narniaexchange | Under Cover 2/2

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Title: Under Cover
Author:

rthstewart
Recipient:

makinhistory
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “I’m more concerned about a decent night’s sleep than I am about a silly school reputation, Scrubb."
AN: Thanks to my beta.

Part 2

O0o0o0o0O0o0o0o0O0o0o0o0

Summer, 1946

It was the hols, the War was over, and most of the American GIs were gone. They’d left their mark though. You heard it in the music on the BBC that had started normal broadcasting again, in the popular swing and the jazz records, and in all that lewd dancing that went along with the music.

Pole had picked up the Lindy and Jitterbug in Girl Guides, and the two of them started practicing at night before bed. That meant there were loud thumps coming from his room sometimes over the term. They were both Prefects, though, and so no one ever asked about it except the Head Boy, and Jill started teaching him to dance, too.

Edmund was the one who found a dance hall a couple miles from where they were all staying that did not have a No Jitterbugging sign in the window. So they all went and it was really a brilliant time. It was smoky and loud and the floor got a little sticky from the spilled drinks, but it was terrific fun to finally dance in a place where you weren’t worried about banging your shins on a desk in your dormitory.

Lucy looked very modern in her men’s trousers. She went about the hall and rounded up the men for darts in the back. Between games, she would coax on to the dance floor anyone who was free, the old gaffers, and the vets who were missing limbs and eyes, the shy schoolboys, and the sad women who had lost their men in the War and the plump little schoolgirls. It could have seemed scandalous or odd, but it wasn’t at all. It was just Lucy, who shined so bright and was so merry and gay and everyone who saw her wanted to be in her light for a little bit.

Susan danced with her brothers and her pilot boyfriend, who seemed a bit smarmy to Eustace and Edmund didn’t like him much. He was a great dancer though, and was very nice to Pole without being a flirt. The man knew how to dance with Pole the same way that Edmund and Peter danced with their sisters. You couldn’t describe it, exactly, but you could see it. So, Eustace was able to sit back and enjoy how well they looked doing some pretty complicated flips and turns without worrying about it.

Edmund and Peter had come with their girls – though Peter’s girl was really a woman and it was stupid to call her Peter’s girlfriend and she didn’t like it either. She had a house and a real job, too. She and Peter didn’t dance so much. It seemed like they knew just about everyone in the place and so they went around and talked to people and Peter wrote things down in the notebook he always carried.

Edmund and his girl danced and argued. They seemed to like quarreling, but Eustace thought it was pretty tiresome to listen to them.

They got back to the house really late and everyone went their separate ways and since Pole had been bunking with Lucy, she came to his room. Eustace hadn’t given much thought to the arrangements before, but now the shuffling that had happened before they left for the club made a lot more sense.

Lying there on top of their blanket and under the cover of the other, Eustace could hear faint sounds and he knew they weren’t the noises of the house settling. It wasn’t surprising, really. Not after what they’d seen that night and what he had guessed about his cousins. They had been Kings and Queens, and he’d learned a lot about the English, French and Russian royalty in history now that Experiment House was actually teaching. He didn’t imagine it had been that different when his cousins had ruled Narnia as monarchs.

“I suppose they were all old in Narnia,” Pole said, speaking his thought aloud.

“They were there a long time,” he replied. “When they left, they were older than they are now.”

“I think they are all glad to be able to act more their real age. They don’t have to hide it so much.”

He knew what she meant. You could see it in how Susan let her boyfriend light her cigarette and in how she arched her neck when he kissed it. There was a way that Edmund’s hand lingered on his girl’s hip and how Peter and his girlfriend (and he was really going to have find a better word for her) danced during the slower music. They were all enjoying themselves. It wasn’t something Eustace had ever seen before – grown up couples doing grown up things who liked being with each other and who were being affectionate. Harold and Alberta never were affectionate, not to him, not to each other. He wondered how his parents had ever managed to produce him and they must have thought it all pretty distasteful.

And then it hit him in the way that things sometimes did. He and Pole were fourteen, they were lying in a bed together, in the dark, alone. And she was a girl. Was she expecting the same sorts of things his cousins were doing? Was he?

Another sound came through the walls.

And Pole, Aslan bless her, did the one thing that he most needed. She giggled. And then he started giggling, too. They laughed a long time into their pillow because it might have been uncomfortable but mostly it was just really funny.

Eventually, Pole flopped over on her back, laughter spent. They stayed that way for a while, staring at the bed canopy.

“If I tell you something, Scrubb, can you promise not to get mad?”

“I’ll try,” was the best he could do. He’d been trying to figure a way to get words out himself. Pole was always the braver one this way. He hoped they were thinking the same thing.

“I’m not ready to be as grown up as your cousins.”

He let out a huge, relieved sigh. “Me either, Pole.” The sounds now were just those of the night, an old house, and their creaky bed. “It does seem good fun. For grown ups,” he added quickly, not wanting Pole to get the wrong idea. “When you’re grown up.”

“I do like that about them. The way others talk, you’d think being with someone was all nasty and wicked and not nice at all.” Pole finally said after a long pause, “Seeing them so happy makes me think I’d want to do those things, some day.”

“I think I so, too. Some day. When I’m more grown up.”

They settled again into their bedroll the way they always did, side by side, on top of one blanket and under the cover of the other, Pole at his back.

O0o0o0o0O0o0o0o0O0o0o0o0

Winter Term, Experiment House, 1947

The problem about growing up was that you really couldn’t predict when it would happen and some of it was pretty damn awkward when it did. Peter had taken him aside over the summer and provided some blunt, practical information, so Eustace was prepared, even if he’d hoped it might just pass him by. It turned out that Susan had given Pole the same lecture.

And when it all finally started in, it was as embarrassing as he thought it would be. But, Pole was an absolute brick about it and said that sooner or later, something similar was going to happen to her, too. And, sure enough, it did, and when it did, Pole was scarlet with embarrassment and so then it was his turn to be the brick about it.

And that was that.

Pole started to look a little less like a pole and Eustace could tell he was changing, too, though he’d never be the Gibraltar rock that Peter was. It didn’t matter over much to the two of them. The bed got a little more cramped, but not so much as they were going to change a habit of the last five years.

Their fellow students were another matter.

They were lying in his bed together as they always did, one blanket beneath, under the cover of the other, side by side, Pole at his back.

After the fifth sigh and sixth toss, Eustace finally asked, “What’s on your mind, Pole?”

“I was wondering if I should say anything.”

“Can’t stop now, then.”

She sighed a sixth time. “Dorothy Jones asked me today if you and I were going.”

“Going where?”

Pole’s seventh sigh was directed at how thick he could be sometimes. “Together. Out. If we were a couple.”

Eustace burst into a deep guffaw and Pole rolled over and punched him in the arm with her hard little fist.

“Ow! Pole, I wasn’t having one on you.”

“Then stop laughing!”

“I was laughing because Sims asked me the same thing about you. He wants to ask you to the dance next week.”

Pole went really quiet. “He does?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?” Pole asked in a very small voice.

“I expect the same thing you told Jones. That we’re not going.”

The question had truly startled him and Eustace knew that his stunned, open mouthed shock was the answer Sims had hoped for. In fact, Eustace hadn’t said anything at all. Sims just grinned in relief and slapped him on the back. “Thanks, Scrubb. I wasn’t sure, so thought I’d better do right by you and ask first.”

“I told Dorothy the same thing. That we weren’t going.” Pole plucked at the coverlet. “Sims?” There was a whole conversation in her one word.

“Sims is a good bloke,” Eustace said. He really wasn’t sure how he felt about this, so he’d decided to not think about it at all. He and Pole weren’t going, not like his cousins did, certainly. But, he and Pole did sleep together. It was odd to think that they might be going with another person but still share a bedroll.

Pole, like she usually did, said what he was thinking. “I didn’t say anything to Dorothy about all this, of course.” She waved her arm about the room and the bed they shared. “That seemed too complicated.”

“I didn’t say anything to Sims, either. It’s nobody’s business but ours.” Eustace tried to settle the coverlet over them again, but Pole was still squirming too much. “Besides, I wouldn’t want you to get a reputation.”

Her snort sounded almost contemptuous. “That’s awfully nice of you, Scrubb, but I’m more concerned about a decent night’s sleep than I am about a silly school reputation.”

Eustace couldn’t help thinking that saying it now was one thing, and suffering through the mean looks and rude comments would be something else.

“Besides,” Pole added, “aren’t you worried about your reputation?”

“I think it’s different for boys. Not that it should be,” he amended hastily when Pole started grumbling. This was, he decided, the sort of conversation that only Narnians would ever have.

“I just worry that someone might see you around my room and the boys will start bothering you,” Eustace said. “Or that your dorm mate will be a snitch.”

“If boys start bothering me, you hold them down and I’ll poke them with Lucy’s dirk.” That solution was even more Narnian. Pole continued, “And Shirley won’t be saying anything since Robert Ballard is with her when I’m here.”

He rolled over and stared at the back of Pole’s head. “Really? I didn’t know they were going.”

“Sometimes, Scrubb, you can be really thick.”

“Thick as an Ettin,” he agreed.

Pole flipped on to her back and grinned up at him, “But you have better aim.”

“I don’t blub like they do, either.”

It had all been just like it had always been. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. Eustace realized Pole was lying down, on her back, and he was propped over her on an elbow and they were in his cramped bed and her nightdress was an old flannel, but she looked pretty in it and…

He pushed quickly away, flopping on to his back, even though there wasn’t enough room in the bed for them both to be like that, but it helped that now he had to concentrate on keeping his balance and not falling to the floor. Eustace was really glad it was dark so Pole couldn’t see how embarrassed he was. If I don’t look at her, it will go away.

“So, do you think I should go to the dance with Sims if he asks?”

Pole’s question helped him focus more. It was harder to say than it should have been. So, he repeated what he’d said before, “Sims seems like a good bloke.”

The bed quivered as Pole giggled. “What?”

“I was just thinking about how I would end the dance. ‘Good night, Sims. I’m going to Scrubb’s room now.’”

Sniggering at the prospect of that conversation helped, too.

“You’d probably use his first name,” Eustace said. He pitched his voice higher, imitating Pole, “‘Good night Arthur dear, I’m going to Scrubb’s room now.’”

“I would not call him dear,” Pole retorted, sounding irritated. “Arthur is bad enough.”

“Not as bad as Eustace,” he said. It was a sore point. Eustace Scrubb was the name of a dragon, not the boy he was.

Pole took his hand and squeezed it gently. “Eustace Scrubb is a fine name.”

He returned the squeeze. “Thanks, Pole.”

The Tower Clock chimed in the quad. By silent agreement, she released his hand and they turned over, side by side, one blanket beneath, under the cover of the other, Pole at his back.

“I don’t think Arthur Sims will understand,” Pole said into the dark, to the wall she faced.

“If he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t deserve you, Pole”

It turned out Sims didn’t deserve Pole. Sims asked Pole to the dance and she went with him. Eustace went too, but by himself because he didn’t want to be tied down to one girl in case Dorothy Jones was a rotten dancer. Jones wasn’t a bad dancer, but she wasn’t as good as Pole. Some of the other girls were very good dancers and even prettier than Pole. So Eustace danced with lots of girls and thought he might have disappointed a few of them when he didn’t ask any of them to go with him. But really, where would the two of them go and he didn’t feel up to explaining that even if they did go somewhere, he was still sharing a bedroll with Pole at night.

A few nights after the dance, Pole came into his room a little later than usual. She had been crying.

“I’ll box Sims!” Eustace snarled, raging against the boy who had been mean to Pole.

“Don’t,” Pole said in a miserable whisper. She was curled up in a tight little ball on his bed. “Sims is a good bloke, just like you said. He’s just not the right bloke.”

Pole started blubbing again and Eustace felt angry and helpless and he hated just lying on top of one blanket, under the cover of the other, side by side, back to back. So, he rolled over on to his back and pulled Pole against him and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. She was stiff for a second and then buried her face in his shoulder and cried quietly until she fell asleep.

The same thing happened a few more times, over a few more terms – different boys Pole went with for a little while and then split with and cried over. Since she was the one doing the splitting, Eustace didn’t understand why she was the one crying about it. He decided it was one of those inscrutable girl things that Edmund had warned him about.

Eustace danced with lots of girls, got drinks for some of them at dances and carried their books, and even held hands with a few of the pretty ones and kissed their cheeks. But, he never promised anything and they never lasted very long. He really didn’t like to think that he might be a dragon and make them cry.

“I’d say that maybe we should start going together,” Pole said as she cried into his shoulder about a good but not right bloke named Charles. “But that could get so complicated.”

“Especially when we stopped,” Eustace agreed, handing Pole another handkerchief from his nightstand. “I think the other Narnians would be angry when you decide I’m not the right bloke.”

She shuddered, sniffed and laughed, all at the same time. “Scrubb, I don’t want our friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips and telling everyone that you just walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat.”

He laughed. “You’ve been rehearsing that line, haven’t you?”

“Maybe a little.”

The Tower Clock in the quad chimed midnight. Eustace blotted the last of Pole’s tears, combed her damp hair away from her face, collected the wet handkerchiefs, and put them by his alarm clock. “Ready to sleep now?”

“Yes,” Pole whispered.

She turned away, facing the wall and Eustace settled against her. Side by side, on top of one blanket and under the cover of the other, Pole at his back. In the dark, she groped for his hand and found it. He laced their fingers together and gently rubbed little circles in her knuckles with his thumb; Pole pressed her back to his. Eustace fell asleep to the rhythm of Jill Pole’s breathing, still holding her hand.

0OO0OO0OO0OO0OO0OO

Winter Term, Bradford, 1949

They had been up practically all night, plotting what to do in the wake of the strange apparition that had materialized during dinner.

Narnia. Peter was sure the apparition was a Narnian and a King besides. Worlds and ages made no difference to the High King. He just knew when he saw one who sat the throne of Narnia by Aslan’s will. He had known when he had met Caspian the first time. He knew now, even if the vision was barely a ghost.

With dawn only a few hours away, Edmund ordered everyone to bed or they’d be no good for the clear thinking that had to be done. Everyone was kipped out all over the house, Lucy was with Polly; Edmund, Peter and the Professor were sharing the spare bedroom.

By habit, he and Pole argued about the divan and settled on the floor in the parlor. But, they weren’t side by side, back to back, yet. Eustace was lying on his back and Pole was curled next to him in the crook of his arm. It was something they had started to do when she cried sometimes; it was much nicer to do it when she wasn’t blubbing. Besides that, over the last school terms, her body had changed in feel against his. He liked this slightly softer Pole on the outside who was still the same Pole on the inside. Her hands were resting on his chest and he could feel her fingertips on his skin. Her blowsy hair tickled his nose; he ran a thumb along her face, pushing the hair away, just a little.

“Do you think we will go back?” Pole asked, whispering in his ear. The words were a thrill. “To Narnia? You and me? Or, might we be too old?”

He sighed and Pole rose and fell against him. “I don’t know. We’re older than my cousins were when Aslan told them they couldn’t go back. But…”

Pole finished for him in the way that should be irritating, but wasn’t. “I think Aslan would have told us if we were not to come back.”

“Yes.” Her hair was very soft between his fingers. “It’s strange to hear about the rings after so long. Though that’s only part of the problem.”

Pole nodded into his shoulder. “We still have to find the right pool to Narnia in the Wood Between The Worlds.”

“We’ll just do the best we can.”

“I think Aslan will help us.” Pole said it so stoutly, he smiled. “Though, I would like to see a few other worlds first before we find Narnia.”

He laughed, finding his heart and mind too full for words.

She grumbled sourly, misinterpreting, as always, and tried to pull away with disgust. Eustace clasped her closer. “I wasn’t funning you, Pole. I’m just glad we’ll be together on this adventure, maybe our last one in Narnia and in other worlds.”

Then, like his cousins, the Professor, and Aunt Polly, they would take what Narnia had prepared them to do and make their own adventures here. It was exciting.

“Oh,” she mumbled and relaxed against him, closer than before. “Well why didn’t you say so.”

“I just did.” On an impulse, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. It was the sort of thing that always seemed pointless when he’d see his cousins do it, but now seemed right. “And I know you won’t let me go ringing any forbidden bells either.”

“I certainly will not!”

She kept her hand in his.

This time, he was going to say it. “I forgot in all the excitement, but I wanted to tell you that you looked really pretty tonight, Pole.” It had been bothering him that he had said that to other girls over the last term, but never to Pole, that he could remember.

Pole went too quiet for too long.

“What?” he asked, suddenly wary when all he’d meant to do was say something nice that he should have said before.

“Really? You thought I looked pretty?”

“Yes,” Eustace repeated firmly. Then, because he realized how she might take it, he added, “And I don’t mean that you aren’t pretty other times. You are. You just looked really nice tonight.”

She propped up on an elbow to stare down at him. Her hair was falling around her shoulders and her eyes looked enormous and he was concentrating hard on staring at her face – his cousins always mocked the men who would look at a woman’s breasts and not at her face. Not that Pole’s breasts weren’t worth looking at. He was sure they were. If he’d ever looked at them. And it was really hard not to look because the flannel nightdress she was wearing gaped when she moved.

“And you look even prettier now.” He’d blurted the words before he could stop them and wished he could clamp his hands over this mouth but his arms were too tangled up around Pole.

“Can I kiss you?” she asked suddenly.

He wondered what would happen if he said no. That would be awful. Especially awful because then there would be awkwardness and anger and they would have to pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t. And he was sure they should not go into Narnia mad at each other. But, he was also worried because Pole was the best friend he’d ever had and he didn’t want that to change, even if it meant not kissing her ever.

She frowned and looked hurt and he knew he’d waited too long. She tried to roll away from him and it was like losing an arm or some other part of himself. He wasn’t going to let that happen and pulled her back closer.

“Besides being the prettiest girl I know, Pole, you’re the bravest, to go ask me something I’ve been too cowardly to ask you myself.”

Pole smiled and leaned down over him. Her hair was everywhere. Eustace really hoped that this wasn’t going to be just a kiss on the cheek, because he’d had a few of those from her over the years, and if he wanted one of those, he’d get it from his cousins.

It wasn’t.

Of course Pole would be the first girl he ever really kissed; he thought it was probably her first real kiss, too. Not that it mattered. Because this was their first, real kiss together. It was a little dry to start and their noses didn’t quite fit. So, it was awkward. And she was shy and he could feel her cheeks blushing, and his were too. But this was Pole. Always at his back, Pole.

Like riding a bicycle or archery, the more they did it, the better they were at it. And the better it felt. The taste and the sounds were terrific too and, as much as he was enjoying it, he could tell she was enjoying it too, which made it all even more fantastic. It was getting pretty warm under their cover and Eustace was so happy and he really wanted to discover more about this new softer Pole that was still his old Pole on the inside. But she sighed and pushed away at the same point he tried to ease from under her welcoming weight. It was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done, to let her go and pull back himself. He knew, though, in the same way she did, that it was time to stop and he was really glad they’d come to that decision at the same time.

He remembered what Edmund had said, a few terms ago, and thought that his cousin had seen this coming, even if Eustace hadn’t. Edmund hadn’t been prying or anything, just very serious and matter of fact, and explained it all in Narnian terms, about respect and talking through things and taking precautions. It wasn’t the feelings and desire that were wrong, Edmund had said, but what you did or didn’t do as a result of them.

The Just King had said to never forget that no means no, stop means stop, and Eustace recalled that night after their return from Narnia with the Professor and Aunt Polly and realized that was what they had meant – that Rilian’s “No” and “Stop” had meant nothing to the Green Witch. Edmund had agreed and said that it was an awful thing that Eustace should never, ever forget. Eustace also now understood what Edmund had meant about how this sort of thing could make you stupid and that you shouldn’t be making any decisions this important if you were already in a bed with your girl or didn’t have clothes on. He and Pole weren’t in a bed and they still had their nightclothes on, the way they were supposed to be, though they were a bit mussed. Still, it was pretty much the same thing.

“I’m sorry, Scrubb,” Pole whispered, sounding all breathy, which was brilliant, and worried, which wasn’t.

“I’m not,” he told her, giving them both a little more space so they could catch their breath. “You shouldn’t be either.” He laced his fingers in hers and for good measure, kissed her hand, too. “We’ve got an important adventure first. We’ll have lots of time after to sort the rest of this out.”

Her fingers tightened around his own. “And you want to get it all sorted?”

“Don’t be thick, Pole. Of course I do. You?”

“I did kiss you first,” Pole said primly.

If he were Edmund or Susan, he would have said something smug then. If he were Peter, he would have said something very complimentary and gallant. Lucy would have laughed. But, he was just Eustace Scrubb and she was Jill Pole. So, he said, “And next time, I’ll kiss you first.”

They settled together as they always had for months and years, however they were counted, on a flat world or a round one, side by side, on top of one blanket and under the cover of the other, and Pole at his back.

-End-

0OO0OO0OO0OO0OO0OO

Whipsnade Zoo is a naturalized wild animal park near Dunstable in Bedfordshire, http://www.zsl.org/zsl-whipsnade-zoo and it served as a refuge for animals evacuated from the London Zoo in Regents Park.

The Jitterbug craze hit the UK in about 1946 according to the BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/lostdecade/timeline_html.shtml

A word about years and ages. The dubious Lewis wiki timeline, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narnian_timeline , identifies Eustace as born in 1933, making him 9 or 10 when he goes to Narnia on the Dawn Treader in 1942, and probably 10 when he and Jill travel there together. Yet, they are in their second year of school, so Eustace began boarding school very young. We’ll just chalk that up to the oddity of Experiment House. The timeline identifies the train crash as seven years later, in 1949, making Eustace and Jill as old as 17 and very possibly too old for Experiment House although they state they are the only ones still in school. I will assume that in the winter of 1949, they are probably still only 16 and that they both would have turned 17 over the summer of 1949.

What I want: Bookverse everything, por favor. An obscure or controversial pairing would be nice...Jill/Eustace! Lucy/Caspian! Digory/Polly! But if romance isn't your thing, I would love a fic about King Lune pre-Cor and Corin, or perhaps a bookverse about pre-Prince Caspian Caspian, or even a piece about a Golden Age-era battle or politics. I like politics and I like the nitty-gritty of history even more, so indulge me (or yourself, however it may be) and fill it up with detail. :)
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: "Does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips and telling them that you walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?" or "Well, he always says, when the going gets tough, the tough hide under the table." or even "Ha ! I laugh at danger and drop ice cubes down the vest of fear." All optional, by the way.
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Any hint of slash, incest, or Caspian/Susan.