Telegraph

Author: slayerdudetteuk

Rating: PG 13

Disclaimer: Belongs to Joss, Fox, etc, not me.

Dedication: Lori for a fabulous beta and so much more. Magpie and Chris.

Feedback: Is lovely.

Angst Warning: Not kidding here. William in 1918. This will form the first part of a Five Things... when it will go up on the website.

He looks down at it. It's the fifth to have burnt his fingers and seared his heart. It's the last one he can ever receive, and the last thing in the world he ever wanted. It's a simple thing, the simplest in fact - only a piece of paper. Just words - but it's the end of his world. It seems wrong that he gave the telegraph boy a tip for tearing his heart out, but he's a gentleman, and gentlemen do what's right and proper. He always has.

It's given him everything. His darling Cecily - the best wife a man could hope for. The five sons she gave him, the joy and pride at their achievements. Three beautiful daughters, their dark curls taking the best from both of them and making them look like angels. He'd give anything for the girls not to have been taken with the fevers, but he knows he can't begrudge them to God. It's old fashioned, though as an old man in his sixties he's allowed to be, but he still finds comfort from the ring made up of their hair. He hopes Cecily feels the same, as she wears the matching brooch, but Cecily isn't one to talk about her feelings - she's a lady.

He's got the hardest thing in the world to do now. He has to tell her: his Lady, his beloved, the angel of the home, his beloved Madonna, that all their sons have now been taken from them. Taken in the service of King and Country. He tries to be proud, but it's been harder and harder each time.

His fingers caress the black ribbon across the corner of each photograph on his desk. Will - the eldest, the published writer, and his pride and joy, whose fingers, far cleverer than he ever had, are now stilled forever in the Flanders mud. Arthur - whose love of Kipling had taken him to his own deeds of derring do on the North- West frontier, even before the War to end all Wars. The strangely martial son he'd never understood - fallen so close to the topless towers of Illium that the schoolboy in him can't help but recite the verses from Homer over the pyre of his warrior boy and his colonial phalanxes. Richard - whose marriage into such a good family gave Cecily so much pleasure, though no grandchildren to grace the nursery - gassed and sent home to die, drowning on dry land, and the sight of whom had sent the last of his own hair white. Gentle David - slaughtered on the Somme.

And now Alfred, the baby of the family - swept away in the torrent of blood that's taken so many of their friend's sons, and now all of theirs. Cecily's sweet Affie - the only one she unbent her stays enough to play with, before sending him away like the rest to school. The popular boy always in demand for weekend parties at his friend's country houses, the darling young man all the debutantes wanted to catch, and with the face and sparkling blue eyes that made his mother and everyone who met him love him. The young man that made his mother proud, and who did effortlessly everything his father never did very well. The banter over a game of billiards, small talk over cigars and the port, and the charming of the ladies in the drawing rooms of all the parties he'd never deny Cecily, but never enjoyed. All so easy for his youngest, but all taken so lightly and with such a glint in his eyes and irresistibly wicked wit that William's never resented his son's bond with his mother. How could he? He still misses his own, dead so soon after his wedding.

Cecily had been a paragon among women when he lost his mother to that ghastly sickness that consumed her, supporting him in his grief, while arranging everything to minimize his pain, clearing everything away that could set off his tears. She'd been a tower of strength each time the girls sickened and died. His mourning angel armored in black silk bombazine and a backbone of steel, despite her own tears. He's indulged her passion for spiritualism and strange people with odd smells in the parlor because of it, though his own strongly held beliefs restrict him to talking to the vicar.

He hates to admit it, but Cecily's arms work better at giving him comfort than the words of God. She's the moon and the stars to him, and he blesses the evening she amazed him and said 'yes'. When she told him she wanted a quick engagement and wanted nothing better than to be his wife as soon as possible he knew he'd have to pay for tasting heaven on earth. Now he has - the fruits of that heaven all gone to God.

And he has to tell her. Then he has to be the man of the house and do his duty to the servants, tell them that Young Master Alfred has died in the service of the King Emperor. And he will. William's always done his duty. And it's so hard. He wipes away the tears, digs his nails into his hand until he has the control to do that duty, and eyes the whiskey decanter he's going to take refuge in when everyone's taken care of. Control won, he swallows hard and walks out to Cecily's parlor.

She must have heard the knock on the door earlier, and her eyes are enormous. They're also quick, darting down to the telegram still gripped in his hand. One look at his face and she knows that her baby's not missing or wounded, or best of all a prisoner of war. He's gone, and the only thing holding Cecily up is the whalebone of her corset, then as he reaches her, his arms. The telegram drops to the floor as he holds her and allows her to cry herself into coherence on his shoulder, while his own tears soak into the silver silk of her hair.

Once she's cried herself out he settles her on the sofa, and uses the bell for a stiff brandy for both of them. It helps a little. The spark of warmth allows him the strength to say, "Thank you," to Daisy for doing her job, and it allows Cecily to gather her strength. He loves it when she allows him to comfort her, to be her strong knight, but he loves her strength too, and he blesses it now, when he needs it so very badly. He'd rail at God if he didn't have her, but he does, and he's never needed her more than now, and, as ever, she's not let him down. She's strong enough to insist he goes to the Servants Hall and that she won't need her maid sent. She'll wait until he comes back, and she kisses him with the salt still damp on her cheeks.

Once he's gone she shouts, "Anyanka!"

And she appears with her customary aplomb. "Hallie!"

With the pain rasping in her voice Halfrek asks, "Why do you keep doing this to me?"

"'Why go for the death when you can go for the pain?' You know that's what D'Hoffryn always says. And you've provided such great entertainment for the Lower Beings. All those lovely deaths, marrying him. You're very popular with them, and with a war and the invention of film that's quite an achievement. You should be very proud." Anyanka smiles at her friend-former colleague.

"So why do they keep refusing to give me back my powers. By Mighty Gathros, I've tried hard enough to ask, to show myself worthy, and failing that to replace my power center." Halfrek's wrinkled hands claw at her throat never finding the right necklace amidst the chokers and cameos that ornament it.

"That's it. You lost it. Necklace crushed under the wheels of a train, you know D'Hoffryn would never forgive such carelessness. Putting your power center on a child annoyed at its widowed mother spending more time mooning after William, of all people, rather than with her, and then letting her get knocked under a moving train at Paddington Station. Really, Hallie, you know that's far too embarrassing for D'Hoffryn ever to let you come back from." Anyanka says, a tad bored at having to repeat this each time Halfrek lost a child. Anyanka's sure she should have got the message by now. She knows she would, if she was stupid enough to be in the other woman's shoes.

"But was it really necessary to curse all my children to die?"

"I was just doing my job, when you married the object of the annoyingly flattened offspring's widowed mother's affections, you know that. She'd been scorned, she was owed a wish, and the one she came up with fitted the bill for D'Hoffryn. It was that or the assassins. Hey, at least you got to live this way! She just wished you to know the pain of losing all your children: your everything, the way she did. She was very vehement on that point. So I did the curse. If he'd noticed her, I couldn't have done it. Why you did marry him? I've never really known, even if I did help you by immolating the real Cecily you were impersonating. And let me tell you, I got in trouble for helping you that much. I couldn't teleport for anything other than work for a month!" Anyanka won't be making that mistake again: not even for Halfrek.

"I couldn't stay as Cecily in her house for long, they'd have noticed the difference. Besides, William was rich, his mother wasn't long for the world - especially when I helped her out of it - and well, he had potential. But mostly I needed out of that house, he was convenient."

"Not for long. He's all you have now, isn't he?" Anyanka enquires for form's sake, though she knows the answer.

"Yes..."

"Lloyd's running a tontine on when you lose him too. I've got June 1923. It's one of the later dates, so I doubt I'll win, but hey, a girl can't win 'em all! You haven't. Sorry, I can't stay, have to be in Brazil. Have a good funeral! Bye, Hallie."

At which Anyanka disappears leaving Halfrek to go back to her façade as Cecily, in the full knowledge she hasn't seen the last of her losses. So she pulls the bell for another brandy. William will be back soon and he's not much, but he's all she has left, and she might as well get the most out of him, if he's next.

Background and designs from Opulant Designs.

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