Not AU exactly -- AW through a blurry, malfunctioning telescope
In the following, we now cover 15-16 years, and this goes places I did not intend, and we end up not in AU exactly, but maybe. It's not what I'd intended. The first part is re-hash of the commentfic and I blame lady_songsmith for the prompt that took us to the Amazon and then anastigmatfic for where we’ve ended up, however improbably. The very end is new.
It begins in Brazil, 1932, more or less with Polly, Mary, Asim, and the wet books from the post yesterday.
Polly blew out an aggravated breath. “And I suppose that all the examination textbooks Digory gave you were in that bag now sinking to the bottom of the second longest river in the world?”
“I’m afraid so,” Mary replied airily. “The Latin and Greek, the religion, and the philosophy.”
“The only thing that did not fall in is Gadow’s Amphibia and Reptiles,” Asim added.
“That is a stroke of luck, what?”
Polly vowed she was never traveling again with a seventeen year old girl. If she wanted further demonstration of the merits of relationships only with women, and rigorous use of contraception when with men, here it was in the boat next to her.
“What do you think, Asim?” Polly asked.
“If you are proposing I dive in to get the bag, and save Digory the apoplexy, I think I am more comfortable swimming with the fauna of Africa than South America.”
“Mary? What’s down there if I push you in to retrieve your bookbag?”
“Well, there is Eunectes murinus, of course.”
Asim looked at Polly and she whispered, “Green Anaconda.”
“Largest snake in the world. There’s also Melanosuchus niger.”
“That’s a…”
“I know,” Asim said wearily. “It’s some kind of crocodile.”
“I wonder…” Mary leaned precariously over the side of the boat and stuck her fingers into a small school of circling fish. The fish rushed at her appetizing appendage.
“Ha! I thought so!” Mary exclaimed, yanking her hand out of the water. “Pygocentrus nattereri!!” She waggled her fingers - one was bleeding.
That did it.
“Asim, start the engine,” Polly said, utterly exasperated. Tempting as it was to shove Mary in, Polly really couldn’t blame her. The red piranhas of the Amazon were welcome to Digory’s fourth best copy of the Virgil’s Aeneid and Duns Scotus’ Questions on Metaphysics.
Followed by Anastigmatfic,
When Digs found out about this, it was a thing to see. His Victorian British cast-iron sentimentality warred mightily with his profound irritation for the treatment of the Dread Dunce - as Mary called him, and as Polly tended to heartily agree. All involved watched avidly as various emotions flitted across Digs' face.
Finally, he came to a concluding explosion that was neither too sentimental nor too stoic.
"MARY ANNING!" he thundered. "YOU ARE NEVER TO REMOVE ANY WRITTEN MATERIALS FROM MY OFFICE AGAIN. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. EVER. HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?"
"Crystal," said Mary, shifting to attention in her seat.
Only Asim noticed the battered copy of Darwin's Descent of Man which Mary slipped into her rucksack, behind her back. He said nothing, of course -- nothing verbal, that is; in a quiet place within himself he asked Allah to please make him understand why he, Asim, had been compelled to follow so troublesome a charge.
Mary, always aware of attention, winked at Asim over her shoulder before attentively returning to Digory's tirade. Asim cracked a slight smile, against his own will. So be it: Allah had a sense of humor, and that was reason enough for this.
10 years later, with a slight rewrite of Chapter 2 of Part 1 of TSG
Oxford, June 1942
"So, how goes the study of the dread Dunce?"
"Well," Digory began, resolved to ignore Mary’s usual epithet and stepping away from the Wardrobe, "we…"
"I was asking the question of Peter. He's more likely to give me an untarnished answer."
Peter was in the process of pulling his own chair out to make more space in the room. "Mary? Would you like a seat?"
"Oh, for the moment, but we'll have to sit on the floor for tea."
Digory must have imagined the cloud of sand that seemed to puff out when she plopped down inelegantly into Peter's vacated seat.
Peter retreated to the bookshelf as Digory found his own squeaky office chair again.
"Well?" Mary demanded again, speaking directly at Peter. "And stop with meaningful looks at one another!"
"If you mean the Blessed John Duns Scotus, the work has been a bit frustrating," Peter admitted.
"Aha!" Mary pinned Digory with a fierce glare. "Not that I take particular issue with Scotus' whole reasoning from effect to cause. I also certainly agree that we can come to know God apart from revelation. But, I have serious concerns about his Immaculate Conception argument. I mean really, it's all very fine and well for her, but procreation without sex is a rather difficult trick for other women to emulate, yes?" Here, she had to pause for a breath - thankfully not elaborating further on the last point. "And I really can't follow Dunce's seven part Proof for the Existence of God beyond Step 5D."
Declining the implicit challenge to debate theology, Peter continued calmly. "I meant that we are having difficulty locating some of Scotus’ works that should be in the Oxford Franciscan library."
"Have you looked on your own desk, Digory?" Mary asked sweetly.
"Unfortunately, yes," he admitted brusquely, pique rising. Digory did not appreciate this ongoing criticism of the status of the paperwork on his desk. It was his desk. He knew where everything was that he needed, and usually could find it when he needed it. He didn't particularly care if others could not.
More to the point, Mary was in no position to condemn him and he gave her his most severe frown. “We might have used the older copies in my personal collection but they, regrettably, are at the bottom of the Amazon.”
Mary at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“Amazon?” Peter asked. “Why would Duns Scotus’ Questions on Metaphysics be in Brazil? In a river?”
“Now Digs!” Mary huffed, pinking up with embarrassment even over her sunburn. “It was an accident! Ten years ago!”
“This, Peter, is why you must never loan a book to Mary. She has a habit of taking them to the far flung reaches of the globe and feeding them to piranhas and giant snakes that swallow crocodiles whole.”
“Are you finished, Digs?”
“Are you finished criticising my desk?”
“Yes,” Mary muttered meekly.
“Piranhas?” Peter asked. “Could we just return a moment to…”
“No!” Mary said. “It’s very embarrassing and always puts Digs in a surly mood.”
Digory had to agree. “Peter, you should ask Polly about it, as she was there. And as we shall not mount an expedition to retrieve what is certainly ruined, we have attempted to locate the manuscripts missing from the library here.”
He suddenly had a dreadful thought. “Mary, did you remove any of Scotus’ works from the Franciscan collection here?”
She snorted. “Really, Digs, of course not.”
That was a relief and at least ruled out expeditions to the Sahara or Mary’s cellar. "In any event, it took Peter the better part of two weeks, but we did eventually learn that some of the Franciscan library, including a number works by Scotus and Ockham, have been loaned out."
"Ockham! Now that's a loss I do care about. Any idea where they went?"
"To the British Museum," Peter replied gloomily.
"Oh dear," Mary responded. She obviously saw the problem.
"Indeed," Digory echoed the expressed pessimism. "I understand many of the collections have been hidden until the War ends."
"It's not really secret," Mary supplied helpfully. "Forsdyke put a lot of it in underground storage in Bradford. Other material is scattered with FOMs."
"FOMs?" Peter asked.
"Friends of the Museum," Mary and Digory both responded at the same time. Mary continued, "Richard and I have a few things."
"From the British Museum?" Peter asked, wonderment in his tone. "Really?"
"Well, for your sake, I'm sorry but we don't have anything from the Oxford Franciscans. Forsdyke would know better than to give something like that to us."
"If you are as bad about returning historical artifacts as you are about flinging precious books into the Amazon, I'm surprised Forsdyke gave you anything, Mary."
And then Anastigmatfic added this highly suggestive bit which had me dying of shock, amazement, and laughter last night. We will just say this is 1947 or 1948?:
When Peter finally had the story from Mary, he couldn't help but laugh. She glared most ferociously, but his time as High King of Narnia had inured him to all manner of stares and scowls and dagger-eyes, and Mary's glare - compared to, say, a Tarkaan deep within the grips of a nearly-forgotten philosophical offense - was almost half as frightening as a kitten batting about a ball of yarn. The harder Peter laughed, the more Mary glared, until she finally rolled her eyes and turfed him off the bed.
"Oof," said Peter. "Your boots aren't half painful."
"Steel capped toes," Mary said primly. "You deserved that, especially after the trouble you've had with the Dread Dunce yourself."
"It's not that," Peter said, clambering to his feet and rubbing a sore spot perilously close to his left kidney. "May I?" he asked, gesturing to the bed.
"Only so that I can shove you away again if you mock me," Mary said, refusing to look at him.
"No," Peter soothed, taking her hand. She didn't pull away: a good sign. "No, no. I'm laughing because I know that you're still offended that he gave you a dressing-down in front of Polly and Asim, and that is why you've always taken a perverse pleasure in stealing his papers."
The silence next to Peter grew petulant. He'd experience with this, too. He waited her out.
"Mostly," Mary finally admitted.
"Mostly?" Peter echoed. "What's the rest of it, then? Oh, don't tell me - you're single-handedly redressing the wrongs done by all those thieving male paleontologists."
This time, a feathered pillow accompanied Peter to the ground.
"Not that I'm against larceny for its own sake," said Peter, removing the same boot from the same sore spot on his back - he was sure it'd bruise delightfully - "and especially not when it's to redress great wrongs. But I'm sure there are better ways to set this right."
"And you'd know all about that," Mary huffed. "You're a King, not an archaeologist. An ex-King."
"Kings know a few things about how to dismantle a revered hero," Peter said. "I think these heroes have it coming, and I think you're just the one to knock the statues down."
"Get the gin while you're down there," Mary finally replied, "and then tell me what you're thinking."
I demanded that Anastigmat write more and she kindly punted it back to me on Twitter with the assertion that she really didn't know the paleos. Which has now led to this. And now satisfies Min023’s request for something from AW. It’s not totally AU, but it’s not in the outline and it’s certainly not what I’d intended, either. But, all this comment fic going back and forth is getting me thinking again and I’m calling this a trial balloon. So, let’s test it out and see if it flies or pops.
Peter left the gin bottle where it was. “We shall save it for tonight and toast your success.”
“Or burial,” Mary said gloomily.
He gained his feet with barely a wince and held out his hand. With an aggrieved sniff, Mary took it and allowed him to pull her out of the bed.
“Let’s go downstairs. You can count the number of prints of your article again.”
The forty printed sets of Mary’s article, with contributions by E. C. Scrubb, were on the drawing room table. As expected, she restlessly began fingering them, even though Mr. Patel had been summoned to provide the definitive count.
“You’re nervous about tonight,” Peter said.
“Yes,” Mary admitted, her lips moving as she counted the prints, fifteen, sixteen. “It’s childish to be feeling stage fright. That’s what Richard used to tell me before a big presentation. He loved these meetings.”
Richard Russell cast a larger than life shadow over so many things. Peter had loved Richard until the day he had died, and it was still hard to hear these truths. Eustace was the only one with an unvarnished view of Richard and that was because he had never known Richard when he was well and had then fallen hopelessly in love with the man’s wife.
“Nerves are perfectly reasonable, Mary. You’ve been working on this subject for over five years, you’ve not presented a paper since before the War, and this is the first time you’ve appeared before a scientific society without Richard there.”
The pages stopped fluttering as Mary’s fingers paused. “Have I ever mentioned how alarming it is when you sound as insightful as Lucy?”
“I have my occasional moments,” Peter said. He stood behind her and put a hand on her broad shoulder. She rested her fingers on top of his for a moment then shrugged off to resume her counting.
Seventeen, eighteen…
“For all that we laugh about it now, a dressing down by Professor Digory Kirke isn’t something you’ll ever forget, and you’ll never want a repeat of that sort of experience,” Peter told her. Peculiar a bond though it was, they both knew what it felt of to disappoint the expectations of that great intellect.
“You won’t fail tonight, Mary, but it’s understandable why you are worried that you will.”
“I’ve always tried so hard,” Mary said, twenty-five, twenty-six, and with a fierce act of will and faith, she turned away from the stacked manuscripts before counting them completely to pace the length of the room. “But I’ve always felt the little respect I have earned was due only to Richard. There’s always been the belief that whatever I did was really his work.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I was just the entertainment,” she grumbled.
He could chase her around the room, or just let her work through it. Peter sat on the divan and Mary would orbit around him. They should probably get out of doors, too. The house was too small a space for Mary today.
“Mary, my father said the word among the scientific publishers and your peer reviewers is that this is the most remarkable article to come out of England since the War. They are calling it groundbreaking work that will spawn a whole new field of study. My father and his fellows intend to come tonight to hear your defence and ask for your autograph.”
Which would be awkward enough that Peter had thought it better if he did not attend at all.
The same thought now occurred to Mary. She stilled her restless pacing. “You’re still coming, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.
“Well, it’s not…”
There was an angry stomp. Her steel toed boots made quite the thump and Peter reconsidered. Those boots in his right kidney would add to the pain in his left that resulted from their previous tussle.
“You are in the acknowledgement, Peter! This would not have existed without you! You were there when I first had the idea and when I had the Eureka moment. Your father made sure I spelled your name right in the footnote!”
“I think he hoped the scientific community would believe he was being acknowledged, rather than his layabout son.”
“Stop that,” Mary snapped, underscoring her objection with a punch to his arm as she stalked passed him. “You were the inspiration and he caught my grammar errors, which I concede, is a heroic effort. He’s envious of you for doing what you want and love, and because he thinks you are cavorting with an older woman.”
“I’m older than you are!” Peter insisted. And really, this was about Mary’s anxiety and not the strained relationship with his father. “And you are much, much younger than my usual.”
“I’m also not a tree,” Mary replied.
He snagged her sleeve as she paced by. “For which I am so very grateful.”
Mary squeezed his hand in return. “I don’t make Edmund sneeze in spring and I don’t sleep all winter.”
She resumed her restless pacing. Peter put his feet up on the table, nowhere near the 40 precious copies of the article to be presented to the Royal Geography Society, and waited.
“If your father is envious of you, I find I’m envious of Eustace,” Mary said eventually.
And here they came to the crux of her anxiety and anger and what had started the tussling that had landed him on the floor with a boot to his back. “Since he is male, recognition is certainly coming far more easily for him than it ever did for you.”
Mary sighed wearily. “Thank you, Peter, for understanding that.”
“Yet, in spite of your envy, you still are sharing publication credit with Eustace and sponsoring him. That’s very generous of you, Mary.”
“People say things like that and I wonder, what would someone do in the alternative? Let’s have a cheer because I did the right thing?”
Mary stopped at the picture window and dug her hands into her pockets for a humbug. She scowled. “I’m all out. Do you have any?”
“Sorry, no, you cleaned me out yesterday.”
She tugged absently at her baggy trousers. “Susan is coming over with some clothes to help me dress for tonight so I’m not wearing khakis, a Chinese gown, or Richard’s castoffs.”
Peter felt his irritation automatically rise with mention of Susan. “I’ll make myself scarce then.”
Mary started to say something, to gently reprimand him, again, but it was not the time or the place for revisiting this issue either. He shook his head. “Not now, Mary. Please?” His opinions of the course the Gentle Queen of Narnia had continued to pursue irked him no end. What was done, was done, and had been done in pursuit of an Allied victory and Peter would never fault anyone for it. However, the War was over and it was time they left all that business behind them. Without that nobility of purpose the War had given them, it was just ugly.
And finally, the restless energy that fueled Mary quieted and she plopped down next to him on the poor, abused divan.
Her head fell on to his shoulder and she laced her fingers in his. “You were right. Ex-king…”
“Ex-High King,” Peter corrected
She laughed, as he had intended and a warmth broke through her worry. “Ex-High Kings do know something about knocking heroes off pedestals, after all. I apologize for doubting you. I do want to shove off the dais those old men with the endowed chairs and abundant grants. Or, well, get a seat next to them.”
“You will.”
“Thank you, ex-High King.”
“You are welcome.”
“Shall we take the horses out? See what the eagles are doing? Look in on your many projects and see if anyone needs a hand?”
"Excellent idea!" Peter stood and took her hand in his. Russell House was not his castle, its lady was not his Queen, yet England was his kingdom, of a sort.
It begins in Brazil, 1932, more or less with Polly, Mary, Asim, and the wet books from the post yesterday.
Polly blew out an aggravated breath. “And I suppose that all the examination textbooks Digory gave you were in that bag now sinking to the bottom of the second longest river in the world?”
“I’m afraid so,” Mary replied airily. “The Latin and Greek, the religion, and the philosophy.”
“The only thing that did not fall in is Gadow’s Amphibia and Reptiles,” Asim added.
“That is a stroke of luck, what?”
Polly vowed she was never traveling again with a seventeen year old girl. If she wanted further demonstration of the merits of relationships only with women, and rigorous use of contraception when with men, here it was in the boat next to her.
“What do you think, Asim?” Polly asked.
“If you are proposing I dive in to get the bag, and save Digory the apoplexy, I think I am more comfortable swimming with the fauna of Africa than South America.”
“Mary? What’s down there if I push you in to retrieve your bookbag?”
“Well, there is Eunectes murinus, of course.”
Asim looked at Polly and she whispered, “Green Anaconda.”
“Largest snake in the world. There’s also Melanosuchus niger.”
“That’s a…”
“I know,” Asim said wearily. “It’s some kind of crocodile.”
“I wonder…” Mary leaned precariously over the side of the boat and stuck her fingers into a small school of circling fish. The fish rushed at her appetizing appendage.
“Ha! I thought so!” Mary exclaimed, yanking her hand out of the water. “Pygocentrus nattereri!!” She waggled her fingers - one was bleeding.
That did it.
“Asim, start the engine,” Polly said, utterly exasperated. Tempting as it was to shove Mary in, Polly really couldn’t blame her. The red piranhas of the Amazon were welcome to Digory’s fourth best copy of the Virgil’s Aeneid and Duns Scotus’ Questions on Metaphysics.
Followed by Anastigmatfic,
When Digs found out about this, it was a thing to see. His Victorian British cast-iron sentimentality warred mightily with his profound irritation for the treatment of the Dread Dunce - as Mary called him, and as Polly tended to heartily agree. All involved watched avidly as various emotions flitted across Digs' face.
Finally, he came to a concluding explosion that was neither too sentimental nor too stoic.
"MARY ANNING!" he thundered. "YOU ARE NEVER TO REMOVE ANY WRITTEN MATERIALS FROM MY OFFICE AGAIN. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. EVER. HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?"
"Crystal," said Mary, shifting to attention in her seat.
Only Asim noticed the battered copy of Darwin's Descent of Man which Mary slipped into her rucksack, behind her back. He said nothing, of course -- nothing verbal, that is; in a quiet place within himself he asked Allah to please make him understand why he, Asim, had been compelled to follow so troublesome a charge.
Mary, always aware of attention, winked at Asim over her shoulder before attentively returning to Digory's tirade. Asim cracked a slight smile, against his own will. So be it: Allah had a sense of humor, and that was reason enough for this.
10 years later, with a slight rewrite of Chapter 2 of Part 1 of TSG
Oxford, June 1942
"So, how goes the study of the dread Dunce?"
"Well," Digory began, resolved to ignore Mary’s usual epithet and stepping away from the Wardrobe, "we…"
"I was asking the question of Peter. He's more likely to give me an untarnished answer."
Peter was in the process of pulling his own chair out to make more space in the room. "Mary? Would you like a seat?"
"Oh, for the moment, but we'll have to sit on the floor for tea."
Digory must have imagined the cloud of sand that seemed to puff out when she plopped down inelegantly into Peter's vacated seat.
Peter retreated to the bookshelf as Digory found his own squeaky office chair again.
"Well?" Mary demanded again, speaking directly at Peter. "And stop with meaningful looks at one another!"
"If you mean the Blessed John Duns Scotus, the work has been a bit frustrating," Peter admitted.
"Aha!" Mary pinned Digory with a fierce glare. "Not that I take particular issue with Scotus' whole reasoning from effect to cause. I also certainly agree that we can come to know God apart from revelation. But, I have serious concerns about his Immaculate Conception argument. I mean really, it's all very fine and well for her, but procreation without sex is a rather difficult trick for other women to emulate, yes?" Here, she had to pause for a breath - thankfully not elaborating further on the last point. "And I really can't follow Dunce's seven part Proof for the Existence of God beyond Step 5D."
Declining the implicit challenge to debate theology, Peter continued calmly. "I meant that we are having difficulty locating some of Scotus’ works that should be in the Oxford Franciscan library."
"Have you looked on your own desk, Digory?" Mary asked sweetly.
"Unfortunately, yes," he admitted brusquely, pique rising. Digory did not appreciate this ongoing criticism of the status of the paperwork on his desk. It was his desk. He knew where everything was that he needed, and usually could find it when he needed it. He didn't particularly care if others could not.
More to the point, Mary was in no position to condemn him and he gave her his most severe frown. “We might have used the older copies in my personal collection but they, regrettably, are at the bottom of the Amazon.”
Mary at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“Amazon?” Peter asked. “Why would Duns Scotus’ Questions on Metaphysics be in Brazil? In a river?”
“Now Digs!” Mary huffed, pinking up with embarrassment even over her sunburn. “It was an accident! Ten years ago!”
“This, Peter, is why you must never loan a book to Mary. She has a habit of taking them to the far flung reaches of the globe and feeding them to piranhas and giant snakes that swallow crocodiles whole.”
“Are you finished, Digs?”
“Are you finished criticising my desk?”
“Yes,” Mary muttered meekly.
“Piranhas?” Peter asked. “Could we just return a moment to…”
“No!” Mary said. “It’s very embarrassing and always puts Digs in a surly mood.”
Digory had to agree. “Peter, you should ask Polly about it, as she was there. And as we shall not mount an expedition to retrieve what is certainly ruined, we have attempted to locate the manuscripts missing from the library here.”
He suddenly had a dreadful thought. “Mary, did you remove any of Scotus’ works from the Franciscan collection here?”
She snorted. “Really, Digs, of course not.”
That was a relief and at least ruled out expeditions to the Sahara or Mary’s cellar. "In any event, it took Peter the better part of two weeks, but we did eventually learn that some of the Franciscan library, including a number works by Scotus and Ockham, have been loaned out."
"Ockham! Now that's a loss I do care about. Any idea where they went?"
"To the British Museum," Peter replied gloomily.
"Oh dear," Mary responded. She obviously saw the problem.
"Indeed," Digory echoed the expressed pessimism. "I understand many of the collections have been hidden until the War ends."
"It's not really secret," Mary supplied helpfully. "Forsdyke put a lot of it in underground storage in Bradford. Other material is scattered with FOMs."
"FOMs?" Peter asked.
"Friends of the Museum," Mary and Digory both responded at the same time. Mary continued, "Richard and I have a few things."
"From the British Museum?" Peter asked, wonderment in his tone. "Really?"
"Well, for your sake, I'm sorry but we don't have anything from the Oxford Franciscans. Forsdyke would know better than to give something like that to us."
"If you are as bad about returning historical artifacts as you are about flinging precious books into the Amazon, I'm surprised Forsdyke gave you anything, Mary."
And then Anastigmatfic added this highly suggestive bit which had me dying of shock, amazement, and laughter last night. We will just say this is 1947 or 1948?:
When Peter finally had the story from Mary, he couldn't help but laugh. She glared most ferociously, but his time as High King of Narnia had inured him to all manner of stares and scowls and dagger-eyes, and Mary's glare - compared to, say, a Tarkaan deep within the grips of a nearly-forgotten philosophical offense - was almost half as frightening as a kitten batting about a ball of yarn. The harder Peter laughed, the more Mary glared, until she finally rolled her eyes and turfed him off the bed.
"Oof," said Peter. "Your boots aren't half painful."
"Steel capped toes," Mary said primly. "You deserved that, especially after the trouble you've had with the Dread Dunce yourself."
"It's not that," Peter said, clambering to his feet and rubbing a sore spot perilously close to his left kidney. "May I?" he asked, gesturing to the bed.
"Only so that I can shove you away again if you mock me," Mary said, refusing to look at him.
"No," Peter soothed, taking her hand. She didn't pull away: a good sign. "No, no. I'm laughing because I know that you're still offended that he gave you a dressing-down in front of Polly and Asim, and that is why you've always taken a perverse pleasure in stealing his papers."
The silence next to Peter grew petulant. He'd experience with this, too. He waited her out.
"Mostly," Mary finally admitted.
"Mostly?" Peter echoed. "What's the rest of it, then? Oh, don't tell me - you're single-handedly redressing the wrongs done by all those thieving male paleontologists."
This time, a feathered pillow accompanied Peter to the ground.
"Not that I'm against larceny for its own sake," said Peter, removing the same boot from the same sore spot on his back - he was sure it'd bruise delightfully - "and especially not when it's to redress great wrongs. But I'm sure there are better ways to set this right."
"And you'd know all about that," Mary huffed. "You're a King, not an archaeologist. An ex-King."
"Kings know a few things about how to dismantle a revered hero," Peter said. "I think these heroes have it coming, and I think you're just the one to knock the statues down."
"Get the gin while you're down there," Mary finally replied, "and then tell me what you're thinking."
I demanded that Anastigmat write more and she kindly punted it back to me on Twitter with the assertion that she really didn't know the paleos. Which has now led to this. And now satisfies Min023’s request for something from AW. It’s not totally AU, but it’s not in the outline and it’s certainly not what I’d intended, either. But, all this comment fic going back and forth is getting me thinking again and I’m calling this a trial balloon. So, let’s test it out and see if it flies or pops.
Peter left the gin bottle where it was. “We shall save it for tonight and toast your success.”
“Or burial,” Mary said gloomily.
He gained his feet with barely a wince and held out his hand. With an aggrieved sniff, Mary took it and allowed him to pull her out of the bed.
“Let’s go downstairs. You can count the number of prints of your article again.”
The forty printed sets of Mary’s article, with contributions by E. C. Scrubb, were on the drawing room table. As expected, she restlessly began fingering them, even though Mr. Patel had been summoned to provide the definitive count.
“You’re nervous about tonight,” Peter said.
“Yes,” Mary admitted, her lips moving as she counted the prints, fifteen, sixteen. “It’s childish to be feeling stage fright. That’s what Richard used to tell me before a big presentation. He loved these meetings.”
Richard Russell cast a larger than life shadow over so many things. Peter had loved Richard until the day he had died, and it was still hard to hear these truths. Eustace was the only one with an unvarnished view of Richard and that was because he had never known Richard when he was well and had then fallen hopelessly in love with the man’s wife.
“Nerves are perfectly reasonable, Mary. You’ve been working on this subject for over five years, you’ve not presented a paper since before the War, and this is the first time you’ve appeared before a scientific society without Richard there.”
The pages stopped fluttering as Mary’s fingers paused. “Have I ever mentioned how alarming it is when you sound as insightful as Lucy?”
“I have my occasional moments,” Peter said. He stood behind her and put a hand on her broad shoulder. She rested her fingers on top of his for a moment then shrugged off to resume her counting.
Seventeen, eighteen…
“For all that we laugh about it now, a dressing down by Professor Digory Kirke isn’t something you’ll ever forget, and you’ll never want a repeat of that sort of experience,” Peter told her. Peculiar a bond though it was, they both knew what it felt of to disappoint the expectations of that great intellect.
“You won’t fail tonight, Mary, but it’s understandable why you are worried that you will.”
“I’ve always tried so hard,” Mary said, twenty-five, twenty-six, and with a fierce act of will and faith, she turned away from the stacked manuscripts before counting them completely to pace the length of the room. “But I’ve always felt the little respect I have earned was due only to Richard. There’s always been the belief that whatever I did was really his work.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I was just the entertainment,” she grumbled.
He could chase her around the room, or just let her work through it. Peter sat on the divan and Mary would orbit around him. They should probably get out of doors, too. The house was too small a space for Mary today.
“Mary, my father said the word among the scientific publishers and your peer reviewers is that this is the most remarkable article to come out of England since the War. They are calling it groundbreaking work that will spawn a whole new field of study. My father and his fellows intend to come tonight to hear your defence and ask for your autograph.”
Which would be awkward enough that Peter had thought it better if he did not attend at all.
The same thought now occurred to Mary. She stilled her restless pacing. “You’re still coming, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.
“Well, it’s not…”
There was an angry stomp. Her steel toed boots made quite the thump and Peter reconsidered. Those boots in his right kidney would add to the pain in his left that resulted from their previous tussle.
“You are in the acknowledgement, Peter! This would not have existed without you! You were there when I first had the idea and when I had the Eureka moment. Your father made sure I spelled your name right in the footnote!”
“I think he hoped the scientific community would believe he was being acknowledged, rather than his layabout son.”
“Stop that,” Mary snapped, underscoring her objection with a punch to his arm as she stalked passed him. “You were the inspiration and he caught my grammar errors, which I concede, is a heroic effort. He’s envious of you for doing what you want and love, and because he thinks you are cavorting with an older woman.”
“I’m older than you are!” Peter insisted. And really, this was about Mary’s anxiety and not the strained relationship with his father. “And you are much, much younger than my usual.”
“I’m also not a tree,” Mary replied.
He snagged her sleeve as she paced by. “For which I am so very grateful.”
Mary squeezed his hand in return. “I don’t make Edmund sneeze in spring and I don’t sleep all winter.”
She resumed her restless pacing. Peter put his feet up on the table, nowhere near the 40 precious copies of the article to be presented to the Royal Geography Society, and waited.
“If your father is envious of you, I find I’m envious of Eustace,” Mary said eventually.
And here they came to the crux of her anxiety and anger and what had started the tussling that had landed him on the floor with a boot to his back. “Since he is male, recognition is certainly coming far more easily for him than it ever did for you.”
Mary sighed wearily. “Thank you, Peter, for understanding that.”
“Yet, in spite of your envy, you still are sharing publication credit with Eustace and sponsoring him. That’s very generous of you, Mary.”
“People say things like that and I wonder, what would someone do in the alternative? Let’s have a cheer because I did the right thing?”
Mary stopped at the picture window and dug her hands into her pockets for a humbug. She scowled. “I’m all out. Do you have any?”
“Sorry, no, you cleaned me out yesterday.”
She tugged absently at her baggy trousers. “Susan is coming over with some clothes to help me dress for tonight so I’m not wearing khakis, a Chinese gown, or Richard’s castoffs.”
Peter felt his irritation automatically rise with mention of Susan. “I’ll make myself scarce then.”
Mary started to say something, to gently reprimand him, again, but it was not the time or the place for revisiting this issue either. He shook his head. “Not now, Mary. Please?” His opinions of the course the Gentle Queen of Narnia had continued to pursue irked him no end. What was done, was done, and had been done in pursuit of an Allied victory and Peter would never fault anyone for it. However, the War was over and it was time they left all that business behind them. Without that nobility of purpose the War had given them, it was just ugly.
And finally, the restless energy that fueled Mary quieted and she plopped down next to him on the poor, abused divan.
Her head fell on to his shoulder and she laced her fingers in his. “You were right. Ex-king…”
“Ex-High King,” Peter corrected
She laughed, as he had intended and a warmth broke through her worry. “Ex-High Kings do know something about knocking heroes off pedestals, after all. I apologize for doubting you. I do want to shove off the dais those old men with the endowed chairs and abundant grants. Or, well, get a seat next to them.”
“You will.”
“Thank you, ex-High King.”
“You are welcome.”
“Shall we take the horses out? See what the eagles are doing? Look in on your many projects and see if anyone needs a hand?”
"Excellent idea!" Peter stood and took her hand in his. Russell House was not his castle, its lady was not his Queen, yet England was his kingdom, of a sort.