Chapter Text
Chapter One
October 21, 1922
The North, he decides, hates him.
Not that it matters, really. Or it won’t matter for long. Once he gets what he wants, the entire upper half of the country can go hang itself for all he cares. He’s here to get what’s his, and go back to London again.
But for now, he’s stuck walking through this forest. Walking, mind, because this godforsaken town hasn’t got a train station in it, or even a bus, and so he’s had to walk through patches of drizzle all the way from Sheffield. One or two farmers in carts had passed him by, and their suspicion was thicker and colder than the rain. He’d smiled at them, a little too wide, a little too crooked, until they’d looked away.
And if there’s no train station and no bus, there’s certainly nothing so pedestrian as street signs. He’d stopped into the first shop at the edge of town and asked for directions, and the shopkeeper, a tall man with grey hair and a foolishly trusting face, had given him some vague answer that amounted to “that way.” So here he was, going “that way,” as the rain began to seep through his pinstriped suit jacket.
A pity. He had so wanted to look his best when he saw her again.
Not that it mattered, really. None of this mattered. Not the rain or the long walk or the trees shifting around him in the wind, not the bloody shopkeeper or the goddamn train. He is so close. He’s looked for her for years and now he nearly had her again.
He has heard she dyed her hair, chopped it short. He’ll put a stop to that. He’ll put a stop to a lot of things. They will go back to London, together, today. He’s going to make sure of that. They will go back to London, and they will be together, and things will be how they were supposed to be. How he wanted them. How he’s always wanted them.
He isn’t sure, even now, even after coming all this way and doing all this planning and searching, if he wants to kiss her or wring her neck, when he first sees her again. It’ll be a surprise in the moment.
The path winds deeper into the woods, running alongside a babbling little creek. It’s damp and smells of dirt and rot, with just enough wind that he’s cold in his wet suit. It’s so unlike London, so earthy and secluded and far too quiet. Although, he supposes the fact that it’s so quiet is a good thing. There’s no one else here, not for miles. It’ll be easier to get what he wants, this way. No one is going to stop him, not ever again.
After all, he fought for this. Fought his way through mud and barbed wire and gas, and then again through records rooms and old acquaintances and train stations. He’s waded through hell and back again to get here, and he will not be denied.
He smiles again, squares his shoulders and shifts his bag in his hand. If he squints, he thinks he can see a clearing up ahead through the blackened lines of rain-soaked trees. He charges forward; there’s a little stone bridge up ahead, leading him over the stream and towards his goal.
Towards her.
And then something stops him.
“This is not what we agreed upon.”
He pauses, lets out a breath that is almost a laugh before he turns. Of course. He ought to have known.
“Oh,” he says, like he’s bored. He smiles again, like he’d done to the farmers but worse. As sharp as he can make it. This smile, he means as a threat. He’s not going to be kept away from her for long. “It’s you.”
He doesn’t get a response, so he takes a few steps closer, raising his head, rain dripping down the brim of his bowler hat and onto his face.
“Maybe so,” he continues. “But you won’t stop me from finding her. She’s right through there, isn’t she?”
No response again, and this time, he does laugh.
“Oh, I see how it is,” he says, shaking his head. He turns to continue down the path towards his goal. He’s so close. “You’re just angry I found her before you did, aren’t you? All those resources at your fingertips, and you still had to wait. You can take what you want. I don’t care. But I get to have her first. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
The blow, when it comes, is a surprise.
He hits the ground, hard, his hat spinning away, his head exploding with agony in the aftermath. He lets out an incoherent noise of pain and rage, and then that’s cut off too, when something wraps tight around his throat and pulls, leveraged against the boot pressing firm between his shoulder blades.
The last thing he thinks, horribly, uselessly, is that all of this is her fault.
And that maybe he should have stayed in fucking London.