After terrorizing the Harrods staff, the children charged down the street, into the nearest toy shop to terrorize a shopkeeper already inundated with hyperactive children and harried, overburdened parents. Jordie and Romana lingered outside, hesitant to join in the fray. Jordana missed her trousers, having exchanged them for the dress she'd chosen to wear for travel.

"Do we have to go in," Jordie asked, sulking. She might have loved her children, but a shop full of children was the last thing she wanted to endure on the tail end of a lovely day.

Romana looked at her askance. "I've done all the shopping I mean to do for them, I don't really need to anything from here." She made no moves to retrieve their four from inside.

"You just wanted them out your hair," Jordie accused.

"And you didn't?"

"Fair enough."

They watched through the picture windows as Troy gravitated to the train sets and Madeline to the doctor bags on display. Dawn had a doll in one hand and a toy hammer in the other. Daniel was openly coveting a set of hand-painted miniature cars on a shelf.

Jordie sighed. She hadn't gotten her children either of the gifts they appeared to be favoring. "I might have to go in."

"Poor darling. Go on, I'll hold your bags."

"You aren't coming with me?"

"Afraid not. This is a job for the big burly army medic."

Jordie poked out her tongue. "Coward."

"I prefer 'strategic.'"

Jordie came out of the store with her purchases in time to see Romana reunite with a couple of her former Women's Volunteer Service comrades. Romana and the two women in the blue boxcoat indicating their roles as midwives exchanged loving hugs and season's greetings. Jordie felt strangely bereft seeing Romana with these women who had loved her before she knew her.

No sooner had her feet hit the pavement than Romana was dragging her over to meet them. One was petite and full-figured whilst the other was tall and statuesque. "Jordie, this little firecracker is Flora Wyman, another one of our number out of London."

"A fellow medic?"

"Guilty," Flora purred. "I specialize in obstetrics now the fighting's over. Seems everyone is having babies." The woman beside her coughed delicately, interrupting what must have been a well-worn routine. "And this is my long-suffering companion, Anabella." They exchanged convivial smiles. Romana had beautiful friends. "Who's your friend, Romana? I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

"Be good," Romana chastened, apropos of nothing.

"Shan't." Flora presented her hand for shaking. Jordie shook it and introduced herself. "Charmed, I'm sure." She took a chastising tone with Romana. "Romana Gentry, where have you been hiding this vision of loveliness? I know rationing is still in effect but keeping her all to yourself is just greedy."

"Erm, thank you?" Jordie repressed a stammer. She had a sinking feeling Flora wasn't referring to their fast friendship.

Romana patted her hand, consolingly. "Don't mind her, Jordie. Flora's never met a stranger in the wild she couldn't flirt with shamelessly."

Flora shimmied closer to Jordie. "I always say to expect the unexpected, i.e., me."

"Anabella, be a dear and wrangle this one before she runs my-Jordie off."

Anabella pulled Flora away from Jordie's blushing visage by her coat tie.

"You two never let me have any fun."

"Your idea of fun will see us all arrested," Anabella admonished under her breath. That the ensuing trial would be worse for the dark-skinned woman went without saying. Flora sobered.

"My apologies, mi amor." The exchanged a brief clinching of fingers. "I suppose I was excited to see who stole our Romana's heart."

Romana hissed. "Very funny, Flora. I can't help it if Jordie has all the charm of duchess and the strength of an Oxford rower."

"Have I now?"

"Shush, you know you do."

Jordie's permitted herself a small smile. She'd known Romana appreciated her physical prowess when it came to rearranging the furniture in her home and carrying the children up to bed, but this was the first time she'd said as much explicitly.

Flora clapped. "If all's forgiven, let's make a date to go to the cinema someday soon. We have to catch up, Romana, and you simply must bring your new paramour."

"Oh! I'm-Romana and I aren't-"

Romana cut her off. "I'll bring her, if I have to carry her on my back."

"I'd like to see you try, Gentry," said Jordie, feeling an unaccounted thrill at the idea of Romana getting physical with her.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Name the time and place."

"I'll take you up on that, later." Romana quirked both brows and Jordie's heart crawled in her throat. She wasn't sure they were discussing a good-natured wrestling match anymore. "And you, Flora, provided you're on your best behavior, I'll bring her round to yours in the New Year."

"Can't wait. Forgive us for running, Ana and I are due at Nonnatus House. For some reason, all the children of the East End are scrambling to be born at Christmas time."

The two women departed at a rapid clip and soon disappeared into the heaving mass of pedestrians travelling Oxford Street.

"So that's Flora? Just what kind of operation were you running in the WVS?"

"An effective one! Flora is simply...Flora. She's a bit much, but harmless."

"I like her. I can see you fitting in with her. You've got troublemaker written all over you."

"Do I now?"

"You got me to come all the way to London by batting your lashes. I'd say you do."

"Careful, I might start to think you like it when I bat my eyes."

"I don't mind it." Romana elbowed her, smirking. "Blimey, what an influence you turned out to be."

"A wonderful influence, as I'm sure you know. Gracias." Romana looped her arm through Jordie's, and they continued their stroll down the lane. It seemed, Jordie had been lovingly taken into the fold.

The children's energy properly began to flag at the conclusion of a full day in London. They'd passed Buckingham Palace and seen the palace guards. They'd visited the Victoria & Albert Museum. They'd ruined their appetites on all manner of chocolates and sweets. They'd been to countless toy stores and their mothers had the low thrumming headaches to prove it. They'd bounded over zebra crossings and romped through St. James Park constructing beshambled snow people with branch arms, dried apricot noses, and milky buttons on their clothes.

Jordie carried Madeline once she nodded off. Romana took Daniel in her arms when his youthful exuberance deserted him next.

"Could I ask you something?" Jordie asked, skewering the silence of their peaceful late afternoon stroll.

"Anything."

"Your friends, Flora and Anabella, are they?"

Romana blinked. "Are they what?"

Jordie readjusted the sleeping girl in her arms to ensure she was truly asleep. "Do they favor women?"

Romana made a contemplative noise. "And if they did?"

"I wouldn't-I wouldn't mind, of course, only it seemed to me Flora was implying..." She tilted her head back toward the greyish sky threatening snow or freezing rain.

"She was implying...?"

"That we might be...do you think..." She centered herself. "Are you?"

"Are you?"

"Would-would it matter if I were?"

"Not a jot. I wouldn't love you any less." Almost the perfect sentence.

"Were there others, erm, of a similar persuasion in the WVS?"

Romana tutted nonsense to soothe Daniel's sleepy snuffling. "Quite a few. Good comrades to have, all of them. Good friends, too."

It was a matter of some comfort to find out some of Romana's fellow WVS chums were of the Sapphic persuasion like herself. Romana loved them regardless; she would love Jordie regardless.