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The day the British Empire declares war on Germany in 1939, Ashton cries so hard he thinks his heart is going to fall out of his chest.It’s absurd, because he’s in his forties and grown men don’t curl up on their beds and cry like babies. He does, though. He cries embarrassingly hard, his whole body heaving. His radio transmitter is still on, reading out the dismal proclamation, and when he’s fed up, he reaches over and slams his hand down on it, shutting it off. His house is filled with the rattle of the radiator and the sound of his sobs, and his hand goes to the cross around his neck, squeezing so tight his palm is imprinted with the icon.Even the words World War send him into a panic. He’s old enough, probably, to avoid being cycled into the war again like he was the first time, but he doesn’t want to be caught up in a war zone as a civilian, either. Though his memory has faded, he can still hear the noise, the unbearable noise that persisted. Everything had been so loud and frightening all the time. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Britain turns into a battlefield and he gets caught in the middle. The thought scares him silly.He digs through the bottom drawer of his dresser, the hardwood floor boring into his knees. It hurts sometimes to bend them for too long; he goes through the drawer quickly, throwing aside clothes.At the bottom is his uniform.He lifts it out of the drawer. The brown fabric was washed at the hospital before they gave it back to him. There’s a rip in the slacks where the bullet went through, and darker brown surrounding the hole; the blood never quite washed out. He brings it to his face and sits back, his knees up. When he inhales, he smells soap and the World War.The uniform is musty from being in the drawer so long. It’s been at least a few years since he even looked at it. He isn’t even sure why he kept it; he should have given it to Harry, who thought it was the coolest thing at the time. But he didn’t. The smell of it brings tears back to his eyes, and he rocks slightly, clutching the uniform to his chest with shaky hands. He can hear himself heaving wheezy cries of anguish, caught high in his throat where it attempts to close. When his nose clears, he’s back in his house. He was so relieved when they announced the end of the war back in 1918; he hadn’t imagined that they’d see another war as big in his lifetime.His finger clamps down on something hard; stilling his movements slightly, he unfolds the shirt and looks at the pocket that was between his fingers. Brow furrowing, he opens the pocket. His fingers slip inside and meet something cold, solid, and circular. A little flat black disk. A button.It belongs to a German soldier.Ashton always wondered what had happened to Luke. He’s so faded in his memory that the only thing that makes him sure of Luke’s existence is this button. He’d lost Luke’s address when they took his uniform at the hospital, and Luke had never written to him for whatever reason. He wondered, sometimes, if Luke had even made it home.He had always figured that they really would write when they got home, but it was probably foolish to believe they would. As a kid, he’d thought it was like a fairy tale, the way they’d met, and clung to the belief that they could stay friends after the war.He replaces the button and the uniform with a sigh.Lauren calls him later that day to ask if he’s going to be okay. He says yes, dumbly, because he’s never quite been able to tell her everything that happened when he was in the trenches. He had come home after getting shot, having spent months in the hospital for an infection that had followed, with a limp that rendered him unfit for further service, and though it had gone away after a while, his memories hadn’t. When Lauren and Harry launched themselves at him the moment he got home and asked about what service was like, he kept his account vague and meaningless. After a while, they stopped asking.Harry never really understood. Lauren always knew, though, that he’d been damaged by it. He hadn’t come back to her the same as when he left with empty promises of riches and returns. But then, nobody had come back the same. Certainly not any richer.What will this war take from him? “I am not sending them away,” Lauren says, bustling around the kitchen. She shoves dishes in the sink, pulls mugs from the cupboard. Ashton’s eyes are too tired to focus on the blur of movement, and he’s too afraid to look up at her face. “Nobody is going anywhere.”“You remember what it was like. The air raids, the gas masks. Your kids are young. There’s time.”Lauren gives Ashton a weary smile. Her hair is pinned up in neat pin curls, but the curls are too loose, and look like they could fall at any second. They talk quietly, trying to avoid alerting the kids in the living room. “We have a bomb shelter.”“Send them away,” Ashton begs again, softly. He crosses the kitchen and gathers his sister in his arms. “Please. For me.”“Not yet, Ash.” Lauren pushes him away, though not unkindly. She drops some sugar cubes in his tea and hands it to him. He takes it, although he isn’t interested in tea. His stomach hurts, from thinking too hard about what might be coming, and the tea sloshes as he idly moves the cup. “I can’t just uproot them and ship them off. And to where? We don’t even know if we’ll be bombed this time around. Give it time.”Ashton sighs. It rattles its way out of his chest, soothing the raw tissue of his throat on the exhale. “I’ll pay the way,” he says, his voice weak. He’d do anything to convince Lauren to send her kids somewhere neutral. Even just to the countryside. So they won’t have to see the way violence mars a city, the way it obliterates humanity.“I appreciate it, but I can send them away later if I need to,” Lauren says. She gives him a long look, the kind of knowledgeable action that she picked up when they were much younger, coping with the unpleasantry of all they saw in those years. Acting like she could take Ashton’s place as caretaker if something happened to him—maybe even if she needed to take care of him. “Maybe you should go away.”“Sure,” Ashton snorts, turning away so she won’t see him longing to go. “I’ll be all right as long as they don’t draft me again.” His hand tightens around the handle of his mug, a knee jerk reaction to the thought as his body tenses. “I should go. You’ll think about what I said, won’t you?”“Take care of yourself,” she says, ignoring his question and kissing his cheek. “Go say goodbye to the girls.”Ashton turns the corner into the living room, setting his untouched tea on the tea table. “I’ve got to go,” he announces, lightening his tone and forcing a more amiable expression. His nieces stop where they’re playing with their dollies and spring to their feet. Ashton waits with open arms for them to collide against him. Marie beats her sister, rushing into Ashton’s arms. Emma is close behind.“Can’t you stay a little longer?” Emma begs. “We could have a tea party, and you could be the prince.”Ashton strokes their hair where it falls down their backs, the same color as his own, clipped back with barrettes. “Sorry, girls,” he apologizes. He wishes he could send them away himself. They’ve never heard a bomb fall, never hid away in a shelter or feared for their lives. “I have to get home. I’ll come back, then. You can be the princesses and I’ll be your humble servant.”“I’ll miss you,” Marie says, burying her face in his stomach. “Come back soon?”“Of course. Goodbye, girls. Give me a kiss.” He kneels and lets them each kiss his cheek, Emma trailing her small fingers along his stubble and giggling. He pulls them in for a big, tight hug before he releases them and stands up. Emma glues herself to his leg, clinging to his slacks as he trudges to the door. “C’mon, Ems. Let me go.”“Will you play house when you get back?” she whispers. Her head is almost up to her sister’s shoulder, though hardly up to Ashton’s waist. He smiles fondly and nods.“I’ll play whatever you want. Love you both,” he says, putting on his jacket and slipping out the door. “Be good for your mum.”“We will,” they chorus, standing at the threshold and waving. Lauren stands behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders and smiling wearily.Ashton slips into his car and pulls the door shut and starts it up, preparing for the drive home. When he looks back, the girls have already disappeared inside. “How can I help you, sir?”Ashton tears his eyes away from the crackling, static-obscured television to look at the young barista. The boy is young, probably in his twenties, and waiting patiently. Ashton isn’t sure how he wandered into the tea shop, but he did, drawn by the picture of the television displaying monochrome scenes of mobilizing troops. Germany has invaded Poland; everyone is taking up arms. It harkens back to his memories of being on the move for the first time 25 years ago, his feet blistering in the stiff new boots but feeling an odd sense of pride.That had ended with the first rain and the mud that covered his clothes and clogged his pores and nearly poured down his throat.“Sir?” the boy presses politely.“Right,” Ashton says, not tearing his eyes from the screen. “Er, just a tea would be fine. Thanks.”The boy nods and moves away to fulfill Ashton’s order. Ashton keeps watching the television until another voice rips him from his thoughts.“Ashton?” Someone says. Ashton glances down the bar counter to where the voice comes from, someone familiar, and Ashton’s attention is jerked away.“Michael,” he says, blinking stupidly. “Funny seeing you here.”“It’s been a while,” Michael says. He’s dressed smartly in a business suit with his hair slicked back, and he’s got a few years on him since Ashton saw him last. “You stopped calling after you moved.”Ashton tries to remember the last time he got together with Michael. He can’t even remember. He was lost, somewhere in his head, maybe deeper than he is even now. He feels numb as he tries to excuse his reclusive behavior. “I haven’t—I just—”“I know,” Michael says sympathetically, shaking his head. “You don’t have to explain yourself. It’s your prerogative.”“Thanks,” Ashton says, rather bewildered. I suppose, he adds in his head. “Er—I expect you’re pretty busy now, what with all—this?” He gestures at the TV.Michael nods casually, sipping his tea. “Yes, everything’s up in a whirl. We’re in for the long haul. No way to smooth this one over.”“So it’s bad,” Ashton interprets. “It’s really bad.”“If it’s big enough to be called a world war, then what do you expect?” Michael shakes his head mournfully. “We have our work cut out for us. And you? Are you—all right?”Ashton swallows hard, shrinking in on himself. “I’ll be all right.” At Michael’s hard look, he adds, “Really, Mike. I’m just—startled. Stunned by it all. It’s not so bad, yet.”“I wish I could comfort you,” Michael says, “but I’m coming up short.”The barista comes back with Ashton’s tea, which he drinks morosely. He doesn’t want to know the full extent of the war at hand; it’ll only depress him, and he needs to hold it together. For Lauren, for her kids, for himself.“We should have seen it coming,” Ashton says instead, “when Germany took Czechoslovakia. Should have done something then. Could have headed this off.”“It would have happened anyway.” Michael is quiet. “Last war only took four years. Maybe this will be over quicker.”Ashton can sense Michael’s doubt, which is disheartening. Still, they both force smiles for lack of a better way to keep the conversation light. “We should meet for dinner sometime. When everything is done with. I’m sorry, really, that I’ve been so isolated.” He isn’t sorry about that, exactly; he is sorry that he’s left Michael in the dark about his life for years. But Michael is understanding about these sorts of things. Everyone is more understanding these days.“It’s fine. Just, you know, call me,” Michael says, smiling genuinely this time. “If you need anything, I’m just a call away.”Michael leaves to go somewhere; Ashton doesn’t know where. He tips the boy who gave him his tea and leaves the shop, casting one last glance at the television.His mind and heart feel empty as he drives home. Michael’s grim prognosis makes him squirm. The war hasn’t quite reached Britain yet, despite all the declarations and doomsday announcements. The streets are quiet and sparsely inhabited, which means he reaches home quickly, but the vacancy leaves a knot in his stomach—a fear that something awful is going to happen. He finds himself glancing up at the sky to scan impulsively for aeroplanes.When he reaches his front porch, he almost stumbles over a body, and he can’t stop himself from shrieking out loud.The body jerks upright; it’s alive, Ashton realizes, and he stumbles back as lanky limbs unfurl and blue eyes snap open. The man recoils back from Ashton in a fright, cowering from him as if Ashton may lash out. Ashton struggles through his shock to place the man as his chest pounds. Despite the suddenness of the situation and the surprise of finding someone sleeping on his doorstep, when he thinks hard enough, he can taste the memory.His breath nearly stops entirely when the man says tearfully, “Please, do not send me away.”He barely has time to say, “Luke?” before Luke rises to his feet and throws his arms around Ashton’s shoulders, collapsing forward and leaning heavily on Ashton. Ashton staggers under his weight, trying to support him. He can feel Luke’s body shaking, wetness on his shoulder where Luke has buried his eyes.“Let me stay,” Luke sobs, his legs buckling under him. He clings to Ashton, desperate, and Ashton is horrified by the wild anguish in his eyes. “Let me stay, let me stay, please.”As Ashton hauls Luke over the threshold and out of the cold, Luke refuses to unwrap his arms from Ashton’s body, like he thinks Ashton is going to turn him away after all. Ashton finally coaxes a cup of tea into Luke’s hands and drapes a blanket over his shoulders, partially to ward off the cold that Luke’s worn coat doesn’t shield him from, and partially to comfort him. Luke hasn’t stopped shaking since the minute Ashton found him on the doorstep, absolutely distraught. He’s only just stopped crying, but his eyes are swollen and red and he won’t stop rubbing them with dirty fingers. He’s unshaven, unclean. He could be from the poor house, if Ashton didn’t know better.Luke sips at his tea, swallowing with what sounds like difficulty. Whenever he swallows, he shuts his eyes, a tiny noise emanating from the back of his throat. He doesn’t talk, drinking as fast as he can afford to without burning his tongue. Ashton waits, brimming with questions but not wanting to overwhelm Luke.“How did you find me?” Ashton asks, starting slow. Luke looks up, hands still cupped around the mug in search for warmth. Ashton can tell his breathing is still ragged, and he takes a while to respond.“I use the address,” Luke says, pulling out a wrinkled, yellowed piece of paper from his pocket. “You give to me on Christmas.”“But I don’t live there anymore,” Ashton says, brow furrowing. “Manchester’s a long way to London.”“They tell me where to find you,” he says, and grasps Ashton’s hand. “So I come. I walk, all the way, to find you.”“You walked a long way,” Ashton repeats, stunned still by Luke’s mere presence. “How did you get to Britain?”“I come days ago on boat. Then I walk and I walk and I walk. I sleep on the street and get lost.” Luke’s eyes fill with tears again. “Will you send me away?”“No, no, of course not,” Ashton hurries to assure him. Luke nods and takes deep breaths, calming himself. He sets the empty mug on the table and clasps his hands together. He hardly looks at Ashton, and Ashton feels a strange uneasiness settle over him.It’s odd to see Luke after some 25 years; he’s older, and somewhat bigger, but the previous fragility of his teenage body has given way to the frailty of undernourishment. To Ashton, who has grown since that Christmas as well, Luke seems about as small as he ever was. Even with Luke’s unshaven face and broadened, lengthened body, Ashton sees vulnerability.“You’re still cold,” Ashton notes, touching Luke’s cheek. Luke leans into the touch desperately, searching for human contact. “You should take a hot shower and go to bed early. We can talk in the morning.”Luke allows Ashton to hoist him up and pull him towards the bathroom. He seems weak, physically and emotionally, and neither resists nor argues.“Okay, you can use any of the towels except mine,” Ashton says, tugging the red towel off the rack. “You can use any of the soaps on the rack and I’ll leave some clothes for you to change into outside the door. You can use my razor as well, I suppose. You’ll be all right?”Luke nods, but turns anxiously and grasps Ashton’s wrist. “You will be here when I come out? No calling police?”Ashton stares at him for a moment. “I’ll be here.”Luke bites his lip and nods and closes the door. Ashton hopes he figures out the knobs on the shower, since he forgot to explain. His head is swimming with question marks and they’re digging holes, leaving him with a pounding headache. He finds his smallest pair of pyjamas and leaves it outside Luke’s door. While he waits for Luke to reemerge, he sits in his bedroom with a book, but his focus is elsewhere.Why is Luke here? Why is he worried about the police? Is Ashton harboring a fugitive? He is wary of Luke; he only knew him for one day, and that was a couple of decades ago. Ashton’s trust could easily be misplaced, although he isn’t so quick to jump to that conclusion. And what will he do with Luke? If Luke is really hiding, and Ashton’s even willing to hide him, what is he getting into?When Luke finally comes out, he stands hesitantly in the doorway of Ashton’s room with quivering, watery blue eyes and freshly shaven cheeks flushed from the heat. He holds the towel he used in his hands, and his blond hair, dark and wet, is rumpled and unkempt. “I am done,” he says, almost in a whisper.Ashton takes a long look at him, his mind racing. Luke doesn’t look like a fugitive. He looks frightened still, and more of a ghost than a man. He can’t imagine Luke having done anything terrible enough to look the way he does, as completely overwrought as he is. But he doesn’t know the depth of the matter.“Do you want to go to bed?” Ashton asks. “You look exhausted.”Luke bites his lip and looks almost overwhelmed. “Can I eat?” He clutches the towel even tighter. Ashton looks him over; he’s swimming in the pajamas, not quite reaching Ashton’s height or breadth.“Sure, of course,” Ashton says, rising from the bed. He nudges Luke out toward the kitchen, and Luke trails behind him, lost. “What do you want to eat?”“Anything,” Luke says. “Whatever you not want.”Ashton isn’t sure what to make of that, so he just opens the pantry and pulls down bread and cheese. He looks at Luke uncertainly, poised with a knife in his hand over the bread. “How much?”Luke shrugs helplessly, but his eyes are hungry, and Ashton cuts several slices of bread and then the cheese. He lays it on a plate and pushes it towards Luke, who takes it and sits down at the kitchen table. He eats the cheese on the bread cautiously, eyes tracking Ashton’s movement. He seems to struggle to eat slowly, never shifting his gaze. Ashton looks away, wanting to give him the space to eat as he needs. When he turns back, Luke’s scarfed it down impressively fast. Luke leans forward on the table, swallowing repeatedly and audibly.“Do you want more?” Ashton presses worriedly. “Are you still hungry?”Luke nods guiltily, but shakes his head right after. “I already take too much,” he protests, bowing his head. Ashton thinks it’s hardly a time for humility, when he’s half-starved and anxious the way he is.Ashton takes his plate and gives him more.Luke finishes it off, and wards Ashton off when he repeats the question. “I go to bed,” he says, standing up and crossing to the sink to wash his plate. Ashton would have done it for him, but he can tell Luke is determined not to make extra work. When he finishes, he turns to Ashton as if waiting for direction.“You can sleep in my bed if you want,” Ashton offers. “I’ll take the sofa.”“I take the sofa,” Luke says with conviction. “I just need a blanket. Please.”Ashton pulls some spare bedding from the linen closet and brings them to the sofa, setting down a thick folded comforter and an extra woolen blanket. Luke sits uneasily on the edge of the sofa and pulls at the bedding, unfolding and preparing to sleep. He adjusts a pillow to lie flat at the head of the sofa and smiles with worried eyes at Ashton. “Thank you,” he says, fingers twitching over the blankets as he fidgets. “I owe you something now.”“You don’t owe me anything,” Ashton says, shaking his head. “Will you be all right?”Luke’s teeth scrape over his bottom lip, bringing blood to the surface. “I do not know,” he confesses. “I am safe?”“I suppose.” Ashton runs a hand through his hair, wishing he could comfort Luke more. “Nobody’s going to be kicking down my door in the night.”Luke seems less than mollified, and he fidgets harder, wringing his hands and twisting the blanket. “Will you stay with me for a while?” he mumbles. “Just to make sure.”Ashton can hardly refuse, what with Luke anxiously looking up at him. He sits down at the foot of the sofa, and Luke pulls his blankets up high over his chest as he wriggles down. The sofa is too short for his legs, and he curls them up. “You look exhausted,” he comments softly, resting a nervous hand on Luke’s leg. “You get much sleep the past few days?”Luke sighs and looks up at the ceiling, growing quiet. Ashton tries to swallow his impatience. After a few seconds, Luke says, “I leave Germany eight days ago. I use all money I own getting to Britain. No money for food or staying. Just, walking. Until I find you.”Ashton’s gut twists. “No food?”“Only a few days.”“That’s awful.” Ashton swallows hard. “You must have been awfully desperate.”Luke nods thoughtfully. “But I am safe here,” he says, answering his own prior question. “They cannot find me here.”“Who is they? And why are they after you?”“After me?”“Chasing you.”Luke shrugs uncomfortably, still staring at the ceiling and refusing to meet Ashton’s eyes. “I do nothing bad. I tell you later. Tomorrow, maybe.”Ashton tries to trust him. It’s easy when Luke seems more frightened than anything else, an easy victim in his head. He believes this fearful man is blameless. He has nothing else to go on. “I’m sorry,” he says gently. “It must have been very frightening for you.” Luke nods and curls unhappily around his stomach. Ashton notices the pained expression on his face. “You okay?”“Maybe eat too fast,” Luke admits and shuts his eyes, eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones. “I am okay. You do not worry.”“It’s probably a shock to your stomach. I shouldn’t have given you so much at a time.”“It is my fault.” Luke gives Ashton one last hazy smile and reaches out to touch his hand. “I am okay now. Thank you. I am in debt.”Ashton watches him with a sad fondness as he rises to go to his own bedroom. Luke pulls the blanket up around his neck and snuggles down, exhaustion taking over as he lets go. Luke remains in a tight ball, and Ashton forces himself to tear his eyes away. As he walks down the hallway, he thinks to himself that this is going to end badly.His house is too small, his heart is too big, and Luke is lost and drowning in all of it. Luke is softened by the morning light coming through the kitchen window. He is more careful this time when he eats his buttered toast, pacing himself. He says very little as Ashton gets ready in the morning. Ashton can hardly believe he’s sitting there, in his kitchen, as if everything was normal. Ashton wants him to explain everything now, quickly, before any of this goes wrong, but he bites his tongue. Luke is clearly still exhausted and jumpy, watching Ashton with half-lidded eyes as if he expects Ashton to say or do something to him. When the postman brings the mail, Luke starts in his chair.Ashton sits down at the table across from Luke. Luke keeps his sleep heavy eyes down, lifting them only as high as Ashton’s chest. His plate is empty save for crumbs, and his fingers grip tightly to the handle of his tea mug.“I don’t know where to start,” Ashton says slowly. “From when you left, or the war, or—somewhere in between, I don’t know.”“It is very complicate,” Luke says in a small voice, shrinking back.“Then explain,” Ashton says with a badly suppressed sigh. “I’m sorry. I know you’re—upset, but it’s complicated on my end as well. Having you here, I mean. Not that I don’t want you here, it’s just. You know. I think you owe me an explanation at least.”“Com-pli-ca-ted,” Luke repeats with a frown, not as an answer. He draws it out, nodding. He scratches at the stubble dotting his chin. “Things are com-pli-ca-ted.”“Yes, complicated. What chased you all the way to London?”Luke draws his lower lip between his teeth. He stands up and shakes his head, as if gearing up for a fight. “You will not understand.” His shoulders are tight, rigid. “Britannien is not Deutschland. And Deutschland, she is not same now.”“You have to explain.”“I have nothing to feel shame,” Luke says adamantly, folding his arms over his chest. “I do nothing wrong. But I cannot go back.”“You could be a criminal,” Ashton says, feeling awful and righteous at the same time. He wants to believe Luke’s indignance is rightfully directed, that he really has done nothing wrong, but Ashton is in the dark. Luke has come out of the blue and reappeared in his life after thirty years, and yeah, Ashton’s a touch shaken up.“I am not,” Luke says, shaking his head furiously. Sudden tears mist over his eyes. His body languages falls from angry to pleading. “I never do anything wrong in my life. I am kind to neighbors and I help strangers. I do nothing wrong, I promise. You must believe me. I could not put you in danger. I just cannot go back.”Ashton is taken aback by his outburst, but something in Luke is genuinely aghast at the prospect of being labeled a criminal. Ashton works hard to remember the Christmas of 1914, and what he remembers of the earnest, pure-hearted boy he’d known Luke to be. And as stupid as it is, he wants to believe him. There’s something left of the foolish romanticism he’d clung to through his childhood.“You will call the police,” Luke says, jumping to conclusions and sniffling piteously. It’s difficult not to crumble at the sight. Ashton has seen few men so broken. “They take me away.”“No,” Ashton relents, “I won’t. But you’re not escaping the war here. You’re no safer here than you were in Germany.”“I am safer with you,” Luke says, “here, where they cannot find me.” Ashton receives a letter from the United Kingdom War Office a day or two later. He recognizes it immediately as government stationery, the sort Michael uses to write to him. The address is typed in the slightly crooked font of a typewriter, and he feels his features settle in a deep frown when he sees the stamped government seal.His first thought is the worst case scenario: someone in his family is dead, and this is how he’s finding out. His mind races; could it be Lauren, skin either marred by the swelling silver welts of toxic gas or eaten away beyond recognition? Her kids, torn to bits by a bomb? Harry—he doesn’t want to think about Harry.But that was all years and years ago. Not now—not yet.Gritting his teeth, pushing his apprehensions aside, he takes the letter opener from the kitchen counter and rips the opening of the envelope. He draws the letter out, smoothing it out carefully, and steels himself to read. His heart pounds, a light reminder to be prepared for whatever gets thrown at him.
Dear Mr. Irwin,
The Directorate of Recruitment and Organisation would like to extend an employment offer. In light of your outstanding artistic designs, we would be delighted to hire you to work for the United Kingdom War Office. Your country needs you in this time of war.
The United Kingdom requires a well-fortified military with high morale. Art plays a heavy role in the recruitment and motivation of our young soldiers. We have come to believe your artistic interpretation may well be what Britain needs to prosper against Soviet Russia and the Nazi Party of Germany.
All pay and hours are negotiable. Please visit our London headquarters to discuss this offer.
United Kingdom War Office
Ashton sets the letter back on the counter, his mind tangled in knots. He needs the job, the money most of all, that much is clear. Living paycheck to paycheck and on pension worked, for the most part, when he was living alone, but Luke is dependent on him as well now, and they’ll need the extra income. He hasn’t had time to figure out a solid plan, seeing how fast things happened, but this is a good offer.Can he really take it?Will he be able lie to a country full of impressionable boys, make them think that the best thing they could do for their country is to ship off to the front lines and take Hitler down themselves? Will they be fooled as easily as he was, full of false pride and patriotism?He leaves the letter on the counter, flooded with apprehension. He can think about it again later. It’s not just as easy as that, of course, when trying not to think about it only makes him contemplate it harder. Sheer willpower loses to counterintuition.His legs take him just around the corner of the kitchen to the living room, where Luke is still curled on the sofa. He sleeps the way he lives, taking up as little space as possible. Ashton doesn’t know if it’s a fault of his character or of the situation. Though Luke makes himself small, Ashton can still discern the shape of his long legs, and his thin shoulders. He doesn’t find it so much of a shock anymore to round the corner and see another body sharing his space. He still can’t make odds or ends of Luke, but it breaks up the monotony of the situation and the doomsday declarations over the radio. Luke is a welcome distraction, one Ashton isn’t quite sure is good or bad.He almost feels a twinge of fondness looking down at Luke’s calm, oblivious face. He sleeps with his cheek snagged against the palm of his hand, scrunching one of his eyes up where his face rests. Asleep, he reflects little of the turmoil from which he’s clearly suffering. Sometimes at night Ashton hears him get up and shuffle around the kitchen, opening cabinets and turning on the rusty faucet.Ashton almost wakes him up to tell him that the extra toast he made for Luke is getting cold, but he goes back to the kitchen instead to make a cup of tea for him.He wakes Luke a half hour later with re-toasted toast and a cup of tea, and sits next to him on the sofa while he consumes the meager breakfast. Luke tends to mumble a bit in German until he’s fully awake and can grasp his English again. Ashton half-watches him, half tries to read the morning news where it’s spread out between his fingers, the corners folding at the top where the flimsy paper isn’t supported. Ashton momentarily forgets about Luke long enough to take in the news, and it’s the same talk about invasions and bloodshed.Ashton feels a slight weight against his shoulder, and then Luke is reaching over with a pale finger to point at the news.“Soviet Russia annexes Poland,” he reads. “What is annexes?”Ashton looks over at him, the newspaper dropping onto to his knees. “They mean Russia invaded Poland. Or took it over, you could say.”Luke nods, slowly and then more rapidly as if he’s processing it. “I learn English, and maybe get a job,” he says hopefully, glancing up at Ashton bravely. “Then you do not do a favor.”“You don’t have to do anything,” Ashton hurries to say, although the rent creeps up in his mind. “You’re a guest, technically. It’ll be all right.”Luke doesn’t stop nodding. Ashton’s words must go straight over his head. Ashton hands the newspaper over to him anyway.“If you read more, your English will be just fine,” Ashton says softly. Luke looks down at the newspaper and heaves a sigh, the task obviously daunting. Ashton wonders if he’s overwhelmed, being the enemy in a foreign country with a minimal grasp on the language. It occurs to Ashton that Luke must have taken a bigger risk in coming here than he initially understood.“I read every day, maybe,” Luke agrees hesitantly. “Then, maybe my accent go away.”Ashton doesn’t tell him that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his accent, because they’re both aware of the greater damage in someone else noticing Luke’s accent. He shouldn’t be ashamed, but it’s dangerous. Luke is as good as a loaded gun, waiting to be kicked into discharge.“You know, you’ve been cooped up inside for a week,” Ashton begins. Luke’s skin is naturally this pale, at least in his memories of that Christmas, or maybe Luke’s equally exhausted and worn thin as he was then and Ashton’s just never seen him with any color in his cheeks. Either way, it can’t hurt for him to see some daylight. “We should go somewhere, today. I’ll show you the city. It’s not much, because right now—” He takes a deep breath to avoid finishing with the world seems to be ending. “If you want.”Luke tilts his head to the side and folds the newspaper up. “If you want,” he repeats. Ashton isn’t sure if he’s repeating it for the educational value, trying to pick up a phrase, or if he’s echoing it back to Ashton as a question.“We could get you some proper clothes,” Ashton suggests, reaching over and pinching the fabric of his own t-shirt hanging loosely off Luke’s torso. The action flutters his stomach, like it’s something too intimate. It’s strange enough for them to be sitting on the sofa in just underwear and undershirts. “You’re going to need some.”Luke quietly acquiesces, although Ashton has yet to see him disagree with anything thus far. Ashton allows himself a brief smile that’s supposed to reassure Luke, but reassures himself more than anything, probably. Add another thing to the list of things he’s trying not to think about.It’s strange, exiting the house with Luke close on his heels. They’ve never been out together, and Luke looks out of place here, too blond and too fair. A perfect German statue of porcelain skin and hair strung out of gold. Luke’s eyes have a lost, vulnerable look as Ashton guides him to the car. He sits primly on the passenger side, hands clasped over his knees as Ashton starts up the car.Ashton tries to keep his eyes on the road, but he sneaks looks at Luke now and then. Luke’s face presses up against the glass window, eyes canted upwards at the sky. Ashton can sense his discomfort; he’s misplaced, a stranger. No matter how many hours he spent trekking across England to find Ashton, begging directions along the way, and the days spent sleeping on the sofa with the rest of the United Kingdom right outside the window, he still feels out of place. Ashton sees the discontent shifting behind his eyes.Ashton takes Luke to see a few different clothing shops. Luke’s eyes trail over the clothes, and around the shops; it can’t be that different from Germany, honestly, but it must still feel different. Luke picks out a few shirts and pairs of trousers in blue and grey, the drab colors apparently pleasing to him. Ashton doesn’t begrudge him that fancy.Luke keeps the package of clothes clutched close to his chest as they leave the shop. He’s kept his mouth shut so far, mostly, and Ashton keeps up some one-sided, strained conversation. He doesn’t realize what it is until they pass a paper boy shouting, “Soviets invade Poland! Nazis sink the HMS Courageous!”When Ashton hears the words Nazis, he notices Luke stiffen up. He doesn’t say anything about it, though. It’s not the right time, and Luke has already shut down.Michael shows up at the house unexpectedly a week later, his suit neatly pressed and immaculately clean. Ashton gets the sick feeling as he opens the door that he knows what it’s about, and he glances instinctively towards Luke, who’s frozen by the stove where he was carefully stirring some soup. When he sees Michael, he turns the stove off and waits, paralyzed. Ashton wishes he would relax; it’s a good deal more suspicious that he’s standing so rigidly, like he’s afraid of getting caught for something. Michael kicks his shoes off in the foyer, going for a hug that Ashton accepts, albeit reluctantly.“Michael,” he says, forcing a smile. “All right, mate?”“Quite. Er—can we sit down? I have business to discuss.”“Right,” Ashton says with a heavy sigh. He gestures for Michael to sit down on the sofa. Michael doesn’t immediately move, though; he turns his head and sees Luke, who looks helplessly past Michael at Ashton, as if asking for a direction.“I didn’t know you had a guest,” Michael says, motioning with his head at Luke. “I can come back if there’s a better time.”Ashton doesn’t see himself getting rid of Luke any time soon, so he shakes his head. “Er, this is Luke. He’s an old friend, he’s just staying with me for a bit. Luke, this is Michael. Michael works for the War Office.”“Hello,” Luke squeaks out, but doesn’t offer a hand. He clamps his mouth shut and turns back to the stove, jaw clenched tightly.“Hello,” Michael echoes back with a quizzical look. “Let’s sit down.”Ashton rounds the corner and hurriedly yanks Luke’s blankets off the sofa, setting them on the floor. Michael waits patiently and sits down when the sofa is clear.“It’s about the letter, isn’t it,” Ashton says, not as much of a question as a declaration. Michael doesn’t look guilty enough, he thinks, for someone who knows his war records back to front and still had the audacity to let them send that letter. In fact, he’s probably the one who orchestrated the whole thing.“Yes,” Michael admits shamelessly. “Come on, we could really use your help.”“You want me to design propaganda,” Ashton summarizes, the corners of his mouth turning down in a frown. “Recruitment posters.”“You’re good at what you do, but you’re piss-poor,” Michael says flatly. The shoulders of his suit strain as he leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You’d be paid decently if you took the job.”“I appreciate the offer, but I can’t take it. Really, Mike? I’m not going to shame boys into going to war.”“Someone has to take down Hitler. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but he’s just going to keep going. Him and his blooming Nazis. We’ve pacified them for too long. Give them a hand, and they take the whole arm, the whole bloody body, for Pete’s sake.”Luke watches from the doorway, his sober eyes taking in the scene. Ashton has no doubt he can hear everything Michael says. Luke silently sets a tray with a kettle of tea and two tea cups on the tea table in front of them. Ashton fills himself a cup, mostly so Luke won’t be offended, and Michael takes his cue and follows suit.“I won’t be part of it,” Ashton refuses quietly. “Someone has to take down Hitler, but I don’t have to. I helped beat Germany the first time. No more war for me.”“You’re being selfish. It sounds barbaric, but if we don’t send more men out, Germany will be at our doorstep. What do you think will happen to your sister and her precious kids? As far as I’m concerned, you’re working from a clean slate. It doesn’t matter what you did a couple decades ago. We have a war on our hands now. And the truth of the matter is we need every bit of help we can get.”Ashton sips the burning tea, his tastebuds and throat scalded by it. He drinks to avoid talking to Michael, but he can’t sit in silence forever. “I don’t think this job is for me. I can help some other way, can’t I?”“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” Michael says, undeterred. He sets his cup down abruptly, the china clinking against the wooden table top. “Give me a call if you change your mind.” He stands and looks down at the tea, frowning. “Your friend makes you tea.”“Yes,” Ashton says shortly, and stands to face him, folding his arms. “Go on, then. You’ve said what you needed to, haven’t you?”“I’m trying to help you here, Ash,” Michael says tiredly. “Things are about to go to hell.”“I’ve seen hell before,” Ashton says. “It doesn’t frighten me.”Michael departs, and Ashton swallows his own lie.“Is he gone?” Luke all but whispers, peeking out from the kitchen. Ashton nods and grabs the letter from where he left it on the counter earlier in the week, ripping it into pieces and dropping it in the rubbish bin. “Did I do okay?”“It’s not a test,” Ashton says, kicking the basket pointlessly. “Yeah, he’s gone.”“He is government,” Luke says carefully. “He takes me away.”“I wouldn’t let him do that,” Ashton says, inclining his head and smiling exhaustedly. “Friends protect friends.”Luke smiles a bit too widely at that, and Ashton’s stomach clenches. “What letter was he saying?” Luke asks, steering the conversation back as Ashton’s thoughts start to wander.Ashton gestures at the bin and the ripped up pieces of stationery. “They want me to design recruitment posters.” He squints at Luke, thinking. “You had those in Germany as well, right? It’s just propaganda.”“Why do you not do it?”“You of all people,” Ashton starts bitterly, then shakes his head. “I’m not going to help them ship thousands of boys off to get killed. I won’t put anyone through that.”“You should take the job,” Luke says authoritatively, surprising Ashton. “Michael is right.”Ashton scoffs, a bit pissed. He would have thought he would find sympathy in Luke, at least. And he’s right, he knows he is; it’s not his bloody job to convince the next generation to run off and fight this war. Someone has to fight it, he gets that, but he won’t be the one to make it happen.“Why?” he asks, out of curiosity. What could Luke have to say about it?“You have nice prime minister. Hitler is a—a—what do you say for man who does not care about people? He does what he wants.”“Tyrant,” Ashton guesses.“Sure. He is tyrant. He is not a good man.” Luke looks at Ashton hopefully. “I have seen what he do.”“I don’t want to be part of it,” Ashton insists, but more weakly. “We already fought one war.”“This one is different.” Luke cocks his head, arms folded over his chest. It doesn’t look confrontational; it seems more protective, as if to guard himself from Ashton’s reaction. “There are bad things coming.”“How can you say that? It’s a war. They’re all bad.”“You did not live in Deutschland,” Luke says gently. “We cannot breathe. He is bad, cold, mean man. Every day we must be so careful, or the police come and take you away.”Ashton purses his lips, trapped. It would go against everything he believes in. Of course he knows that what Luke is saying is somewhat true; the newspapers all deem Hitler a delusional extremist, but nobody believes he’ll do half the things he says he will. Even so, he’s reluctant to be involved.“Take the job,” Luke implores him. “You need money until I find job, and you can help stop him. Believe me. You do not want him to win.”Oh, how Ashton hates himself when he calls Michael that night. “It is raining,” Luke remarks to himself, staring out the living room window at the overcast, darkened sky. He traces his name in the foggy glass, mumbling to himself the same phrase again and again. Ashton has just come out of the shower, toweling off his hair vigorously. His curls are messy from the water.Luke doesn’t notice Ashton’s presence right away; he’s caught up in watching the rain fall, enraptured. He looks oddly vulnerable and forlorn standing there.“Does it rain much back in Germany?” Ashton asks, reverting to comparison to make conversation. Luke has told him little about life in Germany, little about his family. Luke has told him little about anything at all so far, and Ashton thinks he must be avoiding it for some reason.Luke shakes his head, his gaze remaining still. “It snows, and it is always cold.”“Always?”“Almost.” Luke sighs and steps back from the glass. “Was your showering good?”“I guess.” Ashton sits down on the sofa over Luke’s blankets. “Are you doing okay?”Luke has been, if possible, even more withdrawn in the past few days. There’s the dreadful news they’re always getting, Hitler and Stalin taking this and that as they want, the speeches from the Prime Minister, gloomy proclamations—but although Luke applies himself dutifully to his reading every morning, Ashton doesn’t think he understands half of it. He knows as much to hold a simple conversation, even with some strain, but the politics escape him. There’s something heavier and longing in Luke’s eyes that Ashton wants to fix.“I am okay,” Luke says, but his eyes begin to mist. “I am safe here, so everything is fine.”Ashton pats the sofa gently, encouraging him to sit. Luke does so, settling a half foot away from him. He folds his hands under his thighs and looks down, his dirty blond hair flopping over his eyes. It was too long when he got here, but longer now, it seems. Luke doesn’t bother slicking it back like most men, but he rarely leaves the house, either.“Do you miss home?” Ashton asks. Not Germany, home . He’s so used to thinking of Germany as a hostile territory full of enemies, but for Luke, it’s familiar, and home. His question is validated by Luke nodding rapidly and carefully dabbing his eyes with his sleeve.“But I am safer here,” Luke adds. Ashton moves closer on the sofa, trying to stop the doubt clouding his mind. Not too close, not too close. “I am loyal to Britain now, promise.”Ashton shakes his head. He instinctively wraps an arm around Luke’s shoulders. “You don’t have to say that kind of rubbish. Not to me. You’re allowed to miss home. I know you’re homesick. And that’s okay. It’s okay.”Luke lays his head down on Ashton’s shoulder. For a minute, he can’t speak, his shoulders trembling with the contained force of his desolation. When he finds it in himself to speak, he does so softly, and with painstaking care. He reaches over to clutch at the hand that isn’t stroking his back. Ashton allows it, though it makes his throat tighten and his heart beat too hard. “I miss my family most,” he mumbles. “I miss the Wurst und die Musik—” He heaves a long, shuddery sigh, pausing to slow his thoughts down and translate in his head. “And my bed. Some things I miss very much.”Ashton squeezes his shoulder, thinking about the tentative weight on his own shoulder. He’s afraid to say what tumbles off his lips, but he says it anyway, feeling bold with the physical contact. “Tell me about home. Tell me about after the war.”Luke heaves a thick sigh, leaning more and more heavily onto Ashton. It takes him a long time to collect his feelings, and in the silence, Ashton watches out the window, at the trees spiking the sky with their stripped branches and that same moon he saw ten years ago when they lay together on metal studded dirt and bridged the gap.“Deutschland very poor when the war ends. I go back home a year after that Christmas.”“And your brother?”Luke tenses, and Ashton nearly kicks himself for not remember either of his brothers’ names, not remembering which one to ask about and which one not to. But Luke figures it out on his own. “Ben come home later,” he says. “After me. But he, he was okay. He marry his high school love, Greta. They have boy. He liked me very much.” Luke smiles at the memory. “Ben and I are very close, after war. He always love me very much. He telled me he like seeing me grow up.”“I’m glad to hear things worked out,” Ashton says quietly. “And your parents?”“Mutti and Papi both stop working and I, I try to fill the space.” Luke stretches out his hands, splaying his fingers wide and then fitting them together. “Like this, only the space is always there, see.” He rotates his hands back and forth, as if to fill the gaps any way he can, but Ashton understands, that no matter how he tried, nothing could ever quite fill the space that his other brother had left.Jack, he thinks. That was his name, wasn’t it?“I’m sorry.”Luke makes a humming noise, soft and high in the back of his throat. “They thought it would be me.”“They thought what would be you?”“Me, dead,” he says flatly, hands dropping to his lap again. “We cannot afford death service, or grave. So he is forgotten.”“Do you think about him much?” Ashton wonders if Luke will let him push that far. Luke’s voice has taken on a bitter, guarded tone, and he feels the hardship Luke has seen, much stronger than his own.“No,” Luke says. “He is forgotten.”Ashton senses that Luke is done talking about his home life. He tries one last question, out of pure curiosity and, he tells himself, that has to be the reason behind it. He doesn’t care when he feels Luke’s head on his shoulder, certainly doesn’t lean his head back against his.“Did you ever fall in love with a girl? I mean, when you went back, did you ever settle down?”Luke sighs softly, and Ashton thinks he’s going to fall asleep. He holds his breath for the answer, and when Luke speaks, it’s almost too faded to hear.“No,” Luke mumbles, slumped up against Ashton all the way now. “Never wanted—found.”Ashton exhales shakily in the darkness, and waits for Luke’s lights to go out before he extracts himself and covers Luke with the blankets, head spinning. Ashton is always a bit groggy in the mornings, understandably, but he’s certain he’s missing something when he hears someone knocking on the door early in the morning. He’s not expecting anyone; if anything, it might be Michael, come to pester him again, even though he already agreed to take the position. He’s inclined to ignore it, but he drags himself out of bed anyway. As he walks down the hall, he steals a glance at Luke, still sprawled out on the sofa. He’s reading the newspaper, and looks up briefly at Ashton. He pads past and opens the door, dreading a conversation with anyone at this hour.“What are you doing here?” Ashton asks Lauren incredulously. She waits on the doorstep, a hand on the back of either of her girls. They look about as prepared as Ashton feels, their usually neat long hair in messy plaits that they probably did to each other. Their cardigans are buttoned badly, and they look to be half asleep. They both clutch dolls in their hands.“I have a job interview,” she says, frazzled. “Can you take the kids for the morning?”Ashton fish mouths at her. What about Luke? The girls open their mouth about a German living in his house, then Luke gets executed as a spy and he gets executed for treason. Okay, so that’s a stretch, but it could easily go that way. “What? Where’s Christopher?”“He’s at work. Can I come in?”“Don’t let me stop you,” he mutters. He steps aside, letting Lauren nudge her kids over the doorstep.Luke comes out from the living room, already dressed. He looks questioningly at Lauren and Ashton, mouth clamped firmly shut. Ashton nearly groans out loud; the timing is so bad.“Who’s that?” Lauren says tightly, looking at Luke suspiciously. Ashton can hardly blame her. To Lauren, Luke is no more than a strange man, as trustworthy as he is untrustworthy. Explaining Luke away is not as easy as it seems, not when everyone is looking for spies.“He’s a friend,” Ashton says, motioning for Luke to come closer. “Ah, we were in the war together. He got displaced, needed a place to stay. He’s just going through a rough period.”“Who?” Luke whispers to Ashton, clinging close. Ashton is glad he had the sense to get dressed.“Luke, this is my sister Lauren,” he says, gesturing at her. “And her kids, Marie and Emma.” He smiles at the girls encouragingly and bends over slightly, like he has a secret. “This is my very good friend Luke. He hasn’t been here very long. Can you show him the snack jar and show him how well you color?”Marie nods, ready to be the authoritative older sister, but Emma steps forward first and grasps Luke’s hand, pulling him toward the kitchen. She looks up at him and says with her little lisp, “Uncle Ashton says we’re amazing artists.”Luke smiles uncertainly, but doesn’t say anything. Still, he allows them to guide him to the kitchen, where he knows perfectly well where the snack jar resides. Still, it’ll occupy all of them so he has a chance to talk to Lauren.Ashton turns back to Lauren, trying to keep his focus. “What’s going on? You didn’t tell me you were looking for a job.”“Christopher signed on for the war,” Lauren says, her jaw rigid and strong. Ashton sees an echo of their mother’s determination in her eyes, stone cold conviction. He remembers their father leaving, though not well. He’s never missed him, and their mother more than made up for it. “You should know that the government doesn’t shell much out for pension. I should have sent him to talk to you. You would have talked him out of it.”Considering the job he just took, his dedication to avoiding the war at all costs is seriously questionable, but Ashton keeps his mouth shut about it. “What did you tell the girls?”“I told them the truth. What they understand of it is beyond me.” Lauren sighs, leaning back against the counter and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s fine. Mum raised us all on her own. I can handle it for a few years. The factories are asking for women to support the war effort. It’ll be better than nothing.” She looks hopefully at him, giving him the same heart-tugging look she mastered in their childhood. When Ashton got a job as a teenager, Lauren could always charm a few sweets out of him. Now, she asks for more. “Will you take them? I’ll be back in the afternoon.”“Fine,” Ashton relents, not very enthusiastically. He rubs his hand over his face, gearing up to take care of his nieces.Out of the blue, one of his nieces shrieks and the snack jar, open on the edge of the table, goes crashing to the ground. Candies spill out, and a few shards of glass break off of the rim of the jar. Both girls immediately go to the floor in their distress, gathering up the scattered candy. Luke bends to his knees, shooing the girls’ hands away when they come near the glass.“You wait,” he tells them worriedly. “I pick up, so your hands are okay.”Luke carefully scoops what glass he can find together and sweeps it into the palm of his hand, carrying it over to the waste bin. Ashton grabs the broom from the cupboard and goes to sweep up what’s left.“We’re sorry, Uncle Ashton,” Emma cries, wrapping her arms around his legs and pressing her nose against his thigh. “We didn’t mean to.”Ashton sighs and puts the broom down, scooping her up in his arms and balancing her on his hip. “It’s okay,” he soothes, using one hand to brush her hair out of her face. “Accidents happen. Look, Luke has it all taken care of.”“Are we staying with you today?” she asks, nuzzling her nose into his neck. “I’ll be very careful.”“You’re all mine,” he confirms, setting her down again. “We’ll get this all cleaned up and then we’ll play, okay? Go say goodbye to your mum.”The girls plaster themselves to Lauren, promising to be good for their uncle. Lauren gives Ashton an uncertain look. “It’ll be okay?” she says to him under her breath, putting her faith in him. “You trust—Luke?”Ashton nods curtly, trying to avoid alerting Luke to the question of his integrity. It would probably hurt Luke further. “With all my heart.”“I have to go. You’ll take good care of them, won’t you?”Ashton doesn’t rankle so much at her uncertainty as he used to, back when Emma hadn’t come along yet and Lauren hovered over him when he picked newborn Marie up, but though Ashton forgets it sometimes, the girls aren’t his. Lauren wants the best for her kids, and Ashton wants to be the best for them.“Everything will be fine,” he promises, pulling her in to kiss her cheek. “Good luck with your job.”Once Lauren leaves and the glass and candies are all cleaned up, Ashton puts the broom back in the cupboard and puts on a kettle to make some tea. Marie stands next to him, watching intently as he washes out some mugs.“Can we have tea?” Emma asks. She again sits at the table next to Luke, who is quietly unraveling her plait and combing her hair out with his fingers.Ashton smiles at the question and nudges Marie towards the table. “Only a little bit.”“Emma, don’t take your plait out,” Marie says anxiously. “I’ll have to redo it.”“Plait?” Luke questions, his nose wrinkling and his hands stilling in Emma’s hair. Emma giggles and turns around.“You don’t know what a plait is?” she asks incredulously. “You’re funny.”“Emma,” Ashton scolds halfheartedly, looking away from the stove. “It isn’t polite to say things like that.”“I do not know what plait is,” Luke adds, but in good humor. “You show me.”Emma sweeps some of her hair to the front and tries to separate it into three strands about halfway down. Her small fingers weave it haphazardly into a loose plait. Ashton remembers Lauren teaching him how so he could help her with their mother gone all the time.Luke’s eyes light up. “Ah! A plait? In Deutschland, we call that a Haarflechte.”“That’s a silly name for it,” Marie says, plopping down across from Luke. Luke has begun to neatly section Emma’s hair off and weave it together again. Ashton gets caught up watching Luke’s long fingers dancing in and out, Emma’s silky hair sliding between his hands. “It’s so hard to say.”The kettle goes off, whistling for all it’s worth, and Ashton quickly shuts off the stove and pours the boiling water into four cups—two full cups and two barely filled an inch of the way. He plops teabags into each and pours some sugar in, watching as the sugar sinks to the bottom and the dark pigment of the tea swirls in the water. He portions a little cream into the tea, the milky white softening the dark liquid.“Mummy never lets us have tea,” Marie says as she accepts her cup and takes a little sip. “Ouch! It’s hot.”Ashton feels mildly guilty for countering his sister’s parenting choices, but all the same, aren’t uncles supposed to be the fun ones? “Well, I’m not your mum.”Emma bends over her cup as Luke ties off the last of her plait. “Is it pretty?”“It is sehr hübsch,” Luke confirms. “Very pretty.” Ashton agrees to himself; Luke is an expert at plaiting hair, it seems, much better than he personally is. Emma looks extra pleased as she takes a big gulp of her tea.“Me next,” Marie says, her eyes going wide. Ashton smiles as Luke rounds the table to start on Marie’s hair.“I do fancy plait,” Luke says determinedly, pronouncing the word plait as if it is horribly strange and foreign. He undoes Marie’s hair, even longer than Emma’s, in a matter of seconds. “I am, what do you say? I am pro-fessional.”The girls giggle at his emphasis of the word, and Ashton feels his worries begin to drift. The girls are too young to know the ramifications of Luke’s presence being gossiped about, and probably haven’t even figured out that Luke is German in the first place. On the other hand, he expects a grilling from Lauren when she comes back.“Girls, do you want some breakfast?” Ashton asks. “I can make you some toast.”“We ate already,” Marie informs him.“I want breakfast,” Luke chips in with a sweet smile. Ashton rolls his eyes and sticks a couple pieces of toast in the toaster. “Do I hurt you?” He directs the question at Marie, who sits patiently through the tugs and pulls of a French plait. Marie denies any pain, though she winces now and then.“When you girls are finished with your tea, why don’t you show Luke your artwork so he can finish his breakfast?”Emma gasps and sits up on her knees, her eyes widening eagerly. “Yes! Uncle Ashton says we’re the best artists he knows.”“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Ashton adds, thinking of all the sloppily colored stick figure drawings they do and how proudly they present it to him. He has some hung up around the house. Someday, he’ll teach them how to draw properly.Luke ties off Marie’s hair and gestures to it excitedly. “I am done. It is very good.” Marie reaches a hand up to run lightly over the length of it.“Does it look nice?” she asks Ashton anxiously.“Yes, it’s beautiful. Both of you thank Luke for doing your hair.”“Thank you,” they both chime in, and Emma rushes around the table to throw her arms around Luke’s legs. Luke stumbles back in surprise, but bends slightly to pat her back.“It is no trouble.”“all right, go show Luke your artwork,” Ashton reminds them. “I have to finish making his toast.”All in all, things go better than Ashton expected. The girls rope Luke into a game of pretend, forcing him to play the prince while they dance around and fight off invisible monsters to save him from the tower. Ashton is pretty sure that the story was supposed to go the other way around, but if his nieces want to be the heroes and save poor Luke up in that tower, he’s not going to correct them.“You’re free!” the girls cheer at the end, jumping up and down in a circle around Luke. “Now you get to live happily ever after.”“I am in debt of you,” Luke says, standing and bowing solemnly. “Do I get to marry a princess?”“You can marry me,” Emma volunteers, taking his hand and plastering herself to his side. Ashton wonders when he stopped being handsome enough to play the prince, but concedes that Luke is a much better actor, at any rate. Luke gives Emma a quick kiss on the cheek to reciprocate her romantic proclamation.“It’s supper time,” Ashton announces before they get a chance to pull Luke into another game. The girls look up and twist their faces immediately, and Ashton prepares for some whining, especially from Emma, who would play all day if she could. He’s been there for bath time, some nights, and Emma puts up quite a fight. But really, what’s to be expected from a five-year-old? “Go sit at the kitchen table. I’ll make some sandwiches, okay?”“Okay,” they sigh, reluctantly making their way to the table. Ashton waits for Luke to climb to his feet on those mile-long legs before he gestures for Luke to follow.“Go sit down, I’ll make you something to eat,” Ashton offers. Luke doesn’t sit down, though; he leans on the counter, watching as Ashton pulls bread and preserves from the cupboards. Ashton has some limited cooking skills, but none too advanced, which is fine since the girls prefer simple things anyway.“They remind me of my nephew,” Luke says, unable to stop himself from smiling. Ashton notices some pink in his cheeks, a bit of brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. His mood seems to have lifted.“They’re a handful,” Ashton says with a fond smile. “You like kids?”Luke nods vigorously. “Yes. I always think, someday I have kids of my own. Now I think maybe I don’t.”Ashton pauses, the knife digging into the bread where he was spreading jam. “No? What about after the war? You could go back home, find a nice girl to settle down with, have a couple of kids. We’re getting a little old, but it’s not out of the question.”Luke shakes his head with a smile. “After war I go home. Maybe I buy a dog.”Ashton is always surprised by Luke’s gentle humor. It doesn’t appear very often, with the language barrier and Luke’s usual despondent mood, but now and then, it comes out of nowhere and hits him again. Ashton wishes he was fluent in German, so he’d see more of that side of Luke.Ashton finishes making the sandwiches, doling one out to everyone, including himself and Luke. They all sit down at the table to eat the sandwiches together.It’s like a family, he realizes. A fucked up family, if men could actually raise kids together. It’s a ridiculous idea, even as a joke, but Ashton toys with it for a few minutes in his head, trying to imagine raising kids with Luke. His cheeks go red at the idea. No, it’s absurd. He could get arrested for that sort of behavior, and so could Luke. They can’t afford to get in trouble right now.Emma dissects her sandwich and eats it one piece of bread at a time. Ashton nearly scolds her for playing with her food, but decides it’s not worth the battle. He’s in a fairly good mood, forbidden thoughts aside, by the time Lauren comes back.The girls are just finishing their food when Ashton opens the door. Emma jumps out of her chair with a shriek and runs to greet her mother eagerly. Marie waits politely for her turn, as always, and Lauren embraces her daughters with a tired smile. Her eyes eventually lift to Ashton.“Everything go okay?” she asks.“Like a dream,” he replies. “Did you get a job?”“Yes, they’re offering a secretarial position downtown. They want educated women. It’s better than factory work.” She glances at Luke, as furtively as this morning, and back to Ashton. Ashton senses that she wants to talk, so he racks his brain for an excuse to get Luke out of the room.“Emma, did you lose your cardigan? I bet Luke will help you find it. He’ll help you tie your shoes as well.”Luke takes the hint, luckily, and herds the girls out of the room. Ashton turns back to Lauren. “I know you have questions,” he says quietly. “I have questions, too.”“He’s German,” Lauren says distrustfully. “How did he end up here?”“I met him during the first war.” Ashton sighs, rubbing his temple. “He got chased out of Germany. I don’t know what happened, but I trust him. I do.”“Why? What do you know about him? He could be a spy, for all you know.”“He’s not,” Ashton insists, but he feels foolish in his adamance. For all he knows, Luke is a spy. It just seems a bit improbable that a German spy would want to take up residence in his living room. After all, he’s hardly a useful source of government information. Even his new job, which Luke couldn’t have known about, won’t be important enough to make a difference. “Lauren, he’s just a friend. He hasn’t done anything wrong. You should hear him talk. He doesn’t say much, but he’s pretty sure that Hitler needs to be stopped.”“If he was a spy, he wouldn’t be running around yelling heil Hitler, would he?”“He’s an old friend. I trust him completely.”“Ashton,” Lauren says, touching his arm, “people are going to talk. Two single men in the same flat.”Ashton feels like his blood has run cold, and he pulls his arm away. His mind goes blank, but he still feels that fear. He wonders what Lauren thinks of him, being single for so long. It’s not normal; all of his university friends have married off and started having kids. For heaven’s sake, Lauren had a family before he did. From the outside in, Ashton is a strange, lonely man indeed, cooped up in his apartment. And if the neighbors don’t know about Luke’s presence already, they will soon.“You shouldn’t say things like that,” he manages to say finally, swallowing hard. “You don’t actually think I’m a homosexual, do you?”Lauren sighs, looking away. Ashton is downright nauseated. “I don’t want to talk about this.”“Neither do I,” Ashton says, trying to keep his face neutral. “You should take the girls home.”Long after she’s gone, Ashton finds himself listening to her words like a vinyl record that keeps skipping back to the same place. Over and over again, until even he isn’t sure everything is as it seems. Ashton hasn’t held a job in a while, so when it comes time for him to go down to the War Office and receive his assignment, he’s fairly nervous. He gets dressed in his best clothes and flits around the kitchen, unsettled. Luke sits at the kitchen table with the newspaper, reading under his breath. Ashton loves watching him trace the lines with his finger and whisper the words, never loud enough for Ashton to hear unless he wants to know a definition.“I can’t find my tea,” Ashton says, mostly to himself. “Where did I leave it?”“On the windowsill,” Luke answers, gesturing at it. When Ashton picks it up, he realizes it’s hardly hot anymore. Disappointing. He’s been rushing around all morning trying to get everything together, and now his tea is cold. He doesn’t have time to heat it over the stove again.“Great. Thanks. I need to go, you’ll be all right?” Ashton chugs the last of it down, cold and bitter. He grimaces at the unpleasant feeling; it was better when it was hot, but it’ll do the trick. Luke pushes his chair back and gets up.“Let me fix,” Luke says determinedly, bending slightly at the knees to see Ashton’s tie better. He pulls at the knot and tries to straighten it out before adjusting Ashton’s collar and tightening the tie properly. Ashton is impatient to get to the War Office in time, but he slows himself down for Luke, who is just trying to help.“Thanks, thanks. Do I look okay?” Luke steps back, examining him and nodding decisively.“You look very good,” Luke says, “thank you to me.”Ashton doesn’t have time to laugh. He takes a huge breath. “Okay. I’m going to go. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”“Good luck,” Luke says, reaching forward one last time to dust Ashton’s shoulder off. He gives Ashton his most encouraging smile, and Ashton steels himself to go.Ashton is halfway out to the car when Luke shouts, “You leave your hat! Wait!” Dressed just in pajamas, barefoot, Luke races out the door to hand Ashton his hat, perching it on top of his head. Ashton smiles in relief.“Thanks.”“Now you, what do you say, ace it,” Luke says, patting his shoulder. “Go, or you get late.”The whole experience proves much less intimidating than Ashton had built it up to be. He’s hardly long at the War Office, which is a looming, intimidating building that was born out of the 17th century and looks like it, too, with all its elaborate and stately architecture. He gets ushered into an office and handed a folder, told what they want him to do, and ordered to report back with preliminary sketches in two days’ time, no less.He’s wary about the task set for him. He has plenty of doubts about his ability to complete the assignment, including his motivation. And what if they reject the sketches? Is he fired, or does he get another shot? Plus, his memories of the first war bring back some images of those war posters and the overboard nationalistic and anti-German sentiment. It’s hard to inspire an emotional response strong enough to convince boys and men to enlist without one or the other.It’s a dilemma, to say the least.Ashton is mostly distracted on the drive home, but he does drive by the butcher, and stops on a whim. Well, he drives past first, but then he thinks about it and turns around, remembering Luke’s wistful talk about wurst which, Ashton has so wisely discovered, is just German sausage. It’s difficult to ease Luke’s homesickness when everyone around him wants nothing to do with Germany, and the German trade blockade means anything that Ashton might have been able to get for Luke is no longer available. Ashton understands Luke’s impossible longing for home; he can’t go back, and he feels alienated here in Britain, learning the language and customs too slowly to fit in as fast as he needs to.Ashton does wonder if Luke’s suffering from some sort of depression, what with his displacement and discontent, but he’s not planning on sending Luke to a doctor. They’re doing all sorts of outrageous things to mental patients these days, lobotomies and the like, and there’s talk of running electric currents through the brain to cure a host of mental problems. Though it may well work, Ashton can’t imagine that all that is really necessary. Just because an arm is broken, you don’t chop the whole thing off. Well, that he knows of.But a little bit of comfort food can’t hurt, so Ashton goes inside and asks if they can package him some bangers to take home. The price is remarkably high, and he frowns when it’s told to him.“What, were these blue-ribbon pigs, or something?” he asks, half-joking. He hasn’t ever seen such high prices for meat before. The butcher hands him the package.“Meat’s getting scarce,” he tells Ashton. “Better take what you can get while you can. They’re going to start rationing soon.”Ashton pays up and leaves the shop. His memory of rationing during the first war is limited; he spent roughly six months in the trenches, then almost a year after in the hospital getting operated on and fighting off subsequent infections, most contracted virally and in no way related to his gunshot wound. A simple hazard of staying at the hospital, when most men got infections from badly cleaned surgical tools and the countless illnesses floating around. The remaining two and a half years of the war are a blur, but compared to the dismal fare he had to eat while in service, even the rationing at home seemed mild, to say the least. His recollection of the time has been warped by the subsequent years and dampened by his emotional duress following his release from the hospital.It’ll be much the same this time, he expects. Besides, the war won’t be long. If they beat Germany once, they can beat her again, especially considering the kind of economic ruin she’s been in since the first war. Luke will be back home in no time.He drives home quickly, hoping to have the bangers in the ice chest before they go rancid. It’s not going to happen, not in this November chill and not during the short drive home, but the thought is there. He’s eager to get started on the assignment as well, to meet the two day deadline with his sketches. He’s going to need to make use of all the time he’s got.“I’m home,” he calls, setting the manila envelope with the assignment on the kitchen table. He hears footsteps from somewhere in the house, and hefts the package of bangers in one hand. Luke comes into view to greet him.“How did it go?” he asks, hovering in the doorway. Ashton gesticulates vaguely at the folder.“It was fine, very brief. I have to turn in some sketches in a few days for review. I bought you something,” he adds, holding the package out to Luke. Luke’s forehead crinkles as he takes it, looking at the brown paper quizzically.“What is it?”“Bangers.” Luke’s blank expression remains, and Ashton grins. “You know, your wurst .”Ashton is startled when he’s thrown back by Luke lurching forward to give Ashton a bone-crushing hug. When Luke draws away again, he’s smiling widely and bringing the package up to his nose to try and smell.“Bangers,” Luke repeats, trying the word on for size and looking pleased. “Bangers. That is what you call it?”“Well, see, in England, worst means that something is bad,” Ashton says, teasing. “If I said, your wurst is the worst, it would mean your sausages are bollocks.”“That means bad,” Luke translates. “Bollocks is bad.”“Such a fast learner, you are.”“Can I eat one?” Luke asks, grinning down at the package. “Do I have to save?”“Go ahead, but save the rest. Meat costs a bomb these days.” Ashton loves seeing Luke so happy over something as piddly as a sausage. It makes him wonder what else will make Luke smile. “What are you going to eat it with, though? I’m not making any mashed potatoes in the middle of the day.”“Sauerkraut is nice,” Luke says, frowning a bit, “but you do not have that here.”“What the hell is sauerkraut?”Luke’s smile returns. “Fresh—what is it called?”“Well, what does it look like?”“Green circle,” Luke says certainly. “It looks like ugly flower.”Ashton racks his brains for something that looks like an ugly, green, circular flower. “An artichoke?”“Hm. I do not know.”“Or a cabbage,” Ashton suggests, and Luke lights up.“Yes! Cab badge! It is fresh cab badge,” he mispronounces. “Then you put in salt and leave it for some weeks. Mutti made sauerkraut all the time.”Ashton’s revulsed look sends Luke into a fit of laughter. He doesn’t like cabbage as it is, let alone pickled, which he’s pretty sure is what Luke is describing to him. Luke’s laughter dies down, and a smile remains. “Thank you,” he says, clutching the package like it’s gold. “You are very kind.”“Well, go on and eat one, then,” Ashton exclaims. “I thought you were hungry?”They end up at the kitchen table, Luke eating carefully through a sausage and Ashton sketching halfheartedly. He’s lettering YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU in bold blocks, but the letters aren’t coming out evenly and he finds himself redoing it again and again. Eventually, it becomes almost soothing. The light in the kitchen is beginning to dim.“It does not taste like our wurst,” Luke murmurs. He’s leaning forward on the table, watching Ashton draw. “But I think it is okay still.”The corner of Ashton’s mouth pulls up in a half-smile; he’s distracted, but pleased by Luke’s satisfaction. He erases the Ys and tries a different style. His hand is starting to cramp, and he strains his eyes to make out the lines of his pencil. After fixing the Ys, he pushes it toward Luke, flipping it around so he can see.“What do you think?” he asks. Luke stops eating long enough to squint at the paper, then nods.“Looks nice.”“I think I’ll leave it for tonight.” Ashton pulls it back to himself and cocks his head. “I don’t know what I’ll draw, though.” He sighs, sliding it into the manila envelope they gave him at the War Office. Best to keep everything together. “I’m tired of sitting around here at home. Today’s the first time I’ve been out of the house in a week.”“We go somewhere,” Luke suggests, though it’s really up to Ashton to determine what to do. Ashton can see a bit of suppressed eagerness, claustrophobia from being cooped up in here so long. The last time Luke got out of this house was quite some time ago, and he’s already been here almost two months.“Sure,” Ashton agrees, smiling slightly. “It’s still early enough, I suppose. Mm, they’re showing some films at the cinema. We might be able to catch one, if you want.”“I will not understand,” Luke says, frowning. “Too much English.”“Nonsense,” Ashton says firmly. “Best way to learn is to just go at it. I’ll translate if you don’t understand.”“Okay, maybe,” Luke relents. Ashton’s sure he’s just desperate to get out of the house and cares less about the destination. “But we will make other people angry if you talk.”“But I won’t care,” Ashton says with a shrug. “I’ll tell them you’re my blind cousin, and you need me to tell you what’s going on.”“Blind?”“Can’t see,” Ashton amends. “Just put on your best British accent and some proper clothes, and we’ll go.”Luke rolls his eyes, but smiles and gets up to go change. The few clothes he has are neatly folded and stacked at the foot of the sofa. Ashton wants to move him into a real room and off the sofa, which by now is surely permanently indented with Luke’s form, but he doesn’t have an extra room in the flat. When he moved in, he wasn’t planning on having a roommate, nor can he afford to buy a bedframe or even a mattress right now. When the winter hits full force, it’s going to be too cold for Luke to sleep out on the sofa; the windows rattle, and don’t keep out the cold.“You have ugly hat,” Luke tells Ashton, pointing to the hat Ashton always wears out. Ashton coughs in surprise, eyes widening. Luke smiles wickedly, but starts for the door as if he didn’t say anything at all.“Excuse you,” Ashton says, startled, but unable to help himself from smiling. “Everyone wears hats.”“Well, I do not,” Luke says firmly. “And you should not either. I cannot see your face.”“Fine, fine, I’ll leave it at home,” Ashton gives in, and hangs it back up on the coat rack. “Come on, out you go.”It’s a cold evening, but England hardly ever sees a warm night, so Ashton just pulls his coat tighter. The cinema is much warmer than the outside, and Ashton is relieved, more for Luke than himself. Luke doesn’t have a good coat, and he visibly relaxes once inside.“What do you want to see?” Ashton defers to Luke. Luke strains his eyes at the titles. He shakes his head eventually.“What are they about?” Luke asks, almost in a whisper.“I dunno.” Ashton shrugs. “I assume Love Affair is about a love affair, correct me if I’m wrong.”“Mer Smith Goes to Washington,” Luke reads. “That?”“Mister,” Ashton corrects under his breath.“No, Mer,” Luke insists. “It says Mer.”“It’s pronounced Mister. ”“But it says Mer.”“It’s just an abbreviation.”“What is a—abra—” Luke sighs. “Say it again.”“Abbreviation,” Ashton says, amused. Luke’s eyebrows furrow as he takes the information in. Whenever Ashton explains something to him, his face takes on the same look of concentration. It’s almost comical. “It’s like, when you don’t want to spell the whole word out, so you just shorten it. To abbreviate is to shorten. So M-R is the shortened version of Mister. And you always put a period at the end. Does that make sense?”“I guess.” Luke looks slightly disgruntled. “It should be Mer.”“Go on, pick something to see.”“I want Love Affair,” Luke says, pronouncing the title carefully. He gazes up at the poster, hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. His eyes fill with some sort of wonder at the image of Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer looking dreamily at each other, locked in a sensual embrace.“You want to see a romance?” Ashton laughs, expecting Luke to offer up some kind of defensive explanation as most men would. Instead, Luke nods, still staring at the poster wistfully.“Please,” he says, and damnit, Ashton’s giving in. How can he possibly refuse, when Luke looks so hopeful? He knows how to work his eyes; they’re almost too perfect to be real, like they’re just colored glass, and sometimes they seem to hold such deep sadness that Ashton finds it difficult to resist giving Luke the small victories.Ashton buys the tickets and guides Luke to the right theatre. They sit in the back, the light of the projector casting over their heads. Luke scoots close to Ashton, feeling a bit of a draught that runs through the large room. Ashton can hear the whirring of the projector, casting the picture on the screen. Luke holds his breath for the beginning.It opens with the leading man and woman on a cruise, and some sort of fantasy romantic orchestra score in the background. Ashton steals a glance at Luke and finds him absolutely captivated, mouth dropped open and his eyes wide. Ashton can’t help but beam, seeing Luke’s child-like awe. His eyes are so clear that the film reflects back in them. Ashton finds it difficult to focus on the film.Ashton spends so much time watching Luke and translating bits and pieces that he probably sees more of Luke than the film. Well, good, he thinks. Let Luke enjoy this one thing. He couldn’t care less about what’s happening on the screen, but he does care about what’s happening beside him.The woman, Terry, gets hit by a car toward the middle of the film when she’s about to meet Michel again, and Luke gasps out loud, reaching blindly to grip Ashton’s wrist. Ashton’s own breath stops, but he stays as still as possible to avoid spooking Luke away.“Ach Nein,” Luke whispers, shaking his head and clasping his free hand over his mouth. “What about Michel? He still love her?”“I don’t know.”“Ach, how terrible,” Luke murmurs. Ashton would laugh at Luke’s distress if it wouldn’t disturb the theatre. Luke maintains his vice grip on Ashton’s arm, squeezing a bit tighter every time something happens. He whispers mournfully about how tragic it is that Terry thinks Michel will not love her anymore, and that she may never walk again. His grip loosens when Terry finds joy in singing with orphan children.Luke’s animated response to the events of the film provide Ashton with sufficient entertainment to get through it. He’s never been much for romances, especially not the American type; no, the British ones have much more grace. But the American ones have some sort of glamorous appeal, and Luke hangs on to every word.When Terry cries in Michel’s arms and they reconcile their love, Luke lets out a long, shaky breath and wipes at his own eyes. As the credits roll, he says quietly, “That was very good film.”“It was okay,” Ashton says, less enthusiastic.“No!” Luke says vehemently as they rise and make for the exits. “Great film. Wonderful film. We have nothing like it in Deutschland. Our films are different.”“Don’t you have romances?” Ashton asks, guiding Luke out of the theatre and toward the outside.“No, no,” Luke says sadly. “All our films are very strange. They want us to feel mad at die Juden , and they make us—” Luke pauses, and sighs. “Some are okay, I think. But no Amerikanisch romances. No romances at all. The young boys, they sneak in movie posters.”Ashton can understand why Luke wanted to see a simple romance so badly. “Are romance films your favorite?”“ Ja , yes,” Luke says, slipping back and forth from German to English in his excitement. He gesticulates wildly with his hands. “Nothing like Amerikanisch romances! The actors, they are all very pretty and charming. Michel was so pretty, very nice—his akzent, sehr schön.”“Handsome, you mean,” Ashton corrects him. “In English, you say girls are pretty and men are handsome, or dashing.”“Yes, yes, whatever,” Luke says, brushing him off hurriedly. “But your Westromane are so good.”Ashton is losing Luke’s meaning, so he just smiles and admires the way Luke talks faster and louder about his love for romance movies. When they get back to the car and buckle themselves in, Luke throws his arms around Ashton’s shoulders recklessly.“Thank you for take me,” Luke says, slumping back down in his seat again with a smile that won’t go away.Ashton is careful on the ride home not to look at Luke too much. It feels like grade school again, sneaking looks at the older boys and looking away when he got caught. But it’s not quite like that, not quite. Ashton is a grown man, and he’s better now. That part of him is buried deep inside, and nothing, not even Luke, can draw it out again. The winter is as cold and difficult as Ashton expected. The Soviets and Nazis are cutting their way through Europe, and temperatures are below zero on several days, which brings everyone’s spirits down. His sketches are accepted and put into production, and he sees a couple around town. It makes him feel guilty just to look at them, but the paycheck is hefty enough to keep him running back for more.He spends most nights listening to the radio with Luke, sketching while Luke simply stares at the face of the radio as if it will show him something. Ashton knows Luke is hoping for some news about what’s happening in Germany as well, but little of that comes their way; nobody is broadcasting about the civilians in enemy territory, because they’re not supposed to care about it. Having Luke under his roof brings him a bipartisan perspective. On the one hand, not even Luke wants Hitler to win, for reasons he never explains to Ashton, but on the other hand, Luke desperately wants to return home and, Ashton assumes, though again he never says, to his family.Ashton wonders what will happen if Hitler does win. Will he just keep taking other countries as he pleases? Surely he wouldn’t dare to take Britain. There’s no way he would be so bold. Czechoslovakia, Poland, are small countries; easier to take, by far, than Britain. But there’s no way of telling here and now. They have to let the war unfold.Ashton’s relationship with Lauren has always been good, even in childhood, but it’s difficult to get ahold of her, since she works most of the day. He knows, too, that she still has doubts about Luke’s presence in Ashton’s life, though he suspects it’s mostly worry for him. Worry about what people will say, what influence he might have on Ashton. It comes as a bit of a surprise when Lauren extends an invite for them to come over for dinner, but Ashton is pleasantly surprised.Luke doesn’t miss a thing. Despite his slow grasp on English, he reads body language and tone perfectly well, and Ashton wishes in some ways he didn’t have to feel Lauren’s dubiosity. When Ashton relates Lauren’s invitation, Luke’s nose scrunches, like he’s not particularly pleased to go, but he agrees anyway.Luke is visibly nervous for the dinner, although Ashton suspects it won’t be a very big deal. Still, Luke borrows Ashton’s hair gel to slick his hair back and even goes to the trouble of ironing his shirt the best he can. He’s obviously hoping to impress Lauren. Ashton hopes it won’t be necessary, but he’s glad to see Luke is trying his best.On the drive there, Luke jolts in his seat. “Wait!” he says, and Ashton swerves to the curb at a screeching halt.“Jesus, what?” Ashton asks incredulously, heart racing. Luke turns to him with hopeful eyes that only mean one thing.“We have to get—you know. The, the pretty plants.”“Flowers.”“Of course! Flowers. I knew that,” Luke scolds himself. “Or she hates me.”“She won’t hate you because you didn’t bring her flowers.”“I want to buy her flowers,” Luke says, folding his arms and glaring. He looks so determined and obstinate that Ashton bends under his will. It can’t hurt, at least; Lauren might be swayed by a polite gesture. Ashton reluctantly turns the car back onto the road and navigates to a florist’s, where Luke of course picks the nicest bouquet of roses he can find.“Whoa, whoa,” Ashton says, teasing. “You’re gonna bankrupt me.”“Bankrupt?”“Use up all my money. If someone is bankrupt, they have no money left.”“Well, it will be for a good reason,” Luke says breezily. He probably knows Ashton won’t refuse. And, well, it’s a good investment, to ensure that Lauren and Luke get along. Who knows how long Luke will be staying with him? Better not to incite any tension.By the time they get to Lauren’s, they’re late, but Ashton figures Lauren won’t be too mad once Luke hands her the flowers. He clutches them to his chest, eager to be the one to give them to her. Luke is jittering beside Ashton on the porch, partially from the severe winds and partially from nerves. He can’t keep still, even when Ashton puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a look that means please calm down. Marie opens the door, Emma rushing forward to throw her arms around both their legs, stretching as wide as she can to hug them both. Luke beams and bends down awkwardly to hug her back, and Ashton scoops her up onto his hip.“Come in,” Lauren calls from the kitchen.“I missed you, Uncle Ashton,” Emma says. “Also, I missed Uncle Luke.”Ashton nearly chokes at that, and glances at Luke, who doesn’t appear to have heard. “He’s just Luke,” he murmurs to Emma, trying to rectify what could be sheer humiliation for him later. “Just Luke, okay? He’s not your uncle, silly. That’s just me.”“Okay,” she says, unfazed. “Mummy’s cooking in the kitchen.”“Let’s go visit her, shall we?” Ashton heads to the kitchen, Luke trailing behind. “Lauren, Luke brought something for you.”Lauren turns from where she’s taking something out of the stove. Luke is blushing and his mouth is parted slightly, like he’s trying to get enough air, and thrusts the bouquet at her, slightly rumpled from the proximity to himself with which he’s been holding it. “Flowers,” he says, the pronunciation awkward in his mouth. He swallows hard, big hopeful eyes like maybe Lauren will turn a kind eye to him.“They’re beautiful, thank you,” Lauren says, surprised. “Goodness, I better put these in water. How kind of you.”Luke sighs in relief and beams, tapping Ashton’s arm when she isn’t looking and grinning proudly. Ashton rolls his eyes at Luke’s reaction.Lauren returns with a vase and fills it with water from the faucet, then pulls the crinkly paper from the roses and sets them in the water. Marie takes the opportunity to latch onto Ashton’s leg, feeling neglected by Ashton carrying Emma on his hip.“My, my, you two are growing faster than the speed of light,” he remarks. Marie beams up at him, an obvious gap between her teeth.“I lost my tooth,” she says proudly, sticking her tongue through the gap. “Thee? I lotht it.”“Pretty soon you’ll be taller than me,” he jokes. “Maybe I should stick you guys in the freezer, so you don’t get any older. I swear you grew since the last time I saw you.”“I grew also,” Emma mumbles on his shoulder. Ashton pats her back, earning a gratified smile.“I know you did, lovebug. Pretty soon you’ll be too big to hold.”“No, never,” she protests, shocked. “You’ll be holding me till you’re a million years old.”“Well, I better put you down now so I’m not too tired when I’m a million years old, then.” Ashton sets her on the ground, and she glues herself to Luke’s leg instead as Marie tugs on Ashton’s shirt.“I wanna show you something,” she says. “I got an award in class. For having the best handwriting.”“Why don’t you show Ashton after dinner?” Lauren suggests, turning the stove off. “Dinner’s just about ready. Girls, go set the table.”She sighs and smiles at Ashton and Luke as the girls scurry off to do their haphazard table setting. “Sorry about the rush, I know there’s no time to sit down and talk like this. I thought you were coming earlier.”“Well, Luke insisted we stop for the flowers,” Ashton explains, causing Luke to blush again and step slightly behind him, growing shy again. “He was afraid you’d bully him, or something.”“Ridiculous,” Lauren scoffs. “You caught me in a bad mood the other day, and I’m sorry.” She turns to Luke, smiling reassuringly. “Any friend of Ashton’s is a friend of mine. I don’t believe we met properly earlier.”“Hello,” Luke says dumbly, offering a shaky hand. He takes it back to wipe it on his shirt and smiles painfully at her. Lauren, to her credit, takes his hand. “Ich bin, uh. Ich—I—I meet Ashton long time ago,” he finally stutters out. “I am very please to—I, happy meeting you. Again.”“I’m pleased to meet you as well,” Lauren says. “If the girls are done setting the table, you’re welcome to go sit down.”Ashton guides Luke to the dining room, where crooked placemats and a slightly spilled water glass waits for each of them. Marie and Emma are already sitting, Emma on her knees and eating a piece of bread prematurely. Lauren chides her for starting too soon. Ashton takes his normal place, and Luke sits beside him, probably thankful to not be alone right now.“Okay, time to give thanks,” Lauren says, reaching her hands out for Ashton and Marie to hold hands. Ashton reaches his hand out for Luke’s, and Emma does the same on his other side. Ashton looks at Luke expectantly, but Luke looks completely befuddled by the gesture.“You have to hold my hand, silly,” Emma says, like it’s clear.Luke looks helplessly at Ashton. Ashton silently curses himself. Of course Luke wouldn’t know what to do; Ashton doesn’t even know if he’s a Christian, and he’s certainly never made Luke pray over a meal. Luke came to him so hungry, he was pretty sure God would have wanted him to eat, and besides, he fell out of the habit ages ago.“You don’t have to pray if it makes you uncomfortable,” Lauren offers, breaking the tense silence.“Pray?” Luke says blankly.“You know, thank God and all that,” Ashton cuts in quickly. He puts his hands together in a praying gesture and nods impatiently at Luke. “Yeah?”“Oh.” Flustered, Luke flushes again and reaches tentatively out to grasp Ashton’s and Emma’s hands. “My apology.”“It’s fine,” Lauren assures him. “No harm done. God, we thank you for this meal we are about to receive and all the small blessings in this hard time. We pray that you will bless us with more meals in the coming months and that the government may bless us with good rations.” Ashton tries and fails to suppress a giggle, sneaking a peek to see Lauren grinning too. The girls and Luke don’t understand the humor, so Lauren moves on. “Thank you, Amen.”“Amen,” they all echo.Dinner turns out to be Beef Wellington and potatoes, which is quite good in Ashton’s opinion. Emma picks at her food a little. Lauren, who is nervous about the definite rationing to come, presses her to eat the meat, assuming, probably, that meat will be scarce soon.“So, how exactly did you two meet?” Lauren asks, trying to steer the topic away from Emma being finicky and onto a better topic of conversation. She means well, Ashton can tell, but he never told her about that night and what a blessing it had been in the midst of all the horror. He isn’t even sure he wants to tell her about that night, not in its entirety, anyway. It feels too sacred in his memory to divulge.Luke, seeing Ashton struggle to eke out an explanation, says in his halting way, “We meet in war. On Christmas, we are in trenches, but our officer men call a stop so we can all have Christmas together.”“Then Luke shot me a few weeks later,” Ashton finishes with a broad smile.Luke opens his mouth with a little gasp and flushes darkly, ducking his head. “I panic,” he defends, and for a moment Ashton sees some hurt in his eyes, a deep guilt. Ashton doesn’t hold it against him; in fact, he hardly even associates the memory with Luke. It could have been any soldier, and it was their job. Ultimately, Luke saved him from the war.“It’s okay,” Ashton murmurs, touching Luke’s tense leg under the table where the gesture can’t be seen. “I don’t mind.”“Luke shot you?” Marie exclaims. She and Emma are hanging onto every word of the story. “I didn’t know you were in the war.”Ashton is going to kill Lauren later for bringing this up, since her girls are never going to stop asking now. “It was when Luke and I were kids. Grandma was raising me and Lauren and—” He stops just short of Harry’s name. “I had just gotten out of school, so I signed up. It was a big war, like this one.”“What was it like?”“Did you kill anyone?” Emma adds. “Did Luke?”“Emma,” Lauren scolds softly, gently, as if trying not to draw attention to the uncomfortable question. “Please don’t ask that.”“They dug these big tunnels in the mud,” Ashton explains to her, avoiding the question entirely. “We were in those tunnels all the time, and when we had to fight, we would climb out. It was always wet and cold down there, and you had to always be walking with your knees bent so your head wouldn’t poke up above for the enemy to shoot at.”“Did you play together?” Emma asks.“No, Luke was—Luke was my enemy, and I was his.”“You didn’t like each other?”“We didn’t know each other, sweetheart. I wanted to win the war for Britain, Luke wanted to win the war for Germany. It wasn’t about liking each other. It was much more complicated.”“I’m glad you’re friends,” Marie says, taking a big bite of her food. “I like Luke.”“Do you know how long you’ll be staying in Britain?” Lauren asks, directing the question at Luke.“No, I do not know,” Luke says, smiling. He relaxes his shoulders. “But if I get good food and you nice people, I am happy for staying.”“I want you to stay,” Emma adds.“Ah, what is your work?” Luke asks Lauren.“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you,” she jokes.“What?” Luke’s eyes widen and he drops his fork momentarily, and Ashton bursts out laughing.“It’s an expression, Luke. It’s like saying, this is a big secret and if I told you, then you’d know too much and I would have to kill you to make sure the secret stays safe. Does that make sense?”“I do not know.” Luke sighs at his plate. “Your English is confused.”“You’ll get the hang of it,” Lauren assures him. Luke continues to stumble his way through dinner, but despite his nerves, Ashton feels somewhat proud of his progress. When Lauren clears away the dishes, Emma drags Luke off to play pretend, and Luke gladly agrees.“Can I show you my award now?” Marie begs. Ashton turns his attention to his niece and feels, for a moment, some intense pride; she’s not his daughter, and he’ll probably never have children at this rate, even though he always wanted a family of his own after taking care of his siblings and his mother for so long. Marie is getting older, and she’s every bit as beautiful as her mother, as Emma will also be someday. She’s losing the baby fat and earning awards in school and Ashton can see in her the same drive and liveliness he saw in Lauren growing up. He loves his nieces like his daughters, practically, and although he can’t have his own kids, getting to help raise them, in some ways, is enough.“Of course, show me the way,” he says, and Marie gets up and leads him down the hallway. “Best handwriting, huh? Your old Uncle Ashton had the worst handwriting in the school, I bet.”Marie pulls him into hers and Emma’s room, digging through the scratched wooden desk that used to be Ashton’s but is now painted pink and permanently marred with squiggly smiley faces. Right on the top of a drawer is a nice certificate with her name and the award on it. “See,” she says happily.“Wow, that’s incredible,” Ashton congratulates her. Lauren peeks her head in at the doorway.“And hopefully you’re going to get more awards in the future, right?” she adds.“Don’t pressure her, Lauren,” Ashton groans. “She’s already done more than I have in my whole lifetime.”“But I still love you,” Marie says, throwing her arms around him. “You’re the best uncle in the whole world. The biggest and the bravest and the smartest and the nicest.”Ashton grins at that. He beat Harry out for the best uncle. Of course he did, since Harry hasn’t shown much interest in in being a part of Marie’s and Emma’s life, but still, they’ve met him a couple of times, and it makes him bitterly glad that he still wins. Christopher is an only child, so he’s the only other parental figure in the girls’ lives besides Harry, and he wins, rightfully so.“Why don’t you go on and show Luke,” Lauren suggests, shooing Marie away. She rushes out of the room with her certificate, and Ashton shuts the desk drawer.“I like what you’ve done with my desk,” Ashton says, smirking. “It’s very, uh, classy.”“Hey, you said they could have it, and they wanted it to be pink.”“Fair enough, fair enough.” Ashton sighs, running his hand over the pockmarked surface. “How’s work?”“Tedious, but it pays the bills. You?”“The same.” He sits down on the edge of Marie’s bed. “I trust Luke.” He bites his lip, waiting for Lauren to say something to the contrary. He has to establish this, just to make sure, even though dinner has gone well.“He seems sweet,” Lauren says, running a hand through her hair. “Good with kids, too.” At Ashton’s heavy look, she caves. “You have good judgment, even though you always trust too fast. So, if you think it’s okay, then it’s okay.”“Thanks,” Ashton says, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders. “God, what is this? I’m your older brother, I don’t need your approval. You need mine. For the sake of argument, I don’t trust Christopher. He hasn’t proven himself.”Christopher had come to Ashton to ask for Lauren’s hand in the absence of their father, but Ashton wasn’t sure exactly why, since Lauren had never done anything according to his advice. If anything, Harry had been more of a follower. Seems ironic now.“You’re absurd. Come on, you can help me with dessert.”“Dessert! You’re spoiling me.”Lauren rolls her eyes, and they head back down the hall. Before they enter the kitchen, Ashton’s ears catch on Marie asking a question. He slows down, momentarily distracted. He stands in the doorway, and Luke surely knows he’s there.“Why’d you leave Germany, mister?” Marie asks, sitting next to him on the sofa. Emma sits on Luke’s lap, perfectly content to be bounced on his lap. “What about your mum and dad?”Luke sighs heavily, but doesn’t shy away from the question. Ashton’s never really asked him directly, at least he doesn’t remember, but it’s been a while, and maybe he’s ready to talk. “In Germany the laws are very— strikt. The police come for everyone. Many people are taken away forever, because they do not do some things right. Hitler—you know Hitler? He wants a perfect country. Nobody who does not fit can survive. If you don’t treat die Juden badly, they take you. If you say Hitler is bad, they take you. If you do not heil Hitler and keep picture of him in your home, they take you. For many reasons they can take you. Right after everyone started fighting, they come to take my family away. My bruder calls to say they will take me too. So I come here, and your country is very much nice.”“You should stay forever,” Emma says, curling up tighter on his lap. “I love you.”Luke beams, looking perfectly happy where he is. “I love you too, meine Lieben. ”Lauren yanks Ashton past and into the kitchen. Ashton is jarred by the new information, jolted by the thought of what happened in Germany. He has to fill in the gaps himself, imagining Ben calling Luke frantically to tell him that everything is crumbling, and Luke having no time to do anything but run before he’s crushed under debris. Of course Luke was always watching over his shoulder, for reasons Ashton couldn’t fathom here under the comparatively lax laws.“It’s not kind to eavesdrop,” Lauren says tightly. “Curiosity killed the cat.”“But satisfaction brought it back,” Ashton argues. His thoughts are still scattered, and he’s trying to process it. “Jesus, Lauren. You can’t tell anyone about this. I can’t let him go back. He’s all alone; all he’s got is me.”“I’m not a monster, Ash. I just don’t want you to get caught in the crossfire.”“I won’t be,” Ashton promises blindly. Truth be told, he doesn’t know, but right now he’s willing to protect Luke at all costs. He isn’t above taking chance“You’re too good for your own safety,” Lauren sighs, but doesn’t argue. He can tell she wants to, but something holds her back. Maybe she can see the conviction in his eyes. “Come on, let’s get this dessert done.”When Ashton goes home that night, he lies awake in bed for hours. He keeps remembering Luke’s words, the order and semantics twisting around in his head the more he works at it. He goes over everything he remembers from Luke’s reappearance in his life and tries to reconcile it with what he knows now. It worries him as well to think of Luke being forced to return to Germany. It may be within the law to arrest people at will there, but that doesn’t mean the law is right. And he worries about Luke, all alone and cold on the sofa at night.The thought keeps him awake several nights in a row. How can he provide for Luke in a way that erases the injustices of his past? Though Luke expresses no outward discontent in any major sense, Luke probably thinks what Ashton’s given him is enough, and Ashton isn’t satisfied with it. Luke has escaped the German police, the strict infrastructure of Germany itself, is receiving adequate food and shelter, but adequate isn’t good. On the fifth night obsessing over the situation, the temperatures drop drastically, and wind batters the windows of the flat. Ashton can hear the glass panes rattling unsteadily, though he’s sure they’ll still hold; the wind completely howls outside, in a way that frightens even him in his relatively comfortable and safe bedroom. He shivers under his own blankets, wishing the crappy radiator functioned at a higher level.Ashton startles when his door creaks inward. He normally keeps it all the way shut, but for whatever reason, he neglected to tonight. His heart stops for a moment when he sees Luke’s easily identifiable thatch of blond hair, bright in the darkness.“Sorry to annoy,” Luke whispers in the darkness. He’s draped a blanket around his shoulders like an oversized shawl. “I am very cold. Is there more blankets?”Ashton stares at him for so long that Luke adds sheepishly, “You are sleeping, my wrong.”“No, I don’t own any more blankets,” Ashton whispers back, coming to his senses. “Wait, don’t go. It’s way too cold for you to sleep on the sofa tonight.”“Where else would I sleep?” Luke questions, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “In the bath?”Ashton moves without thinking, speaks without thinking. If he thinks it’ll scare him, and scare Luke away as well, so he rubs his eyes and yawns, trying to pretend he’s more tired and disoriented than he is while his heart pounds. “Just sleep in my bed for tonight. It’ll be warmer.”“It is your bed,” Luke says, hedging in the doorway. His words reflect Ashton’s own uncertainty. “I steal your warmth.”“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” Ashton grumbles, turning on his side and facing the wall. “Go freeze on the sofa, then.” His cheeks burn with the feeling of unsaid rejection, and his stomach churns. He was wrong. He overstepped; he went too far. He’ll have to pretend in the morning that he doesn’t remember this, that he was too sleepy to be careful with his words. Controlling his breathing, he waits for the sound of the door to shut again and Luke’s light footsteps to pad away.The footsteps come closer, though, and then Luke is slipping under the covers, behind Ashton. They both hold their bodies stiffly, trying not to disturb the other’s sphere, and Ashton bates his breath. They dread touching each other accidentally.“Thank you,” Luke breathes, a sleepy whisper that Ashton almost can’t hear over the pounding in his ears. They’re so close and he can’t bear to think about the consequences of what they’re doing.“Are you warm?” Ashton asks, deciding he should probably stick to his story. Do you feel safe, cared for? he adds in his head.“I am used to the cold,” Luke says indifferently. Ashton catches a hint of his breezy humor, so sparse in his broken syntax.Ashton can hear the blood thumping in his ears, can literally feel his heart thudding jaggedly and his hands shaking as he flips around and meets Luke’s half-lidded eyes. “Turn around, then,” he whispers, and Luke does. Ashton wraps an arm around Luke’s middle and pulls the covers higher over both of them before he pulls Luke’s body closer to his, enough to feel the bumps in Luke’s spine and the jut of his shoulderblades. He keeps his lower body carefully angled away. But he’s not worried about that now, with his nerves all over the place. “How about now?” His voice quavers, breaks. He swallows convulsively and prays Luke can’t feel his heartbeat against his back.Luke makes a small contented noise, his hand reaching instinctively up to hold Ashton’s where it drapes casually over him. Both of their actions are so calculated, and they know it, but for pride’s sake, they pretend it is as unpredictable and unplanned as the weather. It’s more than Ashton hoped for, to feel the heavy chill of Luke’s fingers tugging on his.“I am warm,” Luke answers affirmatively, more confidently than Ashton.Ashton closes his fingers around Luke’s. “Don’t ever tell anyone,” he whispers. Luke sighs softly, sweetly.Ashton hardly sleeps, too afraid to relax, jumping every time the window rattles in the wind. The trees outside look like dark figures, reaching out, spying on the two of them locked in a forbidden embrace. Any minute now, someone will pass by, look in.But they don’t freeze to death that night, so they keep doing it. Luke’s first British Christmas that year is tough on both of them. His mood changes, and he seems lackluster as the holidays approach. Ashton does his best to get him into the holiday spirit, but he knows that the holidays are as lonely for Luke as they are companionable for himself. Without a family to celebrate with, Luke is simply reminded of what he has lost.Ashton always goes to the Christmas service with Lauren and her girls, though it means little to him, and Luke agrees to come with him, although Ashton doesn’t think it’s necessary. It’s particularly hard to get a present for Luke when Luke insists on coming with him everywhere, eager to leave the house. Luke likes the records Ashton plays, and Ashton would get him some music from home, except there’s no German music to be seen these days, and in any case the Americans are dominating the music industry with jazz. He manages to track down a German-English dictionary from the used book store down the street, which he knows Luke will value. He also indulges a little and buys a heavy-knit wool sweater, a rather delayed attempt to rectify Luke’s issue of having no real winter clothes.Ashton does learn that Luke loves to dress up, with his hair slicked back and his clothes neatly ironed. “Like movie stars,” Luke says earnestly. Now and then, Ashton gives him a few shillings to go down to the cinema; Luke will rewatch a movie as many times as he can before it leaves the theater. Ashton doesn’t always go with him, so he revels in the glow on Luke’s face when he comes back and recounts the events in great detail. Another amazing thing is when they go out for a fancy dinner one night, just the two of them, and Ashton finds Luke riveted to the band. “We have no American music. No Jewish music. No music from the blacks. Just old German music. Very, very boring.” Luke’s head nods along with the brass section, a big smile on his face. When Ashton brings home a few jazz records that December, Luke gets excited.“What is it?” Luke asks eagerly, tugging at Ashton’s arms. He jitters, ready to dance. Ashton resists when Luke pulls at him and tries to involve him in his mischief. Ashton refuses to make a fool of himself. Still, he loves watching Luke lose himself.“It’s jazz. Benny Goodman. He’s an American Jewish artist.”“Ah!” Luke exclaims, twirling around. “I love it.”The sound of the record and the comfort of nights together are what get them through the winter.Christmas day itself dawns, and Ashton makes sure that there’s quite a meal for them. It’s a little bit of a stretch from his wallet, after buying gifts for Lauren, her kids, and Luke, but the money from his art is enough. Luke waits by the tree with a slightly crumpled piece of paper in his hand. Ashton’s presents are already under the tree.The sun has barely risen outside. It feels too early, like the kind of time Marie and Emma would have chosen to get up at and subsequently shake him awake for. That happened, the one year he slept on Lauren’s sofa, too knackered to drive home after a Christmas Eve dinner. They’ll come over for Christmas dinner tonight, probably.“Good morning,” Ashton murmurs, settling heavily into the armchair. “You must have slipped out of bed early.”“I think to myself, I have nothing to give you,” Luke relates. “But I do my best.”Ashton is barely awake enough to think about what Luke might mean. He settles for saying, “Open what I got you first.”Luke quietly sets the paper down and reaches for the two newspaper-wrapped gifts under the tree. They look shoddy and cheap, but it’s the best he’s got right now. Luke reaches for the dictionary first, hefting it in his hands. The corner of his mouth quirks up as he glances at Ashton, waiting for permission.“Open it,” Ashton urges, eager to see how Luke reacts. Luke tentatively pulls the wrapping open, careful not to rip it as he unties the twine and extracts the book. He is blank for a moment, mouthing the title of the book to himself, before his eyes light up and he looks back at Ashton, beaming. “I hope you don’t think I’m pressuring you. I know you’re trying to learn, though, and I thought it would make things easier for you.”“Thank you very much,” Luke says earnestly, smiling and opening the book. “I will learn lots. You are very nice.”“Yeah, well, open the other one,” Ashton says awkwardly, not wanting to dwell on it for too long. It makes him feel awkward to have Luke’s attention on him like this. Like he’s being scrutinized, given too much undue praise. Luke looks away before the blood can come to his cheeks.Luke reaches for the other one and opens it in the same unnecessarily careful way. The package is a lot cushier, and as the newspaper unfolds, he holds the messily-folded sweater in his lap. Immediately, his face transforms into childlike delight as he beams up at Ashton and rubs the wool against his cheek. “For me?” he says, as if there’s someone else it could be for. “So warm! So... dicht! Wait, I look up.” He snatches for the dictionary, but seems torn between looking up the word he means and rubbing the sweater. Eventually he slips the sweater on over his pajamas and flips through the dictionary. “Ah! Hee-vee.”“Heavy,” Ashton corrects with a hint of a smile.Luke smiles so big it should hurt, Ashton thinks. He smiles blindingly bright. His mouth is shaped perfectly, his teeth are perfectly aligned and white. When he smiles, he doesn’t hold back anymore. He looks up at Ashton with the most unbelievable trust and awe, and Ashton tries not to shy away from it. “You like it?” he tries. “It’s always cold here.”“So warm,” Luke repeats happily. “The best clothes. Best gift. You are best.”Ashton can’t stop himself from blushing and looking at his hands, pleased with Luke’s elation. Luke hugs himself in the sweater, snug and cozy and looking all too satisfied. “I have gift for you as well,” Luke says, calming a little. “But it is, so-so. Bad gift.”“I don’t expect anything,” Ashton mumbles. “I don’t mind.”“But I have to pay you for your kindness,” Luke pronounces, and pulls out the paper he was holding earlier. Bashfully, he thrusts it into Ashton’s hands. The paper is lined with Luke’s messy handwriting, difficult to read as much as he appears to have tried to keep his letters even and legible. His uncertainty with the words shows in the little wobbles here and there and the dozens of areas where the paper either ripped through, too sodden with inky scratch-outs, or are simply so laden with cross-outs and revisions that it becomes even harder to read. Nevertheless, Ashton does his best to muddle his way through it, pushing past the numerous spelling and syntax mistakes. Luke’s scrawling is a mix of cursive and print, alternating, and here and there he substitutes German words where he finds a gap in his English.“Thank you for letting me stay,” Ashton reads. “Thank you for food and bed and being nice. I cannot—what does this say?”Luke peers over his shoulder. “Express,” he says solemnly.“...express my thank you. I could not have survived without you, and I will get a job—Luke, you don’t have to.”“Keep reading,” Luke says, gesturing dismissively and turning away. “In your head so I can’t hear.”Ashton smiles to himself and keeps reading, feeling his cheeks heat all over again at Luke’s rambling praise and gratitude. Whenever he glances at Luke, Luke keeps his eyes focused on the carpet and his fingers run along the soft sleeve of his new sweater, too shy to hear his own words repeated back to him. When he finishes, he says quietly, “You don’t have to thank me for anything, and you don’t owe me, either.”“You do more for me than I can say thank you,” Luke says seriously, refusing to back down. “I am more and more happy here with you.”“I am happy to have you here, too,” Ashton says, smiling and touching Luke’s shoulder. “I am happy to do anything that helps you.”“I will be sorry to go back home,” Luke says wistfully, so casually that it hits Ashton like a sucker punch in the midst of his glowing joy. Of course, of course . Here he is, thinking about how wonderful life could be if it lasted like this, but Luke’s been dreaming all along of going back home after the war. It makes sense, and Ashton can’t hold it against him, but it comes as a harsh reality check. The war could be over at any time. Next year, even, if they can take Hitler down before he gets too powerful, and somehow find a way to control the Soviets. Ashton has stopped seeing Luke’s presence in his life as temporary, but Luke will eventually want to go home, find his family, and settle down.“I’ll be sorry when you go home as well,” Ashton echoes, getting up to go to the kitchen to mask his sudden change and mood and the odd heaviness of his chest. “Do you want some tea?”In the kitchen, he has to lean against the counter for a moment and breathe. He shouldn’t be so gutted about this, when it’s only natural. After all, he wants Luke to be happy, and if that means sending Luke home someday, then God save King George, he’ll have to. Rationing starts on the first day of the second week of January. It’s not entirely unexpected, since the government dished out rationing booklets as soon as the war was declared, which leads Ashton to think that they must have been awfully sure about how things were going to go. It’s somewhat of a problem, since Ashton’s rations alone won’t be enough for two grown men, and Luke wasn’t here when the booklets were issued. As soon as rationing is announced, Ashton takes Luke down to the Ministry of Food.“What is rationing?” Luke asks, drawing the word out. The car jerks over a pothole, and Ashton inhales hard in reaction.“The government restricts how much of certain foods you can eat,” Ashton explains. “Foods like meat, and sugar. Everyone is allowed to buy a certain amount of each thing, and they check it off in your rationing booklet. That’s why we have to get you one.”Luke looks vaguely disgruntled at the concept. “Why?”“Well, some things we’re short on. Since you’ve invaded some countries and other countries can’t produce as much right now, we’re not getting a lot of imported food, and we don’t have a very good farming industry, I suppose. And some things we need to save for our soldiers, since they have to be strong to fight.” Ashton scans Luke’s disconcerted face to see if he understands. There’s some definite confusion.“What is imported? And industry?” Luke drums his fingers on the edge of the seat, waiting for Ashton’s explanation.“Importing is bringing something in from another country,” Ashton explains. “Industry is—it’s kind of like a big business. I don’t really know how to explain that one. It’s producing and manufacturing and selling things, all of that.” Ashton quirks a smile. “It’s mostly that you’re taking some of the countries we trade with. So, this rationing is pretty much your fault.”Luke’s expression turns sour, and he folds his arms in front of his chest. It’s not the mock anger Ashton is far more accustomed to seeing; it’s deep, bitter. “It is not my fault,” Luke snaps. “It is my home, but they do bad things, and I leave so I do not have to be one of them.”Ashton is startled by his quick outburst of resent, and recalls the snippet of conversation he overheard before Christmas. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes hastily. “I was only joking. I know.”In retrospect, the us vs. them mentality was probably best kept to himself. Luke is not his enemy, and saying we and you makes it feel like he’s pitting himself against Luke, though there is no reason for any animosity. They are not so different; neither of them are exactly a perfect representation of their country, or even close.“It is okay,” Luke says, settling immediately. The anger is gone again. “So I have to get a rationing booklet?”“Well, I’m not sharing my rations. They have spares, for when you lose a book. I’m sure it will be easy enough to get one.”The process is relatively simple, especially since Ashton ensures that Luke glues his mouth shut during the visit to the Ministry. His name doesn’t give away his heritage, and Ashton simply cites him as a roommate. The application is informal, and they walk away with a fresh rationing booklet in under an hour.“Now I am really one of you,” Luke says, raising his eyebrows and flapping the booklet around proudly. “I get to pretend I am British.”During the following week, Ashton is reminded of his mother trying to be creative about recipes. He and Luke pore over ancient, deteriorating cookbooks and question possible substitutes. As men, their experience in cooking has been relatively limited, even considering that they both have lived alone without the presence of a woman for quite some time. Ashton tends to buy things that are easily put together in a meal and need little preparation, or else he just solicits Lauren’s cooking. With so many food items in low supply, he tries to find recipes that require minimal rationed ingredients. The sugar ration is especially bothersome, as he loves sweets and will be hard-pressed to buy them. Luke, on the other hand, mourns the loss of sausages, and his newfound love for British bangers as a replacement for his wurst. “You two are big babies,” Lauren exclaims when they slink over for a dinner. “It’s like dealing with Emma and Marie. Keep a stiff upper lip. There are plenty of things you can cook with your rations.”Even Lauren finds it difficult, although her kids’ allowed rationing provides them with enough protein and fruit to keep them going. But she’s a far more resourceful cook than Ashton is, and she easily circumvents the shortages. She kindly copies down recipes and tips from cooking leaflets and mails it to Ashton.Ashton tries his hand at baking a cake without cake ingredients. He looks at the tips Lauren has written down, frowning. “Rub the fat into the flour. That sounds dodgy. Does that sound right to you?”Luke hums noncommittally. He isn’t listening; he sits alone at the kitchen table, poring over the newspaper. His dictionary lies open to the side, two of his long fingers pinning the pages apart. Ashton sighs and looks back at the recipe, scanning it over. Without enough butter, he’s supposed to substitute lard. He can’t imagine that the result will be very appealing, but he might as well start grinning and bearing it. Lie back and think of England, he remembers with a bitter smile. The posters these days are all imploring him to be a regular patriot at home and make sacrifices for the good of the country. Considering he’s drawn a few of them, he thinks it ironic that he’s actually listening.“What is munitions factory?” Luke says, scanning in his dictionary with a helpless expression. He says it like munn-itions, with a break in between where he recognizes the suffix and not the prefix.“Munitions is—explosives. You know, like bombs, and grenades.”“Grenades?” Luke doesn’t bother to consult the dictionary this time, waiting patiently for Ashton’s explanation.“Don’t you remember?” Ashton says carelessly, and walks over, picking up a pencil and doodling one on the edge of the newspaper. He doesn’t bother to texture the hatched green of the grenade past sketching checks. “You pull the pin and throw it.”Ashton’s memory comes up with a German stick grenade landing in his trench a fair distance away. He hadn’t been close enough to see more than the blur of the object arcing over the land. The screams of the soldiers there and the noise of the explosion had echoed suddenly through the air, and even soldiers who were as far away as where Ashton was had instinctively stumbled backward, afraid the shrapnel would be propelled well past the initial blast zone. The whole day, he’d waited for another one to come. Sometimes, when the rain was heavy, the blood that normally sank into the dirt would slough off with it into the trenches. Or maybe it was just how it had seemed, with the smell of blood lingering no matter where he was, his eyes making out the mud to seem redder.“Oh,” Luke says, nodding and frowning harder. “No mind.”“It’s never mind.”“Never mind,” Luke parrots.Ashton goes back to the stove, mixing together the ingredients rather dubiously. He can’t trust a cake without butter. “You eat cake in Germany, right?”“We are not barbarians,” Luke teases. He mumbles the word barbarians under his breath a few times, trying to get the shape of it.“If you’re so civilized, then help me.”“Reading newspaper is more civilized.” Luke folds the newspaper delicately and gets up anyway to help. He peers over Ashton’s shoulder, reading the recipe to himself. “This is cake?”“It’s supposed to be.” Ashton finishes stirring in the bowl and pours it into the pan, the batter sloshing up the sides.“How do I help?” he asks earnestly.“You’re too late, I’ve finished.” Ashton opens the oven and puts the pan inside and then cranks up the heat. He sets the timer sitting on the counter and starts to wash the dirty bowl in the sink. “What were you reading about munitions factories?”“Ad-ver-tise-ment,” Luke says slowly. “Yes? Did I say right?”“What advertisement?” Ashton leaves the bowl in the sink and dries his hands with a towel, distracted“Job advertisements,” Luke says, walking back to the table and picking the newspaper up. He flicks through the pages with nimble fingers, stopping on the page with the job ads. Many of the ads these days are asking for women. Ashton wonders idly if Lauren jumped the gun, but working as a secretary is probably less arduous than some of the jobs they’re offering. Still, Luke’s plenty able-bodied, and that’ll help his case.“Are you looking for a job?” Ashton recalls the note Luke wrote him for Christmas, the promise that he’d obtain some work soon. They could always use the money, he supposes, but the campaign against the Germans is beginning to pick up. The last thing he wants is for Luke to get his hopes up.“I want to help,” Luke insists. Ashton knows that if the situation was reversed, he’d probably feel the same way, afraid of becoming useless as men do when they grow old. Ashton just wants him to keep a low profile, is all.“You don’t have to.” Ashton feels terrible that Luke suffers so much guilt.“I will help,” Luke decides. He points to the munitions factory ad. “Good pay, no?”“You don’t want to work there, Luke.” Ashton’s heart skips a beat at the thought. “It’s not safe.”“Safe?”“It’s dangerous work. There are always explosions from the factories in the news.”Luke looks up the word explosions in the dictionary.“I want a job,” Luke says stubbornly, undeterred. “Another job, maybe.”Ashton sighs and sits down next to him, smoothing the newspaper out in front of him. “Okay, another job. Your English probably won’t get you by in a secretarial job. I don’t want you working in a munitions factory, either.”“Why not? I work hard.”“I told you already, it’s dangerous, and—and I just don’t think you should.” Ashton would sooner chop off his right hand than let Luke go to a munitions factory. But in reality, they probably wouldn’t let a German man work with British explosives. He keeps scanning the newspaper for a different option. “What about the greengrocer’s?”“The what?”“You know, where we get all our fruits and vegetables from?”Luke makes a face. “What would I do there?”Ashton shrugs, but the idea is growing on him. “Just something like that. It’s a good job. It’s a safe job. Look, the pay is okay. And you can’t help me out if you’re dead, so you have to take a safe job. Okay? Promise me you’ll check before you go.” Luke doesn’t respond, too preoccupied with the ads. “Luke,” he adds, more seriously, straining for his attention. His stomach churns with new worries. “Are you sure about this?”Luke looks up at him, blank. “I am sure,” he says, as if it’s obvious.Ashton is far from sure, and the cake, predictably, tastes awful. Ashton persuades Luke to go for the greengrocer’s job. Ashton starches Luke’s slacks and shirt for him, hoping they’ll take him and hoping he won’t be let down if they don’t. Ashton is in half a mind to go into the store with him and vouch for his character, plead with them to take him on. But he has a distinct feeling that Luke wouldn’t like being babied like that. Still, as he drives Luke to the greengrocer’s, he feels his gut twist. His heart pounds in his chest, watching Luke walk in. Luke is fidgeting with his hands nervously, and as he disappears from view, Ashton forces himself to drive home, hoping Luke can find his way to the tube station and catch the right train. He wrote up the most detailed instructions he could and went over them at least three times.Luke makes it home a few hours later, and Ashton is afraid to ask. He lets him in the front door and worries his lip between his teeth. Don’t say you didn’t get it, don’t cry. Luke’s expression remains neutral for a few moments, and Ashton takes a pained breath.“So?” Ashton finally mumbles.Luke’s face breaks out into a smile, and Ashton sees it before he hears his words: “They give the job to me.”Ashton doesn’t think before he lurches forward to hug Luke, squeezing him so tightly he pulls a grunt out of Luke, whose arms are pinned by his side. Ashton releases him when his brain kicks back in, not bothering to fight his grin. “I’m so glad. How did you get it?”“I sing ‘God Save the Queen,’” Luke says proudly. “I tell them that I can work so hard and I have ration book like you British people. They say they need help and I can work in the back.”Ashton supposes it’s not completely extraordinary. There’s an air of complacency over London, like the war isn’t as urgent as it might really be. The people lack hostility, save for the zealots. After all, they’re only in this war because of the damn alliance with Poland. Left alone, they would have had no reason to get involved.“How did you learn ‘God Save the Queen?’”“Your records,” Luke says, “and the radio.”They’ve given him a uniform, a starchy, white, collared button-up shirt and a green apron to protect his clothing. Luke launches into an excited description of the responsibilities they’ve given him, and Ashton listens, but couldn’t repeat a word of it after, too distracted by the pride in Luke’s posture.Night after night, they listen to the radio for news, and in the mornings, they sit together with the newspaper while Luke reads out loud and stumbles over the pronunciation. Ashton likes listening to his sleepy, raspy morning voice, fingers rubbing at his stubble as he reads. Ashton itches to run his fingers over it. He doesn’t know exactly why, or what purpose it serves in his life.But Luke’s presence is a welcome and gentle distraction from the ongoing war. It takes his mind off the still questionable work he does and the weight of the world’s troubles on all their shoulders. Slowly but surely, Lauren even seems to be growing to like Luke. He forgets often, as the days slip past his fingers, that someday this reality will fade.Sometimes seeing Luke in the morning, sleep-heavy and unaware of Ashton’s secret gaze, sends ripples of something through his stomach. Once, seeing Luke change his shirt with one eye open on his side on the bed, the ripple is so strong it hurts. The realization startles him so thoroughly that he silently vows to stop looking, stop thinking like that.The monotonous routine of going through the motions comes with little variation, but “Gone With the Wind” shatters American box office records and inevitably comes to their cinemas as well. They pass a poster on the street with Clark Gable carrying Vivien Leigh bridal style, her head tipped back to expose her cleavage and neck. The lurid red of the backdrop and her dress seems in bad taste, too sultry and garish. But Luke stops and nearly swoons, and by the time he turns to Ashton with his hands clasped and that look in his eye, the word yes is already tumbling out of his lips.Luke insists on paying for the tickets with the money he’s earned from working at the greengrocer’s, but Ashton pays for the popcorn. Luke’s spirits have considerably lifted since beginning work; pride goes a long way. Ashton puts his own aside for the night and lets Luke treat him.They put the armrest between them up so that they can share the popcorn and the bottle of pop, passing it between them. It feels like being a schoolboy again, sharing food and giggling childishly. Ashton enjoys that, though. It’s been quite a while since he let someone into his life, and though he was hesitant to fully open himself to Luke, he’s buoyed by his friendship. He probably won’t ever shake the deep-seated unhappiness that’s plagued him since the war, but Luke is at least a good placebo.“Gone With the Wind” is melodramatic, hours long (far longer than Ashton has patience for), and over the top, but Luke eats it all up. Luke can’t stop himself from reacting to the picture, watching with rapt attention. Ashton dozes off here and there, but Luke shakes him awake, insisting he’s missing the best parts (Ashton insists back that he’s missing nothing). But he loves taking the piss out of Luke, poking fun at his excessive concern for the characters’ plight. He loves the tug-of-war over the pop and then the opposing chivalrous argument over who should have the last sip. Ashton wins that one, and watches in satisfaction as Luke tips the bottle back and drinks the last of it.It really doesn’t feel like they’re in a war at all, if you ignore some of the news articles. Getting comfortable is Ashton’s first mistake; after all, nothing can stay the same forever. Sometime late in February, Luke grows restless with the droning radio and switches it off abruptly. Ashton hardly looks up, reclining in the armchair and reading a book. Luke crosses the room to the record player, moving the needle into the groove and starting it. Within a moment, big band music flows out, the slightly tinny and static quality more obvious in the quiet. A shadow falls over Ashton, casting the pages of his book into darkness.“I want to dance,” Luke says, his words thickly obscured by his accent as they are at different times. It’s becoming less obvious, but Ashton always hears it, that slight stiff sound, like the words don’t settle in his mouth.“Dance alone,” Ashton responds, not bothering to look up. “I’m reading.”“I am bored.”Ashton looks up, fighting a smile. “What do you want me to do about it?”He wants to regret that. It sounds like a challenge, spiked with a bit too much of the tension they’ve been wading through. But it’s because of the tension that he’s reckless, as bored as Luke is. Their old routine is becoming too easy, too mundane; Ashton can surely find other ways to spice up their life without this , but, still.“Dance with me,” Luke repeats stubbornly, grasping Ashton’s hand and yanking him up out of the chair. He’s so much stronger now than he was when he first stumbled up off Ashton’s doorstep, hungry and war-torn.Luke puts his hands on Ashton’s shoulders and gently coerces him to move back and forth. Ashton’s feet hurry to catch up. Luke’s eyes twinkle with his brand of subtle mischief, and Ashton’s heart picks up in his chest as he stares into Luke’s eyes, as blue as the sky and clearer than still water. They almost remind him of ice. Suddenly, Luke’s hands seem to burn right through his sweater.“Dance,” Luke orders lightly, so Ashton indulges and moves a bit more autonomously. Luke steps back and dances on his own, swaying to the beat and snapping and twirling as he wants. It’s clumsy and uncalculated, but Ashton finds it so oddly endearing. Luke trips over his own feet and bursts into laughter, falling into Ashton, who pushes him back upright. In seconds, they devolve into laughing, chaotic whirlwinds in the living room, skipping and shuffling and dancing so stupidly Ashton is sure they’re disgracing the king. But it breaks up the monotony of the dreariness, and Ashton succumbs.Eventually, when they’re all tired out, Luke returns to the record player to replace the swing record with a slower, gentler one. Bessie Smith’s Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home, one of his older records and arguably one of the most mournful, fills the room. Luke is relentless, and refuses to let Ashton sit back down. Somehow, Ashton doesn’t mind when Luke puts an arm around his waist and his other hand on his shoulder, resting his head on Ashton’s shoulder. Forward, Ashton thinks, though that isn’t right, because Luke is just strangely affectionate and overly grateful.“I like this,” Luke says, but Ashton agrees in a more general sense. This, what he has with Luke.“Bessie Smith,” Ashton tells him. “She died a couple years ago.” Ashton hesitates, thinking of all the stories he heard. That she drank, that her partners abused her, that she slept with even her female dancers. He read it in some rag, a derogatory comment that made him frown and his heart pound as he’d read it in the store, as if someone could read on his face what he was reading on the page. But it made his heart swell for Bessie, wish he’d listened more carefully all these years before she had to go off and die in a car accident. The Empress of Blues, gay? It was more than Ashton could hope for.“Do you wish you had a wife to miss you?” Luke asks, referring to the content of the song as Bessie’s longing, sensual tone smooths Ashton’s nerves. The question jolts him.“No,” Ashton answers, perhaps too quickly. “Not a wife.”“You could marry,” Luke says, but he’s pressed right up against Ashton like this is natural, like they can do this. “You are handsome like a movie star. You are very kind.”The way Luke says everything is so casual, so breezy; Ashton finds it easier to answer calmly. “I don’t wish to marry.”“Why did you not? I always think when I come to find you that you have big family to match your heart.”Ashton laughs quietly, but his heart clenches painfully in his chest. He gets a flash of flowers at his feet, laughter echoing in his ears, the warped memory of boarding school. “That’s enough talk of love,” he says, but forgets to push Luke away.“Now you come home to me,” Luke says simply.“Yeah,” Ashton repeats, awed. “Now I come home to you.” The heavy cold of the winter gradually lifts and recedes into spring. Ashton can’t say he’s warm, exactly, but they don’t have to sleep in the same bed together anymore. They’re already accustomed to it, though, and Ashton finds small comfort in having a body next to him, hoping Luke reciprocates his feelings. But Luke never returns to the sofa. It helps to ease the coldness of the war.Although the first few months of the war, and certainly even of this year, seemed more a chicken fight than a real war, Ashton can tell that his hopes for a quick end to the war are slowly spiraling down the drain. Finland signs with the Soviets in March, and the Germans invade Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Abruptly, his sense of security begins to wane. They have soldiers in some of those places, and the gradual annexation of half of Europe just serves as a reminder of Germany’s military prowess. Like everyone else, Ashton tries to pretend it doesn’t worry him. They’ll win the war. There’s no question about it.Luke doesn’t have the same qualms about expressing his concerns. He wanders around the house with the newspaper, mumbling over the articles and listening intently to the radio once more. One night, Luke tosses and turns, clutching at Ashton and then the sheets. Ashton can’t get any rest with the chaos, and he sits up and turns on the lamp, startling Luke.“Are you going to settle down?” Ashton asks crossly. Luke pulls the blankets under his chin, teeth worrying his lip. “What’s keeping you up? Are you hot, or cold?”“Thinking,” Luke says dumbly, too tired to put a sentence together in English. “Sorry.”Ashton sighs, rubbing his eyes to clear them. “What are you thinking about?”Luke hesitates. He’s afraid to express the fears on his mind, and Ashton wishes he’d just get it out so he could go about fixing it. Eventually, Luke mumbles, “Germany takes Britain.”Ashton despises getting out of bed at this hour, but he slips out without warning and goes to the bookcase, pulling down an atlas. He flips through the book under the bedside lamp until he finds a map of Europe. He puts his finger, a big, accusatory finger, down on Germany. “Look, that’s Germany.”“Okay,” Luke whispers.Ashton circles his finger around the surrounding countries. All of the ones Germany’s taken so far are directly bordering Germany. “Germany took them because they’re smaller and they’re neighboring countries.”“Norway,” Luke counters quietly, pointing to it. “Not next to Germany.”“Germany has access through Denmark,” Ashton explains. “They took Denmark, so now they can go through that water passage.”Luke nods, understanding, but then points to the water separating the United Kingdom and Germany. “You have water too.”“Listen here,” Ashton says softly, putting a hand over Luke’s and squeezing it. “Our Navy—you know, our ships? Our Navy is very strong. So is our military. You have nothing to worry about. You are still safe here.”Luke doesn’t seem quite mollified by Ashton’s reassurance, but he grudgingly settles back into bed and lets Ashton shut off the light and settle next to him. That night, Luke falls asleep with his forehead pressed against Ashton’s chest, curled in close. Too close, Ashton thinks. But he never refuses.To take his mind off the frequent incursions, Ashton arranges to go on a picnic with Lauren and her kids one weekend. Lauren, thankfully, packs all the food, neatly made tea sandwiches with the crust cut off since Emma and Marie like it that way, and a few hard-gotten bottles of ginger beer. They drive down to a lake and sit on the shore while Emma and Marie wade in, all three adults keeping close watch on the girls, though the water is only three or four feet deep in the middle.“Don’t go too far from the shore,” Ashton reminds Emma sternly, seeing as she could go under. “If you want to go that far, you call Uncle Ashton or Luke and we’ll take you in.”Lauren reclines on the grassy knolls in her sundress, watching as Ashton shoos the girls off to have their fun. They stick to the shallow water, to his relief, playing with the mud from the bottom with their unabated fascination. Ashton sits with Lauren and Luke and takes a tea sandwich.“How’s work?” Lauren asks Ashton first. A simple, straightforward question. He’s as disillusioned with the purpose as ever, but slowly growing to appreciate the cause. The sooner they take down Hitler, the better; it’s becoming ever clearer to him.“Same same,” Ashton responds distantly. In simple terms, he has much to be grateful for. Many men are struggling to find work, and the newspapers cite unemployment as higher than ever. The pay isn’t fantastic by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s higher than his pension and a nice supplement besides, which is good, since he’s supporting Luke as well. “You?”“Tedious.” Lauren’s secretarial work probably pays better than what Ashton is doing right now, but the hours are more demanding and the tasks themselves are far less enjoyable than Ashton’s war art, if he can even call that enjoyable.Luke ignores their lackluster conversation. Instead, he picks at the daisies growing determinedly in the grass, fighting the remaining frost. He rolls the stems between his fingers, staining his fingers green and making the white petals whirl. Ashton watches the delicate cant of his thin fingers and the blurring petals.Lauren fixes her eyes on the girls, going deeper and deeper. “Don’t go too far,” she yells to them. “That’s deep enough. Marie, watch your sister.”Luke gets up and dusts his knees off. “I go watch,” he offers mildly. Nobody argues. They’re too busy ignoring him anyway, so he goes down to the water’s edge and keeps an eye on the girls.Lauren brushes her long hair out of her face. She’s lost some noticeable weight, probably from stress. Ashton asks, “Have you heard from Chris?”Lauren nods, cleaning up some of the food. “Yes, he’s sent a few letters. He’s okay, as far as I know.”“Where is he stationed?”“I don’t know exactly, but I trust that he’s safe.”Lauren gives away no emotion to the conversation, so Ashton runs with the assumption that she either really does believe he’s safe or simply does not want to talk about it. Ashton watches where Luke sits in the grass with the girls, their legs muddy up to their knees. The day is unusually warm, but a slight breeze tickles his face.“He’s good with kids,” Lauren comments. Her eyes are following Ashton’s. Ashton thinks of Luke’s questions about why he never started a family. “Does he have any of his own?”“He has a nephew,” Ashton says vacantly, thinking back to past conversations he’s had with Luke.“He never married?”“I don’t know.” Ashton thinks about it and shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”“You two must be smashing for each other,” Lauren suggests dryly. “Two loners. At your age, honestly .”“Oh, sod off,” Ashton says grouchily, tensing. “I don’t want to get married.”“I don’t want you to be alone forever. I want you to get out of that house, to experience life.”“Wish for something else.”“You and Luke are awfully close.”“Don’t.” Ashton hunches over his knees, scowling irritably. “When will you move on?”“When you stop acting so strangely around him. And vice versa. He laughs at everything you say.”“Because I’m funny.”“You aren’t that funny.” Lauren pierces him with a pointed look, making him shiver. His skin crawls with what she’s suggesting. “Ash,” she says softly, trying to keep him engaged. “It’s okay. If you are, I mean. I wouldn’t tell.”“It’s illegal, and I’d thank you not to make such assumptions,” Ashton says stiffly. He wants to shut this down as quickly as possible. She hasn’t mentioned it since the first day she met Luke, and Ashton wonders honestly how she caught on so quickly. But it’s not as if there aren’t people like him, hiding in nooks and crannies around England. Lauren already thinks it of him, and he can’t help that. After all, she’s fairly astute, and Ashton has never made an advance toward any woman. In part he shut himself off after the war, but Lauren knows, too, that he simply had no interest. There was only one occasion, in which Ashton pretended to like one of Lauren’s friends, not long after he came out of the war. But it was the girl’s brother he was after.“I wouldn’t mind,” Lauren adds wistfully. “You aren’t hurting anyone.”“This conversation is over,” Ashton says abruptly. In perfect timing, Emma comes rushing toward Ashton with mud on her fingers, smiling so largely her cheeks are made to look even chubbier.“We made mud pies!” she announces. Ashton gets up to follow her to the site of the mud pies. Luke waits, his sleeves rolled up and his hands as dirty as the girls’. A total mess, Ashton thinks, but he holds no grudges. The three of them proudly gesture at the mud pies they’ve made, their clothes and faces a mess as well. Lauren is going to tsk at them and tell them to wash off in the lake the best they can.Beautiful, Ashton thinks. Every single one of them. It doesn’t feel like a war, Ashton realizes, because there’s little real hostility. He’s noticed before, obviously, since Luke’s been able to get a job and all. It’s odd, when he thinks about it; despite being in the line of fire back in 1914, the politics had been over their heads. There had been so many of them, so many boys lined up in the trenches, and they’d just wanted to get out alive. Nobody had been thinking about what it meant, really. Even now, the war seems too high above them to be serious.But yeah, all right, when they tell him to start designing goddamn anti-Nazi posters, he starts to get it. And that’s the euphemism they use. They’re anti- German posters. And that, he can’t really get on board with. How can he demonize the German people when there’s one living under his roof? Besides, their fight is with the soldiers and the government, not the people. He can’t in good conscience do what they ask.“Mr. Irwin? Did you hear me?” His boss, a rather weaselly looking man known only to Ashton as Cunningham, waves a hand condescendingly in front of his face. Ashton blinks stupidly at him. He must look blank, but in his head, the gears are turning. Usually he finds the expensive decor to be eye-catching and almost comforting in its elaborate glamor, but the cream-colored stone suddenly feels cold and uninviting.He has to do it, though. He gets commissioned for far more than Luke does, and plus, he doesn’t want to be accused of treason or something. He’s already walking a few too many lines with Luke.“I heard you, sir,” Ashton says slowly. “I’ll have it ready in a fortnight.”He leaves the room with his breath not quite reaching his lungs, like he’s always just short of it. The radiator in the office always keeps him warm, and when he leaves, he’s constantly hit with a shock of cold air, the draught that frequently runs through the massive building. Ashton walks out and looks over the banister, one story off the ground. The black and white checkered floor makes him dizzy. Stomach aching suddenly, he begins descending the endless marble staircases. Looking up, the ornately carved stone ceiling seems to burn him in its whiteness. The whole building is so white, like the beautiful Greek temples he’s seen paintings of. The temples are all ruins now, crumbling.He stops at the bottom of the stairs and sits there for a while, thinking. The building is quiet, even though people continuously walk from office to office entering and exiting at will. Nobody ever seems to talk in the massive foyer. It’s fine that way; Ashton needs the quiet to think. It seems like the blank whiteness of the War Office isn’t conducive to thinking, though, so he gets up and goes home.On the bus that day, clutching a new envelope under his arm and fretting, he wonders what to do. He could hide it for Luke. Maybe if he explained the necessity of it Luke would understand. Luke understands money things, he thinks. He knows where Ashton’s heart is.It’s not even reasonable to shield Luke from it. Luke knows it’s out there, and there’s probably equally brutal smearing in Germany. But Ashton can hardly take this assignment home and draw some ugly caricature of German people right in front of him.
Our people don’t really harbor a special hatred of the everyday German—we find it necessary to fix this for the spirit of the war.
Ashton goes home and sketches a German soldier holding a British soldier at gunpoint. It honestly doesn’t look mean enough, so he puts it away and hopes something will come to him.He’s settled into a routine of seeing Luke off for work in the mornings and expecting him back in the afternoon sometime. Now that Luke is accustomed to the bus system, Ashton doesn’t worry so much about him getting lost or missing the bus. When Luke comes home that day, Ashton’s forgotten to make anything for supper, so Luke grabs some bread and starts making himself a makeshift tea sandwich. Ashton briefly admires the fact that he’s learned how to do that on his own from watching Ashton.“You want one too?” Luke asks, waving it enticingly at Ashton with a grin. “I am an expert cook.”“You shouldn’t cook in your work shirt; you’ll soil it,” Ashton says, frowning still. He sits improperly with his legs crunched up by his chest. He’s been doodling on a corner of the newspaper for a while now, little nothings that will get thrown out with the paper.“Do you want a sandwich?”“I’m fine.” Ashton stares guiltily at the manila envelope off to the side. “How was work?”“It was fantastic. I worked very hard.” Luke gives him virtually the same answer every day, but he never seems to tire of giving it. When he says it as contentedly as he does, Ashton can’t tire of hearing it either. “Boss says maybe he pays me more soon if I keep working,” Luke adds shyly. Ashton can tell in the bashful way he says it that it means a lot to him. Ashton tries to smile to show his support.“I’m glad.”“You got a new...” Luke strides across the kitchen and picks his dictionary up, thumbing rapidly through it. “...assignment?”“Yes.” Ashton keeps doodling on the newspaper. A tiny swastika forms in dark lead. The edges are blurry and unclear, a mistake on his part. How can one symbol be responsible for such destruction? It looks sharp, malicious, a blade cutting easily through Europe.“Have you start yet?”“‘Have you started,’ you mean.”“All right. Have you started?”“No,” Ashton says, shame twisting in his stomach. “Not quite.” He glances at the folder, then back at his drawing, and starts erasing the little swastika. He doesn’t feel right using a corrupted symbol so recklessly.Luke finishes putting together a sandwich for Ashton, despite Ashton’s earlier refusal. “Mutti always told me food helps you think.”Ashton nibbles the corner. The watercress is wilted and old, but they can’t help that the greengrocer doesn’t carry anything fresher. It’s not bad , just disappointing.He can’t complain. It’s only fitting.The problem seems to eat away at him over the next two weeks. He can’t be positive whether his mind is trying to sabotage any negative thoughts toward the German people, or if he just can’t think of anything. He sketches only when Luke is at work, and shoves it away in the filing cabinet when he’s done. Handing the assignment in gives him a heavy, guilty feeling.What else is he supposed to do? This is a war, not a honeymoon. He never tells Luke about the posters he draws, never shows them to him. Luke presses to see what he’s working on, but Ashton keeps them out of sight and reach. Keeping secrets makes him uneasy, but he’s kept secrets his whole life, and he can handle one more.It’s early May, and the war is beginning to feel more real, more close to home. It’s not being fought in the homeland, but really, it’s the posters that make him feel as if things are taking a dark turn. Maybe he feels it more because he’s one of the artists, though he only once sees one of his own posters. There are so many of them now, and Ashton can feel the straining push to increase the tension between the nations. If the war comes to Britain, they’re going to need the fortification of vindictive rage to defend themselves the best they can.Ashton feels Luke pulling him in the opposite direction. Luke forces him to defy everything he is supposed to be, in every way. The sense that having him here isn’t right stirs the big black muddy pit inside him.It’s that feeling of not right that rages in him that spring when Luke walks through the door earlier than expected, forcing Ashton to scramble to shove his sketches back in its manila envelope. Luke isn’t wearing his green apron, and he keeps his back to Ashton as he hangs up his thin coat.“Home early?” Ashton notes, slightly concerned. “I’ll put on some tea, if you want.”“Yes,” Luke says stiffly. “That would be very nice of you.”Ashton gets up and fills the kettle with water before he lights the stove and sets the kettle on a burner to heat the water up. Luke twists his hands in the foyer, turning slightly. His face remains in the shadow of the tiny foyer as he kicks his shoes off onto the tiles. Ashton strains to see his face better.When Luke finds himself unable to dither around anymore, he finally faces Ashton and walks into the light of the kitchen. The window lets in enough light to illuminate all the colors in his face, the red around his nose and eyes, and the slight darkness to his lips where he’s clearly been wetting them. Ashton remembers the tired droop of his red eyes and the same sag in his shoulders when he’d arrived. Somehow, the sight feels like a punch to the gut.“What happened?” Ashton says, touching his chest instinctively, the way his mother used to when something startled her. “Luke?”Luke coughs, shrinks in on himself. He keeps his shining eyes focused somewhere near Ashton’s face but not quite on it. “They let me go.”“Let you go?” Ashton blinks rapidly, hands tightening into loose fists by his side. “What are you on about? They gave you the sack?”“They gave me a sack?” Luke is momentarily distracted from his distress by the colloquialism. “I don’t understand.”“It doesn’t matter,” Ashton says, feeling his whole body respond to the news. He feels as if his nerves are on fire. He’s angry that anyone would let Luke down like this. “Why’d they let you go?”“Because I am an enemy,” Luke mumbles. He turns away from Ashton then, his voice tightening. “I think I will go to the bedroom.”“You’re not an enemy,” Ashton says, rage bubbling up in his throat. “That’s not fair, you haven’t done anything.”Luke shrugs a little and makes his way down the hall to the room they share, closing the door after him. Ashton stands in the foyer, rooted to the spot, feeling a turmoil of emotions building. He’s so damn frustrated with this war, that it hasn’t even come to their soil and yet it still touches him. He’s angry and upset that Luke isn’t angry too, and that there’s nothing he can do about it. And yet he’s been buying into their game the whole time.He’s detached himself from the people he’s been demonizing, but when it comes back to hit Luke, he can’t separate himself from his work anymore. He’s a gear in the machine, and this is as much his fault as anyone else’s.He can’t put a finger on the roiling blackness inside of him. But it’s there nonetheless, and he has to do something about it.He reaches his decision without much clinical thought or premeditation. He stalks through the kitchen and grabs the envelope with his work inside before he goes back to the foyer and snatches his coat off the coat rack.“I’m going out,” he yells, not bothering to wait for Luke’s reply. He leaves through the front door, slamming the door behind him and walking to his car.He drives far too quickly in such a crowded city. All his complacency was a façade for the feelings he’s been trying so hard not to succumb to, and what can he do now but feel? It’s the smallest price to pay for the travesty he has contributed to.He seems to reach Whitehall faster than usual, but his sense of time is blurred by his emotion. He stalks up the steps, clenching the envelope so hard in his hand that the paper crumples slightly. He bursts through the door and flounces up the steps and hammers on the door of the small office in which he’s always received his assignments. He can hear voices inside, muffled by the thick wood of the door. He can hardly contain his brimming energy as he waits, fidgeting and shifting around. Footsteps from inside lead toward the door, and then the barrier is yanked open. Ashton stares his boss right in the face.“What are you doing here?” he asks. Ashton looks past him and watches as the other man inside looks up irritatedly. The two men’s hair is impeccably groomed, and Ashton feels his own usually slicked hair falling forward. He must look absolutely barmy, barging in like a madman, hardly dressed for the propriety that the job has always demanded of him.“Here,” Ashton says, thrusting the envelope at him. “You can have it back. I quit.”The man takes the envelope, frowning in confusion. “What are you on about?”“I can’t do this. What you’re doing is wrong. I quit.”“You’re Clifford’s recruit, aren’t you?” Cunningham sets the envelope on the table and turns to the other man sitting at the table still. “Go find Clifford. Maybe he can talk some sense into him.”The other man stands and pushes past Ashton and Ashton starts to sober off his rage, realizing the icy menace in his boss’s face. As soon as the door shuts behind him, his boss advances on him.“What in God’s name are you doing?” he hisses. “We’re fighting a war. Do you think this is a time for sympathy?”“There are Germans in Britain who are loyal and who are getting hurt.”“Do you know any, by chance?” Cunningham watches Ashton’s face intently. Ashton realizes his mistake immediately. He can’t risk putting Luke under scrutiny. Who knows what they would do to him?“No,” Ashton breathes, looking down. “No, sir, I don’t.”The tension in the room presses into his throat and stops him short of saying anything else. He keeps his head down as Cunningham paces around him. “I told Michael you were a risk. He insisted you were perfect for the job. You think that I care what you think. Well, I don’t; you have a job, and that’s what I care about.”“With all due respect,” Ashton says quietly, “this job forces me to extend my efforts past that which I am comfortable with.”“Would you be more comfortable unemployed?”And, Jesus, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s going to do with only pension again. But he’ll at least be able to look Luke in the eye.Michael strides into the room with his hat clutched tightly in hand. “What’s the meaning of this? Ashton?”“Thank goodness you’re here,” Cunningham interrupts irritably. “He wants to quit, of all things. He’s your recruit, you talk to him.”Michael sighs and plops down in one of the chairs along the long table. “Thank you, James. I can handle it from here. I’ll let you know when we’re done.” Michael looks pointedly at Cunningham, who lingers distastefully by the door. “You can go.”He finally wanders off, and Ashton is left uncomfortably alone with Michael’s heavy gaze. “I’m sorry,” he starts.“I got you this job as a favor, Ash.”“You know it wasn’t for me.” Ashton folds his arms, but he can’t muster up any true resent.Michael runs a hand through his gelled hair and looks at Ashton with the kind of exhaustion one sees on old men. Ashton realizes with a dull twinge of sympathy that Michael’s hair is going grey, though he’s still a few years off Ashton. Ashton has thankfully retained most of his youth. “This is because of your friend ,” he accuses, and Ashton stiffens at the way he says it. “He’s still living with you?”Ashton isn’t sure how Michael figured out Luke is German, since Luke had hardly said a word that day when he came over, but the fact remains that Michael is painfully right. “What about it?”“He’s brainwashing you.”“He is not,” Ashton refutes hotly. “He left Germany before the war even started, Michael. All he’s done since he’s gotten here is try his bloody best to be a Brit. He’s the one who told me to take this job.”“You knew it would come to this.”“He just got fired for being German. I ask you, how is that fair?”“Don’t be dramatic,” Michael scoffs, leaning back in his chair. “Did it break his poor little Nazi heart?”“He isn’t—”“Don’t waste my time,” Michael says icily. “I have a job to do. And so do you. You be careful sympathizing with the Germans. Tell the wrong person and you’ll end up in jail for treason.”“Is that a threat?”Michael fixes Ashton with a long look. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m simply reminding you of what you’ve forgotten.”“He’s a good man,” Ashton mumbles, glaring at the floor.“I’m sure he is. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to stop and carefully sort out the good Germans and the bad Germans. The Americans had the right idea about total war, you know. The best way to debilitate your enemies is thoroughly and without mercy. If you stand in the way, I will not be responsible for the repercussions. You want to quit; so quit. Go home and tell Luke how you can’t afford food for the both of you.”Ashton swallows hard at Michael’s harsh dose of reality. The money, he thinks stupidly. It’s going to force him to stay.“If he’s really as good a man as you think,” Michael finishes, “he’ll understand you’re doing your part for the war. Nothing personal.”Ashton hates himself more leaving Whitehall than he did entering. Ashton doesn’t approach Luke until the day after. Luke, seeking solitude, had slept on the couch for the first time in months. The weather is beginning to change and Ashton thinks, bitterly, that so might everything else.Over breakfast that day, Ashton tells Luke everything.“I’ve been unclear,” Ashton says quietly, stirring his tea listlessly. Luke does the same, eyelids still puffy and red. “Dishonest, even.”“Hm?” Luke doesn’t look up. His eyes trail over a newspaper article. The new prime minister, Churchill, wants the Irish to unite with English efforts. Tall chance, Ashton thinks derisively. Churchill is doing about as much good so far as Chamberlain.“I mean, about my work,” Ashton says resignedly. He can’t believe he’s going to do this after all. He doesn’t want Luke to think badly of him, but if he can’t be honest, there’s no point in pursuing a friendship. “The posters I design. Some of them are—incendiary, I suppose you could say.”“What?” Luke appears thoroughly confused. He looks up now, cocking his head to the side. Oh, god, he probably has no idea what’s coming. “I do not understand.”“The posters,” Ashton repeats. “Some of them are not nice. To Germans.”Luke’s confusion dissipates into surprise as he digests the information. His brow furrows and he stops stirring his tea. “You mean the mean ones? At the market?”Ashton knows the ones he’s talking about. Though they aren’t his specific designs, they aren’t far off the mark. “Yes.” Luke is silent for a while, clearly conflicted, so Ashton surges on. “I tried to quit last night. Honestly, I went with the intention of ending this disaster. But we couldn’t survive without the pay.”Luke nods slowly and pushes his tea away abruptly. “I did not know they were yours.”“Some of them,” Ashton confesses, feeling embarrassed and deservedly so. “I understand if you’re upset with me.”“Do you think I—” Luke pauses, fighting to string together the right sentence. “Do you—not trust me?”Ashton shakes his head vehemently. “No, no, I trust you. Of course I do. It—isn’t personal, you see. We are fighting each other.”“Not us,” Luke quickly clarifies.But he’s wrong, because this war is pitting them against each other every bit as much as the last one. “But of course I don’t believe those things about you.”“You just believe them about my whole country,” Luke says blandly, giving no sign of emotion.Ashton keeps stirring his tea, though the sugar has already dissolved completely. The motion is frantic. “I understand if you’re angry.”Luke doesn’t say anything for a while. His jaw is tense, stippled with stubble that he hasn’t bothered to shave off yet. Ashton is afraid to look him in the eye, already anticipating the way his eyes turn cold and glassy. He wants to die, sort of, being in the wrong here but having no legs to stand on and no arms to fight back with. The need to fix his misdoing is overwhelming.“I need some time,” Luke says finally. “I will get used to it.”“You can be honest with me,” Ashton says, desperate for a better response. “I can take it.”“Give me time,” Luke says, rubbing his eyes. “Please.”“Luke—”“I need time. Will you give me that?”Ashton can’t read his face. He can’t pick up any anger, any sadness, any anything. It bothers him to feel so helpless, in limbo with nothing to hold onto. He needs something to grab and run with, a sign of what he should do from here. Time? How does he even grant him that?Still, there’s nothing else he can give Luke. There’s no physical separation, no shift in circumstance. The only thing he can do is give in.“Take as much time as you need,” he says. Losing Luke’s friendship, even temporarily, feels like the worst thing that could have happened.He means that sincerely, hardly an exaggeration. Leaving the hospital in 1915, his vision of life had been shattered. Disillusioned, he’d returned home with less than he’d left with—poorer, in every sense of the word. He’d missed Harry’s tenth birthday and Lauren’s twelfth, and he’d spent his own birthday, his twentieth, drunk in a grimy little pub. There were plenty of other men who’d come back from the war forever mudstained, and others who didn’t come back at all, but it had irreversibly changed everything.The remaining years of the war and much of his remaining youth was wasted on alcohol, mostly. Some months are still a blur in his memory. It was the nightmares, always. Every night the same. No horror, on any level, scared him more than the recurring dreams that he was back in the trenches with the visceral sound and smell and sight of death and disease all around.Some veterans had killed themselves after the war. Ashton had considered it, but was rarely sober enough to plan or execute any of the wild, half-arsed ideas he came up with. It shouldn’t have been so complicated, honestly. Maybe he’d lacked the courage to go through with it.His life stabilized again around age thirty or so when the jolt of his mother’s death brought him out of his downward spiral. By then, Harry was on a trajectory to be a politician and Lauren was about to marry Christopher. Ashton hadn’t seen either of them for nearly ten years, and he’d felt more like a stranger at the funeral than family.Over the next couple of years, Ashton wandered from job to job and from one living situation to another trying hopelessly to pin down a shred of functionality. He cleaned himself up for Lauren’s wedding and when Marie was born; he knew he had to get both feet on the ground.Most of his memorable life, really, is an unpleasant length of solitude.Luke can’t leave, no matter how angry he is. He has nowhere to go. But there’s no solace in his presence if it’s unwilling. All Ashton knows is that after Marie and Emma, Luke is his reason. Ashton sleeps on the couch going forward, trying to give Luke the time he needs. He takes frequent walks and does little more than put together sandwiches and tea for Luke. In one house, it’s nearly impossible to avoid each other. They lapse into a lengthy silence, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. Ashton hardly dares to break the silence with words.He ducks out of the house first chance he gets and into town to find a phone box, fed up with the tension. So many emotions mix and burst inside him, and he’s sure he’s going to be sick soon. It’s the feeling he gets when he drinks pop too fast, like the bubbles are rising in his throat and his stomach won’t settle.He pushes a few pence into the slot and picks up the phone. He listens to the ringing for a minute or so before a voice asks, “How can I direct your call?”Ashton tells the operator Lauren’s address and name. In a few moments, he’s redirected to Lauren’s line. After a few rings, she picks up.“Hello?”Ashton wishes he could jump through the telephone and hug Lauren. Even the sound of her voice soothes his nerves. He should visit her, really; he could use the support.“Lauren,” he croaks out. “This is Ashton.”“Oh, Ash! How is everything going?”Ashton bites his lip and checks his watch compulsively, as if afraid the time might have run out already. “Er—not so great, honestly.”“What do you mean?”He hedges the question for a bit, mumbling about feeling under the weather (which is true) and being busy with work (slightly less true). Eventually, he says, “I made a mistake.”“What do you mean?”“I told Luke about the posters I draw. He got fired, you know, just before. For being German. Now he’s upset. He asked for some time and we aren’t talking, and—” Ashton feels his throat tightening. “And I’m afraid I’ve ruined things.”He swipes at his eyes and turns his back to the door of the phone box, praying nobody walks by. “I can’t stand it, all this silence. I can’t stand this bloody war.”Lauren sighs heavily on the other end of the line. “He’s going to forgive you.”“What if he doesn’t? I can’t go back to being alone.”And he does feel awfully alone, standing in the phone box fighting off tears with his shoulders hunched up like this. His lip quivers threateningly. He stiffens further, as if to ward off the fear.“Ash, listen. You’re not the same as you were. Don’t fret about this so much. It’s going to be okay, I promise, and if it’s not then I’ll ship Luke back to Germany myself.”“ Don’t say things like that.” The thought fills Ashton with alarm.The operator cuts in with, “Please insert two pence for more time.” Ashton fumbles a few pence into the slot again.“I can’t see you go back there. You need to talk to him and work things out. Nothing gets better without talking.”“What if he doesn’t want to talk?”“You have to try,” Lauren insists. “You can’t sweep it under the carpet and expect everything to get better by itself.”The operator tells Ashton he has a minute or so left, so he speeds things up, out of money. “Hey, put one of the girls on the phone. My time is running out.”“Give me a second.” Ashton hears Lauren shouting something indistinct and taps his free fingers against his pant leg, worrying about the time and how it’s running out. It always seems that when he’s short on time, it passes even faster, accelerates to nothing. The other line comes back with Marie’s voice.“Uncle Ash?”“Marie, sweetheart, how are you?”“I got another award in school. Top of my class.” Ashton can hear the pride in her voice and beams, filled with a burst of hope. “When are you and Luke going to visit?” Right . “I don’t know. Soon, hopefully. I promise it’ll be sooner than you think.”“Okay. Emma says hi.”“Tell her I said hello. Is she there?”“She’s here.” Emma yells a hello into the phone, and Ashton can’t stop himself from smiling. “We miss you. The strawberries are growing in the backyard now. You should come see them.”“I’d love to. Hey, they’re about to cut me off here. I love you both.”The girls chime in with an exuberant reassurance that they love him too, and then they say goodbye and Ashton hangs up. He doesn’t leave the phone box immediately, mulling Lauren’s suggestion over in his head. Is it too soon to try to talk again? Or should he wait for Luke to talk to him?But it was him who was in the wrong. Even if Luke rejects him, he should try, show that he cares and is contrite and wants to make things right again. He’s afraid to say the words again, as much as they need to be reiterated, in case his eyes fill with tears. He refuses to cry in front of Luke, refuses to let that part of himself show.He opens the door of the phone box and steps out, rolling his shoulders and sighing. He has to face Luke, even if it means exposing the vulnerability of his emotion. After that, at least he can say he tried. Ashton gives it a few more days before he sits down at the table with Luke during dinner and says, hands shaking, “I want to talk.”Luke doesn’t look up at him, which is the first frightening sign. Luke’s cup is empty, and he repeatedly taps the bottom against the table to create a soft thunking noise. “Then talk.”Ashton has no words prepared, nothing that he thinks will sway Luke in his favor. All he has are apologies, tumbling head over heels from his lips. He thinks to himself, partly in horror, that he may never stop apologizing.Luke stops him, though. Ashton’s just finished with another I’m sorry I’m so sorry you can’t even imagine when Luke reaches forward and lays a hand on top of Ashton’s. That alone cuts Ashton’s words short, and he inhales sharply at the contact. Inwardly he prays he doesn’t do anything pigheaded. Luke’s hand is barely warm, and soft like he hasn’t done a day of work in his life. So, so soft. Ashton’s never felt his hand before, he doesn’t think. It’s a strange thing to think about, but he can’t think about anything else. His mind is too cluttered and frenzied to sort through. Why does everything go wrong when he starts thinking?Hand still on Ashton’s, Luke says, “I know.”Ashton stares at him like he’s grown a head. “We haven’t talked in a week.”“I am sorry,” Luke says, sighing. “I am mad, still. But you have a job. And, I can understand.”“Really?” Ashton releases a full lung’s capacity in a single breath. “But why?”“You have done so much for me,” Luke admits softly, withdrawing his hand. “I give you a pass this time.”It’s one of those times when it feels like the whole universe has been lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you. Thank you, Luke. I mean it. I just want you to know how much I care. About you,” he adds stupidly. “And I miss you. I miss—being friends.”“I miss you too. And, I looked at some of the posters again,” Luke says, ducking his head. “The ones downtown. Some of them were—funny?”“What?” Ashton gapes at him, so caught in his relief that he isn’t sure he heard Luke correctly. Still, Luke smiles falteringly at him, a strained but useful attempt to ease Ashton’s distress.Luke pulls a scary face and makes his hands into claws, a caricature of the outlandish figures on the posters. “I’m a big, scary German,” he says, and breaks into a trembly smile. “See?”Ashton laughs shakily. He can feel his shoulders loosening, his fears starting to fade. The space between them is tremulous and shivery. They both seem to shake, maybe too near the possibility of breaking apart. But Ashton doesn’t want that to ever happen, and he thinks from the look on Luke’s face that Luke doesn’t either.“I’m sorry,” Ashton whispers again. This time he’s the one who reaches out and touches Luke’s hand. He shouldn’t, but he does, just to feel that lukewarm smooth skin sliding beneath his rough palms.“I know,” Luke says again. “I am, too.”They leave it at that, and they don’t say it again, and Ashton thinks for a second or two in time that maybe it was a bit of the first war again, that maybe the war never really left them at all. The awful feeling, the heavy depression that hangs over London, settles deep in Ashton’s bones, but deeper in Luke’s. Hope and optimism are going down the drain; the remaining Allies are evacuated from France’s beaches shortly before Germany bombs the living daylights out of the last of the French army, reduced to a pulp. Belgium and France give up in May and June respectively, one after another, and in early July, France stops being Britain’s ally altogether.That July, the onslaught begins.The Axis powers ruthlessly take more or less what they want. But Ashton isn’t concerned for other countries anymore as much as he’s concerned for his own. The battles are in the air and not on the ground, but he knows that more is coming, and that could well affect him and his extended family. His mind travels away from Luke. In mid-August, the news comes over the radio that Germany has bombed some factories and airfields here in England. Too far from London to hear or see, but everything is an indicator of something more foreboding.They sit by the radio that night, on the floor together. Luke lies with his head in Ashton’s lap, staring at the radio. Ashton keeps his hands stroking through Luke’s hair, aware of how nervous he is.“Are you scared?” Luke asks, clearly asking the same question Ashton is thinking. Ashton clears his throat, trying not to betray the legitimate fear he’s beginning to feel. He forces a weak smile.“No. We can beat them.”Ashton wonders what Luke is thinking, if he’s afraid of losing his second home. What must it feel like when nowhere is safe? Is Ashton about to find out?“Will they bomb us?” Luke asks. His questions sound forlorn and vulnerable, like a child’s, but even Ashton’s sense of security is shaken. The bombing is too close to him. Like an echo, he can hear the bombs from the first war, the ringing that always remained in his ears for hours and days afterward. He thinks blankly of Luke’s brother, whose mind was so irreversibly damaged by the constant noise and fear, the horrible smell that choked everyone, that he’d cracked. The intensity of the conditions of war surpass what man is capable of handling, and he knows that firsthand.“Maybe.”Luke seems to curl closer, his knees pulling as close to his chest as they can before they’re stopped by Ashton’s legs. Ashton can feel his warm breath on his mid-thighs.“What about Emma and Marie?” he questions. “In Germany we send kids away.”“I don’t know.” Ashton frowns, remembering the conversation he had with Lauren when the war began. He’s glad Luke reminded him. Lauren’s kids need to get out of here as fast as possible. But maybe not yet, maybe not quite yet. Lauren won’t agree to let go of her kids unless she thinks there’s real danger to them. And Ashton is just paranoid from his experiences of war.But there doesn’t seem to be much else to say that night, so they listen to the rest of the broadcast in silence and go to bed together. Ashton’s head is too full of thoughts of war to feel guilty, and that night he dreams that the house is being bombed and he’s being crushed by debris. He can’t seem to crawl his way out, no matter how bloody his fingers become. The first siren goes off on the 7th of September. It echoes through the streets, haunting and mournful. Ashton’s heard it before, during the first war, and again over the radio sometimes as a reminder to look out for the noise. He expects somehow Luke will understand as well, but Luke glances at Ashton, panicked. The sound itself is frightening, even if Luke doesn’t know what it means; it tells of doom, of something terrible to come. Ashton nearly throws his book down and gets up.“What is it?” Luke, asks, and just then, somewhere in the distance, there’s a low thudding noise, the sound of impact and destruction, and it’s clear in his face that he remembers this part like Ashton does.Luke completely freezes, paralyzed by terror, and Ashton’s own heart pounds painfully. He can hardly hear over the drumming in his ears, can barely breathe, but his strong protective instinct kicks in hard enough to jolt him into grabbing Luke by the hand and yanking him out the back door. The sirens are louder outside, deafening wails that have Luke pulling his hand from Ashton’s grip to try to cover his ears as soon as they reach the tiny shelter. Ashton feels like his head is going to split, white hot pain and fear overwhelming him. He fumbles at the hatch of the shelter, his hands starting to shake as the siren wails fill his ears. He can hear crashes now, too, far enough away that they might avoid destruction tonight after all, but still too close to feel safe. Finally, he gets the door open and shoves Luke inside first. Luke stumbles down onto the sandbags Ashton piled by the entrance. He barely keeps his footing, sliding off and tumbling onto the ground. Ashton steps a little more carefully, shutting the metal door behind him.Luke doesn’t get up off the ground, just scoots back against the small bed and hugs his knees to his chest. It’s so incredibly strange, the both of them, equally war-torn and still tormented, carrying all their teenage anguish in men’s bodies. How can it survive, when their broad shoulders and long spines should dwarf a child’s memory?With the door shut, they can only hear a muffled version of what’s right beyond the walls. It’s still loud, still frightening. Ashton’s hyperawareness of Luke’s distress makes him even more aware of his own. But he doesn’t hesitate to sit next to Luke on the floor and put an arm around him.“Don’t be scared,” Ashton says, doing his best to keep the tremor out of his voice. “We’re safe in here.”“Are you sure?” Luke looks around at the dim, corrugated metal walls, doubtful. He’s trembling like a baby bird, rigid in Ashton’s grip. Ashton tries to keep him close, comfort him. Luke’s grip on words seems to have slipped. He opens his mouth to keep talking, but closes it, breathing heavily through his nose.“I would never lie to you,” Ashton says shakily. “It’s safe. They tested these shelters. You don’t have to worry.”They both flinch together every time they hear a bomb hit. Ashton finds himself thinking about the trenches again, and how there was no shelter to protect them from the shells and grenades bombarding the loose earth. Ashton remembers the vacant faces of soldiers whose legs had been blown off, the disconnect between their gory stumps and the lack of understanding on their faces. The shock, the horror of it all. He saw men’s heads get blasted so there was nothing but a headless body left. The frightening proximity to the explosions now brings those memories back with a bitter vengeance, leaving a rotten taste in his mouth. He can smell blood.But still, even as he grapples with his fear, constant and debilitating, he can sense Luke’s greater fear beside him.“It’ll be all right, honestly,” Ashton tries to assure him. He fumbles around for the box of matches and the little electric lamp he left in here. It takes several tries for the flame to catch, but with the light of the lamp, the shelter seems less cold and grim than it had before. Ashton draws Luke close, seeking to give him some comfort. “Come on, now. At least we’re here together.”“I am scared,” Luke says, curling tighter. Ashton doesn’t need him to elaborate, because it’s perfectly reasonable and hell, Ashton is scared as well.“Let’s do something to take our minds off it,” Ashton suggests. He adjusts his body so he faces Luke and holds out his hands, giving Luke a weak smile. Luke hesitantly rearranges himself, but even as they sit cross-legged and facing each other, Ashton can see how afraid he is. He’s jumpy, nervous; every time he hears a loud noise, he jerks a bit. Ashton gestures for him to hold his hands vertically and straight out, palms facing each other. Ashton slots his hands between them, one outside Luke’s and one sandwiches in between both his palms.“First you pull,” Ashton says, pulling his arms back into his body and sliding his hands away, feeling their skin rub together. Luke’s palms are sweaty. He moves his hands over so the other hand is in between Luke’s and the one that was previously inside is now cupping the outside of Luke’s hand. “Then again. You do it four times, see. The we each clap once and slap each other’s opposite hand, then with the other.” Clap. Ashton’s right hand slaps Luke’s right hand, their arms stretching diagonally across the short distance between them. Clap. They switch hands.“Every time you hit my hand you have to say a number. You start counting from the number one and we trade off. But you can’t say any numbers with a five in it. Does that make sense?”Luke just stares at him, eyes wide with fear.“All right,” Ashton says self-assuredly. He goes back to sliding his palms against Luke’s, starting with the rhyme. “Slippery, slippery, slippery slide. If you say the number five, you will be disqualified.” Clap. “One.”Luke hesitates and tentatively slaps Ashton’s hand.“You say two,” Ashton prompts.“Two,” Luke whispers.“Three.”“Four.”“Six.”They keep going, the sound of their palms slapping together drowning out the noise of the bombs. Luke begins to relax and Ashton does as well, distracted by their game. Luke’s counting in English is slow and unwieldy; occasionally he slips into German. The minutes drag on, relentless explosions sounding off. Some sound closer than others. Ashton has no estimate of the time, but they continue for ages, switching games now and then.A particularly close one shakes the ground and startles Luke out of the game. He drops his hands and hugs his knees back up to his chest, and tears fill his eyes. Ashton struggles not to show his own fear and how much the noises rattle him. Ashton gives up trying to distract Luke and just leans forward to hug him instead.Luke seems even less engaged the closer they come, and soon his hands are shaking too badly to play, so Ashton tries a different tactic. He tells Luke to turn around and face the other way. “Okay. I’m going to trace letters and numbers on your back. Guess them.”Ashton doesn’t know if Luke will buy into the game, but Luke waits with his hands on his knees and hunched rigidly over so Ashton can feel his vertebrae clearly through his shirt as he traces the first letter. L.“J,” Luke guesses after a pained pause, struggling to translate through his emotions.“Try again.”“L.” Ashton smiles and tells him he’s right this time. “For my name.”“Yeah. What about this?”“Ah, O. 6?”Luke shivers when Ashton runs his fingers over his spine. He squirms, seeming to calm down whenever Ashton pats his shoulder as a congratulations. They go through the alphabet and endless numbers, combining them in different arrangements. Luke is disinterested, but Ashton’s purpose is just to distract him and keep him from crying. When Luke grows bored, Ashton keeps him hooked in a loose hug and strokes his hair.He sings Luke a lullaby that his mother used to sing to him, and Luke sits with his head against Ashton’s chest in silence.Ashton goes through all the games and distractions he can think of and still the sirens wail, still the bombs fall. They open up a tin of biscuits and a jar of preserves for their dinner, their appetites diminished. They eat in silence on the floor, catching the crumbs with their hands to keep the floor clean. Slowly but surely, the evening passes. Ashton tries not to feel too claustrophobic in the tiny shelter.There’s nothing much to say, not in both their fragile states, so Ashton uses a gap between blasts to coax Luke onto the small bed. “I don’t know how long it’ll last,” Ashton whispers, “but you should get some sleep.”“I cannot sleep,” Luke sniffles, but curls up on the mattress anyway. Ashton sits on the edge, resting an uncertain hand on Luke’s shoulder. They’re safe in here, after all. Nobody can see them. Nobody will come knocking, not when there are bombs falling all over London.“Try,” Ashton says. “It won’t do you any good to stay awake.”“And you?”“I’ll sleep in a little bit.” Ashton rubs his shoulder, moves his hand up to his hair to squeeze the tiny curls that are starting to grow. “Listen, the bombs are moving farther away. Can you hear?” Luke looks up at him with wet eyes, the knuckle of his thumb wedged between his teeth halfway out and halfway in. “Count the seconds between them.” Ashton lies down in the space Luke has left, and Luke scoots back, trying to allow him more room. Faced with Luke’s frightened eyes, Ashton reaches for his hand and squeezes it. “One, two, three, four, five.”A bomb hits at thirteen and Luke shuts his eyes again, tears still slipping out below his lashes. Ashton himself swallows hard, his hands quivering again, but he starts over. “One. Two. Three.”Ashton doesn’t know if Luke ever really sleeps, since his eyes flash open every time he hears a bomb hit for at least an hour more, but after an eternity, his body settles. Ashton remains awake, dealing with his own fears by swallowing them. Eventually, he stops counting, his words dying down to a whisper and then ceasing to exist.He loses track of the time, slipping in and out of sleep. He wonders how much time has passed, regrets leaving his watch by the bed. At some point, when his own eyelids are drooping and his muscles are starting to cramp trying not to fall off the mattress, he’s startled back to full consciousness by the sound of the sirens coming on full force and holding the same note. All Clear. Luke doesn’t stir beside him, probably still accustomed to the noise of the sirens relentlessly screaming. But Ashton recognizes the signal and shakes him awake.“It’s over,” he mumbles, relief flooding him. He feels weak, hungry, and exhausted, and he’s sick of all the noise. Soon quiet will retake the streets, and they’ll be able to get some rest. Luke rubs at his puffy eyes and props himself up on his elbow.“The noise,” Luke whispers, pointing up as if to pin down the source of the noise. The all clear siren must sound the same to him, since he didn’t know what to expect before tonight.“It’s not rising and falling anymore. No change,” Ashton clarifies. He rises from the bed and gets on his wobbly legs. “It’s over.”Luke draws in a sharp breath when Ashton climbs back on top of the sandbags and opens the door outwards, probably expecting something terrible. Outside, the light is dim. Ashton doesn’t know how long they’ve been inside the shelter. The siren still screams as Ashton clambers back up to the earth outside. Luke remains inside with apprehensive eyes.“It’s over,” Ashton repeats. Luke doesn’t believe him, though there are no more noises of explosions. Ashton kneels on the dirt and reaches a hand inside, offering him help up. “Come on.”Luke tentatively allows Ashton to hoist him up out of the shelter. Ashton can see smoke in the distance, rising in smoggy tendrils. The house is still standing, all of it, and as far as he can tell the closest damage is at least a block away. The back door of the house is still open, swinging gently on its hinges. Ashton can hear, now that the sirens have finally died, the similar ambulance sirens, all over. Luke clings closely to his side. Ashton’s own heart races.Ashton pushes the door open and feels the quiet, shivering house envelope him. Everything is untouched, though some leaves from the yard have blown in over the doorstep. Luke doesn’t close the door when he steps inside, and the door continues to sway. The silence is heavy and thick, and Ashton struggles to wrap his head around the situation. He checks the clock: 5:02. It’s morning. London’s been under attack for what’s got to be twelve hours. He stares at the clock in disbelief for probably a minute, blank and in shock. It seems the emotion has worn off, leaving only a vacancy and numbness.Ashton does the only thing he can do, which is to put a kettle of water on for tea.It’s ten or fifteen minutes later when he and Luke sit at the dining table as they’ve always done, their tea steaming and untouched in front of them.“My god,” Ashton eventually manages to mumble. He leans forward onto his arms, which are resting on the table, and sighs, the air warming his legs somewhere below the table. Luke stays silent, looking down at his tea but making no move towards it. The tea is a proxy for routine, a necessary step to complete their day and pretend everything is as it was.Luke opens his mouth to say something of a similar effect, but nothing comes out.“I need to go to Lauren’s,” Ashton says finally, standing up abruptly. “I have to check on her.”Luke follows Ashton, needy and small.The car ride to Lauren’s house is jarring. Ashton inadvertently steps on the brakes the first time he sees a house in rubble. There’s no recognizable structure, nothing to mark what was there except the gap between the other houses and the mile-high pile of debris. The side of a neighboring house is collapsed, presumably hit by the outermost edge of the bomb’s radius. Luke draws in a sharp breath in the passenger seat. Their house, theirs, could look like that any day now. There is no way to describe waking up to your city razed to the ground.Ashton wants to cry in relief when he sees that Lauren’s house is still standing in its original condition, her entire street untouched. He barely waits until the car stops to jump out and rush up the front steps. Lauren meets him at the door, throwing her arms around him. He hugs her so tightly she gasps for air. “Thank god,” she whispers, refusing to let go.It makes his heart ease just a bit to know she’s okay, and that means Emma and Marie are as well. He can’t stand the thought that they might get hurt or worse, die.“Let me see the kids,” he demands, eager to see them with his own eyes. He has to know for absolutely certain that not a hair on their head is missing. “Are they awake?”“Yes, they’re coloring. I’m not sending them to school today, of course.”Ashton pushes past her into the house. He hears Luke greet Lauren in his broken, soft-spoken way. “Girls?”“Uncle Ashton!” Emma shrieks, springing up from the dining table when he comes into view. “Why are you here?”“Came to visit my angels,” Ashton says, but the words feel choked. He fights to keep smiling and not burst into tears at the sight of them. The sound of the walls vibrating with the distant impact of bombs still rings in his ears. The daze hasn’t completely lifted. “Come give me a hug.”Emma hugs his legs. Marie watches from the table with guarded eyes, coloring forgotten. “Mummy said the giants came down from the clouds and were stomping around. The noise scared me. Did you hear it?”“I sure did.”“Are you going to have breakfast with us?”“I don’t know.” Ashton looks past his youngest niece to Marie, half looking up where he’s bent over to talk to Emma. Marie meets his eyes briefly and looks down again. “Did you girls get any sleep?”“A little,” Emma says, “but Mummy said we can stay home from school today.”“That’s great, that’s—Emma, go ask your mum if I can stay for breakfast, okay?”“Okay.” She bounds off to find her mother. Children are elastic in that way, bouncing back easily from that which buckles a grown man to his knees. But even elastic has a limit.Ashton pulls out a chair and sits next to Marie, sighing deeply and mulling over his words. “It was a rough night, wasn’t it?”“I wasn’t scared,” Marie says quickly, stiffening. “I held Emma’s hand the whole time.”“I bet you were really brave,” Ashton says automatically, patting her shoulder. “But it’s okay if you were scared, you know.”“It is?”“Of course. You know, Luke and I were scared as well.” Ashton looks her up and down. He sees the same older-sibling flaw in her code, the same flaw that drove him to enlist with the idea that he was going save his family.The bombing has shaken loose his memories.He jostles himself out of hindsight. “Really?” Marie asks, eyes widening a fraction. Ashton reaches over to hug her, kissing her usually neat hair.“I’m glad you’re safe,” Ashton says. “Let your mother worry about Emma, and you worry about yourself. Okay?”“Okay,” Marie mumbles.“Mummy says you can stay for breakfast,” Emma says, clumsily crawling into his lap and turning around so she can face the table. “We’re having jam toast.”Ashton can hear Luke talking to Lauren in the kitchen. The sound of ambulance sirens fades outside. Emma squirms on his lap and reaches for a crayon. Marie starts tying her hair back in a neater way.Everything is as it should be, he thinks. Like the bombs didn’t fall at all. But everything starts over that next night. After the sun goes down, Ashton ceases to wait for the siren, but they’re halfway through with dinner when it goes off, as piercing and terrifying as the first night.This time Luke doesn’t freeze so much as he panics, standing and turning spastically from side to side in search of what, Ashton doesn’t know. Feeling his own stomach turn, he grabs Luke by the arm and starts pulling him toward the back door.“Run,” Ashton shouts, forcing him to stumble along. “Come on !”They cross the grassy backyard quickly, the night sky alive in tortured blues, reds, and blacks. Ashton hears the rumbling of planes low in the air, either British or German. There’s no time to look up and see. The latch of the shelter comes open more easily tonight and he about shoves Luke inside. He squeezes through after and slams the shelter door behind them so hard it shakes the whole structure. Luke sits on the floor with his back against the bed, spine curved forward so his forehead rests on his knees. Ashton, shaking, looks up at the ceiling and the way the metal vibrates gently. He can feel it coming through the floor.“You can’t freeze,” Ashton mumbles. “You have to run.”Luke’s breathing comes fast and heavy. Ashton can’t hear well over the sirens and the planes, as muffled as they are through the walls, but he watches the pace at which Luke’s shoulders rise and fall and he knows. He’s feeling the onset in himself now, the way his breathing picks up and his chest tightens.Ashton sits next to Luke, puts an arm around his shaking shoulders. He tries to still his own trembling hands, but everything is shaking, everything, his whole body and the shelter itself. He can’t tell where one quake ends and another starts. It just is.Ashton tries to think of something to tell Luke to soothe them both, starts to say I know it’s hard, but there’s no redeeming but that can reduce the reality of the first sentence. His mind is numb and he can’t think over the noise. His chest hurts and his eyes weep. All that tumbles out of his mouth is it just is, it just is, it just is, a sad little whisper of the truth. The bombs don’t cease, and suddenly, neither does the shaking.At breakfast one morning, he drops a plate, leaving a long spidery crack from rim to rim, which means the plate eventually breaks into two. His hands aren’t stable or strong enough to keep a good hold on anything.Luke suffers, too. Ashton knows he does, because he stutters over words he learned months ago. His gentle grasp on contractions has receded once more, and he opts to stick close by Ashton’s side when they go out.They sit on the third day after the bombing on the living room floor together, listening to the radio broadcast. They’re talking about bomb safety and how to improve shelters. Ashton isn’t really paying attention. He’s thinking about Lauren and more importantly, the girls, and what will happen to them. It’s been three days with no sign of cessation, and the radio warns that there’s more to come—God knows how much more.“Are you listening?” Luke asks quietly, nudging Ashton. “They say to—to put sandbags.”“What?”“With the shelter,” Luke says, eyes trained on the radio. Ashton looks at Luke instead of the radio, at the way his whole body seems to lean toward the radio, hanging onto every word. He listens with rapt attention. Ashton can’t seem to shake himself out of this daze.“Oh,” Ashton says. He can probably pick some up today if he makes a run down to the market before the morning is up. He has to get them and pile them up before sundown. “Okay. We can get some.”“Today,” Luke says, not as much of a question as a gentle declaration. Ashton understands his motivation; any night could be theirs.“Yes. Today.” Ashton sighs and sits straighter. “Now?”“Okay,” Luke agrees. Ashton takes his damn time getting up from the floor; he’s exhausted. The last few nights have been sleepless and he assumes the next few will be the same. How long will they be bombed? A few weeks? A few months? Maybe years, he thinks morosely. It depends on how long they hold out, how long they can afford to stand their ground without giving in to Germany.Ashton drives down to the market with Luke in the passenger seat. Other people have the same idea and are buying all the sandbags money can buy. Ashton rushes to shell out a fair few crowns for all that he and Luke can carry. Ashton can’t help but watch Luke as they carry the sandbags back to the car and load them into the trunk. Luke pants a little, Ashton even less, but even though he’s likely in better shape, Luke isn’t in bad shape, per se. In fact, considering that Luke lost his job at the greengrocer’s months ago, his arms have still retained the trace of muscle he gained during his time there. Ashton, from time to time, does some push-ups and sit-ups in his room like he did in the military, but nothing more than what it takes to maintain his strength at his age. He looks away when Luke looks over at him.They start piling the sandbags after tea in the late afternoon. It’s getting colder outside, so they wear windbreakers to make the job easier. After a while, Ashton finds himself sweating from lifting the heavy sandbags and carrying them from the front yard to the back. He strips off his jacket.He doesn’t immediately notice Luke staring at him while they work to pile the sandbags efficiently. When he does, he’s suddenly acutely aware of Luke watching him, as singularly focused as he is on everything he trains his eyes.“What?” Ashton demands, self-conscious. He shivers now in the chilly air, wishing Luke would look away.“Nothing,” Luke hurries to say, scratching the back of his head embarrassedly. “You are—very—” He searches for the word. “Strong,” he decides, flushing.Ashton suppresses a smile and looks away. His own face feels warm. “Oh.”The remark fills him with something it probably shouldn’t, but it feels something like pride, even bashfulness. He relives Luke’s words in his head, loath to let them go. He pushes himself a little harder after that, hoisting larger sandbags and trying not to pant at the obvious effort so he doesn’t look daft. He doesn’t know why he does it, just does. He just wants Luke to keep looking.(He does. He pretends he doesn’t, but Ashton would know the way Luke’s eyes feel on him any day.) At the end of the week of the first bombing, Ashton feels absolutely exhausted. It’s not just the lack of sleep; he can feel the stress taking its toll on him. He calls Lauren and the girls every morning, just to check, but even the sound of their voices doesn’t cheer him up. Luke notices, despite his own gloom, and tries to shake Ashton out of it.“We do something fun,” Luke suggests, doing the dishes instead of Ashton for once. Ashton can tell that he’s trying harder than usual to take the load off of Ashton’s shoulders. He’s done all the cleaning and cooking this morning, resulting in rather burnt toast with obviously scraped off charred corners and insipid tea. Ashton doesn’t really mind at all.“Like what?” Ashton asks, frowning. There’s not much to do these days, what with the bombings. Businesses are closing temporarily, but temporarily could mean anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. Vital businessmen like food peddlers and and clothing stores attempt to remain open, sandbags stacked all around to try and fend off bomb impact, but some smaller shops have simply shut down and cleaned out, unwilling to risk losing wares in an explosion.“What do you do for fun?” Luke counters. Ashton frowns and thinks. There are no good pictures out right now, none that Luke would like, anyway.“There are dances, sometimes,” Ashton suggests warily. “Swing dances, ballroom dances. We can try to find one.”“Dances!” Luke cries, lighting up. “Yes, we will go to a dance. I have never been to a dance.”“What about in school?” Ashton can’t help but ask, trying to picture Luke dressed up smartly in a suit with a girl on his arm.Luke clears his throat gently and says, “I was in the war when I was 17 and 18. I miss my graduation and all the dances.”“Oh.” Ashton shuts his mouth immediately. He forgot that Luke had been so young at the time. He had signed on for the war practically immediately after he left school.“So I have my first dance tonight,” Luke adds, more excited than Ashton wants him to be. Ashton can’t possibly fulfill his teenage dreams with a short evening of dancing. They don’t even have dates. Anxiety fills him at the thought of letting Luke down.“Okay,” he manages to say. Luke gets up to wash some more dishes, humming even as he burns himself with the water.Ashton knows a place Lauren used to go to. She took him once, on one of the few occasions he was in town and not completely smashed. She’d been barely sixteen, and he was in his mid twenties. Her then-boyfriend had strung along his own sister, a seventeen-year-old Ashton couldn’t bring himself to look at without seeing Lauren’s own big eyes. He couldn’t date a child. And he’d watched Lauren’s boyfriend dance, all night.He takes Luke there, for lack of an alternative. He tries not to think about how angry Lauren had been with him for ignoring the girl all night. Her boyfriend hadn’t even looked at him. Not once, not twice. Ashton was much older, but that wasn’t it.But he tries not to think about it, because the memory twists his stomach with hot shame.The club seems to be in business still, though a little more muted than Ashton hoped. Still, it’s busy enough to hide them in the crowd. The band is playing jovial swing, and couples dance across the wide floor with vigor. It lifts his spirits, a bit, to see people so lively in the midst of all the violence of late.“Here it is,” Ashton mumbles, thinking after that the scene hardly needs an introduction. Luke can see it well enough for himself, and his blue eyes, crystalline in his delight, seem to clear even further. It should be impossible, the blueness and the clarity. Ashton’s never seen eyes as pure and sharp (though hardly unpleasant or harsh) as his.Luke clasps his hands together, beaming. He looks all too eager, more so than Ashton is right now. “Verwunderlich,” he says, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Can we dance?”“Find a girl,” Ashton snorts, nudging him forward. “I’m certain any girl would dance with you.” And that’s true, even though he doesn’t want to see Luke dance with a girl. He just wants to see him smile.Luke’s nose crinkles. He looks slightly intimidated by the sight in front of him. “I do not know anyone.”“Do you want to go home, then?” Ashton teases, and Luke’s jaw tenses. He’s determined when he wants to be, stubborn and childish in that respect. His taunt evokes the right reaction out of Luke, and Luke, to his credit, marches right up to a pretty brunette and says something Ashton can’t hear. She looks to be in her thirties, maybe, but still youthful in an appealing way. Ashton sighs and takes a seat at one of the tables along the outskirts of the room and watches as Luke spins her onto the floor.Luke doesn’t dance badly, but he isn’t a real catch, either. Ashton tires of watching him (for the first time ever) and prays for him to come to the table. He can’t stand to watch, for some reason. It’s not like he doesn’t know why.Eventually he grows bored on his own and ventures out to the edge of the floor. Luke swings by and, catching sight of Ashton, stops to confront him. “What are you looking at?” he asks, twirling the woman around with a grin. “Are you, ah—jealous?”“Hardly,” Ashton says derisively. “You’re a shit dancer.”“Scheisse?” Luke repeats, starting to laugh. “I bet I dance better than you.”Ashton rolls his eyes. He knows for a fact that he’s a good dancer. It’s something that comes naturally for him, though he hasn’t done so in a while. He used to go dancing now and then in his younger years, and he’s sure he can pull something out of his sleeve.“Do you mind?” Ashton asks the woman politely. “I have to show this git how to dance properly. You can tell he’s an awful dancer.”Luke gasps exaggeratedly, but he grins, pleased by Ashton’s teasing. “That is not true.”“I’ll show you,” Ashton promises. The woman wanders off to her friends, and Ashton takes a huge breath before taking one of Luke’s hands. It feels solid in his own, comforting.Dancing comes easy to him after all this time, but Luke is taller than any female partner Ashton has danced with, so he has to do some maneuvering to twirl him under his arm or do anything that might come easier with someone smaller. He tries not to think about how tightly Luke grasps his hand or how easy it still feels, leading Luke on the dancefloor. He really, really tries not to think about how close their faces get sometimes.When the song ends, Ashton releases his hands. Luke is laughing so hard he’s red in the face, and Ashton affords himself a smug smile. “That’s how you really dance.”“Mercy,” Luke giggles, pushing Ashton back. He hides his blushing cheeks with his fingers. “I give in.”Ashton lets Luke dance alone for the rest of the night, afraid they’ll attract undue attention. But he clings to the feeling of skin against skin, eyes inches away. He doesn’t know when he’ll feel it again.He watches Luke dance. Something about the night feels surreal, like something is about to change. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but whatever it is lingers just beneath the surface, dipping out of reach, immersed in his subconscious. Ashton is never ready for the sirens. As the sun goes down, he tries to prepare himself, jumping at every little sound, nerves alight, but when it goes off as usual, screeching through the night, he startles still. His heart pounds so hard he has to fight to keep his knees from buckling. He can’t bear the noise; it overwhelms him, ringing in his ears. Don’t freeze , he reminds himself. By the time he rushes out to the living room, Luke is standing still in the middle of the room, hands clamped over his ears and face twisted in shock.“Go,” Ashton yells, pushing him forward. Luke stumbles, grasps at Ashton’s arm to right himself. His eyes are glazed over, and he can’t keep up with his own feet as Ashton pulls him toward the back door. “We have to go .”“I can’t,” Luke says, panic-stricken. Ashton stops, mid-yard in the cold air. Ashton wants to sink to his own knees and stuff his fingers in his ears, but he can’t, because he has a duty to make sure Luke is safe.Luke looks small standing in the doorway, shrunken and terrified. He looks back at Ashton, huge-eyed and shaking.“I can’t,” Luke repeats, shaking his head. He doesn’t want to cross the yard, and flinches when they hear a distant bomb hit the ground. Ashton is vulnerable where he stands, a sitting duck for any plane. The tremors vibrate through his whole body.“You have to,” Ashton cries. He runs back, grabs Luke’s hand and tugs as hard as he can. Luke can’t help but stagger into a run, tripping the whole way to the shelter. He falls behind Ashton, hitting the grass with a soft thud and exhalation. Ashton fumbles once, twice at the shelter latch and yanks the door open before he bothers to turn around. Luke is picking himself up, and when Ashton shoves him into the shelter, he tumbles in, barely catching himself as he topples through the hatch.Ashton yanks the door shut behind them both.Luke, half-crumpled where he fell, crawls toward the bed and climbs up on top of it. Ashton can’t stop shaking all over, and he has to stop. He finds a candle and some matches and lights the candle.“You can’t freeze,” Ashton yells. His voice seems to fill the whole shelter. He tries to breathe deeply enough to calm down, but the words are spilling out of him now. “You could have gotten us both killed. You can’t just freeze!”“I know,” Luke says tightly, curling on his side. His hands are creeping up toward his ears.“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ashton yells for good measure, but his voice cracks. Luke faces away from him, shoulders visibly quaking. Quietly, so quietly he’s not sure Luke can hear, he whispers, “I’m sorry.”Luke doesn’t roll back over to let Ashton see his face. He covers his ears with his hands and stays facing the wall of the shelter. “I’m sorry,” he says plaintively, forlornly. Ashton thinks Luke is crying, but he knows he is too. He reaches up to wipe the frustrated tears from his eyes before he crosses the small space to the bed and sits at the foot.Luke is crying, tears dripping sideways over the bridge of his nose and onto the lumpy pillow. Ashton draws his knees up to his chest. “Sorry,” he whispers again. Luke sniffles and turns over on his back, straightening. He takes a big breath and clamps down on his lip, trying to stop the tears. Ashton reaches out and touches his knee.“I,” Luke says slowly, voice choked, “am very scared.”The admission lingers, and Ashton doesn’t know what to do with it. He swallows the lump in his own throat and squeezes Luke’s knee in an effort to reassure him. Eventually, he gets up the courage to say, “I am, too.”Ashton crawls forward, laying himself out straight in the sliver of space Luke leaves on the bed. He lies on his side, level with Luke. Luke muffles the sounds of his sobs and presses his hands to his ears insistently. His eyes glisten in the low light of the shelter. He’s so, so close, and Ashton can’t breathe.Ashton pulls Luke’s hands away from his ears, and trustingly, Luke doesn’t resist. Luke’s hands tremble in his. Ashton reaches up and wipes the tears under Luke’s eyes with his thumb, gently so his calloused skin doesn’t abrade Luke’s. He shushes Luke softly, propping himself up slightly so he can see Luke’s face.“You’re okay,” Ashton mumbles, smoothing his golden hair back. “Sh, you’re okay.”Luke continues to seize under him, emitting little aborted whimpers. Poised above, Ashton can see the shine of his lips, the helpless look on his face, the trust in his eyes. Ashton can see everything about him, and most of all, he can see everything he wants to keep safe.“You’re okay,” he whispers, and then he lowers his head and kisses Luke.Ashton is floored as Luke falls silent and stills. He has to stop himself from gasping, his lungs suddenly tight. Luke’s lips are soft and slightly chapped, and their noses bump. His stomach floods with warmth as their lips brush slickly together.It’s sort of what he imagined, and very much not. His head spins and he shuts his eyes, dizzied and abruptly out of breath. He lifts his head, pulls back, and rests his forehead against Luke’s.He sighs, his whole body finally relaxed. “Everything’s okay,” he says, exhausted. They lie in silence for a long time. Somehow, the bombing sounds muted now, less frightening. Ashton is hyperaware of Luke’s head resting on his shoulder, but, he decides, not unpleasantly so. They’ve never lain this intimately before. Ashton matches his breathing to Luke’s, squeezing Luke’s hand on his chest. He gets that feeling in his chest, where he’s so excited it’s almost hard to breathe, enough to make his sternum agitate in uneven breaths now and then, just to have Luke so close.“Are you okay?” Ashton asks finally. They’re both still a bit shaky, but incredibly, they’re mostly still. Ashton doesn’t feel ashamed or afraid as he thought he would. There’s something about the isolation of the shelter that gives him peace.“Yes,” Luke whispers. “Are you okay?”“Yeah.” Ashton lets out a long breath. “Did you—did you ever—before?”“It is not my first,” Luke says quietly. Ashton nods, having expected that. At their age, it would have been unusual not to. “But, with a man...yes.”Ashton hums at that. “Mine, too.”“With a man?”“With anyone.”Luke shifts under his arm, turning on his side to glance up at Ashton. Ashton cants his eyes down to meet his. “With anyone?” Luke repeats. “I am your first kiss?”Ashton clears his throat nervously and laughs. “Yeah. I suppose.” He looks up at the shelter ceiling. “I was never...interested in anything I could actually have.” He runs through the list of boys in his head that he watched and gave up.“Me,” Luke says, inexplicably.“I thought you were one of those things.” Ashton sighs, thinking about the year they’ve spent together. This isn’t the way he pictured things going. Frankly, he’s tried not to picture things going at all. But, sure, maybe he pictured it a few times. And now, having Luke right here, it’s somehow not as terrifying as he expected. It’ll hit him later, probably.“You can have me,” Luke whispers, laying his head back down.Ashton smiles and moves his arm under Luke’s head so he can touch Luke’s hair. It’s soft, softer than Ashton can imagine any man’s hair being. “I didn’t know if you wanted me,” Ashton says. “In Britain, they arrest people...like me.”“In Germany, they kill people like me,” Luke says, and Ashton’s heart just drops through his stomach.“Is that why you—” he starts, but Luke shakes his head and stops him.“Not—not completely. But it was on my mind.” Luke hesitates, chest puffed with air as if he wants to say something, but for a while he is silent. Then, quietly, he adds, “I have dated women before. I was in trouble for other things.”“Like what?” Ashton can’t stop himself from asking. The question plagues him almost relentlessly. He’s breathless at the thought that maybe Luke will tell him. A million possibilities have run through his mind, and now he might finally understand. He’s afraid it’s something bad after all, afraid for Luke that it’s not.“It is—” Luke shifts uncomfortably. “—complicated.”“We have all night.”Luke nods slowly. He adjusts himself in the crook of Ashton’s arm and takes a minute or two to gather his thoughts. Ashton doesn’t dare move for fear of scaring him off. Eventually, Luke says, “Everything is very strange there.”“How so?”“Maybe I start from the beginning,” Luke amends. “Germany was so poor after the war. You made us so poor. Some had to take the blame, so we did, and nobody was happy. I spend most of my life working to pay for my house and food, and to support my Mutti and Papi. Nobody had money. So the Führer made himself the leader and told us he would fix everything, and—and he did. He did lots of great things, like making jobs and fixing our money and all. We were all happy that he wanted to make a big military again even though you told us not to.”“You told me he was an evil man,” Ashton remembers.“I did not realize,” Luke whispers. He reaches up to cover his eyes tiredly. Ashton wonders how many times he’s thought about this, blamed himself. “They were taking people away every day. I don’t know why, except that many of them were Jewish. My parents did not like it, I did not like it, Ben did not like it. We had Jewish friends and family they took away, so we talked badly at home about the Führer. My nephew was in the Hitlerjugend, and at his meeting he stood up and told them that we were all traitors to the Reich. He told them what we said. He was eight; he did not know better.” Ashton can see, even at this angle, the pain of the admission, Luke’s conflict between love for his nephew and grief for his family. “He came home and told Ben what he’d done. So proud. The Führer comes before everything. Ben called me and told me to get out before they came. He could not get to Mutti and Papi.”Luke lets out a long breath and turns on his side to snuggle into Ashton’s side. Ashton, arm around him, squeezes his shoulders and turns his head to brush his lips over the top of Luke’s head. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, unable to offer better consolation. “What happened to them all?”“My nephew will stay with his mother,” Luke answers dejectedly. “She is a good, loyal Nazi.”“But your parents, and your brother?”“I don’t know.”Ashton feels that they’re moving into dangerous ground. “What do you mean? Where were they taken? Can’t you find them after the war ends?” Ashton can’t stop himself. He’s swimming in the new information, the kiss almost forgotten. He can’t wrap his mind around what Luke is telling him; he lives too far away from Germany to understand.“I don’t know,” Luke says again, louder and more insistently. “I have only heard—stories.”“What do you mean?” Ashton almost props himself up on his elbows in his confusion, but decides against it, as it would force Luke to lift his head, and he doesn’t want that. He’s desperate to keep Luke right where he is right now.“There are camps,” Luke mumbles, turning his face into Ashton’s shoulder. “They take the Jews there. Party members talk about it sometimes. They take other people there, too. That’s where they are.”Ashton says, naïvely, “But they’ll be released, surely. Just for dissenting, that’s—” Ashton stops as he realizes Luke is shaking his head numbly.“No,” Luke whispers, closing his eyes. “No, I do not think so.”Ashton reaches blindly for Luke’s hand again. He shouldn’t have asked; knowing now feels worse than his ignorance. He’s confused, blindsided by this perplexing information. It can’t be legal to take people away for dissenting and not release them. That sort of thing, he’d like to think, would never fly in Britain. “What will happen if you go back?”Luke shakes his head vehemently. “I don’t think I will ever go back.” With that, Luke fumbles to scoot up the bed and then Ashton finds a pair of lips pressed insistently to his own. Tears drop into his face from above, and he thinks it’s all the best that he can’t speak with a mouth covering his own, or he might want to say something stupid and true. Ashton is almost surprised by the morning to find that the city hasn’t burned down to the ground, that the earth hasn’t stopped moving or the sun stopped shining. He sort of expected something of that magnitude to happen when he did the one thing he swore he would never do (and certainly thought he could never do). They don’t hold hands when they walk back to the house, but Ashton does take special care when he pulls Luke from the shelter. Suddenly, their interactions are more than routine; they’re tender, careful. Ashton catches himself smiling at Luke too many times.They can’t risk even a fraction of the intimacy the shelter afforded, but still, Ashton wants to get his hands on Luke. Now that he knows he can have him, he doesn’t want to let him go.They’re giddy and awkward, like teenagers again. Of course, Ashton wouldn’t quite know what it’s like to experience his first love, because Luke is his first. Ashton spent the whole night with his stomach fluttering, unable to quell the excited butterflies. Every time he glances at Luke now, the butterflies return. He contains his swelling affection the best he can as they shut the back door of the house and move to the kitchen.They stare at each other for a good minute, smiling awkwardly at each other. Luke’s eyes are red-rimmed, but he can’t stop smiling in that soft way, cheeks tinged pink. Ashton feels his own cheeks are warm. It’s not embarrassment, exactly, but it’s something unknown and shy. Ashton searches for something to say to ease the discomfort. For the first time, he doesn’t know what to do.“So,” Ashton starts, clearing his throat. “Breakfast?”“Okay,” Luke mumbles, covering his smile with his hands. “Breakfast.” Luke munches on a biscuit as they walk the streets of London under an umbrella. Ashton keeps his hand steady on the handle, shielding them both from the rain. They pass the hospital, where stretchers are still being carried in. Ashton sees a girl around Marie’s age carried in and looks away.“I like your biscuits very much,” Luke says, looking contentedly at the one in his hand. “They are not as good as marzipan or lebkuchen, but they are nice.”“One day you’ll have to bring me to Germany and buy me some,” Ashton says absently. Luke hums in approval and dusts the crumbs off his fingers. He appears absorbed in himself, and their small talk fills the silence, but Ashton knows it’s all a mask. It’s all so carefully calculated to keep them safe from each other and from everyone else.“Perhaps,” Luke says with a shrug.There’s a long pause with just the sound of the rain smattering against the pavement. The white noise helps Ashton think clearly. “You said you dated women in Germany,” Ashton says, thinking back to the night before.Luke hums again. “Yes. I did.”“Are you—interested in women?”Luke tilts his head, looking at the curb. The white noise of the rain veils their conversation from any passersby. “No,” Luke says quietly. “But there were a few I thought—maybe I could still have a life with.”Ashton understands. He would have gone his whole life without having a family, but not everyone would choose the same. He was so used to loneliness before Luke came that he wouldn’t have known how to live any other way unless it was handed to him. “I understand.”“And you,” Luke says, smiling softly. He looks over at Ashton, nose ruddy and lips chapped from the cold. “You have never kissed anyone.”“I have now,” Ashton says, smiling back. Remembering the kiss sends the butterflies in his stomach into a frenzy.“Why did you not?” Luke asks politely.Ashton had never considered doing what Luke had, dating women just to keep appearances up. “I suppose I always knew I wouldn’t be any happier than if I was alone.”Luke nods sagely to himself and takes the umbrella from Ashton, giving him a rest. Their shoes kick sprays of water off the curb. “And with me?”Ashton gives him a long look. He hasn’t really given much thought to the future. Everything is happening so fast and he’s afraid to make such important decisions on the spot. And what about Luke? How can they possibly make this work? A mistake could end them in jail. Or, worse, a mistake will land Ashton in jail, and Luke back in Germany, where Ashton has no faith in Luke’s safety. They can’t keep doing this if there’s a good enough chance something will go wrong.“I would be happy with you,” Ashton says evasively, but truthfully. He would be happy to spend the rest of his life with Luke, to wake up every morning and hear Luke mumble good morning with his accent in nearly full force, to go to bed every night curled together. But how is he supposed to keep them safe? How will he hide it from neighbors, from Lauren, from Emma and Marie when they grow up? Lauren has already guessed, and though he’s lucky that she hasn’t told anyone, there’s no telling if someone will let slip someday. A small mistake could lead to disaster.“I would be happy with you, too,” Luke says, drawing in a deep breath and fixing Ashton with his blue eyes. “I would stay here, forever. Never go back to Germany. If that is what you want.”Ashton exhales slowly, his breath fogging in the cold air. Yes, he wants that. How could he ask so much from Luke? To never return to his homeland, to leave everything familiar in the past?Would he stay in Germany forever, never go back to Britain, if the roles were reversed, and Luke was the one asking? Could he leave everything he knew and loved behind to be with Luke? Yes, he would; he would stay there forever. If it meant he had Luke, he’d go anywhere. But that doesn’t mean he can make the same decision for Luke.“We’ll see after the war,” Ashton says. “Let’s talk about here and now.”Luke nods and looks back at the ground, chagrined. “Okay. Here and now.”“Here and now, I want to be with you,” Ashton says, glancing around instinctively to make sure nobody can hear them. The rain covers their conversation well, but they can never be too sure. “Here and now, I want to try.”Luke’s grin is priceless, and Ashton wishes he could save it somehow. “We will be very careful.”“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ashton asks, knowing that if Luke says no, he’ll have to throw this away and put it out of mind. And yet, if it meant Luke was happy, he would do it. “I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this is. If someone finds out, if they even suspect—I’ll go to jail. And they’ll send you back to Germany. I don’t know what they’ll do to you there. People might ask questions. What will we say? How are we going to keep this a secret?”“We stay behind closed doors,” Luke suggests, not backing down. Ashton doesn’t know if he’s just that blind or if he feels so strongly. “I want this.”Ashton doesn’t respond immediately. He’s torn; will it be worth the risk? He’s afraid to find out. He wishes he could rush headstrong into this like Luke has, but he’s never done anything like what they’re doing before. But it could be good, he thinks. They just have to go about it the right way. That means no touching in public, no discussions like the one they’re having right now in public. It means not even so much as glancing at each other with anything more than stony detachment. If they’re going to keep this a secret, they can’t take even the slightest risk.“Please,” Luke says quietly. The decision rests on Ashton’s shoulders now.“I guess we can do this,” Ashton says softly, shivering under the umbrella. “God, I’m freezing.”Luke puts his hand over Ashton’s on the umbrella, a dangerous show of solidarity. “Let’s go home.” They listen to the radio in the evening before the sirens go off. Luke sits between Ashton’s legs and allows Ashton to card his hand through Luke’s hair. The radio drones on about casualty counts, and Ashton thinks briefly about how lucky he is that they are both here, alive and together. Though frightening, the bombings have only served to bring them closer in an odd, subverted way. And how precious that they don’t have to fear alone.Even though only a few days have elapsed since Ashton kissed Luke, he feels as if they’ve been together for years. Maybe it was always under the surface, and they never allowed themselves to pull it out. But Ashton has lived more than four decades denying himself the things he wants, and now, when they could be bombed any day, he’s going to let himself love.“Will the bombing end soon?” Luke asks, and Ashton doesn’t know the answer, but he does know that Luke thinks he does. He feels responsible for keeping Luke at ease. Since the day they met in 1914, Luke has trusted him unconditionally.Ashton thinks about the question carefully. The bombing won’t end soon; he’s sure Germany intends to bomb the living daylights out of England, given that they’re a big force to defeat. He’s always felt confident in their military strength, but he has no gauge on the depth of Germany’s resources, and considering the speed with which she’s usurping nations, he has his doubts about which way the war is going to swing. If only they had more support, Britain might be in less danger. They’re only a year in, so perhaps they aren’t damned yet, but something will have to change.“It’s already been a week and a half,” Ashton says finally, not willing to believe that Germany will continue to bomb them for much longer. But the truth is, he doesn’t know for sure what he’s up against anymore. “How long can they keep it up?”“I don’t know,” Luke says, shaking his head slowly. He leans further back against Ashton. Trust, touch. “A long time.”“Nothing lasts forever,” Ashton reminds him, taking comfort in the knowledge that the war will have to end. “And nothing stays the same.”Luke nods, accepting Ashton’s answer. The radio fills in the silence and Ashton keeps stroking through his hair, the value of the moment not lost on him. He couldn’t have imagined his life would lead here. Sometimes he still can’t believe it. He wonders if it’ll sink in over time, or if he’ll always feel like he’s in a perpetual sunset.“Besides,” Ashton adds wistfully, “is it so bad?”Luke knows what he’s really asking. Ashton has to question whether it’s wrong to be grateful for the veil of chaos at night that provides them the sanctioned time to be together every night when people are dying. But is it fair that this is the only time they have?“I suppose it is not,” Luke agrees quietly. Ashton trails his hand down Luke’s arm, thinking about his own sense of morality.All’s fair in love and war, though, or it’s supposed to be.“It’ll end,” Ashton says, stopping his hand atop Luke’s. It’ll end, or they will.But Ashton doesn’t mind it so much for the time being. For some reason, God brought Luke to him to stick out this war, and every night Ashton steals more kisses. This war wasn’t for them, but they’re going to make what they can of it anyway. Ashton bears down on Luke from above, the sound of his blood rushing in his ears drowning out the muffled sirens. Luke opens his mouth, letting Ashton nudge his tongue into his mouth. Ashton’s stomach knots up in a warm, tight tangle. They always kiss slowly, gently, too shy to be more aggressive. Ashton tries to avoid bumping his nose against Luke’s, but his inexperience seems to work against him. Luke kisses with more authority, and Ashton tries to push away the thought that he’s kissed other people before, that he’s the one with the upper hand here. Luke is the one who weaves his fingers into the back of Ashton’s curls and pulls him closer, guiding him.Luke doesn’t stop kissing him when Ashton feels a hand slide under his shirt. Ashton shivers and sucks his stomach in instinctively, but when he opens his eyes, he sees Luke smiling hopefully below. “Is it okay?” he whispers, waiting for Ashton’s answer with his fingertips resting loosely on Ashton’s stomach. Ashton knows he’s not perfectly sculpted the way he was in his late teens, but neither is Luke. Neither of them are young anymore. And that’s okay.Ashton nods finally, and Luke’s hand moves to rest flat on his stomach. Luke nips gently at his lip and smiles, using his other hand to brush Ashton’s hair out of his eyes. Ashton sucks in a deep breath, feeling his heartbeat speed up at the feeling of Luke’s fingers brushing over his skin. “Luke,” he whispers, shaking his head.“What?” Luke stops, retracting his hand and scooting up the bed a bit. Everything comes to a stop, clearing the haze in Ashton’s head. “What is wrong?”Ashton lowers his head and noses along Luke’s collarbone, trying to distract him. “Nothing,” Ashton lies. “Nothing, I just—”“Then we continue,” Luke says, his forehead creasing. “Unless you say stop.”“No, no, it’s just.” Ashton breathes in and out heavily. “I want to keep going. It’s just that if we keep going, I’ll—you know.” His cheeks color, but Luke just grins impishly and leans up to kiss him again.“That is okay,” Luke says, smiling against his mouth. “That is the point, right?”Ashton, embarrassed, manages to smile. Luke’s fingers play at the edge of his shirt again. He tries not to overanalyze the situation. He’s with Luke, and Luke can take care of him. “Okay,” Ashton says, giving him the green light. Luke grins like he’s won something and pulls at the edge of Ashton’s shirt.“Take it off,” Luke demands quietly, trailing a few fingers up Ashton’s torso. Ashton’s skin comes up in goosebumps. The shelter isn’t well heated, but he’s lying close to Luke, and he has a strong feeling that he’s about to get warmer. “It’s okay.”“You first,” Ashton counters, and to his surprise, Luke sits up and yanks his shirt over his head. Ashton blinks dazedly at the pale expanse of Luke’s chest. He’s never let himself look for so long, the few times he’s seen. Luke looks back at him, folding his arms almost defensively. Ashton is pleased to see Luke sports some of the same softness around his stomach that Ashton does.“What?” Luke says, caught half between nervous and brave. Ashton is struck by how utterly smooth his skin is. “Am I bad?” Luke looks down at himself, suddenly less sure.“No, no,” Ashton hurries to assure him, voice caught in his throat. “You’re—beautiful.”Luke smiles, touching Ashton’s hand gently. “Now you take your shirt off,” he urges. “Please?”Hands shaking, Ashton pulls at the edge of his shirt and takes it off with some difficulty. Both of them shirtless now, Ashton swallows hard and tries not to panic. This is the farthest he’s ever gone with anyone, his first time doing anything like this. But when he meets Luke’s eyes, Luke looks back with the tenderest expression, and Ashton can’t resist. Luke’s hair is ruffled up in endearing tufts, and his eyes seem to pierce through the dark. How could he stop now?Ashton moves back over Luke, kissing up his neck and the underside of his chin. Luke tilts his head back to reveal his neck, and runs his hands up and down Ashton’s back as Ashton slowly makes his way upwards. Finally, Ashton connects their lips again and sighs.Luke’s hands move gradually lower, and Ashton hums against Luke’s lips, startled but not surprised. He’s half inclined to back out now, before they really go too far, but he wants it. If he doesn’t go through with it now, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get another chance, with Luke or with anyone else.Stomach twisting at the thought of what he’s about to do, Ashton lowers his hips slightly until they rest more firmly against Luke’s. He can’t help but inhale a bit suddenly when he feels the friction and the obvious hardness between them. He’s most relieved that Luke is on the same wavelength, so there’s no cause for embarrassment. Trying not to rush things but reveling in the speed of everything, he grinds hesitantly down and is rewarded when Luke hums something into his mouth.“What?” Ashton gasps, pulling away. “What did you say?”“Again,” Luke mumbles, smiling sheepishly. “I am okay. Keep going.”Feeling a little more confident, Ashton pushes his hips down harder and kisses Luke with more intensity. Luke responds by arching his hips up to meet Ashton’s, hands pressing against Ashton’s lower back to encourage him. Ashton feels his stomach tightening already and he tries with everything he has not to let go too soon. It’s a pleasant warmth that spreads through his stomach and head, a tingle of excitement.Ashton won’t forget the way Luke’s eyes haze over and the noises that come from his throat. He’s never seen Luke this way, cheeks filled with color and mouth open in slack-jawed pleasure. Luke ruts up against Ashton, clinging to him. Ashton keeps his mouth shut and breathes laboriously through his nose, afraid to make noise, but Luke shares no such ideas of propriety and pants louder and louder, whining when Ashton presses down particularly languidly. And oh, it makes Ashton struggle to keep himself upright.“You’re unbelievable,” Ashton whispers, mouthing at the side of Luke’s neck. Luke is his, all his. He’s always going to be his. “God, I—I can’t last. I’m sorry.”Luke whispers, “It is okay. You can.”Set off by Luke’s quiet permission, Ashton’s hips stutter and then still, and his mouth opens in a silent prayer of Luke’s name. Luke strokes his back through it and waits for Ashton to come out of it, kissing every inch he can reach the whole time. Ashton shudders, blinded by the force. Luke murmurs something soft in his ear, and Ashton finally breathes again, slumping over Luke.Luke ruts weakly against him a few more times and then gasps out an obscenity that Ashton doesn’t understand the meaning of and trembles briefly before he, too, relaxes. For a few minutes, the only noise is their breathing, coming down from the peak.When Ashton can think straight again, he lays down next to Luke, squeezing himself into the sliver of space, and takes Luke’s face in both hands, breathing hard and reeling still. He doesn’t have the power to do anything more than whisper, “Are you okay?”“Very okay,” Luke whispers back, and smiles drowsily.The clammy contact of sweaty skin barely registers in Ashton’s head as he pulls Luke flush to his body. “You were so beautiful,” Ashton whispers, stroking back his sweat-damp hair. “I—”He stops just short of saying I love you. But he’s sure Luke feels it, because Luke presses a butterfly kiss to his jaw and breathes, “You are beautiful, too.”“Mine?” Ashton says, more a question than anything else.“Und meine,” Luke pronounces, intertwining their fingers together. “Always, mine.” As with most nights, this one is spent mostly in silence. They strip off their sticky clothes and huddle under the blanket, warm enough tangled close to survive the night. Luke rests his head on Ashton’s shoulder until Ashton’s arm goes numb and starts to tingle, but neither of them move an inch.“When did you know?” Ashton asks, hushed. The bombs are starting to die down in frequency, and he feels oddly calm.“When did I know what?” Luke asks, tilting his head to see Ashton’s face. Ashton is sort of grateful for the relief in pressure.“That you were.” Ashton clears his throat. “You know.”“Homosexuell,” Luke translates. And even though it’s close to the English word, Ashton can tell that it’s Luke’s German word, that he doesn’t even know the English word. “That?”“That,” Ashton confirms, clearing his throat awkwardly. He wonders for a fleeting moment if he’s crossed a line. For all they’ve done, they don’t talk about it. They’ve both tried to dance around explicit conversations. They don’t talk about the real nature of the thing.“I knew before the war. Laws were different. You were allowed to be, to kiss. When I was older, they changed what we were allowed to do. But it didn’t matter. I never touched a man. It was too complicated.”“What about with me?”Luke shrugs. “What else do I have to lose?”If that’s true, Ashton is the only thing he has now. Ashton, and his life. Those are the only things that can be taken from him. If Ashton had as little to lose, he’d have jumped in feet first. But he has his sister and his nieces to think about, his job, his freedom. And Luke.“And you knew when?” Luke presses, flipping the question. Ashton swallows hard and stops moving his hand through Luke’s hair.“We shouldn’t talk about it,” Ashton says. He hasn’t thought about it in so long. It’s difficult to ignore now, lying here with Luke’s head on his shoulder. He’s never told anyone for fear of having to relive the humiliation. And what about the shame of someone else knowing what they did to him?“We talk about everything.”“Not this.” Ashton swallows hard and shakes his head, his emotions overwhelming him easily. “No, Luke. I can’t.”“You can,” Luke presses, confused. He probably hasn’t considered what Ashton might be hiding. The embarrassment feels new every time he remembers. It’s been decades, but it still stings. “I always listen.”“I know, I know,” Ashton soothes. With luck, Luke will drop the subject. “I don’t talk about this one.”“What do you have to lose?” Luke asks, propping himself up on his elbow. Usually timid, Luke seems to burn a little stronger. The blue in his eyes doesn’t seem as weak. “My respect? No. You never lose that. And I will keep your secret.”Ashton still shakes his head. “I can’t,” he repeats softly. “I’ve never told anyone.”“You never kissed anyone,” Luke whispers. “It is safe with me.”Ashton looks at the man next to him and suddenly feels his doubts subside. Nobody has ever cared about him the same way. Nobody has ever looked at him like Luke does. And surely, given their situation, Luke will be the one to understand.“I don’t talk about it,” Ashton whispers, shutting his eyes. For the first time since it happened, he lets the memory wash over him in full force. “I never did, anyway.” Luke waits patiently. “I went to boarding school for a while. We had some money for a bit when my grandmother died and left us some inheritance. My mum was so happy that she could afford to send me somewhere halfway decent. I suppose I realized when I was surrounded by just other boys. And there was—there was this one who was—he was year thirteen when I was year ten.”“I am guessing things did not go well,” Luke says, rubbing Ashton’s shoulder. The touch is comforting, but Ashton feels exposed, vulnerable. His eyes are already welling up with tears at the memory.“No, they didn’t,” Ashton says bitterly. “I left him a note, I was stupid enough to think that he’d like me. A boy. A fifteen-year-old boy. Well, of course he didn’t. He had a dozen other year thirteen boys tell me he was waiting under the apple trees in the courtyard. And he was. And then while they all watched and laughed, he knocked me around for a bit, told me not to ever look at him like that again, and scattered some crumpled pansies around and left me there.”“Pansies,” Luke muses, brow furrowing in his confusion. “Why pansies?” Right. Of course. “That’s what they call homosexuals here.”Understanding dawns on Luke’s face. The shame hits him anew, square in the face like a well aimed punch. Pansy, pansy. The word that had followed him around before he even knew who he was. He had stuck out the rest of the year because he knew his mum would hate knowing he was hurting. He never told her why he wanted to come home, He told her instead he’d rather she save that money for an emergency. He’d never been happy to go to public school in his life.The pain must be evident in his words or on his face because Luke rolls up on top of Ashton and kisses him once, slowly, before whispering, “I am sorry they did that to you.”Ashton wraps his arms around Luke’s waist and holds him tight. Luke, in that moment, is the best thing to happen to him. Luke heals the hurt, somehow. “I am too.”“You still have my respect,” Luke says, brushing his nose over Ashton’s. “You are a very good man.”Ashton’s stomach flutters. Oh, if Luke has this effect on him every time he says something sweet, Ashton’s going to be a dizzy mess for the rest of his life. “It’s in the past anyway,” Ashton murmurs, though he knows part of him will never really move past the incident. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”“You have me now,” Luke says, using a thumb to brush a way a tear that slipped over Ashton’s cheek.“I have you,” Ashton repeats. They go to Lauren’s house a few nights later to have dinner. Though they’ve been before, the situation feels fraught; it will be the first time they are being tested. How will they go from two weeks of intimacy to stiffness once more for appearance’s sake? It seems an insurmountable task. But the rest of their lives together, if they can stay together, will depend on their ability to conceal their feelings.Luke spends a couple of hours making a strudel to bring over. By the time they finally arrive, Ashton is jittering, unable to keep still. What if Lauren guesses what they’ve done? What if they let something slip?Standing on the doorstep, Luke puts a hand on Ashton’s shoulder and looks him in the eye, determined. “She will not know,” Luke whispers. He puts his finger over his lips. “We will not say anything.”Ashton tries to relax his muscles and keep a neutral expression. He feels like even the passerby on the street can see right through him, like he even smells of deviancy. He just has to act normally.Lauren opens the door with a smile and welcomes them in. Ashton takes the first opportunity he can to hug her so she can’t see his face. Immediately after, he’s ambushed by his nieces, which eases his worry.“You haven’t visited in ages,” Marie complains, folding her arms and pouting stubbornly. Ashton smiles, relieved to see both girls looking well. If he can focus on the girls, he won’t think about Luke so much. He scoops Emma into his arms and kisses her cheek with a loud smooching noise.“How are my favorite girls?” he asks, smoothing back Marie’s hair. She relents with a reluctant smile. “Luke brought something special for dessert. Did you two make me something good for dinner?”“Mummy made something with the gross rations,” Emma says, pulling a face. She tugs stubbornly at the Peter Pan collar of her dress, reminding Ashton unpleasantly for a moment of Harry. He wonders if his nieces will each grow up to be carbon copies of his siblings. But it doesn’t matter right now.“Well, I’m sure you’re going to eat it,” Ashton says, mock threatening. “Otherwise you don’t get any dessert.”Emma gives him the most betrayed look, and he laughs, ruffling her hair to show her he’s joking. His favorite thing to do is spoil the girls, anyway; he’d never deprive them of sweets. The bombing has made him realize just how much he needs to treasure what he has. He doesn’t know if, like Luke, everything he has will be ripped away in a single night. Especially being here tonight and knowing they’ll all squeeze into the same bomb shelter, he feels responsible for their happiness. After all, without their father home, he’s the closest thing they have.“Girls, go sit at the table,” Lauren says brusquely, using her best no-nonsense tone to tear the girls away from Ashton. “Remember we have to eat quickly so we can finish before the sirens tonight. Emma, put your dollie away for now.”Emma and Marie make their way over to the table. Luke is still politely hanging his coat on the coatrack. Ashton tears his eyes away from him and sits next to Marie at the table. He gets ready to eat whatever soggy vegetables Marie sneaks to him under the table. That’s what the best uncles do, after all. Lauren disappears into the kitchen to bring out dinner, and Ashton meets Luke’s eyes across the table. Don’t show it, Ashton silently begs. Please don’t let her see. “Here we are,” Lauren says as she comes into the dining room, holding a dish with oven glove-clad hands. She sits at the head of the table on Ashton’s other side and removes her gloves. “Eat up, everyone.”After everyone has served themselves and they’re making pleasant small talk, both girls distracted by some story Luke is telling, Lauren nudges Ashton with her knee under the table. “Everything all right?” she whispers, side eyeing Luke. Ashton coughs, scrutinized.“Ah, yeah.”“You two seem distant.”“No, everything is...just fine.” Ashton smiles as convincingly as he can. Their behavior must be suspicious, but it’s better than her thinking the opposite of what she does. “Any word from Christopher?” he asks, changing the subject.She nods, shovels a forkful of food into her mouth, and chews carefully before swallowing. “He’s sent a few letters. Nothing to worry about.”Ashton smiles, genuinely relieved that she’s had some word from him. For one, he knows that as tough as Lauren is, she would be crushed if anything happened to him; for another, he doesn’t want Emma and Marie to have to grow up without a father the way he and Lauren did. Her focus safely off him, he nudges Luke’s foot with his own. Luke looks at him briefly and smiles a tiny smile, a single reassurance.Ashton is grateful that they make it through dinner without a hitch. And he thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he and Luke can keep it up, nobody will ever guess. It’s not an ideal way to live by any means, but it’s better than living the rest of his life alone. He can’t give Luke up now that he’s been privileged enough to experience a taste of life with love. Maybe in a few decades, when they’re old men, people won’t care what they do with their private lives.The adults sit on the sofa while Emma and Marie go off to entertain themselves. Mostly, Ashton and Lauren drive the conversation.“I wanted to tell you that I’ll be sending the girls away,” Lauren says soberly. Her shoulders seem to sag slightly, and Ashton is torn.“When?” he asks, touching her shoulder.“Soon,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “They’re calling for all children to be sent away. I don’t think it would be right for me to refuse anymore.”Ashton can’t help but feel thankful that she’s using her head and getting them out of harm’s way. He remembers when they talked about it earlier in the year, before the bombing. She hadn’t wanted to send them away and miss out on their childhoods. Even now, he can tell it’s a difficult decision. After all, she’ll be all alone, unable to check on them, and she could miss years of their lives, depending on how long the war lasts. But sacrifices must be made.“It’s the right thing,” Ashton says with a sigh. “I’m proud of you for making the decision. They’ll be safer away from here.”Lauren smiles weakly and nods. “I hope the war ends soon. What will they do without me to look after them?”“Marie is old enough to take care of them both,” Ashton asserts. “It won’t be long.”“And Emma is so young. What if she doesn’t remember me by the time she comes back?”“Lauren, it’s going to be okay. Whatever happens, it’ll be better than them staying here. Listen to me. This is the best thing.”Luke, who has been watching the conversation with his thoughtful eyes, says, “I think you did the correct thing.”Ashton opens his mouth to agree when the sirens finally sound off. They all flinch and spring into action. Ashton moves immediately toward the back of the house, Lauren hot on his heels. “Girls!” Lauren yells, rushing ahead of him and wrenching open the bedroom door. “Go, quickly now.”The girls, eyes wide, hurry out of the room and start for the back door. They’re all rushing, and Ashton makes sure to shove Emma and Marie out the door first. Ashton’s heart is racing as always; he’s scared enough on his own with Luke, but being around three other people he also cares about makes the situation even more urgent.They’re already stumbling across the yard with lights flashing ahead and the sound of explosions not far away when Emma gasps, “I left my doll!”She pushes past Luke and Ashton and starts sprinting back across the yard. Ashton’s whole world seems to tilt as she runs, tiny legs pounding hard against the ground. She’s fast, and small, and hard to catch, and Luke’s already yanking Lauren back as Ashton goes after her, his heart surging into his throat. As soon as he scoops her up in her arms and starts to run back toward the shelter, Emma lands a kick to Ashton’s knee, face streaked with tears as she screams my doll. He drops her in his surprise, his grip loosening enough for her to slip to the ground and start running again. He stumbles forward and catches his fall with his hands. No, he thinks. No. Oh, God, no. By the time his leg can support his weight, she’s almost at the doorway.Everything seems to happen in slow motion. His lungs burn as he struggles to his feet and lurches forward, his adrenaline masking the pain in his knee as he tears after Emma. He finally grabs her again, just in the doorway. This time, he holds her high and away from his body, ensuring her flailing feet simply thrash in the air. Ashton is almost at the shelter when he feels the whole world jolt and his ears burst, and everything just goes silent.He feels himself picked up and thrown, as if plucked from the earth by a giant. He hits the ground and folds, broken. There’s a long silence as he lies where he lands, face down. Time seems to stretch, and everything dulls. His vision is blurry and his voice won’t come out and he can’t move and Emma isn’t in his arms anymore. Where is she?No, he thinks again, willing his arms and legs to push him up again. No. Instead, he tastes grass and smells smoke. His whole back tingles. He can hear distant voices, but the world is oddly quiet. Time feels sticky and slow, almost tangible. He can taste blood in his mouth, and his body coughs it out for him. There’s more where it came from, lots of it. There’s a fuzzy pain in his chest and his neck feels somehow slack and now there’s grass in his mouth and someone is screaming and time continues to pass at a snail’s pace.It takes all of his limited willpower to force himself to his elbows and lift his head. He can see feet running toward his face, and hands closing over his arms, and then he’s being dragged across the grass and down into the bomb shelter. He opens his mouth to ask where Emma is, but the blood runs over his teeth, and everything just stops. Ashton wakes on his stomach with his head turned to the side. He blinks with crusted eyes. His brain tries valiantly to make sense of his horizontal view of the world; he sees two more beds in the room, both occupied by sleeping men. For a second he thinks he’s nineteen again, immobilized with a bullet in his leg and muddy from the battlefield. But when he comes to his senses, he reorients himself. His back feels achingly sore. He hears soft singing in a language he doesn’t know, and tries to roll over. It takes more effort than he thinks, and he feels a gentle hand press back down on his shoulder.“Rest,” a voice above him says, the singing ceased. Ashton knows the voice, knows why the singing sounded soothing and familiar. He moves his head to the other side, and there Luke is, hand on his shoulder. Luke looks disheveled and like he hasn’t slept in a few days. At the sight of Ashton looking at him, he smiles tiredly and glances up, as if to make sure nobody is watching. The room is quiet.“Luke,” Ashton mumbles, his tongue ten times heavier than normal. “What’s happening?”Luke leans close and whispers, “You are in the hospital. You are injured.” Luke’s hand moves shakily over to his face to caress his cheek briefly. “It was a bomb.”Ashton’s memory floods back in too fast. He knows the night was filled with sirens and another air raid as it has been every night, and he remembers fearing for Emma. Why was he afraid for her? She was running, he remembers, to get something. He grabbed her, and—“Emma,” he whispers, trying again to push himself up from his stomach with wobbly arms. “Emma, is she—”Luke shushes him and tries to calm him down. “Emma is okay. Everyone is okay.”Ashton collapses back down, exhausted and relieved. Everyone is okay. His family is intact. That’s all that matters.Luke says, “The sisters are very kind here. They took all the metal out of your back and gave me snacks and told me you would be okay, and you are.” Luke leans close again, whispering conspiratorially and looking downcast for a moment. “I thought you might die.”Ashton’s mouth parts in surprise at Luke wringing his hands and looking meek and subdued. He can see in the lines of Luke’s droopy eyes that Luke must have really been worried. If he had the strength, he would try hold Luke’s hand. It’s not as if anyone is looking. The other patients in the room are fast asleep. “I’m always going to be here,” Ashton whispers. “You can’t dispose of me so easily.”Luke smiles, takes Ashton’s knuckles, and presses them to his lips. “I am glad.”Ashton blinks deliberately, doing his best not to let sleep suck him in again. “How long did I sleep?”“A couple of days,” Luke says. “They tell me to go to the tube station to hide every night. I said no. If you died and I survived there would be no point. It has to be both of us, or none of us.”“You’re so incredibly stupid,” Ashton says, but can’t help laughing quietly at Luke’s stubborn bravado. “Where are Lauren and the kids?”“Lauren is at home. She already sent Emma and Marie on a train. At lunch I will go to Lauren’s house and tell her she can come see you.”Ashton nods, satisfied. “What were you singing?”Luke looks down at his hands, a soft blush spreading over his cheeks. Ashton has noticed that when he blushes, the red tinges even the tips of his ears. “Just German lullabies. So you would heal fast.”Ashton’s heart warms. He smiles and closes his eyes. “As fast as I can. So I can be with you again.” He adds the last part almost inaudibly, but he knows Luke hears it.“Heal fast,” Luke whispers, pressing a careful kiss to Ashton’s rumpled hair. “Sleep now.” Lauren comes to see Ashton as soon as she leaves work, still dressed in her skirt and blouse and looking like she’s been through as much hell as Luke has. She does her best to hug him without doing too much damage to the bandages wrapped up and down his midsection and sits by his bedside, his hand held tightly in hers. By now, Ashton is braving the feeling of lying on his back over lying on his ribs, both of which have been subjected to unnecessary damage these past days. He’s glad that the doctors were able to get most of the shrapnel out of his back, and that they reset his fractured rib, but the pain won’t go away for a while, and he knows at his age it’s probably going to have long-term implications. At this point, he’s lucky to be alive.“Thank you,” she whispers as soon as she sits down, stroking his hand incessantly. “If you hadn’t grabbed Emma—”“Was she okay?” Ashton is intent on getting the details from Lauren, the details Luke had kept from him in the interest of preventing Ashton stress.“She was a bit scraped up, but you shielded her from most of the impact. If you hadn’t been there—” Lauren takes a deep breath and looks away, jaw tense. “Thank you, Ash.”Ashton doesn’t know what to say, so he just says, “They mean everything to me.” He looks her in the eye and hopes that she understands that they are who he loves most in the world—more than even Lauren, more than Luke, more than he ever loved Harry or his mother. He remembers when each of them was born. Marie had been premature and stayed in the hospital for a while, and Ashton had been terrified that she wasn’t going to survive. He hadn’t even known he could love someone so much until he laid eyes on her, so tiny, shorter than the length of his forearm, and he knew that he had to make the rest of his life count so she’d be proud of him. And then Emma was born four years later, almost five; Ashton had had several beautiful years with Marie already, and Emma was healthy and fat as babies are supposed to be, and he felt his love expand. Watching them grow up, bandaging scraped knees and sneaking them sweets and telling them bedtime stories, Ashton didn’t know he had so much love in him. His life had been renewed.He’s never going to have his own children. But he’ll always have the girls.“You saved my child.” Lauren smiles, her eyes watery as she continues. “I will never be able to repay you.”“The only reward I need is knowing they’re both safe.” Ashton squeezes her hand tightly in his own. “Luke told me you sent them off. I’m glad.”“They’re gone now.” Lauren is very quiet. Ashton wonders if she’s still having second thoughts. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was. It can’t have been easy; no mother wants to part with her child. But Lauren is as strong of a mother as she is a woman, and he knows she can make tough decisions. Lauren meets his eyes this time, unwavering. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Luke carried you here that night. He didn’t wait for the sirens to stop. When you started bleeding more and breathing less, he just took you on his back and left. I’ve never seen anyone cry the way he did. He cried the way Mum cried when Papa left.”Ashton stares at her, uncomprehending. He can’t imagine Luke crying over him. Luke would have never admitted doing so. But Lauren has no reason to lie, and every reason to keep Luke’s secrets. She shouldn’t think it means anything to him. And yet he knows Luke is the only person strong enough to be able to carry him here.“Did he,” Ashton says, keeping his voice steady and trying to steel his expressions to stay neutral. What does Lauren mean by it?“He helped me see the girls off,” Lauren says casually. “He didn’t leave your side until he knew I was in here with you. He’s devoted.”“He’s a great friend,” Ashton defends. He doesn’t have the energy to have this conversation right now. Where is she leading? Given that she prefaced the conversation with gratitude for his heroism, he can’t imagine.“Ash,” Lauren says, so softly it hurts a little bit. “I always wondered. I know he doesn’t have anywhere else to stay, but—”“Lauren. Not now. Please.”“It’s okay ,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know what to do about it, about you, but I haven’t seen you happy since before you left for the war, and this past year—he’s revived something in you. Do you think I would take that from you?”Ashton does his best to sit up and covers his mouth with a trembling hand. He shakes his head, over and over. “That’s a big accusation,” he whispers.“I know, Ash,” Lauren says heavily. “I’m not shooting in the dark. I know. And all I want is for you to be safe.”“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashton says, breathing hard. Where does he go from here? What if she doesn’t let him see the girls when they come back home? What if she tells someone and gets him and Luke arrested?“I want you to experience love,” Lauren says, resting a hand on his knee. He startles at the touch, surprised by the tender gesture. “And if you have to experience it with Luke, then the only thing I want is for you to be happy. He makes you happy. So let him.”Ashton tries to understand what she’s telling him. He can’t look at her straight on, too afraid of the love she’s trying to give him. She’s not supposed to be granting him this. “And what if he does? What does that mean?”“It means you might finally allow yourself to be happy for the first time since you were a kid. You’ve spent half your life taking care of others and the other half drinking. I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t matter. However—strange it may seem. There are worse things than men loving each other.”Ashton tries to protest, but no sound comes out. Lauren smiles awkwardly at him, and he can see her trying to come around to the idea. “You really think so?” Ashton swallows hard. “He makes me really, really happy,” he whispers. “Is that okay?”Lauren nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Your secret is safe with me.”“Promise?”“Always.” Lauren clears her throat. “Can you do something for me?”“Yeah. Anything.”“Remember last year, when you told me to send the girls away so they’d be safe? Because you’ve always loved them like your own children and sometimes we can’t be with the people we love when it costs their safety. That’s what you taught me, right?”Ashton nods uncertainly, remembering it very well. He would sacrifice seeing the girls forever if it meant they couldn’t survive otherwise. That’s what love is, anyway—wanting someone to be happy even if it’s without you.“I want you to do the same. I want you and Luke to go to the countryside, too. It’s dangerous here, and—and if someone finds out, I don’t want you or him to suffer the consequences. Go away, Ashton. Go somewhere you can be alone while you recover. Will you please do that for me?”Though inclined to believe otherwise out of fear, Ashton can see that she genuinely means what she says. “What about you?” he counters. “How do I know you’re safe?”“I have children to support whenever they come back. I have to stay. But you don’t have to. Please, please go somewhere you’ll be safe.”Ashton takes a long, hard look at his younger sister and the people they have both become. They aren’t the same people they were as children. Their lives didn’t go as planned. And when he thinks of how strong they were forced to become, he thinks it’s for the best.“When I’m better,” he finally promises, and she leans forward to hug him tightly. Luke stays with Ashton every day for the week he’s at the hospital. They speak in soft tones so the nurses and other patients can’t hear, and Ashton slowly starts healing. His back scars over the entrance points of the shrapnel pieces that were embedded in his flesh, and his ribs hurt less and less. As the days pass, he breathes more easily.It isn’t easy to make the decision to move. After all, Ashton has lived in the city his whole life. He’s accustomed to the dingy buildings and the hustle and bustle of the streets. Everything he knows is in the city. But he doesn’t have ties to anybody but Lauren and her kids, and he takes Lauren’s request seriously. At the end of the day, he wants to be with Luke for the rest of his life, and he can’t trust the city to keep them safe.Monday morning, Ashton mails his resignation letter to the United Kingdom War Office. He can picture Michael’s face when Michael catches wind of the news and relishes the thought. He’ll be long gone before Michael has time to ring him up for an angry phone call.They stand in the foyer together, him and Luke, and take a last look at the house. It’s never been much, but it was home, and it was theirs. He remembers playing with Emma and Marie in the living room, eating dinners by himself and drinking at the table, pressing Luke into the couch and kissing him while the rain battered the windows outside. He doesn’t know how he’s meant to just leave it all behind like this. Sure, he’s taking the most important thing with him—Luke—but he’s afraid to try and start anew somewhere else.“Are you ready to go?” Luke asks him, brushing Ashton’s shoulder tentatively with his fingers. “Our items are packed.”Ashton blinks hard at the sight before him, ghostly figures passing through his field of visions. He can see his nieces getting older, see the bottles disappearing and his heart growing. “I think so,” he says finally.Luke nods curtly and opens the door. The house fills with the sound of the city immediately, and he steels himself to leave it behind for the quiet countryside. He memorizes the picture before him for the last time and steps out the door.The journey to the train station is fraught with tension. Even though Ashton knows logically nobody is looking for a reason to arrest anyone else, he makes sure that he and Luke keep their distance and that Luke keeps his mouth shut. If they make it to the countryside without a hitch, they won’t have to worry about these things anymore. He can’t risk messing anything up when they’re so close.Ashton pays for their train tickets while Luke waits with his luggage on a bench. They aren’t taking too much; Ashton doesn’t have many possessions, even fewer that really matter, and Luke just has clothes. Ashton almost left his old uniform at home, ready to let go of the past, but something forced him to put it in with the rest of his things. It reminds him of the time that has elapsed since his service and the ways in which he’s grown.“Look at this,” he’d said to Luke before they left, turning the little black button he’d saved over in his palm. Luke had frowned, perplexed. He hadn’t recognized the memorabilia.“What is it?” Luke had asked.“It’s your button.” Ashton had smiled down at the perforated disk and slid it back into the pocket of his uniform. “You gave it to me that night. I saved it.”His uniform is packed safely away now, but the button is still on his mind. It used to be the only thing he had to remember Luke by, a little reminder of the lost boy he’d lain with under the stars. He spent years wondering whether Luke had come home with his last brother or whether he, too, had perished in the war. Now, the button is simply a symbol; he’s never going to need another keepsake to commemorate Luke. He’ll have Luke for life.At seven that evening, rain starts to fall from the dim sky, and Ashton and Luke board the train one after another and slide into the train car they’re meant to share. The rain splatters the windows persistently, blending with the noise of the train chugging steadily along. Ashton watches out the window as the city and life he knows so well disappear behind them. His stomach flutters at the thought of surging into the unknown with Luke, but somehow, knowing he isn’t alone in all of this gives him some sort of comfort.He and Luke sit side by side on one side of the train car. Ashton sits right up against the cold window, and Luke leans over on him, finally relaxed. And Ashton thinks, maybe their troubles are over. Maybe something good is waiting for them at the end of the train ride. Maybe, maybe, maybe.“Ash?” Luke whispers, looking up at him. His eyes glow the color of the afternoon sky, the color of stained glass, the color of crystal. “Do you wonder what our lives would be like if I did not find you?”Ashton rests an uneasy arm around his shoulders. He knows what his life was like before: dull and cold, like everything he wanted was just out of reach, like the sun hadn’t been out and wasn’t planning on returning. And he knows that if Luke hadn’t found him, he’d have either lived the rest of his life that way or found some way to forget the days.“No,” Ashton says, pressing his lips to Luke’s hair lovingly. “I don’t.”Luke smiles, fond. “I think I would have settled down with a girl.” He adds, after a short pause, “I am glad I did not have to.”Ashton reaches over to clasp Luke’s hands in his own. They’re cold, smaller than his own, and Ashton wants nothing more than to warm them up. Ashton can’t put into words how much he simply wants to be with Luke for the rest of his life. He doesn’t need anything more than to be allowed to wake up next to him every morning. That would be enough.“I didn’t know I was allowed to be happy,” Ashton says finally. “After the war, I drank and drank and drank. I didn’t see my family for ten years. When I came back, my mum was dead, Lauren was getting married, and Harry wanted nothing to do with us. I haven’t seen him since Mum’s funeral. But all this time, I thought I was missing what I used to have. But I was just missing another half of me. I was missing you.”“Now you have me forever,” Luke says, smiling radiantly at him. Ashton can’t see well in the dark train car, but he would know the sound of Luke’s smile in his words any day. “What does it look like where we’re going?”Ashton has imagined it before. Grassy knolls as far as the eye can see, tall trees to sit under, wildflowers to pick. A warm house where the sun always shines. Maybe there won’t be any of those things, but he knows one thing.“I don’t know,” he says, “but it’ll feel like home.”