Cheer Up

Chapter One

Story originally posted on AO3 but I'm expanding to here too.

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It was dark, and quiet.

The bathroom door was cracked, music softly seeping from the room to reach her ears. Her stomach churned slightly as she reached the door and pushed it open.

Right away it was apparent what had happened. The awful, terrible truth.

She was all alone.

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“Good day miss, the lads was wondering if you had any uh…Blackberry ready for em’.”

Her heart was racing a mile a minute, the mask hot and sticking to the sweat on her face and the collar of her dress seemingly squeezing her airway and making it harder to breathe. She had to resist the urge to pull it away from herself and keep her composure.

“I’m uh…Working on it. It should be ready in a day or two.” She holds in a cough as the lie sours her stomach. She had never had to lie like this before, it was harder than it looked.

“The lads is getting a might…twitchy, to tells you the truth, Miss Boyle.”

“It-It…It takes time, sir. I’ll get it out to you all. I just need…Time.”

The Constable got closer to her in a successful attempt to intimidate her. He was much taller than her with a very real and definite ability to knock her teeth in. She knew what could happen and wasn’t entirely thrilled at the prospect of “Going on holiday”.

“The lads have developed an appetite for your fine cooking, as it were, if they go hungry…Chaos will ensue. We must insist you devote your full and urgent attention to feeding them.”

“Or what-” The words burst from her lips before she could really think and she had to stifle the grimace that wanted to follow.

“Or we should be compelled, willing or no, to provide your assistance, willing or no, to Dr Verloc, willing or no. And that won’t be very cheery for any of us.”

She nods shakily, stepping back slightly from the tall man. “Okay…Okay I’ll hurry. I’ll try.”

“Good…Good. The Constabulary looks forward to your contribution. Have a good rest of your day, Miss Boyle.”

He bid her one last toothy smile and turned on his heel as she shut the front door finally letting out the cough she had been holding in. She rips the mask off her face letting the skin breathe as well as herself.

They wanted Blackberry, something Miss Boyle could have easily provided a week ago and she would have been able to provide it today for them if it were not for one simple fact.

She was the wrong Boyle.

They wanted her mother, Sally. Gwen was not an expert chemist like her mother was. In fact Gwen had never even been to a real school like Sally had, not that there was a school to attend anyways. There wasn’t a single school in all of Wellington Wells. Not anymore.

There was no school because there was no one to attend either way. There weren't any children in the entire region and there hadn’t been since 1947. At least, that’s what everyone thought. As far as everyone knew, everyone that could actually think, no baby had been born after that point either. No babies had been born in 29 years.

Gwen felt sick, maybe she was. She felt feverish, hot and slightly shaky. Rushing to her mother’s lab she searched the entire room desperately. Her mother had to have notes on how to make Blackberry, she would make it herself and everything would be okay.