For Letty

[bleak_midwinter]

Comments

[leavetreadmarks]

Once she knows she's in the right place - she doesn't comment on the opinions she gets of Tommy, though she notes them, because one conversation in a medical tent that started with a language few enough speak does not a peacetime picture make - she doesn't speak with anyone further; the men she stares at until they keep walking past her, the cigarette butt between two of her fingers ready to bring to bear as more than something to calm her nerves with if they get too close to her. She's strong, but she's small, and she's alone, and this is the kind of neighborhood that can provide an army with an entire unit of its strapping young men.

She recognizes him, standing in the shelter of an alcove between two of the buildings, carefully not in anyone's porch and not below anyone's window. She flicks ash from her cigarette, and she looks at him, and she doesn't smile.

"Not anymore," she tells him, and the bitterness is there, too, but she blows it out with a short breath of smoke. So many people became completely different when the war spat them back out: Letty had been calm then, purpose well in hand, a place in the world. Now she's coiled tight and ready, wary and aloof but for the steady directness of her gaze. She looks the horse over - unsurprised, really, to note that it's a fine animal - but ultimately looks back up at him. "You remember, Sergeant Major Shelby."

[bleak_midwinter]

Tommy, of course, still does answer to the title. Even if he is no longer on active duty, so many of the men here see him as the Sergeant Major that he's kept answering to it. He runs a hand through the horse's mane to calm it, and then gracefully dismounts.

"I remember kindness and strength in the middle of pandemonium," he says, slowly, looking at her. Yes, she's changed, but not in a way that anyone would find surprising. She has made it all the way to Birmingham, and for a woman alone to think that trip is worth it she must have seen things far worse.

"If someone took that rank from you, they didn't deserve to. Have you come for your gun, Corporal?"

If there is anything in the world Tommy respects, it's a man who did his duty, who served. That courtesy certainly extends to women.

[leavetreadmarks]

That almost does make her smile, or at least makes her less willing to scowl at him, but the truth is she resents it only because she will always resent anything that has been taken from her by any stretch of the imagination. She willingly announced her departure from the company. They placed their exit demands upon her, of which that was one.

"Letty," she offers instead, to set aside the conversation. Then a deeper breath, and more firmly still: "And yes, I have. Although I admit to doubting it would be that simple." She straightens off the wall, scraping the lit end of the cigarette off behind her, tucking it away into her pocket.

"Would it, brother?" All but the last word is English. His treatment of the horse and the few words he's given her so far speak to a man she might not need to threaten to keep away from her, but she has ever been the kind of woman that makes certain others know exactly where she expects them to stand in relation to her.

[bleak_midwinter]

"You've travelled too far to meet resistance now, sister." His hand is still resting on the horse's neck, keeping it quiet and still next to him as he looks at her. Yes, he decides: he'd pegged her right in the war, and she still deserves the respect he'd given her then.

"Though I hope you'd let us receive you as a guest in our home before you left with what you came for." He keeps his distance, says our so she knows he doesn't wish to lure her into his home.

[leavetreadmarks]

She doesn't need calming like the horse does, although she doesn't miss that at all; neither does she miss returning the title here, too. She nods after a moment, stepping forward to hold her hand out to the horse, letting it decide whether to draw back from her or investigate by standing absolutely still for him.

And then our, which makes Letty's glance go quickly to Tommy's hands for something she'd missed before, raising an eyebrow. "Us?" A pause and, utterly straight-faced and without softening at all: "You don't mean the horse."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Well, the rumors have to come from a place of truth," he deadpans, while he looks at the horse investigating her hand.

"I mean my family- brothers, sister, aunt," he continues, now twitching a smile.

[leavetreadmarks]

He twitches a small smile; the one she'd been considering as the horse brushes its tough, coarse upper lip over her palm sets under her skin where it had started to form. His family. Of course. Most people have that, after all.

She's just proud and just spiteful enough that she drops her hand and clears her throat to decline out of hand; but the horse pulls against Tommy's steadying grip to stretch its neck after her and she hesitates.

Finally, weighing how very tired and alone she is against how far pride can get a woman in life - especially misused as an excuse to be contrary - she nods.

"Of course. If it's no trouble."

[bleak_midwinter]

"If it was trouble I wouldn't have extended the invitation in the first place," he says, jerking his head slightly to indicate the direction they'll be going. He's not a man hangs tightly onto courtesy.

It's a short walk from where he'd seen her, and he leaves the horse tied down to a ring in the wall. "We'll be right back for you, girl, don't you worry," he murmurs, before patting her and opening the door.

He's taking them through the office, and so she walks right into the chaos of betting, of John calling out the races, the times, the horses that are up to be betted on; Scudboat taking and cashing out, Arthur in his office. She's welcome to look, but if she doesn't want to he'll go through the green doors in the back, into the kitchen.

[leavetreadmarks]

She follows, pulling her coat tight around her and waiting as he tethers the horse. Letty doesn't know what it is she's expecting when they walk through the door but it certainly isn't what she's confronted with, and her eyes go wide in the splitsecond before she catches herself.

Look she does, once she notes that Tommy doesn't bustle her on through; she's seen war and she's been far from home but she's not worldly enough to have the first clue what she's looking at, at first. Her eyes narrow as she tries to follow the current of it, watching where the money goes, trying to match it up with why, with the numbers and the names the men are calling. She glances at the cards with their numbers, and the men counting the cash.

Most of all, she notes that no one so much as looks twice at her, and the only time she has to push her way through is when there physically isn't enough space for her to pass.

By the time ages followed Tommy into the kitchen, her cheeks are ever so slightly flushed and she's forgotten all about being acerbic for the moment.

"What was that?"

[bleak_midwinter]

"Family business," he says, twitching a smile at her as he closes the doors- it's immediately quiet, leaving them with the fire in the hearth, the tiles, the china cabinet and the personal photographs.

"We're bookmakers. Horse racing." And there's a subtle undertone of is that going to be a problem? Because it has been, too often.

[leavetreadmarks]

She's still too focused back where they came from to really note their current surroundings, which is good; it lets her acclimate to being in what is clearly the private portion of someone's home - a stranger's home - before she has to actually deal with it.

She just looks at him for a moment at the question, hearing the unspoken one loud and clear, before she shakes her head just once. "No," she adds, just in case. Then: "Was that a test?"

[bleak_midwinter]

He rubs his mouth, once, and raises his eyebrows. "No," he says, slowly, as he walks to the stove, to boil some water. "But you passed it either way. What would the test have been, in your opinion?"

[leavetreadmarks]

He begins making preparations. She watches him, her hands folded around her elbows.

"I haven't the first idea. What I do know is the way some people reacted when I said your name, and the fact that licensed businesses have signs outside of their buildings so they can be found."

Obviously, not something that unlicensed businesses would want.

[bleak_midwinter]

"So either we trust our customers to find us, or we are unlicensed," he posits, turning back to her. He looks a little harder, like he still expects her to walk right out the door.

"Or both."

[leavetreadmarks]

She doesn't look as though she's about to walk anywhere; indeed, she has always had a particularly solid way about her when she refuses to budge, despite her size. Much larger men than she have backed down from trying to go through her when she sets her jaw just so and pins them with her eyes.

This is the much milder version: still immobile, but nodding, agreeing. "Or both."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Have you ever seen a race, Letty? Ever make a bet?" Seeing how she won't budge, he relaxes slightly, and the faint smile comes back to his face.

"We've done this for three generations, now. We've been here a long time, keeping things in order."

[leavetreadmarks]

"Not like you mean," she allows, rolling her shoulders back a bit, dropping her arms. "Country races, boys in the field on their prize horses trying to prove them better than the other. Higher prices, not much more, and the bets are for chores or for a piece of jewelry, spending money."

Nothing like this. "It does well for your family, this business. Bookmaking."

[bleak_midwinter]

His eyes crinkle slightly at the corners when he smiles at that description-- he remembers those as well. He remembers participating in those, as a boy.

"It does. It has done, for a long time. It isn't easy, but it's good."

[leavetreadmarks]

She's quiet for a moment, considering all of it, the noise still at her back that she can hear if she listens.

Then she nods. "I'm glad, then. That you were able to come back to it, and your family, and that all of you seem to be doing well."

[bleak_midwinter]

"The two men I came in with, that day- they're both still here, too."

And that makes him proud, and happy- even if Freddie doesn't talk to him outside of cussing him out, even if Danny sees German soldiers in the streets of Birmingham.

[leavetreadmarks]

She remembers Danny and Freddie; she remembers pulling them out of the tent and handing them off to another nurse, but of course so many men died after that day anyway. She hadn't wanted to ask for the exact reason that she hadn't wanted to hear they were alright, and she hadn't wanted to hear that they were dead.

Her lips thin a little, but when she nods again, when she says, "That's good. I thought about the three of you, after we lost each other then. I spared a prayer for you. I'm glad someone was listening." she means it, too, even if it feels like swallowing sandpaper.

[bleak_midwinter]

That makes something in his eyes shift, interested but a little hollow. He tilts his head and looks at her, while the water starts boiling behind him.

"Do you still pray, Letty?"

[leavetreadmarks]

"Yes," she answers, her voice faintly, inexplicably sour-bitter right around the edges. "After I've done everything else I can do. A little breath seems a small price yo pay if it really does anything."

[bleak_midwinter]

"That you still have a glimmer of doubt about it doing anything says enough," he says, lips twisting wryly. He stopped long ago.

[leavetreadmarks]

"Does it?" she asks, half earnest, half arch. "All the same, it's my breath to waste as I see fit. I won't assign it credit - certainly not more than cover fire and a level head - but nonetheless, here the three of you are, home safe, which is more than others can say."