Safe - Chapter 30
Characters: Peter/Claude-centric ensemble
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, for language
Word count: Around 1,800
Spoilers: AU; precious little past about 1.02 ("Don't Look Back")
Summary: Holocaust-era Heroes.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the words.
A/N: I have no earthly idea where most of this chapter came from (it certainly doesn't feature in my chapter summary document). Today, we catch up with Ted and Matt. ( Previous chapters)
He's got nowhere to go. That's the bare bones of it, and there isn't much use in pretending otherwise.
Claude is going to kill him. Oh, there are numerous ways in which Theo might have done something different, stopped the conflagration, not gotten into a fucking ridiculous argument with that cop - whose fault this is, unquestionably - but at the end of it, there remains the unshakeable belief that Claude is going to kill him.
He takes another long pull on his beer, glaring at the other patrons in the low-lit bar. Uncertain which is more irritating: his imminent demise at the hands of a rage-fuelled invisible man, or that he now has nowhere to live, the tiny apartment above the bookshop having met the same rapid, fiery demise. He went back, after dark; saw the charred, burnt-out shell of the building and felt a knot of absolute dread form in his stomach. Homeless and without a job; this carefully-cultivated substitute for a life now in smoking ruins.
At least he still has some money on him. Enough to buy a few meals and some beer, or a night in one of the city's cheaper inns.
Theo opts for the beer.
He manages to stay pretty late in one of the bars, avoiding the curfew-time rooting-out of specials. Ripping the damn star off his coat a decision made quickly and easily after fleeing the burning bookshop.
He can't, it turns out, get away with falling asleep in the corner - the barmaid turfs him out with little ceremony and even less sympathy.
So Theo wanders the streets, aimless and embittered, with enough drink in him to smooth over the discomfort of falling asleep in the shop doorway in the small hours.
He wakes before dawn to impatient tutting and prodding. When he opens a bleary eye, there is a white-haired old lady standing there.
"You're in my doorway."
"Ugh ..." Theo is not at his best in the mornings, and certainly not with a skinful of beer still rendering everything a little muddy.
"I said, you're in my doorway." And she pokes him again with her walking stick. "Get up."
Disgruntled and still fogged with sleep, he stumbles to his feet.
She looks him up and down, pursing her lips. "Vagrant, are you?"
"What?" Theo's head hurts. "No!"
"Hmm," she sniffs. "You look like one." She shuffles past him and unlocks the door to the shop. "Well, don't just stand there - come in. And shut the door behind you - or were you born in a barn?"
He follows her in; shuts the door. It just seems easier.
Inside, she busies herself lighting a fire and putting some water on to boil. Looking around him, Theo sees a dusting of rough flour against shelves lined with delicate brown paper. A bakkerij. And with the realisation comes the rounded, comforting scent of yesterday's bread, though there is none to be seen.
"I suppose you'll be wanting breakfast," she says, fetching wood for the oven from a back room.
He's tired just watching her. "Um," he says, unsure of whether to impose and not quite sure what is happening. How much beer did he have last night?
She stops for a moment, looking straight at him with acute, pale grey eyes that seem entirely ageless. "Not quite all there, are you?" she says, gently.
"Hey!" he says, stung into something like coherence. "I'm fine! There's nothing wrong with me. I'm, I'm- What time is it?" he demands.
"Seven o'clock - well, just after," she corrects. "Do you have somewhere to be?"
"Uh, no. No, ma'am."
"Then quit just standing there and help me with the wood."
He helps her. Watches as she kneads up a big batch of dough, pounding it into the worn wooden worktop like a woman half her age.
The kettle boils on the stove, steam coiling pale against grey-white walls, and she makes him a cup of tea; stirs in lots of sugar, without being asked.
He sits down on a rickety wooden stool with a hole cut in the seat to act as a handle . Something is definitely not right, though it takes him a few minutes, sipping the hot tea and returning to himself, to pin it down. "It's Sunday!"
She gives him a sharp look. "So?" Brushes flour and flakes of dough from her fingers.
"So nobody's coming to get bread on a Sunday."
She raises an eyebrow. "You did."
"Ma'am, I just fell asleep in your doorway. I didn't even- Why did you open the shop today?"
She shrugs. "I just thought there might be a demand for bread."
He stares, incredulous, the steaming mug in his hands. "At 7 o'clock on a Sunday?"
She looks at him, pointedly.
Theo shuts up.
"Ah," she says, and smiles.
Theo feels decidedly lost. "I'm ... I'm going to go," he says, getting to his feet.
"If you can wait an hour," she says, still smiling, "I'll give you some bread to take with you. You'll need it."
Theo hesitates. He doesn't have a lot of money left; food would be good.
"Unless," she says, "you have somewhere else to be?"
He hangs his head. Sits back down on the stool and sighs.
"Splended," she says. "You can help me chop some wood while you wait. There's a yard out back."
'Helping' turns out to be quite hands-on.
Just over an hour later, Theo is eating fresh warm bread, skin glowing warm from the exercise of splitting logs, and feeling decidedly more human.
"So where do you think you'll go now?" asks his mystery hostess.
He shrugs. Truthfully, he doesn't know. He has no idea of going back to the cottage, but he can't exactly stay in Amsterdam, not now. Not even so Claude can come back and nail him to a wall as a warning to future stupid firestarter bookshop assistants.
"Take your time," she says.
He accepts her offer of more bread; washes it down with another cup of hot, sweet tea, wondering what he's supposed to do now.
*
Matthias has not slept well. He lay awake late, thinking of the people in the cells. The little girl, Molly; barely ten years old, and so very afraid.
He doesn't want his son to grow up afraid.
The lump on his temple throbs, an aching reminder of unseen assailants. He supposes he's lucky to be alive. Remembers Jana covering her mouth with her hand when he came home, bruised and dizzy and his stomach on the verge of rebelling. She had ghosted around him, awkward, as he lay on their bed, insisting he was fine. You're not fine, came her angry, worried thoughts, but she said nothing, face pinched tight with worry, and went into the kitchen to make dinner.
Matthias's head hurts.
He's a bit unsure of all the details, but he remembers waking up on the cold floor of the police station, sick to his stomach and with the jittering, sketchy thought that he might be about to die. No sound, and he remembered the cell; wondered what had transpired inside.
The door, when he eventually dragged himself to his feet, was open; the unconscious form of Obergruppenführer Thomassen strewn in the corner, dried blood caked dark around one nostril.
And Matthias was seized at that moment with a tremendous desire to leave the wretched place and never go back.
But the pull of familiar duty proved stronger, and there followed a short period of sloshing chaos during which he was forced to sit around, his head thumping with the aftereffects of concussion and the heavy effort of keeping everyone's thoughts out. And so many questions; none of Matthias's answers felt convincing, and it was with considerable relief that he was eventually dismissed, and allowed to find his unsteady way home.
And now, dawn still lagging below the horizon and sleeplessness pooling tired and grey in his veins, he gets up from the bed, careful not to wake Jana or the baby, and wraps himself in the tired old blue robe. Pads through to the kitchen and watches the day slowly turn to pale yellows and faint blues.
He doesn't know how to do this.
*
It's a sunny morning, if a chilly one, and Theo's stomach is pleasantly full. He carries a wrapped loaf, clutched warm against his ribs and leaching its comforting scent into the cold air. Despite everything, he supposes things could be worse.
He turns a corner and almost bumps into a large man striding purposefully down the alley; as it is, the man's broad shoulder catches Theo and nearly makes him drop the bread loaf.
"Hey!" Annoyance uttered without thinking.
The man stops and stares, and Theo realises, belatedly, that he's familiar. It's the policeman from the bookshop, though the man is not wearing his uniform.
"Kak!" Of all the godverdomme luck ...
Now it's definitely worse.
Theo turns and runs, ignoring the man's cry of "No ... wait!" Heavy footsteps thunder after him and starlings shriek, wings fluttering startled in the rush to get out of his way.
He turns corners, takes narrow alleyways, but the policeman seems to know all the short cuts - and, despite his heavy frame and harsh breathing, is somehow keeping pace.
And then Theo rounds a narrow building with dark wooden beams, and finds himself staring at a dead end; rough, deep red bricks refuse him.
Weighty footfalls and the loud rasp of breath announce the policeman's arrival behind him.
Theo turns, eyes flickering towards potential exits, of which there are - maybe - two.
"I just-" the man pants, drawing in wheezing breaths, "I just want to ... talk."
Uneasily, Theo begins to edge away. He can feel heat coalescing in his palms, and with that realisation, panic rises, sharp. No, not here, not again- If he could only reach the alley to his right-
"Please- I don't mean you any harm, I'm-" And then, most unexpectedly, the policeman's eyes roll back in his head and his knees buckle; and Theo, jittery reflexes still overheated from their pursuit, moves without thinking to catch him before he breaks his head against the cobbles. Manages to lower the man down next to him; he twitches once, neck spasming, and then goes still.
It's early, still, and nothing moves in the narrow street but Theo's eyes, flickering nervously at the slightest sound, and the gentle rise and fall of an unconscious policeman's chest against his upper arms.
Oh great, thinks Theo. Though he supposes that at least Claude won't kill him after all, if the police have already done his work for him.
( Next chapter)
x-posted to heroes_fic
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, for language
Word count: Around 1,800
Spoilers: AU; precious little past about 1.02 ("Don't Look Back")
Summary: Holocaust-era Heroes.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the words.
A/N: I have no earthly idea where most of this chapter came from (it certainly doesn't feature in my chapter summary document). Today, we catch up with Ted and Matt. ( Previous chapters)
He's got nowhere to go. That's the bare bones of it, and there isn't much use in pretending otherwise.
Claude is going to kill him. Oh, there are numerous ways in which Theo might have done something different, stopped the conflagration, not gotten into a fucking ridiculous argument with that cop - whose fault this is, unquestionably - but at the end of it, there remains the unshakeable belief that Claude is going to kill him.
He takes another long pull on his beer, glaring at the other patrons in the low-lit bar. Uncertain which is more irritating: his imminent demise at the hands of a rage-fuelled invisible man, or that he now has nowhere to live, the tiny apartment above the bookshop having met the same rapid, fiery demise. He went back, after dark; saw the charred, burnt-out shell of the building and felt a knot of absolute dread form in his stomach. Homeless and without a job; this carefully-cultivated substitute for a life now in smoking ruins.
At least he still has some money on him. Enough to buy a few meals and some beer, or a night in one of the city's cheaper inns.
Theo opts for the beer.
He manages to stay pretty late in one of the bars, avoiding the curfew-time rooting-out of specials. Ripping the damn star off his coat a decision made quickly and easily after fleeing the burning bookshop.
He can't, it turns out, get away with falling asleep in the corner - the barmaid turfs him out with little ceremony and even less sympathy.
So Theo wanders the streets, aimless and embittered, with enough drink in him to smooth over the discomfort of falling asleep in the shop doorway in the small hours.
He wakes before dawn to impatient tutting and prodding. When he opens a bleary eye, there is a white-haired old lady standing there.
"You're in my doorway."
"Ugh ..." Theo is not at his best in the mornings, and certainly not with a skinful of beer still rendering everything a little muddy.
"I said, you're in my doorway." And she pokes him again with her walking stick. "Get up."
Disgruntled and still fogged with sleep, he stumbles to his feet.
She looks him up and down, pursing her lips. "Vagrant, are you?"
"What?" Theo's head hurts. "No!"
"Hmm," she sniffs. "You look like one." She shuffles past him and unlocks the door to the shop. "Well, don't just stand there - come in. And shut the door behind you - or were you born in a barn?"
He follows her in; shuts the door. It just seems easier.
Inside, she busies herself lighting a fire and putting some water on to boil. Looking around him, Theo sees a dusting of rough flour against shelves lined with delicate brown paper. A bakkerij. And with the realisation comes the rounded, comforting scent of yesterday's bread, though there is none to be seen.
"I suppose you'll be wanting breakfast," she says, fetching wood for the oven from a back room.
He's tired just watching her. "Um," he says, unsure of whether to impose and not quite sure what is happening. How much beer did he have last night?
She stops for a moment, looking straight at him with acute, pale grey eyes that seem entirely ageless. "Not quite all there, are you?" she says, gently.
"Hey!" he says, stung into something like coherence. "I'm fine! There's nothing wrong with me. I'm, I'm- What time is it?" he demands.
"Seven o'clock - well, just after," she corrects. "Do you have somewhere to be?"
"Uh, no. No, ma'am."
"Then quit just standing there and help me with the wood."
He helps her. Watches as she kneads up a big batch of dough, pounding it into the worn wooden worktop like a woman half her age.
The kettle boils on the stove, steam coiling pale against grey-white walls, and she makes him a cup of tea; stirs in lots of sugar, without being asked.
He sits down on a rickety wooden stool with a hole cut in the seat to act as a handle . Something is definitely not right, though it takes him a few minutes, sipping the hot tea and returning to himself, to pin it down. "It's Sunday!"
She gives him a sharp look. "So?" Brushes flour and flakes of dough from her fingers.
"So nobody's coming to get bread on a Sunday."
She raises an eyebrow. "You did."
"Ma'am, I just fell asleep in your doorway. I didn't even- Why did you open the shop today?"
She shrugs. "I just thought there might be a demand for bread."
He stares, incredulous, the steaming mug in his hands. "At 7 o'clock on a Sunday?"
She looks at him, pointedly.
Theo shuts up.
"Ah," she says, and smiles.
Theo feels decidedly lost. "I'm ... I'm going to go," he says, getting to his feet.
"If you can wait an hour," she says, still smiling, "I'll give you some bread to take with you. You'll need it."
Theo hesitates. He doesn't have a lot of money left; food would be good.
"Unless," she says, "you have somewhere else to be?"
He hangs his head. Sits back down on the stool and sighs.
"Splended," she says. "You can help me chop some wood while you wait. There's a yard out back."
'Helping' turns out to be quite hands-on.
Just over an hour later, Theo is eating fresh warm bread, skin glowing warm from the exercise of splitting logs, and feeling decidedly more human.
"So where do you think you'll go now?" asks his mystery hostess.
He shrugs. Truthfully, he doesn't know. He has no idea of going back to the cottage, but he can't exactly stay in Amsterdam, not now. Not even so Claude can come back and nail him to a wall as a warning to future stupid firestarter bookshop assistants.
"Take your time," she says.
He accepts her offer of more bread; washes it down with another cup of hot, sweet tea, wondering what he's supposed to do now.
*
Matthias has not slept well. He lay awake late, thinking of the people in the cells. The little girl, Molly; barely ten years old, and so very afraid.
He doesn't want his son to grow up afraid.
The lump on his temple throbs, an aching reminder of unseen assailants. He supposes he's lucky to be alive. Remembers Jana covering her mouth with her hand when he came home, bruised and dizzy and his stomach on the verge of rebelling. She had ghosted around him, awkward, as he lay on their bed, insisting he was fine. You're not fine, came her angry, worried thoughts, but she said nothing, face pinched tight with worry, and went into the kitchen to make dinner.
Matthias's head hurts.
He's a bit unsure of all the details, but he remembers waking up on the cold floor of the police station, sick to his stomach and with the jittering, sketchy thought that he might be about to die. No sound, and he remembered the cell; wondered what had transpired inside.
The door, when he eventually dragged himself to his feet, was open; the unconscious form of Obergruppenführer Thomassen strewn in the corner, dried blood caked dark around one nostril.
And Matthias was seized at that moment with a tremendous desire to leave the wretched place and never go back.
But the pull of familiar duty proved stronger, and there followed a short period of sloshing chaos during which he was forced to sit around, his head thumping with the aftereffects of concussion and the heavy effort of keeping everyone's thoughts out. And so many questions; none of Matthias's answers felt convincing, and it was with considerable relief that he was eventually dismissed, and allowed to find his unsteady way home.
And now, dawn still lagging below the horizon and sleeplessness pooling tired and grey in his veins, he gets up from the bed, careful not to wake Jana or the baby, and wraps himself in the tired old blue robe. Pads through to the kitchen and watches the day slowly turn to pale yellows and faint blues.
He doesn't know how to do this.
*
It's a sunny morning, if a chilly one, and Theo's stomach is pleasantly full. He carries a wrapped loaf, clutched warm against his ribs and leaching its comforting scent into the cold air. Despite everything, he supposes things could be worse.
He turns a corner and almost bumps into a large man striding purposefully down the alley; as it is, the man's broad shoulder catches Theo and nearly makes him drop the bread loaf.
"Hey!" Annoyance uttered without thinking.
The man stops and stares, and Theo realises, belatedly, that he's familiar. It's the policeman from the bookshop, though the man is not wearing his uniform.
"Kak!" Of all the godverdomme luck ...
Now it's definitely worse.
Theo turns and runs, ignoring the man's cry of "No ... wait!" Heavy footsteps thunder after him and starlings shriek, wings fluttering startled in the rush to get out of his way.
He turns corners, takes narrow alleyways, but the policeman seems to know all the short cuts - and, despite his heavy frame and harsh breathing, is somehow keeping pace.
And then Theo rounds a narrow building with dark wooden beams, and finds himself staring at a dead end; rough, deep red bricks refuse him.
Weighty footfalls and the loud rasp of breath announce the policeman's arrival behind him.
Theo turns, eyes flickering towards potential exits, of which there are - maybe - two.
"I just-" the man pants, drawing in wheezing breaths, "I just want to ... talk."
Uneasily, Theo begins to edge away. He can feel heat coalescing in his palms, and with that realisation, panic rises, sharp. No, not here, not again- If he could only reach the alley to his right-
"Please- I don't mean you any harm, I'm-" And then, most unexpectedly, the policeman's eyes roll back in his head and his knees buckle; and Theo, jittery reflexes still overheated from their pursuit, moves without thinking to catch him before he breaks his head against the cobbles. Manages to lower the man down next to him; he twitches once, neck spasming, and then goes still.
It's early, still, and nothing moves in the narrow street but Theo's eyes, flickering nervously at the slightest sound, and the gentle rise and fall of an unconscious policeman's chest against his upper arms.
Oh great, thinks Theo. Though he supposes that at least Claude won't kill him after all, if the police have already done his work for him.
( Next chapter)
x-posted to heroes_fic