I hope you're prepared for a very long chapter!

Lucille

Lucille felt sick.

The low hum of the engine sounded murderous to her ears. The car was otherwise silent, giving the air an eerie nature to it.

She imagined it to be similar to the journey the two boys had made into battle. She knew she may have been called ignorant for it, but she believed it to be the same. They were marching head forward into the mouth of death, straight into the devil's quarters, with no grip on the sense of chance that they may or may not have had. After all, fortune was a fickle referee in a very deadly game.

But Lucille knew better than to play her future off to chance. With a mindset like that, there was no way that they would make it onto the train and on their way to Paris.

It had taken Eugène two weeks to collect the travel papers that she would use to get passed the heavily guarded station. She had asked him how he had managed to get them and he had told her not to worry about it. But after a few cakes, he had told her of an unimportant German soldier that he had accidentally befriended during the village occupation. He was a man who opposed the views of the war, but was forced into it nonetheless and wanted to help.

Lucille had wished that she hadn't worried about it, that she had gone on with the plan without asking. As they drove to the next stop, all that clouded her mind was the possibility that Eugène had been misled. That the soldier had given them a faulty paper that, unbeknownst to them, ordered for their arrest.

The situation asked for her to trust in the goodness of a stranger. Lucille had always strove to do that. She truly believed that their was kindness in everyone. But the war had dimmed her spirits and she didn't know whether she had the belief to hold her together.

Her mind was so preoccupied that she couldn't even think of the fact that I'm the matter of no more than a week, she would be saying goodbye to Tommy and Dawson. Perhaps that was a good thing. Any other time it would have hindered her actions and slowed her thoughts.

"You okay?" Lucille turned to flash Eugène a smile. She sat next to him in the front of the small car.

"I'm fine, of course." She mumbled and the man shook his head in return, not believing her.

"Try not to worry." He said and Lucille laughed lightly.

"That won't stop me worrying." She said, as she looked out of the window at the lengthy fields that were in view. "I'm beginning to think that I'm made to worry."

She felt someone lean in beside her. Tommy's head rested against the back of the seat that reached the width of the car.

"He's right though, you don't need to worry." He said. "We'll make sure that nothing happens to you. I won't allow it."

Lucille smiled and turned around to face him, but she shook her head. "It's not myself that I'm worried about."

He paused a moment, looking down at her under his long eyes lashes. He spluttered out a small laugh after understanding what she had meant by her statement.

"Should we go over it again? Will that help?" Tommy asked, in reference to their plan of action, as Dawson had suitably named it.

"I suppose so." She said, before she twisted her body around to face all three of them in the car, as Tommy shuffled back. She began, "I'm dropping you off two streets away from the station. I go in with the papers and I find the animal cart. I then go to the fence in the far end of the courtyard at the back of the station."

Lucille listed out her part of the plan robotically, as if it had been transcribed by hand into her memory. And it may as well have been, given that they had spent hours on end making sure each person would remember their part. Even though it could be called a rather simple plan, it was crucial that they got it right. There were not many situations that were called 'life and death', but their's was definitely one of them, and Lucille and the boy's didn't wish to meet their end at a train station of all places.

"That's where me and Dawson will be. We'll have guns each hidden and there'll be five minutes until the guard will be in that position." Tommy continued on the plan from his task of the operation.

"Then Lucille cuts us through by the time we get around the guard and we get to train as quietly as possible. There'll just be the metal thorns to get passed but we're counting on the fence being loose for that to be easy." Dawson took over the narration and Lucille sat back with a sigh.

Although their intentions were in the right place, she felt no better. In fact, she felt worse. It had made her realise just how much of the 'mission' was dependent on her actions.

"No hassle. Everything will be fine." Eugène tried to comfort them, but she still frowned.

"Everything will be fine." She repeated, attempting to make words the truth, as she turned to watch the hills roll past for the remainder of the drive.

"We're here." Lucille was shaken from her daydreams by the silence of the engine and Eugène's gruff voice.  "Good luck, when you're with Aunty Beatrice you'll be fine."

The three of them climbed out of the car and stretched their tired limbs as they glanced around. The village that they had reached was small and quaint, no different to the one that had left behind. They had driven for half an hour to get to the nearest station. It had taken many sly backroads and swirling of wheels to pass the two checkpoints of the roads, but as of that moment, they were safe.

Eugène said his goodbyes and good lucks from in the car and, before he left, Lucille leaned in. "Thank you, Eugène. Thank Amélie for me please."

"Are you ready." Dawson asked, as they finally turned away and began to walk down the street and toward the train station.

"I'm going to have to be." She said, with a dismissive shrug- though they all knew she was nervous.

"Have you got the papers? And the cutters?" He asked and Lucille sighed, stopping in her tracks. She held the papers up and motioned to her coat. "Yes they're hidden in the powder right where they're supposed to be."

The rest of the way, they walked in silence. All three of them were scared to say a single word, in case they gave themselves away. As they reached the middle of the last street, they parted: Tommy and Dawson headed sneakily to the back while Lucille went to the line with her papers.

"See you on the other side." She whispered to herself, as she watched them go before moving to do her part.

As she reached the front of the line, Lucille was surrounded by three guarded officers who looked her up and down.

"Papers." One of them screeched.

She fumbled for the papers, handing them over. While the soldier scanned his eyes over the papers, Lucille held her breath and prayed. Prayed that they were safe, and that she would get through fine. The soldier looked up, staring her down before he looked back down and gave the papers another hard check. After a few moments, he nodded briefly, handed the papers back and resolved to eye her suspiciously.

"Hand over your bag and remove the coat." One of the other soldiers ordered after he was given a nod.

She did as she was demanded and stripped the thick coat from her arms and dropped her bag in his hands. One by one, he searched through the shoulder bag and coat pockets, until eventually he pulled out her powder. He had already held onto her perfume.

"What's this?" He asked gruffly.

"Powder for my nose." She explained simply, bowing her head to avoid us mean glare.

"No unusual products." He said shortly, as he snatched the powder away, putting it with a pile of confiscated items behind him.

"It's makeup!" Lucille exclaimed, but she bowed her head once again after seeing his raised brow and piercing eyes. "Yes, sorry."

Lucille was allowed through into the train station. But she was without her wire cutters, which were hidden under the compacted powder that had been taken from her. It was only a matter of time before they found it and came looking for her. That meant they had less time that they had originally thought.

"Animal trailer." She whispered to herself as she glanced around the station, eyeing the different carriages that were stationary.

At the end of the platform that she stood on, her eyes caught onto a small family. They were all dressed smartly, the mother and father dressed in expensive jewellery and fur coats. They were also obviously french.

"Excuse me." She called, as she walked slowly toward them. "Is this the train to Paris?"

Her voice was as polite as she could possibly make it and her smile pretty and sweet. The family were startled to hear her talk to them, but gladly nodded and said yes.

Lucille slipped away from them. There were soldiers at every corner that her eye could meet. Most of the passengers were German too, and she wondered how she would ever be able to sneak two Englishmen through such a large and crowded space.

She hurried toward the end of the station, emerging into the courtyard. At the end of it, were rows of fences, that surrounded the entire structure, preventing attacks that had already begun to happen in the past months. They had never gotten very far- the station was too heavily guarded and the train moved too fast to be able to jump onto outside.

She needed something to cut the wire with, and in that panicked moment, all she could think of was a pair of scissors.

At the edge of the inside walls of the last platform, Lucille approached a young soldier. He was still small, his helmet too big over his fiercely blond hair and he shook slightly as he held a gun to his side. She smiled at him first, and the young boy gave a small, unsure smile back.

"Could you show me to the bathroom please?" She asked, and he scrunched his brows, shaking his head. He didn't speak French.

"Toilet?" She tried, with a smile, and the boy nodded, moving for her to follow him.

"Danke."

Lucille sighed in relief as she shut the bathroom door behind her, leaning against it like a walking stick. She had begun to panic and she prayed that what she needed would be there, just as she had hoped. At the edge of the bathroom, a small locked door stood in the corner. Lucille almost cried at the sight of it.

Attempting to pry the door open, Lucille's hands were glued to the handle. But she was afraid to pull anymore, as the old metal had begun to look poorly shaped. She forced herself to think. Never in her life had she needed to know how to pick a lock.

Lucille pulled a pin from her hair, letting her blonde curls fall freely onto her shoulders. The pin was small, but she pushed it into the key hole, moving it around aimlessly, hoping for the best. With one hand on the side of the door, she forced the pin to the side, silently cheering as she heard the lock click. She twisted it again and the door unlocked, allowing her to pull the door open by the fragile handle.

The cleaner's cupboard was nearly empty. It was filled only by a bucket, mop, soap and a basket of smaller supplies. Lucille reached into the basket, rifling around until she pulled a pair of scissors from the bottom.

Without wasting anymore time, Lucille closed the cupboard door and hurried back out of the bathroom, thanking the young boy and watching as he left, before she allowed herself to move toward her destination.

Lucille arrived back at the secluded corner where Tommy and Dawson would meet her. She was already running late when she began to attempt to cut the wire with the scissors. She forced the two blades down upon the fence, working at the single place relentlessly until it finally thinned enough for her to bend it and cause it to snap after a few minutes. Lucille quickened her pace as she moved to the next piece of wire.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see figures approaching quickly. She knew it was Tommy and Dawson. Their slim figures from the thin cloths and swinging arms gave them away easily.

Tommy beamed as he reached the fence, seeing her in the other side, despite there still being the obstacle of barbed wire and another fence between them.

"Sorry It's taken so long. I had trouble." She apologised, as another piece of wire eventually snapped in front of her.

"So did we. That's why we need to hurry." Tommy said, and Dawson nodded along with him.

"There's four soldiers out cold down the path, it won't be long until the next lot of them find them." He explained to her, and Lucille's eyes widened.

"I didn't hear any gunshots!"

"We couldn't afford that." Tommy said, and Lucille nodded, not wanting to know anymore.

She was so close, but the time was getting closer. It was as if her heart beat, which was loud in her own ears, was ticking along like a timer, warning against her faults. Tommy and Dawson had begun to dig under the barbed wire in order to be able to slide into the hole in the fence.

Lucille after a while of none stop cutting had managed to make her way into the first fence. She pulled herself under it and began to work on the second.

"Hurry! We're going to miss the train." Dawson screamed.

Both of their heads were snapped back and forth between Lucille and the area behind them. They were left in the open, their arms and hands cut and scraped from the barbed wire that their skin and clothes had been snagged on. There was still the looming fear of a German gun meeting the back of their heads, making their voices snappy and borderline cruel.

"I'm sorry, this is all I have. They took the powder from me." She cried, her hands moving quickly to try and force the scissors to cut into the last of the wired fence. "I wouldn't be surprised if they'd found them by now."

As the scissors were only mere seconds from cutting the last of the wire, the metal slipped, slicing her finger open roughly. Lucille called out in both pain and surprise as they fell from her grip. The tool was not strong enough to cut through the fence, but it was sharp enough to cause her harm.

With her left hand, Lucille picked them up again, the blade slightly bent out of shape. She forced them around the last of the wire, pushing it together with all of her strength. As the fence finally snapped, Lucille fell through into the barrier. She scurried to pull the bottom of the broke fence up, holding it high enough for the two soldiers to slide themselves through.

"You're bleeding." Tommy reached for her wrist as he waited for Dawson to pull himself to the other side.

He ran his hands soothingly across her palm as he inspected the cut. But Lucille pulled away, using the inner fabric of her coat to wipe away the remaining blood on her hand.

"We're not on the train yet, we can't stall." She said, before motioning for the two of them to follow them into main area of the station.

They slid amongst the travellers that murmured between themselves in the hallways, as they advanced toward their platform. It would be minutes before the train would leave, and Lucille was determined to get there. But as they emerged into the openness of the station, a shout startled her, making her face drain of any colour.

"There!" It was the soldier that had taken her makeup who was shouting and pointing toward her.

"Oh, God! Run!" She screeched, as she watched them barrel toward them, guns beginning to be raised in front.

As Lucille twisted around the corner and toward the platform, shot began to ring through the vast area and people screeched. The bullets bounced from the nearby train that the dodged around, crashing to the floor as they hadn't hit their targets.

Lucille called out in frustration as she watched the train begin to close its doors, the steam surrounding the floor on each side of it as it puffed out. It had begun to move slowly.

"We're going to have to jump." Tommy shouted, as he ran beside her, taking her by the hand so he could pull her forward, encouraging her to sprint faster.

"It's the last carriage." She told them as they neared the side of it, just as it's speed began to pick up.

Dawson wasted no time in jumping onto the side of the train, using the barrel of his gun to lift the locked bar of the large door, forcing it to break open. As Dawson fell into the carriage, Tommy jumped up after him, stopping against the side of the carriage so he could turn back to Lucille. She was panting now as she ran behind the train, her cheeks were read and her mouth was left open. She could see his hand, stretching out to reach for her.

"Come on Lucille!" He screamed, his arm not able to reach far enough as her feet began to tire.

"I can't!" She shook her head, but Tommy refused to leave her behind.

"Don't worry. I'll catch you. I promise you." He said, his eyes staring straight into hers.

Lucille heaved in a breath. There was no time to calm herself as the bullets had started to rain around her. She trusted Tommy enough to place her whole life in his hands. And now it was time to do it.

She willed her arms to move as she leaped forward, her legs crashing onto the side of the train, slipping slightly at the edge and she called out in fear. Tommy held on, gripping onto her waist as if his life depended on it, pulling her back into the carriage as they landed amongst the hay.

As Lucille lifted her head from where it hand landed on his chest, she looked down at him. Tommy's hands were still wrapped protectively around her waist as he smiled, his face flushed from the run.

"I told you I'd catch you." He whispered, and Lucille smiled, closing her eyes as they both leaned in.

Hope you're all staying safe xxx
Unedited