Chapter Text
Prologue: A Short Goodbye
4th June, 1918
Shepherds Bush, London
Her parents did not ask. They did not have to. The letter fell from her hands and fluttered onto the kitchen rug like an autumn leaf as she sank blindly into the chair her father quickly vacated for her.
Tears swam in her eyes and although she kept them from falling to her cheeks, they obscured her vision and she felt as though she were staring up at the world from the bottom of a lake. Her ears were ringing and somewhere beneath the ocean in her eyes she saw her father bend to pick up the letter. He paused for a moment to read its contents and murmured, for the benefit of her mother,
“Killed In Action.”
With a swish of cotton her mother stood and walked around the kitchen table, coming to crouch in front of her daughter. Her touch was gentle and warm as she softly placed a palm on either of Jemma’s knees, fingers moving slightly over the light linen of her summer skirt.
“Jemma,” her mother whispered, trying to break through the haze of emotion that floated around her. “Jemma. I know that the letter said he was killed in action but it might not mean – ”
“Of course it does,” Jemma interrupted harshly before her mother could finish, tears and fire in her voice in equal measure. She didn’t know whether she was devastated or angry, whether she should sob or scream. She thought perhaps, that once she had a moment alone, she would do both to test which felt more apt. Perhaps she’d do both a thousand times over.
She heard her mother make a noise that sounded as though she were about to continue talking, but, evidently, the words did not come. She finally blinked away her tears and saw that her mother had her lips pressed tightly together as she always did when she thought hard about something. She watched as her mother glanced over her shoulder at where her father was standing and, for a brief moment, her parents exchanged a series of looks. Her father looked stunned and slightly helpless, and grew ever more startled as her mother’s silent stare grew steelier (both he and Jemma understood that it was a message: ‘say something, tell her something comforting for goodness sake, don’t just stand there’). If the situation weren’t so terrible she might have laughed at the way her father looked as though he might wither away where he stood.
She appreciated his silence, however, and she knew that he perhaps understood her better than her mother. He had known that, because there was nothing anyone could say to make this any better, she would prefer the silence he offered. She half-smiled gratefully as he passed her by and placed a firm, bracing hand on her shoulder, before pulling his coat and hat from the stand by the door.
“I’m going to go to the factory and tell them you’ve had a bereavement. They can manage a few days without you,” he told her softly, but in a tone that suggested there’d be no arguing over the matter, even as she opened her mouth to say that she’d rather keep busy. He had left the house before she even had time to form the words, however.
She and her mother sat in silence before, eventually, her mother moved to the stove to heat some water.
“I’ll make up a pot of tea,” she said quietly, more to herself than to Jemma. “Sweet tea’s what you need after something like this.”
Jemma personally felt that there was nothing she wanted less than to drink tea, but didn’t have the fight within her to tell her mother otherwise. As her mother placed the kettle on the stove, Jemma did her best to think of anything but blood and battle, but instead (as a result, perhaps) found herself imagining, slowly, and in far too much detail, a hundred different ways a man might die at war. With every shuddering breath she drew, each scenario became more grisly than the last and she could not stop herself from wondering which of these moments might have been her best friend’s last.
When her mother eventually set the tea down in front of her, she drank it without thinking, and couldn’t care less that it scalded her mouth and burnt her throat as it settled, hot and uncomfortable, in her stomach.
“Jemma,” her mother whispered, concern furrowing her brow as she set her cup down too forcefully, her hand trembling. “Sweetheart…”
But Jemma was blind to her worry as she rose, quickly slipping on her shoes.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked, tone fretful.
“Mrs. Fitz needs to know. I don’t want her to hear from anyone else.” The door clattered shut behind her, and it was only once she was alone, as she walked slowly down the street, that she finally let the tears slide down her face and the sobs force themselves out of her mouth.