Chapter Text
The light streaming in through the large windows softened the wrinkles on her face and caught in the cloud of her hair, transforming her prematurely into a saint. She reclined on a couch, eyes closed, a blanket draped over her legs.
Even now, after all of these years, Valerie’s heart still skipped when she saw her. Time and other women had enriched her life, but none had impacted her so deeply as the ailing woman in front of her.
“Lucille?” She spoke softly, not wanting to disturb her if she was sleeping.
“Valerie?” Even after decades of living in London, Lucille’s voice retained its soft Jamaican lilt.
She perched on the armchair beside the couch, joints protesting as they always did now, and reached out to take the proffered hand.
“Been a while, hey?” Val started. It was a good a place as any.
Lucille’s rich brown eyes were sorrowful. “It has been a very long while. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Lucille’s eyes didn’t leave Val’s, and a shiver ran up her spine.
Quickly, she moved on to an easier topic. “How are Grace and Junior and all of the little ones?”
“Not so little anymore. And well, they’re all well.”
This was not what either of them wanted to speak of.
“I’m glad you’re here now.” Lucille’s words were quiet and deliberate. She raised her eyes, steeling herself, before looking back to the woman who was once her lover. “I didn’t want to go without telling you-”
“Lucille, you don’t have to.” Much as she wanted to hear it, had always wanted to hear it, if it were spoken out of obligation that would be far worse than if it were never spoke at all.
“I love you. I loved you then and I do now.”
Valerie felt every year of her age at that moment, even as she was transported back to her early years at Nonnatus. The intensity of their relationship, long as it had taken for them to admit to it and act on it. The growing torment she had seen in Lucille every day after their first kiss. The alarming frequency of her visits to the chapel. That horrible fight Valerie’s bold admission had set off. The tense silence between them after it, and Lucille’s rapidly rekindled relationship with Cyril. The wedding, the children, the joy she saw in Lucille that she was desperately grateful for and bitterly resentful of, at least until she had managed to move on and dull the sting of it.
“Why did you marry him?” The words came out easily, though they’d been buried for so long.
“I loved him too, and I still do.” Pain was evident in Lucille’s voice, but so was a sort of calm, a peace that was still just out of reach to Valerie.
“But you couldn’t… How could you want men and women the same?” Valerie knew the answer, but Lucille had always been the one to close her eyes to all but tradition.
“It is possible to have those feelings, you know that Valerie.” Lucille smoothed out the blanket, pulling it up slightly. “I made a choice of which ones to go with, and I don’t regret it. But I regret that I hurt you, that I left like I did. You didn’t deserve that.”
Val closed her eyes, unsure whether she wanted to yell or burst into tears. But she didn’t have the energy to do either now. And she had never been one for dramatics. “It did hurt. A lot. To not even know if you wished what happened between us had never happened and not know if you’d felt the same or if it was just all in my head.”
“It wasn’t in your head.” The words cost her, Val could see that, but it was such a relief to hear them. “I loved you. And I wanted us… I just couldn’t continue with it.”
Valerie nodded, focussing on the darting motions of a bird in the tree in the front yard. Once she had resented the religion that had instilled such horrible things in the love of her life, but that wound had healed. It was a part of Lucille, and she would likely have been miserable feeling she’d been living in defiance of it.
Valerie felt so tired, trying to process this storm of long-held emotions. Finally, she looked back.
“Even now?”
Lucille reached up, and drew her old friend to her, her lips silently answering Valerie’s question.
Valerie felt as though some of Lucille’s peace had been transferred to her in their kiss. They had hurt each other deeply, but they had loved fiercely, and now that time was at its end, no good would come from focussing on the pain.
“We have a lot to catch up on,” Valerie whispered, settling beside Lucille, her arms holding her close as Lucille rested her head on Val’s shoulder.
“We certainly do.”