Page 145 of The Words Beneath the Noise

The officer nodded curtly and left. I lay back against the pillows, mind racing despite Dr Hart's orders to rest.

Three to six months. That was all that remained. And then what? Tom and I had made promises in the heat of the moment, declarations in the middle of chaos, but could those promises survive in the cold light of peacetime?

I thought of Tom's hands, rough and steady. Thought of his smile, rare and crooked. Thought of the way he looked at me like I was worth saving.

Worth fighting for.

Worth building a future with, however uncertain and dangerous that future might be.

By the time Tom returned that evening, I'd made my decision.

He slipped through the door after visiting hours, moving quiet as a ghost, and settled in the chair beside my bed with the ease of someone who'd done this a dozen times already.

“You should be sleeping,” he murmured.

“Can't. Too much to think about.” I shifted, reaching for the bedside table where my belongings had been stashed. My fingers closed round the familiar worn cover of my Black Book, and I pulled it into my lap.

Tom's eyes tracked the movement. “Haven't seen that in a few days.”

“Been busy nearly dying.” I fumbled the book open one-handed, flipped to a blank page near the back. “Tom. The officer who came this morning. He said we're on the demobilisation list.”

“I heard.” Tom's voice was carefully neutral. “Three to six months, depending on how things progress.”

“And then?”

“And then we go home. Back to our lives.” Tom paused, studied my face. “Or we build new ones.”

My heart stuttered. I looked down at the blank page, at the pen I'd managed to extract from the table's drawer, and made myself write in plain English, no cipher, no code:

We saved them. Now we save ourselves.

I turned the book so Tom could read it. Watched his eyes track across the words, once, twice, like he needed to be certain of what he was seeing.

“You mean that?” Tom asked, voice rough.

“Every word. When this is over, when we're free...” I swallowed hard, made myself say it clearly. “I want to find you. Build a life with you. However that looks, wherever we end up. I want us to survive this together.”

Tom's hand came up, fingers tangling with mine on top of the Black Book. “A bona future, then. You and me.”

The Polari felt natural, intimate in a way English never quite managed. I smiled, squeezed his hand. “Yeah. Vada the riah go grey, all of it.”

“Watch the hair go grey,” Tom translated, his smile widening. “You'll be a silver fox in twenty years.”

“Shut up.”

“Never.” Tom lifted our joined hands, pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “So we're doing this. Really doing this.”

“We are.” Fear and hope tangled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. “I don't know how we'll manage it. Where we'll go, what we'll tell people. But I know I want to try.”

“That's enough.” Tom's eyes were bright, fierce with determination. “We'll figure out the rest as we go.”

I thought of the world waiting beyond the estate, hostile and dangerous and utterly indifferent to what men like us wanted. Thought of the risk, the constant need to hide, the knowledge that discovery could mean prison or worse.

But I also thought of Tom's laugh, rare and genuine. Thought of mornings waking beside him, of building something small and safe and ours. Thought of a future where we weren't defined by war and codes and killing, but by the choice to keep choosing each other.

“Tom,” I said softly. “Cod if we're lau together.”

Tom stilled. His throat worked, and when he spoke his voice was wrecked. “Safe if we're together. Yeah, Art. We will be.”