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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
New fic up! Every week between now and Christmas (probably sometime Wed-Fri, but I don’t want to tie myself to a specific day), I’ll post a new chapter of a snapshot of Christmas in a different year with Theresa and Philip. This is 1976, just after they’d met, and I’m planning to also do 1980, 1981, 2012, and 2017.
Have a wonderful Christmas season, and I hope you enjoy!
Request and concept from @politicaltestudine. Warning: you might need tissues.
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“Granny, I think Teddy needs more tea,” Philip heard a sweet voice say as he neared the dining room.
“Here, let’s pour her some together,” he heard Theresa respond, and he turned the corner to see his wife steadying her mother’s teapot with one hand, the other covering the hand their granddaughter had wrapped around the handle. The little girl was standing by Theresa’s chair, pressing close to her grandmother as they poured more tea into the stuffed animal’s cup. When they had finished, Theresa could not resist a light touch to the child’s long blonde hair, the love written on her face as Tess gathered the tea cup and saucer carefully in her tiny hands.
This was, of course, Theresa’s mother’s tea set, which he’d never seen her use before their granddaughter’s birth, afraid to chip or break something so irreplaceable. But then there’d been Tess, who’d wanted to have tea parties, and Granny had immediately fetched the prettiest tea set from the china cabinet. Philip had cautioned against this—was it wise to hand something both precious and fragile to a four-year-old?—but Theresa had waved his concern away.
“Oh, I don’t care about these old tea cups if they make her happy,” she had said. And indeed, she hadn’t batted an eye when Tess had dropped one a few months ago, worrying only that the little girl might cut herself on the shards and giving her a warm hug to reassure her that Granny wasn’t angry and there were more cups in the china cabinet.
He joined his wife in regarding the little one softly as she took the filled cup over to the bear, patting it gently on the head as she delivered it. There had clearly been a round of dress-up first, as both Theresa and Tess were wearing two of Theresa’s biggest hats. Tess was also sporting a strand of pearls that hung halfway to her navel, as well as a pair of far-too-big leopard heels that clomped noisily on the hardwood floor as she walked.
“Granny?” she said, shuffling back over to Theresa.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Can I sit on your lap now?”
“Of course you can,” Theresa said, helping the little girl climb up onto her lap. “Why don’t we take your hat off so you’re more comfortable?”
Tess nodded and immediately snuggled into her grandmother’s chest once the hat had been removed, and Philip watched as Theresa cuddled her close. His wife had always been wonderfully tender and warm with children, who were easily drawn to her, but this time, now that it was her own granddaughter she was holding, everything in her posture clearly suggested she was holding a priceless treasure.
And then, both their faces began to blur, the room fading around them, the scene going black…and Philip slowly realized the darkness was his bedroom, and he had been dreaming.
He closed his eyes, wanting to hold onto the dream. He could still remember the joyful smile on Theresa’s face as she’d held the little girl, the careful way her arms had wrapped around…what was her name? That’s right, Tess. Probably, he thought wistfully, short for Theresa.
Yet remembering it was nothing like dreaming it had been: in the dream, it hadn’t merely been an imagining; he had accepted the existence of a granddaughter as reality. It hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder where she had come from.
But waking hadn’t been a disappointment, not really. Philip was, after all, lying next to Theresa, and it could never be a disappointment to wake up next to the woman he’d loved for forty-plus years.
He rolled onto his side to face her, wanting to study her face in the dark. What he truly wanted, of course, was to tell her about his dream, to mourn together what they had never had, to reflect together on the sweetness he had just glimpsed. But that would never do. He regretted that they hadn’t had children, certainly, but he had grieved for the situation years ago and moved forward from there. Seeing his wife fuss over little ones now—as she had done today at a local fête—was merely bittersweet.
But for Theresa, their childlessness was an ongoing heartache that could and did still make her cry, and he would never say anything that might bring her more pain or suggest that he thought their marriage in any way incomplete. For Theresa had been more than enough for him, and he would rather wake up next to her than have a hundred grandchildren.
He could not resist touching her, reaching his hand out to gently brush her hair back.
“Philip?” she murmured sleepily, and he winced. She didn’t sleep enough as it was, and he hadn’t mean to wake her.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Ignoring this, she blinked her eyes open. “Are you awake? What’s wrong?”
“Shh, nothing’s wrong,” he said, stroking her hair again. “You need your sleep.”
Theresa closed her eyes and snuggled close to him, and he kissed her forehead, soothed by the warmth of his wife in his arms.
“You’re sure everything’s all right?” she whispered as she settled against him.
“More than all right,” he said, feeling the truth of his words. “Everything’s perfect.”
So @politicaltestudine and I were discussing if Theresa came home from New York to discover that Phil had caught her cold from last week...
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“The-reeeez-er,” Philip whined, drawing out the middle syllable.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“I feel awful.”
“I know, sweetie.” Theresa petted his head, which was laying in her lap. “You’ll feel better in a couple days.”
“I can’t last a couple days like this,” he whined. “I really don’t feel good.”
This was all very familiar territory. While she dealt with being sick by denying it, Philip handled the common cold with whining. A lot of whining.
When they’d been newly married, she’d suggested—quite sincerely—that he wouldn’t feel so bad if he weren’t so focused on how sick he was. In response, he’d given her a very pitiful look and said, “But I feel better if I tell you about it.” And he’d been telling her about it for thirty-seven years now.
Theresa didn’t really mind. There was something very sweet about the five-foot-seven-inch baby he turned into when he was ill, and about the way he seemed to need her to take care of him. In the last few years, she had even come to relish it—not that she ever wanted him to be ill, but between her health and her work, Philip was nearly always looking after her, and she was glad for the opportunity to take care of him instead. In fact, she suspected she had managed to make him even whinier, reinforcing his whines by responding with sympathy and cuddles to every complaint.
“I know you don’t feel good,” she said now. “But you’re very strong and very tough, so I think you’ll come through.”
“My throat hurts.”
“I know, sweetie. Do you want some more honey tea?”
“No,” he muttered, in a tone that suggested he was appalled at the very suggestion. She’d poured rather a lot of tea down his throat today already. Then: “My head hurts, too.”
“Do you want me to get you something cold?”
“If you think it will help,” he said, so hopelessly that she hid a smile.
“Yes, sweetie, I think it will help. Sit up a bit so I can get up.”
Philip grumbled at this but complied, and she stepped into the kitchen to retrieve an ice pack from the freezer.
“There now,” she said as he settled back on her lap, lying on his side. “Can you hold this against your forehead?”
“Can’t you just do it?” he said peevishly, as though she had asked him to get up and repaint their entire flat.
Well, that was classic sick Philip. She had a print-out of her Brexit speech in one hand and a pen in the other—she had just gotten home from New York that morning, and tomorrow’s speech desperately needed a last-minute review. However, Theresa was sitting on the sofa with an end table to her immediate right, so she could lay the papers there, keeping the pen in her right hand.
“Of course I can hold it, sweetie. Of course.”
Philip was silent for a few minutes, and she used this brief reprieve to turn her attention back to a paragraph that wasn’t quite right.
“Everything else hurts, too,” he muttered a moment later. “I really hurt.”
“I know sweetie; I know.” She’d heard his symptoms listed out many times by now, and they were familiar anyway, as this was the same cold she’d had herself last week. She would have liked to get him into a hot bath, which would both make him feel better and get her some peace, but she knew he thought them womanly—and he wouldn’t have liked the idea of anything that took him out of her presence anyway. “Do you want me to get you the heating pad?”
“No. That won’t help.”
She rather thought it would, but she knew better than to push remedies on him.
“I was alone when I first got sick,” he muttered next. “Because you were gone yesterday.”
Theresa had heard this fact cited approximately five hundred times in the few hours she’d been home. She might have felt either guilty or irritated at this repetition, but she knew he was not so much upset as he was angling for even more attention than usual. He had quickly discovered that Theresa felt badly enough at having not been there to nurse him that she responded to these reminders with absolutely anything he wanted. In fact, this was how he’d negotiated his current position in her lap—she would not ordinarily have agreed to be thus distracted while working on one of the most important speeches of her career, even by a sick husband.
“Poor baby,” she said, hoping this was a bid for nothing more than sympathetic words. She needed to get this speech done. “All by yourself, with nobody to take care of you. But it’s okay; I’m here now. I’m right here.” Right here, trying to work on her Brexit speech.
“I think I need my back rubbed.”
She should have known when she sat down with the speech that this would never work. A sick Philip demanded full attention.
“Of course you do, sweetheart. Do you want to go lie down in bed while I do that?”
“No, here is fine. I’m comfortable here.”
Philip rolled forward slightly to give her better access, and she set the pen down as well now, pushing her speech aside for later. Maybe she could put him to sleep…
The ice had been in her left hand, but she switched it to her right, as he was stretched out to her left, and began to massage his shoulders.
“Your hand is really cold,” he whined.
“That’s because it was holding your ice.” Philip grunted at this. “It’ll be warm in a minute or two,” she told him. She wasn’t a miracle worker.
He fell silent, his eyes drifting shut as his muscles relaxed under her hand. Five minutes passed…then ten…surely he was almost asleep…
“Theresa?” Philip’s eyes fluttered open. “I need some ice cream for my throat.”
Of course he did. And of course he wasn’t asleep. He was, Theresa realized with an inward sigh, not going to fall asleep for a very long time.
So politicaltestudine and I were talking on Wednesday about how Theresa sounded in PMQs like she had a cold, and then that evening she got dragged to this reception where she looked tired and sickly. So that inspired a fic.
(Note to the other non-Brits: Lemsip is a popular British cold medicine that I learned about from theresabrasier. It’s a powder you put in hot water that makes this drink that helps sore throats and congestion.)
“Philip?” she heard what was left of her voice call out as she stepped into the flat. Theresa knew she didn’t sound at all well, that the thickness in her speech at PMQs at noon had deteriorated into gravel in the intervening nine hours. And she resented it heavily for giving an outward sign that she was losing the battle against her cold.
“You’re home!” Philip popped into the hallway, a warm smile on his face and his eyes crinkling with concern. After a quick study of her face, he held his arms out for her, and she marveled at how well he always read what she wanted from him—and what she wanted now was to be held. She let herself relax into his arms, leaning against him so that he took some of her weight, feeling exhaustion deep in her bones as she rested her head on his shoulder. How good it felt to lay her head down! There seemed to be an elephant sitting on her sinuses.
Philip kissed the top of her head. “You doing okay?” he asked gently, his hand making slow passes up and down her back.
“Yes,” she murmured, her voice thick. “I’m fine.”
Another kiss, but he didn’t disagree. They had a longstanding, unspoken agreement that she would deny she was sick, fighting the idea of illness with her last breath, and he would humor her and not argue and go on looking after her regardless. Theresa closed her eyes, grateful he didn’t press her further, and enjoyed the silence and the embrace.
“Let me feel your forehead,” he said quietly after a moment.
“I don’t have a fever.” She could sense that much.
Philip disentangled himself anyway, silencing her with a look, and then laid his hand to her head. She would never have admitted it, but that felt good as well.
“No, you don’t,” he said as he moved his hand to caress her cheek. “I don’t think you’ve got a fever.” He paused. “You know what might be nice? A warm bath. Why don’t I run one for you, and you can relax for a bit. And then we’ll get you to bed.”
Theresa wanted to protest this, but she realized as he spoke that it was exactly what she wanted. She could feel a dull pain in her back and her legs, that heavy ache of being sick, and nothing sounded better than stretching out in a tub full of hot water.
“Yes, please,” she said, nodding and swallowing her pride. She didn’t have it in her to refuse that.
She followed him back to the master bedroom, where she sank onto the foot of their bed, curling up while he ran the water and gathered towels, admitting to herself that she had an awful cold and probably would have done better to come upstairs and lie down after work rather than pushing through a full red box and then spending a couple hours at the Jewish New Year reception.
“Sweetheart?” Theresa opened her eyes a few minutes later to see Philip standing over her, his expression soft. “Your bath’s ready. Would you rather just go to bed, though?”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “No, I want the bath.” She wanted to ease her muscles more than she wanted immediate sleep.
“Do you want me to help you get undressed?”
“No.” She shook her head again as she sat up. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good.” He kissed her forehead. “You go and get in the tub, and I’ll make you some Lemsip and bring you some pills I’d like you to take.”
She rolled her eyes at this suggestion, but he ignored her, and she undressed and then slipped into the warm water, sighing softly as it covered her. Philip, of course, had filled the tub with mountains of bubbles, and she could tell from the milky softness of the water that he’d added a liberal amount of her favorite bath salts. Resting her head against the wall, she took a deep breath, hoping the lavender scent would clear her passages.
Her husband returned eventually with a hot mug of the lemony drink, and she sipped it gratefully, realizing how raw her throat had grown and savoring the soothing warmth. And then he left her to soak in peaceful solitude, letting the bath and the medicine do their work and popping back in twenty minutes later to suggest bed. She readily agreed, drying off and then slipping on the pajamas he brought her—pajamas that were blessedly warm from a spin in the dryer, a small bit of thoughtfulness that suddenly made her want to cry.
She was soon settling into their bed, Philip fetching her an extra pillow to keep her head a bit more elevated. Theresa would never have let anyone else fuss over her, but she loved the way he took care of her: quietly, matter-of-factly, without forcing her to admit how awful she felt. And with the kisses and cuddles that she received so often anyway, regardless of her health.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead now as she lay down. “Would you like me to rub your feet until you fall asleep, sweetheart?”
He knew that she loved that on nights when she was at her most exhausted, as she was now, and especially when she had stood for hours, as she had today. And it did sound wonderful. But…
Theresa shook her head. “No, I’d rather you laid down and held me.”
“Of course.” He gave her another kiss and then climbed in with her, wrapping her up in his arms.
“You don’t have to stay all night,” she said as she snuggled close to him. “I don’t mind if you want to go sleep in the spare room.
“I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere.”
“I’ll snore. I can’t breathe, so I know I’ll snore.”
He kissed her. “You’re cute when you snore.” Philip had said that before, and she had never been able to quite comprehend it.
“I don’t want you to catch this, though.”
“My dear, that ship has already sailed. If I’m destined to catch it, I think I probably already have.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Shh.” He held a finger to her lips. “I think you should sleep now. I want you to wake me if you need anything, all right?”
She nodded, but they both knew she wouldn’t. She would get up on her own, and the movement would wake him, and then he would argue her back into bed.
But for now, she closed her eyes, rested her head on his chest, and let herself drift off.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The last chapter is up! (I may add on at some point, but I think this is the end for now. I do have another multi-chapter planned, but it will be awhile before I post it. Of course, there will always be one-shots!)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter 3 is up!
I PROMISE things will get better at some point. But this is not that point.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
New chapter up! (Plan is to always do updates on Thursdays...which may be Friday morning if you’re in Europe and I don’t do it till late my time.)
Fair warning that this is a super angsty and upsetting chapter. If you drink, you should probably have lots of wine handy, and if you don’t then you’ll want lots of chocolate.
So @politicaltestudine and I were talking about how Theresa had this 6-month period where she was really sick in 2013, because she had type 1 diabetes, but she was misdiagnosed with type 2, and thus she wasn’t getting the right treatment and she wasn’t getting any insulin so she just kept getting sicker and sicker. She looks like death warmed over in some of her pictures that spring, and she would have felt like crap because she couldn’t regulate her blood sugar properly, but she probably just thought she needed to keep her head down and adjust to her condition. (And by the way she didn’t step back at all as Home Secretary during this period, because she’s a total badass.) And of course we’re sure that Philip was just worried sick and wishing he could fix it all.
Anyway, this all led to a little ficlet, based on this conversation and on the way that she seems to dress like she never really gets hot...
Why was she always so cold? As much as she hated monitoring every last bite she put in her mouth, and the frequent pricks to check her blood sugar, and how awful and tired she usually felt, Theresa sometimes thought the worst bit of her newly-diagnosed diabetes was that she was constantly freezing. Perhaps it was her rapid weight loss, perhaps it was the circulation issues she’d been warned were so common to the disease, but whatever it was, she was so very sick of shivering.
At the moment, she was stretched out in the recliner on a Sunday afternoon in Maidenhead, feeling thoroughly miserable and trying to rest a bit before the return to their Pimlico flat that evening. Her goal in recent months had merely been to push through each day, waiting for the next morning to arrive, hoping that her body would eventually adjust. Theresa was beginning to doubt that would ever happen.
She was also beginning to doubt that she’d ever doze off: she was deeply chilled, and no amount of flopping around and trying to burrow into the recliner was going to warm her up. She’d toyed with getting up and retrieving a blanket from the linen closet, but the idea of dragging her exhausted body up the stairs was thoroughly unappealing. Philip was relaxing on the couch nearby, his nose in one of his Churchill books, and she’d also thought about asking him to get her one, but he’d done so much for her lately and had waited on her hand and foot so often that she didn’t particularly want to disturb him when there was nothing truly wrong.
Adding a single layer probably wouldn’t help much anyway, she thought. It was her that was cold, not the air temperature. Sighing softly, she turned onto her right side, shrinking into herself in hopes of being warmer in a different position.
Philip looked up at her, his eyes soft. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“I’m just resting,” she murmured. She didn’t want him to go and fetch her anything, and she also didn’t feel well enough to want to discuss it.
“You don’t seem like you’re resting,” he said gently, placing the bookmark back in his biography and setting it aside. Don’t get up, she wanted to say as he stood, but she didn’t have the strength to argue with him. “You seem like you can’t get comfortable,” he went on as he crossed the room to her. “You keep tossing and turning over here.”
“I’m okay,” she lied, gazing up at him as he began to stroke her hair. She knew how the eyes meeting his must look to him: she’d felt and looked like death for weeks and weeks, and surely he could see it, but he’d continued to cover her in kisses regardless.
“I’m not sure that’s true,” he said. “Is there something I can do to help you?” Theresa shook her head. “Does something hurt? Do you want me to rub you anywhere?”
She shook her head again. “No. I just can’t get warm,” she admitted. “I’m never warm anymore.”
“Darling, you should have said something sooner. I can get you a blanket.”
“I didn’t want to bother you,” she said in a small voice.
“It doesn't bother me to try to make you feel better,” he said, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “It only bothers me when I can't. Now, let me get you something to warm you up.”
Philip was gone longer than she’d expected, and she wondered vaguely what had distracted him, but he returned several minutes later with a particularly fluffy blanket in his arms. “Here we are,” he said happily as he opened it up, and she murmured in surprise when he began to wrap it around her: the fabric was gloriously hot.
“I let it spin around in the dryer for a few minutes,” he said. “Thought I should get it nice and warm for you. Is that better?”
She beamed up at him. “It’s perfect! Thank you, sweetheart.”
“Would you like me to sit with you, and we can both take a nap?”
That sounded like the most wonderful idea ever, and she nodded. She stood up to let Philip sit down, and then she settled herself around him, her legs draped over his lap and her head resting on his chest, his body heat warming her from beneath and the hot blanket warming her from above.
“This feels so nice,” she murmured, feeling her body going limp with encroaching sleep.
“I’m glad, darling,” she heard him say, a slight wistfulness in his voice, as she closed her eyes. “I’m glad I’ve helped you.”
