Work Text:
February 1927
The story she had read said it could happen at any time, once you committed.
She is not sure what makes it true this time. She has read plenty of made up stories about this sort of thing, of course, given her interest in historical fiction, but that’s what they all are: made up stories. Only this one has come true, here and now, and this is her chance.
It appears that she has landed behind the post office of all places. Obscure, perhaps, but less conspicuous than if she’d just popped up somewhere in the big house, surely. As she moves through the alley to the main street, she looks down at her attire. She is wearing pants—trousers, they would be called, here and now—which won’t do, as they won’t be meeting on an actual farm. She wishes she had put on that vintage wool skirt she had bought two years ago. But again, she had no warning. Once you say yes, it happens when it happens.
And she has most certainly said yes.
At least she wore her white wool coat, and not that ridiculous fuchsia ski jacket. Her lace-up brown boots look like something out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel, but at least they could exist here. If she keeps her coat buttoned up, no one will see the thrift store sweater—jumper—beneath it. And her hair has always been an anachronism—the top half is currently pulled back in a large clip, and it all hangs down her back; it may fit in better here than where she came from. She has no hat, of course, but the trousers tucked into boots will probably be enough of a distraction from that.
She takes a deep breath, drops her shoulders, and crosses the street to The Dog and Duck.
***
She had been certain the story had said that the person you choose will, at the very least, recognize you. This can be disconcerting, of course, so the story also advises against making it worse by telling the whole truth. She is suddenly very unsure of all this, though. People she works with don’t recognize her half the time, when she runs into them outside the familiar context of a nursing facility, or a patient’s private home. How could a fictional man from another place and time possibly recognize her as remotely familiar? Add to that the fact that said recognition will be at least somewhat troubling for him, and… Well, it’s too late to turn back now, isn’t it?
She doesn’t worry for long, at least not about being recognized. Because as soon as she sets foot in the pub, she sees him. Thomas Barrow is standing at the bar, wearing his brown day suit and dark overcoat. He holds his black bowler in his left hand, and stands with his right on the bar. His eyes are on the landlord, who is filling a glass with dark ale. The landlord brings the pint to Mr. Barrow, who nods a thank you, then takes a sip from the glass. He smiles a little to himself, before he looks up and to his right, directly at the woman hovering near the entrance.
He looks at her face for a second or two, then glances down, taking in what must appear to him to be a woman in men’s clothing. He raises both eyebrows. “Well, you look like you’ve got a story to tell,” he says, oddly nonchalant.
“Maybe,” she offers, trying not to look like a rabbit in front of a cobra. She wants to be here, doesn’t she?
He actually smiles, just a little. “And you’re a long way from home, from the sound of it,” he adds.
He picked that up in one word? Crikey, he might be even more perceptive than she thought. She turns to the landlord, who has been eyeing her rather expectantly. She moves a bit closer to the bar. “Could I have a cup of tea?” she asks him. If she is not mistaken, he rolls his eyes just a little, and why not? The woman dressed in men’s clothes might as well order tea in a pub, and do it in an American accent to boot. At any rate, he nods a yes, and turns away, to go about granting her request. Business is business.
Thomas takes another sip of his dark ale, and looks her up and down again. He furrows his brow. “It’s funny,” he says. “I can’t shake the feeling that I know you from somewhere. What’s your name?” he asks.
She looks away. “You wouldn’t know it,” she says, shaking her head.
He grunts a little laugh. “Well, no, I don’t. That’s why I asked.”
She looks back at him, and answers, “No, I mean… it’s not a name that you would have heard before. It wouldn’t even make sense here. So… never mind it.”
His smile fades, and she can see he is biting the inside of his cheek just a little. Then he says, “Well then, Miss Name-that-makes-no-sense, my name is Barrow.” He hesitates a moment. “Thomas, actually. And I’m going to take my pint, and go sit at a table back there in the corner, all by my lonesome.” He nods his head toward the back of the pub. “And if you’d like to get your tea, and join me… I suppose I wouldn’t mind.”
She bites her upper lip in order to avoid smiling too widely, then nods, and says, “Okay.”
As Thomas walks away from her, she turns back to the bar, to wait for her tea, but the landlord, who seems to have a rather keen interest in being rid of her, nods toward the back of the room as well. “Go on, then,” he says. “I’ll bring it to you when it’s steeped. Do you want milk and sugar?”
“Yes, please,” she says, softly.
The landlord grunts, and she turns and walks to the table in the corner.
***
She sits down across from him, and he doesn’t smile, or laugh, but something in his face suggests that he thinks it rather funny that she has actually joined him. He raises his eyebrows again, and takes another sip before he asks, “Mind if I smoke?”
She does, rather. And she had forgotten about this part. He is reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, clearly for his cigarettes and lighter, when she says, “Do you mind—not—actually? I don’t mean to bother you, but… it’s just the smoke gives me such a headache.”
He pauses, his hand still in his inside pocket. Then he relents. “Alright,” he says with a shrug. “But only because I like you.”
“What?” she asks, before she can stop herself.
He shrugs again. “I like you,” he repeats. “Don’t know why. Only… I’m sure I do know you. Are you… do you work?” he asks.
As much as she might want to stay focused on his sudden declaration of like, she should probably keep the guessing game to a minimum.
She nods. “I do. I'm a nurse."
His eyes light up. “In the war?” he asks.
But she douses his interest with a shake of her head. “No,” she says. “After.”
He raises one eyebrow, and leans back in his chair a little. Surely he’s known for the last several minutes that she is too old to have missed doing her part in the war. If she had been here at the time, of course.
Luckily, the landlord brings her promised cup of tea then, and sets it down in front of her. She drops two sugars in the cup, then pours in the milk, and stirs it all with the tiny spoon before taking a sip. Her shoulders drop, and she closes her eyes, as the warmth makes its way down to her toes. Heaven.
She brings herself back to the conversation then, trying to tie up this part of it in a neat little bow. “I didn’t live here then,” she says.
“Like how you don’t live here now?” he returns drily.
“How do you know that?” she asks.
Thomas shrugs. “If you lived here, I’d know it,” he asserts. He leans forward a little, and mock whispers, “It’s a small village, Downton.”
She looks away a moment, then turns her attention to his left hand, resting on the table. “You were in the war, though,” she says. “Weren’t you?”
His hand twitches, as though he is considering hiding it, in his coat sleeve, or under the table. He doesn’t move, though, in the end. He just nods.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Don’t be,” he says, a bit defensive.
“No,” she hurries on. She sets down her cup, and rests her chin in her curled right hand. “I just mean… I’m sorry you were hurt. And for what you saw. It must have been terrible. All of it.”
His eyes narrow. “How could you know that?” he asks. “If you weren’t here, and… we don’t talk about it. Everyone says it’s better not to.”
She is nearly caught now; what can she possibly say? That she has seen it all in countless films, and documentaries, and read it in books? That she learned about it in high school history class?
She looks up at him now, and murmurs, “I don’t mean to say that I know what it was like. Only that I’m sorry that you do.”
He looks at his hand again, still resting on the table, releasing her from his suspicion. Then his eyes meet hers once more. “Maybe you just remind me of someone I know,” he says, softly.
She smiles at him. “How nice,” she says, and he nods.
Then he laughs, just a little.
“What?” she asks.
“It’s kind of funny, you know, ordering tea in a pub.”
She shrugs one shoulder, and picks up her cup again. She takes a sip, and says “I know. But I prefer it…” she trails off, eyeing his pint. “To anything with alcohol.”
He takes a swig of his own drink, self-assured. “But you’d think, not being from around here…” he begins. She waits. “That maybe you’d want to look around, see what others are doing, and—”
She shrugs again. “If it tastes good,” she says.
Thomas snorts. “I suppose I can relate to that,” he says. She smiles. “You spend your life doing what you want—”
“And then you wonder why you’re always alone,” she finishes.
Now he frowns. “There’s something to be said for following the crowd,” he says. Then he shakes his head. “But some of us… can’t.”
She puts her cup in its saucer again. Should she? It would be terribly familiar… slowly, she reaches for his left hand with her right. Rather than cover his hand with hers, though, she takes the tips of his in her own, massaging the backs of his cool fingers with the pad of her thumb. Her hands are usually so cold, but right now they are warm, and dry. It must be the tea. She hopes she spreads a bit of that warmth to him.
Before she can say anything, though, he does. “It will get better, you know,” he says softly.
“What?” she asks. Isn’t that just what she had come to tell him?
He smiles, just a little. “Whatever it is, whatever’s keeping you stuck, it will pass, it always does. And it will get better one day. You’ll see.”
She doesn’t let go of his hand, but gives him a skeptical smile. It is her turn to ask, “How could you know that?”
After a few seconds’ hesitation, he turns his hand, so he holds onto hers. His fingers are warmer now. She looks into his shining eyes, where she is sure for one moment she can see all the understanding she longs for.
Then he winks. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he drawls, and takes another drink from his glass.
***
She stays for a while, long enough to finish her tea, and for him to finish his ale. She wishes she could stay for another round. She wishes there were a little gift shop, where she could buy a box of this tea, to bring back with her. But this has been all too real for that.
He chats to her a bit, about his work—his new job. He thinks it is going fairly well, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. It’s funny to find himself suddenly in charge of people he’s known most of his life, he says. He does not tell her that it’s also funny to have to get used to having friends, even though it’s what he has always wanted. But she knows this already.
She does not tell him what a pleasure it is to sit with him, and listen to him, though this is mostly what they do for the next thirty minutes. She is careful to keep the conversation focused on him, as there is not much she can tell him about herself, without giving away too much. She does think for a moment that it would be so nice to tell him about the time she got to play Emily in Our Town—the piece of art that tells us that knowing too much about the future is unbearable. But it hasn’t been written yet. Perhaps she could come back in 1938, or ’39. But of course, by then, he will have long since known this for himself.
When their cups are empty, she knows that it is time to go. He stands when she does, and she is sure he would walk with her to wherever it is she is going, but she stops him. She wishes she could kiss his cheek, but that would be a bit conspicuous, and she doesn’t wish to make any trouble for him. She settles for shaking his hand, and thanking him.
“It was so kind of you to meet me,” she says.
He lifts his eyebrows again, and says, “I’m not really certain I had a choice.”
“You did,” she says brightly. “And I thank you for it.” She puts her hand into her pocket, then suddenly remembers. “I just realized I don’t have any money with me,” she says. It’s just as well, of course. What good would her plastic debit card, or a few small American bills be, here and now?
“Typical,” he mutters, through pursed lips.
“That’s hardly fair,” she points out. “I don’t think you’ve known me long enough to say that I typically beg cups of tea off of strangers.”
“Hm,” he almost agrees. “I suppose you’ll just have to buy the tea next time, then.”
“I suppose I will,” she says, and she turns to go, hoping to leave in her wake just the air of mystery he would appreciate.