Fic: Secrets and Ghosts (Chronicles of Narnia/The Imitation Game crossover)
Author's Note: I was fortunate enough to re-watch The Imitation Game the other day, and what a splendid movie it is. My heart was breaking all over again for Alan Turing, and of course I can never watch anything related to WWII without thinking of rthstewart‘s Narnia ‘verse. She hints, somewhere in “The Queen Susan in Tashbaan” (and forgive me if I muck up the timeline here, Rth, it’s been quite a while) that Edmund eventually goes to work with Susan in Intelligence, or works with her sort of unofficially. And all of that got mushed up in my head with Bletchley and Alan and Christopher and Joan, and we’ll see if I can make any sense of it with this little bit of fic.
Just as a warning, Edmund is technically underage here (in 1941 he would be about 11 or 12, I think), but he really isn’t, obviously, having been to Narnia and back twice (1941 would have been before VoDT). However, there’s also a bit of magical realism in here that really nullifies the problem. This Edmund is not quite any other version of Edmund that lives in my head - but now that he’s made a home there with the others, he definitely fits. Please forgive any roughness in this fic; it’s been a long time since I’ve played in the Narnia fandom, and I’m out of practice.
Secrets and Ghosts1941, Bletchley Park
The first time Alan sees the boy, it is enough to shatter his concentration. Dark-haired and with pale skin, he is just an office lackey running through their hut with messages, something that happens twenty times a day. In passing, though, he looks so much like Christopher (the real Christopher, not his namesake) that Alan is shaken, and has to work for hours to keep his indifference in place, his focus on the work in front of him. The men like him more than they used to, even more since Joan has helped him, but they are all desperate for his machine to work, for the Allies to finally gain some advantage in this bloody war.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next time, the boy approaches him, and once again Alan is unnerved by how much like Christopher he looks. Up close, he can see that the resemblance isn’t exact; this boy’s hair is darker, curlier, and he has a light smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose. The air of maturity is the same, however, and perhaps that is what makes this boy so unsettling. He projects the same air of perceptiveness that Christopher once did, as well as the same steadiness and kindness.
Alan and Joan have just been eating lunch, and then Hugh came with his brilliant idea of running the wires on the machine diagonally. Alan wasn’t about to admit how brilliant the idea was, of course; he’s rather irked that he hadn’t thought of it himself. In studying Hugh’s diagram, however, he has lost himself to the world around him, and so he is startled when not-Christopher appears and settles himself cross-legged on the picnic blanket, completely unapologetic for what might be perceived as rudeness.
“Joan’s right, you know,” the boy says frankly. “They can help you.”
Alan stares at him. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“I’m Edmund,” the boy answers cheerfully. “How do you do, Mr. Turing?”
“I’m . . . fine,” Alan says, perplexed, suddenly wondering if this is how other people feel when they’re engaged in conversation with him. He frequently seems to render other people at a loss for words; this is the first time in a long time that someone else has done the same to him.
“And how do you know Joan?” he asks. The boy is a messenger; surely if he were anyone important, Joan would have told him.
“Joan works with my sister,” Edmund answers easily. “She’s very nice, and I see her quite often when I’m running messages.”
Alan parses the relevant information from that sentence. “Your sister decodes messages with Joan.”
The boy nods, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “In a manner of speaking.” He stands up, brushing off his trousers efficiently, and when he looks at Alan again, his face is all seriousness.
“Keep working, Mr. Turing. We’re all behind you, you know,” he says solemnly, and he is gone before Alan can come up with a proper response.
It is only after he leaves that Alan thinks to wonder how a barely-teenage boy is allowed to be a message runner at the most secretive military establishment in Britain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The third time Edmund appears, it is on one of the worst days Alan has had since his arrival at Bletchley. Commander Denniston has threatened to fire all of them, and allowed his minions to tear pieces off the machine, damage which he is now attempting to repair. Despite how warmed Alan was by the defense and solidarity of Hugh and the other men, he knows they are all on borrowed time. A month is very little time to complete the work they’ve begun; it might not be enough.
“Denniston won’t fire you.”
Alan starts a little despite himself; turning, he sees Edmund in the doorway to the hut, standing nonchalantly in the doorframe. For all the noise he made, he might have been a ghost, but his eyes tell Alan that he knows exactly what happened today.
Alan smiles grimly, looking down at his lapful of wire as he continues to work. “He will. Perhaps later rather than sooner, but he will, if we can’t at least begin to break the Enigma code.”
“Despite what he thinks, Denniston does not control the world,” Edmund counters wryly. “There are decisions being made far above him, Alan; he won’t be allowed to touch you or your team.”
Alan wants to snort or make some sarcastic remark; the absurdity of this boy telling him what Denniston can or cannot do is almost surreal. When he looks up at Edmund again, however, the remark dies on his lips. Something - some trick of the light? - makes Edmund look far older than he is, and the resolve and knowledge on his face are plain for Alan to see.
“And how exactly do you know that?” Alan asks. He means for it to sound derisive, but it comes out of his mouth in the same way he used to ask questions of Christopher: quietly begging for answers to explain a world he does not understand.
Edmund’s face remains calm, implacable, and sure as he answers. “It’s my job to know. You can do this, Alan.”
Alan shakes his head, a confused and slightly despairing noise escaping him before he can stop it. “Who are you?”
Then, Edmund’s cheekiness returns, an almost impish smile overtaking his face as he tips an imaginary hat at Alan and gives a little bow. “Edmund Pevensie, messenger boy, at your service.”
And then he is gone again, like the ghost he seems to be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alan retains enough presence of mind the next morning to inquire about Edmund; normally, he is so absorbed in the work and so determined to get back to it that little else can command his attention, except for the moments when Joan comes to see him, with her kindness and smiles and diamond-sharp mind. The encounter with Edmund the night before, however, has discomfited him enough that he remembers to ask Joan what she knows when he sees her at breakfast. She speaks enthusiastically of Susan, whom she has gotten to know a little while working with the other women, and of Edmund who, though she does not know him as well, seems equally as smart as his sister and unfailingly polite.
“From what I can tell, they work as something of a team,” Joan says reflectively, sipping at her tea and nibbling at her dry toast. “They’re siblings and they’re both brilliant, so maybe they work best together. And neither of them answer to Denniston, that’s certain. I don’t know who they’re working for but it’s not him; they have far too much autonomy for that. They’re good people, though, Alan; you don’t need to worry.”
He finds a few minutes, that day, to go over to Joan’s hut and catch a glimpse of Edmund and Susan. He slips past the entrance on some pretext of looking for Joan, and finds Edmund’s dark head bent over a desk, next to another head of hair that is almost identical, save that it has the longer curls of a female.
Edmund looks up and sees him then, and gives him a quiet smile. He nudges the girl next to him, and when Susan looks around, he is struck by how beautiful she is, and how her smile is as kind as her brother’s.
Whatever else these siblings may be, Alan cannot believe they are a threat. Brilliant, yes, perhaps as brilliant as he is, and keeping their own secrets. But everyone has secrets here, and he cannot worry about other people’s secrets on top of the increasingly large number of them that he carries.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He doesn’t see Edmund again, except in passing, until the night he has broken his engagement with Joan. He is outside the hut long after working hours are over, leaning against the wall and trying to breathe. He and Hugh, John and Peter have been decoding messages all day, fighting headaches and drinking too much coffee as they try to decide who lives and who dies. Alan had been working out of desperation, trying to ignore the fact that both Menzies and John know his weak spots, know how to destroy him. And Joan, his dearest friend, thinks he is a monster. A brute without feelings.
(To be fair, that had been what he was aiming for, at the end. He wants so desperately to keep her safe.)
Edmund leans against the wall next to him. “Joan will forgive you, Alan. Someday she’ll know, and she’ll forgive you.”
Alan shakes his head, chuckling weakly. “How do you do that? Just - appear whenever I’m having a particularly terrible day?”
Edmund smiles a bit but doesn’t answer, and Alan knows not to expect one.
“She won’t,” he says after a moment, silently acknowledging to Edmund that he won’t pursue his questions. “And it has to be like that; it’s the only way to keep her safe. I won’t have Menzies throwing her in prison or destroying her life just so he can make sure I do what he wants.”
Edmund places a hand on his arm. “She’ll forgive you someday, Alan; I promise,” he repeats earnestly. “Joan is as smart as they come; once she stops feeling hurt and she’s had time to think about it, she’ll realize that you must have had a reason. And stop worrying about Cairncross; he isn’t going to give you up because he knows you would give him up just as quickly.”
“Why does it have to be like this?” Alan asks, his voice cracking. “I’m a mathematician, not a spy. I didn’t ask for this.”
“No,” Edmund says gently. “Not a spy, but very good at keeping secrets. I think you’ve had to keep so many of your own that you’re rather a natural at it.”
And then, surprisingly, Edmund grabs his hand. “Come with me?” he asks, inclining his head.
Alan studies Edmund for a minute, debating how to answer. He knows very little, really, about this boy in front of him, and while Edmund has never given him a reason not to trust him, Alan has learned the hard way that the absence of obvious malice does not equate to trustworthiness. At the same time, Edmund has consistently been open and sympathetic with him, and Alan understands enough of him to realize how rare that is. He inclines his head in agreement, and Edmund flashes him a smile before tugging on their hands and pulling him toward the trees that surround Bletchley. They are thick enough to render people invisible this time of night, and since the entire compound is surrounded by fences and guards, having anyone infiltrate it is highly unlikely. It is only those who are inside that they must watch for.
Alan hurries along just slightly behind Edmund, intrigued despite himself, and Edmund expertly keeps them in the shadows, alongside buildings and away from the patrols. He’s done this before, Alan is sure; it would be obvious to anyone with half a brain that Edmund is no novice at staying out of sight.
Just as they reach the edge of the trees, Edmund slows, turning and giving Alan another one of those quick smiles. “Don’t be afraid,” he says softly, and then they are in the embrace of the forest at night, only darkness and moonlight and the quiet rustling of the wind surrounding them. Alan blinks, trying to adjust his vision, and when everything comes into focus again, Edmund is about a foot taller and twenty years older. The hand clasping his is bigger, and were it not for Edmund’s face, which looks remarkably similar to his younger self, Alan would think he was hallucinating.
“Who are you?” he breathes, bewildered, well aware that he’s asked before and must sound ridiculous, and even more aware that he’s still not likely to get any kind of a real answer.
“It would take far longer than we have to explain that,” Edmund said, shaking his head. He smiles again, squeezing Alan’s fingers. “I’m still Edmund Pevensie, though, that much I can promise you. Trust me?”
Alan has trusted exactly three people in his life: his mother, Christopher, and Joan. The first two are dead, left him long before he was capable of comprehending why or understanding the grief that assaulted him, and the third he deliberately destroyed in the name of protection. He wants to object, wants to say that Edmund should stay miles away from him for his own sake, but he does trust Edmund in spite of himself, and in spite of his logical side that is shouting at him about the impossibility of what is happening.
Edmund must see some of the hesitation and conflict in his face, for he pulls Alan a little further into the trees and steps closer.
“You are not poison, Alan,” he says, quick and low and fierce. “You are a person, just as worthy of love as any other, do you hear me? What has happened to you is not your fault. It is the fault of those who need to belittle others in order to make themselves feel superior, the fault of those who need to exercise power over others in order to feel strong. Your Christopher knew that, did he not? He loved you for exactly who you are.”
Of all the things that he has seen and heard tonight, it is the mention of Christopher that makes Alan blanch, makes him pull his hand away from Edmund’s warm one and back away, shrink in on himself.
“How do you know about him?” he gasps, appalled. “How do you know? I’ve never told anyone -"
“I heard you mention the name to Joan, once. You were talking about your machine, but it wasn’t that hard to put the pieces together - at least, not for me,” Edmund explains swiftly, soothingly. “You named your machine Christopher - a machine to which you have given over all of your intellect, all of your energy, all of your love, to try and save a humanity that does not understand you. Hugh and the rest, they think you do it for the puzzle, for the challenge, for the love of the machine itself, but you don’t. You do it for him, one of the few people who loved all of you. You save others because you couldn’t save him, because he believed in you and knew you had a heart.”
Alan crumples, his back falling against the nearest tree, and he slides downward until he is resting at its base, his face hidden in his knees. “I never told him,” he chokes out, his voice breaking. “I was going to, and then - he didn’t come back to school. He was dead, and I had never even known he was ill. I don’t know if he - but he was my friend. I know that much was true. He was kind to me, and no one else was.”
Edmund crouches next to him, one hand resting light as a feather on Alan’s knee. “He loved you, Alan. I promise you, he loved you.” And before Alan quite knows what he is going to do, Edmund presses a kiss to his forehead, still so carefully, as though he realizes that one wrong move will leave Alan shattered and incapable of putting himself back together. He wraps a shaking hand around Edmund’s fingers, anchoring himself once again in their warmth.
Edmund presses their foreheads together, his eyes intent and questioning but also achingly open and honest in the moonlight, leaving no doubt as to his sincerity. He raises his free hand until it rests on Alan’s shirt, just over the thrum of his heart.
“May I?” he whispers. His voice is so quiet that it might be part of the breeze. “Only if you want - but I would be honored to share this with you, Alan.” The formal language should sound strange, but it doesn’t; Edmund articulates the phrase so that he is simultaneously requesting something sacred and offering a gift.
“Why?” Alan questions. “Why would you want this?” With me, of all people, he doesn’t add, but he knows Edmund hears the thought anyway.
Edmund smiles, and it is shot through with a sorrow that Alan hasn’t seen in him before. “Sometimes, we all need a reminder that we are loved - not just by the One who loves us all, but one being to another.”
Alan feels as though something in him is breaking, falling to pieces with Edmund’s compassion and understanding. Too overwhelmed to find words, Alan answers in the only way he can find, lifting his head and brushing the lightest of kisses over Edmund’s lips. The tenderness with which Edmund returns the gesture leaves Alan full of both thankfulness and longing.
Edmund backs up a few paces, producing one of their thick army blankets from somewhere - Alan thinks he must have carried it with them, though he didn’t see it until just now. He spreads it over the carpet of pine needles on the forest floor and sits back on his heels, extending a hand, his eyes bright.
“Well, come on then,” Edmund says teasingly, and Alan smiles in return, a bit shyly, the warmth in his chest blooming bright as he realizes that he can still be teased in this way, by someone he trusts with both his mind and body. He places his hand in Edmund’s, and to his surprise, Edmund bows over his fingers, kissing his way over Alan’s knuckles and down the back of his hand. Alan turns his fingers and cradles Edmund’s cheek, and Edmund looks up at him, and then they are kissing again, hands fumbling with suspenders and shirt buttons.
What follows is a litany of caresses and gasps of arousal, hands everywhere and bodies rocking together, and Alan realizes, somewhere in the midst of it all, that he isn’t being taken apart, as he feared, but being put back together. Every touch Edmund bestows is as gentle as the one before it, each one mending the cracks in Alan’s shattered heart, until the intimacy and arousal are all that he is aware of and almost more than he can bear. Though he is less practiced, he does all that he can to give the same cocoon of closeness and safety to Edmund, for something in the other man’s face tells him that Edmund needs this as much as he does.
It is hours later, when the gray that precedes dawn is beginning to seep into the sky and the two of them are wound together, sated and exhausted, with Alan’s fingers running through Edmund’s hair, that Alan notices the cord around Edmund’s bare neck and the tiny glimmer of gold at the end of it. He picks it up carefully in his fingers and examines the beautiful craftsmanship.
“A lion head?” he questions.
Edmund nuzzles his cheek against Alan’s chest once more before sitting up and giving him yet another enigmatic smile. “Let’s just say it’s another way of reminding myself that I am loved.”
Alan sits up as well and looks at the two of them. “We both need showers,” he observes, and Edmund laughs.
“Yes, we do,” he agrees. “Su will scold me for being out all night and coming in so disheveled. I’ll have to try and clean up before I see her.”
Alan looks at him with raised eyebrows and Edmund laughs again, leaning over to kiss him. “Don’t worry, she won’t ask. It’s hardly the first time,” he says merrily.
As quickly as his laughter came, however, it leaves, and Edmund glances again at the sky, his face becoming solemn. He kisses Alan deeply, cradling Alan’s face in his hands.
“I am sorry that I have so little time with you,” he murmurs. “But you are loved and worthy of being so, Alan. Do not forget that.”
They dress in silence, helping each other adjust collars and cuffs and creases as best they can, and Edmund prepares to leave first, gathering up the blanket and walking to the edge of the forest. On impulse, Alan follows and kisses him one last time.
“Will I see you again?” he asks, hushed, as though he might be crossing some invisible boundary for even asking. But Edmund only smiles, once again placing a kiss on his forehead in benediction.
“Someday. I promise.”
He steps outside of the tree line, then, and Alan watches as he walks toward the cluster of buildings that make up Bletchley Park, blending apparently effortlessly with his surroundings and becoming smaller as he goes. He turns only once, and the bright rays of the morning sun catch his brown eyes, turning them a vivid gold as he raises a hand.
Alan smiles before Edmund turns away, and then watches him until he is out of sight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alan showers and goes to work feeling at peace; no one sees him slipping back into Bletchley, and he makes use of the showers and is back in the hut with coffee before anyone else is stirring. He works throughout the morning on the early transmissions of the day, and he is not surprised when he looks up at lunchtime to find Joan standing at his desk.
“Edmund asked me to give you this,” she says stiffly, handing him a folded note. “He and Susan left this morning. New orders, apparently.”
She is still cold and furious, but she came, and Alan wonders what Edmund said to her to persuade her to deliver his message.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “It was kind of him to let me know. You were right, Joan. They are good people.”
Joan opens her lips, and Alan can practically hear the angry thoughts about to spill forth.Yes, well, some of us actually have hearts. It’s more than I can say for you. Pity you couldn’t have taken lessons from them. In the end, though, the anger in her eyes dies and is replaced by sorrow, and she simply tightens her mouth into a line and walks away.
It hurts, still, almost as badly as it had the night before, but the memory of Edmund’s lips and hands and compassion steadies him, and he knows he has done the right thing. No matter how long it takes for her to stop hating him, Joan will be safe from Menzies and all of the secrets she isn’t privy to.
He opens Edmund’s note with careful fingers, and smiles a bit as he reads, even while mist gathers in his eyes.
Courage, Alan.
You are always loved.
The writing, like Edmund himself, is a contradiction - an elegant, flowing swirl of script that should not have come from a schoolboy’s pen, though it somehow suits the man Alan knew so briefly last night. And there, at the end of the second line, is a drawn duplicate of Edmund’s medallion, skillfully rendered, the lion gazing at him and surrounded by a thick and heavy mane.
Alan slips the note carefully into his breast pocket, and from then on, it never leaves his person. It carries him through the worst of the next two years, through the numbers game of lives and bloodshed that has become his life.
By the time he leaves Bletchley in 1945, the note is worn with handling and the ink faded, but Alan keeps it still.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It isn’t enough, of course. Or perhaps, it was enough for the war and that’s what it was meant to be; Alan thinks that Edmund would understand that he cannot live on work and memories forever. Isolation was never oppressive before, but it is now; he continues to work on and operate a machine that officially does not exist and sees no one but Menzies, who still appears periodically with new assignments.
The incident with the hustler is ridiculous; it’s hardly the first or last time he’s made such a hire, but he didn’t foresee that the man would be stupid enough to try and rob him afterward.
It doesn’t occur to him until he is sitting across from Detective Nock (who, despite his misconceptions, is much smarter than anyone gives him credit for) that the entire transaction and robbery were a setup. If MI6 still wanted to keep him safe, they would have sent Menzies when he was robbed, not two policemen from the local force. He knows too much. Menzies wants to discredit him and get him out of the way, and he doesn’t care whether the police lock Alan up for being a spy or for hiring a male prostitute.
His secrets have finally caught up with him.
When given the choice, he takes the estrogen treatments almost without thought. He will work while he can and give Menzies what he wants; he will be as little of a threat as possible. Anyone who tries to resurrect his past will find nothing but a pitiful man with a mind full of frayed wires and broken couplings.
If he can actually forget some of the secrets he has kept, so much the better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The one bright spot left is Joan’s visit. As distressing as it is to see her, to have her know what a wreck his mind has become, it also gives him some closure. Joan has everything she wanted, which means that one part of his secret-keeping worked the way it was supposed to. She is safe and happy, something he could not manage for himself, Christopher, or anyone else in his life.
After her fierce defense of him, her reminder of what he said to her all those years ago (and he said it because Christoper said it to him, perhaps the kindest thing anyone had ever said to him), she stays kneeling in front of him, her hands on his knees.
“You should have told me, Alan,” she reproves him gently. “You should have told me that they were watching me, that Menzies had tried to use me as leverage.”
Something of his old sharpness comes back into his tone as he answers. “And what would that have accomplished? Even if I had told you, it would not have prevented Menzies from doing what he wanted. He’s a good man to know only as long as he is on your side, and after that knowing him is a death sentence. Look what he did to me.”
Joan stills, her hands clutching convulsively at his robe. “You’re sure this was him?”
Alan holds her gaze. “Almost certainly. And there is nothing I would not have done, even then, to keep you from this kind of fate, Joan. Prison or worse. You deserve your happiness, more than any of us.”
Her eyes fill again and she manages a smile before she stands and turns away, trying to compose herself.
“How did you figure it out?” Alan asks, attempting to distract her.
“Oh, I didn’t,” Joan says with a shaky laugh, dabbing her eyes as she turns around. “I always suspected, but I couldn’t make any sense of it. Unforgivably idiotic, really. Then, the first day I saw the papers and the articles about you, I had a note from Susan.”
It takes Alan a moment to process that, but her face comes back to him - warm and kind, so like Edmund’s.
“Yes. Edmund’s sister,” he acknowledges. “Odd that she knew where to find you.”
“Oh, not so odd, I don’t think,” Joan answers, with another wry chuckle. “She’s fiendishly clever, Alan, even more so than I knew at the time. I have no idea what she’s been doing - I haven’t seen or heard a word about her since she left Bletchley - but the note was handwritten, hand-delivered, had only my name on the front, and the entire thing was set up as though it was a letter from a sister, someone from my family. Everything was quite literally in between the lines, coded beautifully so that only I would know what she was talking about. She spelled out what had happened, more or less, and told me where to find you. I would have come anyway, but it would have taken me much longer to track you down.”
“She apologized for not being able to interfere herself,” Joan adds thoughtfully. “Whatever she’s doing, I’m willing to bet she barely exists on paper.”
“Probably a safe assumption,” Alan agrees. “Did she mention Edmund at all?”
“That’s right, you knew him better than Susan, didn’t you? I think - I think he’s gone, Alan,” Joan answers gently. “Susan - there was a strange sentence in her letter about how there was no one left at home except herself, and I wasn’t sure what she meant, except that I thought something must have happened to him.”
Alan nods, feeling a sense of relief he almost can’t explain. If Edmund is dead and Joan is safe, perhaps it is all right for him to let go, finally. His fingers find Edmund’s note, hidden in the pocket of his robe.
“Sad, but not surprising,” he says tiredly. “Whatever game they were playing, I think it was even more dangerous than ours.”
“Yes, I think so,” Joan says softly. “I'm going to go and let you get some rest.” She leans down and kisses his forehead, brushing a hand through his hair, and then she is gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he can bear the injections no longer, when he cannot work and cannot think and finally takes the relief that cyanide offers him, he wakes in a place so beautiful that it hardly feels real. Standing and turning to take in more of his surroundings, he comes full circle, only to see Edmund - older Edmund, the Edmund from the forest - waiting for him, next to the largest golden lion he has ever seen, the living embodiment of Edmund’s necklace from all those years ago. Staring into the great golden eyes, he finds that although he is the tiniest bit afraid, he feels so much love pouring off the of this magnificent King of the forest that it is impossible not to feel safe. Edmund smiles, reaching out a hand, and Alan takes it, overwhelmingly glad to see him again.
“Come on, then,” he says, a gentle echo of the old teasing tone in his voice. “There’s someone else who’s been waiting for you.”
And at long last it is Christopher’s face that Alan sees, Christopher who reaches out for him and both laughs and cries with joy, Christopher’s arms that gather him in to this new world and hold him forever, Christopher's lips that cover him with kisses and surround him with sacred love.
Just as a warning, Edmund is technically underage here (in 1941 he would be about 11 or 12, I think), but he really isn’t, obviously, having been to Narnia and back twice (1941 would have been before VoDT). However, there’s also a bit of magical realism in here that really nullifies the problem. This Edmund is not quite any other version of Edmund that lives in my head - but now that he’s made a home there with the others, he definitely fits. Please forgive any roughness in this fic; it’s been a long time since I’ve played in the Narnia fandom, and I’m out of practice.
Secrets and Ghosts1941, Bletchley Park
The first time Alan sees the boy, it is enough to shatter his concentration. Dark-haired and with pale skin, he is just an office lackey running through their hut with messages, something that happens twenty times a day. In passing, though, he looks so much like Christopher (the real Christopher, not his namesake) that Alan is shaken, and has to work for hours to keep his indifference in place, his focus on the work in front of him. The men like him more than they used to, even more since Joan has helped him, but they are all desperate for his machine to work, for the Allies to finally gain some advantage in this bloody war.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next time, the boy approaches him, and once again Alan is unnerved by how much like Christopher he looks. Up close, he can see that the resemblance isn’t exact; this boy’s hair is darker, curlier, and he has a light smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose. The air of maturity is the same, however, and perhaps that is what makes this boy so unsettling. He projects the same air of perceptiveness that Christopher once did, as well as the same steadiness and kindness.
Alan and Joan have just been eating lunch, and then Hugh came with his brilliant idea of running the wires on the machine diagonally. Alan wasn’t about to admit how brilliant the idea was, of course; he’s rather irked that he hadn’t thought of it himself. In studying Hugh’s diagram, however, he has lost himself to the world around him, and so he is startled when not-Christopher appears and settles himself cross-legged on the picnic blanket, completely unapologetic for what might be perceived as rudeness.
“Joan’s right, you know,” the boy says frankly. “They can help you.”
Alan stares at him. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“I’m Edmund,” the boy answers cheerfully. “How do you do, Mr. Turing?”
“I’m . . . fine,” Alan says, perplexed, suddenly wondering if this is how other people feel when they’re engaged in conversation with him. He frequently seems to render other people at a loss for words; this is the first time in a long time that someone else has done the same to him.
“And how do you know Joan?” he asks. The boy is a messenger; surely if he were anyone important, Joan would have told him.
“Joan works with my sister,” Edmund answers easily. “She’s very nice, and I see her quite often when I’m running messages.”
Alan parses the relevant information from that sentence. “Your sister decodes messages with Joan.”
The boy nods, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “In a manner of speaking.” He stands up, brushing off his trousers efficiently, and when he looks at Alan again, his face is all seriousness.
“Keep working, Mr. Turing. We’re all behind you, you know,” he says solemnly, and he is gone before Alan can come up with a proper response.
It is only after he leaves that Alan thinks to wonder how a barely-teenage boy is allowed to be a message runner at the most secretive military establishment in Britain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The third time Edmund appears, it is on one of the worst days Alan has had since his arrival at Bletchley. Commander Denniston has threatened to fire all of them, and allowed his minions to tear pieces off the machine, damage which he is now attempting to repair. Despite how warmed Alan was by the defense and solidarity of Hugh and the other men, he knows they are all on borrowed time. A month is very little time to complete the work they’ve begun; it might not be enough.
“Denniston won’t fire you.”
Alan starts a little despite himself; turning, he sees Edmund in the doorway to the hut, standing nonchalantly in the doorframe. For all the noise he made, he might have been a ghost, but his eyes tell Alan that he knows exactly what happened today.
Alan smiles grimly, looking down at his lapful of wire as he continues to work. “He will. Perhaps later rather than sooner, but he will, if we can’t at least begin to break the Enigma code.”
“Despite what he thinks, Denniston does not control the world,” Edmund counters wryly. “There are decisions being made far above him, Alan; he won’t be allowed to touch you or your team.”
Alan wants to snort or make some sarcastic remark; the absurdity of this boy telling him what Denniston can or cannot do is almost surreal. When he looks up at Edmund again, however, the remark dies on his lips. Something - some trick of the light? - makes Edmund look far older than he is, and the resolve and knowledge on his face are plain for Alan to see.
“And how exactly do you know that?” Alan asks. He means for it to sound derisive, but it comes out of his mouth in the same way he used to ask questions of Christopher: quietly begging for answers to explain a world he does not understand.
Edmund’s face remains calm, implacable, and sure as he answers. “It’s my job to know. You can do this, Alan.”
Alan shakes his head, a confused and slightly despairing noise escaping him before he can stop it. “Who are you?”
Then, Edmund’s cheekiness returns, an almost impish smile overtaking his face as he tips an imaginary hat at Alan and gives a little bow. “Edmund Pevensie, messenger boy, at your service.”
And then he is gone again, like the ghost he seems to be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alan retains enough presence of mind the next morning to inquire about Edmund; normally, he is so absorbed in the work and so determined to get back to it that little else can command his attention, except for the moments when Joan comes to see him, with her kindness and smiles and diamond-sharp mind. The encounter with Edmund the night before, however, has discomfited him enough that he remembers to ask Joan what she knows when he sees her at breakfast. She speaks enthusiastically of Susan, whom she has gotten to know a little while working with the other women, and of Edmund who, though she does not know him as well, seems equally as smart as his sister and unfailingly polite.
“From what I can tell, they work as something of a team,” Joan says reflectively, sipping at her tea and nibbling at her dry toast. “They’re siblings and they’re both brilliant, so maybe they work best together. And neither of them answer to Denniston, that’s certain. I don’t know who they’re working for but it’s not him; they have far too much autonomy for that. They’re good people, though, Alan; you don’t need to worry.”
He finds a few minutes, that day, to go over to Joan’s hut and catch a glimpse of Edmund and Susan. He slips past the entrance on some pretext of looking for Joan, and finds Edmund’s dark head bent over a desk, next to another head of hair that is almost identical, save that it has the longer curls of a female.
Edmund looks up and sees him then, and gives him a quiet smile. He nudges the girl next to him, and when Susan looks around, he is struck by how beautiful she is, and how her smile is as kind as her brother’s.
Whatever else these siblings may be, Alan cannot believe they are a threat. Brilliant, yes, perhaps as brilliant as he is, and keeping their own secrets. But everyone has secrets here, and he cannot worry about other people’s secrets on top of the increasingly large number of them that he carries.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He doesn’t see Edmund again, except in passing, until the night he has broken his engagement with Joan. He is outside the hut long after working hours are over, leaning against the wall and trying to breathe. He and Hugh, John and Peter have been decoding messages all day, fighting headaches and drinking too much coffee as they try to decide who lives and who dies. Alan had been working out of desperation, trying to ignore the fact that both Menzies and John know his weak spots, know how to destroy him. And Joan, his dearest friend, thinks he is a monster. A brute without feelings.
(To be fair, that had been what he was aiming for, at the end. He wants so desperately to keep her safe.)
Edmund leans against the wall next to him. “Joan will forgive you, Alan. Someday she’ll know, and she’ll forgive you.”
Alan shakes his head, chuckling weakly. “How do you do that? Just - appear whenever I’m having a particularly terrible day?”
Edmund smiles a bit but doesn’t answer, and Alan knows not to expect one.
“She won’t,” he says after a moment, silently acknowledging to Edmund that he won’t pursue his questions. “And it has to be like that; it’s the only way to keep her safe. I won’t have Menzies throwing her in prison or destroying her life just so he can make sure I do what he wants.”
Edmund places a hand on his arm. “She’ll forgive you someday, Alan; I promise,” he repeats earnestly. “Joan is as smart as they come; once she stops feeling hurt and she’s had time to think about it, she’ll realize that you must have had a reason. And stop worrying about Cairncross; he isn’t going to give you up because he knows you would give him up just as quickly.”
“Why does it have to be like this?” Alan asks, his voice cracking. “I’m a mathematician, not a spy. I didn’t ask for this.”
“No,” Edmund says gently. “Not a spy, but very good at keeping secrets. I think you’ve had to keep so many of your own that you’re rather a natural at it.”
And then, surprisingly, Edmund grabs his hand. “Come with me?” he asks, inclining his head.
Alan studies Edmund for a minute, debating how to answer. He knows very little, really, about this boy in front of him, and while Edmund has never given him a reason not to trust him, Alan has learned the hard way that the absence of obvious malice does not equate to trustworthiness. At the same time, Edmund has consistently been open and sympathetic with him, and Alan understands enough of him to realize how rare that is. He inclines his head in agreement, and Edmund flashes him a smile before tugging on their hands and pulling him toward the trees that surround Bletchley. They are thick enough to render people invisible this time of night, and since the entire compound is surrounded by fences and guards, having anyone infiltrate it is highly unlikely. It is only those who are inside that they must watch for.
Alan hurries along just slightly behind Edmund, intrigued despite himself, and Edmund expertly keeps them in the shadows, alongside buildings and away from the patrols. He’s done this before, Alan is sure; it would be obvious to anyone with half a brain that Edmund is no novice at staying out of sight.
Just as they reach the edge of the trees, Edmund slows, turning and giving Alan another one of those quick smiles. “Don’t be afraid,” he says softly, and then they are in the embrace of the forest at night, only darkness and moonlight and the quiet rustling of the wind surrounding them. Alan blinks, trying to adjust his vision, and when everything comes into focus again, Edmund is about a foot taller and twenty years older. The hand clasping his is bigger, and were it not for Edmund’s face, which looks remarkably similar to his younger self, Alan would think he was hallucinating.
“Who are you?” he breathes, bewildered, well aware that he’s asked before and must sound ridiculous, and even more aware that he’s still not likely to get any kind of a real answer.
“It would take far longer than we have to explain that,” Edmund said, shaking his head. He smiles again, squeezing Alan’s fingers. “I’m still Edmund Pevensie, though, that much I can promise you. Trust me?”
Alan has trusted exactly three people in his life: his mother, Christopher, and Joan. The first two are dead, left him long before he was capable of comprehending why or understanding the grief that assaulted him, and the third he deliberately destroyed in the name of protection. He wants to object, wants to say that Edmund should stay miles away from him for his own sake, but he does trust Edmund in spite of himself, and in spite of his logical side that is shouting at him about the impossibility of what is happening.
Edmund must see some of the hesitation and conflict in his face, for he pulls Alan a little further into the trees and steps closer.
“You are not poison, Alan,” he says, quick and low and fierce. “You are a person, just as worthy of love as any other, do you hear me? What has happened to you is not your fault. It is the fault of those who need to belittle others in order to make themselves feel superior, the fault of those who need to exercise power over others in order to feel strong. Your Christopher knew that, did he not? He loved you for exactly who you are.”
Of all the things that he has seen and heard tonight, it is the mention of Christopher that makes Alan blanch, makes him pull his hand away from Edmund’s warm one and back away, shrink in on himself.
“How do you know about him?” he gasps, appalled. “How do you know? I’ve never told anyone -"
“I heard you mention the name to Joan, once. You were talking about your machine, but it wasn’t that hard to put the pieces together - at least, not for me,” Edmund explains swiftly, soothingly. “You named your machine Christopher - a machine to which you have given over all of your intellect, all of your energy, all of your love, to try and save a humanity that does not understand you. Hugh and the rest, they think you do it for the puzzle, for the challenge, for the love of the machine itself, but you don’t. You do it for him, one of the few people who loved all of you. You save others because you couldn’t save him, because he believed in you and knew you had a heart.”
Alan crumples, his back falling against the nearest tree, and he slides downward until he is resting at its base, his face hidden in his knees. “I never told him,” he chokes out, his voice breaking. “I was going to, and then - he didn’t come back to school. He was dead, and I had never even known he was ill. I don’t know if he - but he was my friend. I know that much was true. He was kind to me, and no one else was.”
Edmund crouches next to him, one hand resting light as a feather on Alan’s knee. “He loved you, Alan. I promise you, he loved you.” And before Alan quite knows what he is going to do, Edmund presses a kiss to his forehead, still so carefully, as though he realizes that one wrong move will leave Alan shattered and incapable of putting himself back together. He wraps a shaking hand around Edmund’s fingers, anchoring himself once again in their warmth.
Edmund presses their foreheads together, his eyes intent and questioning but also achingly open and honest in the moonlight, leaving no doubt as to his sincerity. He raises his free hand until it rests on Alan’s shirt, just over the thrum of his heart.
“May I?” he whispers. His voice is so quiet that it might be part of the breeze. “Only if you want - but I would be honored to share this with you, Alan.” The formal language should sound strange, but it doesn’t; Edmund articulates the phrase so that he is simultaneously requesting something sacred and offering a gift.
“Why?” Alan questions. “Why would you want this?” With me, of all people, he doesn’t add, but he knows Edmund hears the thought anyway.
Edmund smiles, and it is shot through with a sorrow that Alan hasn’t seen in him before. “Sometimes, we all need a reminder that we are loved - not just by the One who loves us all, but one being to another.”
Alan feels as though something in him is breaking, falling to pieces with Edmund’s compassion and understanding. Too overwhelmed to find words, Alan answers in the only way he can find, lifting his head and brushing the lightest of kisses over Edmund’s lips. The tenderness with which Edmund returns the gesture leaves Alan full of both thankfulness and longing.
Edmund backs up a few paces, producing one of their thick army blankets from somewhere - Alan thinks he must have carried it with them, though he didn’t see it until just now. He spreads it over the carpet of pine needles on the forest floor and sits back on his heels, extending a hand, his eyes bright.
“Well, come on then,” Edmund says teasingly, and Alan smiles in return, a bit shyly, the warmth in his chest blooming bright as he realizes that he can still be teased in this way, by someone he trusts with both his mind and body. He places his hand in Edmund’s, and to his surprise, Edmund bows over his fingers, kissing his way over Alan’s knuckles and down the back of his hand. Alan turns his fingers and cradles Edmund’s cheek, and Edmund looks up at him, and then they are kissing again, hands fumbling with suspenders and shirt buttons.
What follows is a litany of caresses and gasps of arousal, hands everywhere and bodies rocking together, and Alan realizes, somewhere in the midst of it all, that he isn’t being taken apart, as he feared, but being put back together. Every touch Edmund bestows is as gentle as the one before it, each one mending the cracks in Alan’s shattered heart, until the intimacy and arousal are all that he is aware of and almost more than he can bear. Though he is less practiced, he does all that he can to give the same cocoon of closeness and safety to Edmund, for something in the other man’s face tells him that Edmund needs this as much as he does.
It is hours later, when the gray that precedes dawn is beginning to seep into the sky and the two of them are wound together, sated and exhausted, with Alan’s fingers running through Edmund’s hair, that Alan notices the cord around Edmund’s bare neck and the tiny glimmer of gold at the end of it. He picks it up carefully in his fingers and examines the beautiful craftsmanship.
“A lion head?” he questions.
Edmund nuzzles his cheek against Alan’s chest once more before sitting up and giving him yet another enigmatic smile. “Let’s just say it’s another way of reminding myself that I am loved.”
Alan sits up as well and looks at the two of them. “We both need showers,” he observes, and Edmund laughs.
“Yes, we do,” he agrees. “Su will scold me for being out all night and coming in so disheveled. I’ll have to try and clean up before I see her.”
Alan looks at him with raised eyebrows and Edmund laughs again, leaning over to kiss him. “Don’t worry, she won’t ask. It’s hardly the first time,” he says merrily.
As quickly as his laughter came, however, it leaves, and Edmund glances again at the sky, his face becoming solemn. He kisses Alan deeply, cradling Alan’s face in his hands.
“I am sorry that I have so little time with you,” he murmurs. “But you are loved and worthy of being so, Alan. Do not forget that.”
They dress in silence, helping each other adjust collars and cuffs and creases as best they can, and Edmund prepares to leave first, gathering up the blanket and walking to the edge of the forest. On impulse, Alan follows and kisses him one last time.
“Will I see you again?” he asks, hushed, as though he might be crossing some invisible boundary for even asking. But Edmund only smiles, once again placing a kiss on his forehead in benediction.
“Someday. I promise.”
He steps outside of the tree line, then, and Alan watches as he walks toward the cluster of buildings that make up Bletchley Park, blending apparently effortlessly with his surroundings and becoming smaller as he goes. He turns only once, and the bright rays of the morning sun catch his brown eyes, turning them a vivid gold as he raises a hand.
Alan smiles before Edmund turns away, and then watches him until he is out of sight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alan showers and goes to work feeling at peace; no one sees him slipping back into Bletchley, and he makes use of the showers and is back in the hut with coffee before anyone else is stirring. He works throughout the morning on the early transmissions of the day, and he is not surprised when he looks up at lunchtime to find Joan standing at his desk.
“Edmund asked me to give you this,” she says stiffly, handing him a folded note. “He and Susan left this morning. New orders, apparently.”
She is still cold and furious, but she came, and Alan wonders what Edmund said to her to persuade her to deliver his message.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “It was kind of him to let me know. You were right, Joan. They are good people.”
Joan opens her lips, and Alan can practically hear the angry thoughts about to spill forth.Yes, well, some of us actually have hearts. It’s more than I can say for you. Pity you couldn’t have taken lessons from them. In the end, though, the anger in her eyes dies and is replaced by sorrow, and she simply tightens her mouth into a line and walks away.
It hurts, still, almost as badly as it had the night before, but the memory of Edmund’s lips and hands and compassion steadies him, and he knows he has done the right thing. No matter how long it takes for her to stop hating him, Joan will be safe from Menzies and all of the secrets she isn’t privy to.
He opens Edmund’s note with careful fingers, and smiles a bit as he reads, even while mist gathers in his eyes.
Courage, Alan.
You are always loved.
The writing, like Edmund himself, is a contradiction - an elegant, flowing swirl of script that should not have come from a schoolboy’s pen, though it somehow suits the man Alan knew so briefly last night. And there, at the end of the second line, is a drawn duplicate of Edmund’s medallion, skillfully rendered, the lion gazing at him and surrounded by a thick and heavy mane.
Alan slips the note carefully into his breast pocket, and from then on, it never leaves his person. It carries him through the worst of the next two years, through the numbers game of lives and bloodshed that has become his life.
By the time he leaves Bletchley in 1945, the note is worn with handling and the ink faded, but Alan keeps it still.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It isn’t enough, of course. Or perhaps, it was enough for the war and that’s what it was meant to be; Alan thinks that Edmund would understand that he cannot live on work and memories forever. Isolation was never oppressive before, but it is now; he continues to work on and operate a machine that officially does not exist and sees no one but Menzies, who still appears periodically with new assignments.
The incident with the hustler is ridiculous; it’s hardly the first or last time he’s made such a hire, but he didn’t foresee that the man would be stupid enough to try and rob him afterward.
It doesn’t occur to him until he is sitting across from Detective Nock (who, despite his misconceptions, is much smarter than anyone gives him credit for) that the entire transaction and robbery were a setup. If MI6 still wanted to keep him safe, they would have sent Menzies when he was robbed, not two policemen from the local force. He knows too much. Menzies wants to discredit him and get him out of the way, and he doesn’t care whether the police lock Alan up for being a spy or for hiring a male prostitute.
His secrets have finally caught up with him.
When given the choice, he takes the estrogen treatments almost without thought. He will work while he can and give Menzies what he wants; he will be as little of a threat as possible. Anyone who tries to resurrect his past will find nothing but a pitiful man with a mind full of frayed wires and broken couplings.
If he can actually forget some of the secrets he has kept, so much the better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The one bright spot left is Joan’s visit. As distressing as it is to see her, to have her know what a wreck his mind has become, it also gives him some closure. Joan has everything she wanted, which means that one part of his secret-keeping worked the way it was supposed to. She is safe and happy, something he could not manage for himself, Christopher, or anyone else in his life.
After her fierce defense of him, her reminder of what he said to her all those years ago (and he said it because Christoper said it to him, perhaps the kindest thing anyone had ever said to him), she stays kneeling in front of him, her hands on his knees.
“You should have told me, Alan,” she reproves him gently. “You should have told me that they were watching me, that Menzies had tried to use me as leverage.”
Something of his old sharpness comes back into his tone as he answers. “And what would that have accomplished? Even if I had told you, it would not have prevented Menzies from doing what he wanted. He’s a good man to know only as long as he is on your side, and after that knowing him is a death sentence. Look what he did to me.”
Joan stills, her hands clutching convulsively at his robe. “You’re sure this was him?”
Alan holds her gaze. “Almost certainly. And there is nothing I would not have done, even then, to keep you from this kind of fate, Joan. Prison or worse. You deserve your happiness, more than any of us.”
Her eyes fill again and she manages a smile before she stands and turns away, trying to compose herself.
“How did you figure it out?” Alan asks, attempting to distract her.
“Oh, I didn’t,” Joan says with a shaky laugh, dabbing her eyes as she turns around. “I always suspected, but I couldn’t make any sense of it. Unforgivably idiotic, really. Then, the first day I saw the papers and the articles about you, I had a note from Susan.”
It takes Alan a moment to process that, but her face comes back to him - warm and kind, so like Edmund’s.
“Yes. Edmund’s sister,” he acknowledges. “Odd that she knew where to find you.”
“Oh, not so odd, I don’t think,” Joan answers, with another wry chuckle. “She’s fiendishly clever, Alan, even more so than I knew at the time. I have no idea what she’s been doing - I haven’t seen or heard a word about her since she left Bletchley - but the note was handwritten, hand-delivered, had only my name on the front, and the entire thing was set up as though it was a letter from a sister, someone from my family. Everything was quite literally in between the lines, coded beautifully so that only I would know what she was talking about. She spelled out what had happened, more or less, and told me where to find you. I would have come anyway, but it would have taken me much longer to track you down.”
“She apologized for not being able to interfere herself,” Joan adds thoughtfully. “Whatever she’s doing, I’m willing to bet she barely exists on paper.”
“Probably a safe assumption,” Alan agrees. “Did she mention Edmund at all?”
“That’s right, you knew him better than Susan, didn’t you? I think - I think he’s gone, Alan,” Joan answers gently. “Susan - there was a strange sentence in her letter about how there was no one left at home except herself, and I wasn’t sure what she meant, except that I thought something must have happened to him.”
Alan nods, feeling a sense of relief he almost can’t explain. If Edmund is dead and Joan is safe, perhaps it is all right for him to let go, finally. His fingers find Edmund’s note, hidden in the pocket of his robe.
“Sad, but not surprising,” he says tiredly. “Whatever game they were playing, I think it was even more dangerous than ours.”
“Yes, I think so,” Joan says softly. “I'm going to go and let you get some rest.” She leans down and kisses his forehead, brushing a hand through his hair, and then she is gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he can bear the injections no longer, when he cannot work and cannot think and finally takes the relief that cyanide offers him, he wakes in a place so beautiful that it hardly feels real. Standing and turning to take in more of his surroundings, he comes full circle, only to see Edmund - older Edmund, the Edmund from the forest - waiting for him, next to the largest golden lion he has ever seen, the living embodiment of Edmund’s necklace from all those years ago. Staring into the great golden eyes, he finds that although he is the tiniest bit afraid, he feels so much love pouring off the of this magnificent King of the forest that it is impossible not to feel safe. Edmund smiles, reaching out a hand, and Alan takes it, overwhelmingly glad to see him again.
“Come on, then,” he says, a gentle echo of the old teasing tone in his voice. “There’s someone else who’s been waiting for you.”
And at long last it is Christopher’s face that Alan sees, Christopher who reaches out for him and both laughs and cries with joy, Christopher’s arms that gather him in to this new world and hold him forever, Christopher's lips that cover him with kisses and surround him with sacred love.