Valerie
With thanks to @the-original-sineater and @mariashades for all the help.
A Movements AU Fic
~
Valerie Casey considered herself to be one of the luckiest women alive.
She had an amazing best friend in Lucille Tracy, three beautiful godsons in John Virgil and Gordon, and a job she adored. Val may not have been Scott’s literal godmother but she treated him as if he was. She absolutely delighted in taking them out and spoiling them rotten!
She also had a husband… Only she wasn’t quite sure where to categorise him.
Timothy Casey, Jefferson Tracy, Lee Taylor and herself had for a time all been stationed together and friendships had grown from shared experiences.
Val would never forget the day that Tim got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. They’d been friends longer than they'd been lovers and it had come as a surprise, but she was even more surprised when she said yes.
They had a small civil wedding on the base and a short honeymoon on the Texas coast before settling into married quarters.
Being friends with Tim - even with the occasional benefits - didn’t really mean she knew the man well, and as their married life progressed Val became more and more aware of behaviours that would have been a deal-breaker had she known beforehand.
She really had gone into this marriage with rose-tinted glasses.
But she’d made her bed and now she would lie in it.
Having Jeff and Lee around for those first few years of marriage tempered Tim. Friday nights the boys would all gather with a couple of others from the base and play poker while Val would use the time to indulge in her art. She was a practical woman in her working life but she rather loved working with clay, creating something from nothing.
And then Jeff and Lee left for NASA.
While they kept some contact up with Tim – and by extension herself – they weren’t the same. She didn’t realise how much having those Friday nights together had given Tim a stability he now was floundering without.
Their marriage up until then had been good. They had their arguments to be sure, some louder than others, but mostly they rubbed along just well. But now…the arguments were worse and more frequent. So Val threw herself into the military.
As she concentrated on her career Val found her feet and flourished, moving up the ranks quicker than Tim did. His sourness over the fact that his friends seemed to be leaving him behind and that even his wife’s career was going better than his killed whatever was left of their marriage but they stayed together because Tim absolutely could not show failure…Val didn’t mind, she had no interest in another relationship anyway.
She found comfort for a while in throwing clay, disappearing as often as she could into the little studio out the back. Soon she had a whole unit full of cups, jugs and vases. Val loved throwing the pots but she also enjoyed the delicate process of painting and decorating them.
Then out of the blue they received an invite to Jeff Tracy’s wedding.
Over the years since they had split they had seen Jeff exactly three times and received around the same number of phone calls. Every time Tim had lit up and returned to the man he’d been before, but on Jeff’s departing his mood had been even worse. Val was a little more concerned how Tim would react to his already severely diminished time with his best friend being curtailed even more, but there was a false sense of cheerfulness until they went to the wedding.
Val was so pleased they did. She and Lucy hit it off immediately, making plans to meet and strengthen their friendship. She was so happy when she got home. But Tim…Tim lost it. Val, frightened of her husband for the first and only time in her life, moved to her office for the night. When she got home her pottery studio had been destroyed.
It was the night that their marriage was finally over.
For the next few years she threw herself into her job and her growing friendship with Lucy. She recognised a kindred spirit in the woman - not just because they were both married to…overpowering men, but mostly because they shared so much - a keen sense of humour, a fierce work ethic and a shared love of art and music.
The two would have been fast friends regardless of how they had met. And it quickly became evident that Jeff – while on the surface as nice a man as could be – was, like Tim, very different behind closed doors. The shared experience brought the two women closer.
So it hadn’t come as a surprise the night Jeff had turned up on their doorstep, face like thunder, and pushed past her, ignoring her completely and joining Tim in his den. Val has stayed well out of the way but hadn’t left – she’d learnt the hard way not to disappear when Tim had friends over – and she bided her time.
When it became clear that Jeff was staying she’d slipped away the next morning to make sure Lucy was alright.
Time passed and their friendship grew. Val was pleased that after that one episode Tim had frozen her out completely. He was still civil to her and sometimes the four of them would meet up since the Tracys didn’t live too far away. Tim was good at putting a front up and Val never told anyone – not even Lucy – that their marriage was over.
When Lucy found out she was pregnant with Gordon Val was the first person she confided in. As the pregnancy progressed and Lucy began to have more and more health issues Val would pop around as often as she could, looking after the boys when she could.
It was after one of those days that Val came home, dumped her bag on the floor and kicked her shoes off when the doorbell rang. She opened it to find two of the base’s top brass on her doorstep.
She listened with increasing horror as they explained that Tim’s plane had crashed on a training exercise. There would be a full investigation of course, but at the moment they were looking at equipment malfunction of some description.
There wasn’t anyone to contact about Tim, he had no family alive save herself, but Val accepted a cup of strong, sweet coffee from one man as the other called Lucy. She hadn’t wanted to call Lucy but she also didn’t have anyone else.
That night Val couldn’t say what she did, whether she’d eaten or drank anything after the coffee…but just past midnight there was a knock on the door. It took her longer to open it than usual, her limbs felt like lead, but the sight of Lucy standing on her doorstep, arms open, lightened her heart and Val fell into her best friend’s arms and sobbed her heart out.
They may have been estranged for the last seven years or so, but Tim had been a big part of her life for so long that she truly mourned him, or rather she mourned the man she fell in love with.
Tim Casey was buried with full military honours and attended by most of the base as well Lucy and Jeff’s parents. Jeff and Lee were still on the moon, much to their annoyance.
Lucy offered to stay but with her pregnancy entering its sixth month and her health still fragile Val had refused. She’d been practically living a single person most of the time anyway.
Two weeks later, the day Jeff was released from NASA, Lucy went into labour and Val, still on leave, rushed to be with Ruth and the boys. She stayed with them until Lucy was released from the hospital and fell as deeply in love with her newest Godson as she was with her others before she needed to return home and to her new position in the GDF.
As soon as Jeff could he paid her a visit. Val found herself biting her lip as he waxed lyrical about Tim. She let him carry on talking as she only half listened, but when he started talking about the accident investigation she began to pay more attention.
The investigation had turned up a gearbox failure and a failure of the arming of the ejection seat system. Which all added up to a failure in maintenance. Jeff ranted about how the Airforce had let Tim down and swore that his business would be branching out into making safer jets for the GDF and the USAF.
Val was impressed at the strength of Jeff’s ire over his friend and looked forward to see what Tracy Industries would produce – she’d seen some of Lucy’s revolutionary designs – and she settled down to wait and see what Lucy would produce.
But as Gordon and his brothers grew no new plane designs with Lucy’s name came to light although just before Gordon’s second birthday Jeff released new flier designs with his name on.
And Val began to realise her best friend’s life was more controlled and manipulated than she had ever realised.
Val Casey resolved from that moment on to bring Lucy out from Jeff’s shadow.
