"Love is so short, forgetting is so long." - Pablo Neruda, Tonight I can write (the saddest lines)
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Being back in Aldbourne was bittersweet. It was all Juliette had longed for and dreamed of for nearly three months, but stepping back into that house brought back so many memories. Too many memories. Memories of Alex lounging in the armchair, watching them all shot back alcohol like it was water with obvious disapproval but a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. Memories of him shaking his head at their antics in the kitchen, playing the mediator whilst her and Thomas argued over something stupid.
It had taken HQ a week to get them out of Paris. A week devoid of missions to distract them, because their faces were now all considered compromised, and filled with visions of poorly hidden smiles and reluctant laughs that they would never get to see again.
A whole week without Alex. Juliette didn't know how they'd done it.
Now that they were back they would have to lay low for a while. Juliette was silently grateful that she had an excuse not to venture outside; she didn't think she could bear to see smiling, unassuming faces. It wasn't their fault, but she couldn't take it. And something inside of her, an instinct to punish herself, perhaps, reminded her almost constantly that Alex had been shot whilst pushing her behind him. The bullet that killed him had likely been meant for her. She was overwhelmed by self-loathing.
The moment they all got into the house, which had that strange chill in the air unique to places that have been left uninhabited for a while, they crowded into the living room. Jules and Tom shared the sofa, Will sat on the floor, and Martin leaned against the liquor cabinet. They left the armchair empty.
They all looked utterly exhausted.
"Who do you think they'll make CO?" Will wondered. His voice had come out quiet but still sounded loud in the silence of the room. They didn't bother to turn any lights on, letting the moonlight filtering in through the windows bathe the room in a gentle light.
Tom shrugged. "Martin, perhaps."
"Or you," Jules suggested, idly fiddling with the trousers of her jump uniform.
"They might send us a new one," Will suggested. The words seemed to emerge of their own accord and before he had processed them, for a most horrified expression spread across his face as soon as he'd uttered them.
"I hope they don't," Jules mumbled.
Martin shook his head. "I don't think they will. We've been working together for too long for them to send in someone else."
"And that team we rescued only had four members," Tom added. They all nodded, hopeful that Martin would be proven right.
"How are we going to go about blending in again?" Jules asked into the silence that followed. She glanced between the faces of the others and looked to the armchair instinctively before shutting her eyes and pursing her lips; that would take some getting used to. "We're not supposed to say we're living together but how will we explain why we've all been gone for almost three months?"
They each contemplated it, looking to each other for answers that none of them had. This would have been Alex's call.
"I suppose we can't really," Tom replied eventually, running a hand through his hair and leaving it resting on the back of his head. "Even if we tried to explain it they'd be suspicious; who leaves their supposed home town for three months, and over Christmas no less? Let alone an entire group of people. It's too shady."
"So what do we do?" Will asked, his eyebrows drawn together. He looked incredibly young as he sat there, bathed in moonlight and sitting cross-legged on the floor. He had always looked quite young for his age, though; he would be turning twenty-four soon, and didn't really look a day over nineteen.
Tom shrugged. "Lay low?"
"What about when we get new orders?" Jules pointed out, leaning her elbow on the arm of the sofa and her head in her hand.
"And when we run out of groceries," Martin agreed.
Tom sighed and ran his hand through his hair once more. "I don't know." His exhaustion was clear in his voice. "I don't know."
Jules placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently, shooting him a small smile when he looked to her, which he returned. All of them were thinking the same thing: Alex would know what to do.
"Maybe -" Juliette began after a while spent in silence, "maybe we can get Gene to help us?" When they all looked at her in confusion she shrugged. "He already knows what we do, so..."
Tom nodded, mulling it over. "We might have to." Then his eyebrows furrowed. "How would we go about contacting him though? It's not as though we can just leave a note outside the house - he wouldn't find it."
"I know where the army's medical supply tent is," Jules offered. "I could sneak in and wait for him there. The others have no need to go in there because it's just supplies." She paused, and then sighed. "But there is a chance I might run into another medic."
The boys contemplated her words before Tom finally gave a small nod. "Right, I think we'll have to take that risk. For now, we're okay - we have enough food and I doubt they'll be sending us out for a while now that we're all considered compromised. I can try and do recon and gauge when Eugene is likely to be in the supply tent, and I'll send you when we're desperate. He's more likely to listen to you because you're already friends."
Jules nodded, relieved she wouldn't have to interact with anyone for a while at least.
"Does anyone know how Alex found out when there would be an intel drop?" Martin asked. Their faces all fell simultaneously.
Jules chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before speaking. "He showed me a telegram that time I had to go in alone. It told him when to expect it and who was to pick it up - i.e. whose fake name it was addressed to - and then I went to the post office in the village to get it. But I don't know where he got the telegram from."
"Maybe they just get someone to put it through the letterbox?" Will suggested, and in spite of themselves they all began to laugh.
"Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what they do, mate," Martin told him through his chuckles, and Jules giggled. It felt good to laugh, even if it was somewhat empty.
They all retired to bed soon after that, each intending to sleep for as long as they possibly could, safe in the knowledge that they were no longer in a safe house with the risk of either a Nazi raid or being betrayed. And, of course, that they were back on home soil. Sleep hadn't come easy for Juliette after the events of the previous mission, but she hoped that the familiarity of her bed in Aldbourne might let her catch a few hours at least.
After she had cleaned her teeth, the boys letting her go first just as they always did, Jules sat on her bed cross-legged, the copy of 'The Velveteen Rabbit' that Martin had gifted her in her lap. A smile tugged at her lips as she gazed down at it, remembering the time she had sat in that exact position and Alex had come to sit beside her, holding her hand as she cried. It seemed a silly thing, now, that she had cried over a book, though Alex had understood - or, at least, had accepted that her sadness was valid regardless. She remembered the kindness in his eyes so vividly, and the small smile that had drawn up his lips.
She looked up to find Tom standing in the doorway, having felt eyes on her, and smiled sadly at him. "I miss him," she told him, and when tears began to pool in his eyes they began to pool in hers, too. Tom rarely cried. Ever. She could remember maybe one or two occasions she'd seen him cry in the entire time she'd known him. His tears only made her infinitely sadder.
He came to sit beside her on the bed, in the place where you would lay as opposed to on the edge of it where Alex had sat, and Jules rested her head on his shoulder. He rested his, in turn, on top, and she wrapped an arm around his waist when she heard him sniffle.
"Me too," he whispered, and she hugged him a little bit tighter.
For a little while, the pair of them just sat there, not speaking but not having to, because they understood anyway. They sat holding onto each other, listening to the sounds of Will and Martin getting ready to go to bed and the rain beginning to tap at the window, as if asking to be let in.
Eventually, after the steady rain had advanced to a pour and then calmed back down again, Tom sat up properly and wiped at his eyes. He turned to Jules and offered a watery smile, and then took both of her hands and squeezed.
"You and me back in Aldbourne. That's what you'd asked for, right? Where you wanted to be?"
Jules smiled slightly and nodded. That conversation seemed like years ago now. "Now we just have to get Martin to Lisbon and Will to Manchester."
Tom chuckled lightly and squeezed her hands again. She reciprocated it this time. "We'll get through this, Jules. You know that, right?"
She nodded, fighting back the tears that had sprung back up unbidden. "You and me," she promised him.
He smiled, earnestly this time. "Me and you," he echoed back to her, and squeezed her hands once more - for good luck, perhaps. He left after that, closing the door softly behind him and leaving Juliette alone in the darkness.