Please comment if there are any mistakes as unedited x

Lucille

As Lucille woke up, there was no sunlight to pleasantly greet her opening eyes like there was each morning. Instead, she was met with the dim and dull light of the lamp that stood in the corner, the yellow light making the room look damp and dreary.

She stayed lying in the same position, her lashes fluttering as she attempted to waken her heavy lids. She felt eyes looking down upon her and as she looked up, Tommy glanced back at her, his face droopy and bags blue yet looking as awake as ever.

"Good morning." He said, as he continued with his task of redressing his wounds.

His shirt was off again and his back glistened with sweat despite the near freezing temperatures that suffocated the loft. It was like sleeping outside, but they were sheltered from the cool winds that blew during the nights. Tommy used the supplies from the previous evening, wiping the crusted blood from his smooth skin and leaving the cloths in a small pile to his opposite side.

Lucille rose to sit flatly, her back too resting against the slant.

"Morning." She replied, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Sleep well?" He asked, glancing back toward her.

"Yes, surprisingly. Very warm." She smiled, stripping the blanket, that he had given her, from her legs. "You?"

"You don't look like you've slept." She stated, noticing he hadn't said anything in return.

"I don't need much sleep." Tommy replied with a smile and Lucille nodded.

She turned over to Dawson as she heard him yawn. "Morning."

He replied with a 'morning', sitting up and scratching his head. He smirked, noticing that she was still sat between them and she rolled her eyes.

"It's early. The German will still be in his room. We were notified to have breakfast ready at 8 each morning." Lucille said. Her eyes widened, upon realisation.

"Oh no." She exclaimed, standing straight to her feet, hands flying straight to her forehead in panic.

"How do you say it in English?" She asked, flustered, her hands waving as she tried to think.

"What?" Dawson asked, confused. She moved her hands in a weird, angry gesture.

"Fuck." Tommy suggested, and Dawson laughed.

"Fuck!" Lucille's screeched, the breath escaping her lungs.

She was stuck. The soldier was in the house, waiting for a meal that she wouldn't be able to prepare. They were done for. Her hand was slapped over her mouth as she realised how loud her voice had escaped.

"It's fine you can speak." Tommy said, and she looked to him, eyebrows dipped.

"The soldier is in the yard." He said, pointing the the small gap in the roof cladding.

She smiled, still whispering. "You found it."

Lucille motioned her hand, dragging them both to the same hole that Tommy had mentioned. She took the hole, hooking her fingers under it, lifting the roof. It pulled up with her hands, revealing a larger hole in the roof.

"We have the hole so we can drain the roof in the winter months when it rains a lot." She explained, pointing to the piles of tin buckets in the corner. "It's stops the damp from getting in and rotting the floors. We can't afford anything else."

"What will I do?" She asked.

Tommy chuckled, his head peering slightly down over the yard.

"I think you'll be fine." He said, nodding his head toward the edge of the garden, where her father was collecting eggs from the chicken coop.

"He will be worried." She said, but her face was sad. It was if she spoke the words to convince herself of the fact, wishing it to be true.

She forced a smile. "He hasn't cooked in years."

"I can't go down now." She said, after a while, closing the hole in the roof and moving back to her space.

"Why not?" Dawson asked.

"I left my bedroom door open. They'll know I've not been there." She explained, collecting her bag in one pile. "I'll wait until after eight, then I'm going to the market."

"Dawson. What do you eat?"

"Anything and everything." He shouted back as he plopped himself back on the floor, cringing as his body moved oddly.

"But what do you like, I'm asking?" She said, again with a smile.

He thought for a second, as if going through a list, twisting his lips indecisively. "Pastry."

Lucille laughed. "Good thing you ended up in France then."

She sighed, moving to shuffle through her bag. She pulled out a book, it's pages crumpled slightly at the edges and yellowed with age. There was plenty of time to pass, given that it was barely half past six. Lucille turned the first page, smoothing the paper tenderly under her fingers.

"Could you teach me?" Tommy spoke up, as he watched her gentle movements.

"Pardon?" She asked, turning her head as his inaudible words reached her ears.

"Could you help me to read?" He asked again, and Lucille beamed in response. She shuffled her body around, turning so her crossed legs faced him, the book in her lap.

From behind her back, Dawson sighed knowingly and rolled his eyes. He lay back, pulling a pillow over his face before turning to his side, facing away from the two.

"Wake me when there's food." He muttered, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"Yes. Of course." She finally responded to Tommy, as she handed the book over into his hands.

"Now, we start at the very beginning."

Tommy stared down at the book in his hands. Reading was never something he had ever thought to have been useful. In Birmingham there were far more important things than school and homework: things like working, scavenging and stalking the streets, all to come out on top.

But in the months before he had gone to war, the things he used to value hadn't satisfied him enough. Seeing his brother's poor excuse for a business made him feel ambitious. Tommy had always been the cunning and clever one out of the brothers- even if he didn't know how to read.

"Jane Eyre." Lucille exclaimed, pointing her finger to the title. "A brilliant book. And English, nonetheless."

"It is a book we'll read. But not yet." She said, and Tommy laughed wholeheartedly at her sweet enthusiasm. "After all, if you jump into the sea without knowing how to swim, you'll drown."

"A dark comparison." He said, and she smirked.

"Well It's the truth." She said with a shrug.

"You're excited to teach me to read?" He said in question and Lucille nodded.

"It's dull but I always wanted to work at the school house." She said, folding the book in her arms. It was like she had forgotten all about the task at hand as she talked to him.

"I hated school." He said, leaning back. The mere thought of his school days gave him a shiver.

As Lucille could imagine, his mischievous ways had never allowed him to stay in school for more than three weeks, much to his aunt's disappointment.

"No wonder you can't read." She said with a laugh, shaking her head at his disgusted look.

"I never went to school." She said. "My mother taught me everything I know."

She paused a moment, drawing in a breath. "Why don't we start-"

"Lucille!" Her name was screamed from down stairs.

Lucille's heart was in her throat, though she relaxed, recognising her father's voice upon the second shout. He shouted again, his voice screeching at the end, followed by the sound of heavy, crashing footsteps ascending the stairs.

"It's my father." She whispered, her hand tightening around Tommy's arm, where it must have fallen in her shocked state.

"Lucille!" There was a banging in the wood that covered the hole in the roof. The blankets were tossed upwards, as he banged against the roof again. He screamed, "Open this god-forsaken thing!"

"I'm coming." she muttered, pushing against Tommy to raise herself up as she scattered to the loft entrance, pulling it open. She peered down, meeting his glaring gaze.

"Father, I-" She began to explain, but was interrupted once more.

"Get down." He spoke in french to her. "My own daughter isn't even speaking french."

"Excuse me." Tommy intervenes, his own head sticking over the gap between floors, peering down at the weak, wrinkled man below.

"Please, go lay back." Lucille said limply, her arms pushing lightly against his chest. But he stayed, staring back as if it were a contest, one that was gladly reciprocated.

"You will speak to me with respect, boy." Maron said, his voice laced in venom as he spoke in broken English.

"Shelby-" Even Dawson tried to warn him back, but he stared on. 

"I speak with nothing but respect, sir." Tommy mocked him, though her father was too arrogant to realise.

Lucille interrupted them both by shifting herself around the hole and lowering herself down.

"Come, Father." She said, pushing him back by the father, while sending a glance up to Tommy a sign to back away. "I will be back soon."

She pushed her father to the stairs, waiting for him to step down them. Lucille looked back, watching as Tommy, too, looked after her, before covering the entrance once again, leaving to follow after her father, who was seething downstairs.