The Substance of Things Hoped For, 11/29
Title: The Substance of Things Hoped For (11/29)
Rating: K
Author: jlrpuck
Pairing: Rose Tyler, Peter Carlisle
Disclaimer: Characters from Doctor Who and Blackpool are the property of BBC, and are used with the greatest of love and respect; but Ruby, Elias, and Lucy are all mine. No personal profit is intended from the writing or sharing of this story.
Summary: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1
Notes: Thank you to both
earlgreytea68 and
chicklet73 for their beta work-and to
chicklet73 for her encouragement and advice as this was written.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11
Lucy was dropped at the cottage shortly after Rose and Peter returned from the expedition to Maybole, and spent the rest of the afternoon telling her parents what she’d seen in town. She continued to talk eagerly through dinner, moving on to a discussion of school, and whether Sophie was still swimming, and expressing a fervent hope that she’d be excused from maths the rest of term. She was so excited that Rose was worried she might actually stay up all night, but when it came time for her to go to bed, she fell asleep almost instantly.
“Where does she get it?” Peter wondered as he joined Rose on the sofa, handing her a mug of hot chocolate.
Rose gave him a wry grin. “You have to ask?”
“I was trying to be politic,” he replied primly, taking a sip of his beverage before setting it on the coffee table and picking up the book he was going to read that evening.
She smiled, setting down her own mug, and settling against him.
She fell asleep on the sofa that night, lulled by the soothing sound of Peter’s voice and the rise and fall of his chest. He had to have woken her at some point to get her upstairs, but when she awoke in their bed the next morning, she had no memory whatsoever of it.
Lucy was still half-asleep when they rousted her from bed; she brightened a bit as she ate her cereal, and by the time they were in the car for the drive to school, she was bright-eyed and ready for the trip. Instead of talking, however, she asked questions of her da and listened raptly as he answered, telling her why a town had a certain name, or why one of the barns was a different colour than the others they’d seen.
It occurred to Rose, as they sped down the motorway, that Lucy had the potential to be as good at interrogations as her father was.
The questions and answers swirled between English and Gaelic the further down the road they drove; Peter had become almost fully fluent in it, once he’d started speaking it again regularly, to the point that he often didn’t realize he was using it with her. She loved listening to it, even if she was hopeless at understanding more than a few phrases; and she found that Peter almost always smiled when he used it to speak with Lucy.
She really had been unbelievable lucky in life, she thought.
They arrived at the school near to lunchtime; there was a brief meeting with the headmaster to review what Lucy had missed, and to chart a course of action for her to catch up, and then they were saying goodbye to their daughter, watching as she skipped off to meet her friends for the mid-day meal with nary a backwards glance. She still viewed it as a grand adventure, and Rose dearly hoped that Lucy would never have reason to view school as anything else.
They stopped in Kendal on the return trip, the grey stone of the buildings a comforting sight as they slowly drove towards the town centre. Rose would always have happy memories of the place; Peter, too, seemed to recall the good more than the bad, now that he was so long removed from having lived there.
Louise had sold her business years before, although she still regularly held court in the afternoons at one of the small round tables by the windows. She was there, seated with her surviving friends, when Peter pushed open the door mid-afternoon; Rose couldn’t help but smile as she saw Louise’s happy reaction to their unexpected appearance.
“You terrible man,” the older woman said as Peter leaned down, brushing a kiss over her cheek. “You fall off the face of the Earth, then turn up unannounced!”
Rose fought back a wince at the unfortunate choice of words, leaning down in turn to greet Louise.
“Been a bit busy. You know how it goes,” Peter replied easily. His smile was the one that made women forgive him any sin; Rose still found herself easily swayed by it, years on, and pitied any unsuspecting soul who was on the receiving end of it. Louise, however, appeared completely immune.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone, or one of your beloved pens every now and again,” she chided.
“I apologize,” Peter replied meekly, causing Louise to laugh.
“Very well, then. You going to stand there all day, or are you and your wife going to pull up chairs and join me for a cuppa?”
Rose loved visiting with Louise: loved the woman’s vivacity, even well into her eightieth year, loved that she had largely been the one to look out for Peter’s well-being before Rose had had the chance to meet him-loved that Louise had been sharp enough to see the value in Peter Carlisle when no one else could.
“Visiting the lass?” Louise asked as they settled into the chairs Peter had dragged over.
“Aye.” Peter beamed, as he always did when talking about Lucy.
“She still just like him?” Louise asked, turning to Rose.
“Oh yes. More than you could imagine,” she replied, laughing.
The woman who now owned the shop-a daughter of a friend of a cousin of Louise’s or some such-brought over the tea, and the three of them settled in for a visit. Penington, who Rose suspected had been alerted to their presence through some sort of bat-signal, arrived a half-hour later; he greeted Peter with a hearty hug which still took his former partner by surprise, all these years on.
Williams, the bane of Peter’s existence for so long, had been banished from Kendal not long after Peter had transferred to the Met; Elias had always maintained innocence in the matter, but a bit of unofficial digging from Torchwood’s side had revealed that the Met had, indeed, been behind the investigation which had ultimately resulted in the odious man’s removal. Peter had never mentioned it, so she’d never told him her suspicions that Williams had taken a step too far in messing with Peter’s transfer request-and in crossing the then-Chief of Detectives for the Met.
It ultimately didn’t matter how the man had been removed, of course-what mattered was that, once he was gone, the department flourished. Rose read the crime satisfaction statistics every year; and every year, she saw that Kendal was the best station in the jurisdiction, with the highest number of completed cases, and the highest level of citizen satisfaction. It made her happy to see it do so well; and she was elated when Penington was elevated to DCI shortly after Peter made the same rank in London.
Penny seemed to be happy personally, as well-he and his wife had five children, always causing Rose to wince a bit at the thought of having to go though labour five times. Yet Anna seemed to thrive on it, and Rose had to admit that every time she and Peter had met the children they’d been very, very well behaved.
Tea was cut short by the ring of Penny’s phone; he was, technically, working after all. After Penny left-making Rose and Peter promise to give him more warning next time they were to be in town, and swearing he’d continue to keep an eye on Lucy’s school-Louise began to hint that it was time for her, too, to depart. Rose was surprised-until she glanced at her watch and saw it was near to supper time.
“Would you like a ride home?” Peter asked as they stood, gently assisting Louise.
Rose collected the dishes, stacking them neatly before carrying them over to the counter; as she walked away from the table, she heard Louise demur, and Peter reiterate the offer. The shop had closed at least an hour before, but the owner was well-used to staying late on days when Louise had guests.
“Thank you,” Rose whispered to the woman, setting the dishes down; she waited until the owner had picked them up with a smile and walked towards the back room, to slip a healthy tip into the jar.
“Visit more often,” Louise said to Rose as she re-joined her husband and the older woman at the door.
“When we next pick Lucy up, I promise,” Rose said, opening the door. She followed Louise onto the sidewalk, and they waited for Peter to join them after he gently closed the door.
“You make sure you do,” Louise replied, giving Rose a stern look.
Louise, it seemed, had refused the offer of a lift home due to having to meet friends in the town centre; she said her goodbyes to Peter and Rose in front of the café, and then slowly walked down the pedestrian-only street, her head held high.
Rose slipped her arm around Peter’s waist, sighing as she leaned in to him; he, still watching Louise, brought his arm around her shoulder.
“Y’ready to go back?” Rose asked softly, looking up at Peter as Louise turned a corner.
He glanced down at her, his eyes dark. “Aye. Let’s away.”
Peter was silent for the ride north; it seemed to Rose that he was pensive, his eyes tight at the corners, his jaw working as he mulled over whatever it was that was bothering him. She snuck glances at him, her hand resting in his, or her fingers gently brushing against his skin as her arm rested on the armrest, wondering when he would tell her what was bothering him so.
It was twilight when they finally pulled to a stop by the cottage. Peter, Rose noticed, had parked as close to behind the building as he could instead of in the usual spot out front. She was going to ask him about it, but the wind stole her words from her as she opened the car door; Peter had opened his side, and the wind tunnel left them both scrambling to close the doors. The wind had picked up as they drove further north, and it was howling to near a gale as they rushed towards the front door of the house. Peter immediately went to the back of the house and started bringing in firewood; Rose moved to help him, neatly stacking it against the open wall of the kitchen, watching the logs rise higher and higher as Peter kept passing them in.
She stole a glance outside when he finally finished, moving inside; he’d cleared out about half of the stack. He saw her looking, and as he closed the door behind him he said, “I strongly suspect it’ll be a bad few days.”
She’d never been in the cottage for a proper storm; it seemed they were always in London or in Kendal when the north coast was pounded by the autumnal gales. Peter had told her, early in their relationship, of spending nights in the cottage, a gale howling around the small building, and wondering if he’d awake to find the sea filling the ground floor.
“Good thing we went shopping, then,” she replied, hiding her worry with a smile.
“That it is.” He pulled Rose to him, wrapping his arms around her, rocking her back and forth. “It’ll be fine-just a wee blow.”
“No sea in the lounge?” she mumbled against his chest.
“No sea in the lounge. Just wind.” He brushed a kiss over her hair. “Lots and lots of wind.”
“D’we need to close the shutters?” The thought occurred to Rose quite suddenly, and she leaned back to look at Peter.
He mulled the idea over, then released her. “I’ve no idea, in truth. Let’s ring and see what the Muirs have heard.”
The conversation was short, and of concern enough that Peter had a furrow between his brows when he rang off. “Gale warnings well up the coast, but I’d reckoned on that. Graeme recommended we shutter as many of the windows at the front of the house as we could-the winds are supposed to be once-in-a-century.” Peter sighed. “And we’ll have to lay by some water as well, just in case.”
“Just in case…”
“The water supply may go with the electricity; and if a tree blows down over the road we’ll be here for a wee while.” He took her hand, making sure to hold her gaze. “We’ll be fine, Rose. Right as rain.” Peter brushed a kiss over her knuckles, and moved towards the dining room.
Rose followed him, watching as he reached the closet under the stairs and began to hunt through it for a rain coat and some Wellies. With a sigh she moved to join him, her lips curving as he gave her a small smile.
It took both of them to close the shutters, unlatching them from where they were normally secured on either side of the windows, folding them across to meet across the windows, then latching them together. They rattled something fierce, the noise audible even above the sound of the wind; when they returned inside, the windward ground floor windows all covered, Peter explained, “They bump against the stone, not the glass. It’ll be fine, Rose.”
Shedding their outdoor gear at the foot of the stairs, they hurried up to the first floor. The rain was starting to come down, great splatting drops hitting against the glass, adding to the spray which was now coming from the wind-whipped sea. They had to open the windows, lean out to release the shutters, then pull them closed as they leaned back inside the house; Rose was relieved to see that the shutters could be latched from inside, and the chore was soon done for the sea-facing windows above stairs.
And then the heavens opened.
They spent the evening together shuttered into the house, curled on the sofa as the wind screamed outside, the gusts rattling the shutters and the windows, making Rose jump more than once as it smacked the side of the cottage like a giant’s hand. Peter seemed completely unconcerned, calmly reading to her from, of all things, one of Lucy’s books-a large, colourful one on Greek Mythology, given to her by Annie on her fifth birthday. The fire danced in the fireplace, hissing occasionally as water made its way through the flue, and Rose wondered just what kinds of nights Peter had spent in the cottage, in his younger days.
The storm was still winding up as they went to bed near midnight; as Rose made sure the flues were closed in the downstairs fireplaces, Peter secured the inside shutters-a precaution, he assured her, in case something untoward happened.
He joined her where she waited, between the door and stairs; he cupped her jaw, and said softly, “You remember the windows here?”
Rose blinked, confused. “Yes,” she answered slowly.
“You noticed how the glass is a bit odd in them? Warped?”
She had, and nodded.
“It’s all original, Rose. There’s yet a storm to break the windows.” He smiled gently at her, then led the way upstairs.
The roof of the cottage was a heavy slate, and yet she could still hear the rain pounding overhead as they reached the first storey. Peter stopped briefly to confirm that the flue in Lucy’s room was also shut securely, and the two of them then retreated to the sanctuary of their bedroom.
They lay curled together in the dark, surrounded by the haunting sounds of the storm ebbing and flowing around the cottage. “You alright?” Peter asked after several minutes, pulling Rose against him, his arm holding her to him.
“Never been in a gale,” she confessed, her hand resting on his sternum.
“Never?” he asked, clearly surprised.
She grinned. “Never. Had some bad storms in London, but never somethin’ like this.” She shifted closer to him, resting her chin on her hand, which rested on his chest. “What was it like? Livin' here alone and riding out a gale?”
He’d alluded to living there while he studied at Uni; he’d even told her some stories from that time of his life, of how he learned to be comfortable with who he was, and how his friendship with Eirlys and Graeme grew. They, too, had shared a few stories of Peter from that time, embarrassing Peter to no end.
But he’d never really told her about nights like tonight, when it felt like the cottage might well be blown off the Earth.
He gently stroked her arm as he thought, his breath even. The room was pitch black, but she could feel him shift, could even tell when he smiled. “My third year in Uni, we had a right gale come through; I was still without a car, then, and I had to walk home in the first bit of it, and I was right drookit when I arrived. The power was gone, the wood out back was soaked right through; it was miserable, trying t’get the wood in, and then find a bit which was dry enough to take fire. “
Rose turned her head, resting her cheek on his chest.
“The power went right about the time I got the fire going in the fireplace, but of course there was no light in the kitchen by which I could make supper. I must have burned through half a box of matches, trying to find my way about, then lighting the stove-I’d never thought, really, to ensure the torch under the stairs had fresh batteries in it, more the fool me.” Peter laughed ruefully. “I made supper, and had just set myself down before the fire, when it sounded rather like the kitchen exploded. Gave me a bloody heart attack; I thought I’d left the gas on and it had somehow caught. Turns out I’d not bolted the door, nor even closed it quite securely.”
“Silly man,” Rose murmured. Her eyes had drifted shut as he spoke-loud enough to be heard over the gale, but as softly as possible. His hand still stroked her arm, up and down, his fingertips gliding across her skin; and the rumble of his voice in his chest along with his steady heartbeat had soothed her greatly.
“I’ve been very careful to shut it properly ever since.” He paused to lightly squeeze her arm, then continued. “I spent the entire night wide awake, terrified in a manner far more appropriate for a wee bairn than for a great strapping lad of twenty; I scared myself silly, convinced that every sound was a sign the cottage was about to blow into the night, or that the sea would wash us away.”
He paused; she hmmmed, encouraging him to continue. “’Twas a silly way to spend the evening; this cottage has been through many a gale, and has outlasted them all. Good Scots construction this.” Rose could hear the grin in his voice, and smiled against him. “Graeme told me, later, that he’d seen worse-when he and Eirlys first moved into the farm-and that the cottage had been the only thing not harmed by the time the weather had blown through. So we’re safe as houses here-I know from personal experience.”
He leaned forward, brushing a kiss across her hair.
“’k,” she replied sleepily. It was so comfortable, snuggled against Peter, the sound of the rain almost hypnotic. Even the wind had a vaguely musical quality to it, playing melody to the steady bass of Peter’s heartbeat.
“Sleep well, mo gradh,” he whispered, his hand ghosting across her arm.
“Love you,” she whispered in response before allowing sleep to claim her.
~ - ~
Chapter 12
Rating: K
Author: jlrpuck
Pairing: Rose Tyler, Peter Carlisle
Disclaimer: Characters from Doctor Who and Blackpool are the property of BBC, and are used with the greatest of love and respect; but Ruby, Elias, and Lucy are all mine. No personal profit is intended from the writing or sharing of this story.
Summary: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1
Notes: Thank you to both
earlgreytea68 and
chicklet73 for their beta work-and to
chicklet73 for her encouragement and advice as this was written.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11
Lucy was dropped at the cottage shortly after Rose and Peter returned from the expedition to Maybole, and spent the rest of the afternoon telling her parents what she’d seen in town. She continued to talk eagerly through dinner, moving on to a discussion of school, and whether Sophie was still swimming, and expressing a fervent hope that she’d be excused from maths the rest of term. She was so excited that Rose was worried she might actually stay up all night, but when it came time for her to go to bed, she fell asleep almost instantly.
“Where does she get it?” Peter wondered as he joined Rose on the sofa, handing her a mug of hot chocolate.
Rose gave him a wry grin. “You have to ask?”
“I was trying to be politic,” he replied primly, taking a sip of his beverage before setting it on the coffee table and picking up the book he was going to read that evening.
She smiled, setting down her own mug, and settling against him.
She fell asleep on the sofa that night, lulled by the soothing sound of Peter’s voice and the rise and fall of his chest. He had to have woken her at some point to get her upstairs, but when she awoke in their bed the next morning, she had no memory whatsoever of it.
Lucy was still half-asleep when they rousted her from bed; she brightened a bit as she ate her cereal, and by the time they were in the car for the drive to school, she was bright-eyed and ready for the trip. Instead of talking, however, she asked questions of her da and listened raptly as he answered, telling her why a town had a certain name, or why one of the barns was a different colour than the others they’d seen.
It occurred to Rose, as they sped down the motorway, that Lucy had the potential to be as good at interrogations as her father was.
The questions and answers swirled between English and Gaelic the further down the road they drove; Peter had become almost fully fluent in it, once he’d started speaking it again regularly, to the point that he often didn’t realize he was using it with her. She loved listening to it, even if she was hopeless at understanding more than a few phrases; and she found that Peter almost always smiled when he used it to speak with Lucy.
She really had been unbelievable lucky in life, she thought.
They arrived at the school near to lunchtime; there was a brief meeting with the headmaster to review what Lucy had missed, and to chart a course of action for her to catch up, and then they were saying goodbye to their daughter, watching as she skipped off to meet her friends for the mid-day meal with nary a backwards glance. She still viewed it as a grand adventure, and Rose dearly hoped that Lucy would never have reason to view school as anything else.
They stopped in Kendal on the return trip, the grey stone of the buildings a comforting sight as they slowly drove towards the town centre. Rose would always have happy memories of the place; Peter, too, seemed to recall the good more than the bad, now that he was so long removed from having lived there.
Louise had sold her business years before, although she still regularly held court in the afternoons at one of the small round tables by the windows. She was there, seated with her surviving friends, when Peter pushed open the door mid-afternoon; Rose couldn’t help but smile as she saw Louise’s happy reaction to their unexpected appearance.
“You terrible man,” the older woman said as Peter leaned down, brushing a kiss over her cheek. “You fall off the face of the Earth, then turn up unannounced!”
Rose fought back a wince at the unfortunate choice of words, leaning down in turn to greet Louise.
“Been a bit busy. You know how it goes,” Peter replied easily. His smile was the one that made women forgive him any sin; Rose still found herself easily swayed by it, years on, and pitied any unsuspecting soul who was on the receiving end of it. Louise, however, appeared completely immune.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone, or one of your beloved pens every now and again,” she chided.
“I apologize,” Peter replied meekly, causing Louise to laugh.
“Very well, then. You going to stand there all day, or are you and your wife going to pull up chairs and join me for a cuppa?”
Rose loved visiting with Louise: loved the woman’s vivacity, even well into her eightieth year, loved that she had largely been the one to look out for Peter’s well-being before Rose had had the chance to meet him-loved that Louise had been sharp enough to see the value in Peter Carlisle when no one else could.
“Visiting the lass?” Louise asked as they settled into the chairs Peter had dragged over.
“Aye.” Peter beamed, as he always did when talking about Lucy.
“She still just like him?” Louise asked, turning to Rose.
“Oh yes. More than you could imagine,” she replied, laughing.
The woman who now owned the shop-a daughter of a friend of a cousin of Louise’s or some such-brought over the tea, and the three of them settled in for a visit. Penington, who Rose suspected had been alerted to their presence through some sort of bat-signal, arrived a half-hour later; he greeted Peter with a hearty hug which still took his former partner by surprise, all these years on.
Williams, the bane of Peter’s existence for so long, had been banished from Kendal not long after Peter had transferred to the Met; Elias had always maintained innocence in the matter, but a bit of unofficial digging from Torchwood’s side had revealed that the Met had, indeed, been behind the investigation which had ultimately resulted in the odious man’s removal. Peter had never mentioned it, so she’d never told him her suspicions that Williams had taken a step too far in messing with Peter’s transfer request-and in crossing the then-Chief of Detectives for the Met.
It ultimately didn’t matter how the man had been removed, of course-what mattered was that, once he was gone, the department flourished. Rose read the crime satisfaction statistics every year; and every year, she saw that Kendal was the best station in the jurisdiction, with the highest number of completed cases, and the highest level of citizen satisfaction. It made her happy to see it do so well; and she was elated when Penington was elevated to DCI shortly after Peter made the same rank in London.
Penny seemed to be happy personally, as well-he and his wife had five children, always causing Rose to wince a bit at the thought of having to go though labour five times. Yet Anna seemed to thrive on it, and Rose had to admit that every time she and Peter had met the children they’d been very, very well behaved.
Tea was cut short by the ring of Penny’s phone; he was, technically, working after all. After Penny left-making Rose and Peter promise to give him more warning next time they were to be in town, and swearing he’d continue to keep an eye on Lucy’s school-Louise began to hint that it was time for her, too, to depart. Rose was surprised-until she glanced at her watch and saw it was near to supper time.
“Would you like a ride home?” Peter asked as they stood, gently assisting Louise.
Rose collected the dishes, stacking them neatly before carrying them over to the counter; as she walked away from the table, she heard Louise demur, and Peter reiterate the offer. The shop had closed at least an hour before, but the owner was well-used to staying late on days when Louise had guests.
“Thank you,” Rose whispered to the woman, setting the dishes down; she waited until the owner had picked them up with a smile and walked towards the back room, to slip a healthy tip into the jar.
“Visit more often,” Louise said to Rose as she re-joined her husband and the older woman at the door.
“When we next pick Lucy up, I promise,” Rose said, opening the door. She followed Louise onto the sidewalk, and they waited for Peter to join them after he gently closed the door.
“You make sure you do,” Louise replied, giving Rose a stern look.
Louise, it seemed, had refused the offer of a lift home due to having to meet friends in the town centre; she said her goodbyes to Peter and Rose in front of the café, and then slowly walked down the pedestrian-only street, her head held high.
Rose slipped her arm around Peter’s waist, sighing as she leaned in to him; he, still watching Louise, brought his arm around her shoulder.
“Y’ready to go back?” Rose asked softly, looking up at Peter as Louise turned a corner.
He glanced down at her, his eyes dark. “Aye. Let’s away.”
Peter was silent for the ride north; it seemed to Rose that he was pensive, his eyes tight at the corners, his jaw working as he mulled over whatever it was that was bothering him. She snuck glances at him, her hand resting in his, or her fingers gently brushing against his skin as her arm rested on the armrest, wondering when he would tell her what was bothering him so.
It was twilight when they finally pulled to a stop by the cottage. Peter, Rose noticed, had parked as close to behind the building as he could instead of in the usual spot out front. She was going to ask him about it, but the wind stole her words from her as she opened the car door; Peter had opened his side, and the wind tunnel left them both scrambling to close the doors. The wind had picked up as they drove further north, and it was howling to near a gale as they rushed towards the front door of the house. Peter immediately went to the back of the house and started bringing in firewood; Rose moved to help him, neatly stacking it against the open wall of the kitchen, watching the logs rise higher and higher as Peter kept passing them in.
She stole a glance outside when he finally finished, moving inside; he’d cleared out about half of the stack. He saw her looking, and as he closed the door behind him he said, “I strongly suspect it’ll be a bad few days.”
She’d never been in the cottage for a proper storm; it seemed they were always in London or in Kendal when the north coast was pounded by the autumnal gales. Peter had told her, early in their relationship, of spending nights in the cottage, a gale howling around the small building, and wondering if he’d awake to find the sea filling the ground floor.
“Good thing we went shopping, then,” she replied, hiding her worry with a smile.
“That it is.” He pulled Rose to him, wrapping his arms around her, rocking her back and forth. “It’ll be fine-just a wee blow.”
“No sea in the lounge?” she mumbled against his chest.
“No sea in the lounge. Just wind.” He brushed a kiss over her hair. “Lots and lots of wind.”
“D’we need to close the shutters?” The thought occurred to Rose quite suddenly, and she leaned back to look at Peter.
He mulled the idea over, then released her. “I’ve no idea, in truth. Let’s ring and see what the Muirs have heard.”
The conversation was short, and of concern enough that Peter had a furrow between his brows when he rang off. “Gale warnings well up the coast, but I’d reckoned on that. Graeme recommended we shutter as many of the windows at the front of the house as we could-the winds are supposed to be once-in-a-century.” Peter sighed. “And we’ll have to lay by some water as well, just in case.”
“Just in case…”
“The water supply may go with the electricity; and if a tree blows down over the road we’ll be here for a wee while.” He took her hand, making sure to hold her gaze. “We’ll be fine, Rose. Right as rain.” Peter brushed a kiss over her knuckles, and moved towards the dining room.
Rose followed him, watching as he reached the closet under the stairs and began to hunt through it for a rain coat and some Wellies. With a sigh she moved to join him, her lips curving as he gave her a small smile.
It took both of them to close the shutters, unlatching them from where they were normally secured on either side of the windows, folding them across to meet across the windows, then latching them together. They rattled something fierce, the noise audible even above the sound of the wind; when they returned inside, the windward ground floor windows all covered, Peter explained, “They bump against the stone, not the glass. It’ll be fine, Rose.”
Shedding their outdoor gear at the foot of the stairs, they hurried up to the first floor. The rain was starting to come down, great splatting drops hitting against the glass, adding to the spray which was now coming from the wind-whipped sea. They had to open the windows, lean out to release the shutters, then pull them closed as they leaned back inside the house; Rose was relieved to see that the shutters could be latched from inside, and the chore was soon done for the sea-facing windows above stairs.
And then the heavens opened.
They spent the evening together shuttered into the house, curled on the sofa as the wind screamed outside, the gusts rattling the shutters and the windows, making Rose jump more than once as it smacked the side of the cottage like a giant’s hand. Peter seemed completely unconcerned, calmly reading to her from, of all things, one of Lucy’s books-a large, colourful one on Greek Mythology, given to her by Annie on her fifth birthday. The fire danced in the fireplace, hissing occasionally as water made its way through the flue, and Rose wondered just what kinds of nights Peter had spent in the cottage, in his younger days.
The storm was still winding up as they went to bed near midnight; as Rose made sure the flues were closed in the downstairs fireplaces, Peter secured the inside shutters-a precaution, he assured her, in case something untoward happened.
He joined her where she waited, between the door and stairs; he cupped her jaw, and said softly, “You remember the windows here?”
Rose blinked, confused. “Yes,” she answered slowly.
“You noticed how the glass is a bit odd in them? Warped?”
She had, and nodded.
“It’s all original, Rose. There’s yet a storm to break the windows.” He smiled gently at her, then led the way upstairs.
The roof of the cottage was a heavy slate, and yet she could still hear the rain pounding overhead as they reached the first storey. Peter stopped briefly to confirm that the flue in Lucy’s room was also shut securely, and the two of them then retreated to the sanctuary of their bedroom.
They lay curled together in the dark, surrounded by the haunting sounds of the storm ebbing and flowing around the cottage. “You alright?” Peter asked after several minutes, pulling Rose against him, his arm holding her to him.
“Never been in a gale,” she confessed, her hand resting on his sternum.
“Never?” he asked, clearly surprised.
She grinned. “Never. Had some bad storms in London, but never somethin’ like this.” She shifted closer to him, resting her chin on her hand, which rested on his chest. “What was it like? Livin' here alone and riding out a gale?”
He’d alluded to living there while he studied at Uni; he’d even told her some stories from that time of his life, of how he learned to be comfortable with who he was, and how his friendship with Eirlys and Graeme grew. They, too, had shared a few stories of Peter from that time, embarrassing Peter to no end.
But he’d never really told her about nights like tonight, when it felt like the cottage might well be blown off the Earth.
He gently stroked her arm as he thought, his breath even. The room was pitch black, but she could feel him shift, could even tell when he smiled. “My third year in Uni, we had a right gale come through; I was still without a car, then, and I had to walk home in the first bit of it, and I was right drookit when I arrived. The power was gone, the wood out back was soaked right through; it was miserable, trying t’get the wood in, and then find a bit which was dry enough to take fire. “
Rose turned her head, resting her cheek on his chest.
“The power went right about the time I got the fire going in the fireplace, but of course there was no light in the kitchen by which I could make supper. I must have burned through half a box of matches, trying to find my way about, then lighting the stove-I’d never thought, really, to ensure the torch under the stairs had fresh batteries in it, more the fool me.” Peter laughed ruefully. “I made supper, and had just set myself down before the fire, when it sounded rather like the kitchen exploded. Gave me a bloody heart attack; I thought I’d left the gas on and it had somehow caught. Turns out I’d not bolted the door, nor even closed it quite securely.”
“Silly man,” Rose murmured. Her eyes had drifted shut as he spoke-loud enough to be heard over the gale, but as softly as possible. His hand still stroked her arm, up and down, his fingertips gliding across her skin; and the rumble of his voice in his chest along with his steady heartbeat had soothed her greatly.
“I’ve been very careful to shut it properly ever since.” He paused to lightly squeeze her arm, then continued. “I spent the entire night wide awake, terrified in a manner far more appropriate for a wee bairn than for a great strapping lad of twenty; I scared myself silly, convinced that every sound was a sign the cottage was about to blow into the night, or that the sea would wash us away.”
He paused; she hmmmed, encouraging him to continue. “’Twas a silly way to spend the evening; this cottage has been through many a gale, and has outlasted them all. Good Scots construction this.” Rose could hear the grin in his voice, and smiled against him. “Graeme told me, later, that he’d seen worse-when he and Eirlys first moved into the farm-and that the cottage had been the only thing not harmed by the time the weather had blown through. So we’re safe as houses here-I know from personal experience.”
He leaned forward, brushing a kiss across her hair.
“’k,” she replied sleepily. It was so comfortable, snuggled against Peter, the sound of the rain almost hypnotic. Even the wind had a vaguely musical quality to it, playing melody to the steady bass of Peter’s heartbeat.
“Sleep well, mo gradh,” he whispered, his hand ghosting across her arm.
“Love you,” she whispered in response before allowing sleep to claim her.
~ - ~
Chapter 12