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CHAPTER FIHTHTEEN | comforted cries |
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All Lucy could think off in the passing night back at Thorpe Abbots was her brother. Gale had gone down and she didn't know where. She didn't know if he was alive or dead. Although most the people around her had thought him dead. Which didn't help soothe her mind.
As she lay in her bed, long past midnight thinking of him. The off tear slid down her cheek every now and then. A sob would catch in her throat making her whimper.
How was she going to tell her Mother? Would she really never see Gale again? What if they never got to go home together. All her memories of her childhood home would be ruined, and tainted without him, knowing she would never see him again.
Her mind floated back to a moment in her childhood when she was eight and him eleven.
"This is a bad idea." A young Gale whispered. His hair a shade lighter than it had been in his older age.
The two siblings hid behind a bush in their neighbours garden waiting for Miss Smith to leave her house so they could sneak in.
"Shhh Gale, you're going to get us caught." She whispered back and trained her eyes on the front door seeing the knob twist.
In a matter of moments Miss Smith was out the house and walking down her driveway and away down the street. Once she was out of sight Lucy edged forward.
However, she was held back by a hand grabbing her wrist and tugging her back.
"What do you think you're doing!" Gale whispered.
"Going in." Lucy informed him and tried to shake her hand free.
"No! I won't let you. You'll get us in trouble with Dad again."
"Fine, you stay here and be my lookout."
The idea had been a good one and the thought passed through the young boys head but he couldn't just leave his sister in there alone.
"This is such a bad idea." He muttered as they both made their way into the house.
When they had entered the smell of the treacle tarts entered their noses and bought them to the kitchen. Where laying on the side was a freshly baked batch of the sweet, delicious, delights.
"I don't mind if I do." Lucy said and picked one up taking a bite out of one of them.
"Lucy!" Gale shouted. His eyes widening in astonishment. "That's so rude."
"Miss Smith is always horrible to us." She reminded Gale of the very reason they were here in the first place.
That's right, the two children were here for a reason. Miss Smith had taken their ball when they had accidentally kicked it over the garden fence. Now it was time to get it back. After all, it wasn't stealing if it belonged to them.
"I'll go find the ball." Gale grumbled and walked away from the tarts.
He went upstairs to the master bedroom where the ladies array of lipsticks lay on her counter. Gale scrunched in nose up. She looked horrible with the bright red lipstick on.
"Found it!" Lucy shouted from downstairs making him turn away and run back down.
"It's a bit deflated." Lucy said and held up the flat football for him to see. "Old hag must have broken it."
"You need to stop being so rude." Gale told her and Lucy simply shrugged. As the two of them left the house. The mission had been a success.
When Lucy's mind snapped back to where she was she let out another sob. She missed her brother and the thought of him being alive.
Just then the door to her room opened. She didn't look to who it was, presuming it was one of the nurses coming in from a late night and getting ready for bed.
But when she felt one side of her bed dip down she knew it wasn't the nurses. It was John. After what had happened in London from their drunken night to the telephone box she wasn't sure if she could face him. So she simply pushed her head further into her pillow.
That's when a warm hand hovered over her shoulder before finally reaching it. John outstretched his hand and held onto hers.
"Lucy." He whispered. "Look at me." Oh, how the roles had been reversed.
However she did. Lucy peeled her face away from her pillows comfortably and she looked up at John through her bloodshot eyes. Her eyes strung from crying so much leaving them stained in a crimson glow.
John moved his hand and they found her cheeks instantly. He held her face and noted her red eyes. His own eyes held pain.
Without a word he pulled her into him. Lucy's head hit his shoulder and she didn't move. Instead she just continued to cry into his shoulder getting his white shirt stained in her glassy tears.
"Why not me." Lucy whispered into his shirt. "Gale was good, he was kind and now he's gone."
This question popped into her mind over two hours ago and it had yet to leave. Why did it have to be Gale? Why couldn't it have been her?
"Don't say that." John said and held her even tighter in his comforting arms. In truth this was the safest Lucy had felt all day. Amongst the whispers and sorry's of the men none of them, nor any of the females on the air base had tried to comfort her, until John Egan came around.
He truly was her Angel dressed as the devil. Certainly as handsome as the devil.
"I wouldn't be able to go on if you weren't here." He said, sorrow laced into his tone like a bad omen. Lucy silently agreed with him.
That's when she realised they had looked at each other for too long to be just friends. Even if neither of them had elaborated on their relationship, even if this had been a 'one time thing'. John Egan would always hold a special spot in her heart. For something about him made her feel more alive and far less lost in this desolate world of war.
The mission that they were to fly tomorrow would be straight over Münster, the heart of the German territory. But it would be a good chance to let out any unhinged rage that Lucy was harbouring in her current state of deliberations.
"Do you still think of him?" Lucy asked quietly and continued to hide her face in his shoulder so John couldn't read her emotions.
"Every second."
