A Peculiar Time in 1944 - A Millard Fanfic (Miss Peregrine's Home) #wattys2020

Chapter 5

Millard had ended up walking Aurora back to her home, when she'd unpacked her bags and headed off to bed she opened her window and snuck him inside. From there they'd continued their discussion on time loops in hushed voices.

"Alright, yes you're invisible, but Millard what you're talking about is straight out of science fiction!"

"I give you my word, it's all true."

"They just invented penicillin two years ago, but time travel? That's decades, if not centuries away!"

"It's not. It's just more peculiar than it is scientific." He shrugged and looked around her bedroom, "What's this?" he asked picking up a photograph from the dresser.

"Oh, my mother took that years ago. She thought it looked cute, father said it just proved what a strange child I was." She explained looking over his shoulder at the frame in his hand. She was probably five or six when it was taken, dressed in a short sleeved shirt and a white skirt with suspenders; her light brown wavy hair just below her shoulders. Her mother had been walking through the garden with her when a blooming rose bush had caught Aurora's attention. It was early spring so the flowers were just blooming, in the photograph young Aurora had bent down and shoved her nose entirely in the petals of a flower and taken a deep breath of the natural perfume. Her mother had giggled at the sight and took a photograph, she told Aurora later in life that innocence fades as people grow up but photographs can preserve innocent moments forever.

"Well you grew up stunning." Millard commented but immediately after saying it he froze, as if he was weighing the words he'd just said. His cap turned, revealing that he'd looked away from her in what she assumed was embarrassment as he coughed to clear his throat. An awkward silence fell over them before Millard got the courage to speak again.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be invisible? To not just feel like you can't be seen, but to know that you can't?"

She shook her head slowly unsure where he was going with this.

"I learned to observe people, read their thoughts through their facial expressions, to learn their feelings through their actions. Seeing how the people around them effect their mood and personality." She stayed silent as she listened intently, she never heard Millard talk in such a serious tone before.

"Do you know what I've observed about you?"

"What?"

"That even with a father who has no respect for you, or perhaps because he treats you like he doesn't care, that you've never felt that love; that has given you the greatest capacity to love. The greatest that I have ever seen."

She was silent for a moment before asking, "Do you care for me, Millard?"

He took a deep breath, "I'm not sure. I'm a very logical person, my mind is best with facts, so much so that all of my friends call me a genius, a know-it-all. But when I look at you all of that goes away and I start feeling things that facts can't explain."

"Facts and feelings can sometimes go hand in hand. My mother says that conversation is the most important part of any real relationship. And you and I have had some pretty amazing conversations."

The heavy silence returned as they both thought about each others words.

"Millard?"

"Yes?"

"Why have you been holding my hand this entire time?" she asked squeezing his invisible fingers that were intertwined with hers.

His jacket shrugged, "I don't know. . . evidently I don't know everything."