Blueberry Yoghurt and Butterscotch
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Her Final Friend (Part II)
Rating: G
Challenge: Blueberry Yoghurt #13: a helping hand
Toppings/Extras: butterscotch
Wordcount: 593
Summary: Tilly Bishop and Jack Prowse are on the run.
Notes: Follows Part I, erm, obviously!
She tried to break away from Jack when he stepped forwards to hold her, but he refused to let her. Confidently he drew her in and wrapped his scrawny arms around her neck and she felt so, so relieved to find someone’s scent to breathe in that she finally allowed herself to sob properly, although she tried to hold back, embarrassed. He had put his shirt on in such a rush after her knocking on the window that the buttons were skew-whiff.
“Don’t,” he murmured muffedly into her hair. “Don’t cry.”
Finally finding strength in her quivering heart, she pushed herself away from him, scrubbing hard at her eyes. With a hiccup, she backed away further from him.
“My father said that he’d...” An uncontrollable hitch in her voice shook the words from her breath. “He’d protect me, say I’d died so I could get out. The rest of my family have been quarantined, and you know what that means...”
“Tilly,” Jack said; he couldn’t think of another thing to say.
In the dark street, Tilly stepped away from him and lifted her hands into the air. The usual stench of London was seeping at her from the stained cobbles and the filthy open sewers, and in every breath she felt disease. Did she have it? How could she know until she was sweating her last, breathing her last?
“They’re trapped like rats in the home I grew up in, waiting to die!”
“They might not,” Jack said soothingly. She gave a laugh with no mirth in it. “All right, Till. All right. I’m comin’ with ‘ee. Didn’t I say?”
“What? No... you don’t have to, I just wanted to know...”
“Too late, I’m comin’ now,” Jack said, trying to grin. It was lopsided, but it warmed her at such a cold time that she was glad for it. “Ain’t ‘avin’ no fun ‘ere, anyway, am I? Gettin’ beaten senseless by Ma’s new man fer every word I say, slavin’ my days away... c’mon, we’ll ‘ave a go at Readin’.”
“Do you really mean it?” she breathed, eyes becoming wide in anxiety as well as a rush of affection. “Jack, I don’t want to put you to any trouble...”
“Zounds, Tills, it ain’t nothin’,” Jack said sheepishly. “I been wantin’ to get out o’ ‘ere fer years now. I’ll get some bits and we can get out o’ ‘ere.”
“Are you going to leave a note?” she asked as he made his way through the door.
“Nah,” he replied. “Can’t write.”
“I could write it for you...”
“No point really,” Jack said with a shrug. “None o’ my lot can read.”
“Aren’t you even going to tell them?”
“What do they care?” Jack snorted. “I’ll be out in no time, Tills.”
Tilly stared at the black box that was the doorway into Jack’s home after he was gone. Suddenly she was anxious. She and Jack had been friends for years-yet they were so... different. Although she was no bigot, Tilly didn’t know much about poor people, really poor people, aside from what she was warned. About their lives. She knew that Jack would never harm her: but what would they encounter on their way to Reading?
She was also anxious about enlisting Jack’s help. She felt so selfish, yet all along this had been what she was hoping for. Mere accompaniment to Reading-then he could return and nothing would be lost. Hopefully, she tagged onto the end of that thought with far less certainty than she would have wanted to admit.