Christmas Fic for toomuchlikedad : Silent Night
Title: Silent Night
Prompt: AU Christmas fic (WWII), inspired by Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
Characters: Connie Murphy, Bree House, Emma House, Greg House, John House, Blythe House.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Implied House/Murphy
Warnings: Character death.
Author’s Notes: Little known fact, I’m a History Major. I love history and leapt at the chance to do a historical AU for Christmas fic. I’ve tried to keep things as historically accurate as possible, but there might be a little fudging just to make the story flow. Also, I’m an American, trying to write from an Irish/English point of view on World War 2 was difficult and I know I probably got some cultural things wrong but forgive me. I did everything I could to find out and be accurate.
---
London, England
September 7th, 1940.
The house shook, rattling through her bones like thunder. She heard the children screaming and pushed them tighter against the stone wall of the basement. When the thunder stopped, heat blazed at her back. Connie Murphy looked over her shoulder and stared in horror. Half the house had collapsed into the basement and was now a burning pile of rubble feet away from them.
“Get out! We have to get out!” Missus House yelled over the sound of crackling flames and popping wood. “You and Anna first!”
Murphy nodded and scooped her daughter up into her arms. She pressed Anna’s face tight to her shoulder as she ran for the stairs out of the basement. It was no purposefully built bomb shelter, but no one had expected the Nazis to be brazen enough to attack London itself. There was no time to prepare, no warning. This afternoon, the aircraft had flown over head and the bombs had started dropping. She felt Aubrey, the missus daughter, grab the back of her shirt and follow her up.
By luck or divine intervention the basement door opened and looking around, she saw a path to the front door. It was dangerously close to the collapsed and burning part of the house but it was the only way.
“Close your eyes, a ghrá,” Murphy whispered and felt Anna clutch tighter at her. She bit down on fear and panic, focused on what she must do and then started forward.
The thunder of bombs seemed endless. The drone of planes was unceasing overhead as sirens wailed throughout the city. She could hear the panic in the streets, voices yelling and children crying. She didn’t know where they would run to, but they had to run.
The front door was harder to open. She shoved at it with a shoulder, but it wasn’t enough.
“Take her!” She pushed Anna into Aubrey’s arms. The teenager awkwardly managed to get a grip on the nine year old and looked over her shoulder at her mother who was making her way towards them.
Taking a deep breath, Murphy drew back a little and slammed into the door with all her weight. She hadn’t always been a nurse maid to London’s elite. Before coming here, she had worked the sheep farm with her father since she had no brothers to do the work. The door slid open another inch and she swore before ramming it again.
It popped open this time, causing Murphy to stumble onto the front steps. She was ushering Aubrey out when another bomb struck not far from them and the whole street rumbled. The house made a terrifying roar as it collapsed inward on itself. She was forced to stumble back as the flames leapt outwards, almost reaching out to her with long, burning fingers. The missus screamed and with a sense of horror she realized the sound was from inside the fallen house.
“Mum!” Aubrey cry out behind her and ran forward, but Murphy grabbed her and held on tight, dragging her away from the burning out and into the street. Aubrey’s cries that night were the last sounds the girl would make.
---
Cornwall
December 22, 1940
Cornwall was vastly different from London. Looking out over the rocky coast, Murphy felt as if she could have been standing somewhere in Ireland instead of England. Even though it was chilly on the wind buffeted cliffs, she stood watch as Aubrey and Anna made their way around the rocks, playing whatever games children played when one wouldn’t talk.
They had left London with Aubrey’s paternal grandparents only two nights after London had been bombed, but the damage was already done. The missus had died in the flames. Shortly after her burial, the master had been drafted into service as a medic and Aubrey still wouldn’t speak.
Her father had said it was from emotional trauma. When she had recovered from the shock of her mother’s death she would speak again and that because Aubrey was a teenager, she would recover much quicker than a younger girl. Fresh country air and distance from the scene of the trauma would vastly help. While she wasn’t a doctor, Murphy wasn’t as optimistic. It had been three months now and there hadn’t been a single word from Aubrey.
“Aubrey! Time to come inside, girl, there’s a letter for you!”
Murphy looked over her shoulder towards the house. Blythe House, Aubrey’s grandmother, stood at the back gate, holding up a white slip of paper.
“It’s from your father!”
Aubrey looked up from the rock she was perched on, expression bright and hopeful then she sprinted as best she could over the rocky terrain. Anna was quick to try and follow, but the younger girl had a much harder time keeping up. Murphy intercepted her daughter, swinging her up into her arms to carry her back.
“Mama, I want to see what the letter says,” Anna said, wiggling against her hold.
“It’s Aubrey’s letter, not yours,” Murphy scolded gently. “If she wants to share with you, she will.”
Anna huffed and sulked a bit. From a distance they watched Aubrey snatch the letter from her grandmother’s hand and run inside.
“Do you think it’ll be good news?” Anna asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Murphy shrugged, adjusting Anna’s weight on her arm. “Whatever the news, I’m sure she’s happy to hear from her father.”
“She misses him a lot. She told me last night that she wants him to come home.”
Murphy drew back in surprise, “Aubrey spoke to you?”
Anna shook her head, “No, she writes things out for me. Her dad will come home right? Not like my dad.”
“He’ll come home,” Murphy said because there was just nothing else to say to a question like that.
“Miss Murphy, I’d like some tea in the sitting room,” Mrs. House said as they approached the back gate.
“Of course, Missus. I’ll bring it straight away.” Murphy set Anna on her feet and pushed her towards the back door. “Hang your coat and hat, then upstairs to finish your lessons. I’ll bring you something in a bit. And don’t bother Aubrey until you’re done.”
“Yes, máthair.” Once on her feet, Anna took off for the backdoor, leaving Murphy to walk with Mrs. House.
“It was my son who hired you, wasn’t it?” she asked as they walked through the manicured backyard, vastly different from the wild coast just beyond the brick wall that separated the two.
Murphy nodded, “Yes, ma’am. Shortly after Aubrey was born.”
Aubrey’s grandmother nodded. “He never said anything to me, but I think he worried a great deal about her after. She seemed so lost.”
“She was a good mother,” Murphy said, feeling oddly uncomfortable. It seemed wrong to talk about the missus problems with her dead and buried somewhere under rubble in London.
“Of course she was, I never said she wasn’t.” Blythe stopped by the back door and reached into the pocket of her sweater. “There was also another letter for you. I’d prefer if you waited until after you brought tea before reading it.”
“Of course, missus.” Murphy took it with a small flush and then ducked past Blythe into the kitchen.
Her correspondence with Greg House had started shortly after he had started writing to Aubrey. He had been worried that his daughter wasn’t being completely honest in her letters and told her to tell the truth or she’d be fired. Of course, she had started writing. Somewhere the letters had morphed from simple reports to actual conversations. Now she was just as eager as Aubrey to get a letter.
After she put the kettle on, she tore the envelope open and pulled out the first letter she had received in weeks.
Connie,
Don’t tell Bree, but I’m writing to you from an Army hospital in Northumberland. I’ve told her she’ll have a surprise for Christmas. I’ll tell you, it’s me.
It’s not as good as it sounds. Two weeks ago the hospital I was in was struck by a mortar shell. I was hit, badly, by shrapnel. While they managed to save my leg I am no longer fit for military service. I’m not sure how to tell my daughter I can no longer walk without a cane or that stairs have become an insurmountable challenge. I’m sure the army will send a letter to my much esteemed father to tell him what’s happening. He’ll break the news.
So, as this is my last letter until I return home make sure he’s not a complete ass about it.
House
---
Cornwall
December 25, 1940
At midnight, Murphy left Anna sleeping in their attic room and crept down stairs with her arms full of presents. The tree stood in the corner of the living room, bright with silver tinsel and glass ornaments. It still looked beautiful, even if there was a sense of worry in the house. From what Aubrey’s grandfather had said days ago House was supposed to be home already. He hadn’t arrived even though when Aubrey’s grandfather had called the hospital they said he had left on time.
There were still reports of Nazi bombings all around England, even some in her home Ireland. The unspoken sense of fear was he too had been caught in one of those bombing raids. The Germans had targeted railways before. No one talked about it. It was as if they had all been struck mute on the subject, like Aubrey.
“Come to steal the good silver?”
She paused then finished placing the last present she had and straightened, facing House with her chin held high. He stood in near the front door, a bag at his feet and a cane in his right hand. So, it was as bad as he said in his letter. She tried hard not to stare at the cane, but it was hard to miss. When he had left, Greg House had been a striking man with an imposing figure. Seeing him now, to Murphy it seemed as if he had aged rapidly in war.
“Should I ask you that, sir?” she countered, “You are, after all, breaking into a home in the dead of night.”
“Unfortunately, my mother gave me a key.” He held it up. “Now, be a dear and get me a whiskey.”
“At this hour?”
“I should have one in the morning?” He walked around her, his cane making a muted thump, thump against the floor as he passed her and made his way to the liquor cabinet in the corner.
“You should want to go to bed.”
“To sleep I suppose? I just spent a long, boring train ride sleeping and an even more boring drive.” House took the whiskey from the cabinet and got a glass. He frowned a little and then shrugged, pouring it neat in a glass.
“If I’m going to bed, I want company.” House lifted his glass at her. “Care to join me?”
He had always been a bit forward, but never with her. She looked away when she felt herself blushing.
“I’ll leave you to your evening and whatever you plan to do with it.”
“Connie,” he said, stopping her when she turned to go.
“Yes, sir?”
She thought for a second he was going to say something more. He had a look in his eyes, like he was looking through her, looking beyond her.
“Are you sure you won’t join me?”
“For a drink or in your bed?”
He smirked and she sighed.
“Good night sir, and Merry Christmas.”
---
Usually Murphy was the first one up in the mornings, to make breakfast and get things ready for the household under her care. This Christmas morning however she woke up to the sound of a piano playing. Well, House was certainly announcing his presence this morning. She wondered if she was pleased or annoyed that he had chosen to be this loud this morning.
“Máthair?” Anna asked sleepily.
“It’s just some music. Go back to sleep.” Murphy slipped out of bed, pausing to kiss Anna on the top of her head.
“But it’s Christmas… there are presents.”
“Yes, but they won’t be opened for awhile yet. I’ll come get you when they are.”
Anna decided that it was a fine plan and rolled over to go back to sleep. Murphy, on the other hand dressed quickly. Tying her hair up in a bun as she descended the stairs she saw the missus stick her head out of her room, frowning deeply.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s father,” Aubrey shot past Murphy in her nightgown, “He’s home! He’s home!”
“She spoke…” Blythe said, holding a hand to her mouth, tears forming in her eyes. “She spoke.”
“I suppose she has a reason to now.”
“I have to tell John.” And the missus disappeared into her room again.
Murphy continued down the stairs, when she reached the last step the piano was interrupted. She stood by the sitting room door to listen.
“Alright, alright, enough hugging. People are going to talk.”
“Welcome home, dad.”
“Bree, I thought you’d taken a vow of silence.”
“You raised me better than that. I wouldn’t take anything that had to do with religion.”
“That’s my girl.” House laughed. So did Aubrey. Murphy slipped away to make breakfast. Merry Christmas indeed.
---
Prompt: AU Christmas fic (WWII), inspired by Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
Characters: Connie Murphy, Bree House, Emma House, Greg House, John House, Blythe House.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Implied House/Murphy
Warnings: Character death.
Author’s Notes: Little known fact, I’m a History Major. I love history and leapt at the chance to do a historical AU for Christmas fic. I’ve tried to keep things as historically accurate as possible, but there might be a little fudging just to make the story flow. Also, I’m an American, trying to write from an Irish/English point of view on World War 2 was difficult and I know I probably got some cultural things wrong but forgive me. I did everything I could to find out and be accurate.
---
London, England
September 7th, 1940.
The house shook, rattling through her bones like thunder. She heard the children screaming and pushed them tighter against the stone wall of the basement. When the thunder stopped, heat blazed at her back. Connie Murphy looked over her shoulder and stared in horror. Half the house had collapsed into the basement and was now a burning pile of rubble feet away from them.
“Get out! We have to get out!” Missus House yelled over the sound of crackling flames and popping wood. “You and Anna first!”
Murphy nodded and scooped her daughter up into her arms. She pressed Anna’s face tight to her shoulder as she ran for the stairs out of the basement. It was no purposefully built bomb shelter, but no one had expected the Nazis to be brazen enough to attack London itself. There was no time to prepare, no warning. This afternoon, the aircraft had flown over head and the bombs had started dropping. She felt Aubrey, the missus daughter, grab the back of her shirt and follow her up.
By luck or divine intervention the basement door opened and looking around, she saw a path to the front door. It was dangerously close to the collapsed and burning part of the house but it was the only way.
“Close your eyes, a ghrá,” Murphy whispered and felt Anna clutch tighter at her. She bit down on fear and panic, focused on what she must do and then started forward.
The thunder of bombs seemed endless. The drone of planes was unceasing overhead as sirens wailed throughout the city. She could hear the panic in the streets, voices yelling and children crying. She didn’t know where they would run to, but they had to run.
The front door was harder to open. She shoved at it with a shoulder, but it wasn’t enough.
“Take her!” She pushed Anna into Aubrey’s arms. The teenager awkwardly managed to get a grip on the nine year old and looked over her shoulder at her mother who was making her way towards them.
Taking a deep breath, Murphy drew back a little and slammed into the door with all her weight. She hadn’t always been a nurse maid to London’s elite. Before coming here, she had worked the sheep farm with her father since she had no brothers to do the work. The door slid open another inch and she swore before ramming it again.
It popped open this time, causing Murphy to stumble onto the front steps. She was ushering Aubrey out when another bomb struck not far from them and the whole street rumbled. The house made a terrifying roar as it collapsed inward on itself. She was forced to stumble back as the flames leapt outwards, almost reaching out to her with long, burning fingers. The missus screamed and with a sense of horror she realized the sound was from inside the fallen house.
“Mum!” Aubrey cry out behind her and ran forward, but Murphy grabbed her and held on tight, dragging her away from the burning out and into the street. Aubrey’s cries that night were the last sounds the girl would make.
---
Cornwall
December 22, 1940
Cornwall was vastly different from London. Looking out over the rocky coast, Murphy felt as if she could have been standing somewhere in Ireland instead of England. Even though it was chilly on the wind buffeted cliffs, she stood watch as Aubrey and Anna made their way around the rocks, playing whatever games children played when one wouldn’t talk.
They had left London with Aubrey’s paternal grandparents only two nights after London had been bombed, but the damage was already done. The missus had died in the flames. Shortly after her burial, the master had been drafted into service as a medic and Aubrey still wouldn’t speak.
Her father had said it was from emotional trauma. When she had recovered from the shock of her mother’s death she would speak again and that because Aubrey was a teenager, she would recover much quicker than a younger girl. Fresh country air and distance from the scene of the trauma would vastly help. While she wasn’t a doctor, Murphy wasn’t as optimistic. It had been three months now and there hadn’t been a single word from Aubrey.
“Aubrey! Time to come inside, girl, there’s a letter for you!”
Murphy looked over her shoulder towards the house. Blythe House, Aubrey’s grandmother, stood at the back gate, holding up a white slip of paper.
“It’s from your father!”
Aubrey looked up from the rock she was perched on, expression bright and hopeful then she sprinted as best she could over the rocky terrain. Anna was quick to try and follow, but the younger girl had a much harder time keeping up. Murphy intercepted her daughter, swinging her up into her arms to carry her back.
“Mama, I want to see what the letter says,” Anna said, wiggling against her hold.
“It’s Aubrey’s letter, not yours,” Murphy scolded gently. “If she wants to share with you, she will.”
Anna huffed and sulked a bit. From a distance they watched Aubrey snatch the letter from her grandmother’s hand and run inside.
“Do you think it’ll be good news?” Anna asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Murphy shrugged, adjusting Anna’s weight on her arm. “Whatever the news, I’m sure she’s happy to hear from her father.”
“She misses him a lot. She told me last night that she wants him to come home.”
Murphy drew back in surprise, “Aubrey spoke to you?”
Anna shook her head, “No, she writes things out for me. Her dad will come home right? Not like my dad.”
“He’ll come home,” Murphy said because there was just nothing else to say to a question like that.
“Miss Murphy, I’d like some tea in the sitting room,” Mrs. House said as they approached the back gate.
“Of course, Missus. I’ll bring it straight away.” Murphy set Anna on her feet and pushed her towards the back door. “Hang your coat and hat, then upstairs to finish your lessons. I’ll bring you something in a bit. And don’t bother Aubrey until you’re done.”
“Yes, máthair.” Once on her feet, Anna took off for the backdoor, leaving Murphy to walk with Mrs. House.
“It was my son who hired you, wasn’t it?” she asked as they walked through the manicured backyard, vastly different from the wild coast just beyond the brick wall that separated the two.
Murphy nodded, “Yes, ma’am. Shortly after Aubrey was born.”
Aubrey’s grandmother nodded. “He never said anything to me, but I think he worried a great deal about her after. She seemed so lost.”
“She was a good mother,” Murphy said, feeling oddly uncomfortable. It seemed wrong to talk about the missus problems with her dead and buried somewhere under rubble in London.
“Of course she was, I never said she wasn’t.” Blythe stopped by the back door and reached into the pocket of her sweater. “There was also another letter for you. I’d prefer if you waited until after you brought tea before reading it.”
“Of course, missus.” Murphy took it with a small flush and then ducked past Blythe into the kitchen.
Her correspondence with Greg House had started shortly after he had started writing to Aubrey. He had been worried that his daughter wasn’t being completely honest in her letters and told her to tell the truth or she’d be fired. Of course, she had started writing. Somewhere the letters had morphed from simple reports to actual conversations. Now she was just as eager as Aubrey to get a letter.
After she put the kettle on, she tore the envelope open and pulled out the first letter she had received in weeks.
Connie,
Don’t tell Bree, but I’m writing to you from an Army hospital in Northumberland. I’ve told her she’ll have a surprise for Christmas. I’ll tell you, it’s me.
It’s not as good as it sounds. Two weeks ago the hospital I was in was struck by a mortar shell. I was hit, badly, by shrapnel. While they managed to save my leg I am no longer fit for military service. I’m not sure how to tell my daughter I can no longer walk without a cane or that stairs have become an insurmountable challenge. I’m sure the army will send a letter to my much esteemed father to tell him what’s happening. He’ll break the news.
So, as this is my last letter until I return home make sure he’s not a complete ass about it.
House
---
Cornwall
December 25, 1940
At midnight, Murphy left Anna sleeping in their attic room and crept down stairs with her arms full of presents. The tree stood in the corner of the living room, bright with silver tinsel and glass ornaments. It still looked beautiful, even if there was a sense of worry in the house. From what Aubrey’s grandfather had said days ago House was supposed to be home already. He hadn’t arrived even though when Aubrey’s grandfather had called the hospital they said he had left on time.
There were still reports of Nazi bombings all around England, even some in her home Ireland. The unspoken sense of fear was he too had been caught in one of those bombing raids. The Germans had targeted railways before. No one talked about it. It was as if they had all been struck mute on the subject, like Aubrey.
“Come to steal the good silver?”
She paused then finished placing the last present she had and straightened, facing House with her chin held high. He stood in near the front door, a bag at his feet and a cane in his right hand. So, it was as bad as he said in his letter. She tried hard not to stare at the cane, but it was hard to miss. When he had left, Greg House had been a striking man with an imposing figure. Seeing him now, to Murphy it seemed as if he had aged rapidly in war.
“Should I ask you that, sir?” she countered, “You are, after all, breaking into a home in the dead of night.”
“Unfortunately, my mother gave me a key.” He held it up. “Now, be a dear and get me a whiskey.”
“At this hour?”
“I should have one in the morning?” He walked around her, his cane making a muted thump, thump against the floor as he passed her and made his way to the liquor cabinet in the corner.
“You should want to go to bed.”
“To sleep I suppose? I just spent a long, boring train ride sleeping and an even more boring drive.” House took the whiskey from the cabinet and got a glass. He frowned a little and then shrugged, pouring it neat in a glass.
“If I’m going to bed, I want company.” House lifted his glass at her. “Care to join me?”
He had always been a bit forward, but never with her. She looked away when she felt herself blushing.
“I’ll leave you to your evening and whatever you plan to do with it.”
“Connie,” he said, stopping her when she turned to go.
“Yes, sir?”
She thought for a second he was going to say something more. He had a look in his eyes, like he was looking through her, looking beyond her.
“Are you sure you won’t join me?”
“For a drink or in your bed?”
He smirked and she sighed.
“Good night sir, and Merry Christmas.”
---
Usually Murphy was the first one up in the mornings, to make breakfast and get things ready for the household under her care. This Christmas morning however she woke up to the sound of a piano playing. Well, House was certainly announcing his presence this morning. She wondered if she was pleased or annoyed that he had chosen to be this loud this morning.
“Máthair?” Anna asked sleepily.
“It’s just some music. Go back to sleep.” Murphy slipped out of bed, pausing to kiss Anna on the top of her head.
“But it’s Christmas… there are presents.”
“Yes, but they won’t be opened for awhile yet. I’ll come get you when they are.”
Anna decided that it was a fine plan and rolled over to go back to sleep. Murphy, on the other hand dressed quickly. Tying her hair up in a bun as she descended the stairs she saw the missus stick her head out of her room, frowning deeply.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s father,” Aubrey shot past Murphy in her nightgown, “He’s home! He’s home!”
“She spoke…” Blythe said, holding a hand to her mouth, tears forming in her eyes. “She spoke.”
“I suppose she has a reason to now.”
“I have to tell John.” And the missus disappeared into her room again.
Murphy continued down the stairs, when she reached the last step the piano was interrupted. She stood by the sitting room door to listen.
“Alright, alright, enough hugging. People are going to talk.”
“Welcome home, dad.”
“Bree, I thought you’d taken a vow of silence.”
“You raised me better than that. I wouldn’t take anything that had to do with religion.”
“That’s my girl.” House laughed. So did Aubrey. Murphy slipped away to make breakfast. Merry Christmas indeed.
---