Pacifier

💔Isabelle🌹

Two days later Bob and Benji came knocking, less battered and bruised, just as tired, just as relieved to make it to our shelter in the middle of "bloody nowhere." 

And Benji had had tears in his eyes when he'd seen Camille sleeping on the sofa, her head on a pillow, a blanket draped over her willowy frame. Her hair was still pink in places stained with blood that wouldn't wash, but the scar on her cheek had faded and when she slept, her worst wounds hidden beneath one of Van's sweaters, she looked peaceful, serene and healthy. I'd felt like an intruder when I'd watched Benji crouch at her side, poking her nose until she woke up. 

"Oi little sis," he'd said, glinting smile when her eyes had opened, a frown on her brow at the sound of his voice, calling her that. 

"You'd think a war might have matured you Ben," she smirked pushing herself up, her small smile soft and tender, as tender as she knew how to show. Her eyes glowed, muted love, relief. Benji kissed her forehead, told her she'd scared him when he'd seen her in that hospital. 

"You scared me too," she said, didn't tell him when, left us all to assume she meant she'd been scared for him the whole time. Every day. I could understand that. 

The lads had all gathered in the bedroom upstairs, Johnny and Camille's room where my brother was resting up, to debrief, to exchange stories from the city, all the things they'd heard whilst they'd been holed up in various alcoves. My brother insistent he wouldn't take anything seriously, most of all his dire injuries, propped up in the centre of a double bed, joking about how he felt like a dying king. Every time one of us entered he'd raise a hand out to us slowly, a faint whisper of a croaky old mans voice saying, "ah there you are my child, come closer, I've something I must confess," 

Sometimes he'd joke about leaving his estate to the donkeys. Sometimes he'd just open his arms up for me, demanding I stop looking at him so worried and come give him a hug. 

For a week we lived quietly, me helping Camille fix Johnny's healing wounds, most of which were slowly scarring and fading. He told me every day that not a single one of them hurt. I told him every day he was a liar, a bad a one at that. Camille just smirked, let him believe she believed him. He knew she didn't. They were, it seemed, completely unchanged. 

At night I crawled into bed with Van, let my body rest atop his, my head on his chest, his hand in my hair. I'd ask him how things were going to be, he'd tell me to ask him again in a couple more days. He didn't know, a part of me believes he didn't really want to know. We were comfortable in that hideaway, now we had the family almost all together again. And those who weren't close were safe. Sam and Della were away, but they were together and we had more faith in them than we had in anyone. Dylan was down in London now, Benji had bestowed upon him the keys to a safe house and a fresh start, they were waiting for us, but any urgency had faded because they were far from the war zone and so were we. We could wait for Johnny to heal, we could live peacefully for a little while without fearing we were lingering too long. 

For a week we lived quietly, calmly, we lived softly, the six of us living slowly together, sleeping, resting, retreating into our little family. Knitting ourselves back together. And things were different this time. They felt tighter, felt closer than they ever had done before. 

And on the Sunday before we left, when Van tapped a silver spoon to a glass and called everyone to a family meeting, I had a seat at the table. 

"I've got plans for the business in London..." Van said, sipping a glass of whiskey he'd been saving for the day we all came together again, "Dylan and the girls are down in Shoreditch now, redecorating," he smirked, chewing his smile at his choice word, "and its legal this time an all.."

"Aye on the face of things," chuckled Benji, his eyes glistening with his old time teasing. When they met mine I felt myself biting back a smile. 

"Give over Blakes," smirked Van, "whoever heard of organised crime being run out the back of a record shop..." he rolled his eyes, drew another wave of amusement from us all. 

"Aye because that won't look remotely suspicious... a profitable record store..." teased Johnny, it was easy for us all to laugh now, when we had a future and a destination and something promised to us that sounded comfortingly familiar. A fresh start, that wasn't all that fresh at all. 

"Ey," smirked Van, "there'll be none of that negativity Bonds, our darling Camille has spent a lot of time and effort convincing our investors, people have put their faith in us..." 

"Oh aye," grinned Bondy, "investors from your little black book Milly?" he chuckled earning a scoff from Camille, a roll of her eyes as she dismissed him, smirked. 

"God you're so crass," she said sipping a whiskey of her own. 

"Honest," he said, catching my smirk and knocking my elbow with his. I was sitting between him and Van, listening to every word they said, feeling small but not small the way I once had. 

"So this viable record store then Van, the first of its kind might I add..." said Camille, "who's is it going to be?" she asked, a question which left a smirk on her lips and also on Van's. With the old business the family had split the enterprises between family names. The Amber Lounge had been the Blakeways, The Balcony had belonged to the McCanns. 

"Thought we'd try somet new this time," he said, "so there's someone from each family on the papers, you, Izzy and Blakes," he said his smirk twitching in the corner of his mouth when Camille frowned. 

She looked at him, her brow raised, not sceptical or suspicious but somewhere in between. 

"A Bond, a Mccann and a Blakeway..." he said, his smirk warm and decided as he held her gaze, as she understood and smirk, shaking her head at him in disbelief, unable to deny the smile which finally became her. 

I turned to Van, a disbelieving smile of my own simmering there. He hadn't asked, but he hadn't needed to. It was a future that felt inevitable to me then. We were each other's. We had been for a very long time. 

"You sneaky bastard," chuckled Bondy, his smile fond, his eyes twinkling as a blush, faint but glowing all the same tainted his cheeks, "Lyra would be proud." 

I hadn't been able to stop myself laughing at that. From all the stories I'd ever been told, all the small memories I had of my mother, I knew she'd been the string pulling matriarch, always scheming to pull the family together. 

That night I hovered over Van in bed, looking down at him through the soft darkness, a small smile on my lips. 

"Were you going to ask?" I asked, he smiled, I thought for a moment I saw a blush.

"Are you going to say yes?" he asked, biting his lip, looking up at me for a moment as if he really was uncertain. 

I didn't answer, just lay down beside him, placed a kiss to his chest and let it linger, closing my eyes as our breaths and our hearts settled into a rhythm together. 

"Are we ever gonna come back here dya think?" I asked a little while later. The night was quiet, in the morning we were leaving. I knew he was still awake. 

"Aye," he said softly, kissing my hair, his hand twirling a curl absent minded as my eyes fluttered shut once again, "a reckon one day."