Re: The Lieutenant/The Daughter
He almost sounded like Mother. But, without the decades of reproach to bitter the tone beyond anything resembling affection. "You sound like my mother," she warned him, the pricked corner of her smile as it dug into dimpled cheek impish, if unseen. But, something told her he had a history with drunks. Frances couldn't have put her finger on it, so she didn't particularly try. "I had two swallows, Daddy, I promise." Her tone remained light, but a promise of honesty was buried in there too. She wasn't like that. And she really wasn't.
The teasing and earnestness and anything else fell to the wayside, however, at the revelation of the soldier's... thing. He was saying he had to keep the not-blood safe, but she didn't know if that was true. She didn't know what was, really, and it likely didn't quite matter. For a moment, before she turned away, she didn't know what to say. The words she spoke were only half her own. "You're safe with me. Come on."
At the very back of the carriage, she was looking for the latch with one hand and turning back toward the not-quite-so stranger with the other. He squinted in the light, but she couldn't shake the feeling, now that it had lodged in her gut, that she knew him. From the few feet of distance between them, she watched as he unloaded the bag near him. It wasn't uncertainty that slowed her steps back to him. She did come back, though, to take the gloves and the coat.
Without complaint, she enveloped herself in layers and stuck her hands in the gloves. They were huge on her hands, swamping them, but she could still hold the flashlight. She pointed it to the latch he was undoing and caught the first stirrings of cold as they slipped in. She considered fetching the sherry. It would keep them warm, if nothing else. But, in the end, she didn't. She didn't quite feel like herself as it was. She tottered at the edge of the car. "Is someone going to follow us?"