I put down 1200 words on an Endeavour 9x03 wip tonight. Mostly a few missing scenes to smooth out the disappointing lack of aftermath for collapsing after being stabbed. Very cathartic. Feels like my own way of saying goodbye.
I can't believe its been seven years since I posted an Endeavour fic. 👀 I feel like my writing has grown so much since then. Here's a little snippet...
It’s not the deep aching pain in his back that by rights should be a lot more painful than it is that finally gives Morse a reason to open his eyes, rather its the sense that he’s not alone wherever he is. Not his own bed, that’s for sure. Hospital most likely. Almost certainly. It’s probably where he should have gone in the first place if he’s being honest. It was impossible to see the wound but from the hot wetness he’d felt down his back maybe he should have known an improvised bandage would only buy him so much time. He hadn’t really thought it through, just get to the wedding reception. Anything after that, well, it would be what it was.
It was busy, she was busy. He drank with his brothers until closing and made his way home alone past the yard to say ‘goodnight’ to Charlie and collect a box of cigarettes. He slept finally. Fitfully. Ears straining for the picks ringing on something hard; rock, bone, betraying themselves. What was that? There it was again. The muffled scrape of shovels no more than a yard off. Every muscle tensed. He pressed against the earth to hear it again, it was soft and giving and… covered in flannel. He sat up drenched in sweat and clawed at his hair, staring unseeing at the striped paper on the wall. With habit his hand reached blindly for the box and opened it - a jarringly exotic floral smell emerged. A pause, as the urgency ebbed and a rattle told the quiver in his hands. Recoiling, the lid was flipped closed on the paraphernalia and the box went back to its home. He lit a cigarette and balanced it, rubbed his eye sockets hard, splashed some water into them. He changed his undershirt, dressed in a hurry with the day’s clothes, dragged on an overcoat and left.
The St Andrews bells chimed twice as his hunched shape made its way through the dark streets. There was no plan. He’d wait in the alley opposite, lean against the cold brick until it was a reasonable hour to wake her. They could have tea. Maybe take a walk. She’d smile at him and take his arm. He could ask her to do the research for Doncaster.
To his surprise, a wan light shone from the window. The only luminescence down the whole street. He went to the landing outside her door, removed his cap, and hesitated. A faint tune reached him through the wood; she was humming. He knocked gently, “it’s me.” He coughed, awkward. Footsteps. She opened the door, a shy smile hovering at the edges of her mouth. She smelled like she always did. Roses. He didn’t know flowers, but briar roses were always blooming when, as boys, they followed the towpath out of the city to the meadows to muck about in the water. Roses, he knew those.
“Come in,” she moved out of the way and shut the door behind them. “I was just reading. Couldn’t sleep. Don’t much, if I’m honest. D’you want some tea? There’s a pot.”
“Please.”
“It’s quite late for a social call,” she sounded amused as she took a cup from the mantle.
“I couldn’t sleep either. Was taking a walk and noticed a light up ‘ere.”
“It’s a little out of the way…”
“Just trying to clear my head.”
As she poured the admittedly overbrewed tea she looked closely at him. He was pale, collarless, stubble glinted at his jaw and he held the cap in a clenched fist. His chest heaved. “Will you have sugar? Milk?”
“No. As it comes is fine. ”
“Let me take that coat. Will you sit?” She motioned to a chair and draped the coat neatly over the foot of the bed.
“Thanks.”
“Tommy, are you ok?”
“Getting there.” His eyes, clear despite the hour, said please. Help. Grace rested a hand on his shoulder, leaned in and gave him a kiss like flowers.
He took the seat offered. She sat where she had been, cursing herself a little for being unprepared. She was facing the stove so the wall was in the way of her favoured hand, he was between her and the door and even her gun was out of reach. But he was no threat. Not tonight. She eased back.
Tommy reached across and picked up her book, registering it; the title, Dubliners, the dull cloth binding, the thumbed quality. She said she had nearly finished it, only a few more pages of The Dead to go, did he want to borrow it? He raised his brows in surprise, “all right.” She smiled and nodded, noting the chill in the air that had descended after midnight, the light frost on the window pane. He said she should wait for July. Then he spoke about those swims, their escape from the furnace the city turned into; it was a pretty place they went to, a stream curved around a little beach before meeting the canal, he’d take her there when it was summer again. She said she used to swim in the stream at the bottom of the garden when she was a child. Grace loved swimming in rain, she said, which was fortunate because Ireland was so rarely sunny. Oh! And there was a kingfisher too, a beautiful bird, a friend, almost tame, that she fed sometimes with meat. When she wasn’t swimming she was riding or reading “in that order” or maybe pinning her horse brasses to a rich velvet backing. Tommy said he once collected brasses too, they’d often turn up somehow through Uncle Charlie and he liked holding them and admiring their shine. She used to order hers, she said, they’d arrive in the post, a highlight of any month. They went on in this way, this, that, smoking, drinking tea until, noticing her watching him closely again, he said, “You observe don’t you? That’s what you do.”
She sat back, “yes,” held his eyes, “it comes from growing up with no brothers or sisters, I think. But then, you watch too.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s a useful skill. Observation. Learned it to pick a good horse. Needed it to stay alive.”
She understood he didn’t want to go further down that route and changed the tack a little. “What do you see now?” Moonlight dappled on her face through the net curtain. It was brighter than the lamp and half her features seemed shaded.
“I see someone who was once happy and… lonely. You’ve always been lonely. That’s how you know animals are better company than people.”
Her eyes flickered their tell. But he was talking about himself, too. “I like your company,” she said simply, artlessly. She reached for his hand.
“That’s something,” he nodded, and leaned towards her.
They moved together. She was everything as she wrapped around him; when her throat made the sweet dusky daybreak call he felt joy; as his love throbbed out deep inside her he found peace. And in the hinterland near sleep, fingers twined, her lips against his shoulder, he was safe. He slept like a child.
She knew the moment was coming when he would want to put a bullet in her. Maybe she’d be gone before it, maybe. Until then, she’d hold him and keep him with hands that had remembered gentleness. She had no choice. She waited for dawn.
*Grace hides Tommy from Campbell on Friday 21st November. Black Star Day is Wednesday 3rd December.
