Six Plasters { Peter X OC }

She's a child, too!

15th September 1940

"This'll be our last air raid." Susan told Lucy quietly, doing anything she could to get a smile from her sister as they heard the all clear.

"Yeah, and our last night in our own beds before we get sent off to the middle of nowhere." Edmund added bitterly, earning glares from everyone older than himself. Lucy's lip trembled.

"Hush, Edmund." Helen told her son before Peter scold him, "Now, in a moment you all follow me out. It sounded bad last night, and we don't know what debris is around."

"How close do you think it was?" Peter asked, brows furrowed.

"It would've been even louder if it had hit our house, Peter." Helen assured her eldest, but this seemed to do hardly anything to ease his concern.

"What about Renwood Crescent?"

"Renwood Crescent? Why would- oh, yes, of course. Well, we'll just have to see in the morning, you all need sleep for tomorrow, we've to be at the train for seven-"

"I'm going to have a look." Peter decided, beginning to the door of the shelter.

"No, Peter." Helen spoke sternly, standing too. Seeing the fight unbudging from her eldest son's eyes, she added gently, "Help me put the others to bed. You can read Lucy-"

"I'm sorry, Mum. I'm sure you'll manage." He replied sincerely, "I have to go see if she- if things are okay. I won't be long."

~

Things weren't okay, as Peter soon found out. From the end of his street, he could see the smoke billowing and hear the oncoming sirens. It was suffocating. His curious walk turned into a sprint as he ran past firefighters and the other civilians who'd come to offer aid in sorting through the rubble.

Peter often thought of his Father at war, and it scared him. It scared him a lot that he couldn't do anything to help- but he'd come to terms with that quicker than most thirteen-year-old children did. But now, Lilith may very well be even worse off than his Father- and he COULD do something, hopefully.

"Lilith!" He shouted through the smoke, spinning around to see in any direction he could see through the dark, the smoke and the people- "Lilith! Lilith? Lilith Moore, Sir, have you seen her?" He asked the nearest Officer, "She lives at Number 4. About this high- red hair, probably in messy braids- she-"

"Number 4s gone, lad." The Officer replied, distanced, "Now, move along. This is no place for a child."

"But she's a child, too!" Peter implored- but to himself- for the Officer had already moved on.

Peter looked around again, reaching up to run an agitated hand through his once blond, now ash covered, greyed hair.

"Peter!" Lilith's hair was no longer the colour of a sunset- but ash as well, he noticed momentarily as she half stumbled, half ran towards him, throwing her arms around his neck.

"You're alive!" He spoke, tugging her away from him to look over her, "Are you okay? An Officer said Number 4 was gone but- why're you crying? The raid's over! You're safe, now."

"Daddy's not- my Father he- Peter he didn't come to the basement! I don't know why but- Peter, he's died!"

The pair rarely embraced. They laughed and they studied and they did everything together, yet rarely did they embrace.
But they did then, for a long time. She cried and he cried with and for her, too.
He had never hugged anyone so tightly.

"I have to go live with my Auntie," She told him once the dust had settled and they'd parted, "but I don't want to. She lives in Exeter, I don't want to leave!"

"That's-" far away. Peter didn't know exactly how far, but any further than a few streets away was far too far for your a best friend to move to. "only a train away."

He'd never treated Lilith like one of his siblings, but she looked so vulnerable and so scared right then, he took the only comforting tone he knew, "We can write, too. I'll visit at summer and at Christmas and- no, don't cry again!"

"I'm not crying!"

"Yes. Yes, you are!" Peter couldn't help but laugh slightly- he'd never met anyone so stubborn, "But- you're bleeding, too-"

"I'm not dead." Lilith muttered with a bitter optimism, closing her eyes in apprehension as he moved aside some of her hair to see the cut.

"Come to ours', we have the first aid kit and you can stay on the sofa-"

Lilith nodded slowly, "You're Mother is very nice..."

But then she glanced back through tear filled eyes at the pile of rubble her Father was no doubt found under. All her belongings, all the memories of her Mother and now Father...

But then she felt a warm hand in hers and looked into blue eyes more reassuring than any thought of Exeter with her Auntie and so she gave her name to an Officer, declaring hierself alive and followed Peter home.

Even if he was to leave to the country tomorrow, he still had a few hours to fix her cut and make her some tea.

Peter, Lilith and the farm's newest arrival! 
Taken by Susan at the Johnsons' Farm, 12th September 1940