Navy...

He and Arthur are awake first the next morning. The girls are still fast asleep, though that is hardly a surprise. Both women devour sleep like they’ve been starving.

Arthur slept overnight on the settee, Graham retrieving him a blanket. They nod at one other in greeting, and in mutual understanding, set out to wash the dishes.

Autumn falls upon England like an afterthought. The skies turn stormy and grey. Blustering winds nip at them through the streets. 

Margaret doesn’t pass her acclimatisation exam. He and Arthur feel terribly, but have already planned a trip out for stag season in the Scottish Highlands. They will be closely tailed by Ministry agents, but it is better than no travel at all. If he simply focuses on Arthur and his surroundings, he can almost pretend the agents aren’t there at all.

He is excited to get out of England. To go out on a men’s trip. They are going for only a handful of days, but it will be a breath of fresh air for them. More than that, they will get to fly on an aeroplane, and that he thinks, will be half the fun. 

The Heathrow airport bustles with manic energy. The field agents guide them where to drop off their luggage and pick up their boarding passes. They wait in a long security line. When they finally reach the front of the chaos, the employees instruct him to walk through a machine to read him for stowed weapons.

But instead the scan doesn’t read him at all.

“Sir, can you please walk through it again? Slowly this time."

He does. Still, the machine can't get a read on him. The worker is beginning to look flustered. He leaves to confer with another. When he comes back with the second worker in tow, his face has turned a jarring shade of purple. They recheck his identification and boarding pass.

“Well, this is quite an interesting start to our adventure, isn't it?” He mutters to Arthur.

The Ministry agents too are in a tizzy about this latest development, but act as if they're trying to hide it.

Ultimately, he is manhandled by a very burly and rather handsy airport worker. He pats Graham down practically everywhere, searching for weapons.

“There is no dignity left for men in this era,” he laments to Arthur after. 

Once finally boarded on the jet, they are seated and strapped in together. The agents sit silently in the row behind them. Arthur is terrified. So is Graham, but he’s better at hiding it. 

“We had aeroplanes in the war, but not like these ones,” Arthur murmurs from beside him, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Biplanes, and the like…”

The roar of the jet on takeoff is overpowering. As it gathers momentum, speeding down the runway, Arthur grabs for his hand, and Graham squeezes it back. They grip so hard, he’s surprised at least one of their hands doesn’t break. Their ears pop and crackle uncomfortably as they ascend. It is one of the strangest sensations he's ever experienced.

When at last they are airborne, from the window seat he can see down to the clouds below. He is mesmerised. He can't wait to tell his bridge all about it.

The sign that orders them to wear their seatbelts blinks off, but Arthur doesn’t budge. Graham, now more curious than afraid, sets off down the aisle, the agents craning their necks to keep an eye on him. He checks out the toilet, the area where the aeroplane attendants lurk. What a wonder of modern technology!

Poor Arthur never manages to calm down. When they land, Graham asks to borrow his machine so he may telephone his bridge. He rarely turns his on and Arthur’s is readily available. Arthur hands it over mutely, unable to even look at him, he’s still shaking so hard.

His bridge sounds pleased when she greets him, thinking she is speaking to Arthur. 

“It’s me. Sixteen is clinging to a wall.”

He doesn’t say his name, but she knows right away that it’s him.

“Oh! Hello. How was your flight?”

But she does sound happy to hear from him, and he is happy to hear her voice. She must be relieved at least to hear that he made it alive, but not that his honour was impugned by rascally airport security employees.

When they depart for Perthshire, the field agents grudgingly call off their shadowing. The village is too small, too close-knit, and they come to a consensus that it will be too suspicious for the men to be so closely guarded. And so the agents reluctantly back off. They order Graham and Arthur to be on their best behaviour. They will be nearby for rides, and to pick them up for the airport.

“Can you imagine? Freedom!” Graham says gleefully. He has become obsessed now with the very idea of it.

They check in at the lodge the Ministry has booked for them. They are sharing one room with two small beds on either side.

They have time enough tonight for a short supper. In the morning they will wake bright and early to scout the nearby hunting grounds. By the time they finish a traditional Scottish meal and a lager, they are already exhausted and traipse off to bed.

In the room, as Graham starts to unbutton his shirt, Arthur begins to fidget and redden.

“Oh. I’m sorry. Should I take this to the lav? I suppose I’m so used to changing around men, it never occurred to me that—”

“Oh, no. It’s just, nothing.” The red in Arthur’s cheeks deepens and he turns away. “This is my issue.”

"All right." Graham shrugs and finishes changing into his pyjamas.

The highlands are as picturesque as Graham remembers from when he was a much younger man. It seems over the course of his life he has spent so little time on land that this time, he actually gets a chance to appreciate it: the rolling green mountains and crystal clear lakes.

They head out at the crack of dawn. Arthur is impressed by Graham’s patience to stay so still, surveying the wilderness for game to shoot. So much of hunting after all is the waiting. Prowling for the kill.

“You know, as strange as it may sound, having been in the war and all, I was never very good at hunting,” Arthur muses. He takes a long swig from a flask and passes it to Graham. The weather is brisk and the whiskey warms him.

“I think you sell yourself short, Captain.”

“It’s true. My father was always disappointed that I wasn’t as…enthused by hunting as he was. I suppose I was a letdown, being the only son.”

“I very much doubt that was the case,” Graham reassures him. “I consider myself a humble man, but I must say being a sportsman is the only thing I was ever really good at," he confesses. "My bridge did not appreciate when I got all the squirrels for her in our garden. Apparently we aren’t supposed to hunt them, and I never miss you know. But believe you me, there are a lot of things in life that I do miss...”

Arthur gives him a wry smile. “Now I know you’re just being modest. I’ve heard you on that flute!”

“What would you say you are good at then, Arthur? I know there must be something.”

Arthur considers for a moment. “Listening to people." He colours. "I think I do rather well at that.”

They spend all the rest of that day outdoors, testing out their different hiding spots. They don’t find any game that day, but Graham remains optimistic.

They pack up their gear and ready themselves to head back to their lodge for an early supper again, then bed. Hunting, even if it does not result in capture, is a tiring sport.

“Not a successful day today, my good chap, but there is always tomorrow, I say. I think my bridge will be delighted to hear that I’m out here hunting with you rather than spending all day lying in the rain in our garden trying to snuff out the neighbourhood fox.” He chuckles.

Ah. Drat it. He’s brought Little Cat up. Again. This was supposed to be a men's trip and here he is talking about his bridge again. 

And then it strikes him abruptly, like a sail boom to the head. He freezes suddenly in his tracks and promptly breaks into a cold sweat. Arthur has to ask him, “Gray, what’s wrong?”

The realisation is swift and true: he wants to be with her. To wed her. His bridge. His infuriating, brilliant, beautiful little cat.

She corrects his terminology. He corrects her grammar and filthy language. They teach one another about their respective histories and cultures. They drive each other mad sometimes, but then entertain each other like no other. In this way they strike a precarious balance. And yet, despite all the many infuriating habits of her era, he is completely, maddeningly enamoured with her, and it terrifies him. 

So, he decides, he will try to court her. He will learn the Southeast Asian fare of her mother's people, take her for long constitutionals—very important in a proper courtship. He will…well, he is not entirely sure what he will do. Perhaps he should consult Margaret...

By the end of the trip he feels his friendship with Arthur has deepened. He doesn’t even mind that Arthur snored. He is newly frightened but exhilarated, by his recent epiphany.

“I had an exceptional time with you this trip,” Arthur tells him shyly.

Graham smiles reassuringly and claps him on the shoulder. “As did I, my friend. As did I.”

Chapter Text

He is wearing his new motorcycle leathers and they fit him like a fine glove. Back and forth, he twists his shoulders, the fresh leather creaking. He has his license and passed his basic training, and is ready to hit the road.

“What d’you think?” 

Little Cat slowly nods and clears her throat. “Very nice.”

“Thank you.”

Not that he needs her approval. Since returning from Scotland, he believes he’s succeeded in talking himself down from his feelings.

Well. He will still try to court her, but will not be so invested in the outcome. She is his bridge, after all. She is being paid to mind him. Jobless and dependent, he has nothing in this world he can offer. He must prepare himself that she will never see him as a romantic interest.

At least, that’s what he tells himself.

He takes his new motorbike out for long rides around the city, flying around sharp curves and racing in and out of traffic just to feel a sense of danger again. In essence, everything they told him not to do in his compulsory training course. With the wind whipping past him at climbing speeds, he finds he can truly empty his head of his feelings. 

The Ministry meanwhile continues with its barrage of the expats. In particular, the Wellness team have been putting the expats through their new 'readability' experiments. Whatever knowledge the expats may harbour about this ability to make themselves ‘readable’ or not, the Ministry wants to know everything about it. 

He can’t necessarily explain it, his ‘hereness’ and ‘thereness’, but all the expats agree they can switch between the two sometimes at will, and at other times involuntarily, though none of them fully understand why that is. It’s as if he can choose whether to be fully present, or somewhere still in the remote past. This side effect of time-travel became apparent at the airport with Arthur, when their scanners could not read him. 

The Wellness team instructs them to focus on different thoughts and feelings then runs them through their scanners at the same time.

Does the scanner go off or not? How about when they experience sadness or grief? Joy? From these experiments he learns that it takes more of his concentration to be ‘readable’; to be in his ‘hereness’, than it does to shift back to his 'thereness'. There is much discussion with Arthur and Margaret: if they spend too much time being in their ‘thereness’ will they then cease to exist in their ‘hereness’?

Then, what he thought had simply been a cursory one-time assessment with the psychoanalyst, has become regular sessions the Wellness team force upon him. They tell him this ‘therapy’ is critical for his re-adjustment into society. 

“Do you mind if I call you Graham?”

Again, Graham sits stiffly in the leather armchair. Today the psychoanalyst has a large stain from lunch smeared on his tie.

Graham sighs, then rearranges his face so he is wearing a bright smile. Does he really have a say in the matter? “That's fine.”

“I thank you for that. Today I’d like to delve a little deeper into your childhood, Graham.”

Graham drums his fingers on an armrest. 

“Tell me about a memory from childhood that is precious.”

“Ah. Let's see. Playing with my brother and sisters. Cup and ball. Checkers...all sorts.”

“Anything else?”

He pauses. “Having my first sip of rum on Dotterel at the age of eleven. Sailing with my father and brother at such a young age, the three of us together, well it was...important to me.” He becomes embarrassed of this show of his personal life and shuts himself off again.  

“That must have been really special, to stand out so much like that to you.”

“Mm.”

“How about a memory from your childhood that stands out to you because it was…upsetting?”

He blinks. “I cannot think of anything.”

And he’s not necessarily lying about that. He has worked very hard over the years to banish all unpleasant memories, to not think about his lost brother 

“Perhaps we will come back to that one.”

He says nothing but offers a faint smile. He has discerned from these sessions that putting on a facade of charm and goodwill will leave him the most unscathed.

“When you are having a bad day, or a day where you experience some form of distress, how is it you tend to self-soothe, that is, to give yourself a ‘release’?”

“Well. I may choose to light a cigarette…or pour myself a stiff drink. Nowadays, why, I might even go for a ride on my motorbike. Sometimes I sketch. But ‘distress’ is not the right word. I tend not to dwell on things. I very rarely feel distress. I just don't see that there’s any point.”

“All right. Well, how about in those ‘rare’ moments? What is something you feel might cause you some distress, and how would you cope with it?”

He feels a momentary burst of disgust for this pathetic, prying man—thinks of the very real distress and confusion he felt waking up in the Ministry wards; of powerlessly watching his men die off in circumstances so dire, this pampered, university-educated prince could hardly even begin to imagine. The fact that he is here at all, alive and well, when they are not... 

He swallows. “As I said, those moments are very rare.”

“Do you ever talk to someone close to you? About your feelings?”

He laughs. “Why would I ever burden anyone I cared about with a passing thought or feeling? Feelings are fleeting. It’s those that let their thoughts and feelings overcome them that suffer most.”

The psychoanalyst looks very seriously at his notepad and begins to jot down some lengthy notes.

One morning, he comes across a mysterious postcard in the mail. On the front is an innocuous picture of Buckingham Palace. On the back reads a single cryptic line: ‘bite silk minotaur’.

Is it some sort of war code? A secret message from a dastardly spy? Or perhaps just some sort of vile twenty-first century slang for something filthy and offensive. Does he need to defend Little Cat’s honour?

He uses their dictionary to find the words, but the definitions in this strange context confound him even more than the label on the tin of protein powder he had just been trying to decipher.  

When Little Cat comes down for breakfast, he shows her. The postcard, not the protein powder. She studies the photograph for a moment, flips it to read the message on the back, then back to the front again. She has paled considerably.

“I think it might be from Quentin.”

“Oh? I suppose I should not ask then?”

But she just bites on her lip in response, staring off uneasily at a point somewhere in the kitchen.

Autumn continues on around them, damp and miserable. The leaves begin to fall from the trees.

In October Margaret is the first of them to get sick. Her symptoms are so severe that none of the other expats are allowed to see her. They are invited instead to join together for a ‘video call’, in which they may see and speak with her image on a screen.

She lies in a bed with plastic tubes fastened to her arms. When she holds up her arms to show them, both he and Arthur flinch.

He remembers the feel of ones just like them hooked in his skin, bed-bound and forbidden to leave. When he asks her to tilt up her camera, he sees the whiteness of the ward swirling around behind her. It looks just like the one he was in, and he feels his stomach churning. How hard he had tried to repress those memories…

Soon Margaret turns a corner and is discharged from the wards. She is returned to her home with Ralph in relatively good spirits. 

Next, it is Arthur to get sick, bedridden and sequestered at the home he shares with Simellia. The Ministry determines that he is from a time period recent enough that he can withstand the modern day form of the common cold. He is not banished to the ward in isolation like poor Margaret. 

When Little Cat follows and falls ill, he is convinced he will be the last one standing. She has warned him to stay away from her, but he brushes her off. What is a little cough after all he's been through? He has the frostbite damage to his hands and feet to prove it.

She sniffles and bumbles through the tedious preparation of some sort of soup when he tells her to let him do it for her. This is his chance to show her his affections.

“Are you sure?” she warbles through her sick-mask. 

“Would I offer if I was not? Believe me sickly cat, I never say anything I don’t mean.”

Still sniffling, she takes him weakly through the instructions before shuffling off to hole up in her bedroom.

He follows as best he can the directions she set out for him. He thinks the soup turned out quite well. He brings it to her Hesitantly, and this time very much sober, he enters her sickroom—but only once she has assured him she is, as decent as she will ever be. 

She is slumped in disarray in her bed, bundled up under the covers. With the soup in hand, he awkwardly treads in. 

"First time in a lady’s boudoir?” she teases.

Nothing gets past that wretched little cat.

“No. I have sisters. Had.”

Yes, he’d been in their bedrooms. They, however, are not her. And seeing her in a private moment in her very bed, is another matter entirely…

She takes a spoonful of the steaming soup and blows on it. “It smells very nice.”

He takes this opportunity to nose about her room, picking up and pointing at objects at random and asking her what they are.

When he picks up a tiny sheath of small white pills all lined in identical rows, she informs him offhandedly that they are ‘contraceptive' pills she takes once a day to prevent pregnancy—adding that, however, she is not ‘having any sex’.

He is horrified by this disclosure. He hastily drops them down on her bedside table. He feels his face flush, shamefully exposing him. His first instinct is to criticise the preposterous verbiage of the term ‘having sex’, and then to inform her he hopes to never hear it again.

For the next twenty-four hours or so then, he is mercurial towards her, working up the nerve to face her again through his discomfort. For of course now he is picturing himself and her having—he can’t even bring himself to think the word. How this century forces one into conjuring up such wicked thoughts!

He has to remind himself that people in this century are much more open now, the women included. He is not Thomas Cardingham. He can and will adapt to this prospect. Besides, as she has so clearly indicated, there is no one else she knows intimately right now. Surely this knowledge cannot be such a bad thing.

But he hasn't the chance to dwell on it any further. The next morning he wakes up at far too late an hour feeling like his body has been struck by a lorry. He can barely move and his chest is thick with congestion. He feels as if he is burning alive.

He hears a light knocking at his door. He tries to respond to tell her not to come in, but begins to cough violently instead.

She pushes her way boldly into his room. Horrified, he tugs up his coverings to shield her from his indecency. "I’m not dressed!”

He is in his pyjama shirt with the collar low, and now she can see him baring all. She pauses only briefly when she looks at him, then marches on in.

He is clearly sick now, having caught whatever germs she was sharing. He asks her not to tell the Ministry. He can’t bear the thought of showing them any weakness—of being restricted to their wards again like poor Margaret, imprisoned there for six whole days until she recovered. 

He assures her he is fine, but his voice is ragged, contradicting him. “I simply need a day or so to mimic you and remain indolent.”

“Don’t sass me from your sickbed,” she scolds. 

When she reaches out her hand to him, he pulls the covers up to his throat. She brings her hand to his forehead to check his temperature. Her hand feels blessedly cool against his flaming skin, but he watches her uneasily, unsure what she will try to do next. He is already sick—he doesn’t know if he can withstand her touch, too.

He has a fever, she says. She invites Margaret and Arthur over to assess him, now that they are veterans of the common cold. This is a much better compromise than her reporting to the Ministry, and for now, he'll take it.

When they arrive, Margaret immediately makes herself comfortable at the end of his bed and tells him how horribly he looks.

Once the girls depart for downstairs, hesitantly, Arthur approaches his bedside. 

“You have a high fever, Gray. I’m going to help you get out of the bed then submerge you in a bath of cold water.”

“You will do no such thing,” he responds in kind. 

Arthur looks at him sharply. “Don’t be so stubborn, Gray. We need to bring down that fever.”

He is only silent in response, like a petulant child.

“Graham…”

“All right, all right. But I don’t need your help. I can walk myself.” He tries to lift himself from the bed but can barely muster the energy to move himself from supine to standing, and collapses back onto the bed.

“C’mere.” Arthur hooks an arm around him and reluctantly, Graham lets him. Arthur helps him to the bathroom where he draws a bath.

“I simply need time to rest. None of this…fuss and frenzy. You’re as bad as Maggie and my bridge.”

“We need to get you out of those clothes and into this tub.”

“If I do will you leave me be? In fact, if you leave right now, I will get into that tub at once.”

He despises being helpless. It makes him act less than honourably towards his comrades.  

“You can barely bloody sit upright. I’m not going to leave you to drown.” Arthur lowers his voice. “Please, Gray. If you don’t want your bridge to have to report this, you’re at least going to need to get that fever down, and you need my supervision to do it. I promise I won't look.”

He sighs dramatically. “Fine. Treat me as a helpless infant. I should be used to it by now, being a mere puppet of the Ministry and all.”

Arthur turns away as he tries to peel off his pyjamas. He reaches out an arm to steady himself. Arthur takes it.

“I can’t get my shirt off,” he says miserably. He is standing vulnerable and half-undressed without his drawers on, his arms twisted up pathetically in his shirt.

Arthur steps over toward him. “Here.” He helps Graham pull the shirt over his head, careful to avert his eyes. Then he lifts Graham up by his armpits, dropping him into the freezing water with a dull splash.

The shock of the cold makes him gasp. He thrashes and shivers. Arthur grabs for his bar of soap and starts trying to wash his wet hair. 

“I can wash my own hair, thank you!” 

God. He can only hope the women downstairs cannot hear what’s going on up here. 

His malady drags on. He continues to beg Little Cat not to tell the Ministry. They have their hooks in him well enough already. They don’t need to take any more. 

“Please don’t tell them. I couldn’t bear going back to those wards.”

”I won’t tell them, Graham.”

”Do you promise?”

”I promise.”

Over the next several days, the three of them continue to fuss over him. They touch him and question how he’s feeling and shove their hands all over his forehead. He can hardly stand it, and would tell them all to forget they ever knew him if he didn’t still wish to have their friendship by the end of it. He does feel a little guilty when he makes poor Arthur almost cry after he attempts to fluff Graham's pillows. Little Cat too seems personally affronted by his surliness, dropping him off bowls of hot soup then quickly retreating from him. Margaret just laughs at his irritation, and imposes her help on him anyway. 

As he weathers the storm of his sickness, he begins to dream.

Fever dreams that leave him sticky and flushed with sweat. He never usually remembers his dreams. But now he dreams vividly—of being trapped under layers of snow and ice. He is dying, screaming at his men that he is still alive, but no one can hear his pleas. In others he is alive but sickly with scurvy and starvation, and his crew have already left him for dead.

But the worst of all the fever dreams are the ones in which his men return to him as broken, displaced spirits.

They are lashing out at him for leaving them to die while he gallivants on through the twenty-first century. He wakes up from those dreams in a panic, not remembering where he is.

But when the fever finally breaks, he no longer remembers the dreams. He feels his strength returning. Now that he is past the worst of it, he sees it is not like being on death’s door in the sickbay of Erebus. He will emerge from this, largely unscathed. He says a silent prayer for the miraculous invention of vitamin C and D gummies and tablets, which he now takes almost religiously.

When he returns fully to good health, he is restless; itching for an adventure.

He takes Arthur out on the back of his motorbike to the countryside. Winter is coming fast. They bundle up with scarves and wear caps under their motorcycle helmets to block out the chill that stings through their clothes. 

Once they’ve parked, awkwardly he offers Arthur an apology.

“I realise I was a bit…rude when you were trying to help me. See, I am usually the one who cares for others. I’m not…used to being cared for. It makes me feel—” he swallows thickly. “Well, in any event, thank you, Arthur. For your care and…patience.”

Arthur smiles. “Don’t mention it, Gray.”

They tread through vast country fields where they pick their choice of sloes for sloe gin, their boots muddied by the marshy grounds. Arthur shows him all the best ones to pick.

“This is something I would have done before the war,” he tells Graham happily, and Graham is glad he can help bring Arthur back some of the joys from his past. “I had a dear…friend. He used to live for my sloe gin.”

When he trudges home later that afternoon, his bridge sits rigidly at the dining table, chewing on a piece of the skin from her thumb.

“Did you have fun?”

“We did." Having now kicked off his muddy boots, he longs for a hot bath. “Picked an excellent selection of sloe. Arthur was quite pleased.”

“Yeah, so, er, about that. You were actually supposed to get permission to go out to the country. It’s beyond the boundaries that the Ministry allows, so you need to request permission. The Vice Secretary is my…my new handler and…I sort of got into trouble for letting you go. But it’s my fault, really.”

He stares at her, running a hand through his hair as he processes this information. He feels a quiet chill settle upon him. “The Vice Secretary…you told them?”

She flushes. “Of course I didn’t tell them, Graham. They just…knew.” 

“But how? How could they know we were in the countryside? That we’d even crossed the boundaries in the first place? It’s impossible…” 

“Don’t worry about it,” she mutters. He stares at her, but her face is blank. 

“I wasn’t, but I will from now on,” he says coolly. 

Along with his rapidly developing connections in the Ministry, he has been slowly accumulating; amassing different items that he stores in his bedroom.

These are things he expects will be of importance to him one day, but that no one will notice have gone missing—not so different from the excellent chronometer he so deftly procured from Beagle once upon a time, as Little Cat so slyly asked him.

For some of these items, he asks his connections for permission, and they never seem to think twice about it, always eager to help him. It is not that he is a common thief, no. He simply likes to plan for the future. An escape route. A back-up plan. This has contributed largely in part to the impenetrable sense of calm that has carried him through so many trials and tribulations over the years, and which his superiors and fellow officers often complimented him on. One never knows when they are going to be in a situation of danger and should always come prepared.

After their bridge year, the expats are expected to integrate into modern society and secure paying jobs.

He begins to ask around his various Ministry channels about enlisting with the Navy again.

The Ministry tells him they may consider it after his bridge year, but that he must pass the required naval college admission testing first. Of course, his naval education of the past can never be connected to the Graham Gore of the present. Not that his outdated naval training would do him much good, presently. He is starting over from scratch whether he likes it or not.

He longs to rejoin the Navy. He is restless, being landlocked for so long, and yearning to get back his sea legs. But mostly he needs to empty his head of his bridge, or rather, her effect on him. It exhausts him, one moment feeling so truly himself with her, the other trying to suppress and mask his feelings.

She seems guarded and wary whenever he brings up enlisting. She gently tells him it will be nothing like the Royal Navy he came from—it’s been terribly modernised. He doesn’t know why she cares. She will probably be relieved once he is gone. Once she no longer has to mind him, constantly correcting his cultural blunders and navigating his ignorance.

On a brisk evening in November, Graham leaves a pot of pho on the range to simmer and opens up the naval college testing on his laptop. He puts on a smooth Motown playlist that fills the kitchen with its soul. The pho is smelling quite good. He’s pleased he managed to put it all together. Pho, incidentally, is one of the meals Little Cat told him her mother likes to cook, after one of his many pointed inquisitions. He relishes the stories of her coming home a wee kitten from a day of school to a simmering bowl of samlor korko or pho, made with maternal love and patience.

He thinks of his own mother’s meals: the freshly baked breads, roast pheasants he would hunt with his father and brother. The times he would help her make her mince pies—some of her most affectionate moments were teaching him how to carefully roll out and knead the dough. How it seemed after the birth of each child she became sadder and sadder...

He shakes his head and lights another cigarette, refusing to let his mind go any further down this perilous journey of rifling through the past. 

Little Cat comes home while he is mid-test, his third cigarette of the evening hanging loosely from his mouth. She tells him the pho smells nice, then promptly rescues it from over-boiling. 

“What are you doing?” she asks mildly.

“Some form of naval college examination," he says almost shy. 

“Oh.”

It feels as if something unspoken hangs between them. She navigates around the table beside him so she can see his screen.

“It’s quite tedious. Bit different from how we did this in my day, but…” 

She is staring blankly at his screen now, the corners of her mouth twitching. Her face has gone a sickly shade of white. He has seconds to process and react when she begins to keel backwards.

He leaps out of his chair to standing and catches her in his arms. She grabs hold of him for balance, fingernails digging in his upper arm. They stand there like this for what feels like several minutes. 

She tells him it is a dizzy spell. 

He tells her to sit down. 

“I’m all right,” she assures him. But she says it more than once, as though maybe she is not all right, but is trying to convince herself that she is.

His hand hovers hesitantly along her back. His heart pounds so fiercely he fears that she can hear it. The neglected cigarette, still knit between his fingers, has accumulated a thick column of ash.

“I’m going to ash on you,” he says quietly. 

She tells him to put it out and he does. One hand palms the space between her shoulder blades, as he leans over to grind it out.

He asks her if she can stand. She confirms then that she can. 

“Might you…unhook your claws then?”

“Oh. Sorry.” She withdraws her hand then, her expression sheepish.

“It’s all right.”

And it is all right. Mostly. Only, it is the most he has ever touched her. He wonders if this fact has occurred to her as well. If she’s noticed the way he avoids any contact between them. 

The playlist shifts to a song by the musical group from the 1960s called 'the Beatles'. Apparently they were something of a phenomenon in their time and still revered to this day, though he cannot begin to understand why.

She begins to laugh and it’s as if someone snaps their fingers in his face to then rouse him. He realises he is still touching her, though there is no longer need to.

“Oh, it’s these awful caterwaulers,” he says as he quickly pulls his hand from her back. He really doesn’t enjoy this group of ragtag crooners with their high-pitched moans, but he is so disoriented by her proximity to him that he gravitates towards ornery grumbling as a defense mechanism. 

“They’re good!” She grins. “This version’s better than the original. Better for dancing.”

“It is impossible to dance to this appalling wailing.”

“It isn’t. Here.” When she slides her hand upon his shoulder, her warmth spreads to the skin beneath his gansey like she’s branding him.

He stiffens, his stomach doing rapid somersaults. It’s for only a moment but a million different thoughts scatter through his mind at once.

In his time, a woman would never ask a man to dance, but he can’t very well leave a lady hanging, can he? No, no matter how inadvisable it may be. This shouldn’t be too far out of appropriate decorum, should it? Dancing was something well-bred ladies and gentlemen did, even if they were not formally courting. And yet…isn’t he betraying her trust by handling her like this, knowing he feels for her in a way that she doesn’t? 

Down, Commander.

He urges himself into motion, like a sleeping child nudged to wake. Gently he takes her hand in his. He sets his other about the inward curve of her waist, allowing himself only the lightest of touches. 

I don't want you, but I need you

Don't want to kiss you, but I need to

Oh, oh, oh

You do me wrong now, my love is strong now

You've really got a hold on me…

He says a silent prayer that she is not paying attention to these preposterous lyrics as he is.

They meander like this, slowly across the kitchen. He is not at all in time with the music. His heart races with excitement and nerves, but in the hand he would normally hold onto a cigarette for poise, he now holds onto her waist. His skin tingles across every inch of him, but somehow he maintains his composure. She must never know how much she affects him. She can’t know, or she wouldn't dare ever touch him…

He spins her delicately across the kitchen and when he draws her back in, he holds her more firmly this time. Carefully, recklessly, he lets the tips of his fingers graze the small of her back, and hears the sharp hitch in her breath. Her grip on his shoulder momentarily tightens. Then he feels her gaze resting heavy on him. He braves himself enough to return it, staring into the bright light of her almond eyes. 

“You’re a musician. How can you have no sense of timekeeping?” she teases, but her voice has softened.

“You are a much larger instrument than a flute.” He is relieved when the tenor of his voice doesn't betray him. 

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

It happens before he can think it through. In a flash, he has tugged her towards him. She lets out a funny little sound like a perturbed dog.

She has no idea what any of this is doing to him. No idea that there is no ‘girl’ but her. She is so close now he can feel the warmth emanating off her skin. Only very thin clothing stands between them. He smiles, because this banter is so very them—but inside he is barely breathing. Her mouth is…so…close…

He lets himself venture so close he can smell the citrusy soap she uses to wash her hair. He lowers his mouth to her ear, feels her body go still against his.

”Behave yourself," he tells her. "Or, I will put you in the stock.” 

Then he lets her go. Because she is bewitching him, tempting him away from his restraint. Because he no longer trusts himself; his ability to control his emotions.

The swiftness in which he parts from her leaves him cold. He turns and walks away from her. He doesn’t look back. That night, he touches himself to the memory of her body against his. In the twenty-first century, he is becoming well acquainted with his hand. 

He finishes the naval college admission testing. He is getting better at typing, though still not what anyone would call good. He finds it actually quite useful that their machines lets one search anything their heart desires, with no trip to the library necessary. 

After the Ministry’s tracing of him outside the expats’ boundary lines however, he is quite certain that somehow, they see everything he does. Thus he is careful what he enters into the machine. He is certain that even Little Cat sees all that he does, and this makes him extra cautious.

In order to test his theory, he begins to enter specific sentences into the search bar, including a direct request to the horrid cat that she fetch him some coconut cream.

When she comes home one day from a post-work trip to the grocery with a can of it in her bag, he beams wholeheartedly at the embarrassment that slips across her face.

It is his plan to always be one step ahead of them—the Ministry. Somehow, he will find out how they tracked him to the countryside.

The city is hit by a violent autumn storm that purples the sky and thrashes at the trees. Weather alerts take over the radio channels warning of the impending destruction.

He goes outside and sees their street is beginning to flood. Water cascades down the roadway and sidewalks. Back inside, he turns on his little machine. He makes a quick telephone call to the local council to bring supplies, then he works to recruit his neighbours, people with whom he often exchanges pleasantries with—something his bridge can hardly seem to fathom. They are reliable men in good spirits who eagerly agree to help. 

The council workers bring trucks with large bags of sand. He supplies the 'hi vis' vests he got from an agent he befriended at the shooting range.

He begins to organise and delegate the volunteers, who work together to form barriers to block the overflow.

He holds up a bright storm lantern—yet another piece of equipment he procured through his new connections. That’s when he sees a dark figure, sloshing through the water towards him, shimmering in the bright beam of his light. 

As the figure comes closer, he sees it is Little Cat wheeling her bike home alone. She is soaked to the bone, strands of dark hair plastered to her face. 

“Oh! Poor drowned cat,” he says in greeting.

“Graham!?”

For some reason that he can’t explain, seeing her dripping wet, drops of water running down her face excites him.

“Hello. I heard the storm warning on the radio and thought I’d better do something.”

One of the men calls to him for instruction. She follows behind, asking where he got all this equipment. He plays the dunce; tells her she ought to go inside before she catches a cold in those terribly wet clothes.

“Graham. Is that Ministry gear? Why do you have it? How do you have it? Because I know very well you weren’t issued it.”

She is far too observant, that little cat. She would make a keen hunter. He tells her that he thought it might be useful and is saved from further explanation when a pipe nearby them explodes.

“Duty calls,” he says lightly, then wades off to lend a helping hand.

Christmas is on the horizon.

He and Little Cat will be spending it apart—he with the expats at a remote cottage on the coast of Kent, and she with her parents somewhere just outside London proper. 

He braves the crowds of Oxford Street searching for the perfect gift for her to open on Christmas day. He eventually finds it in a small boutique selling handmade jewellery. A delicate gold necklace bearing a tiny chicken pendant. The chicken is frozen in determined mid-stride: a busy little hen barreling off to some important meeting, the kindred spirit of his bridge. He purchases it immediately and pens a handwritten note to accompany it:

Chicken necklace, friend to chicken bag.

He hopes that she will like it.

They host one last dinner party with Arthur and Margaret before Christmas break. He prepares a seafood risotto with various expensive sea fare. Little Cat readies the sparking wine and brandy that will accompany it.

It is another successful evening. Margaret complains about having to spend Christmas with Thomas, sharing her hopes that he may perish before that, and even though he finds this to be very unchristian of her, he is thrilled that she finally passed her acclimatisation exam.

Arthur brings out a strange little rectangular device he calls an adaptation of a ‘theremin’. It works by making sounds and music the user can control with the presence of their hands and fingers—something a little like…magic.

Arthur, Margaret and Little Cat take turns waving their hands over it. Little Cat’s attempts generate the most reaction out of the device. They attempt then to explain to her their ability to control whether or not the machine can sense them: the strange and unpredictable nature of their ‘hereness' and 'thereness’, and how even though they feel it, they can hardly begin to describe it.

Graham struts over to have a go. At first it barely works under his presence, stuttering impotently before going silent. Concentrating harder, he hovers his hands over it again and spreads his fingers. A crackling version of the opening bars of ‘Greensleeves’ springs to existence from the very motion of his hands. The others laugh heartily at this and he grins. 

It is in these moments, that he thinks he really could be happy here.

They get lucky with the weather on the coast. The skies are grey but clear, and they don’t get any rain the entire time they are there. It is shaping up to be a very happy Christmas indeed.

They settle into their respective rooms in the small cottage where they are staying. They are accompanied by two members of the Wellness team. Thomas shares a room with the male from the team, Arthur and Graham a room, with Margaret and the female Wellness team member in another.

Anne Spencer has not come with them. Apparently she has not been coping well in this world, and has been re-admitted to the wards for closer inspection. He shudders at the thought of being back there.

They go for group walks along the beach, gazing out onto the horizon from cliffs overlooking the sea. It is so peaceful, he almost forgets that his Christmases will no longer be spent with family or fellow officers.

But then he finds he is picturing Little Cat if she too was here, drinking in the crisp breezes carried over by the sea beside him, and he feels a tightness inside his chest.

At night, there is much ruckus and rowdiness in celebration.

Margaret happily insults them all. One night they get so drunk Graham has difficulty rousing himself from bed the next morning. Thomas challenges the men to an arm wrestling duel of which Graham gladly lets him win—he doesn’t think Thomas’ ego could handle it otherwise.

Margaret tries to make him dance again. He gets away with not by instead offering a jaunty tune on his flute. This time she claims she has learned of an American style of dance called ‘line dancing’, which he thinks is rather on the nose, and just shakes his head at her. She shows him and Arthur the ‘dating app’ she has implemented on her machine and her various ‘suitors’. It seems as though she prefers women with extravagantly coloured hair and fashion preferences almost as eccentric as her own. If this is how one meets someone to court these days, he sees he is truly doomed.

As their days on the coast pass by, though he is mostly happy, he begins to wonder if his bridge was ever really real at all. If perhaps he just lost his mind, and she is but a figment of his imagination he made up to cope with it. On occasion, he mentions her out loud to the others just to see how they react. He is relieved when they answer. She is not a little ghost—she walks among the living. 

On Christmas eve, Margaret makes homemade eggnog laced with rum. They join together in a boisterous set of Christmas carols, including a thunderous rendition of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’. Margaret and Thomas don't know it from their time, but Margaret manages to pull up a set of lyrics for it on her machine, and in a rare show of amicability, the two sing together reading from her device.

Margaret and the female team member put in the bird for their Christmas dinner. Graham and Arthur do not dare attempt anything to do with it, all of them reminding Graham yet again of the time he burned the roast—but they do assist with the trimmings, and Arthur prepares a rather delectable cranberry sauce. They reluctantly agree to attend the midnight service with him that evening, which he thinks may absolve them of the many pagan activities they have partaken in since arriving at the cabin.

At some point, he powers on his machine to send a missive to Little Cat. It takes him a half hour to punch it out. He tells her he will telephone to check on her on Christmas day. Hesitating, he erases then retypes his sign-off before finally sending it: Believe me to be your affectionate friend, G.G. 

He worries that ‘affectionate friend’ will be too much.

On Christmas morning they open presents. Thomas gifts him a good hunting knife. Arthur, a bottle of sloe vodka and a handsome set of cufflinks for his new suits. Margaret, a peculiar book titled Slang of the 21st Century and leather bound sketchbook.

By three o’clock in the afternoon, the festivities have begun to wind down. Margaret has gone down for a nap. Arthur and Thomas watch television together on separate couches. A bizarre little Christmas showing from a 1990s programme simply titled Mr. Bean.

He promised Little Cat he would telephone but now he is nervous. He smokes frantically as he thinks on it. Does she really want to hear from him? She, with her busy life outside him and his needs?

He excuses himself to head outside and powers on the machine again. After a bit of fumbling he finds the entry for her and hits the green ‘call’ button. He is feeling pleasantly warm from the glass of whiskey Arthur just poured, but his heart races as he waits for her to answer.  

She answers on the third ring.

"Happy Christmas!” 

His heart quivers immediately at the sound of her voice.

“Happy Christmas.” 

She thanks him for the ‘beautiful’ necklace. He is pleased that she likes it, but still isn’t sure if she is responding to his advances. He tells her he very much likes the silk aviator scarf she got him, and looks forward to the new book she picked out. 

“So that you would give poor Rogue Male a break,” she jokes. 

“Never."

"Ha!"

He lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag in an attempt to steady himself.

“...you’ve got the hang of using the phone, then?” 

“It’s certainly less complicated than navigating you in person. When you’re standing before me with your—your—funny little mouth.” 

He is horrified when these words tumble out of his mouth. He opens it again to tell her he is sorry, he’s been in his cups, but then closes it again. He has stunned himself into silence. He is even more mortified when she says nothing either.

“Well. It’s pleasant to just—talk to you,” he adds quickly. “Though it seems I can even get that wrong.”

And it is pleasant. Too much so. They talk companionably. She knows exactly what to say to make him smile and he fills with warmth when he can tell she smiles back. 

“You know, when you are out of my sight, I fear I’ve imagined you. And I—”  

And I…miss you. 

And I…must remind myself that I will get to see you again soon.

And I…

The drink is making him utter ridiculous sentiments again. It is making him feel things. He gives an awkward cough. Perhaps he ought to stop trying to have these telephone calls, where he seems to forget there is another person listening on the line and in turn saying all the wrong things.

And drinking. He should probably stop that too.

Instead he says, “Tell me what it was like, growing up there.”

She knows so much about him but has kept her own cards close to her chest. He wants to know her, his elusive little bridge.

“Well, what do you want to know about?”

“Anything. Everything.” 

So she tells him of where she grew up: occasions running through fields picking dandelions with her sister. The giant spider she was so afraid of, until one day when she was no longer. The forest where they got lost pretending to be wood faeries. The time she was convinced she’d befriended a goose at the nearby lake, and her mother was so alarmed, she wanted to take the little cat to get her head checked out. They talk for another half hour, trading childhood fancies, before Margaret comes out to retrieve him, nagging him to watch a Christmas film that she’s just put on.

“I must go now,” he says. “Maggie has beckoned. We are watching some godforsaken Christmas film.”

She laughs. “Which one?”

“White Christmas?”

“Ah. A classic.”

“It should provide some good background noise to sleep to. So I’ll—I’ll see you, then. In the new year.”

She clears her throat. “Yes. In the new year.”

“Goodbye, Christmas cat.”

“Goodbye, Graham. I’ll—” She goes quiet. He can hear only her breathing on the line. “Bye.”

He turns off the machine and goes inside, smoking profusely and kicking himself for all the asinine things he just said.

Sure enough, within ten minutes of the Christmas film he promptly falls asleep. But later that night when he goes to bed, he closes his eyes but finds he can't turn his mind off. He climbs out of bed and to his knees, and says a short prayer in the hopes these feelings for her will soon pass.

Snap out of it Commander, he orders himself as he would one of his subordinates. Snap out of it.

Chapter Text

He has lived to see a new year. After the bustle and merriment of Christmas on the coast, being back in the Victorian redbrick with Little Cat feels almost surreal.

He is so overcome by his desire for her, somehow intensified since their Christmas apart, he can barely muster up conversation. He finds himself suddenly in different parts of their house, smiling faintly while lost adrift in his head, still hoping that this part of him will pass.

Somehow that autumn evening in the kitchen has broken their touch barrier. He finds his hands now acting of their own volition. 

One day for instance in the kitchen, she leans against the counter where he needs to retrieve a cup. He takes her by both shoulders, setting her aside as he reaches for the cupboards. She feels small and fragile in his hands. He could have asked her politely to move—he should have—but these days he seems to struggle to make his mouth obey the commands of his brain. It is like a compulsion that he can’t ignore, the way he reaches out for her.

The new year brings about other changes as well. Shortly after he returns to London, he is called to a meeting with an officer of the Ministry he's never met before. Rarely is he ever called to meetings, especially not without his bridge. He firmly raises up his guard. 

“Regretfully, I’m afraid we cannot allow you to join the Royal Navy at this time,” the man tells him, though he doesn't sound very regretful at all.

Graham doesn't know specifically who this collective ‘we’ refers to, but can only assume it is the Ministry’s mysterious upper echelon who move around their plans for him like chess pieces. 

He feels his temper flare but maintains his outward cool. “It was my understanding that if I completed the naval college admission testing, I would advance to the next steps.”

The officer clears his throat. “We felt it would be too soon after your bridge year. With you doing so well, we worried it might be...an impediment to your progress to re-join the Navy. What we will offer you instead, is a place in our highly regarded field agent training program—under close supervision of course.”

Ah, but there always seems to be a catch. Will he ever be allowed out from under their watch?

“What do you say? We would love to have you, Commander Gore, but it is entirely your choice.” The man smiles. “Though you will have to work your way back up the ranks, I’m afraid.”  

Graham is stunned. He wants to be angry they are barring him from the Navy, but that they even pose this as though he has a say in the matter walks him slightly back from the ledge. 

“Thomas Cardingham will be offered the same admission,” the officer goes on. “I believe you two are friendly?”

He looks at the officer sharply. “Not Captain Reginald-Smyth?”

The officer shakes his head. “The captain has been deemed…not 'fit' for service.”

He thinks of Arthur’s nervousness. His reactions to loud noises and the moments where he becomes undone by the thoughts that creep unbidden through his head. He hopes that Arthur will understand his choice.

He slowly nods his head. “I will accept,” he says, and it almost feels like a death sentence. 

He supposes this is the closest he will get to active duty, in this century.

Slowly but surely, he is making himself useful. He is coming into his own and earning his own wages. He trains on their handguns. He increases the length and pace of his runs. He continues to show Thomas what he is made of in the boxing ring. He studies their texts and writes their tests. He passes with flying colours. 

At home, he continues his desperate attempts at domestic duties, whipping up the Southeast Asian dishes he had hoped would endear Little Cat to him. He’s even expanding his palate to include more spice. But either he is handling this courting business very poorly or she is simply not interested in him. He thinks perhaps it is a bit of both. Sailing the seas when he was a boy and then most of his adult life with men, it is no wonder he hardly knows how to speak to the fairer sex.

What would she possibly see in you, Commander?

He is not an insecure man by any means, but it is clear he is trying to rise above his station. What could he give her that she couldn’t already give herself? She earns her own living. She can buy her own chicken purse. She would never need any man, let alone one from a period of time where they’d only just abolished slavery; where she and her mother would be treated by his people like less than the dirt underneath his boot. 

And yet…now that he is training to be a Ministry agent, why, she might see something in him. A glimmer of something worth choosing. 

Little Cat and Margaret make plans with he and Arthur to meet for a drink in Dalston before the women subject the world to their ‘clubbing’—a concept he still finds utterly abysmal. They meet Arthur and Margaret in a bar serving expensive drinks, already armed with ridiculous looking cocktails that seem to be more elaborate accoutrements than drink.

He gestures to the one Arthur is currently sipping from. “I do hope no one thought to order me one.”

“Ah, but I’ve taken one for the team,” Arthur answers dolefully. “You are welcome.”

He takes the seat beside Arthur. “I thank you for that, good sir. A true friend.”

He refuses to try the appalling drink Margaret calls ‘Sex on the Beach’ and settles instead for a good whiskey.

Margaret and Little Cat immediately get each other going as the two women so often seem to do, torturing the men with their wanton ways and inappropriate discussions about ‘sex’.

Little Cat throws back her head and laughs so hard, the rest of them can’t help but smile with her. He and Arthur roll their eyes at one another, but his heart twinges seeing her look so happy. Right now, they are simply four friends of mixed company enjoying some swill on a Friday night. It is in times like these when he truly realises that she is not just a bridge among three experimental expats, but a real friend.

“So what are you getting poor Sixty-five into with this ‘clubbing’?” he asks her. “Does it have anything to do with the rhythmic head bobbing and downward neck craning your century’s young people are so good at?” He nods his chin towards a table nearby where all four patrons have their heads bent down, looking engrossed at their machines.

Arthur and Margaret laugh. 

“Well, probably a bit of that. A lot of dancing,” says Little Cat. “Add in a bunch of sweaty bodies flailing everywhere and you have your club.” She takes a swig of her gin and tonic and grins. “Thus, why we need to have drinks before we have drinks.”

“I shall fulfill mine own dreams of being a true ‘dancing queen’ this night,” Margaret says dreamily. “And perchance meet the lass of my dreams...”

“That explains the lack of clothing then,” he remarks, referring to the chemise that barely covers her stomach. Margaret slugs him on the shoulder. 

“You haven’t already found a mistress that strikes your fancy on that ‘Tinder’ apparatus you showed us, then?” asks Arthur.

Little Cat bursts out laughing again. “Maggie! You showed them?”

“Not yet, Arthur dear, but I have enjoyed many a fair first ‘date’,” Margaret says proudly. She nudges Little Cat with her elbow. “Might we find a fine lad for our favoured bridge this night?”

Graham feels himself involuntarily twitch at this. Thankfully, the others don't seem to notice. 

Little Cat dissolves into another round of laughter. “Actually, our first stop will be 'dyke night' at one of London’s finest gay establishments. So, no lads for me tonight, I'm afraid...”

Arthur perks up. “Gay…establishments?”

“And your next stop after that?” asks Graham. “I am hoping you will say the midnight service…” 

She winks at Margaret. “We will just have to see what blasphemous direction the night takes us...”

“Then I will say a prayer for you both,” he answers solemnly.

When the women leave to venture on to their ‘club’, he and Arthur order another round. Little Cat wears heels and leather trousers that form to her shape and she's in her shirtsleeves—what appears to be a man’s white button-up, tucked with a belt inside her trousers. He watches her go the whole way out.

“I’m not certain which of the two we should be more worried about,” he laments once they are out of sight, switching seats so that now he sits across from the captain. 

Arthur grins. “I’m going to wager your bridge. We know Maggie is wild and slightly untethered, but I think your bridge could really do some damage after a night of dancing and drink.”

He shakes his head, but he too is smiling. “I’m afraid I might have to agree with you there.”

He can only hope that this ‘damage’, does not include her being with another man. 

“You know, being out for a drink among friends, it almost feels like we…belong here, doesn't it?” Arthur muses, gesturing to the crowded bar with his whiskey.

Now Graham too is musing. He thinks of how far they’ve come from the days they couldn’t walk outside without being waylaid and offended by something they saw. 

“Almost,” he says. “Almost.”

“How goes the training anyway, Gray?” 

“Oh, very well. Of course, there is much pressure to train while simultaneously still trying to learn the ropes of this strange new age, but I feel almost…relieved. As though I now have something to look towards.”

But he doesn’t want to rub his new role in the captain's face. He tries delicately to change the subject. “And how about you, my good chap? Have you thought anymore about what you would like to do after our bridge year?” 

Arthur stares down at the table. “You know, I am not so sure. Still considering the priesthood. Perhaps teaching...it certainly seems that I have more choice now than I ever did in my former life, but I’m not so sure the Ministry is as invested in me as they are in you.”

Graham is immediately sheepish. But he feels he would be doing Arthur a greater disservice if he lied—it’s not as though he too hasn’t noticed the Ministry’s distinct lack of interest in furthering the futures of Arthur or even Margaret.

“Are you…disappointed you were not asked, then? To train with Thomas and I?”

Arthur’s eyes widen. “Oh, Gray. Not at all. I am relieved they never asked me. I think we both know my days in service of the British government are long over.”

They are silent as they sip their drinks.

“I’m sure they will allow you to pursue any endeavour your heart desires, Arthur. They want all the expats to gain independence after our bridge year.”

Arthur knocks back the rest of his drink with one swallow. “One can only hope,” he says. 

Once home, the buzz of the whiskey blurring the edges of his rationality, Graham frets.

Suppose she really does meet someone else tonight? A suitor able to be more forthcoming with his interest. If only she would give him some sign that she is responding to his advances. In his time, a man offered his courtship and a lady either accepted or she declined. In today’s day and age, he might as well throw a Hail Mary to the wind. The thought that he could lose her because his approach is too subtle…

He says his evening prayers and plays a piece on his flute. He jots down some thoughts in his journal. When he finally lies in bed, his eyes stay open until he hears the jingle of her keys in the door, and can rest knowing she got home safely.

Listening to the quiet patter of her footsteps as she shuffles to her bedroom, he can tell that she goes alone. 

His entry into the Ministry is commemorated by a small outdoor ceremony alongside a number of new agents of the civil service. The sky overhead of them is perfect, and he thinks of how not so long ago, he’d thought he might never see a clear blue sky again.

Standing up there in his dress blues, polished cap and shoes, a ceremonial sword at his side while a man in epaulettes commands them, he almost feels like he is back in his own era, being called to the service as an officer of the Royal Navy. As much as he would be ashamed to tell Little Cat this, he is glad her people have kept some of the pomp and circumstance of the past.

Briefly he watches her in the audience. Standing there in long skirt, her high heels and dress coat, hands clasped neatly in front of her, she watches the ceremony enrapt. He is filled with pride to be standing there in front of her. She is so much of the reason he has progressed as much as he has in this century. 

Muffled beneath the call and response of the ceremony commander and sea of new agents, a commotion in the crowd nearly slips past him.

There is the sharp crack of a gun. The new agents look around the stage confused, as it dawns on them that this is not part of the ceremony.

Shrieks begin to ripple through the crowd. 

“Gun! Gun! Gun!” 

His first and only thought is: No—Little Cat.

The crowd has whipped itself into a frenzy. There is much screaming, bodies hurling themselves around with arms lifted to protect their heads, all frantically fighting to get outside the calamity.

He pushes his way against the throng, trying to get in where they are fighting to get out. He doesn't care when he is shoved and jostled in return. His sole mission is to find her. 

There are officers everywhere. Sirens and flashing lights. They have already cordoned off the area. His heart leaps into his throat. What if it was in fact she who was shot?

Then through the crowd, now thinning of civilians but still dense with uniformed officers, he sees her.

She is speaking with a woman police officer. She is pale, her hair tousled and her clothes disheveled, and she looks drained of all fight. But she’s alive.

An officer steps directly into his path. “Stop right there, sir. No unauthorised personnel allowed any further.”

But he manoeuvres his way around the officer as though he were naught but a passing object. He makes his way right up to Little Cat and clamps a hand on her shoulder. He pulls her towards him. “Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head. He gets instantly down to business, an officer attending to his battle-worn men.

He takes chicken bag and pulls it over his own shoulder. He assesses her, his eyes roving up and down as he searches for damage. At last he finds it: her shoe. One heel has broken off. She leans precariously from the imbalance. He climbs down to one knee and takes her ankle in his hand. She obliges when he instructs her to take off the intact shoe so he can snap its heel off. Then she will be able to walk better. She kicks it off for him and slides her stockinged foot on his thigh—another breach of their touch barrier. 

He snaps the heel off with his hands, ignoring the officer’s repeated attempts to interrupt. He guides her foot from his thigh and into the newly mended shoe.

He looks up at her. Her bottom lip wobbles but she stands brave. He fills with adoration for her, relief that she’s alive.

“My hero,” she says, low enough that only he can hear.

But he’s not. She could have very well been killed, and has seen something she can never unsee. He wasn’t there to protect her, and it is only by the grace of God she’s still standing.

He smiles up at her but he feels it strain. “Not this time.”

They obey the officers’ demands of them and are separated. His bridge is taken off for further questioning, Graham sent home without her, still holding chicken bag. As they whisk her away from him, he doesn’t break his stare. Before she is pushed into an unmarked black sedan, she looks back at him, and it frightens him to see the blankness in her eyes.

They send someone from the Ministry home to watch him. He is irritated by the surveillance, but knows better than to voice his objections.

He learns it was his bridge’s handler, the MIA Quentin, shot by an unknown assailant. He died at the scene. A gunshot wound to the head. It was obviously targeted—someone that wanted to silence him.

Little Cat will soon be home. She'll be starved and shaken. The moment the supervising agent leaves, Graham gets busy preparing a meal for her to come home to. When he hears her at last trod in, he walks out to greet her. 

She is a miserable sight to behold.

The stockings on her legs have run. Her eyes hold all of her exhaustion along with the heaviness in her shoulders. In any other circumstance he would have teasingly called her some iteration of a bedraggled cat, but even he knows now they are beyond jokes and banter.

“Hello. Are you hungry?” It is all he can think to ask her.

To his horror, she bursts into tears. He watches powerless as she sinks to the ground on her knees then down, until finally she sits sobbing and crumpled on the floor.

"Oh.”

He stands there, immobile. God. He is horrible with such displays of emotion. Especially from women. Does he hug her? Pat her back and say, ‘there, there’?

But it is her—his little cat, and so he forces himself into action. He squats down beside her. He lights two cigarettes with a flick of his lighter. “Here.” He takes one, gently nudges up her chin, then slides it into her beguiling little mouth. Then, still with his own wedged between his teeth, he sits down onto his backside and settles against the wall beside her.

She is the only person he would ever deign to sit on the floor for.

“He just went limp in my arms. I caught him. The blood. It was...everywhere.”

“I'm sorry you had to see that.”

She wipes her nose on her shirt sleeve. “You’ve seen people die before, right?”

“Yes. In my time, in my line of work. It wasn't uncommon to see someone die—the effects of consumption that could take a healthy man down on a long expedition. Also in battle, or even then if they did not die right then but at the mercy of the surgeons after. But am I right in thinking here you mean sudden death?”

She nods, smokes the cigarette through her tears. He wishes he could wipe her face for her. “I’ve never seen anyone die, let alone a death like this.”

“I cannot say I’ve seen anyone murdered in cold blood,” he admits. “In battle it was…different.”

But he doesn’t tell her of the Esquimaux man he shot. He is not lying to her—the man was innocent, but Graham never killed him in cold blood. It was an accident. In the circumstances, it could have happened to anyone.

He hates that the first instance of death she sees is a violent one. He will not tell her how most times if the men had a chance to speak any last words before taking their last breath, they cried out for their mothers. Nor will he ask her if Quentin said anything to her before the bullet took him.

She looks at him, eyes brimming with tears again. “Shouldn’t I be stronger than this?” 

“I think it is a normal and expected response,” he responds gently. “Most people will never see any death until their own, let alone such a violent one. It is completely natural for you to be shocked and upset by it.” 

“I feel…pathetic.”

“Believe me. You’re not.” He hopes he is saying all the right things.

Her cigarette has now become more ash than cigarette.

“You are going to burn yourself.” He tugs over chicken bag with his foot. He fishes out a sort of paper folder that's been crammed in there, to fashion an ashtray they can use. But when he holds it up for her, she is distracted, cigarette balanced precariously in her mouth. Something inside the folder has caught her attention. He pulls the cigarette away from her, about to loosen its ash on her skirt. 

She’s pulled out a sheath of papers from the folder which she reads with a blank expression. Her eyes travel slowly down the pages. When she finishes, she tips her head back against the wall and laughs, and he knows it is not one of mirth.

Of course he wants to ask her what it’s about, but it doesn’t feel like now's the time, and he's never liked prying. At least she has stopped crying. He assumes that whatever is in there, is somehow related to Quentin’s murder. Perhaps in time she will tell him.

They eat a quiet dinner that night. He only has to coax her once to pick up her spoon and finish her meal. 

Winter marches onward. Rain and slush add to the somberness and gloom that already hangs about the house. Their movements have been banned by the Ministry again. Security of the expats and their respective bridges tightens.

His bridge is subjected to more questioning and interrogation. Quentin’s murder has affected her deeply. He watches her go through the motions, travelling to and from work, trying to exist in a society where innocent men are seemingly gunned down at random. When she arrives home from work, she goes straight to her bed, but it is on the weekends when she truly surrenders. She rarely gets out of bed, and if she does, she is quiet and reticent, still wearing her pyjamas—long cotton chemises that reveal most of her legs. 

One Saturday, he goes out for his morning run and errands, picking up items as care packages for her. He has been gracious of late with her poor grammar (the blight of her generation) and vague answers (he’s lucky if he gets one word). He goes easier on her than he would on anyone else. Such idleness was never tolerated on the ships. It is not a luxury most people could afford, in his time.

At home he hands her his offering of vitamin D tablets—if she cannot have the sun in these cloudy grey skies, he will bring the sun to her.

She thanks him, her voice bereft of any emotion, and he tells her that she should be getting dressed now. It is going on three o’clock.

“Give it a few more hours and I’ll be appropriately dressed for bedtime.”

He stares at her, running through all his retorts, but none seem as if they will help in the hopelessness of the moment. In fact, he worries they will make things worse.

He understands melancholia. Lord knows there were times in the Arctic when the sun never shone and the days felt endless. When he felt his body shrinking and so too were his spirits.

Even here, in future London, when the temperature was too hot and he felt so utterly useless—a part of him considered how much easier it would be to simply give in. But a larger part of him knew this was not his way. Not the Gore way. They faced down adversity with an iron stare. They survived and they persevered. The feeling would always pass. 

But Little Cat is losing her way. She’s losing her will to live and he can hardly stand to see her succumb. He would give almost anything to hear her laugh again—even at the most inappropriate of subjects.

So instead he chooses to say nothing. He leaves her with the vitamin D and walks away.

But as the days wear on and she continues sinking even deeper, his indulgence of her starts to wear thin. It is mere days later when the clock strikes noon and he discovers she is still in bed—a record for her.

“Come for a run!” He calls up the stairs to her. He is readying himself for his physical aptitude assessment, and it will do her some good to join him, to get outside for some fresh air. Engage in physical activity that gets her heart rate up. 

He bustles off to finish getting ready and when he realises she still hasn’t got out of that bed, he marches to stand outside her door.

"Come on now!” He orders this not so different than he would one of his men displaying a particularly brazen show of disobedience. 

But this seems to do the trick. She emerges from her bedroom minutes later, hair pulled back in a queue and wearing her jogging trousers.

They run together in comfortable silence. Though she will barely look at him, he can feel the heaviness she carries lifting off her as they run. 

“Feel better?” he asks once they have completed the route.

She shrugs. She’s panting and her skin is dewy with sweat. “I guess so.”

He decides to forego reminding her that the proper term is, ‘I suppose so’. They walk back to the house in silence.

January peters on and so does Little Cat’s torpor.

He continues to rise to the task like he would any of his duties: cooking her meals for her, ensuring she wakes up in the morning and gets dressed for work.

But he must be going too easy on her. No matter what he does it doesn’t seem to kickstart her back into action. As soon as she finishes a day’s work, she is crawling back into bed. If it is the weekend she never leaves it.

One evening, as he is preparing their dinner, he hears her light footsteps putter around first the landing, then their shared lavatory, then back into her bedroom, and he decides it is the last straw.

He strides up the stairs to her bedroom door. He knocks, three short raps.

“Hi,” she answers dully from within.

He opens the door. "Dinner is almost ready."

She lays on her back staring blankly at the ceiling. “I’m not really feeling hungry…thanks though. Sorry you had to go to all the trouble.”

“I didn’t ‘have’ to do anything. You’ve been in this bedroom all day. You really ought to eat.”

He knows all about starvation, being without access to quality victuals. And yet here she is, refusing food that is offered to her.

“I’m just not hungry. Sorry.” 

He is fraught with his frustration but he hides it well. He leans against her doorjamb.

”I’m aware cats spend most their days napping, and while I do not wish to be a hindrance to your languid feline ways, you will come down for meals.”

“I don’t—”

“That was not a request.” 

To his disbelief, she slowly blinks, then simply doesn’t open her eyes again. The melancholia has truly ground its roots for her to so boldly defy him. 

He urges himself forward, treading carefully across the creaking floor of her bedroom. Then he lowers himself down so he is kneeling with his face right before her parted mouth.

He sees she has drooled on her pillow, but even then his devotion to her could scarcely wane, even as he ripples with contempt at her willfulness.

She doesn’t smell especially clean, her hair is oily and dirty—he doesn’t remember the last time she took a proper shower—but still it takes everything in him not to carefully tuck a lock of loose hair behind her ear and pull her towards him.

When her eyes finally open, he says:

“I think it would be better if you did not embarrass us both by forcing me to drag you to the kitchen.” 

For the first time, her face bends itself into expression. Her eyes open wider.

Threatening the wretched cat works. She trudges shamefaced out of the bedroom and down into the kitchen with him for supper.

They eat while listening to the radio, and he is momentarily pleased to hear a news piece about wildfires in Goulburn, where his family relocated as some of Australia's earliest free settlers. 

He is glad to hear the city is still alive, even if it is slowly burning.

He enlists the help of Arthur and Margaret. They will take shifts at the house to try to rouse Little Cat from her melancholy.

Each day they show up just before he heads to the Ministry for training, looking hopefully at him for updates. Sometimes they make short conversation of it, as though discussing a mutual patient.

“Out of bed today?”

“Just barely.”

And on they go like this like a dance he never wanted to be in, and cannot seem to get them out of. 

One Friday night, after spending some God-awful amount of hours watching television with Little Cat in her bedroom, Margaret comes down to report.

“She ate.”

“What did she have?”

“Most of a box of sweetmeats…”

She puts on a film titled The Breakfast Club. She claims it a ‘cultural milestone’ from the 1980s that he needs to see in order to better understand the evolution of their current era. He had hoped the sound of the television would entice Little Cat to come downstairs, but she doesn’t.

He forces his eyes to stay open for as long as he can, but soon he has nodded off.

“Perhaps if it were your bridge in nary but the skin she was born in, you would wake that piddly mug of yours!”

He jolts to attention, blinking wildly and looking around. ”What?”

“I said attend closely, Gray! ‘Tis the greatest part.”

Graham Gore is not a baker. But the next evening, he sets to baking a cake.

Seeing as he once helped his mother with her pies, he does not see how this will be much different.

In one of their kitchen’s many cookbooks, he settles on a light pound cake the book describes as both ‘ample’ and ‘fluffy’. This will be yet another one of his attempts to cheer the little cat up: a nice curry followed by some sponge cake for dessert.

When the cake is ruined, he decides perhaps he should not have foregone some of the direct measurements, relying on eyeballing the flour and baking powder. He ought to have known better. Since when has disobeying direct orders ever brought one success?

He pulls the pan from the oven. Sure enough, rather than rise the cake has floundered then sunken. It’s largely inedible now. He is not sure it may even be properly called a ‘cake’. Perhaps a pancake might be more fitting.

Even failing something as minor as baking a cake troubles Graham. He has never taken well to failure. It rubs his ego the wrong way, he supposes. Perhaps a relic of his father’s expectations, and thus the expectations he now holds of himself. 

In times like this, one must turn to wine to forget. He grabs the bottle of tonic wine he purchased for their dinner, two glasses, and sets upstairs to tell the indolent cat what he has done. He figures at the very least his failure may cheer her.

She accepts his offer for a drink. He pours her a hearty helping and they set to drinking it, she on her bed, him on the floor beside her.

He admits to her how annoyed he is about the ‘cake’s’ implosion.

“I can see that. It’s not like you to spend any time on my floor...”

“Ah yes. The floor. I suppose we could go somewhere that isn't your bedroom, but I notice lately that you never seem to leave it.”

“Very funny.” She cocks her head. “We could go to your room.”

He looks at her sharply.

The room where he has brought himself to climax at the very thought of her? The place where he would give anything to bed her, if only they were united in holy matrimony?

”Certainly not," he says quickly. "You will destroy my virtuous reputation.”

“No one can see us.”

“God can see us.”

“You really believe in God?”

“Of course I do.” As if all these times he’s said his prayers and diligently gone to service has been for the mere good of his health. “And I know that like most people in this secular age, you, do not.”

“Sorry. I guess it’s just hard for people to believe something there’s just no proof of. It just seems so…fantastical. I don’t not believe. But I don’t really believe, either. I guess you could say I’m…agnostic.” 

“How about the religion of your mother’s people. Tell me what it is again?” 

“Buddhism. Why?”

“They have that concept…kindness begets kindness. Cruelty a life akin to hell…”

“You’re thinking of karma. That the way one person treats another will be returned to them in some form. It applies to subsequent lifetimes. So if you do evil in this life, in the next one you may come back something worse. Like…Jeff Bezos with all his waste and greed, reborn into a life of strife and squalor.” 

“I don’t know who that is but I take your point. So not heaven, but a form of ‘reincarnation’. One that seems rather…self-interested.” He takes a sip of the tonic wine, trying not to grimace at its earthy taste. 

“Is that really so different from your Christianity? Doing acts of kindness to in turn get a chance at admission into heaven? What about just being good for the sake of it?”

This is the first time he’s seen any vigour in her since Quentin was murdered. She visibly bristles.

“I just think there is something to be said for the idea that our actions have consequences, and can and do harm the people around us,” she continues. “Consequences that can very well inform our future."

“This ‘Bezos’ character you speak of. Surely it is somewhat cruel that if he does something subjectively ‘wrong’ in this life, rather than being given the chance to ask forgiveness for his sins, he will be punished for them in his next life?” 

“Didn’t your God do a lot of smiting? A God who let the western front happen? Auschwitz? People who have been through such horror there is nothing left for them to believe in. Arthur is one of them, you know.”

“Perhaps there was some smiting. In the Old Testament…”

He knows Arthur stopped believing in God in the trenches. He watched that film Margaret showed him, 1917, and for the first time didn’t instantly fall asleep.

It would be easy for someone to believe God didn’t exist when they’d seen inside the hell of those mud-filled trenches. But his own faith has carried him this far, and it continues to carry him now. 

“I’m not saying that I understand everything He does. And I certainly don’t believe He is up there pulling strings every which way as though we are mere puppets. We have free will, after all. But I do believe He has a reason for everything, even if I cannot always understand what that is. He is the captain of this ship. I must trust He knows how to steer it.”

This seems to lull the fire sudden in her. Her shoulders relax, and she takes a long sip of her wine.

"Is the world a ship?” she looks amused, but her words are not necessarily condescending.

"Everything is a ship. This little house is a ship.”

She smiles at him. He smiles back.

He wonders if she thinks him small-minded.

He marvels at the fact that he could ever develop romantic feelings for a woman who does not believe in the God that he does. Who in fact grew up with a different religion entirely. It seems it could only be a miracle of his God. A God who is tolerant and forgiving.

But perhaps both faiths have their place on this earth.

“Oh—and what was that peculiar word you mentioned earlier? ‘Auschwitz’?” he asks before he can forget it. “The word sounds German, if I’m not mistaken?” 

Her smile abruptly drops. “It is.” She hesitates. “Do you remember when we told the expats about the Second World War?”

He nods. “I remember Arthur’s horror the world had gotten itself involved in another one.”

“Well. Auschwitz was...a part of that. It was the largest concentration camp where the Nazi’s imprisoned Jews. They...put them to work and then they…” she trails off, looking down uneasily into her wine.

He doesn’t want to push her. She has already come so far tonight. 

He remembers a brief lesson on the Nazi regime. Fascism. A ruthless dictator not so unlike the very one targeted in Rogue Male. Looking back at it, perhaps it was one and the same.

“And well...they killed them. The Jewish people.” She takes a long swallow, nervously wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

It sounds like an awful thing to be certain. But he's not sure why his bridge is so discomfited about it. So once they polish off the wine, he leaves to go back downstairs. Though it is only early evening, he knows she has gone back to sleep.

On his laptop, he pulls up all he can glean of this mysterious German word that makes his bridge so uneasy. As he begins to read, his mouth falls open.

Her little history lesson had only been the half of it.

The Nazi’s didn’t just kill the Jewish people, they systematically starved and massacred them. In gas chambers built for that very purpose. Children. The elderly. Women. Page after page detailing utter degradation. Crematoriums that blasted smoke from human ashes into the skies. He smokes cigarette after cigarette, horrified but unable to stop reading. They even have photographs.

Around midnight, Little Cat stumbles downstairs still looking like she’s half asleep. She startles when she sees him there, still hunched over his laptop.

“You’re up late." Her voice is hoarse. She reaches for a glass.

“You didn’t tell me about the Holocaust...”

“Oh…” She seems to have forgotten all about her water. It runs over the top of her glass as it pours from the faucet. “The Ministry thought it might be detrimental to your adjustment. We were going to tell you. Eventually."

God. How tired he is of the Ministry thinking they always know what’s best for him. 

"How could this have been allowed to happen? Surely the German soldiers knew. The English…”

She looks as though she would rather be anywhere but there with him, dredging through this conversation.

“People turn a blind eye. They think that maybe if they look the other way then it’s as if it’s not really happening. Maybe in some twisted way, some even believed they were doing the right thing for their country. I mean, what happened to the freed slaves?”

Freed slaves? He has no idea what she speaks of, or how it relates to this.

“I’m not sure I follow...”

“The slaves that you freed from the Rosa, and other ships.”

He blinks. “What about them?”

“When you freed them—where did they go?” 

“Oh. Well, they had all manner of options. Some joined the Royal Navy or other regiments. Others were apprenticed. But I’m still not sure I see the connection…”

“‘Apprenticed’…” she draws out the word. “In other words, they were forced to work.” 

His heartbeat quickens. “What exactly are you trying to say?” He fumbles to light another cigarette. Sometimes he hates that the entire length of his history is at her mercy.

“No longer enslaved, yes, but certainly they weren’t paid, right? They weren't brought back to their home countries. Many died on the voyages while waiting for their cases to be heard…the British empire thought they knew what was best for people they had no idea about.”

“We saved them from a life of treachery. We gave them good honest work.” 

But that’s clearly not how she sees it. She believes the freed slaves were put to work, the empire no different from their slave masters.  

“Were they given a choice? Can work be considered ‘good’ and ‘honest’ without receiving pay for what it is worth?”

It finally strikes him just what the relation is here. These two pieces of history she has seemingly connected.

But what they did with freed slaves was nothing like the abomination of those Nazi death camps! These slaves were liberated. It was meant to help them start anew. To make themselves useful.

And yet clearly she thinks the very opposite. She believes he willingly participated in the deaths and imprisonment of those unfortunate beings. Beings she thinks that he believes are less than human...

And did he believe that?

No, he never said the derogatory slurs the other men used, but didn’t he believe they were a little less than him? A little less civilized—a little more savage? That they needed to acclimate to the proper English ways? He’d been convinced they were doing such a noble, righteous thing, but hadn’t he just participated in displacing them further?

Displacing them like he and his fellow expats have been displaced…

He keeps his voice placid, but inside he feels like his heart is being ripped in two.

He shuts the laptop—the machine with the ability to show all those terrible things at the mere click of a button. He stands motionless before her.

”The Preventative Squadron was intended as a moral service to humanity. To consider its actions comparable to what was done at Auschwitz..." He meets her eyes, which are no longer tired and out of focus but wide and unsettled. "If you believed that, how could you bear to live in this house with me?”

“I’m not saying what you did with the slaves was like Auschwitz. That isn’t at all what I intended.”

“Then what pray tell, did you intend?”

“I’m trying to say that you were following what you thought were good orders.” 

There is nothing more he can say. His insides feel like they've been scooped out like the dead men on Erebus, at the precise hands of their anatomists and surgeons.

No. There is nothing surgical about this. They have been torn and wrested out of him.

And even though the winter night howls, he strides outside to the back garden. He stands there rigid with his arms folded, looking up at the inky night sky. He hardly feels the cold. One might say he is numb to it. He hears the backdoor open and close when she follows, but she doesn't come any closer. He is relieved when he hears her go back inside.

Did they do the right thing? Was the Royal Navy no better than the German officers for what they did to millions of captured Jews? The masses of civilians who looked the other way? Would it have been better to free the slaves, then take them back to whence they came from? To the very lands they’d been taken from in the first place?

He’d never questioned his orders. He’d followed them readily in his quest for more medals and promotions. And if he hadn’t? Why, he would have lost his job or been flogged. Perhaps even hanged to the jeers of his shipmates. And so he’d obeyed them, all for the good of the empire. All for the good of himself.

Had it all been worth it? 

He doesn’t know how or if he can face her again. If he ever had any chance at winning her hand, he knows he has lost it now. She thinks him imperialist swine, and he supposes that is what he is. It is what he knows, after all. What he was raised to believe in. But he thinks perhaps he can be more.

That he is more. 

The next morning, he takes a walk in their garden.

He finds a single snowdrop, blooming beneath the dull morning sun, the first of the season. The tiny white blossom gives him hope for the spring thaw to come. He carefully scoops it out of the dirt and places it in a glass in the kitchen. He brings it to his bridge—another peace offering. 

She looks up at him, then down at the glass. She touches a petal with a gentle finger. “I’m glad you’ll get to see this garden in the spring before you move."

He touches the very place on the petal where her fingers just were.

Yes, soon he will be expected to live on his own. Perhaps he will get an apartment with Arthur, paid for with his Ministry wages. He believes he and Little Cat are still friends, but after last night, he is not so sure she will want to see him once it's no longer part of her mandate.

She reminds him that they are coming onto a year of their time together. A full year, and he has gotten no closer to being with her. A year and if anything, he has pushed her further away.

They plod onward. The late winter brings heavy rain. Little Cat seems to warm up to him again, but he has not forgotten their conversation about the freed slaves from Rosa and Auschwitz, and he doubts that she has either.

They learn that Anne Spencer, Seventeen-ninety three, tragically doesn’t make it. She has taken her own life. It hits them all in different but equally difficult ways. 

In the early days, Margaret had tried to befriend the wayward expat. She tells him and Arthur of the one and only time she’d tried to visit Miss Spencer at the house with her bridge. Margaret said she’d been staring up at the ceiling from her bed, arms crossed over her chest like she was already lying in a coffin. “But I ne'er did expect this,” she says sadly. “Perhaps I should have strived with greater earnestness.”

“Yes, a real tragedy,” murmurs Arthur. “But what could we have done? How could we have known?”

Perhaps Arthur is contemplating how things could have turned out differently for him. For all of them. 

Her funeral is held in a small chapel at the Ministry. All the expats attend out of respect for the one they lost.

To wish her well into heaven, they join in harmonious hymn: ‘Bless the Lord, My Soul’. It is one that is near and dear to Graham’s heart. In the Navy they often sang it to mourn and bless the passing of one of their men.

After the ceremony he finds Arthur and Little Cat sitting together on a bench, in a small courtyard adjoined to the chapel. Their hands are clasped, and they are deep in conversation. He hates to interrupt, but his stomach has revolted at the idea they really may be together and that neither wants to tell him.

He lights a cigarette in the doorway, careful not to let his hands shake. It is wet and miserable outside, and sadly apt for such a dismal funeral. 

“What are you two talking about?” he hears himself say suddenly.

They startle, looking over to see him in the doorway, cigarette alight.

“We’re plotting.” Arthur stands up, letting go of Little Cat’s hand. He smiles nervously at Graham. “We’re going to try to get up to some really original sin.”

He stares at them. Both look guilty, but he isn’t sure of what.

"I see.” He blows out his smoke at them. “I’ll be sure to keep a candle burning in the window for when you come home."

He is not sure if they catch that he’s joking. He’s not entirely sure that he is joking.

Something seems to have relinquished its hold on Little Cat. He thinks perhaps the storm has passed. 

She goes for her runs again and he doesn’t need to prod her. She wakes in the morning (at still too late an hour, in his opinion) and responds. She begins to wash her hair again. It seems she has made it through the worst of her melancholia. Her instinct to survive, and perhaps thrive, not lost after all.

One day, she asks if he would like to meet her friends.

He is thrilled. This glimpse into a window of her real life! He is not just the passing eccentric, but someone she can introduce to her modern day friends—friends outside the Ministry, and thus her work. He tries to contain his excitement but feels the broad grin spread across his face.

“I have been wondering how to ask," he admits.

Well, that was exactly the sort of thing he was trying not to say.

She looks at him curiously. “Is that right?”

He opens his mouth to tell her: he wants to get to know her more. Learn who she is via her longtime friends—friends who have known her in many different iterations of her life. For said friends to approve of him. How much it means to him that she is not ashamed...

He feels himself blushing and quickly tries to reel himself in. “Well, it’s only fair. You’ve met mine after all.”

“You’ve only got two.”

“Three. We are friends.”

She smiles. “Yes. We are friends, aren’t we?”

Friends, with one who wishes the other wanted to be something more. 

He rides his motorbike to the public house—pub—he reminds himself, to meet Little Cat and her friends. He parks just outside a nearby restaurant and smokes a quick cigarette to prepare. While eager to meet her friends, he is nervous. Somehow he feels like he is readying himself for battle.

“Hello, Graham.” 

He looks over at the sound of her voice.

She has worn up her hair in a loose chignon, sporting denim trousers and high heeled boots. He forbids himself from looking her up and down. Truthfully though, he is relieved they will be walking in together. 

He puts out his cigarette. “Shall we?”

His thoughts are interrupted by what sounds like it could be really terrible singing, but is really more akin to the squawk of a dying bird, perhaps like one of the noisy cockatoos he took down in Australia.

“Karaoke night,” she explains. “People with a bravery that far outweighs their skill, singing greatest hits into a microphone for all to enjoy.”

“Ah. I will be sure to avoid, then.” 

She leads him into the crowded pub. Her arm brushes against his, but surely it’s accidental.

She takes him to a table at the back with her friends, where the caterwauling is slightly less obtrusive.

Her friends are a range of sexes and different races. Their heads turn in unison to watch as he and Little Cat approach the table.

“So you’re the famous housemate,” a young Asian woman says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

He wonders, what it is exactly, that she has said. 

The friends scooch over in the booth to make room. They sit beside each other. A barkeep comes over to take their orders.

“So you were in the Navy at some point, is that right?” asks one of the men, a man of Middle Eastern descent.

“Indeed I was. But it almost seems now like a lifetime ago.” He turns his head to shoot his bridge a knowing look. She smiles.

"Why’d you leave it?" 

He smiles breezily. "Oh, I suppose I simply wanted to try something new, once my service was up."

“And how did you end up living with this one?” The other man, tall and thin and white with a sea of tattoos across his arms nods towards Little Cat. “She never did tell us how you two met.”

“We met through work," Graham says carefully. "The Ministry that is."

“He had just rented a new place and was looking for someone to share the rent,” his bridge cuts in. “So I took him up on it.”

“Are you as busy there as she always seems to be?” the white woman asks, shooting Little Cat a cheeky grin. “She never seems to have free time to spare for us these days.”

“Perhaps not quite. She is a very important person you know,” he says very seriously.

They all laugh. 

The conversation with her friends is quite pleasant. They are nice people and are clearly bright. They seem to like him and he makes them laugh. He answers all their questions in as simple terms as he can, gently glossing over the gaps in his history that he cannot answer without explaining that he was born over two hundred years ago. He takes a backseat to the conversation when they begin talking about modern culture or mediums he has no idea how to relate to, but they never seem to let him stay silent for long.

Eventually one of the men, the tattooed one, asks him to the bar to order ‘shots’. Graham obliges, politely asking the man about the meaning of his various body art.

“You got any tats?" he asks Graham. "Like from your time in the Navy?”

“Oh, tattoos? I’m afraid not. I suppose I must be afraid of needles. But lots of the other men had them.” He remembers that women now are permitted to join the Navy too. “And some of the women as well,” he adds quickly. 

“Right, then! That's still wicked cool. Fireball?”

“Er, sure.” He has no idea what that it is, but when he’s handed a small tumbler of murky brown liquor, he assumes it is the name of this drink.

After they down the liquor straight down their throats, the friend turns to look straight at him.

“So are you two an item?” The way he wiggles his brows at Graham can only mean something suggestive to do with his bridge. But it doesn’t seem threatening. The man seems genuinely curious.

“We are not…” he says carefully. 

“Oh. I’m sorry then, mate.” The man grins sheepishly. “I only ask because I can’t remember the last time she’s talked about a bloke this much. I think the last one really hurt her. She seems much happier since you’ve come along.”

He feels himself flush but doesn’t have a chance to respond. Just as her friend begins to talk again about his tattoos, Little Cat strides pointedly towards them. Her gait is fairly steady, but he can tell by the colour in her cheeks and the glassiness in her eyes that she’s drunk. “Graham. We should get going.”

She reaches over, clutching at the bottom of his ribcage.

He feels her friend’s eyes boring into him. He looks down at her hand on him, then back at her. She doesn’t break eye contact.

“Yes,” he says, and not quite sure how to react to this public display of her touch, he straightens. This causes her hand to nestle deeper into the fabric of his gansey.

They wish her friends a good night with promises to meet up again.

“I enjoyed that,” he tells her as they walk outside. 

“You did?”

“Yes, they seem like very good people, your friends.”

“They are. I—whoa.” She has stopped in her tracks, boots skidding wildly across the pavement. 

Two individuals dressed in strange formal garb stand before them in broad stances.

He grabs her by the arm to ensure she doesn’t fall. Her body is rigid, but softens slightly into his touch. Taking this to be her assent, he moves his hands to rest protectively between the blades of her shoulders.

It is the Brigadier and his strange companion. Neither man looks like they are here purely for the delight of their company.

The shorter one holds out in front of him a familiar little device. Above it is projected it a filmy white grid with a series of symbols he doesn’t recognise, but knows to be the machine he saw outside the Ministry some months ago—the one Little Cat didn’t recognise.

“Got,” the man says to the Brigadier, surveying his strange little device as if Graham and his bridge aren't there at all. “He’s a free traveller.”

The Brigadier gives them one of his simpering grins. “If it isn’t our favourite time-traveller. Good evening, Commander Gore.”

Graham nods, moving no other part of his body. "Sir.”

“I would certainly have preferred we'd done this with a bit more formality, but I’m afraid this is what we have to work with. But enough lollygagging. You must come with us now.”

Graham pauses. “Might I ask what for?”

“You may not.”

He frowns. “And my bridge?”

The two men exchange looks.

“Let’s just say if you come with us right now, we will not harm her,” the Brigadier drawls.

Fury lashes through him.

“Well, I appreciate the array of options. But I think I am going to pass, nor will you harm her either.”

The Brigadier sighs. “Well, would have preferred to do this the easier way but alas, you leave me no choice.”

And he withdraws from his jacket a metallic gun-like weapon, the likes of which Graham has never seen. 

The Brigadier aims it at Little Cat and fires. A bright stream of blue light streaks through the air from the discharged weapon.

Graham grabs her by her wrist and pulls her towards him, narrowly missing the shaft of light that instead strikes the ground where she'd just been standing. In its place is a searing hole in the pavement. 

She screams. Before he can react, she has lunged towards the smaller man and dragged her claws across his face. The man screams, shouting what sounds like curse words in a language he cannot understand.

“Get it together, Sal,” the Brigadier snaps at the smaller man, his posh accent dropping for something more primal and garbled. 

But this gives Graham his chance. He grabs the Brigadier by his arm and twists it behind him. The Brigadier shrieks at the loud popping of his shoulder dislocating.

He manages to wrestle the man down to the pavement, but he’s bucking wildly and he gets enough purchase to aim the weapon again with his good arm. 

Graham looks up to meet Little Cat’s frantic eyes. “Run."

She hesitates for only a split second, gasping as she tears off towards the rows of courier motorbikes parked alongside his own.

He grabs the Brigadier from behind again, this time with his gun arm, and punches him in the back of the head. The Brigadier snarls and falls forward.

Graham lets go, shoving the smaller man ‘Sal’ aside, as he runs to meet Little Cat by his motorbike.

He grabs Arthur’s helmet from the back of his bike and pulls it on over her head. It is far too large for her, bobbing unsteadily, but will have to do.

She is shaking all over, arms frozen at her sides. He grabs her by the collar and pulls her onto the bike behind him. 

“Hold on!” He shouts back to her. She grabs him around the waist, screaming as he powers up the bike and sends them flying down the street. Several of the other bikers have begun to rev their engines, losing them in the chaos.

“Which one are they?” the Brigadier shouts into the commotion. “Where did they go!?”

In any other circumstance should he have had the pleasure of having her on his bike, he would have been painstakingly slow and careful. But the time calls for speed and urgency. He races around corners and darts through red lights, slowing only once they reach their neighbourhood. 

When he rolls the bike to a stop at the redbrick, he now has time to assess her. He takes her by the hand and gently helps her down from the bike.

She takes great gulps of panicked breath. “That weapon—the device you drew. I thought they were part of the Ministry, but I think they’re actually from the future,” she croaks. 

“I figured as much. Come now.” He takes her by the arm again and guides her into the house where she collapses against the front door.

He calmly takes off his helmet, aviator scarf, and leather jacket. She shivers and trembles against the door, looking even smaller in that helmet.

“You’re fine,” he murmurs hoping he sounds soothing, and not chastising. He tugs the helmet from her head and sets it on the floor, her chignon settling half undone around her neck. His stomach flutters at the sight of it. "You’re fine,” he says again, much smoother than he feels.

He begins to unbutton her peacoat. She lets it fall to the floor with a nudge of her shoulder. "They tried to kill us.”

“And yet they did not succeed. But you should tell the Vice Secretary at once,” he says firmly, still surveying her.

“You saved my life.”

“It was nothing. Oh, here. There’s a pin sticking out of your head.” He reaches out for the hair grip that has tangled in her loosened strands. He gently untwists it, careful not to pull at her hair—hair that is so very soft.

The next thing he knows she has grabbed his head with both her hands and is tugging him down towards her. Then her mouth is on his, hot and wet and searching.

His entire body locks in response. He doesn’t take his mouth away, but doesn’t kiss her back either. Instead he trembles. Violently. His body arching back to get away from her—everything but his slackened mouth, still pressed against hers.

This is wrong.

This is so very wrong.

But why? Why is he fighting the very thing he has wanted for so long? 

And so he lets go and it is like a dam has broken. He surrenders to the passion that has threatened to overtake him from the moment he walked through that corridor and saw her there before him, announcing herself as his bridge.

He kisses her back with all his fire and need, his fists landing on either side of her head. He pushes himself against her with such force it lifts her several inches up the door. He feels himself instantly harden.

It is not the ‘first kiss’ he'd imagined with her—more gnashing of teeth and urgency than he’d pictured. But the burning. The tension. It is exactly what he's always dreamed it would be.

Their mouths scrabble frantically at each other and in their fervour his teeth scrape against her bottom lip. Her fingers slip beneath the hem of his gansey, grazing the bare stretch of skin above his belt. The spell instantly breaks.

He gasps, wrenching himself away from her so vigorously he loses his balance and stumbles down the hallway.

Stunned by his complete lack of control, his animal arousal, he stops only once his back has slammed into the wall. He stares at her. She stares back at him, her gaze so heavy with desire that it makes him ache. They are both panting. Her mouth is now swollen and red, her hair undone around her shoulders.

But it wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this. 

“Graham.” 

“Don’t.” He hears the panic he can no longer contain threading through his voice.

She takes a step towards him. He can feel that pull—the longing that echoes his own.

“Don’t,” he says again, more urgent. A warning.

Don’t come any closer. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.  

She has never looked so small and vulnerable, standing there in the hallway, her chest heaving with every breath. But her eyes are hopeful, looking up at him, as if he holds all the answers.

She is drunk and has just been through a near-death experience. It hasn’t even occurred to her yet what he’s done. How he’s betrayed her. Taken advantage of her weakened state. How will she feel about him tomorrow when she wakes up in her bed, stone cold sober?

“I’m sorry.” He reaches out to hand her back the hair grip, still warm in his hand—all that it was ever meant to be.

She takes it from him, staring at it cupped in her palm as if he’s just handed her a live grenade from Arthur’s war.

He slips past her, careful not to make any accidental contact and rushes headlong into his room. He locks the door behind him as though she might follow.

With his back against the door, he slumps to the floor and buries his head in his hands.

“Our father, who art in heaven…”

Chapter Text

Little Cat makes a call to the Vice Secretary. Graham has never met the woman, but he senses she is one to get things done. Thereafter the Ministry arrives, and everything happens very quickly.

A team of Ministry heavies hand him a shoulder bag and tells him that whatever he can fit of his worldly possessions may go with him. He shoves in his flute, his journal, Little Cat’s copy of Rogue Male, and a handful of clothes. He shoots the agent overseeing him pack his most charming smile. “May I bring along my motorbike—for ‘quality of life’, you understand?” 

The agent sighs. He is probably thinking that they are not supposed to be going anywhere besides their new safehouse, so why would he need his motorbike? “That’s fine,” the agent relents.

They are whisked off into a large unmarked van with the windows blackened. He feels Little Cat’s eyes on him, but strenuously avoids her stare. As they shove him into the back, he looks over just long enough to check whether she’s been apprehended along with him. While they have not spoken since the forbidden kiss, he is relieved they are presumably being relocated to the same place. Their eyes meet only briefly before he quickly looks away again. 

The van takes them partly underground down a meandering route that is impossible to follow, which, Graham supposes, may be the point. Why they cannot stay at the redbrick, well, the Brigadier and his companion Salese may have tracked them. Now they must go into hiding. The expats are presumed to be in danger. They are all being moved to various different hidden locations. He is not supposed to know where they have taken Arthur or Margaret, or even Thomas, though he is determined to find out.

Their new flat is in the garret of an old government building somewhere deep in the bowels of London. It is stuffy and damp and smells of must and decay, and the pipes there are constantly dripping. The view from his window looks down on a graveyard of crumbling chimneys and steaming vent fans. Since the Arctic, he has never seen anything look so bleak.

The night shifting into dawn then day is a blur. It seems a feat nearly impossible to avoid his bridge in their cramped new quarters, but on that first day he manages it.

Almost immediately she shuts herself in her new room. He assumes she must be sleeping since they have been up all night—sleep becomes a distant prospect when you’ve been hunted and nearly killed. But what if she's trying to avoid him, too?

When he can no longer take the silence and stasis anymore, he grabs the keys to his motorbike and goes out for a ride. He drives aimlessly around their new neighbourhood, as desolate as it appeared from his bedroom window, and even that is not enough to prod him from his troubled thoughts.

The Brigadier, for some reason unbeknownst to him, wants to kidnap him. It seems he and his companion will stop at nothing to get at him, including the attempted murder of his bridge. They have weapons the likes of which he has never seen, and which apparently even his bridge cannot begin to fathom. The Ministry appears to be relaying the bare minimum to them. He is relying entirely on his bridge for information. Why do they want him, and why are they trying to hurt his bridge?

Ah, his bridge.

He thinks there must be something deeply wrong with him that he is more used to dealing with things trying to kill him than he is to dealing with the fairer sex. He is equipped to shoot guns and chart new passageways, he is not equipped to deal with the woman he longs for drunkenly foisting herself on him. He swears he can still feel her mark upon his lips... 

He knows he is going to have to face her at some point. He must consider now how he’s going to do it.

Kissing him was obviously an influence of the grog. It makes people do all sorts of strange things; takes them out of their character. That is, after all, why they rationed it so carefully on the ships. 

He is convinced it is the frequent masturbating of himself since entering this ungodly era that has sullied him into such poor decision making. After the turn of the new year, he had promised himself he would stop, even if it so relaxed him. Even if some nights it was the only way he could make himself sleep, picturing her lithe figure tangled in her bedsheets. 

He thinks perhaps the worst of it is that he was not nearly as drunk as she was when he foolishly kissed her back. Might she slap him for being so presumptuous? He thinks he would deserve it; might even offer up his cheek. And after last night, well. She may very well insist on being assigned a different expat, even as they near the end of their bridge year. Their success in the project means nothing if it is she who must be chained to a lecher.  

But then in the very next breath, he thinks—but what if it was something more for her than just a rash decision borne of her compromised faculties? What if there is something there for her too? 

Pull yourself together, Commander. Be a man and tell her.

He could meander around in circles like this all day. He is thinking overmuch and must come to a decision.

He is going to have to talk to her about last night even if the prospect terrifies him more than secret agents hunting him from a distant future.

Back at the safehouse, his head no less clearer, he takes to the dining room table—a flimsy monstrosity of modern construction as inhospitable as the rest of their new flat. He sets Rogue Male down beside him as though it is a talisman that will offer up its protection. He is still lost in his thoughts and daydreams, when he hears her enter the kitchen.

He sits stock-still, putting on a show of calm and dispassionately smoking his cigarette. Only his eyes snap up to look at her.

“Where were you?” she snaps.

“I went out for a ride.”

“You went out for a ride...”

“Yes…”

“After you were nearly stolen away by spies from the future, and I was almost killed, which led to us needing to be hidden away in this shithole in the first place. Or had you forgotten about that?”

He winces. You deserve this, he reminds himself. “I had not forgotten.”

“You didn’t forget…and yet your first idea when we get here is to go out for a ride by yourself?”

He is shamed, chastened like a misbehaving child.

“I needed to get out and think,” he says carefully. “I cannot think clearly when I am idle.”

She walks towards him at the table. He sees she is practically vibrating. “And what is it that you had to think about, exactly? Surely not how we were almost killed out there, as I doubt you would be trying so desperately to avoid me over that. You needed to think about how you regret kissing me. Is that right? Have I got that right?”

Well, as he recalls, that was not quite how it went.

He clears his throat as he attempts to ash his cigarette. “I rather think that you kissed me.”

Her gaze cuts to him. “Fine. I kissed you. And now you’re going to tell me how it was all a huge mistake, and that it never should have happened, et cetera.”

He takes a long drag of his cigarette, the smoke filling up his lungs, then clumsily reaches for another one. He uses the dying ember of the first to light the second.

“You are correct. It should not have happened. And I’m terribly sorry for the way that it did.”

“Right.”

“You are angry with me.”

Her nostrils flare. “Of course I’m fucking angry. It’s humiliating, being treated like a child after being kissed like a—like a—lover, and—”

“Please.” His face sears with shame. He hasn’t even registered the fact yet that she curses at him like a sailor. He takes another long pull of his cigarette and prepares himself to dive headlong off a cliff. “I have been trying to court you.”

She blinks at him. "What?”

“Clearly I have handled this very poorly. I am really rather inexperienced with courting. Now give me a sextant and I—”

“I don’t understand.”

Must he spell it out for her? He closes his eyes. When he opens them, she is still there, and he must face it.

"Nor, it must be said, do I. I don’t know what you, or any woman of your era wants. I have been grappling with what I even have to offer. You were hired to take care of me. You have your own career, your own wages, and as I understand it, the women of this era are enormously proud of their independence…but then I thought, well, even if I have nothing else, I can cook, and she eats what I cook for her, so…”

He realises then that he's rambling, unsure if he's making things worse. 

“‘Offer’ me? And what exactly were you hoping that cooking for me would achieve?”

He frowns. When she puts it like that, he realises that it sounds absurd. 

“Well, I had hoped that you could tell me that.” His fingers twitch on the cigarette. “If you found me…suitable.” 

“Suitable? Suitable for what?” 

He is becoming increasingly regretful that he ever brought this up. How very far he has fallen from his time as a respected officer of the British Navy…

“Well, in my time you see, these things progressed very differently. There were certain markers. Boxes that needed to be checked off. Men and women had their roles. Fraternising in certain…ways—could ruin reputations. But I’m here now, in your time, and I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work.” He lets out his breath. “I didn’t know what you wanted. If you wanted—”

Me.

Her mouth falls open. “Graham, I practically threw myself at you. I kissed you with everything I had and you ran in the opposite direction!”

“I did not run. It was more of a quickly paced stride…”

She makes a strangled sound of disbelief. 

"Please." He sighs. “Understand it is not that I didn’t want this to happen, but I didn’t want it to happen like…this.” He gestures at her with his cigarette, rather like a madman, he thinks.

Taking advantage of her in a dimly lit hallway. Losing his grip on his urges…how quickly it had spiraled out of his control…

“What is ‘this’? Please, Graham. Just, tell me plainly.”

“Kissing you, as you said, like…that.”

For a moment they just stare. He stares and he smokes, partly trying to shield his face with his hand. “You knew not what you were doing,” he mutters.

“I didn’t know what I was doing? It was the first opportunity I had, Graham, and you’d given me no indication…but you were right there and I took my chance, and maybe that was a mistake, but...”

He doesn’t know why he is still trying to convince her, but he feels himself losing the battle.

“We were in our cups. You had just nearly been shot by some weapon of unknown origin. You were frightened and vulnerable, and I took advantage. I took advantage and it was far too long before I managed to get control of myself—” 

“Took advantage? I came onto you!” She is practically shouting now, her tiny hands balled into fists. “In this era, you don’t need to ‘get control of yourself’ when you are given very enthusiastic consent!” 

“I am not from this era!” He cries.

Her mouth shuts. She takes a small step back in surprise.

It takes a great deal to shake his demeanour and she’s pushed him past his very limits. He leans towards her in his chair, frantically stabbing with his cigarette at the space between them.

”Know that if this had happened in my era, the consequences might have been very severe. I could very well have offended you and your parents. You would have had every right to strike me or throw me out, or never speak to me again, and I would have deserved it.”

Her hands release from their fists. Suddenly she looks very tired. “Well I don’t want any of those things, Graham. And I certainly don’t want you running off and locking yourself in your room. Were you afraid that I would come and get you in there? What were you even doing?”

“I was praying.”

She throws her hands up in exasperation. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

Well, he did say at least one prayer—then panicked and paced the room. And wondered if she was going to send someone up to arrest him.

He leans back in the chair, regaining his composure. They stare at one another as if noticing each other for the first time. In the wake of their mutual outburst, the silence in the room feels almost unearthly.

And yet…it feels almost freeing to lay all his cards on the table. To lower his neck to her guillotine in hopes that the blade doesn’t fall.

“Tell me what you want, Graham. Not why it’s such a terrible idea, or that you’re sorry for even saying it. Just, tell me what you want. Right now, at this very moment.”

Oh, but hasn't he known what he’s wanted since the very beginning, no matter how much he tried to convince himself it was wrong? How much he still knows it is wrong? But he is tired, so very tired, of withholding from himself the things he most desperately wants. 

He takes a deep breath. Then he hears himself ask her:

“Will you take off your gansey?” 

Wordlessly, she stares. Her face without any expression, she obeys, tugging the gansey up over her head. As she does, her hair loosens down around her neck. She stands at attention, waiting for his next command.

He feels himself already at half mast. His eyes drift slowly down.

"Your chemise.”

She lifts it by the hemline, pulling that too over her head. Underneath it he finally sees what she wears in place of a whalebone corset: a lacy, wired slip of fabric that forms to the curve of her breasts. He clears his throat. With his free hand, he gestures to it. “And, er…that.”

She reaches round behind her back and unclasps it. It slinks sensuously to the floor.

She stands before him in only her skirt and stockings, stripped and bare from the waist up. And then there they are in front of him. Her breasts, small and round and supple, pale with just a hint of olive. 

He can hardly believe his good fortune. She really wants him, stripping herself bare just for him. 

“I wondered…” 

“Yes?”  

He pulls thoughtfully on his cigarette, realising that he is hardly breathing. “If they would be the same colour as your mouth.”

And he sees that they are. A mesmerising shade of tan, warm as though kissed by a midsummer’s sun. He leans forward, just enough, to grasp one between the knuckles of his middle and forefingers, where he still has feeling. At his touch she lets out a tiny sound.

He sits back in his chair. He can feel her desire naked in the room now, reflected by the dilating of her pupils, the shallow rhythm of her breathing. And he can feel his own, straining against his trousers. He rests the hand that just gripped her on the table. Ever so slightly, his fingers tremble. 

“Take off your shirt,” she tells him now. He sees the sharp rise and fall of her chest. 

He raises an eyebrow. Now it is she that orders him about. He finds that he likes it. Cigarette still perched in his mouth, his fingers trail down his shirt, undoing all the buttons one by one. He shrugs it off. It slips down to the chair behind him. 

She asks him to put out his cigarette. He grinds it in the ashtray. She tells him to stand and he does.

Now she is right there in front of him, so close he would hardly need to reach out and he would touch her. He stands exposed to her, bare chested and pale in the chill of their kitchen, and entirely at her mercy.

It is she who first breaks the touch barrier. She sets a palm against the middle of his chest, nestled in the dark thatch of hair there. He keeps himself calm and measured, but inside he is terrified. Feverish with anticipation. Can she feel his heart, how it races for her?

Her hands continue roaming over him. Feeling him, slowly exploring, her breathing jagged and nervous. Her fingers graze the skin over his ribs. He swallows as she gently thumbs at his nipples. Never in his life has he been touched this way, and it makes him ache for her—knows that after today he will ache again and again. 

“Is this okay?” 

“Yes.” He’s relieved when his voice doesn’t betray him. Her hands inch over his biceps then round his back, where she cups the winged bones jutting out there. “May I…touch you, the way you are touching me?”

She gives the ghost of a nod. “Please.”

She is soft and so painfully delicate. His fingers skate across her arms and neck, as though afraid he may break her with his brutish touch. He pauses when he reaches her collarbones, bare but for the gold necklace that he gave her. When her eyes find his, he slides down his hands to caress her breasts.

She scoffs but then grins, to indicate her approval. Relieved, he beams at her. How long he has wanted to do that?

His fingers skim the soft undersides of her breasts. “Is this…?”

She looks at him.

This time he doesn’t hesitate when she tells him to kiss her.

He pulls her into him, skin against skin, and when their lips meet it is like Zeus opening up the gates of Mount Olympus to him. She smells of citrus and afternoon tea, and the distinct scent he can only describe as her.

His hands circle the curve of her neck as she clings to him, her breasts pressed against his stomach. He is lightheaded with lust, and he kisses her so ravenously that it surges her back across the kitchen where she hits the icebox. 

He pulls away. He breathes heavy and frantic, but so does she.

“Sorry.”

God. He is like a hungry beast that has been caged too long.

She smiles. “Don’t be. Kiss me again.”

His hand tangles in her hair as he finds her mouth again.

“Sssst—” He makes a strangled hiss and pulls away. She has snaked her thumbs inside his waistband, curling them in against his bare skin and pulling him even closer towards her. If he wants to maintain any sense of decorum, then they need to stop now. 

But then—

“Do you…want to go somewhere else?” she asks. Her voice is husky.

Good God, does he ever. But he hesitates. He can see how she trembles and can read all the signs now. He knows that she wants him, and he thinks he might know how she wants him. But what if she finds him…lacking?

In his time, men were told that women did not feel pleasure. That once married, they tolerated their husband’s needs solely out of wifely obligation. But he knows now this is not true. He has read enough novels of their era and seen enough of their television to know that women of this time often know what they want in the bedroom, and are not afraid to ask for it. But his own experience with women's pleasure is...limited, and he has almost certainly never pleasured a woman with his prick. 

“You may have some…expectations.” He utters this quietly enough that he can almost hope she does not hear him.

“Hm?”

“That I do not know what I’m—that I don’t know how to—”

That he hardly knows his way around a woman’s nether regions, and the worst part is that from everything she knows about his era, she probably expects it.

She arches an eyebrow at him. “You’re worried you won’t…make me come?”

God, have mercy. He rubs his forehead, looking down at his feet. “Good grief.”

“Is that it?”

He is stirred by this, but also impossibly nervous.

“Yes. Is that how you would say it? ‘Make me come’...”

“God.” She bites her lower lip. “Yes. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you.”

At this, he perks up again, relieved she will not expect him to be a ready lover. But if anything, he is a keen learner and he takes instruction well. And he wants to learn everything about her. To watch her give in.

“Now." She runs a hand down his chest. “Will you take me to bed?”

He is almost surprised that his heart doesn’t simply just stop.

He scoops her up in his arms and carries her off down the long corridor of their flat. He pauses when he reaches her bedroom. Somehow it feels less scandalous if they stay in hers. He sets her down gently on the thin mattress. Not exactly the royal boudoir he would have preferred to bed her in, but it is her bed just the same, and she wants him in it.

He takes his time to survey her. He can see how she is put together—a work of modern art. Thinner and more angular than he has known women to be, smooth and completely hairless. The indents of muscles stretch along the planes of her abdomen. She watches him, trembling from the bed. He climbs over her and lowers his head to her breasts. He traces his tongue along her hardened nipples; nudges at them gently with his teeth. Her breathing sharpens in response.

In answer, he buries his face in her neck. When he kisses her there, she shivers and pushes up against him.

“Graham.”

Hearing her say his name, and with such need, nearly sends him over the edge.

“I want to ‘make you come’,” he tells her. He wants it with an unbearable tenacity. To please her; worship her modern body. But he is still so fearful he will get it wrong. 

He feels her skin beneath him blaze with heat. “You’ll...have to get your face wet.”

“Oh, I see.”

Now it is his turn to warm. That he will know her so intimately…

He gently inches down her skirt, peeling off her stockings and undergarments. Then, he carefully parts her legs and lowers his head down between them.

It is a lesson in female pleasure and anatomy. She shows him where to focus. How and when to switch between tongue and mouth. Soon, he can simply go on instinct—responding to the way she curls up against him and writhes beneath his tongue; her hands tightening in his hair and the sounds of her ecstasy growing longer and louder.

She tastes like a day of fair winds and following seas.

He knows he has taken her past the point of no return when her thighs begin to quiver and she arches off the bed. He is fascinated by the workings of her body, enraptured by the way she contracts and releases in his grip.

After the first waves of her pleasure subside, he gently holds her thighs, waiting for her twitching to slow as she comes back to earth. He nuzzles her stomach, leaving a glistening sheen.

“Oh, Graham...”

“You…liked it?” 

He is eager to please. To know that he got it right. 

“Yes. That was…very good.” 

He listens to her breathing slow, near bursting with pride. “Could I…make you do that when you are ‘with’ me?”

“‘With me’ eh? It’s possible. It doesn’t always work.” Ah, yes. But of course. She is a modern woman. She has been with other lovers before him. 

“Don’t be saucy.” He pinches one of her nipples. In any era, Graham Gore never shies away from a challenge. “I would...like to try.” 

She pulls him up to her by his arms. As he moves his body over her, she reaches for his belt buckle.

“You’ll have to take off these...”

With one hand, he reaches down to undo the buttons and zipper of his trousers. “Don’t look.”

“But I want to see you,” she pleads. “All of you.”

He isn’t sure whether since coming into manhood, a woman has ever seen him disrobed from the waist down. He recoils at the idea of being so vulnerable.

He instead presses his lips to hers to distract her so she can’t look, and shuffles his trousers off the bed. He doesn’t need to warm up. He's never been more ready. Stripped of his clothes and mounted above her, she takes him in her warm hand. He groans aloud before he can stop himself. Gentlemen are not supposed to make such feral noises. 

She guides him, straining, towards her. He starts slowly, watching to see how she reacts. Is he hurting her? Does she like it? Her eyes look heavy and languid.

“Is that—”

“Yes.” She clutches at his shoulders. “Just, like that.” She lifts up her hips to meet his and he draws in a gasping breath. “Tell me—that you wanted—this. That you thought about—this—”

She has thought about him this way, the way he has thought about her. 

“Yes, I—wanted to—watch you—to make you—come—undone—”

Then he bites her shoulder. She cries out as his teeth sink into her and begins to match his pace, tightening herself around him. He presses his fingers into her back, into the dimples of her clavicles. The pressure he exerts only makes her thrust wilder, more feral. The bed creaks beneath the swell of their frantic rhythm.

Then, like a confession to the vicar, he sets his lips to her ear and tells her of those nights when he could hear her, restless in her room with only a wall between them. How he couldn’t for the very life of him even begin to dream of sleep…

“Did you—think about—doing—this to me. Tell me—” 

She is making pleasured noises. She likes it. Likes what he's doing to her. She doesn’t think he’s disgusting. She wants to know what he’s thought about her—guiltily, during those nights of endless yearning. Nights where she might very well have been yearning too. This encourages him further. Pushes him closer towards his ends. 

And so between panting breaths, nearly at the peak of his pleasure, he tells her:

“Yes. It was—always at night—and it was—so quiet—God and the world—felt so far away—and you were—right there—so dangerously—near—and how I wanted—to get my hands—on you. I knew sleep—would not be—a battle so easily won—and I’d—close my eyes, but still—I couldn’t—couldn't rid myself—of the thought of you—tossing and—turning—in your bed. I prayed—I said the Lord’s prayer and—recited the Articles of War—'No person—in or belonging—to the fleet shall—sleep upon his watch, or—negligently perform—the duty imposed on him, or—forsake his station—upon pain of death…’—but still I would lie awake—and the only thing I could do—for the sweet mercy—of sleep—was to take myself in hand—and then I could—hear you as I—finished myself—”

She grips at the muscles in his back. “I like to picture you, doing that—to yourself—”

He has time only to utter an, “Oh, God,” as he reaches his climax inside her.

It is dusk now. They lie side by side, facing each other in the aftermath of their passion. The radiator loudly clacks from the wall. He can still see her beneath the sheets, her shape and her skin illuminated by the light coming in from the street.

“That was…something,” he murmurs. 

She leans over and turns on the bedside lamp for them. “Yes, it was.”

“Was that—for you—”

“There are men in my era who were raised on PornHub. You were fine, Graham. As a matter of fact, you were…much more than fine.”

He flushes. “‘Pornhub’. Lieutenant Cardingham has spoken of it. Appalling.”

He lights cigarettes for them both. He takes a long drag of his, discovering that smoking after a bedroom romp is an enlightening experience. But now with their frenzied passion and tension out of the way, he feels almost shy.

“If I may ask a question…” he begins.

“Yes?”

“This ‘contraceptive’ that you take…”

“The birth control pill.” 

“It will prevent you from…becoming—" he coughs. "With child?”

“I can promise it's very effective.”

“Perhaps I should have asked this earlier before I—”

“Came inside me?”

His face floods again with heat. “For goodness sake.”

“Ha!”

They are quiet then, enjoying their respective cigarettes.

She sidles up beside him on the pillows. “Now can I ask you something?” 

“You may. I have the right to dodge the question.”

“When you said you didn’t have a lot of experience with courting...”

“I don’t.”

“You seem like—well I got the sense that you have a little more experience than you first let on.”

He shrugs and settles back onto the pillow, carefully ashing his cigarette into the dregs of a used mug on her bedside table.

“Was there anyone else, in your time, that you…”

Smoking thoughtfully, he thinks again of Sarah.

They’d met at a society function only months before he took his leave on Erebus. She was the dear cousin of Archibald McMurdo, a Scottish officer he’d sailed to the Arctic with on Terror. She’d been quite taken by him, his medals and epaulettes, and he’d made her laugh. That first night they'd talked well into the evening, until the musicians had finished their set and the crowds had started to disperse. Every meeting after that had been very formal and pleasant. Completely above board, as one would expect of that time. He may have kissed her hand, once. She may have even kissed his cheek, once. 

She had wanted him to marry her when he returned from Sir John’s expedition, and he had more or less made up his mind to. He had met her parents and they’d approved of the match. His own parents, then settled in Australia, had been equally enthusiastic. By the time he’d expected to finally be married, he would have been nine and thirty or so, and by then he’d have more than lived his days on the highs and lows of the seas. It felt like his time to be a family man had come.

Of course, then he never made it back from the Arctic.

But he would never tell Little Cat this. She will think there was more to his courtship with Sarah, when the truth is that there has never been anyone like her. 

He says,"You understand that, in my era, a man would have had to be a villain and a scoundrel to do any of…this...with a woman he wished to court?”

“And was there someone you wanted to do ‘this’ with? In your era?”

He lets out his breath. "Why, it simply never progressed that far.”

“What was her name?" she presses, voice rising, puffing almost feverishly on that cigarette. 

He sighs. It has been so long since he’s spoken her name out loud, he almost fears that in doing so he will draw her ghost to the room.

"Sarah. And please do not feel the need to tell me the names of any of your ghosts. I don’t want to know.”

And he doesn’t. When he gives himself over even briefly to the image of her naked and writhing beneath another man, it makes him sick. He wants the ghosts of their past to stay buried.

Had he loved Sarah? He supposes as the newly minted First Lieutenant Graham Gore of 1845 he did, in his own way. But how can he compare it to what he has now with his bridge? The intimacy he has with her he could never have hoped to achieve at any time in his era with Sarah. 

She ashes her cigarette and adjusts herself on the pillow. “Sarah. That’s a pretty name. And did you two ever—”

“Little Cat. Please.”

It hardly has a chance to even dawn on him that this is the first time he has said out loud the name he has called her in his head for so long now.

Little Cat. His, little cat.

He can sense she is becoming jealous and he’s never had to navigate winds like this before. Whereas he knows he could not stand to hear of her past with other men, she sees to wheedling it out of him even when it obviously upsets her.

She pouts. “I don’t understand why you’re avoiding the question."

“Because it’s making you upset. No, we did not. I may have kissed her hand once, and even that would have been rather giddy and ill advised.”

“You strike me as someone who’s done a fair bit more than...kissing someone’s hand.”

Her pain and discomfort is written all over her face. She must think him a villain and a scoundrel then. That he's bedded all of nineteenth-century England! 

“How very threatening."

“Well?”

He sighs. “I suppose so. Not with—women I would have wished to court. I meant it when I said my experience with women in general is limited.”

Of course there had been other women—some, other women—and she will not want to know the distinction he draws between the women he once bedded and the women he wished to court. 

One of his earliest experiences was with one of his captain’s daughters when he was but twenty and on shore leave. She was five years his senior and expected to be betrothed to another, but he’d been delirious with excitement when she’d taken an interest. After that, well, throughout his years in the Navy, sometimes men smuggled women onto the ships. He partook in it sometimes, often for the camaraderie with his shipmates more than anything. But more often than not, he felt terrible about himself after, forcing himself to read the King James Bible, Old Testament from start to finish, in a desperate attempt to redeem himself.

Sometimes too, there were women in remote corners of the world who would throw themselves upon the officers, letting the men beneath their petticoats for the simple thrill of it. Occasionally, he would partake in that too. But more often than not he'd refused, even when the other men chided him. He didn't want to catch disease or leave a woman with child, then abandon her when he went back to sea. His father had instilled in him early the notion that if he made his bed, he should have to lie in it. He supposes that after that, he has mostly tried to avoid amorous congress with any woman. 

“And what about men?" she asks. "Did you…”

He carefully examines the end of his cigarette, noticing the way that it smolders.

He thinks of Robbie McClure. Men when he was much younger, much less in control of his carnal urges. He was never sodomised—he drew a line at that, what with the Articles of War being what they were and all, and not to mention God—but…

“Well,” he says carefully. "One is a long time at sea.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Enough!”  He puts out his cigarette, then grabs the stub of hers and puts that out too. He stiffens reflexively. He is tempted to leave, but instead pulls her towards him so she lays with her head on his chest. "Put your arms around me."

When she does, he holds her close and lowers his voice.

“It’s not that I'm trying to keep secrets. It’s simply that, these matters I have tried to keep separate from myself. They are simply not part of who I am. You will gain nothing from digging into the parts of my past that can only hurt you.”

So much of his carnal past is shrouded in shame and secrecy. Giving into the call of his whims, surrendering to the needs of his ‘other’ head, he cannot untangle from his deep-seated feelings of regret. She cannot understand that he’s spent most of his life largely separating himself from that baser, less virtuous side. 

Now she’s sullen. How fickle, his little cat.

“I don’t want to dwell on the past,” he continues softly. “I suppose I am…part of the future, now...”

She looks up at him. With hope. “Really?” 

“Really.”

She runs her fingers over the space between his shoulder blades, pausing briefly to caress a spot there in the middle. At her touch again, he shivers.

She kisses him, slowly and needfully, and he feels himself begin to swell for her again.

“If I may be so…bold,” he murmurs. “I believe just this last time I did not…‘make you come’.”

“Oh?”

“Should we...try that again?”

“Oh. Yes.”

Again he moves his body over hers. Kissing her. Being with her, inside of her, it’s the closest to God he’s ever been. It’s also the closest to hell. 

He wakes at half past six the next morning, looking around in a fluster.

He discovers he is not in his bed, but his bridge's, which still smells of their lovemaking and sweat. They fell asleep together late in the night, naked and tangled in each other’s limbs.

He feels a deep tenderness in his chest when he sees her there curled up beside him, her hand reaching out for him in her sleep. But goodness. What does he do now? How does he act? Most importantly, what 'are' they? He’s never woken up beside the person he’s just made love to. He doesn’t know that he’s even ever ‘made love’. 

He peels himself out of her bed, changing back into his disheveled clothes. He bathes then dresses in a fresh set. Then he paces around the flat, careful not to wake her. He wants to go out for a ride on his motorbike, but she will be mad at him if he does.

Around half past eight, he treads back down the corridor to her room. He knocks quietly on the door, too embarrassed to let himself in uninvited. He doesn’t want to be presumptuous.

When she answers, he offers to make her a cup of tea. He brings it up to her, leaving it on the bedside table as though he is merely her servant.

She sits up in bed, only the thin sheet clinging to her nakedness. He doesn’t shy away from her, but doesn’t come any closer.

She tells him she will be meeting with Adela, the Vice Secretary. Trying to be gentlemanly, after everything they just did, he offers to accompany her.

“That’s all right, thanks. She and I need to talk.”

He nods. He isn’t sure what to say now that he has been inside her. Twice.

“All right then. I shall be here when you get back.”

Then he putters off to allow her privacy to get dressed. He misses seeing her without her clothes on already. He hopes he will get to see her again.

The moment she leaves for her meeting with the Vice Secretary, he powers on the little machine he hates and locates the programmed entry for Margaret.

“Gray! You are all right? What happened?”

“Ah yes. The Brigadier happened. It appears he is some sort of spy...a secret agent from the future.”

“The future? As in, more future than this future?”

“I’m afraid so. He tried to kill us. Well, he tried to kill my bridge, and for some reason that we don’t yet know, he wanted to take me with him.”

She gasps. “No!”

“But you are all right, Maggie?”

“Yes, Gray. I am well, fret not. Dwelling now in some pestilent little abode with Ralph, but safe. Arthur too.”

“Good. My bridge just left for a meeting with the Vice Secretary to learn more. But for now you need to lie low until it is safe for us to reconvene. Arthur as well.”

“We will,” she promises.

“And Maggie…”

“Yes?”

He takes a nervous breath. “Might I ask you about another matter? One a little less…‘life or death’?” 

She snorts. “You know that you may. What vexes your pretty little head, Gray?”

“It probably seems rather silly right now, at a time like this.”

“Carry on...”

“My bridge and I…”

“Yes…?”

“We…”

“You copulated.”

He’s not sure what shocks him more—her language, or the fact she so readily guessed it. He feels his face burning.

“For God's sake, Maggie...”

“‘Tis about time, you foolish knave!” 

“You...knew?”

“Everyone save you two knew it well. The tension between you’s—you could have cut like twine! All those lingering looks! And you spoke so greatly of one another, but thought that no one else took note, and—” 

“All right, all right. I take your point.” He closes his eyes, chastened. Perhaps he is not as subtle as he once thought. “As I’m sure you can imagine, I am rather out of my element here. In my own time I would have been, but in this one, well, I am blindfolded and walking towards a cliff.” 

To his dismay, Margaret bursts out laughing.

“Well, if you’re just going to make a mockery of me, then forget it,” he says, genuinely hurt.

“Gray, Gray. I laugh not at you, but the matter at hand. Please. Do explain.”

“Well....once you are...'together' like man and wife—or wife and wife, if you will—but not wed as man and wife. Er, then what happens?” 

“Well, do you fancy her?”

“I am…rather fond of her, yes.”

“Are you in love with her?”

He feels his blasted face reddening again, relieved she’s not there to see it.

“You need not answer it, Gray. ‘Tis as plain as the schnozzle on your face!”

He scoffs and she laughs again. 

“In this age, Forty-seven, you seize what you desire. Pillage and conquer! You may sample all the puddings and sweetmeats without bind or obligation. You sample until you find what your heart desires, then you take it!”

“But—”

“I know, Gray. So you ask her to be your ‘girlfriend’ and you shall be made her ‘boyfriend’. You date and you mate, and when you find the right person, you shall know. Like trying on clothes, until you find the right ones. Like finding the finest pair o’ bell bottoms!”

“My 'girlfriend'…” he murmurs. He prefers very little of the terminology this century has to offer, but this one...“And when is the time to propose such a thing?” 

“That I do not know, Gray. I have taken a liking to a fine lass with hair the colour of sunshine and an arse like a ripened peach. Have I asked her to be my ‘girlfriend’? Nay. Will I? Perhaps. When the time is right. When my feckless bridge breathes not down my cursed neck…”

She goes on to mumble a series of archaic curse words that he can't quite discern. Why did he expect to get credible modern courting advice from his perverse, seventeenth-century lesbian friend? 

“When the time is right…” 

“That's right.”

He really is doomed. 

“All right then?” 

“All right.” 

“Stay safe out there, Gray.”

“You as well, Maggie.”

“And Gray—” 

“Yes?”

“Good luck with—”

“Goodbye, Maggie.” 

His bridge comes home from the Ministry with orders. He has been restless waiting for her. He’s never been one to rest on his oars, nor has he ever had to wait on orders from a woman, but that part is practically old hat now. 

They are to ‘sit tight’, she tells him, confined to their safehouse, except for Ministry related business. She has been ordered to take a firearms refresher course, among others needed to prepare her for the threat of combat. She is a terrible shot, she tells him. Adela insists on the lessons. He silently thanks the Vice Secretary for this. He will not always be around to protect her. She needs to be able to protect herself.

“They’ve known, Graham, they’ve known all along.”

The Ministry, apparently, has been keeping a close eye on the Brigadier for some time now. Graham is still unsure what his aims are, but it seems now they know for certain the man is not here for good reason. And for how long has the Ministry known? What else do they know that they’re not letting on? 

“What does he want? The Brigadier, that is. With me and with—you?”

She looks vaguely discomfited by the question. “I’m...not sure yet. We only know that he’s some sort of agent—a saboteur visiting from the future to spy on the Ministry.”

She folds herself into the settee. Her exhaustion over the last forty-eight hours is taking its toll. He joins her there, leaving an appropriate amount of space between them that crackles fiendishly with unspoken tension. He knows now is not exactly the time for what he is about to ask, but they did just do the deed together. Twice.

"I wondered if I might ask you something. Something...unrelated to the nefarious deeds of the Brigadier."

She looks amused. "Go on."

He clears his throat, plunging ahead. "'Modern 'dating'. What, exactly, does it entail?"

He tells her of Margaret’s description, likening it to the concept of trying on clothes until you find the best fit. 

“That's fairly accurate, actually. These days you aren’t obligated to make a commitment,” she tells him.

Minds can be changed without repercussion. Well, at least not the kind of repercussions one might have been subjected to in his day, in the fallout of a broken engagement.

”If it’s not the right fit, you move on. No hard feelings—in theory.”

“And if the fit is right?”

“Well. It depends on what both people want, I guess.” 

She explains there is no set time for this decision. He is to bumble along trying to figure out what she wants from him. Again.

He runs his hand through his hair, contemplating. At least he knows what he wants in this moment, sitting so near to her on that settee, watching her worry at her bottom lip with her teeth.

"I want to touch you again,” he murmurs.

“Jesus.”

And she lunges across the settee towards him.

He pulls her onto his lap so she straddles him, his hands wandering up her shirt. She kisses him fiercely, gripping him by the waist of his gansey. The tip of her tongue finds its way in, caressing at the tip of his. He hardens immediately. He’s never kissed like this before, and when they part momentarily for air, he is left breathless with his arousal.

“French kiss,” she whispers. “Okay?”

He cannot speak, just nods his head mutely. She slides her pelvis against his, her slim hips beckoning, but when she reaches for his belt buckle, he stops her. 

“Not here.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not…proper.”

“But—”

But he’s already scooted them off the settee. He carries her with her legs still wrapped around his waist to her bed where he takes her, then finishes her off with his mouth. 

Little Cat is increasingly busy with her heightened Ministry training. With her special status and connections to Adela, she is able to find where they've hidden Arthur and Margaret. 

Neither expat seems to have been granted the same freedoms that he and Little Cat have. While he knows at least they will both be safe, it gnaws at him that they are not being given the same opportunities to further their futures.

Graham and Thomas both have been given special permissions to continue their field agent training. They are ordered to take Ministry transportation to and from the office within the presence of armed guards, but at least he is not to be left twiddling his thumbs, a sitting duck.

He and Thomas attend their bias training course together. He is trying to unlearn all the habits and ‘microaggressions’ that linger from his past. It exhausts him how many there still seems to be. He is not sure Thomas is making as concerted of an effort as he is on this front, but at least he attends.

Their session is followed by training at the shooting range. Graham is steadily climbing the ranks of the Ministry’s best shooters, always scoring within the top four. Thomas on the other hand…

“How doth thou fair with thy bridge in these most confining quarters?” Thomas asks as they sign in at the front desk and ready themselves for practice. “Thou must be ready to commit murder upon her. These lodgings are e’en more wretched than the first.”

Graham pauses, carefully adjusting his safety glasses. “Actually, there is something you should know—about my bridge and I.”

“Oh?” Thomas says, strapping on his own. 

“We are, I suppose…'dating' now, as they say.” 

“'Dating', thou say?”

“That’s right. Well, in a manner of speaking.” 

Thomas' eyes first narrow. Then he treats Graham to a lewd grin. “Didst thou mount her, then?”

“Thomas, please.” He feels his ears burn and pulls on his ear mufflers to try to hide them. “It’s not like that.”

“Yet thou didst.”

They gather up the rest of their equipment and head towards the firing lanes. He positions himself, aims and fires at the target straight ahead. Bulls-eye. For a moment he wishes it was Thomas’s head.

“What is she like in thy bedchamber?”

Thomas shoots and misses the target by a mile. 

“I will not engage with you in this discussion. Nice shot. Perhaps you would focus better if you spoke less.”

“I am but warming up,” Thomas replies indignantly. “Lying with the enemy, Commander. Tsk, tsk.”

“I hardly think she is the enemy as we train to become part of the very same organisation, Lieutenant.”

Thomas sneers. “Ah, thou admire her then.”

“Let us get this over with so I may outrank you again and go home.”

“Pah!”

Thomas shoots—terribly again, at least in comparison to Graham, the Ministry’s up and coming star sportsman. Thomas blames it on the weapon itself when they both know it is the man who makes the shot, not his gun. In the good old fashioned sparring of men, he teases Thomas. Any ammo they can find to rib the other, they more than enthusiastically take.

“You’re a sore loser, Thomas. You’re going to fall off the scoreboard completely. Oh, except you aren’t on it this week, or last week, as I seem to recall.”

“Aye. My hand’s not oft on such small pieces. Perchance thou art more familiar with the size. I ought to ask your bridge.”

He flushes. "Mind how you tread, lieutenant."

“Hello.”

To his immense dread, they turn around and see his bridge there in all her feline glory, come to practice her shot. He wonders how much of it she heard.

“We are graced.” Thomas bows to her. “Thou wast but lately on our tongues. With my full respect to the good commander, thou are often on his tongue...”

He reddens thinking of how quite literally she has been on his tongue. But then he is distracted by the woman who stands behind her. Her hair is a frightening shade of blonde, her face oddly misshapen. Little Cat introduces her as Adela, the Vice Secretary herself. She smiles warmly at him. There is an air of almost familiarity about her expression. Perhaps she feels as though she already knows him from his bridge’s reports. He is quite certain they have never met. 

Except for his days training and trading barbs with Thomas, he is a kept man now, locked in close quarters with his bridge. The time they have to explore each other seems endless. There seems to be no reason not to have their hands on each other. Constantly. 

And he finds he wants her all the time now, in a most primal way. To be inside her, the beast with two backs. He didn’t know it was possible to feel so connected to another human, and now that he does, he doesn’t know if he should ever be able to go without it. He wants her every hour of every day now. Slowly but surely, she unravels him.

She has made him into a modern day lover. During the confinement of their weeks together, he becomes more emboldened. Corrupted, if you will. 

One day, she stands at their dining table peering down with concentration as she sets up her laptop. He comes up behind her and folds his arms around her waist, softly kissing her neck.

“Mm.” She unfurls herself into his kiss, then leans forward over the table, bending so that she is propped on her elbows, his manhood against her rear. “Take me, Graham—like this.”

He draws in his breath, feeling himself rising up against her. He grazes at her hips with his thumbs, feeling himself pulled in many different directions.

He wants to, but it’s sinful. Everything they do together unmarried without their clothes on is sinful, but at least in her bedroom it feels somewhat...safe—and certainly not in a position like that.

His morality wins. He pulls her up off the table and towards him.

“Bedroom,” he says, and she rolls her eyes but obliges him. 

He feels wild and daring the first time he asks her to mount him.

It is the first time he makes her come when he is ‘with’ her, and when she reaches her peak, she collapses on his chest, panting and moaning in his ear as he follows close behind her. 

He finally works up the nerve to ask if he can take her from behind after all. He’s been thinking about it ever since she bent herself over the table. 

It is so exciting to watch her from this bestial angle that he doesn’t last very long. At the last moment, she tells him to pull himself out of her and spill his seed on her back. It is one of the most exciting things he has ever done, but also one of the most godless.

Afterward, he utters a silent prayer for God to forgive him.

After several weeks of her begging to ‘go down’ on him, he relents. He thinks how even with a paid woman, he would have never allowed it, let alone with the woman he is courting. 

“Can I turn on the lights so I can see?”

“You may not.”

“Oh, Graham. Don’t be such a prude.”

“I am not a prude. I am simply—”

“So. Bloody. Victorian.”

“I resent that.”

She sighs but makes her way over to him in the dark where he lies on the bed, and then eases down his trousers. She slowly inches her way down his body, kissing him slowly across his chest and stomach. By the time she has found her way to his inner thighs, he is nearly ready to burst. 

The experience of her mouth on him is, admittedly like no other. She changes up speed and cadence, alternating between flicks of her tongue and pressure with her mouth. The sensation is so intense, he finds himself grabbing for her head with his hands. He feels it is all so undignified and demeaning to her, but as he gets closer and closer to his end, he realises it is really her that is in control of him.   

“You shouldn’t,” he manages to choke out.

When he feels himself on the verge of his ejaculation, he tries to warn her, but she clamps her mouth down harder so that he jolts and pulses in her mouth. He lays there after, breathlessly staring at the ceiling for what feels like several minutes.

“Did you like that?”

He can’t see her, but can hear the smile lilting her voice.

“Good God.”

None of his attempts at toeing the boundaries seem to faze her. She is compliant and willing in almost everything. The things she wants him to do to her are filthy and heathen, and yet, is it so wrong of him to enjoy it? Still, he has his limits. 

She begs him to put his hands around her neck. To strike her.

“Graham, please,” she pants deliriously against his neck. “I need you.”

“I couldn’t strike a woman. I—can’t.”

She looks at him levelly. “There are some women in this era who like that, Graham. To relinquish control to a man they trust…well, it can be a very powerful feeling.” 

To strangle and lay forceful hands on her? He is horrified at the suggestion and yet, the thought of it leaves him aching. Erect. He wouldn’t dare, but sometimes he thinks about it—in the early mornings and late at night. And sometimes when he beds her, he drives his fingers into the hollows near her collarbones and the crevices of her back. 

On one occasion, she is stubborn and impertinent and he responds in kind. She complains of her work and the weather; of Simellia, Arthur’s bridge, and her training sessions with Adela. Then when he asks her for help with the supper dishes, she refuses.

“I don’t want to." 

“And why not?”

She shrugs. “I’m not in the mood.”

He thinks she must be toying with him on purpose, trying to goad him into striking her, but still she stares at him, defiant and entirely serious.

He looks at her sharply. “You’re being a very bad little cat right now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. You are being terribly insolent.”

She lifts her chin. "What are you going to do about it then, Commander?” 

His eyes narrow. He strides over to the icebox and pulls out a carton of milk. Then he takes a bowl from the cupboard and sets it about the kitchen floor. He pours a dollop of the milk from the carton. “Drink your milk, you saucy little cat.”

She folds her arms across her chest. “No.”

He takes a step towards her.

“Drink it.”

“I will not.”

“That was an order."

"So what?"

"Are you aware of the consequences of disobeying the direct order of an officer of the Royal Navy?”

“No I’m not, Commander Gore. Why don’t you show me?”

There is something about hearing her address him as an officer that…does things for him. He steps close enough that he can hear her breathing. He points to the bowl on the floor.

“Drink it or you will stand before the court martial for mutiny and disobedience.”

She sinks to her knees before the bowl. She looks up at him, sly-eyed, then a devilish grin. As she starts to lower her mouth towards the rim, he reaches down and grabs her by the wrist. He pulls her up towards him.

“No, Little Cat.” His voice softens. “You don’t have to—do this. I was just—”

She leans into him, hand curling around his neck. She kisses him deeply, then takes his hand and guides his fingers underneath her skirt. He looks at her, shocked by the wetness.

“Now tell me what you’re going to do to me, Commander.” 

He wonders again, just who is in control here.

Sometimes it is but a sweet joy for him to set the rules and boundaries.

They lay in each other’s arms on a Friday evening, smoking a joint and pouring glasses of red wine when she tries to seduce him.

“Not tonight I'm afraid, Little Cat.”

He will never take advantage of her again in a compromised state, no matter how his loins may strain. 

“What? Why?”

“You are drunk. And stoned. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that this is exactly the sort of trouble we got into earlier.”

“But I want you. I consent.” She smells ripely of the woodsy and robust wine they’ve been drinking, and its colour tinges her sweet mouth crimson. “Please, Graham.”

But even though he wants her with a guilty man’s conscience, he stands his ground and refuses. After that, he doesn’t see her drink or smoke cannabis again.

After work one evening, he cobbles together a formidable pad thai for their dinner. He’s discovered a new Motown playlist he hasn’t heard yet. All in all, it is turning out to be a very good day.

When she comes home, still wearing her suit jacket and matching skirt, she wraps her arms languidly around his neck. 

“Mm. That smells delicious."

“Pad thai.”

“Very impressive.”

He leans down to kiss her. Slowly. Savouring the taste and feel of her mouth. He loves kissing her. He could kiss her like this for hours. 

The song on his playlist turns. The melodic five-note of a strumming guitar. 

Something in the way, she moves

Attracts me like no other lover…

He breaks away from her to groan. “Not these insipid caterwaulers again.”

“Face it, Graham. I think at this point the Beatles are our 'thing'.”

“Never.”

“Come on now.” She kisses him again. “It’s a great makeout song.”

“Is that what you call this? ‘Making out’?”

“Mmhm.”

“I like ‘making out’ with you,” he says. 

You're asking me will my love grow

I don't know, I don't know…

He kisses her again, with hunger this time. When he feels her hands try to wander below his waist, he grabs her by the wrists.

“Ah, ah, ah…”

“Graham...let me touch you.”

“We are kissing right now.”

“Oh, all right.”

Her arms still around his neck, she begins to sway to the music with her hips against him—much closer than the first time they danced, in another kitchen.

"You know that I can't—"

"I know. You can't dance. Shh. Just, follow my lead."

She begins to kiss him again, long and sensuous. They drift slowly in circles to the music. He finds he likes dancing much more when there is kissing involved.

After a nice dinner, they ‘make out’ on the settee, long into the night. Until their mouths are burning and they are left breathless, and she is climbing all over him with need. 

She wants to know his manhood, to look at it up close, to really see it. But there are some old habits you just can't get rid of. 

He always undresses her first. When she tries to grip his backside during lovemaking, he pulls her hands away even though he likes the way it feels. He has gone thirty-seven years without another person knowing him in these ways—he expects he hardly even knows himself in these ways—and still he finds the idea of being so vulnerable to another person almost unbearable, even if that person is her. Even if she welcomes the touch of him on her, in every way.

She lets him watch her in the shower, palming and soaping herself under the streaming water. He leans with his back against the counter, leisurely smoking and studying the way the water droplets seem to disobey gravity to form to her shape.

At times he struggles to reconcile the woman he wants to court with the woman he leaves his seed in. He knows they are one and the same person, but sometimes, in his darkest hours, he pictures two different sides of her. It is a constant exercise to remind himself that the woman who takes him in her mouth, who begs him to take her in positions he once never knew existed, is the same woman he cares for very deeply. 

He has become an expert in all things ‘Little Cat’ and strives to make her happy. He knows exactly what to do now with his mouth without instruction. He learns how to angle himself, to tighten and lift himself into her just so. He asks her what she wants, when she wants it. Harder. Softer. Faster. Deeper. He convulses with agonised pleasure just to hear her answer. At least in this way, he has become good at something. He is good at making her come, and in truth, he is becoming addicted to it. To being ‘with’ her.

But is he just her lover, or her ‘boyfriend’? 

Days go by and he doesn’t seem to know how to ask her. Clearly, women of this era simply enjoy ‘having sex’, and she seems quite content with their current arrangement. She knows exactly what she wants and how he can bring her pleasure. She rides him like he is her steed. But in the more chaste hours of their days together, he tries to show her that for him it is something more.

It is the look in her eyes, the expression that sweeps across her face sometimes, that makes him think she may feel something more for him too.

The way she gently touches him in the not so private places: a hand resting gently on his chest. A light pressure at the back of his hand. A tracing of the webbed scarring on his palm. How she nestles into his shoulder until he folds her in his arms, after they’ve made love, or outside with the sun setting on a distant crest behind them. When she clings to him, he feels like a man again. Like he would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. He has never experienced a feeling like this before—a loss of control that awakens, but also terrifies him.

The weather is temperamental that late winter. Some days it is too warm—unnatural for the time of year he is used to, and then the next day cold again. More consequences of the earth's constant fever.

But it makes Little Cat happy to feel spring just on the horizon. Sometimes at night she grinds her teeth so hard he fears she will break one. She often oscillates between joy and feelings of doom, terrified of the world outside—of the Brigadier, who casts a constant shadow over their flat. Her anger at their current predicament and the limitations on their travel. 

One March day, the heaviness of the grey skies softening, he decides it would do her good to get out. He has cooked a yao hon that turns out quite well, albeit fairly messy, and she teases him when he attempts to eat it with a knife and fork.

He stops her after, when she begins to tackle the chaos that is their supper dishes. He presents to her his bold idea to take their bikes out for a merry ride, preparing flasks of hot toddy to bring with them. At some point, the Ministry brought over their bicycles from the other house, and it seems foolish not to at least enjoy them.

“We’re not allowed to do that sort of thing anymore,” she laments.

He takes her hand in his, now covered in suds from the dishes, and kisses it.

"Sometimes you wake me in the middle of the night because you are grinding your teeth so vigorously. I'd rather we break a rule than you break your poor molars. Come now.” And as much as he loathes the expression he tells her, “Let’s ‘let off some steam’.”

This makes her smile.

“Besides," he continues. "There's something special that I have to show you.”

At this, she looks intrigued. Curiosity killed the cat, perhaps. 

They bike together in companionable silence. He leads her out of London proper, down dark roads and sleepy residential neighbourhoods, through lanes lined with thickly grown trees. He takes her finally to a large field, empty and expansive on the outskirts of the city, and shrouded wholly in darkness. They park their bikes in the muddy earth.

He takes her by the hand out to the field, scouted out previously on one of his many exploratory forays. Once they have reached dead centre, he stops. Outside the city smog and lights, the stars glimmer and wink ahead. 

“There,” he says, gesturing up to the sky. “Stars.”

She blinks, then looks up. 

“I can’t manage it exactly without a sextant,” he muses. “But I wanted to be able to orient myself.”

“So that…in the event of London flooding when the ice caps melt, you can sail to safer waters?”

He looks at her. Feels his heart welling up inside.

“So that I will know where I was when I met you.”

Her mouth sags open as she stares at him. She is seemingly without words. Overcome, in a rare moment of vulnerability. Several emotions seem to pass over her face at once. 

“Come here.”

He pulls her into his arms. She buries his face in his neck, pressing herself into him as if she could curl up and burrow and she might never get close enough. He runs his fingers through her hair then kisses the top of her head. The March breeze cloaks them inside of it—she and him against the world. He feels her shiver and tightens his embrace. 

He thinks of that long ago conversation he had with Fitzjames on Erebus. “Ah, love,” he had wryly told the good captain. “Life’s greatest catastrophe.”

And now he understands just why he said it.

Chapter Text

They try to make the best of their new quarters. 

The Ministry brings over an assortment of different items from their old Victorian: odds and ends and picture frames, antique vases and ottomans. They organise and shift around furniture. They try to pretend that nothing has changed, that the status quo is not crumbling down around them. At times it almost feels as though they are playing at man and wife. 

When she throws back her head and laughs at his jokes, he wants to let go of all his years of trained discipline. Smoking and talking into the wee hours of the morning. Drinking tea and cooking meals together. Making love whenever they please. It loosens him. Weakens his guard in a way that still the most cautious and sensible parts of him try to ward himself away from. Every day his feelings for her grow, until one day he wonders at the fact that so much feeling can be contained inside one sole person.

Even more, the Ministry tightens its security, fortifying its fortresses. Arthur and Margaret are still in lockdown, but Graham and Little Cat continue to weave in and out of their safehouse, taking advantage of their extra privileges. 

Perhaps the best part of his field agent training—and the only good thing to come out of the Ministry’s new restrictions—is that he no longer has to attend his sessions with the psychoanalyst. At their very last session, the analyst provided his conclusions that Graham may be a very ‘repressed’ individual (and what would he know!). The Ministry has him take just one last mandatory psychological evaluation for his agent qualifications, which thankfully, he passes. 

“Guess what Adela told me.” 

They are standing in the kitchen after work. She leans against him, hips slanted into his, playing with the collar of his dress shirt.

“Hm…that she’s thinking of changing up the garish blonde of her hair?”

“No.” She smiles. “She says we’re ‘special’. The senior bridge-expat team. That’s why we’re getting all these extra privileges and access. She says your adjustment has been very ‘pivotal’ and ‘promising’. So there you have it—the Vice Secretary’s stamp of approval.”

He strokes gently at the sides of her waist. “Is that right?” 

“Mmhm.” She closes the distance between them with a kiss. His hands begin to wander their way up her chemise. 

“Special, you say?”

“Yes.” She sucks in her breath as his fingers skirt around her back to unfasten the clasp of what he now knows to be her ‘bra’. “Thomas is doing well too, but not as well as you—he did need to retake the acclimatisation exam after all.”

“Please do not mention the good luff while my hands are up your chemise.”

She laughs. “What is my chemise still doing on, Commander?” 

His fingers seize on her nipples. 

“Mmm.” Her head falls back, her eyes closed. She bites at her bottom lip. 

“Shall we adjourn to your bedroom then?”

“Yes, sir.”

Their lovemaking is slow and tender that night. Long kisses and furtive whispers. She rides him with agonising slowness, her hips grinding into him, hands pressed flat against his chest.

"Graham—I’m going to—come again—" 

He holds her in place and lifts his hips up to meet hers, deepening his penetration. “Yes—come again for me. There’s a good little cat...”

She drapes against his chest, her forehead resting against his. As she reaches her climax, he grips at her backside, sinking deeper inside of her. 

Afterward they lay together trying to catch their breath, smoking their usual cigarette and looking up at the ceiling, basking in post-coital bliss.

“You spoil me, Graham.”

“I know." He absently strokes her hair. 

“And so very modest, too.”

He reaches over to the bedside table to ash his cigarette. “Little Cat.”

“Graham.”

“I've been thinking. At the Ministry—when they asked if I wanted to train for the field agent program, they told me that Arthur was not ‘fit’ to join.”

She puffs on her cigarette. “Yes.”

“You knew?”

“Well. Sort of. It's complicated. He has a lot of trauma…from the war. I understand he’s been prescribed benzodiazepines—that is, medication for anxiety. It would be tough to make an agent with that—from their perspective.”

He puts out the last of his cigarette. She follows suit. 

“But then, why Thomas and I?”

“I guess you two just…fit. With your background and all—two wars behind you and your naval officer training. You’re both trained in combat. You can shoot a gun like nobody’s business and barely bat an eye at it. Thomas is a career soldier, hailing from the Civil War. It makes sense that the Ministry would want you two to join its club.” She gives a wry laugh. “You fit in there even better than I do.”

“Me, fit better than you? This old coloniser?”

“Ha. You’re the coloniser, then I’m the token minority.”

‘Token Minority’. He knows the term from his bias training. He hates that she uses it about herself.

He turns on his side to face her. She does the same. He reaches out to hold her face, looking deeply into the soft glow of her eyes. “You know you are much more than that.”

She reaches towards him to push back a stray curl from his forehead, sprung loose during their coitus. “Who knew Commander Gore was such a sweetheart?”

He rolls his eyes and she kisses him.

“I feel somewhat guilty about Arthur, you know,” he says once they part. “What he’s going to do after our bridge year. He’s barely allowed outside the walls of his safehouse. The Ministry—”

“I get that, Graham. But it’s only temporary. And besides, you’re not responsible for him. Simellia is. The Ministry. And they’re…they're making sure he’s going to be well integrated.” But for a moment she looks worried too. “They have to.”

“I suppose you're right.”

But he feels responsible for the kind hearted captain. For all of them. 

“Sometimes I am.”

He sleeps beside her that night. He sleeps with her most nights now. Through the night they change positions, but always with a leg or foot touching, their backs pressed up against each other, his hand resting gently at her waist.

Little Cat continues her combat training with the Vice Secretary and lessons perfecting her shot. But Graham knows she is still in danger for as long as the Brigadier is still at large. He isn’t sure it will be enough. 

Something is rotten inside the Ministry. He does not know what it is yet—how far the rot goes or if it stems from its very core. Whatever it is, he knows he must plan carefully for it. To take matters into his own hands, to protect Little Cat and his friends.

So like any good officer worth his salt, he prepares his manifest. He begins to gather his emergency rations, ensuring he has what they'll need in the event they need to escape. He squirrels away his Ministry wages and expat allowance in notes. Then he sets out to acquire the passports.

Jamie is a connection he made early on from the shooting range. He works in the Privacy department where he helps to create the new identifications and fake backgrounds the various field agents use on their missions. Jamie likes to talk about his exploits, and he also likes Graham.

“Anything you need, mate. Anytime. I can hook you up.” 

Graham doesn’t usually take him up on this offer—he assumes Jamie’s dealings can't be anything lawful—but when Jamie lets slip that he runs a side business creating the fake passports he helps make during the day to sell on the ‘black market’, Graham finally bites.

“Of course I can get you that, mate. I’ll even give you the family and friend discount. How many do you need?”

Graham orders four: one for each of them. At Jamie’s request, Graham shows him a photograph of the three of them he took for Margaret at one of their now long ago dinner parties. Jamie explains that he will use ‘AI’ technology to create their photo identification, getting as close to their likeness as he can. He doesn’t know what any of this means but looks it up on his laptop later and finds the idea of ‘artificial intelligence’ rather frightening. 

Jamie returns the counterfeit passports in a matter of days.

“Now you should be good to use these babies abroad—most countries don’t have a system for scanning foreign passports. But I’d be careful trying to use them to fly out of the UK. They may not recognise the barcodes.”

The photo he used for Margaret—alias ‘Jane Greenwood’—is almost too pretty to convincingly be human. Arthur’s—alias ‘Jonathan Allen’—is a handsome, generic photo that could be almost any well bred white man. In Graham’s—alias ‘Roger Clutterbuck—his nose is almost as much of a caricature as the name Jamie picked for him, and the photo he uses for Little Cat—alias ‘Emma Li’—like Arthur’s, could be any one woman of Asian descent with no similarities to the real one.

“Roger Clutterbuck?”

Jamie raises his hands in defense. “You look like you could be a Roger Clutterbuck.”

He sighs.

“They good, man?”

“They will do. Thank you, Jamie.”

“Brill. You know I don’t ask questions, man. You do you. Just, don’t ever let it trace back to me. They could throw me in the clink for the rest of me life for this kind of operation. Mum’s the word and all that, all right?”

Graham smiles broadly at the agent, then cocks his head. “What operation?”

It takes him a moment, but then Jamie grins as he catches on. “I knew I liked you for a reason, Agent Gore.”

He knows Jamie will never tell on him because it would only ever trace back to himself and his unsavoury criminal operations.

Next, he collects his arms.

He finishes up another pleasant, unofficial ‘competition’ at the shooting range with Neil, one of his favourite of the quartermasters. Usually no matter what the arm, Graham can outshoot him. But on this day in particular, Neil somehow ‘miraculously’ creeps out just ahead, and it has left him in a particularly good mood. They have come to an arrangement whenever he is last with Neil in the facility, that Graham will help him close up the range. He trusts Graham implicitly. Graham has made it so because he likes the man, but also because he thought he might need to use him later.

He waits patiently as Neil punches in the code for the safe room where they store the guns. Inside, the quartermaster begins sifting through a thick binder that takes stock of their inventory.

Neil nods towards their guns. “Put these away for me, will you, Gore?”

He smiles warmly. “Of course.”

Neil disarms the alarms for the gun racks. Graham carefully puts away the handguns, ensuring the safeties are on and the chambers emptied of their bullets. Neil enters the end-of-day weapon count, signing off that the guns have been returned to their rightful places and turns back on the alarms.

“I’m going to make sure that secretary completed the damn front sign-in registries for the day. She’s been so bloody sloppy lately. Finish up here for me, will you?”

It's all falling into place. Once the quartermaster walks off, Graham closes his eyes, leaning wholeheartedly into his ‘thereness’. He reaches his hand back inside the gun rack and takes out one of the handguns. As expected, he doesn’t set off the alarms. He begins hurriedly to dissemble it, hiding the remaining parts across his person—tucked inside pockets and in the waistband of his trousers, then does the same with the ammunition. 

He knows there are no cameras back here because some of the more crass agents have joked about pilfering the security codes to smuggle women back here for a daring romp. But even if there was, he suspects he'd be able to make it so that he wouldn’t be readable on camera, although he isn’t sure how exactly this would translate on camera: a gun being disassembled in midair by its invisible handler? The Wellness team ran these very tests to see if extraneous items disappear from sight along with the expats themselves, but he doesn’t know the results because the test administrators never tell them.

He meets Neil outside the safe room. When it is just the two of them here, Neil never conducts the mandatory body searches. They lock up the facility and leave together, talking pleasantly about the weekend ahead and Neil’s wife and young son. He has made it so that if Neil ever looks back on this day, he will remember not that Graham was the last one to put away the missing gun, but that he outfoxed Graham Gore in the firing lanes. 

Back at the safehouse, he stores the emergency rations in a box he buries in the bottom of the cistern of their Edwardian era toilet, concealing it beneath valves and various plumbing. The guns, currency and passports he locks inside a makeshift false bottom he creates in a drawer in his bedside table. This requires a bit of handiwork, but he has done it before in his own time with less. He does it while his bridge is out of the house so she will not hear and wonder at what he is doing. He tells himself no officer should worry his crew with the minutia. Little Cat will know when she needs to. 

At last, he stakes out their emergency hideaway.

He makes sure everything is as it was when he last checked it, visiting on his earlier exploratory ventures around the city. Near Greenhithe in Rainham is a tunnel system used frequently when he was in the Navy. Much of it has collapsed now—industrial development taking up some parts with the Thames taking up others—but it is still there at least partially, unused and largely abandoned. It is the perfect spot for them to stowaway should they ever need to go on the run. He confirms the entrances are still open, all the secret places they could hide. 

Afterwards, he visits Arthur, parking his motorbike outside his safehouse. It is another ancient abode, formerly a physician's office now converted to something of a livable flat. The perimeters are shrouded by scaffolding, giving the impression of abandonment to those who may be lurking outside.

Naturally, even with his special permissions, his visits with the other expats are now supervised. Simellia is there with them, hovering just outside the bounds of their conversation.

“Commander Gore,” she says upon his arrival. She is as well kept as she usually is, but seems slightly more skittish than he remembers her being.

“Good afternoon, Simellia.”

She smiles but there is something stiff and uncentered about it. 

“How is your bridge? I heard about…the Brigadier—trying to…well, I’m sure you are aware...”

He nods briskly. “She’s doing well, given the circumstances.” 

He’s suspected for some time now that something happened between Simellia and his bridge, but has never wished to intrude on her by asking. He suspects too that Arthur’s regal yet standoffish bridge, is not especially fond of him, either.

“That makes sense.” An awkwardness settles then between them. She smiles weakly at the two men. “Well then. I’ll be off in the kitchen, if you two need anything.”

Towards the end of their visit, he asks Arthur to walk him outside.

“There is something I must tell you,” he says once they are out of earshot. 

Arthur looks at him worriedly. He seems to visibly slouch, curling himself in beneath his six foot stature, as though wishing he could make himself smaller. “What is it, Gray?”

“It’s about my bridge and I.”

Arthur slowly nods. “You are together now. As lovers.”

Has every person he interacts with known of his feelings for his bridge without them ever letting on? So much for his stoicism. He is uncomfortable with the use of the term ‘lovers’ and what it implies, but he supposes in this situation, it is the most accurate.

“Yes.”

Arthur’s shoulders sag. Graham thinks back to what Arthur said that night drinking whiskey in the kitchen—about loneliness. Perhaps poor Arthur thinks this will be a detriment to their friendship. That Graham will no longer be around. But he hardly knows how to offer comfort to another man. He will simply have to show Arthur in time with his actions. He will see that Graham Gore is if anything, a loyal friend.

Arthur reaches out a hand to him. “Congratulations.”

He feels himself blushing and accepts Arthur's hand. “We are not…betrothed or anything like that. I just wanted you to know because, well, I had told Maggie and Thomas just prior, and thought it was only fair I should tell you as well. So that you were…aware of the situation.”

“But of course.” He pats Graham on the shoulder. “I am happy for you both. It makes perfect sense. You two get on so well. And with all due respect to your bridge, I did get the distinct impression that she fancied you as something more than her charge.”

Inside, he perks up, but tries to act unmoved. “Did you now? How so?”

Arthur gives him a vague smile. “Intuition, I suppose.” 

There follows an uncharacteristically self-conscious silence between them. Graham feels himself wanting to grab for the pack of cigarettes hidden in the pockets of his motorcycle jacket, but resists. He instead gestures to his motorbike. “I suppose I shall be getting on then.”

Arthur nods sadly. “Up and onward, my friend.”

He starts up the motorbike. “Oh and Arthur?” he calls. 

“Yes?”

“Remember the old Navy tunnels I once told you about? Near Greenhithe?”

“Er, yes…?”

“If you are in trouble—go there right away, and I will find you.”

Arthur looks alarmed. “Are we in danger again?”

“Precautionary measures, my friend,” Graham reassures him, wishing he could believe what he’s saying.

He does the same with Margaret and Thomas, making them promise him that if they are ever in danger, they will go to the tunnels and wait for him. He has prepared his crew and gathered his stores. The rest is in God’s hands now. 

They plan an afternoon with Arthur and Margaret to attend a Turner exhibit at the Tate.

He looks forward to it. It is a good excuse to get Arthur and Margaret out of their safehouses, and of course he looks forward to seeing all the marine paintings from his past.

The exhibit will be part of a game the expats call ‘ghost hunting’. He is not so sure he fully understands the human fascination with 'ghosts', but they all seem to enjoy the game, him included: seeing whether there is anything in this strange new world that any of them still recognises.

There are agents in plainclothes milling all about, but still, he appreciates that his bridge thought to organise such a meaningful activity for him and their friends.

He is left awe-struck and wondrous at the dozens of paintings mounted throughout the rooms of the exhibit. He spends unhurried amounts of time at each one, studying the oil markings on the canvases and observing the way the ships negotiate the toiling waves. When they reach the paintings of the 1830s and 1840s, he even starts to recognise some of them.

He startles at one titled plainly, The Slave Ship. As he studies it, he thinks back to his conversation with Little Cat. About the role of his Preventative Squadron. Amidst the fiery oranges and reds slashed across the canvas, it strikes him how very long ago it seems now, as if it really was from a different time, and not from a place whence he just came from. Perhaps he has been here for too long now and the ghosts are starting to fade. He isn’t sure how to feel about it.

He eventually finds the three of them together sharing a bench. He figured it wouldn't take long for them to tire of looking at the ships. Margaret is thrilled she managed to set off some alarms. Arthur repeatedly disrespects the great ships by referring to them as ‘big boats’, and Graham can’t help but be short with him.

They follow him into another room, gathering around behind him in front of a large canvas painted with cloudy smears of warm colours. In the painting's background, a ship hails on the horizon against a beacon of hazy light. None of them are taking it seriously, but perhaps that was to be expected. They begin to badger him with inane comments and questions.

“You are all tedious people,” he tells them. “I should have you flogged for insubordination.” 

“Did you ever order floggings?” Little Cat asks eagerly beside him. She is probably now thinking of something depraved she wants to try with him in the bedroom.

As he leans in to read the painting’s legend, his good humour quickly fades. 

Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish! (1846).

It goes on to reference its namesake, his own Erebus, 'which with her companion vessel, Terror, sailed for the Arctic the year prior. In one of the greatest disasters in polar exploration, neither ship nor any of their company returned.'

His history—his legacy—summed up in just two words: greatest disaster. He straightens away from the painting and shuts off the feeling parts of his brain. Then he wanders off without a second glance.

Within moments, the others follow. He assumes they too have now read the dreadful legend.

“Gray?” begins Arthur nervously.

He gives the man his most patient smile. “Yes, Arthur?” 

“Are you…”

“I am fine.”

“Do you wish to speak of it, Gray?” Margaret pipes up. “Of your dear...expedition?”

“I’m sorry, Graham.” Little Cat lowers her voice. “I didn’t know.” 

He can feel her longing to touch him, to provide him comfort, but she knows his aversion to public displays of affection and maintains her distance.

He refuses to talk about it. To even think anymore about it. He has gone almost a year now without looking up himself or the expedition, and very much intends to keep it that way.

“Please. All of you. I am fine. Truly.” 

They meet at the front of the gallery where Ministry vehicles wait to take them back to their respective safehouses. Poor Arthur and Margaret gaze longingly as they are loaded in to be taken back to their prisons, where Margaret may continue to dream of film schools in Prague, and Arthur, well. Still he is not so sure.

Once home, they have barely taken off their outerwear when he is pushing Little Cat against the front door. He is tense, his jaw clenched with the inner turmoil he tries to mask, but he aches for the sweet escape of her.

“Do you remember that this is more or less how we first kissed?” she asks him.

He meets her eyes. “Don’t ask me about the things that I remember.”

She runs her hands through his hair. He sets his face into the honeyed scent of her neck, breathing her in. 

“Please,” he murmurs.

He sets a hand against the door beside her head, the other touching beneath her skirt. This time he lets her undo his belt buckle and shimmy down his trousers around his thighs, and then he hoists her up against the door.

His mouth is still against her throat when he enters her, alternating between tiny nips and ravenous kisses. When he lifts his face to hers, she kisses him with ardour and force, and he returns it, pushing her into the door with every thrust. As his pace jolts and quickens, he hears the subtle change in her breathing.

She comes murmuring his name, her hands in his hair, and he follows shortly after, his body shuddering with guilty pleasure, both his tension and seed spilling into her. 

He sets her back down on the floor. They rearrange their clothes and gather their breath. He gives her one last kiss, then he leaves her there, stalking off alone to his bedroom.

Hours later, when the sun has settled and his room has been overtaken by shadows, he walks with trepidation down the corridor and knocks on her door. 

“Come in.”

She lays on her bed propped up on the pillows, reading. She sets down the book when she sees him. 

“I made soup for dinner," she says gently. "If you’re hungry."

“Thank you.”

“It’s not as good as yours of course, but...”

He walks to the other side of her bed and climbs in, sitting up against the pillows beside her. He takes her hand, softly stroking her knuckles, by way of a silent apology. “Today was a good day,” he says, his voice even. 

“It was.”

She twines her fingers with his. She understands the painting’s legend affected him today, as much as he tried not to show it. He knows she doesn't begrudge him for it. 

“Why do the living stay so fixated on their ghosts?” 

“I don’t know,” she answers. “Perhaps we think if we keep holding on, then they won’t ever really be gone.”

He thinks of the 128 men he doesn’t yet want to believe are gone. The Esquimaux man and his widow—the unforgettable colour of her mouth and the stare that lingered on his skin.

He silently lights a cigarette then hands it to her. Then he lights one for himself. 

“I think I may have hurt Arthur’s feelings today. Sometimes I fear I am not as impassive as I think.”

“You didn’t. He’s just...sensitive about you.”

“Not any more sensitive than he is about anyone else, I’m sure.” 

She takes a long pull of her cigarette and blows the smoke towards the ceiling. 

“You know Arthur is in love with you, right?”

“No he is not. We are friends. How—how do you know this? Did he tell you?”

“In so many words…you can just sort of, tell. Call it 'intuition', I guess.”

‘Intuition’. This is the second time he has heard that expression in a matter of days. 

“Are you certain?”

“Pretty certain…I think he knows you don't, er, return the sentiment.”

Damn it. Not again. First Robbie, now this? He is clearly not very good at gauging these things. He had no idea. How could he have never even suspected? He’d gone so far as to think Arthur was involved with his bridge! He thinks back to telling Arthur that he and his bridge are lovers, and feels like a perfect arse. 

“I don’t understand it.” He sighs. “Why me?” 

She looks at him seriously, then somewhat baffled. 

“Graham, why not you?”

She takes him on another field trip. This time it is just the two of them.

It is a warm spring day, the heat sudden, with only the gentlest of breeze that flits past them. The good weather has the little cat in a tip-top mood today.

They are going to Greenwich to the Old Royal Naval College, in his time, a hospital for wounded sailors. There is a memorial there that she wants him to see.

It startles him how much it remains the grounds he once went to. The buildings have now been deemed a ‘heritage' site—further reminding him that he and his era are now obsolete. The grounds are manicured and sprawling, and the memories that come back to him are almost painful.

He walks slowly up the path, readying himself. 

“Little Cat,” he says at last.

She walks up to his side. In the swiftest of motions, he takes her hand then squeezes it before letting go. His heart pounds with the audacity of his own daring. 

They walk side by side to the chapel. The memorial, erected in 1869, looms large and sudden in front of them. He steps towards the muster roll and begins to read it: 

‘TO THE MEMORY OF REAR ADMIRAL SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, K.T.. K.C.H, AND OF THE UNDERMENTIONED OFFICERS OF HER MAJESTY’S DISCOVERY SHIPS.’

Their names are engraved under Erebus and Terror respectively. The petty officers, seamen and marines are but a passing mention. Charles, it seems, was promoted to Lieutenant. Sir John to Rear-Admiral. Edward to Commander—some of those promotions made in the wake of Graham himself 'dying'. 

So it really is true then. The men he laughed and talked and journeyed beside just less than a year ago of his life.

Eventually the Admiralty gave up their reconnoiter efforts and simply declared them dead. At the sight of his own name listed second under Erebus, he pales. Standing here, still robust and alive, does he even deserve to be named up there with them?

He thinks of smoking cigars with Charles, laughing as they poked and prodded over the railings with their rods looking for sea life. And Goodsir. Poor young Goodsir, a most noble doctor, walking on his toes and speaking excitedly about the various creatures he’d caught in his net; his endless excitement about flora and fauna. Could these really be his bones here, lying in this tomb beneath their names?

His stomach clenches with nerves. He feels dizzy and sick. 

She leaves him there to have some time alone, to remember and mourn them. She will occupy herself at the museum until he is ready for her.

Gently, he brushes at her cheek. "Thank you.”

But as he makes his way through the museum and memorial, he just feels sicker.

To learn that the wrecks of Erebus and Terror were discovered by divers. To envision so clearly the image historians paint of their expedition, years after their disappearance. Their attempts at piecing together the lost remnants of a mystery even Graham himself will never be able to solve. 

Sometime after he ‘died’, it appears the surviving men really did abandon both frozen-in ships, embarking on a ceaseless death march. They slumped and trekked and broke their backs across miles of barren and frozen terrain in search of food and rescue—of the Back river—towards the Hudson’s Bay trading outpost that may have saved their lives. But they never made it. Not one of them. They died along the way, bodies left where they fell, of disease and starvation, exposure, malnutrition, still hundreds of miles from civilisation. The dreaded 'debility' that caused blood to leak down their foreheads and loosened the teeth in their heads. And now he sees, maybe even lead poisoning?

Those dreadful, rotted tinned rations!

And then perhaps the worst of it all. A most blasphemous fabrication: that the last men standing resorted to consuming one another. This he knows is a blatant lie.

He turns on his machine to write Little Cat a short missive:

Little Cat,

After much exploration and ‘education’, I am ready to depart. Please meet me at the entrance to the Greenwich foot tunnels. Perhaps we shall lunch? Much to discuss.

Yours,

G.G.

They meet up and order lunch at a nearby food stall. As they lunch together, he decides to broach the subject, in the hopes she will clear the air for him.

“Cannibalism,” he begins. For how else can one introduce such a subject?

She looks at him, stricken. “Uh.”

“I knew those men.” 

“Yes.”

“And they wouldn’t have done that.”

They were good Christian men. They respected their brethren—they did not cook their broken bodies up for sustenance! But then he thinks of Charles and Marine Sergeant Bryant kneeling to drink the blood from the wound of a dead hare. He begins to feel…doubt.

“Would they?”

She tries to tiptoe around his feelings; her delivery honest, yet gentle. But it doesn’t matter how she couches it. What she tells him is a scandal. A horror beyond what any one of his fellow officers could have imagined: ‘pot polishing’ and knife marks on bones. The remains searchers found much later. The Esquimaux testimony. 

“Do you believe the natives were telling the truth?” 

She tries to disguise it, but the disappointment is obvious when it flickers across her face. Now she really will think him a monster. That he thinks so little of their people he would suggest they lie about such a thing, rather than believe this of his own people.

If she knew of the downed Esquimaux man…

"It happened," she tells him. They had no reason to lie. There is archeological evidence. Her words crush him, and he feels as though he might lose his lunch. If she thinks that his men were capable of such acts, how can she look the same at him?  

“But then you believe that it could have been true of me."

“It would have been true of anyone, Graham. They were starving.”

And the Esquimaux, the only other human life there, did nothing to help them. She corrects him—he’s gotten it wrong. They are called ‘Inuit’ now, not Esquimaux. And the Inuit helped where they could, but there were just too many men and not enough game to support them.

“Do you remember the condition you were in when the agents found you?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Mostly...”

“You were suffering from pneumonia. Severe frostbite. The early stages of scurvy and starvation. Imagine after another year of that—or longer.”

She doesn’t know the names of the last men standing. No one does. There are only theories; researchers and history buffs who travel down rabbit holes trying to make their best guesses. She tells him that some think based on Inuit testimony that Captain Crozier and Dr. McDonald were the last.

It surprises him to feel relief at this. Not Fitzjames or Goodsir. Not Des Voeux, Le Vesconte or Little, feasting on one other’s flesh. He supposes by 'dying' when he did, he may have escaped the worst of it—before resorting to eating his fellow man and descending into madness. Or did he? Did they consume his flesh in this alternate course of history, where the Ministry never captured him?

“The lead poisoning they mention…of our victuals.”

“Yes.”

“Is my body even now still riddled with lead?” 

“Well, I know the Ministry did chelation therapy—while you were in the ward. It’s the best we have now to try to reverse the effects of lead poisoning. Your body will also naturally try to excrete it, as much as it can. But no one knows for sure if lead is what did it.”

"Oh."

Like his soul, his body may forever bear the marks of his doomed expedition. 

They finish up their lunch and return to the safehouse, mostly in silence. He goes to bed alone that night, haunted by the things he saw and read at the museum. He tries to sleep, but he tosses and turns. He is not used to sleeping by himself anymore. It seems it did not take long for him to lose what was once a lifelong habit.

Eventually, he gives up. He pads out of the room and down the hall to his bridge, sleeping curled up in her bed. He slips quietly into the bed beside her.

She stirs in her sleep. “Graham?” 

He kisses her cheek. “I’m here,” he murmurs. “Goodnight, Little Cat.”

He falls asleep almost instantly with his arms around her. He dreams that night, of Edward, gnawing on the stinking flesh of his fellow officers. Of himself, shouting at Sir John to stop the ships—that they mustn’t venture any further down Peel Sound, for they will be trapped there in ice for all eternity. “Don’t you understand?” he yells at the old captain. “You will all DIE!” 

When he wakes in a cold sweat, disoriented by the images that course through his head, he is relieved to find Little Cat beside him, reorienting him to the present. He pulls her even closer towards him. 

He doesn’t rise at his usual hour the next morning.

He finds that his limbs have gone flaccid. That for once he hasn’t the will to make himself get out of bed. Instead he stays rooted in place, staring up at the ceiling as the shocks of the previous day come to roost.

When Little Cat comes to, she is startled to see him there. He is usually long out of bed by this hour.

He doesn’t look at her when he says,“I’m never going back, am I?” 

Rationally, he knew it was so, but didn’t a more hopeful part of him think he might still one day go back? To set things to rights? To accept the hand that God had dealt him?

She inches herself closer and sets her hand upon his chest. “No. You can’t.”

“I don’t think I ever really believed it. But it’s true. They’re all dead. Everyone I ever knew is dead. Everything I had in my life is gone.”

His friends and family are now but a blip in history. His fellow men died in the most macabre and lonely ways, and there is nothing he can do to save any one of them. He is alone here, the only man of his time in existence. A person who is not supposed to still exist. An abomination of God’s creations, with the queer ability to untether his soul from his body at will.

She begins to rub circles on his chest with her thumb. 

“There is no one left in the world who has known me for longer than a few months. I am a stranger in a strange land.”

“I know you.”

He feels a twinge for her in his stomach. “Do you?”

No one has ever wanted to really know him, beneath his measured, easy front.

“I’m trying. I’d like to get to know you better.”

He feels the tough layer he has gilded over his weary heart soften. 

“Come here.” He pulls her towards him.

They lie together quietly in stillness. He can feel her heart beating, vivid and alive, and he revels in the calm of these moments.

She wants to get to know him better. But can a person ever truly know another?

He thinks of the things he’s never said—of the Inuit man and the woman he made a widow; how for brief moments he’d believed his bridge was her ghostly vision. If she wants to know him—really know him—then shouldn’t he offer her this piece of him, too?

The ghost of the Inuit man haunts the tip of his tongue. The radiator on the wall grunts and clangs.

“What if there were…things about me you wouldn't want to know?”

“I don’t think that’s even possible, Graham.”

“Anything is possible.” He broods, feels himself itch for a morning cigarette.

She pushes off the blankets and climbs over so she straddles him.

”It’s true there are still many things I don’t know about the enigmatic Graham Gore, but what I do know, I like very much.” She leans over and kisses his cheek. “Your incredibly dashing dimples, for one.”

“Hm. Is that right?”

“Mmmhmm. And your striking nose.” She kisses him on the tip of it, then down on his mouth. “And the delightful bow of your lip.” 

“Your very own Discovery Service, I see.” 

“That’s right. Your alluring neck...” She lowers herself to set a kiss upon his neck. Then one on each of his shoulders. “These shoulders. Oof. And the oh-so-strong arms that hold me close at night.”

“Please. You flatter me.”

“Shh.” She pushes up his nightshirt. “I know these pretty well.” She skates her lips across his chest to each of his nipples then trailing down his stomach. “And your very sexy stomach with its intricate constellation of moles.”

"Little Cat!”

“Ah, and here. Let's see...I'm on quite good terms with your thighs and calves—very muscular.” She drags her thumbs down his legs, then kneels at his feet. “And your very ticklish feet.” She makes a sudden grab for them before he has time to dodge her. 

He jolts out of her grip. For she is exactly right. He cannot stand anyone touching his feet!

“Come here, you.” 

He makes a grab for her and flips her over onto the bed so that now he straddles her, pinning her down in place. She lets out a giggling shriek.

He presses his mouth to hers.

He can almost bear the nights of pain, when they are punctuated by these moments of joy.  

He tucks his sorrow away into the farthest recesses of his brain. He continues to go about his days and training.

But he realises he must have been dragging his heels when he comes home to their flat one day to find Little Cat is already there wearing nothing but her stockings.

“Oh? And to what do I deserve this?”

She glides towards him and pushes him against the front door. She nibbles at his earlobe. “I just want you, is all.”

He hasn't even the chance to take off his motorcycle leathers. He picks her up and takes her to the bedroom where he promptly discards them, and soon the rest of his clothes along with it. 

He sits with his back against the headboard, kissing her mouth and kissing her breasts, and sucking at both of her nipples. Her skin is prickled red from his stubble. They are damp with their own and each other’s sweat.

He ruts into her, deeply and slowly, as though they have all the time in the world.

She pulls herself off him, lowering her mouth to his lap. She licks and she strokes him, and as he feels himself getting closer, he grabs at her wrist.

“Come here, you naughty little feline.” 

She huffs but obeys, and sinks herself back onto him. She bounces and writhes, up and down his length. 

“Harder, Graham. Faster—please.”

But he doesn’t change up his pace. He continues to take her slowly. She will need to learn this the hard way—no pun intended.

She wrenches herself off of him again.

“Take me from behind,” she pants, returning to worship him with her mouth, now swollen from her frenzied sucking. He grabs her and lifts her back towards him. She sits down on him again, and he licks the saltiness of her sweat and his leakage from her mouth.

“Let me—”

“Be good and take it slowly,” he orders. With one arm he pins her hips in place. With his other, he fingers one of her nipples.

“Let me—”

“No.” He bites her on the throat, but not enough to leave marks.

Her infernal work device starts to vibrate and ring from her bedside. 

“Oof. Phone.”

“Ignore it.”

“But it’s—work.”

“As far as I understand it, I am your work. Thus you are working. Do you like it—when I am very deep—like this?”

The machine finally stops its racket. He continues thrusting. Then it begins its insistent buzzing again.

“I should—”

He sighs. First the Ministry keeping tabs and imposing on his freedoms, now interrupting his lovemaking.

He lifts her up and drops her onto her back. He moves inside her, encouraged by her ankles now wrapped eagerly around his hips.

He angles himself exactly how he knows she needs him. The bed thumps urgently against the wall, the machine still ringing, and she comes loudly with her foot groping at his calf. After she takes her pleasure, it doesn’t take many more pumps for him to find his, though he thinks he may have put out his back in the process. He comes gasping in her ear as she strokes his back. He flops down on her, now panting and spent. She wriggles and writhes beneath his dead weight. 

The machine has not stopped.

“Gerroff me. Phone!”

He doesn’t want her to answer that 'phone'. It is after hours. Why must she always be at their beck and call? But he is also starting to fear what the person on the other end of the frantic ringing might be trying to tell her.

“I think I’ll stay here until I can feel my spine again,” he says pleasantly. 

She continues to squirm beneath him like a crab stuck scuttling on its back. He tells her if she gets up she is going to get it all over her thighs, and will be terribly annoyed when she does. 

“What happened to the blushing virgin I married?” she retorts.

“Well, we did not marry. You took me out of wedlock. Now I’m ruined.”

But this is enough for him to surrender and let her dislodge herself. He rolls himself off her and tucks the blanket around his hips.

“You weren’t a virgin either,” she points out.

At this he says nothing. Of course he loves bedding her. But without a doubt it still bothers him that he's been doing just that before he's offered his hand in marriage.  

She looks up from the wretched device in a panic. “Adela needs me at the Ministry. ‘Immediately’, she says.” 

He lays back on the pillows, about to light up a cigarette.

“She isn’t usually so…urgent.”

He nods. “I will wait here.”

She gets out of bed, standing next to it as she types frantically on her device. As expected, his fluids begin to drip down her thighs. He is a bit aroused again by the sight of it, if he is being honest. 

She leans over and kisses him. “I’m going to go get cleaned up. I’ll see you later, okay?”

And then she is off. He smokes in her bed and thinks on what he must do next. 

He doesn’t have a good feeling. Not about any of it.

Chapter Text

Graham finishes his cigarette down to its filter then stubs it out. He remains stationary in Little Cat’s bed, pondering his next move. There is no use trying to deny it. The Vice Secretary’s urgency troubles him.

He decides it is high time he checks in on his crew. He expects he will be there and back before Little Cat even knows he is gone.

A feeling of unease still knotted in the pit of his stomach, he dresses and sets off on his motorbike—first to Margaret, then Arthur. He figures that he is being overly cautious. A touch paranoid. But still. He will not rest until he knows they are safe.

Like the rest of them, Margaret’s safe house is dismal and inconspicuous and doesn’t look like anywhere one would choose to live. It is assembled inside a dilapidated old shoe shop, faded and discoloured signage still peeling on the doors and windows.

As he approaches the door of the former storefront, he narrows his eyes. 

It seems someone else has gotten here first. The front door has been kicked in and left slightly ajar, as though the enterer had no intention of leaving behind any of its occupants. Through the crack he can see the thin crevice of a dark corridor. He feels a chill ripple down his spine and walks in. 

“Maggie?” he calls into the void. But the safehouse is only silent in response.

Unarmed, he moves carefully up the stairs on high alert.

He enters the first room at the top of the landing, then stops. It is a small bathroom. The bathtub in it is full, and a man has been left to drown in it.

The corpse’s face is bloated and blue, his eyes wide and staring up at the last thing he’d ever see: the very person who’d killed him. He realises with a start that it is Margaret’s bridge, Ralph, almost unrecognisable in his early state of decay. He feels the blood run from his face and backs slowly out of the bathroom.

He must find Margaret.

He comes to a bedroom, the door already splintered, and enters.

It is Margaret’s room, clearly. A woman lies on the bed, quite obviously dead. 

He goes very still. His heart is racing. But when he gets a closer look at the purpled face, he sees it is not Margaret but someone else. This woman is taller, her hair blonder. It’s clear she’s been violently strangled.

It must be the woman Margaret told him about. The one she fancied, with hair like the sun. Whoever came to dispose of them had evidently intended to kill both Ralph and Margaret. Instead they’d happened upon her lover and thought they’d succeeded, killing this unidentified woman in her place.

With his heart in his throat, he runs from the room and down the stairs, tearing out of the abandoned safehouse.

He races his motorbike home, neglecting traffic rules and speed limits. When he arrives at the flat, his hands tremble as he slots his key in the door and stumbles inside. He is disoriented and sweating, frantic with fear. 

He calls out his bridge's name. Her Christian name. It comes out more strangled than he’d meant it.

He’s known her name ever since she first introduced herself as his bridge, but this is the first time he’s said it. He’s still not exactly sure why that is. Perhaps because naming something gives it power over you. But right now they are beyond silly monikers and pet names. Margaret’s life is in peril.

She bolts out to meet him in the hallway, her face already panicked. 

“Something has happened to Maggie,” he blurts.

He relays everything he just found to her. It feels like he talks for hours: what he found in Margaret’s safehouse. The old navy tunnels in Rainham, how he told Margaret and Arthur to go there should anything ever go wrong. The tunnels are where he is sure Margaret is now, waiting for him—where they all need to be to find safety. 

The information has clearly distressed her. She scratches at her throat, leaving angry red lines where the skin has broken.

"Why did you tell them that? What did you think was going to go wrong? When did you plan all this? Why didn’t you tell me?” she is rambling. She has gone very pale.

“I assumed you would be with me," he explains gently. “And that I would take care of you.” The way he’d always set out to. 

She makes a strange sound in her throat but seems to regain some of her colour.

"Okay,” she whispers.

He tells her they must go to Arthur immediately then make for the tunnels. To pack warm clothes and waterproofs, water and emergency rations. He directs her to the box in the cistern. All his planning and gathering has come to fruition much sooner than he’d anticipated. 

She gasps and starts to cough like she’s choking. “Did you plan all this?”

“I planned for this,” he corrects her. "You told me you were in danger. I wouldn’t be a very good officer if I hadn’t. Now hurry.”

She leaves to retrieve the box from the cistern. He goes to his own room to collect the rest—and perhaps most important.

He yanks out the doctored drawer from his bedside table. The odds and ends he had in there go scuttling across the floor.

She enters just as he is loading the handgun. “Why the fuck do you have that?”

His eyebrows shoot up in response, her language not particularly appreciated—but he doesn’t look over as he feels her draw near.

“Jesus, Graham. It’s Ministry-issue.”

“Yes.”

“The quartermasters—”

“Do not know that I have it.”

He is relieved when she doesn’t comment further. He tucks the gun in his waistband, then stomps his foot through the drawer revealing the rest of his carefully stockpiled collection hidden beneath the fractured wood. 

She stares down at the broken drawer, then wordlessly up at him.

She is clearly stunned, perhaps even hurt, and he knows what she must be thinking—how he’s managed to plan and stash all this right under her nose. But this is something she must know about him: that he will never mean to worry her, but he will always be the one looking out for the others. That, in this way, he is a lone wolf of sorts, taking care of its pack.

At last he meets her eyes. Then he presses his lips to hers, hand cradled behind her head. The kiss is quick. Urgent. But he hopes it communicates to her what he wants it to.

That they are in this together.

He whisks them to Arthur’s safehouse on his motorbike, Little Cat’s warmth against his back.

They arrive at the retrofitted office that is Arthur’s now home. Together they walk slowly, hesitantly towards the front door. 

Another door left open. A lock that’s been hastily broken. He feels an immediate sense of dread. 

Please be safe, Arthur. Please be safe.

They enter the premises with their guns drawn. Inside, the house is too dim. Too quiet. Books left haphazardly in piles on the floor. A lone mirror stands guard, having not been anchored to the wall. The rooms are barely furnished, as though its inhabitants did not expect they would be there long, and so never bothered to make it livable.

Little Cat stays behind to investigate the main level. Graham takes the stairs two at a time to the upper level. In the first room, he flicks on the light, gun raised. 

It is empty.

By the female coded garments and belongings still strewn about, he assumes it must be Simellia’s. But Arthur’s bridge is nowhere in sight.

He creeps down a colourless corridor still aiming his gun and taking care to cover all his bases, as he learned in his field agent training.

He flicks on the light switch in the next room. Then he lets out a cry that even to him barely sounds human.

It is Arthur, lying stretched across the floor, head turned unnaturally to one side. His eyes are open but clouded. There lies a pool of blood and vomit that trails from his lips.

Graham crouches down, and even though he knows it is futile, checks Arthur’s pulse.

His heart sinks. 

Arthur has been murdered. No doubt he was poisoned, left to die in his own vomit. How long did it take his friend to die like this? He can only pray that it was quick. 

Little Cat calls out his name from the hallway. He hears her, bracing herself in the doorway.

“No—” she chokes out, having now seen the devastation; smelled the sickly smell that hangs in the room. “Is he—”

“Yes,” he says it before she can say the word he's not yet ready to accept. He runs his hand down Arthur’s face, palm gently closing his lifeless eyes, so that at a quick glance, one might think he is just sleeping. 

Arthur. Oh dear, dear Arthur. A man with a soul as good as gold. If he could be only half the man that Arthur was.

He is furious then. Devastated. And he doesn’t know if he can ever begin to untangle one of those emotions from the other.

He hears his voice, toneless and flat. “We need to leave. Wait downstairs.”

As she backs out of the room, he lowers his head, pressing his forehead to Arthur’s temple. 

I’m sorry, my dear friend. I let you down and I’m so sorry. God bless you, brother. May you rest in peace.

He wasn’t quick enough. If he had been only minutes sooner, might he have saved him in time? He could parse endlessly through his regrets and alternate scenarios, and still it wouldn’t bring back his dear friend. Yet again, he is an officer who lets down his men.

He rests a hand softly on Arthur’s cheek, already gone cold. Then gently, he wriggles the signet ring from the captain's finger.

He collects himself. The time to grieve properly will come later. He must stay strong for Margaret and Little Cat. He only hopes and prays it is not too late for Margaret. 

He takes to the stairs quickly. Little Cat waits for him at the front door with a heaviness that hangs about her face. He pulls on Arthur’s ring over his finger, then his bike gloves.

“Let’s ship out,” he says.

They take the motorway to get there, rife with the pungent scent of petrol and the roaring of engines. In that moment he appreciates the chaos—anything to block out the noise in his head.

They park the motorbike behind an old warehouse, not far from the docks of Greenhithe.

“It’s not far,” he tells her. “The entrance is concealed by the marsh.”

Her legs seem to suddenly betray her, her stride stuttering. She reaches out with a hand to steady herself with his shoulder.

He turns to her, then pulls her towards him. He is shaking, fearful for what they might find—or not find—in the tunnels. It seems that now, on the verge of this moment they may not survive, it might well be the time to tell her he loves her. 

But he is really not one to express such sentiments, no. And so instead he just squeezes her in his arms with all his might, his fists bunching into her coat, in the hopes this will show her instead.

The tunnels are damp and dank and they reek of rotting seaweed and brine. They wade through a room of shallow water, the cold and wet seeping through their clothes. They hold flashlights, but the beams hardly seem to make a difference in the cavernous dark that swallows them.

They emerge finally into the makeshift underground bunker divided by walls of stone—exactly where he told Margaret to go.

“Maggie?” he whispers into the darkness.

“Gray!” 

She tumbles down in front of them from an unused vent in the ceiling. Her eyes are feral, looking wildly around. She is covered in slime and mud, but wholeheartedly, exuberantly alive.

She stumbles but pulls herself back up and flings herself into his arms. He lifts her off her feet, his face buried in the filth and muck of her tangled hair. His dear little sister, Maggie Kemble.

She is inconsolable. Sobbing.

“I fled. I abandoned her—I fled—not knowing—if you’d come—"

“Of course I would,” he says. “I told you that I would.”

“I was—so—afraid,” she weeps.

She sees Little Cat lurch forward and  scrambles out of his arms, throwing her arms around Little Cat instead.

She maneuvers herself to peer over Little Cat’s shoulder, her eyes squinting to see through the dark. 

“Arthur?”

The words catch in Graham’s throat. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself to answer. 

“We were too late,” Little Cat jumps in, her voice taut with emotion, relieving him of being the bearer of this terrible news. “He’s gone.”

He looks at her gratefully as Margaret begins to weep. 

They change into clean, dry clothes. They are shaken and grieving, but it is time for them to regroup and decide their next plan. He has the counterfeit passports. A stack of notes. Now they need to make good on their escape. 

“As I understand the setup of these tunnels, there are three entrances,” he explains. “I scouted them all out previously myself, or at least I attempted to. One is submerged in water. Totally unusable. The other two are the long corridors we just came in from. There is also a crawlspace, extremely narrow and dangerous, of which entrance banks onto the bridge of a dual-carriageway. Of course, that route too is out of the question.” 

All at once, they hear the sounds of scuffling and grunting, coming from somewhere near the roof. 

Margaret and Little Cat crouch low. Graham straightens and shifts himself into position. He cocks his gun.

The sound appear to be coming from a small square cut into the wall near the ceiling. He aims the gun, lying in wait for the intruder. 

They drop from the ceiling to the floor with a dull thud. He fires.

Margaret and Little Cat scream as the shots ring out across the stone walls of the bunker.

“God’s blood, Commander, ‘tis me!” Shouts a quavering voice from the ceiling. 

Ah. Thomas. Graham is surprised that he came here. The object that dropped to the ground, he realises, is the lieutenant's rucksack. Finally the face of the man himself appears in the hole, visibly shaken.

“You!” Margaret, Thomas’ one true nemesis shouts to the ceiling. “How were you privy to this place?”

“Our commander told me of it, i’faith. Though I had much trial finding this den. How wouldst thou have me be? Killed, like the captain?” he looks directly at Graham when he says, “Lower thy weapon, sir.”

He asks Thomas how he knows Arthur is dead. He must be suspicious of everyone now—enquiries made before trust may be given. 

In a rush Thomas explains: his own bridge had been missing too long. Concerned, he went to Arthur’s in search of Simellia to find out more, instead finding what was left of Arthur.

He orders Graham again to lower the gun. 

Reluctantly, he does.

"You saw nobody else there?” he asks Thomas. “A tall man with dark gray hair and a military bearing? Goes by the rank of brigadier—”

Thomas swears he’s seen no one. Graham ignores the lieutenant’s ridiculous suggestion that Arthur’s murder is the result of a ‘lover’s quarrel’.

“Didst thou know he was a sodomite, Commander?”

He will not engage with Thomas trying to tarnish Arthur’s name now either. But now is not the time for them to bicker. He tells Thomas that Sixty-five’s friend too was murdered—a target likely meant for Margaret.

”Two months ago the brigadier and his companion attempted to kill my bridge and take me,” he explains. “We’re safe for now, but we must plan our escape.”

“You’re not safe,” Little Cat blurts suddenly.

All three of their heads turn to stare at her in unison.

“You’re microchipped. Er, that is, tiny machines implanted in your backs, just under the skin. The Ministry can track you with it, even if you don’t register on modern scanning equipment. They know exactly where you are, at all times, and there’s been someone feeding that info to the Brigadier.”

The bunker is silent but for the distant clap of water buffeted on stone. An icy chill that has nothing to do with the cold and damp jolts through him.

He turns to her, his voice deadly and quiet when he asks her:

“How long have you known this?” 

She winces and chews at her lip, a quirk he might have once found endearing. "You were all released to your bridges microchipped. So, I suppose, the whole time.”

Margaret and Thomas gawk. Her confession has rendered them speechless. But the anger that crashes over Graham is vivid and visceral, and unlike anything he has ever felt before in his life. It twists in his gut and consumes him, leaving him with only the most primal of emotions. Shame. Humiliation. Betrayal.

She’d left him to blindly wonder how the Ministry always seemed to know of his exact whereabouts. She knew the Brigadier was receiving this information. That the Brigadier could find them with it. 

And Arthur.

She led them right to him.

His mouth twitches with barely contained rage and contempt for her. He wants to lash at her. Cut her with his words. But not now. Not in front of Thomas and Margaret.

He straightens his shoulders. Wrenches back his expression into one of as much normalcy as he can muster. But he knows she has seen that rare glimmer of his fury. He sees its sting take hold across her face. 

“Thomas, do you have a blade?” They will have to cut out the microchips and hide them—if it’s not already too late.

Thomas confirms he has a first aid kit with scalpel. 

“Do you know where the microchips are?” He cannot even look at her when he asks this. 

“Yes,” she replies, her voice tremulous.

He gives his orders almost as though this is just a normal mission, and in the next moment everything will be okay. She will cut out his and Margaret’s microchips. He will do Thomas’s. Then he will dispose of them in the river.

He can only say a silent prayer again that they are not too late. 

He takes her into a tiny alcove just off the bunker. He closes the rotting wood door that separates it from the rest of the room, engulfing them in pitch, dry black.

She wedges her flashlight into a crevice in the wall, providing a steady beam of concentrated light—enough for the operation that lies ahead.

“Where is it?”

“It’s in your back,” she croaks. “Between the blades of your shoulders.” 

He sucks at his teeth remembering with vivid clarity all the times she touched him there. With his back to her, he tugs off his shirt and coat. He is bare and vulnerable to her again, but this time it feels like he’s going to his execution. He sinks to his knees. 

She sets her hand on his back. Instinctively, he shudders. It is a touch that still intoxicates him, but now with it there is pain—pain with such strength and force it is almost physical. 

“What did you want from me?” His voice is soft, nearly breaking from under the strain. He feels so utterly small.

Her hands still on him. “What?”

“Why did you bring me back from the dead? Why did you come into my life like this?” 

“We—we saved you.” Her voice cracks. “I wanted to…know you.”

He lets his head fall forward, braced by the cradle of his hands. He feels suddenly empty. Drained of all heat and emotion. 

“Well.” His voice is thick. “Did you satisfy your curiosity?”

“Graham...” 

He hates that she still says his name. Hates the effect it continues to have on him.

He swallows the lump in his throat. “For a while, I really did believe that you—” that maybe she loved him too. That what they had between them was real. Something tangible. “What were you planning to do with me? Put me in a filing system, I suppose. Where you could keep me boxed up.”

“I never wanted to—”

“Yes you did!” He shouts. The anger has restored anew, bubbling up from the pit of his stomach to his throat where he spews his venom. 

A careless, lovestruck fool he was, in ever opening his heart to her. Perhaps it had all been in the name of the project—why, what a novelty for a modern girl to bed a naval officer from his ‘Victorian’ era—sole survivor of the doomed Franklin expedition. And so she’d fucked him as if it meant something to her. Did she include that in her reports on him, too? 

He whirls around so that he faces her, his fury threatening to burn them both.

“Yes you did...you had a very clear idea of who I was supposed to be. You’ve been going hammer and tongs to get me there ever since.”

Shaping him. Molding him to her liking, then using her creation.

Tears have begun to stream down her face, her breathing in gasping gulps.

“That’s not fair,” she whispers. “I made you my life.”

“And in the heat of your obsession, did it ever occur to you that I am a person too?”

How naive to think that she ever cared for him as anything more than an object of study—a historical figure to analyse and get her kicks. 

He manages to tamp down his rage. Bottles it up to simmer there for later. He turns away from her, disgust welling in his gut.

“Scalpel. And stop crying. You won’t be able to do it properly if you are crying.”

He barely flinches when the scalpel enters his skin and he feels her fishing out the tiny instrument from within. He would take the blade any day over the splintering of his heart.

When she has finished and sewn him back up, she bursts into tears again. He leaves the alcove first, door slamming shut behind him.

Thomas stands at the far side of the bunker, hands clasped behind his back as he whistles, staring up at the ceiling. Margaret’s eyes are wide, looking at him as he re-enters with a mixture of alarm and pity. 

So they’ve heard it all. The implosion of his greatest love. And so be it. He is a man now loveless and hardened, with nothing left to lose.

Down he goes to the river, walking several feet upstream before he drops the tiny pieces into the river to be carried away downriver. The tide is too high for them to escape now. They will have to camp here for the night. If the Brigadier hasn’t already found them—with thanks to his bridge. 

When he returns, the three of them are seated in various spots around the bunker, restless and nervous. His bridge is swollen from crying, but at least she’s stopped. He can feel her eyes on him the entire time. He refuses to look at her.

“We will have to take turns with the watch overnight," he says. "Three hour shifts. Down the catacomb corridors. Thomas, you will go first. In three hours’ time, you will wake me to take over. Then you.” He gestures his chin to his bridge, his eyes still averted. “Then by morning it will be Margaret.”

“Why can’t we leave now?” his bridge asks, her voice quavering. 

“Tide. Until it is further out by morning, our escape channels are limited. To attempt to leave now would be certain death. The only safe route is down along the river, and they will most certainly be monitoring those banks in search of us.”

At least she has the good sense to look shamed by this. 

Margaret and his bridge curl up together under their coats. Thomas, strapping on his blade, marches forth down the dark corridor to stand first watch.

Graham returns to the side alcove and fiddles with the passports. Checks again to ensure they are all accounted for. His heart twists at the sight of Arthur’s. He no longer has need for it, but he hasn’t the heart to throw it out either.

Then there is hers. He doesn’t know if he should leave it with her. After morning they will part ways and he’ll never see her again. She will probably go crawling back to the Ministry headquarters, tail curled between her legs. And him? He will flee with Margaret to the United States.

It is finally beginning to sink in that his time here is done. 

He can hear his bridge and Margaret, talking quietly to one other in their makeshift bed. Soon the sound fades. They have drifted into sleep.

He tries to catch his own, chilled beneath his coat, alone on the opposite side of the bunker, listening to the splash of water. He stares dazed and numb at the ceiling. But before he knows it, Thomas is nudging him awake for his watch. 

Graham waits with his gun in the far end of the corridor on second watch. His mind is still racing. The time ticks slowly. Like the tide, his anger rises then falls. 

Could he be wrong? Might there be some other explanation for what she’s done? He can’t seem to make up his mind—for only moments later the gravity of it hits him again with a driving force. 

Three hours pass. He kneels down beside his bridge and roughly shakes her awake.
She jolts from her sleep with a yelp, confused as she tries to orient herself in the darkness. 

“Your watch,” he says coldly, looking down at her. 

As she comes to, she stretches out like a cat roused from its nap and curls herself up against him. She nestles her face in his shoulder, as though they are still...something. He stiffens but remains in place, his heart lurching. 

“Happy anniversary,” she murmurs.

“What?”

“It’s one year today. That you came here.”

One year... 

One year to adjust to a frightening new world.

One year to be spied on and reported on by the government you trust. 

One year to befriend a man, then lose him to cold blooded murder. 

One year to be betrayed by the person you love most.

How easy it would be to let her sink right into him, to fold his arms around her and breathe in the lemony-sweet scent of her hair. To go on as if none of this ever happened.

But those days are over now. He is no longer here for her whimsy and entertainment. And so he pushes her away from him. 

“Your watch,” he says again, then looks away at the sight of her face crumpling.

It is Margaret who frantically shakes him awake. He looks around, trying to gather his senses from his broken sleep. 

“Gray! She is gone! By chance did I wake up, for I was cold. She left this note.”

He takes the piece of paper from Margaret’s outstretched hand and reads it.

I know what this looks like, but please don’t be afraid. I’ve gone to get help.

His chest knots. She’s left and she didn’t consult him first. Who could she possibly be getting help from? There is not a soul outside this bunker they can trust. Could she be trying to expose their whereabouts? 

“What doth it say, Commander?” Thomas is awake now too, looming from beside him.

“She has gone to…find help, it says.”

“She doth conspire!” Thomas sneers. “She hath gone to betray us! Perchance she is the one who supplies the Brigadier with information—she or her confederate."

It is what Graham himself had feared, but he hates now hearing it from Thomas’ lips.

“We don’t know that,” he says tightly, but his conviction sounds weaker than he hoped.

"Thou ne'er should have entangled thyself with her,” the lieutenant continues. “I told thee from the first that she was the enemy. I hope that sweet cunny was worth the cost."

“That’s enough,” he snaps. He looks over at Margaret, but she simply looks cold and distressed, her arms wrapping around herself for warmth. 

"I do beseech thee pardon, Commander. I seek only to watch for thy well-being."

“Perhaps there is more to the story. Some sort of explanation. For all of this.”

"Tracking us with those wretched devices?” Thomas snorts. “A tale most unlikely. She doth conspire—likely with the Vice Secretary, the woman of the foul yellow locks."

He crumples the note in his fist. 

“Let's find her.” 

They set out to find his bridge down the catacomb corridors and outside the tunnels. They trace a winding path down the river, lined with marsh and dense vegetation. He hears them before he sees them.

As they round a corner in the footpath, Little Cat stands with her back to him. Little Cat with the Vice Secretary herself.

They are deep in conversation. Evidently they had been on their way back to the bunker, presumably to detain the expats. Just in time, they have intercepted the traitorous duo.

They take their position behind a large bush. He orders Margaret to crouch nearby and stay out of harm’s way.

He hands Thomas his gun. “I will do the talking. Unless they raise a weapon first, do not shoot,” he instructs the lieutenant. 

In the darkness, Thomas grunts his assent.

“Hands in the air please,” he calls out to the women, still quietly conferring on the pathway. “Easy, Little Cat. You have some explaining to do. Madam, put your hands in the air. We have you in our sights.”

Both women startle at the incursion. His bridge whirls around to face the bush.

“Plugged thine ears, sir,” Thomas snarls beside him. “Refused my counsel and now see—these whores do conspire. Thou rolled i’bed with death.”

“Shut up, Thomas!”

“Commander Gore and Lieutenant Cardingham,” the Vice Secretary calls out. Squinting, she surveys the shrubbery, searching for their position. “Rest assured we mean you no harm.”

“I suppose this depends on your interpretation of harm. Perhaps you don’t intend to kill us. But to survey a man, to rob him of his freedom and use him like a tool—would you not consider this harmful?”

The Vice Secretary leans in to murmur something that he can’t hear to Little Cat. Her eyes widen, then almost imperceptibly, she nods. And then she bolts—tearing off in the opposite direction.

Betraying him, again.

Thomas fires. 

They are only lucky that his aim with a handgun still needs work, and the bullet sails by her. 

Graham reels around to face the lieutenant beside him. “Thomas! Give me that gun.”

“She was fleeing, Commander!”

“Now!”

Pouting like a scolded little boy, Thomas hands him the gun.

“Don’t ever fire a weapon at her again,” he seethes. 

He steps out from the brush and shadows, pointing the gun instead at the Vice Secretary. Thomas follows. The Vice Secretary stirs.

“You.” He gestures at her with the gun. “Stay right where you are.”

She raises her hands in surrender. The one eye that remains uncovered by a patch blinks at him. 

“Don’t fire, Commander Gore. Your bridge is innocent. I can explain it all.”

“Well then start talking. You have five minutes.”

She levels her gaze. “Just, lower your gun. Please.”

“Five minutes.”

She sighs and closes her eye. When she opens it again, she begins to talk.

“The first thing you need to know is that the Ministry set out with good intentions. They discovered the time-door by accident, really. A blue doorway, left in an abandoned youth centre. That door was being projected by a machine.”

”One of the M15 field agents on scene reached through that doorway and grabbed it—a brave man, certainly. The Ministry wanted to see what it was capable of. And so they did. Thus, the Ministry’s ability to travel through time was born.”

How curious she uses ‘they’ instead of ‘we’ to describe the very Ministry that she is part of.

“The experiment was intended to save you. To learn about you and your time. We chose individuals who had been largely lost in chaos, who would have died in their own time. People no one would have noticed had gone missing. To avoid the risk of somehow tampering with history.”

He prickles with rage all over again. “Instead you tampered with mine—taking me away from my shipmates, taking me away from where I was meant to die.”

“Well, yes. But we did save you, Commander. You would have died an agonising death. You did die that death—in your original timeline.”

“And were you aware the Brigadier was a spy?”

“We were…keeping an eye on him. He was…here from his own time. Gathering intel…planned assassinations. He comes from a time that’s been decimated by climate change and well, he blames us.”

“And Arthur? Was the Brigadier responsible for his murder?”

For a moment her gaze falters. Curiously, she nibbles at a piece of skin on her thumb. It is a familiar gesture, though he can’t quite place it. 

“Yes…as far as I am aware,” she says finally. “The Brigadier killed Arthur.”

“What does the Brigadier want with me anyway? With any of us?”

“Well,” she says. “The Brigadier is from the twenty-two hundred’s, a difficult number to wrap your head around, certainly. It was they who invented the time door, not intending for the Ministry here to ever get hold of it. As it turns out, the door can only support a certain number of ‘free travellers’ at a time, without things going seriously wrong. When the Ministry brought you back here, it prevented the Brigadier and his companion from going home.”

“And so by killing us, they would be free to return to their time?”

“Precisely.” 

He frowns. “But then why didn’t he just try to kill me right away? He wanted to kill my bridge, but he wanted me to go with them.”

Her one eye blinks. “That I don’t know the answer to, Gra—Commander.”

Things still aren’t quite making sense. 

“And this ‘treason’ within the Ministry. A person feeding information to the Brigadier...”

“Well, that’s the thing. We initially thought it was…Quentin. Based on some intel. He was asking a lot of questions. Looking into things he shouldn’t have been.”

“My bridge’s handler?”

“Yes. But as it turns out we—I—was wrong…and the real mole is still at large.”

He pales. “And so you had him murdered? Quentin?”

She bites at the piece of skin on her thumb again, and as though realising what she’s doing, quickly yanks it away.

“We did what we had to. It was extremely dangerous for all of you, to leave the mole alive, as you have now seen with…Captain Reginald-Smyth. We were given no choice but to dispatch whomever we believed to be the perpetrator of such serious treason.”

“And what is the role of my bridge in all this?”

“She…was privy to some matters within the Ministry. Not all. Certainly not what happened to Quentin. She wasn't made aware there was any mole at all, or that the mole was giving out your locations until I told her just last night when I called her in. Her role was exactly what you believed it to be—an officer whose responsibility it was to see that you acclimated to the twenty-first century.”

“And yet she knew about the microchips and withheld that information.”

“She did, yes. But she was under very strict orders to do so. The entire experiment would have been in jeopardy had you known. Had any of the expats known.” 

He scoffs. “To keep track of us. To watch wherever we went.”

She shifts uncomfortably. “To keep track of you, yes. To keep you safe.”

He can only roll his eyes at this. Safe. As if anything the Ministry has done has kept them safe, and Arthur, alive.

“From what I do know of your bridge, Commander Gore, I sincerely believe she would have told you about the microchips, even without the present circumstances being what they are. In fact, I just gave her a memory card containing all the passcodes for this project. I am confident she will do the right thing and destroy it.”

His bridge, now with access to the ins and outs of the expat project?

“What did you—the Ministry—want with Thomas and I, specifically?” 

“The Ministry has—had—big plans for you both. Their hope is that you will both continue your training. Naturally, your ability to evade detection on modern scanning devices, and the Ministry’s own ability to track you wherever you went would make you ideal field agents. Do you know the man from the Ministry who asked you to join up as a field agent? It was the Secretary of Expatriation himself. He reports to those even higher up the chain than himself.”

He sneers. “And yet, no plans were made for Margaret and Arthur.”

She draws a sharp inhale. “Well…”

He shifts his grip on the gun. “Only the truth may save you, Madam.”

She sighs. “That’s right. The Ministry did not see the same potential in Nineteen-sixteen and Sixteen-sixty-five as they did with you and Lieutenant Cardingham. However, that does not mean there wasn’t still great potential for gathering very valuable data from them, along with the full support of the Ministry in letting them seek their own career paths outside the Ministry. I am so terribly sorry about…” A look of sadness crosses over her heavily reconstructed features. “About...Arthur. I understand he was...a good friend.”  

He glowers at her. How dare she even acknowledge his name.

“The Ministry had plans to continue to report and keep tabs on them, you mean.”

She shrugs. “Well, when you put it that way.” 

There is a third voice then, deep and male, coming from the direction Little Cat just ran to.

“Freeze! Drop your weapon, Eighteen-forty-seven, and we will not shoot!”

Two men from the Ministry stand on the pathway, their guns trained on Graham and Thomas.

Graham had been pointing his at the Vice Secretary, but failed to cover the rest of his bases, and now they have him. He’s been letting his emotions control him again. The mistake of an amateur.

He sighs and slowly lowers the gun.

So their plans will be foiled after all. He finds he cannot even feel upset. For as long as he lives in this century, he will be their captive.

Margaret, stay inside those bushes, he silently pleads. At least one of us shall escape this fate.

“Drop it. To the ground. Now.”

He lets the gun fall from his hand.

“Now, Sixteen-forty-five, you do the same.” 

Thomas raises his arms, though he is unarmed.

”Come with us quietly and we will not harm you.”

“You will not hurt them,” Adela tells the agents sternly. 

”We’ve orders to take them straight to the Ministry unharmed, ma'am,” one agent responds. “And they won’t be, so long as they don’t try any funny business.”

Margaret jumps out from the bushes then, screaming like a banshee. Graham curses under his breath.

One of the agents aims his gun at her, while the other grabs hold of her, shoving her arms roughly behind her back.

”She is unarmed!” Graham snaps. But they ignore him.

The partner radios in to someone on his device. "We’ve got all three.”

As the agents gesture with their guns at Thomas and Graham to come closer, they are interrupted by a furious pop! 

The noise is deafening. On instinct, every one of them jumps. And with that pop, the Vice Secretary vanishes, bursting into an implosion of bright white light.

“What the bloody hell was that?” one agent screams as they both dive for cover.

In a blink, the lights disappear. In their wake lies a tangled ball of matter he could hardly begin to put into words, but that certainly doesn’t look human.

He doesn’t have time to deliberate, whatever it is. The agents are now poking with their guns at the strange viscera that was seemingly once the Vice Secretary. This may be their only chance. 

He looks at Thomas. Then at Margaret. Then he mouths at them: “Run.”

He scoops up the gun, forgotten on the ground in the chaos, and then they begin to run, tearing blindly through bush and shrub, far, far away from the tunnels. By the time the agents realise they are gone, their shouting is but a distant echo.

It strikes Graham peculiarly then as he runs, what the Vice Secretary’s nibbling at the skin of her thumb reminds him of.

It is something his bridge does when she is nervous.

He leads them back to the abandoned warehouse where he left his motorbike. It has been left behind seemingly untampered with. Wherever his bridge went, it wasn’t for this.

He smashes their devices in the event they can be tracked and leaves behind the remnants. They will be long gone by the time anyone ever finds them.

He hands Margaret the spare helmet from the back of his motorbike. She hasn’t been on the bike before, but there’s a first time for everything. “Put this on. You’re going to have to hang on tight.”

Thomas hovers awkwardly nearby, nervously wringing his hands.

Graham takes a step towards him. “Thomas, my good chap. Will this be it for you then?”

Only a short time ago, he and Thomas had discussed the possibility of their ever needing to leave. Of abandoning the Ministry and project, if it came to it. 

“My life is here now, Commander,” Thomas had told him. “I am but a company man now.”

“If I were to offer you a back up plan, an emergency escape, would you take it?”

“Nay, Commander, though I give thee thanks for thy care. Thou ought not to tell me aught more of thy designs. The less I know, the better.”

He had been surprised then, when Thomas had appeared in the bunker after all.

Now, Thomas nods. “Aye, Commander. I shall remain.”

“You’re still certain you do not want to come with us? I have…an extra passport now that you may use, if you wish.”

“Nay, Commander. As I said, my role is here now. I am a soldier at heart and a man of the Ministry now, be it to my liking or not. A life in flight, e'en as a free man yet marked a traitor, is no life for me."

They stand face to face, realising this might well be the last time they ever see each other.

“It’s been an honour and a privilege, Lieutenant.”

“As with you, Commander. Anything you need in future, I shall stand by thee.”

They shake hands.

“And Commander?”

“Yes, Thomas?”

“Let not the treacherous wench draw thee back in with her cunning and feminine wiles.”

He holds back his sigh. He knows the lieutenant means well, in his own highly archaic and misogynistic way.

“Thank you, Thomas, I appreciate you…looking out for me.”

Then, for the last time, they part ways. 

In an era of constant surveillance, he begins to fully appreciate the sheer difficulty of covering their tracks. 

He takes Margaret to a travellers' hostel where they will stay the night, sleeping in their respective male and female dormitories. The hostel is crowded with noisy tourists: Australian, Dutch, Canadian and American. He is certain no one will notice them amongst the belligerence and chaos, and at the first morning light, they will depart for the Port of London. 

He’s purchased them both nondescript garments and a ‘ball cap’ for Margaret to wear. She lets out a cry of dismay when she sees what he’s picked out for her, but relents. She understands now more than ever it is imperative that they blend in. 

On a public computer available for guests at the hostel, he again searches the schedule for the cargo ships offering limited passage to accompany her crew from London. He’d checked it previously at a public library to ensure this was something they could resort to if the need arose. Knowing that his own laptop was being surveilled, he had been limited in what he could search on his own time.

He confirms again the ship’s departure at half past five the next morning, and that there remains passage available on a first come, first serve basis. He plans on arriving even earlier.

He leaves Margaret at the hostel, instructing her not to go anywhere and to keep her conversation with others—especially women—to a minimum. He has one last thing he needs to take care of. 

“But what if you should not come back?” Her eyes are wide with fright.

“I will, Maggie. But in the very small chance that I don’t, you know what you need to do now. You need to follow the plan without me. The Port and then to America. If they find you here, they will kill you. Staying is not an option.”

She swallows and nods. “All right," she whispers. "I will.”

“I don’t expect to be more than an hour. Two at the most.”

He lets her embrace him. As they part, she looks at him fiercely.

“Go easy on her, Gray.”

Chapter Text

It is morning, the sun rising high over London. They survived the night. They escaped the Ministry’s clutches.

He waits for her now in the safehouse kitchen. Wherever she is, he expects she will show her face eventually, and when she does, he will be ready for her.

The gun rests on the table in front of him. He just finished rooting through her bedroom. It is a violation that even twenty-four hours ago he would have balked at, but much has changed in a day. Her work laptop sits on the table now, along with the gun. When he hears her enter the flat, he picks it up at the ready.

She putters around the front hallway, removing all her outerwear, then into the kitchen. She sees him at the table, the gun pointing at her, safety off.

“Oh.”

It’s an odd response to the sight of a loaded gun, but he puts nothing past the conniving little cat anymore. He orders her to keep her hands where he can see them. 

“What are you doing?”

“Be quiet. Were you followed?” 

She blinks. “I don’t—think so?”

She tells him she tried to destroy the time-door. That she thought if she had, then all of this would be over. Perhaps she should have used it to go back and correct all her mistakes, which as it stands, remain unforgivable. 

“Why are you pointing a gun at me?” 

“Because I don’t trust you.”

She blanches. There it is out in the open now. The trust so carefully earned over months together, gone. He stands up from the table, gun still pointed. She flinches.

“You’ll kill me if you shoot that thing at point-blank range.”

He remains deadly calm.

“I know.”

He watches the shifting of her face. The single tear that trickles down it.

“What are you doing? I tried to help you. I’m on your side!”

“You hid things from us, all the Ministry’s plans. Adela told me everything before she died.”

“Died?” Her jaw drops. 

He thinks of the Vice Secretary, imploding into light and matter.

“I assume that’s what happened to her.”

“Where’s Maggie?”

As though he’d be foolish enough to tell her.

“Safe.”

“Can I see—”

“No. I am keeping her safe from you.”

Her panic is mounting now. Her breathing erratic, voice rising. “Graham, I—you have to understand. I was just doing my job.”

“‘Doing your job?’ How can you say that?”  

That she cannot even admit what she’s done when she is caught red handed…he didn’t think he could be any more disappointed, yet somehow she has managed even that.  

“I had orders,” she sobs. “I thought I could fix it.”

“You had orders…born and raised in the twenty-first century, with more freedom and choice than any time before it—and that’s how you justify it. All that ambition, all that maneuvering, and it amounts to just ‘following orders’. I used to find you so extraordinarily subtle, a tactician, a magician. To think it was because you were a coward. Do you understand that Arthur is dead because of you?”

“Listen—”

“Shut up.” He lets out his breath. He must get a hold of himself...never let the enemy see you falter. “Adela said you had the passcodes.”  

“Yes…”

He jerks his chin towards the laptop on the table. “Destroy everything relating to this project.” 

“I will. I will, just, please put the gun down.”

“No.” He gestures down to the table with it. “Sit.”

She is shaking when she sits at the table, pleading at him with her eyes.“Graham—listen. Did Adela tell you who she was?”

There she goes saying his bloody name again. He grits his teeth and repeats his orders: 

“Destroy all of it. Now.”

Her insubordination is not cheeky or funny anymore, nor is it a precursor to 'sex'. All he wants is for her to destroy every last bit of evidence this project ever existed so that he and Margaret may disappear into the ether.

“Yes—look—I am. But—do you know who she was? In the future—you and I—“

“There is no ‘you and I’. There was you, and there was a hobby that you had.”

A hobby that tickled her fancy, for a time. One that could bring her to orgasm with mouth, prick and fingers. She’d trained him well, that little cat, like an obedient pet she liked to play with.

“Destroy all trace of this project. Or by God I will pull this trigger and send you to Arthur to make your apologies on behalf of the Ministry directly.”

This is the blow that does it. Real pain and fear flash across her eyes. He nearly winces. Harsh, even considering the circumstances they’re now in. Perhaps there is part of him that simply wants to punish her. If she didn’t already hate him, surely she hates him now. 

Perhaps it is better this way for both of them.

She seems to shrink herself even smaller into the chair. He stands beside her, gun pointed at her head. She types frantically at the laptop, clicking and pressing at keys. It seems to be working, objects flashing and disappearing on the screen. As he shifts position, the barrel of the gun brushes against her hair and she lets out a cry of terror.

Against his will, this time he flinches. He’s never seen her so frightened and it’s all at his hands. It does something to him—to his hardened resolve. 

She looks up at him then, eyes wet beneath the sweeping fan of her lashes. He meets them, for the last time holding her stare.

His armour is cracking—it’s only slight, but it’s there. His mouth trembles. He’s buckling under the strain, exhausted from the sheer exertion of his anger. He doesn’t want to hold her here like a cornered animal anymore. He just wants it to be done. To be gone from here before any more damage can be done. 

“Just do it quickly,” he whispers at last. 

She jitters and shakes. Eyes rimmed red and wet with tears as she clacks away at the keyboard.

The gun quivers in his hand. The need for focus is perhaps more important than it’s ever been, and yet, he’s never felt less in control—

“Graham—”

“Stop saying my name!” He cries, then inwardly curses himself—this loosening of his restraint.

He cannot have her weakening him like that. It does things to him when she says his name. Terrible things. 

She continues typing. She is shivering now, beads of nervous sweat rolling down her forehead. He is sweating too, hears that his own breathing is too heavy. He must keep his aim steady and his heart inured to her…

“There! It’s done! The project—it’s gone.” She pushes the laptop away from her across the table. “Please—put the gun down and let me—”

“No. I’m leaving.” He steps back away from her. He doesn’t dare yet lower that gun. “I’m taking Maggie with me and you will not attempt to track us. I know when I became your lover you used me as you liked and now you hold me in contempt, but I think you still care for Maggie. If they capture her, they’ll kill her. If you love her you won’t help them.”

He hates to wield Margaret as a weapon at her, but this is the one thing he's sure of. Even if he was just a tool for her pleasure and amusement, he knows she adores Maggie.

She looks up at him then, her eyes glassy and defeated. She’s no longer crying, but her voice is small and hopeless and terribly fragile when she says:

“Did you ever love me?”

For only a second, he freezes.

The question is unexpected and sends him stumbling off course, his heart thudding in his chest. For there underlying her words, the implication is plain:

That she loves him.

But no. No. She is not friend now but foe. She will not lure him in with her crocodile tears and feline tricks. They will not ride off into the sunset, footloose and fancy free. It ends here. Now.

“Stay here,” he hisses at her. “Don’t follow me.” He backs out from the kitchen, still keeping her in his sights, lest she try to ambush him. Then he darts down the hallway and out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

He is angry and shaken all over again. He hasn’t eaten for hours, but feels like vomiting the remaining dregs of his stomach contents. He drives erratically back to the hostel. It is by the grace of God he doesn’t get himself killed weaving in and out of London traffic.

He fears her last words shall haunt him forever.

Lat., 61.217381’ N., long, 149.863129’ W.

Diary,

It is summer here in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. Temperature 67°F. 

I am doing quite well, all things considered.

Margaret and I are renting a small cabin just outside the city core. Margaret has found work tending a local tavern and is delighted by it. It is the first source of work she has ever had, and it is very meaningful for her. 

I myself have found work captaining large boats taking tourists on whale watches to Prince William Sound. It is not exactly where I envisioned myself in life—certainly not where my dear father would have expected me to be, but it is steady wages, plus tips, and keeps my mind ever occupied. My employer expects that I will be moving up in the ranks in office soon, but I find I like to be out on the sea.

We have purchased a very old, used ‘Jeep Wrangler’ to get around in. The heating and cooling mechanisms are finicky at best, downright not working at worst, but it gets us from point A to point B. A motorbike is simply not practical in this climate, and it is not so easy to get around these parts without any automobile transport at all. It took some getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road as they do here in the America’s. Very strange! But I do believe now I’ve gotten the hang of it. I’ve also obtained my fishing, hunting and trapping licenses, which helps greatly with the cost of victuals. It is remarkably easy here to obtain arms…

I’ve even found a local church to join. They offer a lovely Sunday service. Perhaps I shall find some community here of my own.  

It has been somewhat difficult to remember that I am Roger Clutterbuck now. But I expect these are just growing pains I will continue to get used to, as like all things in this era.

If I may end this missive with a quote :

“Freedom is a very dangerous thing. But it is precious even if it is dangerous.”

All Well.

G.G. [R.C.]

And all is mostly well, now that the anger has passed.

It was a burning anger, those first days after he left the safehouse. An anger that could not be quelled.

Anger that they were forced to abscond. Anger that Arthur was gone and at his bridge for her betrayal. Then the anger at himself.

For letting her pull the wool over his eyes. For letting himself fall in love with her and then getting so carried away with it. And then perhaps the worst of all: his fury that she’d left him with doubts in his head.

Margaret cried a lot in those early days of their escape. She hadn’t been exactly content to be locked inside her safehouse while the twenty-first century went on outside without her, but at least they’d all had each other and Arthur had still been alive. They had just lost their dearest friend at the hands of the Brigadier and a spy working on the inside. Perhaps even by the glaring omissions of his bridge. The woman she was dating too had been murdered most savagely. She was mourning and scared and he had been so angry then, he fears this may have frightened her as well.

He had disposed of the gun in the river, abandoned his precious motorbike in a London back alley. Then they took the tube to port before dawn to set sail to New York. It was he the rogue male now, disguised and broken and out on the run.

“Shall we really abandon her here?” Margaret asked tearfully after they left the hostel. “Your poor bridge?” 

“Do you suppose we might simply invite her along?" he'd snapped back. "A traitor, whom we cannot trust?”

“Gray. I do not think she intended for any of this to come to pass. We are casting her to the wolves! Suppose they now kill her?”

“Do not make excuses for her.” He knew Margaret had heard every word that was said when they confronted Adela. “She knew exactly what she was doing when she went behind our backs and withheld pertinent information. She fooled us both and now Arthur is dead.”

“We cannot lay the blame for Arthur upon her. The Vice Secretary said—”

“I know what she said.” 

“I do verily believe she was not the one behind the Ministry’s designs! I forgave her for not telling us of the microchips. I think her affections for you were true, Gray. The look of her visage when she spoke of you—”

“That’s enough, Maggie.”

She wasn’t used to him using his officer’s voice on her. Firm with an edge of stern. Her mouth had clamped shut. She dropped the subject after that.

By the time their ship had sailed from London, his anger had quieted to something cold and pliable, to be dismissed and tucked away at will. 

The conditions on the cargo ship had been rather good—certainly better than what they would have been in his time: humans suffering in their own filth and disease, to be kept confined to the hold. They each had their own berth in their own spacious cabin. He’d slept like the dead that first night, drained of all his adrenaline. He supposed he was used to rooming with unmarried women now and this time it was hardly of note. Only Margaret had complained the next morning, of his murmuring indecipherably in his sleep. 

The ship’s crew assumed they were husband and wife and neither bothered to correct them. It seemed safer, less conspicuous somehow, for strangers to remember them as a kindly married couple. Margaret didn’t always help matters when she slapped him boisterously on the shoulder in front of other people, calling him ‘sugar plum’ and ‘dear husband’ and all other manner of ridiculous terms of endearment, until he told her to take it down a notch—but they made it work, in the end. 

He’d been eager to assist the crew where he could on deck, but forced himself to hold back. He didn’t want to be remembered as the random passenger willing to lend a hand to the ship’s crew—he knows enough now to know this is not something most modern day passengers would do. A sure tell, should anyone be coming after them.

Soon though, Margaret’s tears had stopped. She began to adjust to the new way of things. Anything was better than being imprisoned in a room recovering from the plague, after all. She was adaptable, amenable—perhaps even more so than him.

When at last they docked in New York, she had been ecstatic. She thought the city was sheer magic and wanted them to stay—to get lost in the endless crowds; living in a tiny flat amidst the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. “This is verily the place to make my start producing cinema!” She’d raved, eyes sparkling with excitement. 

But the raucous city was just too busy and expensive. It gave him a great deal of stress and headache trying to find somewhere they could afford to live. Soon even Margaret had to agree. They needed somewhere remote and isolated. Somewhere less expensive. Somewhere, Graham could clear his head.

“Where do you wish to venture hence, Gray?”

He slid down in front of her a tourist brochure he’d picked up at a travel centre from the Tourism Association of Alaska.

“Alaska?” She wrinkled her nose.

He nodded. “Alaska.”

“Very well, Gray. To Alaska we shall go.”

They boarded a coach bus that would take them across the continent to Washington state, purchasing their one-way tickets in cash. It was a long journey with only short stops along the way. But soon, flat green plains rolled into the peaked and forested landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, and his hopes began to mount again.

From Bellingham, Washington, they ferried to Alaska. It was five more days at sea and Margaret had never been sicker, popping tablets of ginger as if they were penny candies. But as they'd broached the docks of Whittier and the great peaks of the Alaskan mountain range, he felt for the first time since leaving England, relief, and a sense of numbness that was almost comforting.

He didn’t want to feel anymore. Didn't want to sit with even the infinitesimal possibility he’d made a mistake; that there should be room in his calloused heart for forgiveness.

He put London out of his mind. The Ministry. Her. He was a different man now with a new identity. He would carve out his own way. He was Roger Clutterbuck now, whether he liked it or not. With their unspoken agreement to never speak of Her again, he could let himself pretend it had never happened. That she had never come into his life.

From Whittier they took their last bus to Anchorage. They'd stayed at an inn scarcely a step above the dripping and decaying safehouses they had just abandoned. They splurged just enough to get a room with two beds, but they needed to ration their savings where they could until Graham could find work. 

It took some time to find lodgings that would let to them in cash, without any background checks. He feared they would run out of funds before they ever found something.

But finally one landlord must have taken pity on them. He agreed to let them his furnished cabin on a month to month basis, accepting three months rent upfront in cash. This is the two-bedroom cabin they now live in on the outskirts of Anchorage.

Yet for all his diligent planning, when he’d decided on the United States as their escape point, it seems he hadn’t looked into it quite closely enough—perhaps another of his failings as an officer. He’d put on a brave face for Margaret, but he’d been worried. He hadn’t quite realised the hoops one had to jump through in this land of freedom to find work: Visas and work permits that could take months. Green cards and social security numbers. His head was spinning with all the barriers that stood before them. 

It was another stroke of good fortune then, that their landlord liked him. For when Graham had mentioned he was looking for work, their landlord helped him secure the job with the whale tours through his connections, which pays him in cash and doesn’t ask questions.

At first Margaret had stayed at the cabin doing their chores and trying in earnest to learn to chop wood for their woodstove. But she quickly grew bored of playing the idle housewife. It seemed she may have taken it to heart that the Ministry hadn’t seen her ‘potential’. She wanted to contribute—insisted upon it, in fact. That’s when she found her own work at a small bohemian tavern in downtown Anchorage. It amazes Graham, the sheer volume of tips she comes home with. 

Graham works five days a week, spending long hours at sea. Occasionally he picks up weekend shifts in which they pay him double. Unlike the Navy, he is usually home in time for supper. Margaret cooks their meals during the week. They sit down together to eat before he is in bed again for an early start the next morning. From Thursdays through Sunday after they sup, Margaret is off to the tavern.

Each night, after they have finished eating, Graham pours himself a glass of whiskey. Sometimes after the first glass, he pours another. It just so happens that on most nights he ends up pouring a second, then a third. On occasion after the third, he loses count.

Margaret does seem to be in relatively good spirits considering the upheaval to their lives. It is not film school in Prague certainly, but she is looking at applying to schools locally. She has met many friends through her work and the adult language classes she continues. Her modern English and writing gets better everyday. Graham is proud. He hopes that between the two of them, they might well save enough that she’ll be able to go to school.

He insists she can look outside Alaska to apply, but Margaret is adamant that she doesn’t want to. She says it’s because she loves her job and the Alaskan scenery, not to mention she has met someone now she is quite fond of—a young lady by the name of Jade—but Graham knows it is he that holds her back. She feels sorry for him and doesn’t want to leave him out here on his own. 

There are some luxuries he misses of course. His Spotify account for one. The endless supply of cigarettes he hadn't quite realised were so expensive. Now that he must fund his own habit, he has cut back. Besides that, he must go for long hours on the boats without smoking. At the very least, his lungs shall thank him. He hopes to renounce the habit altogether—one day. 

He has no phone or laptop to speak of. Margaret purchased a ‘prepaid’ phone so that she may keep in touch with her friends here, but Graham has no connection himself to the world outside Alaska and intends to keep it that way. If his work so requires him, they telephone Margaret instead. 

Of course at times it is still a challenge for two people born centuries ago to figure out how things are supposed to work, no longer with bridges to guide them. But they manage the best they can. They look up words they don’t know on Margaret’s phone. They mimic other people and they bumble along in truth because, they have to.

For the first while, Margaret nagged at him to teach her how to drive so she could obtain her own instruction permit. It was somehow even worse than teaching her to dance, if that was possible. 

“Slow down when you turn!”

“Not the gas pedal, Maggie, the brake!”

Things became tense between them—for a short time—until she grasped the basic concepts and didn’t get them nearly killed every time she got behind the wheel. Eventually, she got her permit. 

All in all, things are well and truly fine, out here in Alaska.

“Do you need me to ration your drink for you, Gray, or are you hellbent on pickling that poxy liver of yours?”

Margaret stands in front of him, her hands on her hips. She is getting ready for work wearing the usual low-cut garments that seem to be most favoured in her line of work. He tries not to be the overbearing patriarch. He gave up commenting on her choice of attire weeks ago.

He is sitting at the table having just cleared away their supper dishes, a glass of whiskey in front of him along with his sketchbook. He quickly closes it. “I am simply enjoying some grog in my kitchen after a gruelling day of work. Is that a crime now?”

“And yesterday. And the day before that. And the last several weeks—”

“With all due respect, Margaret Kemble, I would advise you to mind yourself.”

“At least if you are bent on drinking, Gray, don’t do it alone.”

“Maggie. It is one drink. I am fine.”

“Yes, Gray. Completely fine. Pray, hear me out. ‘Tis a Friday night. Why not drive me into my work then remain for a drink? Converse with the other patrons...”

He sighs. He supposes it wouldn’t be the worst idea for him to go out into the world and meet people.

“Oh, all right. If it will get you off my back for a night.”

When she takes her leave to finish getting ready, he throws back the last of his whiskey and crumples up the sketch he was drawing: a bewitching girl with cat-like eyes and a beguiling little mouth. She laughs as she straddles her bicycle, long strands of hair blowing in a summer’s breeze across her face. 

The tavern is packed to the very gills that night. He sits up at the bar with Margaret, chatting with her in between her wiping down the bar, taking orders and handing out drinks. She seems truly herself while she tends here. It is quite a wonder to see. Her workmates clearly adore her and she manages to ward off the many men who proposition her with admirable grace.

“Roger, have you met Lavender?”

For a moment he forgets it is he who is supposed to be answering to ‘Roger’.

A woman of about her early thirties has seated herself next to him at the bar. She is quite comely with long legs and a head of curly blond hair. 

“Lavender is one of our ‘regulars’.”

“Hi, Roger.” The woman sticks out a manicured hand. “Lavender.”

He reluctantly takes her hand and shakes it. “Roger.”

God, how he hates that name.

They engage in polite conversation over drinks—‘on the house’—Margaret proudly tells them. The conversation is pleasant enough, if not slightly vapid.

Lavender sits with her elbow propped on the bar, chin resting in her hand and a dreamy look upon her face. It is clear she is interested in pursuing him. There is hardly anything subtle about the way she leans in towards him and touches his arm whenever she can. But it is somewhat gratifying to have garnered the attentions of another woman, and so he lets it wash over him, nourishing his bruised and battered ego.

“So how do you two know each other anyway?” asks Lavender.

“Mar—Jane and I? We are housemates.”

She asks him what he does for a living. He tells her. Then—

“But I was once an officer of the British Navy.”

Ah, perhaps he should not have let that part slip.

“Ooh the Navy? You’re so proper and British.” She giggles and touches his arm again. “I just love a man in uniform.” 

He somehow doubts she is picturing the type of uniform that he used to wear. But he tilts his head as he studies her. Perhaps it is the whiskey that’s loosened his tongue.

“Why don’t you call me by my middle name? Most do. It’s Graham.”

She invites him home with her that night. He doesn’t let himself think about it overmuch and accepts the invitation. She is nothing like the sort of woman he is partial to, and that is enough for him.

‘Hooking up’, as Margaret calls it, is easier and far safer than it was in his time. Therefore, he can hardly be blamed when he lets her seduce him. He’s been lonely and even bored with just himself and his hand, no one now to warm his bed. It hasn’t helped matters that Margaret often has Jade over to spend the night, further reminding him of his status as a perpetual bachelor. He was embarrassed and disgusted when the Wellness team taught the expats about ‘Safe Sex’, but now he finds the information comes in handy when he knows how to use a rubber to sheath himself.

The sex is fine. She is loud, moaning from the very start (and he knows he is not that good); throwing out vulgar words like ‘cock’ and ‘pussy’ as if they are going out of fashion. It takes much longer for him to finish than he would have expected. Longer than if had he just used his hand. He falls asleep in her bed afterwards, passing out finally from exhaustion and drink. 

He wakes up at around four the next morning, utterly horrified with himself and with a terrible whiskey headache to boot. Lavender is asleep in the bed beside him, lightly snoring with her mouth open.

Good grief, Commander. What have you done? 

He slips out of bed, scrambling in the dark to find his trousers and shirt. He manages to locate a pen and paper on her desk and pens her a brief note, wishing her well and thanking her for her company. He somehow feels even worse about himself—if that was possible—and worse again when he sees the Jeep outside her townhouse, realising he drove them both here while he was half in the bag. 

He stumbles outside, fumbling for his keys, and drives back to the cabin. As soon as he parks, he rushes inside and vomits on his knees in the toilet.

The next evening he is still awake drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes when Margaret gets home from work. It is approaching two in the morning. 

“Really, Gray? Did your rotting hangover earlier not teach you a lesson?”

“Hair of the dog,” he says, his voice little more than a croak. He feels sick with himself. The whiskey seems to be the only way he can try to forget that fact.

“Well.” She walks over. Sets down a paper in front of him with several digits scrawled across it. “Lavender was in this eve. She was asking after you, Graham. I think she fancies you dearly. I did not wish to know that your ‘BDE lived up to the hype’ but so it is.” She follows this with a noise distinctly that of disgust.

“‘BDE’?”

She flaps a hand at him. “Do not ask me!”

He raises an eyebrow. “Did you tell her I do not own a phone?”

“You shall tell her yourself. You may borrow mine to call her. Do you not wish to see her again?”

He doesn’t. Their connection is nothing like the one he had with—no. No. No. It was simply not there, that’s all.

“No.” He sighs. “She was perfectly nice, but I’m not interested in—in courting her.”

“Gray. You must move onward. She is gone—” 

“I did not say it was because of her,” he snaps. “I simply did not feel it was a ‘fit’. You try on clothing until you find the right fit, remember?”

“Well, might you at least tell her that then? You are acting as a fuckboy!”

He recoils. “What did you just call me?”

“A fuckboy. A playboy. A cad.”

“Incredible.” He slowly shakes his head. The things she picks up at that tavern. “Now I’m a ‘fuckboy’!”

“I did not say that you were one. I said you were acting as it.”

He looks down at his hands on the table, feeling suddenly rancid with shame.

”I’m sorry, Maggie…for raising my voice. I will deal with the matter at once. And I suppose I did tell her my Christian name…it was careless.” He shakes his head. “A slip up—and it shan’t happen again.”

“Well, then I thank you for your grace. Oh, and another matter. We keep these at the ready at my bar.” She flings down a glossy leaflet in front of him. He picks it up.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Anchorage. 

He doesn't take the leaflet, but after that he does pour the rest of his whiskey down the sink.

Margaret is annoyed with him again. It seems to lately be an emerging trend.

Lavender has been in and out of her tavern all week pleading for information about him. It seems he cannot stop himself from making a muddle of things in this era, no matter the continent. He considers whether they might need to move again, somewhere even more remote.

Then he makes the grave mistake of asking one of the younger men of his work crew the meaning of the term ‘BDE’. His shipmate laughs. Tells him it is something that ‘chicks’ say—something like the easy confidence of a man who is well endowed, is the best he could glean from the slang-riddled conversation. He is so mortified by the interaction that he adds it to the growing list of reasons they may need to venture elsewhere—perhaps heading even further north.

He uses Margaret’s phone to telephone Lavender. He tells her he very much enjoyed their evening together, but is not looking for something more, as Margaret coached him to say. The conversation ends in a fit of her shouting and tears, but at least it is done now, and he will ensure he doesn’t make the same mistake ever again. 

It is Saturday. Margaret is helping Graham prepare the ingredients for a venison casserole he is making for their supper. He has the kitchen radio turned to his favourite local station, ‘Anchorage Oldies’, and for the first time in weeks since he quit the drink, he is in a fine mood.

He is setting the casserole into the oven when a familiar set of guitar notes begin to stream cheerfully through the kitchen.

I don’t like you but I love you, seems that I’m always, thinking of you...

Oh, oh, oh, you treat me badly, I love you madly, you’ve really got a hold on me—

In the end it seems, it is the caterwaulers who break him.

“Maggie, will you turn that off?”

“The oven? But Gray, we only just—”

“The radio.”

I don’t want you, but I need you, don’t want to kiss you, but I need to—

“The radio?”

My love is strong now, you’ve really got a hold on me—

“Maggie, please!”

At the desperation in his voice, at last she shuts it off on the counter beside her. The silence in the kitchen is abrupt. Margaret looks, understandably, confused.

“Gray, whatever is the matter? You look awfully pale...”

He forces a broad smile across his face but his hands are trembling. He runs his hand through his hair, trying to regain his composure. 

“I’m quite well, actually! I was just thinking. Why don’t I make us a spot of afternoon tea?”

Margaret looks sceptical. “Tea? Well, all right.”

He sets out to boil the water, humming a childhood hymn under his breath. He puts on a good show of cheer, but it is too late to dam it back up. For all the guilt and sorrow he’s been burying away over the last several months have been building and strengthening in secret. Now they are impatient. Bursting to get out to the surface.  

He is pouring the boiling water from the kettle into two mugs when he hears Margaret screaming. She is running towards him. He looks down. The boiling water has been flowing over the top of the mug and down his hand—the parts that have lost their feeling to frostbite.

She rips the kettle away from him. “For God’s sake, Graham!”

She is yanking him towards the sink now, running his reddened hand under the flow of cool water. After some time, she guides him to the kitchen table so she can better assess what he’s done. Dazed, he sinks into the chair.

Mumbling and cursing under her breath, she retrieves a first aid kit from a cupboard in the kitchen.

She carefully bandages his swelling hand with gauze. When she finishes her handiwork, she peers up at him, brow knitted.

“What happened to you, Gray? You look as though you have seen a ghost!”

At the concern in her voice, immediately he slumps over in the chair, burying his face in his hands. He fights to stifle them but the emotion is overpowering. Tears begin to course their way down his face. 

“Oh, Gray…” 

And so he cries his silent tears.

For the men he lost and abandoned.

For the Inuit man he killed, and the widow he left broken hearted.

For his parents who died with broken hearts of their own, losing both their sons years before them, left without even bones for them to bury.

For Arthur, who loved him more than he deserved, poisoned and left to die alone.

For the burgeoning career in the Ministry he gained and then lost, and the way they violated and betrayed him.

And he cries because he finally met the love of his life, then he lost her just the same. And he misses her.

God, how he misses her.

For some time, Margaret just sits with him. If anything she seems calmed, rather than spooked by his anguish. He manages to lift his face from his hands. He rests the hand he hasn’t burned on the table. Margaret places her own over it.

“She’s gone,” he croaks. “I held a gun to her head and I left her there, thinking that I never loved her.”

He never shared his feelings with her. Not once. That she even had to ask if he ever loved her is a failing on his part. He thought he had shown her with his actions, but first he left her doubting his feelings, then he left her thinking that he hates her.

He never told her even once how beautiful he found her.

“Why don’t you make attempts to contact her?”

He nods tearfully. “Yes.”

All the ghastly things he last said to her at the safehouse—the accusations he made. Reducing months of their time together to being nothing more than meaningless lies.

“You will write to her, won’t you, Gray?”

“Suppose she's…met someone else?”

She shakes her head, her smile rueful. “She hasn’t, Gray. I know that she hasn’t.”

“It will have to be…secret. Untraceable. So that it shall not fall into the wrong hands.”

“Yes, Gray.” She pats his hand. “If there is anyone who may plan for such a thing, it is you.”

When he stands up to leave, she gets up with him.

“This isn’t like me, you know,” he murmurs. “Once an officer of the Royal Navy, now I’m—how very unbecoming...”

“Pssh. Come here.” 

He lets her fold him into her arms, pulling him into her warm embrace. 

“That song,” he whispers. “The caterwaulers—we danced. Her and I—in the kitchen.” 

She pats him gently on the back. “I miss her too, Gray. And I miss Arthur. So very much.”

“I miss him too, Maggie.”

His tears dampen her shoulder. He is embarrassed. Ashamed of his weakness. But afterward, he feels better than he has in months.

He tries to write her letters but everything he seems to put down on paper seems trite and insufficient. He is awful at putting his feelings into words, both by tongue and with the pen. Several more weeks go by, and still he hasn’t written. 

He’s enjoying yet another read of Rogue Male. It is a distraction besides, but a good one. He keeps it next to him on his bedside table as though it is his Bible.

It has been some time since he’s turned to it, and so it feels almost fresh again reading it at this new point in his life. He does feel a little guilty that he pilfered it from his bridge, but it has gotten him through so much since his time in the twenty-first century, he feels almost certain she would understand.

It should have been an ordinary read like every other, but one part makes him pause and take a closer look, for while he’s read the book many times before, this time it seems to bring to him a new meaning.

She knew, I suppose, that in our mixture of impulse and intelligence we were alone. Her emotions governed her brain; though she would support her side with devastating logic, logic had nothing to do with her devotion. I should never have suspected that of myself, yet it is true. I have never taken sides, never leaped wholeheartedly into one scale or the other; nor do I realise disappointments, provided they are severe, until the occasion is long past. Yet I am ruled by my emotions, though I murder them at birth.

He sets the book down and closes his eyes.

This passage could be speaking directly to him of he and Little Cat. The tactician and magician he always thought she was, yet underlying it all, the unending devotion to him he’d unfairly dismissed. 

All his life he has denied and suppressed his emotions, and yet everything he does—that he has ever done—has been at the behest of them.

How many months now has he held his grief at bay? Forced himself to think he was fine, and then almost believed it at the cost of his well being? His denial of his feelings for her then, and even now—but especially now. His refusal to be anything but pleasant and neutral, an upstanding officer, yet ruled by the very anger that led him to hold a gun at her temple...to fleeing the continent without a second backward glance only for the passing of time to make him realise at last what he’s lost. 

That he’s lost her. 

He takes a pen and carefully underlines the book’s passage. Then in the margin below it, he writes:

Of course I loved you.

Then he sets the book down. It seems even this small act of emotion has winded him. 

The photograph he takes with Margaret’s phone—of the vast grounds behind their cabin. He has it printed at the local Walmart.

The landscape is distinctly Alaskan: sitka spruce trees, a tumble of upturned earth. A hint of blue lake in the background. If you look close enough, you can see the faint strands of Margaret’s hair and the whisper of her bright pink snowsuit—the very one she’d been elated to find on a sale at a local sporting goods shop. 

He tucks the photograph inside the book, marking the underlined passage. He leaves it on his bedside table—for just a few more days. He finds even now he still needs time to think on it. 

One day finally, he picks up the book again and flips to the page that he wrote on. With his pen he makes a small correction, for he isn’t sure that what he’d initially written was wholly accurate. Then he reads it back to himself:

Of course I loved you.

Much better. 

He scrawls her Christian and surname on the front of the parcel. The teller at the post office warns him that without a proper address or even a return, it could get lost forever in the post. But this is the chance he must take. 

He doesn’t have her parents’ address—the best he can do is provide a description and approximate geographical location based on the things she told him about the home where she grew up: the lake and the forest nearby where she played with her sister as faeries. The generations of geese who hissed at her.

He mails it, pictures it making its way across sea and continent, then finally to England and her front step. He’s entrusted his fate to the US and British postal services, sealing it off with a stamp.

“Come back to me, my little cat,” he whispers.

He says a short prayer that the little parcel will find her, then heads off to work.

The rest is in God’s hands now.